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Jordan

College Writing

“The Dark Night of the Soul” by Richard Miller

Miller’s essay, The Dark Night of the Soul,” poses several questions about the way the society acts, write and reads. The essay points out that reading and writing has powerful influence on people and their imaginations. The circumstance and examples that he uses in the essay are both shocking and revealing in respect to violence and intellectual behaviors of the modern society. The main purpose of this essay is to identify, interpret and illustrate some of Miller’s actual reading practices as depicted in The Dark Night of the Soul.

In today’s world everyone is quick to making conclusions that the internet and media has greatly affected people’s judgement and choices. Millers essay asserts that reading and writing methods are not in a position of ending any violence behaviors without prior actions. In this regard he shares with his readers how the present World perceives both reading and writing. He believes that reading and writing in the modern world has strong influence on people’s decision making and imaginations. This means that writing and reading are powerful realities in life.

Though it is very hard to understand Miller’s purpose behind this essay, he begins the essay by narrating some horrible events that took place at Columbine High School where two recognized scholars Eric Harries and Dylan Klebold commit several shocking murders. Millers thereto tries to explain some reasons behind the murders such as the media, inattentive parents, guidance counselors, and the internet as well as insensitive jocks. More interesting, he looks at reading and writing to confirm that they are not going to stop violence in the society. He further observes that both cannot change the behavior of the students…… “It’s reassuring to think that either the work of the legal systems or the educational system can reduce or eliminate altogether the threat of the unpredictable and the unforeseen. This is why we have childproof bottles, penalties for not buckling up, information literature on family planning for students in junior high school: there are all examples of the responsible response to known problem.” (Miller, n.p). What Millers means by this sentence is the there is not a response to schoolyard murders. And in case there is one, it will not be either reading or writing. This response drives the author to questioning important questions about reading such as, Apart from gathering and organizing information, apart from generating analysis and critiques that often fall to deaf ears what good can be said about literature? Is there any way to justify or affirm a life spent working with or teaching others to work with the text? And why bother with reading and writing when the world is so obviously going to hell? (Miller, n.p).

Examining the above points can make someone think that Miller is doubting the power of reading and writing. But interestingly, after following the other sections of his essay the reader is able to interpret and understand what he means. For instance, reading the following sections I was able to realize that Miller is trying to share with his readers how the modern society perceive reading and writing. For sure, he tries to convince us that reading and writing have powerful influence on the society and people’s imaginations but he goes ahead to put doubt clear that power of reading and writing is not being fully utilized in the modern world. For example, the many example he presents throughout the essay, Miller tries demonstrate different perspectives of writing and reading so that we the readers can be able to realize that both of them have powerful realities that can for sure influence someone’s life in a big way.

Lastly, the prince of the Darkness, Millers introduces the readers to a new story that focuses majorly on two authors. Every single act in this part is well described and is somewhat related to the reading and writing. The following sections thereafter, the readers are also introduced to Mackandles’s story which best illustrate the example of foolishness of those people who believe/ or think more in the power of books than they do to the power of the natural world. As the story continue to unfold we are able to come across the figure of Descartes, a guy who started to doubt everything that he initially believed in there before. Here, Miller introduces other scenes that allow the readers to perceive writing and reading in another angle.

In essence, Millers has tried as much as possible to present different perspective of reading practices to his readers. Though some of them might look contradictory I believe the author has done a great job in sending his message to the readers. For example, one of the extreme cases that he has presented to the readers is the case of Chris who reads too much to a point of changing his name and eventually dies in the process. As the essay end, Miller presents some solutions to the problem we are facing by using a scenario of the problems in the education systems. He points that there is need for the government to come with good policies regarding the way students should be taught in schools. He keenly points that there no need to bulk them with unnecessary information that has no meaning or help in their lives.

Similarly, he questions the centrality of academic works and he claims that much of writing and reading to teachers and students is a way of laboring and passing of time if the purpose to it is not understood. He goes ahead to question the importance of literature arts that apart from generating and organizing work he then generates critiques of these literal arts which sadly falls on deaf ears. These brings us to the question how is it relevant to the new world. As from Miller’s introduction it has been hard for accepting the fact that publishing has been taken from the hands of a few by technology as almost everyone who has access to technology is a potential author.

In conclusion, Millers essay has great points that regard reading practices of the present day. As the authors observes, technology is bringing in a big challenge in the way people read as compared to years ago. For instance in the case Erick and Dylan, the two read what they want to read and what’s is in line with their beliefs and so they go ahead to discuss what they believed together. Similarly, Chris does the same and only reads books that are in support of his beliefs and that eventually makes him so fascinated. Therefore, it is arguably important to note that technology has been a game changer in the today’s people’s reading practices and thus people should be allowed to embrace it and use it purposefully to enhance their reading skills.

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Work cited

Miller R. The Dark Night Of The Soul.