Feminism in Virginia Woolf Essay Example for Free

Feminism in Virginia Woolf Essay Virginia Woolf is regarded to be a modern literary figure. She was an English novelist and essayist who was a significant icon in London literary society. She was a member of the Bloomsbury group. Her famous novels are â€Å"Mrs. Dalloway†, â€Å"To The Lighthouse† and â€Å"Orlando† and the essay â€Å"A Room of One’s Own. † Contemporary feminists regard Woolf as an advocate of the movement. This paper will analyze Woolf’s background and some of her works to bring up points of her beliefs on the matter. Growing up in London, Woolf was influenced by a wide circle of Victorian society. Her father, Sir Leslie Stephen was an editor, critic and biographer. He had conections to numerous British writers including William Thackeray. Novelists such as George Elliot, Henry James, Julia Margaret Cameron, George Henry Lewes and James Russell Lowell often dropped by in their house. (Maze, 18, 1995) Woolf and her sister Vanessa were sexually abused by their half-brothers Gerald and George. According to modern scholars, this traumatizing experience triggered her nervous breakdowns. The deaths of her mother Julia Prinsep Stephen in 1895, her half-sister Stella in 1897 and her father in 1904 added salt to the wound. Woolf was institutionalized after her most alarming breakdown. (Maze, 20, 1995) Despite her mood swings, mental breakdowns and decline in social functioning, Woolf’s abilities to write remained. Biographers claim that Woolf’s marriage to Leonard Woolf was not consummated. According to them, she was a lesbian. Nonetheless, the couple had a tight relationship and often collaborated in the literature industry. Leonard Woolf was the publisher while Virginia Woolf was the writer. Hogarth Press published a majority of Woolf’s works. (Maze, 23, 1995) Woolf had a relationship with Vita Sackville West, an English poet and novelist. Their affair lasted for two years but thry remained friends. Other relationships with women were Madge Vaughn (the inspiration for â€Å"Mrs. Dalloway) and Violet Dickinson, a composer. There were also debates on whether Vanessa and Virginia also had an intimate and incestuous relationships or they were just close. (Maze, 24, 1995) Modern science explains Woolf’s disorder as a case of bipolar personality. On the verge of another nervous breakdown, Woolf commited suicide by drowning herself in the River Ouse. (Bowlby, 32, 1989) Students concentrating on Woolf and her works often analyze the lesbian and feminist themes in her novels, essays and short stories. For example, â€Å"A Room of One’s Own† discusses the difficulty female intellectuals and writers had to go through a time when men had more economic and legal power. What was instore for women in society and in education were unknown. This work exploited the obstacles, challenges and the anxieties of Woolf and other women writers during the 1930s. (Bowlby, 35, 1989) Women writers were afraid to write what they believed to be the â€Å"truth† because they were afraid that the academic world, which was made up by a majority of men, would disclaim their writings and describe it as mere opinions. A major problem of women writers in that decade was that tehyw ere not taken seriously. There was a disparity between male and female writers. The latter was said to be inferior. (Bowlby, 29, 1989). Woolf was a woman ahead of her time. One of the points she wanted to present was that a woman could be more than a housewife. She elaborated this by writing that women could perform the conventional duties in the household and have a career, in her case, an author, at the same time. She compared women who wait for the men to come home after work as objects, simply because they meet was was expected of them. (Lounsberry, 3, 1998) â€Å"Mrs. Dalloway† discussed themes on madness and feminism through two characters – Clarissa Dalloway and Septimus Warren Smith. Clarissa represents economic and sexual repression whereas Septimus is the remedy to depression and insanity. Septimus’ suicide was an allusion to Woolf’s constant struggle with manic depression. Like the character, Woolf also hallucinated that the birdes were singing Greek. There was also an instance when Woolf tried to throw herself out of the window, the exact same way she wrote Septimus’ death. â€Å"Mrs. Dalloway† also