The Values That Drive Us
Throughout history, popularly held norms, values, and expectations have served as guiding principles for societies the world over. For example, following the Second World War, the population of Japan decided to make their jobs the main focus of their lives. Many employees felt the need to accept permanent employment contracts which bound them to one employer for their entire lives, sometimes well past retirement age. The devotion of its population towards work played a huge role in transforming Japan from the impoverished, crumbling ancient empire it was in 1945 into one of the world’s most technologically advanced and economically powerful countries in the world less than half a century later. While societal norms can be perceived as stabilizing and driving forces for populations, they can also have the opposite effect on individuals, bringing more harm than benefit. In the novel, Sense and Sensibility, the movie Stranger Than Fiction, as well as in the short story, “Boys and Girls,” the norms and expectations of different societies and time periods act against characters, forcing them to make difficult decisions about the way they want to live their lives. Symbolism, characterisation and motifs are used by authors Jane Austen and Alice Munro and director Marc Forster to illustrate the negative effects of societal norms and expectations.
In Jane Austen’s novel, Sense and Sensibility, sisters Marianne and Elinor Dashwood serve as symbols for two different approaches to life in 19th-century England’s aristocracy. Marianne’s approach to life that is seen as foolish by her society. Instead of taking into consideration what is expected of her, Marianne acts purely on her emotional whims, being the embodiment of sensibility. After she falls in love with John Willoughby, the two spend much close and intimate time together, Marianne ignoring the fact that she has yet to be engaged to the man. When Willoughby, secretly engaged to a wealthier woman, returns to London without warning Marianne, the young Dashwood lady is left broken and distraught. In Marianne’s case, bending to societal norms might have saved her from heartbreak. Elinor, on the other hand, bases her actions off of what is expected of her by the society she was raised in. In that way, she represents sense, or logic, valuing the norms and expectations of her family and social class before the fulfillment of her own emotional wants and needs. Her strictly sensical personality type is implicitly demonstrated in how she abandons her relationship with Edward Ferrars once she learns about his 4-year-old loveless engagement to Lucy Steele, customs of that era demanding that she do so. In making such a decision, however, Elinor prevents herself from pursuing a relationship with the man she truly loves.
In her short story, “Boys and Girls,” Alice Munro creates a character who tries to defy the gender roles of rural Canada in the 1960s. This character is a young girl named Marguerite, who lives on a fox farm with her parents and brother Laird. Though she is far more equipped and just as eager to take on the daily tasks of the fox farm, Marguerite sees herself forced to do chores that bore her inside the home while her brother works the farm. Though the 1960s were pivotal in the women’s labour movement in cities across Canada, rural residents were often more hesitant to change their views on women in the workplace. Marguerite’s parents only ever had one expectation of her, that she be like her mother and her mother before that, doing household chores and helping raise a family of her own. The more “Boys and Girls” progresses, the more Marguerite is convinced that she is destined to live the life of a housewife, all the while still hating the chores she would do with her mother. By the end of the story, hearing her father say “She’s just a girl,” Marguerite gives in to the idea, thinking “Maybe they’re right” (Munro, 1964). Just as with Elinor, Marguerite is discouraged from striving for happiness by the expectations of the people around her.
Marc Forster uses a wristwatch as a motif to represent the 21st-century work ethic that enthrals Harold Crick, the protagonist of Forster’s 2006 motion picture, Stranger Than Fiction. At the start of the movie, Harold follows a strict routine, counting strokes of his toothbrush, and using his wristwatch to plan every other part of his morning down to the second. Though such a ritualistic lifestyle isn’t exactly necessary for someone working an auditor job like Harold, the demands and expectations jobs in the 21st century often seem to necessitate such an obsession with staying on schedule. With mechanization in the manufacturing sector and the computerization of services, employees increasingly feel the need to increase their productivity in order to avoid being replaced by cheaper and more efficient robots and computers. For Harold, that means taking all the spontaneity out of his life, knowing exactly what will he will be doing at any given time on any given day of the week to become a more consistent and efficient employee. To gain a sense of security, Harold needs to feel as though he is in control of his entire future. However, in scheduling his life so tightly, he loses sight of the little joys that bring meaning to life. Later in the movie, when his watch starts going haywire, so does his life, as an omniscient narrator, who we later learn is writer Karen Eiffel, suddenly appears in his head. Harold’s hyper-organised life depends on the function of his watch, and when it stops working properly, he begins to see what he’s been missing during the years in which his life was dictated by his watch. He falls in love with a woman named Anna, bringing purpose and meaning to his previously mundane life, but all the while is reminded that his life is at its end by the narrator in his head. At the end of the movie, Harold ends up being spared of an early death when a piece of his watch saves his life. However, had his life ended when Karen had written it to, the tragedy of his death would have been greatly magnified by the fact that he had only just started living.
Creators Jane Austen, Alice Munro, and Marc Foster each grew up in their own time periods and regions of the Earth, and were each subjected to the norms and expectations of the environment they lived in. Each incorporate these societal forces into their works as limitations for their characters to overcome in order to achieve love, happiness, or both. Societal expectations are shown to sometimes be harmful on an individual level, but can also be detrimental for entire populations as well. Today, Japan faces a demographic crisis, partially because its young population is too focused on their performance their performance at work to date and have children. Some workers in the country willingly work over 80 hours per week, sometimes leading to a phenomenon called Karoshi, or death by overworking. With pressures from societal values having the potential to make our lives miserable and meaningless, or even kill us, it is essential that we take a moment every once in a while to step back and evaluate our lives. We should look at what drives us to make our choices about our work and our play, our love and our livelihood, and we should think about what values we identify with the most. If the values of our society push us to hurt ourselves, then perhaps we should find some news ones, for ourselves and for our loved ones.
