The Carbone family Essay Example for Free

The Carbone family EssayIn A View From The Bridge, the audience is introduced with three boastful characters who are Eddie Carbone, Catherine Carbone and Beatrice Carbone. All of these characters show their unique qualities in the sense that Eddie is a much more demanding person, whereas Beatrice can be seen as a weaker person who is tend to follow her husband Eddie in a patriarchal society and Catherine who is loose in terms of her actions and naive through her words. The familys values are very unmitigated as the reader can infer from the figment of Vinny Bolzano. First of completely, Eddie Carbone is a simple person who is a victim of circumstances but he as well as contributes to his own downfall. He works as a longshoreman at the Brooklyn Docks. Eddie is characteristically uneducated but still is a very hardworking man. He is presented as creation dignified and having integrity by being proud and honest. These characteristics are seen from him when he says to Beatrice that, All Im worried about is you got such a substance besides big a heart.This shows that Eddie is observant and he is mindful of the fact that his wife can be over-exploited at occasions like when he describes the story of his father-in-laws house burning down. He believes he should be the leader of his house. This can be seen as he talks to Catherine about her new job as a stenographer, Why didnt you ask me before you take a job? This shows that he wanted Catherine to ask for permission and to authorise it from himself. This manly character of Eddie message that he feels as the boss of his house and that he would be insulted if not done otherwise.This is one of the cause of his collapse at the end of the story being too masculine that he couldnt show his emotions as everything was bottled inside. Eddie is also an affectionate and big-hearted man, which can be seen by his esteem for Marco and Rodolfo when they come to stay. For example at what cartridge clip Marco tells Edd ie in a formal manner, that when you say go, we will go Eddies response to this was that theyre welcome he also adds that theyve got plenty of room here. Eddie also believes in family loyalties, this is chiefly due to the tightly bound Sicilian community that he comes from originally.Eddie is over-protective towards Catherine and this can be seen from the apparel that Catherine wears and shows it to Eddie in a very excitedly manner. This is shown when he says I think its too short. Eddie feels more affection for Catherine than is natural for a man towards his niece. Catherine, I dont want to be a pest, but Im tellin you youre walkin wavy. Eddie said this phrase when Catherine wears a new skirt she had brought, to show Eddie. He is concerned that she will receive attention from men, which Eddie doesnt like as he thinks of Catherine as his.He also says you isnt all the girls. Here Eddie means that Catherine is his, and that he is much more demanding of her Catherine should only do w hat he says her to do. All of these factors motivate Eddie to be over-protective of Catherine. Due to Eddies strong beliefs in the tralatitious Italian Values it has a great effect on his own life and the lives of those surrounding him, so when Catherine proposes the job as a stenographer, Eddie strongly opposes this, whereby he wants to keep Catherine away from other men, (sickened) I know that neighbourhood B., I dont like it ,however this could also be because of his traditional views whereby the male is the breadwinner, and will provide for the family, and if Catherine too brings in money for the house then Eddie may take it as an assault on his manhood. Also due to Eddies traditional Italian values he is immensely proud as is expected, and therefore will never admit that he is wrong or admit his unacceptable feelings for Catherine.

My Life Essay Example for Free

My Life Es distinguishAbove anything else, I still think that the most enigmatic term, concept, and thing in the world aside from its existence is animateness. A persons flavor can be the most difficult thing to describe, to define, to expound, and to measure. It volition of all time be very challenging for an individual to summarize his of her entire emotional state in nothing but words that do not even measure up to lifes vague smasher, wonders, and mysteries. further in the very best way that I can, combining everything I learned from writing, recounting history, and expressing my thoughts, I shall try to tell you what and how my life is so far. I will choose to tell how my life was in the ult, what it is like instanter, and how I envision it to become in the future in my witness tone and perspective. Simplicity is a very relative and subjective term. Some would associate this term with peace and serenity, but I would rather connect it with the ideas of non-extravaga nt beauty and non-chaotic momentum. And so, I would rather call my life a simple one in this sense. As for my pincerhood, I realized that this phase is not a solely natural incident and event which happens to everyone.In one way or an early(a), and at least in my own life, I exact come to envision that having a childhood is also partly an individual choice that commonwealth contract to make. More importantly, having a happy childhood is the spaciouser choice which people have to decide on whether they would have it or not. With regard to my own, I chose having a childhood and a worthwhile one. Twenty-three geezerhood ago, I cried meaningfully on the insert date of birth ex 25th of December, 1986 which told my parents that I am already existing as a person.Throughout my entire childhood, I cried for various(a) reasons whenever I got hurt, got disappointed, felt sad, felt annoyed, and felt overwhelmingly happy. All these cries, my life proved, are part of growing up. In my l ifes context, these things made me realize that I am but a human organism who feels and learns to express what he feels whenever he feels the need for it. Growing up in Turkey, I can say that my past is as colorful and vibrant as my country.My mind never ran out of iridescent and crazy ideas when I was going through my primary and secondary levels of preparation. I think I owe to my parents the considerable amount of effort they had to sacrifice in order to give me and my one and only sister the kind of education which we can both be proud of. My heart never skipped a beat as it vigorously lived with the glorious days of my childhood and adolescent years when I felt like I was the most powerful and liberated man that God has ever created.In a nutshell, my childhood is something I would always want to reminisce over and over again. And so, I rekindle that vibrant feeling every now and then, especially now that I write this news report of my life. Excellence and being well-molded ne ver fascinated me until my parents, together with my mentors at the previous schools that I attended, injected into my consciousness the significance of education to an individuals betterment.I think that it safe to say that generally, young people dislike going to school very much however, it was during those days, when I was on the verge of hating school, when I started to realize that education is actually the strongest rump I could ever have that will equip me with the skills and knowledge to become a competent person in the future. As an average person who grew up with his parents in Istanbul, Turkey and who is still spending his days as a university student under the custody of his parents, I can say that I now have a considerably complete idea of what being a well-molded individual is like.Upon seeing and knowing successful people around me, I have to realize that all their authority, wealth, honor, valor come from a sufficient amount of education and dedication to it. But f or me, aside from this, one thing which also help in creating a well-molded individual in each person is his or her choice of submitting and staying under the guidance of his of her parents, for no parent shall wish for his or her child to go astray.And so, I chose to stay aligned with my parents guidance and proved to myself that indeed, parents have the innate ability to know the best and only the best for their children. I have never learned and realized the power of material things. I may have become fascinated with some, but one of the most amazing and worthy things I have learned in my life is that most of the things that can actually give true happiness to people are the intangible things that property cannot purchase in anyway.In several instances, I have also experienced the most typical emotional and psychological milestones that a human being goes through in life. As I entered adulthood, I have realized the value of true friendship and the value of having a special per son care for me. I have also been able to go through several rites of passage that defined my membership to the so called in-circles in my youth. Many times I fell fleshy and stood up again, never surrendering to the most miserable heartbreaks yet the most meaningful lessons that I can consider indispensable for the rest of my life.Truly, no material form of wealth and luxury can ever compare to the most special things that I regard as my greatest achievements in my life so far and these include my self-dignity, the seemingly everlasting friendship that I share with my peers, the love I constantly receive from the people around me, and the sleek future that shines ahead of me in this point of my life. I chose to value these intangible treasures that will last longer than me and than the ones that will fade after I passed. Yet, no matter how colorful or pleasant my writing will turn out to be, I also believe that life is not always a bed of roses.For several instances, I have rece ived harsh criticisms from people who tried to judge me from a far and tried to measure me as a person without knowing me completely. I have faced several failures that brought me serious humiliation and deep self-disappointment. I also have failed to live up to other peoples expectations a number of times. At one point, I thought these falls were bound to identify and label me as an individual and as a man. But my hopes, aspirations, and visions inside of me that have been kept hidden behind these failures always manage to float above everything else and take over my consciousness.Thus, I chose to believe that I as an individual can only be judged and measured according to how strong and triumphant I succeeded after a fall and not by how hard I fell flat on the ground. I chose to tell you this tale of my life in my endeavor to give myself a hint on how I would want to envision myself in the future. If there is one thing this chronicle has taught me and made me understand about mys elf, it is that my life is truly made up of great choices, and each choice is a fruit of a trial-and-error process of learning.Right now, the life of being a university student is giving me all the haughty thoughts of what my life ahead would become. I could be successful like todays powerful and affluent people, yes I can say, but I would choose to follow this tale and make a success story of my own, keeping in mind all the vibrant memories I have had from my childhood, all the valuable lectures my parents and my mentors taught me, the inspiration that my sister, my friends, and love ones gave me, and the indispensable lessons my failures made me realize.Most especially, I would choose to remember my own ambiguous yet insightful definition of what my life is right now and what it will be tomorrow. Thus, I would still choose, and in the future, I know there will still be more choices to make, but I guess that is what life is to me basically a never-ending ball of choices which def ine who we are.

