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Table of contentsIntroductionThis technologyConclusionIntroductionThe terms of t ...

Table of contents

  1. Introduction
  2. This technology
  3. Conclusion

Introduction

The terms of the trade are changing. Firms are coming up with easy and hassle-free solutions for other businesses. With the start-up culture gearing up, the entrepreneurs are coming with innovative and creative solutions. They are well aware of the fact that only those firms will stay which cater to the real-life problems. Also it must adorn the support of emerging and useful technologies. The field of telecommunication is one such field. It is a necessity as well as some innovation is required in this. In today’s times such a comprehensive solution which is mentioned above, is the latest .

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There are few firms trying to leverage this technology with their products and services. One such firm is Yakovoice which is focused on this technology and is doing excellent job. The new and even existing firms of today are using this technology to reap the benefits of this amazing service.

The cloud telephony system is basically using the traditional system of calling with the powerful performance of the cloud services. Recently the use of cloud has become very much popular. Harnessing it’s potential for the telecommunication can be so much easy. Here is when the traditional call centres get a fresh take. They are backed by a software to enhance their performance. And when one partners with Yakovoice, the services just become a pleasure to have. If one talks about the cloud-based call centre services, it has developed in the last two decades. And within the last two three years, the new technologies have been clubbed to make it fresher and useful even in modern Fresh take on the call centres cloud telephony services times.

In India, firms like Yakovoice are doing phenomenal job by changing the face of call centre software in India. The call centre software comes in two forms-inbound call centre software and outbound call centre software. The usefulness of this software is varied and will gather pace once it garners attention. So the cloud based call centre solution and its details are described below.

This technology

The cloud-based call centre solutions in India are gearing up with the penetration and awareness. As today it is more of the south east Asian nations who have covered the call centre segment. Hence it is crucial that somebody come sup with something new. This technology is basically the integration of two things-the regular telephony system and the cloud-based system. It is a newer alternative to improving your call centre systems and gathering more number of customers through better calls. The setup of this system does not require time and is a quick and easy system.

The call routing system, the CRM integration, and so many advantages that this technology brings to you is worth noticing. One need not wait or hire extra people just for the sake of brand promotion. The automated call and voice SMS service just does the needful. The changes can be made easily with using the services by Yakovoice. They will do the required and one can even add channels as per one’s ability. Such a useful software must be employed to get going with the new terms of the trade. Even if one compares this system with others one can easily find the services by Yakovoice to be superior and affordable than others. The cordial team, the support by them and immensely useful and complete call centre solution is provided by their firm. So the firm and its products and services clears the cloud based call centre software comparison with distinction. One can easily rely on them.

Basically the cloud-based call centre software can find its application to almost every business whether small or large. Owing to the benefits it entails one can always use this in their business. Talking specifically the application of the cloud-based call centre software can be employed to-• Small businesses: The call centre software for small business can be very useful as it helps to build trust amongst the customers. Initially when the customer base is not high and people are unaware of the new firm, this can be extremely useful in getting feedback of the customers.• Startups: There are so many startups available today that it is difficult to identify them for your specific requirement. So to garner attention and come to the limelight, using the cloud-based call centre software could get the desired benefit.•

This technology could be of huge advantage for such business setting. The inbound call centre software and outbound call centre software can be of immense use. It does the required integration and eases out the processes.

Every new technology may not may not have multiple benefits. They tend to give some space for one or more lacunae. But with this technology and if the services are from Yakvoice, it is like double celebration. In a structured manner, the multiple benefits of this technology are:

Conclusion

This engaging technology is sure to change the way call centres are perceived today. It is likely to bring in more number of jobs and that too with all the sophistication. The usefulness, advantages, apt pricing will definitely allow one to try this software for your firm. Also it is always good to evolve with time and using these technologies for the betterment of the firm. It will only get benefits rather than any huge harm to the firm. You can always rely on this one to get more customers for your business and that too happy customers. One must definitely try the call centre software for free by the firm named Yakovoice. The huge benefits it entails will get you a fresher perspective on call centres and especially cloud-based call centre software.


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Stereotypes and presumptions about sex have always permeated American culture an ...

Stereotypes and presumptions about sex have always permeated American culture and society. From taboos to perversions to fetishes, sex and the things that come with it; relationships, marriages, and all else, have been fraught with misunderstanding. For most of history, human sexuality remained an unexplored subject, and many people formed their own conceptions about sex through personal experience, religious teaching, or other methods. However, as people began to become more educated on sex and sexuality, many of those ideas changed. People’s minds were clean slates with no previous scientific sexual knowledge, and this allowed science at the turn of the 20th century to define the idea of sex for generations. Sigmund Freud was one of the first scientists to extensively study sexual behavior in humans, and his psychosexual analysis is the pillar upon which many theories about sex and sexuality in humans were formed. Although many of his conclusions were proven to be incorrect, the influence of his work can still be seen in modern ideas about sexuality. Many of Freud’s ideas about sexual deviance and abnormality can be seen in A.M. Homes’ Music for Torching.

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Troubled couple Paul and Elaine have a very unhealthy marriage and inadequate sex life, and they take out their frustrations with their situation by partaking in unusual and unexpected sexual encounters, thoughts, and feelings. Both highly self-conscious and insecure people, Paul and Elaine are constantly nervous about their performance in all aspects of life, especially sex. They see sex as part of a norm that they must abide by, and that their sex has to fit into certain guidelines in order to be acceptable. Because of these high stakes and the pressure to be perfect, Paul and Elaine frequently feel the need to suppress any abnormal feelings regarding their sexual experiences. Sigmund Freud’s ideas of repression and inversion from Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality are exemplified in Music for Torching through Elaine’s lesbian relationship with Pat and Paul’s feminine tendencies. Freud argues that when events or desires are too painful or frightening to process, the human brain will push those ideas or memories into the subconscious so that they do not disturb everyday life. One of the sexual perversions that Freud argues is most repressed is the tendency for homosexuality. Freud makes a particular distinction about the abnormality of homosexual behavior because he views the purpose of sex as to bear children. In a homosexual relationship no children can be created, and therefore Freud argues that it is an unnatural sexual deviancy.

In Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality, Freud states that “The normal sexual aim is regarded as being the union of the genitals in the act known as copulation, which leads to a release of the sexual tension and a temporary extinction of the sexual instinct” (Freud 15). However, in Music for Torching, Elaine has a homosexual experience with her female neighbor, Pat. Although they are both married, they are both greatly satisfied by the experience. Elaine however is terrified that someone will find out not that she cheated on her husband, but that she cheated on her husband with another woman. In Elaine’s case, the idea of having any homosexual urges is too abnormal to process, and she instead obsesses over why the encounter happened. She refuses to accept that she might not be completely straight, and instead tries to find another reason why she enjoyed having sex with Pat. In the society that Elaine lives in, she is surrounded by heterosexuality on all sides. Her neighbors are all straight couples, and she feels that her homosexual behavior is so strange that she would be cast out from her friends and family because of it. During the sexual encounter with Pat, “Everything Elaine thinks about who she is, what she is, is irrelevant” (Homes 105). Elaine has based her entire identity around her sexuality; she has been entirely focused on the idea of marriage and kids, and she has never considered that she could live any other way of life. It is stated that “Elaine is thinking that it’ll stop in a minute, it won’t really happen, it won’t go too far. It’s just two women exploring” (Homes 107). This is a perfect example of repression; as soon as Elaine starts to feel desire for a woman, she tried to convince herself that it isn’t real. When Freud describes sexual deviations, he says that “Some [inverts] accept their inversion as something in the natural course of things… and insist energetically that inversion is as legitimate as the normal attitude; others rebel against their inversion and feel it as a pathological compulsion” (Freud 3). Elaine is certainly rebelling against her inversion. She cannot help but enjoy her experience with Pat, but she cannot accept that it might actually be part of her identity as a person.

After her encounter with Pat, Elaine becomes increasingly frightened and anxious. She thinks to herself “did it really happen? Has Pat done this before? Does Pat think it was all Elaine’s fault? And why is Elaine thinking about fault? Why is she blaming herself?” (Homes 110). As soon as the sex is over Elaine is trying to justify it in her mind, to come up with some reason for it besides the fact that she is attracted to women. For Elaine, a heterosexual existence is key to her lifestyle. This reflects one of Freud’s observations about homosexuality and/or degeneracy which states that in degenerates “several serious deviations from the normal are found together, and the capacity for efficient functioning and survival seem to be severely impaired” (Freud 4). The idea of homosexuality as something shameful that needs to be pushed away is an idea that Elaine has taken to heart. She worries that having sex with Elaine will ruin her identity and prove that she is a bad wife, mother, and member of affluent society. In order to deal with this realization, she pushes her feelings and memories about Pat into the recesses of her mind in an unsuccessful attempt to subdue her desire. Secondly is the idea of Paul’s feminine tendencies. Although he often tries to act like the man of the house, Paul frequently deals with bouts of fear and insecurity that are tied to his sense of masculinity. During their stay with Pat and George, Paul shaves his legs and puts on a nightgown, and when asked about it by Elaine he says “I feel pretty” (Homes 56). Paul frequently challenges masculine concepts in his private life with Elaine, and yet he still feels the need to dominate her and impose his male stature. According to Freud, one explanation for Paul’s behavior could be that he is not finding satisfaction with his current sexual relationship with Elaine, so he is using other tactics to try to find fulfillment. Freud states that “A certain degree of fetishism is thus habitually present in normal love, especially in those stages of it in which the normal sexual aim seems unattainable or its fulfillment prevented” (Freud 20). Perhaps Paul is acting more feminine in order to connect with Elaine, who is struggling with her attraction to women. While this is possible according to Freud, there are other aspects of Paul’s character that suggest his femininity is more than just a phase caused by his marriage. He admits to still being fond of his college roommate with whom he had homosexual relations, but he would never himself admit to being anything other than straight.

In order to keep up appearances, Paul is forced to deny the feminine aspects of himself that we see emerge throughout the novel. In this way Homes’ interpretation of the characters might differ from Freud’s. Whereas Freud promoted the idea of penis envy (a woman is jealous of men because of the phallic nature of the male genitalia that she will never be able to obtain), Homes seems to imply that Paul desires a more female form. By doing traditionally feminine things like shaving his legs and arms, he is displaying the fact that there is a definite female side to his personality. While Freud makes no mention of a male alternative to penis envy, the idea of men having womb envy has been proposed by psychiatrist Karen Horney. She claims that “When one begins, as I did, to analyze men after a fairly long experience of analyzing women, one receives a most surprising impression of the intensity of this envy of pregnancy, childbirth, and motherhood” (Horney 1967, Horrocks 82), and this could be one explanation for Paul’s actions. Both Paul and Elaine are struggling to fulfill their roles in their home and marriage, and one reason that Paul feels unfulfilled as a father figure and masculine presence might be because he has an inherent jealousy of women yet represses it to sustain his image as a man. From his psychoanalysis, Freud does not usually criticize the shortcomings of men as he does women, as he views the male form as more ideal and desired.

Although a woman might be jealous of a man’s body, according to Freud’s ideas a man would never desire to be a woman. Homes is challenging this idea by presenting Paul as even more feminine than Elaine in many ways. While Elaine works well and is fairly level-headed during the crisis at the end of the novel, Paul is frantic and distraught; something that a traditionally manly character would not display. Rather than being strong and stoic, he breaks down into hysterics while his wife takes on the role of protector and defender. The fact that Freud does not include this stance on a shift in masculinity shows the downfalls of his theories and research. While is appears that Paul is neither gay nor straight, Freud would not likely have classified his as bisexual, as Freud was critical of the idea, referring to ‘a feminine brain in a masculine body’ as being “express[ion] in its crudest form” (Freud 8). Rather than operating from an objective, purely scientific standpoint, Freud was drawing upon his own experiences and behaviors for his research, which often led him to draw conclusions about sexuality that were not applicable to everyone. Homes displays Paul’s character in a way that Freud would never have imagined, and in this way Homes’ fictional text teaches the reader more about male sexuality than Freud’s scientific text. While Freud was correct in that Paul was displaying repression, Freud would likely have associated Paul’s actions with something other than inherent femininity or womb envy. Although Freud’s work can be used to analyze the behavior of real people, it’s important to remember that his research was imperfect, as Homes displays a crucial flaw with his analysis of male sexual desire. Both Freud and Homes suggest different reasons and motivations for the actions of Paul and Elaine. While both characters struggle with their homosexual tendencies and repress unwelcome urges, Freud and Homes provide different reasons for why the character chose to act the way that they did. From Freud’s scientific text we can draw certain conclusions, but we known that Freud’s research was biased and inaccurate.

