Discuss the Representation of Civilisation in Heart of...

Heart of Darkness is a highly complex novella, as it does not provide the reader with an ending that satisfies his or her expectations, though the implications are profoundly more powerful and unsettling as it destabilises the reader’s notion of humanity. Conrad deconstructs the notion of western civilization being â€Å"a shining light and because of it knowledge has reached every quarter of the globe,† through the symbolic meaning of light and darkness and the breakdown of form in the narrative to echo theme. Notions of imperialism and colonialism are put into disrepute by Conrad through Marlow’s own justification and his struggles with the frame narrator, as he seeks to destabilize dominant ideology through ambiguity in his narrative, which†¦show more content†¦The Frame Narrator simultaneously names London as the â€Å"biggest, and the greatest, town on earth.† The British Empire in 19 century became â€Å"the empire which the sun never sets. † Conrad shows the glorification of imperialism in this passage. In an almost contradictory tone the Frame Narrator observes above London there ‘was a dark air, condensed into a mournful gloom, brooding motionless’ over the city. This suggests the oppressive atmosphere in London and the immoral and dark project of Imperialism, because of what British colonists bring to Africa; death, racism and unfair trade. Ultimately this is what Stanley also brought to Africa, words of a spiritual mission, but actions of darkness. The nature of colonialism and imperialism being a business, rather than a holy mission, is evident as the Frame Narrator begins introducing his companions by their titles instead of their names, â€Å"the Director of Companies was our Captain and host†. This implies that the people involved in colonial practice were looked at in terms of business as opposed to seeing the humanity in them. This is reflected with the aspect of imperialism stripping away all humanity from civilisation. Again in the novella’s contradictory manner, Conrad establishes the idealistic idea of imperialism by describing the Director standing â€Å"in the bow looking seaward,† suggesting a heroic character. His companions view him with â€Å"trustworthiness personified,† suggesting that suchShow MoreRelatedThe Forest in Folk and Fairy-Tales3104 Words   |  13 PagesIt has been said that in literature a forest is a place where you can both lose and find yourself. 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The Crucible And Twelve Angry Men Essay - 1145 Words

Can justice; fair treatment, exist in a world of prejudice; preconceived bias opinions? In both works of American Literature about the United States judicial system; The Crucible by Arthur Miller, and Twelve Angry Men by Reginald rose extol the pursuit of justice while questioning the place of prejudice in the judicial system. These plays unveil the fact that; only by overcoming and setting aside prejudices can justice be attained. The Crucible takes place during puritan times when the word of mouth was proof of guilty, while Twelve Angry Men takes place during the 20th century when the word of mouth must be proven true prior to a verdict. Hover both plays exhibit a reasonable protagonist who stands against all his misguided peers in the†¦show more content†¦By admitting he had an affair with a teen John admitted to adultery tarnishing his reputation in the name of justice. John even gives up his life, unwilling to charge other innocent people with witchcraft, because it is the just thing to do. John then Although John committed lechery, he redeemed himself by sacrificing his name, his reputation, and his life in the pursuit of justice. Similarly ,In Twelve Angry Men Juror 8 is a smart and moral juror who is willing to stand against all the other jurors for what he thinks is right. He is the main protagonist who believes a boy accused with murdering his father deserves a discussion prior to a guilty verdict. Although all the other jurors initially voted guilty, juror 8 believed that the jurors should not â€Å"send a boy off to die without talking about it first†(Juror 8, 12). Throughout the play Juror 8 combats the pressure from the other Jurors to just vote guilty and manages to convince his fellow Jurors one by one that there in fact is â€Å"reasonable doubt†(Judge, 6) and convinces them to arrive at a â€Å"not guilty†(Juror 3, 72) verdict. Reginald Rose extols Juror 8’s pursuit of justice through his success. Not only did Juror 8 stand by his principles and have the courage to stand against all the other Jurors, he also had the wits to convince his fellow jurors to change their verdict. Through these actions Juror 8 brings justice to the courts of New York city saving the life of a young boy.Show MoreRelatedFeminist Approach to Witchcraft; Case Study: Millers the Crucible6554 Words   |  27 PagesWitches in Arthur Millers The Crucible: A Feminist Reading Author(s): Wendy Schissel Publication Details: Modern Drama 37.3 (Fall 1994): p461-473. Source: Drama Criticism. Vol. 31. Detroit: Gale. From Literature Resource Center. Document Type: Critical essay Bookmark: Bookmark this Document Full Text: COPYRIGHT 2008 Gale, Cengage Learning Title Re(dis)covering the Witches in Arthur Millers The Crucible: A Feminist Reading [(essay date fall 1994) In the following essay, Schissel offers a feministRead MoreLangston Hughes Research Paper25309 Words   |  102 Pagesgoals. He had claimed a 160-acre homestead, which he farmed. In addition, he taught school and worked as a law clerk. His ultimate goal was to take the bar exam and practice law. When he learned blacks were not eligible to take the exam, Jim became angry and blamed the color line for blocking his progress. Searching for a better position, he eventually took a job in Mexico. Carrie refused to follow her husband. Instead, she traveled around the country, living with friends and relatives and workingRead MoreEssay on Silent Spring - Rachel Carson30092 Words   |  121 Pagesoffprint from Gales For Students Series: Presenting Analysis, Context, and Criticism on Commonly Studied Works: Introduction, Author Biography, Plot Summary, Characters, Themes, Style, Historical Context, Critical Overview, Criticism and Critical Essays, Media Adaptations, Topics for Further Study, Compare Contrast, What Do I Read Next?, For Further Study, and Sources.  ©1998-2002;  ©2002 by Gale. Gale is an imprint of The Gale Group, Inc., a division of Thomson Learning, Inc. Gale and Design ® andRead MoreStephen P. Robbins Timothy A. Judge (2011) Organizational Behaviour 15th Edition New Jersey: Prentice Hall393164 Words   |  1573 PagesModel 23 An Overview 23 †¢ Inputs 24 †¢ Processes 25 †¢ Outcomes 25 Summary and Implications for Managers 30 S A L Self-Assessment Library How Much Do I Know About Organizational Behavior? 4 Myth or Science? â€Å"Most Acts of Workplace Bullying Are Men Attacking Women† 12 An Ethical Choice Can You Learn from Failure? 24 glOBalization! Does National Culture Affect Organizational Practices? 30 Point/Counterpoint Lost in Translation? 31 Questions for Review 32 Experiential Exercise Workforce Diversity

