In The Time Of The Butterflies Essay

In The Time Of The Butterflies Essay Many years ago, people believed that women did not have the right to express their ideas and feelings. These people thought that women were born just to get married and become mothers, and if they considered going to school they were often punished by society. At that time, women were not allowed to go to school or to have a job because they had to be in charge of the house. At home, women had not only to take care of their children but also they had to satisfy their husbands, take care of the old and sick members of the family and do the housework. Something very important that we have to consider is that in those times the families did not have just one or two children, but six or seven. This made it even more difficult for them. Women of that time were discriminated against socially. They did not have the same opportunities as men. Women could not have important jobs, and if they had, they did not receive the same treatment and salaries as men. Women were the worst paid and the mo st exploited. Women had always a secondary role in the family and society. Fortunately now, the situation has changed and society has established more rights for the protection of the women. However, there are still some places where people continue to have the negative beliefs about keeping women always at home. Nowadays, women have rebelled against those who think they are just an object that can be bought and sold. Most of them are not afraid to fight for their rights anymore, they are now allowed to do everything they want; they can work, they can express their opinions, they can attend school, and they can even vote and have important jobs in our society. In our new society, women can have as important jobs as men. For example, in Germany, the citizens have a woman as president because now society supports them and believes in them. In this paper, the two stories that I am going to analyse are In The Time of the Butterflies written by Julia Alvarez and The Color Purple written by Alice Walker. My essay is going to focus on the role of the main women in each story. Celie, Nettie, Sofia and the Mirabal sisters. The reason I decided to talk about this topic is because even though I am a man, I think women should receive the same treatment and opportunities as us, men. And also because it is very important to know that women have an important and essential role not only at home but also in labour lives. In The Time of the Butterflies is a story that talks about the lives of the Mirabal family, especially of the Mirabal sisters. This story takes place in the Dominican Republic where each Mirabal sister narrates the story according to her point of view. The Mirabal sisters called Patria, Minerva, Dedà © and Maria Teresa. These women were involved in a movement against Trujillo, who at that time governed the Dominican Republic. This man was an oppressor and he governed the nation in a brutal and cruel way. This movement against Trujillo shows the Mirabal sisters as strong women, women who fought for their rights and who gave their lives in order to get the treatment any woman deserved. On the other hand, The Color Purple is a story about violence, oppression and discrimination against women. Celie, a little black girl, is raped by her stepfather many times. She had two babies by him. Celie receives discrimination from white people, who treat black people as animals or, at best, as servants. Celie is given to Mr Black by her stepfather. Mr Black forces Celie to have sexual relations with him. He beats her. The babies Celie has had from her stepfather have been taken away from her. Celie is just fourteen years old, but she has now to take care of Mr Blacks children. Celie knows nothing about love because she has never experienced that feeling. She has just received beating and oppression from everyone. Mr Black has a son, Harpo, who marries to Sofia. Harpo humiliates and hits Sofia. But he gets a huge surprise; Sofia will not allow it. Sofia is a strong and independent woman who fights for her rights. Nettie, Celie ´s sister, is discriminated against as well. As we see, these two stories have many things in common, and one of the most important is the role that women play in each novel. In The Time of the Butterflies, the Mirabal sisters grew up in an upper class because their father was a businessman. The Mirabal sisters were very close and they were expected to get married and to have babies, and that is what they did. The Mirabal sisters supported each other in any decision they made. Here we can find a clear similarity with The Color Purple; it is because in this novel the sisters Celie and Nettie were always very close as well. Even though these sisters were separated from each other, they were together their thoughts. Another similarity between these two stories is that in both novels women have very traditional roles. For example, in The Color Purple when Celie is taken to Mr Black ´s house, she has to take care of the children, do the housework and satisfy Mr Black. She has to do everything Mr Black wants; she was even forc ed to have sexual relations. Celie was hit by Mr Black and she received a terrible treatment. Even though Celie was just fourteen years old Mr Black did not allow her to attend school. Women at that time were expected to get married and become mothers and going to school did not make any sense at all. It is another similarity with In The Time of the Butterflies, people also thought that women should stay at home with the children. A clear difference between these women is that in The Color Purple Celie, the protagonist of the novel, and her sister Nettie, did not have the opportunity of attending school. They were poor and they did not have someone who could support them. On the other hand, In The Time of the Butterflies, the Mirabal sisters, Patria, Dedà ©, Maria Teresa and Minerva had the opportunity to study because their father, Don Enrique Mirabal, earned enough money to send them to school. However, these sisters suffered too, but in a different way. The Mirabal sisters suffered because of Trujillo. Trujillo was the government of Dominican Republic at that time. He was an oppressor and his dictatorship was brutal. Trujillo used to treat women as objects, he could have any woman he wanted because he had the power. Here, we have another similarity with The Color Purple, in this novel Mr Black was an oppressor and a dictator too. He forces Celie to do things she did not want to do. However, Celie had to ob ey him, and she did not have the opportunity to say what she really thought. Mr Black had Celie as a servant in his house while he spent time with Shug Avery, a woman who Mr. Black loved. Thats why Trujillo and Mr Black have many things in common. Both were machinists. In The Color Purple we have Sofia, character who for me is the strongest woman in the novel. Sofia married Harpo, Mr. Black ´s son. Harpo wants to treat Sofia, his wife; of the same manner, his father treats Celie. However, Sofia is a very intelligent woman and she does not allow it. On the contrary, Sofia takes control of the house and she does not allow herself to be insulted by anybody. She confronts even the white community, this community treated blacks as animals, but Sofia rebelled against that and she fought for her freedom. Unfortunately, she was taken to jail because she hits and insults a very important white man in the town. The similarity with In The Time of the Butterflies is that Sofia has the same courage that Minerva, one of the Mirabal sisters. For me, Minerva was also the bravest and strongest woman in this novel. I think these two women are similar. They have the same purpose in fighting; they wanted freedom for themselves and for their families. These two women did not really care if they lost their freedom in order to get their fights. Minerva Mirabal gave her life in order to have a better country and Sofia, from The Color Purple, lost her freedom in order to get a better treatment for her family and for the black community. Another similarity I found is that in each novel there is one woman who narrates or tells her story through writings. For example, in In The Time of the Butterflies Dedà © narrates her story through a diary, in which she wrote all that happened to her. On the other hand, In The Color Purple Celie tells her story through letters to God. In these papers, Celi and Dedà ¨ could write all their thought and all those things they could not say in front of people. In these papers, they expressed all they felt. And I could say that these papers were like a person they could talk to. In conclusion, I can say that these two stories made me think about the life I want for my daughters in a future. In these novels there was much tragedy but they showed me the value people should give to the women. I personally believe that all women have to have the same opportunities. The society should not distinguish between black and white women, because they are all equals. Consequently, they have to be treated in the same manner as the society treats men. Women have the same and even more capacity as men and sometimes they are stronger. Women have the power to sacrifice her life in order to save their relatives not matter what. The difference between genders is just an obstacle created by the human mind.

