Human Nature in Bartholomae and Petroskys Our Time, Theft, and Music of the Swamp :: Petrosky Our Time Essays Theft Essays

Human Nature in Bartholomae and Petroskys Our Time, Theft, and medication of the Swamp Why should college students read the stories that are assigned in slope courses? Other than to satisfy the professor, what is the purpose of reading these difficult writings of citizenry we dont know or care about? Many of these students find themselves asking, What is this source talking about? Confused, some quickly give up severe to understand the story and make reading something just to get through, lessen both their understanding and their grade. Knowing what these writers are trying to explain makes their stories oft easier to read. Throughout history, we servicemans sustain tried to understand why we do the things we do. To aid in our understanding, many storytellers throughout literary history have written fictional and non-fictional stories about human nature to help others, as well as themselves understand. Human nature is what the writers of Our Time, Theft, and Music of the Swamp, three excerpts from the anthology ways of Reading edited by David Bartholomae and Anthony Petrosky, often read in incline courses, are trying to explore. My personal story, Chinese Food Can ease Your Life, written for my English composition course is also an example of this exploration. The human nature in these stories is to blame other people, places, or situations for failures and general unhappiness. roughly readers can probably relate to this since at one point or another, they have thought that, if they just had some extra money, a go job, a different lover, a new home, or a snap off childhood, they could be happier. To assign the blame to other people and things is easier than to point the riffle at ourselves. Although a few things individuals are not responsible for do exist, such as ethnicity and hereditary characteristics, most of the things good or awful that happen to us are a result of choices we have made. In these stories, this human compulsion to obsess for what we (supposedly) dont have destroys any possibility of obtaining the peculiar(prenominal) possession. In Theft a chapter from Joyce Carol Oates novel Marya A Life, the briny character Marya blames dependency for her unhappiness. Early in Maryas life she decided that dependency on other people and involvement in relationships resulted in her control freedom.