Clotel Analysis Essay Example for Free

Clotel Analysis Essay Clotel is an interesting piece of literary work by William Brown, as it exposes the depraved social conditions of Chattel Slavery and its effect on Marriage relations between slave and slave owner. Interestingly, I recognized the stereotypes that can develop from conditions of race and class in our society. More importantly, we see how race and class present higher priviledges to mulatto slaves (quadroons), than what William coins as the real negro. Undeniably, there is a stereotypical belief in todays society that light skin or fairer skin people have an esteemed privilege than that of dark skin people. Although fictional characters, Currer, Clotel, and Althesa are real-life representations of that belief because they were mulattos. One may imply that it is quite stereotypical to say that light skin people have a higher privilege that is not necessarily given to dark skin people, although many believe it to be true as a result of the conditions faced by non-mulatto slaves. However, others may not agree. Currer and her two daughters Clotel and Althesa are all protagonists in this literary work. Currer, a bright mulatto was a housekeeper for slaveholder Thomas Jefferson, upon which she beared Clotel and Althesa. Currer being of the higher class of slaves was permitted to hire her time for more than 20 years. Surely Currer wanted nothing more than to raise her daughters to attract attention in efforts that they might marry into their freedom. Compared to ordinary slaves, Currer and her daughters had once lived in luxury due to privileged conditions of being a mulatto slave. Nevertheless, they were still slaves, and often reminded that they were no different than ordinary slaves. For example, Clotel was only 16 when she was purchased by Horatio Green, son of a wealthy gentleman of Richmond whom promised to make her mistress of her own dwelling. She lived in luxury for a while, and even beared a child named Mary with Horatio. The time came that Horatio began to be involved with politics, and his success with politics being of greater importance proved his union with Clotel would soon end. Horatio took interest in the daughter of a wealthy man with whom he found a connect to success in politics. Horatio later married her, leaving Clotel to be sold to a slaveholder at the demand of his mistress. It is here that we discover that even the mulatto woman is not as esteemed with privilege as she was once perceived to possess. She is still a slave , born of that blood. She may have lived in luxury for a while, but it was very predictable that she would be sold again to the highest bidder, and for the latter purpose. What is so significant about not only Clotels character, but also for her mothers and sisters character is that they are symbolic of how mulatto slaves were used as an even bigger commodity during slavery. They were put on a pedestal to feel as though they had more privilege, only to discover that they really did not. Even more importantly, mulatto slaves knew the significance of having been mixed-bred, and how it could be used in attempt to free themselves, just as Currer had planned for her daughters from the very beginning. Mostly, the mulattos or quadroons were the house slaves, and occupied the best situation a slave could occupy. Most of the mistresses of the slave owners in the South sought to make the lives of quadroons intolerable, because they viewed them as rivals. For this reason, Mrs. Green had demanded that Clotel be sold out of the state. How soundly ironic that mulattos could be stuck at the center of the depraved social condition of marriage relations between slave and slave owner? And being of the higher class of slaves still be subject to the will of his master. Were they really of a higher class, or were they no better than an ordinary slave whom labored outside the masters house? Some people have their own prejudices toward blacks in general even in todays society. It is safe to say that some whites even still view blacks as slaves. No matter how fair or light the shade of their skin is, it still does not dismiss the fact that they are born of African descent. As William stated in his work, there was a depraved social condition that placed the slave under total control of his master from the very beginning no matter how light or fair their skin was. Therefore, the stereotypical belief that mulattos or light-skin people have an esteemed privilege over dark-skinned people is without a doubt, debateable.

