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Normative Ethics
Normative Ethics
In the short story, The German Refugee, the narrator and a German refugee, Oscar, develop a unique friendship. The narrator, a poor senior in college, tutors immigrants in the English language to make some extra money due to the poor economy after the Great Depression. His student Oscar is much like his other students, an educated refugee, however Oscar is quite a challenge for the tutor. Oscar came to America as a lecturer. However, “the thought of giving the lecture in English just about paralyzed him (Malamud 440).” Oscar had left his wife and was troubled with depression from his life changes. As they performed the English lessons, step by step a friendship emerged, and even though Oscar had given up on the lessons, the narrator still visited Oscar trying to help him right his lecture.
Eventually, Oscar began to confide in the young American, and told him he had once tried to commit suicide during his first week in America. The narrator shows kindness and compassion, still trying to help Oscar write and translate his lecture. However, they never get past the first page. Instead of writing the lecture on every visit, the two both sit in silence in the heat of his apartment. “It was sticky, hot July and the heat didn’t help at all (Malamud 442).” The narrator then decides to buy a second hand fan for Oscar. An action that however minute is the right action to perform. Although the fan only last a week, the narrator’s action of kindness is good, by three normative ethicist, David Hume, Immanuel Kant, and John Stewart Mills, this small action performed can be shown to be the right action.
The moral normative theory, Subjectivism, from Hume’s philosophy examines the moral pleasure the narrator receives by doing this action. Subjectivism states that an action is the right action for an agent if and only if the agent when performing this action gains moral pleasure from it, or as Hume would say, “An action, or sentiment or character, is virtuous or vicious; why? because its view causes a pleasure or uneasiness of a particular kind… The very feeling constitutes our praise or admiration (Hume 44).” To understand this normative status, the definition of moral pleasure must be described. Moral pleasure is not the same as mere pleasurable feelings. However, it is the feeling of morally wrong or morally right within each person. This is what makes subjectivism subjective, different for different people. Thus, an action is not necessarily wrong just because the action may seem morally wrong to some one else. Second in Subjectivism, Hume is concerned with actions, but the definition of the kind of actions is important. Hume does not mean all actions. He divides actions into three categories: actions that are morally right, actions that are morally wrong, and actions that are morally neutral. These divisions are also subjective to each individual, because each individual will evaluate each action differently. Lying in a particular instance may be morally neutral to one person. It may be morally wrong to another, and it may be morally right to yet another person.
To apply Hume’s Subjectivism to the short story, the action must be defined. For this normative theory and all the theories, the action is buying the second hand fan and giving it to Oscar. It is easily seen that this action brought moral pleasure to the narrator. He has done a simple selflishless act for the depressed immigrant. Thus by the definition of subjectivism, the action was the right action to have performed.
The second moral normative theory is the Categorical Imperative by the philosopher Kant. The categorical imperative has three formulations, but for determining whether the narrator performed the right action, I will use the first formulation. “Act only on that maxim whereby thou canst at the same time will that it should become a universal law (Kant 38).” In a more scientific wording, the first formulation of the categorical imperative states that an action is morally right if and only if the generalized maxim of the action could be willed to be a universal law of nature.
This definition requires many terms to be more clearly defined. First, the word maxim is “a subjective principle of volition” or in other words how an individual is going to act in a their situation (Kant 17). Maxims are usually stated; whenever I am tired, I shall sleep. However for the purpose of the Categorical Imperative, maxims must be generalized applying to all. So whenever I am tired, I shall sleep, becomes whenever anyone is tired, he or she shall sleep. The maxims are used by Kant to describe how an individual acts in their situation, and the generalized maxims are used show how all people should act in the situation. Next, the word imperative means a command. However, there are two types of imperatives. The hypothetical imperative like if you want an A on your paper, then work for hours writing it. Then, the categorical imperatives that state do something. The hypothetical is subjective, different for different people, and changes over time. For instance, not everyone has to work for hours to get an A, and over time maybe there will be no more grades. Categorical imperatives are necessary and universal. Categorical imperatives like keep your promises will always exist for all time making them necessary, and apply to everyone making them universal. Next, the concept of willing must be elaborated on. Willing something means to think of something in such a way that thinking it makes it the case, or thinking it brings that state of affairs about. In the categorical imperative the agent is willing the generalized maxim and there are two conditions that the maxim must have for the person to be able to will it. These to principles of willings are that they must be consistent (both internally consistent and with all other willings), and the willings must be rational (what a rational agent would will). Finally, the last statement in the first formulation of the Categorical Imperative, a universal law of nature is defined as a universal statement about how everything must be. For a universal law of nature to be true, it must meet the two conditions of willing.
