The relationship of human and his
environment has always been the issue in numerous literatures. Some of the
writers expressed the dominance of human over the nature while others tried to
debunk it. And in the story “A Dark Brown Dog”, the power (or the dominance) of
environment over human is well-depicted.
The good example
that can explain the claim can be a child. Children are usually said to be “innocent”.
That is, children are less influenced by the environment (or social orders)
than any other people. Although there is still a natural brute in children’s
mind, it is usually hidden in the childhood, and the extent of the innate brute
expressed is decided by the environment. The child in the story shows the
example of the child affected by his surroundings. (No offense to lower-paid
class but) Surely, lower class people are mostly prone to savageness. They didn’t
have much opportunity to learn how to hide their savageness with a slip of ‘civilization’.
And the insecurity in dealing with critical situations being transmitted from
the parents, a child might have become much violent than he might have been
under the educated parents. Although he loves his dog in the base, having a
natural affection towards the animal, (“The child, crying softly, took his friend
off to a ~”), he anyway displaced his ‘savageness’ and anger to his dog (“Sometimes,
too, the child himself used to beat the dog”). These two contradicting
behaviors of the child shows that even the child, who is known to be “innocent”,
can be tainted with the environment.
------------------------Comments--------------------------------------
Seungwon:
I literally never thought of the child as being innocent. I saw him for a
miserable little prick that couldn’t be better than his good-for nothing father
and ultimately shows his true colors. But you’re right. He does “love” the dog,
or, to be more precise, “has an emotional attachment” to the dog (I don’t
believe a child of his age is fully capable of feeling love). Maybe in that
sense he still has an untainted shred of him.
Inhee:
Wow I find so many different views today. J All
these gives me the idea but at the same time sorta confuses meL
Anyway,
your view of how ‘child’ was used in the story was interesting. Taking ‘naturalism’
into mind, I thought this ‘child’ somehow showed human’s basic nature of
savage. Civilization in this sense can be just a way to hide this. But reading
yours, I think it also makes sense that this child’s violence was the influence
of his father. But I would have liked your writing more if you specified the
reason why you thought this way. Father’s violence might be one way, but this
does not sufficiently explain how can you eliminate (or just debunk) the
possibility of this as a human nature. Anyway, I really enjoyed this!
Yeji:
Interesting essay J
I think (though I’m not sure) what you’re trying to
discuss is the “influence” of environment to mankind, rather than dominance. If
I’m right, I think that you can develop your essay in this way: 1) specific
case of human being influenced by the environment, 2) general human brute. 1)
is of course the part you wrote about a boy, For the second part: well, as we
discussed in today’s class, it is proved (or at least, naturalists seemed to
prove) that there exists “potential violence” as a part of human nature. That
is, when given the right situation-impoverishment and violent father in the boy’s
case- humans can develop and exert their violent nature. You can give general
example of World War, the chronological background of naturalism, when writing
this part. Anyway, great job, and look forward to your revised version J
