Human Nature

In APO 96225, author Larry Rottmann presents the theme of the tendency of humans to ignore unpleasant reality. This theme is illustrated more than once, and through more than one character. For instance, when the mother continues to beg her son to provide in his letters more detail of his activities, he ignores her with responses such as, "Wow! You ought to see the funny monkeys" and "The sunsets are spectacular!" (Rottmann, 846). These are examples of the son's attempt to ignore the reality of his life as a soldier; the false cheer he protrays is an attempt to escape what he knows is real. The next example of a character's attempt to escape reality comes at the end of the poem when the father responds to his son's last descriptive letter saying, "'Please don't write such depressing letters. You're upsetting your mother" (Rottmann, 846).  Here we see the mother who would rather believe that her son is not partaking in such brutal and violent action. Likewise, in life, sometimes we attempt to convince ourselves that our problems do not exist. For instance, when I have a lot of homework, I attempt to ignore it by finding anything else to occupy my time, such as cleaning, sports, or often napping. This is my attempt to ignore reality. Such actions are not not healthy, but hard to avoid nonetheless.