Friday, January 31, 2020

Hope Leslie Paper Essay Example for Free

Hope Leslie Paper Essay In Catharine Sedgwick’s novel, Hope Leslie, Magawisca is one of the Main female characters and she runs into many hardships in the book. Magawisca is the daughter of well known Indian chief Mononotto but is separated from her father and her tribe when they are all attacked. After Magawisca and her brother’s mother dies the children get sent to work at the home of the Fletchers an English family. Magawisca gets caught in the middle of two cultures when she is raised by an English family but knows of her original culture, Magawisca responds well and helps the reader understand how big the cultural gap is in the 1600s. Magawisca’s tribe, the Pequots, are attacked by the English and when Magawisca, her brother Oneco and their mother escape they travel to a new city. When Magawisca and Oneco’s mother dies the two kids are sent to Mr. Fletchers home to be Indian servants. After living with the Fletcher family for a while Magawisca’s father, Mononotto, appears at the Fletchers abode. With the feeling that the Fletchers have captured his son and daughter, Mononotto kills all of the Fletchers but one much against Magawisca’s protest. Magawisca begs and pleads against her father’s actions but does no good, she wants to save what is considered her family for a short but meaningful amount of time but doesn’t want to go against her father’s will. Magawisca is thrown into a very hard situation but handles everything calmly and maturely. She is stuck between two cultures that despise each other but she ends up with her tribe the Pequot’s for a long time. In a time of need Magawisca still helps the one remaining Fletcher child by risking her own limb to protect part of her â€Å"family†. Towards the end of the book Magawisca has taken both sides, the English and the Pequot’s and that pays off. When Magawisca is captured by the English the remaining Fletcher child puts his own safety in danger to help save Magawisca. Magawisca never broke down or really chose sides but she is in fact always there for both of her â€Å"tribes†. This book was places in the 1600’s and Magawisca’s predicament really helps the readers understand the cultural gap between The Indians and The English.  The hatred between the two cultures is so large that they destroy each other. Magawisca shows the line between the Indian tribes and the English where as she isn’t fully accepted in either culture. For spending time with the English I’m sure some members of the Pequots find her as a trader and for originating and being known as a Pequot she is never truly accepted by the English. Although Magawisca gets caught in the middle of two cultures when she is raised by an English family, Magawisca responds well and helps the reader understand how big the cultural gap is. Without Magawisca really drawing the line between the two cultures the readers wouldn’t have gotten a full picture of how big the division between the two cultures are. Magawisca is really a main character because of the bond she shares with both cultures.

Thursday, January 23, 2020

The Chechen Wars Essay -- Islam in the North Caucasus 2014

From Western audiences, Chechnya—whether as an autonomous oblast, a sovereign state, or a war zone—has never received much consideration. Just one of dozens of ethnic groups within Russia who have declared since the end of the Soviet Union their right to self-rule and self-determination, the Chechens’ struggle for independence was drowned out in the cacophony of calls for independence during the 1990s. However, in a world so greatly affected by the events of September 11, 2001 and given the role of Chechen separatist groups in bombings of Russian apartment buildings in 1999 (which killed more than 300) and the hostage-taking of a Russian theater in 2002 (which resulted in the deaths of 130 Russians and 30 rebels), the rhetoric of Islamic fundamentalism and the terminology of terrorism has brought the Chechen people to the forefront of international concern (Trenin & Malashenko, 2004, p. 45). Yet the roots of the conflict in Chechnya, which have spurned two wa rs with the Russian Federation over the past two decades, are defined neither by terrorist activities or the Islamists who have recently come to typify the most virulent of the separatist rebels; rather, the origin is in the centuries long forging of a group that has faced common persecution from the Russian Empire, the Soviet Union, and the Russian Federation. Ethnicity compounded with a new emphasis on fundamentalist religious ideology has greatly complicated a struggle that has benefited the economic and political interests of groups as disparate as elected officials, crime bosses, business leaders, and international governments (Politkovskaya, 2003). War has wrought the economic and social collapse of Chechnya and simultaneously embarrassed a Russia giant whose parti... ...thcaucasus.pdf Jaimoukha, A. (2005) The Chechens: A Handbook. New York: Routledge. Meier, A. (2005). Chechnya: To the Heart of a Conflict. New York: W. E. Norton & Company. Nikolaev. Y. V., Ed. (2013). The Chechen Tragedy: Who is to Blame? Cormack, New York: Nova Science Publishers, Inc. (March 19, 2013) Oliker, O. (2001). Russia’s Chechen Wars: 1994-2000. Washington: RAND. Politkovskaya, A. (2003). A Small Corner of Hell: Dispatches from Chechnya. University of Chicago Press Tishkov, V. (2004). Chechnya: Life in a War Torn society. Berkeley, California: The University of California Press. Trenin, D. V. & Malashenko, A. V. (2004). Russia’s Restless Frontier: The Chechnya Factor in Post-Soviet Russia. Washington: Carnegie Endowment for Peace. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/j.1538-165X.2005.tb01379.x/abstract

