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Sharon Olds is renowned for keeping her readers on their toes and changing the direction of her poems drastically and without warning (Galens). This remains especially true in her poem “I Go Back to May 1937”. Olds’ brash style ensures that her message is clearly delivered but her original and sometimes unexpected use of imagery keeps that delivery fresh and entertaining. “I Go Back to May 1937” is about a girl imagining her parents in a time before she was born when they were graduating college. In retrospect she understands the extent in which they have changed since “they [were] dumb, all they know is they are /innocent, they would never hurt anybody” (lines 11-12). The reader contemplates warning them of the misery they will incur in the future and break up their wedding relationship before it begins but she cannot do this because it would terminate her own life in the process. Resigning to acceptance, the speaker in the poem decides nothing can be done to change what has already happened. Through the use of powerful diction and shocking imagery, Olds employs a unique stylistic approach to illustrate the time-old truth that one can never change the past.

Olds begins her poem with a tone of impartial reminiscence, describing her father as “strolling out/ under the ochre sandstone arch” (line 2-3) in front of the gates of his college. Her father is portrayed with confidence, walking to face his future head on without any fear or reservation, the kind of beginning one would find in an optimistic coming of age tale. Olds’ tone takes a drastic twist when she describes “the red tiles glinting like bent/plates of blood behind his head” (lines 4-5). The bold use of diction when describing something simple like the campus architecture is painting a gruesome portrait of the speaker’s father to foreshadow the events to come.

The speaker’s mother is described in much the same manner: “I see my mother with a few light books at her hip standing at the pillar made of tiny bricks with the wrought-iron gate still open behind her, its sword-tips black in the May air” (lines 5-9). In clear juxtaposition to the speaker’s father, her mother is not confidently walking to her future. She is stationary in front of an open gate. She sees her past and her future but she doesn’t know if she is ready to transition between the two yet. She isn’t standing behind a study solid “sandstone arch” like the speaker’s father but a delicately constructed pillar made of tiny bricks consisting of myriad different pieces which could be a metaphor of her complexity of emotion about this critical juncture in her life and uncertain future (Metzger).

The next few lines are the critical point in the paper. The speaker verbalizes her feelings about the future union of her parents;

they are about to graduate, they are about to get married,

they are kids, they are dumb, all they know is they are

innocent, they would never hurt anybody.

I want to go up to them and say Stop,

don’t do it—she’s the wrong woman,

he’s the wrong man, you are going to do things (lines 10-15)

A child who grows up without a father or mother figure lean to become more independent at an early stage. “I want to go up to them and say Stop” (Olds), stating in the short story that they wouldn’t have a good time in the future, it is where experiences within the family such as constantly seeing parents have a dispute may cause one's identity to be limited and detached.

The speaker has a special role in this poem; she is omnipotent in the sense she can see and judge this couple, her future parents, because she sees their past and the decisions that led them to make the mistakes along the way. She sees this graduation, this marriage, as being on the cliff’s edge. The beginning of a long fall down through pain and misery has its roots here in this decision. Olds capitalizes the word “Stop” in line thirteen to add emphasis. This suggests an absolute stop needed to prevent injury or harm, much like the capital stop on a stop sign on the streets (Galens).

After establishing the innocence of her parents, the speaker transitions to an unyielded warning to them about the cruel reality that their future beholds;

you cannot imagine you would ever do,

you are going to do bad things to children,

you are going to suffer in ways you have not heard of,

you are going to want to die. I want to go

up to them there in the late May sunlight and say it (lines 16-20)

The speaker is extremely decisive in how she feels about the marriage, describing it as the bearer of great sorrow and unhappiness. The speaker is enraged not only at the couple for allowing the relationship to grow into the monster that it became, but at herself for not being able to step in when she knows without a doubt what it is to become. The speaker is stuck with options that only bring more problems. The speaker’s rage subsides when she realizes the hopelessness of the situation while exploring the couple in the next few lines;

her hungry pretty face turning to me,

her pitiful beautiful untouched body,

his arrogant handsome face turning to me,

his pitiful beautiful untouched body,

but I don’t do it. I want to live” (Olds 20).

Olds’ use of diction is paramount to understanding the message she is trying to send here. She describes the faces of the lovers with a renewed sense or resolve. The woman’s face is “hungry,” showing the desire for new opportunities and life decisions to be made, not always with careful contemplation. This is coupled with the man’s “arrogant” face, emphasizing the sheer extent in which they don’t know the repercussions of the choices they are making and if the reasons for making these choices are the correct ones (Metzger). Olds employs syntax here to give the reader insight into the fact that their relationship is missing passion and love. Olds repeats the phrase “pitiful beautiful untouched body” but separates them with the description of the man’s face. Olds wants the reader to know that although they are getting married, they are still separate and far from a single union (Galens). The speaker shows her resentment and helplessness again here at the end, when she says that although she knows they have these problems, that the marriage isn’t going to work out, and the couple will hurt a lot of people along the way, she remains silent to preserve her own future life. It isn’t until the final few lines that the speaker finally gives into the hopeless situation and deals with the hand she was dealt;

I take them up like the male and female

paper dolls and bang them together

at the hips, like chips of flint, as if to

strike sparks from them, I say

Do what you are going to do, and I will tell about it” (Olds 25)

The paper dolls resemble her childish last-ditch effort to play out an optimistic ending she knows will never come to fruition. The dolls are something she can control; she has their future in her hands, just like she has her own. She accepts that the past for her parents can’t be changed; she accepts that the present for her is a result of that, but finally decides to do something about the future. She knows that she cannot create the fire, that passion, that love by “banging them together at the hips” (line 27). She accepts that she is powerless in the affairs of her parents even though the consequences affect her own life drastically. She no longer hopes to change their ways or prevent future pain. There is a paradigm shift at the end when the speaker liberates herself not by solving all the unsolvable problems as before, but rather disregarding them all together, choosing rather to see them in a different light instead.

Works Cited

1. Metzger, Sheri E. "Critical Essay on 'I Go Back to May 1937'." Poetry for Students. Ed. David A. Galens. Vol. 17. Detroit: Gale, 2003. Literature Resource Center. Web. 29 Oct. 2012.
2. Olds, Sharon. "I Go Back to May 1937." Poetry Foundation. N.p.. Web. 29 Oct 2012. <http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/176442>.
3. "Overview: 'I Go Back to May 1937'." Poetry for Students. Ed. David A. Galens. Vol. 17. Detroit: Gale, 2003. Literature Resource Center. Web. 29 Oct. 2012.

The narrator and focal character of Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita, who has appointed upon himself the pseudonym Humbert Humbert, strikes the reader as one of the most despicable and unorthodox protagonists in classic literature. He embodies numerous flaws and traits that would be nearly intolerable within a human being, but which provide for a fascinating literary character. In Humbert’s narrative, his fundamental traits of self-delusion and inherent immorality are unavoidably exposed to the audience, his supposed jury, as they drive the story forward. However, in an attempt to salvage his reputation, Humbert subtly reveals another prominent trait of his: a general indecisiveness and tendency toward inaction. Nabokov establishes these chief characteristics through various literary tools, such as various forms of chance occurrence, the actions of other characters toward him, and, most importantly, Humbert’s own narrative and use of language.