Now that the Categorical Imperative has been completely defined it can be used to evaluate the action, buying a second hand fan for Oscar. The first a maxim must be formulated from the action. In this case the maxim is when ever the narrator feels the need to cheer up his friend Oscar and his apartment is very hot, he should buy a second hand fan for Oscar. Then, the maxim must be generalized. The generalized maxim is whenever anyone feels the need to cheer up his or her friend and his or her friend’s apartment is very hot, he or she should buy a second hand fan for his or her friend. This generalized maxim must then be willed, meeting the two conditions on willing. It is consistent, but to prove the maximums consistency, it is best to look at why it is not inconsistent. If it is inconsistent it contradicts with its self like if it had been whenever anyone is down I will make him or her feel worse about his or her self in order to realize it was not so bad before. It would be obviously inconsistent, but there is no obvious contradiction like such in the narrator’s maxim. The second part of consistency is that the willing must be consistent with all other willings. This maxim is consistent with all other willings because the narrator only wills to help not harm Oscar. Second, the maxim is rational for a rational agent would will. Giving a simple gift to his sad and hot friend to cheer him up has no irrational consequences and only benefits the nariator. So the action is the morally right action to perform by Kant’s first formulation of the Categorical Imperative, because the generalized maxim of the action can be willed to be a universal law of nature.
The last moral normative theory is Utilitarianism by John Stewart Mill. Utilitarianism is teleological moral normative theory because it deals with the amount of pleasure or pain that occurs after the action is performed. As Mill states, “Actions are right in portion as they tend to promote happiness; wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness (Mill, 7).” Utilitarianism in other words is that an action is morally right if and only if it maximizes utility. In Utilitarianism, Mill is mainly concerned with the amount of happiness, “By happiness is intended pleasure and the absence of pain; by unhappiness, pain and the privation of pleasures a consequence of an action (Mill 7).” By the amount of pleasure he means the total amount of pleasure of everyone that is effected by each action. He uses the term hedonic value of an action if the action is performed to describe the amount of pleasure that occurs from this action, and the term doloric value of an action if the action is performed to describe the amount of pain that occurs from this action. Hedonic values are represent by a positive number, and a negative number represents doloric values. The utility of an action is defined, as the total amount of pleasure an action would produce if performed plus the total amount of pain an action would produce if performed. With the utility, the person wants the maximized utility. In utilitarianism a person must consider all actions. Thus, there is always an alternative action. Action two, that is an alternative of action one, meaning action two is another act that the agent who could perform action one could perform at the same time as action one instead of action one. Basically, there is more than one action in utilitarianism and the person must choose the action that when the pleasure and pain is added together has the greatest numerical value.
For example the action of buying the second hand fan for Oscar can best be shown in this chart.?The hedonic value for buying the fan for Oscar is about a 45. “He sat in the breeze for hours each day until after a week, shortly after the Soviet-Nazi nonaggression pact was signed, the motor gave out.” Though the fan only lasted a week during this time the fan was used by Oscar, the narrator felt pleasure for unselfishly giving, and the hedonic value of pleasure for each person was about 20. However, that is not the only hedonic value for buying this fan. The person he bought it from gains some happiness with a value at 5. Though, with this action also comes a doloric value of -5, because the motor gave out after only a week. Oscar probably missed the fan when it was gone. So the total utility of this action is a positive 40. Although the narrator could of chosen another action. He could of chosen to do nothing. In this instance the hedonic value would be 0. Though th!
e doloric value might be -10 from the guilt the narrator may have felt knowing the heat Oscar had to endear. The total utility of the second action is negative 10. Utilitarianism requires that in order to determine the right action a person must calculate all possible actions. However for this paper, these two actions give a good example of utility and by these two examples, even though these are not all the possibilities that exists, then the narrator has performed the maximized utility,the right action.
The narrator has by all three normative theories performed a right action. By Hume’s subjectivism, the narrator performed the right action because it brought him moral pleasure. By Kant’s first formulation of the categorical imperative, the narrator performed the right action because it formed a willable generalized maxim for the Universal law of nature. Then finally by John Stewarts Mill’s Utilitarianism, the narrator performed the right action because it maximized the utility.
