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Youth issues in society
Youth In Society
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Society today thrives from the knowledge a person can bring into the community in order to flourish and benefit it as a whole. This concept has always been true, even during the early 19th century which we see in Tom Stoppard’s play, Arcadia. Although knowledge plays an important role, especially in adolescents, does this mean they are mature because they are so knowledgeable? A student that holds so much knowledge of a wide variety of subjects is not always mature enough to handle real life situations such as discussions or acts of sexual relations.
In Arcadia, the reader learns a great deal about a young girl by the name Thomasina, and her incredible educational insight. Throughout the play, she is constantly being tutored by a man named
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Septimus and we see that she is always capable of performing math problems and theories that even Septimus does not know how to answer. In scene 7, we even see that her mathematical work could have possibly made her famous if she was still alive, Valentine: “Interesting. Publishable.” Hannah: “Well done!” Valentine: “Not me. It’s Thomasina’s. I just pushed her equations through the computer a few million times further than she managed to do with her pencil.” Hannah: “What does it mean?” Valentine: “Not what you’d like it to.
/ Well, for one thing, she’d be famous.”
(2.7.p.76)
Although Thomasina is incredibly intelligent, this knowledge does not hinder her level of maturity. This shows us that Thomasina’s age in relation to her maturity and knowledge do not have a direct correlation. Maturity usually develops with age and experience, whereas knowledge can be innate or can be built with hard work and dedication. The reader sees her immaturity on page 77, directly in relation to the naked body and sexual preferences.
Augustus: “I am a master of it at Eton, Mr. Hodge, but we only draw naked women.”
Thomasina: “Disgusting!” (2.7.p.77)
Throughout the play, Thomasina makes many immature statements to any conversation associated with sex, but why it is that her great intelligence does not match her level of maturity? There may be many factors that play into the role as to why Thomasina’s maturity does not correlate with her level of intelligence, but what the reader can comprehend and recognize is that these two qualities do not balance each other or work directly with each other. Thomasina’s contradictory nature proves that knowledge plays a larger role in society than maturity, because Thomasina is successful throughout the
play.
Theodora’s story starts with a distinctive start. Her father was a bear trainer that worked in the Hippodrome in Constantinople and she grew up in the entertainment spotlight (Craig/Graham/Kagan/Ozment /Turner, 355, 2009). She was a mime and when she was older, she became an actress (Koeller, 1996). So, she not only lived in a circus, she also became a child star. Who would not want her childhood? But, back in that day, an actress was not a highly looked upon career for a women, therefore the term ‘actress’ was interchanged with ‘prostitute’ (Koeller, 1996). So, it might not have been the best...
Stoppards presentation of Thomasina in Arcadia. Tom Stoppard uses Thomasina as his main character in the play. Her story is being told from the past and the whole plot of the play is leading up to her death. The play shows the journey of Thomasina growing up, to the eve of her seventeenth birthday where she would become a woman and have been married to someone that her mother thought was worthy. Stoppard uses the present scenes well to introduce additional information that Hannah, Valentine and Bernard have found out about Thomasina’s life, which has not yet happened in the past.
Knowledgeable, educated, and wise have become descriptive characteristics that have become seemingly interchangeable in today’s society. However, what does it mean to be educated, wise or knowledgeable? In the article “The Educated Student: Global Citizen or Global Consumer” by Benjamin Barber, he says “…young people were exposed more and more to tutors other than teachers in their classrooms or even those who were in their churches, their synagogues-and today their mosques as well.” (417). It is suggested that the places where these characteristics are obtained have changed with industrialization and capitalism. “The Student and the University (from the Closing of the American Mind)” by Allen Bloom directly postulates from the vantage point of a college while referring to an entering student “In looking at him we are forced to reflect on what he should learn if he is to be called educated.” (422). The main reason students continue their education falls under the assumption that will be considered educated at the completion of their studies. But, what does it mean to be educated? Deborah Tannen proposes in “The Roots of Debate in Education and the Hope of Dialogue” that students since the middle ages have gone to places of higher education to learn how to argue or, more formally, debate (538). Where does the ability to argue fall into education? With little support for the education system currently in place, Barber, Bloom, and Tannen discuss in their respective articles the existing problems, their origins, and what they entail.
In equation with the Elizabethan era, Shakespeare offers us a male dominated society in his renowned tragedy, Othello. Consequently, this definitely persuades a negative attitude and demeanor towards the women of the times. The female characters in the play: Desdemona, Emilia, and Bianca; play relevant roles in contributing to one’s understanding of this exhausted Elizabethan view. In contrast to the larger portion of the play, Emilia, spouse to the scandalous Iago, takes an opinionated stand for Desdemona in relation to her wholesome gone sour relationship with the Moor of Venice, Othello. I recognize Emilia’s “Betrayal lecture” as a justified outlook in accordance with today’s period and events surrounding Desdemona’s and Othello’s fatal misunderstanding.