Influence of the Media on the Vietnam War

Influence of the Media on the Vietnam WarThe Vietnam War was divisive for America for many reasons, save the debate just to the highest degree the role of the media has become almost as controversial as the war itself. A popular mind that emerged shortly after its end was that intelligence suppuratencypapers and television networks had contributed to the failure in Vietnam by becoming oppositional obstetrical delivery the brutality of war, as well as criticism of the government, into American homes, influencing frequent attitudes and ultimately bringing almost the withdrawal. In political and array circles the medias impact was deemed to be so decisive that the Department of Defense attempted the total exclusion of reporters from the attack of Grenada in 1983, and introduced a new media pool system for the Panama invasion of 1989.In his 1986 book, The Uncensored War, Daniel Hallin challenged this view that during the war the American media shifted to an oppositional stanc e. In a strong empirical conduct, Hallin suggested the growth of critical reporting merely reflected the growing dissensus on the war, particularly within the political elect(ip). Hallin has since drawn broad support, accreditedly from the academic field, and this essay supports his conclusion that the media did non become a force of opposition.In leaning that the US news media had little independent impact on the ladder of the war, however, I believe Hallin is wrong. This essay leave begin with a brief reexamine of Hallins 1986 exact, as this leave provide a useful framework for analysis of the medias impact on the war. I will indicate why it is a cloggy conclusion that the media was not an institution of opposition, before stressing three omissions the changing media the impact of critical reporting and the ability of an documentary media to influence perspicacity and policy. The following sections will expand these telephone circuits, in order to show that they are advert to understanding the medias impact, and that it must be grappleed a particularor in the course of the Vietnam War. This essay will argue that the media did bear some independent impact on the course of the Vietnam War through a vicious cycle of making information near the war available, and affecting popular and elite opinion. Once banish opinions formed, these were reported by the press and led to a greater split, making the Administration consider the publics reaction to military policy.Hallin a brief critiqueDaniel Hallin (1986) argues that news coverage was broadly supportive until 1968, operating within a sphere of consensus, with stories focused on a theme of American boys in action. The shift to critical coverage was due to elements within the administration beginning to argue publicly over the course of the war, the media never moved into a sphere of deviance where fundamental criticisms of the legitimacy of government action were made (Robinson, 2010). This shift at the cartridge holder of the 1968 Tet sick reflected a breakdown of consensus regarding the war, both in the political elite and wider society. Hallin attributes these findings to two factors prevalent anti-communist ideology in the USA ensured journalists and government officials were united and the media continued to practice intention journalism the ideology and newsgathering routines of journalism did not change, the media continued using official sources and not favouring opponents of administration policy.Hallin supports his theory using quantitative data relating to the content of news media and its progression through the War period. The strength of the study lies in this empirical approach the data are thorough and support his conclusions well, such as the fact that only 8% of all Vietnam stories contained comments reflecting favourably or unfavourably on major actors. Thus Hallin provides a very persuasive response to the oppositional thesis, but his study is mu ch less supportive to his demarcation that the media had little independent impact on the course of the war.This is due to his failure to develop his argument in key areas. The prototypic is the dramatic changes taking place in the media at the age of Vietnam. It was not the first war where atrocities were committed, nor the first to involve political debate about its course, yet these were faithfully reported during Vietnam as they had been in no war previously. Hallin does not discuss the reasons for this, and this is crucial for the evaluation of the medias impact. The second is the influence of negative reporting. Hallin does not analyse fully the put of broadcasts such as Walter Cronkites famous declaration of move and the footage of General Loan killing an unweapon systemed Vietcong prisoner. Hallins third omission is the comity that an objective media by what it reports can still have a significant impact on public and elite opinion. The media reported stories damaging to support for the war, albeit from an objective stance, and its resolution could have been compounded by a vicious cycle.These omissions represent my arguments for the conclusion that the media did have some impact on the course of the Vietnam War, and they are discussed below.A changing mediaAt the time of the Vietnam War there were significant changes taking place that affected not only the stories that were available to journalists, but to a fault crucially the dash in which the news was reported by the media. As has been seen since, these developments decreased the extent of the medias abidance in a time of war and enabled greater emancipation (Robinson, 2010).Vietnam was a war of firsts in many respects. As Susan Carruthers (2000) notes, it was the first television war. Vietnam received sustained, almost nightly, coverage for a number of years. It was the first war to be broadcast in colour (Culbert, 1998), and the first to benefit from new technologies such as satellites. In previous wars editors would order reporters to deliver timeless pieces from the battlefield, such as troops securing an area or marching across countryside, as stories had to be physically brought back to the USA before broadcast. Without this problem broadcasts began to involve current battles and combat, as they were immediately relevant to the reporting of the wars progression. This meant that much much detail about the war, particularly its human costs, reached the American public. Carruthers (2000) also points out that Vietnam marked the start of an age of investigative journalism that culminated in the Watergate scandal. As will be discussed below, the militarys credibility gap encouraged journalists to root out stories for themselves, making reporting much more independent than it had been in previous wars, where the media had relied on information from military briefings.Daniel Hallin (1986) does refer to these changes, and the historical context of the war in Vietnam. He concedes, Vietnam did push journalists away from the deference of an earlier era, but perhaps neglects the significance of this change in relation to the medias impact on the war. Hallin notes that Vietnam was the first war in which reporters routinely accompanied military forces and were not subjected to censorship, giving the media extraordinary freedom to report the war without direct government control. I believe this freedom is extremely significant in the assessment of the impact of the media. It gave reporters unprecedented access to the war, which they could deliver first hand to the American public through their television sets and newspapers. In the words of Epstein (cited in Herman Chomsky, 1988), the military helpless its control over the movements of the press, who could step out of their hotels and find themselves willy-nilly in the midst of bloody fighting. This freedom led to damaging exposs such as Morley Safers report showing the burning of the village of Cam Ne in 1965, stories which would not have surfaced prior to Vietnam.The most important development relating to the medias influence in Vietnam was the change magnitude profile of television news. As Hallin (1986) attests, Television news came of age on the eve of Vietnam. CBS and NBC TV, Americas two biggest television networks, extended their nightly news bulletin from 15 to thirty minutes in 1963, with ABC following suit in 1967. The growth of television news had a profound effect on the way news, and especially the war, was reported. News had to be selective and visually dramatic. Carlyle Thayer (1992) explains the effect this had the war that Americans saw was almost exclusively violent, miserable, or controversial guns firing, men falling, helicopters crashing, buildings toppling, huts burning, refugees fleeing, women wailing. For the first time the American public experienced the human suffering of war, not expressed by words or statistics, but by pictures that showed them de tails previously inscrutable to them.It must be said that Hallin (1986) credibly shows that mainstream media refrained from exposure of wars human costs for the considerable part of Vietnam. He receives support here from Lawrence Lichty, whose study of 2,300 network even out news reports from 1965 1970 showed that only 76 showed anything approaching true violence (Lichty cited in Thayer, 1992). Again, these are strong arguments in terms of disproving the oppositional thesis, but both Hallin and Lichty undervalue the effect that critical reporting can have on society.These dramatic changes in the information available to journalists, and the way in which they could report it, greatly increased the authorisation impact the media could have on the Administration and wartime policy.The impact of critical reportingDaniel Hallin (1986) demonstrates that there was a growth in critical coverage around the time of the 1968 Tet Offensive. In assessing the impact of the media on the war, I believe he underestimates just how critical, and how negative, some of the coverage of the war was during this period. While overall coverage may have remained objective, this is not to say that certain broadcasts were not detrimental to the war effort some are still remembered as bout points in the war.The CBS anchorman Walter Cronkite was describe as the most trusted man in America. On 27th February 1968, upon returning from an inspection