Is our civilization really civilized? In some societies they do things that they themselves consider to be civilized but in other civilizations may think that what they are doing is not civilized. What is civilized? In our cultures we consider weather or not a civilization is civilized by what we think civilized is, not what that culure thinks civilized is. Being civilized to a culture depends on their background, culture, location, and other variables that affect how they may act or socialize with others.
In literature being a civilized civilization is very important to the setting of the book, novel, or play we are looking at. In The Picture of Dorian Gray, we reflect that the society in which he is placed in is civilied. We believe this becuase they dress formally, they behave most the time as we would in public, and they interact much with others around them as we would today. The time period was a little off of our own but for the most part we are able to relate to this society very easily. Because we can relate to this society I think that we believe it is civilized. In a novel such as Things Fall Apart or A Thousand Splendid Suns the culture is extremely different from our own. Things occur in these societies that we may not think are very civilized. Things such as the worship of an own personal god, or the marrying to more than one woman occur and in some views may be considered as uncivilized to us but in reality the culture that has to live in these circumstances believe that it is civilized becuase it is simply a part of their culture.
In our society today many times people judge others by how "civilized" people think others are. If people dress differently from the way we do we think that their culture is very uncivilized and unproper. We should take time when we think of these things to think about what they are thinking of us. If we dress and behave differently from them and their culture they may believe that we, or our culture in general, is uncivilized. Maybe the fact that we believe in One True God and they believe in many becomes an aspect in which they think that we are uncivilized. Instead of judging people so easily we should step back and think about things that may be determining how they are behawving or dressing such as their ethnic background or their cultre. This may relieve some of the issues that we have today with racism.
In my opinion people judge others too easily. We judge others based on our own background and culture. Im not saying that we should judge others when we know their culture but we should consider the fact that there will always be more than one culture and that people from different cultures maybe able to live together and respect eachother with an understanding their differences. I don't think we can truely judge someone from a different culture unless we ourselves live in and understand that culture and i don't think that we will be able to fully understand that culture unless we know no other or have not previously lived in another culture, which is rare to most people today.
Monday, May 2, 2011
Thursday, March 31, 2011
*Note
I accidentally posted my blog in the middle of it so it is posted in 2 parts, be sure to start with Death and Emotion then the Continued Death and Emotion. :D
Continue to Death and Emotions
Often we are decided to be either emotional people or unemotional people by the society in which we live. If we are close to someone and they pass away we may cry hysterically or be depressed for many days following the funeral until we are able to move on or are forced to have to continue life. Say a person was depressed for the two weeks following a loved one's death and funeral. Some societies would say that it is overreacting. For example, our own society would probably think that this would be too much becuase most businesses only provide three grievence days when a loved one passes away. If a loved one dies peacefully and we are at terms with this loss we may show little to no emotion. Some people in our society may say that we, or the person, is being completely unemotional but in reality we know that the person had lived a good life and had died peacefully without any pain so we do not need to mourn for them. Many people looking on at this "unemotional person" may not even know the circumstances of the death and therefore just assume that the person is being unemotional about the death and loss.
So, exactly how much do we, and our society, expect to be too much or not enough emotional responce? I know that I am certaintly not able to handle the loss of a loved one very well and is probably considered as an emotional person or would be considered more emotional than Meursault from The Stranger. In reality though, we know that everyone is going to die and that there is absolutely nothing we can do to stop it. If someone like Meursault could have come to terms with this fact then why put them on trial for being unemotional? So I leave with a question and a statement that contradict each other for people to think about which side they are on. Death in involuntary why should we show emotion when we know it will happen no matter what? Death is always tragic and should be mourned in respect for dead.
So, exactly how much do we, and our society, expect to be too much or not enough emotional responce? I know that I am certaintly not able to handle the loss of a loved one very well and is probably considered as an emotional person or would be considered more emotional than Meursault from The Stranger. In reality though, we know that everyone is going to die and that there is absolutely nothing we can do to stop it. If someone like Meursault could have come to terms with this fact then why put them on trial for being unemotional? So I leave with a question and a statement that contradict each other for people to think about which side they are on. Death in involuntary why should we show emotion when we know it will happen no matter what? Death is always tragic and should be mourned in respect for dead.
Death and Emotions
In this month's blog I am going to try and write about a more general topic, we'll see how this works out. Death often comes in many forms. If death comes one way and we react hysterically we might be considered as overreacting. However if death comes in another way and we do not show much emotion, or many emotion at all we are considered as being cold, detached, and unemotional in all other aspects of life. When death occurs in life what is supposed to be our reaction? How much emotion does society think we should have?
