Compare And Contrast Djinn And Alice Walker

Final Essay – Prompt #3
The characters in Gary Shteyngart’s “Super Sad True Love Story”, Ralph Waldo Emerson’s “Self-Reliance”, Russell Bank’s “Djinn”, and Alice Walker’s “Everyday Use” are similar in that they all display a relationship between humans and their environment. When each passage is broken down and analyzed, however, there are clear differences in how the authors depict the effects of the environment on the development of individuals and their relationships. While the characters in “Djinn” and “Everyday Use” are examples of being products of their cultural and family environment, Emerson argues the opposite by saying humans should not be controlled by their environment and should never conform in “Self-Reliance”, and Shteyngart

illustrates the reality of the influence of the technological and economic environment on America if we keep allowing it to control us. The difference is significant because while “we’re the product of our environment” sometimes, it reveals that we, ourselves, are ultimately in control of how we shape our human identity, development, and experience.
“Super Sad True Love Story” portrays America in the near future if we continue to allow the technological and economic environment to control us. A Bipartisan country where our currency is worthless and we are severely in debt to China, and sequentially we are ruled by mega corporations. This is all due to the quickly advancing global technology and crumbling economic structure of our country. Shteyngart uses a variety of mediums to tell the story between Lenny and Eunice allowing the reader to get a deeper understanding on each of them and how they develop throughout the story individually and with each other. Lenny’s diary entries, that seem to be more filtered and planned than Eunice’s emails to friends and family members, give us an idea on how society is so absorbed in technology causing a lack of physical social skills and a society obsessed with status. Technology overruns this society with the majority of the population excluding LNWIs (low net worth individuals) having a futuristic next generation “Apparat” readily available in the palm of their hands, “young people with Apparati, immune to the rest of the world.” (248), which are comparable to today’s iPhones, but are able to instantly pull up information about others nearby including: “credit, net worth, fuckability, personality, and attractiveness” (189) which is all used to rank individuals against others in the room. Apparats are a symbol for privacy, or the lack thereof. When there is a lack of privacy and everything is transparent about each individual, people are more likely to become self-conscious and more willing conforming to the society simply to get higher ratings. However if there were privacy and that information was hidden, individuals would not be worried about improving their scores as much. Global teen is a social network for all ages and is used by almost everyone and it reduces the amount of physical contact that people need to have with each other which affects social development.
Like Maggie and Dee in Alice Walker’s “Everyday Use”, Eunice is influenced by the family environment she grew up in.

Eunice had problems during her childhood causing her to become insecure and afraid of commitment when it comes to relationships which ultimately affected her relationship with Lenny. On the contrary, Dee had the lack of family environment to shape her and this can be clearly seen in the difference of personality and attitude between Maggie and her. Before Dee’s arrival we are made aware of Dee’s and her mom’s relationship, “Sometimes I dream a dream in which Dee and I are suddenly brought together on a TV program of this sort” (197). The reader can conclude that their relationship wasn’t very loving, but surface. This is the polar opposite from the relationship her mom has with Maggie, “And then the two of us sat there just enjoying, until it was time to go…” (205). When Dee came back from her schooling, she was very disrespectful to her family and her culture, “But she turned without a word and went out to Hakim-a-barber” (205), storming off with an attitude. However there was one instance where Dee seemed to enjoy her culture, “Wangero, though, went on through the chitlins and corn bread…everything delighted her. Even the fact that we still used the benched her daddy

made…”(202).
“Djinn” and “Super Sad True Love Story” are similar in how they explore globalization and its effects. Both “Super Sad True Love Story” and “Djinn” highlight the negative effects of globalization on human experience. In “Djinn”, globalization leads to the narrator’s move to a post-colonial, “then a recently de-socialized” (120) African nation in order to run his company’s factory that was out sourced. The factory is a symbol of America’s funding that “financed a thuggish oligarchy” (120) which made it inevitable for some locals to eventually become homeless and live in “small camps of squatters” (122). In addition, the globalization adds to the cultural environmental forces that influence the narrator to feel guilty for the local’s pain which eventually lead him to isolate himself and avoid social contact, “I kept to myself and took my meals in my rooms or in the hotel…” (126) negatively affecting his experience in Africa. In “Super Sad True Love Story”, globalization has caused big corporation groups to overpower the US economy, but will eventually be bought out by China. The poor economy has caused a social class split between HNWI (high net worth individuals) and LNWI (low net worth individuals) which ultimately ruins the identity and experience of those labeled LNWI because there are also credit poles on the corner of the streets that reads individuals financial worth as they walk pass and will alert for LNWI to be removed from the city.
Ralph Waldo Emerson’s “Self-Reliance” argues against the saying “we’re all products of our environment”. Emerson explains how he values individual experiences over knowledge gained from books, “I hope in these days we have heard the last of conformity and consistency.” (274), and you must “trust thyself” (269) because if you were to rely on others you would be a “minor and invalids in a protected corner…[a] coward” (269). Contrary to the other authors, Emerson expressed that “A true man belongs to no other time or place, but is center of all things, where he is, there is nature.” (274), meaning that nothing can control man because he is the center of all things, he is what makes up the environment. This self-reliance can actually be found in Russell Bank’s “Djinn”. While the narrator was originally influenced by his environment, letting it hold him down and negatively affect his life, at the end of the narrative, he came to a realization that he wanted to find self-fulfillment after seeing “[Djinn’s] face was still lit by a knowledge or emotion or memory that was more powerful and clarifying than anything we here below had ever experienced” (130). So he took his life in to his own hands and journeyed up the wall to realize that “A great thing has inflicted upon me, but it was clear, nothing has happened to anyone else”, and “[he] was alone” (135).
Even though our environment has effects on shaping human identity, development, and experience, humans ultimately have the majority of control over their life because we have the ability to make conscious decisions regardless of the influence of our surroundings.

Our environment only has the power over us that we allow it to have. Our environment does not affect all of us equally, because those who are less privileged are more susceptible to environmental influences because they lack the ability to overcome the effects of the economic environment. Emerson’s “Self-Reliance” states that children are also less susceptible to environmental influences and are more self-reliant because they are too young to be hesitant or hypocritical, “Infancy conforms to nobody” (269). I believe technological environment forces most significantly shape our lives because technology is something that we are in contact with at every second of the day and as seen in “Super Sad True Love Story” if we put all our energy into technology it can be wiped away and we are rendered helpless like Lenny after the Rupture, “My apparat isn’t connecting. I can’t connect. No one’s apparati are working anymore” (268). With that being said, I believe we should be somewhat resistant of this advancing environment or at least cautious. Physical environment is inevitable and can’t be changed, so I don’t think that is something that should be considered as a major influence on shaping our lives. Our family and cultural

environment should be celebrated because I believe that you should allow yourself to be influenced by your family’s traditions, values, and cultures. However there will always be an exception which is why we need to stay aware of our surroundings.