Thursday, November 28, 2019

Marge Piecys Barbie Doll Essays - Barbie Doll,

Marge Piecy's "Barbie Doll" Gender Identity in Piercy's "Barbie Doll" Dolls often give children their first lessons in what a society considers valuable and beautiful. These dolls often reveal the unremitting pressure to be young, slim, and beautiful in a society which values mainly aesthetics. Marge Piercy's "Barbie Doll" exhibits how a girl's childhood is saturated with gender-defined roles and preconceived norms for how one should behave. In order to convey her thoughts, the author uses familiar, yet ironic, imagery, as well as uses fluctuating tone in each stanza to better draw attention to the relevant points of her contention. The first four lines of "Barbie Doll" are written in a trite, simplistic tone which represent the normality and basic needs of infancy. It is at this point in one's life that a child has no ability to deviate from the norm, simply because they have no knowledge of it and are completely influenced by what their parents present them with. The presentation of a doll and an oven, along with lipstick (1-3), ensure that the girl will know exactly which gender role she must be. These lines imitate the rigidity in which sexual and gender roles are defined. The tone of the introductory stanza changes abruptly in line five when the speaker relates "Then, in the magic of puberty, a classmate said/ You have a great big nose and fat legs." What is particularly ironic is that puberty is referred to as a "magic" time, when really it is a time for emotional crisis within many children as they struggle to develop their autonomy. This line is directed in a candid fashion which digresses from the mildness of the first few lines, rendering it quite more effective than simplistic speech. The second stanza of "Barbie Doll" starts off as normal as the first, but easily strays into different meaning. While "She was healthy, tested intelligent" (7) connotes positive aspects of the girl, "possessed strong arms and back/ abundant sexual drive and manual dexterity" connotes an entirely divergent idea. Gender roles always defined the man as"strong" and the woman as "weak," the man as "skillful with his hands" and the woman as "skillful with a cookie tin," and finally, the man as the "sexual aggressor" while the woman was the "submissive help-mate." In lines eight and nine, the girl is identified by the characteristics typically associated with the male gender, something quite unusual and completely opposite that of what line seven implies. "She went to and fro apologizing" (10) conveys that the girl recognizes her traits as disparaging and dishonorable. The last line of the second stanza again changes in tone from simple to forthright with the statement "Everyone saw a fat nose on thick legs"(11). This line re-emphasizes the ugliness of not measuring up to the standard of an ideal female, a standard set by society. Piercy addresses the stereotypical manners that women are pressured to perform in the third stanza when she writes "She was advised to play coy/exhorted to come on hearty/exercise, diet, smile, and wheedle"(12-14). By advising the girl to act enthusiastic in response to a man, starve herself to be thin, fake emotions, and influence men with soft words and flattery, the author makes a general statement about how women were practically forced to be something whether or not they wanted to. The words "coy" and "smile" conjure up images of a false passivity that women must endure, images that help to shape the poem by providing a better view of what the subject experienced. Line fifteen contains a reference to a fan belt, an object that, similarly to a person's "good nature," will wear out from use and abuse. The change in tone is repeated once again as the author switches from mild lines about personality to a dramatic line in which an analogy is made to represent an internal change in the character's mentality. With the beginning of the last stanza of "Barbie Doll," the reader can achieve almost a sense of relinquishment as the subject symbolically "...cut off her nose and her legs/ and offered them up." The reader is led to believe that the girl has come to a realization that she must account for the loneliness and emptiness that she has felt as a result of imitating a false person. This culmination is her death, an act of her surrendering herself to the pain. With line twenty's mention of an "...undertaker's cosmetics painted on," the author paints an image of concealment--the concealment of hurt and anguish suffered when a girl

