The present study attempts to trace the struggle of women in American society post 1877.It aims to provide a comprehensive analysis of the different feminist movements vis a vis the political developments.

In the nineteenth century, the ideological ascendancy of science and medicine joined the spread of industrialization to promote the ‘sexual division of labor’ based on the assumption that ‘biology is destiny’. Women’s fixed role as caregivers was ideologically determined by their biological capacity to bear children. Associated with that biological capacity was a host of psychological attributes — passivity, dependence, moodiness — which further reinforced a growing emphasis on the gendered separation of the domestic and the public spheres. The qualities requisite to economic or political success were linked to biologically based notions of masculinity and femininity, according to which men’s bodies and minds are naturally suited to positions of power and women’s are naturally suited to positions of subordination. While the resistance to this view of sexual difference varies historically and culturally, it is against this backdrop that modern and contemporary feminism must be understood.

Not surprisingly, feminism often consolidates into a political movement as a result of women’s participation in other radical, reformist, or revolutionary activities.

Equality Through Difference

During the Victorian era, there was a model of womanhood founded on ideals of domesticity. This model, True Womanhood, rarely held true for real women, but it nevertheless effected women’s lives. Women, particularly white middle-class women, often lived at least partially conforming to True Womanhood. They generally stayed in the home to devote themselves to their family, allowing their husbands to fulfill the male role of breadwinner. They remained sexually pure and devotedly religious. An important part of living this ideal was not interfering with men’s public affairs, remaining untainted from public life.

Throughout the 1850’s, women continued to meet in conventions and less formal gatherings to discuss their economic, educational, political, legal, and familial rights. The women, who were mostly white and middle class, participated in a broad spectrum of protest movements, fighting against alcohol and slavery, and for the rights of immigrants and the poor. All of these movements gave women the opportunity to develop and sharpen organizational and ideological skills. However, women were often discouraged or even barred from holding positions of power equal to those of their male counterparts. Thus, women began to focus more and more on their own status in America.

Works Cited

1. Boris, Eileen “Black and White Women Bring the Power of Motherhood to Politics,” in Mary Beth Norton and Ruth M. Alexander Major Problems in American Women’s History. Lexington: D.C. Heath and Company, 1996.

2. Cott, Nancy Bonds of Womanhood: “Women’s Sphere” in New England 1780-1835. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1977.

Women and the American Civil War

When the American Civil War broke out in 1861, women turned their attention, and their considerable energy, to the conflict. In both the North and the South, women gathered in aid societies, circulated petitions, and, at home, took over the masculine duties of running the household. (i) While these activities kept the women at home busy, many women wanted to support their causes closer to the battlefield.

Rather than face low-paying, grueling factory work or even prostitution, poorer women followed their husbands, brothers or fathers to camp. Slave women also found protection in camps. These women, in particular, were vulnerable to the horrors of war, often forced to protect themselves and their children from Confederate raiders who might rape, kill, or capture them. Escaping to a Union camp was often their most promising option. (ii)

Many of the poor and middle-class women who joined the troops worked as nurses, or even as soldiers. Throughout the war, about 10,000 women served as nurses on either the Confederate or the Union side. (iii) Smaller numbers of zealous women enlisted with the troops, disguised as men. Cautious estimates place approximately 250 Confederate and 400 Union female soldiers on the battlefields. (iv)

For both the nurses and the female soldiers, their jobs required forgoing the modesty and innocence attributed to white women at the time of the Civil War. No illusions of feminine weakness could be sustained in the face of the day-to-day hardships of war. There existed, however, yet another option for patriotic women who wanted to work for their cause — spying. This option could allow a woman to not only maintain her femininity, but also greatly capitalize on it.

The American Civil War dramatically altered the roles women played in American society, if only temporarily. Gender roles became malleable as even white, middle-class women stepped out, or were forced out, of their traditional private sphere. At home, they took over the duties of running the household previously performed by their husbands. On the battlefront, they bandaged wounds or fought side by side with men. Somewhere in between, one particular woman enchanted men with her femininity, bewitchingly betrayed them, and consoled herself that “All was fair in love and war.” (v)

Endnotes

i. Sara M. Evans Born for Liberty. (New York: Free Press Paperbacks, 1997) p.117.
ii. ibid., p.113.
iii. Linda Grant DePauw Battle Cries and Lullabies, Women in War from Prehistory to the Present. (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1998) p.156.
iv. ibid., p.151..
v. ibid., p.216.

Three main feminist movements: 1870s-1919

From the 1870s until World War I, many feminists became more conservative in their views and goals. They were divided into three major groups of reformers:

1. The Suffragists

After 1870, suffragists focused on winning for women the right to vote. Their arguments were slightly different than those of suffragists before the Civil War. Early reformers had argued that women, as human-beings, had a natural right to vote. From the 1870s on, however, suffragists took their cues from the Cult of True Womanhood and argued that women were different and, in some cases, better than men. Women, for example, were more noble, more spiritual, and truer of heart then men. Granting women the right to vote, they argued, would help purify political corruption in the United States.

2. The Social Feminists

Social feminists agreed with the suffragists that women should get the vote, but dedicated themselves to social reforms other than suffrage. Prominent social feminists were often leaders of the settlement movement, such as Jane Addams and Florence Kelley. Florence Kelley (1859-1932) was a prominent feminist and social reformer. Part of that generation of women who first gained access to higher education, Kelley graduated from Cornell University in 1882. However, like many women graduates of her time, she had difficulty finding work that was worth her talents. She went to Europe, studied law and government in Zurich, and translated major works of Marx and Engels into English. In 1891, she joined Jane Addams at Hull House. From 1898 until 1932, Kelley served as the head of the National Consumers’ League (NCL), a lobbying group for the rights of working women and children.

In addition to the NCL, there were a host of other reform organizations headed by women: the Woman’s Trade Union League, the General Federation of Women’s Clubs, the National Council of Jewish Women, and the National Council of Colored Women. These groups saw the state as a potentially beneficial agent of social welfare.

The new generation of social feminists were more conservative, but also more pragmatic. In 1890, these new feminists reunited the squabbling AWSA and NWSA and formed the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA). NAWSA was led from 1900 to 1904 and again from 1915 to 1920 by Carrie Chapman Catt (1859-1947). Catt was born in Ripon, in the great state of Wisconsin, went to school in Iowa, and worked for women’s suffrage, eventually becoming a close colleague of Susan B. Anthony. Catt believed it was a woman’s natural right to participate in politics, and also wanted women to have the vote in order to reform society. Catt reasoned that if women had political power, they could not only improve life for themselves and for their children, but have influence over more global issues such as world peace. Catt founded the League of Women Voters in 1920.

3. The Radical Feminists

Radical feminists offered a much stronger critique of American society, economics, and politics. The most prominent radical feminist was Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1860-1935), a sociologist, author, lecturer, and self-proclaimed socialist. In 1898, Gilman achieved international fame with her book, Women and Economics: The Economic Factor between Men and Women as a Factor in Social Evolution, a condemnation of the Cult of True Womanhood. Her chief arguments in the book were quite radical for America at the turn of the century. She argued that:

Common humanity shared by men and women was far more important than sexual differences

Social environment, not biology, determined the roles of men and women in society

In an industrial society, women would be released from the home, enabled to make a broad human contribution rather than a narrow feminine contribution to society

Alice Paul, who organized the Woman’s Party in the 1910s and introduced the first Equal Rights Amendment in 1916, represented the other facet of radical feminism. The campaign for the ERA during the 1910s was so radical that most social feminists rejected it out of fear that the proposed constitutional amendment would endanger protective legislation for women. As a result, the campaign for the ERA remained a minority movement within feminism.

