Guys by Lefkowitz Response to Term Paper

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I was also disgusted by the jocks' inattention to their grades (or anything, for that matter, of serious importance - i.e., do any of these "special" adolescents ever so much as read a book; help a friend (with no "hidden agenda"); or volunteer community service? Of course not: they're all far too busy either indulging themselves; being indulged; and messing up other people's clubs; homes, and lives). Kevin Schertzer and John Maher (as if either needed the money) even steal money, jewelry, and other valuables from their fellow students at the Candy Cane Ball. Meanwhile, in the midst of all this jollity, Leslie is told she must transfer to West Orange High School, where she knows nobody, and receives an official diagnosis of mental retardation.

One aspect of this book that I like and admire a great deal, is that of how the author, very deftly and with apparent seamlessness (I'm sure it wasn't that easy, in reality) juxtaposes the "popular" kids' indulged, high-spirited, and often illegal acts against Leslie's sad, lonely life. None of them ever even try to include her in anything or to be even a little bit nice to her. How much effort would that have taken any of them to occasionally include her in something, or even to befriend her one on one, privately, if they were worried about how this would look to their other idiotic friends? Instead, these creeps just make fun of her and laugh at her to her face, and then laugh they laugh all the more, among themselves again, that they just made fun of her but she doesn't "get it."

People like this are often described as "acting like animals," but that is, quite frankly, an insult to animals, who with very few exceptions (e.g.

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, due to abuse; inbreeding, or illness) never act this way, except in self-defense or in quest of food. I think that truthfully human beings are much worse than animals, in their intentionality.

Part III also made me think of the infamous Kitty Genovese incident, in which a young woman was murdered and everyone stood by watching (Lefkowitz mentions this incident, in comparison with what happened to Leslie, later in the book). It also reminded me of Shirley Jackson's short story "The Lottery," in which a Midwestern farming community holds an annual lottery in which one person from the community is selected and cold-bloodedly stoned to death by the rest. In both incidents (and in the case of the gang rape of Leslie) no one stood up for what was right. They were either too afraid or simply too stupid. Herman Melville writes, at the end of a short story called "Bartleby the Scrivener," with despair, "Ah, humanity." I was never quite sure what Melville meant by those two words, until I read Part III of….....

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