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Example research essay topic: Personal And National Paternalism In Barbara Kingsolver Novels - 1,592 words

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... cars comment about how the United States won't give them financial aid, even though the United States is certainly rich enough to give a sizable portion to the Congo. To Kingsolver, neglect is a main part of the paternalism of both individuals and the United States government. The most conspicuous feature of Kingsolver's paternal figures is a propensity to abuse the "daughter" figure. In The Bean Trees, Jolene Hardbine, nee Shanks, tells her history of paternal abuse to Taylor.

Her father had started calling her a slut at the age of thirteen, which led her to become promiscuous. When she became pregnant with Newt Hardbine's child, she was forced to quit school and move in with the Hardbine's. Newt's father had a history of abusing Newt, and soon started beating Jolene, and later, their child. Fed up with his life, Newt shoots his wife, then himself. He dies, but Jolene survives, bewildered as to what to do now. Her troubles, Kingsolver implies, are all due to her father figures' abuse.

Later in The Bean Trees, a Cherokee woman gives Taylor a small child (Turtle) to take care of in her stead. When Taylor is about to give the girl a bath, she discovers "bruises and worse" (BT 31) -- in other words, signs of sexual molestation. It is not clear who the molester is, but a social worker tells Taylor that the molester is probably a male relative. The early abuse puts a shadow on Turtle's life -- even after three years of living with Taylor she demonstrates deep insecurities, such as hiding in the bathtub when she gets upset. When she meets her grandfather for the first time, she tells Taylor, "He's the good one. Pop -pop.

He's not the bad one. " (PH, 411). It can be inferred from this that Turtle's molester was most likely her biological father. However, paternal abuse in Kingsolver's work is not limited to physical abuse. In The Poisonwood Bible Reverend Price's behavior towards his daughters is a veritable A to Z of paternalistic non- sexual abuse.

At the start of the novel, Leah tells how Rachel, her fifteen year old sister, was whipped by her father whenever she dared to wear her bubblegum-pink nail polish, which the Reverend Price regarded as a warning sign of prostitution. The Reverend also made fun of his daughter Adah's reading books and writing in her diaries backwards (a symptom of her hemiplegia). If one of his daughters were to ever disobey him in any way, he would give them the punishment known as "The Verse", as explained by Adah: The dreaded Verse is our household punishment. Other lucky children might merely be thrashed for their sins, but we Price girls are castigated with the Holy Bible. The Reverend will level his gaze and declare "You have The Verse. " Then slowly, as we squirm on his hook, he writes on a paper, for example, Jeremiah 48: 18. Then [... ] you, poor sinner, must labor with a pencil in your good left hand to copy out Jeremiah 48: 18 [... ] and additionally, the ninety-nine verses that follow it.

One hundred verses exactly copied out in longhand, because it is the final one that reveals your crime [... ] does he [Reverend Price] sit up nights searching out a Verse for every potential infraction, and store this ammunition at the ready for his daughters? (PB 59 - 60) Thus, Reverend Price's punishment is an assertion of his domination over his offspring. Since most types of abuse -- sexual, physical, etc. -- are based upon the abuser trying to establish power over another person, "The Verse" could be classified as a rather sadistic form of intellectual abuse. Possibly the Reverend even relishes seeing his daughters squirm 8221 ' 94 as he demonstrates his complete, almost God-like power over their lives. His self -personification of God eventually results in his daughters estranging themselves from organized religion, as they try to wash out images of a mercurial and vengeful God from their minds. Reverend Price's abuse could also be a factor in Rachel's inability to stay married to one man for long and Adah's scorn of intimacy.

As demonstrated, abuse is a common factor in the paternalism of Kingsolver's individual fathers. In Kingsolver's view, international relations is also an area where abuse is a prevalent manifestation of paternalism. In Pigs in Heaven, the past relationship between the Cherokee Nation and the United States of America is discussed between Cherokees and whites. During the early nineteenth century, the Cherokees had tried to adapt to white culture. They started schools that taught in both English and Cherokee, developed a writing system for their language, began to introduce the concept of individual land ownership -- some of them even converted to Christianity and / or owned slaves. This wasn't good enough for their white neighbors, who wanted an end to the Cherokee Nation while simultaneously denying Native Americans state and U.

