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Old 06-10-2004, 01:34 AM   #1
jewpinthethird
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Default IB World literature Paper

Here is an IB World Literature paper I wrote earlier in the school year. Since I decided to drop IB my senior year, I am not worried about anyone stealing my ideas. So, if you are in IB feel free to rip me off, I got a good grade on it:

Ego is the “I” or self of any person. A person who is thinking, feeling, willing, and distinguishing itself from the selves of others and from objects of its thought. God is the one Supreme Being, the creator and ruler of the universe. All things are connected by it. All things are one. A very brief look at the history of the human being shows division rather than unity: the East against the West, the dark against the light, the old against the young, the civilized against the “savage”. Endless chronicles of dichotomies, of peoples figuring out ways to conquer one another, or out do one another.

The Vicario twins, from Chronicle of a Death Foretold, and Creon, from Antigone, both suffer from an extreme case of egotism. So much that, they believe they can do as they please. They believe, as if they themselves have become Gods.

One scene in which there is a power struggle between Man’s Ego and God is in the novel Chronicle of a Death Foretold where the Vicario Twins sat outside the local market and “told their plans to more than a dozen people who had gone to buy milk.” (Garcia Marquez 58). Each person they told, they fell further and further into an egotistical state. They were psyching themselves out; for they knew they were breaking one of God’s more sacred rules: “Thou shall not kill”. But their egos made them push God and his rules aside. They became selfish.

After they slaughtered Santiago, the first thing the Vicario Twins did was “surrendered to their church” (Garcia Marquez 48). They returned to the only place they knew they could be safe, the church. “The priest recalled the surrender as an act of great dignity” (Garcia Marquez 49) and their defense was that of: “homicide in the legitimate defense of honor” (Garcia Marquez 49). But both of those are selfish acts, side effects of their power trip. They hid behind the God who they cast aside just moments before the killing. “We killed him openly, but we are innocent….Before God and before men” (Garcia Marquez 49). Had they been as innocent as they believed, there would be no need to run from “a roused-up group of Arabs” (Garcia Marquez 48).

Another character who suffers from egotism is Creon from the play Antigone. In ancient Greece, the Ruler is viewed as a God-like character, “your word is law…” (Sophocles 7). But not as God itself as said by Antigone, “you are a man, remember?” (Sophocles 12). For Creon it is hard to recognize such a thing when he is surrounded by those who “are forced to cringe to [him]” (Sophocles 13). “Who made this Edict? Was it God? I don’t consider your pronouncements so important that they can overrule the unwritten rules of heaven” (Sophocles 12). It was Creon’s ego that drove him to ignore his beliefs and create a law that angered the Gods. Creon wanted those who were enemies of Thebes to know that Creon wasn’t a man “to sit quietly by and watch [his] country slide towards the principle of ruin” (Sophocles 6-7). Notice how he referred to Thebes as “his” country. To him, an attack on Thebes was an attack on himself. He wanted those who fought against Thebes to suffer in life, as well as, death, to defend Thebes’ honor as well as his. But in doing so, he went against God’s law. His ego made him too stubborn to realize that.

Though the Vicario twins are so driven by their egos to kill Santiago, they still managed to shut off that little, selfish voice inside their heads, if evern for a moment. Early in the morning, when the first bellow of the bishop’s boat sounded, Santiago Nasar, came out of his house. “They both grabbed the rolled up newspapers [which cloaked the knives] and Pedro Vicario started to get up” (Garcia Marquez 15). It was at this moment they were going to kill Santiago but Clotilde Armenta murmured “For the love of God, leave him for later, if only out of respect for his grace the bishop” (Garcia Marquez 16). Upon hearing this “the Vicario twins reflected, and the one who had stood up sat down again.” (Garcia Marquez 16). It was at this moment that the Vicario twins stopped thinking about themselves, and began thinking of the bishop, a man of God. “They looked at [Santiago Nasar] more with pity” (Garcia Marquez 16) said Clotilde Armenta. They felt sympathy towards Santiago, and showed mercy. Unfortunately for Santiago, this pity did not last.

Creon too has a moment in which he stops thinking of himself and starts thinking of all those he has hurt. It was the moment Teiresias reviles to Creon the “horrible prophecy” (Sophocles 25). “The consequences of giving in are terrible. But if I hold out, I court disaster” (Sophocles 26). Creon found it hard to admit he was wrong. He found it hard to surrender this power which he did not truly have.“The greater your arrogance, the heavier God’s revenge” (Sophocles 30) said the chorus, the voice of reason which Creon chose to ignore. But Creon learned of this wisdom all too late and was doomed to live the rest of his life in misery.

When the Vicario twins and Creon both stopped listening to reason, and started listening to their egos, they became selfish. They felt as if they could do as they please, that no one could stop them, not even the forces of God. They were too stubborn to stop and think if what they were doing was wrong. And for that, they caused themselves, and others much pain.

Garcia-Marquez, Gabriel. Chronicle of a Death Foretold. Trans. Gregory Rabassa. New
York: Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., 2001.
Sophocles. Antigone. Trans. Michael Townsend. New York: Harper and Row, Publishers,
Inc., 1962.


*The views expressed in this essay are not the views that I myself believe in.*
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Old 06-10-2004, 01:56 AM   #2
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I'll keep this in mind if I'm ever in that calss later on...Thank you.
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Old 06-10-2004, 12:11 PM   #3
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You fool omeganitros, you have no clue what IB is.
Jello was that paper for your TOK essay from the philosophy element of the course or a World Litterature Essay because I was under the impression world lit 1 program. As good as it feels to graduate from it, it's not worth the torture.
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Old 06-10-2004, 12:13 PM   #4
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oh nevermind, I suppose the books you were studying were part of the updated 2004-2006 curriculum
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Old 06-10-2004, 12:34 PM   #5
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Nope, didnt have a clue.
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Old 06-12-2004, 06:30 PM   #6
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Quote:
Originally Posted by alainbryden
You fool omeganitros, you have no clue what IB is.
Jewpin was that paper for your TOK essay from the philosophy element of the course or a World Litterature Essay because I was under the impression world lit 1 program. As good as it feels to graduate from it, it's not worth the torture.
It was for IB English HL1.

And that is why I am quitting it.
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Old 06-13-2004, 03:06 AM   #7
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IB == teh suck. All the cool kids do AP. Unless you're like my school, and they combine the IB/AP classes. Then its muchly worth it.
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Old 06-13-2004, 03:09 AM   #8
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As soon as you tell me what IB is I'll probably remember but go ahead anyway, enlighten me. All we have around here is AP.
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Old 06-13-2004, 03:24 AM   #9
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IB stands for International Baccalaureate [as in the International Baccalaureate (Programme) Organization]. Basically, it offers courses which follow a more strict and difficult course than High School Standards. If you graduate with a IB diaploma you basically will get accepted to any University or College you apply to anywhere in the world (In return, you become a school-slave-bitch for 2-4 years).

I am not in the Programme, but I did take IB English my Junior year (which I will not continue with).
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Old 06-13-2004, 04:17 AM   #10
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Hm. Well, I've got my college planned out already, and it's free, but I become an army-slave-bitch for 5 years. Yeah...West Point. Should be interesting.
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