Taboo

from Mauss’s Essay on the Gift, it is explained that a gift is a basic form for establishing special relations between individuals, families, clans etc. Marriage, Lévi-Strauss argues, is one of the basic forms of gift exchange. He claims that the taboo on incest is the mechanism which insures that such trade relation will be performed between families or other units as a means of grounding alliances between men, with women serving as the means for establishing…

Magic by George Gmelch discussed superstition and the use of “magic” in baseball. Baseball Magic did not give definitions for ritual, taboo, or fetish, but one can derive their meanings from context and the examples given in the reading. A ritual is an action or behavior performed to produce some sort of effect such as: improved fertility or increased luck. A taboo is an object or action that is avoided in fear of transgressing or producing some undesired outcome. A fetish is an object with a…

Slaughterhouse 5 and Brave New World Novels are ways that can be manifest to explain ideas or philosophical views that might influence other humans. Sometimes novels that have different type of theme or genre can have the casually of having same ideas but expressed differently according to the author wants to express. Slaughterhouse 5, written by Kurt Vonnegut, is a satirical novel that tries to mock war by making the reader followed the journey of the main character, Billy Pilgrim, in…

through the words sprouts a better understanding, of the particular plum the poet is describing. Lastly, on the last line, “Question and reply, lip and tongue of pleasure.” Describes the tone of affection Chasin has for a plum. Consequently, Chasin’s taboo affection for the plum she is eating is so fascinating, that there are over 2,000 varieties of plums, and 90 billion individual plums in the…

necessity expressed in law and morals than to wasn’t witchcraft that is to blame but the person that had breached a taboo. “But where there has been a breach of taboo and death is not involved witchcraft will not be evoked as a cause of failure” (28). The Azande have a complex idea when it comes to death. As already written before death can be caused because of witchcraft or a taboo breach. There is also another reason, such as for when babies die it's believed that that is just the will of the…

contributes and establishes a relationship with medical pluralism and cultural competence. Fadiman states that “to most of the doctors, the Hmong taboos against the basic tools of modern medicine such as: blood tests, spinal taps, surgery, anesthesia, and autopsies seemed like self-defeating ignorance. They had no way of knowing that a Hmong might regard these taboos as the sacred guardians of his identity” (Fadiman 2012,…

Depictions of sexuality is a key element that intersect in the format of both Ali, Fear Eats the Soul (1974) and Maedchen in Uniform (1931). While the films are released over 40 years apart, both these films depict sexuality and explore sexual taboos in Germany. Ali, Fear Eats the Soul, directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder, is a tale of interracial love and explores the impact of racism on human relationships. Leontine Sagan’s Maedchen in Uniform contains themes of lesbian relationships and…

To begin, Atwood portrays technology as an uncontrollable phenomenon in Jimmy's society. Multiple examples of technology and advanced sciences can be found scattered throughout the novel. For instance, Jimmy's father had worked for OrganInc Farms as a genographer. He worked closely with genetic modification and gene splicing. After being informed about his father's developments with pigoon skins, Jimmy thinks to himself, “What well-todo and once-young, once-beautiful woman or man, cranked up on…

power, control, and authority to ensure his sexual desires are met. Saeed symbolises the male taboo of domination over women in some cultures. The obstructive and exaggerated sexual appetite of Lestat, Armand’s show, and Saeed oversteps the boundaries set forth by each culture. These characters embody the sexual practices that must not be committed, unless it is through the body of the monster (Cohen…

In Patricia Bauer’s article, “A Movie,A Word, And My Family’s Battle”, Bauer is using pathos to her readers to help them understand why the word retard is so offensive and hurtful to people who are mentally disabled but, also to their families who care for them. She believes that if people knew how offensive that word was then maybe people would stop using it as an insult or joke. She’s making this point for not only for daughter also for every family around the world that care for the mentally…