Governor Peter Shumlin 109 State
I am writing to you in order to express the concern of the people of Vermont on the current Socio-economic, political, legal and cultural issues, Self-determination, land resources, current adoption/foster care programs…
Salem Witch Trials: Challenging the Traditional Historical Narrative
This paper examines the 2010 article, "'The Salem Witch Mania': Recent Scholarship and American
History Textbooks," by author Benjamin C. Ray. He challenges the contemporary narrative of the infamous Salem Witch Trials in Massachusetts during the 17th century. According to Ray, that historical narrative is based largely on the evolution of an inaccurate consensus built on characterizations and conclusions in secondary sources that do not necessarily comport with the historical record reflected in primary sources. In particular, Ray argues that none of the traditional foci on social, political, and interpersonal conflicts emphasized by contemporary historical texts were the principal causes of the phenomenon. Rather, according to Ray, religious paranoia and the vitriolic attacks of one preacher in particular against non-members of the dominant church were to blame.
Shakespeare's Othello as Aristotelian Tragedy: An Analysis
Aristotle, in Poetics, presents certain conditions for a Tragedy to be defined as such. Key conditions hinge primarily on certain elements of plot and secondary on certain components of character. Shakespeare's Othello seems to fulfill most of the conditions with the exception that the plot is more complex and circuitous than that demanded by Aristotle's condition of a unified, taut arraigned whole. Nonetheless, Othello's' drop hinges on a peripety moment. We identify with him for his cause-and -effect action was prompted by error, and this makes shim as human as any of us for we perceive the same results as potentially happening to us. Whilst a tragedy in the modern sense, Othello almost succeeds in being a tragedy in the Aristotelian sense, too.