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An anarchy is a state of disorder which occurs due to the absence of an overarching power in the international system. It is a world in which there are no laws or rules to dictate state behaviour (Tucker,1897; p.13). The idea of anarchy is regarded differently depending on which international relation theory is used. A political realist believes that an anarchical society leads states to defend themselves as they seek power. Whereas a political liberalist believes that states and non-state actors can unite by setting up rules and institutions to benefit the world.
Get original essayRealists would argue that anarchy is an unsurmountable obstacle to a peaceful international system because they are concerned with their own security and safety of the state which enables them to act upon their own national interests. A realist believes that states are only substantial in international politics when there is no central authority to control and regulate the nation-states which leads to conflict and war as each state aims to protect their own and survive. A central idea of the realist approach to anarchy is that the rules of the international system has no central authority which means that anarchy is perceived as a “lack of central government to enforce rules” and protect states (Goldstein and Pevehouse: 2007; p.73). The nonexistence of an authority greater than nation-states leads to a self-help system which is perceived as “a brutal arena where states look for opportunities to take advantage of each other”(Lebow: 2007:55). This can be connected to the perception that the state of anarchy will lead to conflict and war. These views demonstrate that realists have a largely pessimistic view of the international system (Grieco:1988) which suggests that because in anarchism there is an absence in international governing body, that states would pursue conflict in order to guarantee their own survival. For example, during world war two (1939-1945) the US invaded Japan by inserting atomic bombs in Hiroshima because their goal was to destroy Japans capability to wage war, to weaken its motivation to fight and to decrease casualties for the US. The US believed that if you terminate the enemy’s aims to wage war then the war is won.
The US invaded Japan only because of survival and the self-help system which are core element of a realist view. The deficiency of an authority greater than nation-states leads to self-help among the states. Therefore, a realist’s view would demonstrate that anarchy would lead to an unsurmountable obstacle to a peaceful international system due to a lack of central authority. A political realist also believes that an anarchical system averts the security predicament from being overcome which also means that peace in the international system is inevitable. The security dilemma refers to a situation in which the actions by a state aims to improve its security, such as increasing the military power, being obliged to use weapons and forming alliances which leads to other states to resort with similar measures which usually tends to surge tensions that generates conflict. States aim to be dominant through gaining power in order to fulfill their interest which is national survival.
As states aim to improve its security this indicates that competition amongst states would occur due to insecurities. Morgenthau would argue that all politics “is a struggle for power” and in the international arena this struggle “cannot so readily be tamed” (Lebow: 2007:55).
This advocates that it is human nature to thrive for survival and power and although there have been restrictions to reduce the possibility of conflict in this struggle, without such limitations at an international level war will continue to be unavoidable. This view of politics that the struggle for power interlinks with the security dilemmas as it is simply explained as “a situation in which states’ actions taken to assure their own security tend to threaten the security of other states” (Goldstein and Pevehouse:2007:74). Realism would suggest that an anarchical international system avoids the security dilemma being overcome, which causes conflicts to rise. The security dilemma has helped display major events such as the first world war, the origins and the end of cold war. The security dilemma occurred at the beginning of world war one as European powers felt that they had to go to war due to insecurities over alliances of their neighbors in spite of not actually wanting war. Also, the US and Soviet Union were competing with military weapons during the cold war in the arms race. Although the Soviet Union and US never fought directly, however the conflict between them indirectly has led to variety local war such as the Korean war, the Vietnam war and the Soviet invasion of Hungary and Czechoslovakia. Realism would argue that it is unrealistic to think that anarchy can be defeated as the states will never feel protected enough to cede sovereignty to a greater authority in some form of international government which prepares them to improve their security so that they can survive and feel secure. A core element of a realist is that states will increase their national powers for survival. Overall, a realist would believe that politics is primarily about domination and building security in order to compete with each other which leads to conflict with other states and that is why anarchy is an unsurmountable obstacle to a peaceful international system.
In addition, a political liberalist believes that anarchy will not lead to scepticism andviolence since those in the international system can overcome conflict and war by cooperation and joint ventures. Liberalism can be defined as the “freedom for the individual” as it accepts that humans are moral natured beings. Liberalism’s moral belief stresses, human rights, individualism, freedom from authority, universality, right to be treated equally under the guard of law and duty to respect and treat others as “ethical subjects” as well as freedom for social action. (Doyle, 1983, pp.206-207; Fukuyma,1992, p.42). However, the idea of states pursuing their self-interest by joining cooperation’s adopts to the theory of realism as self-interest is a core element. Mearsheimer (1994) annotates that there is not a consistent war but “relentless security competition with the possibility of war looming in the background” (Mearsheimer,1994, p11; Waltz,1979, p.106). States operates on a zero-sum principle as they are present in a shape which requires them to pursue security which results in the final outcome being competition amongst the states and it creates the likelihood of states cheating their way out of an alliance to gain added power and security. Liberal states recognise that uniting with other states is useful for them as it is mainly valuable economically in the globalised world and the free trade system.
Organisations such as the WTO promote free market and states and they utilise the benefits of that to increase their economic profitability. It is essential to highlight that liberalist agree with realist theory on anarchy, and self-help international system. The major issue with institutions is that states will only cooperate and accept these institutions when it is in their national interest. For example, the UK is not accepting the money conversion of currency to euros as it is not in their national interest. This suggest that states are more powerful than organisations which supports realists as organisations cannot enable cooperation if the state does not have any interest to do so. Secondly, transforming countries into democratic, Liberals states is difficult. For example, the United states tried to get rid of an authoritarian leader in Iraq in order to promote peace in the country, the plan failed and produced nothing but disorder and chaos in Iraq. Overall, liberalists recognise the realist view that the natural human aggression which is consumed by individual states present in an anarchical international system can inspire them to seek power and mistrust other states which will make cooperation challenging to achieve. This is why anarchy is an unsurmountable obstacle to a peaceful international system due to states adapting to their national interest and self-help system which resembles the core elements of a realist.
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Get custom essayOverall, a political realist believes anarchy is an unsurmountable obstacle to a peaceful international system because they believe that states are only significant actors in international politics as there are no central authority to govern the nation states and that a state of anarchy occurs where war is an endless threat as each state aims to endure on its own and at the detriment of others, and they also believe that an anarchical system avoids the security predicament being overcome. Whereas a political liberalist believes that with states joining cooperation’s and joint ventures that anarchy would be an unsurmountable obstacle to a peaceful international system as they are largely dedicated to guaranteeing national survival and the pursuit of their national interests. States join cooperative systems out of their own choices due to self-help, survival and statist which are the core element of realism. Therefore, the theory of realism supports that anarchy is an unsurmountable obstacle to a peaceful international system.
Ancient China The civilization of Ancient China dates back thousands of years. Over this long period of time much of China was ruled by different dynasties. What is a dynasty? A dynasty is when one family rules a country or region over a long period of time. Generally, the head of the family will be the ruler of the land, like an emperor or king. When that ruler dies, another member of the family will take power, usually the oldest son. When a new family takes control, then a new dynasty begins.
Get original essayThe first Emperor of China Qin Shi Huangdi by Unknown Mandate of Heaven The Mandate of Heaven is what the Chinese people believed gave their rulers the right to be king or emperor. It meant that the gods had blessed that person with the right to rule. A ruler had to be a good and just ruler to keep the Mandate of Heaven. When a ruler or dynasty lost power, this meant that they must also have lost the Mandate of Heaven.
Major Dynasties Here are the major dynasties in the history of Ancient China: Xia (2205 to 1575 BC) - The first dynasty in China, very little is known about the Xia. Shang (1570 to 1045 BC) - The Shang ruled much of the area along the Yellow River. Their last capital city was the great city of Yin. Zhou (1045 to 256 BC) - The longest ruling dynasty in the history of China, the Zhou first used the Mandate of Heaven to justify their rule. Much of the land was ruled by feudal lords who were relatives of the Zhou family. Qin (221 BC to 206 BC) - The beginning of the Chinese Empire, Shi Huangdi became the first Chinese Emperor. Although this was a short dynasty much was accomplished including the beginning of the Great Wall; standards were set for weights, measures, and money; many roads and canals were built; and a single type of writing was used throughout the country.
All of these advancements would be used in future dynasties to make China strong. Han (206 BC to 220 AD) - The Han dynasty established the civil service to create a strong and organized government. Paper and porcelain were also invented during this time. The Han also embraced Confucianism, poetry, and literature. Six Dynasties (222 to 581 AD) - A period of time where China was not united under a single leader. Sui (589 to 618 AD) - The Sui unite China again under one rule. They also expanded the Great Wall and built the Grand Canal. Tang (618 - 907) - A period of peace and prosperity, the Tang rule is sometimes known as the Golden Age of Ancient China. Arts, literature, and technology all flourish.
The capital city Chang’an becomes the world’s largest city. Five Dynasties (907 - 960) - A peasant rebellion takes down the Tang dynasty and ushers in a period of division. Song (960 - 1279) - Reunited under the Song, China becomes a world leader in science and technology including inventions such as gunpowder and the compass. Yuan (1279 - 1368) - After the Mongols defeated the Song in a long war, Kublai Khan, a Mongol leader, established the Yuan dynasty. Ming (1368 - 1644) - The last of the great Chinese dynasties, the Ming finished the Great Wall and built the Forbidden City, an enormous palace for the Emperor. The Ming came into power by overthrowing the rule of the Mongols.
In 7th century AD, Hindu-Buddhist kingdom Sriwijaya rose in Sumatra as the first Indonesian commercial sea power capable to control most of the trade in Southeast Asia. this was because they were located in the Strait of Melaka. The Mataram and Sailendra dynasty was in its halcyon years. While trade gave Sriwijaya’s its wealth, kingdoms from the island of Java such as Mataram had far more human work at their agrarian societies. At the end of the 1900’s, the Mataram kingdom mysteriously disappeared. The nucleus shifted from Central to East Java and it was also, a time when Hinduism and Buddhism were syncretized and when Javanese culture began to develop.
Get original essayColonial Indonesia
In the early 1500’s the Portuguese arrived in Indonesia, with a huge demand in Europe for spices such as nutmeg, ginger, cinnamon, cloves, and mace. The Portuguese therefore decided to take over the central source of spice, the Moluccas. Following up, In 1511 they captured Melaka, a port city. They also captured the Moluccas. However, in the early 1600’s Dutch stole everything the Portuguese. In 1602 the Dutch East India Company was founded in order to manage trade with Indonesia. In 1641 they retook Melaka. However, by 1600 they had withdrawn from Indonesia. Moreover, during 1700, the Dutch East India Company fell into deep debt. In 1806 the Dutch and British declared war for Indonesia. The British easily conquered all the Dutch territories in Indonesia. During their reign, the British abolished slavery. However, in 1816 the British gave the Dutch Indonesia again.
Many Indonesians opposed the return of the mean Dutch. Despite, the Dutch eventually won and regained control. The Javanese war began in 1829. Yet, the war soon ended with the Dutch winning a quick victory in 1830. The Kultuurstelsel, meaning cultural system was soon introduced by the Dutch. Also, Indonesian farmers were forced to put aside 20% of their land to grow crops for export. Indonesians were forced to grow spices popular in Europe such as indigo, tea, pepper, cinnamon, and sugar. Luckily, In the early 1900s, the Indonesians were treated better. Ethical Policy was introduced. This meant more money maximizing well-being.
