World Literature Assignment Help Essay Example for Free

World Literature Assignment Help Essay The most important feature of Homer’s  Iliad  is the most obvious: the central issue in this poem is warfare.  In fact, the  Iliad  is our oldest, most famous, and most enduring story about men in battle.  So one might well begin by exploring certain features of this particular war narrative.  How does Homer depict the war so as to emphasize some features rather than others? Such a question is necessary because the phrase  war story  does not reveal very much about any particular fiction.   After all, warfare, particularly the Trojan War, can be and has been used to develop an astonishingly wide range of the different stories—dramatic adventures, chivalric tales, amusing satires, bitter social commentaries, historical epics, various styles of comedy, romance, and so on, often in combination.  For war is a very fecund basis for all sorts of different tales, as one might expect, given that it includes so many narrative possibilities.  So we might start by seeing if we can get a sense of some of the more salient features of Homer’s treatment of the war. One of the most initially surprising things about the  Iliad  is how many well-known details of the full Trojan War story Homer leaves out. The poem gives us no detailed sense of how the war started (either the short-term cause of Paris’ and Helen’s elopement or the long-term causes in the wedding of Thetis and Peleus and the Judgment of Paris), nor are many of the most famous incidents in the opening or closing stages of the war given any attention (for example, the sacrifice of Iphigeneia, the recruitment of Odysseus and Achilles, the abandonment of Philoctetes, the Trojan Horse, and the fall of Troy, among many others).  There are many references to the fact that Troy will eventually fall, but no details are provided.  First-time readers of the  Iliad  who have some familiarity with details of the famous narrative frequently comment, often with a sense of disappointment, on how few such incidents are included here.  One would think that any poet interes ted in holding his audience’s attention with some exciting narrative events would make much better use of at least some of these.  But one searches the  Iliad  in vain for most of one’s favorite stories from the Trojan War. Instead, the  Iliad  focuses on few weeks in the tenth year of the war. The action covers considerably less time than that, of course, because there are some major gaps (e.g., the nine days’ plague in Book 1, the twelve-day wait for Zeus, the twelve-day maltreatment of Hector’s corpse), and the focus is almost exclusively on what is going on in that relatively short time.  There’s an interesting double chronology at work.  Events move quickly from one battlefield experience to another—there is lots of exciting action.  At the same time, while there is little attention paid to a precise chronology, we also get a sense that a lot of time is going by; this war is dragging on and on, without anything changing very much (other than people being killed).  We do not experience this war as a complete event, with a beginning, middle, and end, an experience with clearly understood causes and a series of events leading to a definite conclusion.  We star t the poem in the midst of warfare, and we end the book, several weeks later, in exactly the same place.  The only thing we know for sure at the end is that the fighting will continue, as before. The warfare is also unremitting.  One bloody encounter is always followed by another without significant variation in the basic nature of the encounters and without pause.  All attempted truces are doomed to failure, other than those the parties make, ironically enough, to collect or celebrate the dead.  Even at night, when the fighting has generally stopped, the war dominates people’s actions, thoughts, and dreams.  There is none of that sense, so prominent in the  Odyssey, that an evening’s meal and sleep bring something to a conclusion so that when Dawn appears the next day, something new and different is about to begin. This narrative structure creates a sense that this war is less a particular and unique historical campaign than it is a lasting condition of life.  These warriors are doing what they have always been doing and what they will continue to do (a sense that is strongly reinforced, as we shall see, by their memories of the past and their hopes for the future).  There has been no clear beginning to all this, and there will be no clear end.  Of course, if we bring to the poem a knowledge of the details of the Trojan War, we know that the tradition tells us it does eventually end.  But the  Iliad  does not encourage us to think about that in any detail, apart from the references to the fact that Troy will fall someday, and, if we do, there is little in the poem to suggest that such an event would change anything very much (more about this later). In addition, the absence of any sense of enterprising romantic adventure in the poem (in spite of the fact that the traditional story of the Trojan War includes all sorts of possibilities for such events) generates a sense that individual resourcefulness in tactics, strategy, or trickery (a common feature of the  Odyssey  and of countless popular war fictions) is out of place here, because this war is larger than the efforts of any one man or small group of men.  