Wagner Matinee

English 1011 3 December 2009 A Journey with purport Life is all ab come out choices. in time the simplest choice could turn a situation around and further dis coif the future of an individual eternally. I found Willa Cathers short story A Wagner Matinee in truth invadeing. It deals with distinguishable levels of choices, some which readiness affect the characters life slightly, tour other choices may affect their entire lifetime. The way the story is compose nettles the contri thoor count on a lot active the events that occur on the way.It leaves the reader wondering how the situation the characters are to encounter is full(a)ly abnormal by the choice of finality that is make. M both(prenominal) psychologists accept tried and thus far try to research and explain the way humans theorise and make their own purposes by theories, views, and models. There are m each psychologists who contri hardlye their lives in order to examine the similarity between decisions and their consequences. It is found that about of the decisions are through hold ups, stereotypes and individualal views.The story starts with the narrator, Clark, receiving a garner from his uncle, Howard. In the letter there is a nonice stating that his aunty, Georgiana, is coming to capital of Massachusetts for the settling of her tellings estate. However, when he reads the letter he nonices that Uncle Howard postponed sending the letter until the stand significance possible, because the date that is noned for his aunts arrival to townspeople is the very(prenominal) side by side(p) twenty-four hour menses. Clark describes the letter as worn and rubbed, looking as If it had been carried for some days in a coat pocket that was non to a fault clean (Cather 201).It shows how his uncles poor decision could lose turned out if he had delayed sending the letter for one extra day or if Clark was not at home that day to receive it. When Clark expresses his feelings toward his aunt he states how important and affective she was on his childhood. She was the one who taught him about music, Shakespeare, mythology, and Latin. If not for her, he would hit been just an ordinary farmer boy who knows nada about education.Thus, it is clear how upset he would hasten gotten with himself and his uncle if he would have received the letter late and missed his aunts arrival. termination eliminateance is a tendency of avoiding making a choice by postponing it or by quest an easy way out that involves uncomplete action nor change. It commonly results from think and emotion. As mentioned in the Psychological bare by Christopher J. Anderson Under conditions of high stress, this avoidance can bring extreme. Take, for example, the sure-enough(a) sergeant syndrome described by Janis and Mann (1977b).Infantry on the front lines of battle for immense periods, witnessing the death of comrades and having no hope of transfer, have been known to ignore decisions requi re to protect themselves under fire or from routine safety hazards. For them, decision avoidance costs lives. There are four occurrences that had been discussed by researches lieu quo, omission, Inaction inertia, and Deferral. There is no pauperization for the discussion of all four phenomena, since they all are all link to previous consequences and feed thorn.Decision avoidance is made when facing a decision concerning a valuable thing to the decision maker. For a someone there is usually only one chance to make the right decision, but some generation when the soulfulness thinks about the options of the possible consequences it draws him or her back, especially if there is a possibility of discrepancy, loss, or regret. In the decision made by Uncle Howard, the reason for postponing the letter until the last moment competency have been for various reasons.Some of the reasons could be that he might have knew how puzz conduct she de crack be when she goes back to her home town, he might have thought how much he would miss her when she will be away, thought of their kids, or was afraid of her staying for a much longer time at her familys house. Although Clark got upset with his uncle for the situation that he move the letter so late, Uncle Howard probably did not think of it the way Clark did and he definitely did not mean to do that so Clark would not have the chance of seeing his aunt. The second choice is made by Clark.After his aunt arrives to town he decides to take her to an opera the next day, since she used to be a music teacher and admires classical music, to bring back her for some of the glorious moments she had deed overn him (Cather 202). Although, when he talks with her, he becomes crazy that she would not enjoy it. She has not seen an opera ever since she moved to Nebraska, which was xxx years ago. Also, she seems to be interested more in the changes of the city, and keeps on talk of the town about the small unimportant worries that s he has about the house she just go forth for a couple of days, than in watching a design. Once they immortalise the pera hall, it is the firstborn time Clark notices her observing her surroundings. However, he feels unease that she might become embarrassed of her clothing. She is wearing a black, inelegant, dress, while all the other city-women where dolled up in shiny colorful dresses. For her, it felt as if she stepped back into the mankind she has longed for over the years she was in Nebraska. Although she does not seem to show any feelings, which makes Clark even more disappointed in the bad decision he had made. Egon Brunswik, who was a successful psychologist in the mid twentieth century, visualized a model of social perception.It was named The Lens Model. The aspect of it is how the way individuals think they see in others usually determines the way they treat and respond to them. The lens system in this model represents the way the person sees the environment which i s affected by his or her opinions, ideas, and previous experiences. Therefore, this is the main reason Clark was concerned for his aunt. Since every person is aware that he or she has a divers(prenominal) prospect through his or her own lens Clark did not want his aunt to be uncomfortable if somebody looks at her in an improper way.Clark is also very concerned that it is as well as much for his aunt to take in, since he recalls and says to the reader I could feel how all those details sank into her soul, for I had not bury how they had sunk into mine when I came fresh from ploughing forever and forever between green aisles of corn, where, as in a treadmill, one might walk from daybreak to dusk without perceiving a shadow of change (Cather 203). However, the moment the first tune is heard in the air is when Aunt Georgiana first displays emotions.She grasps on Clarks sleeve, and he authoritativeizes that for her , this broke a silence of cardinal years (Cather 203). Then he assur es himself that, certainly, the concert might have been a good choice after all. Although she keeps silent throughout the concert, Clark observes her and the way she reacts to the different melodies. Lastly, the third choice that is made by Aunt Georgiana was made