The Wife Of Bath, By Geoffrey Chaucer Essay - 1487 Words

The fetters of marriage and misogynist rhetoric plagued women during the 14th century, as they were subverted into a secondary class position that deprived them of agency and sexual satisfaction. Throughout Geoffrey Chaucer’s â€Å"Canterbury Tales,† the Wife of Bath provides didactic social commentary on the discrepancies between marriage and virginity and expounds the idea of giving sovereignty to women in relationships. Although the Wife of Bath is portrayed and characterized to some antifeminist stereotypes, her fervent and unorthodox commands enrich the reasoning behind her sexual voraciousness: her simple quest for her own freedom. She acknowledges the uneven power dynamic within the patriarchal society and emphasizes that embodying masculine characteristics while accompanying it with sexual manipulation can be used as a vehicle for usurping power from men. This power, of which was meant to devalue and deprive women of their sexual satisfaction, is successfully ex posed in the Wife of Bath’s physical aggressiveness and within the dissonance between nobility and the Bible’s teachings of nobility. Thus, the Wife of Bath utilizes a multi-faceted approach in deconstructing the misogynistic society by considering religious, economic and sexual perspectives which allows her to propose a powerful paradigm where women can freely express their agency and renounce archetypal stereotypes. Although the Wife of Bath’s sexual promiscuity may be understood as a satirical caricature ofShow MoreRelatedThe Wife Of Bath, By Geoffrey Chaucer1091 Words   |  5 Pagesthe way they are. Geoffrey Chaucer also explores this reality with his creation of the Wife of Bath’s Tale. Although her thoughts may have been a bit different from Brontà «Ã¢â‚¬â„¢s, the character portrayed in this tale explores the duality of both challenging and upholding the patriarchy simultaneously. The Wife of Bath consistently uses her own interpretations of the Bible in order to explain the logic behind her actions. The prologue of the tale serves as a means for the Wife of Bath to attempt to explainRead MoreThe Wife Of Bath, By Geoffrey Chaucer880 Words   |  4 Pagesindividual concepts, within female characters, illustrates feministic divergences within specific writings of Geoffrey Chaucer, the Pearl Poet, and Margery Kempe. In Chaucer’s frame story The Canterbury Tales, the account of â€Å"The Wife of Bath† demonstrates a mixture of feminine ideas. The prologue of to the tale shows a complexity of medieval female characteristics and roles. Alyson, the Wife of Bath, challenges the conventional behavior of women. She speaks her mind freely and feels no shame about herRead MoreThe Wife Of Bath, By Geoffrey Chaucer1251 Words   |  6 PagesThe Wife of Bath, emphasizing â€Å"The Prologue of the Wife of Bath’s Tale† and the â€Å"The Prologue† in Geoffrey Chaucer s Canterbury Tales, is an example of the Middle English concept that male authors reflect misogynistic ideals of society onto female characters.With the Wife of Bath, she is a fictional character, as told by Chaucer, going on a Pilgrimage, with constant ridicule for her sexuality and multiple marriages. Chaucer portrays her as a previously battered wife who uses her sexual promiscuityRead MoreGeoffrey Chaucer s T he Wife Of Baths1171 Words   |  5 Pages Short Creative Essay Draft The Prologue to the Wife of Baths Tale is a poem by Geoffrey Chaucer s that provides a satirical insight on the experience of Alice, the wife, and her response to autocratic judgement. The prologue takes a stance against the view of women and uses the life style of Alice as a way of dismantling stereotypical ideology of women. The very beginning of the poem Alice is stated to have five husbands. This is especially unconventional because of the timeRead MoreGeoffrey Chaucer s The Wife Of Bath2255 Words   |  10 PagesGeoffrey Chaucer’s The Wife of Bath Prologue, we are told the story of the wife of bath Alyson and her many marriages. The role of the woman in this time period was to follow what her husband’s rules, and to obey the men in her life since a woman was considered incapable of running her own life and making decisions. When Alyson married her first husband, she was only twelve years old by the time she married her last husband she was forty. Although it was frowned upon for a woman to remarry AlysonRead MoreThe Wife Of Bath s Prologue By Geoffrey Chaucer1324 Words   |  6 Pagesnoteworthy difference in reference to other works. The first literary work that will be examined is The Wife of Bath’s Prologue, written by Geoffrey Chaucer. Throughout this work it is clear that the focus is that of the plight of a woman. The Prologue begins with the story of a woman whose name we later find out is Alisoun, before that however, she is simply referred to as the Wife. When Chaucer was planning out this particular character, he â€Å"drew upon a centuries old tradition of misogynist writingRead MoreThe Wife Of Bath s Prologue By Geoffrey Chaucer1694 Words   |  7 Pagesthis was the socially accepted norm. Quite often, however, this was not the case as seen in the â€Å"Wife of Bath’s Prologue† written by Geoffrey Chaucer. The Wife of Bath was an unconventional woman who acted like the men of the age in multiple ways. The male pilgrims in Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales were uncomfortable with her behavior because she was manlier than they were. The prologue begins with the wife, Alys, immediately stepping out of line and asserting herself as an expert on a subject matterRead MoreAnalysis Of Geoffrey Chaucer s The Wife Of Bath 1371 Words   |  6 PagesTa Lor Mr. Kaplan ELA 12 Period 1 27 February 2015 Pilgrim Evaluation Geoffrey Chaucer, the Father of English Literature, was the first to write in English for folks to read. One of his best known works of art would be The Canterbury Tales, which was written between 1380 and 1400 in England, but was never completed due to his death. It was composed in Middle English and portrays a great example of frame narrative. The Canterbury Tales begins with a group of pilgrims traveling from England to CanterburyRead MoreGender Oriented Analysis in Wife of Bath by Geoffrey Chaucer Essay1424 Words   |  6 Pages Of all the numerous females depicted in literature throughout the centuries, Geoffrey Chaucer’s Wife of Bath has inspired more in-depth discussion and gender-oriented analysis than the majority. She is in turn praised and criticized for her behavior and her worldview; critics can’t seem to decide whether she is a strong portrayal of 14th century feminism or a cutting mockery of the female sex. Both her tale and its prologue are riddled with themes of conflict and power struggle between the sexesRead MoreThe Wife Of Bath s Tale By Geoffrey Chaucer And Le Morte D Arthur1133 Words   |  5 Pageshusband and take care of the home. They were treated very unfairly compared to men. The stories, â€Å"The Wife of Bath’s Tale† by Geoffrey Chaucer and â€Å"Le Morte d’ Arthur† by Sir Thomas Malory reveal the values of society by adding satire and characterization. Chaucer incorporates satire in â€Å"The Wife of Bath’s Tale† to highlight the values of gender roles in society. Throughout the story, Chaucer demonstrates courtly love, sovereignty, and loyalty. In â€Å"Medieval Women†, women did not live â€Å"comfortable

Suicide And The Creative Class - 1415 Words

Suicide has been a leading cause of death in the United States of America since 2009. It is the tenth leading cause of death and has increased since 2008 by .9%. Additionally, suicide is in the top 15 of leading deaths in 2009. Heart disease and diabetes which are also top leading deaths have decreased from 2008-2009. The only cause of death to have increased from 2008-2009 in the US is suicide. Yet, suicide also affects different kinds of individuals which happen to be of distinct racial and ethnic status. The socioeconomic status also plays a role in determining the individuals who commit suicide. In the article â€Å"Suicide and the Creative Class,† it states the following, â€Å"Thus, different groups will be more or less likely to commit suicide. These differences make suicide an important area of study for social scientists because of its prevalence, preventability, and the wide sweeping effects that it has on family, friends, and acquaintances of suicide victims† (Moore, Recker, Heirigs, 2014). Thus, implicating the pressures of society and the differences of social status. Furthermore, social scientists have not been too involved in the topic of suicide. Since 1990-2009 there have not been many article on the topic and the disinterest can derive from the presumption that suicide is a lonesome act. The article â€Å"Suicide and the Creative Class,† states that, â€Å"Durkheim ([1897] 2006) illustrated that suicide is a social phenomenon by stating that levels of integration andShow MoreRelatedEssay High Tech Offenders868 Words   |  4 Pagesactions. Social bond theory Roman meydbray 27 from San Jose. A former information technology manager of creative explosions pleads guilty to getting unauthorized access to a computer of his former employer. According to the court after two weeks of his termination he got access to the computer system and deleted an email server domain and accesses the email account of the president of creative explosion. He changed the mail server to reject every Incoming email causing them many losses. Social bondingRead MoreSuicide among Teenagers999 Words   |  4 Pagestries to commit suicide. 60-70 times a day these attempts succeed. I became interested in the social problem of suicide when I lost my best friend. My best friend, may she rest in peace, committed suicide because she couldn’t bare her life being filled with pain and suffering. Unlike what many want to believe, suicide can happen to anyone regardless of race, age or sex. Throughout this project I hoped to learn what the leading causes for suicide was and what age groups was suicide most common amongRead MoreToday s Society Is Not More Then Average846 Words   |  4 PagesAchieving this goal is unattainable and when being creative or changing the way one is expected to act, we are punished, creating stress and self-doubt. More then 1,000 students commit suicide each year. A classmate from my graduating class just hung himself from a tree in his backyard this past summer due to college loans and this idea of perfection in society and never feeling good enough to achieve greatness. He graduated in the top 5 of my class and chose a great school o ver a good school withRead MoreAnalysis Of Richard Cory By Paul Simon939 Words   |  4 Pageslooking in. Richard Cory is a man who, regardless of his outwards life appearance, having obtained all that individuals view as successful he eventually is found committing suicide. Simon is successful in portraying such a common misconception in a creative and nuanced way. Simon’s comparison of the upper class versus the lower class gives the reader an inside look at how deceitful perceptions can truly be. Common bystanders looking into Richard Cory’s life were constantly infatuated and envious, althoughRead MoreWilla Cathers Pauls Case: A Literary Analysis1169 Words   |  5 Pagesit. Paul is disgusted, repulsed, and bored by middle class life in Pittsburgh. Pauls real problem is that he lacks perspective. This is a young man that is ferociously hungry for life outside of a small town or small city, which is partially the reason why he steals $1,000 and flees to New York C ity. Paul does not have an appropriate outlet through which to explore and channel his exuberant and odd energy. It is only when he is committing suicide by throwing himself in front of an oncoming train thatRead MoreAnalysis Of Dead Poets Society973 Words   |  4 Pagesand write poetry. Charlie Dalton was the most loyal follower of Mr. Keating and the Dead Poets Society. Keating’s caused Charlie to become extremely rebellious and disobey the Academy’s four pillars. Tradition, Honor, Discipline, and Excellence. In class, Charlie was making witty comments, that made the boys laugh. Furthermore, he wasn’t afraid to say whats on his mind, even if that meant hurting other people’s feelings. Charlie’s rebellion of the four pillars of the academy, caused the school toRead MoreReflection Paper On My Reading958 Words   |  4 Pagesnever imagined that reading could be fun, meaningful, and creative. The more I read, and the more I was attached to the bo oks. After I discovered a few of the readings, I realized how the authors wanted to introduce their ideas without telling the story directly. This is fairly new to me. In my earlier English classes that I had studied at the City College of San Francisco, I read mostly textbooks and non-fiction readings. In this English 1B class, I started reading the poem and fiction materials andRead MoreComparing The Film And Virginia Woolf s Mrs. Dalloway1244 Words   |  5 PagesDespite the fact that suicides feature in both the film and Virginia Woolf’s novel Mrs Dalloway, both texts echo Woolf’s words from her 1922 diary: ‘I meant to write about death, only life came breaking in as usual.’ Both Woolf’s modernist 1925 novel and Daldry’s 2002 postmodernist film which has Mrs Dalloway as a pivotal point for its three interwoven stories can be seen as life-affirming texts – with their major focus on women whose rich inner lives are juxtaposed with t heir outer lives constrainedRead MoreLinks Between Class And Alienation1540 Words   |  7 PagesWhat are the links between class and alienation according to Marx? In order to explore the links between class and alienation according to Marx, it is first useful to define class and alienation. Class, as in social class, is a term used that relates to a system of grouping people determined by their social and economic status (Oxford Dictionaries, 2017). Whereas alienation means to be separated or feeling no connection to something (Cambridge Dictionary, 2017). In Marx’s theory of alienation, theRead MoreLondon of Mrs Dalloway1184 Words   |  5 Pagesresponses. The protagonist, Clarissa Dalloway, enjoys the experience from her position of privilege and comfort. Septimus Warren Smith, by contrast, is being swallowed up by the city since he is in the depths of shell-shocked depression; he contemplates suicide because he cannot cope with life as he perceives it in London. Peter Walsh, who has recently returned to London after an absence of five years, is surrendering himself to the sights, sounds, and general atmosphere of the city in a casua l light-hearted

