Copleys Governor and Mrs. Thomas Mifflin and Watson and the Shark Essay

Copleys Governor and Mrs. Thomas Mifflin and Watson and the Shark - Essay Example The essay "Copley’s Governor and Mrs. Thomas Mifflin and Watson and the Shark" analyzes paintings of John Singleton Copley, Governor and Mrs. Thomas Mifflin and Watson and the Shark. Copley represents Mifflin’s role in this debate with a form of commemoration for the subject’s position as the first Pennsylvania governor after the liberation of the colonies. Copley’s 1778 portrait â€Å"Watson and the Shark† also has symbols alluding to aspects of the American Revolution through its highly expressive style. Plainly, viewers can say Copley wanted to commemorate a dramatic event wherein Brook Watson lost his foot (Pinder 186). However, a deeper meaning is an implicit allusion to the War of Independence. More specifically, the painting shows colonists as brave men as they physically struggle against a killer shark, another symbolic allusion to the British. The 1773 painting symbolically reveals Mr. Mifflin’s political beliefs. Mifflin was a trade r against taxes imposed on British commodities. Among the American Revolution’s key objectives was to resist paying duties imposed on commodities from England and encouraging other colonists to follow suit. At the same time, Mrs. Mifflin conveys a clear message about the political atmosphere in America during the revolution. Mrs. Mifflin has a unique attractive fringe that shows her intention to boycott English commodities and rather create her own. Sarah Mifflin uses her right hand and a loom held in place by a blue ribbon to lace the threads.

Happy Endings Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words - 2

Happy Endings - Essay Example attempts to summarize all the possibilities about the affair between two couples: John-Mary and Fred-Madge in a number of six differently outlined simple plots with common endings that â€Å"John and Mary die. John and Mary die. John and Mary die.† (Atwood, â€Å"Happy Endings†) Such simplistic summarization obviously provides Atwood with more legibility to comment on the portrayal of male-female relationship in Atwood’s contemporary fictions or literatures. Atwood’s emphasis on John and Mary’s death hitches her readers down to earth and to reality obviously. It is the reality, in which John (generalization of husband) and Mary (generalization of wife) love each other; sometimes they betray each other. When women like Mary dies lovelorn, other women like Madge revels in love and vice versa. It is the very reality in which some Johns (husbands) love their wives fabulously; some other Johns seduce women for sex. Somewhere else, other Johns swindle their wives. Atwood suggests that the plots in traditional literary works are either these or those: â€Å"Thats about all that can be said for plots, which anyway are just one thing after another, a what and a what and a what.† (Atwood, â€Å"Happy Endings†) But according to Atwood, what is wrong with this â€Å"a what and a what and a what† type of plot is that it does not provide the readers with much scope to ask a question, â€Å"Why and how?† (Atwo od, â€Å"Happy Endings†) Therefore Atwood’s narrator in the story â€Å"Happy Endings† ultimately comes up with the suggestion to interpret how and why the caricatured plots in her story are different though the endings are the same. Indeed Atwood’s suggestion to â€Å"try how and why?† provides her story with extra feminist dimension. Notably in the story, Option A continues to be happy from the beginning to the end. But some characters in other options are not always happy, though they are happy at the end of the story. It is noteworthy to interpret why and how John