Critisism on Curleys Wife Essay Example for Free

Critisism on Curleys Wife Essay For Of Mice and Men is a Tragedy, a tragedy not in the narrow modern sense of a mere sad story (though it certainly is that), but a tragedy in the classic Aristotelian/Shakespearean sense of showing humanitys achievement of greatness through and in spite of defeat. Some people seem to believe that the function of literature is to provide vicarious happy endings, to provide in words a sugary sweetness we would like to have but cannot always get in real life. To such people, true literary tragedy is distasteful. But the greatest writers and the best readers know that literature is not always only mere sugar candy; it can sometimes be a strong medicine: sour perhaps — at least to the untrained taste — but necessary for continued health[.] Some readers may object to the books presentation of low class characters, vulgar language, scenes suggestive of improper sexual conduct, and an implied criticism of the social system. But none of this is presented indecently, or beyond the ordinary norms of contemporary literature. Compared to many modern works, (or to movies and TV) this book is tame indeed. Furthermore, these features are necessary in this book in two ways. First, they are part of the accurate precise reporting of the reality of a particular time and place and environment. Part of Steinbecks literary point is that this is true to life. As such, the dirty details are part of Steinbecks enlargement of the realm of Tragedy, the democratization of the tragic world. Traditionally, the subjects of Tragedies have been Kings and other Great Ones: Job, Oedipus, Lear. But Steinbecks point — a truly American point — is that all men are created equal: Tragedy exists even among the lowly of the earth; even the least of us — even a Lennie or a George — has the human potential for tragic nobility. Of Mice and Men is a tragedy in the modern tradition of The Hairy Ape and Death of a Salesman. Second, the grossness is a way of presenting briefly the complex turmoil of life. This book is not stereotype melodrama. It is not a simpleminded book. There are no purely bad people in it. Conversely, there are no purely good people in it either. All the characters are complex mixtures of good and bad, or rather of bad results from good intentions. They are all — in their ability and in their outlook — limited. And they live in a gross and dirty world. Given their position in that world, they are not able to achieve much. But they are trying to do the best they can; they are trying to be good people and to have good lives. They have good intentions. They have noble aims. The tragedy is that, limited as the characters are, the world they live in is even more limited; it is a world in which the simplest dream of the simplest man — poor dumb big Lennie — cannot come true. The best laid plans of mice and men gang oft a-glae [go oft a-stray], wrote Robert Burns in the poem which provides the books title and its theme. And Steinbecks story shows why: The best laid plans go oft astray because they come in confl ict with one another. The simplest good intention — simply to stay alive — of a simple mouse, a simple pup, a simple young woman, is thwarted by Lennies urge to pet something soft and beautiful. Lennies drive to touch beauty kills the things he loves. But his problem is the same problem that bothers Curley, the Bosss son, the closest thing to a villain in the book. Like Lennie, Curley doesnt know how to hold on to what he finds important: his young wife, his status as the Bosss son, his reputation as a man. He loses each by trying to hold on too tightly. Curleys aim to be a respected husband/boss/man is foiled by his own limited abilities. The similar but simpler aim of Lennie and George to have a small place of their own where they can live offa the fatta the lan is doomed to frustration also by their own limitations and the tragic chain of circumstance and coincidence that ends with Lennie dead by Georges hand. The point, of course, is that they all — we all — live in a too limited world, a world in which not all our dreams can come true, a world in which we — all of us some of the time and some of us all the time — are doomed to disappointment. The tragic dilemma is that for our basic humanity, for the goodness of our aims, we all deserve better than we get. But because of our human limitations, by our weaknesses of character, none of us is ever good enough to earn what we deserve. Some philosophers, seeing