Octavia Butlers Kindred vs. Harriet Jacobs Incidents In The Life of a

Octavia Butler's Kindred vs. Harriet Jacobs' Incidents In The Life of a Slave Girl According to 'the conventions for slave narratives', it is possible to categorize Kindred by Octavia Butler as a slave narrative. However, the circumstances that take Dana back in time are imaginative and fantastical compared to slave narratives such as Incidents In The Life Of A Slave Girl by Harriet Jacobs. While reading Kindred, one doesn't really get the experience of the slaves, but how Dana feels as she participates in slave times. Compared to the lives of slaves, her life is much easier and she has the luxury of knowing she is not and never was a slave. In contrast, Incidents In The Life Of A Slave Girl is a direct portrayal of slavery through the eyes of a slave. Although the viewpoints are very different, there are similarities in their experiences and in the way each responds and fights for their freedom. The first parallel exists in how both Dana and Jacobs are taught to view themselves. Jacobs states, ? I was born a slave; but never knew it till six years of happy childhood had passed away? (Jacobs 7). Jacobs? father allowed her the freedom to grow up happy and unfettered by slavery. Once she did realize she was a slave, her mistress further encouraged independent thought with kind treatment and by teaching Jacobs to read. Therefore Jacobs had little worries about slavery for the first twelve years of her life. Dana grew up in 20th century America, where life for African-Americans is drastically changed. She never had to worry about slavery nor gave it much thought beyond what she read in books or learned in classes. She is even married to a white man. When transported back in time she is truly perplexed by the treatmen... ...wn time where slavery doesn?t exist, and Jacobs, desperate to save her children and give them freedom. As stated earlier, Jacobs and Dana experience slavery from very different perspectives. Dana is well educated and prior to going back in time, has only read about slavery, while Jacobs, although literate, is born into slavery and knows nothing else. Yet these major differences do not change the veneer of slavery. Both are considered property and both had to endure and watch others endure unimaginable cruelties. It seems only natural that the similarities in their experiences produced similarities in how they reacted and how they escaped to freedom. Works Cited: Butler, Octavia E. Kindred. Boston: Beacon, 1988. Jacobs, Harriet. Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl. Ed. Jean Fagan Yellin. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1987.

An American novelist Essay

An American novelist, historian, and literary historian-that was Alfred Bertram Guthrie, Jr. Having shown an excellent writing style and due to his love of Montana he went on to win the Pulitzer Prize for his fiction The Way West in 1959. This book mainly talks about Dick Summer’s return to the Wild West to guide some settlers on the hard journey to Oregon through a dangerous trail (Joseph, Guthrie, & Peter, 1959, 18). A. B. Guthrie wrote with a unique sense of style, skill, artful simplicity and eloquent sentiment and these are all apparent in the opening, the discovering, the settling, the emergent and the exploiting of the American West. At the point in his life when he was merely a university graduate in journalism, he pioneered the hard knowledge that has helped young novelists ascend to greater heights. Guthrie gave much of himself and his time to advise young writers just as Professor Theodore Morrison, his mentor, did for him. Guthrie’s ability to pay attention to historical accuracy, his love of nature, an unfailing ear for dialect and realistic dialogue and the skill to create unforgettable characters that readers easily adapt to care about are the traits that set him aside from other writers. The distinctiveness of his ability to frame vivid, tightly compressed scenes in which those characters intermingle is pure intellect (Joseph, Guthrie, & Peter, 1959, p. 31). In defining the American experience, Guthrie’s The Big Sky is a big aid in attempting to understand the conflict during this time. It provides descriptive evidence of the attitude of pioneers, the readiness of the pioneers, the empathy for the land that fur-trappers and backwoodsmen had during that time and how all the diverse people merged to form a nation. Guthrie’s most outstanding accomplishment is demonstrated in his ability to affirm the range, complexity, and the intensity of the colonization of the Missouri and Columbia drainage basins by real people which was his large subject (Joseph, Guthrie, & Peter, 1959, p. 45) . Work Cited Joseph Howard, A. B. Guthrie & Peter Hurd. Montana: High, Wide, and Handsome. Yale University Press, 1959, 18, 31, 45

