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Jane Austen’s famous novel, Pride and Prejudice depicts the marvelous and unusual relationship between Elizabeth Bennet and Charles Darcy, following them through an understanding of love, challenges of the prejudices of their time and the never ending pride of both characters. The novel opens up with the basic plot and ideas of which the story’s scenario was based by concentrating just on family, marriage and love, which changes all through the book until chapter 35. This chapter presents one of the major turning points within the novel which is the letter Darcy gives Elizabeth, exposing Darcy’s feeling towards Elizabeth and in addition giving the readers an unbelievable truth.

One spring, Elizabeth visits Charlotte, who now lives near the home of Mr. Collins’s patron, Lady Catherine de Bourgh, who is also Darcy’s aunt. Darcy calls on Lady Catherine and encounters Elizabeth, whose presence leads him to make a number of visits to the Collins’s home, where she is staying. One day, he makes a shocking proposal of marriage, which Elizabeth quickly refuses. She tells Darcy that she considers him arrogant and unpleasant, then scolds him for steering Bingley away from Jane and disinheriting Wickham. Darcy leaves her but shortly thereafter delivers a letter to her. In this letter, he admits that he urged Bingley to distance himself from Jane, but claims he did so only because he thought their romance was not serious. As for Wickham, he informs Elizabeth that the young officer is a liar and that the real cause of their disagreement was Wickham’s attempt to elope with his young sister, Georgiana Darcy. This letter causes Elizabeth to reevaluate her feelings about Darcy.

Darcy’s letter starts a lowering procedure for both Elizabeth and him, which results in the development of the attitudes they had towards each other. For example when Darcy says, “Be not alarmed, madam, on reciting this letter, by the apprehension of its containing any repetition of those sentiments or renewal of those offers which were last night so disgusting to you. I write with any intention of paining you, or humbling myself, by dwelling on wishes which, for the happiness of both, cannot be too soon forgotten”. In here for Darcy’s situation, being rejected on his proposal to Elizabeth strikes a hit of pride that enforces him to react to Elizabeth’s resentment to him in this type of way. The subsequent letter uncovers to Elizabeth how badly she misinterpreted both Darcy and Wickham by not knowing what was the actual truth behind all those lies and acting. Then with her apparent mixed up prejudice towards Darcy, Elizabeth started to get a hold of what was happening in reality and how they made her feel so stupid by thinking that Wickham was the good guy and Darcy the bad one when actually it was the other way around. Wickham ends up being a shining example of a dishonest and degenerate opportunist towards others possessions. For this situation, Darcy’s pride implied that he declined to meet Wickham’s requests towards his family’s goods. At the end of the day, he wouldn’t give Wickham any chance to utilize him.

Darcy didn’t simply unmasked his true special feelings towards Elizabeth but yet he also uncovers the reality behind Bingley’s flight and remarks on Jane and Bingley’s relationship. Way before, Charlotte cautioned Elizabeth that Jane should demonstrate her affections for Bingley quickly, and it turns out that she was correct and because of it Darcy examined Jane’s hold as an absence of affection towards Bingley. Darcy believed that also because of the Bennets’ blandness the marriage between Bingley and Jane was wrong and it would lead to Bingley’s disadvantage. For example when Darcy says, “The situation of your mother’s family, though objectionable, was nothing in comparison of that total want of propriety so frequently, so almost uniformly betrayed by herself, by your three younger sisters, and occasionally by your father” . Nonetheless after saying and explaining this, Darcy doesn’t admit that he went way too far by misleading Bingley and broking Jane’s heart.

Darcy’s dialect throughout the letter is somewhat compelling and forceful by saying that “further apology would be absurd”, which encourages us to identify, understand and connect with Darcy, as it seems as though he is opening his heart to the readers and Elizabeth and because of these explanations we all start to trust and like Darcy. Austen’s absence of baster’s gadgets gives a sensible perspective of the plot, enabling the reader to center around what is going on and not what is happening around it. Additionally it makes Darcy’s supplication to Elizabeth more practical and this improves the readers trust in him even more as he goes on. In the letter Austen changes from the storyteller that has given us Elizabeth’s restrictive knowledge and character all through whatever remains of the novel, on which we change to the account point of view of Darcy. Because of this it enables the readers to be unquestionably investigative and interested of the letter and the current circumstance of what is going on. It likewise connects with the readers and makes it undeniably individual. So far, the readers had been slanted to acknowledge Elizabeth’s judgment of herself as of other people.

Pride is always in each of the characters’ mentalities and treatment of each other, shading their judgments and driving them to commit rash errors. Pride blinds Elizabeth and Darcy to their actual emotions about each other. Darcy’s pride about his social status influences him to look down on anybody not in his prompt circle. Elizabeth, then again, takes such a great amount of pride in her capacity to judge others that she declines to update her sentiment even despite plainly conflicting confirmation. This is the reason why she hates the area hearted Darcy for so long, yet at first appreciates the lying Wickham. However while Pride and Prejudice suggests nobody is ever totally free of pride, it clarifies that with the best possible good childhood one may conquer it to lead an existence of tolerability and thoughtfulness. “A person may be proud without being vain. Pride relates more to our opinion of ourselves, vanity to what we would have others think of us.”

References

1. Casal, E. (2001). Laughing at Mr. Darcy: Wit and Sexuality in Pride and Prejudice. Persuasions on-line, 22. (https://www.jasna.org/persuasions/on-line/vol22no1/casal.html?)
2. Fraiman, S. (1993). 3. The Humiliation of Elizabeth Bennet. In Unbecoming Women (pp. 59-87). Columbia University Press. (https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.7312/frai94490-004/html)
3. Gornall, F. G. (1967). Marriage, Property & Romance in Jane Austen's Novels. (https://philpapers.org/rec/GORMP-2)
4. Roche, D. (2007). Books and letters in Joe Wright’s Pride & Prejudice (2005): Anticipating the spectator’s response through the thematization of film adaptation. Persuasions On-Line, 27(2). (https://www.academia.edu/15190228/_Books_and_Letters_in_Joe_Wright_s_Pride_and_Prejudice_2005_Anticipating_the_Spectator_s_Response_through_the_Thematization_of_Film_Adaptation_Persuasions_On_Line_27_2_Summer_2007_)
5. Urban, D. V. (2021). Slender Self-Knowledge: Tragic Consequences and Redemptive Hope in Shakespeare’s King Lear and Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. Renascence, 73(2), 127-143. (https://www.pdcnet.org/renascence/content/renascence_2021_0073_0002_0127_0143)

Table of contents

1. Introduction
2. Structuralism
3. Post-Structuralism
Jacques DerridaThe Event, Center and Free PlayDeconstructionDifferance
4. Roland Barthes
“Death of the Author”
5. Deconstruction of Texts
6. Conclusion
7. Works Cited

Introduction

The advent of critical theory in the post war period, which comprised a series of waves that included various complex disciplines like linguistics, literary criticism, psychoanalytic criticism, structuralism, post structuralism, etc. proved hostile to the liberal humanist consensus which reigned the realm of criticism between the 1930s and 1950s. Among the overarching discourses, the most controversial were the two intellectual movements Structuralism and Post- structuralism that originated in France in the 1950s and the impact of which created a crisis in English Studies in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Language and philosophy were the two major concerns of these two approaches, rather than history or author.

Structuralism

Structuralism appeared in academia for the first time in the nineteenth century and then reappeared in the second half of the twentieth century when it grew to become one of the most popular approaches in academic fields concerned with the analysis of language, culture, and society. The work of Ferdinand de Saussure concerning linguistics is generally considered to be a starting point of twentieth century structuralism. Structuralism in a broader sense, is a way of perceiving the world in terms of structures. First seen in the work of the anthropologist Claude-Levi- Strauss and the literary critic Roland Barthes, the essence of structuralism is the belief that “things cannot be understood in isolation, they have to be seen in the context of larger structures they are part of”. The structures in question here are those imposed by our way of perceiving the world and organizing experience, rather than objective entities already existing in the external world. It follows from this that meaning or significance isn't a kind of core or essence inside things: rather, meaning is always outside. Meaning is always an attribute of things by the human mind, not contained within them. In the Structuralist approach to literature there is a constant movement away from the interpretation of the individual literary work and a parallel drive towards understanding the larger, abstract structures which contain them.

