Uploaded by benjamin789 on Nov 2, 2006
Analysis of "The Death of the Author"
In his essay “The Death of the Author”, Roland Barthes attacks the tradition of “Classic criticism” (which he describes as being “tyrannically centred on the author” ), presenting the argument that there is no such thing as the “Author” of a text, but merely a “scriptor” whose ideas are not entirely original; the author is subject to several influences when writing, and as Barthes says we can never know the true influence because writing destructs “every point of origin” . It is not the author (whose voice vanishes at the point of writing), but language that speaks, therefore, the text requires an analysis of language and linguistics, rather than a speaking voice. Barthes emphasises that once the author is removed, it is within the reader of the text that any meaning lies, as the text is open to multiple interpretations by the reader, that the author may not have originally intended (deeming the reader as the more creative force), making the author seem an insignificant figure in literature.
Barthes enhances his theory by presenting several examples to illustrate his reasons for believing that the author is “dead”, before finally delivering his main declaration. Beginning the essay by pointing out the disappearance of the narrator in modern literature, Barthes uses the example of the story Sarrasine by Balzac to illustrate the claim that the author disappears at the point of writing, for the reader is able to distinguish more than just a solitary voice in the lines of the text. The notion of the author being merely the “medium” through which writing is presented (it is not the author’s “genius” but “mastery of narration” which is admired) is first examined in the following paragraph, as well as the conflicting Classic criticism - “The explanation is always sought in the person who produced the text…” where the belief has always been that the work is the sole responsibility of the author.
Barthes then goes on to refute this by presenting the example of Mallarme, who stressed the importance of linguistic analysis (“it is language that speaks, not the author”) , as well as Proust’s contribution to modern writing, showing the reversal of the roles of author and writing; author creates text becomes text creates author. The lack of meaning in a text (found in Surrealist works, which Barthes mentions) also emphasizes the degradation of the Classic concept of author. He states that Surrealism, along with the study of linguistics of a given text, helped contribute to the death of the author. He claims that language knows a subject not a person. So the person studying the language of a text will concern themselves more with the subject and less with the person behind the words.
His definition of the word “text” – “a multi-dimensional space in which a variety of writings, none of them original, blend and clash.” - emphasizes that the writer of such text is never completely original (demoting the God-like Author to a “modern scriptor” ). Bathes is saying that the author or narrator who is really the voice of the author himself is becoming less of an entity within the text itself. By drawing a contrast between the author and the narrative voice and language he succeeds in distancing the author from his work and adding to his disappearance. Barthes stresses that the author is the past to his own book. These things have already happened to the author therefore creating a gap between the author now and the narrator of the text as it occurs (the “scriptor”). Therefore, the difference between the text and the work itself becomes an issue. The text would be what would be happening to the author right then and there, as the work as a whole would be associated with the author. The distancing between the author and the narrator grows because of this and adds to Barthes argument.
The final paragraph states that reading is the true “place of writing” , using the example of the Greek tragedies with texts that contain words with double meanings that appear one-sided to the characters. However, the reader (the audience) is aware of the double meanings, implying the “multiplicity of writing” rests on the reader for open interpretation. “A text’s unity lies not on its origin but on its destination.” Pointing out the importance of the reader in literary analysis, Barthes shows that Classic criticism was “imposing a limit” on texts by only focusing on the author themselves.
Friday, August 13, 2010
Analysis of "No Ideas but in Things"
Uploaded by riquosuave on Jul 22, 2006
Analysis of "No Ideas but in Things"
I am going to show the implications of Williams’ maxim by demonstrating the effects it has on his poetry, and most notably himself. First of all I would like to divert our attention to duality as a major theme, and affecting factor of such a maxim. For my introductory explanation I would like to consider the criticism of J. Hillis Miller.
In his famous essay on William Carlos Williams in Poets of Reality (1966), J. Hillis Miller contends that the world of Williams is beyond dualism. According to Miller’s pre-deconstructive argument, "A primordial union of subject and object is the basic presupposition" of Williams’s poetry ("Introduction" 6). Citing Williams’s dictum, "No ideas but in things," and such poems as "The Red Wheelbarrow," Miller claims that–in contrast to the duality inherent in the idealism of the classical, romantic, or symbolist traditions, wherein the objects of the world signify transcendent "supernatural realities"–the objects of Williams’s poetry signify themselves and nothing more, existing "within a shallow space, like that created on the canvases of the American abstract expressionists" ("Introduction" 3), exposing the poem not as a representation of an object, but as an object in itself. Miller finds in Williams’s verse "no symbolism, no depth, no reference to a world beyond the world, no pattern of imagery, no dialectical structure, no interaction of subject and object–just description" ("Introduction" 5). For Miller, this triumph over duality represents nothing less than "a revolution in human sensibility" and an "abandonment" of the ego: "There is no description of private inner experience. There is also no description of objects that are external to the poet’s mind. Nothing is external to his mind. His mind overlaps with things; things overlap with his mind" (Poets 288 & "Introduction" 7). Accordingly, Miller echoes Williams’s claim that a good poet "doesn’t select his material. What is there to select? It is”. (Poets 306)
Clearly Williams was no symbolist; his poetry does consistently foreground the surface value of ‘things.’ And critics of Williams’s poetry owe a good deal to Miller’s essay, which, among other things, considerably solidified Williams’s position in the canon of twentieth-century American literature. As Paul Mariani notes, "However we view his approach and strategy, J. Hillis Miller’s is one of the most important and seminal encounters in the sixty-year history of Williams criticism. Miller can be argued with and perhaps substantially qualified; he cannot be dismissed" (Poet & Critics 198). Yet how can even the poet who asserts his identity with his material avoid selecting it? Is not the poet much more than meets the page? And if material is selected, consciously or unconsciously, can it truly be "just description," signifying only itself, free of associative values and psychological content for either poet or reader? Of course not. Something in Miller’s approach cries out to be "substantially qualified."
Miller’s complete denial of the psychological terrain of Williams’s poetry leads him to mistake Williams’s identification with ‘things’ for non-differentiation. Relying far too heavily on Williams’s prose criticism at the expense of his poetry, Miller confuses Williams’s goals with his achievements. This makes a world of difference, for as a psychoanalytic interpretation of his poetry suggests, Williams consistently identifies with the world around him because he longs to exist in a state of non-differentiation with it. The difference is that between Freud’s primary and secondary narcissisms, between the infant’s primordial failure to differentiate between itself and the universe and its later, even adult, attempt to recapture this primordial state by misrecognising itself in its objects, paradoxically repeating the very process by which it formed its own separate ego. This and Williams’s avoidance of overt symbolism suggest that his penchant for resolving dualisms is in fact but the flip side of a preoccupation with dualism itself, the logical hallmark of the narcissistic Lacanian Imaginary. Furthermore, as Lacan would suggest, language and therecognition of sexual difference, among other things, forever separate Williams from his promised land; he may struggle against duality and even assert his triumph over it, but he cannot transcend it. Yet it is precisely this tension between his desire and his inability to satisfy it which fuels the fires of his creativity. Perhaps this can best be seen by analysing the image of "woman" in “Portrait of a Lady” (1920,1934), and most notably in “The Lonely Street”(1921).
Again I would like to emphasise the fact that I feel in order to explain the implications of the aforementioned maxim, it would be necessary to examine Williams’ fascination with duality which after all is an integral part and resulting factor of the explanation of the maxim, “no ideas but in things”. In "The Lonely Street”, Williams betrays a obsession with dualism in his erotically charged, almost leering, portrait of schoolgirls innocently clad "In white from head to foot," who "walk the streets" with "black . . . stockings" and suggestive "sidelong, idle look[s]."
As Audrey T. Rodgers has demonstrated, this seemingly oxymoronic image of the virgin/whore is central to Williams’s poetry–a metaphor for art, America, love, and what Williams termed the "feminine principle" or life force–symbolizing not the distinction between good and evil, but rather the union of identity between the mythical figures of Kore and Demeter, between daughter and mother, between birth and death, between the pure and the defiled, between innocence and experience, between the world of the imagination and the world of the senses. Women in Williams’ poetry encompass the realisation of the proposed maxim and similarly effect some sort of duality. The insidious gender stereotypes invoked by the virgin/whore might trouble us, but Williams’s project seems, at least in part, to be to demolish precisely these stereotypes. Yet while the attempt to establish a unity out of such apparent duality is valiant–Williams even identifies himself with the figure of Kore, the daughter who through defilement and descent into Hell is resurrected as her own mother, Demeter–it is a monism of desire, not of conviction or fact. The "loneliness" projected onto the street and young girls, belongs to the unseen observer–a thinly veiled, if at all veiled, Williams. Hence, there can be no "abandonment of ego," for loneliness implies precisely the lack of and desirefor an other. "Too hot" to be "at ease," Williams, playing the voyeur, finds this other in the form of the sexually budding girls.
In his role as voyeur, Williams is paradoxically trapped between his narcissistic desire to identify with the girls and an irreconcilable need to reassert the presence of his ego. As Freud recognized, its “active” counterpart accompanies every “passive” perversion. He who is a voyeur in his unconscious is concomitantly an exhibitionist (575). And that quintessential assertion of the ego, "exhibitionism," Freud contends, "is strongly dependent upon the castration complex; it would emphasize again the integrity of one’s own (male) genitals and repeats the infantile satisfaction of the lack of the penis in the female" (569). Rather than envisioning voyeurism and exhibitionism as complimentary opposites, Lacan finds them to be fundamentally identical: "What the voyeur is looking for and finds is merely a shadow, a shadow behind a curtain. There he will fantasise any magic of presence, the most graceful of girls, for example, even if on the other side there is only a hairy athlete. What he is looking for is not, as one says, the phallus–but precisely its absence . . ." (182).
And yet what does the voyeur of "The Lonely Street" find? It is the girls who have the phalli of "pink sugar," while he, himself, has perhaps been castrated. After all, whose phalli could the girls be holding? In a sense, the male observer becomes "one of the girls," while the girls, like the observer, are paradoxically "the boys." This, however, is not so much a triumph over dualism, as it is an expression of ambiguity and anxiety over the nature of duality and the status of the ego. Confronted by his disconcerting phallic position construction of the anatomical distinction between the sexes, symbolised for him by castration anxiety, the voyeur/exhibitionist is left with two options. He can deny that the difference exists at all, narcissistically identifying with his object either by assuming a feminine role himself or phallicising the female (responses which tend to intensify the very castration anxiety against which they are supposed to defend); or he can reassert his ego by stressing the supposed "superiority" of his own equipment, further alienating himself from his object in the process. In fact, to varying degrees both options are taken, leaving the voyeur/exhibitionist in an agonistic relation to intimacy, craving it as a cure for his loneliness while dreading to give up the protective distance of the unseen observer. As Kohut suggests, the voyeur attempts to alleviate loneliness by replacing narcissistically invested lost objects; yet this attempt is ultimately frustrated by what Joel Rudinow calls the "paradoxical centre of voyeurism": the "wish to be in two places at once, both in and out of the presence of the object of interest" (177).
In "The Lonely Street," Williams projects his loneliness onto the street and his passions, which he longs to have acknowledged, onto the girls, finding them returned in "sidelong, idle look[s]" and in the way in which they touch "their avid mouths" with "pink flames." But if through this projection Williams identifies with, and misrecognises himself in, the street and the schoolgirls, there is no universe of non-differentiation. The transient moment of almost coital intimacy (and for the voyeur the act of looking can–and frequently does–represent the act of coitus), when the girls "mount the lonely street" (my emphasis), is also the moment of absolute loss. The voyeur is left alone to redirect whatever exhibitionistic desire he had once projected onto the looked-at girls. For Williams the publication of this poem was plainly an act of exhibitionism, exposing his sexual desires before the very schoolgirls who inflamed them.
Far from being the work of sexual re-pression, poetry, claimed Williams, is the product of sexual ex-pression. On the first page of his Autobiography, he announces: "I am extremely sexual in my desires: I carry them everywhere and at all times. I think that from that arises the drive, which empowers us all. Given that drive, a man does with it what his mind directs. In the manner in which he directs that power lies his secret”. Yet Williams’s distinction between repression and expression almost suggests a (much too simple) precept for distinguishing between the psychoanalytic "neuroses" and "perversions”. I would like to propose it is the natural, raw instincts that motivate Williams’ poems and thoughts, which help us identify his work as complying with the maxim “no ideas but in things”; the plain ordinary poem content has no pretence or illusion as a result. While Williams’s poetry clearly is the product of sexual expression, his argument is also the classic alibi of the voyeur/artist: "I am not looking at something forbidden; on the contrary, I am permitting myself to be looked at" (Bergler 270).
Bibliography & Referencing
-Baym, Nina. The Norton Anthology of American Literature 5th Edition, Volume 2. New York, London: W.W. Norton & Company, 1998.
-Bergler, E. "Psychoanalysis of Writers and Literary Productivity." Psychoanalysis and the Social Sciences. Ed. G. Róheim. New York: International Universities Press, 1947. 247-296.
-Freud, Sigmund. Three Contributions to the Theory of Sex. The Basic Writings of Sigmund Freud. Trans. A. A. Brill. New York: Modern Library, 1938. 553-632.
-Kohut, Heinz. The Analysis of the Self. New York: International Universities Press, 1971.
-Lacan, Jacques. The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psychoanalysis. Trans. Alan Sheridan. New York: Norton, 1978.
-Mariani, Paul. William Carlos Williams: A New World Naked. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1981.
——————————. William Carlos Williams: The Poet and His Critics.: American Library Association, 1975.
Miller, J. Hillis. "Introduction." William Carlos Williams: A Collection of Critical Essays. Englewood Cliffs, N. J.: Prentice-Hall, 1966. 1-14.
——————————. Poets of Reality: Six Twentieth-Century Writers. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 1965.
Rodgers, Audrey T. Virgin and Whore: The Image of Women in the Poetry of William Carlos Williams. Jefferson, N. C.: McFarland, 1987.
Rudinow, Joel. "Representation, Voyeurism, and the Vacant Point of View." Philosophy and Literature 1979: 173-186.
Stevens, Wallace. Opus Posthumous. Rvsd. ed. New York: Knopf, 1989.
Stoller, Robert. Perversion: The Erotic Form of Hatred. New York: Pantheon, 1975.
Analysis of "No Ideas but in Things"
I am going to show the implications of Williams’ maxim by demonstrating the effects it has on his poetry, and most notably himself. First of all I would like to divert our attention to duality as a major theme, and affecting factor of such a maxim. For my introductory explanation I would like to consider the criticism of J. Hillis Miller.