this dilemma, pronounce profound pessimism for humanity. Some religions promise for this worlds disappointments supernatural intercession and other-worldly compensations. The tragic viewpoint (the view of Shakespeare, the Greek tragedians, the Old Testament Job, and John Steinbeck) finds in it the chance for nobility of soul: even in the blackest of disappointments, a human can achieve individual greatness. One may be defeated physically — but one need not be crushed spiritually. One can remain true to ones dream and true to ones friend. We humans may die, but we can love one another. Friendship. Love. That too is what Of Mice and Men is all about. Lennie and George, disparate types, are, against all good reason, friends. They share a good dream. They love one another. They are too limited, too inarticulate, to know how to say it, but they do show it — or rather Steinbeck shows it to us readers. So the book treats the great themes of Dreams and Death and Love with simple powerful clarity. It does so with a classically elegant structure — another reason for using the book as a teaching tool: it allows a reader — especially an untrained or beginning reader of literature — to see (or be shown) how structure supports and presents content. Of Mice and Men has the classic situation/complication/twist/and/resolution plot structure uncluttered by diversions, distractions, or subplots. There is inevitableness, a starkness that makes the poi nt of the story unavoidable. The story has the classic unities of time and place and action. It begins in a small spot of beautiful nature, a secluded camp in the woods by a stream; it moves to the buildings of a California ranch, and ends back in the woods by the stream. The style is simple: clear, direct sentences of description and action, direct quotation of the speech of simple people. Few long words, no hard words. The action is simple: two poor and vagrant workers, big, dumb Lennie and small, clever George, take jobs at a large ranch. Lennie has trouble with the Bosss son, Curley. Lennie accidentally — more or less — kills Curleys wife. George kills Lennie to save him from the horrors of a lynch mob led by Curley, bent on revenge. The settings are simple in detail, and simply powerfully symbolic. The secluded spot in the woods by the stream is the uncomplicated world of Nature; the bunkhouse is the bleak home of hired working men trying to make sense of their lives and gain comfort in a limited environment; the barn is the place of working life, of seed and harvest, birth and death; the harness room with Crooks bunk symbolizes social constraints; the little place of our own about which George and Lennie dream and all too vaguely plan is the Paradise on earth we all hope for. The characters, too, are simple yet significant. Begin with an individual, and before you know it you find you have created a type, wrote F. Scott Fitzgerald; begin with a type, and you find that you have created — nothing. Steinbeck begins with individuals: clearly and sharply crafted characters, a whole set of individuals who are so clearly realized that each — without surrendering individuality — becomes a type, an archetype, a universal character: There is Candy, the old, one-arme d worker with no place to go, as useless as his toothless dog; there is Carlson, gruffly and deliberately unfeeling, who can coolly kill old Candys ancient dog simply because he stinks and he aint no good to you; and there is Crooks, the dignified proud and aloof but helpless and lonely victim of racial discrimination. There is Slim, calm, reasonable, compassionate, the real leader of men. And there is Curley, the arrogant but inept Bosss son. The man who could lead well does not have the position; the one who has the position and the authority is not a true leader. Curley hides his insecurities behind a mask of macho toughness. His competitive bravado makes him push too far and Lennie, after enduring much, is given permission by George to get him. Lennie in self-protection crushes Curleys fist in his own big hand, crippling Curley somewhat as Candy and Crooks have been crippled by the punitive harshness of life. Curley is also the one man who has a woman. But clearly he does not — does not know how to — relate to her as a person. She is to him a thing, a possession, a sex-object and a status symbol. For the men, in braggadocio, he flaunts the sexuality of the relationship; and yet, out of his own self-doubts he is intensely jealous of the mens awareness of