The Horror of the Salem Witch Trials

The Horror of the Salem Witch Trials Delia Peterson Would you ever die for what you believe? In 1692, many people had no other choice but to do just that. The belief in magic and spells was introduced by Native American and African slaves in New England. Many who practiced this were accused of witchcraft. Salem, Massachusetts was the sight of many witch trials and perhaps the most well-known, but other villages held them too such as Andover, Massachusetts; Fairfield, Connecticut; and other places in New England (Historical Witches, n.p.). Historians have analyzed the accusations and hearings of the Salem Witch Trials, and have since observed possible causes of the hysteria. It all started when Betty Parris, the daughter of Puritan minister, Samuel Parris, and his niece, Abigail Williams, experimented with magic and witchcraft (Salem Witch, n.p.). They began twitching, screaming, and not speaking, so a doctor diagnosed the girls with being under the spell of a witch (Currie, 7-8). Samuel Parris pressured the girls to identify the perpetrator. They named Tituba, their slave, Sarah Good, and Sarah Osborn. The latter two, who were outcasts and did not attend church regularly, declared their innocence, but Good accused Osborn. Tituba originally pleaded innocent, but eventually told the officials of her dealings with the devil (Britannica School Salem witch, n.p.). What followed was a witch hunt, as the girls went on a spree of identifying witches, even pointing the finger at a former minister. Newly identified and confessed witches then turned around and named more witches. By the time the uproar had quieted down, 156 people sat in prison, charged as witches. Then trials were held by a panel of untrained judges, trying people who were forced to defend themselves without lawyers (Salem witch, n.p.). The trials took a year to complete, only stopping when accusations extended to well respected members of the community. The accused were convicted using spectral evidence, which is claims by victims that the defendants Satanic form attacked them. As, each witch testified, the victims seemed to have fits in the crowd, giving the judges enough evidence to believe that person is guilty (Britannica School Salem witch, n.p.). The judges also allowed a touch test, and if the accused persons touch stopped the victims contortions, their demonic presence was confirmed. Other forms of evidence was allowed such as examining people for witch marks and accepting gossip, hearsay, and stories (The Witchcraft, n.p.). If someone confessed (or confessed and named others), they were spared as it was thought they would receive their punishment from God. Those who declared their innocence did not have it so easy, becoming martyrs to their own sense of justice (Britannica School Salem witch, n.p.). It was thought a witch could not recite the Lords Prayer perfectly, yet an ex-minister did so but was still hanged. Using these methods, 19 people were hanged that year. An additional eight people died in prison, and one man was pressed to death by a heavy board. Over 200 townspeople were accused of being witches by the young girls between June and September of 1692. (Currie 37-38). When the accusations extended to his own wife, the governor stopped the trials and established a court that accepted only concrete evidence. There, the rest of the accused were pardoned by the governor (Britannica School Salem witch, n.p.). Historians have turned to many different reasons for so many people to believe the claims of the girls. Many believe that in transitioning from one governor to the next, Salem was in the midst of many social issues. The former governor had done nothing to stop the worsening of the hysteria, and while the new leader tried to step in and conduct fair trials, he unearthed a law causing the death penalty to be inflicted on those practicing witchcraft, a capital punishment. Betty Parriss involvement was attributed to her fear of having disobeyed the laws of her religion as her father was a minister (Salem Witch, n.p.). There is also a theory that ergotism was present in Salem during this time, and is what caused mass hysteria. Ergot grows on cereal grain, and in this case, it would have been rye which the people relied heavily on. It causes a poisoning that is most common in women and children (Ergotism, n.p.). One type of ergotism, or long term ergot poisoning causes hallucinations, delu sions, muscle contractions or convulsions, and shaking, all of which were reported in Salem. All the facts add up, and the weather at that time was warm and damp which is perfect for ergot to thrive (Ergot Theory, n.p.). There are many other theories, but no one knows for sure if any of them are the real cause of the frenzy. The accusations and trials have led to many theories about the possible reasons for the delusions in Salem around 1692. Many people wonder how the judges were able to convict so many without concrete evidence or why the governor did not stop it until it was too late. It has taught us a lot about our countrys history and about the many mistakes we made. Those trials led to the first amendment which is freedom of religion. Nowadays, the government cannot persecute anyone for what religion they practice or for what they believe. We need to respect others and their beliefs even if they are different from us. We know now that we should not be afraid to stand up for what we believe, and not conform to what society tells us because it is not always right. Work Cited Caporael, Linnda R. Ergotism: the Satan loosed in Salem. Science, 1976. science.sciencemag.org. 16 Jan. 2017. Carlson, Marc. Historical Witches and Witchtrials in North America. personal.utulsa.edu. Accessed 5 Jan. 2017. Currie, Stephen. The Salem Witch Trials. San Diego: KidHaven Press, 2002. K, Anna. Ergot Theory Could Clear Accused Witches. The Salem Journal: The Aftermath Witches Remise. 2012. people.ucls.uchicago.edu. Accessed 16 Jan. 2017. Salem Witchcraft Trials 1692. Famous American Trials. law2.umkc.edu. Accessed 16 Jan. 2017. Salem witch trials. Britannica School, Encyclopà ¦dia Britannica, 26 Jan. 2016. school.eb.com. Accessed 15 Jan. 2017. Salem Witch Trials. Research in Context, Gale, 2016. Research in Context, go.galegroup.com. Accessed 4 Nov. 2016.

