Short Story 'The Water That Falls On You From Nowhere'

An old Chinese proverb says to fish for the moon in the water. In Lan Samantha Chang’s short story “Water Names”, a grandmother tells her granddaughters a story as a way to introduce them to their cultural heritage. This frame story was about Wen Zhiqing’s favorite daughter whose fascination with water escalates after she claims to see a prince in the reflective water. The daughter comes to the conclusion that her prince is real, wants to marry her and wants to take her away to his underwater kingdom. Her parents try to convince her otherwise and keep her from going to the river but after a flood, they lose track of her and she disappears. The grandmother ends the story and leaves the girls to wonder about what actually happened to the

Today more than ever we are being increasingly conditioned, influenced and bombarded by a multitude of messages and experiences about who to be and how to be. Current forms of social communication processes, particularly mainstream media, advertising, television and film, along with family, friends, teachers, political agendas, religion, society’s rules, our perceptions, perspectives, interpretations and assumptions, and those of others, all play a part in creating our identity. 
We seek and create our identity through these external influences, we all wear these masks and cloaks, so that we fit in with the world around us. The degree to which we choose our identity, versus having it imposed on us via external influence, is arguably a matter of consciousness and awareness. When we are unaware of the power of external influence we are akin to pieces of clay, being unconsciously molded to fit into the accepted or preferred norms of someone else’s reality. When we are aware we can take responsibility for the creation of our identity. We can make empowered choices that best serve our selves, rather than serve people and systems outside of ourselves. In Unpolished Gem, society plays a daunting role on Alice as she tries to change her way of thinking from a Chinese-Cambodian way of thinking to a very different Australian way of thinking. As Alice starts her new

What pressures an individual to conform? Two short stories by Romesh Gunesekera and Amy Tan inform the readers of the effects that society and culture has on an individual. They introduce two characters whom are affected: Amy Tan, a teenage Chinese girl living in the United States, and a young Sri Lankan woman whose name is unidentified. Ultimately, society and culture affect an individual by pressuring them to conform as seen throughout “Carapace” and “Fish Cheeks” with the use of vivid language and profound narration.

The act of people conforming is seen every where. Any activity performed by someone that is “in the ordinary” is them conforming to the norm. In the crucible, all the girls conform to the norm, set by Abigail Williams. When Abigail faints, the girls faint, when Abigail screams, the girls scream. They mirror her in her every action due to their fear of what would occur if they did not. Same concept is seen today, for example, when you shower regularly you are conforming to the norm. You shower in fear of judgement if you were not to shower, and you shower in following the actions of others. This common action of following in others footsteps affects us by causing people to become identical and influencing people to ignore their personal morals and follow the mob of society blindly. People force physical change upon themselves due to fear of being that one

English Essay Valuable texts examine challenging ideas and attitudes. In Jasper Jones, a text valued for its insights and ideas, Craig Silvey outlines many ideas and attitudes that challenge the social perception and understanding of today. Firstly, he examines how people’s external appearances do not reflect their thoughts, actions and true selfs. Secondly, he investigates scapegoats and shows how many people who have responsibility thrust it on to other people, or in some cases, how people thrust this responsibility onto themselves.

Every society has a ‘social norm’ that everyone is expected to follow. Whether a person is a female who is expected to cook and clean for their husband while he relaxes from a hard day of work. Society believe that it is okay for a man to sleep around while it is a horrible thing for a lady to do. If a person does not follow these unwritten rules they may be shunned by people all around them, but conforming to these ‘social norms’ may mean suppressing themselves in order to be accepted. In The Bell Jar, Plath shows that if a person is to be normal they must suppress their true selves; Plath demonstrates this by showing how Esther conforms herself to act socially acceptable when she is with Marco and Irwin.

Actor Matt LeBlanc once said, “I find the earth to be a place of misery in which I am surrounded by the conformity that kills society.” In other words, LeBlanc means that conformity is a destructive force in society. James McBride writes about a theme similar to the one presented by LeBlanc in his memoir The Color of Water. Through figurative language and juxtaposition in The Color of Water James McBride presents the theme that conformity to social standard weakens one’s foundation as an individual.

One’s individuality and freedom are questioned when it does not conform to society’s ideals. This is often demonstrated in real life, as well as in popular literary pieces.

The world would be much different if society does not pressure one to look like perfection. In John Wyndham’s novel The Chrysalids, each and every character must be like everyone else and if they are not, the village sends them to live in the outskirts of the towns where the chances of survival are close to zero. Though everyone looks the same, people think about the concept of society and sameness differently. There are three different types of people in each village. Number one, there is Joseph Strorm, leader of Waknuk, whose obsession with the norm renders him blind in seeing and welcoming the value something possesses, instead all his eyes allow him to see are what is in front of them. Then there is David Strorm and his group of deviants

Throughout second semester we have read many stories that have strongly illustrated the idea of conformity, but in Fahrenheit 451, Swamp Boy, and Harrison Bergeron the theme of conformity is most prevalent. The characters in each of the three stories become trapped by the act of conforming to their societal norms. The people in the societies participate in confirmation because it is what everyone else is doing, and they crave acceptance from others. As humans, we conform to the world around us because it is expected and we fear any individual that abides by the social norms.

Some say, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, however, this could not be farther from the truth. From a historical perspective, beauty has been shown to be in the eye of the conformer. Society sets the standard of beauty and, either willingly or unwillingly, people obey. One may ask what happens to those who do not fit the standard, and the answer is simple: they become invisible. The narrator in Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man, Pecola Breedlove in Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye, and Claireece Precious Jones in Push by Sapphire, are all examples of how societal standards blind the acquiescent and cloak the divergent.

Throughout life, in any society we develop a sense to conform and adjust to our surroundings but why? Our values in our society determines our norms and why we do the things we do. I recently sought out to break these social conformities that violated the values, and norms we hold as a society. Every society is different and, in every society there are different and similar values, norms, sanctions folkways, and mores. Breaking them up and analyzing them we began to understand why these terms and values are so important to us.

Conformity is a struggle that people encounter everyday in society. There are many examples of the different types of conformity in the world. Some of these types are in the examples I am going to discuss. In “The Sociology of the Leopard Man”, “Two Kinds”, and Dead Poet Society we learn that it is not always a good idea to conform. Although conformity can be good, I believe that it is even better for people to step out of their comfort zone and not be afraid to show who they really are.

Society tries to place many rules upon an individual as to what is acceptable and what is not . One must decide for themselves whether to give in to these pressures and conform to society’s projected image, or rather to resist and maintain their own desired self image. In the story “Boys and Girls” by Alice Munro, Munro suggests that this conflict is internal and external and a persons experiences in life will determine which of these forces will conquer. In terms of the unnamed protagonist’s experiences in the story, it becomes clear just how strong the pressure of society to conform really is, as it overcomes and replaces the girl’s self image.

Do you fit into the standards of society? What do you see when you look in the mirror? Do you really know who you are? Margaret Atwood puts these questions at our feet in her short stories “Scarlet Ibis”, which is a work that shows a wealthy family on vacation and Christine, the mother and wife, thinks she is being looked at under a microscope by everyone around her and “Lusus Naturae”, which portrays a young girl that seemingly has a disease, Porphyria, but she could also be a vampire, she is kept at arms length with her family and others, only to be kept in seclusion, she is described as a “freak of nature”. What both of these stories have in common is societies expectations and views on what is “normal” and how the self- degrading reflections the characters see make them criticize and internalize who they are in catastrophic ways. Atwood masterfully uses characterization and symbolism to show the destructive standards that society has and those who stand on the outside attribute their lack of acceptance and identity on who they are and not to the outside world.