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Contribution of religion in contemporary society
Contribution of religion in contemporary society
Impact of religion on today's life
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Montaha Rizeq
Word Count: 812
Thesis: Michael Cleary burned his wife Bridget Cleary to death due to the simple fact that he was under extensive stress of having a wife who did not fit cultural norms and to add, a religious notion of fairies that was not accepted by most of society.
Bridget Cleary was no doubt an unusual woman among the women of rural Ireland. Bridget was the type that dressed differently which was seen as very unholy behavior. Status and reputation in society is very prevalent in the late 1800s, and unfortunately, Cleary was on the opposite side of positive status. Michael Cleary committed this act of burning his wife to death under the circumstance that he was under constant stress. Not only was the idea or belief in fairies very odd for most to grasp, the notion of burning ones wife has to be the result of previous encounters or quarrels with religious scrutiny, due to its dominance in society. Religion plays a very dominant role in Irish history. Although the main consensus when thinking about religion in Irish history is that of Protestantism versus Catholicism, it is vital to keep in mind that these separate
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The way to rid oneself of fairies, is only done through burning the individual to death. Bridget Cleary is not the first person to be murdered in the name of a changeling, in fact a recording of the death of a child under the illusion that it was possessed by a fairy occurred during this time as well. “Ann Roche, an old woman of very advanced age, was indicted for the murder of Michael Leahy, a young child, by drowning him in the Flesk. This case... turned out to be a homicide committed under the delusion of the grossest superstition. The child, though four years old, could neither, stand, walk nor speak – it was thought to be fairy struck” (Bourke,
Death: 15 October 1977, Sydney. She was bludgeoned to death with a large piece of timber in her Paddington studio, her fingers found broken, and her body battered. The murder was never solved, but there has been some speculation that she was a victim of the serial killer, John Wayne Glover.
Lana Lanetta was born and grew up in the quaint town of Ogre, Latvia. Coming from a blue-collar family, she marches to the beat of her own drum and has achieved the American dream and beyond. Don’t let her certification in gardening fool you, she is anything but a girly girl and She had no time to try to conform to anyone’s standards, early on she began to shape her own future, working her way up from a street janitor to becoming an adept artist. In her youth she was incredibly active, contributing to her amazing figure that she still maintains today, getting great aerobic workouts from soccer and gymnastics. Extracurricular activities aside, sewing has always been an enduring passion that has stayed near and dear to her heart. Despite her
Mary Bryant was in the group of the first convicts (and the only female convict) to ever escape from the Australian shores. Mary escaped from a penal colony which often is a remote place to escape from and is a place for prisoners to be separated. The fact that Bryant escaped from Australia suggests that she was a very courageous person, this was a trait most convicts seemed to loose once they were sentenced to transportation. This made her unique using the convicts.
Included within the anthology The Penguin Book of Irish Fiction,1[1] are the works of great Irish authors written from around three hundred years ago, until as recently as the last decade. Since one might expect to find in an anthology such as this only expressions and interpretations of Irish or European places, events or peoples, some included material could be quite surprising in its contrasting content. One such inclusion comes from the novel Black Robe,2[2] by Irish-born author Brian Moore. Leaving Ireland as a young man afforded Moore a chance to see a great deal of the world and in reflection afforded him a great diversity of setting and theme in his writings. And while his Black Robe may express little of Ireland itself, it expresses much of Moore in his exploration into evolving concepts of morality, faith, righteousness and the ever-changing human heart.
Flannery O’Connor was born on March 25, 1925 in Georgia. She was the only child to her parents, Edward and Regina O’Connor. Two years away from Flannery’s adulthood , her father passed away due to a rare disease, lupus. At the time of her father’s death O’Connor was in Milledgeville, Ga. It can be inferred that she was able to cope up with her father’s death very soon as she didn’t speak of his death much and also resumed to be an active part of her high school’s extra-curricular activities such as painting, English club and also band. A year after her father’s demise she graduated from high school and enrolled herself in Georgia State College to do major in English and sociology. It was during this period that she adapted the name ‘Flannery’. After getting bachelor degree from college she relocated to Iowa City where she attended University of Iowa and also applied for a job as teacher within the campus of her university. In the year of 1947, she eventually obtained her Masters degree in the field of Fine Arts. In spite of the fact that she obtained her Masters degree in 1947, her first work, “The Geranium” was published a year before that and it was just the dawn of her fame. It was merely an origination of the classics that followed later on. Lupus was genetically acquired by O’Connor from her father. Things were going well until end of 1950 in which she was struck by a severe lupus attack. O’Connor was determined about her writing and thus , even such a huge attack didn’t divert her attention off her passion of writing. There was no looking back for her as she kept on publishing her works. In point of fact , it was only after her attack, she produc...
