The Role of Antigone free essay sample

An analysis of the character Antigone in Sophocles play by the same name. The paper analyzes Sophocles play Antigone, which tells the narrative of the demise of Oedipus daughter/sister in the context of the larger tragedy of the rulers of the ancient Greek city of Thebes. The paper discusses how, in the context of the play, Antigone does not only function as a singular individual, experiencing a single dilemma of character, she also functions as a young woman playing several roles. It shows that her first role is that of a bereaved sister, then her role is that of a daughter and sister of a uniquely tragic oedipal house. Finally her role is one of an ordinary woman dying before her time because of the fundamental, fated, and unsolvable conflict between the obligations of blood and obligations of a citizen. When her crime is discovered, Antigone adopts a new role, that of a woman whom is not only a sister of a dead brother, but also the descendant of a house uniquely battered at torn at by fate who has a unique destiny to fulfill. We will write a custom essay sample on The Role of Antigone or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page She assumes this destiny in contrast to her sister Ismene. When asked if she feels any hatred for the killer of her own brother, Antigone says, Brother yes, by the same mother, the same father. In other words, both brothers slew his brother; both have committed the tragic crime of fratricide. In the face of such evil, who can judge one brother above another? That is the essence of the tragedy of Thebes, of the confusion of familial roles.

Finding a Home for the Homeless Professor Ramos Blog

Finding a Home for the Homeless Everyday, more and more Americans are being evicted from their homes. According to the Public Policy Institute of America, â€Å"In California alone, there were over 130,000 homeless just last year† (Mejia Hsieh). In 2017, the town of Beaumont alone had 2,406 counted homeless (Schiavone). Which for the size of the town is significantly larger than it should be. This begs the question, why is the homeless population in the county of Riverside so high? Hopefully this paper will be able to answer that question, as well as finding potential solutions to the problems of homelessness in Beaumont. There are multiple factors that lead to homeless, from lack of education, to mental and physical health. Johnetta Hardin and her partner Diane Wille from the University of Indiana found that lack of education leads to a lack of a well paying job. They also found that mental illness in the homeless population averages sixty percent in the group they interviewed. (36) Mental illness is shown to be the leading cause of homelessness. However, harsher problems, such as addiction, are also some of the more common sources. Because of the cost associated with drugs, addiction can lead to debt which can result in loss of employment and transportation, which in turn leads to loss of a home, amongst other things. Shelters are not as available as your local Starbucks, but they are still around the surrounding area. So why do we have homeless still sleeping on the streets? It turns out it is actually more difficult to get into a homeless shelter than it appears. To start off, the nearest shelter to Beaumont is in Hemet which is about a thirty-five minute drive. Second, women and children are prioritized in entry for most shelters. With only a limited number of space, it increases the chances of not gaining entry if you’re a male. Additionally, if you fail to get into a shelter a couple nights in a row, what would be the point of returning? Many shelters require a clean drug test to enter and if your are under the influence in any way, they do not admit you. A significant amount of those with mental health issues often turn to illegal drugs to self medicate. This makes it difficult for many people to gain access to shelters that are designed to rehome many of the people who are living on the street. And being that addiction is one of the highest causes of homelessness, it makes sense that there is such a high number of homeless on the streets (Hardin Wille 37). There are many theories on how we can lower and even potentially solve the homeless problem. Even though Beaumont is not the largest city in Riverside County, it is still fairly populated. Beaumont also has a large amount of open land available. The solution that I am proposing is one that can hopefully aid in many of the problems homeless have today. Having a rehabilitation center for the people in need of it. A center that can help in solving drug addictions, financial issues, and even find alternate solutions for the mentally ill. According to the county of Riverside’s website, the County Supervisor for Beaumont receives $5.6 billion dollars a year to finance the county (â€Å"About the County†). If the Supervisor was able to dedicate 2% of that money, it would be enough to finance the construction of buildings and hire trained professionals to aid these individuals. The center would not only help with addictions, but it would also focus on helping families get jobs and teaching them how to properly finance their money. This center can provide mental health therapy, as well as an AA NA meetings for addicts. These meetings can meet once or twice a week for a certain amount of months/years. Not only would there be a center for them to meet but there would also be a tiny home style community. The benefits of tiny homes is that they are cheap and do not take up a lot of space while still providing some sort of shelter. According to Deirdre Sullivan, a reporter in New York that covers home design and improvement, the average tiny home can cost as low as $12,000. (5) These homes come built standard with a working bathroom and shower, as well as a fully functioning kitchen and bed. Although they are smaller in size, the tiny home would be a fantastic starter home for people who don’t even have one. It is also beneficial because of the different sizes. If you are a family of four, you can have a bigger tiny home than say someone who is on their own or has a spouse. Because of the cheaper costs of these homes, it gives the opportunity to provide more of them. If you were to have a plot with sixteen tiny homes, it would cost roughly $192,000, which is almost the price of a modern four bedroom home. These cost effective housing units provide a place and job for the new found dwellers, that of course being the upkeep of their new home. This will slowly help the individual integrate overtime into our community. What’s great about this solution is that it does not stop with the housing. It would also be a cooperative style of living. It would be a way to create jobs within the community. One of the new tenants could grow fruit, another veggies. There could even be one who watches the children when their parents are out working or finding a job. It is a huge task to try and solve homelessness and help the needy. I am not trying to find a solution to homelessness as a whole. I am merely trying to propose an alternative that would help keep individuals off the street and maybe help cure them of an addiction. Or aid families in financial need. Maybe even finding the proper care for people with illnesses, both mental and physical. Hardin, Johnetta, and Diane E. Wille. â€Å"The Homeless Individua’s Viewpoint: Causes of Homelessness and Resources Needed to Leave the Sheltered Environment.† Social Work Social Sciences Review, vol. 19, no. 2, May 2017, pp. 33–48. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=truedb=sihAN=126500977site=ehost-live. I chose this article because it goes into major detail about the reasons people go homeless. As well as not just men, but women and families. Eviction, loss of job, natural disaster, it is all covered in this article. This article will be one of my opening points in the essay about the reasons people end up homeless. Both positive and negative. The authors are reliable because both contain PHDs In Social Studies and are widely known in Indiana for their studies on the homeless. This article is also peer reviewed. Brown, Molly, et al. â€Å"Waiting for Shelter: Perspectives on a Homeless Shelter’s Procedures.† Journal of Community Psychology, vol. 45, no. 7, Sept. 2017, pp. 846–858. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1002/jcop.21896, http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=truedb=sihAN=124846699site=ehost-live This article dives into the shelters and everything about them. How they run, the requirements for entering, the time you’re able to stay in one, ect. This article also describes how difficult it is to get into a homeless shelter. Which I will be using as one of my main points in how to combat homelessness. This article was composed by a number of different authors with multiple degrees in their respective fields. The authors came together to create this study, using their talents in their field, to give a thurow review of homeless shelters and their advantages/disadvantages. This article is peer reviewed â€Å"About the County.† County of Riverside, 19 February 2019, countyofriverside.us/AbouttheCounty/BudgetandFinancialInformation.aspx. This is the official Riverside County page. It describes the county representatives, as well as all of the budgeting. Im going to be referencing the amount of mo available for the district of Beaumont. This is a credible source because it comes directly from the main office of the county and is an official government site. Schiavone, Renee. â€Å"Banning, Beaumont Homeless Population Count: Volunteers Needed.† Banning-Beaumont, CA Patch, Patch, 22 Dec. 2017, patch.com/california/banning-beaumont/banning-beaumont-homeless-population-count-volunteers-needed. This article puts numbers to the homeless specifically in Beaumont. It describes the amount of homeless and how many were sheltered and how many were not. The author also describes minor ways to improve homelessness in the Beaumont/ Banning area. This author I believe is a credible source because she is a local journalist who focuses on environmental problems around the Riverside county area. Mejia, Marisol Cuellar, and Vicki Hsieh. â€Å"A Snapshot of Homelessness in California.† Public Policy Institute of California , Third Strand, 19 Feb. 2019, ppic.org/blog/a-snapshot-of-homelessness-in-california/. This article gives a more focused numbers and statistics on homeless in California as a whole. It shows the specific numbers in change of homeless population in all the major counties. I will use this source to state the number of homeless in California and The county of Riverside. The is a credible source because this article is from the Public Policy Institute of California. It is a reliable source for general and specific information about California. From water policy to education, ect. Sullivan, Deirdre. â€Å"How Much Does a Tiny House Really Cost?† The Spruce, 6 May 2019, thespruce.com/how-much-does-a-tiny-house-cost-4139914. This Article describes the costs and benefits of living in a â€Å"tiny home†. It describes the cost of a tiny home and all the amenities built into the said home. The reason I chose this article was because I am going to use its information and facts as apart of my solution to the problem of homelessness in my town and potentially many others. The author is a credible source because she is a journalist from New York who focuses on house design and construction.

