Schulz Part 4

It was in this part of Sparky’s life that he found religion. A twenty year old Sparky experienced a change in himself when he was baptized. According to Michealis,
“His baptism imparted a new sense of wholeness. His work improved; he was conscious of a purpose and, as never before, of a sense of identity. For the first time since his mother’s death, his days were suffused with meaning. Here was the real start of the new life toward which he had been struggling since his return from war. Why hadn’t he seen it before?” (193).
Sparky had never fully gotten over his mother’s death, but his new found faith helped him to get over her. I find this very interesting; it seems that all his trouble just went away after his baptism. It may have just been a mental thing in that he needed to get these burdens off his shoulders and then finally found some real meaning in his life to let loose those feelings of anguish. He probably found it very satisfying that he always had someone to talk to for once because his dad was constantly working and didn’t have any steady girlfriends in his life. Religion may have helped him finally get over Dena’s death, but his self confidence issues would need much more than the church to fix.
Sparky struggled for love in his early twenties. He always wanted to be liked and appreciated. According to the author, “Sparky still wanted to be as well liked as his father had been among his many constituent customers, and he set this wish among his highest ambitions…Behind it stood the question of his life: Will I be–was I ever–truly loved?” (Michealis 198). That would be a terrible question to have to ask ones self. How did a man so tormented make such great comics? Well I think there are two parts to the answer. Throughout his whole life and especially near his mother’s death, Sparky had worked tirelessly to prove himself to her and everyone else. I think his constant need to be liked made him work even harder to make it big. It also helped shape one of times most endearing characters, Charlie Brown. Also this book has so far just pointed out most of the negative parts in his life. I’m sure he had a lot of good times in his early years as well.

Michaelis, David. Schulz and Peanuts: A Biography. New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 2007.

Charles Schulz Part 3

Charles Schulz’s life was not easy by any means and he had to make many tough decisions, but these life experiences helped him form his code of ethics. He believed in himself and his cartooning, but had to go through the pain of being rejected by newspapers almost everyday. However, the anguish he received from rejection is not even close to the pain of his mother’s death. Obviously he was very sad because of his mother’s early death to cancer, but he was also mad because of the way that no one was telling her the truth. The author shows Charles’ feeling towards her care, “For Sparky, the most harrowing part of his mother’s torment was that no one told her that her disease was incurable. She remained in the dark until the bitter end” (127). Charles thought it was unethical to let a person die without them knowing that there death was inevitable. Dena Schulz had been going up and down in her health and so it must have been horrible for a person with his ethics so sit there and not tell his mother that there would be no recovery this time. I have said this in a previous blog, but I think this is why he has no adults in his comics. The painful memories of him just standing there and watching nobody do anything while his mother slowly unknowingly die must’ve been very hard for him to bear.
Was it ethical for Charles to stall his mom’s death do that his talents could be proven to her? Charles was a person who wanted to be loved by everyone, but when he didn’t receive much love back he had to prove himself to the world. I wasn’t as if he was a bad person, he just had the unfortunate combination of being short and shy. He wanted his mother to see his work as the author describes, “What kept itself fiercely alive for more than five decades was the sock of realization in June 1940 that, once his part in the yearbook had come to nothing, he had little time to show his mother that he was something” (113). Above I described his personal anguish with the doctors and there treatment of his mothers, but he had to make an ethical decision too. Was it ethical or selfish for him to want his mom to see his life’s works? I think that he wanted to stall his mother’s death so that he could show her that he was somebody. When the doctors decided to end treatment I think he went into a panic, in that, he always thought that his mom would be alive to see his work, but it was beginning to appear that that was not the case. It was time to say goodbye to his mom whether he liked it or not and looking back I bet he wished he would have went about it differently.

Traitors on the waterfront

In On the Waterfront every characters has there own definition of a traitor. The father feels very strongly about it. He recognizes the unjust ways of the mob by the docks and he wants change, but needs the help of the workers. He thinks that the workers have a moral obligation to rat for themselves and others, but many will not. When Doogan finally does step up, he doesn’t see him as a traitor, but as a hero. He doesn’t think that the men are bad people because they are rats, but rather they are bad because they are not ratting. He doesn’t see why the men wouldn’t want to get a decent pay everyday. He wants the mob to turn out like the poor longshoremen, so he tries to enlist the help of Terry. At the beginning, Terry feels sympathetic towards the people that he helped kill, but not enough to act on it. He begins to figure that what Johnny is doing is morally wrong and it begins to bother him. He wants to rat on them, but he is not ready to put away the man who brought him to ball games and employed him. To Terry, it is not being a traitor that bugs him, but rather who he is squealing on. He doesn’t think he can do it, but then the father came along and began to sway him. Between the father and Charlie’s death, Terry severs his bond with Johnny and is ready to take the stand for him and the workers on the dock.
I can understand what Johnny was going through. He wanted to help people and end the unethical behavior of Johnny, but his relationship with Johnny was like a roadblock. I personally hate it when my brothers and sisters tattle on me, but those things are tiny compared to the ethical decisions real whistleblowers face every day. The reason many people don’t say anything is the fear of retribution and I think that is wrong. If it is something significant like reporting company’s shady dealings then a whistleblower should be able to report without getting death threats. I am glad that they have the whistleblower act, but one shouldn’t be in trouble for doing what they believe in. If companies and businesses were not so greedy then these moral crusaders wouldn’t have to step up only to wonder why they ever opened their mouths.

All My Sons

Throughout everyday life we encounter many problems that we solve using our own individual belief systems. Rarely do we stop and think about how these decisions will affect society as a whole. More often we think about how these choices will affect us and the people closest to us. Choices like Joe Keller and Chris Keller have to make in All My Sons. Joe Keller believes in family first. To Joe, supporting his family was above all, as he clearly states, “For you, a business for you!” Joe uses his family as justification for sending out the defective airplane parts. He is clearly wrong because he didn’t look at bigger picture and 21 pilots lost there lives as a result. He must suffer the consequences for his actions, but instead he shoulders the entire load on his partner. Unfortunately for him, his story begins to unravel. His own son doesn’t want any part of this business especially because he was in the war. Chris was out there fighting for his life and his men’s life while his father was letting defective airplane parts slip through with the false hope everything would be already because he was doing it for his family. Chris looks at the larger picture stating, “For me! I was dying every day and you were killing my boys and you did it for me? What the hell did you think I was thinking of, the Goddam business?” Chris knows that family is important, but being in the war has shown him many things. He doesn’t care about his father’s business because he knows that it is wrong to kill people in order to have a profitable business.
I think that everyone makes mistake sometimes; we put family and career before society, and that almost never ends well at all. We can take a look at many major bankrupt corporations. It may be a nice thought to go to bed thinking that you and your family will wake up to $10 million dollars like the major CEOs, but honestly who needs that much money? How many more major corporations are going to put there and there families’ well being before the public before we put an end to it? Enron is a great example because the people up top ruined hundreds of peoples lives to make some extra dough, but just like Joe they didn’t get away with it and had to pay the price. Don’t get me wrong putting family before society isn’t always bad; it’s just immoral when you have to take out other families to satisfy your needs.