Politics of Global South Essay

Africa continent is currently facing huge transitional moments. The colonization process never stopped after the imperial western governments that ravaged these continent, African countries are still struggling with the adoption of the western systems and ideologies of governance and politics away from their traditional forms of socio-political ands socio-economic lives. This shift has caused wars, tensions, drifts, disagreements, alienations, political instability among other untold disasters in the continent. ( David Seddon & Leo Zeiling), in his report on the protests in Africa between the working class struggle and popular protests over the last forty years argue that the form and content of class relations that developed in the period of nationalist struggle and early national development have been fundamentally restructured by the process of globalization. The nationalist struggle was fighting for freedom dictatorial forms of government. The late 1979’s saw greater wave of wide s[read popular protests and resistance around the world including Africa. These strikes, marches, demonstrations and riots were characteristic of a wave of protests and resistance which usually involved a variety of social groups and classes. This did not always take place under a working class or trade unions banner or working class leadership such as experienced in Kenya in the early 90s while fighting for the multi-party system of governance. According to ( David Seddon & Leo Zeiling) these protests were of greater political scheming and direction and were increasingly aimed at governments and regimes and economic policies. Governments’ failure to ensure communities welfare and safeguard material welfare and rights of the citizens led to growing demands for democracy and political change. This movement coincided with increasing deployment by major capitalist states and international agencies of a discourse of democratization and good governance as necessary for economic and social development. However, this intervention opened door for the neo colonial imperialism after promising the removal of regimes that accommodated dictators and autocrats. It was like jumping from a flying pan to boiling pot. This new order became pronounced in the 1990s and grew through the decade and was manifest in Africa, Asia and Latin America. This provoked a third wave of protest involving greater degree of international organization while at the same time social movement with a notable ‘anti-capitalist’ politics emerged from north America countries spreading even to Africa. This period also saw the birth of an oppositional movement of a deeper and more threatening kind with the foundation of deep rooted pursuit and anger, frustrations, prepared to use violence to achieve its objectives. These groups are parts of radical Muslims like the al-Qai’da. The relationship between the social forces representing the interest of capital and those that opposed the actual pattern of development in Africa was not given much attention in the debates that touched on the transformation of Africa. Global adjustment shifted the focus of African nations from concentrating on development to reform agendas that facilitated the foreign capital investment and easier access for these international agencies to acquire raw materials and markets. This was done at the collaboration of some politicians but also there were cases of forced collaboration. This is evident in Zimbabwe where international aid and trade barriers had been imposed because the president/ government refusal to cooperate with the western interests. This was aided further by the weak social structures which were affected by conflicts, wars and complex political emergencies, HIV/AIDS and misguided intervention of the non governmental organizations (NGO’S). The popular forces include the urban and rural working classes who are stripped of the control and ownership of means of production, peasant and tenant farmers, retailers and petty commodity producers who sell their labor in the informal or formal sector. Their preoccupation is survival and putting food on the table. These share a consciousness of their interdependency and common vulnerability and constitute the relative surplus population looked upon as a reserve of an army of labor. The diversity of classes has never been the cause of political decay but is a mark of the normal condition in the context in which capitalism evolves. The cynism expressed by post-modernists towards political change goes to political activism and liberation. The post-modernist conception power no longer denotes coercion and oppression, resistance and struggle but it also becomes a fluid, pervasive yet contingent force derived from the interplay of different discourses. For example Cameroon had a comprehensible political economy but still had chaotic plurality where no purposeful liberation and resistance. ]as the waves and protests ravaged Africa , popular classes especially in urban areas were severely affected by the adjustments but they did not suffer quietly but they struggled, resisted and protested. The World Bank at the time said that Africa did not need less government only but also a government that concentrates its efforts less on the direct interventions and more on enabling others to be productive. The role of NGO’s in governance and poverty alleviation has been identified as critical in building of Africa, meeting the millennium development goals and the sustainable development goals. However, these non state actors backed by the United Nations and other powerful development partners; the relationship between the developing countries and the western was coined to mean partners in development. These NGOs and other right groups check on the governments’ accountability although their role has been questioned. They represent the values and interest of the funding agencies and do not touch on the real issues that ravage the common people in Africa. Despite increased role of NGOs, there is an increase rate of poverty and no tangible development that has occurred inmost parts of Africa. The involvement of civil societies most of which borrow their values from neo-liberalization movements may have contributed more to the wave of violence experienced in the continent rather than calming such waves. References David Seddon & Leo Zeiling. â€Å"Class & Protest in Africa: New Waves. † Review of African Political Economy. 2005.