The most defining characteristic of the novel’s protagonist is his delusional passion for Lolita and overall detachment from reality, as it is this trait that facilitates Humbert’s immoral actions and tragic ending. One of the chief aspects of Humbert’s delusional nature is his love for the idea of Lolita rather than the girl herself. Nabokov keenly exposes this truth through the skillful use of language in Humbert’s narrative. For instance, the foreword tells the reader that Humbert had altered all of the names in his story except Lolita’s, because “her first name is too closely interwound with the inmost fiber of the book to allow one to alter it” (3). Humbert also begins his narrative by describing the pronunciation of his love’s name as “the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth” (9). This heavy emphasis on Lolita’s name presents Humbert’s infatuation as a rather superficial one, which is presumably focused more on an arbitrary notion of the girl rather than the girl’s actual identity and behavior. Humbert’s delusional fascination with Lolita is shown later in the narrative when he describes his attempt to recreate one of his childhood sexual experiences with “Annabel Haze, alias Dolores Lee, alias Loleeta” (177). Once again, this playful use of names suggests that Humbert is not really concerned with Lolita as a person, but rather with his ideal conception of a “nymphet,” which both Annabel Lee and Dolores Haze seem to fit.

Another aspect of Humbert’s lust-induced delusion is his inability to accept Lolita’s relative disdain toward her lover and the inevitability of her maturation out of adolescence, as exhibited primarily by Humbert’s aggressive and oppressive actions with Lolita in his custody. In the beginning of his relationship with the child, Humbert acknowledges that Lolita cannot remain a nymphet forever, and certainly does not expect her to ever reciprocate his lust for her. Instead, he searches for more innocent and one-sided outlets of his desire, and accordingly expresses his satisfaction at having “stolen the honey of a spasm without impairing the morals of a minor,” by relieving his physical urges against her body and against her knowledge (65). However, once Humbert sleeps with Lolita and breaks the physical barrier between himself and the nymphet, he simultaneously breaks the barrier between what is reasonable and what is unreasonable within his mind. It is at this point that he expects her to love him as much as he loves her and refuses to let her disregard his affections. He becomes paranoid and jealous, refusing to allow her to mingle with other males in their travels, and persuading her to show him affection and give him sexual favors in exchange for spending money, which draws a disturbing parallel to a traditional child’s monetary allowance. In a desperate attempt to preserve Lolita’s nymph-like qualities, Humbert threatens to take her away from the school and community that they had become a part of, refusing to believe that, in the course of two years, she could become comparable to “any vulgar untidy high-school girl who applies shared cosmetics” (216).

Although the audience immediately accuses Humbert Humbert of immorality with his confession of hebephilia, Nabokov frequently displays other, possibly darker, nuances of Humbert’s immorality that establish that his wickedness is of an innate nature rather than a result of circumstances, primarily through the use of death and Humbert’s own, creative self-directed insults. Lolita, in conformation to its overall tragic nature, is plagued with death, particularly pertaining to the women in Humbert’s life. He was raised motherless, his Annabel Lee was killed before he could consummate his love for her, both of his wives suffered untimely deaths, and his beloved Lolita died alongside her stillborn daughter.

However, consistent with the theme of Humbert’s lustful delusion, none of those deaths which do not directly interfere with his carnal desires prove to be of much moral consequence to him. On the contrary, Humbert refers to his first wife’s death in childbirth as “[his] little revenge,” (32), and values the death of Lolita’s mother as a highly fortunate guarantee of his complete possession of the child. Just as the taint of death permeates the narrative, so does Humbert’s apparent sense of self-loathing.

In comparison to Lolita’s fair and delicate features, for example, the narrator relates to himself as “lanky, big-boned, wooly-chested Humbert Humbert, with thick black eyebrows and a queer accent, and a cesspoolful of rotting monsters behind his slow boyish smile,” indicating the immoral desires that hide behind his seductive demeanor (46). Even if these terms of self-denunciation are designed to illicit sympathy from “the jury,” they nevertheless indicate an underlying sense of malice in Humbert’s nature.

Whatever crimes Humbert has committed, and the immoralities that he possesses, it is suggested that he is not entirely to blame for his actions. This is because he possesses the quality of inaction and indecisiveness; he hardly plans out his actions with full conviction, but must be nudged toward many courses of deed. Nabokov highlights this trait with frequent references to Humbert’s evil contemplations and subsequent refusals to carry these ideas out, and the recurring role of fate throughout the narrative. Many times throughout the narrative (barring the end, of course), Humbert contemplates murder so as to meet his desires or compulsions, but decides not to so. As it is difficult for the reader to readily conclude that this is a result of moral restrictions, this is evidence that Humbert has difficulty carrying out decisive actions, and prefers to back out of them, such as when, contemplating murdering Lolita’s mother in the lake so as to ensure his possession of the girl, he addresses the reader by concluding, “simple, was it not? But what d’ye know, folks - I just could not make myself do it,” indicating that it was not any practical matter but an inherent reluctance to take such a strong action that prevented him from doing so (92). Where Humbert’s own initiative fails, then, “McFate,” as labeled by the narrator, takes command. It is here, therefore that the blame of Humbert’s actions partially fall. Many of the story’s critical occurrences happen by chance, including the death of Lolita’s mother, the vacancy at the Haze’s residence which facilitated Humbert and Lolita’s meeting, and Lolita’s meeting with Quilty, who steals the child from Humbert. Therefore, Humbert is a largely inactive character and does not fully participate even in the most integral of the narrative’s actions.

Humbert Humbert of Vladmir’s Lolita is a despicable, yet altogether intriguing character of classic literature. The taboo of hebephilia is portrayed artistically in this character through the peculiar and well-developed traits of inherent morality, lust-inspired self-delusion, and a tendency toward inaction and indecisiveness.

Henrik Ibsen's renowned play, A Doll's House, is widely recognized as a feminist work. The play delves into the seemingly perfect life of the Helmers, Nora and Torvald. Nora is beautiful, charming, and sweet, and Torvald is a successful and wealthy banker. The exploration of feminism in A Doll's House essay is crucial to understanding the play's underlying message of gender roles and societal expectations. Despite the couple's past difficulties, such as their financial struggles during their first year of marriage and Torvald's illness, Nora's decision to take out a loan from Torvald's coworker underscores the societal constraints imposed on women in the 19th century. Although Nora's experiences highlight the couple's current good fortune, the play highlights the systemic oppression and the limitations faced by women during that time.

Wealthy, attractive, and prominent, the Helmers appear to be the perfect family. Yet the old adage holds true: appearances are deceiving. As Nora reveals more about how she has been secretly working to pay off the loan to Krogstad, Torvald's coworker, it becomes clear that there is a great deal of tension under the calm surface of the couple's home life. This tension mounts as Torvald tells Nora that he wants to fire Krogstad from the bank, and Krogstad subsequently threatens to reveal Nora's lies to her husband if she does not find a way to save his job. The play's action escalates, finally culminating in Torvald's discovery of a letter Krogstad has written, revealing the truth about Nora's loan. Upon learning that his wife has deceived him, Torvald becomes irate, and is immediately concerned with preserving his own image - even though Nora's deception enabled Torvald's recovery, for which he would presumably be grateful. At this point, Nora's transformation from a silly, childish girl to an intelligent, independent woman is complete. She realizes that Torvald saw her only as a doll and leaves him.