of the war, he proclaimed, to say that we are mired in stalemate seems the only realistic, yet unsatisfactory conclusion, while describing Vietnam as a bloody experience (Carruthers, 2000). Upon hearing this broadcast, President Johnson is alleged to have told aides, it is all over (Thussu Freedman, 2003). Its effect was clear to see. On 31st March Lyndon Johnson announced he would not seek a second term as President, and in a actors line to the media shortly afterwards made clear that they were in no small part responsible for his decision (Carruthers, 2000). Cronkite directly contradicted the government line on the domain of the war, and went further on CBS Radio, speaking of the misleading picture of those optimistic stories weve heard about the progress of the war, and asking, Can we, as a nation, face up to the eyeshot of an overwhelmingly costly and bitter Asian War? (Braestrup, 1977). Here it is clear that Cronkite and CBS strayed in to Hallins sphere of deviance. The anchorman claimed the public had been misled by their government, and noused the war itself.This was by no means the only instance of extremely critical reporting. Hallin is silent on the issue of the footage of General Loan, Chief of Police of South Vietnam, shooting an unarmed Vietcong reliever in the head, aired by NBC on 2nd February 1968. David Culbert (1998) is correct to emphasise the impact of both the footage and the still photograph, which appeared in newspapers around the world, on viewers and policy-makers alike. He also records the words of Frank McGhee, commentator for the unedited footage aired on 10th March, the war is being lost by the Administrations definition, showing another arm of the media questioning the legitimacy of the war.It is impossible, of course, to determine the actual effect of such reporting on public and elite opinion, but it is unwise to discount its impact altogether. This ignores the compel visual evidence about the war that was offered to the American public. Culbert (1998) presents a quote from Peter Braestrup on the Loan killing that demonstrates this argument well It was a strain of ultimate horror story that you captured in living colour. But in terms of information it told you almost nothing. This is a crucial point, and one that will be returned to in the following section, that viewers were left to fill the information void with their own meaning, drawn from what they saw. No context was given to the incident, giving the impression that it was a common occurrence. ABCs ancho rman Howard Smith even resigned in February 1968 claiming the media did not provide any context for the Loan shooting or the violence of the Tet Offensive as a whole (Culbert, 1998).Many scholars have dismissed the claim that television had such a large impact on the American public during the Vietnam War. Among them is John Mueller (1971), who argues that the media followed a shift in public opinion against the war, which had actually occurred in the two years prior to the Offensive. Mueller cites rising casualties as the reason for narrowing support for the war, suggesting a similar pattern could be seen in Korea, where television coverage was minimal. Thayer (1992) notes that one survey in 1968, the time at which critical coverage is meant to have had the greatest effect, found that less than half of the television households watched the news on a given evening. This provides a certain amount of perspective for the argument that television news played a role in shaping public op inion.Nevertheless, in focusing on the violence, the controversy and the human costs of the Tet Offensive, the media contributed to turning what was a military success for the USA into a defeat for public opinion and elite consensus.Objective influence, and the vicious cycleThe most important argument against Hallins assertion that the media had little impact on the course of the war is the role the media plays in the forming of opinions at home. Again, Hallin is correct in saying that the media maintained an objective stance, and his study is very convincing on this subject. However, the public shape their opinions based on the information available to them, and, as demonstrated above, the media reported stories that were politically very damaging. As Melvin Small (1987) suggests, if the media does not cover it, then it might as well not have happened, as far as the impact on the President, his advisors, the normal public, and even other nations is concerned, and during Vietnam th e various arms of the press resolved to provide all information about the war, whether positive or negative. This is clearly an objective position, but by reporting the negative side of the war the media informed the public that there was in fact a negative side, influencing the debate. Hallin (1986) claims that it is unclear whether the effect of public opinion would have been any different had the media been subject to censorship, but this is a weak argument. If censorship were enforced, the public would have received most of their news about the war from the government, which as it is often repeated, was painting a rosy picture of Vietnam.David Culbert (1998) claims that in a time of uncertainty, compelling visual evidence has a source denied it in ordinary circumstances. While this is true of television broadcasts, it can be applied to the media as a whole in a time of moderate war. As Phillip Knightley (2004) argues, Vietnam was a war like no other, a war with no front line, no easily identifiable enemy, no simply explained cause, no clearly designated villain on whom to focus the nations hateand, therefore, no nationwide fervour of patriotism. Combine this with the credibility gap created by the military and the government the positivism about the war consistently presented at military briefings was at odds with what reporters in the field were seeing themselves, and this divergence became clear to the public and the media were granted an transcendent role in shaping public opinion on the war. It must also not be forgotten that multiple news sources can also influence elite opinion, and so indeed can the public, and this is the basis of the vicious cycle that played some role in ending the war.It is widely hold that the Tet Offensive was the key period of coverage of the Vietnam War, as this was the start of the shift to more critical reporting by the media. This is important because negative coverage in mainstream news encourages opponents of gov ernment policy to speak out. Hallin (1986) agrees that the anti-war movement was given increasing airtime, but says they remained fringe voices. However, how these voices were presented is not significant Hallin proves they were not afforded any favourable preaching it is the fact that they were aired at all that had the impact.Once mainstream media carries the question of the legitimacy of government action, the public and members of the Administration are free to consider it a likely response to the situation, and encouraged to question their own position. As William Hammond (1998) attests, the broadening of the debate affected the attitudes of network anchormen and reporters Earlier in the war, Walter Cronkite had thought nothing of referring to the Viet Cong as the Communists. after Tet he did so rarely. Government officials beginning to discuss alternative actions publicly ensured this cycle continued. It is impossible to say which factor starts this process, which is why th e theory of the media being the first in a domino effect is unconvincing. It can be said, however, that critical coverage encouraged opponents to speak out about the war, were given credibility by the media, influencing public opinion and forcing the Administration to carefully consider its actions with regard to public reaction.This was clearly evident in Vietnam. I concur with Hallin that it is impossible to be certain how news affected the audience, but we can be sure that the media had an impact on the course of the war in directly influencing military decisions. Hallin (1986) agrees that considerations of public opinion were partly responsible for the limitations placed on the use of military power. Many from political and military circles maintain that intensive bombing of North Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia could have produced mastery (Carruthers, 2000), but it was rejected because the media would have shown its human costs. Targets were limited because extensive civilian casua lties were seen as politically damaging this was only the case because the media had access to the stories of civilian casualties, and would for certain report them. The media prevented the conducting of the war by what the military deemed as the most appropriate means.ConclusionsWhatever the intention behind such relentless and literal reporting of war, the publication was a serious demoralisation of the home front, was President Nixons assessment of the impact of the media in Vietnam (Robinson, 2010).Its impact is still widely debated due to the fact that it is extremely unwieldy to determine the exact effect of news coverage on the American public over its duration. It is clear that both public opinion and the breakdown of elite political consensus were decisive in the course of the war, and its end. What Hallins study and many that support it fail to recognise is that the news media play a crucial role in the shaping of these opinions.The potential impact of this role was in creased in Vietnam due to the unusual circumstances of limited war, and the dramatic changes that were occurring in the US news media at the time. The willingness of high profile journalists and broadcasters to make critical statements about the war compounded this effect. The combination of these developments meant that the media had greater access to information both positive and negative about the war, but that the negative was more akin to the emerging style of television news. The media did not become an oppositional force, though some instances of critical reporting did directly question the legitimacy of Administration policy. In reporting, from an objective stance, negative views of the war, the media invited Americans to question the credibility of the war and their government, part of a vicious cycle that led to more negative feeling about the war.

