One little white lie, turns into two, three, four more until the the lie becomes so intricate that even the teller is unable to keep their facts straight. Unless they are a crazy pathological liar, the deceiver will always get caught in their lie. Nora and Torvald in A Doll House demonstrate that telling the truth in the beginning is always better than lying, even if in the moment lying seems like the better thing to do.

When Nora borrowed money from Mr. Krogstad in order to save her husband’s life, she didn’t know she would have to pay a bigger price than repaying the loan itself. She starts out by forging her father’s signature when she could have easily just asked him to sign. The she realizes she can’t tell Torvald that she borrowed money for him, so she lies again and tells Torvald that her father gave her the money for the trip. Nora thinks that her actions are completely justified. She feels she has saved her own husband’s life by lying to him. She never pays off the price of deceiving her husband though.

Soon, Torvald decides he wants to fire Mr. Krogstad from his position in the bank. Consequently, Mr. Krogstad threatens to expose Nora’s lies and writes and delivers an explanation letter to Torvald. Nora tries everything to keep her secret under wraps, but secrets never stay secret forever. Torvald eventually reads the letter that uncovers Nora’s lie. Nora keeps her lies undercover for so long that over time she ruins her relationships with her husband and her children. To escape from the allusion she builds up, she ultimately decides that leaving her family and starting over fresh is the only right thing for her to do.

If Nora would have just had her father sign the papers or would have just told her husband the truth, her life would not have been so disastrous. She loses her whole family over the lies she felt she were necessary to tell. Nora shows that lying is never the answer. Truth will always shine through a lie’s fractured design.

Anne, 22, met David on Tinder. They’ve been messaging for weeks and tonight they planned to finally go out to dinner together. Anne gets dressed up eager to meet her “handsome” date. She excitedly hops into her car to meet David at the restaurant. When she arrives though, she cannot find her Tinder date anywhere. Frustrated, holding up David’s profile, she asks a man sitting on a bench by the restaurant’s entrance if he’s seen anyone that looks like David around. The man excitedly replies that he is David. Anne cannot believe her eyes. She inspects David’s profile again, but she finds no similarities between the hot guy posing on the beach in David’s profile and the man standing in front of her. In today’s busy world, people find it easier and more convenient to communicate with others on the internet rather than talk in real life. This principle extends to dating. In fact, around 50 million people use dating sites or apps. Approximately 1 out of every 10 of these accounts, however, are considered fake. People are not always who they say they are or who they may seem to be. In Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, Olivia and Viola demonstrate the confusion of meeting total strangers.

In order to work with Orsino, Viola dresses as a male and goes by the fake name Cesario. She then becomes a messenger for Orsino who sends her to woo Olivia for him. Olivia, however, falls head over heels for Cesario. She even says, “mine eye too great a flatterer for my mind” revealing that she thinks Cesario is attractive. Her statement also hints at the fact that Cesario is not what her sight tell her he is. On top of this then, Sebastian, Viola’s twin brother, arrives in town. Olivia then mistakes him for Cesario and seeks to marry him. So, once again Olivia’s perception of a person and who she thinks they are is inaccurate. Even though Olivia and Viola’s interactions occur in real life, Olivia is unable to see Cesario’s true identity. She totally believes that he is a man and then later confuses her with her twin brother.

Because Olivia has no prior knowledge of Cesario, she has no reason to question him and just assumes he is who he says he is. Olivia easily falls for Viola’s false identity, even in real life. They have many face to face interactions and she still has no suspicions. Over the internet, faking an identity is easy, and it’s even easier for people to believe. On dating apps, just like Olivia with Viola, people have no prior knowledge of each other; they have to entirely trust each other’s profiles. These profiles though, have a 10% chance of being inaccurate and fake just like David’s. Olivia’s inability to see through Viola’s fake identity in even real life shows how risky online dating can be, as it’s even harder to spot a fake profile on the internet. People just have to decide whether or not they are willing to take that risk.

A baby cries on average one to two hours per day. Since newborns can’t express their problems verbally, moms must guess the reason for their child’s crying which could range from sickness to hunger. Some say that babies start to catch onto the attention they get when they cry and therefore will cry, acting like something is wrong, when in reality all they want it is attention. Similar to an infant, Frankenstein’s creature is born into this world seeking comfort and attention, but because of its fear of difference and change, society ultimately shapes him into a monster.