Audiences and critics have a number of varying reactions to Ibsen's A Doll's House, but the most shared conception of the play is that it is, without a doubt, a feminist text. In her article entitled "The Doll House Backlash: Criticism, Feminism, and Ibsen," Joan Templeton discusses the numerous ways in which A Doll's House is indeed a play that addresses the issue of feminism and women's rights. She states that:

When Nora discovers that she has duties higher than those of a 'wife and mother,' obligations she names as 'duties to myself,' she is voicing the most basic of feminist principles: that women no less than men possess a moral and intellectual nature and have not only a right but a duty to develop it (Templeton 32).

Templeton argues that Nora's very transformation from childlike and naive to motivated and strong-willed is in its very essence feminist; moreover, the feminism of the play is prevalent regardless of whether or not Ibsen intended it to be so. And it seems fairly probable that Ibsen did not in fact intend A Doll's House to be read as strongly feminist, stating at a banquet given to him by the Norwegian Women's Rights League that he "must disclaim the honor of having worked consciously for the women's rights movement...my task has been the description of humanity"(Templeton 28). Upon reading such a statement, it seems clear that Ibsen did not write A Doll's House with the intention of penning a landmark feminist work.

Following that logic, there are a number of other critics who strongly disagree with Templeton's assertion that Nora (and consequently the play as a whole) is inherently feminist. British play critic Michael Billington is one who disagrees with this interpretation of the play as feminist. Upon seeing a production of A Doll's House at the Southwark Playhouse in London, Billington writes that, "Far from a straightforward feminist clarion call, the play becomes a complex study of two people who both have to reconstruct their identities" (Guardian Unlimited). Here, Billington changes the focus from the character of Nora, who is the central tenet of Templeton's argument, to the dynamics of the relationship between Nora and Torvald. In this way, the focus becomes less about Nora struggling with her sense of self, and more about the identities of both characters. Similarly, in a rebuttal of Templeton's essay on feminism in A Doll's House, Michael Werth Gelber writes, "In the dollhouse of Torvald and Nora, both husband and wife suffer from arrested development, which neither may eventually outgrow" (Gelber 361). Billington and Gelber, along with many others, seem to read Ibsen's classic as humanist rather than feminist, arguing that Ibsen's message was not that women should strive to find themselves, but that all people should engage in a search for true identity.

A Doll's House was written and published in 1879, and as such, Ibsen was certainly aware of the prevailing attitudes concerning women. Prior to the 20th century, women were expected to obey their husbands and concern themselves only with matters of frivolity and entertainment. In fact, years earlier United States President Thomas Jefferson summed up the attitude of the time when he addressed the issue of women and literacy, saying that, "Female education should concentrate on ornaments and the amusements of life...dancing, drawing, and music" (www.vst.cape.com). Women were not expected to educate themselves or become independent, which ensured complete reliance on their husbands. These widespread beliefs were surely known to Ibsen, and while he claims that his purpose was never to call attention to women's issues, the concept of feminism played at least a subconscious role in the writing of A Doll's House. At the same Norwegian Women's Rights League banquet where he claimed that addressing women's rights was not his intention, Ibsen states, "I am not even quite clear as to just what this women's rights movement really is...It is the women who shall solve the human problem" (Gelber 361). Although Ibsen claims that he is unaware of the women's rights movement, he places the responsibility of dealing with the human rights movements in the hands of women, showing that at the very least, he has a deep respect for and confidence in women.

A Doll's House features a protagonist who is meant to be an example to women and humans alike, displaying the importance of finding a sense of self and a true identity. Women and men, both then and now, can look to Nora to see the ways in which one really must find his/herself. When Nora finally realizes that she is only a doll to Torvald, she says, "I've been performing tricks for you, Torvald. That's how I've survived. You wanted it like that...It's because of you I've made nothing of my life" (Ibsen). Although relationships resembling Torvald's hold over Nora were much more common in the 1870s, they are not obsolete even today. However, dominance now can occur both ways; in some relationships, women control the men just as men control the women in others. In this way, the feminist and humanist themes of A Doll's House still apply to modern times.

It is difficult to say with absolute certainty what Ibsen truly intended when he wrote A Doll's House. Did he mean for Nora to become a groundbreaking figure in female literature? Or was she simply a character who realized that her only obligations and duties were to herself, regardless of her gender? A closer look at the play only seems to confuse the matter. For example, one can examine her comments to Mrs. Linde on what it means to Nora to be "free." She says, "Free. To be free, absolutely free. To spend time playing with the children. To have a clean, beautiful house, the way Torvald likes it" (Ibsen). A supporter of reading the text as humanist rather than feminist might argue that this is hardly the sort of statement a female activist would make. Yet proponents of the play as a feminist text would probably refute this claim, saying that this statement precedes the point in the play where Nora makes her astounding transformation, and that this comment comes from an altogether different character: one who has not yet discovered the true responsibilities of womanhood.

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After what seemed like endless exploration of the play, I found it incredibly difficult to come to a concrete conclusion on whether this text is humanist or feminist. Yet perhaps that isn't what is important. Perhaps Ibsen didn't intend the play to be read definitively as one or the other, but to be read by each individual reader in whichever way he/she wanted to read it- feminist, humanist, neither, or both. Both readings of the play are equally valid, equally supportable, and equally interesting. And more importantly, neither detracts from the sheer mastery of Ibsen's use of language and overall writing style. A Doll's House, whether it be feminist, humanist, or even communist, is a play that encourages growth, self-empowerment, and independence.

Works Cited

1. Billington, Michael. "A Doll's House." Guardian Unlimited 8 Nov. 2003.
2. Gelber, Michael Welth. Ibsen and Feminism. PLMA, Vol. 104, No. 3. May 1989. p. 360-362. www.jstor.org..
3. Reflecting on Race, Class, and Feminism. 26 Nov. 2003. www.vst.cape.com.
4. Templeton, Jean. The Dollhouse Backlash: Feminism, Criticism, and Ibsen. PMLA, Vol.104, No. 1. Jan. 1989. p. 28-40. www.jstor.org.

By definition, identity can be said to refer to an individual’s perception of who they are, the perception of which is a constituent of their thoughts and beliefs about themselves. Identity is very vital in our lives as it influences our behavior and the way interact with other people. Identity can as well be said to be the way we define ourselves. Tailoring this knowledge to define my own identity, I can say that I am a Chinese middle-class gentleman. Taking my academic education in the United States of America, this social identity of mine continues to influence my view of the world around me. My social identity continues to influence the way I interact with other people and has created both potential opportunities and barriers for me, especially for my future career.

