The Hypocrisy of Communal Identity in cummings' the Cambridge ladies
E.E. Cummings’ [the Cambridge ladies who live in furnished souls] is an enigmatic, ironic and sarcastic poem which reveals the unreal, fraudulent lives that the Cambridge ladies live. The poetic speaker’s tone is filled with sarcasm and irony to show the contradiction between the Cambridge ladies’ actions and beliefs. This discriminating voice is used when speaking of the Cambridge ladies’ Christianity, their communal identity, and when speaking of their frivolous concerns. Depth and empathy, both of which the ladies lack, are juxtaposed against the women’s emptiness and indifference. Collectively, the Cambridge ladies share the inability to connect to their religion and to the exterior world that surrounds them. In addition, Cummings contrasts nature imagery against the material and socially based Cambridge Ladies. Because these ladies are well endowed and isolated from the outside world, they are not able to fully comprehend the reality of issues.
Through this comparing and contrasting, E.E. Cummings is able to show the superficial and fabricated world that the Cambridge ladies have created. Although these women claim to be strict Protestants, their unsympathetic behavior proves to be less than holy. The Cambridge ladies are not able to fully understand the harsh reality of a world that lies beyond their trifle lives. Because they have already been given everything they need in life without working for it, the women are content with their set ways and have “comfortable minds” ([the Cambridge] ln. 2). These women have never known anything other than luxury and happiness. Thus, the ladies have no reason to challenge their church’s or society’s customs....
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...ople who confine themselves to a limited sphere of knowledge and a confined group of peers. Rather than looking towards the outside world and into the unknown, these women commit themselves to spreading rumors, being “loyal” Christians, and being socially adept. By sharing a communal identity, they give up all individual freedoms. The Cambridge ladies forget to see and understand the individual beauties in life such as the moon. Everything they believe is internalized by their social doctrines; they leave no room for change or for new ideals. Therefore, they are unable to associate with the serenity of nature or with a world separate from themselves. Because they are assigned to a societal doctrine in which they have no control or say over, they become apathetic to its causes. They no longer concern themselves over problems and “do not care” about anything at all.
In the novel Huck Finn, the author repeatedly uses satire to ridicule the insanity of racial ignorance and inequity of the time period. With his masterful use of role reversal, irony, and the obvious portrayal of double standards, Twain exemplifies the injustices of different races contrasting them with example after example of counter-argument shown through the friendship and adventures of Jim and Huck together.
An example of this would be the fortune telling hairball and the rattlesnake skin. Jim also states during the first few chapters that his body hair is a sign of his future wealth. The signs have no correlation to their meanings and seem ludicrous and silly to those reading about them. Another moment where superstitions became important would be after Jim and Huck Finn 's separation in the fog. When Huck Finn lies to Jim about their separation being a dream Jim begins to tell Huck his interpretation of the dream as a warning. It shows that to the superstitious, signs and meanings can be applied to everything and anything. Later on in the book, while helping Jim to escape, Tom and Huck Finn lie to Nat about odd occurrences caused by their plans. Because Nat is superstitious he is quick to blame witches and believes Tom and Huck Finn 's lies. This allows Tom 's overly complicated plans to take off without a
Hypocrisy has been everywhere in The Scarlet Letter. People of Hester, and the community that they lived in, were immersed in hypocrisy. Hawthorne was not restrained in his interpretation of the horrible sin of hypocrisy; he wanted be certain to see the sin at job , in the same moment, equivalents can be pinched between the people in The Scarlet Letter and of present civilization.
According to Merriam Webster, the term “ethical” can be defined as “rules of behavior based on ideas about what is morally good and bad.” Being able to differentiate between what is good, and what is bad is key when it comes to many things. One of these things includes persuasion. There are many concepts that can explain why certain principles of persuasion can be more ethical than others, and many that are critical to being an ethical communicator. Said concepts are explained in Rothwell’s text, In the Company of Others, Robert Cialdini and Steve Martins video, Science of Persuasion, and Stephen Carter’s text, Integrity.
“The wretches have proceeded so far as to concert and consult the methods of rooting out the Christian religion from this country, and setting up instead of it perhaps a more gross diabolism than ever the world saw before.” (Mather 153) Perhaps the “gross diabolism” that he refers to is a world where women, similar to Martha Carrier, are not easily silenced or controlled by the authority of white, Puritan men. While Mather claims to be a historian and not an activist, and tells the reader that he was not there so he could not form any prejudice against those convicted. Despite this, he contradicts himself by slipping in extreme sexist comments towards Carrier, referring to her as a “rampant hag” (Mather 155). Through this, he assumes the role of the unreliable narrator because he is unable to keep his writing
Lady Chudleighs’s “To the Ladies” exhibits a remorseful stance on the concept of joining holy matrimony. Chudleigh’s usage of metaphoric context and condescending tone discloses her negative attitude towards the roles of a wife once she is married. It is evident that Mary Chudleigh represents the speaker of the poem and her writing serves a purpose to warn single women not go get married and a regretful choice to women who are.