touched bisexuality through Sally Seton, Clarissa’s partner. (Lotz, 26, 2003) â€Å"To The Lighthouse† presented a new method on understanding thoughts. This is Woolf’s masterpiece and one of her best autobiographies. She suggested that by understanding thoughts, the writer must spend a good amount of time listening to her thoughts and studying how her words and her emotions affect her mind with what she saw. (Lotz, 27, 2003) In order to look into Woolf’s take on feminism and gender equality closer, scholars carefully analyze Woolf’s influential novel â€Å"Orlando. † This is a semi-biographical novel that was inspired by Woolf’s passionate relations with Sackville-West. It is the story of Orlando, a young English man who didn’t want to grow old. One day, he woke up and realized that he was turned into a woman. He still had the same intellect and same personality but he had a woman’s body. (Lotz, 28, 2003) Through this work, Woolf wrote a semi-autobiography that presented lesbian love to its readers. Because of the delicate subject matter, â€Å"Orlando† was banned in the United Kingdom. Also, â€Å"Orlando† started the trend of the non-fiction genre in literature. The novel is both transgender and transgenre. (Lotz, 29, 2003) Woolf is the first activist who vied for woman’s suffrage. Through her works, she changed the views and ideologies of women writers. Because of her, women were no longer annonymous. Most importantly, they were noticed and their works were regarded to be as the same level as those of male writers. (Lounsberry, 4, 1998) She set the groundwork for transformative social changes. Her beliefs which she wrote from 1920s to 1940 clearly indicated a movement that was heading toward the direction for women’s suffrage rights. Woolf’s writings on feminisms as indicated in her public letters and â€Å"A Society† assessed the development of the feminist subversion by male scholars. (Lounsberry, 5, 1998) â€Å"Three Guineas† is Woolf’s essay that has the most explicit and clear statement on feminism. It provides a meticulous and well-researched observation on the subject matter. Woolf also presented her relations with different women’s organizations which share her agenda. (Lotz, 30, 2003) This is Woolf’s feminist work that is uncompromising. She assaults the domination and privilege of men toward women. The details that are elaborated and sustained from beginning to end argue that women are still capable of maintaining a fervid argument which is relevant for feminism then and now. Woolf might have neglected class and sexuality in some of her feminist works because this was a problem during her time. However, she does her best to present to her readers her objectives on why she wrote her three guineas – which are democratization, education and public professional acivity. (Lotz, 31, 2003) By analyzing these three guineas and the possiblity of what can happen if a woman takes on the important roles that are associated to these, Woolf enriches the understanding of females everywhere. She takes into account the evolution and the development of feminism by combating the image that had been founded by males. (Lotz, 32, 2003) Woolf’s creations are long, scholarly and complex but when read with a feminist perspective, these are impressive and takes the reader into the author’s personality, convictions and beliefs. If she were alive now, she would prefer to be called a humanist than a feminist. Simply because she was not obsessed with women, she was merely hoping that women would have the same rights, honors and privileges as of men. By compassionately exploring Woolf’s feminism, literary scholars poke into her sexuality and psychology that surround and precede in all her works. She was once quoted saying that ‘the triumph of learning is that it leaves something done solidly forever. ’ She did exactly just that – with her works and her movement toward feminism. Works Cited Maze, John R, â€Å"Virginia Woolf: Feminism, Creativity and the Unconscious†, pp. 18 – 24, Free Inquiry, Vol 15, Spring 1995 Bowlby, Rachel, â€Å"Feminist Destinations†, pp 32 – 29, National Review, Vol 41, November 24, 1989 Lounsberry, Barbara, â€Å"The Tales We Tell†, pp 3 – 5, New Statesman, Vol 127, January 16, 1998 Lotz, Amanda D, â€Å"Communicating Third Wave Feminism and New Social Movements†, pp 26 – 32, Women and Language, , Vol 26. 2003,

