Where we are Today

I think that comparing these myths from other parts of the country help us learn about how we thought we got here and makes us think about how other people from the world think we got here as well. The thing that every myth had in common about how we got here is that we were all created either from gods, god’s children or planted by a god. Men was created by something greater than man himself, I though that was very interesting because it made me feel like all the gods had some what of a power trip. The myths seemed like god created man because the gods were bored and wanted something to watch that he was greater than. It was like the earth was a puzzle and he created man to see if we could put the pieces together correctly. I noticed too that with the myths that I watched that women were created after the men either to be helpers or to keep the men company in this new world of earth that they were going to explore. I know that in a lot of religious views and even the myth about Adam and Eve, man was created first and then woman after. I think that that every myth has something in common with another, the way that the myths all have something in common reminds me of the game of telephone when one person starts off by saying a phrase and then by the time it gets to the last person in the circle it only has like one or two words that were in the beginning phrase. This is how all of our myths are just bits and pieces are taken from each one and then formed into their own. I think that it is really interesting that our myths or I think we would call it religion had some parts based on other peoples myths on how people were brought to this earth. I think that after I looked at all these myths, it helped me look more into how people look at how we were created and put on this earth and it gave me some reasoning why different people appreciate certain things about the earth and this world because of the myths the were brought up with. These myths also taught me about how I grew up thinking how men and women were created and I thought it was really interesting seeing how other people from different cultures and seeing how they think the world was created. It really shows that these myths determine how people value the things they do and worship certain gods that they do because of the myths they were taught about how they were created. It really opened my eyes and showed me that there are many ways that people believe how we were put here and who really knows which is the real way? I think it was really cool to learn about the myths and it really opened up my mind to se how other people think we were put on this earth.

Knowing too much.

Some examples of characters suffering from the burden of knowing in this novel are May and Lily. May’s character is one of the best examples of knowledge being a burden, because of May’s past and how she acts mentally and physically when she hears something that would upset her. Oh my goodness how could I forget one other character that is truly burdened by the knowledge of knowing is April, May’s twin sister. Even though April is just spoken of just for a page in this book they way she acted played a huge role in how knowing things affected her. The story of April was that she was a fun young loving girl who enjoyed life until one day her and may went to get ice cream and the white store owner treated them different because they were black and she didn’t understand why she was being treated different and why white people were so unfair to blacks? At such a young age it was a lot for her to take on, and April became deeply depressed by this, from her now knowing things gave her the burden of depression. This not only affected her but it also affected may because they were so close to each other, may felt a lot of empathy from April. April was so unhappy from the knowledge of being unfair in this world that she killed herself and may was never the same after that. May became so sensitive to anything thing that happened, she would burst into tears from someone killing a roach, her feelings got soo sensitive because of April’s death. And may suffered from the burden of knowing because of how she changed from her sisters death, knowing anything that might have any little bit to do with sadness would put her in hysterics. Lily also discovered some burdens from the knowledge she found out. Lily found out how nasty people who are racist treated blacks, when she saw Rosealeen getting beat by white men and the police officer not doing anything about this upset her and made her hate the reason why people acted like that. She also found out about some of her prejudices that she had towards blacks herself. Was she found this out it made her question herself, was she really like those men who beat Rosealeen? Of course she wasn’t, but it still made her question herself and she didn’t like that. Lily also went through the burden of know about her mothers death, I think that she wishes she didn’t know or remember what happened that day in the room with the gun but she does and this messes with her bad, so her knowing about that day is a burden because what it did to her mentally. All of these examples play a big part in this story and the message Kidd is trying to get across, even though things you find out in life aren’t always good it’s a part of life, and how you deal with what is pt in front of you is the real lesson being taught.

Sloth

In the essay “sloth”, there are other emotions present other than grief. In the couple of beginning sentences you can tell that the author of this essay is very sad and deeply hurt, I would also say that they are emotionally lost. The writer also talks about feeling numb, and can’t even feel physical things. The writer talks about losing their fiancé in a car accident, and you can tell in the next couple sentences and how the tone of the essay is going that this accident really flipped this person world around. I feel that the writer had just lost all hope and what and where their life was going. This was such a traumatic accident that this person was just so lost and sad and hurt that they felt numb to everything and that this person can’t come to grips about what happened to their fiancé, and to the reader this is very sad devastating. As this essay goes on it talks about the writers finding a sloth above their head, and just noticing about how slow a sloth really moves. This is a metaphor for the writer realizing how long this grief is going to stick with tem until they can start to move on after their fiancés death. Realization is one of the emotions that are in this essay other than grief. As the writer talks about how slow the sloth really moves, and how unreal it is to them. The writer can’t believe that this creature actually moves this slow all the time, it is in its nature to move that slow, the writer connected the nature of the sloth’s slow movement to grief, and how slow it takes for someone to get over the feelings of grief, especially with the death of a loved one. This essay talks a lot about sadness and how hard it is to deal with the death of a fiancé, a lot of hopes and dreams and now crushed and all this person can feel now is numbness. My favorite part of the essay is when the reader does com to terms with their grief and they finally feel a sense of relief or acceptance in a way. The writer talks bout how slow the sloth moves but even thought it is going to take a long time for it to get where it is going that it will get there. The writer realizes that this is the pace that their grief is going to take, and that this loss of a loved one is going to take a very long time to get over, but once this long, slow time of grief has passed this person can come to terms with what has happened and hopefully try and start a new life for themselves. This essay started out as a gloomy very sad story and then towards the end the reader can kind of feel like there is a light at the end of the tunnel, the writer expresses that even though the times they are going through are very tough now but, eventually things will change for the better.