Friday, January 24, 2020
Searching for Meaning in Shakespeare’s Tempest :: Tempest essays
Searching for Meaning in Shakespeare’s Tempest         Shakespeare lived and wrote in the Elizabethan age, a time when his society was branching out and making itself known throughout the world by colonizing other cultures. Great Britain was reaching for new heights of power. In the play Shakespeare questions the value of this new concept of British imperialism. The Tempest is called Shakespeare's American play, because he calls into question England's right to colonize other nations, much as American colonists did with America 200 years later.         The Tempest was Shakespeare's last play. For his entire life he had written plays to please the Queen. For this play it appears he made a controversial statement by challenging the values of his Queen and his country.         Evidence of this is abundant in the play. The story rotates around the fact that Prospero, a European noble, had imposed himself on an island, already inhabited. Prospero is depicted as a worthy man, who was usurped from his throne. The reader has automatic sympathy for the character. This allows him more leeway for wrong doing by creating room for it within the reader's mind. Prospero came to the island with his daughter to find it already inhabited by two savages. Upon arrival, Prospero brought his â€Å"new†ideas with him, and began to force them upon these two savages, Sycorax and Caliban. He believed that his new ideas were better, such as slavery opposed to freedom, which he imposed on Caliban.                â€Å"Dull thing, I say so; he, that Caliban,               Whom now I keep in my service.†                              (Act. I, Sc. II, Ln. 285,6)  This view of whose ideas were better is an obvious matter of opinion, one of the biggest drawbacks to transforming old ideas into new.         Prospero was the first male that Caliban had seen in his life. As a â€Å" lower being†Caliban worshipped and praised Prospero, as the quote below shows, until Prospero began to mistreat him.                 â€Å"I know it by thy trembling: now Prosper works upon thee†                                     (Act II, Sc. II, Ln. 81-3)         This worship caused Prospero to act as a ruler above him, eventually pushing him to be the tyrant over Caliban, including robbing Caliban of his freedom. Keeping within his worship, Caliban lost his self-confidence and any drive for good deeds. Because Prospero had imposed himself upon Caliban, Caliban's life began to decline. Without drive, or freedom for that matter, Caliban turned to a vegetable only working as a slave to Prospero. Again, the act of asserting that your ideas are superior can cause indelible harm to the Searching for Meaning in Shakespeare’s Tempest :: Tempest essays Searching for Meaning in Shakespeare’s Tempest         Shakespeare lived and wrote in the Elizabethan age, a time when his society was branching out and making itself known throughout the world by colonizing other cultures. Great Britain was reaching for new heights of power. In the play Shakespeare questions the value of this new concept of British imperialism. The Tempest is called Shakespeare's American play, because he calls into question England's right to colonize other nations, much as American colonists did with America 200 years later.         The Tempest was Shakespeare's last play. For his entire life he had written plays to please the Queen. For this play it appears he made a controversial statement by challenging the values of his Queen and his country.         Evidence of this is abundant in the play. The story rotates around the fact that Prospero, a European noble, had imposed himself on an island, already inhabited. Prospero is depicted as a worthy man, who was usurped from his throne. The reader has automatic sympathy for the character. This allows him more leeway for wrong doing by creating room for it within the reader's mind. Prospero came to the island with his daughter to find it already inhabited by two savages. Upon arrival, Prospero brought his â€Å"new†ideas with him, and began to force them upon these two savages, Sycorax and Caliban. He believed that his new ideas were better, such as slavery opposed to freedom, which he imposed on Caliban.                â€Å"Dull thing, I say so; he, that Caliban,               Whom now I keep in my service.†                              (Act. I, Sc. II, Ln. 285,6)  This view of whose ideas were better is an obvious matter of opinion, one of the biggest drawbacks to transforming old ideas into new.         Prospero was the first male that Caliban had seen in his life. As a â€Å" lower being†Caliban worshipped and praised Prospero, as the quote below shows, until Prospero began to mistreat him.                 â€Å"I know it by thy trembling: now Prosper works upon thee†                                     (Act II, Sc. II, Ln. 81-3)         This worship caused Prospero to act as a ruler above him, eventually pushing him to be the tyrant over Caliban, including robbing Caliban of his freedom. Keeping within his worship, Caliban lost his self-confidence and any drive for good deeds. Because Prospero had imposed himself upon Caliban, Caliban's life began to decline. Without drive, or freedom for that matter, Caliban turned to a vegetable only working as a slave to Prospero. Again, the act of asserting that your ideas are superior can cause indelible harm to the
