Validity of Names in Machiavelli’s Prince and Simone de Beauvoir’s Second Sex
People often drop names to assure the achievement of whatever goal it is they are trying to achieve. This tactic works especially well in business, but it can also work in argument. Names of influential people have influential affects. “I know Don Corleone,” would certainly have gotten nearly anything done in Mario Puzo’s The Godfather. Both Simone de Beauvoir and Niccolò Machiavelli used the names of well-known people to add a sense of importance and truth to what it was they were saying. Their choice of names is very similar. They both chose fabled heroes, past and present political figures and fictional powers to help their work gain value. However, they differ in a subtle way. The names are used much like a recipe uses measurements: one part politics to two parts fiction. This ratio adds a different tone to each argument, which also helps to get the author’s, de Beauvoir or Machiavelli’s, point across.
In de Beauvoir’s The Second Sex, there are many references made to true, verifiable sources. Granted that she makes use of nearly all possible spectrums of existence in terms of beings she chooses to cite, there is an underlying tone of definite truth in her work. She cites these people in packs and lists, using context to categorize her groups. “Some isolated individuals – Sappho [c. 610-c. 580 b.c.], Christine de Pisan [1364-1431], Mary Wollstonecraft [1759-1997], Olympe de Gouges [1748-1793] – have protested against the harshness of their destiny,” (de Beauvoir). “Joan of Arc (1412-1431), Mme Jeanne-Marie Roland (1759-1793), Flora Tristan (1803-1844)…Figures important for their political or revolutionary activity,” (Jacobus: footnote, p 179). In the first case, we see a list of four sure-fire sources, all of whom “protested against the harshness of their destiny.” We find out later in the work that these four people were all authors. In the second case, we see true-life people, all of whom were some how politically involved. De Beauvoir hits us with a rapid-fire bombardment of undeniable truths. When she uses a fictitious character, however, it is usually alone. “The suicide of Lucretia has had value only as a symbol,” (de Beauvoir). Here we see a not-so verifiable citation. It is alone in the text, an island surrounded by a sea of de Beauvoir’s own words. This name is by itself.
But then again, maybe the names have nothing at all to do with the story. Perhaps, O'Connor simply picked the names randomly out of a hat. It's not an impossible idea. But the chance of the names fitting so superbly to each character of the story, just by happenstance, is one in a million. In conclusion, readers should start to focus more on the names of the characters, because the names might give more insight that what is seen on the surface. Besides, Hulga Hopewell doesn't sound like that bad of a name.
“From forth the fatal loins of these two foes a pair of star crossed lovers take their life” (I prologue 5-6). Romeo and Juliet is known by many as a love story, but what if it’s not a love story but a story of obsession and desperation. Romeo is from the Montague family, and Juliet is from the Capulet family. The two families have been feuding for many, many years. In this story, Romeo and Juliet become obsessed with the feeling of being in love. They will go to extremes to be together, such extremes as death.
What were the Japanese internment camps some might ask. The camps were caused by the attack of Pearl Harbor in 1942 by Japan. President Roosevelt signed a form to send all the Japanese into internment camps.(1) All the Japanese living along the coast were moved to other states like California, Idaho, Utah, Arkansas, Colorado, Wyoming and Arizona. The camps were located away from Japan and isolated so if a spy tried to communicate, word wouldn't get out. The camps were unfair to the Japanese but the US were trying to be cautious. Many even more than 66% or 2/3 of the Japanese-Americans sent to the internment camps in April of 1942 were born in the United States and many had never been to Japan. Their only crime was that they had Japanese ancestors and they were suspected of being spies to their homeland of Japan. Japanese-American World War I veterans that served for the United States were also sent to the internment camps.(2)
Ten weeks after the Japanese had bombed Pearl Harbor, President Franklin D. Roosevelt (FDR) singed an Executive Order of 9066 that authorized the removal of any people from military areas “as deemed necessary or desirable”(FDR). The west coast was home of majority of Japanese Americans was considered as military areas. More than 100,000 Japanese Americans was sent and were relocated to the internment camps that were built by the United States. Of the Japanese that were interned, 62 percent were Nisei (American born, second generation) or Sansei (third-generation Japanese) the rest of them were Issai Japanese immigrants. Americans of Japanese ancestry were far the most widely affected. The Japanese internment camps were wrong because the Japanese were accused as spies, it was racism, and it was a violation to the United States constitution laws.
