Mary Midgley Essays

Body and Captivity in The Skin I Live In Almodóvar’s “The Skin I Live In” is the one different and outstanding thriller film which surprises the audience by the narration, which is interweaving of past and present and the unexpected ending. The highlighted point of this film is “body,” and “captivity.” Almodóvar uses the theory “Docile Bodies” written by Michel Foucault’s to presenting the theme of body manipulation, and provides cinematic techniques to present and reinforce the theme of captivity

Moral Relativism, should it be abandoned or not? This was the original question that came to my mind when starting off reading this excerpt. Mary Midgley, the author of this story, mentioned that now days we as people deny that we will ever be able to understand a culture that is not our own. That got me thinking and as I was thinking I found what she said to be relatively true. I feel as if society has shaped us as young adults to judge our culture as being the best and all other cultures as coming

Critique of Midgley Although I agree with Mary Midgley’s holistic argument that knowledge has many sources and can be viewed from multiple perspectives, I argue against her flawed, overriding assumption that knowledge is reality that can be discovered. In an excerpt from her book The Myths We Live By, Midgley portrays the world as an aquarium with “a number of small windows” to suggest that ultimately, knowledge can be acquired “if we patiently put together the data from different angles” (Midgley 40).

understand another culture if they are not within that culture (Midgley 34). Mary Midgley’s article, Trying Out One’s New Sword, argues moral isolation is deceptive because if someone were not able to judge or understand another culture, they could not understand their own. “I shall suggest that [moral isolationism] is certainly not forced upon us, and indeed that it makes no sense at all” (Midgley 34). In her article, Mary Midgley presents four individual arguments against moral isolationism which

Based off of this reading piece “Trying Out One's New Sword by Mary Midgley” there was many possible arguments. The argument I picked was outsiders can judge. Midgley argues that not only is moral isolationism but that outsiders can judge foreign cultures, if on a provisional basis. Midgley argues that moral isolationism leads to a general ban on moral reasoning a disagreeable conclusion. She says that “judging one’s own culture requires the ability to judge other cultures". If we cannot judge other

Mary Midgley questions the idea of moral relativism, which holds that moral judgments should be limited to cultural norms, in her essay "Trying Out One's New Sword." Using the example of a samurai testing a new sword on an innocent passerby, she critiques the idea that we cannot judge other cultures practices because we do not fully understand them. Moral isolationism, the idea that we should not judge other people’s cultures, seems to be flawed, according to Midgley, because it obstructs the development

Although Hester Prynne is the heroine of The Scarlet Letter, it is impossible to fully identify or sympathize with her. Do you agree? The half century between 1625 and 1675 is called Puritan period. In that period The Scarlet letter was one of the famous novel by Nathaniel Hawthorne about the puritans. In that period “It had two chief objects; the first was personal righteousness; the second was civil and religious liberty. In other words, it aimed to make men honest and to make them free” (Long

In Machiavelli’s The Prince, Machiavelli explains to Lorenzo De Medici that a ruler must have the characteristics of a lion or a fox, and must be willing to break their word when it suits their purpose in order to be effective. I believe that Machiavelli is correct, a leader must be beast-like to be effective, and willing to break their word for the greater good. In the next few paragraphs I will discuss how a Prince must have traits that resemble a lion in order to be effective. Then I will relate

In the 1992 novel Looking for Alibrandi by Melina Marchetta the plot charts the developing maturity of the protagonist Josie Alibrandi. Her personal growth and quest for freedom is shown through her relationships with Michael Andretti her father, John Barton her best friend and Nonna Katia her grandmother. As Josie states early in the novel “I’ll run one day. Run for my life. To be free and think for myself. Not as an Australian not as an Italian and not as an in between. I’ll run to be emancipated

Painted by Fra Filippo Lippi in the Renaissance, ca. 1406 CE, Madonna and Child with Two Angels was painted towards the end of his career. Comprised of tempera on a 36x 25 inch wood panel, the painting depicts the Virgin Mary with her hands in a prayer. The child Jesus is held up in front of her by two angels. The angel in the foreground gives the viewer a playful glance, seemingly on the verge of laughter. The delicate, lightweight fabric that surrounds Mary’s face is a decorative element that was

