SW Krueger

Power Point On Time Line of the Nunns Priest Tail. 

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1bktXFrkch0n3Gsnfnhn85GsYmHPFf8M1/edit?usp=sharing&ouid=112660612471018348162&rtpof=true&sd=true

Since the time of Ancient Greece there have been moral fables about foxes attempting to trick chickens. Few of these stories have had nearly as long staying power as “Chanticleer and the Fox” by Geoffrey Chaucer, a part of the Canterbury Tales written in the 1387. This tale is told by the Nun’s Priest. A Priest of lower birth who has joined the pilgrimage in order to serve as a servant for the Nun’s also making the pilgrimage. The Priest tells a tale about the great roaster Chanticleer who is tricked by a fox attempting to eat him. Then Chanticleer proceeds to outwit the fox and escape as the owners of the roaster are chasing behind. Over 600 years later, would come the film Fantastic Mr. Fox. A movie directed by Wes Anderson based on the book by Rohald Dahl of the same name. The movie follows Mr. Fox, who proceeds to rob three humans in order to provide for his family and elevate his social station. Mr. Fox as a character reflects both the priest himself, and the fox within the tale itself. “The Nun’s Priest Tale” is at its heart a story about social mobility and power gained through intellect as told through a fable of fox and a roaster; Fantastic Mr. Fox takes this core idea and transforms it for a modern audience and time.  

In medieval times becoming a priest was really the only way upwards from the 3rd estate. Well throughout the tale it is never explicitly stated that the priest came from the 3rd estate, but it can be guessed at through context clues in the story. As Carol Heffernan points out “there are several similarities that make the Clerk and the priest who tells the Nun’s Priest’s Tale seem interchangeable, almost the same pilgrim” (46).  The Clerk is described as a working person of the 3rd estate, a very poor student. Someone who as a student without nice things is certainly of lower status than the other priest’s also on the pilgrimage. Which in medieval times going to the clergy was really the only way of peasant hood and upwards out of the lowest class. The 1st estate or those who fought were often those who had the most wealth and were of better health. They had a high degree of passing on their wealth and not many people were ever able to make it from any other estate to the 1st, in fact it was almost unheard of (Meinzer, 47). Using your faith and flattery is a way to climb the social ranks. The priest is using his connection to those of higher status in order to elevate his own position in life. This is exactly what the fox is doing in the tale, in lines 3325-3327 where it says that “Allas, ye lordes, many a fals flatour / Is in youre courtes, and many a losengeour, / That plesen yow wel moore, by my feith” (Chaucer). In order to climb the social ladder the priest has inserted himself along with those who have more social power than he does. In being around them he is able to elevate his own position. The priest sees himself as the fox within the story.

The priest and Mr. Fox from Fantastic Mr. Fox attempt to gain success and provide for themselves from those who around them because they are of higher social status. Arguably the line that starts the plot of the movie is Mr. Fox saying “I don’t want to live in a hole anymore” (Anderson 6:00). Fox does not want to be someone who is poor anymore, in order to escape his poverty he must take measures. The Mr. Fox and the Nun’s Priest both use their intelligence to advance their position in life. They are both people of lower social status and they want to be able to be more than they were born as. This is something that at least at first seems to work for both of them at first. The fox in the tale is able to get ahold of Chanticleer, the priest is on the pilgrimage, and Mr. Fox is able to get out of the hole in which he was living. All of these characters are able to at least for little while lift themselves up out of poverty that they were living in. But social mobility of any kind in these times was extremely difficult. It took not just determination, but it also took a lot of intelligence, something that all of these characters value deeply.

The Nun’s Priest is able to use his intelligence in order to elevate his social position just as Mr. Fox is able to use his cunning in order to provide for his family. Intelligence is extremely important to the “Nun’s Priest tale,” it is something that is mentioned repeatedly through the prolog and the story itself, such as when it says that “graunt mercy of youre loore / But nathelees, as touchyng daun Catoun / That hath of wysdom swich a greet renoun” (Chaucer 2970-2972). The tale repeated praises great learning and wisdom, this is how the story begins. Talking about how much wisdom is valued. Because merely being around those of higher status and learning was extremely beneficial to those who were not of as high status, “these relationships set influential precedents for monks, and a model for siblings that spiritually benefited both” (D'Ortia, 258). The Nun’s Priest was very much so of lower status. This is made very clear throughout the story and by the way that the other pilgrims treat him. But through the priests ability to tell stories and be of use, he is able to reach higher than he could on his own. Edward Wheatley when writing about the transmission of the tale through time says that “in the view of Chaucer, the Pilgrim, he (the Priest) is her servant, not so different in status from Aesop, who had to create an identity and freedom for himself through his story telling.” Through intellect and ability to tell stories the Nun’s Priest is able to separate himself as more than just someone of low social status. Through training and learning the priest is able to become something more than just what he was born into. He is able to succeed off of his own merits.  

Mr. Fox as a main character just as the priest does uses his intellect to attempt to make something more of himself. Through using his mind, and ability to outwit the humans he is able to become more than just a common fox. The conflict of the movie begins to escalate when the humans say that “Were miserable. He’s laughing at us. It’s humiliating. We’re furious” (Anderson 0:28) Fox is able to outsmart the humans. He is still living within the confines of the world in which he exists, he is still a thieving fox. But he is still at the end of the day doing what foxes do. By being smarter than those around him and in a similar position to him he is able to reach upwards in the social class. By stealing from the humans Mr. Fox is able to provide for himself and his family. This is just like the nun’s Priest, a man who wishes to separate himself from those who he works for. A person who wishes to be more than just what they were born into. But at the end of the day it does not matter how intelligent people are, it simply matters what they were born as, because they can never escape who they were born as.

It does not matter how intelligent the Priest is, he will never be more than what he was born as. The host as a member of the 3rd estate is almost certainly in a lower social status than the Priest as a member of the second estate, but how the story starts is by “Thanne spak oure Hoost with rude speche and boold, / And seyde unto the Nonnes Preest anon” (Chaucer 2808 & 2809). The host does not feel the need to respect the priest. He does not matter as much as those he is traveling with. The priests ability to become anything more than the station he was born into is extremely limited and everyone around him knows it. The priest is not someone to be respected, he is barely more than a commoner himself. Because “the Priest, despite his position of responsibility as a spiritual counselor and confessor to the Prioress and the nuns of her convent, has not fared as well as the Monk or his other fellow clerics on the pilgrimage” (Broes, 1). Considering that the Monk especially seems to have at first been from the 1st estate, but then transitioned  socially downwards to the celery, would make sense that he is the lowest of the people in the same estate as him who are in the pilgrimage. The priest if he is nothing more than a man from the 3rd estate who was able to make it into the 2nd, would not have the same resources or access that those who still have the wealth and influence of their families have. The Priest because of who he was born as, is unable to ever be more than he is at the moment he is telling the tale. A moral that is made clear when at the end of the story the fox who attempt to catch Chanticleer fails miserably. Just as the priest himself will fail. This is subverted to fit a modern conception of social mobility in the 21st century.

In Fantastic Mr. Fox, Mr. Fox also fails miserably at his attempt to move socially upward, but through persistence and intelligence he in the end succeeds. One of the final lines of the movie is that “You really are kind of a “fantastic fox”” (Anderson, 1:17). Despite destroying their entire home, Mr. Fox is able to continue to provide for his family. By using intellect he is able to continue to succeed in life. Mr. Fox defies the societal rules in which he has been placed. And for a modern American audience this moral makes sense. But this was not the moral of the “Nun’s Priest Tale.” As Wheatley once again says that “beyond The Nun's Priest's tale the other story most often placed in the modern category of fable is The Manciple's Tale, a categorization based mainly upon its talking animal and its moralizing conclusion” (Wheatley). Those who attempt to subvert their social status through flattery will in the end fail. The moral of the “Nun’s Priest Tale” is that those who are doing exactly what the Priest and Mr. Fox are doing will fail. This is not a message that meshes well with modern ideas of freedom. Which is why this is such a significant change between the two stories. That someone who is persistent, who is intelligent can in fact succeed no matter who they were born as. This is something that in the middle ages was just flatly wrong. But for Mr. Fox, he by never giving up is able to in fact actually over come the position that the world he lives in has placed him into.

Both Fantastic Mr. Fox and “The Nun’s Priest’s tale” deal with someone who is born into lower status attempting to climb social through means of their cunning and intelligence. Both show the dangers of over confidence through the use of a fox who is to proud for their own good. Within that pride the fox is denied the life of Chanticleer the roaster he had worked so hard to eat. Mr. Fox because of his pride ends up destroying the very home that he had wanted so badly. Both Foxes are examples of people attempting to be more than they were born as. The Nun’s Priest Tale is a story about the failures of social mobility and power through intellect told through a fable of fox and a roaster, Fantastic Mr. Fox is also a fable of the failures and dangers of social mobility, but with the conclusion these two stories draw being very different because of the cultures they were created in.

 Works Cited

Anderson, Wes. “Fantastic Mr. Fox.” 3 Mills Studios, 2009.

Broes, Arthur T. “Chaucer’s Disgruntled Cleric: The Nun’s Priest’s Tale.” PMLA, vol. 78, no. 3,             1963, pp. 156–62. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/460857. Accessed 6 Dec. 2023.

D'Ortia, Linda Zampol. Review of Nuns' Priests' Tales: Men and Salvation in Medieval Women's              Monastic Life, by Fiona J. Griffiths. Parergon, vol. 37 no. 1, 2020, p. 257-258. Project    MUSE, https://doi.org/10.1353/pgn.2020.0027.

Geoffry, Chaucer. Canterbury Tales. The Norton edited by David Lawton 1387.

Heffernan, Carol. The Nun’s Priest’s Identity and the Purpose of his Tale. School of English        University of Leeds. 2011.

Meinzer, Nicholas. “Social Mobility in the early middle ages.” ScienceDirect. April 2017.

