I Want to be the Rain

I want to be free. I feel like a raindrop kept captive in a cloud. All I want is to be released from my bondage and allowed to free-fall to the earth to water the ground and be used for something useful- something that actually holds meaning. Each sunny day lengthens my enslavement. Each cloudy and overcast day torments and tortures me with futile hopes of freedom. I long for a rainy day. I long for it not merely to rain, but to pour. I want to be the pitter-patter on someone's roof, the steady drip-dripping of their gutter. I desire to be a part of the power of a mighty rushing river, pushing boars full of precious cargo upstream, or helping fish migrate, or even begin the energy harnessed to turn a waterwheel. I want to be the answer to prayer that ends the drought and allows the crops to grow again. I want to be that drop of water on parched lips that quenches the longings of a thirsty soul. I want to be the dewdrops on the grass in the early morning. I want to wash the air clean and leave it smelling fresh and new again. I want to help that rose to grow that he will give to his beloved that will adorn her wrist at her senior prom, that he will wear in honor of his mother each May. I want to water the wildflowers that line the fields, creating a radiant magnificence with their simple beauty and grace. I want to whiten the cotton crop and paint with gold the wheat fields. I want to lift the surfer to the top of the wave and give him a glorious ride. I want to be the salty sea-spray that caresses faces walking on the shores. I want to carry a great ship from one harbor to the next. I want to be a habitat for amazing creatures. I want to be the lake families enjoy each summer; the pond the children grow up playing in. I want to be the bubbling brook and the silent creek. I want to fill the water troughs of countless livestock. I want to be added to the tastiest dishes. I want to sustain life. I want to give a new definition of fun to winter extreme sports. I want to redefine beauty on an untouched white mountain slope. I want to be the icicle garnishing overhangs. I want to be the drop tat keeps the family Christmas tree alive through the season. I want to be the cleansing flow for dirty hands, the soouthing stream for tired bodies. I want to be the parted Red Sea, the stopped River Jordan. I want to be part of the beauty and awesome power of the thunderstorm. I want to be a wave of the sea. I want to be a part of the experiment that discovers the cure for many diseases. I want to hydrate dehydrated bodies. I want to be in the rush of a waterfall- even Niagara Falls. I want to be free to fall. But most of all, I want to be the rain that falls while the sun shines...

La Vista Quitada de Los Estados Unidos

Muchas personas de España tienen unas vistas diferentes de las familias estadounidenses, la gente joven y las mujeres estadounidenses de los que ellos están en realidad. Las reciben sus opiniones de los programas modernos de televisión, a pesar de que están inexactos.

A los españoles, las familias de los Estados Unidos son muy disfuncional y se pelean mucho. Un programa de televisión moderno muy popular es The Simpsons. Esa programa es sobre de una familia muy, muy disfuncional, pero por los españoles es un vislumbre de que ellos consideren la familia típica de los Estados Unidos. En The Simpsons, el padre alcohólico que es estúpido, emboto y perezoso. Él pone su familia en situaciones extranjeros por su idiotez. La madre es la madre ideal que se pone su familia siempre primero y hace lo mejor para ellos. El hijo es bromisto y resulta que él está castigado mucho del tiempo. La hija mayor es muy inteligente y no tiene ningunas amigas en su escuela debido a su inteligencia. Otro ejemplo es The King of Queens. En este programa de televisión, el hombre es gordo, feo y tiene poco inteligencia y entonces trabaja para el UPS. Su esposa es una mujer bonita que no ha completado colegio. Ellos se discutan sobre muchas cosas ridículas todo el tiempo. El padre de la mujer viene a vivir con ellos. Él es excéntrico y la causa de muchos problemas en su casa. A pesar de que está anciano, la pareja no se muestra respeto a él mucho el tiempo.

La gente joven de los Estados Unidos tiene la peor reputación de los tres grupos discutido. Muchos de los programas de televisión demuestran una idea a los muy malo. Por ejemplo, en el programa de televisión That 70s Show, ven gente joven que no tiene respecto por sus padres ó la autoridad. Se responden sin respecto a sus padres todo el tiempo. Una niña quien se llama Donna tiene un novio y ellos tienen relaciones sexuales sin protección y sin estarse casados, mostrando el actitud y conducto inmoral que no está típico del promedio joven estadounidense pero que los españoles lo reciben para formar su opinión. Luego es el programa The Secret Life of an American Teenager que básicamente dice que está normal y bueno para un joven a tener relaciones sexuales sin casamiento y es normal a llegar a ser embarazada. Una niña es inteligente, talentosa, y una raye a tipa que está embarazada. Su amiga es una cristiana que cree que ninguna deber a tener relaciones sexuales hasta casamiento. Secretos que está diciendo parezcan y padres llegan a ser enojados. Pero, la programa insista que no hay ningunos problemas con la conducta inmoral de los jóvenes.

