Relating Ideas to Reality - Essay Example

International Writing Workshop Nat Bennett Qizheng Chen 11/18 Relating Ideas to Reality People may have an idea about something, but there is always a reality. When people eventually experience the reality, it totally shapes their lives. At times, it is hard to tell the difference between an idea and the reality. However, once you interact with and experience something, and it changes your life, and then it is a reality. Your idea may be a reality if your experience is a representation of your thoughts. Jamaica Kincaid well illustrates the process of shaping an idea into a reality. In the essay “On seeing England for the First Time” (720), Jamaica Kincaid expresses her impressions and ideas of England as a citizen of England’s colony. She compares England to “Jerusalem” (720), which is a holy place in her heart. According to Kincaid, England was a unique jewel that only special people got to wear (720). England the jewel is so beautiful, gentle, and delicate in her opinion that she cannot help but express her adoration. She even extends the admiration to the people of England. She says, “The people who got to wear England were English people” (720). The statement clearly shows how unique the English people were to be able to wear that special jewel, England. Kincaid forms her idea of England in many ways. First, she learned about England from school. She describes how her teacher first showed them England from a map. “When my teacher had pinned this map up on the blackboard, she said, ‘This is England’- and she said it with authority, seriousness, and adoration, and we all sat up” (720). The teacher’s tone was enough indication that the topic about England was important, and they needed to take it in seriously thus it drew Kincaid’s attention to the study and knowledge of England. Secondly, Kincaid experiences England in her daily life. An example is the can of cocoa that has a label of “Made in England” on it. Others like the box of oats, her cloth, socks, and shoes all have this particular tag. Her curiosity and knowledge of England improves with these daily experiences. Kincaid also learned much about England from demonstrations by her parents. She writes about how her father must have seen and admired the picture of an Englishman wearing a particular hat in England (721). She talks greatly of how her mother taught her to eat her food the English way (721). Although Kincaid has such fascinations about England, she is far away on an island and can only live with what she has heard or seen from few English people she met. She merely lives under the shadow of England, speaking its language, importing its goods and adapting its culture. She has to live with her appeals to England, just as all the islanders do. She knows very little about England in this phase of her life, and she considers it a thrill to belong there. However, at this point she has very little knowledge of England, and her opinion later changes as she gets to learn more. As Kincaid grows up, gets to learn more about the English history, and even meets some English people on the island, she realizes that no one close to her had been to England. Neither had they returned to tell her about it (723). That knowledge begins to plant doubts in her, and her fascination with England slowly starts to fade. The final blow to her attraction to England comes when she goes to England and has a firsthand experience of the much-praised England. Unlike what she heard previously from stories, the England she sees is “dirty” and “old” (724). The English people she meets are “pale”, “fragile”, “weak”, “ugly”, and “rude” (724). That is the first time that Kincaid experiences England, without seeing it from the picture, story or painting, and she realizes that all the great things she heard about England were just exaggerations. She is quite disappointed because her idea of England does not match the reality. Here is a good example of an idea that is quite different from the reality. There is a “wide and deep and dark” (724) space between her idea and reality. She is angered and disappointed by the huge difference and darkness. Kincaid admits that to her, “the space between the idea of it and its reality had become filled with hatred. So when at last I saw it, I wanted to take it into my hands and tear it into little pieces and then crumble it up as if it were clay, child’s clay” (724). From her bad impression when she finally came to England until the end of her essay, Kincaid has nothing but hatred for England. She hates the people, their lifestyle, their food, their leaders as the prince, and even the landscape. Nothing about England fascinates her at all. According to her, the idea of a beautiful England was overrated. The people were all rude, from shop attendants to the bus conductor. There was also the little aspect of racism, where the English considered her people lesser than them. Her friend thinks that her opinion about England is prejudiced, whereas Kincaid argues that that is her genuine opinion of England. We, however, do not know the reality, because this is Kincaid’s opinion. As a child, I was told that Paris is a city of romance. I used to dream that one day I would go to Paris, get to learn some French, which people say is the most beautiful language, and walk on the historic streets surrounded by lavenders. I went to Paris three years ago on a tour. I was shocked. French people are arrogant and cold, and were reluctant to speak English to a foreigner, even if they could. I did not see any lavender; instead, there were cigarette butts on the roads. I spent only three days there