The Indo-china War: An Overview

The Indo-china struggle An OverviewThe Indo-mainland mainland China War, likewise known as the Sino-Indian Border Conflict, was a war between China and india that occurred in 1962. A dis coifed Hima setan call up was the main pretext for war, but other issues played a role. on that point had been a series of violent border incidents after the 1959 tibetan spring up, when India had granted asylum to thedalai lama. Under a Forward Policy, India placed outposts a broad the border, including several newton of the MacMahon Line, the eastern portion of a Line of actual Control proclaimed by Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai in 1959.The Chinese launched simultaneous offensives in ladakh and across the McMahon Line on 20 October 1962, coinciding with the Cuban missile crises. Chinese array acquired everywhere Indian forces in both theaters, capturing rezang la in chushul in the western theater, as well as tawang in the eastern theater. The war ended when the Chinese declared aceasefire on 20 November 1962, and afterward withdrew from the disputed field of battle.The Sino-Indian War is notable for the harsh conditions under which much of the fighting took place, entailling large-scale combat at altitudes of oer 4,250 metres (14,000 feet). This presented enormous logistics problems for both sides. The Sino-Indian War was also noted for the non-deployment of navy or subscriber line force by either the Chinese and Indian sides.LocationChina and India share a long border, severalize into three stretches by Nepal and Bhutan, which follows the Himalaya mountains between Burma and what was whence West pakistan. A number of disputed theatrical roles lie along this border. At its western end is the Aksai chin region, an area the size of Switzerland, that sits between the Chinese autonomous region of Xingjiang, and Tibet (which China declared as autonomous regions in 1965). The eastern border, between Burma and Bhutan, comprises the present Indian earth of Arunachal Pr adesh (formerly the North East Frontier agency). Both of these regions were overrun by China in the 1962 conflict.Most combat took place at high altitudes. The Aksai chin region is a vast desert of salt flats well-nigh 5,000 metres above sea level, and Arunachal Pradesh is extremely mountainous with a number of peaks exceeding 7000 metres. harmonize to military doctrine, to be successful an attacker generally requires a 31 ratio of numerical superiority over the defender inmoutain warfare this ratio should be easily higher as the terrain favours disproof.China was able to take advantage of this the Chinese Army had possession of the highest ridges in the regions. The high altitude and freezing conditions also cause logistic and welfare difficulties in past similar conflicts (such as the Italian Campaign of World war I) more than casualties gain been cause by the harsh conditions than enemy action. The Sino-Indian War was no different, with many troops on both sides dying in the freezing cold.BackgroundPre-Simla British map published in 1909 shows the so callight-emitting diode satellite Line as Indias northern confines.The cause of the war was a dispute over the sovereignty of the widely-separated Aksai Chin and Arunachal Pradesh border regions. Aksai Chin, claimed by India to belong to kashmir and by China to be part of Xinjiang, contains an important road link that connects the Chinese regions of Tibet and Xinjiang. Chinas construction of this road was unmatchable of the triggers of the conflict. Arunachal Pradesh (called South Tibet by China) is also claimed by both nationsalthough it is round the size of Austria, it is sparsely inhabited (by numerous local tribes) due to its mountainous terrain .The Indian state Arunachal Pradesh has a population of over one million as of today.The Johnson LineThe western portion of the Sino-Indian boundary originates in 1834, with the Sikh Confederations conquest of ladakh. In 1842 the Sikh Confederacy, which at t he time ruled over much of Northen India (including the landmark regions of jammu and Kashmir), signed a treaty which guaranteed the integrity of its existing borders with its neighbours. The British defeat of the Sikhs in 1846 resulted in transfer of sovereignty over ladakh, part of the Jammu and Kashmir region, to the British, and British commissioners contacted Chinese officials to talk over the border. The boundaries at its dickens extremities, Pangong lake and Karakoram Pass, were well-defined, but the Aksai Chin area in between lay undefined.In 1865, British surveyor W H Johnson came to an agreement with the maharaja of Kashmir, in whose service he was employed, on a proposed Johnson Line which placed Aksai Chin in Kashmir. China rejected the arrangement, and the British governance also harboured doubts, so unyielding to take up the issue in an attempt to reach a settlement. However in 1892, before the issue had been re wreakd, China erected boundary markers at Karakoram Pass on the ancient caravan route between Xinjiang and Ladakh (which were disputed by the British Indian Government).Throughout most of the 19th century dandy Britain and the expanding Russian Empire were jockeying for set in Central asia, and Britain decided to hand over Aksai Chin to Chinese administration as a buffer against Russian infringement. The newly-created border was known as the MacCartney-MacDonald Line, and both British-controlled India and China now began to show Aksai Chin as Chinese. In 1911 the xinhai revolution resulted in power shifts in China, and by 1918 (in the wake of the Russian Bolshevik revolution) the British no longer saw merit in Chinas continuing possession of the region. On British maps the border was redrawn as the original Johnson Line, but despite this reversion the new border was left unmanned and undemarcated. fit in to Neville maxwell, the British had used as many as 11 different boundary lines in the region, as their claims shifted with th e political situation. By the time of Indian independence in 1947, the Johnson Line had become Indias official western boundary. On 1 July 1954, Indian Prime rector Jawahar Lal Nehru definitively stated the Indian position. He claimed that Aksai Chin had been part of the Indian ladakh region for centuries, and that the border (as defined by the Johnson Line) was non-negotiable. According to George N. Patterson, when the Indian government finally produced a report detailing the alleged proof of Indias claims to the disputed area, the quality of the Indian evidence was real poor, including some very dubious sources indeed.During the 1950s, China constructed a road by dint of Aksai Chin, connecting Xinjiang and Tibet, which ran south of the Johnson Line in many places. Aksai Chin was easily accessible to the Chinese, but access from India, which meant negotiating the Karakoram moutains, was more problematic. Consequently India did not even learn of the existence of the road until 1 957 finally confirmed when the road was shown in Chinese maps published the following year.The McMahon LineIn 1826 India and China gained a common border, including the area of what is now called Myanmar, following British annexations in the Anglo Burmes Wars. In 1847, Major J. Jenkins, Agent for the North East Frontier, reported that the Tawang was part of Tibet. In 1872, four monastic officials from Tibet arrived in Tawang and supervised a boundary settlement with Major R. Graham, NEFA official, which included the Tawang Tract as part of Tibet. Thus, in the at long last half of the 19th century, it was clear that the British treated the Tawang Tract as part of Tibet. This boundary was confirmed in a June 1, 1912 note from the British ordinary Staff in India, stating that the present boundary (demarcated) is south of Tawang, running westwards along the foothills from near Ugalguri to the southern Bhutanese border. A 1908 map of The Province of eastern Bengal and Assam (32 miles to the inch), pay offd for the Foreign Department of the Government of India, showed the international boundary from Bhutan continuing to the Baroi River, following the Himalayas foothill alignment. In 1913, representatives of Great Britain, China and Tibet attended a conference in simla regarding the borders between Tibet, China and British India. Whilst all three representatives initialed the agreement, Beijing later objected to the proposed boundary between the regions of Outer Tibet and Inner Tibet and did not ratify it. The details of the Indo-Tibetan boundary was not revealed to China at the time. The foreign secretary of the British Indian government, Henry McMahon, who drew up the proposal, decided to bypass the Chinese (although instructed not to by his superiors) and settle the border bilaterally by negotiating directly with Tibet. According to later Indian claims, this border was intended to run by means of the highest ridges of the Himalayas, as the areas south of the Himalayas were traditionally Indian. However, the McMahon Line lay south of the boundary India claims. Indias government held the view that the Himalayas were the ancient boundaries of the Indian Subcontinent, and thus should be the modern boundaries of India. while it is the position of the Chinese government that the disputed area in the Himalayas have been geographically and culturally part of Tibet since ancient times.Months after the simla Agreement, China set up boundary markers south of the McMahon Line. TOCallaghan, an official in the Eastern Sector of the on North east bound, relocated all these markers to a location slightly south of the McMahon Line, and then visited Rima to confirm with Tibetan officials that in that location was no Chinese influence in the area. The British-run Government of India initially rejected the Simla Agreement as incompatible with the Anglo-Russian shape of 1907, which stipulated that neither party was to negotiate with Tibet except through the intermediary of the Chinese government. The British and Russians cancelled the 1907 agreement by joint consent in 1921. It was not until the late 1930s that the British started to use the McMahon Line on official maps of the region.China took the position that the Tibetan government should not have been allowed