`` Nosedive `` : Themes And Serves As A Strong Critique Of The Modern Age And The Nature Of

The central idea of the book was when “she tried to be cool to fit in” but “you don't have to be cool to fit in”(3) “you can be a nerd”(5) and “you can still fit in”(7) but just “don't lower yourself to fit in”(11) or “try to be better than everyone”(14)

The blossomed butterfly, finally freed from its lecture filled, finals stressing, late night partying, early morning madness cocoon, is ready to take on the world head on with so much energy and bravado. Its eagerness to make a mark in like, but expresses a conceited sense of entitlement, as though the world revolve around it. The butterfly or butterflies are the college graduates entering the workforce. They reveal their expectations on how their lives will be centered on finding themselves as they pursue individualized goals and fulfillment. These goals, however, are naturally unrealistic, In David Brooks article, “It’s Not About You”, he explains this discrepancy, on how college grads enter an unstable job market that will require them to forget self-fulfillment until they spend at least a decade finding their prominent role in life. Brian Williams article, “ Enough About You” correlates with Brook’s article. It illustrates how technology shows individuals what best interest and suits them. How the media exaggerates the success of others, making one want to emulate that success without facing the hardship of the journey to that success. Due to this, individuals such as college grads are wrapped in their own personal “bubbles” and will never achieve the true purpose of life.

Throughout history, women have constantly been objectified and forced into submission by the male dominated society. Simone de Beauvoir’s philosophical work, The Second Sex, echoes the intense oppression of women and reflects the first wave feminist movement. Her existentialist decoding of genders resulted in the idea of the Other, which explores the phenomenon of women forced into the role of an object, while men are the subject. In the second chapter, “The Girl”, Beauvoir further studies the idea of this oppression during one’s transition from a girl into a woman. Beauvoir states that no matter how much freedom and sense of self a girl holds, she is always forced into the role of the Other in society. Beauvoir 's idea of the Other held

The stand-alone series “Black Mirror”, features an episode titled Nosedive directed by Joe Wright. In the show, a seemingly ideal woman named Lacie Pound lives in a status-obsessed world, and struggles to express herself. At first, Lacie is described as this merry, popular, and fun person to be around. But then we see that Lacie tries to fit in with everybody else, and struggles with that objective. So she begins to have courage in herself to say and do whatever she wants, even if society disagrees with her defiance. In the end, Lacie is finally able to find her voice and express her individuality, even though ultimately she is put behind bars. Therefore, Joe Wright suggests that even though social hierarchy is valued in society, it does not promote one’s self expression or individuality. In other words, Nosedive displays the negative impact of social standings on people who are not a true fit with what society views as perfect.

In the short story “Initiation” by Sylvia Plath, Millicent Arnold is a narcissistic teenager undergoing her initiation into the most prestige social group at Lansing High. Despite being aware of the risk at losing her best friend, Tracy, Millicent eagerly seeks the opportunity to be part of a close-knit group and as a result, she is mistreated and forced to conform to the group’s narrow standards. Plath explains how being part of a social group does not necessarily help one grow individually, but rather assimilates them into what is portrayed as esteemed social status. As Millicent goes through the downgrading initiation process, she discovers the value of friendship and realizes that being associated with a certain group will not help her achieve confidence in her true self.

The birth of Facebook ignited human selfishness. Since 2004, the social media platform unceasingly has stripped the culture and exposed human cruelty. Even without the unfolding of Twitter or Snapchat, people live in a world where empathy remains elusive. In Tuesdays With Morrie, the former Brandeis professor, Morrie Schwartz, believed that culture has created an “It’s-all-about-me-I-should-be-better-than-anybody-else” era. This is neoliberalism. The epidemic continues to spread, and as a result, it pulls society apart, causing predicaments in the economic, political, and social realm. Tuesdays with Morrie indirectly discusses neoliberalism, an ideology that gradually but immensely contributes to mankind’s destruction.

Vic Lang, one of the central characters, is arguably most affected by the constraints society places on gender — succumbing to romanticised ideologies.

The purpose of this book is to show the challenges of being stuck in a social class limbo. This book shows how there is a constant struggle between where you were, where you are, and where you are going. Alfredo Lubrano tells his own story and the story of others like him. Through his various interviews, he was able to show the hardships people faced while climbing the social ladder.

By allowing social status, skin color, and money to be the main defining factors of a person’s worth, that person struggles to live an open and ambiguous life. A woman cannot define precisely who she is and what she represents until the moment of her death, though she is constantly surrounded by criticism and the stereotypes of society. If a man or his community have already decided that he is superior, worthless, or content when he has only lived a portion of his life, he will struggle to maintain this rigid identity for himself, resisting even small or positive changes in himself.

In a social environment, a community’s perception of a person greatly impacts an individual. In The Awakening by Kate Chopin and The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros, we see two different societal perceptions of life through the female protagonists, Edna and Esperanza. Both Cisneros and Chopin use their protagonists to highlight how much of an effect society has on an individual. Through them we get a glimpse of communal impact on the protagonists as individuals, the developmental mindset of the characters, and how each character responds to societal perception of what’s acceptable and what’s not, as each embark on their own “awakening.”

In 2017 our thoughts and actions are guided and molded in large part by social media, reality television shows and pop culture. Without realizing the extent to which constructed reality and self-curated life exhibitions shape how we see the world, we form perceptions and establish standards of what our lives should look like based on stories and photos posted on Snapchat and Instagram and find ourselves reflexively belting out song lyrics that directly contradict our values. Joan Didion, a unique and relatable but brilliant author, seems to have an understanding that the challenges she faced as a freshman in college in the 1950s would still be relevant and problematic for college students almost 70 years later. In Didion’s essay, “On

Simone De Beauvoir in The Second Sex suggests that to resolve the tension between bad faith and authenticity, people must regard women as subjects and not objects. They must also collectively fight against the idea of womanhood in order to remain authentic to themselves.

In the chapter of her book The Second Sex entitled “the Woman in Love,” Simone de Beauvoir characterizes the romantic ideal of the relationship with a man as a woman’s purpose as a form of self-deception (translated here as “bad faith”). The self-deception de Beauvoir describes is based in the thesis of The Second Sex. This is the idea that women have been deceived into believing that they are second-class humans. Western culture, according to de Beauvoir, teaches us that women are missing some elusive element of the self that endows men with freedom- a concept essential to the existentialist definition of the conscious being. Therefore, a woman can never find fulfillment as a thinking person as

All characters in the novel are living in a man’s world; nevertheless, the author has tried to change this world by the help of her characters. She shows a myriad of opportunities and different paths of life that woman can take, and more importantly she does not show a perfect world, where women get everything they want, she shows a world where woman do make mistakes, but at the same time they are the ones that pay for these mistakes and correct them.

Lastly, “femininity” refers to behavioural activities or interests that are assigned to the female sex, such as cleaning and cooking (Beauvoir, 617). Although many critics have read her text and become confused due to her stylistic choice to fuse her voice with the voices of famous men, it can be said that the text ultimately leads the reader to begin to question what society sees as a woman (Zerilli, 1-2). Despite Beauvoir’s The Second Sex appearing to recognize the oppression of women throughout the world without giving an actual solution, I will argue that Beauvoir’s evaluation of each “natural” aspect of female oppression allows readers to recognize that the only thing holding themselves back as a woman is society’s unnatural definition of their body, relation to men, and personal freedoms. Of course, when it comes to one's freedom, it is difficult to obtain when your body feels like a