The Nineteenth Amendment

In addition to the ERA, another point of division among various feminist groups was World War I. Jane Addams and other social feminists were vocal pacifists who opposed Wilson’s decision to enter the war. Hard-core suffragists, led by Carrie Chapman Catt, endorsed Wilson’s decision, with the understanding that Wilson would support women’s suffrage at war’s end. After the war came to a close, Wilson pointed to women’s loyalty in the war effort and urged Congress to pass the Nineteenth Amendment to the Constitution.

One thing was obvious to everyone: In the course of the century the United States had undergone a profound transformation. From an agrarian nation of independent settlers it had changed into a largely urban and industrial society with millions of new poor immigrants and vast social problems. The subjection and disenfranchisement of women only added to these problems, because it made their solution more difficult. Other nations which experienced similar pressures finally took corrective action. New Zealand gave women the vote in 1893, Finland in 1906. The First World War produced social upheavals in Europe and secured the vote for women in the Netherlands and the Soviet Union (1917) and, to a limited extent, in Great Britain (1918). Germany followed suit in 1919. Under the circumstances, the lack of women’s suffrage in the United States became an embarrassment. Therefore, in 1920, the country finally adopted the Nineteenth Amendment to the Constitution granting the right to vote to women. A struggle of over seventy years had finally been won.

Feminism in the 1920s

Still, as feminists well knew, this victory was hardly enough, since sexual discrimination continued in many other subtle and not so subtle ways. Unequal pay for equal work, exclusion from influential positions, and innumerable specific legal restrictions denied women equal opportunities in American life. The economic exploitation of women was far from over. The feminist movement supported welfare legislation for maternity and infant care, birth control, stricter labor laws, and government regulation of business. This led to a vicious “red smear” attack by the established powers which denounced feminists as “bolshevik dupes” and “communist conspirators” and accused them of “undermining the family”. Primitive and transparent as they were, these smear tactics proved nevertheless to be very successful. Many “respectable” middle-class women were frightened away from the movement and dissuaded from defending their interests.

In the 1920s, the women’s rights movement practically died down. This was due, in part, to the achievement of the goal of suffrage, but also because of a general retreat from activism in post-WWI America. Feminists of the time made three discoveries:

Women did not vote as a bloc; there was no such thing as the “women’s” vote

The struggle for suffrage no longer united disparate elements of the feminist movement

Younger women were less interested in reform and more interested in rebelling against social conventions

To put it simply, the daughters of the early feminists were more interested in smoking, drinking, going without corsets, bobbing their hair, reading daring literature, and dancing the Charleston. They were enjoying new economic and sexual freedoms in the prosperous years that immediately followed World War I. The technological and economic boom that fueled a higher standard of living for many Americans is a crucially important reason for that.

‘Death of a Salesman’ is the complete life history of Willy Loman, who was a salesman by profession living in Brooklyn. The presentation style of the author ‘Arthur Miller’ is so rich that the whole play gives an impression of playing live before our eyes. The whole story revolves around Willy Loman and his family, which includes his wife ‘Linda’ and his two sons ‘Biff Loman and Happy Loman’. The general perception about this play is that it is a tragic piece of literature; however, the comprehensive analysis of this play imparts a different approach because the theory of Willy Loman about gaining success for happily living was quite fussy and rusty in its nature. His stumbling nature made him resistant to adopt the flexible philosophy of life for coping with the modern social world and his dogmatism eventually leaded him to take a suicide like coward step, in spite of his caring wife. The moral of the story is that egoism and stubbornness never leads to success.
The author has concluded that Willy’s character cannot be quoted as a tragic hero because tragedy requires some incidents or natural flaws incurred to the tragic heroes. Bradford also appreciates the attempt to become a tragic hero but also criticizes the senile attitude of Willy. Though Arthur Miller has endorsed the same notions and philosophies in this play but it will be still difficult to decide as the author has shown concerns about that at the end of this review analysis. Arthur Miller seems to describe the vagueness of typical American society. At the same time, the main character ‘Willy’ gives different outlook as in the other plays. Willy stands for the American dreamy world and also reflects the real issues that the Americans are facing due to illusionistic ideas. In other words, the protagonist of this play was living in a dreamy world and was obsessed with obnoxious anti-Marxist ideas. The major rationale behind his failure of life was his unrealistic philosophy of life that contributed mainly for compelling him for suicide. Willy was highly obsessed with the concepts of conservatism and arrogance. His egoism and erroneousness has leaded him to make multiple suicidal attempts and finally, he succeeded in killing himself. His whole life, as sketched by Arthur Miller, described his inflexible nature towards the changing societal values and also shows his typical nature as is usually of an American middleman. Hence, he should have more pragmatic approach to gain access to his dreams and to compete with modern societal challenges (Bradford, About.com).
‘Death of a Salesman’ is composed of three main sections that are Act I, Act II and Requiem. The play starts with Act I, which includes also the opening scene of the play presenting the true picture of a middle-class American, named Willy Loman, who was a resident of Brooklyn in the New York City and was a sixty three year old traveling salesman. After a non-productive routine official tour, his wife ‘Linda’ shows her deep concerns on his tiresome facial expressions, which denotes her supportive nature for her husband. At this point, the author, Arthur Miller, seems to be well-acquainted with strong matrimonial emotions. Willy’s today was completely different from his hopes and dreams that were not atypical from the middle-class American dream. Willy’s two sons, Biff and Happy, were also back to his home at that day. Willy criticized Biff on coming back to home after such a long period of 15 years with no cash in hand. On the other side, these two brothers found their father as an absent-minded person in his old age. They also ridiculed their father in a sense that he could not cope with societal changes (Bradford, About.com).
Willy has displayed arrogant and obstinate nature throughout his whole life. The lack of parenting skills has also produced flaws in his personality that has been presented by author at various scenes of the play. While, taking Willy back to his past, the author described his unethical parental coaching to his son on his act of stealing a football because he did not react to him in an expected manner. The author has also described the romantic nature of Willy, when the love-affair of Willy was described during a scene of the play. These all thoughts of Willy were disturbed, when his neighbor, Bernard, complained about the educational illness of Biff on which Willy got short-tempered and started searching for Biff with intensive aggravation and this scene was also the closure of flashback (Bradford, About.com).
In another scene, the author has described the ideal of Willy who was Willy’s own rich brother, named Ben. Ben used to extract diamond in the jungles of Africa and Willy also remembered his proposal to join him in this venture, but Willy did not accept his proposal. Here, Miller has again indicated his egoistic nature. Retaining the same depressive emotions, Willy started to daunt Happy for his obsessed thinking. In the mean time, his next-door neighbor Charlie came into his home who was an owner of a sales-firm. During playing cards, Charlie offered him to join his firm, but he again declined here and even insulted him. His nature of conservatism and arrogance leaded him to his failure and eventually to suicide. Here, Willy has idolized his father also to an extent, assuming that he was a rich and successful man (Bradford, About.com).
Biff was quite confused to see his father’s awkward attitude and also queried her mother about his state of mind for its duration. Here, Linda, Willy’s wife, proved herself as a loyal wife and accused them to be the sole cause of his current insanity. Here, she also tried to convince them for being responsible by telling them about his suicidal attempts. She also appreciated her husband’s effort to make them able for keep pace with social needs. After listening his mother’s lecture, Biff promised his mother for gratifying his father in the future. During an argumentative conversation between Biff and Happy, they began to investigate the underlying reason behind the failure of Biff in the business world and in the meanwhile, Willy joined this discussion. On his entrance, Happy tried to please his father by presenting the plan of Biff that he was going to his ex-employer for requesting loan and Biff also reluctantly confirmed this statement, even Biff was not ready to go for it. This plan presentation made Willy smile, which shows here his greedy nature. However, at the end of this scene, there was again a conflict between two brothers (Bradford, About.com).
Willy seems to be well-equipped with the elements of arrogance and egoism. In the same evening, Biff was also carrying a bad news for Willy because he could finalize his deal with his ex-boss. Then, Happy tried to convince Biff to make a bluff with Willy so as to please him, but Biff was again reluctant in doing so. When Willy arrived, Biff started to tell the whole story, but Happy was again and again interrupting him so as to distract him from the truth. Willy left the dining table. On their return to home, Linda castigated their behavior with their father. Then, the climax of the play came when Willy drove his car into death. The last section described the funeral ceremony of Willy (Home Work Online).
Bradford believes also that Willy was the self motif behind his failure because he could not walk with contemporary society. The author also indicates that his suicide attempt was only meant for insurance company which has become common in the middle-class Americans. The author has also concluded that Willy’s character cannot be quoted as a tragic hero because tragedy requires some incidents or natural flaws incurred to the tragic heroes. Bradford also appreciates the attempt to become a tragic hero but also criticizes the senile attitude of Willy. Through Arthur Miller has endorsed the same notions and philosophies in this play but it will be still difficult to decide as the author has shown concerns about that at the end of this review analysis. Arthur Miller seems to describe the vagueness of typical American society. At the same time, the main character ‘Willy’ gives different outlook as in the other plays. Willy stands for the American dreamy world and also reflects the real issues that the Americans are facing due to illusionistic ideas (Bradford, About.com).
Arthur Miller has used various themes in this work; however, the major thematic expression is the American Dream. As the protagonist of this play belongs to a middle-class, this play reflects the overwhelming ideology of the American society. Similarly, abandonment is another thematic expression of this play which is quite vivid in the Willy’s character. Willy Loman has been observed as the character with frequent and subsequent denials and deviations from the truths. He has been in a state of continuous abandonment throughout the whole play. Loman has been in a state of confusion because he never tried to understand what he really wanted to be. Arthur Miller has used various motifs in this play among which mythic figure is an important aspect. Thus, Arthur Miller has been found a person with a strong vision of the Western world (Sparknotes, Analysis of Willy Loman).
Conclusively, it would not be righteous to label this play as a tragic play because Willy was highly obsessed with the concepts of conservatism and arrogance. His whole life, as sketched by Arthur Miller, described his inflexible nature towards the changing societal values and also shows his typical nature as is usually of an American middleman. His dreams were quite opposite to his actions. But the work of the author is undeniably realistic because Arthur Miller has selected the American Dream as the topic of this play in order to present the flaws and dilemmas prevalent in the middle-class society of the America. From the perspective of socio-economic theory, as illustrated by Mandel, Marxism is a flexible philosophy for accommodating contemporary changes in the social and economic system of the modern world. The protagonist of this play was living in a dreamy world and was obsessed with obnoxious anti-Marxist ideas. The major rationale behind his failure of life was his unrealistic philosophy of life.

