Abstract In reference to the novel, 'Alias Grace' this essay explores examples of historic inequities for women in Victorian society and how one women Grace Marks may have survived by utilizing the penal system as an unlikely refuge. According to the paper, on the surface, the novel 'Alias Grace' is a unique present-day exploration of a Victorian murder mystery. The novel is the story of Grace Marks who was convicted of murdering her employer and his housekeeper.
From the Paper "Alias Grace is Margaret Atwood's fictionalized biography of the infamous murderer Grace Marks, who, in 1843 was convicted of a double murder in Kingston and served her sentence at Kingston penitentiary and the Lunatic Asylum in Toronto. On the surface, the novel, Alias Grace is a unique present-day retelling of a true crime story complete with dramatized news headlines, sex, violence, a bias judicial system and duplicitous Victorian morals. On a deeper level, this novel tells the story of how one woman may have exploited the very society that oppressed her in order to survive systemic bias and gender inequities. "
Abstract In this paper, "Amazing Grace" by Jonathan Kozol provides an in depth sociological view of how the people of Mott Haven live within a harshly divided economy in New York City. It explains that by providing interviews in his field work with these people, Kozol is able to get varying opinions that the government or Mayor Giuliani would not like admit or provide to the general public. The author of the paper contends that in this manner, his book helps empirically define poverty in the Mott Haven section of the South Bronx, revealing how people are really living in a racially and economically divided city.
From the Paper "This book review will analyze the various aspects of poverty that occur within New York City within Amazing Grace by Jonathan Kozol. In this manner, the book relates the problems of poverty for minorities within Mott Haven, South Bronx, and the unbelievable living situations that these people must endure. In many cases Kozol seeks to understand why these impoverished conditions exist, and he accurately provides a sociological case studies of why Mayor Giuliani's leadership has worsened conditions. In essence, Kozol provides an empirical sociological outlook on poverty in New York City with a strong ethical and moral look as to how these conditions can be corrected. Amazing Grace is a book filled with data that is helpful to the reader when understanding poverty within the Mott Haven community of New York City. These Bronx neighborhoods are so impoverished that Kozol found ..."
Abstract This paper looks at William Paley's conception that the design and purpose of the universe is such that it is impossible for anything other than an omniscient designer to be responsible for its formulation. Specifically, the paper argues that Paley's theory about a divine creator falters for the reason that the teleological arguments upon which it is based depends upon a number of assumptions that are both un-provable and arbitrary.
From the Paper "In closing, it seems clear that Paley's argument is fraught with difficulty. Not least of all, he rests it upon a number of complacent, subjective and anthropomorphic assumptions that are ultimately un-provable and therefore unsatisfactory as defenses for intelligent design. Not to be overlooked, Cline argues that Paley simply "takes it for granted" that human beings can actually divine that there is a purpose to the universe; such a view is problematic inasmuch as we really have no way of knowing what purposes were in the "mind" of the "creator" who brought the universe into being (assuming such a thing happened) whereas we are all aware that watch-makers who put watches together are clearly guided by the design purpose of building a watch. In the final analysis, Mr. Paley's work is a noble effort, but it cannot be supported after a careful review."
Abstract This paper discusses how it is easier to analyze a fictitious character than a real human character. This is the case with the character of Grace from the television show "Grace Under Pressure". This paper provides an analysis of the character using first the Adlerian therapy model, then analyzing her through a behavior model and then finally suggesting a treatment plan for a person with the profile of Grace.
From the Paper "Grace's character ? to begin with a thumbnail of her ? is presented in the series as a no-nonsense, take-no-guff survivor of a bad marriage that was often abusive (at least in psychological terms). After eight years of putting up with this bad marriage, Grace decided that low pay and long hours was a better choice than staying married, and the show follows her as she lives with the consequences of this choice as she works to raise her three children on her own with few skills or advantages even as she works to overcome her own problems with alcohol."