Impact on Pupil Achievement and School Performance- Free Sample

Question: Write an Eassay onImpact on Pupil Achievement and School Performance? Answer: Introduction: There is a deep thought to be given into the fact that could enhance the pupils performance at school. We know that human capital investment is a key factor that increases economic growth. There is also an increasing focus so that all the resources can be efficiently used and allocated in the schools itself. There are various key determinants that help in success of earnings and employment like years of schooling, grades obtained, test scores, exam results, etc. It is also seen that in many schools resources are allocated so that the differences in the family could be minimized. There has been a debate raise on the topic that to check the effects of school resources on pupil achievement. Also a link is been tried to built upon so that a link could be seen in terms of school resources and school performances. The main objective was to find out that whether school resources could have modest effects on test scores of pupils. The parents do believe that school authorities may direct som e additional resources to the students whose performance level is low. Therefore there are parents who chose neighborhoods for their childrens future. Impact on pupil achievement and school performance: Schooling has a direct and overall impact on childrens education and future career development as well. They help them to acquire knowledge in various sectors such as literacy acquisition, gaining scientific knowledge. The school helps to develop some basic skills that help to develop foundation knowledge on various related subjects later on. However apart from these subjective knowledge there are other cognitions and feelings that are also influenced by the school and these also help later on in building intelligence within an individual. Apart from these there are certain motivational determinants also that exert influence on individual development also (Hossain, Mendick and Adler, 2013). Curriculum that is being followed in the schools matters a lot in shaping the performances of the students in the later stage. Children always plan out their work in advance so that work can be accomplished in small teams. Sometimes the children represents the skills which their tutor has inbuilt within himself. Because the student is used to within that boundary and is been accustomed to such skills since childhood. This also aids in shaping motivation, building self efficacy and representation of better ideas and skills that helps them to develop in a better way in the future. This also helps them to build on more nurtured learning orientation so that they can enhance leadership and cooperative ability in the future and this can form as an effective extrinsic skill. An extensive research have found out that there are some schools that promote positive effects whereas there are some schools that promotes negative effects. Even there are evidences that prove that it is actually the capacity of the pupils and the schools are not responsible for it. Iot is the human minds that how much they can actually intake in terms of capacity from their teachers and also from the schools. There must be some self determination also so that the pupils are actually interested to take the maximum from the school authority because in a school there is a blend of good as well as bad pupils. The school needs to develop a point of segregation so that some standardized evaluations can be created and that would act as a benchmark to check the behavior of the pupils in a school. Another method can be executed by the schools so that the effectiveness of schools is maximized. This sis mainly done by collecting behavior on the characteristics of the individuals or the pupils those are involved and check their level of attendance, attainment and class participation, their attitude towards the teachers, attitude towards other class room members. These are the internal factors. External factors includes test scores, occupation of their parents etc that are equally responsible to determine an individuals level of performance (Houser and An, 2014). Understanding teachers impact on Students Achievement: There are many people those who emphasize on being a good teacher so that the quality of being a teacher can be enhanced. There is a common perception that there are some teachers who are more effective and this can be highly expressed through the subsequent test scores of pupils. Teachers matter more to student achievement rather than schooling: Among school related factors it is considered that teachers matters the most in contributing to a students academic performances. It is estimated that a teacher have two or three times impact than any other factors that can be brought into consideration (Hinay, 2010). It is seen that the amount a teacher gives to a student on a one to one basis that is said to be the most effective impact on the students mind other than any other factor that could be brought under consideration. There are non school factors in role that influence student achievement: It is believed that there are certain characteristics that have four to eight times impact on the overall achievement of the students. But it is generally argued because personal factors and family circumstances generally vary from individual to individual. Effective teachers are best identified by their performance and not by their background: It is believed that the best way to determine a teachers effectiveness depends on common perception and that is their effectiveness on job performances. This includes the work they perform in the class room and what they seek so that the effectiveness of the students are increased and it is made sure that that the student perform well in their achievement tests as well. This also acts as best evidence about the students learning (Kilic, 2013). Teachers are said to be effective even if they change schools: It is measured that a teachers impact on the students achievement tends to remain the same even if the school is changed. It hardly matters even if the new school is better in terms of providing advantages than the old one. Impact of a challenging issue on the educational performance and achievement: Effects of community and families on learning of students: Schools, parents and community are the three most important determinants that should work together. This would help to promote health and the well being of the students and as a result learning of students would be enhanced. All three determinants are mainly interrelated to each other in the context of learning and development. Families usually help to foster partnerships among schools and other community groups also. This partnership helps in utilizing resources to the maximum. Challenging Context: Complexity of communities The influences of these communities and families are regarded as the key determinants that would result in achieving high quality of results for the children. These outcomes mean catering to both academic and social development as well. There are complexities found out because in a country there are great variants found out in terms of family processes, its attributes, other factors of community as well. Family attributes indicates to the cultural and ethnic aspect that are directly linked to the childrens development. Income of the family is a key attribute and it acts significantly to the growth for children. It is proved from evidences that children from low income groups tend to score low marks in the tests and this affects the growth of the children drastically. There are various levels of material resources available within a family that leads to children achievement. It is estimated that children who live in high pedagogy and guidance of their parents receives more knowledge and access to educational qualifications as a whole. Home language is another aspect that is related with development of children. Children those who have English as their main language is expected to be prone to greater achievements. Also the structure of the families greatly affects the quality of education and not the quantity as such. Also a community factor such as social networks provides necessary opportunities to the children so that they can go for further learning and gain knowledge. It also provides strong endeavor to increase the support from the parents as well. The peer groups at the secondary level can positively or negatively impact to the school childrens development. Conclusion: It can be concluded that there is always a negative relationship between teacher-pupil ratio. There must be initiatives taken up by teachers to estimate some added value models so that the relationship persists. Also it is necessary to achieve better results after seeking the characteristics of the school and the students also. References Cilesiz, S. and Drotos, S. (2014). High-Poverty Urban High School Students' Plans for Higher Education: Weaving Their Own Safety Nets.Urban Education. Comber, B. (2014). Literacy, poverty and schooling: what matters in young people's education?.Literacy, 48(3), pp.115-123. Garo, L. (2014). Book Review: Streetsmart Schoolsmart: Urban Poverty and the Education of Adolescent Boys.Urban Education, 49(6), pp.728-737. Gibbs, S. and Miller, A. (2013). Teachers resilience and well-being: a role for educational psychology.Teachers and Teaching, 20(5), pp.609-621. Hinay, J. (2010). Teacher Characteristics and Pupil Performance in Science and Health in the National Achievement Test of Iligan City Division.jpair, 4(1). Hossain, S., Mendick, H. and Adler, J. (2013). Troubling understanding mathematics in-depth: Its role in the identity work of student-teachers in England.Educational Studies in Mathematics, 84(1), pp.35-48. Houser, L. and An, S. (2014). Factors Affecting Minority Students' College Readiness in Mathematics.Urban Education. Ige, A. (2013). Poverty of primary education in Nigeria: the way forward.Education 3-13, 42(6), pp.637-647. Kilic, D. (2013). The effects of jigsaw and group research techniques on democratic attitudes and academic achievements of prospective classroom teachers in educational science course.International Journal of Academic Research, 5(5), pp.143-150. Mosweunyane, D. (2014). Education Outcomes and Poverty: A Reassessment.International Journal of Lifelong Education, 33(2), pp.254-260. Oyewole, B. and Alonge, H. (2013). Principals Instructional Supervisory Role Performance and Teachers Motivation in Ekiti Central Senatorial District of Ekiti State, Nigeria.Journal of Educational and Social Research. Villar, A. (2013). The Educational Development Index: A Multidimensional Approach to Educational Achievements through PISA.ME, 04(05), pp.403-411. Zhang, H. (2014). The poverty trap of education: Educationpoverty connections in Western China.International Journal of Educational Development, 38, pp.47-58.

