Category: Literature 5177

In her short story The Storm, Kate Chopin was undoubtedly interested in presenting more to her audience than simple stories regarding simple country folk. Although there is little room in a short story for the full development of several individuals, significant insights regarding the multiple emotions of characters can often become very well developed by the careful use of phrases or actions. With the judicious application of only very meaningful phrases and language, the author is able to relate a specific event while providing the reader with a complex understanding of a woman trapped in a world, not of her own making.

In The Storm, the major part of the story focuses on the activities of Calixta and Alcee, the main protagonist and one of her neighbours who was caught out when the storm arrived. As it is revealed through the dialogue and the action described, Calixta once had a relationship with Alcee. This earlier relationship is predominantly shown through Alcees emotions and impressions. The first accidental physical contact between the two dredges up these memories and the reasons why the two of them are not married now. In Assumption, he had kissed her and kissed and kissed her; until his sense would well nigh fail, and to save her, he would resort to a desperate flight. If she was not an immaculate dove in those days, she was still inviolate; a passionate creature whose very defenselessness had made her defence, against which his honour forbade him to prevail (Chopin, 1898). This suggests that Alcee fled before he and Calixta could consummate their love affair and satisfy their desires regardless of what her feelings were on the matter.

It is presumably for this reason that Calixta was less than fully satisfied with her marriage, always wondering if her first love would have been better. Although she is trapped in a marriage with Bobinot and now has a fine son who she is proud of, the marriage is not equal, which was illustrated at the beginning of the story when Bobinot and Bibi become stuck at the store by the storm and Bobinot nervously attempts to find something for Calixta that will appease her for the trouble he knows hell have caused. This indicates that the home life is less than happy, although there are no overt signs of significant marital distress.

Calixta finally experiences some sense of freedom as she and Alcee satisfy their long-suspended passions during the storm. For each, this passion is expressed in terms of a passion never before felt and probably never to be felt again, but revelling in the experience. Her firm elastic flesh that was knowing for the first time its birthright was like a creamy lily that the sun invites to contribute its breath and perfume to the undying life of the world. The generous abundance of her passion, without guile or trickery, was like a white flame which penetrated and found response in depths of his own sensuous nature that had never yet been reached (Chopin, 1898). Comparisons can be made between the blinding white flash of the lightning outside and the blinding whiteness of Calixta in this moment of a passionate embrace. The comparison between her inner spirit and the outer environment is not to be ignored, not only as they affect her life but also as they have bearing upon the lives of so many others. As Calixta and Alcee finish their love-making, the storm outside passes away, thundering in the distance for other people to fear and leaving Calixtas world fresh and new.

Through such an analysis, it can be seen how a short story with limited space for character development can still manage to present a complicated individual and an intense look at the social customs of a given time. While The Storm only comprises the short space of a passing storm, the implications of the storm and which storm (atmospheric or human) are the storm of the title remain concepts to be discussed in great detail, not only for the characters involved but for those reading the story, those living in the time of authorship and those experiencing it from the perspective of a century in the future. Through this story, Chopin hammers home the unnatural and oppressed state of women in her time and urges social change for a happier society overall.

Works Cited

Chopin, Kate. The Storm 1898.

Introduction

Alan Greenspans Age of Turbulence is a personal memoir combined with the description of his role as Federal Reserve Chairman for the last 18 years. In this book, he traces his evolution from the life of an academic to the post of the Federal Reserve chairman. In this book, Greenspan lays out his philosophy of the free market system and how he managed the economy during what he describes a turbulent phase. His memoir is entertaining and provocative at times and at other times, it is engaging and a bit dull as well.

Thus, The Age of Turbulence lives up to the title by describing the momentous changes that have occurred in the US and its economy over the last two decades. As some critics have pointed out, it is like combining two books at once. The first part is a personal memoir and the second part is the history of the economic policy under his watch at the Federal Reserve.

Alan Greenspan has led a life moving in the high places and has met and interacted with the people who shape policy in the United States. He has been a member of the establishment right from the days of Richard Nixon and has advised all the presidents ever since as part of their economic advisory team. In the book, he describes how he functioned with the presidents and his accounts are lively and entertaining as well. This paper looks at the book and the ideas of Alan Greenspan and his role over presiding the longest ever boom in American history. Though he has been credited with an expansionist monetary policy and is known for ensuring that liquidity in the system does not dry up, the current economic crisis is in part being blamed on the Greenspan years.

Thus, he has attracted praise and criticism alike for his handling of the economy. We look at both sides and see how they stack up against each other. The fact that the American economy grew at a record pace during his tenure is testament to his deft handling of the economy. But, as many argue, the current economic troubles of the US can also be blamed on Greenspan and his credo of cutting interest rates at will ensured bountiful liquidity and this was liked by the markets. But, at what cost is the question? The policies of Alan Greenspan also led to the businesses and banks lending to the homeowners and the sub-prime borrowers in such a way that unethical practice became the order of the day. Thus, the expansionist monetary policy of Alan Greenspan became the nemesis of the American economy.

Personal Life

Alan Greenspan can be described as a child prodigy. He was precociously talented as his skill at numbers and music in his early years shows. Though he did not go to any fashionable school or attend any of the prep schools, nonetheless he made to the top by virtue of his hard work and his ability to adapt himself to tough situations and circumstances. As his memoir shows, he tried auditioning to play clarinet for Henry Jeromes trumpet band. Though he got the job, he never really became a star.

But, what stands out is his ability to make the best use of the opportunity. He ensured that between shows he read business books and updated himself with the happenings in the business world. Thus, he kept in constant touch with the happenings in the outside world even when he was not into the academic world. His story is replete with such examples where he was always trying to outgrow the lack of opportunities in his early life and was always on the lookout for that something that would make him big.

When he was studying economics at the New York University, he made it a point to confront the statistical issues of economics instead of grand questions like the new economic order and the like. As he writes, I still had the sideman psychology. I preferred to focus on technical challenges and did not have a macro view. It was this ability of being good with numbers that saw him being such a wizard at detail and which he put to use when he was the Fed chairman.

