“It is hard not to feel like an outsider”. I think we have all felt like that at one time or another” (Cummings). At some point in our lives, we have all encountered a situation where we’ve been made fun of or overlooked, leaving us feeling left out and misunderstood. Although nobody shares the same experiences or trauma, everyone has felt like a fish out of water in some scenarios. Feeling like an outsider is a universal experience, but everyone undergoes it in different ways. Without a doubt, at some point in time everyone has felt out of place due to their differences. People are criticized for simply not blending in with the crowd. For example, in the article “The Doll’s House” two young girls are misjudged and treated horribly for having …show more content…
This explains why so many people are considered outcasts at some point. When someone is different from the rest of their peers, it results in others being judgemental towards them. Although many believe that the experience of being an outsider is universal, not everybody views an outsider in the same way. Some may view it as a positive experience, while others view it as negative. The first piece of evidence comes from the article “When it comes to our brains, there’s no such thing as normal”, where clinical psychologist Avram Holmes talks about how there’s nothing wrong with being a little weird. “It really is not appropriate to think of ourselves in terms of a single trait that’s either good or bad, healthy or unhealthy” (Holmes 2 ). This suggests that we shouldn’t be considered an outsider based on our characteristics. It’s not fair for society to determine someone as unfit or not good enough just because they are different. Furthermore, the article “Revenge of the Geeks” states, “They need to know before graduation that being different is not a problem but a strength” (Robbins
Are outsiders simply those who are misjudged, or misunderstood? When you are an outsider, are you understood by people for who you are? Does being an outsider affect how people view you? Outsiders are people who are misunderstood, rather than misjudged. When you are an outsider, it affects the way people view you. Because you don’t fit in, you slowly become an outcast. Many examples of this transformation are prevailed in the short story, “Metamorphosis,” by Franz Kafka. Outsiders are those who are misjudged and shifted into becoming outcasts.
Did you know that wherever you go in the world, and there are groups, there are outsiders? That’s just humans’ nature. The book, The Outsiders, written by S.E Hilton in her junior year in Tulsa, Oklahoma, written because the Hilton was enraged at the way people separated themselves into socioeconomic groups (Doc A), but her rant about Greasers & Socs turned into a best-selling novel. This book showcases that Outsiders are not just the ones who assume they don’t fit into the society, but they are the ones who view life not as social divisions like Greasers and Socs.
When life becomes overwhelming during adolescence, a child’s first response is to withdraw from the confinement of what is considered socially correct. Individuality then replaces the desire to meet social expectations, and thus the spiral into social non-conformity begins. During the course of Susanna’s high school career, she is different from the other kids. Susanna:
Just like Richard Rodriguez one can have struggles with school and home, for instance at home one is taught to speak their mind, told that everyone will understand. At home formal does not exist; serious and organized is an option. Yet at school one must learn to think before speaking, to raise your hand and to make sure you sound just like everyone else. At school one is taught to not make a fool out of themselves, to be serious and formal to be just like everybody else. But yet again as a student, although one has been taught to be like everyone else, one can still feel like an outsider, like Rodriguez describes you still don’t fit in. As a student one must learn the difference between formal and informal and when to use both, for some students like me formal and serious might be the only way to socialize. And just like Rodriguez one
Society is filled with outcasts. Everywhere one looks, there is someone who is different and has been labeled as an outcast by the others around them. People fear disturbance of their regular lives, so they do their best to keep them free of people who could do just that. An example of this in our society is shown in people of color. Whites label people who do not look the same as them as and treat them as if they are less important as they are. The white people in our society, many times unconsciously, degrade people of color because they fear the intuition that they could cause in their everyday lives. Society creates outcasts when people are different from the “norm.”
In my opinion, outsiders are misunderstood and misjudged. They may just have their own opinion about something that others don't agree with. Maybe they do something that seems weird to other people. Yes, sometimes people are strange, but that isn't always the case. They are outsiders because people make them outsiders.
