A Walk To Remember By Nicholas Sparks: Soul Versus Sense
Soul is equal to heart. Soul is defined as one person or the spirit and essence of a person. An example of soul is the part of us that makes who are and that will live on after death. Latter-day Saints believe that the soul is the union of a pre-existing, God-made spirit and a temporal body, which is formed by physical conception on earth. After death, the spirit continues to live and progress in the Spirit world until the resurrection, when it is reunited with the body that once housed it.
The soul has three parts: "reason", "spirit", and "appetite." All parts of the soul have desires, but desire in appetitive and spirited parts is not a matter of belief about what is good and bad. Soul in the Bible, accordingly the Hebrew word nephesh, although translated as "soul" in some older English Bibles, actually has a meaning closer to "living being". Nephesh was rendered in the Septuagint as the Greek word for soul. To dualists, the soul is a real substance that exists independent from the body. Socrates, Plato, and Augustine were all dualists who believed the soul to be immortal. “In Noah’s day... a few people, that is, eight souls, were carried safely through the water. ” Here the word “souls” clearly stands for people such as Noah, his wife, his three sons, and their wives. The traditional concept of an immaterial and immortal soul distinct from the body was not found in Judaism before the Babylonian exile, but developed as a result of interaction with Persian and Hellenistic philosophies. Soul in American, an entity which is regarded as being the immortal or spiritual part of the person and which, though having no physical or material reality, is credited with the functions of thinking and willing, and hence determining all comportment. The moral or passionate nature of a human being. According to Karla Mclaran “The Emotions are the language of the soul.”
In psychology Soul is the invisible divine essence of the individual, of which the body, mind and intellect are the instruments for action in the world. The body being a rather gross instrument, psychology has traditionally concentrated on the relationship between the mind, intellect and the soul. However, the division between different parts of the being is only superficial; at a deeper level they are all interconnected. Although the mind and the intellect are instruments of the soul, they ordinarily function independently of the soul. According to Sigmund Freud, “The dream is the liberation of the spirit from the pressure of external nature, a detachment of soul from the fetters of matter.”
A sense is a physiological capacity of organisms that provides data for discernment. The senses and their operation, classification, and theory are overlying topics studied by a variety of fields, most conspicuously neuroscience, cognitive psychology and philosophy of perception. Common sense is sound practical judgment concerning everyday matters, or a basic ability to perceive, understand, and judge that is shared by nearly all people. Perfect sense is to keep such information on disk. It makes good sense to continue with the reforms. Sensible and reasonable consists of three types; they are practical, sensible and rational. While reading Prose whether technical or literary, the readers mind parses sentences to recover meaning. The flow of the words can invoke the readers with unpredicted sensory responses, even for the writer. Even a very rational and technical text can typically affect the reader on multiple cognitive levels in addition to its basic task of transmitting the author-intended meaning. Prose in particular can modify an unsuspecting reader's physiological and emotional states profoundly. The semantic priming test in modern psychology exploits this phenomenon. The emotional response to a sequence of words depends in part on genetic background. The selection of words in a configuration also reveals the personality traits of the author to the reader. A person's color preferences and idiosyncrasies provide information relevant to the psychological evaluation. The analytical tools are compared to the relative frequencies of various sensory terms, it related to the perception of color, smell, taste, touch, sound and time in order to infer the collective sensory landscape of the biomedical literature and the hypothetical priming that biomedical texts wield to the readers.
A Sense of disillusionment and loss pervades much American modernist fiction. That sense may be centered on specific individuals, or it may be directed toward American society and civilization. It may generate a nihilistic, destructive impulse, or it may express hope at the prospect of change. In this novel, Sparks expressed the great message that doing anything in life should follows the desires and intuition of one’s heart. Landon Carter, the protagonist, has been listening to his sense for years. His description of the Reverend Hegbert Sullivan's complex with "fornicators" both adds levity and establishes Reverend Sullivan as an old-school, conservative Baptist minister. When Jamie is introduced, her own piousness is perfectly believable, in light of Reverend Sullivan's fire-and-brimstone sermons. Landon's recounting of his experiences with Hegbert also establishes Jamie's father's dislike of or at least, concern over the eternal soul of Landon himself. Before meeting Jamie he only listens to his sense. But after meeting her, he understands about the value of life. In the homecoming party the student council had to attend with a date. Landon also reveals a past relationship with a girl named Angela Clark, and it is his preoccupation with Angela that keeps him from finding a date to the Homecoming Dance in a timely manner. There is no other girl for him except Jamie but he ignores her because his friends might mock him. He wrestles with the thought of plain, God-obsessed Jamie as his date, and he dreads his friends' reactions. Landon's thoughts along these lines reinforce his own immaturity. Landon’s embarrassment at being in any way associated with Jamie (for fear of being mocked by his friends) and his mostly subconscious feeling that really, Jamie is not as unappealing as her reputation suggests.
