Hip Mask Representing An Iyoba Essay Example for Free

Hip Mask Representing An Iyoba Essay The exquisiteness of the material and the sophistication of the carving indicate that it was created by the exclusive guild of royal ivory carvers for the king. This exquisite piece is made out of ivory, iron and cooper. This piece also contains pieces of inlaid metal and elaborate coral carvings. The piece dimensions are as followed; H. 9 3/8 x W. 5 x D. 3 1/4 in. (23. 8 x 12. 7 x 8. 3 cm). The mask is a sensitive human idealized portrait, depicting its subject with softly modeled features. This piece is framed with an elegant tiara-like coiffure and openwork collar. The pupils were inlaid with iron metal, the forehead has carved scarification marks and also she is wearing bands of coral beads below the chin. In the necklace you can see miniature motifs that represent heads of the Portuguese soldiers depicted with beards and flowing hair. In the crown tiara-like coiffure are carved more Portuguese heads alternated with figures of stylized mudfish, which symbolizes Olokun, the Lord of the Great Waters. You can see that some of the necklace portion is damage or missing and this could be due to the age and fragility of the coral. This piece is from early African art also known as â€Å"Queen Mother Pendant Mask: Iyoba†. Today, you can find this piece at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Although images of women are very rare this piece has come to symbolize the legacy of a dynasty that continues to the present day. In many of the African cultures the head is a very important, powerful and symbolic piece. The head was consider to be the symbolic center of a person’s intelligence, wisdom, and ability to succeed in this world and/or to be a tool to be able to communicate with spiritual forces in the ancestral world. In Art of History, published in 2011, both Professor Marilyn Stokstad and Michael W. Cothren claim that â€Å"one of the honorifics used for the king is the â€Å"Great Head†. The head leads the body as the king leads the people. All of the memorial heads include representation of coral-beaded caps, necklaces and royal costume. Coral, enclosing the head and displayed on the body, is still the ultimate symbol of the oba’s power and authority. † In an article titled â€Å"Iyoba Idia: The Hidden Oba Of Benin† published in 2006, issue 9 of Jenda: A Journal Of Culture And African Women Studies Nkiru Nzegwu wrote â€Å"Iron and copper inserts were embedded in these cavities in the original model and formed part of the decoration. Some have claimed that these cavities were receptacles for embedded magical potions, and there is a historical explanation for them. The striations were the result of incisions a local doctor-diviner made to disfigure Idia and render her unattractive to Oba Ozolua. As narrated by the present Oba Erediauwa, Idias parents did not wish her to become an Obas wife, and the oracle they consulted advised that they mar her beauty to make her ugly to the Oba (Kaplan 1993, 59). The two incisions not only scarred her face but, to make assurance double sure, they also contained potent medicinal potions which the consulting physician-diviner had assured them would repel Oba Ozolua. The royal explanation is that the plan failed because the Oba sensed that something was wrong before he even saw Idia and quickly neutralized the effects of the medicine. † This is a pendant or ornament mask that represents an iyoba (queen mother-the oba’s mother), the senior female member of the royal court. It’s believed that this piece was produced in the early sixteenth century for the King or Oba Esigie, the king of Benin, who ruled from 1504 to 1550. This piece is to honor his mother, Idia. There are different versions of the purpose of this piece. The most common ones is that this was used a as belt ornament and it was worn at the oba’s hip. The Oba may have worn it at rites commemorating his mother, although today such pendants are worn at annual ceremonies of spiritual renewal and purification. Esigie had the support of Ida and the Portuguese soldiers in the expansion of his kingdom. Ida is remembered for raising an army and using magical powers to help her son Esigie to defeat his enemies.

