Crossing Brooklyn Ferry Essay Example for Free

Crossing Brooklyn Ferry Essay Ferry is considered one of the greatest lyrical poems of all time. In Crossing Brooklyn Ferry, Walt Whitman uses connotative diction, prying questions, and critical reader engagement to convey a feeling of connection and unity of people through time. By using these certain rhetoric strategies, Whitman creates a piece of poetry that seems to be timeless. Whitman carefully chooses certain words and phrases that really highlight his intentions to connect himself and others readers throughout time. In part 2 of the poem, Walt chooses the words â€Å"simple† and â€Å"compact† to describe a â€Å"scheme† in which we are all â€Å"disintegrated†. These words, precise and carefully chosen, attribute to the great lyricism of the poem. A scheme that is simple is a scheme that we can all live by. And a compact, simple scheme connotes togetherness. Whitman continues to say we’re all disintegrated, but part of the scheme. Being disintegrated could also means we are all little pieces of the same body, or scheme Another simple rhetoric strategy imposed by Whitman to convey a sense of unity between he and the reader is reader engagement. Whitman involves and engages the ready by asking the reader questions, and relating to the reader. By effectively asking questions, Whitman suggest to readers from past and future times that maybe there is not much that separates them. â€Å"What is it then between us? What is the count of scores or hundreds of years between us? The use of these rhetoric strategies are just a few the devices that makes Walt Whitman’s â€Å"Crossing the Brooklyn Ferry† a timeless masterpiece.

What a Home Really is in The House on Mango Street Essay -- The House

What a Home Really is in The House on Mango Street â€Å"Home is where the heart is.† In The House on Mango Street, Sandra Cisneros develops this famous statement to depict what a â€Å"home† really represents. What is a home? Is it a house with four walls and a roof, the neighborhood of kids while growing up, or a unique Cleaver household where everything is perfect and no problems arise? According to Cisneros, we all have our own home with which we identify; however, we cannot always go back to the environment we once considered our dwelling place. The home, which is characterized by who we are, and determined by how we view ourselves, is what makes every individual unique. A home is a personality, a depiction of who we are inside and how we grow through our life experiences. In her personal, Cisneros depicts Esperanza Cordero’s coming-of-age through a series of vignettes about her family, neighborhood, and personalized dreams. Although the novel does not follow a traditional chronological pattern, a sto ry emerges, nevertheless, of Esperanza’s search to discover the meaning of her life and her personal identity. The novel begins when the Cordero family moves into a new house, the first they have ever owned, on Mango Street in the Latino section of Chicago. Esperanza is disappointed by the â€Å"small and red† house â€Å"with tight steps in front and bricks crumbling in places† (5). It is not at all the dream-house her parents had always talked about, nor is it the house on a hill that Esperanza vows to one day own for herself. Despite its location in a rough neighborhood and difficult lifestyle, Mango Street is the place with which she identifies at this time in her life. While growing up on Mango Street, Esperanza is not on... ..., â€Å"Mango says goodbye sometimes. She does not hold me with both arms. She sets me free† (134). Although Esperanza is constantly reaffirming that she wants to move away from Mango Street, we know by the end novel that she will one day return to help those who will not have the opportunities Esperanza has had in her life. Indeed, in the closing pages Esperanza admits that she cannot escape Mango Street. She can never again call it home, but it has influenced her dreams, formed her personality, and she has learned valuable life lessons from its inhabitants. That is why, explains Esperanza, she tells stories about the house on Mango Street, revealing the beauty amidst dirty streets and unveiling her true inner self, the peace of knowing that her â€Å"home is where her heart is.† WORKS CITED Cisneros, Sandra. The House on Mango Street. New York: Vintage, 1989.