Ryan
In Jane Austen’s novel, Sense and Sensibility, sisters Marianne and Elinor Dashwood serve as symbols for two different approaches to life in 19th-century England’s aristocracy. Marianne’s approach to life that is seen as foolish by her society. Instead of taking into consideration what is expected of her, Marianne acts purely on her emotional whims, being the embodiment of sensibility. After she falls in love with John Willoughby, the two spend much close and intimate time together, Marianne ignoring the fact that she has yet to be engaged to the man. When Willoughby, secretly engaged to a wealthier woman, returns to London without warning Marianne, the young Dashwood lady is left broken and distraught. In Marianne’s case, bending to societal norms might have saved her from heartbreak. Elinor, on the other hand, bases her actions off of what is expected of her by the society she was raised in. In that way, she represents sense, or logic, valuing the norms and expectations of her family and social class before the fulfillment of her own emotional wants and needs. Her strictly sensical personality type is implicitly demonstrated in how she abandons her relationship with Edward Ferrars once she learns about his 4-year-old loveless engagement to Lucy Steele, customs of that era demanding that she do so. In making such a decision, however, Elinor prevents herself from pursuing a relationship with the man she truly loves.
In her short story, “Boys and Girls,” Alice Munro creates a character who tries to defy the gender roles of rural Canada in the 1960s. This character is a young girl named Marguerite, who lives on a fox farm with her parents and brother Laird. Though she is far more equipped and just as eager to take on the daily tasks of the fox farm, Marguerite sees herself forced to do chores that bore her inside the home while her brother works the farm. Though the 1960s were pivotal in the women’s labour movement in cities across Canada, rural residents were often more hesitant to change their views on women in the workplace. Marguerite’s parents only ever had one expectation of her, that she be like her mother and her mother before that, doing household chores and helping raise a family of her own. The more “Boys and Girls” progresses, the more Marguerite is convinced that she is destined to live the life of a housewife, all the while still hating the chores she would do with her mother. By the end of the story, hearing her father say “She’s just a girl,” Marguerite gives in to the idea, thinking “Maybe they’re right” (Munro, 1964). Just as with Elinor, Marguerite is discouraged from striving for happiness by the expectations of the people around her.
Marc Forster uses a wristwatch as a motif to represent the 21st-century work ethic that enthrals Harold Crick, the protagonist of Forster’s 2006 motion picture, Stranger Than Fiction. At the start of the movie, Harold follows a strict routine, counting strokes of his toothbrush, and using his wristwatch to plan every other part of his morning down to the second. Though such a ritualistic lifestyle isn’t exactly necessary for someone working an auditor job like Harold, the demands and expectations jobs in the 21st century often seem to necessitate such an obsession with staying on schedule. With mechanization in the manufacturing sector and the computerization of services, employees increasingly feel the need to increase their productivity in order to avoid being replaced by cheaper and more efficient robots and computers. For Harold, that means taking all the spontaneity out of his life, knowing exactly what will he will be doing at any given time on any given day of the week to become a more consistent and efficient employee. To gain a sense of security, Harold needs to feel as though he is in control of his entire future. However, in scheduling his life so tightly, he loses sight of the little joys that bring meaning to life. Later in the movie, when his watch starts going haywire, so does his life, as an omniscient narrator, who we later learn is writer Karen Eiffel, suddenly appears in his head. Harold’s hyper-organised life depends on the function of his watch, and when it stops working properly, he begins to see what he’s been missing during the years in which his life was dictated by his watch. He falls in love with a woman named Anna, bringing purpose and meaning to his previously mundane life, but all the while is reminded that his life is at its end by the narrator in his head. At the end of the movie, Harold ends up being spared of an early death when a piece of his watch saves his life. However, had his life ended when Karen had written it to, the tragedy of his death would have been greatly magnified by the fact that he had only just started living.
Creators Jane Austen, Alice Munro, and Marc Foster each grew up in their own time periods and regions of the Earth, and were each subjected to the norms and expectations of the environment they lived in. Each incorporate these societal forces into their works as limitations for their characters to overcome in order to achieve love, happiness, or both. Societal expectations are shown to sometimes be harmful on an individual level, but can also be detrimental for entire populations as well. Today, Japan faces a demographic crisis, partially because its young population is too focused on their performance their performance at work to date and have children. Some workers in the country willingly work over 80 hours per week, sometimes leading to a phenomenon called Karoshi, or death by overworking. With pressures from societal values having the potential to make our lives miserable and meaningless, or even kill us, it is essential that we take a moment every once in a while to step back and evaluate our lives. We should look at what drives us to make our choices about our work and our play, our love and our livelihood, and we should think about what values we identify with the most. If the values of our society push us to hurt ourselves, then perhaps we should find some news ones, for ourselves and for our loved ones.
Ryan
Works Cited
Austen, J. (1811). Sense and sensibility. Thomas Egerton.
Munro, A. (1964). Boys and girls. The Montrealer.
Columbia Pictures. (2006). Stranger than fiction. Directed by Marc Forster.
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