Melville on Inequality A Study of the Shorter Fiction - Literature Essay Samples

There is, perhaps, no other American author whose work has been so hotly debated than Herman Melville. The white whale at the center of his most famous work, a juxtaposition of gender in America, an odd scrivener, and his much discussed story of a slave mutiny in â€Å"Benito Cereno†; the meaning behind Melville’s work has remained mysterious. The reason there is so much contention about his work, is because Melville was not writing as an all-knowing observer of American society, but as one of the masses trying to define an ever-evolving America. In Melville’s short stories, he used symbolism and characterization to define not only the one-of-a-kind America, but also his own feelings of disillusionment and guilt living in a time and place that he was able to capture beautifully through literature. De Crà ¨vecoeur asked his famous question, â€Å"What is the American?† in America’s infancy, and Melville is one of the quintessential American authors whose work answers that question. Although descriptions of rolling hills and odes to freedom made for patriotic reading, they weren’t a very accurate portrayal of American life. A recurring theme in Melville’s more honest portrayal of the country is inequality, especially in his short stories that were published for Putnam’s Monthly such as â€Å"Benito Cereno†, and â€Å"Bartleby, The Scrivener† (Post-Lauria 2). As Melville says in â€Å"Hawthorne and his Mosses†, a literary critique that reads more as a love-letter to his peer than a straightforward review, â€Å"Whereas great geniuses are parts of their time, they themselves are the time and possess a correspondent coloring,† (â€Å"Hawthorne and his mosses†). This sentence holds the key to all of Melville’s work, for he was a contextual writer, and writing for, â€Å"one of the most intellectual and politically progressive magazines of mid-nineteenth century America,† is the context â€Å"Benito Cereno† must be taken in (Post-Lauria 3). As the political rival of Harper’s Magazine, Putnam’s was more likely to criticize Ame rican society than it’s counterpart, as Melville was more likely to than his fellow authors of the time. Putnam’s was nearly peerless for the time in avoiding, â€Å"the popular rhetoric of sentiment,† so Melville was the perfect fit for the subversive paper, and the paper was the perfect fit for his political ideology, and ingrained beliefs about American society that he continuously challenged and examined through literature. Writing his whaling tales, Melville often plundered old whaling journals to transform into fiction. One of these stolen tales created one of his most subversive works: â€Å"Benito Cereno† (Gallaway 241). â€Å"Benito Cereno† tells the tale of American Captain Amasa Delano coming aboard a mysterious ship with a Spanish captain by the name of Benito Cereno off the coast of Chile. To interpret Melville’s work shallowly, as many have, would be a mistake, for his work is characterized for its complexity. It’s quite easy to read â€Å"Benito Cereno† as a parable of good and evil, in which the white Spaniards represent good and the mutinous slaves represent evil. It’s an oversimplification that the narrator himself makes, but Melville’s narrators often come from a place of naivety, so to take the beliefs of Delano, a representation of America’s ignorance regarding racial disparity, would be falling into the very same trap Melville accuses Delano of. This novella is not a work of good and evil, but rather an, â€Å"insinuation and r eflection on the persistent intermingling of good and evil and a paradigm of the dangers of warped consciousness,† (Gallaway 242). Delano is the American Hero stereotype, a man that acts before he thinks and sees the world in the dichotomy of good and evil. Melville was actually criticizing the American reverence of this hotheaded caricature of masculinity, for the captain is, â€Å"the same narcissistic vision of America’s destiny that planted missionaries and flags in the South Seas and the Melville himself so roundly condemned,† (Gallaway 243). â€Å"Benito Cereno† is characterized by its contradictions, much like the very institution of chattel slavery. The contradiction between Babo the slave, and Babo the leader, between Cereno the meek captor with a key to nothing around his neck, and the stoic Atuful chained, and unchained. Melville even describes the ocean as both â€Å"undulating† and leaden (Hattenhauer 8). As a captain of a ship ruled by slaves, Don Benito hardly gives off a commanding presence as he, â€Å"at times, suddenly pausing, starting, or staring, biting his lip, biting his finger-nail, flushing, paling, twitching his beard,† (â€Å"Benito†) The captain of the starving Africans and bare-bones crew acted more like a prisoner waiting for the gallows than the captain of a ship for a supposedly great nation. Delano observes his dependence on his slave, Babo, with typical American arrogance and anti-royal attitudes, comparing Benito to Charles V. before retiring the throne (â€Å"Be nito†). Amasa sees weakness in both the slave and master, not that the slave had in fact become the master, because his limited perspective, so when he â€Å"remarks that, â€Å"this slavery breeds ugly passions in men!