In Arcadia, The Importance of Being Earnest, and Look Back in Anger, the women characters play distinct roles in the dramas. However, the type of roles, the type of characters portrayed, and the purpose the women’s roles have in developing the plot and themes vary in each play. As demonstrated by The Importance of Being Earnest and Look Back in Anger, the majority of women’s roles ultimately reflect that women in British society were viewed to be unequal to men in love and in relationships and generally the weaker sex, emotionally, physically and intellectually. However, I have found an exception to this standard in the play Arcadia, in which Thomasina Coverly plays the role of a young genius.
While any of these interpretations no doubt helps to inform fuller discussion of the play, I would like to focus the question of the cause of this tragedy in another area: the realm of gender. I will argue that the tragedy occurs as a result of the protagonists’ overwhelming adherence to their society’s stereotyped gender roles and that Iago further encourages and manipulates these gender roles to his own ends. In this essay, I use the word “gender” to describe those physical, biological, behavioral, verbal, textual, mythic, and power dynamic cues that signal to others in the society, specifically the society of this play, that one is perceived as belonging or not belonging to a specific category of masculine or feminine (Bornstein 26-30). I will also use Kate Bornstein’s definition of “gender roles”: the “positions and actions specific to a given gender as defined by a culture” (26). Iago is a gender trickster, subtly and subver...
This paper will look at the different conceptions highlighted by Bulman in his article through the use of different methods used by the actors in the play. Twelfth Night, by William Shakespeare captures the different conceptions of gender identity and different sexualities within the Elizabethan period.
Shakespeare’s Much Ado about Nothing is, on the surface, a typical romantic comedy with a love-plot that ends in reconciliation and marriage. This surface level conformity to the conventions of the genre, however, conceals a deeper difference that sets Much Ado apart. Unlike Shakespeare’s other romantic comedies, Much Ado about Nothing does not mask class divisions by incorporating them into an idealized community. Instead of concealing or obscuring the problem of social status, the play brings it up explicitly through a minor but important character, Margaret, Hero’s “waiting gentlewoman.” Shakespeare suggests that Margaret is an embodiment of the realistic nature of social class. Despite her ambition, she is unable to move up in hierarchy due to her identity as a maid. Her status, foiling Hero’s rich, protected upbringing, reveals that characters in the play, as well as global citizens, are ultimately oppressed by social relations and social norms despite any ambition to get out.
Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice exemplifies a principle that is as unfortunately true in our time as it was in his - he who has money also has love, sex, and above all, power. In this case, the use of 'he' is deliberate; 'she,' in the Elizabethan era, rarely had either financial independence or much control over the course of her life. Portia, the deceitful heroine of the play, is a major exception. To put it bluntly, Portia is enormously rich. This unique position allows her to meddle in the affairs of the unsuspecting and somewhat dim male characters, and eventually gives her unprecedented power of self-determination. However, the play is more than a tale of feminine wiles overcoming male dullness of wit. Portia's wealth and intelligence may fuel her successes in marriage and the courtroom, but in each case it is her ability to usurp traditionally masculine roles that guarantees her victory. As Portia exploits the codependence of wealth, masculinity, and public power in her society, she becomes the only woman in the play who consistently controls her own destiny.
Statement of intent: The role of women in William Shakespeare’s play Othello is portrayed through the behaviors and actions of Desdemona, Emilia, and Bianca. William Shakespeare integrates his Elizabethan society to create the patriarchal Venetian society in the play. Women in his society were seen as inferior to the men. The three women play a significant role in different social stratification. How are women submissive, possessions, bold, and degraded to sex objects and whores? How have they displayed unconventional acts and boldness?
In his literary work, Eça’s female characters are marked for life and are either weak or are prostitutes; in the case of Genoveva in “The Tragedy”, she is the latter (King and Sousa 200).
His lack of education has deprived him of good manners as well as good sense. The scene itself initially seemed inconsistent with the rest of the play. The prejudice the women tolerate is evidenced by their tendency to dress in men’s clothing in order to be heard or considered (Olson). As women, their voices are inhibited or disregarded; they are overshadowed and overlooked by society. Portia, for example, has little choice but to consent to being the prize in her “loving” late father’s lottery.
In "Ways of Seeing" John Berger analyzes nude portrayals of females in the European artistic tradition. The first example of this is the passage of text on pages forty-seven through forty-eight, that of Eve from the story of the Garden of Eden as told in Genesis.
In the plays female sexuality is not expressed variously through courtship, pregnancy, childbearing, and remarriage, as it is in the period. Instead it is narrowly defined and contained by the conventions of Petrarchan love and cuckoldry. The first idealizes women as a catalyst to male virtue, insisting on their absolute purity. The second fears and mistrusts them for their (usually fantasized) infidelity, an infidelity that requires their actual or temporary elimination from the world of men, which then re-forms [sic] itself around the certainty of men’s shared victimization (Neely 127).
Some critics of Shakespeare’s play, Measure for Measure, judge Isabella as "a narrow minded but passionate girl afflicted with an irrational terror of sex" (Barton, 546), "a young, immature woman" demonstrating "moral absurdity and cruelty" (Nicholls, 478), whose actions are scarcely defensible. A classmate of mine asked, "Why doesn't Isabella just sleep with Angelo? What's the big deal?" These statements reveal that these people have no understanding or sympathy for Isabella’s position: socially, morally or physically.