The Vain Nature of Humanity

James McQuade
Dr. Juniper Ellis
Understanding Literature
October 24, 2017
Event/Blog Analysis

The Vain Nature of Humanity

This past week I decided that rather than attending regular 6:00 pm mass I would attend the 8:00 pm in fava chapel. While the mass still follows a similar regiment to mass in the chapel it also is much more relaxed. Your shoes are off and you have your eyes closed for most of it. In a way you are much more connected to the “spirit” of your prayer rather than simply looking around the room and making sure you’re repeating the same words as everybody else. In this way, the setup of this mass allows us to escape our “vanity”, rather than simply desiring to look like we are praying correctly. It allows us to better connect with the prayer and say the words with intention and thought.
The idea of vanity that this event sort of caused me to think about fit perfectly with the themes that Whitman discusses in his poems “One’s Self I Sing” and “I Sing The Body Electric”. In the first poem “One’s Self I Sing” Whitman discusses the importance of individuality. He writes “Of physiology from top to toe I sing, / Not physiognomy alone nor brain alone is worthy for the Muse, I say the form complete is / worthier far. Essentially he “sings” or celebrates the physiology or “physical” form from top to bottom yet the body itself nor the mind itself is enough to “inspire the muse”. The muse must be fulfilled by the connection of body and mind, physical body and soul. Neither alone is enough, the body and soul must integrate to truly inspire.
Similarly, in his work “I Sing The Body Electric” Whitman discusses the integration of physical appearance or physical body and soul. This might be best illustrated with the example in starting at part three of the poem. Whitman writes of an old man, a common father with five attractive sons. Yet, when they gather it is not the sons who take the center of attention. When discussing his daughters Whitman writes, “They did not love him by allowance, they loved him with personal love”. In essence, they did not simply love him because they had to but for his person, for more than appearance.
Most directly, Mary Shelley in her novel Frankenstein strongly emphasizes the problem of vanity and the importance of looking past appearance. The monster that Frankenstein creates ends up being the symbol of humanity in the novel. All the monster desires is to be treated with human decency and because of his appearance he is ashamed, shunned, and turned violent.
In the end it is clear that shunning  people because of appearance is wrong and dangerous. The only true value we can get is by looking at people for their whole person because often getting to know somebody will largely change the way we view them and make better opportunities for everybody to be their best self and for society to produce the best things possible. Imagine if all the vanity and all the negative outcomes that come along with it were erased from society. How much better would our world be?