†Ã¢â‚¬  he does so without, â€Å"considering the possibility of its breeding similarly ugly passions in the enslaved,† (Galloway 244). Benito, of course, is no longer the meek man once he takes escapes the ship with the help of Captain Delano. A key symbol in this work is the key around the neck of Don Benito that supposedly unlocks the chains restraining Atuful. Of course, the key is as fake as his dependence of Babo. This key that supposedly grants freedom to blacks once they behave civilly, represented by Atuful’s orders to say â€Å"Pardon,† represents the false promises made by white America to slaves (â€Å"Benito†). This was a time when many people believed in the â€Å"white man’s burden†, the belief th at whites had the right to use labor from less civilized cultures because in doing so it civilizes them. Of course, Atuful will never pardon his former master, as slaves could have never fully evolved out of slavery by civilizing, or what is considered civilized in America, because it was just a scapegoat to subjugate a people based on false biological means. This belief of inherent ownership is characterized to the voice of Delano, for he immediately labels slaves as stupid, which prohibits him from seeing what is really happening aboard the San Dominick (â€Å"Benito†). This limited perspective caused by his â€Å"Yankee provincialism† is what forms the critique of American society by Melville, similarly used in his short story â€Å"The Paradise of Bachelors and the Tartarus of Maids† (Galloway 249) One hallmark of Melville’s writing is his exploration of structure, often mixing structures, or resurrecting old formats that modern writers had long abandoned. In â€Å"The Paradise of Bachelors and the Tartarus of Maids† Melville writes a diptych, â€Å"after an ancient writing tablet having two hinged panels,† (Young 2). These parallel tales depict a secret society of merry bachelors, and the dehumanizing world of female factory work. â€Å"Bachelors† is a world of â€Å"bursting geniality,† in which men that have taken a vow of celibacy share stories of their adventures, pass alcohol with excessive camaraderie, and revel in the company of one another (Young 3). â€Å"Tartarus†, however, is a fr eezing white hellscape, the maidens inside not choosing this life of monotony, but forced in it by the patriarchal structure of society in not just America, but the entire world in a time of rapid industrial invention, signified by the Bachelor’s paradise being in the heart of London, and the Tartarus of maids being in New England. The paradise, however, is dependent on the Tartarus, for the exclusion of women is definitive to their own bond. As Weigman says, â€Å"while indeed counters to one another – on one side exists the masculine, symbolized by the repressed homosexuality of Paradise, and on the other in the feminine, marked by the nightmare geography of compulsory heterosexuality – they fail to reflect their opposites equally; instead they duplicate the asymmetrical representational economy of gender in which woman’s difference is articulated by and subsumed into the masculine,† (Weigman 4). â€Å"Piercingly and shrilly the shotted blast bl ew by the corner; and redly and demoniacally boiled by the Blood River at one side. A long wood-pile, of many scores of cords, all glittering in the mail of crusted ice, stood crosswise in the square. A row of horse-posts, their north sides plastered with adhesive snow, flanked the factory wall. The bleak frost packed and paved the square as with some ringing metal,† (â€Å"Paradise† 11). Red and white is one of the most powerful color combinations to the human eye. Red symbolizes blood. White can have a variety of meanings, virginity, as in â€Å"Tartarus†, sperm as in both sections of the story, and surrender. Red and white even used to symbolize blood and gauze on the candy-striped poles outside barbers’ offices, for barbers used to specialize in blood-letting, the ancient cure for a variety of maladies. â€Å"Tartarus† is not the only work to symbolize the oppression of women with the combination of red and white, for Margaret Atwood’s cl assic The Handmaid’s Tale clothes those chosen to give birth to the married men of barren women at the top of society in a theocracy based on the biblical tale of Jacob, Rachel, and Leah. This color discrepancy between the Tartarus and its fraternal twin of the diptych â€Å"Paradise† creates a sharp change in tone from one section to the next. The â€Å"Eden† of the bachelors paradise can be imagined in rich tones of mahogany and cherry wood, encasing thousands of books bound in the deepest jewel tones of maroon, jade, and onyx (â€Å"Paradise† 3). A warmth beams off of every item in the paradise that Melville describes, leaving the reader feeling the chill of the Devil’s Dungeon Paper Mill, and the harsh rushing of the Blood River in their ears when the narrator makes his way into Tartarus (â€Å"Paradise† 9). Integral to understanding the piece, sexual and gestational symbolism must be understood by the reader, for the machine in Tartarus is life itself, representative of the nine month gestation period women endure to have children with it’s nine minute process. â€Å"Nine gentleman sat down to nine covers,† and were served â€Å"nine silver flagons of humming ale,† at the dinner, a notification that each man owes a woman the very womanless life he reveres (â€Å"Paradise† 5). As the narrator arrives at the â€Å"Paradise† and â€Å"Tartarus† the end of his journey is wrought with sexual innuendo. As the narrator walks into â€Å"Paradise† he notes, â€Å"going to it, the usual way, is like stealing from a heated plane into some cool, deep glen, shady among harboring hills,† (â€Å"Paradise† 1). With repressed homosexuality bursting in every action the bachelors take, it’s almost blushingly obvious that that deep glen represents the anus. The men are leisurely and casual as they walk through the secret Templar, they can, â€Å"take their pleasure,† as Melville says (1). One is reminded of the