Catholic Church Essay Example for Free

Catholic Church Essay The church remains to be one of the most powerful and influential social system which affects our day to day living. As such, controversies involving church authorities have always attracted utmost social attention. Such issues are even incorporated in many literary works. One of the most esteemed literary pieces tackling church-related controversies is John Patrick Shanley’s â€Å"Doubt†, a play which yielded the Pulitzer Prize. Basically, the play presents the depressingly typical scenario of pedophile priests. However, although the story tackles an abuse scandal involving a church authority, it is important to note that the plot does not indulge in exposing amoral activities within the respected institution. Rather, it diverges from its particular plot by exploring a range of interrelated dilemmas faced by the Catholic Church. Analyzing the various themes that were vaguely discussed in the play’s plot through smart dialogues and characterizations, Doubt appears to be more than just a formula-based story mimicking a real event derived from the newspapers. On the whole, the play is more of a twisted portrayal of the hierarchy, male dominance, and conservatism that embraces the practices of the Catholic Church. Battle between the sexes and male dominance In the play, Sister Aloysius, the principal of the grade school suspects that Father Flynn has molested the first and only black student of the school. Examining these two major characters presented in the story, Doubt somehow becomes a picture of a battle between the sexes, within the grounds of the Catholic Church. Being the head of the school, Sister Aloysius supposedly has absolute power over her territory. As the principal, she is in charge of maintaining order within the school and protecting the children from harm so she is also entitled of subjecting the teachers to disciplinary actions whenever she deems fitting. However, in Father Flynn’s case, everything takes a different turn. Suspecting that something is wrong with Father Flynn’s actions, the principal does not directly call on the priest or immediately report him to a superior for questioning and punishment. Rather, Sister Aloysius chooses to confide to Sister James and narrates a somewhat similar experience that she has encountered before. Eight years ago at St. Boniface we had a priest who had to be stopped. But I had Monsignor Scully then who I could rely on,† the principal notes, stressing her need for a male ally. She further states that the situation with Father Flynn is quite different because â€Å"there is no man† that they can go to and that â€Å"men run everything†. At the end of their conversation, Sister Aloysius suggests that it is up to them to stop the peculiar Father. This proposition, along with the apparent cry for help from the naive nun and the student’s mother, only suggests that Sister Aloysius recognizes that the Church is a patriarchal system and that there is a need for women to unite and work together in order to expose a priest’s wrongdoing. During the confrontation of Father Flynn and Sister Aloysius, it is also obvious that the priest recognizes the male dominance within the church. When the principal tells him that she has sought the assistance of other parishes that the priest has served before, the fuming father states that despite the authority she holds over the school, she is still a member of the religious order, so she should be obedient to her superiors – who were men, of course. As anticipated, the priest brings himself to an untouchable position, between Sister Aloysius and the Monsignor, simply using his gender as the basis for the claimed authority. Furthermore, the end result of the confrontation – the transfer of Father Flynn to another parish, and his promotion as a parish priest only proves that the fear of Sister Aloysius and the haughtiness of the priest in question are well-substantiated. A Conservative Church vs. the Liberal Ways Based on the idea that the church is patriarchal and that male superiors often turn a blind eye to the wrong doing of priests, it somehow appears that Sister Aloysius is the protagonist and that Father Flynn is the unobvious antagonist. However, taking into account the conservative versus liberal scenario also embodied by the two major characters, it seems that there is more to the story than an outcry against a patriarchal system. In the play, it is clear that Sister Aloysius is the embodiment of the traditional and conservative church. She represents the old ways – inflexible, definite, and authoritarian. She is not fond of those who, like Father Flynn, attempt to be different and applies their distinctiveness in the way they preach and interact with the parishioners. In stark contrast with the nun’s character is the witty and playful Father Flynn who is fond of hugging his students, making jokes, and ultimately working against the principal’s idea that moral authority suggests social isolation. Assessing the clash between the two in relation to their symbolizations of the traditional versus the liberal, it seems that the principal’s suspicions are largely a product of her attempt to restore order in her Catholic school. It may be that Sister Aloysius’ qualms are just manifestations of her anger and fear against the threat that is Father Flynn, nothing more. Conclusions: Doubts†¦. And more doubts Apart from the question of whether Father Flynn was really a child predator, the play raises many other doubts about the Catholic Church. It engages the audiences in the dilemma if they should struggle for a social structure that is impartial and unprejudiced to a certain gender. Also, the play explores the idea of whether the church should maintain the old ways, or they should just go with the flow of modernity and adopt liberal methods of preaching and relating to their parishioners. Overall, the play also touches on power play within the system, with regards to the maintenance of long practiced values like social isolation and patriarchy. Thus, it is safe to conclude that analyzing the characters and dialogues within the play, themes in the story only show that Doubt is also about church scandals, but only to the least degree. As noted by Shanley in a feature article for the Huffington Post, he wasnt interested particularly in writing about the church scandals† nor did he had the interest to write mystery novels. True to his purpose, Doubt exists to make people realize that they are indeed living in a world that’s full of doubts – doubts that are ever present even within the church that they lean upon for certainty and deliverance. Works Cited Falsini, Cathleen. â€Å"Beyond The Shadow of a Doubt. † Huffington Post. 2003. 24 July 2009. http://www. huffingtonpost. com/cathleen-falsani/beyond-the-shadow-of-a-do_b_150496. html Shanley, John Patrick. â€Å"Doubt†

