Wallis Simpson Essay -- essays research papers fc

American socialite Wallis Simpson, the woman for whom Edward VIII gave up the throne in 1936, is variously portrayed as a greedy snob, a sexual predator or part of the romance of the century. A complex figure emerges: a strong-willed woman, hungry for independence, but caught up in a situation she could not control. Mrs. Wallis Simpson has become an emotional figure in history. Along with this, many descriptions of her personality and motives for being with Edward have caused some extremely negative descriptions; the nicer ones range from witch to seductress. So who really was Mrs. Wallis Simpson? Bessie Wallis Warfield, named after her aunt and her father, as she was born in Baltimore, Maryland, was something of a misfit from the start. Her arrival in June 19,1896 came just seven months after the marriage of her parents, causing some embarrassment to Warfield relatives for whom moral propriety was essential as the elite of Baltimore society. Bessie's father died when she was five months old and throughout her formative years, she and her mother had to rely on irregular handouts from a wealthy relative. Because her father left them with no money so they relied charity from her mother’s husband’s late brother. As Wallis grew into a young woman, she was not necessarily considered pretty. Yet Wallis had a sense of style and poses that made her distinguished and attractive. She had radiant eyes, good complexion and fine, smooth black hair, which she kept parted down the middle for most of her life. Bessie discarded her first name - because "so many cows are called Bessie" - and learned how to flirt. But she was still shut out of the world she regarded as her birthright. Soon after the humiliation of "coming out" without the usual debutante's celebration ball, she grasped the first means of escape from Baltimore by becoming engaged. On November 8 1916 she was married to her first husband, at the age of 20 was to a Navy pilot Earl Winfield Spencer. The marriage was reasonably good until the end of World War I when many ex-soldiers became bitter at the inconclusiveness of the war and the difficulty in adapting back to civilian life. After the Armistice, Win began to drink heavily and also became abusive. Wallis eventually left Win and lived six years by herself in Washington. Win and Wallis weren't yet divorced a... ...buried alongside Edward in the royal burial ground at Windsor. Bibliography 1.Agate, James. Ego 8: Continuing the Autobiography of†¦ London, 1948. Illusts. 8vo. or.cl. (272pp). 2. Bloch, Michael. The Duke of Windsor's War. London, 1982. Illusts. Royal 8vo. or.cl. (398pp). 3. Bloch, Michael (ed). Wallis & Edward: Letters 1931-1937. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1986. 4. Broad, Lewis. Queens, Crowns and Coronations. London, 1952. Illusts. 8vo. or.cl. (184pp). 5. Bryan, J.B. and, C.J.V. Murphy. The Windsor Story. London, 1979. Illusts. 8vo. or.cl. (640pp). 6. Buchan, John. Memory Hold the Door. London, 1940. Illusts. 8vo. or.cl. (328pp). 7. King, Greg; The Duchess of Windsor: The Uncommon Life of Wallis Simpson; Kensington Pub Corp: April 2003 8. The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition. Copyright  © 2003 Columbia University Press. 9. Encyclopedia, â€Å"Love Stories of the Century†, Jan. 16, ‘04; www.encyclopedia.com 10. The History Channel, Search; Jan. 16, ‘04, www.historychannel.com 11. Warwick, Christopher. Abdication. London: Sidgwick & Jackson, 1986. 12. Ziegler, Paul, King Edward VIII: The Official Biography (London: Collins. 1990) 224.

