The Not So Perfect Life of Being Perfect Often times as human beings we pressure our self to reach what we would consider a perfect state, but sometimes this pressure can become a little too much to handle. Perfectionism has two sides to it: a positive and a negative. The positive side can consist of high standard setting that would lead to future success, but the negative side is there is an immense pressure to be perfect which can often lead to rash decision making which is how mistakes are made (Rettner). “Love of My Life” written by T.C. Boyle is a short story based on a real incident where a young woman becomes pregnant, but feels as if the world will judge her because she used to judge those types of girls too. Due to the pressure she …show more content…
Jeremy suggested abortion multiple times but she just seemed to ignore his request, which in this case would have been the most logical way to solve the problem early on. Instead, China decides to carry out the whole pregnancy, wearing sweatpants to hide it from everyone she came in contact with. When it is finally time for the baby to be born China and Jeremy meet at their usual motel and she delivers it. The moment Jeremy gets the baby in his arms China says ‘“Get rid of it. Just get rid of it.”’ (Boyle 560). He did just that. He wrapped the baby up and tossed it in the dumpster. China and Jeremy’s perfect life was completely over now. They were arrested and taken to court, and while China still loved Jeremy, he could no longer fathom the thought of her because of what she had made him due to their child. If China would not have put so much perfectionist pressure on herself to maintain the image she had created for herself, she would have been able to handle the situation differently. The only thing she could see in her mind was the mistake she made and had thoughts about how to brush it under the rug like it never happened and that’s rarely an option when rash decision making is …show more content…
A private perfectionist considers their choices only for themselves and only worries about the harming themselves (Buckley 134). The reason both woman would be considered private perfectionist is that they were not the only ones involved in the situation and continuously thought about themselves rather than others who could have been involved. In China’s case, Jeremy knew about the baby and went along with what she wanted to do because she was too stubborn to consider what he wanted. No one really knows if Jeremy wanted to keep the baby or not but there was a brief moment of hesitation when China delivered the baby and readers might believe he did not want to go through with the plan anymore. As for Lindsay’ circumstance there is obviously a father involved somewhere who may have wanted differently for the child, but since she only thought about herself and her image she forgot to consider who else her actions may harm. One may also consider looking at the families involved in these situations. Even though their opinion is not known, one might assume they would not want things to turn out the way they
Jeremy would ask, "And what had he done to deserve it?" He still couldn't understand it. That thing in the Dumpster--and he refused to call it human, let alone a baby. (622-623)" Jeremy had formed the opinion in his psyche that he had done the right thing by getting rid of his child, he began to make justifications for his action in saying that it was just another unwanted child in an overpopulated world. These rationalizations seem to only give Jeremy and China more reasons to not see what they have done as wrong.
The adoption process can take more than one year and cost a family up to $18,000. Couples wait anxiously for the government’s approval, then the government assigns them a baby. Couples are given nothing more than a picture of the baby. They don’t have the child’s medical information, who the parents are, etc. Finally, three days after the arrival in Beijing, the couples get to meet their baby for the first time. Under Chairman Mao in the ‘50s and ‘60s, China’s population exploded. By 1980, Mao’s successors limited families to having only one child. Sometimes, families were allowed to have two. This was the largest human population control effort in human history. China’s population is coming under control, but there are consequences no one intended. Couples feel that they must have a boy because boys often carry on the family name, provide work and they stay with their parents at old age. Possibly, over 100,000 baby girls are abandoned every year. Many of them will end up in an orphanage. Today, 1in 4 children adopted overseas come from China. The babies adopted by Americans are only a fraction of the millions of girls believed to be missing from China’s population. While the number of girls are being giving away, the number of boys are becoming way out of proportion. Today, boys greatly out number girls and its only getting worse. This relates to cultural relativism,
T.C. Boyle uses immorality as a central idea to tell the story. Jeremy tells China to end her pregnancy: ‘“You have to get rid of it…go to a clinic’, he told her” (). Here one sees that Jeremy is not a responsible person.
Perfection is what many people attempt to achieve in there lives, yet none do. It is the ideal result to the hard work and toil each person does, in order to become greater than they are now. Within literature, characters may seem perfect but upon closer inspection, are deeply flawed. This is the case in the three pieces of literature; Oedipus the King, My Last Duchess, and Death of a Salesman. All three of these prove that fact that “Perfection is like a dream. When people finally see the flaws, they wake up and the dream ends.”
...that can foil even the best plans. Perfection does not have a single definition, “The act of making something perfect or better”-Merriam Webster. It is up to each individual to decide whether he or she achieved perfection in their job, and the bar to determine that is similarly different for each individual. In the end when the task has been completed individuals shouldn’t necessarily ask themselves if they were perfect, they should ask themselves how they can improve from their experience. Achieving perfection is a constant chase, when one thinks they were perfect they must also realize that they could have been better. When an individual thinks they are perfect, they have given up on the chase for perfection. “Better is possible. It does not take genius. It takes diligence. It takes moral clarity. It takes ingenuity. And above all, it takes a willingness to try.”
