ipl-logo

Summary Of Borders By Thomas King

1628 Words7 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Individuality vs conformity in society

Planning
I will be addressing prompt two in my personal response to text, based off of the short story “Borders” by Thomas King. → What do these texts suggests about the conflict between pursuing a personal desire and choosing to conform? Support your idea(s) with references to one or more of the texts presented and to your previous knowledge and/or experience.

The all encompassing idea of the short story “Borders” was that individuals should not conform to mainstream society, even if it is easier to do so, and instead should stay true to their personal desire, which in the short story’s case was maintaining one’s heritage by declaring oneself Blackfoot rather than American or Canadian. I took the same idea and applied it to my story “The Little Warrior,” by …show more content…

His name symbolizes his refusal to conform to the residential school’s ethics and conducts. Residential schools were essentially government sponsored religious institutions run by the Anglican, Catholic, and Presbyterian churches that assimilated First Nations children into the mainstream Canadian culture. Throughout the story, Oniiniiwat was able to oppose the abhorrent practices of the residential school, which sometimes included mental, physical, and sexual abuse to the students. Through encountering those horrendous conducts of the school, Oniiniiwat was able to fight for himself like a warrior. The word “little” is extremely significant in the sense that it emphasizes the age at which the protagonist was kidnapped from his loving home. Oniiniiwat was a child when he was forced to endure all the hardships the school entailed, and yet not once did his spirits falter. This usually isn’t the case for many residential school survivors; the abuse they have gone through in one form or another materializes later in life, be it through alcoholism or being a part of the poverty and abuse

Show More
Related
436 Words | 2 Pages

In the book, A Separate Peace, both Finny and Gene view the definition of friendship differently in their own special ways. Finny shows a lot of respect for his friend, Gene. Even though sometimes things always need to go his way, he shows deep care for Gene. Throughout the few chapters in the book, Finny shows that he truly loves Gene like a brother and is very caring towards his friendship with Gene. “If Finny hadn’t come up right behind me… if he hadn’t been there… I could’ve fallen on the bank and broken on my back!

Read More
1965 Words | 8 Pages

Triple Entry: One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey Quote Analysis Synthesis "She’s swelling up, swells till her back’s splitting out the white uniform and she’s let her arms section out long enough to wrap around the three of them five, six times. She looks around her with a swivel of her huge head.... So she really lets herself go and her painted smile twists, stretches to an open snarl, and she blows up bigger and bigger, big as a tractor, so big I can smell the machinery inside the way you smell a motor pulling too big" (5).

Read More
1763 Words | 8 Pages

A student’s home life and schooling experiences have seen to be heavily affected by their race and the way in which they were raised. In “Of Borders and Dreams” by Chris Liska Carger, the lives of the Juarez family, who are Mexican-American Immigrants, are explored through their educational and home experiences living in Chicago. Due to their race, class, and parent’s level of education, the opportunities in which they were granted were heavily limited. Dumais writes, “Children who have more cultural capital (having been exposed to it in their upper-class families will feel more comfortable in the school setting, will communicate easily with teachers, and therefore will be more likely to do well in school” (Dumais 2005, p. 421).

Read More
554 Words | 3 Pages

Introduction: We as a society face many issues. Due to our diversity as a country, the values and beliefs of one culture battle against another. II. We must address the current standing issues that we face, but before we can do that, we must understand them.

Read More
716 Words | 3 Pages

What idea does the author develop regarding the conflict between pursuing a personal desire and choosing to conform? “Street lights glow red, green and yellow too, do you let signs tell you what to do?”... The words from Lady Gaga ponder over the balance between conforming to authority or self fulfillment. Do we let our individuality falter under the presence of authority and social demands, or do we maintain our own identity and achieve self-actualization? In a society where sacrifices have to be made in order to avoid prejudice, we show tenacity towards who we are at core.

Read More
807 Words | 4 Pages

Throughout history differences have created wars. We form us versus them categories. People who aren’t like us get placed in this them category. Fights, even wars, have been a product of these differences. These differences can range from just the college you attend to how you speak and look.

Read More
1143 Words | 5 Pages

CRA: Anzaldua Borderlands In her poem “Borderlands,” Gloria Anzaldua strategically exposes readers to the true form of the Borderlands region as she conveys the internal incongruity that is rife with this state. As she characterizes the nature of the Borderlands, extending the idea of the Borderlands from a geographical region to an extensive social phenomenon, Anzaldua emulates an experience that is shared by many; conquered by fear. Anzaldua cogently employs the use of distinct structural elements within her poem as a form of illustrative depiction in order to express to readers the strenuous relationship between the inhabitants and their environment.

