Childrens Stories Of The Nineteenth Century English Literature Essay

Childrens Stories Of The Nineteenth Century English Literature Essay memorable adventures that remain popular today. Children continue to feel the heartaches of heroines such as Jo March in Louisa May Alcotts Little Women -which has never gone out of print, (Watson, 2009, p13) and eagerly turn the pages of Robert Louis Stevensons colonialist Treasure Island to read about Jims adventures and bravery. Yet these seemingly fun-filled Bildungsroman stories are reliant upon a value-system delineated by patriarchal constructions of gendered social roles of the late nineteenth century in which they were written. Both novels overtly indicate that in order to achieve personal value or capital (and thus maturity), the boy and girls of these stories are expected to succumb to the social expectations defined by their respective genders, ultimately replacing their juvenile freedom with responsibility and obligation. Consequently, for the purpose of this essay, fatherhood has been interpreted as influential masculine authority that invests both guidance and support in achieving this maturity. These depictions will be compared and contrasted in an attempt to argue that despite absent fathers, seemingly opposite contexts, perspectives and heavily gendered ideals, these novels both depict fatherhoods that challenge the gendered assumptions and values underpinning the imperial beliefs and identities .. of this period (Montgomery, 2009,p108.) Whilst seek(ing) to empower young readers to become active agents of future change'(Sambell, Reader 2, p.386) by challenging the apparent flight from domesticity (Tosh, 1999,p4)of the time. Little Women and Treasure Island stand at the threshold of changing notions about childhood (and consequent changes in childrens literature), between more didactic literature from earlier in the century, and the more purely amusing literature written later. Little Women, focusing on four sisters in a middle-class New England domestic setting, gives particular insight into the changing position of fatherhood to girls and women in American Civil War society, whilst Treasure Island forefronts an imperial masculine identity aimed towards British boys in the height of colonial expansion (Montgomery, 2009,p74). These differing contexts are crucial to consider as they serve as a frame by which the child, and (importantly) parent, reader would interpret the authors messages and ideals of fatherhood, and ultimately contributed to their success. The comparison of the depictions of fatherhood will begin by analysing Alcotts portrayal of key father-figures within Little Women, followed by a comp arative study of fatherhood issues addressed in Treasure island. The March family, with their initially absent father, portrays a female-dominated domestic world in which men, including Laurie, Mr. Lawrence, publishers, suitors, and even Mr. March, play second fiddle. However, the patriarchal society of the time dictate that, just as Jim Hawkins journey towards accruing capital must be initiated by an investment of masculine capital, the lessons of domestic virtue within Little Women are always framed within the context of physically or ethereally present father-figures. Mr. Marchs letter sparks his daughters journeys toward virtue in the novel and he is credited as the guiding source of Marmees goodness as well as providing the time frame for the first half of the book. When Jo questions her mother on how she learned to control her emotions, she turns to the example Mr. March set before her. She claims; He never loses patience, never doubts or complains, but always hopes, and works and waits so cheerfully that one is ashamed to do otherwise before him. He helped and comforted me, and showed me that I must try to practice all the virtues I would have my little girls possess, for I was their example. (p76) Through Alcotts use of heterodiegetic   narrative the reader is shown how each of her daughters strive to become the selfless, loving woman that Marmee represents, and by making Mr March the source of her goodness, Alcott attributes all moral authority and value to him. Alcott, through Mr March, constructed the home and Marmee herself, so that even when he is gone she remains behind, reinforcing the values of the patriarchal domestic authority her husband instilled within her. Alcott states (perhaps a little too earnestly) that despite the clear image of the five energetic women [who] seemed to rule the house (p229) he remains head of the family (p230) and the underlying source of social value and authority in the March family. These (frequent) explicit assertions of need for masculine validation and portrayal of domesticated manliness however, are in complete contrast to the image Alcott uses of his return as an invalid (p168)muffled up to the eyes'(p164). This broken man leaning on his wifes arm (Fetterley, p26), consigned to the library for the majority of the story, seemingly contradicts the very patriarchal assertions that Alcott loudly professes throughout. Similarly, as Fetterley asserts, Mr Marchs illness is consigned to the distant background and only vaguely referred to (ibid) instead hinting at a new form of patriarchal role-model; one that plays second fiddle to God and Mother (p181). Alcotts use of Intertextuality in the thematic elements of Pilgrims Progress woven throughout the plot reaffirm her religious ideologies and highlight the novels links to more didactic nature. Christian becomes a masculine authority of piety and perseverance to whom the March girls look for guidance and strength . Similarly, the March girls are repeatedly instructed to call upon their Heavenly Father to help them bear their burdens. The girls therefore have three ethereal masculine figures of moral authority steering them as they learn to fulfil their gendered roles: their father (in his absence), God, and Christian. When the girls need the physical presence of a man, they have Laurie: The girls describe Laurie as a remarkable boy (p278) whom they use as a standard to measure both other young men and their own behaviour; Angry Jos ill temper is highlighted when even good-natured Laurie had a quarrel with her (p104); Vain Meg first realises her misconduct through Lauries disapproval in Vanity Fair (p87); shy Beth is shown Laurie as a model of accomplishment without conceit (p67); and selfish Amy is saved from thin ice by his composure, from dull Aunt March by his ability to entertain, and from an unsuitable marriage by his reprimand (p74,180,397). Yet, despite this conformance to the conventional father role, the relationships also prove reciprocal as Laurie is also educated by the March girls:   It is Amy who urges Laurie to wake up and be a man (p384), Jo who manages his relationship with his grandfather (p198-203) and he himself credits them for a part of my education (p429) resulting in newly acquired manly virtues (p395.) This re-education of the male characters to conform with the female model that the women provide, along with Marmees pleas for the equal involvement of fatherhood in family life(p366), is