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By drawing upon his own experience as evidence for his conclusions, Freud was really analyzing his own sexuality, and his work would not be useful in examining anything other than what he himself experienced. Those incorrect ideas then took root in society as they were the only popular ideas offered at the time, and many harmful stereotypes and misconceptions were created. Freud also classified everything he didn’t experience as abnormal, which is untrue. Just because Freud never had any homosexual feelings or struggles with gender expression does not mean that those feelings were abnormal. We can see this through the characters in Music for Torching, as they are examples of (fairly) normal people who are struggling with issues of sexuality and gender that we can see today in modern society. Being bisexual is no longer considered abnormal, just as there are plenty of normal men who enjoy feminine things like dresses and nightgowns. In his critique of Freud, author Richard Webster states that "no negative critique of psychoanalysis, however powerful, can ever constitute an adequate refutation of the theories which Freud put forward. For in scientific reality bad theories can only be driven out by better theories" (Webster 597). Homes shows that even in perfect “normal” suburbia, these deviations from sexual norms are occurring in every house with even the most average of families. What better way to show the normalcy of varied sexual behavior? Karen Horney said it best herself when she exclaimed that “A perfectly normal person is rare in our civilization” (Time 1952). Paul and Elaine might not be perfectly normal, but they don’t really have to be. Rather than trying to be normal, they should pursue the relationships and experiences that make them genuinely happy.


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Elias Curran-MooreGet original essayFreudian Explanation for Purpose of the Narr ...

Elias Curran-Moore

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Freudian Explanation for Purpose of the Narrator's dreams in “Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress”

Various theories of why we dream range from practical applications like facilitating encoding memories for long term storage or working through problems in an abstract fashion, all the way to activation synthesis theory, which states dreams have no purpose or meaning at all, and are the result of random activity from the pons and brainstem. For anyone unfamiliar with Sigmund Freud, put simply, his theory emphasized dreams reveal our subconscious thoughts and innermost desires. According to Freud, dreams have both manifest content, the remembered story line, and latent content, the hidden meaning. In this theory, dreams are key to understanding inner conflict. This theory can be clearly understood in “Balzac”, as it is easily applied to the central unnamed protagonist. Particularly since the Narrator is confined to a small isolated area with little ties to the outside world and few outlets for his desires and true inclinations on the mountain in the midst of his oppressive reeducation, the Narrator works through these impulses by experiencing extremely vivid dreams. In Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress by Dai Sijie, the Narrator's’ honest, harsh and unwanted thoughts can be blissfully played out within dreams.

The Narrator is constantly torn between his feelings of loyalty towards his best friend, Luo, and feelings for the girl Luo says he loves. This inner tug-of-war is something that is simply impossible to express in reality without creating some kind of emotional fallout or scene, which would be likely to destroy the Narrator's longtime friendship and would not be tolerated by the strict regime in place on the mountain. To make up for this, the Narrator’s subconscious formulates fantasy worlds for him. One of the narrator's dreams involved his best friend to have “...dreamed Luo entrusted the master-key to me.”(Sijie 91) a device which is critical to the success of their mission to steal forbidden western novels, of invaluable worth. His dream throws him into the midst of another fairy tale utopian world. Luo’s complete trust and approval has been given to him through this master key, showing the dream gives him one of his deepet desires, Lou’s complete and utter trust and respect. In the dream the mission is successful “As a last resort I tried the master-key again, and suddenly, with a dry click, the padlock gave away.”(92) revealing how these dreams are obviously the narrator’s covet, as the mission goes perfectly only after his own intervention. Dreams also display the Narrator’s greatest sources of expression of hidden desires, seen when the narrator points out “the villagers shouting and singing revolutionary songs” (91). Unable to reveal his yearning for new knowledge in the midst of an oppressive re-education allowing for no western ideas whatsoever, immediately passing the celebration narrator's actual wishes are, shown in his dream. The narrator's conscious attempts to concern itself with the events in the village, while the Narrator's true want is to explore elsewhere in the world, he wants to explore western ideas, or in this case, direct access to Four-Eye’s foreign books, the action taken in the dream, and later in reality when it becomes feasible. The dreams are the direct outlet for his id and those honest yearnings which can not be accepted in the real world.

Another dream of the narrators’ proves his inner thoughts can be more harsh and self-centered altogether. His first thoughts upon waking up in fact seem disappointed, noting that “it took (him) a while to work out where (he) was.” (116). This remark exudes disappointment, suggesting the narrator was happily lost and wrapped up within his dream world. In the dream, the narrator is following close behind a young girl, “A girl of our class, modest, ordinary, the kind of girl I had forgotten existed.”(116). who soon turns “into the Little Seamstress, vivacious, full of fun”(116). In his dream he is finally with the Little Seamstress, a direct link from his real life to fantasy dream life. “I felt myself blushing and my ears turning red-hot, like a teenger on his first romantic assignation.”(92) indicating the Narrator working through his repressed sexual desires, and the subsequent wet dream. After transforming the seamstress grew wings and briefly flew, “While her young lover Luo followed behind on all fours.”(116). Unhappy thoughts of the Seamstress maturing and leaving the clinging Luo behind because she has no need of him anymore are not wanted by the narrator, but make their unwelcome appearance in his dreams. After the dream takes him near a steep cliff, the narrator sees “the Little Seamstress had fallen over the side.” (117). revealing the unknown observations the narrator has subconsciously made, the knowledge the Seamstress is preparing to leave, and his fear she will ‘fall’ and have serious harm come to her as a result, what his subconscious formulates in a description of horrific injuries from the fall over the edge to her death. Possible events the Narrator cannot bring himself to contemplate are done so whether he wants to or not in his dreams.

In the same dream, the narrator finds himself constantly worrying about Luo, another unique connection between real and dream world. One of his introductory thoughts was “what she could be doing there with Luo on the mountain.”(116). The Narrator is so concerned with the competitive aspect between the three friends that he can not even shake the thought in his utmost fantasy world. The unknown girl at the beginning of the dream is a harsh reminder that it may not be the Seamstress herself that the narrator is drawn to, but the femininity, or the boyish competition and adrenalin he receive competing with Luo. The dream gives him readers a look at a harsh reality, but a true, desired reality for the narrator himself. To get revenge and some kind of personal satisfaction, the narrator notes the Seamstress “while her young lover Luo followed behind on all fours.” (117). The narrator has subconsciously bent his dream at will to turn his best friend into a person with beastly, rudamentary animal features, dehumanizing a childhood friend, not to mention his only real connection to his past life. Here, the dream is again giving in to what the Narrator really feels, in this moment an expression of his desire for dominance and victory over Luo, something the Narrator refuses to acknowledge in his conscious actions to avoid jeopardizing the relationship. The dream is able to contain the harsh instinctive urges of the Narrator.

All in all, dreams are an obvious and extremely necessary outlet for the Narrator's unwelcome and repressed feelings, desires, and fantasies he cannot express or experience, and the thoughts he cannot consciously articulate or refuses to. All of these can be worked through in his dreams, where he cannot escape them and there are no immediate real world repercussions. While the inner machinations of the Narrator's mind can be made much clearer through psychoanalysis, often our own dreams can be exceeding less telling, much to our own dismay.


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Table of contentsAbstractIntroductionFreud’s PerceptionMetamorphosis of Supere ...

Table of contents

  1. Abstract
  2. Introduction
  3. Freud’s Perception
  4. Metamorphosis of Superego Personality Into ID PersonalityEmotions Instability of Behavioral ChangesDisadvantages of Anger
  5. Conclusion

Abstract

This is a study of the transformation mood of people from normal personality to abnormal behavior. As we felt that there is an intertwining between the emotions and behavior of the humans. When we are peak in emotions, we won’t be conscious. We may have a chance to lose our temper and commit mistakes or misbehave. This is quite common behavior of humans. Here, we have analyzed and suggested few points convalesce in the perception of Sigmund Freud.

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Introduction

About a hundred years ago, Sigmund Freud has presented the idea of ID EGO and SUPEREGO in an essay titled: Beyond the Pleasure Principle. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Id,_ego_and_super-ego 'According to this Freudian model of the psyche, the id is the set of uncoordinated instinctual trends; the super-ego plays the critical and moralizing role; and the ego is the organized, realistic part that mediates between the desires of the id and the super-ego.' I started to keep on questioning myself how the super ego-personality metamorphoses into an id personality. For that, I tried to analyze Freud’s perception and suggested few points to overcome these issues.

Freud’s Perception

On the perception of Freud, psychology proposes that psychological forces are underlying human behavior, feelings, and emotions. Psychodynamics was originated with Sigmund Freud in the late 19th century, who suggested that psychological processes are flows of psychological energy (libido) in a complex brain. In response to the more reductionist approach of genetic, structural, and functional psychology movements, the psychodynamic perspective marks a pendulum swing back toward more holistic, systemic, and abstract concepts and their influence on the more concrete behaviors and actions. Freud’s theory of psychoanalysis assumes that much of mental life is unconscious and that past experiences, especially in early childhood, shape how a person feels and behaves throughout life.

Consciousness is the awareness of the self in space and time. It can be defined as human awareness of both internal and external stimuli. The conscious level consists of all those things we are aware of, including things that we know about ourselves and our surroundings. The preconscious consists of those things we could pay conscious attention to if we so desired, and where many memories are stored for easy retrieval. Freud saw the preconscious as those thoughts that are unconscious at the particular moment in question, but that is not repressed and are therefore available for recall and easily capable of becoming conscious (e.g., the “tip of the tongue” effect). The unconscious consists of those things that are outside of conscious awareness, including many memories, thoughts, and urges of which we are not aware. Much of what is stored in the unconscious is thought to be unpleasant or conflicting; for example, sexual impulses that are deemed “unacceptable.” While these elements are stored out of our awareness, they are nevertheless thought to influence our behavior.

Metamorphosis of Superego Personality Into ID Personality

The superego is the part of a person’s mind that acts as a self-critical conscience. There are differing opinions on exactly how a superego is formed. Sigmund Freud believed the superego formed during the emotional tumult that takes place in the toddler years, during which time a child internalizes the voices of their parent. Regardless of how and when the superego is formed, it seems universally understood that a child’s early environment has a significant impact on the nature of the superego. While supportive, present, and receptive parents are more likely to affect the formation of a mildly critical or supportive superego, aid is, more likely than not, at least partially the product of critical, harsh, or emotionally or physically absent parents.

Like an envious child who would rather destroy something that isn’t theirs, simply because they cannot have it, an id personality can make it feel like there is an internal someone or something intent on destruction. Shifting from a superego to id causes only by emotions but it is possible to overcome. Those who experience this harshness, these internal cuts, might often feel stuck in life. They may feel isolated, experience depression, self-harm, or fantasize about hurting themselves or others. This mentality can lead people to push others away and can also cause a person to feel stagnant at work or in a relationship. This led some individuals who cope with the id may also be more likely to turn toward drugs, alcohol, or other substances or use violent outbursts or sex to escape the persecutory voice within.

Emotions Instability of Behavioral Changes

Being emotionally unstable can be a sign of a greater issue within a person. Being emotionally unstable can mean a personality disorder such as borderline personality disorder. It can also be a sign of childhood trauma, depression, or anxiety disorder. The signs of an emotionally unstable person can vary. They may show signs of depression and anxiety, while also exhibiting several behaviors that can affect both themselves and the people around them. Counselling Directory adds, “They may also have intense bouts of anger, anxiety or depression that can last several hours or even days. Mood swings will vary between periods of dysphoria to periods of euphoria, and from manic self-confidence to severe anxiety and irritability.” If you know someone who you suspect may be emotionally unstable, it’s important to recognize the signs so that you’re better prepared to understand them and what they need. You’ll also be prepared to support them without allowing their behaviors to personally affect you, or to get them the help that they need to work through these behaviors. Emotion is the term used in psychology to describe short-term variations in internal mental state, including both physical responses like fear, and cognitive responses like jealousy. Research has shown that the self-constructive type gets high scores in extroversion and low scores in neuroticism. But not only that, but they also get high scores on another feature that we haven’t mentioned yet: responsibility.

