Optimism vs. Pessimism in Pope's Essay on Man and Leapor's Essay on Woman
Both Alexander Pope's Essay on Man, Epistle 2 and Mary Leapor's Essay on Woman expound the fatalist contention that neither man nor woman can "win," as each individual exists in a world of trade-offs. Yet, by each author's singular technique of sculpting his ideas with the literary tools of contrast, argument, and syntax, the cores of the two essays turn back to back, evolving into distinct, but contrary perspectives of Man's (in respect to mankind) and Woman's existence. Pope asserts that a profusion of trade-offs establish a certain equilibrium point where Man hangs "on this isthmus of a middle state" (Magill 2629). After defining the boundaries of Man's
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Pope chooses neither good nor bad connotations ("A being darkly wise, and rudely great") to avoid judging either of man's extremes. Instead he skillfully chooses each word to avoid judging either extreme as good or bad, right or wrong. "Darkly," on its own, connotes the unseen, the undefined and is uniquely paired with "wise," a word denoting a grasp on definition or reason. "Rudely great" again combines two impartial words that seem to stand in a paradox as a unit - "rudely" suggests low class and lack of refinement (but lacks the moral judgment of "crudely") while "great" indicates superiority, prominence and nobility (without implying self-righteous conceit, as "grand" might have done). Paired, however, each phrase ("Darkly wise" and "rudely great") carries on its own distinctive hybridized meaning. "Darkly wise," comes to depict an indefinite sensibility and "rudely great," denotes an unrefined dignity. Much simpler contrasts between black and white, dark and light, strength and weakness might have sufficed, but, efforting to capture the depth of Man's character, Pope creates contrasts that escape the banality of common antonyms and espouse the sundry spectrums of qualities that comprise Man's character. By these contrasts, Pope was able to construct his thesis, case in point, by illustrating the creative conglomeration that propitiously sets Man apart from God and beast.
Leapor contrasts images to illustrate the perfection of woman and the
The feminine beauty ideal, as defined by Louis-Baker Sperry and Liz Grauerholz in The Pervasiveness and Persistence of the Feminine Beauty Ideal in Children’s Fairy Tales, is “the socially constructed notion that physical attractiveness is one of women’s most important assets, and something all women should strive to achieve and maintain.” (Sperry and Grauerholz, 2003). Under the feminine beauty ideal, beauty is seen as a central part of womanhood; doing femininity or womanhood necessitates doing beauty. In accordance with this, a 2001 study found that women’s bodies must, in order to successfully reach an idealized state of femininity, be actively maintained and regulated through beauty rituals in a way that men’s are not. Thus, through
The lines 809 – 840 of Amelia Lanyer’s poem “Salve Deus Rex Judaeorum” is an argument for why women should have an equal place in society to men’s. The poem is actually a piece of proto-feminist writing using religious examples as a way of getting across the message of equality between the sexes. Lanyer uses examples from the Bible to explain how Eve is not at fault for women having a lesser place in society and why males should have a religious motivation for women being equal with men.
Notwithstanding the numerous advantages of pessimism, proven by studies, society continues to condemn it. This is particularly due to the fact that optimism is viewed as more superior, compared to pessimism. Author, Jon Gordon, reports, “‘Whether we feed ourselves each day with negative fuel or positive fuel … our optimism has a big impact on our day’” (Gordon). Gordon conveys the fact that, ultimately, optimism determines success, not pessimism. Additionally, Adam Sinicki, a psychology graduate, comments that remaining optimistic during strenuous times will help alleviate the situation because an individual is believing that matters will only mend (Sinicki). While there may be research to support these claims, the truth is, they fail to shed
Both men and women are the essential presence of humanity. Both men and women can not function as an individual without its community; however, biased comments are made throughout stereotypes of both women and men in who should be the superior one. In “Men and Women in Search of Common Ground” by Wendell Berry, he covers the biased arguments presented by society in men and women in which he covers how humanity is through human life in the example of marriage. This essay by Berry is structured through the use of exemplification, tone,irony, symbolism, and diction in which it ties to relate the human life and actions humans posses that lead to an impact towards actions in the future.
The female is represented in the primary source as being inferior to men. They’re also known to have less energy, patience, and less physical courage than man. According to Gamble, “women have powers of intuition, finer and more rapid perceptions, and a greater degree of endurance”. Both men and women have mental qualities and equal perfection. Furthermore, she states “women can successfully compete with men in all walks of life”; this is proven because women are now working in occupations that have been regarded as belonging exclusively to men. Female’s choice in sexual selection is also superior. According to Gamble, this is evidence of a higher mental capacity and intelligence in females.
