Example of Written Work

This is a paper I wrote for my Critical Thinking and Writing Class which I received a grade of 97% on:


Not the Destination, but the Journey

The story of Adam and Eve is a creation story.  This story is accepted by most of Christianity as the true record of events that caused the downfall of humanity and the creation of original sin.  It is also important because many Christians accept this as not only an explanation of our origin, but also as a prophetic story.  In this story, God creates Adam and puts him in the Garden of Eden to work it.  God also makes many trees in the garden but commands Adam that he must not eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil that grows in the center of the garden.  After seeing that Adam is lonely, God creates Eve from Adams rib.  The serpent comes along and questions Eve about the trees in the middle of the Garden.  Eve tells the serpent that they must not eat from the tree or they will die.  The serpent says that she will not die but instead her eyes will be opened and she will be like God, knowing the difference between good and evil.  So Eve decides to eat the fruit and then gives some to Adam.  When God comes through the garden, Adam realizes he is naked and hides from God.  God then asks Adam how he knows he is naked and asks him if he has eaten from the tree of knowledge of good and evil.  Adam blames Eve, and Eve blames the serpent.  God then punishes the serpent by cursing him and making him crawl on his belly and causes enmity between the serpent and the woman and her offspring.  God then punishes the woman by making her childbearing pains worse and allowing her husband to rule over her.  Adam was punished by having to work the soil in order to eat and that he will return to the soil from where he came.  God then banished Adam and Eve from the garden and set an angel to guard the way to the tree of life.
Existentialism holds that existence proceeds essence. Existentialists believe that we exist first and then give meaning to things around us and our decisions create our essence.  Eros is the concept of love, meaningfulness, mind, and order.  Thanatos is the opposite of Eros; it represents meaningless, anonymity, body, animal, disorder.  The Oedipal Conflict is the idea of specific mother and father figures and a child figure that reach a conflict when the child figure decides to rebel against the parents in order to gain independence.  These two parent-figures are a caring, loving, overprotective mother figure and a strict, disciplinary, rule-making father. When the child figure reaches a point of conflict with the parent figures, he or she tries to become independent from both the mother’s overprotectiveness and the fathers strict rule.  Existentialism in this story, reveals how we each discover our destiny.  We exist first, and then discover who we are meant to be through our choices and actions.  Human nature is revealed to be seeking meaning in life and creating meaning where there is none in order to discover who we will become in the future.  Eros and Thanatos show the yin and yang balance that every human should strive for in their life.  However, human nature tends to try to be more Eros, but too much Eros will become a negative thing and will tip the scale back to Thanatos.  I think it is human’s fight against Thanatos that causes it to happen sometimes.  Instead of seeking a balance, humans only strive for Eros.  This leads to their downfall, as seen in this creation story.  The Oedipal conflict is at the crux of human nature.  The natural progression of growth and rebellion that everyone goes through with the mother and father figures in their lives.  What is revealed in this story, is part of human nature and the child figure will always try to become independent from the parents eventually.  These different interpretations each reveal a different truth of human nature.