Over the course of time, the roles of men and women have changed dramatically. As women have increasingly gained more social recognition, they have also earned more significant roles in society. This change is clearly reflected in many works of literature, one of the most representative of which is Plautus's 191 B.C. drama Pseudolus, in which we meet the prostitute Phoenicium. Although the motivation behind nearly every action in the play, she is glimpsed only briefly, never speaks directly, and earns little respect from the male characters surrounding her, a situation that roughly parallels a woman's role in Roman society of that period. Women of the time, in other words, were to be seen and not heard. Their sole purpose was to please or to benefit men. As time passed, though, women earned more responsibility, allowing them to become stronger and hold more influence. The women who inspired Lope de Vega's early seventeenth-century drama Fuente Ovejuna, for instance, rose up against not only the male officials of their tiny village, but the cruel (male) dictator busy oppressing so much of Spain as a whole. The roles women play in literature have evolved correspondingly, and, by comparing The Epic of Gilgamesh, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, and The Wife of Bath's Prologue, we can see that fictional women have just as increasingly as their real-word counterparts used gender differences as weapons against men.
It can be said that the poor conditions and living styles of Japanese-Canadians were unsafe and unadaptable. A 22-year-old named Tom Tamagi proclaims, “I was a 22 year old Japanese Canadian, a prisoner of my own country of birth. We were confined inside a high wire fence of Hastings park just like caged animals”. Specifically, it is shown that many internees were just thrown into livestock buildings and expected to farm and produce resources, where they were also treated like animals as they were not given any attention and any assistance. This lack of personal care for Japanese-Canadians eventually led them to develop countless diseases, including pneumonia and skin infections, which impacted numerous families as many died. This atrocity of living through poor conditions had a worsening effect on Japanese-Canadians internees physical state. June Fujiyama, an ex-internee, recalled, “[w]hat a shock [it was] to arrive and find the Park surrounded by a high barbed-wire fence and guarded by soldiers who were dressed in khaki and carrying guns. I was incredulous. ‘Those guns are for us?’” To illustrate, Jane is subjected to a view of confinement as she is surprised that such protection and safety precautions are needed for her people, which demonstrates that her race is that much of a potential risk to others, and have to be under control and looked after at all times. Also, the
Essay on Woman Leader Machiavelli and Castiglione both present the epitome of perfection in their topics of leadership and the way women should be, respectively. In the case of Castiglione's work, it is stated by signor Gaspare that ".in the way people sometimes hanker after things that are impossible and miraculous, rather than explain them you (Magnifico) have wished them into existence." This quote is true of both excerpts. Both have created idealisms that are of perfection; however, both do also allow for imperfection. Again in the excerpt from Castiglione's work where Magnifico states ".because man is more robust, more quickly agile and more able to endure toil." shows the obvious imperfections of the female gender. Machiavelli, on the topic of leadership, also talks of imperfections: "The new prince - above all other princes - cannot escape being called cruel, since new governments are in danger." Leaders therefore are left to the mercy of their own imperfections and the imperfections of the human spirit.
To describe human history as volatile would be akin to saying that the sun is warm. The quest for power and how to keep it is what has defined human civilization; altruism, as it applies to empire, just does not exist. No one has quite realized this better than Niccolo Machiavelli. Citing much of Roman political culture, which he believed was the most superior form of government that had existed, and infusing his "knowledge of the deeds of great men, which [he had] acquired through a long experience of modern events and a constant study of the past", Machiavelli collected the footnotes of history and applied his observations to events in his world (Machiavelli 31). What resulted was a theory that was ahead of its time and remained so for centuries.
