Warrior Marks :: essays research papers

Alice Walker, Warrior Marks Female Genital Mutilation and the Sexual Blinding of Women. New York Harcourt Brace, 1993, 373pp.Female genital mutilation, also known as female circumcision, is a coiffe that involves the removal of part or all of the female external genitalia. It occurs throughout the world, but most commonly in Africa where they vocalize that it is a tradition and social custom to keep a young girl pure and a married woman faithful. But to some Westerners, the practice is viewed as being primitive and barbaric. We react with disgust and find it nearly incomprehensible that female genital mutilation can occur in the world todayIn Warrior Marks, Alice Walker looks at the reality that millions of African, Asian and Indian women suffer from genital mutilation. The book begins with the re-telling of a story of how she lost one eye. This wound was inflicted on her when she was three years old and for years, she felt handicapped and isolated. Her brother, who caused this a ccident with a BBgun, is referred to as a warrior and the blinding of her eye is the warrior mark. Her visual mutilation is what helped her see the subject of genital mutilation. She sees it as a terrible form of patriarchal oppression, characterized by the feeling of being overpowered and dominated by those you are bound to respect. The book goes on and discusses the wellness risks that are involved in the practice. It talks about how the women who perform the surgery have a minimal knowledge of anatomy and hygiene, which results in infections of the genital and a great deal results in the transmission of the HIV virus. Besides the initial spite of the operation, these girls also suffer long-term physiological, sexual and psychological effects. A mother reveals that she would stop the pain and betrayal if she could but because of tradition, she and others would risk banishment, torture and abuse. In the end, Walker emphasizes that these African women are not victims, but survivor s. In the book, the women grow gardens on dry reduce and trade food, clothing and crafts in the marketplace. Whether a battered wife, a rape survivor or genitally mutilated woman, Walker concludes that a woman warrior learns that if she is injured, she can play off back. She closes by saying, Your wound could be your guide.Female circumcision is based on gender oppression and degradation of women.

Othello: the Abnormal Behaviors and Happenings Essay -- Othello essays

Othello the Abnormal Behaviors and Happenings The audience finds in William Shakespeares tragic drama Othello a curious collection of abnormal behaviors and happenings. In this paper let us examine in detail the abnormalities. In her book, Everybodys Shakespeare Reflections Chiefly on the Tragedies, Maynard mackintosh defends the Moor as one who is not necessarily the victim of a psychological deficiency, as some critics maintain What should be noticed in situation is that, essentially, Shakespeare invented Iago set him down in his dramatis personae with the single epithet a villain and devoted most of the plays lines and scenes to showing in detail the cunning, malignancy, and inhuman treatment of his nature, including the cowardice of his murder of his wife. It seems to me therefore impossible to believe, as some recent critics would have us do, that the root causes of Othellos ruin are to be desire in some profound moral or psychological deficiency peculiar to him. (137) A more obvious example of the irregular appears in the lease of Iago. The abnormal behavior of the ancient is partly rooted in his misogynism. In Historical contrarietys Misogyny and Othello Valerie Wayne implicates Iago in sexism. He is one who is almost incapable of whatsoever other perspective on women than a sexist one Iagos worry that he cannot do what Desdemona asks implies that his dis eulogy of women was candid and easily produced, while the praise requires labour and inspiration from a source beyond himself. His insufficiency is more surprising because elsewhere in the play Iago appears as a master rhetorician, unless as Bloch explains, the misogynistic writer uses rhetoric as a means of renouncing it, and... ...normal psychology. (89-90) WORKS CITED Bevington, David, ed. William Shakespeare four Tragedies. New York Bantam Books, 1980. Campbell, Lily B. Shakespeares Tragic Heroes. New York Barnes and Noble, Inc., 1970. Coles, Blanche. Shakespeares Four Giants. Ri ndge, New Hampshire Richard Smith Publisher, 1957. Mack, Maynard. Everybodys Shakespeare Reflections Chiefly on the Tragedies. Lincoln, NB University of Nebraska Press, 1993. Shakespeare, William. Othello. In The Electric Shakespeare. Princeton University. 1996. http//www.eiu.edu/multilit/studyabroad/othello/othello_all.html No line nos. Wayne, Valerie. Historical Differences Misogyny and Othello. The Matter of Difference Materialist Feminist Criticism of Shakespeare. Ed Valerie Wayne. Ithaca, NY Cornell University Press, 1991.