...In the conclusion of the article “John Adams and the Authorship of the Declaration of Independence” it was “Authorship of the declaration was now a gift flowing from Adam’s affection from the man who, he once complained, had stolen the “glory of it.” In other words, Thomas Jefferson had stolen John Adam’s idea of the Declaration of Independence. My thoughts on this article, I would have to say it was very understandable, although it seemed easy to get in the beginning of the story. Also, another thing about the article is that the author should have made it easier to read. Most of the information that I read throughout the readings were much comprehended. The things I did not find much assuming about these articles is that he kept on repeating most of the information during the reading of the article that he had already told in the beginning of the article as to the conclusion. In other words, he could have shortened the article very much to save myself from reading a lot. The author could have made the work much stronger by getting straight to the point of John...
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...The second half of the East of Eden is focused on the choice between a life of wickedness and righteousness. All people have the ability to choose between good and evil and this is John Steinbeck’s principle thematic point. This never ending battle is personified by Caleb Trask “who inherits both good and evil and in whom a genuine moral struggle takes place.” (Lisca). The choice between good and evil originated with the word Timshel, which means “thou mayest.” The Trask’s servant, Lee, talks of the importance of Timshel after the naming of the boys. “‘But thou mayest! Why that is what makes a man great, that gives him stature with the gods, for in his weakness and his filth and his murder of his brother he has still the great choice.’” (303). It is ultimately Caleb Trask who must choose between good and evil after his actions cause the death of his brother. Indeed, Caleb Trask represents the struggle all human beings face in their lives. Each person will face a time in their lives where they must choose for themselves which path they must take....
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...throughout Europe. He was fluent in a number of classical as well as modern languages, including Greek, Latin, Hebrew, Aramaic, Spanish, Italian, French and Dutch. In 1625, he began his attendance at Cambridge University with the intention of becoming a clergyman in the Church of England, but was disillusioned by what he considered the arrogance and ignorance of his fellow students. He decided that his true calling was to serve God and his country as an author and poet. Inspired by Roman poets of antiquity, and particularly Virgil, Milton aspired to create a great epic poem in the English language. He considered two other distinctly British topics for his epic—the story of King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table, and the military exploits of the general Oliver Cromwell—before settling on the Biblical story of Adam and Eve and their fall from God’s grace through disobedience. Milton was politically active throughout his life, and was outspoken in his beliefs against monarchy. After the execution of King Charles in 1648, Milton wrote pamphlets in support of the new parliament. Milton suffered from degenerative eyesight; his blindness became total in 1652. In spite of this, he worked as a civil servant under Cromwell’s protectorate, which governed Britain from 1653 to 1658. When Cromwell died and the monarchy was restored,...
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...Judaism’s Rejection of the Original Sin In the bible, the story of Adam and Eve in the book of Genesis serves as scriptural evidence of humankind’s first transgression of God’s command resulting in the expulsion from paradise. Christians claim that humans are tainted from the fall and many scholars reinforce the idea of a recovery narrative, which depicts the bible as following a pattern of decline and recovery, thereby reinforcing the belief that something was once lost and must be recovered. After mankind’s fall from the state of perfection, Christians believed that Jesus was their savior and would consequently sacrifice himself in order to redeem man. Through the act of disobedience in Genesis emerged the concept of the original sin, which stipulates that humans are born sinners and that sins pass from parent to child as an inherited characteristic. Jewish believers, however, often criticize this notion and although they acknowledge that the human race came under the dominion of sin, which would affect their subsequent environment, Judaism, unlike Christianity denies that man is born into this world in a state of sin. Judaism affirms that the act of sinning is not part of the human condition but rather represents a conflict between two opposing inclinations (a good and an evil tendency) and that man has the ability to resist sin and can overcome the evil inclination by willing himself to become a righteous person. Therefore, Jewish people believe that man is inherently...
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...This makes for a fairly simple, fluid read. To support his arguments, Breen uses a variety of sources—diaries, history books, journals, letters, newspapers and governmental documents to name a few. Some of these sources were likely very difficult to locate considering Breen’s focus on the ordinary man. Although it’s easy enough to find information on some of the more well-known Revolutionary figures, Breen goes beyond the easily accessible to piece together the stories of people and communities that little has been written about. Unlike most authors of history texts, Breen does not choose to include a Bibliography of his sources, although they are cited in his end...
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...Catholic social teaching is an important essential in one’s life. It understands the importance of human life and dignity, while at the same time it call to family, and in participation in their daily life; and it defines the rights and duties of a human being. It also states that every person is an image of God, therefore it is worthy of respect. One has to reflect about a series that depicts family’s life and also the social function of the family. For this I choose Parenthood last episode of season four, because it demonstrate what real family struggle. Parenthood is a show that tells the story of the Braverman family, which comprises an older couple (Zeek and Camille Braverman), their four children (Adam, Sarah, Crosby and Julia), and their...