Siddhartha Vs. A Dolls House Essay -- essays research papers

Though Siddhartha and â€Å"A Doll’s House’ share a completely different storyline, they are very much similar because of the development of the main characters throughout the two stories. Nora, from the play â€Å"A Doll’s House,† changes her image after recognizing what kind of life she was living. Siddhartha, from the book Siddhartha, becomes aware that life cannot be taught, and that it had to be experienced first-hand.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Both of the main characters seemed to have suddenly awakened from what I consider â€Å"enslavement of the mind.† I believe this because they are not free to think about things without the influence of their surrounding society. Nora notices that she is living her life in wretchedness at the end of the play, when she says, â€Å"†¦here is your ring back. Give me mine.† (Act III) This quote displays Nora’s ambition to move on in life and free her mind from the interrogations brought to her from Torvald. Siddhartha reaches this awakening while he is young. He mentions to his father about leaving the house to join the teachings of the Samanas. â€Å"†¦He moved on again and began to walk quickly and impatiently, no longer homewards, no longer to his father, no longer looking backwards.† This quote shows that Siddhartha is ready to move on and leave the everyday society, and beliefs of his parents. These quotes convey the spark of these characters’ new beliefs.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Nora, appearing as the ordinary housewife, really is not what she...

Street Art Legalization

â€Å"Imagine a city where graffiti wasn't illegal, a city where everybody drew whatever they liked. Where every street was awash with a million colours and little phrases. Where standing at a bus stop was never boring. A city that felt like a party where everyone was invited, not just the estate agents and barons of big business. Imagine a city like that and stop leaning against the wall – it's wet. † (Banksy 85) Graffiti is a global form of expression that is untamed but uses similar methods as advertisements, yet is illegal in most cities.Street art is a way of spreading your name or message, just like a company puts up billboards to get their product to their demographics. Graffiti and Street art in general are just terms for the urban art form of scribing or painting on public space with a message or name. The culture of graffiti is very hard to control since all of the tools needed are in the average person’s home already. Street-Art should be legalized bec ause it is less destructive than advertisements and they are displayed in the same methods.Tagging is the first step in becoming a graffiti writer, It is an artist’s baby steps in to the urban art form known as graffiti. A tag in graffiti is an artist’s signature. It represents who you are, where you’re from, and why you write. As the graffiti writer â€Å"Earsnot† said, â€Å"Tagging is like a timeline† you can follow the tags and see where the person has been that day just by the color of their ink (‘Infamy’) â€Å"The term ‘graffiti’ derives from the greek graphien which means to write† The current meaning of graffiti came to being because that is what the drawings and â€Å"marks found on ancient Roman architecture†(Phillips Par 1).Writers for the majority will not sign their real names; they instead use nicknames, codes, or symbols within complicated lettering systems† (Phillips Par 4). Graffiti us ually gets a bad reputation because people see the beautiful murals and wonder why the same artists create ugly scrawl. Graffiti comes in many forms and people really need to understand that. Since there aren’t any two writers at the same level, and all writers are at different steps in the art form. You cannot simply pick up a paint can and created perfect typography and detailed illustrations, no matter what your level of art is in any medium. The grimy, dirty, dripping tag signature comes from the same hands as the enormous multicolored murals† (Gastman 127). Many people say why do graffiti artists tag when they can just do murals. â€Å"Some people want to make the world a better place. I just want to make the world a better-looking place. If you don’t like it, you can paint over it! † (Banksy par 15), in this quote the London street-artist Banksy is stating that he doesn’t care if you paint over or buff his work since he is just going to keep d oing it. So the government is just wasting paint and money.Street Art is a form of graffiti that uses the same way of portraying the artists work but with different tools and mediums. One of the most common means of getting street-art up is with the use of stencils. Where the artist will take cardboard or plastic and make a cutout into the material, usually displaying and icon or figure. Another common method of street-art is wheat pasting which where you create a poster sketched or printed on larger paper and then create a glue like substance using cornstarch and some form of an epoxy.Some street-artists and graffiti artists alike will â€Å"sticker-bomb† which is where the either print stickers with a message or use shipping labels with a hand drawn character or tag and they will put them on walls, signs, windows, etc. Since it is a much quicker way than using a marker or a can of spray paint where you might get caught in the act if you are not very quick or in a rather cro wded place. Graffiti is a cultural phenomenon that cannot be controlled. Every culture that currently exists or has existed has had its own form of graffiti.Modern graffiti is thought to have originated during the Greek empire with political ideas and criticism that people would scribe onto the walls since it would be a definite way that the government would see it. Graffiti cannot be pure vandalism because it can be traced to almost every known society. Also graffiti writers cannot be classified as a single type of person, people who write come from every background. â€Å"Graffiti is a cross-cultural phenomena common to every literate society.Within the variable contexts of their production, graffiti personalize de-personalized space, construct landscapes of identity, make public space into private space, and act as promoters of ethnic unity as well as diversity. Graffiti can be understood as concrete manifestations of personal and communal ideologies which are visually striking, insistent, and provocative; as such, they are worthy of the continued attention of art historians, social scientists, and policy makers alike. † (Phillips 9) Graffiti is going to occur whether it’s legal or not.If government legalized graffiti in public space, the overall crime rate would go down because it would not be added into the statistic of crimes that occurred and governments would not have to pay people to buff out the graffiti. Advertisers capitalized on graffiti strategies. Strategies that started to flourish in the early 1980’s in the New York where innovative writers such as â€Å"Cornbread† would do graffiti on subways and later busses. â€Å"You owe the companies nothing. You especially don't owe them any courtesy.They have re-arranged the world to put themselves in front of you. They never asked for your permission, don't even start asking for theirs. † (Banksy 160) As said by Claw â€Å"Im making my stamp and I want it everywhereà ¢â‚¬ ¦ † (‘Infamy') this is exactly what companies are saying when they purchase advertisement space. Advertising and graffiti function on a phenomenological element to arouse the viewer's curiosity. They rely on the sheer amount of coverage and penetration, just as brands do to grow.If you look into a crowd of people on almost every person you see you can recognize the company that created their clothing. They rely on the quality of the delivery to embed themselves into the viewer’s perception. â€Å"Brandalism; Any advertisement in public space that gives you no choice whether you see it or not is yours. It belongs to you. It's yours to take, rearrange and re-use. Asking for permission is like asking to keep a rock someone just threw at your head† (Banksy 160). Society has an impact on artists.In popular culture where advertising is seen thousands of times a day it evokes a desire in people to make there mark on this world. The empty promises of ads get f lipped upside down when a writer realizes they possessed his or her own ‘brand'. The effect of advertising on young children may have been the catalyst for this global art movement. â€Å"The people who run the cities† do not recognize graffiti because they believe nothing has the right to exist unless it makes revenue. But if you just value capital then your belief is insignificant (Banksy 7). 1 year old Coda Explains, â€Å"Basically, when I look around, I see us living in a modern day Babylon, full of temptation, sin, distraction, corruption, injustice, and misguided fools being mentally enslaved. It seems to me the only way to wake people up from this kind of numbness is to destroy what they know: Their business, their places of commerce and their biggest place of gathering, the cities! Put it on their trains, on the lines they take to work, on their rooftops, on their highways, on anything just to make some people realize that culture isn't ost and that, at the ve ry least, a small group of kids is fighting to keep it alive† (Tucker 1). Graffiti should be legal because it is less destructive to people than advertisements and they are displayed in the very similar methods, yet people are shocked to see it. Graffiti approaching them not in a gallery, but on the streets.. One of the main point that I am trying to prove through this paper even though it isn’t mentioned is, why is the government persecuting people trying to create art and shape the way that modern history is unfolding.

