Another source of justification used by us when searching for happiness is the technique of putting others down. The Normals had no other choice but to use the Flaweds as a means of achieving satisfaction. Such cruel treatment is portrayed to us by a slave buyer who states, “This regimen of daytime beatings and lonely nights will continue until such time as there is nothing remaining of you free will…I will sell you and others of your ilk at tremendous markup” (p.155-156). The slave buyer’s position in society justifies to him that it is okay to give daily beatings to others in order to use them for your benefit which was the money and eventually in impressing a woman named Carlotta. Therefore, the slave buyer’s false justification compromised his actions and redefined what happiness should be.
What we assume will bring us happiness defines who we are. What the Normals thought would bring them satisfaction greatly varied from what the Flaweds described as happiness thus validating the great gap in such classes. The Flaweds wanted to escape their slavery; therefore happiness to them was freedom, which in their world could only be attained if one was a Normal. Saunders reveals Connie’s struggle for happiness when he states,
“..She fell for a Client, the Normal son of a transportation mogul…then while touring with his parents, he saw her hunched over… and that was that…Connie’s flaw is a slight, very slight, vestigial tail…she went through a bad depression and tried to sand it off…When she came out she was humiliated and refused to speak” (p.96-97).
To Connie, happiness meant falling in love with a Normal and being considered a Normal, and because she failed in doing so, she tried cutting her flaw off and ended up depressed and humiliated. What made her happy defined who she was, a person who couldn’t appreciate or wear her flaw proudly.
The Normals, however, defined their happiness in several different ways because they had the option available for them in doing so. To some Normals, happiness came from money, to some from love, and to a lot of others, materialistic matters. A perfect example of happiness through materialistic needs is the Normal family who make a living out of potatoes. The husband states, “If you want something nice, you’ve got to get it for yourself. I want a generator for my family. Lights at night. A fan in the summer. And I’m getting them!” (p.133). The guy had nine kids and a wife and just kept himself busy and working to find his happiness in buying those things. The parents fail to take care of their children and value their family and put all that aside to buy nice things for themselves. Here, their identity is compromised and based on their materialistic needs.
Happiness today is described by society as having a great job a nice car and an amazing wardrobe. However we fail to realize that this is not true happiness. The more we have does not equal the more happiness. At the end of “Bounty,” after Cole finds his sister and makes sure that she is okay, he continues to find something else to do in keeping him busy by joining the rebel group at the end. This is the scary truth that we face in our daily lives. We need to go to college, find a career that will grant us great money, and settle down. At the end we call this happiness. The more we have going for us in our lives, the more content we are. Think about plastic surgery. After fixing one flaw, we discover another, and until we fix all of them, we end up feeling “happy.” We fail to hold on to what is more important, such as health, family, and security, and cling to what society portrays to us should be happiness. In “Bounty,” Cole fails to realize from the very start that he was better off in Bountyland with his daily meals and sense of security. We must redefine what happiness is and by doing this, we create a new and better identity for ourselves.
Work Cited
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Saunders, George. Civil War Land in Bad Decline. New York: The Berkley Publishing Group, 1997.