However the new policy had almost no change on the lives of most Indonesians. It did however mean fuel the clamoring for independence. Then, In 1942 the Japanese invaded Indonesia. At first the Indonesians thought of the Japanese as liberating heroes, but they soon found out the Japanese were brutal and they greedy. On 17th of August, Sukarno declared Indonesian independence. He became the first president and Hatta became vice-president. However, the Dutch were not in favor of Indonesian independence. In November, the Indonesians and Dutch signed the Linggajati pact. The Dutch honored the new government, but only did so in Java, they said the rest of present-day Indonesia was theirs. However, after a failed attempt, during 1948, the Dutch tried to reclaim Indonesia. However, by this time the Indonesians were skilled in guerilla warfare and were backed up by the US. Soon later the Dutch withdrew. At last, on November 2nd, 1949 the Dutch finally recognized Indonesian as its own country.
India is a country with a rich culture and heritage. But a very little is known to a few about the ancient india and its civilization than others. More is being learned and encountered from its literatures and puranas and from them we come to know that this is the place for many inventions in the fields of Astronomy, medicine, mathematics, engineering etc.. India has been a center stage for learning since ancient times. The oldest university like Nalanda is one of the good example. The land was most advanced in the fields of science. It has been a major source of wisdom to the world and has advanced in various fields like astronomy, numerology, arithmetic, mineralogy, metallurgy, logic, information and technology.
Get original essayIndus Valley Civilization has taught us many lessons . Historical evidences archaeologists prove the dominance of India in the field of science and technology from time to time.
Some of the ancient India’s contributions to the world, to name a few Buddhism and Hinduism; epic stories; many contributions in math including zero, decimals, square roots, algebra, number system 1-9; cures for over 1000 diseases; sewing needles; civil engineering and planned urban townships with sewer systems; the game of checkers, the game of chess, playing cards, snakes and ladders, polo, judo and karate; buttons, the spinning wheel, calico (a woven cotton material), muslim (material); shampoo; the ruler to measure inches; pre-fabricated homes and movable homes; diamonds used in jewelry, bangle bracelets; folk dances, the first flush toilet; high quality steel; the Tambora (musical instrument), and more! Wow! Human knowledge and activities are some of the areas that are covered in ancient and medieval India. Ancient India was a land of sages, saints, Bramhanas and seers as well as a land of scholars and scientists. In this present article we would like to mention some of the innovations made by our ancestors
Mathematics is one of the field which require a higher attention of human brain. India’s Vedic literature, which are around 4000 years old has a mention of mathematics. A number of mathematical treatises were proposed in India between 1000BC and 1000 AD. Will Durant, American historian (1885-1981) said that India was the mother of our philosophy of much of our mathematics. The modern world in now accepting the fact that India is the birth place of several mathematical concepts, including zero, he decimal system, algebra and algorithm, square root and cube root. Zero is a numeral as well as a concept. ‘Sunya’ is the indication of origin from the Indian philosophy which means 'void' and zero emerged as a derivative symbol to represent this philosophical concept. As a proof of Geometrical theories were known to ancient Indians we find displays in motifs on temple walls and gopuras, which are in many cases replete with mix of floral and geometric patterns. The method of graduated calculation was documented in a book named "Five Principles" (Panch-Siddhantika) which dates to 5th Century AD.A. L. Basham, an Australian Indologist, writes in his book, The Wonder That was India that "... the world owes most to India in the realm of mathematics, which was developed in the Gupta period to a stage more advanced than that reached by any other nation of antiquity. Indians had a clear conception of the abstract number as distinct from the numerical quantity of objects or spatial extension this was a clear indication of the success of Indian mathematics.
Algebraic theories and other mathematical concepts, which were in use in ancient India, were collected and further developed by Aryabhatta, an Indian mathematician, who lived in the 5th century, in the city of Patna, then called Pataliputra. He has referred to Algebra (as Bijaganitam) in his treatise on mathematics named Aryabhattiya. Another mathematician of the 12th century, Bhaskaracharya also authored several treatises on the subject - one of them, named Siddantha Shiromani has a chapter on algebra. He is known to have given a basic idea of the Rolle's theorum and was the first to conceive of differential calculus.
In 1816, James Taylor translated Bhaskaracharya's Leelavati into English. Another translation of the same work by English astronomer Henry Thomas Colebruke appeared next year in 1817. The credit for fine-tuning and internationalizing these mathematical concepts - which had originated in India - goes to the Arabs and Persians. Al-Khawarizmi, a Persian mathematician, developed a technique of calculation that became known as "algorism." This was the seed from which modern arithmetic algorithms have developed. Al-Khwarizmi's work was translated into Latin under the title Algoritmi de numero Indorum, meaning The System of Indian Numerals. A mathematician in Arabic is called Hindsa whichmeans from India. The 14th century Indian mathematician Madhava of Sangamagrama, along with other mathematicians of the Kerala school, studied infinite series, convergence, differentiation, and iterative methods for solution of non-linear equations. Jyestadeva of the Kerala school wrote the first calculus text, the Yuktibhasa, which explores methods and ideas of calculus repeated only in seventeenth century Europe.
India'scontributions to the world in the field of astronomy are well known The references to astronomy are found in the Rig Veda, which are dated 2000 BC. During next 2500 years, by 500 AD, ancient Indian astronomy has emerged as an important part of Indian studies and its affect is also seen in various theories of that period. In some instances, astronomical principles were borrowed to explain matters, pertaining to astrology, like casting of a horoscope The calculation to determine the occurrences of eclipses To determine the circumference of Earth. Determining the theory of gravitation Proof that sun was also a star and determination of number of planets under our solar system
The Pleiades are said to have been the wives of the seven sages, who are identified with the seven stars of the Great Bear. The Great Bear's Old Tamil name elu-meen 'seven-star' corresponds to the combination of the pictograms '7' + 'fish', which alone constitutes the entire text of one finely carved Indus seal. The Satapatha-Brahmana states that the six Pleiades were separated from their husbands on account of their infidelity; other texts specify that only one of the seven wives, Arundhati, remained faithful and was allowed to stay with her husband: she is the small star Alcor in the Great Bear, pointed out as a paradigm of marital virtue to the bride in the Vedic marriage ceremonie Evidence for the Harappan origin of this myth is provided, among other things, the evidence of Indus seals shows a row of six or seven human figures; their female character is suggested by one long plait of hair, which to the present day has remained characteristic of the Indian ladies.
The concept of atom in ancient India is derived from the classification of material world in five basic elements. These five 'elements' and such a classification exist since the Vedic times. These five elements were the earth (prithvi), fire (agni), air (vayu), water (jaal) and ether or space (aksha). These elements were also associated with human sensory perceptions: earth with smell, air with feeling, fire with vision, water with taste and ether/space with sound. They believed that the smallest particle which could not be subdivided further was paramanu (can be shortened to parmanu), a Sanskrit word. Paramanu is made of two Sanskrit words, param meaning ultimate or beyond and anu meaning atom.
Thus, the term "paramanu" literally means 'beyond atom' and this was a concept at an abstract level which indicated the possibility of splitting atom, which is now the source of atomic energy. Kanada, a 6th century, Indian philosopher was the first person who went deep systematically in such theorization. Another Indian, philosopher Pakudha Katyayana, also propounded the ideas about the atomic constitution of the material world. All these were based on logic and philosophy and lacked any empirical basis for want of commensurate technology. Similarly, the principle of relativity (not to be confused with Einstein's theory of relativity) was available in an embryonic form in the Indian philosophical concept of 'sapekshavad', the literal translation of this Sanskrit word is theory of relativity.
These theories have attracted attention of the Ideologists, and veteran Australian Ideologist A. L. Basham has concluded that they were brilliant imaginative explanations of the physical structure of the world, and in a large measure, agreed with the discoveries of modern physics.
Ancient India's development in chemistry was not confined to physics, but found development in a variety of practical activities. In any early civilization, metallurgy has remained an activity central to all civilizations from the Bronze Age and the Iron Age, to all other civilizations that followed. It is believed that the basic idea of smelting reached ancient India from Mesopotamia and the Near East. Coinage dating from the 8th Century B.C. to the 17th Century A.D. Numismatic evidence of the advances made by smelting technology in ancient
India. Nataraja the God of Dance is made of five metals Pancha-Dhatu. In the 5th century BC, the Greek historian Herodotus has observed that Indian and the Persian army used arrows tipped with iron. Ancient Romans were using armor and cutlery made of Indian iron. In India itself, certain objects testify to the higher level of metallurgy achieved by the ancient Indians. By the side of Qutub Minar, a World heritage site, in Delhi, stands an Iron Pillar. The pillar is believed to be cast in the Gupta period around circa 500 AD. The pillar is 7.32 meters tall, tapering from a diameter of 40 cm at the base to 30 cm at the top and is estimated to weigh 6 tonnes. It has been standing in the open for last 1500 years, withstanding the wind, heat and weather, but still has not rusted, except very minor natural erosion. This kind of rust proof iron was not possible till iron and steel was discovered few decades before.
The advance nature of ancient India's chemical science also finds expression in other fields, like distillation of perfumes and fragment ointments, manufacturing of dyes and chemicals, polishing of mirrors, preparation of pigments and colours. Paintings found on walls of Ajanta and Ellora (both World heritage sites) which look fresh even after 1000 years, also testify to the high level of chemical science achieved in ancient India.
Ayurveda as a science of medicine owes its origins in ancient India. Ayurveda consistsof two Sanskrit words - 'ayur' meaning age or life, and 'veda' which means knowledge. Thus, the literal meaning of Ayurveda is the science of life or longevity. Ayurveda constitutes ideas about ailments and diseases, their symptoms, diagnosis and cure, and relies heavily on herbal medicines, including extracts of several plants of medicinal values. This reliance on herbs differentiates Ayurveda from systems like Allopathy and Homeopathy. Ayurveda has also always disassociated itself with witch doctors and voodoo. Ancient scholars of India like Atreya, and Agnivesa have dealt with principles of Ayurveda as long back as 800 BC. Their works and other developments were consolidated by Charaka who compiled a compendium of Ayurvedic principles and practices in his treatise Charaka-Samahita, which remained like a standard textbook almost for 2000 years and was translated into many languages, including Arabic and Latin. 'Charaka-Samahita' deals with a variety of matters covering physiology, etiology and embryology, concepts of digestion, metabolism, and immunity. Preliminary concepts of genetics also find a mention, for example, Charaka has theorized blindness from the birth is not due to any defect in the mother or the father, but owes its origin in the ovum and the sperm.
In ancient India, several advances were also made in the field of medical surgery. Specifically these advances icluded areas like plastic surgery, extraction of catracts, and even dental surgery. Roots to the ancient Indian surgery go back to at least circa 800 BC. Shushruta, a medical theoretician and practitioner, lived 2000 years bebore, in the ancient Indian city of Kasi, now called Varanasi. He wrote a medical compendium called 'Shushruta-Samahita. This ancient medical compendium describes at least seven branches of surgery: Excision, Scarification, Puncturing, Exploration, Extraction, Evacuation, and Suturing. The compendium also deals with matters like rhinoplasty (plastic surgery) and ophthalmology (ejection of cataracts). The compendium also focuses on the study the human anatomy by using a dead body.
