Incident in the Life of a Slave Girl :: essays papers

Incident in the Life of a Slave Girl No one ever questioned T.S. Eliot as to whether or not he is a human being. Harriet Jacobs is just as much of a person, but looked down upon as a possession, as an animal. T.S. Eliot: white, popular, praised. Harriet Jacobs: African-American, hidden, questioned. In comparing Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl and T.S. Eliot?s ?The Fire Sermon? there lies a correlation between the two literary works. While T.S. Eliot never experienced the life of a slave, ?The Fire Sermon? alludes to white supremacy tainted with dirty scenery, while Harriet Jacobs describes a world where the color of skin can make you feel as if you hadn?t bathed in weeks. Religious references to scriptures also appear in both literary texts. While neither T.S. Eliot nor Jacobs preach religion, the presence of godliness and spirituality explain how different races use religion as a means of escape. Understanding the significance of the historical contexts that shape these works tell why Jacobs and Eliot write at this time and what difference it makes within the text itself. Historical contexts and the continuing literary value of texts mold the way in which they can be received and survive among competing authors. T.S. Eliot wrote during a time where slavery was illegal. It might have been common for African Americans to hold jobs that were looked upon as ?dirty work? such as being housemaids, cooks, etc. but the extent of brutality among African Americans and the work that they did was voluntary. Harriet Jacobs?s character, Linda Brent, had no such luck. When Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl was written, Lincoln was president but slaves were still being beaten and housed in plantations. Almost overnight, T.S. Eliot?s works became infamous; Eliot being a white male poet rising to infinite proportions. With a Nobel Prize under his belt as well as other numerous merits, anyone who questions the validity of his writings will almost always be argued with. On the other hand, Harriet Jacobs faces what Rafia Zafar calls a ?double negative of black race and female gender?(). Incidents has not received any sort of awards for literature although the book cover itself states it as ?one of the most important books ever written documenting the traumas and horrors of slavery in the antebellum South?(). Jacobs?s novel has yet to be recognized as a ?

