Sita as the Hidden Hero of Ramayana Essay -- Ramayana Essays

Sita as the Hidden Hero of Ramayana    Valmiki's Ramayana was written around 300 B.C.E. (Carrier 207). Typically, the character of Rama is seen as the hero and the character of Sita is seen as the hero's wife.   In this essay, I will compare Sita's journey of capture and inner growth with the "save the kingdom" journey of Rama, show how the two correlate, and eventually connect in the influential chastity scene. I will also prove that Sita is the "hidden hero" of this epic even though she is seen as taking a secondary role to Rama and show how this reflects women's secondary roles in society today. To begin our comparisons, we must first look at each character and recognize their separate journeys. Through summarization of the characters and their story, we will begin to see Rama's role and Sita's role. By this process, I will demonstrate how they correlate, differ and combine to form the Ramayana. Rama, the hero of the Ramayana, is a god known as Vishnu who has been reincarnated and sent to earth in mortal form. Rama must take an archetypal journey known as the "quest." During the quest, a hero must conquer obstacles to save the kingdom (Guerin et.al.154). Rama's obstacle is Ravana, an evil monster who is slowly taking over heaven and earth. Because Ravana never asked for protection from a human being, he can only be destroyed by a human being and this makes Rama's need for success especially important (Narayan 5). a the beginning of the narrative, Rama is forced into exile from his kingdom into the forest for 14 years. This exile begins his quest. Sita, Rama's wife, is reincarnation of the goddess Lakshmi, Vishnu's spouse in heaven. Sita accompanies Rama into the forest on his "quest" and is captured by Ravana. Th... ...of society. If women want to take control of their own lives and are tired of "proving"themsleves to others, they must first find a voice and then act upon their convictions, otherwise these gender roles will never change. Works Cited Carrier, Warren, ed. Guide to World Literature. Illinois: National Council of Teachers of English, 1980. Guerin, Wilfred L., et.al. A Handbook of Critical Approaches to Literature. New York: Oxford University Press, 1992. O'Flaherty, Wendy Doniger. Hindu Myths. London: Penguin Books, 1975. Singh, Khushwant. India: an Introduction. New Delhi: Vision Books, 1990. Valmiki. The Ramayana. Trans. Aubrey Menen. New York: Charles Scriber's Sons, 1954. ---. The Ramayana. Trans. R.K. Narayan. New York: Penguin Books, 1972. ---. The Ramayana. Trans. Elizabeth Seeger. New York: William R. Scott, Inc., 1969.

