The apothecary learned that "people would turn first to superstition to find meaning, to stitch together unconnected events in order to understand what was happening." What do people in the United States today look to when they seek understanding?
Why does the apothecary kill the tiger's wife? How did this shape the narrator's grandfather?
What makes the apothecary so intensely still and "steady and resigned" as he waited for his execution? What had pulled the fight out of him?
Why does Marko say, "What has that got to do with anything?" Why isn't the burial spot of the tiger's wife important to him?
6 comments:
I'm a pretty superstitious person to be honest. For example, if something bad happens the day I wear a certain shirt or something, I most likely won't wear that shirt again. Anyway, I agree with the apothecary, people wil often look to something/someone they can't fully grasp or see to find meaning in something. For a lot of people its religion. They reach out to God to find understanding in something they can't understand by themselves. When one of my cousins died, my aunt turned to palm reading and tarot cards and other things of that nature. She reached out in search for something that would help her understand why her son had to go. Why he had suffered for so long. Maybe people don't always find answers to what they were looking for but maybe while looking for the answers they found peace and understanding.
I'm not really a person who is superstitious in the slightest. I have always been the sort to seek logical explanations, as opposed to deciding that an event was the cause of something supernatural. I've had friends tell me they believe ghosts because one time they saw a chair shake on it's own, leaving me to reason, "Don't you think it could have just been the tectonic plates or something man". So I strongly agree with the apothecary, people will turn to superstition to find meaning. I personally feel that while people should believe in things bigger than themselves, they need to first rationalize how something can be attributed to the certain laws of our world.
I think that the apothecary killed the tiger's wife to give her a better way out. He knew that the villagers wanted her and her unborn child dead, so maybe he thought that he was helping her by giving her a quicker and less painful death. I guess it is better to die fast and unknowingly than to be dragged out of your house kicking and "hissing" by your own community members. Another possible reason for the apothecary to kill her would be to regain his name among the villagers. If the villagers saw that he did the town a "favor," then maybe he would become a respected figure again.
I think people now a days look to the facts or conspiracy theories in order to seek understanding about certain things in life. Although I wouldn't always believe the "facts" because although most have been proven, there's some that claim to be facts and claim to have been proven except for the fact that no one but that one person can prove it if that makes sense. I think sometimes the government lies to us and says things are a "fact" and here is why but it doesn't even make sense or add up. An example of this I guess would be veganism. The government tells us we need meat to live and the government supports the meat and dairy industry, which supports hospitals. So then doctors and hospitals also come out and say you need meat to survive and here's proof. But because they all support each other that's why they say you "need" it because if you don't support the meat and dairy industry, that industry doesn't support the hospitals anymore, which is just a bunch of business reasoning in the end. Now people are proving that it's a lie and although this is a topic of conflict I just set this out here as an example for what I am saying. Not all "facts" are true and people still sometimes go to them for understanding and except them instead of testing them themselves.
Many people do different things when trying to understand something. Some people believe in a god/gods and pray to them to help understand. Others possibly do research into whatever it is and learn what they didn’t understand, while others can be ignorant and say that what they think is right, and believe that what they know is all that’s needed. Some people may even look to social media to help them understand, and maybe sometimes people can actually be helpful. I think that a majority of teenagers go to the internet to understand, while older generations might go to each other and talk amongst themselves.
In the days before science became more known, people would explain natural events and illness through religion. whether it's one god or many, they thought appeasing the gods would bring good harvests, or years of devastation were due to an unhappy god, but now people don't see a weak harvest and think the gods were unhappy. They see there was a drought or the year was hot, and the crops perished. In today's world, I think many people turn to the internet for understanding. There, they can find groups of people who share their belief, professionals, and plenty of resources of information. The only issue with this is it can be difficult to distinguish what is and isn't true sometimes. Not only this, but it gives people with unrealistic beliefs (i.e. flat-earthers) a platform to connect and propel this false truth. The internet has made people believe untrue things easier, but it also gives people the opportunity to verify information for its validity.
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