The Hotel de Bourgogne Free Essays

The Hà ´tel de Bourgogne was the first permanent and only theatre that existed in Paris for multiple years, and it included relatively uncommon characteristics. It was built following a narrow rectangular shape that was 102 feet long and approximately 43 feet deep, consisting of an open space on the ground floor called the pit in which the audience would stand and three levels of galleries running round three of its four walls. The galleries that where perpendicular to the stage where partially divided into boxes, which were named loges. We will write a custom essay sample on The Hotel de Bourgogne or any similar topic only for you Order Now This where the theatre’s most expensive seats. The galleries that where parallel to the stage were built undivided. The higher ones where called the paradis, as a result of them being near the roof, or â€Å"heaven†. These seats were the most expensive ones in the theatre (excluding the pit that was free). Overall, the Hà ´tel de Bourgogne could hold up to approximately 1,600 audience members. It was not uncommon that audience members paid to sit on the lodges to be seen, more than to see the plays, since this was also the system used English private theatres. The stage rose approximately six feet from the ground, without an authentic proscenium arch, though the lodges implemented a sort of frame that was 25 feet wide and approximately 17 to 35 feet deep. In the late sixteenth and the early seventeenth centuries, the stage’s scenery varied from play to play, but usually, the style of design was a miscellaneous mix of renaissance and medieval styles, called simultaneous settings. A few scholars use this name to classify any medieval stage set-up, but at the Hà ´tel de Bourgogne, concurrent settings were considerably different. During the Italian Renaissance, the set was decorated in a manner in which a series of wings (called periaktoi) led the view upstage to a central vanishing point, partially on a perspective manner, resulting in an illusion of depth. At the Hà ´tel de Bourgogne however, there were no different fragments painted on the wings of one single setting, as it was the case in Renaissance decor. Instead, there was a mansion-like mural symbolizing a different location was on each wing. For example, if an actor or actress walked towards the front of one of these wings, on which was painted a mansion, the audience recognized that he or she was in front of the mansion; if he or she walked towards another wing that had a mural of a valley, the audience recognized that he or she was in a valley. Laurent Mahelot was a French scenographer who created multiple simultaneous sets in the early 17th century. Finally, the Hà ´tel de Bourgogne’s auditorium as well as the stage where lit using candle and oil lamps, following the Italian Renaissance’s lighting methods. The Hà ´tel de Bourgogne was the only perpetual theatre in Paris. However, companies could perform on other locations as long as they paid the Confrà ©rie de la Passion its fee. There were various locations, with similar architecture to the Hà ´tel de Bourgogne’s, and very available because a particular sport called jeu de paume had lost some of its popularity. This sport was a type of tennis, and the courts where the game was played were long and narrow rectangles that included galleries along the main hall. The theatre companies would construct a platform at one end of the court, transforming it into into a theatre. The French were on the right path to creating the proscenium arch theatre, significantly this can be seen in the auditorium’s characteristics, and it was noticeable in France prior than when identical structures were accessible to the public in either Italy or England. It was in 1634 when an adversary to the Hà ´tel de Bourgogne was constructed, called the Thà ©Ãƒ ¢tre du Marais. Its architecture was inspired on a tennis court, but it was then replaced in 1644 (when it first burned down) by a more elaborate building that could hold the complicated theatre machinery that had been growing progressively popular in France. This freshly built Thà ©Ãƒ ¢tre du Marais had a height of 52 feet and was 115 feet long, 38 feet wide. Its auditorium included three levels of galleries running round its walls. The first two galleries where separated into boxes and the top paradis was built as an open stadium seating. The rear wall also incorporated two levels of boxes and stadium-style seating at the top. The stage rose 6 feet from the ground, and it included a proscenium opening of 25 feet. It also contained was a second level acting space. This new Thà ©Ãƒ ¢tre du Marais could hold up to approximately 1500 audience members. Feeling threatened by the new Marais’ architecture, the Hà ´tel de Bourgogne was renovated in 1647 following the same fashion as the Marais. In the middle of the 1630s, there where little attempts of spectacles in either the Hà ´tel de Bourgogne or the Marais. The academy had urged play-writers to honor the solidarity of one singular place, which restricted plays to have only one set (with no variations). Whereas in the past, concurrent settings where used at the Hà ´tel de Bourgogne, after 1636 both theatres started to include relatively neutral settings. For comical plays, the set was a room with four doors and for tragical play, the set was a location in front of a palace. Theatres that provided plays to the court were more problematic in their use of spectacle. Courtly audiences where familiar with the Italian-style scene transformations as early as the 1620s in momentary locations, but it became more conspicuous in the 1640s. It was in 1641 when Cardinal Richelieu ordered a theatre to be built in his home, which he named the Palais Cardinal. In this theatre, a ballet performed for the court and it included nine different settings that changed a vista. When Richelieu died in 1642, both his newly built theatre and his home were taken over by the crown, the two being renamed as Palais Royal. Richelieu’s successor was Cardinal Mazarini, who changed his name into a more French version: Cardinal Mazarin. During King Louis XIV’s childhood, he was responsible for the prosperity of the country, the same way Richelieu had done with Louis XIII. Mazarin adored Italian opera, and didn’t hesitate to introduce that style to Paris. In order to accomplish the appropriate spectacular settings for these operas, Mazarin brought to Paris Giacomo Torelli, a very famous and talented scenic designer in Italy. In 1645, Torelli created an innovative stage scenery with set transformations and special effects accomplished by the use of theatre machines. He did it in the palace next to the Louvre, called the Petit Bourbon, where numerous court functions had been staged in the late 1500s. He integrated his own version of the chariot and pole system of scene transformations to amaze the courtly audiences. The Petit Bourbon’s most famous asset was the Great Salle. With 49 feet wide and 115 feet long and an apse that added additional 44 feet at one end, the hall’s dimensions were considered substantial by Parisian standards. The apse was decorated with fleur-de-lis during the Estates General of 1614 because it was the place where both the king and his courtiers sat. In this hall, the court was used to produce celebrations and ballets, where the princes and Louis XIV., when young, used to dance. The following year he incorporated identical changes to the theatre at the Palais Royal. This resulted in Paris promoting two public theatres and two court locations that produced sensational ballets in which courtiers danced by 1646. Operas, along with â€Å"machine† plays that gave its sets (most of the time designed by Torelli) a protagonist role, impressed audiences not only with the use of chariot and pole changes but also by introducing appearances of the king on stage. The king frequently made grand entrances and also danced in the 1650s. Even though Torelli acquired extraordinary fame, at the same time he gained powerful enemies. In response to Torelli’s newly obtained enemies, Cardinal Mazarin imported a rival Italian designer, Gaspare Vigarani, to develop an appropriate spectacle for the wedding of Louis XIV. Torelli’s Salle du Petit Bourbon was demolished, and in the Tuileries palace, Vigarani built a new theatre called the Salle des Machines, which became the biggest theatre in Europe. This enormous space was 252 feet long and 52 feet wide, including both a backstage area of 140 feet deep (space needed for Vigarani’s machines) and a proscenium opening of 32 feet. Architects Louis Le Vau, Franà §ois d’Orbay , and Charles Errard decorated and designed the Salle des Machines’s auditorium. It was sheltered in a pavilion placed at the north end of the palace, originally designed and constructed by architect Philibert de l’Orme for Catherine de Mà ©dicis. The auditorium could hold up to approximately 8,000 audience members. The unconventionally profound stage was placed in a gallery located between a new, more northern pavilion and the auditorium. Nevertheless, the Salle des Machines was completed in time for Louis’ wedding, its first production only premiered until 1662, when Vigarani bestowed the king with his delayed birthday present, an opera called Hercules in Love. This was a spectacle that included multiple ballets, but it was mainly about the theatre’s complex technology and machines. In the 18th century, there was transformation in the functional side of theatre as well as in its acting, architecture, design, and staging. French theatres in the 18th century appeared to be identical to eighteenth century English theatres. A clear similarity was their use of the pit, box and gallery system for their audiences. Another similarity that can be found is that both English and French theatres had cut back their forestage, concentrating all of the action within the scenic stage. Pushing back the forestage created more space for audience seating, resulting in a great improvement since more room was needed. In the eighteenth century, both English and French theatre auditoriums extremely increased in size. French theatres also had their audience members removed from their conceited onstage seats. Until 1782, French theatres preserved its parterre smooth. It was after that year that they started incorporating benches for audience members to sit. However, it appeared that a seated parterre was less active than a standing parterre, and forces had their hands full trying to silence the audience participation and noise from the standees in the pit. This resulted in the introduction of guards in the parterre that would demand order and keep the audience tranquil and silenced. The shape of the French theatres’ auditoriums also changed in the turn of the century. They transformed into curved ‘horeshoe† shaped spaces and stopped building rectangular boxed atriums. This method of construction increased the amount of available seats, as well as it aided. Behind the proscenium arch, French theatres were narrow, almost effortless spaces. The aged Hà ´tel de Bourgogne had been utilizing the same scenic techniques for almost a century. Neoclassical plays required one set singularly, as they were obligated by the solidarity of one singular place. However, as the century progressed there was a movement that was inclined to more complex settings and transformations of scene, significantly for plays written on alluring and distinct locales. In conclusion, the architecture and stage design for French theatres has changed over the course of two centuries. It was influenced by outside Italian forces that introduced new machinery that thrilled Parisian people in the 17th century, with its stage transformations and its classicist construction. In the 18th century, France started to adopt a more English style of architecture and scenery, making more space in the auditorium. So what is French theatrical architecture? It’s a combination new technologies invented by masterminds to thrill and amaze audience members, technologies that where brought to France by people outside the nation. It’s a multicultural style that was placed in the country’s capital, making Paris the greatest city we know today. How to cite The Hotel de Bourgogne, Papers

