Society Through the Ages: Have We Changed?

The works we read in this class range from classics written before Christ to works written only a few years ago. These older works have passed from generation to generation, and along the way we have discovered innumerable life improving technologies that have radically changed the way and even how long we live our lives. I find it very difficult to imagine what life was like 2,400 years ago, yet a play from that time continues to remain very relevant to our lives. It is apparent by these works that the modern society still has much in common with civilizations from the past. We are still dealing with the same issues today that we have been dealing with for more than two millennia. Members of the population have a difficult time communicating, they lie to and steal from each other, and are quick to pass judgment on others. Literature has captured the fundamental human experience, our ups and downs, joys and sorrows, our love and hate. Literature demonstrates the problems that we still have to deal with, but it also holds many solutions that we can apply to drive our civilization forward.

Family is our introduction to the world and the people that inhabit it. Through these experiences and interactions we learn to communicate and interact with the rest of the world, and it is during this time we form our first views of the world. What we experience in our childhood is something that we carry forever, and good or bad our experiences will have an impact on how we perform as adults. In our childhood we first observe the difference in how men and women, and more importantly people in general communicate. Like the narrator in “Boys and Girls” who was a girl nearing her early teens, trying to figure out where she belonged in the world. S...

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...forever, and we must decide; will we come together or fall apart.

Works Cited

Munroe, Alice. “Boys and Girls.” The Norton Introduction to Literature, Shorter Eleventh Edition. Ed. Kelly J. Mays. New York: W.W. Norton. 2013. 137-147. Print.

O’Connor, Flannery. “A Good Man Is Hard to Find.” The Norton Introduction to Literature, Shorter Eleventh Edition. Ed. Kelly J. Mays. New York: W.W. Norton. 2013. 422-433. Print.

Shakespeare, William. The Tragedy of Othello: The Moor of Venice. Ed. Alvin B. Kernan. 2nd Revised ed. New York: Signet Classic, 1998. Print.

Sophocles. “Oedipus the King.” The Norton Introduction to Literature, Shorter Eleventh Edition. Ed. Kelly J. Mays. New York: W.W. Norton. 2013. 1737-1776. Print.

Updike, John. “A & P.” The Norton Introduction to Literature, Shorter Eleventh Edition. Ed. Kelly J. Mays. New York: W.W. Norton. 2013. 148-153. Print.