The Puppet

In life, we come across many people, and some have a positive and negative impact on our lives, but in the end, they are all lessons just being learned. Sometimes we can feel as if we are being controlled by people, or we can even be controlling over people at times, and not even realize. I have never really liked when people told me to do something because then I just don’t want to do it at all, and this is how I can see life. It can feel so easy to tell someone to do something, but when someone tells you to do something it is not right. There was this friend I had, and she was really bossy, and wanted everything done her way as I got closer to her I realized that she does this to a lot of people. I then realized I really wasn’t her friend, and she was just using me to do things for her. Sometimes it could be something big or small, but at that point, it did not really matter I just didn’t want to listen to her anymore. I feel like everyone comes across someone like this in life, but a lot of times this ‘friend’ can be difficult to step up too and say “No”, but they will go away eventually. The people that are being controlled feel powerless and feel that they can’t say something to this controlling friend that feels like they have all the power in the world.

In my COMP. 1302 class, we are reading about Power and Powerlessness. The main point in this theme can explain how people with power can be given all the demands, and the people that are powerlessness are the ones having to take all these demands without having a say in how they feel. In the story “Yellow Wallpaper” author Charlotte Perkins Gillman, and this story is about a wife that lives with the husband, but the husband is controlling. The husband is a physician and convinces the wife that she is sick, and has to take all these medications to help her with the sickness. She is not able to work, or write unless all the writing is done is behind his back. At the end of the story she says “I am angry enough to do something desperate” (pg.10) this quote is telling us she is starting to do something bad. Therefore, her buttons her pushed, so she rips the yellow wallpaper off the walls, and she was done being controlled, and being told what to do all the time. Another story that stood out to me is “Slide to Unlock” written by Ed Park. This story talks about all these different passwords you can have when having different accounts, and these passwords can be something meaningful to you, but other people would not be able to guess the password so easily. This person is trying to stall by trying to remember all his passwords, and he is saying all the password options he has. Then he says “The big guy with the very hard gun who is saying Password and Right now and Stop stalling” (pg.99) is we realize he is trying to stall because he is getting robbed at the ATM, and this is why he is stalling. In this story the guy being robbed is powerlessness because he is being robbed, therefore the guy with the gun has all the power in this situation.

These two stories can show how being controlled by people can ruin your mental hThese two stories can show how being controlled by people can ruin your mental health, but sometimes you can overpower that person with all the power. The two stories compare with each other in their own ways, but they both have no power over their situations. They are both powerlessness and being controlled, and the people with power. In the story “Yellow Wallpaper”, and “Slide to Unlock” they both talk about how they are not in control in the story. The stories can show how their situations can be happening to many people every day, and people may not even know of it. They are both powerless, but they try and make the best of it for example in “Yellow Wallpaper” she felt like is she was the puppet, and her husband is telling her what to do every move she makes, and in “Slide to Unlock” he is stalling by saying all these other passwords, and trying to prevent getting robbed. The stories showed how they wanted the power, but they could not have the power, and it seemed like no matter how hard they tried they were still powerlessness. At the beginning of “Yellow Wallpaper”, she seems to be very gullible and believes that she is sick. She thinks she needs all these medications to make her feel better, rather in the “Slide to Unlock” he knows he is about to get robbed, but he is stalling, and trying to waste time. During life, you may come across someone who might want to have all the power over you, but that is when you need to not feel powerless, and stand up for yourself. (863)