The Picture Of Dorian Grey Essays - The Picture Of Dorian Gray

The Picture Of Dorian Grey Essays - The Picture Of Dorian Gray The Picture Of Dorian Grey The Picture of Dorian Grey This story is about wanting to stay young and not knowing the consequences of such a desire. Everything starts out in Basil Hallward's studio. Basil is a painter that is obsessed with Dorian Grey, a young beautiful gentleman that catches everyone's eye. On this particular day, Basil is accompanied by Lord Henry, one of his close friends. Dorian posses for a portrait and then retires to the garden with Lord Henry. They talk about youth and its great importance, about how it shouldn't be taken for granted, etc. When the picture is finished, Dorian makes a simple wish. He asks for his picture to grow old instead of him. Dorian keeps the picture and is fond of his new friend, Lord Henry. They go everywhere together and Henry teaches Dorian new things about life that he never knew existed. Dorian falls in love with an actress from the lower sides of London. But after she messes up in one of her plays, he despises her and decides never to see her again. He goes home and realizes that his picture has changed, it had grown old. The next day he is told that the actress he used to admire had committed suicide. Dorian fells no sorrow and Lord Henry tells him to take it as if it were just part of a play, a tragic scene that had come to a dramatic end. He realizes that his stupid wish had come true, so he decides to hide the painting so no one else can see it. As the years go by, people start to hate the once beloved Dorian Grey. Rumors are spread that he is a bad influence and that evil follows him wherever he goes. Many people don't believe that nonsense, and are still blown away by his ravaging good looks. They can't believe that such a handsome man can do such terrible things. Then one night, Basil visits him. They have a chat about the reputation that Dorian is getting on the streets. Basil tells him that such affairs, as he had been known to be a part off, were bad for the soul. Dorian tells him he no longer has a soul, and decides to show him the picture he once had painted of him. The picture had become horrid, old, and had lost all the beauty it once possessed. Basil is amazed and can't believe his own eyes. Dorian becomes mad at him, he blames him for all that has happened in his life, for he was the one that started the whole thing. Dorian takes a knife and stabs his good friend to death. The next day he gets rid of the body and of all the evidence that can link him to the murder. Dorian continues his life as if nothing had ever happened. A couple of days later, he is confronted by James Vayne, the actress's brother, the one he had sent to her death 18 years before. He wants to kill him for what he had done, but his good looks and his young face save his life. Now everywhere he goes he is afraid of being killed, until one day he goes hunting with a friend, and they shoot Vayne by mistake. Dorian feels without troubles and decides to make good instead of evil. He goes home and stabs the painting that had caused him all this pain. A chilling cry is heard, and his servants enter the room. They find the picture hanging on the wall, as beautiful as it ever was, and their master lying dead on the floor. He had changed into an old horrid figure and was stabbed to death. This book was an excellent choice because it had a very interesting way of looking at life. At the beginning I thought it would be the usual story, but then as the plot unwraps, one can't leave the book for a second. You always want to know what will happen to Dorian Grey. Grey is an amazing character, at the start he was just blooming like a flower, but under the influence of Lord Henry, he matures and becomes a creature of evil. He realizes his mistakes

