The Human Comedy: Who's Teaching Who?
Babies learn everything they need to survive in the culture of today from their parents. Monkey see monkey do. When children's minds develop and grow, all they know is the world of their family and perhaps a few other adults. Everything children catch in their young eyes and ears teaches them another lesson. Adults can teach about how to care for the sick, hospitality, and good manners but they also may pass on racist views and preconceived ideas. They seem to focus on the death, war, and financial problems; all present in every day life of characters in William Saroyan's novel, The Human Comedy. These problems may completely engulf the mind, body, and soul of busy men and women. Adults should take a second and watch their sons and daughters who have much more to teach but not enough pride and experience to lecture their brilliant ideas. According to Saroyan, children are the experts on living life, while adults have the greater knowledge of death. Children take time to recognize the smaller joys of life and therefore can live life with a worthwhile meaning. Adults have gained the experience to educate children on coping with sadness and humbling far out hopes and dreams. Characters such as Mrs. Macauley, Miss Hicks, and Mr. Spangler all play an important role in teaching vital lessons. Adults, in this novel, also state some pointers on how to truly live life, while many adults do not follow these teachings at all. To survive the severe ups and downs of our fluctuating world, adults and children must both teach and learn from each other.
Adults have an advantage of a type of wisdom earned through experience. Americans have learned to treat others with equal respect and accept other's beliefs. After the contrasting identities, of Hubert Ackley and Homer Macauley, get called in after school, Miss Hicks admits that she did "not [keep Homer] in for punishment, but for education"(56). The strict teacher just wants her "children to be people" (56). Saroyan, through Miss Hicks, explains that children will "be truly human when, in spite of natural dislike of one another [they] still respect one another" (56). This level-headed teacher with good intent, tries to share her personal knowledge with Homer. She does not merely teach with the text, chapter after chapter, but tries to spread her experience of what civilized means.
When it comes to friendship, personality type, race, and age are trivial matters; Brent’s strong bonds with Emil, the African American children, and the painter prove this. However, the idea of looking beneath the surface applies to not only the characters of the story, but also real people in our world. Humans need to learn how to accept everyone the way they are, for mankind is simply too judgemental. Paul Fleischman is trying to warn humanity about the many consequences that can occur if people continue to refuse to embrace one another’s flaws and faults. No one is perfect, so why judge? Just like Brent’s whirligigs’ interconnected parts, the world and all its people are linked together in a way that people should be able to feel the truth of a relationship regardless of each other’s outer appearances and characteristics.
Some short stories are designed to teach lessons to the people who read them. They teach lessons about life, love, and growing up. People can learn lessons by reading short stories where the main characters discover something about life and about themselves. Also, the Characters and the way they use actions, words, or thoughts carry throughout the story can relate to many realistic personas as in Toni Cade Bambara 's short story “The Lesson.” Bambara’s narrative diversifies any reading list with some authors, who are not so familiar, where she presents a lesson to be learned with the story of young children growing up in
The characters in this story are some very interesting people. They each lead their own way of life, and have their own interests at heart. Some of the main characters in this novel are: Sarny, Lucy, Miss Laura, Bartlett, Stanley, and Sarny's two children Little Delie, and Tyler. Sarny is the central character in this book. She is clever and knows exactly what to even in the worst of times. She is very emotional though, and can break down and cry when the slightest of things happens. This is perhaps from what she has experienced as a slave earlier on in her life. Sarny is fond of teaching people, as a friend named Nightjohn once taught her. Lucy is Sarny's close friend. She is also quite wise, but is a bit too optimistic at times. She never stops smiling and is very friendly. However, she does help Sarny find her lost children. Miss Laura is a middle-aged woman who lives a very luxurious life. She gives Sarny and Lucy a place to live and offers them employment. She also finds Sarny's children for her. Bartlett works for Miss Laura as well. He is a quiet and patient man who is helpful and quite kind. He was however castrated as a young slave boy, and cannot have children. Stanley is Sarny's second husband, for her first died from being worked to death on the plantation. Stanley is a gentle, big, fun-loving man, but is not intimidated by anything. This leads him to his death when he gets mad at a white man, and is confronted by the Ku Klux Klan. Little Delie and Tyler are Sarny's lost children. After she recovers them, and they grow up, Little Delie starts to like business, while Tyler wants to become a doctor.
In the story, the reader discovers the hard truth that equality wasn’t the norm during the 1920’s--even in untamed, unsettled Alaska. There was hatred amongst the white people towards the Alaska Natives, and the kindhearted person Anne was didn’t understand that. Anne saw all children and adults as equal to their peers and didn’t see any reason why anybody couldn’t be included with everyone else, especially in the schoolhouse. Anne even invited uneducated adults into her schoolhouse to join her young students because she felt that anyone that wanted to learn should be allowed to. Something interesting about this was how much trouble Anne got herself into by doing this. The school board of Chicken was furious with Anne for letting the natives be in the same room as their caucasian children. There were several quarrels between Anne and the school board throughout the story, but Anne never let the board win.
