Bonnie Lyons Essay Example for Free

Bonnie Lyons Essay The critic, Christopher Lehmann-Haupt, considers The Handmaids Tale to be far more than a political tract deploring nuclear energy, environmental waste and antifeminist attitudes. Which features of Atwoods novel do you believe have contributed to its readability and secured its reputation as a piece of classic modern fiction? In the novel, The Handmaids Tale, it is my opinion that the principal aspect of Atwoods writing style is the depth and intensity with which she approaches her subject matter; she consistently shows that she has researched her material and is able to show relatively potential alternate futures at the time of the early 80s it is not inconceivable to imagine certain turns of events happening as they did in the narrative. In the 1980s, the political climate globally seemed to be turning toward economic restraint and conservatism. In general, this shift was a response to the liberalism and unchecked social spending that occurred in the 1970s, which were in turn the extended results of the freedoms won by the worldwide social revolutions of the 1960s. This conservative trend appeared in different forms in different countries. In Margaret Atwoods home country of Canada, Pierre Trudeau, the Liberal Party leader resigned in 1984, and the voters replaced him with Progressive Conservative Brian Mulroney. Margaret Thatcher, who was elected Prime Minister of England in 1979, reversed decades of socialism by selling government-run industries to private owners. In the United States, the 1980 election of Ronald Reagan created such a turbulent reversal of previous social policy that the changes sweeping through the government during the first half of the decade came to be referred to as the Reagan Revolution. The extreme shift toward conservatism in the United States at that time is significant to the social change that created the Republic of Gilead in Atwoods imagination. After the novel was published, she told an American interviewer that she had tried originally to set the novel in Canada, but that it just would not fit the Canadian culture. Its not a Canadian sort of thing to do, she told Bonnie Lyons in 1987. Canadians might do it after the United States did it, in some sort of watered-down version. Our television evangelists are paltrier than yours. The States are more extreme in everything. The Republic of Gilead is characterised as a dystopia; a dystopia is any society considered to be undesirable, for any of a number of reasons. The term was coined as a converse to a utopia, and is most usually used to refer to a fictional society where current social trends are taken to nightmarish extremes. One of The Handmaids Tales successful aspects concerns the skilful portrayal of a state that in theory claims to be founded on Christian principles, yet in practice miserably lacks spirituality and benevolence. The state in Gilead prescribes a pattern of life based on abstinence, conformity, censorship, corruption, fear, and terror-in short, the usual terms of existence enforced by totalitarian states, instance of which can be found in such dystopian works as Orwells 1984. The novels thematics operate by speculating upon conflicting extremes: a decadent present, which Aunt Lydia cynically describes as a society dying of too much choice, and a totalitarian future that prohibits choice. Naturally, while rejecting the indulgent decadence and chaos of an anarchic society, the reader condemns the Gilead regime for its intolerant, prescriptive set of values that projects a tunnel vision on reality and eliminates human free will. There is more than one kind of freedom, said Aunt Lydia. Freedom to and freedom from. In the days of anarchy, it was freedom to. Now you are being given freedom from. Dont underrate it.

Rearing Children in Love and Righteousness :: Relationships Parenting Papers

Rearing Children in Love and Righteousness â€Å"Parents have a sacred duty to rear their children in love and righteousness, . . .[and] to teach them to love and serve one another† (The Family: A Proclamation to the World,  ¶ 6). This statement by The Proclamation proclaimed to the world of the responsibility parent have for their children – to teach them right from wrong. In today’s world less and less parents are the principal caregiver and teacher in a child’s life. The Proclamation firmly places this responsibility squarely on the heads of the parents. Yet even with this knowledge, the application of how to â€Å"rear their children in love and righteousness† could be debated. Many parents (even amongst members) have differing opinions on how children should be disciplined and taught. Is spanking considered abuse? Or is it excusable under certain circumstances? Should time out, or bribery be used to coerce kids to obey, or is it a combination of both? Many people have ques tioned what types of punishments are â€Å"righteous† and which ones are not. Here I want to discuss these things and find out what is the most popular belief among college students. Then we can go to our text, â€Å"Strengthening Our Families: An In-Depth Look at the Proclamation on the Family†, and discover what General Authorities and scholars in the field of Sociology and Child Development teach. In this way we can talk to others and inform them on, and maybe call them to reflection about their opinion and on the teachings of the leaders of the church. When I was growing up, my parents believed in punishing a child who had severely disobeyed with spanking. Learning quickly at a young age that I did not like this, I was only spanked two or three times after which I built up the determination never to do anything deserving of spanking again. It scared me half to death and I despised it as a child. I have seen my older sisters, as they are currently raising their children, use spanking as a mode of punishment – sometimes it works, other times it seem to have little affect. I decided to ask my roommates and friends how their parents had disciplined them and what they thought they would do with their future children.

