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Showing posts from June, 2024

A Tale of Two Times

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]= "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, …” -A Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens Charles Dickens used the back drop of a pre-French Revolution to tell an epic tale of love, sacrifice, and redemption.  As with all of Dickens' writings, he is teaching profound morals that center around a person's ability to change and society's ability to be resurrected (made new and whole again).  This is a story about how society falls into chaos, becomes institutionalized, and human life is so cheap that killing comes with ease and without emotion.  This story is about how things are not always what they appear to be.......someone who we see as bad, may actually be good and someone we perceive as good may not be so good.   In this story Dickens focuses on the value of human life, as one character sacrifices his life for another.  Dickens always does

To The Fathers

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  "A father is a thing that is forced to endure childbirth, without an anesthetic. A father is a thing that growls when it feels good–and laughs loud when it’s scared half to death. A father never feels entirely worthy of worship in his child’s eyes. He never is quite the hero his daughter thinks, never quite the man his son believes him to be. This worries him, sometimes, so he works too hard to try and smooth the rough places in the road for those of his own who will follow him. A father is a thing that gets very angry when school grades aren’t as good as he thinks they should be. He scolds his son although he knows it’s the teacher’s fault. Fathers grow old faster than other people. And while mothers can cry where it shows, fathers stand there and beam outside–and die inside. Fathers have very stout hearts, so they have to be broken sometimes or no one would know what is inside. Fathers give daughters away to other men who aren’t nearly good enough so they can have grandchildre