What Does The Scapegoat Mean

This poem focuses on the lynching of a African American male. The speaker of the poem appears to console a woman who appears to be distressed due to the events taking place. In the first four lines of stanza 1, the speaker says:

The poet addresses issues of the child observing an unhealthy and abusive relationship between his/her father and mother in the third stanza. The eighth line states, “Do we forgive our Fathers for marrying or not marrying our Mothers?” These words insinuate that the father treated the child’s mother badly or was abusive to her and that she deserved better. This is so considering the only reason to forgive someone for marrying another implies they treated that person improperly. Likewise, having to forgive someone for not marrying another simply displays how the other person never received what he or she

While reading the crucible and analyzing other documents, Scapegoating became a relevant occurrence in communities. Societies will turn to scapegoating a group of people to place blame for a problem or event; there is evidence shown regarding scapegoating in “ The Crucible” / Salem witch trials, “The Holocaust”, and in politics. These three examples all relate to scapegoating because they all discriminate and place blame of something the community cannot control on a specific group of people.

Throughout the poem, the speaker uses specific details that show the conflict between the speaker’s son and his parents. In the first stanza, the speaker recalls exchanges of dialogue between the speaker and his or her son. For example, the speaker’s son exclaims, “I did the problem / and my teacher said I was right!” (Nye 3-4). The child validated his teacher’s opinion but ridiculed his parents’ opinion. This is further explained through more details in a later part of the same stanza. The mother explains how the son believed his parents were “idiots / without worksheets to back us up” (Nye 9-10). The speaker’s son had entrusted his teacher and thought of his teacher as highly intelligent, but believed that way because of foolish reasoning. In addition, the speaker lists examples of minor mistakes the parents made that caused the son to be embarrassed of them. Through distinct details, the speaker describes how the son’s “mother never remembers / what a megabyte means and his dad fainted on an airplane once / and smashed his head on the drinks cart” (Nye 10-12). By choosing to include these particular details, the poet outlines the foundation of the conflict between the son and his parents.

Secondly, the speaker of the poem can be described as underprivileged, and this is shown throughout the entire poem. For example, line 1 of the poem it states "some are teethed on a silver spoon” and line 5 it states "some are swaddled in silk and down”. This shows that the speaker is not the same as the person who is teethed on a silver spoon or cared for very carefully. This inclusion also shows that the speaker was not born into a wealthy family and so the speaker must fight for what they need pertaining to themselves and the family.

An obsession exists in the world today based solely upon the use of scapegoats. According to the dictionary, a scapegoat consists of a person or group made to bear the blame for others or to suffer in their place. Some of the most influential scapegoats consist of Jesus Christ taking suffering for the sins of civilization, the Jewish population being punished for the problems in Germany, and more recently the U.S. citizens who perished in 9/11 being punished for the sins of America. Scapegoats have come in many forms over time and have been very destructive. The usage of scapegoats in our society, such as in Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery”, has proved to be damaging, and an end must be found in order to find peace.

The use of the metaphor ‘Dad the Impaler’, accentuates the idea that children saw this term in a very positive manner when in actual fact it has negative connotations. This highlights the brutality of war, and the negative influence of war on children because the children in the poem used ‘Dad the Impaler’ in a heroic manner.

A perfect example of in the piece of how African-Americans are vilified comes at the end of the fourth stanza with the lines "grow a natural and practice vandalism/these are useful games (some say a skill even learned)." These two lines show how the black male, especially the young black male is viewed as nothing more than a thief skilled in the art of crime. Further evidence to the fact is found in the line "I'm told it has full instructions of how to siphon gas and fill a bottle," which is again alludes to H. Rap Brown, his cry of ‘Burn Baby Burn' and the use of pipe bombs and the like to demand equality.

Is there ever only a single person to blame? How is it considered a controversial issue with one person involved? In Nothing but the Truth by Avi Wortis, we learn that there are multiple people that could take the blame in every situation. Lying and blame can be revolved around very many people and in the book, Philip, Miss. Narwin, and Dr. Palleni will show how a slight, minor lie can escalate and can cause everyone in the situation to make mistakes.

In “The Victims” by Sharon Olds it describes a divorce through the eyes of the parents’ children. The first section is shown through past tense as the speaker is a child and the last section is shown in present tense with the speaker already being an adult trying to make sense of past events. The word “it” in the first two lines carries a tremendous weight, hinting at the ever so present abuse and mistreatment, but remaining non-specific. The first part generates a negative tone toward the father who is referred to as malicious by the mother who “took it” from him “in silence” until she eventually “kicked him out.” Through the entirety of the poem the children are taught to hate their father. Who taught them? Their mother showed them that their father was a villain and were taught to have no sympathy for him but “to hate you and take it” and so they did so. Although the poem never directly states what the father did to receive the family’s hated, the speaker gives examples as to why he is hated.

When we are younger we used to get our brother or sister and pick on another sibling. When mom or dad comes to yell at the person who started it we tend to pin it on someone else or you are the person who gets left with all the punishment. At one point in our lives we were blamed for something we didn't do or we were the person that pushed it onto someone else. Arthur Miller expresses a lot of scapegoating or being the scapegoat in The Crucible.

Sometimes people get blamed for wrongdoings that they did not participate in. This was shown in Salem, Massachusetts, during the salem witch trials in the play The Crucible. The play was based in 1692, when a community of Puritans started accusing each other of of being witches and wizards. Innocent people that did not practice witchcraft were getting hanged and accused of being witches. Scapegoats have also been used in modern day with McCarthyism, which was a campaign against communist. Many people were blacklisted and lost their jobs even though many of these people did not belong to the communist party. This took place in 1950-1954 carried out by Senator Joseph McCarthy. Using scapegoats blames innocent people for wrongdoings, and accuses people of wrong doings.

The act of blaming others for problems is a common phenomena that occurs not only in our society, but also in literature. In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, Pearl Prynne represents the scapegoat. Throughout the novel, the townspeople put the blame of Hester Prynne 's sin on Pearl and Hester grows as a person. Pearl gives Hester a daily reminder of her sin and Hester grows to becomes a happier, better person in response. In addition, another example of a scapegoat is Leonce Pontellier and the children, from Kate Chopin’s The Awakening. Edna Pontellier blames her husband and children for holding her back from reaching happiness and independence. All things considered, the

Under the line, "I've been a victim" the speaker says, "The Belgians cut off my hands in the Congo. / They lynch me still in Mississippi." These lines demonstrate that obviously the speaker is symbolic of the black race, and is not just one person. However, the author wrote them as if it were one person and that proves to be very effective, especially in this stanza. The use of the first person voice allows the author to illustrate suffering in a very personal way, while simultaneously making the statement that each person carries with them the suffering, if not the experience, of past generations.

One of the biggest causes of debate when it comes to Pokémon is which starter to choose from. Usually, people will simply choose the one that they like the most, however, there are those who aim only for the most competitively viable. So when Pokémon Sun and Moon came out with Rowlet, Litten, and Popplio, there was bound to be controversy over which one was the best. Sometime later, we received the leaks of the starter final evolutions. While the masses shrugged this off as yet another fan concept, I personally found the art to be far too detailed to be entirely fake. Lo and behold, a month before the game's official release, the demos were subject to datamining and we found that the leaks were actually valid. While I'm unsure