Self and Imagination in Romanticism

The Romantic era is denoted by an extensive questioning and expression of challenging notions building on the convictions of the Enlightenment. The Enlightenment challenged the Christian Orthodoxy which had dominated Europe for 1,000 years. Romanticism proposed an exploration of self, emphasising the primacy of the individual and a vision of humankind animated by the imagination, endorsing a reverence and personal connection to nature. The set texts Fancy and Ode to a Nightingale explore a world created by imagination, emphasising the importance of reflection and sustaining a relationship with nature.Northanger Abbey however, examines the interplay between reason and imagination. The related text Thanatopsis possesses tropes of Dark Romanticism, depicting humanity’s curiosity of the supernatural whilst Beethoven’s works analyse the expression of intense emotion and nature as a moral force. A propensity for self analysis and introspection is a feature of Romanticism. Thi s notion gained impetus as a response to the Neo-Classicist belief that humans were created as social beings, designed to conform to the status quo and abide by tradition.As well as a defiance against social duty and personal discipline, an emphasis on the individual came about as a result of anti-establishmentism. Closely connected to the Romantics’ rejection of the artificial was a growing opposition to established institutions such as the monarchy and the Church. Paul Brians, an American Scholar stated â€Å"The idea that the best path to faith is through individual choice, the idea that the government exists to serve individuals who have created it†¦ are products of the Romantic celebration of the individual at the expense of society and tradition. Social conventions and acceptable barometers of behaviour are questioned through the responders’ identification with protagonists who are marginalised or ‘different’. This is seen through the character isation of Emily Bronte’s, Heathcliff and Mary Shelley’s, Monster. Romantic ideologues, in contrast to Neo-Classicists, valued the solitary state and the unique qualities of an individual’s mind rather than the outer social world. Romanticism encouraged the creative exploration of the inner self and praised unconventionality.Such focus is shown through the continual use of first-person lyrical poems. This technique is prevalent in Keats’ works, particularly in his poem Ode to a Nightingale. Keats questions â€Å"Do I wake or sleep? † – his proclivity toward direct voice accentuates the importance of self reflection and moulds reader response. Keats describes the archetypal outsider – an obsessive, egocentric man of extremes who is disenchanted with life. These periods of deep introspection highlight the importance placed on feelings and creative contemplation.For the Romantics, objective outlook is inundated by a new focus on the indi vidual and the subconscious. The Romantic emphasis on introspection and imaginative reflection is critiqued in Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey through the characterisation of the protagonist, Catherine Morland. Catherine is described as an atypical Gothic heroine -â€Å"No one who had ever seen Catherine Morland in her infancy, would have supposed her to be born an heroine† – and through her reflections and fanciful Gothic delusions, the composer highlights how imaginings hinder personal growth and objective outlook.Through dramatic irony, Austen derides these fantasies and demonstrates how they conflict with everyday realities. The composer suggests that a love for Gothic literature, or the supernatural – found in the contemporary texts of her time as a Romantic concept – contributes to impaired judgment and unworldliness. Through the growth of the antagonists in her story, Austen describes social pretension and unlike the concerns of Gothic litera ture, tells of a natural evil rather than the bizarre, macabre story lines of Gothic texts.Austen criticises the notion of the supernatural, but reinforces the Romantic ideal that personal freedom is of more importance than complying with social mores as depicted in the expulsion of Catherine from the Abbey. The scene of General Tilney’s dismissal of Catherine uncovers a dark, secretive side of human psychology, parallel to the villainous figures in Gothic novels, particularly Radcliffian works. Through plot development, Austen reveals that Gothic texts are an imaginative delineation of a mundane evil found within everyday society and hence, contribute to an understanding of the Romantic ideal of individualism.Romanticism fostered the idea that the ideal world that was conjured up by the imagination was more real than the material world and that the metaphysical or transcendental spiritual reality that was conjured by the senses