Comparison of the Matrix, Cathedral, and Billy Slaughter House - Essay Example

In the novel “Cathedral”, the narrator may seem to have it all: lovely wife, enough food on his table and the gift of sight. When one looks deeper, one sees a wealth of ignorance, jealousy and substance abuse, basically, not mental blindness. We can pity the blind man who should instead be envied, because he has a more accurate view of life. The narrator passed judgment on the blind man before meeting him, and his “high” seemed to come from substance abuse rather than from his wife. His view of life stems from a biased and ignorant point of view. On the hand, the blind man’s view of life comes from an open perspective and he is ready to learn new things about life (Carver, 2002). The narrators view on blindness (life), changes when the blind man asks him to describe the cathedral for him. When he lacks words to do this, he is forced to show him by drawing, by catching his hand. Communication through symbolism helps him to understand the world through the blind man’s point of view. The blindness that separated them at the beginning brings them together. This is achieved through seeing the world from others perspective. Slaughter house- five basically explores the illogical nature of human beings, free will and fate. This book explores the concept that we are powerless and can do only what we can actually do. Billy Pilgrim is an anti-war character, who trains as a chaplain assistant, earning him disgust from his friends. Despite being the main character of the book, he gets on the nerves of everyone because of his dreams, weak body and fecklessness. He still manages to survive one of the main human atrocities, where others have failed. Nothing in Billy’s life happens out of his own will, but he watches as his life unfolds in front of him for example he is recruited to the war without his consent and gets married to a woman he does not love. In most of the novel, his character is not one the narrator could call a “character”, and only does so when he becomes “crazy” and breaks out of hospital to a radio talk show to tell about “Tralfamadore”. This is a place where he was abducted to by aliens, and this could either be in his head or reality. Events in this place take place simultaneously, so nothing happens before or after the other. In this situation, a person can choose only the good memories of life. Some can argue that the events in his life are due to the post traumatic disorder he has suffered in his life. We all can agree that human life involves suffering, and in his case, this seemed to be happening a lot. The old ways of explaining this suffering; religion and patriotism, do not seem to work. In the end, Billy awaits death without fear and is in control, something he was not able to do throughout his life. He ends up being the most unlikely war heroes. In Matrix the movie, Thomas Anderson, is one of the many billions of people connected to the Matrix unaware that they live in a virtual world. Despite being a respectable programmer for a software company, he is also a hacker with an alias”Neo”. This is when he gets to know about the Matrix. He has a choice to forget all about it and live his normal life, or gather information on the Matrix. Neo chooses to liberate humanity from the virtual fate, and there begins his journey to enlighten and being a hero. This is despite warnings from those who know the truth. He embraces his role and even learns fighting skills quite first, in the journey of being savior of the universe, where he gets his other name, “the one”. This is when we start to see his messianic like qualities and belief from other characters such as Morpheus and the Oracle, towards human liberation. There are several similarities between this character and Jesus Christ, for example Jesus was both earthly and godly, which can be compared to Neo’s ability to go through realms. The name Thomas can also be compared to doubting Thomas in the New Testament, who doubted the resurrection of Christ. Similarly, Neo doubted his abilities at first, until he started to witness what he could do. In the Allegory of the Cave, Plato tries to depict our everyday existence, through the analogy of “prisoners”. They are constrained by cultural and mental chains, which make it hard for them to communicate with their fellow prisoners or see the reality. The “prisoners” see the shadows cast on the wall as their reality. The reality is enhanced by mind manipulators and mind control individuals, who try to enhance the fact that they are living their reality. In case the “prisoners” communicate with one another, they enhance the belief that the shadows are their reality. In the event that one of the prisoners is shown the light, at first it is a painful experience, and which one cannot reveal to oneself. This is because they are conditioned to think so, by mind twisters. Gradually the “sun” will shine on them and they begin to see the real reality and start to come out of the cave. One begins to pity those still in darkness, and revels in the new found true knowledge, rather than living in ignorance. In case he tries to take that information to the other slaves, he can be murdered or captured, because truth must be avoided at all costs. Those still in “captive” are called “shadow people”. The above science -fiction characters are of people who choose not to remain in the fantasy world, but to seek the truth. We should strive to rediscover our true purpose in life, therefore ascend from the “caves”, where many people live in. This will enable us to realize our divine oneness. This can only be achieved through being open to new ideas. Works Cited Carver, Raymond.”Cathedral.”The Norton Anthology of Short Fiction. New York. W.W.Norton& Co, .2002. Read More