The invention of paper in 105 C.E. and the development of sciences such as chemistry and physics starting around the late 500’s were major developments. A political change during this time was China’s ruling dynasties. From 100 C.E. to 220 C.E., the Han dynasty ruled over China.
Qin Shihuangdi (ruled 221-210 BCE) was one of the rulers from the various states that had successfully reunified China. He used his developed effective bureaucracy and launched military campaigns to defeat the other warring states. He adopted a political philosophy called Legalism that had pessimistic views on human nature, and subordinated the aristocrats who disliked his centralized policies, whereas the Han dynasty later had more of a Confucian Theme in their governing philosophy. He was strict and once put 460 scholars to death as a warning for those who oppose him. He led some contributions to innovation by standardizing weights, measurement and currency, equipping his armies with iron weapons and had agricultural systems that enforce growth in populations.
Gothic fiction became socially acceptable around the time Austen was writing Northanger. Catherine becomes influenced by this new genre of fiction, especially during her visit to Northanger Abbey. Riots and War are another modern element of the time. The French Revolution creates anxiety amongst those in England and poses the threat of riots. Catherine, ignorant to politics, is dealt another contemporary element of the time.
Censorship in the society of Fahrenheit 451, mainly in the form of books by banning them, has three major effects on the populations: defined thought, shallow happiness and homogenous society. What the removal of books from mankind does is increases the intellectual contentment of a person, no matter what they’re faced with. Reading books causes the mind to think more critically and most importantly, think for it. If the brain is not thinking for itself, then the job of the group or individual trying to manipulate and control you is already half done. Once it becomes easier to manipulate the person freely, the government in the case of Fahrenheit 451 is capable to engineering a whole society as they please.
Yashar Ganjavi Mary Schultz July 10, 2011 Essay #2 Differences in Interpreting a Story Novels are the mirrors of society. People write because they can express a piece of their minds that cannot be translated by speaking. When we write it brings out that imaginative side of our brain that allows us to explore our minds and depict our personal image of the world. Cormac McCarthy is great example of someone who has a broad imagination and is able to create a whole world of characters and interactions. The fascinating thing is that these depictions of McCarthy’s imagination are intertwined with real places and characters that resemble people of those areas in that time period.
Mao Zedong leadership and military strategies helped him become the leader of Red China. With the events affecting the beginning and results of the war, China became a world power from the 1950s and until this day it still is. Mao Zedong is praised throughout China and seen as an idol figure in Chinese history. His guerilla warfare is still study by many military geniuses around the world. The communist started out slow in the civil war but grew as the war went
The Progressive Era was successful overall but did encounter roadblocks to reform in certain factions of the country, essentially taking a step backward. Progressive reformers advocated their dissent against the current state of society and government in many ways. Muckrakers used their writing of books and art in newspapers to distribute their views to a vast portion of society. Others chose to take a more direct route instead of writing or drawing. Three famous reformers include Frank Norris, Jane Addams and Upton Sinclair.
But the expansion of land weakened China’s ‘central government’, and made it vulnerable against any disloyal citizens. Because of this, the Zhou began to promote the idea of cultural and linguistic unity. Although a single language was established and cultural creativity flourished throughout, the dynasty was not united enough to prevent the development of independent armies and was eventually overthrown. The Zhou dynasty was followed by the Qin dynasty, which managed to significantly strengthen the weakened government and establish a new form of protection against intruders. The power of the central government increased tremendously when a national census was ordered, giving the government more information concerning tax revenue.
A form of civil disobedience that both individuals and a group of rogues practice, reading appears as a subversive act capable of undermining the social order. Thus, for those who fight the totalitarian government seek the healing of the nations and an end to oppression and mass ignorance. Rather than bear arms, they bear books. As a work much like Thoreau's "Civil Disobedience/' which calls for blatant challenging of the status quo, Fahrenheit 451 challenges the institutions that encompass our lives and demonstrates literature's ability to cultivate human autonomy. Criticism of Bradbury's works, specifically Fahrenheit 451 can easily be divided into two categories: criticism of the work as literature and criticism of the work as science fiction.
Dystopian Literature. A dystopia is quite common as a literary subject. It is usually unpleasant, with a repressive society and/or strict ruling force, and is the flip side to another common literary subject; a utopian society, in which everything is perfect to either the inhabitants or/and protagonist. Some stories set in a dystopian universe or 'world' may seem quite normal or maybe even 'perfect' at first, but eventually the reasons behind that become apparent and become quite unpleasant for the protagonist as they are forced to fight against a society or group they were once a part of. Examples of this kind of dystopian world are in both Uglies [2005, Scott Westerfeld], where the reader follows the female protagonist, an 'ugly' who is allowed to undergo surgery to become 'pretty' -portrayed to be a perfect state in her world- once she turns sixteen, but over the course of the novel, she finds out it might not be everything she had hoped for.