Human nature is the general psychological, feelings, and behavioral traits of humans, regarded as shared by all humans. It is a series of characteristics that humans are born with. It includes fundamental ways of how we think and act. Everybody is born with their own unique nature. However, there are some common natures we all have, such as greed, laziness, ambition, and vanity. Therefore, it is necessary to discuss it and talk about both the brightness and darkness of human nature. In the stories, THE MONKEY’S PAW and THE ELEPHANT MAN, the two authors both presented the good and evil side of human nature through short stories. THE MONKEY’S PAW is about a mummified monkey paw that was given to three owners and granted three wishes each. In the story, three wishes are granted to the owner of The Monkey's Paw which was the White family, but the wishes come with an enormous price for interfering with fate. THE ELEPHANT MAN is about a person named John Merrick who was horribly. Then, Dr. Treves discovers Joseph (John) Merrick in a sideshow. Born with a congenital disorder, Merrick uses his disfigurement to earn a living as the "Elephant Man."
In these two stories, the authors presented to us many good or bright sides of our nature. In the book THE MONKEY’S PAW, after Mr. White realized that the monkey paw caused great tragedy in his family just because of his mistake and how greedy he was. He quickly thought of a way to change what he did by wishing the last wish to chase away the devil in front of his door. This is brightside of human nature, realizing and changing mistakes. In the story THE ELEPHANT MAN, Dr. Treves had the kindness and caress to help and understand John Merrick. He took John Merrick with him and understood his mental and physical pain he was going through. Treves’s kindness is another human nature that we have. No matter what kind of evil thing people did, at some point, they would show at least some kindness to someone. Also, sympathy and understanding were another good nature that Dr. Treves showed. He cared about John and had empathy in him. These are the bright sides of human nature.
There are many dark sides of human nature in THE MONKEY’S PAW and THE ELEPHANT MAN. First of all, greediness. This is a nature that we all have. We are not able to appreciate the goods we already own. We would just keep wanting more and more valuable goods such as money. In both stories, the characters were greedy for money. Ross used someone else in order to make himself richer. Mr. White wanted more money for him and his family, so he took the monkey’s paw. Also in Monkey’s Paw, Sergeant Morris took advantage of Mr. White’s greediness and curiosity. He used his friend’s ignorance in order to get rid of his evil curse. Morris’s selfishness and care for only himself is another terrible human nature. This kind of cruelty in the story shows that people would do anything just to have the best for themselves.
Human nature is inevitable, yes. It is impossible for you to fight against it. But we could discuss it and learn more about it and try to figure out the causes. Our laziness causes us to want more and more without doing much or putting in too much effort. It makes us greedy and selfish. Our ambition for more power also contributes to our greed. We want more power, more money, and less challenges in our life. But the truth is, life would be tasteless and boring without challenges. Our self-interest makes us selfish. We would only care about ourselves but not others. This leads to taking advantage of others for our own good just like what Sergeant Morris did to Mr. White in THE MONKEY’S PAW. Our first impression after seeing someone that looked horrible is hatred. We won’t have empathy for the person for how much pain he or she must’ve been through.
Human nature is something that we are born with. We could not change it or stop it. It is something that is inevitable. Some of our nature is good, such as realizing and admitting the mistakes that we have made and being kind to who we care about. At the same time, there are abundant dark sides of our nature, like greediness, advantage taking, and selfishness. These natures are presented in 2 two short stories. From these 2 stories, we learned that human nature is something that we can not fight or stop. We just have to live along with it. And sometimes we need to use the bright side of our nature to fight against the bad side. Human nature is a complicated topic and is extremely interesting to talk about.
Comments