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Caste system in hindu
Religion during the Elizabethan era
Caste system in hindu
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Great Chain of Being The Elizabethans had a very static and structured social caste system. From rocks to angels and God the Elizabethans in England had a place for them. As seen in the illustration the stairs represent different social classes. At the very top are the spiritual beings of course, because the English in this time period valued religion over all else. In the article the author saw that Shakespearean people had a very organized way to put all objects. First they put spiritual beings with God at the top and human souls at the bottom. After that was living organisms such as humans and plants which is where most attention was payed. From the reading passage it can be seen that as your rank in society increases you start to develop certain characteristics so a king may have some characteristics a peasant doesn’t and therefore is placed on a …show more content…
Who better to have the right to rule over all others than the person highest in the social hierarchy for living creatures and the person closest to the spiritual caste which would be the king or queen and their family. Finally inanimate objects such as rocks, minerals, and dirt were placed at the bottom of the social ladder. The staircase on the illustration looks to be leading to what could be seen as the Kingdom of Heaven, and if you look at the bottom you can see the rocks at the bottom not even on a stair, and multiple steps above that is the lion representing how animals are closer to the Kingdom and God himself than a simple rock. The social system was very much divided in England, and society very much created a social food chain with rankings to determine if you were above or below someone. For instance, in the Elizabethan period if you were a common peasant that put you below the middle class, the lords and ladies of the upper class, the king, and all
Elizabethan based their people upon the divine order, known as the Great Chain of being, which accommodated everything in the whole universe.
that were; the clergy, the nobility, and the common people. They were each striving for
This much I established earlier in my analysis. However, in addition to the divine, right absolutist, Shuger also discusses the sacred ruler, one who may or may not have absolute power, but who for the sake of its “legitimizing principle as well as its cultural power” possess the sacred aura that critics argue collapses upon Richard’s usurpation (59). While I originally applied this concept to explain Elizabeth’s use of divine rhetoric, seemingly after I argued the shift away from this, I would like to consider that perhaps, in creating this second "proto-citizen," Shakespeare allows the people to create a sacred ruler. By giving the commons the power to establish or destroy divine aura in their rulers, they have a strange power over those who otherwise rule them absolutely. The Gardener demystifies; the Groom re-mystifies. In place of expressing a movement from the medieval, divine politics of Richard’s rule to the more modern, secular rule of Bolingbroke—an easy argument to make when the only synecdoche for the people is the Gardener—both of these overarching models of audience behavior exemplify the role of the people as complex: rational and emotional—capable of both critical and ethical decisions. In Richard II, Shakespeare encourages the political and emotional participation of the people in the judgment of their rulers. That he then utilizes this participation by including the Groom to make a martyr of Richard ends the play not as a demystification of monarchy, nor an attempt to dramatize a move from the medieval to the modern world, but as a way of expressing to an audience of commoners what power they have in determining the divinity of their
Nobility were at the top of the social classes. These men were rich and powerful, and they have large households. The real growth in society was in the merchant class. Within the nobility class there was a distinction between old families and new. A person becomes a member of nobility by birth, or by a grant from the queen or king. It took a crime such as treason for a nobleman to lose his place in this social class. Many died during the War of the Roses, a series of civil wars fought during the 15th century. Being a member of the nobility class often brought debt ...
The medieval man felt that all men are equal in the sight of God and that all are equal in the sight of God and that even the humblest has an infinite worth. If a man had to work, this was not to degrade him but it was a source dignity. Having a job was to be able to take of his family and necessities. A person's property and family was to be used to gra...
Every person has a right and responsibility to be a citizen of their own country, living at the best as they can be. People have the responsibilities to become leaders, like Queen Elizabeth I, to rule Great Britain. Some people under the queen are struggling to live; people like the poor or the paupers in the 17th century. Queen Elizabeth attained recognition as an absolute monarch and a responsible Tudor queen at that time. She achieved numerous goals that helped herself and her people prosper. There was one achievement that affected many people, especially the poor, which was the Elizabethan Poor Law. It organized the poor and affected future poor laws after that.
The feudal system was a political, military, and economic system based on the holding of land. The system was developed since the whole entire basis of rule from all the civilizations before the Middle Ages was lost. Early Europe was in desperate need of such a system since they were constantly being raided by the Vikings and other outsiders.
Status hierarchy is one out of the four that are present in the movie. One way that shows a status hierarchy are the clothes that the nurses and the guards wear. The clothes that the patients were given were gray and dirty and old, while that guards and nurses wore nice white uniforms. Also another example of this is the nurses station
A Midsummer Night’s Dream, written by William Shakespeare, shows the strong presence of male dominance in the treatment of women; mirroring the social standards of the time during the sixteenth and seventeenth century. Women were raised to obtain an obedient and inferior position to men. Men, conversely, were seen as superior and expected to be treated as such. Louis Montrose explains in his article the “representations of gender and power in a stratified society in which authority is everywhere invested in men…” (Montrose 244). By utilizing the characters during their role reversals and exchanged dialogue, Shakespeare makes it this standard stronger as the play proceeds. He provides certain cases that create concrete demonstrations.