The Civil War Siege of Vicksburg

The Civil War Siege of Vicksburg The siege of Vicksburg on July 4, 1863, was a significant battle of the United States Civil War, and the culmination of one of the most brilliant military campaigns of the war. Vicksburg was a fortress with a massive artillery located on a sharp bend in the Mississippi River. Known as the Gibraltar of the Confederacy, Vicksburg controlled movement and trade along the Mississippi and linked Texas and Louisiana to the rest of the Confederacy. It was the second largest city in Mississippi after Natchez, with an economy based on cotton and riverboat trade and transportation. The 1860 census reports that Vicksburg had a population of 4,591 people, including 3,158 whites, 31 free blacks, and 1,402 slaves. Failed Attempts, and a Plan The north early recognized Vicksburg as a pivotal point, and the first northern siege of the city was attempted in summer 1862 by Admiral David Farragut. General ​Ulysses S. Grant tried again in the winter of 1862-1863, and after two more unsuccessful assaults in May of 1863, Grant began to plan a long-term strategy. To take the fort, there needed to be weeks of bombardment and isolation of Vicksburg from its sources of food, ammunition, and soldiers. Federal forces held the Mississippi River, and as long as the Union forces held their position, the encircled Confederates led by Major Maurice Kavanaugh Simons and the Second Texas Infantry faced decreasing resources. Assembled Union forces began making their way south to Vicksburg during the summer of 1863, masked by occasional forays by gunboats shelling random targets and cavalry raids. By June many of Vicksburgs residents hid in underground caves, and all the people and soldiers were on short rations. The Vicksburg press reported that there would soon be forces coming to their rescue, but General John C. Pemberton who was in charge of Vicksburgs defense knew better and began to scale down expectations. Progress, and a Literary Reference Intermittent shelling from the river increased and intensified during the first week of July, and Vicksburg fell on the fourth. Troops marched in and the stronghold with 30,000 men was ceded to the Union. The battle had 19,233 casualties of which 10,142 were Union soldiers, but the control of Vicksburg meant that the Union commanded traffic on the Mississippi Rivers southern reaches. With the loss of Pemberton’s army and this vital stronghold on the Mississippi, the Confederacy was effectively split in half. Grants successes in the West boosted his reputation, leading ultimately to his appointment as General-in-Chief of the Union armies. Mark Twain and Vicksburg Twenty years later, American satirist Mark Twain used the siege of Vicksburg to craft his Battle of the Sand-Belt in A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthurs Court. According to Mark Twain aficionado and science fiction writer Scott Dalrymple, Grant is represented in the novel by its hero, Boss Hank Morgan. Like reports of the Siege of Vicksburg, the Battle of the Sand-Belt is, says Dalrymple, a relentlessly realistic portrayal of war, a clash between a chivalric, slave-owning, agrarian society and a modern, technologically advanced republic led by a general-president. Sources Braudaway DL. 2001. A Texan Records the Civil War Siege of Vicksburg, Mississippi: The Journal of Maj. Maurice Kavanaugh Simons, 1863. The Southwestern Historical Quarterly 105(1):92-131.Dalrymple S. 1996. Just War, Pure and Simple: A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthurs Court and the American Civil War. American Literary Realism, 1870-1910 29(1):1-11.Henry G, and Simms LM. 1967. A Louisiana Engineer at the Siege of Vicksburg: Letters of Henry Ginder. Louisiana History: The Journal of the Louisiana Historical Association 8(4):371-378.Osborn GC. 1955. A Tennessean at the Siege of Vicksburg: The Diary of Samuel Alexander Ramsey Swan, May-July, 1863. Tennessee Historical Quarterly 14(4):353-372.

Just War Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Just War - Essay Example Based on the information relayed by this text, I concur with it especially when it comes to the issue of â€Å"Just war†. However, the strong insistence that a certain state would result to this remedy in most cases pose numerous questions to the non-involved parties. Based on the illustrations that you have relayed concerning varied wars, which America involved itself, I agree the magnitude used in executing â€Å"Just War† does not commensurate with the case at hand. This is evident during the use of an atomic weapon during WW11 whereby it ended up exterminating numerous civilians than the targeted elements. Hence, proving despite respective authorities allowing â€Å"Just War† the remedy ends up being worse than anticipated good for not only results to massive massacre but also disruption of economy of innocent people . In addition, I do also concur with your text regarding impacts that up to date and as detailed in numerous annals of historical accounts when US involved it regional wars. This is encompasses US’ involvement in Iraq that you have stated lightly but on reflecting about the scenario and drawing similar conventional review in other incidents proves how â€Å"Just war† may be worse than good. This is beca use it is acts as a tool that â€Å"engulfs† hidden agendas but â€Å"sugar-coated† with intentions of ensuring peace, which is not the case. Since, most of US’ motivations range from political to economical whereby in losing these goals is the greatest fear. Hence, result to be more vocal compared to other global states.

Chicano Movement Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Chicano Movement - Essay Example Luis Valdez was a Mexican American who hailed from a family of migrant farm workers. Valdez’s parents, Francisco and Armida Valdez, moved from farm to farm as hired hands where Valdez was also expected to help out in order the support to the big family of 10 children that his parents had. Even though Valdez was expected to both work and read and his schools kept changing, Valdez attained a strong position for himself as a student excelling in performing arts (Meier, 230). Luis Valdez is the father of Chicano Theatre. This is because he formed the El Teatro Campesino which served as the first platform for performing arts for the Chicano Movement. Valdez’s love for the performing arts began when his school teacher introduced him to puppet art. Later during his college and university days, Valdez pursued the love and created his own theatre group. The purpose of this theatre group was to bring the plight of the Mexican Americans to the forefront. Valdez began working in theatre during his college days at San Jose State College. In 1963, he introduced his first play. The Shrunken Head of Pancho Villa was one play that Valdez directed and wrote during his time in San Jose State College. After leaving college, Valdez went on to join a Mime Troupe based in San Francisco. It was from here that Valdez learned the method of using theatre as a platform for expressing his own pent up anger. It was on the basis of this work that Valdez formed his theatre group in 1965. This was a group that toured different cities and enacted short one-act plays, also known as an actor.