Wheatley, Edward. “Mastering Aesop : Medieval education, Chaucer, and his followers.”                        University Press of Florida, 2000. Accessed December 3rd

SW Krueger

Generational Conflict Via Belief Systems as Seen in Things Fall Apart

In the late 1950s Africa was a changing landscape, the end of the decade also brought an end to many of the colonies created by European powers. It was in this landscape that Chinua Achebe, a native of the region that would become Nigeria, wrote Things Fall Apart. Just a few years after the publication of this novel in 1960 the country in which the novel is set, Nigeria, would gain its own independence and be recognized as a state. Things Fall Apart is set in the late 1800s at the beginning of colonialism and the expansion of European ideals, people, and religion into the land. The novel Things Fall Apart follows Okonkwo, a man born to a poor father in the village of Umuofia. Okonkwo fights his entire life to avoid ending up like his father, living strictly and uncompromisingly by the values of his community's religion; in doing so Okonkwo slowly alienated his own son Nwoye and his community. Okonkow continues a generational divide between father and son over how they choose to live their respective lives. The primary conflict of Things Fall Apart is between a father and son, Okonkwo and Nyowe who express their disconnect and separation from each other through rejecting each other's core beliefs.

Things Fall Apart is a book that is deeply tied to the traditional culture of the area of when and where the story takes place. Okonkwo fully embraced every aspect of his culture in order to attempt to achieve greatness, for “age was respected among his people, but achievement was revered. As the elders said, if a child washed his hands he could eat with kings. Okonkwo had clearly washed his hands and so he ate with kings and elders” (Achebe 8). Okonkwo places the achievements that he knows will gain him respect above everything else in his life. Throughout the first half of the novel the reader is exposed to the family structures and rules that dominate much of the people's lives on a day to day basis. It is in this structure that Okonkwo has lived out his entire life, and something that he is more than willing to die defending. He places massive value onto his personal achievements and what he is capable of doing. Okonkwo is a very active participant in the community of Umuofia. Ashmoah-Gyadu when writing about Things fall Apart comments on how people interact with their surroundings by saying “indeed in primal cultures, such as those of Africa and Australasia, the sacred and secular realms of existence remain inseparable” (51). For Okonkwo there is no difference between his religion and his way of life. The two are completely inseparable from one another. A threat to his religion is a threat to his way of life, and vice versa. Okonkwo demonstrates this by being one of the most active participants of the culture and the cultural norms throughout much of the novel. It is within this framework that Okonkwo has found his personal value, it is within this cultural framework that Okonkwo has bet everything on. Okonkwo felt forced into his zealous beliefs because of how much that same society viewed his own father as a failure. 

Okonkwo is rigid in his beliefs as a way to justify his rejection of his father whom he has grown to hate. The feelings that Okonkwo has towards his father are made very clear early on in the novel when it says “when Unoka died he had taken no title at all and he was heavily in debt. Was it any wonder then that his son Okonkwo was ashamed of him?” (Achebe 8). Unoka rejected many parts of the culture and the people that he existed in. They say about Unoka that he could not handle war and was made sick at the sight of blood (Achebe 6). Because of being unable to conform to the world in which he found himself Unoka was unable to succeed in the world in which he existed. Okonkwo, seeing this while growing up, set up his entire life in opposition to his father and rejected his father’s way of living. Okonkwo's father was weak so Okonkwo became a great fighter. Although the novel itself never directly shows any of the wars Okonkwo participated in, it says that he participated and gained great honor because of it (Achebe 8). Okonkwo rejected his father and the things, or the lack of things that his father had done in order to be as unlike him as possible. Within the confines of his community Okonkwo was able to avoid that which he was most scared of, becoming like his father. Nwoye is introduced by saying he “was already causing his father great anxiety” (Achebe 13). Okonkwo is scared that his son could become just as much of a source of shame as his own father. This deep rooted fear inadvertently begins to have the opposite effect. Because of how invested Okonkwo is into his culture, any change outside of the norm is, to him, seen as evil. 

A change of the culture of Umuofia and the surrounding villages was a threat to not just Okonkwo’s way of life, but to him directly. The second half of Things Fall Apart sees the arrival of Christian missionaries into Umuofia. Something that Okonkwo sees as a danger to him and everything he cares about. Okonkwo thinks “suppose when he died all his male children decided to follow Nwoye's steps and abandon their ancestors Okonkwo felt a cold shudder, running through him at the terrible prospect, like the prospect of annihilation” (Achebe, 151). Christianity was a danger to the entire way of life that Okonkwo had invested everything including his personal value into. As Okonkwo says, he felt like he was facing the ‘annihilation’ of everything he cared about. Okonkwo viewed changes, any changes at all, including changes of family structure and culture as a direct threat to his life. This was not a baseless fear; Olumefia Vaughan when studying Yoruba society, a major Nigerian cultural group much like that of the Igbo of the novel, said that “Yoruba society by connecting the values of the new world religion to an evolving process of social relations that were expressed through changing marriage norms and family structure” (70). This changing family dynamic is something that we see mirrored in the semi fictional world of the novel. The arrival of Christianity into Umuofia meant changes to the very fundamental parts of Okonkwo's life. Christianity meant not just changes to the broader societal structure, but drastic changes to everyday life. As Okonkwo says himself “The clan had undergone such profound change during his exile that it was barely recognizable” (Achebe 182). While a threat to Okonkwo’s internal and personal religion was a direct threat to his way of life as the two are inseparable. The pain of his culture was also a pain that Okonkwo felt directly. The expansion of this new religion would destroy everything that Okonkwo valued and worked so incredibly hard to achieve, but Okonkwo was never entirely innocent in the world either.  

The traditional structure of Umuofia gave Okonkwo everything that he cared about in life, but this same culture was capable of great evil. They said of Okonkwo that “he was a wealthy farmer and had two barns full of yams, and had just married his third wife. — He was already one of the greatest men of his time” (Achebe 8). By conforming to the regular way of life and fully embracing the systems that were in place Okonkwo was able to succeed in massive ways because of his ability to conform to the world in which he found himself in. Because of how much importance that Okonkwo places on the way his culture functions he is also culpable in the horrible things that the culture does. Near the end of the novel they point out why more and more people are converting to Christianity. One such is “Nneka (who) had had four previous pregnancies and child births. But each time she had borne twins, and they had been immediately thrown away. Her husband and his family were already becoming highly critical of such a woman and were not unduly perturbed when they found she had fled to join the Christians. It was a good riddance” (Achebe, 151). 8 children senselessly murdered for the crime of being born as twins. This is a culture that Okonkwo was deeply invested himself into. He is one of the men of title and power in the culture in which he finds himself. Arguably he is in a position to protest the senseless murder of children. But he does not, because he sees the murder of twins as something that is good and right. This is not something that everyone from Umuofia agrees with. Obierika, Okonkwo’s friend says “There are only two of them (the white men). But what of our own people who are following their way and have been given power?” (Achebe 175). By and large the people of Umuofia had embraced this new way of life, including Nwoye who saw the murder of children as wrong. Nwoye is one of these people who has whole heartedly transitioned. Okonkwo stuck to his beliefs no matter what it cost him or who disagreed with him. He was dead set on sticking to the system of culture that had given him everything he cared about. Okonkwo's stubbornness is what causes him to disown Nwoye as his son. The consequences of his actions did not matter, because the things that Okonkwo had done were divinely inspired. He mourns for his people because they were not as he remembered them. But regardless of what Okonkwo could do, the world around him was changing. 

The rigid beliefs that Okonkwo holds are not held by everyone in the tribe, as is made clear as more people start to abandon the traditional culture of Umuofia. Okonkwo realizes that the way of life that he worked so hard to maintain is being lost across the entire clan. Near the end of the novel it says that “Okonkwo was deeply grieved. And it was not just a personal grief. He mourned for the clan, which he saw breaking up and falling apart, and he mourned for the warlike men of Umuofia, who had so unaccountably become soft like women” (Achebe, 183). The expansion of Christianity was creating new and different cultural norms. These new norms presented a threat that was both internal and external. The tribe itself was beginning to fray apart as a homogenous group of people suddenly no longer held the same core values. It was also external as tribes that had previously only existed in local communities were being exposed to global ideas. Chinua Achebe writing from the future was all too aware that this would in fact happen. The loss of culture was something that was happening nationwide. Islam and Christianity, two monotheistic religions in the few decades after the imposition of colonial rule in the 1890s saw massive expansion, so much so that by 1950 nearly 90 percent of people were part of one of the two religions (Peel, 126). The arrival of monotheistic religion along with the colonial benefits that it provided under European rulers meant the death of the very gods and ancestors that Okonkwo had worshiped. Okonkwo’s strict adherence meant that for him there was no alternative, everything he valued was tied to one specific way of life. This stubbornness drove him away from own son, who since the time he was young, Okonkwo attempted to raise to become someone just like him. This is something that Nwoye did not want, because he was not his father. Nor did Nwoye hold the same beliefs or way of life that his father had. 

Okonkwo’s actions would lead to his own son Nwoye rejecting him. Okonkwo takes in a prisoner of war named Ikemefuna, a young boy who he raises in his own household along with his son. But then it is deemed that the boy Okonkwo has treated as a son must die. Okonkwo goes along, even at the advice of others not to, then when it was time “he heard Ikemefuna cry, "My father, they have killed me!" as he ran towards him. Dazed with fear, Okonkwo drew his machete and cut him down. He was afraid of being thought weak” (Achebe 61). Okonkwo’s absolute belief in his own way of living would lead to him killing a child that viewed him as his own father. This stubbornness in his character would lead to the greatest separation between Nwoye and Okonkwo. Okonkwo would rather kill a child he viewed as his own son than be willing to risk the idea that others might see him as weak. Okonkwo is unwilling to stray from his own path even if it means hurting himself and hurting those who he is supposed to love. His absolute rejection of any kind of weakness is the final divide between Nwoye and Okonkwo. 

