Will Pikus Lin Manuel Miranda’s play “Hamilton” took Broadway by storm when it was released. Personally, I remember my parents looking into getting tickets for the show. We all realized it wasn’t worth it since tickets were over eight-hundred dollars per person. The play itself also struck me as kind of strange. I questioned why everyone was getting so excited over the ethnically swapped show. One character within the show was especially strange. King George is right where he was supposed to be the entire time. The tyrannical King is laughing maniacally after each of his songs about how “You’ll Be Back”. While this is likely an accurate depiction of King George, one big question comes to mind. Why is he still white? As a student brought up last class, why was Hamilton’s story choses by Miranda? It’s one of the oldest whitest stories in th...
In the final third of Ozeki’s A Tale for the Time Being, old Jiko gives Nao and her father a seemingly simple – yet to them, a difficult – task: “to live” (362). While her final request to her descendants affects them deeply because of their suicidal ideations, it is also Jiko’s final comment on Zen Bhuddism. In the practice of Zen, one must be rather than think about being in order to truly be alive, so, Jiko’s request of Nao and Haruki #2 tells them to stop worrying, stop planning, stop thinking – just to live. Neither Nao or Haruki #2 actively lived in the moment before Jiko’s death, instead, they planned for the moment they would cease being. After her death, reporters, priests, and those who admired Jiko assumed that the meaning of her final writing, just the singular character for the phrase “to live,” was complex, deep, and mysterious. However, Nao and Haruki #2 are the only ones who understood the true intention of her final word. She simply tells them to be alive. By doing s...
Emma Straus 21 st Century Literature and Time Final 3 rd of A Tale for the Time Being September 2022 A Tale for the Time Being brings an ending that is hopeful with a touch of realism in only a way the novel itself could accomplish. It is filled with messages that are universal to the readers, as well as the characters, such as Ruth, in the novel. The ending encapsulates both mysteries and lessons to be learned. At the end of the diary, Ruth finds herself confused and even a bit sad. The idea of “we’ll make magic together...” comes back, and Ruth is left to many questions. Of course, when the novel began, Nao’s and Ruth’s overlapping narratives were an essential part of the story. Throughout the story, Ozeki plants metaphors and plot points for readers to understand the way in which everything in itself is connected. The ending of the novel comes with the entanglement of the metafictions and met...
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