Hey, it's Brittany! Ok, so to get this started off, I thought we should talk about the connection between Clarisse's question of Guy being happy and us.
Personally, I really like Clarisse, she has an interesting character... but a lot of what she says about their society, may slowly become like our society. But I'm getting away from the question I originally wanted to ask and discuss.
Clarisse asks Guy a really simple question that changes his whole perspective. She asks, "Are you happy?"
So, I was wondering, as individuals, are we happy? Are we happy as a society? Why are we or are we not happy?
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I think as individuals we are happy, except sometimes we are expected to be happy all the time. We think we are supposed to be happy and being unhappy is abnormal.
This is Eric, and to answer your question, I think most people seem to be happy in some ways but hide certain things from society in order to retain what is expected. Carl Jung thought that personas were how we codified our ego in order to gain accpetance/approval. This really seems apparant with Guy. Guy goes to work and comes home to his wife but feels awkward when discussing with Clarisse about his happiness. When people ask another if they are happy, the other person may temporarily say yes, but subconsciously think that he is not. However this persona is so heavy that his true happiness is hard to reveal.
I had a good answer to this and I just can't get it into words right now, my brain is shot. so I'm gonna think of it tomorrow and post it then. I'll post much more tomorrow. Goodnight everybody.(Obviously, don't include this when we turn the paper in.)
That's really true, Laurie. We are all expected to be happy, and once we realize that we aren't happy, or once we become unhappy, it is considered to be abnormal.
We are given times that we're supposed to feel and times that we're not. Kind of like in that Prozac Nation excerpt that we read - we don't feel at some things.
Tying that back into Farenheit 451, Guy isn't supposed to feel anything when he's burning books. He isn't supposed to be anything but happy. I think that was what the mask was that was mentioned. As soon as Clarisse began to challenge his happiness, he began to realize he was acting the way he was supposed to act.
That's really true too, Eric. Kind of like what I said with the allusion to Prozac Nation, we have that set of standards of how we should feel about things.
So, I have another question: Are you happy, or is your happiness a mask like Guy's?
I think, for the most part, I'm happy. I have a good life and lots of friends. Occasionally I'm unhappy about stuff, but that's normal and to be expected. I am really sick of high school so that might be adding to the ocasional unhappiness, but basically, I'm pretty stable and life is good. What about you guys?
(Irrelelvant to F451 again. Yeah i do that a lot..) I put this all on Word, and we currently have 2 pages single-spaced. There are spaces between paragraphs though, and I included the "So-and-so said..." part. Do you think I should exclude the "So-and-so said" part? I don't know if we can have that in the final paper thing. But anyways, good job guys, we've got 2 pages more or less. Yay.
I think that for the most part, I like to think that I'm happy. I try to look for something to make me happy in any situation - no matter how depressing. However, there are some obvious situations where unhappiness prevails over being happy, which is normal.
I think that I agree with Carl Jung considering hapiness, to be perfectly honest. There are times when I know I'm SUPPOSED to be happy (hanging out at a party, for example), but something inside always feels empty. However, in order to not darken the mood of the party, I tend to feign happiness, and kind of create a happy persona to let people think that I'm happy, despite the fact that I may not be.
Oh, and yay for having two pages!
I think we should definately keep the "So-and-so said" part, because it will help when we're putting it together to know who said what, and it also will help when it has to be read.
(not that I really think I need to say the following, but please don't include this post in the final paper)
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