S. citizenship. In 1838, the government forcibly marched the entire Cherokee Nation, in the dead of winter, from their ancestral lands in Georgia, Tennessee, and North Carolina, to Oklahoma (which the whites thought of as a wasteland). Over five thousand Cherokees died on the Trail of Tears.

However, by the late 1800 s, the Cherokees, free from white interference, had the highest literacy rate in the country, the first free public school system in the world, and the first telephones west of the Mississippi. Then the railroad came, and the whites realized that Oklahoma was actually a desirable piece of real estate. In four years the tribal government was dissolved and Cherokee children were forced into government-run boarding schools. There they lost contact with their families and their culture, and many of them, fitting in neither in Cherokee nor white society, started living lives of self-destruction. As late as 1978, when the Indian Child Welfare Act was put into effect, social workers were authorized to tear Cherokee children away from the custody of a non-nuclear family member and have them adopted by a white family thousands of miles away from home. Now, the fabric of Cherokee society has been ripped apart repeatedly by the "Great White Father", and the remaining tribe members are trying to mend it.

Another indigenous culture Kingsolver shows the United States abusing in a paternalistic capacity is the Congolese people. In 1960, the Congo held its first presidential election under the supervision of the Belgians, their former colonial overlords who had enslaved the Congolese, putting them onto plantations to work and cutting off their hands if they tried to strike. The Congo elected Patrice Lumumba, the articulate, charismatic prime minister under the provisional government, and hoped for a better future. However, when the United States did not send promised aid to Congo, Lumumba threatened to ask the Soviet Union for help. It soon became apparent that Lumumba was not going to arbitrarily acquiesce to the United States' wishes, but would actually work for the well-being of his countrymen and eventually all Africans. The United States government, which had hoped for a submissive ally in Lumumba, ordered action against him.

The CIA led a coup to depose Lumumba, killed him on January 17, 1961, and installed as president Joseph Mobutu, described by Lumumba supporter Anatole as "the bride of many white men." (PB 456) Under Mobutu, democracy and free speech are nonexistent, civil servants are rarely paid, and poverty is rampant in the cities. While the average citizen of Congo (now Zaire) barely has enough to eat, Mobutu has a presidential palace and villas in Europe. Even though Congo is rich in mineral resources, such as diamonds and ores, Mobutu's spending and various schemes cooked up by the West have given the nation a debt that cannot be repaid, and thus have ensured that Congo/Zaire will forever be a tool of the West. In Kingsolver's view, the United States, as a "father / husband " nation, has raped Congo, the "daughter / wife " nation, repeatedly and stolen "her" autonomy. In both personal and international relationships, abuse is a major component of paternalism in Kingsolver's work. By giving both relationships similar characteristics, Barbara Kingsolver's work shows many parallels between dysfunctional father-daughter relationships and the relationships between the United States and various indigenous cultures.

In doing so, she heaps scorn, anger, and blame on both America and its primary rulers -- white American males. Her fixation on "the Man" makes it tempting to analyze Kingsolver's oeuvre in order to prove that her father was distant, abusive, or both. Ironically, this isn't the case. In the preface to The Poisonwood Bible, she thanks her parents "for being different in every way from the parents I created for the narrators of this tale. " (PB, x) and claims on her web site that she doesn't use real people as the models for her characters. Also, her biography shows no record of her being discriminated against by American culture and she isn't part of a minority group. It would be interesting to see where her fascination with the various aspects of negative paternalism was born.

Pigs In Heaven is the sequel to The Bean Trees. Taylor Greer and Turtle are main characters in both novels. Works Cited Kingsolver, Barbara. Animal Dreams. New York: Harper, 1990. - - -. The Bean Trees.

New York: Harper, 1988. - - -. Pigs In Heaven. New York: Harper, 1993. - - -. The Poisonwood Bible. New York: Harper, 1998. Barbara Kingsolver Home Page. 10 January 2001.

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Research essay sample on Personal And National Paternalism In Barbara Kingsolver Novels

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