essay about darkness in life

She is a certified professional life coach, Reiki master, spiritual mentor, medical intuitive, and social worker, passionate about elevating consciousness in the world, one soul at a time.

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23 Comments

Michal, Thank you, thank you, I really needed this. I’ve bee going through a lot. Love you much, Lalla

Thank you, Lala! I’m here for you,my dear. Reach out if you need professional support!

My family suffered a terrible tragedy that has been an open wound for 2 years… I finally heard the phrase, “Embrace that darkness” which Im now understanding to mean, “Embrace your life”

Thank you for this deeply personal and inspiring post, Michal.

Thank you, Liz!

I need your help and this is the best days

I have found that when I am in a dark place, I do best by staying in the darkest corner and waiting until I can really feel what I am feeling. I can’t see the light until I get cozy enough in the darkness (although it doesn’t feel cozy at all). It’s almost like backing myself into a dark corner until I feel safe that there is no more darkness behind or to the side of me, then I can safely look forward to the light and make my way back out.

It takes courage to stay in the dark corner, Natasha. The challenge is that when we stay there for too long we might get depressed. That’s why we have self-care practices, to help us uplift ourselves if the darkness starts to take over. You are absolutely right- we need to allow ourselves to stay in the dark for a while- that’s what healing looks like!

Thank you Michal, “I continue to create a delicate dance between darkness and light, reminding myself that darkness and light go together, and true healing happens when we accept the darkness as part of the process.” You broke the code to accepting the dark and light. “Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit, (Jn 12″24).” Some faith traditions call it creative suffering; no resurrection without a crucifixion. Be blessed

Thanks for taking the time sharing your perspective, Joan. It’s interesting that you use the word suffering. The coaching school I did my training with, IPec, has as one of their foundation principles “pain is inevitable, suffering is optional”. I believe that we can choose when to stop suffer and our spiritua connection helps us know when is divine timing for that!

Beautiful message, Michal. Thank you for sharing so much of yourself with us. Darkness teaching me how to appreciate the light moments. Moving has been a dark experience for me this time but I’m starting to see some light! But I had to look for that light and chance my focus.

Thank you for bringing appreciation into this conversation, Bev! Appreciation is a key factor in the process of exploring dark moments because it helps us shift energy and see the light. Your journey is a living example the journey from darkness to light!

This is so beautiful, and something I totally agree with. Thank you for sharing your story, Michal. It is very poignant and special…as are you. Much love.

Lots of love, Juliet. It feels so good to share this journey with you. We’re in this together.

Thank you for a beautiful message !

Thanks for writing, Lesia!

About 10 years ago I experienced something very damaging and painful. The situation lasted about 5 years. Before I’m completely awake in the morning that pain, suffering, guilt, and broken heart wash over me again and again. I can take my mind away during the day, but during sleep this pain still plagues me. How can I get rid of this suffering?

This is an interesting question, Mary. I’m curious to know if you got any professional support and what inner work have you done. it will be valuable to do some work around the benefit and cost of holding on to the suffering. I sent you a personal email and you can also email me at [email protected] . Thanks for having the courage to post your question. I would love to help you!

My healing journey started with meditation almost 5 years ago, at a point in my life where I was desperate for healing, when my body was fighting against itself, and was in self destruct. Little did I know how my life would change forever, and how much joy and peace would enter my heart and life through self awareness, and meditation. My twin sister and I were adopted at the age of 6, the nightmare we both survived through has haunted me all throughout my life, I am so eternally grateful for the healing that has occurred already. The last couple of months I?ve struggled with the darkest parts of me, that scared little lost girl within me is begging me to embrace that darkness, and to love myself unconditionally. I wanted to thank you for this post, I as well had a huge AHA moment!!

Retha – wow! thank you for making yourself vulnerable and sharing your story. What a testimonial of true courage! Bringing purpose to your past pain is not easy but it worth the effort. I hope that you are able to love yourself and your inner-child unconditionally. Please reach out to me if you need my support.

How do I first find my darkness to be able to accept or integrate it?

That’s an interesting question, Chris. Usually, you are aware when you are in a dark place. I’m not sure that you can look for the darkness or find it. It’s simply there. You can investigate the reasons you feel the way you feel, but you can’t miss the darkness when it takes over.

Hello,i just missed this one, are you offering this again? Soon?

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• Positive Psychology

Embracing the Dark Side of Life

How adversity, negativity, and even our mortality can help us flourish..

Posted March 17, 2023 | Reviewed by Ekua Hagan

• What Is Post-Traumatic Growth?
• Find a therapist to heal from trauma
• Humans actually deteriorate without challenges and adversity placed on their bodies and minds.
• People reach their peak levels of fulfillment and development because of—not just in spite of—setbacks, failures and traumas.
• Courageously confronting death helps people live with more meaning and vitality.

Earthquakes, bankruptcies, gut-wrenching heartbreak, pandemics, fender benders ... just as no one gets out of life alive, no one escapes life unscathed by the negative events and emotions—big and small—that are part of the human experience.

Rather counterintuitive in a world that favors comfort, convenience, and sheer and utter pleasure is the idea that humans actually deteriorate without challenges and adversity placed on our bodies and minds (Lukianoff & Haidt, 2018). The hedonic pursuit of happiness , characterized by the maximization of positive emotions and the minimization of negative ones (Peterson, 2006) is a well-worn path for most of us: Dial the pleasure up, turn the displeasure switch off. Embracing challenges in our lives may ultimately lead to positivity. If our goal is to lead flourishing lives, an acceptance—a radical welcoming, even—of the negative side of life may help pave the way.

Appropriate negativity

Barbara Fredrickson (2009) nods to appropriate negativity as a key ingredient in lives worth living. She makes an apt distinction between the negative emotions worth entertaining ( anger , conflict, and guilt ) and the ones worth diminishing ( shame , disgust, and contempt). Fredrickson (2009) further asserts that appropriate negativity grounds us in a gravity-filled reality, in a healthy counterbalance to levity-filled positivity which positions us to flourish.

A judicious application of pessimism , contends Marty Seligman (1990), enables us to appreciate reality more accurately—especially valuable in contrast to unwavering moments of optimism that can cause us to distort the reality of a situation.

