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Social Voyeurism In And Of Clay We Are Created

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"And of Clay We Are Created," written by Isabel Allende, explores what social people that study about the mind refer to as the bystander effect. In the story, Azucena is a little girl who is trapped in the mud, and needs help if she is to survive. While the girl suffers and was filmed by countless reporters, no one actually comes to save her. Don’t you think that’s ridiculous? Everyone is so in awe that they don’t take the time out to try and get her out. The reporters are more concerned with filming the girl than with saving her life. "The bystander effect is an effect where persons are less likely to lend assistance in an emergency situation when other humans are present than when they are alone”. Throughout the story, Allende uses voyeurism as a critical dramatic device as she connects Eva Luna to Rolf and Azucena. Through the interactions between the characters, Allende is able to investigate how voyeurism can lead to social apathy and act as a desensitizer in a crisis. She also serves a point that society on a hold tends to suffer this problem when it comes to many other problem out here in the world. Allende 's "And of Clay We Are Created" describes how a host of reporters and cameramen become desensitized and lack of interest towards Azucena as she is dying a preventable death. The situation clearly characterizes the bystander effect. Studies by John Darley, a social psychologist at Princeton University, Allan I. Teger, and Lawrence D. Lewis, his colleagues,

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