Subjugation Essays

  • The Subjugation of Women in The Yellow Wallpaper

    2534 Words  | 6 Pages

    The Subjugation of Women in The Yellow Wall Paper In the nineteenth century, women in literature were often portrayed as submissive to men. Literature of the period often characterized women as oppressed by society, as well as by the male influences in their lives. The Yellow Wallpaper presents the tragic story of a woman's descent into depression and madness. Gilman once wrote "Women's subordination will only end when women lead the struggle for their own autonomy, thereby freeing man as well

  • Subjugation of Women Exposed in Amy Tan's The Joy Luck Club

    959 Words  | 2 Pages

    Subjugation of Women Exposed in Joy Luck Club Is it fair to judge someone by their sex? In traditional Chinese culture, many judgments were made about a person just by observing their sex. The women was looked upon as an inferior being. They had little or no status in society, and little was expected from them. They were discriminated against when they tried to stand up for themselves. Chinese culture was customarily male dominated. The male was expected to do most of the work, and the woman was

  • The Character of Cholly in The Bluest Eye

    1333 Words  | 3 Pages

    The Character of Cholly in The Bluest Eye Morrison has divided her portrayal of a fictional town of blacks, which suffers from alienation and subjugation, into four seasons.  I believe that her underlying message is to illustrate the reality of life's travails: the certain rhythms of blessings and tragedies.  Some blacks understand and acccept this philosophy and Morrison's use of the seasons portrays and echoes the bible verse, "To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose

  • John Ford's The Searchers

    1918 Words  | 4 Pages

    of capitalism tend to uphold the system's ideology, the hero produced by the film tends to represent the values of this ideology. Thus, through its hero, the classic Western naturalizes and justifies the "taming" of the land and the consequent subjugation of its "libidinous" native people in order to build "civilization." (476) However, genre films are only potent because of the potentially subversive "intervention of a clearly defined artistic personality in an ideological-generic structure."

  • Ideology and Reality in the Movie, The Matrix

    2251 Words  | 5 Pages

    which "the state [as] a 'machine' of repression" is made literal where robots rule the land (Althusser 68). It is true that they rule by force (sentinels and agents) and these constitute the Repressive State Apparatus, but their primary force of subjugation is the matrix, their ISA. The film traces the path of one man, Neo, in his painful progress from the ideology of the matrix to the "real world," or the ideology of the "real."2 The matrix, unlike the ideology of the "real," is explicitly defined

  • Afghan Women and Their Horror

    740 Words  | 2 Pages

    poverty and extreme repression continue to characterize reality for many afghan women. “Under the Taliban, ultraconservative Islamic ideas combined with misogynistic and patriarchal tribal culture resulted in numerous edicts aimed at the control and subjugation of Afghan women” (Womenwarpeace.org). Women were denied all rights both civil and political. They were denied the right to free assembly, freedom of movement and the right to personal security. According to a March 2003 International Crisis Group

  • Cultural Relativism and Global Values: The Median That Works

    1487 Words  | 3 Pages

    relativity to support actions that “outsiders” attack as violations of human rights. The Taliban, the former ruling party of Afghanistan, used cultural relativity arguments to support their particularly strict version of Islamic law that included the subjugation of women and the destruction of priceless pieces of art and artifacts. The United States, when attacked by its Western allies for its capital punishment laws, responds that “it is their way and no one else’s business. Which is precisely what the

  • Moral Responsibility In Herman Melville's Billy Budd

    1418 Words  | 3 Pages

    Throughout our history, we have repeatedly tried to exploit the environment (i.e. nature) in order to perfect our lives. We not only manipulated the materialistic and economic aspect of our world, but we have also struggled to use the moral and the spiritual in making progress within ourselves. Instead of relying on ourselves to accomplish this purpose, we have unfortunately sought help from society's traditional institutions. These institutions, in turn, have tired to manipulate us for their own

  • The Importance of Romanticism in Literature

    827 Words  | 2 Pages

    create his own “systems” lest he “be ruled by another man’s.” Much of these ideas would appeal, at least in their simplest forms, to much of modern consciousness, rebelling as it does not only against conformity and convention, but the apparent subjugation of the individual by the increasingly dizzying swirl of corporate culture and technological globalization. It is interesting to read Emily Dickinson’s take, as it were, on Romanticism from some five decades after Wordsworth. Dickinson wrote in

  • Essay on the Genius of Ralph Ellison

    2040 Words  | 5 Pages

    with which they look through their physical eyes upon reality (Ellison, 1). Roughly autobiographical in nature, Ellison's Invisible Man is also a chronology constructed to parallel the history of African-Americans, from slavery, Emancipation, subjugation, and a rising consciousness of injustice perpetrated against them. However, Ellison's literary finesse produced an opus that draws in every member of American society. Rather than alienating whites by portraying a man victimized by a racist system