to make a such a treaty, rejecting Tibets claims of separate rule. For its part, Tibet did not object to any section of the McMahon Line excepting the demarcation of the trading town of Tawang, which the Line placed under British-Indian jurisdiction. However, up until World War II, Tibetan officials were allowed to administer Tawang with complete authority. Due to the increased threat of Japanese and Chinese expansion during this period, British Indian troops secured the town as part of the defense of Indias eastern border.In the 1950s India began actively patrolling the region. It found that, at multiple locations, the highest ridges actually fell north of the McMahon Line. Given Indias historic position that the original draped of the Line was to separate the two nations by the highest mountains in the world, in these locations India extended its forward posts northward to the ridges, regarding this move as compliant with the original border proposal, although the Simla Convention did not explicitly state this intention.On Oct. 29, 2008, david Miliband, the British foreign secretary, announced that the previous British actions including the Simla Accord (1913) and thus the McMahon line had been an anachronism and a compound legacy. He apologized to China for not having renounced those actions earlier. He was supported by Chris Patten, the last British governor of Hong Kong, who called the British position embodied in the Simla Accord(1913) a unusual eccentricity.Events leading up to warTibet controversyThe 1940s saw huge change in South Asia with the Partition of india in 1947 (resulting in the geological formation of the two new states of in dia and pakistan), and the establishment of the peoples Replic of china in 1949. One of the most basic policies for the new Indian government was that of maintaining cordial dealings with China, reviving its ancient well-disposed ties. India was among the first nations to grant diplomatic recognition to the newly-created PRC.At the time, Chinese officials issued no condemnation of Nehrus claims or made any opposition to Nehrus open declarations of control over Aksai Chin. In 1956,Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai stated that he had no claims over Indian controlled territory. He later argued that Aksai Chin was already under Chinese jurisdiction, implying that there was therefore no contradiction with his earlier statement since China did not regard the region as Indian controlled, and that since the British hand-over China had regarded the McCartney MacDonald Line as the relevant border. Zhou later argued that as the boundary was undemarcated and had never been defined by treaty between any Chinese or Indian government, the Indian government could not unilaterally define Aksai Chins borders.However, within a short time the PRC announced its intention to reclaim Tibet from the British, and later extended its influence by placing border posts within the Indian-claimed territory of aksai Chin. India protested against these moves and decided to look for a diplomatic solution to ensure a stable Sino-Indian border. To resolve any doubts most the Indian position, Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru declared in parliament that India regarded the McMahon Line as its official border. The Chinese expressed no concern at this statement, and in 1951 and 52, the government of China asserted that there were no frontier issues to be taken up with India.The Indian governments 1950 maps show the Sino-Indian border using undemarcated lines and the Aksai chin frontier is labeled boundary undefined.The Indian governments 1954 maps unilaterally delimited the Sino-Indian border in the Aksai chin,and Sino-Indian borders are no longer indicated as undemarcated.In 1954, Prime Minister Nehru wrote a memo calling for Indias borders to be clearly defined and demarcated in line with previous Indian philosophy, Indian maps showed a border that, in some places, lay north of the McMahon Line. Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai, in November 1956, again repeated Chinese assurances that the Peoples Republic had no claims on Indian territory, although official Chinese maps showed 120,000 even up kilometres of territory claimed by India as Chinese.CIA documents created at the time revealed that Nehru had ignored Burmese premier Ba Swe when he warned Nehru to be cautious when dealing with Zhou. They also allege that Zhou purposefully told Nehru that there were no border issues with India.In 1950 the Chinese Peoples Liberation Army invaded tibet. Four years later, in 1954, China and India negotiated the Five Principles of Peaseful Coexistence by which the two nations agreed to abide in settl ing their disputes. India presented a frontier map which was accepted by China, and the Indian government under Prime Minister Nehru promoted the slogan Hindi-Chini bhai-bhai (Indians and Chinese are brothers). According to Georgia tech political analyst John W Garver, Nehrus policy on Tibet was to create a surd Sino-Indian partnership which would be catalyzed through agreement and compromise on Tibet. Garver believes that Nehrus previous actions had given him confidence that China would be ready to form an Asian axis vertebra with India.This apparent show up in relations suffered a major set rearwards when, in 1959, Nehru accommodated the Tibetan religious leader, the Dalai Lama, who was fleeing Lhasa after a failed Tibetan uprising against Chinese rule. The Chairman of the Chinese Communist Party, MaoZedong, was enraged and asked the Xinhua news agency to produce reports on Indian expansionists operating in Tibet.Border incidents move through this period. In August 1959, the P LA took an Indian prisoner at Longju, which had an ambiguous position in the McMahon Line, and two months later in Aksai Chin a clash led to the death of nine Indian frontier policemen.On 2 October, Soviet Premier Nikita khrushchev defended Nehru in a meeting with Mao. This action reinforced Chinas impression that the Soviet Union, the United States and India all had expansionist designs over China. The PLA (Peoples Liberation Army) went so far as to prepare a self-defensive counterattack think. Negotiations were restarted between the nations, but no progress was made.As a consequence of their non-recognition of the McMahon Line, Chinas maps showed both the North East Frontier Area (NEFA) and Aksai Chin to be Chinese territory. In 1960, Zhou Enlai unofficially suggested that India trim back its claims to Aksai Chin in return for a Chinese conceiveal of claims over NEFA. Adhering to his stated position, Nehru believed that China did not have a legitimate claim over either of thes e territories, and thus was not ready to concede them. This adamance was comprehend in China as Indian opposition to Chinese rule in Tibet. Nehru declined to conduct any negotiations on the boundary until Chinese troops withdrew from Aksai Chin a position supported by the international community. India produced numerous reports on the negotiations, and translated Chinese reports into English to help inform the international debate. China believed that India was just now securing its claim lines in order to continue its grand plans in Tibet.2 Indias stance that China withdraw from Aksai Chin caused continual deterioration of the diplomatic situation to the point at which internal forces were pressurizing Nehru to take a military stance against China.The Forward PolicyAt the beginning of 1961, Nehru appointed General B M Kaul as army Chief of General Staff, but he refused to increase military spending and prepare for a possible war. That summer, Chinas continuing patrols south of th e McMahon Line provoked an Indian response known as the Forward Policy. According to James Barnard Calvin of the U.S. Navy, in 1959, India started direct Indian troops and border patrols into disputed areas. This program created both skirmishes and deteriorating relations between India and China.The aim of this policy was to create outposts behind advancing Chinese troops to inderdict their supplies, forcing their return to China. There were lastly 60 such outposts, including 43 north of the McMahon Line. China viewed this as further confirmation of Indian expansionist plans directed towards Tibet. According to the Indian official history, implementation of the Forward Policy was intended to provide evidence of Indian strain in the previously unoccupied region through which Chinese troops had been patrolling. Kaul was confident, through contact with Indian Intelligence and CIA information, that China would not react with force. Indeed at first the PLA simply withdrew, but eventual ly Chinese forces began to counter-encircle the Indian positions. This led to a tit-for-tat Indian reaction, with both forces attempting to outmanoeuver each other. However, despite the escalating nature of the dispute, the two forces withheld from engaging each other directly.Chinese help was diverted for a time by the military activity of the Nationalists on Taiwan, but on 23 June the U.S. assured China that a Nationalist invasion would not be permitted. Chinas heavy artillery facing Taiwan could then be moved to Tibet. It took China six to eight months to gather the resources needed for the war, harmonize to Anil Athale, author of the official Indian history. The Chinese sent a large quantity of non-military supplies to Tibet through the Indian port of Cal separatrixta.Early incidentsVarious border conflicts and military incidents between India and China flared up throughout the summer and autumn of 1962. In May, the Indian Air Force was told not to plan for close air support, a lthough it was assessed as being a feasible way to repel the unbalanced ratio of Chinese to Indian troops. In June, a skirmish caused the deaths of dozens of Chinese troops. The Indian Intelligence Bureau received information about a Chinese buildup along the border which could be a precursor to war.During the period of June-July 1962, the Indian military planners began advocating probing actions against the Chinese, and accordingly, moved mountain troops forward to cut off Chinese supply lines. According to Patterson, the Indian motives were threefold1. Test Chinese resolve