Works Cited

Bradford, W. “Death of a Salesman- Review”. About.com. 06 Aug. 2011

Home Work Online. 06 Aug. 2011 < http://www.homework-online.com/doas/index.asp>

Mandel, E. An Introduction to Marxist Economic Theory. Australia: Resistance Books, Chippendale NSW 2008. 2002.

Miller, Arthur. Death of a Salesman. Viking Press: New York. 1949.

African women living in war-torn African states such as Sierra Leone, Liberia, Ivory Coast, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Somalia, among other states have surely felt the impacts of conflict to their lifestyle. For instance, the brutal war in Liberia transpired in three successive phases, which lasted fifteen years from 1989 to 2003. The war in Sierra Leone began in 1991 when Revolutionary United Front of Sierra Leone guerrillas, who were being trained in Liberia, made invasions in their own state.
The war brought on board many actors and lasted ten years, until January 2002. Additionally, the civil strife in Ivory Coast started in 2002 when insurgents in the northern region attempted to overthrow President Laurent Gbagbo; though after international involvement, an accord was agreed upon in 2003. It can be noted that all the wars led to the deaths of many women; some were displaced, while some lost their breadwinner husbands. Presently, all but Ivory Coast are largely at peace. Peacekeepers are on the job or closely in control. The United Nations and global aid bodies are helping recovery. Some light arms have been recovered by the governments; some expatriates have gone back to the countries. Ivory Coast is recovering from the latest political instability that was sparked by the refusal of former president Gbagbo to concede defeat after he was defeated in the country’s elections held late 2010.
Although most African states are largely at peace, which sound unclearly hopeful, in actuality they are so disintegrated, so troubled and, more so in the instances of Sierra Leone, and Liberia, the situation is so distraught and indigent that they may not be capable of securely practicing or enjoying the fruits of peace. In the recent past, Sierra Leone arguably substituted Afghanistan as the tail-end ranked state on the United Nations’ index of human development; the reports gauges literacy levels, healthcare and poverty (Voice of America 1.
As is the case in Afghanistan, the state is a society of widows. Notably, of all those who endured the West African conflicts, it was hapless populations who underwent most suffering. Specifically targeted in terrorist acts as a war strategy, they were rendered homeless, exiled, abducted, tortured, assaulted, injured, maimed and executed. And of all the ordinary populations who suffered, no population segment suffered as excessively as women. Presently, millions of females in such three West African states are still under pressure recovering; for them, the conflicts aren’t actually over at all.
The level of sexual violence and rape in Ivory Coast, when the armed conflict transpired has not been properly evaluated. Majority of the women have suffered gang-rapes or have been kidnapped and forced to be sexual slaves by fighters. In addition, rape has usually come along with torture, including sexual torture one the victim. Unfortunately, all armed sides have executed and continue to implement sexual violence with amazing aplomb, meted on women under the age of 12 to 63. A more topical and thoroughgoing revelation by Human Rights Watch indicates the rape of minors as young as three was prevalent in the countries (Africa Action 1).
At the time the civil strife transpired, women and young girls were captured in their dwelling places or at roadblocks erected by the militaries, or were located in their hiding places in the scrubs. Some of them were raped in front of their families or in public. Some were coerced to witness the execution of spouses or parents. Eventually they were whisked away to military barracks or camps, to prepare the soldiers’ meals during the daytime, only to be gang-raped under the cover of darkness.
Majority of the women suffered rape so ceaselessly and so viciously with sticks, gun barrels, knives, burning coals, some die in the process. Several others sustained injuries and trauma that still remain, many years after the conflicts. Majority still find it difficult to settle or stand, or walk. A number have long lost their capacity to see or their recollections; many more got infected with venereal diseases and HIV.
On the other hand, in Liberia, when the conflict came to an end in 2002, over a million Liberian nationals had been rendered homeless in their own country. Nearly a million others had reportedly fled the country. In a state of three million persons, the statistics translate to 30 percent of the citizens gone. Moreover, more than 270,000 people were killed. And here also, the simple targets were females (Voice of America 1). A World Health Organization report in 2005 suggested that a whopping 90 percent of the women in Liberia had experienced sexual and physical violence; 75 percent of whom suffered rape.
In Kolahun, Lofa County, where the conflicts were high, and women survivors her scars to prove the torment they underwent: a string of parallel straight ridges beginning just under the ear and running down, to the neck. For instance, guerrilla militias in the Charles Taylor forces of the former president of Liberia, who died while being tried by the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity charges, held women tightly and gradually, inch by inch, tore the flesh of the victims’ neck in blood.
But that isn’t all. Taylor’s militias went breaking fingers of women. For instance, one woman survivor living in the region had her back slammed so vehemently with firearm butts that one foot and a hand are presently paralyzed. In the small rural community of Dougoumai, a woman referred to only as “the sick lady” exists. Her sister opines she was seized by mercenaries waging war against the Taylor regime and was recurrently gang-raped by ten men (Voice of America 1). The militias rammed their rifle butts into her rear– evidently an ordinary technique, which resulted to the paralysis of her legs.
Moreover, they crashed her hands, hence rendering her hands useless. In the recent past, the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the United Nations Fund for Population Activities visited the surviving women living in Lofa County, the core of Taylor’s offensive. Over 98 percent said they were rendered homeless during the final phase of the armed conflict; more than 90 percent lost their jobs; more than 72 percent lost at least a kin.
In Sierra Leone, where horrifying the ordinary man was the primary war strategy, the war against women and kids were, as Human Rights Watch has indicated, even more atrocious. All warring factions in the conflict perpetrated countless killings. Official reports record appalling criminal activity: fathers coerced to rape their daughters; brothers coerced to rape their siblings; child soldiers were forced to gang-rape old women, before cutting off their hands; pregnant women were disemboweled alive and the breathing fetus removed from the uterus to satisfy militias’ gambling on its sex status.
These criminal activities, which go against primal norms, aim to damage not only the victims but the entire culture. In the recent past, every manner of terror has been perpetrated on women and girls in Liberia, Ivory Coast and Sierra Leone for being inferior in gender.
