Anthology of Ideas

In Flannery O’ Connor’s short story “A Good Man is Hard to Find” a typical Georgia family go on vacation to Florida, but are murdered by an escaped convict named “The Misfit. In the following quote the protagonist explains why he calls himself “The Misfit.”

Jesus thrown everything off balance. It was the same case with Him as with me except he hadn’t committed any crime and they could prove I committed one because they had the papers on me…of course…they never shown me my papers. That’s why I sign myself now. I said long ago, you get a signature and sign everything you do and keep a copy of it . Then you’ll know what you done and you can hold up the crime to the punishment and see do they match and in the end you’ll have something to prove you ain’t been treated right.

“I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings” shows many examples of racism but what it does not say is that the basis of racism is equality, when one person thinks of himself as better than another person based on the color of their skin it is racism. But what is equality? Is equality the government saying you can not deny this person a job for this or that reason? Is equality saying you must have as many “black” or “Asian” employees as you do “white”? Is equality saying that anybody should be allowed to do anything? Is equality forcing everybody to be the same so no-one is “less” than the others? Is equality any of these? No, none of these are what true equality is.

Equality is not saying that all people are totally physically and mentally equal, no “sane” person would bet against a professional basketball player in a one-on-one against a toddler, nor would anyone say that Einstein has the same mental capacity of the average six year old.

Shelley’s “Frankenstein” warns the reader to consider if just because something can be done should it be done. Twenty years before Shelley wrote “Frankenstein” Luigi Galvani found that electricity could be used to cause muscles in the dead to spasm, opening the door to the possibility that reanimation was possible. It was in this frame of mind that Shelley began “Frankenstein”. Shelley puts forth questions that has been repeated over the centuries by many people (1) Do people have the right to play God? (2) Can any good come from it? (3) Can man come to terms with his playing God?. She not only asks the questions but she, as most good writers, also answers them.

Frankenstein becomes all-consumed as he was creating his monster, forgoing all human contact so he can create his masterpiece.

The scene begins with Paul D asking Sethe why she did not consider Halle a good man, Sethe says that Halle abandoned her and her children, and for that reason she did not consider him a good husband or father any longer. Paul D reveals to her that Halle witnessed what had happened to her in the barn shortly before she left and it had broken him. In response, Sethe tells Paul D about what happened in the barn and the treatment she received at the hands of the schoolmaster and his nephews, a decade before on the Sweet Home plantation.
For Halle witnessing the incident, broke what little humanity he had as a slave. As a result of the incident, he realized that he was just a powerless slave and it shattered his entire life’s view; although his action could have stopped that specific incident he would not have been able to stop it the next time or the time after that.

“Flatland” by Edwin Abbot was written near the end of the romantic period and the beginning of the realism period, it combines elements from both and adds a healthy dose of satire, social injustice and science to create a masterpiece of short fiction that has been beloved by each succeeding generation. Although the book is not very long (less than 100 pages) and written in 1884 Abbot introduced some geometric and mathematical ideas that were far ahead of their time and also are still (for the most part) valid today. Abbot also takes a huge swipe at the the Victorian England class system and its thoughts of women in society.

Abbot describes a word of two dimensions through the eyes of “a square”, as the book progresses the square describes the world he lives in, a world of triangles, squares, pentagons and many other polygons.

Maya Angelou’s “I Know Why The Cage Bird Sings” is a wonderful look into the mind of a girl in her battles with racism, sexism and coming to terms with herself. Her story begins at the age of three on the way Momma’s store after her mother put her on a train and ends years later after the birth of her son. Through out this time Maya must learn to live with others perception of her and even more difficultly herself.

Maya’s rape set the stage for the rest of her life. It starts off for Maya as just searching for affection and she begins to look at Mr. Freeman as a father figure, however Freeman takes advantage of this and after two smaller incidents rapes her. Freeman not only rapes her but rather than being a so-called crime of passion plans it specifically.