Essay on The Struggle for Acceptance in The Cider House Rules

She goes through many instances in which the most sane of people would not be able to return unscathed. But we as readers refuse to credit her misfortune because of our own insecurities and the constraints society has set upon us, even today. Esther Greenwood lives and copes with a mental illness in this book, and that is not something most people are comfortable with. We try to rationalize her actions, stating that she is just pressured by those around her, or her feminist views are what cause her troubles. The reality is a culmination of multiple factors, some of which are unexplainable. Very much like Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye, Esther’s story is taken with varying levels of sympathy and understanding. Many would see her as the typical brooding teenager, one who makes mountains out of molehills. She is unbelievably privileged, especially for the time in which her story takes place. One could say that she has it all, even more. But who are we to decide what is big and what is small? Who are we to decide what classifies one’s feelings as worthy of the label of illness or just simply disagreeable? The Bell Jar is indeed an important bildungsroman, because it opens discussion to harsh realities of life, ones in which many are unwilling to face. This unwillingness could have meant the end for Esther Greenwood; her mother being embarrassed of her daughter’s condition,

In Fahrenheit 451 the lack of books later turns the book in an avalanche effect of conformity leading to

Authors use their point of view of a story to develop the central tone of a story, or to better institute what their purpose may be. Some authors may have the same purpose of different stories, or may have significant differences. Anna Quindlin (author of “Homeless”) and Lauralee Summer (author of “Learning Joy from Dogs without Collars”) both discuss having homes as a top priority when it comes to a childhood, and a feeling of normalcy and security; “Learning Joy from Dogs without Collars” was written to foretell how a home can affect one’s childhood, while “Homeless” was written to tell how “home is where the heart is” (834).

There is a huge controversy in America, and that is abortion. Abortion has been the hot topic in America for several hundred years. No matter the ruling of the government, there will always be firm believers on each side. Therefore, it has been talked about in countless ways like articles, reports, and even political rallies. In “Ted Cruz Connects with Pro-Lifers at West Des Moines Rally”, Page Jones and Andrew Clark discuss the negativity point of view about abortions at a Ted Cruz rally. In this article Page Jones and Andrew Clark express their negativity abortions reporting out taxes, morals etc.

SPEECH #3 – PERSUASIVE SPEECH Name: DANIEL C. DILIGENT Title: Lowering the Legal Drinking Age Specific Purpose: To argue in favor of lowering the minimum legal drinking age in the United States. Thesis Statement: I will discuss 1) the current legal drinking age, 2) the effect that this drinking age has upon American social norms, and 3) the potential benefits of a lower drinking age. I. INTRODUCTION A. Hook: Alcohol is ever-present in today’s American society. Television viewers are constantly bombarded with advertisements promoting its consumption. Social events rarely take place without their attendees drinking some alcoholic beverage or another. However, young people in America are told by society that they are not allowed to

In The Haunting of Hill House, Shirley Jackson addresses the pervasiveness of maternal bonds in a horror-based context, and asserts that a mother-daughter bond gives people the nourishment and sense of individuality needed to live out a decent and sensible life. She engages her readers through the mind of a socially awkward women named Eleanor, who was ultimately victimized by her mother, and now seeks to gain a maternal acceptance, a fundamental need or vital blood connection. Eleanor seeks to fulfill herself by obtaining that motherly bond or that “cup of stars” which makes her human—an individual identity with a sense of belonging in the world. Hill House then targets Eleanor’s vulnerability, her desperate need for maternal acceptance, and presents itself as a tempting illusion—a mother, someone who loves her, a place where she can belong—to her. Roberta Rubenstein strongly explicates the idea of Hill House representing a parental figure, which according to her, poses as both “an enticing yet devouring mother” with a preoedipal love interest (Rubenstein). Yet, there is a situational irony taking place; Jackson presents the text to us in a way in which we can see Hill House’s evil attributes, while in turn, Eleanor decides to foolishly ignore them, and the house begins to consume her as a result. And just as Eleanor is both enticed and repulsed by the house, so are we. We recognize its evil appearance, and know it represents a form of danger, and yet we slowly grow

