The Great Depression Of Sylvia Plath - 869 Words

In the 1930s many life altering events were occurring, like the Great Depression. During that time some 13 to 15 million Americans were unemployed and nearly half of America’s banks had failed. These events led to many hardships and widespread unemployment and poverty. While these events were occurring, Sylvia Plath was born on October 27, 1932 in Boston, Massachusetts. Her parents met while her mother, Aurelia Schober, was a student at Boston University, where her father, Otto Plath, taught German and biology. The two were married in January 1932, and had Sylvia nine months later. Since she was born while the Great Depression, was occurring, one could say her life was not off to a great start and the ending of her life was also not ideal. Sylvia was no longer an only child, when her brother Warren was born in 1935. Soon after his birth, Otto’s health began to decline. Sylvia blossomed early in the way she noticed everything. She love the power and beauty of the sea tha t was located close to where her family lived. She also was mesmerized by her father’s ability to handle bees, even though he did not treat her well. Sylvia was a week and a half from being eight when her father died of lung cancer because he waited too late to seek help. People were astonished that Otto would have let it get this far. One of his friends even asked â€Å"How could such a brilliant man have been so stupid?† Otto’s death probably was confusing to Sylvia, because she was so young but also becauseShow MoreRelatedContributions Of Sylvia Plath1302 Words   |  6 PagesThroughout the decades many great poets and writers have influenced and impacted the literature that we read today. Henrik Ibsen’s pivotal work regarding social and moral issues of his day and Sigmund Freud’s writing pertaining to peoples’ mental health are just a few of examples of profound writers who contributed to the growth and development of literature. Sylvia Plath was also a profound writer and one of the most respected poets and prose writer of her time as well. She was once described asRead MoreThe Cause Of Sylvia Plath s Depression1447 Words   |  6 PagesThe Causes of Sylvia Plath’s Depression When reading any works by Sylvia Plath, it is easy to focus on the depression of her writing. However, it is important to understand why she wrote most her works about depression. Plath based her works on her own life experiences. Sylvia Plath’s most commonly known book, The Bell Jar, is thought to be an autobiography. Aurelia Plath, Sylvia’s mother, published the book Letters Home, a collection of all the letters Sylvia wrote to her mother. The letters sheRead MoreSylvia Plath s Literary Escape1203 Words   |  5 PagesSylvia Plath’s Literary Escape Sylvia Plath wrote The Bell Jar to liberate her from her past. This novel is the autobiographical tale of a young Sylvia Plath. Through Esther Greenwood, Sylvia manages to narrate almost exactly her life story. This narration includes her college days, her stay at the all-women’s college, her friendships with Doreen and Buddy Willard, her stay at a mental institution after a suicide attempt and even her deflowering. Sylvia penned the story in England under the pseudonymRead MoreThemes Evident in Sylvia Plath Poems1194 Words   |  5 PagesThemes evident in Sylvia Plath’s poetry Sylvia Plath displays many themes in her work; however she has the tendency to conceal and dig her themes, metaphors, and symbols deep in her poetic words, which leaves us readers left to decipher them. Plath is a poet that conveys quite compelling emotions through her work and is both prodigious and petrifying while still gloomy and relieving. Though there are many themes to revisit, the more significant ones evident in her writing will be explored. MortalityRead MoreWriting Styles of Sylvia Plath Essay1277 Words   |  6 PagesThe Life and Writings of Sylvia Plath After reading and discussing many poets and their written work, I have realized that not only pain, but any emotion that the poet is feeling, plays a large part in how the poems express themselves through their writing. I have chosen to explore Sylvia Plath and the poems she has written and how her pain and personal experiences have influenced her poetry. Similar to many other authors of the twentieth century, Sylvia Plath’s writing was influenced largelyRead MoreAmazing Poets Are Able To Write Their Innermost Feelings1276 Words   |  6 Pagesfamous through her writings is Sylvia Plath, who was able to write throughout her difficult life. She wrote of deep topics, such as depression and suicide, but also wrote of common experiences that most people go through. Sylvia Plath explains her thoughts of pregnancy through her poem â€Å"Metaphors.