It is not something which the individual warrior can, through his individual efforts, alter in any significant way.  Whatever he and his comrades do today, then tomorrow, if he is still alive, he will have to continue doing.  By the end of the  Iliad,  we have witnessed some extraordinary human conduct, glorious courage, horrible destruction, and more, none of which has changed the course or the nature of the war in the slightest.  Confronted with this situation, the men seem trapped, as Odysseus observes: Zeus sees to it that from our youthful days to our old age we must grind away at wretched war, till, one by one, we die. (14.104) [14.85] Some readers find this narrative rhythm disconcerting. Where are we going with the story?  There is a lot of action,  but overall nothing is changing and there is little if any sense of closure.  For those who expect other things from a war fiction, it is rather surprising and perhaps disappointing to discover that most of the exciting narratives we associate with this war come from other sources—the  Odyssey,  Aeneid, and  Metamorphoses, for example—where the vision of war is very different from what Homer is developing in the  Iliad. I would like to suggest that all these relatively obvious details help to create a sense that this vision of war is thoroughly fatalistic.  The war is neither a temporary problem nor a discrete historical event nor a unique adventure.  It is, rather, the basic, unchanging, and inescapable condition of life itself. It is man’s fate. Before exploring this point further, we should first clarify precisely what the terms  fate,  fatalism, and  fatalistic  mean here, for in these modern, decidedly non-fatalistic times we may not all grasp the concept clearly.  To assert that Homer pictures the war as man’s fate is to claim that Homer views it as the essential condition of life into which these men are born. They do not choose to have the world this way, and many of them express their dissatisfaction with this state of affairs and their desire for something different.  But there is nothing they can do to change that condition.  Whatever started this war and whatever will end it (if it ever does end) are beyond human control. It is necessary to add here the important point that, understood in this sense, these terms carry no necessary sense of optimism or pessimism. It is possible to be a confirmed fatalist and yet sense that the basic conditions of life are as good as they possibly could be or are arranged for man’s benefit (as in, say, a faith in providential Christianity), or, alternatively, to have a decidedly pessimistic sense of the world one is born into.  All these terms indicate, as I say, is that life is, so to speak, a game where the rules are made up and controlled by others and where human beings have no ability to change the situation. The terms  fate  and  fatalistic  also do not mean that human actions are predetermined.  This point is crucial to grasp for an understanding of the  Iliad  and almost all classical Greek literature.  Human beings may be unable to alter the situation, but in at least one essential since they are free agents.  They are free to choose how to react to these given conditions.  In the  Iliad  the men have chosen to be warriors; more than that, most of them are determined, in their freedom, to act as heroically as they can, to live up to a code which insists that they confront this grim fatal reality with a range of human qualities (courage, loyalty, physical strength, and so on). We  will be going into this feature of the poem in greater detail in another essay.  For the moment it’s essential to grasp the point that central to lives of these men is their free assertion of their individuality in the face of a harsh fate which they cannot alter.This fatali stic quality of the poem emerges also in the way Homer insists upon the universal scope of war. As we read the story, we are always dealing with a particular event involving specific individuals, but we are also aware of a larger picture, for these events are part of a much longer time period.  The famous digressions, which have occasioned a certain amount of hostile comment, serve to remind us again and again that warfare is a condition of life itself.  Flashbacks to earlier times insist that personal armed combat is what life is about (e.g., Phoenix’s long tale of Meleager, Aeneas’ boasts about his ancestors, Andromache’s story of her family, the constant reminders of the achievements of Diomedes’ father, Tydeus, and so on).  The particular events of this battle are always being played out against a historical backdrop of very similar incidents.  One of Nestor’s important functions in the poem is to remind us all the time, both by his pre sence and by his reminiscences, that human life has always involved fighting on the battlefield: â€Å"Son of Atreus, yes, indeed, I wish, I was the man I used to be back then when I cut down lord Ereuthalion.But gods don’t give men everything at once.  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Then I was young.  