Post-Structuralism

Post-structuralism, which is related very closely to postmodernism, emerged in the late 1950s and early 1960s, predominantly in France. It emerged as a response to structuralism. Post-structuralism connotes going beyond the structuralism of theories that imply a rigid inner logic to relationships that describe any aspect of social reality and studied the underlying structures inherent in cultural products, and utilized analytical concepts from linguistics, psychology, anthropology and other fields to understand. The theoretical movement was predominantly concerned with the breakdown of systems, frameworks, and definitions. Post structuralism holds that to understand an object, it is necessary to study both the object itself and the systems of knowledge which were coordinated to produce the object. The two figures most closely associated with this emergence are Roland Barthes and Jacques Derrida. Other important thinkers associated with this theory are Michel Foucault, Gilles Deleuze, Julia Kristeva, and Judith Butler.

Jacques Derrida

Jacques Derrida was the founder of “deconstruction,” i.e., a way of criticizing not only both literary and philosophical texts but also political institutions. In 1967 Derrida had his “annus mirabilis,” as he published three books at once: Writing and Difference, Voice and Phenomenon, and Of Grammatology. In all three, Derrida uses the word “deconstruction” in passing to describe his project. The word caught on immediately and came to define Derrida’s thought. It comes to be associated with a form of writing and thinking that is illogical and imprecise. His style is frequently more literary than philosophical and therefore more evocative than argumentative.

“Structure sign and play in the Discourse of Human Sciences”

“Structure, Sign, and Play in the Discourse of the Human Sciences” or La structure, le signe et le jeu dans le discours des sciences humaines was a lecture presented at Johns Hopkins University on 21 October 1966 by philosopher Jacques Derrida. Although presented at a conference intended to popularize structuralism, the lecture is widely cited as the starting point for post-structuralism in the United States. It inaugurates what is called post-structuralism even though it is not an outright rejection of structuralism. This essay goes beyond what is structuralism. Along with Derrida's longer text Of Grammatology, it is also programmatic for the process of deconstruction. This essay was first published in English in 1970 and showcases the extent of limits of structuralism, which provides the structures but fails to examine the concept of structure itself.

The Event, Center and Free Play

'Structure, sign, and play' discusses how philosophy and social science understand 'structures' abstractly. In this essay Derrida deals with structuralism, which is a type of analysis that understands individual elements of language and culture as embedded in larger structures.

Derrida sees in modern times a particular intellectual 'event' which constitutes a radical break from past ways of thought, loosely associating this break with the philosophy of three of his greatest influencers Friedrich Nietzsche, Martin Heidegger and Sigmund Freud. Derrida depicts Nietzsche, Freud, and Heidegger as ultimately trapped within a destructive spiral of denunciation. Nietzsche questioned the power of representation and concepts to really convey truth; Freud challenged the idea that mind was limited to consciousness; and Heidegger criticized the idea of 'being as presence'. Derrida argues that these theoretical moves share a common form.

The event concerns the 'decentring' of our intellectual universe. Prior to this event the existence of a norm or centre in all things was taken for granted: thus 'man', was the measure of all other things in the universe. White Western norms of dress, behaviour, architecture, intellectual outlook, and so on, provided a firm centre against which deviations, aberrations, variations could be detected and identified as 'Other' and marginal.

In the twentieth century, however, these centres were destroyed or eroded; sometimes this was caused by historical events - such as the way the First World War destroyed the illusion of steady material progress, or the way the Holocaust destroyed the notion of Europe as the source and centre of human civilisation; sometimes it happened because of scientific discoveries - such as the way the notion of relativity destroyed the ideas of time and space as fixed and central absolutes; and sometimes, finally, it was caused by intellectual or artistic revolutions - such as the way modernism in the arts in the first thirty years of the century rejected such central absolutes as harmony in music, chronological sequence in narrative, and the representation of the visual world in art. In the resulting universe there are no absolutes or fixed points, so that the universe we live in is 'decentred' or inherently rela-tivistic. Instead of movement or deviation from a known centre, all we have is 'free play'.

Deconstruction

“Deconstruction” is the most famous of Derrida’s terms. He seems to have appropriated the term from Heidegger’s use of “Destruktion” in Being and Time. Derrida has provided many definitions of deconstruction. One of it defines it to be a criticism of Platonism, which is defined by the belief that existence is structured in terms of oppositions (separate substances or forms) and that the oppositions are hierarchical, with one side of the opposition being more valuable than the other. The first phase of deconstruction attacks this belief by reversing the Platonistic hierarchies: the hierarchies between the invisible or intelligible and the visible or sensible; between essence and appearance; between the soul and body; between living memory and rote memory; between mn?m? and hypomn?sis; between voice and writing; finally, between good and evil.

Differance

Differance is a term crucial to the theory of deconstruction. It refers to the process of the fabrication of difference and deferral. Derrida questions what one means by understanding. For e.g. to find the meaning of a word, one would look up the dictionary, and while looking up the dictionary, the person sees another word or group of words. Thus the meaning of one word is another word or a group of words. Further, the meaning of this word/ group of words is defined by another word/ group of words. Hence, no final meaning is reached. Here Derrida challenges the Saussurean idea that meaning is in the mind. The meaning of signifier is not signified but another signifier which leads to another signifier. Meaning is a chain of signifiers that never stops. Hence, meaning is always postponed, the ultimate meaning is never reached. The meaning is deferred. Another sense is the word difference. According to Derrida, black is black because it is not white or orange. It is understood when it is contrasted with something that is not black. Thus the term “differance” implies a force that makes differentiation possible. Throughout the western philosophy it is assumed that the meaning is grasped. That is what is called a transcendental signified which is outside or beyond language which can be grasped. The whole assumption of transcendental signified is what Derrida denotes as the symptom of metaphysic of presence.

Roland Barthes

Roland Gerard Barthes was an influential French philosopher and literary critic, who explored social theory, anthropology and semiotics, the science of symbols, and studied their impact on society. His work left an impression on the intellectual movements of Structuralism and Post-Structuralism. While Barthes found structuralism to be a useful tool and believed that discourse of literature could be formalized, he did not believe it could become a strict scientific endeavour. In the late 1960s, radical movements were taking place in literary criticism. The post-structuralist movement and the deconstructionism of Jacques Derrida were testing the bounds of the structuralist theory that Barthes' work exemplified. It was then Barthes’ wrote the crucial essay “The Death of the Author” in 1967 which became the 'hinge' round which Barthes turns from structuralism to post-structuralism.

“Death of the Author”

Following Jacques Derrida’s deconstruction, Roland Barthes announced the death of the author in his brief essay “The Death of the Author” which is a rhetorical way of asserting the independence of the literary text and its immunity to the possibility of being unified or limited by any notion of what the author might have intended, or 'crafted' into the work.

Barthes' essential argument is that the author has no sovereignty over his own words, images, sounds or any of his creations and it belongs to the reader who interprets them. According to Barthes, when a reader encounters a literary text, s/he need not ask themselves what the author intended in his words but what the words themselves actually say. Text employ symbols which are deciphered by readers, and since function of the text is to be read, the author and process of writing is irrelevant.

‘The death of the author’ means that meaning is not something retrieved or discovered or having been there all the while, but rather something spontaneously generated in the process of reading a text, which is an active rather than passive action. The essay is thus an attack on traditional literary criticism that focused too much on trying to retrace the author's intentions and original meaning in mind. The essay makes a declaration of radical textual independence: the work is not determined by intention, or context. Rather, the text is free by its very nature of all such restraints. Hence, as Barthes says in the essay, the corollary of the death of the author is the birth of the reader.