homosexuality of the Greek upper class, for this is all the homosexual tendencies they can allow themselves in a time so strict. This pleasure of homosexuality is contrasted with the never-ending pressure of heterosexuality that can never stop. As the narrator watches the machine, he’s in awe of it, Something of awe now stole over me, as I gazed upon this inflexible iron animal. Always, more or less, machinery of this ponderous, elaborate sort strikes, in some moods, strange dread into the human heart, as some living, panting Behemoth might. But what made the thing I saw so specially terrible to me was the metallic necessity, the unbudging fatality which governed it. Though, here and there, I could not follow the thin gauzy veil of pulp in the course of its more mysterious or entirely invisible advance, yet it was indubitable that, at those points where it eluded men it still marched on in unvarying docility to the autocratic cunning of the machine. (18) This is his view of heterosexuality. It’s forced. Necessary in it’s inability to stop. It’s a vast contrast between that and the warm world of bachelors his narrator prefers. Taken to the extreme in â€Å"Tartarus† women often become one dimensional in works written by men. â€Å"Tartarus† also works as a criticism of the trend of the one-use female character. In Cooper’s Natty Bumpo works, for example, Cooper often portrayed women solely as seductresses, a distraction from his hero’s journey. The very fact that the Blood River of Tartarus creates white paper is an allegory of this. Blood is life. A body that flowed blood to keep them alive created every single character in both sections of the diptych, creating an even larger discrepancy between single men and women. For s omething created by the same blood (metaphorically) that created the bachelors to create such â€Å"dominated and doomed women,† should be incongruous with life itself (Weigman 3). The narrator himself finds this at odds, for it strikes him, â€Å"as so strange that red waters should turn out pale chee – paper, I mean.† (Paradise 14) Melville’s own guilt at the use of women is apparent in the very thing they create: paper. Not only symbolic in its whiteness, it was his medium. In using paper to represent the single women, derogatorily referred to as girls due to their status as maidens, he admits that he has been complicit in the use of women (Paradise 19). Perhaps as an author famous for his portrayals of male brotherhood so naively appreciated in â€Å"Bachelors† regretted the impact of the exclusion of women from his work. Along with the theme of inequality, â€Å"Benito Cereno† and â€Å"The Paradise of Bachelors and the Tartarus of Maids† share a naà ¯ve point of view. This naivety was not characteristic of Melville himself, for his shrewd and nihilistic personality drips out of every word he wrote, but how he saw the majority of America. No, he was not an all-knowing observer, and he did not know what everything even he wrote meant, but he knew that there was a dangerous ethnoce ntricity in the United States that prohibited people, like the focus of both short stories, from seeing the truth of inequality in society. As the narrator in â€Å"Paradise† steps into a comfortable world of bachelors, Delano steps off his Bachelor’s Delight into the distinct discomfort of oppression. As Harper’s Weekly, the rival of â€Å"Benito† publisher Putnam’s Monthly, published sentimental drivel to appease very Americans like these merry bachelors, signifying the upper echelon of American society that cannot see inequality because they’ve been force-fed a certain narrative that whiteness and masculinity are the apex of human ability, while systematically forcing slave revolts like on the fictional San Dominick and causing the suffering of women. As a white man in a time with a strict social hierarchy, it’s quite amazing that Melville was able to so intuitively describe the oppression that is systematic in American culture. Through a keen ability to describe the social ills through complex storytelling in both â€Å"Benito Cereno† and â€Å"The Paradise of Bachelors and the Tartarus of Maids† Melville criticizes the limited view of those with conservative views on gender and race through Captain Amasa Delano and the narrator of â€Å"Paradise†. Through these characters limited experiences of complex events, Melville was able to tell his true opinions on the state of the nation in a way that engaged and challenged the reader. His unique voice has come to define American literature as his white wale in Moby Dick defined the obsession of manifest destiny in an era in which he saw America using an unfair military advantage to spread their empire. Melville wrote to define and criticize that very era in America. As an author of with a supreme keenness for inequality and unfairness, Melville’s complex tales leave a truthful and lasting looking glass into the nineteenth century. Works Cited Atwood, Margaret. The Handmaids Tale. New York: Anchor , 1998. Print. Emery, Allan Moore. The Topicality of Depravity in Benito Cereno. American Literature 55.3 (1983): 316-31. JSTOR. Web. 15 Mar. 2017. Gallaway, David D. Herman Melvilles Benito Cereno: an anatomy. Texas Studies in Literature and Language 9.2 (1967): 239-53. JSTOR. Web. 27 Mar. 2017. Manke, Aaron. Mary, Mary. Audio blog post. Lore. Apple Podcast App, 23 Jan. 2016. Web. 30 Mar. 2017. Melville, Herman. N.p.: n.p., n.d. Eldritchpress.org. Web. 15 Mar. 2017. Melville, Herman. Benito Cereno E-Text | Benito Cereno. GradeSaver, 1 May 2006 Web. 1 April 2017. Melville, Herman . The Paradise of Bachelors and the Tartarus of Maids. N.p.: n.p., n.d. Saylor.org. Web. 30 Mar. 2017. Post-Lauria, Sheila. Editorial Politics in Herman Melvilles Benito Cereno. American Periodicals 5 (1995): 1-14. JSTOR. Web. 15 Mar. 2017. Wiegnman, Robyn. Melvilles Geography of Gender. Oxford University Press 1.4 (1989): 1-15. JSTOR. Web. 15 Mar. 2017. Young, Philip. The Machine in Tartarus: Melvilles Inferno. American Literature 63.2 (1991): 208-14. JSTOR. Web. 15 Mar. 2017.

