_The_Human_Heart_Has_Ever_Dreamed_of_a_Fairer_World_Than_the_One_It_Known__by_Carleton_Noyes_(Critical_Lens)

According to Carleton Noyes"The human heart has ever dreamed of a fairer world than the one it known."the meaning of this critical lens is that human beings are having always longing for a better life. Even if the life they presently live is as better as it could be, they always think that there is room for improvement. Two works of literature that show the meaning to this quote. The pearl by John Steinbeck is the perfect example and the Caribbean novel Crick Crack monkey by Merle Hodge. The pearl is a tale of the human heart longing for something considered better. Kino the main character finds himself alone in a world of good against evil. He trys very hard to keep good coming his way. Even if it takes his life. This novel begins when Kino awakes to carry out his normal morning activities, along with his wife Juana who prepares breakfast. Unfortunately the morning’s normality goes array when Kino sights a scorpion crawling towards Coyotito, his baby, on the rope where the baby lay in a box. Juana hums a prayer about keeping evil way, while Kino reaches for the scorpion while it was falling, instead the scorpion fell through his fingers and landed on Coyotito and bit him. Desperate to heal their baby from any damage the scorpion sting may cause, they rush towards the only medical personnel they know in their community; A doctor of a race that has “beaten and starved and robbed and despised Kino’s race.” The doctor, a fat white man, who lives in a “city of Stone and plaster,” wants nothing more than to be “civilized” and “live in France,” is characterised by greed and ungratefulness. This shows a human heart longing for something better, even if it is considered better by other people oppressed on the lowest of a social ladder. In this case the doctor lives a much superior life than the Indians whom are at the bottom of the social scale in a socially stratified society. The doctor refuses to help Kino’s baby, and refers to the Indians as animals, by saying “I am a doctor not a veterinary.” However more emphasis will be placed on Kino, whose quest of life improvement, is supposedly facilitated at the founding of “The Pearl of the World.” He sighted the pearl in the sea when he was diving for an oyster and pearl- search. And as the pearl glimmered and shone in his hands, he felt that his hidden dream for a better life could now emerge from the darkness. He and Juana could get married in the church, Coyotito could get educated, and perhaps a rifle. The knowing of this pearl-founding spread through the village, quicker than an epidemic. The same doctor who refused to treat Coyotito appeared at Kino and Juana’s bush house. The doctor would even pretend to heal Coyotito fading sting bruise just so he could be paid with the founding pearl. This is another indication of the human heart longing for a better way, that even committing acts of evil is possible to achieve this act of self-centeredness. The next morning they attempt to sell the pearl, however Kino was furious about the low prices being offered for the pearl, and refuses any of these prices. As the pearl sellers put on a show that influences the tag-along villagers that the pearl is of no value. He returns to the brush hut and buries the pearl. Kino was even attacked and almost killed, outside his brush house as harsh anonymous hands searched his pockets. He attacked like a beast but it was still no use against the exterritorial cruel ambitions. His head and face was gashed and bleeding, and he was unconscious. At that moment Juana insisted that they destroy the pearl and that “the pearl is evil,” but Kino refuses, insisting “I fight this thing” and “I am a man” “we well have our chance.” The power of his desire for a better life ignorantly enables him to keep the pearl. Even after the burning or their house, a hole was found in his inherited canoe and they had to flee their village. The desire to pursue his ambition, he held on to the pearl. When Juana sneaked outside in the night to throw away the pearl, Kino catches her and brutally attacks her. After, he was attacked by assassins and he brutally murders one. Kino’s desire for material possessions, leads to failure as Coyotito is killed by a stray bullet. It was this that convinced Kino that the pearl was after all “evil” so he threw it back into the ocean, therefore diminishing evil but not returning good, and the life they had before. This could indicate that even if a human diminished evil around him or herself, it will still persist and so they will always continue to wish an enhanced world. In “Crick Crack monkey,” the Caribbean novel is about a young girl, Tee who is torn between the world of her light-skinned middle class aunt, and her darker-skinned lower-class paternal aunt. Tee, who first lived with the paternal aunt at a tender age, after her mother dies pregnant and her father went to England, received a scholarship to attend a secondary school. Since her paternal aunt Tantie, as poor as she may be wanted the best for her niece, it was allowed that Tee goes to live with aunt Beatrice’s to facilitate the easing of her education in a secondary school. While living with Aunt Beatrice, Tee becomes a victim of isolation. She does not fit into British indoctrinated lifestyle that Beatrice so insistently tries to incorporate into her household. For she believed that attempting to live by British standards was the better way to live life. This indicated that any human’s wish of a fairer world can be accordingly to differences in culture and ethnicities, but nevertheless the pursuit of “a better life” is always a dream for humanity. Tee was accustomed to the love, gaiety and joy that filled the atmosphere in Tantie’s household. That it seemed as though she was flung into “this new life” With Beatrice’s daughters, Jessica and Carol who both alienated and mocked her. Most of the things that she loved and enjoyed while living with Tantie, was considered, “niggery” and “indecent” to Beatrice. Such as when they went to the carnival in a truck loaded with carnival-goers. To Beatrice it was thought a “niggery” truck. Beatrice indicated that “how can a woman of no sense of right or wrong take it upon herself to raise children'” while in the household of Tantie, the idea of a good life was the freeing of oneself, by dismissing British limitations, restrictions, and “manners.” Beatrice had succeeded in brainwashing Tee, into believing that her previous life with Tantie was of a lower value. “I wanted to shrink, to disappear,” she felt as she stat on the threshold. Tee began to feel ashamed of herself, and thought she was an affront to the welfare of Beatrice’s household and to life itself. Tee’s desire to live an enhanced life, as such any human, allowed her to believe that Beatrice’s “schooling” of “standards” that was influenced by the British culture, was “the way to go.” In the end, when a letter that her father was sending for her to live in Britain. Beatrice’s household began to treat her well. Even her schoolteacher who scorned her and told her “you are one of those that will never get very far” was cooing and acting friendly towards her. This is another example of the human’s desire for “a better world”. Britain is seen as “a better place” in this colonial setting, and so they developed a need to treat Tee with respect. And so in this context, a “better place” to live makes a supposed “better person” of Tee.