We started off with a continuation of our discussion on what the unpardonable sin was that Ethan Brand was searching for. It was decided that it was intellect taking precedence over morality as well as a preson's decision to expel himslf from the rest of humanity. When Ethan returned to the kiln, he no longer cared about others and is basically no longer human. This is symbolized by his heart turning to marble.
We also discussed the part in the story in which Ethan sacrafices himself into the fire and becomes high-grade lime. With this, Hawthorne is saying that even though he is dead, he is putting his atoms back to work. Ethan Brand is more useful dead than alive. The concept of death being a return to nature is very romantic.
We talked about why Ethan even bothered to return to the kiln. Brand returns as a sort of closure to his journey. He began his search for unpardonable sin after talking to the devil he saw in the flames of the kiln and he ended his journey in the same place. The fire in the kiln represents a contained version of hell, in which Brand willingly throws himself into.
We ended our discussion with a debate over whether a person is innately caring or caring is learned through experience.
Feel free to elaborate on the above topics.
-Julie S
7 comments:
I agree with what Olivia was saying earlier in class. I believe we are all born with a caring nature. As children grow up, they see the evils of the world and their caring nature begins to go away. However, until someone is wronged, they have no reason to expect that people are bad. They will continue to help others out as long as they believe they will be helped in return.
--Alexis
I definetely believe that most human beings are born caring for other human beings. But I am sure everybody has seen that odd baby who doesnt seem to be able to get along with any other babies, doesnt share, and is a pain. I think it is a little to absolute to say that everybody is born with a caring nature because there are always exceptions.
-Tyler Harris
^There's a contradiction there but I get your point. I'd think we'd need a certified geneticist to really understand if a behavior such as caring can be innate - after all, genes only create proteins and it would be very weird to think that someone is caring just because they possess a certain protein in their brain. It would most likely boil down to chemical levels in the brain, but I'm really speculating now. However, I do believe that qualities such as this are innate because not all individuals are born the same. It can also be affected after birth through the nurturing process; parents can have a tremendous effect on the behavior of children. A balance of nature/nurture could also be present - a child is born with a certain behavioral palette, which can then be shaped by parents or influencing figures.
I definitely think there are some things that science won't be fully able to explain and this is one of them. I do think that every baby is born with some sort of innate sense of caring. As people grow up they are shaped by their experiences. Those experiences make them who they are in the long run and if someone happens to be wronged more often than another person that would most likely contribute to them lacking care or emotion towards others.
-Joe
I don't think that children are necessarily born innately caring for everything. I believe that when a child is born, it doesn't have enough knowledge of the world to know how to react to anything. If you think about it, when a child is first born it does not know wrong from right let alone what we define as caring behavior. For all it knows, it is socially acceptable and considered to be caring to steal the other children's toys. It is through guidance from the parents, certain hormone levels, and instinct (such as maternal) that makes a person caring. That is not to say that the baby does not have an attachment to its parents, however, I think that this is an extension of the child's dependency on these people.
Kelsey
I think that it is absolutely impossible to draw a conclusion about the innate nature of humans other than known, common instincts, such as when to eat and sleep. Whether caring is innate or not comes down to whether the survival instincts of a human allow space for such feelings. Not all humans are entirely caring, which could have roots in an inbalance of instinctual survival with emotional thought of others. Those that are caring have learned how to balance feelings of love and feelings of selfishness; for there is a time and a place for both.
-Jen
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