Greenspan became a stockbroker and was running his own consultancy on Wall Street for several years. Though there is not much mention of what he did in the consultancy in the book, it is by no means an insignificant phase as he managed to ensure that the firm that he co-founded in 1954, Townsend-Greenspan was very much in the reckoning in matters concerning the business.

He has married twice and the second marriage was to Andrea Mitchell who works at a major television network. When 9/11 happened, the first thing he did was to get through to find out about her safety. The first marriage is also not mentioned in depth apart for that phase of his life when he was heavily influenced by Ayn Rand.

This comes out clearly in subsequent thinking as his economic policies were uber capitalist in nature and his ideas on free markets matched that of Rands philosophy of unfettered capitalism. In the next section, we look at his tenure as an economic advisor to the presidents from Nixon to Bush in various capacities culminating in his role as the Federal Reserve chairman.

Serving the Presidents

The fact that Alan Greenspan served all the presidents from Nixon onwards to George Bush Jr. shows that he was highly rated for his intellectual abilities and his deft handling of economic issues. Though he had disagreements with some of them, notably Reagan, he nevertheless struck a balance between his job and his duty of serving the country.

During his tenure as the Fed chief, Alan Greenspan saw many turbulent moments like the 1987 stock market crash and the collapse of LTCM and disappearance of hedge funds. As he writes, he has seen the best and worst of the economy with the traumatic 9/11 attacks and the end of the cold war era and the possibilities that it presented. Thus, it can be said that Greenspan led a full life in the economic helm and he can be credited with serving the country well.

The faith reposed in him by successive presidents was adequately rewarded in his efforts wherein he managed to rein in inflation and presided over the longest boom in American economic history. Of course, as we shall see in subsequent sections, he has been criticized for his expansionist policies as well.

The Policies of Alan Greenspan

The main criticism against Greenspan is that he created a bubble of unimaginable proportions the effects of which are being felt only now. Thus, the expansionist policy of lowering the Federal funds rate provided the markets with unlimited liquidity and this made the operators throw caution to the winds and indulge in practices that can only be described as unethical and without restraint.

Greenspan has also been criticized for not regulating the mortgage market that may be without much substance since he could not directly regulate the lending practices and the task of identifying the risk worthiness of individuals. But, what he could have done was go in for more prudent fiscal policies that would have mitigated the effect of the bubble the deflationary effect of which is being felt now.

It is to his credit that he had a vision of increasing borrowing so that the small home owners can be compensated in the form of lowered rates for home mortgages. This is no doubt moral and noble. However, the practice of indiscriminate borrowing and lending is something that he could not control and it is somewhat ambiguous on whether he can be held accountable for the current crisis.

However, it remains a fact that the Fed Chairman is supposed to the be the czar of the fiscal and monetary policies and he in conjunction with the Treasury secretary is responsible for steering the country out of the economic troubles. Thus, history would let us know if Greenspan has been successful or failed in hindsight. At the moment, the jury is out on how successful he was or how much of a failure he was.

Conclusion

The book is engaging to read, though it is voluminous by comparison to other memoirs. The part memoir part history book is nonetheless an important contribution to the existing literature about the last two decades of expansionist monetary polices and the boom years followed by the set backs caused by 9/11. It is worth reading for anyone interested in knowing about the economic history of the US after the cold war.

But, the book disappoints in that it is not that much of a biography as Greenspan does not offer too much insights into his own life and shies away from revealing the gaze to such an extent that it is simply not possible to know more about his personal life. He also does not reveal his ambitions and at most times; it is a dry rendition of events with an academic gaze instead of a witty memoir.

Praise him or criticize him, Alan Greenspan had a pivotal role to play in the history of the American republic and his contributions would be felt for years to come. It is to his credit that he has inspired many to take up the study of economics with a passion for numbers that is his trademark style.

In conclusion, it can be said that Alan Greenspan would rank as one of the most influential members of the American establishment since the 1970s and his words have to taken seriously. For students like me, it is a must read to know more about this fascinating character and financial wizard who did so much for the country. I enjoyed reading the book very much and it has contributed to my understanding of economics.

Introduction

The Afro American poets Countee Cullen and John Milton are closely connected with the so-called Renaissance of the African literature. The best known poem yet, do I marvel by Cullen is often been misinterpreted and consequently, it was regarded as just one more lament of a defeated soul as a man can not solve a dilemma of being a poet and black at the same time. The same might be said about Miltons famous sonnet On his blindness Nevertheless, the poems propose a resolution of paradox rather than a moan of the soul. Cullen organized the poem in three quatrains and one couplet. They seemingly mark off four specific examples of apparent injustice, while the Miltons poem is concerned with the question whether he would be able to enter Heavens, having lost his sight and thus, be not able to use the talent, given to him.

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The first quatrain of Yet, I do marvel makes two cases of seemingly cruel or undeserved punishment. When still, they are thought over, the examples seem neither unjust nor paradoxical anymore. Accordingly with the theology put in a poem, God made man in his image in rather spiritual than a physical sense. So, God designed man for survival beyond the grave. Rather than victims of brute caprice, human beings are the recipients of natural and even supernatural justice respectively.

The two allusions, referred to the Greek mythology in the second quatrain, are used for further understanding of the context of poem. Nevertheless, so few readers have done so does not alter the implications of his use of these mythological subtexts. First, the poet depicts Tantalus. He is constantly starving while food is just beyond his grasp. Tantalus seems to be a symmetric example of the punishment fitting the offense, and no puzzle at all. The same is true of Cullens reference to the Sisyphus myth in lines 8 and 9.

The sequence and the nature of the given examples brings it home to the reader that thy are designed as preliminary and analogous with his the paradox. Carefully chosen by poet examples, lead the reader to the recognition of the last point used in the final couplet, where the author uses connotation of the term sing. It is known that many Afro American poets, writing in 1925 used the term to indicate the great suffering of the race of black people as the songs they used comprised either notes of melancholy or rage considering their race. Still, as the term sing stands for a vast denotation, it is rather indicated that the song is a marked identity of the race of black people. Thus, emphasizing not the bad fortune of black people, but rather the identity and the uniqueness of the people.

