Gone with the Wind Essay Example for Free

Gone with the Wind Essay Gone with the Wind is an adaptation of an historical romance. The film, set in Civil War-era southern United States, tends to be highly sentimental. Paradoxically, the circumstances in which it is set are often harrowing and serve to highlight the bravery required to survive during that time. The frothiness of the plot is in stark contrast to the utter seriousness of its context. The film opens in the antebellum South, on a Georgia plantation where the heroine entertains two gentlemen callers. The talk is of imminent war, a theme which guests carry through the subsequent picnic. Talk then turns to action and the men depart to enlist in the Confederate Army. Confidence and jubilation quickly become disappointment which gives way to horror as the realities of war intrude upon the genteel tableau. Under assault, the Southerners struggle to keep their society together in the face of poverty, filth, and chaos. We see the major historical points of the period, especially Shermans march through Georgia and the burning of Atlanta, a scorched earth policy. The women are the main characters in the film. In the effects of war and its aftermath we see destitution, famine, terror, desperation. The wounded are legion and supplies dwindle and disappear. The war ends and the soldiers come home to regroup. Carpetbaggers descend and begin an uneasy alliance with enterprising individuals, notably Scarlett. She casts aside honor to regain prosperity, marrying for money and using her combination of feminine wiles and shrewdness to rise above abject poverty. Finally she marries Rhett, a selfish opportunist like her. At the end he realizes that she will never love him and leaves Scarlett with that which has sustained her; an abiding love for Tara. This narrative is history seen from the womens perspective. They are alternately brave, childish, and childlike, treading on the line between what they are and what they must be. They do it for the men of the South, themselves, and for the South itself. The depiction of the war and the events surrounding it is largely consistent with the historical record. The factual portions of the film are in part accurate. For instance, at a benefit supporting the war, the ladies are asked to relinquish their jewelry. Such a depiction is consistent with the account in The American Civil War by Peter J. Parish and it highlights one of the sacrifices women made during this time. George A. Trenholm, who replaced Secretary of the Confederate Treasury Memminger, asked for these concessions as the finances of the South became particularly desperate. This detail concerns one of the points at which Gone With the Wind succeeds as history. †¦wealthy female slaveholders escaped significant disruption in their lives at the outset of the war, for they had money to maintain their antebellum lifestyle and the slaves to maintain plantation production. (Frank 514) Thus the sheltered experience depicted in the film is wholly consistent with rich womens lives until the last stages of the period. In opposition, several events as depicted in Gone with the Wind are inaccurate. At the end and after the war, black people did not leap to the aid of their former masters as the film asserts. The character Mammy would have sought paid employment rather than stay on a ruined plantation. In reality, the vast majority of the planters used violence to subjugate their property. In one scene, the character Ashley Wilkes chides Scarlett for treating the convict workers in her lumber mill cruelly in supposed contrast with their treatment of the slaves. It is true that in the darkest days for the South they did choose to prevail upon the Negroes to fight for their own oppression. There was no greater irony in all the efforts of the Confederacy to find adequate means to match its ambitious goals than the proposal to arm Negroes. (Parish 561) But the slaves did not fight for the South as much for a newfound and cherished liberty, greater than they had ever known. And once they had tasted that liberty, they did not willingly acquiesce in the imposition of a terrible, unjust burden. The importance of the Civil War and its aftermath can hardly be overstated. The struggle has been the only armed conflict fought on our territory. It consumed nearly 500,000 lives, the largest wartime death toll in American history. It also was a first step in remedying the shame of slavery which Americans had perpetrated in a country which largely had been the realization of a vision of freedom and equality. They fought with not only the political reality of the Souths secession of 1861, but with the regions separate psychology. By 1860 the South was a state of mind as well as a place on the map. A definition of Southernness was and is at least as much a task for the psychologist as for the geographer. (Parish 303) This enduring mindset notwithstanding, had the South won, not only would the crime of slavery have been continued, it is doubtful that the U. S. would have grown into the superpower it is today. The war determined that an integral part of the union would remain. The significance of the war for the world at large