Eulogy for Grandfather :: Eulogies Eulogy

Eulogy for Grandfather My grandfather will be remembered as a hardworking and modest man. He had simple needs. He was forthright and honest, a person with humble beginnings who placed a great value on education and friendship. I will remember him as the only grandparent I ever knew. I will remember him as a man who was content with what life had given him. He never asked for much and in the years I knew him, he lived a simple life. My grandfather's lifetime could be divided into three different parts. He was born in An Kai Lai, Kaiping, Guangdong, China on May 29, 1909. The direction of this early period started with his steamship voyage at the age of 14 from China to Victoria, B.C., Canada, in 1923. He was held in a holding cell until his 6th uncle came and paid the Head Tax. His early life was marked with many obstacles and hardships. He worked as a kitchen aide and cook in various small towns in Saskatchewan, where he learned to speak and write English. He developed an independence that I could still see during the time that I knew him. At age 19, he returned to China in 1928 to get married to Der She, returning to Canada alone in 1930. He lived through the Great Depression of the 1930's in Saskatchewan, becoming prematurely grey in his 20's. He didn't talk much of this period of his life. From the bits and pieces he shared with family, it was a very difficult time for him. However, he did learn the game of curling, a favorite Saskatchewan sport. His love of curling never left him. Up to his last days, it was the only event he thoroughly enjoyed to watch on TV. He even timed his meals around the curling schedules. It gave him great pride whenever Canada won the world titles. From 1943 to 1960, he purchased and operated the Liberty Cafà © in Elrose, Saskatchewan. Despite the long days in the restaurant business, he developed many close and valued friendships with the Canadian townspeople and farmers within the community. People called him "Lee" and loved his home-baked pies, sugar doughnuts, and fresh bread. When the surrounding farmers came into town for their supplies, it was a special treat to stop into the Liberty Cafà © for coffee and a piece of pie. He took pride in his abilities and in the respect he had earned in the community. Eulogy for Grandfather :: Eulogies Eulogy Eulogy for Grandfather My grandfather will be remembered as a hardworking and modest man. He had simple needs. He was forthright and honest, a person with humble beginnings who placed a great value on education and friendship. I will remember him as the only grandparent I ever knew. I will remember him as a man who was content with what life had given him. He never asked for much and in the years I knew him, he lived a simple life. My grandfather's lifetime could be divided into three different parts. He was born in An Kai Lai, Kaiping, Guangdong, China on May 29, 1909. The direction of this early period started with his steamship voyage at the age of 14 from China to Victoria, B.C., Canada, in 1923. He was held in a holding cell until his 6th uncle came and paid the Head Tax. His early life was marked with many obstacles and hardships. He worked as a kitchen aide and cook in various small towns in Saskatchewan, where he learned to speak and write English. He developed an independence that I could still see during the time that I knew him. At age 19, he returned to China in 1928 to get married to Der She, returning to Canada alone in 1930. He lived through the Great Depression of the 1930's in Saskatchewan, becoming prematurely grey in his 20's. He didn't talk much of this period of his life. From the bits and pieces he shared with family, it was a very difficult time for him. However, he did learn the game of curling, a favorite Saskatchewan sport. His love of curling never left him. Up to his last days, it was the only event he thoroughly enjoyed to watch on TV. He even timed his meals around the curling schedules. It gave him great pride whenever Canada won the world titles. From 1943 to 1960, he purchased and operated the Liberty Cafà © in Elrose, Saskatchewan. Despite the long days in the restaurant business, he developed many close and valued friendships with the Canadian townspeople and farmers within the community. People called him "Lee" and loved his home-baked pies, sugar doughnuts, and fresh bread. When the surrounding farmers came into town for their supplies, it was a special treat to stop into the Liberty Cafà © for coffee and a piece of pie. He took pride in his abilities and in the respect he had earned in the community.