This personality is not only related to higher levels of happiness but also with greater resilience: the ability to see difficulties as challenges to be overcome. Things that will make them stronger. Thus, people who are not able to cope with situations have a vulnerable or inhibited personality. This is the same as the self-destructive personality type. As you can see, personality and emotions are closely linked. Our personality greatly influences our overall health and all areas of our life

We as humans are naturally lazy and thus naturally stupid. We come with our own personalities, but it is critically important that we encourage these personalities towards a direction of more effort. That is, if you don’t exercise your brain into regions where it is uncomfortable then it will atrophy just like every other muscle that is devoid of resistance. I attempted to map emotions to the 7 deadly sins. I discovered the obvious that is you can’t divorce the notion of self from either the sins or the virtues. Haidt’s moral intuitionism relates to a person’s own beliefs of the priorities of society.

Anger is often associated with negative connotations. Yet is it not all bad. Some of the most successful people I’ve personally met have little to no reservations about unleashing their anger. The is management and how to harness the power of it. Everybody experiences a bout of anger every once in a while. And many feel embarrassed and even ashamed whenever they display it. It is important to understand that anger is not all bad. There are good elements to it as well. It’s bad enough is you tend to physically hurt people when you get angry. But the more painful part is the emotional and psychological damage you put on family and friends. It’s no fun being around people who get angry all the time over minuscule issues. Friends and colleagues start to avoid you and get too uncomfortable in your presence to be themselves. You start to strain relationships that would take a lot of time to mend, if ever. That’s just your friends. Your family has it worse. Your wife or husband is stuck with you. And the only way to cut ties should you continue with your ways is a divorce. And what about your children? Is your anger creating a conducive environment for them to grow up into responsible adults? Just try to ignore it.

This is probably why counselors and professionals treating victims of anger often don’t go about trying to eliminate anger from a sufferer. They only attempt to train him or her on managing it.

  • We can identify those people through the following behavioral changes and also should find solutions.
  • They’re more into impulsive actions,
  • They have anger issues,
  • On again, off-again relationships,
  • They have extreme reactions

If someone you know and are close to has issues with being emotionally stable, recognizing these behaviors can help you figure out what type of help they need to get them on the right track. We can bring them back to a normal life. I can only imagine that it is different for each person depending on their personality, history, and immediate circumstances.

It's going to be very different for a psychopath that removes an obstacle, or who is curious to see what a person looks like when they die, compared to an enraged lover who picks up a gun by the bed of discovered plovers, compared to a woman who has been beaten, and discovering their child has been sexually abused by their partner who has said he will hunt them down if they leave them, ends the life before it can do further harm, compared to the young man who carries a knife expecting to use it against a potential rival on the street, compared to the leader who declares an edict that one racial group should be wiped out because they are an irritant to his plans, compared to a drug addict looking for valuables but instead finding a person who he beats to a pulp out of fear and desperation, compared to a teenager who is tormented by voices that tell him he is worthless and who sees demons in faces everywhere so that he finally believes that god has sent him to vanquish the world if drmons only they aren't demons they are schoolchildren, compared to the husband who gives his wife more morphine than is absolutely necessary so that their time is cut more bearably short.

  • Guilt, anger, sickness, relief, upset, madness, victory, disappointment, emptiness.
  • I am sure such an extreme act causes an extremity and most likely a range and of emotions.
  • It's a category of crime that encompasses a huge breadth of human experience.
  • Consequently, you can't pin it down to one thing and one feeling.

Disadvantages of Anger

Self-control is key to a well-functioning life because our brain makes us easily [susceptible] to all sorts of influences. Watching a movie showing violent acts predisposes us to act violently. Even just listening to violent rhetoric makes us more inclined to be violent. Ironically, the same mirror neurons that make us empathic make us also very vulnerable to all sorts of influences. This is why control mechanisms are so important. Indeed, after many years of studies on mirror neurons and their functioning we are shifting our lab research to the study of the control mechanisms in the brain for mirror neurons. If you think about it, there must be control mechanisms for mirror neurons. Mirror neurons are cells that fire when I grab a cup of coffee (to give you an example) as well as when I see you grabbing a cup of coffee. So, how come I don't imitate you all the time? The idea is that there are systems in the brain that help us by imitating only 'internally' they dampen the activity of mirror neurons when we simply watch, so that we can still have the sort of 'inner imitation' that allows us to empathize with others, without any overt imitation.

Control of the emotions also prevents anger from poisoning the warrior. Anger is a useless emotion that only taxes energy and creates numerous vulnerabilities. The famous satirist Pietro Aretino put it best when he said, 'Angry men are blind and foolish, for reason at such time takes flight and, in her absence, wrath plunders all the riches of the intellect, while the judgment remains the prisoner of its own pride.'

Viciousness is another critical characteristic of the killer instinct. By viciousness, I mean dangerously aggressive behavior or extreme violence. Many people will consider this the most revolting aspect of the controlled killer instinct. However, if a self-defense practitioner is to prevail in combat, he must be more vicious than his adversary. His tools and techniques must be brutal, explosive, and conclusive. At the same time, his attack must be strategically calculated to maximize efficiency, effectiveness, and safety.

The killer instinct also requires a unified mind. A unified mind is free from distractions and fully focused on the enemy. Distractions are derived from two sources. The first is internal, wherein your mind wanders off or panics before or during actual combat. The second is external when your adversary attempts to verbally 'psych you out,' for example. Environmental conditions such as weather, lighting, terrain, and noise can also create external distractions. Regardless of the source, distractions must be ignored and eliminated from your consciousness.

The key issue is the balance of power between these control mechanisms that we call top-down because they are all like executives that control from the top down to the employees and bottom-up mechanisms, in the opposite direction, like mirror neurons. Whereby perception watching somebody making an action influences decisions making the same action ourselves. What happens in these individuals is that their cognitive control mechanisms are deranged. Mind you, these individuals are not out-of-control, enraged people. They just use their cognitive control mechanisms in the service of a disturbed goal. There is probably a multitude of factors at play here. The subject is exposed to influences that lead him or her to violent acts including, unfortunately, not only the violent political rhetoric but also the media coverage of similar acts, as we are doing here.

'If you have the high-risk form of the gene and you were abused early on in life, your chances of a life of crime are much higher. If you have the high-risk gene but you weren't abused, then there really wasn't much risk. So just a gene by itself, the variant doesn't really dramatically affect behavior, but under certain environmental conditions there is a big difference”. So it seems that a genetic tendency towards violence, together with an abusive childhood, is literally a killer combination - murderers are both born and made. We now have a far more sophisticated understanding of the complex interactions between the social and the biological factors that predispose people to violence. But what can we do with that knowledge?

Research is focusing on ways to reduce violent behavior and there is good evidence that teaching families who are at risk positive parenting skills are effective at improving impulse control. The hope is that now we know so much more about the causes of murderous behavior we can spot the early warning signs and intervene before it's too late.

Conclusion

Before going into the conclusion, we have seen all nooks and corners of the behavioral changes of humans as our point of view such as “emotions” plays a vital role in it. So, here we suggested a few practical proven remedies to trounce this issue.

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  • Art. Creating art It found to be very therapeutic.
  • Get rest. Sleeping, particularly in the early stages of depression is necessary for your mind to heal.
  • Keep a journey journal... Writing it down helps to get it out of your head and also identify when things are not as bad as you previously thought.
  • Set goals, wild crazy goals as well as achievable ‘realist’ ones. Setting a goal will make your life comfortable.
  • Exercise. As hard as it may seem, do push yourself to exercise. This should be one of your top goals.
  • Watch motivational videos and films.
  • Laugh even when you don’t want to. Even force yourself to smile for at least 30 seconds
  • Meditate. It is really good and with regular practice, you will find some peace of mind.
  • Assess Relationships. Are all your relationships healthy? Not just love relationships but also friendships? It is sometimes important to detach from people who are causing you distress as sometimes letting go is not only beneficial for you but also to the person you are letting go of.
  • Seek A Therapy. Last but not least, you really need to try different therapies alongside exercising, goal setting, sleeping well, and finding motivation.
  • Set clear boundaries about what you will and will not tolerate.
  • Wait for a time when you are both calm to talk to your loved one about the anger problem. Don’t bring it up when either of you is already angry.
  • Remove yourself from the situation if your loved one does not calm down.
  • Consider counseling or therapy if you are having a hard time standing up for yourself.
  • Put your safety first. If you feel unsafe or threatened in any way, get away from your loved one.
  • Don’t Suppress Your Anger. Express Your Emotions Constructively

We often say that peace of mind is one of the most valuable things in life. The path to peace of mind involves taking charge of one’s lifelike driving the car. Then, the life we build is felt to belong to us. We get to enjoy and feel satisfaction from our achievements, and we get to learn and grow from our failures and disappointments. These experiences nourish the mind. They help us to feel more in control which ultimately helps us feel more capable, more real, more whole, and more comfortable. Once, we started to control our emotions, “we can rule the world as we like it”.


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Frida Kahlo, the most famous female artist to date. Frida was a confident and br ...

Frida Kahlo, the most famous female artist to date. Frida was a confident and brave woman, especially for her time. She didn’t let anyone tell her what she could and could not accomplish. Even through her personal troubles, she was able to live an inspirational life and create beautiful art pieces that are still treasured today. Her artwork reflects her experiences and illustrate her background and culture. Frida’s story is one that has inspired many people; including me, which is the reason why I have chosen her to write about. I would like to also be confident enough to not let anyone get to me so that I could live my life the way I desire. Many of her paintings were her expressing her mental and physical pain. Two of her famous paintings which have particularly spoken to me include The Two Fridas, which express her pain on the inside; and The Broken Column, which expresses her pain on the exterior.

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Frida was born and raised in Mexico; her life started on July 6, 1907 in Mexico City. She was especially close to her father as a child. Regardless, her life began on a rough start. She contracted polio at the age of six and had to be in bed for nine months; as a result of this disease, her right leg grew much skinnier than her left. She often wore long skirts in order to hide her misshapen legs. Despite this, Frida was still determined to do activities such as swimming, playing soccer, boxing, and other things unusual for girls at the time. Additionally, her mother was the one who encouraged her to do most of these things. With the eventual goal of working in the medical field, she attended the National Preparatory School in Mexico City when she was 15 in 1922. She was one of the 35 female students who went to this school. This is also where she met the love of her life: Diego Rivera. All seemed to be going as planned, but fate led her life to an unfortunate turn. In 1925 she was impaled by a handrail through her hip during an unfortunate bus accident; her spine and pelvis were broken. She was put into a hospital and was kept in a body cast after being given surgery. As a result of this accident, Frida had to have over 30 surgeries and operations done over her lifetime.

Nevertheless, during her time recovering, she had started to paint. It was something she had begun doing in order to pass the time while she was immobile in the hospital. She eventually finished her first painting in 1926 by the name of Self-Portrait Wearing a Velvet Dress. Frida once gave her reasoning on why she painted so many portraits of herself by saying, “I paint myself because I am often alone and I am the subject I know best”. Out of the total of 200 paintings she had done, Frida had painted 55 self-portraits. Many of her paintings were expressions of how much pain she felt inside and out.

In 1928 is when Frida met with Rivera once again; she showed him her work and he was quite impressed. He encouraged her to continue painting, so that’s what Frida decided to do. Eventually the two of them fell in love, causing Diego to divorce his wife so they could get married in 1929. Even though Frida’s mother did not approve of their marriage, they were happily marriage to each other. They were sometimes called “The Elephant and the Dove”, a nickname given to express their difference in size. Following her marriage to Diego, Frida had implied some minor changes to her style of painting. She also began to wear a Tehuana dress that also became a symbol for her, as well as traditional Mexican clothing. These traditional clothes included a headdress, a blouse, a long skirt, and gold jewelry. In 1931, she created a piece by the name of “Frida and Diego Rivera” which showed this changed style in painting and clothing.

