Reflection

My most difficult decision in life was what college i wanted to attend because there are so many to choose from and i wanted a college that best suited me and my goals in life, also what kind of college life i would be having.

My values in life are to make a difference, be caring and compassionate towards others, also saving people's life's. My decision to further my education and make something of myself very much so align with my goals in life, although it's going to take a lot of time and effort on my part, the award will be my success and my accomplishment in life and nobody can take that away from me because that is something i worked and strived for to become the best that I can be.

I think my biggest challenge in the next year will be making the grades in order to pass to make it into my pre-med classes. The reason behind this is because I miss a lot of school because of medical reasons and that can affect my grades tremendously when I'm not there. In the next five years i hope to still be going strong getting my medical degree so I can become a doctor and save people's lives, but you never know what the future has in store for us I guess I will just have to wait and see what life throughs in front of me.

The book that has helped me the most and helped me make a decision about what I wanted to do with my life is Jane Eyre because even though she had a rough childhood growing up she never let that get her down and look and what happened to her she fell in love and got married to the man she loved. She never let anything or anyone stand in her way to finding her happiness even though she was a plain Jane the man never judge her by her outer appearance, but what was on the inside and I think that's what counts the most and that's what I want with my life  even though people are mean to me and make fun of me I never let it get me down I will become a very successful person in life, I will get married to the man I love and I will prove to them that I have become a better and stronger person then they ever were and what they did to me when i was younger never stopped me it just made me want to strive harder in life.

1) Describe the social code of Victorian England. What expectations were placed on people depending on their gender and class?
The Victorian age presented a time when groups were separated by gender, as well as class.
http://engl379-sp11-egle.wikispaces.umb.edu/file/view/davidoff+munby.pdf


2) who were some famous authors who were being published in the late 1700s through the late 1800s?
Charles Dickens, Charles Darwin, Mary Ann Evans, Jane Austen, Edgar Allen Poe, and many more.

http://www.nettlesworth.durham.sch.uk/time/victorian/vpeople.html

3) what new ideas were changing the way human perceived the world?
The victorian age witnessed rapid change and developments in almost every aspect of life. knowledge was powerful, and people began to question the role Britain in the world.
http://www.english.uwosh.edu/roth/VictorianEngland.htm


4) What was the critical reception to your novel (Jane Eyre or Wuthering Heights)? 
The critical reception of Jane Eyre varied. Some people admired the power and freshness of the novel, while other people thought the novel was superficial and vulgar.
http://www.enotes.com/charlotte-bronte-criticism/bronte-charlotte-1816-1855


5) Describe the role and place of women in victorian society.
Women were expected to stay at home. They always had to be their best looking and were an accessory to their husbands.
http://wardariheath.wordpress.com/2008/04/07/gender-roles-in-the-victorian-times/


6)  Describe the presence or lack of social mobility between different classes of people (rich, poor, etc).
The upper and middle classes were highly involved in economics and politics, while the lower or working class was generally shut out. As the classes began to improve, lower classes still got treated badly no matter what.
http://www.victorianweb.org/history/Class.html

2nd Draft for Research Paper

                        Achebe’s and Conrad’s View of Africa and Africans

                                                By: Brittany Brinegar

Achebe and Conrad have two completely different views on Africa and Africans. Achebe believes that Africans are people who have morals and are more civilized than most. However, Conrad is the complete opposite he believes Africans to be people who have no morals and behave more barbaric than most.

Achebe represents his view through Okonkwo, a leader in his African tribe who lives his life based on how much of a man he his. Then there is Conrad who shows Africa through Marlow, a European sailor traveling up the Congo River. It is because of these differing ways of looking at the world that the depictions of Africa vary in the two novels.

The people are described, not by their movements or skin color, but as having feelings and thoughts” (Things Fall Apart)

In contrast to what Achebe says Conrad contradicts that and says, “It was paddled by black fellows. You could see from afar the whites of their eyeballs glistening. They shouted, sang; their bodies streamed with perspiration; they had faces like grotesque masks.”  Conrad’s views that the African characters do not speak, and his ideas of them only focus on the color of their skin.

To Achebe, Conrad’s descriptions made him racist, an opinion he describes in detail throughout his critique of Heart of Darkness, “that namely that Joseph Conrad is a thoroughgoing racist”. (“An Image of Africa”). Achebe believed that Conrad made people believe and see that Africa was a dark place with no civilization. He also believed that Conrad did not give a voice to the African’s, making them seem like barbarians. Conrad on the other hand believed he was saying worse about the Europeans than the Africans and he felt pity toward the Africans.

During Conrad’s travels, he actually went up the Congo River, much like the character Marlow, and was profoundly affected by this journey. Thus the book Heart of Darkness came to be. While Achebe says, what is happening in Africa today is a result of what has been going on for 400 or 500 years, from the “discovery” of Africa by Europe. Knowing this and  what the Europeans had done to his homeland had a huge influence on his book Things Fall Apart.

Achebe viewed Africa and it’s people through the eyes of an African, as one of them. He had grown up among these people, and had a very thorough understanding of their culture. In the book when Okonkwo is banished from Umofia, his feelings are described as, “He is an exile, condemned for seven years to live in a strange land. And so he is bowed with grief” (Things Fall Apart).  This says that an African has the ability to feel grief and pain, this does not happen with Africans in Conrad’s novel. Achebe was able describe the feelings of another fellow African. Conrad on the other hand was a European, and he saw things in a European’s way. The entire reason for Europeans traveling to Africa was to conquer the people and to change them because they couldn’t accept the African’s way of life.

Throughout this whole ordeal though neither Conrad nor Achebe could see the point the other was trying to make, because they never truly understood the other was saying.

Works Cited

Achebe, Chinua. Things Fall Apart. New York: Anchor, 1994. Print.

Conrad, Joseph. Heart of Darkness. Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England: Penguin, 1994. Print.

"Heart of Darkness, Things Fall Apart and Racism." Jow253 on HubPages. Web. 15 Feb. 2012. <http://jow253.hubpages.com/hub/HoDTFAracism>.

"Chinua Achebe's Response to Conrad." CaSaWoMo. Web. 15 Feb. 2012. <http://www.casawomo.com/essays/chinua-achebes-response-to-conrad>.

Sickels, Amy. "Salem Press." Salem Press. Web. 15 Feb. 2012. <http://salempress.com/Store/samples/critical_insights/things_fall_reception.htm>.

Spencer, Lisa. "Things Falling Apart at the Heart of Darkness." Lisa Spencer on HubPages. Web. 15 Feb. 2012. <http://lisa-spencer.hubpages.com/hub/Back-and-Forth-into-Darkness>.

"Achebe: An Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad's "Heart of Darkness"" Pictures of Kirby's Cats. Web. 15 Feb. 2012. <http://kirbyk.net/hod/image.of.africa.html>.