I can not even begin to explain how much I can personally relate to this statement. I have sheltered myself from the entire world many times, but one time in particular was after my car accident that resulted in severe whiplash for me. I avoided driving anytime possible, and when I could not avoid it, I started to panic whenever a garbage truck was in my rear view mirror. I let one incident prevent me from doing something that actually relaxed me before that.
Bates also related to this comment, telling the reader “as an infant [she] had nearly drowned in the bathtub, and all [her] life, [she] avoided learning how to swim” (59). In Spirits of the Dead by Edgar Allan Poe, he starts with “thy soul shall find itself alone ‘mid dark thoughts of the grey tomb-stone...” (Edgar Allan Poe Complete Tales and Poems 15). Like Shakespearean works, I feel Edgar Allen Poe’s works can be translated many different ways, and this poem seemed to fit this week’s reading because this quote could easily be talking about the “prisons” we put ourselves into. We overthink, we panic, we make assumptions, and we build walls with ourselves on one side and the rest of the world on the other. Do prisoners build these walls and create “prisons” for their own minds because of conscience or because of the opinions of those around them? Are they so used to being told that all they will amount to is a no-good-criminal, that they start to believe it themselves? Is it fair for Newton, or people like Newton, to feel like they CANNOT have a positive mindset, like there is just no point in imagining the best in life?