An unlikely haven for new plays Essay Example For Students

An unlikely haven for new plays Essay The unveiling of a new play by Edward Albee at an American professional theatre is a rare event, but it will happen this fall at Ensemble Theatre of Cincinnati. Lee Blessing is working on his second world premiere at the theatre in as many years. A new Eric Overmyer piece is expected to be on the companys slate a year from now, and the latest unproduced Michael Weller composition just arrived in the mail. For a tiny theatre created with $200 in the summer of 1986, that is an impressive stable of writers. But then the Ensemble Theatre of Cincinnati is the kind of operation that takes particular pride in accomplishing the unexpected. Simply housed in a former bank in an eclectic but troubled inner-city neighborhood named Over the Rhine, ETC appears an unlikely candidate for rapid growth and national prominence in the area of commissioning new work. For a start, the theatres annual budget is under $750,000, and the full-time staff numbers only nine. No one has a proper office, and artistic director David White sits in a cubicle at the back of the auditorium, shielded only by flimsy screens from the current performance. There is hardly any budget for advertising, so the theatre relies almost entirely on free media coverage and direct-mail campaigns. The company operates on a Small Professional Theatre agreement with Actors Equity Association and has never auditioned outside its home city, casting all its shows from its own company of local actors. Outline1 Beating the odds  2 A dear playwright letter  3 Maximum flexibility   Beating the odds   Worries about the neighborhood oblige the theatre to hire a security guard to watch cars. Just a couple of miles away sits a grand competitor, the Cincinnati Playhouse-in-the-Park, a long-established theatre with a comparatively hefty budget, impressive physical plant, solid reputation for new plays, and an idyllic setting removed from urban blight. Furthermore, this is Cincinnati, Ohio, a city notorious in artistic circles for the Mapplethorpe trial and pervasive conservatism. Whatever the odds against success, ETC managing director John Vissman recounts figures that would be the envy of many larger regional houses. Subscriptions have increased by 264 percent over the past three years; the budget and single-ticket sales have tripled. The theatre is currently adding to its 134-seat capacity, due to many shows attracting far more people than there are seats to fill. The final production of last season, an original adaptation of Zorro, broke box-office records and was extended several times. Virtually singlehandedly, ETC has created a strong pool of Equity actors in a city that used to be a union wasteland. And all this growth has been achieved by devoting three-quarters of each season to original work-33 of the 46 plays produced during the theatres first seven years have been world premieres. Weve carved out a niche in Cincinnati, says artistic director White. Most of the other arts organizations have been around here for a long time. Our audience is younger. Box-office income has swelled each Christmas with ETCs annual production of a rambunctious English pantomime, a popular and original family choice in a city where there are already five versions of A Christmas Carol within a 50-mile radius. Familiar television faces have also piqued audience interest: WKRPs Gary Sandy played Stanley in Streetcar a few years back, and Rosanne star Sara Gilbert made her stage debut in Gary Stewarts Downwinder Dance. White also hired Rebecca Miller to direct her fathers After the Fall last season, ensuring that Arthur Miller would show up to chat with delighted subscribers. By pooling resources with the University of Cincinnati and offering opportunities to teach, ETC was able to persuade (and finance) Albee to direct two of his own plays Everything in the Garden in 1990 and Seascape last fall. That developing relationship led Albee to agree to write a new play, Fragments, with ETC specifically in mind. The Blessing premiere next March will be a co-production with the Theatre in the Square of Marietta, Ga.; the show will feature a cast and design team staffed and funded by members of both theatres. .u7f1e77c71d5c2883888205cbf7057cf2 , .u7f1e77c71d5c2883888205cbf7057cf2 .postImageUrl , .u7f1e77c71d5c2883888205cbf7057cf2 .centered-text-area { min-height: 80px; position: relative; } .u7f1e77c71d5c2883888205cbf7057cf2 , .u7f1e77c71d5c2883888205cbf7057cf2:hover , .u7f1e77c71d5c2883888205cbf7057cf2:visited , .u7f1e77c71d5c2883888205cbf7057cf2:active { border:0!important; } .u7f1e77c71d5c2883888205cbf7057cf2 .clearfix:after { content: ""; display: table; clear: both; } .u7f1e77c71d5c2883888205cbf7057cf2 { display: block; transition: background-color 250ms; webkit-transition: background-color 250ms; width: 100%; opacity: 1; transition: opacity 250ms; webkit-transition: opacity 250ms; background-color: #95A5A6; } .u7f1e77c71d5c2883888205cbf7057cf2:active , .u7f1e77c71d5c2883888205cbf7057cf2:hover { opacity: 1; transition: opacity 250ms; webkit-transition: opacity 250ms; background-color: #2C3E50; } .u7f1e77c71d5c2883888205cbf7057cf2 .centered-text-area { width: 100%; position: relative ; } .u7f1e77c71d5c2883888205cbf7057cf2 .ctaText { border-bottom: 0 solid #fff; color: #2980B9; font-size: 16px; font-weight: bold; margin: 0; padding: 0; text-decoration: underline; } .u7f1e77c71d5c2883888205cbf7057cf2 .postTitle { color: #FFFFFF; font-size: 16px; font-weight: 600; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 100%; } .u7f1e77c71d5c2883888205cbf7057cf2 .ctaButton { background-color: #7F8C8D!important; color: #2980B9; border: none; border-radius: 3px; box-shadow: none; font-size: 14px; font-weight: bold; line-height: 26px; moz-border-radius: 3px; text-align: center; text-decoration: none; text-shadow: none; width: 80px; min-height: 80px; background: url(https://artscolumbia.org/wp-content/plugins/intelly-related-posts/assets/images/simple-arrow.png)no-repeat; position: absolute; right: 0; top: 0; } .u7f1e77c71d5c2883888205cbf7057cf2:hover .ctaButton { background-color: #34495E!important; } .u7f1e77c71d5c2883888205cbf7057cf2 .centered-text { display: table; height: 80px; padding-left : 18px; top: 0; } .u7f1e77c71d5c2883888205cbf7057cf2 .u7f1e77c71d5c2883888205cbf7057cf2-content { display: table-cell; margin: 0; padding: 0; padding-right: 108px; position: relative; vertical-align: middle; width: 100%; } .u7f1e77c71d5c2883888205cbf7057cf2:after { content: ""; display: block; clear: both; } READ: A critic in every port: familiar dangers Essay A dear playwright letter   White has succeeded in making his theatre an attractive place for both established and local playwrights to develop their work. How? I sent a letter to the 12 playwrights I admired most, he recounts. I told them about our facility, our finances and our company. I wanted to see what their response would be. Lee Blessing remembers White calling him out of the blue to offer a commission, and he was impressed with the offer. Using money from Richard and Lois Rosenthal, a wealthy local couple known for sponsoring a new play contest each year at the Cincinnati Playhouse, White offered Blessing a sizable fee. But Blessings decision to accept (and ultimately write a dark but well-received drama called Lake Street Extension) had more to do with the flexibility he was offered. First, White was willing to allow Blessing to work with his preferred director, Jeanne Blake, who is also his wife. Some theatres can accommodate that more easily than others, observes Blessing. Often artistic directors insist on directing the play themselves. White also offered the author free choice in determining the nature of the commissioned play. Many times a theatre will try to commission a play with the subject matter already in mind, notes Blessing. Thats not a way of working that I usually can accept . ETC just a sked me to tell them once I knew what it would be about. Maximum flexibility   The one non-negotiable area is that the plays must be cast from the local ensemble. We had no problem doing that, Blessing states. They have a lot of good, competent actors who have done enough work with well-known people that none of that fazes them. Offering writers maximum flexibility often means ETC must be willing to take risks that might worry larger theatres. Albee has visited Cincinnati and already cast Fragments with four men and four women. But long after the show had been announced, no one at ETC had seen a script. And other than a vague idea that the play would be concerned with contemporary romantic relationships, ETC seemed not to have the slightest idea what form the play would take. White seemed unconcerned, explaining: We give playwrights free reign without any constraints. ETC knows that Blessings new play, The Rights, will be a comedy with a cast of six, probably some sort of farcical exploration of the nature of greed and power. But the script remains incomplete and Blessing is reluctant to offer details, in case everything should suddenly change. Despite the star names, ETC remains committed to local playwrights, offering them a commissioning fee and one or two mainstage productions each year. Local scribe Joe Smith, whose play Freemen and Lunatics premiered this summer, says he enjoys the theatres supportive family atmosphere as well as the chance to workshop a work-in-progress with company members. Much of the new work from local playwrights has come from an informal playwriting workshop that meets weekly at the theatre. Like any resident theatre, ETC has its problems. Grants from the Ohio Arts Council and other funding agencies have been drastically cut back. Theres a small deficit to worry about, as well as the problem of funding enough large-cast projects to give a company of 27 hungry actors enough work to keep them in town. Still, the city of Cincinnati is talking informally to the theatre about taking up residence in the new downtown performing arts center currently under construction, and the upcoming season should bring national visibility. Plans are also underway to expand office space, and build a second, cabaret-style theatre. At the center of what White likes to term a theatre with protein lies the playwright and new work. White justifiably looks forward to next spring when Fragments should have moved to New Yorks Signature Theatre, The Rights will be playing in Marietta, and a new drama by local author E. K. Bowles will be opening in Cincinnati. That will make three simultaneous productions in three different cities, all having begun in Ohio and all featuring actors from the Ensemble Theatre of Cincinnati.

