Name: Emily Schmeiser

Date: 1/8/15

It was simply what seemed sensible for me to write after the war when everyone was thanking God they
werent Nazis. Id seen enough to realize that every single one of us could be Nazis.
-William Golding

What does this quote mean to you? Considering your prior knowledge of the war, other literary texts, or
personal knowledge, write a cohesive essay answering the question.

(indent) I think this quote represents that the Nazis were horrible people but some people are hypocritical
enough to be even worse than the Nazis. Golding is saying that with all of the bad things he has seen
people do we could all be classified as Nazis. Yes, the Nazis were horrible but some of us are just as bad.
(how are some of us just as bad?) We may not believe in their beliefs but the world today is violent and
people are judgmental of others who are different and thats (since this is underlined, try expanding it to
that is) how the Nazis were too. Nazis hurt millions of people just because they were different from them,
but look at what we do to different people today. Men and women that like their own gender cant dont
forget to add an apostrophe) marry the person they love just because thats not how its supposed to be,
but who is to judge how it should be? I will admit people are more accepting than they used to be but
there are still so many judgments that people make just because they are unfamiliar with the different
types of mind frames. There is no way to stop judgments from being made because thats just human
nature, but in some cases just by making judgments based on our differences we could be compared to
Nazis. Not just in America but in other countries people are persecuted and murdered simply for the
reason that the majority of other people dont agree with their customs and beliefs. Most people do not
want to be compared to a Nazi, yet we do things that can make us similar to this group of small-minded
people! If you dont want to be a Nazi and you are thanking God you werent one then dont do things
that can classify you as a Nazi. Its not to say that everyone is committing mass genocide and attempting
to kill millions, but we judge and persecute those that are different and frankly its not just because we
dont like them, I think its because deep down we are scared of anyone else being right except for
ourselves. Some people believe in something so strongly that it consumes them and the second someone
else counters that belief its not okay to have a different dissenting opinion. We all have different
fingerprints and DNA, which proves that we are all different and a factor of being different is having
different thoughts and opinions, so we need to accept that and allow everyone to think differently because
once we do that the term Nazi will be nearly nonexistent. I know that there will never be a day that we
arent all fighting and judging but I believe that acceptance is becoming more apparent and maybe
someday we can all realize that we cant always be right about everything.

This is really good, just watch grammatical errors and I would love for you to expand on your thoughts.