Essay about The Individual vs. Society in Mrs. Warren's Profession

Individuals and society often disagree over morals and values, and the resulting conflicts arise in a vast range of ways. One way society conflicts with individuals is when society tries to restrict what people say, as seen in James Sterngold’s article “Censorship in the Age of Anything Goes”. Other times, individuals will be too afraid to speak out against society for fear of having society turn against them, as seen in Arthur Miller’s allegorical play, The Crucible. On the other hand, when individuals do defy society, there can be positive results, as seen in J.D. Salinger’s novel, The Catcher in the Rye. As such, when the beliefs of individuals and society come into conflict, the individuals can either let the controlling society forcefully

Mary Warren’s behavior foreshadow about her testimony in court by giving Elizabeth a doll she made, “a popper,” which later leads to her arrest. They found a needle inside the doll, in the same spot Abigail was stabbed in. She seems to be manipulated by Abigail, due to the fact that she feared to have to testify against her in court. “She’ll kill me for sayin’ that! Abby’ll charge lechery on you, Mr. Proctor!” Mary kept saying over and over again that she cannot, which also indicates that she knows that Abigail will do something terrible to her.

Mercy Otis Warren was born on September 14, 1728. She was born to Cape Cod family. She wrote American poets, but she is dramatist, historian, and the first American woman to write things primarily for the public but not herself. She married a merchant and farmer, has five children. She wrote ‘Observations on the New Constitution.’

Miller presents the character of Mary Warren in an important way to show the message of status and power. Mary Warren’s character is seen to be vulnerable and timid. The key events that makes her role important are her roles in the girls’ group, the scene with the poppet and her confession in court. Through the events in the play Miller portrays Mary Warren with tension and suspense. This makes the audience question her status and power.

The term “honor” has been around since the manifestation of organized society, metamorphosing according to culture, religion, time period, and geography. Originally, a person’s honor was determined by society, but the term has evolved to become more personal, or self-evaluated. The primary characters of the play The Crucible and the film “High Noon”, though varying in certain ways, exhibit this particular “self-evaluated” honor. In the strict Puritan society presented in The Crucible, John Proctor’s honor is solely dependent on how honest he believes he is. In the Western town of Hadleyville, we are introduced to marshal Will Kane of “High Noon”, whose personal honor depends on fulfilling his professional duty. Despite the differences in

Pressures in the community compels everyone, even the most well-reasoned people, to be amenable and to conform to society’s standards. In The Scarlet Letter, everyone follows and complies strictly to Puritan

Warren’s thesis is that fetuses are not persons and since only persons have full moral rights and person-like beings have a right to life in particular, fetuses do not have a right to life. She argues that fetuses are not persons because they lack the basic qualifying traits of personhood or moral humanity. She also believes that the rights of actual persons will always override the rights of potential persons and that there should be no restrictions on when an abortion must occur by. Her argument is a direct response to Noonan’s thesis which is that fetuses are humans and therefore have human rights.

“The Importance of Work” is an essay from The Feminine Mystique, by Betty Friedan. The whole essay talks about how humans can contribute to the society with their full capacities through work and that women should hold jobs equivalent to men. Friedan insists that men and women need work that satisfies their creativity and contributes to human society. Today, doing paid work is a necessity because it helps us get through the day wether for our needs or our pleasures. The money earned from work supports the whole family. According to Mrs. Olive Schreiner, “if women did not win back their right to a full share of honored and useful work, women’s mind and muscle would weaken in a parasitic state; her offspring, male and female would weaken progressively, and civilization itself would deteriorate.” (Friedan 8) I strongly agree with this statement. I believe that the work ethic of most generations are influenced by parents. It is obvious that we look up to our parents. If the parents do not show any desire to work, their children will copy them and will not contribute to society. If a mother who is a stay-at-home mother or has a different job does not work hard or does not show any work ethic, her children will look up to her and follow her footsteps and eventually “civilization would deteriorate.” (Friedan 8)

Mary Anne Warren argues in the position that abortion is morally permissible because the fetus is not a person therefore has no rights and not considered immoral to be killed. I shall argue that Warren’s argument in invalid since the claims of argument cannot be proven.

Mary Anne Warren’s argument on the legal status of abortion stands on a concrete understanding and realization of an individual’s personhood. Now Mary Anne Warren’s unyielding argument on the basis of personhood is that, “If we assume that an entity is a person just because it happens to belong to our favored biological classification, we stand convicted of speciesism, close cousin to racism. There are properties that do qualify an entity as a person, but simply being human is not one of them” (124). To first be able to argue why the abortion of a fetus is permissible she needs to give a clear distinction of what can be established a decisive factor of personhood. To distinguish a line between a fetus and a human and if abortion is to be morally permissible there needs to be an understanding of when this cut off between the two officially happens. In an example of the potential personhood and a right to life Mary Ann Warren uses a hypothetical scenario of a space explorer who lands on an unknown plant. While on this plant he encounters a race of aliens. Now since he is on another plant in the presence of these alien beings how should he act towards these beings. He must first determine if they have the capability of morality or if it is acceptable to consume these aliens for food. To determine if these aliens are in fact part of a moral personhood maybe he can notice works of art, forms of tools, and communication. However, even without evidence of these things they could

In Mary Anne Warren’s “The Abortion Issue,” children are not persons in the empirical sense. Warren believes that prior to a certain point in a pregnancy, the child does not have “the capacity to understand” the ramifications of what an abortion would be, therefore the abortion does not infringe upon the rights of the unborn fetus. She states that: “…in the ways that matter from a moral point of view, human fetuses are very unlike human persons, particularly in their early months of development”(152). In essence, personhood as defined by Warren can only come after the first trimester. Before that time, the fetus does not have the sentience that would make it a person. Warren’s main criteria for

Mary Anne Warren is one of the top advocates for keeping abortion legal without any restrictions on it. She states that the morality of abortion is dependent on the moral status of the baby, not simply on the rights of the mother. She criticizes those who defend abortion as the right to control one's body: "it is at best a rather feeble argument for the permissibility of abortion. Mere ownership does not give me the right to kill innocent people whom I find on my property…" (The Monist, pg. 44) Using this analogy she shows that just because the fetus is inside us it does mean we have a right to terminate it.

In this way, society is guided by a morality, which is based in sympathy and enabled by self-interest.

This one uses the example of The Roll Call by Elizabeth Thompson (later Elizabeth Thompson, Lady Butler) to illustrate moral licensing, where one virtuous act is used to justify future less virtuous acts. In this case, displaying Thompson's painting gave cover to the Royal Academy (the gatekeepers for art in 19th Century England) to refuse her and any other women admission to their ranks for another six decades.

This paper discusses the notion that truly moral people are not only those who follow rules, laws and norms, these society norms and laws are very flexible and change with time. Such people do whatever they wish to do without the fear of being criticized. The essay is based on "The Doll House" play by Henrik Ibsen. However, other similar stories that support thesis statement include; "The story of an Hour" by Kate Chopin and "The Stranger" by Albert Camus.