Gabriel Oak Essay Example for Free

Gabriel Oak Essay How do you account for Bathshebas choice of husband when she could have married either Gabriel Oak or William Boldwood? Bathsheba married Troy because he offered her an exciting lifestyle full of lust and venture. On the other hand, she rejected Oak and Boldwood because they offered her a secluded life of security in a traditional living. The book was written in episodes for a Victorian magazine. People of the times expected a happy ending, Hardy wanted to please his readers but incorporate the hardships of life at the same time. He structures the book so that Bathsheba is dragged through her misfortunes and undeserving men, whilst throughout the duration of the book the readers still feel that Bathsheba should ultimately be in wedlock with Gabriel. This is clever of Hardy because despite the tragedy of death there is love to sooth the mind. In the time in which the book was written, men and women were only allowed to be together if the Lady has a chaperone, this was the socially accepted thing. Therefore, if a man got a woman pregnant it would be unacceptable of him not to marry her. Hardy felt that women were treated badly in the eyes of society. He felt that when women were married, the behaviour and character of the man they were married to shaped their lifestyles. In the Victorian period, women who did not marry found it very hard in society. They depended on their own financial security and were looked down upon because they were not married. He felt that women were swept up in the excitement of new love and lust and when they were married without true love, they would regret the mistake for the rest of their lives. Scarlet fever was the nickname for the obsession that the local girls had for the officers in the regiment who settled in their town, their scarlet coats being the basis of this nickname. Hardys Aunt Martha was in fact one of the victims of Scarlet fever. She ran off with a cavalryman, John Breton Sharpe. This may have been his inspiration for the character of Troy: attractive and exciting on the outside but fickle and insecure on the inside. When Troy and Bathsheba first meet, in chapter 24, the corner of her dress gets caught in his spur and as they struggle to untangle themselves he is very bold and brazen to her. He makes flirtatious comments that appeal to her vanity, Thank you for the sight of such a beautiful face! Although Bathsheba is flattered by his compliments, she does not know how to handle his over confident behaviour and is eager to get away because she is alone with a single man in the dark; with a reputation to uphold. She suggests that he is only entangling her dress further so that he can keep her there, O, tis shameful of you; you have been making it worse on purpose to keep me here you have! After he finally looses the dress from his spurs, he is even as daring as to make a reference to marriage, I wish it had been the knot of knots, which theres no untying! This makes her even more desperate to get away and on her retreat he makes another remark that makes him ever more attractive to Bathshebas vane nature, Ah, Beauty; good-bye! When Bathsheba, returns home, she learns from Liddy that Troy is high-born and very intelligent; He was brought up so well, and sent to Casterbridge grammar school for years and years. , Hes a doctors son by name and an earls son by nature Nobility of blood will outshine even in the ranks and files. Already, Bathsheba is attracted to Troys Redcoat exterior and his bold flirtatious manner. At their next meeting, Troy succeeds in dazzling Bathsheba with his witty remarks about men and their love for women; Probably some one man on an average falls in love with each ordinary woman such a woman as you a hundred men will always covet and once again he showers her with compliments; I would rather have curses from you than kisses from any other woman. Troy finally achieves to bewitch Bathsheba in chapter twenty-eight. When Bathsheba and Troy meet in the ferns, Troy impresses her with his skill with a sword. He tells her that the sword he is using is blunt when really it is razor sharp; No edge! This sword will shave like a razor. Troy takes the liberty of slicing a caterpillar that had settled on Bathshebas chest and cutting a stray lock of her hair. At this point, Hardy may have been influenced by the poem written by Alexander Pope called The Rape of the Lock. In this poem, Pope writes about a man named Lord Fermor, who cuts a lock of hair from the Lady Arabella except for the loss of your hair, which I shall always name in reverence. This is a symbol of sexual achievement. Later on in the book, we found out that Troy is also in the possession of a lock of Fanny Robins hair, so this would lead us to suspect that Troy regards this as trophy collecting or personal reminders of all the women he has seduced. Troy is the first man to kiss Bathsheba and this has a definite impact on her. The minutes interval had brought the blood beating into her face And enlarged emotion to a compass which quite swamped thought He had kissed her. After this event, Troy travels to Bath and Bathsheba follows him for many reasons. One of these reasons is that when she is on the road one afternoon, she meets Farmer Boldwood. He is obsessively in love with her and shouts at her, threatening Troy and cursing his name; Ill punish him be he soldier or no if he were one hundred men Id hose whip him. Bathsheba is very frightened for Troy and thinks long and hard about what to do in her trivial situation. She decides to go to Bath. She will warn Troy not to come back and to see him one last time before she end their relationship; Her plan was now to drive to Bath during the night, see Sergeant Troy in the morning before he set out to come to her, bid him farewell and dismiss him. Although this seemed like the best thing to do to save anyone from getting hurt, Bathsheba talks with Gabriel about the reasons for her ultimate commitment to Troy; I went to Bath that night with the full intention of breaking off my engagement to Mr. Troy Well I was alone in a strange city, and the horse was lame I saw, at last, when it was too late that scandal might seize hold of me for meeting alone him in that way. I was coming away when he suddenly said he had that day seen a woman more beautiful than I, and that his constancy could not be counted on unless I at once became his And then between jealousy and distraction I married him. Here we see one of the main reasons that Bathsheba married Troy he made her desperately jealous by manipulating her emotions.

