POEM COMMENTARY Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

POEM COMMENTARY - Essay Example When health fails, it is again the involvement of the people around one that concerns one the most: "Everyone is after me to take it easy./ They all make doctors' appointments for me, eyeing me in that quizzical way." The attitude of people around a seriously ill person begins to change, the "quizzical" looks are part of an effort to deal with the nearby prospect of mortality. When confronted by evidence of an illness, one goes into denial: "Everyone is spotting oddnesses/ in my innards, suddenly shocked/ by radio-awful diagrams.I do not agree". Neruda correctly diagnoses the human weakness of not wanting to face facts, and most importantly, not wanting to face the transient nature of existence and the cold touch of death. The same weakness of not knowing and acknowledging the truth about human existence, plagues people when things are not going so well professionally: " Everyone is picking at my poetry/ with their relentless knives and forks,/ trying, no doubt, to find a fly./ I am afraid." This confession of fear is uncharacteristic of people in general but the poet Neruda takes the first step towards confronting his fears: accepting that he is afraid.

3.Meads Coming of Age in Samoa is often read as an attempt to Essay

3.Meads Coming of Age in Samoa is often read as an attempt to popularize anthropology, but to what extent did it also extend and develop it - Essay Example It is evident that Mead’s success in anthropology research depended on a firm foundation laid by Boaz on the discipline. She managed to extend Boaz’s ambition of making anthropology universal by sharing information she gained through books and doing extensive research on Boas pioneered disciplines such as cultural anthropology, nature versus nurture issues, emotional turbulence and biological development and adolescent issues. Boas maintained a viewpoint that human nature and the actions people portray emanate from civilization constraints. To ascertain his theory, Boas instructed Mead to establish if the poignant stress and turmoil that American adolescents in Samoa undergo had cultural or biological influence. Mead researched on Boas hypothesis by working as an ethnographer in American Samoa (Margaret, n.d., p. 54). In response, Mead launched an investigation in the Island of Samoa living among the society members and fulfilling all their cultural requirements as she compiled results on adolescents’ girls’ behaviors within Samoa. Mead recorded an analysis of her results in book â€Å"Coming of Age in Samoa†, published in 1928. In her study results, Mead established that youth concerns were neither constraining nor stressful among Samoan teenagers and adults. She carried out the research to from twenty-five teenage women in three villages of Samoa. Her comments indicated that the perceived time and stress, which adolescents’ experience, are because of cultural restraints. Mead’s comments supported the view that young people from different social and cultural arrangements within Samoa were free from caused stress characters that are characteristic of adolescence stage of development. Stress-free adolescence was because of total casualness or lack of concern towards youth issues. Adolescence stress was limited to and experienced by royal families such as chief’s wives and daughters. On the contrary, ordinary girls from