When the creature first wakes up, Frankenstein immediately abandons him. This leaves the monster to fend for himself without any knowledge of the outside world. The monster leaves his place of creation all alone in search of a place to live showing his inherit need for a place of comfort. When he stumbles upon a family living near him, he wants to get to know them hoping that maybe he will finally have some company. Upon seeing him though, the family is horrified and scarred so much so that they move out of their house. The family didn’t even give the creature a chance to introduce himself or explain his coming. The creature is forced back into solitude and becomes bitter. He then finds his creator’s nephew in the woods and once again hoping to gain a friend makes advances toward him. The boy of course is terrified which causes the creature to commit his first murder.

William’s murder is a turning point for the monster. In his search for comfort and attention all he finds is hatred and malice. Frankenstein finally finds him though, and the creature asks Frankenstein for a companion once again expressing his need for attention. Frankenstein agrees to do this for the creature, but later realizes he cannot go through with it. The creature then begins murdering Frankenstein’s family members and friends. This is his way to gain attention from Frankenstein and the rest of society.

All Frankenstein’s creature longed for was a sense of belonging and companionship. After getting rejected several times, he saw murder and criminal acts as the only way to get any attention. If society would have accepted and embraced the creature’s uniqueness, he would not have turned into a terrible monster.

The goal of life is death. Many wish to see just 100 years, but only 0.0173% of Americans reach that age. On average, females only live to 86 years old and men to 84. Every day 153,424 people die: most without any notable accomplishments or success to remember them by. Billions of people have come before the present day, but only a small fraction of them are still spoken about and remembered. Life is short. Too short to waste. Gabriel in James Joyce’s short story “The Dead” comes to this emotional realization through his wife’s first love Michael Furey.

At the beginning of “The Dead,” Gabriel is hard-hearted. He criticizes everything at the annual dance. He thinks the wordless music is boring, and at one point he is even irritated with the glittering floor. He also says he’s “sick of [his] own country” and denies everyone including his wife who asks him to go and visit there. Instead of seeing the good in his life, he only focuses on the negative. By doing this, Gabriel is unknowingly wasting his short life.

Unlike Gabriel, Gretta’s first love Michael Furey, who died at a young age, lived his life to the fullest. Gretta claims he died for her. While he was sick, he went out in the cold to see Gretta before she left town and told her he did not want to live anymore. About a week later he died. Michael Furey only lived a quarter of 84 years and less than half of Gabriel’s lifetime yet he lived a more accomplished life than most, including Gabriel.

After Gretta reveals Michael’s story, Gabriel realizes that he has not been making the most of his life. He says “better pass boldly into that other world, in the full glory of some passion, than fade and wither dismally with age.” He sees that Michael Furey experienced true love, as he willingly risked his life to see Gretta one last time. Gabriel then realizes that he has never felt any emotion as bold as Michael felt or been as passionately devoted to someone as Michael was.

One thing connects every person: past, present, and future. Death, No one escapes it; it suddenly steals the young and the old willingly answer its call. Every one finds themselves six feet under eventually. No one knows when they’re next in line, so be like Michael Furey. Live life boldly and passionately, not wasting a single moment.

“In a true war story, if there’s a moral at all, it’s like the thread that makes the cloth. You can’t tease it out. You can’t extract the meaning without unraveling the deeper meaning. And in the end, really, there’s nothing much to say about a true war story, except maybe ‘Oh.’”

“Oh” is exactly what came to mind when I finished reading Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried. I was baffled at how real and alive every fictional story in O’Brien’s novel seemed. Even though I knew the novel was entirely made up, I wanted to believe every word that O’Brien wrote. My mind breathed life into Vietnam’s paddies and Tim’s comrades and young Linda. Once something, no matter how unbelievable or impossible, is given life, we will hold onto and carry its story forever, willing it to life over and over again, hoping that maybe, just maybe, one day it will be our reality.

“Once you’re alive, you can’t ever be dead.” This is true for people and for stories. Throughout the novel O’Brien speaks of multiple people who die and tells how he tries to bring them back to life. With Ted Lavender, he discusses Jimmy Cross’s guilt and reliving of the event, as he constantly blames himself and knows that if he just would have been focused in that moment, Lavender could still be alive. Other comrades of O’Brien’s die and he keeps reminiscing their lives and deaths throughout his life in order to keep them alive also. In this fashion, he is able to will an “allusion of alliveness.” I also fell for this allusion when reading the novel. I constantly kept forgetting that all the stories are fake. I just couldn’t shake the hope that they were actually true.