Romantic love free essay sample

For ages, many reasons were given to the formal union of a man and a woman. Different roots of a marriage also differ from distinct point of views. Yet, romantic love remains the most reasonable or obvious reason of all for such commitment. Still, some would argue that romantic love is transient and not a virtuous bias for marriage while others seek the aspect of love as the only true motive for marriage. This essay will develop on factors that are both in favour and against romantic love being a poor foundation for marriage. Aspects such as religion and similar erspectives on life appear to some as the real strong basis needs for marriage. It is known that those who share the same beliefs and virtues get along the most, which promotes a better future for a couple. People who disagree with the statement of romantic love being a poor basis for marriage may argue that marriage in the first place is all about the love between two souls. We will write a custom essay sample on Romantic love or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page Religion and culture are basic factors when compared to love. Love is said to be powerful thus a common background for two lovers to have in order to fulfil their marriage. However, not all agree with this standpoint. Another reason why romantic love would not be perceived as a real foundation for marriage is for the simple reason that love itself is not everlasting and perpetual but only ephemeral. Many couples get married only to divorce later on because of their diminishing love. On the other hand, others would argue with optimism that eternal love does exist. For instance we may find elders who still value the love they have for each other by which we can conclude that there are exceptions in that matter. Nonetheless there are others who would put love as the last factor on the list for a flawless marriage. Indeed, many oppose to the belief that a marriages foundation is only based on love. For example there are those who prefer arranged marriages for their children in order to build or strengthen alliances. As previously mentioned, religion and ethics do play an important role as well in the foundation of a marriage. Consequently, if beliefs and customs are not likewise and shared between partners then there is no solid ground. On the contrary, others may resist his idea by proving how crucial love can be in a marriage. For instance, the domestic life needs the fundamental basis between the married couple for the childrens education and positive perspective on life. Romantic love is key to positive alternations and keeps a durable bound for the family as a whole. All in all, romantic love being the basis of a marriage is an arguable topic in which each person can give different insights and point of views. As some would place other factors as being the proper basis of a marriage, others would oppose this belief. There is also the idea that love itself is ephemeral and does not last while on the reverse, love can undeniably last for a lifetime. Finally, the idea that a suitable marriage does not involve romantic love while an opposition proves the opposite is also available. Concerning my opinion, I am in favour of believing and assuring that romantic love is, indeed, an essential and necessary basis for marriage. It becomes then difficult to place any other important element before that of romantic love in the foundation of a marriage. Romantic love By Princesse403 Romantic Love free essay sample You see someone attractive across the room and that feeling of love rushes into your head, but is it really love? I believe that there is no such thing as â€Å"love at first sight†, you feel physically attracted but not mentally connected. How can you truly be in love with someone that you have just met? In loving a person you have to know about them, have a mental connection and bond. If you just look at someone you are attracted to him or her, not in love. Love is almost like a drug in the sense that people crave it, need it, and sometimes—will do almost anything for it. So how can you be in love if you have just looked at them? Everyone has seen at least one movie of a guy falling in love with a girl that he just looked at, no bond or knowledge of each other whatsoever. We will write a custom essay sample on Romantic Love or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page In just under a second the human brain can determine if someone is physically attractive, old, young, tall, or short. In the first three minutes of talking to someone you can make up your mind if that person could be a potential partner. Only 10% of marriages happened because of â€Å"love at first sight† (or as we now know it as attraction at first sight). This percentage isn’t high for a reason, you can’t be in love with someone you have just seen, or even met. Studies show the more that you talk to someone the more inclined you are to falling in love with them eventually. Things that also attribute to relationships are social and economic level, within these three minutes of first talking to someone, most people can sum the other up and decide if the man or woman is in their level. Next time you see someone across the room take your chance, although it may not be â€Å"love† at first sight in just three minutes you could potentially have a partner.

An Overview of Labeling Theory

An Overview of Labeling Theory Labeling theory states that people come to identify and behave in ways that reflect how others label them. It is most commonly associated with the sociology of crime and deviance: labeling and treating someone as criminally deviant can foster deviant behavior. Labeling someone as a criminal, for example, can cause others to treat them more negatively- and the response to being treated more negatively can be in turn for that person to act more negatively. ï » ¿The Origins of Labeling Theory Labeling theory is rooted in the idea of the social construction of reality, which is central to the field of sociology and is linked to the symbolic interactionist perspective. As an area of focus, it flourished within American sociology during the 1960s, thanks in large part to sociologist  Howard Becker. However, its core ideas can be traced back to the work of founding French sociologist  Emile Durkheim. The theory of American sociologist  George Herbert Mead, which focused on the social construction of the self as a process involving interactions with others, was also influential in its development. Others involved in the development of labeling theory and the conduct of research related to it include Frank Tannenbaum, Edwin Lemert, Albert Memmi, Erving Goffman, and David Matza. Overview Labeling theory is one of the most important approaches to understanding deviant and criminal behavior. It  begins with the assumption that no act is intrinsically criminal. Definitions of criminality are established by those in power through the formulation of laws and the interpretation of those laws by police, courts, and correctional institutions. Deviance is therefore not a set of characteristics of individuals or groups, but rather it is a process of interaction between deviants and non-deviants and the context in which criminality is being interpreted. To understand the nature of deviance itself, we must first understand why some people are tagged with a deviant label, and others are not. Those who represent forces of law and order and those who enforce the boundaries of what is considered normal behavior, such as the police, court officials, experts, and school authorities, provide the main source of labeling. By applying labels to people, and in the process creating categories of deviance, these people reinforce the power structure of society. Many of the rules that define deviance and the contexts in which deviant behavior is labeled as deviant are framed by the wealthy for the poor, by men for women, by older people for younger people, and by ethnic and racial majorities for minority groups. In other words, the more powerful and dominant groups in society create and apply deviant labels to the subordinate groups. For example, many children engage in activities such as breaking windows, stealing fruit from other people’s trees, climbing into other people’s yards, or playing hooky from school. In affluent neighborhoods, these acts may be regarded by parents, teachers, and police as innocent aspects of the process of growing up. In poor areas, on the other hand, these same activities might be seen as tendencies towards juvenile delinquency, which suggests that differences of class and race play an important role in the process of assigning labels of deviance. Research has shown that Black girls and boys are disciplined more frequently and more harshly by teachers and school administrators than  are their peers of other races, though there is no evidence to suggest that they misbehave more frequently. Similarly, and with much more severe consequences, statistics that show that police kill Black people at a far higher rate than whites, even when they are unarmed and have committed no crime, suggests that the misapplication of deviant labels as a result of racial stereotypes is at play. Once a person is labeled as deviant, it is extremely difficult to remove that label. The deviant person becomes stigmatized as a criminal or deviant and is likely to be considered, and treated, as untrustworthy by others. The deviant individual is then likely to accept the label that has been attached, seeing himself or herself as deviant, and act in a way that fulfills the expectations of that label. Even if the labeled individual does not commit any further deviant acts than the one that caused them to be labeled, getting rid of that label can be very hard and time-consuming. For example, it is usually very difficult for a convicted criminal to find employment after release from prison because of their label as ex-criminal. They have been formally and publicly labeled a wrongdoer and are treated with suspicion likely for the remainder of their lives. Critiques of Labeling Theory One critique of labeling theory is that it emphasizes the interactive process of labeling and ignores the processes and structures that lead to deviant acts. Such processes might include differences in socialization, attitudes, and opportunities, and how social and economic structures impact these. The second critique of labeling theory is that it is still not clear whether or not labeling has the effect of increasing deviant behavior. Delinquent behavior tends to increase following conviction, but is this the result of labeling itself as the theory suggests? It is very difficult to say, since many other factors may be involved, including increased interaction with other delinquents and learning new criminal opportunities. Further Reading Crime and Community  by Frank Tannenbaum (1938)Outsiders  by Howard Becker (1963)The Colonizer and the Colonized  by Albert Memmi (1965)Human Deviance, Social Problems and Social Control  by Edwin Lemert (1967)Learning to Labour: How Working Class Kids Get Working Class Jobs  by Paul Willis (1977)Punished: Policing the Lives of Black and Latino Boys  by Victor Rios (2011) Identity  andWomen Without Class: Girls, Race by Julie Bettie (2014)