Clapham Junction By Paul Theroux :: essays research papers

*Meaning of the title: A junction is a place where roads come together or such as in this story break up in different directions. This regers to the end, where Mrs. Etterick asks for 'one single and one return to Sunbury, please'. Mrs. Etterick is going to drop her retarded daughter, Gina, at a special institution in Sunbury for Christmas. She doesn't want her daughter around: their ways are separated in the station (although Mrs. Etterick travels with Gina to Sunbury). 'Clapham' is a word that is often used by Theroux (the writer) in his other short stories (not in this book). Narrator: The narrator is an omniscient and unintrusive narrator: he knows everything but he doesn't give a comment. Hints in the story: * In the beginning they are talking about Gina and Mrs. Etterick says that 'hers is not the sort of affliction that can be cured in a place like Sunbury'. We don't know what's in Sunbury but we know that there's something with Gina that cannot be cured there; she has a disease. * Cox asks Mrs. Etterick 'Are you going away for Christmas?' and a bit further he asks 'So you might be alone?' and she answers 'I'm not sure'. * p.111 They hear Gina's present: a transistor. Mrs. Etterick explains it 'I decided to give Gina her present early' characters: All the characters (4-Mrs.Etterick/Rudge/Cox/Gina) are telling stories but the important thing is that they don't listen to each other, they constantly interrupt each other; they 're very selfish in a certain way but they apparently work in the same company/building: Cox says that 'When I didn't see you in your office (p.111) ...' And Rudge said that is was 'a party with all the secretaries'. Another similarity is that they sill don't know what they're going to do with Christmas (where/with who?). Mrs. Diana Etterick: She has a daughter, Gina who is nearly thirty but she's retarded. She lost her husband Richard (who works at the university) in Thailand (while they were living there) to a twenty-one year old Chinese girl, who was determined to leave China. They're both now in Australia while she's alone (except for now). She's very cynic avout that - p.112 Rudge asks 'Was it a tropical disease?' 'Yes', replies Diana 'she was about 21...' She hates Christmas: she didn't went to the par ty at work and on p.112 she says 'In Bangkok, you never know it was Christmas' and 'I'd like to spend the next eight days in bed,watching rubbish television.

Individual Rights Vs. National Security Essay

I negate the resolution, â€Å"Resolved: When the United States is engaged in military conflict, national security ought to supercede conflicting claims of individual rights. My value for the round is Human Dignity, or what can be defined as a respect for the individual and his or her rights and virtues. John Stuart Mill states that â€Å"Everyone who receive the protection of society owes a return for the benefit†¦ but not to the point that it violates constituted rights.† Thus those rights which are the fundamentals of human dignity must be maintained. No fundamental goal should ever undermine this fundamental goal. The criteria which must consistently achieve is the maintenance of a legitimate government, or a govt. that maximizes the rights of its citizens My sole contention proves that a government’s legitimacy is contingent upon its preservation of individual rights. According to Charles Ogletree, Professor of Law at Harvard University, â€Å"The U.S. has not been a fertile breeding ground for terrorism†¦ diversity, religious and ethnic tolerance, a reliance on legal proceedings open to public scrutiny†¦ are all values make it hard to nurture in the U.S. the ethnic or religious hatred that fuels much terrorism.