her. The young woman has no name — she is merely Curleys wife. She knows she wants — and somehow deserves — something better than this. I dont like Curley, she says of her husband. She has grandiose ambitions of being a Hollywood star in the pitchers. She is a lost little girl in a world of men whose knowledge of women is largely limited to memories of kind old ladies and rumors of casual prostitution. All these men are afraid of Curleys wife, afraid and aware that her innocent animal appeal may lead them into temptation and trouble. In self-protection they avoid her. Only Lennie, in naive goodness, actually relates to her as a person to a person. She talks to him. For a little time they share in their aesthetic sense; they both admire beauty. Unfortunately, she is too naive, and Lennie is too strong and c lumsy. In trying — at her invitation — to pet her lovely hair he is panicked by her quick resistance, and ends by killing her. Just as he had earlier killed a puppy and a mouse. Curleys wife, a naive Romantic, wants love and tenderness in a harsh crude Naturalistic world; Lennie, big and ignorant, tries to give love. But he is too weak in the mind, too strong in the body. His tenderness is too powerful for weaker, unsuspecting creatures. We readers can identify with Lennie. We sympathize; we empathize. We care. We have — most of us — been in his position; not quite able to cope with the complexities of the world around us, wanting only security, peace, comfort, and something soft and beautiful to pet and love. Perhaps one reason that this book has evoked controversy and censorious action is that it is so simple and clear and easy to understand — and so painful! It hurts to read this book. And some people dont like their books to hurt them; they want soothi ng. But great Tragedy is meant to hurt. One neednt subscribe wholly to the Aristotelian doctrine of catharsis by Art to see that one function of literature is to help us deal with the pain of real life by practicing with the vicarious pains of tragic art. Of course Of Mice and Men contains unpleasant attitudes; there is brutality, racism, sexism, economic exploitation. But the book does not advocate them; rather it shows that these too-narrow conceptions of human life are part of the cause of human tragedy. They are forces which frustrate human aspiration. Lennie and George have a noble dream. They are personally too limited to make it come true, but they do try. They try to help each other, and they even enlarge their dream to include old one-handed Candy and crippled black Crooks. Theirs is the American Dream: that there is somehow, somewhere, sometime, the possibility that we can make our Paradise on earth, that we can have our own self-sufficient little place where we can live off the fat of the land as peaceful friends. What is sad, what is tragic, what is horrible, is that the Dream may not come true because we are — each and all of us — too limited, too selfish, too much in conflict with one another. Maybe ever-body in the whole damn world is scared of each other, says Slim. And George expresses the effects of loneliness, Guys that go around alone dont have no fun. After a long time they get mean. They get wantin to fight all the time. What is ennobling in this tragedy of mice and men is the Revelation of a way beyond that loneliness and meanness and fighting, a way to rise above our human limitations: Two men — Lennie and George — who have nothing else, do have each other. We kinda look after each other. says George. And they do have their Dream. And the Dream is there even in the final defeat. For in the end the one thing George can do for Lennie is to make sure hes happy as he dies. He has Lennie look acrost the river you can almost see [the place]. And as Lennie says, Lets get that place now, George kills him mercifully. Its a horrible thing to do, and George knows that. And we know that. But in this limited world in this limited way it is all that George can do for his friend. And he does it. That is the horror and the nobility which together make up Tragedy. The Tragic pattern closes. There is a sense of completeness, of both defeat and satisfaction. In Of Mice and Men, Steinbeck has shown us something about the pain of living in a complex human world and created something beautiful from it. In true great literature the pain of Life is transmuted into the beauty of Art. The book is worth reading for a glimpse of that beauty — and worth teaching as a way to show others how such beauty works.