Las mujeres estadounidenses no reciben una reputación buena de las programas de televisión. Un ejemplo excelente es A Shot at Love with Tila Tequila, un programa sobre una mujer que se gustan mujeres y hombres y los dos géneros compiten a estar su amante. En este cortejando y programa concurso hayan diez y siete hombres heterogéneos y diez y siete mujeres lesbianas compiten para los cariños de la mujer bisexual quien se llama Tila Tequila. Este programa produce una imagen falsa de mujeres mayorías de los Estados Unidos. Es rara para una mujer estadounidense ser bisexual ó lesbiana en realidad. Un ejemplo final de los equivocaciones comunes de mujeres es The Hills. Aunque es sobre más joven mujeres, representa un percepción falso de muchas mujeres estadounidenses. Las chicas son muy hermosas y sociales pero en otra vez son inmorales. Se viven con sus novios en apartamentos en California y viven una vida social y de moda. La mayoría de sus noches están en las barras y clubes nocturnos de la ciudad con embriaguez y baile. Aunque algunas mujeres beben alcohol y viven con sus novios, este facto no es verdad para la mayoría de la población de mujeres en los Estados Unidos y representa un equivocación muy mal y serio.

En conclusión, los programas de televisión no dan las personas estadounidenses un buen reputación. Hay muchos ejemplos de este fenómeno además de los arriba. Aunque hayan algunas personas que son como las en los programas de televisión que está mencionado, no es una imagen exacta de la mayoría de la población de los Estados Unidos. Hay jóvenes embarazados, inmoralidad, familias disfuncionales, mujeres promiscuos, falta de respeto por los ancianos y muchas otras cosas, pero no significan todos los estadounidenses. Españoles se recibían un foto muy obscurezca de lo que los estadounidenses son en realidad.

A Plucked Flower and a Missing Buttock: The Innate Love for Life

In his work Candide, the old women pridefully recounts her tragic life story in protest to Candide and Cunegonde’s complaints of suffering, producing a comedic effect that substantially contributes to the overall satire of Voltaire’s work by demonstrating the innate love and passion for life within all human beings regardless of insufferable circumstances.
Like Cunegonde and Candide, the old woman begins life among the beautiful and elite of her country, experiencing the benefits of affluence. Unexpectedly, their lives make a complete reversal, removing them not only from comfort and prosperity, but inflicting them with intense physical and emotional suffering. Emotionally, both the princess and Candide experience the loss of lovers, but they never lose hope of reuniting. In the mean time, because of their virginal beauty, both Cunegonde and the princess experience the brutality of repeated rape. While the princess is initially preserved for the captain alone, Cunegonde is subject to the erotic desires of soldiers and later of wealthy benefactors. The old woman compares the loss of her virginity to the plucking of a beautiful flower, being a beautifully chaste blossom ready for her betrothed, but forcefully spoilt at human whim. In a magnificent satire, the old woman is raised in a secluded garden to glorious maturation, but her splendor is seized and crushed by men without care for beauty and purity. Her hope in the good of humanity is rigidly tried as Voltaire further derides her love as an aristocratic arrogance, decrying her for enjoying the benefits of her station in life while others suffer.
Although all the captured women are quartered upon their arrival in Morocco, the princess manages to escape and unite with her mother’s former eunuch, who promises to return her to her homeland, but instead sells her into slavery. Catching the plague but surviving, she is resold several times, and ultimately becomes a “rump roast” for starving soldiers fighting the Russians. Voltaire satirizes sacrifice as ultimately useless when, in a mockery of her pain, the removal of her buttock proves futile as a few days later her torturers are slaughtered by the Russians. Refusing to relinquish the dreadful life she holds so dear, the woman is healed by French doctors, only to be enslaved once more. Despite her fruitless sacrifice and suffering, the old woman stubbornly clings to her hopeless existence, though it shows no hope of improvement.
In closing her story, the old woman seems to have given up on life, but hope still lays disguised in her voice. “A hundred times I wanted to kill myself,” she said, “but always I loved life more” (538). Innate love for life and the inability to be rid of the charge to live are a human’s worst instincts. Though seemingly pessimistic, there is optimism in her words. The love for life that she describes implies a passionate desire for life, rather than a tolerant apathy towards it. She analogizes humanities grasp on life to “fond[ling] the serpent which devours us till it has eaten out our hearts” (538). Rather than merely holding the snake, she characterizes humanity as “fondling,” a word depicting loving caresses rather than dispassionate touches. Perhaps through her word choice the old woman secretly wishes to display the innate love of life that she pridefully holds. Furthermore, she points out that, although many may hate their existence, few will purposefully and deliberately give up their lives, all possessing an innate sense of love for their lives as their own.
In conclusion, Voltaire satirizes humanities love for life via his crudely comical tale about the haggard old “princess” in Candide. Many engrossing ideas about hope, optimism, and love of life instigate questions about reality in a world that is today greatly deprived of reason.