Have Drugs Become Scapegoats In Wider Social Conflicts Criminology Essay

Have Drugs Become Scapegoats In Wider Social Conflicts Criminology Essay Across the world, many countries that experience issues like rising crime rates, domestic violence, unemployment, and even depression look for something to blame for these problems. Over the years there have been cases where authorities, in these countries, target illicit drugs and illegal use of pharmaceuticals as the cause of their problems. Because drug use causes such damage to addicts it easily becomes a scapegoat for wider social issues and conflicts between different racial, religious and national groups. USA In the United States, perhaps one of the most notorious examples of an illicit drug becoming a scapegoat was the situation with marijuana in the early 1900s. This stemmed back to the start of the 20th century when marijuana was mainly used by minority groups such as Mexican farm labourers, blacks from the southern states and Filipino immigrants. The 1910 Mexican revolution led to thousands of Mexicans fled to the US. The large wealthy farmers welcomed these people who were willing to work for low wages and local businesses made money because the migrants spent most of what they earned. (Marentes C Marentes C.P. 1996) However the townspeople and small farmers werent so happy about the immigration. Small family farmers were driven out of business because they couldnt compete with large farms that had cut their costs by paying cheap wages. Caught in the middle, the Mexican migrants became the focus for the economic conflict between business and labour. (Abel E L, 1980) The Mexicans use of marijuana was an easy target and racist politicians, in the farming areas, attacked the migrants as un-American and spread the myth that the use of marihuana caused insanity violence and crime. In 1911 the American consul in Mexico wrote a letter saying that marihuana causes the smoker to become exceedingly pugnacious and to run amuck without discrimination. (Richard J Bonnie, 1974, p.221) Journalists who wrote articles with shock headlines such as the Marijuana Menace and Killer Weed also encouraged these myths. Jerome L. Himmelstein argues that the Killer Weed image got created out of views that were held in society about the drugs original perceived users. Mexican labourers and other lower strata groups. These people were stereotyped as violent/enraged. This idea for marijuana continued until the user group changed during the 1960s, to the middle class youth. (Himmelstein, J.L., 1938, 7(1):35-62) In this way marijuana quickly became the popular scapegoat for the troubles of poverty, racism, and discrimination. The first states to outlaw the use of marijuana were the ones with large numbers of migrant workers from Mexico. California prohibited the possession of marijuana in 1907 and later included it in laws against hard narcotics, such as heroin and cocaine. In 1914, the town of El Paso outlawed the possession or sale of marihuana. The law wasnt really designed to protect the locals but rather as a way of making life more difficult for the foreigners who they resented. (Abel E L, 1980) In the 1960s marijuana again became the scapegoat for a social and cultural problem, this time between generations. During the sixties many young people rebelled against the lifestyle of their parents. They wore different clothes, grew their hair long and turned to different religions and radical politics. The older generation were shocked by the music they listened to, their sexual attitudes and their use of drugs such as LSD and marijuana. During this time the claim of marijuana as a Killer Weed was replaced by the opposite line of marijuana as a Drop Out Drug and in 1965, Time Magazine published an article saying that marijuana now affects users judgement and if used daily will dull a students initiative. (Time Magazine 1965, vol. 85: 49) Writing about this period in The Social Construction of Drug Scares Craig Reinarman says medical scientists were drawn into blaming drugs for the behaviour of youth because the dominant groups in society felt threatened by the younger generations rejection of conventional values. (Reinarman C (1994) 14:143) This rejection of authority came to head over the US war with North Vietnam. A large number of young Americans demonstrated against the war in Vietnam and this led to more conflict with the government authorities that wanted to neutralise the growing anti-war movement. The FBI often arrested protest leaders and activists on marijuana charges. In 1970, in response to what was seen as a growing drug problem, the US government passed the Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act. Ireland Over the last 30 years Dublin, in the Republic of Ireland, has experienced an epidemic of heroin usage, and the problem continues today. Heroin first began flooding into the northern and southern part of Dublin in the late 1970s and since then heroin has become symbolically associated with violent crime, public health problems, massive unemployment and urban decay. For nearly 40 years the use of heroin has been responsible for a lot of the petty crime in Dublin. Addicts are involved in muggings, robbery of houses and prostitution as try to get money to buy the drug. But as the use of heroin criminal gangs moved into Dublin and this led to more violent crime, including many murders, as they fought to control the drug trade. A lot of the crime was between gangs but many innocent people were caught in the crossfire the most well known was Veronica Guerin, a journalist who was investigating drug crime, who was shot by criminals while stopped at a traffic light. (Maggie OKane 2000) Ireland has seen a huge increase in the number of heroin related deaths over last 30 years. According to a report in the European Journal of Public Health this is most noticeable in younger age groups where, for example, it rose from less than 1% in 1980 to 23% of 1519 year old male deaths in 1997. Many heroin users in Dublin also die from diseases such as AIDS and hepatitis caused by sharing needles. (Kelleher M J A, Keown P J, OGara C, Keaney F, Farrell M and Strang J, 2003/2004, vol. 15(6), p.589-592) In the late nineties unemployment rates in the disadvantaged areas of Dublin were estimated to be between 33% and peak at 45%. (OGorman A Illicit Drug Use In Dublin) However, in some areas this rate was as high as 55% over three times the average for all of Ireland. Many of the people who turned to heroin in the eighties and nineties lived in run down flats and as they spent more money on heroin the areas became even more dirty and miserable. As a result, many people who had lived in these areas for years and who were the source of a sense of community, moved out to different parts of the city. Often the empty flats were then used for temporary housing of homeless people, making the problem even worse. (Loughran H and McCann M E 2007, Newsletter of the Alcohol and Drug Research Unit, Issue 21) In Dublin its clear that heroin use is closely tied to the citys problems with crime, public health, massive unemployment and run down housing. However the real problem affecting most heroin users in Ireland is extreme poverty. Last year Belfast Telegraph reported the level of persistent poverty in Northern Ireland children is more than double that of those in Great Britain and said that 20% of families in Northern Ireland experience persistent poverty compared to a 10% in Great Britain. (Belfast Telegraph, 2009) A study by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF) blamed high levels of unemployment, disability, lower wages and poor quality part-time jobs for the high levels of poverty. (Joseph Rowntree Foundation, 2009) Heroin addicts are the victims of this poverty and the use of the drug should not become the scapegoat for the problem. Poverty has been a major problem in Dublin for a long time. In the early 1900s its estimated that a quarter of families living in one room. (Lambert T, A Brief History of Dublin, Ireland) Heroin might be the thing that pushes people further into poverty but it wasnt the original cause of poverty in Ireland. Heroin is also not the reason for the high levels of disadvantage included the fact that 31% of the working age population isnt in paid work. Former Ireland international rugby player Gerry McLoughlin spoke out on the issues in Ireland saying the government had poor organisation in combating the drug epidemic. It seems to him that the real issue wasnt the Heroin, but abysmal efforts and moves made by Irelands government to fix issues of poverty, increasing crime and failing aid. All of which led to the drug usage. (Cusack J, 2008) There are all these people in quangos who are supposed to be dealing with this, but we can see nothing being done. There is no treatment or rehab centre in Limerick. We see all these people politicians included in their plush, posh offices doing nothing. They are out of touch with the suffering of people on the ground. (McLoughlin G and Cusack J, 2008) In the eyes of GARDAI (Garda Sochna na hireann Guardians of the Peace (of Ireland)) police, Heroin is seen as the drug of economic recession, as back in the 1980s, the drug took hold of the working class during economic failure. (Cusack J, 2008) Illicit drugs are a massive problem in many countries but in cases such as America and Ireland the use of drugs was made a scapegoat for social and cultural problems