Lust and the Degeneration of Man Exposed in Shakespeare’s Sonnet 129 Es

Lust and the Degeneration of Man Exposed in Shakespeare’s 129th Sonnet   Love in its purest form is the most unsurpassable of all emotions, requiring intense commitment, while simultaneously providing incomparable bliss. However, often the intense desire for these feelings produces a new emotion, lust, with a craving that gives priority to obtaining an objectified person, as opposed to a very real human. Lust can be further practically defined as the inability to place selfless love on a higher pedestal than selfish desire. Shakespeare explores these conflicting definitions of lust in his 129th sonnet, condemning his animalistic variations of lust that coexist with his desire for a genuine state of love. As opposed to following the traditional convention of idealizing a woman and her attributes, Shakespeare breaks the concordance and focuses on the dehumanizing effect of the woman’s attributes on his character. The general trend in this sonnet is the speaker’s analysis of the mental methods through which he has admired a woman. He attempts to craftily define lust so as to rationalize his actions to be correct. However, he gradually gains the knowledge that the lust he has felt is sacrilegious, and must cease. Sonnet 129 opens as the speaker is in great distress due to the shallow quality that has permeated his love. He feels as though he has been exhausted of his physical, mental, and moral strength in his pursuit for mutual love. An "expense of spirit in a waste of shame" is the mark of an ill-fated desire that has missed its point of satisfaction, lost in a deep cavern of an inescapable nature. When humans fall into such depths of despair, it is quite natural to fall back into the animalistic undertones that creep ste... ...9). Works Cited Fineman, Joel. Shakespeare's Perjured Eye : The Invention of Poetic Subjectivity in the Sonnets. Berkeley, U of California P, 1988. Leisham, Stephen. The Riddle of Shakespeare's Sonnets. New York: Basic Books, 1982. Landry, Scott. ed. A Companion to Shakespeare. Oxford: Blackwell, 2001. Martin, Philip. Shakespeare's Sonnets: Self, Love and Art. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1972. Shakespeare, William. Shakespeare's Sonnets. Ed. G. Blakemore Evans. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1996. Vendler, Helen. The Art of Shakespeare’s Sonnets. Cambridge, MA, and London: Harvard UP, 1999. Winny, James. The Master-Mistress; A Study of Shakespeare's Sonnets. London: Chatto and Windus, 1968. Works Consulted Fiedler, Leslie A. "Some Contexts of Shakespeare's Sonnets." The Riddle of Shakespeare's Sonnets. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1962.

I Believe in Love Essay

Love is a refuge that without it nothing can exist. Without the love of God the world wouldn’t have life. Without the passion of two lovers no child would be brought in to the cycle of life. Ignorant people under the guise of social acceptance have removed love from their lives, and have torn themselves apart morally. But I believe love heals all, love never fails, and love knows all. If there’s one thing to learn about the many genres of love it’s this. It is instinctual to give comfort to those who don’t want it, and to push comfort away when it’s given. My father was beside himself as he looked at the charred remains of his truck. He was utterly shocked that the fire didn’t spread at all, but just stayed on the truck. A memory of being in that truck, driving all over Oklahoma, crosses his mind. Thoughts of how I thought I would die in an accident truck by driving it cross my mind. He was stunned to say the least about the incident, and no one could get through to him that we were there for him. My father started to bounce back after a few hours. You could even find a tiny smile on his mouth. My family and I kept our guards and when he was finally ready to accept it, our love was still right there to support him. Love doesn’t give up, so we didn’t either. Another lesson that I’ve witnessed is that no one takes love serious anymore. About ten percent of just the U.S. is divorced, and most of those are 20-24 year olds. There is lust at first sight, but no love. We humans notice symmetry and strong biological traits, and automatically want to mate and carry on those traits as well as ours. But there are all these naive, young, kids who think that lust will carry them to happiness. Then they find themselves in court for a year getting a divorce. Lust will always fail, but love won’t. â€Å"Love and Hate are simply the fraternal twin offspring of Passion.† A quote I wrote myself. Everything on God’s green Earth is a love story because love is passion and so is hate. Love and Hate are two completely different emotions that do the same damage. Who knows about what the day’s conversation vocabulary will bring? We all tell such passionate, moving tales of angst that that is all we know anymore. We may not know what our actions will bring, but love does. After crisis and after victory there is a bond between those who fought to the end, and that bond is love. There are countless quotes all trying in vain to define love in all its nebulous wonders. 1 Corinthians 13:4-7 defines love the best saying, â€Å"Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud†¦It always†¦perseveres.† Love heals all, love never fails, and love knows all.

The Female Body Image Women s Bodies And The Diary Of...

