The ways in which Thomas Hardy uses setting to help portray Tess feelings Essays

The ways in which Thomas Hardy uses setting to help portray Tess feelings Essays The ways in which Thomas Hardy uses setting to help portray Tess feelings Paper The ways in which Thomas Hardy uses setting to help portray Tess feelings Paper Essay Topic: Literature In 1891 Thomas Hardy published the novel Tess of the DUrbervilles which is a story based on the life and times of a farm girl named Tess. Tess is a 17 year old girl of lower class whose family horse dies in an accident and her family are struggling for money so Tess goes to visit distant relatives to ask to borrow money to help support her family. While with her relatives she meets her cousin Alec. She leaves the DUrbervilles home pregnant with Alecs baby and goes back to live with her parents. She gives birth to a baby boy and names him Sorrow who later becomes ill and dies. Three years later Tess falls in love with a man called Angel, they get married however Tess confesses to what happened with Alec and Angel leaves her. Tess meets Alec who is a supposed changed man and he has become a preacher. Tess tells him about Sorrow and he convinces Tess that Angel is never coming back and she goes back to live with him. After a few months living with Alec, Angel returns to find Tess and tell her he still loves her. Tess murders Alec and runs after Angel and they run away together, however not long after they are caught and Tess is hanged for the murder of Alec. The story starts off by introducing Tess whos living in Marlott with her family and going to market with her horse. They have an accident on the way there and the horse is killed. So Tess leaves her home and goes to find her family to borrow some money to help her family. In Chapter 14 Tess goes back to live with her family and is pregnant with Alecs baby who soon becomes ill and is dying. Tess doesnt want her child to die without being christened so she christens him herself (as the vicar refuses to christen him because he was born out of wedlock. and names him Sorrow. Sorrow dies that night and Tess buries him at night in a graveyard in Marlott. Thomas Hardy uses the setting to portray the feelings Tess has and the situation she is in. For example in the opening sentence of chapter 14 the scenery is described as a hazy sunrise in August. August is the season when all the plants begin to die and all leaves fall off the trees, also it is the season just before winter which is described as the most miserable season portraying that things to come are going to get worse for Tess. At the end of chapter 14 when Tess buries Sorrow in the churchyard that night. The darkness is another way of showing Tess feelings that her life is dark and empty now without her baby and she is ashamed but she has no reason to be. Also her burying her child at night shows Hardys feelings about the situation as that he disagrees with what Tess had to go through. Chapter 16 starts with Tess leaving her home to get away from her past and start a new life. Seasons are used again to show the feelings of Tess as spring after her winter. Spring is the season of new life and re-growth relating to the plants and animals. Spring after her winter suggests Tess is starting over again and her life is looking up compared for her past months which are described as her winter. However within the bright scenery there is what is described as a dark patch in the scenery where her useless ancestors were buried. This signifies the dark patch on her life that will always be there to remind her of what Alec did to her but she is moving on with her life. Chapters 43 and 47 are after Angel leaves her and she goes to work in Flintcomb Ash. This is a really low point in Tess life as the labour is hard and she is revisited by Alec. Alec finds out about there son Sorrow and is angry at first but invites Tess to come and live with him. Alec is a supposed changed man and is now a Preacher. He convinces Tess Angel is never coming back for her and so she goes to live with him. Thomas Hardys descriptions of the scenery around Tess and the way he portrays Tess feelings plays a major part in the novel piecing the story together and helping the reader really understand the story and relate to Tess. Hardy can also do this by using techniques such as pathetic fallacy and similes the weather intentness of youth gives life attacked takes it away. . Hardys descriptions also shows you how he felt about the way Tess was treated and how he feels about how life was back like how he disagrees with the way that women we treated and how they had no rights. This has a big effect on todays audience and also the audience of back when the novel was written. It would make the audience realise how unfair the way women were treated was and maybe make them think more about the rights women should have. For todays audience it makes you see how much society has changed and the views on women have improved and how both sexes are treated equally now in comparison with in the 1890s when the novel was published. I feel that without Hardys descriptions of setting the novel would not be interesting and as gripping and you wouldnt feel so close and involved with the characters. His descriptions really make the story more intense and interesting.