Works Cited
Voltaire, Francois-Marie Arouet de. "Candide, or Optimism." The Norton Anthology of World Masterpieces. Ed. Sarah N. Lawall and Maynard Mack. 2nd ed. Vol. D. Boston: W. W. Norton & Company Limited, 2004. 520-79.

Who Will Answer Opportunity's Knock

It is funny how one cannot wait to get away from something to the point where that's all one thinks about, talks about, dreams about, and lives for; and then, finally, when the time rolls around for it to pass by and move on, one feels a sense of nostalgic loyalty that causes one to reconsider one's desire to be rid of it altogether. One wants to wonder if it should go just now, or if one should connive some way for it to remain a bit longer. There are so many components to weigh and options to consider.
Although one has lived at time in agony over this thing, and even held a fervent urge to dismiss it from one's life instantly and altogether, yet it is a comfort of sorts that might be a better option than the very idea of change. Who is to say which is better- change to the unknown and unforseen, or persevere in a possibly unpleasant normality and familiarity? Are the risks too high and the potential costs too great?
Then there is the sound ringing in one's ears that is the sounds of opportunity knocking. There it stares one in the face- the option to move on to a possibly better quality of life or to pass it by and maintain the safety of familiarity. New life with risks and adventures of unknown outcomes, or predictable patters of living? Which will it be? As the reverberating sounds of opportunity's knock fill one's head, one sifts throught the pros and cos and does one's best to weight out the best decision. But in the end, a choice must be made one way or the other. Sure, there will be certain risks and unknown variables, but they go both ways- they are simply part of living life.
Ultimately, those who decide decide to answer opportunity's vivacious knocks and step out on that limb are the brave and adventurous few who are ready to take life by the horns and ride it for all it is worth. Fear may come, but fleetingly. Fatigue may overtake, but momentarily. Shadows of the past may creep up, but they will not overtake. Perseverance and hope will breed accomplishment and passion. Opportunity will be answered; and when the time for change comes, the nostalgic loyalty will quickly pass in exchange for a vivid love of life and all the new it brings ones way. Only the courageous will truly live.

"A Good Man Is Hard to Find"

Often, after aging, people are prone to reflect over their lives and, despite the mistakes they made, attempt to hold onto the past. Similarly, they may try to hide from the fact that they made poor choices or were at fault over an issue or action. In Flannery O’Connor’s “A Good Man is Hard to Find” the character of Grandmother displays these characteristics, as is seen through her relationship with her children and grandchildren, her endeavors to reminisce about the past with Red Sammy, and her futile attempt to talk the Misfit out of terminating her less than satisfactory life.

O’Connor’s Grandmother, described by Stephen Bandy as “a harmless busybody, utterly self-absorbed but also amusing,” may be viewed in many ways as a failure as a parent and role model (Bandy). Some would argue that “family relationships inhibit growth and contribute to the protagonist’s insecurity; the individual parent/child pair is alienated from the community" (Paulson 46). This phenomenon is clearly perceptible via the character of Grandmother. While
currently living with her son Bailey, it is implied that she has several other children, to whom she is estranged. Throughout the story, Bailey shows a prodigious lack of respect for his mother, while in return she undermines and manipulates him, becoming “the catalyst for the action in the story” (Grimshaw 72). When Grandmother tries to bring along her cat in fear that he would kill himself if left unattended, Bailey flatly refuses simply because he “didn’t like to arrive at a motel with a cat” (O’Connor 445). As a result, Grandmother hides the cat in her valise, and he ultimately becomes the reason for the accident when he suddenly pushes free from the luggage and jumps into Bailey’s unsuspecting face.

