221 Writing Blog

Florence Nightingale

In my country, Taiwan, there is always a lesson taught during our elementary school that talks about the “Lady With the Lamp”, Florence Nightingale. Therefore, every person in our country is really familiar with the name Nightingale, but few people know much about what she did. When all of my classmates first heard this story, we really thought she was like a real angel because her behavior was so impressing and heroic. In fact, Florence Nightingale was born in England in1820 and had a great family background. Her family always thought she would have done something really great. In fact, she really did something great, but not the same as her family thought. During the Crimean war, Nightingale did an enormous decision. She devoted herself to helped the victims in the war. In “Florence Nightingale” write at that time, no one will ever volunteer themselves unless they were forced. As a result, people considered Nightingale a true hero because her selflessness and inspiring action.

Being selfless is one of the reasons why Florence Nightingale was a hero. Selflessness is a main point of being a hero. It’s very hard for people being selflessness because it means you have to give up something. In modern society, we could watch from the news that people care more about themselves than think about others. People do things which are beneficial for themselves. Compare to the time before, it is very rare to see people helping each other on the street now. Before, people were always willing to give you a hand when you need help, however, it is rarely to see people helping each other now. Furthermore, back to the time, according to the article “ Florence Nighingale” wrote royalties like Nightingale, with her wealthy background she should got married and held the family, but instead doing those things, she became a nurse. There is a phrase states great achievement is usually born of great sacrifice, and is never the result of selfishness ( Napolin Hill). That is to say without sacrifice and generosity there will not be a success. In March, 1854, Russia invade Turkey. During this war a lot of soldiers got hurt and they were also lack of medical equipment. When Nightingale knew this situation she let go her comfortable life she had in England and bring thirty-eight nurses to Turkey to help the soldiers. When Nightingale arrived there, she was shocked by the thing she saw, although before they came they had been warned about how terrible the situation was there, she did not imagine it was that terrible. The first thing Nightingale started to do was cleaning up the hospital and took care of the soldiers days and nights. When the moment she sacrificed her better life and decided to go to Turkey to help those soldiers she was already a hero.

Nightingale was not only selfless but also inspiring. The action that Nightingale volunteered to Turkey inspired people to become a nurse and changed how people think about nurse. Usually people have a person they admired to look up. For example: Children follow parents’ footstep, they would like to do the same thing as their parents. However, not everyone looks up to their parents; for some students who want to be a nurse, Nightingale is their big hero to look up. In fact, most students in the nurse school were all inspired by Nightingale, and saw Nightingale as their hero. After they heard about Nightingale’s story, they were all inspired by amazing actions. Further more, they got more passionate about being a great nurse as Nightingale in the future and help patients in the world. What is more, what Nightingale did might only inspired part of people, but what she did is still heroic. As it mentioned before Nightingale volunteered to go to Turkey: people in Nightingale’s generation thought nurse was a bad job, because people who were nurse were usually poor and drunk. The nurses were usually forced to take care of the patients because they have to earn money from the government, they didn’t pay effort on taking care patients. However, when people heard about Nightingale’s action that she volunteered to be a nurse at Crimean War, they had all changed their perspective toward nurses. People since that time are all inspired by Nightingale and now we can see that people totally change their attitude toward nurse. As a result, people think nurse is a respectful job; more and more girls are inspired by Nightingale and have a dream of being a nurse to devote themselves of taking care patients.

According to Joseph Campbell (1994) the writer of “The Hero with A Thousands Face” states that “hero is someone who has given his or her life to something bigger than oneself.” In other words, when Nightingale gave up her easy life and volunteered to war field this action was definitely something greater than her life. Nightingale was not only selfness but also inspiring, she made more and more people want to be a nurse and help patients.