The Monster Inside

During this unit we talked alot about the monster living inside of us. I believe that this is still a problem today. Every day people struggle with their monsters inside. Criminals choose the monster side and end with sometimes horrible consequences. Most people choose against their monster and live very normal lives. This relates to Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Dr. Jekyll was the normal person who chose against his monster, while Mr. Hyde was the monster. It was very complex the relatiomship between those too. Yet that is how society is today. Sometimes we let our monsters out of the cage and walk around. Most times we don't but crimes happen because of these uncaged monsters. We all have a monster but if we and when we uncage that monster makes a huge difference. My monster comes out during sports while someone elses could come out and cause murders. Either way everyone has monster inside and it does cause problems.

The rest cure?

The rest cure was all the rage back during the time of Virginia Woolf. I don't think the rest cure is used anymore since people are sent to mental hospitals now, yet this was still a pertient issue in the yellow wallpaper. The yellow wallpaper is all about a woman who goes crazy while on the rest cure. As we discuussed in class the rest cure was actually the complete opposite thing a crazy person should have done. The society back then probably paid no attention to the people going crazy because it was not at the forefront of the medical problems. Even now going crazy is not at the forefront. It is an after thought really and the yellow wallpaper challenged that because it showed that the rest cure was wrong and going insane was a real problem. The yellow wallpaper helped bring attention to a real problem that needed an answer.

The Frailty of Women?

The women in literature has been hard for me to connect with. As a man I don't have to go through the struggles and hardships of a woman. What I have noticed in the unit was the men were very constricting of women and made the women in thier lives seem inferior and frail. For example in The Yellow Wallpaper the narrator is seen by her husband as frail and can't handle stress. The rest cure was basically designed for women who "couldn't handle stress". In society today this isn't seen as much as it used to. Before the feminist and equal rights movements women were seen in a bad light. They were seen as inferior to men in all capacities and could barely think for themselves. Going back to The Yellow Wallpaper, the narrator was held back by her husband and was claimed by insanity. She was ok before the       great rest cure but it made her go insane. The cure that was made for women was making their condition even worse. If everyone knew that women could handle stress and they just needed something to occupy their time with like men then the world would've been a more accepting place. Even today some people think women as frail and inferior. I have had the great honor of growing up in a house full of strong women who would laugh at being called inferior or frail. The way women are portrayed and treated in the novels as inferior or frail is unfair but in the end they are shown to be the strong individuals that they are. This connection might be weak but again it is hard to write about issues that don't really pertain to myself.

Cultural Relativism

Cultural relativism is understanding and accepting the cultural practices of different societies. Not many people do accept the different cultural practices so there is conflict. In Things Fall Apart this is a big deal. The missionaries try to change the cultural practices of the native people. They do not accept the society and their cultural practices because it is not what the missionaries thought was right. So they changed the society. This also happens alot in the world today. People fight over cultural differences all the time. They just can't accept that a different way of doing something could be right. I find this very sad. People can't get along and learn from each other so there is war. If everyone could work together the world would be a much better place.