Social Acceptance - Essay Example

Compare/Contrast: Social acceptance in literature One of our more basic needs, the psychologists tell us, is the need to be accepted by our society. This need is so great that we are often willing to forego others needs in order to assure this need is met. To gain acceptance, people watching an accident on the street have sometimes been documented to do nothing but stand around unless someone else lifts a finger to do something first. It should not be surprising, therefore, to discover that the human need for social acceptance is a theme that runs through much of our literature of various types. Whether prose, poetry or plays, this theme can be found in some of our cherished classics such as William Shakespeare’s play Othello as well as in many of our newer works such as in Gish Jen’s short story “In American Society” or Anne Sexton’s poem “Unknown Girl in the Maternity Ward.” Shakespeare’s Othello illustrates that the problems of finding social acceptance are not a new manifestation but have been struggled against for a long time. Othello is a black man working in the service of the Prince of Venice and living in a community that is almost exclusively white. His sense of inferiority is not only based in being vastly outnumbered by people not his own color or of his own culture, but also in his personal experience of having raised himself from the position of a slave to a high status of military command. “I fetch my life and being / From men of royal siege [rank]; and my demerits [deserts] / May speak unbonneted to as proud a fortune / As this that I have reached [are equal to]” (21-23). In this statement, he not only indicates that he is now in the service of nobility but is also considered noble in his own actions and deeds, yet he remains somehow considered as ‘less than’ in the eyes of many of his fellow Venetians, as evidenced in their reaction when it is discovered he’s married Desdemona, a white woman. His desire to ‘fit in’ with society and be accepted merely as a man rather than as a black man becomes his downfall as it is manipulated and twisted by Iago. Desdemona’s own father plants the seeds of Othello’s undoing with the simple injunction to “Look to her, Moor, if thou hast eyes to see: / She has deceived her father, and may thee” (292-93), sounding in Othello’s insecure ears as a promise that the girl will soon outgrow her infatuation. Iago, having been witness to this and knowledgeable of Othello’s “free and open nature / That thinks men honest that but seem to be so; / And will as tenderly be led by th’ nose / As asses are” (393-96), uses this uncertainty to increase Othello’s doubt in his wife and himself until he is finally driven beyond his ability to withstand the pressure. Gish Jen writes about social acceptance in her short story “In American Society.” The story is narrated by a young girl as she thinks back over a period of time in which her parents owned a pancake house. As the story begins, the purchase of this pancake house can be seen as the father’s attempt at finding social acceptance in his new world: “Those Americans always saying it … Smart guys thinking in advance” (114). However, the way in which the girl’s father measures social acceptance is revealed to align itself with his concepts of social acceptance as it manifested in China. His descriptions to his children of what he remembered regarding his grandfather’s position in his village many years ago are compared to position of “The Godfather” while his actions toward his employees seem to take on the same characteristics. “The cooks and busboys complained that he asked them to fix radiators and trim hedges, not only at the restaurant but at our house; the waitresses, that he sent them on errands, and made them chauffer him around” (116). While the mother sees through all this posturing as a means of attempting to gain Chinese acceptance in America, she is also attempting to find a means of being accepted. Toward this end, she wistfully thinks about joining an exclusive country club in the area. Although it continuously sounds as if the family would be accepted simply as a means of pointing to the club’s ‘token Chinese family’, the mother remains blinded by the eagerness of her neighbor, Mrs. Lardner and the giddiness of near success. Only the two girls, born and raised in America and thus already considering themselves accepted in mainstream society, remain unchanged by the family’s successes, prompting the father’s final acknowledgement that “you girls are good swimmers … not like me” (132). In Anne Sexton’s poem “Unknown Girl in the Maternity Ward”, it quickly becomes clear that the speaker is talking to a new-born child in the few days she shares with it before it is given away, presumably for adoption. This information is provided in the first stanza, starting by naming the age of the infant, “Child, the current of your breath is six days long” (1) and ending with the idea that the mother and baby are about to be separated, “But this is an institution bed. / You will not know me very long” (10-11). The concept of conformity is brought forward as it is made clear that the girl is obviously in love with her baby, “You are fed / with love” (4-5), but that she is being forced, by the conventions of her society, to let go, “I hold / you and name you bastard in my arms / And now that’s that. There is nothing more / that I can say or lose” (32-35). At the same time, though, the poet makes sure to include information that suggests it is still the woman’s choice to give up her child. “I choose / your only way, my small inheritor / and hand you off, trembling the selves we lose / Go child, who is my sin and nothing more” (41-44). Because she is unmarried, she cannot keep the baby if she wishes to continue being accepted by her society, but she also realizes that this is her option. This unfair situation is made clear through the connection that has been formed between mother and infant, but is only commented on once by the speaker as she tells the baby, “all I did was let you grow” (16). Although the woman must undergo this tremendous heartbreak in giving up her child, something she now realizes is a part of herself she is cutting off, the speaker knows that by doing this both she and her child may be provided the kind of social acceptance and possibility that would never be granted to a single young mother and a bastard child within her society. However, she differs from many literary characters seeking social acceptance in that, once the baby and mother are separated, both are reasonably assured of renewed acceptance. Through all of these stories, a common thread of a need to belong can be traced. While Othello has found a type of acceptance within his Venetian society, his decision to marry Desdemona reveals to him that he is not completely accepted as an equal and he is driven to find a means of gaining this equal status. It is the same equal status that the narrator’s father and mother seek in “In American Society” after having already gained some semblance of acceptance in their individual successes. In both cases, the individuals are immediately singled out of the general crush because of their physical differences yet are otherwise virtually indistinguishable from those around them. Their inability to find acceptance is founded not only on the reactions of others to them, but also upon their ‘unusual’ reactions to others. Strongly held beliefs in other cultures, such as that of Othello, the mother or the father, are not necessarily held so strongly in the cultures in which they are trying to make a new home. These differences are difficult to recognize by the individuals but often quickly identified by the observers. An exception to this is when the outsider has once been an insider, such as is the case in Sexton’s poem. Here, the speaker is well aware of the social customs that have been broken and what must be done to set them right again. This knowledge does not make the process any easier for her, but here, at least, there is hope that the individual will eventually find the acceptance, if not the wholeness, that she seeks. Works Cited Jen, Gish. “In American Society.” Who’s Irish? New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1999: 114-132. Sexton, Anne. “Unknown Girl in the Maternity Ward.” The Complete Poems of Anne Sexton. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1981. Shakespeare, William. “The Tragedy of Othello: The Moor of Venice.” The Complete Pelican Shakespeare. New York: Penguin Books, 1969. pp. 1018-1060. Read More