Nwoye is not his father, and his father trying to make him so drives the two of them apart. Even before the death of Ikemefuna, Nwoye shows much weakness, such as when he hears Ikemefuna is leaving, for when he “overheard it and burst into tears, whereupon his father beat him heavily” (Achebe, 57). Crying is something that Okonkwo would never do, crying would be showing weakness that Okonkwo would never display himself. Not even if it meant saving the life of a child who called him father. Okonkwo was ashamed that his son would ever do something so unlike him, something that was so weak. Nwoye knew that he could never please his father, he knew that the only way to please his father was to become like him. Something he gave up on “as soon as his father walked in, that night, Nwoye knew that Ikernefuna had been killed, and something seemed to give way inside him, like the snapping of a tightened bow. He did not cry. He just hung limp'' (Achebe, 61). The death of Ikemefuna was the final event that was needed to convince Nwoye that he could never be like his father. Nwoye would never be able to do the one thing that would make his own father accept him, and that was to be like him. Because Nwoye could never find acceptance or love from his father, he was forced to look for something else, anything else. What he found was something in utter opposition to the culture of his father. Nwoye joined the missionaries who had just started to arrive who spoke of concepts that reinforced the value of African peoples. Particularly powerful was the idea of a universal humanity (Paustian). The idea of every life having equal and infinite value was one that was very attractive to a young Nwoye who had in his eyes lost his best friend because of arbitrary rules. Christianity and the way of life it offered was in direct opposition to Nwoye’s father. Christianity offered an alternative to the world that his father had helped to maintain.  

Christianity provided an alternative route for many of those who suffered in the traditional culture, but it caused an equal and different amount of suffering in other ways. Mr. Brown the first missionary attempted to minimize the harm but was than replaced by “Mr. Smith (who) danced a furious step and so the drums went mad. The over-zealous converts who had smarted under Mr. Brown's restraining hand now flourished in full favor” (Adeche 185) With one of them going on to commit one of the greatest crimes a man could, which was “to unmask an egwugwu in public” (Achebe, 186). Things Fall Apart deals much more directly with the local consequences of what a new major religion does to a people, but this is something that was characterized as an attack on the Umuofia way of life and culture. Something that was all too real to the African people during colonial times, “the foreign assault on indigenous cultures, has raised issues of power and alterity, through analysis of unequal relations, coercion, uncomfortable encounters, misconceptions, cultural difference and through interpreting the silences as awkward reminders of imbalances in missionary sources” (Frederik). Missionaries and the European expansion into Africa would help contribute massively to decade long systems of violence and inequality. Something that was still certainly being felt at the time when Achebe was writing Things Fall Apart and is still being felt even well into the 21st century. Christianity and Islam provide an alternative answer and purpose to those that had only ever existed within the context of their own clans and were not satisfied there. It was just the answer that Nwoye was looking for in order to justify his rejection of his father.  

Nwoye just how Okonkwo rejected his own father, rejects every aspect of Okonkwo’s way of life in its opposite. The last we hear of Nwoye is when Mr. Brown, the first missionary says that “he had just sent Okonkwo's son, Nwoye, who was now called Isaac, to the new training college for teachers in Umuru” (Achebe 182). This shows that Nwoye has rejected every aspect of his own father. Where his father had chosen rural life, Nwoye was headed to a city for education. Nwoye even rejected the very name that his father had given him, taking the name of the same boy who had nearly been killed by his own father in the Biblical story.  Nwoye, by taking on a new name, has symbolically cut himself off completely from his father and his father’s way of life. By taking that name, he is saying that Okonkwo was more than willing to kill his own son for what he believed in. Nwoye is no longer Okonkwo’s son, or at least that is what Nwoye is attempting to choose. For many who struggled under traditional structures such as Nwoye the Bible often provided inspiration and divine sanction for rebellion. Access to that inspiration was dependent on literacy, which, in theory, opens up an unlimited world of ideas (Paustian). Nwoye would use his new found religion to justify his utter rejection of his father and his father’s culture. Just as the traditional Igbo culture and practice had justified Okonkwo's own rejection of his father as Unoka. Nwoye found a new religion and culture in order to justify his own utter rejection of his father. Including his fathers way of life, his name, and everything that his father had done. Father like son, each rejecting their own parents for their failures.  

The father and the son are separated by generational trauma that shows itself in an unwillingness to bend or break even for the good of the other. Oknokwo’s greatest fear raising Nwoye, was that he would become like the father he hated. A fact made clear when Nwoye begins to rebel and Okonkwo thinks that “Nwoye resembled his grandfather, Unoka. He pushed the thought out of his mind” (Achebe, 153). Okonkwo had set up his entire life in rejection of everything that his father was. Where his father was weak he became strong, where his father was poor he became rich. Without knowing it, Okonkwo instilled those very same values into his own son. Nwoye rejected everything that Okonkwo cared about. Just like Okonkwo’s own father, Okonkwo would die a failure to the things valued most to those around him. For when he died his friend Obierika says “That man was one of the greatest men in Umuofia. You drove him to kill himself; — and now he will be buried like a dog.’” (Achebe 208). Christianity and its expansion would lead to Okonkwo feeling as though he had no other way out other than to end his own life. The fate of Nwoye is left uncertain, the novel never explains what happens to him in future. Maybe Nwoye is able to step away from the habits and patterns of his father and grandfather, if he does, this book won’t say. In the end, just like his own father Okonkwo is buried without honor, without title, without the things that in life he had strived so hard to attain. Nwoye would not be present for his fathers death, or to stop him. Because neither person was willing to give up on their own stubbornness.  

Things Fall Apart is at its core a novel about how generation rejection and hurt can affect generations of people. Things Fall Apart is a complicated novel that deals with many different aspects of African history and family structure and how those structures interact with each other. Okonkwo grew up learning to resent his own father for loving music and rejecting the violence that he did not want to take part in. Okonkwo's goal in life was to ensure that he did not become his father, and so worked incredibly hard to ensure that did not happen. When his own son Nwoye began to show weakness that was unacceptable to Okonkwo, the two’s relationship fractured. Nwoye especially after the death of his best friend grew to reject his father and everything that his father placed value into. In the end the father and son would find themselves divided by a belief that neither could truly understand one another, this conflict found its end with Nwoye’s utter rejection of his father going as far as to give up his own name, and Okonkwo's untimely and unfortunate death.  

​​Works Cited​ 

Asamoah-Gyadu, Kwabena. “‘The Evil You Have Done Can Ruin the Whole Clan’: African 

Cosmology, Community, and Christianity in Achebe’s Things Fall Apart.” Studies in World Christianity, vol. 16, no. 1, Apr. 2010, pp. 46–62 https://doi.org/10.3366/ E1354990110000742. 

Akinwumi, Tunde, and Elisha, Renne. “Commemorative Textiles and Anglican Church History 

in Ondo, Nigeria.” Textile: The Journal of Cloth & Culture, vol. 6, no. 2, July 2008, pp. 126–44., https://doi.org/10.2752/175183508X327776.    

Paustian, Megan Cole. “A Real Heaven on Their Own Earth’: Religious Missions, African 

Writers, and the Anti Colonial Imagination.” Research in African Literatures, vol. 45, no. 2, Summer 2014, pp. 1–25. https://doi.org/10.2979/reseafrilite.45.2.1.   

Frederiks, Martha Theodora, and Dorottya Nagy, editors. World Christianity: Methodological 

Considerations. Brill, 2020. Accessed 21 November 2023.   

 Peel, J.D.Y. Christianity, Islam, and Orisa-Religion: Three Traditions in Comparison and 

Interaction. University of California Press, 2015. Accessed 21 November 2023.   

 Vaughan, Olufemi. Religion and the Making of Nigeria. Duke University Press, 2016. Accessed 

21 November 2023.   

Everyone should wear a helmet when climbing. 

I believe that everyone when climbing Sugar Loaf should wear a helmet as it would be a benefit to all climbers. Sugar Loaf stands at the center of the outdoor climbing world in Winona, and many, when climbing on routes that populate the four faces, choose not to wear a helmet. I myself have chosen not to wear a helmet occasionally while climbing Sugar Loaf, but this was a mistake. An individual gets to make the choice of whether or not to wear protective equipment when engaging in a sport. Many climbers seem to simply be unaware of the risk they are putting themselves at by not wearing protective equipment; while at the same time also not taking into account the other climbers who may be nearby and watching them. According to research done by Dr. Chou looking at The National Electronic Injury Surveillance System for climbing injuries, a shocking 44% of climbing injuries that resulted in hospitalizations over the course of a decade were head injuries. Often climbers assume that these injuries resulted from tumbling rocks, but with climbing's popularity increasing as sport, falling rocks falling are no longer the main cause of head injuries. As the company Petzl (a well-respected climbing brand) puts it “nowadays, protecting your head from impact in the event of a fall has become much more important.” Even on relatively stable climbing routes like those that are found at Sugar Loaf it is not uncommon to see rocks tumble off; it is also common for people to take falls and or bang their heads into rocks. A helmet does more than just protect your head from falling rocks; it also protects your head from injuries when falling. A helmet also serves as an example towards everyone else that is as round as well. This is because one person wearing a helmet is setting a good example of safety and best practice for everyone who might also be climbing that day, especially within a town that is home to so many new and young climbers from Winona’s colleges and schools. It is in the best interest of everyone to set a good example and be as safe as possible. Because of this I believe that all people who go climbing on Sugar Loaf you should always be wearing a helmet.  

Chou , Kshirsagar, and Liang, “Head and Neck Injuries from Rock Climbing: A Query of the  

National Electronic Injury Surveillance System.” 2021 Jan;130(1):18-23. doi: 10.1177/0003489420936710. Epub 2020 Jun 21. PMID: 32567394. 

Petzl, “Wearing a helmet? Yes but why” 24 Feb. 2020,

www.petzl.com/US/en/Sport/News/2020- 

2-24/Wearing-a-helmet--yes%E2%80%A6-but-why-. 