Ever since the emergence of civilizations, men and women have had completely different and unequal roles in society. For centuries, women have been oppressed by the theories of men- theories that declare women to be physically and intellectually inferior to them. As a result, the social expectations for both genders have stayed static for hundreds of years: men are expected to dominate the world, while women are expected to take care of the household. However, in the 18th century, an age of intellectual enlightenment where the development of new ideas was encouraged, women began to gain more access to education. As women gained more education, there were many women thinkers who began to question and argue against the role that society had given them. In contrast, male thinkers found new ways to reaffirm traditional ideas about the inferiority of women. Thus, in the opposing viewpoint, Women in the Age of the Enlightenment: Rousseau and Wollstonecraft, two philosophers, Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Mary Wollstonecraft, provide their own interpretations of this debate, offering completely different perspectives. In his work Émile, Rousseau reflects the views of many male thinkers of his time, as he argues that there are “natural biological differences” (592) between men and women that make women mothers and not intellectuals. In contrast, Mary Wollstonecraft, also known as “the founder of modern European feminism” (591), believes in the equality between men and women, but
With few exceptions, our male dominated society has traditionally feared, repressed, and stymied the growth of women. As exemplified in history, man has always enjoyed a superior position. According to Genesis in the Old Testament, the fact that man was created first has led to the perception that man should rule. However, since woman was created from man’s rib, there is a strong argument that woman was meant to work along side with man as an equal partner. As James Weldon Johnson’s poem, “Behold de Rib,” clearly illustrates, if God had intended for woman to be dominated, then she would have been created from a bone in the foot, but “he
Ibsen wrote this play in 1879. It is a three-act play with prose dialogue. The play takes place in the 19th century in Europe. It is a play about a woman, who struggles to find her own identity. The main point is women need treated as humans and not dolls. Women need to know their place and that they have rights. They also have duties as a wife and mother. As a wife, they need to be trustworthy and as a mother, they need to be role models. As do husbands need to respect their wife and know that, they have their own opinions and titled to them. Women cannot be good wives and role models to their children, if they do not know who they are and what their roles are in life. Ibsen uses the symbolism in his setting to show various
Evolutionary gender determinism proves that men and women are different, not only in a physical way, but in a psychological way as well. As far as history can determine, men were always the hunters who were dominant and competitive. On the other hand, women were known as the gathers, who were cooperative and capable of doing several things at a time. Since men and women are different in their make up. It is a struggle for the two genders to live together and maintain equality and harmony without one gender dominating over the other. In The Gate to Womens Country, Sheri Tepper brings forth a solution that allows the two genders to coincide with each other. She gives a somewhat feminist view in her novel,
460). Not to discard men as nothing but women should get the same praise as men do. Men are strong, and will always want to save the girl, but sometimes the girl needs to save herself. The idea that man was made before the woman, must make them more special, yet others says we are to be equals. With the struggle between man and woman, who’s to say what is right and wrong. Both men and women are alike in many ways both can get scared when something goes bump in the night.
Leibnitz emphasized, in his Discours de Metaphysique (Discourse on Metaphysics) (1686) the role of a benevolent creator. He called the constituent components of the universe monads, and while the philosophy of monads is of little concern to readers of Candide, the conclusion which Leibnitz drew from these monads is crucial to an understanding of optimism.
The attitudes portrayed in Alexander Pope’s An Essay on Man and Jonathan Swift’s “A Modest Proposal” towards mankind is strikingly similar. Both acknowledge the view that man has dominion over the earth, as created and instituted by God. However, the difference is seen in their approaches to this subject. Pope primarily focuses on man’s pride and place in society, whereas Swift discusses how man deals with certain situations reasonably or unreasonably. Pope and Swift present situations that man has to face in conjunction with illogical conclusions. Besides exhibiting illogical conclusions, they also show the selfish, prideful, rebellious, jealous, and the ungrateful characteristics of man.
Women make up about 51% of the population of the United States, yet for most of
Nietzsche remarks on how different the concepts of “evil” and “bad” are, in spite of both being considered the opposite of “good.” He explains this difference by explaining that there are two very different concepts of “good” at work: The noble man’s “good” is precisely what the man of ressentiment calls “evil” (Alderman).
MacKinnon opposes both approaches because they abide by male dominance. MacKinnon feels “There is a politics to (this dominant approach). Concealed is the substantive way in which man has become the measure for all things” (34). “Under the sameness (approach) women are measured according to their correspondence with man,” while “under the difference approach women are judged according to their distance to man.” She feels that male power perpetuates male dominance, because “women and men are equally different, but not equally powerful” (51).