William Shakespeare is an English poet, playwright and actor. He is considered as the greatest writer in the English language. The World views him as the pre-eminent dramatist for his works. During his lifetime, Shakespeare has written a total of 38 plays between 1590 and 1612 with his best works being tragedies. Shakespeare’s tragedies have not only been used for entertainment, but the use of teaching to others. In Shakespeare’s work, the theme of appearance versus reality is shown throughout two

similar thought in seeing that his creation, mankind, was impure and he had to come up with a solution to fix it. This solution was to impregnate a virgin girl so she could give birth to a baby version of himself. This is oddly similar to the Virgin Mary story, which is one of the most important stories in Christianity, which makes it easy to believe that the Mandan adopted it into their myth. So the Lone man “ [..] changed himself into corn and the young girl ate it and conceived the seed.” These

Mary Reibey today is known in our society as a successful and respected Australian business-woman, trader, and merchant. If we reflect on this, Mary wouldn’t have been this important woman that she is known to be today if it wasn’t for her crime she committed when she was just 13 years of age. Mary Reibey was migrated to Sydney, Australia and arrived in October 1792 due to her being caught in the act of horse-stealing. If we got the chance today to go to a new land and start anew it would be such

Journal #7 On page 182, Lily thinks to herself, “If August is the red heart on Mary’s chest, Rosaleen is the fist.” Lily believes August has the heart of Mary because she puts everyone before herself. For example, August tells Lily, “If it (the Caribbean Pink House) can lift Mary’s heart like that, I guess she ought to live inside it” (147). August wanted to choose a different color, but what mattered to her more was her little sister, May. August believes that with all the pain and grief May

name was Mary and she was engaged to marry Joseph. The Christmas Story - Gabriel visiting Mary The angel Gabriel said to Mary: 'Peace be with you! God has blessed you and is pleased with you.' Mary was very surprised by this and wondered what the angel meant. The angel said to her 'Don't be afraid, God has been very kind to you. You will become pregnant by the Holy Spirit and give birth to a baby boy and you will call him Jesus. He will be God's own Son and his kingdom will never end.' Mary was very

fist. It gave her a serious look, like she could straighten you out if necessary.” In this quotation, from the beginning of chapter four, Lily describes the black Mary statue. Lily has just spotted it in the Boatwright house. She has yet to learn of its significance, to experience its important role in the lives of the Daughters of Mary, and to understand its place in the family history of the Boatwright sisters. Rather, Lily simply yet viscerally reacts to the statue’s material, color, and gesture

The Fury of Overshoes Anne sexton The poem is written in first person and in a free verse. The poem does not have a specific order, and the reader cannot find a pattern, in which the author organizes the poem. The rows do not rhyme and they are short. The poem seems to be from the point of view of an adult, who reflects on her childhood memories. The theme is the difficulties during the growing up period, and the wish to be one of the ''big people''. The beginning of the poem describes the setting

Sci - fi movies were always known to be a “ boys thing ” and this included the Star Wars movie series. At first the Star Wars franchise were popularized amongst young teen and adults, which the majority were males. This has started to change gradually with the introduction of a strong traditional female protagonist - Queen Padme Amidala, in the original trilogy, followed up by few female character in the latter movies. Queen Padme Amidala was the very first dominant female character introduced in

The artists and artwork chosen to be analyzed in this essay are The Stonebreakers by Gustave Courbet, The Gleaners by Jean-Francois Millet and Third Class Carriage by Honore Daumier. These artists are all French and are known for their inspiring works of art made during The Nineteenth Century pertaining to Realism. Gustave Courbet was best known as an innovator in Realism. He painted figurative compositions, landscapes and seascapes. He also addressed social issues, peasantry and the grave working

Oh, how natural it seems when women and girls are so damn mean to each other. Seemingly more mean, underhanded and brutal than men are to one another. More deliberate. Yet often more unconsciously, horribly, mean. Of course this is a sweeping generalization. There are a lot of good people in the world. Good women, if you will. And there are certainly men out there who can rival the biggest drama queen you've ever seen. But that's not the point. The point, actually, is that in general, modern women