Insights Into Being 6 Feet Under

So we want to know how much land a man needs. It is put very simply in the story that all the land a man needs is 6 feet, from his head to his toes. But is it so simple as that. Is that all the land a man needs? Perhaps we should go back in history and examine the idea of a burial. The idea of a burial is in no way a new idea. Stemming back to the Neolithic era of 3,200 B.C.E. we see the idea of a grave. This grave is not just a pine box stuck in a plot of ground that we see today but it is called a passage grave. Men would create large gravesites with passages to a large burial chamber. These burial chambers were not simple 6-foot plots of land where they would bury a person but they were covered in cave art doing tribute to the lives lost. Perhaps we should skip forward a thousand years or so to the Egyptians. The great Pyramids of Gizeh are better known to be tombs for great pharaohs. These tombs are not only much longer than 6 feet but they enter the idea of going above land for burial. These men who were buried in these tombs not only deserved a glowing tribute in the length and width of their area, but the height as well. So these tombs are large, so why is it that we now believe men only need the amount of space they take up? Is it because we no longer have the grandeur that these men once had in comparison to the rest of the world? Or is it because we no longer have a sense that we deserve over the top embellishments just because of our title? I would say it is a combination of the two that stems our sense of equality among all men and that leads us to believe that we all deserve the same ending.

So 6 feet is all a man needs right? Wrong. 6 feet may be all a man needs in death today, but what about yesterday when he was alive? All a man needs in the earth below his feet and anywhere those feet can carry him. Perhaps that is why people used to be buried in such large monuments. There was no way to lay a man to rest and have it represent all the land a man needs while he was alive. They would build large burial chambers and large monuments to resemble the land they needed. If your feet could take you around the world, why should you only have 6 feet to show for it? The amount of space you take up on this earth once you have past may be only 6 feet, but for us who are living, there is on limit to the amount of land we need. And even if society no longer lets us show how much land we needed in life after death, we can be remembered for how much land we took up in death after life.

Insights Into The Miracle

In the play A Doll’s House the idea of a miracle is mentioned a couple of times. Nora, the play’s main character is the one who mentions this miracle. She believes that the only thing that can save her marriage with Torvald is a miracle. Now as it becomes more and more obvious as the plays goes further and further, the two are not meant to be. Nora believes that the miracle is that Torvald will reveal himself as the man she originally thought she married, not the one she is currently married to. Now my question is not weather or not she believed this miracle could come true, but rather if it was even possible for it to happen.


As the reader or viewer goes through the play, Torvald is slowly revealed to us. Torvald is the man that treats Nora like a child, but that was not unexpected of the time. Women were expected to act like Stepford wives, and no one complained. Nora on the other hand is quite different. In the Stepford Wives, Joanna starts as the independent wife who eventually becomes a Stepford wife. In this play the opposite affect happens. Nora starts as a Stepford wife and after witnessing her husband destroy her hope of a miracle, becomes independent and walks out on him. The relationship between Torvald and Nora is the picture perfect marriage at the time, but based on what we learn from Torvald, we find that there is never a chance that the miracle will come true. Torvald is consumed with the idea of honor. When he finds Nora has committed the crime of forgery, he is worried about himself instead of them as a couple. He figures that she would never leave because her proper duty as a wife is to her husband and children. He figures that her proper thing to do is to go and hide while he has to take care of the situations. It is because of these reactions that we understand why the miracle did not happen.


So was the miracle ever capable of even happening then. The answer is no. Its not because Nora expected too much of Torvald, but instead she expected him to know things about the situation he didn’t. Why would he react any different way when presented the situation? With his limited knowledge of the situation, there was no other way to react. We as readers and viewers forget that he doesn’t know why she forged the note, we forget that he doesn’t know she has been paying it off, we forget that he doesn’t know what his demands were. So why should she expect him to react any differently? Ibsen created her expectations knowing the viewer would forget his lack of knowledge of what has happened because he never wanted Torvald to get her back. Ibsen created the ending to side with Nora, even though she was in the wrong. We learn that the outcome has been predetermined when Ibsen chooses to have Nora not explain the situation before he reads the note, and sets the ending up where Nora expects Torvold to know everything she had told Christina. The real insight is that we should feel empathy towards Torvold, not Nora, because he reacted as anyone in his position would and his wife expected him to react based on knowledge she had clearly chosen not to give him prior to reading the note. When reading the play, I did side with Nora, but after examining Nora’s faults I feel more empathetic for Torvald who was dealt a bad hand by a dealer who had stacked the deck and was never even given the chance to let Nora see her miracle come true.

Insights into the Leader’s Fall

In the story Antigone the reader is presented with a conflict at the beginning of the story. There are two clear-cut sides, with no grey area. Antigone’s brother, a former kind, is dead and she wants to burry him. Creon, the king and Antigone’s Uncle, believes him to be a traitor and that he does not deserve to be given a proper burial. Antigone’s brother marched on the kingdom after he had been exiled and died in battle. The question presented is if Creon is making the right choice. Should Creon say attacking the city is ok by exalting him with a proper burial, or should he overstep his boundaries as a mortal ruler to affect the afterlife by not given him a proper burial? The answer is simple when looked at from an Antigone’s viewpoint or any common person’s viewpoint, but it is not so simple for Creon.

Creon must protect his kingdom, and that is what comes first and foremost. If he buries him, he is saying it is ok for people to attack his city, and that is not in the safety of the citizens. This is much like the war on Terror currently being waged by the United States. On September 11th, 2001 a terrorist organization named Al Qaeda attacked the United States. President Bush had to retaliate and quickly to not only show that the Untied States is not weak, but to assure the safety of our citizens. Initially we struck into Afghanistan, where the leader of Al Qaeda was, and it was the right decision. While we were in Afghanistan, President Bush may have overstepped his boundaries. He felt that his citizens were in danger due to the reported presence of Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq. We began to wage war on Iraq, but was waging a war in Iraq the right thing to do. Was President Bush really protecting his citizens, or was it that Bush felt that it was his responsibility to wipe out all “terror” in the world? If the answer was so simple, Creon and Bush would have made the right decisions long before anything bad ever happened.

Creon needed to protect his kingdom, but he overstepped his boundaries by trying to punish someone who is dead. Bush needed to protect his country, but overstepped his boundaries when he took a single attack and made it into a global war. The decisions leaders make every day are some of the toughest in the world. Should a leader do something that is beyond his limits because he thinks it helps his country? The answer is yes, but most of the time that action doesn’t actually help the country. How does making a global war or not burying a former king help a country? It doesn’t, and if Creon and Bush had noticed that, they could have fixed their errors much earlier on and the whole world (in 2 different time periods) would have been happier. Sometimes showing a little humility and admitting defeat is more important that keeping your pride.