Link to the Winona Post Aricle. 

https://www.winonapost.com/opinion/everyone-should-wear-a-helmet-when-climbing/article_5caae64a-9475-11ee-a6bf-67725f8b6cfa.html 

SW Krueger 

​​The Great Hero vs Heaven 

​Across culture and time people have sought to avoid death. In ancient Mesopotamia a story was written in Cuneiform of a great king of the city of Uruk, The Epic of Gilgamesh. ​Gilgamesh was born into greatness, as prince of Uruk he was already destined to be king. But he wanted more, first glory, than after the loss of his friend Endkdo to live forever. A few thousand years later and half way across the world would be a story written in Chinese of a similar king looking to rise up higher than their own status. In the late 16th century, A Journey to the West would quickly become one of the great Chinese epics. The story would start by focusing on Sun Wukong or Monkey who was born into the lowest of status. Monkey was born an animal without parents, so he had no place in the world. But he wanted more than just to be a monkey, more than kingship, he demanded the very respect of the gods of ancient China.  ​Both Monkey and Gilgamesh challenge heaven by seeking immortality, but how heaven is interpreted by each culture shows the similarities and differences affecting what each protagonist perceives as victory over heaven and eternal life.  

Heaven is a hostile place to the people of ancient Mesopotamian. In tablet 6 of The Epic Of Gilgamesh “Ishtar spoke to her father, Anu, saying: “Well then, father, pretty please, the  Bull of Heaven, so I can kill Gilgamesh on his home ground” (Norton, 49). When Gilgamesh rejects one of the gods they send the very Bull of Heaven down to earth in order that it may kill him. The gods of Uruk are cruel and jealous creatures that are only above humanity because of their position and power. A power that they attempt to use in order to simply enrich themselves. From a place of pride the gods challenge and then attempt to kill the very humans that are supposed to worship them. These are not noble creatures, but ones that are cruel and malicious. The gods sent down an animal from heaven itself that wasn’t supposed to be able to be killed, just in order to kill a man for showing disrespect to the gods. This idea of cruel and malicious gods is the same in ancient China as it was in ancient Mesopotamia. 

In ancient China when someone reaches above their station, they too face death for trying to do so. After Monkey achieves some level of success in his quest, the armies of heaven take him “to the place of execution, where heaven soldiers bound him to a pillar and began to hew him with axes, stab him with spears, and slash him with swords” (Waley, 72). When Monkey begins to cause trouble for the gods that exist in heaven they attempt to kill him. Monkey on earth was a king, here in heaven he is treated like a common criminal and they attempt to execute him for disrespecting heaven. Just like Gilgamesh disrespecting the forces of heaven is considered to be a crime that is worthy of capital punishment. To disrespect heaven and the forces within is something that is extremely dangerous to those that do it. Heaven is not as it is considered from a western perspective a place that exists above humanity. It is a place that is filled with human-like, fallible beings that make mistakes and can fail. Mistakes that lead them to being very arrogant, self righteous, and self centered. The armies of heaven consider themselves to be above the world that they are responsible for. Within the tradition of ancient mesopotamia, the gods are far above the people and planet. 

The realm of the gods and heaven is something that sits far above the mortal plane of existence according to the ancient Mesopotamians. On his travels Gilgamesh reaches “The twin peaks are called Mashum when he arrived at the twin peaks called Mashum, which daily watch over the rising and setting of the sun, whose peaks thrust upward to the vault of heaven” (Norton, 58). Even up on this peak of the mountains most high it is not possible for Gilgamesh to be able to reach heaven. Unlike in Journey to the West, Gilgamesh cannot reach heaven off of his own power and strength. While he is capable of disrespecting heaven he is only able to reach the ends of the earth. Heaven is a realm that lays above the earth and is completely unreachable by mere mortals. Even in the place where the very sun itself sets it is not capable for people to reach the realm of heaven. The gods who reside there are something that is entirely separate from humans. They can interact with the mortal plane of existence, but not the other way around. The fact that only mortals are not capable of reaching the realm of heaven is something that Gilgamesh is very aware of. Unlike the gods of Mesopotamia the heaven of ancient China was a real place that was able to be reached. 

​In ancient China Heaven was not a place that stood wholly separate from the mortal plain of existence which makes it vulnerable. Buddha asks Monkey, “what magic have you got, that would enable you to seize the blessed realms of Heaven?'” With Monkey going on to say, “‘Aren't I fit to be seated on the throne Of Heaven ?” (Waley, 74). Monkey challenges heaven and all of its powers together and he comes out on top. So successfully that Monkey ends up challenging the Buddha himself. Buddha is one with the universe; so at least for a short while Monkey truly believes that he is capable of taking on the entire universe. The forces of heaven are unable to stop Monkey’s rampage because heaven is vulnerable to forces that come from the earth below. Heaven is not something that exists entirely apart from the world, it is a realm that is instead tied to it. Because heaven and the world interact with each other, and the heaven of ancient China is not something that is fully separated from the world. That means heaven is open to those that have the ability to reach it. Heaven is less of a different plan of existence that rests above the world, and much more a literal place that is able to be reached. Monkey believes that he should be equal to the throne of heaven itself, because he is capable of reaching it and fighting the forces of heaven. This stands in stark contrast to the traditions that are found in the Epic of Gilgamesh where to reach for heaven one must become a god first. 

Heaven is a place that mortals cannot reach while they are still mortals, so people must become gods through legend and immortality. Gilgamesh says “‘Who, my Friend, can go up to heaven? The gods dwell forever in the sun”’ Later going on to say “An eternal name I will make for myself’ (Norton, 34).  Gilgamesh has to become more than a human in order to reach heaven. He must ascend into godhood. Gilgamesh must create a legend that is worthy of the very gods of heaven. Gilgamesh wants to ascend to the heavens as a god from earth. But victory over heaven, also means finding victory over death. Gilgamesh comes to realize that glory is not enough when his friend Enkidu dies.  As Belshaw points out when writing about humans attaining immortality. “Will they (those you care for) to be immortal, or will forever be yours alone? Right now it is enough to note the relations here. If others are immortal it might seem more likely that your surroundings will retain their familiar guise—they will have no more incentive than you to alter things” (326). Gilgamesh seeks out immortality. But must come to term with the fact that his own immorality is not enough. For what does one gain in being immortal if those that they care for die along the way. Immortality and long life alone are worthless. Because a mere mortal loses what they care about most. Monkey too realizes that the immortality that he seeks is not what he is looking for.  

Monkey finds immorality and in doing so rejects his very nature, giving up what matters most without realizing it. Monkeys' very explicit goal for much of the story is “to be young forever and escape the doom of death”’ (Waley 14). Monkey is seeking to live forever, and in doing so he is defying heaven itself. He is rising above the place that has been laid out for him as just a monkey. In constantly trying to elevate his status above what he was born into, he angers the forces of heaven. Monkey succeeds in his goal of living forever, he has become more than just a monkey; he has become so much more than just another animal. Monkey rejects what he is, and this rejection leads to him becoming imprisoned under a mountain. And after 500 years trapped under a mountain, after challenging heaven and the universe itself. Monkey finally realizes that long life alone is not what he was looking for. For Monkey says “‘No, I have repented, and now want only to embrace the Faith and devote myself to good works’” (Waley 84). Monkey must learn to become one with faith and with himself. Monkey rejects what he is and this rejection leads him into misery and imprisonment. His victory over heaven within finding immortality was not in the end what Monkey needed to be happy. While Monkey may have found victory time and time again, he did not truly find freedom with just long life. Long life and being young forever were not enough for the animal. It was that very same long life that would lead to Monkey becoming imprisoned for 500 years. Immortality was not truly what Monkey had wanted. Gilgamesh unlike Monkey does not find long life, but he ends up finding what he needed anyway. 

The immortality that Gilgamesh was looking for, and so his victory over heaven, is found in the continuation of his great name. The final lines that remain of the Epic of Gilgamesh are instructions for Gilgamesh to “study the foundation terrace and examine the brickwork” (Norton, 74). Gilgamesh is supposed to go home and accept his place as a mortal king. Gilgamesh is supposed to go home and care for his great city of Uruk. Chasing after a long life has brought Gilgamesh nothing but sorrow. And in going home, Gilgamesh does in fact succeed in becoming immortal; it is in fame that causes ”Lugalbanda and Gilgamesh were deified and enjoyed active cults“ (Wood). Gilgamesh achieved godhood, he achieved immortality of memory. He set out to rise to the station of heaven, and hundreds of years later, as the existence of cults to worship him would suggests, he would rise to the position of a god. Gilgamesh lived forever in the memories of those who still speak of his great name. Even in a modern age, thousands of years after this king died, there are still papers being written about his quest to overcome heaven. Gilgamesh never did find the eternal life that he was explicitly looking for. But he overcame the very gods that challenged him. For it is his name that is still remembered and enjoyed religious worship alongside them for 100s of years. Gilgamesh set out on his journey to become like a god, and in his journey, and across time Gilgamesh would succeed in that mission. He would find his victory over heaven. 

Both Gilgamesh and Monkey set out to challenge the gods of heaven by seeking eternal life. Both hero’s reject what they are and seek more. Gilgamesh seeks glory and honor, Monkey seeks ever higher titles and power. Both come to realize that power alone is not enough and seek to challenge heaven by finding a way to live forever. Monkey finds his way to live forever, he finds enough power that he can beat the forces of heaven themselves and declare himself ‘great sage equal to heaven.’ But this is not enough. Monkey's long life becomes like a prison to him. Gilgamesh also seeks long life, but he does not find it in the way he was looking for. Rather finding it in the continuation and worship of his name. ​Both Monkey and Gilgamesh find immortality, but neither ends up finding it to be what they wanted or expected, Monkey in the end falls to overcome heaven by living forever, and Gilgamesh overcomes heaven and death in remaining mortal. 

​ 

​ 

​​Works Cited​ 

Belshaw, Christopher. “Immortality, Memory and Imagination.” Journal of Ethics, vol. 19, 

no. 3/4, Dec. 2015, pp. 323–48. EBSCOhost, https://doi-org.wsuproxy 

.mnpals.net/10.1007/s10892-015-9203-8.

