Interpretation and Explanation of the Passage from ' On Pain'

“Pain’s disregard for our system of values greatly increases its hold on life….Our children’s tales close with passages about heroes who, after having overcome many dangers, live out their lives in peace and happiness. We hear such assurances with pleasure, for it is comforting for us to learn about a place removed from pain. Yet, in truth, life is without any such satisfying end, as is evidenced of most great novels, which are either incomplete or crowned by an artificial conclusion.” (Page 4) Ernst Junger

 Interpretation

 In this passage, the writer (Junger) mentions that the society holds the myth that good will always triumph over evil or children tales, novels says that  heroes having faced with trouble in their lives at the end face peaceful life and happy ending; which overshadows the real truth of pain. In real life, life does not have happy endings and people’s life is filled with pain. People like this type of stories or myth because they want to avoid pain.

 Why I Chose This Passage ?

I chose this passage because I totally disagree with this passage. I think that including a happy ending in children’s tale or myths like good will always triumph over evil does not overshadow the reality of pain. But it gives people a hope to live their life positively or overcome with the pain that they are suffering from. Also, children brains are not matured enough to understand the dark side of life and if you feed the child by telling him, ‘life is full of pain, there is no happy ending in life and you have to detach your mind from your body to get out from it or accept it in your life.’ I do not think that child can understand you well and eventually as he grows will understand it; and as that child becomes adult he will be full of negativities and is unable to get courage to do anything because he or she is taught to be pessimistic.

 So I believe that telling those stories is encouraging to have faith in ourselves even we are in very difficult position and find a way to get out from there. Also as we grow up older we understand that there is not a guarantee of happy ending in life but still we can try and be positive and try to deal with the pain that we face throughout the life process.

 Reference:

 http://nihilismlehman.blogspot.com/2012/11/1126-on-pain.html

 https://docs.google.com/file/d/0BzSgsdcPlBzjZHJWRUx5SlZWRjQ/edit#