Deconstruction of Texts

The aim of deconstruction is to show that a text is not a complete whole, but that it contains several incompatible and ambiguous meanings. A text therefore has more than one interpretation and hence no single, axiomatic truth. This concept of what is deconstruction leads to its characteristics that form its unique structural or “deconstructural” nature. A deconstructive reading involves critiquing and questioning about the hypocrisies of text showing that what the text claims to be saying and what it is really saying are quite different.

A deconstructionist is a reader, a decipher, an examiner and a critic. As a reader, he/she sees in text certain relationship in the sequence, a language that the author has utilized without having unequivocally aware of it. As a decipherer or interpreter, the reader is to deconstruct, recreate, rebuild and reconstruct the content of the text. As an examiner, the reader re-reads the content to examine every entry seriously and completes a regulated examination to recognize the inside inconsistency, discontinuities and irregularities. As a critic, the reader re-reads the text against itself to draw out the unconscious of the text.

An example can be taken from the famous novel Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte. The language of the novel can be deemed unstable once the meanings are deconstructed. For instance, let’s take the example of Edward Rochester’s discourse about finding a caretaker for Bertha Mason. Rochester says, “I had some trouble in finding an attendant for her, as it was necessary to select one on whose fidelity dependence could be placed.”

The traditional meaning that will be made out of these words will be that Rochester faced some difficulty in finding a caretaker for Bertha Mason –his wife, and it was necessary that the caretaker should be faithful, one who could be trusted upon.

But when we look keenly at the words, we get many other meanings which are contradictory, and are either scapegoated for the sake of dominant one or are ignored. Because these words could also mean that it was difficult for Rochester to find a corrupt attendant for his wife –Bertha, who could be paid to get involved in Rochester’s nefarious plan of locking Bertha in the attic room by proving her mad and violent and thus justifying her confinement. Rochester found Grace Poole fit for this task as all she wanted was money. So, Grace Poole joined Rochester in his wicked plans of proving Bertha Mason as violent and mad, and justified her confinement in the attic. We get Grace Poole’s character from Rochester’s narrative.

Similarly, an example for binary oppositions can be drawn from Jean Rhys’ Wide Sargasso Sea, the feminist and anti-colonial response to Charlotte Bronte’s novel Jane Eyre. One of the binary opposition to be examined in the novella Wide Sargasso Sea is the narrative techniques used to advance the plot in contrast to its narrators.

The narrative techniques employed in the novella other than the narrators, include letters and gossip. Letters are the easiest means of long distance communication in that period of time. Antoinette’s husband is central to these letters, as he both writes letters of his own and receives letters that have been written to him. The first instant of Antoinette’s husband composing a letter is only done so in his mind. The letter was supposed to be addressed to his father. Shortly afterward however, the reader is made privy to its contents.

“…Dear Father. The thirty thousand pounds have been paid to me without question or condition. No provision made for her… I will never be a disgrace to you or to my dear brother the son you love. No begging letters, no mean requests. None of the furtive shabby manoeuvres of a younger son. I have sold my soul or you have sold it, and after all is it such a bad bargain? The girl is thought to be beautiful, she is beautiful. And yet…”.

The second letter, the formal one, that he actually writes, “Dear Father., we have arrived in Jamaica after an uncomfortable few days. This little estate in the Windward Islands is part of the family property and Antoinette is much attached to it… All is well and has gone according to your plans and wishes. I dealt of course with Richard Mason… He seemed to become attached to me and trusted me completely. This place is very beautiful but my illness has left me too exhausted to appreciate it fully. I will write again in a few days’ time.”

These contrasts in thoughts and reality depicted in the novella reveal to the reader the true feelings of Antoinette’s husband towards his father, feelings that would never be made known to the characters or even the reader if not having his hand forced.

In pitting the narrative techniques against the narrators, it is clear that privileges are awarded to the narrative techniques employed as they allow for the reader to see an alternative side or personality of the characters that the characters fail to reveal in the presence of the other characters in the novella.

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Conclusion

Deconstruction aims to disturb in order to discover. Deconstruction can serve to open up literary texts to a degree that other modes of criticism cannot. One of the main ideas behind deconstruction is that a text does not have an absolute, intrinsic meaning behind it. Rather, deconstructionists claim that every text has some measure of 'slippage' within it that can reveal the ways in which the texts violates its own rules and ideas, in turn revealing a range of possible contradictions. In this respect, as a mode of criticism, deconstruction can reveal a variety of subconscious and unconscious ideas behind a text, in turn suggesting a variety of different possible interpretations. Thus by deconstructing a text, the reader learns to read beyond a text's straightforward content and uncover new meanings and truths.

Works Cited

• Barry, Peter. Beginning Theory: An Introduction to Literary and Cultural Theory. 2nd ed. Manchester University Press, 2002. www.epdf.pub/beginning-theory-an-introduction-to-literary-and-cultural-theory60cf1d5584b46b8b00ee17cc0d09f76435326.html. 7 Feb. 2020.
• Barthes, Roland. “The Death of the Author.” Artsites. www.artsites.ucsc.edu /faculty/Gustafson/FILM%20162.W10/readings/barthes.death.pdf. Accessed 21 Jan. 2020.
• Bronte, Charlotte. Jane Eyre. www.planetebook.com/jane-eyre/. Accessed 13 Feb. 2020.
• Dar, Mohsin Hassan. “Bertha Has Been Chained Years: A Deconstructive Reading of Jane Eyre Novel.' Smart Moves Journal Ijellh [Online], www.ijellh.com/OJS/index.php/OJS/article/view/2759. Accessed 15 Feb. 2020
• Rhys, Jean. Wide Sargasso Sea. W.W. Norton & Company, Inc. 1982.
• Stephens, Gervanna. “The candour of a deconstructive approach in analysing Wide Sargasso Sea.” Academia, 28 April 2011. www.academia.edu/7284431/The_candour_of_a_deconstructive_ approach_in_analysing_Wide_Sargasso_Sea. Accessed 15 Feb. 2020.

In the essay by Delores Williams, “Black Women’s Surrogacy Experience and the Christian Notion of Redemption”, Williams articulates her issues with the troublesome characteristic of most atonement theologies relying on a surrogate model to understand Jesus’ death.

The majority of atonement theories state how Jesus died in the place of sinful humans, thus saving humankind from undergoing a similar or worse fate. This essay will focus on primarily analyzing the possible implications of Jesus’ surrogate like nature in the context of African American women’s own surrogate roles through a feminist gender lens and as a result, salvation. Specifically, Williams articulates on paragraph two in page two how African American women have had a long history of oppression and as result, were forced into different kinds of surrogate roles, coerced and voluntary. As an example, she refers to a popular coerced surrogate role of “mammies” that fed into the stereotype of black women “being nurturers, asexual, religious, overweight, and self-sacrificing”. It can safely be said that surrogates is dehumanizing; it strips away the liberty to choose, so black women were deprived of self-autonomy, a product of racist systematic oppression.

As a result, I can agree with Williams on how the notion of Jesus dying on the cross in our place as a surrogate can be troublesome for African American women (or anyone) trying to make sense of the death of Christ as something positive and liberating, since there is nothing positive about the notion of an innocent person being forced to die; neither is it liberating. This notion makes surrogacy sound like something sanctified instead of calling it for what it is, a structure of oppression. But that fact isn't so shocking considering how atonement theologies are reflective of the time period, and such notions are in accordance with the prevalent Patriarchy of the time which is still present today. If we are to reference the theme of patriarchal values and their role in theology inside the context of Black women surrogacy, I believe one can make the argument of how Jesus sort of played the role of a “mammy”, and in a way, played the role of a feminist that brought on salvation for humanity. If we are to look at it from a discerning feminist perspective, one of the reasons black women were made to undertake the surrogate role of “mammies” is because it follows the Patriarchal guidelines of women’s duty to nurture, take care of the household, clean, do anything that is stereotypically associated with being feminine; a woman’s duty.

