Diran's Story: Mad Cow Disease

Paul Newman once said, “People stay married because they want to, not because the doors are locked” (74). There is no such thing as the perfect relationship, however, being involved in a healthy relationship is essential for a person to feel valued, safe, and happy. Unfortunately, in the situation of Kelly Sundberg’s personal essay “It Will Look Like a Sunset,” and Kate Chopin’s short story “The Story of An Hour,” include extreme examples of unhealthy relationships. The essay “It Will Look Like a Sunset,” shares painful experiences of Sundberg’s physical and emotional abusive relationship with her husband Caleb, while “The Story of an Hour,” shares a rare reaction of a married woman, Louise Mallard, who explores her emotions cautiously when hearing about the death of her husband. Each woman faces their own prison created by their husbands. The two marriages represent the figurative meaning of doors being locked in a marriage. Both pieces of literature convey the theme of confinement by using the literary devices of foreshadowing, imagery, and conflict.

As Oekeke awoke, he shifted in his bed with a pain coming from his chest. It wasn’t a pain that made you clench up and scream, he knew from that moment something was very wrong. He tried to open his at last, from when he awoke his eyes were still weary but it seemed as though he was stuck in time. His heart pumped faster and his mind was propelling from left to right to across the back and back. All he could think of was his family, but with such confusion he could hardly focus on the realty of his situation. It was a sensation he’d never felt ever before, and as he saw his life flash by him he knew the only thing he could do was to wait it out. The old man finally grasped control of his life covered in sweat and disorientation. He asked

Anyone who receives notice of a loved ones death is never expected to take it lightly. In Kate Chopin’s “The Story of an Hour,” Mrs. Mallard is informed of her husbands “death” as gently as possible, and immediately she understands the enormous significance this loss will have on her life. Unlike many widow’s, her feelings of utter devastation do not last. Mrs. Mallard’s sobs of loss turn to cries of joy after she reflects upon her own character and discovers truths about her marriage.

I awoke today with the light streaming into my room and hearing the birds chirping in the distance. As I regained my conscience, I smelled the mold and felt damp room conditions all around me that imprisoned me. It reminded me of what would have happened only in a nightmare. It was only yesterday that Corey, Nurse, Hale and I had gone to help the accused women. So many times I felt that I could win the battle, yet just as many times I could feel the rope slipping through my fingers.

The night air was heavy with silence. Clouds drifted across a calm sky, and a full moon shone in the distance. In a small hut on the outskirts of the valley, an old man lay in bed, awake in the peaceful slumber of the village. His breaths came in rattling gasps, his forehead burned, and his joints felt stiff with pain. He shifted on the blankets, his withered hands clenched in fists as he tried to suppress the wave of bitter memories coming to him. His life had been nothing more than work, loss, tragedy. He remembered all of his hope, his ambition, in his youth, and he smiled bitterly. No one would remember him as the man that he had once hoped he would become. Now, as his breathing became heavier and he felt himself fading on the brink of

Sitting in his pale and muted armchair, he twists, turns, and presses the buttons and knobs of his radio, with much determination. Ogden quickly glanced out of the window and was surprised to see rain and what looked like a storm forming. He the took a swift look at the clock on his desk. It was already six in the morning. With a sigh of defeat, once again he has to come to terms that it was another unsuccessful night. He was starting to hobble down the stairs with weary legs, ready to head to bed and sleep through the sunrise and awake at sunset, repeating his usual routine.

These years of oppression by the husbands left their wives longing for freedom and independence. In “The Yellow Wallpaper” it seems that the narrator wants her husband out of her life, saying, “John is away all day, and even some nights when his cases are serious. I am glad my case is not serious!” (Gilman 12). She is in her highest spirits when her husband is away from home because it allows her some solidity. Her intense desire for freedom leads her to purposely try and drive her husband away. “There comes John, and I must put this away, -- he hates to have me write a word” (Gilman 12). She acts out in spite of John, hoping it will earn her a few more precious hours alone. The burning desire for freedom is also evident in the apt titled “The Story of an Hour”. When the supposedly heart-frail Mrs. Mallard learns of her husband’s death, she is initially grief stricken. However, as she gazes through her window into the busy streets, a slow realization comes over her. With her husband’s death, she is granted that freedom she has always wanted; but it is all taken away from her quickly. “When the doctor came they said she had died of

The story of an hour by Kate Chopin introduces us to Mrs. Mallard as she reacts to her husband’s death. In this short story, Chopin portrays the complexity of Mrs. Mallard’s emotions as she is saddened yet joyful of her loss. Kate Chopin’s “The Story of an Hour” argues that an individual discover their self-identity only after being freed from confinement. The story also argues that freedom is a very powerful force that affects mental or emotional state of a person. The story finally argues that only through death can one be finally freed.