The Different Scopic Orders Of The Modern Era Film Essay

The Different Scopic Orders Of The Modern Era Film Essay The modern era has allegedly been dominated by the sense of sight, in a way that has seen it set apart from the premodern era and the postmodern era. In his text Scopic Regimes of Modernity Martin Jay draws our attention to scopic order in the modern era, which is an area with many conflicting views that are not often in alignment with each other. Jay argues the point that there may not be one unified scopic regime, a term used by french film theorist Christian Metz, and that there is room for argument with the idea that there are a number of competing regimes associated with the modern era. Jay looks at the mirror of nature, a metaphor in philosophy by Richard Forty, the emphasis of surveillance that was put forward by Michel Foucault, and the society of the spectacle argued by Guy Debord. Jay also goes on to look at the arguably dominant scopic regime known as Cartesian Perspectivalism, what is normally claimed to be the dominant, even totally hegemonic, visual model of the modern era. Also discussed are the major competitors to Cartesian Perspectivalism, which includes mapping, which is, a visual culture very different from what we associate with Renaissance perspective, one which Svetlana Alpers has recently called The Art of Describing. and the third model of vision, which is best identified with the baroque. Wà ¶lfflin later called it, the classical style, the baroque was painterly, recessional, soft-focused, multiple, and open in his study, Renaissance and Baroque. Jacqueline Roses quote used by Jay to back up his opinion that there are many views which come into play when discussing the subject of scopic regimes, our previous history is not the petrified block of a single visual space since, looked at obliquely, it can always be seen to contain its moment of unease. (Rose, 1986, p.232-233.) Jays argument continues with him writing about the idea that this subject is not one of solidity. Bringing in the notion that the topic of, scopic regimes of modern ity, is best discussed on what he describes as, contested terrain, rather then harmoniously integrated complex of visual theories and practices. Modernity has often been considered resolutely ocular-centric, which is the act of basing all experience on the perception of the eyes, with sight being very direct and centered. The invention of printing reinforced the advantage of visual aids such as the telescope, which with its con-vexed lens helped expand the apparent angular size of distant objects. Along with the microscope, which aids the eye to see objects that are too small visually for the naked eye. These inventions helped put more emphasis on sight and vision. It is difficult to deny that the visual sense has been dominant in modern western culture in a wide variety of different ways, with Martin Jay calling visionthe master sense of the modern era. Scopic Regime, a term first coined by French film theorist Christian Metz in his book The Imaginary Signifier a study on cinema and psychoanalysis. It was used to distinguish the differences from the cinema to the theatre. What defines the specifically cinematic scopic regime is not so much the distance kept, the keeping itself (first figure of the lack, common to all voyeurism), as the absence of the object seen. (Metz, 1982, p.61.) The cinema is profoundly different from the theatre as also from more intimate voyeuristic activities with a specifically erotic aim. METZ It is the last recess that is attacked by the cinema signifier, it is in its precise emplacement that it installs a new figure of the lack, the physical absence of the object seen. In the theatre, actors and spectators are present at the same time and in the same location, hence present one to another, as the two protagonists of an authentic perverse couple. But in the cinema, the actor was present when the spectator was not (shooting), and the spectator is present when the actor is no longer. (Projection). A failure to meet of the voyeur and the exhibitionist whose approaches no longer coincide. (they have missed one another) The cinemas voyeurism must do without any very clear mark of consent on the part of the object. There is no equivalent here of the theater actors final bow. And then the latter could see their voyeurs, the game was less unilateral, slightly better distributed. In the darkened hall, the voyeur is really left alone.(P.63) In this text, Metz develops an analysis between film spectatorship and voyeurism. According to him, enhancing the essential property of the voyeuristic gaze that of keeping the desired, seen object at a safe distance from the viewing subject cinema locates its own data in the for- ever inaccessible, in a realm which is incessantly desirable but that can never be possessed, in the scene of absence. Cinema, in other words, shows us the world, and at the same time it takes it away from us. As Metz writes,  «what defines the properly cinematographic scopic regime is not the maintained distance, nor the care exerted in maintaining it, but the sheer absence of the seen object. Cinema is therefore a form of absolute voyeurism: it is founded on an unbridgeable distance, on a total inaccessibility. 3) Emphasize the prevalence of surveillance with Michael Foucault Our society is not one of spectacle, but of surveillanceWe are neither in the amphitheater, nor on the stage, but in the panoptic machine, invested by its effects of power, which we bring to ourselves since we are part of its mechanism. (Foucault, 1979, p.127.) Among French intellectuals in the 1960s and 1970s it was Michel Foucault who most explicitly interrogated the gaze of surveillance and Guy Debord and his situationist international collaborators who explored the vision of the spectacle. Together they provided an array of different arguments looking from different perspectives against the hegemony of the eye. With their work, the ocular-centrism of those who praised the nobility of sight was not so much rejected, as reversed in value. Vision was still the privileged sense, but what that privilege produced in the modern world was damned as almost entirely corrupting. Foucault called it the unimpeded empire of the gaze. (Foucault, 1973, p.39.) and Guy Debord called it society of the spectacle. (Debord, 1981, p.25.) Gilles Deleuze