She was a tavern where she allowed the patrons to drink ale and play shuffleboard any day of the week and was reluctant to pay her bills. At her trial, a field hand made the claim that he saw an image of Bishop stealing eggs from a neighbor before transforming into a cat and running away. Two of the other accused witches, probably equally as hysterical, testified that Bridget Bishop was one of them and that she had attended a witches’ meeting with them. She was accused of causing various bits of bad luck throughout the community including the death of various livestock after arguments with the livestock’s owners. She was even accused of teleporting away from her prison cell and visiting several of the juries’ homes while they slept. The last whimsical piece of evidence brought forth was a patch of skin on her body that resembled a growth of evil that the crowds claimed was the mark of the Devil upon her. Her case, while being more towards the beginning of the trials, further presses the ideals of random mass hysteria possibly caused by an infection of ergot. She was hung on the basis of false testimony, mostly relating to opinions and false facts that a person of right mindset most likely would not
The first accusers of those on trial for witchcraft were group of teenage girls. The first girl, Betty Parris, began to have painful contortions, fever, and what were most likely hallucinations. These symptoms may have been the result of ergot poisoning, the result of eating bread made with moldy rye, but at the time, no one knew that was possible. The family’s slave, Tituba, had come from Barbados and was knowledgeable in stories of voodoo and black magic. She shared these stories with Betty and her friends. After seeing the attention Betty was getting because of her behavior, her friends began to exhibit the same behavior. Because the local doctor knew of no medical explanation, he suggested the cause was supernatural. Tituba, with her knowledge of magic became the first person accused. She thought she could save her life by confessing and naming other women as her conspirators. Tituba’s accusations were unreliable because she was trying to do anything she could to save her life. Others were also accused by the girls. These women were generally unpopular or strange in some way, so it was easy for them to be targets of the girls accusations. For these girls, who were at the center of the town’s attention and perhaps had no real understanding of the seriousness of their accusati...
Cashdan, Sheldon. The Witch Must Die: The Hidden Meaning of Fairy Tales. New York: Basic Books, 1999.
McAuliffe, Mary. ‘Gender, history and witchcraft in early modern Ireland: a re-reading of the Florence Newton trial’ IN: Mary Ann Gialenella Valiulis ed. Gender and power in Irish history. Dublin, 2009. Pp 39-58.
Agatha fainted, and Safie, unable to attend her friend, rushed out of the cottage” (122). As regular humans, the De Lacey’s cannot accept the creature’s The Creature has scared the De Laceys when seeking for help, and they decide to leave their cottage. He reflects on this news in his hovel “in a state of utter and stupid despair He, mad with their decision, burns down their cottage. He knows that they left because of his appearance and most likely them knowing he has been watching them for time.
Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots She became queen when she was only 6 days old. She was sent to France at age six to get married. She is the cousin of Queen Elizabeth I. Who is this elegant, yet struggling woman?
Faye Carey is a 16 year old girl that has managed to re-home more than 60 dogs. News Hub says that ¨She wants to have a career in animal control.¨ ¨She has made a Facebook page called Animal Re-Home Waikato.¨ Says News Hub. Her Facebook page has nearly 300 likes and a loyal following of new parents. (Of animals). News Hub also said that ¨With Faye being there, when an animal comes into the shelter or animal control, the animal goes right into a new loving home. ¨
Mary Warren started out in a manner reminiscent to that of Peter Pettigrew from the famous “Harry Potter,” series; she was a timid follower of a popular group, and admired the bravery and kindness she lacked. After Mary and her so-called ‘friends’ are found dancing naked around a fire in their conservative town, they know they will likely be accused of a crime that could punish them with death; witchcraft. Mary’s friend Abigail, tells the girls to stick to their story that they were dancing in the woods and threatens to kill the girls if they reveal the truth; that Abigail was practicing witchcraft and drank blood in order to take the life of the wife of a man she had had an affair with; Elizabeth Proctor, the boss and friend of Mary Warren.
The book Mary Reilly is the sequel to the famous The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson, is a stark, ingeniously woven, engaging novel. That tells the disturbing tale of the dual personality of Dr. Jekyll, a physician. A generous and philanthropic man, his is preoccupied with the problems of good and evil and with the possibility of separating them into two distinct personalities. He develops a drug that transforms him into the demonic Mr. Hyde, in whose person he exhausts all the latent evil in his nature. He also creates an antidote that will restore him into his respectable existence as Dr. Jekyll. Gradually, however, the unmitigated evil of his darker self predominates, until finally he performs an atrocious murder. His saner self determines to curtail those alternations of personality, but he discovers that he is losing control over his transformations, that he slips with increasing frequency into the world of evil. Finally, unable to procure one of the ingredients for the mixture of redemption, and on the verge of being discovered, he commits suicide.
Witchcraft persecution peaked in intensity between 1560 and 1630 however the large scale witch hysteria began in the 14th century, at the end of the Middle Ages and were most intense during the Renaissance and continued until the 18th century, an era often referred to as the Enlightenment or Age of Reason. Representation of witches, nay, representation in general is a political issue. Without the power ot define the female voice and participate in decisions that affect women -similar to other marginalised groups in society- will be subject to the definitions and decisions of those in power. In this context, the power base lay with men. It can be said that the oppression of women may not have been deliberate, it is merely a common sense approach to the natural order of things: women have babies, women are weak, women are dispensable. However the natural order of things, the social constructs reflect the enduring success of patriarchal ideology. As such, ideology is a powerful source of inequality as well as a rationalisation of it. This essay will examine the nature of witchcraft and why it was threatening to Christianity.