Battle of Valcour Island in the American Revolution

Battle of Valcour Island in the American Revolution The Battle of Valcour Island was fought October 11, 1776, during the American Revolution (1775-1783) and saw American forces on Lake Champlain clash with the British. Having abandoned the invasion of Canada, the Americans realized that a naval force would be needed to block the British on Lake Champlain. Organized by  Brigadier General Benedict Arnold, work began on a small fleet. Completed in fall 1776, this force met a larger British squadron near Valcour Island. While the British got the better of the action, Arnold and his men were able to escape south. While a tactical defeat for the Americans, the delay caused by both sides having to build fleets prevented the British from invading from the north in 1776. This allowed the Americans to regroup and be prepared for the decisive Saratoga Campaign the following year. Background In the wake of their defeat at the Battle of Quebec in late 1775, American forces attempted to maintain a loose siege of the city. This ended in early May 1776 when British reinforcements arrived from overseas. This forced the Americans to fall back to Montreal. American reinforcements, led by Brigadier General John Sullivan, also arrived in Canada during this period. Seeking to regain the initiative, Sullivan attacked a British force on June 8 at Trois-Rivià ¨res, but was badly defeated. Retreating up the St. Lawrence, he was determined to hold a position near Sorel at the confluence with the Richelieu River. Recognizing the hopelessness of the American situation in Canada, Brigadier General Benedict Arnold, commanding at Montreal, convinced Sullivan that a more prudent course was to retreat south up the Richelieu in order to better secure American territory. Abandoning their positions in Canada, the remnants of the American army traveled south finally halting at Crown Point on the western shore of Lake Champlain. Commanding the rear guard, Arnold ensured that any resources that could benefit the British along the line of retreat were destroyed. A former merchant captain, Arnold understood that command of Lake Champlain was critical to any advance south into New York and the Hudson Valley. As such, he made sure his men burned the sawmill at St. Johns and destroyed all boats that could not be used. When Arnolds men rejoined the army, American forces on the lake consisted of four small vessels mounting a total of 36 guns. The force that they re-united with was a shambles as it lacked adequate supplies and shelter, as well as was suffering from a variety of diseases. In an effort to improve the situation, Sullivan was replaced with Major General Horatio Gates. A Naval Race Advancing in pursuit, the governor of Canada, Sir Guy Carleton, sought to attack down Lake Champlain with the goal of reaching the Hudson and linking up with British forces operating against New York City. Reaching St. Johns, it became clear that a naval force would need to be assembled to sweep the Americans from the lake so that his troops could safely advance. Establishing a shipyard at St. Johns, work began on three schooners, a radeau (gun barge), and twenty gunboats. In addition, Carleton ordered that the 18-gun sloop-of-war HMS Inflexible be dismantled on the St. Lawrence and transported overland to St. Johns. The naval activity was matched by Arnold who established a shipyard at Skenesborough. As Gates was inexperienced in naval matters, construction of the fleet was largely delegated to his subordinate. Work progressed slowly as skilled shipwrights and naval stores were in short supply in upstate New York. Offering extra pay, the Americans were able to assemble the necessary manpower. As vessels were completed they were shifted to nearby Fort Ticonderoga to be fitted out. Working frantically through the summer, the yard produced three 10-gun galleys and eight 3-gun gundalows. Fleets Commanders Americans Brigadier General Benedict Arnold15 galleys, gundalows, schooners, and gunboats British Sir Guy CarletonCaptain Thomas Pringle25 armed vessels Maneuvering to Battle As the fleet grew, Arnold, commanding from the schooner Royal Savage (12 guns), began aggressively patrolling the lake. As the end of September neared, he began to anticipate the more powerful British fleet sailing. Seeking an advantageous place for battle, he positioned his fleet behind Valcour Island. Since his fleet was smaller and his sailors inexperienced, he believed that the narrow waters would limit the British advantage in firepower and reduce the need to maneuver. This location was resisted by many of his captains who wished to fight in open water which would allow a retreat to Crown Point or Ticonderoga. Shifting his flag to the galley Congress (10), the American line was anchored by the galleys Washington (10) and Trumbull (10), as well as the schooners Revenge (8) and Royal Savage, and sloop Enterprise (12). These were supported by the eight gundalows (3 guns each) and the cutter Lee (5). Departing on October 9, Carletons fleet, overseen by Captain Thomas Pringle, sailed south with 50 support vessels in tow. Led by Inflexible, Pringle also possessed the schooners Maria (14), Carleton (12), and Loyal Convert (6), the radeau Thunderer (14), and 20 gunboats (1 each). The Fleets Engage Sailing south with a favorable wind on October 11, the British fleet passed the northern tip of Valcour Island. In an effort to draw Carletons attention, Arnold sent out Congress and Royal Savage. After a brief exchange of fire, both vessels attempted to return to the American line. Beating against the wind, Congress succeeded in regaining its position, but Royal Savage was plagued by the headwinds and ran aground on the southern tip of the island. Quickly attacked by British gunboats, the crew abandoned ship and it was boarded by men from Loyal Convert (Map). This possession proved brief as American fire quickly drove them from the schooner. Rounding the island, Carleton and the British gunboats came into action and the battle began in earnest around 12:30 PM. Maria and Thunderer were unable to make headway against the winds and did not participate. While Inflexible struggled against the wind to join the fight, Carleton became the focus of American fire. Though dealing out punishment on the American line, the schooner suffered heavy casualties and after taking substantial damage was towed to safety. Also during the fight, the gundalow Philadelphia was critically hit and sank around 6:30 PM. The Tide Turns Around sunset, Inflexible came into action and began reducing Arnolds fleet. Out-gunning the entire American fleet, the sloop-of-war battered its smaller opponents. With the tide turned, only darkness prevented the British from completing their victory. Understanding the he could not defeat the British and with most of his fleet damaged or sinking, Arnold began planning an escape south to Crown Point. Utilizing a dark and foggy night, and with oars muffled, his fleet succeeded in sneaking through the British line. By morning they had reached Schuyler Island. Angered that the Americans had escaped, Carleton began a pursuit. Moving slowly, Arnold was forced to abandon damaged vessels en route before the approaching British fleet forced him to burn his remaining ships in Buttonmold Bay. Aftermath American losses at Valcour Island numbered around 80 killed and 120 captured. In addition, Arnold lost 11 of the 16 vessels he had on the lake. British losses totaled around 40 killed and three gunboats. Reaching Crown Point overland, Arnold ordered the post abandoned and fell back to Fort Ticonderoga. Having taken control of the lake, Carleton quickly occupied Crown Point. After lingering for two weeks, he determined that it was too late in the season to continue the campaign and withdrew north into winter quarters. Though a tactical defeat, the Battle of Valcour Island was critical strategic victory for Arnold as it prevented an invasion from the north in 1776. The delay caused by the naval race and battle gave the Americans an additional year to stabilize the northern front and prepare for the campaign that would culminate with the decisive victory at the Battles of Saratoga.

Weiyi Zhang a Misshaped Block Article Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Weiyi Zhang a Misshaped Block - Article Example Trade occupation nominees must then be reflective of the labor needs in a long-term assessment of the market needs for GSM applicants. The current MODL will be canceled and reinstated with newer specifically skills-focused requirements as stipulated in the list. This exempts those who are skilled graduates under subclass 485 or with pending GSM visa applications. The new Skilled Occupation List (SOL) also spares those who at February 8 are diploma holders with the visa of Vocational Education and Training under subclass 572, Higher Education under subclass 573 and Postgraduate Research under subclass 574. But students s with visa will need to have already acquired an occupation to be qualified for a permanent visa under the GSM program. â€Å"I was hoping to be a journalist,† Zhang says. He will be gravely affected by these changes. Scheduled to graduate in July with a degree in accounting, this new development means that he gave up his dream for nothing. What is most likely to happen is that Zhang will go back to his country with nothing. No permanent Australian resident visa and a diploma for a course that was not exactly his immediate choosing. His hopes and dreams of a better future diminished after years of grueling academic pressures. Giving up his dream of a media-related career for nothing. The education industry of the country holds the third biggest foreign exchange source. These alterations to migration guidelines are seen as causing a major impact in the education sector. These students spent thousands for an Australian education in their belief of securing permanent residency status in a stable and progressive country. Not to mention the years that they have dedicated to finish their tertiary education. Living in a foreign land is not easy, even more so if you have to study in it.

Literature Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words - 1

Literature - Research Paper Example Barn Burning and Silence of the Lambs develop on the theme of good and evil and individual conscience through interactions between a powerful paternal figure and a younger pupil figure. Barn Burning is commonly considered a coming-of-age story, but the way that Sarty comes of age is precisely through the development of his own conscience and the hardest lesson that someone might learn: That their father is far from a good person. Meanwhile, in its own sense, Silence of the Lambs  is a coming-of-age story: A very young FBI agent is thrown into a very dangerous case and has to learn how to deal with serial killers, both investigating them and interacting with them. In both of these stories, the main characters are struggling to understand the true nature of their mentor: Sarty's father, Snopes, and Clarice's guide through the Buffalo Bill case, Hannibal Lecter. At the end of the story, Sarty sees that his father is going on an increasingly self-destructive path. His last attempt to b urn down a barn had succeeded and he had gotten away with it, but Snopes cannot help himself from responding to what he viewed as disrespect by again turning to the torch. Sarty knows he has to stop this imminent act of arson and escapes from his own family to do so, but as he runs, he tries to reconcile the monster he knows with the stories he's been told. â€Å"My father, he thought. "He was brave!" he cried suddenly, aloud but not loud, no more than a whisper: "He was! He was in the war! He was in Colonel Sartoris' cav'ry!" not knowing that his father had gone to that war a private in the fine old European sense, wearing no uniform, admitting the authority of and giving fidelity to no man or army or flag, going to war as Malbrouck himself did: for booty - it meant nothing and less than nothing to him if it were enemy booty or his own†. Sarty can't know Faulkner's omniscient narrator's aside here, but the information is important to confirm that Sarty's judgments about his father are right, that his instincts are correct: There is little redeeming in the character of Snopes. Similarly, Clarice goes into her discussions with Lecter knowing that he is a monster, but struggling to come to terms with his intellect and his strength of character. She never expected someone as refined, elegant and ultimately usually quite polite. Lecter respects strength, and repeatedly rewards her insistence with information; however, he despises weakness and a lack of independence, so he sometimes refuses to aid her more. In this respect, their relationship is truly that of parent and child: The child seeking more aid, the parent being careful with how much to dole out. The truly interesting element, however, is that Lecter is offering her moral advice. He gets at the core of her psychology: Like Sarty, Clarice once saw something in her childhood that she thought was unimaginably cruel, the bleating in panic and pain of lambs (a symbol of purity and sacrifice). Clarice's m otivations are to make sure she does not idly sit by again while something is butchered. The problem, though, is that Lecter's moral advice is not free and it comes from a truly questionable source. At every point, Clarice has to ask herself if Lecter is trying to get into her head to satisfy his own cravings or to advance a circuitous escape plot, or out of something resembling empathy or friendship. The last call at the end of the movie,