Tags: adler, therapy, model, adlerian, treatment, plan
Abstract The paper believes that the story of Mary Whitney in Margaret Atwood's story "Alias Grace" is just as important as that of Grace as she is in fact a major part of Grace's story from when Grace becomes possessed half way through the novel. The paper also shows how the relationship between the characters of Mary and George illustrates the hypocrisy of the upper classes and exposes the unfortunate position of servants and women in the 19th century society that Atwood writes about.
From the Paper "In "Alias Grace", Mary Whitney is a character that dies, but is never entirely removed. Grace holds on to the memory of their time at the Alderman-Parkinson's, as well as using her to use language that she does not want to be associated with. She is a typical 19th century woman, and is indicative of the treatment that servants suffered at the hands of their employers. Mary Whitney represents a doubly weak situation: she is a woman and a servant. Her pregnancy exposes the problems between the relationship between the classes, and her untimely death shows the reality of the master-servant relationship at the time. The death of Mary also leads to the theory that Grace is innocent because Mary possesses her body after death."
Abstract This paper argues against the common assertion that the grandmother in the story is an agent of grace. An alternative analysis is offered for those who do not see the story as a parable of grace. The grace is a guise, a rationale that is not brought off. O'Connor focuses her story on what is sinister in The Misfit and satirical in the grandmother and her family. She depicts pure evil in The Misfit as he obliterates the whining grandmother and her clan. The naive and deluded Grandmother is brought low by a violent encounter that shakes her out of her petty superiority and pretentious dress. Ultimately, she is forced to realize her vulnerability and ridiculous condition.
From the Paper "Flannery O'Connor's short story, "A Good Man is Hard to Find," provokes the reader to consider the issue of grace and righteousness. The main character in the story, the Grandmother, believes that in her day "people did right" and certainly in her mind, she was the most righteous of all. In analyzing the actions of the Grandmother, the reader gains insight about her attitudes and values. One could interpret, as O'Connor herself does, that the Grandmother's final act leads her to an awareness of her feigned righteousness and ushers her into a true state of grace. However, rather than seeing the grandmother's final gesture as an embodiment of spirituality, one could assert her final act as mundane, selfish, and in every sense unredeeming."
Abstract This paper examines how although hurricanes Floyd and Grace both brought devastating damage, Floyd's impact came largely from the Floyd itself, while Grace's impact came from the combination with two other weather systems. It looks at how by itself, Floyd was a force to be reckoned with: A category 3 hurricane that stretched from Canada to the U.S. that came on the heels of Hurricane Dennis. In contrast, it discusses how Grace was a less powerful storm that would have dissipated naturally before causing serious damage.
From the Paper "While it stretched from Canada to Florida, Floyd brought the largest amounts of damage to North Carolina, Virginia, and Mid-Atlantic States. In North Carolina alone, Floyd caused 51 deaths, completely destroyed 7,000 homes, and left 17,000 homes uninhabitable. 10,000 people were driven into temporary shelters, and a new 24-hour rainfall record was recorded in Wilmington. Deaths also occurred in South Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, Delaware, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont (National Weather Service). Hydrologists marked Floyd as a 500-year flood event, meaning that a similar flood would only occur once every 500 years (Herring)."
Abstract This paper looks at how the outdoor labyrinth at the Grace Cathedral mimics the design of the archetypal 13th century labyrinth at the Chartres Cathedral in France. The author points out that the terrazzo in the Grace Cathedral provides a cold, hard and unyielding counterpart to the otherwise rosaceous, curvilinear, forgiving labyrinthine pattern and the open-air setting suggests nature worship, inviting visitors to contemplate spiritual truths outside of the confines of a religious building. The paper concludes that the Grace labyrinth exemplifies the interfaces between nature and art, between decoration and art and between structural and artistic forms.
From the Paper "The space in which the Grace Cathedral labyrinth is contained is expansive yet it is also contained within a definite boundary. On the property of the Church, the labyrinth is nevertheless accessible at all hours of the day. Open hours mirror the open setting and open air. Because the labyrinth is on terrazzo, it feels distinctly man-made. It doesn't feel natural at all; it has no connection with the feeling of running through the woods or hiking. Having to remain in the lines and only go forward is one of the labyrinth's paradoxes: it is curvilinear and seemingly loose but it is also tight and restrictive."
