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Gender portrayal in literature
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Initially, because she underestimates her own courage, which has never been properly tested, Dana doubts that she has sufficient fortitude to survive in the nineteenth century. As Kindred unfolds, it becomes clear that she does, indeed, have abundant courage and stamina. Butler effectively utilizes a common technique in fiction whereby an individual becomes heroic by transcending his or her base humanity by drawing on hidden inner resources. Dana is tested in her second trip to the past when she is nearly raped by a white man who is part of a patrol—the forerunner to the Ku Klux Klan. Never before having experienced physical abuse, initially Dana is reluctant to act. She fails to disable him by gouging his eyes, thereby losing her only chance
He believes that he has a place in this disaster, and he accuses himself for causing a person's death and he doesn’t stop thinking about it as he says here “half a year has passed since I returned from Nepal, and on any given day during those six months, no more than two or three hours has gone by in which Everest has monopolized my thoughts” (296) .The experience has in many ways, affected him very deeply, which influenced him to write this book. The character development in "Kindred" by Octavia E. Butler is not as strong as "Into Thin Air", in this novel Dana, a young black woman who is a writer living at the end of the Twenty-first century, she is sucked into the south during the 19th century. Dana must go's through struggles so that she is able to establish her own identity and have
Within the novel, “In the Time of the Butterflies,” Mate, Minerva, Dede, and Patria had to create decisions to overcome obstacles that would transform each of their lives. Throughout the book, all of the sisters changed somehow. They all grew up, matured, and saw things how they never viewed before. While looking at these things at a different perception, they learned to make decisions that were sometimes brave and sometimes cowardly. Each of the Mirabal sisters had to choose whether or not to be fearful and give up, or be courageous and stand her ground, or make sacrifices to show her strength throughout the novel.
The Killer Angel The Battle of Gettysburg fought in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania from July 1 to July 3, 1863, is considered the bloodiest battle in American history. It’s also considered the most important battle that took place during the American Civil war, because after the Battle of Gettysburg the south never really recovers, resulting in them to never won another major battle the rest of the war. Well behind every great battle there is a great leader, whether it’s one that brings utter chaos or one that sincerely wants a change. In the novel The Killer Angels by Michael Shaara, a historical fictional story of the battle of Gettysburg
Kindred by Octavia Butler has been a respected novel since its publication in 1979. In Kindred Butler provides readers with suspense until the last page. It provides readers with two definitions of a home. Home is a place where you feel safe where you have a family to come to when you are having a horrible day at work or at school. Home is a place where you share good and bad times with family and friends. A home is place of stability in your life. A home isn’t a place that you are scared to go to. A home isn’t a place filled with only negative thoughts and hopes. A home is not a place that you endured physical and mental abuse. Dana had a home of stability and a home filled with physical and mental abuse. Dana and her husband Kevin just moved into a new home that they just bought in Los Angeles, California. This is the best birthday gift she could ever receive because before she was living in a congested apartment. This is also the first day she starts to travel back into time to visit her plantation home in the early 1800s in Maryland. The distinctions between Los Angeles and Maryland present the differences in what makes a home.
Alice and Kevin have an interesting start to their relationship. Initially, it appears that Dana is not interested in Kevin, as she tries to reject communication and his advances through buying her lunch. This distance on Dana’s part allows readers to contemplate whether Dana is put off by Kevin’s obtrusive attitude because he is a man, because he is white, or a combination of the two. As the novel advances, Butler continues to focus Kevin’s faults in his marriage because of his identity as a white man.
In the featured article, “Beside Oneself: On the Limits of Sexual Autonomy,” the author, Judith Butler, writes about her views on what it means to be considered human in society. Butler describes to us the importance of connecting with others helps us obtain the faculties to feel, and become intimate through our will to become vulnerable. Butler contends that with the power of vulnerability, the rolls pertaining to humanity, grief, and violence, are what allows us to be acknowledged as worthy.
see if he will die, he would prefer it if he was shot by Stanhope,
Have American’s lost the ability to show empathy? Although a novice reader may struggle to see how a book written over 50 years ago bears any connection to our modern world, Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird could not be any more relevant. The citizens of fictional Maycomb County acknowledge their flawed legal system and unfair social castes as unfortunate truths of life, of which all you can do is accept it as fact. The sole exception is lawyer Atticus Finch, who is in charge of defending the accused in court. After seeing all too many men receive a sentence simply because of the color of their skin, Atticus embarks on a quest to teach Jem and Scout, his children, that prejudice can be fought. By understanding and exposing ourselves to different people, we can free ourselves from prejudice.
