Break Before University Essay Example for Free

Break Before University Essay It goes without saying that people like having the things they don’t have. Students always want to have a break after a long time they were very busy with studying, especially before they come to universities – a new environment with lots of challenging. It’ll be not good for a student to have a year break before going to university because it’s really a waste of time, and they might forget their knowledge. Today, both of adults and children always try to learn hard. Knowledge is unlimited; we never have everything in our mind. We learn bit by bit every day. If one stops working for one day, one eventually loses his knowledge. For one year, people can learn a lot of knowledge and experience, and you’ll be worse than others. Secondly, if you have a break for one year, it will take you more than one year to come back your work. In some case, the inertia is so great that one can’t go back to school.  Last but not least, one might forget your lessons easily when one doesn’t practice. When one comes to a university, one’ll continue learning your program in high school in a different way. One’ll have to learn by himself more than following teachers. It takes a lot of times to learn this new habit. Taking a long break seems like a cool idea, but I will not jeopardize my college education. A student will have to coup with many problems after such a break. One should consult his teachers and his parents before making that decision.

Barn Burning Essay -- essays papers

Barn Burning "Barn Burning" is a sad story because it very clearly shows the classical struggle between the "privileged" and the "underprivileged" classes. Time after time emotions of despair surface from both the protagonist and the antagonist involved in the story. This story outlines two distinct protagonists and two distinct antagonists. The first two are Colonel Sartoris Snopes ("Sarty") and his father Abner Snopes ("Ab"). Sarty is the protagonist surrounded by his father antagonism whereas Ab is the protagonist antagonized by the social structure and the struggle that is imposed on him and his family. The economic status of the main characters is poor, without hope of improving their condition, and at the mercy of a quasi-feudal system in North America during the late 1800's. Being a sharecropper, Ab and his family had to share half or two-thirds of the harvest with the landowner and out of their share pay for the necessities of life. As a result of this status, Ab and his family know from the start what the future will hold -- hard work for their landlord and mere survival for them. No hope for advancement prevails throughout the story. Sarty, his brother and the twin sisters have no access to education, as they must spend their time working in the fields or at home performing familial duties. Nutrition is lacking "He could smell the coffee from the room where they would presently eat the cold food remaining from the mid-afternoon meal" . As a consequence, poor health combined with inadequate opportunity results in low morale. A morale which the writer is identifying with the middle class of his times "that same quality which in later years would cause his descendants to over-run the engine bef... ...ther!" and "The boy said nothing. Enemy! Enemy! he thought; for a moment he could not even see, could not see that the Justice's face was kindly." The story's emotional turns are clearly defined by Sarty's thoughts and Ab's actions. Sarty's dilemma and Ab's frustrations continually grab the reader, serving up a series of emotionally laden dilemmas: Given the circumstances of the story, is Ab's barn burning justified? Should Sarty tell the landlord that Ab was responsible for burning down the barn? Is the outdated sociological "Blaming the Victim" theory valid? Is the lose-win arrangement between sharecropper and landowner a morally acceptable one? Burning a barn or any act of economic despair in the form of vandalism is definitely not condoned. However the strange thing is the all of these questions need not to be asked, if economic injustice was not prevalent.

