Monday, April 5, 2010

Sometimes being too smart stops you from being a human being

The ending of Zadie Smith's On Beauty illustrates that sometimes being a genius stops a person from actually being a decent human being. The culmination of the stroy indicates the entire meaning of the novel which is that love, decency and truthfulness do not walk hand in hand with education. People who live lives of the educated do not necessarily mean that they are good people. Also maturity does not come along with being and genius and it is something earned and worked on instead of just having it as age increases. This is illustrated the most when Howard Belsey convereses with his father and even then refuses to be the adult he should be but instead shows how fallible and and defiant he is to maturing and patience. He is not able to realize the significance of his relationship and refuses to put aside his egotistic intellectualism leading to another fault and will enable him to sleep with Victoria Kipps. Therefore Smith's message of intellectuality does not always lead to a good person is passed along to the reader.

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