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The balance between liberty and power
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For centuries, subordinate individuals have been burdened by the abuse of power and loss of freedom. Abusive authority figures limited the power of subordinate individuals by enslaving them and taking their freedom away. Subordinate individuals were abused by the authority and lost their freedom.The Berlin conference was a meeting between European nations to create rules on how to peacefully divide Africa among them for colonization (Chegg). During this time, the Europeans forced Africans to work long hours and in return received little pay. This shows that the Europeans misused their power and didn’t give the Africans any freedom (Oxford Reference). In addition to, Totalitarianism is a system of government that is centralized and dictatorial and requires complete subservience to the state. Stalin ruled in a stern way and if anyone got in his way of ruling he …show more content…
It is easy to see in the story, Things Fall Apart, that men are used as the authority figure while women and children have no say. Achebe states, “was a very strong man and rarely felt fatigue. But his wives and children were not as strong, and so they suffered. But they dared not complain openly,”(Achebe 13). This shows that Okonkwo had so much power over his family that they didn’t even dare to speak. Okonkwo scared his family into falling under his control Not only did Things Fall Apart have similar individuals that felt enslaved but Caged Bird did also. In the story, Caged Bird, a bird sings a song about a dream of theirs, saying how it wishes to be free. Angelou states, “The caged bird sings with a fearful trill of things unknown but longed for still and his tune is heard on the distant hill for the caged bird sings of freedom.” (Angelou, Pearson)This shows that the owner made the bird feel as if he were a slave, tied and clipped, not letting the bird get a feel for being
After Stalin and Napoleon rid of competition (Trotsky and Snowball), they manipulate the media and fundamentally re-write history to portray Trotsky and Snowball as the common enemy to provoke a negative union among the public. This leads to the Great Purge from 1936 to 1938. Innocent people we forced to publically confess of crimes they did not commit. Stalin had the NKVD execute anyone that posed as a threat or spoke out against his leadership, thus eliminating free speech. In 1928, Stalin wanted to adjust the agricultural system by producing crops on a larger farm rather than small individual farms. In theory, this would produce more crops but in fact, did the complete opposite and caused a widespread famine from 1931 to 1932. When this
In the book, Things Fall Apart, there are a couple of folktales that are extended throughout the book. These folktales contributes to and comments on the central narrative of the story. Animals and folktales were important to the Igbo people. They used animals in fables and stories to demonstrate their beliefs and rituals. With all rituals, animals and symbols play a crucial role in Igbo society. The fable of the Tortoise and the Birds has uncanny similarities with Okonkwo and his rise and fall. The tortoise’s strength and cunningness eventually gets to be too much, which ends up crushing him. And Okonkwo’s inability to adapt to change leads to his demise. Both the tortoise and Okonkwo’s seek to be strong in society and they both want to be known as important. That is why I believe that the fable, The Tortoise and the Birds, is the closest fable to the central narrative of the story.
The delicate balance of power unendingly tips between groups, leading to the favoring of one over the other. The magnitude of this power struggle varies from that of the political parties in government to the fight for authority between parents and their children. The faction in power most always resorts to a dictatorial means of maintaining that power: oppression. It is known, however, that the group not in power often manages to metamorphosize and win dominance over the once supreme rulers. The ability of the oppressed to overcome their oppressors lies in the fact that oppression strengthens those who are oppressed, and moves them to take action against their rulers. The strength derived from oppression, however, does not come from mutual support among those oppressed, but rather from an infatuation with the reattainment of power which has been taken from them.
In order to conclude the extent to which the Great Terror strengthened or weakened the USSR, the question is essentially whether totalitarianism strengthened or weakened the Soviet Union? Perhaps under the circumstances of the 1930s in the approach to war a dictatorship may have benefited the country in some way through strong leadership, the unifying effect of reintroducing Russian nationalism and increased party obedience. The effects of the purges on the political structure and community of the USSR can be described (as Peter Kenez asserts) as an overall change from a party led dictatorship to the dictatorship of a single individual; Stalin. Overall power was centred on Stalin, under whom an increasingly bureaucratic hierarchy of party officials worked. During the purges Stalin's personal power can be seen to increase at the cost of the party.
As shown in literature, corruption and the abuse of power is an ongoing discussion. When it comes down to the point where people are being used and abused physically and psychologically, it creates a hostile environment for both the subjects and the abuser. As represented in the two similar texts Lord Of the Flies and “I Only Came to use the Phone”, corrupted authority and abuse of power usually end up leading to the collapse of a society or a world of chaos and violence.