In his famous essay on William Carlos Williams in Poets of Reality (1966), J. Hillis Miller contends that the world of Williams is beyond dualism. According to Miller’s pre-deconstructive argument, "A primordial union of subject and object is the basic presupposition" of Williams’s poetry ("Introduction" 6). Citing Williams’s dictum, "No ideas but in things," and such poems as "The Red Wheelbarrow," Miller claims that–in contrast to the duality inherent in the idealism of the classical, romantic, or symbolist traditions, wherein the objects of the world signify transcendent "supernatural realities"–the objects of Williams’s poetry signify themselves and nothing more, existing "within a shallow space, like that created on the canvases of the American abstract expressionists" ("Introduction" 3), exposing the poem not as a representation of an object, but as an object in itself. Miller finds in Williams’s verse "no symbolism, no depth, no reference to a world beyond the world, no pattern of imagery, no dialectical structure, no interaction of subject and object–just description" ("Introduction" 5). For Miller, this triumph over duality represents nothing less than "a revolution in human sensibility" and an "abandonment" of the ego: "There is no description of private inner experience. There is also no description of objects that are external to the poet’s mind. Nothing is external to his mind. His mind overlaps with things; things overlap with his mind" (Poets 288 & "Introduction" 7). Accordingly, Miller echoes Williams’s claim that a good poet "doesn’t select his material. What is there to select? It is”. (Poets 306)
Clearly Williams was no symbolist; his poetry does consistently foreground the surface value of ‘things.’ And critics of Williams’s poetry owe a good deal to Miller’s essay, which, among other things, considerably solidified Williams’s position in the canon of twentieth-century American literature. As Paul Mariani notes, "However we view his approach and strategy, J. Hillis Miller’s is one of the most important and seminal encounters in the sixty-year history of Williams criticism. Miller can be argued with and perhaps substantially qualified; he cannot be dismissed" (Poet & Critics 198). Yet how can even the poet who asserts his identity with his material avoid selecting it? Is not the poet much more than meets the page? And if material is selected, consciously or unconsciously, can it truly be "just description," signifying only itself, free of associative values and psychological content for either poet or reader? Of course not. Something in Miller’s approach cries out to be "substantially qualified."
Miller’s complete denial of the psychological terrain of Williams’s poetry leads him to mistake Williams’s identification with ‘things’ for non-differentiation. Relying far too heavily on Williams’s prose criticism at the expense of his poetry, Miller confuses Williams’s goals with his achievements. This makes a world of difference, for as a psychoanalytic interpretation of his poetry suggests, Williams consistently identifies with the world around him because he longs to exist in a state of non-differentiation with it. The difference is that between Freud’s primary and secondary narcissisms, between the infant’s primordial failure to differentiate between itself and the universe and its later, even adult, attempt to recapture this primordial state by misrecognising itself in its objects, paradoxically repeating the very process by which it formed its own separate ego. This and Williams’s avoidance of overt symbolism suggest that his penchant for resolving dualisms is in fact but the flip side of a preoccupation with dualism itself, the logical hallmark of the narcissistic Lacanian Imaginary. Furthermore, as Lacan would suggest, language and therecognition of sexual difference, among other things, forever separate Williams from his promised land; he may struggle against duality and even assert his triumph over it, but he cannot transcend it. Yet it is precisely this tension between his desire and his inability to satisfy it which fuels the fires of his creativity. Perhaps this can best be seen by analysing the image of "woman" in “Portrait of a Lady” (1920,1934), and most notably in “The Lonely Street”(1921).
Again I would like to emphasise the fact that I feel in order to explain the implications of the aforementioned maxim, it would be necessary to examine Williams’ fascination with duality which after all is an integral part and resulting factor of the explanation of the maxim, “no ideas but in things”. In "The Lonely Street”, Williams betrays a obsession with dualism in his erotically charged, almost leering, portrait of schoolgirls innocently clad "In white from head to foot," who "walk the streets" with "black . . . stockings" and suggestive "sidelong, idle look[s]."
As Audrey T. Rodgers has demonstrated, this seemingly oxymoronic image of the virgin/whore is central to Williams’s poetry–a metaphor for art, America, love, and what Williams termed the "feminine principle" or life force–symbolizing not the distinction between good and evil, but rather the union of identity between the mythical figures of Kore and Demeter, between daughter and mother, between birth and death, between the pure and the defiled, between innocence and experience, between the world of the imagination and the world of the senses. Women in Williams’ poetry encompass the realisation of the proposed maxim and similarly effect some sort of duality. The insidious gender stereotypes invoked by the virgin/whore might trouble us, but Williams’s project seems, at least in part, to be to demolish precisely these stereotypes. Yet while the attempt to establish a unity out of such apparent duality is valiant–Williams even identifies himself with the figure of Kore, the daughter who through defilement and descent into Hell is resurrected as her own mother, Demeter–it is a monism of desire, not of conviction or fact. The "loneliness" projected onto the street and young girls, belongs to the unseen observer–a thinly veiled, if at all veiled, Williams. Hence, there can be no "abandonment of ego," for loneliness implies precisely the lack of and desirefor an other. "Too hot" to be "at ease," Williams, playing the voyeur, finds this other in the form of the sexually budding girls.
In his role as voyeur, Williams is paradoxically trapped between his narcissistic desire to identify with the girls and an irreconcilable need to reassert the presence of his ego. As Freud recognized, its “active” counterpart accompanies every “passive” perversion. He who is a voyeur in his unconscious is concomitantly an exhibitionist (575). And that quintessential assertion of the ego, "exhibitionism," Freud contends, "is strongly dependent upon the castration complex; it would emphasize again the integrity of one’s own (male) genitals and repeats the infantile satisfaction of the lack of the penis in the female" (569). Rather than envisioning voyeurism and exhibitionism as complimentary opposites, Lacan finds them to be fundamentally identical: "What the voyeur is looking for and finds is merely a shadow, a shadow behind a curtain. There he will fantasise any magic of presence, the most graceful of girls, for example, even if on the other side there is only a hairy athlete. What he is looking for is not, as one says, the phallus–but precisely its absence . . ." (182).
And yet what does the voyeur of "The Lonely Street" find? It is the girls who have the phalli of "pink sugar," while he, himself, has perhaps been castrated. After all, whose phalli could the girls be holding? In a sense, the male observer becomes "one of the girls," while the girls, like the observer, are paradoxically "the boys." This, however, is not so much a triumph over dualism, as it is an expression of ambiguity and anxiety over the nature of duality and the status of the ego. Confronted by his disconcerting phallic position construction of the anatomical distinction between the sexes, symbolised for him by castration anxiety, the voyeur/exhibitionist is left with two options. He can deny that the difference exists at all, narcissistically identifying with his object either by assuming a feminine role himself or phallicising the female (responses which tend to intensify the very castration anxiety against which they are supposed to defend); or he can reassert his ego by stressing the supposed "superiority" of his own equipment, further alienating himself from his object in the process. In fact, to varying degrees both options are taken, leaving the voyeur/exhibitionist in an agonistic relation to intimacy, craving it as a cure for his loneliness while dreading to give up the protective distance of the unseen observer. As Kohut suggests, the voyeur attempts to alleviate loneliness by replacing narcissistically invested lost objects; yet this attempt is ultimately frustrated by what Joel Rudinow calls the "paradoxical centre of voyeurism": the "wish to be in two places at once, both in and out of the presence of the object of interest" (177).
In "The Lonely Street," Williams projects his loneliness onto the street and his passions, which he longs to have acknowledged, onto the girls, finding them returned in "sidelong, idle look[s]" and in the way in which they touch "their avid mouths" with "pink flames." But if through this projection Williams identifies with, and misrecognises himself in, the street and the schoolgirls, there is no universe of non-differentiation. The transient moment of almost coital intimacy (and for the voyeur the act of looking can–and frequently does–represent the act of coitus), when the girls "mount the lonely street" (my emphasis), is also the moment of absolute loss. The voyeur is left alone to redirect whatever exhibitionistic desire he had once projected onto the looked-at girls. For Williams the publication of this poem was plainly an act of exhibitionism, exposing his sexual desires before the very schoolgirls who inflamed them.
Far from being the work of sexual re-pression, poetry, claimed Williams, is the product of sexual ex-pression. On the first page of his Autobiography, he announces: "I am extremely sexual in my desires: I carry them everywhere and at all times. I think that from that arises the drive, which empowers us all. Given that drive, a man does with it what his mind directs. In the manner in which he directs that power lies his secret”. Yet Williams’s distinction between repression and expression almost suggests a (much too simple) precept for distinguishing between the psychoanalytic "neuroses" and "perversions”. I would like to propose it is the natural, raw instincts that motivate Williams’ poems and thoughts, which help us identify his work as complying with the maxim “no ideas but in things”; the plain ordinary poem content has no pretence or illusion as a result. While Williams’s poetry clearly is the product of sexual expression, his argument is also the classic alibi of the voyeur/artist: "I am not looking at something forbidden; on the contrary, I am permitting myself to be looked at" (Bergler 270).
Bibliography & Referencing
-Baym, Nina. The Norton Anthology of American Literature 5th Edition, Volume 2. New York, London: W.W. Norton & Company, 1998.
-Bergler, E. "Psychoanalysis of Writers and Literary Productivity." Psychoanalysis and the Social Sciences. Ed. G. Róheim. New York: International Universities Press, 1947. 247-296.
-Freud, Sigmund. Three Contributions to the Theory of Sex. The Basic Writings of Sigmund Freud. Trans. A. A. Brill. New York: Modern Library, 1938. 553-632.
-Kohut, Heinz. The Analysis of the Self. New York: International Universities Press, 1971.
-Lacan, Jacques. The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psychoanalysis. Trans. Alan Sheridan. New York: Norton, 1978.
-Mariani, Paul. William Carlos Williams: A New World Naked. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1981.
——————————. William Carlos Williams: The Poet and His Critics.: American Library Association, 1975.
Miller, J. Hillis. "Introduction." William Carlos Williams: A Collection of Critical Essays. Englewood Cliffs, N. J.: Prentice-Hall, 1966. 1-14.
——————————. Poets of Reality: Six Twentieth-Century Writers. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 1965.
Rodgers, Audrey T. Virgin and Whore: The Image of Women in the Poetry of William Carlos Williams. Jefferson, N. C.: McFarland, 1987.
Rudinow, Joel. "Representation, Voyeurism, and the Vacant Point of View." Philosophy and Literature 1979: 173-186.
Stevens, Wallace. Opus Posthumous. Rvsd. ed. New York: Knopf, 1989.
Stoller, Robert. Perversion: The Erotic Form of Hatred. New York: Pantheon, 1975.
An American Tragedy
Uploaded by toocute03 (120) on Dec 7, 2006
Theodore Dreiser was a part of the naturalist movement. His works depicted real-life subjects in a harsh and gritty manner. Many of his novels were controversial and considered amoral. Dreiser grew up in a poor, working-class family in Terre Haute, Indiana. An American Tragedy, his most commercially successful novel, tells the story of young man searching for success and fame. An American Tragedy is told from a naturalistic and deterministic point of view. Determinism deals with an individual’s fate being determined by his environment and heredity. This ideal is based on Charles Darwin’s views. It shows the dark side of the American dream. An American Tragedy was based on a criminal case, the Gillete-Brown murder case, the drowning of a pregnant woman in a New York lake by her boyfriend in 1906. It is a story of corruption in regards to achieving the American dream, money and status. The time frame the story is set in has a great deal to do with how Dreiser builds his story. The story had multiple settings but one of the main settings is New York in the 1920s. All over the country, people saw New York as the “city of dreams.” The 1920s is a time frame that was known as “the Roaring Twenties.“ During this time, many people flocked to New York in hopes of attaining their individual dreams as Clyde did in the story. Many Americans became very rich because of the booming stock market. The Americans that possessed an average income even become wealthier in worldly goods by being able to acquire cars and indoor plumbing. During this period, morals were not important. Prostitution, bootlegging, and racketeering were a sign of the times. Dreiser portrayed the characters in the story according to what occurred, no matter what the level of immorality was. New York is associated with being fast-paced and very socially and economically inclined.
Clyde Griffiths, the protagonist of the story, has no judgments about how he achieves his American dream. Material things such as clothes meant a lot to him because they were a sign of wealth and prestige. He moves to New York in hopes of escaping his humble beginnings and starting a new life. With Clyde, everything is only a means to an end. He gets a job in a factory where he eventually gets promoted. Clyde considers his promotion to be a step up on the social and economic ladder. Dreiser centers all of the hypocrisies of the 1920s around Clyde.
Overall, An American Tragedy gives an accurate description of the people in the 1920s. Dreiser’s focus on the faults of society regarding Clyde is an excellent example of naturalism. Interestingly, Dreiser was able to intertwine deterministic views into the storyline by letting Clyde’s background ultimately determine his future. An American Tragedy has a very interesting storyline and is a great depiction of a pivotal time in history.
Theodore Dreiser was a part of the naturalist movement. His works depicted real-life subjects in a harsh and gritty manner. Many of his novels were controversial and considered amoral. Dreiser grew up in a poor, working-class family in Terre Haute, Indiana. An American Tragedy, his most commercially successful novel, tells the story of young man searching for success and fame. An American Tragedy is told from a naturalistic and deterministic point of view. Determinism deals with an individual’s fate being determined by his environment and heredity. This ideal is based on Charles Darwin’s views. It shows the dark side of the American dream. An American Tragedy was based on a criminal case, the Gillete-Brown murder case, the drowning of a pregnant woman in a New York lake by her boyfriend in 1906. It is a story of corruption in regards to achieving the American dream, money and status. The time frame the story is set in has a great deal to do with how Dreiser builds his story. The story had multiple settings but one of the main settings is New York in the 1920s. All over the country, people saw New York as the “city of dreams.” The 1920s is a time frame that was known as “the Roaring Twenties.“ During this time, many people flocked to New York in hopes of attaining their individual dreams as Clyde did in the story. Many Americans became very rich because of the booming stock market. The Americans that possessed an average income even become wealthier in worldly goods by being able to acquire cars and indoor plumbing. During this period, morals were not important. Prostitution, bootlegging, and racketeering were a sign of the times. Dreiser portrayed the characters in the story according to what occurred, no matter what the level of immorality was. New York is associated with being fast-paced and very socially and economically inclined.