These two contradictory feelings will be at the basis of much of the conflict in Landon’s mind as the story continues. Eventually, one perception will grow dominant and the other will disappear. But there is a way to go before that happens. He only saw her appearances as well her behavior by reading Bibles and helping others. In the date if any one did not got the date they should ends up being the guy scooping punch all night long or mopping up the barf in the bathroom. It shows the American people’s mind in the society. At the end of the party the evening is not a success, although it starts well enough. She thanks him for the evening, saying that “I had a good time” he was surprised by her words. It was the first time he listens to his heart and the kindness about her.
In this novel Landon represents to sense and Jamie to soul. Here it marks the point of transition for Landon because; his frustration gets the best of him. Everything about Jamie annoys Landon. He fights hard against all that she represents. He refuses to believe that he has feelings for her. And his biting, sarcastic nature takes over. When Jamie asks Landon to walk her home after the play practice, he was infuriated by her but he does not want to hurt her feelings. Landon is equally annoyed by the play and Jamie because he is being teased at school about it and also because he has been required to work hard to improve his acting skills. Landon is even a bit annoyed that he has been feeling rather good about himself and the better person he is becoming, thinking, "I could practically imagine the angels in heaven, standing around and staring wistfully down at me with little tears filling the corners of their eyes, talking about how wonderful I was for all my sacrifices. " Landon has already had to recognize that she is becoming more attractive, which surprises and bothers him. But much more than that, Jamie is becoming far more composite and multi-dimensional than he ever allowed himself to believe she was. For years, he believed Jamie to be one person, and now he is discovering layers he didn't know were there. Drawn to the Jamie he now knows, he is annoyed with both her complexity and his attraction, and he tries to deny both. Examples of Jamie's complexities abound. Landon believes Jamie carried her Bible as a sign of her piety, but he soon discovers that “It was my mother’s,” she said simply” it does so to connect to her deceased mother. He never thinks they have anything in common yet fully understands when she says she misses her mother, just as he misses his father.
Landon assumes Jamie will attend a Bible college and is surprised to hear her say that she has no plans for college. She that “I want to get married, she said quietly”. He believes that she thinks only of God and helpless creatures, yet she tells him she would like to sit in a graveyard and simply listen and look. Jamie is far more than she appears. But as Landon learns more, his antipathy and hindrance increase. He doesn't want to like Jamie for any number of reasons: His friends tease him about her; she doesn't subscribe to the usual teenage value system and modes of behavior; she's the daughter of a minister; she sees the good in everyone; she believes Landon to be good; she gets him to do things he would never do otherwise; she creates a feeling in Landon that he can perhaps even should do more. All this makes Landon deeply uncomfortable, and he wishes she would just go away. So he pushes her away. He yells at her, bathing in his resentment. And he actually enjoys saying all the words he hasn't been able to say for the last few months. She is deeply hurt, but she does not lash back at him; instead, she thanks him for walking her home. This is the last straw for Landon, who cannot believe anyone could be yelled at like that and respond by thanking the yeller. Landon stands at a boundary with self-centeredness, the opinions of others and the comforts of patchiness on one side and total generosity a challenge to live an extraordinary life, and an acute focus on others on the other side. He has to choose which life he wants to live. His logic tells him that she’s nothing special even he had strange feeling for her. She carries a Bible with her all the time, a religious fanatic and overly sentimental character. She helps the less fortunate and being nice to everyone. She is very simple in nature so everyone avoid her presence. Landon had the dilemma in choosing the life decision even though it is a simple matter. Thinking through issues involves a rather simple procedure: Gather the facts, review them, and make a decision based on those facts. Jamie has a close-knit and loving home life. In spite of not having any brothers and sisters of her own, she shares her life with orphans who are close to her own age. In spite of not having much money of her own, she shares her time and money with others at every opportunity.