While the poem On his blindness touches upon the question of understanding the acts of God. The author uses many devices within the poem and sarcasm to deliver his message to the reader. Finally, he concludes that he is still able to serve God even though he has lost the ability to use his talent, as the last line of the poem puts it they also serve who only stand and wait. The understanding of the need to resign himself to the fate and the impossibility to change something makes the poet feel safe for his soul.

Conclusion

Finally, it might be inferred, that the poet rather than evidence of his failure in specific and of his race in general, uses the examples, allusions in his poem of the achievement of both.

Among the African writers of world recognition one name that is often mentioned has been that of Nuruddin Farah. His work deals with effectively and in detail the social life and the characteristics of the culture in Somalia. All his works leave a significant impression of the life and culture of Somalian people. Further, a reader can find the equations of social order, cultural implications, hierarchical system etc. in the background of his works. The novels of Farah have been instrumental in conveying to the outer world the meaning and environment that surrounds the social life of Somalian people with specific attention to the clan life and its demands. The great novels by Farah such as Knots and Links relate to the meaning of clan life as understood by the characters that had been in exile. The symbol of clan has greater significance in the novels of Farah as it relates to the idea of Somalias network of Clan loyalties and its effects on society. Therefore, it is important that at the very outset the symbol of clan is understood in relation to the social life, as the novel expounds it. It is significant that the clan life and other social and cultural aspects of Somalia are most relevant to the modern life.

The contribution of Farah through novels such as Links in the comprehension of the true cultural and social aspects of Somalia is worth mention. Somalia&is a good image to find a way to relate to the social life in the country. But we would not have learned anything from Farahs fiction if we were to ascribe all this to anything narrowly Somali. Rather than attributing it to a mysterious property which belongs to them, and not to us one needs to see it in a broader perspective. The figure from the outside who comes to Somalia is a common figure in Farahs novels, and it is easy to see these figures as versions of us, the reader from the outside who comes to Farahs world knowing little about Somalia. However, the outside world harbors the complex prejudices. Farahs call is always to move toward an affirmation of human solidarity across the differences which may separate us, and that includes the readers of as well as the characters in his novels. (p 752). Thus, through the character of Jeebleh, who returns home in order to settle personal scores and finds the country divided between two chiefs, the author clearly demonstrates the social life of Somalia. In this attempt to represent the social aspects of the Somalia, Farah provides an account of Somalias network of Clan loyalties and its effects on society. Thus the symbol of clan becomes a major contributor to the overall understanding of the novels main themes.

Set in the city of Mogadishu in Somalia, Farahs birth place, the novel Links tells the story of Jeebleh who returns home after an exile life in America for twenty years. The purpose of the return was to visit his mothers grave and to meet his childhood buddies, Caloosha and Bile who are also his half-brothers. Caloosha, now a henchman of the warlord who rules the southern part of the city, was the chief of the security to the former dictator. He was a cruel bully in their childhood and was accountable for the imprisonment of both Jeebleh and his brother. On the other hand, Bile works as a doctor and had studied in the company of Jeebleh in Italy. One of the tasks that Jeebleh has set himself is to kill Caloosha. The return of Jeebleh has been on a specific land in a terrified and tangled situation.

Here children were kidnapped and murdered mercilessly. Thus, at the time of his return he witnesses, at the airport, the murder of a child and shortly before his arrival in Mogadishu Rajo, Biles niece, has been kidnapped. In spite of the tight security for the protection of Raasta, she is kidnapped and this alarmed the security of life there. Jeebleh resolves to liberate Raasta, but he needs to avoid his fellow clan members who try to kill him when he refuses to give them money for weapons. All through the novel, the account of Farah has been central in understanding the clan loyalties which bind the people together. Also, the effect of clan loyalty on the society has been clearly narrated by the author. However, one may find the author wanting in the presentation of idea in good language. Nuruddin Farah brings the deadly chaos of Somalia to life in his novel of an exiles return, Links& Farahs account of Somalias tangled and dangerous network of clan loyalties and its effect on society is one of the books greatest strengths. So is the way that the detail of his descriptions brings to life the citys desolate and violent landscape& Farahs novel, with all its difficulties, restores and affirms the human dignity of these fragments of collateral damage. (Phillips and Farah, 352).

The novel significantly narrates the story of a totally changed society where only the loyalty towards ones clan and its background seem unchanged. Thus, one finds the remarks of Jeebleh to an acquaintance suggesting the specific situation in the land. This happens when they traverse through Mogadiscio which was once a beautiful city filled with educated people. The response of the acquaintance also supports the same. Jeebleh comments, This city is a disaster. I havent met anyone who openly disapproves of whats happening, and yet the fighting goes on and the clan elders continue soliciting funds for repairing deadly weapons. The explanation of the acquaintance is even more revealing. Here we dont think of friends anymore. We rely on our clansmen&sharing ancestral blood&.Every clan family feels that it has to form its own armed militia, because the others have them. The elders, almost all of them illiterate and out of touch with your and my sense of modernity, spend their time trying to raise funds from within the members of the blood community. In truth, its all a pose, though, and everybody knows that the elders are doing this to make sure they seem important. (Farah, Links). The clan loyalty is the only consistent element of human life in the social condition of Somalia. The effects of the clan loyalty is more than what one can imagine and the life of Jeebleh illustrates the best example of the hold and power of clan loyalty. In the whole novel, the symbol of clan runs through as a binding force of human lives and relations in Somalia.

Farah, in his novel, narrates the story and events in relation to the social life in Somalia where the allegiance to the clan is central to the lives of people. The individual life does not have any means of expressing itself, but in relation to the loyalty towards ones clan. Therefore, the novel abounds in high tension and special situations. Farah is successful in using clan as a symbol that remains constant in its valence. There is no other prevailing symbol that connects the lives of the people and it is only through the symbol of clan that the individuals in the society understand their social position. It is also very evident that the author is effective in using the symbol of clan to create a tension with another over-arching symbolic meaning system. Thus, only clan gives the ultimate meaning to the overall tension that remains in the background of the novel all through. The clan symbol and the background of violence are brought together most effectively by the author. A cynic I know says that thanks to the vultures, the marabous, and the hawks, we have no fear of diseases spreading, one acquaintance of Jeebleh says. My cynical friend suggests that when the country is reconstituted as a functioning state, we should have a vulture as our national symbol. (Farah, Links). In this background, the symbolic meaning of clan provides an indication for understanding a larger concern of the novel, i.e. the authors intention to give a clear explanation of Somalias network of Clan loyalties and its effects on the society.

