Free Essays on Lillian Hellman

Lillian Hellman was born in New Orleans, Louisiana in 1906. She died at Martha’s Vineyard in 1984. Lillian’s work includes screenplays, plays, novels, short stories, and an autobiography/ memoir. Lillian’s personal life was reflected in most of her plays and sometimes even inspired the whole play. For example Lillian is described as an â€Å"independent child,† by Carol MacNichols in a â€Å"Dictionary of Literary Biography,† (Contemporary Authors) this trait of Lillian’s personality is portrayed in her story, â€Å" Run Away† which is in the book, â€Å" A writers reader†. Lillian was an independent person in many ways; this is reflected in her story, â€Å"Run Away†. The girl, whose name was never mentioned in the story, runs away from her home and lives on her own. The girl in the story leaves her home and stays in a dollhouse, takes care of herself, buys her own food, and even begs to rent a room. All of these are examples of this girl’s independence. Lillian is portraying her own sense of independence through this girl in her story. This girl reflects Lillian’s independence as a young girl. The const ant moving in Lillian’s life, a father that was hardly ever there, and life as an only child resulted in Lillian’s independence and rebellious ways. Lillian was led into an early marriage to press agent, Arthur Kober by the impulse of loving the publishers parties, and the adventurous life of the literary world of the nineteen twenties, which Arthur Kober was an active part in. In 1929 she accompanied her husband, Arthur, to Germany. Here Lillian was exposed for the first time to the Nazi movement, which was her first exposure to Anti-Semitism. Later this theme would come to play in her stage play, â€Å"Watch on the Rhine† and â€Å"The Searching Wind†. This is another example of how her personal life is sometimes reflected in her work. As time passed, Lillian’s marriage eventually came to an end o... Free Essays on Lillian Hellman Free Essays on Lillian Hellman Lillian Hellman Lillian Hellman was born in 1906 and was the only child of a shoe merchant and a woman from Alabama. Her father’s job required her to spend half of the year in New York and the other half in New Orleans. These two different locations gave her a taste of two different worlds throughout her childhood. These two worlds are very often merged in her plays. New York showed her a money conscious world of her grandmother whose Sunday dinners resembled corporation meetings and New Orleans represented the fluttery spinsters and black servants. (Dick, 1) She always knew she was going to be a writer ever since she was little and began to keep a journal. She realized â€Å"that an adolescent’s firsthand judgment was preferable to the tortured queries of old age.†(Dick, 1) Normally you would not expect Hellman to write for theater but she did not have skill for detail that fiction requires. In many of her plays the plot is based on an object such as a pen knife (Days to Come), a medicine bottle (The Little Foxes), a briefcase (Watch on the Rhine), and a bracelet (The Children’s Hour). Most of her plays have something to do with government and always have a problem that the characters have to solve using all of their ability and concentration. Elizabeth Hardwick talks about how Lillian Hellman’s plays are â€Å"triumphs of craftsmanship†(Hardwick, 4). Her plays usually consist of actors facing misfortunate problems and then using great energy and skill to try to figure them out. Hellman fills her plays with crisis and chaos from secret letters to grand theft. It seems that sometimes her characters are so busy coming up with clever ways to solve these problems that you might forget what the plot is about. Her plays are entertaining and useful in commercial theater but sometimes a little to confusing for a person who is trying to figure out the characters. David Hunt critiques Scoundrel Time which... Free Essays on Lillian Hellman Lillian Hellman was born in New Orleans, Louisiana in 1906. She died at Martha’s Vineyard in 1984. Lillian’s work includes screenplays, plays, novels, short stories, and an autobiography/ memoir. Lillian’s personal life was reflected in most of her plays and sometimes even inspired the whole play. For example Lillian is described as an â€Å"independent child,† by Carol MacNichols in a â€Å"Dictionary of Literary Biography,† (Contemporary Authors) this trait of Lillian’s personality is portrayed in her story, â€Å" Run Away† which is in the book, â€Å" A writers reader†. Lillian was an independent person in many ways; this is reflected in her story, â€Å"Run Away†. The girl, whose name was never mentioned in the story, runs away from her home and lives on her own. The girl in the story leaves her home and stays in a dollhouse, takes care of herself, buys her own food, and even begs to rent a room. All of these are examples of this girl’s independence. Lillian is portraying her own sense of independence through this girl in her story. This girl reflects Lillian’s independence as a young girl. The const ant moving in Lillian’s life, a father that was hardly ever there, and life as an only child resulted in Lillian’s independence and rebellious ways. Lillian was led into an early marriage to press agent, Arthur Kober by the impulse of loving the publishers parties, and the adventurous life of the literary world of the nineteen twenties, which Arthur Kober was an active part in. In 1929 she accompanied her husband, Arthur, to Germany. Here Lillian was exposed for the first time to the Nazi movement, which was her first exposure to Anti-Semitism. Later this theme would come to play in her stage play, â€Å"Watch on the Rhine† and â€Å"The Searching Wind†. This is another example of how her personal life is sometimes reflected in her work. As time passed, Lillian’s marriage eventually came to an end o...