Aegean island of Chios Essays

Aegean island of Chios Essays Aegean island of Chios Essay Aegean island of Chios Essay Introduction In the undermentioned pages I am traveling to show a instance survey refering the Aegean island of Chios, in relation to the statements made alonside this survey. This peculiar instance survey is suited for the presentation and scrutiny of the current state of affairss every bit good as development proposals and development of the island from a tourer company or a tourer developer point of position. Description OF THE ISLAND The island of Chios covers an country of 342 square kilometres and has a population of about 60,000, a denseness of 62.35 dwellers per square kilometer. ( The corresponding figure for the state as a whole is 66.5 dwellers per kilometer ) . Administratively, Chios is composed of a individual state ( state of Nomos of Chios ) and includes one metropolis, three towns, 50 five small towns and 101 crossroadss. Lush green fragrant Khioss, besides known as the mastic island, has much to offer to the traveler. It is likely Homer s place of birth, and it has an huge naval and rational tradition. It was inhabited since the Neolithic epoch, has known consecutive vanquishers, was devastated by plagiarist onslaughts during the Byzantine old ages, and after a short period of Enetian domination it came under the Genoan commercial company Maona ( for two centuries ) . It paid a high monetary value during the Grecian Revolution, with the population slaughter ( 1822 ) , despite the fact that the ChioS did nt take part ab initio in the rebellion, since they enjoyed particular privileges given to them by the Turks due to the mastic production. In the South of Chios the mastic mastic has been cultivated for centuries ; the bantam tree that after being pinched by the locals, responds with cryings , offering its premium of cherished rosin. Mastic, which is an sole Chios merchandise, has been cultivated on the island since the first century A.D. and tradition has it that the lentisc started rupturing down when the Saint Isidor was tortured and martyred here by the Romans ( 250 A.D. ) . All the plants in respects to the tree, the rosin aggregation and its uncluttering down, are manual labor. PRESENT TOURIST SITUATION OF CHIOS Tourism in Chios is non developed in comparing with the rest.of the Eastern Aegean Islands. Chios occupies merely 6 % of the entire figure of tourers with Dodecanese ( Rhodes, Kos, etc. ) , 76 % , Samos 10 % and Lesbos 8 % . It has been felt that touristry can play an of import function in the economic life of the island, after the diminution of the transportation industry. Chios has non developed touristry, chiefly because of the two following grounds: foremost, the tierce of the male population used to work on the ships and secondly, the ship proprietors wanted the island much to them ­selves and the dwellers to be employed mostly by them. From the old analysis we can see that touristry developed really quickly over the last few old ages in Greece and that in some topographic points, the sequences of that development had negative effects, altering the societal, economic and environmental balances. Subsequently, the alone character of topographic points was lost and it became similar to other tourer resorts around the universe. So, in a sense, Chios is lucky because has the chance to analyze different tourer development undertakings and signifiers of Tourism and can work the experiences of the other topographic points to its benefit. S.W.O.T ANLYSIS We have so far presented the basic features of Chios. Those features allow us now to continue with the island s SWOT analysis: STREGTHS The civilization and history of Chios of import archeological sites and memorials The life traditions of the island The natural environment of Chios clean seas Tourism in Chios has most expressed features of alternate signifiers of touristry. Large figure of commercial stores and supermarket. Short distance to Turkey ( 1/2 hr to Chesme and 11/2 hr to the 3rd biggest metropolis Ismir ) Quality agricultural green goods Dynamic local industrial companies of rural agricultural merchandises ( citrous fruit fruits, mastic gum, herds and spices e.t.c ) . The long naval tradition. Technical support from the University of the Aegean ( Business School ) which is based in Chios. Failing Lack of Tourist civilization, a development and selling scheme Small tourer period ( 4 to 5 months ) Low degree of tourer modernisation. Large figure of comparatively little tourer endeavors. Lack of specialized employment. Absence of tourer investings Control of the local tourer market from large circuit operators. Relatively little haven and airdrome Opportunity Low tourer activity could be the island s biggest chance for development. Evidence from topographic points with high tourer entreaty like Rhodes, Corfu, Paros, Kos, etc. , already demo environmental and cultural jobs, overcrowding, pollution, e.t.c, sometimes irreversible. Sustainable touristry development that will take to the uninterrupted, parallel and balanced development of all the sectors of the local economic system and esteem the cultural features of the country to the benefit of both locals and tourers. Development of altrnative signifiers of Tourism such as agrotourism local touristry, cultural touristry, ecological touristry, sea and H2O touristry e.tc. The stimulation of local trades and other local popular art which would hold a larger patronage and more agencies of support Encourage investings Incentives to change over traditional edifice into tourer adjustment. Joint tourer undertakings with neighbour Turkey Menace Uncontrolled Tourist development and growing. Unilateral growing of touristry. Ccultural and societal change Damage of the environment Intensity of competition. from states such as Turkey which is expected to accomplish good public presentation in the coming old ages The uncertainness about the future developments of the universe fiscal and economic crisis, makes anticipations on the Greek travel and touristry industry during the forecast period peculiarly hard. Decision An of import measure in strategic planning is to measure concerns and demands of assorted sectors of the local community ( different age groups, the concern sector, the educational and societal services sector, and so on ) and to measure all the elements related to touristry and other options for economic development and environmental preservation in Chios

