Relationships in Elizabeth Barrett Browning's poem If Thou Must Love Me, Let It Be For Naught
The relationships between men and women have always been a widely talked about subject. Each gender wonders what it would be like to be the other and experience things the way that the other would. Men and women most likely won't ever understand each other and sometimes won't be able to love the person that loves them. Elizabeth Barrett Browning's poem "If Thou Must Love Me, Let It Be For Naught" explains how women hurt men. Another poet, Maya Angelou, writes about how men hurt women. However, that doesn't mean that other couples can't get along. Gwendolyn Brooks wrote a poem, called "The Bean Eaters", about how men and women can live with each other for very long periods of time. The relations between men and women are often times very complex, but they can also be simple.
Some women discover that finding the right man is rather difficult. In Browning's poem, she writes of a young women who is talking about a man that loves her. She finds that she doesn't really love him and when trying to explain it to him says this, "If thou must love me, let it be for naught/ Except for love's sake only" (260, lines 1-2). The woman in the poem knows that this man loves her and she believes that he loves her only for "her smile- her look- her way of speaking gently" (260, lines3-4) and that isn't good enough for her. The women tells the man good-bye and she gives her final words, "Thou mayst love on, through love's eternity" (260, line 14). The woman tells him he will find some one new, some one who will love him back.
Even though physical pain can be hurtful, psychological pain is sometimes worse. In the poem "To a Husband" by Maya Angelou, a woman is being verbally abused by her husband. His "voice at times a fist" (254, line1), his words hurt her as would a punch in the stomach or a slap to the face. She does not understand why he is doing this to her. Men have their ways of talking to women to keep them submissive and under control. Men talk down to their wives and make them think that they are dumb and have no value except to tend to the children and the house.
The title of the poem “Love is Not All” asserts the impression that suggests the unimportant of love to its reader at first. However, the ending of the poem reveals the ironic truth that love is worthwhile. Millay’s intention is not to confuse readers by using a title that forcefully disrespects love. However, she projects the title of the poem to ascertain the grounds for her argument that love is important. The first six lines of the poem highlight the incompetence of love when compares with the basic supplies for life.
The Middle East has since time immemorial been on the global scope because of its explosive disposition. The Arab Israeli conflict has not been an exception as it has stood out to be one of the major endless conflicts not only in the region but also in the world. Its impact continues to be felt all over the world while a satisfying solution still remains intangible. A lot has also been said and written on the conflict, both factual and fallacious with some allegations being obviously evocative. All these allegations offer an array of disparate views on the conflict. This essay presents an overview of some of the major literature on the controversial conflict by offering precise and clear insights into the cause, nature, evolution and future of the Israel Arab conflict.
I found that in all of these reasons, Smith only says that they (the oppositional side) are discriminating against "fat" people, but she refrains from going deeper to present why they do it. Sadly, there are some people do discriminate against the “people of size.” Although just because something is done, like a policy revision or disqualification to a job, due to a person’s weight, one should look deeper into the reason why it is done. Do not always misinterpret this as discrimination, because it could possibly be done to benefit that person in the end. Maybe even ensure his or her safety in a time of crisis.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning follows ideal love by breaking the social conventions of the Victorian age, which is when she wrote the “Sonnets from the Portuguese”. The Victorian age produced a conservative society, where marriage was based on class, age and wealth and women were seen as objects of desire governed by social etiquette. These social conventions are shown to be holding her back, this is conveyed through the quote “Drew me back by the hair”. Social conventions symbolically are portrayed as preventing her from expressing her love emphasising the negative effect that society has on an individual. The result of her not being able to express her love is demonstrated in the allusion “I thought one of how Theocritus had sung of the sweet
Interest in the social aspects of obesity is nothing new. Jeffrey Sobal has written extensively about the social and psychological consequences of obesity , including the stigmatisation and discrimination of obese and even overweight individuals (Sobal 2004).
This country places great value on achieving the perfect body. Americans strive to achieve thinness, but is that really necessary? In his article written in 1986 entitled “Fat and Happy?,” Hillel Schwartz claims that people who are obese are considered failures in life by fellow Americans. More specifically, he contends that those individuals with a less than perfect physique suffer not only disrespect, but they are also marginalized as a group. Just putting people on a diet to solve a serious weight problem is simply not enough, as they are more than likely to fail. Schwartz wants to convey to his audience that people who are in shape are the ones who make obese people feel horrible about themselves. Schwartz was compelled to write this essay,
Abuse takes on various forms ranging from physical, mental, emotional, and neglect. Abuse is not limited to one particular group culture, but happens to people from all walks of life. Women are often the victims of abuse especially when dealing with spousal or intimate partner valance. Each year, increasingly more women have been reported to be victims of some form of spousal or intimate partner violence. Generally in a relationships abuse being to happen, the abuse begins to forms or a combination of the two. Physical violence or abuse is the first form in which actual violence takes place in the mental abuse. In this form of abuse actual violence does not occur, but the abuser is the demander or belittles the victim, causing the victim to feel worthless; other abusers combine the two forms. The emotional or mental abuse is by far the worst. According to Reed and Enright (2006) “Spousal psychological abuse represents a painful betrayal of trust leading to serious negative psychological outcomes for the abused partner,” (R. The main purpose of spousal or intimate partner abuse, contrary to popular belief, is to inflict emotional pain, not physical pain. There are several categories of spousal psychological abuse; criticizing ridiculing, jealous control, purposeful ignoring, threats of abandonment, threats of harm, and damage to personal property spousal abuse produces a more negative emotional affect when compare to physical abuse. The negative physiological affects produce depression, anxiety, low self-esteem, and post traumatic stress disorder.
