The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time
September 7, 2011
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon.
A World Without Emotions
Author's Note: Currently our book club is reading The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon. Our assignment was to write a response to one of the topics that we discussed during our meeting. I decided to do mine on emotions, more specifically, a world without them since the character in the book, Christopher, is autistic and doesn't understand them. In addition, a great philosopher, Xeno the Stoic, declared to "strip yourself of all emotions" and then that will reveal happiness and truth. Whereas I believe that without emotion it's like feeling nothing and impossible to be happy. In addition, love is the greatest emotion because then people are happy, they have family and friends, and it makes the world go round. This piece I really made it to show my voice and opinion on this topic.
Emotion is everywhere. You're happy or sad, excited or nervous, confident or frightened, and it's just a part of life. Now imagine the complete opposite: NO EMOTIONS. Xeno the Stoic believed to "strip yourself of all emotions" and that would uncover happiness and truth. Think about it, being happy is an emotion, but if you don't have any emotions, how can you be happy?
Being emotionless equals living as a robot. Blank. No emotions, only plain logic, practically controlled by something else. Humans can't be emotionless even if you're watching paint dry and you feel like nothing, because then you're bored. Picture everything that would change in an emotionless life: you will never be happy, you will never be loved, and you will never be able to feel what life would really be like.
A world bereft of emotion would mean there's no love; the strongest, most powerful emotion ever. Love is the reason we have family and friends, and those people will always be there when we share a laugh, need a shoulder to cry on, or just need to talk about what's on our mind. We can't live without emotion. It's simply there, whether we notice it or not. The world wouldn't be right without emotions, it would be impossible.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
I thought is was really good. So stop saying it was bad. I loved how how you logically explained why it would be impossible to strip ourselves of emotion. I agreed with everything you said.
ReplyDeleteI especially like the idea you brought of how living without emotion would be like living as a robot. Perhaps the real goal for us all is to find a way to be balanced so that we don't lean on either emotion, or logic so much that we do things we regret. Continue playing with syntax, and experimenting with the way you use language.
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed your voice in this piece. Also, wonderful use of the word "bereft." Most of all, I enjoyed how you talked about needing emotions more than logic, but in a very logical way. This makes it so much easier to understand from either point of view.
ReplyDeleteIn response to the first Great Expectations entry, I would say that you have a real sense of what Pip is about, his nature as a character. Feel encouraged to take his nature, and relate that behavior to the theme of the novel the way we did in class.
ReplyDeleteThis is a response to your first two entries to Life of Pi. I love both. The first, covering the nature of names, and how significant they are to us, is wonderful. I write this because you find a way to make the idea real, applying it to your life, and then showing how in the novel it carries equal importance. In the second entry, I totally was taken in by the introduction technique. Using such a dramatically short sentence to start the paragraph was enticing, drawing me in to discover what you meant by the statement. You then switch voice, establishing a complex sentence that uses the repetitive ending pattern. excellent.
ReplyDelete