Gabriella Monica
English 126
Marcie Sims
8 August 2013
Experience in Life
Nowadays, people have learned that experience is a process of learning. Whether the learning is met to be a bad or good experience to the person, it will influence his or her life. Similar with every story that is written, the main character will face a conflict in his or her life. A Story like “Aladdin”, a well-known children story, can be interpreted as a part of learning. Whereby we can see that the sultan of Agrabah learned that he could not trust Jafar, his royal vizier anymore. This was because Jafar tried to take over the Sultan’s power of owning Agrabah. If the conflict had not happened, the Sultan would have not learned about Jafar. This kind of conflict can be defined as an experience to the Sultan of Agrabah. In consequence, the Sultan of Agrabah learned to distrust Jafar. This kind of analysis also applies to some stories and poems. As it is mentioned that most stories or creative writings have conflicts of their own, ”A Good Man is Hard to Find”, “When I heard Learn’d Astronomer”, “The Things They Carried” and “The Secretary’s Chant” lifted up their own conflict by the authors. However, they shared the same theme that is possible to engage them together that experiences shape the individual’s belief. People affect each other’s lives that it is possible for the individual to learn under another person’s influence. This causes people’s comments or actions can change the individual’s way of thinking. A story written by Flannery O’Connor is a story of an old woman that found to lift up the problem of racism. However, in the context of the story, she described a ‘good’ man of her own. Although the story did not emphasize her perception of a ‘good’ man, the story determines her belief. As O’Connor wrote in her story, “She said he was a very good-looking man and a gentleman and that he brought her a watermelon every Saturday afternoon with his initials cut in it, E. A. T.” (366). The section of this story tells that a gentleman is defined as a man who gives her presents. In this context, her belief has been determined by the affection that the man who gave her a watermelon. This might because it was one of the nicest experiences she experienced in her life. Moreover, this kind of experience has carried her to shape her belief. In addition, Matt Ridley, the author of “Nature Via Nurture” said, “Man can be made what we want to be” (186). Ridley’s point was made when he talked about how Communism in Soviet Union could brainwash people and affect their beliefs to the others. The way how Ridley explained his saying can be engaged to O’Connor’s short story. Whereby Ridley simply explained that people are shaped based on nurturing. Therefore, a person’s perception can be influenced by other people’s actions.
Having experiences to shape the individual’s belief can get affected from many ways. As theories of the human’s brain growing, people have found out that the human brain learns visual auditory and kinesthetic easily. In the poem “When I heard Learn’d Astronomer” by Walt Whitman started how the man was bored by the lecture about stars that he received from an astronomer. In the poem, Whitman uses symbols to create the whole poem to be easily understood. Walt Whitman started with “When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me,” (713) the proofs and figures are found to be as a theory that the person should learn. However, Whitman ended the poem saying, “Till rising and gliding out I wander’d off by myself,” (713) this line shows that the person seeks to learn by his own experience and understand stars by his own. With the senses that he used, he was able to learn more than he studied in the classroom. Moreover, his perception about stars that were boring has changed. The man found out that after his experience in gazing stars by his own, he understood how beautiful the sky and stars were.
A person has always had a certain norms to live his or her life. This created the person to live in a certain way where boundaries are found. In the poem titled “The Secretary’s Chant”, by Marge Piercy is able to describe how a woman sees herself. As it can be seen that actually culture affects the way of a person’s thinking. Based on history, women did not have rights on making any decision even to their lives. Because of the limited rights they had, men started to control their lives. Therefore, as the culture of treating women unfairly kept on going, women slowly believed that they are only used. Piercy wrote, “My hips are a desk. From my ears hang chains of paper clips” (771). Piercy used metaphors to justify the meaning of her poem. Whereby she compared her body as tools in the office. The author wrote herself in her poem brings a definition that she has seen herself as a tool. In addition, her way of writing her poem repeats on what she is. Her repetition of calling herself as a tool made her to believe that she has become a tool.
Another story from William Faukner called “Barn Burning” is a story that emphasizes the problem of racism in the world. As the same as how Marge Piercy wrote, repeating and/or emphasizing a word can create the person to believe on a certain belief due to the experience. In Faulkner’s story, the word ‘nigger’ was used repeatedly. Whereby the word ‘nigger’ was found to be an offensive word for African Americans. As the word was being emphasized and repeated for a lot of times in the short story, it created the main character to feel as a minor in a group. Furthermore, this fluctuated the African Americans to have no voice in the story. Whereby it shares the same problem of what Piercy tried to express in her writing. Therefore, the repetition creates belief.
Friends and family may have always known to be important in a person’s lives. However, their presence can bring peer pressure in to the person’s feeling. However, although peer pressure can be controlled, it is not easy. Moreover, peer pressure can trigger a person to do something. Because of that, Peer pressure creates the individual to follow their friends’ or family’s belief. In the story “Barn Burning”, Faukner created a story of how a man was accused as a barn burner because of his different race from everyone else. The African American man was treated differently that he did not dare to speak his mind or save himself from being accused. Therefore, as a minor of a group, it was hard to support himself. As same as what Ennett Susan discovered in peer pressure of adolescents in smoking. Due to being as a minor, Susan confronted that it was hard for the non-smoking adolescent to reject a cigarette from his or her friends. This happened to be the same situation as what Faukner lifted up. This problem causes the minor to slowly believe as if he were different from the others and to believe what others believe. Therefore, the experience that Faukner presented made a negative impact to the main character. However, this shows that peer pressure can affect an individual’s belief.
Belief will always be affected by everyday life’s situation. Whereby new things, theories or people’s actions can have beliefs change. People subconsciously can shape their belief for whatever experience they have gone through. Whether the belief is negative or positive, the learning that they have received will be a lesson in life that will be used in their lives. However, the outcome can be good or bad, but as people will learn, beliefs can change due to all the learning process that they received.

Works Cited

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O’Brien, Tim. “The Things They Carried”. Compact Literature. Eighth Ed. Kirszner, Laurie G. and Stephen R. Mnadell. Boston: Wadsworth, 2013. 388-400. Print.
Piercy, Marge. “The Secretary Chant”. Compact Literature. Eighth Ed. Kirszner, Laurie G. and Stephen R. Mnadell. Boston: Wadsworth, 2013. 771-772. Print.
Ridley, Matt. Nature Via Nurture. New York: HapperCollins Publishers, 2003. Print.
O’Connor, Flannery. “A Good Man is Hard to Find” . Compact Literature. Eighth Ed. Kirszner, Laurie G. and Stephen R. Mnadell. Boston: Wadsworth, 2013. 364-399. Print.
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Whitman, Walt. “When I Heard the Learn’d Astronomer”. Compact Literature. Eighth Ed. Kirszner, Laurie G. and Stephen R. Mnadell. Boston: Wadsworth, 2013. 713. Print.