that had many other causes. References List Abel E L, (1980), Marijuana The First Twelve Thousand Years: Reefer Racism, Schaffer Library of Drug Policy, http://www.druglibrary.org/Schaffer/hemp/history/first12000/11.htm , Accessed 24 April 2010 Cusack Jim (2008). Gardai fear epidemic of heroin in rural areas, The Independant National News Himmelstein, J.L. (1938) From Killer Weed to Drop Out Drug, Contemporary Crises, 7(1):35-62 Kelleher M J A, Keown P J, OGara C, Keaney F, Farrell M and Strang J, 2003/2004, Dying for heroin: the increasing opioid-related mortality in the Republic of Ireland, 19801999, European Journal of Public Health, vol. 15(6), p.589-592 Lambert T, A Brief History of Dublin, Ireland, http://www.localhistories.org/dublin.html , Accessed 1 May 2010 Loughran H and McCann M E (2007) A community drugs study, Newsletter of the Alcohol and Drug Research Unit, Issue 21 Marentes C Marentes C.P., (1996) The first migrant workers http://www.farmworkers.org/immigrat.html Accessed 23 April 2010 New Policy Institute 2009 Monitoring poverty and social exclusion in Northern Ireland, Joseph Rowntree Foundation OGorman A, Illicit Drug Use In Dublin http://www.drugsandalcohol.ie/4272/1/791-0739.pdf , Accessed 29 April 2010 OKane M (2000), The woman who knew too much The Guardian, Reinarman C (1994) The Social Construction of Drug Scares, Wadsworth Publishing Co., Chpt. 14: p143 Richard J Bonnie, (1974), The marihuana conviction;: A history of marihuana prohibition in the United States, University Press of Virginia; 1st edition p.221 Time Magazine (1965) Education: The Pot Problem, Time vol. 85: 49

A Message of Awareness :: Essays Papers

A Message of Awareness James Joyce’s book Dubliners, is composed of several intriguing short stories. Joyce’s main emphasis is to send a â€Å"wake up call† to the people of Dublin about the appalling conditions of Ireland. In a letter to his publisher Joyce tells him that he â€Å"seriously [believes] that [the publisher] will retard the course of civilization in Ireland by preventing the Irish people from having one good look at themselves in my nicely polished looking-glass† (qtd. in Beja 33). Joyce proves his assertion through his use of characters and situations in the short stories â€Å"The Boarding House,† â€Å"A Little Cloud,† and â€Å"The Dead.† In addition, autonomy and responsibility play a major role of how the characters act and react to certain situations that connect to the hard times of Ireland. In Dubliners, characters often face situations that are portrayed as â€Å"light and dark.† In â€Å"The Boarding House,† Mrs. Mooney’s actions and interactions are primarily portrayed as being manipulative. She is a â€Å"dark† person and Joyce uses examples to support this. Joyce describes Mrs. Mooney as a person that is stern and is â€Å"all business.† Mrs. Mooney’s characteristics imply that she is someone to fear. In addition, Mrs. Mooney’s boarding house is run with much order. Joyce states that Mrs. Mooney â€Å"governed her house cunningly and firmly, knew when to give credit, when to be stern and when to let things pass,† which a viewer can acknowledge that Mrs. Mooney is a â€Å"dark† and fierce women when it comes down to taking actions on others (56). Furthermore, Mrs. Mooney has such a stern and superior control over the tenants that Joyce states that the â€Å"young men spoke of her as The madam,† which means a lady of respect (57). They know that Mrs. Mooney is one lady to be feared. In â€Å"The Boarding House,† Mr. Doran’s actions with Polly caused him to be fearful of Mrs. Mooney. Joyce explains how Mr. Doran’s feelings about receiving consequences from Mrs. Mooney are â€Å"dark.† Joyce exaggerates the depth of Mr. Doran’s nervousness towards receiving his sanctions were so fierce that â€Å"he felt his heart leap [†¦] in his throat† (61). Mr. Doran’s actions are so fearful that he acts as if he is being tried for murder. Mr. Doran’s fears of the consequences are so â€Å"dark† that He longed to ascend through the roof [of the Boarding House] and fly away to another country where he would never hear again of his trouble.

I Don’t Know What I Want to Do, but I Know that it has Nothing to Do wi

I Don’t Know What I Want to Do, but I Know that it has Nothing to Do with Medical School Ihave had three majors since I have been in college. Chemistry was my entering major, which I kept all of one semester. The one I kept the longest is math, which I had for three semesters. Now I am an anthropology major. This is my first semester with this major. In fact, I haven’t officially changed the major yet. In order to understand where I am in my life now, you must realize where I have been. In high school I was in the National Honors Society, I took AP classes, and was completely controlled by my family. They had put the idea in my head that money made people happy. I had to make a lot of it. I was pushed to decide what I wanted to do with my life early. To my family the obvious choice was for me to be a doctor. I went with it. All I wanted was for them to approve of me. My senior year I was taking AP physics and a chemistry course. I decided I liked chemistry, there was my major. It really didn’t matter what it was, I was pre-med., any science would do. Science? What was I thinking? I got to college and realized chemistry was not for me. I hated lab, the professors, for the most part, were mean, and I just didn’t want to be a doctor anymore. The slight separation that I had from my family made me realize I didn’t know what I wanted to do, but I knew that it was not medical school. Then came the freak out. What am I going to do with myself? Professional student sounded good to me. All I needed was something I could get good grades in without trying. Obviously math, since I never had to study for a math class in my life. I wasn’t just good at math, I WAS math. So I changed my major, thinking it was the best move ever. It... ...es, I want to travel, and I hate the nine to five lifestyle. My plan is to get my Ph.D. in archaeology and then become a college professor. I will dig in the summer and maybe teach a few field schools later on. Being a teacher is something I would like to do too. Now that I am in college I realize the best teachers are the ones that are a little bit crazy. I think that is so fitting for me. One of my professors now, Elise Brenner, is my idol. She is an archaeologist and a college professor. I learn so much in her class because she doesn’t do a straight lecture format, and she makes class enjoyable and memorable. I want to be to someone what she is to me, a role model. I may not have everything figured out yet, but I am on my way. I might not be rich a famous, but I will be happy. Someday you can visit me in my apartment in the city. That is, if I’m not in Africa. I Don’t Know What I Want to Do, but I Know that it has Nothing to Do wi I Don’t Know What I Want to Do, but I Know that it has Nothing to Do with Medical School Ihave had three majors since I have been in college. Chemistry was my entering major, which I kept all of one semester. The one I kept the longest is math, which I had for three semesters. Now I am an anthropology major. This is my first semester with this major. In fact, I haven’t officially changed the major yet. In order to understand where I am in my life now, you must realize where I have been. In high school I was in the National Honors Society, I took AP classes, and was completely controlled by my family. They had put the idea in my head that money made people happy. I had to make a lot of it. I was pushed to decide what I wanted to do with my life early. To my family the obvious choice was for me to be a doctor. I went with it. All I wanted was for them to approve of me. My senior year I was taking AP physics and a chemistry course. I decided I liked chemistry, there was my major. It really didn’t matter what it was, I was pre-med., any science would do. Science? What was I thinking? I got to college and realized chemistry was not for me. I hated lab, the professors, for the most part, were mean, and I just didn’t want to be a doctor anymore. The slight separation that I had from my family made me realize I didn’t know what I wanted to do, but I knew that it was not medical school. Then came the freak out. What am I going to do with myself? Professional student sounded good to me. All I needed was something I could get good grades in without trying. Obviously math, since I never had to study for a math class in my life. I wasn’t just good at math, I WAS math. So I changed my major, thinking it was the best move ever. It... ...es, I want to travel, and I hate the nine to five lifestyle. My plan is to get my Ph.D. in archaeology and then become a college professor. I will dig in the summer and maybe teach a few field schools later on. Being a teacher is something I would like to do too. Now that I am in college I realize the best teachers are the ones that are a little bit crazy. I think that is so fitting for me. One of my professors now, Elise Brenner, is my idol. She is an archaeologist and a college professor. I learn so much in her class because she doesn’t do a straight lecture format, and she makes class enjoyable and memorable. I want to be to someone what she is to me, a role model. I may not have everything figured out yet, but I am on my way. I might not be rich a famous, but I will be happy. Someday you can visit me in my apartment in the city. That is, if I’m not in Africa.