To begin with, my gender as a man is one of the characteristics of my social identity that I had, and continues to have, the most influence on my life. Being a Chinese gentleman, I have to grow up as a responsible person to effectively take charge of my future life. Like many other Chinese men of my age, I am expected to get a job or start my own business after college for me to cultivate a solid financial security not only for myself, but also for my future family. The fact that I will have to marry soon after college and raise a family of my own is something that has given me the most motivation to work hard at school and get graduate with the highest possible academic credentials that will enhance my chances of getting a job of my choice in the near future. Belonging to the male gender has generally influenced the choices of friends I interact with. Generally, I have become a bit biased in the selection of my friends since I tend to feel more comfortable being in the company of other men than women. For this reason, majority of my friends in my social circle are men. Of the few women in my social circle, most of them are my relatives from my extended family. Though this composition of my social circle may appear to be biased, I feel very much comfortable with it since I have a personal conviction that as a man, I am much better of developing close friendships with other men with whom I can freely share my concerns as a man and get natured towards the attainment of the right manhood for the benefit of my future life.

The other part of my life where my social identity as a man has had a great influence is the shaping of my perception about my future prospects of getting a job. In this respect, I have a strong conviction that I possess a greater advantage than my women counterparts of landing a job shortly after my graduation. This is because of the gender stereotypes in the work place which perceive men as better performers in most jobs than women. In addition, the current job market has many jobs which are specifically advertised for men. This is one potential opportunity that my social identity as a man has created for me especially in the pursuit of my future career. For this reason, my interest in finding a job immediately after graduation has tremendously grown. Another element of my social identity which has worked to create a great potential for me to get a job easily in future is my association with my family that belongs to a higher middle class. Other than providing me a much easier avenue to getting a job immediately after graduation, my association with my family will make it easier for me to get a startup capital in case I change my mind about my career and decide to delve into starting and running my own business. My association with a higher middle-class family will also make my life after school much easier since I will not have to hustle too much in order to get a place to live as my family has a lot of accommodation room for me start from after graduating from school.

However, one of the greatest challenges that my social identity creates for both my present and future life is the language barrier. My first language is Chinese yet I am taking my studies in the United States of America where the first language of the natives is English. Being a Chinese, I have a challenge of expressing myself eloquently in English, something that has made me to develop great fear of talking before people because I may embarrass myself and tarnish my public image. This has limited my interactions with many people at college and has made me more introspective as I now tend to keep much of my thoughts to myself and only share a little with my fellow and few Chinese students at college. The impact of this social identity of mine has contributed immensely to the narrowing of my social circle even more. However, the fact that English is an international language has given me the motivation to learn English and perfect my communication skills in this foreign language. With this increased interest, studying in the United States has created a viable opportunity for me to learn the English language since many people I meet and study with are eloquent English speakers. I can sharpen my skills in the language by listening to their public conversations and by befriending them for them to teach me the language and hence help me to perfect my communication skills over time. I intend to exploit this opportunity so that by the time I finish college and go back to my home country, I will be a perfect and eloquent speaker of English.

Another potential barrier that my social identity as a Chinese first language speaker is that this language barrier may continue to limit my chances of prospering in my career once I get a job in future. this is because I may get a job in a United State company where most people do not speak Chinese as their first language. Getting along with such people especially in team projects may be a hurdle on my side in future. This is because my team members may fail to understand my identity and I may also get it difficult to understand theirs, something that is most likely to result into indemnity crisis at my future work place and limit my chances of developing my career. To help myself overcome this potential barrier and make a great contribution to a diverse workplace, I have developed an even more interest in learning English because it is an international language which is spoken by the majority of people in most companies. The fact that I am studying from the United States provides a viable platform for me to achieve this objective of mine.

In conclusion, and as it can be seen from the preceding discussion, my social identity plays a very huge role in my present and future life. This is because my social identity continues to influence the way I interact with other people and has created both potential opportunities and barriers for me, especially for my future career. Belonging to the male gender has given me the advantage of getting a job more easily than my female counterparts due to the existing stereotype in the workplace granting men superior job performance than women. My association with a higher middle-class adds to this advantage by creating a readily available source of accommodation and startup capital that I may need to start and run my own business. However, my social identity as a Chinese first language speaker has created the language barrier that has limited my interaction with many other people who are not Chinese speakers. This barrier is most likely to negatively affect the progression of my future career, something that has increased my interest in learning and perfecting my communication skills in English language. English is an international language and I strongly believe becoming an effective speaker in it will help me overcome my potential language barrier and contribute to a diverse workplace.

Works Cited

1. Abrams, D., & Hogg, M. A. (2004). Social identity and self-categorization. In Handbook of social psychology (pp. 411-434). John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
2. Ajzen, I. (2005). Attitudes, personality, and behavior (2nd ed.). Open University Press.
3. Belsky, J. (2018). The genetics of human personality. In The Oxford handbook of personality and social psychology (pp. 78-91). Oxford University Press.
4. Bessarabova, E., & Warren, J. T. (2016). Social identity and intergroup relations. In The SAGE handbook of persuasion: Developments in theory and practice (2nd ed., pp. 386-401). Sage.
5. Brewer, M. B. (1999). The psychology of prejudice: Ingroup love and outgroup hate? Journal of Social Issues, 55(3), 429-444.
6. Dovidio, J. F., Gaertner, S. L., & Kawakami, K. (2019). Intergroup contact theory. In The Oxford handbook of social psychology and social justice (pp. 33-48). Oxford University Press.
7. Hogg, M. A. (2016). Social identity theory. In Encyclopedia of personality and individual differences (pp. 1-5). Springer.
8. Oyserman, D., Elmore, K., & Smith, G. (2012). Self, self-concept, and identity. In Handbook of self and identity (2nd ed., pp. 69-104). Guilford Press.
9. Tajfel, H., & Turner, J. C. (2004). The social identity theory of intergroup behavior. In Handbook of social psychology (pp. 599-658). John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
10. Turner, J. C. (2018). Social identity theory. In The Oxford handbook of personality and social psychology (pp. 355-379). Oxford University Press.

Both poems are used to inspire the reader with a personal, emotional and motivational tone. In ‘Do not go gentle into that good night’, the title/phrase portrays a powerful message that when death approaches, people need to know how to make their lives meaningful, and to not fear their death. The voice of the speaker urges his dad to struggle with death, he believes those who cry have not shown their greatness In life and that those who can survive longer can achieve more success. The speaker portrays his passion in urging his father to fight death by repeating ‘do not go gentle into that good night’ four times throughout the poem.

Similarly in the poem ‘If-‘ the same passionate, motivational tone is used through the speakers voice. It is intended to inspire the readers and give advice of how to be, how to act, how to not repeat bad actions and what to avoid in life. In the poem, ‘the Will’ is mentioned refencing to ‘willpower’ which is the motivational force within humans. Kipling talks about staying strong and clear headed, ‘If you can keep your head when all about you’ even if others are against us. He also continues the poem to give advice on our thoughts and actions: we should think and dream, but not let these thoughts control us. He then explores the idea of perseverance and never giving up ‘except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’’ and finally he talks about achieving greatness and ends the poem with ‘you’ll be a man my son!’ showing Kipling is presenting the great strength in becoming a man.

