The Journey Through The Differences In Relationships in Cold Sassy Tree
Dating back to the early 1900’s and all the way through to the present, romantic relationships have been viewed differently. From strict unwritten dating regulations to not having regulations at all, recent generations have become more liberated in making their own decisions. The progressing times have made us become a more accepting society and have caused a decrease in the strong practice of religion and class. Even though differences such as religion and class in relationships were more than an issue they were not always a complete deterrence.
In the novel Cold Sassy Tree (1984), Olive Ann Burn's plot focuses heavily on religion and its role in society. Mary Willis Blakeslee, a Baptist, is tried for heresy by the deacons of the Baptist church for marrying Hoyt Tweedy, a Presbyterian. “The deacons voted to put it in the church records that ‘Mary Willis Blakeslee has swapped her religious birthright for a mess of matrimonial pottage’” (11). After her father Rucker Blakeslee confronted the deacons they agreed to remove the pottage element from the document (11). Although this confrontation with Grandpa intimidated the deacons it didn’t impede them from excommunicating Mary Willis from her “birth church.” As it ended up she decided to attend the church of her husband, Hoyt Tweedy. As Cold Sassy Tree illustrates, in Georgia in the early 1900’s religion played a major role in marriage decision along with membership to the church. This sort of attention that Mary Willis acquired was very hard for her to tolerate emotionally. It was important to her to appear respectable to the community. Regardless of this embarrassment caused by the Baptist...
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... the level of education problems such as outside gossiping, financial differences, differences in interests, and the decrease in one’s pride can occur.
Religion and class are still issues in relationships but members of our generation tend to question them less, yet these issues have never been a complete deterrence to a happy and healthy relationship. As time periods change so do the values and morals of the upcoming generations. As illustrated the younger the generation, the more liberated they become to make their own decisions and mistakes. It is the mistakes that we learn from that teach us life’s greatest lesson. After all, if we never made a mistake how would we know if we are leading a correct life?
Works Cited
Burns, Olive Ann. Cold Sassy Tree. New York: Dell Publishing, 1984.
Accarino, Susan. Personal interview. 20 March 2001.
Will Tweedy- He is the narrator of the novel, Cold Sassy Tree. He is a fourteen year old boy that lives in the town of Cold Sassy, in Georgia. Will comes from a well established family, but he has a free spirit, and feels he is obliged to disobey the rules that help direct his life. After his grandmother’s death and his grandfather’s second marriage, Will starts to struggle with the topics of love and death. His perspective on life changed.
Zinn, Howard. A People's History of the United States: 1492-present. New York: HarperCollins, 2003. Print.
A People’s History begins with a recounting of first encounters of the Native people with Christopher Columbus. Zinn’s opinions of the reality of these first encounters are substantially different from the stories we hear as children. We find Columbus traditionally depicted as a peaceful e...
Most people believe that one man-made natural disaster would teach us to be better, but we have learned that history repeats itself. The Exxon Valdez oil spill (in 1989) and the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, or BP oil spill, (in 2010) were both devastating oil spills that shocked the nation. The Exxon Valdez oil spill occurred due to a tanker grounding. The BP oil spill was caused by an explosion on the Deepwater Horizon oil platform. These two oil spills were both disasters and had greater effects in certain categories. In this essay, I will be comparing the cause of both oil spills, the damage/effect of both oil spills, and the cleanup of each oil spill.
2. Zinn's thesis for pages 1 to 11 is to tell the arrival of Columbus as it really happened from the point of view of the Indians. He doesn't try to hide the things that Columbus and other Europeans did to the Indians and talks about how the Indians were not inferior as the Europeans had thought they were.
... current one. I understand that it is important to act a certain way around a boss, colleagues, or different groups of friends, but in this book, it is evident that social conventions are very important in almost every relationship, excluding family. In fact, I think that family is only excluded because a person is who they are mainly because of their upbringing; essentially, they reflect the same characteristics and behaviors as their families. The book has caused me to believe that social conventions may play a large role in how I or my partner behaves in our relationship. Thus, my opinion on social conventions has been reinforced, adding romantic relationships to the list of social groups I must act a certain way in. Not only do social conventions encompass most relationships, but I now believe it also includes romantic relationships that may lead to marriage.