Now old age follows me.But I’ll be with my horsemen, advising them, giving them  their orders, an old man’s right.Fighting with spears is for the younger men  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  born after me, men who rely on strength.† (4.373) [4.318] Similarly, when Hector thinks of his young son’s future, the best he can envisage for him is that he will be a great warrior, victorious in battle (6.583), a situation all the more poignant, of course, because many readers bring to the incident a knowledge of how Hector will soon die and how the young infant will be killed when the Achaeans sack Troy.  Hector has already acknowledged that he will die fairly soon, and no one in the poem has more to lose from continuing the battles than Hector.  Nonetheless, the only future he can imagine and desire for his son is one which has produced the situation he and Andromache now face. Homer’s treatment of the combatants also serves to bring out the universal, fatal condition of this war.  The  Iliad  contains hundreds of different names of people from all over the known world.  It is virtually impossible to keep track of everyone (and one doesn’t really have to, since most of the major actions involve relatively few people), but it is equally impossible to escape the sense that on this canvas we have representatives from all parts of civilization, not simply two separate groups fighting their own private quarrel.  And what’s even more remarkable, all these combatants are decidedly similar.  Most of them speak the same language, worship the same gods, live by the same code of life, share the same rituals in prayers, sacrifices, burials, and so on.  Warriors on opposite sides are members of the same extended family, and their forefathers have entertained each other and fought as allies in the past.  Some of those on different sid es have the same name (e.g., Agelaus, Antiphus, Adrestus, Medon, Noemon, Orestes, and so on).  Such a marked similarity between the two main groups of allies works against any attempt to find a rational cause of this war in some ethnic or religious conflict and thus adds weight to the impression that warfare transcends any geographical or cultural differences between the groups fighting each other. We need to dwell on this point for a moment.  In our Western traditions, we have for a very long time coped with the disturbing aspects of war by subjecting it to moral analysis. We like to see warfare as an army of righteousness against an army of evil, good versus bad, with the forces of goodness prevailing, so that we can justify the inescapable horrors war brings with it.  And many critics have extended this tradition to the  Iliad, seeking to establish some moral basis for the war which would make its atrocities somehow more palatable.  I’ll have a good deal more to say about this tendency in a later essay.  What I want to insist upon here is that Homer appears to go out of his way to make this division between the opponents difficult to sustain.  This war has not arisen out of cultural or political or economic conflict.  It is something bigger than all such conflicts, and it has the effect of making all the combatants, whatever minor differences one wishes to point to here or there, all equally subject to its force. After all, why are these men fighting?  Or, more importantly, why do they believe they are fighting?  The treatment of Helen, the ostensible cause of the war, makes her, for all her importance in the received tradition, relatively insignificant.  She is hardly a sufficient explanation for what is going on.  If the abduction counts at all, it is a minor pretext for what these men do all the time anyway.  The suggestion that the Trojans might debate the issue and give her back (7.402) evaporates almost immediately, and the war continues as before.  King Priam expressly indicates that Helen is not to blame (3.175) since the only sensible way to account for this war is to ascribe it to the gods. Such a view of war is profoundly different from what most of us now believe.  We think we have the ability to avoid warfare and that, if we must fight it, then we will do so only when we have a moral imperative to do so (i.e., when we are the â€Å"good guys† and our opponents â€Å"the bad guys†).  And even under such circumstances, we will expect the war to be as short as possible.  The notion that war is not a temporary and unwelcome intrusion upon human life but a fatal condition of life is thus potentially disturbing, a challenge to beliefs we particularly cherish.  A central thrust of these essays is that such a challenge to our sensibilities is one of the most important things about this poem because it is a vision of the world which contradicts what we wish to believe about it.  Of course, many of us can and do seek to evade that challenge by attempting to convert the grim fatalism into a reassuring moral allegory in line with our traditions, but that, it strikes me, removes from the work its most valuable qualities. Bibliography Homer, A. T. Murray, and William F. Wyatt.  Iliad. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2003. Osborne, Robin.  Greece in the making: 1200-469 B.C. Milton Park: Routledge, 2009. Warry, John Gibson.  Warfare in the classical world. New York: Barnes Noble, 2000.