characterized Foucaults work as a duel investigation of articulable statements and fields of visibilities. Deleuze stated that Foucault continued to be fascinated by what he saw as much as by what he heard or read, and the archaeology he conceived of is an audiovisual archive Foucault never stopped being a voyant at the same time as he marked philosophy with a new style of statement. (Deleuze, 1988, p.50.) Allan Megill, a philosophical writer, has claimed that in his earlier more structuralist moments, Foucault was himself intent on portraying a lucent Apollonian world (Megill, 1983, p.218) within which ocular-centrism was neutrally accepted. The vision that should be incorporated into psychoanalysis Foucault insisted, had to be understood phenomenologically, taking into account the livid spatial experience that emerged from the bodys intertwining with the world. Authentic versions of that experience were undermined, he claimed if vision was reduced to its traditional Cartesian spectral role based on the dualism of subject and object. Foucault was drawn to Belgian Surrealist painter Renà © Magritte, Magrittes work frequently displays a juxtaposition of ordinary objects in an unusual context, giving new meanings to familiar things. The representational use of objects as other than what they seem is typified in his painting, The Treachery of Images, which depicts a pipe that looks as though it is a model for a tobacco store advert. Magritte painted below the pipe ceci nest pas une pipe translated it means This is not a pipe, Which would appear to be a contradiction, but in reality it is a true statement. The painting is no t a pipe, just an image of a pipe. When Magritte was once asked about his painting, he replied that of course it was not a pipe, just try and fill it with tobacco. Magritte used the same approach in a painting of an apple, he painted the fruit realistically and then used an internal caption to deny that the item was an apple. In these works Magritte points out that no matter how closely through art we come to depicting an item accurately we never actually catch the item itself. Foucault explored a more visibly explicit version of interaction within Magrittes work, he described Magrittes canvases as the opposite of trompe loeil which is an art technique involving extremely realistic imagery in order to create the optical illusion that the depicted objects appear in three dimensions because of their understanding of the mimetic conventions of realistic painting. Foucault also referred to them as unraveled calligrams as they refused to close the gap between the image and the world. Resemblance serves representation which rules over it; similitude serves repetition, which ranges across it. Resemblance predicates itself upon a model it must return to and reveal; similitude circulates the simulacrum as an indefinite and reversible relation of the similar to the similar. (Levy, 1990, p.44) The Panopticon (all-seeing) functioned as a round-the-clock surveillance machine. Its design ensured that no prisoner could ever see the inspector who conducted surveillance from the privileged central location within the radial configuration. The prisoner could never know when he was being surveilled mental uncertainty that in itself would prove to be a crucial instrument of discipline. French philosopher Michel Foucault described the implications of Panopticism in his 1975 work Discipline Punish: The Birth of the Prison Hence the major effect of the Panopticon: to induce in the inmate a state of conscious and permanent visibility that assures the automatic functioning of power. So to arrange things that the surveillance is permanent in its effects, even if it is discontinuous in its action; that the perfection of power should tend to render its actual exercise unnecessary; that this architectural apparatus should be a machine for creating and sustaining a power relation independent of the person who exercises it; in short, that the inmates should be caught up in a power situation of which they are themselves the bearers. To achieve this, it is at once too much and too little that the prisoner should be constantly observed by an inspector: too little, for what matters is that he knows himself to be observed; too much, because he has no need in fact of being so. In view of this, Bentham laid down the principle that power should be visible and unverifiable. Visible: the inmate will constantly have befo re his eyes the tall outline of the central tower from which he is spied upon. Unverifiable: the inmate must never know whether he is being looked at at any one moment; but he must be sure that he may always be so. In order to make the presence or absence of the inspector unverifiable, so that the prisoners, in their cells, cannot even see a shadow, Bentham envisaged not only venetian blinds on the windows of the central observation hall, but, on the inside, partitions that intersected the hall at right angles and, in order to pass from one quarter to the other, not doors but zig-zag openings; for the slightest noise, a gleam of light, a brightness in a half-opened door would betray the presence of the guardian. The Panopticon is a machine for dissociating the see/being seen dyad: in the peripheric ring, one is totally seen, without ever seeing; in the central tower, one sees everything without ever being seen. Foucault also compares modern society with Jeremy Benthams Panopticon design for prisons (which was unrealized in its original form, but nonetheless influential): in the Panopticon, a single guard can watch over many prisoners while the guard remains unseen. Ancient prisons have been replaced by clear and visible ones, but Foucault cautions that visibility is a trap. It is through this visibility, Foucault writes, that modern society exercises its controlling systems of power and knowledge (terms Foucault believed to be so fundamentally connected that he often combined them in a single hyphenated concept, power-knowledge). Increasing visibility leads to power located on an increasingly individualized level, shown by the possibility for institutions to track individuals throughout their lives. Foucault suggests that a carceral continuum runs through modern society, from the maximum security prison, through secure accommodation, probation, social workers, police, and teachers, to our e veryday working and