Brigham and Houston Essay

1. Whenever we are interested in buying a bond from the bond market, the bond’s issuer promises to pay back the principal (or par value) when the bond matures (Brigham and Houston, 2001). During this time, the issuer is obliged to pay interest in order to compensate the use of money. The interest payment is made on coupon rate which is fixed. There is an inverse relationship between the coupon rate and the bond prices, when: †¢ Interest rate increase, leads to rise in income, whereas the price of the bond declines. †¢ Interest rate decrease, leads to decline in income, whereas the price of the bond rises. Also we need to consider that the coupon rate is inversely related to duration because higher coupon rates lead to quicker recovery of the bond’s value, resulting in a shorter duration, relative to lower coupon rates. If coupon rate is greater than the market rate then it is favourable for issuer and if coupon rate is less than the market rate then it is favourable for purchaser (Brigham and Houston, 2001). The reason behind the variations in the coupon rates of various bonds is the market interest rate; company’s performance, time length, and credit worthiness of the issuer. So, all these factors have an implication on the bond yields. 2. Ratings of these bonds are determined on the basis of both qualitative and quantitative factors some of which are listed below: †¢ If a company uses conservative accounting policies, its reported earnings will be higher than if it uses less conservative procedures. †¢ Various ratios including the debt ratio and the Times Interest Earned (TIE) ratio also have some implications on these bond ratings. †¢ If company explores any new sites containing oil, gas, coal fields etc. †¢ Increase in the company’s sales & net profit increase both domestically and internationally also uplift the bond ratings and it showed that debt holder show the confidence on the company’s policy. Bond ratings might take a downward leap when: †¢ There is a signal of bankruptcy, internal mismanagement and financial distress in the firm (Helfert, 2001). †¢ When the company does not abide by the law, i. e. it breaches the laws, this may be related to environment, etc. †¢ When the product life cycle is going downwards and company can’t add more products in their product line. †¢ Negative bond covenants also hits the bond ratings of the company. †¢ Labour unrest or strikes may cause instability in the bonds ratings. †¢ Economic recession in the country. 3. We know that whenever the interest rate rises, bond prices tend to fall, and when rates fall, bond prices tend to rise (Helfert, 2001). This primarily occurs due to the economic condition of the country and also because of the market sentiments. If the price of the bond goes down it is less attractive (pays less interest) in comparison with current offerings and when the price of the bond goes up it is more attractive (pays more interest) in comparison with current offerings. This may also be described as when the coupon rate is greater than market rate then it is favourable for issuer and if coupon rate is lesser than market rate then it is favourable for the purchaser. Some bonds are sold below par value, which means (at discount) or greater than par value, which means (at premium). This mainly occurs due to the risk perceived for the debt of that particular organization. Market interest rate fluctuations usually effect the performance of the bonds in the secondary markets. Federal bank monetary and fiscal policy, inflation rate, recession in the economy, etc are the factors that may force organizations to sell the bonds at discount or at premium. One must also consider that sale of bonds on discount or at premium also has some impact on the yield and also the maturity of the bond, the shorter a bond’s maturity, the less its duration. Bonds with higher yields also have lower durations. Also the company’s performance reflects in bond valuations, i. e. its bond ratings, bond covenants and credit worthiness etc (Helfert, 2001). 4. The yield to maturity (YTM) is a reflection of the return on investment, that is earned at the current price, incase the bond is held by the issuer to its date of maturity and redeemed at par value. In other words, YTM is the discount rate that equates the present value of future inflows from the bond equal to its present price.

Alcohol Benefits And Harmfulness Alcohol - 995 Words

Alcohol Benefits and Harmfulness According to one of the BBC news, â€Å"A car travelling at high speed driven by a suspected drunk driver has crashed into a crowd of spectators during a university parade in the US state of Oklahoma, killing four people and injuring 44 others, police say.† Drunk driving is that the driver operated a motor vehicle unconsciously on account of excessive ethanol intake and it’s easily to cause an accident. Hence, as a growing number of adults have involved in severely drunk driven accidents and resulting in injuries and deaths, whether the government should release a series of more stringent alcohol rule or not, has sparked a lot debate. Indeed, due to the highly potential risk of alcohol, the rules of the alcohol have to play an important role to social safety. Refer to the history of alcohol, it did experience the affirmation and the denial through a long period. 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