Perhaps no other event in modern history has left us so perplexed and dumbfounded than the atrocities committed by Nazi Germany, an entire population was simply robbed of their existence. In “Our Secret,” Susan Griffin tries to explain what could possibly lead an individual to execute such inhumane acts to a large group of people. She delves into Heinrich Himmler’s life and investigates all the events leading up to him joining the Nazi party. In“Panopticism,” Michel Foucault argues that modern society has been shaped by disciplinary mechanisms deriving from the plague as well as Jeremy Bentham’s Panopticon, a structure with a tower in the middle meant for surveillance. Susan Griffin tries to explain what happened in Germany through Himmler’s childhood while Foucault better explains these events by describing how society as a whole operates. Griffin spends a good portion of “Our Secret” writing about Himmler’s childhood. It is through his family’s history and child-rearing practices that she hopes to find answers. When Himmler is just ten years old he is told by his father that “his childhood is over now” (236). Himmler has to take himself seriously now and obey his father’s watchful eye. Everything Heinrich does from that point on is directly meant to influence his future and who he will become. This is a choice the society he is born into makes for him, he has no choice. Gebhard, Himmler’s father, is extremely overbearing and controlling of Himmler. Like many Germans of the time, he follows the advice of German child-rearing experts: “Crush the will. . .Establish dominance. Permit no disobedience. Suppress everything in the child” (237). German parents are taught that children “should be permeated by the impossibility from lock... ... middle of paper ... ...o fulfill his purpose in life made him an easy target and simple to influence. Heinrich found the structure and purpose society told him he needed by “following Hitler with an unwavering loyalty” (250). Griffin believes that each individual is shaped by forces beyond their control, beginning in their childhood, and it is these particular events that shape and mold people into the person they later become. Hitler’s Nazi Germany can be explained partly because of child-rearing practices common during that time. While Griffin is not wrong, the events leading up to the Holocaust can be traced way further back than an individual like Himmler’s childhood. The events and attitudes in Nazi Germany take on a high resemblance and seem to be a product of the disciplinary mechanisms established by the plague. Germany was just another part of the Panopticon Foucault describes.
Goldhagen's book however, has the merit of opening up a new perspective on ways of viewing the Holocaust, and it is the first to raise crucial questions about the extent to which eliminationist anti-Semitism was present among the German population as a whole. Using extensive testimonies from the perpetrators themselves, it offers a chilling insight into the mental and cognitive structures of hundreds of Germans directly involved in the killing operations. Anti-Semitism plays a primary factor in the argument from Goldhagen, as it is within his belief that anti-Semitism "more or less governed the ideational life of civil society" in pre-Nazi Germany . Goldhagen stated that a
In the poem pride, Dahlia Ravikovitch uses many poetic devices. She uses an analogy for the poem as a whole, and a few metaphors inside it, such as, “the rock has an open wound.” Ravikovitch also uses personification multiple times, for example: “Years pass over them as they wait.” and, “the seaweed whips around, the sea bursts forth and rolls back--” Ravikovitch also uses inclusive language such as when she says: “I’m telling you,” and “I told you.” She uses these phrases to make the reader feel apart of the poem, and to draw the reader in. She also uses repetition, for example, repetition of the word years.
In "Our Secret" by Susan Griffin, the essay uses fragments throughout the essay to symbolize all the topics and people that are involved. The fragments in the essay tie together insides and outsides, human nature, everything affected by past, secrets, cause and effect, and development with the content. These subjects and the fragments are also similar with her life stories and her interviewees that all go together. The author also uses her own memories mixed in with what she heard from the interviewees. Her recollection of her memory is not fully told, but with missing parts and added feelings. Her interviewee's words are told to her and brought to the paper with added information. She tells throughout the book about these recollections.
Revelation by Ruby Turpin There are three distinctive characteristics that Ruby Turpin showed in the essay "Revelation." Ruby was an extremely dominant woman who was judgmental, controlling, and blind to the true reality of life. She was definitely in need of a revelation in order to help her with a change in attitude. I suppose she was never introduced to the saying "the first shall be last and the last shall be first. " Claud and Ruby Turpin were a couple that had a little of everything.
