The Devil You Know

2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (7) ◽  
pp. 55-63
Author(s):  
David Wiseman ◽  

Is there a moral obligation to always confront evil? Can evil ever be given the chance to live in peace? In this work of philosophical short story fiction, the narrator is walking down a small-town street when he comes across the devil, relaxing on vacation for the holidays. The narrator knows it is the devil because of his horns and goat legs. He also has a few small demon children in tow. The narrator, surprised, stops the devil to talk to him. The devil is cordial and says he has outsourced most of the “hell work” and spends his time traveling around the world moving from place to place. He likes the small towns during the holidays and enjoys the peace and quiet. The narrator feels he should do something, perhaps confront the devil, rather than allowing him to exist in peace. Finally, the narrator has second thoughts, in part because he doesn’t have a suitable weapon. The devil and his children continue in peace on their way.

2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 64-73
Author(s):  
Cory Swanson ◽  
Keyword(s):  

What if the Devil were real and you could, and did, kill him? What, does the Devil stand for in society, and what might change about society in the event of his death? In this work of philosophical short story fiction, Simon is put on trial for having, literally, killed the devil. He did it through trickery, of course. He told the Devil that he (the Devil) was a cheap peddler of a product, fear. But, because he was immortal, he would never truly understand the product he pushed on others. The Devil asserts he fears nothing and, to prove it, removes his immortality from his being. Simon kills him. And now Simon is on trial. It is unethical to kill a purely evil thing? And, if the Devil is dead, why are bad things still happening in the world?


1987 ◽  
Vol 15 ◽  
pp. 70-76
Author(s):  
Manthia Diawara

We used to play soccer with white boys in Kankan at Saint John, a Catholic elementary and junior high school. Then one day a girl by the name of Dusu told my mother that I had been in the worshipping house of the white people. When I came home my mother was crying, saying that the Devil had entered me. The other women in the compound gathered around her to express their surprise and distress as well. I could hear them talking about how the world had become a dangerous place since the era of the white man. Some said that nowadays the white men had driven Satan deep into the souls of some black men so much so that, like mad dogs, they had turned against their trainers themselves. Some said that the world was coming to an end, and others enjoined that it was all Sekou Toure’s fault. That day my mother locked me up and began whipping me.


2019 ◽  
Vol 4 (3) ◽  
pp. 394-410
Author(s):  
Vedran Ćatović

Abstract This study situates the works of Ivo Andrić at the intersection of world literature and postcolonial studies. It argues that, rather than being opposed as two mutually exclusive critical paradigms, the two need to be tactfully combined in order to account for the artist’s treatment of the prolonged subjugation undergone by the former Ottoman province of Bosnia. Two contradictory trends are observed. Andrić represents Bosnian small towns as places of symbolic resistance and perseverance. His local themes and language undermine the hegemonic presence of the empire, and invite a reading through a postcolonial lens. At the same time, a strong cosmopolitan current runs through the same narratives, and shows a paradoxical urge of the artist to extend his local setting into the global and intercultural spheres. Andrić stages the world as a multifarious and enigmatic whole – a viewpoint that embraces world literature as its aesthetic and political shrine.


Author(s):  
Nina Bosak

The demonolexis in Yu. Andrukhovych’s long short story “Recreatsii” (“Recreations”) has been analyzed in the article. In the course of the research there have been outlined the following lexical-semantic groups of demonomens: toponymic and onomastic names, modified lexemes, names of the rituals, genuine Ukrainian demonomens, obscene words and expressions, demonomens of Biblical origin, names from the world mythology and general demonolexis. The special lexical-semantic group has been formed by non personificated demonomens, which serve to convey the peculiarities of the contemporary Ukrainian writers’ mentality, their habits through speech. Such nomens help to reveal the protagonist’s soul, show the positive and negative sides of his personal ego, demonstrate the duality of the human perception of the world, indicate the causes of phobias, emotions, sensations. Key words: demonolexis, demonomen, lexical-semantic group, non personificated demonomen.


Imbizo ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Danson Sylvester Kahyana

The article examines how selected works in Uganda’s first anthology of prison-authored work, As I Stood Dead before the World: Creative Writing from Luzira Prison (2018), handle one of the issues of paramount importance to inmates and their families: the possibility that convictions in courts of law are not foolproof since judicial officers are human beings and therefore susceptible to error. Drawing from four examples: two poems (Jackson O’s “Letter to Aber” and Sebuuma Gadafi’s “Twenty-Years”), one short story (Rachael Pearl Orishaba’s “A Secret”), and one short play (Jennifer Janette’s “What If It Wasn’t Kato?”), I show how different inmates imagine situations where judicial officers (prosecutors and magistrates/judges) make errors of judgement that see innocent people convicted of crimes they did not commit. The article closely reads the four selected pieces with the objective of investigating how creative writers can help judicial officers realise how important it is to turn every proverbial stone before a conviction is made.


