Bright Light Big City
Life always has its goal and its destination. It keeps walking and facing new things all the time. Indeed, some may say life is learning. In many ways, we all are learning at every moment since we started to breath until our very last breath. When we were young we learned how to read and write, likewise when we grow up we learn how to love. Psychologists believe that learning is a process through observations and reinforcements. However, in reality people can just learn from their own mistakes. Similarly to Bright lights, Big City by Jay McInerney, one of the whole main points of the story is learning, with the anonymous second-person ‘you’ ultimately perceives lessons through the narrator’s experiences. Moreover, the kind of learning in the novel also comes with the sense of self redemption. Not only that the pain can teach us lessons and pull us out from the darkness we are trapped but also can make us to reflect our true identity and to recognize what is temporary and what is permanent. Although by the end of the book the narrator’s life is still moving on, it’s the moving on that is at the right angle turn. By the moment he kneels down, it doesn’t mean that he surrenders or has to relearn everything all over again, but in fact, he has learned every important aspects of life. Some he may not even needed. Certainly, he has learned how to live his life, learned how to fall and learned how to move on. Above all, he has learned how and what is to be himself and learned how to be independent from things and people around him. Though he doesn’t have to relearn anything, after he gets back on his feet it’s vital that he will choose not to follow the same path he was in.
“Your guilt was aggravated by a headache. The sun was coming up and you felt that she was right. You were a bad boy. You wanted to amend your life. You wanted to make it up to Amanda for the shitty life she had had as a kid. You told her you would marry her, and, after sulking de rigueur, she
“Your guilt was aggravated by a headache. The sun was coming up and you felt that she was right. You were a bad boy. You wanted to amend your life. You wanted to make it up to Amanda for the shitty life she had had as a kid. You told her you would marry her, and, after sulking de rigueur, she