...s will pass on these ideas to children and family. Even so, compassion emitted from Atticus towards his children are able to shield them from the disease and make them much like Atticus, someone who would see it like it is rather than be blindfolded by the pre-conceived ideas. Wisdom and life experience also are shown as very desirable traits to have as they can motivate you through the toughest tasks and drive you to do what should be done instead of abandon your duties. In conclusion, Harper Lee’s book To Kill a Mockingbird highlights the horrible prejudice and ignorance towards black people in the southern town of Maycomb, but also shows wisdom and compassion as not only desirable but necessary traits to have to withstand the bombardment of pre-conceived ideas from the people surrounding you, and also portrays these qualities as a shield to people around you.
Life is a complicated process. It’s filled with many things that keep it interesting but at the same time, very dull. Life’s what you make it and for many, it’s something we all strive for. In the story, The Space Between, the author takes full advantage of the premise as there’s rarely a dull moment- as in life. The book is filled with many literary devices that work nicely with the plot and dialogue. These include; metaphors, similes, irony, personification, and many more. We follow a young man who is finding his way in the world. He has only a week to change his life for the better. But he will face many obstacles on the way that brings the readers into a startling and fun journey.
...es that despite all the differences humans have, we are really more alike than not. Scout is constantly educated by her Aunt on Maycomb's different folks. She realizes that “there’s just one kind of folks. Folks” (304). Scout has finally become enlightened, a role model that everyone, even Atticus, can aspire to be like.
Although the book has many stories to tell, all with something in common but yet with a different feature, the point of the book was to not only educate the world about these situations but to also give us real scenarios that we all can relate to in some sort of fashion. This book is about the human mind and the abstractness of our visions and memories. Everything affects us physically and mentally. We all share a common feature; we are all simply human with simple human minds.
What makes a character real? Schooled is a novel written by Gordon Korman. The novel’s protagonist and is Capricorn Anderson, a 13 year old hippie who lives on a farm commune with his grandmother. Capricorn, however, has to live with another family and attend a public school when his grandmother breaks her hip and has to stay at the hospital for weeks. This paper discusses true-to-self Capricorn Anderson, his path and purpose in the text, his interactions and effect on others, and his change over time.
In conclusion, Mr. Michie showed students that even though they’re being criticized at or stereotyping themselves, there are still others that are willing to reach out for them, to guide them through the right path. He’s the kind of teacher that would do anything to help out his students. “Gregory Michie expands degrees of hope for cultivating humanity through teaching with love, justice, and cultural empathy and imagination.” (Ming Fang He).
What makes a character real? Schooled is a novel written by Gordon Korman. The novel’s protagonist and is Capricorn Anderson, a 13-year-old hippie who lives on a farm commune with his grandmother. Capricorn, however, has to live with another family and attend a public school when his grandmother breaks her hip and has to stay at the hospital for weeks. This paper discusses true-to-self Capricorn Anderson, his path, and purpose in the text, his interactions and effect on others, and his change over time.
Scout begins to realize that people's ignorance isn't always their fault. Her teacher, Miss Caroline, is new in Maycomb, and doesn't know about the families living there. Scout was very upset that she got scolded for explaining the caste system to the teacher, but then she began to understand. ''...but if Walter and I had put ourselves in her shoes we'd have seen it was an honest mistake on her part. We could not expect her to learn all of Maycomb's ways in one day, and we could not hold her responsible when she knew no better.'';(30). A lot of the time, people don't stop to understand a person, but are quick to make judgements. All people need to do is to try to understand why the person said what they did, try to see where he or she is coming from. Only then can mankind know what to do in a...
How does the use of comic relief best contrast the tragedy of Hamlet? In great works of literature a comic relief is used as contrast to a serious scene to intensify the overall tragic nature of the play or to relieve tension. As illustrated in Shakespeare’s tragedy Hamlet, intense scenes are joined with character’s banter and vacuous actions as to add a comic relief. In Hamlet, Polonius acts as a comic relief by his dull and windy personality, Hamlet uses his intelligence and his negativity toward the king and queen to create humor, while on the other hand Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are a comic relief by their senseless actions and naïve natures. Polonius, Hamlet, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are all used as a comic relief to increase the ultimate tragic nature of the play.
The two authors Jaroslav Hasek and Franz Kafka, born in the same year of 1883 and the same city of Prague, were exposed to many similar experiences growing up in the time preceding World War I. These contemporaries witnessed first-hand the gradual decay of Central-European power and values, and they observed their home-country of Austria-Hungary vanish into non-existence after the war (Fiedler 183). Although later in life the two authors developed very different political opinions and writing styles, their experiences led them both to view the world through thick lenses of absurdism and humor. Indication of their interpretations of life is most apparent in each author’s largest literary work. Though both The Good Soldier
The values and ethics in this novel are an importance to the family because it gives the children and adults a guideline and reminder on how to act and what they strive for. From an early childhood the children are taught to be well mannered and if you?re a female, you are taught to act like a lady. Papa also taught them about their religion from when the girls were babies .