Norton, The Norton Anthology of World Literature. Volume 1, shorter 4th edition. 2019.

Waley, Monkey Translation. 

​​Woods, Christopher. “Sons of the Sun: The Mythological Foundations of the First Dynasty of 

​Uruk*.” Journal of Ancient Near Eastern Religions, vol. 12, no. 1, May 2012, pp. 78– 9 ​6. EBSCOhost, https://doi.org/10.1163/156921212X629473. 

​ 

SW Krueger.

Two Views of Immigration to America From the British Isles. 

The colony of America was a place of opportunity that offered a refuge for the people of the British Isles in the early 18th century to flee to in order to escape the oppressive regime. This can be seen in Moll Flanders, a book written by Daniel Defoe in 1722 about the famous criminal of the same name. At the end of the book Moll finally finds peace and prosperity when she flees from her life of crime to start over in the New World. This stands in stark contrast to the views of another famous writer of the time, Johnathan Swift. In Swift’s essay A Modest Proposal written in 1729 he describes the suggestion that was given to him by an American. This modest proposal was that the Irish could save their starving people and stop mass exodus of young people by simply eating their own babies. Both writings show a differing view on immigration out of Britain in the early 18th century. Moll Flanders as a chance to escape oppression whereas Swift views it as abandoning one's country. During the early 18th century the British Isles were experiencing mass migration, through Moll Flanders it is observed why people leave to seek better fortune in the new world, while in A Modest Proposal, it is seen the profound negative impact this exodus is having on the nation.  

During the early 18th century Great Britain was experiencing mass migration out of the country to the New World. A process that accelerated as the prospects in the Old World seemed to grow ever dimmer and the New World began to look like it offered ever brighter fortunes to those who were struggling in their country of origin. Many people, especially within the nation of Great Britain saw how “alluring the prospects of American colonization meant that for a time even the British government became worried that emigration to North America was reaching too high a proportion of contemporary population values” (Fender, 31). The number of people that were leaving the British Isles was starting to be of concern to the government as the productive labor force of the country began to shrink. The majority of those leaving were the working-class people of the country. This is because one of the key reasons for this migration to the New World was because it offered such greater prospects to workers and skilled craftsmen. As this was the type of work that was valued in the growing New World. As William Penn pointed out in 1686 that “for Labour, be it of Handicrafts, or Others, there is a considerable Encouragement by advance of price, to what is here, because the Goods Manufactured there, advance equal to those the Merchant sells, and where Provision is at least as cheap, and there is such additional gain.” Those with the skills and enough resources to leave the British Isles had every incentive to do so. As they had a much greater chance at economic prosperity and freedom from under the direct control of the British government that was ever present in their home country. It was people’s opportunity to escape the problems that existed in their country of origin and pick up in order to start over in a place where they could make it off of their own talents. An idea that would come to be called the American Dream. 

Moll Flanders it appears was one of these many people that left in order to pursue this American dream. Though she did not leave by her own choice, but by being forced to go under threat of death. Leaving forced Moll into searching for greater freedom and prosperity in the New World. The New World was seen as a different place entirely, a place where people could start over.  As even “the ‘manners’ thus reformed went deeper than dress and etiquette, down through behavior into the economic infrastructure that motivated it” (Fender, 133). Because of how differently economically driven the New World was compared to the Old it created a place where those with the means were able to literally purchase their own freedom. Because of being transported as prisoners from the British Crown, Moll Flanders, and her husband were condemned to a life of servanthood in the New World as punishment for their crimes. But this is not what happened. As she and her husband were sold ‘to a planter’ and then hours later “the planter gave us a certificate of discharge, and an acknowledgment of having served him faithfully, and we were free from him the next morning, to go whether we would” (Defoe). After a lifetime of crime and a near escape from the gallows of Newgate, Moll Flanders was allowed to walk away a free woman by paying for her freedom. But it was not just the freedom that she was able to find in the New World. For Moll Flanders was also able to find prosperity.  For it was in the New World that Moll Flanders finally found the economic and financial freedom she had been looking for for so long. 

The New World was not just seen as a place of literal freedom, but it was also seen as a place where people could prosper economically. This financial freedom in large part makes up the 18th-century idea of the American Dream. That an individual could build their own path was something that drew so many to emigrate to the New World. The American dream was that they were not ruled by a divine sovereign, but by their own will. As Fender points out “migrants to the American colonies, and their descendants not to mention millions of British emigrants to the United States after its constitution was formed encountered no difficulty in conceiving and adjusting to the fiction of the collective singular, the sovereign people” (163). The sovereign people was an idea that existed before the independence of the United States. It was this idea of being able to take control of her own life that Moll Flanders had been seeking after for so long. It was her concern about how to support herself and how to be an individual that led her to make decisions that actively drove her to become a criminal. Because she saw herself as a sovereign individual, Moll put herself first and did what she thought she had to do in order to provide for herself. This changed when she was finally able to place herself into a position where she was able to say, “we were now in very considerable circumstances, and every year increasing; for our new plantation grew upon our hands insensibly, and in eight years which we lived upon it, we brought it to such pitch, that the produce was at least £300 sterling a year” (Defoe). By coming to the New World, Moll was able to achieve that American dream. The same one she had been chasing her entire life. A dream of being able to exist on her own, free from the need of having to need anyone else to support her. It was in America that she was finally able to rest in the security of a life that she had created. Without the need to worry about where she will be able to get her next big payday. The American dream was something that Moll Flanders was able to find in the New World. It was something that was very attractive to a great number of people, especially as certain parts of the Old World began to look much more like a nightmare as opposed to a dream. 

The British Empire was concerned with mass migration affecting their baseline production in the early 18th century. While many were leaving England en masse, it was nothing compared to the mass migration or exodus that was taking place across the channel in Ireland. Ireland, once a sovereign nation, had now suffered under the rule of the English for decades. The rule of the British was neither peaceful nor kind. According to Curtis in A History of Ireland “from 1690 to 1730 it is said that some 120,000 of such (Irish nationals) departed, never to return.” (292). 120,000 people was a significant percentage of the total population of Ireland. According to Johnathan Swift, “the number of souls in this kingdom (Ireland) is usually reckoned one million and a half.” These numbers being correct means that a full 8% of the native population of Ireland fled the country in less than a 40-year period of time. These numbers had a massive impact on the population as a whole because many of those who used to work, cultivate land, and produce food fled the country that was no longer capable of supporting them. This mass migration of the native-born Irish population was also coming at a time when the British Empire was enforcing ever greater control over the island of Ireland. As well as imposing ever-increasing restrictions on what people were allowed to do and say. The people who left fled to many different places, some to Europe, and many others to seek their fortune and American Dream in the New World. A place where many hoped that they could start over without the issues that had faced them in the country that they had left behind. In their leaving this immigrants would further shift the imbalance of power into the British government and away from their own people. The consequences of those who left and the actions taken by the British would become far too clear as the decades continued onwards. 

Between the British oppression, the starvation, and the mass migration away from Ireland of the working population the effects it was having back on the island that was left behind were drastic. As so few of the people who were left were of fighting or working age “to keep down those who remained was for the time an easy task, but nothing can excuse the enacted injustice by which they were kept down rather than governed” (Curtis, 292). The brutality with which the Irish population was pacified was extreme and inhumane. Because there were too few people left to fight against the British those who were left just had to suffer through the oppression. Just how dire the circumstances were becoming for the common person of Ireland was something that is made clear in the opening lines of A Modest Proposal. As Swift says about the people he sees in the streets of the cities that “these mothers, instead of being able to work for their honest livelihood, are forced to employ all their time in strolling to beg sustenance for their helpless infants who, as they grow up, either turn thieves for want of work, or leave their dear native country, to fight for the Pretender in Spain, or sell themselves to the Barbados.” Because of the dire straits that Ireland was in at the time, mothers instead of being able to work were forced into begging for their children. There was nothing else for them to do, but do their best in order to survive. And if by some miracle those children of these poor and starving mothers did grow up into adulthood they had no option left to them but to leave or become criminals unto the crown. Because of the British there was no work for the population of Ireland to do in order to support themselves. There was nothing left for them in their dear country, nothing but to steal, beg, or leave. The last option opened up to the desperate people of the country was to leave it all behind. The option of leaving was something that Swift was clearly opposed to, as it makes clear as in A Modest Proposal he mocks the concept of being able to run away from your country's problems and start over. 

Swift uses a Modest Proposal to mock the idea of the American Dream and make people see that things will not start improving unless people do something to improve their circumstances. Because the rest of the world is just as bad, if not worse off than Ireland. Swift, although be it indirectly, mocks the American dream. As he says in his proposal that he got the idea for eating the babies from “so excellent a friend, and so deserving a patriot, I cannot be altogether in his sentiments; for as to the males, my American acquaintance assured me from frequent experience, that their flesh was generally tough and lean, like that of our schoolboys, by continual exercise, and their taste disagreeable, and to fatten them would not answer the charge” (Swift). Swift is pointing out that the American dream is not what so many others had made it out to be. America and the New World do not offer an escape from the problems of their own country of origin. Instead, they just offer new and much more terrible problems. America is not some bastion of freedom or economic prosperity that many immigrants had fled their country of origin believing it to be. Rather Swift is implying it to be some kind of terrifying hellscape where eating babies is common practice for the Americans. This in the fictional world of A Modest Proposal is the world that so many native-born Irish people had fled to go to. Swift is suggesting that the problems facing Ireland are not impossible to overcome, nor should they be taken lightly. Life in Ireland is still not so bad that one could believe that eating the children is truly just A Modest Proposal. But life within Ireland was still bad, it still had problems that needed to be dealt with. The injustice of what was actually happening was something that Johnathan Swift would spend his lifetime fighting against. As “Swift, was never silenced till his death” (Curtis, 297).  The British government could not shut up Johnathan Swift as he continued to point out their hypocrisy. This stands opposed to Moll Flanders, as Johnathan Swift saw the way to face the problems facing the land in which he lived, was not to leave it behind and start over. Rather to face the issues that it was presented with and try and find workable solutions to the issues that were facing the country. 