Vowels Case Essay Example for Free

Vowels Case Essay Speech sounds can be classified and described in articulatory, acoustic and auditory terms. On the basis of these terms the two broad categories in which the speech sounds in any language can be classified are vowels and consonants. Consonants are best described in articulatory terms because there is some type of closure or narrowing of the air passage to the extent that there is audible friction during the production of that sound. But in case of the production of vowels as there is no closure and no narrowing of the air passage to the extent that it may produce audible friction both articulatory and auditory terms are used to describe and classify them. In Phonetic terms vowels are speech sounds in the production of which there is no obstruction or closure and no narrowing of a degree that would cause audible friction in the pharynx and the mouth. Vowels are essentially a tone issuing from the glotis with the vocal chords vibrating. Classification and description of vowels becomes difficult due to the fact that the distinction of one vowel from another arises because of the modification in the shape and size of the resonating chambers, that is the pharyngeal cavity, nasal cavity and the mouth. Soft Palate, the lips and the tongue are responsible for this modification. Thus, just as any description of consonant sounds should reveal the position of vocal cords, place of articulation and manner of articulation, similarly any description of vowel sounds describe: 1. the position of the soft palate – raised (oral) or lowered (nasalized). 2. The shape of the lips –1 i. Unrounded spread, neutral, open ii. Rounded – open and close 3. The shape of the tongue i. which part of the tongue is raised – front, central and back. ii. How high is the part of the tongue is raised – close, half close, half open and open. The position of the soft palate is judged by auditory perception. The shape of the lips can be observed by the eye and therefore described in articulatory terms. But the shape and position of the tongue changes so minutely that it is very difficult to feel these changes. So most of the positions of the tongue are judged by auditory perception only. Cardinal Vowels: Thus it is clear that a finer and more independent system of description is needed on the auditory and articulatory levels. The most satisfactory scheme was devised by Daniel Jones and is known as the Cardinal Vowel system. The basis of the system is physiological. The vowel sounds were produced with the tongue in certain easily felt position. The front of the tongue was raised as close as possible to the palate without causing friction and the sound produced was that of the cardinal vowel [ i ]. Starting from the [ i ] , the front of the tongue was lowered gradually, the lips remained in the spread or the open position and the soft palate was in raised position. The lowering of the tongue was halted at three points at which the vowel qualities seemed to be equi-distant from the auditory point of view. These three tongue positions were x-rayed and it was found that these three points were almost equi-distant from a spatial point of view. The symbols assigned to these three positions were [ e, Æ  , a ]. The same procedure was applied to the vowels which are produced by raising the back of the tongue. The sound produced when the whole of the tongue was as low as possible with a slight raising at the back of the tongue was termed as the cardinal vowel [ ]. The lips were changed progressively from a wide open shape to closely rounded one and the soft palate remained in the raised position. Once again three auditorily and spatially equi-distant points were found. These points were were assigned the symbols – [ , o, u ]. Thus a scale of eight primary cardinal vowels was set up. They were denoted by the following numbers and symbols: 1, [ i ] ; 2, [e] ; 3, [Æ ] ; 4, [a] ; 5, [ ] ; 6, [ ] ; 7, [o] ; 8, [u]. The usefulness of Cardinal Vowels Such a scale is useful because: a. these cardinal vowel sounds are unrelated to particular values in languages, though they may occur in various languages, and b. the set of cardinal vowels is recorded so that reference may always be made to a standard. A vowel sound may be described as being similar to a particular cardinal vowel. These cardinal vowels can be represented diagrammatically. A vowel diagram is obtained by plotting the highest point of tongue raising for each of the primary cardinal vowels and joining the points together. The internal triangle, corresponding to the region of central vowel sounds, is made by dividing the top line into three approximately equal sections and drawing lines parallel to the two sides so that they meet near the base of the figure. C [ i ] C [u] C [ e ] C [ o ] C [ Æ  ]C [ ] C [ a ]C [ ] Monophthongs and Diphthongs There are twenty vowel sounds in RP. These vowel sounds can be divided into two types – monophthongs and diphthongs – on the basis of whether the quality the vowel sound changes during their production or not. Vowel sounds, during the production of which there is no considerable and voluntary change in the quality of the sound are called monophthongs or pure vowels. For example, the vowel sound / I / in ‘pin’. They are represented by thick dots in the vowel diagram. There are 12 monophthongs in RP. Similarly, vowel sound, during the production of which there is considerable and voluntary change in the quality of the sound is called diphthongs or gliding vowel. For example the / aI / sound in ‘pine’. (Explain). They are represented by arrows in the vowel diagram indicating the starting point and the direction in which the quality change, corresponding to the movement of the tongue, is made. There are 8 diphthongs in RP. It should be noted that a diphthong is not the same thing as a sequence of two monophthongs. The diphthong occupies one syllable while a sequence of two monophthongs is spread over two syllables. Example: soil, sawing. During the description of a diphthong we have to describe the lip position and the tongue position at the starting point and the lip position and the tongue position after it has glided in a particular direction.

Intel Knows Best? A Major Marketing Mistake :: essays research papers

INTEL Knows Best? A Major Marketing Mistake Problem Statement When Thomas Nicely, a mathematician at Lynchburg College in Virginia, first went public with the fact that Intel's new Pentium chip was defective Intel admitted to the fact that it had sold millions of defective chips, and had known about the defective chips for over four months. Intel said its reasoning for not going public was that most people would never encounter any problems with the chip. Intel said that a spreadsheet user doing random calculations would only have a problem every 27,000 years, therefore they saw no reason to replace all of the defective chips. However if a user possessed a defective chip and could convince Intel that his or her calculations were particularly vulnerable to the flaw in the defective chip then Intel it would supply those people with a new chip. This attitude of 'father knows best' fostered by Intel created an uproar among users and owners of the defective chips. Six weeks after Mr. Nicely went public, IBM, a major purchaser of Pentium chips, stopped all shipments of computers containing the defective Pentium chips. Intel's stock dropped 5% following this bold move by IBM. IBM's main contention was that it puts its customers first, and Intel was failing to do this. Intel's handling of this defective chip situation gives rise to many questions. During the course of this paper I will address several of them. The first of which is how did a company with such a stellar reputation for consumer satisfaction fall into the trap that the customer does not know best? Secondly, what made this chip defect more of a public issue than other defective products manufactured and sold to the public in the past? Finally, how did Intel recover from such a mistake? How much did it cost them and what lessons can other companies learn from Intel's marketing blunder so that they do not make the same mistake? Major Findings Intel is spearheaded by a chief executive named Andrew Grove. Grove is a "tightly wound engineering Ph.D. who has molded the company in his image. Both the secret of his success and the source of his current dilemma is an anxious management philosophy built around the motto 'Only the paranoid survive'." However, even with this type of philosophy the resulting dominance he has achieved in the computer arena cannot be overlooked. Intel practically dominates the computer market with $11.5 billion in sales. Intel has over 70% of the $11 billion microprocessor market, while it's Pentium and 486 chips basically control the IBM-compatible PC market. All of these factors have

