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, stealth, and Music of the Swamp why should college students read the stories that are dealed in position courses? Other than to take the professor, what is the purpose of reading these difficult writings of people we dont know or care active? Many of these students find themselves asking, What is this writer talking about? Confused, some quickly give up laborious to understand the tale and make reading something just to get through, diminishing both their arrest and their grade. Knowing what these writers are trying to explain makes their stories much easier to read. Throughout history, we mankind have tried to understand why we do the things we do. To aid in our understanding, many storytellers throughout literary history have written fictitious and non-fictional stories about human nature to help otherwises, as well as themselves understand. Human nature is what the writers of Our Time, Theft, and Music of the S wamp, three excerpts from the anthology Ways of Reading edit by David Bartholomae and Anthony Petrosky, often read in English courses, are trying to explore. My personal story, Chinese Food Can Save 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. Most readers can in all probability relate to this since at one point or another, they have sentiment that, if they just had some extra money, a better job, a various lover, a new home, or a better childhood, they could be happier. To assign the blame to other people and things is easier than to point the finger 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 bad that happen to us are a result of choices we have made. In these stories, this human indispensability t o obsess for what we (supposedly) dont have destroys any possibility of obtaining the particular possession. In Theft a chapter from Joyce Carol Oates novel Marya A Life, the main character Marya blames habituation for her unhappiness. Early in Maryas life she decided that dependence on other people and involvement in relationships resulted in her limited freedom.