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Differences and Similarities

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Being part of a community helps a person feel secure and comfortable. Community also helps provide people with a sense of stability. In comparing “A Secret Society of the Starving” by Mim Udovitch and “Can You Tell the Truth in a Small Town” by Kathleen Norris some important things will be talked about. In this paper what holds these groups together, the secret society vs. the small town will be answered. How could someone fit into each of these groups is a question that we should ask ourselves. Communities have only our best interests at heart. Individuals in a community always know and are free to determine what their best interests are. How do these communities affect others lives and what is it is the main question that will be answered today.

“A Secret Society of the Starving” is a place on the internet where people can go and talk to others who have the same issues as them when it comes to Bulimia or Anorexia. The website is “...a way into city of woe, I am the way to the forsaken people. I am the way into the eternal sorrow.”(113) which they are paved with. By having a lot of people on this website with common things as each other it holds the people together. These websites that they have posted to try to helps resolve the issue or if its there for just support, it does help. The websites seems to reinforce the secretiveness and the ‘specialness’ of the disorder”, (111) which is why people go to these websites. Basically it seems that you fit into these comminutes as long as you have some type of eating disorder, preferably anorexia or bulimia. These websites are also a place for people to ask for help and a place of security and secrecy. These websites also known as communities for these people are effecting their lives everyday. This community provides a sense of stability by helping them feel accepted among others with the same issues or different ones.

When reading, “Can You Tell the Truth in a Small Town?” you see how this as well as other small towns are small communities of their own. They welcome new people with open arms but they have things set the way that they want them to be set and how they don’t want them to change. The question that is asked in the beginning of this story is, ‘How do we tell the truth in a small town?’(127). This story portrays that the truth is what the town knows which might or might not be the honest truth. Small towns tend to “make nice” or even have the tendency to just smooth over the issues to make them seem like they never existed. The community is the small town and everyone that has lived there since the beginning as well as the residents who have been accepted in make up the community. With very few people and lots of jobs that need to be done. Being in this small community and avoiding the truth helps these members feel stability because that’s what they know. They are sure that no one will find out the truth. The main question that the people of this small town ask themselves is, “If we could make the past harmonious, why not the present? Why risk discussion that might cause unpleasantness?”(129) By saying this you could see that they want to stay away from any drama that could occur if they do anything new or different. Along the same lines at the title of this story you can see how the writer feels when she says, “And what of truth? We don’t tend to see the truth as something that could set us free.”(130). To me this is saying that basically a lot of small towns don’t really care about the truth instead they care about what they are familiar with and what they enjoy. A quote that was asked to Mrs. Norris by a gentlemanly old cowboy in the tavern was a very good question. The question is one that others should be asking themselves too. He asked, “Who are we, and where did we come from? That’s’ the real question isn’t it? And here we are, telling each other lies.”(132) Mrs. Norris replied with saying that you could call them stories. In saying this it is implied that they are just “stories” nothing more and nothing less.

After reading both of these papers someone would be able to see that these theses are made of communities with wonderful aspects that help a person want to be a part of no matter what type it is because of the security and comfort that they give you. By reading both of these stories you learn a lot about different communities and how each one reacts towards each other as well as outsiders. In “Secret Society of the Starving” you can see how these people mainly women between the ages of 13 and 25 interact with each other in their issues that they are having with food, whatever their issue may be. In “Can You Tell the Truth in a Small Town” you can see how each of these people like to live their own lives their own ways however they do intact with each other and make up stories about themselves and their town but no one seems to question them on it and that’s how they like it. They stay away from drama at all costs. All-in-all these people in each of these stories have come together as a community and helped each other out for support as well as other reasons. When reading this you can see that it is a great thing to be part of a community no matter what type of community it is. Communities always stick together and they are always there for you when you need them no matter what. It is highly suggested that everyone join one type of community or another.

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