In an interview a guerilla fighter in the Democratic Republic of Congo, smiled saying he had “made love” to several women. When asked if all the females were willing, he chuckles, admitting that majority fight him, but he subdues them by calling for reinforcement from his colleagues. Additionally, when such an act is labeled by the interviewer “rape,” the militia insists that sexual violence happens in times of war and that peace is not normally accompanied with rape.
It is notable; nonetheless, that the peace accords signed in the West African region did not entirely trickle down on women, in terms of ending any forms of aggression against the female gender. Studies indicate that well over 50 percent of the women residing in two Liberian provinces, incorporating the capital, Monrovia, had experienced at least one brutal sexual harassment during a one-and-a-half-year period in 2006 to2007, years following the end of the war (Voice of America 1).
Black Women in Wars, Especially in Poor African Countries. Alice Auma Lakwena-The woman who inspired thousands into Battle with mere sticks and stones.
January 1986 was a perfect era for numerous Ugandans; it was the period when the present President, Yoweri Museveni, came to authority. Majority of the middle and western areas of the nation delighted, but in the region of the ACHOLIS, there was a feeling of obscurity; it seemed all they had battled for had been lost. The ACHOLI had lost their authority in Uganda, their control and feeling of identity. They had acquired that authority by being several of the finest soldiers in the military of Uganda, becoming individuals of control and autonomy (Allen 370). Into this manly custom of soldiers and warriors, enter an important woman who was short of all the recommendations. She was deprived, un-learned, plainly lacked and still it was this female who would become the mother of the greatest battle in Uganda.
Alice Auma Lakwena stayed in the little city of Obit, a city where she survived through selling flour and fish. She was married twice but divorced in both instances as she could not give birth. Lakwena stands for messenger in the Acholi idiom and Alice definitely became that. Led by her spirit, she started a movement that would conscript up to fifteen thousand males and guided them into war in opposition to the new administration army in Uganda without modern weapons but plainly sticks and stones. She gave them a stern spiritual system, involving the rejection of witchcraft, stay virtuous, no smoking, drinking, or disagreeing, to surrender all sin in their being and bestow themselves to the duty of cleansing the Acholi individual and the country of Uganda (Allen 372).
Lakwena employed a mixture of legend, voodoo and traditional customs with her exclusive sort of Christianity thrown in. She became a motivator of Acholi individuals; this priestess hero entered her people’s chronology at their period of want and desolation and the period was just correct for her mission to take effect and cultivate. The initial attack in opposition of the National Resistance Army took action close to Lira in Northern Uganda. Equipped with bags of stones, sticks, singing songs, spraying water all around, their bodies smeared with oil to stop the bullets they marched into battle. Amazingly to the majority, they imposed major losses on the National Resistance Army that initial day even while the rocks did not detonate into grenades, and the bullets were not halted by the oil, the warrior priestess soldiers triumphed.
What is astonishing is that she never hit in furtive. She would candidly publicize the looming attack of her troops. Her militia, armed with sticks and stones, with the wails of battle, motivated by the warrior princess, progressed against a military with fatal weapons. The association supplemented arms later on and several of NRA soldiers were murdered in battle and even superior officers were executed and killed. Alice Lakwena did not fall short of soldiers and augmented new regions in and close to the Acholi region of Northern Uganda. It was remarkable to many how this female with no education could motivate numerous individuals (Allen 399). She took her forces to Eastern Uganda where again, her movement triumphed and even a superior officer from NRA was captured.
Alice passed away in a refugee site in Northern Kenya in 2007, following a long term disease and is still mentioned in Uganda by those she motivated, those she battled and those that were in the way of her army. Despite being childless in her natural life, she gave birth to the greatest battle in Uganda. Alice was the mother to what would be the battle of battles in the Pearl of Africa. Something she possibly never perceived in her mind when she carried on with her undertaking. Alice Lakwena will persist as someone exceptional in the pages of Uganda’s past.

Leymah Roberta Gbowee is a Black African peace activist accountable for arranging a peace movement that brought a conclusion to the Second Liberian Civil battle in 2003. This resulted to the voting of Ellen Johnson Sir leaf in Liberia, the initial African country with a black woman president. She was born in Central Liberia. While she was the age of seventeen, she progressed to Monrovia, when the Second Liberian Civil battle sprouted. She qualified as a stress analysts throughout the civil battle in Liberia and was employed as a counselor with the ex-child soldiers of Charles Taylor’s army (Nagbe 7). Bordered by the sights of battle, she recognized that if any alterations were to be implemented in community it had to be by the black women. She is a mother of six, and in 2002, Leymah was a communal worker who planned the Women of Liberia Mass Action for Peace.
The harmony association began with the regional women praying and chanting in a fish market. She planned the Christian and Muslim women of Monrovia, Liberia to implore for peace and to hold peaceful demonstrations. Together, they conducted out a sex thump in which Liberian women rejected to have relations with their partners throughout the battle. Due to the rejection, Charles Taylor accepted to meet Gbowee and guaranteed to take part in peace talks in Ghana. The females joined forces at the venue of the peace talks and rejected to depart until a consensus was arrived. Gbowee then spearheaded a designation of Liberian women to Ghana to progress to implement pressure on the battling groups through the peace procedure. They conducted a soundless demonstration outside the Presidential Palace, Accra, conveying on a consensus through the mired peace talks (Nagbe 7).
Leymah Gbowee and Comfort Freeman, leaders of two differing Lutheran churches, arranged the Women in Peace building Network (WIPNET), and subjected a declaration of purpose to the president. The statement read that the women were silent previously, but following the murder, rape, dehumanization and infection with illnesses, and viewing their children and relations harmed, battle educated the women in saying no to war and yes to harmony. Gbowee insisted that the demonstrations would not concede until peace triumphed. The lobby group brought a conclusion to the Second Liberian national war in 2003 and resulted to the voting of Ellen Johnson Sir leaf in Liberia, the initial African country with a black woman leader.