God created man from the “dust of the ground”.  This phrasing implies Thanatos because the dust represents meaninglessness and death which are strongly Thanatos ideas.  This detail is also existential because God is giving man an existence but his essence is not known yet.  God then chose to breathe in to man’s nostrils the breath of life which is connects with the Eros theory.  Eros being representative of life in this instance.  However, the decision to choose to blow into Adams nostrils is more Thanatos because the nostrils or more or less meaningless.  They are simply another way to inhale and expel air, but you can do that out of your mouth as well.  God then planted a garden and placed the man he had made into it.  Here God is giving the garden an existence too but we do not know its purpose so from an existentialist view, its existence proceeds its essence. God makes trees grow that are pleasing to the eye and good for food which is Eros because the food was pleasing to the eye which is the angelic part of Eros.  This also establishes God as a mother figure because he is making trees grow that the man can eat and enjoy looking at, essentially God is nurturing the man.  God also put two trees in the center of the Garden.  This first tree was called the “tree of life” which is representative of Eros because it gives life.  The second tree was called the “tree of knowledge of good and evil”.  This name suggests an Eros trend because it is about knowledge and knowing what is right and wrong or freedom from ignorance.  This tree will also be at the center of the Oedipal conflict that arises later.  God put the man in the garden to “work it and take care of it” making Adam the mother figure to the Garden and all of the animals there.  Then God makes a commandment that the man may eat from any of the trees in the Garden except for the tree of knowledge of good and evil.  Here we see God taking on the role of the father in the Oedipal conflict because God is now laying down rules for the man.  God also gives the man a consequence for eating from the tree by saying “if you eat of it you will surely die”.  This statement is very thanatos because it suggests that if the man disobeys he will die and become meaningless again which is one of the aspects of thanatos.  We see the mothering side of God again when he creates animals for Adam so that he will not be lonely but Adam does not find companionship in them so God creates Eve out of Adam’s rib.  God is again creating an existence but we do not know Eve’s essence yet either.  He is creating a woman out of the man’s rib, which is considered a supporting and protective bone for the lungs and body.  I think this shows that Eve is meant to be Adams support and in life which also points to Eve being a mother figure to Adam.  The creation story also makes the point that “the man and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame.”  This detail is Thanatos because they are naked like all animals are and they have no feelings of shame and embarrassment.
The story then shifts into the details of how Adam and Eve disobey God.  The serpent enters the story for the first time and the text warns us that he is “more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God has made”.  The serpent is representative of Thanatos because it is literally an animal, and also because the description of the serpent as “crafty” is ambivalent.  “Crafty” can have a positive or negative connotation.  The serpent then questions the woman saying “Did God really say, ‘you must not eat from any tree in the Garden’?” which is contradicting what God had originally commanded.  This question begins to set up the conflict with the Oedipal parent figure because it is questioning the rules that God, the father figure, made.  The woman then tells the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, but God did say, “You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.”  Eve seems to view the rules God made as Thanatos because if she disobeys God’s rule then she will die.  What I find interesting is that how could Eve have even known what death meant?  Since this creation story is claiming that Adam and Eve were the first humans, no one had died yet and so they could not have known for sure what was going to happen to them if they did eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil and maybe this is why the threat of death did not have as strong of an influence on her decision making.  In this part of the story the woman is misquoting the rule made by God the father figure.  She does not specify which tree she is not allowed to eat from and states that if they even touch it they will die, which is not what God originally said.  However, Eve was not yet created when God told Adam this rule so either Adam incorrectly communicated it to her or she had misunderstood God’s command.  This is part of the problem in this Oedipal conflict.  At this point, Adam and Eve had not been challenged or questioned about God’s command.  They had simply accepted it as truth.  The serpent then reveals that he knows the original phrasing of God’s command by using the same language that God used which suggests that the serpent was there when God first made the command.  The serpent says, “You will not surely die…For God knows when you eat of it your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”  Here the serpent is presenting Eve with a choice to eat the fruit.  From an existential view point, this is a turning point because now Eve has been presented with the idea freedom to make a choice.  The Oedipal conflict is now in full swing because Eve, who was obedient to God, is now given the idea of disobeying him.  Because of the suggestion by the serpent, her eyes are opened to this new possibility.  I would not say that the serpent tempted Eve but I think he did present her with information that she had not previously known which altered her view of God’s commands.  Eve then starts to weigh the different options in her mind.  She sees that the “fruit of the tree was good for food, pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom.”  This last aspect has to be what influences her the most because all of the other trees in the Garden were made to be good for food and pleasing to the eye.  She sees an Eros aspect to eating the fruit as opposed to it only being Thanatos.  Meaning that she sees the wisdom that she will gain as an Eros aspect because it will lead to understanding and being superhuman as opposed to the thanatos view that eating from the tree will only lead to death.  She judges this as positive criteria and makes a choice to eat the fruit.  The choice she makes is existential because she weighs her choice against the responsibility of her action and chooses to make the choice anyways.  She does not seem to go through much anguish, which ends up being detrimental to her in the end.  Eve, as another child figure in the oedipal conflict, directly creates a conflict by choosing to disobey God’s command.  Eve then offers the fruit to Adam and he immediately takes it an eats it.  It is not stated whether or not he also weighs his options before choosing to do it.  As the story states, Adam was with Eve throughout this conversation with the serpent.  Adam makes the decision to eat the fruit on his own but without thinking about the responsibility of his actions.  When Adam decides to disobey God and eat the fruit as well, he is creating his own oedipal conflict with God as his parent figure.  Adam and Eve are also abandoning God as their mother-figure because God has provided everything they need but they are throwing it away for the possibility of knowing the difference between good and evil and being like God.  As the serpent suggested, Adam and Eve’s eye were opened and they both saw that they were naked.  The story suggests that nakedness is “evil” since they were able to see the difference between good and evil and were ashamed of their nakedness.  They decided to sew fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.  This seems to show a shift from being Thanatos minded to Eros minded because now they went from not thinking about nakedness or caring about its significance to being more in their minds, knowing the difference between good and evil, which was considered being divine because they were now God-like.