Genesis Revised - Literature Essay Samples

John Miltons Paradise Lost is an epic that has influenced the Christian perception of God, Satan, sin, and the origin of mankind for centuries. His poetic account of the creation story, though, clearly expands on several aspects within the most fundamental Christian version of creation, the Genesis story. Miltons development of Genesis particularly addresses the questionable equality between Adam and Eve and the concept of free will versus that of predestination and their role in the ultimate fall from Eden. There is an unprecedented focus placed on the nature of Adam and Eve and on their inherent qualities in Paradise Lost and it is through this focus that Milton expands the Genesis account. As a result, he presents readers with an interpretation of the creation story that both reflects the gender attitudes of his time. In addition, his emphasis on free will enables Milton to justify Gods casting of Adam and Eve from Paradise, while also moving readers to recognize the presence of t he choice between good and evil in their lives. The epic is not simply a longer and more elaborate version of the origin of humankind, but a revision of Genesis that has ramifications involving the Christian doctrine of free will as well as the foundation of gender roles. The question of equality between Adam and Eve in the creation story has always been debated, largely because it reflects the gender roles set forth by God to mankind. In Genesis, there are numerous references of equality between the sexes: So God created man in his owne imagemale and female he created them (1:27). Both man and woman were created in Gods image, indicating equality in the eyes of God. In addition, there is a sign of equality in Eves creation from Adams rib. She was not taken from his head, as if she was above him, nor was she taken from his feet, as if she was below him. Finally, God grants both Adam and Eve dominion over the earth: And God blessed them, and God said unto themreplenish the earth, and subdue it, and have dominion overevery living thing that moveth upon the earth (1:28). In the face of this Biblical evidence regarding the equality of the sexes, Milton explicitly writes Paradise Lost with Adam and Eve as the unequal caretakers of Eden. First, he structurally hints at the inequality between the two. In Adam and Eves back-and-forth discussion of whether or not they should separate, Adam receives forty more lines of dialogue than Eve, though the number of replies they make toward one another is equal. Second, while Genesis calls attention to both Adam and Eves equal creation in Gods image, Milton gives particular emphasis to the difference in nature of the two. Though both / Not equal, as thir sex not equal seemd; / For contemplation he and valor formd, / For softness she and sweet attractive Grace, / He for God only, she for God in him (IV.295-299). Here, we see that God gave Adam a contemplative nature and a superior intellect relative to Eve, who is inferior, in the mind / And inward faculties (VIII.541). In fact, Adam is placed so far above Eve in intellectual nature that Eve is incapable of hearing or understanding the dialogue between Adam and the divine Raphael: not capable her ear / Of what is high (VIII. 49-50). God intended for Adam to be more contemplative than Eve; He intended for Eve to be less concerned with knowledge, and to acquire it not on her own power, but through Adam.Such emphasis on the inequality of intellect and the general superiority of Adam over Eve is absent in Genesis. The implications of this are far-reaching, suggesting that Milton expands Genesis in order to present readers with what he perceives as God-given, and consequently inflexible, gender roles that were certainly prevalent in patriarchal England at the time. These roles also contribute to potentially placing the fault of mans fall on the shoulders of Eve. She implores Adam to separate from one another, in order to perform more work, eliminate distractio ns, and be more productive. This suggests that Eve is contemplating on her own, analyzing cause and effect, free from the direction of Adam though he warns her of the dangers of separation. Eves contemplation leads sure enough to her encounter with Satan and the eating of the forbidden fruit. Milton therefore implies that although her intentions were good, Eve stepped outside of her role on earth and will inevitably bear the consequences of such actions. Among other things, this will contribute to portraying Eve as a tragic heroine.One of the most essential and controversial issues regarding the creation story entails the concepts of free will and predestination and which of the two manifests itself in the fall of Adam and Eve. During his life, Milton had been a proponent of free will and it is evident in that the notion permeates Paradise Lost in a way that Genesis never comes close to doing. While the Genesis account makes no mention of the idea of free will, Milton refers to it d irectly: Within himself / The danger lies, yet lies within his power: / Against his will he can receive no harm, / But God left free the Will (IX.348-351). Within all individuals lies the ability to choose and with this power comes the