Book Reports | Essay Writing Blog https://essay4you.net/blog Essays writing Sun, 13 Feb 2022 10:48:55 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=5.9.5 https://essay4you.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/cropped-es-ik4-1-32x32.png Book Reports | Essay Writing Blog https://essay4you.net/blog 32 32 Professions for Women Essay https://essay4you.net/blog/professions-for-women-by-virginia-woolf/ Mon, 22 Jun 2015 09:24:19 +0000 https://essay4you.net/blog/?p=3692 Virginia Woolf (1882-1941) was an outstanding English feminist writer, literary critic and publisher. Her literary works inspired many writers of interwar and postwar periods. Her style of writing is focused on exploration of the concepts of time and memory, and human inner feelings and consciousness. In “Professions for Women” published in 1931, Virginia Woolf tells […]

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Virginia Woolf (1882-1941) was an outstanding English feminist writer, literary critic and publisher. Her literary works inspired many writers of interwar and postwar periods. Her style of writing is focused on exploration of the concepts of time and memory, and human inner feelings and consciousness.
In “Professions for Women” published in 1931, Virginia Woolf tells the truth about her own experiences as a woman and as a writer. She refers to the depiction of femininity and her own literary practice, during which she kills a phantom, known as “the Angel in the House”. The author discusses the nature of the profession of a women-writer, analyzing the major obstacles that she has to overcome to achieve success. Considering that in Victorian period, women faced inequality, Virginia Woolf describes women’s occupations with irony. Actually, the author had a motive to kill “The Angel in the House” because of her anger toward the description of femininity of the 19-th century. She wants to come out of the prejudices of the Victorian society, in which women had to sooth men. The writer had to battle with that phantom before she could start reviewing books. Virginia Woolf writes: “Killing the Angel in the House was part of the occupation of a woman writer” (27). This statement means women have to fight for social and economic equality. She wants women of all professions to consolidate and fight inequality and prejudices.
I was greatly impressed by Virginia Woolf’s philosophy of life discussed in her essay “Professions for Women”. I think that this piece can help students think and write, especially those girls who face some obstacles in writing. Virginia Wolf’s philosophy can help them to discuss the existing problems and share the knowledge they have gained. This piece might be included in a freshman reader for composition and rhetoric.

Works Cited
Woolf, Virginia. ““Professions for Women” in Dreams and Inward Journeys A Rhetoric and Reader for Writers. Seventh Edition, ed. by Marjorie Ford and Jon Ford.

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The Lottery Analysis Essay https://essay4you.net/blog/literary-analysis/ Tue, 26 Mar 2013 11:17:51 +0000 https://essay4you.net/blog/?p=3123 The story “The Lottery” is a work of fiction written by Shirley Jackson in 1948. Despite several written novels that have received a paean from critics and readers’ interest, Jackson’s most famous work is the story “The Lottery”, which describes the ugly underside of the rural town in America. Thus, this paper introduces and presents […]

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The story “The Lottery” is a work of fiction written by Shirley Jackson in 1948. Despite several written novels that have received a paean from critics and readers’ interest, Jackson’s most famous work is the story “The Lottery”, which describes the ugly underside of the rural town in America.

Thus, this paper introduces and presents the short story “The Lottery.” It describes, explores, and analyzes the above-mentioned story using the literary devices in order to support a claim.

To start with, the response to this story was negative and aroused a lot of critics and controversy with the crowds. In her story, Jackson uses both comedy and irony in order to show the weakness of human being, dissimulation, and evil. The story begins with the event when children gather up the stones and put them in the heaps. “The Lottery” takes place in a small village that is well-known for its ritual called “The lottery.” This event is conducted each year in order to secure a good harvest and the whole village gathers together for this local tradition. On the day of the lottery, people gather in the square to hear the name of the chosen person.

The round starts when one person in the village is chosen by chance with the help of a drawing. Then that person should be stoned by their family and friends. The above-stated drawing was practiced over seventy-seven years and experienced by every member of this village.

It is obviously that Jackson makes a statement concerning human evil and hypocrisy. As it was mentioned, the story takes place in a very peaceful area where people are typical and everybody knows each other. The main idea of this story is that individuals are not always as they seem at first glance. A pure evil can be hidden under a human’s congeniality.

Since Jackson wrote the story in a friendly manner, in the beginning the reader does not capture the main idea of this work. Moreover, the reader expects that the chosen person (the winner) will get a prize or something like that.

In addition, this story shows the weakness of human being. This place, having such a horrible tradition for many years and conducting it without any objections, continues to carry out this ritual and adheres to the local traditions. Therefore, the major theme of this story is to adhere to the tradition.

It seems that Jackson supposes that a lot of people have weak characters and are not strong enough in order to resist their disapprobation due to their fear of being refused by the community. Instead of this, individuals sacrifice their well-being and happiness for other people’s sake.

Moreover, it is not superfluous to add that the protagonist of this story is Mrs. Hutchinson who was presented in this story in order to show weakness and falsity.