The impact created by the novel is the result of true narration of the clan loyalty in the background of high tension and violence that is the nature of the society. This in turn, acts as the tool to understand the deeper meanings of the equations of the clan and the loyalty towards it. The novel can be seen as replete with high tension as different characters, such as Jeebleh, are brought in different directions by conditions over which they do not have any power. The enigmatic dreams and nightmares of the author are similar to the reality of life in Mogadiscio, where the vultures are now domesticated as they are so well fed by the violence. Thus, the effect is created touchingly through the personal experience of the author with the clan realities and the violent social atmosphere of the land.

Author Farahs own background as an exiled Somali makes this novel particularly vivid, and the cultural conflicts and the pressures placed on Jeeblehs family loyalties ring with truth. As he represses his American values and makes some major decisions as a Somali, Jeebleh becomes part of the story of Somalia, Ive taken sides and made choices that may put my life in danger. Stressing that it is only when there is harmony within the smaller unit, i.e., the family, that the larger community finds comfort in the idea of the nation, Farah creates a taut novel in which the tensions within the family are a microcosm of the tensions within the country. Realistic in its descriptions and allegorical in its implications, Farahs novel is a breathtaking and sophisticated study of violence and betrayal certain to receive international recognition. (Whipple). Therefore, it is very evident in the novels analysis that the clan loyalty and its impact on the social life in Somalia, in the background of violence and tension, have been effectively narrated by Farah. Apparently, his personal background seems to have contributed to this narration.

In this analysis of the clan loyalty and its influence on the society, as explained by Farah in his novel Links, it is also pertinent that the historical background of the land as well as the writer is well understood. It is in this background that the author succeeds in creating the effect of the novel. The aged sage of Somali letters, Farah, has a wide and profound literary vision, i.e. the vision of an exile and a patriot. Assuming a patriotic duty, he seeks goodness and bravery amid the evil, going willingly into the chamber of horrors that has become Somalia since the fall of Siad Barres dictatorship in 1991. In a challenge to the clan loyalties tearing Somalia apart, he has vowed to keep my country alive by writing about it. Civil conflict has hollowed out the humanity of many of his compatriots, making them unfit to become responsible citizens even if Somalia can be made to function again, but the same calamities have acted on Farah differently, even benignly. (Bellaigue).

Farah uses his novels as a tool to keep the country alive and in novels such as Links he illustrates the social life of Somalia in its relation to clan loyalty. The novel is concerned with an exiles return and the main character, just as the author, finds the clan loyalty and its influence on the society. The reader connects every event of the novel to the social background of Somalia and thus finds the meaning of clan loyalty and the hierarchical system of the clan. Jeebleh, a middle-aged Somali man, arrives home from the United States on a mission to settle personal scores and finds the country divided between two chiefs, characters who correspond to Mohammed Farah Aidid and Mohammed Ali Mahdi, whose ruinous war lasted until the former was killed in 1996. (Bellaigue)

In conclusion, the overall effect of the novel Links has been that which is preconceived by the author. Evidently in the novel Farah is providing a version of Somalias network of Clan loyalties and its effects on society. In this attempt, the author narrates vividly the citys desolate and violent landscape as experienced by him in person. This has been central to the narration of the clan loyalty and its impact on society. One may perceive the symbol of clan as explaining every aspect of the social life in Somalia, as illustrated through the novel.

Works Cited

Farah, Nuruddin. A Tale of Two Trilogies, Reed Way Dasenbrock. World Literature Today, Vol. 72. Issue. 4. 1998.

Phillips, Mike, and Farah, Nuruddin. Blood in the Sand, Guardian.co.uk. 2005. Web.

Farah, Nuruddin. Links. Riverhead: New York, 2004.

Bellaigue, Christopher De. Return to Mogadishu. Sunday Book Review. The New York Times. 2007. Web.

Whipple, Mary. Nuruddin Farah: Links. Mostly Fiction Book Reviews. 2004. Web.

Introduction

Ihara Saikaku is now viewed by many literary critics as one of the most prominent Japanese poets. He was the offspring of a prosperous merchant; when he was fifteen, he started to take interest in heikai and soon became very popular in this genre. However, the authors talent should not be limited only to poetry because Ihara Saikaku is also renowned for his prosaic works, especially amorous stories as for instance Five Women Who Loved Love, The Great Mirror of Beauties, The Man Who Spent his life in Love and many others.

Main body

The authors amorous novellas should be interpreted within the context of religious and cultural tradition of the then Japan. First, it should be borne in mind that according to the tenets of Buddhism the dominant religion of Japan, desire is the cause of all sufferings that a human being may experience, therefore in order to become enlightened or free, a person must reject all his attachments to the mundane world (Bowring, 27). In his works, Ihara Saikaku presents his own views on this issue. His characters are not able to denounce their longings, and religion is no longer a way to resolve their problems. A person may devote himself or herself to religion but he cannot forsake his or her love. People in Saikakus stories always adhere to the principle that Life is short, love is long (Saikaku, 77). The origins or the authors works can found in the famous The Tale of Genji by Murasaki Shikibu who was the first one to analyze the relationships between love, desire and the religion. Saikakus novels gave rise to such genre as Ukiyo or the floating world. Representatives of this style mostly focus on the life in a town and particularly on the pleasures of such life-style.

The conflict between love and religion is reflected in the authors short story The Barrelmaker Brimful of Life. The main character, Osen is pondering over the idea of becoming a novice in the temple; her nanny supports it and says that it is better than to live in a world full of disappointments (Saikaku, 96). Nevertheless, the girl abandons this idea and gives preference to the pleasures of secular life because she seeks love though never finds it. At the very end of the story, the author concludes, This is a stern world and a sin never goes unpunished (Saikaku 113). Despite the fact that Osens quest for love leads her to her destruction and the author calls her behavior sinful she still remains a sympathetic character. Her actions were motivated not by sexual desire, which is egoistic in its core, but a need to love and to be loved. The collision between the religion and love find its reflection in the story The Love of an Amorous Woman.