Perhaps the most touching story in this entire novel is not about war at all. O’Brien’s childhood love Linda dies of cancer at a young age. He then wills her back to life in his dreams and imagines what their lives together would be if she would have survived. He even prefers sleep to his actual life because he gets to see Linda and make up their future in his dreams. He says “I can revive, at least briefly, that which is absolute and unchanging. In a story, miracles can happen.” In stories, we can live limitless, achieving our biggest dreams and pushing the impossible. We yearn for stories, because matter of factually they are better than real life. We can shape and mold them into exactly what we want them to be.

I have just begun to unravel the many truths in a story that fundamentally is based on no truth at all. In stories, no one dies and the princess always gets her happily ever after. We continue to hold onto loved ones and dreams through stories, saving lives and living our wished for realities.

He spends four years playing football at Ohio State to in the end leave campus and walk away from football forever. He spends a whole summer loving a girl he thinks he will marry to also just walk away from her forever. All the joy and pleasure that in the moment seemed as if it would last forever turns out to be just temporary. The only things these two men have to show for their experiences now are memories. Philip Roth’s Goodbye, Columbus shows how fleeting life’s experiences really are through Ron’s college record and Neil and Brenda’s relationship.

Ron Patimkin, an Ohio State alumni, reminiscences about his past football days. He plays an old recording of the last game of his senior year. Clearly, Ron’s recording moves him as he closes his eyes and hums the track from it. He is so focused on his past memories that Ron doesn’t even notice when Neil leaves the room. Back in 1957 when Ron ran onto the OSU field, he had no clue where his life would take him; he just soaked up the roaring crowd and fierce competition. Now he is older and married, but he still thinks about his glory days in college.

Neil and Brenda met when he held her glasses at the pool. He immediately knew he had to call and pursue her that night. At first they are unsure of what to define their relationship as, but they quickly realize that they love each other. Neil visits Brenda quite often and they grow very close to each other over the summer. Then in the fall, Brenda moves off to college. Neil visits her at school during a Jewish holiday and being in her presence again knows that he wants to marry her. In that moment, he feels like their relationship is going to last forever. Within the next hour, however, Neil heads back to his hometown, “in plenty of time for work,” after saying goodbye to Brenda for the last time.

Ron dedicated his college years to training for football games. Before he knew it he played his last game and within another blink of an eye it’s his wedding day. Now he only has an old record to show for his football days. Neil dedicates his summer to some girl he meets at the pool. He then leaves her that fall and moves on with his normal life. Both of these men experience events that in the moment consume their whole lives, but soon blend into the past.

Ron’s memories of college and Neil’s summer fling show how quickly life marches on. What means everything today, holds less value tomorrow. People are forced to move on and change as they pass different levels of life causing once beloved objects and people to get left behind. Whether hard or easy, every new stage of life comes with a “goodbye.”

A coincidence is an occurrence of events that happen at the same time by accident but seem to have some connection. Owen makes it clear in A Prayer for Owen Meany that he does not believe in coincidences. He faithfully believes that every event in his life happens for a reason and not by accident. Owen’s belief in a predestined purpose and his faith to act on that purpose shows that fate is greater than freewill. 

Throughout A Prayer for Owen Meany, there are many doubles; one of these includes Owen playing baby Jesus in the Christmas pageant and Owen’s parents believing that he is another Christ-child. These doubles help to enforce the idea that there is no such thing as a coincidence. Another one of these doubles is Owen’s vision of his death date and his actual death. The death date Owen saw was no coincidence; it turned out to be his actual date of his death. Owen never doubted that the death date he saw was wrong. Owen also always refers to himself as God’s instrument, which shows that he believes in something greater than him that controls his destiny.

Owen’s belief that he is God’s instrument also demonstrates the large amount of faith that he has in the plan set out for his life. An important double that shows this is Owen’s recurring dream and how his death actually plays out. Owen has so much faith that his dream will actually occur that he plans for it. It would be understandable that Owen plans for this event if it was a good occurrence, but the event in Owen’s dream is his own death. You would think that he would try to avoid his death, but he accepts it; he even goes as far as trying to help it happen, such as when he practices shooting with John. Also, Owen’s dream takes place in a warm climate with foreign children, so naturally he thought it would happen in Vietnam. Because of this, he constantly tries to be deployed in Vietnam only to be rejected and forced to serve in the United States. Little did he know that his death would actually occur in his home country.