Clyde Griffiths, the protagonist of the story, has no judgments about how he achieves his American dream. Material things such as clothes meant a lot to him because they were a sign of wealth and prestige. He moves to New York in hopes of escaping his humble beginnings and starting a new life. With Clyde, everything is only a means to an end. He gets a job in a factory where he eventually gets promoted. Clyde considers his promotion to be a step up on the social and economic ladder. Dreiser centers all of the hypocrisies of the 1920s around Clyde.
Overall, An American Tragedy gives an accurate description of the people in the 1920s. Dreiser’s focus on the faults of society regarding Clyde is an excellent example of naturalism. Interestingly, Dreiser was able to intertwine deterministic views into the storyline by letting Clyde’s background ultimately determine his future. An American Tragedy has a very interesting storyline and is a great depiction of a pivotal time in history.
Adultery in The Crucible and The Color Purple
Uploaded by TheNEwand Improved on May 13, 2006
Adultery in The Crucible and The Color Purple
Throughout literature, one comes across characters that are not as appealing because they are promiscuous. John Proctor, from “The Crucible”, Harpo and Albert, from The Color Purple, are all examples of men who commit adultery. Their respective wives, Elizabeth, Sofia, and Celie, all have different reactions to their infidelity. The three women have completely different ways of handling the situation.
In “The Crucible”, John Proctor and Elizabeth Proctor had hired Abigail as a helper at their house. However, Abigail and John began to sleep together. Elizabeth began to notice and she approached John about it. He confesses and Abigail is kicked out of their house. After this event, there is a distance between John and Elizabeth, which is reasonable considering it was a great injustice done to Elizabeth.
Elizabeth still suspects him of misconduct and he cannot take her suspicions anymore. He says, “You forget nothin’ and forgive nothing”…I have gone tiptoe in this house all seven month since she is gone. I have not moved from there to there without I think to please you, and still an everlasting funeral marches around your heart. I cannot speak but I am doubted…as though I come into a court when I come into this house” (Miller 52).
There is great awkwardness in their relationship in the aftermath of this affair, but the big trials against Elizabeth bring them together. When Elizabeth was being arrested, John is very angry and says, “Fear nothing, Elizabeth....Damn you, man, you will not chain her!” (Miller 73-74). The calamity of the trial brings John and Elizabeth close together again.
According to Julian Klein, this affair was caused by Elizabeth. She writes, “Elizabeth Proctor, the wife whose coldness inspired Proctor's adultery with their servant, Abigail Williams” (Klein). However, this is not a justified excuse for infidelity. When a person gets married, they are agreeing to be monogamous. It does not matter how difficult a spouse may be, one is not supposed to be disloyal. If there are too many problems, then there is the option of separation. Some may believe Elizabeth was too harsh in sending orphan Abigail out, but Elizabeth was vindicated because she was only thinking of saving her marriage and protecting her children from gossip.
Elizabeth’s response to infidelity is the complete opposite of Celie’s reaction to her husband’s mistress. Their situations are also very different. Elizabeth and John seemed have had a loving relationship. Celie and her husband, Albert, did not marry for love. Albert abused Celie repeatedly, while John never hurt Elizabeth and believed Elizabeth was angelic. Albert could not stand Celie and hated her.
Shug was Albert’s lover. They had been together long before Albert and Celie had gotten married. After their marriage, Shug was ill and came to live with them. At first, Shug is weary of Celie and dislikes her. Celie, on the other hand, adores Shug and regards her as a goddess. She does not feel any anger towards Shug at all. As they get to know each other, their relationship progresses into a sexual one. Shug takes Celie to Memphis with her and gets her away from Albert.
Evelyn White writes that Alice Walker is oftentimes reprimanded for “promoting lesbianism among Black women." However, Walker did not write about lesbianism in the ordinary sense. Celie became a lesbian only because she feared men. All the men in her life abused her. Her father and her husband abused her physically, verbally and sexually. She became a lesbian because Shug was one of the very few people who cared about her. Celie was not able to have a good relationship with any males because she was scared of men.
Celie’s stepson, Harpo, is also another man who does not practice fidelity. Harpo and Sofia had had a love marriage. Sofia was a very rough girl. She was very different from Celie. She did not care about anyone. She had her own opinions and was not afraid to boss her husband around. She was very strong-willed. Harpo wanted to make her listen to him, so he begins to beat her. Sofia does not stand for this type of abuse and she fights back.
She leaves home and lives with her sister. After a couple of years, she goes back to visit Harpo at his juke joint. Harpo has a girlfriend now, named Mary Agnes. The interesting part of this scene is that Sofia has a boyfriend. Sofia is not a timid person. She does not fear anyone and she does what she wants to do. She is not easily broken.
James Hail states that Sofia was “the wife of Harpo who serves as an example to Celie of independent womanhood”. This statement is true. Celie does look up to Sofia, even though she was jealous of Sofia at first. Near the end of the book, Celie undergoes her catharsis and becomes like Sofia. She becomes loud and speaks her mind.
Some may believe that Sofia was a “bad” character, but this is not true. Sofia is one of the very few progressive women in the story. She is one of the very few women who know how to be aggressive. She is a very pleasant woman, as long as you do not disrespect her. She will treat you the way you treat her.
In these three examples of adultery, there were very different results from the wives. Elizabeth banished Abigail, Celie fell in love with Shug and Sofia also committed adultery. Each of their ways helped them cope with their feelings. Elizabeth wanted to save her marriage, which is why she got rid of Abigail. Celie is very naïve and did not know she was expected to show anger at her husband for having an affair. Sofia does not care that Harpo has a girlfriend because she has a boyfriend.
Adultery in The Crucible and The Color Purple
Throughout literature, one comes across characters that are not as appealing because they are promiscuous. John Proctor, from “The Crucible”, Harpo and Albert, from The Color Purple, are all examples of men who commit adultery. Their respective wives, Elizabeth, Sofia, and Celie, all have different reactions to their infidelity. The three women have completely different ways of handling the situation.
In “The Crucible”, John Proctor and Elizabeth Proctor had hired Abigail as a helper at their house. However, Abigail and John began to sleep together. Elizabeth began to notice and she approached John about it. He confesses and Abigail is kicked out of their house. After this event, there is a distance between John and Elizabeth, which is reasonable considering it was a great injustice done to Elizabeth.
Elizabeth still suspects him of misconduct and he cannot take her suspicions anymore. He says, “You forget nothin’ and forgive nothing”…I have gone tiptoe in this house all seven month since she is gone. I have not moved from there to there without I think to please you, and still an everlasting funeral marches around your heart. I cannot speak but I am doubted…as though I come into a court when I come into this house” (Miller 52).
There is great awkwardness in their relationship in the aftermath of this affair, but the big trials against Elizabeth bring them together. When Elizabeth was being arrested, John is very angry and says, “Fear nothing, Elizabeth....Damn you, man, you will not chain her!” (Miller 73-74). The calamity of the trial brings John and Elizabeth close together again.
According to Julian Klein, this affair was caused by Elizabeth. She writes, “Elizabeth Proctor, the wife whose coldness inspired Proctor's adultery with their servant, Abigail Williams” (Klein). However, this is not a justified excuse for infidelity. When a person gets married, they are agreeing to be monogamous. It does not matter how difficult a spouse may be, one is not supposed to be disloyal. If there are too many problems, then there is the option of separation. Some may believe Elizabeth was too harsh in sending orphan Abigail out, but Elizabeth was vindicated because she was only thinking of saving her marriage and protecting her children from gossip.
Elizabeth’s response to infidelity is the complete opposite of Celie’s reaction to her husband’s mistress. Their situations are also very different. Elizabeth and John seemed have had a loving relationship. Celie and her husband, Albert, did not marry for love. Albert abused Celie repeatedly, while John never hurt Elizabeth and believed Elizabeth was angelic. Albert could not stand Celie and hated her.
Shug was Albert’s lover. They had been together long before Albert and Celie had gotten married. After their marriage, Shug was ill and came to live with them. At first, Shug is weary of Celie and dislikes her. Celie, on the other hand, adores Shug and regards her as a goddess. She does not feel any anger towards Shug at all. As they get to know each other, their relationship progresses into a sexual one. Shug takes Celie to Memphis with her and gets her away from Albert.
Evelyn White writes that Alice Walker is oftentimes reprimanded for “promoting lesbianism among Black women." However, Walker did not write about lesbianism in the ordinary sense. Celie became a lesbian only because she feared men. All the men in her life abused her. Her father and her husband abused her physically, verbally and sexually. She became a lesbian because Shug was one of the very few people who cared about her. Celie was not able to have a good relationship with any males because she was scared of men.
Celie’s stepson, Harpo, is also another man who does not practice fidelity. Harpo and Sofia had had a love marriage. Sofia was a very rough girl. She was very different from Celie. She did not care about anyone. She had her own opinions and was not afraid to boss her husband around. She was very strong-willed. Harpo wanted to make her listen to him, so he begins to beat her. Sofia does not stand for this type of abuse and she fights back.
She leaves home and lives with her sister. After a couple of years, she goes back to visit Harpo at his juke joint. Harpo has a girlfriend now, named Mary Agnes. The interesting part of this scene is that Sofia has a boyfriend. Sofia is not a timid person. She does not fear anyone and she does what she wants to do. She is not easily broken.
James Hail states that Sofia was “the wife of Harpo who serves as an example to Celie of independent womanhood”. This statement is true. Celie does look up to Sofia, even though she was jealous of Sofia at first. Near the end of the book, Celie undergoes her catharsis and becomes like Sofia. She becomes loud and speaks her mind.
Some may believe that Sofia was a “bad” character, but this is not true. Sofia is one of the very few progressive women in the story. She is one of the very few women who know how to be aggressive. She is a very pleasant woman, as long as you do not disrespect her. She will treat you the way you treat her.
In these three examples of adultery, there were very different results from the wives. Elizabeth banished Abigail, Celie fell in love with Shug and Sofia also committed adultery. Each of their ways helped them cope with their feelings. Elizabeth wanted to save her marriage, which is why she got rid of Abigail. Celie is very naïve and did not know she was expected to show anger at her husband for having an affair. Sofia does not care that Harpo has a girlfriend because she has a boyfriend.
300 Film Review
Uploaded by abrandt76 (52) on Mar 12, 2007
The graphic, gory, vile, and intense movie called 300 is about two opposing armies constantly battling each other. On one side is the sinister Persian army with thousands of soldiers ready to clobber any foe. On the other side are the audience�s heroes, the Spartans. The Persians, led by Xerxes wish to conquer all of Greece. However, the city of Sparta is in their path and the soldiers of Sparta are known for their extraordinary performance on the battlefield. With the Persians wanting to conquer and destroy Greece and the Spartans ready to defend their city, many gruesome battles take place in what is now known as the Battle of Thermopylae.
I believe this movie is accurate according to the historical event that took place in 480 B.C. The film gives a good impression of how much more massive the Persian army is compared to the Spartan army. Also, the Spartan army is known for their strong army and this is greatly expressed through out the movie. The strongest characteristic about the movie are the special effects which enhance the reality of the battles. Some of the scenes are so strongly portrayed such as disembodied body parts, obscene pictures, and disgusting images of facial expressions that it is hard to watch at times. There is one view about the movie that does not compliment the past historical battle. There were actually many Greek city-states that united to fight the Persians. In the film 300, the plot revolves around primarily on the Spartan soldiers and a little on the Arcadian soldiers. In 480 B.C. there were many other Greek city-states involved in the battles and it wasn�t until the very end of the war that Sparta was the only army left standing and willing to fight. Of course, creating a perspective of a desperate attempt to save a city by one army instead of many is much more interesting to watch in my opinion.
The two stories of the movie 300 and the play Oedipus, contain the theme of hubris. However, the theme is not displayed the same way between the two stories. Oedipus believes he can conquer any foe, but because of his mistakes in the past he is brought to wreck and ruin in his prime as a king. King Leonidas, the leader of Sparta, also believes he can vanquish any adversary. The difference between these two men is that King Leonidas thinks before he acts. He does not let his pride over take him and become foolish in his decisions. Both men are similar because each of them has a sense of pride with in them. However, they are both different by how they each choose to lead through with their decisions.
Overall, I enjoyed watching the movie. From the film�s portrayal of the story I could clearly sense the horrid environment the soldiers of that time lived in. There were many special effects added to create a world that was perceived as palpable, but sometimes they were often used too much. This was a fun movie to watch; it has shown me the horrors and the beauties of the world
The graphic, gory, vile, and intense movie called 300 is about two opposing armies constantly battling each other. On one side is the sinister Persian army with thousands of soldiers ready to clobber any foe. On the other side are the audience�s heroes, the Spartans. The Persians, led by Xerxes wish to conquer all of Greece. However, the city of Sparta is in their path and the soldiers of Sparta are known for their extraordinary performance on the battlefield. With the Persians wanting to conquer and destroy Greece and the Spartans ready to defend their city, many gruesome battles take place in what is now known as the Battle of Thermopylae.
I believe this movie is accurate according to the historical event that took place in 480 B.C. The film gives a good impression of how much more massive the Persian army is compared to the Spartan army. Also, the Spartan army is known for their strong army and this is greatly expressed through out the movie. The strongest characteristic about the movie are the special effects which enhance the reality of the battles. Some of the scenes are so strongly portrayed such as disembodied body parts, obscene pictures, and disgusting images of facial expressions that it is hard to watch at times. There is one view about the movie that does not compliment the past historical battle. There were actually many Greek city-states that united to fight the Persians. In the film 300, the plot revolves around primarily on the Spartan soldiers and a little on the Arcadian soldiers. In 480 B.C. there were many other Greek city-states involved in the battles and it wasn�t until the very end of the war that Sparta was the only army left standing and willing to fight. Of course, creating a perspective of a desperate attempt to save a city by one army instead of many is much more interesting to watch in my opinion.
The two stories of the movie 300 and the play Oedipus, contain the theme of hubris. However, the theme is not displayed the same way between the two stories. Oedipus believes he can conquer any foe, but because of his mistakes in the past he is brought to wreck and ruin in his prime as a king. King Leonidas, the leader of Sparta, also believes he can vanquish any adversary. The difference between these two men is that King Leonidas thinks before he acts. He does not let his pride over take him and become foolish in his decisions. Both men are similar because each of them has a sense of pride with in them. However, they are both different by how they each choose to lead through with their decisions.