† Unfortunately, sacrificing such virtues for temporary security would undermine these values. The impact is clear, that a removal of individual rights, such as freedom of speech or freedom of press, would uproot key American ideals and neglect the value of the individual within the United States. . The government would no longer protect the foundation upon with it was built, and such actions would illegitimatize the government. As reported by Susan Stanberg, political analyst for National Public Radio, â€Å"Muslim communities throughout Florida have placed complains in the FBI’s strategy in placing undercover agents in mosques to find our terrorists.† This type of drastic action has also been taken up by new laws that grant police powers to search people travelling on public transportation without notifying them of their right to refuse the search and without sufficient evidence or suspicion; a severe incursion on the right to privacy. Police acknowledge this fact, stating that they have nothing else to go on. This impact is that investigations based upon ethnicity encourage citizens to do the same thing. This arouses xenophobia and hostility towards foreign groups of American society. Secondly,  Prioritizing national security gives the govt. license to violate human worth in 3 ways: i. Dictating life choices – relocating people/Japanese internment camps ii. Dictating moral choices – whether to fight in war (draft) iii. Actually taking liberty and property – violating the rights of innocents in war/taking prisoners of war. The impact is that denying worth w/in borders is wrong because it defeats the purpose you’re fighting for, and denying worth outside of borders is wrong b/c it’s hypocritical. The government no longer serves its role as a protector of the people, but rather a big brother like institute that dictates to its people their own moral codes. Finally, security loses its worth if not accompanied by rights. Benjamin Franklin states that â€Å"Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither liberty or safety† Without Liberty, Security is purposeless. The entire purpose of national security is to protect the American way of life and what our nation stands for. Thus, if upholding national security comes at the cost of sacrificing those rights that it is fighting to protect, it does nothing but erode the very purpose for its existence and become a self-defeating pursuit. OVERVIEW: I offer an overview against the affirmative case. In order for the affirmative to affirm, (s)he has to prove three things. Firstly, that security is able to be achieves, secondly, why there is an imperative need to sacrifice individual rights, and thirdly, (s)he must address all instances and types of military conflicts. Failure to do any of these things means that (s)he is upholding her burden as the affirmative. (s)he doesn’t prove this because: 1) (s)he assumes that she will be able to provide for national security, however, there is no guarantee for this safety. We might have implement heavier security measures in airports, but our chemical factories are just as vulnerable as they used to be. 2) (s)he just discusses the possible benefits that come from prioritizing national security, (s)he doesn’t show how it is fundamental. Just because  national security is important, doesn’t mean that it is absolute. The benefits achieved on the affirmative, such as unification, maintenance of sovereignty, still exist on the negative side. (s)he isn’t showing why we have to sacrifice our rights. Moreover, benefits don’t determine fundamentality. Just because we might be able to hunt down an extra terrorist or two, doesn’t mean that random lock downs and strip searches will win the war on terror or that an inability to do so will lose us the war on terror. 3) All of the affirmative arguments premised on the relative size of the conflict, but a military conflict does not assume a small or large proximity. Most conflicts such as the Persian Gulf are entirely within the United States ability as a superpower to control through alternative methods than violation individual rights. So this argument does not determine the fundamentality of prioritizing national security above individual rights.

