FREEDOM Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

FREEDOM - Essay Example In his work, â€Å"The Story of American Freedom,† Foner traces the idea of freedom in the United States from the past to the present and illustrates the different meanings that it has taken in its transformation to the present day concept. The concept of freedom has evolved during the 18th and 19th centuries, and in the modern context, freedom can be perceived as the universal right of equality to all human beings, irrespective of their race, color, gender or sexual orientation. Freedom is the birth right, but to the Americans it was bought about by the Civil War. Foner says that other people also value freedom, but the idea is having more prominence in the public and private discourse in the United States than any other country. In the past, the idea of liberty was something between the natural liberty and the moral liberty. People considered liberty as the freedom to do only what is good. By the eighteenth century this concept was changed in the Atlantic world. Thus, the id ea of freedom evolved to the concept that if religious liberty means obedience to God, civil liberty meant the obedience to law.

How Pa Chin's novel Family reflects the tensions withtin chinese Term Paper

How Pa Chin's novel Family reflects the tensions withtin chinese society and within the chinese family - Term Paper Example This book will be of interest to all who are interested in the society and history of modern China. Family is the story of the Kao family which consists of four generations. The story takes place in Chengtu, a large city in the province of Szechwan. The novel’s principal characters are the three brothers, Chueh-hsin, Chueh-min and Chueh-hui. The brothers live with their uncles and aunts, cousins and their grandfather, the Venerable Master Kao, in their family estate. It is the Venerable Master Kao who is the autocrat in the family, in control of all family affairs, unable and unwilling to admit that his country and his family are changing with time. Chueh-hsin, the eldest and the meekest of the three brothers, takes over the responsibility of his younger brothers after the death of their father. Chueh-hsin is supposedly responsible for his brothers, but as the novel progresses we come to know how much or rather how little control he has over them. He is married against his wishes to a woman chosen by his family. He is doing a job he hates, this too being chosen by his famil y. He is shown navigating through life using his "compliant bow" philosophy which to him means that he should not oppose the elders of the family under any circumstance. Chueh-min, the second brother, is determined to marry the girl he loves in spite of his familys opposition. The youngest brother, Chueh-hui, hates everything the family represents and is trying hard to break the fetters and live life according to his wishes. Each brother is facing challenges at home, a home characterized by archaic morality and hierarchical dependence that was typical of those days. The brothers are caught in between the old system and their desire for a new system. The book records the daily lives of the Kao family. The situations that are described, unique as they may be to that time, are similar to many circumstances of todays world, such as the