Bibliography:
Hume, David. Moral and Political Philosophy. Aiken Henry. New York: Hapner Press, 1948.
Kant, Immanuel. Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals, Second ed. White beck, Lewis. Upper Saddle River: Prentice Hall, 1995.
Malamud, Bernard. The German Refugee. The Best American Short Stories, ed John Updike, Hajhtan: Mifflin Company, 1999.
Mill, John Stewart. Utilitarianism. Sher, George. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 1979.
Nonverbal communication and language are different
Nonverbal Communication
Nonverbal communication and language are different. There has been some research claiming that humans used nonverbal communication before they developed a language. Nonverbal communication is the process of sending and receiving messages without using words by means of facial expressions, eye contact, gestures, postures, physical appearance, and tones of voice. The concept of nonverbal communication is complex. It is almost impossible to know exactly what it includes, but the majority of our talking is done without speaking.
No one can speak more than one word at a time, but nonverbal messages can be sent in multiple ways at the same time. The meaning of nonverbal messages differs between cultures (Morreale, Spitzberg, and Barge, Human Communication: Motivation, Knowledge, & Skills, 119), races, and sometimes gender (Burgoon and Saine, The Unspoken Dialogue: An Introduction to Nonverbal Communication, 130). Nonverbal and verbal communications sometimes contradict each other because people are sometimes unaware of the nonverbal messages that they send (Morreale, Spitzberg, and Barge, Human Communication: Motivation, Knowledge, & Skills, 119).
The movement of the body makes up a language, in which certain movements have specific meanings. Kinesics focuses on how people communicate through movement and posture, gestures, and the face and eyes (Morreale, Spitzberg, and Barge, Human Communication: Motivation, Knowledge, & Skills, 124). Kinesics refers to all types of body movement, except for touch, that may act as nonverbal communication. Body movement and posture are known as body language.
Gestures are large and small movements of the hands and arms that send messages. Gestures complement our speech, bridge our silences, send unspoken messages, or express our approval or disapproval (Lamb and Watson, Body Code: The Meaning in Movement, 1). Negative gestures like fidgeting lets others know that a speaker is nervous and has a lack of confidence. Speakers who don’t use any type of gesturing seem insecure and uncertain (Morreale, Spitzberg, and Barge, Human Communication: Motivation, Knowledge, & Skills, 125).
Sign language is any type of hand gesture that replaces specific words or numbers. It can range from a single hand gesture, such as a peace sign, to the language system of the deaf (Burgoon and Saine, The Unspoken Dialogue: An Introduction to Nonverbal Communication, 53). Sign language was developed in the sixteenth century when Geronimo Cardano said that deaf people could learn and understand sign communication. Sign language is used throughout the world, not only by deaf people, but also by people that want to interact with them.
Familiar hand gestures that we give specific meanings to may have different meanings for different people. For example, in the 1950s, Vice President Richard Nixon went on a tour of Latin America. When he stepped off his airplane he flashed the OK sign. The crowd booed him because in their culture, it meant, “Screw you” (Burgoon and Saine, The Unspoken Dialogue: An Introduction to Nonverbal Communication, 29-55).
Researchers have found differences of body language between gender and race. When men communicate power they often have an open body posture, using both the arms and legs. By comparison, women don’t expand as much. When women feel less powerful, they tend to lessen the amount of space their body takes up and tilt their head (Morreale, Spitzberg, and Barge, Human Communication: Motivation, Knowledge, & Skills, 124). Young blacks have developed movements that are quite different than whites. Kenneth Johnson, a researcher in ethnic studies at the University of California at Berkeley, has described distinctive manners of black youths. According to Kenneth Johnson:
“There is a style of black male walking behavior, called in street jargon the pimp strut, which functions as an attention-getting device and serves to exhibit one’s masculinity and state one’s racial pride, self-confidence, and control. The young Black males’ walk is different. First of all, it’s much slower—it’s more of a stroll. The head is sometimes elevated and casually tipped to the side. Only one arm swings at the side with the hand slightly cupped. The other arm hangs limply to the side or it is tucked in the pocket. The gait is slow, casual and rhythmic. The gait is almost like a walking dance, with all parts of the body moving in rhythmic harmony” (Burgoon and Saine, The Unspoken Dialogue: An
Introduction to Nonverbal Communication, 130).