Today, approximately 25 percent of children and teenagers are obese and the number is on the rise. Since the 1960’s childhood obesity has increased by 54 percent in children ages six to eleven. In children twelve to seventeen it has increased by 39 percent. (Silberstein, 1) Childhood obesity is so prevalent among these age groups that it has reached epidemic proportions.
“This might be the first generation where kids are dying at a younger age than their parents and it's related primarily to the obesity problem.” Judy Davis. Childhood obesity is not a new term by an means but in the last few years it has grown in popularity. Some call childhood obesity the next “national epidemic”, sounds pretty scary especially when it’s effecting the youngest of Americans. Obesity is among one of the easiest medical condition to recognize but is the most difficult to treat. Children who are overweight are 10x more likely to become overweight adults unless they change their eating habits and exercise. (“Childhood Obesity. Pg 1). 30% of adult obesity begins in childhood, it is also said obesity is the cause of 300,000 deaths a year and cost society an estimated $100 billion a year. Today, about one third of American’s children and teens are considered to be overweight or obese, it has nearly tripled in size since 1963 (“Childhood Obesity”. Pg 1). Obesity is causing numerous health problems that typically aren’t seen until adulthood. Childhood obesity can effect the physical, emotional, and social well-being of a child.
Marcus, Lauren, Ph. D., and Amanda Baron, M.S.W. "Childhood Obesity: A Growing Problem." Www.aboutourkids.org. NYU Child Study Center, May 2004. Web. 27 Oct. 2013.
Parents have always known about obesity and what the affects obesity has on people. Although parents have known about this preventable disease, they are just now becoming more aware about what is happening to their own children. Now they want to start pointing fingers as to why these young children are becoming obese; nobody wants to take the blame for putting these young lives at risk. “Greenbalt states in his article that obesity is becoming an epidemic that there is about 300,000 children each year that die because they are overweight....
Mental or psychological abuse has the most expansive list of methods. Mental abuse is harming a woman emotionally or psychologically and has an endless list of effects. This type of abuse may take form verbally by being humiliated, destructively criticized, removing self-confidence, yelling, threatening, accusing, or even remaining silent, overly authoritative, or disrespectful. A man may emotionally abuse his partner by destroying something important or sentimental to her or threaten to take away th...
Evelyn Cunningham once said, “Women are the only oppressed group in our society that lives in intimate association with their oppressors.” For thousands of years women have been oppressed, not in the bondage of slavery but in the bondage that comes from a lack of education and a dependence on men for their livelihood. Women have been subjected to scrutiny and ostracization, belittling and disparaging comments, and even at times they have been feared by men. Women themselves have even taken on the beliefs that they require a man in their life to be taken care of and have a satisfying life although some women and even some men have seen that the differences between the sexes is purely physical. This oppression, as well as the enlightenment of some, is well noted in many literary works. Literature has often been an arena for the examination of the “woman question,” as it was termed in the Victorian age. Four works that examine the role or view of women in society are John Stuart Mill’s The Subjection of Women, T.S. Eliot’s “Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,” Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own, and Carol Ann Duffy’s “Medusa.” Although each work examines a side of the woman question in its own way with a variety of views on the question, all of the works examine the fear that women incite in men, the idea that women are dependent on men, and the idea that women are separate from men in some way and each piece works to show that there is actually an interdependence between men and women that is often not expressed.
Pain can be within a person or the physical appearance of one. In the beginning, women will try and change whatever that bothers their significant other, like their appearance or actions. But will then realize the changes they made will not change the abusers harmful actions or disputes. With low self-esteem, women will start to not maintain themselves as they were before. Street and Arias say, “Seventy-two percent of one same of physically abused women reported that the psychological abuse that they had experienced had a more severe impact on them than the physical abuse that they had experienced”
In the poem "How do I Love Thee", Elizabeth Barret Browning expresses her everlasting nature of love and its power to overcome all, including death. In the introduction of the poem Line 1 starts off and captures the reader’s attention. It asks the simple question, "How do I Love Thee?" Throughout the rest of the poem repetition occurs. Repetition of how she would love thee is a constant reminder in her poem. However, the reader will quickly realize it is not the quantity of love, but its quality of love; this is what gives the poem its power. For example she says, “I love thee with the breath, smiles, tears, of all my life; and, if God choose, I shall but love thee better after death.” She is expressing how and what she would love with, and after death her love only grows stronger. Metaphors that the poet use spreads throughout the poem expressing the poets love for her significant other.