By 1934 Frida had had two miscarriages. To show her pain as a result of this, she had painted a piece titled Henry Ford Hospital in 1932 which included herself lying in a hospital bed with a fetus, a flow, a pelvis, and a snail surrounding her and being connected by veins. This reminds us that she wanted to have children despite the fact she couldn’t because of the bus accident. Even though Frida claimed Diego was the love of her life, her marriage with Diego was one with many affairs; one of which was with Kahlo’s sister Cristina. Frida Kahlo was so depressed by this that she had actually cut off her hair short to express herself as a result of the betrayal. However, Frida also had many affairs with both men and women, making her the most well-known bisexual woman artist to date. Their marriage ended for a short time on 1939, but they had eventually remarried in 1940. During that time in 1939, Frida painted one of her most famous paintings: The Two Fridas. This piece shows her divided self and how she felt during the time she was not with Diego. Four years after they remarried she painted another familiar painting, The Broken Column, which shows herself split open and her spine replaced with a broken column. This piece reminds us of the pain she must have felt due to the bus accident.

Frida’s health did not get any better. Eventually in 1953 she had a solo exhibition which she showed up to in an ambulance. A year later she died of pulmonary embolism, though it is suspected that she may have committed suicide through overdose since she was highly depressed due to her lack of mobility. Days before she died, Frida wrote: “I hope the exit is joyful – and I hope never to return”. These last few words are able to show us how much pain she must have experienced throughout her life up to this point and how she was tired of living. Even so, she had pushed on until that point in her life which makes her an inspiration to all. Her life hasn’t gone unnoticed either. Her artworks can be admired by all sorts of people in many different art galleries and museums around the world. Even generations after her death, Frida is still a top subject in most art classes. Her paintings are easily recognizable and very iconic in today’s world. We will be sure to never forget her outstanding contributions to the art world as well as the impact she has made in our hearts.

One of the paintings previously mentioned was a portrait by the name of The Two Fridas, done in 1939 and using oil paint. Depicted in this painting is two Frida Kahlo’s holding hands. One Frida is wearing a modern dress and the other is wearing a traditional Tehuana costume. Their hearts are on the outside of their bodies and one even has some blood on her dress and is also holding scissors. One of the elements of design used in this painting is texture to be seen; there is plenty of texture especially in the dresses and the sky or background. It feels like the fabrics worn have a sort of softness to them, as if they were really draping over the Frida’s bodies. In the background there is a sort of madness happening with all the light cloud-like shapes and all the different values in there. A principle of design shown is definitely balance, because the face that the piece is symmetric with two Fridas but is still asymmetrical due to the different outfits. This portrait is very unified and harmonious because of this asymmetry happening with the two different Fridas that are similar and holding hands. This painting is an example of her putting her feelings pain on the inside onto a canvas; she was trying to express her feeling of divided self and her sadness from being separated from Diego. There is a bit of abstraction in this portrait because the human figure and dresses are not quite realistic or how you would see it in the real world. Personally, this painting gives me a sense of dread and sadness knowing she felt this way. Frida felt desperate and alone during the time she was separated from Diego; this shows just how much she loved Diego. Anyone who’s ever been in love before should know the pain felt when they cannot be with their loved one, and Frida must have felt that constantly even when they weren’t divorced because they lived in separate locations.

The second famous painting that has stood out to me especially is The Broken Column. This portrait was done in 1944 using oil paints. Shown in this portrait is Frida, she is naked and wearing a body brace. There is a split in the center of her from her neck down. In this split we can see a column in the place of her spine; the column is horribly broken apart and worn out and almost seems ready to fall apart at any moment. We can also see a series of nails sticking out from her skin in places like her face, arms, and torso. There are also tears to be seen running down her face, most likely to express sadness. The message that Frida was trying to convey was a clear one: she was a woman who was in a lot of pain and she pictured her spine to be like a broken column due to the incident with the bus. This is an example of how Frida often made paintings and portraits that were able to show us the type of pain she must have felt due to her accident and many illnesses. An obvious principle of design shown in this piece is variety. There is a variety of different elements working together in this image such as the nails, the body brace, the blanket or cloth, the tears on her face, and the desolate background. Even though there is a variety of different things to note in this portrait, this is still harmony and unity present; everything works together to form a neat and clear piece of artwork. Just like her other works of art, this painting has many vibrant colors as a result of being influenced by the Mexican culture. This painting was one in which people especially began to classify Frida as a surrealist. To me, this piece is more than just about pain, but more about overcoming that pain. Sometimes I can feel like I’m not able to go on, but nonetheless I still try my best to do my best in anything I do. This is what Frida did as well; she may not have always been healthy physically and mentally, but she still tried her best in her artwork and in life.

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To conclude, Frida Kahlo was the artist I chose because she was a confident and hardworking woman who sought to do her best in life despite all her troubles. Frida created a total of 200 paintings, most in which were enriched with bright colors inspired by the Mexican culture. She painted many artworks illustrating her emotions and feelings in order to give us an inside view of what she was feeling during her hard times. She documented many things that happened in her life such as her marriage, miscarriages, and her surgeries. This is something that is comforting to many people who are also going through their own struggles, whether it be mentally or physically or both. These people may not only be able to relate to her pain, but also be inspired and encouraged to do their best to also live their lives to the fullest, because Frida did this as well. Frida is a figure in which I can look to when I’m not feeling my best mentally or physically. She gives me and many people hope when we don’t know if we can make it.

Works Cited

  1. Herrera, H. (1983). Frida: A Biography of Frida Kahlo. HarperCollins.
  2. Zamora, M. (2018). The Art of Frida Kahlo: A Psychoanalytic Interpretation. Routledge.
  3. Kahlo, F., & Zamora, M. (2005). The Diary of Frida Kahlo: An Intimate Self-Portrait. Harry N. Abrams.
  4. Aridjis, H. (1993). Frida Kahlo, The Eye of the Storm. Chronicle Books.
  5. Souter, G. (2014). Frida Kahlo: Beneath the Mirror. Sterling.
  6. Zamora, M. (2014). Frida Kahlo: The Brush of Anguish. Thames & Hudson.
  7. Fabiny, T. (2019). Frida Kahlo: Artist, Painter, Icon. Prestel Publishing.
  8. Herrera, H. (2017). Frida Kahlo: The Gisèle Freund Photographs. Abrams.
  9. Wolf, J. (2003). Frida. Miramax Books.
  10. Gannit Ankori. (1999). Imaging Her Selves: Frida Kahlo's Poetics of Identity and Fragmentation. Westview Press.

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Frida Kahlo is one of the most famous female artists in the world. She is consid ...

Frida Kahlo is one of the most famous female artists in the world. She is considered by many to be one of Mexico’s best artists. Frida was a painter who is known for drawing inspiration from elements of Mexican culture. She is celebrated for her vibrant self portraits that show her defying beauty standards.

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Born to a German immigrant and Mexican-Ameridian in 1907, Frida grew up with many influential cultures that inspired her art. However, before Frida became a famous painter her life was hard. As a child Frida was in poor health and contracted polio at only six years old. She was bedridden for 9 months, leaving one of her legs shrunken. Because of this deformity she wore long skirts for the rest of her life in an attempt to hide it. Despite this, her father encouraged her to do sports in the hopes it would help her recover. She played soccer, swam, and even wrestled which was an unusual thing for women at the time.

On top of being one of the only girl wrestlers of the time, Frida was also one of only 35 girls that went to the National Preparatory School in Mexico City. She was well known for her outspoken and “unladylike” behavior. While at school, she joined a group of students in which she shared the same political opinions. The leader of the group was Alejandro Gomez Arias, who Frida fell in love with. While traveling with Arias their bus collided with a streetcar, leaving Frida severely injured. She was impaled in the hip by a steel handrail which fractured her spine and pelvis. Frida had to stay in the hospital for weeks and was eventually put in a full body cast for 3 months. But, this horrible accident was what started her career as a painter. While confined to a bed, her parents urged her to paint to pass the time. They made her a special easel so she could easily paint while lying down and bought her boxes of art supplies. Within a year, she had finished her first self portrait.

After the accident in 1928, Frida connected with Diego Rivera, another student from the political group. Diego was a fellow artist and they quickly formed a romantic relationship. Despite Frida’s mother’s disapproval, the two got married the following year. At the beginning of their married life, the couple moved all over because of Diego’s work. In 1933, while living in New York City, Diego was commissioned to paint a mural for the Rockefeller Center. In the painting, Diego tried to include communist leader Vladimir Lenin. Rockefeller stopped the painting and painted over Lenin. Deigo and Frida were forced to move back to Mexico after the incident. Frida and Deigo’s marriage was an unusual one. They lived in separate houses and both were reported to have numerous affairs. In 1937, the couple helped Leon Troskvy, an exiled communist and rival of Joseph Stalin, and Frida had an affair with him while he stayed at their home.

In 1938, Frida was introduced to Andre Breton, a prominent figure of the Surrealist movement. Becoming friends with Andre helped Frida realize her own art style. The next year, Andre invited Frida to Paris with him. There she was introduced to more famous artists such as Marc Chagall, Piet Mondrian, and Pablo Picasso. While in Paris, several pieces of her art were put on display, gaining her popularity with the French. That same year, Frida and Diego got a divorce. During that time Frida painted one of her most famous paintings, The Two Frida’s. But the divorce was short, within the next year Frida and Deigo were remarried with the same bad habits as before.

Things became hard for Frida. Her father, who she was very close to, passed and she was stricken with grief. On top of that, Frida began to suffer from severe chronic pain and health problems. She was commissioned by the Mexican government to paint five portraits of important Mexican women, but was unable to finish the project. But, despite these challenges Frida was going through her work was gaining popularity and she was more famous than ever before. In the year of 1944, Frida painted ‘The Broken Column’, a painting that showed her struggling health and the intense pain she was in. During this time Frida underwent several surgeries and had to wear special corsets designed to help her spine. She sought many medical treatments for the pain, but nothing alleviated it.

As she grew older her health deteriorated. Frida was diagnosed with gangrene in 1944 and later had to amputate part of her leg because of the disease. She was bedridden for 9 months, but this didn’t stop her from continuing her art. In the year of 1953, she had a solo exhibition in Mexico. Because of her limited mobility, Frida arrived by ambulance and spent the night confined to a bed the gallery set out for her.

Frida was deeply depressed because of her worsening health condition. She went to the hospital multiple times in 1953, some of those visits for her mental health. One week after Frida Kahlo’s 47th birthday she passed away. The public records say that cause of death was pulmonary ebolism but rumors have circulated saying it was suicide.

Frida’s death did not stop her growing popularity. Her Blue House was opened to the public as a museum in 1958. The feminism movement of the 1970’s revived Frida’s work as she was seen as an icon of feminine creativity and art. More attention was drawn to her in the 1980’s when Hayden Herrara wrote a biography about the great artist, A Biography of Frida Kahlo. Frida Kahlo was an influential artist whose work will live on for many years to come.

Biography of Frida Kahlo

“I am not sick. I am broken. But I am happy to be alive as long as I can paint.” - Frida Kahlo

Frida Kahlo was born in Coyoacán, Mexico on July 6th, 1907. At the age of 6, Frida contracted poliomyelitis and was bedridden for a total of nine months. As a result of polio, she developed a limp that she would have for the remainder of her life. Frida was constantly ridiculed in school about her limp and often wore long dresses to cover up her legs. On September 17th, 1925, at the tender age of 18, Kahlo boarded a bus that collided with a streetcar. The accident caused her to break and crush several bones. The most damage was done by being impaled by a handrail, leaving her with damage to her spine and uterus. Kahlo’s injuries were so extensive, she wasn’t expected to survive. She was unconscious for several weeks, but when she came to, she asked her father to buy her art supplies. This is when Kahlo began depicting her struggles and challenges in her life that made her famous.

