Things Fall Apart :: essays research papers

After the stock market crash of 1929, hundreds of people ended their lives be pee-pee they just couldnt cope with the fact that they had lost such a great deal of money. Some had lost their life savings - but most hadnt. In fact, most of them still had enough to livebetter than a lot of lower-class families. But why had they committed suicide? Many prisoners who have been institutionalized for thirty or forty years have been know to commit suicide not long after they are released. Why? Isnt freedom a better alternativethan imprisonment? The answer to both these questions is the kindred CHANGE. Even if the change is for the better, a good number of people cant handle it. In the novel Things fall Apart, the main character Okonkwo is driven to suicide by change he cant handle. The book is written by Cinua Achebe, a twentieth century author. Born in Nigeria, Achebe grew up in a transitional last much like the one described in the book. He is currently a professor of literature at the University of Nigeria. Many factors can beattributed to the cause of Okonkwos demise, But the three most drastic ones are hissons conversion to Christianity, the change in daily life the new religion brings, and his frustration caused by his neutral clansmen. Nwoyes conversion to Christianity was a sharp blow to Okonkwo because the Christians are looked down upon as being insane. The missionary tells them that all of the Ibos gods are false images of wood and stone, and can do them no harm. Upon hearingthis, the men of Mbanta decide that these men must be mad for how else could they saythat Ani and Amadiora were harmless? And Idemili and Ogwugwo too?(146) The missionary goes on to tell them about the dedicated Trinity. At the end of it Okonkwo is fully convinced that the man is mad.(147) Also, the first members of the new churchwere the clans rejects, like Nnka who has had four previous pregnancies and childbirths. but each time she bears twins, and they had been immediately prop el away. Her husband and his family were already becoming highly critical of such a woman and are not unduly perturbed when they find that she has fled to join the Christians. It is a good riddance.(151) The other aggroup of people that join are the osu, or outcasts. The changes the new religion brings almost pushes Okonkwo to the edge.

Marjorie Garbers Vested Interests: Cross-dressing and Cultural Anxiety

Marjorie Garbers Vested Interests Cross-dressing and Cultural AnxietyThe tendency to establish rigid companionable codes of gender-determined behaviors is appargonnt everywhere--though specifically present in literary texts. Women are expected to, in essence, be women and act, dress, and behave in a art objectner that distinguishes them from men. While these constructs are rigidly defined, they are easily and recurrently transcended. In her, Vested Interests Cross-dressing and Cultural Anxiety, Majorie Garber demonstrates the concept of cultural binarisms, illustrating them to be the social and historical obsession with polarizing individuals, male or female, into both one group or the other. In her essay, she concentrates her discussion on the importance of dress in the construction of gender and its power in undermining it. Garber writes that gender boundaries--which she defines as blurred social concepts--can be transcended by the cross-dresser. Additionally, the appearance of a transvestite character indicates that a kinsperson crisis is present, but not limited to gender identity. This category crisis, is resultant of the binarisms which have been disturbed. Herman Manns account, The Female Review Life of Deborah Sampson, the Female Soldier, reinforces Garbers assertions about the cross-dressing figure in literature-- once Sampson puts on mens clothing, her identity is changed. She is, therefore, able to transcend the limited capacities of a woman and access her desires to see the world. Mann addresses several instances of binarisms--including gender, class, and status--throughout his text. Through his character of Deborah Sampson, he is able to display a separate, but relevant have intercourse of a socially and politically ... ...and(habit). Also, Mann states about Sampsons desire to become a soldier and in the end, perhaps, she would be instrumental in the CAUSE OF LIBERTY, which had for nearly sextet years, enveloped the minds of her countrymen ( Mann, 233). This statement makes a direct comment on the state of his country and Sampsons impact on its freedom. In this way, he connects her desires of cross-dressing and living as a man to his desires of witnessing American Liberty. Works Cited De Erauso, Catalina. Memoir of a Basque Lieutenant Nun. Beacon Press Boston, 1996.Garber, Marjorie. Vested Interests Cross-dressing and Cultural Anxiety. Routledge New York, 1992. Mann, Herman. The Female Reveiw Life of Deborah Sampson, the Female Soldier. Boston, 1797.Rotundo, Anthony. Community to the Individual The alteration of Manhood. American Manhood, 10-30.

