Background creating ideas
At first, let us remember all those people who struggled against unfairness within masses. Those who being accomplished with their own problems and affairs tried to serve for their country, who never ridiculed common people, but the owners of upper classes. Here logic stays straight and clear. The inequity between classes was always. The other thing is when people of proper society and social status are doing harm to one another, forgetting about the highest calling in their lives and values it contains. We usually do not pay attention on situations like that. We tend to simplify them rather quickly, but we never win without the support in our minds. Such greatest support manifests itself in art, I think. From ancient times till now humanity has not yet invented something better. The art of literature, as for me, is the most suitable medicine for such “diseases” as discouragement, degeneracy, immorality etc. wherever you are.
That is why I want to have some important glimpses on works of two well-known authors, namely: Walker Percy’s “Loss of the Creature” and Michael Cohen’s “On Reading Hamlet for the First Time.”
Percy’s work and its virtues
My interest was caught by the phenomenon of diagnosing people as simple specimens and parts of uncomplicated machines in Percy’s work.
“In “The Loss of the Creature” Percy discusses the manner in which a person loses his “sovereignty” by becoming a scientific specimen.” (Lewis A. Lawson 39) Isn’t it a disaster of mankind to be involved in ominous game of the destiny, I suppose? Does it declare us as individuums or as persons. As for me, one calls himself “person” strictly by the manner of his thinking and realizing himself persuading that he reached the level of self-estimation and self-expression. The game is worth candles only when a person is assured going step-by-step that risk is small.
According to Percy’s analysis in “The Loss of the Creature” and other essays, the rise of a scientific and rationalistic culture in the nineteenth century led to an increasingly alienated culture in which human beings lost a meaningful relationship to their own being. The sense of “creatureliness” can only be restored following an apocalyptic crisis leading to the restoration of a relationship to the “everydayness” of existence.(6) As Percy portrays this “return” at the conclusion of such novels as The Second Coming and Love in the Ruins, it coincides with the establishment of an “interpersonal” relationship with another human being. Percy implies that the recovery of everydayness–the recovery from a condition of “suicide”–points to psychological and spiritual reintegration, including the apprehension of the “mystery” of human existence. (Journal article by Jeffrey J. Folks 1)
Cohen’s work in comparison
Another author, Michael Cohen, as a teacher saw his great mission in making highly motivated persons from “tabula rasas”. He examines in his work the influence of arts on mankind and sees the true energy of a deep explanation of higher virtues throughout arts. W. Shakespeare and his works is a great example of putting the idea into focus of life rethinking. Hamlet is a figure of hesitation in wallow of passions and intrigues. The epoch of Renaissance was full of free streams in Science, Literature, Pictorial art. It gave people a fresh breath after a long period of scholastic and theological invasion full of dogmas and taboos.
Cohen in his “On Reading Hamlet for the First Time” restricts the idea of the Universe wholeness expressed in, at least, one outburst of artistic thought with a giddy effect.
Conclusion
Both authors try to keep our minds close to the reality, nevertheless there are too many contradicting ideas bumping each other from the side of other authors. In their works all characters and circumstances tend to illuminate social trends for us to prevent such troubles in time.
Works Cited
Chesser, Delton L., Walter T. Harrison, and William R. Reichenstein. “Investment Tax Planning for Retirement: How to Make Taxes Work for the Client.” Journal of Accountancy 196.2 (2003): 63+. Questia. Web.
Folks, Jeffrey J. “The Risks of Membership: Richard Ford’s “The Sportswriter.” The Mississippi Quarterly 52.1 (1998): 73. Questia. Web.
Lawson, Lewis A. Following Percy: Essays on Walker Percy’s Work. Troy, NY: Whitston Publishing, 1988. Questia. Web.
On Reading “Hamlet” for the First Time” Michael Cohen College Literature, Vol. 19, No. 1 (Feb., 1992), pp. 48-59.