The adversity hypothesis

Furthering his admonishment for the “what doesn’t kill you makes you weaker” ethos in our current society, Jonathan Haidt (2006) introduces the adversity hypothesis , that we reach our peak levels of fulfillment and development because of—not just in spite of—the setbacks, failures, and traumas that the cards of life deal us. A benefit of adversity is that it helps orient us to a more present-filled mindset with clarified priorities (Haidt, 2006). Life goals often change in the aftermath of trauma, when various happiness traps (such as money, choice, and conspicuous consumption) carry less weight (Haidt, 2006). The ways in which we struggle during adverse circumstances can lead to the experience of post-traumatic growth , where we encounter growth and development that surpasses our pre-crisis state (Tedeschi & Calhoun, 2004). The fact that 30-70 percent of individuals who undergo a traumatic event emerge with positive change is a testament to the power of adversity (Linley & Joseph, 2004).

Positive psychology 2.0: The dark side

Chris Peterson (2006) articulately defends positive psychology’s position on the role negativity plays in a well-lived life—that the field of study doesn’t stick its head in the sands of glorious, sunny, happy beaches. His veritable laundry list of what ultimately turns frowns upside down is compelling: Moments of crisis call upon and refine our character strengths, optimism does its best work in the face of failure, the experience of flow is contingent on overcoming challenges to achieve things that matter, and relationships stand the test of time if partners participate in healthy problem-solving.

Indeed, positive psychology in its most holistic definition includes bittersweet moments, suffering, and regrets, and acknowledges that the good life has both bright and dark sides (King, 2001), with meaningful complementarity between both sides (Lomas, 2016). Positive psychology aims for a comprehensive and balanced understanding of the human condition—inclusive of the good days, bad days, and all the days in between—a nuanced grasp of our happiness and our suffering (Seligman, Steen, Park, & Peterson, 2005). Peterson and Seligman (2004) also go so far as to suggest that crisis has a role to play as a crucible for the best parts within us, and academic Paul Bloom (2021) provocatively observes our all-too-human desires to intentionally seek out pain and suffering (like training for marathons or by joining the army), in paradoxical attempts to make meaning in our lives.

The meaning and motivation behind memento mori

So how, more specifically, can positive psychology help us leverage death to help bring us back to full life, before we’re six feet underground? The field of positive psychology is uniquely poised to explore—with the heft of all its theory and practice—this traditionally taboo topic. It appears that the well-lived life is reached in part because of the poignant contrast that exists between the highs and the lows—the troubles, setbacks, and even traumas that life presents. We don’t need to experience the depths of despair to gain access to well-being, but adopting the perspective that adversity is required for a full, rich life of meaning, can motivate us to reflect on death in a way that lets us tune into the upside of the dark side. The practice of memento mori (remembering we must die) is about more than “fixing” our death-related anxieties and grieving with slightly less sorrow. We’re pushing beyond a few comfortable boundaries to give the promise of death permission to catapult us into something so much better.

An existential paradox is born from our awareness of mortality; we simultaneously want to play it safe and avoid risks while reaching out and experiencing more that life has to offer (Reivich & Shatte, 2003). We’re reigned in yet also motivated to want more. Positive psychology with an existential twist encourages us to courageously confront death to live with more meaning and vitality (Wong, 2010)—to not accept an absence of distress or an “it’s fine” relationship to our lives, but to work for the greater cause of living both wider with vitality and deeper with meaning.

Bloom, P. (2021). The sweet spot: the pleasures of suffering and the search for meaning. First edition. New York, NY, Ecco, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers.

Fredrickson, B. (2009). Positivity: Groundbreaking research reveals how to embrace the hidden strength of positive emotions, overcome negativity, and thrive . New York, NY: Crown.

Haidt, J. (2006). The happiness hypothesis . New York: Basic Books.

King, L.A. (2001). The hard road to the good life. Journal of Humanistic Psychology, 41 (1), 51–72. doi:10.1177/0022167801411005

Linley, P. A., & Joseph, S. (2004). Positive change following trauma and adversity: A review. Journal of Traumatic Stress, 17, 11-21. doi: 10.1023/B:JOTS.0000014671.27856.7e

Lomas, T. (2016). Positive psychology – the second wave. The Psychologist, 29 , 536-539.

Lukianoff, G., & Haidt, J. (2018). The coddling of the American mind: How good intentions and bad ideas are setting up a generation for failure. New York: Penguin Press.

Peterson, C. (2006). A primer in positive psychology . New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

Peterson, C. & Seligman, M. E. P. (2004). Character strengths and virtues. New York, NY: Oxford University Press and Washington: American Psychological Association Press.

Reivich, K., & Shatte, A. (2003). The resilience factor: 7 keys to finding your inner strength and overcoming life’s hurdles. New York, NY: Broadway Books.

Seligman, M. E. P. (1990). Learned optimism . New York: Pocket Books.

Seligman, M. E. P., Steen, T. A., Park, N., & Peterson, C. (2005). Positive psychology progress: Empirical validation of interventions. American Psychologist, 60, 410–421. doi: 10.1037/0003-066X.60.5.410

Tedeschi, R. G. & Calhoun, L.G. (2004). Posttraumatic growth: Conceptual foundations and empirical evidence. Psychological Inquiry, 15, 1-18. doi: 10.1207/s15327965pli1501_01

Wong, P.T.P. (2010, July). What is existential positive psychology? International Journal of Existential Psychology & Psychotherapy, 3 (1).

Jodi Wellman, MAPP, is a leading authority on living lives worth living. As a speaker and coach, she helps people live squander-free lives while cleverly beginning with the “big end” in mind.

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Woolf’s Darkness: Embracing the Inexplicable

This piece is adapted from “Men Explain Things to Me,” a collection of essays that will be published on May 6th by Haymarket Books.

“ The future is dark, which is the best thing the future can be, I think ,” Virginia Woolf wrote in her journal on January 18, 1915, when she was almost thirty-three years old and the First World War was beginning to turn into catastrophic slaughter on an unprecedented scale that would continue for years. Belgium was occupied, the continent was at war, many of the European nations were also invading other places around the world, the Panama Canal had just opened, the U.S. economy was in terrible shape, twenty-nine thousand people had just died in an Italian earthquake, Zeppelins were about to attack Great Yarmouth, launching the age of aerial bombing against civilians, and the Germans were just weeks away from using poison gas for the first time on the Western Front. Woolf, however, might have been writing about her own future rather than the world’s.

She was less than six months past a bout of madness or depression that had led to a suicide attempt, and was still being tended or guarded by nurses. Until then, in fact, her madness and the war had followed a similar calendar, but Woolf recovered and the war continued its downward plunge for nearly four more bloody years. The future is dark, which is the best thing the future can be, I think . It’s an extraordinary declaration, asserting that the unknown need not be turned into the known through false divination, or the projection of grim political or ideological narratives; it’s a celebration of darkness, willing—as that “ I think ” indicates—to be uncertain even about its own assertion.