Utopia Vs. Dystopia Essay -- essays research papers

Utopia Vs. Dystopia Each person has their own vision of utopia. Utopia means an ideal state, a paradise, a land of enchantment. It has been a central part of the history of ideas in Western Civilization. Philosophers and writers continue to imagine and conceive plans for an ideal state even today. They use models of ideal government to express their ideas on contemporary issues and political conditions. Man has never of comparing the real and ideal, actuality and dream, and the stark facts of human condition and hypothetical versions of optimum life and government.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   In the nineteenth century, man believed in the perfectibility of mankind and in the real possibility of an ultimate utopia, a time when man could all live together in peace. However, the events of the twentieth century have weakened that belief. Both cold and hot wars have followed each other in succession. Revolutions and civil wars have taken place and totalitarianism has become a fact that can hardly be ignored. Therefore, the modern age has become a time in which more anti-utopias have been envisioned than ever before.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   A lot of authors have expressed their views on utopia in their novels. Some have done it by creating their own perfect world, while others have chosen a different path. They have selected to voice their opinions in anti-utopian novels, or dystopia. An anti-utopia is simply the reverse of a utopian novel. The aim of both novels is ba...

Edwin Arlington Robinson

â€Å"One of the most prolific major American poets of the twentieth century, Edwin Arlington Robinson is, ironically, best remembered for only a handful of short poems,† stated Robert Gilbert in the Concise Dictionary of American Literary Biography. Fellow writer Amy Lowell declared in the New York Times Book Review, â€Å"Edwin Arlington Robinson is poetry. I can think of no other living writer who has so consistently dedicated his life to his work.† Robinson is considered unique among American poets of his time for his devotion to his art; he published virtually nothing during his long career except poetry. The expense of Robinson’s single-mindedness,† Gilbert explained, â€Å"was virtually everything else in life for which people strive, but it eventually won for him both fortune and fame, as well as a firm position in literary history as America’s first important poet of the twentieth century. † Robinson seemed destined for a career in business or the sciences. He was the third son of a wealthy New England merchant, a man who had little use for the fine arts. He was, however, encouraged in his poetic pursuits by a neighbor and wrote copiously, experimenting with verse translations from Greek and Latin poets. In 1891 Edward Robinson provided the funds to send his son to Harvard partly because the aspiring writer required medical treatment that could best be performed in Boston. There Robinson published some poems in local newspapers and magazines and, as he later explained in a biographical piece published in Colophon, collected a pile of rejection slips â€Å"that must have been one of the largest and most comprehensive in literary history. † Finally he decided to publish his poems himself, and contracted with Riverside, a vanity press, to produce The Torrent and The Night Before, named after the first and last poems in the collection. In the poems of The Torrent and The Night Before, Robinson experimented with elaborate poetic forms and explored themes that would characterize much of his work—†themes of personal failure, artistic endeavor, materialism, and the inevitability of change,† according to Gilbert. He also established a style recognizably his own: an adherence to traditional forms at a time when most poets were experimenting with the genre (â€Å"All his life Robinson strenuously objected to free verse,† Gilbert remarked, â€Å"replying once when asked if he wrote it, ‘No, I write badly enough as it is. †), and laconic, everyday speech. Robinson mailed copies of The Torrent and The Night Before out â€Å"to editors of journals and to writers who he thought might be sympathetic to his work,† said Gilbert. Read also  How Powerful Do You Find Atticus Finch’s Closing Speech? The response was generally favorable, although perhaps the most significant review came from Harry Thurston Peck, who commented unfavorably in the Bookman on Robinson’s bleak outlook and sense of humor. Peck found Robinson’s tone too grim for his tastes, saying that â€Å"the world is not beautiful to [Robinson], but a prison-house. â€Å"I am sorry that I have painted myself in such lugubrious colours,† Robinson wrote in the next issue of the Bookman, responding to this criticism. â€Å"The world is not a prison house, but a kind of spiritual kindergarten, where millions of bewildered infants are trying to spell God with the wrong blocks. † Encouraged by the largely positive critical reaction, Robinson quickly produced a second manuscript, The Children of the Night, which was also published by a vanity press, a friend providing the necessary funds. Unfortunately, reviewers largely ignored it; Gilbert suggests that they were put off by the vanity imprint. In 1902, two friends persuaded the publisher Houghton Mifflin to publish Captain Craig, another book of Robinson’s verse, by promising to subsidize part of the publishing costs. Captain Craigwas neither a popular nor a critical success, and for several years Robinson neglected poetry, drifting from job to job in New York City and the Northeast. He took to drinking heavily, and for a time it seemed that he would, as Gilbert put it, fall â€Å"into permanent dissolution, as both his brothers had done. † â€Å"His whimsical ‘Miniver Cheevy,’† Gilbert continued, â€Å"the poem about the malcontent modern who yearned