Ishmeal and Maya Angelou :: essays papers

Ishmeal and Maya Angelou There are many different views on how people should live our lives. All of these different philosophies come from many different places. They come from religions, people's cultures, and their morals that they have been taught. People live by these rules they were brought into from the day they are born and do not question them. In "A Rock, A River, A Tree", by Maya Angelou and Ishmael, by Daniel Quinn, both attempt to show how humans should live their lives and survive in a community. There way of changing the world is to convince readers to stand up and speak out about how to save the world. Daniel Quinn specificly helps readers to see that our lives are governed by matured laws that humans refuse to acknowledge-- this causing their, our destruction. In Ishmael Daniel Quinn sets the idea of having to think differently by having the book being told my a man who's teacher is a talking Gorilla. The Gorilla's name is ironicly Ishmael. Ishmael teaches captivity which he has been in his whole life and has mastered. As a Gorilla he has a totally different view on the world. He states in many ways that he believes that we must stand up for saving the world. In the beginning of the book Ishmael is talking about Germany before and during World War Two. He talks about how everyone followed the story if they believed in it or not "because the people around you made you captive" by the story by believing in it. Behind that story is another one the makes your mind think that maybe if that one person did stand a few people would realize that it was wrong and stand up too, and maybe the WWII or the holocaust would have never happened. Later in the book they are working on why people are knowingly destroying the world and doing nothing about it . Ishmael tries to explain that they "try not think too searchingly about the world they're leaving their children to cope with." He says that they are "pacified" about the subject. This is Quinn's way of using a scare tactic on the readers, to make us believe we are brain washed and need to rebel. Later in the book there is another story about how men kept jumping off from the edge of a cliff with a flying contraption, believing it will work all the way up until they hit the ground, think in the way that they "made it this far without a scratch".