Edgar allan poe Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Edgar allan poe - Essay Example Poe’s personal tragedies played a huge role in the shaping of his poems, as did his abuse of alcohol and opium that increased throughout his lifetime. After the death of his mother, Poe became afraid of cemeteries, worried that ghosts or bodies would come out of their graves and come after him (Symons, pg. 27). Though it was not nearly as noticeable as it would be in years to come, Poe’s writing during this time gradually turned darker. He started focusing more on life and death, implementing sorrow and death into his poems. The poems during this era are no longer in print, but they were the onset of the writing that Poe’s fans would come to recognize and associate with Poe. The first poem that was first correlated with the death of someone close to Poe was â€Å"The Raven,† which was written after Poe’s brother had died from tuberculosis. The poem is a sorrowful one, centered on the never-ending remembrances of lost loved ones. The poem is about a woman named Lenore, and the protagonist of the poem spends the majority of the poem talking to the raven that has come into his home. At first the man is unaware of what has entered his house, but he speaks to it anyway, too lost in his thoughts of his Lenore. He wants to believe that what is in his home is her. The speaker becomes so lost to the point that he drives himself insane. The poem reflects the emotions that Poe felt after his brother died. He and his brother had never been close, a fact that disturbed Poe after his brother died. â€Å"The Raven† speaks of constantly remembering someone after they have gone, so much that the deceased person becomes real, yet not real enough to touch or see. The speaker spent the length of the poem hoping that the thing in his house was who he missed the most, but he drove himself insane with these hopes. The same can be said for Poe himself. He spent so much time thinking about the

Female circumcision (also referred to as female genital mutilation) Essay

Female circumcision (also referred to as female genital mutilation) - Essay Example In fact, many men in Sudan will refuse to marry a woman who has not undergone the mutilation procedures (Hosken, 2005). This practice is done, also, as a means of exerting male dominance over the female, which is often common in the Muslim communities of Africa and the Middle East. Outside of the physical effects of female genital mutilation, there are significant psychological outcomes of the practice, including diminished self-concept (self-esteem) and unhealthy submissive behaviors leading to poor notions of self-identity and equal rights. In cultures where men or governments actively inflict this harm on women, those who refuse the procedures are either killed or left without a husband who will refuse to marry her. In nations where male financial support is required due to lack of legislation allowing women to work independently, the psychological impact of refusing mutilation is one of abandonment. Some argue that such genital mutilation is done to satisfy strict religious doctrine, however there are other complaints that governments use this to avoid genocide, or the destruction of a countrys citizens in favor of using government food and money to support them. If governments use these mutilation procedures to stop women from having one child after another, it keeps populations under control. This is very much a human rights issue, as it seems that the United Nations, The World Health Organization, and Amnesty International are working very hard at raising awareness of the plight of women across the globe. Progressive and Westernized nations prohibit any form of violence against women, thus they are reinforcing these values to other nations. Kenya recently experienced a significant drop in female genital mutilation activities due to the overwhelming, positive response of these organizations to identify the long-term psychological and physical impact of the procedure to