for the past glories of the chivalric age and who finally ‘coughed, and called it fate/and kept on drinking,’ is presumably a comic self-portrait. † Robinson’s luck changed in 1904, when Kermit Roosevelt brought The Children of the Night to the attention of his father, President Theodore Roosevelt. Roosevelt not only persuaded Random House to republish the book, but also reviewed it himself for the Outlook (â€Å"I am not sure I understand ‘Luke Havergal,’† he said, â€Å"but I am entirely sure that I like it†), and obtained a sinecure for its author at the New York Customs House—a post Robinson held until 1909. The two thousand dollar annual stipend that went with the post provided Robinson with financial security. In 1910, he repaid his debt to Roosevelt in The Town down the River, a collection of poems dedicated to the former president. Perhaps the best known of Robinson’s poems are those now called the Tilbury Town cycle, named after the small town â€Å"that provides the setting for many of his poems and explicitly links him and his poetry with small-town New England, the repressive, utilitarian social climate customarily designated as the Puritan ethic,† explained W. R. Robinson in Edwin Arlington Robinson: A Poetry of the Act. These poems also expound some of Robinson’s most characteristic themes: â€Å"his curiosity,† as Gerald DeWitt Sanders and his fellow editors put it in Chief Modern Poets of Britain and America, â€Å"about what lies behind the social mask of character, and †¦ is dark hints about sexuality, loyalty, and man’s terrible will to defeat himself. † Tilbury Town is first mentioned in â€Å"John Evereldown,† a ballad collected in The Torrent and The Night Before. John Evereldown, out late at night, is called back to the house by his wife, who is wondering why he wants to walk the long cold miles into town. He responds, â€Å"God knows if I pray to be done with it all/But God’s no friend of John Evereldown. /So the clouds may come and the rain may fall,/the shadows may creep and the dead men crawl,—/But I follow the women wherever they call,/And that’s why I’m going to Tilbury Town. Tilbury Town reappears at intervals throughout Robinson’s work. The title poem in Captain Craig concerns an old resident of the town whose life, believed wasted by his neighbors, proves to have been of value. The Children of the Night contains the story of Richard Cory, â€Å"a gentleman from sole to crown,/Clean favored, and imperially slim,† who â€Å"one calm summer night,/Went home and put a bullet through his head,† and Tilbury Town itself is personified in the lines â€Å"In fine, we thought that he was everything/ To make us wish that we were in his place. The Man against the Sky—according to Gilbert, Robinson’s â€Å"most important single volume,† and probably his most critically acclaimed—includes the story of the man â€Å"Flammonde,† one of the poet’s most anthologized Tilbury verses. Despite the fact that much of Robinson’s verse dealt with failed lives, several critics see his work as life-affirming. May Sinclair, writing an early review of Captain Craig for the Fortnightly Review, said of the Captain, â€Å"He, ragged, old, and starved, challenges his friends to have courage and to rejoice in the sun. Amy Lowell, in her Tendencies in Modern American Poetry, stated, â€Å"I have spoken of Mr. Robinson’s ‘unconscious cynicism. ’ It is unconscious because he never dwells upon it as such, never delights in it, nor wraps it comfortably about him. It is hardly more than the reverse of the shield of pain, and in his later work, it gives place to a great, pitying tenderness. ‘Success through Failure,’ that is the motto on the other side of his banner of ‘Courage. † And Robert Frost, in his introduction to Robinson’s King Jasper, declared, â€Å"His theme was unhappiness itself, but his skill was as happy as it was playful. There is that comforting thought for those who suffered to see him suffer. † Many Tilbury Town verses were among the poems Robinson included in his Pulitzer Prize-winning Collected Poems of 1922—the first Pulitzer ever awarded for poetry. He won his second poetry Pulitzer in 1924, this time for The Man W ho Died Twice, the story of a street musician whose one musical masterpiece is lost when he collapses after a night of debauchery. Gilbert attributed the poem’s success to its â€Å"combination of down-to-earth diction, classical allusion, and understated humor. † In 1927, Robinson again won a Pulitzer for his long narrative poem Tristram, one in a series of poems based on Arthurian legends. Tristram proved to be Robinson’s only true popular success—it was that rarity of twentieth-century literature, a best-selling book-length poem—and it received critical acclaim as well. â€Å"It may be said not only that ‘Tristram’ is the finest of Mr. Robinson’s narrative poems,† wrote Lloyd Morris in the Nation, â€Å"but that it is among he very few fine modern narrative poems in English. † Early in 1935, Robinson fell ill with cancer. He stayed hospitalized until his death, correcting galley proofs of his last poem, King Jasper only hours before slipping into a final coma. â€Å"Magazines and newspapers throughout the country took elaborate notice of Robinson’s death,† declared Gilbert, â€Å"reminding their readers that he had been considered America’s foremost poet for nearly twenty years and praising his industry, integrity, and devotion to his art. â€Å"It may come to the notice of our posterity (and then again it may not),† wrote Robert Frost in his introduction to King Jasper, â€Å"that this, our age, ran wild in the quest of new ways to be new†¦. Robinson stayed content with the old-fashioned ways to be new. † â€Å"Robinson has gone to his place in American literature and left his human place among us vacant,† Frost concluded. â€Å"We mourn, but with the qualification that, after all, his life was a revel in the felicities of language. †

