Essay --

The opposite trade binary options strategy covers both trade which resulted in profit and trades which resulted in loss. For this reason, it gives you either the opportunity to earn double profits, or the ability to recover from a loss. The correct setup and timing for execution are everything with this strategy. Master the correct use of when to use opposite trades and you'll have one more tool to utilize for building your profits. The foundation for the opposite trade strategy is to be able to note times when the purchase of a binary options contract which is the direct opposite of one you just purchased is likely to be profitable. Once you've mastered the use of this strategy, you're likely to discover plenty of applications for it as you go about your trading. Although the premise is simple, what you'll really need to pay attention to is how to identify such opportunities. The following are just a few examples that you can be on the lookout for on a regular basis. The best example may be times when a binary options trade has finished with the asset price being close to either i...

Titanic :: essays research papers fc

Titanic I have always been intrigued by the Titanic, but my interest boomed with the recent development in how the side of the ship was damaged. I was amazed that instead of causing a gaping wound, as was previously believed, the iceberg that Titanic hit merely caused a series of small rips in the side of the ship. Sonar was used to determine that the side of the ship had six small slits that were no bigger than a single hand (http://www.titanic.cc/sonar.htm). This research amazed me because of the amount of water that passed through the small slits in the hull. I was always interested in ships, but the mystery that surrounded the Titanic sinking caused me to choose it for my senior project. At our first meeting (May 29, 1997), Mrs. Ferguson mentioned that I should try to incorporate my creative writing abilities into the project. Together, we came up with writing fictional diary entries for real passengers. My intent was to bring the people of the doomed liner to life through their thoughts throughout the trip. I chose which passengers’ diaries I would write and then heavily researched each of these individuals. The craze from the movie Titanic made getting information difficult but I was able to gather the facts I needed from the Internet as well as books and documents from the library. After researching the people, I adapted their personas and attempted to write a close facsimile to what I believe their diaries would have resembled. RMS Titanic was the last grand dream of the Gilded Age. It was designed to be the greatest achievement of an era of prosperity, confidence, and propriety. The old presumptions about class, morals, and gender-roles were about to be shattered. If the concept of Titanic was the climax of the age, then perhaps its sinking was the curtain that marked the end of the old drama and the start of a new one. The intensely competitive transatlantic steamship business had seen recent major advances in ship design, size and speed. White Star Li ne, one of the leaders, was determined to focus on size and elegance rather than pure speed. In 1907, White Star Line's managing director, J. Bruce Ismay, and Lord James Pirrie, a partner in Harland & Wolff, conceived of a vision of three magnificent steam ships which would set a new standard for comfort, elegance, and safety.

Tariffs and the War on Terrorism :: Terrorists Terror September 11 Essays

Tariffs and the War on Terrorism In March 2002, the Administration of the President of the United States under George W. Bush placed a rigorous tariff on imported steel. The United States uses the protective tariffs important for two reasons, according to a press release by the Administration1. One reason is to expand the domestic economy that has, according to some experts been in a â€Å"slump† or â€Å"retraction† since spring 2001. (It was even more â€Å"aggravated† by the events of September 11) Second, to protect important-Union based steelworker jobs in the United States. The steelworker jobs are key to the â€Å"National Security of the United States†2, according to the Bush Administration. Despite Federal Reserve Chairman of the Board, Alan Greenspan, stating later in the month that the US economy was â€Å"well under way into expansion†3, the Bush Administration saw an absolute need to put into action the tariffs. The steel tariffs are going to largely affe ct many nations that are supporting the US in the â€Å"War against Terrorism†, as well as the US relations in these nations. By taking into account historical occurrences, expert analysis based on economics, and scholarly study it can be concluded that these tariffs have the potential to encompass diverse effects on the US and the alliance it has in the â€Å"War against Terrorism†. History has witnessed tariffs to have varied affects on the events that are associated with conflicts and wars. Tariffs are designed to â€Å"protect domestically made products and for the state that uses them to collect specific commodities† 4. M.J Daunton, in a The English Historical Review article5, points to the conflict amongst the European alliances and the reasons for the First World War being indirectly based on tariffs. The pre-First World War alliances were based on both security and industrial purposes. When the alliance that was set up amongst the Central Powers of Germany, Austria-Hungary and the Ottoman Empire, it was largely because of the resources of production and the agreements that were arranged between corporations and industries in the countries. Germany, for example, had a highly advanced steel industry and used many resources that came from the Austrian-Hungarian Empire as well as the Asian-Mediterranean Ottoman Empire. Rivaled by the Britis h and the France to their west, these countries saw â€Å"open-trade† with these competing countries as being harmful to their domestic economies and industries.

Jo Goodwin Parker. What Is Poverty? Essay

Jo Goodwin Parker’s essay, â€Å"What is Poverty? † is about Parker who has personally experienced rural poverty. She explains her story from childhood to adulthood. Parker’s struggles are overwhelming; look at any sentence, the evidence of her daily struggle is there. From her underwear to living arrangements, and everything in between, Parker resides in poverty. In her essay, she says to listen to the story of what poverty is. Then she talks about the different aspects of poverty. Parker talks about the lack of health conditions she and her three children suffer from. She decides to be a mother even though she has no ability to provide for them. She talks about the government only giving her a small amount of money per month. That is why she cannot afford nutritional foods and soap to clean her kids. She thinks that the outside world will not help and even criticize her for not doing something. After reading Jo Goodwin Parker’s essay, I did not feel pity but instead I felt respect. She was in an unfortunate situation that forced her into a life not easy to live or deal with. But, with three children to care for, plus herself, she continued on with her life no matter what obstacles kept jumping in her path. I had an idea of what poverty was but after reading Parker’s essay, the ideas I had are shattered into a new realization of the true meaning of poverty. Her definition provides vivid images of what poverty truly means. Parker uses an angry tone, imagery, and repetition to inform readers the dehumanizing effects of poverty. She explains poverty in an angry tone so readers can understand the true meaning of being poor. Parker is capable of causing the reader to feel many emotions, mainly guilt. She makes the reader feel guilty for the possessions we may have. â€Å"You say in your clean clothes coming from your clean house, anybody can be clean† (Parker 168). This causes the reader to feel guilty for having the opportunity to be clean when we know that she does not have the same. Parker then goes on talking about how she has no hot water for herself and her kids. â€Å"Hot water is a luxury. I do not have luxuries† (168). Here again, she makes the reader feel guilty that having hot water is a luxury. I agree with her writing about middle class people having things she does not have because it makes the reader appreciate the things they have in life. People do not think about hot water being a luxury, but Parker explains that having things like soap and hot water are something extravagant. Even though Parker makes the readers feel guilty of her situation, I actually appreciate the things I have now. Parker uses imagery in her essay to make the readers actually see what she is going through. She explains what her living situation is like. â€Å"This is a smell of urine, sour milk, and spoiling food sometimes joined with the strong smell of long-cooked onions† (167). The smell of her home is overpowering and the reason is because she cannot wash the mattresses or bathe herself and her kids with soap. Her and her three kids live like this, it sounds miserable and unhealthy. It is just downright disgusting. I could not imagine living a life like hers, but she went through every moment taking care of herself and her children. She had no help, no husband, and no friends. Parker puts all this in the readers mind; she makes you see the physical and mental effects of her life. Physically she looks older than she looks, her back is bent from washing clothes, and she has chronic anemia because of her poor diet. Mentally she is just tired of being poor. She is tired of having no capability to provide for herself and her children. She is always scared that something bad will happen. The use of imagery she uses in her essay shows the dehumanizing effects of poverty. The technique Parker uses in her essay is repetition. She constantly restates what is poverty. â€Å"Poverty is getting up every morning from a dirt- and illness-stained mattress. † â€Å"Poverty is living in a smell that never leaves† (167). Parker uses repetition to hammer an idea, image, or relationship so the reader can pay attention. In this case, she wants the reader to pay attention to the odor and the dirtiness of her living. â€Å"Poverty is staying up all night on cold nights to watch the fire, knowing one spark on the newspaper covering the walls means your sleeping children die in flames. † â€Å"Poverty is hoping it never rains because diapers won’t dry when it rains and soon you are using newspapers† (168). Here, Parker is explaining how she is scared that her children will be hurt if she does not keep one eye open and the inconvenience of rain that troubles her children. All of these phrases create a different image of poverty and each one is successful in evoking sympathy from the reader. Her technique is to force the reader to imagine poverty in a new way. Parker makes us realize how bleak poverty is and she shows us that there is no hope for the poor without understanding. Parker gives outsiders a glimpse into what she goes through on a daily basis. Being a single mother and seeing your children sick and dirty is devastating. I cannot image having to go through this. I think the purpose in writing this is not to give them pity but to understand and help people who need it. I think Parker wrote this essay so we can open our eyes and see the truth. This is happening in our towns and most times people do not choose that type of lifestyle. This essay is devastating and is hard to read. I defiantly have a more clear understanding of what poverty truly means.