One way people are considered weird or an outsider is by the way they dress or the amount of money they have. One example is in the short story,” The Doll’s House,” by Katherine Mansfield,
Everyone at some point in time has felt left out or felt like an outsider. People don't take the time to get to know someone. The very first second you see someone you judge them based on what they are wearing, their hair, their body shape or anything else you can think of. People who wear different clothes or have different hair are judged more easily because people don't like change and difference. People like to be around people who are like them and won't take the time to actually sit down and get to know someone. Outsiders are misjudged everyday by people who are willing to judge someone based on what they look like or who they may be friends with.
Biddlebaum becomes an outsider because his society both refuses to accept him and actively rejects him. In a similar manner, Hughes’ makes himself an outsider due to a fear of not fitting in and being accepted. The journey of each character to becoming an outsider is one that I believe reflects the problem that we have as humans to constantly want to fit in. The longing to fit in causes us to take actions that may have once seemed extreme, such as harming other people. Not only that, but also the way that we shun those who refuse to fit in and go against the status quo.
How do you label someone as an outsider? Some might say that an outsider is when a person encounters an external conflict, such as not meeting worldly standards or some who face internal conflicts by feeling like they don’t fit in or belong. The argument on whether the experience of being an outsider in universal is a very controversial topic. Some may state that outsiders are not a universal experience, and others may strongly disagree. In the stories we learned; “Sonnet, With Bird”, a poem by Sherman Alexie, “The Revenge of the Geeks”, an argumentative essay by Alexandra Robbins, and “The Doll House”, a short story by Katherine Mansfield are all stories that portrayed examples of being an outsider. In other words, the experience of being
In Robert Grandfield article “Making It By Faking It: Working Class- Students in an Elite Academic Environment he argues that stigma limits one’s opportunities to participate in social life due to particularly gender or racial stigmas. I felt very much connected to this article and could totally relate being a working class student myself I sometimes find myself feeling out of place and not fitting in with the crowd. Sometimes I feel as if I have to hide my class background in order to maintain my identity that people perceive me to be. It can almost feel as living in two different worlds. I myself am guilty of wanting to go back and help my community as I plan to pursue a degree in social work. I can sometimes be very carful when speaking
To be considered normal or abnormal has been just a label society places on you to explain individuality. When we are younger, we were given a mixed message that being different and unique is acceptable, however growing up in a society that wants you to blend in and adhere to the norms and usual customs of that culture is difficult. Being dissimilar often leads you to be judged and considered deviant. What you perceive not only defines your idiosyncratic judgment, so does your culture, prejudices, upbringing and generation you belong to. In our modern day society a universal normal has not, nor ever will exist. We think, look and all act differently and the reality of it is, no one is normal.
Even though we are all dependent on other people’s perspectives of how they percieve us , we can still be confident in our decision making without worrying how other people are going to percieve us and also make sure we learn the important life lessons we can use when we progress through life .What kids do not realize when they are young is that it is okay to be different from other people and we should really embrace that. While others may have had many more friends that they were close to and were finacially better off than I was , I was the type of person who was alone, but who still had those essential skills needed to help me become a more confident and wise young man . This connects to being confident in ourselves while we are
Growing up, I always felt out of place. When everyone else was running around in the hot, sun, thinking of nothing, but the logistics of the game they were playing. I would be sat on the curb, wondering what it was that made them so much different from me. To me, it was if they all knew something that I didn’t know, like they were all apart of some inside joke that I just didn’t get. I would sit, each day when my mind wasn’t being filled with the incessant chatter of my teachers mindlessly sharing what they were told to, in the hot, humid air of the late spring and wonder what I was doing wrong. See, my discontent
If you want to succeed you have to be like the majority of people, because differences are frightening. And when something is different, unfortunately people can judge it in a very negative way. As Hillary Clinton said to a graduating class at Yale College: "The most important thing I have to say today is that hair matters. Pay attention to your hair. Because everyone else