Through Moll Flanders and A Modest Proposal the reader is shown two vastly different takes on both immigration and what it means to chase the American Dream. Throughout Moll Flanders, we are shown women desperate to do whatever it takes to survive in a hostile world. It is not until she is taken prisoner and faces the gallows of New Gate that she ‘reforms’ and is able to travel away from England and to the New World. It is in the New World that Moll Flanders finds freedom. Freedom not just from her imprisonment, but freedom from financial worry and freedom to do as she wished. In immigration, Moll Flanders is able to escape all of her current problems and start over. Jonathan Swift through a Modest Proposal paints a very different picture of what it means to run away from one's problem. The New World and the American colony specifically are painted in a light that makes them seem in even more dire positions than Ireland is. Apparently, the eating of children is a common practice within America, a practice that Swift suggests they should bring to Ireland. Using this, Swift points out that fleeing their beloved home country is pointless, instead of running away from their issues, the people of Ireland need to stand and face them. 

Works Cited

Curtis, Edmund. A History of Ireland. Barnes & Noble, Inc., New York. 1936.

Defoe, Daniel. Moll Flanders. The Project Gutenberg. https://www.gutenberg.org/ cache/epub /370/pg370-images.html 

Defoe, Daniel. The True-Born Englishman. Population and Development Review, vol. 46, no. 3, 2020, pp. 617–19. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/45380196. Accessed 13 Apr. 2023.

Fender, Stephen. Sea changes: British emigration & American literature. Cambridge University Press, 1992.

Penn, William, 1644-1718. Information and Direction to such Persons as are Inclined to America, More especially those Related to the Province of Pennsylvania. 1686. ProQuest, http://wsuproxy.mnpals.net/login?url=https: //www.proquest.com /books/information-direction-such-persons-as-are/docview/2240859363/se-2.

Swift, Jonathan. A Modest Proposal. The Project Gutenberg. https://www.gutenberg.org/ files/1080/1080-h/1080-h.htm 

Before we get going, I would like to say, this is just my opinion and not nearly as carefully researched or cited as Water Brick Production, so if you disagree with me, you’re probably right, because, this is, just my opinion and I’m just a writer. This video is my opinion of the why’s, hows, and whatsit. Let's get going. 

The world of writing and story has changed quite a bit in the last thirty years since the realse of the original, and ONLY lion king movie. We don’t talk about the other one. In those thirties years we went from movies like this being made for a younger audience. 

To this. There are a few reasons why I bring up this movie, but I’m getting ahead of myself. Let's go back and talk about the Lion King first. Rewind 

If you're watching this, I assume you have seen the lion king. But let’s run through it real quick.

Mufasa is king of the vast African safari the pride lands. He has child, a son. Officially kicking his brother Scar out of the running for the throne. Simba grows up and by gonnit he just can’t wait till his father is dead and he gets to be king. That little music number leads him into the elephant graveyard where Hyenas try to eat Simba and Nala, Mufasa saves both of them and they run off home well Scar plots how to kill both of them and take the throne. 

In a tragic scene that gave many children a heart attack Scar kills Mufasa and then tries to kill Simba as wellll. Simba survives and goes to lives for a while with Tamon and Pumba well the pride lands fall apart. Nala, now an adult, comes looking for someone to solve the pride lands problems. Simba decides to return and speaking to his ghost father. He returns home and over throws Scar and the Hyena’s. Scar is doubled crossed by the Hyena’s and eaten alive. 

Simba takes his rightful place as king, and the pride lands are restored, role credits. 

Now, it is time to talk about Harry potter. There is a reason for this, and it will all make sense, you will just have to stick with for a little bit

Harry potter was the beginning of a cultural shift in mass media and movies. A shift that would eventually begin to bleed into the wider culture that it existed in. 

Harry Potter might not have been a cause of the cultural shift. But the movies and books were the first to be successful at that kind of level. Harry Potter was the first successful Young Adult book series. The first Harry Potter movie made over a billion dollars. 1 billions dollars. Not including book sales. People realized that young adult books could be massively successful. This trend had been going on since the 60s, but I think Harry Potter was the tipping point. 

The first Harry Potter movie came out in 2001, and it started a shift in the book market with its unpresented success. In 2002 there were only some 2,000 books published in the YA category. One decade later, in 2012 there were well over 10,000 books published under the Young Adult category.  It has only increased since as the 20 10s continued on.

But Harry Potter isn’t what you think when you hear the words Young, Adult books. No, no no. You think something very different indeed. Some of you might even have just gotten angry at me for calling Harry Potter a young adult book. 

In 2012 the hunger games came out, and although I hear it is really good, I have not read it. Nor do I think it is the best example of a YA story. Naa. I think the best example of a YA story is divergent. Also Maze Runner, but the maze runner was so freakin weird that describing it could be it’s own separate video.

Divergent was an interesting case, and kind of the end of an era, I thought the final movie Allegiance came out more than a decade ago. But no, it came out less than five. It was the very last of the in your face, blatant YA series. 

This one came out after Divergent, and whether this movie even had that trademark Young Adult feel to it is up for debate. Was it the book that made it feel that way, or Steven Spelliburg?

The movie series divergent is about a special person who feels like the society that they live in is suppressing them, In the course of discovering that they are very important and are the one who can save the world, a world that is stuck in some kind of post apocalyptic wasteland. The story follows the main character as she is deeply out of her depths and duels with one or maybe two love interest. And by the end of the first movie she solves the big issue. But not the really big issue because there needs to be a sequel. Hur hey! Also notice how this surprisingly detailed plot description follows along dozens of other types of movies? It is very important . 

I will not mention politics, nor the current state of the world. I will just say what I see to be happening, especially with generation Z. Whether this generation is right, or wrong. I cannot’ nor will I say.

GENZ the people born from the year 2000 onward. The oldest members of this generation just have, or are about to be turning 21. The vast majority are still teenagers. They are the most politically active generation ever. They know more, and more importantly care more about government policies and injustices then most could imagine. 

It would be stupid of me not say the instant connection that comes from social media and being not only to hear frombut also to be able to speak to any person on the same planet instantly didn’t play a role in that. But as a writer, I take an egostactical stance to it. 

Throughout genz’s childhood they were raised on books and movies set in a dark world. A dark world that could only be fixed by one person stepping up and fixing it. Maybe the culture we lived in created those stories. But I argue that those stories created the current culture. 

They created a culture in which a single person thought that they could change the world. And With the growing use of social media, that came true, a single person could reach millions of people and have an impact on the world. This is the ideals that Generation Z was raised on. With the current issues the world and the United States is facing, it begins to feel sometimes we are all living in one of those post apocalyptic worlds. 

This finally brings me back to the Lion king. Lets go over the Lion King’s plot, one more time. Just from a different angle, from a different perspective of the culture and time. 

Scar is the younger sibling of the soon to be king Mufasa. At a young age Scar gets injured and given a rather cruel nickname. He keeps this nickname for the rest for the rest of his life. 

He is rejected by the other members of the only family he has ever known and tossed aside like garbage. Soon enough his brother becomes king and has a son. This son walks over Scar like the worthless piece of garbage everyone has always thought him to be. So Scar does the only sensible thing. He turns to the other people that the patriarchy has thrown aside. The hyena’

 Speaking of the Hyena’s, because they are not of the desired class, they are tossed out of the pride lands and made to live in stinking and burning waste land as they starve to death.

Meanwhile, back in the pride lands the king and the pride roll over every other living creature. Forcing them to bow to their regime or be cast out and die like the Hyena’s. Mufasa isn’t a king, he’s a tyrant.  Abusing his staff and forcing every living creature to bow to even his child. 

So Scar hatches a plan, he allies himself with the oppressed and the downtrodden Hyena’s and decide to overthrow the tyrant. His plan succeeds. Knowing that the pride would never accept this new regime of equality, he goes the way that all revolutions need to go. He attempts to remove the current power structure, sadly that means killing the king's heir. Notice how Scar refuses to do it himself, despite being able to. He doesn’t want to kill Simba, he just knew that he had to. 

Simba flees and the rest of the movie happens. But notice what doesn’t happen back in the pride lands. Scar doesn’t kill any other of the Lions, he doesn’t harm Nala, nor Simba’s mother. He just welcomes back in the groups that had previously been shunted aside and out casted. He brings equality to the pride lands. 

Now you might be saying by now. ‘But Scar destroyed the pride lands! He caused the rivers to dry up and the trees to die, and all of the animals to disappear!”

My question is, how, how did a Lion, a being without hands. Cause rivers to dry up, and trees to vanshs? Do you know what else could have done that. Something that happens quite a bit in that region of the world. A drought. Animals and plants need water, if it doesn’t rain, that means no water. No water means no plants or animals. 

Scar was blamed for destroying the Pride lands. But he destroyed them by doing something completely outside of his control. But what happened to him? What were the consequences for his over-throwing of the current system of the government, of trying to bring equality? 

The thing he tried to prevent happened. He failed to kill the king's heir. And the King's heir returned to the pride lands to overthrow Scar. Simba starts dissent among the Hyena’s and the Lions, all of them turn on Scar and so yeah, he is eaten to death! 

What does Scar get for trying to change things, for trying to help the oppressed. He is killed. That is the lesson this movie teaches? If you stand against in-equality, and try to change the way the world. The swift boot of fate will come slamming down to put you, back in your place.

 Our culture has changed, for better or worse. Popular culture has come to reflect that we don’t want to return to the status quo. 

At its heart, the Lion King is about the fall of the status quo, and the consequences of it. The world fell apart because things changed. Then when things returned to the way they were supposed to be, the world became well. 