Bisexuality Politicised Essay

This paper asks the question how can bisexuality be or become a danger to the dominant sexual script which I problematise as produced racism, sexism, homophobia, and monosexism. That this brand of heterosexuality occupies 99% of our cultural space in entertainment, education, history and public expression and is considered inevitable and unchallengable for 90% of peoples relationships is, I will argue, the victory of white patriarchal science. I intend to show the nature of this victory and imagine what counter struggle and victories might emerge from the site of my bisexuality. The Historical role of Biphopia- Policing the Treaty. Underpinning this paper is the belief in that many if not all heterosexual identifying people can be bisexual and that the majority are to some extent not privately monosexual. The majority status of bisexuality does not make it normal nor ideal however I mention it because it is important to realise that the invisibility of bisexuality requires extraordinary effort to maintain and it’s repression occurs against all people not just a few â€Å"natural† bisexuals. To understand the historical role that biphobia has played and the historical position of bisexuality it is necessary to recognise homosexuality as a creation of western patriarchal and homophobic medical science. Women have always loved women and men have always loved men but the classification of these experiences as a sexuality with little or no element of choice and a biological or individual psychological basis was given currency in the 19th century by a professional class that feared same sex desire. Their construction of homosexuality shaped and informs Western cultural understanding of sexuality â€Å"not in the first place because of its meaningfulness to those whom it defines but because of its indispensableness to those who define themselves against it. † (Segal, L. p145) for it was and is needed â€Å"not only for the persecutory regulation of a nascent minority of distinctly homosexual men (and women) but also for the regulation of the male (and female) homosocial bonds that structure all culture – at any rate all public or heterosexual culture. † (Eve Sedgewick in Segal, L. pp194-5) Early psychoanalytic texts were quite explicit that the project was to police all male and female relationships warning â€Å"teachers and parents not to take too lightly friendships among girls which become passionate† and society to â€Å"be more concerned with the degree of heterosexuality or homosexuality in an individual than they are with the question of whether he has ever had an experience of either sort†. â€Å"The real danger from homosexuality† was seen to lie â€Å"not in actual sex association but in homosexual attitudes towards life† such as the negative attitudes of â€Å"thousands of women †¦ toward men, marriage and family life† influenced by â€Å"latent homosexuality† for â€Å"neurotic attitudes about love and marriage can prove contagious. † (Caprio, F. pp 6 -11) Generally, prior to this the western world had relied on Christianity to dictate the terms of sexuality. Whether sexual attraction was â€Å"natural† was no defence under a regime which tended to view â€Å"natural† sexual desires as needing control from a religious authority. The medical establishment faced the dilemma of replacing religious authorities without having any utilitarian basis for the repression of same sex desire. The construction of homosexuality as a distinct condition was to define normality as exclusive heterosexuality. In fact heterosexuality was simply the condition of being human. Sexual behaviour became a product of a persons condition; the â€Å"human condition† producing normal heterosexual behaviour. There was now no need for a religious justification for preferencing the heterosexual over the homosexual because behaviour was not a matter of choice but a matter of whether or not you were ill; Well or sane people simply didn’t want to have sex with people of their own gender. This was presented as a more humane response to homosexuality than religious condemnation or incarceration. Psychiatrists often called themselves compassionate as they argued for an adoption of â€Å"scientific† curative responses to homosexuality. (Caprio, F, p. xi) The majority gay and lesbian movement accepted the shifting of sexuality into an area for science and have embraced the notion of a biological basis or early psychological basis for sexuality. Their fight has largely been for homosexuality to be treated as incurable and it follows natural and equally valid alternative to heterosexuality, jettisoning any agenda to argue that is better. Only a minority have argued that homosexuality is a political choice and an option for everyone. With both sides ceasing hostilities1, when homosexuality was delisted as a mental illness in 1973 (Altman,D. ,p5), institutionalised heterosexuality and gays and lesbians overt interests have moved to coincide. Victories to normalise homosexuality also normalise heterosexuality’s dominance by depoliticising sexuality in general. In 1993 when a homosexuality gene was â€Å"discovered† a genetic basis for the majority status of heterosexuality was created though not declared. Anyone who would argue that the commonality of heterosexuality might have something to do with social programming and institutional support can now be said to be messing with nature. The proud bisexual threatens this peaceful coexistence of the heterosexual majority and homosexual minority. Recognition of our bisexuality requires a validation of our sexual relationships with people of our own gender based on choice rather than the agreed legitimate biological basis. Such choice may be personal or circumstantial but also political or moral. Normalising bisexuality with a biological cause won’t defuse it’s threat though it could contain it if it relegates us to a fixed minority status. Society still has to reckon with why we choose to validate relationships with people of our own gender by identifying as bisexual. We reopen old debates that many who have found safety in a biological basis for their monosexual identity want to keep closed. (I will revisit this fear in the last section, Bisexuality and the Future when I discuss Bi supremacy. ) A bisexual identity simply has to be defined as confused or an exception to the rule. Individuals have to be pressured to fit themselves into one or the other category. In a secular society without moral taboos people can’t be allowed to entertain the idea that their partners gender is political. Also, understandably gays and lesbians know those moral taboos still hold significant power so many still see their best option as policing the treaty based on the attribution of their sexuality to a biological or psychological cause. Bisexuality and identification – Withdrawing our support for the status quo. The bisexual identifying person is not predominantly someone who feels attraction equally to both genders or without any reference to gender2 and in terms of actual sexual or emotional experience the majority could be classified as predominantly homosexual or heterosexual. â€Å"Why then, don’t you call yourself gay or straight? † is the inevitable response to this confession. And confession it feels like because to indicate a â€Å"leaning† puts at risk the validity given to a bisexual identity within contemporary discourse. Sexual expression is usually presented as representative of something innate rather than a mediation between a person and their world. Consequently the woman who says she usually finds women easier to make emotional connections with is seen to be describing her â€Å"innate† difficulty emotionally connecting with men rather than her experience of men and their culture. Asserting a bisexual identity in the face of this invalidation is about contextualising sexual responses rather than finding invisible internal reasons for them. A bisexual identity in the above circumstance keeps open the possibility that a preference for emotional relationships with women could change if men and male culture changed. Alternatively a preference for sex with men might be attributable to homophobia. (Weinberg, M. S. , p221) The reasons for choices are not always positive ones but the possibility for counter argument exists. Holding onto a bisexual identification based on potentiality, rejects the conservatism of describing reality by the status quo. However a bisexual identity is also partially an attempt to accurately relate personal history as well and this too has a radical power. Most monosexual identifications represent people only by concealing some bisexuality. By identifying as bisexual a person accepts and celebrates those aspects of their life that are inconsistent with a monosexual identity. The power of metanarratives within modernism, including