William states how “coerced roles involving black women were in the areas of nurturance, field labor, and sexuality”. If one is to agree with William’s claims that she makes at the end of her essay of Jesus, rather than coming as something like a sacrificial lamb for Human’s sins, but instead coming “for life, to show humans a perfect vision of ministerial relation that humans had forgotten long ago”, in a way, one can argue that Jesus in this context defied patriarchal notions of gender. A mammy’s role in the field of a household was to educate and play the role of a mother for slave owners’ children. In the power hierarchy in patriarchy, slave owners are at the top, and mammies were “empowered (but not autonomous) house slaves who were given considerable authority by their owners” whilst always subject to the control of slave owners. If we are to follow this logic, in parallel terms, one could compare God as the one holding supreme power like the slave owners and Jesus Christ as the “empowered” but not autonomous being (mammy) who came to serve as a role model for humans (the children) under God’s will. Also, mammies “managed the big and mixed household” ... all applications were to go through them”. This is basically saying how mammies were the mediums between the high class of slave owners and then the lower classes of lower tasked slaves; sort of how Jesus serves as the medium connecting us lowly humans to God, there to make amends and fixed troubled relations between God and humans. This is connected to William’s interpretation of black motherhood. Black women sacrificed their bodies and maternal connections as their mothering became work due to their surrogate roles (through biological or white children).

So in a way, Jesus, in his role of a “mammy”/ mother figure, defies gender norms since his actions (self-sacrifice) and making human connections are associated with female expectations of motherhood. As maternal figures do, they work to teach those in their care to be good (humankind in the case of Jesus).

This paper will discuss the analysis of Demand and Supply for Ford’s SUVs and trucks. Particularly the larger SUVs and Trucks. What is demand and supply analysis? It “is the study of how buyers and sellers interact to determine transaction prices and quantities.” (Demand and Supply Analysis: Introduction, 2011). It might be hard to believe that the big SUVs and trucks sells are on the rise while all sedans sales are plummeting in ever category. Half a decade ago SUVs and trucks sells were rock bottom but with the current economy, low gas prices, low interest rates, and the average income is on the rise, people are opting for the larger vehicles. Ford is one manufacture that is going to take advantage of the new demand shift. Ford has opted out of making any more sedans and to only to make SUVs and trucks. Ford will keep two sedans which is the Ford Focus and the Ford Mustang their best sellers. Ford plans to introduce new SUVs and Trucks to cover more of the market segments, because not ever consumer can afford Fords top tier line that cost upwards of seventy to eighty thousand dollars.

Less than five years ago car manufacturers were on a race to improve fuel economy. This was mostly due to the high gas prices. From around 2011 until late 2014 going into 2015 gas prices averaged over $3.50 a gallon and high average just over $4.00 dollars a gallon.

The above chart is from (Gas Price Charts, 2018). According to data from the U.S. Department of Transportation, the average American driver puts in 13,474 miles behind the wheel each year. So, if U.S. consumer was to by a large SUV that got a combine average of 18mpg and at $4 dollars a gallon it would have cost the consumer $2,994 dollars. However, if the consumer was to buy a car that got closer to 40mpgs it would have cost the consumer $1,347.4 dollars. This would have saved the consumer on average $137 dollars a month just in gas not to mention that the smaller cars cost less. Gas was a significant factor but there were other factors such as economic confidence was down, the average American’s salary was stagnate and even declining. During the time frame 2010 to 2016 consumers were spending less.

The economic environment has changed, and the economy has strengthened over the last two years. Gas prices are lower with the current national average of $2.84. At the current gas price and with the larger SUVs and Trucks peaking around 20mpgs it would currently cost the consumer $1,913 dollars in gas, this is a thousand dollars a year savings. Other factors driving consumers spending more on cars are Americans have more economic confidence and American wages are on the rise. According to USA Today “U.S. workers’ wages and benefits grew 2.6% last year [2017] the fastest 12-month pace since the spring of 2015.” (Wages rise at 2.6% in 2017, 2017). This means that U.S consumers have a little more money in their pocket and they don’t want the same cars any longer and are willing to spend more to get more.

Americans have always been drawn towards larger vehicles more than other nations. Therefore, Ford has made the change to focus more on their SUV line and Truck line. Only two cars survived the chopping block. One thing that is evident with the current new demand is the price. In 2013 the Ford Expedition top out at $51,355 dollars in the top trim level of the King Ranch.

Now in 2018 Ford has introduced a remodeled Ford Expedition and the top tier base price is $76,175 dollars.

These prices were gathered from Autotrader.com. What caused this massive jump in price in just 5 years. To start out the demand was down because of the recent high gas prices. With the environmental factor such as gas price this will reduce the demand for larger vehicle when there is a alternative vehicle that got better gas mileage and cost tremendously less. As the gas went down and the consumer income went up the demand for these SUVs went up, but the supply was low. Fords parent company Lincoln was selling their high-end Lincoln Navigator but Ford was having a hard time keeping up the demand. In January of 2018 Lincoln sold 1,300 Navigators this number was up 97.5% from January in 2017. Not only was Lincolns sales up but of those 1,300 Navigators sold 84% of them were Lincolns two highest trim level which brought a price of over $90,000 dollars.

While everyone might not be able to spend upwards of $80,000 to $90,000 dollars Ford is introducing new models that are smaller but look like an SUV. This move is to capitalize on the current trend that people are moving away form sedans and that the current technology is allowing some of the smaller crossover SUVs to get upwards of the 30mpg range. The ability to get 30mpgs in a SUV will help Ford survive if the gas price was to go up or if the economy was to take a down turn. In the end if the economy is right the U.S. consumer will spend more on their vehicle but if gas goes up and the economy tanks we could see prices fall for the large SUVs and Trucks.

The piece of art chosen to analyze is by Diego Rivera and it is named 'The Making of a Fresco Showing the Building of a City”. In this painting, the Rivera painted a scenery in which it shows the many workers it takes to complete a task, in this case the building of a city.

The painting shows the engineers, sculptors, artist assistants, architects and the general workers. Rivero also paints himself painting a mural. He also paints many real-life people who also contributed to his project. John Hastings, Clifford Wight, Matthew Barnes were just a few of those people who were included in this painting. There is a lot going on in Rivera’s painting. There are 6 different parts of the painting divided by straight lines that are the pieces of wood. These lines are meant to draw our attention to each different part of the building process in the painting. They are mostly all square sections which all combined form a trapezoid shape. In each section, there are different workers doing completely different tasks, making the painting having variety displayed. In the middle part, an architect, a designer and engineer are shown holding a paper which seems to be the project’s instructions. Next to them to the left, there is a worker and a sculptor hammering a big chunk of stone. Above the designer and engineers, there are 4 artists painting the mural of the general worker. Most of the colors used all seem to fall in to the warm and neutral side of the spectrum. Rivera uses the light and shading technique to make the people in the drawing seem like 3 dimensions. The painting itself is realistic. There is also linear perspective on the stairs that Rivera painted going downward. Rivera’s painting is Buon Fresco and he used water-based tempera pigments to create his painting. The technique includes painting on a wet plaster which is harder to paint on.

The main thing about the painting that stands out is the middle part where Rivera painted himself drawing a mural of a general labor worker. The general worker is painted using light and shade techniques that give the mural a 3-dimensional look as if you were looking at it in person. He also drew himself facing back with his shirt being a lighter shade than how he painted most of the other workers involved which brings the attention to him. The mural that he is painting stands out because of the size it is compared to the rest of the workers and details. It is the biggest square shape in the painting therefore it makes it the focal point. There is a repetition using square and rectangle shapes.

