When we first meet Marcus you see that he is a regular high school student. He has no real problems or worries. He’s just a smart teenager who knows how to work the system. He was an ordinary student skipping school. “Man can get an essence, create himself an essence, only by ‘engaging’ himself, in this way or that” (Stern, 47). Marcus is pretty much a blank slate at the beginning of this book.  Little by little he gains his essence. This essence projects the person he is going to become.

Marcus experiences a life altering event, a terrorist attack on San Francisco. However, it is not the attack itself that changes Marcus. When the attack occurred, Marcus and his friends are detained by soldiers. While the experience of being detained changed him, it was the psychological torture that changed him. “I lost it. I wept. I begged to be allowed to sign the papers…I would have rather died than go back to my cell” (Doctorow, 65). Throughout the novel you see that Marcus’ experiences while being detained scar him emotionally and mentally.

When Marcus is finally released he has to lie to his parents about where he has been. He had to go to school and pretend that everything was okay. He started to come up with ideas to get revenge and to right the wrongs that had been done to him and his friends. “According to Sartre, there is no reality but in action and man ‘is nothing but the sums of his actions’” (Stern, 47). Marcus changed when he was detained. He became less innocent, less trusting.

“All existentialists writers offer-each in his own way-a challenge to conventional moral codes, a sense of urgency in matters of conscience, an interest in the private introspections of the individual” (Barnes, 155). Marcus is a hacker. Before the terrorist attack and the detainment, he spent most of his time playing video games like any other teenager. Afterwards, his knowledge and skills became a weapon against the oppression of the government.

Barnes talks about “a challenge to conventional moral codes,” Marcus is that challenge. He does not follow all the rules and on occasion he breaks certain laws. Marcus’ father is the opposite. When the police started to keep track of people’s movements, he thought it was a great idea. He thought the police had the right to do whatever it took to keep people safe.   “Conventional moral codes” can mean several different things to different people. To the government in Little Brother, moral codes are about following he rules and punishing those that break them by any means necessary. For Marcus moral codes are about being a good person. Marcus saw the government as the terrorists because he saw how they treated the people and he wanted to change that. Not just for the people, but for himself and his friends. So no one else would go through what he did.

Existentialists believe that “the freedom of man…depends not on situation but on attitude” (Killinger, 304). When a person accepts his life without question, then he is not free. John Killinger uses the example of a waiter. The waiter goes around taking orders and carrying things to the customers. “His individualism has been lost” (Killinger, 304). He has been conditioned to serve others. He has become part of the machine. Marcus was somewhat like this. While he may have been a hacker and did not conform to the norm, there was nothing that made him stand out. He was okay just being another face in the crowd. “If he lives and dies only as one of the crowd, never aware of his special possibilities as a free agent and therefore never positing himself an individual, he misses the chief glory of human existence” (Killinger, 307). This was how Marcus was living until the terrorist occurred. He became something more. “I figured out how to make an Internet that they can’t wiretap. I figured out how to jam their person-tracking technology” (Doctorow, 238). Marcus became a leader without meaning to. “I could tell all these writers wanted to make me into a leader or a general or a supreme guerilla commandant…” (Doctorow, 231). People looked to Marcus because he was the only one that had tried to get people involved in something bigger than themselves. He saw a situation that he didn’t agree with and decided to do something about it. This shows us not only his personality, but his characteristics as a human being as well.

“Sartre declares that a man cannot find his own freedom fully until he engages in the struggle for the freedom of all” (Killinger, 312). Marcus doesn’t fight the DHS, Department of Homeland Security, because he wants to. He fights because of the people who can’t. “All those people at VampMob, like the people in the park, down and writhing, the DHS moving in with truncheons. The ones who disappeared…I knew that I couldn’t run…I knew that I had to stay and fight” (Doctorow, 319). Marcus fights because it’s the right thing to do. He wants people to listen. He wants people to wake up and look at the world around them. He wants people to do something, to make a difference.

“The legitimate existentialist view holds that life may be meaningful only if one is willing to engage in action where everything is at stake and without guarantee either of outcomes or any essential ‘rightness’” (Barnes, 195). Toward the end of Little Brother, Marcus organized a protest called VampMob. This is his last stand. He has nothing to lose. He has fought the DHS with everything he had. Marcus knows that he could get arrested again, but he is willing to risk it. Marcus feels like he must do something in order to make the world right again.

When Marcus is arrested again, he’s not scared like he was in his first arrest. “An incredible, deep calm that swept over me like I was lying on the beach and the ocean had swept in and lifted me as gently as a parent…After everything that had happened, I was caught, but it didn’t matter…I had organized the Xnet. I had won. And if I hadn’t won, I had done everything I could have done. More than I ever thought I could do” (Doctorow, 342). Everything he went through had a purpose. He learned and evolved. He became a better person that won’t stand by and do nothing.