Grapes of Wrath and Migration Experience Essay

The novel, â€Å"The Grapes of Wrath† by John Steinbeck, takes you on a chronicle of one family’s migration, from Oklahoma to California as a result of exodus. The family is forced to migrate west in search of a livelihood during the great depression of the 1930’s. The structure of the chapters in this book alternate between narrating the journey of the Joad family with descriptions of the westward movement of migrant farmers in the 1930s as they flee drought and industry. Steinbeck, a native of California, draws from first hand experiences to guide the reader not only along the journey of one family in particular, the Joad’s but, to also expose the desperate conditions of migrant farming-families faced during the great depression in America. The Joad family was a part of a migration of people called â€Å"okies† which were farmers from the southwest that migrated westward in search of opportunity. The Okies were farmers whose topsoil blew away due to dust storms and were forced to migrate along Route 66 to California in search of work. The Okies were resented for migrating in large numbers to areas in the West where work was already hard to find and the sudden multitude of workers caused wages to be lowered. The Joad’s reside in Oklahoma, referred to as the â€Å"Dust Bowl† of the U. S . because of its lack of rain. The Joads’ were sharecroppers evicted from their homes because they failed to pay the bank their loan payments to the Shawnee Land and Cattle Company. The entire area was being evicted by the land owners, forcing sharecroppers’ to leave all that they have ever know and cared for behind in search of a sustained life elsewhere. The novel opens up by introducing the main characters and painting a picture of a dried up withering Oklahoma farming region. Released from an Oklahoma state prison after serving four years of a manslaughter conviction, Tom Joad makes his way back to his family’s farm amid the desolation of the Dust Bowl. He meets Jim Casy, a former preacher and the man who baptized Tom as a child. Tom gives the old preacher a drink from his flask of liquor, and Casy tells Tom how he decided to stop preaching. He admits that he had a habit of taking girls â€Å"out in the grass† after prayer meetings and tells Tom that he was conflicted for some time, not knowing how to reconcile his sexual appetite with his responsibility for these young women’s souls. Eventually, however, he came to the decision that â€Å"there ain’t no sin and there ain’t no virtue. There’s just stuff people do. It’s all part of the same thing. † No longer convinced that human pleasures run counter to a divine plan, Casy believes that the human spirit is the Holy Spirit. Jim accompanies Tom to his family’s farm; when they find it deserted, fronted by withered crops, they find Muley in that house. Muley is an old family friend that stayed behinde while his family leaves for California to tend to his rightful land. He explains haltingly that a large company has bought all the land in the area and evicted the tenant farmers in order to cut labor costs. The three men proceed forward traveling to Tom’s Uncle John’s house, where they find the Joads preparing for a long trip to California in search of work. The entire family has gone to work picking cotton in hopes of earning enough money to buy a car and make the journey to California. Large California landowners have poster announcement for employment throughout western Oklahoma, and Ma and Pa Joad have decided to move their family their; evicted from their farm by the bank that owned it, they feel as though they have no choice. Once Tom has been reunited with his family, in the following chapters, the narrator assumes the voice of generic tenant farmers, expressing what their possessions and memories of their homes mean to them. The farmers are forced to pawn most of their belongings, both to raise money for the trip and simply because they cannot take them on the road. Steinbeck makes it apparent during this section of the novel that he believes that the economic system makes everyone a victim—rich and poor, privileged and disenfranchised. All are caught â€Å"in something larger than themselves. † This is used to give reference to the bigger picture of society and how situations dictate undesired behavior. In a sense it was a way of taking some hatred off the people hired to kick people off their lands because these people too lost their livelihood. When the time comes to leave, Muley Graves bids the family good-bye, but Grampa suddenly wants to stay. He claims that he aims to live off the land like Muley and continues to protest loudly until the Joads lace his coffee with sleeping medicine. Once the old man is asleep, the family loads him onto the truck and begins the long journey west. When the families leave the farms, the land if left vacant, and is worked by people with no connection to the land. This is used to drive home a theme of man and his relationship to the land as a symbol of ownership. Such a separation between work and life causes men to lose wonder for their work and for the land. As the Joads make their way down highway 66, it is described as being backed-up and filled with broken down poor farmers getting ripped off by auto repair shops selling parts. Steinbeck suggests that the hardships the families face stem from more than harsh weather conditions or simple misfortune. Human beings, acting with calculated greed, are responsible for much of their sorrow. Such selfishness separates people from one another, disabling the kind of unity and brotherhood that Casy deems holy. It creates an ugly animosity that pits man against man, as is clear in Chapter 12, when a gas station attendant suggests that California is becoming overcrowded with migrants†. Steinbeck uses Pa Joad to embody the desire to be connected with the land, this is displayed by his willingness to stay back from his family to tend and live off his native soils. Conversely Jim Casy represents the focus of the family and it’s the most important aspect is to stay together. Ma Joad also represents the glu holding the family together and the backbone of the family unit. The family reaches Oklahoma City, while here they suffer the loss of their dog, and Grandpa Joad, and are forced to give them informal funerals due to a lack of money. After suffering such a major loss, the family picks up new passenger the Wilson’s a family they met broke- down on the side of the road. A few days down the road the family gets told by a car salesman that implications of open jobs in California are false. This brings a large sense of worry among the family because there survival depends on the opportunities waiting in California. At this point of the novel the many amilies traveling along the road have come together as one family creating a sense of comfort and belonging. The people have created rules and enforcement of law; this is a drastic change in identity and life. They are no longer farmers but migrant men. The family reaches California, marking a major shift in the journey. Once in California, the family is warned by Ma that the family is falling apart, as a result of the passing Grandma and the separation from the Wilson’s. Coming after two sets of dire warnings from ruined migrant workers, Granma’s death bodes especially ill for the Joads. They now seem fated to live out the cautionary tales of the men they have met in Chapters 16 and 18, who now seem like predictors of the future. Before the Joads even set foot on its soil, California proves to be a land of vicious hostility rather than of opportunity. The unwelcoming attitudes of the police officers and border guards seem to testify to the harsh reception that awaits the family. Once in California the family is forced to move north by authority, which do not take a liking for the okies. The family reaches a camp where they stay for a little while. This camp was a squatter settlement of okies with no food or work to speak of. This is an unsettling feeling for the Joads and a sense of anguish settles over the family. A man come into the came looking for people to work, but he does not have the proper papers and will not disclose the wages to the workers. This creates skepticism by for the okies and a scuffle breaks out. Which results in Jim Casy taking the blame for Tom knocking out a police officer. The men take Jim Casy away and the Joads flee in search of safety and work. The family finds work in a peach orchard where they get paid 5 cents a basket. That evening, Al goes looking for girls, and Tom, curious about the trouble on the roadside, goes to investigate. Guards turn him away at the orchard gate, but Tom sneaks under the gate and starts down the road. He comes upon a tent and discovers that one of the men inside is Jim Casy. Jim tells Tom about his experience in prison and reports that he now works to organize the migrant farmers. He explains that the owner of the peach orchards cut wages to two-and-a-half cents a box, so the men went on strike. Now the owner has hired a new group of men in hopes of breaking the strike. Casy predicts that by tomorrow, even the strike-breakers will be making only two-and-a-half cents per box. Tom and Casy see flashlight beams, and two policemen approach them, recognizing Casy as the workers’ leader and referring to him as a communist. As Casy protests that the men are only helping to starve children, one of them crushes his skull with a pick handle. Tom flies into a rage and wields the pick handle on Casy’s murderer, killing him before receiving a blow to his own head. He manages to run away and makes it back to his family. In the morning, when they discover his wounds and hear his story, Tom offers to leave so as not to bring any trouble to them. Ma, however, insists that he stay. They leave the peach farm and head off to find work picking cotton. Tom hides in a culvert close to the plantation—his crushed nose and bruised face would bring suspicion upon him—and the family sneaks food to him. Word gets out that Tom is a murder and is forced to leave his family. Before he leave he has a hear to heart with his mother, he speaks of Jim Casy and his way of spirituality for the greater good. As Tom leaves his family to fight for social justice, he completes the transformation that began several chapters earlier. Initially lacking the patience and energy to consider the future at all, he marches off to lead the struggle toward making that future a kinder and gentler one. The Joads are left to work on the farm but, then there is a six day flood that wipes away the families cars and settlement. This forces the family to set off on foot for higher ground. Al decides to stay with the Wainwrights and Agnes. Traveling on foot, the remaining Joads spot a barn and head toward it. There, they find a dying man and small boy. The boy tells them that his father has not eaten for six days, having given all available food to his son. The man’s health has deteriorated to such an extent that he cannot digest solid food; he needs soup or milk. Ma looks to Rose of Sharon, and the girl at once understands her unstated thoughts. Rose of Sharon asks everyone to leave the barn and, once alone, she approaches the starving man. Despite his protests, she holds him close and suckles him. This is the closing of the book, which for me is an amazing ending. It was symbol of family and the fight for the greater good of the common people. Analysis In the Grapes of Wrath, we are taken along side a family of okies, who are forced to migrate west. Through this journey we can use the insights of the suffering the migrants went though to better understand the immigrant experience. Throughout history outsiders have driven people off their native land. They fall victim to the physical and environmental forces that drive them off the land. Immigrants or in this case migrant workers are labeled as trash and are used as capital gain and cheap labor. This is due a lack of options and the people are forced to work for unfair pay and to be treated unjust. The Dust bowl was an ecological and human disaster in the Southwestern Great Plains regions of the United States in the 1930’s. The areas affected were Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, and Colorado. The poor handling of the land and years of drought caused this great disaster (Jones â€Å"History†). During this time the â€Å"Okies†Ã¢â‚¬â€œa name given to the migrants that traveled from Oklahoma, Texas, Kansas, or anywhere in the Southwest or the northern plains to California–encountered many hardships. These hardships are brilliantly shown in John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath. Scholars agree, â€Å"The most important fact about the dust storms was not scientific but human: their tragic effect upon people seeking livelihood on the stricken Midwestern farms† (French 4). Steinbeck believed society was inhumane to the Okies and through his novel we can account for how the Okies were treated. By looking at Steinbeck’s own personal background and information from historical commentaries we are better able to grasp his reasoning for writing the novel because he understood what it was like to grow up as a farmer, and an outsider. More importantly, however, we are able to share in his compassion for the Okies. To fully understand Steinbeck’s reasoning for writing the novel it is important to look at his family and where he grew up. John Ernst Steinbeck was born on February 27, 1902, in Salinas California. His parents were middle-class people who played many roles in the community and cultural life. His father worked as a manager of a flourmill, and his mother taught in a one-room rural school (Swisher 13). Steinbeck’s compassion for the Okies is clearly seen in passages like, this: â€Å"The Okies are resourceful, and intelligent Americans who have gone through the hell of the drought, have seen their lands wither and die and the topsoil blow away: and this, to a man who has owned his land, is a curious and terrible pain† (French 56). The encounters Steinbeck had with the Okies inspired him to write The Grapes of Wrath (Swisher 20). The Okies were not only exposed to greed but also to the terrible feeling of an empty, deprived stomach. Steinbeck remarks, â€Å"And in the South he [a homeless, hungry man] saw the golden oranges hanging on trees, the little golden oranges on the dark green trees; and guards with shotguns patrolling the lines so a man might not pick an orange for a thin child, oranges to be dumped if the price was low† (318). In conclusion Steinbeck wants his readers to feel the pain of the Okies. They were discriminated against because of a circumstance (The Dust bowl) they had no control over. Steinbeck can relate to this inhumane treatment because he too had suffered teasing and hatred based solely on his physical characteristics. Nature handed the Okies and Steinbeck a bad hand and he wanted society to grasp the reality of human unkindness. Steinbeck writes, † If you [land owners] could separate causes (hunger in a stomach, hunger in a single soul, hunger for joy and security) from results (growing labor unity, striking at new taxes, widening government), if you could know that Paine, Marx, Jefferson, Lenin, were results, not causes, you might survive. But that you can not know. For the quality of owning freezes you forever into I, and cuts you off forever from the we† (Steinbeck 206). So we can use Steinbeck’s life experiences and historical references to use the Joads journey west to better understand the immigrant experience.

