Violence In Mean Girls Essay

The story consists of a series of flashbacks from one girl’s life of seemingly violent acts. It begins in present day, after witnessing a fight on campus, the thoughts arise as to what could have caused such violence to overtake the two men who were fighting, which, in turn, results in the thoughts of all the violent acts she has witnessed throughout her life. At the age of seven, the first “violent” act involves her father coming home from work and immediately harping on her brother. To the young girl, this appears as extremely violent, yet in reality it was simply a father getting far too angry at an act that his son did. However, this scene displays the subjectivity of violence. In reality it was only aggressive, not directly violent. Yet to someone who is not as mature, or who has not been exposed to this type of behavior before, they might take it to be extremely violent. Her father yelling is the violent act, so
This type of sheer violence most likely stemming from a spurt of anger, is inevitable in our society, however it is not always just and it should not advance to such an extreme as seen in the story. The girl faces another moral dilemma – she does not know the reasoning for the fighting, but she see’s one of the men on the verge of death. Despite the fact that she contemplates being violent herself in order to save the young mans life, she does not step in for the fear of the violence turning her way. Given the fact that she did not step in, she is haunted with what has happened to the young man and blames herself; if she had acted, his injuries could have lessened. This scenario was influence by Tim O’Brien’s novel The Things They Carried, and the guilt that soldiers feel for not helping a fellow soldier. Overall, despite not knowing the circumstances, the type of violence for sheer violence is not acceptable, especially when words are an