A Doll’s House Essay Example for Free

A Doll’s House Essay In his book A Doll’s House, Ibsen explores the ideological struggle of gender roles in a marriage where the wife Nora must maintain a helpless role and the husband Torvald must appear as the sole familial support. Henrik Ibsen has been able to drive this point home very powerfully in A Dolls House. Nora and Torvald, the main characters, belong to an ordinary middle-class family and the stereotypes in gender roles are very obvious and are most prevalent in this milieu. The coming of age of Nora and of women in the fin-de-siecle brought the issue of gender roles in society and the emancipation of women to the fore. The so called tragedy that befalls Torvald is of a private nature but its enactment has implications for the whole society. â€Å"In closing her door on her husband and children, Nora opened the way to the turn-of-the-century women’s† (Finney: 91). The play brings out the hypocrisy behind Torvald’s obsession with keeping up appearances and encouraging Nora to behave in a childish, helpless way to make him feel important and assert his masculine strength. Nora laments the fact that she had remained a doll-child and a doll-wife all her life. She had passively accepted this role to conform to the norms of society. She knew that she was expected to play the role of a pretty â€Å"featherbrained† woman who needed to be petted and taken care of constantly. She realized that neither her father nor her husband had given her enough credit to be a responsible and mature human being and be taken seriously. She knew that the oft repeated plea â€Å"But I cant get on a bit without you to help me† (Dolls House, II) was in effect a result of her utter dependence on her husband; a dependence which was encouraged by Torvald and the society at large. Torvald was protective and caring of Nora but what he actually was trying to achieve was have complete control over her thoughts and actions. He was the mainstay of the family and Nora was the limpet hanging on to his masculine strength and making herself agreeable to him in order to remain in his favor. At the end of the play, the misfortune is more about Torvalds failure to maintain the illusion of his being the most upright, principled and in short, the most perfect man. His realization that he had fallen in the eyes of a woman whom he felt condescendingly about heightens the sense of tragedy. He would often preach to Nora about her lack of principles which she had apparently inherited from her father and reprimanded her by calling her â€Å"a hypocrite, a liar—worse, worsea criminal! The unutterable ugliness of it all! For shame! For shame! †(A Dolls House: III). The unmasking of his own hypocrisy and the ugliness of being exposed to be a petty, judgmental and selfish man makes the audience understand that in spite of all his sermonizing, he was the one who lacked any principles as he was ready to drop everything and forget about the whole incident as soon as his own back was covered. In the final analysis of the ideological struggle depicted in this play, Nora, who was actually happy in enacting her gender stereotype during the beginning of the play and was elevated to a much higher position due to her realization of her identity and the consequent struggle to assert her independence. Nora’s recognition of her transformation from being â€Å"simply your little songbird† to a whole human being with potential to grow to be a woman of more substance is the first step towards her trying to resolve the conflict within her. She also understood that Torvald had always maintained a certain facade with her, which was contrary to his actual being. She says, â€Å"I realized that for eight years Id been living here with a strange man † (Doll House: III) and that steeled her determination to begin from scratch and live up to her potential. At the end of the play Nora appears to be strong and determined to the point of being heartless as she abandons her home, husband and children in quest of her true identity and knowledge of the ways of the world. The topic of feminism in this play deals with double standards and marriage (Finney: 92) A blatant example of this is Torvald’s condemnation of Nora as a â€Å"hypocrite and liar† when in reality it is Torvald who is the biggest hypocrite. His tall words about honor and honesty are shallow and he exposes himself as the small, petty person he is in spite of trying to assert himself in the stereotypical masculine role that society assigned to the male gender. Even the minor women characters in the play that of Mrs. Linde and Anne, the maid, demonstrate strength and fixity of purpose that the male characters Torvald, Dr. Rank and Krogstad fail to display. Ibsen was sensitive to feminine issues and though he himself proclaimed himself a ‘humanist’ rather than a ‘feminist’ his insight into the feminine psyche and his portrayal of women is evident in his memorable plays. He is able to make it clear to the audience that Nora’s helplessness and dependence on Torvald was put on. It became more obvious when we come to know that Nora had actually forged her father’s signature in order to take a loan to get Torvald to Italy in order to save his life. That she was capable of taking such drastic decisions and has the courage to work at copying and repay the loan to Krogstad without Torvald’s knowledge is a clear indicator that left to her own devises she was quite decisive and better at managing crisis than Torvald. In conclusion, it is indeed true that Nora Helmer tried her best to enact the gender role assigned to her by the society. However, when ideological differences arose she struggled to cast off the garb of the helpless little lady and emerged a stronger and more mature person. In the play a clear happy ending was not evident and the audience was left to interpret Torvalds hope for a â€Å"most wonderful thing† as a silver lining to an otherwise grim close to the play.