in the mid-nineteenth century †¦belongs in part to the realm of might-have-beens; its long-term consequences derived less from what did happen from what did not. (Parish 381) Among the events that very well might have happened were interference from foreign governments, international recognition of the Confederacy, and the widening of this internecine war into a general conflagration abroad. Such luck for the union was due to the relative isolation the U. S. has enjoyed throughout its history. Americans fought their war amid constant threats from abroad. There was nothing inevitable about the fact that it remained a domestic†¦affair. It remained a purely American affair through a combination of good fortune and great skill on the part of those who wished to keep it so, gross errors on the part of those who did not, and canny calculations of national and self-interest on the part of those who might have been caught in its toils. (Parish 381) Although some continue to fight this war in their minds, they benefit from over 200 years of federal association and its attendant largess. As I stated earlier, with regard to the historical accuracy of the film as document, it is a womens narrative. Though there was no Scarlett OHara per se, the things we see her experience and perpetrate on others is consistent with the accounts of those who actually lived in that time and place. The threat of starvation was indeed present in all households in the later stages. Domestic production and ingenuity staved off a state of crisis for slaveholding women for a while, but, by the end of the war starvation and material deprivation shook even the most affluent households. (Frank 515) When Scarlett was forced to hide her wagon under a bridge with three highly vulnerable people in it while Northern soldiers passed overhead, she was surviving a circumstance familiar to many Southern women. †¦many faced the hazards of living in the path of the Union army. Those who resided near the battlefront risked having their property commandeered, stolen, or destroyed by Northern soldiers. (Frank 515) Such dangers were in addition to the threat, both potential and realized, of bodily violation. Scarlett valiantly, not to say desperately, defends herself and her loved ones against a looting Union soldier when she shoots him in the face. It is an act not uncommon to those willing and able to defend themselves. The depiction of slave and ex-slave loyalty is highly romanticized to say the least. Gone with the Wind depicts Negroes as possessing a childlike innocence. They seem to be a rich vein of merriment instead of the human beings upon which the horrors of bondage had been visited. Nowhere do we see slaverys pain and degradation. The black characters in the film are even more a caricature than even the heroine is at times. The films tendency toward opaque sentiment at first glance is a terrible injustice to a period quite painful to the American psyche be it black or white, Northern or Southern. Certainly the film is nowhere near the caliber of slave narratives, Ken Burns the Civil War, or Uncle Toms Cabin. However, it is important as hitherto all-too-often neglected genre of womens history. Seldom in mainstream culture is the womens perspective represented so faithfully. And equally seldom is it given the attention and resources devoted to this film. It is simply not taken seriously enough and shunted off into womens studies classes rather than included in the mainstream of scholarship. Valuable though they are, the womens studies classes or gender studies courses tend to attract the favor of those predisposed to appreciate them. Gone With the Wind, for a long while a staple of popular culture, has reached a much wider audience. In many ways this movie is indeed an historical romance, ladies fiction. However it is also a significant historical document. Many more people have learned about the Civil War from the womens point of view by means of viewing this film than from any other source. This fact, in addition to its inclusion of important data, renders it deserving of attention and respect. For instance, it highlights the worthlessness of the Confederate currency, a situation which underscores the sheer lack of administrative competence displayed in the South at all stages of the war. Not only did the Confederates fight the North, they also had to contend with the inherent weaknesses of their fledgling nation, as they sought to envision it. Many things weakened The Cause, most notably slaverys lack of long-term viability as an economic model. The South was heavily invested in a system which had no hope of succeeding beyond a few years. To a great extent, the Confederacy fell under its own weight, much to the past and continuing chagrin if its champions and much to the edification of the nation of which it is a part as well as humankind in general. If only the proof of that assertion would not have required the death of so many and the maiming of still more. Bibliography Frank, Lisa Tendrich. Women in the American Civil War Vol. II. Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO, Inc. , 2008 Parish, Peter J. American Civil War, the. New York: Holmes and Meier, 1975.

