Fear Definition Essay

1782 Words4 Pages

Fear. (noun) Its definition is “an unpleasant emotion caused by the belief that someone or something is dangerous, likely to cause pain, or a threat.” (verb) “To be afraid of (someone or something) as likely to be dangerous, painful, or threatening.” As humans, we experience a myriad of emotions on a daily basis, some more intense than others at times. Fear is one of these emotions, and there are multiple types of such. The idea that we witness something or someone who is experiencing pain, distress, or discrimination, the fear we have in relation to understanding what the person we’re watching is going through, is sympathetic fear. A response to a large amount of stimulus, the fight, flight, or freeze response, is instinctive fear, and the
Rather, it’s a reaction that occurs in response to a perceived harmful event or threat to survival. The body activates two systems, the sympathetic nervous system and the adrenal-cortical system, which makes the body speed up, tense, and highly alert. It also releases stress hormones into the bloodstream, causing an increase in heart rate and blood pressure. These physical responses are intended to help you survive a dangerous situation by preparing you to fight or run for your life. In Everything I Never Told You, James experiences the fight or flight response when arguing with Marilyn, verbally attacking her and her choice to marry him, someone of another race, before withdrawing and driving away. The attack he felt on himself and his choices that led up to Lydia’s death culminated into the fight or flight response, which led to him lashing out. Likewise, James’s day to day fear of how his family would be seen, due to his family being the only Asian family in the town, caused him to build up stress, and that stress caused a fight or flight response. His fear also stems from understanding that his family would be discriminated against, because he too had experienced that feeling. In contrast to this type of fear, there is both recurring, as well as sympathetic fear. With instinctive fear, one experiences a sharp
These can be for a variety of reasons, including driving in a car, being unable to pay your bills, possibly failing a class, or phobias. These daily fears that people have can come from a variety of sources, but are usually related to emotion processing. For example, knowing that you may lose your house or apartment should you lose your job, or becoming unable to get into the college you wish to, if you fail a class. Daily fear can also come from experience. For instance, a group of people may become feared, due to actions from a few. On September 11th, 2001, actions done by a terrorist group had caused Muslim people to be feared, which had led to hatred towards that group of people. This had led to daily fear towards Muslims, the fear of another terrorist attack, and for Muslims, the fear of being attacked due to this newfound hatred towards them. This kind of fear, dubbed “islamophobia,” has affected many people’s daily lives. However, this constant state of fear is an antipode when compared to the idea that you’re watching another person experience something that you may fear, or if you were to have an event in your life that threatened your very survival, thus forcing your body to have a fight-or-flight response. A daily fear such as bill paying or failing a class is different than the fear that you may face when your life is in danger, which is opposed to watching a horror movie and being

Open Document