Pearls Before Breakfast Analysis

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Extraordinary vs Ordinary In the article “Pearls Before Breakfast”, Gene Weingarten creates a social experiment at a busy Washington subway station to determine if people would recognize Joshua Bell, as a world famous violin player. Or would they disregard him as just another street performer? Weingarten journey’s through the events of the day with Bell and his 3.5 million dollar violin. We see throughout the article a contrast between the music and the people passing by. People effortlessly ignore Bell’s music to catch their train or purchase lottery tickets, while back a few nights ago Bell’s playing leaves the audience in silent awe. While illustrating the several different reactions of the people passing by Weingarten intrigues us in “Pearls Before Breakfast” by exposing how our busy lives and preoccupations keep us from seeing the extraordinary that can be found in the most mundane situations. Weingarten takes us through many instances where Bell is ignored or passed by with just a passing glance. .J.T Tillman,a computer specialist for the department of housing and urban division is busy playing the lottery. Although he remembers every number he plays he could barely recognize the “generic classical …show more content…

With our days filled with work, family, and all the other time consuming tasks it is hard to see past to all the beauty that is around us. Society has given us an example to live up too, how we react in certain situations, if we react all. We put conditions on things and how we believe they should be perceived. Anything outside of those conditions that we expect to find, becomes elusive and our appreciation or even awareness of it can be lost if we do not train our minds to take note of our

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