Things Fall Apart throught a feminst lens

      Looking back on how women's roles have progressed to where we are today is a lot to take in.   Women for many generations have been expected to be un educated, humble, quiet, and a house maker. Women have been under their husband's control and power for many years, women's opinion has never matered and few have had the courgage to speak their mind. Today women are now running for president of America and that would have been un heard of many years ago. Prehyduce against women have been around for quite some time, "The ancient Greeks aberred gender discrimination, declearing the male to be the superior and the female inferior." (Feminisim, 171) Women have never been treated equally to men, to read that females are supposed to be inferior to the male gender is unsettling. Women should always have the same opportunites as males and not one over the other.
  Men have been able to disbale women from reaching their full potential for many times. In Things Fall Apart Okonkwo is very pleased when he hears Nwoye talking down uopon females, "Always happy when he heard him grumbling about women. That showed that in time he would be able to control women-folk." (Achbe 45) Okonkwo degrades women and he treats them worse than slaves would be treated. He beat his youngest wife Ojiugo because he feels that she is being neglient. His love for power and control takes over when he beats her. The fact that hearing Nwoye talk poorly of females brings happiness to Okonkwo shows that he really is anti women. He believes that they should have no owner ship of anything and that children are under property was father and husband.
  In my essay that I will write about Feminsim in the text of Things Fall Apart I will analyze Okonkwo's behavior towards Ojiugo, and where he gets these strong feelings and beliefs from. What is Ibo's society expecations towards women, and why women have no power and have to live under neath the head male of the house hold and the actions that the male's use to keep women in their power.

Individuality

After reading the article titled " Individuality" in Time magazine, it made me think about what that word really means, literally and metaphorically. Every day we as human are given the gift of free will and it leads in to being individualists. We make decisions as simple as what to wear when we get dressed in the morning and what people wear is a form of self expression. The lyrics in a song is someone's way of expressing their feelings. Emotions, thoughts, the way someone feels is all different according to one person. In the article Raymond Kurzweil, "believes that we're approaching a moment when computers will become intelligent, and not just intelligent but more intelligent than humans." Of course there are many ways to analyze this hypothesis. Would it be a great new discovery? Or could it be a very dangerous not so well idea? When I hear this I am very skeptical about Kurzweil's theory. It would definitely increase technology and the obvious increase IQ scores. However the thought of merging with computers makes me a little weary. If we merge with computer it defeats the purpose of being independent and being an individual. Would we even be human if there was a microchip inside of us? Wouldn't that just make us an advanced robot? Without individuality there can not be a human race the way I see it. We would all be programmed and the technology inside of us would make us who we are. The role of being a computer and controller would be reversed. When you use a computer, you decide what it types, you tell it what website to take you to, you are the controller. If we merge with computers, the microchip would tell us what to do.  With the idea that, "Maybe the artificial intelligences will help us treat the effects of old age and prolong our life spans indefinitely." I agree because hello we would be a ROBOT! Of course we could increase our life span because the computer inside of us would keep us going until it starts to break down. There is also a religious view to take into consideration, death is supposed to be a secret virtue. The religious people out there would think that this idea is unrealistic because they believe that we have to die sometime and we are not the one's to determine our fait. In fact I think that way as well. Kurzweil's theory is a little similar to the way people live in Brave New World.  They are pre determined to what social class they live in, what jobs they will have, and they are expected to die before getting "old" and the cycle continues. Technology is used in Huxley's novel, while the people sleep they hear a voice telling them to be happy to be a gamma, alpha, or beta because they have a good life. But  character Bernard believes that this is not the way things should be. He wants to believe that they should not be predetermined jobs, social classes included. I don't think that he is trying to show Lenina a romantic side, he is definitely on to something. Huxley's theory is a bit far fetched, and Kurzweil's idea is some what realistic, I would just hate to see individuality go away, if that were the case then would there really be a human race? We will have to wait to see what the future has in store for us all. 

Is this our future? 

