Ishmael And Maya Angelou Essay, Research Paper

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”. On this pilot’s way down he sees many other abandoned flying machines. If all the past pilots spoke up to what had happened to them, then maybe they would all be flying by the process of trial and error. Through out the whole bo

book Quinn is throwing in small stories that make you think what would have went differently if one person stood up for what they really thought, or did.

A poem “A Rock, A River, A Tree” was written by Maya Angelou. In the poem she writes “Come, you may stand upon my back and face your destiny, But seek no haven in my shadow, I will give you no more hiding place down here” In this quote she is saying that people have to stand up in what you believe in even if it doesn’t work and human kind ends up looking into future which is the end of the world. It says that humans will gain nothing by standing back and hiding from the world, but by trying there is a chance even if it is such a small chance but the more people that stand up the more the chance gets smaller. The poem goes on to talk about how humans have only been created “a little lower than The angels” and have played ignorant for to long. Its time that people stand up and learn how to stop the evils of the world and fix what they have already done. Angelou says “take it into the palms of your hands Mold it into the shape of your most private need… of your most public self” she is trying to reach out to people to get up and go for what they want make it happen before its to late and it will be set in stone, where it’s to late to turn back. She ends with the poem with a small sigh of relief by saying

“very simply with hope Good Morning”, she is showing that just a little bit of hope and standing with your head up high will help.

Both of these works are trying to get you to change in they way humans live, but the difference is that in Ishmael, Quinn tries to use a scare tactic on getting people to stand up. He tries to put almost a panic in human kind and more of a overthrow how we are living and start fresh. In “A Rock, A River, A Tree”, Angelou hits more of a emotional cord, she tries to make people think twice and reform the way you are living instead of starting over. Angelou doesn’t sound as if she is looking for a revolution as much as Quinn does.

With these works the authors are hoping to spark some kind of flame on the subject in different ways, either by a scare tactic or by hitting the readers emotions on the subject. They both still have the main idea in mind, for people to change the way they live and stand up for what is right. You cant stay numbed by the world and its problems you have to get a active attitude even if it is just a ray of hope and happiness onto people around you like they way Angelou says in the end of her poem by saying good morning.