I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (Maya Angelou) Essay Example for Free

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (Maya Angelou) Essay In I know Why the Caged Bird Sings, Maya Angelou shows us a dark side of American history and how racism and discrimination can affect people, but she also shows us the power of the human spirit in our ability to overcome negativity and succeed in spite of great difficulties in life. One of the earliest examples of race relations in the book symbolizes the major separation of opportunity for black and white children. On the second page of the book, Marguerite explains how she wished that she would â€Å"wake up in a white world, with blond hair, blue eyes, and she would shudder from the nightmare of being black. † Thus, from the beginning of the book, race relations were one of the major themes. The way that Marguerite was thinking at this point, was the same way that other young black children were thinking during this time. They were so use to the white children being praised, they felt that if they looked that way, they would be praised and have the finer things in life as well. According to Valà ©rie Baisnà © (1994), â€Å"Angelous autobiographies in the midst of literature, were written during and about the American Civil Rights movement. The American Civil Rights Movement (1955–1968) refers to the reform movements in the United States aimed at abolishing racial discrimination against African Lupton states that Caged Bird captures the vulgarity of white Southern attitudes toward African Americans. Angelou demonstrates, through her involvement with the black community of Stamps, her developing understanding of the rules for surviving in a racist society, something she is not able to articulate for many years, when she finally writes the book. Angelou also vividly presents racist characters so real one can feel their presence.† Maya Angelou’s early experiences with racism are so powerful, that in 1982, during an interview with Bill Moyers in Stamps, she is unable to cross some railroad tracks into the white part of town. Bill Moyers was an American Journalist and public commentator. Critic Pierre A. Walker (1995), characterizes Angelous book as political; he stresses that the â€Å"unity of her autobiographies serves to underscore one of Angelous central themes: the injustice of racism and how to fight it.† Walker (1995) also states that Angelous biographies’, beginning with Caged Bird, consists of a sequence of lessons about resisting racist oppression. This sequence leads Angelou, as the protagonist, from helpless rage and indignation to forms of subtle resistance, and finally to outright and active protest throughout all six of her autobiographies. Maya Angelou used all that she has been through to write her stories. Her childhood was not really a child hood because she had to accept what had happened to her and move on which caused her to grow up faster than normal. The events that took place in her life made her the strong woman that she is today. She decided not to let her situation define her, instead, she decided to define her situation. Far too many times there are individuals who allow things that happen to them tear them down and they never seem to recover, but not Maya Angelou. She was determined. During the time that this book was written, there were a lot of things going on in the country. One major event was the Civil Rights Movement. The Civil Rights Movement was a time in American History where Blacks were protesting and fighting to be able to have the same rights as a those of non-blacks. Bibliography Angelou, Maya (1969). I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. New York: Random House. Random House Inc is the worlds largest English-language general trade book publisher Baisnà ©e, Valà ©rie (1994). Gendered resistance: The autobiographies of Simone de Beauvoir, Maya Angelou, Janet Frame and Marguerite Duras. Amsterdam Walker, Pierre A. Racial protest, identity, words and form in Maya Angelous I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings.. College Literature 22.3 (1995): 91+. Academic OneFile. Web. 8 Aug. 2012.

