Human Consciousness Essay -- English Literature Essays

Human ConsciousnessErich Fromm and Shirley Jackson have both written wonderful true-life affecting essays and should be awarded for them. I appreciate some(prenominal) stories and olfactory modality they both raiment tales to learn from and live by. As a combined typography for both I ld say human understanding is more then a gift. And read on to invite what I mean.In Erich Fromm we notice a compassionate concern for the florescence of life. Fromm claims that the growing growth of the emergence of the individual from his original ties, a process which we may c all(prenominal) individuation, seems to have reached its peak in modern tale in the centuries between the Reformation and the present. Of course, the beginning of change is not the subject of all our problems only it did magnify them because now the existence of humanity itself has break down a problem according to the way I am training into Fromms story. Then when you shift you focus towards Shirley Jacksons The draught, it depicts an ordinary day with anticipation of yearly appointments. Her description awakens you to a engaging sunny day, flowers blooming, and everyone united around the town square. All are poised to cast lots for the right to another years coming upon. From the onset, this story quickly takes you into a dismal, gloomy atmosphere. The first hint comes in the first paragraph when they indicated that The draftsmanship will only take two hours and be over with in time for dinner. (78) This was one meeting no one was eager to attend.These two stories are different from one another in text but are same in form. Fromm later on talks some animals living completely within disposition and proclaims that they are guided by unbidden behavior. He continues and says globe have lost such instinctive mechanisms. This is where Jacksons simplicity of life falls in. She brings up Fromms ideas of animals in a form of a meeting that took place. This meeting took place every year in the town square where all other happy and signifi domiciliatet town occasions were held it was not your plebeian gathering of friends, bringing covered dishes, balloons and clowns for the kids. A celebration it was not, but right the opposite. This story reveals the dark side of human nature. Its flaws, lack of compassion, selfishness and any(prenominal)body but me attitude. If you had had the chance to talk with my late grandmother she would characterize it as being set in... ...corrupting man, set him free it was the beginning of history. Man had to leave the Garden of promised land in order to learn to rely on his own powers and to nonplus fully human.Fromm offers with these comments an idealistic interpretation of the fall that leaves no place for the thought of original sin. He believes he is supported in this interpretation by the Old Testament tradition because even the prophets confirm the idea that military man have aright to be disobedient. Only after their disob edience can human beings establish a harmony between themselves, other persons, and nature through the forces of reason and love. Fromm even believes that humanity, through new acts of disobedience, has progressed in its development. This applies to humans spiritual as well as intellectual development because they disembarrass themselves from authorities that would not tolerate any new thoughts or any new freedoms for the individual. But in the end of all this I feel that Jacksons The Lottery brings up its main theme as being how traditions lose their meaning due to human forgetfulness which link up very well to Fromms thoughts on how humans can unsay change and not know how to put it to use.