Life of a Slave Girl Essay

Harriet A. Jacobs Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl is an autobiography written under the name of Linda Brent. This autobiography is a detailed account of her life or lack thereof. I use the term lack thereof because Harriet Jacobs was raised by her grandmother due to her mother dying at a young age. Harriet was taught to read and write as a young slave girl by her mistress. Harriet’s grandmother was a well-respected older slave woman who gained her freedom in the last will and testament of her mistress. Jacobs is determined not to be raped or surrender all her rights to anyone. Jacobs didn’t know she was a slave until she was almost a teenager. Her mother had passed away and the sad reality of her life as a slave sunk in. Harriet was raised to possess great moral character and virtue. During this time in history black women were â€Å"slaves of a slave† (Beal p.13).Frances Beal made that observation due to black women being subservient and degraded by their slave owners and their black men. Not all slave owners allowed their slaves to marry. With that in mind black women often were used and misused by their own race and their masters. Jacobs displays great determination to remain true to chastity despite constant stalking and demeaning remarks by Dr. Flint. In 1842 Harriet Jacobs escapes to freedom, this was at a great price she gave herself willing to the unmarried lawyer next door and bore him two children. Jacobs hid in a 3foot crawl space at her grandmother’s home for seven years. There was no light or room for her to stand up in that small space. Mice and insects crawled on her body and she hid there to avoid Dr. Flint. Jacobs’s story is a testament to what determination and a strong will can produce. Jacobs’s construction of black female empowerment was openly displayed throughout her story. She did not allow intimidation to prohibit her from believing in the hope that she was more than a slave. Harriet displayed this attitude in all that she did she stayed one step ahead of Dr. Flint. To talk of the brutality that was perpetrated by slave owners on slave girls and women was taboo. Not only was it taboo but it was also unheard of. Harriet Jacobs was given a strong will and mind by God. She added to what God gave her by taking the advice of her grandmother. During this time in history black women were raped, molested, tortured, degraded and exploited economically. Black women worked on plantations picking cotton, cooking and cleaning their homes and nursing the mistress babies while most times their children were neglected. There was no possible way you had a right because you were property and property can’t own property (Jacobs). Dr. Flint told Harriet she was made for his use, made to obey his command in everything; that she was nothing but a slave, whose will must and should surrender to his (Jacobs). Harriet would not accept those words. Harriet would not accept that sentence he pronounced on her life. Jacobs knew she had a brain and could think for herself and despite what society had dictated to her race and to black women she would help to free other black women. The United States grew on the backs of slaves male and female. Yes our men suffered great injustices. However, our black women suffered also. There is yet a debate for some as to who suffered the most during slavery. I will say this as a people we have suffered tremendously. There are no words that can replace the separation of families. The loss of parents and children who would die trying to purchase a child that God had allowed them to birth. If you birth a child isn’t that child yours? According to slave rules and regulations slaves were nothing and if a slave girl gave birth to a child that was the master’s she could not tell a soul. Not even the black man who she tried to make believe that he fathered the child. If the slave told that the child was the master’s she could be killed, sold or imprisoned (Jacobs). Certain black men are maintaining that they have been castrated by society but that black women somehow escaped this persecution and even contributed to this emasculation. The black woman had no protector and was used and in some cases, as the scapegoat for the evils this horrendous system has perpetrated on black men (Rubenstein). This statement rings true now as we look at the single parent homes of today. Today black women are yet subverting societal convention. We are yet rising above our current economic and socioeconomic status. In spite of great disadvantages and struggles black women are innovators. The black woman’s physical image has been distorted for societies view. We were called ‘mammies† From slavery through the Jim Crow era, the mammy image served the political, social, and economic interests of mainstream white America. During slavery, the mammy caricature was posted as proof that blacks — in this case, black women — were contented, even happy, as slaves. Her wide grin, hearty laugher, and loyal servitude were offered as evidence of the supposed humanity of the institution of slavery (Ferris). The mammy caricature was deliberately constructed to suggest ugliness. Mammy was portrayed as dark-skinned; often pitch black, in a society that regarded black skin as ugly, tainted. She was obese, sometimes morbidly overweight. Moreover, she was often portrayed as old, or at least middle-aged. The attempt was to desexualize mammy. The implicit assumption was this: No reasonable white man would choose a fat, elderly black woman instead of the idealized white woman. The black mammy was portrayed as lacking all sexual and sensual qualities (Ferris). This was a well calculated plan executed by the white slave owners. This was done to provide a false sense of security to the white woman. Mammy was some bogus reassurance that their ideal life style was not in danger of being destroyed. Harriet was able to expose this injustice through her writings. Jacobs’s writings were shared with whites and blacks. Exposing the dark pit of slavery and his secrets is what Harriet Jacobs and several other noteworthy African American literary abolitionists did. Their writing was productive and powerful. Their writings provided hope to other black people who dared to even dream of freedom. African American women suffered hardships of oppression and yet while being oppressed and depressed black women were inspired to write. They were compelled to share their story with others. Although, the recollection of the events that shaped their lives was not pleasant memories; they knew they could not remain silent. They knew that they had to tell the story in hopes and saving their race. My people perish for a lack of knowledge (Hosea 4).Knowledge of what was exactly going on in the deep dark south would hopefully and eventually save lives. Spreading the truth about slavery would expedite freedom for the black race. During slavery it was also believed that black slave girls were promiscuous this undoubtedly was another untruth placed upon the black race. However, this untruth was widely used as an excuse to sexually exploit the black female. This is what was used as the carte blanche to allow more evils upon the black slave girl. Black women continued to be oppressed for many years because society would not see black women as citizens. The de-eroticism of mammy meant that the white wife — and by extension, the white family was safe. The sexual exploitation of black women by white

Oresteia Paper - the Transformation of Justice - 1480 Words

The Transformation of Justice A cycle of murder and death spurs from the curse on the House of Atreus in Aeschylus’ The Oresteia but transforms from justice as vengeance to justice as fairness and forgiveness through the wisdom of Athena, establishing a new cycle of growth and life. The curse upon the House of Atreus was brought forth through the event of Zeus’ eagles devouring a pregnant hare which angered Artemis for she is the goddess of young animals and creatures. The big black bird swoops down and â€Å"plunged their claws in a hare, a mother bursting with unborn young—the babies spilling, quick spurts of blood-cut off the race just dashing into life!† and instantly this brings forth the curse (A 122-124). The death of the hare’s†¦show more content†¦Clytemnestra fits the character of one of the Argos’s contaminations because of her adulterous acts with Aegisthus and her psychotic murderous plans to kill her husband Agamemnon. In her point of view, justice will only be obtained of she avenges the death of her daughter Iphigenia by killing the one who murdered her, Agamemnon. Cassandra mentions this cycle of fertility and decay when she talks about â€Å"the babies wailing, skewered on the sword, their flesh charred, the father gorging on their parts† referring to Thyestes’ babies (A 1095-1097). More blood vengeance and violence only fuels what becomes a never ending cycle of death and decay within the House of Atreus. When Clytaemnestra finally kills Agamemnon she cries, â€Å"So he goes down, and the life is bursting out of him—great sprays of blood, and the murderous shower wounds me, dyes me black and I, I revel like the Earth when the spring rains come down, the blessed gifts of god, and the new green spear splits the sheath and rips to birth in glory!†, and she feels reborn from his death and even calls it a gift from the god (A 1410-1415). Not only does Clytaemnestra feel renewed from murdering Agame mnon, but she feels that it was the proper and just thing to do. Although the Furies don’t go after her since this is not a crime of matricide or patricide, killing her husband is unwise and unfair because in Agamemnon’s