In ancient India Medical Science supposedly made many advances. Specifically theseadvances were in the areas of plastic surgery, extraction of cataracts, and dental surgery. There is documentary evidence to prove the existence of these practices. An artist's impression of an operation being performed in ancient India. In spite of the absence of anesthesia, complex operations were performed. The practice of surgery has been recorded in India around 800 B.C. This need not come as a surprise because surgery (Shastrakarma) is one ofthe eight branches of Ayurveda the ancient Indian system of medicine. The oldest treatise dealing with surgery is the Shushruta Samahita (Shushruta's compendium). Shusruta who lived in Kasi was one of themany Indian medical practitioners who included Atraya and Charaka. He was one of the first to study the human anatomy. In the Shusruta, Samahita he has described in detail the study of anatomy withthe aid of a dead body. Shusruta's forte was rhinoplasty (Plastic surgery)and ophthalmialogy (ejection of cataracts). Shushruta has described surgery under eight heads Chedya (excision), Lekhya (scarification),Vedhya (puncturing), Esya (exploration), Ahrya (extraction), Vsraya (evacuation) and Sivya (Suturing).
Yoga is a system of exercise for physical and mental nourishment. The origins of yoga are shrouded in antiquity and mystery. Since Vedic times, thousand of years before, the principles and practice of yoga have crystallized. But, it was only around 200 BC that all the fundamentals of yoga were collected by Patanjali in his treatise, named Yogasutra, that is, Yoga-Aphorisms. In short, Patanjali surmised that through the practice of yoga, the energy latent within the human body may be made live and released, which has a salubrious affect on the body and the mind. Now, in modern times, clinical practices have established that several ailments, including hypertension, clinical depression, amnesia, acidity, can be controlled and managed by yogic practices. The application of yoga in physiotherapy is also gaining recognition.
Gateway At Harappa: Indus Valley Civilization India's urban civilization is traceable to Mohenjodaro and Harappa, now in Pakistan, where planned urban townships existed 5000 years before. From then onwards, the ancient Indian architecture and civil engineering continued to develop and grow. It found manifestation in construction of temples, palaces and forts across the Indian peninsula and the neighbouring regions. In ancient India, architecture and civil engineering was known as sthapatya-kala, literal translation of which means the art of constructing (something). During the periods of Kushan Empire and Maurya empires, the Indian architecture and civil engineering reached to regions like Baluchistan and Afghanistan. Statues of Buddha were cut out, covering entire mountain faces and cliffs, like Buddhas of Bamiyan, Afghanistan. Over a period of time, ancient Indian art of construction blended with Greek styles and spread to Central Asia. On the other side, Buddhism took Indian style of architecture and civil engineering to countries like Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Malaysia, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Thailand, Burma, China, Korea and Japan. Angkor Wat is a living testimony to the contribution of Indian civil engineering and architecture to the Cambodian Khmer heritage in the field of architecture and civil engineering.
In mainland India of today, there are several marvels of ancient India's architectural heritage, including World heritage sites like Ajanta, Ellora, Khajuraho, Mahabodhi Temple, Sanchi, Brihadisvara Temple and Mahabalipuram.
Mechanical and production technology of ancient India ensured processing of natural produce and their conversion into merchandise of trade, commerce and export. A number of travelers and historians (including Megasthanes, Ptolemy, Faxian, Xuanzang, Marco Polo, Al Baruni and Ibn Batuta) have indicated a variety of items, which were produced, consumed and exported around that society's "known world" by the ancient Indians.
A panel found in Mohenjodaro depicts a sailing craft, and thousands of years later Ajanta murals also depict a sea-faring ship. The science of shipbuilding and navigation was well known to ancient Indians. Sanskrit and Pali texts are replete with maritime references, and ancient Indians, particularly from the coastal regions, were having commercial relations with several countries of across the Bay of Bengal like Cambodia, Java, Sumatra, Borneo, and even up to China. Similar maritime and trade relations existed with countries across theArabian Sea like Arabia, Egypt and Persia. Even around circa 500 AD, sextants and mariner's compass were not unknown to ancient Indian shipbuilders and navigators. J.L. Reid, a member of the Institute of Naval Architects and Shipbuilders, England, at around the beginning of the 20th century has got published in the Bombay Gazetteer that "The early Hindu astrologers are said to have used the magnet, in fixing the North and East, in laying foundations, and other religious ceremonies. The Hindu compass was an iron fish that floated in a vessel of oil and pointed to the North. The fact of this older Hindu compass seems placed beyond doubt by the Sanskrit word 'Maccha-Yantra', or 'fish-machine', which Molesworth gives as a name for the mariner's compass"
Cotton Gin is a machine used to separate cotton from the seeds. The evidence of this machine was found through the carvings on Ajanta caves where the pictures of these machines were engraved. Dating back to 500 AD, this hand roller machine was locally called Charkha. This machine has undergone changes through the course of time but the most primitive form of cotton gin originated from India.
Buttons are a major part of our clothing even today. Buttons were invented in India and various historical evidences and excavations prove that buttons were used by the people belonging to the Indus Valley Civilization. Shells were given various shapes and were pierced into a hole. Earlier they were used more as an embellishment but were gradually used to fasten clothes.
Natural fibers like wool, cotton and plant originated from India. Evidences show that people of the Indus Valley used cotton and India pioneered the art of cotton spinning and used it in making fabric. Jute, a plant fiber, was cultivated in India since ancient times and was later exported to other countries. Cashmere wool, which is supposed to be the finest wool was first made in Kashmir and was used to make hand- made shawls. These shawls have maintained their richness and exclusivity even today.
Leprosy was first noticed by Indians and various ancient remedies are also mentioned in the Atharva Veda. Lithiasis treatment or the treatment for eradicating stones was first introduced in India. Small Pox vaccinations were first cured in India and symptoms and ways of immunization against small pox were mentioned in 8 th century by Madhav. Ayurveda and Siddha are the two primitive methods of treatment that originated in India and are still used as an alternate way of treatment. Theywere used for holistic healing and ancient sages of India mastered this treatment method. Another Indian medical practitioner named Upendra Nath Bramhachari invented methods to treat Visceral Leishmaniasis or Kala Azar. This Nobel Laureate was responsible for the eradication of this ailment.
Diamonds were first mined in India. Huge deposits of diamonds were found in Central India and it gradually developed as a precious stone. India till 18 th century was the only country where diamonds were found and were later on exported to other countries. Indians were well aware of the physical properties of diamond like its durability, ability to cut other hard surfaces, sparkling effect and the refractive property. Various ancient books have mentioned the use of diamond as a tool and have also mentioned the exquisiteness of this sparkling stone.
India was the first nation to have a dock that dated back to 2400BCE. People belonging to the Harappa Civilization were the first to build a dock in Lothal. This proves their immense understanding of oceanology and marine engineering. The Lothal Dock proves their precision and vast knowledge about tidal waves and hydrography. Without having a thorough knowledge of these topics, it is impossible to build a dock.
High-quality steel has been produced in South India since ancient times. The technique used to manufacture it was later on called the crucible technique. Pure wrought iron was first put together with glass and charcoal in a container and was heated till the metal melted and absorbed the carbon.
Ink made from various materials was first invented in India. This black pigment was used in writing manuscripts in ancient India. India ink was made by burning tar, pitch, bones. Carbon was the primary pigment of India ink. Mathematics does not make sense without zero. Although it has no value, it plays a vital role in Arithmetic. Aryabhatta was a great mathematician and an ace astronomer. His contribution to mathematics is unimaginable. Use of Place Value System was clearly mentioned in Aryabhatta’s Bhakshali manuscript and thus zero came into existence. No particular symbol was given to zero but the presence of zero was evident from his work.
India is one of the country where one can find the highest availability of resources in terms of heritage, culture, literature and knowledge. Our ancestors have provided all of them in their writings like puranas, itihasas, They were able of imagine beyond their capabilities. All the facilities which we are engaging now are once only imagined and proud by our ancestors. So one must be thankful to our ancestors for reducing the burden on our minds for those innovative thoughts. These are only a few findings, there are lot more to find out from the study of our ancient literature.
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Wendy, D.,Smith, B. K.: 1991, The Laws of Manu (Penguin Books).
Nagle, G.E.: 2009, Anywhere: how global connectivity is revolutionizing the way we do business (McGraw Hills).
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Get custom essayDrucker, P.:1974, Management: Task, Responsibilities, Practices (Harper and Row).
Andrew Jackson, who filled in as a noteworthy general in the War of 1812, instructed U.S. powers in a five-month crusade against the Creek Indians, partners of the British. After that crusade finished in a conclusive American triumph in the Battle of Tohopeka (or Horseshoe Bend) in Alabama in mid-1814, Jackson drove American powers to triumph over the British in the Battle of New Orleans (January 1815). The win, which happened after the War of 1812 formally finished yet before news of the Treaty of Ghent had achieved Washington, hoisted Jackson to the status of national war saint. In 1817, going about as authority of the armed force's southern area, Jackson requested an intrusion of Florida. After his powers caught Spanish posts at St. Stamp's and Pensacola, he asserted the encompassing area for the United States. The Spanish government eagerly dissented, and Jackson's activities started a warmed civil argument in Washington.
Get original essayDespite the fact that numerous contended for Jackson's rebuke, Secretary of State John Quincy Adams shielded the general's activities, and at last they helped speed the American procurement of Florida in 1821. Jackson's prevalence prompted proposals that he keep running for president. At first he claimed no enthusiasm for the workplace, yet by 1824 his promoters had sufficiently aroused help to get him a designation and in addition a seat in the U.S. Senate. In a five-manner race, Jackson won the well known vote, however without precedent for history no competitor got a greater part of discretionary votes. The House of Representatives was accused of choosing the three driving hopefuls: Jackson, Adams and Secretary of the Treasury William H. Crawford. Fundamentally sick after a stroke, Crawford was basically out, and Speaker of the House Henry Clay (who had completed fourth) advocated Adams, who later made Clay his secretary of state. Jackson's supporters seethed against what they called the "degenerate deal" amongst Clay and Adams, and Jackson himself surrendered from the Senate.
Andrew Jackson won reclamation four years after the fact in a decision that was portrayed to an uncommon degree by antagonistic individual assaults. Jackson and his better half were blamed for infidelity on the premise that Rachel had not been legitimately separated from her first spouse when she wedded Jackson. Not long after his triumph in 1828, the bashful and devout Rachel passed on at the Hermitage; Jackson evidently trusted the negative assaults had rushed her demise. The Jacksons did not have any kids but rather were near their nephews and nieces, and one niece, Emily Donelson, would fill in as Jackson's master in the White House. Jackson was the country's first wilderness president, and his decision denoted a defining moment in American legislative issues, as the focal point of political power moved from East to West. "Old Hickory" was a without a doubt solid identity, and his supporters and adversaries would shape themselves into two rising political gatherings: The master Jacksonites turned into the Democrats (formally Democrat-Republicans) and the counter Jacksonites (drove by Clay and Daniel Webster) were known as the Whig Party. Jackson influenced it to clear that he was the outright leader of his organization's strategy, and he didn't concede to Congress or dither to utilize his presidential veto control. As far as concerns them, the Whigs guaranteed to guard well known freedoms against the imperious Jackson, who was alluded to in negative kid's shows as "Ruler Andrew I."