Grandmother’s manipulative ways are also seen when she lies to the children about secret tunnels into a house from her past that she want to see in an attempt to have Bailey sidetrack and go see it. As the story progresses, it becomes more and more evident that, perhaps as an effect of raising Bailey poorly, her grandchildren are not being trained properly and similarly lack respect for their elders. Initially, they treat her as a burden, wishing that she would remain at home rather than vacationing with them but declaring that she would not, even for “a million bucks” (O’Connor 445). During the car ride, they are singularly rude, bickering with each other without any thought for the annoyance that it undoubtedly causes her. It appears that Grandmother ignores these obvious instances of disrespect in an effort to ignore her own parenting mistakes, and to manipulate her family for the benefit of her own conscience and personal happiness.

Endeavoring to hold on to the past, which she considers to be the better days, Grandmother reminisces with Red Sammy at his roadside restaurant about the differences between the present evil and the past good. Paulson believes that, many of O’Connor’s characters “struggle for a sense of significance in a scientific/ industrial world that undermines the human capacity for meaningful relationships and defines humanity not in terms of spirituality but as animals, or worse, machines” (Paulson ix). Grandmother and Red Sammy are two excellent examples of this statement as they are engage in a battle with the present scientific/industrial way of life, as they firmly believe that it has impaired the way of life that they have always known, where humans were able to trust other human beings in their relations and interactions with one another. The two mention benefits from the past such as “leaving your screen door unlatched” when you step out for awhile, while decrying the present generation as unscrupulous to the point where one cannot trust “a soul in this green world of God’s” (O’Connor 448).
They also converse about the Misfit, a criminal who has escaped from a maximum security prison and is in their area, and are adamantly fearful of an attack or robbery because of the changing times. Ironically, when Grandmother is about to die later, she continually tells the Misfit that he is truly a good man, despite having discussed earlier the dishonorable and duplicitous nature of people with Red Sammy. While striving to uphold the past and its memory, Grandmother fails to analyze the negative impacts that the past has had on the present.

After reading the conclusion of “A Good Man Is Hard to Find” it undoubtedly comes to the reader at no surprise that “almost half of O’Connor’s published stories end with a shocking death” (Paulson x). As she seeks to preserve her own life at the scene of the accident, Grandmother has a superfluity of flatteries and positive encouragements for the Misfit. She continually tells him that he is “a good man at heart” (O’Connor 451). As denoted by Paulson concerning Grandmother’s true intent however, “immersed in the stream rather than contemplating the end of life, the grandmother judges a ‘good’ man according to superficial first impressions and materialistic values” (Paulson 90).
As she becomes more fearful, she begins to compare him with her own son, suddenly realizing that Bailey could easily have grown up to be the Misfit. Interestingly enough, her attempts at appeasing the Misfit work for a time as, while sending the other family members into the woods to be shot, he allows her to remain for a time and proceeds to tell her his pitiably pathetic life story.

As she begins to pray, interceding for her life, the Misfit scoffs at Jesus and both His own and Lazarus’ resurrection from the dead. As they discourse, Grandmother believes that she is finally hitting an internal nerve of his conscience and as she reaches out to touch him physically, his trance is broken and, returning to himself, the Misfit shoots Grandmother three times. During their discussion, “the grandmother is granted a moment of illumination during which she realizes the emptiness of her faith and extends to the man who is about to kill her true love of Jesus” (Renner). One furthermore is led to feel as though Grandmother and her poor parenting are responsible for the Misfit, but it “does not imply that we are expected to excuse the Misfit's crimes or that they are really the grandmother's fault” (Renner).