At first glance, it may seem that this story just another interpretation of Murasaki Shikibus The Tale of Genji because the two authors explore similar aspects of human relationships. However, one should not draw parallels between them because Ihara Saikaku place emphasis on love but not on desire as Shikubu does.

Probably it is a far-fetched statement this story can also be discussed from a feminist perspective. It is evident that Osen has never been willing to marry her husband; in fact, she was compelled to do it. The heroine commits adultery with another man but when she is caught by her husband, the cooper, kills herself. Such development of the plot clearly indicates that position of women in the then Japan left much to be desired. Naturally, the author never places a stress on this particular aspect but we can see that in patriarchal Japan, a wife had to subdue to her husband, otherwise she could suffer Osens fate who commited suicide and her body was exposed in the Shame Field (Saikaku, 113).

Furthermore, Saikaku in his stories reflects new tendencies of the then Japanese society. In the seventeenth century the countrys social order was mostly based on obedience of servant to its master. Such philosophy laid foundations for the effective functioning of the society. Individual happiness was sacrificed for the sake of general welfare. Such doctrine is also known as the way of the warrior The characters, created by Saikaku cry against such philosophy and attach primary importance to the individuality. Their social position can be called the way of the towns people The conflict between the general welfare and individual happiness is a recurrent motif in the authors prosaic works, for example in the Barrelmaker Brimful of Love Osen is dissatisfied with her family life though according to religious and cultural tradition, it was supposed to be her main concern. Her adultery is a rebellion against such social order.

Conclusion

Thus we can arrive at the conclusion that Ihara Saikakus amorous stories take their origin in the famous work of Japanese literature The Tale of Genji. They can be interpreted from religious, social, and feminist perspectives. The Barrelmaker Brimful of Love represents the conflict between love and religion, general welfare and individuality.

Bibliography

Ihara Saikaku, William Theodore De Bary, Yoshida Hambei, Richard Lane. Five Women Who Loved Love: Amorous Tales from 17th-Century Japan. Tuttle Publishing, 1977.

K. Krishna Murthy. Buddhism in Japan Sundeep Prakashan, 1998.

Richard John Bowring. The Religious Traditions of Japan, 500-1600 Cambridge University Press, 2005.

Introduction. Books are an integral part of our life. Develop imagination, transfer to the world where magical things are possible. Haroun and the Sea is written for a ten-year-old boy, Rushdies son. Reading is not just amusement. There is a couple of reasons why reading is important.

1. They are sources of information. We can learn from sb. elses experience. Haroun& contains Urdu and Hindi words which the readers can learn. a sad city, the saddest of cities, a city so ruinously sad it had forgotten its name (Salman Rushdie, p. 15). many places were named after letters of the Alphabet which led to much confusion because there were only a limited number of letters and an almost unlimited number of places in need of names (Salman Rushdie, p. 24).
2. Book gives answers to difficult questions. They help to act in a particular way and show people whats right or wrong. Whats the use of stories that arent even true? (Salman Rushdie, p. 20) This was the question repeatedly asked by Mr. Sengupta. telling the stories was the essence of the life of the boys father: Storytelling is the only work I know (Salman Rushdie 22). Stories are not always fiction. even when they are they can be closely connected with reality.

Books evoke emotions in readers. emotionally, physically, spiritually, mentally. Bible speaks to readers spiritually. Books serve as a motivation for some peoples actions. Africa, have you seen it? No? Then is it truly there?& Kangaroos, Mount Fujiyama, the North Pole? And the past, did it happen? And the future, will it come? (Salman Rushdie, p. 63). These questions were asked by Water Genie to underline the importance of imagination which makes people believe in what may not exist. You saved the princess and walked off into the sunset as specified, I presume? (Salman Rushdie, p. 74). This was what Water Genie asked Haroun when explaining to him how the boys adventure should have ended. Evoking emotions is a matter of priority for every author.

Bibliography

1. Salman Rushdie. Haroun and the Sea of Stories. Granta Books, 1990.
2. Wendy B. Faris. Ordinary Enchantments: Magical Realism and the Remystification of Narrative. Vanderbilt University Press, 2004

The book Never to Be Forgotten is written by Beatrice Muchman and is an evocative and moving narration of a Jewish childs life in Belgium while it was occupied by the Nazis. Beatrice Muchman and her family had come to Belgium from Germany after Hitlers rise to power. In 1943, when the Nazis began to round up Jews and started sending them to death camps, her parents handed her over to a Catholic woman. Soon her parents were killed and she was brought over to the USA where she was adopted by her uncle and aunt who had managed to escape to America before the outbreak of the war. While growing up, Beatrice developed wrong notions about her parents and their intentions, perhaps because she was too young at that time to have been explained the reasons for her being entrusted to other people for her safety. For several years after she came to the USA, Beatrice was under the belief that her parents had abandoned her and she was always full of anger against them. However, with the occurrence of some fortuitous events whereby she found a collection of letters from her parents along with some related documents amongst the papers that belonged to her uncle, Beatrice, as a fully grown woman, began investigating her past and the circumstances that led her to be sent to America. By brushing through her memories in recollecting past events and by relating to what she had learned from the letters along with the accounts in her diary which she had maintained as a child, Beatrice was able to restructure the details of her childhood years during the Holocaust. Having done this, she fully understood the immense love that her parents had for her and she could feel their pain when they separated from her and sent her away to a safer place fearing for her life.