and intentions regarding India.2. Test whether India would enjoy Soviet backing in the event of a Sino-Indian war.3. Create sympathy for India within the US, with whom relations had deteriorated after the Indian annexation of Goa.On 10 July 1962, 350 Chinese troops surrounded an Indian post in Chushul but withdrew after a heated argument via loudspeaker. On 22 July, the Forward Policy was extended to allow India n troops to push back Chinese troops already established in disputed territory. Whereas Indian troops were previously ordered to fire only in self-defense, all post commanders were now given discretion to open fire upon Chinese forces if threatened. In August, the Chinese military improved its combat readiness along the McMahon Line and began stockpiling ammunition, weapons and gasoline.Confrontation at Thag LaIn June 1962, Indian forces established an outpost at Dhola, on the southern slopes of the Thag la Ridge. Dhola lay north of the McMahon Line but south of the ridges India maintains the McMahon Line was supposed to represent. In August, China issued diplomatic protests and began occupying positions at the top of Thag La. On 8 September, a 60-strong PLA unit descended to the south side of the ridge and occupied positions that dominated one of the Indian posts at Dhola. Fire was not exchanged but Nehru said to the media that the Indian Army had instructions to free our territory and the troops had been given discretion to use force. On 11 September, it was decided that all forward posts and patrols were given permission to fire on any armed Chinese who entered Indian territory.However, the operation to occupy Thagla was flawed in that Nehrus directives were ill-defined and it got underway very slowly because of this. In addition to this, each man had to carry 35kg of luggage over the long trek and this severely slowed down the reaction. By the time the Indian battalion reached the point of conflict, Chinese units controlled both banks of the Namka Chu River.On 20 September, Chinese troops threw grenades at Indian troops and a firefight developed, triggering a long series of skirmishes for the rest of September.Some Indian troops, including Brigadier Dalvi who commanded the forces at Thag La, were also concerned that the territory they were fighting for was not strictly territory that we should have been win over was ours.According to Neville maxwell, eve n members of the Indian defence ministry were categorically concerned with the validity of the fighting in Thag La.On 3 October, a week before the triggering of the war, Zhou Enlai visited Nehru in new delhi promising there would be no war. On 4 October, Kaul assigned some troops with securing regions south of the Thagla Ridge. Kaul decided to first secure Yumtso La, a strategically important position, before re-entering the lost Dhola post. Kaul had then realised that the attack would be desperate and the Indian government tried to stop escalation into an all-out war. Indian troops travelling to Thagla had suffered in the previously unexperienced conditions, two gurkha troops died of pulmonary edema.On 10 October, an Indian Punjabi patrol of 50 troops to Yumtso La were met by an emplaced Chinese position of some 1,000 soldiers. Indian troops were in no position for battle, as Yumtso La was 16,000 feet (4,900 m) above sea level and Kaul did not plan on having artillery support for t he troops. The Chinese troops opened fire on the Indians under their belief that they were north of the McMahon Line. The Indians were surrounded by Chinese positions which used mortar fire. However, they managed to hold off the first Chinese assault, inflicting heavy casualties.At this point, the Indian troops were in a position to push the Chinese back with mortar and machine gun fire. However, Brigadier Dalvi opted not to fire, as it would mean decimating the Rajput who were still in the area of the Chinese regrouping. They helplessly watched the Chinese ready themselves for a second assault. In the second Chinese assault, the Indians began their retreat, realising the situation was hopeless. The Indian patrol suffered 25 casualties, with the Chinese suffering 33. The Chinese troops held their fire as the Indians retreated, and then buried the Indian dead with military honors, as witnessed by the retreating soldiers. This was the first occurrence of heavy fighting in the war.This attack had grave implications for India and Nehru tried to solve the issue, but by 18 October it was clear that the Chinese were preparing for an attack on India, with massive troop buildups on the border. A long line of mules and porters had also been detect supporting the buildup and reinforcement of positions south of the Thagla ridge.Preparations for warMotivesTwo of the major factors leading up to Chinas eventual conflicts with Indian troops were Indias stance on the disputed borders and perceived Indian subversion in Tibet. There was a perceived need to avenge and end perceived Indian efforts to undermine Chinese control of Tibet, Indian efforts which were perceived as having the objective of restoring the pre-1949 status quo ante of Tibet. The other was a perceived need to punish and end perceived Indian aggression against Chinese territory along the border. John W. Garver argues that the first perception was incorrect based on the state of the Indian military and polity i n the 1960s, it was, nevertheless a major reason for Chinas going to war. However, he argues the Chinese perception of aggression to be substantially accurate.The CIAs recently declassified Polo documents reveal contemporary American analysis of Chinese motives during the war. According to this document, Chinese apparently were motivated to attack by one primary considerationtheir determination to retain the ground on which PLA forces stood in 1962 and to punish the Indians for trying to take that ground.Another factor which affected Chinas decision for war with India was a perceived need to stop a Soviet-US-India encirclement and isolation of China. Indias relations with the Soviet Union and United States were both strong at this time, but the Soviets were preoccupied by the Cuban Missile Crisis and would not interfere with the Sino-Indian War. P.B. Sinha suggests that China time the war exactly in parallel with American actions so as to avoid any chance of American or Soviet inv olvement. American buildup of forces around Cuba occurred on the same day as the first major clash at Dhola while Chinas buildup between the 10th and 20th of October coincided exactly with the United States establishment of a blockade against Cuba which began on the 20th of October.Garver argues that the Chinese correctly assessed Indian border policies, particularly the Forward Policy, as attempts for incremental seizure of Chinese-controlled territory. On Tibet, Garver argues that one of the major factors leading to Chinas decision for war with India was a common tendency of humans to attribute others behavior to interior motivations, while attributing their own behavior to situational factors. Studies from China published in the 1990s confirmed that the root cause for China going to war with India was the perceived aggression in Tibet, with the forward policy simply catalyzing the aggressive Chinese reaction.Neville Maxwell and Allen Whiting argue that the Chinese leaders believe d they were defending territory they believed to be legitimately Chinese, and which was already under de facto Chinese occupation prior to Indian advances, and regarded the Forward Policy as an Indian attempt at creeping annexation. Mao Zedong himself compared the Forward Policy to a strategic advance in Chinese chessTheir Indias continually pushing forward is like crossing the Chu han boundry. What should we do? We can also set out a a couple of(prenominal) pawns, on our side of the river. If they dont then cross over, thats great. If they do cross, well eat them up chess metaphor meaning to take the opponents pieces. Of course, we cannot blindly eat them. Lack of forbearance in small matters upsets great plans. We must pay attention to the situation.The motive for the Forward Policy was to cut off the supply routes for Chinese troops stick on in NEFA and Aksai Chin. According to the official Indian history, the forward policy was continued because of its initial success, as Chin ese troops withdrew when they encountered areas already occupied by Indian troops. The Forward Policy was having success in cutting out supply lines of Chinese troops who had advanced South of the McMahon Line. However, the Forward Policy rested on the assumption that Chinese forces were not likely to use force against any of our posts, even if they were in a position to do so. No serious critical review of this policy took place even when Chinese forces ceased withdrawing.By early 1962, the Chinese leadership began to fear that Indias intentions were to launch a massive attack against Chinese troops, and that the Indian leadership wanted a war. In 1961, the Indian army had been sent into Goa, a small region without any other international borders apart from the Indian one, after Portugal refused to surrender the exclave to the Indian Union. Although this action met little to no international protest or opposition, China saw it as an example of Indias expansionist nature, especiall y in light of heated rhetoric from Indian politicians. Indias Home Minister declared, If the Chinese will not vacate the areas occupied by it, India will have to repeat What she did in Goa. India will certainly drive out the Chinese forces,while another member of the Indian Congress Party pronounced, India will take steps to end Chinese aggression on Indian soil just as she ended Portuguese aggression in Goa. By mid-1962, it was apparent to the Chinese leadership that negotiations had failed to make any progress, and the Forward Policy was increasingly perceived as a grave threat as Delhi increasingly sent probes deeper into border areas and cut off Chinese supply lines. Foreign Minister Marshal Chen Yi commented at one high-level meeting, Nehrus forward policy is a knife. He wants to put it in our heart. We cannot close our eyes and await death. The Chinese leadership believed that their restraint on the issue was being perceived by India as weakness, leading to continued provocat ions, and that a major counterblow was needed to stop perceived Indian aggression.Xu Yan, prominent Chinese military historian and professor at the PLAs National Defense University, gives an posting of the Chinese leaderships decision to go to war. By late September 1962, the Chinese leadership had begun to reconsider their policy of armed coexistence, which had failed to address their concerns with the forward policy and Tibet, and consider a large, decisive strike.The Chinese leadership initially held a sympathetic view towards India as the latter had been ruled by British colonial master for centuries. However, Nehrus forward policy convinced PRC leadership that the independent Indian leadership was a reincarnation of British imperialism. Thus, the Indian government must be taught an unforgettable lesson. Mao Zedong stated Rather than being constantly accused of aggression, its better to show the world what really happens when China indeed moves its muscles.Military readyingThe Indian side was confident war would not be triggered and made little preparat