A noteworthy fight between the two rising political gatherings included the Bank of the United States, the sanction of which was expected to lapse in 1832. Andrew Jackson and his supporters restricted the bank, considering it to be an advantaged foundation and the adversary of the everyday citizens; in the mean time, Clay and Webster drove the contention in Congress for its recharter. In July, Jackson vetoed the recharter, charging that the bank constituted the "surrender of our Government to the headway of the few to the detriment of the many." Despite the disputable veto, Jackson won reelection effortlessly finished Clay, with more than 56 percent of the prominent vote and five times more constituent votes. In spite of the fact that on a basic level Jackson upheld states' rights, he stood up to the issue head-on in his fight against the South Carolina assembly, drove by the considerable Senator John C. Calhoun. In 1832, South Carolina received a determination pronouncing government duties go in 1828 and 1832 invalid and void and precluding their requirement inside state limits. While encouraging Congress to bring down the high levies, Jackson looked for and got the specialist to arrange government military to South Carolina to authorize elected laws. Savagery appeared to be approaching, however South Carolina threw in the towel, and Jackson earned credit for protecting the Union in its most prominent snapshot of emergency to that date.
Rather than his solid remain against South Carolina, Andrew Jackson made no move after Georgia asserted a large number of sections of land of land that had been ensured to the Cherokee Indians under government law, and he declined to uphold a U.S. Preeminent Court deciding that Georgia had no expert over Native American innate grounds. In 1835, the Cherokees marked an arrangement surrendering their property in return for an area west of Arkansas, where in 1838 around 15,000 would head by walking along the purported Trail of Tears. The movement brought about the passings of thousands. In the 1836 decision, Jackson's picked successor Martin Van Buren crushed Whig hopeful William Henry Harrison, and Old Hickory went out significantly more famous than when he had entered it. Jackson's prosperity appeared to have vindicated the still-new majority rule trial, and his supporters hosted constructed an efficient Democratic Get-together that would turn into an impressive power in American legislative issues. Subsequent to leaving office, Jackson resigned to the Hermitage, where he kicked the bucket in June 1845.
Today Android is the operating system installed in 85% of mobile devices and the heart in a million-dollar industry, but there was a time when Android was just an idea , and an idea that not everyone trusted in that would succeed. Today, on the occasion of the tenth anniversary of the first official version of Android, we go back to the year 2004, when Android was still in diapers. This Android, then an operating system for digital cameras , did not quite convince investors. The future of Android hung by a thread or, more specifically, $ 10,000.
Get original essayThe beginnings are never easy
Digital cameras were the initial destination, but back in 2004 the growth of the camera industry began to decline, so Andy Rubin recycled the idea. Five months later, Andy talked about Android as an operating system for "portable devices".
The father of Android had been dreaming of changing the landscape of mobile devices since the year 2000. At that time the large mobile operators controlled the industry with a steel fist and a closed philosophy.Andy Rubin was planning just the opposite: an open source operating system that anyone could modify and use at no cost. Many believed then that it was an impossible idea. Taking into account that at that time faced giants like Nokia with Symbian or Microsoft with Windows Mobile, it is understandable the distrust of investors. According to Business Insider , an investor was of the opinion of Andy Rubin that "he would have to sell at least a million of those things to cover the expenses, he's trying to boil the ocean."About to be kicked out of the officeWithout achieving the attention of investors to cover the costs, the small startup of Android, formed not only by Andy Rubin but also by Rich Miner, Nick Sears and Chris White was not going through its best moment.
The pending payments began to accumulate to such an extent that the owner of the office space began to threaten to evict them unless they were updated with the pending payments. That was when a desperate Andy Rubin made an emergency call to his friend Steve Perlman.
Andy Rubin and Steve Perlman were known to have worked at Apple in the early 90s. In addition to Apple, Perlman had worked creating components for the Megadrive and Super Nintendo consoles, on WebTV (purchased by Microsoft) and since 1999 he had presided over the incubator technology companies Rearden (which is still active ). In 2004, Steve Perlman received a call from his friend Andy Rubin. Although it was difficult for him to ask for money again, his Android startup was in trouble and he had no choice but to do so. The situation was unsustainable: cash was running out and they could not attract new investors.
Steve Perlman agreed to transfer some money as soon as he could , to which a nervous Andy Rubin responded that "if it can be sooner, better". With several payments pending, the owner of the office was no longer working for a new delay.It was then that Steve Perlman went to the bank, took $ 10,000 in cash in a hundred bills and gave them to Andy Rubin, who the next day were complemented by a transfer of an indeterminate amount.With this money Andy was able to face the pending payments and keep fighting to move his startup forward. Soon they managed to get the support of new investors, get more financing and move to a bigger office in Palo Alto (yes, next to Google). The rest is history.
A year later, in 2005, Google bought Android Inc for at least 50 million dollars and its employees became part of the great G. The project was kept secret for the most part until the creation of the first prototype based on a QWERTY keyboard. Until the iPhone came and changed the plans, but that's a story for another time. Ten years ago the first official and stable version of Android and about fifteen years since the founding of Android Inc and it is clear that Android has ended in many more than "one million of those things". Android is a great success, but we can not help but think, what would have happened in the mobile landscape without that $ 10,000 loan?
And lived with looking on his images;
Get original essayBut now two mirrors of his princely semblance
Are cracked in pieces by malignant death,
And I for comfort have but one false glass
That grieves me when I see my shame in him.
Thus does the Duchess of York lament the birth of her own son, Richard III, perhaps Shakespeare's most evil creation. A machiavellian who delights in governing with fear and force, his evil is only offset by his ready and cunning wit. As his talents lead others to self-destruction, the audience too succumbs to Richard's wit and egoism until finally his cruelty appears repulsive and destructive. Yet Shakespeare does provide a counterpoint, a sharp contrast, to Richard's villainy. The women of Richard III function as voices of protest and morality. They often see through Richard's intrigues and predict the dire consequences of his acts. Shakespeare uses the women to point out moral truths and emphasize general principles of the Elizabethan worldview of "moral and political order" (Tillyard 108). Whereas Shakespeare's Richard III pursues his malevolent intentions wielding a disarming wit and a bloody, conscience-less sword, the women of the play derive what power they have from sincere verbal poison and from raw, unbridled sentiment. Lady Anne, the Duchess of York, Margaret and Elizabeth, subverted in their roles as queens, mothers and wives, each contribute to the furthering of Shakespeare's moral themes in several ways---through their roles as victims as expressed in their intense lamentations, in their cries for revenge through divine retribution, and in "alluding to a higher moral order that transcends the actions of the men" (Tillyard 107). In each of these ways, the women of Richard III help illustrate how destruction comes about when order, both political and moral, is violated, either by the weakness of a reigning king, or through the machinations of those who cause civil war by wanting to take the king's place. Such instability and chaos devastates the individual, the family, and the nation, resulting in moral decay, treachery, anarchy and a profound level of human suffering.
"The world that Shakespeare portrays in Richard III is a man's world" (Asimov 313). The women are presented as sideline characters that function only to grieve, complain, or bury the dead. Richard himself views women as tools, as shown by his various asides to the audience when he announces his plots, in which the marrying of Anne or Elizabeth are only moves in his elaborate games of intrigue and power. Shakespeare further emphasizes the woman's inferior role as Richard invariably "allocates his own guilt along sexual lines so that women are the root his evil" (Tillyard 111). He declares to his condemned brother Clarence that "this it is when men are ruled by women," implying that it was Queen Elizabeth who "tempted" her husband into the "harsh extremity" of executing his own brother, thereby deflecting blame from himself, the true perpetrator of the plot. "Simply, plain Clarence," laughs Richard. I do love thee so that I will shortly send thy soul to heaven."
Overwhelmingly, the women are victims of such political machinations, and though their vulnerability allows their manipulation, the eloquent expressions of their grief shows not only that Richard's schemes are played out on people whose agony of body and spirit can be intensely real, but also shows that the state of civil turmoil, disorder, and treachery that has prevailed since the War of the Roses began leaves no one untouched by suffering.
Anne, the first woman we are introduced to, is grief stricken by the deaths of her husband Edward and his father King Henry VI, both slain by the hand of Richard. "Poor key-cold figure of a holy king, / Pale ashes of the house of Lancaster," she cries. "Be it lawful that I invocate thy ghost / To hear the lamentations of poor Anne." In portraying this genuine heartbreak, Shakespeare gives the audience its first taste of the despair wrought by his villain-hero's handiwork. At the same time, the "allocation of guilt" is further evident. When Anne charges him with the bloody murders of her loved ones, Richard initially scrambles for a surrogate, blaming Edward IV and Margaret) before hitting upon a far more effective line, accusing Anne as the primary "causer" of the deaths (Tillyard 111). "Your beauty was the cause of that effect! / Your beauty that did haunt me in my sleep! / To undertake the death of all the world, / So I might live one hour in your sweet bosom. Shakespeare expands scope of the grief in the second scene of Act II, in which both Elizabeth and the Duchess lament and enumerate similar losses of loved ones. The Duchess cries in agony, "Was never mother had so dear a loss. / Alas! I am the mother of these griefs! / ...Alas! You three on me, threefold distressed, / Pour all your tears! I am your sorrow's nurse, / and I will pamper it with lamentation." The Duchess here laments that Richard, her "false glass" of comfort, "has plucked my two crutches from my feeble hands," the crutches being her sons Clarence and Edward. She calls for the former Queen Margaret, who has lost her husband and son, for the Queen Elizabeth who has lost her husband, and for the orphaned children of Clarence, to pour their collective grief onto her, for she is the mother of the fiend that wrought this avalanche of distress.
Act IV contains some of the play's most poignant lines when Elizabeth looks back on the Tower, suspecting she may never see her imprisoned sons again. "Ah my, poor princes! / If yet your gentle souls fly in the air, hover about me with your airy wings / And hear your mother's lamentation." It is in this moment, as Richard condemns the young and innocent princes to die, that the audience finally finds Richard's cruelty to be repulsive, and thus turn their sympathy toward the victim's of his villainy. In the same scene, the Duchess sums up the state of despair all the women find themselves in when she says, "I to my grave, where peace and rest lie with me! / Eighty odd years of sorrow have I seen, and each hour's joy wracked with a week of teen." Though one can call the Duchess and the former Queen Margaret monotones of complaint, the point is made that this individual devastation is the result of the disaster that has befallen the nation as a whole. Everyone is tainted--even the women are not entirely guiltless in the struggle between the warring houses. Through their passive acceptance, as in Anne's acceptance of Richard's proposal, to Margaret's very active part as a soldier in the battlefield, the blood and barbarities of civil strife have reduced everyone, but especially the women, to helpless creatures who can only recite psalms of grief, guilt, and sorrow.
Finally, in the fourth scene of Act IV, "the wailing queens" Margaret, the Duchess, and Elizabeth unite in their mournings. Again, Shakespeare uses the women to emphasize the woeful state of the nation. Elizabeth asks Margaret to teach her how to curse, cursing being the only outlet for these women, powerful in title but impotent in reality, incapable of stemming the tide of sorrow and suffering the disorder of the times has wrought. "Forbear to sleep the nights, and fast the days / Compare dead happiness with living woe... / Bett'ring thy loss makes the bad causer worse; / Revolving this will teach thee how to curse," replies Margaret to Elizabeth's plea. As the women lament their loss, the audience is once again made aware of how destructive Richard's vengeful crimes against the world have been. Shakespeare uses their sorrow to finally illuminate Richard as the villain that he is.