Rae, We Pray For You :: essays research papers

Rae, We Pray for you â€Å"Murder in the murderer is no such ruinous thought as poets and romancers will have it; it does not unsettle him, or fright him from his ordinary notice of trifles; it is an act quite easy to be contemplated.† Ralph Waldo Emerson Is Rae Carruth unsettled? Is he bothered? Is Carruth in the contemplative mood yet? I certainly hope he is. Rae Carruth has taken away a human life. He has violated that certain enjoyment that exists in life. It is what separates the human race, from all others. Logic and reason that we possess in such high quantities as human beings apparently are lacking in Carruth’s case. It seems to make little sense, especially in Carruth’s situation. He seemed to have everything going for him, having achieved his dream to become a professional athlete and supporting his parents and relatives on this newfound fame as he had always promised. Yet, something was happening to Rae Carruth. Obviously, he was not happy with his li fe at that point. Still, murder is not exactly a sensible action, not even as a last resort to most who have their wits about them. It seemed as though Carruth felt that he had no other choice. He seemed to take the classic, â€Å"I don’t like you, so I’ll beat you up,† mantra of the playgrounds to a much harsher end in this case. With Carruth you must question many things about him, his sanity, his maturity, his intelligence, and above all his reason. Obviously, he soon realized the magnitude of his act, as he fled as a fugitive until he was caught. Murder is not a crime of chance, you have to get the deed done and correctly, that is why Carruth hired a few thugs to do the job for him. Even if Carruth did not pull the trigger, it is very clear that he is still a murderer. His fate is the question to most. This will probably not be determined until Carruth goes to trial, probably in about a year. The prosecution will seek the death penalty for Carruth and rightf ully so. In our current society today, only the most horrific of criminals usually get the death penalty because we do not operate on an eye for eye basis. In the present criminal justice system rehabilitation seems to be the operative word. It is not that Carruth is beyond rehibilition, but that he does not deserve to live.

Night World : Huntress Chapter 15

Jez recognized them immediately-not the individuals, but the type. They were ‘wolves, and they were thugs. Somebody's hired muscle. She didn't have her stick, but she didn't need it. She could feel a dangerous smile come to her lips; part anticipation and part sheer fury. Suddenly she wasn't tired, wasn't sore, wasn't anything but perfectly in tune with her body and dying to use it as a weapon. She launched herself like a streak of red lightning, passing Claire easily and knocking the human girl flat before landing in front of the ‘wolves. A guy and a girl. They snapped to attention in front of her, each dropping into a fighting stance. Behind her, she could hear Claire say, â€Å"Ow.† â€Å"Good morning and welcome to the Bay Area,† Jez told the ‘wolves; then she snap-kicked the girl in the face. The girl flew backward. She wasn't out of commission, but it had wrecked the joint attack they had been about to make. The guy knew this, but he was a wolf, so instead of waiting for his partner to recover, he growled and threw himself at Jez. Oh, Goddess, this is too easy. As he drove a punch at her face, Jez turned sideways and let his fist whistle past her. Then she threw her left arm â€Å"* around his left hip, holding him in what was almost an embrace. A deadly one, though. At the same instant she slammed her left hand up to his chin, striking with enough force to stun him. He staggered in her arms, snarling. Bristly hairs erupted on his face. â€Å"Sweet dreams, Fido,† Jez said. She hooked her left leg around his right just below the knee and brought him crashing to the platform. His head hit the concrete and he went limp. Somewhere behind Jez, a sort of thin shrieking had begun. Claire. Jez ignored it, and ignored the two or three people scrambling for the stairs- avoiding the down escalator because it was right beside Jez. She was focused on the female werewolf, who was back on her feet. â€Å"Do yourself a favor and don't even try anything,† she said, grinning. â€Å"You're way outclassed.