Violence and civil rights struggle Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Violence and civil rights struggle - Essay Example Martin Luther King and Malcom X arose to fight for the position of the blacks in the America community, and today they are acknowledged for the moves. What are the different takes on violence and civil rights struggles? Blacks suffered discrimination in America on housing and employment as well as abuse and lynching from whites and never exercised the right to vote. This was regardless of the fact that slavery in the United States ended in the late 19th century, as the struggle of the black population against the ill treatment brought about the early activists such as Martin Luther King and Malcolm X. However, although the two individuals among others shared the same thought of ending violence on African American, there takes on violence and civil rights struggle were different. Martin Luther, for example, advocated for peaceful demonstrations for he was against violence of any kind in the society. He believed that peaceful demonstrations would lead to opening up of a room for negoti ation between martin whites and the African Americans. On the issue of the civil rights, martin Luther advocated for human rights where everyone in the nation had equal treatment regardless of race. In the times of Luther King, despite the fact that slave trade and forced labour were no long dead, discrimination and racism was very popular. Malcom X, on the other hand, was revolutionary and radical. He preached independence through the necessary means possible and hence advocated for violence. He is very much unlike Martin Luther King who preached non-violence and obedience philosophy; a similar approach to Gandhi’s during the struggle in India. A combination of the two activists approaches although quite contrasting brought a strong support on the black American movements in relation to violence and discrimination. They brought some life In the face of the struggle and hence why they are prominent and make a huge part of the African America. Malcom X was brought to the limel ight as he was the leader of the demonstrating Muslims, the papers and the radio speaking of the events that had happened at the Lenox Avenue. He can be described as a non-violent man but on the other hand a strong willing man, ready to rally crowds through violence if need be, to protect the rights of other individuals. At the time of these happenings, the whites are said to have not been bothered by the revolution of the blacks unless it threatened the status quo. Movements for civil rights are the political movements that were uprising at the times of people like martin Luther King Jr. and Malcom X that took the form of civil resistance. The main aim was to bring about nonviolent aims of resistance but they were accompanied by civil unrest and armed rebellion. What are the consequences of violence becoming part of civil right struggles? Maclom X was one of the renowned Muslim leaders and a Lenox avenue fraces brought him to light after being reported in The Amsterdam News to have told the police officials, â€Å"we do not look for trouble, in fact we are taught to steer clear of trouble. We do not carry knives or guns, but we are also taught than when one finds something that is worthwhile getting into trouble about, he should be ready to die, then and there for that particular thing.† This ensued after the police were holding back a man who had witnessed an incident at the Lenox Avenue and told the Moslems that one of their brother had been beaten by a police man. At the police station, a crowd of Muslims swelled led by Malcolm X

The Gothic Imagination Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

The Gothic Imagination - Essay Example Gothic literature was named for the apparent influence of the dark gothic architecture of the period on the genre. Also, many of these Gothic tales took places in such "gothic" surroundings, sometimes a dark and stormy castle as shown in Mary Wollstoncraft Shelly's Frankenstein, or Bram Stoker's infamous Dracula" (Gothic). The American critical theorist Eve Sedgwick has been a chief contributor to the idea of Gothic imagination. To understand the term "Gothic" let us note that there is a great relation between Gothic and romance. As Sedgwick, in The Coherence of Gothic Conventions which studies the relationship between Gothic conventions and the ways in which its practitioners use language and structure narrative, remarks, "Gothic" has not been the supplest of terms. (Sedgwick 1986) An analysis of the popular novels, The Castle of Otranto, Frankenstein, and Dracula would give the best idea of what a Gothic Novel is. This is a discussion directed towards the same. The writers beginning with Horace Walpole in his The Castle of Otranto through the famous writers like Mrs. Radcliffe, M G Lewis, Mary Shelley, Maturin, Melville, Faulkner, and Stoker have dealt with the elements of what is now termed the Gothic literature. Their works take the readers to world of sublimity and great imagination. â€Å"Their Gothic novels attempt to submerge the reader in an extraordinary world in which ordinary standards and moral judgments become meaningless and good and evil are seen as inextricably intertwined. Gothic writing is closely related to romantic: both are the product of a profound reaction against everyday reality and conventional religious explanations of existence. But while romantic writing is the product of faith in an ultimate order, Gothic writing is a gloomy exploration of the limitations of man" (Hume 1969). Thus many of the Gothic considerations come to our discussion. The genre of Gothic fiction merges the elements of both romance and horror. This literary tradition has its beginning with Horace Walpole's novel The Castle of Otranto which came out in the year 1764. As the introductory essay of Three Gothic Novels remarks, "a reader familiar with the Gothic novels of the end of the eighteenth and the beginning of the nineteenth century will easily recognize in them th emes and proceedings which were stock-in-trade of the tales of terror" (Fairclough et al 1968. p. 7). The finding out of the beauty in elements of terror itself changed the concept of the literary appreciation. The discovery of Horror as the source of delight reacted on men's actual conception of beauty itself: the Horrid, from being the category of the Beautiful, became eventually one of its essential elements, and the 'beautiful horrid' passed by insensible degrees into the 'horribly beautiful" (Fairclough et al 1968. p. 10). The examples of the novels show that the gothic genre is especially noted for its appeal of terror and mystery and it cannot be smothered. "The Gothic novel is defined not by its stock devices-ruined abbeys and the like-but by its use of a particular atmosphere for essentially psychological purposes" (Hume 1969). The Gothic novels of the writers like Walpole, M G Lewis, Mary Shelley, Melville, Faulkner and others submerge the readers in a world where ordinary standards and ethical conclusions are