Technopoly

To be completely honest, before reading the chapter from Neil Postman's book I had no idea what Technoply and Technocracy was until after just reading the chapter. On the second page of the chapter he defines technocracy as, " A society only loosely controlled by social custom and religious tradition and driven by the impulse to invent- the "unseen hand". Immediately I thought about how closely that describes the world that Lenina and Bernard live in, minus the religious traditions. They live in a society with little to no formal traditions, and they're main drive is to improve their technology to produce as many sets of fertilized workers as they can. Not only for the benefit to improve their world but they are in a race with other countries. However technocracy can just as easily relate to Brave New World as well. Technocracy is full of promise of progress and advancing technology. Technocracy, "filled the air with promise of new freedoms and new forms of social organization." The way that technocracy is defined sounds like Bernard's dream. He is anxious to know what "freedom" is, and what it really means, if Bernard were trying to rally up a bunch of his people to try and fight the system of technoply that they are living in, I could see his campaign slogan, "Promise of Freedom and new Social Organization." However both technoply and technocracy both have similarities in the way the Brave New World is run. Technoply is loosely based on traditions, and even though Brave New World doesn't have formal traditions they are driven by the "unseen hand." Although the workers in Brave New World aren't considered to be free and have freedom they do want to progress and advance technology. Postman says that technocracy, "Speeded up the world,  We could get to places faster, do things faster, accomplish more in a shorter time, and technology could triumph." To the Director and D.H.C. in Brave New World, that is exactly what they are trying to do! They want to progress. They have planes, that is one of the ways they can get around it's faster than a boat. The workers in Brave New World are encouraged to think of new ideas to help advance what they already have, it isn't neccissarly that they want to progress technology for themselves it is simply a contest.

Rhetorical Analysis

 Marion A. Davis analyzes Shakespeare's Macbeth in an essay. He argue's that Lady Macbeth has a weakness because of her gender.  Davis paper seems that he is writing for one of his academic classes, the way that his paper is structured by his vocabulary, he is writing for a collage professor.  Although his paper is rather short, he makes valid points regarding his position and thesis. He knows what his take is on the novel and what he is writing about. He doesn't take forever to reach how he feels on his topic he is very straight forward and gets to the main idea from the get go. Lady Macbeth is who Davis is analyzing about her weaknesses, and the oppression on women as a whole. He talks about women who come from different back rounds, religious groups, different cultures, and classes.  Women could also be a targeted audience, women would be more interested in reading this article then men would. Davis talks about the way the women have and are evolving. Lady Macbeth is a bit of a rebel, and has rebels against society. He points out that she is some what courageous and stands on her own, when women in that time era weren't allowed per say to voice their opinion, and go against society. His thesis is very controversial because he is dealing with the topic on feminism. Both men and women would have room to make comments, on how they feel about the topic. The only resource that he uses as evidence to back up his topic is Shakespeare's novel Macbeth and thats it. However his evidence isn't always relevant to what his is trying to say, it doesn't always support his thesis. I think other articles dealing with feminism would definitely benefit his essay.  Maybe even asking other students that read the book and what they thought of the main character Lady Macbeth. He needs more resources to help prove his point. In his introduction he gives an overview of the novel and characterizes Macbeth, and gives his thesis at the end. Then he summarizes a certain chapter and part of the novel and gives a quote from the play as his evidence, and then follows by commentary and it continues. Basically his introduction is good, in his three body paragraphs he gives commentary and more quotes, until his conclusion paragraph. His essay is very high school structured the only thing that make it more sophisticated is his vocabulary. His transitions are his next thought and more evidence. Yes they do work well, and makes sense they aren't completely irrelevant. I wish he could go into more depth and not bring up other women and stayed focused on Lady Macbeth. Davis has a wide range of diction, his isn't using "big" words just to throw them out there like hey look what words I know and can spell. They relate back to what he is talking about, his language isn't very formal, it doesn't seem much like a collage essay in that regards. It's very short but it does get his main idea across in a formal matter.