Thursday, January 16, 2020
The Ethics of Frankenstein
To say that Victor Frankenstein is an unethical person is an understatement. He totally doesn’t care about ethics. He only noticed that he was doing something very wrong only when he had already done it. If the people around Victor Frankenstein had known about what he was doing, then he would definitely run out of friends and people will hate him so much. Anyone will sure be offended if they discover what Frankenstein was doing. What Victor Frankenstein had done may be offensive to some, but not everyone. Some view it as a foreshadowing of advancements in science, when men can really play God. Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein is a world renowned novel. It is a story about what could humans achieve if science can somewhat keep up with god in his majesty. The fictional project of Victor Frankenstein to infuse life on an inanimate body could have possibly been the inspiration for many scientific breakthroughs of today. These breakthroughs include robotics and cloning. But the novel also tells us of what could be the ethical consequences of such advancements. Victor Frankenstein utilized dead human and animal body parts to create a living organism. In the previous sentence alone, we could already unearth three ethical violations. He has violated the dead, both human and animal rights, and the most controversial of all: he played God. The dead is considered sacred by virtually every culture. It is highly unethical to violate the dead not to mention that there exist many laws about violating the departed. It is commonly regarded that the dead should be left at peace. Frankenstein had dug them from their resting place for the sake of his project of infusing life into an inanimate body. He had treated the dead with no respect. The dead body parts were just scattered all around his place. He even called the dead â€Å"the lifeless thing that lay at my feet†(Shelley 39). He just laid the dead body parts all around like a dirty rag. It is the right of every man to be left at peace, especially the dead. And no one has the right to steal. Victor had definitely stolen the bodies from their resting places. Victor Frankenstein had clearly neglected these basic human rights so it wouldn’t be more of a surprise if he violated animal rights. â€Å"I tortured a living animal to animate the lifeless clay?†(Shelley 36). What Victor Frankenstein had done is much like what big companies do today. They use animals in testing some of their product. They confine the poor animals and deprive them of their freedom. That is because their only sense of freedom is financial freedom. Because just like Victor Frankenstein, they think that as humans they have control other forms of life. It is a clichà © to say that humans always play god. The scientists of today are now performing ethically controversial procedures like human cloning. Mary Shelley had shown in her novel that very human trait of wanting to play god. Victor Frankenstein said himself â€Å"A new species shall bless me as his creator†(Shelley 36). As a matter of fact Victor Frankenstein was so into the pretend god thing that he had said to himself that a new species would recognize him as its creator and source many happy and excellent natures would owe their being to him (Shelley 36). It could also be possible that Mary Shelley wanted to explore the issue of immortality. Many great personalities throughout history had sought immortality. All had miserably failed. It is possible that Victor Frankenstein had recognized this want so he thought that his experiments could open the possibilities for immortality. Just like the genetic engineers of today who are willing to violate some ethical standards just to achieve a clue if immortality is really possible. Scientists like Victor Frankenstein himself are driven to do whatever it takes to find such discovery. This is because they know that immortality is what everyone wants. They know everyone wants to live forever especially the rich who are wiling to spend fortunes just for them to cling unto their material possessions. Even if we disregard the religion element in the topic of humans playing god, we would still find â€Å"playing god†as highly unethical. The scientist of today knows that when they perform cloning in humans, there could be abnormalities, and the clone has to live with those abnormalities. That is exactly what happened in the novel. The creature hated his own appearance and he has no one else to blame but his creator. â€Å"Oh! No mortal could possibly support the horror of that countenance†¦it became a thing such as Dante