An in-depth look at the works of O'Conner and her self-proclaimed statement that her primary topic throughout is the action of grace in territory held largely by the devil.
1,545 words (approx. 6.2 pages), 0 sources, 2001, $ 50.95
Abstract In this paper the author looks at the works of Flannery O?Conner and notes that they are works of fiction generally populated by misfits and freaks. The author moves on to closely examine the character of Hulga in "Good Country People", Misfit in, "A Good Man is Hard to Find", and Julian and Mrs. Chestney in, "Everything that Rises Must Converge".
From the paper:
"In all these stories, O"Connor uses violence and ugliness to shock her characters into reality, and prepare them for their moment of truth and grace. Often that grace is shocking, in fact, devastating to their self-image and their self-constructed world. And often that moment only comes just before death, and even so, does not save them from death.?
Abstract This paper examines how, in his book, "Amazing Grace", Kozol focuses on the children of the South Bronx, children who struggle to survive, thrive, to find joy and spiritual connections amid the turmoil of the ghetto. It shows how, although nihilism, hopelessness, anger, and violence run rampant through the neighborhood, the children with whom Kozol speaks and befriends exhibit an ?amazing grace.? It looks at how Kozol allows the residents of the South Bronx to speak for themselves through interviews and to demonstrate with their own examples why racial segregation, ghettoization, gang violence, and poverty are symptoms of a national problem rooted in avarice and racism.
From the Paper "Ironically, the "founding father" of the community, Richard Morris, built the South Bronx on profits gleaned from slavery: he had owned a plantation in the Caribbean. The local high school is named after Morris. The South Bronx can?t seem to escape its historical roots: racism pervades the district and there is a sense that its residents still live as slaves. A local teenage girl tells Kozol that the outside, white-dominated world looks toward people in their community as ?obstacles to moving forward,? as disposable and irrelevant. Moreover, Kozol notes that the mass media and the government fails to capture the raw emotionality of this harsh reality. Streets named after Black heroes like Martin Luther King stand basically as mockeries of racial justice and equality. "
Abstract This paper explains that both Luther and Augustine agreed that every form of matter and every event is the product of God's creation and that that this was the fundamental example of God's grace - His love and favor towards man. The paper then goes on to explain how the two religious philosophers differed in their conception of free will and its relation to God's grace.
From the Paper "St. Augustine believed that because God's grace was good, then everything he created was also originally good. In denying the veracity of original sin, however, he came up against the problem of explaining why man commits sins. Plato once argued that man's evil came from ignorance, but Augustine disagreed. He believed instead that man's fundamental condition was one of freedom and will. Because man is free, he can choose to direct his attentions to God or to the objects of the material world. He can choose to sin or to repent and do good."
Abstract This paper reviews, discusses and analyzes the teachings of St. Augustine. The paper reports that the teachings of St. Augustine expounded upon the relationship between the Divine Grace and human free will and the influence both have on the achievement of individual human salvation. According to the paper, Pelagius was St. Augustine's biggest rival, teaching that Divine Grace was not the sole necessity for achieving salvation.
From the Paper "God has decreed that we are all sinners, but even this condition is a result of a free choice made by Adam and Eve when they committed the original sin. In choosing to sin, the first man and first woman were undertaking truly momentous decision. Rather than accept that which was freely given to them - a beautiful and eternal paradise - they chose to question, and therefore to sin against God. By their choice in the beginning, all humanity was condemned to a life outside Eden, one that necessarily entailed sin. It is like the case of a man who chooses to emigrate from the country of his birth knowing that, once his decision is made, he can never return. He makes his choice, takes with him his wife, and goes to another country. The two have children in that country, and forever afterwards, their descendents are now citizens of that place. Those descendents can, of course, choose to change their habitations at some future date, even possibly deciding to return to the land from which they originally came, but they can never pick up from where their ancestors left off. It is possible, in fact, that the land, or nation, from which their forebears emigrated might no longer exist. At the very least, the position of their family in that country would have changed. It is the same with humankind and the Paradise that was Eden.
