Human Nature Causes Superiority

The subject of sanity is addressed in The Tell-Tale Heart. Through our annotations of the story we all said that the narrator was unreliable, and though his actions throughout the story, we decide that he must in fact be insane. Though I'm not disputing the narrator's loss of insanity as it is evident in The Tell-Tale Heart that his sanity hangs by a thread until it is finally cut by the heartbeat that drives him insane. I find the the question of the narrator's sanity interesting because to him everything he was doing was within reason. The narrator's plan to kill the old man was logical because it would then release him from his torment that resulted for the old man's evil eye. To the narrator he was living in an exaggerated reality, but he did not believe himself to be insane, not even to the very end when he admits to have committed the crime. He is simply different and he assumes to be superior. Human nature tends causes humans to assume that nothing is wrong with ourselves but with others who are not like us or oppose us. Which is what happens to the narrator in The Tell-Tale Heart. I have witnessed many problems that come from this part of human nature, it is often what spurs most arguments. For if someone has a different opinion about something important to you, then obviously they are wrong and you are right. One example could be the controversial issue of abortion and its legality. The people that are pro-life, the group as a whole (each individual is different), refuse to believe that those who are pro-choice could possibly have a different opinion that is real to them, therefore they are wrong and pro-life is the only way to go. The opposing sides will not allow the other side to be right because each is more superior than the other, it doesn't matter if they simply have a different perspective. So, it is with the narrator in The Tell-Tale Heart, he claims that the police officers are villans making him the superior in his alternate reality. Human nature forces us to believe that we are superior and anyone different is inferior.

What would you be willing to sell your soul for?

In this unit, Monsters and Ourselves, we learn how human nature is discovered and revealed through literature. Human nature is a tricky thing, everyone has different qualities, different morals and opinions, however, everyone at some point in their life reverts to their primary desires and our true human nature reveals itself. It is what makes us human and drives us to make decisions that we normally would never think we would. The question "What would you be willing to sell your soul for?" came up in class most answered that they probably would never give that up for something in their life not even eternal life which would virtually end the possibility of ever suffering in eternal torture or "hell." In The Picture of Dorian Gray, Dorian was willing to sell his soul for beauty for the rest of his lifetime. We see how this decision to have power, to be forever popular because of his beauty ultimately poisons the young man. Dorian is influenced by Lord Henry to pursue a life of pleasure and to ignore moral codes. Through the years Dorian became more and more corrupt, he grew into a monster that only he could see in his portrait. The portrait reveals Dorian's true nature as it ages from the sins that Dorian has committed through his corruption and his saught out glory of leading a pleasurable life. Dorian initially made the decision to sell his soul for beauty, but he slowly sold more and more of himself for this beauty and it finally catches up to him resulting in his death. Today, I just so happened to stop on Oprah talking with Rosie O'Donnell and they were discussing how fame poisons and corrupts a person without them ever truly realizing it. Fame pushes you to do things that you never originally intended to do. I agree with this, for example all the reality tv shows that are so popular today, the people in the show gradually progress into someone that they weren't in the beginning of the program. I believe that our human nature is revealed through everything that we do, we are always pushing to be well liked or to have popularity, wealth, beauty, knowledge, whatever a person wants in their life. With the question "What would you be willing to sell your soul for," I don't think a person could necessarily truthfully answer that question. Everyday, people are selling little pieces of their souls. We compromise with our ideals and morals, what we expect to follow. People tend to lose themselves in little pieces. Maybe you're not selling your souls outright, but you are to an extent to gain something when you compromise what you believe. As Rosie said on Oprah, she had not realized how much she had strayed from her original intentions for her show until she had finished it and looked back, astonished how much she had given up that she was primarily not willing to. It is easy to give pieces of yourself a little bit at a time. Of course, most people do not lose their entire soul because then they would be pure evil. But, we do lose some of ourselves gradually. You just need to be careful how much you lose, you don't want to end up like Dorian Gray corrupting yourself to a point that you can't return to.

