Class Discussion (2/4/14) (Meagan Adler)

I found today’s class discussion of religious association particularly intriguing in its relation to the “unhappy nineteenth century” (pg.4); the idea of Darwinism mentally shocked many of the people in this century in the sense that everything that they grew up believing was invalidated.  These “laws of nature” (pg.5) are significantly daunting and allow us to somewhat associate with the misanthropic narrator.  I also found our discussion of the idea that the narrator is able to discover a “peculiar sort of enjoyment- the enjoyment, of course, of despair” (pg.5) if he were to get slapped in the face.  It is evident that the narrator desperately longs for a sense of belongingness so that he can feel a part of the insects that he spitefully looks down upon; in being slapped in the face, I feel like the narrator would feel that he was a part of something and that someone was reacting to his thoughts or ideas.  With the idea of people trying to enforce their beliefs on someone else, I feel that the narrator would feel almost a grotesque sense of enjoyment if he were to get slapped because he would be able to somewhat respect the insects in society for rejecting his belief system.