descriptions of sexuality, relies on such inconsistencies being deemed insignificant. Hence a public bisexual identity is a confrontation of generalist theories with lived experience. If people promote such a solidarity with their experiences and the people who compose them that is greater than any to a proposed theory then expounders of metanarratives (including myself) will lose power. Our authority to dictate â€Å"from above† will be replaced by a decentralised authority based on being â€Å"up close† to our own reality. Bisexuality and other oppressions. Sexuality forms alliances across genders, ethnicities, and classes so any bisexual movement which fails to take gender, race or class issues into account poses a real danger of obscuring differences and concealing oppression. (This is also true for a multiplicity of issues such as disability or mental illness). My discussion of bisexuality and other basis for oppression are not intended to present bisexual identification as the panacea of the worlds ills. Social change must be inspired by a diversity of experience and informed by a range of critiques. Given the above it is presumptious for me as a half-wog male to seek to resolve ongoing debates about a bisexual political agenda among feminist women or debates among black women and men on how to connect bi pride with anti-racism. To do so would be to pretend that I can speak from only my bisexuality and abandon any white, male perspctive. As a long term unemployed person I believe I can speak on class issues from the inside to some extent but also still acknowledge the privelage of my university education. This is not to say that I think that sexism is a womens issue or that the responsibility for opposing racism is solely non-whites. Nor am I comfortable being accountable to lesbian or straight feminists on the issue of bisexual profeminism or placing beyond reproach the homophobia of some black liberationist theorists like Eldrige Cleaver. What to speak on and when in regard to a radical bisexualitys’ impact on patriarchal, white supremist and class oppresion is best defined as problematic. As a simple way out I hope to show how I see a politicised bisexuality contributes to my pro-feminism, anti-racism and support for class struggles. It is my hope that this will have relevance for a wider audience. Radical Bisexuality and Pro-feminism. Judith Butler states that â€Å"the heterosexualisation of desire requires and institutes the production of discrete and assymetrical oppositions between â€Å"feminine† and â€Å"masculine† identities. † (Segal, L. p190) Monique Wittig goes further to argue that a woman’s place in heterosexuality is a class of oppression and that the lesbian escapes her class position. (Wittig, M, p. 47) I agree that â€Å"hetero†-sexuality (literally a sexuality based on opposites) reproduces and supports womens oppression in other spheres by creating a binary gender system. Men need to realise that their love for women is problematic when it is that â€Å"love† of the â€Å"feminine identity† that belongs to this sytem. This is the attraction for the other and requires women’s difference to be exaggerated and emphasised. These exaggerations shape women as not-men while we men shape ourselves and are shaped into embodiments of the ideal. The seeming irony of male heterosexuality where women are objects of love being consistent with misoginy where women are objects of hate makes perfect sense through the operation of oppositional heterosexuality precisely because the love requires women to be less than men. A love that does not require partners to be different than ourselves is not possible within exclusive heterosexuality because it fails to provide the argument to repress same sex desire. It is necessary for heterosexual men to confront their homophobia which demands they repress or invalidate their same sex desire before they can love their female partners as their â€Å"own kind† and not another species. An additional benifit to patriarchy of discrete gender identities that is liable to be lost when men reject oppositional heterosexuality is the regulation of male social interaction. The arguments to exclude gay men from the military reveal the mindset deemed necessary to produce a war machine; â€Å"We are asking men in combat to do an essentially irrational thing – put themselves in a position where they are likely to get killed †¦ One of the few ways to persuade men to do that is to appeal to their masculinity †¦ You cannot have an adrogynous military †¦ The idea that fighting is a masculine trait runs deep. As a cultural trait it predates any written history. It may even be a genitic trait †¦ Just think what it would mean to demasculinize combat. The effect on combat effectiveness might be catastrophic. † – Charles Moskos, Military Socioligist quoted in Colonel R. D. Ray, Military Necessity and Homosexuality (Gays:In or Out, p63) It is regrettable that non-heterosexual men and many women are proving they too can make excellent soldiers. 3 However the above quote exaggerates a fact that male â€Å"buddy† relationships are relied on by the military and that this requires a repression of same sex desire. This is because same sex desire is preferential – it is not a love of all men equally – but of a few and potentially for a time. The same-sex loyalty that is demanded by patriarchy including it’s military needs the stability of exclusive heterosexuality; â€Å".. the recognition of homosexuality is a threat to that peculiar combination of male camaraderie and hierachy on which most organisations depend; sexual desire is too anarchic, too disrespectful of established boundaries to be trusted. † (Altman, D. p63) Unravelling their heterosexuality is not the most important thing men must do to support feminism however it is a legitimate part of this support for â€Å"it is the repressed recognition of this fact (that everyone can be homosexual) that does much to fuel homophobia, but equally acts so as to promote male bonding and certain crucial authority structures. † (Altman D. ,p XI) Radical Bisexuality and Racism. The construction of homosexuality as a â€Å"natural† difference from the heterosexual norm shares and competes for the same conceptual space as constructions of race as biological differences from the white norm. This is particularly true because the hetrosexual ideal is represented as white with the sexuality of non-whites traditionally seen as untamed, violent, promiscuous or otherwise deviant even if heterosexual. Non-whites are considered only ever partly heterosexual while white queers are considered not proper whites. The competition for the limited conceptual space has led to historical difficulites in linking white supremacy with heterosexism (exacerbated by white queer activists own racial interests) and in fact has unwittingly linked Gay Power with white power. â€Å"Homosexuality as a race† has developed into a gay and lesbian ethnicity. For whites under racism where their whiteness is considered the norm and thus unnamed, this ethnicity is their only ethnicity, the lesbian/gay â€Å"language† their only language, and lesbian/gay history their only history, to the point that it is not seen as a difference within whiteness but a difference from whiteness. (Blasingame, p52) While we (white queers) are unconscious of our whiteness queer cultural politics consequently becomes a way of colonising non-white cultures with a new white culture, white leaders and white history in a particularly insidious way. While not as powerful as heterosexual institutions for people wanting to be publicly non-heterosexual we have considerable power; in the framing of beauty along racist lines, in the support of white non-heterosexual bourgeoius or political leaders and in the very conceptualisation of sexuality. As one example Brenda Marie Blasingame in Bisexuality and Feminism speaks of a history of sexuality in U. S. black communities which did not include placing people in particular â€Å"boxes† and accepted the practice of bisexuality. A part of moving into the white gay and lesbian movement for her was the requirement to come out as a specific sexuality and accept the marginalisation of bisexuals. For many people who are not white taking up a gay or lesbian and to a different extent bisexual identity requires an abandonment of their own ethnic politcal identity or view. (Blasingame, pp. 51 – 53) The common conceptual space of non-heterosexual and non-white however can and should however produce queer anti-racism provided white queers realise that this conception of their sexuality is wrong. There is a shared interest in anti-racism and anti-heterosexism in critiqing normalcy and naturalness. As only one example the construction of beauty posits that naturally â€Å"Gentlemen prefer Blondes†. Not only is this sexist for reducing women to