ability to choose evil over good, but Milton makes it clear that no man can harm himself unless he chooses to. Five lines earlier, Adam claims that best are all things as the will / Of God ordaind them (344-345). When mentioning human free will, Milton capitilizes the word Will yet ceases to do so when mentioning the will of God. This indicates that in this context and in this story, Milton perceives mans free will as even more important and significant than the will of God, and that whatever harm may come upon man will be the result of his will, not Gods. While in Genesis the serpent merely guides and tempts Eve to taste the fruit from the forbidden treeYe shall not surely dieye shall be as Gods, knowing good and evil (3:4-5), Milton makes sure to ac knowledge the presence of choice in the temptation: Goddess humane, reach then, and freely taste (IX.732). As Milton was a proponent of free will during his time, he was also a supporter of free press, and the way in which it combated peoples ignorance of what was good and what was evil. Through a strong emphasis on the presence of free will, he not only justifies Gods punishment of Adam and Eve, but more importantly, he showed his readers that the choice between good and evil is there for them and that they need only to open their eyes in the face of temptation.

Invisible Man - 11097 Words

According to Goethe, We do not have to visit a madhouse to find disordered minds; our planet is the mental institution of the universe. Despite the hyperbolic nature of Goethe s statement, it holds some truth. Because of this element of truth, society looks to psychoanalysis as an important tool for understanding human nature. Furthermore, psychoanalytic criticism of authors, characters, and readers has a place in literary criticism that is as important as the place of psychoanalysis in society. This is because of the mimetic nature of much of modern literature. In fact, the psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan wrote, If psycho-analysis is to be constituted as the science of the unconscious, one must set out from the notion that the unconscious†¦show more content†¦Despite the limitations of his theories, their usefulness still exists, especially as a background for Jung and Lacan. The Freudian text at work in this analysis will be Civilization and Its Discontents. In this text, Freu d s theories about aggression and the death drive are related to societal tensions that isolate the individual. Carl Gustav Jung was somewhat of a son to Freud, but he quickly outgrew his father s theories, and, in an ironically ÂÅ'dipal conflict, overthrew Freud as the leading psychotherapist.(8) The buzzword of Jungian theory is archetype, so the text of his being used in this study is Four Archetypes. In The Critical Tradition, the editor gives the description of archetypes as structures deep in the human unconscious.(9) The editor continues and says, In Jungian analysis, the patient recapitulates his life and looks for the ways in which symbols of the above-mentioned archetypes have been embodied within its texture.(10) From Four Archetypes, the section on rebirth will be the most useful to this study. Jung s essay Rebirth includes descriptions of five different forms of rebirth along with their psychological implications. Jacques Lacan, a more recent theorist than Freud or Jun g, based his works on a revision of Freudian ideas. Lacan is the father of the philosophy of psychoanalysis. That is, he believed that psychoanalysis was a valid field of thought independent of its use as a medicinal therapy.(11) InShow MoreRelatedInvisible Man1346 Words   |  6 PagesJanelle Clovie Dr. Blanchard AP Literature 3 November 2017 Familial Connections in Invisible Man Family. It is a very fluid yet rigid idea. It has a wealth of definitions, all of which range in degree and magnitude, and vary from person to person; yet the concept of how a family should work and operate is very concrete in most American minds. Family is a bond that is crafted every second of everyday until it is powerful, and this can shape beliefs, outlooks, and confidence. 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Wells, is composed of many small themes that combined to form two major themes in the novel. Some of the minor themes are acting before thinking and denial of unexplainable events. It is based on the two major themes of science experiments gone wrong and the ignorance of society. nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;The most important theme in the novel was the experiment that Griffin, the invisible man, was working and it was not going exactly as planned. The way that the experiment

Movie Analysis Rosewood - 631 Words

Name: Subject: Teacher: Date of Submission: Discussion Question: Rosewood (1997): Movie Analysis Rosewood is a film based on the historic events that transpired in the 1923 Rosewood massacre. The film includes fictional characters and some alterations to the historical accounts. Actor Ving Rhames plays the role of a man who travels to the city and becomes a witness of the horrific events. His character is essential for the film, because he makes the film a movie rather than a documentary. Two more characters included in the story provide different perspectives of the Rosewood massacre. Don Cheadle plays that role of Sylvester, who becomes a witness, and Jon Voight acts as a white storeowner, who lives in a†¦show more content†¦(Gannon, 46) In the historical events of the Rosewood massacre, a woman claimed rape by a black man, yet her story is still not confirmed nor proven. The result was the lynching of a black person, the