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. Harper Lee’s only novel to date is To Kill a Mockingbird, published in 1960 but set in the 1930s in America’s deep-south. The novel won the Pulitzer Prize and was quickly made into a successful film starring Gregory Peck. The popularity that the novel immediately attracted endures to modern times. The semi-autobiographical story concerns the trial of an innocent black man, Tom Robinson for the rape of a white woman, Mayella Ewell and around this central drama the novelist has woven a tale which reveals the appalling nature of prejudice in many forms, not just that of colour, as her ‘mocking birds’ which must not be harmed because they do none, suffer from the cruelty and ignorance of those around them. The story is told through the eyes of the child narrator, Scout, who lives, along with her brother, Jem, with their father, Atticus, the town lawyer and destined to represent the ill-fated Tom Robinson, and their cook/housekeeper and friend, Calpurnia. In his attitude to Calpurnia, as to much in his life, Atticus challenges the contemporary view because though Calpurnia is black, she is treated as a member of the family, much to the annoyance of his sister, Alexandra. Atticus is in fact the means by which Lee examines much that is wrong with Maycomb society, from his lack of prejudice, to his defence of Mrs. Dubose and Boo Radley and his skilful means of challenging the education system which denies Scout the freedom to read by simply ignoring it. The motto by which he lives is that, ‘you never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of viewuntil you climb into his skin and walk around in it’ and this he passes on to his children. However, Lee is keen to avoid making Atticus appear patently and self-consciously heroic, as in the mad-dog incident and, indeed, his defence of Tom Robinson, he only acts ‘heroically’ when he is compelled to do so. Lee treats the reader to a succession of humorous, sympathetic and engaging characters as the story develops, none more so than the pivotal and mysterious Boo Radley and the quaintly eccentric Dill (the latter is thought to have been based on the author Truman Capote, with whom Lee grew up). Boo is in a sense both the greatest victim and the ultimate hero in the book and in many ways Dill is the ‘comic-relief’ as well as being the representative of what we would now call a dysfunctional family as much as is Boo. By using the device of the child narrator, Lee invites both advantages and disadvantages. She gains the innocence and naivety of Scout together with her ingenuous curiosity and her ability to diffuse tense situations by her inherent innocence but she also has the commensurate disadvantage of having to get round the problems that necessarily attach to a child being the principal means by which a trial for rape is discussed. Lee solves this in the main by having Scout overhear conversations which she does not fully understand but which the reader, of course, does. This dual narrative relationship with the reader is one of the reasons why Lee’s narrative technique has been so highly praised. However, the main reason why the novel has achieved such a seminal place in the development of the American novel is that it was published at a time when racial tension was at its height in America and being challenged as never before by the Civil Rights Movement, led by Dr. Martin Luther King Junior. Thus, by showing the injustices which black Americans continued to suffer via a narrative set nearly thirty years before, Lee addresses a contemporary problem by means of the historical resonance with which the book is permeated. Emblematic of this is the trial of Tom Robinson which had a contemporary connective in a similar trial in the 1930s. Tom, one of Lee’s principal ‘mocking birds’, is manifestly innocent and proven to be physically incapable of having committed the crime by Atticus: ‘Why reasonable people go stark raving mad when anything involving a Negro comes up, is something I dont pretend to understand’, he declares and the reader shares his lack of comprehension, making prejudice manifestly against reason. Â  The fact that this does not and cannot save Tom in an atmosphere which seethes with racial hatred adds to the imperative of the narrative; In the secret courts of mens hearts Atticus had no case. Tom was a dead man the minute Mayella Ewell opened her mouth and screamed. However, Lee is even-handed in her depiction of racial tension, since when Calpurnia takes Scout and Jem to the church where the black residents of Maycomb worship, they are not universally welcomed and certainly Tom is not the only victim of prejudice in the story. Boo Radley, imprisoned by his well-meaning but misguided father after a teenage misdemeanour, has become the subject of much gossip and conjecture. Indeed, the children, Scout, Jem and Dill, make him the subject of their daily dramatics, supplanting the ‘Dracula’ stories with which they have become bored. Atticus stops this as soon as it starts and the irony is that a friendship blossoms secretly between Boo and the children, of which the culmination is Boo’s saving the lives of Scout and Jem when they are attacked by the vicious Bob Ewell. Scout reiterates the idea, slightly altered, that Atticus uttered early in the novel, that ‘you never really know a man until you stand in his shoes and walk around in them’ and by now the reader fully understands the meaning of those words, just as the child does. In conclusion, perhaps it is true to say that the enduring achievement of Harper Lee’s novel is to portray racial hatred and a multiplicity of tensions motivated by misapprehension and prejudice via the microcosm of small-town America which is Maycomb. Indeed, perhaps readers continue to respond to To Kill a Mockingbord precisely because of the prejudices which sadly remain. Bibliography: Jerilyn Fisher and Ellen S.Silber, Women in Literature: Reading through the Lens of Gender, (Greenwood Press, Westport, CT, 2003). Wayne Flynt, Poor but Proud: Alabamas Poor Whites, (University of Alabama Press, Tuscaloosa, AL, 1989). Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockinbird, (Arrow, London, 1989). Claudia Durst Johnson, Understanding to Kill a Mockingbird: A Student Casebook to Issues, Sources, and Historic Documents, (Greenwood Press, Westport, CT, 1994). Annie Kasper, ‘General Semantics in to Kill a Mockingbird’, ETC.: A Review of General Semantics, Vol. 63, 2006. Dean Shackelford, ‘The Female Voice in To Kill a Mockingbird: Narrative Strategies in Film and Novel’, The Mississippi Quarterly, Vol. 50, 1996. Renee Swanson, ‘The Living Dead: What the Dickens Are College Students Reading?’, Policy Review, No. 67, 1994.

