Peyton Place Essays (942 words) - Fiction, Literature, Film

Peyton Place In 1956, a woman from middle class Manchester, New Hampshire wrote a book that shocked the nation. At 32 years old, Grace Metalious wrote the blockbuster novel Peyton Place. It transformed the publishing industry and made the author one of the most talked about people in the nation. Metalious wrote about incest, abortion, sex, rape, adultery, repression, lust, and the secrets of small town New England, things that were never discussed before in conservative America. She interpreted incest, wife beating, and poverty as social failures instead of individual flops. When Metalious published Peyton Place, the country was in the grasp of a new wave of sexual panic. The book turned the "private" into the "political." The avant-garde disturbed the country and critics called the book "wicked," "sordid," and "cheap." Canada declared it indecent and made the importation of the book illegal. Parts of Rhode Island, Indiana, and Nebraska followed suit arguing that the book would corrupt young mind s. Wealthy communities banished Peyton Place. To read Peyton Place was to read it in secret and were sometimes discussed only among the closest of friends. Everyone was reading it - college and high school students, college graduates, mothers, wives, and even husbands and fathers. In 1956, a sexual act such as sodomy, oral sex, and intercourse with another married person in most states was illegal. Also, abortion was illegal, and birth control was unreliable and in many cases, difficult to find. To many critics, Metalious' book was not scandalous because of its case in point, but because of the sexual pleasures that were received and given by the female characters. Peyton Place begins with Indian summer in 1939. It takes place in a very descriptive, postcardesque New England town. The main story focuses on three women characters and their underlying search for their identities as sexual women in small town America. Allison Mackenzie is the bastard daughter of Constance Mackenzie who had an affair with a married man. She illegally changed Allison's birth certificate and lied to the Peyton Place locals that her husband died. Connie didn't want any of the town folk to find out the truth that the father of her child was a married man because she would become the town gossip of ridicule. She kept this secret to herself, and only to herself until an argument between her and Allison occurred when Connie thought Allison was having sex with one of her friends, and so she lashed out the truth to Allison. As a child, Allison was always teased about being childish, and not interested in boys, and always into books. But as she grew up she was full of confli cting sexual emotions, and after graduating high school, she left Peyton Place to pursue a writing career in New York. Connie Mackenzie, to her neighbors, was a beautiful, young, widow that owned her own thrift store. Many eligible bachelors Everyone had a desire for her and wished to have her, until Thomas Makris, a teacher from New York City arrives into town to take the job of headmaster at the Peyton Place grade school. Thomas pursues Connie and terrified that he knows her secret, she avoids him. He shows up at her house one night and persuades her to a date, which leads to him raping her. They stay together and end up in marriage. As the third main female character, Selena Cross is probably the most significant. She was the same age as Allison. She lived in a shack with her little brother Joey, deranged mother and alcoholic stepfather, Lucas Cross. She lived an abusive life with Lucas drinking, beating her mother, beating her, and sexually violating her. He gets Selena pregnant and she secretly gets an illegal abortion from the town doctor, who forces Lucas to disappear from Peyton Place and never come back or everyone will know what he did to his daughter. Selena works at Connie's store and becomes manager when her mother, stricken with cancer, commits suicide. In 1944, during a snowstorm, Lucas Cross, now part of the U.S. Navy, shows up at Selena's house drunk and coming on to her. One thing leads to another and she kills him, and her and

The Computer essays

The Computer essays The article that I found to write about is on a computer that came out in the year 1982. The Computer Company is trying to sell the computer to schools for the use of the children. It describes how it is a 16-student station and its a complete classroom system for any school. It then goes on to say how it has a double density disk drives with 306,000 character storage, typewriter-style keyboard and a 12 upper and lower case display on the screen. It also talks about how it is every computer that a student needs and also that a teacher can use on there own. The way they try getting you to purchase the computer is saying how it has all of these extra features any normal classroom needs to have back in those days. They try getting you to purchase the computer by advertising that school starts in three months and that you need to buy these as computer systems as soon as possible before they sell out of them. They also add a lot of extra items if you are purchasing these for your s chool such as system that lets the teacher control and monitor everything that goes on the computers and what is being done on them. Also they give you a software program specially designed to accommodate teachers and pupils in learning more about the computer and what they are able to do. I think the main catch they are trying to get you with is how it will solve and create all your educational problems if you purchase this system. Its a very catchy advertisement I think in my opinion. They start out by letting you ponder their first statement of next year...its in 3 months. That would make me think as a superintendent of a school district that I would need to get these computers fast for my school before every other school buys them and have the latest technology in computer systems in my school district. It tries telling you that if you dont have this computer system in your school that you will be behi...

A detailed analysis of the tactile sensory system examining the Essay

A detailed analysis of the tactile sensory system examining the neurosceince, praxis and sensory modulation in relation to Autism - Essay Example ASD, Autism spectrum disorders are enduring neurodevelopmental disorders described as impairments in these three areas of functioning: communication abilities; restricted, stereotyped or repetitive behaviour patterns; and social behavior. Most researchers concur that autism is originated by either abnormal organization within the central nervous system, irregular brain structure, or both. Due to the variation of symptoms, the wide variety in their severity and the functional deficits’ continuum, the term ASDs is now being utilized to report the disparity observed in these children (Wing, 1997). Although there had been several theoretical evidence regarding the causes of autism, nowadays, more specific knowledge is available for the neurological and genetic abnormalities that exist. It’s been proposed that a surplus of axons in particular regions of brain results in an over-connection of these regions. Yet, their connections to other regions of the brain seem to be fragile (Herbert, 2005). It seems to be a need of coordination among these areas of brain. This lack of synchronization seems to affect brain functioning. People with ASDs have trouble conveying dissimilar cognitive functions mutually in an organized way. They suffer from difficulties in organization and planning (Prior & Hoffman, 1990). Synchronizing volition with sensation and movement can be complicated for some. In autism every part of the brain appears to perform on its own (Just et al., 2004) thus lacking a coordination of information. The information related to the environment is interpreted through sensory systems. It can be explained as a process within the brain which arranges sensory experiences – sound (taste), touch, gravitational pull, body awareness, movement and sight – into collective information which is then utilized by the individuals in reacting to and learning about