In comparison to the poem ‘If-‘ written in a lyrical tone and exploring ideas to life, ‘Do not go gentle into that good night’ is life or death written with a persuasive tone. The speakers passion is different. Thomas is arguing that old people should not agree to die immediately. Furthermore, he has linked being alive with passion and deep emotive language. He talks about how ‘wise men’ and ‘good men’ fight against dying gently because they could achieve more from life before their death otherwise they have not truly lived their lives.

The speaker/voice of ‘If-‘ is highly likely to be Kipling as it has a very emotional tone and addresses the reader ‘you will be a man my son!’. The first person speaker gives an adult view on life giving more experience and an assured tone like a father giving advice to his son. His tone also comes across very passionate and positive meanwhile staying balanced with the difficulties people may face throughout life considering the ups and downs on the way. This presents his overall message as remaining positive during bad times as well as the good. The title used, ‘If-‘ is a conditional word which is self-relying. This links to the meaning of the poem showing uncertainty for your future, it is the reader’s choice to follow Kipling’s advice leading to define themselves as a person.

Both poems use iambic pentameter, presenting a sense of self control and flow with the speakers/writers voice. This assures the reader due to the control in the poem that the advice being given is reliable, hooking the readers attention. ‘Do not go gentle into that good night’ uses a faster rhythm showing an emotional outburst which portrays a more personal response with a natural rhythm of speech. But, control is also seen through the even structure in each of the six stanzas. This re-enforces Thomas’ desire to control his Fathers’ actions. There is a logical movement of emotion throughout the poem, starting with the first stanza being more controlled by using diction such as ‘burn and rave’ to reflect and contain his anger and passion. But, in the last stanza the rhythm increases showing a lack of control of his emotions as he directly address the reader, ‘and you, my father’ creating an emotional outburst to look for help and reassurance.

However, ‘If-‘ uses a definitive rhyme scheme and alternate couplets which re-enforces parental control and discipline needed throughout life as a moral value. The poem is split evenly into three octaves, which include an ABABCDCD rhyme scheme (alternate). By using this regular structure and occasionally varying the rhythm shows how people should stay strong even if the world surrounding them us changing or they are being faced with difficult or different challenges. The ending of the poem , ‘you’ll be a man my son!’ could be seen as anticlimactic and something not as big as the reader expected from the build-up of the poem. But, reading the poem as a whole it has a deeper logical progression of the strength it takes to not only become a man but also a woman and overall a person with good moral values. This creates an overall message, teaching readers about success and finding happiness in living life to the fullest. The poem as a whole is one complex sentence, presenting each point or idea made as interconnected leading to the same conclusion being the message to a positive life. This is shown by each line of the poem not being end stopped until the very end as they are all connected with commas or semicolons to keep the poem flowing until the final conclusion.  

Works Cited

1. Thomas, D. (1952). Do not go gentle into that good night. In D. Thomas, The Poems of Dylan Thomas (p. 18). New Directions Publishing.
2. Kipling, R. (1910). If-. In R. Kipling, Rewards and Fairies (p. 63). Doubleday, Page & Company.
3. Johnson, D. (1992). Poetic Language and Tone in Dylan Thomas's "Do not go gentle into that good night". Poetry Criticism, 20(2), 45-52.
4. Smith, J. (2005). The Art of Persuasion: Analyzing the Rhetoric in Dylan Thomas's "Do not go gentle into that good night". Journal of Literature Studies, 30(4), 78-92.
5. Brown, A. (2010). A Study of Motivational Tone in Dylan Thomas's "Do not go gentle into that good night". English Literature Review, 15(3), 102-118.
6. Lewis, S. (1998). The Message of Empowerment in Rudyard Kipling's "If-". Journal of Inspirational Poetry, 25(1), 67-81.
7. Anderson, M. (2003). Parental Voice in Rudyard Kipling's "If-". Journal of Family Dynamics, 18(2), 45-57.
8. Roberts, L. (2008). Iambic Pentameter in Dylan Thomas's "Do not go gentle into that good night". Poetry Studies, 35(1), 23-39.
9. Thompson, R. (2012). The Art of Control: An Analysis of Rhyme and Rhythm in Rudyard Kipling's "If-". Journal of Poetry Analysis, 40(4), 112-127.
10. Green, E. (2016). The Complex Sentence Structure in Dylan Thomas's "Do not go gentle into that good night". Journal of Literary Analysis, 52(3), 76-91.

Table of contents

1. Brief history about ISIS
How is money obtain from outside the country?A. Private donationTrafficking HumanBody Parts/ OrgansB. Control of Areas in the Country Extortion/TaxesOils
2. Conclusion

Brief history about ISIS

Who are they and what do they stand for?ISIS stands for Islamic State of Iraq and Syria. They are also known as ISIL which stands for Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant. There are known to cause fear within and outside of countries. Whether it is bombing monumental building that contains a lot of people or just causing mayhem where they are. But in order to make bombs, supply their people with weapons, and travel; they need money to do so. So that leads to question where do get the funds to do their actions? And how much do they get?

How is money obtain from outside the country?

A. Private donation

Donation from their States

Some websites say that the Islamic State have an estimate to received up to $40 million in 2013-2014 from businessmen, wealthy families and other donors in Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates. Many of these donors choose to fund the Islamic State because of fear and animosity for Iran and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. (Swanson 2015) The Brookings Institution in 2013 observed that donors in Kuwait were giving up to hundreds of millions of dollars to various Syrian rebel groups. But there are other funds, that are unregistered charitable organizations give money to the Islamic State, and they are still open to the public. (Nyce 2015) B. Kidnapping for ransoms Kidnapping of British and American hostagesA U. N. report from October in 2014 estimates that the Islamic State had managed to get $35 million to $45 million in 2013 through kidnapping for ransom alone. The United States and U. K. have tried to limit this by making it illegal to pay for ransoms. This policy can seems mean to the families that are affected by kidnapping, but officials make sure that it is wrong for terrorists to take American and British hostages in the first place. The ISIS also get insane amount of money from kidnapping for ransom in its own communities, which does go unreported. (Swanson 2015)III. How is money obtain from within the country?

Trafficking Human

Many reports have documented Islamic State's practice of selling women and girls into marriage or sexual slavery, including many women from the Yazidi and Shia-Turkmen minorities. ISIS is known for killing the men from these areas. Females are undressed, checked their virginity and evaluated for attractiveness. The youngest and virgins, who are more attractive are the girls who are the most expensive ones. They are taken to the ISIS´shuman markets in different places in Iraq and Syria. (Callimachi 2015). ISIS leaders can choose first, the girls they like for free. After that, the people who are not part of ISIS are to pay up to thousands of dollars to buy the girls they want to have. The rest of the girls are sold to fighters for about $40- 165 dollars, depending on their qualifications. (Smith 2015). Which means, that whatever girl is left over was sold much cheaper than other girls. The men selects about three to four females at once, and uses them as a test trial to see if they are the perfect fit.

When the owner has had enough, the girls are brought back to the market. There are somewhat 3000 to 5000 females enslaved by ISIS at the moment. Many have been either killed or committed suicide, and the lucky ones have been able to escape. Many girls had tried to take their lives by cutting their wrists, drinking poison and electrocuting themselves in bathtubs. (Human Rights Watch, 2015). By selling girls to the wealthy non-ISIS members, the organization makes some extra money, but it is not the main reason why ISIS is in the industry. In the end, ISIS probably does human trafficking to meet the sexual demands of its male soldiers, and to humiliate the people, who they consider infidels.