In considerations of the way women employs women as scapegoats and currency, younger females have received the most attention (Succio 51). However, when we consider how Richard uses women as ciphers, three older women---Queen Elizabeth, Margaret and the Duchess of York---step reluctantly into the foreground. All of these women suffer, on one level, a loss of definition at the hand of Richard. "Not only does Richard subvert the role of queen, he also undermines the roles of mother and wife" (Tillyard 117). For example while the death of Edward robs Elizabeth of a husband, it robs the Duchess of York of a son. Her "stock" now depleted by two-thirds, the Duchess turns to Elizabeth commenting that unlike her, "Thou art a widow, yet thou art a mother / And hast the comfort of thy children left. In addressing Elizabeth's yet current claim to motherhood, the Duchess appears to abjure her own; it is as if she no longer wants to assume the title of mother if Richard is the son who grants her this right; accepting "motherhood" means accepting responsibility for "all these griefs," for the losses sustained by Elizabeth and by Clarence's Children. It is not enough for one mother to abandon her claim to the title of mother; Richard pursues a course of action that eventually forces Elizabeth to relinquish her claim also. As this process is set in motion, the "Protector" refuses to grant Elizabeth her status as mother, refusing to admit her to the Tower to see her children. Elizabeth cries in protest, "Hath he set bounds between their love and me? / I am their mother; who shall bar me from them?" Yet after the deaths of young Edward and Richard, Elizabeth is forced to perform an about-face in order to protect her remaining child. Because of Richard's manipulations, a "mother's name is ominous to children"; hence, she must deny her title of mother in order to express her genuine identity a mother concerned for her children's welfare. She dispatches her son Dorset to France---"O Dorset, speak not to me, get thee gone!"---and expresses her willingness to deny the legitimacy of young Elizabeth's birth to save her marriage from Richard. "I'll corrupt her manners, stain her beauty, / Slander myself as false to Edward's bed .../ I will confess she was not Edward's daughter." It is the love of a mother for her daughter, which prompts Elizabeth's offer; she willingly renounces her titles of both wife and legitimate mother (Tillyard 118). In these examples, Richard's general course of action is such to encourage women to abandon traditional titles, to de-identify themselves. Both the womens' resistance and passivity to this desire endures them to the audience as victims undeserving of Richard's seemingly interminable malice.
When the women are not grieving, they are often venting their hate. The expressions of Margaret's thirst for revenge are her curses, and she levels them generously on all who contributed to her personal losses: while she also evokes the mechanical aspect of justice when she prophesizes their destruction. "Can curses pierce clouds, and enter heaven?" she cries. "Why then, give way, dull clouds, to my quick curses." After foretelling the fates of all the "lords, ladies, queens, princes and kings" that she feels have perpetrated her downfall, she turns her wrath on Richard (Succio42). "On thee, the troubler of the poor world's peace! / The worm of conscience still begnaw thy soul! / Thy friends suspect for traitors while thou livest, / And take deep traitors for thy dearest friends! / No sleep close up that deadly eye of thine, / Unless it be while some tormenting dream." Here the audience first glimpses the scope of the destruction that vengeful hate will cause. The already damned former queen will watch with only a tempered satisfaction as all of her curses are fulfilled with startling clarity. Each of the women join Margaret in cursing Richard, the most concentrated representation of the evil and illness that pervades the country, but it is interesting to note how often the curse reverses on the curser. Anne acknowledges this, thus admitting to her own duplicity in the mess everyone finds themselves in. As she stands before the corpse of her murdered father-in-law, she condemns herself unknowingly. "If he ever have a wife, let her be made / More miserable by the death of him / Than I am made by my young lord and thee!" Of course, as she succumbs to the sweetened words of Richard and accepts his offer of marriage, the curse she has made falls upon her. "Within so small a time, my woman's ear / Grossly grew captive to his honeyed words / And proved the subject of mine own soul's curse." Richard loses any shred of sympathy or support when his own mother curses herself for hatching a "cockatrice" whose "unavoided eye is murderous." Thus, Shakespeare once again demonstrates that even to the perpetrator, revenge is ultimately destructive in its very nature. This theme is constantly apparent, as by the end of the play, the description "alive---but neither mother, wife nor England's queen" applies to Margaret, Elizabeth and the Duchess. All the scenes of female lamentation are riddled with curses, "calling for justice when all are guilty" (Succio 45). Shakespeare uses the women to illustrate how England itself is under a curse of "civil dissension and moral ill" (Tillyard 113). The ring of curses and the cries for justice directly reflect how deep the morass of blood, treachery, and disorder has become, and how urgently rightful order needs to be restored.
But does vengeance belong to man or God? Shakespeare uses the tension created by Margaret's curses and cries for personal revenge to answer this question in the person of Richmond. Throughout the play a "moral order that transcends men's actions" is eluded to but never given full expression until the last act. It is to this moral order, this "immutable form of divine justice," that all the women are appealing when they cry to the heavens for their wrongs to be righted, especially poignant in the "wailing queens'" scene (Tillyard 113). In this scene, Margaret points out to Elizabeth how temporal life is: "For happy wife, a most distressed widow;; / For joyful mother, one that wails the name; .../ Thus hath the course of justice whirled about / And left thee but a very prey to time."
However, though Margaret uses this allusion to temporality to emphasize the maxim "what goes around comes around," she confuses the fulfillment of her wishes with divine justice. "Her curses come true because they should have, not because she wants them to" (Succio 45). She, like the other women, tend to be morally myopic in their cries for justice, unable, or unwilling, to recognize their own guilt. Shakespeare makes Margaret the incarnation of the wrong sort of justice, derived from the Old Testament style of retributive justice, but he contrasts her with Richmond who submits himself to a higher order and incorporates forgiveness into his idea of justice (Succio 48). "In God's name, cheerly on, courageous friends," Richmond humbly says to his army. "Reap the harvest of perpetual peace, / By this one trial of bloody war." Here it is clear that Richmond is not fighting a war for the sake of personal gain. He is fighting in order to rid England of Richard, that "wretched, bloody, usurping boar." The fact that Shakespeare portrays Richmond as the nation's savior, not bringing him into the play until the last scene and making plain that Richmond alone is untainted by the treachery that has gone before, endorses the fact that Shakespeare himself felt that vengeance belonged to God, made plain when Richmond submits himself to this higher order (Tillyard 141).
In the last scene when Richard and Richmond present their soliloquies, the contrast between submission to order and extreme individualism is very clearly the contrast between good and evil. Here Shakespeare makes it clear that "there is an existence beyond the realm of men that nevertheless has a profound effect on human life and experience" (Succio 51). Margaret and the other women of the play serve to bring about this realization, through their lamentations and cries for revenge, that something over and above the world of men is needed to right the state of the country. They cry to this higher order and bring the need for its intervention to our attention, and this is their greatest contribution. Only their own participation in furthering the state of disorder prevents them from benefiting significantly from order's restoration in the form of Richmond's victory.
Cicero once said, "Justice is the essential virtue and moral right is the basis of action." In Richard III, Shakespeare shows how the existing order of England has been violated and presents the conflict and turmoil that results on both the individual and national levels. Order is restored only by the eradication of the forces that originally violated it and Shakespeare shows that these forces were essentially immoral in nature. The female characters are the major vehicles of this view, by voicing the sorrow that results from the disruption of moral order, through their cries for retributive justice, and through their appeals for this justice from a divine realm. They are the essential contrast to Richard's evil, and through their struggles against his dominance they serve not only to illustrate the necessity of the restoration of order, but also to bring about that restoration. In moral terms, the women of the play thus serve to mitigate the natural destructiveness inherent in a male dominated world.
Works Cited
Asimov, Isaac. Asimov's Guide to Shakespeare. New York: Avenel Books, 1958.
Succio, Peter. "Manipulations of Curses in Richard III." Meanings of Shakespeare. Ed. Richard S. Sylvester. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1968. 39-48.
Shakespeare, William. Richard III. New York: Washington Square Press, 1960.
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Get custom essayTillyard, E.M.W. "The Personal Dramas of Richard III" William Shakespeare: The Histories. London: Greenhaven Press, 1971.
Lexical meaning: The feeling one has toward something or someone that hurts, opposes, offends, or annoys strong displeasure. (Example: In a moment of anger I hit my brother.) Islamic definition: It is a destructive fire! Prophetic hadith: “Anger is a burning coal ...” - Anger is a secret weapon of man towards of evils, but sometimes it results in the destruction of many noble qualities. - It snatches away the wisdom of man and thus he becomes a brute beast devoid of any sense. - Anger is a temptation and deception of Shaitân. - Anger is the root of all evils.- Anger is a very bad condition that weakens the person's Imân (faith). Imam Mawlûd calls it a "swelling ocean," that is he compares it to "a swelling mass of emotion that is difficult to hold back once it is unleashed."
Get original essayThe Messenger of Allah, Prophet Muhammad said: "Whoever curbs his anger, while being able to act, Allah will fill his heart with certainty of faith."Therefore the consequence for whoever does not curb his anger is that he or she will sooner or later feel its evil consequences. Anger is a destructive emotion, as a fire which destroys our well-being, consumes our good actions, repels our friends and dear ones, frightens our children and forces the angels to report bad actions for the Heavenly Records. This is a dangerous rough road and no-one is devoid of it and it brings one close to the wrath of Allah; story: Prophet `Isa (Jesus Christ) -peace be upon him- was once asked: "What thing is difficult?" He said: "God's wrath." Prophet Yahya (John the Baptist) -peace be upon him- then asked: "What brings near the wrath of God?" He said: "Anger". Yahya - peace be upon him- asked him: "What thing grows and increases anger?" Isa -peace be upon him- said: "Pride, prestige, hope for honor and haughtiness."
The good news is that when you are ready to confront the evil kind of anger within your soul, then you have already taken the first decisive step in fighting it. The evil kind of anger can be overcome by understanding and following the respective teachings of Islam. If you are not ready, ask yourself the test questions below.
Are all kinds of anger meant here always, or are there instances when anger could still be justified? Someone could say: "How do I know that my anger is not justified, when I feel strongly about it, that in certain situations I do have the right to become angry?" (As an exception there are a few instances when it is good and allowed, such as in war when fighting the enemy, but not excessive anger.)Answer: Yes, there are situations where anger is justified and lawful, as "in cases of religious affairs when one's honor is at stake. It is an effective preventive measure to safeguard the dignity of man. A person who has no anger is called a coward because he has got no true faith in Allah. The person fears creation and not the Creator." But certainly those instances are rare, and what is worse, for a beginner in anger management (AMI) it is difficult to distinguish between those situations from the outset. Later with some success in AMI, that will be easy. We do not suggest that AMI means you never may get angry, for anger is not to be abolished but channeled, and the aim is always to reach your goal with other, reliable and sane methods, in shâh Allah. But to begin with, it is vital to bring it down to lower levels, to temper it, in order to take control over it. For the time being you should be extremely suspicious about anger in which form or situation what-so-ever. Be warned against it! Remember that the real strength of a man lies in controlling his wrath or anger. In this respect the Islamic tradition is very clear:It is reported in a hadith on the authority of Abu Huraira Allah be pleased with him, that Mohammad, the emissary of Allah peace and blessings of Allah be upon him, said :"The man is not a good wrestler; the strong man is, in fact, the person who controls himself at the time of anger." (Bukhari)In another hadith, Abu Hurairah (Radi Allahu `anhu), reported that a man said to the Prophet (Sallallahu `Alayhi Wa Sallam): "Advise me!"The Prophet said, "Do not become angry and furious."The man asked (the same) again and again, and the Prophet said in each case, "Do not become angry and furious."[Al-Bukhari; Vol. 8 No. 137] (see hadith in Arabic at top of the page.)Commenting on this hadith Al-Nawawî says that "he meant to not allow anger to lord over oneself and cause the loss of one's comportment." Instead to control your anger and never lose control.
