Limiting Perspectives

            From the differing environments of adolescence to external factors of adulthood, perspectives are unique and ever-changing. We’ll honestly never truly know what is right or wrong because our different subjective lens creates different stories. Our thoughts, ideas, beliefs, imaginations, dreams, and theories are changed by our views of the world. Some people will have a broad understanding of the world while some will have a limited lens that cannot see past certain points. So, how does restrictiveness change the way people view the world? In our society, perspective shapes reality and limiting that perspective will negatively affect outside relationships.

           

Where the Crawdads Sing follows the life of Kya, a girl who knows the feeling of abandonment like the ABCs and lives a life of isolation. Her world only has one constant factor and it’s not a human relationship but her relationship with nature. Kya’s world only consisted of a never-ending yearning for a steady relationship. Nature never leaves Kya’s side unlike all her family members. Her abandonment issues are the root of her ultimate downfall. After researching about abandonment issues to better understand Kya’s behaviors, I found that people with abandonment fears have trouble maintaining relationships, have the tendency to cycle through relationships, cling onto toxic relationships, and possess a longing for constant reassurance. Kya does just that to cope with her loneliness. Her lonely perspective causes her reality to be filled with betrayal and untrustworthiness. She’s outcasted as the “marsh girl” by her community, she never has an authentic relationship with anyone, she clings onto the attention that Chase Andrews gives her, and she can’t easily trust people. Though, if Kya’s life hadn’t been so toxic, she wouldn’t have felt the need to kill Chase Andrews to save herself and sought out the help she needed. 

Although Nea, in Saving Sourdi, didn’t live a life of isolation, she wasn’t much different from Kya in terms of limited perspectives. Nea and Sourdi. Sourdi and Nea. It was never just Nea. Nea lived her whole life in Sourdi’s world, attempting to protect her from the harmless world. With the one thought of protecting her sister, Nea acts irrationally and naively, turning a blind eye to her own cognitive development. While Sourdi continues to thrive in her maturity, Nea falls behind, never really growing up or gaining individuality.

I begin to question if Nea’s narrow perspective is what caused her to lack the maturity that Sourdi possessed. I believe Nea’s misconception of Sourdi’s danger and unhappiness stemmed from her narrow-mindedness. Would she have acted so foolishly if she didn’t live life for the sole purpose of protecting her sister and living her life for herself? 

Perhaps a more recognizable example of limited perspective is Rapunzel and Mother Gothel. Like Kya, she lives in isolation, away from her kingdom, trapped in the castle tower for almost 18 years. Her only source of the outside is the small window that she lets her hair down everyday for Mother. Every year, unknowingly, she sees the lanterns that her kingdom sends out to find her – the lost princess. She refers to them as the stars that coincidentally, although we know that it is not coincidental, come out every year on her birthday. She asks Mother Gothel if she can go see the stars every year, but Mother insists that the outside world is too dangerous for Rapunzel when in reality she just wants to keep Rapunzel and her magical powers to herself. When Rapunzel questions the accuracy of her statement, Mother just says to trust her because she knows “best”.

Mother actually doesn’t know best; Rapunzel just doesn’t know anything.

Only when Rapunzel courageously steps out into the real world does she realize how beautiful life is. She learns to build relationships with the villagers. She experiences foreign feelings like love, freedom, and independence. She falls in love with the natural world, her village, and Flynn Rider (my favorite Disney love story <3). Escaping the tower represents Rapunzel escaping her Mother’s toxic arms and finding her true life outside of her isolation.

Rapunzel’s story is different from Kya and Nea’s. She finds her real identity by separating herself from the thing that holds her back and fights her limited perspective. This comparison shows how people will react and live their life out differently depending on how they act against their perspective. Rapunzel lives a happy life, Kya dies holding her lifelong secret, and Nea remains in her childish character. 

In life, there is no right or wrong answer. Everyone’s perception of right and wrong is different. Everyone’s experiences change their outlook on life. Everyone’s reality is different.