retaliation from the black community, and the destruction of Rosewood and the death of si x black and two white individuals (D’Orso, 52). The movie illustrates a high level of carnage in the town, and the use of KKK, which is not accurate according to historical facts. It demonstrates the producers attempt to create the element of dramatization, and the emotional effect of the movie. In truth, there is a lot of fabrication of the story; however, the producer applies some elements of the true story that occurred in Rosewood. Based on the movie, the main aim was to provide a movie that is emotionally moving which affects racial affiliation in terms black or white (Gannon, 61). Some of the scenes focus on the emotional reaction, and the depiction of the movie focus on the concept of outside looking in. The three main characters are not from the town, which coincides with a lack of having a witness to narrate the events in Rosewood at the time of the massacre. Using individuals from outside the town provides a new dimension to the story, because their presence in the town allows the audience to get an idea of what occurred, but it is not an accurate illustration of the events (D’Orso, 74). The variations highlight the lack of actual evidence, and the use ofShow MoreRelatedThe Five Dysfunctions of a Team a Leadership Fable46009 Words   |  185 Pagespermitted under Section 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without either the prior written permission of the publisher, or authorization through payment of the appropriate per-copy fee to the Copyright Clearance Center, Inc., 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, 978-750-8400, fax 978-646-8600, or on the Web at www.copyright.com. 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Essay on Feminist Ideas in Margaret Atwoods The...

Feminist Ideas in Margaret Atwoods The Handmaids Tale For this essay, we focused strictly on critics reactions to Margaret Atwoods The Handmaids Tale. For the most part, we found two separate opinions about The Handmaids Tale, concerning feminism. One opinion is that it is a feminist novel, and the opposing opinion that it is not. Feminism: A doctrine advocating social, political, and economic rights for women equal to those of men as recorded in Websters Dictionary. This topic is prevalent in the novel The Handmaids Tale. Margaret Atwood, a Canadian writer, spends most of her time featuring women in her books, novels, and poetry that examine their relationships in society. In the book Atwood centers her novel on a girl whom†¦show more content†¦Atwood used Offred to express her ideas on pornography. Atwood obviously does not like it. But, in another sense, she emphasizes the fact that Aunt Lydia lies to Offred and the others when saying that it is how life used to be. Atwood never disregards the fact that women have been misre presented both by themselves and by men. She is careful to go through the whole novel placing no blame, and leaving the questions to the reader. How did this society get to this point? Could this really happen? Are we doing anything to prevent it? In the novel there is no real one strong force. Especially no male or female dominant role, which makes it hard to decide who is to blame. Feminism is clear throughout the book, and Atwood represents women very well. Many readers have questioned the novels character as a feminist critique. The Handmaids Tale delivers a conservative interpretation of womens ideal social actions, advocating what looks more like traditional femininity, rather than revolutionary feminism. Atwoods main character, Offred, has fantasies of being free. But Offreds vision of freedom is very un-feministic. 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In The Handmaid’s Tale, Margaret Atwood addresses her perception of the ongoingRead MoreEssay on The Dystopia in Margaret Atwoods The Handmaids Tale1098 Words   |  5 PagesThe Dystopia in Margaret Atwoods The Handmaids Tale Offred is a Handmaid in what used to be the United States, now the theocratic Republic of Gilead. In order to create Gileads idea of a more perfect society, they have reverted to taking the Book of Genesis at its word. Women no longer have any privileges; they cannot work, have their own bank accounts, or own anything. The also are not allowed to read or even chose who they want to marry. Women are taught that they should be subservientRead MoreFeminism In The Handmaids Tale1709 Words   |  7 Pagesof Gilead, a dystopian world with a patriarchal society, is displayed in Atwood’s, The Handmaid’s Tale. More specifically, the novel takes place in what used to be considered the United States but is now being called the Republic of Gilead where freedoms and rights have been excluded, especially for women. The society nurtures a â€Å"theocratic, patriarchal, nightmare world created by men, with the complicity of women† (â€Å"Margaret (Eleanor) Atwood†). The separation of the freedoms between the genders createdRead MoreShort Story By Margaret Atwood1031 Words   |  5 PagesMargaret Atwood once said, â€Å"I spent much of my childhood in northern Quebec, and often there was no radio, no television - there wasn’t a lot to entertain us. When it rained, I stayed inside reading, writing, drawing.† Born on November 18, 1939, she spent half her childhood moving to different places for her father’s study of entomology (insects). She obtained her love of writing through the different experiences that traveling provided as well as the encouragement of her parents. 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Lord Byron s Manfred, The Iconic Overbearing And Guilt...

