Expectations

Odysseus 

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 In the book Odysseus  by, Homer the theme of expectations is present throughout the entire story. Telemacus, the brave Odysseus' son, was expected to live up to his fathers glory while growing up. This was quite hard for Telemacus, due to the fact that his father was not present during his upbringing because his father was a brave warrior who was sent out to the Trojan War and never returned. His mother, Penelope, had lived a lonely live hoping that her brave and strong husband would arrive sometime in the near future. Penelope along with the rest of their society, expected that Odysseus would be able to survive the battle, although then it was a good thing to die in battle because that meant that you were dedicated and devoted. When Penelope had almost given up hope of her husband's return, she set out to find a suitor and she set extremely high expectations that were quite impossible for anyone to reach. She did this because she knew that no suitor would ever be capable of attaining her love just like Odysseus had and she knew that he had been the only person for her. She created tasks for the suitors to fulfill with high hopes of them being able to achieve it, although the only person in history capable of these things were her very own Odysseus. Lucky enough, Odysseus was capable of returning home to his wife, and when doing so he too pretended to be a suitor and achieved the tasks that Penelope had placed before him just like she had expected him too. 

The Story of Genesis, O.B. Davis Page 26 

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In the story of Genesis, G-d is upset and horrified with the actions of the world and brings a flood upon the grounds and destroys everything. He had expected, that his people would be better than they were, and was disappointed from the corruptness that had taken over along with the violence. G-d felt that the only way to save the population from this evil, was to wipe out the entire world and create anew. He was disappointed from what had occurred and thought that his creation should be better than what was produced so G-d set Noah up for a task of creating a new population unlike the one that had lived before. He expected Noah to reproduce, along with the animals on his ark, to create a society that was capable of good, truth, and have no tolerance for violence. 

The Old Man and The Sea 

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In the story The Old Man and The Sea  by, Ernest Hemingway expectations play a major role throughout the plot. In the beginning of the book we are introduced to the character Manolin who is a young boy who has been learning the ropes of fishing alongside an elder man named Santiago. Santiago, has not had the best luck lately with his catches and has not caught anything for quite a long period of time. Manolin's parents are quite diappointed by this due to the fact that they have expected Manolin to have accomplished something while he is out to sea. While working with Satiago, Manolin did not live up to his parents expectations and his parents no longer wanted their son to work alongside Santiago. Santiago, not catching something for 84 days, did not live up to his expectations nor the expectations of being a fisherman, which disappointed himself and others around him. Due to self pressure, Santiago went out on a very long voyage and was determined when he came in contact with a marlin to bring it home. Santiago endured a tough challenge with the Marlin and knew that if he told others what he had encountered on his voyage, they would expect to see the Marlin in his catch. Although Santiago did not necessarily live up to what was expected of him, he did bring the Marlin's skeleton home with him after the Marlin was eaten by a shark. 

Siddhartha 

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Siddhartha grows up under his father's care and is taught the basic religious teachings of his society where he was told to respect them and follow them. These were the standards Siddhartha’s father expected him to follow to become successful in life but Siddhartha couldn’t do these simple tasks. Siddhartha wanted more and had questions that no one was able to answer for him so he told his father he was leaving. As disappointed and upset his father was, he could not stop him and let him go off in search for enlightenment, leaving Siddhartha independent left to make his own self expectations in life. Siddhartha goes on to create his own life, full of peace and happiness. He falls in love with a woman named Kamala who shortly dies after giving birth to their son, Young Siddhartha. Siddhartha knows that his life and his journey has been helpful and good for him so he places the same expectations on Young Siddhartha that he wished his own father would have given to him.
Like Siddhartha rebelled against his father's expectations, Young Siddhartha doesn’t see his father’s expectations as fair and shortly returns to the main city and the materialistic ways of life. Siddhartha’s love for his son is miraculous and as much as he wants his son to see that maybe his decision wasn’t the right one, he knows that forcing him one way would only push him away farther. He knew he must let Young Siddhartha discover his path of life on his own. He saw that in the end his son would determine his own self expectations and hopefully be able to succeed them leaving only happiness. Both Siddhartha and Siddharta's father placed high expectations on their children and were soon shown that unrealistic expectations can drive loved ones away.