Rivera’s belief that the industrial worker is very important is what inspired him to create this piece of art. His painting is located inside the San Francisco Art institute. Rivera was a member of the Mexican Communist Party. Most of his murals engaged topics with social and political issue such as the Mexican Revolution. “The wall offered me at the School of Fine Arts was a small one of only 120 square feet, not at all suitable to my purpose, which was to present a dynamic concerto of construction — technicians, planners, and artists working together to create a modern building. Taking advantage of the vague stipulation as to the length of time I might remain in San Francisco, I chose another wall, ten times as big. It was here that I showed how a mural is actually painted: the tiered scaffold, the assistants plastering, sketching, and painting; myself resting at midpoint; and the actual mural subject, a worker whose hand is turning a valve so placed as to seem part of a mechanism of the building.” This is what Rivera wrote in his autobiography about his experience on the making of this mural. It is impressive how his painting came out apart from all of the obstacles that were thrown at him.

Overall, I feel that Rivera’s painting has a lot of value because it really does show the importance of the general worker. It shows the many workers it takes to complete the task. Every worker starting from the general workers all the way up to the engineers make an important role. This painting makes me feel appreciative of all the hard work every worker puts in. Proudness is another sense of emotion that we get from this painting from seeing the hard work, determination and dedication this painting brings us. Rivera did a great job of painting every single detail of every single general worker included in the process.

Table of contents

1. Introduction
Body
2. Conclusion

Introduction

The saying goes that no two snowflakes are made the same. The same can be said for two of the most talked about generations: millennials and baby boomers.

There are many differences between what we call the baby boomer generation and the millennial generation. As the younger generation, I feel that it is important that we take a look at the two.

As a member of the generation “Z” I find it very interesting how two generations could be so different, and wanted to do research to compare and contrast the two. I chose these two generations because most millennials are the children of baby boomers. Doing this research really helped me draw a few possible conclusions on what this upcoming generation, in which I am a member, has to look forward to. IV. (Central Idea/preview of body points) Though there may be several differences between the millennial and the baby boomer generations, there are two that stand out most to me: the educational and financial differences, and the differences that the two generations have in how they perceive family life.

Body

The financial differences between baby boomers and millennials are quite astounding. A. Most define baby boomers as people born between the years 1946 and 1964. This generation was born into job growth that showed very little signs of slowing down, and they are characterized by being the hardworking generation with family values. But according to author Steven Brill in his book Tailspin: The People and Forces Behind America's Fifty-year Fall - and Those Fighting to Reverse It, baby boomers are the generation responsible for America’s recent economic depression, all at the expense of the generation composed of those born between the years 1982 and 1994, known as the millennial generation.

Due to the ever-changing retirement requirements and the rising costs of living, baby boomers have been forced to retire later than their parents. This creates a workforce where very few millennials can attain a decent paying job without being highly skilled or specialized. As a result of this, many millennials have had to take out student loans to obtain degrees in which they may or may not be able to use, depending on the job market B. During the age of the baby boomer, having a degree was not a prerequisite to living a comfortable, middleclass lifestyle. (transition: Now that we have learned about the educational differences, the differences in finance between baby boomers and millennials are not as surprising. II. The differences in education levels between baby boomers and millennials are not as surprising. A. Millennials are generally more educated than baby boomers, according to an article by Samantha Raphelson, a news intern at National Public Radio. org, but have the most difficult time finding a job that match their education.

In the article written by Samantha titled Amid the Stereotypes, Some Facts About Millennials she writes that four out of ten minimum-wage workers have a bachelor’s degree; that is almost half! In fact, we can find that many “entry level” jobs now require a degree of some sort. B. 28 percent of people age 24-36 have a bachelors or higher, unlike their parents. This has come to affect our economy, because many millennials aren’t in a position financially to make any major purchases, such as buying a home or vehicle. (transition: It is safe to say that even though baby boomers have a more traditional outlook on marriage and family life, the divorce rates at the time of their coming were alarmingly high.

As a result of all of this, many millennials are also putting off family life. The differences between the views of baby boomers and millennials when it comes to family life is not as complicated as it may sound.

1. Because of the alarmingly high divorce rates of their parents, the baby boomers, millennials have a very different outlook on family life. Not only is their pursuit of education and the high costs of living driving them to delay starting a family, but it is also making it hard for them to have a work-life balance.
2. Many people age 24-36 are content with cohabiting with their significant other, but not marrying them or reproducing. Many other couples prefer to reproduce, but not live together.

In a 2016 graph by the Center for disease control, it shows that in Tennessee 43. 6% of children are born out-of-wedlock, compared to 23. 9% in 1950. These couples, ironically, somehow find more time to spend with their offspring than their parents’ had. Despite all of this, three fourths of millennials are estimated to be married by the age of 40, according to author Deborah Carr Ph. D.

Conclusion

Now that we know how and why the two generations are so different in terms of the education, finance, and their outlook on family-life, we can hopefully navigate through life with a more enhanced view on each of these aspects of our own lives II. (clincher) As lawyer and politician Robert Kennedy once said, “Every generation inherits a world it never made; and, as it does so, it automatically becomes the trustee of that world for those who come after. In due course, each generation makes its own accounting to its children. ”

Allowing the mind to think strategically is a powerful asset, but for a criminal that type of mindset can be a different process. The mind stores vast knowledge, giving humans the ability to learn knowledge and carry out daily tasks; the mind is one of the major organs that allows us to live. As a result, individuals use their minds every day to accomplish objectives such as using mathematical skills, working in retail or for others; planning every detail in their unstable mind to complete their task. The usage of our mind separates us non-criminals, from those who are. Each type of criminal develops a different mindset, putting them each in a specific group. These three types of criminals are categorized by their criminal minds.

Psychopaths for one tend to approach their task in a sloppy and unorganized manner, and they never really put any thought into anything. Their work distinguishes them from all other minds. Almost all the time they leave evidence behind, such as fingerprints, footprints and other forms of DNA. They do not care how they finish their task, but so as long as they travel from point A to B successfully. Their thought process has many holes, which disables them greatly in terms of getting away with their task. Psychopaths have very poor judgement and they have absolute failure to learn from experience. They cannot be reasoned with at all, once their mind is set on a certain task they plan to carry it out. They will keep doing the same intent over and over no matter the consequences. Their mind does not allow them to distinguish what is right from wrong or the difference between reality and delusions. They evidently have a specific loss of insight, seeing only what their mind wants them to see and having little to no control over it. That is why they always think someone is out to get them or having a feeling that an entity is telling them to do horrific tasks. Thus, psychopaths are influenced by their unstable mind.

Sociopaths, on the other hand, are quite different than psychopaths, they are often labeled the “wise” criminals, because they always rely on their mind. Studies show that the majority of sociopaths come from some kind of professional career background, thus, explaining why they all exhibit high intelligence. Sociopaths calculate their moves coldly, because it is in their nature to do so. They are without a doubt smart and precise. They have no problem using all their resources to accomplish a task. Sociopaths tend to use others as a piece on their board game, solely for their personal gain. They are professional pathological and compulsive liars, which could make it very difficult to locate one. They are so good at lying that they believe and convince those around them. Sociopaths lack empathy towards others emotions, as well as having no connection to feel. Often times they will put on a “show” to fool others, but because this is second nature to them, they can get away with falsifying emotions. They do not feel sympathy for others, disabling them to feel remorse and or the innate ability to reciprocate feelings. They do not understand the emotional consequences of their actions, often times because they know what they are doing is right. Sociopaths relish in their work because they’ve spent time blueprinting, studying and analyzing methods and outcomes to get to their result.