Free Essays on Cathedral

The narrator in Raymond Carver’s â€Å"Cathedral† has two fully functional eyes, in which he chooses never to use to their full potential. They eyes of the narrator are insecure, jealous, lonely, and prejudiced. They are limited in what they choose to see. The tone of the narrator conveys his inability to see throughout the entire story. The narrator’s tone also reveals his character and personality. The first few pages of the story reveal the narrator’s blurred view of his own life, his wife’s life, and the entire world around him. The reader is quick to discover that the narrator seems to have an unhappy and insecure outlook on life. The narrator’s blurred view of everything that happened in his wife’s life reveals the insecurity that plagues him. When referring to his wife’s ex-husband he says, â€Å"Her officer- why should he have a name? He was the childhood sweetheart, and what more does he want?†(pg225). BY treating everyone the same and denying them importance, the narrator is trying to make himself seem more important in the lives of others. He simply calls his wife’s first husband â€Å"the officer† or â€Å"the man†(pg224). His refusal to even use his wife’s name while narrating as well as constantly referring to Robert as â€Å"the blind man†(pg224). Shows he blocks the importance of p eople around him. The narrator chooses not to be like Robert at first because of his disability. The narrator is aggravated and insecure about the fact that his wife talks and writes that she allowed Robert to touch her face. â€Å"She told me he touched his fingers to every part of her face, her nose- even her neck†(pg224)! Because of the fact that his wife is so close to Robert, and is so happy in the event of his arrival, â€Å"I saw my wife laughing†(pg227), â€Å"She was still wearing a smile†(pg227P, is makes it easier for him to judge Robert according to his disability. The reader first learns of the narrato... Free Essays on Cathedral Free Essays on Cathedral In the short story â€Å"Cathedral† by Raymond Carver. I relate with the husband since personally I have never spend any time with a blind person. I would feel the same way as he did, since I wouldn’t know how to start. I used to have the same idea of a blind man as the narrator of the story. The narrator was expecting someone who never laughed and moved slowly. I relate to this character in every sense, it is hard to start a conversation with a blind person, you might feel intimidated. The ending is where I relate more to the character than any other place. At the ending the narrator closes his eyes and just imagines himself to be blind and he finally connects with the blind man. I have closed my eyes a few times and I have imagined how it will be to not be able to see my love ones appearance. In the second short story â€Å"A Clean, Well-Lighted Place†, by Ernest Hemingway. I can’t relate to the young waiter he is just self-absorbed. The young waiter is an excellent example of the type of human beings that only think about themselves. Throughout his conversation with the older waiter, the young waiter insults the old deaf man, calling him â€Å"a nasty thing.† The older waiter defends the senior, however, saying that he is clean and dignified in his drunkenness. The younger waiter forces the man to pay the bill, and soon the man leaves. The young waiter is impatient with the old man, hoping to return home to his wife by a decent hour. He doesn’t understand the old deaf man circumstances as the older waiter does. He doesn’t understand how important it is to offer such a clean, well-lighted place to his customers. In â€Å"Cathedral† I would change the negative response that the narrator has about spending time with a blind person. I do relate with his feelings and thoughts about blind people but not his first reaction. He tells us immediately that his visitor's blindness molests him and that he is not looking forward ... Free Essays on Cathedral The narrator in Raymond Carver’s â€Å"Cathedral† has two fully functional eyes, in which he chooses never to use to their full potential. They eyes of the narrator are insecure, jealous, lonely, and prejudiced. They are limited in what they choose to see. The tone of the narrator conveys his inability to see throughout the entire story. The narrator’s tone also reveals his character and personality. The first few pages of the story reveal the narrator’s blurred view of his own life, his wife’s life, and the entire world around him. The reader is quick to discover that the narrator seems to have an unhappy and insecure outlook on life. The narrator’s blurred view of everything that happened in his wife’s life reveals the insecurity that plagues him. When referring to his wife’s ex-husband he says, â€Å"Her officer- why should he have a name? He was the childhood sweetheart, and what more does he want?†(pg225). BY treating everyone the same and denying them importance, the narrator is trying to make himself seem more important in the lives of others. He simply calls his wife’s first husband â€Å"the officer† or â€Å"the man†(pg224). His refusal to even use his wife’s name while narrating as well as constantly referring to Robert as â€Å"the blind man†(pg224). Shows he blocks the importance of p eople around him. The narrator chooses not to be like Robert at first because of his disability. The narrator is aggravated and insecure about the fact that his wife talks and writes that she allowed Robert to touch her face. â€Å"She told me he touched his fingers to every part of her face, her nose- even her neck†(pg224)! Because of the fact that his wife is so close to Robert, and is so happy in the event of his arrival, â€Å"I saw my wife laughing†(pg227), â€Å"She was still wearing a smile†(pg227P, is makes it easier for him to judge Robert according to his disability. The reader first learns of the narrato... Free Essays on Cathedral The protagonist in â€Å"Cathedral,† Bub, is a man who has several defining characteristics. Bub is insecure, insensitive, and ignorant. This is clearly shown in Bub’s relationships with his wife and Robert. Bub’s insecurities are blatantly shown when he comments on his wife’s ex-husband: Her officer-why should be have a name? He was her childhood sweetheart, and what more does he want? Bub resents the ex-husband for being his wife’s first love. He would have liked to have had that role so he negatively addresses his wife’s past relationships. Bub’s unconfident mannerisms further transpire when he comments on his wife’s relationship with Robert. He states: In time she put it all on tape and sent the tape to the blind man. Over the years she put all kinds of stuff on tapes and sent the tapes off lickety-split. Next to writing a poem every year, I think it was her chief recreation. On the tape, she told the blind man she’d decided to live away from her officer for a time. On another tape she told him about her divorce. She and I began going out, and of course she told her blind man about it. She told him everything, or so it seemed to me. This intense friendship between his wife and Robert further exacerbated his insecurities. Robert and his wife have an intimate relationship that Bub has never, and probably will never, have with his wife. He goes on to say: My wife finally took her eyes off the blind man and looked at me. I had the feelings she didn’t like what she saw. I shrugged. This relationship offers Bub only one consolation, he believes that because he can see that has an advantage. He constantly refers to Robert as â€Å"the blind man.† He never uses Robert’s name or assigns any human attributes to him. This insecurity is partially responsible for his wife’s continued involvement with Robert. Also responsible for his wife’s close relationship with Robert is Bub’... Free Essays on Cathedral Cathedral by Raymond Carter is a story about a man (the narrator of the story), his wife, and her longtime friend Robert, who is blind. Robert is coming to visit the man’s wife. Robert’s wife, Beulah, had just recently died and he is visiting his dead wife’s relatives in Connecticut. The narrator is not enthusiastic about this visit from his wife’s friend. At the beginning of this short story, the tone of the narrator is bitterness and ignorance. His tone moves to enlightenment by the conclusion. This dinner party will break down the barriers between the blind and those who have full use of his or her eyes. Within the first two paragraphs of the story, the narrator describes how Robert and his wife met and continued their relationship over several years within the first two paragraphs of this short story. The narrator is bitter about the relationship between Robert and his wife. He is especially disturbed or bothered by the level of intimacy between the two. The narrator’s wife and Robert communicated with each other via taped letters. His wife shared every detail of her life with Robert including moving from base to base, divorce from her childhood sweetheart, and an attempted suicide. On her last day at work with the blind man, she allowed him to â€Å"see† her by permitting him to touch her face and neck. At this point in the short story more bitterness is displayed by the narrator. This bitterness seems to be about a poem written about the experience! The narrator displays his ignorance regarding the blind and his or her limitations in several instances throughout the story. He first admits that his knowledge of the blind is limited to images that he had seen in the movies. He described the blind as people who move slow and never smile or laugh. The man’s wife gives him more information about Robert after he suggests they go bowling together. His wife mentions that Robert was married to a woman named Beulah, who th... Free Essays on Cathedral Question: Compare the two couples evolving in Raymond Carver's Cathedral. Overcoming Differences Human being in nature is an integrated system that is influenced by his complex environment. As a matter of fact, we interact with our surrounding; human being is always seeking for a mate. In the following essay, I will discuss the differences between the two couples who evolve in Raymond Carver’s â€Å"Cathedral†; such as religious beliefs, physical appearance and relationship. Firstly, physical appearance plays a major role in today’s society. In our time, most people judge their equals based on their look, not their core. In â€Å"Cathedral†, Robert, a blind man, and his wife give no importance to perception. Their love is true and it is not based on the exterior. In contrast, the narrator overplays the importance of vision and physical appearance: â€Å"All this without his having ever seen what the goddamned woman looked like. It was beyond my understanding† (11). It is obvious that his love isn’t based on fundamental values. Had his wife been different looking, it is very likely that they wouldn’t be together. Secondly, religious beliefs of the two couples are an issue that seems to divide whole populations and often it is used as a pretext to initiate conflicts. The author makes it clear that the two couples do not share the same spiritual values. In the story, Robert and his wife appear to be religious persons; they both agree to marry in a church: â€Å"Pretty soon Beulah and the blind man had themselves a church wedding† (11). On the other hand, the narrator openly states, while talking to Robert, that he does not believe in God: â€Å"I guess I don’t believe in it. In anything† (14). On a different occasion, he also makes fun of the prayer and says: â€Å"Pray the phone won’t ring and the food doesn’t get cold† (12). His couple does not share the same divine beliefs. Thirdly, relationship in a couple has good ...

Coffee Industry in Vietnam Case Study Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Coffee Industry in Vietnam - Case Study Example Initially, coffee industry was run by government. The total area under coffee production in 1995 was 186,400 hectares and increased to 535,100 hectares by 2002. The coffee type mainly grown in Vietnam is Robusta, a relatively low quality coffee in comparison to Arabia. But Vietnam's coffee is of high quality and planted on mountainous areas because of "a large range of temperature between day and night and basaltic soil" (Sinh, Sutcliffe, and Van, 1999, p.68). The coffee produced in Boun Ma Thout is widely accepted by the customers due to its improved quality. In order to get a clear cut idea and gain a better understanding over the coffee industry in Vietnam, it is necessary to draw a dividing line over the periods of coffee industry in Vietnam stretching from 1996-97 to 1999-2000. During the first period, i.e. 1996-1997 due to the high price, coffee farmers were inspired to cultivate it more while the second period brought them to the world coffee market when it reached its peak level in 2001 as their domestic coffee demand was static. During this time, government brought the country's coffee industry to the highland regions and took effective production and export oriented programs. Boun Ma Thout Coffee Festival of 2005 was a turning point for Vietnamese coffee industry. In this festival, Hanoians came to see the entire process of coffee production - planting, harvesting, drying, roasting and grinding. Subsequent to this, they came to enjoy cup coffee. Such festivals have opened the doors for all to be familiar with coffee culture and at the same time help developing it. Current Scenario Mainly grown coffee type in Vietnam is Robusta. It grows in plenty in highland regions of Vietnam. Robusta has a relatively less potential to be affected by diseases and it needs less water supply. As the Vietnam began to earn huge currencies through importing this improved quality coffee at much higher rate, the policy makers tempted the farmers to cultivate it more. As a consequence of this, the farmers became somewhat blind to the coffee cultivation and began to cut down tropical trees along with other trees. As a result, at the end of late 1990s, the world coffee price fall down only because of Vietnamese overproduction. Restlessness of market price and the condition ordained on them let them facing a serious financial hardship. However, this led coffee farmers neglect densely planted "dollar trees" (Greenfield, March 2004) too. Again use of chemical fertilizer instead of organic fertilizer quickly fertilized and increased coffee production and ultimately affects on the long run fertilization. Standardization There is an urgent necessity to take proper initiatives for making the proper standardization of coffee industry for ensuring its perfection and better quality. Sinh, Sutcliffe, and Van (1999) states that- "General Department of Quality Control, the Polytechnic University, and the Department of Science, Technology and Quality Control and after reviewing the coffee standards of ISO and some countries such as Indonesia, Brazil, and the Standardization Committee of Vietnam Coffee Corporation (VINACAFE) has developed standards