† The girl, who had reddish-brown hair and a feral expression, didn't answer. She simply showed her teeth and lunged for Jez. With both hands reaching for Jez's face. You'd think they would learn, Jez. thought. Especially after what just happened. Even as she was thinking it, her body was making the right moves. She grabbed the girl's leading arm with both hands, then twisted, pulling her off balance. She took the girl down with a pull drop, flipping her to the platform. As soon as the girl was flat Jez locked the arm she still held and began to apply leverage against the elbow joint. â€Å"Don't move or I'll break your elbow,† she said pleasantly. The girl was writhing in pain, spitting and struggling and hurting herself worse. Absently, Jez noticed that Claire had stopped shrieking. She glanced up to make sure her cousin was all right and saw that Claire was on her feet, staring openmouthed. Jez gave her a reassuring nod. Then she looked back at the female ‘wolf. Now that the fight was over she had the leisure to wonder what was going on. There were plenty of people who might want to kill her, but she couldn't think of any reason for them to target Claire. And they had been targeting her; Jez was sure of that. This was no random thing. This was two ‘wolves attacking a human right in public, in front of witnesses, as if they didn't care who saw them. This was something planned, something important. She gave the girl's arm a little twist, and the girl snarled wildly, glaring at Jez with reddish eyes full of animal fury and hatred. â€Å"Okay, you know what I want,† Jez said. ‘I need answers, and I don't have much time. What are you doing here? Who sent you? And why do you want her?† She jerked her head toward Claire. The girl just glared harder. Jez applied more pressure. â€Å"Look, I can make time for this if I need to. I can do this all day. After I break this elbow I'll do the other one. And then I'll break your ribs, and then your kneecaps-â€Å" â€Å"Filthy halfbreed scum,† the werewolf snarled. Jez's heart gave an odd lurch. She tried to quiet it Well, now, that was interesting. Somebody obviously knew her secret. And since they'd been going for Claire, they knew Claire was connected with her†¦. They knew about her family. Jez saw white light. She threw sudden pressure against the ‘wolfs elbow joint. The girl screamed, a sound more of anger than of pain. â€Å"Who hired you?† Jez said softly, each word coming out like a chip of ice. â€Å"Who sent you after my cousin?† She stared into the reddish eyes, trying to reach into the girl's soul and yank an answer out of her. â€Å"Nobody messes with my family,† she whispered. â€Å"Whoever sent you is going to be sorry.† She couldn't ever remember feeling so angry. And she was so focused on the girl, so intent, that it wasn't until Claire screamed that she realized someone was approaching behind her. â€Å"Jez, watch out!† The yell woke Jez up. Without releasing her hold on the female ‘wolf, she turned around-just in time to see a male vampire stalking her. He must have come up the down escalator. And behind him, unbelievably, was Claire, running and getting ready for a flying tackle. â€Å"Claire, don't!† Jez yelled. She struck the female ‘wolf once, with deadly accuracy, on the side of the jaw to knock her out. Then she sprang toward the vampire. But Claire was already grabbing him-a completely futile and foolish gesture. He whipped around and seized a handful of dark hair, and then he was holding Claire in a choke hold, putting her body between him and Jez. â€Å"One more step and I'll break her neck,† he warned. Jez skidded to a stop. â€Å"You let go of my cousin,† she spat. â€Å"No, I really think we need to talk first,† he said, the beginnings of an ugly grin on his face. â€Å"You're the one who's going to give answers-â€Å" Jez kicked him. A roundhouse kick to his knees while he was busy talking. She didn't worry about keeping it nonlethal. She only cared about breaking his hold on Claire.- It worked. He lost his grip, stumbling sideways. Jez grabbed Claire and thrust her out of the way, shouting â€Å"Run! The escalator's right there!† But Claire didn't run. â€Å"I want to help you!† â€Å"Idiot!† Jez didn't have time to say that Claire couldn't help her; could only hurt her. The vampire had recovered and was moving toward her in fighting position. He was big, probably over two hundred pounds. And he was a full vampire, which gave him the advantage of strength and speed. And he was smarter than the ‘wolves; he wasn't just going to lunge. And Jez didn't have a weapon. â€Å"Just keep behind me, okay?