All the Kings Men, by Robert Penn Warren

All the Kings Men, by Robert Penn Warren Free Online Research Papers Summary: All the King’s Men was written by Robert Penn Warren and published in 1946. It is about a politician named Willie Talos, who becomes the governor of a state somewhere in the South. The novel won the Pulitzer Prize in 1947, and was made into a movie in 1949. Willie Talos suddenly becomes well known throughout his state because of the collapse of a schoolhouse. He had warned the people not to use that contractor, who was known to use inferior materials, but no one listened to him. When the schoolhouse collapsed, killing three children, Willie’s idea that state government made some kind of secret agreement with the contractor was brought to many people’s attention. Sadie Burke and Tiny Duffy, working for another candidate, convince Willie to run for governor so the votes for the others would be split. When Willie finds out, he is furious, and makes an emotional speech that the crowd loves. But he drops out of the election, and campaigns against Sadie and Tiny’s candidate. Four years later, Willie becomes governor and hires Jack Burden as an addition to his pack of political cronies, which already includes Tiny Duffy, lieutenant-governor, and Sugar-Boy, Willieâ €™s reckless driver and bodyguard. Jack Burden is a reporter who admires Willie Talos. Jack is also a historian, having studied American history at the state college where he also researched and started to write the biography of Cass Masters, one of Jack’s ancestors. Jack is used by Willie to research his opponents and find unpleasant facts about them. Response: Throughout the book, the story shifts in time. The main time periods are the present, three years ago, and fourteen years ago. Although this can be a little confusing, it makes it easy to see the changes in Willie’s personality. He goes from being quiet, careful, and always honest, to a bullying governor who is seeking revenge on the Judge for not supporting him. Summary: Judge Irwin makes himself an enemy of Willie by backing an opposing candidate, and Jack is asked to â€Å"dig up some dirt† on him. But Jack hesitates, since he has known the judge his whole life. The judge was like a father to him. But he decides that there is probably nothing to find, since the judge has such a good reputation. Willie knows better. He says that everyone has some secret, and the judge is no exception. After Jack had researched the judge for seven months, he discovers that Judge Irwin had once accepted a bribe, and that Joel Stanton, the governor and the father of Jack’s childhood friends Adam and Anne Stanton, had covered it up. Jack hopes that he never has to reveal this. But when Willie wants Adam to become the director of his new hospital, Jack has to tell Adam to persuade him. Willie’s free hospital is his plan for helping the poor of the state and boosting his own popularity. Willie’s actions become more dishonest by the day. Response: Jack has always liked the judge, and is shocked to learn that he took a bribe. Despite his claims that the purpose of the free hospital is to help the poor people in the state, it seems that Willie is building to more for himself. He wants to be remembered as good for the state. Summary: Sam MacMurfee, a powerful enemy for Willie, threatens Willie with a paternity suit against Tom, Willie’s son, if Willie runs for the Senate. After trying several ways to stop him, Willie remembers the research Jack had done on Judge Irwin, who has the power to control MacMurfee’s threats. Willie orders Jack to blackmail the judge into helping him. Jack obeys Willie, telling Judge Irwin that if he does not help Willie, people will find out about his bribe. Instead of bending to Willie’s will like Jack, Judge Irwin kills himself. In the commotion following Judge Irwin’s death, Jack learns that Judge Irwin was his real father. Willie strikes a deal with Gummy Larson, a building contractor and friend to MacMurfee. Willie gives Larson the contract to build the hospital, and Larson persuades MacMurfee to drop the case on Tom. Response: Here is more proof that Willie would stop at nothing to get what he wants. Jack obeys Willie and threatens the judge, causing him to commit suicide. Jack seems to be more of a puppet than a person. Judge Irwin once called him Willie’s â€Å"body servant† after seeing Willie tell Jack to get him a drink, and Jack going to obey blindly. Summary: Just as things were looking alright for Tom, he has an accident playing football and is paralyzed. This causes Willie to take a long look at his life, and what has happened to him since he got into politics. He cancels all the plans for the hospital, which angers Tiny Duffy. To get even with Willie, Tiny tells Adam that his sister Anne is Willie’s mistress. Adam is furious and shoots Willie. Then Sugar-Boy, loyal to Willie as always, kills Adam. Willie, unable to recover from the serious wound, dies a few days later. Now Jack is trying to figure this all out, and make sense of his own life. He marries Anne and finishes the biography of Cass Mastern. Response: If this novel has a moral at all, it’s probably about power and truth. Power changed Willie and caused him to do things that he’d never have dreamed of doing before he got into politics. Truth and the fear that people would find the truth caused Adam to kill Willie and Judge Irwin to commit suicide. Morality is probably a big part of it, too. The main idea at the end of the book was that if you drop your morals, everything else goes, too. Research Papers on All the King's Men, by Robert Penn WarrenUnreasonable Searches and SeizuresWhere Wild and West MeetHonest Iagos Truth through DeceptionComparison: Letter from Birmingham and CritoBringing Democracy to AfricaPETSTEL analysis of IndiaHarry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Essay19 Century Society: A Deeply Divided EraEffects of Television Violence on ChildrenCapital Punishment

