Marriage

The definition he uses can be divided into three groups. He talks about the social status that marriages gives you, the benefits that marriage provide you through the government, and lastly the relationship. I agree with his definition, however more details could be added on to it. Because marriage is for everyone regardless of the gender, race, and etc, they should be based off of the things that you are not necessarily in control of. For example, you as an individual cannot decide the benefits for being married. Also, as a society, we decide what kind of social status we are going to give to married couples.

household

I understand where he is going with this metaphor of a single parent household possibly being an airplane that crashes, but I don’t particularly agree with him. How I understood the metaphor is that the household with “natural” parents will have children who will be successful, but on the other hand, because a single parent household is not a “natural” one, their children won’t be successful. I guess it all really depends on how people define success, because only about top 10% of the population has the “power” such as big money and fame. I don’t think it’s anybody’s rights to tell people what to do or what not to do. Because somebody believes that “unnatural households” wouldn’t be as successful as the “natural households”, that doesn’t mean that people should dismiss them.
I’m still thinking about different ways to “justify” the “unnatural households”. I think it has to do with different terminologies. Misha and I were having dinner one night and we talked about this, and he and I argued about the term “marriage” and the effect of the term “marriage” on the society. Misha told me that because marriage is a Christian term, it’s not fair for them for homosexuals to call their “union” a marriage. Although, I understand that I didn’t really understand the importance of the term. Things change, and people change, why can’t a term “marriage” evolve into something that means more than just a Christian term that describes a “union” of a woman and a man?

appearance

I do think that we are often quick to judge people by their appearances. For example, if a man is “well-dressed”, then people can easily assume that he could be a homosexual. That is because one of the stereotypes of homosexual men is their ability to dress distinguishably nicer than straight men. It is easier for people to assume then to really figure out what’s going on. I think as a society, the assumptions that we made in the past still exist and they still influence people. I think because things like prejudices are often passed on to the children by their parents, it’s hard to change people’s opinion about this.

Last American man

Why does Gilbert believe Eustace is the last American man?
Gilbert believes that Eustace is the last American man. One big reason is because Eustace is the one and only American who lives a wild life. For example, he wrestles a buck instead of using a gun to “hunt” him. He represents masculinity that de Tocqueville once mentioned to be one of many qualities of American men. Even though Eustace does have personal issues, aside from his personal life, how he lives and behaves represent the American man. However, I think Eustace is more of the ONLY American man rather than the LAST American man.

fairytale

There was this one Korean story that I read when I was young. It was about a young girl about 16 who lived with a single dad who was blind. She was responsible for doing many things around the house and also taking care of him. It was very hard for her to earn money being a young female. Then, one day she found out that her dad had borrowed some money from the temple and it was time for him to pay them back. However, it was impossible for her to pay the temple back, so she decided to sell herself to fishing boat in order to pay off her dad's debt. She ends up getting "sacrificed" for a successful fishing season by being forced to jump off of the boat in the middle of the ocean. But then, she somehow manages to survive and marries a wealthy man. And after she left, her dad miraculously managed to see again, so he goes out to look for her, and ends up finding her. So the story ends nicely. I thought this story thought me to be selfless, hardworking, and respectful, then in the end, everything will pay off.