The Little Prince

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The story of the Little Prince is a very popular children's story but also full of life lessons and analogies. The Little Prince lives on a planet all by himself until a rose sprouts. He becomes to happy that he dedicates all of his time to her by watering her, covering her with a glass globe at night, and putting up a screen to protect her from the wind. One day the rose is telling the Prince a story and starts off with, “Where I come from,” even though she grew from a seed on the Little Prince’s planet so "where she is from" is the Prince's planet. The rose’s lie makes the Prince doubt the sincerity of her love and see’s no way of trusting her and he decides to leave his planet. The Little Prince created high expectations for the rose whom he loved dearly and when she made a minor mistake- the little prince couldn't ignore these faults that were revealed to him for the first time. As he visits other planets on his journey he meets a geographer. He beings to tell him all about the rose he has on his planet where he learns that flowers do not live forever. He quickly realizes that he was wrong for leaving the rose and needs to hurry back to his planet. He realizes his faults in creating high expectations for the Rose and even acting so harshly when she failed to meet these expectations one time. High expectations of loved ones can be dangerous because as soon as one fault does not meet our unrealistic expectations- we are blind to their good aspects and only see their wrong doings.

All American Girl by Meg Cabot

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Taking place in Washington D.C., a teenager and sophomore in High school named Samantha Madison is trying to just make it through the next two years until she can graduate. Living with both her parents and her "perfect" sister named Lucy she is constantly being compared to her. Samantha doesn't like being everyone else and doesn't believe in doing what is "in style." Lucy being older and being the perfect child in her parents eyes led her parents to hold these same standards for Samantha. Lucy is sociable, a cheerleader, and considered the most "popular" of her school. Samantha saw these standards as totally ridiculous and decides to rebel by only wearing black clothing, not being social, and not trying in school.  Not only is she compared to her older sister, she has a younger sister who is an over-achiever attending a special school for the most intelligent children. Samantha loves art for the fun of it but not the art classes her parents make her attend to approve in her art so she can make a career out of it. Instead of attending these classes, she gets dropped off pretends to walk in but really walks downstairs to the music store and cafe. One day, while waiting to be picked up by her babysitter, she notices a man outside of her art class that seems fidgety and almost suspicious but didn't make much of it. Out of no where, she sees him pull a gun out of his coat in attempt to shoot the President whom was minding his own business buying a cookie at the very popular local cafe across the street. She was so scared and shocked that she couldn't even run and instead to her own surprise, tackles him and stands in between the gunman and the president. Waking up that morning, never would Samantha expect that coming home from her ever boring art class- she would have been shot in attempt to save the President. She instantly becomes a superhero to America and is in every newspaper there is. Each morning, we have to expect the unexpected because we never know when a perfectly normal day could turn into pain and horror and then into fame and fortune. 

Alone Together by Sherry Turkle 

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When the computer first came out for public consumption, people didn't know what they could do or what they were going to do with them. As technology increased, the lives of Americans have changed. Instead of going down the street to ask your friend to play outside, you text your friend to drive over and sit on the computer looking at other people's Facebook pages. The simple fact is that technology has made America increasingly socially awkward. Sad but true, we can say anything online and over text message- things that we would never have the guts to say to someones face. When you talk over the computer or phone, you can't tell if they are joking, serious, or any emotion that you would normally notice when talking face to face. In this novel, Sherry Turkle, MIT technologist and society professor, researches and discovers how technology has made us emotionally dysfunctional. Turkle sates, "That is what makes us human, over time, over distance, our ability to talk sincerely to other human beings, whether they belong to our past or our present. Our "knowledge of mortality" and our "experience of the life cycle" is conveyed in just such simple messages: I'm sorry. Thank you. I forgive you. I love you." Being able to feel emotion is what we were born to feel and technology is interfering with our connection to emotion. If we stay on this path, we might as replace humans with robots- emotionless and attached to all of our electronic devices. 

Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare

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Taking place in Verona, two families named the Capulets and Montagues have a family feud that goes back many years. These two families will never talk nor stop fighting, and each parent expects their children to grow up with this hatred for the other family as well. When the unexpected happens, mayhem occurs leaving two children in love left to die. Unwillingly Romeo and Juliet quickly fall in love at first site leaving the family's feud to rise. If both families had just came to agreement that they were not going to be able to keep Romeo and Juliet apart from each other, their children would not have died such a mistaken death but isntead they put high expectations on their children's' shoulders and when Romeo couldn't rise to these expectations he was banished from Verona, left homeless. Juliet could not live without Romeo and her parents restricted her from leaving Verona to visit her love and expected that she move on and marry a more suiting man for her in their eyes. She refused their standards and took a potion that would trick her loved ones into thinking that she was dead. In doing so, Romeo had never heard of the plan so when finding the news he ran to her tomb and could not live without her and killed himself with poison. When Juliet's sleeping liquid wore off and she saw Romeo dead, she could not imagine life without him especially now that her family had already thought she was dead and she was supposed to run away and start a new life with Romeo. She was left alone and all she wanted was to be reunited with Romeo so she stabbed herself, in hopes of finding her loved on in another life. Parental expectations can be dangerous, leaving kids think they have no other choice but to rebel to make their parents understand their real thoughts and feelings. 

Firefly Lane by Kristin Hannah 

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Firefly Lane shows you the roller coaster of emotions that came with a long life friendship.  The friendship began between two drastically different characters that found their opposites attract and benefit each other.  Kate Mularkey, always concentrated in her school work, does not socialize much, envies the other "popular" girls at school, befriends Tully Hart, the new girl in school, completely rebellious and envied by all the other girls. If we look at the two girl's different family situations, we can see why each child acts as they do. Tully, craving attention from her classmates due to her abandonment as a child and the fact that her mother, never being around, only comes home when out of money and never sober. While Kate has a loving family and support system always there for her, holding high expectations of her especially in her school work. Tully's lack of parent support leads her to have no expectations to work toward leading her to have no goals to strive for. When Tully's mom loses their home, Tully is greeted open armed by the Mularkey family and we see her attitude change. Once she learns there are house rules and she cannot party every night and come home whenever she wants, she learns that when she has standards put up for her and she works hard to reach them she can go anywhere. She learns her true talent for news reporting and doesn't stop until she is she number one news reporter. Parental expectations guide us on the right path to success and the lack of parental expectations- we can find ourself lost in a scary world. Parents help us find our way and give us advice from situations they found themselves in as teenagers or kids. We learn from our parents and we take their advice and our own advice from our own experiences and pass it on to our kids. Children benefit from high standards because working hard to exceed these standards and unknowingly create their own high self-expectations. 

My Sister's Keeper by Jodi Picoult 

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My Sister's Keeper is about a young girl who struggles from cancer that is knowingly going to die due to her spreading Lukemia that is killing both herself, along with her families relationships. The parents, unwilling to let their daughter die, as any parent would be, decided to conceive a genetically engineered baby hoping that her organs will help save their other daughter. The younger sister, Anna,  grows up knowing why she is born and that her duty is to help save her sisters life, but one day decides that she doesn't want to give her sister her organs against her own will. Anna decides that giving her sister a kidney is something that she feels strongly against doing, because not only will she only have one kidney left, she will be unable to do the things she love most such as cheerlead, play sports, and live the life she was able to lead before if she were to give her kidney up. Her parents think that this action is selfish, although they did not acknowledge these thoughts when bringing Anna into the world in the first place. They had expected their child to be on the same page as them, and willing to do anything to save her sisters life even if it means wrecking a part of her own life. Anna goes on with her thoughts, and begins a process to sue her own parents for medical emancipation and rights to her own body. Her parents are furious at what has happened, especially her mother, and even strikes against her own daughters actions. In the story we learn that the truth is that Kate, the cancer patient, did not want to endure the pain any longer than she already has, and really told Sara to strike against her parents wishes. In this story, we learn not to expect what we do not know, such as Sara was expected to want to give her kidney to her sister, and Kate was expected to want to live no matter what obstacles came in the way of her doing so.