Read More
608 Words | 3 Pages

In Thomas King’s short story, “Borders”, he writes about the Canada-America border. Within the short story, the main character refuses to identify her citizenship even though she is from Blackfoot. Even though the story is being told through the young boy’s point of view, the main issue focuses on another character, the mother. When approached by guards on the border, the mother insists that she is a Blackfoot, which causes issues because her son is a minor and must stay on the Canadian side of the border.

Read More
982 Words | 4 Pages

Every person has something to contribute to society, regardless of age, sex or culture. The measurement of a person’s worth is determined by more than simply following rules and going through the motions. Accordingly, the combined contribution to society is more than the sum of each person. However, in The Chrysalids, by John Wyndham, the people of Waknuk live a life governed by strict social norms, which limits their expression of individuality. This pervasive attitude results in a narrow-minded perspective on what it means to be human.

Read More
983 Words | 4 Pages

Richard Mouw’s book, When the Kings Come Marching In: Isaiah and the New Jerusalem, provides a perspective of what heaven will look like. It is a Biblically correct, proposal of how we, as Christians, should perceive our heavenly destination. By following Isiah 60, a visual passage of heaven, the author portrays an idea and image of heaven through the descriptive writings of Isaiah. Mouw connotates, gives perspective and meaning to the phrases in Isaiah 60, with intent to give the readers a better understanding of the afterlife.

Read More
845 Words | 4 Pages

In today’s society, self-reliance and non-conformity is an annotation on the tenets that people still value. Some people in today’s world have seemed to forgotten the ability to be content in isolation and individuality. Being true to oneself takes bravery and it compels one to be pensive and unbiased. Like Chris McCandless, he was pensive and unbiased without being thoughtless or impertinent to others. Chris McCandless was also self-reliant and did not conform, which led him to define himself of who he truly

Read More
954 Words | 4 Pages

The history of my literacy has been a long road of a frustration and learned lessons. As a child, I was a bit of a loner so reading and writing were the closest thing to a social life for me. The things that I bottled up inside came out through my writing and it became somewhat of a pass time for me. As long I could remember literacy as has been an important value for me in my life because from very young age I got express my true self without being judged by the outside. Even though in my later years I would deal with some heartaches and set back that lead me to give up on my love for reading.

Read More
815 Words | 4 Pages

Conformity is something that humans have been doing for a long time. Such conformity has lead to negative outcomes. This idea is explored through “Harrison Bergeron” by Kurt Vonnegut and “The Unknown Citizen” by W.H. Auden. In these two texts conformity eliminates individuality and causes the society to be weakened.

Read More
1099 Words | 5 Pages

Comparing the ways in which these non-conformists are represented After analyzing the way in which the non-conformists of the two literary works are represented by the authors, it is now vital to compare and contrast the two, in order to build up a more powerful conclusion as a response to our research question by the end of this essay. Both writers try to express the kind of feeling that is experienced by a non-conformist in a society which is controlled through conformity. They both resemble in terms of sacrificing some indispensable human interrelations such as love and friendship, to the cause of unconformity and also destroying some of the most important human qualities to the price of conformity. For instance in the book of Rhinoceros, the love between Daisy and Beranger is totally ignored by Daisy as she gets fooled by the conformity; teased to become like the others, a wild rhinoceros, making life much easier for herself, abandoning Beranger, the one who really loves her, in a world with all its people transformed into Rhinoceroses. The same kind of love being scarified to the cause of conformity can be found in “1984”, when Julia and Winston giving up on each other, under the violent torturing of the government of the Big brother so that they will live the rest of their life under the prescriptions of the Big brother who asks them to be obedient and loyal to the three motifs of the country:

Read More
964 Words | 4 Pages

“No Trespassing.” It’s a message that we’ve all seen before, on street signs and on fences, but that most of us stopped considering as part of our daily lives. These signs just sort of blend into the background, no more noticeable than a crack in the sidewalk or a plain, solid-colored exterior wall. On the ordinary brown-painted brick backside of a bar in San Francisco’s Mission District, a bold, red No Trespassing sign is the center of a piece of thought-provoking street art. Below and to the right of the sign are some run-of-the-mill graffiti tags: pale yellow spray paint forming illegible words marking the territory of a gang or juvenile delinquent.

Read More

More about Summary Of Borders By Thomas King

Related Topics

Open Document