Most people are afraid of the dark. Literally when it comes to children, while many adults fear, above all, the darkness that is the unknown, the unseeable, the obscure. And yet the night in which distinctions and definitions cannot be readily made is the same night in which love is made, in which things merge, change, become enchanted, aroused, impregnated, possessed, released, renewed.

As I began writing this essay, I picked up a book on wilderness survival by Laurence Gonzalez and found in it this telling sentence: “The plan, a memory of the future, tries on reality to see if it fits.” His point is that when the two seem incompatible we often hang onto the plan, ignore the warnings reality offers us, and so plunge into trouble. Afraid of the darkness of the unknown, the spaces in which we see only dimly, we often choose the darkness of closed eyes, of obliviousness. Gonzalez adds, “Researchers point out that people tend to take any information as confirmation of their mental models. We are by nature optimists, if optimism means that we believe we see the world as it is. And under the influence of a plan, it’s easy to see what we want to see.” It’s the job of writers and explorers to see more, to travel light when it comes to preconception, to go into the dark with their eyes open.

Not all of them aspire to do so or succeed. Nonfiction has crept closer to fiction in our time in ways that are not flattering to fiction, in part because too many writers cannot come to terms with the ways in which the past, like the future, is dark. There is so much we don’t know, and to write truthfully about a life, your own or your mother’s or a celebrated figure’s, an event, a crisis, another culture is to engage repeatedly with those patches of darkness, those nights of history, those places of unknowing. They tell us that there are limits to knowledge, that there are essential mysteries, starting with the notion that we know just what someone thought or felt in the absence of exact information.

Often enough, we don’t know such things even when it comes to ourselves, let alone someone who perished in an epoch whose very textures and reflexes were unlike ours. Filling in the blanks replaces the truth that we don’t entirely know with the false sense that we do. We know less when we erroneously think we know than when we recognize that we don’t. Sometimes I think these pretenses at authoritative knowledge are failures of language: the language of bold assertion is simpler, less taxing, than the language of nuance and ambiguity and speculation. Woolf was unparalleled at that latter language.

Even her name has a little wildness to it. The French call dusk the time “ entre le chien et le loup ,” between the dog and the wolf, and certainly in marrying a Jew in the England of her era Virginia Stephen was choosing to go a little feral, to step a little beyond the proprieties of her class and time. While there are many Woolfs, mine has been a Virgil guiding me through the uses of wandering, getting lost, anonymity, immersion, uncertainty, and the unknown. I made that sentence of hers about darkness the epigram that drove Hope in the Dark , my 2004 book about politics and hope written to counter despair in the aftermath of the Bush administration’s invasion of Iraq.

Two Winter Walks

To me, the grounds for hope are simply that we don’t know what will happen next, and that the unlikely and the unimaginable transpire quite regularly. And that the unofficial history of the world shows that dedicated individuals and popular movements can shape history and have, though how and when we might win and how long it takes is not predictable.

Despair is a form of certainty, certainty that the future will be a lot like the present or will decline from it; despair is a confident memory of the future, in Gonzalez’s resonant phrase. Optimism is similarly confident about what will happen. Both are grounds for not acting. Hope can be the knowledge that we don’t have that memory and that reality doesn’t necessarily match our plans; hope like creative ability can come from what the Romantic poet John Keats called Negative Capability.

On a midwinter’s night in 1817, a little over a century before Woolf’s journal entry on darkness, the poet John Keats walked home talking with some friends and as he wrote in a celebrated letter describing that walk, “several things dove-tailed in my mind, and at once it struck me what quality went to form a Man of Achievement, especially in Literature.… I mean Negative Capability, that is, when a man is capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason.”

Keats walking and talking and having several things dovetail in his mind suggests the way wandering on foot can lead to the wandering of imagination and to an understanding that is creation itself, the activity that makes introspection an outdoor pursuit. In her memoir “A Sketch of the Past,” Woolf wrote, “Then one day walking round Tavistock Square, I made as I sometimes make up my books, To the Lighthouse , in a great, apparently involuntary, rush. One thing burst into another. Blowing bubbles out of a pipe gives the feeling of the rapid crowd of ideas and scenes which blew out of my mind, so that my lips seemed syllabling of their own accord as I walked. What blew the bubbles? Why then? I have no notion.”

Some portion of Woolf’s genius, it seems to me, is that having no notion, that negative capability. I once heard about a botanist in Hawaii with a knack for finding new species by getting lost in the jungle, by going beyond what he knew and how he knew, by letting experience be larger than his knowledge, by choosing reality rather than the plan. Woolf not only utilized but celebrated the unpredictable meander, on mind and foot. Her great essay “Street Haunting: A London Adventure,” from 1930, has the light breezy tone of many of her early essays, and yet voyages deep into the dark.

It takes a fictionalized or invented excursion to buy a pencil in the winter dusk of London as an excuse to explore darkness, wandering, invention, the annihilation of identity, the enormous adventure that transpires in the mind while the body travels a quotidian course. “The evening hour, too, gives us the irresponsibility which darkness and lamplight bestow,” she writes. “We are no longer quite ourselves. As we step out of the house on a fine evening between four and six, we shed the self our friends know us by and become part of that vast republican army of anonymous trampers, whose society is so agreeable after the solitude of one’s own room.” Here she describes a form of society that doesn’t enforce identity but liberates it, the society of strangers, the republic of the streets, the experience of being anonymous and free that big cities invented.

Introspection is often portrayed as an indoor, solitary thing, the monk in his cell, the writer at her desk. Woolf disagrees, saying of the home, “For there we sit surrounded by objects which enforce the memories of our own experience.” She describes the objects and then states, “But when the door shuts on us, all that vanishes. The shell-like covering which our souls have excreted to house themselves, to make for themselves a shape distinct from others, is broken, and there is left of all these wrinkles and roughnesses a central pearl of perceptiveness, an enormous eye. How beautiful a street is in winter!”

The shell of home is a prison of sorts, as much as a protection, a casing of familiarity and continuity that can vanish outside. Walking the streets can be a form of social engagement, even of political action when we walk in concert, as we do in uprisings, demonstrations, and revolutions, but it can also be a means of inducing reverie, subjectivity, and imagination, a sort of duet between the prompts and interrupts of the outer world and the flow of images and desires (and fears) within. At times, thinking is an outdoor activity, and a physical one.