Investigation Into The Theme of Entrapment in The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath

Sylvia Plath was born in Boston, Massachusetts in 1932 to Austrian parents. She studied at the prestigious Smith College with a scholarship and in 1955 she went to Cambridge University where she met and later married Ted Hughes. Plaths life was one of success, and intense ambition and perfectionism. In an early journal entry, aged 16, she described herself as ‘The girl who would be God'. Her desire to be a perfect writer and a perfect woman is set however in her understanding of the constraints placed on women in the 50's. The early death of her father when she was just 8, and the combination of fear and adoration she felt towards him had an immense and lasting effect on her life, and subsequently he appears as a major theme in both her poetry and prose works. The Bell Jar was first released in England in 1963 under the pseudonym Victoria Lucas. It received lukewarm reviews with most critics highlighting the personal yet detached voice of novel. An anonymous review stated ‘it read so much like the truth that it is hard to disassociate her from Esther Greenwood, the ‘I' of the story, but she had the gift of being able to feel and yet to watch herself: she can feel the desolation and yet relate this to the landscape of everyday life'. This shows how the novel was seen to be autobiographical even before it was known who the author was, and before comparisons of plot construct and the life of the author could be made. This shows how the tone, which some may say is confessional, leads readers to analyse the work from a psycho-biographical standpoint. You can read also Analysis of Literary Devices of Jane Eyre Laurence Lerner equates the detachment, which the anonymous reviewer highlights, with Esthers neurosis deriving from her role as satirist of the world around her, and he sees her ‘Bell Jar' as one of a detached observer. Critics also compared it to JD Salingers ‘The Catcher In The Rye', because of the interpretation of it as a critique of college life and establishing identity, and also the existential undertones of the dominant voice are similar in both texts. Robert Taubman wrote in The Statesman that The Bell Jar was a ‘clever first novel†¦ he first feminist novel†¦ in the Salinger mood. ‘ Linda Wagner saw The Bell Jar as ‘in structure and intent a highly conventional bildungsroman ‘, or a rites of passage novel, with the construct focusing entirely on the: ‘education and maturation of Esther Greenwood, Plath's novel uses a chronological and necessarily episodic structure to keep Esther at the centre of all action. Other characte rs are fragmentary, subordinate to Esther and her developing consciousness, and are shown only through their effects on her as central character. No incident is included which does not influence her maturation'. Modern criticism also focuses on political and feminist criticisms of the novel. Alan Sinfield explores ideological intersections between society and the arts, and recognises Plath as critiquing the construction of gender role arguments, taken up by many contemporary feminist critics. Plath is seen as articulating many of the thoughts and feelings many women have about the constraints, opportunities and contradictions of women's role in society. Many have interpreted The Bell Jar as semi-autobiographical. It is impossible to ignore the similarities between the life of Plath and that of Esther, the main protagonist of the novel. The novel parallels her twentieth year almost perfectly. Plath was awarded a spot as a â€Å"guest editor† at Mademoiselle magazine during her junior year at Smith, as Esther won a fashion magazine competition to work on it in New York for a month. Both had been, on the surface, a model daughter, popular in school, earning straight A's and winning the best prizes. She even went to Smith on scholarship; endowed by Olive Higgins Prouty, perhaps the model for Esther's patron, Philomena Guinea. That summer, however, she nearly succeeded in killing herself by swallowing sleeping pills, paralleling the suicide attempt in the novel. After a period of recovery involving electroshock and psychotherapy Plath seemed to become â€Å"herself† again, graduating from Smith with honours and winning a Fulbright scholarship to study at Cambridge, England. However, her troubles returned to haunt her throughout her life, and she committed suicide in 1963. Plath recognised her own inability to write about anything other than her own experiences. In her journals she referred to this as the ‘curse of my vanity'. She talked of, ‘my inability to lose myself in a character, a situation. Always myself, myself, myself. ‘ This makes any reading into The Bell Jar all the more poignant, because Plath's few prose works are more directly related to real life than most fiction. The theme of entrapment forms the central image of The Bell Jar. Plath constructs the analogy in Chapter 15 where Esther, the central character, concludes that ‘I would be sitting under the same glass bell jar, stewing in my own sour air'. Plath's use of the sibilant words ‘stewing' and ‘sour' evoke strong sensual reactions in the reader as if they were hit by a pungent sickly smell. The Bell Jar represents the entrapment Esther feels at the hands of society and its expectations of women, and also entrapment by men and the possibility of entrapment by children. The first of these could be understood as representing Esther's suffocation at the hands of societal pressure and the general oppressive atmosphere of the 50's, especially for women. It must be noted that at the end of the fifties the average age of marriage had actually fallen to 20, and was still dropping. It was not uncommon for girls to drop out of college or high school to marry, in fact education was sometimes seen as a bar to marriage. During all of the forties and fifties housewifery tasks were glorified as ‘proof' of a ‘complete' woman in the media. In America at the end of the fifties the birth rate was overtaking India's. Increased affluence allowed people to have four, five, six children, shown in the novel by the inclusion of Dodo Conway, a catholic neighbour who has 6 children; she fascinated Esther because of her ever increasing family and stoic acceptance of her situation. By the 1960s, the employment of women was rather the norm than the exception, but they were holding mostly part-time jobs, to help put their husbands through college, or widows supporting families. For such an ambitious and talented woman like the protagonist of the novel this would inevitably cause a clash of ideals between those of wider society and her own. Society assumes a woman will marry. The heroine of the novel is besieged by the influences that propagate the myth that the purpose of a woman's existence is a husband, a house and having children. After Esther's release from the mental hospital, Buddy's final words to her are: â€Å"I wonder who you'll marry now . . . you've been here. † This is similar to the feelings of Esthers mother, for being in a mental institute has a certain social stigma attached to it. The opinion that no man will want a woman with baggage or problems is similar to the view presented by Mrs Willard that no man would want a woman with sexual experience. This adds up to the opinion that all women should be clean, pure, innocent and naive for their men. Also, if Esther were to choose not to marry and not follow the guidelines society attempts to entrap her in, is to go against society's expectations and to commit a kind of sin. Writing to her mother from Smith, Plath agonised over ‘which to choose? ‘-meaning: a career or a family? The central metaphor of The Bell Jar, the ‘fig tree', is Plath's literary portrayal of this dilemma. Each fig represents an option, a future: to be a famous poet, an editor, or to be a wife and mother. Each is mutually exclusive and only one can be picked. As Esther (very much an extension of her creator here) hesitates, debating with herself, â€Å"the figs began to wrinkle and go black, and, one by one, they plopped to the ground at her feet. † Rejection of any option was difficult because she wanted it all. The conclusion that the figs rot and die aligns the image tonally with the rest of the novel. Esther shows her desire to have it all and her refusal to limit herself when she says to Buddy, ‘I'll be flying back and forth between one mutually exclusive thing and another for the rest of my days. In her own life, Plath attempted to achieve both career and family. There were times, her letters and the remembrances of her family and friends reveal, that domestic life alone seemed to fulfil her. She was a perfectionist at housekeeping as she had always been at her college work and at writing, but at other times the routine infuriated her and the ‘viciousness in the kitchen' that she describes in Lesbos sets in. At ti mes she revelled in being â€Å"cowlike† and maternal, but resentment against their demands on her time and her creativity is evident too. Esther concludes that the societal pressure that she feels at her prestigious College, where the girls pocketbook covers must match the material of their dresses and all the girls wait with excitement for their invitations to the proms, is not so different to the pressure she feels in the asylum. ‘What was there about us' she wonders ‘so different from the girls playing bridge and studying in the college . . . Those girls too sat under a bell jar of a sort'. Plath explicitly shows the reader that the Bell Jar is not simply one of depression, but also one of conformity. The entrapment that Esther feels is also sexual. This is partly caused by Buddys sexuality and power, for Esther and Joan react to him and eventually rebel against him by exploring alternative sexual methods. Joan becomes a lesbian (though whether this is a direct result of her and Buddys relationship is debatable), and Esther asserts her sexual freedom through getting birth control. For her this symbolises female empowerment. In contrast to her previous attempt to free her sexuality by allowing Constantin to seduce her, she will be her own active agent of change in freeing herself from the strict social codes for women. Esther begins to feel a disillusionment with men, after her realisation that Buddy Willard is a ‘hypocrite', she concludes ‘I knew that in spite of all the roses and kisses and restaurant dinners a man showered on a woman before he married her, what he secretly wanted when the wedding service ended was for her to flatten out underneath his feet like Mrs Willards kitchen mat'. This kitchen mat which is a utilitarian object, easily repaired or replaced, is used as a metaphor for a woman. This introduces a central theme of the novel, that of women being dominated by men. The image of being ‘flattened' is used many times in the novel to show the effect of men on women. It is used again in Chapter 5 when Esther describes how she felt ‘dull and flat and full of shattered visions' after a disappointing date with Buddy. The ‘kitchen mat' that Esther describes is a beautiful hand made rug that Buddys mother made. She spent lots of time making this mat, but when she is finished she just puts it on the kitchen floor for people to wipe their feet on. Esther sees this as a symbol of male oppression and the subsequent feeling that nothing a woman makes or does is of any merit. It is when around Buddy that Ether seems most repressed. This adds to the overall sense of confinement that Esther feels, but this aspect is wholly self-inflicted. One obstacle that Esther must overcome is her idealised and fairy-tale view of romantic relationships, in which she defines her and Buddys relationship in terms of a single kiss. The word ‘flattened' evokes connotations like beaten, weak and subjugated. Esther is, as most women during the fifties, expected to marry. Esther Greenwood sees herself as something other than primarily a housewife, and she uses a lot of her energy to try to avoid marrying the one she is expected – Buddy Willard. The word ‘bell' written ‘belle' was used during the nineteenth century for the ‘belle' of the ball. It was meant to be a