The Monster Versus the Sand kings
We live in a world where we are forced to face monsters every day. Somedays we fight the monsters inside our head, while other days we battle the monsters that lurk in dark corners. In today’s society, when one thinks of their version of a monster they usually visualize a cruel human or a devastating disease. Often times, we forget about the monsters of immense size with animalist traits. In Frankenstein, written by Mary Shelley, most view ‘the monster’ that was created by Victor Frankenstein to be the monster because of his inhumane traits’. In George R. R. Martin’s short story “The Sandkings”, most people perceive the sandkings as monsters because of their monstrous appearance and cruel acts towards Simon …show more content…
Frankenstein created a humanistic creature complete with veins, arteries, skin, and blood. As the story unfolds, the Monster does not change his physical shape. On the contrary, as the sandkings grow, they transition through physical stages. When sandkings mature, they go through three phases of life becoming more intelligent with each stage. Between the second and third stage they give birth to an unknown creature. Each maw, the creator of the sandkings, creates its own breed, so everyone is unique. This plays an important role in the story because sandkings have a slight ability of telepathy whereby they can sense their owner and respond to his actions. Throughout the story, Kress starves the sandkings to encourage fighting. However, he did not realize his actions were causing the sandkings to turn against him. By the time they reached their final stage they were willing to kill Kress in order to provide themselves with food. None of this would have happened if Kress would have let them become warriors on their own terms. The environment that they grew up in caused them to lash out towards their master.
Some people may argue that in nature vs. nurture, the environment a person grows up in has little to no effect on their behavior. My opponent would say that some children are born aggressive. Their brains have been hard wired to produce violent …show more content…
They reacted in different ways based upon his actions toward them. When Kress starved them, they despised him. When he fed them, they worshiped him. It was a vicious cycle, until the sandkings outsmarted Kress and took him down. Through Kress, the sandkings learned to become warriors. They strengthened their survival skills, and fine-tuned their fighting skills every time Kress starved them. Without Kress’s selfish behavior, the sandkings would have remained innocent creatures. According to Deutsch, “Aggression as a way of interacting with others and solving social problems is learned directly from personal experiences and vicariously from watching influential role models enact aggressive behavior” (Deutsch, 412). The sandkings observed Kress’s behavior and modeled it through their
We live in a world where we are forced to face monsters every day. Somedays we fight the monsters inside our head, while other days we battle the monsters that lurk in dark corners. In today’s society, when one thinks of their version of a monster they usually visualize a cruel human or a devastating disease. Often times, we forget about the monsters of immense size with animalist traits. In Frankenstein, written by Mary Shelley, most view ‘the monster’ that was created by Victor Frankenstein to be the monster because of his inhumane traits’. In George R. R. Martin’s short story “The Sandkings”, most people perceive the sandkings as monsters because of their monstrous appearance and cruel acts towards Simon …show more content…
Frankenstein created a humanistic creature complete with veins, arteries, skin, and blood. As the story unfolds, the Monster does not change his physical shape. On the contrary, as the sandkings grow, they transition through physical stages. When sandkings mature, they go through three phases of life becoming more intelligent with each stage. Between the second and third stage they give birth to an unknown creature. Each maw, the creator of the sandkings, creates its own breed, so everyone is unique. This plays an important role in the story because sandkings have a slight ability of telepathy whereby they can sense their owner and respond to his actions. Throughout the story, Kress starves the sandkings to encourage fighting. However, he did not realize his actions were causing the sandkings to turn against him. By the time they reached their final stage they were willing to kill Kress in order to provide themselves with food. None of this would have happened if Kress would have let them become warriors on their own terms. The environment that they grew up in caused them to lash out towards their master.
Some people may argue that in nature vs. nurture, the environment a person grows up in has little to no effect on their behavior. My opponent would say that some children are born aggressive. Their brains have been hard wired to produce violent …show more content…
They reacted in different ways based upon his actions toward them. When Kress starved them, they despised him. When he fed them, they worshiped him. It was a vicious cycle, until the sandkings outsmarted Kress and took him down. Through Kress, the sandkings learned to become warriors. They strengthened their survival skills, and fine-tuned their fighting skills every time Kress starved them. Without Kress’s selfish behavior, the sandkings would have remained innocent creatures. According to Deutsch, “Aggression as a way of interacting with others and solving social problems is learned directly from personal experiences and vicariously from watching influential role models enact aggressive behavior” (Deutsch, 412). The sandkings observed Kress’s behavior and modeled it through their