Black Veil And The Community example essay topic

697 words
In today's society, American literature illustrates the way a society or a community can affect an individual. It shows the ways of what a society can do to others, whether it is positive or negative. They may have different beliefs than an individual and they think that everyone in the society should think and believe the same things. In comparing early Americans to Americans today, I think these influences are the same, but in another way they are different. Today, people are more aware of all the influences they will be faced with in life. I think it will always be tough for people and the way their community affects them personally.

In the story, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, there are a few characters that are affected by a community. An obvious one to me is Jim. Jim is a slave, which makes him have to do whatever his owners or others order him. He doesn't really have a choice or opinion about things.

He just follows what people do. I think this book really illustrates this in the book, because slaves are kind of a prime example of an affected individual by a community or society. They don't really get a say about anything, they just have to go along with the majority of the people. Also, in this book, Huck is affected by the society he lives in. He feels that there are way too many rules and laws and just wants to do what he wants and when he wants.

It affects him throughout the whole story because whenever he gets back into civilization and has to follow rules, he feels this way. He feels very strongly about this too. I think this makes Huck more determined to run away from civilization. The short story, "The Minister's Black Veil", is a story about a preacher who wears a black veil and the community around him urges him to take it off.

He thinks that he preaches more stronger when he wears it. When the members of the parish first see him wearing the black veil, they don't like it at all and they think he has gone crazy. In doing this, he is isolating himself from the rest of the world, and it's affecting his perceptions of the world. In this case, it's not so much of the community affecting an individual, but an individual affecting himself and his view of the world.

The last story related to this topic, is "Walden". Thoreau is a person who believes you should be strong and pursue your dreams and do what you want. He doesn't let the world around him influence his beliefs and what he thinks is right. He does what he wants. Thoreau decides to take up an abode in the woods and he begins to spend nights as well as days there. He tries to get away from the world and all of it's influences.

He feels that his place will be peaceful and interrupted. In these three stories, you can see how each one of them relates to individuals and how they can be affected by a community or society. Each one has a different view about it. In Huckleberry Finn, the two characters mentioned are affected by the way the society treats them. In The "Minister's Black Veil", the main character is affecting his own life by choosing what he does, instead of listening to the society and what might be right.

And in "Walden", the character decides he doesn't want to follow the people and doesn't want to be influenced by the people around him, so he leaves and decides he should do what he feels is right and what he wants to do. Based on all of these stories, the stories conclude that societies can affect you life and what you do, but like Thoreau in "Walden", you can change all that and believe in yourself and pursue what you feel is right.