Social Problems Essay

The family is a social institution that has been underestimated and placed in a box for generations. In America, television and media has portrayed the â€Å"typical† family to be a Caucasian bread winning father, homemaker wife, and there 2 kids all living under one roof. But according to Eitzner’s book â€Å"Social Problems†, the actualization of how a family looks under one roof is based on economic conditions, and the typical family portrait never applied to immigrants and racial minorities because these people were denied equal opportunities to earn a family wage, and denied support of such grants as the GI Bill.Extended families as well as extended households grew in the light of immigration and socioeconomic reform. Now there is no longer a single culturally dominant family pattern. The idea of family has to be reconstituted frequently to relate to ever changing personal and occupational circumstances. Some of the social problems that the family institutio n is dealing with are gay marriages, multi-generational households, and teenage pregnancy. In this essay, I will briefly discuss each problem, but also I will develop a program for change.The collective variety of the family in the U. S. has led researchers to study if and how different family systems are linked with different groups of people who then may experience different results. Research has found that not all racial groups participate in each family type equally, thus not all family forms are equally available to all people Intellectuals have also found that each type of family (e. g. , married with kids, married with no kids, single-parent with young children, etc. ) is associated with different economic, child, and health outcomes.This may be a stereotype but researchers say that children who grow up with only one of their parents â€Å"are more likely to drop out of high school, to become teenage and single mothers, and to have trouble finding and keeping a steady job in young adulthood, even after adjusting for differences in parents' socioeconomic background (McLanahan & Sandefur, 1994). I will now discuss each of my topics further. Gay marriage is a hot topic right now in America because there are a lot of states deciding whether to legalize homosexual marriages.The debate over legalizing gay marriages is to do with religion; it's against everything that it says about marriage in the Bible. But it also goes against everything that we are familiar with when it comes to marriage (husband and bride). It is a hot debate as many already know, but, there are far worse things happening in the world today such as Catholic Priest molesting innocent children. The solution, in my opinion, is for gay people to be accorded all the civil rights and social benefits heterosexual people enjoy, without regard for popular sentiment or other people's religious beliefs.The decline of the traditional family nucleus should only prove that option was only for a few. I have to admit that I come from that type of nucleus. My dad worked and my mom stayed home with me and my sister. Times were very different in the 1970’s and 1980’s. The economy to day is teaching families how to adjust to new trends and new ways of living. We should appreciate the new forms of family and community that are occurring. Since the onset of the financial crisis there has been an increase in the number of multi-generational families.It’s the new normal. Younger adults live with their parents into their 30’s now and approximately 50 million Americans are in multigenerational households, that’s a 10% increase from 2007. Economic circumstances, as well as other cultural factors, have no doubt influenced families to start incorporating widowed grandparents, unemployed in-laws and adult children back into a common home. Life on life’s terms has incorporated the return of extended family formations. Another reason for extended families is the current epidemic of teenage pregnancies.And while the teenage mother is affected by the circumstance, this issue affects the entire family. Issues of trust, financial stress, and decision making are all factors involved. Some research suggests that women who have children at an early age are no worse off than similar women who wait to have children. According to this research, many of the disadvantages set up for young mothers are related to their own lack of everything during upbringing. This research suggests that it would be unwise to relate all of the problems faced by teen mothers to their youth.But the truth is that other research proves that teen mothers are less likely to finish high school, less likely to ever marry, and more likely to have additional children outside marriage. Thus, an early birth is not just a marker of preexisting problems but it may prove to be a barrier to successive upward mobility. I have seen success stories with teenage girls who choose to k eep their children. But even if married, these women face much higher rates of poverty and dependence on government assistance than those decide to wait.And early marriages are much more likely to end in divorce. So marriage, while it may be helpful in establishing the family nucleus that is so longed for in Western civilization, is no verified solution. Now I would like to discuss my idea on a program for change in the family. Social inequality will continue to exist without bold action. We need to empower families to take charge of their lives and shift perception of people to understand that families that come from an unconventional family nucleus are still valued citizens.Government, business, community, education are all sectors that can benefit from an improvement in circumstance of the institution of family. What is needed is a re-invigoration of the â€Å"family movement† to works towards building stronger, more inclusive communities. Remember that united we stand, an d divided we fall. One major setback for America is the division in every aspect, be it race, social class, gender. I don’t want to say I am a communist, but I do understand how a communist society may be the best to incorporate equality for all.