Clothed in white t-shirts to signify harmony, and figuring in the thousands, Leymah Gbowee spearheaded the women in what became a political movement in opposition of hostility and their administration. She has become triumphant in beseeching other African administrations for harmony. Leymah Gbowee is the main personality in the 2008 documentary film entitled Pray the Devil Back to Hell (Nagbe 7). The movie has been employed as a promotion instrument in post warring regions for instance, Sudan as well as Zimbabwe, assembling Black women in Africa to implore for tranquility and safety. Leymah Gbowee is the senior manager of the Women Peace and Security Network Africa, founded in Accra, Ghana and is responsible for establishing associations across West African sub-areas in maintenance of women’s capability to thwart, turn away and finish wars. She is a founding participant and previous director of the Women in Peace building Program/ West African Network for Peace building (WIPNET/WANEP). She also acted as the elected commissioner for the Liberia Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
Mbuya Nehanda – Led In Resisting Colonization by the British. The invasion by the British resulted to the obliteration of the political, monetary as well as profitable and religious array of the individuals of Southern Africa. The obligation of the hut tax, compelled labor, repression of religious endeavors and land estrangement crystallized African opposition. The military movement to drive away the British, referred to as the Chimurengas or the battle of liberation was begun by the Ndebele in May 1896 and their traditional foes, the SHONA, combined them in October of the similar year. The exceptional aspect of the Chimurenga was the pioneering duties conducted by three MHONDORO: Mukwati in Matabeleland, Kagudi in western Mashonaland and Nehanda, the only woman, in central and Northern Mashonaland (Cairnie 165-170). They hit directly at the center of Shona traditions and hence detained the minds of the individuals by efficiently persuading them that Mwari accused the whites for all their anguish and ruled that the whites should be taken from the land.
Nehanda Charwe Nyakasikana was regarded to as the woman embodiment of the revelation spirit Nyamhika Nehanda. Regarded to as Mbuya Nehanda, she is generally called the grandmother of current day Zimbabwe. She encouraged the SHONA individuals to drive away the British from the land, motivating them to strengthen the battle and rallying them on. Using covert messages to converse with each other, Nehanda efficiently harmonized her hard work. Kagudi was arrested but Nehanda escaped the British a while longer until she was ultimately arrested in December. They both were accused of killing an African policeman and the Native Commissioner Pollard, and sentenced to bereavement by hanging.
Nehanda’s passing phrases were that her bones would rise again, envisaged the second Chimurenga, which terminated in the autonomy of current day Zimbabwe. Facing the advanced expertise of the British, the insurgence astonishingly lasted until the end of 1897 in spite of British actions of revulsion and cruelty. Though the British casualties were statistically less, they symbolized one tenth of their inhabitants (Cairnie 165-170). The main aspects of Nehanda’s cults were ancestor reverence and spirit custody, which persevere among the individuals of current day Zimbabwe. Through the Second Chimurenga, Ian Smith, then Prime Minister of Rhodesia, in an above ground leaflet drop, summoned the names of royal MHONDORO in a distressed attempt to attenuate widespread back up for Zimbabwe African national Liberation Army. The spirit of Nyamhika Nehanda got a new medium in an old woman, who was whipped to shelter by ZANLA guerillas. The unconquerable Mbuya Nehanda, innovatory prophet and ruler of the initial Chimurenga, has currently been buried in Zimbabwe’s Heroes’ Acre.

Aya Virginie Toure is a peace activist in Cote d’Ivoire (Ivory Coast). She became recognized for arranging fellow women in non hostile demonstration in opposition of President Laurent Gbagbo who declined to seize being the president of Ivory Coast in the presidential election to Alassane Ouattara. Toure worked to assemble women as the deputy Director for Ouattara’s Ivorian presidential voting. In the rally of the Republicans (RDR), the leading political party in Ivory Coast, Toure is the appointed President of the Rally of Republican Women. She spoke in opposition of Gbagbo and his interior ring of individuals who were purportedly sending taxpayers’ contribution out of the nation as their individual income (Bender et al 271-358).
Aya Virginie Toure arranged many peace demonstrations all through Ivory Coast throughout the 2010 to 2011 Ivorian calamity. In a fervent interview on BBC news, Virginie contrasted the progressing second Ivorian civil war to the 2011 Libyan national battle and requested for back up from the intercontinental society. She asked for armed forces interference to take away Laurent Gbagbo from authority in the similar manner Charles Taylor was forced to step down in the second Liberian national war.
In December 2010, Aya spearheaded hundreds of women in a diplomatic demonstration through the progressing crisis in Abidjan, the financial capital of Ivory Coast. They thumped pots to caution the advent of the militias. March 2011, she headed fifteen thousand women who collected in the town of Abidjan, in Ivory Coast, to demonstrate in opposition of the serving leader Laurent Gbagbo, who persistently declined to step down following his lose in November’s leadership voting. Several of the women were dressed in all dark clothing while others were totally naked, both of which are dreaded taboos in Ivory Coast (Bender et al 271-358). In Africa and Ivory Coast, it is like an abomination. The women were cursing the leadership of Gbagbo.
Other black women carried leaves signifying peace, and shouted that they did not recognize the unlawful leadership of Gbagbo. As the demonstrators who were singing and dancing, moved into the uninviting environs of Abobo, tanks approached the demonstrators. The women rejoiced, supposing the new advents had come in back up of their rally. But the men in the approaching troops begun shooting and killed seven of them. During the worldwide women’s’ day, Toure mobilized forty five thousand women in a nonviolent demonstration all round the nation. The women were once again met with young men equipped with machetes and repeated firing into the air at Koumassi.
In response to the demonstrations, Leymah Gbowee gave a proclamation of back up for the nonviolent demonstrations of the Christian as well as Muslim women in the Ivory Coast and contrasted them to those of her country. At the ECOWAS meeting in Nigeria a one thousand women demonstration was arranged by peace activists in West Africa in back up of the female of Ivory Coast. They dressed in white t-shirts and symbolized nations all over West Africa involving Ivory Coast (Bender et al 271-358).
They subjected press liberation and presented declaration to the ECOWAS heads of nations. March 23, Goodluck Jonathan, leader of Nigeria recommended the United Nations to surpass a declaration to take influential activities, stating volatility facades a peril to safety in West Africa. At the end of March, the United Nations Security Council resolution was acquired commonly, demanding that Laurent Gbagbo resign as leader and permit worldwide realized leader Alassane Ouattara to take over. The declaration obligated approvals on Gbagbo and his close acquaintances. The declaration was funded by France and Nigeria.