Over the last 20 years the culture has shifted away from returning away from the status quo. If the newest Lion King had been updated to the current year. To understand our culture today. Scar shouldn’t have just been the good guy. He should have been the hero. 

Some of the websites I read

Numbers and how and why the YA books took off. 

https://www.thebalancecareers.com/the-young-adult-book-market-2799954 

Article about GENZ books and YA 

https://www.kusd.edu/indiantrailpulse/?p=7021 

Best selling books 

https://elitewritings.com/blog/best-selling-books-of-21st-century.html 

The Trap has been set. 

Written by Daniel Defoe Moll Flanders is a book that claims to be the biography of the famous criminal Moll Flanders, a woman who was married multiple times and lived a life of crime before reforming into a model citizen. Moll Flanders is a woman who has always lived in harsh circumstances, being born while her mother was imprisoned at Newgate, something that would be the start of a lifetime of bad luck. Moll Flanders was forced to provide for herself from young age causing her to hunt among the streets of England for the finical security she so desperately wanted. This idea of hunting and being hunted is shown by the repeated use of the word “snare.” The word “snare” is used 14 times throughout the length of the book, it is a word that is used both as a noun, a physical object in which Moll becomes entrapped, and as a verb, something that happens to her, and something she does. The continued use of “snare” throughout the book as both a verb and a noun shows how Moll believes that she is caught in a cycle of being trapped and used, this results in Moll feeling like she has to be the hunter instead of the hunted.  

Moll herself is accused of ensnaring multiple people at different times all for the same reason, supposed security. The family of her first husband does not respect Moll, calling her Ms. Betty. A generic name that at the time was given to common household servants of the era (Defoe, 291). A name Moll could have given herself when she was relating the story back to Defoe, although this doesn’t really matter as it still means that Moll saw her only purpose with the family as that of a basic household servant. When used as a verb instead of an object ‘to snare’ is defined as “To capture (small wild animals, birds, etc.) in a snare; to catch by entangling” (“Snare”). Moll was a servant whom the family makes very clear is not good enough for either of their sons when they say ““for we have all looked upon you as a kind of snare to my son, and I had a proposal to make to you for your removing, for fear of it.”” (Defoe, 43). The family of Moll’s first husband considers her a lesser person; they do not see her as an equal to them. She is something that their son has fallen into and entangled himself with. She is just the household help, she is not worthy of carrying the family name because of her status in society.  

The world views Moll Flanders as just a beautiful young woman, and nothing more because of her low standing in the hierarchy of society. Moll herself sees that marrying the younger brother is her only way out of poverty. She does not actually love the younger brother instead having fallen in love with the older brother. In a strange twist of fate, the first husband's family doesn’t turn out to be entirely wrong about Moll. Because her first husband, just like a small animal that has been ensnared, ends up dead. Maybe he would have died regardless of whether or not he married Moll Flanders as his cause of death is not something that is explained within the text of the book. Moll never loved him, nor did she mourn his death. This man and his family were only ever used by Moll. A fact that she herself admits as she hands off her own two children to her parents-in-law; saying as she does so, “My two children indeed taken happily off of my hands, by my Husband’s father and mother, and that by that way was all they got by Ms. Betty” (Defoe, 50). Much like a predator, Moll survived off of the younger brother. She ensnared him because he was what at the moment could provide her the finical stability she need. 

A ‘snare,’ when referred to as an object, is a small device that is usually used to capture a small game. Samuel Johnson defined the “snare” as a noun saying it is “Anything by which one is entrapped or tangled” (745). The word “snare” is first used within the text as an example that the very act of being a woman is some kind of trap. As an older gentleman “began with the unhappy snare to all women, viz. taking notice upon all occasions how pretty I was, as he called it, how agreeable, how well-carried, and the like” (Gutenberg, ‘snare’ use 1). Because of her youth and beauty, those around Moll were constantly trying to entrap her or entangle her. She was being pursued and hunted by men around her that she did not want anything to do with. This begins to change as Moll grows older and wiser. As she herself begins to switch from the role of the hunted to the hunter. But the life of a hunter is not a life that Moll had chosen for herself, rather it is a life that she was forced into by the expectations that had been laid upon her by the world at large. It is not just other people that see Moll as a trap for men to fall into, Moll herself sees Moll Flanders as a trap. Moll says about herself “I then reproached myself with the liberties I had taken, and how I had been a snare to this gentleman, and that indeed I was principal in the crime” (Gutenberg ‘snare’ use 8). She does not think of herself as a good person, but instead what she is doing is driven by the necessity of her situation. She is forced into ensnaring and trapping people to provide the lifestyle that she needs.  

Moll throughout the story is both the hunted and the hunter because she spent most of her life trapped in that cycle. Escaping one trap just to fall into yet another, it is a cycle of mistrust and moving on quickly to the next piece of prey. Moll lays several of these “snares” for people to fall into, a venture that is not always successful. Take her final husband the first time she marries him because she believes him to be rich. When in reality the only reason he was marrying Moll was because he thought that she was rich. A series of events that fail and forces her to gain control over her life.   

As the theme of the book itself changes in the final half of the text, so too does the usage of the word ‘snare.’ As it is used to describe traps not set by human hands, but instead moral pitfalls and entanglements. This is how Moll describes her start to her criminal life, “This was the bait; and the devil, who I said laid the snare, as readily prompted me as if he had spoken, for I remember, and shall never forget it, ’twas like a voice spoken to me over my shoulder, “Take the bundle; be quick; do it this moment”” (Defoe, 160). She fell into the devil's trap like it was not something she could have control over, it was something that she stumbled into. A strange situation as it is when she is a criminal that Moll has the most agency over her own life. Something she loses fully when she is trapped in the very same prison that she was born in. But even as she repents, she does not fully see her decisions as her fault. Moll says her story “if duly considered, may be useful to honest people, and afford a due caution to people of some sort or other to guard against the like surprises, and to have their eyes about them when they have to do with strangers of any kind, for ’tis very seldom that some snare or other is not in their way” (Defoe, 224). Moll is saying that good people can learn from her how to be good because everyone faces some kind of trap at some point or another. Her inability to avoid that trap is what led her into a life of crime and into her literally becoming trapped in a physical prison. Prison is the final ‘snare’ for so many different prisoners. That is the purpose of ‘snare’ to capture prey so that they can be killed. It is from this final trap that Moll so narrowly escapes. It is this close call that forces Moll to change.  

Moll exists in a world in which she and her sex are not in control. Especially at the time this book was being written. Women were legally second-class citizens with fewer rights than their male counterparts. So, in a world where women had so much less power, it was far to easier for her to fall into the traps that had been laid around her. The moral pitfalls and the people that wanted to take advantage of her. But it is not a world the Moll Flanders allowed herself to take laying down, instead throughout much of her life she turned the tables and made her own way through life. Surviving and snaring her prey on her own. A life that she would lead for years until the costs of her actions finally caught up with her. Even still, by looking as though she repented, she escapes the final trap to go on and live a full life.  

Works Cited 

Johnson, Samuel. “A Dictionary of the English language; in which the words are deduced from their originals and illustrated in their different significations by examples from the best writers. To which are prefixes, a history of the language, and an English grammar.” 1755. Eighteenth Century Collections Online, link.gale.com/apps/doc/ CB0128753692/ECCO? u=umn_winona&sid=bookmark-ECCO&xid=b97d98aa&pg=743. Accessed 5 Feb. 2023. 

Defoe, Daniel. “Moll Flanders.” Edited by G. A. Starr and Linda Bree, OUP Oxford, 2011 

Defoe, Daniel. “The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders” Project Gutenberg.eBook. December 1, 1995 [EBook #370]. Accessed 4 Feb. 2023 

“Snare, n. and v.” Oxford English Dictionary Online, Oxford University Press, December 2022, www.oed.com/view/Entry/120147. Accessed 4 Feb. 2023. 

Personal story

Breath Of the Wild is my favorite game and it has taken me a long time to realize why, but I think I finally understand why it is the best game I have ever played. So spoilers ahead for a 4 year old game. If you haven't already played it. You should. 

I think the reason why I loved BOTW so much came down to two key things, the game itself is about a dead world, that despite everything, is filled with hope. 

Breath of the wild is the only game that I have ever played that has been able to capture that feeling of loss, well also filling it with hope, hope that the world can in fact get better. Hope that no matter how much went wrong, it can still work out in the end. And that is why I like this game so much.  That message of hope in the face off loss is something that fills the game even from the opening cutscene. 

So I spent a lot of time alone as a kid, as matter of fact I still spend a lot of time alone. It’s not that I don’t like people, it's just that people don’t seem to get me all that well. I was the type of kid that would go running through the woods seeking adventure. And for a while that was enough. But I realized what everyone must at some point. That you can’t stay a child forever, someday, you will realize that the woods aren’t as big as you thought they were. They are in fact nothing more than a small grove of trees, and everything just seems so less wonderful. But, before we talk about me. Let's talk about the story of BOTW as I see it. This is your final warning for spoilers 

The story of Breath of the wild 

A proficiency was foretold. One that predicted the return of calamity Ganon. So the king and queen of Hyrule began to make their preparations. But just as the King and Queens young daughter, Zelda was going to start her training. The queen died. This left princess Zelda without a mother and more importantly to the kingdom, without her only teacher. 

But work progressed on preparing for the return of calamity Ganon. With ancient guardians and ruins being found scattered across the kingdom. But the most significant of all of the ruins to be found was the 4 divine beasts. Vah rodha, vah medoh, vah naboris, and vah Rudania These were 4 massive mountain sized machines built for the purpose of destroying Ganon. Along with the 4 divine beasts was also found a shrine unlike the others, one thought to possess healing properties.

 As the research had started, a young knight had begun to rise the ranks of the royal guard. As more and more people watched the young man, Link worried about saying the wrong thing and the pressure drove him into silence. This pressure on his shoulders worsened when he pulled the legendary master sword. And suddenly he was no longer just the most accomplished knight in the kingdom, but expected to use the sword that would seal away the darkness and defeat calamity Gannon. Yet still the expectations on Link were made greater when he was assigned to protect his lord's daughter, the princess of Hyrule.