The group presentation topic that Missy, Alli, and I decided to work on was Body Image. Particularly the female body image portrayed in media and how it can affect young girls and women alike. The materials we’ve chosen so far are a speech given by Jennifer Aniston on women’s bodies and The diary of Anne Frank. We have also chosen People magazine, because of their â€Å"tips and tricks† for weight loss and makeup, plus our own experiences as women(People). They are easily alike in the matter that they all deal with women and how they have grown up over time each showcasing body image issues. However, they differ not only in time range but also with how these examples showcase body image. The magazines portray body image as a source of power and something everyone should aspire to gain. Jennifer although talking about hardships bring into light that Hollywood has one specific standard of beauty(Anniston). When Anne Frank I believe has the most realistic portrayal of a female teenager dealing with body image from our sources, because looking at the book when she was even in the camp Anne would still have moments of insecurity while she faces near death(Frank). Obviously personal experience for all three of us helped a lot too. When dealing with word choice for the script and from the materials, and overall topic we decided as a group to show body image as a problem but keep it light hearted. The materials we found towards this topic all showed how a woman young or old, and richShow MoreRelatedStephen P. Robbins Timothy A. Judge (2011) Organizational Behaviour 15th Edition New Jersey: Prentice Hall393164 Words   |  1573 Pagesand permission should be obtained from the publisher prior to any prohibited reproduction, storage in a retrieval system, or transmission in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or likewise. To obtain permission(s) to use material from this work, please submit a written request to Pearson Education, Inc., Permissions Department, One Lake Street, Upper Saddle River, New Jersey 07458, or you may fax your request to 201-236-3290. Many of the designations by manufacturersRead More65 Successful Harvard Business School Application Essays 2nd Edition 147256 Words   |  190 PagesBUSINESS SCHOOL HARVARD SUCCESSFUL 65 APPLICATION SECOND EDITION E S S AY S APPLICATION BUSINESS SCHOOL HARVARD SUCCESSFUL 65 ECSNS A IYI O N S SE O D ED T With Analysis by the Staff of The Harbus, the Harvard Business School Newspaper ST. MARTIN’S GRIFFIN NEW YORK 65 SUCCESSFUL HARVARD BUSINESS SCHOOL APPLICATION ESSAYS, SECOND EDITION. Copyright  © 2009 byThe Harbus News Corporation. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of AmericaRead MoreHuman Resources Management150900 Words   |  604 Pagessharing, which has resulted in up to three weeks additional pay in profit sharing bonuses in some years. The test of the change is in the results. GE Fanuc’s revenue is up women employees, who composed about three-fourths of the bank’s workers. As a result, several years later about one-fourth of all managers and executives are women. Similar attention also was focused on other diverse groups of employees. So that all employees were given opportunities to grow and learn, the Bank of Montreal’s InstituteRead MoreLibrary Management204752 Words   |  820 PagesCongress Subject Headings: Principles and Application, Fourth Edition Lois Mai Chan Developing Library and Information Center Collections, Fifth Edition G. Edward Evans and Margaret Zarnosky Saponaro Metadata and Its Impact on Librari es Sheila S. Intner, Susan S. Lazinger, and Jean Weihs Organizing Audiovisual and Electronic Resources for Access: A Cataloging Guide, Second Edition Ingrid Hsieh-Yee Introduction to Cataloging and Classification, Tenth Edition Arlene G. Taylor LIbRaRy and InfoRMaTIonRead MoreExploring Corporate Strategy - Case164366 Words   |  658 Pagesinnovativeness and superiority. In countries with supply-side controls, negotiating price or reimbursement approval can take as long as a year. In those with demand-side controls, there are delays in market penetration while negotiating endorsement by bodies such as the National Institute for Clinical Excellence (NICE) in the UK. The impact of NICE decisions on cost-effectiveness reverberates well beyond the UK, as countries have begun to collaborate internationally in their value assessments. Switching