12 Years A Slave Dbq Essay

Kenji Lo

Mr. Gleason

AP English 11

5 September 2014

Twelve Years a Slave Theme 1: Identity DBQ When people are born, everyone is born with unique and untainted personalities. As people grow and develop within a society, their personalities are constantly changed by outside influences through events that create both senses of pleasure and trauma. As people are influenced more and more by these outside influences, a good majority of one’s personality is highly influenced by one or more outside influence rather then the original, unique personality born into them. One’s personality is greatly the result of outside influences in both traumatic as well as pleasant experiences such as war, slavery, and the individual pursuit of happiness. One

In the passage Reynolds explains that in a recent study by researchers from University of North Carolina and University of California Los Angeles, that people perception of their pursuit of happiness is divided into two categories, hedonic and eudaemonic. A hedonic approach means the person says happiness is found through consuming things, contrary to eudaemonic approach, whom are people who feel happiness is found through helping others. They state that people are brought into one of the two different categories in their genes. The article exclaims that genes know the difference between a purpose-driven life and a shallow life. This passage does support the idea that a person’s personality is shaped by their inborn qualities, but could be refuted because humans do have the ability make their own opinion and choose later in life whether or not they would rather pursue happiness through consuming things or helping others. One’s view toward happiness is not always limited to one point-of-view for the rest of their life. Gretchen Reynolds’ article In the New York Times Magazine does support the idea that people personalities are shaped by inborn qualities, however does not bring into account the individual decisions people may have later in