and the imagination had more authenticity. Roma ntics believed that ‘Fancy’ was crucial to the expansion of the human mind and spirit. Keats frequently references the imagination as a source of elation and exhilaration, his poem Fancy focusing on how the creative power of the mind can enhance the human experience and impart immortality. She will bring, in spite of frost,/Beauties that the earth hath lost;† Keats implies that Fancy is a way of preserving feelings and periods, providing an escape from the bitterness of a Romantic ideologue’s reality. The philosopher Emmanuel Kant acknowledged imagination as the source of order and Friedrich Von Schelling argued that imagination had â€Å"a divine quality that was triggered by the generating power of the universe. † The divine was quintessential to Romantic ideology, Romantics striving for perfectibility which they felt was only achieved through nature.The height of imaginative experience is the concept of the sublime. Crucial to the full expression of imagination, the sublime was the cause of awe and terror. Nature’s rugged beauty and power was seen as both a source of jealousy and inspiration evident in William Cullen Bryant’s Thanatopsis. â€Å"The planets, all the infinite host of heaven,/Are shining on the sad abodes of death† describes nature as a transcendental force that surpasses the limitations of the superficial world. The importance of the sublime was stressed as a result of pantheism which saw nature as a powerful, untamed force to be worshipped.Pantheism came about as a response to deism and its rational view of the world as being ordered, possessing mechanistic patterns and laws. Deism supported the idea that social order was hierarchal and that human existence was divinely ordered and sanctioned. Romantics however, shared the belief that reality was organic and without any set order. Romanticism brought forward the idea that with Nature lay an ideal state, free from the artificial aspects an d constraints of civilisation. To be alone in wild, lonely places was for the Romantics to be near to heaven.This is obvious in Beethoven’s works, particularly Moonlight Sonata, which is known to be a musical delineation of the night sky. Nature was described by the Romantics as innocent and virtuous, an entity that could not be tainted by the wrongs of humanity. In this way, Beethoven depicts the morality of nature through his delicate harmonies and the employment of adagio, creating a tone of gentleness. The composer uses the musical techniques of dolce and legato to pacify his audience.The Romantic idea that nature was a moral force and guideline was used by Beethoven to criticise the French Revolution. Beethoven’s 5th piano concerto, known as The Emperor, was a political statement inspired by the ideas of justice and freedom as a result of his disillusionment with Napoleon. The idea of liberation and independence was central to Romantic ideals, a notion which came about as a response to middle and lower-class oppression and society’s hindrance of self-expression.Through their interpretations, whether they literary or musical, Romantics found within nature a means of expressing themselves. The universe was seen as mysterious, ruled by hidden, dark and supernatural forces. This is evident in the prevalence of references to the Exotic and Gothic in Romantic texts. Keats’ La Belle Dame Sans Merci tells of a woman of supernatural beauty, describing her as â€Å"a faery’s child† implying the seductress is other-worldly. This fascination with the Exotic was a response to the novelty of international exploration.Romantics had an obsession with other cultures different either in time or distance: the old and the primitive (Keats’ Ode on a Grecian Urn a perfect example of how the ancient influenced Romantic texts through his frequent references to ancient Greece as he describes â€Å"Tempe or the dales of Arcady? â⠂¬ ), Oriental, alien, vanished or Gothic. Following naturally from the Romantic interest with the old and exotic was an attraction to the supernatural and bizarre as seen in Gothicism. Gothicism was the preoccupation with the supernatural, influenced by a desire to defy the God-fearing Catholic Church.Examples of its relevance in Romantic texts can be seen in Bronte’s Wuthering Heights and Bryant’s Thanatopsis. Bronte writes of â€Å"spectres† whilst Bryant writes of â€Å"His favourite phantom† portraying the Romantic predilection to the paranormal. The complex concepts of self and imagination are analysed by the ideologues of the Romantic era through their subversion of the conventional measures of behaviour and their defiance against the traditional notions of the Enlightenment. These ideas formed the basis of the Romantic period and hence dominate Romantic texts.

Looking Up to Slims Character in Of Mice and Men by John...