In our latest read, The Stranger, the main character Meursault doesn't show any emotion outwardly when his mother passes away. When he murders an Arab shortly after and goes to trial they manipulate his actions to basically say that he didn't show sadness when his mother died and he went out with a woman, Marie, the afternoon after his mother's funeral. For what we know, his mother passed away peacefully, she wasn't in much pain for long and she didn't suffer. So really Meursault should have been thankful that she wasn't in much pain for long and that could be possibly why he didn't show any sadness at her funeral. If she would have died painfully, or suffered from a long term illness, or even have been murdered that would have been more demanding for a more emotional responce from Meursault.
It is true, that in life many people cry no matter what when a person that they were close to dies. However if someone that we are not very close to passes away peacefully we often show little to no emotion, such as the responce by Meursault. Since he had put his mother in a home and had grown farther apart from her he could have viewed her more as a stranger than as a loved one, reacting the way we often react to a death of a person we know only vaguely.
In our latest read, The Stranger, the main character Meursault doesn't show any emotion outwardly when his mother passes away. When he murders an Arab shortly after and goes to trial they manipulate his actions to basically say that he didn't show sadness when his mother died and he went out with a woman, Marie, the afternoon after his mother's funeral. For what we know, his mother passed away peacefully, she wasn't in much pain for long and she didn't suffer. So really Meursault should have been thankful that she wasn't in much pain for long and that could be possibly why he didn't show any sadness at her funeral. If she would have died painfully, or suffered from a long term illness, or even have been murdered that would have been more demanding for a more emotional responce from Meursault.
It is true, that in life many people cry no matter what when a person that they were close to dies. However if someone that we are not very close to passes away peacefully we often show little to no emotion, such as the responce by Meursault. Since he had put his mother in a home and had grown farther apart from her he could have viewed her more as a stranger than as a loved one, reacting the way we often react to a death of a person we know only vaguely.
Monday, February 28, 2011
Women and Inferiority
Women have been thought of as inferior to men for years. Woolf brings up and proves this point in her book A Room of One's Own. Although she proves the point that men have always treated women as inferior she is quick not to blame men, saying that they have only done it to promote their own superiority. The lack of acknowledgement given to women by men has always held women back for years and A Room of One's Own and The Awakening not only acknowledge this but also bring up this point in order to show it to society and their audiances.
In The Awakening Kate Chopin writes to her audiance to make them realize how women were being treated and that it was becoming an issue. She brings up the issue that women are treated as inferior and were not able to do anything without the presence of a man. She shows this point by writing that Edna wishes to express herself on her own as an individual. Edna becomes overwhelmed that her husband and the society she lived in thinks that she is acting and thinking obscurley. She is not able to handle the inferiority that she is treated with so she ends up killing herself. In A Room of One's Own Woolf makes up an imaginary sister to Shakespeare and writes what she thought would have been the life of a women like her. In the end she commits suicide becuase she was not given the oppurtunity to express her own genius becuase she was a woman. These two plots are parrallel because both women were not given the oppurtunities to succeed in their own lives because of their gender. In both circumstances the writers create this kind of storyline to express to the audiance or possibly to make the audiance understand how women were being treated and that it was real what they were saying and in both circumstances I believe that each author wanted to stir up feelings of the readers or audiances to get them thinking about this topic.
Women have come along way from the societies in both A Room of One's Own and The Awakening, but they are still treated as somewhat inferior in our own society. In some jobs women are not paid as much, women are not even hired in some jobs because some think that the job is to difficult for a woman, and woman are still stereotypically supposed to stay home with the children and take care of the house. Mostly today though women are going out and getting educated to support themselves and their families. In today's society women are given the same opurtunities to educate themselves.
In my opinion the women who are still staying home and not educating themselves or getting jobs in order to support themselves are the ones that are making it harder for women to completely become the "unprotected sex" that Woolf expresses in her book. They are keeping the stereotype going that we, women, SHOULD stay home to work with the children and the house. If all women, as we are slowly becoming, go out and get jobs that can support themselves then women, as a gender, will cease to be linked with the idea that women need to be provided for or that we need someone, a man specifically, to depend or rely on.
In The Awakening Kate Chopin writes to her audiance to make them realize how women were being treated and that it was becoming an issue. She brings up the issue that women are treated as inferior and were not able to do anything without the presence of a man. She shows this point by writing that Edna wishes to express herself on her own as an individual. Edna becomes overwhelmed that her husband and the society she lived in thinks that she is acting and thinking obscurley. She is not able to handle the inferiority that she is treated with so she ends up killing herself. In A Room of One's Own Woolf makes up an imaginary sister to Shakespeare and writes what she thought would have been the life of a women like her. In the end she commits suicide becuase she was not given the oppurtunity to express her own genius becuase she was a woman. These two plots are parrallel because both women were not given the oppurtunities to succeed in their own lives because of their gender. In both circumstances the writers create this kind of storyline to express to the audiance or possibly to make the audiance understand how women were being treated and that it was real what they were saying and in both circumstances I believe that each author wanted to stir up feelings of the readers or audiances to get them thinking about this topic.
