The Underground Railroad Essay -- History Historical Slavery Essays

The Underground Railroad The Underground Railroad was one of the most remarkable protests against slavery in United States history. It was a fight for personal survival, which many slaves lost in trying to attain their freedom. Slaves fought for their own existence in trying to keep with the traditions of their homeland, their homes in which they were so brutally taken away from. In all of this turmoil however they managed to preserve the customs and traditions of their native land. These slaves fought for their existence and for their cultural heritage with the help of many people and places along the path we now call the Underground Railroad. The Underground Railroad was a secret operation that began during the 19th century, and reached its peak during the time of 1830 – 1865. The story of the Underground Railroad was one of individual sacrifice and great courage in the efforts of the African American people to reach freedom, with the help of many interconnected â€Å"stations† (Introduction to the Underground Railroad?). The number of sites connected with the Underground Railroad was immense. The Underground Railroad was any direction slaves traveled to freedom. It was a huge scheme of paths through marshes, over mountains, along rivers, and by sea. No real trains existed on the Underground Railroad, but guides were called conductors. Runaways escaped to the North along a series of routes that stretched through the southern Border States (â€Å"History and Geography†). Slaves who escaped into the western territories, Mexico and the Caribbean, then tried to blend in with the free African American communities, which lived in these areas (Slavery’s Past). There were many conductors in many different states, all of which were important to the Underground Railroad. The most notable of these was Harriet Tubman. Harriet made nineteen trips back to Slave States to help members of her family and other slaves to escape to freedom. She was a woman who could not read or write, but she helped over three hundred slaves to their freedom. She had many encounters with slave traders and others, who tried to capture her, but she never got caught, and she never lost a single slave (Harriet Tubman). Another important figure in the Underground Railroad was Stephen Myers. Stephen Myers helped the Underground Railroad from 1830 to 1850. In this time he helped thousands o... ...ic linking the people of Africa and America. It is a story of places, North and South. It is a story of secrets involving routes and language, codes and music. In the end it is a story of jubilation and freedom, bought at a great price by individuals. Works Cited African Genesis. History and Geography of the Underground Railroad. Nov. 7, 2000 Appleseed Recording. Free at Last.1998 Cairnes, John E. Slavery’s Past. Lilly W. The Underground Railroad. June 16, 1999 Maryland’s African American Heritage. Harriet Tubman. Siebert, Wilbur. The Underground Railroad from Slavery to Freedom. New York: Arno Press and the New York Times 1968 U.C. Davis Division of Education. The Freedom Sympathizers and Fighters. May 1996 U.C. Davis Division of Education. What was The Underground Railroad?. May 1996. Underground Railroad Workshop. Able Brown. 2000 Underground Railroad Workshop. Stephen Myers. 2000 Underground Railroad Workshop. The role of the Quaker Community. 2000 United States. National Park Service. Introduction to the Underground Railroad. United States. National Park Service & History Association. In Search of Freedom. August 1996