According to James A. Grimshaw, “O’Connor sees the Grace working in the Misfit, too; and although the Grandmother loses her life, she has gained that inward moment which may be offered at any time but is not always accepted” (5). As Grandmother approaches her death, it appears that she begins to more accurately consider the past in relation to the future and, realizing the flaws and mistakes throughout her life and desiring to live longer in order to make things right, she clings to whatever she can in an attempt to save herself. Likewise, the Misfit purports to show mercy on her by sharing his doleful tale of injustice, during which time it becomes visible that he is a “foil to the Grandmother’s hypocrisy and illuminate{s} her character as a lady” (Grimshaw 39). Grandmother probably came the closest of anyone to breaking down his defenses, and even he recognized that in the face of death she finally comprehended her flaws and became a good person. One sees that “this sympathy {for the Misfit} is a positive value, even though her gesture of love is brutally rejected” (Paulson 87).

O’Connor’s work “A Good Man Is Hard to Find” displays the “unsettling tension inherent in an unresolvable paradox” that is so typical of her writing (Zornado). As is clearly visible from her relationship with her family, reminiscing with Red Sammy, and desperate discussion with the Misfit, Grandmother had a serious problem with properly connecting the past and the present. The segment of her life depicted in O’Connor’s story shows a woman immovably fixed in the past trying to hide from the present in an effort to disguise her failures and shortcomings. Only when faced with death did she come to realize her flaws and wish to turn around a life full of irreparable mistakes. As the Misfit said, “She would have been a good woman if it had been somebody there to shoot her every minute of her life”(O’Connor 455).




Works Cited
Bandy, Stephen C. ""One of My Babies: the Misfit and the Grandmother"" Short Story Criticism (1996): 107-118. Literature Resource Center. Emma Waters Summar Library, Jackson, TN. 13 July. Keyword: A Good Man Is Hard to Find.

Drake, Robert. Flanner O'Connor: a Critical Essay. Williams B. Eerdmans Co., 1996. 6-44.
Grimshaw, Jr, James A. The Flannery O'Connor Companion. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood P, 1981. 5-72.

O'Connor, Flannery. "A Good Man is Hard to Find." The Bedford Introduction to Literature. Comp. Michael Meyer. Boston: University of Connecticut, 2008. 445-455.
Paulson, Suzanne M. FLANNERY O'CONNOR: a Study of the Short Fiction. Boston: Twayne, 1998. ix-196.

Renner, Stanley. ""Secular Meanings in "a Good Man is Hard to Find"" Twentieth Century Literary Criticism (1982): 123-132. Literature Resource Center. Emma Waters Summar Library. 13 July 2008. Keyword: A Good Man Is Hard to Find.

Shaw, Mary N. ""Responses to God's Grace: Varying Degrees of Doubt in Flannery O'Connor's Character Types." CLA Journal (2001): 471-479. Literature Resource Center. Emma Waters Summar Library, Jackson, TN. 13 July 2008. Keyword: A Good Man Is Hard to Find.

Zornado, Joseph. "A Becoming Habit: Flannery O'Connor's Fiction of Unknowing." Twentieth Century Literary Criticism (1997). Literature Resource Center. Emma Waters Summar Library, Jackson, TN. Keyword: A Good Man Is Hard to Find.

Dulce et Decorum Est: The Old Lie

Often, poets use various elements such as images, sound and rhyme, symbols, meter, and many others to help the reader better grasp his or her ideas and understand the theme of his or her work. Via his excellent use of imagery as well as metaphors and similes in his work Dulce et Decorum Est, Wilfred Owen decries war as a gruesome and morbid dispute rather than as glorified patriotism to one’s country.

As imagery may be defined as language that appeals to the senses, Owen’s images in Dulce et Decorum Est cause the reader to feel as though they themselves are present at the scene of action. Owen sets his poem at the scene of a battle and views the fight as well as the departing soldiers. As the men turn to leave, the bombs exploding in the sky behind them are described as “haunting flares,” lights and noises that will never be forgotten (886 line 4). The bootless soldiers are termed “blood-shod”, providing a mental image of swollen feet covered in blisters and abrasions, leaving trails of blood as they trudge along (886 line 6). “Drunk with fatigue,” one pictures men stumbling to and fro with no semblance of order, all trying to get away from the horrors that they have experienced, but to intoxicated with shock and exhaustion to have much control over their bodies (886 line 7). As the soldiers fasten on their “clumsy helmets” at the gas alarm one begins to see the ridiculous nature of their task (886 line 10). The gas comes in as “misty panes and thick green lights,” causing one to picture of a dirty stained-glass window or thick fog in eerie light (887 line 13). As the speaker looks around, he realizes that one of their number did not secure his mask quickly enough, and he watches as the lone soldier is “guttering, choking, drowning”- the sounds of death by poison gas (887 line 16). The soldier’s “white eyes writhing in his face” tell the story of his pain to anyone looking on (886 line 19). “The blood come{s} gargling from froth-corrupted lungs” as his life grotesquely drains out onto the ground with the sound of his flowing blood (887 line 21-22). Although Owen uses primarily visual and auditory imagery, he also uses taste imagery when he describes the soldier’s death as “bitter as the cud ( 887 line 23). Owen ends his gruesome poem by describing how the soldiers have received “vile, incurable sore on innocent tongues” (887 line 25). One visualizes and feels how the soldiers, who are young and innocent, have seen experienced horrendous pain and have been unalterably affected by it. They came in as zestful youth in search of “some desperate glory” only to trudge painfully away, disillusioned by their former idea of the glory of war and changed by the horrible sights which they have seen (887 line 27).