Comparing Suffering in Plaths Ariel, Stings, Lady Lazarus, Wintering,

Portrayal of Suffering in Plath's Ariel, Stings, Lady Lazarus, Wintering, and Fever 103 °Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Sylvia Plath's poems evoke the worst of subjective fallacies. Probably some of our charged reactions are symptomatic of the times and the culture; but more of them seem to stem from the always-too-easy identification between troubled poet and what might be the tone of imagery and rhythm of the poem considered. Because Plath worked so intensively in archetypal imagery (water, air, fire as bases for image patterns, for example), many of her poems could be read as either "dark" wasteland kinds of expressions, or as the reverse, as death-by-water, salvation poems--destruction implied, but also survived, phoenix-like. "Ariel," the title poem of the collection that made Plath known to the reading world so soon after her 1962 suicide, is a similarly ambiguous poem, rich in its image patterns of movement-stasis, light-dark, earth-fire. The progression in the poem is from the simply stated "Stasis in darkness," a negative condition as Plath indicates in the very similarly imaged poem "Years," to the ecstatic transformation-through-motion of the closing. That this is a poem about motion is clear from the second image, which seems to be a depiction of the faint light of morning ("substanceless blue pour of tor and distances") yet also stresses the movement of the image--pour, distances. The eye of the reader, like that of the poet, is on what is coming, and the scene that appears is always couched in imagery that includes motion words or impressions. Even the furrows of earth are moving ("splits and passes"). The antagonistic forces in the poem are those contrary to the motion that is so passionately evoked. Set against the unity of... ...e close of "Ariel" suggests the same benizon, "I / Am the arrow, // The dew that flies / Suicidal, at one with the drive / Into the red // Eye, the cauldron of morning." "Then to the elements be free" . . . "at one with the dew." Plath's drive to motion, that sheer impact of energy and force, beyond the "Dead hands, dead stringencies," is the power behind not only "Ariel" but also "Stings," "Lady Lazarus," "Wintering," and "Fever 103 °." That she, with Shakespeare, found such violence as the gale winds "auspicious" is an important index to these passionate and sometimes difficult poems, poems important enough to us that we must learn to read them with an insight closer to Plath's own emphasis, and to her equally personal thematic direction. Works Cited   Linda Wagner, "Plath's 'Ariel': 'Auspicious Gales,'" in Concerning Poetry, Vol. 10, No. 2, 1977, pp. 5-7.

The Accidental Tourist Essay

Life just is. You have to flow with it. Give yourself to the moment. Let it happen. † -Jerry Brown If an individual allows changes to occur in one’s life, then love can be the wonderful result of that acceptance. The theme of reasons why we love and how we love different people is demonstrated throughout the book The Accidental Tourist, written by Anne Tyler. There are two main characters that undergo and accept the changes in their lives, and one character that stays static throughout the book, helping one of the characters to change.Macon Leary is first grounded by loneliness and comfort, then slowly opens himself up to what appears to be a whole new world for him. Then, there is Sarah Leary, who controls some of the changes in her life, and tries to make the best of the rest of them. The character that remains the same throughout the book is Muriel Pritchett—a dog-trainer who takes an interest in Macon and helps him to accept the changes in his life. Above all, the universal theme of this book is love—a surprising new journey for all the characters.In the beginning of the book, it is explained how Macon and Sarah Leary’s son is murdered and how their marriage suffers because of this. Sarah leaves Macon, which is the beginning stage of Macon’s renovated life, but one that does not start off happily: â€Å"He didn’t eat real meals anymore†¦His hair, which Sarah used to cut for him, jutted over his forehead like a shelf. Ande something had caused his lower lids to droop. He used to have narrow gray slits of eyes; now they were wide and startled†¦Ã¢â‚¬  (14). Macon is not at all used to living alone.He wants to control everything and likes nothing to be left to chance—Sarah’s departure is not something he can control and he does not deal with it well. Macon begins to think that he cannot live without his wife, but soon realizes a few things that really make him think about the marriage: Hi s brain buzzed with little worries†¦The worries changed, grew deeper, he wondered what had gone wrong with his marriage. Sarah had been his first and only girlfriend; now he thought he should have practiced on someone else beforehand.During the twenty years of their marriage there’s been moments—there’s been months—when he didn’t feel they had really formed a unit the way couples were supposed to. No, the stayed two distinct people, and now always even friends. Sometimes they’d seemed more like rivals, elbowing each other, competing over who was the better style of person†¦ (15-16) Macon realizes that he and Sarah never actually became one person; they had always stayed as two separate people living in a stale, routine marriage. Finally, Macon comes to terms with the fact that Sarah is not coming home to him: â€Å"Well, of course she wasn’t there.He knew it the instant he stepped inside that house, when he smelled that sta le hot air and heard the muffled denseness of a place with every window shut. Really he’d known it all along. He’d been fooling himself. He’d been making up fairy tales† (41). Macon knew that when he got home from his business trip that Sarah would not be there waiting for him like she used to. Although he did not ask for this change in his life, and after living alone for a while, moves back with his sister and brothers—a comfortable change for him.This all begins to change when Macon meets an unusual woman working at the animal hospital where he takes his dog and becomes acquaintances with her. Muriel allows Macon to open up to her, and Macon shows his willingness to do so: ‘I lost my son,’ Macon said. ‘He was just†¦he went to a hamburger joint and then†¦someone came, a holdup man, and shot him. I can’t go to dinner with people! I can’t talk to their little boys! You have to stop asking me. I don’t mean to hurt your feelings but I’m just not up to this, do you hear? She took one of his wrists very gently and she drew him into the house, still not fully opening the door, so that he had a sense of slipping through something, of narrowly evading something. She closed the door behind him. She put her arms around him and hugged him. (189-190) At first, Macon does not give Muriel Pritchett a second thought, but before he knows it, he is dating her and soon living with Muriel and her young son. This shows a tremendous change for Macon, and a step forward in his life. Muriel helps Macon to see the world in a different way.She is the character that seems to know exactly what she is after in life, and therefore does not change during the course of this book. On the other hand, all Macon does throughout the book is change his life in extreme ways. Macon learns how to love and trust Muriel in a way that he never has with anyone. In an addition to Macon’s changing life, ther e is his wife, Sarah, who makes the decision to leave Macon a year after the death of their son. Sarah feels that Macon does not express his emotions as she would like him to, and that he does not provide her with the comfort she needs and has needed in the past.This frustrates Sarah greatly and she does not feel as if she can continue in the marriage: I said to you the other day, I said, ‘Macon, now that Ethan’s dead I sometimes wonder if there’s any point to life. ’ Do you remember