Movements of the face that are used to send messages are known as facial expressions. “Facial expressions may be controlled or uncontrolled” (Moss and Tubbs, Interpersonal Communication, 53). Certain facial expressions may be voluntary and some may be involuntary. The human face is capable of displaying six basic emotions such as sadness, fear, surprise, disgust, anger, and happiness (Morreale, Spitzberg, and Barge, Human Communication: Motivation, Knowledge, & Skills, 126).
Eye contact is also an important part of kinesics. Gazing is the very core of the concept of eye contact when dealing with nonverbal communication. The duration of a gaze can have mixed effects. If the gaze is maintained for one hundred percent of the conversation, it will be more likely uncomfortable to both the speaker and the listener. On the other hand, if the gaze is maintained for about seventy percent of the time, the results are then positive. This maintains a positive, sincere, and more normal environment (Moss and Tubbs, Interpersonal Communication, 68).
There have been some research studies that indicate that white males tend to engage in more eye contact than black males. Also the research indicates that black men engage in the least amount of eye contact then interacting with a white male. When blacks use a particular roll of the eyes in talking with whites, Kenneth Johnson says, “The movement of the eyes communicates all or parts of the message. The main message is hostility” (Burgoon and Saine, The Unspoken Dialogue: An Introduction to Nonverbal Communication, 130).
Proxemics is the studies of how humans perceive, organize, and use space to communicate. Everything from how far you stand from students in line to how you arrange furniture in your bedroom all fit in this category. Humans have two kinds of needs, affiliated needs and privacy needs. Humans are very social creatures and at times we want to affiliate with others, but at other times, we need to have some privacy.
Selected individuals such as family and friends satisfy our affiliated needs. That is why we want contact with certain people rather than random individuals. Our need for privacy is really a need to control and to have the freedom to be alone. Proxemics includes territoriality and personal space.
Territoriality refers to claiming and defending a territory as one’s own. Territories are staked out as a means of protecting the self and providing privacy. Someone’s house, apartment, or room is their territory and they have the right to defend it against intruders. For example, many students pick out their own chair in a classroom and return to it for the rest of the course. Many housewives think of their kitchen as their territory and they will get mad if a child, husband, or even friends interfere.
There are different types of territories. They include public territory (places open to the public), interactional (social interaction), and home territory (any geographical place that someone regards as their home), and body territory (the human body and its surrounding space) (Burgoon and Saine, The Unspoken Dialogue: An Introduction to Nonverbal Communication, 92). All of these territories play a huge role in nonverbal communication. Personality, culture, and physical expressions are all derived from these territories of proxemics (Lamb and Watson, Body Code: The Meaning in Movement, 89).
Personal space refers to the space around a person’s body. Personal space differs from territoriality in that it is not a fixed space. This space increases and decreases according to the situation. It may be very large when a person is in a strange environment and may shrink to nothing in the presence of a loved one.
Haptics is the study of touch. According to Desmond Morris, “We are a touch-starved society.” This quotation emphasizes the reason why touch is considered to have such potential for communication. Humans need to touch and be touched. Contact is necessary as a means of communication between mother and child. Touch also plays a role in psychological development. Only through touching his or her own body and objects in the environment can help the child to begin to recognize him or her as separate from the rest of the environment. Children learn sizes, shapes, and textures through touching things. The way a child perceives things is dependent on haptic experiences. The self-explorations that children engage in also contribute to their own body images, to whether or not they are comfortable with their own bodies. The perceptions that children acquire are dependent on how others react to them.
Physical contact is also important to a child’s psychological sense of security and well-being. Touching seems to provide a source of reassurance and comfort. It helps to release negative feelings. The final importance of touch is social in nature. Physical contact appears to be necessary for the development of interpersonal relationships. Touch experiences can strongly influence a person’s ability to relate to others, to trust them, and to be sensitive to others needs. Psychiatrists have linked many marital problems to inadequate or inappropriate experiences in childhood. Violence and aggression may have the same cause.
A number of studies have indicated that serious biological, psychological, and sociological problems do result when humans are deprived of touch. Research has suggested that a number of children that are placed in orphanages develop serious health and behavior problems. Lack of physical contact in childhood has led to such problems as allergies, speech difficulties, and learning disabilities later in life.