a hair colour (and the Blonde is meant to be read as a woman) but it is heterosexist and clearly as racist as â€Å"Gentlemen prefer whites† when Blonde is only a white persons natural hair colour. When we politicise our sexuality we can open up not only the arguments against heterosexual dominance but the arguments against the sexual sterotypes of non-whites including the framing of Asian men as â€Å"young girls† represented in this regrettable quote from the 70’s magazine Gay Power; â€Å"I dig beautiful oriental men. Asking me to shoot at them is the same thing as asking heterosexual soldiers to shoot at beautiful young girls that they would like to fuck. † (Teal, D. p99) Radical Bisexuality and Class. It is worth noting that capitalism which I understand as the continual oppression of the poor that patriarchy is for women is no longer wedded to heterosexuality in Western affluent nations as it has been in the past. This is because Western nations are primarily consumer societies of fairly easily produced goods (easily because their production is either located in the Third World or in the Quattro Monde – the world of the Western underclass or because their production is automated). Western capitalism can therefore relax the â€Å"restraint and repression† which was necessary to both control factory floors and ensure a ready supply of human capital through reproduction. (Altman D, p90) Part of this is also due to unemployment and global capital mobility being sufficient to obtain cheap labour and another contributing factor has been Western women raising their education so they are more useful in employment than at home. Also marriage was the institution by which women were given the role of providing a whole range of services capitalism wouldn’t such as aged care and child raising as well as supporting adult men. Now many of these services are provided by profitable private institutions so traditional marriages are actually in competition with capitalism. Of course the worlds poor can’t afford these services and Thirld World countries remain supportive of compulsory heterosexuality (Altman, D, p90) but in the Western consumer-capitalism there is a an interest to increase consumption through the market of previous services fulfilled by women’s unpaid labour. In order to perpetuate consumption growth capitalism must also locate new disatisfactions like teenage angst, at an alarming rate while also offering at a price their answer. In this context gay, lesbian and even bisexual identities as well as transgenderism, S+M and fetish celebrations are eagerly embraced by many industries as the basis for new markets. Our anxiety for recognition, meaning, ceremony and a positive celebration of our sexuality are easily exploitable. â€Å"†¦ one of the possible negative side-effects of the popularity of ‘lesbian chic’ was that it codes lesbianism as merely a kind of fashion statement, something that requires certain consumer goods to mark the individual as lesbian. † (Newitz & Sandell) Bisexuals have to be mindful that while we seek recognition, capitalism is looking for new markets and while these interests coincide this will only be true for those of us who can afford it and it will be on the backs of the world’s poor involved in the production of our new consumerables and bearing the greatest brunt of the waste from our new consumption. One positive way to resist becoming merely another market is by applying the awareness of the political nature of sexual desire to the desire for consumer goods and services. Both desires are constructed to serve particular interests and not fundamentally our own. Through working to ensure that all of our desire works for liberation we will resist commodification as we achieve recognition. Bisexuality and the Future To outline what I see as the goal of Radical Bisexuality I will illustrate two scenarios depicting false victories and one which I believe genuinely opens up the greatest possibility for liberation. Scenario 1. Recognition of bisexuality as a third alternative way that people unchangably are. To some extent as I have said earlier this can’t overcome the capacity of bisexuals to fit in as straight and thus can’t conceal the choice to embrace the homosexuality within the heterosexual that they represent. However there are arguments that could be presented that bisexuals have to express their same sex desire or become depressed (â€Å"go mad†). These arguments could form the basis of depoliticising and medicalising bisexuality as has been done with homosexuality. This may make bisexual lives easier to defend and add to the options for young people but relegates bisexuals to the same minority status as is currently given to gays and lesbians. Most people who admit to loving their own gender in straight society would face the same oppression bisexuals now face as â€Å"heterosexual experimenters† and recruitment of the majority would be difficult as they would remain â€Å"true† heterosexuals as unable to change as â€Å"true† bisexuals or gays and lesbians. Further it could also trade the oppression that is invisibility for bisexuals with the oppression that is hyper-visibility for straight men and women, and increasingly gays and lesbians. Having recognised sexuality’s repression but not it’s production we will be easily exploitable by capitalism and our liberation may mean as being as marketed to and ritutalised as heterosexuality. Scenario 2. Bisexuality is considered the only natural sexuality which equates it with the only right sexuality. Heterosexuality would be patholigised along with homosexuality as both are considered to have unnatural â€Å"blocks† to loving one or the other gender. This is Bisexual Supremacy which I acknowledge as a justification for gays and lesbians to distrust bisexuals. While it is unlikely to be widely accepted it is possible that it could dominate queer spaces as a pocket of resistance to heterosexual dominance in the same way as celebrations of gay and lesbian purity have. It is certainly more likely to be targetted at lesbians and gays than straights and while this is the fault of heterosexism’s power, not my own, it must be refuted. This is not to say that politicising sexuality will not require some gay men in particular to reassess their rhetoric. Mysoginistic comments which denegrate women’s bodies deserve political criticism and can’t be assured the right to be accepted. However the wider charge of institutionalising the sexual oppression of women and supporting male social bonding can’t be levelled at male homosexuality and certainly not at lesbianism. Indeed at certain points in the struggle against institutionalised oppression different sexual identifications and choices will be appropriate. Because bisexuality is as deliberate a sexuality choice as any other and not a submission to some biological imperative (and even if it were I reject the claim that naturalness equals rightness) we can’t claim an non-contextual ideal status. Its political usefulness is only that of any tactic relative both to the circumstances and to the person, meaning that for some and at some times other sexual choices and identifications are more appropriate. Bisexual supremacy also prioritises the effort to be bisexual over other efforts to unravel heterosexist, patriarchal and racist programming. I have already stressed the need for a variety of critiques of power to inform social change which Bisexual supremacy ignores. In particular men in relationships with women need to realise that doing their share of the housework is far more meaningful than maintaining or developing their capacity to love other men. Scenario 3. The Dream. Realising our sexualities are scripted will hopefully prompt redrafts along feminist, anti-racist and anti-capitalist lines. No-one should be the sole author of this project even with their own sexuality as we all need to listen to the perspectives our privelages rob us off. Certainly a part of this will be a dialogue between political lesbians, bisexuals and straight women which already has a history and whose future I don’t want to conclude. Consequently my dream is vague. What I don’t see in this future is the fetishisation of wealth, whiteness or gendered difference. Women in relationships with men will recieve support and encouragement as full humans. Advertisers will be incapable of capturing our consumption with snake oil as we demand economic production satisfy new needs that we create, for justice and community. Pleasure including sexual pleasure will mean enjoying our values not forgetting them. Bisexuality like other sexualities will have to argue it’s political legitimacy but not it’s existance. Sexual identifications such as â€Å"Confused† may replace bisexual for many if it is recognises more of their personal truth and political terms like Anti-racist may be key