Understanding and Preventing Child Abuse and Neglect Essay -- Preventi

â€Å"Childhood should be carefree, playing in the sun; not living a nightmare in the darkness of the soul.† -- Dave Pelzer, A Child Called "It"   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Child abuse, the physical and/or emotional abuse of a child by a parent, guardian, or other person, is a major problem in the United States. Child abuse, including sexual abuse, beating, and murder have increased and it is believed that many cases go unreported. Another for of child abuse is child neglect, which includes malnutrition, desertion, and inadequate care for a child.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Efforts have increased on the primary prevention of child abuse. This must be started on many different levels before it can be successful. Prevention plans on a social level include increasing the economic self-sufficiency of families, preventing the birth of unwanted children, making health care more accessible, expanding and improving coordination of social services, improving the identification and treatment of psychological problems, and alcohol and drug abuse, and providing more affordable child care. Prevention plans on the family level include helping parents meet their basic needs, identifying problems of substance abuse and spousal abuse, and educating parents about child behavior, discipline, safety, and development. Primary prevention is to prevent the disease before it happens and reduce the chances of child abuse or negligence from happening.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Between 1995 and today child abuse cases have increased by more than fifty percent. More than thirty-five percent of which were confirmed. Each year one hundred and sixty thousand children are abused severely, even to life threatening extents. One thousand to two thousand children are killed resulting form child abuse. One of twenty murder victims is a child. Murder is the fourth leading cause of death in children from ages five to fourteen. The murder of a baby within the first twenty-four hours of life, Neonaticide, accounts for forty-five percent of children’s death.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Most child abuse occurs in the home and is started by someone who is known and trusted by the child. Abuse in day care center and foster car settings are only a small part of confirmed cases, but are more widely publicized. In a household where spousal abuse takes place, child abuse is fifteen percent more likely to occur also. Children are three times more likely to be abused by father rather than mot... ...education   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Number of children -Identify families with problems of:   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Substance abuse   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Domestic Violence   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Mental health -Offer new parents   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Services of a social worker   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Long-term home visitation   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Parenting classes -Educate new parents regarding   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Developmental tasks of children Age-appropriate anticipatory guidance Nutrition and feeding problems Safety Discipline -Discourage corporal punishment -Survey parents to identity health issues that are of interest to them -Support universal health care for children -Advocate for community respite care for parents -Advocate for community alcohol and drug treatment, mental health, and spouse and child abuse centers.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Child abuse is a complex problem with many causes, it is important that people do not take a negative attitude toward its prevention. Although the absence of strong evidence to guide preventive efforts, society can do things to try to prevent abuse. Showing concern for the parents or care givers and increasing attempts to enhance their skills as parents or care givers may be able to help save our most vulnerable people, the children, from the nightmare of abuse and neglect.