Tuesday, January 14, 2020

Having Read Of Mice Men Essay

What have you learnt about the life of a ranch worker in 1930’s America? The book Of Mice and Men is set in California, at the time of the Great Depression. The American stock market had collapsed, and left the country in a state of economic disarray. This affected the two main characters George and Lennie who have to work on ranches because there was a need for people to work on the land and not much work elsewhere. Georges dream is to own a farm or a ranch of his own so he could be his own boss and wouldn’t have to be pushed round by other ranch owners who he works for now. This is the American dream George and Lennie aren’t alone in their dream. He says to Lennie, â€Å"We’re gonna have a little house and a couple of acres an’ a cow and some pigs†¦Ã¢â‚¬  Because of this dream George resents authority, when he first meets Curley (the ranch owners son) he spoke to him in an ‘insulting manner’ and refuses to give Curley a straight answer. The life of the ranchers is very hard, they works every day except Sunday and only gets fifty dollars a month. All week the farm workers would toil the land for the ranch owners and would be paid a tiny percentage of the profit. They were very lonely people, with only their colleagues at the ranch and the women at the local ‘cat house’ for company, no wife, children and no family. George recognizes this and I think this is why he travels with Lennie, George says, this makes them different from all the ranch workers who travel around on their own. George says to Lennie that â€Å"Guys like us who work on ranches are the loneliest guys in the world.† George thinks that when he fulfils his dream he wont be lonely any more, he maybe would ‘get a girl’ and he would be his own boss. George also dreams of a better place for Lennie who is mentally about 6 years old. George takes it on himself to look after Lennie and rescue him when he gets in trouble, which is very often. When Lennie had just ‘accidentally’ killed Curley’s wife whilst stroking her hair to hard in the barn, George decides he has to shoot Lennie. Just before he does he tells Lennie: â€Å"Ever’bodys gonna be nice to you. Ain’t gonna be no more trouble. Nobody gonna hurt anybody nor steal from ’em.† This is Georges dream for Lennie, that he would be better cared for and nobody would be horrible to him and he wouldn’t get into any more trouble. That people would take time to understand him like he did. George’s dream reflects the time the book is set at, because if that were now Lennie would be better cared for by social services and other organizations like that. Also George and the other ranch workers would have had better rights on the ranch, they would have either had less hours work or more pay for the work they did. George might have been able to get his dream for a ‘few acres’ and a ‘girl’ pigs, cows and rabbits. 1 Candy’s dream is to have security. Security in his job, that he wont be ‘canned’ because he’s getting too old, or because he’s useless, because he’s only got one hand, this normally wouldn’t affect someone now but in the time the book was set Candy’s chance of getting a job if he was sacked from the ranch would be minute. Because of this insecurity Candy is very scared of Curley and the boss. In the book when Candy first meets George he speaks nicely about the boss and said that at Christmas he gave them whisky. I think he lied to George about the boss in case George told the boss what he had said which would have been true but nasty. When the boss comes into the room Candy quickly makes up and excuse why he’s talking to George and Lennie and gets back to work. He did this because he doesn’t want to get in any trouble with the boss because the boss might sack him. Then Candy will have no job and will be too old to get another one and he cant retire and he doesn’t have any family to go to he’ll probably have to live on the streets. When Candy overhears about George’s dream Candy wants to go along and be involved to. Candy offers three hundred and fifty dollars to help George get his dream farm and so that Candy can leave the farm and look after himself, his attitude towards Curley, the ranch and Curley’s wife changes after this. When Curley is starting on Lennie, Candy quickly rushes to his defence’ â€Å"Glove fulla Vaseline,† he said disgustedly’ referring to the glove Curley wears on his hand full of Vaseline, to keep ‘soft’ for his wife. Candy is not scared of Curley and the boss anymore because if he gets sacked he can just move on to George’s dream farm. With Candy’s newfound confidence he starts sharing his views and sticking up for other people such as Crooks the black stable buck. Curley’s wife is verbally attacking Crooks, telling him how she can get him killed if she wanted too. Candy retaliates by saying, â€Å"If you was to do that, we’d tell†¦ We’d tell about you framing Crooks.† He sticks up for Crooks, which shows he wasn’t racist and that he also had a dream for a better society. Where is you have worked and are getting old you would have money, a pension, and that everyone is treated equally like him and Crooks. This shows that the book reflects the time its set because Candy would probably have a pension and wouldn’t have been able to get sacked without out a just cause. Crooks dream is to be treated like a human and be accepted. Because he’s black he’s always been bullied and picked on by the other people in the ranch. He is never allowed to go out with the other people in the ranch and has to stay in his own room in the barn, he hates everyone at the ranch because they treat him badly, he says to Lennie, â€Å"They play cards in there, but I can’t play because I’m black. They say I stink. Well, I tell you, you all stink to me.† Because Crooks is so lonely he reads a lot, in his library he owns the book California Civil code 1905. I think he has this because he wants to find out the rights he has and if there is anything he can do to be accepted. While talking to Lennie, Crooks reminisces about his childhood; how his father owned a chicken ranch and the white children used to come and he would play with them, and how most of them didn’t care about the colour of his skin and that they were nice to him. How instead of sleeping alone as he does now (he recalls), he used to sleep with his two brothers: â€Å"They was always near me, always there. Used to sleep right in the same room, right in the same bed-all three.† He was happy in the past and dignified, because he wasn’t alone then and had been treated equally. 2 Curley’s dream is to become a champion boxer. He was in a boxing tournament and he got into the finals, he keeps the newspaper clippings. He hates big men because he’s short, he wants to be tall and big, I think he wants this because he wants people to be more scared of him. He’s always picking on the workers because they can’t fight back because they’ll get sacked. He seems to be obsessed by beating people up and ‘sorting them’ out. Curley’s wife tells George, Lennie and Candy what he says. â€Å"†One-Two,† he says. â€Å"Jus’ the ol’ one-two an’ he’ll go down.† In the whole novel we never hear Curley’s wife’s name, she is always referred to as ‘Curley’s wife’. This makes her sound like Curley’s property, like Curley’s shoes or Curley’s horse. It also says that maybe she doesn’t deserve one, that when she married Curley she got a name. This reflects on her dream of equal rights for women. She is a very lonely person; she has no one to talk to except the men on the ranch who don’t really listen to her. So to make them listen to her, or pretend to in most cases, she dresses provocatively to get attention. However Candy and Whit see her as a ‘tart’ and ‘jail-bait’ and she’s always giving the ‘eye’. Even Curly doesn’t notice her; he still goes out to the ‘cat houses’ with the other ranch workers, instead of staying with his wife. She seems to be hurt by this, she says. â€Å"Think I don’t know where they all went? Even Curley. I know where they all went.† Curley’s wife’s dream is to be a star. When she was young, she was asked to go on a show, but she says her mother wouldn’t let her. Film work was one of the few types of work you could get as a woman, it was every girls dream, but it was often only a scam to take advantage of young women. Curley’s wife remembers how a man in the ‘pitchers’ said he was going to write to her about being in the movies. But she says her mother stole the letter when it came, when really it didn’t come at all. When Lennie killed her Steinbeck says. â€Å"The meanness and†¦.. the ache for attention were all gone from her face.† This means that she didn’t have to try anymore and life wasn’t just one long struggle for recognition. She had been released and was now more beautiful and alive than ever. Maybe it also means that she would get the attention now, she would be known as the woman who got killed by a mad man. Steinbeck draws attention to the idea that there is more to the American dream than just having a place of your own. The characters have dreams of an equal society. George describes to Lennie, â€Å"The place no-one’s gonna hurt you.† This reminds me of heaven where people would understand, listen and accept other people’s right to a dignified and free life. Although we have more of a life like this now, that is very different from the inequality of the time of ‘Mice and Men’, we still have a long way to go to achieve Steinbeck’s dream.