Global Warming Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words - 3

Global Warming - Essay Example In 1896 a Swedish scientist put forth the position that burning of fossil fuels causes accumulation of Carbon Dioxide in the atmosphere, which in turn creates a â€Å"greenhouse effect† and elevation of global temperatures. In the 1950s, the notion of global warming cropped up again when G.S. Callender highlighted the dangers of the greenhouse effect (Weart 2003). Weather models developed in the 1960s led to the discovery that the levels of certain gases were rising, degrading the fragile ozone layer in the atmosphere. The summer of 1988 was the hottest one on record with temperatures rising ever since and concerns about global warming have escalated since that time. Weather is truly international, but during the earlier part of the 1900s weather had low priority. Meteorologists and scientists of various countries banded together under the umbrella of the IGY (International Geophysical Year). Drilling of the ice caps commenced in Greenland, yielding the discovery that ice cores held a record of climactic history. This later led to the formation of the GARP (Global Atmospheric research program) which was headed by the Swedish meteorologist Bert Bolin, devoted to weather forecasting and the study of the steadily rising curve of atmospheric Carbon dioxide. Weart (2003) provides a detailed discussion of the phenomenon of climactic changes and the conflicting predictions of scientists on global warming and cooling. He details the IPCC reports of 1995 and 1997, wherein scientific experts predicted that by the middle of the 21st century, the temperature of the world would have increased between 1.5 to 4.50C, figures which have been recently revised upwa rds to as much as 5.50C.(Weart 2003).

BIM Implementation Strategy for FM Thesis Proposal

BIM Implementation Strategy for FM - Thesis Proposal Example Arayici and Aouad (2010) in Eadie et al. (2014) have shown that BIM goes further than managing essential building design and the building’s life-cycle to include facility management. In recent times, the construction industry has been undergoing a paradigm shift to serve various purposes. The changes are meant to increase infrastructure value, productivity, quality, efficiency and sustainability. These changes are also aimed at reducing lifestyle costs, lead time and duplications through effective communication and collaboration of stakeholders in projects (Arayici, et al., 2011). These processes should not only be incorporated in the construction stage but throughout the entire lifecycle, and this is the basis of facility management. Facility management ideally should not be left to start after the completion of a building. The appropriate time to start management of a facility is during its early stages of its construction. As Patrick MacLeamy, the developer of the â€Å"shifting the effort† concept, highlights, that the further you are through the design process, the higher the cost of design change (Light, 2011). Another advantage that facility management can gain from BIM implementation is the efficient use and reuse of data. The fluid flow of data use can help facility managers to keep track of the changes that a facility undergoes in the various stages of its lifecycle. When information is complete and is used efficiently, the quality of the facility is maintained at a peak and the clients enjoy a sustainable product. Facility management should start when the project is in its early stages to facilitate maximum data collection for future use (Arayici, 2013). As a result, the facility can benefit from ensured sustainability. Facility management requires intensive information sharing among the parties involved. The managers should, therefore, have a proper mechanism for ensuring that the stakeholders have access to

Analysis Of Wordsworths Resolution And Independence English Literature Essay

Analysis Of Wordsworths Resolution And Independence English Literature Essay The poet establishes in the first two stanzas the mood of nature when he traveled on the moor. The tense can be confusing. Wordsworth begins in the simple past, but the past serves here the uses of the present in the sense of active recollection of emotion in present tranquility. The BUT at the beginning of stanza four introduces the contrast that exists between the joy of nature and the dejection of the poet. The time that he recalls was one of a rising sun, calm and bright, singing birds in the distant woods, the pleasant noise of waters in the air, the world teeming with all things that love the sun, the grass jeweled with rain-drops, the hare running is his glee. But the poets morning is one subjectivity of dejection; on this morning did fears and fancies come upon him profusely. In the midst of the sky-lark warbling in the sky, he likens himself unto the playful hare; even such a happy child of earth am I / even as these blissful creatures do I fare; / far from the world I walk, and from all careà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦. This is the joyous side of his life. But, in the midst of the joy, he thinks of that other kind of day that might come to him, that day of solitude, pain of heart, distress, and poverty. In stanza 6 he recalls how his life has been as a summer, mood, how the sustenance of life in all its nourishing variations has come to him so gratuitously. But, then he thinks also of the possibility that it will not continue so for one who takes no practical thought for his own care and keep. The question is, how long will nature continue to give freely to one who does not with diligent responsibility harvest grain for the garner of future days: but how can He [ in this case the poet himself] expect that others should / Blind for him, sow for him, and at his call / Love him; who for himself will take no heed at all? the poet thinks of himself as poet, one endowed with his own privileged, joyous place in life, there comes to his mind the names of Thomas Chatteron and Robert Burns, poets in the English tradition that Wordsworth would admire. The association that he makes of himself with them is at one and the same time joyous and imminent: we poets in our use begin in gladness;/ but thereof come in the end despondency and madness. The universal joy of the poets life is contemplated in range of potential sorrow. The beginning of stanza 8 marks a turning point in the poem. From this juncture to the end, the poet will tell how he learned what we find in the title, resolution and independence, and he learns significantly from a wanderer, a man who has subsisted on the gathering of leeches, a man who is now a beggar. As the poet thinks his untoward thoughts about life and struggles with all their depressing suggestions, he meets in a lovely place beside a pool bare to the eye of heaven, a solitary man, the poet says the oldest man he seemed that ever wore grey hairs. The poet interprets his meeting with him to be verily a gift of Devine Grace. Stanza nine is Wordsworths long simile for the old solitary. The purpose of the simile is to describe the leech gatherer as alive but almost not alive. Wordsworth compares him to a huge stoneà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦/ couched on the bald top of an eminence, and to a sea- beast crawled forth through using the sea beast as simile for the stone. The old man is virt ually one with the scene amidst which he sits; he has very nearly become one with nature: motionless as a cloud the old man stood, / that hearth not the loud winds when they callà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦. The encounter reveals to the poet a man of great age, bent double, feet and head / coming together in lifes pilgrimageà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦. He looks as if he might be made taut in his bent posture by the tight strain of some past suffering, rage, or sickness. The poet is picturing him as very nearly supernatural, at least somehow beyond the usual scope of human experience: he seemed to bear a more than human weightà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦. In stanzas 12- 15, the old man finally moves. The poet sees him stir the waters by which he stands and then looks with fixed scrutiny into the pond, which he conned , / as if he had been reading in a bookà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦. The poet greets him, and the old man makes a gentle answer, in courteous speech which forth he slowly drewà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦. Wordsworth uses the whole of stanza fourteen to describe his speech, lofty utterance, stately speech. In lines 88 and 89, the poet asks him what his occupation is, and suggests that the place in which he dwells may be too lonely for such a person as he. The old man identifies his work as leech- gathering; this is why he is in such a lonely place. He must, being old and poor, finds his subsistence here, though the work may be hazardous and wearisome. He depends on Gods Providence to help him find lodging. But in all, he can be sure that he gains an honest maintenance, however much he may have to roam from pond to pondà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦ from m oor to moor. In lines106-119, the poets responses to the old leech-gatherer are told. While the old man had been answering his question about employment and placement in so lonely a setting, the poet becomes absorbed in the strange aspects of him who speaks. He loses the detail of answer the leech-gatherer is making; he cannot divide his words one from another. Lines 109-112 contain the essence of the poets articulation of his feelings. They should be read carefully and compared to other passages in Wordsworths poetry where he attempts to give voice to experience that is very close to mystical absorption. Observe here that the poet finds himself absorbed in the being of the solitary: And the whole body of the man did seem Like one whom I had met with in a dream; Or like a man from some far region sent, To give me human strength, by apt admonishment. But the poets dejection returns. He thinks again the heavy thoughts of fear, of resistant, recalcitrant, cold, pain, and labour, and all fleshly ills, and of those poets who have been mighty, but who have died in misery. He yearns to find some message of strength and hope in the leech-gathers words, so he asks again, how is it that you live, and what is it you do? In lines120-126, the leech-gatherer repeats the nature of his work, but he adds that whereas he once could gather the object of his industry easily, he now because of the growing scarcity of leeches must travel more extensively- still he perseveres. In lines127-133, the poet relates more of his private, unspoken response to the old Man. Against it happens that his mind wanders, as in stanza 16, while the leech-gatherer is answering his question. The poet pictures him as even more a solitary than he is in his present state; the poets imagination working on the figure before him makes of the wandering solitary very nearly a transcendent being, silent and eternal: In my minds eye (the poet affirms) I seemed to see him pace / About the weary moors continually, / wandering about alone and silently. The poet is troubled by his own imaginative responses to the Man before him, but not troubled in a bad sense. This is the ministry of fear that we find so often in Wordsworths work. In lines 134-140, the leech-gatherers resolution and independence is obvious to the poet in the way he moves from economically precarious condition to more cheerful utterances. The old Man before the poet is obviously a person of firm mind, however decrepit he might in appearance seem. He remains in the midst of whatever misfortune the society of man or isolation with the bare elements bearing him, a person of kind demeanor and stately bearing. The poet compares himself to the leech-gatherer and scorns himself for his dejection. He takes the old Man into his memory as an another point for future days and asks that God will help him to preserve what he has learnt: God, said I, be my help and stay secure; Ill think of the leech-gatherer on the lonely moor! As suggested in other places in this study, most of Wordsworths solitaries live as a part of the nature in which they move. There is the effect in this poem of the leech-gatherer going in and out of nature; the poet is for a time aware of him as a person confronting him face-to-face, but then he loses touch with him, as if he had blended back into the nature out of which he had momentarily stepped. One might profitably compare stanza sixteen, where Wordsworth speaks of the leech-gatherer as coming to him as if out of dream, which the Simplon Pass episode in Book Sixth of The Prelude. About line 600 of that book Wordsworth speaks of an imaginative experience in the following terms: in such strength of usurpation, when the light of sense Goes out, but with a flash that has revealed The invisible world, doth greatness make abode, There harboursà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦ . Wordsworths light of sense near to going out at least twice while he is talking to the leech-gatherer. One may also interestingly compare Wordsworths responses to the vision on Mount Snowdon in Book Fourteenth of The Prelude with his experiences while talking to the old Man he met on the moors. He certainly intends for the reader to be impressed with the leech-gatherers insistence on survival, survival that comes to him, we feel, to great degree because of a sheer act of will. Again, as with many of Wordsworths solitaries, courage is presented as with many of Wordsworths solitaries, courage is presented as the capacity to endure. There is a notable difference, however, between the courage of Michael and the courage of the leech-gatherer; never being sure he will find them, as she has been to Michael, who, though his farm is eventually lost after his death to owners outside his family, can live the total of his years on land that has been made his been own. Michael draws continual sus tenance more from his own deep wells of unyielding fortitude. There is an obvious contrast also in this regard between the leech-gatherer and the Old Cumberland Beggar. The leech-gatherer accepts housing from those who will help him, but he does not have the regularity of affection and acts of kindness that the persons in the community of the Old Cumberland Beggar an area of nature in which he can live and die, in which he can make his home, Those who care for him are almost neighbors to him. The leech-gatherer is much more thrown on his own resources. It is in this that the poet learns his greatest lesson from him. There is in the encounter between the poet and the leech-gatherer the work of Providence. Wordsworth seems to say in the poem (and in the letter he wrote about the poet) that this old Man was sent to him for his own rehabilitation. This may seem in some ears to be very close to blaspheming the preciously human, that one human being would be so sacrified fro the instruction and welfare of another. But the rediscovery of stability and hope in the midst of dejection for the poet who writes the poem is certainly the direction of things from the early stanza of the poem, where the glory of the natural surroundings seem to be functioning expressly for the poets interesting. The hare that leaps joyfully through the first five stanza of the poem (mentioned three times in the five stanzas, in the second, third, and fifth) becomes in a way emblematic of the poets life. The hare is also a servant of the benignant Grace of God, bringing to the poet reminders that he is à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦such a happ y child of earthà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦ . There may be in the background the biblical records of Gods directly expressed mercy for man, even as incursions that cut with the particularity of biographical facts. But the leach- gatherer comes not so much in the mood and manner of historical encounter as he comes in the form of natures extension of herself, ministering through an agency that is close to being more a natural agency than a human one. With regard to the language of the poem, Wordsworth is working with a seven- line stanza or rhyme royal. The longer last line has the effect of slowing down the narrative and giving more time to the reader for consideration. Wordsworths highly conscious artistry can be seen in his careful use of similes that describe the old man of the poem. The stone and the sea- beast of stanza nine, and the cloud in stanza eleven convey a sense of life that is highly worthy of the word. On the subject of the language of the poem, one may question whether the diction that the poet attributes to the leach- gatherer is a selection of language really used by menà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦. In stanza fourteen, the old mans speech is described as choice words and measured phrase, above the reach / of ordinary menà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦. Wordsworth as a narrative poet has most of his characters as active, persons committed to action. He consistently draws his characters so that they are easily recognizable as human beings. They are usually three- dimensional characters that have definite features. For all of his shared identity with nature_ which is to a very great degree_ we still meet the leach- gatherer as man, not as thing. Stanza ten and eleven are examples of Wordsworths ability to create character in a relatively few lines; in this he shares a fame that is owned by only a few artists. The leach- gatherer is easily visualized, with his body bent double, propped, limbs, body, and pale face. / upon a long grey stuff of shaven woodà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦ . such vivid character drawing is necessary to give the old man the action of personality that he has, an action essential to his being for the poet a model of resolution and independence. Wordsworths characters are real because we can think of them as human beings. Howev er heroic the leach- gatherer may be, his heroism does not take him beyond the limits of the human. We have in him no Achilles. His heroism is the kind that can be attained by human beings we know and meet. Generally Wordsworths characters are real because we can think of them as human beings. The leach- gatherer shares much more with Abraham than with Achilles. Sources: Barashc, F. The romantic Poets. Monarch press. New York: 1991. Hough, G. The Romantic Poets. 1964.