Throughout In the Time of the Butterflies Minerva not only displays an immense amount of courage but inspires courage in others. Ranging from her own acts of courage, such as slapping the president and pinching herself to prevent being scared, to moments where she inspires courage in others, such as being one of the leaders of the revolution , Minerva bold display of courage remains throughout the entirety of the story
battle her conscious mainly because she doesn’t know if she is morally bound to let Rufus live or die. Dana begins to slowly understand her life relies on Rufus’s actions after she has been put into several situations in which she has had to save his life. She starts to ponder and make the conclusion that if Rufus survives, she will also survive and make it back to California. Dana continues to go along with this mindset for a while, but eventually she starts to second-guess it, and therefore fights her conscious.
The poem, Courage, by Anne Sexton deeply correlates with Harper Lee’s book, To Kill A Mockingbird. In the first stanza, the author writes: “The first spanking when your heart went on a journey alll alone. When they called you crybaby or poor or fatty or crazy and made you into an alien, you drank their acid and concealed it.” This quote depicts the situation of Boo Radley, who was judged and sterotyped by the whole town after getting in trouble and being put on house arrestm which weighs heavily on him emotionally. Sexton states in stanza two, “If you faced the death of bombs and bullets you did not do it with a banner, you did it with only a hat to cover your heart.” Atticus is related to this quote because he has to raise his kids by himself since his wife died, which takes an extreme amount of courage. Scout is connected to a part later in the same stanza.
“No one is born hating another person because their skin color, or his background, or his religion. People must learn to hate…” In this quote, Mr. Nelson Mandela is saying that no one was born to hate someone just because of their skin color, background, or their religious beliefs. Children are like sponges, they model everything they see and incorporate it into their own life; they have to be taught by another person to hate these thing. Otherwise, it can be detrimental to a child’s development. In Kindred, the author Octavia Butler exhibits these beliefs throughout the novel. Kindred is a remarkable science fiction novel where the main character Edana Franklin, who is black, often times travels back into time to a Pre-Civil War Maryland plantation
Dana draws her agency from this bond of trust, as Rufus allows her to do things that other slaves would not be permitted to, such as the letter writing, providing Dana more autonomy and control over her conditions and over the lives of the entire household. This trust is destroyed completely when Rufus decides to sell a slave who had been regularly talking to Dana. When Dana confronts Rufus about this sale, he hits her, dealing a blow both physically to Dana’s body, and psychologically to her relationship of trust with him. Rufus then orders Dana to “‘get in the house and stay there’,” curtailing her freedom of movement and establishing dominance in their relationship (239). The use of the short, direct, forceful diction preventing Dana from arguing, literally taking her speech away shows how Rufus is showing dominance over her. With the removal of Dana’s agency and perceived influence in one moment, she only has one action available to show Rufus her continued agency:
In 1997, millions of people gathered into movie theaters to watch one of the most tragic movies of all time: Titanic. Undoubtedly knowing what they will get, the people were willing to go and watch over three hours of a painful story that would end up with over a thousand people dying. Hardly no-one, however, would have been willing to witness the sinking ship in the North Atlantic Ocean – not even safely on the rescue boats. This inconsistency between the experiences looked for in real life and on the screen is commonly referred to as the paradox of tragedy (Smuts, 39). What drives us to seek negative feelings on the screen?
People are inherently strong. With grit, will and courage, they file through life in a never ending cycle of living and dying. In “Courage” by Anne Sexton, a human’s life is put into perspective as it ages. Diction is used to pull on the reader’s heart strings. Similes are used to compare mundane objects to the intricacy of living. Ultimately, the poem tells the reader that dying, as well as living, takes courage.