Service Analysis #2

Victoria Paternostro

1/31/13

Service Analysis 2

                                                Obsessed

            Obsession plays a big role in controlling peoples lives as seen in Hawthorne’s The Birthmark and Gilman’s The Yellow Wallpaper, but there is always a way to control an obsession which can be seen in Wordsworth’s I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud.  These obsessions can play a part in how people perform services also. Obsessions can help or hinder the outcome of people’s volunteering and service. 

            In The Birthmark and The Yellow Wallpaper, both narrators obsess over one little thing that ends up ruining their lives. Aylmer became obsessed with his wife’s birthmark and would not stop until it was removed. But in removing it, Aylmer also went to far and lost his wife. Like Aylmer, the narrator of The Yellow Wallpaper become obsessed with an object, the wallpaper in the bathroom of their summer home. At one point, she makes it her goal to figure out the pattern of the wallpaper. I both cases, obsessing over something ended up ruining something in each narrator’s life.

            Like the narrators, everyone can become a little obsessed with something. Many people tend to obsess over something especially when they are participating in service.   These people can obsess over things like helping as many people as they can, or doing everything perfectly right.  In doing so, these people can ruin the experience of service for themselves and others. 

            When I did service with helping little kids who have autism, some of the other volunteers were almost obsessed with doing everything for the kids and doing it for all of them.  I think that this ruined the experience for not only those people who were exhausted by the end of the day, but also for the kids.  They didn’t get to really have fun because the volunteers did all of the arts and crafts or games for them.  By these people obsessing over helping every kid and doing everything perfectly, they ended up ruining what could have been a great day for those kids. 

            Although obsessing over something can be bad, it can also be good in some ways. In I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud, the narrator is a little obsessed with daffodils. These daffodils are what he uses to bring himself peace.  Although he doesn’t think about them all the time, he obsesses over them when he needs to and is able to control it. 

            These three literary works and service are similar through obsessions.  All three narrators became obsessed with something, whether this obsession was good or bad, just as people can become obsessed with something while participating in service.