Elizabeth, the Monster and Patriarchy Essay

In Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, some blatant parallels are made between Dr. Frankenstein’s adopted sister, Elizabeth, and the monster he created. Both of these innocent creatures, together represent all of mankind in their similarities and differences, Elizabeth being the picture of womanhood and goodness, the monster representing manhood and evil. Both Elizabeth and the monster belong to and structure their lives in terms of Dr. Frankenstein, leading to overall destruction and, ultimately demonstrating the dangerous properties of patriarchy, which Dr. Frankenstein embodies. Dr. Frankenstein begins his narrative, most logically, in telling the story of his childhood. Dr. Victor Frankenstein’s mother was a loving, benevolent woman, moved by the plight of the impoverished and forever doing all in her power to give charity to those in need. It was thus that she came across a poor Italian family with a flock of dirty children, one of them stood out, she was blond and fair and especially angelic. Victor’s mother decided that it was her duty to raise this blond girl as her own, or, rather, as Victor’s own. This girl was Elizabeth who is, in a way, given to Victor as a gift, and thus begins his unnatural relationship with power and creation; â€Å"On the evening previous to [Elizabeth] being brought to my home, my mother had said playfully, ‘I have a pretty present for my Victor-tomorrow he shall have it.’ And when, on the morrow, she presented Elizabeth to me as her promised gift, I, with childish seriousness, interpreted her words literally and looked upon Elizabeth as mine-mine to protect, love, and cherish.† (56) On her deathbed, Victor’s mother expresses her desire for the ultimate union of Victor and Elizabeth. The fate of Elizabeth is thus utterly dependent upon Victor’s, and Victor’s relationship with his fellow humans is forever grossly twisted due to his near ownership of Elizabeth. The arrangement of their odd marriage is never questioned by either one of them, and neither are ever able to repair their relationships with other people/beings, their experiences being so inhuman. In his college years, Victor develops a desire, and acquires the necessary knowledge, to actually create life. After just a couple of extremely productive years at the University, Dr. Frankenstein discoveries an amazing thing, he states in his narration; â€Å"After days and nights of incredible labor and fatigue, I succeeded in discovering the cause of generation and life; nay, more, I became myself capable of bestowing animation upon lifeless matter.† (51) But it was not enough for Dr. Frankenstein merely to know how to give life, he had to do it himself. His goal was far from modest, he planned to create not a frog or a fruit fly, but a man. Dr. Frankenstein was excited by the power of his act, he likened himself to god, â€Å"A new species would bless me as its creator and source: many happy and excellent natures would owe their being to me.† (52) Victor’s egotism and corollary want for power frame him in the classic definition of the Patriarch. He believes that whatever he creates will love and cherish his being for the mere fact of his being its creator, his word is the final word and the right word The being that Dr. Frankenstein creates is the monster of the novel, this monster is at once an independent being, and a possession. It is the beautiful being that Dr. Frankenstein longed would look up to its supreme creator with servile gratitude. Dr. Frankenstein did not fully understand how horrific was his deed, until it had been done, regarding his first glimpse at the now living creature, Frankenstein remarked, â€Å"How can I describe my emotions at this catastrophe, or how delineate the wretch whom with such infinite pains and care I had endeavored to form?† In the  monster’s first moment of consciousness, he stretched out his arm towards his creator, a sign of ultimate compassion and the gratitude for which Dr. Frankenstein had longed. Dr. Frankenstein responds by turning his back and running. Dr. Frankenstein embodies the irresponsible leader, the unfeeling man, the Patriarch with grand intentions but no means of the necessary compassion. During the time in which Dr. Frankenstein is away from home, studying in the University, he receives a multitude of letters from the longing Elizabeth, and replies to none. Elizabeth remains at home in Switzerland, fulfilling her womanly duties to the Frankenstein family, her only hope for future happiness lies in her marriage with Victor, for she is nothing without him. The power that Dr. Frankenstein holds over Elizabeth has striking similarities to the dynamic of power he described as desiring over his creations. The pattern of neglect that Frankenstein demonstrates first with Elizabeth, then with the monster does not seem to phase their unconditional, and unreasonable, love for him. Dr. Frankenstein does not think of Elizabeth as an equal, for she is a woman, and he does not think of the monster as even a man, for he created him. Within a Patriarchy, the government feels justified in its neglectful actions for it feels itself better than the women and low lifes over which it rules. Just as a population allows their government to proceed with its cruel deeds without question, so do Elizabeth and the monster initially turn a blind eye to the evil acts of Dr. Frankenstein. Elizabeth and the monster are not only similar in their actions relative to Dr. Frankenstein, but both seem to occupy quite the opposite end of the spectrum of humanity. Elizabeth is submissive and self-sacrificing. She is blond and fair-skinned and described as â€Å"angelic†. Elizabeth encompasses womanhood and goodness at once. The monster, on the other hand, ends up dedicating his life to the destruction of Dr. Frankenstein’s livelihood. The monster is ugly, the mere sight of him puts people into shock. The monster is a self described â€Å"fallen angel† and he even likens himself to Adam, the first man. Thus the monster encompasses evil and manhood at once. Elizabeth and the monster together represent all of man, the oppressed, the poor, the  ugly and the helpless victims of a system built to benefit a select few. While Dr. Frankenstein represents the ruling class, Elizabeth and the monster together represent the under-privileged ruled class. War is a classically male act. War is the tool and the game of the Patriarchy and the innocent civilians are its pawns. When Dr. Frankenstein oversteps the limits of human power, he takes control over things for which man should not be responsible, he states â€Å"Life and death appeared to me ideal bounds, which I should first break through.† In commencing a war, the Patriarch puts himself in charge of the lives and deaths of many men, an extremely unnatural act. When Dr. Frankenstein meddles with the natural limits of life and death, he is creating the chaos of war in his own life. The death and destruction which results from Dr. Frankenstein’s creation, the death of his younger brother William, Justine and Elizabeth, are merely examples of the multitude of unnecessary deaths caused by the Patriarchal wars. Just as many wars could have been prevented through simple negotiations, had it not been for the arrogance of one man with too much power, so too could have the destruction in Frankenstein have been prevented had Dr. Frankenstein merely conceded with the monster’s simple request, with which he ended his own narrative; â€Å"My companion must be of the same species and have the same defects. This being you must create.†(137). Had Dr. Frankenstein for once done something for someone other than himself, in this case, create a female companion for the monster, many lives could have been saved. Shelley was clearly making the statement that the absence of womanly compassion in government is what leads to unnecessary destruction in war. In creating a man, Dr. Frankenstein takes on, unnaturally, a woman’s role, it is thus that he can neglect Elizabeth, deeming her unnecessary. This is the biggest mistake at all. Just as Elizabeth, or any woman, was left out of the creation of this man, so has woman been neglected from the makings of governments and societal structures in Patriarchies everywhere. Elizabeth and the monster represent a balance that Dr. Frankenstein lacks, because he rejects everything feminine and human, he must bear the consequences. At the time this book was written, many technological advances were being made, discoveries in science were flourishing and scientists themselves were  gaining the highest forms of respect. Unfortunately, due to the style of government and power structures at the time, these incredible advances benefited everyone but women and the poor. Infant mortality was still very high and other health issues related to women were being utterly ignored by the scientific community, which seemed to have no place for femininity. Shelley displays this discrepancy in the novel first with the many deaths of mothers, Elizabeth’s mother, Dr. Frankenstein’s mother, Clerval’s mother and Justine’s mother all died relatively early on in the novel. While Dr. Frankenstein could create life, no one could seem to save a mother in childbirth or make food for a starving family. To emphasize the lack of female influence in science, Dr. Frankenstein completes the most womanly act there is, creation of life, without a woman. Dr. Frankenstein’s unnatural power over Elizabeth and the monster eventually lead to the destruction of them all. It is not long before the roles are reversed between the Doctor and the monster. While the monster is initially enslaved to the doctor, by the end of the novel the doctor believes himself to be the slave of the monster. It is Dr. Frankenstein’s arrogant, patriarchal ego that gets his true love killed, his power destroys his life. Dr. Frankenstein’s divergence from all that is feminine and human led to chaos for all. Because Dr. Frankenstein dedicates his life to vengeance against the monster for the murder of Elizabeth, he becomes the slave of both the monster and Elizabeth: the tables turned. In the last moments of Dr. Frankenstein’s life, he cries â€Å"Scoffing devil! Again do I vow vengeance; again do I devote thee, miserable fiend, to  torture and death. Never will I give up my search until he or I perish; and then with what ecstasy shall I join my Elizabeth and my departed friends, who even now prepare me for  the reward of my tedious toil and terrible pilgrimage.† (195) Just as conditions must sometimes reach their lowest point before the people  break into revolution, and their rulers never renounce their sins in life, so did the worst type of destruction have to occur before Dr. Frankenstein realized what his role must be. Mary Shelley lived in a time when a woman novelist was believed to be putting her name on her husband’s work, the advancement of technology ran beyond human interests and only the rich received some sort of security against sudden death and rampant disease. Shelley saw the chaos and destruction that resulted from unequal representation in a power-hungry, Patriarchal government. Elizabeth and the monster embody the missing aspects of this un-representative ruling class; compassion and humanity, it is the absence of these things that Shelley displays the horrific result of in her novel. Frankenstein is more than a ghost story, it is a social narrative and a political manifesto.