Typically, this next group is interesting but as well complicated because the criminally insane are in a category that sets them apart from the others. The insane can be viewed as handicapped “crazy” people, people whose illness’ have taken a toll on them, and can no longer be put into society for their sake and the sake of others. They are often not aware of their actions, they often act on impulse which makes them do what comes to their mind because that’s what feels natural. They tend to develop a personality disorder, which has them assume another identity. They tend to show bipolar actions, such as being ordinary one minute to being unstable the next. Sometimes the criminally insane are not aware they are insane. Schizophrenia and dementia are some examples of these illnesses. The criminally insane express aggressive behavior, often times refusing to be apprehended by authority. They become paranoid for no valid reason but still think everyone is an enemy. The criminally insane are influenced by their illness, yet often times don’t realize it which makes them mentally handicapped and even more dangerous than the others.

When thought about clearly, all three types of criminal minds have distinctive similarities as well as the obvious differences. The mind is a powerful tool either for the right, or wrong reasons. Psychopaths have no blueprint to their plan, while sociopaths spend their time just doing that to make sure there is no hole in their plan, and the criminally insane just don’t have the luxury to. What they all have in common, is that they all use their mind as a weapon.

John Donne’s Holy Sonnet 7 is a poem that intertwines elements of allusions and wit to arouse emotions and to depict the dramatic conflict between holiness and sin. By specifically analyzing the rhyme scheme, the allusions, the tone, and the specific language and word choices apparent in Sonnet 7, it is apparent that the poet is delineating the transformation from overwhelming guilt to earnest desire of faithfulness. Although this poem concludes with a sense of hopefulness, this sonnet is only a microcosm of the Christian life with God. Through the collection of the Holy Sonnets, Donne ultimately reveals the speaker’s obsession with his own death and his great fear of eternal damnation.

Sonnet 7 is one that encompasses the depravity and failure of humanity to convey a struggle of internal fear and guilt, but at the same time, it shows awareness of God’s redemptive power. Donne utilizes a structure that is divided into distinct sections. Following a similar pattern to that of the Italian sonnet, the first eight lines have a rhyme scheme abbaabba. The speaker’s abhorrence for himself is deeply intensified as the aggressive imageries predominate the first eight lines. Donne starts the poem with “Spit in my face ye Jews, and pierce my side,/ Buffet, and scoff, scourge, and crucify me,/ For I have sinned, and sinned.” These six verbs provide readers with a vivid image of Christ’s suffering on the cross. There is a crescendo in the way these six verbs are ordered as the violence is intensified from the spitting on the face to the crucifixion on the cross. The rhyme scheme is crucial and it does not change the abab end rhymes in the eight lines in order to portray the speaker’s guilt and anger as he sees the depths of his own sins. The first quatrain of Sonnet 7 also serves as an allusion to the suffering endured by Christ as he is pierced to the cross and crucified. The weight of his sins is so heavy, as emphasized by the repetition of “For I have sinned, and sinned.” In addition, the repetition also underlines the separation the poet experiences from God and his unworthiness of God’s grace. His self-awareness of his sins is what motivates him to tell the Jews to crucify him as they have done to Christ. At the end of the fourth line, there is a colon, which marks a transition. However, as noted earlier, the transition is not a separate idea because the rhyme scheme remains the same. The beginning of line five marks a change in tone as shown by the word “but.” The speaker expresses in these four lines the surpassing glory of Christ’s crucifixion. Even his own suffering and death “cannot be satisfied” as it does not have the redeeming power of Christ. By interlacing words like “impiety and inglorious” with “glorified,” the poet ultimately reveals to his readers that the Jews crucified a man they deemed “inglorious” because they did not know he was the Son of God. More so, however, is the reality in which the speaker now knows that Christ is “now glorified,” yet continues to “crucify him daily.” Therefore, the beginning octave is driven by guilt as the speaker reflects on how his sins are what nailed Christ to the cross.

The final six lines of Sonnet 7 are divided into four lines that follow the rhyme scheme cdcd and conclude with a rhymed couplet, ee. By following this specific rhyme scheme, the structure changes the tone from guilt to amazement and wonder in acknowledgment of Christ’s love and sacrifice. In line 9, the speaker exclaims, “Oh let me then, his strange love still admire,” marking a stark contrast in tone from the octave to the sestet. Why would Christ die for a man who will keep sinning? The overflow of Christ’s sacrifice and love is a concept the poet cannot grasp and he stands simply in awe of this “strange love.” Lines 11 and 12 serve as allegorical elements in relation to the Old Testament. Jacob, son of Isaac, is the younger twin to his brother, Esau. Upon his father’s dying days, Jacob disguises himself as Esau in order to reap his father’s blessings that would have been given to Esau through the patriarchal lineage. Jacob was “clothed in vile harsh attire” and had “gainful intent,” but “God clothed himself in vile man’s flesh, that so,/ he might be weak enough to suffer woes.” Therefore, even though Jacob receivs his father’s blessings intended for his brother, he is still clothed in “vile man’s flesh,” exposing him to the temptations and sufferings on this earth. The word “vile” is repeated twice to delineate the wickedness of human nature. Sonnet 7, then, is not merely a sonnet that seeks justice or indulges in guilt ridden sufferings, but it is a presentation of the life of a Christian man. In his daily life, this man will sin and crucify Christ daily, but he will not wallow in self-hatred but only seek repentance in prayer and humble reflection upon God’s love. Most importantly, there is great redemptive power exuding in this poem as the depravity of mankind collides with the divinity of Christ.

Because this sonnet is just one of the poems from Donne’s collection of Holy Sonnets, it is important to see how Sonnet 7 fits neatly with themes of his other sonnets. As implied in the naming of his sonnets, Donne emphasizes the themes of sin in mankind, grace, and redemption. Although sonnet 7 focuses on the wonderment in God’s sacrifice, we must not forget the wickedness of mankind and the temptations from the Devil in hopes to lure us away from Christ. The Holy Sonnets altogether seem to suggest that although God is loving and forgiving, punishment will come to those who transgress from His Word. Therefore, Christ’s marvelous love cannot be abused as it involves misery and fear. Through Biblical allusions, rhyme scheme, specific word choices, and tone, the speaker shows the violently intense relationship he has with God and the wonderful and baffling love of Christ that rescues and saves.

Edgar Degas played a prominent role in the 19th century Art. Along with paintings, he also contributed to prints, pastel drawings and photography. Degas produced the biggest amount in range of works out of all Impressionists. Loss of eyesight made him go through distinctive style changes, from 1890s onwards, his sight was impaired. During the 1870s to 1880s, Degas was producing artworks in multiple fields, etching, dry point etc. Interestingly enough, Degas wished to go back to the conservatism and formalism in painting, however, ends with art that was so different. Degas was always interested in the figure, the reason being is that he admired great history paintings or paintings about the figure. Through his lifetime, he did lots of classical underpinnings and learning about drawing from the masters. One of the major themes that Degas was always interested about is the ballet dancer. He is fascinated about painting the movement and spontaneously of dancing. One of the major influences is Eadweard Muybridge. Muybridge could be considered as a scientist, and he was fascinated with the mechanics of photography. He looked at the way in which the forms engaged, in terms of low bearing weight and how the muscles of the human body moved in space. There is a direct link between Muybridge’s photography and the ballet dancers’ pose in The Ballet Class. Degas’ purpose was not to make a narrative out of the young ballet dancers, but to capture movement, and movement is an impressionist concern. It is about the captured, fleeting moment.

When we first look at the painting, we notice that the colour is quite limited and made up of muted colours. This is because of the lack of lighting and different descriptions of lighting. Dance studios were quite bare, they were usually the interiors of chateaus or houses that have become vacant and were taken over by the theatre and put into use. When you look at the architecture, you can see that it is quite sumptuous even when all furnishings are removed. The dance and poses are the most important, so that the palette colour has to be muted and neutral. The only light source is from the big windows in the rooms and Degas needed to use the mirrors and light through windows to illuminate all of the dancers in the room. The huge amount of white and cream depicted for the dancers and their dress stands out to us. They are impressionistic in that he is using a light palette.

