Analyzing The Piranha River Story

1. Who do you think is the most horrible person in the story and who do you think is the least horrible? Why? You may want to rank order the characters from “1” being most horrible to “5” being least horrible.
The following are the rankings of the characters in the passage from “1” being most horrible to “5” being least horrible:
i. Beyonce – 5
She could have waited for the bridge to be formed back again or sought out another alternative. The fact that she was laughing at Pat being beaten made her all the more horrible
ii. Pat – 1
Pat was heartbroken and could not believe that his love had sex with another man. He did not deserve being beaten
iii. Gilligan – 5
He is the most horrible person for the reason that he demanded sex in order to provide passage to the other side
iv. Jesus – 1
He chose not be involved in matters that were none of his business to begin with
v. Bubba – 5
He chose to beat up an individual devoid of knowing precisely what had taken place
2. What personal values do you hold that may impact your decision of most to least horrible people? I suggest you rank order your top five or ten values that guide your life. They may or may not be in the list above.
The personal values that guide my life include the following:
i. Family
ii. Love
iii. Peace
iv. Loyalty
v. Honesty
vi. Emotional well-being
vii. Fairness
viii. Friendship
ix. Fairness
x. Justice
3. How do you know these are your true values and not just the ones you think your culture wants you to have?
I know these are my true values for the reason that these are elements that I endeavor to indulge in and carry with me not only on an everyday basis but also with respect to the interactions that I have with other individuals. However, owing to the reason that I do not spend every day with family, I would consider that perhaps this is one of the values that I think my culture wants me to have. Regardless, family values are important to me.
4. How powerful is our culture and are we even aware of the power? Think about it: Has society socialized you into believing that values like power, greed, and wealth are bad or good? What about values like religion, success, and sex? Do different cultures have different values of violence? How do you know this? What are examples? How powerful is socialization? How easy is re-socialization, especially if it involves strongly internalized values? How powerful is our culture and are we even aware of the power?
Culture is a significantly potent aspect of the society. More often than not, we are not even cognizant of just how powerful culture can be in swaying our actions and decisions. This is largely for the reason that since birth, the culture that we were brought up in determines the different values that we consider to be most important and least significant. For instance, in the African setting, culture plays a pivotal in shaping how individuals grow up to become. A fitting example, for a very long time, can be deemed that women belonged to the kitchen. In this regard individuals believed that women’s key responsibility included taking care of the household and children. In the same manner, cultural upbringings have indicated how people consider elements such as power and superiority to be bad. In addition, values such as religion can be a proper instance of how culture plays an important role. In actual fact, more often than not, people do not choose their religion but rather follow the religion of their parents, despite the fact that religion is a personal matter.