Adam and Eve then heard God walking in the garden and they hid from God because they were naked.    They were about to face the consequence of their actions which is existential because of the choices they made and the responsibility they had for those choices.  God then called to Adam and asked where he was and Adam replies that he was afraid because he was naked so he hid.  God then knew what they had done and said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?”  God is in his Oedipal father figure role because Adam is afraid of God. God is also confronting Adam’s disobedience.  The blaming then begins; Adam blames both God and Eve for his disobedience by saying, “The woman you put here with me – she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it.”  Instead of Adam admitting it was wrong to eat the fruit, he blames Eve for his own personal actions and even tries to make it seem like it is God’s fault for putting her there with him.  God then turns to the woman and says, “What is this you have done?”  Eve then blames the serpent saying “The serpent deceived me so I ate.”  Instead of accepting responsibility for her actions, Eve decides to lie and place the blame on the serpent.   Technically, the serpent did not deceive her.  He told her the complete truth; that she would not die and instead know the difference between good and evil.  God doesn’t give the serpent a chance to defend himself and instead launches right into the punishments.  God curses the serpent above all livestock and other wild animals.  He debases the serpent, telling him that from now on he will be forced to crawl on his belly and that he will “eat dust all the days of his life.”  I think this detail is significant because the dust represents death and meaninglessness.  He is essentially sentencing him to a life of Thanatos with no hope of Eros.  God also punishes the serpent saying that he will put “enmity” between him and the woman and their offspring.  God specifically uses the word “he” when describing the woman’s offspring saying “he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.”  This seems to be a reference for a future event but this event is only suggested, not explained.  I believe this punishment is Thanatos because it is speaking of the serpent’s death.    This is also existential because the serpent’s actions had consequences that he should have forseen.  Next comes the woman’s punishment.  One of God’s consequences for Eve is increased pains in childbearing.   This is Thanatos as well because it is more painful which brings you into a higher awareness of your body.  Even though God is suggesting that it would have still been painful before, it may have been more graceful so to speak.  Eve may have been able to keep more of her dignity.  Now, childbearing would be animalistic, painful, and messy, all aspects of Thanatos.  God also tells Eve that now her “desire will be for her husband” which is also more animalistic and body oriented and therefore Thanatos.  God then says that Adam will rule over her which is essentially putting Adam in an Oedipal father figure role because he now makes the rules for her and can essentially control her.  God’s consequence for Adam is to curse the ground and make it unprofitable.  He curses the ground so that only through very hard work will it produce any food.  And the food it does produce will be “thorns and thistles”.  God commands that by the sweat of Adam’s brow will he eat until you return to the ground, “since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you shall return”.  This detail is Thanatos because of the reference to meaninglessness and death.  Adam will essentially work until he dies and then return to the ground that he was working.  It is also existential because Adam’s choice led to the responsibility that he has now.   God’s punishments are harsh because he is disappointed in their disobedience, just as any father figure would be in their disobedient child.
