Leisha, the sleepless child, loved the school and flourished, in just "half a year she...moved to...a different room" (pg. 161).
Vincent says in the film Gattaca "'There is no gene for fate...They used to say that a child conceived in love has a greater chance of happiness. They don't say that anymore.'" Which proves that society favors the "valids" because parents choose their child's' fate; and have more love for their "valid" child, which makes everyone happier.
For example when Vincent says in the beginning of the movie,"They used to say that a child concieved in love is a child of happiness. They don't day that anymore"; he means that a child is happier when they are genetically picked to be perfect now. The society in Gattaca beleives that it is the right thing to do and they have become accustomed to picking out their child genetically....
Some "Sleepless", and "Yagaiists" believe ‘"competition among the most capable leads to the most beneficial trades for everyone, strong and weak. Sleepless are making real and concrete contributions to society, in a lot of fields. That has to outweigh the discomfort we cause. We’re valuable to you."’ (174) This view helps rationalize every ones place in society. That everyone does equal amounts of work.
In today world we see a lot of discrimination going around. Same goes for the people in "Beggars In Spain". There are two kinds of people in the story the sleepers and the sleepless. The discrimination is directed towards the sleepless in this story, "You and your pretty little girl hair and your mutant little girl brain" (Kress172). Our society is the same way we try to bring people down who are better then us just to make us feel good.
These upper class children are mostly children of " professors [and] scientists, [they are] people who value brains and time" (Kress 167).
There is discrimination of superior groups as well as inferior groups. But the prejudice that was more prevalent throughout the story was against the "sleepless" or superior group. The question " Is it [hatred] really envy over the Sleepless’ good fortune? Or does it [hatred] come from something more pernicious, rooted in our tradition of shoot from the hip American action" is declared in the text (Kress, 190).
Being able to give a kid advantages like this could cause problems among normal and "improved" children. ""And you think that should matter to me just as much. But it doesn’t. And why should I fake what I feel."" Mr. Camden tells Susan Melling that he very much favors the child he invested in.
Leisha and her father express their feelings about sleep. ""I want to sleep daddy. No, you don’t, sweetheart. Sleep is just lost time, wasted life. It’s a little death."" Mr. Camden is a little extreme in believing that sleep is so wasteful that it compares death.
William Bradford is the first to document these tensions in his personal writing. The Pequot War is a volatile attack upon the Native Americans by the English settlers. Bradford and "[the English] approached with great silence and surround the town so that the Native Americans could not escape, then they proceed to burn the town while the people that escaped were otherwise slain" by the English, which actually hints that the battles are extremely brutal (Bradford 41).
For the people reading the documents written by Bradford, it did not seem like he respected God at all. Bradford said, "...yet God gave them a morning of comfort and refreshing for the next day was fair, sun shining day, and they found themselves to be on an island secure from the Indians... (Bradford, 27).
In many instances it seemed as though the Puritans treated the Indians with much disrespect. I found that when they stole the Indian’s food in cases such as this, "...they digging up, found in them divers fair Indian baskets filled with corn, and some ears, fair and good, of divers coulors" (Bradford, 25), that the Puritans were not respecting the Native Americans grounds. {Note: Apostrophe mistakes?}
In the dictionary, barbarous is defined as "uncivilized, primitive" and civilized is defined as "bring into a state of civilization; bring out of savagery."
The Native Americans probably seemed quite barbarous when they burnt down Mary Rowlandson’s house and killed/captured everyone (Rowlandson, 67-69). But, what about when the Puritans put a Native head on a tick in their town? "[B]ut not long after some of Taunton fidning an Indian Squaw in Matapoiset newly dead, cut off her head and it happened to be Weetamoo."