Beloved

In Beloved by Toni Morrison, there are several characters who overcome obstacles in the face of adversity while others fail to do so. Halle is one character who, when faced with difficult hardships, ends up losing himself. One example is when he sees Sethe's milk get stolen and he loses his mind and "lathers butter on his face." Instead of taking hold of the situation and defending his wife, he cowardly hides and is ultimately unable to face his responsibilities. Denver is one character who overcomes the restrictions that are placed upon her and, in a way, embraces them. Even though nobody at school will talk to her, she finds friendship at first in the ghost and later in Beloved. She cares for Beloved because she knows that she is her sister and it is her job to do so. Denver, who encounters many problems in her life because of Sethe's actions, is able to rise above them because she wills herself to do so. A second character who does this throughout the novel is Sethe. Though she must endure innumerable challenges in her life, at the end of the novel she seems to have come out one top. Even though her children, her milk, and her freedom were all taken away from her, she regains them all. She may seem like she goes crazy when she tried to kill her kids but really she is just doing what a mother must do in any situation; protect her children. Sethe does not bother with what the townspeople think because she knows, in her own heart, that she has always does what was right in order to save her family and herself. Sethe overcomes the obstacles that are put in front of her because she and her daughter have a strength and a will power that her husband never possessed.

The Stranger

In The Stranger, Albert Camus answers this question with only one character; Meursault. he is faced with obstacles that, at the time, he is ruined by, while at the end of the story he ultimately prevails and finds what makes him "happy." After the murder, Meursault is grounded by the fact that he is no longer physically free, but he was never really mentally free to begin with. He was an observer in his own life and never knew much about himself except that he was juts a listener. Along the way, while he doesn't learn what actually interests him, he learns what "doesn't interest him." This shows that Meursualt has partially overcome the adversity that faced him earlier in his life, the fact that he never has the ability to explain what made him him, and can now somewhat understand who he really is. He knows that everyone dies in the end and he learns to accept death as it really is; something which we all must accept as an inescapable fate rather than something o overcome.

The Metamorphosis

In Kafka's The Metamorphosis, Gregor and his whole family face adversity but, in the end, it has a totally different affect on Gregor than on his family. While they all must deal with his physical change throughout the story, Gregor dies in the face of this hardship while his family is able to eventually realize something that they would have never been able to before. In the time after Gregor's metamorphosis, before his death, he and his family must become used to this situation which none of them want to become accustomed to. Throughout the bulk of the story, they almost refuse to accept this as something that is permanent and simply brush him aside as a literal and a figurative pest. His metamorphosis is Gregor's true adversity, which he ultimately fails to overcome. However, for his family, his death allows them to beat this hardship because they finally have some freedom and actual sense of family (not just people who happen to live together) that they never allowed themselves to have when Gregor was alive.

Big Question - King Lear

In King Lear, we see characters both fail and thrive when faced with difficult situations. Lear himself dies at the end of the pain because he is so overcome with grief and hardship over the deaths of his daughters that he can no longer push himself to live. Edgar, however, is able to survive through the death of his father and killing his own brother to eventually become King. Both Lear and Edgar fostered anger towards the parties who died (Regan, Goneril, Cordelia, Gloucester, and Edmund respectively) but Edgar was able to overcome the tragedy while Lear could not hold on. What could have brought upon these two very different outcomes from these characters? Did he harbor a deeper hatred for the one who had wronged him? Or was Edgar's will to endure simply stronger than Lear's?

Lindsey's Big Question

When faced with adversity, everybody acts differently. We all have to look inside of ourselves to see what we are really made of. Some thrive off of the misfortune and walk away with a better understanding of who they are and what they stand for while others crumble under the pressure. This contrast forces me to ask "In the face of adversity, what causes some people to prevail over others?"

Throughout literature, this question presents itself in many different ways. In The Sound and the Fury, William Faulkner poses this idea through the bulk of his novel through the members of the Compson family. Benjy, the youngest brother of the family, suffers from a severe mental retardation. He is babied, blamed, and pushed aside by the others members of his family and his community for his disability, but he ultimately turns out to be the most important character in the novel. He allowed the reader to see his family without any films or facades, but for who they honestly are. While it may superficially hide it, it does not impede his ability to truly understand the world around him. His oldest brother, Quentin, faces a different kind of adversity. He is the most intelligent of the Compson family, but he becomes obsessed with his his sister's virginity, or lack thereof. Quentin cannot accept her impurity and suffers the greatest downfall because he is not able to "step up to the plate" in his most tortured time. Even though both of these two characters faces hardships and misfortune, Benjy was ultimately victorious because he accepts his disabilities and uses them to his advantage while Quentin allows them to consume him.

We can also see this theme in music. In She's Gonna Make It, Garth Brooks illustrates the lives of two people who have recently been divorced. Through the lyrics, Brooks shows how differently the man and woman deal with the downfall of their relationship. The man can't move on and he becomes obsessed with his ex-wife while his wife starts a new life. While the two suffer the same fate, what they do with the outcome differs drastically and, again, we are left wondering what caused these two different outcomes.