Essay on Jackson Jefferson Compare/Contrast - 650 Words

One area where Jefferson and Jackson can be compared similarly is in politics. Jefferson believed that eligibility for people of office should be among egalitarian citizens, or people who are not of high social status (property owners). Rather, a person who is charismatic, talented, and honest should be considered for office as a leader. Similarly, Jackson, â€Å"a man of the people†, shared this belief with Jefferson that the egalitarian point of view among citizens of the United States helped empower a democracy. Instead of being a hard-edged, uncompassionate leader who lacks regard for the opinions of the American people, a governing leader should be personable, and more importantly accepting of the views of the American people. This in turn†¦show more content†¦Both Jackson and Jefferson make very valid points, but their views are clearly juxtaposing. While there are many notable differences between Jefferson and Jackson, there is one major similarity: their opinions relating to economics. They both firmly opposed a United States Bank that stood in opposition of state banks. Jackson was in favor of state banks and had won a bank war that enabled him to draw out money from the federal standpoint and place these funds into state banks. Jefferson had the same view, as he encouraged state banks. In other words, both Jackson and Jefferson opposed a national bank, and encouraged state banks. Probably the most glaring difference between Jackson and Jefferson was their opinions on Native Americans. As a young man, Jackson spent a lot a time fighting Indians. The Indians were the natural enemy of the white settlers, as surprise attacks were often conducted, where houses were burned and whole families were murdered. Having experienced this, it is safe to say that Jackson did not think highly of the Indians. On the other end of the spectrum, Jefferson grew up as a student of Indian life of the frontier. In the book, Jefferson refutes the ignorant opinions of Buffon, a Frenchmen who declared that Indians, compared to Europeans, are â€Å"less strong in body; he is also less sensitive, and yet more timid and cowardly; he has no vivacity, no activity of mind.† Jefferson, having personally known Indians, refutedShow MoreRelatedJackson s Resolution : The Indian Question1520 Words   |  7 PagesNative Americans. The Spanish conquistadors first sought to exploit the Native peoples. In contrast, the English settlers wanted to convert and civilize the Native people. Both conquers and settlers did not see a solution in allowing Native people to live as they had before the discovery of America. This was a major factor in the discourse between the Native Americans and the European settlers. 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