domestic lives. All are connected by the (witting or unwitting) supervision (surveillance, application of norms of acceptable behaviour) of some humans by others. Or look into the society of the spectacle with Guy Debord The entire life of societies in which modern conditions of production reign announces itself as an immense accumulation of spectacles. Everything that was directly lived has moved away into representation. (Debord, 1977, par.1.) With the term spectacle, Debord defines the system that is a confluence of advanced capitalism, the mass media, and the types of governments who favor those phenomena. The spectacle is the inverted image of society in which relations between commodities have supplanted relations between people in which passive identification with the spectacle supplants genuine activity. The spectacle is not a collection of images, writes Debord rather, it is a social relationship between people that is meditated by images. In his analysis of the spectacular society, Debord notes that quality of life is impoverished, with such lack of authenticity human perceptions are affected, and theres also a degradation of knowledge with the hindering of critical thought. 4) Cartesian Perspectivalism, is normally considered the dominant hegemonic scopic regime of the modern era. It is a way of seeing both then and now, a method of perception that represents space and the subjects and objects in that space according to the rules of Euclidean geometry. Renaissance painters, such as Brunelleschi, and Alberti, who was known as a draftsman rather than a painter, developed a geometric space complimentary to the mathematical space of Descartess philosophy. Perspective in painting projects a plane onto its object of study and creates a one-to-one correspondence between points on the plane and points on the canvas. Brunelleschi, who is traditionally accorded to the honor of being the practical inventor of perspective, he begun by using architectural figures such as buildings, ceilings, and tiled floors which easily match the grid structure of the projective plane.   Later, other objects were fitted and shaped within the geometrical patterning of linear perspect ive. Alberti is acknowledged, almost universally, as being the first theoretical interpreter of perspective. He regarded mathematics as the common ground for art and sciences. I will take first from the mathematicians those things which my subject is concerned. (Alberti DELLA PITTURA) The scopic regime that was interpreted Descartes philosophy is usually identified with Renaissance notions of perspective in the visual arts and the Cartesian ideas of subjective rationality in philosophy. Art historian William Ivins, Jr., in his Art and Geometry of 1946 said that the history of art during the five hundred years that have elapsed since Alberti wrote has been little more than the story of slow diffusion of his ideas through the artists and peoples of Europe. Richard Rorty discussed Descartes ideas in his writing Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature, published in 1979. He claimed, in the cartesian model the intellect inspects entities modeled on retinal images In Descartes conception the one that become the basis for modern epistemology it is representations which are in the mind. These two prominent social commentators, have illustrated their view which is considered to be be equivalent to our view of the modern scopic regime. The aforementioned quotes assume that Ca rtesian perspectivalism is the main visual model of modernity, these authors believe it best expresses a natural experience of sight validated by the scientific world view. (maybe say it in a simplified form too.) In his famous essay Perspective as Symbolic Form, Panofsky, a German art historian, highlights the break made through linear perspective by contrasting Renaissance painting with that of Greek and Medieval works.  Ã‚   Prior to the Renaissance, painting concerned itself with individual objects, but the space which they inhabited failed to embrace or dissolve the opposition between bodies.   Space acted as a simple superposition, a still unsystematic overlapping.  Ã‚   With linear perspective comes an abstract spatial system capable of ordering objects: As various as antique theories of space were, none of them succeeded in defining space as a system of simple relationships between height, width and depth.   In that case, in the guise of a coordinate system, the difference between front and back, here and there, body and nonbody would have resolved into the higher and more abstract concept of three-dimensional extensions, or even, as Arnold Geulincx puts it, the concept of a corpus generaliter sumptum (body taken in a general sense). (Panofsky, 1991, p.43-44.) Jay says This new concept of space was geometrically isotropic, rectilinear, abstract, and uniform. The three-dimensional, rationalized space of perspectival vision could be rendered on a two-dimensional surface by following all of the transformational rules spelled out in Albertis De Pittura, and later agreements by Viator and Dà ¼rer. A basic painting device occurred from these findings with the use of symmetrical visual pyramids, or cones, with one of their apexes receding towards the vanishing point in the painting, the other into the eye of the painter. Significantly the eye was singular, and not the normal two eyes of binocular vision. The device was made in the manner that just one eye would be looking through a peep-hole (Kemp Science in art pg 13) at a scene in front of it. Brunelleschi used a peep-hole and mirror system for viewing this perspective demonstration of the Florentine Baptistery. Brunelleschi had drilled a small hole in a panel of wood at a point equivalent to that at which his line of sight had struck the Baptistery along a perpendicular axis. The spectator was required to look through this drilled hole from the back of the panel at a mirror held in such a way, so that it would reflect the image. The eye of the viewer would be fixated and unblinking rather than dynamic. In Norman Brysons terms it followed the logic of the Gaze rather than the Glance, which produced one single point of view. Bryson, who is an art theorist, calls this the Founding Perception of the Cartesian perspectivalist tradition. the gaze of the painter arrests the flux of phenomena, contemplates the visual