Women have come along way from the societies in both A Room of One's Own and The Awakening, but they are still treated as somewhat inferior in our own society. In some jobs women are not paid as much, women are not even hired in some jobs because some think that the job is to difficult for a woman, and woman are still stereotypically supposed to stay home with the children and take care of the house. Mostly today though women are going out and getting educated to support themselves and their families. In today's society women are given the same opurtunities to educate themselves.
In my opinion the women who are still staying home and not educating themselves or getting jobs in order to support themselves are the ones that are making it harder for women to completely become the "unprotected sex" that Woolf expresses in her book. They are keeping the stereotype going that we, women, SHOULD stay home to work with the children and the house. If all women, as we are slowly becoming, go out and get jobs that can support themselves then women, as a gender, will cease to be linked with the idea that women need to be provided for or that we need someone, a man specifically, to depend or rely on.
Monday, January 31, 2011
Gender influencing book opinions
The first question from The Awakening socratic seminar questions is: Discuss the influence of one's gender have upon reading this novel. I thought that this was significant to both literature in general as well as in today's society. The gender of the reader affects how the reader views The Awakening becuase I think that if the reader is a female then they would naturally view the story from Edna's point of view and in a way sympathize with her. If the reader is a male I think that they would read it more from a distant or neutral point of view. I felt that the gender of the reader really would have changed how the reader viewed the story becuase each side would naturally have a different view or perspective on the issues presented such as marraige, kids, and family life.
In literature the issue of gender effecting the way people think about a novel is presented quite often. When reading works of literature I think the problem presents itself that different genders view novel from different points of view and that can effect how the reader interprets certain issues that are presented throughout any given novel. If the readers interpret the meanings to be something different then really the meanings of the novels could be different for each of the two genders. If we wanted to expand on it more generally we could say even things such as the race or ethnic background could also affect how the reader may interpret different meanings.
For me, I believe that being a female does effect how I think of certain characters or circumstances of a novel. Naturally I'm more emotional about things like death, marraige, or issues such as abuse like that presented in A Thousand Splendid Suns. I know, by my brother's reactions to the same novels, that he is not as emotional as I am and that he doesn't seem to be effected he read it more like a part of the story that has to happen for the story to continue. I would rather have story skip those or make the underdog come back on top, but that doesn't always happen and most of the time I just have to face the facts that the novel is as it is written and that is what is going to happen.
In my oppinion the issue that different genders view different matters in literary works depending on their gender is both a good and a bad thing. It is a bad things becuase, as i have already mentioned, male and female see things differently and will not always interpret things in the same way. This becomes a problem when the two genders interpret completely different meanings for one thing. This is a good thing becuase in discussions, such as our socratic seminars, it provides grounds for argument so that the two different sides are able to discuss what they believe is the correct interpretation of the literary work.
In literature the issue of gender effecting the way people think about a novel is presented quite often. When reading works of literature I think the problem presents itself that different genders view novel from different points of view and that can effect how the reader interprets certain issues that are presented throughout any given novel. If the readers interpret the meanings to be something different then really the meanings of the novels could be different for each of the two genders. If we wanted to expand on it more generally we could say even things such as the race or ethnic background could also affect how the reader may interpret different meanings.
For me, I believe that being a female does effect how I think of certain characters or circumstances of a novel. Naturally I'm more emotional about things like death, marraige, or issues such as abuse like that presented in A Thousand Splendid Suns. I know, by my brother's reactions to the same novels, that he is not as emotional as I am and that he doesn't seem to be effected he read it more like a part of the story that has to happen for the story to continue. I would rather have story skip those or make the underdog come back on top, but that doesn't always happen and most of the time I just have to face the facts that the novel is as it is written and that is what is going to happen.
In my oppinion the issue that different genders view different matters in literary works depending on their gender is both a good and a bad thing. It is a bad things becuase, as i have already mentioned, male and female see things differently and will not always interpret things in the same way. This becomes a problem when the two genders interpret completely different meanings for one thing. This is a good thing becuase in discussions, such as our socratic seminars, it provides grounds for argument so that the two different sides are able to discuss what they believe is the correct interpretation of the literary work.
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