Final Excerpt

            People, places, things, they all have a certain “feeling” around them. This feeling is called the aura of an object. The aura, as described by Walter Benjamin’s essay The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction, is a “unique phenomenon of distance”. To me this means that as you’re approaching something or someone you can begin to feel their presence and sense that something or someone is there. All things have an aura, whether living or not, and people are in tune to aura differently than other people. Some people have a strong sense for aura of a person or object, and others cannot sense the aura very well. The essay describes aura as a uniqueness of something meaning that everything has a distinct feeling to it.

            If you pay attention to animals and how they react around people and objects, you may notice that some animals growl at some people while other times the animal will start to lick the person and rub up against them. This is because they can sense the person’s aura at a deeper level than other people can. They can sense based off their aura if the person is a “good” person or a “bad” person. Animals might get spooked easily by something on the road or an object they see because they can sense the aura around it. Benjamin speaks of “the aura of those mountains” further proving that objects not only people have an aura. If an animal senses that something or someone might be a danger, they will do their best to warn everyone and stay clear of that person. I have two dogs at home and they always love everyone they meet and want to cuddle up with them. A family friend came over one day though and my dogs were terrified of him. They would not go near him and would run out of the house every time he tried to walk up to them. He found out a month later that he had skin cancer. My dogs could sense from his aura that there was something wrong with him and it scared them. They could tell that there was something off about his presence.