The Lightbulb Essay -- essays research papers

Among all of the inventions created in 1750 -1900, the light bulb was perhaps one of the most effective to the everyday lives of people. Its invention is credited to Thomas Alva Edison, an American inventor and businessman, who created it in 1879. The design of his light bulb was a carbonized filament inside a glass bulb with a screw base. It glowed when an electric current pass through it, possessed high electrical resistance, and lasted a lot longer than previous sources of light had. Before Thomas Edison's light bulb, gas was the best source of lighting so people turned to candles, oil lanterns, and gas lamps to light up their rooms. It would take many candles, oil lanterns, or gas lamps to fully light up a good-sized room. Not only would they burn out after a few minutes, but they were also very messy and hazardous. Gas would leave large quantities of soot everywhere, potentially causing explosions and fires. Its imaginable how hard it would be to have to keep children, fine furniture, and pets away from these dangers. The soot had t...

High Stakes Testing Essay

Tests are a very important tool for measuring achievement; therefore, they should be part of a system which provides equitable learning access to all students. The No Child Left Behind Act of 2002 (NCLB) which requires states to develop accountability systems and provide assessment of the students’ performance in order to receive federal funding accordingly has led to the necessity of implementing large-scale testing. The goal of using these types of tests can be considered praiseworthy if – the tests are designed in such a way that all students are tested on a curriculum they have had a fair opportunity to learn (especially racial and ethnic minority students or students with a disability or limited English proficiency) – the tests are scored properly, taking into account that the test scores of those students with limited English skills should be interpreted in accordance with those limitations – the tests are used appropriately. For example, a test that has been validated only for diagnosing strengths and weaknesses of individual students should not be used to evaluate the educational quality of a school. The public schools of North Carolina, for example, carry a very high-stakes accountability program known as â€Å"The New ABCs of Public Education. † which has had a major impact on curriculum, instruction, assessment, and school personnel throughout the state. The program requires: End-of-Grade Tests (3-8 and 10), End-of-Course Tests (on Algebra I, Algebra II, Biology, Chemistry, Civics & Economics, English I, Geometry, Physical Science, Physics, U. S. History, NCCLAS ), Tests of Computer Skills, Competency Tests, Writing Assessments Grades 4, 7, and 10, IDEA ® English Language Proficiency Tests. Each North Carolina school, as well as any school in any other state has to give itself an annual report card, with assessment results broken down by poverty, race, ethnicity, High Stakes Testing 2 disability, and English-language proficiency. In this way, the race for more and better information about school performance sets off. More attention should be paid to the quality of data educational authorities receive as it is a fact that there are schools which are painting a picture prettier than reality, thus misleading authorities, taxpayers and what is even worse, keeping students trapped in low quality institutions. Under NCLB, if schools fail to make adequate yearly progress on state tests for three consecutive years, students can use federal funds to transfer to higher-performing public or private schools, or to obtain supplemental education services from providers of their choice but this could not be possible if the low-quality institutions they attend remain invisible under misleading reports of pretended excellence. In many districts, raising test scores are the most important indicators of school improvement so teachers feel the pressure to ensure that test scores go up. Knowing that schools that fail for four to five consecutive years may face state takeovers, have their staffs replaced, or be bid out to private management some teachers narrow the curriculum and teach only what is covered on the test. There are many issues that should be taken into account when it comes to evaluating high stake assessment. One of them is the reliability of high stake tests which is definitely at risk when large subject domains (mathematics, language arts) are measured with relatively few questions and a narrow focus on skills and knowledge. Major decisions like getting a diploma or being promoted to the next grade require a balance of information including in-class performance, interviews, observation, projects, and class work. Perhaps the most important critical claim is that standardized tests do not measure critical thinking, problem solving, creativity, and other similar important aspects of intelligence. Students who are perfectly intelligent can perform poorly in high-stakes testing, and this can have serious consequences for the student as well as his or her school. High Stakes Testing 3 In my opinion, the first of the three most important issues in high stakes testing is the type of test used. Large-scale high-stakes testing programs are primarily focused on serving the goals of norming and selection rather than student mastery of content and problem-solving (Pellegrino, Chudowsky, & Glaser, 2001). These two types of testing are almost impossible to reconcile. A second issue of great importance is assessment of learning versus assessment for learning (Stiggins, 2002) There is a distinction between high-stakes testing (assessment of learning) and the formative assessment techniques that teachers may use throughout the year to foster learning (assessment for learning). In the case of the former, the goal of the test is to measure what students know or can do. In the case of the latter, the goal of the test is to provide information that will improve student learning. The third most important issue is, in my opinion, the test / curriculum adjustment. Appropriate assessments measure the objectives set out at the classroom level and at the same time reflect curriculum (or content) that has been selected to reach the specified objectives. To sum up, any decision about a student’s continued education, such as retention, tracking, or graduation, should not be based only on the results of a single test, but should include other relevant and valid information. The classroom is the realm of the teacher. State tests do not tell teachers how to teach, they suggest what should be taught, so there is no reason why students cannot learn how to think critically, solve problems or develop their creativity. State tests are taken at the end of the year or course, so teachers have the opportunity to diagnose their students’ needs and work on their improvement so that by the time they sit for the tests they can feel confident and succeed as expected. It is only fair to use test results in high-stakes decisions when students have had a real opportunity to master the materials upon which the test is based and this cannot be achieved without an active and professional teacher.