We see God the mother figure return when God made “garments of skin” for Adam and his wife.  This act appears to be a protective and caring act by God. The garment of skin represents a new body which is Thanatos because any divineness that Adam and Eve had before has been stripped away and now they are truly naked with no hope for being divine or superhuman anymore.  It is the garment of mortality.  One that is no longer immortal but can now die.  In the final part of the story, God seems to be speaking to one or more other beings because he says, “The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil.”  This “us” is significant because it suggests that this story includes more than just Adam and Eve but other god-like beings as well.  I think this is an aspect of Eros because, from the way God speaks of them, they are also superhuman or divine like him.  God says to this “us” that Adam must also not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever.  The tree of life represents Eros here because it represents life.  This is essentially God taking away another Eros aspect of Adam’s life.  By not allowing Adam to eat the fruit of the tree of life, God is essentially sentencing Adam to death which is Thanatos because of the literal translation of Thanatos as “death”.  I sense here that there is a slight fear from God and I think this stems from him being the father figure to Adam.  God seems worried that Adam will be an equal to him and so keeps Adam from ever being able to reach that point.  This is part of the conclusion of the Oedipal conflict because here we can see Adam’s fate and God trying to keep Adam from becoming completely independent.  Instead of allowing Adam to become his own person, God makes Adam dependent on him.  God then banishes Adam from the Garden to “work the ground from which he had been take.”  Another reference to Adams physical death and the reality of the now extremely Thanatos aspect of his life.  God “drove the man out” which is reinforcing his role as the dominant father figure and places a cherubim with a flaming sword flashing back and forth to guard the way to the tree of life and ensure that Adam could not return.  This cherubim is Eros because it is an angelic figure.
God, Adam, Eve, and the Serpent begin as simply existing.  Their essence is only discovered after they each make choices that lead to consequences.  From these consequences, each person’s destiny is revealed.  God begins as simply existing, he does not have a creation story, at least not one that is revealed to us here.  Man being created from the “dust of the ground” is one of the first visuals we are given and I think it is existential because God is creating man but this man does not have an essence yet.  He simply exists but his future is not predetermined and he does not know who he is meant to be yet.  Eve, is created from Adams rib and also simply exists.  The serpent is created by God along with all of the other animals and they are not given an essence either at first.   There are many choices that are brought up here. First, God chose to create the animals, the man and the woman.  God also chose to make serpents able to talk.  These choices that God made all create responsibilities for him.  The serpent makes the decision to question what Eve has accepted as truth.  He is careful to seem as though he is simply trying to help set her straight.  Even though the serpent decided to tell Eve the truth of what will actually happen when she eats the fruit, he does not force her to do it or even try to trick her.  He simply presents her with a new idea and actually hurts God’s ethos by showing Eve that God was not completely truthful with she and Adam.  The serpent says, “You will not surely die…For God knows when you eat of it your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”  Here the serpent is presenting Eve with the choice to eat the fruit because she will profit from it.  Before, Eve did not know enough to see that there was any benefit to eating the fruit.  God chose to withhold this information from Adam and Eve instead of explaining the meaning of the trees fully.  With this new information, Eve decides to think about the consequences of eating the fruit and weighs the good with the bad.  Eve weighs the threat of death versus the fruit being “good to eat, and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom. Eve comes to the conclusion that there are more positive effects than negative and makes the choice to eat the fruit.  Eve then offers the fruit to Adam and he takes it and eats it seemingly without weighing anything.  There is no thought process, just the immediate acceptance of what was being offered to him.  There is a detail that reveals that Adam has been with Eve for this entire conversation.  He could have tried to stop her or refused to eat the fruit but instead is completely passive and lets all of this occur and then partakes in it.  Neither Eve nor Adam seem to go through any anguish when confronted with this choice.  Eve at least considers some consequences but Adam does not stress over choosing to eat the fruit or not.  Adam and Eve then become responsible for their actions and “the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked.”  There is nothing that suggests at this point that Adam and Eve realize that the serpent was right but they must at least be slightly aware of it.  Once God realizes what Adam and Eve have done, he makes all three of the responsible parties accountable for their decisions.  He lays punishments down for Adam, Eve and the Serpent.  There is a sense of forlornness because, even though they try to blame someone else for their choice, they alone are responsible for the choice they made.  It appears to me that God does not seem to think that there are consequences for his choices yet.  However, he now has to banish Adam from the Garden which separates them from each other. Adam also becomes like God which affects their relationship.  I think this is indicative of humanity because we do not always think through our actions and even when we do, sometimes we decide to leave out important information that affects the outcome.  We also decide to ignore what our consequences will be and only focus on the positive effects.  These human characteristics are all shown in this creation story.
