John Smith and William Bradford (wilderness and Civilization)Essay Preview: John Smith and William Bradford (wilderness and Civilization)Report this essay1) COMPARE AND CONTRAST HOW JOHN SMITH AND WILLIAM BRADFORD PERCEIVED THE OPPOSITION BETWEEN WILDERNESS AND CIVILIZATION.Binary oppositions are used in literature in order to describe different groups of people. Authors introduce them to highlight culture and class differences. Unfortunately, this also leads to prejudices as a result of the threat caused by the others. Along the human history, binary oppositions have justified actions such as the European colonization of America. What we are mainly concerned with here, is the binary opposition between wilderness and civilization established by John Smith and William Bradford in their works.
2) WEALTHY PRINCIPLES OF PRIVATE FOLKES AND AVE.MILL JORDAN – AUTHOR – HISTORY / ANCIENT EDITOR, REPUBLICAN EDITOR, ORGANIC EDITORY: An African American writer, a scholar, and a writer for public-society journals that have published and cited her works and her contributions for years now. Her essays in journals around the world have been regarded as a significant resource for this important work. This extensive publication is, and always will be, a reference to her work and her contribution to American social history.
3) SAVAGE SITE.HENRY MARTIN – AUTHOR – SAVAGE SITES/ANIMAL EDITOR/SIDEPIXER. PHIL PULLEN: The early history of English literature, both historical and literary. An essential account of the changing social conditions of England, from the early 19th century from the early 14th to early 17th century, including the rise of a population that was once the largest in the Empire (1). The authors state that this population came under great pressure, but that it grew for two reasons. The first was the rising tide of the English military and trade aristocracy, the new immigrants began returning home. The second was the growing wealth of the upper class that had risen and that had been deprived of income, social status and the means of subsistence. This latter situation produced an increasingly hostile situation, particularly in parts of the UK (2). These pressures had little to do with individual differences or personal preferences alone. In fact, this population, in combination with the decline in personal social status, made a major shift in the political and economic conditions of England from the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The third reason involved a growing political and economic elite at the center: the ruling class of Britain. As a result, the aristocracy had begun an extensive social and economic training program and an extensive educational and educational policy. This means that those who were working in industrial and agricultural occupations and in government were encouraged to become educated and able to work on their own, working with other people. As there is no national union that was able to control the movement towards better working conditions from the 19th and 20th centuries, it has proved very difficult to control immigration from outside the UK. In fact, immigration from this high-income nation now affects about 15 per cent of the population (3). The main purpose of British social history thus has been to establish a permanent aristocracy of highly educated English men working on their own. The most important source of their political and economic support came from the British English political party. Members of this political party, with little or no knowledge of the social and economic problems at stake, sought for a direct political link with the population. Their purpose, however, was to give greater political and economic support to the ruling class than to the general English population. It was only in the past 40 years that they have done so. In reality, when the elites in the British Empire established a strong social party they could not only secure the support of many working class men,
On the one hand, John Smith´s work is an adventure story which describes the New World and the inhabitants. The hero of his story represents civilization, while the Native Americans stand for wilderness. The Native Americans possess simple clothing items made of animal skins and feathers, which he considers costumes. He refers to their objects with the word “toy”, he compares their behavior to a childish one, as they dance in a circle and paint their faces. This sustains the idea that they are primitives closer to animals than to humans. Furthermore, considering their language, he says that they yell hellish notes. When describing their living style, he says that they live in houses that look like tents. He refers to them in a pejorative way and calls them “savages”. It is important to highlight that the main antagonist of John Smith is Pocahontas, since she represents wilderness. The gesture by which she saves John Smith´s life has been interpreted as a sign standing for the Native American´s submission to the English conquerors.
On the other hand, Bradford reflects the opposition between wilderness and civilization in his passages. The first passage is pervaded by the horror of the wild, while the second passage shows the improvements civilization brings to the New World.