The story of a young child whose parents had no option but to separate from her to save her from getting into the hands of the Nazis does indeed stir the soul in making anyone experience the intense emotions that must have been experienced by the parents of the girl while they were separating from her. The young girl must have retained the bitterness in her all along with her childhood for having been rendered homeless without any parental care and such feelings had filled her with remorse and anger towards her parents for having handed her over to people in a faraway land. It was a matter of sheer coincidence that upon reaching adulthood, Beatrice came across the letters and documents that stirred in her a desire to trace her past along with the circumstances that made her be separated from her parents and her homeland. The child in her did not make her understand the motives of her parents and it was only after reaching maturity that she could finally learn of the true nature regarding her perception of being abandoned in childhood. The story is very deep-rooted in portraying the atrocities committed by the Nazis during World War II especially on the Jews, and the child in her must have made her deeply think about why Hitler had been so cruel towards the Jews. The book enables a more moving story when it is known that no country was willing to accept Jewish refugees and applications for the same were rejected on flimsy grounds such as the emigration from being put away on grounds of typographical errors. As Beatrice had noted in her book in this regard that, a single typographical error, could spell the difference between life and death. It was for this reason that her family had to go to Belgium which was soon to be in Hitlers clutches and this was the place where her parents were killed.

References

Beatrice Muchman, Never to be Forgotten: A Young Girls Holocaust Memoir, 1997, KTAV Publishing House.

Introduction

The poem The Thread of Sunlight written by Timothy Young is included in the anthology Reading and Writing from Literature, the 3d edition, by John Schwiebert where he raised the most important problems of humanity. The basic theme of the poem is the consequences of the war period and the pain of those people who suffered at that time. The poem under analysis highlights the peculiarities of national conflicts and underlines the idea of showing prints left by the years of war. The Thread of Sunlight is a symbolic name for the poem disclosing the power of the sun which has the magic to show all the details of war consequences.

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Timothy Young managed to illustrate and transfer the pain of that period to a reader with the help of literary techniques used in the work. The poem abounds in epithets, such as:

&arachnid size, &outboard motors.

The usage of cognitive metaphors makes the theme of the poem more alive and involving:

&my heart condensed to arachnid size, wounds of war opened before me.

The author wanted to illustrate the pain of the narrators parents and show that they managed to overcome the period of war though it was very painful for them and brought many losses.

When I asked my mother about war, she told me, you are thinking too much&

The illustration of hyperbole thinking too much underlines the fact that the mother did not want to transfer her pain of war to her child and wished to say nothing about the national conflicts. Besides, the words of the father inserted immediately show that he wanted to change the topic in order not to come back to that time: before her sentence ended my father rushed in&

The poem under consideration is not selected by John Schwiebert by chance. This poem would always be important and of great value for every generation as the problem of war left an unforgettable print in heart of every person. The consequences of war are underlined by the author in the usage of the following elements:

The window trim should be painted, the outboard motors could be tuned. The significance of the war prints is especially underlined with the literary techniques used in the poem. The author managed to illustrate the significant power of the sun and that is why he draws special attention to it.

Where the thread of sunlight crossed the top bunk&

The sunlight reflected off the Falt Lake&

In this case, the writer used personification of the sun in order to make the object more powerful, alive, and humanlike.

The analysis carried out proves that the usage of literary techniques such as metaphors, epithets, hyperbole, etc. makes the poem more expressive and involving; with the help of stylistic devices, the author managed to illustrate the peculiarities of the war period and transfer the sufferings of the whole nation describing one family. Young wanted to underline the fact that this small episode of their life and some objects of war transferred them to another epoch of national conflicts and involved the time of war actions forgetting about all their daily routine and usual running problems.

&I stood between my mother and father thinking.

According to Mary Swift who devoted her article to the theme of war, the poem The Thread of Sunlight is quite realistic and reflects all the detail of the human soul during the period of war. She considers that even spiders in the poem are symbolic as they might underline the terrible mood of the conflicts between the nation and with those spiders in the poem the narrator saw the wounds of war.

I touched the rough-cut rafter,

and watched two spiders approach&

One spider limped on with the otters head in its mouth.

The poem used by John Schwiebert is considered to be one of the most important for students as it is really unique and differs from all others. This poem is very emotional and it can not but influences every reader of the anthology. The theme of war is effectively reflected by the author and the usage of literary techniques provided in it involves the reader into the content.

Conclusion

The Thread of Sunlight is full of literary techniques and stylistic devices which make the work cover the main aspects of war and human sufferings. The author underlined the idea of showing all the peculiarities of that time and reflect the feelings and emotions of the whole nation. With the help of simple objects, the author managed to underline the disastrous character of war and terrible consequences which cannot be repaired or improved by people; they were inevitable and brought great losses to plenty of families. The poem disclosed the idea of the modern generations interest and worries about that time; the writer wanted to underline the fact that modern youth is not indifferent to the previous epoch and sufferings of our grandfathers. This poem abounds in different literary techniques and is quite involving and emotional.

References

Swift, Mary. The Losses of War. The Day NY, 2005.

Schwiebert, John. Reading and Writing from Literature, 3d edition. Weber State University, 2004.

Introduction

The book Persepolis I and II, reflects on the life of Marjane Satrapi, an Iranian girl who fled to Vienna in Australia after the Islamic revolution in 1979. This occurred after the Iranian warfare augmented the governments authority over its people. Satrapis parents saw the need to send their little daughter away from these trials and tribulations where people murdered their own country men in cold blood every single day.

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Marjane was only 14 years old when she moved to Australia, she had a long way in developing an identity in the ever competitive cultural influence. This young girl was expected to make an impact in her society, both in Iran and her new found home in Australia. This was going to be a very difficult thing for the young Satrapi to achieve because she now lived in two different worlds and each world had different cultures. This was evident by the way people lived at home and away from home. In Iran, women are not allowed to take drugs, apply make up or even run in public. However, people in Vienna live a dont care type of life, women are allowed to take drugs, make friends with people from the opposite sex irregardless of their religious background, unlike in Iran where women are only allowed to befriend Muslim men.

Like any other Iranian refugee, Satrapi felt the prejudice directed to other refugees in a more personal way, this came out clearly after the superior nun of a boarding house expelled her because of unknown reasons.

The nun claimed that Satrapi was like any other Iranian who was uneducated and uncivilized, in her insult; the senior nun said it is true what they say about Iranian. They have no education (Satrapi p 23), Satrapi felt very lonely and isolated while she lived in Vienna, she was now a teenage girl in her adolescence and therefore needed to identify herself with her peers by making friends. This was a big problem because of cultural differences; the young girl had to reflect on her grandmothers advice of remembering who she was and always respect her heritage. Her grandmother, who was a big influence in her life, reminded her to keep her dignity and remain truthful to herself (Satrapi p149).