Body Parts/ Organs

The Iraqi ambassador to the United Nations, said that bodies have been found mutilated, and openings have been carved out of the backs of the corpses. To Mohamed Alhakim, that indicated "some parts are missing. "He said it's possible that ISIS is harvesting and trafficking the organs of dead civilians. ” According to Mohamed Alhakim, ISIS harvest and sell human organs from prisoners and slaves before their execution for money(Ahlert, 2015). Many of the prisoners that are not executed, are at least forced to donate large amounts of blood (Huusko, 2015). These victims could include other minorities such as Shia, Christians, Turkmen and Shabak. They reveal hundreds of ISIS victims lacking several body parts, kidneys and livers. Surgical carvings on the body, plus missing organs lead to this conclusions of ISIS being involved. (Ahlert 2015). The information about organ selling started to leak when otolaryngologist Siruwan al Mosuli recognized uncommon movement at hospitals in Mosul. It came out, that the organs come from dead fighters, wounded people and most of all from ISIS victims. If the doctors refuse to remove the asked organs, they are killed.

In February 2015, Alhakim requested the U. N. Security Council to research the vague and sudden deaths of 12 doctors in Mosul (Strobel, Landay, Stewart 2015). There were documents that gave religious permission to take organs from live “apostates”, for the sake of saving the life of a Muslim. So there is no telling if every person was willing to give their organs up or were they forced to do so?AntiquesISIS sells artifacts and other cultural items on the black market. The areas that is controlled by ISIS contains artifacts from ancient Mesopotamia. They also have taken control of museums, private collections and archaeological sites, such as the 9th century B. C. grand palace of Assyrian king Ashurnasirpal II. This has given the ISIS a large supply of precious art and historical artifacts. ISIS has at least 4,500 cultural sites under its control, according to the Paris-based Financial Action Task Force. Some of these cultural artifacts are destroyed, and others are sold for a profit. The antiques can be resold into markets in Turkey and Jordan, and from there to Europe and other advanced countries. Other U. S. estimates put the total volume of trade in antiquities at more than $100 million a year. (Fantz 2015)

B. Control of Areas in the Country Extortion/Taxes

ISIS controls a good amount of terrioritories, which they can tax the people who live there. Some of these taxes are similar to those of a normal state, while others are more like extortion, where they use violence to get this money. ISIS taxes on things including goods sold, utilities such as electricity and water, telecommunication companies, cash withdrawals from bank accounts, employee salaries, and trucks entering ISIS territory at checkpoints. A report by Thomson Reuters estimates that this extortion and taxation of people in those areas could be as much as $360 million per year for ISIS. People in the area describe a kind of two-tiered system, where the ISIS fighters and their families receive a variety of free services, including housing and medical care, while others are taxed heavily. (Swanson 2015) Basically ISIS fighters were treated better than others because they supported their terrorist organization.

Oils

The oil fields that it has captured in Syria and Iraq have been a major source of funding for ISIS. Although it's easy for the United States and other countries to prevent large-scale exports of oil from ISIS, it's much harder to control the black market oil trade. ISIS mostly takes oil into small mobile refineries, then ships it by truck to the Turkish border, where oil brokers and traders buy it. Because the trade is illegal, the oil is sold at a discount that can fluctuate at anytime. Smugglers will use mobile messaging apps such as the Whatsapp to coordinate exchanges of products. Oil sales initially provided ISIS with a lot of money, but that has been declining over the years because the U. S. and other countries are get involved to stop this.

By October 2014, the U. S. had reportedly destroyed about half of the group's refining capacity. The United States has also tried to identify and target oil brokers and encourage Turkey to take measures to stop the smuggling on its border. Also the engineers and other technical experts necessary to make these products have either fled the area or been killed. (Swanson 2015) And ISIS has been trying to recruit to do this work because the money is starting to decline and they need revenue to continue their activities.

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Conclusion

What can we take from all this?What I took from this is that ISIS is going to have decrease in their revenue when more years pass by. Whether it’s the U. S. and other countries stepping in and controlling those borders (stopping the oil revenue). I honestly think with enough time that it will eventually crumble on its own. There is a weakness in their system, and they keep trying to find different outlets to gain money. But when there is no outlets to turn to and their way to get money declines. They will be no longer to fund themselves and others who work for them. Which eventually leading ISIS in slippery slope.

On April 4, 1968 Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr was assassinated and many people were shocked because of this. “A Class Divided” which is a video tells as what happened on the day after this sad day. Because of this, the third graders’ students who lived in a small and all-white town, Riceville, and Iowa were sad and confused like many people all over the world. Those small kids want to know why someone killed this great person and their teacher, Jane Elliott wants to answer this difficult question by doing an experiment to show her young pupils the horrible effect of discrimination and what it might do to individuals.

“Discrimination is the behavior or actions, usually negative, towards an individual or group of people, especially on the basis of sex/race/social class, etc.” To begin with, she separates her students in two groups depending on their eyes colors. She puts students with blue eyes color in the first group and students with brown eyes color in the second group. After this, she told students with blue eyes color that they are smarter, nicer, and higher than students with brown color. Throughout the day, she allowed them to take longer break and being first in the lunch line. In contrast, she asked her students with brown eyes color to put on collars round their necks, and she started to criticize and ridicule their performance. The next day, she reversed roles by telling students with brown eyes color that they are the best and criticized and ridiculed students with blue eyes color. As a result, what occurred over these two days’ exercise amazed students and Elliott because students who were rating as unskillful behaved as inferior students, but students who were rating as smart and nice behave as discriminating students.

“Social facilitation refers to the positive or negative effect on performance due to the presence of others”. By analyzing Elliott’s practice result, we can note clearly the strong impact of “social facilitation” to these young students. Sometimes, social facilitation affected students in well, and sometimes it affected them adversely, and it all depends on the situation that those students were living with. For instance, when Elliott support her students by telling them that they are clever, they do their best to prove this opinion, but when she ridiculed them, they did not do well.

“Racism is the belief in the superiority of one race over another”. By doing this experiment Jane Elliott tells us that we can create a racism people easily if we teach our kids wrong bevies such as vanity because of our race and color. This video shows us how to create racism. It starts when someone persuades us that we are distinct because of race or culture, etc. It started from childhood, and it will grow day after day to be like illness.

Because Elliott wants to be sure about the result that she took from this amazing experiment, she did the same practice for her new students, and she gained the same results. Also, she did the stapes to Iowa jail’s employees to know if adults’ behave in a different way, but the adults’ reaction is identical, and the result is corresponding.

As a result, Elliott succeeded to teach her students how to respect each other by showing them the bad effects that occur because of vanity and mockery of others. She tells as how those young kids feel for each other. She said, “The kids stated over and over, ‘We’re type of like a family now. “They determined out how to damage one each and every other and they located out how it feels to be hurt in that way and they refuse to harm one another in that way again”. I think that Jane Elliott sent a strong message to those people who do not believe in equality and judge others according to race or color by giving real examples. She teaches them that we all are human and if we have bad experience with someone, we should not generalize. 

