What It Means To Be Human Analysis

“The most compelling texts are ones that explore what it means to be human”

Introduction

What it means to be human is not just having a face, eyes or a heart.Being human is much more than that, it's deeper and much more .Being human is having the ability to know what is right and wrong. Compelling is the evoking attention in a powerfully irresistible way. Our selfishness, relationships and mortality are one of the many features that define who we are as humans.The most compelling texts that show these feature on what it means to be human ; ‘The Wrestler’, ‘The Road’ and ‘The trees are down.’ Each text displays the portrayal of either selfishness, our relationships and mortality. From this the reader learns about the true meaning of what

it means to be human and that is having flaws.

One of the most destructive quality of humans is selfishness.

It is true that there is a natural tendency for everyone to be selfish. But if we become excessively selfish, we care for only for our interests and comforts. We begin to ignore the rights of others. In other words we come more in considerate of our fellow-beings. We try to make our own life happy and to achieve this we are prepared to bring hardship and inconvenience to other people. We are too self-absorbed into our own ambitions and desires, that it can cause discontentment to others. ‘The Wrestler’, shows this unhealthy act of selfishness, where Randy Robinson is a ex-wrestler who is too absorbed in his life that he forgets to realise how inconvenient his actions are towards his daughter, Stephanie and her school boy crush Pam aka Cassidy. His whole life as a wrestler has been revolved around him and he begins to see how selfish he is when he tries to reconcile with his daughter. He faces these inconveniences because of how self-obsessed he was. Another example of selfishness is within the text, ‘The trees are down’ by Charlotte Mew. This text portrays the selfless act of humans .Mew creates a poem that portrays the destructive nature of man, being the selfish beings they are. “With the ‘Whoops’ and the ‘Whoas,’ the loud common talk, the loud common laughs of the men, above it all.” She portrays man as ‘above it all’ showing ‘we’ are the dominant life form. Due to this dominance we desire power and through this power it shows our selfish natures. These two texts shows how the representations of our human flaws. In this case it’s our selfishness. Our selfishness leads to an inconvenience when we are either trying to build a relationship or fix something that is dying. We are too stuck in our own little world that we forget what is more important to us, that we end up not caring at all about anything else but ourselves and our

happiness.

Being a human being is to have the ability to build relationships around anyone and everyone around us. What it means to be human is to have meaningful relationships that we are in full commitment towards.‘The Road’ shows a father and son relationship. Mccarthy's description of the relationship is very dependable on one another.They are living by themselves in a kind of apocalyptic place that has been destructed by some event that is not mentioned, everything is full of ashes and dirt. The father is like the soul of his son now that the son finds support on him due to the situation of loneliness. It's a natural state for human beings to rely on each other by survival instincts, even more when there is a bond such as father and a son. Father sees his child as the only remaining sign of God's existence, in other words the son is what gives him hope for the future.The father is protecting his son from a world where he fears, which causes his selfless acts of being overprotective. This text shows us a typical father son relationship where the father's child means more to him than anything and is willing to protect his child from the dangers at any costs. Also in ‘The Wrestler’ Randy, tries to reach out to his loved ones to create a meaningful relationship with them but due to his selflessness he broke those relationships. He choose his relationship with his fans over sentimental relationships with those he loves. He chose the life that he wanted instead of the life that he needed, which is why when he approached a relationship with his daughter and Pam he wasn’t able to differ the affection he showed towards his fans and them. Due to this he continued to push away the realities of his relationships by avoiding the opportunity to have something that could last, instead of seconds of fame.

As part of being human we are inescapability of death. As beings we fear the occurence of our death as it can happen anywhere and anytime. Death is a constantly shown in ‘The Road’.The constant threat of death – from starvation, exposure, illness, and murder linger.Simple actions like eating, finding clean water, or exchanging words with another human being suddenly seem unknown, because humanity is lost and death is all you see.The world that the Man and the Boy live in is a unforgiving, dangerous world where the slightest thing could lead to death.

[ The Boy:] “Can I ask you something? he said.

[The Man:] Yes. Of course.

[The Boy:] Are we going to die?

[The Man:] Sometime. Not now.”

The Man is aware of death being just around the corner, “Sometime. Not now.” It might not be in an instant thing but as humans we are aware that our death could be closer than we think. We try to avoid the fear and live our lives to the fullest because that's what we should do with ourselves.....

‘The Road’, ‘The Wrestler’, ‘The trees are down’ are one of the vast majority of compelling texts that show what it means to be human. I agree on this statement as throughout these compelling texts it shows the true meaning on what more there is on what it means to be human.It is shown in the way director of ‘The Wrestler’ Darren Aronofsky and the poem ‘The trees are down’ expresses to the viewers and readers on how our selfishness is portrayed but not noticed. It can be the slightest things we don’t notice because we are too blind to see how it affects others and ourselves. It is displayed in text ‘The Road’ on how our communication and need for relationships can make life a whole lot easier and better, even when living in a disastrous world and how death is just a reminder to us constantly that we are inescapable of. As humans we either accept our flaws or we don’t, but our flaws will always be there even if we don’t see it. Our selfishness, relationships, mortality are all just part of what it means to be human. There is so much to us than just living beings.