Ever feel as though someone is watching you? You know that you are the only one in a room, but for some reason you get an eerie feeling that you are not alone? You might not see anyone, but the eyes of a stranger could be gazing down on you. In Foucault's "Panopticism," a new paradigm of discipline is introduced, surveillance. No one dares to break the law, or do anything erroneous for that matter, in fear that they are being watched. This idea of someone watching your every move compels you to obey. This is why the idea of Panopticism is such an efficient form of discipline. The Panopticon is the ideal example of Panopticism, which is a tool for surveillance that we are introduced to in “Panopticism.” Kurt Vonnegut's "Harrison Bergeron," has taken the idea of surveillance one step further. The government not only observes everyone, but has complete control over society. The citizens of the United States cannot even think for themselves without being interrupted by the government. They are prisoners in their own minds and bodies. The ideals of “Panopticism” have been implemented to the fullest on society in Vonnegut’s "Harrison Bergeron," through physical and mental handicaps.
Who is the birthday party a rite of passage for, the birthday boy or his mother?
BIOGRAPHY: According to the entry « Eudora Welty » found on Wikipedia, Eudora Alice Welty was an American author and photographer, well-known for working on the South American theme. She began higher education at the University of Wisconsin, then went to New York, where she studied at Columbia University until 1931. Unable to find a job on the East Coast because of unemployment due to the Great Depression, she went back to her her native city Jackson, Mississippi. She started to publish short stories in magazines from 1936 and rapidly acquired notoriety as a short story writer, managing to carefully describe the culture and the racial issues of the South. Each publication of her short stories collections was considered as a literary event. In 1956, her novel The Pounder Heart, adapted by Joseph A. Fields and Jerome Chodorov, achieved great success on Broadway. In 1975, her enchanting novel The Robber Bridegroom became a musical. In 1973, Eudora Welty received the Pulitzer Prize for her novel The Optimist’s Daughter. Three years earlier, she published a collection of photographs that she had taken herself in the years 1930 and 1940, One Time, one Place: Mississippi in the Depression: a work intending to depict the harsh living conditions in Mississippi during the Great Depression. In 1984, at the request of Harvard University Press, she put on paper a lecture that she gave the year before to the students: the work became a bestseller. She died of pneumonia in 2001.
The Nazi Party had numerous methods to influence the opinion of Germany. The Nazis saw the youth as the future of Germany as well as whom they must control the most. The Hitler Youth Organization was one of the most influential forces within the youth of Nazi Germany. In fact, by mid-1933, the Hitler Youth had successfully achieved its goal to either “Nazify” or disband all competing youth groups within the country (“Hitler Youth”). Within the group, German youth were taught the ideology of the Nazi Party. This included education of their views about the status and treatment of Jewish people. As stated in a source of material for the Youth Leaders, “People differ therefore in more than their physical characteristics… their inner relationships must therefore be studied. Then we will clearly recognize the vast difference between those of German blood and the Jews…We then understand human inequality.” (Bytwerk). Their avid belief in social Darwinism, r...
My Side of the Mountain is a remarkable novel written by Jean Craighead George (1991). It addresses issues such as nature, independence and adventure. In the book, Sam Gribley, a boy from New York, runs away from home to live in the woods. Throughout this essay, I am going to talk about the things and the character traits that a person such as Sam needs in order to accomplish his or her goals. In the book, Sam’s goals were to reach indepence and to survive using the resources in the woods. For example, when Miss Turner, a close friend of Sam, tried to change Sam’s mind about living in the woods, Sam said to her, “That’s just what I want. I am going to trap animals and eat nuts and bulbs and berries and make myself a house.” (George, 1991, p. 22). Another example is that Sam expressed that he wanted to dress a piece of clothes made by him using the hide of a deer (George, 1991, p. 60). At the end of the book, Sam accomplished his goals, he thought, “I was self-sufficient, I could travel the world over, never needing a penny, never asking anything of anyone.” (George, 1991, p. 173). From my point of view, all human beings have goals. The only difference is the nature of those goals. Goals can be represented in terms of money, love, health, etc. I also think that goals are a necessity for us. They impulse our lives and give it a sense of direction. It is very important knowing your objectives in life because you can focus all your energy on reaching those objectives. In this way, the path towards reaching your goals will be easier to travel as you will see the goal itself and not the pain you have to stand in order to reach it.
