The expectations of one’s surroundings shape who he or she is. Whether it is requirements from parents, society, or oneself, these pressures determine a person’s decisions and their behaviour. The plots of Cat’s Eye by Margaret Atwood and The Shape of a Girl by Joan MacLeod both focus on the bullying of a girl and the effects of these actions on those involved. The victims in both pieces of literature are singled out because they do not fit into societal norms. In The Shape of a Girl and Cat’s Eye, the stress caused by attempting to conform to society’s expectations causes the characters mental distress and keeps them in a subordinate position. The negative effects on one’s psyche are caused a variety of reasons. First, the expectations placed by society are constantly changing, thus they are impossible to achieve. Next, these expectations are enforced through dehumanizing methods. Finally, victims are forced to create a persona to fit into society,
Firstly, what is defined as socially acceptable is unstable and unachievable. In The Shape of a Girl, the protagonist Braidie describes the reasoning by which the bullies pick their targets: “Because she is big, because she likes that boy. Because she is brown and she lost their book; because she doesn’t fit and she lies” (Macleod, 50). The victim in this quote is singled out because she differs from societal norms; not only is she a minority in her environment, she also does not fit into the idealized body image. Parallelism is used to describe the variety of reasons others use to bully the victim, emphasizing how different she is from other students. However, the students are constantly pointing out new flaws, as they are trying to find new excuses to bully her. The oppressors make ...
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...timized, one must create a persona.
Victims face mental distress and are placed into a subordinate position when they attempt to conform to society’s expectations. They struggle because the expectations are impossible to achieve, yet are enforced through dehumanizing methods, to the point where the victims are forced to create a persona, masking their true self, to fit into society. Unfortunately, neither Elaine nor Suzie is able to come to terms with their abuse, severely hampering their psychological development. However, what is important is that they are able to survive these traumatizing events. Perhaps that is the strength of humanity; not the ability to destroy obstacles, but the ability to brave through them.
Works Cited
Atwood, Margaret. Cat’s Eye. New York: Seal Books, 1988. Print.
MacLeod, Jean. The Shape of a Girl. Toronto: Talonbooks, 2009. Print.
The job of a child welfare worker appears to be a demanding profession that promotes the child’s safety, but also strengthens the family organization around them in order to successfully raise the children. This child welfare workers work in the system known as the Child Protective Services whose initiative is to protect the overall welfare of the child. The short novel From the Eye of the Storm: the Experiences of a Child Welfare Worker by Cynthia Crosson-Tower demonstrates the skills necessary to deal with the practice of social work along with both its challenges and its happy moments. The novel consists of some of the cases involving Tower’s actual career in social work. In reading the book, I was able to experience some of the actual cases in which children dealt with physical and mental abuse from their families that caused them to end up within the system. Also, some of these children had issues in adapting to foster and adoptive families based on the issues they faced earlier in life. As we have learned earlier in the course, the violence that a child experiences early in life has an overall affect on the person they become as they grow into adulthood. When children deal with adverse childhood experiences, they are at a higher risk for abusing drugs and/or alcohol, increased likelihood of abusing their own child or spouse, higher rates of violent and nonviolent criminal behavior, along with several other issues throughout their lifespan.
Within society, there are certain standards of behavior and expectations that one must be expected to comply by, and failure to do so can result in critical and discouraging prejudice, which is demonstrated significantly in The Fall of a City, by Alden Nowlan. In the story, Teddy, an eleven year old boy, is mocked at by his uncle for occupying himself with paper dolls, failing to meet society’s standards of maturity that a boy of his age is expected to abide by. As a result of his uncle’s mockery, Teddy’s passion and fondness of his imaginary world disappears, and in a fit of rage and anger, he demolishes his paper world. Teddy’s destruction of the paper world is symbolic of society’s expectations of maturity, justified by the uncle ridiculing
She’s just so weak. If she would stand up for herself, no one would bother her. It’s her own fault that people pick on her, she needs to toughen up. “Shape of a Girl” by Joan MacLeod, introduces us to a group of girls trying to “fit in” in their own culture, “school.” This story goes into detail about what girls will do to feel accepted and powerful, and the way they deal with everyday occurrences in their “world.” Most of the story is through the eyes of one particular character, we learn about her inner struggles and how she deals with her own morals. This story uses verisimilitude, and irony to help us understand the strife of children just wanting to fit in and feel normal in schools today.
The fourteen-year-old girl is a round and dynamic character with great depth. The round characteristics are seen within her broad and complex emotions. She has developed an aggressive temperament in response to abuse from her Apa and teasing from her sisters who call her “bull hands”, laughing at her masculine features. This temperament has led her to state: ”I began keeping a piece of jagged brick in my sock to bash my sisters or anyone who called me bull hands.” (Bausch) Her temper...
...el, The Other Side of the Bridge by Mary Lawson accentuates the fact that society’s expectations of a character causes negative impacts upon their lives through the creation of a struggle to achieve his goal. Ian is an impeccable example of this because he is prone to adolescent tendencies due to youth. Ian struggles to achieve his goals due to the following expectations: to leave Struan, for a superior opportunity to become successful; to strive for a medical career, since he excels at the trade already; and to … Society is too abrupt in its assumptions of an individual, these assumptions often catch one unprepared, spreading chaos and confusion through one’s mind. It would be substantially more beneficial if society did not place expectations at all.
