Impact of Social, Forced, and Self-Inflicted Isolation free essay sample

The experience of isolation has a profound effect on the psychological health of an individual. The first type of isolation, forced isolation, is the least detrimental because a higher command has ordered the isolation and it cannot be changed. Not fitting into the social landscape or norm, and therefore becoming ostracized leads to social isolation, or the second type of isolation. Lastly, self-inflicted isolation is perhaps the most severe because internal psychological factors contribute to it, making it harder to overcome, and, therefore, the most harmful. In Golding’s Lord of the Flies, Kesey’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, and Huxley’s Brave New World, each of the types of isolation affects characters in unique ways. The three types of isolation all impede an individual’s growth, but self-inflicted isolation is most detrimental to one’s growth and perception of reality because of its internal rather than external forces. We will write a custom essay sample on Impact of Social, Forced, and Self-Inflicted Isolation or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page Three characters, each from one of the three novels, display the type of isolation and the devastating effects it can have on social and psychological health. The court system orders the boisterous character named McMurphy to stay in a government funded mental asylum, thus making his isolation forced. The rules and regulations that the Big Nurse enforces on the ward patients seem to have no effect on McMurphy, whose contagious laughter and jovial mood changes the entire mindset of the men. The other ward patients take notice of the way that McMurphy does not allow the rules to hold him down, and how instead he enjoys and lives his life on his own terms. McMurphy does not let his isolation get to him, as he â€Å"is . . . as loud and full of brass and swagger as ever† (Kesey, 107) therefore proving that forced isolation leads to the least detrimental effects. The forced isolation of McMurphy does eventually lead to the complete loss of mental abilities when the Big Nurse orders a lobotomy, but it does not lead to an altered perception of reality like one Simon experiences. When social isolation occurs, it creates a feeling of ostracization, as exemplified when the other young boys ignore Simon because of his seizures and shyness. Unlike McMurphy, Simon does not revel his isolation and instead chooses to isolate himself further by wandering into the forest wilderness and away from the rest of the group. Simon’s seizures and shyness lead to the other older boys ignoring him when he does try to talk at their meetings, even though Simon has the most insightful thoughts out of any of them. In addition to being the most insightful, Simon also experiences an altered perception of reality when he imagines â€Å". . . Lord of the Flies was expanding like a balloon. . . blackness within, a blackness that spread† (Golding,143-144). When Simon walks out of the forest with the body of the dead parachutist, the boys, in a social gathering of their own, immediately kill him. By not joining the other boys in the feast, Simon highlights his social isolation. This eventually leads to his death. All of the rest of the young boys, including Ralph and Piggy take part in the feast. The only boy missing is Simon, further exemplifying to what extent his social isolation reached. In this fatal feast, which Simon does not partake in, the others brutally murder him, mistaking him for the beast. Simon’s social ostracization and therefore isolation from the other boys eventually leads to his savage murder proving that when Simon is not part of the norm, because of his frequent seizures and inability to articulate his innermost thoughts, he will have an altered perception of reality, in addition to poorer mental health. Although social isolation is detrimental to Simon’s psychological health, the self-inflicted isolation experienced by John leads to the most harmful effects. The most detrimental of isolations, self-inflicted, leads to irrevocable effects seen in John’s character, whose internal barriers have devastating effects on his mental health. In Brave New World, John cannot be understood by anybody in both of his homes, the Reservation and the World State. He fits into neither and loathes both. Once he finds out the World State does not compare to the wondrous place that he imagined, he chooses to live alone in a lighthouse in the desolate countryside. The lighthouse is located where the â€Å"skies above them were silent and deserted. . . Whole days passed during which he never saw a human being† (Huxley, 243, 245). Alone, John’s self-inflicted punishments only worsen as he â€Å". . . [hit] himself with a whip of knotted cords. His back was . . . streaked with crimson, and from weal to weal ran. . . blood† (Huxley, 247-248). This type of punishment, that John decides to impose upon himself only weakens his mental stability and ability to reason. John decides to take his own life: the last self-inflicted punishment he imposes on himself, and the most drastic stance on the matter. By committing suicide, John does not die a death that was caused by external factors, but rather a death caused by internal conflicts of his own, which he could ultimately not resolve. By committing suicide, John proves that self-inflicted isolation and internal conflicts can be much more detrimental to psychological stability than external conflicts. Self- inflicted isolation, the most harmful type of isolation, leads to the only death caused of a self-inflicted pain: suicide. Suicide is the ultimate cry that John can possibly utter. It states complete loss and seems to be a permanent â€Å"solution† in order to escape his problems. When John realizes that he does not have a place in the world, he turns to self-inflicted isolation as a way for his release. John soon discovers that his self-inflicted punishment may be what he chooses for himself, but he does not have control over the masses of the World State. Throngs of people flock to see the spectacle and treat him like an animal, or â€Å"The Savage. † This contributes to his final decision of suicide and the feeling of being unwanted. Self-inflicted isolation is the most detrimental to psychological and mental stability and can also lead to an altered perception of reality. Though all types of isolation hamper psychological growth, self-inflicted isolation leads to the most dangerous consequences because its internal barriers are the hardest to overcome. When McMurphy is forcibly isolated, he still overcomes the external barriers present using his personality and will. Likewise, Simon lessens the effects of his social ostracization by ignoring the other boys completely and the way in which they exclude him. On the other hand, John cannot escape his self-inflicted isolation because no external factors are acting upon him, he himself wanted to live in a remote lighthouse in the countryside and he himself inflicts brutal punishments upon himself. These internal factors influencing his isolation are much more detrimental and harder to overcome than other external factors experienced by McMurphy and Simon. All three types of isolation lead to a decreased state of psychological health and an altered perception of reality, but self-inflicted isolation has the most detrimental effects. Forced isolation of McMurphy and the social isolation of Simon eventually lead to saddening deaths but perhaps the most shattering is the suicide of John. Self-inflicted isolation creates many internal barriers psychologically, which are much harder to break down than external barriers such as the ones experienced by Simon or McMurphy. When McMurphy goes against the instituted rules of the ward, authoritative figures carry out his punishment. On the other hand, John was his own authoritative figure and was far more brutal on himself than any other person would have been. He did not let himself forget his transgressions easily and brutally punished himself if he did. This internal conflict within the confines of a mind leads to more insurmountable barriers than an external conflict between two individuals. Though present in many forms, isolation, a detrimental barrier that arises because of many reasons, eventually leads to one common effect: the degradation of psychological health and perception of reality.

