Dr. Updike Underhill, the protagonist of Royall Tyler's The Algerine Captive, is a Caucasian, Christian male, and as countless Caucasian, Christian males before him, he has incredibly strong opinions. Many characters and events challenge him, but he remains steadfast in his beliefs. His two strongest opinions are those of slavery and religion. He believes that his god is the only one, and that slavery is wrong and inhumane. With these beliefs, he shows a great deal of hatred towards Islam since the people who enslaved him were Muslims. Even though he has these strong beliefs, he seldom suits his actions to his words. Throughout The Algerine Captive, Underhill exhibits high levels of hypocrisy in the areas of religion and slavery.
Underhill is hypocritical in the area of religion, especially with his comparison of Islam and Christianity. He says that if they follow the obvious dictates in the Bible and Koran that the Mahometan would no longer hate the Christian faith and the Christians would not despise the Mussulman creed (Tyler 183). Underhill makes this claim, yet does not show any indication of acting on his beliefs. During his conversation with the Mollah, Underhill became incredibly irritated as the Mollah boasted about his religion’s success compared to Christianity's (Tyler 133). This may seem like a simple act of annoyance or aggression; however, it also has a deeper meaning. If the two religions are to coexist, they need to be able to accept the other's views. They
"All oppression creates a state of war" -Simone de Beauvar, French Philosopher. Animal Farm by George Orwell is an allegory for the Russian Revolution. Each animal was a key character in the Revolution such as Napoleon being Joseph Stalin, Mr. Jones being Tsar Nicholas and Boxer, being an ignorant. Mr.Jones was run off the farm because the animals were tired of the drunken man mistreating them. What the animals didn't know was that they went from one dictator to a whole group of them. The pigs. Ignorance contributes to political and social oppression and is proved by the inability to comprehend what the pigs are doing to the other animals. The animals cannot read or write as well, are perplexed easily, couldn't see the blemishes in the pig's leadership, or how the pigs changed things and didn't see or completely ignored how the pigs had acted.
The Unredeemed Captive tells a story of struggles a family went through to stay true to one another. Eunice Williams’ was taken captive and family went through many obstacles to try and get her home. Both Eunice and her family were captured together along with many other town residents in the Deerfield Massacre of 1704. Demos precisely described the Deerfield raid along with the process of traveling to Canada. Throughout the book, Demos also covered some individual captive experiences and events. Demos showed the life of Eunice before her life was changed and how it would be if she was not taken. He stated why the raid was the way it was and showed the success of it.
Since before the time of Jesus Christ, religious hypocrisy has run rampant throughout those who held power. Countless lives have been affected by others twisting religious interpretation in order to fit their own needs. Slaveholders used religion and scripture to their advantage when disciplining slaves, sometimes even if they did no wrong. Religious hypocrisy is especially relevant in the life of Frederick Douglass. Frederick Douglass’s life story depicts how religious hypocrisy committed by both slaves and slaveholders diminished the rights of slaves, while at the same time allowing injustice to endure.
In the novel The Catcher In The Rye, the protagonist Holden Caulfield views his surroundings with hypocrisy and contempt in an attempt to avoid the corruption of adulthood. Holden places himself above the crowd because he believes everyone acts phony. In the process, Caulfield reveals his true problem: his refusal to change.
Many people believe that Christians played a great role in abolishing slavery. However, Douglass’ ideas about religion and its connection to slavery shine a light on the dark side of Christianity. Douglass’ account of his own life is a very eloquent first hand retelling of the suffering and cruelty that many slaves were going through. His account gives a detail of the ills that were committed against the slaves. The atrocities committed by the various different masters varied in intensity depending on the masters’ individual personality (Glancy 42). This first hand narrative gives us a glimpse in to the connection between religion (Christianity) and slavery.
Both Frederick Douglass and Harriet Jacobs had similar experiences in regards to their owners getting more involved with religion resulting in a change in the treatment of their slaves. Frederick Douglass’ slave-owner in 1832 was a man called “Captain Auld” by his slaves. Douglass describes him as a “slaveholder without the ability to hold slaves”. However, after attending a Methodist camp-meeting and experiencing religion, Auld becomes crueler. Douglass had the slightest hope that Auld’s involvement with religion would incline him to emancipate his slaves or—at the very least—be more humane and kind. Douglass was disappointed. “Prior to his conversion, he relied upon his own depravity to shield and sustain him in his savage barbarity; but after his conversion, he found religious sanction and support for his slaveholding cruelty.” The man became more involved in religious activity; it became a part of his everyday life. Douglass provides an example of his master’s usage of religious sanction for cruelty and brutality. Douglass witnesses Auld tie up and whip a young woman while justifying his actions with a passage of Scripture— “He that knoweth his master’s will, and doeth it not, shall be beaten with many stripes.” Harriet Jacobs had a comparable experience. “When I was told that Dr. Flint had joined the Episcopal church, I was much surprised. I supposed that religion had a purifying effect on the character of men; but the worst persecutions I endured from him were after he
In his narrative, Douglass highly criticizes the hypocritical slave owners who claim to be Christians. He believes a man cannot be both a Christian and a slave owner. He states that religious slave owners are harsher than the ones who aren’t religious. Thomas Auld’s brutality increases after he becomes a “religious” man. His dedication increases his confidence in his “God-given” right to own and abuse slaves. Douglass clarifies in the appendix of the narrative that he was against religious hypocrisy, and not religion itself, for Douglass himself was a very religious man.