elements of sexual identification. Radical bisexuality wont end all struggles but the raw energy of sexuality will be accountable to and in the employ of the great project of improving the world . Bibliography Altman, Dennis, The Homosexualisation of America, The Americanization of the Homosexual, St. Martins Press, New York, 1982 Sedgewick, E. K. , â€Å"How to Bring Your Kids Up Gay†, pp. 69 – 81, Fear of a Queer Planet : Queer Politics and Social Theory, Warner,M. (Editor), University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, 1993 Segal, Lynne, Straight Sex: Rethinking the Politics of Pleasure, University of California Press, U. S. A. , 1994. Foucalt, Michel, The History of Sexuality, Volume 1:An Introduction, Allen Lane, London, 1978 Newitz, A. and J. Sandell,â€Å"Bisexuality And How To Use It: Toward a Coalitional Identity Politics†, Bad Subjects, Issue # 16, October 1994 Caprio, F. S. M. D. Female Homosexuality:A Psychodynamic study of Lesbianism, The Citadel Press, New York, 1954 Weinberg,M. S. , C. J. Williams, D. W. Pryor, Dual Attraction: Understanding Bisexuality, Oxford University Press, Inc. , New York, 1994 Blasingame, B. M. , â€Å"The Roots of Biphobia: Internalised Racism and Internalised Heterosexism† in Closer to Home: Bisexuality and Feminism, Edited by E. R. Wise, Seal Press, U. S. A. , 1992 Colonel R. D. Ray, Military Necessity and Homosexuality , reprinted in Gays:In or Out: The U. S. Military & Homosexuals – A Source book, Brassey’s, March 1993. Teal D. , The Gay Militants, Stein and Day Publishers, New York, 1971. Wittig, M. , The Straight Mind and Other Essays, Beacon Press. Boston, 1992 Descriptors for Sexual Minorities †¢ Front Page †¢ What is h2g2? †¢ Who’s Online †¢ Write an Entry †¢ Browse †¢ Announcements †¢ Feedback †¢ h2g2 Help †¢ RSS Feeds Contact Us Like this page? Send it to a friend! Descriptors for Sexual Minorities | Asexuality | Homosexuality Heterosexuality | Bisexuality | Polyamory | The Kinsey Scale | The Gender Pronoun Game | Coming Out Embarrassing Questions About Sexual Orientation | Going Back In – Sexuality U-turns Modern culture has developed a number of terms and symbols to set apart its sexual minorities. Some of these originated within the different communities themselves. Others evolved from scientists, psychologists, legislators, and newspaper reporters trying to describe their gay, bisexual, transsexual, and polyamorous subjects. Many include obscure references to history that go largely unrecognized. Words Lesbian The word lesbian comes from the Greek island Lesbos, where the poet Sappho lived in 600 BC. Sappho wrote numerous poems about her female love, most of which were destroyed by religious fanatics during the Middle Ages. While the first usage of the word lesbian is unknown, it was used in several academic books as early as 1880. The word became more popular during the 20th Century, especially during the feminist era. The term ‘lesbian separatist’ was commonly used to distinguish feminists who wished to avoid the company of men altogether. Fag, Faggot, Fag Hag ‘Fag’ and ‘faggot’ are American insults for gay men. The term ‘faggot’ first started being used in this way in around 1914, but it is not clear where the word came from. A faggot is a bundle of sticks, used for firewood and tied up for carrying around. In the 16th century it was used as an insulting term for a useless old woman as something that weighs you down, in the same way that ‘baggage’ is sometimes used nowadays. But it’s quite a jump from 1592 to 1914 with nothing recorded in between. Gay men in the latter half of the 20th Century began using the term ‘fag hag’ to refer to straight women who frequently gather at gay establishments, partly as an insult and partly because of the rhyme. Dyke Contrary to popular belief, the origin of the insult ‘dyke’1, in reference to lesbians, has nothing to do with waterways or canals. The word first appeared in 1710 in British newspaper stories about presumed homosexuals Anne Bonny and Mary Reed. The two women captained a very successful pirate venture and completed several lucrative raids of the British Empire before agreeing to be interviewed. Reporters often noted their predilection for wearing men’s clothing, and one editorial avoided the unpleasant connotations of cross dressing by using a French word which refers to men’s clothing, dike. Over the years, this term was corrupted to the modern form ‘dyke’. Since then, general misunderstanding about the term’s origins have inspired many stand-up comedy routines and bad puns. Polyamory, Polygamy, Monogamy The prefix ‘poly-‘ means many, while ‘mono’ means one. The suffix ‘gamy’ was originally from the French word for marriage, but has since been misunderstood as referring to sex. These terms refer to the number of consensual romantic partners taken by each adult in a family. Of course, the suffix ‘amory’ refers to love. Polyamory is a relatively new term coined by modern practitioners, and is greatly preferred by them. Polygamy and the now defunct term bigamy were coined as early as 1800, as the practice of multiple marriages was outlawed in most Western nations. The state of Utah in the USA applied for Statehood three times before finally accepting an injunction against the polygamy practised at that time by the Mormon church. Polygamy is commonly understood as referring to heterosexual relationships where the man has multiple partners. However, with modern polyamory any combination of genders and orientations fulfills the definition. It is not necessary for all parties in a polyamorous relationship to be involved each with the other. Gay During the 1800s and early 1900s, ‘gay’ was simply a state of jubilant happiness. However, during the late 1800s gay was sometimes used to describe prostitutes in much the same way that the phrase ‘happy hookers’ is used today. One theory is that gay came into use to describe homosexual men because of the rise in numbers of male prostitutes during the 1900s. Another theory is that ‘gay’ was

East of Eden: An Interpretation Essay

I. Cathy Ames – Cathy’s main motivation was her desperate and incessant need for money. This held true throughout most of the book; it was only at the very end of her life that she realized that she had been missing something her entire life. This is the reason she left everything that she had amassed to her youngest son, Aron. This act may have been a desperate attempt at making up for the love she was never privileged enough to have. Cathy viewed herself as someone who could outwit most anyone she met — especially men. There were a few of those who she feared because she felt like their eyes could see into every one of her thoughts and emotions. Samuel Hamilton was one of these people, and so she despised him. Whatever happened in Cathy at the end was responsible for her change in disposition. Her sudden â€Å"goodness† (if it can be called that) impelled her to leave everything she owned to Aron, her â€Å"good† son, and nothing to Cal, whom she felt was most like her in his devious personality and sinful motivation (from what she gathered of the few times they met). Cathy saw nothing good or honest in any part of humanity. Even the men who she served disgusted her. She surrounded herself with the slime of civilization, and was blinded to everyone and everything else. I don’t know that Cathy ever truly liked anybody but herself, and in the end the fact that she didn’t even like herself frankly scared her. All of her past misdeeds finally came back to haunt her. After swallowing her â€Å"Drink Me,† she finally ceased to be, and in her mind, never was; and that was the way she wanted it. Samuel Hamilton – Samuel Hamilton was a family man. He valued spending time with his family and found that even more important than making money. Even though he always complained about his extremely unprofitable and barren ranch, he made a lifetime of happy memories there and found it very hard to leave when he and Lisa moved to Salinas. Samuel had a persistency about him. Nothing could ever wear him down, except of course, old age in the end. But no matter the number of failed inventions or patents that didn’t work out, he was always working on another one of his ideas. Samuel was loved throughout the entire county; everybody was his friend. He had one of those insightful and humorous personalities that everybody liked. Samuel loved life and ached for what each new day would bring. Although not as devout as Lisa in her views about religion and what is sinful, Samuel was a good, moral person who enjoyed life very much. Samuel saw himself as nothing more than any other man he had ever met. He was constantly giving and doing his part to improve society as a whole. He cared for nearly everyone and everything. For his children, Samuel wanted nothing but success and greatness, but at the same