3 Errors Involving Prepositions

3 Errors Involving Prepositions 3 Errors Involving Prepositions 3 Errors Involving Prepositions By Mark Nichol You are attempting to describe an action, but you can’t remember whether one, say, goes in to the breach or into the breach, or whether one, for example, walks on to the next trail junction or onto the next trail junction. This post explains the respective roles of the operative words and phrases. A prepositional phrase is a phrase that includes a preposition, a word that, as its name implies, comes before the object of a sentence. For example, into and onto are prepositions describing movement in relation to objects in the prepositional phrases â€Å"into the trench† and â€Å"onto the roof.† Because these prepositional phrases provide additional information about an action that occurred (as in the sentences â€Å"She leaped into the trench† and â€Å"The boy climbed onto the roof†), they serve as adverbs. We usually think of adverbs as single words (as in â€Å"She leaped impetuously† or â€Å"The boy climbed quickly†), but adverbs can consist of two or more words, which appear without any additional information or combined with one-word adverbs, either adjacent to each other or separated by the subject and the verb (as in â€Å"She leaped impetuously into the trench† or â€Å"Quickly, the boy climbed onto the roof†). â€Å"In to† and â€Å"on to,† by contrast, each contain two distinct parts of speech: an adverb followed by a preposition. In and on follow a verb to provide additional information about it, and to precedes the object that follows the verb and its adverb, as in â€Å"She leaped in to search the trench† and â€Å"The boy climbed on to get a better look.† In the following examples, a preposition is mistakenly employed in place of an adverb-preposition compound consisting of the same letters as the preposition. After each sentence, a discussion, followed by a revision, explains the error. 1. His wife, under the assumption that she’d never see him again, has moved onto another man, and they’re planning on getting married. The prepositional phrase â€Å"moved onto† implies that the woman has literally relocated herself on the man’s body. However, â€Å"moved on to† includes the idiomatic phrase â€Å"moved on,† meaning â€Å"transitioned†: â€Å"His wife, under the assumption that she’d never see him again, has moved on to another man, and they’re planning on getting married.† 2. His job is not to give into the demands of multimillionaire celebrities pushing a social agenda. The use of into implies an entrance, but the key of this sentence is the idiom â€Å"give in,† meaning â€Å"submit,† so into must be broken up into its constituent parts: â€Å"His job is not to give in to the demands of multimillionaire celebrities pushing a social agenda.† 3. The cell phones were turned into the authorities. Here, into preceded by turned suggests a transformation, rather than the act of turning in, or handing over, so again, in must be separated from to to form part of the phrase â€Å"turning in†: â€Å"The cell phones were turned in to the authorities.† For a more detailed discussion about this issue, see this post about prepositions. Want to improve your English in five minutes a day? Get a subscription and start receiving our writing tips and exercises daily! Keep learning! Browse the Grammar category, check our popular posts, or choose a related post below:Coordinating vs. Subordinating Conjunctions75 Idioms and Expressions That Include â€Å"Break†Oppose and Opposed To

Develop and describe your personal theory of human development, Essay

Develop and describe your personal theory of human development, drawing from and citing the theorists and theories studied in classes - Essay Example The different clusters of theories provide useful insight among people and societies, in not only human growth or development, but also thought and behavior. Freud Sigmund was among the core proprietors of psychoanalytic theories relative to human development. Freud’s believe was that experiences as child affected a person’s overall development even as a youth. This belief influenced other psychologists who put additional effort on Freud’s theory. Consequentially, other psychologists came up with their own theories such as the eight-stage theory of human development by Erikson (Saul, 2013). Today, these theories are more prevalent and popular in cognitive development studies. Behaviorism, a commonly known school of thought today, became popular early in the 20th Century and after introduction in the faculty of psychology, learning theories have become prevalent too. The reason was that psychologists studying behavior felt the urge to put extensive attention on observable and quantifiable behaviors. This did not only create a different perception on human development but also made psychology appear as a more scientific discipline. Relatively, learning theories under a behavioral perspective focus on environmental influences that impact on human development. However, some of the behaviorists argue that erudition transpires only through developments of interaction and fortification. Bandura’s theories are entirely against this perception and lean mainly on the effects of observational learning. Lastly, the cognitive theories of human development focus on how the thinking process and psychological procedures stimulates a person’s development and transformation. Among the most renowned theorists of cognitive human development is Jean Piaget who formed her foundation on the notion that children do not receive information alone but are also scientists who have different perception of the world from their understanding and individually