One question raised in the Monsters and Ourselves unit that I find particularly interesting is the question about whether all life has a purpose. I took this question to mean why do we live, and what is the reason, the purpose, of our living? I would answer this question as such: If we look at all life excluding human life, (animals and other living organisms, that sort of thing) I think most people could agree that the purpose of these lives is to survive for as long as possible and to create the following generation. Not exceptionally glorious, but logical. Personally, I believe that all life has this purpose. And I do mean all life- that means you too, humanity. However, I would be willing to bet that most people would not be rushing to agree with me, to agree that something so basic could be the purpose of every human life. I think the reason for this is that society has ingrained in us the idea that we all have our own individual purpose to fulfill, that humanity is much more special than your average life form, and that we all have a higher purpose- a more alluring purpose in life than to merely survive and reproduce. Personally, I think that this is just a story we tell ourselves so that we might feel better about facing the hardships in our lives, which is why I realize that the majority of people would be unwilling to admit that this is the sole purpose of their existence. I acknowledge this because even I sometimes want to be assured that there is a light at the end of the tunnel, so to speak, that there is more to life than living just for the sake of living. So to sum up, I believe that if we don’t acknowledge our most basic purpose, then we each individually decide our own purpose in life.
This question made me think of The Stranger, because I was fascinated by Meursault. He is the one character that did, in fact, live for the sake of living. He did not seem to aspire to anything greater or "better" than what he already had. He did not pretend to feel something that he did not actually feel, as we saw when his mother passed. He just felt what he felt and did what he felt like doing. He just lived.

From our Socratic Seminar questions- support or refute the following: "As the novel progresses, Edna becomes more and more selfish, immature, and irresponsible, and therefore less admirable and even less likeable." When I read this I completely disagreed. I found that I did like and even admire Edna in a way as The Awakening progressed. Maybe because I (for some reason- not everyone liked it!?) really like The Awakening, it is a bit difficult for me to see Edna in a negative light. I mean, I understand how someone could say that Edna is a bad person, or call her irresponsible, immature, and selfish- it is just not easy for me to agree with any of these things. But when I read that statement again, I began to see a bit of truth in it. One word caught my eye and sparked something in my mind- selfish. When I thought about it, I could definitely see Edna as being selfish. But I am still unwilling to say that Edna's selfishness is the same as selfishness the way it is usually percieved. Instead I started to see how Edna's selfishness is the same kind that is seen in Howard Roark in The Fountainhead- from our notes, "each man's primary moral obligation is to achieve his own welfare, well-being, or self-interest... He should be 'selfish' in the sense of being beneficiary of his own moral actions." That is the kind of selfishness I see in Edna. Although it is interseting- I am under the impression that most everyone in our class respected Howard Roark for refusing to let other people dominate his thinking and his life, and for not conforming to the standards of society, and yet, even though Edna does the exact same thing, most people seemed to have some serious issues with her for it. Most likely that reaction is due to the fact that in Edna's situation there were children involved. In our society, while it is an awful act for a man to leave his wife and their children, it is nigh unthinkable for a woman to do the same. Like we have discussed in class, people today are more prone to accept a mother leaving her children if, say, she had a drug or alcohol addiction and her leaving was best for them than they are to accept Edna's leaving. But I must say, personally I don't begrudge her for leaving her children behind. Despite what others have said, I just don't see any another way for Edna.