time he wondered if it were a selfish and sinful thing to want greatness for his children, knowing that it would be a hard and lonely path. Perhaps this is the reason Samuel himself was so content with his own financial status. He was never alone, and always had the pleasure of family near. Samuel Hamilton died a rich man – surrounded by friends and family. Caleb Trask – Cal wanted desperately to be liked and loved the way Aron was. He loved his brother, but at the same time envied him to no end. It was his jealousy that drove Cal to do the mean things he did to his brother, but these cruel tactics were no relief from his inner strife. Afterward, Cal always beat himself up emotionally for wanting to hurt his brother. Cal was very smart and clever (like his mother I suppose) and emotionally strong, but he longed to be loved, especially by his father, Adam. Cal was once desperate enough to try to â€Å"buy† his fathers love (as Will Hamilton had asked quite frankly) with $15,000. After Cal found out the truth about Cathy, what she had done to his father, and that she made a living as a whore, he felt like it was his responsibility to help protect Adam. His whole life, Cal never felt that Adam liked him very much, the way he loved Aron. It was when Cal saw his mother up close that he realized why his father loved Aron so much more than him; Aron looked like Cathy, whom Cal knew Adam still hopelessly loved. Cal always referred to himself as being â€Å"bad,† by thinking bad thoughts and doing bad things. He also always confided in Lee that he longed to be good, like Aron. That’s all he wanted. But, unfortunately, he despised himself. He hated himself so much that Lee suspected he enjoyed wallowing in his self-pity. It was his only protection from the outside world; a world that Cal was sure would reject him for his brother, Aron. Aron Trask – Aron was steadfast in his morality and was disgusted by the filth of society, very much like his mother. But unlike Cathy, Aron would not have surrounded himself with anyone or anything against his beliefs. Aron’s brother, Cal could be described as Aron’s opposite. He was so much stronger than Aron in every way except maybe physically. Cal accepted things as they were, and suffered through them, as awful as the circumstances may have been. On the other hand, Aron, as Abra suggested, tore up reality for his own picture of how the world should be, and if that picture should become impure, his whole world would come crashing down around him. In the beginning, Aron lived for the goodness in life, and so, naturally, he built his mother (whom he had never known) to be the most beautiful, kind, pure woman in the world. I don’t think his vision ever left him given his reaction when he discovered the truth. In the second half of his life, Aron was driven by his love for Abra. But it wasn’t really Abra that he loved. It was a completely pure and moral being wearing Abra’s skin and beauty. Nevertheless, it was this vision of Abra that got him through all of his hard times at school, and what he lived for at home. After Adam rejected Cal at Thanksgiving, Cal took his anger and frustration out on his brother in the cruelest way he could imagine. Cal showed Cathy to Aron and he learned the truth; his mother was a whore, the most undignified thing a woman was capable of being. Aron’s picture of life was altered dramatically, and he couldn’t handle it. He had viewed himself as good and clean and moral. His life was destroyed in his mind and he would always feel impure and dirty. Aron enlisted in the Army and ultimately got himself killed. Lee – Lee was a very wise intellectual. What motivated Lee through life was unclear. It had to have been his dreams that he often talked about and longed to accomplish. But what about after he had no dreams left? He had even said that after trying out life in his San Francisco bookstore that he had no more dreams left. From then on, Lee’s main motivation must have been his love for the Trask family. It’s obvious that he loved the boys very much and felt as though the Trasks were part of his own family. Lee was very smart and clever. He valued the goodness in man, and found ignorance annoying, but very plentiful in society. He always craved a good debate or intelligent conversation. He always liked talking with Samuel Hamilton because he could provide this. Their long talks about the story of Cain and Abel excited Lee, because they always left him pondering, and wanting more. It was obvious that Lee enjoyed learning, and examining complex situations very much. Throughout all of East of Eden, it was Lee that offered the best advice; perhaps because he dissected each situation thoroughly enough to see what needed to be done. Lee also accepted whatever life threw his way, but dealt with it intelligently and the best way he knew how. Lee was well liked, for a â€Å"chink.† He respected those that gave him respect. By the end of the book, he had grown very attached to Abra, who spent a lot of her time at the Trask place talking to Lee. In the very end, I think it was his need to see Cal and Aron (who eventually died) succeed in their own ways. This is why he stuck up for Cal to Adam on his deathbed; and, of course, Adam’s answer, â€Å"Timshel,† was the finest answer he could have given. Charles Trask – Charles felt as though he was second best to his brother, Adam his entire life. He always felt that it was Adam who Cyrus, their father, loved more. I suppose Charles is a lot like Caleb Trask in that way. Charles had an abusive and violent temper when he was a teen, and at one time even tried to kill Adam. Charles loved his father, and just wanted his respect, but Cyrus moved away after sending Adam into the Army. And so, Charles was left alone on his farm to make his own living. I don’t think Charles was ever happy with his life. He was always depressed because of his loneliness whenever Adam was away, and they didn’t get along for any length of time when they were together. He refused to sell the ranch whenever Adam suggested it, because it would be a waste in his mind. Charles was stubborn and insisted on spending no money on himself and was determined to stay where he was. Charles probably felt inferior to his brother, because of their father’s favoritism toward Adam, but Charles always knew he could win in a fistfight. Charles intimidated most of the people in town because of his size and strength. In that way, I suppose, he probably felt superior to everyone else, especially after Cyrus, his father died and left him and Adam a sum of more than $93,000 to split. After Adam left with his share, Charles was the wealthiest farmer in the area and the most respected. Charles knew how to do one thing well: farm. He lived for farming, and he did it until the day he died. He made a considerable amount of money in his lifetime too, but never got around to enjoying it. Charles was a loner. He didn’t have any close friends, and as far as we know was only married for a short time while Adam was in the Army. Other than that he was a homebody, and didn’t socialize much (except for his late night excursions to the local inn). He died never seeing any other part of the country, never living in any other house, never doing anything other than that which he had been doing his entire life. And while it never made him happy, it seemed to be enough for him. Adam Trask – Adam was mistreated throughout most of his childhood by his father and brother. All Adam wanted was to be happy, in his own way. He didn’t want to live under the pressure of his father, always competing with his brother. He didn’t want to go into the Army, and he didn’t want to go back to the farm in Connecticut. I think Adam lived for the happiness that the next day would bring, not knowing what it would be, or from where it would come. That’s how he got through the first half of his life, and that’s how he came upon Cathy and how the second half began. Adam lived for Cathy Ames and would have done anything for her. Like Steinbeck described, his first year with Cathy was the first time Adam really felt alive. She was his world. When she left, not even the twin boys she left behind were enough to keep Adam going. And so, he fell into a deep depression, melancholy for nearly eleven years. Secretly, during that time, I think he believed that Cathy would see the error of her ways and come back to him. I don’t think he ever really accepted her leaving him. Nevertheless, he was the father of two boys, and eventually came around to caring for their best interests. He moved them to Salinas and enrolled them in school. He was open to the idea of Aron even going to college, which he finally did. Adam always seemed a little scatterbrained; he was always prone to getting into situations a little over his head. He wasn’t very sensible in some of his endeavors (the nice