Profile of Charlton Heston, Gun Rights Movement Icon

Profile of Charlton Heston, Gun Rights Movement Icon As an actor, Charlton Heston appeared in some of the most notable films of his time. But he may best be remembered as the most visible president in the National Rifle Association’s history, guiding the gun lobbying group through a five-year period that saw gun rights take center stage in Washington, D.C. Along the way, his statements were responsible for igniting a phrase that would become a rallying cry for gun owners: â€Å"You can have my guns when you take them from my cold, dead hands.† Surprisingly, the man who hoisted a rifle above his head at the 2000 NRA Convention in defiance of the perceived anti-gun policies of Democrat presidential nominee Al Gore was once a staunch supporter of gun control legislation. Heston’s Support for Gun Control By the time President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in 1963, Charlton Heston had become a household name, starring as Moses in the 1956 film The Ten Commandments and as Judah Ben Hur in 1959’s Ben Hur. Heston campaigned for Kennedy in the 1960 presidential election and became critical of lax gun laws in the aftermath of Kennedy’s assassination. He joined fellow Hollywood stars Kirk Douglas, Gregory Peck, and James Stewart in support of the Gun Control Act of 1968, the most restrictive piece of gun legislation in more than 30 years. Appearing on ABC’s The Joey Bishop Show two weeks after U.S. Sen. Robert Kennedy was assassinated in 1968, Heston read from a prepared statement: â€Å"This bill is no mystery. Let’s be clear about it. Its purpose is simple and direct. It is not to deprive the sportsman of his hunting gun, the marksman of his target rifle, nor would it deny to any responsible citizen his constitutional right to own a firearm. It is to prevent the murder of Americans.† Later that year, actor-producer Tom Laughlin, chairman of the anti-gun group Ten Thousand Americans for Responsible Gun Control lamented in an edition of Film Television Daily that Hollywood stars had fallen from the gun control bandwagon, but listed Heston among a handful of diehard supporters who he said would stand by his side. Heston Changes Teams in the Gun Rights Debate Exactly when Heston changed his views on gun ownership is hard to pin down. In interviews after being elected president of the NRA, he was vague about his support of the 1968 Gun Control Act, saying only that he had made some â€Å"political mistakes.† Heston’s support for Republican politicians can be dated back as far as the 1980 election of Ronald Reagan. The two men shared many broad similarities: Hollywood A-Listers who supported Democrat Party policies early in their careers only to become stalwarts of the conservative movement. Reagan would later appoint Heston to co-chair a task force on arts and humanities. Over the next two decades, Heston became increasingly vocal in his support of conservative policies, in general, and on the Second Amendment, in particular. In 1997, Heston was elected to the NRA’s Board of Directors. One year later, he was elected president of the organization. Heston was vocally opposed to virtually any proposed measure of restricting gun ownership, from a mandatory five-day waiting period on handgun purchases to a limit of one gun purchase a month to mandatory trigger locks and the 1994 ban on assault weapons. â€Å"Teddy Roosevelt hunted in the last century with a semiautomatic rifle,† Heston once said in regards to proposals to ban semiautomatic firearms. â€Å"Most deer guns are semi-automatic. It’s become a demonized phrase. The media distorts that and the public ill understands it.† In 1997, he lambasted the National Press Club for the media’s role in the Assault Weapons Ban, saying reporters need to do their homework on semiautomatic weapons. In a speech to the club, he said: â€Å"For too long, you have swallowed manufactured statistics and fabricated technical support from anti-gun organizations that wouldnt know a semi-auto from a sharp stick. And it shows. You fall for it every time.† ‘From My Cold, Dead Hands’ During the height of the 2000 election season, Heston delivered a rousing speech at the NRA Convention in which he closed by invoking an old Second Amendment battle cry as he raised a vintage 1874 buffalo rifle over his head: â€Å"So, as we set out this year to defeat the divisive forces that would take freedom away, I want to say those fighting words for everyone within the sound of my voice to hear and to heed, and especially for you, (presidential candidate) Mr. (Al) Gore: From my cold, dead hands.’† The â€Å"cold, dead hands† saying did not originate with Heston. It had been around since the 1970s  when it was used as a slogan for literature and bumper stickers by gun rights activists. The slogan didn’t even originate with the NRA; it was first used by the Washington-based Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms. But Heston’s usage of those five words in 2000 made them iconic. Gun owners across the nation began using the slogan as a rallying cry, saying, â€Å"You can have my guns when you take them from my cold, dead hands.† Heston is often incorrectly attributed with coining the phrase. When he resigned from the NRA presidency in 2003 due to his declining health, he again raised the rifle over his head and repeated, â€Å"From my cold, dead hands.† The Death of an Icon Heston was diagnosed with prostate cancer in 1998, an illness he defeated. But a diagnosis of Alzheimer’s in 2003 would prove too much to overcome. He stepped down from his position as president of the NRA and died five years later, at the age of 84. At his death, he had appeared in more than 100 films. He and his wife, Lydia Clark, had been married 64 years. But Heston’s lasting legacy might be his five-year stint as president of the NRA. With the peak of his Hollywood career well behind him, Heston’s work with the NRA and his fierce pro-gun rights rhetoric earned him legendary status with a whole new generation.