I discovered a huge shift in between Eros and Thanatos in this story.  When God creates Adam from “dust” he is essentially creating Adam with a Thanatos background because the dust is representative of meaninglessness.  God creates Eve in this same way, taking Adam’s rib which is a part of his body, and idea associated with Thanatos, and making her out of it. The story also notes that they were both naked and they felt no shame which is animalistic in a way because all animals are naked as well and they feel no shame.  So Adam and Eve’s origins are essentially Thanatos.  On the other side of the spectrum, there are many details in the story that suggest Eros, such as the Tree of life and the tree of knowledge of good and evil because these trees both symbolize freedom.  The tree of life is freedom from death and the tree of knowledge of good and evil is freedom from ignorance.   I think that the serpent is also Eros-minded in this story because he focuses of knowledge and ensuring that Adam and Eve are presented with the reality of their freedom to make choices for themselves.  He also wants them to know the specialness that eating of the fruit of the tree brings.  The serpent questions Eve and reveals that God has withheld some of the truth from her and Adam.  He presents her with many details that are Eros based such as her “eyes being opened (mind)”, “being like God (superhuman)”, and “knowing the difference between good and evil (freedom from ignorance)”.  I think Eve is tempted by the way this decision looks.  She has only known Thanatos until this time and the Eros aspects of the decision look good to her.  She weighs the three Eros aspects of the fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil being good to eat, pleasing to the eye and also desirable for gaining wisdom versus the thanatos aspect of death.  Since she has not come to understand death yet or maybe does not believe God is telling the truth about what will happen to them, she decides to ignore the negative possibilities and accept a full Eros based shift.  Adam, who was there too but apparently does not go through the same thought-process eats the fruit and also accepts this new and contrasting Eros shift.  With this knowledge, Adam and Eve become ashamed of their nakedness because it is too Thanatos and cover themselves with fig leaves.  They made a rash decision about Eros however, and soon find that it is not all it is made out to be.  Once God sees what they chose and how they decided to use their freedom, he shifted everything back to Thanatos.  He punishes the Serpent with crawling on his belly like an animal, and eating dust which are both Thanatos concepts.  To Eve, God takes away her freedom by saying that she will now be ruled by her husband.  God also increased childbearing pains which is very much a part of the body and it is animalistic in nature, as is her now having desire for her husband.  Adam is punished by being thrown out of the Garden of Eden and also is going to have to struggle to grow food.  God tells Adam that he will work until he dies and then will go back to the dust that he came from.  This future that ends in death is the definition of Thanatos.  God throwing them out of the Garden and guarding the way to the tree of life is his way of keeping them from attaining eternal life and therefore they are cursed to a life of Thanatos.  I think this shift between Eros and Thanatos reveals humanities shift between Eros and Thanatos.  It represents the struggle between being more Eros minded or more Thanatos minded and trying to find a happy medium between the two.  I think this shift happens all the time in our own lives and always has.  We try to search for things that give our life meaning and if we can’t find it, it leads to disappointment. If we find our meaning and then lose it, we are disappointed.  If we find there is no meaning at all, we continue to search for one.  I think this story reveals how humanity continues to fight against the reality of a mostly Thanatos existence by making choices that lead our live to Eros.  In the end, we all die, but if we can find meaning while we are here maybe we can make our existence have a purpose.  This is the human condition.