† she snarled under her breath to Claire. The vampire grinned at that. He knew Jez was vulnerable. She was going to have to keep half her attention on protecting Claire. And then, just as he was about to make an attack, Jez heard the smack of footsteps on concrete. Running footsteps, with a weird little hesitation between them, like somebody with a limp†¦. She flashed a look toward the stairs. Hugh had just rounded the top. He was out of breath and bleeding from cuts on his face. But as soon as he saw her and the vampire he waved his arms and yelled. â€Å"Hey! Ugly Undead! Your friend missed me! You want to have a try?† Hugh? Jez thought in disbelief. Fighting? â€Å"Come on, hey; I'm here; I'm easy.† Hugh was hopping toward the vampire, who was also flashing looks at him, trying to assess this new danger while not taking his focus off Jez. â€Å"You want to go a few rounds?† Hugh dropped into a boxer's pose, throwing punches at the air. â€Å"Huh? You want to try for the title?† All the time he was speaking, he was dancing closer to the vampire, circling to get behind him. Beautiful, Jez thought. All she needed was for the vampire to shift his attention for one second-just to glance behind him once-and she could kick his face in. It didn't work that way. Something went wrong. The vampire tried to glance behind him. Jez saw her chance and made the kick, a high kick that snapped his head back. But somehow instead of falling backward the vampire managed to blunder forward straight at her. She could easily have gotten away-except for Claire. Claire had obediently kept behind her-even when behind her meant standing right by the BART tracks, on the yellow metal squares that marked the edge of the platform. Now, as the vampire stumbled forward and Jez began to slide out of the way, she heard Claire gasp, felt Claire clutch at her wildly. She knew what had happened instantly. Claire had tried to run the wrong way and was teetering on the edge of the platform. More, she was taking Jez with her. There was a distant rumble like thunder. Jez knew she could save herself-by getting rid of Claire. She could use Claire's body as a springboard to propel herself away from the drop. That way, only one of them would die. Instead, she tried to twist and throw Claire away from her, toward safety. It didn't work. They both lost their balance. Jez had the strange, surprised feeling one gets in the middle of a fell-where's the ground?-and then she hit it It was a bad fell because she was tangled with Claire. All Jez could do was try to keep Claire* away from the third rail on the far side of the track. The impact winded both of them and Jez saw stars. She could hear Hugh screaming her name. The distant thunder had become a roaring, whizzing sound, carried through the tracks underneath Jez. Down here, she could feel a rattling that wasn't audible from above. It was a noise that filled her head and shook her body. She knew absolutely, in that instant, that they were going to die. Both of them. Crushed to pieces under the train. The white dragon would run right over them and not even know it. There was simply no chance. Claire was clinging to her desperately, clawing Jez's arms hard enough to draw blood, and gasping in the breath for a scream. And even if Jez had been a full vampire, she couldn't have lifted Claire the four feet to the platform fast enough. There was nothing to save them, no hope. No rescue. It was over. All of this flashed through Jez's mind in the single instant it took her to look up and see the train bearing down on them. Its sleek white nose was only thirty feet away, and it was braking, but nowhere near fast enough, and this was it, the actual moment of her death, the last thoughts she would ever think, and the last thing she would ever see was white, white, white- Blue. It happened all at once, filling her vision. One second she could see clearly, the next the entire world was blue. Not just blue. Fiery, dazzling, lightning-shot blue. Like being inside some sort of science-fiction special effect. There was blue streaming and crackling and sizzling all around her, a cocoon of blue that enfolded her and shot past her and disappeared somewhere