Androgynous Characters in Thomas Hardys Novels Essay -- Biography Bio

Androgynous Characters in Thomas Hardy's Novels Androgyny may be defined as "a condition under which the characteristics of the sexes, and the human impulses expressed by men and women, are not rigidly assigned" (Heilbrun 10). In the midst of the Victorian Era, Thomas Hardy opposed conventional norms by creating androgynous characters such as Eustacia Vye, in The Return of the Native ; the title character in Tess of the d Urbervilles ; Sue Bridehead in Jude the Obscure ; and Marty South in The Woodlande rs. Hardy's women, possessing "prodigious energy, stunted opportunity, and a passion which challenges the entire, limiting world" (Heilbrun 70), often resemble men in actions and behavior. Eustacia Vye may be considered androgynous for her passion, rebelliousness, and refusal to accept the confines of Egdon. She exists in a state of untamed romantic emotion and fantasy, and has little concern for the effects of her actions. These characteristics of Eustacia make her less typical of women during the Victorian Era, but the scene in which her androgynous behavior is most evident...

Bisexuality Politicised Essay

This paper asks the question how can bisexuality be or become a danger to the dominant sexual script which I problematise as produced racism, sexism, homophobia, and monosexism. That this brand of heterosexuality occupies 99% of our cultural space in entertainment, education, history and public expression and is considered inevitable and unchallengable for 90% of peoples relationships is, I will argue, the victory of white patriarchal science. I intend to show the nature of this victory and imagine what counter struggle and victories might emerge from the site of my bisexuality. The Historical role of Biphopia- Policing the Treaty. Underpinning this paper is the belief in that many if not all heterosexual identifying people can be bisexual and that the majority are to some extent not privately monosexual. The majority status of bisexuality does not make it normal nor ideal however I mention it because it is important to realise that the invisibility of bisexuality requires extraordinary effort to maintain and it’s repression occurs against all people not just a few â€Å"natural† bisexuals. To understand the historical role that biphobia has played and the historical position of bisexuality it is necessary to recognise homosexuality as a creation of western patriarchal and homophobic medical science. Women have always loved women and men have always loved men but the classification of these experiences as a sexuality with little or no element of choice and a biological or individual psychological basis was given currency in the 19th century by a professional class that feared same sex desire. Their construction of homosexuality shaped and informs Western cultural understanding of sexuality â€Å"not in the first place because of its meaningfulness to those whom it defines but because of its indispensableness to those who define themselves against it. † (Segal, L. p145) for it was and is needed â€Å"not only for the persecutory regulation of a nascent minority of distinctly homosexual men (and women) but also for the regulation of the male (and female) homosocial bonds that structure all culture – at any rate all public or heterosexual culture. † (Eve Sedgewick in Segal, L. pp194-5) Early psychoanalytic texts were quite explicit that the project was to police all male and female relationships warning â€Å"teachers and parents not to take too lightly friendships among girls which become passionate† and society to â€Å"be more concerned with the degree of heterosexuality or homosexuality in an individual than they are with the question of whether he has ever had an experience of either sort†. â€Å"The real danger from homosexuality† was seen to lie â€Å"not in actual sex association but in homosexual attitudes towards life† such as the negative attitudes of â€Å"thousands of women †¦ toward men, marriage and family life† influenced by â€Å"latent homosexuality† for â€Å"neurotic attitudes about love and marriage can prove contagious. † (Caprio, F. pp 6 -11) Generally, prior to this the western world had relied on Christianity to dictate the terms of sexuality. Whether sexual attraction was â€Å"natural† was no defence under a regime which tended to view â€Å"natural† sexual desires as needing control from a religious authority. The medical establishment faced the dilemma of replacing religious authorities without having any utilitarian basis for the repression of same sex desire. The construction of homosexuality as a distinct condition was to define normality as exclusive heterosexuality. In fact heterosexuality was simply the condition of being human. Sexual behaviour became a product of a persons condition; the â€Å"human condition† producing normal heterosexual behaviour. There was now no need for a religious justification for preferencing the heterosexual over the homosexual because behaviour was not a matter of choice but a matter of whether or not you were ill; Well or sane people simply didn’t want to have sex with people of their own gender. This was presented as a more humane response to homosexuality than religious condemnation or incarceration. Psychiatrists often called themselves compassionate as they argued for an adoption of â€Å"scientific† curative responses to homosexuality. (Caprio, F, p. xi) The majority gay and lesbian movement accepted the shifting of sexuality into an area for science and have embraced the notion of a biological basis or early psychological basis for sexuality. Their fight has largely been for homosexuality to be treated as incurable and it follows natural and equally valid alternative to heterosexuality, jettisoning any agenda to argue that is better. Only a minority have argued that homosexuality is a political choice and an option for everyone. With both sides ceasing hostilities1, when homosexuality was delisted as a mental illness in 1973 (Altman,D. ,p5), institutionalised heterosexuality and gays and lesbians overt interests have moved to coincide. Victories to normalise homosexuality also normalise heterosexuality’s dominance by depoliticising sexuality in general. In 1993 when a homosexuality gene was â€Å"discovered† a genetic basis for the majority status of heterosexuality was created though not declared. Anyone who would argue that the commonality of heterosexuality might have something to do with social programming and institutional support can now be said to be messing with nature. The proud bisexual threatens this peaceful coexistence of the heterosexual majority and homosexual minority. Recognition of our bisexuality requires a validation of our sexual relationships with people of our own gender based on choice rather than the agreed legitimate biological basis. Such choice may be personal or circumstantial but also political or moral. Normalising bisexuality with a biological cause won’t defuse it’s threat though it could contain it if it relegates us to a fixed minority status. Society still has to reckon with why we choose to validate relationships with people of our own gender by identifying as bisexual. We reopen old debates that many who have found safety in a biological basis for their monosexual identity want to keep closed. (I will revisit this fear in the last section, Bisexuality and the Future when I discuss Bi supremacy. ) A bisexual identity simply has to be defined as confused or an exception to the rule. Individuals have to be pressured to fit themselves into one or the other category. In a secular society without moral taboos people can’t be allowed to entertain the idea that their partners gender is political. Also, understandably gays and lesbians know those moral taboos still hold significant power so many still see their best option as policing the treaty based on the attribution of their sexuality to a biological or psychological cause. Bisexuality and identification – Withdrawing our support for the status quo. The bisexual identifying person is not predominantly someone who feels attraction equally to both genders or without any reference to gender2 and in terms of actual sexual or emotional experience the majority could be classified as predominantly homosexual or heterosexual. â€Å"Why then, don’t you call yourself gay or straight? † is the inevitable response to this confession. And confession it feels like because to indicate a â€Å"leaning† puts at risk the validity given to a bisexual identity within contemporary discourse. Sexual expression is usually presented as representative of something innate rather than a mediation between a person and their world. Consequently the woman who says she usually finds women easier to make emotional connections with is seen to be describing her â€Å"innate† difficulty emotionally connecting with men rather than her experience of men and their culture. Asserting a bisexual identity in the face of this invalidation is about contextualising sexual responses rather than finding invisible internal reasons for them. A bisexual identity in the above circumstance keeps open the possibility that a preference for emotional relationships with women could change if men and male culture changed. Alternatively a preference for sex with men might be attributable to homophobia. (Weinberg, M. S. , p221) The reasons for choices are not always positive ones but the possibility for counter argument exists. Holding onto a bisexual identification based on potentiality, rejects the conservatism of describing reality by the status quo. However a bisexual identity is also partially an attempt to accurately relate personal history as well and this too has a radical power. Most monosexual identifications represent people only by concealing some bisexuality. By identifying as bisexual a person accepts and celebrates those aspects of their life that are inconsistent with a monosexual identity. The power of metanarratives within modernism, including descriptions of sexuality, relies on such inconsistencies being deemed insignificant. Hence a public bisexual identity is a confrontation of generalist theories with lived experience. If people promote such a solidarity with their experiences and the people who compose them that is greater than any to a proposed theory then expounders of metanarratives (including myself) will lose power. Our authority to dictate â€Å"from above† will be replaced by a decentralised authority based on being â€Å"up close† to our own reality. Bisexuality and other oppressions. Sexuality forms alliances across genders, ethnicities, and classes so any bisexual movement which fails to take gender, race or class issues into account poses a real danger of obscuring differences and concealing oppression. (This is also true for a multiplicity of issues such as disability or mental illness). My discussion of bisexuality and other basis for oppression are not intended to present bisexual identification as the panacea of the worlds ills. Social change must be inspired by a diversity of experience and informed by a range of critiques. Given the above it is presumptious for me as a half-wog male to seek to resolve ongoing debates about a bisexual political agenda among feminist women or debates among black women and men on how to connect bi pride with anti-racism. To do so would be to pretend that I can speak from only my bisexuality and abandon any white, male perspctive. As a long term unemployed person I believe I can speak on class issues from the inside to some extent but also still acknowledge the privelage of my university education. This is not to say that I think that sexism is a womens issue or that the responsibility for opposing racism is solely non-whites. Nor am I comfortable being accountable to lesbian or straight feminists on the issue of bisexual profeminism or placing beyond reproach the homophobia of some black liberationist theorists like Eldrige Cleaver. What to speak on and when in regard to a radical bisexualitys’ impact on patriarchal, white supremist and class oppresion is best defined as problematic. As a simple way out I hope to show how I see a politicised bisexuality contributes to my pro-feminism, anti-racism and support for class struggles. It is my hope that this will have relevance for a wider audience. Radical Bisexuality and Pro-feminism. Judith Butler states that â€Å"the heterosexualisation of desire requires and institutes the production of discrete and assymetrical oppositions between â€Å"feminine† and â€Å"masculine† identities. † (Segal, L. p190) Monique Wittig goes further to argue that a woman’s place in heterosexuality is a class of oppression and that the lesbian escapes her class position. (Wittig, M, p. 47) I agree that â€Å"hetero†-sexuality (literally a sexuality based on opposites) reproduces and supports womens oppression in other spheres by creating a binary gender system. Men need to realise that their love for women is problematic when it is that â€Å"love† of the â€Å"feminine identity† that belongs to this sytem. This is the attraction for the other and requires women’s difference to be exaggerated and emphasised. These exaggerations shape women as not-men while we men shape ourselves and are shaped into embodiments of the ideal. The seeming irony of male heterosexuality where women are objects of love being consistent with misoginy where women are objects of hate makes perfect sense through the operation of oppositional heterosexuality precisely because the love requires women to be less than men. A love that does not require partners to be different than ourselves is not possible within exclusive heterosexuality because it fails to provide the argument to repress same sex desire. It is necessary for heterosexual men to confront their homophobia which demands they repress or invalidate their same sex desire before they can love their female partners as their â€Å"own kind† and not another species. An additional benifit to patriarchy of discrete gender identities that is liable to be lost when men reject oppositional heterosexuality is the regulation of male social interaction. The arguments to exclude gay men from the military reveal the mindset deemed necessary to produce a war machine; â€Å"We are asking men in combat to do an essentially irrational thing – put themselves in a position where they are likely to get killed †¦ One of the few ways to persuade men to do that is to appeal to their masculinity †¦ You cannot have an adrogynous military †¦ The idea that fighting is a masculine trait runs deep. As a cultural trait it predates any written history. It may even be a genitic trait †¦ Just think what it would mean to demasculinize combat. The effect on combat effectiveness might be catastrophic. † – Charles Moskos, Military Socioligist quoted in Colonel R. D. Ray, Military Necessity and Homosexuality (Gays:In or Out, p63) It is regrettable that non-heterosexual men and many women are proving they too can make excellent soldiers. 