Free Essays on Beauty And The Beast

The Story as a Skeleton Ring around the rosies, a pocket full of posies, ashes, ashes, we all fall down. To modern society this seems like a nonsensical children’s rhyme, instead of a rhyme about the Black Death and horrors that it held for society at that time. Without knowledge of the origins of the rhyme, it is just that. The same goes for stories and fairy tales. Stories provide a glimpse of what is taking place in the society of the times. By comparing different versions of the same story over time one can make connections to society’s values and the evens of the time period. One can also compare stories within the same time period to achieve different viewpoints within the society itself. Looking at the story of beauty and the beast, one can use this example to lean much about the values that certain societies hold at certain times. The story of beauty and the beast has its origins in the early Roman myth of Cupid and Psyche, and since then has evolved into the modern versions that we have today such as the animated Disney film Beauty and the Beast and Barbara G. Walker’s Ugly and the Beast. Throughout time the fundamental ideas of the story remain the same. A selfless and devoted daughter willingly sacrifices herself for her father. Although the beauty character has sisters who are sad to see her go to an almost certain death in the clutches of the beast, the others will not even volunteer to go in place of her. The beauty character is then rewarded for her selflessness with her marriage to an important and wealthy husband who is much to her liking. Although the stories vary dramatically, these three elements are present in all of the versions. In Cupid and Ps yche, Psyche is the beauty character. Her father travels to an oracle to ask how to find a decent husband for Psyche. Much to his dismay the oracles reveals that Psyche is to go to a rocky summit to await her fearful husband in the form of a winged serpent. Psych... Free Essays on Beauty And The Beast Free Essays on Beauty And The Beast The Story as a Skeleton Ring around the rosies, a pocket full of posies, ashes, ashes, we all fall down. To modern society this seems like a nonsensical children’s rhyme, instead of a rhyme about the Black Death and horrors that it held for society at that time. Without knowledge of the origins of the rhyme, it is just that. The same goes for stories and fairy tales. Stories provide a glimpse of what is taking place in the society of the times. By comparing different versions of the same story over time one can make connections to society’s values and the evens of the time period. One can also compare stories within the same time period to achieve different viewpoints within the society itself. Looking at the story of beauty and the beast, one can use this example to lean much about the values that certain societies hold at certain times. The story of beauty and the beast has its origins in the early Roman myth of Cupid and Psyche, and since then has evolved into the modern versions that we have today such as the animated Disney film Beauty and the Beast and Barbara G. Walker’s Ugly and the Beast. Throughout time the fundamental ideas of the story remain the same. A selfless and devoted daughter willingly sacrifices herself for her father. Although the beauty character has sisters who are sad to see her go to an almost certain death in the clutches of the beast, the others will not even volunteer to go in place of her. The beauty character is then rewarded for her selflessness with her marriage to an important and wealthy husband who is much to her liking. Although the stories vary dramatically, these three elements are present in all of the versions. In Cupid and Ps yche, Psyche is the beauty character. Her father travels to an oracle to ask how to find a decent husband for Psyche. Much to his dismay the oracles reveals that Psyche is to go to a rocky summit to await her fearful husband in the form of a winged serpent. Psych...

Examples of Social Facts and Their Negative Impact

Examples of Social Facts and Their Negative Impact Social fact is a theory developed by sociologist Emile Durkheim to describe how values, culture, and norms control the actions and beliefs of individuals and society as a whole. Durkheim and Social Fact In his book, The Rules of Sociological Method,  Durkheim outlined social fact, and the book became one of the foundational texts of sociology.   He defined sociology as the study of social facts, which he said were the actions of society. Social facts are the reason why people within a society seem to choose to do the same basic things; e.g., where they live, what they eat, and how they interact. The society they belong to shapes them to do these things, continuing social facts.   Common Social Facts Durkheim used many examples to demonstrate his theory of social facts, including:   Marriage: Social groups tend to have the same ideas toward marriage, such as the appropriate age to get married and what a ceremony should look like. Attitudes that violate those social facts, such as bigamy or polygamy in the Western world, are regarded with disgust.  Language: People living in the same area tend to speak the same language. In fact, they can develop and pass on their own dialect and idioms. Years later, those norms can identify someone as being part of a particular region.  Religion: Social facts shape how we view religion. Different areas have different religious strongholds, with faith being a regular part of life, and other religions are considered foreign and strange.   Social Facts and Religion One of the areas Durkheim explored thoroughly was religion. He looked at the social facts of suicide rates in Protestant and Catholic communities. Catholic communities view suicide as one of the worst sins, and as such, have much lower suicide rates than Protestants. Durkheim believed the difference in suicide rates showed the influence of social facts and culture on actions.   Some of his research in the area has been questioned in recent years, but his suicide research was groundbreaking and shed light on how society affects our individual attitudes and actions.   Social Fact and Control Social fact is a technique of control. Societal norms shape our attitudes, beliefs, and actions. They inform what we do every day, from who we befriend to how we work. Its a complex and embedded construct that keeps us from stepping outside the norm.   Social fact is what makes us react strongly to people who deviate from social attitudes. For example, people in other countries who have no established home, and instead wander from place to place and take odd jobs. Western societies tend to view these people as odd and strange based on our social facts, when in their culture, what theyre doing is completely normal.   What is a social fact in one culture can be abhorrently strange in another; by keeping in mind how society influences your beliefs, you can temper your reactions to what is different.