The Scarlet Letter: The Use Of Hester :: essays research papers

In The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne makes Hester Prynne the central figure in the story much like Susanna Rowson does with Charlotte in Charlotte Temple. The plots of the books are centered on these women; the storylines occasionally move elsewhere to inform the reader of the happenings of other characters, but always returns to their respective female protagonist. The authors’ use of their leading ladies differs when providing a theme, however.Susanna Rowson uses Charlotte Temple as an example for the reader. By taking the reader on a journey through Charlotte’s life of perpetual misery, Rowson’s narrator is able to point out where Charlotte makes poor decisions. With the reader now aware of the misdirected choices of Charlotte, the narrator warns the reader that any young girl could end up in the same type of predicament. She then teaches the young female reader how she should react in a similar situation and the â€Å"sober matron† reader how to prevent such a dilemma from happening to her daughter. In summary, Charlotte Temple’s actions are used to directly teach the theme as Rowson wishes.Nathaniel Hawthorne uses his main character in a completely different way. It is common for a reader of The Scarlet Letter to determine that the theme of the story is that adultery is bad, but that is not the case. Hawthorne is not promoting adultery; that is true: As Darrel Abel states in his essay, â€Å"Hawthorne’s Hester,† â€Å"Although we are expected to love and pity Hester, we are not invited to condone her fault or to construe it as a virtue.†1 Hester Prynne and her lecherous sin are Hawthorne’s means of conveying a different message; Hawthorne is more interested in uncovering the flaws of puritan society and the hypocrisy of their reactions to Hester. The character of Hester Prynne is created as to exploit these flaws indirectly.The Puritan culture is one that recognizes Protestantism, a sect of Christianity. Though a staple of Christianity is forg iveness for one’s sins, this has long been forgotten amongst the women of Boston: â€Å"Morally, as well as materially, there was a coarser fibre in those wives and maidens of old English birth and breeding, than in their fair decendants.†2 When Hester is first brought out of her prison cell, the gossiping goodwives recommend much harsher punishments, from a brand on her forehead to death. Hester, who had done little wrong prior to this sin of adultery, is no longer seen as a human being, but merely as a symbol of evil and shame upon the town.

Ishmeal and Maya Angelou :: essays papers

Ishmeal and Maya Angelou There are many different views on how people should live our lives. All of these different philosophies come from many different places. They come from religions, people's cultures, and their morals that they have been taught. People live by these rules they were brought into from the day they are born and do not question them. In "A Rock, A River, A Tree", by Maya Angelou and Ishmael, by Daniel Quinn, both attempt to show how humans should live their lives and survive in a community. There way of changing the world is to convince readers to stand up and speak out about how to save the world. Daniel Quinn specificly helps readers to see that our lives are governed by matured laws that humans refuse to acknowledge-- this causing their, our destruction. In Ishmael Daniel Quinn sets the idea of having to think differently by having the book being told my a man who's teacher is a talking Gorilla. The Gorilla's name is ironicly Ishmael. Ishmael teaches captivity which he has been in his whole life and has mastered. As a Gorilla he has a totally different view on the world. He states in many ways that he believes that we must stand up for saving the world. In the beginning of the book Ishmael is talking about Germany before and during World War Two. He talks about how everyone followed the story if they believed in it or not "because the people around you made you captive" by the story by believing in it. Behind that story is another one the makes your mind think that maybe if that one person did stand a few people would realize that it was wrong and stand up too, and maybe the WWII or the holocaust would have never happened. Later in the book they are working on why people are knowingly destroying the world and doing nothing about it . Ishmael tries to explain that they "try not think too searchingly about the world they're leaving their children to cope with." He says that they are "pacified" about the subject. This is Quinn's way of using a scare tactic on the readers, to make us believe we are brain washed and need to rebel. Later in the book there is another story about how men kept jumping off from the edge of a cliff with a flying contraption, believing it will work all the way up until they hit the ground, think in the way that they "made it this far without a scratch".