“‘To exist authentically in the highest degree’-that is the aim that existentialism sets before every man” (Killinger, 313).In order for a person to actually be a person, according to existentialism, they must experience life.  The good things and bad things that happen are lessons that people must go through in order to become who they are meant to become. How a person reacts towards those lessons show us the type of person he/she is. It didn’t matter if Marcus won or lost.  All that mattered was that he tried. Existentialism is about becoming something. It’s about discovering who you are through your own experiences. Marcus found out who he was. He will never be part of the system. He will never become like the waiter and be conditioned. His experiences taught him to fight.

Works Cited

Barnes, Hazel E. Humanistic Existentialism The Literature of Possibility (Bison Books).

New York: University of Nebraska, 1959.

Doctorow, Cory. Little Brother. Tor Teen, 2008.

Killinger, John. “Existentialism and Human Freedom.” The English Journal 50.5 (1961):

303-13.

Stern, Alfred. Sartre His Philosophy and Psychoanalysis. The Liberal Arts, INC., 1953.

When we first meet Marcus you see that he is a regular high school student. He has no real problems or worries. He’s just a smart teenager who knows how to work the system. He was an ordinary student skipping school. “Man can get an essence, create himself an essence, only by ‘engaging’ himself, in this way or that” (Stern, 47). Marcus is pretty much a blank slate at the beginning of this book.  Little by little he gains his essence. This essence projects the person he is going to become.

Marcus experiences a life altering event, a terrorist attack on San Francisco. However, it is not the attack itself that changes Marcus. When the attack occurred, Marcus and his friends are detained by soldiers. While the experience of being detained changed him, it was the psychological torture that changed him. “I lost it. I wept. I begged to be allowed to sign the papers…I would have rather died than go back to my cell” (Doctorow, 65). Throughout the novel Marcus’ experiences while being detained scar him emotionally and mentally.

When Marcus is finally released he has to lie to his parents about where he has been. He had to go to school and pretend that everything was okay. He started to come up with ideas to get revenge and to right the wrongs that had been done to him and his friends. “According to Sartre, there is no reality but in action and man ‘is nothing but the sums of his actions’” (Stern, 47). Marcus changed when he was detained. He became less innocent, less trusting.

“All existentialists writers offer-each in his own way-a challenge to conventional moral codes, a sense of urgency in matters of conscience, an interest in the private introspections of the individual” (Barnes, 155). Marcus is a hacker. Before the terrorist attack and the detainment, he spent most of his time playing video games like any other teenager. Afterwards, his knowledge and skills became a weapon against the oppression of the government.

Barnes talks about “a challenge to conventional moral codes,” Marcus is that challenge. He does not follow all the rules and on occasion he breaks certain laws. Marcus’ father is the opposite. When the police started to keep track of people’s movements, he thought it was a great idea. He thought the police had the right to do whatever it took to keep people safe.   “Conventional moral codes” can mean several different things to different people. To the government in Little Brother, moral codes are about following he rules and punishing those that break them by any means necessary. For Marcus moral codes are about being a good person. Marcus saw the government as the terrorists because he saw how they treated the people and he wanted to change that. Not just for the people, but for himself and his friends. So no one else would go through what he did.

Works Cited

Barnes, Hazel E. Humanistic Existentialism The Literature of Possibility (Bison Books).

New York: University of Nebraska, 1959.

Doctorow, Cory. Little Brother. Tor Teen, 2008.

Stern, Alfred. Sartre His Philosophy and Psychoanalysis. The Liberal Arts, INC., 1953.

 I feel like there should be some deeper meaning to it, but I don’t know what it is.  He spoke of saving Pan. Pan could be a representation of the ancient ways.  The man is saving perhaps the last of the ancient beings.

Was he trying to seduce the boy?  The boy works for him like Nikos did. What happened to Nikos?

The man was asleep at the end so was he dreaming of telling a story or did he actually tell a story?

The story just ends. The man wakes up confused.

Shakespeare was known to use a lot of imagery in his sonnets. Half of his sonnets are about a young man and the other half was about a dark woman. It’s unclear if Shakespeare thinks of the young man in a sexual manner or a platonic love. It’s thought that the young man is a patron of Shakespeare’s. To me it seems to be that it’s a platonic love. By the way he writes about him I see that he cares deeply about him, but is it real affection or does Shakespeare only care about him because of his beauty?

Sonnet 19 talks about time. Shakespeare is begging Time not to touch his loved one like it touches the earth. He cares nothing about the earth. He practically offers it up on a silver platter. “…do whate’er thou wilt, swift-footed Time, To the wide world and all her fading sweets”. Time can change everything and Shakespeare knows this. He accepts that the beautiful things in the world all fade.

