<p>...when you grade my essay. Be vicious, be mean, be relentless...but not too much ;)</p>
<p>Prompt:
*We most resent in others the very flaws that we ourselves possess<a href="from%20the%20Barron's%20book">/I</a></p>
<p>The quote "we most resent in others the very flaws that we ourselves possess" deals with one main issue regarding the human idiosyncrasy- its confrontational nature. The statement arbitrarily assumes that what we despise about ourselves we project onto other people, who constitute a reflection of what we hate. By doing so, we disregard our own flaws and castigate others without realizing that the disparities between their situation and ours are not that great.</p>
<p>The core of the statement is the axiom that there is something inherently corrupt and hypocritical about the human nature, something that forces us to shy away from delegation and self-confrontation. Just like Dorian Grey in Oscar Wilde's renowned novel, other people are the portrait in which our vanity and flaws are reflected. But what we have to question at this point is the maker of the portrait. Who is Bazil Hallward and is the portrait that he has created another Pandora's box, or is it a means of self-evaluation? Understandably, the people around us are a mirror of our own personality, of the unique traits that only we possess. But the mirror is self-created. We are the Bazil of our own portrait, because we project our own qualities upon the others. </p>
<p>In Mariama Ba's novel So long a letter, Ramatoulaye, the protagonist, is a tormented woman due to her polygamous marriage. In spite of her efforts to break free of the marital bonds that hamper her progression, she remains stagnant and inert, as she has no impetus to compel her to do so. When her friend Aissatou though enters a similar situation, Ramatoulaye is forced to confront with her own situation as she cannot bear the sight of her friend's torment, a torment that she herself is vehemently experiencing but could not recognize in the past because she did not possess a mirror. That mirror came later in the face of Aissatou and contributed to Ramatoulaye's emancipation. </p>
<p>Just like Ramatoulaye, I was forced to confront my own situation of denial when my grandfather died eight years ago. I reacted calmly at the sight of my dead grandfather after a heart surgery/debacle. After a while though I entered a period of depression, not wanting to eat anything that resulted in my suffering from significant nourishment issues. I was terrified and dumbfounded, I was scarred by the horrendous event since I was only nine years old. But it was my mother's devastation that shook me out of my shell of agony and forced me to 'grow up'. Seeing that my mother was going down the same path I went, I had an epiphany, a brief moment of cognizance that helped me stand on my own feet and deal with it.</p>
<p>We see in other people our flaws, but we do not hate them for that as the initial quote suggests. Their flaws can be the means to our own realization and the portrait of our own soul. The painter of this portrait however is no other than ourselves. We are the ones who project ourselves upon others, a method that helps us move on and become cognizant of the tragicomedy of our own situation, the lurking detriments that undermine us and the corruption that we are undergoing. The mirror is always there. All we have to do is make sure we can see our reflection clearly in it.</p>