Owen tries to set up how he thinks his death will play out, but despite his efforts his death played out exactly how it was meant to. The difference between Owen’s perception of his dream and the reality of his death shows how fate was in control the entire time. Owen’s knowledge of and willingness to follow his destiny demonstrates how fate is stronger than mans’ will.

The saying “opposites attract” perfectly describes Owen Meany and John Wheelwright’s friendship in A Prayer for Owen Meany. Owen is a small, outspoken boy who is always the center of attention, while John is average and seemingly able to blend into the background.

Owen Meany is known for his small size and peculiar voice. His possession of these strange attributes draws people to him; they always want to hold and cuddle him. In addition to being touchable, Owen is respectable because of his strong opinions and mysterious presence. In his church Christmas pageant Owen chooses himself to play baby Jesus, the most important role, yet the role that has no lines. This shows his dominance and clear presence, despite his small size. On top of playing baby Jesus, Owen is selected to play the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come in Gravesend’s production of A Christmas Carol. Despite his small size, Owen fills the whole stage with his ominous presence. He frightens the audience so much that people pass out and children cry when he comes out on stage. As Owen says himself sometimes the best actors are the ones that don’t say a word. Owen even has the love and affection of John’s grandma; I would venture to say that John’s grandma loves Owen even more than John himself. They bond over television and she takes Owen shopping by train for a whole new wardrobe for school, while John just wears bleak and average clothes bought in Gravesend.

While Owen Meany makes his presence very well known, John Wheelwright lives in the background. This can be seen when Owen plays the important role of baby Jesus in the Christmas pageant, and John plays the lesser role of Joseph. Just like silent baby Jesus is the star of the Christmas story and the main reason Joseph is included in the Bible, Owen similarly is the star and story of John’s life so far. Looking back on the novel, I can’t think of a story John tells that doesn’t include Owen. Even though the stories that John tells are of his own childhood, Owen is always mentioned. Without Owen, it seems that John would not have much of a story to tell. In fact, I can’t even discuss John’s character without discussing Owen; Owen is such a huge part of John’s story.

So far in the novel John stays in the background and does not talk too much about himself, but focuses mostly on Owen. What I am wondering now is will the story stay focused on Owen or will the spotlight will move onto John?

Typically when thinking of a wedding, one pictures vivid flowers, a beautiful white dress, along with excitement among the guests and wedding party. In contrast, when picturing a funeral one thinks of a coffin, black clothing, and mourning family members. These two events are never thought of together and are especially never thought of to be alike. In John Irving’s novel A Prayer for Owen Meany, the narrator Johnny compares his mother’s wedding day to her funeral.

First, Johnny describes his mother’s wedding day. While telling of the event, he never sounds excited or happy, as the reader expects. He describes the weather as being hot and muggy. He says it was so hot that the roses in the garden were wilted and so hot that no one was willing to dance. Along with the sultry weather not being ideal for a wedding, it is pointed out that Owen Meany is dressed for a funeral, which further makes the wedding scene feel off for the reader. It also foreshadows Tabby’s actual funeral. When the newlyweds are about to leave, the sky lets loose and it begins to pelt rain and hail. One of the hail pieces actually hits Tabitha on the head. Johnny describes the hailstone being as hard as a baseball, which foreshadows Tabby’s death. He also mentions that both ministers who officiated the wedding forgot to mention the important blessing “that she and I may grow old together.” This is important since Tabby ends up dying young and is only married to Dan for about a year.

After Johnny tells of the wedding, he moves on to describing Tabby’s funeral. He describes most of the same people that were at Tabby and Dan’s wedding not so long ago. The funeral is held at Hurd’s church, which is the same place the wedding took place at. Just like during the wedding, the same two ministers read passages out of the Bible. The same ministers that married Tabby and Dan also held her funeral within the short span of a year. Additionally at the funeral, Owen shouts “I’M SORRY” as he places dirt on top of Tabby’s coffin just as he did when Tabby was hit by the hailstone at her wedding and just like when he hit her with the baseball. Owen connects the funeral and wedding by repeating the same phrase multiple times.

Even though weddings and funerals are emotional gatherings, Johnny did not have a joyful tone when telling of Tabby’s wedding day nor did he have a mournful tone when telling of his mother’s funeral. Along with the actual events that took place at both the wedding and the funeral, the key connection between these two gatherings was Johnny’s solemn telling of each one.

Be yourself; Everyone else is already taken.

— Oscar Wilde.

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