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...of discovery through a new world in his fall from Heaven and his passage through Chaos to Earth. Adam tries to understand the earth's physical place in the universe and its associated ontological and theological value as the home of man. He wonders aloud about "this Earth a spot, a grain,/ An Atom, with the Firmament compar'd/ And all her numbered Starrs, that seem to rowl /Spaces incomprehensible" (PL 8.17-21). Milton asks us to imagine the first man struggling with many of the same questions a Renaissance thinker, contemplating new models of the universe, must have considered. In response to the theory that everything revolves around the sun and not the earth, philosophers were forced to question the importance of man's role in the universal order. Raphael, responding to Adam's concerns, suggests there is no reason "bodies bright and greater should not serve / The less not bright, nor Heav'n such journies run / Earth sitting still" (PL 8.87-9). Yet, the poem does not answer all such questions directly, and scholars often find it difficult to determine Milton's attitude toward science. In these debates, it is helpful to remember that Milton was not a scientist but a theorist. He did not contribute to scientific knowledge so much as to an understanding of what new scientific ideas might mean to traditional Christian cosmology. He meditates on this in conditional modes, as does Raphael in his description of the universe: "What if the Sun/ Be Centre to the World" (PL 8.122-3). In...
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...THE BIBLE’S INFLUENCE ON ENGLISH-AMERICAN LITERATURE by Zhang Lanlan June, 2007 Xiaogan University Abstract As the sutra of the Christianity, the Bible has a great influence on both English and American literature and offers an eternal theme of their literary creation .English and American writers use stories of the Bible by three main methods. First, they quote person's names or stories of the Bible as the characters' names or plots of the creations from the Bible directly. Sometimes they make some changes on the original stories. Sometimes they quote stories directly from the Bible as the writing materials. Second, they make use of symbolic meaning of the Bible by some technical such as simile, metaphor and symbolism, so that the stories could exert a great influence on contrasting with the new products. Third, they merge the plots of the Bible to give connotative efforts to the readers. Exploring the methods helps us know the western culture and consciousness, have a good appreciation and study for the English-American literature. key words: English-American literature ; the Bible; methods 《圣经》在英美文学作品中的影响 摘要 作为基督教的经典，《圣经》对英美文化影响深远，为英美文化创作提供了永恒的母题。英美作家化用《圣经》故事的主要方法有：直接引用《圣经》中的人名作为作品的人物名称，或直接引用《圣经》故事或对原型故事进行变形或处理，作为创作素材；通过比喻，隐喻或象征等手法，把《圣经》故事的寓意融汇到作品情节中或人物性格里，使这些故事发挥有力的陪衬作用；使作品中的人物，故事和情节与《圣经》故事大体对应，让《圣经》能穿越时空的限制，从而发挥隐含的参照作用。 探讨英美作家化用《圣经》的方法，有助于我们了解英美文化的思想意识，更好的学习，欣赏乃至研究英美文学作品。 关键词：英美文学；《圣经》；方式 ...
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...Elucidate the importance of The Fourth Book of Paradise Lost. Answer: In the Fourth book of Paradise Lost, we are given more insight into the character of Eve and Satan. As Eve narrates her first waking moments after her own creation, we are immediately introduced to Eve's weakness, vanity. She awakes near a lake and sees an image of herself and thinks the images beautiful. Modern readers, especially coming from a feminist perspective, might view Eve's admiration of herself not as vanity or a weakness, but rather as a gesture of self-confidence and independence from man (especially as she finds her own image so much more beautiful than Adam's ). This self confident independence, however, is quickly lost. It is quite clear Milton believes in the traditional patriarchal system, complete with the gender stereotypes of 17th century Europe. Milton views the hierarchy of Adam being submissive to God and Eve being submissive to Adam as a natural God-given order: "God is thy law, thou mine," Eve says, "to know no more is woman's happiest knowledge and her praise." Later, when both Raphael and Michael come to visit the pair in separate episodes with messages from God, Eve will leave the conversation and only Adam will hear the message. The implication, of course, is that it is men who are in contact with God, and women are to learn about God only through men. Satan, as a character, has lost some of his original glamour and reader sympathy. It is clear in this book that Satan's argument...
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...History and Politics of the Middle East at the School of Oriental and African Studies at London University. She subsequently gained a Masters of Fine Arts degree in creative writing from the American University in Washington DC. She lived in London, Paris, Washington DC and Sydney before returning to Beirut in the mid-1990s where she worked as a journalist. She wrote three novels: Somewhere, Home, published in 2003 and won the Commonwealth Best First Book award for Southeast Asia and the South Pacific, Dreams of Water in 2007, and A Good Land in 2009 which was shortlisted for Best Book for the Commonwealth. Her remarkable novel, Somewhere, Home, tells the story of three Lebanese women. All of whom are still searching for somewhere that can be called home. Nada Awar Jarrar’s novel tells three distinct, thematically linked stories of modern Lebanese women living in the shadow of war and...