Alternate Dispute Resolution Tools

The ADR processes attempt to reconcile the differences that arise between commercial corporations. The services of a third party, which are in general voluntary, are employed for this purpose. This third party promotes negotiations, assists in resolving differences and formulates agreements that are agreeable to both the disputing parties. Arbitration and mediation constitute the principal tools of ADR (Alternative Dispute Resolution Overview ).There are a number of advantages of resorting to the ADR mechanism. Some of these are that the cost is much less in comparison to the judicial system.In addition, ADR brings about a rapprochement between the disputing parties, which generally improves their relations. This is due to the fact that the ADR process concentrates on the requirements of the parties, unlike a formal judicial process that focuses on the legal position of the parties. Moreover, in the mediation process, the agreement is made by the parties themselves, which ensures gre ater commitment than a court order and the agreement is comparatively more accommodative. Further, adoption of the ADR process does not preclude the right to resort to the traditional legal procedures (Alternative Dispute Resolution Overview ).In the mediation process a third party that is neutral and adequately trained helps the parties to resolve their dispute. The aim of this third party is to shift the focus from legal positions to the actual interests, which are affected of the parties. The mediation process is bereft of rules of evidence and lawyers. The atmosphere is informal and conducive to dispute resolution. In addition, this process is absolutely confidential and there are no records of the meetings, moreover any notes taken down by the mediators during the process are destroyed.Furthermore, the process is speedy and inexpensive. This process is ideal if time available with the parties is limited, because resolution, in general, is achieved within a couple of sessions (A lternative Dispute Resolution Overview ). In the world of adjudication, the arbitration rules of London Court of International Arbitration, the London Maritime Arbitrator's Association Terms, the UNCITRAL and the ICC are well known. The alternative dispute resolution or ADR process suffers from the disadvantage that its decisions cannot be made sufficiently binding from the legal perspective.Such international agreements cannot be enforced by the authorities in the absence of a court decision, which would be disproportionate to the amount involved. This promotes repudiation of contracts by unscrupulous parties, because the cost of enforcing the contract would be exorbitant (Redfern & Hunter, 1999. Pp. 3 – 4). Conservative estimates of litigation costs in the US legal system estimate them to be around a hundred billion dollars per annum, whereas others consider this amount to be more than three times this estimated amount.Some of the direct expenses that constitute this huge a mount are legal fees, awards to the jury, expenditure incurred in copying and organizing, fees to be paid to expert witnesses. There are also a number of indirect expenses like loss of reputation that corporations have to endure and loss due to management having to curtail its business activities, in order to concentrate on the litigation. This has made ADR a very attractive alternative for many corporations in the US.If the participants in the process of the ADR approach their differences in a positive and fair manner, then this process can bring about dispute resolution that improves their commercial relations. However, if such an attitude is lacking, then the ADR process can prove to be no less time consuming and expensive in comparison to the usual judicial process for resolving commercial disputes (Netzley, December, 2001). American companies that perform in other countries generally resort to arbitration, in order to settle commercial disputes, because of the uncertainty assoc iated with the legal systems extant in those countries.The best environment for arbitration to succeed transpires when there are only two parties that are absolutely clear about their legal status. Arbitration agreements are enforced in totality by the courts. However, the rules pertaining to evidence are not strictly adhered to in such proceedings (Sido, Dec2005 ). Although, arbitration and litigation are expensive processes, the former is more expeditious, involves less expenditure and has the added advantage of confidentiality. However, arbitration involves charges for filing that are ever on the increase and there is no scope for appealing against an arbitral decision.Mediation on the other hand is extremely flexible and much more attractive in comparison to the arbitration process, because in an arbitration process it not clear as to which party would emerge victorious. There are no losers in a mediation process; there are only parties who have agreed to resolve their differenc es in an amicable manner (Sido, Dec2005 ). Arbitration is akin to the traditional litigation process in many respects, whereas mediation has the advantage of being confidential and informal.Moreover, in mediation there is no compulsion to adhere to a disagreeable decision (Packer, 2004). A number of US corporations have resorted to ADR in respect of disputes, because of the prolonged and expensive procedures of the normal court and international tribunal procedures. However, in the ADR process, arbitration process is not that attractive, because it entails decisions that cannot be appealed against and in addition it is quite similar to the regular court or tribunal process.The most popular process is that of mediation, because it is more of a consultative process and the principal objective is to arrive at an agreement that takes into account, the viewpoints and interests of the parties to the dispute. Moreover, there is no compulsion to implicitly follow the decision arrived at in this process. In addition, the cost involved is also comparatively much less. References Alternative Dispute Resolution Overview . (n. d. ). Retrieved November 8, 2007, from CADR: http://www. dot. gov/ost/ogc/CADR/overview. html Netzley, M. (December, 2001).Alternative Dispute Resolution: A Business (and) Communication Strategy . Business Communication Quarterly , Vol. 64, No. 4, Pp. 83 – 89. Packer, A. J. (2004). An interview with Bill Carter. Retrieved November 8, 2007, from Oregon State Bar. Elder Law Newsletter: http://www. osbar. org/_docs/sections/elder/newsletters/elder_spring04. pdf Redfern, A. , & Hunter, M. (1999. Pp. 3 – 4). Law and Practice of International Commercial Arbitration . London: 3rd ed, Sweet & Maxwell. Sido, K. (Dec2005 ). Avoiding the Courtroom Through Mediation or Arbitration . Consulting-Specifying Engineer , Vol. 38, Iss. 6, Pp. 65-66.

Social Identity Theory Prepared By Josh Cramer Montes

SOCIAL IDENTITY THEORY Prepared by Josh Cramer-Montes Social identity theory was developed by British social psychologists Henri Tajfel and John Turner in the 1970s and 1980s. This theory analyzes the process through which individuals identify and value their membership within a group, and how groups interact with one another in social contexts. Tajfel was specifically interested in analyzing identity and group favoritism on the one hand, followed by stereotyping and discrimination, which could evolve into violence and conflict, on the other (BBC, 2011 - ?). His interest in this analysis was fueled by his experiences as a Polish Jew who was one of the few people he knew in his community to survive the Holocaust during World War II (BBC,†¦show more content†¦Tajfel’s experiment signaled a significant departure from the largely North American psychological school of thought at the time, which believed that prejudice was caused by individual personalities and bias was a result of competition between groups. It highlighted t he fact that individuals had a natural, cognitive bias, which meant that competition was not necessary and that personalities were not relevant (BBC, 2012). Tajfel outlined these ideas in his article, Cognitive Aspects of Prejudice, first published in 1969. According to Simply Psychology, Tajfel and Turner proposed the following three mental processes take place in evaluating others as â€Å"us† or â€Å"them† i.e. â€Å"in-group† or â€Å"out-group† through a series of social categorization, social identification and social comparison. Social categorization is the process through which people are naturally inclined to categorize themselves into one or more groups such as social classes, ethnic groups and sports, all of which serve as a source of identity and self-esteem. Furthermore, they provide individuals with a sense of belonging in a social world. Members of in in-group may find an increase emotional strength and coping skills associated with their group membership. Individuals within these groups self-categorize and implement, subconsciously or consciously, strategies