How Expectations Influence People
How Expectations Influence People In “Once Upon a Time” by Reinhold Cassirer, the author illustrates how the expectations and roles mainstream society sets to certain types of people can have a negative impact on the individuals and society. What people are expected to be can influence how they feel and go about themselves, in turn, affecting how they behave. There are many different reasons why people may do what they do. Rob stores, kill people, turn to drugs. You may be thinking it could possibly be due to their childhood, and the bad environment in which they grew up in and are now accustomed to. And by saying this you are absolutely correct! It however may not be in the same context as I am about to propose. Have you ever thought how these “bad environments” or “bad people” came to be? In one line of the narrative, “There were riots, but these were outside the city, where people of another color were quartered” suggests to the reader, that all the people within this quarter of the city were colored, caused riots, and were criminals. These thoughts disabled them access “into the suburb except as reliable housemaids and gardeners”. This line in some ways dates the story back to the first half of the 19th century when being a racist was considered socially acceptable. Things have changed for the better in today’s day and age to some degree, however still existing unfortunately in some ways. In the story, the man, wife, children, and pets are described as “the good guys”, in this narrative. All of the non colored people are considered the “good guys” in this narrative, struggling with constant crime. But are they really the good guys? In “their” part of the city, they have “police and soldiers and tear gas and guns” to keep the colored people out. They have a “Neighbourhood watch” which supplies them “with a plaque for their gates lettered YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED”. They all have “burglar bars attached to the doors and windows of the house and alarm systems
Bibliography: Reinhold, Cassirer. “Once Upon a Time.” Great Britain: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2010.