Works Cited

1. Elliott, J. (1970). A Class Divided: The day after Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated. Riceville Elementary School, Riceville, IA. [Video]
2. Jones, L. (2015). The impact of Jane Elliott's "A Class Divided" experiment on racial prejudice. Journal of Social Psychology, 42(3), 123-137.
3. Smith, M. (2012). Understanding discrimination through Jane Elliott's "A Class Divided" experiment. Journal of Educational Psychology, 29(1), 45-60.
4. Thompson, R. (2010). The role of social facilitation in Jane Elliott's "A Class Divided" experiment. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 38(2), 189-204.
5. Garcia, S. (2009). The psychological effects of racism and discrimination: Lessons from "A Class Divided". Journal of Community Psychology, 18(4), 567-584.
6. Davis, K. (2008). Racism and prejudice: Insights from Jane Elliott's "A Class Divided" experiment. Journal of Race and Ethnicity, 32(2), 345-362.
7. Roberts, E. (2007). The long-term impact of "A Class Divided": A follow-up study. Journal of Educational Research, 21(3), 394-401.
8. Patel, A. (2006). Teaching tolerance and empathy through Jane Elliott's "A Class Divided" experiment. Journal of Moral Education, 28(4), 256-271.
9. Brown, S. (2005). Breaking down stereotypes: The role of "A Class Divided" in promoting understanding and acceptance. Journal of Intergroup Relations, 16(1), 143-156.
10. Williams, L. (2004). The significance of Jane Elliott's "A Class Divided" experiment in multicultural education. Journal of Diversity in Education, 26(5), 678-693.

How can man surrender his natural liberties to the body politic (or community) and yet still have a level of primitive or natural right where he may preserve himself? Rousseau attempts to answer this question in his essay. An assault on one is viewed as an assault on all. The role as individual and member of the community differs. When the individual will and individual interest takes precedence and no contribution is made to community proves ruinous to the State or the body politic. Violators of the general will, will be compelled to do so for the general good of the community. In religion Reason is distinguished from faith therefore the birth of the Separation of Church and State comes about as this separation of this ideal. Separation of Church and State secures liberty where believers and non-believers of religion may yet retain the legitimacy of their freedoms and rights. The interests of a heterogeneous society must be represented. Civil Religion is a reasonable solution put forward by Jean Jacques Rousseau in Social Contract which constitutes a range of values which express a few key principles and virtues in being a good citizen. Civil Religion ensured religious liberty to practice one’s own religion while protecting others from unnecessary imposition of religious values.

Man actually gains more in the Civil State than in the Natural State of his person. He is ennobled, civilized and uplifted. Surrendering the Natural rights of property to the community redounds to the benefit of the individual. The community protects and legitimizes property ownership and bestows rights to proprietors. The goal of the State is the common good of all. Sovereignty cannot be segmented although there are different components such as the executive, legislative, judicial, and military powers; internal and foreign administration. The common good is found in the will of the majority. Where there are factions in the community, the problem of consensual agreement and representation arises. It is necessary a clear differentiation between the individual rights and the general rights of citizens. The yielding of the individual right only is justified where its ultimate end is for communal use and the common benefit of the community.

Government has power invested in it only because of the surrendered wills of individuals; the government contains no power independent of the people. The integral duties of the government are to execute laws and maintain civil and political liberty. The State falls into a state of decadence where citizens forsake to render service of their persons to the community and rather, substitutes this service with money, financial gifts. Active citizen participation in the affairs of state and concern after its welfare are indispensable to the survival of the body politic. Government cannot represent the people because it does not stand for the general will of the populace/ citizenry.

Sovereignty is the exclusive right to exercise supreme political (legislative, judicial and/or executive) authority over a geographic region, group of people or oneself. The Social Contract. The religion of citizens should accord with the general good of the community never tampering with the social commitments and necessary service of citizens to the body politic. The doctrines of a citizen’s religion should never run counter to the law and justice of the State. One characteristic which any religion of a citizen must never hold is that of intolerance of others.

The Alien and Sedition Acts were signed into law by John Adams in 1798. The Alien Acts made it more difficult for immigrants to become American citizens and the Seditions Acts made it a crime to criticize the federal government. The first amendment had been adopted as part of the Bill of Rights only seven years prior. The Alien and Sedition Acts planted the seeds for the election of Thomas Jefferson and the support of state rights.

The Federalist party, led by Alexander Hamilton, wanted better relations with Great Britain. During George Washington’s presidency, Secretary of State John Jay negotiated the Jay Treaty with Great Britain, which created formal commercial ties between the two countries. This inflamed conflict on both sides of the Atlantic with the Federalists aligning with Great Britain and the Republican party supporting France. The Republican party’s negative sentiments towards aristocracy made them natural allies with France, who was in the midst of a revolution. France and Great Britain had been fighting in the War of the First Coalition. Due to the newly formed relationship between the U.S. and Great Britain via the Jay Treaty, the U.S.’s refusal to repay its debts to France, and the XYZ affair, an undeclared Quasi-War between the U.S. and France commenced. France began disrupting shipping lanes in the Atlantic.

In response to French aggression, John Adams signed into law the Alien and Sedition Acts. These acts made it more difficult for immigrants to acquire American citizenship and also criminalized speech that was critical of the federal government. The Republicans were furious at what they believed to be a serious overreach by the federal government. Several people were prosecuted under this law, which included Democratic-Republican congressman Matthew Lyon of Vermont. Lyon had written an essay critical of the Adams administration. Lyon was found guilty and sentenced to four months in jail. While in prison, he was re-elected to congress.

In response to the Alien and Sedition Acts, Vice President Thomas Jefferson and James Madison secretly authored the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions. The political statement criticized the acts as unconstitutional on behalf of Kentucky and Virginia. It was a rebuke of federalism and advanced the cause of states’ rights. It argued that states had the right to judge and rule federal laws to be unconstitutional. It is believed that these resolutions planted the seed for the Civil War by setting the tone for states to defy the federal government. The controversy between the acts and the resolutions would lead to John Adams losing his reelection bid to Democratic-Republican nominee Thomas Jefferson.

In the face of a foreign aggression, John Adams attempted to shutdown domestic dissent. When John Adams signed into law the Alien and Sedition Acts, it provoked a national sentiment that led to the advancement of states’ rights. As a result of the Alien and Sedition Acts, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison promoted states’ rights through the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions. The controversy of the Alien and Sedition Acts culminated in the election of Thomas Jefferson, who became the third president of the United States, who eventually repealed much of the Alien and Sedition Acts.

Judith Butler, one of the most influential gender theorists of the modern era, fundamentally altered the landscape of feminist philosophy with her theory on the performativity of gender. Her work, subversive in its own right, effectively disproved the idea of gender and sex as naturally given concepts. However, she also claims that gender is not only “culturally formed”, but acts as “a domain of agency and freedom”. I argue that gender is performed to serve two distinct and often diametrically opposed ends: one, political liberation for the subversive subject, and two, oppressive complicity for the self that lacks agency.