Emilia & Documents Essay

Emilia is only a secondary character in the play but her role is crucial one. Though she is wife of Iago, she is ignorant of the real nature of his plots and she even aids his designs without any awareness of their consequences on one side. On the other side, she is coarse-minded, earthy but devotedly attached to her mistress. So Shakespeare portrays her in a realistic light, attributing to her strengths and weaknesses, combining in her character the qualities of loyalty and service, with a commitment also to the more worldly side of human nature. Shakespeare also uses her as toll to carry out the malicious motives and evil designs of Iago. She also acts as a foil to Desdemona. Her being a companion to Desdemona enables her to reveal not only her own wide experience of the world but also to highlight Desdemona’s innocence and idealism. The commonsensical realism of Emilia provides a refreshing contrast to Desdemona’s unpractical idealism. Emilia is a woman of the world and her understanding of the real nature of men and their affairs is more realistic and mature than that of Desdemona. In this respect she serves as a foil to throw into sharp relief the childlike nature of her mistress. For example, while Desdemona thinks that there are no women in the world who would play false to their husbands, Emilia knows that there are many such; â€Å"Yes a dozen: and, as many the vantage as would/ store the world they played for. † (IV. iii. 82-83) She changes over the course of the play from a passive Elizabethan domestic woman to an active and dynamic character who fully endorses the chastity of her mistress and protests over the unfair and rude behavior of Othello toward her. She remains silent in the first half of the play like a typical Elizabethan woman who solemnly accepts all the pathos and miseries of life afflicted upon her by her husbands. Her very first dialogue in the play indicates the matrimonial and domestic strife she was suffering from. Her response to Iago’s comments; â€Å"I find it still, when I have list to sleep: /Marry, before your ladyship, I grant, /She puts her tongue a little in her heart, /And chides with thinking. † (II. i. 891-894) She says, â€Å"You have little cause to say so† (II. i. 895). Adamson is of the view that â€Å"She knows. . . . it is less painful to suffer his scornful abuse than to challenge and try to change him† (247). So her silence and so short a reply is tool to hide herself in her own cocoon and an agonizing acknowledgement of triviality in the domestic sphere. Her silence is due to the complexity of the situation in which she is entangled as Iago’s wife and Desdemona’s intimate. This produces in her paradoxical emotions about one or the other. â€Å"The female connection between Desdemona and Emilia demonstrates a level of personal intimacy that is free of the professional distinctions in the male relationships, but is complicated by class distinctions and compromised by Emilia’s divided loyalty as Iago’s wife and Desdemona’s serving lady† (Nostbakken 21). So Iago exploits this role of Emilia. In the first place it is she who provides Iago with the handkerchief which he puts to such a terrible use. But she should be blamed for the tragedy as she makes matters more complicated when she professes ignorance as Desdemona asks her whether she knows where she could have dropped her handkerchief. In both these instances, Emilia is culpable, but it may be said in her defense that she is quite unaware of committing anything more than a minor violation of truth. So her silence is not a criminal silence and audience understands it that it is due to her subservience to social norms that force her to behave more as Iago’s wife than Desdemona’s maid. Whenever she becomes more vocal, it is owed to her love for her mistress. Toward the end of the play she emerges as a changed individual who has broken down the shackles of conventionalities, social compulsion and accepted behaviors. Her emotional attachment to Desdemona overpowers her alter in the play. Emilia’s stout defense of Desdemona proves futile because Othello decides to regard her as Desdemona’s bawd. However, Emilia has other functions in the play. At the death of Desdemona she felt herself very much grief stricken: â€Å"Villainy, villainy, villainy! /I think upon’t : I think smell’t: O villainy! /I thought so then: I ‘ll kill myself for grief:/ O villainy, villainy! † (V. ii. 191-194) When she once realizes that her husband used the handkerchief to implicate her mistress, she condemns and exposes him without fear although she loses her life in doing so; Good gentleman, let me have leave to speak,/‘Tis proper I obey him, but not now:/ Perchance, Iago. I will ne’er go home. (V. ii. 196-198) M. R. Ridley believes that â€Å" in all the plays there is nothing more characteristic of Shakespeare than the way in which Desdemona’s death kindles in her (Emilia) a bright flame of self-forgetful courage; it is not just that she faces the threats of both Othello and her husband(Iago), but rather that she neglects them, brushes them aside as irrelevant trivialities. †(46) Emilia may be said to represent the ordinary people who commonly figure in Shakespeare, people who are not extraordinarily virtuous in daily life, but who are gifted with a reasonable perceptiveness and commonsense and are capable of heroism in times of crisis. Her complete transformation comes with the resolution to reveal the truth when she says; ‘Twill out, ’twill out: I peace! /No, I will speak as liberal as the north†¦Ã¢â‚¬  (V. ii. 3561-62) And her disclosure; â€Å"O thou dull Moor!that handkerchief thou speak’st of /I found by fortune and did give my husband†(V. ii. 3570-71) A. C. Bradley remarks about this transformation;† Till close to the end she frequently sets one’s teeth on edge; and at the end one is ready to worship her† (p. 205). The only character to perform a complete transformation of character over the course of Othello’s action, Emilia progresses rapidly from her early role as coarse and subservient foil) to Iago(as depicted earlier) into a resolute and effective defender of Desdemona’s virtue. Works Cited Adamson, Jane. Othello as tragedy: some problems of judgment and feeling. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1980 Bradley, A. C. Shakespearean tragedy : lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth. London: Macmillan. 1971 Nostbakken, Faith. Understanding Othello, A Student Casebook to Issues, Sources, and Historical Documents. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2000. Ridley, M. R. Othello. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. 1958.

Ethical Issues Surrounding Genetic Screening and Genetic...

Ethical Issues Surrounding Genetic Screening and Genetic Engineering In today’s modern age science is moving at a rapid pace; one of those scientific fields that has taken the largest leaps is that of genetics. When genetics first comes to mind, many of us think of it as a type of science fiction, or a mystical dream. Yet genetics is here, it is real, and has numerous ethical implications. One of the particular areas of interest is prenatal genetics. In this field, many new and outstanding innovations have been made. A mother and father can now check for a large array of disorders that could occur in their child; sexual preference has now been shifted from the hands of a higher being to that of someone with a Ph.D.;†¦show more content†¦In this brave new field, there have been many steps and strides taken of which we could have never imagined. For instance, before a mother and father decided to carry out the process of having offspring, they can visit a genetic clinic to figure out if their child is likely to have certain illnesses. A list of such illnesses are: Down syndrome, cystic fibrosis, dwarfism, breast cancer (susceptibility to), fragile X syndrome, Huntington’s Disease, Duchenne muscular dystrophy, and various types of nervous system degeneration (Golden 51). These are only a few of the nearly 40 types of disorders that can be determined by genetic testing. It may be rather nice to know that a child does not have a genetic disease, but what does a couple do if the results of a genetic test are returned with negative results? Also, if the information from the test is ambiguous the couple might decide not to carry out the pregnancy due to risk. In a 1999 article written by Frederic Golden, he questions if the child should be brought into the world â€Å"†¦in hopes that a cruel disease can be managed or cured†¦Ã¢â‚¬  or if the fetus should be aborted. He also poses the question of insurance coverage. This might seem like a rather odd comment to make. Insurance is insurance isn’t it ? And for the most part we all have it. Yet this brings us into another issue about genetics, privacy. Our genetic code is consistent throughout our entire lives. It is who we are. Will insurance coverage be availableShow MoreRelatedThe Field Of Reproductive Technology1484 Words   |  6 PagesToday’s culture has a growing fascination with biotechnology and genetic engineering. This is especially true within the field of reproductive technology. 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