Sunday, February 6, 2011

Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, A Modern Prometheus - Anticipation Guide

 1.              The key to all emotional healing can be found in nature.
 Disagree
2.              Nature is filled with harsh cruelties.
 Agree
3.              A person’s priorities should place family before work.
 Agree
4.              Enjoying life is more important than pursuing fame, glory, and knowledge.
 Agree
5.              Those born with social and financial advantages have a responsibility for those who are not.
 Agree
6.              Ignorance is bliss.
Agree.
I definitely agree with this statement. If we don’t know what something means, it can’t hurt us. The best example for this is children growing up. When we are younger, we don’t realize everything that happens around us; in our minds, we live in an ideal world with no imperfections where everything is right and just. As we grow up, we slowly start realizing that not everything is what we believed it to be. We are able to notice the small details that change our perspective. When we are younger, we are ourselves and don’t care for social or physical differences in others, and that is why when we are younger we judge people based on character rather than their social or ethnical background. Once we become aware of theses factors, we no longer are able to judge them the same or see the things around us in the same light. If for example we were to befriend someone when we were younger, but then as we grow up we learn that a member of their family killed someone close to us, we would probably no longer be able to share such a close relationship as we did. We might eventually be able to get over it, but it would probably take a long time. As we grow, we realize the suffering, injustice, and pain that is all over our world, something that when we were younger we weren’t able to realize. Learning about these things destroys our previous image of the world, where we were able to enjoy a life of equality and fairness. The knowledge we gained on the world shows us a more depressing reality of what we once thought to be a perfect and idealistic world, in turn shattering our previous belief and destroying the tranquility and ideal view of everything around us which we previously enjoyed.


7.              The pursuit of knowledge is a volatile quest.
 Agree
8.              Someone’s ego (over-inflated sense of self-worth or superiority) will cause a tragic fall.
 Agree
9.              Children learn their behaviors by watching and mimicking adults.
 Agree.
I think that this statement is extremely correct. An obvious example of this is when a small child is learning how to talk. It will listen to words those around it will say, and then imitate them. But not only do they imitate vocabulary, they also imitate behavior. The child will copy behavior he or she sees their parents do, just like when children play house. They are copying what they see at home. If they see and adult who they look up to abuse alcohol, when they become older they will probably abuse it as well. If they hear them expressing prejudice against a certain group of people, when they grow up, they will probably do the same. When children are younger they absorb everything they see and hear around them, especially from those who they look up to. And even if what that person is doing is wrong, since the child admires the adult, it will think it is correct. And once the child grows up, it will probably be too late to take out that idea from their head. It is because the child admires and looks up to the adult that they sincerely believe that what that adult is doing - and thus what they are doing - is right.   


10.           Most people are basically cruel.
 Disagree
11.           Society makes a person whatever he becomes.
 Agree
12.           The “disenfranchised man,” who finds himself unable to live within society for whatever reason, is someone for whom we should feel sympathy or reverence.
 Disagree
13.           Rejection and mistreatment can manifest themselves in a person becoming rage-filled.
 Agree
14.           If a person or an animal is treated with cruelty, he will respond to others in the same way.
Agree

15.           Those people we deem “monsters” in today’s society are merely misunderstood.
Disagree


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