thirty years earlier, when she was in her juvenilityer years. She spent her childhood in Boston and was used to the city life.However, when she grew up, she fell in love with Uncle Howard while tour a village in the Green Mountains where her relatives had settled in the historic. Her family and friends remote her decision, but she followed her heart and married him anyhow. Then she moved with him to the Nebraska frontier, where they lived since. blind by love, she was not aware of the consequences of her decision and the dramatic change and affect it was to cause to her life. She moved from everything she knew, even from her sophisticated and educated self, to a place she was not expecting. She gave up all she had for the sake of love.Her life changed her from being a music teacher at the Boston Conservatory, to being in the case and living a country life. It is most evident that she was not very capable with the decision she made when Clark was studying from some of her music books in his young years and she came up to him and told him not to love music so well, or it may be taken away. (Cather 202) This shows how depressed she got after she agnise the mistake she made and the big sacrifice she gave for something that might have weakened away after a while, and it is obvious that she would take it back if she could, for any price.Also when she arrives to Boston she seems as if she tries not to get attached to the city too much, for she will have to leave it again in a military issue of days. When Clark tells her about the concert and suggests visiting the Conservatory, he might have not realized at first the real reason that made her avoid the plan, but the reason she did it was because sh e did not want to visit these places so the memories would not come back to her and make her even more depressed than she will be. She was trying to avoid reality.However, when Clark took her to the opera she starts to notice the differences between the life she could have stayed in and the life she chose to take. Instead of being in the colorful and happy life, teaching what she is most passionate about to future generations, she chose to move to the county side, do labor swear out every single day, and live a boring routine that she had no interest in. Yet, once the Prize Song is play Clark notices that crying start falling from her eyes. Soon he learns from her that she heard it times before by a German boy who sang in a chorus of his town in his youth.She had told him to join the country church, but he disappeared shortly after he got himself drunk, lost his money, and a bet, which leave him with a fractured collar-bone. The reason that this song shook her emotions might have been because when the young boy came to town he reminded her of herself when she made the same decision when she was younger. Although he lost everything, the German boy was able to manage and leave town, in contrast to her. Sigmund Freud gave the belief that decision making is irrational a very popular voice in the early twentieth century.The early work of the psychologist J. R. Simon in the mid-twentieth century also argued against classical rationality in decisional processes. It led to the Bounded Rationality View, which says that people are thought to seeking or achieving a satisfactory outcome, rather than the best possible outcome when making decisions. An equivalent and famous example for this view, which was also made by Aunt Georgiana, is the marriage of two individuals who fall in love but have completely different backgrounds and interests.In some situations, the need for a decision arises from the realization that an earlier decision was wrong and that it is not produc ing the desired results. For example, when the concert is over, while every one in the audience stands up and gets progress to to leave the opera hall, Clarks kinswoman makes no effort to rise (Cather 205). Even after the men of the orchestra leave the stage, she keeps sitting in her place. Once Clark speaks with his aunt, tears start rolling on her cheeks and she weeps, telling him, I dont want to go, Clark, I dont want to go (Cather 205).Finally, her real emotions come out she is not able to hold them in any longer. She knows that once she will step out of that building she will have to go back to the reality she put herself into, and she does not want to cheek it once again. During her short visit to Boston she found out that everything she longed for during this thirty-years period was indeed the life she wanted and dreamt of in her youth, and she knows that this time she will have to make the ultimate decision in which she will have to give up on a big part of her, either her country life and her family, or the one thing she is most passionate about, which is music.In this part of the story, it is very clear to the reader that the experiences and the events that happened in Aunt Georgianas by could affect her decision for bad or good. Although sometimes people endorse the right decision they have to make, but a bad experience or an outcome from such a decision in the past would trigger them to decide otherwise. She will have to think if she will be happier with finally redeeming the wrong choice she made when she was young and in-love, or if she will go back to the place in which she finds no interest or excitement.This short story without a doubt contains and shows different choices and their versatile consequences and effects on a persons life. First, if Uncle Howard had not sent the letter on time, Aunt Georgiana might not have went to visit her nephew, and in return, she would have went back home without having to go through an frantic journey t hat left her with an even larger decision to make.Secondly, if Clark would have gave up on taking her to the concert they would have probably done something else to surpass the time, and it might had or had not been easier for Aunt Georgiana to go back home. Also, the most affective decision that was made by the characters is a choice that most people have to make during their lifetime whether to get married to the person they are in love with or follow a greater passion which is of a greater importance to them.Despite the situation however, a person should always make the decision with what their mind tells them, not their heart, because the mind thinks about the consequences faster and more accurately than the heart does. Meaning, when a person is blind by the goal he or she wants to achieve and have in his or her life, they usually tend to want it without thinking about the wide range of consequences and changes it will make to his or her life. A person might think a decision is easy.However, simplest choices can have far arriver consequences. Abelson, Robert P. , Schank, Roger C. , and Langer, Ellen J. Beliefs, reasoning, and decision making psycho-logic in honor of Bob Abelson. New Jersey, 1994. Anderson, Christopher J. The psychology of Doing Nothing Forms of Decision Avoidance Result From Reason and Emotion. Phsycological Bulliten Vol. 129, (2003) 139167. Wolf, Bernhard. University of Landau, Germany. 2005. University of Landau, Germany. 27 Nov. 2009. .