Howard Zinn’s main point in chapter one of A People’s History of the United States is that history is more accurate through the eyes of the oppressed. Zinn states that choosing to ignore the oppressed in history is “...more than technical, it is ideological” (Zinn 5). This is because in not paying attention to the subdued, one also chooses to ignore the majority of history. If the champion is the only one who gets to tell the story it is more often than not missing key details and glorified in favor of the oppressor. An example of this is Columbus’ descriptions of the Arawak people. He describes them as ignorant, naive, and even compares them to animals. In reality the Arawaks were a developed people with advanced laws and traditions. Also
History has been written from the viewpoint of victors in every history textbook up to this point. In A Peoples History of the United States, Howard Zinn presents a report of history told from the perspective of the oppressed American people. It begins with the arrival of Christopher Columbus in 1492 and concludes with the result of the Gore and Bush 2000 presidential election. Zinn gives the unfiltered truth from educators in today's school systems. By establishing a perspective of everyday common people, as opposed to the familiar victors students have been taught in school systems, Zinn creates a recap of history that informs his readers on well known historical subjects. It describes scenarios overlooked by mainstream class books, and speaks for the voiceless. This engaging process of teaching is mind-altering, demonstrating how the roles of wealth, race, and gender play a role in American history.
SOPA aroused public attention from a wide range of protests though it originally aimed to help online business damaged by piracy. On January 18, 2012, websites like Google, Reddit, Wikipedia were all blackout and drew great public attention. According to the announcement left on Wikipedia’s website, they were in protest against Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) which “has the potential to significantly change the way that information can be shared through the Internet.”(Wikipedia, 1) SOPA is designed to tackle the problem of websites that provide illegal download of pirated movies, music and other products. For websites consist of user upload materials like Youtube and Facebook, they are responsible for all the materials on their web...
William Arthur Ward once said, "Real religion is a way of life, not a white cloak to be wrapped around us on the Sabbath and then cast aside into the six-day closet of unconcern." Religion is the one thing that people can usually tolerate but never agree upon. Each faith seems to have an ordained assumption that they have the correct thoughts on how to life one's life or how to think about things or the way to act in certain situations. Still, each religion has its own "sub-religions." If someone refers to Christianity, there are several different religions that are blanketed under that umbrella: Catholic, Baptist, Lutheran, Pentecostal, and Presbyterian are just a handful. The inconsistencies that are associated with everyone's belief about religion run into deeper ruts of confusion. This confusion leads people to have distorted views as to what they believe and what their religion is all about. This is no different from the feelings about slavery by Christians in Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin. Throughout the novel, Christianity presents itself in a few different lights; as a twisted and deformed glimmer of what religion is supposed to be with undertones of bigotry and prejudice, an innocent yet naive child that brings joy to everyone he or she meets, and as Uncle Tom himself, the standard for what a Christian is supposed to be. These different portrayals of Christian living come from Stowe's own beliefs about Christians and brings them into the light.
Zinn, Howard. A People's History of the United States: 1492-present. New York: HarperCollins, 1999. Print.
Social status has played a major role in many different aspects of life practically since the beginning of time. Social status acts as a label for one’s predicament of living. Such a label directly affects day-to-day tasks, opportunities, and interactions. Generally, how we perceive others is a determining factor for the value we place upon them to our lives. For this particular study, I will be focusing on how social status affects dating/relationships. Dating is the basis of any intimate relationship that can potentially lead to a long-term arrangement such as marriage and pro-creation.
...scientific team (Roach 2012). Turnbull’s team evaluated over 245 Supernovae stars, using various mathematical formulas. The conclusion found that the stars were travelling at approximately 245 kilometres per hour in a certain direction, although the some minor details of what was being measured remained different, like the degree of change regarding motion. Additionally, athour details may make this a weak comparison, as Kaslinsky’s dark flow is moving approximately 4 times faster, running in a unique direction and extending further then Turnbull’s team.
While the outside world considered Nigeria to be a united and monolithic entity, even the British colonial administration was wary of the reality of Nigerian politics; the nation was not so much a “country” as it was more than three hundred different groups coalesced into one.4 5 These tribes were divided between three main spheres of influence: the Yoruba, the Igbo, and the Hausa. Historically, their interests were often opposed, and their cultures did not come into regular contact with one another until the British occupation. In spite of the differences British administration a...
How different are families compared to the past? Lately there has been some major changes in relationships, weather female dominance, or even just having no relationships at all. We also see that relationships are based only on a basis of reproduction and sometimes the child of the relationship is rather irrelevant. In a Temporary matter by Jhumpa Lahiri, the reader can see how relationships have developed with the rest of the world into failing, no relationship, and feminist relationships.