In these circumstances, it is often mild distraction that moves the imagination forward, not uninterrupted concentration. Thinking then works by indirection, sauntering in a roundabout way to places it cannot reach directly. In “Street Haunting,” the voyages of imagination may be purely recreational, but such meandering allowed Woolf to conceive the form of To the Lighthouse , had furthered her creative work in a way that sitting at a desk might not. The ways creative work gets done are always unpredictable, demanding room to roam, refusing schedules and systems. They cannot be reduced to replicable formulas.

Public space, urban space, which serves at other times the purposes of the citizen, the member of society establishing contact with other members, is here the space in which to disappear from the bonds and binds of individual identity. Woolf is celebrating getting lost, not literally lost as in not knowing how to find your way, but lost as in open to the unknown, and the way that physical space can provide psychic space. She writes about daydreaming, or perhaps evening dreaming in this case, the business of imagining yourself in another place, as another person.

In “Street Haunting,” she wonders about identity itself:

Or is the true self neither this nor that, neither here nor there, but something so varied and wandering that it is only when we give the rein to its wishes and let it take its way unimpeded that we are indeed ourselves? Circumstances compel unity; for convenience’ sake a man must be a whole. The good citizen when he opens his door in the evening must be banker, golfer, husband, father; not a nomad wandering the desert, a mystic staring at the sky, a debauchee in the slums of San Francisco, a soldier heading a revolution, a pariah howling with scepticism and solitude.

But he is all these others, she says, and the strictures limiting what he can be are not her strictures.

Principles of Uncertainty

Woolf is calling for a more introspective version of the poet Walt Whitman’s “I contain multitudes,” a more diaphanous version of the poet Arthur Rimbaud’s “I is another.” She is calling for circumstances that do not compel the unity of identity that is a limitation or even repression. It’s often noted that she does this for her characters in her novels, less often that, in her essays, she exemplifies it in the investigative, critical voice that celebrates and expands, and demands it in her insistence on multiplicity, on irreducibility, and maybe on mystery, if mystery is the capacity of something to keep becoming, to go beyond, to be uncircumscribable, to contain more.

Woolf’s essays are often both manifestoes about and examples or investigations of this unconfined consciousness, this uncertainty principle. They are also models of a counter-criticism, for we often think the purpose of criticism is to nail things down. During my years as an art critic I used to joke that museums love artists the way that taxidermists love deer, and something of that desire to secure, to stabilize, to render certain and definite the open-ended, nebulous, and adventurous work of artists is present in many who work in that confinement sometimes called the art world.

A similar kind of aggression against the slipperiness of the work and the ambiguities of the artist’s intent and meaning often exists in literary criticism and academic scholarship, a desire to make certain what is uncertain, to know what is unknowable, to turn the flight across the sky into the roast upon the plate, to classify and contain. What escapes categorization can escape detection altogether.

There is a kind of counter-criticism that seeks to expand the work of art, by connecting it, opening up its meanings, inviting in the possibilities. A great work of criticism can liberate a work of art, to be seen fully, to remain alive, to engage in a conversation that will not ever end but will instead keep feeding the imagination. Not against interpretation, but against confinement, against the killing of the spirit. Such criticism is itself great art.

This is a kind of criticism that does not pit the critic against the text, does not seek authority. It seeks instead to travel with the work and its ideas, invite it to blossom and invite others into a conversation that might have previously seemed impenetrable, to draw out relationships that might have been unseen and open doors that might have been locked. This is a kind of criticism that respects the essential mystery of a work of art, which is in part its beauty and its pleasure, both of which are irreducible and subjective.

Liberations

Woolf liberates the text, the imagination, the fictional character, and then demands that liberty for ourselves, most particularly for women. This gets to the crux of the Woolf that has been most exemplary for me: she is always celebrating a liberation that is not official, institutional, rational, but a matter of going beyond the familiar, the safe, the known into the broader world. Her demands for liberation for women were not merely so that they could do some of the institutional things men did (and women now do, too), but to have full freedom to roam, geographically and imaginatively.

She recognizes that this requires various practical forms of freedom and power—recognizes it in A Room of One’s Own , too often remembered as an argument for rooms and incomes, though it demands also universities and a whole world via the wonderful, miserable tale of Judith Shakespeare, the playwright’s doomed sister: “She could get no training in her craft. Could she even get her dinner in a tavern or roam the streets at midnight?” Dinner in taverns, streets at midnight, the freedom of the city are crucial elements of freedom, not to define an identity but to lose it. Perhaps the protagonist of her novel Orlando , who lives for centuries, slipping from one gender to another, embodies her ideal of absolute freedom to roam, in consciousness, romance, identity, and place.

The question of liberation appears another way in her talk “Professions for Women,” which describes with delightful ferocity the business of killing the Angel in the House, the ideal woman who meets all others’ needs and expectations and not her own.

I did my best to kill her. My excuse, if I were to be had up in a court of law, would be that I acted in self-defense …. Killing the Angel in the House was part of the occupation of a woman writer. The Angel was dead; what then remained? You may say that what remained was a simple and common object—a young woman in a bedroom with an inkpot. In other words, now that she had rid herself of falsehood, that young woman had only to be herself. Ah, but what is ‘herself’? I mean, what is a woman? I assure you, I do not know. I do not believe that you know.

By now you’ve noticed that Woolf says “I don’t know” quite a lot.

“Killing the Angel of the House,” she says further on, “I think I solved. She died. But the second, telling the truth about my own experiences as a body, I do not think I solved. I doubt that any woman has solved it yet. The obstacles against her are still immensely powerful—and yet they are very difficult to define.” This is Woolf’s wonderful tone of gracious noncompliance, and to say that her truth must be bodily is itself radical to the point of being almost unimaginable before she had said it. Embodiment appears in her work much more decorously than in, say, Joyce’s, but it appears—and though she looks at ways that power may be gained, it is Woolfian that in her essay “On Being Ill” she finds that even the powerlessness of illness can be liberatory for noticing what healthy people do not, for reading texts with a fresh eye, for being transformed. All Woolf’s work as I know it constitutes a sort of Ovidian metamorphosis where the freedom sought is the freedom to continue becoming, exploring, wandering, going beyond. She is an escape artist.

In calling for some specific social changes, Woolf is herself a revolutionary. (And of course she had the flaws and blind spots of her class and place and time, which she saw beyond in some ways but not in all. We also have those blind spots later generations may or may not condemn us for.) But her ideal is of a liberation that must also be internal, emotional, intellectual.

