Wednesday, February 17, 2010
Fear Governing Your Life
The story "Maria" was told from the point of view of an elderly person. The universal theme that the author is conveying in this story is how fear can govern your life. The stories' organic unity being constructed by many experiences in which she feels fear or lets fear govern her actions. From the very beginning, she talks about the letters she recieves from the social security people, how she always obeys the letters because she doesn't want to be cut off from her social security. She goes to great lengths to get there on time, so that she won't make the social security people mad. She takes a knife with her at all times because it helps her feel more safe since the knife kept her from getting robbed. As she recalls the scene, we are able to read her thoughts as she continually reinforces in her mind that she will not back down from this young man who tried to take her money. She is afraid of the man who knocks on her door, wanting to conduct an interview, thinking that it was the social security people or a murderer. Maria even wants to tell her best friend Wilamena not to date the man she is seeing because she thinks Wilamena's heart will be broken when he dies. The examples that reinforce the univeral them of being governed by fear are endless.
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I agree that the universal theme was about fear and how it can govern your life. The reason why this is the theme, is because Marie is constantly careful and precise with everything she does. This theme of fear governing life describes Marie. This piece of literature seemed to want to tell us more than just this theme, but the history and consequence of this theme. Marie is such a good person, always on task and doing things just the way they should be. She's careful throughout her whole life, and because of this, she gets no respect. She doesn't want to cause any trouble with Social Security and because she tip toes around their life and schedule, she never gets what she wants. People who are too careful and scared throughout life often times get taken advantage of. So... I think it's safe to say that the universal theme is not only, "fear governs your life," but also, "how fear governs one's life and what the consequences can be".
ReplyDeleteI agree with both of Kade and Tyler that Marie allows fear to govern her life, but I feel that she is in some ways breaking that wall of fear. When she is faced with that young man who is mad at her for cutting her hand, she wishes he would come back toward her so she could do it again. That fear is still there, which is portrayed as her heart telling her to go home, but she has another organ say that she will not back down. Also in the waiting room of the Social Security office at first she simply tells the receptionist that it is unfair that she waited for so long and the person wasn’t even there, the next time she comes up repeatedly and eventually slaps Ms. Wise on the face. Marie had said earlier that you shouldn’t piss off the Social Security people because of the consequences, but in this instance she didn’t care about them. Marie seems to have these rules for herself that are dictated by fear, but I found she broke every one of them. Marie sat and talked to her friends boyfriend on his deathbed when she didn’t want to get attached to him at all, she also allowed the young man to come in even though she was afraid of who he was, finally she listened to her voice more than once looking past the fact it scared her at first. Marie’s life although usually trapped by her own fear, is changing in a way were fear will no longer “move” her.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Kristi, and I think all of the points were very good. I also think one of the relevant themes of this story is letting fear dictate actions, which is something Marie does, but not always. When she is attacked by the man in the street, she ignores her heart pumping with fear and stand up to him. Had she not been able to chase him off, best case scenario would have been he took her money and ran. When her weariness from waiting finally overrules her fear of the SSI people, she is actually able to capture their attention. Other than the fact she was escorted form the building, she wasn't any worse off. Yes, she did miss her appointment, but by the the time she got angry it wasn't likely that they were going to see her that day anyway. After the incident, the office continued to treat her the way they always did. There were a lot of times that Maria was afraid. But those moments that she was able to control the fear rather than let it control her are the moments in which her voice was actually heard.
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