Sunday, November 24, 2019

Authors Tone Worksheet 1 Answer Key

Author's Tone Worksheet 1 Answer Key Stop! Before you read on, have you completed the Authors Tone Worksheet 1, first? If not, go back, answer the questions and  then  head back here and find out what youve gotten right and what you may have missed.   If youre curious about what authors tone really is and wondering how to figure it out, here are  three of the tricks you can use to determine the authors tone when you dont have a clue. Feel free to use these free printable pdf files for your own educational use, too: Authors Tone Worksheet 1 | Authors Tone Worksheet 1 Answer Key Passage 1   1. What does the author most likely want to convey through the use of the phrase â€Å"ready consent to terms and a couple of coins flung upon the table?   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   A. The strangers lack of manners and thoughtfulness.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   B. The strangers desire to quickly get to his room.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   C. The strangers greediness in bartering.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   D. The strangers discomfort. The correct answer is B.  The stranger is desperate for warmth. We know that because hes covered in snow and asks for human charity, which we can only assume is because hes cold. So even though we know he is uncomfortable, the correct answer is NOT D. The author uses the words ready consent, which means eager or quickly willing consent and coins flung upon the table to indicate a hurried pace. Yes, we know its because hes uncomfortable, but the phrases indicate speed.   PASSAGE 2  Ã¢â‚¬â„¢ 2. The authors attitude toward mothers trying to arrange marriages for their daughters could best be described as: A. accepting of the notion B. irritated with the notion C. astonished by the notion D. amused by the notion The correct answer is D. Even if we read nothing beyond the first line, wed get the sense that the author was slightly amused by the subject matter. The author further makes the scene amusing by pitting a complacent husband against his busybody wife. Austen depicts the mother as meddling, gossiping, and impatient. If Austen were irritated by the idea, shed make the mother more unlikable. If she were astonished by the idea, then shed make the husband act aghast when Mrs. Bennet brings it up. If she were accepting of the idea, then she probably wouldnt have written about it in a witty way. Hence, Choice D is the best bet.   3. What tone is the author most likely trying to convey with the sentence, It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   A. satiric   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   B. scornful   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   C. reproachful   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   D. weary The correct answer is A. This speaks to the tone of the excerpt as a whole. Shes sarcastic about societys notion of marrying young women off to wealthy men. Her overreaching statement, a truth universally acknowledged is an example of hyperbole, which is an exaggerated statement not meant to be taken literally. And although she may personally be reproachful or scornful of the idea, her tone does not convey it in this satire. PASSAGE 3 4. Which of the following choices provides the best answer to the authors final question posed in the text, while maintaining the tone of the article? A. It could be that Id fallen into a nightmare without knowing it.   B. It had to be the dreariness of the day. Nothing about the house itself was particularly depressing. C. The solution defied me. I couldnt get at the heart of my displeasure. D. It was a mystery I couldnt solve; nor could I grapple with the shadowy fancies that crowded upon me as I pondered.   The correct choice is D. Here, the answer must closely mirror the language in the text. The words used by Poe are complicated, as is his sentence structure. Choice B and Ds sentence structure is too simple and Choice Bs answer is incorrect based on the text. Choice A seems logical until you place it up against Choice D, which uses a complex structure and language similar to that already in the text. 5. Which emotion is the author most likely trying to rouse from his reader after reading this text?   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   A. hatred   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   B. terror   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   C. apprehension   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   D. depression The correct choice is C. Although the character feels depression upon viewing the house, Poe is trying to make the reader feel apprehension in the scene. Whats going to come up? If he were trying to make the reader feel depressed, he would have spoken to something more personal. And he wasnt trying to terrify the reader in this scene, either. He wouldve used scarier content instead of relying on the dark, depressing words and phrases he does. And Choice A is completely off! Hence, Choice C is the best answer.

Thursday, November 21, 2019

Income Inequality in the UK Coursework Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Income Inequality in the UK - Coursework Example Beyond these market forces, however, there are a large range of other forces that have a drastic impact on final income in the United Kingdom. The government causes most of these differences through credits, welfare and taxes. There are four main ways that the government impacts a person or family’s take home income in the United Kingdom: cash benefits, non cash/in kind benefits, direct taxes and indirect taxes. These factors impact different levels of income very differently. Typically (though not always), benefits have an inverse relationship to income (going up as income goes down), while taxes have are directly related to income, rising as income rises. These factors, however, tend to be logarithmic rather than linear, increasing and decreasing at rates disproportional to changes in income. Taxes tend to rise at a greater rate than benefits decrease. For instance, at the lowest quartile of income, a family would earn 1,920 pounds of direct income, but would get in the orde r of 4.5 thousand pounds of tax benefits, plus around 3.5 thousand pounds of benefits in kind. For the top quartile, with an income of 39,370 pounds, these benefits would drop to the order of one thousand and two thousand pounds respectively. Thus, from the bottom to the top quartile benefits drop to about one quarter of their rate for the bottom quartile. Taxes, however, change at a much more rapid pace. The lowest quartile of tax-payers pays only about 790 pounds of direct taxes, plus indirect taxes in the order of 1,170 pounds. Someone in the top quartile would pay more in the order of 10,000 pounds in direct taxes, plus an additional 5,000 pounds of indirect taxes. This whole system means that for people in the lowest three quartiles, (anywhere up to about 13,000 pounds annually) actually take home more than they make after accounting for benefits and taxes, while people in the top two, making between twenty and forty thousand dollars, take home a lot less. Assessing tax burden is a somewhat complicated question. If one compares only taxes to original income, clearly the poorest pay the greatest taxes – almost as much in taxes as they make. However, once benefits are accounted for, they pay much less, only about one quarter of their income in taxes. The top quartile, when taking everything into account, bears the greatest tax burden, given that they pay both the largest absolute amount and the highest percentage. Furthermore, they benefit less from the taxes they pay than others – they pay taxes that go to supporting people in the lower quartiles. They, however, still retain the higest disposable income by a large margin, and thus their â€Å"tax burden† is less burdensome than a much smaller amount would be to a lower income person. Finally, it is interesting that the total percentage of taxes paid does not change drastically from the lowest to the top quartile once benefits are accounted for – each group pays about 1 out of ev ery 4 pounds made to the government. The people in the lowest quartile certainly gain the most from this system. They gain a net of approximately 6,000 pounds, or 300 % of their initial income, when all is said and done. This advantage drops precipitously as income rises: someone making 5,000 pounds annually, despite making more than 3,000 pounds more than the bottom quartile, only takes home approximately 1,000 pounds more at the end of the day. This means that the benefit from the system drops from 300%