Compassion. What it is? Give some examples of compassion - Essey

UWAGA! Ten essey zostal napisany zgodnie z zasadami gramatyki jezyka angielskiego uzywanego w Stanach Zjednoczonych, nie klasycznej brytyjskiej angielszczyzny. Moga wiec pojawic sie pewne roznice jak na przyklad speeling (np. "color" amer. i "colour" bryt.), lecz w niewielkiej liczbie. Praca ta zostala sprawdzona, poprawiona i oceniona przez nauczyciela ESOL, Miss Barber.



Compassion is a feeling, which is one of the most important parts of human’s nature. Polish people say that somebody who is unable to feel sympathy has a heart made of stone. Compassion is a normal reaction when we see somebody’s unhappiness. In our life, situations like that still take place. A lot of people do not like it when somebody feels compassion for them, because they think it is humiliating.

Frequently we read about compassion in books. That was a plot in my favorite Polish book Lalka (The Doll). The main fable of this story was unhappy love. Mr. Wokulski loved a lady who was part of noble family. Her name was Izabela. He was in a lower social group than she, so a lot of people treated him scornfully. But he was clever and ambitious and he was a moneymaker. At first, he was poor, but he became rich and everything he did he did for Miss Izabela. He wanted to show her he was not a simple man. He treated her like a goddess, but she actually did not care about him. She was a coquette and she played with him because he was rich. Her family was noble but was becoming poor so marriage with him was a very good solution for this problem. Although for Izabela this marriage was humiliating and everybody knew she did not love him, Mr. Wokulski did not. I think it was because he did not want to know it. For him Izabela was like an angel and he believed she is innocuous and helpless. Everybody felt compassion for him because he was like a blind man and saw only what he wanted to see. Everything changed when he saw her with another man… Both characters from this book, and people who read it felt sympathy for him. It is hard to understand how one not smart, but beautiful and wily woman could destroy him. From a poor worker he became one of the richest people in Warsaw. He never cheated and was always honest. Finally he committed suicide. This character was really tragic.

Another story, which is about the compassion, is You Go Your Way, I’ll Go Mine. The messenger, whose name was Homer, had to deliver a message about death of someone who he did not know. Mrs. Sandoval, whose address was on an envelope asked Homer to read the message because she could not read in English. She was Mexican. He agreed, but actually he did not want to do it because he knew what this message is about. He did what she wanted but later he regretted it. He had to tell her about her son’s death. He felt sympathy for her but it was not his fault and not his problem. He did not know what he should to do when she reacted to this sad news.

In our life, there are a lot of situations when we feel compassion, too. In newspapers we can read about wars, terrorism and vandalisms etc. Somebody’s unhappiness makes us sad, too. It takes place because we are humans and most of us can understand somebody’s feelings. We don’t like this feeling because it provokes to think about really and sad life. We like to see it like something beautiful. But compassion is part of our humanity. Without compassion we are “just as good as dead.”