"Augustine viewed his own personal conversion as an act of Free Will. All his life, he had been faced with real choices in regard to his thoughts and actions. Throughout his youth, he had chosen to ignore the Path of God, and to follow false philosophies and indulge the pleasures of the flesh. The other choice - to accept Christ's teachings - was always open to him yet, until he consciously made it, could not possibly furnish any stimulus for change in his way of living. St. Augustine explains his discovery in Against the Manicheans"
Tags: church, Original, Sin, salvation, doctrine, christianity, bible, dictates, sin
Abstract This paper explains that, in "Amazing Grace", non-fiction writer, educator, and activist Jonathan Kozol, describes his visits to the poor neighborhoods of South Bronx and Harlem where he is exposed to what it is like for children to grow up desperately poor. The author points out that one of the most important aspects of this book is that Kozol lets the people speak in their own words about their poor lives, their problems and how they think the rest of the world views them . The paper relates that one of the really painful revelations in "Amazing Grace" is the difficulties welfare recipients have receiving services---the long waits and the disrespect with which they must put up. The paper includes many quotations from the book.
From the Paper "One of the people Kozol speaks to is Mrs. Washington who contracted AIDS from her husband that she loved and thought was faithful to her. She is sick and needs to go to the hospital, but according to the State of New York, she is not sick enough in order to collect Social Security Insurance. She explains that sometimes one must sit in the waiting room of the hospital (the one for poor people) for three days before being seen by a doctor or given a bed. When a room is available, the nurses are usually so busy that the old lady ends up changing her bedding by herself."
This paper is a critique of Max Lucado's work "In the Grip of Grace", with a focus on the opening parable in the story and Lucado's personal views as seen in his work.
Abstract This paper analyzes the work of Max Lucado, "In the Grip of Grace." The author first discusses Lucado's opening parable based on a father and five sons. The author then goes onto criticize it as unnatural and states the firm view that from the characters of the parable who are dismissed as savages, to the people who complain that their parachutes are the wrong color, Lucado manages to write off a great deal of humanity as not worth consideration. While he touts the grace of God, he creates the impression that he, Max Lucado, has a key that no one else has been given.
From the Paper "As an exegesis on Paul's epistle to the Romans, this book is an earnest attempt to expand and illuminate Paul's teaching. While this is one of Lucado's earlier books, it shows that strength of intellect that would carry him through more than fifty books. ("Max Lucado") Unfortunately, it also shows an off-putting stiffness. The parable illustrates this. Comparing Lucado's parable to such parables as the Good Samaritan and the Prodigal Son, Lucado's tale feels strained. Jesus' parables sound reasonable. Consider the opening to the Good Samaritan. 'There was a man who was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, when robbers attacked him, stripped him and beat him up, leaving him half dead.' (Luke 10:25) It is simple and direct, and what comes after follows logically. The characters react in genuinely human ways. The Samaritan shows love for his neighbor, although this man is a stranger. The faithful son is offended when his father responds to the prodigal's return with a feast."
Abstract This paper discusses the idea of grace under pressure, of which author Ernest Hemingway spent a career espousing through characters in his various novels and short stories. The paper reviews the story "The Old Man and The Sea" and studies the main character, Santiago, a fisherman down on his luck. It talks of how Santiago, despite his setbacks and physical limitations that age imposed on him, still approached each new day of fishing with cheer; a sign of grace under pressure.
From the Paper "Had the novel ended with the marlin's final submission, the extent of Santiago's true character may have never been revealed. It is not until he wages battle against the scavenger sharks that the reader is able to see the greatest example of grace under pressure. What makes the tale of Santiago's battle with the shark so significant an example of grace under pressure is not the fact that he show's great determination or pride. Certainly, both of these attributes were on display in earlier parts of the novel. It is the fact that his determination and pride remain in tact in the face of what he knows are insurmountable odds. His hope waned because he knew that he was too far from the shore and that he was ill-equipped to fight off the great number of sharks that would follow the blood trail being left by the great fish."
