Well oiled civil rights by Kevitivity licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 GenericKatz's Tough Guise and the short story "The Man Who Was Almost a Man" have a very important point in common. A part was about young criminals, especially high school students who grew fear and shot students just like a terrorist. All the killer boys have one major thing in common - they didn't get enough respect, in other words, they weren't treated as men. So they wanted to have that extreme power in their hands with their guns. Now nobody would dare not to have the utmost respect for them. Dave in the short story is the same person. The mule I think is a complete symbol because the author didn't want to lead the story to killing people. Interesting to see how they are similar. More interesting to see how far a boy can go to be considered as a man. And the most interesting is that they don't understand that you never become a man if you seek that respect with those methods.
That image has a chilling title...
ReplyDeleteA very interesting comparison of the film and the story. These school shootings are incredibly disturbing. I don't see our culture discussing the massive amount of bullying and social exclusion that take place in American high schools. I remember it all too well, as I was frequently the victim of it (and I'm still scarred by it). As Jackson Katz says, the knee-jerk reaction is to blame the parents, Marilyn Manson, etc. Ironically, Marilyn Manson is one of the few people who has made any intelligent comments about the causes of violence in schools!