Beyond the scope of the mystic and supernatural world that exists in Lord Byron’s Manfred, the iconic overbearing and guilt-stricken Manfred has influenced the Byronic archetype to transcend beyond the gothic setting into today’s modern pop culture. Extending outside the gothic genre, which is characterized by the â€Å"macabre, mysterious, supernatural, and terrifying†, the haunting settings of looming, isolated landscapes, and dark forbidding symbolism, the Byronic hero archetype still exists in even the popular science fiction genre, with its themes rooted in dystopian and post-apocalyptic environments (Lynch and Stillinger 584). For instance, the Byronic hero archetype is portrayed in Hideki Anno’s Neon Genesis Evangelion through the†¦show more content†¦This precise description of Manfred in total isolation in a gothic setting is also explored in Sheley’s â€Å"Demolished worlds: Manfred and sublime (unburial)† where Sheley disc usses how the space that exists in Manfred functions as a place of â€Å"skeptical rendition of nature† using to illustrate Manfred’s destruction through the â€Å"unrestrained spaces of nature† that oppresses Manfred (Sheley). Through the descriptions of Manfred’s world as its own microcosm, Byron illustrates Manfred’s agonizing imprisonment and enclosure within a universe where unworldly settings such as â€Å"Of mountains inaccessible are haunts† exist, and a setting that allows the eerie existence of imaginative phenomenon to exist such as Manfred’s abilities to conjure spirits at will (Byron 640; 1.1.33). The concepts of the Byronic Hero’s own personal flaws tie in perfectly with the surrounding the character exists in, as it shows how the setting becomes a mirror into the character’s psyche. In Nicholson’s â€Å"Byron and the Drama of Temptation†, Nicholson discusses Byron’s obsession with writ ing with â€Å"action† and less so about â€Å"abstract ideas†, which Nicholson discusses drawn from Byron’s gravitation toward subjects such as history, anthropology, and â€Å"comparative life and manners of people†(Nicholson). Byron’s obsession with underscoring â€Å"poems of action† is shown in Manfred, which Nicholson argues is essential to Byron’s narratives as a â€Å"drama of exile† where

Five Minds for the Future free essay sample

About the Author:2 Summary2 Applying the Book to Human Resource Management6 Conclusion6 About the Author: Howard Gardner is a renowned American Psychologist and writer who currently holds a position as an adjunct professor at Harvard University. Among numerous honors, Gardner had received a MacArthur Prize Fellowship and honorary degrees from twenty-nine colleges and universities, including institutions in Bulgaria, Greece, Italy, South Korea and Spain. In 2005 and 2008, he was selected by Foreign Policy and Prospect magazines as one of the 100 most influential public intellectuals in the world. Gardner’s famous books include Responsibility at Work, Changing Minds, Good Work: Theory and Practice, Multiple intelligences and Five Minds for the Future. Summary This book revolves around the five minds that Howard Gardner perceives to be an ideal achievement for the future generations. Gardner believes that in order to overcome the challenges of the future, one has to be well equipped with all of these five minds. With a comprehensive outlook on each mind, Gardner presents in front of us, a beautiful arrangement of reasons explaining why he believes one should possess these features of a mind. He emphasizes that it may not be possible to achieve each characteristic of the minds mentioned by Gardner to the optimum level, one can always attempt to accomplish a certain level of each mindset in order to live a successful and balanced mind in the future. Gardner strongly believes that these minds prepare us to face the unexpected. Whereas these minds have played a significant role in the history, they are even more essential for us because of the array of externalities emerging in the future. The five minds that Gardner throws light upon are: 1. The Disciplined Mind 2. The Synthesizing Mind 3. The Creating Mind 4. The Ethical Mind 5. The Respectful Mind Gardner informs us that these five minds are chosen from the plethora of other mind characteristics that are essential for human effectiveness in the future. The reason why Gardner believes that these minds are more crucial to develop is that they cover the cognitive as well as the behavioral part of the human activities. They also encompass the needs of the society and the requirement of an individual in it. Gardner thinks that Education plays a vital role in developing all of these roles, however due to the ancestral conservation of the society; development of such mindsets has not been largely served by the function of education. We still do not encourage disciplines like liberal arts and social sciences to be a curriculum for the training of individuals. These disciplines help an individual identify himself and then realize his or her potential. Another strong reason which Gardner presents as a support for the need for the development of these minds is the fast track dynamics of the globe. With changes occurring within flick of an eye, one has to be armed with a mindset that can cope up with the ups and downs that these changes bring along. Hence science is not the only field that can suffice the need of human knowledge. We need to broaden the spectrum of our educational systems, for they largely rely on preparing us in a method that is now obsolete. Hence, the formal education systems are preparing us