Overall, I enjoyed watching the movie. From the film�s portrayal of the story I could clearly sense the horrid environment the soldiers of that time lived in. There were many special effects added to create a world that was perceived as palpable, but sometimes they were often used too much. This was a fun movie to watch; it has shown me the horrors and the beauties of the world
The Lesson" and African American Vernacular Engli
Uploaded by amillion12000 (76) on Apr 30, 2007
Speech Equals Class: an analysis of the correlation between African American Vernacular English in “The Lesson” and social status
"Get at me" which in short translates as "talk to you later" is just one term from many in African American Vernacular English, also known as AAVE. This language is a tool that can be crafted to take on many different forms. It may not be an easily understood tongue but once it is deciphered AAVE can be used as a tool to make more comprehendible certain life lessons. In the short story authored by Toni Cade Bambara entitled "The Lesson", the use of African American Vernacular English makes evident the inequity between social classes. AAVE does not just accompany this finding, but also makes it more presentable to an audience that can connect with AAVE due to personal situations and invites those that may be ignorant to the terminology inside the minds of characters such as Sylvia, "Fat boy" or Rosie Giraffe to name a few. Language has power to do many things and here it shines a light on various inequities that are evident between social classes within the society of this story.
The reading begins by setting a stage for the reader. We commence in an apartment complex in New York that seems to be very torn down and aged. Many of the Children around are using a quantity of slang terminology; for example [... "and pissed on our handball walls and stank up our hallways and stairs so you couldn't halfway play hide-and-seek without a goddamn gas mask."(662) anyone that hears a phrase like this coming from a youth could only imagine the upbringing that the child has or the type of household that her or she resides in. In society one is moved to believe that when anyone speaks severely broken English or is unruly that their economic ranking is on the lower end of the scale. African American Vernacular English is a language that at times does reinforce the belief stated in the previous sentence, but one could also argue that the way one speaks has nothing to do with their financial background or social status and that a person just speaks how they speak.
Next there is Mercedes, one of the children that chose to denounce the African American Vernacular English and associate herself more with the verbal communication abilities of Miss Moore. Mercedes dresses nicer than all the children and carries herself in lofty regard, though she is impoverished and nowhere near equivalent to the "wealthy" she makes an attempt to intermingle by speaking suitably and by having comprehension of certain things that the other children do not. Hearing Mercedes speech someone that does not know her may be swayed to accept as true that she belongs to a middle class family or wealthier. In this story AAVE not only illuminates the children's financial lack, it also makes clear the youth's educational disproportion. In fact on page 663 sugar says, "And the starch in my pinafore scratching the shit outta me and I'm really hating this nappy-headed bitch and her goddamn college degree." Bambara was wise in her utilization of African American Vernacular English. This idiom allowed for the reader to explicitly and vicariously take on the body of the narrator. As a reader of this story one may actually be able to understand the depth of these children’s imbalance. The use of Ebonics in this story allows the reader the opportunity to feel the injustice crowned upon the characters of this short story.
Now Sylvia chooses to speak about how much she hates Miss Moore and her degree; such rage and intensity in her voice, Sylvia inadvertently shows us the envy she holds for Miss Moore because of the education that this elderly woman has obtained. The story even tells us on page 662 that the people of the neighborhood talked about Miss Moore behind her back; this gossip was due to the fact that they also envied the intelligence that Miss Moore holds. However since they themselves were not intellectuals they spoke ill of her to compensate their inequity also surely using some AAVE of their own. One could argue that the reasoning behind Bambara's contrast of two separate types of people, one being educated and the others not so much, accompanies the information written in the second paragraph of this paper by saying people speak as they choose and social class does not determine whether or not one has been educated or not. On the other hand "The Lesson" proves the previous to be true time and time again. Even when the children reach the "upper class" neighborhood they are stunned to see people wearing posh clothing and buying expensive gifts and sorts. This later leads to more torn English as opposed to what is known as call Standard American English.
Next Janet Ruth Heller, author of Toni Cade Bambara’s Use Of African American Vernacular English in “The Lesson” and also in affiliation with Western Michigan University, introduces a type of African American speech that is torn to an extent greater than AAVE. This is known as “eye dialect”. A reading from page 282 of Heller’s essay describes “eye dialect” as […variations from normal spelling that do not indicate significant dialectal differences in pronunciation.” To many this fascist of AAVE gives characters a form of uniqueness or individuality. That amidst all of the inequality that the children are forced to face this terminology gives them something to own that others cannot have, in a sense a way of balancing out the injustice to be had in this short story. In opposition to the previously stated, Heller believes that “eye dialect can even make a character appear stupid.” Also that it may [… distance the reader form her characters and degrade them.”(282) Though Bambara does choose to use African American Vernacular English she does not go as far as authors like Holton who’s intent is to degrade or lessen the intelligence of the character. Bambara just wanted to show that there are some communal differences that need to be acknowledged and uses AAVE to do so.
Next the belief that African American Vernacular English is a sign of social or economic status is highlighted in an essay written by Craig, Holly K.; Thompson, Connie A.; Washington, Julie, A.; Potter, Stephanie L. entitled Phonological Features of Child African American English. In paragraph four the essay provides “Low socioeconomic status (SES) relates to higher levels of AAE when low SES is determined by the young student's eligibility for the free or reduced-price lunch program based on federal guidelines. This information can also find support within the story “The Lesson”. It is evident that the children were not wealthy and that even in their adolescent ages the children understood the value of money. In fact they even once took the price of a toy and broke down how long a family could live off that amount of money.
Bambara’s use of the AAVE flows so freely and a reader can so easily be engulfed in it because this is Bambara’s first tongue. Toni Cade Bambara, just as Sugar and Sylvia, spent her years of adolescence living in the slums of Harlem and was forced to stand up against the same adversities. Bambara wanted to teach the children a lesson of “anomie” this term in short means that we all have realistic goals but due to social class or economic imbalance everyone has to go about a different way of achieving those sensible aspirations.
To add in this short story, “The Lesson” it is evident that the children even recognize the economical divergence presented to them. This is evident when Q.T. says on page 665 “Must be rich people shop here.” The child’s English is broken, yes, but he knows that a “wealthy” class of people shop in this in F.A.O. Schwartz. The children are all aware of the imbalance and their dissimilar choice of words only magnifies the obvious. These characters are underprivileged and nearly poor. The narrator of this story, Sylvia, also expresses knowledge of these social differences and shows no hesitation in using AAVE to communicate her feelings. In paragraph twenty six Sylvia says in response to the price of a toy, “for some reason this pisses me off.” The reason behind her anger is that she could never afford such a plaything. In her world and that of the other children in this story only the most elite could play with this toy, and these select few live on a planet only fantasy to her; but if she were honest she would be uncomfortable in the presence of these types of people and in their world. Sylvia feeling “pissed off” is in direct relation with the fact that she is impoverished. Of course she would love one of these expensive toys but she cannot afford them.
Slang like many other languages may be hard to understand. AAVE has many terms that mean the same thing, but through emotions and situations combined with these terms we tend to become more knowledgeable of its purpose. African American Vernacular English is a language that was birth out of the slums of society, birth out through many hardships and travailing. This language is not just another large group of idioms, it expresses more than just words. AAVE reads into the trials and tribulations of societies impoverished and was created as a response to Sylvia’s concluding thoughts on page 667 “But ain’t nobody gonna beat me at nothing.” Despite all of the communal disagreement that is apparent in this pocket-sized narrative Sylvia refuses to be beat and regardless of if she knows it or not her “lesson” was learned and the key component in her learning this “lesson” was African American Vernacular English.
To conclude Sylvia now sees the inequity present in her life. Rena Korb agrees and opens her essay entitled [Critical Essay on “The Lesson”] by saying “The lesson she wants to impart is the economic inequity that exists in the United States, and for the most part, she succeeds admirably in her goal.
Works Cited
Bambara, Toni C. "The Lesson." Writing About Literature in the Media Age. New York: Pearson/Longman, 2005. 662-667.
Craig, Holly K., Connie A. Thompson, Julie A. Washington, and Stephanie L. Potter. "Phonological Features of Child African American English." Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research 46 (2003): 623-636. Literature Research Center. Lansing Comm. Coll., Lansing,Mi. 25 Mar.-Apr. 2007. Keyword: african american vernacular english.
Heller, Janet Ruth. "Toni Cade Bambara's use of African American Vernacular English in "The Lesson"." Style 37.3 (Fall 2003): 279(16). InfoTrac OneFile. Thomson Gale. Lansing Community College Library. 27 Apr. 2007
.
Korb, Rena. "Critical Essay on "the Lesson"" Short Stories for Students 12 (2001). The Gale Group. Lansing Comm. Coll., Lansing,Mi. 23 Mar.-Apr. 2007. Keyword: Toni Cade Bambara "the lesson".
Speech Equals Class: an analysis of the correlation between African American Vernacular English in “The Lesson” and social status
"Get at me" which in short translates as "talk to you later" is just one term from many in African American Vernacular English, also known as AAVE. This language is a tool that can be crafted to take on many different forms. It may not be an easily understood tongue but once it is deciphered AAVE can be used as a tool to make more comprehendible certain life lessons. In the short story authored by Toni Cade Bambara entitled "The Lesson", the use of African American Vernacular English makes evident the inequity between social classes. AAVE does not just accompany this finding, but also makes it more presentable to an audience that can connect with AAVE due to personal situations and invites those that may be ignorant to the terminology inside the minds of characters such as Sylvia, "Fat boy" or Rosie Giraffe to name a few. Language has power to do many things and here it shines a light on various inequities that are evident between social classes within the society of this story.
The reading begins by setting a stage for the reader. We commence in an apartment complex in New York that seems to be very torn down and aged. Many of the Children around are using a quantity of slang terminology; for example [... "and pissed on our handball walls and stank up our hallways and stairs so you couldn't halfway play hide-and-seek without a goddamn gas mask."(662) anyone that hears a phrase like this coming from a youth could only imagine the upbringing that the child has or the type of household that her or she resides in. In society one is moved to believe that when anyone speaks severely broken English or is unruly that their economic ranking is on the lower end of the scale. African American Vernacular English is a language that at times does reinforce the belief stated in the previous sentence, but one could also argue that the way one speaks has nothing to do with their financial background or social status and that a person just speaks how they speak.
Next there is Mercedes, one of the children that chose to denounce the African American Vernacular English and associate herself more with the verbal communication abilities of Miss Moore. Mercedes dresses nicer than all the children and carries herself in lofty regard, though she is impoverished and nowhere near equivalent to the "wealthy" she makes an attempt to intermingle by speaking suitably and by having comprehension of certain things that the other children do not. Hearing Mercedes speech someone that does not know her may be swayed to accept as true that she belongs to a middle class family or wealthier. In this story AAVE not only illuminates the children's financial lack, it also makes clear the youth's educational disproportion. In fact on page 663 sugar says, "And the starch in my pinafore scratching the shit outta me and I'm really hating this nappy-headed bitch and her goddamn college degree." Bambara was wise in her utilization of African American Vernacular English. This idiom allowed for the reader to explicitly and vicariously take on the body of the narrator. As a reader of this story one may actually be able to understand the depth of these children’s imbalance. The use of Ebonics in this story allows the reader the opportunity to feel the injustice crowned upon the characters of this short story.
Now Sylvia chooses to speak about how much she hates Miss Moore and her degree; such rage and intensity in her voice, Sylvia inadvertently shows us the envy she holds for Miss Moore because of the education that this elderly woman has obtained. The story even tells us on page 662 that the people of the neighborhood talked about Miss Moore behind her back; this gossip was due to the fact that they also envied the intelligence that Miss Moore holds. However since they themselves were not intellectuals they spoke ill of her to compensate their inequity also surely using some AAVE of their own. One could argue that the reasoning behind Bambara's contrast of two separate types of people, one being educated and the others not so much, accompanies the information written in the second paragraph of this paper by saying people speak as they choose and social class does not determine whether or not one has been educated or not. On the other hand "The Lesson" proves the previous to be true time and time again. Even when the children reach the "upper class" neighborhood they are stunned to see people wearing posh clothing and buying expensive gifts and sorts. This later leads to more torn English as opposed to what is known as call Standard American English.
Next Janet Ruth Heller, author of Toni Cade Bambara’s Use Of African American Vernacular English in “The Lesson” and also in affiliation with Western Michigan University, introduces a type of African American speech that is torn to an extent greater than AAVE. This is known as “eye dialect”. A reading from page 282 of Heller’s essay describes “eye dialect” as […variations from normal spelling that do not indicate significant dialectal differences in pronunciation.” To many this fascist of AAVE gives characters a form of uniqueness or individuality. That amidst all of the inequality that the children are forced to face this terminology gives them something to own that others cannot have, in a sense a way of balancing out the injustice to be had in this short story. In opposition to the previously stated, Heller believes that “eye dialect can even make a character appear stupid.” Also that it may [… distance the reader form her characters and degrade them.”(282) Though Bambara does choose to use African American Vernacular English she does not go as far as authors like Holton who’s intent is to degrade or lessen the intelligence of the character. Bambara just wanted to show that there are some communal differences that need to be acknowledged and uses AAVE to do so.
Next the belief that African American Vernacular English is a sign of social or economic status is highlighted in an essay written by Craig, Holly K.; Thompson, Connie A.; Washington, Julie, A.; Potter, Stephanie L. entitled Phonological Features of Child African American English. In paragraph four the essay provides “Low socioeconomic status (SES) relates to higher levels of AAE when low SES is determined by the young student's eligibility for the free or reduced-price lunch program based on federal guidelines. This information can also find support within the story “The Lesson”. It is evident that the children were not wealthy and that even in their adolescent ages the children understood the value of money. In fact they even once took the price of a toy and broke down how long a family could live off that amount of money.
Bambara’s use of the AAVE flows so freely and a reader can so easily be engulfed in it because this is Bambara’s first tongue. Toni Cade Bambara, just as Sugar and Sylvia, spent her years of adolescence living in the slums of Harlem and was forced to stand up against the same adversities. Bambara wanted to teach the children a lesson of “anomie” this term in short means that we all have realistic goals but due to social class or economic imbalance everyone has to go about a different way of achieving those sensible aspirations.
