Death and Dying in Camus' The Plague

ABSTRACT: Albert Camus' allegorical novel The Plague provides meaningful insight into the process of death and dying. As with other literary masterpieces the author shares with his audience his concern with and knowledge of the vicissitudes of the human condition. In The Plague Camus employs the reactions and responses of a community and its citizenry to an epidemic of the bubonic plague as a symbolic representation of the individual's grappling with death and dying. His main themes are those of separation and exile, despair and despondency, and helplessness and hopefulness.     

The Chrysanthemum versus the Sword in Suicide: Yasunari Kawabata and Yukio Mishima

ABSTRACT: Within the last few years, two world-famous Japanese writers have committed suicide. Kawabata represents the chrysanthemum aspect of Japanese culture and resignation-despair. Mishima symbolizes the sword aspect and aggression. Kawabata described loneliness-helplessness and Mishima an ecstasy under the threat of imminent death. Their different childhood experiences produced an “orphan” complex in Kawabata and the problem of sexual identity with an inferiority complex in Mishima. The former sublimated his complex in literature, the latter overreacted to it. For both, an immediate cause of suicide was the conflict between their ideal and the postwar reality. For Mishima, there were also occasions that gave vital blows to his extremely narcissistic temperament.     

PROGRAMMED INSTRUCTION AS A SOURCE OF GAIN IN COUNSELOR COMMUNICATION

This study investigated the effectiveness of programmed materials in interpersonal relations in improving the facilitation levels of counselor communication. Thirty Employment Service counselors were pre-tested by assessing response levels to representative client stimuli expression. The subjects were then given 10 hours of written, programmed instruction. Post-test scores indicated that statistically significant gains were realized in the communication of empathy and respect.