We are convinced that the Islamic guidance is the best guidance, also in respect of AMI, because it relates to all levels of human beings, where it operates its barakah (Divine blessings): the body (jism), the soul (nafs) and the spirit (rûh), the last being the highest element which governs the rest. Anger is one of several coarse qualities of the soul or heart, which have to be treated by Islam's spiritual methods. To treat the (spiritual) disease you have to know its causes.
Imam al Ghazali explains to them as follows: The causes which cause anger to grow are self-conceit, self-praise, jests and ridicule, argument, treachery, too much greed for too much wealth and name and fame. If these evils are united in a person, his conduct becomes bad and he cannot escape anger. So these things should be removed by their opposites. Self-praise is to be removed by modesty. Pride is to be removed by one's own origin and birth, greed is to be removed by remaining satisfied with necessary things, and miserliness by charity. Or summarized in four words: "Pride, prestige, hope for honor and haughtiness." The goal is to purify the heart, free it from the oblivion of the rank of human beings, neglect of Allah's commands, and ... so as to reach the Divine Presence. In this context there is the Gabriel-hadith on excellence (ihsân) in Islam (as part of a longer hadith): A man asked the Emissary of Allah: "Then tell me about Ihsan." He said: "It is to worship Allah as though you are seeing Him, and while you see Him not yet — truly He sees you."Also in the Quran, we are constantly reminded that Allah sees and hears us, thus watching over us all the time. Knowing this how can anyone is so carried away by his (her) passions – and devoid of godfearingness (taqwâ) to behave like an ugly, crazy person, chasing around and abusing people? It becomes clear then that in real anger is a secret disease, like for example alcoholism, which has to be treated just like any other disease, and it is you yourself who has to take the decisive step to curb it, with Allah's help. In this context, it is important to remember that AMI is part of a comprehensive treatment of the heart, not isolated methods.
Therefore come to terms with yourself (nafs) and see your propensity toward the anger-syndrome! To start with asking yourself the following questions:
If you answered most or all of the above questions with 'yes', then you are on your way and you will easily understand the following diagrams which show the anger levels and how to curb it over time (ch.5) :You may ask if there is anything which can be done about this problem of losing one's temper, and you may think that this is the way you are, this is your character and that a change would be impossible. But you can changeandAMI was conceived to show how to succeed in dealing with this disease, once its evil roots have been understood. Then, soon, you will enjoy the sweet fruit of having overcome it. Someone said in this respect, that winning over his anger is a sweet thing indeed.
The Islamic Model Of Anger Management (AMI)A visual model is employed for the description of anger over time:Here we can see a line graph (red) for the fairly common development of temper or anger, where the left, vertical axis with variable h, measures the degree of temper [ º ] and the horizontal axis measuring time in minutes [min]. graph - d1:t1: Around t1 the level of emotion is quite normal, it is close to the "normality-level" n1, but something happened at "t2"t2: from here there is a steep increase in anger-level. Not long after temper reaches its peak at "t3"t3: anger-level stays at that extreme level for a moment or some minute or so, then after thist4: anger level is reduced, either more rapidly as in L1 or more slowly with others individuals as shown in L2. The critical timespan to employ AMI is at the outset of anger at t2, and as soon as possible, this is shown in graph d2 below[graph d2]. But anytime is better than no time! a) There are two cures, the first is the cure at the beginning of tension build-up, see graph d2: The critical area to address AMI is at the outset of anger at t2 when angel level has risen somewhat to n2 (blue line), ie. one has become angry and irritated, but still not "lost one's temper" completely.
AMI has to intervene here as soon as possible, as shown in line graph d2 below. graph - d2: This diagram reflects a very positive situation, in which anger level has not been allowed to rise beyond a modest "start" at t2, instead it has been stopped completely at n2 (blue line). This is the case of a person who is able to remind him-/herself at this critical moment (t2) of his standing in front of Allah (SWT), and that he will have to answer Him at That Day Of Balance for everything he has done and neglected to do, or what he said. If this method (AMI) can be employed, it will be of great help for the time being and it will save him (or her) from the evil consequences of his temper. If he still needs more assistance - and most of us do need it dearly - check for m1 - m3 below. [ in chapter b) ].The person with such a positive response to anger, which we know is but the incitement of Shaitan (rajîm), can only succeed enforcing this strong kind of control if he earlier has disciplined his nafs by those many spiritual methods which are prescribed by the Islamic tradition, the fard, the obligatory, (wâjib) and the strongly recommend (the Sunnah).b) The second cure curbing the tension of temper-build-up altogether is described in graph d3: With given, innate levels of passion and emotion the response to anger will vary from person to person, and also from a young age to mature age. Other factors also determine levels of tension generally, such as the person's living and working conditions, etc. For some persons it may not be possible to prevent a strong, swelling attack of anger at the outset (as described in d2) because of the above reasons, and it is very difficult especially when he /she has not internalized the Islamic viewpoint [see Ch. 8] that whatever happens is because Allah (SWT) has allowed it to happen.
Therefore they are in dire need of implementing the three most important Islamic methods of anger management:graph - d3:Diagram d3 reflects a person's anger level as it rises beyond t2 to t2b (the first blue line to the left) expecting to rise to a very high level (as described above in graph - d1). Here there is very little time to stop the process, the longer one is inactive not calling upon Allah (SWT) the harder it will be to stop it. When the person realizes that he is without power to counter this satanic attack, he should seek refuge with Allah Almighty and utter the words of protection. (see chapters 6 & 7b). This is the first method of AMI (m1). If he needs more input and he probably will, he should use method2 (m2) and method3 (m3). There is no way he cannot succeed in this if he is sincere.
Three Instant Methods of Anger ManagementThese methods go hand in hand with recognizing one's position in the sight of Allah (SWT), as summarized in chapter 8. Here we'll encourage the reader to enact the prophetic advice of anger management in his own life, and to the benefit of himself and his spiritual capability, and for the peace of his family and everyone else:(m1) saying the word of protection:a`ûdhû billâhi min ash-shaytân ir rajîm(m2) changing bodily posture:when angry, sit down if standing — and lie down if sitting. (m3) washing the face etc, arms, hands: make ablution with water. (see Ch. 7b)
Medicines recommended by Imam Al-GhazalîWe are describing below the medicines of anger after one gets angry. This medicine is a mixture of knowledge and action. 7a. The medicine based on knowledge is of six kinds: (1) The first medicine of knowledge is to think over the rewards of appeasing anger, that has come from the verses of the Quran and the sayings of the Prophet. Your hope for getting rewards of appeasing anger will restrain you from taking revenge. (2) The second kind of medicine based on knowledge is to fear the punishment of God and to think that the punishment of God upon me is greater than my punishment upon him. If I take revenge upon this man for anger, God will take revenge upon me on the Judgement Day. (3) The third kind of medicine of anger based on knowledge is to take precaution about punishment of enmity and revenge on himself. You feel joy in having your enemy in your presence in his sorrows, You yourself are not free from that danger. You will fear that your enemy might take revenge against you in this world and in the next. (4) Another kind of medicine based on knowledge is to think about the ugly face of the angry man, which is just like that of the ferocious beast. He who appeases anger looks like a sober and learned man. (5) The fifth kind of medicine based on knowledge is to think that the devil will advise by saying: " You will be weak if you do not get angry!" Do not listen to him! (6) The sixth reason is to think: " What reason have I got to get angry? What Allah wishes has occurred!"
The medicine based on the action is of three kinds:(m1) When you get angry, say: I seek refuge in God from the accursed evil (a`ûdhû billâhi min ash-shaytân ir rajîm). The Prophet ordered us to say this.When Ayesha (a) got angry, he dragged her by the nose and said: "O dear Ayesha, say: O God, you are the Lord of my prophet Muhammad, forgive my sins and remove the anger from my heart and save me from misguidance."(m2) If anger does not go away by this means, you will sit down if you are standing, lie down if you are sitting, and come near to earth, as you have been created of earth. Thus make yourself calm like the earth. The cause of wrath is heat and its opposite is to lie down on the ground and to make the body calm and cool. The Prophet said: Anger is a burning coal. Don't you see your eyebrows wide and eyes reddish? So when one of you feels angry, let him sit down if standing, and lie down if sitting. (m3) If still anger does not stop, make ablution with cold water or take a bath, as fire cannot be extinguished without water. The Prophet said: "When one of you gets angry, let him make ablution with water as anger arises out of the fire."In another narration, he said: "Anger comes from the devil and the devil is made of fire."
AMI has to do with keeping the right balance in one's life, regarding various aspects of it, such as food intake, sexuality, desire for position and power, and so on. Prophet Muhammad was the best human being to keep to this balance and to be a guide of the middle way sirât-al mustaqîm, the way of moderation. The man has to balance between wrath ghadab and mercy Rahma, never losing sight of the religious priority of mercy over wrath or anger. For these methods or ways to become reality one has to come to forbearance and humility in all cases. This is especially clear when the issue is not to uphold the dîn (religion) of Islam, but the problem is from our expectations of the Dunya or of other people. And if the defense of Islam is at stake, one must still not rush towards action under the pressure of anger, but one has to excuse oneself, first calm down and stick to what Imam Al-Ghazalî's advised the Muslims [12], who stated that anger "is acceptable only a right time, in the right place, for the right reasons, and with the right intensity." When one has internalized the Islamic viewpoint that whatever happens is because Allah (SWT) has allowed it to happen and then also by knowing oneself, one can strive to rid oneself from self-centeredness and egotism, for in the words of S. Ahmad Zarrûq, "people are filled with themselves". With the help of Allah, one will be able to let go of what ultimately is beyond our restricted, illusory domain of power, and arrive step-by-step at a control of one's anger by understanding the rule of "the right time, in the right place, for the right reasons, and with the right intensity." With the whole effectiveness and barakah (heavenly powers) of the Islamic way - living Islam -, one will by Allah's leave (bi-idhni-Leah) win over this nafs (an-nafs al-Tammara bi-ssu' ) - this soul commanding us to do evil - and taste the sweet taste of victory over one's worst enemy. To become aware of oneself is a step towards knowing oneself, and according to a famous saying in Islam, whoever knows himself he knows his Lord. [27]
There is a famous story about `Ali (karrama-llâhu wajhahu) according to which he was fighting against a disbeliever and had the intention of killing him due to al bughd fi Allah (hatred for the sake of Allah). After `Ali subdued him and sat on his chest with the intention of killing him, the man spat on his face. `Ali at once let him go. The man was amazed and said, "You should have become even angrier due to my spitting at you and should have hastened in killing me. Why did you spare me?" `Ali replied, "Due to this action of yours my nafs became involved and my intention did not remain purely for the sake of Allah."The light of sincerity had such a cleansing effect that it purged the impurities and kufr of the disbeliever's heart, and he recited the kalima(profession of faith) at once and became Muslim. [28]10.) Speech on Anger And Hatred, by Shaykh J. Brown audio
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Get custom essayExcerpt: Chapter Anger, by Sh Masihullah Khan*Allah Most High, says:{ And those who control/ restrain anger (restrain their rage) and who forgive people, Allah loves the righteous } (Quran 3:134). The Messenger of Allah Allah bless him and give him peace) said: Do not become angry (Bukhari). and strong man is not one who defeats (another) in physical combat. Verily, a strong man is he who controls his self at the time of anger (Bukhari Muslim).In another narration, it is said that a strong man is he who controls anger. It is essential to keep anger under control. One should never act spontaneously in accordance with the dictates of anger. On the contrary, anger should be made subservient to the commands of the Shariah. It is natural to be aroused in the state of anger. Such natural propensity is not blameworthy (in itself). But Allah Most High has endowed man with willpower. Anger has, therefore, to be controlled since it is within the scope of man's willpower to do so. Failure to exercise this volitional power is contrary to human nature. There are many reasons for the inclusion of anger in the natural attributes of man. Along with the quality of anger, Allah Most High has endowed man with the ability to control such anger to ensure that it is not misdirected and unjustly employed. Anger in itself arises involuntarily. It is automatically activated. But acting in accordance with its demand is voluntary; hence, refraining from it is likewise voluntary. The remedy for a non-volitional act (the way of curbing it) is nothing other than the exercise of one's willpower in order to bring about restraint and control.
