Where are we going? What will become of us? Are questions that our society asks themselves everyday. They are arguably the heaviest unanswered questions there are. The novel Alexandria by Paul Kingsnorth strives to address these questions. The satire is that no one actually can answer them. Nzil is the father and El is his daughter. El is sleeping in his lap when he shares a story with her about a man that chased tirelessly after a bird whose songs captivated his mind. He climbed tree after tree looking for her until finally the bird, Night Gail, appeared as a woman in his home. Nzil shares this story on pages 248-250. In this post apocalyptic society of hunters and gatherers, birds are looked at as Gods. This specific bird, Night Gail, came to this man and saved him. The last line of this section states, “i look down at el in me lap now. she sleeps like all is right on Erth,” (250). Night Gail saved this man from the troubles he was having. It seems as if this man was not a man but rather represented their society and meant a lot more to Nzil then he led on. He states that el is sleeping soundly like she doesn’t have a worry in the world when this passage is in the middle of two very intense scenes. Nzil is searching for his Night Gail. He is searching for a place where all is right in the world.
When you send your child off to school you are trusting that education system and teacher to teach them about the world and the knowledge that they need to become a successful adult in society. A parent puts a lot of faith in teachers. That being said, every parent has different hopes and expectations for what their child will learn. So, how do you cater to everyone’s needs and demands? The answer is simple: you can’t. In the novel The Abolition of Man by C.S. Lewis. He states, “They claim to be cutting away the parasitic growth of emotion, religious sanction, and inherited taboos, in order that ‘real’ or ‘basic’ values may emerge” (15). C.S. Lewis is arguing that teachers and educators are not more mindful of the beliefs that have an influence on them and what they are teaching. They are not teaching the important and more risky stuff, but are rather sticking to a more basic curriculum because that is what causes the least amount of problems. In today’s society the topic of debate on the content of education is whether schools should be teaching about the LGBTQ community and the topic of racism. In an article called “This man wants Utah and other states to adopt a “pro-human” approach to teaching ethnic studies” written by Suzanne Bates mentions a New York City father who pulled his child from an elite private school in NYC because he did not approve of what the educators were teaching his child, specifically on the topic of racism. A major problem in our society is that there is a lack of education on this topic therefore racism continues to have a presence and hurts many people. If schools, nationwide, can teach students at a young age that this is wrong and the history of it, maybe our society can change for the better.
Leave a Reply