The thread for students. Exchange questions, help each other out. I'll start it off by posting one of my essays for criticism. Feel free to do the same, I promise I'll read it!

Because I want to show off, and because I want criticism on how to improve my writing, here it is. Tear it apart.

The great limitation of the human being is the fear of thinking for oneself, of relying on oneself, of abandoning all forms of support that the individual is convinced he needs. For Nietzsche, the great crutch of humanity is Christianity. In his 1888 book The Antichrist, he argued that as long as men feel the need to rely on religion to give them purpose, they will never reach their full potential. Pity is not a virtue, as it fosters weakness; religious lies distract people from the true purpose of living, that of self-empowerment and striving to the superhuman ideal; and a people that need to have a God to ensure their good behaviour and a Satan to take the blame for their bad behaviour will never learn self-reliance or any form of responsibility. In many ways, the Samsa family finds itself just as attached to its crutch, in their case Gregor, and will never make their lives worth living unless they abandon what they imagine to be a necessary support.
Gregor is not quite an ideal parallel to Christianity, obviously, as he is a conscious entity capable of forethought and setting himself objectives, and not a metaphysically based system of belief and ethics, but the effect that Christianity has on its believers and that Gregor has on his family can successfully be compared for psychosocial analysis. The relationship between the crutch and the cripple has a common function. For the Samsas, living in entreguerre Europe, filial duty and submission come as a natural way of life, and Gregor and his family never stop to question the financial arrangement of the household. It seems to be a natural product of their society that they all fit so easily and comfortably into this way of life. The harm that this blind acceptance has on Gregor is obvious, for it is he who bears the brunt of the work. But the obligation to maintain perceived social standards has a harmful effect on the family as well, although less noticeable than that on Gregor.
The family has become so used to Gregor working for them that their self-reliance has atrophied and withered away, like a hallucinogen user slipping further and further into his apparently sustaining lifestyle. They don’t even consider the possibility of any other working habit; they just assume that this is the best way for them. As such, they never attempt to engage in any activity necessary for their own survival. Gregor never does anything life-affirming because he is constantly working to bring in money for his family; his family never does anything life affirming because they never have to work to make their life possible in the first place. How can you give something value if you never have to struggle to have it in the first place?
Just as the Samsas unfalteringly accept the passive position on the receiving end of the bargain, so do many believers in Christianity unthinkingly accept the religious outlook on life as non-debatable fact. As Richard Dawkins so poignantly points out in the foreword to his book The God Delusion, the vast majority of people who live by Christian rules and Christian ideals do so only because it is the only thing they have ever known and because they didn’t know they could leave. This means that they are born and raised with belief in a certain set of moral perspectives, which condition not only their everyday actions, but their psychological makeup as well, and, according to Nietzsche, impede them from reaching happiness and their full potential as human beings. For Nietzsche religion is a lie that detracts from human value, and that to be truly respected as a person and achieve any sort of independence and strength, it is necessary to free yourself from delusional beliefs. Are you more moral if you act morally out of fear of divine judgement, or if you act morally out of a sense of personal morality and decency? Are you stronger if you live for yourself or if you live for an imaginary friend?
The Samsas experience a similar form of enlightenment and liberation, which leads to their improvement as human beings once their crutch is taken away from them with Gregor’s metamorphosis. During Gregor’s period as an insect, the family undergoes a period of confusion and fear, not unlike a believer having a faith crisis. Once Gregor finally dies, however, the family emerges from their home with new life, having been struck by a sense of hope, not unlike someone who views the world without reference to his previous faith. The new life, nay, the very joie de vivre is characterized in Grete, who represents “the confirmation of their new dreams and good intentions when at the end of the ride their daughter got up first and stretched her young body.” (42)