Wilfred Owen, a war poet, uses a great number of linguistic and structural devices throughout his poems in order to express his anger at the war. In this essay I will focus on three of his works: ‘Anthem for Doomed Youth’, ‘Dulce et Decorum Est’ and ‘Mental Cases’ to analyse and compare the effects and intentions of his writing and the ways in which these express anger.
Get original essayWilfred Owen abundantly uses irony to express anger in his poems. This is very prominent when Owen addresses the power of weaponry, as he refers to the ‘monstrous anger of guns’ in ‘Anthem for Doomed Youth’. The personification of the guns creates a distinctly ironic tone, which is continued throughout his other poems. Such personification also highlights the disastrous effects of the guns and indeed, Owen’s opposition to such killing capacity – emphasising his anger towards the war by demonstrating its futile nature. In the same poem, Owen had previously referred to the soldiers as ‘cattle’. This dehumanisation, juxtaposed with the personification intensifies Owen’s use of irony and demonstrates his anger towards the war by revealing the power that weapons held over soldiers, implying that men were inferior to metal. Owen maintains this ironic tone in his poem ‘Mental Cases’ when describing ‘the men whose minds the Dead have ravished’. Here, much like in ‘Anthem for Doomed Youth’, Owen again uses personification to express his anger at the war. He humanises ‘the Dead’ in order to emphasise how powerless men really were. The irony here implies that men were more effective from the grave than they were on the battlefield; again Owen’s intention was to demonstrate the futility of war. This concept, along with the idea that guns had more influence than men, heavily juxtaposes the way in which soldiers were portrayed by recruitment propaganda and therefore viewed by the general public during WW1. This further demonstrates Owen’s anger as he indirectly expresses the careless way in which soldiers were treated.
Indeed, Owen profusely expresses his anger at the war by trivialising it, comparing it to a game. In ‘Dulce et Decorum Est’ he illustrates ‘fitting the clumsy helmets just in time’, the choice of lexis ‘just in time’ giving the implication that, to many, the war was just a game. This reflects the view of many of the generals during wartime, who made countless decisions but never paid the price. Here, Owen’s intention was to express his anger towards his superiors in the war, through the use of a metaphor and to demonstrate how they carelessly dismissed the lives of so many soldiers. In the same way, Owen continues this harsh comparison in ‘Mental Cases’ by depicting the soldiers ‘pawing us who dealt them war and madness’, again giving the connotation of a game. Owen expresses anger at the war by implying that, during this time, his superiors were willing to gamble with lives in order to gain victory. Here, Owen’s effective use of animalistic imagery with the lexis ‘pawing’, creates an anguished tone and continues Owen’s intention of demonstrating how soldiers were mistreated, portraying that they were regarded with as much respect as a mere animal and that they viewed as disposable and equally replaceable. By comparing the soldiers to animals, the effective use of dehumanisation also demonstrates how desperate and defenceless the soldiers were. At this point, Owen intends for his readers to feel sympathy, as he exposes the horror of what he and countless others experienced during wartime, which effectively expresses his anger at the ‘war and madness’ that he and others were an involuntarily a part of.
Furthermore, another way in which Owen expresses his anger throughout his poems is through his use of iambic pentameter. In ‘Dulce et Decorum Est’, Owen describes the soldiers as ‘bent double, like old beggars under sacks’. By using iambic pentameter from the beginning of his poem, Owen immediately depicts war as a never ending repetition of suffering and expresses his anger at how helpless the soldiers, including himself, were during wartime: unable to escape it’s horrors. Here, Owen’s use of a metaphor extends this concept, strongly demonstrating the inevitable weaknesses of the soldiers when faced with such an oppressing and destructive environment. Owen’s anger at the war is again made evident when he reveals how little control the soldiers had in that environment. The use of iambic pentameter is continued in Owen’s poem ‘Anthem for Doomed Youth’. However, in both poems, the meter is occasionally broken. In ‘Anthem for Doomed Youth’, Owen illustrates ‘only the stuttering rifles rapid rattle’, breaking the iambic pentameter. This creates a jarring effect which Owen intended to show that there could be an escape from the war: death. Owen’s anger at the war is clearly expressed here, as he indicates that death was the only way to find relief during the war.
In addition to this, Owen further expresses his anger towards the war and indeed, the death toll that it generated. In ‘Anthem for Doomed Youth’ Owen creates an image of sleep when he describes ‘each slow dusk a drawing down of blinds’. This effective use of pathetic fallacy creates a dark and foreboding tone and carries an element of closure. This metaphor could indeed be a euphemism for death itself. Owen uses this to express his anger at the war by demonstrating that for soldiers, death was as common an occurrence as the transition from day to night; indeed, something that took place daily. Here, Owen’s use of a metaphor could also be a reflection of the views of the public and their attitude towards death. The dark imagery diminishes the significance of death by comparing it to sleep, revealing Owen’s anger at the casual attitudes of the public, created by the hostile environment of war that people were desperate to downplay. Here, Owen’s intention was to express the true nature of death and the heavy strain it held on soldiers. Similarly, Owen again uses pathetic fallacy to express his anger at war in his poem ‘Mental Cases’ when he describes how ‘Dawn breaks open like a wound that bleeds afresh’. However, by way of contrast, in ‘Anthem for Doomed Youth’ Owen portrays death at the ultimate price, whereas here he reveals that, in death, there may be some comfort. This powerful metaphor implies that, in the opinion of some soldiers, it is better to die and be a rest than to be stuck facing the relentless reality of war. Here, Owen’s use of imagery and a sombre tone effectively reveal the way in which the unbearable nature of war influenced many men’s value of life and indeed expresses Owen’s anger towards war for causing such a great consequence.
To conclude, Wilfred Owen’s poems ‘Anthem for Doomed Youth’, ‘Dulce et Decorum Est’ and ‘Mental Cases’ are all extremely successful, in similar and different ways, at portraying the unimaginably hostile aspects of warfare and the unreasonable strain these put upon soldiers, including Owen himself. It is through his plentiful use of structural techniques and employment of rhetorical devices that Owen effectively expresses his anger at the war.
In 1985, in Butler’s Field, Lechlow, a grave of an Anglo-Saxon woman buried over fifteen hundred years ago was discovered. The extraordinary richness of her grave goods, its abundance of amber beads and gilt bronze brooches making it one of the most opulent burial sites in early England, suggests not only her wealth, but the prominent position she enjoyed in sixth-century society. The influence of her Germanic forebears, who had created kingdoms in the fifth and sixth-centuries characterised by a robust warrior ethos, may be seen in such feminine accoutrements as ‘thread-boxes’ and ‘latch-lifters’, symbols of the highly particularised role mature women were expected to fulfil as domestic producers (weaving the family’s cloth) and treasurers of their husband’s household. Although defined and limited by her position in a male-oriented combative culture, the woman was capable of possessing her own capital, holding her own land and possibly even exercising influence over local affairs. Furthermore, a comparison between her grave and those of other women buried after the Christianisation of England in the seventh-century and whose burials were predominantly unadorned, bears witness to the restrictive, altering effect such a religious conversion had on the pagan mindset. These two influences, the Germanic cultural tradition and strict, pacifist Roman spirituality, had a considerable impact on the status of women in Anglo-Saxon society: both advocated prescriptive functions centred almost exclusively around the family, while the loyalty and duty owed to the kin-group by both male and female were developed, extended and popularised to include more emphasis on a clerically-championed patriarchal system, which, in its later stages, actively diminished the position of women outside those delineated by societal norms.
Get original essayHowever, England pre-the Norman Conquest has long been considered by many as a golden age for women’s rights and been celebrated for having had a remarkably egalitarian attitude towards the female sex, especially within the context of the period. Historians such as Christine Fell and Doris Stenton have argued, especially in comparison with the treatment of women post-1066, for approximate gender equality in Anglo-Saxon society and, indeed, the legal codes, documentary sources (including poetic and ecclesiastical literature, in addition to more prosaic administrative records) and archaeological findings all point to a relatively enlightened perspective. The woman buried in Gloucestershire all those years ago was being honoured by her community, the riches she possessed in life beautifying her wooden sepulchre and proving to posterity that here was an individual, perhaps, of some economic and social stature. Nevertheless, it must not be forgotten that her position was almost certainly conferred upon her by her kin, whether natal or marital, and that her life, from birth to death, was determined, regulated and supported by them. As she began and ended, so shall we, with the family.
At the heart of Anglo-Saxon government was an ancient and long-established tradition of respect for the ties of kith and kin. The Germanic tribes were famed for the strength of their personal bonds; for instance, the Roman Tacitus was chiefly impressed by the fact that ‘it is not at random nor by the fortuitous conflux of men that their troops . . . are formed, but by the conjunction of whole families’. Yet more significant is the role of their womenfolk in stirring the warriors’ spirits, their importance in recognising, inspiring and, especially at times, criticising their valour, the most eminent of virtues according to a militant culture. Thus, despite living in a world dominated by warfare and a heavy physical bias towards the male, Anglo-Saxon women had a valued history of responsibility in upholding familial honour. Their birth relations remained of vital importance even after marriage, the bride never passing ‘entirely under the control of husband and husband’s family’, while from their own they could expect fiscal and bodily protection. In this manner, the child’s line could be traced not only through the father, but also through the mother; her social status or, more accurately, that of her family, and from which hers had originally derived, was of sufficient consequence to merit extreme care in any possible marriage alliance, particularly among members of the aristocracy, as it possessed the potential to improve her progeny’s standing, in addition to consolidating the power of her mate and, conversely, her kin as well. If men provided ‘the main substance of a lineage’, women ‘provided the connections’. In 1045, Queen Edith, the daughter of Earl Godwin, was used in this way by her ambitious, politicking father to further extend their clan’s authority; the saintly Edward, her husband, on the other hand, benefitted from a union with the Danish Royal House, a latent political threat, though one with which the Godwin family was intimately connected and, therefore, immune from.