My own task these past twenty years or so of living by words has been to try to find or make a language to describe the subtleties, the incalculables, the pleasures and meanings—impossible to categorize—at the heart of things. My friend Chip Ward speaks of “the tyranny of the quantifiable,” of the way what can be measured almost always takes precedence over what cannot: private profit over public good; speed and efficiency over enjoyment and quality; the utilitarian over the mysteries and meanings that are of greater use to our survival and to more than our survival, to lives that have some purpose and value that survive beyond us to make a civilization worth having.

The tyranny of the quantifiable is partly the failure of language and discourse to describe more complex, subtle, and fluid phenomena, as well as the failure of those who shape opinions and make decisions to understand and value these slipperier things. It is difficult, sometimes even impossible, to value what cannot be named or described, and so the task of naming and describing is an essential one in any revolt against the status quo of capitalism and consumerism. Ultimately the destruction of the earth is due in part, perhaps in large part, to a failure of the imagination or to its eclipse by systems of accounting that can’t count what matters. The revolt against this destruction is a revolt of the imagination, in favor of subtleties, of pleasures money can’t buy and corporations can’t command, of being producers rather than consumers of meaning, of the slow, the meandering, the digressive, the exploratory, the numinous, the uncertain.

I want to end with a passage from Woolf that my friend the painter May Stevens sent me after writing it across one of her paintings, a passage that found its way into my book A Field Guide to Getting Lost . In May’s paintings, Woolf’s long sentences are written so that they flow like water, become an elemental force on which we are all swept along and buoyed up. In To the Lighthouse , Woolf wrote:

For now she need not think about anybody. She could be herself, by herself. And that was what now she often felt the need of—to think; well, not even to think. To be silent; to be alone. All the being and the doing, expansive, glittering, vocal, evaporated; and one shrunk, with a sense of solemnity, to being oneself, a wedge-shaped core of darkness, something invisible to others. Although she continued to knit, and sat upright, it was thus that she felt herself; and this self having shed its attachments was free for the strangest adventures. When life sank down for a moment, the range of experience seemed limitless…. Beneath it is all dark, it is all spreading, it is unfathomably deep; but now and again we rise to the surface and that is what you see us by. Her horizon seemed to her limitless.

Woolf gave us limitlessness, impossible to grasp, urgent to embrace, as fluid as water, as endless as desire, a compass by which to get lost.

Rebecca Solnit is the author of sixteen books, among them “The Faraway Nearby,” “A Field Guide to Getting Lost,” and “A Paradise Built in Hell.”

Photograph, top, by Paolo Pellegrin/Magnum. Photograph of Virginia Woolf by George Charles Beresford.

Why We Shouldn’t Shield Children From Darkness

Editor’s note: On Jan. 12, Kate DiCamillo responded to de la Peña’s questions. Read her essay here .

Twice this past fall I was left speechless by a child.

The first time happened at an elementary school in Huntington, New York. I was standing on their auditorium stage, in front of a hundred or so students, and after talking to them about books and writing and the power of story, I fielded questions. The first five or six were the usual fare. Where do I get my ideas? How long does it take to write a book? Am I rich? ( Hahahahaha! ) But then a fifth-grade girl wearing bright green glasses stood and asked something different. “If you had the chance to meet an author you admire,” she said, “what would you ask?”

For whatever reason this girl’s question, on this morning, cut through any pretense that might ordinarily sneak into an author presentation. The day before, a man in Las Vegas had opened fire on concertgoers from his Mandalay Bay hotel room . Tensions between America and North Korea were reaching a boiling point. Puerto Ricans continued to suffer the nightmarish aftereffects of Hurricane Maria . I studied all the fresh-faced young people staring up at me, trying to square the light of childhood with the darkness in our current world.

All of this, of course, was wildly inappropriate for such a young audience — and had little to do with the question — so I just stood there in awkward silence, the seconds ticking by.

Eventually I gave the girl some pre-packaged sound bite about dealing with rejection, or the importance of revision, and then our time was up. But hours later, as I sat in a crowded airport, waiting for a delayed flight, I was still thinking about that girl’s question. What would I ask an author I admire? Writers like Kate DiCamillo came to mind. Sandra Cisneros. Christopher Paul Curtis.

Now I wanted a do-over.

A thoughtful question like that deserved a more thoughtful response.

Just as my plane reached its cruising altitude, it came to me. If I had the chance to ask Kate DiCamillo anything, it would be this: How honest can an author be with an auditorium full of elementary school kids? How honest should we be with our readers? Is the job of the writer for the very young to tell the truth or preserve innocence?

A few weeks ago, illustrator Loren Long and I learned that a major gatekeeper would not support our forthcoming picture book, Love , an exploration of love in a child’s life, unless we “softened” a certain illustration. In the scene, a despondent young boy hides beneath a piano with his dog, while his parents argue across the living room. There is an empty Old Fashioned glass resting on top of the piano. The feedback our publisher received was that the moment was a little too heavy for children. And it might make parents uncomfortable. This discouraging news led me to really examine, maybe for the first time in my career, the purpose of my picture book manuscripts. What was I trying to accomplish with these stories? What thoughts and feelings did I hope to evoke in children?

This particular project began innocently enough. Finding myself overwhelmed by the current divisiveness in our country, I set out to write a comforting poem about love. It was going to be something I could share with my own young daughter as well as every kid I met in every state I visited, red or blue. But when I read over one of the early drafts, something didn’t ring true. It was reassuring, uplifting even, but I had failed to acknowledge any notion of adversity.

So I started over.

A few weeks into the revision process, my wife and I received some bad news, and my daughter saw my wife openly cry for the first time. This rocked her little world and she began sobbing and clinging to my wife’s leg, begging to know what was happening. We settled her down and talked to her and eventually got her ready for bed. And as my wife read her a story about two turtles who stumble across a single hat, I studied my daughter’s tear-stained face. I couldn’t help thinking a fraction of her innocence had been lost that day. But maybe these minor episodes of loss are just as vital to the well-adjusted child’s development as moments of joy. Maybe instead of anxiously trying to protect our children from every little hurt and heartache, our job is to simply support them through such experiences. To talk to them. To hold them.

And maybe this idea also applied to the manuscript I was working on.

Loren and I ultimately fought to keep the “heavy” illustration. Aside from being an essential story beat, there’s also the issue of representation. In the book world, we often talk about the power of racial inclusion — and in this respect we’re beginning to see a real shift in the field — but many other facets of diversity remain in the shadows. For instance, an uncomfortable number of children out there right now are crouched beneath a metaphorical piano. There’s a power to seeing this largely unspoken part of our interior lives represented, too. And for those who’ve yet to experience that kind of sadness, I can’t think of a safer place to explore complex emotions for the first time than inside the pages of a book, while sitting in the lap of a loved one.