Social harm - 929 Words

Can criminologists make equal justice between ‘crime’ and ‘social harm’? Throughout the years, the ‘problem of crime’ has been a long debated subject due to its complexity. At some point, it was a matter of different regions, cultures, and particular laws that made it difficult for people to argue whether a certain thing was a crime or not. In spite of this fact, this problem still exists-for example: if, in one country a particular thing can be a right, in another one it can be a crime-such as abortion. In relation to this topic, this essay is going to focus on two important concepts - that of ‘crime’ and that of ‘social harm’, including general definitions, the context in which they can be†¦show more content†¦Not only is this type of crime harmful for the nation, but also there is a problem in preventing it, because the crime itself was either reported long after it was committed, or bec ause of the fact that when brought to court, the case was closed for lack of evidence or because the person in cause had very good lawyers. So, who can help society overcome this problem of the ‘hidden criminal’? It is said that criminologists have always been more concerned about ‘the crimes of the powerless than the crimes of the powerful, with the ‘crimes of the streets’ rather than the ‘crimes of the suites’’ . But they have tried not to ignore this problem and in doing so, they put considerable efforts in finding a solution. 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Vocal-NY was once New York City AIDS Housing Network. Their formation was at a time when addressing root causes like homelessness and poverty was going out of style and incrimination was