Saturday, September 6, 2014

What Happened to Respect Your Elders

I read a few posts before writing this because I don't want to sound redundant and write about the same thing as everyone else. I feel bad for the grandmother in this story, someone wrote about her not appreciating her son but honestly I got the impression she wasn't appreciated. Your elders should be held to a high esteem for a multitude of reasons but two important ones being that they have life experience and that they are closer to the ends of their lives and that should be understood. I don't think this family cares much for their grandmother. Bailey is kind of a dick, it's not the grandmother's fault she recognized the Misfit and pointed it out. She wasn't intentionally trying to have her family slaughter but Bailey reacted in such a hate filled way that even the Misfit felt poorly of the way she was treated. "'Lady,' he said, 'don't get upset. Sometimes a man says things he don't mean. I don't think he meant to talk to you thataway."' (O'Conner 2782). For the killer to have to console the grandmother for the way her son spoke to her is upsetting, and I feel terribly for her. Not just how her son treated her and her fear of his reaction to her having been the one that lead them down the wrong road and brought the cat but the way the children treated her and their elders of the community. When June Star tells Red Sam that she wouldn't want to live in a run down home like his that's awful, my mother would slap me across the face if I spoke so terribly to someone that was just trying to pay me a compliment. The lack of respect for elders is insane. It's understandable why the grandmother longed for the good old days, in that time she probably felt more appreciated and less like someone that her family just had to deal with.

I know from living with my grandparents that they can be a pain, I understand that my own mom and dad can get on my nerves under extenuating circumstances but does that excuse Bailey's behavior? Is it okay for your children to behave as John Wesley and June Star do in public and to their grandmother? I know everyones raised differently but I can never imagine talking to my grandmother with a disrespectful tone whether or not she was staying with us.

5 comments:

  1. I understand your point of view but to me the grandmother was depicted as a vain self=centered old "lady". She manipulated the children to demand their father take them to the old house. I think that if the family had continued their vacation as planned then they would not have ever ran into the Misfit. Misfit was going to kill them anyway even if the grandmother had not recognized him,

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    1. Really though the whole family is depicted this way not just the Grandmother. The Misfit is nearly the only likeable character in the whole story!

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  2. To your main point about respecting your elders I completely agree. Respect is something that should be given to everyone, especially a grandmother or grandfather. That being said, I also agree with Vanessa because the grandma was being quite manipulating to the grandchildren.

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  3. Kayla,
    You are the first student I have ever had who has ever felt for the Grandmother! :) The whole family is rather unlikeable, and we haven't discussed the (dark) humor in the story but a lot of it comes from the way the family acts towards each other (which just makes the Grandmother's insistence on what makes a "Good Man" even more amusing/ironic).

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    1. Well now I feel special, but in all honestly of course the grandmother got on my nerves. Just as much as the children, the father and the mother. The whole family was terrible. They were crass, the cared about themselves and they were manipulative. But the grandmother should still be revered. I was just raised to always respect my elders. Despite what they say, despite how they act I was taught to always respect them. My grandparents can get on my nerves. My great grandma refuses to see that I might know something's that she doesn't. She brags about my cousin making Dean's List at her University and yet forgets that I've made Dean's list 3 years in a row, it's hurtful especially at family gatherings but I still have to respect her. I can be annoyed but I can't be rude. That's something I can't accept in this story, despite what the grandmother does they shouldn't be rude. And I'm sorry but when the murderer has to stick up for her that's pretty sad.

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