No Man Is An Island

The texts of John Donne's poem No Man Is An Island, Armin Greder's The Island and Jason Van Gederen's Mankind Is No Island video poem all have similar themes such as equality, prejudice, and humanity. In Greder's The Island, the man is treated like an animal. He was forced to stay in a goat pen and he was absolutely dehumanized. In the poem No Man Is An Island, describes how every man is a part of the continent and should be treated equally. The video poem mentions "who do you love". All of these different themes are somehow portrayed in these three texts.

These texts each have a way of showing equality as one of their themes. In Greder's The Island, the people of town treat him like someone different. As if he's not even human, the townspeople aren't treating him equally. In John Donne's No Man Is An Island, he speaks a lot about being a part of the continent and how mankind should never be left alone. This suggests that everyone should be treated equally and no one should be left behind. "Your truth, your thinking, your inner spirit; no different to me." These words were in the video poem by Van Gederen. This implies, yet again that all of mankind should be treated equally and that no matter how different we are, we are all the same.

Another theme that is shown in all three of these texts is prejudice. In The Island, the people in town first see the naked man and immediately think of him as a threat. They didn't even bother asking about his life story or the reason why he's come. They assumed he was danger, which led them to start rumors and lies about this innocent man. This shows that they made snap-judgements and that the townspeople were really prejudice even thought they thought they were being nice by letting him stay. In John Donne's poem, he's saying that everyone is equal and there should be no prejudice. The video poem quotes "I walk by you today, I always look away". This suggests that people are being prejudice and they don't bother finding things out about anything before judging. In the modern world today, all around us there are many people being prejudice and soon enough, no one is going to care about another person other than themselves.

The final theme that is represented in these texts is humanity. Donne's poem suggests that we should treat everyone with humanity because everyone is part of the continent. The video version of that poem shows clips of beggars on the street and no one is giving them anything. "Do we measure empathy by donations?" The Island has a lot about humanity. Firstly, the people don't seem to have any humanity judging by the way they treated the man who appeared on their island. Also, the way they dressed and looked according to Greder's illustrations, they looked like beasts almost. Not exactly as beastly as the circus men in The Great Bear but they weren't far off.

These three texts each use different techniques to portray equality, prejudice and humanity. Poems, videos and a children's story book. Although these may not seem like big messages read literally but they actually have a deeper meaning to them. The Great Bear was an allegory about rights and respect, The Island was a way of showing how cruel and prejudice people can be. John Donne's writing is a poetic way of showing how people should act and how people should treat each other. The video poem was a tear jerking way of showing how prejudice people can be and how people aren't even sure of what they love now a days. "What is it we love today? Do we love the people or place?"