Not Giving Up Is Key To Success English Literature Essay

One Republic’s song, “Stop And Stare”, is primarily about the hard work of a man trying to achieve his goal. In the song, after the singer had finally achieved his achievement, his success, he was pulled down by the society so that they would not see him live in happiness or with joy. He expresses his positiveness from the verse, “Don’t give up spirit”, in other words, stating that no matter how many times he had fallen down, he kept trying to get back up on his foot. As a result, no matter how many times the singer fails, he doesn’t give up hope and keeps encouraging himself to go further than before.

Firstly, the song “Stop and Stare” is describing the singer having grown up from a miserable and suffering town. He had such a bad childhood that the others and himself needed to share happiness and plainness together. He has an aim in his mind that he wants to achieve, but the decoy is always around him, so he makes a decision to leave his town. However, he is very afraid of his decision and the consequences it may bring. The author was a man full of aim, but he was also afraid of his own achievement because before and after of his success, it will bring him trouble and he might be burdened in the process.

Through the symbolism principle of the song, we can understand that sometimes there are characters that are either good or evil. Just like in the song, “They’re tryin’ to come back, all my senses push. Un-tie the weight bags, I never thought I could…” shows that the society is trying to pull down the singer after he succeeds. This highlights the evil character in the song. As for “Steady feet, don’t fail me now, Gonna run till you can’t walk, but something pulls my focus out, And I’m standing down… ” From here we can understand that the author trying hard again, again and again after he has failed to achieve his goal, thus showing a good and hardworking character.

In real life, different kinds of people have different kinds of behaviour. Which leads our characters to also have their own difference in behaviour. The society in the story was full of jealousy. They become a barrier or decoyed for others so that they won’t let others succeed in their own life; they wanted to make it evenly and fair for them just like the communism. As for our main character, he was a man full of dreams, hope and aggressiveness. Because he feels that his life is meaningless as his oppurtunities have always been stolen by others, resulting in them pulling him steps away from his achievement but he is a strong- willed character that won’t allow him to be able to give up achieving his dream although he knows that he has to start from scratch again right after he had succeeded.

In “Stop and Stare”, we can see that there is an id inside the meanings of what the singer sings. “Steady hands, just take the wheel…” shows that the singer has got a desire towards his achievement. Because of the his desire, he created his own goal so that he can achieve a better life, better than the life he is living now that consists of misery and suffering. Which resulted in him trying his very best to make and achieve his goal. Though, meanwhile, the society in the town was creating a hatred and jealousy of the singer’s achievement. The superego inside the song is the hatred and jealousy that the town’s society has, where it tells them to fail the singer’s hopes and dreams. In the end, they succeeded, and the author was very depressed about it, but because of the ego inside the author telling him not to give up, he tried his very best this time again and finally succeeded. In other words, the singer kept trying, even though he knows that the society will pull him down again in the future, but he puts that thought aside and focuses on his dreams and goal.

There is a hidden meaning inside the song, which is success. The singer tells us not to give up, in other words “Not giving up is the key to success”. The author had already met his success in life, but the society in this song had instead, prevented him from doing so, which was a huge obstacle that he had met in his life before his success. From the verse, “But I’ve become what I can’t be, oh” we can understand that the author had already succeeded in his life. In another verse, “They’re trying to come back, all my senses push. Un-tie the weight bags, I never thought I could…” shows that the society is trying to pull him down to where he started with.

As a conclusion for this song, not only do we learn that we should not give things up easily in our daily life and also shouldn’t succumb to jealousy of another’s achievement. If we are jealous of others’ achievement, why not try to have a good achievement, a goal of your own, to top their success. “Stop and Stare” is a really great song that talks about success, always having an aim and target in our life will not always be smooth as the road to success is not an easy path. There will be obstacles heading in our way, but just like a rollercoaster, we have to face it and overcome our fears or threats to gain our own happiness in the end.