  • Comparing the Role of the Ghost in Morrison's Beloved and Kingston's No Name Woman

    979 Words  | 2 Pages

    of memory as a cautionary tale passed down by women, but is denied full existence by the men who "do not want to hear her name" (15). Kingston's narrator tackles this repression when she sympathetically frames No Name Woman's story as one of subjugation, pointing out that "women in the old Ch... ... middle of paper ... ... "The Woman Warrior as a Search for Ghosts", Sato examines Kingston's symbolic use of the ghost figure as a means of approaching the dramatic structure of the text and appreciating

  • The Cycle of Slavery in The Tempest

    1651 Words  | 4 Pages

    language and exciting plot an intelligent political commentary. Shakespeare uses the setting of a virtually uninhabited island as an experimental testing ground for the institution of slavery. Shakespeare shows through his island experiment that subjugation, once instituted, seems to perpetuate itself. While the most automatic explanation of this cyclical nature of slavery would be to say that this political rule is continued by the subjugators, the surprising reality is that it is the victim of colonialism

  • Is America the World's Largest Sponsor of Terrorism?

    1493 Words  | 3 Pages

    powerful "other," terrorism: terrorism1, the act--the use of force or threats of force to demoralize, intimidate, and subjugate--especially such use as a political weapon or policy, and terrorism2, the outcome--the demoralization, intimidation, and subjugation so produced. Terrorism refers both to the act (the verb) and its accomplishment (the noun). The effect of terrorism, the noun, is accomplished by various means. We can "read" back from the effect and recognize the means. The dead bodies are

  • America, Russia, and the Cold War

    1412 Words  | 3 Pages

    America, Russia, and the Cold War The origins of the Cold War came about when United States President Harry Truman issued his Truman Doctrine. This doctrine stated that the United States would support “free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures.” This would end up being the foundation of the U. S. involvement in the Cold War. The main idea of the doctrine was to support nations in the resistance of communism. Truman felt that if one nation fell

  • Orwells "such, Such Were The Joys....": Alienation And Other Such Joy

    1676 Words  | 4 Pages

    fits in society, his attitude is irreconcilable with what he knows society expects of him. Orwell's childhood understanding of society forces him into only one possible direction, failure. This essay is the maturing Orwell's response to childhood subjugation, a subtle exposure to the evolution of Orwell's thought. Orwell's life as a boarding school student at Crossgates occupies his memory of childhood and serves as the platform for his views on life. Repeatedly Orwell describes the society of the school

  • Feminism before the 20th Century

    2090 Words  | 5 Pages

    For generations, women had been subjected to men. Women had no saying in what was going on around them, to what they wanted their lives to be, or even when it came to their bodies. Many women have raised their voices to protest against this subjugation, sometimes at great personal risk. Such is the French case of Marie Gouze(1748-93), who under the name Olympe de Gouges, wrote "Declaration of the Rights of Women and Citizen." In this document Marie advocated for civic equality, as well as equal

  • Reconstruction of the South

    517 Words  | 2 Pages

    the union, however, he did not believe in black equality. Johnson believed that the planter class in the south had led their section of the country to ruin. As far as blacks were concerned, they were an inferior race to be held in some sort of subjugation to the dominant white population of the south. His attitude ran into a head on collision with that of the radical republicans in congress led by Thaddeus Stevens. President Johnson tried to enforce Lincoln’s Ten Percent Plan. That as soon as ten

  • Paradise Found And Lost - Critique

    632 Words  | 2 Pages

    military parties inland to subdue the increasingly hostile natives. Members of the indigenous population were captured and enslaved to support the fledgling colony. The object of Columbus’ desire changed from exploration and trade to conquest and subjugation. Boorstin eloquently writes of the depreciating mentality of Columbus and his hopes. As each voyage is unsuccessful in producing Oriental splendors or in establishing relations with the Great Kahn, it becomes harder for Columbus to persuade others

  • Submissive and Evil Women of The Holy Bible

    915 Words  | 2 Pages

    stumbling blocks in the way of woman's emancipation. A famous 19th century feminist named Elizabeth Cady Stanton voiced this about her struggle for women's freedom. Women, considered a lower class than the men, wanted this subjugation changed. Part of the reason for the subjugation of women is that the Bible could be interpreted in many different ways to suit the needs of the interpreter. These interpretations of the Bible are in part responsible for the belief that women are of a lower class than

  • Patriarchy in Shyam Selvadurai’s Pigs Can’t Fly

    2077 Words  | 5 Pages

    Patriarchy is a universal system in which women are dominated. Women, in continents as diverse as Iran and China, have been subjugated through social measures such as female circumcision and bound feet. Yet as Andrea Dworkin so neatly stated, subjugation often takes more devious forms, through the stereotyping of gender roles, attempts to “fix” women by stereotyping them as spineless “natural homemakers” or monstrous hideous figures and thereby justifying patriarchy as through stereotyping men as