A story of dilemma discussed in HR class

Posted by 如钧 on 25 十一月, 2007 · 7 則迴響 

In Human Relationship (HR) class, we discussed a story, “The girl and the Sailor Case History Sheet”.

 

The dilemma

       A ship sank in a Storm. Five survivors scrambled aboard two lifeboats: a sailor, a girl, and an old man in one boat; the girl’s fiancé and his best friend in the second.

       That evening the storm continued, and the two boats separated. The one with the sailor, the girl, and the old man washed ashore on an island and was wrecked.

       The next day the weather cleared, and still the girl could not locate her fiancé. In the distance she saw another island. Hoping to find her fiancé, she begged the sailor to repair the boat and row her to the other island. The sailor agreed, on the condition that she slept with him that night.

       Distraught, she went to the old man for advice. “I can’t tell you what’s right or wrong for you,” he said. “Look into your heart and follow it.” Confused but desperate, she agreed to the sailor’s condition.

       The next morning the sailor fixed the boat and rowed her to the other island. Jumping out of the boat, she ran up the beach into the arms of her fiancé. Then she decided to tell him about the previous night. In a rage he pushed her aside and said, “Get away from me! I don’t want to see you again!” Weeping, she started to walk slowly down the beach.

       Her fiancé’s best friend saw her and went to her, put his arm around her, and said, “I can tell that you two have had a fight. I’ll try to patch it up, but in the meantime I’ll take care of you.”

 

Task Instructions

Rank order the following characters from 1 (the person you liked most or valued most) to 5(the person you liked or valued least):

 

My order of ranking: 1. The fiancé’s best friend. 2. The girl. 3. The old man. 4. The girl’s fiancé 5. The sailor

 

My thoughts:

While we are reading this story, we do make a lot of assumptions in evaluating each character. Our beliefs and values affect our perceptions towards the characters too. Different people rank the five characters differently because we have different values which are formed through our experiences and education.

 

For example, I value the girl for being committed, devoted and honest, but impulsive to wrong action, a little stupid as she could have waited for days. In the class, somebody says that “The sailor” in fact represents the values of businessman, maximizing his own benefits by all means. He is focused on the economic values and seizes opportunity accurately. The old man is also representing a certain type of people in the world who is always neutral and plays safe. In fact, in my opinion, he could help the girl more by fixing the boat and stopping the sailor’s evil doing.

 

Anyway, human relationship is really an interesting and profound topic. It has endless room for discussion and exploration. I love HR. Good time passed by.

 

 

My HR project mates(all locals except me) and tutor (in white)

 

 

歸檔於 如鈞教你開智慧 Master Ru Jun‘s wisdom