put into increasingly successful practice by each of her sons-in-law. Fetterley describes how when Jo gets final father-figure, her big man or Papa Bhaer..her rebellion is neutralized (p29) and suggests Alcotts compliance with the gendered assumptions of fatherhood, yet once again there are clues that covertly challenge this view. Jo and Friedrich exhibit the most reformation of the traditional family in that Jo chooses the life work for herself and her partner, and provides the setting for their new school (Dalke, p563). She is financially independent and ultimately becomes responsible for educating boys. It is the opportunities provided by the strength and stability of the March matriarchy for reinventing manhood that lead the husbands, sons and fathers of Little Women to be re-educated by the women they love. Love which becomes, by the novels end, not the power play described by Fetterley, but rather an act performed mutually by both mothers and fathers to promote the reformation of a patriarchal society by beginning with the reformation of a single family. Like Little Women, Treasure Island can be read as a Bildungsroman, however in direct contrast it involves a rite of passage of Jim Hawkins predominately autodiegetic (retrospective) narration of his journey to maturity from which, as Stevenson notes, Women were excluded (xxvi) (with the exception of Jims mother and Captain Flint- who notably gets the last word in this masculine novel.) Whilst Little Women is saturated with figures of masculine authority and guidance, Treasure Island subjects its protagonist to little or no direct masculine, patriarchal authority as Jims father is fatally ill and soon dies. Yet, unlike Alcotts explicit portrayal of what the children should and should not be, the men Jim comes to admire are neither wholly good nor bad examples; they each contain traits Jim admires and traits he detests, and Jims achievement of independent mature identity lies in his own negotiation of father figures and rival male groupings, reaffirming the ideology of individualism (L oxley, p63) and, like Little Women, emphasising the authors belief in the need for change. In contrast to Mr March, Jims biological father is immediately portrayed as weak and lacking of authority. Jims lack of respect for this authority is demonstrated when he takes Billy Bones money to stand watch instead of helping his father as he should. Stevensons focalisation through young Jim (Montgomery,2009,p99) of his weak, poor father (p11) whose unhappy death (p10) was attributed to his terror (p10) heightens the sense of disappointment and serves to justify Jims delight in the company  of men as different from his father as he can find. Jims disappointment in the chicken-hearted men (p32) in town is also clear; none of whom offer to help his mother retrieve the money owed to  her (ibid) and it is instead left to a woman and a young boy. Stevensons choice of these weak male authorities suggests a failing  model of masculinity, frail in the threat of adversity. Jims father is unable to contend with the problems caused by the pirate; his son, and wife, however, can. In Jims quest  for self-definition it becomes clear that, from the start, Jim respects Long John Silver and prefers him to all other father-figures offered to him. Among the gentlemen, the Squire is too imperceptive and too gullible to carry sufficient moral authority, and too self-involved to be aware of Jims needs. Captain Smollet, from the start, establishes himself as stern and uncompromising. Only Dr Livesey shows any readiness to respond emotionally to Jim, as Sandison suggests, his confident authority (p55), innate compassion and demonstrable integrity (p56) set him up as an appropriate alternative moral authority (p57) but Stevenson questions this choice as a father-figure through his (pirate-like) mercenary pursuit of profit (Loxley, p75). Silvers clean and well-run inn, his  appearance, demeanour, and the obvious efficiency with which he   runs  his  establishment, clearly  impress  Jim and  immediately  contrasts are drawn  to  his biological fathers inability to run his own inn (ibid.) The connection between the two fathers is quickly established and continues when Silver almost immediately  takes on Jims education at the docks (p72-73,) more than we have been told Jims father ever bestowed upon his son. Stevenson differentiates Silver from other pirates such as Flint and Pew, who died a beggar-man (p106) by emphasising how he has a wife and has his money properly invested. Trelawney introduced him as a man of substance: he has a bankers account which has never been overdrawn (p69.) Silver, too, boasts about his financial success: I laid by nine hundred safe, from England, and two thousand after Flint à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦ all safe in bank (p101). Silver has a keen eye for accounts and savings, jus t as those pillars of the community, the doctor and the squire, are eager to get their hands on pirate treasure. At odds with the increasingly industrial and imperial society in which Treasure Island was written, was the earlier notion that the domestic sphere . . . is integral to masculinity'(Tosh,1999,p4). In this romantic adventure-story filled with gentlemen, Stevenson leaves a lasting impression that the most admirable are: a boy of fourteen; whose actions from the start are driven by a wish to protect his mother and home, and a crippled pirate; the only married adult in the book besides Jims father. These characters operate in an absence of conventional nineteenth century acceptable masculinity, yet they affirm qualities ascribed to the gentleman as, first, a husband and a father. Stevensons critique of masculinity in the empire, lies in the depiction of Silver as paternal surrogate father to Jim. It is this non-biological redefinition of the father-son relationship in Treasure Island -which Stevenson wrote with input from his young stepson-that the strength of his argument lies. Stevenson seemingly blames the empire for the erosion of British fathers importance in their childrens lives. His juxtaposition of treasure-seeking pirates and gentlemen as potential fathers for Jim portrays scathing critiques of the types of men created by greed, capitalism, and colonialism, and highlights the need for the individual child to be cautious of false promises for adventure. By the end of the novel, Stevensons view of the British Victorian gentleman emerges as part pirate and part child, but most importantly, like the fathers of Little Women both committed to their roles in the family. Despite the obvious contrasts in technique, context, subject matter and style of fatherhoods depicted in Little Women and Treasure Island, similarities have been highlighted in the authors subversion of nineteenth century patriarchal ideals. Both texts have been shown to implicitly promote domesticity in their key father figures, whilst encouraging reformation of the traditional family model by rewarding individualism and therefore seek(ing) to empower young readers to become active agents of future change (Sambell, Reader 2,p.386.) Word Count 2198