Occupational Need

In The Yellow Wallpaper, I found the subject of women's sanity was interesting. The narrator struggled with postpartum depression as do many women still do today. However, the way women are viewed have changed with time. Charlotte Perkins Gilman presents the idea that women need something to do, to fill their time so that they do not go insane. Women are not to be patronized or thought of as just a lovely wall flower, or a shell of person. The narrator had difficulty getting her husband to believe that she was not feeling better mentally, and she really had nothing to do there at the house and needed an escape from the room with the "yellow wallpaper." However, John did not listen to her because of course women do not know anything. Gilman was making a point that women are human beings just as men are and need an occupation otherwise they may go insane; women need to have a purpose in life. Women's sanity as exhibited in The Yellow Wallpaper hangs by a thread; they cannot sit around doing nothing, anyone would be likely to go insane or to make up strange stories about strange things as the narrator did in the story. Part of her insanity came from her illness which was both mental and physical. The narrator's postpartum depression added to the need of occupation for a woman because the rest may have helped her physically but by prolonging the visit it affected her mental health in a negative way. She began to see herself trapped behind the wall of the yellow wallpaper; this made it clear that Gilman was making a societal comment on the role women play. Women must not be treated as a subservient, she is an equal and deserves rights just like everyone else and that she should not be forced to hide who she truly is just because whoever she truly is might not be what is accepted in society. This story just hinted at the changes that need to be made in society and that were yet to come. As women still have similar hardships with health like postpartum depression we now know how to combat it. Gilman's want for women to not have to hide who they truly are otherwise they might go insane eventually came true. At least in the American society, the majority of women do not face the same treatment as the narrator did in the story and have occupations to keep ourselves sane and constant in the person that we are.

Heroic Women

The women that our class has read about recently are all victims of an oppressive life when comparing their lives to the lives that women lead today. During the late nineteenth and early twentieth century women were often subjected to marriages for social reasons such as to advance in money or because that what was proper for a woman of her station to do. As many of the girls as well as boys stated in our class, that if we were put in the same situations that these women were subjected to we would fight with our all, and escape the lives that they faced. However, in that time period or cultures, a woman could not easily escape the life she lead. Edna, from The Awakening, and Nora, from A Doll House, wish to leave their families to become independent to lead their own lives, one is successful in leaving and the other not. Both of these women struggled from the social pressures of being a good wife and mother in their culture. Though we do not necessarily view either women as heroines today, they truly were in the sense that they fought just by thinking that wanted more, wanted better. They wished to escape the livelihood they were forced into, they wished to escape the mold of women in their socities. Another example of a woman in a marriage that she did not wish for is Mariam in A Thousand Splendid Suns. Mariam is forced into an arranged marriage by her father and his wives. Rasheed is an abusive husband both physically and mentally. Besides never wishing to marry Rasheed, Mariam leads a pitiful and hard life. Compared to today and in the American culture, we view her plight horrific. A woman today in a marriage as abusive as Mariam's would be pressured to leave her husband, not to stay with him and obey. Women have an escape route from their marriages if need be, though it does not necessarily mean that they can always easily get out, but it is possible. It is and was much more difficult for a woman to leave her husband in Afghanistan. All of these women I view as heroes because they dared to be different, to think they have the power to be independent, to escape. Even if they did not succeed or did, they still battled against the pressures of their societies. They proved that women can be strong and be who they want to be.

There's not a universal moral code for socities?

Cultrual Relativism is based on that "different societies have different moral codes." There is no universal standard of morals for all cultures to be subjected to. I agree with this completely, something that is "wrong" in one society may be accepted as "right" in another. It is all about the perspective by each culture itself, so neither culture is right nor wrong in their moral codes. Though there are some common traits in different societies such as the care of their young so that the culture may survive. In Things Fall Apart, Cultural Relativism was disputed between the Igbo and the British Christians that came to Africa. An example of the dispute between morals in the novel would be the infanticide of twins by the Igbo. Twins considered to be evil and therefore must be thrown into the Evil Forest to rid the society of the misfortune that they may bring. However, this practice abhorred the Christians; they believed that no child should be killed for they are innocent. Neither moral code here was ever presented as right or wrong, but simply a difference in the perspectives of the two cultures. In the article, a similar subject was also brought to attention with the Eskimos. They were believers in infanticide, babies that were not wanted were discarded, such as females. This is horrible to European cultures that did and do not accept such practices. To the Eskimos, however, it was perfectly acceptable because sometimes circumstances must be met, a child could not survive, therefore, it would be cruel to prolong the child's coming suffering. Perspective is a huge part of moral code and that is why there are differences. In Islamic cultures it is acceptable for a man to beat his wife. Obviously, in our culture it is illegal to commit domestic abuse, a man would be imprisoned for committing such a crime. The Muslims, however, use this method to simply instill obedience in their wives, much more harm would come to the women if they did not obey and made a fool of their husbands or disgraced their families such as death. The women see the need for obedience to their husbands in their culture and bear the pain of being beaten. I do not agree with this as being a part of a culture that believes domestic abuse to be unacceptabl, however, nor can I condemn their methods and what may be morally acceptable to another culture without considering their perspective. As I mentioned before, cultural relativism is all dependent on the perspectives of what is morally correct to another culture. Neither is it right or wrong, just a different perspective.