ahead. | I'm dead, Jez thought. So this is what it's like. Completely different from what people say. Then she realized that she could hear a faint shrieking sound beneath her. It was Claire. They were still holding on to each other. We're both dead. Or we've fallen into some kind of space warp. The rest of the world is gone. There's just-this. She had an impulse to touch the blue stuff, but she couldn't move because of Claire's grip on her arms. It might not have been safe anyway. Where it flowed over her, she could feel a sort of zinging and tingling as if all her blood were being excited. It smelled like the air after a storm. And then it disappeared. All at once. Not by stages. But it still took Jez several moments to see anything, because her eyes were blinded with dark yellow after-images. They burned and danced in front of her like a new kind of lightning, and she only gradually realized where she was. On the train tracks. Exactly where she had been before. Except that now there was a huge, sleek BART train two feet in front of her. She had to tilt her head to look up at its nose? It was gigantic from this angle, a monster of white, like the iceberg that sank the Titanic. And it was stopped dead, looking as if it had always been here, like some mountainous landmark. As if it had never moved an inch in its history. People were yelling. Shrieking and yowling and making all kinds of noise. It seemed to come from far away, but when Jez looked she could see them staring down at her. They were at the edge of the platform, waving their arms hysterically. As Jez stared back at them, a couple jumped down to the tracks. Jez looked down at her cousin. Claire was dragging in huge breaths, hyperventilating, her whole body shaking in spasms. She was staring at the train that loomed over them with eyes that showed white all around. A loudspeaker was booming. One of the people who had jumped, a man in a security guard's uniform, was jabbering at Jez. She couldn't understand a word he was saying. â€Å"Claire, we've got to go now.† Her cousin just whooped in air, sobbing. â€Å"Claire, we have to go now. Come on.† Jez's whole body felt light and strange, and when she tried to move she felt as if she were floating. But she could move. She stood up and pulled Claire with her. She realized that somebody was calling her name. It was the other person who had jumped to the tracks. It was Hugh. He was reaching for her. His gray eyes were as wide as Claire's, but not wide and hysterical. Wide and still. He was the only calm person in the crowd, beside Jez. â€Å"Come on. Up this way,† he said. He helped her boost Claire to the platform, and then Jez scrambled up and reached down to help him. When they were all up, Jez glanced around. She knew she was looking for something-yes. There. The werewolves she'd knocked out. It seemed a hundred years ago, but they were still lying there. â€Å"The other guy got away,† Hugh said. â€Å"Then we have to get out of here fast.† Jez heard her own voice, sounding quiet and faraway. But she was beginning to feel more attached to her body. Hugh was guiding Claire toward the escalator. Jez got on the other side of Claire, and they both helped keep her on her feet. The security guy was behind them, yelling. Jez still couldn't understand him and ignored him completely. When they reached the lower level, she and Hugh began to walk faster, pulling Claire along with them. They shoved Claire through the handicapped gate by the ticket window and vaulted over themselves. From down here, Jez could see that the train was smoking all along its bottom. White smoke that sizzled up into the muggy air. â€Å"We can't go on the street,† Hugh said. â€Å"They've got cars out there.† â€Å"The garage,† Jez said. They both headed for it, a multi-story brick building that looked dark and cool inside. They were almost running with Claire, now, and they didn't stop until they were deep within the bowels of the garage, with emptiness echoing all around them. Then Jez sagged against a brick pillar. Hugh bent over with his hands on his knees. Claire simply folded to the ground like a marionette with all its strings cut. Jez let herself breathe for a few minutes, let her brain settle down, before slowly lowering herself beside her cousin. They all looked as if they'd been in an accident. Hugh's shirt was ripped and there was drying blood all down one side of his face. Claire's hair was wildly disheveled, and there were scrapes and small cuts on her face and arms. Jez herself had lost a lot of skin to the tracks, and her forearms were bleeding where Claire had scratched her. But they were alive. Beyond all hope, they were alive. Claire looked up just then to find Jez gazing at her. They sat for several moments simply staring into each other's eyes. Then Jez reached out to touch her cousin's cheek. â€Å"It was you,† she whispered. â€Å"All that time-and it was you.