Essay Prompts 1/2

Essay Prompt: 1

“Old Leisure”

 

Breaking away from daily duties and responsibilities in order to reward yourself with what brings you pleasure, this is leisure. Society changes as times change. Society changes its habits, its wants, and its thoughts. What people find pleasure in doing changes and so there is a change in the ways in which they spend their time. In George Eliot’s “Old Leisure” this change is seen as she compares old leisure with the new while using a variance of stylistic devices.

The passage of time and advances in society has all increased the complexity of life. George Eliot addresses this in “Old Leisure” when she vividly describes her personal preference for old leisure. She describes it as being a more relaxed time. It’s a time of simple thinking and simple acting. She begins by stating “Leisure is gone.” Leisure is not actually gone but it is different from what it used to be. The new leisure is complex. It is absorbed in doing something, striving to obtain something, and seeking to change something that it is not seen as leisure anymore. Old leisure had no interest in new inventions or new ways of thinking. It stayed simple.

George Eliot uses a combination of personification and imagery to make her two main characters come to life. The protagonists of “Old Leisure” are none other than old leisure and new leisure. These are compared throughout the work but old leisure is given a more emphasis. Eliot states “Even idleness is eager now…” meaning there is no more peace. There is no more relaxation which was the basis for old leisure. She describes leisure being gone “where spinning wheels are gone, and pack-horses, and the slow wagons…” creating the image of how things have gone about changing. How they have sped up slowly into what it is today.

The idea of leisure evokes the idea of pleasure, of one leaving what has to be forcefully done to do what one wants to do. How this leisure is spent has morphed into a fast paced time that George Elliot expresses in “Old Leisure.” She finds old leisure enjoyable and the perfect example for what leisure should actually be.

 

Essay Prompt: 2

The Grapes of Wrath

            Traditions are commonly seen as set ideals. They are things that have been followed years before and are expected to be followed in some circumstances. There are always those that seek change. These are always those that seek change. These are the people that want either modifications or complete change in particular attitudes or traditions of society. John Steinbeck was the kind of person that analyzed this change and wrote about it in books such as The Grapes of Wrath with the usage specific literary techniques.

            In the book The Grapes of Wrath the reader saw the change of a nation through the experience of the Joad family. They saw themselves forced to leave the place they called home for stranger lands in the west due to the Dust Bowl. Through the Joad family the reader saw the fight for survival to unfold. All families were in a race against each other and against time. It turned into an ”all men for themselves” battle in which one looked over the wellbeing of those they loved without caring for the wellbeing of the rest. This was the only hopes of survival these people had. They left their daily lives of normality and began a journey toward survival.

            The author uses history in order to influence the reader’s views. John Steinbeck based his book on the Dust Bowl. This event is nonfiction and belongs to the history of the United States. Steinbeck used one of many examples of family struggle during this this time to explain reasons for change in the characters traditions and attitudes toward one another.

            Traditions and attitudes are usually kept constant but are forced to change when faced with obstacles. The Joad family in The Grapes of Wrath was forced to leave the place they called home in search of a place in which to survive. It was a battle against different families for  jobs and resources but they had to fight in order to survive.