PerceptionsReflection

I created this wall based on American perceptions of ourselves, each other, and our surroundings. We perceive each other to be, I believe, someone that we are not. We both look at ourselves in a way that we may not "be", or we look at others in a way that they might not "be". But "be"ing in America is complex; not one personality fits all, and not one belief system is shared (by any means). America, instead, is coated in many layers, as the first picture depicts. we paint ourselves and each other to be something we may not be. I then included a quote from //The Scarlet Letter// to demonstrate that this tendency was born through Puritanism. Regardless of what we may be marked as, our true personalities will give "sympathetic throbs". I next included Regina Spektor's //Man of a Thousand Faces//, as I believe it embodies the American tendency to project many personalities. The man in the song, though, ascends "without anyone's sturdy instruction" to a place where he can be whoever he wants to be. Most importantly, though, Spektor has sung, "he has found the path to our alikeness". This line is the reason I chose this song - all Americans are alike in the sense that they, in truth and privacy, can ascend to a place where simply living as humans is "good...better than perfect". Still yet, many struggle to ascend to that level, and instead choose to dilute their own perceptions. I quoted from //A Streetcar Named Desire// to demonstrate how many intentionally obscure their perceptions so they do not have to deal with the reality of themselves, others, and their surroundings. As farmers struggled to survive, as the Joads initially did at the beginning of //The Grapes of Wrath//, they also had to choose between seeing their situation for what is was, or exaggerating the positives and negatives of their circumstances. I incorporated //Wind Swept Sands// to show a specific painter's perspective of his surroundings, and then a modern picture showing the American's tendency to use newly developed technology to dilute their perspective further.

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