To add in this short story, “The Lesson” it is evident that the children even recognize the economical divergence presented to them. This is evident when Q.T. says on page 665 “Must be rich people shop here.” The child’s English is broken, yes, but he knows that a “wealthy” class of people shop in this in F.A.O. Schwartz. The children are all aware of the imbalance and their dissimilar choice of words only magnifies the obvious. These characters are underprivileged and nearly poor. The narrator of this story, Sylvia, also expresses knowledge of these social differences and shows no hesitation in using AAVE to communicate her feelings. In paragraph twenty six Sylvia says in response to the price of a toy, “for some reason this pisses me off.” The reason behind her anger is that she could never afford such a plaything. In her world and that of the other children in this story only the most elite could play with this toy, and these select few live on a planet only fantasy to her; but if she were honest she would be uncomfortable in the presence of these types of people and in their world. Sylvia feeling “pissed off” is in direct relation with the fact that she is impoverished. Of course she would love one of these expensive toys but she cannot afford them.
Slang like many other languages may be hard to understand. AAVE has many terms that mean the same thing, but through emotions and situations combined with these terms we tend to become more knowledgeable of its purpose. African American Vernacular English is a language that was birth out of the slums of society, birth out through many hardships and travailing. This language is not just another large group of idioms, it expresses more than just words. AAVE reads into the trials and tribulations of societies impoverished and was created as a response to Sylvia’s concluding thoughts on page 667 “But ain’t nobody gonna beat me at nothing.” Despite all of the communal disagreement that is apparent in this pocket-sized narrative Sylvia refuses to be beat and regardless of if she knows it or not her “lesson” was learned and the key component in her learning this “lesson” was African American Vernacular English.
To conclude Sylvia now sees the inequity present in her life. Rena Korb agrees and opens her essay entitled [Critical Essay on “The Lesson”] by saying “The lesson she wants to impart is the economic inequity that exists in the United States, and for the most part, she succeeds admirably in her goal.
Works Cited
Bambara, Toni C. "The Lesson." Writing About Literature in the Media Age. New York: Pearson/Longman, 2005. 662-667.
Craig, Holly K., Connie A. Thompson, Julie A. Washington, and Stephanie L. Potter. "Phonological Features of Child African American English." Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research 46 (2003): 623-636. Literature Research Center. Lansing Comm. Coll., Lansing,Mi. 25 Mar.-Apr. 2007. Keyword: african american vernacular english.
Heller, Janet Ruth. "Toni Cade Bambara's use of African American Vernacular English in "The Lesson"." Style 37.3 (Fall 2003): 279(16). InfoTrac OneFile. Thomson Gale. Lansing Community College Library. 27 Apr. 2007
Korb, Rena. "Critical Essay on "the Lesson"" Short Stories for Students 12 (2001). The Gale Group. Lansing Comm. Coll., Lansing,Mi. 23 Mar.-Apr. 2007. Keyword: Toni Cade Bambara "the lesson".
"On the Rainy River" Essay Analysis
The relationship you have with others often has a direct effect on the basis of your very own personal identity. In the essay “On The Rainy River,” the author Tim O’Brien tells about his experiences and how his relationship with a single person had effected his life so dramatically. It is hard for anyone to rely fully on their own personal experiences when there are so many other people out there with different experiences of their own. Sometimes it take the experiences and knowledge of others to help you learn and build from them to help form your own personal identity. In the essay, O’Brien speaks about his experiences with a man by the name of Elroy Berdahl, the owner of the fishing lodge that O’Brien stays at while on how journey to find himself. The experiences O’Brien has while there helps him to open his mind and realize what his true personal identity was. It gives you a sense than our own personal identities are built on the relationships we have with others. There are many influence out there such as our family and friends. Sometimes even groups of people such as others of our nationality and religion have a space in building our personal identities.
In the essay O’Brien is faced with a conflict, a moral dilemma. He had to decide whether he was either going to go to the war and fight or was he going to run away and avoid the draft. The relationship he had with Berdahl was not of friends or even regular acquaintances. Rather they were perfect strangers. That goes to show you that anyone can be a major influence on your life. Berdahl helped to open O’Brien’s heart. He realized who he was and where he had come from, his past and what he has been through. How all the events of the past helped him to become the person he was right now. How his past helped form his personal identity.
The formation of our own personal identities often begin at birth. As you grow up your parents are a major influence on you. They teach you many things and help to shape your personal identity. They teach you the basics, from knowing right from wrong to your basic moral values. Your moral values are often built upon the basic morals your parents have and what they have taught you in return. Since you are young you often believe that everything your parents say and do is always right and you look up to that. When you do something wrong your parents are always quick to correct you and show you that what you have done is not right. Your parents can only teach you so much. They do the best they can to the extent of their knowledge. Some things we have to learn on our own. That’s what makes us humans. We learn from our personal mistakes and build upon that. The many things you gain from your parents are often carried on with you throughout your life and will be passed around to other people and someday even your very own children.
You are also influenced greatly by the people around you. Such as other family members, friends, and other groups of your peers. They help to form aspects of yourself such as your personality. The type of friends you have are a major influence on your personal identity. You often try to fit into the group. They motivate you to do certain things to act a certain way. They affect not only your mental identity but also your physical identity as well. Like how your look and how you dress. How you get along with people and how you treat others is often an affected by the group of people you are around most of the time. Your friends can also help to form your personal identity in the same ways your parents do. They can teach you moral values and tell you when you are doing something wrong. Also often the more friends you have can form the type of person you are such as how you act. If you have more friends you are generally a more open person and it is easy fro you to communicate with others. If you have less friends you often become more of a shy person and keep to yourself more often. Either way your friends help build your moral character and your personal identity.
Another major influence is your nationality. Your nationality forms who you are and how other people look at you. People often treat others of different nationalities differently. This in turn forms how you look at people of different decent also. Traditions within your nationality help to form some of your moral values also. The way your ancestors lived and what kind of people the were are a major influence on Vietnamese traditions. Your traditions help you to from certain aspects of your moral value. In Vietnamese tradition, who you are is very important. You are brought up on very peaceful morals. Religion is also a major part of the Vietnamese tradition. Vietnamese families are often very religious. Whether being either Buddhist or Catholic out religious beliefs are very important to us. Religion is a very essential part of our daily lives, many of our basic morals and values come from the practice of religion. Families often keep a very strong bond between each other. You learn how to respect others such as your parents and elders. Traditions teach you many things. Even the little things like your daily habits, such as saying good bye to your parents when you leave in the morning for school and greeting them when you come home. They are all things that help to form your traditions and who you are.
No one is ever alone. Everyone is influenced by others. Our personal identities are based on the relationships with have with others. They help us to form who we are. Relationships are very vital to making us unique in our own ways. That combination of all that we learn come together to help us realize that without relationships how would we would we be able to build on our personal identity. Whether being from out parents, friends, or peers. It is clear that they all play an important role in the framework of our personal identities.
In the essay O’Brien is faced with a conflict, a moral dilemma. He had to decide whether he was either going to go to the war and fight or was he going to run away and avoid the draft. The relationship he had with Berdahl was not of friends or even regular acquaintances. Rather they were perfect strangers. That goes to show you that anyone can be a major influence on your life. Berdahl helped to open O’Brien’s heart. He realized who he was and where he had come from, his past and what he has been through. How all the events of the past helped him to become the person he was right now. How his past helped form his personal identity.
The formation of our own personal identities often begin at birth. As you grow up your parents are a major influence on you. They teach you many things and help to shape your personal identity. They teach you the basics, from knowing right from wrong to your basic moral values. Your moral values are often built upon the basic morals your parents have and what they have taught you in return. Since you are young you often believe that everything your parents say and do is always right and you look up to that. When you do something wrong your parents are always quick to correct you and show you that what you have done is not right. Your parents can only teach you so much. They do the best they can to the extent of their knowledge. Some things we have to learn on our own. That’s what makes us humans. We learn from our personal mistakes and build upon that. The many things you gain from your parents are often carried on with you throughout your life and will be passed around to other people and someday even your very own children.
You are also influenced greatly by the people around you. Such as other family members, friends, and other groups of your peers. They help to form aspects of yourself such as your personality. The type of friends you have are a major influence on your personal identity. You often try to fit into the group. They motivate you to do certain things to act a certain way. They affect not only your mental identity but also your physical identity as well. Like how your look and how you dress. How you get along with people and how you treat others is often an affected by the group of people you are around most of the time. Your friends can also help to form your personal identity in the same ways your parents do. They can teach you moral values and tell you when you are doing something wrong. Also often the more friends you have can form the type of person you are such as how you act. If you have more friends you are generally a more open person and it is easy fro you to communicate with others. If you have less friends you often become more of a shy person and keep to yourself more often. Either way your friends help build your moral character and your personal identity.
Another major influence is your nationality. Your nationality forms who you are and how other people look at you. People often treat others of different nationalities differently. This in turn forms how you look at people of different decent also. Traditions within your nationality help to form some of your moral values also. The way your ancestors lived and what kind of people the were are a major influence on Vietnamese traditions. Your traditions help you to from certain aspects of your moral value. In Vietnamese tradition, who you are is very important. You are brought up on very peaceful morals. Religion is also a major part of the Vietnamese tradition. Vietnamese families are often very religious. Whether being either Buddhist or Catholic out religious beliefs are very important to us. Religion is a very essential part of our daily lives, many of our basic morals and values come from the practice of religion. Families often keep a very strong bond between each other. You learn how to respect others such as your parents and elders. Traditions teach you many things. Even the little things like your daily habits, such as saying good bye to your parents when you leave in the morning for school and greeting them when you come home. They are all things that help to form your traditions and who you are.
No one is ever alone. Everyone is influenced by others. Our personal identities are based on the relationships with have with others. They help us to form who we are. Relationships are very vital to making us unique in our own ways. That combination of all that we learn come together to help us realize that without relationships how would we would we be able to build on our personal identity. Whether being from out parents, friends, or peers. It is clear that they all play an important role in the framework of our personal identities.
Wednesday, August 11, 2010
ADOLF HITLER
ADOLF HITLER Adolf Hitler was a dictator of the German Nazi movement. He was born April 20, 1889 in the small Austrian town of Braunau. After a prior performance in elementary school, Adolf soon became rebellious and began failing in the Realschule, which is a college preparatory school. Following transfer to another school, he finally left formal education altogether in 1905 and, refusing to bow to the training of a regular job, began his years of amateur painting, wandering in the woods, and dreaming of becoming a famous artist. In 1907, when his mother died, he moved to Vienna in an attempt to enroll in the famed Academy of Fine Arts. However he was not admitted. He wandering through the streets of Vienna living on an orphan's pension and the money he could earn by painting and selling picture postcards. It was during this time of his homeless being among the disordered circumstances of the old Hapsburg capital, that he first became fascinated by the immense possibility of political manipulation. He was impressed by the successes of the anti-Semitic, nationalist Christian-Socialist party of Vienna Mayor Karl Lueger and his propaganda organization (Website, Biography.com Hitler). Under Lueger's influence Hitler first developed the extreme anti-Semitism that were to remain central to his own beliefs and that of the Nazi party. In May 1913, in an attempt to avoid induction into the Austrian military service after he had failed to register for draft, Hitler slipped across the German border to Munich, only to be arrested and turned over to the Austrian police. He was able to persuade the authorities not to confine him for draft avoidance and presented himself for the draft physical examination, which he failed to pass. He returned to Munich, and after the outbreak of World War I a year later, he volunteered for action in the German army. During the war he fought on Germany's Western front with excellence but gained no promotion beyond the rank of corporal. Injured twice, he won several awards' for bravery, among them the highly respected Iron Cross First Class (Hitler 1889-1936: Hubris. By Ian Kershaw. New York and London: W. W. Norton & Company, 1998). The end of the war suddenly left Hitler without a place and drove him to join the many frustrated veterans who continued to fight in the streets of Germany. In the spring of 1919 he found employment as a political officer in the army in Munich with the help of an adventurer-soldier by the name of Ernst Roehm. Ernst Roehm later became the head of Hitler's storm troopers. Hitler attended a meeting of the so-called German Workers' party, a nationalist, anti-Semitic, and socialist group, in September 1919. He quickly famed himself as this party's most popular and impressive speaker. The first two years in office were almost completely dedicated to power. With several prominent Nazis in key positions and his military ally Werner von Blomberg in the Defense Ministry, he quickly gained efficient control. He convinced the aging president and the Reichstag to invest him with emergency powers suspending the constitution in the so-called Enabling Act of Feb. 28, 1933. Under this act and with the help of a mysterious fire in the Reichstag building, he eliminated his political rivals and brought all levels of government under his control. By means of the Roehm purge of the summer of 1934 he guaranteed himself of the loyalty of the army by the inferiority of the Nazi storm troopers and the murder of its chief together with the financial disaster of major rivals within the army. The death of President Hindenburg in August 1934 cleared the way for the elimination of the presidential title by voting. Hitler became ruler of Germany and in result head of state as well as commander in chief of the armed forces. Joseph Goebbels's extensive propaganda machine and Heinrich Himmler's police system together perfected dictatorial control of Germany. This can be seen as demonstrated in the great Nazi rally of 1934 in Nuremberg, where millions marched in unison and saluted Hitler's dramatic appeals. Once internal control was assured, Hitler began enlisting Germany's resources for military conquest and racial domination of the landmasses of central and Eastern Europe. He put Germany's six million unemployed to work on a vast building program, coupled with a propaganda campaign to prepare the nation for war. Foreign relations were directed toward preparation for war because of the improvement of Germany's military position, the purchase of strong allies and the division of Germany's enemies. Playing on the weaknesses of the Versailles Peace