† She does this by using puzzling riddles and comparisons. Her words make a reader think about what she is writing. Sylvia Plath is a famous writer, with a background of depression, anxiety, and bipolar disorderRead MoreTulips and Cut by Sylvia Plath903 Words   |  4 Pagesâ€Å"Cut† Sylvia Plath is a â€Å"confessional† who puts her own experiences in her works that were written during the eighteen century. Sylvia Plath was diagnosed with depression, but recovered when she first attempted suicide in college. In her marriage to Ted Hughes she fell back into depression, which led her to attempt suicide and again this time she died .During the twentieth century, women in American culture were treated as objects without a voice, and male dominance suppressed them. Plath uses allusionRead MoreAnalysis Of The Bell Jar By Sylvia Plath1385 Words   |  6 Pagesfor the simple fact that they too, would like to have some sort of control over their what their readers know about them. In â€Å"The Bell Jar† by Sylvia Plath, the main character, Esther, a girl who is based on Plath herself, finds herself struggling with depression and anxiety and plans to take her own life several times but can never follow through. Plath modified biographical details because sh e wanted to simplify the material to make it easier to understand, to emphasize any points she wanted toRead MoreAnalysis Of Mirror By Sylvia Plath1414 Words   |  6 Pagesresses her childhood depression and her anger towards men, in â€Å"Mirror† when she reflects her adulthood depression and sorrow, and in her poem â€Å"Lady Lazarus† when she explains her attempts and success at suicide and why she made those choices. When Plath’s father died, she did not know how to feel. When he passed away, Plath exclaims â€Å"...we moved inland. Whereon those nine first years of my life sealed themselves off like a ship in a bottle† (Materer). When Plath lived down by the sea, she justRead MoreBiographical Interpretation Essay911 Words   |  4 Pagesyour point of view; your opinions. In Sylvia Plath’s poem â€Å"Daddy†, many could say that it was a about a hard relationship she had with her father, but how do we know? It could be about her father, husband, strong authority figure, or even God. But, as I read â€Å"Daddy† I got the strong sense that it was mostly about her father. The poem suggests that she had either an unhealthy relationship with him or she was angry with him for leaving her. In the poem, Plath says â€Å"I have always been scared of you†

The Progressive Case Against Assisted Suicide - 1413 Words

Brittany Maynard was given six months to live after being diagnosed with the deadliest form of brain cancer; she had recently just turned 29. To make matters worse, doctors had told her she would suffer from the tumor in a slow and painful manner before succumbing to death. Maynard decided she would die on November 1, a few days after her husband’s birthday under physician-assisted suicide. Unfortunately, she had to relocate from California, where her friends and family lived, to Oregon in order to fall under the â€Å"Die With Dignity† act. According to euthanasia.procon.org, only four states in the whole country have legalized assisted suicide. Unfortunately, there are many like Maynard, who have to relocate and leave their home or go through a long and strenuous court battle to receive this treatment plant. This is due to the disapproval of physician-assisted suicide. Ana Acton, the Executive Director at FREED Center for Independent Living, is one of the many oppone nts against this practice. In â€Å"The Progressive Case Against Assisted Suicide,† published in Huffingtonpost.com, Acton argues against the practice of physician-assisted suicide. She begins her argument by declaring, â€Å"Physician assisted suicide disproportionately affects the poor.† With this in mind, she believes the underprivileged would take advantage of this practice because of their inability to pay for treatment. Also, in order to further argue her opposition towards physician-assisted suicide, she argues,Show MoreRelatedPhysician Assisted Suicide Should Be Legalized943 Words   |  4 Pagesto commit suicide, but his mom resuscitated him both times. Therefore, Danny decided to starve himself to end his suffering once and for all (Grimminck). People such as Danny, cancer, and ALS patients, who are battling terminal illnesses, deserve the right to choose when enough is enough. Physician assisted suicide should be legalized because it’s the compassion ate thing to do, people deserve autonomy and because it is a better alternative. People may argue that physician assisted suicide is wrongRead MoreThe Debate Of Assisted Suicide1747 Words   |  7 Pages The topic of assisted suicide is very controversial and is heavily debated upon all around the world. While