The exterior influences of society affect a woman’s autonomy, forcing her to conform to other’s expectations; however, once confident she creates her own
Society often pressures individuals within it to conform to different ideals and norms. This stems from the fact that individuals in a society are expected to act in a certain way. If a person or group of people do not satisfy society’s expectations, they are looked down upon by others. This can lead to individuals isolating themselves from others, or being isolated from others, because they are considered as outcasts. The emotional turmoil that can result from this, as well as the internal conflict of whether or not to conform, can transform an individual into a completely different person. This transformation can either be beneficial or harmful to the individual as well as those around them. The individual can become an improved version of himself or herself but conversely, they can become violent, rebellious and destructive. The novels Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk and A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess both explore the negative effects experienced by individuals living within the confines of society’s narrow-mindedness. In A Clockwork Orange, protagonist Alex was the leader of a small group of teenage criminals. He did not have a healthy relationship with either one of his parents or with others around him. Instead he spent most of his time alone during the day and at night roamed the streets in search of victims he could mug or rape. In Fight Club the unnamed protagonist was an outcast in his community. He chose to distance and isolate himself from others and as a result had no friends, with the exception of Tyler Durden and Marla Singer. Due to his isolation, he often participated in nightly fights that took place in Fight Club so that he could relieve his anxiety and stress. In this way, Alex and the unnamed protagoni...
Joe and Bazil 's status as the immediate family members to a sexual assault survivor allows readers to see how sexual assault can impact an entire family unit; a frequent situation that many people find themselves in, but don 't know how to sensibly handle emotionally. Through Joe 's perspective as a child in this novel, Erdrich guides her audience into understanding how complex of a societal issue sexual assault is by displaying how far reaching its effects are on the victim, family, and community of a
...nd personal story that shows the pitiful characters of Arpi and Connie that are victims of bullying at school. Then she concludes the story with a “perhasping” image of Connie and her mother at 7-Eleven transporting the readers from a classroom setting of kids bullied in front of an absentminded teacher to a sad picture in front of a store window. Considering the future, Murphy encourages the reader to evaluate their stand on cruelty and to make that difference not treat one another different. Murphy through rhetorical and tonal elements of pathos, logos, and diction expresses that cruelty in any form is wrong no matter how one tries to justify it. Doing bad for good is never right.
The premise of Law and Order: Special Victims Unit is to portray a controversial issue in the criminal justice system ripped from the headlines” and to put it on trial. A specific example of this is the premise of the case in which a young girl is sexually assaulted by her father. A case like this is often a leading news story. The author has given this specific issue in the media a spotlight by developing characters with human qualities. The episode also touches on hate crime directed towards gays. The episode conveys the tensions between gays and the community. For example, in the episode language offensive towards gays are discovered spray painted in the crime scene. Additionally, the writer shows perspective from law enforcement, victims, and suspects in the episode. This gives an insight from the various characters in the episode. As the writer progresses throughout the show new information about the case is acquired. The writer gives law enforcement, victims, suspects, and family human characteristics. Specifically, the character’s emotions convey the hurt, loss, and fear over the escalating situation. At the conclusion of the episode the characters in the episode has experienced some form of loss as a result of their own
There are many things that influence our behavior from internal influences to social norms. Social norms are implicit or explicit rules that govern how we behave in society (Maluso, class notes). Social norms influence our behavior more than any of us realize but we all notice when a norm has been broken. Breaking a social norm is not an easy task and often leads us feeling uncomfortable whether we broke the norm ourselves or witnessed someone else breaking it. Sometimes however, you just have to break a norm to see what happens.
This movie touches on many problematical topics that will have affected the lives of our future clients, such as poverty stricken home environments, substance abuse, poor academic abilities, most importantly, physical and sexual abuse, which ironically the name of this course. Research states “one in four girls and one in 6 boys is sexual abused before the age of 18 and of those girls 30 to 40 percent of those attacks are committed by family members and 50 percent by people whom they know” (BJS,2015). Because many of these survivors will not disclose or is unable to receive adequate psychological treatment, there is a strong likelihood these individuals will grow up with self-esteem issues, difficulty in social relationship, anxiety, depression, and are higher risk for substance abuse and incarceration
In conclusion, “The Victims” concerns real purposes and themes that enhance the overall text. When perceiving the term victim many people immediately think of a target of violence or abuse. In the poem “The Victims”, Olds portrays the sufferers as victims of an experience, rather than a physical scar. As a child, Sharon Olds’ parents divorced. So who is the victim in “The Victims”? As the narrative, imagery and diction evolve, from the first half to the second half of the poem, so does the classification of victim. Throughout the poem the mother, children and father are all victimized, but also made out to be the culprits.
In many ways— that may not be favorable— gender separates human-beings. Often in our society, gender defines a person’s individuality. Whether male or female, gender is a significant factor that contributes to a person’s pressures and responsibilities. As for women, a major social issue today is that their gender identity suppresses and dictates their role among civilization. In literature, authors depict this issue with female protagonist who have restrictions and must maintain her culture’s expectations. If she does not follow the concepts of the ideal woman, the character finds others frowning upon her as she struggles to remain conformed. Eventually she learns to break away from the norm and discovers a new meaningful life. Three works—from
Children are bullied for thousands of reasons, none of them are valid (Hile [pg. 26]). There aren’t any causes that puts a child at risk of being a bully or being bullied by others. It can happen anywhere in any city, town, or suburb. It also can depend on the environment, such as upon groups of gays, ...