French Revolution: Ultimately a Failure

Liberte, Egalite, and Fraternite were the main principles of the French revolution. However, it was a time where these three ideals would be twisted into nothing more than moral and physical violence. The revolution was ultimately a failure which spun out of control and began to murder itself. The French wanted Freedom from its absolutist ruler, but in turn saw themselves being governed by the devil. These citizens wanted a sense of brotherhood amongst their country, but saw their nation being torn apart by violence.Furthermore, the third estate sought to benefit from a new government that promised equality; however, the result was a further imbalance in an already corrupt society. Ironically, the gruesome reign of terror which was fabricated by the French government, contradicted the ideals of which the very revolution stood for, further illustrating the utter failure of this event. In the beginning, the French saw the revolution as a way to improve their lives, but this path quickl y turned into a horrifying ascent into oblivion, which aside from immense suffering, achieved nothing.During the reign of King Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, revolutionary ideas flourished through the age of enlightenment. However, Louis made a crucial mistake by aiding the American Revolution; although it was a military success, it was an economic failure. France was bankrupt and the people were starving; they watched as their monarchs, nobles and aristocracy live a life of luxury and wealth while they suffered through poverty, drastically changing how the citizens perceived their monarch. Soon this resentment transformed into pure hatred and nothing could be done to change their minds.Before long the people revolted and Louis’ powers were stripped away, a new man was then put in his place, Robespierre. Maximilien Francois Marie Isidore de Robespierre was a man who had great power and abused it; to some he was â€Å"The Incorruptible†, but in reality was a blood thir sty dictator. As a young man, he studied the law and held a reputation for honesty and compassion. He sought to abolish the death penalty and refused to pronounce a required death sentence after becoming a judge : A victor who kills his captive enemies is called a barbarian!A grown man who kills a child that he could disarm and punish seems to us a monster! An accused man condemned by society is nothing else for it but a defeated and powerless enemy. Before it, he is weaker than a child before a grown man — to erase from the code of the French the blood laws that command judicial murders, and that their morals and their new constitution reject. I want to prove to them: 1- that the death penalty is essentially unjust and, 2- that it isn’t the most repressive of penalties and that it multiplies crimes more than it prevents them.However, as the revolution progressed so did his ideas; he soon became the head of the Jacobin club, a radical group who advocated exile or death for the French nobility. By this time the once soft and kind-hearted man, was now replaced by one who had developed a great love of power along with a reputation of intolerance, self-righteousness and cruelty . Robespierre quickly came to a conclusion that the end would justify the means, and that in order to defend the revolution against those who would destroy it, the shedding of blood was justified.Merlin de Thionville who was a member of several French legislative bodies said commented that: â€Å"In those days so rotten had France become that a bloody mountebank without talent or courage, whose name was Robespierre, made every citizen tremble under his tyranny†. The French now lived under fear and oppression of a man who no longer cared for the people of the revolution but rather the revolution itself. Using his great oratory skills he successfully demanded the execution of the king and queen without fair trial or judgement, saying that â€Å"Louis must die so that the revolution may live†.In January 1973 Louis XVI was executed, followed by his wife ten months later. By his own words he had become a monster, â€Å"A victor who kills his captive enemies is called a barbarian† . A nation cannot be one when the people do not believe in the ideals of the government. The revolution was merely a civil war which pitted citizens against one another. While many people believed in the revolution, they did not accept the extremist ideas of the Jacobins, and for that thousands of ordinary people were targeted and killed.The September Massacres was a subsequent mass killing of prisoners, after news that the Prussian Army had invaded France. On September 3, 1792, crowds of French citizens stormed into the prisons where they attacked prisoners and refractory clergy, regardless of their status as counter revolutionary. An account of this event by Nicolas-Edme Restif illustrates the torture the citizens inflicted on the prisoners who were their †Å"brothers†: There had been a pause in the murders. Something was going on inside. . . . I told myself that it was over at last.Finally, I saw a woman appear, as white as a sheet, being helped by a turnkey. They said to her harshly: â€Å"Shout ‘Vive la nation! ‘† â€Å"No! No! † she said. They made her climb up on a pile of corpses. One of the killers grabbed the turnkey and pushed him away. â€Å"Oh! † exclaimed the ill-fated woman, â€Å"do not harm him! † They repeated that she must shout â€Å"Vive la nation! † With disdain, she refused. Then one of the killers grabbed her, tore away her dress, and ripped open her stomach. She fell, and was finished off by the others. Never could I have imagined such horror. I wanted to run, but my legs gave way.I fainted. When I came to, I saw the bloody head. Someone told me they were going to wash it, curl its hair, stick it on the end of a pike, and carry it past the windows of the Temple . What pointless cruelty! . . The number of active killers who took part in the massacres was about one hundred and fifty. The rest of Paris looked on with fear or approval, and the rest behind closed shutters, signifying the destruction of unity through the people. With a country whose citizens mercilessly killed one another, how could the French have a sense of Fraternite amongst themselves?A Nation is not united under fear and death but rather through peace and prosperity, which was clearly the opposite of the French Revolution. Equality was promised to the third estate, but the revolution did not create a balance. What it did was further upset the structure of society. In turn the first and second estate was removed from power, and the bourgeoisie put in their place. The rest of the third estate which included the peasants and the working class (sans-culottes), were left with nothing: They were the working people, the farmers, the shop owners, the trades people, the artisans, an d even the factory workers.They were among the prominent losers of the first, more subtle revolution. While the middle class and wealthy classes benefitted greatly from the revolution, the sans-culottes saw their livelihoods disappearing and inflation driving them to fight for survival. The sans-culottes and peasants were generally poor and had little power, they could not vote, hold office, or own land because they did not have the means to do so. Since they could not own land, peasants were angry that they had traded one master for another; once again they had found themselves at the bottom of the ladder.The Sans-culottes atoned for this by aligning themselves with the Jacobins. While this alliance gave them a facade of power, they were nothing more than henchmen to a group of radical thinkers who needed people to do their dirty work. However, at the end, many of the Sans-culottes found themselves imprisoned and executed by the very revolutionary tribunals that they had supported. The revolution gave nothing more than an illusion of what the common masses craved; while the first and second estates were gone, a new powerful and cruel organization made up of the bourgeoisie were put in their place.The Reign of Terror was designed to fight the enemies of the revolution; with that in mind the revolution was no longer about freedom, equality and brotherhood, but rather an extremist form of revolutionary ideals. Anyone who had not aligned themselves with the Jacobin rule or had talent and power were seen as a threat to the new revolution, they were subsequently dubbed as traitors and sentenced to the guillotine. For the first time in history, terror became an official government policy, with the intent to use violence to achieve political goals.In the course of this reign the new regime managed to execute thousands of people who were considered as having the potential to stand up or overthrow the government. Through this, scores of influential people were falsely accused. In one particular execution, a woman by the name of Mme Roland uttered the words that have been immortalized by history, â€Å"O Liberty, what crimes are committed in thy name†. She was right, the revolution had abused and committed crimes against not only the idea of liberte, but also of egalite and fraternite.Every person who placed their head upon the guillotine, were there because the three ideals which the revolution stood for were corrupted to support the extremist views of the Jacobins. The modern era has unfolded the shadows of the French revolution. Ultimately this time period did not bring any successes, but rather the opposite. The revolution was purely the product of a few conspiratorial individuals who brainwashed the masses into subverting the old order. The promises of egalite, equalite, and fraternite, were soon lost as violence and bloodshed set in.The French were eager to be free of the constricting class system and absolute monarchy. However, the p eople found themselves under the rule of a man who oppressed the people into an absolute state of obedience. Furthermore, the French wanted a sense of unity throughout their country, but instead resorted to the brutal murders of their own people. Ultimately, this reformation was caused by an upset in the balance of equality amongst the classes. The third estate was promised equal status by the revolution, but in the end only the bourgeoisie emerged victorious.Ironically, the reign of terror distorted the three main ideals for which the revolution stood for. Through the guidance of corrupted leaders, these ideas were washed away in bloodshed. The French revolution is an usurpation of power gone wrong, at the end of this ten year period, nothing was gained, yet everything was lost. The people who once saw this transformation as the answer to an oppressive regime soon realized that had simply set themselves up for a meeting with death.

