Fear As The Key To Success in Literature

📌Category: Books
📌Words: 942
📌Pages: 4
📌Published: 19 January 2022

“It is better to be feared than loved, if you cannot be both,” said Niccolo Machiavelli, an Italian political philosopher in the Renaissance. His words are important because he believed that fear was a better motivator than love when it came to your enemies. In the books, The Cruel Prince by Holly Black, Shatter Me by Tahereh Mafi, The Seventh Man by Haruki Murakami, and The Book Thief by Mark Zusak all show how fear of others, fear of yourself, and being feared will be a key to success. Fear is essential to human survival because fear can be your greatest motivator of all time

In The Cruel Prince, Jude, the main character, wants nothing more than to fit in. But all that changes when she realizes everything may not always be as it seems.“Instead of being afraid I could become something to fear.” (Chapter 18, Page 197) Throughout the book, Jude survives because of her fear of being inferior. Being powerless. However, after Jude was suddenly met with the truth of her inferiority, she suddenly realized she had the power to change that. Her sudden lust for power changes her point of view. While her point of view is changed she slowly realizes that instead of being a follower, she must become a leader. She must become someone to fear to achieve her goals and establish power. Not only does she survive using this method of revenge and vengeance but she eventually overcomes and terminates the threats of her demise. 

In the Shatter Me Series, Juliette, the main character, was scared. She was scared of herself and what she might've done to another person. She was scared of something that she believed she couldn’t control. Juliette has the power to kill everything she touches. However, she only sees it as a curse. For she can not control her power. In the very beginning of her story, before she knew of her curse, she was in the grocery store with her mother. She then saw a little boy fall down and start crying. She went over to help the boy up and as she reached down to grab the boy's hand, the boy stopped crying. In fact he stopped moving at all. She slowly realized that she had just killed that little boy. This is when the fear of herself started. She didn’t realize how much she missed human contact until she met someone she could touch. She then meets people with similar powers, who help her master her power. Throughout the series, she slowly overpowers this fear of herself and learns how to utilize her power in order to become someone to fear. This fear that she feels allows her to accomplish her end goal. Fear, whether it be felt by the main character or aimed at the main character, allows them to blossom into their full potential. 

Some may argue that fear can be destructive, distasteful and can just ruin one's way of life. After the events of the book, The Seventh Man, the narrator gives us a first person commentary about how he feels about fear. He says how usually people only think that the thing to fear is fear. And dismisses that fact. He tells us how fear can submerge us, but the most terrifying thing of all is to turn your backs to it and close our eyes. To accept the fear, because that's when it has you in its clutches. Throughout The Seventh Man, the narrator shows how fear can throw all reason to the wind, no matter how hard you try. Fear makes people react in completely different ways, and in some cases people lose all rationale. In that case, this is the reason why the main character’s friend did not survive. However, despite the fact the main character’s friend did not survive, the main character's did. Fear let him know that he was in danger. It's almost like his body went into a defense mechanism to keep him safe. Fear is often just projected to be just in your mind, however, fear stimulates a strong physical response in your body, which happened to the narrator.In short, even though fear is often betrayed as a weakness and vulnerability, fear can be your biggest ally. It can be the drive to your target goal. 

When most people think fear, they think fear of others. But most people don’t think of the fear for people. The constant worry and anxiety of losing a loved one. In The Book Thief, Max, who was a 13 year old Jew during World War 2, was battling with the fear of death. Not his death, but the death of his loved ones after losing so many people that were close to him. His fear was causing him to cut off opportunities of having any emotional ties. He was scared of being hurt, for everyone he had ever loved was gone. In his mind, Max had to coexist with his fear in order to survive. He believed that he had to conquer it. And to him that meant with his fists. He had to fight for whatever he wanted when he was a boy. How he believes he must do it again.That meant fighting anyone who he saw as an enemy. In conclusion, the various types of fear that Max felt as a child, and as a teenager, was a result of his want to succeed and survive in life. 

In conclusion, any type of fear is essential to human survival. Whether it be the fear people feel for you, fear of yourself, or fear of another person. It can be in any shape or form, it just has to be present. Fear can either be your biggest hurdle or the best motivator, it's a two way street. Fear can be like a rival in ways. If you can challenge the fear and take advantage of it, you will overpower it. However, if you can’t find the willpower to confront it and use it to you, it will make sure you don’t make any improvement throughout life.

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