In 1928, Kahlo married fellow Mexican artist Diego Rivera, despite him being known for his promiscuity. During the marriage, cheating was committed on both sides, and it is known that Kahlo had an intimate relationship with someone of the same sex. Kahlo was pregnant several times, but none were successful due to the damage she endured from the bus crash. Eventually, the pair divorced, causing Kahlo to be heartbroken. This added yet another struggle that was well documented in her artwork.

Kahlo used primarily oil paint either on canvas or Masonite (a smooth hardboard). The style she is mostly associated with is Surrealism, which is a style of art that brings experiences of the unconscious mind into the artwork. She drew inspiration from traditional indigenous Mexican art, which is seen in her use of colors and ceremonial objects in her paintings. Most of her artwork is self-portrait along with animals, still life, and family. Kahlo is often associated with feminism, Mexican nationalism, and has become a role model for people with disabilities.

An artist very similar to Frida Kahlo is Vincent van Gogh. Like Kahlo, van Gogh often used his struggles in life to depict in his paintings. While they are similar in that, they had two different painting styles. Kahlo used dreamlike imagery in her paintings, van Gogh preferred to use brushstrokes and colors to get the message to the viewer. Salvador Dali is an artist whose main style is surrealism, like Kahlo, but depicted things such as sexual imagery and sensations of a man. Another comparable artist to Kahlo would be her husband, Diego Rivera. Like Kahlo, most of his paintings and murals were inspired by traditional indigenous Mexican art, Mexican nationalism, and the Mexican revolution. The only thing Rivera’s work was lacking compared to Kahlo is surrealist imagery.

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Frida Kahlo died on July 13th, 1954 in Coyoacán, Mexico after falling ill from pneumonia. After her death, a museum was founded in the exact house she lived and died in. It is one of the most popular museums in Mexico City. Little did she know, she left behind a legacy that would inspire generations.


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Major companies have the challenge of creating a compelling story in under a min ...

Major companies have the challenge of creating a compelling story in under a minute that will engage an audience and promote their product. Beer company, Budweiser, did just that with their commercial, “Friends are Waiting.” They produced this for Global Be(er) Responsible Day, in hopes to not only advertise their drinks, but to also bring awareness to the safeties that should be taken with drinking. With the story of a growing puppy and his owner the audience is drawn in to learn the underlying message about alcohol consumption. Between pathos, ethos, logos, and repetition Budweiser balances the story of a loving dog and owners bond, along with advising the responsibility of drinking.

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Throughout the commercial it is evident that Budweiser most commonly uses pathos to engage peoples feeling of love toward the dog and its owner. We are first shown the puppy being carried by the owner, making him seem like a prominent character in the story. He begins to remind the audience of their own pets and the first connection they had. From there the bond between owner and dog is displayed through playing in the park, napping together, and the overall growth from puppy to dog. This again connects with the audience bringing back memories of when their pets were small and how much they have helped them to grow. With the added in song lyrics, “You and me we were made for love, A lifetime is not long enough to show you what you mean to me,” and the catchy, upbeat tune, people find themselves humming the lyrics and thinking about the bond in the commercial as well as with their pets. When it comes time for the owner to go out with his friends, the audience finds themselves feeling sorry for the dog as it is left behind after all their adventures. By now they have built a strong connection the dog, and worry with it as we wonder where the owner is all night. By creating this connection Budweiser has created an emotion connection between pet owners and the story in the commercial, keeping them engaged in the transformation as well as the product.

The commercial takes a turn toward ethos when the only wording, “For some, the waiting never ended. But we can change that… make a plan to make it home. Your friends are counting on you,” comes into play. This sets the tone that though Budweiser would like to promote their product, they would like people to enjoy their beer responsibly. This wording is strategically placed in the middle of the wait to see if the owner will return home to his loving companion. Since this is a commercial for Global Be(er) Responsible Day, they use the owner and dogs bond, along with these compelling words, to bring everyone’s attention to the fact that they can drink and still be responsible with their lives. This makes the audience feel a sense of credibility toward Budweiser because they are caring about the impact of their drink just as much as the sales of it.

Budweiser also relayed credibility when they made "Friends are Waiting" into a series of multiple commercials, each showing a different relations of a puppy and its owner. By doing this they enabled a 'hashtag' for media, "#FriendsareWaiting", allowing their product to then be spread and talked about easily across the internet. Being the twenty-first century most young and middle aged adults are up to date with current social media apps, making them very likely to use and promote this hashtag after falling in love with the stories in these commercials. By doing this they can promote their product easily, while also promoting their safe drinking message; again gaining credibility with audience members.

Budweiser relates logic to the social idea that when children are old enough to move out they finally get the chance to own the pet they’ve always wanted. We consistently hear the little kid begging mom and dad for a puppy for their birthday or special holiday; it has become a social norm that when young adults are old enough to get their own place they buy the pet they have been dreaming of. When looking at “Friends are Waiting” the owner is noticeable a young man living in his ‘bachelor pad’ and welcoming his new companion into his life. People, specifically young adults, find this commercial relatable as they look at their furry friend next to them and realize that they are a major part of each other’s life, and would be sad if one was not to come back. They also find it relatable as they are taking on the responsibility of owning their new pet. It is a big obligation taking on a pet, but it is also a big obligation to drink responsibly.

The other logos used in this commercial is the demonstration of the ‘American Dream.’ Since the main character is noticeably a young adult living in what seems like a new home, it is connecting to first time home or apartment owners. This is also a major responsibility for young adults starting off on their own. They finally own their own place so they must take on the ability to grocery shop, clean and pay bills, along with drinking responsible so they don’t mess their new life up. Budweiser can easily relate the obligations of ‘the American Dream’ to reasonable drinking and over Global Be(er) Responsible Day.

Though Budweiser is only seen a few times throughout the commercial, it is strategically placed in key moments to keep it memorable. They keep the theme of safe drinking by showing a minimal amount when friends are hanging out on the water and again when the owner is going out, he only carries a single case. It pops with the color red but then leaves site, giving just enough of a view for the audience to remember the product, Budweiser, but does not take away from the overall safety message. Throughout the commercial they add subtle pops of red through the dog’s color, the owners red blanket and beach towel and the owners red flannel as he leaves to join his friends. Red is a common color associated with Budweiser when thinking about beer companies. By adding these indirect pops of red, the audience is able to easily relate all parts of the commercial to the overall product, Budweiser.

In the commercial “Friends are Waiting,” Budweiser strategically use of pathos, ethos, logos, and repetition, not only to support their beer, but to give the audience a relatable story to remember and a helpful message to keep in mind. By creating this add for Global Be(er) Responsible Day they remind people that there are things more important than just simply drinking the beer; you must think about the ones around you. “Friends Are Waiting” is a creative way for Budweiser to promote their product, and safe drinking, while telling a heartwarming story of a loving dog and his owner.


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Friendship is arguably the most relevant philosophical matter expounded upon in ...

Friendship is arguably the most relevant philosophical matter expounded upon in The Nicomachean Ethics. While other virtues may not be practiced on a daily basis, friendship and the implications of such a relationship are somewhat more consistent. Living necessitates interactions and relationships with other people, and Aristotle’s view on friendship offers insight that can be incorporated into everyday life. Aristotle uses his discussion of friendship and its relation to justice to create a foundation for his argument about the function of politics, the “science of the human good,” in society (Aristotle, I, 2, 3). In light of his philosophical dissection of friendship and justice, Aristotle would support a government with a philosopher king as the head of the polis—like Plato presents—though Aristotle’s political system would focus more on the individual fostering of virtue than the creation of a perfect society.

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The virtue of true friendship, as Aristotle defines it, deals with the mutually reciprocated relationship between two good people who bear goodwill towards one another for the other’s sake (VIII, 2, 144). Though Aristotle’s definition seems intuitive, a relationship must meet many qualifications in order to be considered a true friendship. Chiefly, the friendship must be virtuous. Virtue, specifically moral virtue, is a “state of character concerned with choice… this being determined by reason, and by that reason by which the man of practical wisdom would determine it,” (II, 6, 31). People perform virtuous actions for the sake of the action, aiming at happiness—the “final and self-sufficient…end of action”—and not using them as a means to obtain something else (I, 7, 10). Virtue also predisposes an individual to execute virtuous actions “at the right times, with reference to the right objects, towards the right people, with the right motive, and in the right way,” (II, 6, 30). Friendship, which is based on mutual love, is a virtue because “mutual love involves choice and choice springs from a state of character,” (VIII, 5, 148). Therefore, if a man considers himself a friend to another, then that man must make a conscious decision to partake in the activities of friendship towards the other person. Friendship, then, cultivates the actions of true friendship in a desire to fulfill the human telos, or end-goal of the human life. For this reason, friendships of utility and pleasure are not virtuous and quickly dissolve, because they exist so that each party can gain something from the other. True friendship, though, stands the test of time so long as the friends interact on a regular basis. In the case of friendship, both parties unconditionally love each other, constantly, equally, and for the sake of the other.

The differences between friendship and other traditional virtues can be seen clearly when considering friendship and temperance. Temperance is the mean between self-indulgence and insensibility, the excess and deficit states of character, while true friendship is the extreme in a sense (III, 10, 55). True friendship is not positioned on a continuum, but encompasses the inferior types of friendship, that of utility and pleasure. Because of this, a true friendship is both pleasurable and useful, but these complementing qualities are not the foundation of the relationship (VIII, 4, 147). The virtue of temperance, rather, is neither self-indulgent nor insensible, because these vices are opposing states of character. In addition, temperance does not require interaction with others, while friendship presupposes social interaction. A person can be deemed temperate if he works on the state of character within himself, but one person cannot establish friendship alone.

It seems that friendship, then, more closely resembles the virtue of justice than any of the other virtues in form and function. Both friendship and justice require a social context. There can be no friendship nor justice with a single person. Moreover, neither justice nor friendship can be exhibited towards an item or unsuspecting person; there must be a mutual recognition of justice or friendship between those involved, otherwise the virtue being shown is simply goodwill. Friendship, like justice, is a virtue for the virtuous, because it requires individuals to have virtue within themselves before they can apply it in relation to others. However, friendship, by definition, includes justice, “the actual exercise of complete virtue,” (V, 1, 81). True friends, unconditionally loving each other for the other’s sake, “have no need of justice… and the truest form of justice is thought to be a friendly quality,” (VIII, 1, 142). Because of this, legislature aims to build friendships within the polis, for when friendship is established, justice undoubtedly accompanies it.

Justice directly relates to friendship, and the two virtues “have an equal extension,” (VIII, 9, 153). The truer the friendship, the more justice is expected out of the relationship. Therefore, governments strive to foster the truest friendships in order to maintain justice to the fullest extent. Friendships exist between father and son, husband and wife, or brother and brother, but the manifestation of the friendships and the actions performed by each pair differ depending on the nature of the relationship. In the same way that different relations of friendship form, different constitutions of effective government form as well. The effective government appropriates justice “in every case according to merit, for that is true of friendship as well,” (VIII, 11, 156). Of the effective governments, three constitutions—monarchy, aristocracy, and timocracy—exist, each mirroring one of the friendly relations.

Monarchy is the type of government in which a king rules over his subjects. This king is “sufficient to himself and excels his subjects in all good things,” making him virtuous (VIII, 10, 154). His virtue and independence enable him to fully look after the interests of his subjects, and because of his virtue, the subjects trust and honor him completely. Monarchy correlates to the friendship between father and son, in which the father is “responsible for the existence of his children… for their nurture and upbringing,” (VIII, 11, 155). Through monarchy, the citizens grow in virtue and wisdom according to the direction of the king, and the king in turn receives honor and glory from his subjects. The perversion of this constitution is tyranny, in which the tyrant rules over his subjects based on his own interests, and mirrors the relationship between master and slave. In this relationship, “there is nothing common to the two parties; the slave is a living tool,” and friendship—as well as justice—must be mutually recognized (VIII, 11, 156). In a tyrannical political system, as in the master-slave relationship, no justice or friendship exist, for one cannot be friends with a tool. Because of this, Aristotle considers tyranny “the worst deviation-form,” and monarchy—as the opposite of tyranny—the best constitution (VIII, 10, 154).