farm he bought, but never capitalized on, the marriage that was doomed to begin with, the lettuce that never made it across the country), but he was as honest as a man could be. He was very friendly and was open to anyone and everyone being his friend if they so wished. He became popular in Salinas (except for the incident with the lettuce) very quickly. Adam didn’t read people very well though. He understood his own emotions, but when it came time to be responsible for his sons, he had a hard time; it was Lee that actually raised Cal and Aron for the first decade of their lives. Adam never pitied himself; he simply resigned himself to the fact that he was raised by a father he didn’t love, a woman he didn’t know, and a violent brother whom he feared. But Adam grew to be a fine man, and at the end, a good father; one his children could respect. Abra – Abra was an average teen girl who viewed life, in the beginning when we were first introduced to her, as a game. She wanted so much to be an adult, and to raise a family. She pretended to be Aron’s mother to him more than once in the story, as an example of her longing to raise a child. Abra fell in love with Aron at a very young age and stuck to her first love for most of her teen years. She wanted nothing but to raise a small family with the man with whom she was in love. But as the situation became more complicated between her and Aron, their relationship suffered, possibly without his complete understanding. When Aron finally left for Stanford, after deciding to become a priest, Abra ended up spending a lot of time at the Trask house, and finding herself getting very close to Lee and Adam, more so than her own parents. It was during this time, with Aron gone, that she discovered that she really didn’t love Aron any more. Aron had transformed her (or wanted to anyway) into something she wasn’t and never could be. While she realized this, her confusion about her conflicting feelings (for she still liked Aron, and wasn’t 100% certain what she wanted) wouldn’t allow her to break up with him. It wasn’t until after Aron enlisted in the Army that she was sure she didn’t want to be with him. Abra was a smart girl, who enjoyed many talks with her new friend Lee. She didn’t feel that she was somehow better than anyone, but at the same time, she didn’t feel any lower than anyone either. She fit in nicely with society, but was much brighter and wiser than most. Eventually she got together with Caleb, and I believe that those two together would have ended up very happy. Cal wouldn’t have expected Abra to be anything more than what she was, and could be happy with that. Abra saw Cal as a flawed individual, and found him to be very much like herself (she even compared their parents faults), especially after the close scrutiny she was under whenever Aron was around. II. Steinbeck’s central message in the book is the seemingly endless struggle between good and evil in all of us, and the fated consequences of the choices we make. Those who felt the evil inside themselves felt that their fates were predestined and unavoidable (especially Cal who knew of his mother and could feel her blood flowing through his veins). This reveals the importance of â€Å"Timshel† in the end of the book to Caleb as he gets a chance at redemption by being able to choose his own fate. Caleb had the gift (or enlightenment) of â€Å"Timshel† bestowed upon him by his father. â€Å"Timshel† or â€Å"thou mayest† was the key to freeing Caleb from his self-torture and releasing him from what he felt was a fated path to hell. Because of â€Å"Timshel,† Cal had a chance to make up for what he had done wrong because he knew that he wasn’t evil, and he knew he didn’t want to be evil, and with this inspiration he wouldn’t be evil. III. As a theme I see the basic story of Cain and Abel reinvent itself within the Trask family generation after generation. It was interesting because all the characters whose name began with the letter â€Å"A† represented the good and benevolent son to Adam and Eve that is Abel. Examples of these are Adam, Aron, and Abra. And likewise, the characters whose name began with the letter â€Å"C† represented Abel’s jealous and flawed brother, Cain. These examples include Charles, Cathy, and Caleb. Charles had become jealous at the fact that his father got more pleasure out of Adam’s gift than out of his own, and in a rage, tried to kill his brother. This was the first story line that followed that of Cain and Abel. The second would come later when Cal was rejected by Adam on thanksgiving and betrayed his brother in a way that ultimately got Aron killed. This was the second story line that followed that of Cain and Abel. As a sub-message in the book I saw that it was the dishonorably acquired money that indirectly brought about the downfall of all of characters, hinting at the evils of destruction for which money is responsible. The specific examples that came to mind were Cyrus, who stole from the GAR; Charles, who began his fortune of the stolen money that his father left him; Cathy, who had amassed her fortune whoring; and Aron who was left the money Cathy made. Caleb came near destruction, but he found that burning the money his father had refused helped relieve him from his self-pity and a likely demise. The only character who seemed untouched by the evils that came with the dollar was Adam. Adam squandered a lot of the money his father left him on an idea of his. This bad investment left him not rich any more. His money never had the chance to destroy him because he never found it valuable enough to cherish. In turning his son down on the money that was offered to him, Adam in a sense freed himself from the evils that came along with it. Likewise, Samuel and Lisa Hamilton lived very long and happy lives not having a dime to their name. IV. There are many ideas and images that I see repeated throughout the book. As a list see the presence of the evil that money represents; the story of Cain and Abel reinventing itself through each of the generations of the Trask family; the cruelties perpetrated by characters whose names begin with C (Charles, Cathy, and Caleb) to the characters whose names begin with A (Adam, Aron, and Abra); the honest confusion and moralistic uncertainty of all of the characters whose names begin with the letter A; war that always negatively affects the lives of everyone; the good ideas that always came to Sam Hamilton and Adam Trask (but mostly Sam) that never turned out to be lucrative endeavors; the similar scars that Charles and Cathy shared that seemed to mark them as the devious people they were and condemn them to fall to their sins and evil doings. V. â€Å"Timshel,† or â€Å"thou mayest† in hebrew changed the outcome of, and possibly ended, the repeating Cain and Abel retellings. In the versions of the Bible that everyone in East of Eden had ever known, the story of Cain and Abel included a decree by God ordering Cain to overcome sin, while in another version, God promised that Cain would overcome sin. Both of these versions seemed to condemn sinners to their misdeeds without hope of redemption. However, Lee discovered that in the original hebrew text, the significant word in the conflicting sentence was actually â€Å"timshel,† or â€Å"thou mayest.† This, of course, would allow each individual to be in charge of his own moral destiny. It was Cal who mainly feared that the sins of his mother would come back to condemn him because he reasoned that the same blood flowed through his veins, but â€Å"timshel† would relieve this. The significant character blessed with this enlightenment was Cal. After Cal learned that Aron was dead, and knowing that it was his fault, he goes to his father where Lee speaks for him. Lee asks Adam to forgive his son and to free him from his sins. Adam’s response, â€Å"timshel,† symbolically freed Caleb as he was now free and in charge of his own destiny without having his past sins, or the sins of his parents holding him back. VI. Beginning with my dislikes, I disliked the chapters that seemed to slant away from the rest of the story; the chapters of Olive Hamilton especially. These chapters seemed to have no effect on the Hamiltons or the Trasks. I found them pointless, but I also may have missed an underlying reason for their place in the book. Regardless, I liked the book very much. I thought it was well-written and very well thought out. The action parts were the best, but it moved at an understandably slow pace to reveal every significant thing that happened, but moved fast enough to keep me, the reader, entertained. It shocks me how much research Steinbeck must have had to do simply to develop the concept for East of Eden, but I think his time was well spent. And it was obviously worth it, for now, almost 50 years later, it is still widely read. I thoroughly enjoyed the story.