The princess was having difficulties of her own. Her father, her kingdom, and she herself expected her to unlock the power of old, the sealing power of legend. But she could not. And now having the chosen knight silently follow behind only highlighted her failure. 

4 champions were chosen to pilot the divine beast. And preparations to defeat calamity Gannon were in their final stretch. But it still wasn't enough, the sealing power still had not presented itself to the princess. And so the day of calamity dawned, and the 4 champions raced to their divine beasts. But no one expected what awaited them. One by one, the four champions of Hyrule were killed. And the divine beasts that they controlled were lost to ganon. And still, Zelda, Princess of Hyrule had not unlocked her sealing power. 

The castle of Hyrule fell to Gannon as he seized control of the guardians that had been built to stop him. These guardians followed forth, as Link and Zelda retreated. Link fought them, protecting his charge until he himself fell. Finally Zelda stepped in front of certain death to prevent the death of Link. And in a burst of light, the guardians fell lifeless to the ground. With her sealing powers finally unlocked she turned to face Gannon alone. And a Link was put into the shrine of resurrection for the next 100 years. 

So I have a theory about the shrine of resurrection. The shrine of resurrection would be pretty pointless to the Sheka people if it took 100 YEARS to heal someone from their wounds. And if you ask me, Link can take a lot of damage in the game before he DIES. So unless your telling me this (show image of when he collapses) is what multiple direct hits from guardians look like, I don’t believe he was about to die. No I think he fainted, which would make sense if you had run half way across a nation fighting your way the entire time. Here is my theory of what happened. 

So the ninjas run in there. And the ruins are sliding down saying "set time to  Recover 1 minute. Time to heal in 5 minutes. Time to fully heal 1 hours." But Ninjas are looking at this just going, 

"Well what the frick, I dunno what this means." So they just grab the dial and crank it to the max. The Sheka ruins start going and saying things like. "Dude. He will be fully healed in an hour. You do realize putting him in statis for 100 years and will destroy his mind right? You can just come back in 2 hours to pick him fully healed with all of his memories?"

Then the ninjas just stare blankly at the scrolling ruins and leave. As the shrine goes "wtf man. Fine, I'll keep him in statis for an extra 99 years that he didn't need."

Anyway, My theory is that it didn't actually take 100 years for Link to heal. The timer was just mis-set or broken on the shrine. I also say broken because you know, it was 9,900 years old when he was put into the shrine. Back to the recap. 

With the chosen knight fallen, and the four champions dead. Guardians flowed forth from the 4 massive pillars that had sprouted surrounding Hyrule castle. The city surrounding the castle was leveled. The army and soldiers of Hyrule could do nothing to stop the on coming tide. Even the countries most important and powerful fort fell. Every village on or by Hyrule field was wiped out. The Hylians themselves were almost killed off. Only the villages that were remote, or hard to reach survived. But the kingdom of Hyrule died along with Roman Bostpors, its last king. 

Link wakes up from his 100 year slumber where he must begin to rebuild his power and memories. Depending on what the player chooses, Link slowly remembers his past by traveling around the destroyed kingdom. He frees the four divine beasts and their champions trapped within. Along his travels across Hyrule Link completes puzzles and grows his power. Until finally he storms Hyrule castle, defeats calamity ganon. Finally Link and Zelda seal away the dark beast that is ganon and the kingdom of hyrule can begin to rebuild. 

Why I connected to that story 

I was a driven kid. I had my eagle scout just one month after my fifteenth birthday. I spent most of my teenage years writing SkyHeart. And now I am here. But it was never enough for me. The day I published skyheart my first thought was what is next? When I got my eagle scout I wondered what else I could do? This is how I have felt about everything I have ever worked on. It is both a blessing and a curse. 

I have a naturally addictive personality, which means I can get sucked into things very easily and then find it hard to stop. Even now, I wrote this very script in just two days. I need to finish what I start. The things I work on, and the things I do help drive me. It not only drives me to finish projects, but to keep working on even more projects.Working makes me want to work more. I know it might sound odd, but the only times that I end up with writer's block is whenever I stop writing. This drive to discover and keep pushing into a personal unknown is what connected me with breath of the wild so much. 

I know what it is like to be kid struggling to meet the expectations set on them both by other people. And more importantly, by yourself. I understood the stress of feeling like you can’t speak about what is stressing you. I knew what that is like. I know what it is like to work your hardest, to try, and try again failing your way forward. And yet in the end, it doesn’t feel like it was enough.

Breath of the wild also holds another place in my heart. Breath of the Wild was one of the first games I ever played, and I played it for the first time late in my teenage years. Growing up and as a teenager, I just wasn’t that interested in video games. The games I played before Breath of the Wild were lego games and others like it. I enjoyed them, but I didn’t spend hours a day playing them. I just saw them as something mildly entertaining. BOTW was the first game that I ever wanted to put hours into playing. It was the first game that I was disappointed when I had to stop playing it. 

In other words Breath of the Wild was the first ever game that I played for the sake of playing it. Before this game I only ever played video games with friends or family neither of which happened often and as a distraction from other things in my life. 

As a kid when I heard about people staying up all night to play video games or spend hours playing games I didn’t get. I got bored eventually of any game I had ever played. They were never worth spending hours a day playing. Even Wind Waker, the first Zelda game I ever played, I only played a couple times a week just because it didn’t interest me all that much. Breath of the Wild not only made me want to play breath of the wild. But it made me want to play other games. 

I have played many games after Breath of the Wild that I have loved. All of the games I played for the FIRST time after Breath of the Wild include the bio shock trilogy, outer worlds, Ashen, Hollow Knight, and most recently Eastward. But not a single one has made me care as much as breath of the wild has. And that is a magic I still don’t entirely understand. 

The only reasons I have found are that I felt deeply connected with the story and themes of breath of the wild. I constantly feel like I am a failure and it drives me to work harder and be better. And honestly, some days it doesn’t feel like I am enough. But BOTW made me feel like that might be okay. It took Link 100 years to wake up, because he failed. He failed so badly that his entire kingdom  and king he had sworn to serve died while he slept. While the princess he was charged to protect fought what amounts to death itself alone. 

But when he wakes up, he and you keep trying. As a new player to BOTW, you will die and fail constantly. But you keep going. The thing above all that I took away from BOTW was that it is important to remember and mourn the past. That you have to accept where and why you failed. But you can’t stop there. 

You have to keep pushing forward. You have to keep going no matter what. No matter your failures and how bad you may have come up short you have to keep fighting. Even if your entire kingdom fails, even if you fail in your duty, you keep fighting. And eventually, if you keep going, if you keep fighting you might just succeed. 

The price of success in the BOTW is high. The price of defeating calamity Gannon was Hyrule itself, it was the death of leaders, of friends, of daughters. But they succeed. Link and Zelda succeed in the end, even if it cost everything and 100 years. Hope prevailed above all. And at the end, hope and determination saved a kingdom. 

What I do about it now. And why I can’t let go and why I should

As I said, the game is about pushing forward. It is about acknowledging the past and going forward. I have been playing this game for three years. I finished the DLC, main game, and all 120 shrines twice. I was never insane enough to go for all of the Koroks. But overall I have poured a disturbing number of hours into this game. And I am not sure how to stop. 

In the end I made this video for one very specific reason. It is to let go. I have spent the last three years thinking about this game. And I know that makes me sad and pathetic. But it is the truth. I don't want to let go of this game. I wish I could revisit this game every year and it would be the first time I played it. But I can’t. 

I look at BOTW as the first true game I actually played. I started with what many call the greatest game ever made. This was my entry point into, gag, for lack of a better word. Gaming as a whole. I started at the top, with a fantastic game that I personally connected with. Now, no other game has ever measured up. I have enjoyed lots of games after BOTW. But none has ever been as good, none has ever measured up, except maybe Hollow Knight. But Hollow Knight deserves it’s own video. 

I have played lots of games where I have enjoyed their gameplay. Call of Huaraz has excellent game play. It is deeply entertaining and is enjoyable to play. It has slick game play and good controls driven by an interesting and tight narrative. But I didn’t feel anything when I played this game. I would recommend this game to anyone who is just looking for a very good time and a good distraction. But it doesn’t make you feel anything. After I finished playing this game I forgot about it almost as quickly. 

Or take the recent game Eastward. I loved this game, I don’t want to and won’t spoil it. But just know it has a very good story. And it is the first piece of media in awhile that has made me want to cry at the end. I connected very deeply with the story of this game. BUT. It’s game play is a little sub par, it is not very hard, and tries to be a puzzle game. But the puzzles aren’t complicated. The story though is heartbreaking, and lovely. 

Breath of the Wild is the only game that I have ever played that perfectly straggles that line between the two mediums. The game flawlessly encourages it’s players to explore and engage with the world. And it tells its story through that exploration and gameplay. No other game has ever done that as well as BOTW for me

So how do I move on? If nothing else will be as good, what is even the point of moving on? This is the questions I have been asking myself for the last three years. And It took a long time for me to figure it out. But making this video has let me figure it out. how to move on is told to us by the game itself. You just keep going forward.

 I let go of the game, I let go of this story not because I want to. But because I have to. Because it is unhealthy to spend so much time focused on one game that is built around adventure. The kingdom was saved, you may have shown up to the party 100 years late. But you still made it. and it is time for me to start on a new adventure. Farewell Legend of Zelda. Breath of the Wild, and thank you. . .

If you watched this video through till the end. Thank you so much! This is a new type of video I will be working on for at least a while. For the most part this video will be looking at why I liked certain things. There are a couple of video game ones planned. A couple for TV shows, a couple for movies, and a few for books. The next upcoming one is about Hilda. My favorite TV show. So I guess you can look forward to that in the future if you enjoyed this video. If you didn’t like. I’m sorry! And of course, goodnight, good luck, and don’t get lost!