Malden High School - Maldonian Yearbook (Malden, MA)

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senior banquet Margaret Pelosi, Michelle Antico, Susan Gualtieri Ellen Grossman Frank Goodwin, Kim Semon, Norman Lang 31

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Donna Angelo and Pat Hardy Mr. Hines, Mr. DuflFy and Mr. Finn 30 Tom Restuccia, Jo Jo Jesi, Izzy, and Peter Mayne

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MAN: A FRAGMENTED IMAGE When historians, with their historian magnifying glasses and their omnis¬ cient handsight, look back on an age, a period, to cull its mysteries, to examine the events, the attitudes that formed and shaped that time, they investigate and hypothesize about the leaders of that time, the economic conditions, the world-moving events, the cultural climate. Yet these leaders and events are only secondary evidences to understanding a certain period. The primary source to that understanding is — the people — their atti¬ tudes, their problems, their desires and their special vital humanity. If in the future times an accurate portrayal is sought of American life in the 70’s one need only look in the mirror of humanity to understand. Yet the view will not be a single and clear one, but the multiplicity and disjointed¬ ness of a fragmented image. A major reason for this fragmented vision of man lies in the manner in which society treats the individual. With a thousand strokes of the time clock, with the belying pattern of the ubiquitous computer card, with these and other devices society dehumanizes the individual, relegates him to the level of a commodity, a purchasable item to be bought by the hour, sold by the minute, deals with him on an undefinable oblivious mass level, and shatters him into countless arbitrary pieces, into fragments of his humanity. In the guise of maintaining an efficient society, barriers are erected between individuals and groups of individuals, artificial walls are contrived, opposing camps are created to declare me ■—■ you, we — they. This rigid classifying, this contin¬ uous pigeonholing of individuals extends, however, beyond the destruction of person-to-person bonds and invades that most internal of human unions, the integrity of the individual. Man is partitioned by his own labels; he is fragmented into an empty listing of roles while bedazzling facets of him lie neglected, undis¬ covered, and ultimately he is equated with the paper identity society has pasted on him. An extension of this categorizing of people is the prevalence of non-communi¬ cation in a society saturated by media. Is this non-communcation now approach¬ ing an art? As relationships and understanding have been stifled by an ever- narrowing categorization of people, so have communication and contact been confined as a derivative of this fragmentation. Man finds himself unable to com¬ municate in an age of push-button telephones; man finds himself isolated and distant in a time of overpopulation that drives us physically closer and closer. Thus man is engulfed in a thickening quagmire where his attempts to extricate himself drive him deeper and deeper into the mud. He does not know who he is, yet he wears an indelible label. When he identifies himself by that label, he alienates all non-wearers. Seeking solace, he confronts himself and encounters a splintered image of roles. Frustrated, skeptical, and totally bewildered by this inconsistent world, man drifts further and further from his fellows and himself, into an abyss of unfulfilled potentials, discarded dreams and aching dark loneliness. Where then is man’s folly? Or is this dilemma his natural state? E. E. Cummings cut to the core of man’s problems when he lamented: Humanity i love you because you are perpetually putting the secret of life in your pants and forgetting it’s there and sitting down on it Man has the secret of life right there in his pants pocket. He must only rediscover it. He must only rediscover that his humanity is a fragile thing and a complex something that cannot be adequately described by labels or numbers or words. When one views a diamond, all of its facets must be examined, must be held up to the light to sparkle and to be enjoyed. Man must learn to view himself in just such a total perspective, neglecting no area of his humanity, discarding no aspect of his self, otherwise he will be denying all the unfathomable relationships that extend from that area, that aspect of himself to other individuals and entwine with all humanity and with all life. 32 Sharon F. Levy