Treaty and the general fear of war, this policy was previously successful in the face of governments in England and France. After an unsuccessful achievement attempt in Austria in 1934, Hitler gained Mussolini's union as a result of Italy's Ethiopian war in 1935, illegally marched into the Rhineland in 1936 and successfully intervened in the Spanish Civil War (Time Magazine, January 2, 1939, Roles Minor). Under the popular emblem of national self-determination, he attached Austria and some of Czechoslovakia with the West in 1938, only to occupy all of Czechoslovakia in early in 1939. Alliances with Italy and Japan followed. On Sept. 1, 1939, Hitler began World War II with the invasion of Poland, which he immediately followed with the ethnic cleansing of Jews and the Polish aristocrats, the slavery of the local alien population, and the beginnings of a German colonization. Following the exposition of war by France and England, he temporarily turned his military west, where the attacks of the German forces quickly prevailed. In April 1940 Denmark surrendered, and Norway was taken by an amphibious operation. In May-June the progressing tank forces defeated France and the Low Countries. The major goal of Hitler's conquest was in the East and the war had already entered in the middle of 1940. German war production was preparing for an eastern campaign. The Air Battle of Britain, which Hitler had hoped would permit either German invasion or an alliance with Germanic England, was broken off, and Germany's naval warfare shattered for lack of reinforcements. On June 22, 1941, the German army advanced on Russia in the so-called Operation Barbarossa, which Hitler regarded as “Germany's final struggle for existence and ‘living space’ and for the creation of the ‘new order’ of German racial domination” (The Concise Columbia Encyclopedia, Third Edition, 1998). After advances, the German troops were stopped by the harsh Russian winter which in turn helped them to fail at reaching any of their three major goals: Leningrad, Moscow, and Stalingrad. The following year's advances were again slower than expected, and with the first major setback at Stalingrad in 1943, the long retreat from Russia began. A year later, the Western Allies started advancing on Germany. Hitler withdrew almost entirely from the public. His orders became increasingly incoherent; and recalling his earlier triumphs over the generals, he refused to listen to advice from his military counselors. He dreamed of miracle bombs and suspected treason everywhere. Under the slogan of total victory or total ruin, the entire German nation from young boys to old men was mobilized and sent to the front. After an unsuccessful assassination attempt by a group of former military men on July 20, 1944, the reign of fear tightened. In the last days of the Third Reich, with the Russian troops in the limits of Berlin, Hitler entered into a last stage of anxiety in his underground bunker in Berlin. He ordered Germany destroyed since it was not worthy of him. He dismissed his trusted lieutenants Himmler and Goring from the party; and made a last request to the German nation. Adolf Hitler committed suicide on April 30, 1945, leaving the last bits of unconquered German territory to the command of non-Nazi Admiral Karl Doenitz. Bibliography Works Cited 1. Website, Biography.com Hitler 2. The Concise Columbia Encyclopedia, Third Edition, 1998 3. Time Magazine, January 2, 1939, Roles Minor 4. Hitler 1889-1936: Hubris. By Ian Kershaw. New York and London: W. W. Norton & Company, 1998 Word Count: 1298
A Permanent Death - Capital Punishment
A Permanent Death - Capital Punishment There are five basic reasons that society uses when imposing punishment that I've been able to conclude from my readings. I will discuss these societal concepts and show that the death penalty does not serve to further them. As a result William Smith should not be subject to the death penalty and in fact the same should be abolished from our system of punishment. Deterrence Deterrence is basically defined as the punishment should fit the crime. Under this concept, the individual committing the crime and society are prevented from committing this action again. In the case of the death penalty, an individual kills another human and he is punished for it by death. Punishment is supposed to be a temporary penalization for a wrongful action. Death is far from temporary. One is to learn from one's mistakes. How can the person learn if they are paying for their mistake with their life? In Ernest van den Haag's article, The Ultimate Punishment: A Defense he states, The death penalty is our harshest punishment. It is irrevocable: it ends the existence of those punished, instead of temporarily imprisoning them. (Haag, 251). By imposing the death penalty the individual does not learn from their mistakes and neither does society. Economy Under this concept, punishment should be economical. As Haag points out, ...the monetary cost of appealing a capital sentence is excessive. (Haag, 253). Further, ...actual monetary costs are trumped by the importance of doing justice. (Haag, 253). Additionally there are specific costs associated with keeping an inmate on death row, (i.e. the cost of the specially built prison blocks, the need for maximum security, etc.) and more. These costs clearly out weigh the regular costs incurred to house a regular inmate. Deterrence is clearly not served by imposing the death penalty and society aims for justice are thwarted. Restitution Society demands that the punishment should fix the harm it has done. By sentencing a person to death no harm has been fixed. You can not bring the murdered person back by taking the prisoner's life. Punishment-regardless of the motivation is not intended to revenge, offset, or compensate for the victims suffering or to be measured by it. (Haag, 253). Retribution The community demands that justice be served. Would justice not equally be served and in fact may be better served by life imprisonment? I believe it would be a worse punishment to endure a life sentence in prison. The individual is deprived of his liberty. He will then suffer and live the rest of his or her life within three lonely walls and a set of bars. It gives the individual time to think and wallow in his own guilt. Someone kills another. The State then proceeds to kill him for doing so. This is not punishment but revenge. Revenge is inconsistent with society's demands that justice be served because the punishment has to fit the crime. Justice Brennan has insisted that the death penalty is uncivilized, inhuman, inconsistent with human dignity and with the dignity of life. (Haag, 254). Brennan speaks of moral imperatives. It is morally wrong for someone to kill someone. If so, then the state is committing a morally wrongful act. As they say, two wrongs don't make a right. Rehabilitation Society desires for its members to reintegrate themselves into society. Punishment includes preparing the person to reenter society and lead a productive life. Without doubt, if you impose the death penalty there is no opportunity for rehabilitation. Overview of the William Alvin Smith case William Alvin Smith robbed and killed the owner of a grocery store in Georgia when he was 20 years old. He turned himself to the police and signed a confession. The local jury condemned Smith to the electric chair but a federal judge ordered a new sentencing hearing for Smith on the grounds that he lacked the ability to understand the significance of waiving his rights to remain silent and to have an attorney present. Smith has the mental capacity of a ten-year-old. Analysis of the William Alvin Smith Case in Relation to Society's Expectations of Punishment William Smith stands before you guilty but guilty of what? That is the question. I propose to you that the only thing we can condemn William Smith for is being guilty of being a child and acting the way a child would. Let us examine his actions. William Smith in whatever state of mind he was at the time he committed this act fully acknowledged that he did in fact do something wrong. I propose that he did that in exactly the manner that a child would go to a parent and admit their wrongdoing in order to obtain the parent's forgiveness or perhaps their help. The State now stands in the role of parent in this case. Let us examine the position the State has taken when dealing with children that have committed violent crimes. I have but one question to ask: Do we kill our children? Let me give you a recent example - the teenage girl in New Jersey who knowingly and premeditatedly murdered her newborn baby at the prom and then went back to the prom dance. Another case comes to mind of the teenagers who conspired and did murder the girlfriend's competition. An even better example would be the rash of murders committed in the nation by children in schools. In all these cases these children knowingly committed the heinous crime of murder. Once again I ask you: Do we kill our children? Has the State, exercising its discretion decided to impose the death penalty on any child? In every single case that I have just cited, these children have not been condemned to murder but their ability to comprehend the seriousness of their actions and other factors related to their youth have been taken into account. All have been sentenced to prison terms to be served in a youth facility. Another legal fact comes to mind in that some teenagers that have committed murders have petitioned the Court to treat the minor as an adult. The law allows a juvenile to be treated as an adult if it is determined that the juvenile in fact is a juvenile in age only yet has the mental capacity of an adult and should be treated like one. It stands to reason that there is room in the law for the inverse to apply. Why should this man die? He can not think, act or feel like a normal 20 year-old man. In this case, we have a situation of a person who has been adjudicated to have the mental capacity of a ten-year-old. How can we then shut our eyes to this basic fact of William Smith's mental capacity and just look at age as the overriding factor to consider when punishing him for his crime? Society demands that the punishment fit the crime. I have outlined above what society expects from punishment and the punishment that the State decides to give out to children in these matters. On both accounts it is clear that society is not served. Can you examine your conscience and decide to give a child, maybe your child, the death penalty? If so, go ahead and sentence William Smith to death and in doing so, that's exactly what you will be doing. You will be deciding - let's kill our children. Word Count: 1240
QUAID-I-AZAM, MOHAMMAD ALI JINNAH
12 S. First Street, Suite 600 , San Jose, CA 95113
Tel: (408) 294-0404 Fax: (408) 294 6659
Mohammad Ali Jinnah
Jinnah DVD Upcoming Shikwa Sessions
Quaid-i-Azam, Founding Father of Pakistan
(December 25, 1876 - September 11, 1948)
FAMILY
Father: Jinnah Poonja. One of eight children. Married Emibai in 1892 (she died 1893). Married Ratanbai 'Ruttie' Petit, daughter of Sir Dinshaw Petit, a wealthy Bombay Parsee, in 1918. Ruttie died in 1929. Daughter: Dina Wadia (married to Neville Wadia, a Christian).
EDUCATION
Sindh Madrasstul Islam, Karachi
Gokal Das Tej Pal School, Bombay
Christian Missionary Society High School, Karachi, 1891
Bar-at-Law, Lincoln's Inn, London, 1895
POSITIONS HELD
Legal practice, Bombay, 1897
Imperial Legislative Council, 1910-1919
Elected member of All-India Muslim League, 1915
Participates in Round Table Conference(s), 1930
(Settles in London, 1931-34)
President, League's Lucknow Session, 1937
President, League's Lahore Session; 'Lahore Resolution' adopted, 1940
Pakistan's first Governor-General, 1947
Earlier Life
Quaid-e-Azam, Muhammad Ali Jinnah was born on 25th December 1876 at Vazeer Mansion Karachi, was the first of seven children of Jinnah bhai, a prosperous merchant. After being taught at home, Jinnah was sent to the Sindh Madrasah High School in 1887. Later he attended the Mission High School, where, at the age of 16, he passed the matriculation examination of the University of Bombay. On the advice of an English friend, his father decided to send him to England to acquire business experience. Jinnah, however, had made up his mind to become a barrister. In keeping with the custom of the time, his parents arranged for an early marriage for him before he left for England.
Quaid-e-Azam, Muhammad Ali Jinnah was born on 25th December 1876 at Vazeer Mansion Karachi, was the first of seven children of Jinnah bhai, a prosperous merchant. After being taught at home, Jinnah was sent to the Sindh Madrasah High School in 1887. Later he attended the Mission High School, where, at the age of 16, he passed the matriculation examination of the University of Bombay. On the advice of an English friend, his father decided to send him to England to acquire business experience. Jinnah, however, had made up his mind to become a barrister. In keeping with the custom of the time, his parents arranged for an early marriage for him before he left for England.
In London he joined Lincoln's Inn, one of the legal societies that prepared students for the bar. In 1895, at the age of 19, he was called to the bar. While in London Jinnah suffered two severe bereavements--the deaths of his wife and his mother. Nevertheless, he completed his formal studies and also made a study of the British political system, frequently visiting the House of Commons. He was greatly influenced by the liberalism of William E. Gladstone, who had become prime minister for the fourth time in 1892, the year of Jinnah's arrival in London. Jinnah also took a keen interest in the affairs of India and in Indian students. When the Parsi leader Dada bhai Naoroji, a leading Indian nationalist, ran for the English Parliament, Jinnah and other Indian students worked day and night for him. Their efforts were crowned with success, and Naoroji became the first Indian to sit in the House of Commons.
When Jinnah returned to Karachi in 1896, he found that his father's business had suffered losses and that he now had to depend on himself. He decided to start his legal practice in Bombay, but it took him years of work to establish himself as a lawyer.
It was nearly 10 years later that he turned toward active politics. A man without hobbies, his interest became divided between law and politics. Nor was he a religious zealot: he was a Muslim in a broad sense and had little to do with sects. His interest in women was also limited to Ruttenbai, the daughter of Sir Dinshaw Petit, a Bombay Parsi millionaire--whom he married over tremendous opposition from her parents and others. The marriage proved an unhappy one. It was his sister Fatima who gave him solace and company.
Entry into politics
Jinnah first entered politics by participating in the 1906 Calcutta session of the Indian National Congress, the party that called for dominion status and later for independence for India. Four years later he was elected to the Imperial Legislative Council--the beginning of a long and distinguished parliamentary career. In Bombay he came to know, among other important Congress personalities, Gopal Krishna Gokhale, the eminent Maratha leader. Greatly influenced by these nationalist politicians, Jinnah aspired during the early part of his political life to become "a Muslim Gokhale." Admiration for British political institutions and an eagerness to raise the status of India in the international community and to develop a sense of Indian nationhood among the peoples of India were the chief elements of his politics. At that time, he still looked upon Muslim interests in the context of Indian nationalism.
But, by the beginning of the 20th century, the conviction had been growing among the Muslims that their interests demanded the preservation of their separate identity rather than amalgamation in the Indian nation that would for all practical purposes be Hindu. Largely to safeguard Muslim interests, the All-India Muslim League was founded in 1906. But Jinnah remained aloof from it. Only in 1913, when authoritatively assured that the league was as devoted as the Congress to the political emancipation of India, did Jinnah join the league. When the Indian Home Rule League was formed, he became its chief organizer in Bombay and was elected president of the Bombay branch.
"Ambassador of Hindu-Muslim unity." Jinnah's endeavors to bring about the political union of Hindus and Muslims earned him the title of "the best ambassador of Hindu-Muslim unity," an epithet coined by Gokhale.
It was largely through his efforts that the Congress and the Muslim League began to hold their annual sessions jointly, to facilitate mutual consultation and participation. In 1915 the two organizations held their meetings in Bombay and in 1916 in Lucknow, where the Lucknow Pact was concluded. Under the terms of the pact, the two organizations put their seal to a scheme of constitutional reform that became their joint demand vis-à-vis the British government. There was a good deal of give and take, but the Muslims obtained one important concession in the shape of separate electorates, already conceded to them by the government in 1909 but hitherto resisted by the Congress Meanwhile, a new force in Indian politics had appeared in the person of Mohan Das K. Gandhi. Both the Home Rule League and the Indian National Congress had come under his sway. Opposed to Gandhi's Non-co-operation Movement and his essentially Hindu approach to politics, Jinnah left both the League and the Congress in 1920. For a few years he kept himself aloof from the main political movements. He continued to be a firm believer in Hindu-Muslim unity and constitutional methods for the achievement of political ends. After his withdrawal from the Congress, he used the Muslim League platform for the propagation of his views. But during the 1920s the Muslim League, and with it Jinnah, had been overshadowed by the Congress and the religiously oriented Muslim Khilafat committee.
When the failure of the Non-co-operation Movement and the emergence of Hindu revivalist movements led to antagonism and riots between the Hindus and Muslims, the league gradually began to come into its own. Jinnah's problem during the following years was to convert the league into an enlightened political body prepared to co-operate with other organizations working for the good of India. In addition, he had to convince the Congress, as a prerequisite for political progress, of the necessity of settling the Hindu-Muslim conflict.