I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings: Cages :: Know Why the Caged Bird Sings Essays

I Know Why The Caged razzing Sings Cages Maya Angelou wrote an amazing and entertaining autobiography titled I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings, about her hard life growing up as a black girl from the South. Among the hardships are things known as cages as stated as a metaphor from Paul Dunbars poem Sympathy. Cages are things that keep people from succeeding in life and cosmos everything they want to be. Some of Maya Angelous cages include being black in the 1940s and her overbearing grandmother. In my life, a cage is my young age, this causes problems with adults. A major cage from Maya Angelous youth was that she was black in a preconceived nonion southern town. Maya has recounted in her book the times when she was discriminated against. When she was working for a white woman named Mrs. Viola Cullinan, Mrs. Cullinan started calling her Mary, Thats Margaret too long. Shes Mary from now on.(pp.91) One of the virtually important aspects of a person is their name. It is a great ins ult for someone to change your name, without your consent. If Maya was white Mrs. Cullinan would not have changed her name and she did it only because of her racist friends and attitudes. even up some of the white adults who supposedly supported her had hidden their racist messages in seemingly nice speeches. Maya conveys the words of Mr. Edward Donleavy, one of the people in the masquerade, The white kids were pass to have a chance to become Galileos and Madame Curies and Edisons and Gauguins, and our boys (the girls werent even in on it) would try to be Jesse Owenses and Joe Lousises.(pp.151) Maya was forced to listen to Mr. Donleavys stereotypes of how white children could be thinkers and black children freighter only be athletes. What was supposed to be an encouraging speech, which Mr. Donleavy probably thought was sincere, turned out to be just another racist and stereotypical speech. peradventure it was not so much Mr. Donleavys fault, because he was trying to be nice, b ut more of his upbringing. Racism was the most prominent of Mayas cages and it is probably due to the society and brutal ideas. The second major cage of Maya Angelou was that she has a very strict, religious, and overbearing grandmother. It is important that a childs guardian be caring and strict but that guardian should not be too strict.

Grapes of Wrath Jim Casy The Silent Philosopher :: essays papers

Grapes of Wrath Jim Casy The Silent PhilosopherJim Casy The Silent PhilosopherIt is a widely accepted theory, in numerous areas of study, that a whole is the sum of its parts. It has also been acknowledged that the reaction formed by a combination of forces is greater than the sum of the individual forces. Such a synergistic principle has become a strong motive behind many incidents in history, in which individuals have assembled into a group to become an increasingly efficacious and influential force. This is the case in John Steinbecks The Grapes of Wrath, in which thousands of farmers are affected by the economical, climatic, and agricultural crises of the 1930s and forced to migrate to the promising valleys of California. As these migrants receive their long, arduous journey across the deserts of America, they are faced with numerous predicaments, most(prenominal) of which place them on the brink of survival. In the end, they learn that it is their passionateness for one a n onher and their togetherness that will allow them to complete the journey and fulfill their long-lived dreams. As the story keepes, a marked growth becomes evident among from each one character as they make the transition from an I level of thinking to a we level of thinking. One such character is the itinerant preacher, Jim Casy. Although his actions are not directly influential to the storys plot, it is his philosophies and outlooks on life and religion that affect the events, as well as the other characters, in the story.Perhaps the most significant theme interpreted from the journey of the Joad family is that of the shift from the I to the we mentality. This concept results mainly from the mutual relationships formed surrounded by the migrants and their willingness to help one another. As the migrants progress on their journey, their concern for the well being of others overshadows their concerns for themselves. Their actions become completely altruistic and intended to prote ct the functionality of the migrant force as a whole. They readily make sacrifices to one another and work to create mutual bonds that help one another survive. Another aspect of the I to we transition is that of the togetherness of the migrant families and the unions formed between them. As the migrants begin to face the all the same hardships and dilemmas, they begin to organize and function as a single unit. The individuals among this unit are capable of part one another and advancing the progress off the whole unit.