How To Use Blog Comments For Content Marketing

How To Use Blog Comments For Content Marketing If youve been visiting some of the bigger blogs lately, youll notice an interesting trend: no more blog comments. Copyblogger  and  Michael Hyatt  are a couple  of the more popular bloggers who have pulled comments from their blogs. Other bloggers have entered the debate on why you should and shouldnt include comments with blog posts, or even the value of participating in blog comment sections. Weve even entered the fray, coming out with 10 reasons to have blog comments. What if we took a different look at the venerable blog comment tradition and viewed it as a form of content marketing? In some way, taking part in a blog comment section  is of similar  quality of some of the most common venues of content marketing. How To Use #Blog Comments To Become A Better Content Marketer  via @JulieNeidlinger Blog comment systems are much different than they used to be. Systems like Disqus and Livefyre act like a social network. Each user has a profile, and a record of all their comments across all the blogs theyve commented on that use these systems. Users can follow profiles, and vote on comments that they deem as valuable. Blog comments can also be fueled by social networks themselves, such as Facebook or Google+. In this way, participating in blog comments is quite similar as participating on a social network Blog Comments To Network And Connect Old school bloggers who were blogging years ago will fondly remember (and in some cases, not so fondly) the many connections they made in blog comment sections. Before there was social media, a blog comment section was the place to talk about a blog post. If you wanted to share it, you brought it back to your blog and packaged it for your readers. Now, social media has brought that to an end somewhat. For most blogs, the comment sections aren't as active, nor are they used the same way. Nevertheless, participating in a blog comment section is a way to find new bloggers to follow, and a way for them to find you. It also makes sense that you would meet and converse with people in the comments of a blog on a topic you were both interested in when otherwise, you'd not have connected. Blogs now are particularly niche-focused, making it more likely that you will meet relevant people you ought to network and connect with in the comments. You may never see them, otherwise, in social media. You might not end up in the same forum as they. But you are likely reading the same top blogs. Use #blog comments to connect with peers. Treat it like #socialmedia with unique  insights.Blog Comments For Generating Ideas A blog comment section is a fabulous place to get ideas for your next post. In fact, I've even written posts in response to discussions I've had in a blog comment section when I feel as if I need to flesh out my thoughts in greater detail. Then, once the post is finished, I go back to the discussion I was having and share the link and note that I wrote about it on my blog. As a blogger, the conversations happening in a blog comments section reveal more about what people want to read about than any daily perusal of your RSS feed reader. A feed reader tells you what other bloggers think ought to be written. A blog comment section has the questions and thoughts people are telling you they want written. When we published a post called How To Actually Plan Your Blog And Save A Ton Of Time, Ella had a great question for us. We used that inspiration from her blog comment to write a post called How To Start A Blog When You Have Absolutely No Audience to answer her question (and then we let Ella know when it launched). This is particularly the case on a popular industry blog, where people are turning to the expert for help. They will ask for clarification and help. Why not write a post and be that help? Pay attention to the words other blog commenters are using when they ask questions or comment, so that you use those same words in your own blog posts. Use #blog comments to find your best blog ideas. #bloggingBlog Comments Can Build Your Reputation There are some content marketers who don't actually  have a blog. They write on social media, such as Google+, participate in niche forums, or they focus their efforts on being a serious blog commenter. They build a reputation as an expert based on what they say in these non-blog locations. Reputation building can happen off of your blog. When people start to see your name across blocks in your industry, and see that you are leaving great comments, they remember. Your blog comments are building your reputation as someone with knowledge and expertise. People take notice. It may lead to requests for guest blog posts, an interview, or other avenues to participate in content marketing. Frankly, a knowledgeable post stands out in a blog comment section in this day and age. There is such a thing as building a bad reputation, of course.  One thing I do, when reading a cantankerous comment on a blog, is click on the commenter's name. If it is a comment system such as Disqus, I can quickly see what kind of comments they generally leave, and I assign them a reputation. Some people only leave comments to say disagreeable things. Even if they have their own blog and it is filled with great content, I'm not going to bother. The comments you are leaving are building your reputation. Make it a good one that shows you are knowledgeable and even-handed, instead of a disagreeable jerk with little to add to the conversation. Write knowledgeable and even-handed #blog comments, instead of being a disagreeable jerk.Blog Comments As Your Side Blog Depending upon how thoughtful and how much time you put in the comments section of a blog (going beyond the not-so-helpful "great post!"), you could view a blog comments section as a secondary method for blogging. We've talked about syndicating and repurposing your content on sites such as Medium.com, LinkedIn, et. al. In a sense, the blog comment section of a high-traffic blog can do some of the same. If you have written a great post that would really fit into the conversation in a comments section of a blog post, rework your blog post into a summary and share it in the comments section. This is better than simply saying "I wrote a post about this: http://blahblah.com" because people are tired of spammers leaving links without explanation in the comment section. Getting your content on Medium and LinkedIn works well because you expose it to a new audience. The same goes for a blog comment section, as long as you trim it down and provide a tidy quick-read summary. If you want to include the link at the end, you might say "I've talked about this in a bit more detail on my own blog" and use an inline link so it is visually appealing and seems less like link spam. Provide a unique perspective in #blog comments and link to a post to  flesh out the idea.Blog Comments As Your Daily Routine Most content marketers have a particular daily routine that they use to get ideas, stay active, and stay knowledgeable in their niche. These routines usually involve going through the day's RSS feeds in a reader, planning upcoming content on their editorial calendar, responding to social media, and so on. Why wouldn't you also block out time to leave one or two long comments on relevant blogs? That ought to be a part of your regular routine, too, if you are trying to build a reputation and a following. We talk a lot about long-form blog posts. Let's consider its cousin: long-form blog comment. You don't have to write a 1,000 word blog comment every day, but you can certainly leave a few paragraphs of relevant content to  meet other commenters and earn the appreciation of the blog owner where you left your comment.