Summary: Charitable Organization and British Way

A summary of the advert that beggars belief.The article â€Å"The advert that beggars belief† by Alexander Chancellor is about beggars in India and Great Britain, they talk about how many beggars there are and what they are using their money on when they get some. Many people try to convince themselves that it's a stupid idea to give beggars money because they use them quite often on many stupid things.Westminster Council making a campaign there says if you give beggars money you â€Å"actually† are guilty in cause of theirs death. It is a bad campaign because they give a wakeup call to people and says it is a bad thing to give money to beggars and you should not do it, because you don’t know what they are going to use their money on and if you do it you can cause their deaths. They call you to stop giving them money.Give an outline of the carious attitudes to charity as expressed in texts.The four texts show the different views of giving charity, there are many ways to donate money today, from when you give a coin to a beggar you see at the streets to send a text on your mobile phone to a charitable organization. The article â€Å"the advert that beggars belief† has a negative attitude to beggars, in Britain they don’t want to give beggars money because they says it can cause their lives because they use the money on drugs or something like that.In the article â€Å"Charity never dies, it only sleeps† we hear about the British way of thinking to improve our own and our families lives, it is best also to improve the lives of those around us. It is a conservative way to think everyone has to be equal. In the article â€Å"the year of charitainment† they talked about that there are so many charity organizations and you have to focus on one and that helps the famous people with, Angelina Jolie helps to focus on Sierra Leone.Comment on the following statement â€Å"to improve our own and our families’ lives, it is best also to improve the lives of those around us.†In the text â€Å"Charity never dies, it only sleeps† it is the British way of thinking: to improve our own and our families’ lives, it is best also to improve the lives of those around us. It is on way out of many to think that everyone has to be equal, there are many people there think of this, and many people think that you have to be selfish about this, and don’t give money to beggars.   

Voltaires Free Thought And Confucianism Analysis

People have many different ways of thinking, including those of Voltaires free thought and Confucius’ Confucianism. A mind can constantly search for another way to do things, as well as, follow a set path placed before the human eyes. Both, the free-thinking mindset used by Voltaire and the Confucianism mindset used by Confucius have advantages and weaknesses. Some of the ideas weaknesses are free thinking doesn’t have a central idea to focus on while Confucianism focuses heavily on one topic and can lose sight of what the main focus of the group was. Confucianism can restrict ideas and make it hard for a society to progress while in a free-thinking society it can be hard for ideas to meld together enough to allow the progression of†¦show more content†¦Starting with Voltaire, he was a French writer during the Enlightenment period and had many different works and was published in almost every literary form. He wrote against the social structures in France, main ly the Catholic Church and institutions of the day. His ideology of free thought was that it should be allowed everywhere and should not be stopped by people who thought their ideas were better. He mainly saw different religious and political organizations as the enforcement of stopping peoples thoughts and he wanted to this change. He went about changing the way publishing was censored through many different literary forms. Likewise, Confucius brought in a new era of thought. He preached that people lacked discipline in their life and moved to change this in various ways. He showed his ways of thinking in the ways he led his life and showed people around him a great deal of respect even though he was in a higher class family, and this was massively unheard of during the culture at this era of time. He also wanted to change how people thought of others, instead of viewing each other as objects and holding certain rankings to individual classes of people; he sought to make everyone equal in the sense of thinking along the same lines of duty and respect. Confucius also wanted to change the way people viewed themselves, he wanted people to view themselves as more of

E Commerce Vs. Electronic Commerce - 1527 Words

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