Case Essays

Case Essays This sense of clarity I received, was due in part to Pride and Prejudice because even though it did not provide me with the answers to my questions, it had given me a sense of self awareness. The notion that prejudice clouds perception was a truth that I don’t imagine I’d have come to as early without the help of Austen and it made me wonder how much more I could learn from reading. After that I became obsessed with reading, falling into my old habits of staying up late to read the last chapter, staying in to read at lunch, and going to the library every weekend. I am forever grateful to Pride and Prejudice for reigniting the passion for reading I had lost in middle school. The fact of it being a literary work has made it easier for me to comprehend and visualize the historical period which was so devastating to my country. The novel helped me understand that the harder an ideology is pushed on people, the harder they will rebel in indirect ways. The constant fear turned people into animals willing to do anything to survive. For fear of being next to disappear or jealousy because someone lives a tiny bit better than you, espionage and treason become a normal part of life. He has always encouraged me to have my own personal outlook and opinion. I think he believes that conformity undermines intellectual potentialâ€"an opinion I now strongly agree with. Moreover, he has taught me to stand my ground and be perceptive. The critical viewpoint I have grown into has trained me not to take things for granted and to be inquisitive. One of these books is Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. Until recently, I felt little obligation to involve myself in any substantive way with humanity as a whole. Before I had defined this connection as one of my most important values, I experimented with various methods of separation. This epic is not only a great bookâ€"it is the great book of Poland, as important and symbolic as the Vistula River that flows from the Polish mountains to the Baltic sea. Constitution, Poles are required to memorize sections of Pan Tadeusz, especially those which are thought to embody the core of what it means to be Polish. A Pole reciting the opening of Pan Tadeusz is like an American reciting the Pledge of Allegiance. Its author, Adam Mickiewicz, is considered something of a literary god, somewhere between Dante and Shakespeare. The aforementioned aspects signify what makes Bulgakov’s novel The Master and Margarita great in my opinion. The novel focuses on ways the Soviet regime exerted its power on its people. Coming from a post-Soviet country still struggling with its past, where some adore past times while others despise them, I am interested in how the regime worked to indoctrinate people. Although the novel is not a history book, its presentation of characters helps to crystallize the essence of what the Soviet Union looked like. So, in a way, The Master and Margarita has helped me to understand my father and appreciate him as an outsider, an individualist. I have also become an individualist who tries to defy the conformism around him. Not only do the literary devices make it a wonder to read, but the way it discusses eternal human problems makes it a great book. The work displays the Soviet society under immense repression and how it affects people’s mindsets. It also addresses the relationship between individuals and their community and time. It embraces individualism and faith as compasses to accomplishment. The third aspectâ€"that of conformismâ€"connects the novel with today and calls on the reader to think and reflect more deeply, to search for a unique identity. The experience of reading the story has taught me that raising questions and finding answers should be an indefinite, life-long process. Self-confidence is something I have struggled very long and hard with. I used to worry that I would stand outâ€"especially in school. On weekends I struggled to carry twenty books at a time, stacked way up high as I left my local library. At home, I stayed up late with a little light under my sheets trying to finish the last chapter of The Prisoner of Azkaban . I lived my life through books, some were void of meaning, just a way to pass the time, while others crept up on my subconscious and wove their way into my life, forever intertwined with me. The most special books are the ones that like a kaleidoscope give a new view upon another reading. The views of my society are rather one dimensional towards being different. When reflecting that becoming part of this society would lead me to self-hatred, I have come to see Master as an example. The hardship he undergoes and the courage he portrays afterwards have inspired me to embrace who I am.