Why is it so hard to balance a desire to be an individual with a desire to "fit in"?
The Mending Wall
He only says, "Good fences make good neighbours."
The neighbor here is showing that he doesn't want to be friendly. By saying good fences make good neighbors, essentially saying the separation of both neighbors makes living easier for him, he is hurting the narrator's feelings, because the narrator doesn't understand why his neighbor isn't friendlier with him and why he doesn't try to build a better relationship.
The feeling of being left out by the neighbor led me to the unit question, since the neighbor here is struggling to balance his individual desire to be alone and his desire to fit in with his community, because he doesn't want to entertain any relationship with his neighbor.
"And on a day we meet to walk the line and set the wall between us once again We keep the wall between us as we go."
The feelings in this quote are envy and frustration. Because the narrator is specifically saying he is building the wall between each neighbor as they build it, we can see that he is frustrated, and is envious to a relationship with his neighbor.
This shows it is harder to gain acceptance because here is a prime example of someone trying to fit in and the other neighbor does not even realize, so he can not do anything help the narrator build a relationship with him. The words Between us are important because the wall between them relates to The Porcupine Dilemma, the wall here is the quill of the porcupine, blocking them from having a relationship with each other.
The mending wall helped me realize that in order to fit into society, and balance indiviudal desires with desires to fit in, you must not seperate the two. It is important to be social when you need to and also keep quiet at times. You can not compeletely control when youll need to fit in with other people, so you need to do your best to fit in as much as possible all the time, and focus on your individual desires when you have free time alone. You must prioritize society.
The Porcupine Dilemma.
"A man
who has some heat in himself prefers to remain outside, where he will
neither prick other people nor get pricked himself."
This quote to me spoke of human selfishness. A man who has heat (what he needs in this situation), will neither go with people who need help or dont. A human that is satisfied will not go out of his way for the desire of others.
This led to the Unit Question, "Why is it so hard to balance a desire to be an individual with a desire to "it in?" this poem showed that it is hard to fit in with other people at times because they might not need your company, and therefore are critical of you or don't want anything to do with you.
Summer by Chen Chen
Level of splendiferous in your outfit: 200.
This text refers to an adolescent still figuring themselves out, experimenting with outfits. This line represents how people want to represent themselves and how it changes as they are evolving as a person and don't exactly know how to represent themselves now.
This text relates to the unit question,"Why is it so hard to balance a desire to be an individual with a desire to "it in?". Here we read about the struggles of teenagers trying to figure themselves out, decide what to wear and work on themselves. They are balancing their comfort in their clothes, and how they feel, with how they are seen by society and how they want to be percieved.
Reporters & fathers call your generation “the worst.”
Parents of past generations have a hard time seeing someone grow up in a different way, they possibly don't agree with how the generation does certain things.
This quote related back to the unit question, "Why is it so hard to balance a desire to be an individual with a desire to "fit in?". Here we see the younger generation trying to fit in with an older group of people. Every generation grows up with different standards and norms, and part of accepting people as a society is accepting that we are all raised differently. Older people may have individual traits and they are indifferent to how the newer generations act, but really, older people need to realize that part of newer generations being integrated into society is balancing older and younger generations and how they act.
Theme From English B
Different people have different experiences and problems integrating themselves into society.
In the Josh's diary radio intermission we learn that people with tourettes can tend to say everything that passes through their mind, and for Josh, that makes it harder to include himself in conversations, and uphold relationships with other people. He tends to say everything that crosses his mind, which makes it harder for him to fit in, and get along with his peers in school
My opinion
People want to fit in because they are scared to stand out and be in the limelight, yet we also strive to each be original and unique. This causes us to try and balance our personality as a person and our personality as part of a group of people. In my opinion, what makes us fit in is being comfortable as who you are and claiming your personality. You can be unique and fit in to a group. If you feel uneasy about your true personality around certain people, you shouldn't change to fit in, you should find people who you already fit in with.
Theme for English B
"You are white—
yet a part of me, as I am a part of you."
Here the author is claiming his similarity to his college professor, claiming that he is a part of his professor and his professor is a part of him, connecting them figuratively/metaphorically. The Narrator feels discriminated from the other students, so this is his way of telling his professor he isn't different from the other students.
"I guess being colored doesn’t make me not like
the same things other folks like who are other races."
The Narrator states that he and his professor are both similar and different. His desire of individuality is wanting to claim being black and being proud of who he is, yet his desire to fit in makes him want to explain to the professor that he is no different from him just because of the color of his skin.