In this novel of Of Mice and Men, by John Steinbeck, the author emphasizes the importance of Slim’s character by showing how much the characters depend and look up to him while also using his character for symbolism and contrast to other elements in the text. Slim serves as a leader to the men. He’s described as â€Å"God-like† which shows how much the men look up to him. Before he’s even properly introduced, we hear from Candy that he’s a â€Å"hell of a nice fella†; this shows that Slim’s Character is very much liked and accepted by the men while also showing that he’s friendly and a possible ally for George and Lennie. The men recognize and understand his â€Å"dignity† and how â€Å"ageless† he is, which is why they believe he’s qualified to lead them†¦show more content†¦Slim is also used to contrast with Curley’s character. Slim only uses his strength when it’s necessary while C urley uses his openly and to get his way. When Curley begins fighting with Lennie, Slim wants to end it but George won’t let him until Curley attacks. When Curley pesters slim about where his wife is, Slim becomes defensive and says, â€Å"you lay offa me† which Curley apologizes with â€Å"I didn’t mean nothing†. Slim answered defensively because he knows Curley won’t fight him without knowing what he’s capable of. Slim has never lost his temper enough to the point where he starts fighting with someone so Curley apologizes, not looking for a fight, until he knows he can beat him. â€Å"Nobody knows what Slim can do† just emphasizes how much power he holds over Curley and the ranch. While Slim’s power also comes from respect and friendship from the men, Curley’s comes from his father. â€Å"Like the boss† Curley wears high-heeled boots to remind the ranchers that he is above them and if they don’t respect h im he will speak to his father and get them fired from the ranch. Slims authority means that he gets to decide who deserves justice, and who deserves a little leniency. Hes good at reading someone’s personality, saying I can tell a mean guy from a mile off and, unlike some other people in the novel, hes not sayingShow MoreRelatedThe Grapes Of Wrath By John Steinbeck1119 Words   |  5 PagesAccomplished novelist, John Steinbeck, born in 1902, serves as a staple of American literature. He grew up in Salinas, California and graduated from Salinas High School in 1919. After attending Stanford University to study English Literature and failing to obtain a degree, Steinbeck moved to New York City and jumped between odd jobs and writing. With no luck in becoming published, he moved back to California, where he spent the rest of his life. As the author of novels, both fiction and nonfictionRead MoreCurley and Slim in Of Mice and Men2464 Words   |  10 Pagesï » ¿ ‘Of Mice and Men’, written by John Steinbeck, is a novel set in 1930s California and tells the story of two migrant workers, George Milton and Lennie Small, who move from ranch to ranch looking for work during the Great Depression. This novel is set while George and Lennie are in a small working ranch in the Salinas Valley of northern California, and over a period of 3 days we are introduced to a variety of characters that also live on the ranch. This essay will show how Steinbeck develops andRead MoreOf Mice and Men and the Great Depression1661 Words   |  7 Pageshistory was an interesting period that merges strife with everlasting hope. John Steinbecks literature takes a snapshot of this time with realistic circumstances appropriate for the time. 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Steinbeck was able to takeRead MoreEssay about Of Mice and Men By John Steinbeck3008 Words   |  13 PagesOf Mice and Men By John Steinbeck 1. How significant is the theme of loneliness in Of Mice and Men? 2. To what extent is it correct that The Great Gatsby, Death of a Salesman and Of Mice and Men explore important, but different aspects of ‘The American Dream’? 3. What is the importance of dreams and dreaming to the success of Of Mice and Men? A. Background Information Describe the historical background to the novel i.e. the USA in the mid/late 1930’s The USA of theRead MoreOf Mice and Men1630 Words   |  7 PagesOf Mice and Men Regardless of how intensely the characters of this novel hope and dream, their plans do not find fulfillment. Due to the lack of fulfillment of their dream, the characters face loneliness setting each apart from the other. Unlike George and Lennie, the other character of Crooks has no one to support him and be there for him as Lennie and George have each other. In the story, Of Mice and Men, John Steinbeck contrasts the loneliness and isolation experienced by Crooks, whom lifeRead More Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck Essay example9610 Words   |  39 PagesOf Mice and Men by John Steinbeck John Steinbeck was born on 27 Feb 1902 in Salinas, California, not far from the area where Of Mice and Men is set. He attended Stanford University, but never settled to one area of study and left without obtaining a degree. In his twenties, he pursued a varied working life, including that of an itinerant ranch worker, similar to the characters portrayed in the novel. His early writings had some success, and established him as an author interested in