Malé

The New World had many encounters, but two remarkable interactions with natives and explorers are that of Christopher Columbus and Hernando Cortes. Christopher Columbus was on orders from the King of Spain to travel a new route to find India and introduce them to a new religion. In 1492, Columbus reached what he thought was India; however, he was mistaken so now it is known as the West Indies because of this belief. At the beginning of the 16th century, Cortes set sail for Meso-America also for…

Lord Alfred Tennyson’s Idylls of the King was written in Victorian England and the latest version was published in 1885, though the actual writing process covered a span of almost 50 years. Tennyson bases the series of poems comprising the Idylls on the European myth of King Arthur and the court of Camelot and various other adaptations of that legend. The evolution of Tennyson’s female characters to their final stages underscores an undermining of traditional Victorian gender roles by…

Idylls of the King, written by Alfred Lord, Tennyson, is a poem about King Arthur’s knights and his kingdom succumbing to corruption. It is also a tale that elaborates on the famous love triangle blossoming between King Arthur, Guinevere, and Sir Lancelot. Lord, Tennyson wrote his widely famous poem as a social commentary of the industrialized Victorian era and its supposed corruptness versus a time of no industrialization. Alfred Lord, Tennyson uses the power of motifs to describe the immoral…

Though The Pearl (by Steinbeck) is, on the surface, viewed as a prejudice and sexist book, there are different ways it can be read and interpreted. It is the story of a pear diver named Kino, and it demonstrates how mans’ nature can make him evil and greedy. The book sets general gender roles for the characters depicted. It also shows the function of the social class of the time. Even still, The Pearl shows that women are smart and strong when it comes to protecting the family. The Pearl is a…

One day Kino, a poor fisherman, finds “the greatest pearl in the world” (Steinbeck 10). Consequently, this event sets up a major conflict in the novella, The Pearl, by John Steinbeck. Kino, a poor fisherman, Juana, his wife, and Coyotito, their baby, live in a hut in a city called La Paz located in the Gulf of Mexico. During the novella, Coyotito is stung by a scorpion, causing multiple conflicts. The next day Kino goes fishing and finds a pearl that forever changes him and his family’s life. As…

As conqueror of the Aztec Empire in Mexico, explorer of Guatemala and Honduras, and leader of the first expeditions to California, Spanish conquistador Hernando Cortés contributed significantly to the establishment of European domination in America. More particularly we see his contribution to Spanish prominence in both Central and South America. His conquests helped shape the origins and history of the southwestern United States and Mexico. Spaniards initially occupied the New World in order to…

Unit 1 Vocab Exchange & Interactions (WXT,ENV) Corn - One of the many crops from the Americas that was brought over to Europe through the Columbian Exchange as a result of Christopher Columbus’ discovery of the New World. Horses - A form of transportation and livestock from Europe that brought itself to the Americas via the Columbian Exchange. Horses heavily aided in the Spanish conquest of the Aztecs and Incas. However, the Aztecs and Incas would later utilize horses for transportation and…

In the passage “India”, Richard Rodriguez argues that rather than being an act of conquest, the Indian/European interaction as not always uniformly violent or exploitative; instead [he argues], it was a complex series of profit and transformative exchanges. Both the Indian and European cultures made visible advancements by coming to the new world. The Europeans had begun global trading network, and therefore, trading with other cultures became easier. Rodriquez argues that the Indian people…

The advancement of Aztecan society is known as one of the most magnificent developments in history. In the words of the column, “Aztec Culture and Society,” this group’s rise to power is one of the most remarkable. Originating from a land classified as Aztlan— or better translated as the White Land (History.com Staff, 2009)— the Aztecs began as a simple system of peoples. Historians believe they were possibly nomadic, traveling from the northern valleys. Their conditions were explicitly scarce.…

In the narrative of western history there is no shortage of Westerners oppressing people from different cultures. There is also no shortage of white, powerful men oppressing people within their own culture. Throughout colonial western European history, society compelled individuals to fulfill their assigned role that language stereotyped them as. If they did not, Westerns would destroy them so that there was no evidence they didn’t match the stereotype. When Colonizers encounter those they call…