Benjamin Button, Reflective post.

     Reading " The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" and also watching the movie, a couple of years ago, I always just thought of the reading was telling a story of someone who was born different from the rest of society. Its true when people say that history repeats itself, because when one person is somehow different from the rest of the bunch we automatically label them a "freak" or "strange" and we instantaneously separate them from ourselves and rest of the group. Instead of accepting people for their uniqueness we make them an outcast and never really see the struggles that they go through. This is what I thought that story was mainly about, thought it partially there is more to the story. However, during class, my eyes were opened to several other insights that made complete sense to what the story can also mean and probably the most important meaning. First idea that was addressed was that this story shows how people treat old people. It never really occurred to me that was about how people saw and handled the elder, but it makes complete sense. In "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" it said that he found most comfort in the presence of his grandfather. It says, "when his grandfather's initial antagonism wore off, Benjamin and that gentleman took enormous pleasure in one anothers company." It seems to me that Benjamin could not relate to anyone else but his grandfather. He was much older than most people and no one understood him except his grandfather because they were both around the same age and they were able to discuss "with tireless monotony the slow events of the day", the story states that they would sit for hours and talk. I think this is probably how a lot of older people feel. We younger people are always in our little bubble talking about life and our hopes and dreams of our future, we do not stop to think about the elderly. We figure that they are able to take care of themselves since they are older and that they have friends. However, the truth is that they are not capable, depending on the age and situation to take care of themselves. Most of their closest friends may have passed away or have moved away into elderly homes or different states. They do not have someone to listen to them. So that is why Benjamin found great friendship with his grandfather because he was in some way able to relate to him. In class we also spoke about magical realism. I learned that magical realism is a technique writer's use to create a story that is unrealistic in life but due keep a sense of reality and commonality to life, we are able to accept the story as believable. For example, though we know that this story is not real we are able to believe the story more because though Benjamin was born old, instead of as a baby, he starts to age in reverse. So he would get younger instead of older, there was a process that we saw that we can relate to because many times as we get older we too see an age process, we get older. So we are able to relate more to it because we also change as life passes. Another example that we discussed in class was adjustments. When we get older obviously we gain more wrinkles and gray hair we have to adjust to the change by accepting it or buy products that would make us feel and look younger. Well for Benjamin that was always the case for him. Since he was older and he was attending college he would adjust his appearance to make him look more like a freshman in college. He was actually kicked out of school for looking too old and had to attend a different college, he had to make adjustments because life dealt him difficult cards. This is what magical realism is all about. "It alters or heightens reality, but this is accepted as a commonplace... it combines reality and fantasy" (handout from class discussion).  I am sure as we continue reading stories just like "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button", with this knowledge that I was able to learn in class it will help me have a better understanding of the text and meaning of the story.