September 8th 2010
Showing belief in someone can help a person to feel valued.
The “Make A Difference Movie” was about a boy named Teddy Stallard. Teddy’s mother’s terminal illness greatly impacted his personality at school. He went from being a happy and good student to a sad and uninterested student. His teacher, Miss Thompson, found Teddy unlovable at first, although she claimed as a teacher to love all her students the same. Once she learnt of Teddy’s sad situation, she understood why he acted the way he did in class. She felt she could help Teddy by being a better teacher and understanding his struggles about how sad it must be for a boy to lose his mum to a terminal illness and his dad to be distant and not helpful She felt she could teach Teddy instead of just teaching subjects. Teddy needed someone to show him love and guidance so he could be the best he could be. And sometimes a teacher is the best person to show us how to be that person.
I too am a student, and last year I was bullied. It was a terrible year as my parents had separated and were fighting a lot. A teacher at my school told me she would always help me if anything like the bullying happened again, that “I could always go to her and she would be there for me.” Just knowing someone was thinking about me, willing to help, made me feel so able to continue at school and feel confident. I think I will remember those kinds words forever. She believed in me. She loved me. Just like Teddy. I know that when someone supports you and understands you, you are given a feeling of value, that you feel as though you can face anything. Even though a person may feel their world has collapsed, if someone believes in them, they will try to do better, against all odds.
August 16th 2010
THERE ARE TWO SIDES TO JUSTICE.
In the short story Lamb To The Slaughter a strong theme is 'There are two sides to justice'. The story lamb to the slaughter is about a housewife that loves making her husband happy. Mary Malone is wife who caters to who husbands needs by bringing him his slippers after a long day as a policeman, standing on his feet. She does all she can to please him and make him comfortable. She does this without being asked. She is dutiful and by most husband's standards would be called a good wife. The author Ronald Dahl spends a large part of the story focusing on how she tries to meet her husband's needs. She did not mean to kill her husband with a leg of lamb. She was in shock and reacted by killing her husband with the frozen lamb she was about to cook him for dinner and without a doubt a lovely dinner it would have been. Some people think that this might be a good decision, a just decision since she was really kind to her husband and he had just dumped her. She got justice for her pain caused by his rejection and selfishness. And her husband got the justice he deserved for dumping her while she was 6 months pregnant. He was like an unknowing lamb to the slaughter. He didn't know what hit him literally. Some people see justice as a way to balance revenge and to equal the pain that a wrong doing has caused them. The death penalty for murder would by these same people be considered justice. A circle of righting wrongs through the same wrong.
The picture I chose was of yin and yang, a circle. It is a symbol of balance and widely used in both Western and Eastern societies.They are opposites but because they are within a circle that can be considered one thing with two sides.There are two sides to this circle like there is two sides to justice. Yin and Yang are like justice, trying to bring about peace, whether it be in one's world, heart, mind or soul. People interpret justice in many ways as they do the yin and yang symbol. Some people believe it is good and evil, a kind of universal balance or harmony. Too take a life of someone who has taken a life would be balancing out society. But others would consider it one evil trying to make up for another evil. The example of death can be used for Mary. Her life, her marriage and the future she hoped for her unborn child had been murdered by her husband's choice to leave her. The purpose of justice is to bring harmony and order, a kind of balance and structure. There is a moral justice and legal justice and although they can be opposing at times they act together under the ideal of justice. But when we think of justice, it is only often moral justice we are seeking. We are seeking something to personally make us feel vindicated. Balanced. At peace with the wrong done against us. Satisfied that order and balance has been restored. R Dahl writes nothing of the reasons for Mary's husband wanting to leave her. He is himself unfair and unjust to do this to the readers. To present only one side. He gives the reader few avenues to believe Mary was not just in wanting to hurt him back. Seek her need to restore her balance from being such a giving wife and not getting anything other than a husband that wants to abandon her while she is pregnant in return. To find her yin and yang, her circle of balance, even if it means using the side of evil to rotate so the side of good was felt more strongly in her life. But Mary had now lost her husband for good. So will she ever have justice and balance? She had loved him so much and now he was gone. There would always be darkness in her life and even a spot of darkness in her light like in the yin and yang symbol.
It was unjust of Mary's husband to leave her. It was unjust of Mary to consider her hurt to equal that of deserving murder. It was just perhaps only just to die unknowingly and suddenly like a lamb to the slaughter. Many people will have views and look at the yin and yang of the story. The good and the bad in both Mary and her husband. But this is only within the circle of moral justice. Legal justice is not served. R Dahl makes a mockery of justice only having one legal side by having the two investigating policemen eat the lamb, eat the evidence. Almost no macabre justice for Mary. That she will not be caught. That she could satisfy other policemen with her good meal, but not satisfy her husband enough to want to stay with her. There are so many ways to spin the circle of justice to look at the symbol of the yin and yan. But no matter how you spin it, it will always have two sides.
Picture From: http://image3.examiner.com/images/blog/wysiwyg/image/Yin_Yang_art.jpg
