Hocus Pocus by Kurt Vonnegut

            Ignorance is one of several things in life that is very damaging. Many people have heard the saying "ignorance is bliss;" this is the same as saying "boys are stronger than girls." Both sayings are said on a regular basis, but are misleading. Ignorance is the farthest thing from being bliss. It is a very destructive facet to many people's lives. In my life and many others lives it has created resentment, displeasure, and anger. People do not slow down to find out more information; they act quickly upon the situation, which leads them to ignorant actions. This has unfortunately happened to others and me more times than we would have liked it to. Kurt Vonnegut writes in Hocus Pocus about how people are mechanistic creatures that are filled with ignorance. The main character within the book is Eugene Debs Hartke, also known as the narrator of the book. Eugene was a commissioned officer by the age of thirty-five whom then became a physics teacher at Tarkington College, and then was a prisoner of his own community. Hocus Pocus depicts that people cannot differentiate between what is posed to be true and what is actually true. .
             When people hear the word ignorance they immediately assume stupidity. This connotation of the word is wrong. The definition of ignorance is the lack of knowledge and information. For example, during the middle ages people believed that the earth was flat with no scientific facts or observations. Another example would be around the 1920's when cigarettes became popular. People were ignorant towards the effects of smoking them such as them causing lung cancer. Both of these examples show the lack of information towards a situation and people continue to pursue it. .
             Hartke as a teenager was always pushed around by his father to do better in school and in general, life. His father did this because they were deeply troubled by their family's image. His mother got a broken nose two days after his father got a black eye.