Mother Teresars Legacy - Free Essay Example

Sample details Pages: 3 Words: 1018 Downloads: 1 Date added: 2019/05/23 Category History Essay Level High school Tags: Mother Teresa Essay Did you like this example? Not all of us can do great things. But we can do small things with great love. This quote was spoken by the renowned Mother Teresa. Don’t waste time! Our writers will create an original "Mother Teresars Legacy" essay for you Create order Mother Teresa was a Roman Catholic Nun and a Missionary. She dedicated her life to helping the ill and poverty-stricken. She spent multiple years in India where she established the Missionaries of Charity, a religious fellowship to serving the ones in a significant amount of need. In 1979, Mother Teresa was granted with the Nobel Peace Prize. Nineteen years after her death, the Roman Catholic Church canonised her as Saint Teresa. Today, Mother Teresars legacy still continues to live. CHILDHOOD Agnes Gonxhe Bojaxhiu was born on the day of August 26, 1910, in Skopje, Macedonia (FYROM). On the day after her birth, she was baptized and deemed that day as her True Birthday. Also at the age of five she underwent her first communion. She was the child of Nikola and Dranafile Bojaxhiu and the younger sister to Aga and Lazar Bojaxhiu. Agnes father was an entrepreneur and had the ability to provide his dearest with every essential. He was also exceptionally involved in politics. Her mother was a vital participant in community church pursuits. Together they were both grocers. The family possessed a good standing and had the capability to afford two residences. Around the age of eight, a tragic death left her and her family shook. Agnes father was dead. The cause of his death is still undisclosed but speculations say that political enemies may have poisoned him. Since Dranafile knew she was now the contributor for the family, she started a textile business to provide for her family. I n the aftermath of her fathers death, Agnes became extraordinarily close to her mother, a pious and compassionate woman who instilled in her daughter a deep commitment to charity. (HarperSanFrancisco, 1997) Her mother had a great influence on Agnes life and inspired her to do things. Though they were not wealthy, Drana invited the town to have dinner with her and her family. My child, never eat a single mouthful unless you are sharing it with others, she counseled her daughter. When Agnes asked who the people eating with them were, her mother uniformly responded, Some of them are our relations, but all of them are our people. (Mother Teresa Biography) Also as a child, Agnes sung in the local choir and frequently was asked to sing alone. At age twelve she felt a religious, spiritual, and helping calling. RELIGIOUS CALLING When she reached eighteen, she left her family, never to see them again, to become a missionary nun in the Institute of the Blessed Virgin Mary (the Loreto Sisters). (Chidiac 470) This took place in Dublin, Ireland around the year 1929. Here she acquired the name of Sister Mary Teresa. She chose the name Teresa because her favorite saint was Saint Teresa of Lisieux, a patron saint of missionaries. (Libby Laux) Sister Teresa commenced her evangelist efforts in Darjeeling, India where she instructed affluent children at the St. Teresars school. Nearly two years later, in 1931, she got sent to Calcutta to educate children on geography at St. Marys High School. This school was for all girls and it was run by the Sisters of Loreto. Most girls there were from middle-class families, unlike St. Teresars in Darjeeling, India. St. Maryrs was near maybe the most horrible part of Calcutta, known as Moti Jhil. Moti Jhil was a horrible town that was greatly populated with penniless and starving pe ople, unbolted sewers, and diseases. Throughout Sister Teresas time at St. Marys, she was affected by how poverty was neighboring this great school and instructional environment. She frequently went to the hovels on Saturdays to assist and lend a helping hand to the poverty-stricken people of Moti Jhil. Six years later, on May 24, 1937, she took her Final Profession of Vows and with that acquired the name, which the world recognizes her with today, Mother Teresa. (Who is Mother Teresa?) She stayed at St. Maryrs as a teacher, and in the year of 1944 she grew into the schoolrs principal. Though Mother Teresa loved St. Maryrs and just loved the children there, she equally enjoyed helping those in need and felt she had a calling there. A NEW CALLING September 10, 1946, Mother Teresa was riding a train from Calcutta to the Himalayan Foothills for a retreat. It was then when she says Christ spoke upon her told her to leave St. Maryrs and form a new religious community and go to the aid of the needy in Calcutta. She could not deny the mission for that would be breaking faith, but leaving the Sisters of Loreto convent without consent would be unfeasible for the reason as to which she took a vow of obedience. In January of 1948, she was granted permission to seek this new vocation. On August 17, 1948, clad in a white blue-bordered saree, Mother Teresa walked past the gate of the convent, which had been her habitat for almost two decades, to enter the world of poor, a world that needed her, a world which He wanted her to serve, a world she knew of as her own! (Who is Mother Teresa?) Soon after, Mother Teresa did six months of fundamental medical instruction and then returned to Calcutta. She turned her calling into actual work and act ions. On December 21, 1948, the first thing she decided to do help the people in the hovels. Only thing Mother Teresa wanted to do was help and aid and she felt that was her obligation. In the beginning she was alone but volunteers began to join and help her achieve this mission Christ has given her. Shortly after, she commenced an open-air school and initated a home for the moribund and poor in a tumbledown building. Because of this, she persuaded the government to contribute money to her. On October 7, 1950, Mother Teresa was granted consent from the Vatican to begin a new congregation which in the course of time became the Missionaries of Charity. It started off with only 13 members but it went on to develop into one of the most notable and acknowledged congregations world-wide.