Human Values and Ethics - What Science Cannot Discover, Mankind Cannot Know :: Philosophy Essays

Human Valuse and Ethics - What Science Cannot Discover, Mankind Cannot Know Those who maintain the insufficiency of science, as we have seen in the last two chapters, appeal to the fact that science has nothing to say about "values." This I admit; but when it is inferred that ethics contains truths which cannot be proved or disproved by science, I disagree. The matter is one on which it is not altogether easy to think clearly, and my own views on it are quite different from what they were thirty years ago. But it is necessary to be clear about it if we are to appraise such arguments as those in support of Cosmic Purpose. As there is no consensus of opinion about ethics, it must be understood that what follows is my personal belief, not the dictum of science. The study of ethics, traditionally, consists of two parts, one concerned with moral rules, the other with what is good on its own account. Rules of conduct, many of which have a ritual origin, play a great part in the lives of savages and primitive peoples. It is forbidden to eat out of the chief's dish, or to seethe the kid in its mother's milk; it is commanded to offer sacrifices to the gods, which, at a certain stage of development, are thought most acceptable if they are human beings. Other moral rules, such as the prohibition of murder and theft, have a more obvious social utility, and survive the decay of the primitive theological systems with which they were originally associated. But as men grow more reflective there is a tendency to lay less stress on rules and more on states of mind. This comes from two sources - philosophy and mystical religion. We are all familiar with passages in the prophets and the gospels, in which purity of heart is set above meticulous observance of the Law; and St. Paul's famous praise of charity, or love, teaches the same principle. The same thing will be found in all great mystics, Christian and non-Christian: what they values is a state of mind, out of which, as they hold, right conduct must ensue; rules seem to them external, and insufficiently adaptable to circumstances. One of the ways in which the need of appealing to external rules of conduct has been avoided has been the belief in "conscience," which has been especially important in Protestant ethics.