In an aristocracy, a group of qualified nobility rule “in accordance to worth.” The aristocratic form of government closely resembles the husband and wife relationship, because the husband rules “in those matters in which a man should rule, but the matters that befit a woman he hands over to her,” (VIII, 10, 155). In this way, the aristocracy shares the powers with the general public, each working for the success of the polis. Aristocracy degrades into oligarchy when wealth and power, instead of virtue, determine the law. People undeserving of authority are exalted, which leads to the destruction of a functioning political system. Because of this, the amount of justice found in an oligarchy is reduced, just as the pure friendship between husband and wife can be reduced to a friendship of utility.

A timocratic government is the political form in which property owners rule “taken in turn, and on equal terms.” Equality and fairness determine the laws in this type of government, which stem from the fact that the rulers are “like in their feeling and their character,” (VIII, 11, 156). Timocracy mirrors the friendship found between brothers, for “two things that contribute greatly to friendship are a common upbringing and similarity of age,” which help the brothers develop similar beliefs and values (VIII, 12, 157). The distortion of timocracy is democracy, in which all have equal share of the ruling power. Although the legislation may not always be based on virtue, the democratic government is the least distorted version of friendship and justice, because “where the citizens are equal they have much in common,” (VIII, 11, 156).

Considering these forms of government and their corresponding forms of friendship, Aristotle would consider the philosopher king as the ideal head of government. In The Republic, Plato explains what he sees as the most pure and effective form of government: a monarchy with a philosopher king—constantly seeking truth and filled with virtue and phronesis, or practical wisdom—who determines the laws and gives them to guardians to implement and enforce (Plato, V, 473d, 153) . In Plato’s regime, the guardians are stripped of their individualism in order to more fully serve the city (VIII, 543a-c, 221). All of the citizens, except the philosopher king, would be raised believing in the noble lie, a lie intending to direct people towards virtuous action (III, 414a-415a, 94). In order for this type of government to begin, children would be taken from their parents, raised with a curriculum to foster wisdom and virtue, and a new city would be established with the children (VII, 541a, 220). Although Aristotle—from his discussions of justice and friendship—agrees with the philosopher king as a monarch, he would have a much different approach to the foundation of such a political system.

Aristotle believes that monarchy establishes the truest form of justice, because it parallels “the friendship of children to parents, and of men to gods.” The god-man relationship represents true father-son friendship, because the gods “are the causes of their being and of their nourishment, and of their education from their birth,” (Aristotle, VIII, 12, 158). The friendship between gods and men is the purest form of friendship, for gods are “above all other beings blessed and happy,” (X, 8, 197). Because the gods exemplify happiness, they are also the most virtuous and contemplative. Fittingly, the king would be a philosopher, a man whose life is also directed towards the contemplative and virtuous. The king—who has the greatest sense of virtue and justice—helps his subjects grow in virtue beginning at the establishment of the city. The subjects, based on their love and respect for the king, abide by his laws, which serve to foster virtuous action and discourage vice. Because virtue develops from habitual action, eventually, the laws will make the citizens of the city virtuous.

Aristotle does not find a noble lie or a blank slate necessary to create a virtuous city and, in fact, may view it as detrimental to the end-goal. In Plato’s system, the general public would have no true sense of virtue but would simply follow the laws established (Plato, V, 474c, 154). Though this would help the public achieve virtuous action, they would not be virtuous by Aristotle’s standards, because they lack the practical wisdom and right motivations. Additionally, Aristotle’s philosopher king would utilize, rather than destroy, the friendship between children and their parents as an extension of his virtuous laws into the household, further training children in the habits of virtue. In these ways, Aristotle would found and maintain the truest political system.

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The manners in which Plato and Aristotle would form and preserve their ideal governments reflect their approaches to philosophy. While Plato in The Republic applies the rules of the polis to the human condition, Aristotle asserts that one must cultivate virtuous personal character first before a political order can be established. Because of this, Aristotle’s approach to establishing an ideal government focuses on the people, creating friendship between the ruler and his subjects first, which in turn creates justice and encourages more virtue. In Aristotle’s ideal city, the subjects actively participate in the political system and in the development of virtue, rather than blindly follow legislation. The virtue of friendship enables the foundation of a just society and the cultivation of virtuous people, and Aristotle’s ideal polis depends on the maintenance of true friendship. Friendship, then, provides the basis of Aristotle’s political philosophy, in that same way it provides the grounds for human life.


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Introduction: The historical fiction novel, Of Mice and Men, by John Steinbeck i ...

Introduction: The historical fiction novel, Of Mice and Men, by John Steinbeck is about the journey of two friends George Milton and Lennie Small. The book takes place a few miles south of Soledad at the Salinas River. Background: George and Lennie go to work on a ranch during the Great Depression. Throughout the book, one is able to tell that George and Lennie have a strong friendship. Their relationship is very much like a father son relationship. Where George is the dad and makes a lot of decisions for Lennie, the son. The bond that George and Lennie have is only separable by death. The novel explores the connection between George and Lennie in depth. Readers are able to see that friendship can help one throughout life, whether in good times or in bad. Thesis statement: This essay analyzes George and Lennie's friendship and its outcomes.

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Topic sentence: One outcome of friendship is that individuals can rely on each other. Evidence & citing: Lennie and George rely on each other a lot, “Lennie broke in. ‘But not us! An’ why? Because… because I got you to look after me, and you got me to look after you, and that’s why.’” Though, Lennie and George rely on each other for different reasons. George relies on Lennie for companionship. George would be lonely without Lennie. Lennie relies on George physically and mentally, he would have a hard time if he didn’t have George watching his back. Lennie is constantly getting them into trouble, but doesn’t realise what he is doing until it is too late. However, George can usually get them out of the situation by hiding and running away. If George wasn’t there for Lennie, then Lennie would be in jail for something that he doesn’t understand was bad. The TED Talk, about “What makes a good life?” by Robert Waldinger outlines the importance of good healthy relationships. “And we know that you can be lonely in a crowd and you can be lonely in a marriage, so the second big lesson that we learned is that it's not just the number of friends you have, and it's not whether or not you're in a committed relationship, but it's the quality of your close relationships that matters. It turns out that living in the midst of conflict is really bad for our health (Robert Waldinger).” An individual must rely on others, to strengthen their relationships, which will help ones’ health and give emotional stability. George and Lennie are great friends and have an amazing relationship. Even though George says how his life would be great if Lennie wasn’t there, he would be lonely without him. He might become an alcoholic or become emotionally unstable. George would be sad if he didn’t have Lennie to talk to or hangout with. When people rely on each other, both people benefit. The health of the people in the relationship increase, which includes their mental health.

Topic sentence: Friendships can help one become more loyal to a certain person or group of people. George and Lennie are very loyal to each other all throughout the book. “‘He’s sure a hell of a good worker. Strong as a bull.’” Evidence & citing: George is loyal to Lennie by standing up to the boss and defending him. George didn’t have to defend Lennie, he could have just let Lennie do his own thing. Lennie might not have gotten the job, and then George wouldn’t have to be with Lennie ever again. George stood up for Lennie though, he said why the boss needed Lennie even if he has intellectual problems. Another sample is, “Lennie struggled to understand. ‘George won’t do nothing like that,’ he repeated. ‘George is careful. He won’t get hurt. He ain’t never been hurt,’cause he’s careful.’” Evidence & citing: Lennie is being loyal to George, by telling Crooks that George is very careful and would never abandon Lennie. Lennie started to panic thinking about George getting hurt and leaving him, and the only thing that helped that was telling himself and Crooks that George is a good guy, he is cautious and loving. Commentary: When George and Lennie stood up for each other, they are growing their loyalty. They did not have to stand up and defend each other, but they did. It is important to be loyal to someone, because in the long run, you want to have allies on your side.

Topic sentence: Finally, sometimes a person has to hurt someone else in order to help them. “Candy said, ‘George.’ ‘Huh?’ ‘I ought to of shot that dog myself, George. I shouldn’t ought to of let no stranger shoot my dog.” In this paragraph Candy regrets letting Carlson shoot his dog, instead of shooting his dog himself. When Candy tells George about wishing he would have killed his dog himself, this allows George to make the right decision later on in the book. Commentary: So, by Carlson killing Candy’s dog, it allows George to make the right decision to kill Lennie out of love and sympathy instead of him being killed out of hatred and disgust. Another example of this is, “And George raised the gun and steadied it, and he brought the muzzle of it close to the back of Lennie’s head. The hand shook violently, but his face set and his hand steadied. He pulled the trigger.” George knew that if he didn’t kill Lennie, then he would be hurting him even more. Lennie would have suffered more pain, sorrow, and guilt if George didn’t kill him. The whole ranch went out to look for Lennie. Lennie would have been lynched if George hadn’t killed him. Even though friendship helps people get through life in bad times, George only had one way of helping Lennie, which was to kill him. Sometimes people have to do what they think is best for the person they are trying to protect.

Conclusion paragraph: To conclude the essay, friendship is essential, because friends help you all throughout your life. You can rely on each other for different reasons, emotionally, or physically. You become more loyal to each other by standing up and defending each other. Sometimes you have to do a difficult thing to or for them in order to help them or their situation.

References

  1. Eliasson, F. (2011). Naturalism and friendship in" Of Mice and Men". (https://gupea.ub.gu.se/handle/2077/25013)
  2. Ryding, J. (2012). " Perfect friendship is the friendship between men who are good and alike in virtue": Aristotle's view on the friendship between George and Lennie in John Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men. (https://www.diva-portal.org/smash/record.jsf?pid=diva2%3A534367&dswid=-8111)
  3. Armengol-Carrera, J. M. (2010). Of friendship: Revisiting friendships between men in American literature. The Journal of Men’s Studies, 17(3), 193-209. (https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.3149/jms.1703.193)
  4. Asl, T. R. (2018). Economy and Isolation: The Effects of Economy on Interpersonal Relationships in" of Mice and Men. (https://www.academia.edu/39765227/Economy_and_Isolation_The_Effects_of_Economy_on_Interpersonal_Relationships_in_of_Mice_and_Men_)
  5. Bellman, S. I. (1975). CONTROL AND FREEDOM IN STEINBECK'S" OF MICE AND MEN". CEA Critic, 38(1), 25-27. (https://www.jstor.org/stable/44375722)

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Generations of readers and critics alike have denigrated the works of Walt Whitm ...

Generations of readers and critics alike have denigrated the works of Walt Whitman and Allen Ginsberg, both equally brilliant poets, separated by a century, yet sharing a poetic vision of both political and sexual freedom, simply because the language and lifestyle represented in their work happens to conflict with the "moral norms" of society. Both Whitman and Ginsberg faced charges of obscenity upon publication of their most famous works. Public outcry began the first moment these two poets appeared on the literary scene, and continues, even today, when textbooks and library books containing Whitman's "Song of Myself" and Ginsberg's "Howl" are pulled from the classrooms and library shelves after parents and administrators label them "inappropriate" (often without having read the work in question) due to the explicit language and homoeroticism expressed in the poems. Legislators have gone so far as to file criminal charges against those who published the works. Such blatant censorship merely proves these poems are being suppressed or reviled due to the rampant homophobia (often concealed under the cloak of religious respectability) in our society rather than any real, justifiable claims of obscenity in the works.

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On July 4, 1855, Whitman's Leaves of Grass first appeared, eliciting mixed critical reviews because "the poems shocked America Puritanism and English Victorianism, although Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote to the New York Times, calling the book 'the most extraordinary piece of wit and wisdom that America has yet contributed.' The Library Company of Philadelphia was the only American library known to have bought a copy of the publication" (Haight and Grannis). Other reviews claimed, "His poems are not really poems, and whatever they are, they are dirty" (Street). A subsequent edition of the collection in 1881 provoked the district attorney in Boston, Massachusetts, a leader of the Society for Suppression of Vice, to "threaten criminal charges unless the volume was expurgated. The book was immediately withdrawn from the public venue in Boston" after Whitman refused to allow its publication there, saying, "Damn all expurgated books. The dirtiest book of all is the expurgated book" (Ellison). John Greenleaf Whittier, in rage of indignation, threw his first edition into the fire, although he himself had suffered persecution for his abolitionist poems. Wendell Phillips, another abolitionist orator, said of Whitman's book, "Here be all sorts of leaves except fig leaves"(Haight and Grannis).