Adults and adolescents need and want physical contact. At least in intimate relationships, touch is an important part of the communication between two people. Lack of touch is taken as a sign that something is wrong in the relationship. Desmond Morris claims that in our culture we turn to “licensed torchers” such as hair stylists, barbers, manicurists, and masseuses. Even if body contact is not the main reason for seeking such services, the body contact is a satisfying result. This need for touch is due to the high degree of isolation that our culture has created.
The increasing of urbanization has left people not knowing most of the people that we see in a day’s time. We do not know whom we can trust and so we avoid contact with each other. These feelings of isolation and uncertainty are brought on by stress from living in urban environments. Too many people, too much noise, too little room, and too much activity are causes of environmental stress (Burgoon and Saine, The Unspoken Dialogue: An Introduction to Nonverbal Communication, 69-70).
One way that people express themselves is through their physical appearance. Physical appearance, which includes our natural body features, dress, accessories, and cosmetics, is usually the first nonverbal code to have an impact on a relationship. It affects the visual, touch, and smell senses. These items convey a great deal of detailed information about someone’s lifestyles, personality, and values.
Americans today are obsessed with beauty. Physical attractiveness may be influential in determining whether a person is preferred. It may have a bearing on whether a person is able to persuade or manipulate others. Cosmetics and fashion are multimillion-dollar industries. People spend great sums of money for products, programs, and secrets to take off pounds or put them on, to get rid of wrinkles, to straighten or curly hair, to eliminate odors and create new ones and to hold in bulges. Women use bras and girdles, while some men use stiff collars and neckties to become beautiful or attractive people. Some men have hair transplants to cure baldness. Sometimes men and women have plastic surgery to alter their image.
The stereotypes of beauty are embedded in our culture. People’s obsession comes from television. Commercials and advertisements show models for what people should look like. Usually on television, the typical housewife or working man is attractive in some way.
Another important artifact that reflects on how good of an impression a person is given by someone is how he or she wears his or her hair. A person’s hairstyle depends on their personality. Hair has, at various times, been braided, curled, straightened, hardened, colored, cut, shaved off, or covered with a wig or weave, all in the name of beauty. Different cultures have different ways in which they maintain and style their hair. In some cultures, facial hair has been admired and taken as a sign of status (Moss and Tubbs, Interpersonal Communication, 78).
Like cosmetics and hair fashions, clothing and jewelry have played a significant role in beautification. There are a range of styles and materials that have been considered attractive. The importance of clothing is a central aspect of impression. Clothes seem to be important to first impressions. In one study, males and females were asked what things that they noticed first about a person. Females and males noticed clothes first, but for members of the opposite sex the face and figure were first.
Vocalics, also called paralanguage, is another form of nonverbal communication.
Vocalics includes the elements produced by the human voice, other than the words themselves. There are elements of the human voice that contribute to nonverbal communication such as intensity (volume), rate (the speed at which a person talks), and pitch (lowness and highness of the voice) (Morreale, Spitzberg, and Barge, Human Communication: Motivation, Knowledge, & Skills, 129). Everything from sniffs and sneezes to rapid speech and singing fall into this category. Silences and pauses in speech also fall into this category (Burgoon and Saine, The Unspoken Dialogue: An Introduction to Nonverbal Communication, 80).
Vocal cues carry important messages. They carry a variety of information, ranging from the speaker’s sex and ethnic background to personality. Vocal cues send messages of attraction and dislike and they can also reveal status and power (Burgoon and Saine, The Unspoken Dialogue: An Introduction to Nonverbal Communication, 84).
Vocal cues can distinguish emotions and also influence our thoughts about personality (Moss and Tubbs, Interpersonal Communication, 180). Several distinct emotions can be accurately identified solely on the basis of vocal cues. The rate of speech is very important in communication. A faster speed rate, as well as shorter comments and more frequent pauses, is linked to fear or anger. A slower speech rate can be linked to depression (Burgoon and Saine, The Unspoken Dialogue: An Introduction to Nonverbal Communication, 84).
In conclusion, nonverbal communication is often used more than verbal communication to show emotions and the relationship part of a message. People use verbal communication to express facts, opinions, ideas, whereas, nonverbal communication is used to express or show feelings (Morreale, Spitzberg, and Barge, Human Communication: Motivation, Knowledge, & Skills, 119).