Native American Genocide Essay

In this paper, I will argue that the act of genocide as here defined, has been committed by the United States of America, upon the tribes and cultures of Native Americans, through mass indoctrination of its youths. Primary support will be drawn from Jorge Noriega’s work, â€Å"American Indian Education in the United States. † The paper will then culminate with my personal views on the subject, with ideas of if and how the United States might make reparations to its victims. In lieu of the well known and brutal â€Å"Indian Wars,† there is a means of cultural destruction of Native Americans, which began no later than 1611. This method was one of indoctrination. Methods included the forced removal of children from their cultural milieu and enrollment of these children in â€Å"educational programs,† which were intended to instill more European beliefs. As the United States was not formally a Nation, until 1776, it would not be fair to use evidence, before this year in building a case against it. The most damaging, to the United States, are parcels of evidence that are drawn from events after 1948, the year of the Convention on Genocide. Beginning in 1778, the United States Board of War, a product of the Continental Congress appropriated grants for the purpose of, â€Å"the maintenance of Indian students at Dartmouth College and the College of New Jersey? â€Å" The young people who had returned from the schools are described by Seneca leader, Cornplanter as, â€Å"?ignorant of every means of living in the Woods, unable to bear either Cold or Hunger, [they] knew neither how to build a Cabin, take a Deer, or kill an Enemy, [they] spoke our Language imperfectly, were therefore neither fit for Hunters, Warriors, nor Counselors; they were totally good for nothing† (Noriega, 376). Grants given to other schools was just the beginning. In 1820, the United States made plans for a large scale system of boarding and day schools Noriega, 377). These schools were given the mission to, â€Å"instruct its students in ‘letters, labor and mechanical arts, and morals and Christianity;’ ‘training many Indian leaders'† Noriega, 378). In the case of boarding schools, Native American children would be forcibly stripped from their homes as early as five years old. They would then live sequestered from their families and cultures until the age of seventeen or eighteen (Noriega, 381). In 1886, it was decided, by the United States federal government that Native American tribal groups would no longer be treated as ‘indigenous national governments. ‘ The decision was made, not by the conjoint efforts of the Native American tribes and Congress; but, by the â€Å"powers that be† the United States Legal System. This self-ordained power allowed Congress to pass a variety of other laws, directed towards, assimilating, Native Americans, so that they would become a part of â€Å"mainstream white America† (Robbins, 90) By this time the United States Government, had been funding over a dozen distinct agencies, to provide mandatory ‘education’ to all native children aged six through sixteen. Enrollment was enforced through leverage given by the 1887 General Allotment Act, which made Natives dependent on the Government for Annuities and Rations (Noriega, 382). The practice of indigenous religions by these students was prohibited (Noriega, 380). Students were compelled to undergo daily instruction in Christianity. In addition, only the use of English was accepted within these schools. â€Å"The food was not sufficiiently nourishing? health supervision was generally neglected? A sincere effort was made to develop the type of school that would destroy tribal ways† (Noriega, 382). While being held captive at these schools, the students were forced to learn an idealism completely foreign to them. They would study histories, which had no significance to there lives. â€Å"The books talk to him [the student] of a world which in no way reminds him of his own,† (Noriega, ). This is exactly how the students must have felt; as if they were in another world. To compound the torture, the ‘students’ at these institutions were forced to work as maintainers and farmers in order provide for the continued existence of the very establishments, which were destroying them. The methods of forced labor were considered, by the educators to be a â€Å"means of ‘developing’ the native ‘character,’ and as a way of financing further expansion of the system itself† (Noriega, 379). The â€Å"rigid military style† enforced by the schools contributed to the assimilation of the Native Americans’ culture. The students began to not only â€Å"think white† but also to, â€Å"work white† (Noriega, 384). To this point, I have provided enough evidence to make a hypocrite of the United States. However, it is my intent to prove that the United States has performed a criminal act under International law. I will do so by describing genocidal acts committed well after the time of the convention on genocide. The government was not satisfied with only educating the Native American youths, they wished to implant their victims as â€Å"a virus, a medium through which to hurry along a calculated process of sociocultural decay† (Noriega, 379). They turned their victims into witless traitors spreading their insipid ideas, and fracturing the cultural infrastructure. The apotheosis of this implantation project is clearly delineated in â€Å"The Indian Self-Determination and Educational Assistance Act† of 1975. In this act, the United States Government declared that â€Å"educated† Native Americans’ should be used to staff the â€Å"various programs aimed at them by federal policy makers† (Noriega, 356). These are the same programs which, â€Å"the government has always viewed as the ideal vehicle[s] by which to condition Native Americans to accept the values, and thus the domination of Euroamerica† (Noriega, 387). Through the implementation of this act, â€Å"nothing really changed? the curriculum taught in Indian schools remained exactly the same, reaching exactly the same conclusions, indoctrinating children with exactly the same values as when the schools were staffed entirely by white people† (Noriega, 387). In this way, the government attempted to mask the face of evil with one of familiar physical origin. It is a classic story of a â€Å"wolf in sheep’s clothing. † These violent acts have not ended, even with the convention on genocide. Indeed, the United States is guilty of committing a law, which it has promised to not only abide by, but also, to help enforce. Does this represent the â€Å"Mainstream American Culture† we so want to instill into the minds of Native Americans? We should begin taking a look at our own culture and worrying about its problems, before we start thinking about spreading it like a dreaded disease. The fact that Native Americans have arrived at this point with any of its culture left intact, is an astonishing feet in itself. It shows a character, which is ostensibly lacking, or at least not shown, within the â€Å"European† and â€Å"American† cultures. Perhaps the United States should be more the pupil than the pedagogue.

Asian American History - 735 Words

The recruiting phase or the â€Å"courting† or â€Å"dating process† begins with the initial stages of developing the players’ relationships and to confirm the mutual independence. Colleges and universities are suggesting that they would be equipping them for the future and all the sweets they want. Similar to Friday Night Lights, Colleges and universities heavily court, two star players on the Carter team, Derric Evans and Gary Edwards. They received free trips to tour the universities. Derric Evans and Gary Edwards are jetted around to different schools in the nation. Their mediocre academic scores did not seem to be an issue with these Colleges. Both Derric and Gary are tempted with a bright future and everything from luxury campus residence to†¦show more content†¦Both players passed through high school with a C+ average without opening a book. Butler received a football scholarship from El Camino Junior College, despite his ability to read and writ e (about third grade reading level). Many colleges and universities had been courting Boobie too since his junior year, despite the fact that he can only read at a grade five level. Boobie was a black player from the poor side of Odessa. Being a football player who seemingly has it all, but he has transcended many of the racial barriers that trouble less gifted young black players. As always Boobie is having a spectacular game except one time he got hurt. Basically, Boobie’s injury took him out of football, and people would suggest that he would just be another, â€Å"big ol’ dumb nigger.† Just like Butler, once Boobie’s athletic abilities is gone, so did the assistance he received from football. This is one of the most interesting section of â€Å"The New Plantation† where the author provides an in-depth analysis of the capital that predominately white institutions’ athletic departments accumulate due to the athletic performances of Black athletes. He provides economic analogy of the collegiate sports athletes’ statement that these black athletes are the main profits to these institutions. The author uses multiple tables and variety of statistics to support his proclamation. This statement and statistics provided in this chapter illustrated the important role black athletesShow MoreRelatedAsian American Culture And History1707 Words   |  7 Pagesis racism. The prejudice and racism against Asian Americans seems to never end. Either it’s a nasty side remark about one’s looks or a judgment about one’s personality and abilities. In high school, one of my best friends was Vietnamese and I remember her going through quite a bit of probl ems. 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