Individualism and Happiness
... do you expect from these people?"(197). The pastor has already put a label on the people who practice Voodoo negatively by comparing them to the devil. People who practice that "demonic religion"(197) are categorized as another group of people. The pastor also labeled people who have AIDS negatively because earlier, when Seltzer asked the priest why he wouldn’t accept AIDS patients, he stated, "Because we would having nothing but AIDS here… we send them away"(197). The pastor talks about people with AIDS as if they are not human, as if they are garbage thrown away somewhere else. Since there is no cure that the hospital can offer to AIDS patients, priests are supposed to take them in when no one else will. They are supposed be serving god by doing good deeds by helping god’s children. That’s when Seltzer spoke out against society in Haiti when he told the priest that he was going become a voodooist. Once society has labeled a person or a group of people negatively, everyone else gives in by going along with it. Since society sees wealthy people as important people, everyone else looks up to that while they ignore their consciousness. On page 200 in A Mask on the face of Death, a hotel manager covers up the AIDS crisis in Haiti by telling tourists that Haiti has "reliable weather, honest and friendly populace, low wages and multilingual managers" because more tourists equals to more money for him. The hotel manager does not mention anything about the fact that 50% of the prostitutes are infected with AIDS and that 80% of men with IDS have had contact with prostitutes. In The Pen and Scalpel, there are fears and doubts that Seltzer goes through as he considers changing his occupation from being a surgeon to a writer. "…to patronize the arts was respectable; to practice them was not."(203). Since surgeons are thought to be rich and successful, they are highly respected. Unlike surgeons, writers are artists and artists aren’t guaranteed a job; they barely earn enough money to pay the rent. Seltzers fears that by becoming a writer, he will be looked down upon as he "felt a strange sense of dislocation"(204) yet, Seltzer turned his back to society and decided to do what he has always wanted ...