Senioritis and Our Inner Hydes

      I have found as the year goes on that Senioritis is affecting me and my friends a lot more than I ever thought it would. We are all dedicated, intelligent students, but we are falling hard to this fatal deterioration of motivation. For example, I’m writing this blog over two weeks late, which I would have never done a few months ago. Sorry about that, by the way! L I have found a connection between this so-called “Senioritis” and the inner “Hydes” of me and my friends.

                After discussing what our inner “Hydes” and evils would look like and how they would act, I found it difficult to picture what mine would be and how I would act if I lived through that side of myself, as Dr. Jekyll did with Hyde. But then I realized that I actually have been living through my own inner “Hyde” by succumbing to my Senioritis. In my previous three years of high school, I hid my inner “Hyde” by being a productive, hard-working, student, much like Jekyll hid his Hyde most of his life by being a successful, socially acceptable man. But now, as graduation nears, I have let my inner “Hyde” come through by slacking off on my school work. Much like Jekyll and Hyde, I enjoy slacking off on school work at the time that I am doing it, but once I face the consequences of procrastinating or studying less than I should, I feel the guilt of allowing my inner “Hyde” take over myself. Also much like Jekyll and Hyde, when I first indulged in the prospects of Senioritis, it was easy to go back to my studious ways soon after. But when I started to slack off more and more, it became harder and harder to go back to the good student I once was. I find this to be extremely dismaying, as I want to go back to the productive, hard working student that I once was. I believe it is part of human nature, though, to get oneself back to their past self once they have indulged in “evils”, especially if those evils have instant gratification, like not having to do homework as a result of indulging in Senioritis.

                My goal is to work my way back to the good student I once was, even though that wasn’t possible for Dr. Jekyll and he permanently became Mr. Hyde. I believe it is possible, even though it may be hard.

Define Your Own “Happily Ever After”

     As we finish up our unit on women in literature, I've come to a lot of realizations about myself and how society has affected my view of myself as a woman. One specific realization is that some of my goals seem to have been set for me, in that I’ve always had them and never really given them a second thought as to why I have these goals. For example, I’ve always wanted to get married. It’s not something I think about constantly, and it’s nowhere near the only goal I have, but it’s always just seemed like the expected thing to do. I never really considered it an option to not fall in love one day and get married. Now since we’ve started discussing this unit, I’ve started to think about why this is the way it is. Why am I planning on marriage, not ever thinking about the other options? And I think I’ve finally come to the answer – Disney Princesses. Obviously there are other things that have influenced me into this mindset, but I believe Disney Princesses have had a major impact on me since I have been watching their movies hundreds of times ever since I can remember.

            Most Disney Princesses often have one goal: fall in love with the prince, get married, and live happily ever after. I guess I always knew this, but watching a video by Jenna Marbles caused me to realize how ridiculous the ending to every Disney Princess movie is. Jenna Marbles says in this video, “They (Disney Princess Movies) also taught me that my main goal in life should be to find a prince, and marry him…the end. There’s never another plot for a chick Disney star other than, you fall in love at the end.” I think this is why I have the goal of getting married. I was a huge fan of Disney Princesses when I was little and I watched all of their movies all the time. Seeing all the weddings, all the princes, hearing the “…and they lived happily ever after…” is what I believe caused me to develop the goal of getting married. I mean, you have to admit that “happily ever after” sounds pretty good. But that’s the problem, that phrase is always associated with the princess marrying the prince at the end of the movie. There’s never a “and she became a doctor, supported herself financially as a strong, independent woman, and lived happily ever after…” ending. No, it’s always “she got married, and lived happily ever after.” 

This probably has a huge impact on young girls that watch these movies on constant replay like I used to. They become convinced that to be happy, they have to be married and be a wife. This idea is also present in The Awakening. One of the characters, Adele, is completely content as a wife and mother. Job? No. Goals? None that she openly discusses. She was raised to believe that her goals in life should be to find a man with a respectable social standing, get married, and raise their children. And I’m not saying that being a wife and mother is dishonorable in any way. I respect women that are stay at home moms. It’s a perfectly respectable job, as long as that’s what they want to do and not what they think they must do in order to be happy. Being married and having children should be an option, not an expectation. There are plenty of other ways to live “happily ever after,” and young girls should be taught to grow up and define what “happily ever after” means to them, not what it means to a fictional Disney Princess whose prince didn’t even recognize her the next morning and had to test her identity by putting a shoe on her.

*Note: The Jenna Marbles video I referenced can be watched here: http://youtu.be/2rT28Z0xM88 but the language is EXTREMELY bad. She does make a few good points though. 

To Each Their Own

     Sometimes it can be difficult to understand and accept that the way we view things can be different from how others view things. Our perceptions can differ due to a variety of reasons, whether it is our culture, our upbringing, our religion, or any other influence we experience. It was discussed in class that Adele Ratignolle, one of my favorite characters from The Awakening, could have been intended by Chopin to be perceived as either an admirable character or as something less. I immediately thought she was intended to be perceived as a less-than-admirable character because of her naïve devotion to her husband and children with disregard to discovering her true self, as Edna was trying to do. However, I soon realized that I viewed Adele in this way because of my upbringing and my culture. I was judging Adele based on my own standards instead of taking a more global and general perspective on her as a character. Even if we don’t do this intentionally, we as humans in general characterize and judge people by comparing them to our own personal opinions of how we believe they should behave.

            I, as previously stated, do not really approve of how Adele chooses to live her life in complete devotion to her husband and children without any regard to her own personal need of self-discovery. I enjoyed her as a character in the novel, however, because she allowed me to understand what women were typically like within this setting, and I could therefore clearly see how Edna defied everything the culture demanded of her. But, just because I have a somewhat negative opinion of Adele, does not automatically mean that everyone else who reads the novel will. It is very possible that, for example, a full-time stay-at-home mother in today’s American society that reads this novel regards Adele as the quintessential woman because she does not believe that Adele is lacking a self-discovery and she feels that Adele is doing exactly what she needs to as a mother and wife. Even though I don’t agree with this opinion, it is not my place to degrade this perspective and label it as “wrong” because I don’t believe there is a wrong opinion. All opinions are based off of what we ourselves believe is right, and there will most likely never be a general consensus among all humans on what is right.

          Another example of judging others based on our own perspectives is within the reality show “19 Kids and Counting.” This show follows the Duggar family, which consists of two parents, Michelle and Jim Bob, and their nineteen kids, all of who Michelle had herself.

The show receives criticism from many people, including claims that because they have so many children, the children will never have a special individual bond with their parents. However, Jim Bob and Michelle both completely believe that they are doing what they claim to be “God’s work for them.” They feel that they are doing the right thing by raising a large number of children that will each be, in their opinions, great members of society. Now, who is to say which opinion is correct? The Duggars may be judged and criticized by many people, but they themselves may criticize those who do not have a large number of children. I don’t believe anyone has the right to condemn the way other people live their lives, and sometimes I wish everyone would embrace the saying “to each their own.”