British Rule In England

â€Å"Trade was Britain’s doorway to India. † (Bogard et. al. 4th par. 3rd sentence) The colonization of Asia is often referred to as the Second British Empire; the British East India Company India was successful in annexing the Indian subcontinent (India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Myanmar), an extremely lucrative acquisition as it became a large source of revenue (British East India Company 1st par. 1st sentence). India is a country with a rich culture and a civilization far older than that of the British (Bessant 2nd par. 2nd sentence). Its identity has been forged long before the coming of Western Civilization.However, during the period of the annexation of the subcontinent, India was in a period of regional strife. There were wars being fought among the different governors in the territory. The local leaders were fighting each other as well as the foreign invaders. In â€Å"Did Great Britain Unify India? †, the authors think that when Great Britain first came to India, it was suffering a period of division (2nd par. ). The governors of India tended towards disintegration, leading to outrageous defense expenditures which continued with the conflicts against the British (Birodkar).The British made external changes that led India to desire and achieve national unity (Bogard, et. al. 4th par. ). An example of the unifying external changes introduced was the concept of a universal language. The British required knowledge of the English language to qualify for employment in the government. It was also taught in the universities. But the Indians did not completely accept the foreign language of the colonizers. The regional languages still exist today, and only a small portion of population speaks English.However, even if the Indians still speak in different languages and there is still no universal language in India, Hindi has become the official language. Hindi is taught in the elementary and high school level. English is taught in the college le vels, it is the language of the educated in India. (Bogard, et. al. ). The British also introduced western developments. The Empire built railroads, highways and ports across the Indian subcontinent to facilitate trade, built canals for irrigation and created public health measures to prevent diseases.On the flip side, the activities of the British were geared towards acquisition of economic wealth for Britain. (Bogard, et. al). According to Bidokar, â€Å"The policy of ‘Great' Britain was of a systematic annihilation of Indian handicraft industries by exposing them to the ruinous competition from the cheap machine products coming from UK. † (18th par. 1st sentence) A large bulk of the raw materials produced by India is acquired, at very cheap prices, by the Britain; then, later on, finished products are dumped back to India, resulting to very large profits for Britain (Bidokar18th par. 2nd sentence).This exacerbated the poverty of India (Bidokar18th par. 2nd sentence). Bidokar also believed that: Thus after nearly two centuries of living through the twilight of two ages of the dying feudalism and the deformed nascent newborn Capitalism, we inherited an economy which bore the worst features of both feudalism and colonial capitallsm at the dawn of our independence. (20th paragraph) Bogard et,al, on the other hand, claims that poverty in India is a result of improved health care. The public health measures created by the British led to lower infant mortality rates and population explosion.The caste system is a social system by which the members of society are divided into four groups which are ranked. These four groups are priests and teachers, rulers and warriors, merchants and traders and workers and peasants. In the Indian caste system, a person is born within a caste and has little means of improving social standing, except through reincarnation. The occupation and acquaintances of a person is also governed by his caste. The caste system has alr eady been criticized and attacked by various groups before the coming of the British, among these are Buddhists and Muslims.It was convenient for the British to strengthen the caste system when it first came to India (Bogard, et. al). It gave back the privileges of the priests and teachers which the Muslims had previously taken away. However, the changes in society introduced by the British weaken the caste system (Bogard, et. al). People of different caste started mingling in public transportation. British laws also do not allow a higher punishment for a person of lower caste from that of a higher one for the same offense. The advances in transportation allowed people of lower caste from other regions to pretend to belong in a higher caste in a different region.India is the birth place of Hinduism, Buddhism and Sikhism. Religion is a vital part of Indian life; it permeates all other aspects of life and culture. Religion’s impact is felt even on political matters. Moreover, i t constantly clashed with the western culture introduced by the British. As an example, the Sepoy Rebellion arose because the Buddhist soldiers believed that the British did not respect their religion. Christianity made its debut in India before the British through the Portuguese and Spanish missionaries. Later, Anglican and Protestant missionaries also helped spread Christianity in India.At present, it is the second largest religious minority in India; Islam is the first. Christianity also influenced Hinduism. Ram Mohan Roy, a hindu leader, was inspired by the story of Jesus Christ that he fought against the social abuses inherent in Hinduism. It was through his effort that the suttee was declared illegal. (Bogard, et. al) Another devout Hindu influenced by teachings of Christianity is Mahatma Gandhi. Mahatma Gandhi read the works of many west’s great thinker and the gospel of Christ’s He actions is greatly influenced by his readings, but he never lost his faith in Hi nduism or his Indian identity.(Bogard, et. al) The effects goes both ways, Ramakrishna, a Hindu missionary, roamed the United States and England to preach Hinduism. Lamb said: The fact that he had so successfully preached Hinduism in the very lands from which the Christian missionaries came seemed to prove that political subjection need not involve religious subjection. Hindus could be proud at least of the essential truths of their religion. The reaffirmation of Hinduism served as an emotional counterbalance to the damage to Hindu self-respect caused by British political domination.(qtd. Bogard, et. al. ) Religion spilled over Indian literature. The Ramayana and Mahabharata, considered as two of the greatest literature of all time, are familiar epics of the Sanskrit. It is written in verse and orally passed down. In more modern times, Indian literature is represented in the world by the works of Rabindranath Tagore and Allama Iqbal. The more lasting influence of Britain to India is in the field of sports. Cricket, a sport invented by the British, is India’s favorite past time (Bogard, et. al). In fact in the 1993At present, the ties between India and Great Britain are being kept strong by international trade. India and Britain entered into a partnership in 1993. Britain reported a 69% increase in bilateral trade after the partnership was entered into and several joint ventures have been signed between Indian and British companies. Britain is also the largest market for Indian trade services, this amount to 12% of the total IT service exports. Cited Works Bessant, Annie. â€Å"England and India. † Theosophical Publishing Co. 1921. http://www. theosophical. ca/EnglandIndiaAB. htm. Birodkar, Sudheer.â€Å"The Coming of European Colonialism. † http://www. hindubooks. org/sudheer_birodkar/hindu_history/landbritish. html. â€Å"British East India Company. † Wikipedia. http://en. wikipedia. org/wiki/British_Empire. â€Å"British Raj. â⠂¬  Wikipedia. http://en. wikipedia. org/wiki/British_Raj. 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