Lalla Fadhma n’Soumer in Kabyle was a significant person of the KABYALE resistant movement through the initial years of the French colonial conquest of Algiers. The effect of her participation was such that she has been viewed as the personification of the war. Lalla is a term used to regard to women esteemed as saints. N’Soumer was born in the Kabyle town. Established sources note that she demonstrated an influential and obstinate personality from her untimely young life (Salhi 79-101). For example, she emphasized on following teachings in the Koran in her parent’s institution, very uncommon conduct for a female child in that tradition. At the age of only sixteen, her relations organized for her wedding, as was tradition. Though, she declined so as to go back to her spiritual schooling.
Consequently, being regarded as a woman obsessed by the spirit, she pursued a life of severity, focused to the endeavor and research of religion, and progressed her schooling. Her reputation became widespread so much that Muslims from all Kabylie came to her for counsel and give her presents. To every person, the young girl appeared not only devoid and astute, but in addition youthful and pretty: she took much concern of her body as well as clothes, and routinely dressed in expensive ornaments. The French started their inhabitation off Algeria in 1830, beginning with a landing in Algiers. As inhabitation altered into colonization, Kabylia insisted the only area free of the French administration. Demands on the area heightened, and the longing of her people to fight away and safeguard their region also heightened.
A turning period in Lalla Fadma’s being was the settlement in Kabylie of a strange man who portrayed himself as Mohamed ben Abdallah. He was almost certainly an ex-lieutenant in the military of Emir, conquered for the last period by the French. He denied to give up at the war, and settled at Kabylie. From there, he started a war in opposition of the French military and their friends, frequently using guerilla techniques. Baghla was a persistent combatant, and expressive in Arabic. He was also very spiritual and various legends tell about his techniques (Salhi 79-101). He frequently went to summer to speak with the High ranking associates of the spiritual society and Lalla Fadhma was soon engrossed by his great character. At the same period, the unrelenting participant was drawn by a woman so decisively prepared to take part, by any way probable, to the battle in opposition of the French.
With her stimulating speeches, she persuaded numerous men to battle as volunteers prepared to pass away as martyrs, and she included, in association with other women, took part in combat by availing cooking, treatment and console to the warring armies. Fadhma was individually available at numerous battles in which Baghla was include, specifically the war of Tachekkirt triumphed by Baghla troops, where the French General was captured but was able to run away. Tired of progressive war activities from the Kabylie movement, General randon, selected Marshal of France, resolute to hold out in the late spring, what was referred to by the French the appeasement. For the attack she collected a troop of close to forty five thousand individuals grouped in numerous columns to hit.
Overwhelm was unpredictable for the community individuals, being out figured and out armed by their foes, and their homes as well as families crashed one following the other in just several months. The initial tribe to be conquered was that at YIRATEN; on their province the French begun to construct a fort. A sturdy protective line was able to halt, with major defeats and only momentarily, the attackers at other provinces recognition to a spontaneous hit derived from channels concealed in the territory (Salhi 79-101). Established sources say that Lalla Fadhma participated in the war and commanded that the armed forces must be attached to each other with chains so no one was enticed to run away.
In several days, though, employing armaments, the French army was able to penetrate the defenses and all the main tribes surrendered. Lalla Fadhma n’Soumer was captured as a captive mutually with close to two hundred additional women and young ones, who were taken with her to an imprisonment site at the Zaouia under the rule of a regional authority devoted to French. On 26 December 1854, Baghla was murdered; several resources assert it was as a result of the sedition of several of his associates.
The confrontation persisted with no compelling principal and a commandant competent to direct it competently. For this motive, through the first months of 1855, on an asylum constructed top of Azru Nethor climax, not away from the community where Fadhma was nurtured, there was a big assembly between participants and significant numbers of the clans in Kabylie. They accepted to award Lalla Fadhma, helped by her brothers, the authority of fighting. After numerous years following her passing away, Lalla Fadhma’s reputation persists alive and current all through Algeria, and in exact in her area, Kabylia. Particularly, numerous players and bands painted pictures and wrote songs about her, one of the greatest well-known songs devoted to her is by Tagrawla, an Algerian group.
An Algerian feminist linked was renamed Daughters of Lalla Fatma N Soummer in her tribute. Lalla Fadhma, and her illustration of a persistent and courageous lady, is still fascinating at the current time; specifically when in 1995 her vestiges were moved to the conqueror’s cemetery of El Alia, Algiers, the definite day and instance of the ritual was not proclaimed in progress, but only exposed to the media what had taken place after it occurred. The Algiers power were viewed by the media as discomfited to do this move just after passing a bill about Family Code which was enormously cruel with women; in this manner, the powers would not have to safeguard probable disagreeable demonstrations by the women’s relations which unearth in Lalla Fadhma an imperative stature exemplifying an intensely sovereign and contemporary woman (Salhi 79-101).

Conclusion

Generally, the violence meted against the female gender continues. Murderous brutal attacks, not astoundingly, cannot be eradicated in a hurry. In West Africa, as is the case in other regions of Africa such as the DRC and Somalia, rapists thrive and use the act as war strategy; it has become a practice carried flawlessly into the contemporary Africa that is largely at peace. Nevertheless, where usual policing and justice mechanisms have been rendered obsolete by war, former combatants and ordinary men alike normally prey upon females with impunity. Even so, it may not be easy to know precisely how common the challenge is, because girls and women who have been raped are usually too humiliated by the despicable acts to report them.
Most rape cases are committed by a friend or member of the relations and are habitually “influenced” by a token cash payment. Although, rape is currently illegalin many African nations, irate parents in Africa increasingly report cases of child defilement to authorities. For instance in Kailahun District, Sierra Leone, womenmobilize efforts to fight brutal attacks and sexual violence meted against them. Domestic violence, wife-battering, marital rape, torture, emotional abuse, economic marginalization, and such like acts are also widespread and have soared across the African continent, and technically continuing the customary hostility of war.

Annotated Bibliography

Africa Action. Africa: Women in Post-War Reconstruction, (Web, 30/04/2011). Retrieved from http://apic.igc.org/docs99/aft9909.htm
The paper explores the African women living in war-torn African states such as Sierra Leone, Liberia, Ivory Coast, and the Democratic Republic of Congo, among other states have surely felt the impacts of conflict to their lifestyle.
Allen, Tim.Understanding Alice: Uganda’s Holy Spirit movement in context. Africa, 61.3 (1991): 370-399.
This paper indicates that majority of the middle and western areas of Uganda delighted, but in the region of the ACHOLIS, there was a feeling of obscurity; it seemed all they had battled for had been lost. She has made enormous contribution toward the liberation of women from the pangs of war in the country.
Bender et al. Proto-Micronesian Reconstructions. Oceanic Linguistics, 42.2 (2003): 271-358.
As noted in the work Bender and the rest suggest Aya Virginie Toure is a peace activist in Cote d’Ivoire (Ivory Coast). She became recognized for arranging fellow women in non hostile demonstration in opposition of President Laurent Gbagbo who declined to seize being the president of Ivory Coast in the presidential election to Alassane Ouattara.
Cairnie, Julie. Women and the Literature of Settlement and Plunder: Toward an Understanding of the Zimbabwean Land Crisis. English Studies in Canada, 33.1/2 (2007): 165-188.
According to Cairnie (165-188) the invasion by the British resulted to the obliteration of the political, monetary as well as profitable and religious array of the individuals of Southern Africa. The obligation of the hut tax, compelled labor, repression of religious endeavors and land estrangement crystallized African opposition.
Nagbe, Horace P. Promoting Gender Equality in Postconflict Liberia: Challenges and Prospects. Peace & Conflict Monitor, (May2010): 7.
Leymah Roberta Gbowee is a Black African peace activist accountable for arranging a peace movement that brought a conclusion to the Second Liberian Civil battle in 2003. This resulted to the voting of Ellen Johnson Sir leaf in Liberia, the initial African country with a black woman president.
Salhi, Zahia Smail. Between the languages of silence and the woman’s word: gender and language in the work of Assia Djebar. International Journal of the Sociology of Language, 190. 1 (2008): 79-101.
According to Salhi, Lalla Fadhma n’Soumer in Kabyle was a significant person of the KABYALE resistant movement through the initial years of the French colonial conquest of Algiers. The effect of her participation was such that she has been viewed as the personification of the war. Lalla is a term used to regard to women esteemed as saints.

