Hyde's Russia

Dr. Jekyll is a man with two sides to his soul. His good half is Dr. Jekyll, and his evil half is Mr. Hyde. Dr. Jekyll attempts to control his other half, but quickly loses it when Hyde becomes stronger. Vladimir Putin in Russia is a perfect real-life example of  Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Putin held the Winter Olympics in order to improve face with the world in that others would find him to be kind and enjoyable. However, a week after the Olympics ended, Russia had invaded Crimea. This change of face is exactly how Jekyll and Hyde are. Putin at the Olympics was Dr. Jekyll because of his kind mask, and the harsh dictator that invaded Crimea was Mr. Hyde.
Putin's decision to hide behind a mask was smart on his part, but by taking off the Dr. Jekyll mask ruined his face past redemption. I personally will find it hard to find a reason to forgive him, because, unlike Dr. Jekyll, he had a choice at first on whether or not he would show his evil side. Now he is past the choice stage so now he will be stuck in limbo trying to balance his two faces to proclaim his innocence.

A Thousand Ways to Raise a Child

Nana and Jalil in A Thousand Splendid Suns both had their appropriate and inappropriate ways of raising Mariam. Nana was more direct with the harshness of the world while Jalil represented the cruelty of the world that hid behind a mask, as Nana would describe. Unfotunately for Mariam, she chose to believe the falsehood of Jalil's love over Nana's harsh wisdom and was cut deep by the truth. However, Mariam did learn valuable lessons from the both of them.

Jalil played with Mariam's emotions, but she always pushed them aside because she thought that he truly cared for her. He would always arrive alone in his expensive car to greet his child who was living in poverty. Mariam ignored this fact and saw Jalil almost as a superhero that brought tales of a thriving outside world. Of course, when she insisted on seeing Jalil at his house, he hid from her to hid the shame of having a ilegitimate child. Mariam then learned the hard truth of reality, especially when she returned to find her mother dead.

Nana did give wise words of wisdom to Mariam, but approached it in the wrong way. Yes, I understand that she was bitter about living away from Jalil, but that does not make her entitled to degrade her child. The degrading did make Mariam stronger towards hate later on in her life, but did not make Nana a strong motherly figure. Nana teaches Mariam the most important lesson of her life, however, to endure. Enduring is what let Mariam last so long with Rasheed and eventually leads to her freedom through death.

I can't really pick who was the better parent, Nana or Jalil, because they both were terrible yet important. Jalil did lie to Mariam and send her away, but he makes up for it in the end with his apologies and gifts. Nana did verbally abuse her daughter and put her down, but she teaches her a valuable lesson. I feel that similar situations are present in our society today. Separated parents can fight with each other over who is the better parent through insults about the other, or trying to show each other up. My brother has a friend with separated parents that insist on both throwing a birthday party for her each year. From what I hear about these parties is that each party is almost a competition between each parent on who can outdo the other. It is extremely silly, but it might teach the girl a lesson in understanding trivial fights, or encourage her to get everything she wants.

Women's Struggles Between Cultures

Women of all shapes, sizes, and colors have had to or still fight for their equality in society. In the stories of A Doll's House, The Awakening, and what I have read so far in A Thousand Splendid Suns, the women find themselves treated unfairly and wish for a call to action. One of the most interesting parts of analyzing these works are the differences between the women's approach towards equality depending on the author.

Henrik Ibsen, the author of A Doll's House, was one of the first to introduce an independent woman character. Nora, the protagonist, believes in her independence and leaves her household, believing that she will be able to start a new life on her own. The male author believed that if a woman was not happy in her relationship, she could simply leave and begin her life anew, which was not possible considering the society at the time. The book was published in 1879, a time where women were not readily accepted into high-paying jobs, if any at all. Henrik saw hope in the women's push for equality, which was not the same view as the female authors on the same subject.

Kate Chopin wrote The Awakening in the very late 1800s, just like Ibsen did with A Doll's House, but she had a very different approach. Edna realizes her state of identity and wishes for change to become a woman with a purpose that wasn't as a wife or a mother. As the novel comes to a close, however, Edna loses hope and drowns herself in the ocean. Chopin found that there was a spark of a revolution for women equality, but the society that they were living in  showed little hope in accepting this drastic change in the male-dominant world.