A review of those facts suggests that she clings to her faith in an unhealthy way, unable to pull herself away from her Bible studies for even a few hours. People who are overly zealous about their religious beliefs tend to be too intense and, difficult to spend time with. For those reasons, Jamie is someone to avoid because she must be a religious fanatic. when Landon spends time with Jamie, he finds that although she is comfortable discussing her religious beliefs, that “I think that all this was in the Lord’s plan somehow”(39) asking deep questions, some way to answer the growing feeling in his soul that he can do more for Jamie and searching for complex answers, she is not fanatical. Landon recognizes that his and Jamie's future lies outside his control. He begins to pray, asking God for a miracle. He recognizes that actions are not thoughts or intentions it is the most important barometer for human behavior. He begins to feel an overwhelming sense that there is a path for him to take, something specific for him to do. But he does not yet know what it is. He begins to read the Bible, looking for an answer. I cry to you, my Lord, my rock!Do not be deaf to me, for if you are silent, I shall go down. To the pit like the rest. Hear my voice raised in petition asI cry to u you for help, as I raise my hands, my Lord, toward Your holy of holies.
He discovers that the proper path in life cannot be discerned from thinking his way through it but from listening to his heart. In the final analysis, this is the most important theme of A Walk to Remember: Life isn't about thinking logically about situations but about feeling your way through them. If Landon had never learned this lesson, he would still be mocking Jamie. In fact, she is quite ordinary, with normal teenage fears, desires, and frustrations. Although she is confident in her beliefs, she is also the very definition of kind and gentle; she does not push her beliefs on anyone else. And she carries her Bible to be close to her mother, not to advertise her faith. Jamie does not live up to the expectation that the "facts" would have Landon believe. As like the proverb “Face is the index of mind” Jamie is always true to her soul which reflects on her arrogances. She throws back the negative things aside and loved everyone equally with the positive approach. The logical sense believes the worst about Jamie. However, believing the soul is the best option in her criteria. The soul dreams, loves, takes chances, defies the odds, while the head will explain the dreams will never come to fruition. But somehow, Landon Carter learns to listen to his soul and disregard all else. Logic insists that Jamie is beyond his help, that there is nothing he can do for her. Logic insists that Jamie will die from her disease, that Landon will forget her, move on, and live out his life with someone else.
At the end of the novel, it creates more questions which are also the intention of author too. As Landon scurries to make plans for the wedding, his parents and Jamie's father try to change his mind, thinking he is marrying Jamie only to make her last days happy. Landon assures them that he is actually doing this for himself but he is following his heart and the voice of God, as he understands it. Landon knows he loves Jamie and he wants to marry her even if she had never been ill. In that year," Landon says, "Jamie helped me become the man I am today". He has matured to the point where he can pursue his own course in life, making his own decisions, even when the significant adults in his life do not understand his motivation. He has also shown that the words he speaks to Jamie about love are true, and that he is prepared to live up to them. Logic dictates that marrying someone in her final days is sentimental and emotional, and will have no bearing on the cold, hard facts of her illness. Landon opts for the heart, choosing to believe in a miracle to marry Jamie in spite of their young age and her advanced illness. The only exception to this is the ending of A Walk to Remember. Sparks has written the entire novel with the thought that Jamie would die, but when he reaches the final chapters of the novel, he realizes that he didn't have the heart to actually put those words on the page. Instead, he chose to leave the ending vague and open to interpretation, and he believes the novel is better for it. Landon Carter tells readers he never removed his wedding ring, that "in all the years, I've never felt the desire to do so". Both at the beginning and the end, the narrator returns to the frame narrative, speaking once more as a fifty-seven-year-old man looking back on the most significant events of his life. He spends his 40 years devoted to her. He spent those years happily and make it successful lifelong decisions. Her death makes him sweet memory to carry her love without pursuing another relationship. He made a lifelong decision and make it successful by spending those years happily. At last Landon listens to his heart where all good, brave and noble decisions are made. The ending makes the story in logical sense.
According to Sigmund Freud, human personality is complex and has more than a single component. In his famous psychoanalytic theory of personality, personality is composed of three elements. Those three elements of personality are id, ego, and superego work together to create complex human behaviors. This can happen through the process of repression. Sigmund Freud emphasized the importance of the unconscious sense, and a primary assumption of Freudian theory is that the unconscious sense governs behavior to a greater degree than people suspect. Indeed, the goal of psychoanalysis is to make the unconscious conscious. According to him, “The mind is like an iceberg, it floats with one- seventh of its bulk above water.” Jamie sends off the darkness from the Landon soul. Sparks represent the conflict arises in young adult between the soul and sense. Finally the passion wins over the logic, which explicit through in this novel. In the end, empathy overtakes the sagacity and turns out the intelligence into the real soul.