Simple Disparaître Verb Conjugations in French

French verb conjugations can be challenging, particularly when it comes to words like  disparaà ®tre. Meaning to disappear, this is an irregular verb and that makes memorizing its many conjugates difficult. Yet, a quick lesson and some dedicated practice will help you out tremendously. Conjugating the French Verb  Disparaà ®tre In English, we use -ing and -ed endings for verb conjugations. Its more complex in French because the ending changes not only from the past to the present or future tense  but also with the number of people or things were talking about. Disparaà ®tre  is an  irregular verb  and while it is not the most common conjugation pattern, nearly all  French verbs ending in  -aà ®tre  are conjugated in the same way. While you are learning and practicing these conjugations, you may want to tackle two or three similar words to make the entire group just a little easier. Using the table, study each of the  disparaà ®tre  conjugations. Simply pair the subject pronoun with the appropriate tense and youre on the way to forming a complete sentence. For instance, I am disappearing is je disparaà ®s and we will disappear is nous disparaà ®trons. Subject Present Future Imperfect je disparais disparaà ®trai disparaissais tu disparais disparaà ®tras disparaissais il disparaà ®t disparaà ®tra disparaissait nous disparaissons disparaà ®trons disparaissions vous disparaissez disparaà ®trez disparaissiez ils disparaissent disparaà ®tront disparaissaient The Present Participle of  Disparaà ®tre The   present participle  of disparaà ®tre  is  disparaissant. Not only is this a verb, it can also become an adjective, gerund, or noun when needed. The Past Participle and Passà © Composà © The  passà © composà ©Ã‚  is another popular way to express the past tense disappeared in French. To form it, begin by conjugating the  auxiliary verb  avoir  to fit the subject pronoun, then add the  past participle  disparu. For example, I disappeared is jai disparu  Ã‚  while we disappeared is nous avons disparu. More Simple  Disparaà ®tre  Conjugations to Learn Should you find that the action of disappearing is questionable or not guaranteed, the subjunctive verb mood can be used. In a similar fashion, the conditional verb mood implies that the action will only happen  if  something else occurs. The passà © simple is primarily found in formal French writing, so you may not use it yourself. The same can be said of the imperfect subjunctive, though it is good to be able to recognize these as forms of  disparaà ®tre. Subject Subjunctive Conditional Passà © Simple Imperfect Subjunctive je disparaisse disparaà ®trais disparus disparusse tu disparaisses disparaà ®trais disparus disparusses il disparaisse disparaà ®trait disparut disparà »t nous disparaissions disparaà ®trions disparà »mes disparussions vous disparaissiez disparaà ®triez disparà »tes disparussiez ils disparaissent disparaà ®traient disparurent disparussent In the imperative verb form,  disparaà ®tre  is used for short commands and requests. There is no need to include the subject pronoun here: simplify tu disparais to disparais. Imperative (tu) disparais (nous) disparaissons (vous) disparaissez