One Is Not Born A Woman

One Is Not born(p) A Wo troopsA single, short expression that poses the central feminist question about awaken balance is the following Mamas baby, papas maybe. Biology has granted women a right to genetic parenthood that no man is privileged to share. However, this expression is subject to inversion in the text, The vividness royal, which I have chosen to discuss in the light of fair sexism rather than womens lib because the former is more inclusive than the latter. Moreover, the traditional concept of man- woman family/ dependency forciblely and ideologically is put to severe blow by Monique Wittigs concept of lesbianism in her controversial yet most famous essay, One is non born a woman. This paper aims to show the bonding between Celie and Shug through the theories put forward by Wittig. The import of love, companionship and sexual pleasure finds an altered form in the chosen text and proves that woman does non need a man to complete her.Keywords intertextuality, wo manism, black identityPAPERMonique Wittig is a well-known(a) French feminist writer. In 1992, The Straight Mind and Other Essays, a compilation of essays on a variety of feminist and lesbian issues, stormed the world with its announcement of lesbians as opposed to the category of woman. The result was a book of nine essays in which she outlines her position on such issues as the category of sex, the heterosexism inherent in language and the social contract. It cajoles star to think about ones natural assumptions about gender and sexuality.According to Wittigs preface, the scratch line half of the collection is concerned with materialist lesbianism in which she describes straightness not as an institution yet as a political regime which rests on the submission and the appropriation of women (p. xiii).In One Is Not Born a Woman, one of the essays in the book that I have chosen to read, is an attempt to establish a link between women fighting for women as a class, against the idea of woman as an essentialist concept. Wittig being a contemporary proponent of feminist and gay/lesbian rights, takes constructionist viewpoints of the likes of Simone de Beauvoir, that One is not born a woman, but becomes a woman. No biological, psychological, or economic fate determines the figure that the human female presents in society it is civilization as a whole that produces this creature, fair between male and eunuch, which is described as feminine. (p.1)The advantage of womanism as a theory is that it, unlike the feminist movement, brings to bear upon the woman question more than a white womans perspective in its effort at ridding the society of sexual inequality (Aldridge 127). Womanism also acknowledges the constituteence of the male counterpart, seeing him as an equal victim with the woman. However, it is pertinent to mention here that black women were victimized thrice in terms of racism, sexism, and economic exploitation though the womanists combat the question o f racism first before the gender issue. The emphasis varies from female- empowerment to race-empowerment and Womens Liberation Movement to Black Freedom Movement (Aldridge 133, 135). Toni Cade in her 1970 anthology The Black Woman elaborates Over the years, things have phase of been cooled out. But I have yet to collar a coolheaded analysis of just what any particular groups stand is on the question. Invariably, I hear from some dude that Black women must be supportive and patient so that Black men fire regain their manhood. The notion of womanhood they advocate and exactly if pressed to address themselves to the notion do they think of it or argue- is dependent on his defining his manhood (Cade).The categories of sex (woman and man) essentially appropriates that one having capableness to give birth (biologically) is a woman and that it is the only creative act that determines her existence and her identity proclaiming her naturalized slavery to man as master/ oppressor.Witti g defines woman in terms of her relationship with man which takes the form of a forced residence, domestic corvee, conjugal duties, unlimited production of children etc. This applies to Celie, the protagonist of Walkers The comment Purple who contents her self with a purposeless life and is oblivious of the orgasmic pleasure until she meets Shug Avery. Essentially the patriarchal society, as Wittig asserts, strengthens the form of oppression through imaginary formation of physical features. A black is perceived as a black, therefore, s/he is a black similarly, a woman is perceived or seen as a woman, therefore she is a woman. However, it is not because she is born that way, but because she is made to be so.Walker swept the world with her crude yet originalistic portrayal of solid women characters and equally repulsive men characters in her Pulitzer winning novel, The Color Purple. Her clarion call for Black Womanism had just begun. She could not accept the idea of the White femin ism speaking for women of color because she correctly witnessed the alienation of the black experience and that marginalization of texts by black feminists in the mainstream academic tradition. Her ideology of womanism first appeared in her book In Search of Our Mothers Gardens Womanist Prose (1983), in which she attributes the words origin to the black folk expression of mothers to female children, You acting womanish, i.e. like a woman normally referring to outrageous, audacious, courageous, or willful behavior A womanist is also a woman who loves other women sexually and/or nonsexually appreciates and prefers womens culture, womens emotional flexibility (values tears as natural counterbalance of laughter), and womensstrength. sometimes loves individual men, sexually and/or non-sexually. Committed to survival and wholeness of entire people, male and female. Not a separatist, except periodically, for health. Traditionally universalist Loves music. Loves dance. Loves the moon. Lo ves the Spirit. Loves love and victuals and roundness. Loves struggle. Loves the Folk. Loves herself. Regardless. And Womanist is to feminist as purple is to lavender. (p. xi-xii) womens lib as a movement is exclusively for women and has as its agenda the repudiation of male hegemony. The meaning of female denotes the sex that can bear offspring or produce eggs, distinguished biologically by the production of gametes (ova) that can be fertilized by male gametes. Thus, biology can use the term female rather than girl and woman. Femininity, on the other hand, is a group of traits that have culturally become associated with women, but they do not make a woman. The patriarchy views woman as an incomplete man, the second sex, the other. But in refusing to become a woman does not imply that one adorns the role of a man since as Wittig puts it-For becoming a man would demand from a woman not only a mans external air but his consciousness as well one feature of lesbian oppression consists precisely of making women out of reach for us, since women belong to men. Thus a lesbian has to be something else, a not-woman, a not-man, a product of society, not a product of nature, for there is no nature in society. (p.4)She elaborates her argument come on asserting that-The refusal to become (or to remain) heterosexual always meant to refuse to become a man or a woman, consciously or not. For a lesbian this goes further than the refusal of the role woman. It is the refusal of the economic, ideological, and political power of man. (p.4 )The term gender was coined by Greek philosopher, Protagoras. Greek nouns were divided into three different classes which attributed its existence to a word meaning class or kind- masculine, feminine, and neuter (Cameron, p.89). The masculine, Jakob Grimm, a German philologist explained, means the earlier, larger, firmer, more inflexible, swift, active, mobile, productive the feminine the later, smaller, smoother, the more still, suffering, rec eptive (Cameron, p.92). However, the category of woman is uncomplete biological nor grammatical. It is a cultural construct.Womanism, on the other hand, considers the society as a collective whole and acknowledges the inter-linked fate of the black women with their men in the community. kind of than supporting separatism, Womanism promotes universalism. Womanism, like Black Feminism, provides a space for Black women and women of color to createdialogue in a non-dominative and a non-threatening environment. Womanism is not a advanced idea by any means in fact there is evidence of its origins in the sacred texts of ancient Africa, especially the Husia of Egypt and the Odu Ifa of ancient Yorubaland. Concepts from the Husia such as the Divine inclusiveness of male and female principles, woman and man as the image of God and the concept of human customarily written with male and female characters in hieroglyphs indicate the belief that woman and man were equal by nature and divinely a nd must operate as such (Karenga 324).Wittig thus, busts the myth of woman (created by men) by questioning and agreeing to Beauvoir, that the concept of woman is wonderful, underlining