A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini begins with the story of a young Afghan girl by the name of Mariam. Mariam is told by her mother that men were not to be trusted and that women were only meant to endure. Mariam ignored her mother's requests to stay away from Jalil, but Mariam longed to spend time with her father. She discovered that he did not care to be seen in public with her and Mariam began to believe in her mother's words. Later, Mariam wed a much older man and began to love him due to what seems to be Stockholm Syndrome. Hosseini proves that we as a society believe that we are more modern in our belief of equality, so we find that other cultures with a hierarchy between men and women to be barbaric, but we are not completely "modern" oursleves.

I personally feel that we as a society have made a lot of progress since the time of Ibsen and Chopin, but we still have our issues. Women are still underpaid to the man's dollar and still objectified in all forms of media. If we want to achieve Ibsen's idea of women's independence, we as women have to fight for our equality and not give up until it is achieved.

Cultural Ignorance

In the article of The Challenge of Cultural Relativism, it came to my attention how subjective every belief is in our world. Almost everything that we consider to be "right" in our society may be horrendously wrong in another. The main issue that was discussed in the article was the humans' natural tendencies to accept their native country's customs and find any other belief to be wrong, simply because it was different. This can be directly related to Things Fall Apart with the large amount of confusion held between the tribe and the white men. One custom of the tribe was to participate in a dance where a group of men would dance around wearing masks that forbidden to be taken off. Once a tribe member is converted to the belief that the masks were silly and unnecessary, he removes one from a dancer and the tribe is in awe of his action. In our society we would agree that the masks do not hold any significance in its circumstance, but the tribe was built on the custom of this dance and any violation is highly unlawful.
In today's society, several young members of the world are pushing for a revolution in the way of same-sex marriage. As said in the article, others that have been raised on the belief that marriage is strictly between a man and a woman may find it hard to change their views to something that they would consider "primitive" or "barbaric" and will fight to keep their belief alive. As the fight for same-sex marriage grows stronger, it becomes harder to find that there are people that feel strongly against the movement, as seen here. I personally may be slightly biased towards the topic, but I can understand why those against gay marriage feel the way that they do. If you were repeatedly told as you grew up that marriage was for no one but a man and a woman, you would be ignorant towards any other argument, which leads to the problem that no one can seem to agree on the issue of gay marriage.
I can agree with the article's argument that almost everything that we learn is subject to our upbringing in our society. As the article said, however, there are values that are held in all cultures due to the need of survival, which makes sense. If you want your people to survive, you can't kill each other or be completely dishonest, otherwise you will not last very long. As I said before, all cultures hold different beliefs which leads to conflicts. My only solution is that, as a society, we have to break through our ignorance of "primitive" and "barbaric" actions and open our imagination towards the culture of others to better understand the world that we live in.

The Definition of Romance

Wuthering Heights was one of the most complicated novels that I have ever come across. Complicated in the sense of romance problems. Heathcliff and Catherine are prime examples of a flawed relationship. However, as it was asked in question 33 of the Socratic Seminar, I do not believe Wuthering Heights to be one of the greatest romances of all time.  According to dictionary.com, the definition of romance is "a novel or other prose narrative depicting heroic or marvelous deeds, pageantry, romantic exploits, etc., usually in a historical or imaginary setting." Some may argue that Heathcliff was the hero of the novel, but I feel that this novel was without a hero. Heathcliff did not hold enough heroic characteristics to be considered a hero. He was cruel, cowardly, and sensitive. He treated everyone with hatred, afaraid to confront Catherine, and heartbroken to the point of lunacy. Those aren't typical traits found in a hero. For example, a hero in our society, like a fireman or a policeman, has heroic qualities like bravery and unselfishness. Neither Heathcliff or Catherine have these qualities. This already voids the first part of the definition of "romance," making it impossible for the novel to be the greatest romance of all time.
A romance as seen in today's society needs to end on a note where the reader is left with a warm fuzzy feeling or one of great tragedy from the loss of the romance. We as a society expect happy fairy-tale endings or one that leaves us wondering "why?" I personally did not feel either of these when the novel came to a close. Heathcliff was a strange character that I could not completely relate with. Because of this, I did not feel for him once Catherine passes away. If the reader cannot connect with the protagonist of the novel, a true romance cannot be created. If Heathcliff would've been more open and caring, this novel could have been more romantic.