In the novel, Things Fall Apart, by Chinua Achebe, Okonkwo’s desire to become manly overshadows his good qualities, like the desire for manliness in US society and its effect on the men and their families. The main character, Okonkwo, epitomizes manliness on a daily basis and its negative effects are displayed using his behavior. The consequences of manly actions are shown increasingly as the story continues. At the start, the narrator reflects back on Okonkwo’s rise to power and the root of his decisions. The narrator explains that Unoka, Okonkwo’s father, is the root of Okonkwo’s inhumane personality. As a child, Okonkwo witnessed his father being incessantly ridiculed in public and concluded that his father was womanish and leads a terrible
Growing up a poor boy in a poor country is hard. When you dad’s the village fool, it makes it even worse; your sense of worth is low, and you must fight every day to rectify the mistakes of your father and prove your own worth basically reestablishing your name as one of truth and goodness. You must work twice as hard for half the reward as Okonkwo does to establish himself as a different person than his father. Making the choice to be a different man; he made good business decisions, worked tirelessly and raised his children with a strict set of rules he never had. Motivated purely by the ceaseless though of being better than his father, or at least being perceived as better. Being so focused and narrow-minded you can lose sight of the importance of your family and their wellbeing, leading to everything falling apart.
the real aim of the study was to find out the extent to which people
... freedom and labor was excruciating as the government controlled every step with income and land and freedom of speech and the labor was good just because of how industrialized Russia became with Stalin’s plans but as many people that were able to get more jobs during Stalin’s ruling were not that educated and any kind of mistakes would rule in harsh punishment. Stalin’s reign had a lot of good things but it had a huge cost of the Russian people.
The Soviet Union under Joseph Stalin, exemplifies the strictest form communist totalitarianism. Coming to the role of dictator in 1929, the years under Stalin was riddled with a massive degradation on personal freedoms, suppression of dissent, forced labor camps, secret prisons, and the elimination of potential enemies across the region. Upon his death in 1953, Joseph Stalin left a legacy of terror on the Soviet State, and his leadership became a new normal for the population. Throughout his rule, there was little awareness by the population, of the magnitude of oppression that the state had endured. Though it was following his death, that communism, within the Soviet Union began its path towards ultimate
Men dominate over the women in the society and they view women as week and in a lower rank. Weakness drove Okonkwo to strive for strengths and dislike any form of weakness, even in other people. For this reason, Okonkwo never expected that he would find himself making a living in his motherland when he knew he belonged in his fatherland. By providing for his needs during his exile, Okonkwo’s family in his motherland showed him that help could come from the most unlikely place and could change his life forever.
Early in Things Fall Apart the author Chinua Achebe, uses the classic father son conflict to show how much communication matters in not only their society but also in their family. The main character Okonkwo and his son Nwoye have a very poor relationship with each other. Okonkwo is a man of work and is very driven in his work and Nwoye is like
The Great Fall of Authority As Alice journeys through Wonderland and Looking-glass Land, she encounters a variety of characters whose nonsensical assertions call into question her tacit ontological assumptions. The strange logic these characters introduce to Alice forces her to acknowledge and reevaluate learned perceptions that she had previously accepted as objective truths. Because many of Carroll’s absurdities bear an exaggerated but recognizable resemblance to observable phenomena in society, the paradoxically meaningful nonsense causes Alice (and the reader) to experience epiphanies about the nature of the phenomena Carroll satirizes. In this way, Carroll cleverly, and ironically, uses nonsense to raise consciousness.
Perestroika allotted freedom of speech in order to form a more perfect union with the opinion of the people, however this backfired with people criticizing Gorbachev instead. Glasnost had the same problem it opened the government up to the public and the people had criticised the nation even more. With so much revolt against the reforms it was wonders why the people were not participating correctly and that conclusion can be drawn from the previous leaders and reforms that were placed on the Soviet Union. Stalin created a union with communistic ideals and strict rules, so when the rules are lifted and freedom is provided the people got out of hand. Lenin created economic problems and provoked Stalin into adopting the communists ideals. The Soviet Union was set for failure after losing the Cold War against the United State. Not only did it relieve the world of bipolar rulers to unipolar rulers, the U.S., but it also create an inescapable wormhole for a stagnant economy by having an unruly amount of unemployment and lost
In the novel, Things Fall Apart, by Chinua Achebe, Okonkwo’s tragic downfall is illustrated alongside the downfall of his clan. Okonkwo was, the protagonist, was borne with a father that was a pathetic, selfish man. His whole life was controlled by the fear of becoming what his father once was, and this showed who he truly was. Throughout the story, Okonkwo, who was once a great man, undergoes a dramatic change. He falls from the top of the clan to the bottom, having to deal with many conflicts along the way, the toughest being his own fears. Okonkwo’s collapse ends with his suicide. Okonkwo’s fear of becoming his father was paralleled by his fear of appearing weak to the members of his clan. Okonkwo’s downfall occurs