To bring about such a rapprochement was Jinnah's chief purpose during the late 1920s and early 1930s. He worked toward this end within the legislative assembly, at the Round Table Conferences in London (1930-32), and through his 14 points, which included proposals for a federal form of government, greater rights for minorities, one-third representation for Muslims in the central legislature, separation of the predominantly Muslim Sindh region from the rest of the Bombay province, and the introduction of reforms in the north-west Frontier Province. But he failed. His failure to bring about even minor amendments in the Nehru Committee proposals (1928) over the question of separate electorates and reservation of seats for Muslims in the legislatures frustrated him. He found himself in a peculiar position at this time; many Muslims thought that he was too nationalistic in his policy and that Muslim interests were not safe in his hands, while the Indian National Congress would not even meet the moderate Muslim demands halfway. Indeed, the Muslim League was a house divided against itself. The Punjab Muslim League repudiated Jinnah's leadership and organized itself separately. In disgust, Jinnah decided to settle in England. From 1930 to 1935 he remained in London, devoting himself to practice before the Privy Council. But when constitutional changes were in the offing, he was persuaded to return home to head a reconstituted Muslim League.
Soon preparations started for the elections under the Government of India Act of 1935. Jinnah was still thinking in terms of co-operation between the Muslim League and the Hindu Congress and with coalition governments in the provinces. But the elections of 1937 proved to be a turning point in the relations between the two organizations The Congress obtained an absolute majority in six provinces, and the league did not do particularly well. The Congress decided not to include the league in the formation of provincial governments, and exclusive all-Congress governments were.
Jinnah had originally been dubious about the practicability of Pakistan, an idea that Sir Muhammad Iqbal had propounded to the Muslim League conference of 1930; but before long he became convinced that a Muslim homeland on the Indian subcontinent was the only way of safeguarding Muslim interests and the Muslim way of life. It was not religious persecution that he feared so much as the future exclusion of Muslims from all prospects of advancement within India as soon as power became vested in the close-knit structure of Hindu social organization. To guard against this danger he carried on a nation-wide campaign to warn his coreligionists of the perils of their position, and he converted the Muslim League into a powerful instrument for unifying the Muslims into a nation.
The Creator of Pakistan
At this point, Jinnah emerged as the leader of a renascent Muslim nation. Events began to move fast. On March 22-23, 1940, in Lahore, the league adopted a resolution to form a separate Muslim state, Pakistan. The Pakistan idea was first ridiculed and then tenaciously opposed by the Congress. But it captured the imagination of the Muslims. Pitted against Jinnah were men of the stature of Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru. And the British government seemed to be intent on maintaining the political unity of the Indian subcontinent. But Jinnah led his movement with such skill and tenacity that ultimately both the Congress and the British government had no option but to agree to the partitioning of India. Pakistan thus emerged as an independent state in 14th August, 1947.
Jinnah became the first head of the new state i.e. Pakistan. He took oath as the first governor general on August 15, 1947. Faced with the serious problems of a young nation, he tackled Pakistan's problems with authority.
He was not regarded as merely the governor-general; he was revered as the father of the nation. He worked hard until overpowered by age and disease in Karachi. He died on 11th September 1948 at Karachi.
FIRST LEADER OF A NEWLY BORN STATE
In recognition of his singular contribution, Quaid-e-Azam Mohammed Ali Jinnah was nominated by the Muslim League as the Governor-General of Pakistan, while the Congress appointed Mountbatten as India's first Governor-General. Pakistan, it has been truly said, was born in virtual chaos. Indeed, few nations in the world have started on their career with less resourcesand in more treacherous circumstances. The new nation did not inherit a central government, a capital, an administrative core,or an organized defense force. Its social and administrative resources were poor;there was little equipment and still less statistics. The Punjab holocaust had left vast areas in a shambles with communications disrupted. This, alongwith the en masse migration of the Hindu and Sikh business and managerial classes, left the economy almost shattered.
The treasury was empty, India having denied Pakistan the major share of its cash balances.On top of all this, the still unorganized nation was called upon to feed some eight million refugees who had fled the insecurities and barbarities of the north Indian plains that long, hot summer. If all this was symptomatic of Pakistan's administrative and economic weakness, the Indian annexation, through military action in November 1947, of Junagadh (which had originally acceded to Pakistan) and the Kashmir war over the State's accession (October 1947-December 1948) exposed her military weakness. In the circumstances, therefore, it was nothing short of a miracle that Pakistan survived at all. That it survived and forged ahead was mainly due to one man-Mohammed Ali Jinnah. The nation desperately needed in the person of a charismatic leader at that critical juncture in the nation's history, and he fulfilled that need profoundly. After all, he was more than a mere Governor-General: he was the Quaid-e-Azam who had brought the State into being.
In the ultimate analysis, his very presence at the helm of affairs was responsible for enabling the newly born nation to overcome the terrible crisis on the morrow of its cataclysmic birth. He mustered up the immense prestige and the unquestioning loyalty he commanded among the people to energize them, to raise their morale, land directed the profound feelings of patriotism that the freedom had generated, along constructive channels. Though tired and in poor health, Jinnah yet carried the heaviest part of the burden in that first crucial year. He laid down the policies of the new state, called attention to the immediate problems confronting the nation and told the members of the Constituent Assembly, the civil servants and the Armed Forces what to do and what the nation expected of them. He saw to it that law and order was maintained at all costs, despite the provocation that the large-scale riots in north India had provided. He moved from Karachi to Lahore for a while and supervised the immediate refugee problem in the Punjab. In a time of fierce excitement, he remained sober, cool and steady. He advised his excited audience in Lahore to concentrate on helping the refugees,to avoid retaliation, exercise restraint and protect the minorities. He assured the minorities of a fair deal, assuaged their inured sentiments, and gave them hope and comfort. He toured the various provinces, attended to their particular problems and instilled in the people a sense of belonging. He reversed the British policy in the North-West Frontier and ordered the withdrawal of the troops from the tribal territory of Waziristan, thereby making the Pathans feel themselves an integral part of Pakistan's body-politics. He created a new Ministry of States and Frontier Regions, and assumed responsibility for ushering in a new era in Balochistan. He settled the controversial question of the states of Karachi, secured the accession of States, especially of Kalat which seemed problematical and carried on negotiations with Lord Mountbatten for the settlement of the Kashmir Issue.
MESSAGE OF JINNAH
It was, therefore, with a sense of supreme satisfaction at the fulfillment of his mission that Jinnah told the nation in his last message on 14 August, 1948: "The foundations of your State have been laid and it is now for you to build and build as quickly and as well as you can". In accomplishing the task he had taken upon himself on the morrow of Pakistan's birth, Jinnah had worked himself to death, but he had, to quote Richard Simons, "contributed more than any other man to Pakistan's survival". He died on 11 September, 1948. How true was Lord Pethick Lawrence, the former Secretary of State for India, when he said, "Gandhi died by the hands of an assassin; Jinnah died by his devotion to Pakistan".
The Agha Khan considered him "the greatest man he ever met", Beverley Nichols, the author of `Verdict on India', called him "the most important man in Asia", and Dr. Kailashnath Katju, the West Bengal Governor in 1948, thought of him as "an outstanding figure of this century not only in India, but in the whole world". While Abdul Rahman Azzam Pasha, Secretary General of the Arab League, called him "one of the greatest leaders in the Muslim world", the Grand Mufti of Palestine considered his death as a "great loss" to the entire world of Islam. It was, however, given to Surat Chandra Bose, leader of the Forward Bloc wing of the Indian National Congress, to sum up succinctly his personal and political achievements. "Mr. Jinnah",he said on his death in 1948, "was great as a lawyer, once great as a Congressman, great as a leader of Muslims, great as a world politician and diplomat, and greatest of all as a man of action, By Mr. Jinnah's passing away, the world has lost one of the greatest statesmen and Pakistan its life-giver, philosopher and guide". Such was Quaid-e-Azam Mohammed Ali Jinnah, the man and his mission, such the range of his accomplishments and achievements.
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Mohammad Ali Jinnah
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Quaid-i-Azam, Founding Father of Pakistan
(December 25, 1876 - September 11, 1948)
FAMILY
Father: Jinnah Poonja. One of eight children. Married Emibai in 1892 (she died 1893). Married Ratanbai 'Ruttie' Petit, daughter of Sir Dinshaw Petit, a wealthy Bombay Parsee, in 1918. Ruttie died in 1929. Daughter: Dina Wadia (married to Neville Wadia, a Christian).
EDUCATION
Sindh Madrasstul Islam, Karachi
Gokal Das Tej Pal School, Bombay
Christian Missionary Society High School, Karachi, 1891
Bar-at-Law, Lincoln's Inn, London, 1895
POSITIONS HELD
Legal practice, Bombay, 1897
Imperial Legislative Council, 1910-1919
Elected member of All-India Muslim League, 1915
Participates in Round Table Conference(s), 1930
(Settles in London, 1931-34)
President, League's Lucknow Session, 1937
President, League's Lahore Session; 'Lahore Resolution' adopted, 1940
Pakistan's first Governor-General, 1947
Earlier Life
Quaid-e-Azam, Muhammad Ali Jinnah was born on 25th December 1876 at Vazeer Mansion Karachi, was the first of seven children of Jinnah bhai, a prosperous merchant. After being taught at home, Jinnah was sent to the Sindh Madrasah High School in 1887. Later he attended the Mission High School, where, at the age of 16, he passed the matriculation examination of the University of Bombay. On the advice of an English friend, his father decided to send him to England to acquire business experience. Jinnah, however, had made up his mind to become a barrister. In keeping with the custom of the time, his parents arranged for an early marriage for him before he left for England.
Quaid-e-Azam, Muhammad Ali Jinnah was born on 25th December 1876 at Vazeer Mansion Karachi, was the first of seven children of Jinnah bhai, a prosperous merchant. After being taught at home, Jinnah was sent to the Sindh Madrasah High School in 1887. Later he attended the Mission High School, where, at the age of 16, he passed the matriculation examination of the University of Bombay. On the advice of an English friend, his father decided to send him to England to acquire business experience. Jinnah, however, had made up his mind to become a barrister. In keeping with the custom of the time, his parents arranged for an early marriage for him before he left for England.
In London he joined Lincoln's Inn, one of the legal societies that prepared students for the bar. In 1895, at the age of 19, he was called to the bar. While in London Jinnah suffered two severe bereavements--the deaths of his wife and his mother. Nevertheless, he completed his formal studies and also made a study of the British political system, frequently visiting the House of Commons. He was greatly influenced by the liberalism of William E. Gladstone, who had become prime minister for the fourth time in 1892, the year of Jinnah's arrival in London. Jinnah also took a keen interest in the affairs of India and in Indian students. When the Parsi leader Dada bhai Naoroji, a leading Indian nationalist, ran for the English Parliament, Jinnah and other Indian students worked day and night for him. Their efforts were crowned with success, and Naoroji became the first Indian to sit in the House of Commons.
When Jinnah returned to Karachi in 1896, he found that his father's business had suffered losses and that he now had to depend on himself. He decided to start his legal practice in Bombay, but it took him years of work to establish himself as a lawyer.
It was nearly 10 years later that he turned toward active politics. A man without hobbies, his interest became divided between law and politics. Nor was he a religious zealot: he was a Muslim in a broad sense and had little to do with sects. His interest in women was also limited to Ruttenbai, the daughter of Sir Dinshaw Petit, a Bombay Parsi millionaire--whom he married over tremendous opposition from her parents and others. The marriage proved an unhappy one. It was his sister Fatima who gave him solace and company.
Entry into politics
Jinnah first entered politics by participating in the 1906 Calcutta session of the Indian National Congress, the party that called for dominion status and later for independence for India. Four years later he was elected to the Imperial Legislative Council--the beginning of a long and distinguished parliamentary career. In Bombay he came to know, among other important Congress personalities, Gopal Krishna Gokhale, the eminent Maratha leader. Greatly influenced by these nationalist politicians, Jinnah aspired during the early part of his political life to become "a Muslim Gokhale." Admiration for British political institutions and an eagerness to raise the status of India in the international community and to develop a sense of Indian nationhood among the peoples of India were the chief elements of his politics. At that time, he still looked upon Muslim interests in the context of Indian nationalism.
But, by the beginning of the 20th century, the conviction had been growing among the Muslims that their interests demanded the preservation of their separate identity rather than amalgamation in the Indian nation that would for all practical purposes be Hindu. Largely to safeguard Muslim interests, the All-India Muslim League was founded in 1906. But Jinnah remained aloof from it. Only in 1913, when authoritatively assured that the league was as devoted as the Congress to the political emancipation of India, did Jinnah join the league. When the Indian Home Rule League was formed, he became its chief organizer in Bombay and was elected president of the Bombay branch.
"Ambassador of Hindu-Muslim unity." Jinnah's endeavors to bring about the political union of Hindus and Muslims earned him the title of "the best ambassador of Hindu-Muslim unity," an epithet coined by Gokhale.
It was largely through his efforts that the Congress and the Muslim League began to hold their annual sessions jointly, to facilitate mutual consultation and participation. In 1915 the two organizations held their meetings in Bombay and in 1916 in Lucknow, where the Lucknow Pact was concluded. Under the terms of the pact, the two organizations put their seal to a scheme of constitutional reform that became their joint demand vis-à-vis the British government. There was a good deal of give and take, but the Muslims obtained one important concession in the shape of separate electorates, already conceded to them by the government in 1909 but hitherto resisted by the Congress Meanwhile, a new force in Indian politics had appeared in the person of Mohan Das K. Gandhi. Both the Home Rule League and the Indian National Congress had come under his sway. Opposed to Gandhi's Non-co-operation Movement and his essentially Hindu approach to politics, Jinnah left both the League and the Congress in 1920. For a few years he kept himself aloof from the main political movements. He continued to be a firm believer in Hindu-Muslim unity and constitutional methods for the achievement of political ends. After his withdrawal from the Congress, he used the Muslim League platform for the propagation of his views. But during the 1920s the Muslim League, and with it Jinnah, had been overshadowed by the Congress and the religiously oriented Muslim Khilafat committee.
When the failure of the Non-co-operation Movement and the emergence of Hindu revivalist movements led to antagonism and riots between the Hindus and Muslims, the league gradually began to come into its own. Jinnah's problem during the following years was to convert the league into an enlightened political body prepared to co-operate with other organizations working for the good of India. In addition, he had to convince the Congress, as a prerequisite for political progress, of the necessity of settling the Hindu-Muslim conflict.
