Erich Fromm and Shirley Jackson have both written wonderful true

Erich Fromm and Shirley Jackson have both written wonderful true-life affecting essays and should be awarded for them Erich Fromm and Shirley Jackson have both written wonderful true-life affecting essays and should be awarded for them. I appreciate both stories and feel they both set tales to learn from and live by. As a combined theme for both I ld say human consciousness is more then a gift. And read on to see what I mean. In Erich Fromm we notice 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 call individuation, seems to have reached its peak 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 but it did magnify them because now the existence 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 anticipation of yearly appointments. Her description awakens you to a pleasant sunny day, flowers blooming, and everyone united around the town square. All are gathered 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 will 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 different from one another in text but are same in form. Fromm later on talks about animals living completely within 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 significant 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 your way. When a person is set in his or her way, no one can change it. This town was set in its way, undoubtedly by the first villagers that had settled there;79 who had to made killing a tradition, something that would be carried out from generation to generation. Being set in your own way doesnt necessary have to be bad? Just imagine, if the tradition was something more positive that promote life rather than destroy it. Traditions, rituals are made from rules established. The rules could be rules of a home, a city, county, state or nation. Then again imagination can do wonders and living life is just part of nature. And thats where Fromm brings our attention to living life. He states that although the animals are living within nature, they at the same time going above it and are conscious of themselves. Which I think is very true. Setting themselves over against nature they have lost their unity and feel unbearably alone, lost, and powerless. This same process can be seen in the development of individual human beings. Each of us initially feels at one with our environment, but then becomes gradually more aware of our individuality. Fromm determines, therefore, that on the one side of the growing process of individuation is the growth of self-strength, but on the other side of this process is a growing aloneness. Then again with Jacksons story one has to gaze from a distance. At first glance, one would think by reading The Lottery, that it was to tell of someones great chance of fortune. Wuthering Heights (1680 words) EssayThis he labels the death instinct as a malignant phenomenon which grows and takes over to the extent to which the Eros does not unfold. In contrast, for instance, to Conrad Lorenz, Fromm desires to show that the problem of human life does not lie in a reduction of instinctive reactions, but rather, that human aggression is conditioned by society and works in collaboration with the biological necessities of humanity. As the writing of Fromm repeatedly show, the fundamental problem of humanity is indeed grounded in its character, but not in deficiently instinctive behavior. This is also to be seen in Fromms denial of the existence of original sin. The Bible leaves no doubt that it does not consider man as either good or evil, but endowed with both tendenciesà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦Yet it is very significant that in the story of the fall the Bible never calls Adams act a sin. What Adam can be reprimanded for, however, according to Fromm, is his disobedience. If, therefore, disobedience is sin, admits Fromm, then Adam and Eve sinned. Yet for Fromm disobedience is virtually a liberating act: The act of disobedience done by Adam and Eve free and opened their eyes. They recognized each other as strangers and the world outside them as strange and even hostile. Their acts of disobedience broke the primary bond with nature and made them individuals. Original sin, far from 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 fully 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 through 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.