physician assisted suicide is only legal in the Netherlands, Switzerland, and a few states in the U.S., it is illegally practiced widely by physicians and nurses, such as Dr. Jack Kevorkian. I first heard of physician assisted suicide when the death of Dr. Kevorkian, an assisted suicide advocate and a suicide aid, was on the news in 2011. Kevorkian assisted in the suicide of many patientsRead MoreMoral Question of Hastening the Death of a Terminally Ill Patient1220 Words   |  5 Pagesregarding how to properly treat a individual who want to end there own life. Controversial views have always been made against those who suggest that terminally ill or incurably suffering people should be allowed to ask for and receive help to die if they so wish. The same set of arguments in opposition toward euthanasia is, that life is sacred and by legalizing physician assisted suicide would lead to abuses by the medical field. A fundamental question concerning hastening the death of a terminally illRead MoreAssisted Death And Voluntary Euthanasia1586 Words   |  7 Pages SHOULD THE LAW BE REFORMED TO ALLOW ‘ASSISTED DYING’ FOR THE TERMINALLY ILL? To begin with, assisted dying remains highly topical and debated, both in the public and medical arena. Assisted death, incorporates both physician assisted suicide and voluntary euthanasia. It gives the freedom to a terminally ill person or a mentally competent adult, to choose on their own free will and after meeting strict legal safeguards, takes prescribed medication which will end their life in dying. There are twoRead MoreLife Is Precious1350 Words   |  6 Pagesshould be made legal for patients to have doctor-assisted suicide, or mercy-killing, which is the term used to describe ending life through the voluntary self-administration of lethal medication, expressly prescribed by a physician for that purpose (DHS-Internet). By approximately a two-to-one ratio, most adults in the US agree that it should be this way. When read a brief description of the Oregon proposition, allowing physician-assisted suicide for patients who are thought to have less than sixRead MoreEuthanasi Eut hanasia And Euthanasia1483 Words   |  6 Pagesexplained through this quote, Euthanasia and medically assisted suicide to present a real danger. Although society refuses to see these dangers, euthanasia creates countless problems that shake society. Euthanasia remains a conditional based issue; therefore, the laws created rely on weak ideas that allow for easy manipulation, as can be seen through the mistakes and laws of the Netherlands and Belgium who legalized Euthanasia. Medically assisted suicide and Euthanasia use unethical ideology, and legalizationRead MoreAssisted Suicide : A Controversial Subject1224 Words   |  5 PagesRichard Cantos Professor: Clerc Intro to Government 11/20/2014 Assisted suicide is a controversial subject that welcomes death over life and presents many ethical dilemmas. We are frequently confronted with situations that raise ethical and moral questioning in our lifetimes. Traumatic events, as witnessed in the cases of Terri Schiavo, Brittany Maynard and Dax Cowart, often leave an impression on one s mortality and fate. Decisions may leave us questioning our moral, ethical, and spiritual beliefsRead MorePhysician Assisted Suicide1249 Words   |  5 Pagescourse with no interference from humans? For years, physicsians have not been allowed to help patients with suicide. Dr. Jack Kevorkian brought it to the forefront when he was arrested and senteced to over 60 years in prison even though the families of his patients showed their gratitude towards him. Recent laws in Montana, Oregon, and Washington have started the trend of Physican assisted suicide, but the U.S Attorney General’s office, are determined to prevent such laws from passing. In the followingRead MoreEuthanasia Is Painless Killing Of A Patient1435 Words   |  6 Pagesand painful disease or in an irreversible coma, also means to take a deliberate action with the express intention of ending a life to relieve intractable suffering. Some interpret as the practice of ending life in a mercy killing, assisted suicide, and soft slow suicide. There are two main classifications of euthanasia. There is Voluntary euthanasia which is conducted with consent. Where the patient decides for themselves to take the medication. Involuntary euthanasia is conducted without consentRead MoreMedical, Social And Ethical Reasons Essay1537 Words   |  7 PagesSince the development of medicine, people have requested doctors to end suffering through physician assisted suicide (PAS) (Boudreau 1). PAS refers to the practice in which physicians knowingly provide an individual with the means and/or knowledge to commit suicide, which includes counselling about medication and prescribing or supplying such drugs (Pereira 1). In my opinion, terminally ill patients should be allowed to end their lives through PAS because it affords the patients the choice of whether