2003 ◽  
Vol 22 (4) ◽  
pp. 169-175
Author(s):  
Jaime Jiménez ◽  
Sergio Rafael Coria-Olguín

Internet and e-mail have proved to be instrumental for the development of individuals and communities, provided they are properly used. Is it possible to benefit small communities with limited telephone resources? A solution is proposed to provide Internet and additional services to small towns' inhabitants in such a manner that the service is both self-sustainable and economically accessible to the user. The solution takes into account the telephone infrastructure constraints, the limitations in terms of computer literacy of the population, and the need to keep the service at an affordable cost for the user. It has been successfully proven as a pilot project in a small town of the state of Veracruz, México.


2011 ◽  
Vol 53 (4) ◽  
pp. 722-756
Author(s):  
Jon Adams ◽  
Edmund Ramsden

Nestled among E. M. Forster's careful studies of Edwardian social mores is a short story called “The Machine Stops.” Set many years in the future, it is a work of science fiction that imagines all humanity housed in giant high-density cities buried deep below a lifeless surface. With each citizen cocooned in an identical private chamber, all interaction is mediated through the workings of “the Machine,” a totalizing social system that controls every aspect of human life. Cultural variety has ceded to rigorous organization: everywhere is the same, everyone lives the same life. So hopelessly reliant is humanity upon the efficient operation of the Machine, that when the system begins to fail there is little the people can do, and so tightly ordered is the system that the failure spreads. At the story's conclusion, the collapse is total, and Forster's closing image offers a condemnation of the world they had built, and a hopeful glimpse of the world that might, in their absence, return: “The whole city was broken like a honeycomb. […] For a moment they saw the nations of the dead, and, before they joined them, scraps of the untainted sky” (2001: 123). In physically breaking apart the city, there is an extent to which Forster is literalizing the device of the broken society, but it is also the case that the infrastructure of the Machine is so inseparable from its social structure that the failure of one causes the failure of the other. The city has—in the vocabulary of present-day engineers—“failed badly.”


IIUC Studies ◽  
1970 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
pp. 55-62 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mohammed Sarwar Alam

Imperialism has been the most powerful force in world history over last four or five centuries. The world has moved from the colonial to post-colonial era or neoimperialism. Throughout the period, the imperialists have changed their grounds and strategies in imperialistic rules. But the ultimate objective has remained the same- to rule and exploit the natives with their multifaceted dominance-technological, economic and military. Through dominance with these, they have been, to a great extent, successful in establishing their racial and cultural superiority. George Orwell is popularly known to be an anti-imperialist writer. This paper, I believe, will lead us to an almost different conclusion. Here, we discover the inevitable dilemma in a disguised imperialist. We discover the seeds of imperialism under the mask of anti-imperialism. In this regard, it studies his revealing short story "Shooting an Elephant". It also humbly approaches to refute Barry Hindess' arguments supporting neoimperialism.   doi: 10.3329/iiucs.v3i0.2664   IIUC STUDIES Vol. - 3, December 2006 (p 5-62)  


2021 ◽  
pp. 089719002110002
Author(s):  
David Rhys Axon ◽  
Melissa Johnson ◽  
Brittany Abeln ◽  
Stephanie Forbes ◽  
Elizabeth J. Anderson ◽  
...  

Background: Patients living in rural communities often experience pronounced health disparities, have a higher prevalence of diabetes and hypertension, and poorer access to care compared to urban areas. To address these unmet healthcare service needs, an established, academic-based MTM provider created a novel, collaborative program to provide comprehensive, telephonic services to patients living in rural Arizona counties. Objective: This study assessed the program effectiveness and described differences in health process and outcome measures (e.g., clinical outcomes, gaps in care for prescribed medications, medication-related problems) between individuals residing in different rural-urban commuting area (RUCA) groups (urban, micropolitan, and small town) in rural Arizona counties. Methods: Subjects eligible for inclusion were 18 years or older with diabetes and/or hypertension, living in rural Arizona counties. Data were collected on: demographic characteristics, medical conditions, clinical values, gaps in care, medication-related problems (MRPs), and health promotion guidance. Subjects were analyzed using 3 intra-county RUCA levels (i.e., urban, micropolitan, and small town). Results: A total of 384 patients were included from: urban (36.7%), micropolitan (19.3%) and small town (44.0%) areas. Positive trends were observed for clinical values, gaps in care, and MRPs between initial and follow-up consultations. Urban dwellers had significantly lower average SBP values at follow-up than those from small towns (p < 0.05). A total of 192 MRPs were identified; 75.0% were resolved immediately or referred to providers and 16.7% were accepted by prescribers. Conclusion: This academic-community partnership highlights the benefits of innovative collaborative programs, such as this, for individuals living in underserved, rural areas.


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