This is shown by the government keeping the lower class poor by not helping them financially and killing them when they are sick and helping the middle class and upper class when sick if they have money. A very specific example is when one of the main character's family gets killed because they very sick and poor. The second example is in the text Twelfth Night, Twelfth Night shows society and class of the Elizabethan era hierarchy. If you guys do not remember what the Elizabethan era hierarchy is I will explain again but next time do not sleep in class. Elizabethan era hierarchy is split into four groups Man, Gender, Universe and society. A very specific example in the book is when Sir Andrew being a lower class wants to be with a wealthy noble lady who is Olivia for her money and class.This results in lower class trying to be with higher class because they want to raise their rank because they feel unequal The last example of society and class is from the book Uglies,Uglies are lower class people in the book that look upto the pretties being the higher class. A specific example is when one of the Uglies are talking to another Uglie and they talk about how the pretties are better then them. This results in the Uglies feeling unequal to
They are later informed that this particular village is considered a poor one and that the jewels they saw were considered nothing more than pebbles (42). It is realized then that this society operates under the assumption that all men are equal. Objects considered signs of great wealth in Europe are a common part of life in El Dorado, expressing a lack of distinction between the classes in theory. This is implied even more when they greet the king by embracing him and kissing his cheeks, as opposed to the European model of displaying obedience and inferiority (45). However, El Dorado is not without inequality. Though it can be assumed that the wealth is distributed rather equally, there is still such a thing as a poor village. There also exists a hierarchy within society. A king will always rank higher than his subjects in theory. There is also a huge contradiction in regards to free will. The king claims that “all men are free” and then goes on to says his subjects “made a vow never to quit the kingdom, and they are too wise to break it.” (46) The latter
The use of social status' and roles and the difference between them in King Lear are endless. William Shakespeare's play, King Lear, provides an understanding on everything from illegitimate children, mental illness, the poor and the wealthy. The play seems to test and analyze some sixteenth century social structures but offers some profound solutions. It also takes a really hard look at England's social troubles but ultimately ends up supporting the existing conditions. Shakespeare's “social paradox" is described as the way we productively criticize and challenge the claim that social hierarchies are naturally harsh, while at the same time, increases and aid these very perceptions continuously. Although Shakespeare envisions a world where characters overturn the usual code and regulations of society, he also discusses the fundamentals of these laws for the prosperity of a strong social body. The social status of the characters dominates their every day life and even meddle with their world of sensibility, whether in higher or in lower class. By seeing how three different characters display Shakespeare's "social paradox", a reader today can comprehend the twist that Shakespeare offered his Elizabethan audience more thoroughly.
During Shakespeare's time social classification was much more rigid than today and some members of society were considered superior to other members. Shakespeare provides an example of this rigid social structure through his play, The Tempest. Shakespeare illustrates how superior men differentiated themselves from lesser beings on the basis of race, financial status, and gender. Through the character of Prospero, Shakespeare provides and example of one, who had reason to feel superior, yet treated others equally and with the respect due to them.
The Elizabethan World Picture begins focus on the Order of the Universe. Tillyard explains that God has created an order for everything. Cosmic order is a key characteristic in poetry and plays written in the Elizabethan time period. Tillyard claims that our order is affected by personal connections with each rank. Tillyard uses several examples of order in our lives one of those being, “the sun, and the king, primogeniture hang together”. Primogeniture is the right for the firstborn to inherit the family estates. This order is shown to be in conflict in Shakespeare’s play, Richard the Second. In Richard II the sun was the king, and he was to be respected as he divinely anointed by God for his role. We see an ignoring of this divine order when Henry Bolingbroke and the other nobles take it upon themselves to rebel and pressure the king into giving up his crown. Ironically, primogeniture is used to excuse treason in one case and then ignored to take Richard’s crown. When Bolingbroke arrived he claimed that he was only interested in taking back his God given right and at the end of the play we see Bolingbroke and the nobles ignoring Richard’s divine right to rule because he does not have the ability to rule. A lot of respect was given to cosmic order during Elizabethan times. It was believed that to be out of order, especially the cosmic order caused strife and chaos in the universe.
During the medieval periods, the social rank of an individual set limits to what they could accomplish in life. This system of social status obligated and forced people to stick to what "fate" and society had in store for them. For example, peasants could only be peasants and that was the only occupation they could be. Individuals in higher social ranks such as kings, some knights and people of the church looked down at people at lower ranks. In the movie this is seen when William is found to be a fraud and only because he isn’t nobility , he is arrested and shunned. Many aspects of the movie demonstrates that social statuses revolve around individuals having more pride by either earning it or pretending to have it.