Beowulf a Perfect Hero?

In "The Hero and the Theme," George Clark quotes Kathryn Hume stating, "We know too little of his everyday humanity, his normal human feelings, to be able to see him as an extension of ourselves." I agree with this statement, Beowulf is not a perfect hero. He is far from it actually, his power is exaggerated and his actions are too absurd that he is not at all relatable to a reader. Beowulf goes from one epic battle to the next, from Grendel, to Grendel's mother, to the dragon. There is never a time where Beowulf is not battling some fiendish monstor. Every "hero" in literature accomplishes great feats against monstrous foes, but not all the time. The time in between those battles is what makes the character relatable. Similar decisions that need to made to what we as readers must also make on a day to day basis make a hero relatable. That is why people attach themselves to heroes as much as they do, because they identify with them. Beowulf cannot be easily identified with, unless you are an insanely strong brute of a man. Though Beowulf makes some extraordinary sacrifices in his epic poem, he is not a role model in his quest for immortality through his fame and honor. If Beowulf's struggles were shown to us, if we could see that he was in fact human and prone to human feelings he would be more of an ideal hero. In the media, we see superheroes such as Batman and Spider-man as human beings capable of human feelings, but have extraordinary powers that normal people do not posess. Each of them struggles with something that anyone could relate to whether it is about relationships, guilt, a need for revenge, or a feeling of helplessness. They show feelings, something Beowulf never really did. We cannot see Beowulf as an extension of ourselves as we could other heroes, therefore making him unrelatable and not a perfect hero. Beowulf may fit Clark's opinion that the poem's theme and hero are the same, as Beowulf reaches for immortality among men. But, what is the point of reaching immortality or even dreaming of it if one cannot grasp the possibility of oneself ever accomplishing something as Beowulf did. Beowulf is not depicted as being a human, we do not see any everyday actions or human feelings that are relatable in Beowulf, he is not a perfect hero.

Who is your hero?

What is a hero? What makes someone a hero? I believe that almost anyone can be a hero. It all depends on people's perspectives. What one person believes to make a hero may not be what another person believes. Heroic deeds can be just conquering personal fears or sacrificing oneself for the better of others or both. Like I said, it all depends on a person's personal perspective. A literary hero is usually a person that a vast majority of people can easily admire. This admiration usually comes from actions performed by the main character for using courage to overcome his or her fears. Or a literary hero could be a person that demonstrates bravery to help others. In Beowulf, Beowulf is the proud "hero" of the epic poem. He challenges many monsters to save the lives of others. In the battles with Grendel and Grendel's mother, Beowulf offers to help the Shieldings rid themselves of the murderous monsters. And once again Beowulf saves the people, when defeating the fearsome dragon that was attacking his people though he sacrificed his own life in the process. However, in Grendel, we see that the "hero" is not always a hero. Beowulf becomes the monster and Grendel the character we most identify with or at least the victim. Today, in the mediea, heroes are perceived to be the people that heroically save a person from a burning building or land a plummeting plane safely to save the passengers. To some, a music artist could be thought of as a hero, or maybe evena comic book character, or a family member that works incredibly hard for the rest of the family's benefit. Self-sacrifice is what I believe to make a person a hero. To a child a character like Superman is a hero because he puts himself in danger to save others. But, a hero to a child is not a hero to an adult. A hero can be anyone as long as they overcome a difficulty to help others; it all depends on a person's own perspective of who their hero is.