British Isles

To Be or Not to Be: Proper Webster’s dictionary is a tool for survival. How else would one know how to spell autochthonous? Language was invented because communication is vital to our survival. Society could not have developed without a means for its inhabitants to properly communicate with one another. However, there is a battle among the “proper” and the “improper” better known as the Prescriptives and the Descriptives. One group who cringes at the thought of the improper use of the English…

“Guests of a Nation” is a short story that talks about the conflict between duty and humanitarianism. Bonaparte, the narrator, an Irish soldier, starts the story a hopeful and compassionate solider despite being at war. He get to know the English hostages, Hawkins and Belcher, as friends. Bonaparte puts aside his duty, and lets his humanitarian side ultimately damaging him, when the Englishmen are executed. By the end of the story, Bonaparte no longer sees the good of bad situations, and is…

Devastating and Drastic, the Irish Potato Famine changed Ireland in a variety of ways. Farmers and regular people were starving to death due to the lack of healthy potatoes. The people in Ireland were extremely dependent on potatoes and when the blight came the economy went down. As the fungus spread throughout the country, people began to lose their main source of food. Since the people in Ireland depended on the potato, it made the population cripple with the lack of a healthy food. The Irish…

It was 13 years ago when we came to America and everything changed. It was only my parents, my two brother and me. Everyone else was still in the refugee camps in Somalia a week after our arrival my parents announced that I would be going to school. At the time I didn’t know what school was but I soon found out that it was something I didn’t like, plus school was very hard. My parents didn’t know english or the american culture. I didn’t have any guidance, I didn’t speak the language and I…

The poem “Bilingual/Bilingue”, by Rhina. P. Espaillat describes how a young girl is struggling with her combined cultures and two separate languages. The girl was born in a Mexican family who speak Spanish, but she is bilingual(bilingue) and speaks both Spanish and English. The girl must must struggle with the fact father fears that, because she is bilingual, that she will lose the part that connects them together, that being their shared language. The poem utilizes language, imagery, as well…

Throughout my academic career I struggled to find a sense of my own identity. In high school, and early in my college career, I wasn 't sure what I really wanted to pursue in life. I 'd always felt a pressure to succeed from my family, my community, and my peers. I 've never had a strong ethnic or cultural identity, my ancestors come from all over, but I 'm given the sole label “Caucasian”. When I was younger, I felt that it was a disadvantage not having a strong cultural or ethnic identity. I…

In his novel Native Speaker, Chang-rae Lee argues that the learning English in and of itself is a method of cultural assimilation forced on immigrants and their families in the United States. This argument can be seen through the words and thoughts of Lee’s narrator. “‘The polls say people are against bilingualism,’ I said. ‘They’re against giving anything more to immigrants’” (37). Henry Park, the first-person narrator, says this in the present day to his coworker at the spy agency while…

throughout the course of history, politics and comedy often go hand in hand. Edgeworth uses this idea to make some very interesting commentary about the state of the relationship between Britain and Ireland at the time, and what it meant to be truly British or Irish. Within the novel we meet the character of young Lord Glenthorn, who is bored of his rich and extravagant life, and no longer takes any interest in the fortunes in his possession. We learn shortly that the only reason he does not…

Migrations. Children typically detest them. It is in fact a big change: in lifestyle, surroundings, and even the language spoken in that particular country may be different. I personally got to witness these to be true. When I was six years old, my parents told me that we would be moving to Singapore. We were living in the Philippines then, and I was told that moving to Singapore is a big opportunity, as they are extremely advanced in education. I do not remember exactly how I felt about this…

Anita Desai's first novel Cry, the Peacock (1963), is about Maya, a dissenting female who battles against three traditional forces in her life: male authority expressed by her husband; her female friends who play stereotypical submissive-wife roles; and her religion's beliefs in karma and detachment. Being over-sensitive, sentimental and imaginative Maya is a total contrast to the rational, logical, Gautam. By making a beautiful use of the symbolic technique, Anita Desai has delved deep into the…