field from a vantage-point outside the mobility of duration, in an eternal moment of disclosed presence; while in the moment of viewing, the viewing subject unites his gaze with the Founding Perception, in a moment of perfect recreation of that first epiphany. With this visual order arose many implications, with the abstract coldness of the perspectival gaze, which meant the painters emotional connection with the objects they depicted in geometricalized space was lost. The gap between spectacle and spectator widened. Cartesian perspectivalism has, in fact, been the target of a widespread philosophical critique, which has denounced its privileging of an ahistorical, disinterested, disembodied subject entirely outside of the world it claims to know only from afar. (Jay Cartesian perspectivalism itself that it suggest it was not quite as uniformly coercive as is sometimes assumed. Although artificial perspective was the dominant model, its competitor was never entirely forgotten. John White, an artist, distinguishes between what he terms artificial perspective, in which the mirror held up to nature is flat, and synthetic perspective, in which that mirror is presumed to be concave, thus producing a curved rather than planar space on the canvas. The Cartesian perspectivalist tradition contained a potential for internal contestation in the possible uncoupling of the painters view of the scene from that of the presumed beholder. Norman Bryson identifies this development with Johannes Vermeer , who represents for him a second state perspectivalism even more discarnated that that of Alberti. The bond with the viewers physique is broken and the viewing subjectis now proposed and assumed as a notional point, a non-empirical Gaze. This observation opens up more consideration, that there is an alternative scopic regime, that may be understood as more than a sub-variant of Cartesian perspectivalism. 5) Mapping, or as Svetlana Alpers called, The Art of Descriping. A visual culture very different from what is associated with the Renaissance perspective. According to Alpers the hegemonic role of Italian painting in art history has occluded an appreciation of a second influential tradition which flourished during the seventeenth-century Dutch art. contrast realist and naturalist fictionthat the Italian Renaissance art, for all its fascination with the techniques of perspective, still held fast to the storytelling function for which they were used. GEORGE LUKACS Summarizing the contrasts between the art of describing and Cartesian perspectivalism, Alpers points out the following oppositions: attention to many small things versus a few large ones; light reflected off objects modeled by light and shadow; the surface of objects, their colours and textures, dealt with rather than their placement in a legible space; an unframed image versus one than is clearly framed; one with no clearly situated viewer compared to one with such a viewer. The distinction follows a hierarchical model of distinguishing between phenomena commonly referred to as primary and secondary: objects and space versus the surfaces, forms versus the textures of the world. (ALPERS) The non-mathematical impulse of this tradition accords well with the indifference to hierarchy, proportion, and analogical resemblances characteristic of Cartesian perspectivalism. Instead it casts its eye on the fragmentary, detailed, and richly articulated surface of a world it is content to describe rather than explain. 6) Baroque Painting The third model of vision, best identified with the baroque. As early as 1888, and Heinrich Wà ¶fflins study, Renaissance and Baroque, art historians have been tempted to find connections between the two styles in both painting and architecture. In opposition to the lucid linear, solid, fixed, planimetric, closed form of the Renaissance, or as Wà ¶lfflin called it, the classical style, the Baroque was painterly, recessional, soft-focused, multiple and open. The Baroque style began as somewhat of a continuation of the Renaissance. Later, however, scholars of the time began to see the drastic differences between the two styles as the Renaissance style gave way to Baroque art. Baroque architecture, sculpture, and painting of a dramatic nature were powerful tools in the hands of religious and secular absolutism, and flourished in the service of the Catholic Church and of Catholic monarchies. The Baroque artists were particularly focused on natural forms, spaces, colors, lights, and the relationship between the observer and the literary or portrait subject in order to produce a strong, if muted, emotional experience. The Council of Trent (1545-63), in which the Roman Catholic Church answered many questions of internal reform raised by both Protestants and by those who had remained inside the Catholic Church, addressed the representational arts by demanding that paintings and sculptures in church contexts should speak to the illiterate rather than to the well-informed. Due to this Baroque art tends to focus on Saints, the Virgin Mary, and other well known Bible stories. Religious painting, history painting, allegories, and portraits were still considered the most noble subjects, but landscapes, still life, and genre scenes rapidly gained notoriety. Nativity by Josefa de Óbidos, 1669, National Museum of Ancient Art, Lisbon Rorty, Richard, Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1979) Rose, Jacqueline, Sexuality in the Field of Vision (London: Verso, 1986) p.232-233. Metz, Christian, The Imaginary Signifier: Psychoanalysis and the Cinema (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1982), p.61. Foucault, Michael, Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison, trans, Alan Sheridan (New York, 1979), p.217. Foucault, The Birth of the Clinic: An Archaeology of Medical Perception, trans. A.M. Sheridan (London, 1973), p.39. Debord, Society of the Spectacle. trans. Ken Knabb (Berkeley, 1981), p.25. Deleuze, Gilles, Foucault, trans. and ed. Sean Hand (Minneapolis, 1988), p.50. Megill, Allan, Prophets of Extremity: Nietzche, Heidegger, Foucault and Derrida (Berkeley, 1985), p.218. Levy, Silvano, Foucault on Magritte and Resemblance, The Modern Language Review, 85,1 (January 1990), p.44. Debord, Guy, Society of the Spectacle (Detroit 1977), par.1. Panofsky, Erwin.   Perspective as Symbolic Form. New York: Zone Books, 1991. 41-43.