Children with Autism :: Autism Brain Disorder Essays

Children with Autism Abstract By identifying autism, many other facts are then discovered including the different effects of autism and the way it can be treated. Children with autism will mostly always experience language problems, restricted interests and activities, as well as sensory and intellectual problems. This occurs because of a brain disorder that influences the way the brain uses the information. Although some children with autism do not speak at all, that doesn’t mean that none of the patients speak. Some may repeat words or mimic sentences or phrases they have observed from someone else. As of yet there is no cure for autism, but there is a great amount of different medications that work very well at reducing the symptoms. Thesis Occurring in all races and social backgrounds around the world, autism is found four times more often in boys and usually the first-born (Autism Society Manitoba, 2001). According to Edition 5 of Mosby’s Medical, Nursing and Allied Health Dictionary, autism is a mental disorder characterized by extreme withdrawal and an abnormal absorption in fantasy, accompanied by delusion, hallucination, and inability to communicate verbally or otherwise relate to people. It is a lifelong disorder that obstructs ones capability to comprehend what is seen, heard, and touched. This causes profound problems in personal behavior and in the ability to relate to others. One with autism must learn how to communicate appropriately and to relate to people, objects and events. Even though a lot of patients that undergo autism have a lot of similar indications, they do not all suffer from the same degree of impairment. There is a full spectrum of symptoms, which can range from mild to severe (NA AR, 2002). Autism occurs in as many as one or two per one thousand people. Of those people, approximately fifty percent will never speak. By identifying autism many other facts are then discovered including the different effects of autism and the way it can be treated. Autism is a brain disorder that influences the way the brain uses and transmits information. Studies have found abnormalities in several parts of the brain that almost certainly occurred during fetal development. The problem may be centered in the parts of the brain responsible for processing language and information from the senses. One with autism will have language problems, restricted interests and activities, as well as sensory and intellectual problems (Cohen, 1987).