“A Good Man Is Hard to Find” Analysis: Six White Columns Essay

â€Å"A Good Man is Hard to Find† is a southern stories in several ways. Most of the old southern values are embodied through the grandmother. As the family loads into the car to drive to Florida, the grandmother is described as wearing white cotton gloves, a navy blue straw sailor hat with white violets on the brim. She also dons a white-dotted navy blue dress with white organdy cuffs and collar trimmed with lace. She had pinned a cloth violets containing a sachet—a scented bag—to her collar. She is the only one dressed up, her rationale being â€Å"In case of an accident, anyone seeing her dead on the highway would know at once that she was a lady.† Dress was an integral part of class distinction in the Old South, and the grandmother clearly thinks things should still be that way. The grandmother also displays one attitude towards blacks when she describes a young black child she sees as they drive. She explains to June Star that he doesn’t have britches because he is poor and simply not white, saying, â€Å"[they] don’t have things like we do.† She goes on to say she would paint him if she could, treating him as an object rather than a human child. Slavery and racial discrimination was characteristic of the Old South. The family also stops for barbeque at The Tower. It may not seem â€Å"southern,† but I can say from experience that BBQ is a part of southern culture. I once drove from Georgia to Florida with my own family and along the way saw many barbeque places. And they were delicious! Southern culture is also brought up when the grandmother recalls the old plantation. She paints a picture of what I always envision when I think of one, with â€Å"six white columns† and â€Å"an avenue of oaks leading up to it.† Finally, religion was an important part of southern culture. Though it doesn’t say of which religion the grandmother belongs to, she brings up religion during her confrontation with The Misfit. She plays it off that she is devout, but all throughout the story she contradicted those â€Å"strong morals† that come with religion.

Where Is Bactria and What Is Its History

Bactria is an ancient region of Central Asia, between the Hindu Kush Mountain range and the Oxus River (today generally called the Amu Darya River). In more recent times, the region also goes by the name Balkh, after one of the tributary rivers of the Amu Darya. Historically often a unified region, Bactria now is divided among many Central Asian nations: Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan, plus a sliver of what is now Pakistan. Two of its significant cities that are still important today are Samarkand (in Uzbekistan) and Kunduz (in northern Afghanistan). Brief History of Bactria Archaeological evidence and early Greek accounts indicate that the area east of Persia and northwest of India has been home to organized empires since at least 2,500 BCE, and possibly much longer. The great philosopher Zoroaster or Zarathustra is said to have come from Bactria. Scholars have long debated when the historical personage of Zoroaster lived, with some proponents claiming a date as early as 10,000 BCE, but this is all speculative. In any event, his beliefs form the basis for Zoroastrianism, which strongly influenced the later monotheistic religions of southwest Asia (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam). In the sixth century BCE, Cyrus the Great conquered Bactria and added it to the Persian or Achaemenid Empire. When Darius III fell to Alexander the Great in the Battle of Gaugamela (Arbela), in 331 BCE, Bactria was thrown into chaos. Due to strong local resistance, it took the Greek army two years to put down the Bactrian insurgency, but their power was tenuous at best. Alexander the Great died in 323 BCE, and Bactria became part of his general Seleucuss satrapy. Seleucus and his descendants governed the Seleucid Empire in Persia and Bactria until 255 BCE. At that time, the satrap Diodotus declared independence and founded the Greco-Bactrian Kingdom, which covered the area south of the Caspian Sea, up to the Aral Sea, and east to the Hindu Kush and the Pamir Mountains. This large empire did not last long, however, being conquered first by the Scythians (around 125 BCE) and then by the Kushans (Yuezhi). The Kushan Empire The Kushan Empire itself lasted only from the 1st to 3rd centuries CE, but under the Kushan emperors, its power spread from Bactria into the whole of northern India. At this time, Buddhist beliefs mingled with the earlier amalgam of Zoroastrian and Hellenistic religious practices common in the area. Another name for the Kushan-controlled Bactria was Tokharistan, because the Indo-European Yuezhi were also called the Tocharians. The Sassanid Empire of Persia under Ardashir I conquered Bactria from the Kushans around 225 CE and ruled the area until 651. In succession, the area was conquered by the Turks, Arabs, Mongols, Timurids, and eventually, in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, Tsarist Russia. Because of its key position astride the overland Silk Road, and as a central hub between the great imperial areas of China, India, Persia and the Mediterranean world, Bactria has long been prone to conquest and contestation. Today, what was once called Bactria forms much of the Stans, and is once more valued for its reserves of oil and natural gas, as well as for its potential as an ally of either moderate Islam or Islamic fundamentalism. In other words, watch out for Bactria - it has never been a quiet region! Pronunciation: BACK-tree-uh Also Known As: Bukhdi, Pukhti, Balk, Balhk Alternate Spellings: Bakhtar, Bactriana, Pakhtar, Bactra Examples: One of the most important modes of transport along the Silk Road was the Bactrian or two-humped camel, which takes its name from the region of Bactria in Central Asia.