Dialogue and Monologue in the 1798 Lyrical Ballads :: 1798 Lyrical Ballads Bicentennial Essays

Dialogue and Monologue in the 1798 Lyrical BalladsCommemorating the bicentennial of the 1798 Lyrical Ballads implies something about the volumes innovations as well as its continuity. It is no longer possible to believe that Romanticism started here (as I at least was taught in school). Even if we cannot claim 1798 as a hinge in literary history, though, there is something appealing about celebrating the volumes attitude to newness, as well as the less contentious fact of its enduring greatness to readers of Romantic-period poetry. What one risks, of course, is the currently ubiquitous accusation that one is repeating the self-representations of an inappropriately authoritative version of Romanticism, as my school-teacher certainly was (though none of us knew it at the time). on that point is indeed something innately Wordsworthian about the bicentennial, with its celebration of the endurance of a single past event. We recognise this rhetoric of revisitation and futurity it is the language spoken by the affirming voice of Lines written above Tintern Abbey, the concluding statement of the 1798 volume. The poem reads rather like the recitation of a liturgy. Wordsworth recollects his receive faith by restating it, and in doing so he discovers its truth and its guarantee of continuity in this moment there is life and food / For future years (ll. 65-6). However sceptical readers have get going about the Wordsworthian-Coleridgean creed, the monumental quality of the volume is not entirely a figment of a literary history in search of Great Traditions Tintern Abbey writes its own futureand the future of Lyrical Ballads 1798 as a wholeas well as writing Wordsworths (and Dorothys). We may no longer assent to the head of 1798 as a new beginning, but we still have to accommodate the volumes own assertions about continuity and change.Perhaps the temptation to go on print the date arises from the presence of these assertions. Even without the extended prefaces of the l ater editions, the 1798 Lyrical Ballads is a strikingly self-conscious collection. It opens and closes with a pair of manifestos. The Advertisement announces a new poetic convention Tintern Abbey bears witness to the final achievement of imaginative, moral and domestic security. Together, these two documents act like a set of quotation marks. They frame the stylistic and rhetorical voice of the volume as a whole within another kind of voice, instructing, guiding, and (re)assuring. However we choose to take the grand Romantic

Dialogue and Monologue in the 1798 Lyrical Ballads :: 1798 Lyrical Ballads Bicentennial Essays

Dialogue and Monologue in the 1798 Lyrical BalladsCommemorating the bicentennial of the 1798 Lyrical Ballads implies something closely the intensity levels innovations as healthy as its continuity. It is no longer possible to believe that Romanticism started here (as I at least was taught in school). Even if we cannot claim 1798 as a flexible joint in literary history, though, there is something appealing about celebrating the volumes attitude to newness, as well as the less contentious fact of its enduring importance to readers of Romantic-period poetry. What maven risks, of course, is the currently ubiquitous accusation that one is repeating the self-representations of an inappropriately authoritative version of Romanticism, as my school-teacher certainly was (though none of us knew it at the time). There is thence something innately Wordsworthian about the bicentennial, with its celebration of the endurance of a single past event. We recognise this rhetoric of revisitation a nd futurity it is the language spoken by the affirming instance of Lines written above Tintern Abbey, the concluding statement of the 1798 volume. The poem reads rather like the recitation of a liturgy. Wordsworth recollects his own faith by restating it, and in doing so he discovers its truth and its guarantee of continuity in this moment there is life and food / For time to come years (ll. 65-6). However sceptical readers have become about the Wordsworthian-Coleridgean creed, the monumental quality of the volume is not entirely a figment of a literary history in search of Great Traditions Tintern Abbey writes its own futureand the future of Lyrical Ballads 1798 as a wholeas well as writing Wordsworths (and Dorothys). We may no longer assent to the idea of 1798 as a new beginning, but we still have to accommo involution the volumes own assertions about continuity and change.Perhaps the temptation to go on marking the date arises from the presence of these assertions. Even without the extended prefaces of the later editions, the 1798 Lyrical Ballads is a strikingly self-conscious collection. It opens and closes with a pair of manifestos. The Advertisement announces a new poetic practice Tintern Abbey bears find oneself to the final achievement of imaginative, moral and domestic security. Together, these two documents act like a set of quotation marks. They frame the stylistic and rhetorical character of the volume as a whole within another kind of voice, instructing, guiding, and (re)assuring. However we choose to take the grand Romantic