ShmoopTube

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[ musical flourish ]

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And here's your Shmoop du jour, brought to you by immortality.

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Some people wanna live forever by being famous.

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We'd rather live forever by not dying.

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We're skimming... Skimming...

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[ mumbles ]

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And we're done.

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All right, the speaker believes immortality... what?

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And here are the potential answers.

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[ mumbles ]

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Awesome. This question is gonna tell us how to live forever.

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All right, eat your heart out, fountain of youth.

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Choice B claims immortality is easy to find,

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but if that's true, why aren't we all living forever?

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The speaker doesn't say anything that shows he thinks gaining immorality is

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easy, so we can eliminate B.

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Really, if he knew an easy trick to gaining immortality,

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well, he oughta just sit on the idea until he finds a way to put it on the market.

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C can go, too. The speaker doesn't tell us that immortality is

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linked to how people feel about themselves. Kind of a relief there.

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Think of the most conceited person at your school and imagine them living forever.

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Answer A advises that we have to be selflessly devoted

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to others in order to be immortal.

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Well, the speaker might agree in the case of great teachers,

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whom he says are instant immortals.

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Tell this to your favorite teacher. It's a much better gift than an apple.

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The speaker also says that there are other paths to immortality.

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So we can't sign off on choice A.

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Answer E doesn't make the cut, either.

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Does the speaker say that chance events and kindness

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factored into Shakespeare and Jane Austen's immortality? No.

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It's because they were awesome artists who people still think

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are, well, at least reasonably cool.

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Well, we've gotta go with choice D on this one.

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The speaker says that living on in the memory of others

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doesn't always mean we were famous when we were alive.

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He points out that an old lady in a Rembrandt painting lived her whole life

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without doing anything remarkable, but remains famous to this day

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because a well-known artist

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chose her as a subject. And, boom, there we go.

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That's choice D all over.

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Observation: the speaker points out a lot of ways

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to be immortal, but he overlooks befriending a local vampire.

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[ gasp ] [ evil laugh ]

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