SSR Research Paper

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SSR Research Paper
The Trial by Tranz Kafka, written during 1914-1915, was a satirical play-off of the Austro-Hungarian bureaucracy throughout his lifetime. The story includes a young bank official named Joseph K., who is arrested by two warders the morning of his thirtieth birthday. Being a very ambitious and outgoing man, he is thoroughly confused and outraged, given the fact he has done nothing wrong. Coincidently, a year later on the morning of his thirty-first birthday, two warders come for the man again. This time they take him to a quarry outside of town and kill him. They declare it’s in the name of the Law, and being so, Joesph K. lets them. This leads to the main part of story, “The Trial”, which showcases his struggles and encounters with the invisible Law and the untouchable Court. Discovered in later chapters in the book, the novel turns out to be unfinished. Quite ironically, “the German title, Der Prozess, connotes both a "trial" and a "process," and it is perhaps this maddening feeling of inevitability that leaves a lasting visceral impression” (Sparknotes 1). This at times makes the book very hard to read, yet very relatable to the eeriness of the court room as the story progresses. The book ultimately towards the end conveys the gov’ts state-induced self-destruction.
The Plague by Albert Camus, is a novel about a large, plague outbreak in the large Algerian city of Oran. It begins in April, when thousands of rats stagger into the open and die. People begin to get very antsy, and after the outburst floods the newspapers, the authorities finally arrange for the daily collection and cremation of the rats. A little while later, a man by the name of Dr. Rieux loses his co-worker M. Michel, after he falls ill with a strange fever. A group of similar cases appears, and Dr. Rieux's colleague, Castel, is sure that the illness is the bubonic plague. They are both forced to confront the indifference and denial of the authorities and other doctors in their attempts to urge quick, decisive action. It soon becomes impossible to deny that a serious epidemic is taking place in Oran, and the authorities have to place the whole city under quarantine. As probably most would, “The public reacts to their sudden imprisonment with intense longing for absent loved ones. They indulge in selfish personal distress, convinced that their pain is unique in comparison to common suffering” (Sparknotes 1). This leads to the characters taking on many different chaotic paths, leading up to the abolishen of the plague. One of the men’s path included committing a crime (which he does not name) in the past, so he has lived in constant fear of arrest and punishment. He greets the plague epidemic with open arms because he no longer feels alone in his fearful suffering. Several months after the quarantine, many of Oran's citizens lose their selfish obsession with personal suffering. They learn to recognize the plague as a collective disaster that is everyone's concern, and join the anti-plague efforts. The story then raps up with an account of how some of the different main characters ended up after the plague. Almost immediately after the exile, the people return to their old routine, but Rieux knows that the battle against the plague is never over. This is because the bacillus microbe can lie dormant for years. In a sense, The Plague is his chronicle of the scene of human suffering that all too many people are willing to forget.
Native Son by Richard Wright, is set during the time of the Depression-era. It is divided into three books entitled Fear, Flight and Fate. Throughout the three books, is the depiction of the final days of Bigger Thomas. The story is set in the Depression-era. Bigger is the novel's twenty-year-old protagonist, a resident of the "Black Belt," and lives in a Chicago ghetto that is predominantly black. Bigger lives in a one-room apartment, with his mother and younger siblings, Vera and Buddy. The depressing mood of the