Kingvoler V Look

Life in America

Feeling Unsatisfied?

Common human attributes are normal to acquire, yet Americans seem to pick and choose how they want to acquire these traits, whether it’s excessively or minimally. In both readings, “Facing the Village” by Lenore Look and “A Fist in the Eye of God” by Barbara Kingsolver, the authors present many human attributes and the pros and cons of how Americans act. In “Facing the Village,” Lenore Look starts out being the typical, ignorant, greedy, arrogant, and unstable judge of how to trust someone American. After visiting China, where her parents’ home village is, she realizes how Americans, like herself, really are and how unsatisfied they really are in life. In “A Fist in the Eye of God,” Kingsolver also discusses how Americans want to change things and don’t appreciate the natural world the way it is. Human beings’ attitudes towards life and the people around them is the reason people are left feeling unsatisfied about their lives in contemporary America.

American’s ignorance gives them a feeling of alienation from nature and culture which leaves them feeling unsatisfied about their life in modern America. Kingsolver discusses that because of the lack of knowledge in science, people try things that they don’t have experience in and don’t know the result in the long run. She describes how people neglect learning about science and don’t realize how much there is to it. She writes, “Scientific illiteracy in our population is leaving too many of unprepared to discuss or understand much of the damage we are wreaking on our atmosphere, our habitat, and even the food that enters our mouths” (Kingsolver, 205). Kingsolver is referring to the damages to the environment as a result of ignorance. If people knew more about the effects of our actions on the environment, they wouldn’t feel so divorced from nature and they wouldn’t have so many life threatening and environmental problems which become sources of unhappiness. In another way, being ignorant, Lenore Look realized that her life in America is just easy to take advantage of and the results of our actions don’t let us appreciate life and just leaves us feeling unsatisfied. She begins by talking about here refusal to “act” Chinese; when her parents spoke to her in Chinese she would respond in English. Look explains, “Although I made a concession to my parents to study Chinese (Mandarin) in college and found myself loving the language, I was in complete denial of any deeper links to China” (Look, 237).Learning a language is the beginning to learning so much about a culture. After she decided to go to China, even though she thought it was pointless and was just an exciting experience for her, she found that America wasn’t her real home after all, seeing life there and the people who she was supposed to be. How they cared about each other and how they really had a bond. Look ended her article be saying, “Here was the home that I sought” (Look, 238). She called China home because of how close people were and how everyone cared about each other, unlike where she thought was “home,” America. Look was ignorant to see how a really satisfying life is. Ignorance made her feel alienated from the Chinese culture initially, in the same way people feel alienated from the environment they don’t study in school. In both cases it leads to little satisfaction in life.

Not appreciating things the way they are a result of American’s arrogance and greed, usually based on our ignorance. Arrogance and greed give people a feeling of being unsatisfied. When people use genetic engineering for human being benefit they are arrogant to realize what it does to them in the long run. Human beings have a feeling of being God-like and feeling superior to everything so they will control everything. Playing with the natural growth and evolution of something, like plants, will make unexpected consequences. Kingsolver says, “But tampering with genes outside of the checks and balances you might call the rules of God’s laboratory is an entirely different process. It’s turning out to have unforeseen consequences” (Kingsolver, 209). They were arrogant and greedy in realizing what will happen to everything else. For example when genetic engineers used a bacteria to kill off and repel predators of the corn plant. It was good for humans, in the short run, and negative for the humans in the long run and other species that interact naturally with the corn. Kingsolver explains how the genetic engineering was destroyed so much. She discusses how every the bacterium will explode the stomach of most butterfly larva in the path of Pollen flying through the air. The population of monarch butterflies that migrate all the way to Mexico and back on wings are dropping fast. The genetic engineering was affecting the butterflies which affect many other things. The butterflies are endangered and soon to be claimed as extinct. It is apparent that this arrogance and greed towards Americans neglecting the realization of what they have is one of the reasons Kingsolver is against genetic engineering and a main reason to why humans are unsatisfied with their life in America. People are greedy to realize that the way the natural world works should be left alone and not tampered with. Humans are greedy and arrogant and want to control everything for their own pleasure. Just like humans not appreciated the real way things work, American’s don’t appreciate everything and all the opportunities they have. American’s are greedy and arrogant and believe they are entitled to these things. Look also realizes her own greed and arrogance, which she realized after her trip to China, made her feel unsatisfied with her life in America. Before she left to China, Look talked her mother out of taking used clothes to China as gift. Then when she sees the kids and her family there, she regrets it. Look writes, “I am a grown woman, the mother of two daughters, a wife, the owner of two automobiles and a house filled with as much comfort as my heart desires. I never have known hunger or