History: Suicide and Native Brazilians Essay

Francois Rabelais was a notable French humanist, known for writing a five part satire collectively titled The Histories of Gargantua and Pantagruel. In all his work Rabelais attacked the church for the mistreatments and ridiculed the clergy. He appreciated the goodness of human nature and the ability of men and women to live their lives based on reasoning and common sense rather than on the church’s perspective or on how society views certain things. He was punished by the authorities back then for the way that he viewed certain things and how people should live meaning that people should follow their free will because that way they view life with passion and have their own instincts. Rabelais expresses the way that women or men entering the Theleme (the will of god) should feel free to, and not fear or act a certain way when becoming nuns and monks. In his first book the Gargantua he sets his own rules for the nuns and monks. He sets it in a way that they are still free to doo what they want like drink, eat, sleep when they pleased and worked, but at the end serving god at the same time. Rabelais work has become much more known now due to Democracy and free will, but back then it was viewed as offensive at some point to people that viewed things as the society and church. In one soliloquy “To be or not to be”, Hamlet is contemplating on whether to commit suicide which in this case he sees it as taking the easy way out or not to be, meaning to take responsibility of what the ghost has told him and discover himself if Polonius is responsible for his fathers death. Hamlet is disappointed by almost everyone, his mother who shortly after his father’s death got remarried to his uncle who he hates. Ophelia the women who he loves but at the same time cannot trust because he knows that the king (his uncle) is behind every move and is also very manipulative. Because of his disappointment from his mother he does not trust any other woman. Hamlet is debating on whether to commit suicide, which will be like going to sleep and not having to confront Polonius and taking the easy way out after all the disappointments or to be a man and confront everyone and find out who killed his father. He then realizes that with his speculative nature the easy way out was not a resolution to all his problems. The problem with taking the easy way out which in this case for Hamlet was committing suicide was like giving up on unresolved puzzles. All these passages show that Shakespeare believes that taking the easy way out will leave many things unresolved and will lead to others suffering something that you were the only one able to resolve. Michel de Montaigne was an ancient Roman senator, who balanced a public career with a life devoted to letters. While serving as a judge he loved writing and one of the projects that he was working on was called Essays. Montaigne claims that he saw nothing but insignificance in human beings and their reasoning. On his essay on Cannibalism Montaigne describes the native Brazilians s barbarians and people with valor. He

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