Feminism And Gender Equality Essay Example For Students

Feminism And Gender Equality Essay Overall, the rights and status of women have improved considerably in the lastcentury; however, gender equality has recently been threatened within the last decade. Blatantly sexist laws and practices are slowly being eliminated while social perceptions ofâ€Å"women’s roles† continue to stagnate and even degrade back to traditional ideals. It isthese social perceptions that challenge the evolution of women as equal on all levels. Inthis study, I will argue that subtle and blatant sexism continues to exist throughouteducational, economic, professional and legal arenas. Women who carefully follow their expected roles may never recognize sexism asan oppressive force in their life. I find many parallels between women’s experiences in thenineties with Betty Friedan’s, in her essay: The Way We Were 1949. She dealt with asociety that expected women to fulfill certain roles. Those roles completely disregardedthe needs of educated and motivated business women and scientific women. Actually, thesubtle message that society gave was that the educated woman was actually selfish andevil. I remember in particular the searing effect on me, who once intended to be apsychologist, of a story in McCall’s in December 1949 called â€Å"A Weekend with Daddy.†A little girl who lives a lonely life with her mother, divorced, an intellectual know-it-allpsychologist, goes to the country to spend a weekend with her father and his new wife,who is wholesome, happy, and a good cook and gardener. And there is love andlaughter and growing flowers and hot clams and a gourmet cheese omelet and squaredancing, and she doesn’t want to go home. But, pitying her poor mother typing away allby herself in the lonesome apartment, she keeps her guilty secret that from now on shewill be living for the moments when she can escape to that dream home in the countrywhere they know â€Å"what life is all about.† (See Endnote #1)I have often consulted my grandparents about their experiences, and I find theirhistorical perspective enlightening. My grandmother was pregnant with h er third child in1949. Her work experience included: interior design and modeling women’s clothes forthe Sears catalog. I asked her to read the Friedan essay and let me know if she felt asmoved as I was, and to share with me her experiences of sexism. Her immediate reactionwas to point out that â€Å"Betty Friedan was a college educated woman and she had certaingoals that never interested me.† My grandmother, though growing up during a timewhen women had few social rights, said she didn’t experience oppressive sexism in herlife. However, when she describes her life accomplishments, I feel she has spent most ofher life fulfilling the expected roles of women instead of pursuing goals that were mostlyreserved for men. Unknowingly, her life was controlled by traditional, sexist valuesprevalent in her time and still prevalent in the nineties.Twenty-four years after the above article from McCall’s magazine was written, theSupreme Court decided whether women sho uld have a right to an abortion in Roe v. Wade (410 U.S. 113 (1973)). I believe the decision was made in favor of women’s rightsmostly because the court made a progressive decision to consider the woman as a humanwho may be motivated by other things in life than just being a mother. Justice Blackmundelivered the following opinion:Maternity, or additional offspring, may force upon the woman a distressful life andfuture. Psychological harm may be imminent. Mental and physical health may be taxedby child care. There is also a distress, for all concerned, associated with the unwantedchild, and there is the problem of bringing a child into a family already unable,psychologically and otherwise, to care for it. In other cases, as in this one, theadditional difficulties and continuing stigma of unwed motherhood may be involved. (See Endnote #2)I feel the court decision of Roe v. Wade would not have been made in 1949. Even in 1973, it was a progressive decision. The problem of abortion has existed for theentire history of this country (and beyond), but had never been addressed becausediscussing these issues was not socially acceptable. A culture of not discussing issues thathave a profound impact on women is a culture that encourages women to be powerless. The right of abortion became a major issue. Before 1970, about a million abortions weredone every year, of which only about ten thousand were legal. Perhaps a third of thewomen having illegal abortions mostly poor people had to be