† She looked up at Hugh and began to laugh. He looked back, his face pale in the semi-darkness. He shook his head and began to laugh, too, but shakily. â€Å"Oh, Goddess,† he said. â€Å"I thought you were dead, there, Jez. I thought I'd lost you.† â€Å"Not while she's around, apparently,† Jez said, and laughed harder. She was slightly hysterical, but she didn't care. Hugh's laughter sounded a little like crying. â€Å"I saw that train-and there was no way it was going to stop in time. And then-that light. It just shot out-and the train hit it. It was like a physical thing. Like a giant cushion. The train hit it and it squashed and the train went slower and then it kept squashing-â€Å" Jez stopped laughing. â€Å"I wonder if the people on the train got hurt.† â€Å"I don't know.† Hugh was sober now, too. â€Å"They must've gotten thrown around. It stopped so fast. But it didn't smash. They're probably okay.† â€Å"I just-from the inside, it looked like lightning-â€Å" â€Å"From the outside, too. I didn't imagine it would look like that-â€Å" â€Å"I didn't know it would be so powerful. And, think about it; she's untrained-â€Å" There they were, an Old Soul and a vampire hunter who'd seen everything the streets had to offer, babbling like a couple of kids. It was Claire who stopped them. She had been looking from one of them to the other, getting more and more agitated. Now she grabbed Jez's arm. â€Å"What are you guys talking about?† Jez turned to her. She glanced at Hugh, then spoke gently. â€Å"We're talking about you, Claire. You're the Wild Power.†

##torical Analysis Of Elie Wiesels The Perils Of...

The author, Elie Wiesel in his powerful speech, The Perils of Indifference, claims that Indifference has so much violence and danger. He shows how there is so much Indifference in the world. Wiesel develops his message through the use of allusion on his speech. Specifically, In paragraph 9, he states, â€Å"the most tragic of all prisoners were the â€Å"Muselmann,† as they were called.. They no longer felt pain, hunger, thirst†¦Ã¢â‚¬  Wiesel is trying to describe the pain that he has been through and if people were aware of the Holocaust sooner, than not millions of people would have died from the tragic event which is the Holocaust. Additionally, the use of imagery in the speech helps audience imagine the tragic things that has happened to the world. In†¦show more content†¦People have to prevent it by taking action to end it. In fact, to this day, situations like this still occurs. In Sudan, over millions civilians are been displaced in their homes due by th e violence in their location. The president, Omar al- Bashir wanted to start genocide in his country. The Abyei, South Kordofan, and Blue Nile are the spaces between Sudan and South Sudan that are having conflicts. Additionally, the region of Darfur which is located in Sudan were ignored. In 2003, genocidal campaign begun which resulted 300,000 and displacement of over three millions darfuris. However, after the agreement with the sudanese government, there is still no progress and violence continues. Additionally, in Abyei, Blue Nile, and South Kordofan, were forced to be displaced because of the fight between South Sudan and Sudan. According to the â€Å"International Response to the Darfur Genocide,† Governments around the world the world began to take actions to stop the disaster. Activities and peacemakers joined together to try to end the conflict in Sudan. Going back to Wiesel’s speech â€Å"The Perils of Indifference†, he states, â€Å"so much violence, so much indifference.† Like the genocide in Sudan, Holocaust is the second genocide occurred in the world back in 1930’s. Wiesel as one of the people who got tortured in the Holocaust. He explains the traumatizing things he had experienced and like in Sudan, so many people in Holocaust have died because they did not get