Victorian ideals Essays

Victorian ideals Essays Victorian ideals Essay Victorian ideals Essay Essay Topic: Pygmalion Dickens dislike of women does stem back to his aforementioned mother, but also from his mistress, Ellen Ternan, who bore a likeness not uncanny at all to that of Estellas. She would tease him, taunt him, ignore him, order him about, deliberately forget celebrations, never thank him or do anything which would normally have constituted as being an angel in the house. Added to this, when his wife Catherine Hogarth found out about this affair she filed for a divorce and received it in 1858, and although Dickens was madly in love with Miss Ternan at the time, he shared a different kind of love with his wife, and was deeply heartbroken by the turn of events. Even though Dickens and Ternan stayed together until death, it is thought that the events over that short period of time made Dickens mistrustful of women, and so therefore all of the female characters in his books are not looked too highly upon, apart from Biddy ironically, who is a caricature of his wife. Pip even mistreats Biddy in the book not dissimilarly to how Dickens did Catherine in real life. Because of his views on feminism, Dickens could be compared to Henry Higgins from the George Bernard Shaw play Pygmalion. Henry Higgins is an obsessive rich eccentric, who is infatuated with phonetics and accents. He also takes a dim view of women, also stemming back to his mother when he was a child, so the comparison is even more apt. In the play, Higgins eventually falls in love with Eliza, much in the same way that Dickens loved Ternan. Higgins shows lots of anti-feminism tendencies, such as the mistreatment of her in the beginning of the play when he calls her a squashed cabbage leaf while showing respect and friendliness to his male guest who is there at the same time. It is clear that Dickens shared a similar mistrust of women because he builds up so many of these nasty female characters from his books, and shows that he would have thought dimly of the kind of nice, friendly woman portrayed in Coventry Patmores poem. Dickens has a tendency to base the characters in his books on real people in his life, primarily the female ones. He speaks through his characters and so they become an advocate for his own point of view, feelings, and opinions. However, it should not be assumed that each and every character is a carbon copy of the women in his life. The women in Great Expectations clearly reflect the traditional Victorian ideals of his time. This is usually seen through the negative treatment of women who did not conform to his ideals. However, it still seems that all the women who have ever given him grief in his life are depicted as the most nasty, uncaring people on the planet with little resemblance to the woman depicted in Coventry Patmores poem, and yet the single women who ever shows the mildest bit of compassion in his book, i.e. Biddy, is based on the woman who, even though she may have been not the right women for Dickens as she was unexciting and dull, he still has compassion for her, and so depicted her as the perfect example of womanhood, as the angel of the house, which may actually mean he supported this particular view of women in the household after all.

Family Dermestidae and Dermestid Beetles

Family Dermestidae and Dermestid Beetles The family Dermestidae includes skin or hide beetles, carpet beetles, and larder beetles, some of which can be serious pests of closets and pantries. The name dermestid comes from the Latin derma, for skin, and este, meaning to consume. Description Museum curators know dermestid beetles all too well. These scavengers have a reputation for devouring museum specimens. Dermestid beetles protein-eating habits make them equally valuable in museum settings, however, as colonies of dermestids can be used to clean the flesh and hair from bones and skulls. Many entomology students have encountered dermestids as pests, too, as theyre known for their rather bad habit of feeding on preserved insect specimens. Forensic entomologists look for dermestid beetles at crimes scenes when trying to determine the time of the death of a cadaver. Dermestids typically appear late in the decomposition process, when the corpse begins to dry out. Dermestid adults are quite small, ranging from just 2 mm to 12 mm in length. Their bodies are oval and convex in shape, and sometimes elongated. Dermestid beetles are covered in hair or scales, and bear clubbed antennae. Dermestids have chewing mouthparts. Dermestid beetle larvae are worm-like, and range in color from pale yellowish brown to light chestnut. Like the adult dermestids, the larvae are hairy, most noticeably near the hind end. The larvae of some species are oval, while others are tapered. Classification Kingdom – AnimaliaPhylum – ArthropodaClass – InsectaOrder – ColeopteraFamily - Dermestidae Diet Dermestid larvae can digest keratin, the structural proteins in the skin, hair, and other animal and human remains. Most feed on animal products, including leather, fur, hair, skin, wool, and even dairy products Some dermestid larvae prefer plant proteins and feed instead on nuts and seeds, or even silk and cotton. Most adult dermestid beetles feed on pollen. Because they can digest wool and silk, as well as plant products like cotton, dermestids can be a real nuisance in the home, where they may chew holes in sweaters and blankets. Life Cycle Like all beetles, dermestids undergo complete metamorphosis with four life stages: egg, larva, pupa, and adult. Dermestids vary greatly in the length of their life cycles, with some species going from egg to adult in 6 weeks, and others taking as long as a year or more to complete development. Females usually lay eggs in a dark crevice or other well-hidden location. Larvae molt through as many as 16 instars, feeding throughout the larval stage. After pupation, the adults emerge, ready to mate. Range and Distribution The cosmopolitan dermestid beetles live in varied habitats, provided theres a carcass or other food source available. Worldwide, scientists have described 1,000 species, with just over 120 known in North America. Sources: Borror and DeLongs Introduction to the Study of Insects, 7th Edition, by Charles A. Triplehown and Norman F. JohnsonKaufman Field Guide to Insects of North America, by Eric R. Eaton and Kenn KaufmanFamily Dermestidae, Bugguide.net, accessed November 25, 2011Dermestid Beetle, Texas AM AgriLife Extension, accessed November 25, 2011Dermestids, Utah State University Extension fact sheet