To this day it remains incomprehensible to justify a sensible account for the uprising of the Nazi Movement. It goes without saying that the unexpectedness of a mass genocide carried out for that long must have advanced through brilliant tactics implemented by a strategic leader, with a promising policy. Adolf Hitler, a soldier in the First World War himself represents the intolerant dictator of the Nazi movement, and gains his triumph by arousing Germany from its devastated state following the negative ramifications of the war. Germany, “foolishly gambled away” by communists and Jews according to Hitler in his chronicle Mein Kampf, praises the Nazi Party due to its pact to provide order, racial purity, education, economic stability, and further benefits for the state (Hitler, 2.6). Albert Speer, who worked closely under Hitler reveals in his memoir Inside the Third Reich that the Führer “was tempestuously hailed by his numerous followers,” highlighting the appreciation from the German population in response to his project of rejuvenating their state (Speer, 15). The effectiveness of Hitler’s propaganda clearly served its purpose in distracting the public from suspecting the genuine intentions behind his plan, supported by Albert Camus’ insight in The Plague that the “townsfolk were like everybody else, wrapped up in themselves; in other words, they were humanists: they disbelieved in pestilences”(Camus, 37). In this sense “humanists” represent those who perceive all people with virtue and pureness, but the anti-humanist expression in the metaphor shows the blind-sidedness of such German citizens in identifying cruel things in the world, or Hitler. When the corruption within Nazism does receive notice, Hitler at that point given h...
It is no surprise to very few that Adolph Hitler is one of the most infamous humans ever to have been born. To this day, the mention of his name can conjure up emotions deep within us. He is responsible for the deaths of millions of people either directly or indirectly. The fascinating aspect of his life is what was the true motivation behind his prejudice, cruelty, and heartlessness. The next logical speculation for most would be his upbringing or that he was physiologically unstable, more logically it was a combination of the two. However, before that conclusion can be made the history of his environment as well as how heredity could have influenced him.
The concept of panopticon in the penal system, which showed immediate success in reform and discipline, eventually leads to it being linked to every component of the modern society. Jeremy Bentham’s panopticon and Foucault concept of Panopticism is seen in many places today in our society. Wherever you look you will certainly find places like, schools, hospital, factories, asylums, and even universities, represent Panopticism because all of this places have some kind of surveillance s...
In 1933, Adolf Hitler made his first move of his plan to conquer all by being appointed chancellor of Germany. Hitler left a mark on Germany, and other nearby nations, and therefore the nation’s history had been forever and vastly changed with one word that may be used to describe it at the time: dystopia. A dystopian society is the imbalance in which the government, more specifically, in Nazi Germany, and their leader, Adolf Hitler, made decisions that instilled fear towards their citizens. In analyzing this specific dystopian nation, one must evaluate the changes that Hitler enforced that were very influencing and controlling, the effects and impacts towards Germany and other allied countries’ people, and the genres of literature that may
How long does a friendship last? As humans we are always evolving, our likes and dislikes are always changing. Friendships are created through those like and dislikes that people have in common. As we grow older we make friends and we lose friends based on what we experience in life. There are many factors that determine the status of a friendship. In the short story, “The Stolen Party” by Lilliana Heker,the housekeeper's daughter, Rosaura, and the daughter of a wealthy family, Luciana, had a friendly relationship. At Luciana’s birthday party Rosaura believed she was better than the other guests because Luciana’s mother would ask her to do tasks at the party, but when it was time for Rosaura to leave all she wanted was a goody bag like the
Rosenbaum, Ron. Explaining Hitler: The Search for the Origins of His Evil. New York: Random House, 1998. Print.