Vanderhaeghe

Guy Vanderhaeghe: Perception of One’s Self

As all people move through life, choices influence the person that one becomes. People can aspire to the labels placed on them, or, they can choose to embrace change and learn to become what they choose. Guy Vanderhaeghe writes three stories that illustrate this concept. In “The Watcher,” Charlie, a young boy spends the summer on his grandmother’s farm. Charlie is exposed to a completely different way of life than he is accustomed to. The second story is, “Teacher,” where Myles’s entire perception of himself is challenged by his sixth grade teacher. Finally, “The Master of Disaster,” introduces Kurt Meinecke. Kurt is an easily influenced boy that goes through a series of tests that prove he is not who he thinks he is. Charlie is under the impression that the world revolves around him. But when he is forced to be in a completely different form of family care, he realizes that he has been shown a false hood by his mother. This misleading perception of himself and of adults that is shown to him is alters when he is taken out of his pampered and controlled environment. Myles believes himself to be smarter than everyone else in his class. His beliefs are shattered by Mrs.Dollen, his sixth grade teacher. Myles begins to realize that he is just a product of the system. Just an ordinary kid who’s identity has been inflated for someone else’s gain. The third character, Meinecke, aspires to someone else’s dreams and expectations instead of his own. He tries to be someone he is not and ends up changing so much that he runs away from everything he wanted to be. By choosing to or not, by the end of all three of these stories, the characters perceptions of how they, are and where the stand in the world, is altered by their experiences.

At the beginning of each story it is clear that Charlie, Myles, and Meinecke all have an inflated perception of themselves. “With the first signs of improvement in my condition my mother moved her baby...