The Separate Lives Analysis

Alike gender, sexuality is also a social construct, especially when looking at the period before the 18th century, when one’s sexual orientation did not matter, hence there being no need for justification, just as pointed by Foucault: “Sexual practices had little need of secrecy; words were said without undue reticence, and things were done without too much concealment; one had a tolerant familiarity with the illicit.” (3). And the 19th century came and brought with it a big change, and not only did people become engulfed by social norms, whom they should abide at all costs, but they also had to keep their sexual preferences under lock and key: “But twilight soon fell upon this bright day, followed by the monotonous nights of the Victorian

Contemporary understandings of sexuality are not the same as back in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Understandings and terminology in the past hold multiple differences and similarities than our current contemporary understandings.

The discourse of “incest” is considered almost universally as taboo and so is the study of the phenomena of sexual relations between closely related individuals in its diverse manifestations. Literary texts at length have tried to explore incest as social and psychological deviance but the discussion moves to the margins of the narrative into unspoken or rather “unspeakable” territory. The mainstream discourse prevents the writers from representing and speaking about the theme of incest explicitly. It remains restricted to a marginal space and can be understood only through a deep exploration of the individual characters and the narrative style of the text.

Even before we delve into the metaphorical and poetic world of William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, the fate of our titled characters has already been told as we find out about ‘A pair of star-cross'd lovers’ who ‘take their life’. However the story, as we begin to read, is far from explained and unfolded, in fact, Romeo and Juliet have not even met.

Desdemona and Lefty’s desire for love develops a mixed outcome eventualizinging in good and bad. Desdemona, while still in Greece, searches for a woman for Lefty to love, but instead found a love for her and Lefty in each other. Desdemona felt that Lefty had been deficient of someone to love and have a family with a girl. Eventually bringing the brother and sister together, because Lefty wanted to love his sister. Lefty’s love for his sister represents filling the absent piece in his life, because he wants to marry his sister. Lefty receives what he wants because of the war in Greece that pushes them to leave for America and begin a new life. His marriage represents a good and bad outcome; he marries the one he loves making him happy, but he marries his sister finishing in a gene defect that would travel to alter his daughter’s happiness by her daughter morphing

We have all seen the classic television scene, where a happy family consisting of one mother, one father, and two children is hovered around a table or a couch. Although still prominent, this scene is becoming less common nowadays as more families become non-traditional. More families than ever are consisting of one mother and children, one father and children, grandparents and children, and even two mothers or two fathers and children. These households, although not what most people consider a normal household, are becoming more common and regular in today’s society. Homosexual parents and families are indeed different from more traditional families, but not for the worse. This trend is not increasing

In the article “ What We Really Miss About the 1950s”, Coontz suggests that the myth is “…a coherent ‘moral order’ in their community to serve as a reference point for family norms” and “even people who found that moral order grossly unfair or repressive often say that its presence provided them with something concrete to push against” (Coontz 28). In some ways the myth of family becomes a compass for consciousness, which provides young and inexperienced parents with advice to solve problems, although sometimes it may not be the most appropriate solution. Bagarozzi, an Atlanta therapist, gives the example of how the myth affects the psychological reaction of a couple after sex therapy. “They were both in agreement that their problem was the husband’s loss of sexual desire for his wife”, however, “on the conscious level”, he suggested, “The wife’s myth was that ‘I am a sexual person and my husband won’t satisfy me.’ But in fact, her personal history and her own family mythology had taught her that sex was bad. Her real feeling was: ‘I am bad for having sex’’(Collins 14). It’s not hard to imagine that this man feels self-condemned and uneasy of his inability to have sex with his wife, but his wife’s choice would blunt his feeling edge of awkwardness and shame. When there comes a problem, instead of absolving oneself from the commitment and responsibility, all of the families would rather choose to confront and solve it together. Family is more about a

In Howards End we see the outer and inner worlds – the prose and the passion, disconnected, but still existing within the same space. Although the material Wilcoxs’ and cerebral Schlegels seemingly come from different worlds, their alignment is ultimately a matter of personal connection. Yet, just about sixty years prior in Karolina Pavlova’s A Double Life we see the same two worlds existing in separate spaces entirely – prose in the waking life, poetry within Cecily’s dreams. One explanation for this is that of Konstantin Askakov, in his introduction to Pavlova’s novella. For him, the prose represents the “outer,” frivolous emptiness of everyday high society; the poetry, the voice of Cecily’s “soul.” Cecily’s dreams then represent an inner

In the article, Taking Words Seriously - Romeo and Juliet are Troubled Kids . By; Stanton Peele,” there was a question that made me think of the story of Romeo and Juliet. The passage says: “ And, most important of all, why do the two lovers end up killing themselves? And they do so when only the other is present?” I think that as they are known as the “star-crossed lovers,” there was a risk in this love. Romeo being a Montague and Juliet being a Capulet. This is a

Minority and sexual minorities understand the oppressive nature of majority groups. However, double minorities like Black gay men often suffer under virulent conditions such as the politics of Blackness, religious conservatism, homophobia, financial hardship, homelessness, lack of support systems, and isolation. Due to this Black gay men seek out comfort in spaces where other Black gay men frequent such as nightclubs. Sometimes nightclubs are the only spaces available where Black gay men feel safe. Often, stigma, racism, and homophobia force men into these spaces, but also these issues lead to negative health outcomes. These issues can prevent gay men from meeting up in healthier spaces and sharing their stories. And, because of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, the community lost a number of men who could have passed on a rich history.

It is in the traditional values of family integrity that there are stereotypical views on families of all kinds: single parents, divorced families, families without children, families same sex. Homosexuality, heterosexuality and transgenderism are highly pressured in aspects related to heterosexual marriage such as marriage, childbirth, and the resulting pressures on kinship. At the beginning of the piece.

What scale is being used to determine what a life is essentially worth? And who determines this? For most of our lives, we have grown up being taught that ‘All lives are created equally’ while this is important it is not entirely true. You would think that when you die your family could finally be at peace with no worries or fears but they tend to worry how you’re valued is being determined by law. I believe that everyone should be treated equally, even after death.

Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck’s film The Lives of Other’s (2005) is set in East Berlin during the socialist reign from November 1984, up until the fall of the Berlin wall in 1989. The political context plays a significance role not only in the film’s subject matter but also in its cinematography, which exploits the voyeuristic tendencies of the audience, reflecting the surveillance of the Stasi Secret Police officers. The film follows a loyal socialist and playwright, Georg Dreyman who becomes subject (along with actor girlfriend Christa-Maria Sieland) to extensive Stasi surveillance due to his association with subversive artists such as Paul Hauser and Albert Jerska. Hauptman Gerd Weisler is the accomplished Stasi officer assigned to

In her essay titled “Compulsive Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence,” Adrienne Rich claims that any alternative to heterosexual outcome is discouraged by society. The essay claims that Western tradition has used the heterosexual family model as the basic social

Throughout history, definitions of sexuality within a culture are created and then changed time after time. During these changes, we have seen the impact and power one individual or group can have over others. In the Late Nineteenth Century into the Early Twentieth Century, we see multiple groups of people and or authorities taking control over the idea of sex and how they believe society is being impacted by sex. At this point in time, society had groups of people who believed they had the power to control how society as whole viewed and acted upon sex. Those particular groups and ideas changed many lives and the overall definition of sexuality within that culture.