Question: In Chapter 2, Albert Knox states that "It seems as if in the process of growing up we lose the ability to wonder about the world." What does he mean? Do you agree with him? Explain why or why not, using examples from this first section of the novel (pp. 1-120) and your own life experiences.
When I just started reading this book, it immediately made me feel as if I was Sophie herself in the book and being asked questions about 'life' and philosophy around the world. I have to say, I don't think i have ever read a book like this before that has made me think so far and to question the world of what I wanted to know as well, such as 'Who am I?' and 'What was the cause of the universe?' It also made me question the 5 big questions, particularly of 'Why'. By taking Religious Studies for GCSE, I have learned many different parts to these questions, but never as so detailed as in this book before.
The chapter immediately starts off with Sophie yet receiving strange letters, and ultimately finding herself rejecting her friend's requests to play with her friend. Returning home, she finds another letter, about the importance of philosophy, that there are many ways which to answer each type of question. Albert Knox desperately tries to persuade and educate Sophie not to lose her wonder about the world as she grows up, probably hinting to the readers that it did so in the past. Albert Knox gives many different examples to emphasize his view on the "faculty of wonder", such as that we human beings would never be able to know whether God exists or not or whether there is truly life after death after we die. He also emphasizes that babies have the capacity to wonder about everything and that most people don't find the faculty of wonder because they are too inured to life and no longer find it wonderful, but rather taken for granted. I believe that as we grow up, we really start to lose the faculty of wonder, partly because of how we perceive the world and that our wonder's gradually fall due to our wider knowledge of the world as we grow up.
For example, the lego brick futher on the book tells us that it is similar to the atom theory, that lego's can be put together to create a bigger, more useful piece and then can be broken all down again to create something totally different. Albert Knox means by the quote that people start to become more bored about life, and just wait for other people to find out the questions they wonder for them. This is the opposite to babies as appeared in the book because babies do not understand anything, just merely knowing how to say things, walk, sleep, eat and etc, but hardly thinking at all. Due to all these traits in a baby, a baby will inevitably gain more of the ability to wonder about the world as they grow up. However, there is a high chance that up to the point of an adult, they will start to lose their faculty of wonder, and start to lose it as they grow old.
However, thinking in different terms from the two previous paragraphs, I believe that what we perceive/see in life is important which affects our sight of the 'wonder' of the world. This is because nearly every human beings have different perspectives to different things, which is philosophy; to be able to think about different things in many different ways on just one simple but broad question in detail, where there is no correct answer in philosophy, only down to one person's judgment. For example, say you have a toy that a child likes so much. An adult would think of this toy as 'boring' or 'utterly useless' whereas the child would cherish it till he becomes the age to not like the toys at all. As a child, because of the toy they love so much, they will wonder more differently about the world, only with this one toy. Albert Knox in my opinion seems to be saying that adults wonder less about the world, because they know a lot more than children, knowing that a toy cannot do anything other than impress the child and not the adult.
All in all, with all these reasons and my personal belief, I disagree with the statement, even though I probably had more reason on the 'for' side for this argument. This is because even though an adult might not be of interest to some certain thing it doesn't mean that they lack the faculty of wonder, just because they're older and are bored with life compared to the young ones. Albert Knox in my opinion seems to just base his beliefs and judgments on just one particular event, where I believe that with further thought and study, that as we grow up, we don't necessarily lose the ability to wonder about the world, it is in fact the opposite, which depends entirely on the nature of how we lived and how each individual child is educated, as everyone is different.
POSTED BY: WILL MOON
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
"This is because even though an adult might not be of interest to some certain thing it doesn't mean that they lack the faculty of wonder..."
This i disagree with you. If an adult has less interest in, for example, a toy, then he would (most likely) not wonder about it, and therefore would lack to faculty of wonder towards the toy as the adult may already know many answers to the questions a child might think.
Post a Comment