With the forms of ballet dancers, we can see that up close, there is a black outline acting as a contour line. The clear divisive drawn line becomes part of the body, with midtones, highlights and soft blurred shadow (oaker coloured) on the inside of the arm, thus giving a sense of volume. The articulation of the form is in fact, a lot more exquisite and there is a greater formal analysis of the gesture.

The floor is depicted with thinned paint which contrasts to the thickly painted tutu dress. The floor exposes the weave of linen on the canvas. We can see the layer of white that Degas has primed, then he only dusted over the white with paint, giving this incredibly thin layer of paint. Then Degas has drawn charcoal lines on top of the paint. The effect of such a thin layer of paint is to create contrast, but more to do with showing light. We can see on the floor, where there are different shades of paint, some are shadowed and some where the light is so bright. This is a mastery of showing the surface as a reflective surface for the complexity of light in the work. It also reinforces the collapse of space and does not distract the sense of a caught moment with the rest of the dancers.

When we look at the walls of the dance studio, we see the scaffold of charcoal lines and very little paint. The dark coloured frame of the mirror is a charcoal linear area. The background area is depicted with a soft drag of paint, and there are hardly any paint on the brush. Degas used turps to thin down the paint and applied it onto the canvas. Then possibly smeared the paint with a rag, getting a sense of flat surface. The flat walls, flat floor and thin linear details are to do with space and form. Degas does not use traditional perspective and we can see that there is a ratio of figures diminishing in size, and there are lines on the floor that draw our eyes back. Degas is alluding to a perspective, he has depicted the painting to be on a much more dramatic angle, and this is not a mathematical perspective. The flatness of the surfaces and the very flat scraped areas on the floor operates spatially to sit behind, to create a layering beneath the textured paint. Textured and thick paint push forward while flat and thin paint push back. Degas is using his method of painting (thin-downed scraped layering, rubbed with rag and very well drafted lines on top) to create a sense of beneath or behind.

Degas is building up different layers within the painting. The tutu dresses are depicted with dry-brushed, glazed short brushstrokes, with bits of thick paint. For example, with this girl, her bow and the edge of her dress are quite thick and impasto and her sleeve is really thickly painted. Some areas Degas has painted with hardly any paint on his brush, such as the girl’s skin. Degas blocks the prime layer of brown with the thin layer of paint and builds with a scaffold of white. When Degas is dealing with the costume under the light source against the background, he has used tiny marks with paint then blurred and blended a darker shadow (grey or darker yellow) and it is always a reflective colour of the colour in the background, which is an Impressionist aspect. However, for Degas, shadows were muddy and dark, which is in contrast to Impressionist ideas. Impressionists’ kept the shadows clean, bright and were reflective complementary colours.

All through the work, the earrings, the bows and the texture of hair is far more impastoed. The thick impasto paint is recording light. The thicker the paint, is the area where he is sculpting in light, where the intensity of light is entering the room through the windows, reflecting off mirrors and bouncing onto particular areas of their forms. The floor contrast to the buttery, thick dabs of paint on the ballet shoes. Degas uses almost an Alla Prima typed way of working for the ribbons and shoes. This is because of their texture, the hair is shiny, silk ribbons are shiny, and saturn ballet shoes are shiny. There are touches of white and pink on the ballet shoes to capture the effect of light on them. We often find areas on the tutu dress where there are thin grazed paint and areas of thick paint where we can see the texture of the brush marks. If we look at the yellow ribbon here, this is one of the most thickly painted areas of the painting. Degas is sculpting with paint to capture the bright shine on the Saturn material.

Degas is always trying to capture movement. You can see that every ballet dancer is like a cameo, they are all doing different actions. This is why I think Degas has studied them as separate compartments. Every dancer is an impression of what a dance class is, some are tired, some are stretching, and even scratching her back. This is intimate but everyday depictions of movement of practicing in a dance class at the same time. There is no formality in this class. The scaffolding of marks suggest the fact that we are looking at these gentle and quiet movements caught while the dance teacher is lecturing. The fresh, quick and vigorous way of working is to give us a sense of immediate nuances of movement. Degas is using these different ways of smudging, blurring mark making to capture the ‘vibrations’ of movement, so we feel that there is this instant feeling of light, and the everyday movements that these ballet dancers are engaging in. An interesting composition aspect is that Degas has left a void at the lower right area of the painting. This reflects the influence of Japanese prints, which is to create a sense of immediacy. Giving us the feeling of being placed in the dance class with the ballet dancers.

Degas has always been interested in different media such as painting, printing and pastel. Through Degas’ later years, his eyesight is poorer, which lead to the choice of begin modeling with clay. From 1870, Degas started sculpting with clay or wax of horses to help him with the racecourse works, thus the figures for the ballet dancers works evolved in the same way. Degas was able to feel his way through the sculpture and experimented with different media such as hair ribbons and muslin tutu dresses. Mixed-media sculptures are common today, but the bronze ballet sculpture shocked the public in a way that his most experimental paintings had not.

Little Dancer of Fourteen Years is a sculpture made out of wax, and what is remarkable about this is that Degas had no training with sculpting. Degas used rag and wire under structure and he uses a palette knife to ‘butter’ the hot beeswax onto the form. Degas also adds varnish into the beeswax which helps the wax to set and harden and prevents cracking. This is so that Degas can come back and work on it the next day.

One of the interesting aspects of this work is the surface. When we think of traditional Roman or Greek sculptures (such as Paolina Borghese), the surface of the sculptures are well polished and smooth. However, with the Little Dancer, we can see clearly that the surface is very rough. This raise conflict in the public. Some were fascinated by the sculpture because no one has seen anything like this, they were shocked by the mixed-media used in the sculpture. With the real Saturn ribbon, muslin tutu dress, and linen top, it gives the new genre of ‘Mixed-Media Art’.

Here we can see that Degas has used a heated palette knife to smooth the wax, which leaves these little cuts on the surface. The top for the Little Dancer is made out of linen and dipped in wax so that it has a waxy surface to it. He has also chiseled into the wax to create texture on the top that the Little Dancer is wearing. Degas has forced the muslin tutu under the wax and applied more wax on top, making all pieces sit together.

These ballet dancers were known as ‘ballet rats’. There was a huge amount of young girls who wanted to become a part of the Paris Theatre and it was prestigious if you were picked as a ballerina. However, the ballet dancers were usually the chorus, the background dancers. There was the Prima Ballerina but Degas never painted any Prima Ballerinas. All his life, he has been making art about these young girls in the background, forming the lines. They were all young, pubescent girls, and very few have developed bodies, they are all very thin and delicate, and these girls put all their faith for places in the ballet. Many of them got injured and had a short life because they were not treated well, they were considered to be easily replaced. The Little Dancer of Fourteen Years was modeled to be Degas’ favourite ballet dancer. Degas became intrigued by her stamina, her grace and he caught her in a moment where she is waiting and her body is in this incredibly beautiful gesture where she is pointing her toe and having her hands back in this classic ballet pose. Degas uses different texture material as accessories to highlight the contrast of materials, showing his fascination for different surfaces. Degas was interested in showing how light and movement interact with these accessories made with different materials. What shocked the public about this sculpture is the addition of these accessories, it is not sculpturly conventional to put real objects into sculpture. This piece of artwork is also showing modernity and an apocalypse for artists who are looking at expanding their repertoire and giving us a greater knowledge about the modern times we are living in. Similarly to how Manet painted Victorine Meurent for Olympia, a real woman in modern times, just as how Degas wanted to show a ballerina at the time, daringly. Degas was not bound by any rules about sculpture, and it was a part of the bigger idea of experimentation with different materials. Degas knew that this would be difficult for the public, and he deliberately chose to show it in the Impressionist Exhibition to challenge the perception of what working in 3D could be. At the time, artists were already challenging how they paint and print, and Degas chose to challenge the formal rules around what sculpture could be. Sculpture was a genre of art where you have to have mastery of, where you understand the technical nuances of working (such as the Lost Wax technique). Degas challenge the conventional rules by putting ombre-coloured oil paint and pigments into the wax for heating and mixing. When he was pasting it on and using his burning hot palette knife to construct the form, thus the wax is coloured. Then when it solidified, Degas dry brushed the top with more dark tonality and varnished the sculpture giving us the illusion that it is made of shiny bronze. This was all an illusion to a sculpture that was not traditionally made and playfully dressed the sculpture. The public have always thought about sculpture as cold, and stone-like and is about how the material expressing the beauty of the form, once the sculpture is dressed, it starts to look like you are creating a bridge to the sculpture being breathing, ‘alive’ and realistic. People were horrified that this Little Dancer looks real and the audience is conflicted because of the surface material. Famous critiques wrote that the sculpture looked like ‘mottled disease’, like she was bruised or damaged, the skin is not smooth or polished. We see creased wax on the Little Dancer’s legs, as if she was wearing stockings. Straps across her feet and real satin shoes covered in wax, scab-like skin on the knees, creating nuances of texture. This not only show textural effects but also gives an effect of flickering light. Every lump of wax is causing shadow, and we are getting a greater degree of variation of light being attracted to a very rough and uneven surface. The light is dissipated and the edges where the light hits in the form has this ragged edge. The razed cuts on the legs’ forms its own shadows. Thus when the sculpture is under light, the Little Dancer sparkles with light, and this is the Impressionist idea of the sensory quality that light does when it shines onto a moving form.