could not have conceived†(Shelley 40). The creature was of great ugliness â€Å"its unearthly ugliness rendered as almost too horrid for the human eye†(Shelley 77). The creature hated his creator but only because his creator hated him first. This hate-hate relationship just complicated both the lives of the creator and the creature. We can also include here creation ethics. We have all heard of various creation stories, from the bible and from mythologies. In this creation stories the humans were always created by the divine. That is because these stories recognize that humans can’t really answer the question where did we come from? Humans have thought of our origin ever since we began to think. And still up to this era of modern science, the origin of life still remains a mystery. Maybe it is juts beyond human comprehension, that’s why there is the divine. Maybe we can’t really get exact calculations. Maybe it’s even beyond mathematics and logic. The novel just tells us that we can never find any good in us playing god. We must acknowledge the fact that we are not gods, we are not perfect. The author of the novel herself recognized the fact that God is divinely superior to humans. She regarded God as a perfect creature. (Shelley 105) A very interesting ethical was posed by the creature in the novel. What are the ethical issues that may arise if the created is killed by the creator? Can we categorize that as murder? The creature wanting to end his miserable artificial life told Victor Frankenstein â€Å"You would not call it murder if you could precipitate me into one of those ice-rifts, and destroy my frame, the work of your own hands†(Shelley 119). The creature could be ethically correct since the definition of murder is taking away the life of other living being. After that definition of murder, people would follow that up with â€Å"only God can claim a life.†People say that because they believe in a divine plan. They believe that God claims a life because he has his reasons. And since people view God as perfect, His reasons will always be ethically correct. In that sense, God can never be a killer even though He is the one who decides on who is going to get killed. But that scenario is very different in divine proportions when it comes to the case of Victor Frankenstein and genetic engineers. Murder will always be unethical. When we heard of a murder we always feel something deep inside being shaken. It’s like a mix of emotions that are predominantly fear and empathy. But just like God, Victor Frankenstein and genetic engineers may have their own reasons for murdering their creation, however imperfect those reasons are regardless of being ethically right or wrong. Work Cited Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus: The 1818 Text. Chicago: Chicago UP, 1982.   Â
Tuesday, January 7, 2020
The Rate Of Teen Pregnancy - 975 Words
Now, about 15 million girls under the age of 20 in the world have a child each year. Guesses (of a number) are that 20-60% of these pregnancies in developing countries are mistimed or unwanted. In the United States, the percent of teenage pregnancies that are unintended is guessed (number) at 78%. The rates of teen pregnancy are not equal across (communities of people). Rates of teen pregnancy change/differ by a factor of almost 10 from as low as 12 pregnancies per year per 1,000 teens in the Netherlands to rates of more than 100 teens per year per 1,000 in the Russian Federation. The rates of women having a child before age 20 are higher in the United States compared to almost the same countries. For example, 22% of women report having a child before age 20 in the United States, compared to 15% in Great Britain and 11% in Canada. These differences are even greater when comparing (numbers of babies born per 1000 people per year) among younger teenagers. When one controls for poorness and (family and cultural characteristics), some, but not all, of this difference disappears. In the early 1990s, over 1 million teenagers (old/allowed to get old/got older) 15-19 became pregnant each year in the United States. This figure represents a peak of increasing rates of teen pregnancy through the 1980s and early 1990s. In the later part of the 1990s through the first part of the new century, rates have begun to (lower in number/get worse). Now it is guessed (number) that just belowShow MoreRelatedThe Rates Of Teen Pregnancy Essay3072 Words  | 13 PagesINTRODUCTION Throughout the United States, rates of teen pregnancy are significantly high. In 2013, there were 26.5 births for every 1,000 adolescent females ages 15-19, or 273,105 babies born to females in this age group.1 Young, minority women between the ages of 15 and 24 appear to be at greater risk for becoming pregnant. Minority populations are also linked with low socioeconomic status, whether in terms of education or income, or both. Having low income and lower levels of education (the mostRead MoreTeen Pregnancy And Teenage Pregnancy Rates940 Words  | 4 Pagesshow that black and Latina girls have that highest