Fate and Pessimism in Far from the Madding Crowd Essay -- Madding

Fate and Pessimism in Far from the Madding Crowd      Ã‚  Ã‚   Fate plays a major role in many of Hardy's novels; both Tess of the D'Urbervilles and The Mayor of Casterbridge contain various instances where its effects are readily apparent. Moreover, Hardy's novels reflect a pessimistic view where fate, or chance, is responsible for a character's ruin. Far from the Madding Crowd is one of his earliest fiction; here, although it is much more subdued, fate and pessimism are still visible. It is shown throughout the book; Bathsheba Everdene sends a valentine to Farmer Boldwood as the result of her divination by Bible-and-key, Fanny Robin arrives at the wrong church for her wedding with Sergeant Troy, and a wave sweeps Troy out to sea so that he is assumed dead, only for him to return and be shot by Boldwood. Two of the characters, Troy and Fanny, along with her stillborn child, is left dead, and Boldwood is sent to confinement, labeled as being insane.    Nonetheless, fate and pessimism are much more subdued in Crowd than Hardy's later, grimmer works; whereas Tess is put to death, Bathsheba marries Gabriel Oak, the most obvious choice out of the three suitors. Indeed, Crowd is the happiest of Hardy's major novels. As for the more unfortunate characters, it can be said that they were not without fault, especially Troy. In short, Hardy has written a novel with a happy ending, where the protagonists are rewarded and the antagonists are punished.    At least, it would seem so. However, one must wonder if the "punishments" are truly just. And what about Fanny? It would be impossible to mark her as an antagonist. She is young and naà ¯ve, and her fate is unavoidable from the moment she falls in love with Tr... ...was possible. This optimism, balanced with traces of Hardy's early pessimism, makes Far from the Madding Crowd not a failed tragedy but "a significant novel in its own right-a kind of golden mean among the major works" (Carpenter 81).    Works Cited:    Beegel, Susan. "Male Sexuality in Far from the Madding Crowd." Thomas Hardy. Ed. Harold Bloom. New York: Chelsea House Publishers, 1987. 207-226.    Carpenter, Richard. Thomas Hardy. Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1964.    Flynn, Paul. "Sergeant Troy: A `Wicked Soldier Hero' in the Victorian Military." Hardy Miscellany 2 (September 16, 1998). May 12, 2000    Guerard, Albert J. "The Woman of the Novels." Hardy. Ed. Albert J. Guerard. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1963.    Hardy, Thomas. Far from the Madding Crowd. New York: New American Library, Inc., 1960.

Europe between the Wars: Fascism Essay

According to Stanley Payne, the term fascism rooted from the Latin word fasces which delineate â€Å"bundle† or â€Å"union†. Yet, these words cannot fully encapsulate nor even define what fascism; more specifically â€Å"Italian Fascism† is all about. It had been commonly misused as to refer to â€Å"violence, repression, dictatorship and brutality† removing any difference from the concept that were commonly associated with Communism. (p. 3) Seemingly, a clear cut definition of fascism is hard to come up with because it does not have any â€Å"seminal text† that should have defined its political, social and economic pursuit in contrast with other ideologies. Since this is the case, knowing the history of how the so-called â€Å"fascist† acts and the things they try to emphasize in the words they said, were substantial for anyone to have a more relevant understanding of the term or the word â€Å"fascism†. As an ideology, fascism considers the concerns of the individual along with those of the society as secondary or inferior to those of the whole state. Primarily, it views the state as an organic living thing that is mythical in a sense due to its belief in a â€Å"national rebirth† in the process of : nti-ideological’ and pragmatic ideology that proclaims itself antimaterialist, antiindividualist, antiliberal, antidemocratic, anti-Marxist, is populist and anticapitalist in tendency, expresses itself aesthetically more than theoretically by means of a new political style and by myths, rites, and symbols as a lay religion designed to acculturate, socialize, and integrate the faith of the masses with the goal of creating a ‘new man’ (Payne, p. 4) It was believed to be founded by Benito Mussolini as a political movement that espouses authoritarian dictatorship. It does not promote the concept of â€Å"class struggle† which makes it different from Marxism; it is a revolutionary ideology which seeks to promote the Italian race as part of aggressive nationalism programs which was associated or was said to have influenced German’s Nazism. (p. 225) It was believed to have started as an anti-communist group in the leadership of Mussolini, in addition with the anti-socialist sentiments that had flood Italy during the 1920’s as a result of the worker’s upheaval. Mussolini’s power doesn’t actually come from his own cunningness but was derived from the ineffectiveness of the government and the miscalculation made by the Socialist party. (p. 23-35) As the government of his time side with him in order to combat the socialism and the problems that it brought to the government and as the Socialist party remained confident that they would reign Italy, Mussolini have managed to gradually gain popularity, trust and power. (p. 27) Domestically, Mussolini’s actions were directed towards the restoration of Italy. He favored militarism and internationalism. He calls for the separation of the church and the state. There was also a movement which replaced the labor unions with co-operatives that works ideally with the government in able to look create plans that would benefit both the workers and the state. (p. 55-67) He legislate laws which were in favor of private ownership and capitalization. His foreign policies include the invasion of Ethiopia and the recognition of Roman Catholicism as the only religion in the state. (p. 55) This had resulted to the Anti-Semitic laws resulting to several other actions that were now being referred as racial discrimination. Seeing that his goals paralleled with those of the Nazi German’s, he had establish an alliance with them. His economic policies involve public works and the imposition of a state police under his party. (p. 25-317) Mussolini started the promotion of imperialism by directing a war with Ethiopia in view that this would redirect the attention and sympathy of the citizens. He had also aided fascist movement in Spain and accepted alliance with Germany. It is during these years that he started to decline in his prominence. (p. 225-317) Violence are viewed by Mussolini as liberating, deaths as a necessary sacrifice and wars as trials that must be overcome in reverence of the state. This is quite different from the Marxist Communism which according to Payne (p. 355) have â€Å"qualified violence as an indispensable means to an end—while gratuitously employing it en masse—and almost always preached peace as ideal and goal, while massively militarizing their systems in practice†. Italian Fascism might not have a core value system or an organized history, yet it had managed to influence other nations and it had been successful in eradicating or at least minimizing the Socialist movement that have dominated in the 1920’s. It promotes cultural liberalism by promoting capitalism under authoritarianism and nationalism. Although the ideal desire for hegemony and false judgment have led to the downfall of Mussolini, his actions, practices and ideology as whole have prompted several leaders into developing strands of political movements that resembles fascist vision and methods. The idea of focusing and putting the needs of the state above any personal needs indeed capture the hearts and minds of most citizens and has so far work even in the expense of many lives. (p. 355-358)

