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Thisclearly implies that this sort of perception was more of a weakness than an advantage.
Samuel Johnson's "The Vanity of Human Wishes" These lessons are also not just significant in the context of the characters that the author mention in their respective works but touches on the real life situation in the contemporary society (Stock 36). It is evident that individuals have a lot to learn from these works. In this case, we have been able to decipher that, human downfall or success depends massively on individuals' own doings and choices, as in the case of Caesar and that unity is a necessary ingredient in societal successes as presented in Canterbury Tales. Moreover, upholding moral power is very imperative and life is considerably hopeless as depicted in Swift's Gulliver Travelsand physical might and Samuel Johnson's "The Vanity of Human Wishes" respectively.
In this poem, the author demonstrates to the audience the reality of struggle in life. The author, just like, he mentions in the poem's title demonstrates how human wishes are, in many cases egoistic and useless. According to Meyers (p 1), Johnson had his reflection long years of human struggle, unavoidable fates, and theerroneous hopes. The author demonstrates some of the common situations that ordinary human being experience under the authority of certain political powers, which seem to have a hand in the sealing of their destinies. The author, in exploring this demonstrates how cruel, humiliating, and unwarranted such treatments are. The actions that the persona witnesses in the society make life to him more of a tragedy than anything else does. He in fact states that the weight of pain that the society presents to human being surpasses by far, the happiness and pleasure that they may experience as expressed in the line, "Toil, Envy, Want, the Garret and the Jail." (Cunningham 14).
The lessons that this poem extends to the audience is the reality of the brutality that life instances can advance to humans. The poem portrays that, life, though we many plan it in one way can turn out otherwise. Individuals have the opportunities to make different decisions in their lives but their fate is somehow already sealed. The fact that the control of political forces rides high in the society makes this more serious than ever. Considering the element of illusionary hope that Johnson presents, human beings are, cautioned from baking too expectant in this society. Considerable contentment is worth as it helps prevent future disappointments. By hoping that things, especially those under the control of political powers, will become better, people only hold to false expectations. Wishes are indeed, vain and being happy in this world translates to expecting lesser.
Conclusion
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Works cited
Chaucer, Geofrey. & Purves, Laing, D, the Canterbury Tales, Auckland: The Floating Press, 2012
Cunningham, J. S, Samuel Johnson: The vanity of human wishes and Rasselas, London: Edward Arnold, 1982
Flohr, Birgitt, Swift's Attitude to Reason in Book IV of Gulliver's travels "Swift Was a Rationalist with No Faith in Reason." Retrieved August 5, 2013,http://www.itp.uni-hannover.de/~flohr/papers/m-lit-18-century1.pdf
The Life and Death of Julies Caesar Shakespeare homepage | Julius Caeser | Entire play, Retrieved, August 5, 2013, http://shakespeare.mit.edu/julius_caesar/full.html
Mcwhorter, Patti.C, A Teachers Guide to the Signet Classic Edition of William Shakespeare'sJulius Caesar,2004, Retrieved August 5, 2013, http://www.us.penguingroup.com/static/pdf/teachersguides/caesar.pdf
Meyers, Jeffrey, in Samuel Johnson: The Struggle,2008, Retrieved August 5, 2013,
http://www.johnderbyshire.com/Readings/vanity.html
Stock, Brian, Ethics through literature: Ascetic and aesthetic reading in Western culture, Hanover: University Press of New England, 2007
Swift, Jonathan, Gulliver's travels, Fairford, Gloucestershire: Echo Library, 2011
Works cited
Chaucer, Geofrey. & Purves, Laing, D, the Canterbury Tales, Auckland: The Floating Press, 2012
Cunningham, J. S, Samuel Johnson: The vanity of human wishes and Rasselas, London: Edward Arnold, 1982
Flohr, Birgitt, Swift's Attitude to Reason in Book IV of Gulliver's travels "Swift Was a Rationalist with No Faith in Reason." Retrieved August 5, 2013,http://www.itp.uni-hannover.de/~flohr/papers/m-lit-18-century1.pdf
The Life and Death of Julies Caesar Shakespeare homepage | Julius Caeser | Entire play, Retrieved, August 5, 2013, http://shakespeare.mit.edu/julius_caesar/full.html
Mcwhorter, Patti.C, A Teachers Guide to the Signet Classic Edition of William Shakespeare'sJulius Caesar,2004, Retrieved August 5, 2013, http://www.us.penguingroup.com/static/pdf/teachersguides/caesar.pdf
http://www.johnderbyshire.com/Readings/vanity.html
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