Of MIce and Men: Curley’s Wife Essay

Names have been an important facet of society for as long as Homo sapiens have existed. A name is defined as â€Å"a word or symbol used in logic to designate an entity. † In Of Mice and Men, John Steinbeck teaches a lesson about the nature of human existence and shows how grim and isolated people become without hope. Steinbeck neglects to address Curley’s wife’s character by name in order to emphasize her position as a literary element and provide commentary on society in the time period during which he lived. Curley’s wife is never named because Steinbeck wished to emphasize the ubiquitous dislike of her throughout the farm. Whilst reading the novella, it is implied that no one on the farm likes Curley’s wife. However, there isn’t necessarily a flaw in her personality from which this aversion to her stems. The characters avoid interaction with her because they fear retribution from her possessive, short-tempered husband. The men on the farm begin to foster hatred toward her because her constant need for attention puts their livelihoods in danger. The men can’t ever get too familiar with her because they are distanced by the fact that she is Curley’s wife. Steinbeck constantly reminds the readers and the characters in the book of this fact by denying her a proper name. Second in the litany of reasons why Curley’s wife remains unnamed throughout the entire novella is that Steinbeck wishes to superimpose over the entire story the idea that she was a possession of Curley’s and not an independent entity. During the course of the novella, we run across multiple instances in which Curley is angered by even the idea of his wife consorting with other men, even in a platonic manner. As previously stated, Curley would even resort to firing men if he was unpleased with the way the interacted with his wife. The reader is able to draw a parallel between the way Curley treats and acts toward his wife and the way someone would act when dealing with an object of theirs. It is very clear that she is expected (by Curley and the other men, save Lennie) to obey Curley at all times. At the period in time in which the novella is set, women are expected to submit to their husband wordlessly and this is thoroughly explored in Of Mice and Men through Curley and his wife’s relationship. The zeitgeist of 1937(the year in which the book was published) and its subsequent influence on literature written around that time period is another reason Curley’s wife remains nameless. In that time, women were considered inferior to men and weren’t nearly as important in the public eye. One must remember when reading Of Mice and Men that the 19th amendment which gave women the right to vote only became an addendum in 1920. The novella was set during The Great Depression a time during which women did not have the amount of authority in society as they do today. Curley’s wife was used to depict women as troublemakers that disrupt the flow of life for men. Steinbeck failed to assign Curley’s wife a name because it was acceptable at the time for women to be undermined and overlooked. By constantly referring to her as â€Å"Curley’s wife† Steinbeck undermines her character as an independent person because she is forced to always be associated to Curley. With this â€Å"minor oversight† Steinbeck was able to use her character in idiomatic ways to enhance his writing. As indicated previously, Steinbeck writes Curley’s wife as a literary element to enhance the story as opposed to a character in the story. Almost humorously, one of the outcomes of refusing her a proper name (which I suspect was intentional) is that it caused the reader to direct more attention to her than anyone else in the story. Steinbeck is commonly known as an author who utilizes descriptions as a way to portray his characters. Curley is often mentioned as â€Å"the boss’s son. † Slim is introduced as the â€Å"jerkline skinner. † Crooks is solely referred to as â€Å"the stable buck† or simply ‘nigger’ until chapter 4. Despite the fact that all these characters have names, they are relatively miniscule parts of the story when push comes to shove, the nameless wife is the one who causes things to happen and mandates attention from every angle, be it real or fictitious (by which I mean from both readers and characters within the story). The most convincing reason yet as to why Curley’s wife remains unnamed lays in something Steinbeck once said in an interview. Steinbeck described her character as a symbol. He was recorded to have said â€Å"She has no function, except to be a foil – and a danger to Lennie. † She was the antagonist who provided the main characters something to be anxious about; she was the force that put up massive hurdles for the protagonists to overcome. A villain is defined as â€Å"The person or thing responsible for specified trouble, harm, or damage. † Inadvertently, such was the purpose of Curley’s wife. It wasn’t her plan to end Lennie’s life. She simply pursued what she felt she deserved: male attention. Her need to fill this desire for attention became so intense that it ultimately caused tragedy. In conclusion, Curley’s wife not being assigned a name was not just a mere oversight at the hands of John Steinbeck. She was an instrument used to undermine the position of women in society. Steinbeck purposefully left out her name in order to enhance his writing, and address issues during the time period in which he lived. Curley’s wife was used to depict women as the ones who threatened the happiness and well-being of men. Denying Curley’s wife a name was an integral part in the writing of Of Mice and Men. (c) Raquel Bracey, December 2012