Analysis Of David Harveys The Condition Of Postmodernism

In David Harvey’s book, The Condition of Postmodernity, he writes â€Å"value and meaning are not inherent in any spatial order, but must be invoked† and that domination of space â€Å"reflects how individuals or powerful groups dominate the organization and production of space through legal and extralegal means† in order to â€Å"exercise a greater degree of control†. â€Å"Powerful groups† use these powers through various institutions, but perhaps none is as influential as the state s central bank, which plays a significant role in: setting credit rates and monetary policy; deciding on and implementing exchange rate policies; surveying and collecting data on citizens and corporations; assuring the robustness of the payment infrastructure; protecting the†¦show more content†¦Bitcoins are anonymous only insofar as not knowing the name of the holder of any given digital wallet. However, the activities of all wallets are completely public. In formation in a blockchain can be used to ascertain certain spatial and temporal information about any bitcoin transaction. That s a built-in feature of the protocol. Bitcoin’s ledger is public and always accurate, because of said system. Most broadly, the blockchain is a growing element of the ‘cyberspace’, which has already been referred to as a form of heterotopia. This framework poses a threat to dominant markets and financial services in its ability to drain them of their hegemonic power. This new world is structured in a way that’s completely incongruous to the hegemonic structures society propagates. The horror of a free floating, digital economy based around a decentralized currency that uses encrypted transactions, and an anonymous, public ledger of said transactions outside the politics of forceful government banking - borders and boundaries would dissolve. Lo and behold, a blocked process of telematic motion: â€Å"In three years, the online drug market Silk Road grew from a small peer-to-peer drug-trading network into a multi-billion dollar darknetShow MoreRelatedOrganisational Theory230255 Words   |  922 Pagesthe case with the present book. This is a book that deserves to achieve a wide readership. Professor Stephen Ackroyd, Lancaster University, UK This new textbook usefully situates organization theory within the scholarly debates on modernism and postmodernism, and provides an advanced introduction to the heterogeneous study of organizations, including chapters on phenomenology, critical theory and psychoanalysis. Like all good textbooks, the book is accessible, well researched and readers are encouraged