and left in anger. After that, I started giving my friends the idea that the reality of Paris is disappointing. Since I came to NYU, everyone that I knew who had been to Paris for study abroad programs, told me how fantastic their experiences were, and the city of Paris was their biggest reason. I now realize what I was told about Paris when I was a child was not the reality, and neither was what I saw in three days. What my friends experienced in half a year may not even be a reality. When I think of Kincaid’s story, I believe what she saw was not the reality of England. Brent Staples, in his essay, “Just Walk on By” (153), clearly shows the fact of racism and stereotyping of blacks in America. During his childhood, he saw many black people locked away in police cells for breaking the law (154). That gave him the impression that African Americans were relatively more likely to break the law. As a result, he “came to doubt the virtues of intimidation early on” (154). He “chose, perhaps unconsciously, to remain a shadow, timid, but a survivor” (154). Staples, being a well-educated man, must have learned all the history of the African Americans, in relation to slavery and racial segregation. What he learned in school must have given him a sense of where African Americans stand in this nation, and what tags they are given. Maybe Staples thought that Americans could see him as different because he obeyed the laws and had a better education as compared to his fellow African Americans and some whites. However, the reality breaks his illumination. His first bad experience was when a white woman ran away from him one night on the streets because she was terrified. As a journalist, one day while rushing into the office, he was mistaken for a burglar and had security chasing after him. After many years of such experiences, he “learned to smother the rage he felt at being taken for a criminal” (154). Staples realized that he played no role in the determination of his identity, which the society already gave him. White people in the streets automatically become his victims, by the mere fact that he is black. He finally decides to face reality and adapt to the identity given to him. He decided to take precautions to make himself less threatening which included moving about carefully late in the evening and kept a distance to people on subway platforms or in buildings (155). From a mixture of social and historical reasons, Staples confirms that his idea matches the reality and makes adjustments to make life suitable in America. The reality in Staples’ case is evident. Through describing the way society forced him to act, Staples shows us the racial discrimination he has experienced in years since he was a little kid. What he saw and heard as a young boy, is precisely what he experienced when he began life as a student at the University and as a journalist. His idea does not defer from the reality and has made him better equipped to face the challenges he may encounter. Kincaid seems to approach reality in a way similar to Staples. She reads history, the objective judgment on England that differs from the portrayals of England in novels full of nobility and idealism. She visits England and has a personal experience. The reality is far much different from her idea of England. The difference between Staples’ reality and Kincaid’s reality is that what Staples experiences when he finally leaves his hometown, is what he was familiar with from stories and childhood experiences. Kincaid, on the other hand gives an opinion of England from her experience. The reality does not match her previous knowledge or expectations, although she spent a very short time there. We cannot decide the actual reality in Kincaid’s essay, but we do know that her experience changed her idea. Sometimes a study of a particular object can amend the idea of a big picture. An example is in the “Labyrinthine” where Bernard Cooper’s fascination with mazes as a child ends when he eventually grows up. He realizes that in life, unlike mazes, you cannot keep going back when you make mistakes. In a similar way, having a personal experience in England shapes Kincaid’s ideas to conform to the reality. All the knowledge about England, which her teachers at times forced on her were very far from what she saw while in England. All the praises of the English people meant nothing to her when she encountered nothing but hostility and rudeness from the people in England. A “great feeling of rage and disappointment came over her when she looked at England” (726). It is clear that Kincaid wants to speak up to address the changes to her idea of England, but then she realizes she is a nobody. The realization is evident in the last paragraph when she says, “I may be capable of prejudice, but my prejudices have no weight on them, and my prejudices remain my personal opinion” (726). Having an idea and shaping it with reality produces a new idea. This new idea can help you develop a new perspective. By thinking it in the wider picture, you may be able to know the answers to deeper questions you could not understand. Kincaid had beautiful ideas of England from reading and hearing stories, but her experience shapes her ideas to conform to reality. Through her story, Kincaid shows a deeper change of ideas forced on her by the harsh reality. Works Cited Bouson, J B. Jamaica Kincaid: Writing Memory, Writing Back to the Mother. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2005. Internet resource. Cooper, Bernard. My Avant-Garde Education: A Memoir. , 2015. Print. DiYanni, Robert. One Hundred Great Essays. New York: Pearson Longman, 2008. Print. Read More