hospitalized forcomplications. How many thousands died as a result of these illegal abortions no onereally knows. But the illegalization of abortion clearly worked against the poor, for therich could manage either to have their baby or to have their abortion under safeconditions. (See Endnote #3)A critic of the women’s movement would quickly remind us that women have aright to decline marriage and sex, and pursue their individual interests. However, I wouldargue that the social pressure women must endure if they do not conform to their expectedrole is unfair. The problem goes beyond social conformity and crosses into governmentintervention (or lack thereof). The 1980’s saw the pendulum swing against the women’smovement. Violent acts a gainst women who sought abortions became common and thegovernment was unsympathetic to the victims. There are parallels between the SouthernBlack’s civil rights movement and the women’s movement: Blacks have long beenaccustomed to the white government being unsympathetic to violent acts against them. Imagery of Oedipus the King EssayTransportation Agency, Santa Clara (480 U.S. 616 (1987)). Mr. Paul E. Johnson filedsuit against the Santa Clara County Transportation Agency when he was denied apromotion, feeling the company’s affirmative action plan denied him of his civil rights. Some interesting facts were presented in this case:Specifically, 9 of the 10 Para-Professionals and 110 of the 145 Office and ClericalWorkers were women. By contrast, women were only 2 of the 28 Officials andAdministrators, 5 of the 58 Professionals, 12 of the 124 Technicians, none of the SkilledCrafts Workers, and 1 who was Joyce of the 110 Road Maintenance Workers. (See Endnote # 7)The above statistics show women have been considerably underrepresented at theSanta Clara County Transportation Agency. These numbers are not uncommon and arefound throughout business. It is interesting to note the current popular perception is thataffirmative action precludes white males from finding employment with companies thatimplement these plans. The truth is in the numbers, however. The fact that Mr. Johnsonfelt he was denied his civil rights because an equally qualified woman was given apromotion, instead of him, is just a small window into the subtle sexism that exists today. Most critics of affirmative action do not consider the grossly unequal numbers of men inmanagement and professional positions. Secondly, it never seems an issue of debate that awoman may have had no other previous life opportunities in these male dominated areas. I do not intend to argue that affirmative action is good or bad, but only wish to point outthat the current backlash against these programs is heavily rooted in sexism and racism. Often blatant violence or unfair acts against a group of people will cause thatgroup to pull together and empower themselves against their oppressors. The women’smovement has made large steps to eliminate many of these blatantly sexist acts in the lastcentury. Now the real difficulty is upon us: subtle acts of sexism and the degrading socialroles of women in today’s conservative culture. Alice Brooks so eloquently described herexperiences with inequality, stating, â€Å"the worse pain came from those little things peoplesaid or did to me.† As these â€Å"little things† accumulate in the experience of a youngwoman, she increasingly finds herself powerless in her relationships, employment,economics, and society in general. The female child has as many goals as the male child,but st atistically she is unable to realize these goals because of the obstacles that societysets in front of her. Society and media attempt to create an illusion that women haveevery right that men enjoy. However, women will never be equal until the day femalescientists, intellectuals, professionals, military leaders, and politicians are just as acceptedand encouraged to participate in all of society’s arenas as males. Endnotes:1. The Ethnic Moment, By P.L. Fetzer. Page 572. Constitutional Law Cases Essays, By S. Goldman. Page 205. 3. A People’s History Of The United States, By Howard Zinn. Page 499. 4. Beyond Black And White, By M. Marable. Page 40-41. 5. Constitutional Law Cases Essays, By S. Goldman. Page 767. 6. The Ethnic Moment, By P. L. Fetzer. Page 234. 7. Constitutional Law Cases Essays, By S. Goldman. Page 784. Bibliography:Fetzer, Philip L. The Ethnic Moment, The Search For Equality In The American Experience. New York: M.E. Sharpe, Inc., 1997. Goldman, Sheldon. Constitutional Law Cases Essays, Second Edition. New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 1991. Marable, Manning. Beyond Black White. New York: Verso, 1995. Zinn, Howard. A People’s History of The United States. New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 1980.