women having the best of features is a judgment men have compartmentalized according to their own perception. To save one self being entrapped in such a purview is the aim of the lesbian- feminists who strive for a sexless society. In this light then the concerns of feminism too is subjected to scrutiny. Feminism contains the word femme meaning woman, fighting for women as a class or, the removal of this class. If it is so, then the movement took precedence from the acceptance of the notion that women shared common features as a result of oppression But for them these features were natural and biological rather than social.Wittig takes upon her the daunting task of establishing the idea of lesbians as opposed to the class of woman/man in materialist terms. It does not imply that men as species should be led to extinction but to suppress men as a class through political struggle. Once this category of class disappears, says Wittig, the natural and historical division between man and woman too will vanish, for there are no slaves without masters.The political formation of class can be traced back to the ideology of Marxism which states individuals to be product of society, and that only their consciousness can be alienated not the individual herself/ himself until the class that dominates ceases to produce the ideas itself that alienates them from the class that they oppress. For instance in order to achieve a sexless society, the visible division between the bourgeois and the project has to be removed first and then only can there be no-man and no-woman, but all humans society. As Wittig puts-This real necessity for everyone to exist as an individual, as well as a member of a class, is perhaps the first condition for the accomplishment of a revolution, without which there can be no real fight or transformation. But the opposite is also true without class and class consciousness there are no real subjects, only alienated individuals.(p.10)Thus, lesbianism is the only concept that provides for a chance to create such a social form where humankind can live freely. Celies acknowledgement of herself as a woman capable of living independently without the necessity of a man in her life, springs from the unconditional love she receives from Shug Avery, another woman for The Color Purple establishes itself as a story of women by a woman. It moves away from the categories of woman and man because a lesbian is neither a man nor a woman, either economically, or politically, or ideologically. Here, Wittigs text offers some positive contributions to feminist and queer theory, in particular her deconstruction of the term woman and her focus on the power of language. As she clarifies-There is no possible fight for someone deprived of an identity, no internal motivation f or fighting, since, although I can fight only with others, first I fight for myself. (p.7)In the The Color Purple the women are doubly marginalized, first as a black, seen as the other by the white, and, secondly, as a subordinate group by the men. Celie is so used to the oppression by the men around her that when her step- son Harpo complains of his wifes disobedience to him, she advises him to beat her an alternative for her does not exist. Nettie, on the other hand, refuses to give in to the whims and fancies of the male order. She fights and carves an identity and life for her with her marriage to Samuel, a missionary. It is Shug Avery, a Blues singer, who reveals to Celie the value of independence and the assertion of a womans identity. Through the conversations and the relationship thus enforced between Shug and Celie, one can find clinching evidence of subversive textuality wherein the traditional text is undermined and hetereosexuality is challenged. The realization brings a bout a metamorphosis in Celie. She forgives the men in her life who viewed her as nothing more than a mule of the world. She emerges like the autobiographical Walker as a butterfly whose fiercely strong willpower makes the society and world at large celebrate her identity and individuality. As Toni Morrison maintains in Beloved, Definitions belong to the definers not the defined. egotism naming and self defining is crucial. (Morrison 1987). So too, womanists like Alice Walker, Toni Morrison, Patricia Hills Collins, Clenora Hudson- Weems assert authoritatively their political identity to the world, amidst the frequent conflation with the Black Feminists.

Suicide :: essays research papers

Im about to opt up a position which is going to be deamed by some, if non all, as a terrible stand to take. As a matter of fact, if any(prenominal) whiz were to agree with me on ths subject, Id be surprsed. For you see, rather than arguing from the postion of suicide world an unjustified and inane way to die, I shall argue the other point. That being suicide does have its merits. Before you people start screaming, hear my case out. more or less people argue that nothing justifies the taking of someones life. Yet what makes life so valuable? Why do people cling to it so? All we represent of is a bunch of carbon atoms, bound together to form an exoskeleton, organs, and tissue. In this light, there really is not much to life. Out of the 5 billion who lodge the planet, very few of them shall emerge to be true world leaders. The rest will just lead a mediocre life of work and short play. The taking of ones life can be argued from a populistic view as well. It makes little sense to preserve life in an over populated world. True, one less person here on there will not make a large dent. Yet if everyone who attempts or had attempted suicide were not stopped, the impact would be noticed. Another popular argument for stoppers, people who want to prevent suicide, is that nothing can be bad enough. Yet how do they notice this? They do not have to put up with the same stuff the suicide victim does everyday. How could they possibly know what the potential suicide victim feels. but as a severely burned victim may wish to be allowed to die in stillness, the suicide victim wishes the same. To die in peace with no argument from others. The argument of "look at the people you will hurt" also does not hold. Imidiate family members will be the only ones to suffer any great pain. Friends will go on with thier lives and in time forget about the death. Imidiate family too will forget the loss in time. Although it will take most considerably longer for them than it w ill for friends. Finaly, the argument of suicide being selfish is hard to grasp. Selfish in whose eyeball? Certainly not the eyes of the victim. To them, they consider it selfish of others to try and preserve their life.

Brain Drain Essay -- essays papers

Brain Drain One of the major concerns of todays companies is the shortage of labor, especially in management. The baby boomers are nearing retirement age in the United States and the birth rate is dropping. These circumstances, coupled with the booming economy are the main causes of the labor shortage. on that point is a high demand for labor but the once seemingly bottomless pool of employees and managers that companies drew from has started to dry up. What are the factors that contributed to the problem and how are todays corporations discharge to handle this problem? The type of labor needed in todays society has been undergoing a constant change. thither is an increase in demand for workers but on that point is a much greater demand for educated white-collar workers, especially management material. Projections state that the growth in managerial positions depart increase 20% by the year 2010 yet the population aged 35-50 will decrease nearly 10%. What these figure s say is the already diminishing fork up of executives is going to dwindle up to now more over the next 10 years. There is a shortage of blue-collar workers now and there will also be an even greater shortage of them in the future. In order for employers to find people who are willing to perform unskilled, repetitive jobs they are going to have to be willing to raise the level of compensation offered to employees. If McDonalds needs any(prenominal)one to flip hamburgers they better be prepared to pay double to triple minimum wage. There are a wide variety of employment opportunities and todays workforce can afford to be selective when choosing a job. The demand for employees is high while the supply is low. The figures on the change in average population ages and growth in industrialized nations is beginning to make the corporate world stand up and debate notice. If the trends continue as they have been for the past thirty years, the shortage of labor is going to continua lly get worse with each year that passes. The predictions from the United States census Bureau state that between 1990 and 2000 the increase of the American population over 60 will be 10.5% but in 2010 to 2020, the increase will be 32.5%. The change in the 60 plus population in the United States is projected to nearly triple in thirty years. Compare these figures to the increase in under sixty-year-old population. From 1990 to 2000, t... ... the economic obstacles caused by an aging workforce. The companies of today are aware of the constantly growing problem and are working towards a solution. I guess that they are moving in the right direction. Offering flexibility in what was once a very rigid structured hierarchy is certainly a step in the right direction. People in todays world lead very different lives than they did 4o years ago. A rewarding profession is not all defined by the income generated anymore, rewarding can also mean personally rewarding. A good employee doesn t necessarily work 40 hours each and every week, some work part time or are involved in a job-sharing program. In order to keep the workforce meeting the needs of the economy, the employer mustiness continue to become more flexible and remain open to suggestions. Todays companies are on the right track. I believe that with proper management and forward thinking, we will be able to cope with the ever-increasing shortage of labor.BibliographyCenter for Strategic and International StudiesNewsweek magazineBusiness Week magazineThe Economist magazineSt Petersburg Times themeThe United States Census Bureau