Individual property rights on Canadian Indian reserves Essay

Individual property rights on Canadian Indian reserves - Essay Example The aim of this review is to allow for all of this by critically reviewing the article in question, including facts and arguments that are presented by the author, counter arguments from others, as well as any and all other key and related issues in this regards. This is what will be dissertated in the following. The first thing to make note of is the actual title of this article, which is Individual Property Rights on Canadian Indian Reserves; from the title alone, we are able to get a rather detailed idea of what the article itself is going to be about. The title overtly specifies the topic as well as the main idea that is going to be represented within the article, and not only does the title itself rouse interest and create a wanting to read further on, but as well it does more than merely imply the subject, as we are told directly from the title of the article alone that we are going to be learning about the individual property rights in regards to the Canadian Indian reserves. ... Once we begin into the article, we can see that the main idea is basically stated within the first paragraph, as the first sentence of the entire article reads "Many Indian reserves in Canada, particularly but not only in the three prairie provinces, have no formalized individual property rights" (Alcantara & Flanagan, 2002: 5). Clearly, from this alone we can get at least a remote grasp on the matter of the article, as we can see that the authors are stating that most of the Indian reserves in Canada do not have any formalized individual property rights, and obviously this is - and in the future will be even more - incredibly problematic. The authors use various factual experiences and instances of different people in order to express the main point of their article, and the placement of their main idea creates much interest, because it compels you to wonder more about the individual property rights in regards to the Canadian Indian reserves, as well as the solutions - if any - whic h exist in this regards. One of the most poignant facts that the authors state within the first couple pages of the article is that of how "According to Joe v. Findlay (1981, 122 DLR 3d 377), interest in reserve land is held in common by the band as a whole and not by individual members (Nicola Band et al v Trans-Can Displays et al 2000 BCSC 1209, para 127). An individual can gain an interest in the land only under the procedures described in sections 20-29 of the Indian Act". (Alcantara & Flanagan, 2002: 5). Another one of the most major points that the authors make in this article is about how although the people living on the Canadian Indian reserves