Similarly, a century later, Collector of Customs Chester McPhee confiscated 520 copies of Allen Ginsberg's Howl and Other Poems printed by Villiers in England, as they came through customs. His intention was to "keep what he considers obscene literature away from the children of the Bay Area" (Ginsberg 169). On May 29, Captain Hanrahan of the San Francisco Juvenile Department arrested bookseller Lawrence Ferlinghetti and his clerk, Shigeyoshi Murao, for distributing obscene literature by offering Howl and Other Poems for sale in their City Lights bookstore. They were charged with knowingly distributing literature that contained "coarse and vulgar language . . . and mentions of explicit homosexual acts" (Ginsberg 173). This action served to make the poem "Howl" even more famous after news of the arrests and subsequent trial appeared in the national newspapers. Multitudes of self-righteous people secretly examined the poem for obscene details and publicly castigated the author for his vulgarity and "queer" lifestyle. Few critics read the poem in the way Ginsberg intended, as "one of the symbols of the liberation of American culture in the 1950s from an academic formalism and political conservatism" (Weir 7).

Whitman and His Critics

From Whitman to Ginsberg, the critics have had a hard time separating their personal prejudices from their professional critiques when it comes to the homosexual lifestyles of the two poets, explicitly detailed in the poetic works. In the case of Whitman's Leaves of Grass, the critics have had much longer to try and find an acceptable method for critically evaluating what they see as "problematic" subjects in his poetry, including homosexuality, homoeroticism, and "outright masturbatory descriptions of the male body" included in "Song of Myself." This claim is in sharp contradiction to the outrage Whitman displayed when confronted about these messages, praising chastity and denouncing onanism. However, the modern scholarly opinion tends to be that these poems reflected Whitman's true feelings towards his sex and that he merely tried to cover up his feelings. (Walt)Many critics felt the safest way to deal with the homosexuality in Whitman's poetry was to ignore or deny it completely, which started a "critical tradition that has insisted on silencing, spiritualizing, heterosexualizing, or marginalizing Whitman's sexual feelings for men" (Street 2).

Whitman was always an outspoken man, and a staunch abolitionist. He fired from his job at The Brooklyn Eagle when he used his position as editor to make a strong statement for abolishing slavery. His outspoken nature cost him a job at The Brooklyn Times as well, when religious leaders became offended by what they considered sexually inappropriate statements attributed to the poet (Binns 47-48). Whitman felt no need to apologize, stating his poems celebrated the body as well as the mind, and he spoke of the love of men for each other as a foundation of the American democracy he dreamed of. Ralph Waldo Emerson read Whitman's portrayal of "the parting of two men on a pier with a lingering description of their passionate kiss" and other "descriptions of relationships between men, men he (Whitman) called comrades and lovers" and presumed that when Whitman wrote about "boatsmen and other roughs walking hand in hand" that Whitman was talking about the chaste love of friendship between men. This kind of friendship was common in the nineteenth century, and "the idea that some men are exclusively homosexual would not appear in America until about 1900, so deep emotional attachments between men weren't stigmatized as they are today." The Emerson thought the emotional bonds of male friendship in Whitman's work were akin to the "Boston Marriage" between women in the nineteenth century. This term was used to describe "households where two women lived together, independent of any male support. Whether these were lesbian relationships -- in the sexual sense -- is debatable and debated" (Lewis).

Of course, those deep attachments Emerson referred to never crossed a moral line, obviously Emerson viewed Whitman's love of comrades as platonic friendship. He wrote to Whitman, praising his earthy and sensual poetry, calling the collections "an extraordinary piece of wit and wisdom" that marked "the beginning of a great career" (qtd. in Rotundo 56). Seizing the opportunity for some good promotional press for his book, Whitman had the letter printed in the New York Herald Tribune without consulting Emerson. Emerson responded by writing to Whitman that the letter had been written as encouragement for a promising writer, not to promote the sale of Whitman's work. The Emerson letter prompted one reviewer, Rufus Griswold, to publish his own vitriolic review of Leaves of Grass. He called the work "a mass of stupid filth . . . muck . . . that detailed the horrible sin not to be named among Christians" (Allen Readers Guide 56). Even the few reviewers who liked Whitman's work and "admired his simplest, truest, and often most nervous English" had to warn readers that the poems were "indelicate" (Kaplan 87).

Of course, considering the Victorian audience Whitman was writing for, it is not hard to see how poems such as "Spontaneous Me" filled with earthy phrases like "love-thought, love-juice, love-odor, love-yielding, love-climbers, and the climbing sap," could have shocked the delicate sensibilities of his readers. Even Emerson tried to convince Whitman to drop the phrase "the limpid liquid within the young man" from his poem. Whitman refused to change a word. These were the very phrases that led the Boston district attorney to file his obscenity charges (Weir 10). A more recent biographer, Jerome Loving, noted that in the Victorian era, Whitman's Leaves of Grass would most definitely have been considered a dirty book. "Remember," Loving says, "It was a time when they even draped piano legs" (Hartman 146).

More vicious critical attacks on Whitman came from Secretary of the Interior James Harlan and the Boston district attorney, Oliver Stevens, who violently objected to Whitman's subject matter and dismissed him as "simply a libertine or pervert" (Reynolds 455). Perhaps one of the reasons the critics attacked his subject matter so brutally was because according to Robert K. Martin, before Whitman's frank discussion of homosexuality and his poetic celebration of that lifestyle there were "homosexual acts, but no homosexuals" ( Martin 51). In Whitman's time, homosexuality was becoming a distinct identity rather than a behavior. As Foucault says, "Where the sodomite had been a temporary aberration, the homosexual was now a species," and someone to be feared by society (Reynolds 396).

Societal pressures may have forced Whitman to lie about his sexual preferences. He wrote a letter to John Addington Symonds in response to pointed questions as to the nature of his Whitman's "adhesiveness".

My life, young manhood, mid-age, times south, (sic) etc., have been jolly bodily, and doubtless open to criticism. Tho' unmarried I have had six children---two are dead---one living, southern grandchild, fine boy, writes to me occasionally circumstances (connected to their fortune and benefit) have separated me from intimate relations. (Holloway xvii-xviii)

Later critics, uncomfortable with the idea of Whitman's expressed homosexuality, used this letter not only to heterosexualize Whitman, but to make him an advocate of the family as well. In the first Whitman biography, A Life of Walt Whitman, Henry Bryan Binns tried to prove that Whitman had at one time been in love with a high-ranking socialite in New Orleans, who gave birth to Whitman's child. Binns claimed "that he was prevented by some obstacle, presumably prejudice, from marriage or the acknowledgment of his paternity" (51). Binns also pointed to Whitman's poem "Children of Adam" and stated that the attitudes toward having children were "only possible to a man who has known true love, and has lived a chaste and temperate life" (159). Binns shared Emerson's belief that the love of man Whitman celebrated so explicitly in his writing was merely that of close comradeship, the kind of friendship shared by great Americans with a strong love of man and country (149).

Another Whitman biographer, Basil De Selincourt, author of Walt Whitman: A Critical Study (1914),uncomfortable with the idea that his subject was a "deviant," defended Whitman against the charges of perversity, yet refused even to name the deviant behavior Whitman was being accused of. Instead, he explained away the "Calamus" poems by saying that Whitman advocates and to a certain extent himself practiced an affectionatedemonstrativeness which is uncongenial to the Anglo-Saxon temperament and which those Englishmen who forget that there are two sides to the Channel find even shocking. The result . . . is that he is quite generally suspected of a particularly unpleasant kind of abnormality." (204)

De Selincourt addressed the issue of Whitman's suspected homosexuality by carefully examining the poems, searching for allusions to such behavior. He concluded that only one poem, "Earth My Likeness," contained any passage that could remotely be considered an allusion to homosexuality "For an athlete is enamour'd of me, and I of him . . ."(ln 6) but he interprets the poem as a condemnation of "that particular impulse" and asserts his notion that Whitman's expressions of love in the poem are "the celebration of the ideal relationship of soul to soul . . . equally of course the relation of woman to woman, or of man to woman" (207). He also goes on to claim Whitman's poem "Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking" is really just an expression from a husband mourning for the death of someone who was his wife in all but name. De Selincourt insisted that Whitman focused on the procreative function of men and women in his poetry and that that alone should prove Whitman's devotion to the idea of his being a family man (23).

Betsy Erkkila, professor at Northwestern University, abhors the continued efforts of modern critics to preserve a distinction between Whitman as a private, gay poet, and Whitman, the poet of Democracy. In her opinion, his view of adhesiveness is an integral part of his conception of democracy, a means by which, in Whitman's words, the United States of the future ... are to be most effectively welded together. Consequently, Whitman's sexuality is not, as many recent critics say, a 'single, transhistorical monolith" but instead a "complex, multiply located, and historically imbedded sexual, social, and discursive phenomenon.' Thus, the usual distinction between private gay poet and public democratic poet is false: "the homosexual poet and the American republic refuse any neat division; they intersect, flow into each other, and continually break bounds" (155-168).

Clearly, the hide-bound critics of Whitman's time were distressed and offended when confronted with the truth of what the author's work revealed the clear depiction of homosexual love--in addition to his celebrations of life, nature, and his country.

The homophobia that greeted the distribution of Whitman's Leaves of Grass would unquestionably have impaired the abilities of the critics to render a fair appraisal of the poet's work. Perhaps because they understood the impossibility of discussing such themes in a public forum, the critics felt it necessary to re-invent a heterosexual or even a non-sexual Whitman. Or perhaps it was just that the general tendency of Transcendentalism was away from materialist interpretations of anything. Regardless, without such avoidance tactics, there could have been no discussion of the works at all.

The next generation of critics, while acknowledging Whitman's obvious homosexuality, downplayed the fact, choosing to focus on the ideas of comradeship, love of country, and nature that permeated the poetry. Newton Arvin, who published his biography Whitman in 1938, was himself a homosexual, and he had no doubts where Whitman's tendencies lay: "The fact of Whitman's homosexuality is one that cannot be denied by any informed and candid reader of his "Calamus" poems, of his published letters, and of accounts by unbiased acquaintances: after a certain point, the fact stares one unanswerably in the face" (274). However, Arvin claimed the poems only expressed a tendency of Whitman's and demonstrated no proof that he had ever acted upon his impulses. Other critics of this era took a similar tack, dismissing Whitman's attachment to Peter Doyle, meticulously detailed in Whitman's personal journals, as "the outpourings of a thwarted paternalism" and theorized that Whitman held a deep "fatherly love of innumerable sons," which he wrote about in his "magnificent poems of the comradeship of true democracy"(Canby 201).

Even critics in the post-war period avoided the issue of Whitman's obvious dedication to homoerotic love. One of Whitman's better biographers, Gay Wilson Allen, who published The Solitary Singer: A Critical Biography of Walt Whitman in 1955, tempered his admission of Whitman's homosexuality with careful study of the dates of the correspondence between Whitman and his supposed lover, Peter Doyle. Allen concluded, "Whatever the psychologist may think of this abnormally strong affection of the two men for each other, these dates make actual perversion seem unlikely" (226). Apparently, Allen believed readers were not ready to accept a fully homosexual poet, and so constructed one who, though he might have had homosexual tendencies, remained mostly unaffected by it.

Critics, in the age of gay liberation and gay pride have chosen to center their readings on the fact that after Whitman was admitted to "the American canon . . . he was then subject to a homophobic critical examination that diluted or frankly eliminated the homosexual content of his work" (Martin xix). This group refused to make a neat distinction between Whitman the private gay poet and Whitman the public democratic poet. In The Homosexual Tradition in American Poetry, Robert Martin explains the necessity of reading Whitman's poetry as a whole, claiming his separate personas "intersect, flow into each other, and continually break bounds" (168).