This entire story centers on the existence of an Oedipal conflict.  God is revealed to be both the mother figure and the father figure to Adam, Eve, and the Serpent.  We can see God as the mother figure in the beginning of the story, because God creates a Garden and nurtures it so that the man and woman have food to eat.  God gives Adam the responsibility of tending the garden.  God also creates Eve so that Adam is no longer lonely, which again shows his caring, motherly side.  We see God first step into the father figure when he makes his first command for Adam.  God says “…you must not eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die.”  Adam, as the child figure, accepts this rule that his father has made for him and obeys him.  When the serpent shows up, the conflict begins.  The serpent questions Eve about God’s command and then contradicts what God told Adam by saying that “you will not surely die, for God knows when you eat of it your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing the difference between good and evil.”  This brings Eve a new perspective on the fruit of the tree.  She shortly debates her decision and then decides to disobey God’s command and eat the fruit.  She also hands some to Adam, inviting him to partake in her disobedience.  Adam doesn’t argue or stop her, he takes the fruit and eats it.  When God finds out that they have been disobedient, he reenters the father role and punishes them.  These punishments keep Adam and Eve from ever being truly independent from God. This is not a healthy ending to the Oedipal Conflict.  There is no mention of remorse or even having learned for their disobedience.  They disobeyed without a real purpose of becoming independent but more out of curiosity.  They don’t want to be completely independent of God but they do want to know what it is like to be like God and be in control of their own lives.  However, they do have knowledge now and freedom from ignorance.  Neither option seems to be ideal to me.  Either you are content and oblivious for your whole life or you know what the realities of life are and you are struggling through it.  I think it is human nature to want more of a contrast in life.  Instead of just going about our lives content and oblivious, we struggle to find meaning in everything and even though things can be difficult, we are able to enjoy when things are going well.  There is no real “easy” path in this life, but I think most people can see the good in the contrast between the pain and the beauty.  I would much rather have understanding than to be ignorant, which I think is human nature and what drives Eve, at least, to make the decision to eat the fruit.
Existentialism, Eros and Thanatos, and the Oedipal conflict all intertwine in this story to reveal the nature of the human condition.  What these three interpretations bring to light is the human struggle to find meaning in our lives.  Even when everything is provided for us, we are not content.  We want to discover what our destiny will be so we weigh consequences and responsibilities and we make choices.  We eventually have to make the choice to break away from what we are taught as a child and find our own truth in the world and essentially our place within it.  It is in this way that Existentialism, Eros and Thanatos and the Oedipal conflict come together.  The story reveals that we are raised and taught a certain way through the Oedipal conflict.  This way that we are raised may be more Thanatos or more Eros, but whichever one it is, we end up searching for the opposite in our lives in order to find truth.  This is where existentialism comes in.  We have the freedom to make our own choices and when we make the choice to disobey our parents and find our own path, we have to deal with the consequences. Once we break away from what out parents have taught us, our responsibilities grow and we must decided what in our lives will become Eros and what we will be more Thanatos minded about.  Even though Adam and Eve in this story had to struggle to survive and live off the land, they were doing it themselves without God’s help.  I guess in the end they do become independent of God and make their own way.  I think that God secretly wanted Adam and Eve to eat the fruit from the tree.  If he had not wanted it, then why would he create the trees in the first place and place them there as an option to have.  God might be the a more insightful parent figure than previously thought.  God could have set up this stage for Adam and Eve’s healthy rebellion.  Why allow the serpent to talk, or tell the serpent what the rule of the tree was to begin with?  I think it is also human nature to want to control life.  Here we see God doing that and we also see Adam and Eve trying to take control of their lives through rebellion.  There are many truths about human nature revealed in this story which is another reason I think it has significance as a creation story.  It brings us all the way back to our most base part, dust, and shows how we gained our essence or destiny.