Mr. Disney/7
English 1 Honors
13 October 2015
Collection 1 Essay
Collection 1 portrays how individuals who have different views cannot make society better. In the articles “Once Upon a Time” by Nadine Gordimer, “Harrison Bergeron” by Kurt Vonnegut Jr. and “A Quilt of a Country” by Anna Quindlen all show how when there is people butting heads nothing is fixed it only gets worse.
In the story “Once Upon a Time” Nadine Gordimer describes how the family’s “trusted” housemaid is too afraid to give the people that live on the streets “bread and tea” because she has heard stories about how “ somebody’s housemaid was tied up and shut in a cupboard by thieves while she was in charge of her employers’ house.” (85-87) and did not want that to happen to her. It is baffling that the “trusted” housemaid is black just like the people that live on the streets but is afraid of them and looks down on them like the white people do. The housemaid acquired this trait because she has been with the family for so long that she feels she is part of the family.
Gordimer also mentions that they families are so scared of intruders that they continue to upgrade their security systems. Also the families become oblivious to the alarms because their cats set them off at night that …show more content…
Quindlen mentions that the United States is, “An improbable idea. A mongrel nation built of ever-changing disparate parts, it is held together by a notion, the notion that all men are created equal.” (1-3) the tone she uses shows that her idea of the United States is that is a crazy idea and she does not understand how it works. However Quindlen also states that, “There seems to be always people on the verge of fisticuffs with another, blacks and whites, gays and straights, left and right” (45-46) that statement exemplifies the fact that people do not get along with each