How far do you agree with Dr Johnson Essay

Samuel Johnson, or Dr Johnson as he was sometimes referred as, was a great English author who made enduring contributions to English literature. Being such a distinguished and renowned author, his views on literature were and still are today, stern and well-known. However, I have views both agreeing with and opposing Dr Johnson’s view that Milton’s work lacks human interest. Firstly, human interest strictly speaking, is about everyday people just like us, being able to relate to a story, and possibly learn something from it and put it into practise in our own lives. The epic poem Paradise Lost concerns the Christian story of the Fall of Man, while dealing with more present topics such a marriage and politics. Milton’s purpose, as stated in book I, is to â€Å"justify the ways of God to men. † This is a good base to start my argument on, which is that I do not agree with Dr Johnson, and believe that Milton’s work does hold human interest. By involving politics and marriage into his works, this is surely of human interest, as people will be curious and inquisitive about how things worked back then, and it is therefore of human interest if people want to learn about it. Milton states the purpose of his epic poem, and it is obvious that he intended Paradise Lost to educate people about God. If anything, Paradise Lost holds universal human interest. The event in the poem concern the whole of the human race, as the single event of disobeying God and plucking a single apple has moulded the destiny of the world, and it should surely be of interest to anyone who is born into this world. People must be, and generally are, curious about how their world evolved and how it reached the state of where it is now. If people are curious about this and eager to be educated on this topic, then they may read Milton’s work to learn about these events, and consequently are showing signs of human interest. Looking more in depth into Christianity, Christians believe that due to the event of Eve picking the apple, all humans are born with sin, and it is whether people choose to act on it or not that defines us. However, a big factor to consider is whether people actually believe in God or not. Atheists wouldn’t take any notice of this argument, let alone and interest of Milton’s epic poem Paradise Lost. This is my argument agreeing with Dr Johnson and saying that Milton’s work does lack human interest. To an atheist, they would take absolutely no interest in the Fall of Man, and wouldn’t believe anything about God and heaven. Also being literal about it, for anyone, let alone an atheist, it is hard to relate to an event that happened such a long time ago, and we only know to be true from a book and lots of believers. How do we even know that this happened? How do we even know God exists? These are all questions that are very important when answering this question. Many different theological issues are presented in the epic poem, such as fate, the introduction of sin and death into the world, as well as the nature of angels, heaven, hell and Satan. However, sin and death cannot be ignored, even by atheists, as these two issues are both around us and will happen to us in our lives. So, this means that people are able to relate to these issues in Milton’s works, and therefore showing signs of human interest. Also, nowadays, we are not scared of disobeying something that will have as huge of a consequence as picking the apple did. Anything that we do today is not going to have an huge impact on the world, affecting all of its inhabitants and the world itself. So, in this sense, it is hard to relate to Milton’s work, and it can be said that it does lack human interest. Another literal relation that we can have with Paradise Lost is the consequences of picking the fruit relating to God, not just the event itself. Not only did God show his mercy and temperance in their punishments, but he also displayed his love and compassion through the Son, Jesus Christ. Atheist or not, everyone learns about Christ and the Fall and it is whether you chose to believe it or not which is what makes people an atheist. In this sense, Paradise Lost does not lack human interest as it can always be related to and people are always taught about it, even if it was in the classroom and compulsory, or by their parents. The knowledge of Jesus Christ and the garden of Eden is general knowledge, and therefore must be of human interest. Also, the hard work that men and women have to endure, and the pain of giving birth for a woman are all consequences of Eve picking the apple off the tree and disobeying God’s only rule. And therefore, as we all experience hard work, and the majority of women experience child birth, we can all relate to this in some way or another. So, having analysed and read through this epic poem, I am going to disagree with Dr Johnson that Milton’s work lacks human interest. I think that everyone can relate to Milton’s work in one way or another. You could say, that if you were not able to relate to his work, then you havent related to the story of Creation and havent learnt about God or Christ. Also, you do not need to believe in all of the Creation stories and the Garden of Eden to have related to Milton’s work. Above all, Milton is a fantastically talented writer, and that alone is a reason as to why Milton’s work does contain human interest. Bibliography and Webography: The Bible The Complete English Poems – John Milton www. wikepedia. org www. sparknotes. com.

My Favourite Lecturer

Each lecturer has its own style, techniques and strategy to the lesson. Also different students prefer different types of lecturers and as the saying is â€Å"there is no disputing about tastes†. However it is obvious that lecturer who uses right techniques of teaching will be popular with majority of students and vice versa also true. Every person during his life was in a huge number of lectures, starting from school lessons and ending with scientific seminars. Some of them make bright impression and a person will remember them for a long time. I am not exception and I have my favorite lecturers.One of them is Mister X. He was taught me physics only during 9th grade but I still remember how enthusiastically attended his lectures. I never liked physics before his lectures, because I didn’t like a lot of formulas which you should remember and I think that using only them you can solve the problems. Lectures were also boring. Monotonous voice of teacher and a lot of naked facts about some topic were only things which I got at the end of each lectures. Mister X was my teacher but topic of this essay is â€Å"My favorite lecturer† and unfortunately I will not write about his practical lessons.As I wrote in previous paragraph I presented physics as the science about naked facts and formulas. But from Mister X’s lectures I started understand origins of those things and from that point they didn’t seems to me like naked facts or formulas. I understand that everything complex in physics based on fundamental simple phenomena. After his lectures I haven’t to remember formulas I can derive them by myself. It was wonderful for me because I never like remember and I started to think that remembering without understanding bases of something is not best way to gain new knowledge.Yes, it takes less time than looking inside of something, but also you remember them only for short period of time. Second difference of his lectures was way of explaining lectures. It was not monotonous voice, carefully written formulas in blackboard or synopsis from book. He distinctly highlights key points, gives examples from real life and visualizes a lot of things. His pictured cars were different in every lecture. He can draw a little car, write â€Å"Zhiguli† at the bottom and say: â€Å"Teacher from school drives car with velocity 50km/h†.Next he can draw a big car, write â€Å"Ferrari† and say: â€Å"Son of some office-holder drives Ferrari with velocity 120km/h† and gave information about physical problem itself. It was very funny for class and immediately attracts attention of all students. I described only some of his techniques used during lectures. He had full arsenal techniques and he can easily create a great atmosphere in the classroom. Of course I cannot convey atmosphere of the lesson here, but believe me it was fascinating and memorable.