Andrew Piccione
Blog Post #4
In
Paul Laurence Dunbar’s “Theology”, Countee Cullen’s “Tableau”, and Mary
Shelley’s “Frankenstein”, there is a common theme of people being judged by
their looks and not for who they are. A few weeks ago, I attended a talk with
Father Brian Linnane about the State of the University. People don’t stop and
think about the underlying issues throughout our university that will impact
participation in extracurricular activities and staffing in the future. There
is a lot of hard work and time in order for our university to be a whole
healthy community. Although Loyola Is looked at as a very prestigious
institution, in the class of 2020 alone there is only an 84% retention rate,
which is 4% lower than our universities goal of 88%, which means there has been
a budget short fall of 750,000 dollars. There can always be a lot of issues
underneath the surface whether it be of a university or a man. People should
never judge someone at first glance because ultimately, we do not understand
someone’s personal issues unless we give them time and compassion to hear them
out and understand the struggles that some people go through in daily life.
In
the novel “Frankenstein”, Mary Shelley creates a beast/creature that suffers a
life of loneliness, searching for his purpose in life. He recognizes that
everyone judges him based by his appearance and don’t even bother to take the
time to understand him. Similar to “The Birthmark” people only see Frankenstein
for the monster he is and instead of accepting him for who he is, people try to
avoid him. In “The Birthmark”, the husband despises the mark on his wife’s
cheek and only wants to remove her flaw instead of learning to love it. People
misjudge Frankenstein because although he has the physical qualities of a
monster he is compassionate, caring, and loving.
In
Dunbar’s “Theology”, He seems to be judging his neighbors as awful sinners but
as the reader we do not know why. He compares himself to his neighbors by
deciding which one of them will go to heaven and which ones will go to hell.
Dunbar believes in a hell because he said, “if there were not, where would my
neighbors go?” As the reader, we can not jump to any conclusions about what
kind of man Paul Laurence Dunbar is, or his neighbors for that matter. All we
know is that no man should have the right to judge who goes to heaven and who
goes to hell. Dunbar may be judging his neighbors too quickly, instead of
understanding what kind of people they really are.
In
“Tableau”, Countee Cullen sets the scene for two gay boys, one black, one
white, walking “arm in arm” through the streets. As you can assume people must
have been staring at them, judging them, but they do not seem to care. They
don’t seem to pay attention to anything around them and they continue to live
life how they choose. These two boys are not influenced by anyone’s opinions
because the only opinions that matter are their own. These boys set an example
for all of us, to encourage us to do as we please in public and not to care
about other’s judgements.
This
week’s reading gave me a chance to take a look at my own life and how I would
approach these characters if I encountered them in my life. I feel that our
social society causes all of us to develop some types of stereotypes in our
lives. We have to learn ways to break down these barriers that our social
culture built for us. We should never judge a book by its cover because we
never know what we can find inside.
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