Talking about stylistic devices of this story, it is possible to say that this story presents some of them (for example, parallelism when there are the uses of questions that are not ones by their structure, etc.).
Jackson, recreating the ancient rituals, showed senseless cruelty, brutality, and general inhumanity in people’s souls.

Taking the above-mentioned information into consideration, it is possible to draw a conclusion that there is no doubt that Shirley Jackson made a great contribution to the development of American literature.

Nowadays, Shirley Jackson’s works are essential and important for our society, and have yet to get a decent estimate of the contemporaries.

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The Diving Bell and the Butterfly Essay https://essay4you.net/blog/the-diving-bell-and-the-butterfly/ Sat, 09 Mar 2013 13:40:57 +0000 https://essay4you.net/blog/?p=2910 What is a diving bell? Why do you think it is an excellent metaphor for Bauby’s physical restrictions? A diving bell is a special water-proof costume for diving under water. It is usually supplied with oxygen cylinder in order to make the diver able to stay under water for longer periods of time. Besides, the […]

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What is a diving bell? Why do you think it is an excellent metaphor for Bauby’s physical restrictions?

A diving bell is a special water-proof costume for diving under water. It is usually supplied with oxygen cylinder in order to make the diver able to stay under water for longer periods of time. Besides, the bell is equipped with different hoses and cables to provide connection to the boat or any other swimming vessel. Thus, this bell is rather heavy and makes it rather hard to move, that’s why Bauby compared his paralyzed condition with this appliance.

What is ‘locked-in-syndrome’, describe the symptoms.

Locked-in syndrome, also known as cerebromedullospinal disconnection, is a heavy medical condition when the patient is absolutely paralyzed physically, with only eyes moving in the majority of cases, but is still absolutely conscious and sober-minded, though not able to communicate.

What injury did Bauby sustain which landed him in the hospital? What region(s) of the brain were impacted?

Bauby experienced a massive stroke, in the result of which the lesion of brain stem took place. To be more specific, the ventral (anterior) part of the pons was damaged. Before returning back to consciousness Bauby had spent three weeks in coma.

How do you think that Bauby’s personality and outlook could have contributed to his approach/outlook on his situation?

Bauby was a rather enterprising and adventurous man, he had three children, but never married their mother, it means that he was always self-dependent and independent, but in the process of recovery he also showed himself as strong and persistent personality. Sense of humor didn’t leave him, and he had much time to speculate about his life and people around him, and thus he did not give up and even almost fell in love.

Although Bauby has experienced a catastrophic and irreversible physical disability there is no talk of suicide in the book, why do you think this is?

It is quite normal for a person with a similar diagnosis to think of death, as hardly any other way out is seen. But first of all, it is not typical for Bauby’s character. Besides, the goal of the film is to show how one can withstand such life tests and even think of the benefits. Though the main character never had such uneasy experience before, the example of such a strong personality is to inspire the audience.

How does the reality of ‘coming out’ of a coma differ from the Hollywood ‘awakenings’ we see? Explain.

In typical Hollywood movies the patients easily awake after coma, like after usual dreaming, and orient themselves with no problems, with all their senses working. Meanwhile in “The Diving Bell and the Butterfly” we see how heavy the process of ‘coming out’ is, with loss of orientation, with spoilt vision and fragmented perception of reality.

Why do you think that many people avoid Bauby?

Communicating with a disabled person is a severe test not only for themselves, but for the people around them as well. Those people who went on communicating with Bauby were very courageous. For others it was rather difficult to be tolerant enough to understand his needs and to stay cheerful like nothing serious happened.

Even though Bauby is physically inert, his mind is still clear and active, how do we know this is so? Provide examples.

The film is made up essentially of Bauby’s thoughts, comments on what is going on, reminiscences and fantasies. His inner speech is full of wise remarks, his approach to new life is philosophic and he also analyzes his past. Besides, he is still a male inside, because we see how he reacts at women, where his eyes are looking, for example, when his wife is speaking to him.

In what way is Bauby forced to grieve for his own life?

Before quasi-coma Bauby used to be a lucky cynic man with almost no principles, light-minded and full of energy, as if he was born with a silver spoon in his mouth. After the tragedy, as he admits himself, he learns to live with despair. He has lost all his charm, the doors to entertainment and simple joys are closed to him, and to explain something to anyone he has to blink ad infinitum.

What does Bauby’s experience tell us about life and our approach to those with disabilities?

Usually unwillingly, but we usually see the disabled people as disabled not only physically, but also mentally; we tend to think that with their physical restrictions they lose normal needs, wishes and sense of humor. But Bauby’s example shows that it is not so. Besides, his story shows that in some way we all are in such “diving bells”, only put on voluntarily.

How does the title aptly apply to Bauby’s experiences?

The title “The Diving Bell and the Butterfly”reflects the two images of Bauby, which are compared and contrasted in the film. On the one hand, Bauby feels like he is put into such airless, rough diving bell, restricting all his movements and isolating him from the outer world. On the other hand, the surrounding people see him as a butterfly. And he also compares his new life with a life of a butterfly, associated with eternal reiteration.

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