Federico Garcia Lorca's Blood Wedding

It is important and essential to treat different people as individuals and to try and meet their needs rather than stereotyping people. E.g. all old people are the same. Treating everyone the same is failing to respect diversity.

In today’s society we have created this sense of identity that we can either reveal and or hide behind that can include either a computer screen, our skin, or even who we want people to think we are. In John Berger’s essay Ways of Seeing, he breaks down the misogynistic view we have on woman by comparing what it is to be naked versus being simply nude. In Neal Gabler’s essay Our Celebrities, Ourselves, the idealized celebrity is brought down to human level and formed into a never ending narrative that categorizes them into the people they are seen as versus the people they actually are. Berger criticizes the disguise a woman must wear as being surveyed by men in the form of art yet Gabblers idea of a disguise is more like a role a celebrity

Some humans can’t accept difference. Most humans are locked up in a world where everyone has to be just like them. The novel Downsiders by Neal Shusterman is an example of this. The novel has the theme that when people separate into groups and cultures, they have a hard time understanding the opposite and tend to judge. But those who accept, benefit greatly.

A wonder example of this is when Equality for the novel Anthem differentiates himself from his society in order to truly find himself. This can be seen on page seventeen of the novel when he writes, “The laws say that none among men may be alone, ever and at any time, for this is the great transgression and the root of all evil” (Rand, 17). Equality takes himself out of the norm of the society and by doing so creates his own unique identity. Another example can be seen in Mario Della Grotta. Mario, a thirty six year old decides to get neural implants to cure his depression (OCD) and that can be abnormal to the rest of society. The article explain how people can be weary about the situation. It says, “Meanwhile, the CIA...and Michael Crichton’s The terminal man,in which the main character receives implants to control his epilepsy and turns psychotic, became a bestseller.” Mario knew that he would be a “freak” then society would look down on him, yet he decided to go through with the surgery. He went against the norms of society in order to find his true identity. Even the novel, The meme machines “strange creatures” agrees with this. It states in the article, “We copy each other all the time”. (2, Blackmore). In order to be an individual, the person must differentiate himself from the rest of

With no one being the same the world is filled with many different kinds of people. With gender development in the womb, growing up as a child and not fitting in, and being a young adolescent there are several ways society pressures people that are different to being the same as everyone else. No one is the same, but no one is too different to be alone. We all want to be loved, and not judged, and that’s how it should be. From our time in the womb is what determines our lives.

Conforming creates a Hell for yourself dominated by fear until you choose to remove the norms and standards set by society and become who you are

Everyone is a single unique individual, there is no doubt that every one of us is different from the other people more or less in some ways. However, humans are social animals, it is normal to see societies supporting mainstream thoughts. In order to blend in with the mainstream societies, majority of the people choose to hide their differences; in contrast, those people who are unwilling to abandon their different thoughts and live outside of societies represent the idea of “otherness”.

“The opposite of courage in our society is not cowardice, it is conformity.” This powerful quote comes from Rollo May, an American psychologist. This quote acts as a huge indicator as to how hard it is to break norms. Subsequently, it also reveals that society tends to reject or make it difficult for those who go against the grain. A few examples of society having adverse reactions to deviation can be found throughout the world.

Reading these sentences from When False Representations Ring True and When They Don’t, “Jessica went online and created a personal website, where she became the Goth model and artist, Autumn Edows, and eventually developed a cult following. Jessica said she loved the positive attention she received online, which contrasted sharply with her offline experience.” (Davis et al. 212), one can see the fake reality that Jessica creates, where she attempts to avoid reality and redesign herself. By recreating herself, she disconnects with her offline self to live in an online world of unrealistic nature. Any visitors to her website receive a misleading representation of Jessica in her online and Gothic new self. There is seldom occasions, however, where a person can “recreate” their identity, and not cross the line into lacking authenticity. Reading these sentences from the same article, “At the age of 13, Heather started an online newspaper for the imaginary Hogwarts School for Witchcraft and Wizardry. Writers for the newspaper assumed fictitious personas relating to the Harry Potter world. Typically, children created identities that combined elements of their offline selves with aspects of the Harry Potter characters. Often, these online personas revealed glimpses of the children’s offline difficulties, such as illness or family conflict.” (Davis et al. 210), show an acceptable form of identity recreation. Heather creates a newspaper with the intention to give people with similar interests an outlet to socialize through, without completely compromising the people’s real life identities. The newspaper is also beneficial in the fact that the newspaper lets others show the issues in their life through their newspaper personas. In most people’s everyday lives, reality TV shows also exemplify negative identity creations, as they tend to script out the true personality of the people in

Society forces one to conform. Like an albino animal stuck in the wild, a human being may face difficult challenges if they’re viewed as different from the norm. An albino animal may be shunned away from its counterparts and may be easily detected by a predator. Likewise, if a man dares to stand out of the norm, they are likely to be viewed as a weak link. Rooting from such ideas about conformity, George F. Kennan argues that Americans have a high tendency to conform, to be like their neighbor, to be equal. While a single person may have control over their decisions, it is more likely that they will endure the burden of conforming with the rest of society in order for acceptance and survival.

crowd, defying authority; that's what keeps us going. For instance, if I had any different

Taking away the normality in life can be something that can change one's life to the worse. There will be constant discrimination and fear in a society when there are different kinds of people. This leads to a harder life for those people.

One might argue that to stand out is better than to fit in, but what good is it to stand out if a person is unfairly judged according to the principles of a cultural mainstream? With this, a person might find themselves trying to fit in by pretending to be someone they are not. Individuals put on a fake identity, in hopes that in doing so, they are given a fair chance to get what they want. Life can be hard for a person who chooses not to play their role assigned to them within their mainstream, as their every action is being judged by society under a microscope. If an individual’s true identity fails to assimilate to the cultural mainstream, they might find themselves being hindered by society on their path to success.

¨Sameness is the mother of disgust, variety the cure.¨ True words by Petrarch. In a world with no diseases, no war, no bad people, everyone is the same. Your life is the same as your neighbor except for possibly your job. Many different things are different in this society, for example technology, music, and birthdays. Families and climate is also very different. Including surveillance, color, and love.

Society places value on a person based either on who they are, what they believe, or how much money they make. What happens when society places value on how “normal” a person is? Using the texts of “Merchant of Venice” and “Taming of the Shrew”, I will argue that in dealing with difference, society often unintentionally annihilates it; but what remains in its wake is often far more disturbing.