what you answered? †¦ ’You said, ‘Honey, to tell the truth, it never seemed to me there was all that much point to begin with. ’ Those were your exact words†¦ ’You just go on your same old way like before. Your little routines and rituals, depressing habits, day after day. No comfort at all. ’†¦ ‘I just can’t live with you anymore,’ Sarah said. 3-4) Sarah is heart-broken with this decision, as is Macon, but s he is just not happy with her marriage. During Macon and Sarah’s separation, Sarah starts to move on and begins dating a man. Though she has an apartment of her own, which is what she wanted, Sarah realizes how much she truly loves and misses Macon, and makes a slight and almost unnoticeable attempt to get back together with him much later in the book during a conversation between her and Macon: ‘It [the rain] looks like strips that just fade away about halfway down from the sky. ’ ‘I wish I were there to watch it with you,’ Sarah said†¦ ‘Macon?Do you†¦What’s her name? The person you live with? ’ ‘Muriel,’ he said. Which he knew before she asked, he suspected. ‘Do you plan on staying with Muriel forever? ’ ‘I really couldn’t say,’ he said. (289-290) Sarah is now the one longing for Macon. Macon thinks that the only thing to do is go back to Sarah, since, after all, he had bee n longing to get her back for some time. Macon returns to his house with Sarah, leaving Muriel: â€Å"He rode on through the city, up Charles Street, into his old neighborhood. He parked and cut the engine and sat looking at the house.The downstairs windows were dark. The upstairs windows were softly glowing. Evidently, he had come home† (291). Macon is reluctant about coming home to Sarah, but in the back of his mind he still feels like he needs her because they shared so much of their lives together. Soon after, while Macon is on another business trip to Paris, his back goes out and Sarah flies in to take care of him. Things seem to be going well, but then Sarah sees Macon packing his things a few days later, which provides yet another change for Sarah, as well as Macon: Sarah said, ‘Macon? †¦ ‘What are you doing? ’ ‘I’m packing to leave. ’ ‘But what about your back? ’ she asked. ‘And I’ve got all those a ppointments! And we were going to take a second honeymoon! ’ ‘Sweetheart,’ he said. He lowered himself cautiously till he was sitting on the bed. He picked up her hand. It stayed lifeless while she watched his face. ‘You’re going back to that woman,’ she said. ‘Yes, I am,’ he said. ‘Why, Macon? ’ ‘I just decided, Sarah. I thought about it most of last night. It wasn’t easy. It’s not the easy way out, believe me. †¦ he saw now how such couples evolved. They were not, as he’d always supposed, the result of some ludicrous lack of perception, but had come together for reasons that the rest of the world would never guess. (339-340) Macon realizes that he is happier with Muriel, and although he does not want to cause Sarah pain, this time, it is Macon that is making a change that Sarah cannot help—instead of the other way around. Therefore, Sarah must accept these changes in her life, along with all the ups and downs.Finally, Muriel Pritchett is shown to be the one character that does not go through changes in the duration of the book, already having experienced major alterations in her earlier life. Muriel assures Macon of himself and makes Macon feel needed for the first time in a long time: â€Å"Macon presented himself in front of her, holding out the pizza. ‘Ta-da! ’ he whispered. She looked up at him and gave that perky smile of hers—an ornate, Victorian V. ‘Ma,’ she said, ‘I’m going now! Macon’s here! ’ It had been a long time since anyone made such an event of his arrival† (196).Macon shows that he is beginning to allow himself to care for Muriel, and to be happy with her and this change in his life—being needed. Later on, when Macon is at his sister’s house, he begins to actually miss Muriel: Macon laid the photos aside without looking at the rest of them. He knelt to pat Ed ward†¦Macon suddenly wished he were at Muriel’s. He wrapped his arms around Edward and imagined he smelled her sharp perfume deep in Edward's fur†¦ above all else he was an orderly man†¦ There was no room in his life for anyone as unpredictable as Muriel. Or as extreme.Or as†¦well, unlikable, sometimes†¦ Then he knew what mattered was the pattern of her life; that although he did not love her he loved the surprise of her, and also the surprise of himself when he was with her. (201) As much as Macon never thought he could care for Muriel, he finds himself almost loving her, and loving himself more whenever he is with her. He begins to enjoy his time with Muriel, and now moves with the flow of life, instead of life passing him by while he is still standing still. After Macon leaves Muriel to get back with Sarah, he finds that Muriel will not give up on him.She follows him to his business trip to Paris: â€Å"‘†¦why Muriel? Why are you doing this? ’ ‘Because I felt like it,’ she said. ‘You felt like spending five days alone in a Paris hotel? That’s what is will be, Muriel. ’ ‘You need to have me around,’ she said. ‘Need you! ’ ‘You were falling to pieces before you had me† (318). Muriel is very persistent—just like when she had been pursuing Macon; she refuses to give him up. In the end, Macon cannot refuse Muriel, and leaves Paris without Sarah. This shows Muriel to be a stagnant character in this book—with her unwillingness to give up and her belief in the goodness of people.In conclusion, Macon and Sarah prove to be the characters that undergo the most rapid changes, and Muriel remains static. Above all, Macon’s desire to control his own life in such a regimented way as packing for trips with a great notion of order is probably due to the fact that he does not trust other people. He feels that he cannot rely on others a nd instead can only trust himself. However, this all changes with the help of Muriel, who proves to be one of the most beneficial people to come into Macon’s life.Sarah learns the hard way that you cannot always go back to people and places in your life and try and fix things that are not worth fixing, or not capable of being salvaged. In this case, it was she and Macon’s marriage. Sometimes it is better to let go of the past and move on to the future. The main theme of this book is love, and it is substantiated by Macon’s capability to lose sight of his fear and love someone completely different from himself and all that he has known. All of this happened because of one individual’s acceptance of change and the flow of life. The Accidental Tourist Essay Life just is. You have to flow with it. Give yourself to the moment. Let it happen. † -Jerry Brown If an individual allows changes to occur in one’s life, then love can be the wonderful result of that acceptance. The theme of reasons why we love and how we love different people is demonstrated throughout the book The Accidental Tourist, written by Anne Tyler. There are two main characters that undergo and accept the changes in their lives, and one character that stays static throughout the book, helping one of the characters to change.Macon Leary is first grounded by loneliness and comfort, then slowly opens himself up to what appears to be a whole new world for him. Then, there is Sarah Leary, who controls some of the changes in her life, and tries to make the best of the rest of them. The character that remains the same throughout the book is Muriel Pritchett—a dog-trainer who takes an interest in Macon and helps him to accept the changes in his life. Above all, the universal theme of this book is love—a surprising new journey for all the characters.In the beginning of the book, it is explained how Macon and Sarah Leary’s son is murdered and how their marriage suffers because of this. Sarah leaves Macon, which is the beginning stage of Macon’s renovated life, but one that does not start off happily: â€Å"He didn’t eat real meals anymore†¦His