Women and Welfare Essay - 1335 Words

The Struggle of Women on Welfare nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;Women in today’s society face many adversities. In this essay I will discuss fact versus stereotypical perceptions about the various social and economic problems women must face everyday. I grew up on the Upper East Side in Manhattan mostly comprised of wealthy, socialite families. I attended The Convent of Sacred Heart, also one of the top, private, all girl schools in Manhattan. The majority of the students come from very privileged families and are, more often than not, very spoiled and naà ¯ve to the world around them. While I was attending High School, I found it very hard to make friends with some of the students that went to Sacred Heart. I hated the way â€Å"rich kids†Ã¢â‚¬ ¦show more content†¦She got pregnant at the age of 17 and married her high school boyfriend. She went on and on about how difficult it was for her to live anywhere else but there. She said once you are born in the South Bronx there is barely a chance you will e ver leave. She did not get a job because she had to stay home with her children. Her and her husband did not have enough money to get someone to watch over her children and even if she did she would not trust them. She said they lived off the very small paycheck her husband was bringing home and the city was giving her food stamps. Her husband was in a gang and came home very late; most of the time stumbling through the door to their tiny apartment. He was heavily involved in dealing and using drugs and if when she questioned him and pleaded with him to stop, he hit her. She was battered for almost 3 years until she realized her children were in jeopardy. One day, when her husband was out, she packed her things and went to the Aegis Battered Womens Program located in the Bronx. She’s been there for almost a year now. She described her decision as the smartest and scariest thing she’d ever done for herself and her kids but everyday she fears her husband will find her. W omen like this, amaze me. I’ve read many books and seen many movies about women who are too scared to leave their husbands. Even though they are being battered, they stay because they convince themselves that their man truly loves them.Show MoreRelatedWomen Welfare1704 Words   |  7 PagesWomen and Welfare Women are beginning to face several problems in todays time. Ranging from being treated as only sex symbols to having to live the stereotype of you have to be skinny to be beautiful, the last thing women need is another rising problem. Unfortunately for women and even society though, one exists. 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