A woman named Jane Roe, on December 13th, in 1971 brought an action to the Texas abortion laws, challenging abortion laws. Roe was the lead plaintiff of the class, it took time for the case to make its way through the courts, Sarah Weddington and Linda Coffee were the Roe vs. Wade plaintiff’s lawyers, and Henry Wade was the Texas Attorney General who defended the law that made abortions illegal. Norma Mccorvey was a young, pregnant woman at age 21 in Texas who was a high school dropout who ran away from home and was sent to reform school. She didn’t have the funds to access an abortion, so she became the plaintiff “Jane Roe” in the

“You don’t have to burn a book to destroy a culture. Just get people to stop reading them.” (Ray Bradbury). Although our world is not perfect it is far better than the dystopian reality for the characters of Fahrenheit 451. Although not outlawed as in the book, literature has become extremely devalued by the past few generations. And it continues to get less and less sought after with each coming decade.

Archer tries to pull himself out of the depths of the strict society’s structure, but The Age of Innocence illustrates how the fight against society's norms get buried beneath conformity through it’s play on characterization and it’s adherence to Old New York’s unwritten- but unchangeable rules.

In his novel, John Irving uses formal diction to help convey his message that abortion should be legal. By utilizing a more proper tone, he presents his argument objectively, thereby making it more effective. This is seen most often in the dialogue of the characters, such as Homer and Dr. Larch, the main protagonists. Their speech patterns do not fully match up with other characters presented in the book, but rather they have a more educated way of speech. This stems from Larch’s background, with his education and medical knowledge giving him the opportunity to learn how to speak in a more sophisticated manner. Homer,

Irving, like everyone, had several difficulties in his life. The first difficulty Irving had was about living through a writing profession. During Irving’s time in the early 19th century, writing wasn’t a profession in America that could be taken seriously for a living. (Hedges) America’s publications were too small (Washington), foreign publications that were imported to America were too cheap, and American literature hadn’t fully emerged yet. (Hedges) Irving was born just after the Revolutionary War and the nation was just too young. (Dickstein) But Irving’s financially dependent family firm, P.&E. Irving, went bankrupt in 1818 and he had to write for a living. (Washington)

Homer Wells is the boy who belongs at Saint Cloud’s. He is adopted on four separate occasions, but every time, he finds his way back into the boys wing of Saint Cloud’s. After his fourth traumatic adoption, Dr. Larch decides against every fiber in his organized, routine self, that Homer Wells belongs

     Drinking has been, for a long time, a very debatable topic. In the 1920s, drinking was seen as something so bad that it needed to be prohibited completely. Alcohol consumption is still often seen as distasteful, especially in large quantities. In this study by Keith M. Kilty and Thomas M. Meenaghan, researchers looked at the drinking status of fictional people along with other factors such as age and sex and asked participants to rate these people based on such attributes. The article mentions several reasons that this study is less limited than other studies referring to labeling. Other studies have included only social distance and since this study included

Brendan Driscoll is a member of The Booklist, a group of writers who write about famous authors and the influences that flew from their novels. One of his articles deals with Washington Irving and the influences his short stories have made in American history of literature. The article, despite appearing very brief in sentences, describes a good history of why Irving is important in American literature. The article gained its details of Irving’s past from an older article written by Andrew Burstein, a critic who is the author of the article, “The Original Knickerbocker: The Life of Washington Irving”. Burstein’s article describes why Irving is the first American author to make a living at writing, and how later authors, Edgar Allan Poe as an

The 1999 film, “Cider House Rules” is a touching story of morality, issues of life/death, and the violence and suppression to which women are concerned with, but the law unjustly dictates. The title of the film, after digesting the movie, suggests rules are hard to dictate for a home, when someone has never lived in it. Philosophical ethics is the attempt to offer a rational response to the question of how humans should best live. Aristotle regarded ethics and politics as two related but separate fields of study, since ethics examines the good of the individual, while politics examines the good of the city-state (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aristotelian_ethics). This movie touches on the different scenarios of lives that make everyone such individuals, sharing a glimpse of the massive decisions the individuals must make in their life and how people are impacted on society as a whole.