for the past, not for the future. Gardner signifies that the challenges of globalization need to be met with a holistic approach towards learning, where an individual is taught not just books, but lessons of life. Gardner regards the spiritual and humanistic stances to be strong players in determining an individual’s viewpoint towards life. Moving forward, Gardner describes each type of mind characteristics and underlines what steps a human should take to achieve the characteristic. Starting from the disciplined mind, Gardner defines it as a mind that is well equipped with traditional and modern erudite disciplines like history, math and science. The knowledge should not limit to the boundaries of formal education and one should dive into the depths in order to understand the core concepts. Gardner believes that a scholarly mind channelizes human thoughts and gives it a direction. If a mind is not schooled properly, it is likely to get carried away by unnecessary beliefs. Facts and statistics are not just bits and pieces of information. They have a lot to comprehend and therefore, a mind ready for the future should be well trained in essential disciplines. Next, Gardner informs us about the Synthesizing mind and its course of action. He highlights that a synthesizing mind is capable to extract the relevant information from the floods of information directed towards us, screens it and uses it in complement to the activities that demand its employment. Linking together ideas and concepts have largely become a key to understanding the complexities. If one has the ability to weave together strands of information and develop a strategy that is on the go, he is highly likely to excel in the future. Another mind characteristic that Gardner throws light over is the Creating mind and its relevance to the future. A creating mind always comes up with questions that help you enter new genres and explore the existing ones. Gardner signifies that the major reason why humans still have control is because of the spark of innovation in them which computers cannot come up with. Creativity is something which the world runs after and the reason for that is the dynamics of the world. Every idea once executed soon becomes obsolete. Hence, the globe demands constant supply of creativity in order to thrive. Bringing the social realm into the picture, Gardner develops the idea of a Respectful mind and its need of the hour. A respectful mind incorporates differences among groups, encouraging diversity and pluralism. A person who develops a respectful mind develops a tendency in him that acknowledges and accepts the distinctiveness of each human group. Dealing with stereotypes and prejudices is no big deal for the mind and the concept of civil society is deep rooted in every respectful mind. Being empathic towards those around, this mind helps you deal with the collectivist nature of a human and the conflicts that come under its baggage. Lastly, Gardner talks about the Ethical mind that keeps ethical framework as a forerunner in the decision making process at the workplace and elsewhere. Recognizing the ethical relativity, this mind feature exhibits abidance of values and principles that shape up our character. With a variety of mirror tests and other variables, this mind enables a person to hear the voice of its conscience. With the constant motive of self-interest of every organization, the ethical mind protects an individual from becoming a slave to his materialistic instincts. Such mind also helps an individual deal with the daily work issues that pose the question of right and wrong on his table. Gardner believes if our educational systems help our children develop all of these five minds, they will definitely be competent enough to tackle the challenges that the future has in store for them. A good balance of all of these five minds is an ideal personality for the future times. Applying the Book to Human Resource Management Applying Gardner’s five minds to the discipline of human resource management can reveal extremely beneficial outcomes. Gardner believes that the training and development of an organization should incorporate activities that nurture these minds and individuals. As these minds are strongly related to the needs of an employee on a daily basis, training programs designed on the foundation of these five minds can result in an organization achieving human capital that is ready to solve any issue that can emerge in the future. From the succeeding in a decision making process to functioning in a demanding workplace, the minds serve as constant innovating factors enriching the organization. an essential function of human resource management departments of the organizations is to conduct performance appraisals. such appraisals are often subjected to criticism on the fact that each employee possesses a different mindset and hence should be evaluated accordingly. If the performance management systems are designed keeping in mind these mind types, they can highlight  to the employee their current status and provide a concrete vision as to what are the expectations from that employee. Conclusion Howard Gardner’s Five Minds for the Future is a book that is an enriching collection of guidelines that not only precautions but also prepares us for the upcoming challenges of the future. With Gardner’s rich and relatable explanations, it definitely broadens the horizon of the reader and takes him into an in depth insight of himself and of those around him. Hence, this book is an ideal read for every occupation.