hair, which Sarah used to cut for him, jutted over his forehead like a shelf. Ande something had caused his lower lids to droop. He used to have narrow gray slits of eyes; now they were wide and startled†¦Ã¢â‚¬  (14). Macon is not at all used to living alone.He wants to control everything and likes nothing to be left to chance—Sarah’s departure is not something he can control and he does not deal with it well. Macon begins to think that he cannot live without his wife, but soon realizes a few things that really make him think about the marriage: Hi s brain buzzed with little worries†¦The worries changed, grew deeper, he wondered what had gone wrong with his marriage. Sarah had been his first and only girlfriend; now he thought he should have practiced on someone else beforehand.During the twenty years of their marriage there’s been moments—there’s been months—when he didn’t feel they had really formed a unit the way couples were supposed to. No, the stayed two distinct people, and now always even friends. Sometimes they’d seemed more like rivals, elbowing each other, competing over who was the better style of person†¦ (15-16) Macon realizes that he and Sarah never actually became one person; they had always stayed as two separate people living in a stale, routine marriage. Finally, Macon comes to terms with the fact that Sarah is not coming home to him: â€Å"Well, of course she wasn’t there.He knew it the instant he stepped inside that house, when he smelled that sta le hot air and heard the muffled denseness of a place with every window shut. Really he’d known it all along. He’d been fooling himself. He’d been making up fairy tales† (41). Macon knew that when he got home from his business trip that Sarah would not be there waiting for him like she used to. Although he did not ask for this change in his life, and after living alone for a while, moves back with his sister and brothers—a comfortable change for him.This all begins to change when Macon meets an unusual woman working at the animal hospital where he takes his dog and becomes acquaintances with her. Muriel allows Macon to open up to her, and Macon shows his willingness to do so: ‘I lost my son,’ Macon said. ‘He was just†¦he went to a hamburger joint and then†¦someone came, a holdup man, and shot him. I can’t go to dinner with people! I can’t talk to their little boys! You have to stop asking me. I don’t mean to hurt your feelings but I’m just not up to this, do you hear? She took one of his wrists very gently and she drew him into the house, still not fully opening the door, so that he had a sense of slipping through something, of narrowly evading something. She closed the door behind him. She put her arms around him and hugged him. (189-190) At first, Macon does not give Muriel Pritchett a second thought, but before he knows it, he is dating her and soon living with Muriel and her young son. This shows a tremendous change for Macon, and a step forward in his life. Muriel helps Macon to see the world in a different way.She is the character that seems to know exactly what she is after in life, and therefore does not change during the course of this book. On the other hand, all Macon does throughout the book is change his life in extreme ways. Macon learns how to love and trust Muriel in a way that he never has with anyone. In an addition to Macon’s changing life, ther e is his wife, Sarah, who makes the decision to leave Macon a year after the death of their son. Sarah feels that Macon does not express his emotions as she would like him to, and that he does not provide her with the comfort she needs and has needed in the past.This frustrates Sarah greatly and she does not feel as if she can continue in the marriage: I said to you the other day, I said, ‘Macon, now that Ethan’s dead I sometimes wonder if there’s any point to life. ’ Do you remember what you answered? †¦ ’You said, ‘Honey, to tell the truth, it never seemed to me there was all that much point to begin with. ’ Those were your exact words†¦ ’You just go on your same old way like before. Your little routines and rituals, depressing habits, day after day. No comfort at all. ’†¦ ‘I just can’t live with you anymore,’ Sarah said. 3-4) Sarah is heart-broken with this decision, as is Macon, but s he is just not happy with her marriage. During Macon and Sarah’s separation, Sarah starts to move on and begins dating a man. Though she has an apartment of her own, which is what she wanted, Sarah realizes how much she truly loves and misses Macon, and makes a slight and almost unnoticeable attempt to get back together with him much later in the book during a conversation between her and Macon: ‘It [the rain] looks like strips that just fade away about halfway down from the sky. ’ ‘I wish I were there to watch it with you,’ Sarah said†¦ ‘Macon?Do you†¦What’s her name? The person you live with? ’ ‘Muriel,’ he said. Which he knew before she asked, he suspected. ‘Do you plan on staying with Muriel forever? ’ ‘I really couldn’t say,’ he said. (289-290) Sarah is now the one longing for Macon. Macon thinks that the only thing to do is go back to Sarah, since, after all, he had bee n longing to get her back for some time. Macon returns to his house with Sarah, leaving Muriel: â€Å"He rode on through the city, up Charles Street, into his old neighborhood. He parked and cut the engine and sat looking at the house.The downstairs windows were dark. The upstairs windows were softly glowing. Evidently, he had come home† (291). Macon is reluctant about coming home to Sarah, but in the back of his mind he still feels like he needs her because they shared so much of their lives together. Soon after, while Macon is on another business trip to Paris, his back goes out and Sarah flies in to take care of him. Things seem to be going well, but then Sarah sees Macon packing his things a few days later, which provides yet another change for Sarah, as well as Macon: Sarah said, ‘Macon? †¦ ‘What are you doing? ’ ‘I’m packing to leave. ’ ‘But what about your back? ’ she asked. ‘And I’ve got all those a ppointments! And we were going to take a second honeymoon! ’ ‘Sweetheart,’ he said. He lowered himself cautiously till he was sitting on the bed. He picked up her hand. It stayed lifeless while she watched his face. ‘You’re going back to that woman,’ she said. ‘Yes, I am,’ he said. ‘Why, Macon? ’ ‘I just decided, Sarah. I thought about it most of last night. It wasn’t easy. It’s not the easy way out, believe me. †¦ he saw now how such couples evolved. They were not, as he’d always supposed, the result of some ludicrous lack of perception, but had come together for reasons that the rest of the world would never guess. (339-340) Macon realizes that he is happier with Muriel, and although he does not want to cause Sarah pain, this time, it is Macon that is making a change that Sarah cannot help—instead of the other way around. Therefore, Sarah must accept these changes in her life, along with all the ups and downs.Finally, Muriel Pritchett is shown to be the one character that does not go through changes in the duration of the book, already having experienced major alterations in her earlier life. Muriel assures Macon of himself and makes Macon feel needed for the first time in a long time: â€Å"Macon presented himself in front of her, holding out the pizza. ‘Ta-da! ’ he whispered. She looked up at him and gave that perky smile of hers—an ornate, Victorian V. ‘Ma,’ she said, ‘I’m going now! Macon’s here! ’ It had been a long time since anyone made such an event of his arrival† (196).Macon shows that he is beginning to allow himself to care for Muriel, and to be happy with her and this change in his life—being needed. Later on, when Macon is at his sister’s house, he begins to actually miss Muriel: Macon laid the photos aside without looking at the rest of them. He knelt to pat Ed ward†¦Macon suddenly wished he were at Muriel’s. He wrapped his arms around Edward and imagined he smelled