The Contrast of Virginia Woolf and Alice Walker Essay -- Writers Moral

The Contrast of Virginia Woolf and Alice Walker After reading the four essays assigned to this sequence, it becomes interesting to contrast two author's points of view on the same subject. Reading one professional writer's rewriting of a portion of another professional writer's essay brings out many of each of their characteristics and views. Also, the difference in writing styles could be drastic, or slight. Nevertheless, the writers display how versatile the English language can be. Alice Walker was born in 1944 as a farm girl in Georgia. Virginia Woolf was born in London in1882. They have both come to be highly recognized writers of their time, and they both have rather large portfolios of work. The scenes the might have grown up seeing and living through may have greatly influenced their views of subjects which they both seem to write about. In her essay "In Search of Our Mothers' Gardens," Alice Walker speaks first about the untouchable faith of the black women of the post-Reconstruction South. She speaks highly of the faith and undying hope of these women and their families. She even comes to recognize them as saints as she describes their faith as "so intense, deep, unconscious, the they themselves were unaware of the richness they held" (Walker 694). In a passage in which she speaks about the treatment and social status of the women of the sixteenth century, Woolf explains that a woman who might have had a truly great gift in this time "would have surely gone crazy, shot herself, or ended up in some lonely cottage on the outside of town, half witch, half wizard, feared and mocked" (Woolf 749). Her use of some of these powerful nominative shows that she feels strongly about what she is writing. Also for her, life growing up and stories she may have heard may have influenced this passage greatly. In her passage she imagines what it may have been like had William Shakespeare had a sister. She notices how difficult it would be even given the same talents as Shakespeare himself, to follow throughout and utilize them in her life. It is clear after reading further into Woolf's passage that obviously she lived in a different time period, only about fifty years apart though. The way she relates and tells a very similar story with an entirely different setting shows without the reader even knowing that she wa... ... Whether this style that Virginia Woolf uses is correct or not, it is powerful and it pauses the reader and , most importantly, helps the reader think in exactly the same manner as she was when she wrote it. The pauses she experienced in her thoughts when she wrote the story about the story about the writer's sister are simulated and relived when the reader crosses them. Both writers do a fine job of stressing the morals in their writing. The reader can, in Walker's essay, put himself in the first person and imagine the South very easily because of how descriptive she is in her narration. The reader of Woolf's essay clearly can understand and come to realize the unfairness and downright cruelty of the pure neglect of hidden talent among many women throughout time. She does this through simply telling a good story. This perhaps show that Virginia Woolf may have been fond of Walker's work. Woolf chooses to clearly state and agree with the same points Walker makes and shows the ideas in a different light because indeed she is a different person with different attributes. This shows up dominantly in her rewriting of Walker's "In Search of Our Mothers' Gardens."

Undermining of Teenagers By The Media

Every year the media posts multiple stories about ‘youths’. Their stories dominate the headlines: how they lack the respect and manners that past generations had, how they are forever out on the street vandalizing property, how they spend their time binge drinking and mugging old ladies. This stereotype has taken over and can be a big problem for teens today. In our multicultural society, It would never be okay to scowl at somebody who was gay or black, but for some reason the judgment of teens is completely acceptable. The media portrays teens as highly disruptive and dangerous, yet if we look at actual statistics adults commit far more crimes a year then teens. Adults are much more commonly found being drunk and disruptive on a Friday night so surely it is unfair that teens have to travel with this stigmas surrounding them. In reality, youth crime rates have dropped between 1993 and 2001 and Britain has one of the lowest crime rates in Europe, so older generations criticisms of, ‘in my day we NEVER would have done this’ are completely false. How many times have you had an elderly person shoot you a dirty look for playing your music just a little too loudly on the tube? How many times has a shop assistant neglected to give you help because they are too busy dealing with ‘proper customers’? These scenarios happen everyday, not even just from people we don’t know, we are swallowed up in them. As a teenager myself, I feel constantly frustrated at how adults judge my friends and I as we walk down the street. Just because some teenagers stir trouble, doesn’t mean all of us should be grouped in the same bag. Instead of highlighting the bad teens the media should reflect the outstanding work that a lot of teens do. Young people are ten times more likely to be voluntary in the community then committing offences, and unless the media show positive propaganda like this, older people are going to continue to prejudge teenagers. Not only does the media play on teenagers being disruptive, the law does too. I have often played witness to policeman asking groups of teenagers to move along when they are on the street, despite them being completely sober, not smoking or causing trouble in any way. It is often simply because they may be wearing hoodies. Policeman shouldn’t be allowed to generalize like this. WE are the generation of the future, WE are the people who will have to deal with major issues like global warming, left behind from past generations, so WE need to be given respect. We can’t do anything right. Teenagers today do better in their GCSE’s then past generations did in their exams, but this is because their exams were harder right? Anything good we do seems to have an excuse, and people are ignorant towards the fact that the youth of the day are going to be the faces of the future.

Religion Is A Way Of Life Essay - 2254 Words

To a lame man â€Å"religion is a way of life† while to some â€Å"it’s a bold question that cannot be answered† but the oxford dictionary defines religion â€Å"as the belief in and worship of a superhuman controlling power, especially a personal God or god†. Religion to man has been known to be a great factor in the life of every individual. Irrespective of what religion you choose to practice, the behaviour bindings of any religion is known to affect the lifestyle of its participants. In most cases the norms and values of a society is seen to have been developed from the commandments of its most practised religion. For example in the UK the norms and values of â€Å"hospitality and kindness† can be described to have being developed from the biblical teachings of Jesus Christ in Mark 12:31 which say â€Å"Love your neighbour as yourself†. Although, in the contemporary UK, the 2011 census showed that 32.84% of its population can potentially argue about themselves not being religious but it can be counter-argued that they indirectly live as Christians as the constitution that is seen as law, notably have most of its laws developed from the bible, â€Å"Christian theology has permeated most of western culture especially pre-modern Europe†, one can argue that in the 21st century people behave rightly because of the punishment that awaits them but however the constitution of every society is influenced by its prominent religion. Religion has been known as one of the substantial feature of any AfricanShow MoreRelatedReligion : A Way Of Life946 Words   |  4 PagesReligion: A Way of Life Religion is something weird to the general public however that was not the case during the fall of Rome and the rise of the Byzantine Empire. During that era religion was one of the few things that tied people together. 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