The story "Two Kinds" by Amy Tan is about a mother and daughter who have strong conflicting ideas about what it means to have a sense of self. This may be partly due to the mother growing up in China, which is a very different culture than the American culture where endless opportunities are available to anyone who wants to pursue them. Jing-mei's mother wants her daughter to be the best, a prodigy of sorts, and to have the kind of life, full of hopes and dreams that she did not have. In the beginning of the story Jing-mei liked the idea of becoming a prodigy however, the prodigy in her became impatient. "If you don't hurry up and get me out of here, I'm disappearing for good." It warned. "And then you'll always be nothing" (500). After disappointing her mother several times Jing-mei started to detest the idea of becoming a prodigy. The idea Jing-mei's mother had for her to become a prodigy was too much pressure for a small child and was something that Jing-mei was clearly not ready to be. As a result the pressure that her mother laid upon her only made Jing-mei rebel against her mother and she resisted in giving her best. Jing-mei did this because she only wanted her mother's love and acceptance for who she was not only what she could become. Furthermore, Jing-mei's point of view of being the kind of person that one can be proud of was very different from her mother's point of view.
...g the perfect life should seem unrealistic to anyone evaluating the goal from an objective perspective; however the circumstances of the characters in the presented literary works exaggerate the expectations of everyday society. Each work focuses on portraying a flaw inherent in human nature from a different angle and ultimately, the characters’ quests for perfection demonstrate that the flaws permeating human nature are inescapable, prophesying failure for all those who seek to embody perfection.
A baby is precious and life changing, which makes Jig desire to keep the baby and progress with her companion. Jig does not want to travel and repeat her everyday adventures for the rest of her life. Unfortunately, her companion will try anything to convince Jig to have an abortion. "We'll be fine afterward. Just like we were before." "What makes you think so?" "That's the only thing that bothers us. It'...
The guy keeps saying that the abortion is “perfectly natural” and “perfectly simple”— he is forcing the girl to have the abortion while he claims that he wouldn't have the girl do it is she “didn't want to”. The guy thinks that the child would anchor him down, which impedes him from living the life that they are leading now— trying one drink after another, changing from one hotel to another, and traveling from places to places. On the other hand, the girl is tired of this unstable lifestyle; she is tired of keeping to“look at things and try new drinks”; she is tired of dealing with all the uncertainties. Moreover, she later on retracts her previous comment on the hills, “they don't really look like white elephants”; by this she implies her wish to keep the unborn child, but the American misses it. The guy thinks that the baby is the “only that bothers” them and he persists the girl to have the operation by saying how he will stay with the girl “all the time” while she does the operation. The girl now realizes how a barely-fixable, problematic relationship it is, and she now knows what to expect from the
“Vigilantes abduct pregnant women on the streets and haul them off, sometimes handcuffed or trussed, to abortion clinics. [Some] aborted babies cry when they are born (Steven Mosher).” This quotation shows one method how China tries to carry through its population control in a manner which is very cruel and against human rights. We, Western people, do not understand why China needs a population control and why this control has to be carried out so harshly.
Boyle further displays her childlike qualities when she protests Jeremy’s wishes for an abortion and can only respond with, “I can’t” and “I’m scared” (Boyle, 5). Her fear isn’t what deems her as childlike in my eyes, it’s the way she closes herself off and simply ignores the pregnancy. It’s one thing to ignore, for example, a bad grade. The fact that someone could ignore a living thing growing inside of you for nine months is mind boggling. When it is time for the birth of their child, they meet in a motel. Jeremy delivers the baby and China responds with, “Get rid of it. Just get rid of it” (Boyle, 6). I could do nothing but stare at the paper when I read what came out of China’s mouth after the birth of her firstborn child. It is impossible to believe that there was no motherly instinct or attachment found in China. What makes this story so gruesome and disturbing is how nonchalantly China and Jeremy murder their baby. Boyle describes the scene as, “He never gave a thought to what lay discarded in the Dumpster out back, itself wrapped in plastic, so much meat, so much cold meat” (Boyle, 7). This line gave me cold chills becauses it’s very hard to wrap your head around an act like this. How could someone not give even a passing thought on the murder of their firstborn by their own hand? Additionally, after China attempts to cover herself from the law as portraying her story
But then her eyes sought Aylmer’s face with trouble and anxiety. She then said to him ‘Dearest Aylmer, I’m dying,’ and she died.” (Hawthorne 324). Perfectionism is something everyone should try to avoid. It can never bring comfort, instead it adds to the
Women of China have their own opinions when it comes to their families, being under a controlled government and being told how many children they can have only makes it harder if them. Also China’s Health Ministry estimates that in the four decades since the imposition of the one-child policy more than 336 million abortions have taken place in the nation. Nora...
Whenever this happened, some always felt the need to blurt out that they knew something “the smart kid” didn’t; it was a terrible feeling that I tried hard to avoid. The concept of perfection also had a significant affect on my daily life outside of school. It prevented me from trying new things for fear of not being good at everything. As a perfectionist, I spent less time with my family because I was always studying, redoing notes, and “perfecting” assignments and
Perfectionism of the mind is a goal rationalists try to strive for. Perhaps the main problem with this concept is that it promotes over achievement on everything we do. For many...