her sharp perfume deep in Edward's fur†¦ above all else he was an orderly man†¦ There was no room in his life for anyone as unpredictable as Muriel. Or as extreme.Or as†¦well, unlikable, sometimes†¦ Then he knew what mattered was the pattern of her life; that although he did not love her he loved the surprise of her, and also the surprise of himself when he was with her. (201) As much as Macon never thought he could care for Muriel, he finds himself almost loving her, and loving himself more whenever he is with her. He begins to enjoy his time with Muriel, and now moves with the flow of life, instead of life passing him by while he is still standing still. After Macon leaves Muriel to get back with Sarah, he finds that Muriel will not give up on him.She follows him to his business trip to Paris: â€Å"‘†¦why Muriel? Why are you doing this? ’ ‘Because I felt like it,’ she said. ‘You felt like spending five days alone in a Paris hotel? That’s what is will be, Muriel. ’ ‘You need to have me around,’ she said. ‘Need you! ’ ‘You were falling to pieces before you had me† (318). Muriel is very persistent—just like when she had been pursuing Macon; she refuses to give him up. In the end, Macon cannot refuse Muriel, and leaves Paris without Sarah. This shows Muriel to be a stagnant character in this book—with her unwillingness to give up and her belief in the goodness of people.In conclusion, Macon and Sarah prove to be the characters that undergo the most rapid changes, and Muriel remains static. Above all, Macon’s desire to control his own life in such a regimented way as packing for trips with a great notion of order is probably due to the fact that he does not trust other people. He feels that he cannot rely on others a nd instead can only trust himself. However, this all changes with the help of Muriel, who proves to be one of the most beneficial people to come into Macon’s life.Sarah learns the hard way that you cannot always go back to people and places in your life and try and fix things that are not worth fixing, or not capable of being salvaged. In this case, it was she and Macon’s marriage. Sometimes it is better to let go of the past and move on to the future. The main theme of this book is love, and it is substantiated by Macon’s capability to lose sight of his fear and love someone completely different from himself and all that he has known. All of this happened because of one individual’s acceptance of change and the flow of life.

Cusick and Her Lesbian Relationship with Music Essay

In the essay â€Å"On a Lesbian Relationship with Music: A Serious Effort Not to Think Straight† by Suzanne G. Cusick, she brings up an interesting topic about the connection between her being a lesbian and her being a musician, a musicologist, if there exists any. I’m especially interested in the â€Å"power system† and the link between musicality and lesbianism she mentions in this article. Here, I’ll try to analysis them in detail and relate them with other issues in music and sexuality, exploring them in a more general picture. Cusick redefines the concept of sexuality in her essay, as the way of â€Å"expressing and/or enacting relationships of intimacy through physical pleasure shared, accepted, or given.† According to her, this process of expressing and enacting can also be found in our musical activities, where the circulation of physical pleasure can be experienced as well. Thus, she says that our musicalities and our sexualities are â€Å"psychically next-door neighbors.† (70) I need to claim that this idea of her amazes me. From my previous musical experience, I’m pretty sure that music is a subject highly intimate for me. For instance, I usually have reluctance when I’m asked to sing or perform a song written by myself, even if I think it is a brilliant one. And this won’t happen if the song is someone else’s. In my opinion, music, especially my own music which I’m personally attached to, is an expression of my true self, and that identity and personal characteristics contained in it makes it so special that I won’t be willing to share it with others, unless it’s someone really close to me. Another fact that I think will support Cusick’s idea is that different people always have different opinions towards the same piece of music. No matter how the composer perceives it, the listener usually has the tendency to relate it to his/her own personal experiences, which differ from person to person. It is reasonable to think that music is a symbol of someone’s personalities and characteristics, because of the intimacy the music creates. Therefore, I believe that there exists a connection between the musicality and the sexuality of a certain person, since both of them are revelations of his/her true identity, and we can examine our own behaviors on both of them. In other words, these two factors are connected because of the person who they belong to, and they are contained in the system of his/her perspectives. Cusick also explains in her article what does it mean to be a â€Å"lesbian† and how to define sexuality, which are essential questions if we want to relate it to music. From her point of view, the essence of one’s sexuality and the element of all relationships is the power system. An example that can explain this is what musicologists say about the masculinity in Beethoven. In Susan McClary’s opinion, there exist musical constructions of gender and sexuality. She regards the field of music and musicology as male-dominated, since the masculine norm and the distinction between genders are deeply rooted in music, such as masculine and feminine cadences, rhythms, gendered major and minor triads, etc. (7) She also analyzes Beethoven’s music, which to her contains â€Å"pounding†, â€Å"thrusting† gestures that represent masculinity. (75) On the contrary, in Sanna Pederson’s article â€Å"Beethoven and Masculinity,† she redefines the concept of masculinity and the link between it with Beethoven. She states that we can find an alternative approach, arguing that we regard Beethoven as symbol of masculinity because of the overwhelming idea that viewing woman as â€Å"as unchanging, eternal essence, as the opposite of the dynamically striving and achieving man.† (326) Matthew Head also approaches this from another perspective by examining the heroic in Beethoven’s works, finding many cross-dressed he roines. (132) It’s notable that although there is importance put on female characters, women usually need to conceal their sexuality and transgress the gendered norms in order to serve as the epitomes in the aesthetic sphere. This shows that, no matter what kind of connection there exists between Beethoven and masculinity, there does exist a power system that emphasis on the inequality between men and women, where women as less – worth less, power less – man, in both our society and in music. Whichever argument we believe, we should admit the extensive presence of the power system in our society, and in practice, it can be found both in music and in many relationships between people, especially heterosexual ones. The most significant point of view of her in this essay, I think, is that she believes being a lesbian is an escape from this power system: As a woman, as a non-dominating and non-power woman who loves another woman in her relationship, the flow of power can exist in both directions, as opposed to a heterosexual relationship where a man typically plays the dominating and powerful part. And Cusick believes that this is the beauty of a lesbian relationship: it’s about â€Å"organizing the force field of power, pleasure, and intimacy that refuses the simple binary opposition male and female†. The lack of opposition creates a world that scrambles the usual components of â€Å"man† and â€Å"woman†, and a world â€Å"free of fixed categories.