For the four years Satrapi attended school in Vienna, she managed to make friends who changed her life completely; she found it very hard to keep her identity and stick to her culture. Many of her friends disagreed totally on many of her principles; she found it hard to become who she wanted to be by doing things that pleased her friends. She risked loosing these friends if she continued to hold on tightly to the principles instilled on her by her parents and grandmother.

Most of her principles were related to the Islamic culture where one was expected to respect her body; she went against this principle by changing her physical appearance, she changing her hairstyle with a new punk hair cut just to fit in with her friend. Abusing drugs was an abomination for Iranian women but Satrapi went against this principal, she attended wild parties where the youth drunk themselves crazy and abused all sorts of drugs just to feel high. A persons nudity was something Satrapi never imagined that one day she could see; unfortunately she was forced to see some of her male friends in their underpants. These events worried Satrapi so much that she wondered what her parents would take her for; she was no longer their dream child (Satrapi p 39)

The friends Satrapi made considered themselves rebels and accepted Satrapis friendship only because they believed that she was familiar with death. Afraid of being lonely again, Satrapi agreed to incorporate into this group as best as she could. She was expected to attend parties which were very different from the ones held back home in Iran. There was no dancing or eating, things had to be done the Australian way where teenagers were expected to drink alcohol, smoke cigarettes and just feel high (Satrapi p31).

With time Satrapi decided to indulge into drug abuse so that she could maintain her clique of friends although she felt very guilty because she was going against her Islamic culture where no one was allowed to indulge into drug use. Abusing drugs was now part of her life; she was forced to use the drugs so that she could deal with her miserable condition. This guilt and shame were part and parcel of Satrapis entire stay in Australia (Satrapi p68).

Marjane reached a point where she needed love, however the Iranian culture does not allow Muslim women to associate with non-Muslim men. This was another major huddle Satrapi had to overcome.

Fortunately Satrapi was able to hook up with a guy named Marcus, She was now able to confided everything about her to Marcus who was now her soul mate and friend, this made her feel at peace and complete. However, this relationship never lasted for long and soon poor Satrapi found her self in the cold again.

Detached and miserable, Satrapi secluded herself from everything she had known; she started behaving abnormally by boarding busses with nowhere to go. This detachment led to further decline of her past identity and culture; hence her pointless wandering from one place to another became a normal phenomenon in the streets of Vienna. These actions drained her completely both emotionally and physically, Marjane fell very sick and by sheer luck she ended up in a hospital.

Later Satrapi decided to go back home for a heart wrenching four years where she was expected to re-configure her lost identity. Back home Satrapi, who was now a grown up lady found things very different as compared to Vienna. Women were expected to wear veils which completely hid your hair, no woman was allowed to wear makeup or even make unnecessary runs in public. She came face to face to her identity which she had left behind several years back when she had gone to Vienna (Satrapi p97). Her home town looked like a ghost town with murals of martyrs erected all over the place, every place she went smelt like death.

However the good attitude Satrapi had from the first day she went back home helped her a great deal in dealing with the challenges that were going to face her in the future (Satrapi p96). She decided not to tell anybody about her antagonizing life in Vienna because she felt it was a shame to her and her family, who believed she had lived a moral life back in Australia.

Interacting with her child hood friends was a problem because her behavior was very different from theirs; life in the foreign country had transformed her completely. The fact that nobody was able to interact with her anymore took a heavy toll in her life and neither a therapist could help her, at this point poor Satrapi attempted suicide. On realizing that these things were affecting her life, Satrapi decided to take control of her life. She started doing things her own way and never worried about who would question her in whatever she was doing, the oppressing laws in her native country could not hold her back in achieving the desires of her heart. With this in mind Marjane found the courage to transform her identity into something momentous and firm, the times of relying on other people for happiness were over and she decided to find her own happiness. Time had reached where the two culture were to be incorporated, remove unnecessary practices and form a culture that is suitable to everybody, a culture where everybody feels free to do whatever she/her desires, a culture where women are respected and treated as human beings, a culture where the whole world is an all round place where anybody can live and make friends without being viewed as an outsider and a culture where a person is not afraid to share his/her beliefs openly without being discriminated.

Marjane defines belonging as the feeling one gets when he/she is not interfered with in any way, a person is allowed to live at peace and enjoy life in his/her own way.

Although much is lost, Marjanes works have made a big impact all over the world; however France seems to represent Marjanes solutions, this country accepts people from all walks of life. There is no racial discrimination and both immigrants and refuges have rights which are highly upheld by the government. This is very clear because Marjane has an office in the heart of Paris which is uncommon to many countries including Vienna. France clearly represents the middle between Iran and Australia; nobody has to worry about his/her background as long as he/her observes the laws of the country. Authors like Satrapi are allowed to air their view freely without interference from the government as long as these critics dont undermine the constitution of the country.

Reference

Marjane Satrapi. Persepolis: Pantheon. 2003: (pg 10-150)

The fact unknown to most of people is that as inspiration of Anita Amirrezvanis first novel Blood of Flowers served a Persian carpet her father presented her with when she was a teenager. Looking at that carpet every day she imagines the life of a carpet maker and always wondered what it was like to create such beautiful things and what the actual life of carpet makers was like. One day she made up her mind to write a tale about a young woman who lived in Iran in the 17^th century. The name of the girl is never revealed in this book. Once asked about this Anita Amirrezvani told that one morning she was sitting in her living room admiring her Iranian rugs, embroidery and miniature paintings an idea that none of these worked had a name of its creator on it, in other words you would never be able to find out who created the masterpiece which keeps your soul warm every day and causes admiration of your visitors. In Iran, just like in most countries of the world, the name of the craftsperson was considered unimportant thats why his works were never recognized and properly appreciated. Thats why, when writing her story, Anita started thinking about those craftspeople, and she wondered what their life was like in general, what their stories were and whether they were still alive. By not naming the main heroine of her tale Anita aimed at making the works of unknown craftspeople acknowledgeable, because those were not robots or machines but people who lived, breathed, loved, hated and created things of an unbelievable beauty.