To bring about such a rapprochement was Jinnah's chief purpose during the late 1920s and early 1930s. He worked toward this end within the legislative assembly, at the Round Table Conferences in London (1930-32), and through his 14 points, which included proposals for a federal form of government, greater rights for minorities, one-third representation for Muslims in the central legislature, separation of the predominantly Muslim Sindh region from the rest of the Bombay province, and the introduction of reforms in the north-west Frontier Province. But he failed. His failure to bring about even minor amendments in the Nehru Committee proposals (1928) over the question of separate electorates and reservation of seats for Muslims in the legislatures frustrated him. He found himself in a peculiar position at this time; many Muslims thought that he was too nationalistic in his policy and that Muslim interests were not safe in his hands, while the Indian National Congress would not even meet the moderate Muslim demands halfway. Indeed, the Muslim League was a house divided against itself. The Punjab Muslim League repudiated Jinnah's leadership and organized itself separately. In disgust, Jinnah decided to settle in England. From 1930 to 1935 he remained in London, devoting himself to practice before the Privy Council. But when constitutional changes were in the offing, he was persuaded to return home to head a reconstituted Muslim League.
Soon preparations started for the elections under the Government of India Act of 1935. Jinnah was still thinking in terms of co-operation between the Muslim League and the Hindu Congress and with coalition governments in the provinces. But the elections of 1937 proved to be a turning point in the relations between the two organizations The Congress obtained an absolute majority in six provinces, and the league did not do particularly well. The Congress decided not to include the league in the formation of provincial governments, and exclusive all-Congress governments were.
Jinnah had originally been dubious about the practicability of Pakistan, an idea that Sir Muhammad Iqbal had propounded to the Muslim League conference of 1930; but before long he became convinced that a Muslim homeland on the Indian subcontinent was the only way of safeguarding Muslim interests and the Muslim way of life. It was not religious persecution that he feared so much as the future exclusion of Muslims from all prospects of advancement within India as soon as power became vested in the close-knit structure of Hindu social organization. To guard against this danger he carried on a nation-wide campaign to warn his coreligionists of the perils of their position, and he converted the Muslim League into a powerful instrument for unifying the Muslims into a nation.
The Creator of Pakistan
At this point, Jinnah emerged as the leader of a renascent Muslim nation. Events began to move fast. On March 22-23, 1940, in Lahore, the league adopted a resolution to form a separate Muslim state, Pakistan. The Pakistan idea was first ridiculed and then tenaciously opposed by the Congress. But it captured the imagination of the Muslims. Pitted against Jinnah were men of the stature of Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru. And the British government seemed to be intent on maintaining the political unity of the Indian subcontinent. But Jinnah led his movement with such skill and tenacity that ultimately both the Congress and the British government had no option but to agree to the partitioning of India. Pakistan thus emerged as an independent state in 14th August, 1947.
Jinnah became the first head of the new state i.e. Pakistan. He took oath as the first governor general on August 15, 1947. Faced with the serious problems of a young nation, he tackled Pakistan's problems with authority.
He was not regarded as merely the governor-general; he was revered as the father of the nation. He worked hard until overpowered by age and disease in Karachi. He died on 11th September 1948 at Karachi.
FIRST LEADER OF A NEWLY BORN STATE
In recognition of his singular contribution, Quaid-e-Azam Mohammed Ali Jinnah was nominated by the Muslim League as the Governor-General of Pakistan, while the Congress appointed Mountbatten as India's first Governor-General. Pakistan, it has been truly said, was born in virtual chaos. Indeed, few nations in the world have started on their career with less resourcesand in more treacherous circumstances. The new nation did not inherit a central government, a capital, an administrative core,or an organized defense force. Its social and administrative resources were poor;there was little equipment and still less statistics. The Punjab holocaust had left vast areas in a shambles with communications disrupted. This, alongwith the en masse migration of the Hindu and Sikh business and managerial classes, left the economy almost shattered.
The treasury was empty, India having denied Pakistan the major share of its cash balances.On top of all this, the still unorganized nation was called upon to feed some eight million refugees who had fled the insecurities and barbarities of the north Indian plains that long, hot summer. If all this was symptomatic of Pakistan's administrative and economic weakness, the Indian annexation, through military action in November 1947, of Junagadh (which had originally acceded to Pakistan) and the Kashmir war over the State's accession (October 1947-December 1948) exposed her military weakness. In the circumstances, therefore, it was nothing short of a miracle that Pakistan survived at all. That it survived and forged ahead was mainly due to one man-Mohammed Ali Jinnah. The nation desperately needed in the person of a charismatic leader at that critical juncture in the nation's history, and he fulfilled that need profoundly. After all, he was more than a mere Governor-General: he was the Quaid-e-Azam who had brought the State into being.
In the ultimate analysis, his very presence at the helm of affairs was responsible for enabling the newly born nation to overcome the terrible crisis on the morrow of its cataclysmic birth. He mustered up the immense prestige and the unquestioning loyalty he commanded among the people to energize them, to raise their morale, land directed the profound feelings of patriotism that the freedom had generated, along constructive channels. Though tired and in poor health, Jinnah yet carried the heaviest part of the burden in that first crucial year. He laid down the policies of the new state, called attention to the immediate problems confronting the nation and told the members of the Constituent Assembly, the civil servants and the Armed Forces what to do and what the nation expected of them. He saw to it that law and order was maintained at all costs, despite the provocation that the large-scale riots in north India had provided. He moved from Karachi to Lahore for a while and supervised the immediate refugee problem in the Punjab. In a time of fierce excitement, he remained sober, cool and steady. He advised his excited audience in Lahore to concentrate on helping the refugees,to avoid retaliation, exercise restraint and protect the minorities. He assured the minorities of a fair deal, assuaged their inured sentiments, and gave them hope and comfort. He toured the various provinces, attended to their particular problems and instilled in the people a sense of belonging. He reversed the British policy in the North-West Frontier and ordered the withdrawal of the troops from the tribal territory of Waziristan, thereby making the Pathans feel themselves an integral part of Pakistan's body-politics. He created a new Ministry of States and Frontier Regions, and assumed responsibility for ushering in a new era in Balochistan. He settled the controversial question of the states of Karachi, secured the accession of States, especially of Kalat which seemed problematical and carried on negotiations with Lord Mountbatten for the settlement of the Kashmir Issue.
MESSAGE OF JINNAH
It was, therefore, with a sense of supreme satisfaction at the fulfillment of his mission that Jinnah told the nation in his last message on 14 August, 1948: "The foundations of your State have been laid and it is now for you to build and build as quickly and as well as you can". In accomplishing the task he had taken upon himself on the morrow of Pakistan's birth, Jinnah had worked himself to death, but he had, to quote Richard Simons, "contributed more than any other man to Pakistan's survival". He died on 11 September, 1948. How true was Lord Pethick Lawrence, the former Secretary of State for India, when he said, "Gandhi died by the hands of an assassin; Jinnah died by his devotion to Pakistan".
The Agha Khan considered him "the greatest man he ever met", Beverley Nichols, the author of `Verdict on India', called him "the most important man in Asia", and Dr. Kailashnath Katju, the West Bengal Governor in 1948, thought of him as "an outstanding figure of this century not only in India, but in the whole world". While Abdul Rahman Azzam Pasha, Secretary General of the Arab League, called him "one of the greatest leaders in the Muslim world", the Grand Mufti of Palestine considered his death as a "great loss" to the entire world of Islam. It was, however, given to Surat Chandra Bose, leader of the Forward Bloc wing of the Indian National Congress, to sum up succinctly his personal and political achievements. "Mr. Jinnah",he said on his death in 1948, "was great as a lawyer, once great as a Congressman, great as a leader of Muslims, great as a world politician and diplomat, and greatest of all as a man of action, By Mr. Jinnah's passing away, the world has lost one of the greatest statesmen and Pakistan its life-giver, philosopher and guide". Such was Quaid-e-Azam Mohammed Ali Jinnah, the man and his mission, such the range of his accomplishments and achievements.
How To Prepare For Prelims
The civil services examination is basically a test to choose suitable administrators. It tests the candidate right from the stage when one starts the preparation. One common misconception about the prelims is that it is a test of facts and figures. This is not so. A candidate should have the right frame of mind and the will power to succeed in the exam. A proper action plan is needed for the preparation itself since he /she will be tested for some essential qualities like power of retention, clarity of concepts, ability to identify the correct alternatives with efficiency and accuracy. All this requires a quick decision making power. Since the preliminary exam in particular is a test of endurance the candidate needs to prepare himself on the physical as well as mental level. The main constraint is the time one gets to answer questions. On an average one gets around 40 seconds for each general Studies question and around 50 seconds for each optional question. Added to this time constraint is the fact that the exam is conducted in the month of May which is usually the hottest month all over the country. Most of the centres for the exam do not have proper facilities which adds to the stress. One sure way of dealing with this stress is to count numbers or to take a few deep breaths. Meditation and Yoga also help in dealing with stress to a great extent.
Now we come to the actual preparation for the prelims exam. Since it is a multiple choice question paper, it needs a different preparation and a proper strategy. The first thing a candidate needs to bear in mind is that the examination is designed to evaluate certain qualities like a sharp memory and basic retention power. There are ways to increase one's memory like preparing charts. One gets confused when faced with mind boggling facts and figures. Important facts and figures can be simplified and represented on charts and they can arranged in the form of tables or graphs. Another thing to remember is to make short and brief notes on each topic so that the entire syllabus can be revised a day before the exam. It is better to use diagrams and link words which make it easier to understand difficult concepts. One more technique to help in retaining information is the use of abbreviations. Since the syllabus involves exhaustive information abbreviations help you to remember it better. It is a good method to remember dates, facts and figures in a picture format and to break up complex names and places into smaller and simpler words. The last and the most important technique is doing regular revision. This helps in retaining the maximum information. A separate time slot should be given to doing not only regular but multiple revisions like daily, weekly, monthly etc.
Many candidates make a mistake of overloading themselves with lots of information and end up remembering nothing. One should be able to differentiate between relevant and irrelevant information. Since the preliminary exam is an elimination round the candidate should also learn to focus only on the information needed and filter out the rest. It helps to discuss with friends and teachers but the most reliable way is to past years question papers for the optional subject whereas for the general studies paper, one should keep abreast with current events and information related to them.
An important thing to remember is that for this exam it is just enough to remember information but to understand the concepts well instead of memorizing facts and figures. The questions asked in the General Studies paper are of 10+2 level whereas for the optional subject it is graduation level. Therefore emphasis has to be on conceptual clarity. Any concept has to be understood with its origin, merits and de-merits, then it needs to be analysed with other relevant topics and lastly it has to be correlated with the events that have taken place during the year.
The preliminary exam requires candidates who have the acumen and the ability to choose the right option of many given options. This needs a proper method of elimination. It is a good idea to go through previous years and model question papers and solve as many as possible. Taking a mock test of a certain number of G.S. questions and optional questions would be a good practice and help to pick out the most appropriate option.
Each prelims paper is for two hours but a lot of time is wasted in signing attendance sheets etc, therefore there is a lot of need for effective Time Management not only for the exam but in the preparation as well. It is not enough to know the right answer but it has to be marked correctly on the answer sheet. Speed and Accuracy are important, so solving model question papers on a regular basis would be a great help.
A good presence of mind is needed to eliminate the least appropriate options and arrive at the right one. Tick out the least correct answer first and go on to the next option. Even when faced with a question for which you do not have a ready answer, with basic common sense and a good presence of mind, it is possible to make your guess a smart and a correct one.
Throughout the preparation for the prelims exam, it is important to remember that any topic or concept should not be studied in isolation. It is better to understand and establish a correlation between related concepts from other subjects and current events and happenings.
Even with all this preparation, it is necessary to have a positive attitude and a great amount of will power to succeed to achieve your goal,that of getting through the civil services examination with flying colors!
Now we come to the actual preparation for the prelims exam. Since it is a multiple choice question paper, it needs a different preparation and a proper strategy. The first thing a candidate needs to bear in mind is that the examination is designed to evaluate certain qualities like a sharp memory and basic retention power. There are ways to increase one's memory like preparing charts. One gets confused when faced with mind boggling facts and figures. Important facts and figures can be simplified and represented on charts and they can arranged in the form of tables or graphs. Another thing to remember is to make short and brief notes on each topic so that the entire syllabus can be revised a day before the exam. It is better to use diagrams and link words which make it easier to understand difficult concepts. One more technique to help in retaining information is the use of abbreviations. Since the syllabus involves exhaustive information abbreviations help you to remember it better. It is a good method to remember dates, facts and figures in a picture format and to break up complex names and places into smaller and simpler words. The last and the most important technique is doing regular revision. This helps in retaining the maximum information. A separate time slot should be given to doing not only regular but multiple revisions like daily, weekly, monthly etc.
Many candidates make a mistake of overloading themselves with lots of information and end up remembering nothing. One should be able to differentiate between relevant and irrelevant information. Since the preliminary exam is an elimination round the candidate should also learn to focus only on the information needed and filter out the rest. It helps to discuss with friends and teachers but the most reliable way is to past years question papers for the optional subject whereas for the general studies paper, one should keep abreast with current events and information related to them.
An important thing to remember is that for this exam it is just enough to remember information but to understand the concepts well instead of memorizing facts and figures. The questions asked in the General Studies paper are of 10+2 level whereas for the optional subject it is graduation level. Therefore emphasis has to be on conceptual clarity. Any concept has to be understood with its origin, merits and de-merits, then it needs to be analysed with other relevant topics and lastly it has to be correlated with the events that have taken place during the year.
The preliminary exam requires candidates who have the acumen and the ability to choose the right option of many given options. This needs a proper method of elimination. It is a good idea to go through previous years and model question papers and solve as many as possible. Taking a mock test of a certain number of G.S. questions and optional questions would be a good practice and help to pick out the most appropriate option.
Each prelims paper is for two hours but a lot of time is wasted in signing attendance sheets etc, therefore there is a lot of need for effective Time Management not only for the exam but in the preparation as well. It is not enough to know the right answer but it has to be marked correctly on the answer sheet. Speed and Accuracy are important, so solving model question papers on a regular basis would be a great help.
A good presence of mind is needed to eliminate the least appropriate options and arrive at the right one. Tick out the least correct answer first and go on to the next option. Even when faced with a question for which you do not have a ready answer, with basic common sense and a good presence of mind, it is possible to make your guess a smart and a correct one.
Throughout the preparation for the prelims exam, it is important to remember that any topic or concept should not be studied in isolation. It is better to understand and establish a correlation between related concepts from other subjects and current events and happenings.
Even with all this preparation, it is necessary to have a positive attitude and a great amount of will power to succeed to achieve your goal,that of getting through the civil services examination with flying colors!
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