book reviews
Book reviews by and for those seeking to understand the human mind for all its strengths, quirks and shortcomings.
Ophelia's Plights in 'Hamlet'
There is no doubt that one’s external environmental situation has a considerable sway on one’s emotional and mental health. This is all too true for Ophelia, who unfortunately was negatively affected by her situation. In Hamlet, by William Shakespeare, the readers are exposed to love, loss, revenge, and insanity in this devastating tragedy. Ophelia is a particularly sorry character; she is ensnared in Hamlet’s plans of feigning insanity, and therefore has her love ripped away from her after stating he never loved her at all and belittling her character. In addition to this, Ophelia’s already battered mental state is pushed over the precipice when Hamlet kills her father, Polonius. Ophelia is therefore driven to a woeful, inconsolable insanity. Through Ophelia’s journey of relationships and loss, Shakespeare demonstrates how the corrosive power of love and demise leads to insanity, and, in Ophelia’s case, her suicide.
By Leo Misislyan8 years ago in Psyche
Antifragility: A Student's Perspective
So do you know what Hydra is? No, not the glorified super villains that suck at getting the job done against one super-soldier with an almost limitless number of resources. The mythical creature, the Hydra, is supposed to be an awesome beast that Hercules faces in order to complete his trials and ascend to God-like status. So this creature is the kind of thing that Nicholas Nassim Taleb would consider an antifragile being. What is antifragile you ask? Well, being antifragile comes in degrees, and according to Taleb there are three distinct levels that lead up to this state of ultra-actualization: Fragility, Robustness, and Antifragility.
By Andy Barrales8 years ago in Psyche
Best Mental Illness Memoirs
If you are lucky enough to have never experienced mental illness firsthand, rest assured you know people who have, probably many of them. Despite the leaps and bounds the scientific community has made in categorizing diagnoses and fine-tuning psychiatric treatments, some aspects of the experience simply cannot be measured quantitatively. The brain, after all, cannot be properly understood without acknowledging one's individual emotional experience. Firsthand accounts about mental illness provide insight into the human psyche that no blood test or brain scan possibly could. Each of these testimonies speaks to a slightly different set of symptoms, environmental circumstances, prognosis and recovery; and yet, each one shares a common thread of empathy that transcends all differences in detail. These mental illness memoirs are must-reads for anyone who's experienced similar suffering as well as those who want to try and understand.
By Rachel G. David8 years ago in Psyche
