"No man is an island entire of itself; every man
is a piece of the continent, a part of the main;
if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe
is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as
well as any manner of thy friends or of thine
own were; any man's death diminishes me,
because I am involved in mankind.
And therefore never send to know for whom
the bell tolls; it tolls for thee."
These words by John Donne from the 1624 Meditation 17, from Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions
How do these texts explore similar themes?
The three texts, Meditation 17 by John Donne, The Island by Armin Greder, and the other, Mankind Is No Island, by Jason van Gederen, all explore the theme of connection and isolation between people. No one can live on earth without affecting another as told by John Donne and shown by van Gederen, and is shown in The Island by Greder. A stranger appeared on an island, and at first, the villagers took him in, but because of his strangeness, he was isolated away from the villagers, put in a goat pen. But fear slowly grew upon them until, finally, they pushed him back out into the sea. Although the stranger had done absolutely nothing, he affected the villagers in a huge way. In the visual text by van Gederen, it's shown that the homeless are ignored by others because they lived on the streets, and looked ragged. The fortunate people walk past them, and it's like looking at a whole other world, where the poor are isolated from the fortunate, and while it doesn't seem like they affect them, the poor people do because it is a reflection on the people who were lucky.
How do the texts provide insights into prejudice and "otherness"?
The texts provides insights into prejudice and "otherness", especially in The Island, where Greder shows the isolation of one stranger/foreigner, and how since he had arrived different, the villagers had not wanted him on his island nor had they wanted to take him in because judged him before they actually came to knew him. It is also shown in Mankind Is No Island, when we ignore the homeless on the streets because they are poor, and we don't know them. People judge others before they get to actually know them because they are different, they aren't like them.
Why do people make distinctions between "us" and "them"?
I think that people make distinctions between "us" and "them" because they are afraid of what is different and what they do not know or understand. If they meet another person who looks/acts different, they become scared because the person could be dangerous. Another reason is that people make distinctions between "us" and "them" is because they are afraid of people being more powerful, and that if they make an "us", they might be able to overcome the "them".