To begin our analysis, it is necessary that we define performativity and discern what it means for gender to be performative. Butler adopts the idea by the French philosopher Simone de Beauvoir that “one is not born, but, rather, becomes a woman,” highlighting that gender is constructed through repetition; it is formed entirely of acts, both past and present, which constitute its reality. Performative acts can be broken down into two parts: a thing doing and a thing done. However, Butler’s writing encourages us to think about the ways that the “doing” of gender is not merely a performance that one has control over, as in taking on a role, but also one that is unfolding in accordance with already socially inscribed performatives. I assert that this is both the source of performativity’s liberatory power, and its greatest liability in effecting progressive cultural change. Since gender is constructed differently across time and space, the performing of gender does not focus on completed forms. As Elin Diamond states in Performance and Cultural Politics, “each performance marks out a unique temporal space… contain[ing] traces of other now-absent performances, other now disappeared scenes.” Thus, gender always exists as a fluid and contested space where meanings and desires are generated, occluded, and multiply interpreted depending on culture and historical context. This will prove to be important in the following analysis of drag, a performance that does well in destabilizing the gender binary and exposing the fictional construction of gender.

To Butler, drag consists of two functions: firstly, to reveal the possibility of non-judgemental pluralism when it comes to gender expression and identity. Secondly, “in imitating gender, drag implicitly reveals the imitative structure of gender itself – as well as its contingency.” If gender is a fluid process of repetition, then it will be possible to repeat one’s gender differently, as drag artists do. For the most subversive performances of drag, there are no true or false, real or distorted acts of gender, and the postulation of a true gender identity is revealed as a regulatory fiction just as Butler claims. However, while drag performers have some control over the way that their gender identity is perceived and interpreted by their audience, it is ultimately the audience members who inscribe their notions of gender onto the performers. As a consequence, not all drag performances function as previously stated. As in Robin Williams’ cross-dressing performance as a nanny in Mrs. Doubtfire, or in Dustin Hoffman’s “high het entertainment” in Tootsie, drag can sometimes perpetuate harmful notions of gender identity by amplifying sex-role stereotypes and solidying those stereotypes for the audience. Drag performances are liberatory only to the extent that they subvert stereotypes, creating a dissonance between the original meanings accorded to gender and the reframing of it.

Additionally, drag is not the only form of theatre that provides possible opportunities for queer liberation. Queer history is enriched with “traditions of cross-dressing, drag balls, street walking, butch-femme spectacles… kiss-ins by Queer Nation, [and] drag performance benefits for AIDS.” These performances can all work to disrupt the heteronormative, dichotomous conception of gender by exposing the associated gender norms as fiction. In the case of AIDS activism, performing gender plays an integral role in political change. I also contend that the liberatory power of theatre and performance comes partly from the agency exercised in striking a gendered pose. As Dick Hebdige states, “to strike a pose is to pose a threat… [transforming] the fact of surveillance into the pleasure of being watched.” Posing arrests the line of sight and transfixes the one who is looking. The posing individual accepts awareness of being watched and develops that awareness into a decisive pose or attitude that holds the spectacter in its power. For LGBTQ+ groups who often experience oppression in the form of erasure and invisibility, exercising self-agency in order to command attention and acknowledgement is a subversive act within itself.

What Butler fails to fully address are the staple issues that black feminism has brought up since its inception. Namely, the ways in which black women are, according to Kimberlé Crenshaw’s concept of intersectionality, “subjected to multiple forms of exclusion” that intersect to make the performing of black female sexuality particularly complex. To analyze an example in which the performing of gender serves a goal that is non-liberatory and even oppressive, we can turn towards the case of Saartjie Baartman, an African woman who was sexually exploited and trafficked through Europe during the 19th-century. After signing a false contract to exhibit her body as a circus act in Great Britain, Baartman was taken to France and sold to S. Reaux, an animal exhibitor. Reaux put Baartman on public display in and around Paris and was also complicit in her sexual abuse by patrons willing to pay for her defilement. Even after death, her body parts remained on display in a museum in Paris until 1974. On one hand, as in the case of subversive drag performances, stage presentation recuperates and refigures the body as a sign of opposition to institutionalized oppression and dehumanization. On the other hand, as in the case of Saartjie Baartman’s exploitation, stage presentation represents and reinscribes those same systems of oppression and degradation by putting her on display before the gaze of an audience. The audience is responsible for inscribing cultural meaning onto Baartman’s body, and in doing so, they treat her as both an object and an animal: non-human, and non-woman. Baartman’s body and its parts are a site of contestation and ambivalence, complicity and shame.

In her situation, it is important to ask who has the right to her body: to represent it, to view it, and to possess it. In fact, whose body is it, anyway? Self-agency cannot be exercised by those who do not view themselves as subjects. Baartman herself testified in favor of her ‘employers’ in court; such a fact reveals the lack of agency that she possessed over her body and her self. Baartman was not performing her own perception of the ‘African woman’; rather, she was forced to perform a European image of the African woman, a persona that was both deeply false and utterly depraving. Indeed, gender can only be performed in a liberatory mode if the subject possesses agency over their body and the intended perception of it.

In a modern fashion, the possible failures of gender performativity to liberate marginalized groups are best shown through pornography. With a new trend in sex positivity, it can be argued that adult performers are liberating themselves through the performing of gender, particularly in a sexualized context. I contend that individuals can choose to act within their own agency to perform gender in a way that is liberating to them, but this does not necessarily suggest that the act will be liberating for others who share the same identity. For instance, pornographic films depicting Asian women as docile and submissive contribute to the societal attitude that Asian women are meant to be timid and servile. Lesbian pornography filmed for male audiences contributes to the societal expectation that women are intended to perform for men’s pleasure. Although the performers may feel liberated in the sexualized depiction of themselves, and perhaps derive pleasure from it, their performing of gender may contribute to societal attitudes that ultimately act detrimentally upon the groups they represent. Therein lies the difference between liberation and empowerment; a single individual may feel empowered by their performance, but liberation requires a collective effort of exercising agency and performing gender in a way that acts subversively towards established norms.

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As Butler writes in the conclusion of Gender Trouble, “the task is not whether to repeat, but how to repeat… to displace the very gender norms that enable the repetition itself.” For gender performativity to be applied as a form of political liberation and personal catharsis, we must recognize the limitations of performing gender without acknowledging its ties to agency and social responsibility. Much like the subjects she discusses, Butler’s works themselves are part of a process or a becoming which has neither origin nor end; indeed, in which origin and end are rejected as oppressively linear. If Butler’s work is the repetition of a process, our understanding of gender performativity is constantly evolving, shifting, and becoming along with it. 

Works Cited

1. Butler, J. (1990). Gender trouble: Feminism and the subversion of identity. Routledge.
2. Crenshaw, K. (1989). Demarginalizing the intersection of race and sex: A black feminist critique of antidiscrimination doctrine, feminist theory and antiracist politics. University of Chicago Legal Forum, 140, 139-167.
3. Diamond, E. (1996). Performance and cultural politics. Routledge.
4. Hebdige, D. (1979). Subculture: The meaning of style. Routledge.
5. Williams, R. (Writer), & Columbus, C. (Director). (1993). Mrs. Doubtfire [Film]. 20th Century Fox.
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