In addition to an abundance of imagery in his poem Dulce et Decorum Est, Owen uses metaphors and similes throughout this work. As the men traipse away from the battlefield, they look “like old beggars under sacks” (886 line 1). This portrays a picture of men dressed in tattered clothing, hunched over under torn sacks in an attempt to either keep warm or shield themselves from whatever may come falling from the sky. To instill
empathy within the reader, the men are “coughing like hags,” providing a still stronger image of a grotesque old woman who is probably terribly ill and should be in bed, but instead is attempting to go about her life (886 line 2). Later, as the helpless soldier inhales the poison gas, Owen describes him as “flound’ring like a man in fire or lime” (887 line 12). Most are taught from and early age that the simple formula for extinguishing fire is: stop, drop and roll. From this simile, readers receive an image of a man falling to the ground screaming in pain and desperately rolling around in an attempt to get away from his unavoidable death. Owen next says that the dead man’s “hanging face like a devil’s sick of sin” (887 line 20). Generally, people do not have a beautiful picture in their head when the devil comes to mind, therefore Owen’s comparison of the awfully monstrous face of the devil if he were to be angry rather than glad about the worst of sins to the face of the dead soldier, is an accurate and effective simile. Owen goes on to further describe the death of the soldier, saying that it was “bitter as cud,” food already digested that certain animals spit back up and chew before swallowing and digesting again (887 line 23). The man’s death is also depicted as “obscene as cancer” (887 line 24). Most people today know or have heard of someone who has experienced what it is like to battle cancer. It is a hopeless battle, with only slight chance of an ultimate cure, and that only at great expense both monetarily and physically to the patient. Often, cancer completely wastes away at the body. In merely comparing the unfortunate soldier’s death to cancer, Owen indubitably evokes feelings of pity and hopelessness from the reader for the lone soldier.

As is seen by the numerous examples above, Wilfred Owen has an amazing ability to use imagery as well as similes and metaphors to allow the reader to truly feel and experience the point that he making. In Dulce et Decorum Est he paints a gruesome picture of war, pointing out the negative and lasting effects that the events of merely one battle have on the soldiers. He openly criticizes the antique idea of war being glorious patriotism and service to one’s country, and depicts the reality of bloodshed and trauma through exceptional imagery, metaphors and similes.

Written Composition 112-Journal 4

Record your response to Antigone here. What are your thoughts about the play so far?

Thus far, Antigone is an exciting tale of two brothers fighting for the right to be the sole king of their nation and a sister who loves honor more than life. One thing I find to be particularly intriguing and noteworthy is Antigone’s stance against Creon’s ridiculous rule. She “shows her true colors” by placing more importance on familial justice and following the rites and customs of her culture and religion rather than her own life. Her actions are the epitome of love for one’s family when she risks her own life simply in order to give her brother a proper burial. Interestingly enough, when Antigone asks Ismene to join her in her civil disobedience, Ismene refuses but later pleads with her to share in her punishment. I personally cannot imagine knowing the punishment for my offense (live burial) and still breaking the law, however ridiculous. As a Christian, one is forced to consider the application of this amazing love. Christ loved the world so much that He came, fully aware that He would suffer the worse death imaginable, to save us. Also, one may reflect concerning one’s own faith on how one might respond if the government created laws the illegalized the practice of one’s faith or required actions contrary to the laws of God. Antigone contains many applicable lessons for her readers.