We are currently in a golden age of picture books, with a tremendous range to choose from. Some of the best are funny. Or silly. Or informative. Or socially aware. Or just plain reassuring. But I’d like to think there’s a place for the emotionally complex picture book, too. Jacqueline Woodson’s amazing Each Kindness comes to mind, in which the protagonist misses the opportunity to be kind to a classmate. Margaret Wise Brown’s The Dead Bird is a beautiful exploration of mourning from the point of view of children.

Which brings me to the second child who left me speechless last fall.

I was visiting an elementary school in Rome, Georgia, where I read and discussed one of my older books, Last Stop on Market Street , as I usually do. But at the end of the presentation I decided, on a whim, to read Love to them, too, even though it wasn’t out yet. I projected Loren’s illustrations as I recited the poem from memory, and after I finished, something remarkable happened. A boy immediately raised his hand, and I called on him, and he told me in front of the entire group, “When you just read that to us I got this feeling. In my heart. And I thought of my ancestors. Mostly my grandma, though … because she always gave us so much love. And she’s gone now.”

And then he started quietly crying.

And a handful of the teachers started crying, too.

I nearly lost it myself. Right there in front of 150 third graders. It took me several minutes to compose myself and thank him for his comment.

On the way back to my hotel, I was still thinking about that boy, and his raw emotional response. I felt so lucky to have been there to witness it. I thought of all the boys growing up in working-class neighborhoods around the country who are terrified to show any emotion. Because that’s how I grew up, too — terrified. Yet this young guy was brave enough to raise his hand, in front of everyone, and share how he felt after listening to me read a book. And when he began to cry a few of his classmates patted his little shoulders in a show of support. I don’t know if I’ve ever been so moved inside the walls of a school.

I hope one day I’ll have the chance to formally ask Kate DiCamillo my questions about innocence and truth. But I do know this: My experience in Rome, Georgia? That’s why I write books. Because the little story I’m working on alone in a room, day after day, might one day give some kid out there an opportunity to “feel.” And if I’m ever there to see it in person again, next time hopefully I’ll be brave enough to let myself cry, too.

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A Light in Darkness

By Alexis Soloaga

Published: July 31, 2020

My life is my responsibility . The one part of the weekly check in that I know I will never forget. The mantra captured the motivations behind each person in the peer-to-peer circle at Imani Unidad, which seemed to expand each week we were there. It expressed in simple terms the reason why so many people of different backgrounds—addicts, single moms, social workers, ex-gang members, teenagers from Juvenile Detention, and Notre Dame students—would come together. Sitting in my chair, smelling the stew that was brought for dinner that evening, I looked around the room at all the unfamiliar faces, and scooted my chair over to make room in the circle.

I grew personally from this experience as I learned that it isn't always about tangible results, but rather some of the most important service requires just presence and openness to listening and supporting those who need it. Walking into the gallery that first evening, I felt intimidated and displaced. Throughout high school I committed myself to service that was more lighthearted and, honestly, fun, whether it was coaching sports teams for those with disabilities or serving meals at my local homeless shelter. I felt that I was making a difference in the lives of others because I could physically see my offerings accepted and used by those who needed it. Because of this, it took me some time to discover that my time at Imani is just as valuable even if I cannot see the results so easily. Sitting and actively listening, I didn't feel like I was contributing to anything as my lack of experience in many of the topics kept me from being able to offer advice. I kept thinking that I could be more helpful by assisting with more tangible needs, like resumes or interview practice, to help secure employment for those looking for a job, but I see now that the members of this support group rely on these meetings, coming even when the weather is bad or they are tired after working long hours. Being able to share what's bothering them and receiving advice or even a supportive message is imperative for their mental stability and their transition back into society.

I not only offered my support to the group, but I also found that I received support during my weekly check-in. This check-in was a chance to reflect on my own life each week, making time to stop and think about where my life is going and if I liked where I was at in terms of relationships, academics, and spirituality. I have always had problems opening myself up to others, thinking that what I struggle with is trivial compared to other people's hardships, but at Imani I found that no one dismissed what anyone brought up and many of the risks that others mentioned applied to my own life, such as time management, organization, and toxic relationships. By taking the time to perform a self-assessment, each one of us could make sure that we weren't starting to go down the wrong path or returning to bad habits, and by having others also checking in it often brought up something within ourselves that we were trying to deny.

As a result of our discussion in and out of the classroom, I saw the humanity in a group of people that is so often villainized by the media. Topics we talked about like mass incarceration, black oppression, and institutional racism were made flesh when we sat in our circle at Imani. Looking past the surface with understanding and openness, I could see that they were people oppressed by the system that doesn't show any mercy. Many talked about growing up in an unstable family situation and now they are repeating the cycle. Others talked about their children and how they are trying to do everything they can to either regain custody or prevent them from being taken away. The people at peer-to-peer expressed the same goals we all look to accomplish: steady job, positive friendships and relationships, and feelings of fulfillment. I learned about the dreams that the woman next to me had once she was released. She planned to visit her son, who has been in jail for the past fifteen years, for the first time since she's finally clean. Then she decided to take the bus to Los Angeles to start a new life, knowing only her sister there. Imani fosters a community of hope and second chances, helping its participants succeed in their subsequent goals whether that is finding employment, stable housing, or mending relationships.

The concept of genuine community, another topic we described at length, is exemplified by the peer-to-peer group as they open themselves up to listening and accepting everyone's stories, focusing on someone else's risk instead of turning the conversation back to themselves. At the beginning of each class, Baye reminds everyone of the importance of participation and that there are no observers. Because everyone commits and offers a piece of themselves to the group, a community of support and acceptance forms. I found the level of participation from the entire group inspiring as everyone committed to giving their attention and advice to each other. There was one man, Barack, who was having issues with his relationships with his son, his wife, and his son's mother. Even though it took up the entire session, the group didn't move on without helping him first. This commitment to each other strengthens the support network of the peer-to- peer group, which is vital to the transition back into society.