† (73) This reminds me of the documentary â€Å"Paris is Burning†, which stunned me with its idea of celebrations of a powerful expression of personalities, without any restriction of boundaries. There, what matters is the personal prides, which are fully showed in the â€Å"drag nights† in New York. Cusick further explains the elements in a lesbian relationship as the â€Å"power/pleasure/intimacy† triad. (71) From my understanding, this is indeed an appropriate way to observe a relationship. As I mentioned before, power is an important factor that circulates within the relationship. What’s more, pleasure and intimacy are objectives that we usually want to achieve when we are involved someone we love, and thus they are essential bolsters of a relationship. As Cusick says, this triad can be experienced more freely in lesbian relationships, because without the power flowing only in one direction, the equality and balance between the two lovers can give them more intimacy and pleasure, both physically and psychically, from their relationship. Hence, in Cusick’s article, being a lesbian is not merely a sexual orientation; it is also the way one prefers to behave, to organize the relationship to the world in a â€Å"power/pleasure/intimacy† triad. It’s a way of refusing, breaking, and creating, and to cope with the world in a way that she prefers. And these behaviors can also be detected in a person’s musicality, which is also built in his/he r identity. More interestingly, Cusick talks about the â€Å"lesbian relationship† she has with music. She treats music as a woman, and a woman that can be a lover, and also the beloved – as in a lesbian relationship where the power circulates both ways and cross without boundaries. (78) In the article â€Å"Musicality, Essentialism, and the Closet† written by Philip Brett, he also discusses music be perceived as feminine. Brett says that in history, music has often been considered a dangerous substance, â€Å"an agent of moral ambiguity always in dander of bestowing deviant status upon its practitioners.† (11) By describing music as a woman that â€Å"ravish† our sense or our soul, people from the medieval and early modern times let us see how close music and sexuality can be. This also makes Cusick’s treating music as a female lover more sensible. Another idea of her that interests me is that she thinks her choice of music can reflects her sexuality. She says that her love for hidden relationships and the tension between the ostensible structure, which represents the tension between a social norm and â€Å"a very high degree of eccentricity,† suggests her escape from the power system. Also, she dis-prefers music hat upset this power equilibrium. (77) She explains this by saying that her â€Å"lesbian self† let her prefer certain kinds of music and reject some other kinds. This makes me think about in general, how people’s choices of music reflect their sexuality and identity, and to what degree. I agree that the choices of music can reflect that person’s personality to some extent, but I also believe that the music he/she listens can shape that person into the qualities and personalities that the music wants him/her to have. The same as Cusick’s relationship with her music, there is a counter -influence here as well. Rentfrow and Gosling found in their research that people’s music preferences are related to a wide array of personality dimensions and self-views. If the links between music preferences and personality do exist, we can easily infer that our choices of music reflect our identity, which also links to our sexuality. Besides, we can always see the influences of music on people. It has been shown by Frederick H. Martens that music exerts its collective influence in the course of history. He also says that as an individual influence, music is one of the factors in the life of kings and rulers, which also â€Å"has exerted a more or less direct influence on the destinies of countries and peoples.† We can see clearly from his article that music can significantly affect one’s views and thoughts on this world, therefore it is an important element in directing people’s personality and characteristics. Hence, the relationship between a person and the music he/she listens is a mutual one. People’s preference of music decides the music they choose, and what they choose can reversely change them as well, directing them into the qualities that can be defined through that music. This can also illustrate Cusick’s point that her relationship with music is about the power dynamic that circulates both ways between music and her, and this relationship highly resembles the one between lesbian lovers. Thus, the link between music and sexuality is obvious. Furthermore, I’m wondering about how the connection between identity and sexuality works in other subjects and fields of study. Cusick says in her article that she does not address the texts of music because she thinks that they tend to trick us into staying in a â€Å"power-over paradigm that is mighty close to the regime of compulsory heterosexuality.† Personally, I don’t entirely agree with her on this. In my opinion, other subjects such as literature and art can also illustrate one’s identity, thus they can represent people’s qualities through the â€Å"â€Å"power/pleasure/intimacy† triad as well, and so does texts in music . The reason why Cusick thinks that focusing on texts can deviates us is that her love and professional interests in music leave her only looking at music as an intimate lover. But for people from other fields and domains, their subjects can be treated as lovers and beloved as well. For example, it is reasonable to imagine a poet feels extreme intimacy in his relationship with poems. Cusick mentioned by herself in the notes that she can also find tremendous joy from cooking, and she loves to peel fruits and vegetables without a knife, because she believes it will create wholly pleasurable experiences. (83) I would not say Cusick is also in love with vegetables, but what she says can suggest that pleasure and intimacy do not solely exist between people and music. As Pygmalion can fall in love with the statue he carved, why can’t a songwriter build a romantic tie with the texts of music he wrote? In other words, as long as we have passion, the relationship between people and his/her subject of study can be developed in any area, within which we can find its connection with sexuality. This essay of Cusick is not very long, but the notions it contains, I believe, are really valuable sources of thoughts if we want to explore the relationship between music and sexuality, especially when we want to discover it from a perspective about our own identity and personal characteristics. Cusick has nicely shown that the boundary between music and sex can be a blurred one, where both are means of negotiating power and intimacy through the circulation of pleasure. Here, the most important is the people that involves both with music and with sex, intimately experiencing them and wholly mingling with them. As Cusick says, what really matters is neither music nor sex, but â€Å"the transcendent joy of being alive, not dead, and aware of the existence.† (69) Works Cited: Brett, Philip, Elizabeth Wood, and Gary Thomas. Queering the Pitch : the New Gay and Lesbian Musicology. 2nd ed. New York: Routledge, 2006. McClary, Susan. Reading Music : Selected Essays. Aldershot, England: Ashgate, 2007. McClary, Susan. Feminine Endings : Music, Gender, and Sexuality. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1991. Rentfrow, Peter J, and Samuel D Gosling. â€Å"The do re miÊ ¼s of everyday life: the structure and personality correlates of music preferences.† Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 84.6 (2003) : 1236-1256. Frederick H. Martens. The Musical Quarterly, Vol. 11, No. 2 (Apr., 1925), pp. 196-218 Burnham, Scott G, and Michael P Steinberg. Beethoven and His World. Princeton [N.J.]: Princeton University Press, 2000. Head, Matthew. â€Å"Beethoven Heroine: A Female Allegory of Music and Authorship in Egmont.† 19th-Century Music 30 (2006-07), 97-132.