Curious George (1941) uses the binary of human and nonhuman in story to teach a lesson to kids about curiosity and decision making. This original story begins with a monkey who is captured by a hunter, travels with him, and during this time gets himself into mischief. To be more precise, the story uses an animal from Africa to demonstrate the difference between decision making from black and white people. George the monkey (non human)  symbolizes African Americans, and the hunter(human) represents White Americas . The story begins with the curiosity of the Hunter who is a white man, and his interest in George. When he decides to capture George, there are no mistakes. The Hunter easily captures George. However, when George gets curious and has an idea of his own, something bad happens. An example of this is shown in the boat scene “On the deck, He found some seagles. He wondered how they could fly. He was very curious. Finally, he had to try. It looked easy, but, oh what happened? First this, and then this”. When George thought of an idea, he accidentally fell into the water and almost got himself killed. His decision making is flawed. Overall, this demonstrated the belief that the decision of a white person is superior to that of a black person.

Citation

Rey, H. A. Curious George. N.p.: n.p., 1941. Print.

My classmate, Crystal, talked about how it seems that Alice has dual personalities.  She scolds herself when she cries, telling herself that she cannot cry.  Many children chastise themselves in order to calm themselves down to mimic an adult scolding them.  Having a voice of reason from an adult is usually more comforting.  However, in “Little Annie’s Rambles”, the adult is the one talking about himself, as if he too has dual personalities.  He describes the situation from a third-person view, as if he was not the one with Annie.  Here, Annie is not the one chastising herself for doing something wrong, or talking about the situation as if she were not there.  Instead, the man who lures her from her house switches from describing Annie’s interest in the town crier’s announcements, to describing what he and Annie look like walking together from another person’s view.  This disrupts Crystal’s binary because not only is the adult the one with the dual personalities, but he is doing the exact opposite of chastising.  In fact, he is the one leading her away from her house without telling her mother, which is not something she should do.

Hawthorne, Nathaniel. “Little Annie’s Ramble.” , by Nathaniel Hawthorne, 1837, 1851. Twice Told Tales, n.d. Web. 07 Oct. 2015.