positive term in American culture, and was used to describe a ladylike southern woman with many suitors. This was a woman who knew her role and was happy to be the desired object of her lover and to put all her energies into looking after her man and her family. In this interpretation, the ‘Belle' Jar could represent societal pressure to conform to this ideal and the trapped feelings these women my encounter. Buddy is the main representation of dominant oppressive male sexuality. He stifles her intellectually, telling her a poem is just ‘a piece of dust', and plays a dominant sexual role by exposing himself to her. Marco is a much more violent depiction of male sexuality, a ‘woman-hater' who attempts to rape Esther. He holds power over her, he is ‘invulnerable' because of his financial power and threatening sexuality, and brands her a slut. Critics have interpreted him as simply a more violent extension of Buddy Willlard, aggressive in his contempt for Esther and her sexuality, whereas Buddy is more subtle and passive. Plath parallels the earlier proposal by Buddy. Whereas Buddy asks for Esthers hand in marriage in exchange for her identity and freedom, Marco offers her a diamond, a symbol of marriage, in exchange for her sexual independence. This feeling or entrapment by men is related to a form of domestic entrapment. One way this is shown is in Esther's outlook towards having children. Plath presents having children as another form of entrapment. When describing child birth language from the semantic fields of confinement and unnaturalness are used. Esther describes childbirth itself as ‘a long, blind, doorless and windowless corridor of pain . . . waiting to open up and shut her in again'. This shows how she sees children as diminishing perception and confining their mothers in a trap they cannot even see out of because it is so all encompassing. The mother is described in inhuman terms with her ‘spider-fat stomach and two little ugly spindly legs' while making an ‘unhuman whooing noise'. This makes the reader feel sympathy towards this grotesque but pitiful monster. Robert Scholes interprets the language Plath uses in the childbirth as that of defamiliarisation. In this scene, for example, the narrator describes the delivery as if it were happening for the first time in history. From the point of view of the uninitiated observer, childbirth seems to be a frightening ritual in which a â€Å"dark fuzzy thing† finally emerges from â€Å"the split shaven place† between the woman's legs. It could be construed that Plath is trying to show the reader that having children is a form of martyrdom, sacrificing your self-identity for your children. A woman dies as a particular kind of woman when she bears a child, and she continues to die as the child feeds literally and metaphorically on her. Indeed, many of her poems depict childlessness as a kind of perfection. In Edge (Ariel), ‘The woman is perfected . . . Each dead child coiled . . . She has folded them back into her body'. This childless ‘perfection' also often signals death in her poetry, showing the view that a woman has no choice but to procreate, because if she does not, or if she changes her mind ‘folding them back into her body', she must die. Plath's fear of procreativity was, in large part, a fear of a resultant loss of creativity. Esther voices Plath's fear, â€Å"I . . . remembered Buddy Willard saying in a sinister, knowing way that after I had children I would feel differently, I wouldn't want to write poems any more. So I began to think maybe it was true that when you were married and had children it was like being brainwashed, and afterwards you went about numb as a slave in some private, totalitarian state. † The inclusion of totalitarianism evokes even stronger feelings of entrapment and being controlled by extraneous forces. Children are also shown to represent entrapment in the inclusion of the miscarried babies in bottles that Buddy takes her to see. These images represent women's traditional choices in life and the subsequent entrapment. Esther describes these in her usual detached voice, ‘the baby in the first bottle had a large white head bent over a tiny curled up body the size of a frog'. These ‘bottles' are similar to the central image of the ‘Bell Jar', and further highlight the reading that children lead to entrapment. This is also shown in Stopped Dead (Winter Trees), ‘A squeal of brakes. Or is it a birth cry? ‘. It seems Plath has the opinion that the minute a baby is born the mother's life ends in a squeal of brakes. Domestic entrapment can also be a trap of routine and chores. In Chapter 7 Esther notes how she cannot cook, or dance, or sing or know short hand, all the things that she would need to live her life by her mother's standards. Plath's letters to her mother and her novel both make it explicitly clear that Plath was confused and frustrated by the necessity of defining herself as a woman. In 1949, at age seventeen, she wrote, ‘I am afraid of getting married. Spare me from cooking three meals a day–spare me from the relentless cage of routine and rote. I want to be free. ‘ Plath herself wrote in her journal that it was â€Å"as if domesticity had choked me†. It could be said that her decision to finally end her life by sticking her head in a gas oven is a perfect symbolisation of that aspect of her experience. Plath's two-dimensional characterisation of Mrs Greenwood as a hard working and well intentioned woman, but one very much controlled by the guidelines society gave her regarding her role as a woman. She feels that Esther's English Major will not help her get a job, and that the only way that she will get a career is by learning shorthand. Esther would then be ‘in demand among all the up and coming young men', but she instinctively rebels against this view, ‘I hated the idea of serving men in any way. I wanted to dictate my own thrilling letters'. She is aware of the injustice in the occupational sphere, and refuses to abide by this unfair apportioning of status in society. The Bell Jar could also be construed as the ‘bell jar' of the character's depression. Depression and mental illness are almost universally described by the imagery of entrapment, from Bertha Mason, the mad alter ego of Jane trapped in the attic in Jane Eyre to the imagery of depression as a suffocating ‘black cloud' by Elizabeth Wurtzell in her 1996 portrait of depression. Esther's depression begins to fully emerge in Chapter 2, where she describes how she begins to feel while watching Doreen, her sexually voracious friend and Lenny ‘get more and more crazy about each-other'. She compares herself to ‘a black dot' signifying a feeling of insignificance, shame and dirtiness. Plath uses the analogy of travelling away from Paris on an ‘express caboose' to describe Esther's increasing feeling of detachment and unimportance: ‘every second the city gets smaller and smaller, only you feel it's really you getting smaller and smaller and lonelier and lonelier, rushing away from all those lights and that excitement at about a million miles an hour. ‘. This gives the reader the feeling of Esther helplessly falling into a deep depression, where the ‘excitement' of everyday life does not affect her. On Esther's way to Buddy at the sanatorium she describes the bleak land-scape and its effect on her mood. ‘ . . . the countryside, already deep under old falls of snow, turned us a bleaker shoulder, and as the fir trees crowded down from the grey hills to the road edge, so darkly green they looked black, I grew gloomier and gloomier'. Snow is often used to symbolise death, it could have been used in this instance for many reasons. Firstly, it could be because she is travelling to a TB sanatorium where many must have died. This illness and death that she is travelling toward is inextricably linked with sin in The Bell Jar, with Buddy being punished for his affair with a waitress by his TB and Esther punished for losing her virginity by haemorrhaging, so this blanket of death is particularly profound. Secondly, the snow could also foreshadow Esther's later suicide attempt from an overdose or sleeping pills in Chapter 13. The ‘crowding' ‘fir trees' could have been used to depict a feeling of entrapment. Esther's depression is later shown by her lack of motivation to do anything, even change her clothes or wash her hair. This melancholic inertia is shown in the paragraph: ‘I crawled back into bed and pulled the sheet over my head. But even that didn't shut out the light, so I buried my head under the darkness of the pillow and pretended it was night. I couldn't see the point of getting up. ‘ Esther feels trapped by her depression, it sedates her so fully that she does not even see any way out of it. Recurrent mirror and light images measure Esther's descent into the stale air beneath the bell jar. In the first chapter, when Esther returns from Lenny's apartment and enters the mirrored elevator of the Amazon Hotel, she notices â€Å"a big, smudgy-eyed Chinese woman staring idiotically into my face. It was only me, of course. I was appalled to see how wrinkled and used up I looked. † As she becomes increasingly trapped by her own mental state, her relationship with her own identity becomes increasingly disembodied, and the reflection in the mirror gradually becomes a stranger. Esther's depression and subsequent breakdown could be interpreted as a gradual abandonment of societal norms. It entails a series of rejections or separations from women who are associated with a stereotypical aspects of womanhood that Esther finds unacceptable. The novels heroine projects components of herself that represent patriarchally defined expectations of women onto other characters: her mother, Dodo Conway, Mrs Willard, then through her rejection of these characters she discards the aspects of herself that they personify. Every character can be seen as created to represent aspects of the world which confines Esther; with Buddy representing dominant male sexuality and broader forces of society, Dodo representing pressure to have children, Jay Cee being the pressure to have a successful career. The end of the novel sheds all of these forms of entrapment, societal, domestic, sexual and intellectual, virtually entirely. The ultimate chapter chiefly uses imagery of cleanliness and freedom. A ‘pure, blank sheet' of snow is described, but the reader now interprets the snow as representing a fresh start. She compares forgetfulness, that may help her ‘numb and cover' her memories, to ‘a kind snow', allowing her freedom from her worries. When Esther readies herself to meet the board of doctors who will certify her release from the hospital, she behaves as if she is preparing for a bridegroom or a date; she checks her stocking seams, muttering to herself â€Å"Something old, something new. . . . But,† she goes on, â€Å"I wasn't getting married. There ought, I thought, to be a ritual for being born twice – patched, retreaded, and approved for the road, I was trying to think of an appropriate one. . .† Critics who have been willing to see a reborn Esther have generally done so without ever questioning the appropriateness of the reference to a â€Å"retread† job. Susan Coyle writes that the tire image â€Å"seems to be accurate, since the reader does not have a sense of Esther as a brand-new, unblemished ‘tire' but of one that has been painst akingly reworked, remade†. Linda Wagner, for example, ignores this passage and concentrates on subsequent paragraphs, where the image of an â€Å"open door and Esther's ability to breathe are,† Wagner writes, â€Å"surely positive images. The ability the breathe serves as a contrast to the ‘sour air' under the Bell Jar. There is no doubt that the novel has a fairly high level of closure with most possibilities eliminated. The reader also knows that she had children, we become aware of this very early on in the construct of the story, so Esther obviously settles down into some sort of domesticity. Plath does not concede that Esther is fully cured, Esther even finally wonders whether she may be trapped by the bell jar again, but the novel concludes on a very optimistic note; that Esther is feel from the constraints that she previously felt.