Degas decided to make these small wax sculptures of different movements. Degas formed these sculpture by looking at his drawing and Muybridge’s photographs. There are no smoothing, the surface is blobby. The sculptures were always in coloured wax, however, after Degas’ death, the family decided to commission them to bronze.

Edgar Degas is known for experimentation of different media. While many other artists are producing pastel drawings and prints, Degas combined both ways of working uniquely. Monotypes are one-off prints which were not as popular as intaligios as it could make multiples. The sale of prints became popular from the 1850s onwards, mainly targeted to people who could not afford paintings but collected art. Degas first came across monotype prints in the 1870s and introduced by the artist Ludovic Lepic and made Degas’ first monotype together. Degas made his prints personally in his studio with different tools he made.

One of the most famously known dark-field monotype of Degas is the Three Ballet Dancers. Monotype is a combination of printing and drawing. Degas would have drawn on a copper plate and is executed on a thin paper, then runs through a press only once, thus leaving the image onto a sheet of paper. If the paper is made of cotton then the fibres of the paper need to soften up to accept the ink better by damping the paper. I believe that one of the fascinations for Degas is the wonderment of how it would look. A dark field monotype is when Degas would lay a layer of black ink on the copper plate using a dauber, which is a piece of felt that is rolled and tied. Then Degas would draw on the layer of black ink by removing the ink. In the dark field monotypes, we see the image sort of emerge out of the darkness. Degas who is always interested in using materials in unconventional ways, have all sorts of different gadgets to help him make his monotypes. When removing the ink, Degas would have to be innovative and use all sorts of things in his studio. Such as removing with his own hands, or a piece of fabric in order to get texture as Degas was interested in the different surface textures, or a sponge and even the back of a brush.

This area of the floor where Degas has used an old course hog hair brush that has stiffened and directionally flicked and removed the paint with a feathery light mark, giving us the impression of the grains of the floor. The dauber removes large areas and creates this intense bright clean element of light.

Degas loved the texture of the paper he used. Some were printed on cream paper while others were printed on brown paper. The brown paper seem to suggest night time or elements of greater degree of darkness or mystery so when he removes the ink, the monotype is left with this incredible glow of white appearing. If it was on white paper, we would have this intense illumination of artificial light. The light is on the legs, and on the underarms of the dances, the rest of the work disappears with softer tones of lighting. This is because old theatre has their light on the edge of the stage, looking up from the bottom. The edge of the dress of the ballet dancers is illuminated from below. The light is shot onto the pale faces and limbs.

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I believe to Degas, it is a process that is important. He is crazy for the sense of endlessness and the unlimited possibilities of an image being created. It is also the spontaneity that he could change the image right up to the point when it is about to go in the press. Degas has to work within 10 mins otherwise the paint will dry. Degas has thinned down the paint and added oil to it so it would dry quickly. As the plate is slick and ink is viscous, Degas can move the ink in a gestural and freely way and provided him with a new way of working, a looser way. He has been trained in an Ingres-styled, precise way of working and the monotype changed his art making forever.

Discussion

The Death Penalty has been a widely controversial topic in America as it is illegal in 27 of the 50 states in America. Only 21 of the 50 states have been a part of this movement including Texas, Alabama, and more. During the 1970’s this document it explains why it should have been legalized in New York. Written by former New York Mayor Edward Koch “Death and Justice: How Capital Punishment Affirms Life”. He wants the Death Penalty to be legalized due to high murder rates at the time of his term. However, it should be legal in all states but under one condition that the family of the victims or close friends should be only ones that can choose who lives and dies. He does call the method “barbaric” but calls murder a “disease” that must be cured so a compromise should be used.

Edward Koch was Mayor of New York during 1978 -1989 but as Mayor he added condos for the homeless and rebuilt homes for the next generation. While in office as mayor new problems has arisen from the AIDS epidemic, more homelessness, and the rising racial conflicts. With the best intentions he strived for eliminating anything that could damage the city.

In the document it is very much explained that if the death penalty was legal suspects wouldn’t have taken any more lives like before. Due to it not being able to happen soon enough when they were released from prison more innocent lives were lost in the process. In rare cases in the past someone may be innocent and even they are sentenced to death by lethal injection or the electric chair. As seen before mistakes can happen, and it would ruin the lives of family members and the person who served time in prison.

Edward Koch relates to logos in this document as he was once mayor of New York during high murder and crime rates. When his term ended, New York had one of the highest total number of murders at 2,605 in 1990. Even at the time during his term the death penalty was illegal in the state for he believed that it would save more lives. Compared with totals during 2012-2016 they slowly decreased overtime.

This case he was wrong in a lot of ways more than once for in 2016 it was reported that 630 murders were recorded which is signifying less. But he was still right as other murderers have taken more lives when they left prison which could have been prevented in some cases. He then mentions someone capable of this crime calling him “Mr. Willie, previously had been convicted of aggravated rape, aggravated kidnapping, and the murders of a Louisiana deputy and a man from Missouri”.

Then again for a prisoner named “Lemuel Smith who served 4 life sentences... lured a women corrections officer into the Chaplin’s Office and strangled her. He then mutilated and dismembered her body”. This was not just in the state of New York but at the time around The United States. As some infamous serial killers were made famous for avoiding the death penalty in those states even if they took dozens of lives.

The judge or attorney should talk to the family of victims about the death penalty and not a group of strangers serving jury duty. The Death Penalty should be legal only under that one condition that the family involved are the ones who tell the judge if the death penalty is what they want. If anyone that served time for murder were to leave prison could take another life in future. Edward Koch a former Mayor of New York once tried to fight for legalization because it could save more lives in the end. This could prevent that from happening or maybe the suspect will have a change of heart if the people affected gave them a second chance which could change their ways for the best.

References

1. Edward I. Koch Death and Justice: How Capital Punishment Affirms Life
2. Accessed September, 17, 2019 Death Penalty Information Center https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/state-and-federal-info/state-by-state/new-york
3. Accessed September, 17, 2019 New York Crime Rates 1960-2016 http://www.disastercenter.com/crime/nycrime.htm
4. Accessed September, 17, 2019 Edward Koch Columbia University Press https://cup.columbia.edu/book/ed-koch-and-the-rebuilding-of-new-york-city/9780231150330