The Post Civil War South Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

The Post Civil War South - Essay Example African-Americans and poor whites living in the South were denied land and the economic stability that it could provide. After the Civil War, the unfulfilled promises of freedom and independence vaporized into a quasi-slavery system of sharecropping and paupers wages instead of the dream of land ownership and true independence. In the agricultural South, any advancement towards freedom, equality, and civil rights would need to be accompanied by the real opportunity to own land. Land was not simply the security of what it could produce. In the South, land was a symbol of unfulfilled dreams, an expression of cultural independence, and a meaningful representation of real social capital. The plantation system of production that proliferated in the South in the 18th and 19th centuries placed land as a currency. Landowners that were able to produce cotton could have lines of credit and assure themselves a steady income. Without land ownership they were nothing. Almost all social status was obtained and measured from the number of acres anyone owned. The adoption of the factor system by the cotton plantations in the South left little for the planters and less for the workers and slaves. Still, planters would be driven to expand and the "impulse to enlarge his undertakings had become deep rooted and was apparently irresistible. There was a sort of atmospheric psychology in the situation that seemed to make a man forever dissatisfied with stagnated sufficiency" (Stone, 1915, p.562-563). In the South, the question of status was not what you did, but rather how many acres you owned. The Ante-bellum South also produced a paradox of ambivalence towards the ownership of land. While it was clearly understood that land was a significant measure of a man's social and material worth, those that were denied its use also decried land ownership. Religious beliefs in the South were initially evolved from a concept of land as a shared resource. Goldsmith (1988, p.392) states, "land, previously treated as a shared resource and mainly immune from individual ownership, became a commodity, accessible to individual enterprise. Traditional agrarian society had been invaded by the forces of a national capitalist economy". As the evolution of land from a survival source to an economic factor progressed, the social structure deprived certain members from ownership. Faulkner in Go Down, Moses describes the paradox of people seeking land, yet understanding the negative consequences of ownership. He writes, ... the land, the fields, and what they represented in terms of cotton ginned and sold, the men and women whom they fed and clothed and even paid a little cash money at Christmas-time in return for the labor which planted and raised and picked and ginned the cotton, the machinery and mules and gear with which they raised it and their cost and upkeep and replacement --- that whole edifice intricate and complex and founded upon injustice and erected by ruthless rapacity and carried on even yet with at times downright savagery not only to the human beings but the valuable animals too (p.221). Without land and its ability to produce and provide, man was nothing. Yet with it man could also become the antithesis of spirituality that was defined by not only Christianity, but also by the African-American forms of worship. The promise of land after the Civil War was a symbolic ideal that

Compare and contrast two main characters from Don Quioxote and the Essay

Compare and contrast two main characters from Don Quioxote and the movie Toy Story - Essay Example "That is impossible," said Don Quixote: "I say it is impossible that there could be a knight-errant without a lady, because to such it is as natural and proper to be in love as to the heavens to have stars" (Chapter 13). Both protagonists, Don Quixote and Buzz, are men of almost divine tolerance and sympathy, with a feeling for humanity that only a few have possessed and revealed. The main difference between Don Quixote and Buzz lies in their motives which force tem to fight for truth and universal virtue. Love and romance are the main features of Don Quixote while honesty and desire to save the planet from Evil emperor Zurg characterize Buzz. Don Quixote describes his feelings: "when they are in love; and so true is this that there have been knights who have remained two years on rocks, in sunshine and shade and all the inclemencies of heaven" (Chapter 13). Both of the charcaters are on predestined journeys, all striving for what sometimes seemed unobtainable to them and the audience alike. But, wherever the meeting with Roque Guinart took place, Don Quixote remained with him in those craggy solitudes for three days, moving about with the gang and finding matter for observation and wonder. "There's a remedy for everything except death" (Chapter 54). The other difference between these characters is pessimism of Don Quixote and bravery of Buzz. Don Quixote con tribution to the pessimism which characterizes so much of the important writing was to probe the inner recesses of human behavior to see by what instincts people are governed. Sancho describes their journey with Don Quixote "We squires to knights-errant have to bear a great deal of hunger and hard fortune, and even other things more easily felt than told" (Chapter 31). Don Quixote proposes a view of man's essential nature which one might more normally expect to find argued in a philosophical treatise. Indeed, if the reader feels sometimes that the plotting of this hero is too schematic and relentless, this may be because Buzz are more concerned to demonstrate his theory about the incipient self-centeredness of the human species than to explore the psychology of individual characters. Another similarity can be found between Woody and Sancho Panza. Both of them play secondary roles and depicted as the common man. Using these characters, authors unveil thoughts and actions of the protagonists their inspirations and self-esteem. Both of these characters support protagonists and their actions remain independent doers of their destinies. "Senor," replied Sancho, "is it a good rule of chivalry that we should go astray through these mountains without path or road, looking for a madman who when he is found will perhaps take a fancy to finish what he began" (Chapter 25). The main difference between these characters is that Sancho-Don Quixote relations are based on master-men relations while Woody and Buzz are enemies. Don Quixote describes Sancho "Sancho, my friend, night is drawing on upon us as we go, and more darkly than will allow us to reach" (Chapter 8). In contrast to Woody, the main feature is that Sancho exhibits the remarkable prevalence of humanism in a movement that claimed to promote peace and love. He is fascinated about Don Quixote. "And what greater misfortune can