There has been some research to show that there is some kind of difference between the nonverbal behaviors between blacks and whites and also between men and women (Burgoon and Saine, The Unspoken Dialogue: An Introduction to Nonverbal Communication, 130).
Nonverbal communication has many functions. It works in one or three ways: it replaces, reinforces, or contradicts a verbal message. A person can improve their use of nonverbal communication by being perceptive to context, audience, and feedback. The context includes the physical setting and the situation.
Touch is a significant aspect of nonverbal communication. It has also been concluded that there is a strong correlation between lack of physical pleasure and violence: the more pleasure, the less violence and vice versa. Cultures that display a lot of physical affection toward infants have a low incidence of theft, murder, rape, and physical punishments, while those that deny physical pleasure to infants generally have high rates of adult violence.
Physical appearance, which is also important in nonverbal communication, seems to be a large factor in determining how others judge personalities, sexuality, social status, and often happiness.
Bibliography:
Burgoon, Judee K. and Thomas Saine. The Unspoken Dialogue: An Introduction to
Nonverbal Communication. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1978.
Lamb, Warren and Elizabeth Watson. Body Code: The Meaning in Movement. Princeton,
NJ: Princeton Book Company, 1987.
Morreale, Sherwyn P., Brian H. Spitzberg, and J. Kevin Barge. Human Communication:
Motivation, Knowledge, & Skills. Belmont, CA: Thomson Learning, Inc., 2001.
Stephen, P. Atlas of Facial Expressions. New York, NY: Springer, 1987.
Moss, S. and S. L. Tubbs. Interpersonal Communication. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin,
1978.
Non-Biological Families and Their Relationships
Non-Biological Families and Their Relationships
In Erdrich’s “Foreword,” the concept of non-biological families and their relationships are brought to light. The author is telling a story about a period in her life. She married a man who had a son with a disease. She shows us how, although she wasn’t biologically attached to the child, because of her closeness to him and the relationship she created with him, they became a true family that cared and loved each other. This love of a non-biological family is even greater than that of a normal biological family.
In Erdrich’s “Foreword,” we see the best example of how relationships within a family strengthen that family and makes then closer together. This story is so unique because she is not the child’s biological mother. She married a man who had adopted this child and in marrying him she adopted him too. Even with these obstacles, she was able to create a closeness and special bond with the child and keep their family together, with loving care.
The author begins with a tragic story of her child Adam, who suffers from Fetal Alcohol Syndrome. He was shoveling the snow and had one of his many seizures. Right away we see her love and special relationship with her child by saying, “Jumping into the snow I felt a moment of obscure gratitude to Michael for letting me go to Adam’s rescue.” In life, when someone has to do something, even if it involves helping a loved one, out of our natural laziness we always try to go out of it, especially when there is someone else to do it for us. Here we see just the opposite. She rushes out first and is thankful that she can be the one that helps and ultimately saves her child. This shows us her love for this child, which is so great and must be from a special bond she has with him.
She goes on to explain how when she got married and ultimately adopted the children, the judge announced it was final. “Adam turned to me with delight and said, “Mom!” not Louise.” This is a very powerful statement. One can feel the emotion going through the author’s body. Her eyes watering with tears of joy and happiness. She is overjoyed with emotion that this child which she loves so much and was able to build a powerful relationship with, loves her back with the same enthusiasm.
Once Michael went out of town and she was left to take care of the children by herself, for the first time. Being that Michael was a parent for more time than Louise, Adam feared him more and thought he could get away with making trouble while she was in charge. The other kids had all finished eating dinner and Adam’s plate was still untouched. She begged and yelled at him to eat, but to no avail. She knew if he did not eat, he would suffer an attack in the morning. She made him his favorite sandwich. Nevertheless, Adam was still being stubborn and did not eat and she did not know what to do. She loved him like her own biological son. She had a special bond and relationship with him, but said “If I can’t help him to survive in the simplest way, how can I be his mother?” She was so upset that her love for him was not enough and she was losing their aura of a family because she could not take care of him. This hurt her so much she began to panic. How can one love someone so much and not be able to help them? It is a scary thought. She goes on to say, “I don’t think I can handle it.” She is afraid that she cannot handle Adam and this hurts her so much because of her love for him. It is like someone you love is dying and you can do nothing to help them. You feel helpless and guilty. This is what she had to go through. This is her love for Adam. He is not her biological child but her closeness and relationship with him is much closer than most Biological mothers and sons, which make them a close and unique family.