     Mad Cow Disease, scientifically referred to as (BSE) Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy, is a disease that affects those humans who eat the meat from infected cows. Mad Cow Disease is one of several fatal brain diseases called (TSE) Transmissible Spongiform Encephalopathy. (USDA) There was evidence of a new illness resembling the sheep disease scrapie. It was technically named BSE but quickly acquired the mad cow tag because of the way infected cattle behave. (CNN) In 1997, there was an award given to Stanley Prusiner, for concluding that a distorted protein called a prion was responsible for Mad Cow Disease, noted the long incubation period made it difficult to distinguish (Bryant).

In the short story, “The Story of an Hour,” author Kate Chopin presents the character of Mrs. Louis Mallard. She is an unhappy woman trapped in her discontented marriage. Unable to assert herself or extricate herself from the relationship, she endures it. The news of the presumed death of her husband comes as a great relief to her, and for a brief moment she experiences the joys of a liberated life from the repressed relationship with her husband. The relief, however, is short lived. The shock of seeing him alive is too much for her bear and she dies. The meaning of life and death take on opposite meaning for Mrs. Mallard in her marriage because she lacked the courage to stand up for herself.

A morbid melancholy stole over me. Anxiety gnawed at my heart. I was a living corpse. There was a feeling of chill in the air every day as I felt. I faked illness so as not to go to school. Despair hangs heavy in the stifling air. It was a dreary day for me , cold and without sunshine. I dread people and always avoid people. The door was locked from the inside. A cold grey light crept under the curtains. The windows were secured with locks and bars. The room felt cold and sterile.The flowers faded for want of water. A single lamp was suspended from the ceiling. The clock ticked louder and louder in a quiet room. I regarded the room as a refuge from the outside

Mad Cow disease has been heavily spoken about on the international news. Our hopes are that the disease will not spread into the United States, even though several people have died from the disease.

The EU has approved more stringent policies over the years on the regulation of GMOs. There has been many cases of regulation failures that have undermined trust of administrative authorities to ensure the health of the citizens. Most notably, before the outbreak of Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (as known as mad cow disease), the European Union and the United states’s regulations on the GM products were very similar. This outbreak revealed the vulnerabilities of the EU’s food safety regulation policies. Even though mad-cow disease was discovered in cows in the UK, the EC believed that it was not a threat on the safety of their European citizens. After conducting laboratory tests in the past, it showed evidence that BSE was transferable once consumed. This was just after the outbreak in the late 1980s, so the citizens were very wary of the health dangers, but the EC failed to place restrictions on the selling

Mad Cow Disease Bovine spongiform encephalophathy ( BSE), which is mainly known as mad cow disease has infected the society and has put the lives of individuals at risk. This was very frightening to the people that ate meat during that time. The terrified people would not even want to eat hamburgers at MacDonald, steak at restaurant and much more. What also alarmed the people was the fact that there was a possibility of getting the human form of mad cow disease. This was called variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD) which is through tainted blood, but this was only a theory which

Getting out of bed and continuing on with life became boring to Daisy, like the color of jeans after being washed in the washer a few times; faded. After her father past away, she no longer was in the mood to be a person, she no longer felt the need to keep a conversation going, and she no longer enjoyed the things she used to love. It was not due to the of the lack of sleep she was getting, it wasn’t that. She was not tired at all. Like every other person who has ever experienced loss, she was unhappy. So very sad that even the simplest of things like getting out of bed seemed pointless to Daisy. It was very hard for her, being so down that it became a struggle to get up in the mornings. Yet every morning, Daisy gathered up all of strength