Exploring The Ideal And Reality Of Parental Love - 1551 Words

Coming out as a part of the LGBT+ community is seen as a sign of deviance in most communities, and can often be a hardship for both the LGBT+ person, and their family. A child’s relationship with their parents can be a source of great love and support, and the hardships of coming out can either strain or strengthen this relationship. In this paper, I will attempt to describe the ideal and reality of parental love, and explore how this love changes when an LGBT+ child comes out. Then, I will explore the impact of race and ethnicity, political affiliation, and identity of the child on parental love. I will be using Sternberg’s triangular theory of love to both describe parental love, and to analyze the changes to it due to children coming†¦show more content†¦The intensity of these elements can vary over different societies, situations, and stages in a child’s life. For instance, adolescent children tend to be less intimate with their parents, and tend to rebel and form relationships with their peers. Ideal parental love can also be described, according to John Lee, as agape, or altruistic love. According to Lee, this is a type of selfless love, where one is more willing to give love without expecting anything in return. The individual is expected to be patient and forgiving towards the object of their love, which is ideally how a parent should act towards their child. However, current and historical evidence proves that parental love isn’t always altruistic, and parents sometimes actively harm their children. Lawrence Stone states that infanticide must have been a necessity for most of human history, because women, who were gatherers, could not have had the resources to raise multiple children at once (23). Similarly, a study by Rangel finds that parents are more likely to invest in the education of their light-skinned children than their darker-skinned children. This proves that parental love can be conditional. In these cas es, it’s dependant on whether parents have enough resources, and upon which of their children they see as being most fit to use these resources. With this in mind, we shall try to findShow MoreRelatedFreud s Theory Of Human Sexuality1641 Words   |  7 Pageschildhood pleasure is maximized to satisfy the demands of the id impulses, while the parent’s main focus is integrating the demands of reality and the concept of what is right and wrong. Human personality in Freud’s eyes, is divided into three structures that include the id, ego and superego. The id operates to satisfy the body’s impulses, while the ego functions as the reality principle that will satisfy the id impulses and the superego focuses on idealism, dictating our concept of right and wrong. TheRead MoreDevelopmental Analysis4718 Words   |  19 PagesKims case, moral reasoning developed in such a way where she did realize violence to be an inappropriate behavior. This was the reason when sh e rebelled and hated her family later when they cared. At one instance she did realize the problems of her parental relationship to be wrong; she adopted a similar rebellious behavior later in her life. This may be attributed to the fact that her actions were never guided, rewarded or punished by her parent. In this way, she developed several inappropriate waysRead MoreTransactional Anlysis Essay examples4884 Words   |  20 Pages This state is taken from parental figures. Similarly to the child state, it is thought to come from the brain recording â€Å"unquestioned or imposed external events perceived by a person† (2) from the first five years of life, in this case from the parents. There are two types of Parental roles that can be played. The Nurturing Parent is caring and concerned, similar to a mother-figure. The aim is to keep the child safe and happy with reassurance and unconditional love. The Controlling (or Critical)Read MoreAdvantages of K+122054 Words   |  9 Pagescycle. 9. â€Å"The short basic education program affects the human development of the Filipino children.† If we believe that 17-year-old high school graduates are emotionally, psychologically, and intellectually mature, why do we require them to get parental consent before they get married?    DISADVANTAGE of K-12 If the K-12 Education Plan becomes successful, then the Philippine education system can become more competitive among other countries around the world. Though there are still some problemsRead MoreThe Yellow Wallpaper and The Awakening2156 Words   |  9 PagesYellow Wallpaper and The Awakening, the authors depicted childbirth as a traumatic and even torturous experience, which left women to cope with the physical and mental health effects alone. Effects such as these impeded the mothers’ abilities to be the ideal ‘mother-woman’ to their offspring because in the eyes of patriarchal society, they were only existent in the domestic sphere and their feelings and emotions were null and void thus defining them as too weak to take on the strenuous demands of societyRead MoreHow Does Media Affects a Childs Development3153 Words   |  13 PagesDepartment of Educations Office of Educational Research and Improvement published guidelines in 1994 that said: Parental monitoring is a key factor, since the research studies show that increasing guidance from parents is at least as important as simply reducing media violence. Children may learn negative behavior patterns and values from many other experiences as well as TV programs, and parental guidance is needed to help children sort out these influences and develop the ability to make sound decisionsRead MoreLife of a Teenager7946 Words   |  32 Pagesmost cases they tell their friends how to dress and act when around certain people. Love relationships just make it even harder for a teenager to get a good education. Some start to fail in school because they are hanging out with their boyfriend or girlfriend instead of doing their work. Throughout adolescence, teenagers are positively and negatively impacted by several relationships such as friends, family, and love relationships. Friends have a big influence on teenagers because they can say andRead MoreFamily Decline vs Family Change3666 Words   |  15 Pagesfamilies where the children care about the elder members of the family. Thus, there are varieties of social entities that apparently look like a family and actually perform the duties of the family, as they provide care, look after, have a state of love and affair, and above all are devoted to raising children and socializing them. On the other hand, these different kinds of units make it difficult for all to fit into a solid definition of the family (Goode, 2007). Apart from the debate on the clearRead MoreMarriage Guidance: Summary Notes19959 Words   |  80 PagesMarriage Guidance – Summary MGG201W MGG201W – Marriage Guidance – facilitative couples counselling Theme ONE – Understanding couples Intimacy involves: love, affection and caring, deep attachment to another person. The TRIPOD of couple relationships An intimate relationship consists of three factors that form a tripod on which the relationship rests. 1. Passionate attraction (PA) 2. Mutual expectations (ME) 3. Personal intentions (PI) Passionate attractions (PA) → Individual experiencesRead MoreBiblical Theology Of Family Ministry5153 Words   |  21 Pagesattended the church for the first time. From this time onward, I never had to fear that my father might come home drunk, and create disharmony in the family. Everything started happening just the opposite. He became a God-fearing man. He taught us to love God, pray to God, and follow the instructions from the words of God. My parents raised my siblings and me by providing us a godly home. Daily family devotional time, scripture reading, attending Sunday school, and worship service every week became