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...one of: Lord Jim, The Secret Agent, Nostromo, Under Western Eyes Ford, Ford Madox. The Good Soldier Forster, E. M. Howards End, A Passage to India (plus the essays “What I Believe” and “The Challenge of Our Times” in Two Cheers for Democracy) Galsworthy, John. The Man of Property Greene, Graham. One of: Brighton Rock, The Power and the Glory, The Heart of the Matter Huxley, Aldous. Brave New World Joyce, James. Dubliners, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Ulysses Kipling, Rudyard. Kim Lawrence, D. H. Two of: Sons and Lovers, Women in Love, The Rainbow, The Plumed Serpent Lewis, Wyndham. Tarr, manifestos in BLAST 1 Mansfield, Katherine. “Prelude,” “At the Bay,” “The Garden Party,” “The Daughters of the Late Colonel” (in Collected Stories) Orwell, George. 1984 (or Aldous Huxley, Brave New World) Wells, H. G. One of the following: Ann Veronica, Tono-Bungay, The New Machiavelli West, Rebecca. The Return of the Soldier Waugh, Evelyn. One of: Vile Bodies, A Handful of Dust, Brideshead Revisited Woolf, Virginia. Two of: The Voyage Out, Jacob’s Room, Mrs. Dalloway, To the Lighthouse, Orlando, Between the Acts (plus the essays “Mr. Bennett and Mrs. Brown” and “Modern Fiction” in Collected Essays) B. POETRY The...
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...Assess the view that women are no longer oppressed by religion (18 marks) The view that women are no longer oppressed by religion is prevalent in society today, however there is a lot of evidence to suggest that this is not the case and that women are still very much being oppressed by some aspects of religion. Feminists would argue that religion is a patriarchal institute, and in religion, there has never been equality for women. Firstly, historically, wherever nature is conceptualised, the role of women has been seen in terms of their ‘essential femininity’, that is, as being naturally different creatures to males. Thus, within the philosophies of New Age cults, women tend to be afforded to a much higher status than men. This is one of the reasons that may explain the development and involvement of women in New age Movements (NAMS). Many NAMs emphasise nature, such as using homeopathic remedies, aromatherapy and massage. Bruce argues that the private sphere of cult activity appeals to women because it’s like the private sphere of the home. Glock and Stark would take it further to support this view and argue that women are more likely to participate in these kind of sects because they’re more likely to experience poverty and social deprivation, having a lack of power, prestige and social status (relative deprivation) Women are also more likely to suffer from mental/emotional problems (search for healing), and ethically are more conservative than men, so therefore get involved...
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...Frankenstein as a Gothic Novel Mary Shelley’s novel Frankenstein is considered as a Gothic novel but it can be seen as a compilation of both Gothic and Romantic because of the significance of the sublime. Certain events and settings in the novel present the gothic themes. Shelley uses the different themes in her novel to evoke feelings of horror and terror in the reader. Frankenstein engages in a quest in pushing the realms of science to their limits which leads him to playing god and creating an unnatural being using science. One of the themes Shelley uses in the novel to create the gothic presence is the theme of Forbidden Knowledge. Mary Shelley introduces the ideas that science is capable of being very dangerous and has consequences through the character of Victor Frankenstein. Shelley’s time was described as the age of unprecedented scientific discoveries, which influenced her in writing of Frankenstein. The process of the creation of his creation was influenced by the Italian physician Luigi Galvani who discovered “animal electricity” which manifests with the twitching of nerves and muscles when an electric current is applied. Frankenstein seeks to find “the secrets of heaven and earth” to fulfil his quest. He calls them secrets; he is aware they are not to be known and should not be found. Frankenstein knows that acquiring such knowledge would not be easy as he states “how dangerous the acquirement of knowledge”. Frankenstein is aware of the uneasy task of seeking...
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...purpose. God not only breathes life into our spirit when we come to Him, he offers to breathe a living purpose into every aspect of us and our life. Today we want to understand how he does that to our relationships. We will be looking at 3 books in scripture to understand this concept and will be looking at 3 areas of relationships for a believer in Christ. 1. Relationships at home: Genesis 2:18-24 Now I realise a lot of you are not married but I also know that most of you have the desire to be married. We want to understand it means to be Christ centred in marriage as well. I have spoken on this topic before and so if you’re hearing it for the 2nd time maybe God really wants to get a point across to you. If we look at the story of creation we see how God creates everything and at the end He creates Adam. Scripture goes on to say that for every living thing a partner was found but for Adam there was none. In verse 18 Genesis teaches us that God thought it was not good for man to be alone. All my...
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...Morality that makes us more demonic animals. Also Twain has a point about our behaviour.Twain thought that we were killing more animals just for our passion instead of making shift, and he also uttered that we were stocking of vast of foods which is also bad act that can’t be accepted for the highest animals about human behaviours.However Twain was not right about the part of ilnesses. He claimed that we had body parts which were unnecesary and malfucntion. Moral sense of human is one of the fundamental issue that is enlarging day by day with the help of our belief and enslaving people. For example according to Twain the inner sense enables us to do wrong things even we don’t want to do. To give an example from mythology, there is a man story that is about a passion of consuming, wanting everything from the heaven and the expulsion from paradise as a price of these requests. Adam is a prophet According to Muslim belief. It is believed that Adam was the first human on the world and also believed he was expelled from paradise just because he ate the apple which is believed that God forbade just this apple and allowed to eat all of the stuff on the heaven again according to the Muslim belief.However, Adam just wanted to eat that apple. It just seemed to him...
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