In the novels and stories read this unit, many characters represent and discuss different aspects of human nature and life, as well as represent how society really is. In human nature, people are naturally greedy, selfish, and self-centered. Since the beginning of the semester, every novel labeled and discussed various aspects of human nature whether it was a negative or positive perception of the characters. The stories that will be discussed are “Miss. Brill”, “Bullet in the Brain”, “Big Foot Stole My Wife/I am Big Foot”, “ The Short and Happy Life of Francis Macomber”, “Hunters in the Snow”, “The Shelter”.
In the first novel “Miss Brill”, the main character is a woman who is blind to the real world and society and isn’t socially accepted by anyone around her but she thinks otherwise. “An actress!' The old head lifted; two points of light quivered in the old eyes. 'An actress the newspaper as though it were the manuscript of been an actress for a long time.' (3). This quote shows that Miss Brill sees way more in herself than anyone else at the park does. She calls herself an actress and convinces everyone else that she is but we all know she wasn’t. 'Why does she come here at all—who wants her? Why doesn't she keep her silly old mug at home?' 'It's her fu-ur which is so funny,” (3). This quote represents the dissatisfaction the other characters have for Miss Brill being at the part people watching. In addition, they are laughing at her clothing and asking why she doesn’t just sit at home. In this novel, there are two sides of human nature which is Miss Brill’s perspective and then the people around her. Miss Brill is very innocent and just looks to be accepted and friendly. But, everyone else at the part was very hostile and disrespectful to Miss Brill whenever she showed interest in them. This shows society is very self-centered and unaccepting of new people.
The next novel “Bullet in the Brain”, is about a very cocky character named Anders who is practically fearless of death, or at least that’s what it looked like. He is in a bank and out of nowhere robbers come through and threaten everyone with a gun. Anders doesn’t take them seriously and begins to laugh and mock them. “Oh, bravo,” Anders said. “‘Dead meat.’” He turned to the woman in front of him. “Great script, eh? The stern, brass-knuckled poetry of the dangerous classes.” This shows Anders is careless and doesn’t seem to worry about how much danger he is in. He is so confident in himself that he continues to make jokes even after the robbers are pointing a gun at his head. Eventually, he pushes his luck too far and out of nowhere gets shot point-blank in the head. “I'm sorry, I'm sorry,” then snorted helplessly through his fingers and said, “Capiche-oh, God, capiche,” and at that the man with the pistol raised the pistol and shot Anders right in the head.” This quote shows that Anders is overly confident which ends very poorly for him. This story shows that some people in society are very cocky and overly confident. Humans always act the way Anders did without knowing the consequences. At the beginning of the story, he made jokes and was practically mocking the bank robbers. But, when they actually shot him, he didn’t have much to say.
In the next novel “I am Bigfoot”, an unfaithful and poor husband named Rick that blames his mistakes on something that doesn’t even exist and everyone fails to see that except him. Instead of owning his mistakes and coming to terms that his wife found another man, he tells everyone that bigfoot stole his wife. He seems to be the only one to believe this story as everyone else is just playing along. “Its a fact and I know its a fact: Bigfoot has been in my house. Bigfoot stole my wife. She’s Gone. Believe it.” This quote shows that society tends to lie and not take action for their mistakes. This is a perfect example, Rick has a problem with his wife and instead of handling it the right way he convincing himself it wasn’t his fault. In the next story, “The Shelter” a man that owns a shelter in case of an emergency that is only for his family. As soon as disaster strikes and there is a threat of an unknown aircraft, he and his family go to the shelter with food and water. Minutes later, his neighbors are banging on the door beginning to let them and screaming as if they have the right to be in the shelter. They begin to scream at him as if he is in the wrong. Once everyone finds out the attack was a false alarm, they begin to treat him normally again. This shows that humans naturally have a sense of entitlement and selfishness as shown in this episode of “The twilight zone”.
In conclusion, humans are naturally worried about themselves. In society, they are entitled, and self-centered. As seen in every novel these characters use this to cover up problems and issues instead of facing them. This compares to real life because these characters represent how people really are in the world. These characters are awfully similar to people In the real world that lie, cheat, and hide behind problems to achieve whatever is they need to achieve.