3 However the above quote exaggerates a fact that male â€Å"buddy† relationships are relied on by the military and that this requires a repression of same sex desire. This is because same sex desire is preferential – it is not a love of all men equally – but of a few and potentially for a time. The same-sex loyalty that is demanded by patriarchy including it’s military needs the stability of exclusive heterosexuality; â€Å".. the recognition of homosexuality is a threat to that peculiar combination of male camaraderie and hierachy on which most organisations depend; sexual desire is too anarchic, too disrespectful of established boundaries to be trusted. † (Altman, D. p63) Unravelling their heterosexuality is not the most important thing men must do to support feminism however it is a legitimate part of this support for â€Å"it is the repressed recognition of this fact (that everyone can be homosexual) that does much to fuel homophobia, but equally acts so as to promote male bonding and certain crucial authority structures. † (Altman D. ,p XI) Radical Bisexuality and Racism. The construction of homosexuality as a â€Å"natural† difference from the heterosexual norm shares and competes for the same conceptual space as constructions of race as biological differences from the white norm. This is particularly true because the hetrosexual ideal is represented as white with the sexuality of non-whites traditionally seen as untamed, violent, promiscuous or otherwise deviant even if heterosexual. Non-whites are considered only ever partly heterosexual while white queers are considered not proper whites. The competition for the limited conceptual space has led to historical difficulites in linking white supremacy with heterosexism (exacerbated by white queer activists own racial interests) and in fact has unwittingly linked Gay Power with white power. â€Å"Homosexuality as a race† has developed into a gay and lesbian ethnicity. For whites under racism where their whiteness is considered the norm and thus unnamed, this ethnicity is their only ethnicity, the lesbian/gay â€Å"language† their only language, and lesbian/gay history their only history, to the point that it is not seen as a difference within whiteness but a difference from whiteness. (Blasingame, p52) While we (white queers) are unconscious of our whiteness queer cultural politics consequently becomes a way of colonising non-white cultures with a new white culture, white leaders and white history in a particularly insidious way. While not as powerful as heterosexual institutions for people wanting to be publicly non-heterosexual we have considerable power; in the framing of beauty along racist lines, in the support of white non-heterosexual bourgeoius or political leaders and in the very conceptualisation of sexuality. As one example Brenda Marie Blasingame in Bisexuality and Feminism speaks of a history of sexuality in U. S. black communities which did not include placing people in particular â€Å"boxes† and accepted the practice of bisexuality. A part of moving into the white gay and lesbian movement for her was the requirement to come out as a specific sexuality and accept the marginalisation of bisexuals. For many people who are not white taking up a gay or lesbian and to a different extent bisexual identity requires an abandonment of their own ethnic politcal identity or view. (Blasingame, pp. 51 – 53) The common conceptual space of non-heterosexual and non-white however can and should however produce queer anti-racism provided white queers realise that this conception of their sexuality is wrong. There is a shared interest in anti-racism and anti-heterosexism in critiqing normalcy and naturalness. As only one example the construction of beauty posits that naturally â€Å"Gentlemen prefer Blondes†. Not only is this sexist for reducing women to a hair colour (and the Blonde is meant to be read as a woman) but it is heterosexist and clearly as racist as â€Å"Gentlemen prefer whites† when Blonde is only a white persons natural hair colour. When we politicise our sexuality we can open up not only the arguments against heterosexual dominance but the arguments against the sexual sterotypes of non-whites including the framing of Asian men as â€Å"young girls† represented in this regrettable quote from the 70’s magazine Gay Power; â€Å"I dig beautiful oriental men. Asking me to shoot at them is the same thing as asking heterosexual soldiers to shoot at beautiful young girls that they would like to fuck. † (Teal, D. p99) Radical Bisexuality and Class. It is worth noting that capitalism which I understand as the continual oppression of the poor that patriarchy is for women is no longer wedded to heterosexuality in Western affluent nations as it has been in the past. This is because Western nations are primarily consumer societies of fairly easily produced goods (easily because their production is either located in the Third World or in the Quattro Monde – the world of the Western underclass or because their production is automated). Western capitalism can therefore relax the â€Å"restraint and repression† which was necessary to both control factory floors and ensure a ready supply of human capital through reproduction. (Altman D, p90) Part of this is also due to unemployment and global capital mobility being sufficient to obtain cheap labour and another contributing factor has been Western women raising their education so they are more useful in employment than at home. Also marriage was the institution by which women were given the role of providing a whole range of services capitalism wouldn’t such as aged care and child raising as well as supporting adult men. Now many of these services are provided by profitable private institutions so traditional marriages are actually in competition with capitalism. Of course the worlds poor can’t afford these services and Thirld World countries remain supportive of compulsory heterosexuality (Altman, D, p90) but in the Western consumer-capitalism there is a an interest to increase consumption through the market of previous services fulfilled by women’s unpaid labour. In order to perpetuate consumption growth capitalism must also locate new disatisfactions like teenage angst, at an alarming rate while also offering at a price their answer. In this context gay, lesbian and even bisexual identities as well as transgenderism, S+M and fetish celebrations are eagerly embraced by many industries as the basis for new markets. Our anxiety for recognition, meaning, ceremony and a positive celebration of our sexuality are easily exploitable. â€Å"†¦ one of the possible negative side-effects of the popularity of ‘lesbian chic’ was that it codes lesbianism as merely a kind of fashion statement, something that requires certain consumer goods to mark the individual as lesbian. † (Newitz & Sandell) Bisexuals have to be mindful that while we seek recognition, capitalism is looking for new markets and while these interests coincide this will only be true for those of us who can afford it and it will be on the backs of the world’s poor involved in the production of our new consumerables and bearing the greatest brunt of the waste from our new consumption. One positive way to resist becoming merely another market is by applying the awareness of the political nature of sexual desire to the desire for consumer goods and services. Both desires are constructed to serve particular interests and not fundamentally our own. Through working to ensure that all of our desire works for liberation we will resist commodification as we achieve recognition. Bisexuality and the Future To outline what I see as the goal of Radical Bisexuality I will illustrate two scenarios depicting false victories and one which I believe genuinely opens up the greatest possibility for liberation. Scenario 1. Recognition of bisexuality as a third alternative way that people unchangably are. To some extent as I have said earlier this can’t overcome the capacity of bisexuals to fit in as straight and thus can’t conceal the choice to embrace the homosexuality within the heterosexual that they represent. However there are arguments that could be presented that bisexuals have to express their same sex desire or become depressed (â€Å"go mad†). These arguments could form the basis of depoliticising and medicalising bisexuality as has been done with homosexuality. This may make bisexual lives easier to defend and add to the options for young people but relegates bisexuals to the same minority status as is currently given to gays and lesbians. Most people who admit to loving their own gender in straight society would face the same oppression bisexuals now face as â€Å"heterosexual experimenters† and recruitment of the majority would be difficult as they would remain â€Å"true† heterosexuals as unable to change as â€Å"true† bisexuals or gays and lesbians. Further it could also trade the oppression that is invisibility for bisexuals with the oppression that is hyper-visibility for straight men and women, and increasingly gays and lesbians. Having recognised sexuality’s repression but not it’s production we will be easily exploitable by capitalism and our liberation may mean as being as marketed to and ritutalised as heterosexuality. Scenario 2. Bisexuality is considered the only natural sexuality which equates it with the only right sexuality. Heterosexuality would be patholigised along with homosexuality as both are considered to have unnatural â€Å"blocks† to loving one or the other gender. This is Bisexual Supremacy which I acknowledge as a justification for gays and lesbians to distrust bisexuals. While it is unlikely to be widely accepted it is possible that it could dominate queer spaces as a pocket of resistance to heterosexual dominance in the same way as celebrations of gay and lesbian purity have. It is certainly more likely to be targetted at lesbians and gays than straights and while this is the fault of heterosexism’s power, not my own, it must be refuted. This is not to say that politicising sexuality will not require some gay men in particular to reassess their rhetoric. Mysoginistic comments which denegrate women’s bodies deserve political criticism and can’t be assured the right to be accepted. However the wider charge of institutionalising the sexual oppression of women and supporting male social bonding can’t be levelled at male homosexuality and certainly not at lesbianism. Indeed at certain points in the struggle against institutionalised oppression different sexual identifications and choices will be appropriate. Because bisexuality is as deliberate a sexuality choice as any other and not a submission to some biological imperative (and even if it were I reject the claim that naturalness equals rightness) we can’t claim an non-contextual ideal status. Its political usefulness is only that of any tactic relative both to the circumstances and to the person, meaning that for some and at some times other sexual choices and identifications are more appropriate. Bisexual supremacy also prioritises the effort to be bisexual over other efforts to unravel heterosexist, patriarchal and racist programming. I have already stressed the need for a variety of critiques of power to inform social change which Bisexual supremacy ignores. In particular men in relationships with women need to realise that doing their share of the housework is far more meaningful than maintaining or developing their capacity to love other men. Scenario 3. The Dream. Realising our sexualities are scripted will hopefully prompt redrafts along feminist, anti-racist and anti-capitalist lines. No-one should be the sole author of this project even with their own sexuality as we all need to listen to the perspectives our privelages rob us off. Certainly a part of this will be a dialogue between political lesbians, bisexuals and straight women which already has a history and whose future I don’t want to conclude. Consequently my dream is vague. What I don’t see in this future is the fetishisation of wealth, whiteness or gendered difference. Women in relationships with men will recieve support and encouragement as full humans. Advertisers will be incapable of capturing our consumption with snake oil as we demand economic production satisfy new needs that we create, for justice and community. Pleasure including sexual pleasure will mean enjoying our values not forgetting them. Bisexuality like other sexualities will have to argue it’s political legitimacy but not it’s existance. Sexual identifications such as â€Å"Confused† may replace bisexual for many if it is recognises more of their personal truth and political terms like Anti-racist may be key elements of sexual identification. Radical bisexuality wont end all struggles but the raw energy of sexuality will be accountable to and in the employ of the great project of improving the world . Bibliography Altman, Dennis, The Homosexualisation of America, The Americanization of the Homosexual, St. Martins Press, New York, 1982 Sedgewick, E. K. , â€Å"How to Bring Your Kids Up Gay†, pp. 69 – 81, Fear of a Queer Planet : Queer Politics and Social Theory, Warner,M. (Editor), University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, 1993 Segal, Lynne, Straight Sex: Rethinking the Politics of Pleasure, University of California Press, U. S. A. , 1994. Foucalt, Michel, The History of Sexuality, Volume 1:An Introduction, Allen Lane, London, 1978 Newitz, A. and J. Sandell,â€Å"Bisexuality And How To Use It: Toward a Coalitional Identity Politics†, Bad Subjects, Issue # 16, October 1994 Caprio, F. S. M. D. Female Homosexuality:A Psychodynamic study of Lesbianism, The Citadel Press, New York, 1954 Weinberg,M. S. , C. J. Williams, D. W. Pryor, Dual Attraction: Understanding Bisexuality, Oxford University Press, Inc. , New York, 1994 Blasingame, B. M. , â€Å"The Roots of Biphobia: Internalised Racism and Internalised Heterosexism† in Closer to Home: Bisexuality and Feminism, Edited by E. R. Wise, Seal Press, U. S. A. , 1992 Colonel R. D. Ray, Military Necessity and Homosexuality , reprinted in Gays:In or Out: The U. S. Military & Homosexuals – A Source book, Brassey’s, March 1993. Teal D. , The Gay Militants, Stein and Day Publishers, New York, 1971. Wittig, M. , The Straight Mind and Other Essays, Beacon Press. Boston, 1992 Descriptors for Sexual Minorities †¢ Front Page †¢ What is h2g2? †¢ Who’s Online †¢ Write an Entry †¢ Browse †¢ Announcements †¢ Feedback †¢ h2g2 Help †¢ RSS Feeds Contact Us Like this page? Send it to a friend! Descriptors for Sexual Minorities | Asexuality | Homosexuality Heterosexuality | Bisexuality | Polyamory | The Kinsey Scale | The Gender Pronoun Game | Coming Out Embarrassing Questions About Sexual Orientation | Going Back In – Sexuality U-turns Modern culture has developed a number of terms and symbols to set apart its sexual minorities. Some of these originated within the different communities themselves. Others evolved from scientists, psychologists, legislators, and newspaper reporters trying to describe their gay, bisexual, transsexual, and polyamorous subjects. Many include obscure references to history that go largely unrecognized. Words Lesbian The word lesbian comes from the Greek island Lesbos, where the poet Sappho lived in 600 BC. Sappho wrote numerous poems about her female love, most of which were destroyed by religious fanatics during the Middle Ages. While the first usage of the word lesbian is unknown, it was used in several academic books as early as 1880. The word became more popular during the 20th Century, especially during the feminist era. The term ‘lesbian separatist’ was commonly used to distinguish feminists who wished to avoid the company of men altogether. Fag, Faggot, Fag Hag ‘Fag’ and ‘faggot’ are American insults for gay men. The term ‘faggot’ first started being used in this way in around 1914, but it is not clear where the word came from. A faggot is a bundle of sticks, used for firewood and tied up for carrying around. In the 16th century it was used as an insulting term for a useless old woman as something that weighs you down, in the same way that ‘baggage’ is sometimes used nowadays. But it’s quite a jump from 1592 to 1914 with nothing recorded in between. Gay men in the latter half of the 20th Century began using the term ‘fag hag’ to refer to straight women who frequently gather at gay establishments, partly as an insult and partly because of the rhyme. Dyke Contrary to popular belief, the origin of the insult ‘dyke’1, in reference to lesbians, has nothing to do with waterways or canals. The word first appeared in 1710 in British newspaper stories about presumed homosexuals Anne Bonny and Mary Reed. The two women captained a very successful pirate venture and completed several lucrative raids of the British Empire before agreeing to be interviewed. Reporters often noted their predilection for wearing men’s clothing, and one editorial avoided the unpleasant connotations of cross dressing by using a French word which refers to men’s clothing, dike. Over the years, this term was corrupted to the modern form ‘dyke’. Since then, general misunderstanding about the term’s origins have inspired many stand-up comedy routines and bad puns. Polyamory, Polygamy, Monogamy The prefix ‘poly-‘ means many, while ‘mono’ means one. The suffix ‘gamy’ was originally from the French word for marriage, but has since been misunderstood as referring to sex. These terms refer to the number of consensual romantic partners taken by each adult in a family. Of course, the suffix ‘amory’ refers to love. Polyamory is a relatively new term coined by modern practitioners, and is greatly preferred by them. Polygamy and the now defunct term bigamy were coined as early as 1800, as the practice of multiple marriages was outlawed in most Western nations. The state of Utah in the USA applied for Statehood three times before finally accepting an injunction against the polygamy practised at that time by the Mormon church. Polygamy is commonly understood as referring to heterosexual relationships where the man has multiple partners. However, with modern polyamory any combination of genders and orientations fulfills the definition. It is not necessary for all parties in a polyamorous relationship to be involved each with the other. Gay During the 1800s and early 1900s, ‘gay’ was simply a state of jubilant happiness. However, during the late 1800s gay was sometimes used to describe prostitutes in much the same way that the phrase ‘happy hookers’ is used today. One theory is that gay came into use to describe homosexual men because of the rise in numbers of male prostitutes during the 1900s. Another theory is that ‘gay’ was