Shakespeare brings up three animals in this sonnet. The first is the lion. “Devouring Time, blunt thou the lion’s paws.” He chooses an animal of great power. The lion has been a representation of being the king of the jungle or the king of the beasts. For this reason the lion has become a symbol of royalty. Shakespeare is using the image of the lion and saying that the strongest and fiercest of creatures will become powerless.

The second animal he uses is the tiger, “Pluck the keen teeth from the fierce tiger’s jaws.” The tiger is another hunter. Shakespeare is saying that time will take away the tiger’s ability to hunt.

Shakespeare takes the third animal from the mythological realm; the phoenix. “And burn the long-liv’d phoenix, in her blood;” Shakespeare is telling time to burn the phoenix with its own blood.  The phoenix lives a long life, but even this mythical creature still loses against time.

The main theme to sonnet 19 is the destructiveness of time. Time destroys everything: the powerful, the beautiful and the majestic. No one thing can withstand its might.

Even though he knows he cannot fight Time, he then tries to demand Time to do his bidding. “But I forbid thee one most heinous crime: O, carve not with thy hours my love’s fair brow, Nor draw no lines there with thine antique pen; Him in thy course untainted do allow”. He loves this young man so much that he tries to bend time to his will. He doesn’t want his love to change or die. Shakespeare also suggests that Time is an artist, “O, carve not with thy hours my love’s fair brow, Nor draw no lines there with thine antique pen”.

Shakespeare seems to have the last laugh at Time at the end of his sonnet. “Yet do thy worst, old Time: despite thy wrong, My love shall in my verse ever live young.”  Shakespeare is saying that while time may change everything, it cannot change his writings. He accepts Time as a force of nature that cannot be challenged. The young man will forever be immortalized by Shakespeare’s sonnet. This way he can live forever as a young man that had gained Shakespeare’s love.

Shakespeare’s sonnet 130 is about a mysterious dark woman. He describes her in various ways as dark. “My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun”. This means her eyes are dark. Then he later talks about her breasts that are dun, which is a reference to dark color. “If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.” This could be reference to the woman being of African descent or that this woman has dark hair.

The dark woman seems to be a mistress of his. No one knows her real identity. She is beautiful. That is what is known. Shakespeare focuses solely on her outward appearance. Is he truly attracted to her or is it because she is different than any other woman? Is she a novelty to him because of her appearance?

Shakespeare’s loves her so much that he ignores her faults. “I love to hear her speak-yet well I know That music hath a far more pleasing sound.” Shakespeare would rather listen to this woman speak then listen to music even though music sounds much better. He is telling the reader that she isn’t perfect and he loves her anyway. He is also saying that he loves her the way that she is. Acknowledging her faults is also a way of humanizing her. Many sonnets have subjects that talk only about the goodness of the subject.

“I grant I never saw a goddess go, My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground: And yet by heaven, I think my love as rare”. Shakespeare is comparing her beauty to that of a goddess’ beauty. He is also saying that she isn’t a goddess. Being divine doesn’t matter to Shakespeare. She is beautiful without being a goddess. Furthermore, he says that she is rare.        She is different than other women.

Sonnet 130 isn’t like regular love poems of that time. Most love poems try to idealize their subjects. He talks about everything she isn’t. “My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun”. He in fact mocks the traditional form of love poetry. “And in some perfumes is there more delight, Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.” Shakespeare is saying that his mistress’ breath reeks compared to perfume. His full intent is to insist that real love isn’t fake. Women do not need to look like flowers or the sun to be beautiful.  This makes me think that he really did love the dark lady.

Shakespeare seems to contradict himself with how he wrote sonnet 130 and sonnet 19. In sonnet 19 he spoke greatly about the young man’s beauty. However Shakespeare didn’t talk about the young man’s flaws as he did with the dark lady. While Shakespeare shows in sonnet 130 how much he cares for the dark lady, he doesn’t really go into detail about the young man.

Shakespeare seems to love both of his subjects in entirely different manners. In sonnet 19 his love for the young man seems platonic. In sonnet 130 the love he has for the dark lady seems deeper. The way he wrote about her tells his feelings. However, no one can really know what he meant. Only Shakespeare can know what he meant.

The Circular Ruins was so confusing.  I couldn’t really follow what the author was trying to say.  Was the man dreaming about all of it? What was the author trying to convey to me? What does the man represent? What does the son represent?

Both stories were circular. The Book of  Sand ended and began with the book. The Circular Ruins cam full circle with the man, his son, and his dream. At least that is what I understood it as. I could be wrong.