Prejudice and discrimination against women in american literature.The Essay

Prejudice and discrimination against women in american literature.The prejudice against women and the injustice practiced agains - Essay Example A critical observation of the sufferings and unfair treatment to women as a result of prejudices and discrimination is the focus of this paper. A brief survey of the female characters in the early American fiction can serve as a background to the picture of womanhood today in American society. Mark Twain never looked at his wife as an equal in his life. His attitude to womanhood can be traced through his female characters. Miss Watson can be taken here as an example here. She is shown in Huckleberry Finn as a lonely woman, or living with her widowed sister, a societal outcast living in the shadow of others. Her presence only makes others uncomfortable, including Huck and Jim. An unmarried woman in Twain’s days got the role of a caretaker and as she stayed at home, she was expected to take care of the sick or the elderly relatives. She must be selfless, and must devote her life for others. Twain depicts Miss Watson as a typical old maid of his time from which the prejudices and discrimination towards women in his society can easily be studied by the readers. William Faulkner, on the other hand, depicts the actual situation of a woman and creates repulsion in the readers to the prevailing prejudices and discrimination. ... In Scarlet Letter Hawthorne gives not only the dark reality of the prejudices and discriminations against woman, but also exposes the snobbishness in society regarding sexual matters. A priest seduces a woman, does not own up his role and responsibility, and, he continues to preach from the pulpit. However, Hawthorne turns his female character charged with adultery into an angel through her stern commitments and devotions. The signs of resistance and determinations to establish true womanhood are seen in his novel. All these honest intentions could not find result in twentieth century as a result of wars and depressions. Hemingway’s novels reveal such situations in which women are seen as mere objects of pleasure. Prostitution becomes rampant as the soldiers fighting on the borders were to be supplied with female flesh. How the male characters become incapable of extending emotions of love towards women is a common theme in his novels. When sex is seen synonymous with pleasure the focus becomes woman’s body and not the person. Lust replaces love. Henry Millers novels can be taken as an example of this. They carry endless images of woman as cunt, whore, and bitch. The difference between the sexual intercourses in Miller’s pages and the pages of Lawrence’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover reveal the actual differences between lust and love. By the middle of the twentieth century, after sixties to be precise, women writers came to the forefront as the custodians of true female experiences. Two women writers, Erica Jong and Tony Morison are taken here to show the changes seen in literature regarding the depiction of prejudices and discrimination towards women. In Fear of Flying Isadora becomes a writer who

Anti-Death Penalty Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Anti-Death Penalty - Research Paper Example As the paper outlines many imaginative and cruel ways of implementing the death penalty have been witnessed through time – from the guillotine to the garrote to firing squads to gas chambers to electric chairs -- before the more â€Å"humane† lethal injection has been made the manner of choice in countries that consider themselves civilized. However, there still are some countries in the world that use cruel ways of implementing capital punishment. Worse, these are for crimes that in many jurisdictions would not warrant the death penalty, or in some cases, any punishment at all. In Sudan, for example, a married person found guilty of adultery is executed by stoning; an unmarried person receives 100 lashes. In Afghanistan during the Taliban regime, a woman and a man were stoned to death in public using palm-sized stones for non-marital sex. The man died within minutes but the woman had to be finished off by dropping a large chunk of stone over her head. This paper will a rgue that the death penalty should no longer be used as a form of punishment. Four main arguments will be forwarded. First, the irrevocability of the death penalty means that there is no hope of correcting an injustice committed against a convict later found to be innocent. Second, it violates the principle of restorative justice, which should replace the principle of retributive justice. Third, it has been proven by empirical evidence that it in no way deters crime or helps in crime prevention. Fourth, racial biases affect any objective application of the death penalty law.  Human errors and frailty, as well as the lack of adequate forensic facilities in some countries, have led to many convictions that later turn out to be wrong. In a situation where the maximum penalty that may be meted out is life imprisonment, the State may still be able to provide reparation for an innocent man wrongly convicted. He will be allowed to go free and will even be given damages. In a country wher e the death penalty is legal, the finality of the sentence of death renders any mistake in convictions irreversible.  The problem is seriously considering that, according to a death penalty information website, "since 1973, at least 121 people have been released from death row after evidence of their innocence emerged. During the same period of time, over 982 people have been executed. Thus, for every eight people executed, we have found one person on death row who never should have been convicted."  This issue has generated widespread public outrage and is perhaps one of the more compelling reasons as to why the anti-death penalty advocates are gaining ground. Says Haines (125):  An analysis of newspaper coverage suggests that flawed convictions, in which possibly innocent persons either suffer or narrowly escape execution, are especially potent threats to public support for capital punishment. The injustice brought about by sending an innocent man to prison is magnified a th ousandfold by the horrific idea that such an innocent man might be wrongly executed. There can be no recompense that may be provided to the dead. In recent times, we have seen a paradigm shift from retributive justice, where a convict is made to pay for grievances to the community he belongs to, to restorative justice, wherein a recognition is made that a crime has been committed and a wrong has been done, but the convict is still a member of the community and is perceived as a human being with the capacity for reform.