Based on my experiences at Imani, I now understand the many sides to service. While it doesn't feel like I am physically offering that much to the people in peer-to-peer, I can see the impact that real listening and conversation can have. Problems are resolved each meeting helping people stay clean and keep them from getting into trouble once again. Getting to meet so many great people in the peer-to-peer groups and hearing them share their stories with me while we wait for the meeting to start has shown me the humanity behind the people that society tries so hard to ignore. I know now that I want to continue my education and begin to advocate for the people on the margins, educating others on the systemic problems that are large contributors to the epidemic of mass incarceration. I am encouraged to continue to serve those who have served time in jail, who are in need of assistance in the period of transition, whether that's through conversation or offering them help with job skills and interview preparation. I can continue to view those that were previously incarcerated not with a mind full of judgement, but with a heart open—through the lens of affection—supporting their recovery and encouraging their efforts to get jobs and move up in the world.

The genuine community offered at Imani Unidad offers support and assistance to many who are transitioning back into society. Through the exchange of giving and supporting, each one of us gained so much from our six weeks serving there. I discovered that service is not always enjoyable, full of laughter and lots of activity, but also just offering an ear to someone who may feel so alone. This experience encourages me to do more for my community, bridging the gap that is less than a ten-minute drive. I owe so much to the people at Imani for opening my eyes to people who come from so many different backgrounds, but all congregate for the same reason. Everyone looks to take control of their life and claim responsibility for it because, with all the risks surrounding us, waiting to catch us when we fail, we need to welcome other's support and do something good for ourselves.

• How effective is Alexis in meeting the terms of the assignment? Offer specific support for your claim.
• What virtues of discourse do you see in play in the critical reflection? Specify and elaborate.
• To what extent (if at all) does this reflection resonate with you? That is, how does it relate to your life? What are your most meaningful takeaways?

Assignment Prompt

Alexis Soloaga

Alexis Soloaga is from Davis, California and currently resides in Howard Hall. She hopes to work in tech consulting after receiving her degree in Computer Science. "A Light in Darkness" reflects her semester service assignment at Imani Unidad, where she offered support for incarcerated people. This experience displays how impactful service can be to everyone involved. She hopes readers are encouraged to go beyond campus and connect with people in the surrounding area. She is so grateful for her community-based Writing and Rhetoric class for pushing her outside her comfort zone and Edward Kelly for sharing his passions for criminal justice reform with his class.

Essay on Fear Of Darkness

Students are often asked to write an essay on Fear Of Darkness in their schools and colleges. And if you’re also looking for the same, we have created 100-word, 250-word, and 500-word essays on the topic.

Let’s take a look…

100 Words Essay on Fear Of Darkness

Understanding fear of darkness.

The fear of darkness, also known as Nyctophobia, is a common fear among many people, especially children. This fear can make a person feel scared or anxious when there is no light. It is often linked to the fear of the unknown, as darkness can hide things that may cause harm.

Reasons for Fear of Darkness

Many reasons can cause fear of darkness. Some people may have had a scary experience in the dark, like watching a horror movie. Others may fear darkness because they feel alone or unsafe without light. This fear can also come from scary stories about things that happen in the dark.

Overcoming Fear of Darkness

Overcoming fear of darkness can take time and patience. One method is to slowly spend more time in dark places to get used to them. Another way is to use night lights or keep a small light on. Talking about the fear can also help to lessen it.

250 Words Essay on Fear Of Darkness

Fear of darkness, also known as Nyctophobia, is a common fear among people, especially children. This fear can make a person feel scared or nervous when there is no light. It is not just the absence of light that scares them, but the thought of what might be hiding in the shadows.

Why People Fear Darkness

Effects of fear of darkness.

Fear of darkness can make it hard for a person to sleep at night. They might feel scared to be alone in a dark room. This fear can also make it hard for them to go places where it might be dark, like a movie theater or a basement.

It is possible to overcome the fear of darkness. One way is to slowly spend more time in the dark. This helps a person to get used to the dark and feel less scared. Another way is to think about happy things when it is dark. This can make the dark seem less scary.

In conclusion, fear of darkness is a common fear that can be overcome. By understanding why we are scared of the dark and finding ways to feel less scared, we can start to feel more comfortable in the dark.

500 Words Essay on Fear Of Darkness

Introduction.

Fear of darkness, also known as Nyctophobia, is a common fear experienced by many, especially children. It is the intense fear that comes when the lights are turned off and everything around becomes dark. This fear often starts in childhood and can sometimes continue into adulthood.

What Causes Fear of Darkness?

Fear of darkness can be caused by many things. For some, it may be the result of a scary experience in the dark, like watching a horror movie. For others, it could be due to a lack of understanding of what darkness is. This is often the case with children who are still learning about the world around them. Darkness is simply the absence of light, but for a child, it can feel like a scary, unknown place where anything could happen.

Overcoming the Fear of Darkness

The good news is that fear of darkness can be overcome. One way to do this is through exposure therapy. This involves slowly getting used to being in the dark, starting with just a few minutes at a time and gradually increasing the amount of time spent in the dark. Another method is cognitive-behavioral therapy, which helps change the way a person thinks about darkness and teaches them coping strategies to deal with their fear.

Fear of darkness is a common fear that can have a big impact on a person’s life. But with understanding, patience, and the right help, it can be overcome. It’s important to remember that everyone has fears and that it’s okay to ask for help when you need it.

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Commenting on developments in the English language

From darkness into the light: metaphors of darkness and light

by Liz Walter

‘Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that.’

‘In the midst of darkness, light persists.’

These quotes, from Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King, perfectly demonstrate the way darkness and light are used as metaphors in English (and many other languages), with darkness suggesting ignorance, evil and unhappiness and light signifying knowledge, purity and happiness. There are many common phrases that exemplify this, and this post will look at some of the most common ones.

We’ll start with ignorance and knowledge. If you keep something dark , you keep it secret, and if you are in the dark about something, you don’t know anything about it:

They were planning to leave, but they kept it dark.

We were completely in the dark about what was happening.

Conversely, if you bring something to light or if something comes to light , people find out about it, while if you cast/shed/throw light on something, you give people information about it:

New facts were brought to light by scholars.

This evidence did not come to light until after the trial.

Are you able to shed any light on this subject?

Now we turn to metaphors of evil and goodness or purity. We use the word dark to talk about bad actions or characteristics. Other adjectives connected with darkness, for example shady , shadowy and murky are also used to denote dishonesty:

There’s a dark side to her character.

They’re involved in various murky business deals.

On the other hand, we use terms such as a shining light or a beacon / ray of light to describe people or things that are good or give hope, especially in a generally bad environment. Similarly, we talk about someone or something being a shining example of something good:

He was a beacon of light in an evil world.

The factory was a shining example of good working practice.