We see this same idea of a non-biological relationship in Cheever’s “The Nanny Dilemma.” The author tells a story about a woman named Dominique who is an immigrant to the United States, coming from Trinidad. Like many woman immigrants from there, as well as other Caribbean islands, she got hired to work as a nanny for some rich family living in New York City. She loved this job so much. She had her own apartment, clothes, got paid very well and was part of a family. Of course, she was not literally part of the family she was working for, but she had a special relationship with them. From knowing every move the parents make and what they need, to being a supplemental mother and sometimes a father figure to the children when the parents are not there, that was her job.
Her day starts off with going to the house, finding the parents trying to get ready for work, the kids all screaming and not being taken care of. Quickly, she sends the parents off to work and tends to the children’s needs. She spends most of the day and the early part of the night with the children. As in Erdrich’s “Foreword,” she begins to create a bond with her non-biological kids. Over time she develops a closeness and special relationship with them. They consider her a sub-mom, one that is there during the day and is replaced at night. She loves the children as if they were her own and they love her as if she were their real mother.
She explains however, why she is upset with the parents. She loves the children and knows that the children need to be loved. She says, “They want us to be mother and father to these children . . . they are the ones who brought the kids into the world, but then they don’t have time to raise them. So the kids get attached to you, because you’re the one who’s always there. Then the parents get angry” (Cheever 158-159). Unlike Erdrich, in which Louise has none else to fight with over the child’s love, Dominique has the real parents to deal with. She loves the children like her own, but has to keep a distance because she does not want to upset the parents. This is a hard thing to do. The real downside, however, is when her job is done and she is relieved of her duties because they do not need her anymore. It is like losing a loved one for life. She loved these kids and they loved her, now they are saying goodbye forever. Unlike Erdrich, where they had their whole lives to spend together and Louise was not going anywhere, Dominique says “When you leave, the children can be devastated – and it can break your heart too.”
In Gates’s “Down to Cumberland,” we see this idea of a non-biological family having a closer relationship than that of a biological one. However, the author now shows this point through a different view. We see from this story how a biological family has a very distant relationship, unlike the non-biological families I have mentioned thus far. He starts by saying “I saw the Gateses all together on only two occasions in my childhood, and those were my grandparents’ funeral”(Gates 147). He continues by telling the story of his father’s family, which he only knows from an album full of pictures. He found this album in his grandfather’s trunk, in which each picture tells a story. Every relative had a problem with another one. His grandfather hated his sisters, his father hated his grandmother and so on. He went on to say that even on occasions where they would go down and visit his father’s brothers and sisters, “Daddy would drink a beer and spend a lot of time talking to his old buddies from Carver High School”(Gates 151), and not with his own family. Gates went on to tell of stories where his aunt was engaged to a very nice gentleman. Her fiancé was drafted in the war and never returned home. He ended up marrying some young woman he met in Paris. We see from this that even one of the closest relationships within a family of a husband and wife, wasn’t close enough for them to stay together. Though he mentions that he is close with his mother’s family, we see the main idea of Erdrich’s, that non biological families have closer relationships, since he was not close with his biological family.
Relationships are very powerful things. They can make people happy and sad and sometimes both at the same time. A relationship is a bond that two or more people share with each other. Through a family is one of the strongest forms of relationships. However, a non-biological family has a stronger relationship than that of a biological one. From Erdrich’s “Foreword,” we see this strong relationship with a non-biological family. Though Cheever’s “The Nanny Dilemma” and Gates’s “Down to Cumberland” differ with each other and with Erdrich, they all share this same underlining characteristic. Families have the strongest relationships with each other than any other type of relationship known. Ironically, it is the non-biological families rather than biological ones that are usually more intense and closer.
Bibliography:
Cheever, Susan. “The Nanny Dilemma.” Making Contact: Readings from Home and Abroad. Ed. Carol J. Verburg. Boston: Bedford Books, 1997. 155-163.
Erdrich, Louise. “Foreword.” Making Contact: Readings from Home and Abroad. Ed. Carol J. Verburg. Boston: Bedford Books, 1997. 137-145.
Gates, Henry Louis, Jr. “Down to Cumberland.” Making Contact: Readings from Home and Abroad. Ed. Carol J. Verburg. Boston: Bedford Books, 1997. 146-154