...sed society with religious overtones throughout the poem, as though religion and God are placing pressure on her. The is a very deep poem that can be taken in may ways depending on the readers stature yet one thing is certain; this poem speaks on Woman’s Identity.
The character analysis of Mary Anne Bell in comparison and contrast to Martha and Elroy Berdahl implores the audience to consider the idea that gender is not inherent.
In the 19th Century, women had different roles and treated differently compared to today’s women in American society. In the past, men expected women to carry out the duties of a homemaker, which consisted of cleaning and cooking. In earlier years, men did not allow women to have opinions or carry on a job outside of the household. As today’s societies, women leave the house to carry on jobs that allow them to speak their minds and carry on roles that men carried out in earlier years. In the 19th Century, men stereotyped women to be insignificant, not think with their minds about issues outside of the kitchen or home. In the play Trifles, written by Susan Glaspell, the writer portrays how women in earlier years have no rights and men treat women like dirt. Trifles is based on real life events of a murder that Susan Glaspell covered during her work as a newspaper reporter in Des Moines and the play is based off of Susan Glaspell’s earlier writing, “A Jury of Her Peers”. The play is about a wife of a farmer that appears to be cold and filled with silence. After many years of the husband treating the wife terrible, the farmer’s wife snaps and murders her husband. In addition, the play portrays how men and women may stick together in same sex roles in certain situations. The men in the play are busy looking for evidence of proof to show Mrs. Wright murdered her husband. As for the women in the play, they stick together by hiding evidence to prove Mrs. Wright murdered her husband. Although men felt they were smarter than women in the earlier days, the play describes how women are expected of too much in their roles, which could cause a woman to emotionally snap, but leads to women banding together to prove that women can be...
In the poem “The Lady’s Dressing Room,” written by Jonathan Swift, one may say he portrays himself to be a chauvinist by ridiculing women and their cryptic habits. However, others may say he wants to help women from the ideals placed upon them by society and prove to be an early feminist. This poem written in the 18th century represented women to be fake and sleazy at first. Then during the 20th century, the feminist movement used it as an attack against women, depicting the poem’s meaning as not valuing their rights and freedoms. The truth far hidden from these points of views became uncovered recently. This essay will explain both sides of the views and using critical thinking will uncover the real message the author intended to portray.
Welter, Barbara. “The Cult of True Womanhood: 1820-1860.” Nineteenth Century Literature March 1966: 102-106. Jstor. On-line. 10 Nov. 2002.
Sometimes trying to conform to society’s expectations becomes extremely overwhelming, especially if you’re a woman. Not until recent years have woman become much more independent and to some extent equalized to men. However going back to the 19th century, women were much more restrained. From the beginning we perceive the narrator as an imaginative woman, in tune with her surroundings. The narrator is undoubtedly a very intellectual woman. Conversely, she lives in a society which views women who demonstrate intellectual potential as eccentric, strange, or as in this situation, ill. She is made to believe by her husband and physician that she has “temporary nervous depression --a slight hysterical tendency” and should restrain herself from any intellectual exercises in order to get well (Gilman 487). The narrator was not allowed to write or in any way freely...
For an attempt to purify a religious community of sin, the Puritans in The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, have numerous faults due to their blindness of their own hypocrisy. Starting at the beginning of the text, women begin gossiping about Hester. The women talk about how Hester will cover her letter, how they wouldn’t take mercy on her as the magistrates have and how Reverend Dimmesdale,”her godly pastor, takes it very grievously to heart that such a scandal should have come upon his congregation” (Hawthorne 53). So because they also enjoy elaborate things, the children and virgin women do very un-Puritan like things, and how Dimmesdale himself is a hypocrite all show hypocrisy within the Puritan Society; however, children learn by how their parents act and what they do, so the Puritans within the text are following their
...e one support themselves and bears everything without asking anything in return. Racheal goes as far as to tend Stephen’s wife for the only purpose to help the one she loves. Both the care they impart and the way in which they behave both inside and outside the home are remarkable. Sissy goes as far as to confront Mr. Harthouse, who plays the role of the temper and seduction. This action may infer that a proper Victorian woman must be above the earthly temptations of the flesh.
Superstitions provide a sense of hope and something to believe in that could explain the reasoning as to why a team hasn’t won a game for a period of time. An example, is in the movie Fever Pitch, where a man named Ben is obsessed with the Boston Red Sox. Ben and his friends believe in superstitions and curses and think that the reason the Red Soxs haven’t won it’s because of the Curse of the Bambino. The Curse of the Bambino became to be in the 1920s when Harry Frazee, the owner of the Boston Red Sox, needed money to finance his girlfriend’s play and decided to sell Babe Ruth's contract to the New York Yankees. Since then, the Boston Red Sox have lost to game seven and haven’t been in a World Series since Babe Ruth’s departure. Many believed that the curse was the reason for the Boston Red Sox not winning a World Series. After many decades of losing and not winning a World Series, Ben and many other Red Sox fans kept their loyalty to the team. Believing in the curse was essential for them as this bonded them together and never made them lose hope that someday the Red Sox would win and the curse would be