Pakistan, India and the Second Kashmir War

Pakistan, India and the Second Kashmir War In 1965, India and Pakistan fought their second of three major wars since 1947 over Kashmir. The United States was largely to blame for setting the stage for war. The United States in the 1960s was an arms supplier to both India and Pakistanunder the condition that neither side would use the weapons to fight each other. The weapons were ostensibly designed to counter communist Chinas influence in the region. The condition, imposed by the Kennedy and Johnson administrations, was a naive reflection of American misunderstandings that would plague American policy there for decades. Had the United States not supplied either sides with tanks and jets, fighting would likely not have resulted, as Pakistan would not have had the air power to take on the Indian military, which was eight times the size of Pakistans. (India had 867,000 men under arms at the time, Pakistan just 101,000). Pakistan, however, allied itself in 1954 with the United States through the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization, leading neutralist India to accuse Pakistan of positioning itself for an American-backed attack. U.S. arms supplies in the 1960s fed the fears. We warned our friends that this aid would not be used against China, but against Pakistan, Pakistani President Ayub Khan, who ruled Pakistan from 1958 to 1969, complained in September 1965 of American arms flowing to India, too. Ayud, of course, was being brazenly hypocritical as he had also dispatched American-made fighter jets against Indian forces in Kashmir. The second war over Kashmir, never declared, broke out on Aug. 15, 1965 and lasted until a UN-brokered cease-fire on Sept. 22. The war was inconclusive, costing the two sides a combined 7,000 casualties but gaining them little. According to the U.S. Library of Congress Country Studies on Pakistan, Each side held prisoners and some territory belonging to the other. Losses were relatively heavyon the Pakistani side, twenty aircraft, 200 tanks, and 3,800 troops. Pakistans army had been able to withstand Indian pressure, but a continuation of the fighting would only have led to further losses and ultimate defeat for Pakistan. Most Pakistanis, schooled in the belief of their own martial prowess, refused to accept the possibility of their countrys military defeat by Hindu India and were, instead, quick to blame their failure to attain their military aims on what they considered to be the ineptitude of Ayub Khan and his government. India and Pakistan agreed to a cease-fire on Sept. 22, though not without Pakistans Zulikfar Ali Bhutto, the foreign minister at the time, threatening that Pakistan would leave the United Nations if the Kashmir situation wasnt settled. His ultimatum carried no timetable. Bhutto called India a great monster, a great aggressor. The cease-fire was not substantial beyond a demand that both sides put down their arms and a pledge to send international observers to Kashmir. Pakistan renewed its call for a referendum by Kashmirs mostly Muslim population of 5 million to decide the regions future, in accordance with a 1949 UN resolution. India continued to resist conducting such a plebiscite. The 1965 war, in sum, settled nothing and merely put off future conflicts.