Dalrymple's Nine Lives: The Daughters Of Yellama

Stephen Prothero’s “God Is Not One” is a survey of world religions, comprising vital information on a vast array of different sets of belief. As someone who has never studied religion before, nor belongs to a particular faith, the variability within these religions is staggering. One might be satisfied to define religion as “how a person goes about believing in God,” but soon finds that even that definition has its holes. Thankfully, “God Is Not One” does an amazing job of cluing its reader into the nuances that are sometimes forgotten about the religions it approaches.

The common ground of religions in the world is that they claim the existence of god/gods who holds the power beyond human ability. Each religion explains its existence in their own unique ways and implement it to people’s lifestyle. The film, 330 Million Gods, seeks to understand the Hinduism way of explanation. This documentary mainly focuses on the Hindu concept of divine, religious practices, and the stages of life. Also, the documentary illustrates how Indian lifestyle blends into its religion in the big cities – city of Benares and rural areas – village of Bhith Bhagwanpur. The most interesting points of this film presents to me are the idea of many gods with different sets of ability, how the Hindus practice the religion, and the concept

The females in The Red Lotus of Chastity and The Thousand and One Nights struggled against ideas of chastity that were created by a male dominated society. They had to over come the cultural ideals of what women should be and do. Devasmita and Shahrazad both decided to take matters into their own hands and not fall to male authority or their tricks. The themes of these novels are the feminine empowerment, loyalty and devotion.

For one thing, women struggled with obstacles, that men could not even have. Women took a major role in childbirth, but the malnourished, and overworked women were not in the best condition to have children. Regardless they had many, and that mean a lot of the women and their children would die during birth. They had about three children in their lifetime, and only two would survive. Additionally, the laws back then had no care for the wellbeing of the women. This led to awful laws that actually benefitted the men who would rape and seduce women. Additionally, all of the adjusting they had to do after their arrival really took a toll on them. Once they came to America after their brutal transport through the middle passage, they had to immediately be accustomed to a new language, climate, food, and culture. Once she was sold to her master, a lot of her

Many authors have employed the religious beliefs of their cultures in literature. The deities contained in Homer’s Odyssey and in the Biblical book of Exodus reflect the nature of the gods in their respective societies. Upon examination of these two works, there are three major areas where the gods of the Greek epic seem to directly contrast the nature of the God of the Israelites: the way problems are solved, the prestige and status that separates the divine from the masses, and the extent of power among the immortal beings.

Women were treated unfair and were considered impure because they gave childbirth and went through the menstruation cycle.

These people were held prisoners for hundreds of years with no knowledge on survival as far as taking care of their health and being able to maintain it,

They all go through the same torture when they first arrive by being locked in the small room where men are sent to them. They are all helpless in this situation and are unable to do anything to help themselves. This is shown when Lakshmi says, “Underneath the weight of him, I cannot see or move or breathe” (McCormick 103). This memory gives each of the girls a push in the present, because they know they have been through worse. It gives them the strength to get through one more day or to fight back. Something else each of the girls do is their nightly routine, or work, when they have to doll themselves up to look their part. They do this because, “if you want to pay off your debt, you must do what it takes to make them choose you” (McCormick 141). They have to make sure they look impressive in order to pay off what they are told they owe. Every night, they get a little tougher and go through another work night. They become fighters as they learn to hide their emotions beneath the makeup they have to wear each night. These girls support each other as they go through their own

Unfortunately, the sharp instincts and intelligences of these early women in a way became their downfall, for many historians and archeologists accredit women with the discovery of farming. It is their belief that, while gathering foods for their tribes, women realized the connection between leaving seeds in the ground and the growth of plants. For a while these simple methods of farming were carried out by women, however, as more advancements were made in agriculture it was realized that farming could no longer be performed solely by women, as it demanded large amounts of strength that a woman wasn’t physically capable of. In addition, farming demanded large amounts of time so it began to become an expectation that a woman would remain home and take care of the house and children while her husband worked out in the fields. (Ellis 9) In his article “The Worst Mistake Made in History,” Jared Diamond discusses how women were no longer able to work as effectively, as it was expected of them to have more children, so their bodies as well as health became weakened. (Diamond 65) John R. Lukacs makes comparable discussions to Diamond, in his article, “Fertility and Agriculture Accentuate Sex Differences in Dental Caries Rates,” saying that women suffered from even greater health problems than their male counterparts and as a result the numbers of women in society were reduced. (Lukacs 901) It was

We had been so bored finished half the baloney, and nearly finished our whole pack of weeds, Johnny had promised to pick up more supplies in a couple of days, I had felt sick, when a toe nudged me in the ribs,” Glory,” a familiar voice had said,” He looks different with his hair like that.” It was Dally, I rolled over, rubbed my eyes real sleepy like yawning, finally I blinked, I nearly blew Dally’s eardrums out when I yelled,” Hey, Dally!”He yelled back,” Hey Ponyboy,” he looked down at me,” or should I say sleeping beauty?” Ponyboy had thought he would never see or imagine the day when he would be so happy to see Dallas Winston, but that day had come. As excited as I was to see Dally I knew it only meant one thing, contact with the outside world everything had become real and very vital. I immediately abused what I just had recieved and asked,” How’s Sodapop? Are the fuzz after us?

In return, the owners had their female slaves who were mentally ill, neutered and thus basically asexual, preventing them from producing offspring that might be affected by the certain mental illness. Some well-known advocates of eugenics are (1) Helen Keller, who was a blind and deaf women who believed that humankind is sacred and that one bad apple shouldn’t have to ruin the whole bunch. That by sterilizing the bad effects, we can weed out all of them. (2) H.G. Wells said that it is in our favor as humans to “sterilize the failures, but not to select the successes of our human race” in order to improve our human stock, which meant that we should eliminate the breeding of disabled but not increase the breeding of the advantaged. He also implied that breeding the white man and the black woman will end in defective children (Wells was slightly a racist). The intentions of the ones similarly mentioned above were to improve the human race by putting a halt to the spread of human defects. Doing so meant first, that people would have to practice eugenics. These mindsets are what began the trend of eugenics as early as

Have you ever heard of the disgraced athlete, Lance Armstrong? Or maybe you’ve heard of the story of Troy. In fact, you can compare the actions Armstrong and the gods made that caused them to later suffer. Both texts can prove that your actions can cause major events that may be more than you bargained for. Although the situations are different, both the gods and Armstrong controlled society, were arrogant and inconsiderate, and lied in some shape or form.

The Community: Heroes and Gods Every culture has heroes. In literary works, like the Aeneid and The Odyssey, individuals are admired and placed upon a high pedestal to where others want to follow in their footsteps. Heroes in these books represent the community from which the author is a part of also. Social conditions shaped the ideas of these works and gave them distinct aspects which have become well respected.

They were treated as an object or a machine that produced babies for those who were in

The role of women in the Mahabharata makes an interesting and fascinating study providing insight into the strengths and weaknesses of their character. In the Mahabharata, four women play pivotal role in the course of events. The men play dice and wage wars in Mahabharata, as anywhere else; but it is the women who hold power and influence. It is the women who direct the course of events and unconsciously determine the fate of men and their generations to follow. The women are the true leaders of the Epic. These women displayed that the truly powerful do not cling to power. They knew when and how to wield it but also, even more important, to when not to use it.