However, the woman’s own position within the nucleus unit depended in large part on the strength of her character, the influence of cultural type-casts and her personal relationship with husband, father, brothers and sons. The role of the mother was arguably the most illustrious, not simply due to the influence likely to be granted her by doting offspring (an effective arrangement really only in women of a higher class), but more critically because ‘obedience and honour were due equally to mother as to father.’ As counsellor, nurturer and protectrix, she was held in deep, abiding reverence, whilst this the most fundamental feminine purpose, the culminating point in the female life-cycle, was celebrated by the two complementing, at times contrasting, traditions in Anglo-Saxon culture: the Christian veneration of the mother, embodied in the Virgin Mary, Mother of Christ, and the powerful maternal figures of a pagan past, recorded in the poem ‘Beowulf’, most especially in the characters of Hildeburh and most memorably Grendal’s mother, whose monstrous portrayal is tempered and, for the most part, justified as the natural desire to ‘avenge her son’s death’ . This evident regard for male children does not, though, diminish the value of daughters to the family. As has already been noted, they retained membership of their natal group for the entirety of their lives and, significantly, blood could be ‘sexless as well as gendered, carrying claims in the right circumstances to women as well as men’.
Consequently, the lack of male heirs did not mean the death of a dynasty, but the elevation of its females, whose right to control land, property and wealth gave them economic weight, greater standing and even, at times, a degree of independence. For example, in eleventh-century Northumbria, Ecgfrida, the first wife of Earl Uhtred, received six estates from her father, the saintly Bishop Ealdhun, which were retained ‘under her own control’. Moreover, even if it was true that her husband had exercised direct jurisdiction over all her property, upon their divorce, and after returning to her father’s household, it was she who kept the land. However, the experience of upper-class female landowners was very different to that of the majority of women in Anglo-Saxon society; just as their men-folk, they occupied varying, sharply delineated economic strata. At the time of the Domesday inquest, in 1086, female slaves numbered 706, while many more were wives of the 33,000 males held in bondage (‘roughly 12 per cent of the total estimated population’). Their position was dependent on the kindness of their lord and, at a daily level, more commonly their mistress; economically, they fulfilled several tasks, working as dairymaids, weavers and domestic servants, while, both legally and socially, they were counted as little more than chattel. More generally, the role women played as head of a household differed, in its reality, only marginally: the archaeological evidence of grave goods included ‘thread-boxes’ used for spinning, the ‘pre-eminent’ occupation of ‘women from every class’, a discovery which supports the notion that ‘married women, whatever their social class, contributed to the economic well-being of their families’, even as other occupations, like cooking and weaving, would certainly have been shared by daughters, mothers and wives, whether free or slave. On the other hand, the unearthing of keys and latch-lifters present a distinct picture of the mature, espoused female as ‘guardians of a house and its possessions’, having access to and control of the family’s coffers, a responsibility that denoted considerable economic influence, albeit within a personal, domestic framework . Furthermore, like most early governments, the Anglo-Saxon system was conceived of and structured primarily in order to best serve the needs of hearth and home. Thus, it follows naturally that the central court should be a model household, only on a much grander scale, and that, at its heart, a woman be at its organisational helm: a queen to ably and efficiently maintain the equilibrium of court-life, act as counsellor to her powerful mate and, above all, manage the affairs of her, royal, family.
Queenship in early England often meant an unusually commanding and politically active position in high society. Her great wealth, derived largely from the extensive lands granted her at her marriage, enabled her to reward followers, a chief requisite of good leadership according to the marauding values of the ancient German tradition (a custom still visible in the conduct of the rapacious Vikings) and wield an authority grounded in the economic and military support of her tenants. Indeed, a principal reason why ‘seventh- and eighth-century queens did not have a recognised role’ was because they were denied ‘landed estates’, either because they suffered from the ancient Wessex prejudice towards queens , or because their families were not of sufficient standing to provide for them. The difference between this and their status in the later Anglo-Saxon period is reflected in the extraordinary holdings of Queen Edith: the ‘lands assigned to her in Domesday were worth between £1,570 and £2,000 per annum’, making her ‘the richest woman in England’. However, the earliest royal consorts were not prevented from ruling beside, on behalf of, or in place of their husbands: for instance, in 672 A.D., ‘Seaxburg, the widow of Coenwalh king of Wessex, reigned after him for a year’. These queens, nonetheless, do share one very vital thing in common: their power is defined, and both simultaneously created and limited, by their relations with the men in their family. As a result, although the anointing of Aelfthryth, King Edgar’s wife, in 973, bestowed a sanctified, exceptionalised glamour to the status of queen and she alone was ‘of sufficient public moment to be listed among witnesses of royal charters’ , the premier peeress was still circumscribed by family; her ‘influence . . . was very dependent on the support of her husband or her son and could disappear as the circumstances altered’.
The potential for political, and religious, authority was, in turn, almost entirely restricted to royal or aristocratic women; consequently, the great abbesses of the early Christian period were, almost uniformly, of noble blood. The illustrious figure of Abbess Hilda of Whitby (c.614 – 680), eulogised by the Venerable Bede as the paradigmatic leader of a devout community, was herself a member of the Northumbrian royal dynasty and, as a result, had access not only to the funds of a regnant family desperately desiring sacred sanction through the intercession of a saintly female relative, but also enjoyed a highly ‘significant political role’. Furthermore, the double monastery, which she so ably commanded, was a particularly peculiar feature of the Anglo-Saxon Church during the seventh- to eighth-centuries; rooted in the more distinguished status women held in earl Germanic society, this remarkable fusion of males and females, ‘living together with various degrees of internal segregation under the overall authority of an abbess’, led to a unique spiritual and intellectual atmosphere of mutual respect, guidance and admiration. As Stephanie Hollis maintains, the position of these religious women in relation to men, and their active participation in a cosmic struggle against the evils of the world, reflected the heroic ideal of the ‘comitatus’ , in addition to evoking ‘the warrior-companion model . . . from pagan Valkyrie imagery’; thus, Christianity may have actively conserved the former prominence of women, albeit within a vigorously pious, and scholarly, framework. It is also worth noting, however, that Christian ideology similarly supported the concept of ‘the female soldier of Christ’, a theme ‘common in patristic literature’. Thus, the two most basic influences in Anglo-Saxon society, a bloody, epic culture combined with a physically passive, though mentally and spiritually demanding, faith-system, promoted the exceptional standing of the early abbesses and their daughters in Christ. The age of the double monasteries was gradually completely replaced, though, by ‘the second stage of the conversion’, begun, in the late seventh-century, by Archbishop Theodore of Canterbury, when ‘changed perspectives of women were used to justify a diminution of their activities and their role’. Their previous religious status was, in many ways, largely only a product of the brief period of leniency, insecurity and desperation during the establishment of the English Church, when the lingering importance of the Germanic woman enabled them to assume some holy authority over men, especially since a conflicting warrior code made the transition much more difficult for the male than the already pacific female body. What remained was a deep reverence, common to most patriarchies, for the purity of the virgin; a cultural attitude that had a substantial effect on the way women were perceived in Anglo-Saxon society, as well as the prestige of certain highly specialised roles.
The cult of the Virgin Mary was a pervasive social and religious force in early England; indeed, ‘the notion of a passive Anglo-Saxon woman’, dominated by her male kindred and the misogynistic doctrines of the Christian faith, derived ‘from the idea that the only acceptable model for her was the Virgin’. This was, perhaps, true to an extent: a woman’s status was defined, firstly by that of her family’s, then by the strength of her own moral worth, judged, of course, by men. Moreover, there is even an insidious sense, in Bede’s tributes and Aldhelm’s praise of the nuns at Barking, elevated ‘by that special attribute, virginity, . . . believed to be next kin to angelic beatitude’ , that the only way for a woman to have been recognised is to be, at once, ‘virginal, maternal, regal and holy’ ; a daunting criterion for any but the most extraordinary, and fortunate, of women. Thus, the cultural perceptions of the period, coloured by a religion obsessed with the pollution of the secular world, as well as women’s inherent responsibility for its initial and continuing corruption, seemed to have exalted only particular feminine traits, including an emphasis on noble birth; a feature which necessitated the exclusion of the vast majority of the female population and explains, in part, the reasons why there is a dearth of written evidence for the status and condition of the ordinary woman.
However, the survival of epic and poetic literature does allow an insight into some of the values Anglo-Saxon society placed on women, albeit its supremely eminent, at times, partially mythic queens: in ‘Beowulf’, for instance, Queen Wealtheow is evoked ‘ring-bejewelled’ and ‘distinguished for the quality of her mind’ . The vivid reference to wealth is key to understanding the role of all aristocratic ladies in dispensing treasure to her husband’s loyal acolytes and, at the same time, underscores her primary duty as controller of the household’s capital; the precious clothes and jewellery found in some female graves may be seen as evidence for this close association. The statement regarding her mental capacities, on the other hand, indicates an unusual respect for, and belief in, the efficacy of the female brain, allowing the interpretation that individual women, especially those among the higher echelons, were positively personalised and adulated for their intellects; something distinctive to the Anglo-Saxon portrayal of great women, in comparison to the vacuous prettiness and charm the Normans afterwards attributed to their leading demoiselles. The status of each queen could, likewise, be dependent on her ability with ‘words’; her rhetorical ability soothes court strife, earning her a role as ‘symbol of [its] unity and concord’, exacts promises and oaths of loyalty from the men who drink from the cup of her generous hospitality, and has the vital power to mediate, on behalf of grateful supplicants, with the king himself. This critical position as counsellor and intercessor was almost identical to that held by the Abbess Hilda, while the pivotal nature of her role was ‘derived not only from the nobility of [her] birth, but also from the status of Whitby as an educational centre and seminary’. Indeed, in Anglo-Saxon England, ‘it seems to have been the women who took to the bookish life with particular enthusiasm’: their general literacy may even have superseded that of men and, though there is no direct proof of creative authoresses, their status as intellectuals and scholars, heavily involved in education, may not be so easily discounted.
The law codes of King Aethelbert of Kent and Alfred of Wessex, in addition to various others, provide another useful source for the importance and situation of the majority of women in early English society. To begin with, marriage was considered ‘in the form of a contract between the bridegroom and the bride’s kindred’, a sound economic exchange, which may have had the effect, both legally and socially, of commodifying the person of the bride. In spite of this, the consent of the woman seems to have been essential, with the ‘role of the kindred simply being to safeguard her interests’. Furthermore, a wife and her husband were not held accountable for the other’s misdeeds; in this manner, she remained an autonomous body and her wergild the same according to the social standing of her natal family. Her legal status within that group, in other words ‘the daughter’s right to a share in her father’s land’, is not so clearly delineated and, while the fact that ‘women could inherit land before the Norman conquest’ is indisputable, whether she was automatically excluded from patrimonial inheritance by a brother is decidedly less so. This ambiguity is common in most of the law codes; the precise status of women, therefore, is vague and, at best, cannot be disproved, at worst, can never be confirmed.
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Get custom essayIn the end, their position in Anglo-Saxon society was dependent on and revolved round the rank of their family; the nature of their role within it; the religious demands of the period; and the cultural attitudes of their society, still largely informed by its Germanic history. However much it may have bettered the conditions of women under the Normans, their status was yet subordinate to that of men, as well as confined and defined by their relations with male kindred. Yet, the woman in the Lechlow grave was rich; her personal possessions numerous, her person lovingly adorned and her esteemed place in the community reflected in the grandeur of her final resting place. Though her independence and influence, economic, political and legal, may only be roughly inferred from imperfect sources, it is certain that this woman, at least, was felt to have deserved, whether due to family connections, her husband’s power, or her own fine qualities, a fitting tribute at the last. So, as they intended it to mark her out to the gods, we too shall take note, appreciate and judge. Here lies a woman, buried in an English grave, according to Anglo-Saxon rites and in a world of bloodshed, conflict and men; but, she, at least, shall not be forgotten.