Works Cited

Africa Action. Africa: Women in Post-War Reconstruction, (Web, 30/04/2011). Retrieved from http://apic.igc.org/docs99/aft9909.htm
Allen, Tim. Understanding Alice: Uganda’s holy spirit movement in context. Africa, 61.3(1991): 370-399.
Bender et al. Proto-Micronesian Reconstructions. Oceanic Linguistics, 42.2 (2003): 271-358.
Cairnie, Julie. Women and the Literature of Settlement and Plunder: Toward an Understanding of the Zimbabwean Land Crisis. English Studies in Canada, 33.1/2 (2007): 165-188.
Nagbe, Horace P. Promoting Gender Equality in Postconflict Liberia: Challenges and Prospects. Peace & Conflict Monitor, (May2010): 7.
Salhi, Zahia Smail. Between the languages of silence and the woman’s word: gender and language in the work of Assia Djebar. International Journal of the Sociology of Language, 190. 1 (2008): 79-101.
Voice of America. US Groups Help Africa’s War-Affected Women (Web, March 24 2011). Retrieved from http://www.voanews.com/english/news/africa/US-Women-Help-Africas-War-Affected-Women-118594794.html

It is a common idea shared by everyone that murder is a heinous crime of taking another person’s life. “Murder is not crime of criminals, but that of law abiding citizens” (Schmalleger, 2001). However, simply killing someone does not make it murder under law, rather the act should fall true in law’s criteria in order to be claimed as murder.
Murder, in its legal sense, means the act of killing someone unlawfully. Hence, there are circumstances where the act of killing will not be tantamount to murder in the court of law. Such cases exist where homicides have not been punished. Such examples can be found in assisted suicide, wars and self-defense cases.
With the advent of development and improved standards of living, people are becoming more civilized and have come to believe that executions and other forms of assassination must not be permissible under any circumstance and must get penalized. This idea has altered the meaning of the word (in legal sense) as people tend to label any act of killing as murder without understanding its legal nature.
People across the world have started recognizing and appreciating the highest standards of human rights. In many countries death penalty has been abolished, Australia is one such example. Citizens of such countries consider execution as a murder on the state’s part. That is why the United States and other countries where death penalty is still intact are under constant pressure from various human rights activists to make reforms in their laws and abolish this punishment. Such a case was witnessed when a 25-year-old Australian national Nguyen Tuong Van was sentenced to death by a Singaporean court for the crime of drug trafficking. Many Australians felt for their fellow citizen and demanded the release of Nguyen (Hogan, Cooke, & Butcher, 2005). However, after all appeals were denied he was executed. This particular case moved Australians and they claimed this to be an incident of state murder. Protest against the Singaporean government was showcased at a mammoth scale. People demanded release of Nguyen; the least they wanted was his life to be spared. In this particular case Australians made a mistake by confusing execution and death penalty with murder (Hogan, Cooke, & Butcher, 2005). Execution is entirely different from murder, in the former a convicted criminal is sentenced to death, while the latter stands as the act of ending an innocent person’s life unlawfully (Hogan, Cooke, & Butcher, 2005).
Similarly, Euthanasia, which is legal under certain circumstances, is considered a murder on part of physician by most people who consider that pain should be endured by the patient no matter how harsh the suffering is. However, assisted suicide can be legally practiced where the patient has given his consent and is certain that he will not survive and keeping him conscious and alive will only result in further suffering and pain. Thus, there are certain circumstances where assisted suicide is legal, but many journalists and people who share the same point of view that killing under any circumstances is wrong, use the word murder for euthanasia, which can jeopardize the career of a devoted physician who merely acted on the patient’s advice.
There has been a similar case where euthanasia was practiced by a physician after the endorsement of the patient’s wife, who requested the death of her husband after learning that keeping him alive will only bring more suffering (Sabbatino, 2011). Biased media reports surfaced and the court decided this practice was murder and illegal. Sabbatino criticizes the practice of euthanasia as murder and claims that it should not be practiced under any circumstance. This argument might seem to be acceptable emotionally, but legally and rationally, it does not stand possess any substantial weight (Sabbatino, 2011).
Euthanasia is a legally accepted practice where a physician provides complete detail to the suffering patient or to his family, when the patient is not in a condition to make a decision for him. After considering all the variables, after which that option is chosen, that which seems less painful and relieving for the patient.
In these cases people should be cautious before charging the physician with murder, as the physician is not the decision maker; in fact he just merely acts on the direction of patient or his heirs. Judging and labeling medical practitioners as murderers where they can legally practice assisted suicide is unethical and such judgments can definitely ruin their career. In a recent survey where medical students were interviewed as to whether they would ever consider such a practice, some suggested that 16 percent of the practitioners would consider it, 55 percent would not consider practicing euthanasia under any circumstance whereas 29 percent were not sure and planned to make the decision depending on the nature of the case (Kane, 2010). This survey goes to show that our society really considers death as a terrible incident and most of the people would not get their hands dirty under any situation. Nonetheless, labeling euthanasia is not at all acceptable (Kane, 2010).
Similarly, the supposed execution of a convicted killer, Michael Morales who in 1981 raped and killed 17-year-old Terri Winchell in a gruesome manner was claimed to be unfair and inhumane as this would result in pain to the murderer. The society has grown so sensitive to any kind of violence and suffering that people now even consider the execution of the convicted murderer as unfair (Ryan, 2006). America has been under constant pressure from many human rights activists and organizations to ban death penalty in all of its states. People have become so concerned about human rights that they are unwilling to tolerate lawful execution of a killer. Even the physicians who were assigned the task to give lethal injections to execute Michael Morales backed out at the last minute, fearing that they would be labeled as murderers and this would ruin their careers as medical practitioner. In today’s society many people consider painful death unjust even for a convicted killer. The way medical practitioners are trained and educated, most of them now believe that death penalty should be abolished completely and doctors who take part in such a task would automatically risk their careers (Ryan, 2006). Even if a doctor acts as a tool to implement justice, he could be called an assassin while he is actually executing a person who feels no remorse.
In another story covering the execution of Albert Greenwood Brown, a convicted killer charged for abducting, raping and murdering 15 year old girl, Brown’s lawyer on death row claimed death penalty to be unconstitutional and unfair and that his client was unable to choose the method of his execution. In case of failure he was supposed to be executed through a three drug cocktail, which the lawyer considered cruel even for a killer and rapist. People might tag this act as a murder on the part of state, for not allowing a convicted killer the manner in which he has to die.
In some circumstances people also tend to label an individual acting in self-defense as a murderer where the person just tries to save himself from injury and in the process inflicts a blow on the attacker which results in latter’s death. These situations have been witnessed in cases where a child has been bullied at young age by another kid; when the child acts in defense and accidently kills the bully. He was labeled as murderer by the family of the deceased child; while in the rational and more importantly, the legal sense, accidental killing in self-defense is not murder at all.
This casts a negative impact on the child who has already gone through an emotional trauma by being bullied and in addition, people have branded him as murderer too. This judgmental behavior and label are deemed to affect an innocent individual’s psyche (Kalkstein, 2011).
Summarily, it can be stated that our society has become oversensitive for no reason at all, while totally overlooking the atrocity of the crime previously committed by the criminals. Even killing of convicted killers is being opposed; USA and other countries are being pressured by human rights organizations to abolish capital punishment. They consider such executions as murders by state, as exemplified in Nguyen’s case.
Murder should be separated from other acts of killing which are legalized by law and practical under certain circumstances. Thus, we should be careful while using this word so that we do not fallaciously accuse someone of being a criminal.