teenage pregnancy rate compared to other races of girls. Black and Latina girls are more than twice as likely as white or indian girls to become pregnant before they leave adolescence.While dramatic declines among Hispanic and black teens (51 percent and 44 percent, respectively) have helped reduce gaps, birth rates remain twice as high for these teens nationally compared with white teens .It varies all across the U.S. and even county by county, theRead MoreTeen Pregnancy And The Teenage Pregnancy Rates2094 Words  | 9 PagesPregnancy and parenthood is a significantly life- altering event that anyone could experience. These two life events inquire not only physical but mental obstacles. What happens when these events occur when your body is not physically developed and your mental maturity is not fully ripened? This happens too often amongst the teen age population. In the United States, teen pregnancies are the highest when compared to other developed countries. Teen births account for 10% of all births in the UnitedRead MoreThe Decline Of Teen Pregnancy Rates1272 Words  | 6 Pages110-07 The Decline In Teen Pregnancy Rates Over the last few decades the rates in teen pregnancy have been a debate; did they rise over the past few years or did they actually decline? Contrary to some doctors and politicians the numbers associated with teen pregnancy have decline over the last couple of years. Although there are still people out there who believe this to be an issue it’s made more of an issue than it actually is. The ads and commercials are set out to scare teen-agers into believingRead MoreTeen Pregnancy and Graduation Rates1175 Words  | 5 Pages Teen pregnancy is surprisingly decreasing over the years. According to Farber, â€Å"the most recent studies have shown that there has been a decrease in the rate of pregnancies among all teenagers and among sexually active teenagers (16). Although this issue seems is decreasing this is still a problem faced by many teenage girls today. Each year, 7.5 percent of all 15-19 year old women become pregnant (Maynard 1). Not only does this issue affects t he pregnant teen but it also affects the economy. TeenRead MoreTeen Pregnancy Rates On Canada1452 Words  | 6 PagesThis report takes an in-depth look at the teen pregnancy rates in Canada. Comparing the trends in Canadian provinces mainly focused on the trends in Ontario. Teen pregnancy rates have drastically falling from a report completed in the 1970’s where the pregnancy rate amongst teen girls between the ages of 15-19 years old. In the 1970’s, teen pregnancy was amongst the highest rates Canada has ever seen. This report also focuses on the reasons teen pregnancy is prevalent in the following provinces andRead MoreTeen Pregnancy And Birth Rates861 Words  | 4 PagesThe increase of pregnancy that ranged from 30 percent to 50 percent between 1971 and 1979 was due to the large increase in premarital sexual activity for young white girls(Kohli, 1995). Studies found an increase in contraceptive use among sexually active teens from 50 percent to 70 percent user s between 1971 through 1979 (Kohli, 1995). This increase in contraceptive use was not enough to outweigh the increase in premarital sexual activity. This only increased the rate of pregnancies in teenage girlsRead MoreThe Problem Of Teen Pregnancy Rates951 Words  | 4 Pagessignificantly more data and research in regards to the problem of teen pregnancy and the associated problems that are attributed to adolescent childbearing than there are specific to the effectiveness and efficacy of second chance homes. Second chance homes help teen mothers and their children comply with welfare reform requirements under the 1996 law (Housing and Urban Development, 2016). Second chance homes can also support teen families who are homeless or currently residing in foster care (HousingRead MoreTeenage Pregnancy : The Highest Rate Of Teen Pregnancy1666 Words  | 7 PagesTeen Pregnancy The United States has the highest rate of teen pregnancy of most industrialized nations. According to a 2014 article, in 2013 nearly 273,105 babies were born to women aged 15-19 years, for a live birth rate of 26.5 per 1,000 women in this age group. This is a record low for U.S. teens in this age group, and a drop of 10% from 2012. Birth rates fell 13% for women aged 15–17 years, and 8% for women aged 18–19 years. Still, the U.S. teen pregnancy rate is substantially higher thanRead MoreHigh School Dropout Rates And Teen Pregnancy1078 Words  | 5 PagesHigh School dropout rates have been a problem since the word high school became a term. To begin, a study researched by Education Week, Rumberger interprets â€Å"...The nation s leading education periodical estimates that 1.3 million students from the high school class of 2010 failed to graduate†(Rumberger 61). Taking those findings you can go a step further and narrow the field to one of the causes of dropout rates, which is teen pregnancy. By focusing on teen pregnancy your able to narrow down
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