Daniels Decisions are made by people every day across the world. Some are even made by thousands of doctors across the world. Some of these decisions are considered ethical decisions. Ethical decisions are well-founded standards of right and wrong, and development and study of standards. In the book, Flowers for Algernon, Charlie Gordon-the main character-has an IQ (intelligence quotient) of 68. Since Charlie has an extremely low IQ, his one wish for him is to be smart. Charlie's doctors, Dr. Nemur and Dr. Strauss, have come up with a special operation that will help Charlie become smarter. But did they act ethically in a way? No. Charlie Gordon's doctors did not act ethically when they performed the surgery to make him smarter, and here's why.
Reason: Religion is a major component in this narrative. Despite constantly criticizing religious slave-owners, Douglass reveals that he does not hate the religion itself, but the hypocritical Southern interpretation of it. He does not shy away from exposing the ridiculousness and hypocrisy of a person that owns a slave, but claims to be a religious Christian follower. In his eyes,
Douglass describes that some of his slave owners claimed to be Christians. Captain Thomas Auld was one of these men. Auld was a cruel man he once tied up a young slave girl named Henny and whipped her until she bled out and died. He used this passage of scripture to justify his actions, “He that knoweth his master’s will, and doeth it not, shall be beaten with many
Slave owners used Christianity as an excuse for the awful ways they treated their slaves. Christianity played a major role on the increase of brutality and violence that spirited the slave owners. The scriptures in the Bible were twisted in the eyes of slave owners to how they wanted to interpret them. Douglass had a powerful experience with one of his masters, Thomas Auld. Mr. Auld was not a religious person and treated the slaves very poorly. In August 1832, Auld attended a Methodist camp meeting and that marked the day when he became religious, and suddenly even more cruel. “Prior to his conversion, he relied upon his own depravity to shield and sustain him in his savage barbarity; but after his conversion, he found religious sanction and support for his slaveholding cruelty.” After becoming religious, Auld uses scripture to justify his cruelty. Douglass thought that with discovering religion and using it, Auld would become more polite as how Douglass viewed Christianity. Unfortunately that was not the case. Auld justifies that being affiliated with religion would not change a person for the better. Being a slave, Douglass found that slave owners found religious sanction for their cruelty. “He that knoweth his master's will, and doeth it not, shall be beaten with many stripes.", was what a slave owner had said to justify why he beat
Through out the entire time period of slavery, religion remained a high priority and a way in which to label different social groups. The lack or complete non-existence of religion among Africans led to them being viewed as somewhat inferior. Later in the second chapter Jordan talks about how during the slave era religion distinguished whites from blacks. Also how classification changed once Africans began to enter the Christian church. He himself viewed this type of labeling somewhat ridiculous, in that many of the Africans were baptized before the came to the New World. Thus they in many circles would be identified as Christians. This important information helps show the reader how the justifications for slavery evolved. Jordan captures the utter and blatant hypocrisy that the colonies exuded with regards to the slave situation. Jordan also sees religious injustice within the treatment of Indians and Africans. The English made attempts to convert the Indians and had little desire or intention to do the same for Africans. This again shows to what lengths early Americans went in creating a subculture for the purpose of slavery.
Having read the book “Animal Farm” I thought it was a good book with a lot of similarities that I could tie it in with reality. I also thought the author explained behavior very nicely. During this book lots of things happen that are much like reality, like tyrants, fake power, and lots of lying. To start off I will tell you about the main characters, and second what they will accomplish during their time in animal farm. I will also discuss what they want whether they're innocent or they lie to be in power.
Fredrick Douglass and Henry Melville both critique Christianity as it was practiced in 19th-century America. Douglass illuminates the aspect of Christianity in relation to the way Christians also uphold the institution of slavery. He views it has ironic that those who claim the Christian faith also believe that there is nothing wrong in the practice of slavery. Douglass questions how one can be a true Christian and still not see that slavery in morally and religiously wrong. He ultimately critiques the way people practice the faith and still uphold slavery. Douglass goes as far to say that the slave master’s even become crueler when they find religion, because then they feel as if they can do no wrong. As Douglass states in relation to slavery and religion, “Here we have religion and robbery the allies of each other – devils dressed in angels’ robes, and hell presenting the semblance of paradise.”
Nathaniel Hawthorne uses The Scarlet Letter as a forum to express his opinions of the roles of hypocrisy and truth in the Puritan society. He uses the characters, Arthur Dimmesdale and Hester Prynne, to reveal how although their sin was the same, the way it affected them were quite different. In order to present this, Hawthorne uses various rhetorical strategies such as irony, diction, juxtaposition, connotation and personification. These strategies all help to convey that sin must be expressed, otherwise it can lead to self-destruction.