Final Paper " On The Birth of Carlos" Juan Aboites In the reading "If Rape Were Legal", the subject, Carlos, is deathly afraid of his own mortality and he is in denial about this mortality and about what kind of an effect it will have on the people he loves. For example, he is unaware of the impact his behavior will have on his kids and then subsequently on their kids, and their kid's friends, etc. Carlos's problem is that he is most concerned with the physical aspect of death, this is what he is most afraid of, and what he believes is the most important thing about death, the death of the physical being, something that is not quite true. The story of Carlos begins when a young psychologist was concerned about his behavior and attitude towards other members in his therapy group. He was being insensitive to the problems of other's, especially of one woman's trauma after being raped. Already at the beginning we see signs of a fear of physical death. His own justification at saying these things is that what he is going through (chemotherapy, the knowledge that there is no question he will die within a few years) is much worse than what these women have gone through. His reasoning is that rape is something that happens to you and then it's over, that you can still go on living your life. According to Elisabeth Kubler-Ross there is no need to fear physical death, but there is reason to fear what kind of mark your personality, your self, will leave once your physical body is gone. "You may view the eternal essence of your existence in terms of the impact your every mood and action has on those you touch, and then in turn, on those they touch, and on and on-even long after your life span is completed. (357)" This is exactly what Carlos is missing, the realization that the things that he does will leave an impression on all of those people he has had dealings with, a very negative impression. For exam...