Breaking Oedipus

Oedipus was a king who was highly praised for his work of eliminating the sphinx, but a new issue is presented: a plague is rippling through the city and won't stop until the murderer of the previous king is exiled. I, as the story intended, felt a lot of pity for Oedipus because he only wanted to live a normal life. Once he held power, however, he became ignorant and only wished to challenge those who might pose a threat to his position. When Oedipus hears of the city's plague, he almost immediately accused Creon of killing Laius. I understand Oedipus's train of thought, but I felt that he misstep, in his fervor to get the murderer off of his mind.
I can't help but draw parallels to the plot of the greatest drama ever:  AMC's show, Breaking Bad. The main character, Walter White, would compare to Oedipus. Walter is a high school chemistry teacher who is diagnosed with cancer. In order to pay for the treatments, he decides to use his chemistry knowledge to cook methamphetamine and make money off of it. He soon has plenty of money to pay for the treatments, but continues to cook to make more money. He becomes mad with power, which eventually causes him to spiral out of control.  This series of actions would make you think that no one could consider Walter White to be a hero, but the pity that the builds in the fans causes the entire fan-base to root for him throughout the drama.
I most definitely felt pity for Walter as well as Oedipus. The two characters both committed crimes that no hero would be caught dead doing, but you can't help but feel for them when they are finally found guilty of their crimes. Because a back story is provided for these characters, the audience can make a connection to their actions, even with a story as old as Oedipus's. I have to say, though, that both stories made me fee pity for the main characters when I would've most definitely have judged them differently without knowing their history.

The Power of One Chicken

I want to start off by saying that never in a million years would I find myself obsessing over a chicken in a story. The Power of One is that story that made me fall in love with this character who never even says one word. Granpa Chook was the friend that Peekay needed to help him through his early age of self-discovery.Question number 7 in the Socratic Seminar packet was the one that I am the most passionate about. A chicken, yes a chicken, was able to help Peekay through bullying. Bullying is still present in today's society, and there's no stopping it. People are practically born to discriminate. Just recently, there was a child who wrote to Santa Claus hoping that kids would stop bullying his sister. "'Dear Santa ... I wanted a remot contor car and helieopter, but I don't want that anymor. Kid at school are still picking on Amber and its not fair,' Ryan writes. 'I prayed that they will stop but god is bisy and needs your help. Is it against the rules to give gift early?' " This is the official article. It's this kind of stuff that Peekay was a victim of. Luckily for him, he had a chicken sidekick. Granpa Chook was one hardcore chicken. This chicken showed how mentally strong an individual could be, no matter what his condition was on the outside. Granpa Chook was the first to show Peekay how much potential he really had.This magnificent character helped me understand that I have potential in myself as well. To call a farm animal a role model is a little absurd, but he really is mine. To fight for someone you love while putting yourself at risk is what inspired me the most. I have had many struggles in my life, and everyone has, but this story shows how minuscule those problems become once you realize how strong you can be.  I personally was never the victim of a reoccurring bully, however, I did have a run in with one in first grade. This kid was teasing one of my friends and I stood up to him. I told him off, and he bit me. Now, me being the first grader that I was, I cried. I'm no Peekay. I ran off for a teacher and the child was taken care of. Now there was a friend with me who helped me through the ideal. This friend was a human, however, but she was my Granpa Chook. She did hold back the kid who bit me as I ran off to get the teacher. She was my hero and I was happy to see that she helped me.
On a daily basis I have to deal with balancing work, school, friends, activities, friends, family, and everything in between. For Peekay to have bullies thrown in his life schedule as well at such an early age is unbelievable. He was able to start his journey towards a brighter future by learning, from a chicken, how to find strength where you wouldn't expect it. I was thankful to read that he received such a grateful friend to help him along, even if it was for such a short time.