I will finish with metaphors of unhappiness and happiness. If we are in a dark place , we are unhappy or having difficult problems. Someone who is in a dark mood is unhappy or angry. We also talk about a dark time or dark period , and if we make dark predictions , we are pessimistic about the future:

I lost my job and my friends and found myself in a very dark place indeed.

He was in a particularly dark mood that day.

This was one of the darkest periods in European history.

Someone who is the light of your life is the person you love most and who makes you feel happy, and if you say there is light at the end of the tunnel , you mean that although things are difficult now, you believe that they will soon get better:

Laura really is the light of my life.

We’ve been struggling to build up the business, but at last we can see light at the end of the tunnel.

I hope you will find these phrases useful. Do you have similar darkness and light metaphors in your language?

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20 thoughts on “ From darkness into the light: metaphors of darkness and light ”

In Dutch someone who is a bit thick, not very intelligent, is also said not to be ‘ een groot licht’, i.e. ‘a big light’.

Ah yes, we also say that someone ‘isn’t very bright’!

Maybe you forgot to talk about the “dark side”. We all have a dark side (and unknown) within us, and it makes us more complex. Even so, as always it was a great article.

Innovative and informative piece.Thank you.

Loved this article much innovative it added me more information

The act of betrayal across the timeline only fire n brimstone follows

Thank you so much for writing this. It increased my knowledge of Idioms and phrases in a very intresting way. Hope you will some more blogs on others idioms too. Thanks again.

Dev, do have a look at my other blogs and those of my colleague Kate Woodford (click on our names). You’ll find lots of blogs on idioms.

Respectable Liz Walter, Good Morning, I will first of say thank you for writing so good post about metaphor ” From Darkness Into The Light”. You have very nicely used these metaphors in sentences to explain there usage and there meanings. Thanking you. Yours sincerely Khalid Anis.

i liz!i’m very pleased about these metaphors of light and darkness; i can even say that you shed light on my knowledge! Many thanks

In Portuguese, we have the same sentences and meaning about “dark and light”. That’s interesting.

In my language, we are used to saying ” the light of the house” to describe the most beloved member of the family. It is usually one of the parents, or one of the biggest siblings, or anyone else whose presence or absence makes difference.

That’s lovely!

very imformative and educative appreciated

Very interesting and impressive! I remember the words on the Shakespeare monument: “I say there is no darkness but ignorance.”

I just have a question with the title “From darkness into the light”. It’s “darkness” but “the light”, why is it so? The use of articles still seems tricky to me. Thank you in advance.

Yes, I agree that’s a tricky one to explain. It wouldn’t be wrong to say ‘from darkness to light’ or ‘from the darkness to the light. But it’s quite a fixed phrase and this is the way it’s usually said.

Thank you 🙂

I have been contemplating a spiritual treatise on the possibility that light represents — or even is — God. I visited Carlsbad Caverns in New Mexico several years ago, and at one point far into the cave, all electric lights were extinguished. The darkness was so profound it made me feel as though it were matter.

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An Essay on Darkness

I must have been a strange child. Fear of the dark is all but a right of passage, something conquered on the way to “grownupness.”

As a young boy, there was no fear, only fascination. It’s something so powerful, yet so abstract and fragile. I have yet to completely comprehend all the mysteries held there in.

I assume that many of you out there felt the same way, but I wonder if anyone other than myself spends copious amounts of time disecting the essence of it. I mean normal people take walks during sunset, then retire. I don’t mind be classified as “strange” or “different”, but since it is rather hard to tell, how many people out there enjoy cloudy, moonless nights rather than starry, bright ones?

I’m new to this site, so if there have been discussions on this topic I apologize for boring you. I would appreciate replies and opinions which would help me in my “quest”.

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By the evil cheezman.

Purveyor of sacred truths and purloined letters; literary acrobat; spiritual godson of Edgar Allan Poe, P.T. Barnum, and Ed Wood; WAYNE MILLER is the head architect of EVIL CHEEZ PRODUCTIONS, serving up the finest in entertainment and edification for the stage, the page, and the twain screens, silver and computer. He is the axe-murderer who once met Andy Griffith.

Might I add that I NEVER understood the fear thing. The same goes for Thunder/Lightning. To this day they make me feel so damn alive! The darkness made it worse for most kids, but for me, it made it Soooo much more fascinating! I never even HEARD the association of darkness and evil till I was, say, 6 or 7….I guess I had fairly cool parents! (maybe they felt good about having the only kid on the block who DIDN’T leave *all the lights in the house” on. HDJ

i have always travelled in darkness i go to work when it’s dark and leave well after sunset “some times on perpose “ but i have never feard the dark nore what lays with in it. so i am glad to see other people who are also walkers of the dark

aaaahhhh…(she sighs), the tranquility i get from the darkness, the peace. i am who i am.

Huge wooden stairways. All stairways, really…but the huge, old, darkwood ones have been recurrent in dreams for YEARS…(UP stairs, BTW…) THDJ

well, I most certainly agree with you about what type of night is the most enjoyable…i love cloudy, purple, solemn nights when there’s just enough wind for it to be cool but not cold…and I had a fear of the dark as a wee one because in horror movies, that’s almost always when people die. after seeing candyman, where many of the murders are committed in daylight, I became afraid of the night and the light, which eventually led to a nervous breakdown of sorts. Now I embrace darkness and am adverse to light. Thanks for your time.

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Burkhart, Louise. “The missionary missionized.” In her The Slippery Earth: Nahua- Christian Moral Dialogue in Sixteenth-Century Mexico, pp. 15-45. Tucson: University of Arizona Press (1989).

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Home — Essay Samples — Literature — Metaphor — Metaphors Of Darkness

Metaphors of Darkness

• Categories: Literary Devices Metaphor

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Words: 591 |

Published: Mar 16, 2024

Words: 591 | Page: 1 | 3 min read

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Fear and uncertainty, evil and despair.

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Darkness Visible: Ralph Ellison’s Life and Work

Ralph Ellison: A Biography. By Arnold Rampersad. Alfred A. Knopf, 2007. 657 pp. $35.00. ISBN-10: 0375408274; ISBN-13: 978-0375408274

• Review Essay
• Published: 29 May 2008
• Volume 45 , pages 376–381, ( 2008 )

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• William E. Cain 1  

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Department of English, Wellesley College, Wellesley, MA, 02481, USA

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Cain, W.E. Darkness Visible: Ralph Ellison’s Life and Work. Soc 45 , 376–381 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12115-008-9099-z

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Published : 29 May 2008

Issue Date : August 2008

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/s12115-008-9099-z

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