Handwriting a Letter Versus Sending an E-Mail Message

Versus Sending an E-mail Message Handwriting a letter is very similar yet different from sending an email. Since the dawn of man until around the sass's people have wrote letters. In the sass's when the home Internet was first available, people became so fond of e-mailing that handwriting letters quickly became a lost art. Handwriting a letter is more personal and slower. While sending an e-mail is faster, easier, and not as personal.Both forms f communication have the ability to tell someone something, and most people like receiving a letter whether handwritten or by e-mail. E-mailing someone Isn't as personal as handwriting a letter. If someone writes the president a letter he might actually take the time to sit down and read it. Handwriting the letter versus e-malign It to him lets him know someone actually took the time to sit down and think about what they were going to write.If they e-mail him most likely someone who works for helm will read It first and ask him If he wants to read It, and here are probably millions of people who e-mail him, so he probably wont read every single one. So, there might be a better chance if the letter is handwritten because it seems as if they really want the president to hear what they have to say. The time frame it takes to actually sit down and write a letter does take longer than e-mailing someone. If you were to e-mail someone you can use abbreviations such as † 101†³, â€Å"ward†, † be, and â€Å"TTYL†. Sing abbreviations like these are quicker, easier and more time efficient even though they may not be considered proper rammer. Although handwritten are not as short as e-mails they are most likely to have better grammar, and usually more detailed. When people get on the computer, they probably are doing more than one thing at a time so their e-mail Is short, If they are more focused on something else. If someone Is handwriting a letter they take the time to sit down and Just focus on that and more thoughts may come to their head to write down.So yes, e-mailing is more beneficial for time frames but it may not be beneficial to everything you want to say. Something that is similar about these two thing is they both get the message across. No matter if it takes an hour to write or five minutes to type, the recipient is still receiving a letter or e-mail. Also if the recipient received a fully detailed letter or an extremely short message, they may have not gotten everything you planned to say but they got the idea of what you were trying to say.It may take you two days to receive your letter in the mail rather than getting it by e-mail in ten minutes but either way you are still receiving it . People now may take advantage of e-malign because It Is faster and easier. It may be because people are too lazy to write a letter or they Just don't have time. Some people may just stick to handwriting letters because they don't like the idea of all the new technology Ana want t o stick to tenet 010 ways. Bettor ten Internet people only knew how to write letters by hand. In the end it comes down to what you prefer, e- mailing or handwriting a letter.