Human Consciousness Essay -- English Literature Essays

Human ConsciousnessErich Fromm and Shirley Jackson have both written wonderful true- behavior affecting essays and should be awarded for them. I appreciate both stories and feel they both establish tales to learn from and live by. As a combined group for both I ld say kind consciousness is more then a gift. And read on to see what I mean.In Erich Fromm we apprisal a compassionate concern for the unfolding of life. Fromm claims that the growing process of the emergence of the individual from his original ties, a process which we may c whole individuation, seems to have reached its gush in modern history in the centuries between the Reformation and the present. Of course, the beginning of change is not the cause of all our problems only when it did magnify them because now the humans of humanity itself has become a problem according to the way I am reading into Fromms story. Then when you shift you focus towards Shirley Jacksons The Lottery, it depicts an ordinary day with anti cipation of yearly appointments. Her description awakens you to a pleasant sunny day, flowers blooming, and everyone united around the townsfolk square. All are poised to cast lots for the right to another years meeting. 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 Lottery depart 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 contrary from one another in text but are same in form. Fromm later on talks about animals living completely inwardly nature and proclaims that they are guided by instinctive behavior. He continues and says humans 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 significa nt town occasions were held it was not your usual gathering of friends, bringing covered dishes, balloons and clowns for the kids. A celebration it was not, but just the opposite. This story reveals the dark side of human nature. Its flaws, lack of compassion, selfishness and anybody but me attitude. If you had had the opportunity 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 Eden in order to learn to rely on his own powers and to become richly human.Fromm offers with these comments an idealistic interpretation of the fall that leaves no place for the concept of original sin. He believes he is supported in this interpretation by the Old testament tradition because even the prophets confirm the idea that humans have aright to be disobedient. Only after their disobedience can human beings establish a harmony between themselves, other persons, and nature th rough 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 liberate 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 links very well to Fromms thoughts on how humans can accept change and not know how to put it to use.