References:

Schmalleger, F. (2001). Criminal law today: An introduction with capstone cases. Prentice Hall.
Hogan, J., Cooke, D., & Butcher, S. (2005, December 02). Australia wide protests. The Age
Sabbatino, R. J. (2011, July 03). Suicide is not a crime, but euthanasia is. Pocono Record
Kane, L. (2010, November 11). Exclusive ethics survey results: Doctors struggle with tougher-than-ever dilemmas: other ethical issues. Retrieved from http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/731485_7
Ryan, Joan. (2006, February 23). It’s about the killing, not the pain. San Francisco Chronicle,
Kalkstein, Meghan. (2011, July 01). Father says son, accused of murder, and acted in self-defense. Retrieved from http://www.katu.com/news/local/124839584.html

Deconstructing The Reality Behind The Illusion

In his novel The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald depicts how Gatsby’s desire for acceptance and prestige reflects not only his misconception of self-worth, but also how the society he lives in imposes a false ideal on aspiring minds such as his. Gatsby believes that gaining a luxurious lifestyle will help him to win over the affections of his beloved Daisy. He learns that Daisy is in love with another man, and he attempts to create a new identity that reflects society’s ideals. The novel illustrates that Gatsby’s desire for requited love only blinds him to the real implications of the world around him. He views being wealthy as vital for feeling a sense of fulfillment in a society that enshrines the pursuit of riches; however, he later becomes aware of the false nature of society’s values. Gatsby views wealth as a means of moving beyond the past, but he ultimately realizes that maturity is the only means of finding a new direction in his life.

The novel illustrates that in order for Gatsby to elevate his status, he must create a false identity in order to give the impression that he is wealthy and prestigious. The society he lives is in is based on gaining self-worth through the endless pursuit of wealth and reputation. Gatsby creates a role for himself as he becomes an actor who maintains the appearance of being in perfect conformity to society’s ideal. The false nature of his role as a wealthy man reflects how society is based on a false ideal. Gatsby views society as being full of promise as he believes that he can finally achieve what he desires and thereby become the object of Daisy’s affections. He views Daisy’s life as safeguarding the guarantee of real happiness, but his pursuit of wealth only enslaves him to society. The ideal of this society deprives people of their independence and true self-worth. Gatsby believes that chasing Daisy is based on his own objectives, but his goal of becoming wealthy is actually society’s objective. Gatsby’s view of Daisy reflects society’s view of the American Dream: “[T]here was something gorgeous about him, some heightened sensitivity to the promises of life.? [Gatsby had] an extraordinary gift for hope, a romantic readiness” (Fitzgerald 1). After becoming wealthy, he is viewed as a celebrity in society due to his lofty reputation and lifestyle; however, the novel illustrates that Gatsby is deprived of self-worth, which is actually based on maturity rather than wealth.

Gatsby creates a persona for himself as he views his true identity as failling to provide a means to overcome the past. He has always desired to have luxury and wealth as he views his old status as being a source of misery. He believes that his new identity allows him to discard his old life and move away from the past. His old life is based on a lack of fulfillment as his existence revolved around a low social and economic status. He views his childhood and parents as an embarassment as his old life never satisfied him: “His parents were shiftless and unsuccessful farm people – his imagination had never really accepted them as his parents at all” (Fitzgerald 98). Gatsby’s false identity reflects how society creates a false appearance that conceals its true identity. It reflects how society is based on appearance rather than reality as it actually fails to provide the kind of fulfillment that Gatsby is searching for.

Gatsby’s false identity is based on how he exists solely for maintaining society’s false identity. His personal illusions are inseparable from the illusions that society imposes on itself for the sake of creating a false image of self-worth. The following passage illustrates that Gatsby becomes the slave of society’s ideal, which is the American Dream. His enslavement to the American Dream conforms to his narrow view of self-worth as a teenager, and hence he fails to develop a mature understanding of true self worth: “He was a son of God—a phrase which, if it means anything, means just that—and he must be about His Father’s business, the service of a vast, vulgar, and meretricious beauty. So he invented just the sort of Jay Gatsby that a seventeen year old boy would be likely to invent, and to this conception he was faithful to the end” (Fitzgerald 98). Gatsby’s illusions involve validating society’s illusions through his abandonment of his actual identity and self-worth.

Gatsby’s failed relationships with his friends and family imply that he has never been satisfied with himself. His dissatisfaction with his old life reflects how he lacks the maturity to appreciate who he truly is. Society’s failure to satisfy his desire for acceptance is based on how he fails to accept himself for who he truly is: “When the Jazz History of the World was over, girls where putting their heads on men’s shoulders, swooning backward playfully into men’s arms, but no one swooned backward on Gatsby, and no French bob touched Gatsby’s shoulder, and no singing quartets were formed with Gatsby’s head for one link” (Fitzgerald 50). Gatsby’s friends fail to make him happy as he is never really happy with himself. Gatsby slowly comes to terms with how his life of luxury is merely superificial as it fails to provide the sense of completion he yearns for.

Gatsby later develops a sense of maturity that allows him to identify what he truly desires: a means of actually moving forward with his life. His maturity is based on finding a way to progress in his life that is based on knowing who he truly is rather than his false identity. Gatsby achieves self-discovery by realizing that happiness can only be achieved through maturity and self-awareness. His interaction with Nick illustrates that Gatsby’s life of luxury is merely a reflection of the illusions he embraced as a teenager: “You can’t repeat the past? Can’t repeat the past?”  he cried incredulously.” Why of course you can!”  (Fitzgerald 110). Gatsby’s desire for true happiness is undermined by the illusion that wealth can truly make him happy. Thus, he realizes that the past keeps interfering with his desire to achieve a happy future. Gatsby realizes that he needs to fully overcome his illusions in order to finally be able to move on with his life.

Gatsby desires to achieve maturity by learning from the past, which reflects how his false identity only blinds him to his true-self worth. He feels alienated from his dream of happiness as he has deluded himself all along. His self-discovery is based on finding a means to move forward without clinging to the false ideal of society, which remains obscure and without any real value: “His dream must have seemed so close that he could hardly fail to grasp It. He did not know it was already behind him, somewhere back in that vast obscurity behind the city, where the dark fields of the republic rolled on under the night” (Fitzgerald 110). Fitzgerald illustrates that Gatsby is a reflection of a society that fails to recognize its own lack of self-worth. Gatsby becomes a victim of society as he realizes that his false identity implies that he is a servant of society that embraces a false ideal.

The novel illustrates that Gatsby desires to achieve a life of luxury for the sake of moving beyond the past and also to be with Daisy. He creates a persona for himself in order to appear as someone he is truly not. He believes that wealth and reputation can elevate him beyond the misery and unhappiness that he associates with his past. He believes that his identity as a wealthy and prestigious man can bring him maturity, but he realizes that society only deprives him of it. He realizes that his life is merely a reflection of the shallow ideals he embraced as a teenager. His persona only blinds him to the fact that true self-worth is based on maturity, which is a vehicle for effectively overcoming one’s past. The novel demonstrates that the American Dream is based on constantly renewing one’s pursuit of a lofty ideal, which always seems beyond reach. Gatsby realizes that maturity can only be achieved by moving beyond the illusions of the past, and that overcoming the past implies accepting how he has failed to benefit from a society that appears to fulfilling but is not.