David S. Reynolds's book Walt Whitman's America: A Cultural Biography, published in 1995, presents a much more detailed critique of Whitman's work, made possible by the growing public acceptance of homosexuality. Reynolds points out Whitman's need to deny his sexuality during his lifetime and claims the letter to Symonds was merely an attempt to deflect public scrutiny of his sexual preferences. He also points out that the work must be read, as Whitman suggested, "within its own atmosphere and essential character" (198). During the Victorian era, there were no publicly accepted sexual distinctions---homo, hetero, or bi and same-sex affection was widespread and regarded as comradeship. Only the modern era has made close same-sex relationships into something salacious and sexual (391). Reynolds further argues that in Whitman's day the 1882 obscenity charges that were brought against Leaves of Grass resulted in the deletion of several poems about heterosexual love, including "A Dalliance of Eagles," while only one of the homosexual Calamus poems was removed. According to Reynolds," Whitman's America was far more prudish about heterosexuality than same-sex eros" (540). Around the turn of the century, audiences began to turn away from the idea of same-sex relationships when they realized that these relationships often included genital contact. Once the idea of a purely homosexual relationship became a red flag, critics returned to the literature of the previous era and a subjected it to severe homophobic scrutiny (391).

The trend toward acceptance of Whitman's homosexuality in the critical evaluation of his work has produced a plethora of critical reviews focusing on homosexuality as a basis for the work. Just as previous critics attempted to ignore or minimize Whitman's sexuality, the early reviews of later critics often "read like catalogs of sex acts" (Reynolds 490). Current approaches appear to reflect the social consciousness with regard to homosexuality. With the advent of gay pride and queer studies, the critics have come to consider Whitman's sexuality as part of the work. If the current trend continues, Whitman may eventually be viewed as "a poet who was a homosexual, not a homosexual who wrote poems" (Street 12).

Ginsberg's Turn to "Howl"

The honesty and openness of Whitman's poetry and his public celebration of love for all, be they women or men, inspired future poets to express their own uninhibited views on life. Allen Ginsberg, in particular, took Whitman's advice in "Song of Myself" to "get outside and become undisguised and naked: 'Unscrew the locks from the doors! Unscrew the doors themselves from their jambs!'" (lns 5-6). One hundred years after the first appearance of Leaves of Grass, Allen Ginsberg, recognized as the "prophet of cultural revolution," used Whitman's phrase as an epigraph to "Howl," the poem made famous after charges of obscenity resulted in public castigation of both the work and the vociferous poet (Nineteenth Century Precursors). Ginsberg, who held Whitman in high esteem, explained his connection to the poet in sexual terms, saying he "once slept with Neal Cassady, who slept with Gavin Arthur (grandson of President Chester A. Arthur), who slept with the Victorian gay-lifestyle advocate Edward Carpenter, who once slept with Walt Whitman" (Sullivan).

Ginsberg offered the Western world a gift the naked truth, or full disclosure when he published his deeply confessional poetry. At the beginning of "Ego Confession" he says, "I want to be known as the most brilliant man in America." Unfortunately, most people in society at the time Ginsberg made his grand appearance at the Six Gallery reading, where he performed the first part of "Howl" for the first time, in October, 1955, were simply outraged at what they considered crude vulgarity and moral decadence (Sullivan). In Allen Ginsberg in America, Jane Kramer said that Ginsberg has been the "subject of more argument between the generations than any American poet since Whitman" but that Ginsberg's impact on society has been even stronger, because whether people are reacting to his beatnik appearance or the content of his poetry, they are reacting in more energetic and sometimes violent ways (14).

Polite society in the era of McCarthyism disdained the work of Ginsberg, offended at his outspokenness about those social issues he felt most strongly about drug use, being a Jew, "civil rights, gay liberation, pacifism, the environment, and of course, freedom of personal expression." Throughout the nineteen fifties and sixties, Ginsberg frequently found himself tossed roughly in a paddy wagon and hauled to jail along with the likes of Abbe Hoffman and others who dared to protest what they saw as the restrictiveness of American society. Ginsberg is credited by many as the driving force behind the "uncovering of the gay lifestyle for straight America" through his poems "Howl and "America" (Sullivan).

Although Ginsberg acknowledged homosexual leanings very early in his life, he still experienced a great deal of traumatic difficulty depression, uncertainty, and repressed guilt over this realization. Struggling with his own identity crisis, Ginsberg also had to deal with his mother's emotional and psychological instability. Naomi Ginsberg was institutionalized for three years during Ginsberg's adolescence, suffering from paranoid delusions, convinced that people were out to assassinate her. She constantly worried that President Roosevelt was responsible for wire-tapping her head and the ceiling in order to hear her most private thoughts. Ginsberg's visits with his mother were troubling to the confused boy. When she returned home after her electric and insulin shock therapy, Naomi was hardly recognizable. When the family couldn't deal with her illness, she went to her sister's house for a short time. After only a few short weeks there, she was again institutionalized in Pilgrim State Hospital on Long Island, where her son continued to visit her. One of the most disturbing aspects of Ginsberg's visits to his mother was Naomi's thoughtless nudity. She continued to view herself as she had been young, flirtatious, and beautiful and insisted on showing off her bloated, scarred body at every opportunity, even when her son was present. This disturbed Ginsberg greatly, and he found the visits increasingly hard to endure. Later, in his poem "Kaddish," Ginsberg finally came to terms with his mother's death and his difficult familial background (Tytell 78-79). A friend, John Clellon Holmes, said, "Ginsberg's relationship with his mother was the source of his wound, the axis around which his madness, homosexuality, and poet-nature revolved" (90).

Though Ginsberg's visits to his unstable mother were hard to endure, he found life with his school teacher father equally unbearable. Though he was also a poet, Louis Ginsberg represented everything else his son stood against. He was a moderate liberal who valued culture, appreciated his Jewish heritage, and accepted the role society mapped out for middle-class individuals in America. Louis abhorred his wife's communist leanings. Allen, however, fueled by his mother's early leftist affiliations, became outraged at the injustices he perceived in a society where "different" stood on a par with "bad." His poetry began to shift from the imitation of the more classical forms encouraged by his poet father to the voice of the unheard American, those individuals considered the dregs of society the homosexuals, the drug addicts, the homeless, and the beatniks (80-81).

Ginsberg, seeking the approval withheld by his father, shared some of this early poetry with a few of his professors at Columbia University where, in 1943, at the age of 17, he entered college. However, though several professors saw talent in the young man, they turned away from what they considered deviant writing. Ginsberg, who struggled to find a new form of poetry with which to express his long-repressed confusion, was to devote considerable energy during the following years to finding appropriate psychoanalytic treatment. His most pressing anxiety was due to a sexual confusion that was compounded by his mother's malady, something which made him mistrust women as vessels of failure. His early inclinations were homosexual---originally he had wanted to attend Columbia because of an unrequited infatuation for a former schoolmate who had enrolled there. But the authoritarian culture of the years after the war had categorized homosexuality as a diseased perversion bordering on criminality. Ginsberg was tormented by a repressed yearning for physical contact which could be relieved only through masturbatory fantasy. (83)

Ginsberg's sexual confusion continued, despite several homosexual affairs which he found unsatisfactory, mostly because of the guilt he experienced when he thought about how society would view him if they found out he was "queer" (Tytell 84).

After his suspension from Columbia in 1945 for writing filthy remarks in the dirt on his dorm windows, Ginsberg attended the Merchant Marine Academy for four months, where he tried to assume the role of "regular guy;" this attempt failed when his classmates caught him reading Hart Crane's poems and ostracized him (86). Although the his expulsion from Columbia and his failure at the Merchant Marine Academy was somewhat disturbing, they served to breach the protective walls of academia that had previously surrounded Ginsberg. These incidents precipitated him into the real world, where real people experienced real life. These were the experiences Ginsberg needed to fuel his experimental poetry. Seeking answers to his confusion, he consulted a series of psychiatrists.

The first doctor declined to continue treating Ginsberg, who insisted on smoking marijuana and using other illegal drugs against the doctor's strict orders (Kramer 41). When Ginsberg, "relaxing in bed, reading Blake while masturbating," heard a deep voice reciting Blake's poem "Ah, Sunflower," he had an epiphany about what he was supposed to be doing as a poet and a man2E The epiphany occurred after Ginsberg had placed a panicked phone call to him former psychiatrist saying, "I have to see you! William Blake is in my room!" The doctor shouted back, "You must be crazy!" and hung up. Ginsberg tried to "revoke the Blake spirit" to confirm his sense of being a part of a "shaping intelligence in the universe" (Tytell 89). This visionary experience was the first step toward full acceptance of himself as a poet and a homosexual. It was also the catalyst for an experience that would end with his incarceration in a psychiatric facility for eight months.

Ginsberg knew that before he could fully express his poetic aspirations he would have to "demolish his old self of defensive arrogance and superiority, and attempted (sic) to obviate his ego through drugs, sex, and friends" of a similar nature (91). Much of the distaste for his poetry developed in response to his public persona; Ginsberg became very outspoken about his homosexuality and his belief in the right and duty of every individual to say exactly what was on his mind. Ginsberg's associations with certain disreputable people made him seem bizarre, at best; at worst, many people thought he was "crazy" like his mother and believed he needed to be institutionalized. Some of his antics were deliberate his way of demonstrating to his father that insanity was preferable to blind acceptance of the social norms2E But some instances were the results of his misguided attempts to befriend individuals he thought worthy of study, people like Herbert Huncke, who introduced Ginsberg to "the world of morphine and the underworld of New York" (89).

In 1949, Ginsberg allowed Huncke and several of his petty criminal friends to crash in his York Avenue apartment. They brought with them a number of stolen items that they stashed in the apartment, waiting for the opportunity to fence them. Ordinarily, Ginsberg would not have allowed this to take place, but he was fascinated with the poetry of Huncke whose "directness of language or . . . naked city man speech, clear and magnanimous as personal conversation" captured exactly the voice Ginsberg was looking for in his own poetry (Tytell 93-94).

While riding in a stolen car with his new "friend," Ginsberg was injured when the driver crashed during a presumed police chase. The "criminals" fled the scene, leaving Ginsberg wandering around, dazed, and searching without his glasses for his scattered papers. The police showed up next morning with some of those papers that contained Ginsberg's address. He was arrested and threatened with jail on a felony charge. Faculty friends at Columbia University interceded and arranged for him to have an evaluation and therapy at the Columbia Psychiatric Institute, free of charge. Almost immediately, Ginsberg met another man who would be a powerful influence on his writing: in fact he dedicated his poem "Howl" to this man, Carl Solomon. To Ginsberg, Solomon was "an instance of the artist as outrage" because he did thing like "throwing potato salad at Wallace Markfield, who was lecturing on Mallarme, or pretending to be W. H. Auden at an exhibition, gleefully signing Auden's autograph" for those who asked (94-96). Many of Solomon's outrageous antics are immortalized in the lines of "Howl."

Another poet influenced the voice of Ginsberg's poetry, perhaps even more than Whitman; Ginsberg met William Carlos Williams in Paterson, New Jersey when he returned home to live with his father after his release from the psychiatric facility. Williams read Ginsberg's early work and though he found potential in the lines, he told Ginsberg the literary language made them stilted and unfeeling. He introduced Ginsberg to what he called "speak-talk-thinking," language filled with the sounds and rhythms of natural speech" rather than a preconceived literary pattern. Williams also told Ginsberg that the "best poetry resulted from the original impulse of the mind . . . or the first wild draft of a poem (97-98).

This germ of an idea stayed with Ginsberg until the day he wrote "Howl," his own "wild impulse poem," for which Williams wrote the preface: "Hold back the edges of your gowns, Ladies, we are going through Hell!" Although several of his poems had been accepted for publication by 1952, Ginsberg was still unhappy with his progress as a poet, and told friends, "I must stop playing with my life in a disappointed gray world." He believed the only way to get out of the "rut of his existence" was to get out of New York and experience life. To write about life, one had to experience life, Ginsberg thought. So he prepared to move on (99).

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In 1953, after abruptly ending his love affair with William Burroughs, author of Junkie, Ginsberg left for Mexico where he stayed for six months before traveling to California via Florida, Cuba, and the Yucatan the following spring. He spent a few months traveling through these places on his way to San Jose, where his friend Jack Kerouac had moved to seriously study Buddhism. Ginsberg moved in first with his buddy Neal Cassady and Cassady's wife, Carolyn, but found himself less welcome there when Carolyn walked in on him and Neal in bed together. He then moved to a "$6 a week room in a North Beach transients' hotel" around the


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