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Essays and journals about social identity theory
Essays and journals about social identity theory
Essays and journals about social identity theory
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Identity in the Works of Eavan Boland and Seamus Heaney
Many times poetry is reflective of the author’s past as well as their personal struggles. One struggle that poets write about is of identity and the creation, as well as loss, of individual identities. Using a passage from the essay Lava Cameo by Eavan Boland, I will show how two poets use their craft to describe their struggle with identity. Eavan Boland and Seamus Heaney both write poems which express an internal struggle with roles of identity and how they recreate their roles to fit their needs. Through retrospection and reflection, both poets come to realize that the roles they led as well as those they reinvented have created their own personal identities. Boland, in her essay Lava Cameo, touches on several emotions (loss, despair, etc) and episodes in her life which capture the essence of her identity. It is this notion of individual identity that is a central theme throughout Boland’s essay and some of her poems. Boland, through retrospection and hindsight, has been able to recognize the roles that society has dictated that she follow. These roles were not necessarily created for any rational reason (ex: female role as subordinate and even as marital property). One passage in particular captures the internal struggles Boland has endured. This passage runs from pages 27 to 29 in Boland’s Object Lessons. It begins by saying, "It may not be that women poets of another generation…" and ends with "…but because of poetry."
The passage begins by discussing how Boland may be experiencing some unease that female poets before her time may not have experienced nor have even considered for a fleeting moment. Boland claims that she had stumbled upon a realization, one tha...
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...s the possibility of reinvention of those roles for self betterment. Both Boland and Heaney show internal struggles with identity, particularly in feeling like a follower and then reinventing themselves into the role of a leader. Although Heaney chose to be a follower whereas Boland felt she was forced to be, their struggles are similar as are their resolutions.
Works Cited
Boland, Eavan. "Object Lessons: the life of the woman and the poet of our time." Lava Cameo. New York, NY: W.W. Norton & Company, 1995. 3-34.
Boland, Eavan. "An Origin Like Water." An Irish Child in England: 1951. New York, NY: W.W. Norton & Company, 1996. 190-191.
Boland, Eavan. "An Origin Like Water." Fond Memory. New York, NY: W.W. Norton & Company, 1996. 192.
Heaney, Seamus. "Opened Ground, Selected Poems 1966-1996." Follower. New York, NY: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1998. 10.
According to Wes Bertrand, author of "Abstract", states that "the degree of self- responsibility practiced by a person drastically affects his or her level of obedience to unjust commands" (Bertrand). Milgram related his experiment with Hitler 's Germany by relating that "the man in the camp who actually dropped Cyclon-b into gas chambers was able to justify his behavior on the ground that he was only following orders from above" (Milgram 89). Baumrind supports his statement coming from one point of view; she argues that because Hitler made the Jews sound subhuman and not worth the extra effort, a subordinate officer slaughtering the Jews has no need to feel guilt because he was acting right within his frame of reference" (Baumrind 93). In agreement with Baumrind claiming the Jews were made subhuman, the article "German Jews during the Holocaust, 1939–1945" explains how they took their belongings claiming to use them to produce weapons for the war, the level of obedience and officers acting as they were ordered to by their superiors was necessary or tragedy might strike them as well.If what Diana Baumrind says is true, she is supporting Milgram by saying that the officer was acting right because he was told so, rather than disputing him; like the experiment when the experiment when the experimenter asked the teacher to continue with the
Stade, George, and Karen Karbiener. “Heaney Seamus.” Bloom’s Literature. Facts on File, Inc. Web. 30 Mar. 2014
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Prensa, La. "El Regreso a La OEA, Retorno De Zelaya E Informe De La CVR, Hechos Políticos ..." La Prensa [San Pedro Sula] 19 May 2011: 1. Proceso Digital. La Prensa, 28 Dec. 2011. Web. 15 Jan. 2012. .
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‘The woman’ of the poem has no specific identity and this helps us even further see the situation in which the woman is experiencing, the lost of one’s identity. Questions start to be raised and we wonder if Harwood uses this character to portray her views of every woman which goes into the stage of motherhood, where much sacrifice is needed one being the identity that was present in society prior to children.
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The need for interpersonal communication across all human endeavors is growing especially in the context of
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Identity in James Baldwin’s “Stranger in the Village” and Zora Neale Hurston’s “How it Feels to be Colored Me”
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