Monday, January 6, 2020

Finals Week Care Package

Theres no doubt that cookie-filled care packages raise the spirits of homesick college students, but when exam time rolls around, stressed-out kids need healthier fare. As the parent of a young adult, you know they may be skipping meals or eating more than their share of pizza and guzzling caffeine when what they need is protein, complex carbohydrates and plenty of fruits and vegetables. Instead of shipping cookies, which send blood sugar soaring and then crashing back to earth, try filling that care package with a few of these instead. Healthy Care Packages Fresh organic fruit, such as apples and tangerines, from your garden, favorite market or a fruit delivery service like the Fruit Guys—theyre a San Francisco-based organic fruit delivery company, known for their workplace fruit deliveries. The DormSnack package includes 16 servings of organic fruit, delivered to any dorm ($49 and up).Spicy chipotle-glazed pecans or other energizing nut snacks.Beef jerky or hard salami.Tasty and satisfying whole-grain crackers, or peanut butter-filled crackers.A small jar of natural crunchy peanut butter and a box of graham crackers.Dried fruit such as apricots, cherries, apples, and more. Also, organic fruit snacks are easy to carry around and eat in a pinch.Instant hot cocoa mix, instant hot soup, instant oatmeal—anything healthy that can be made in a microwave is a good idea.A can of bean dip and a bag of chips.Microwave popcorn or popcorn kernels and plain brown lunch bags, which is cheaper and healthier and without the nasty chemical s or oozing fat: Drop a 1/4 cup of popcorn kernels in a paper bag, fold over the top a couple of times and microwave it for a minute and a half to two minutes.A Starbucks gift card.Biscotti, which offer sweet crunch without a lot of sugar.A mini-loaf of homemade chocolate chip pumpkin bread.Sugar-free throat lozenges, Vitamin C lozenges or Emergen-C packets, along with ibuprofen for sore necks from hunching over a laptop for hours at a time.A DIY set of adorable exam worry dolls that will do the worrying instead.An assortment of teas to calm and relax at the end of a stressful day of studying—chamomile, peppermint, and honey ginger are just a few of the more relaxing teas.A lavender-scented body lotion for the girls is one of the most relaxing scents and is often used during massages. A lavender-scented pillow is a great way to help students who are stressed and have a hard time sleeping—a few deep breaths and theyll be off to dreamland in no time.