After the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor and caused mayhem in the United States in 1941, President Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066 in February of the following year. This order required foreign born and American citizens of Japanese descent to evacuate the West Coast and relocate to internment camps in the middle of the U.S. 70,000 of the 122,000 men, wo...
Power, especially in the hands of females, can be a force for immense societal changes. Director Sciamma plays with the role of power in the lives of the four girls, predominantly in the character of Lady. Lady’s sense of control, stems from winning hand on hand fights, but the opinion of the men around her lays the foundation of this empowerment. The more fights Lady wins, the more the men appear to respect her, yet as feminist Simone de Beauvoir explains “[n]o matter how kindly, how equally men treated me when I tried to participate in politics, when it came right down to it, they had more rights, so they had more power than I did (Simone de Beauvoir - The Second Sex- ix),” the “power” Lady obtained was provisional. Lady’s power was directly tied to the opinion of the men around her, in this scene, a portion of the boys sits on stairs physically higher than Lady, invoking a sense of power hierarchy and control. The boys only valued Lady when she successfully participated in the their world of violence, but this participation came with boundaries as “[w]omen can never become fully socialized into patriarchy- which in turn causes man to fear women and leads then, on the one hand, to establish very strict boundaries between their own sex and the female sex (Feminist theory 142).” The men had never truly incorporated Lady into their group, she had just
Society often views individuals that do not conform to its expectations as separate from the societal group. The Story of the Marquise-Marquis de Banneville, by Charles Perrault, François-Timoléon de Choisy, and Marie-Jeanne L’Héritier follows two main characters, one of which does not fully conform to binary gender presentation. The Girl with the Golden Eyes, authored by Honoré de Balzac, portrays an “oriental” woman as an object to be purchased and used. In Le Roman de Parthenay Ou Le Roman de Melusine, written by Coudrette, the heroine is a half human, half fairy who holds great power. In this paper, I argue that the majority of biologically female protagonists in these novels exist in-between the expectations society has for them, which
Niccolo Machiavelli lived in Florence, Italy in the 1400’s. The country of Italy was divided into city-states that had their own leaders, but all pledged alliance to their king. In time in which great leaders were needed in order to help the development of a city-state and country, Machiavelli had a theory that man needed a leader to control them. In his book The Prince, he speaks of the perfect leader.
In some instances, the implementation of the community oriented policing model has been a success. In other instances the results have not been so successful. A study in Texas focused on the effects of community oriented policing on crime rates and crime clearance among police agencies in Texas. The researcher observed the violent crime rate, property crime rate, total crime rate, clearance rate, and total crime clearance rate to measure the effectiveness of police efforts. In order to answer th...
In the sixteenth century, there were three sets of socioeconomic statuses that one could acquire or be a part of, the clergy, the nobility, and the peasantry. The divide between these three generalized classes was far more complicated in reality that it seems, as socioeconomic classes consist of multiple branches. Nonetheless, it all essentially came down to two undeniable factions, the oppressors and the oppressed. Niccolo Machiavelli, being a mixture of the two due to his living situation while writing the book, gained a middle-ground which allowed him to achieve omnipotent intelligence that so many rulers normally lack, first hand experience of what it like to live both lives, one as a peasant and the other as a nobleman. This omnipotent
I have read an account called " 'What's in a Name? " ", which is composed by Henry Louis Gates. This account demonstrates to us a youth experience of the creator that happened amid the mid-1950s. In the article, Gates alludes to an occurrence when a white man, Mr. Wilson, who was well disposed with his dad, called his dad "George", a name which was a prominent method for alluding to African Americans in those circumstances. In any case, Gates' dad needed to acknowledge this separation and couldn't make a move around then. By utilizing sentiment to bring out individuals' enthusiastic reaction, and utilizing suggestion, Gates effectively communicates his claim that name shapes individuals' discernments