blog #last

one issue that was brought up in one of the books we read was obsessiveness. this issue was raised in the tell tale heart. the narrator was so obsessive about the old man's eye that he ended up killing him. now, most obsessions today aren't that extreme, but there are some pretty un healthy obsessions out there. such as video games. which i admit to probably having an obsession with, but i prefer to call it an excessive hobby. of course i won't end up killing someone over video games (at least i hope not), but this obsession won't really help me later in life, and will probably end up having detrimental effects on me in the long run. so why do i keep playing them? because it's something i enjoy to do, and therefore look past all the bad stuff about them. however, there are multiple types of obsessions. for example, my obsession is just an excessive hobby, where as the narrator's in the tell tale heart is something more. and more dangerous, because he end's up killing because of it. his obsession is sort of like ocd, where he couldn't help but act that way. the eye consumed all his thoughts and he had to do something about it. and that something just happened to be murder. this is an extreme case of ocd though, and other cases (like how sean burns needs everything to be even) won't end in murder... hopefully

blog #?

In the picture of dorian gray, one main focus is on being beautiful to get ahead in life. Dorian focused on being beautiful, because lord henry told him that was all that people had to enjoy in life was being beautiful and young. so dorian sold his soul in order to acheive everlasting youth and beauty. it got him to be quite famous, however, not exactly in a good way. people would talk about him behind his back, and he couldn't keep a friend for more than a feew months. He even let his immortality get to his head by killing Basil and getting away with it. this seek for beauty is seen in many other books. i ahve heard from my sister and girlfriend that a lot of contemporary books aimed at girl teens deal with being beautiful and being popular and how that can get you to have an advantage over others. this strive for beauty is also seen in today's society, and is quite widespread. basically everybody today has to be the best looking or have the best clothes and all that jazz. what does it accomplish though? sure, you might get more popular in school, but that onl lasts as long as you keep up keeping yourself in the best stuff. and it could also get you a boyfriend or a girlfriend, but then it'll be the real you that keeps them, unless they're shallow enough for just the outer shell of you and don't really care what you're interests and stuff are, just as long as you look better than everybody else. I personall think it's a bit much to try and look and be better than everyone else, just to say you're th best. i mean, i can understand trying to look good to make yourself feel good about yourslef or something like that, but it's a bit excessive to start getting ready to go out somewhere like 5 hours beforehand. in the long run, beauty doesn't get you as far as other stuff, like being smart or having a good work ethic, especially since beauty diminishes over time, whereas those other things do not, so it is more important to focus on the other things.