It should be also mentioned that Anita Amirrezvani blended the story of her main heroine with some of the most popular Persian tales. The author states that Iranian culture is unknown to most of American people. In her novel she included seven Persian tales some of which were taken from the sources which are over a thousand years old.

Anita Amirrezvanis novel is gracious and speaks to the human spirit. It is captivating and doesnt leave a reader indifferent. It is a lyrically written historical novel which sets the reader into an adventure making him/her a part of the events going on in Iran in the 17^th century. Though the novel contains a lot of historical events, its main purpose is not to educate the reader but to entertain him and let him get involved into the world of secrets and mysteries of the East. The Blood of Flowers is a fantastic novel and the author succeeded in making the reader interested in her magnificent piece of writing. Anita ties her words in the tale just like the craftspeople make complicated twists and turns while creating a Persian rug. The Blood of Flowers by Anita Amirrezvani is the brilliant tale of a young girl, a poor carpet weaver, thrown to the mercy of rich relatives when her father dies. It is utterly fascinating. (Our Critics Choose.. 50). Such novels as The Blood of Flowers never remain unnoticed as the mystery the author filled every page of her book with attracts the readers attention at once and the first lines In the spring of the year that I was supposed to be married, a comet launched itself over the skies of my village. It was brighter than any comet we have ever seen, and more evil. Night after night as it crawled across our skies spraying its cold white seeds of sorrow, we tried to decipher the fearsome messages of the stars. (Anita Amirrezvani, 7) intrigue the reader and make him/her continue reading further.

So, a young woman with no name lives in a small modest village together with her parents. It can be easily seen that their family is very friendly and the members treat each other very kindly: My father smiled at my mother, and she brightened from within, for he loved her just the way she was. People always used to say that he treated her as tenderly as if she were a second wife. (Anita Amirrezvani, 10). The whole village, being disturbed by the comet in the sky starts wondering whether it is a bad sign and what is going to happen this year if it is: Many of the villagers had already noticed mysterious signs or heard of misfortunes caused by the comet. A plague had struck the north of Iran, killing thousands of people. An earthquake in Doogabad had trapped a bride in her home, suffocating her and her women guest moments before she was to join her groom. In my village, red insects that had never been seen before had swarmed over our crops. (Anita Amirrezvani, 8).

The girls father was a rug maker and she learned this craft from him. But very soon after the comet signaled misfortune an accident happened in the field and the father got very injured. Here we can observe how united the family was and how friendly and helpful the fellow villagers were: The news about my father spread quickly, and our friends began arriving to help. Kolsoom brought the water she had collected from a spring near a saints shrine that was known for its healing powers. Ibrahim took up a position in the courtyard and began reciting the Quran. Goli came by, her boy asleep in her arms, with hot bread and stewed lentils. I brewed tea to keep the warmth in everyones body. I knelt near my father and watched his face, praying for a flutter of his eyelids, even a grimaceanything that would assure me life remained in his body. (Anita Amirrezvani, 14). But nothing helped and the father died soon. In this village and in those times it was considered a big grief when the father of the family died as he was the one who supported the family financially and without the head of the family it was doomed.

When the father died the girl and her mother remained alone without any dowry which in those times meant that a girl could not get married for she needed to have something either money or jewelries to give to her future husband if he agreed to take her as a wife. Guided by despair and lack of money the girl and her mother sold a beautiful turquoise rug the girl had once woven. For the money they got from the selling they went to Isfahan though it was very hard for them to leave their friends and their native village: I looked around at all the kind faces I knew; at my friends and my mothers friends, women who had been like aunts and grandmothers to me while I was growing up. I could not imagine what it would be like not to see them: Safa, with her face crinkled like an old apple; Kolsoom, thin and swift, renowned for her wisdom about herbs; and finally Goli, my truest friend. (Anita Amirrezvani, 22). The girls uncle and his family were the only living relatives in this city and they took them into their home. The girl wondered how these people would be treating them and very soon her fears got confirmed: Are we servants now? I asked my mother in alarm. She was stretched out on a bedroll, her eyes wide open.

Not yet, she replied, but I could see that she was worried about that very question. (Anita Amirrezvani, 39). The uncle was glad that they arrived to the city and welcomed them in his home whereas his wife put them to the unpaid work of servants never forgetting to remind them that they were a burden to the family. The uncle was a carpet maker and the girl knowing this craft well discovered that she had still much to learn. The uncle agreed to teach her as her youth and desire to learn something new reminded him of those times when he was young. She learned writing and reading and became an excellent carpet designer, to some extent even better than her uncle. But with her prosperous career the dreams about getting married were abandoned. As a girl in Iran becomes older the chances for her getting married dimmed with each day. Having received a proposition from a wealthy man the girl ends up entering into a temporary marriage which is called sigheh. Such marriages have been a part of Iranian culture for hundreds of years and are considered normal there. Sighehs give a right to a man and a woman to get married and in case they have any children they will be considered legitimate. When entering into this marriage men pay women for that this is why it is up to them to decide how long the marriage will last. Some of such marriages last for an hour; sometimes two people remain together till the end of their lives.

The girl had been married for some time but ended up being alone. She was nineteen and she was dreaming about a real marriage and starting a family which she was planning to have if it would not conflict with her carpet activities. And thats where the story ends.

In conclusion, I would like to emphasize once again that the story itself is very impressive and I never felt sorry for the time spent for reading it. When you finish reading you never stop thinking on the effect it produced on you as thoughts about this girl and the story of her life do not let you do that. I wish there was Part Two of this book to find out what the girls life would be like further, whether she got married or remained alone. There is only one thing that evoked negative emotions in me. Before reading the book I never knew about sighs and all I can say now is that things like this do not appeal to me. Being a Muslim I dislike an arranged marriage and the possibility of getting married only for some period of time thinking everyday that your marriage may end soon. It is just something unthinkable to me.

After reading the book I found out a lot about Iranian culture. There were things that I approved and some I disapproved but one thing I know for sure  The Blood of Flowers will remain in my memory forever as one of the most remarkable stories I have ever read.

Work Cited

1. Anita Amirrezvani. The Blood of Flowers. Thorndike Press, 2007.
2. Our Critics Choose... New Statesman 2007: 50.