The only role women play in war is that of the innocent victim Essay

The only role women play in war is that of the innocent victim - Essay Example Thesis statement: The comparison based on Mother Courage and Her Children by Bertolt Brecht and Women of Troy by Euripides proves that the only role women play in war is that of the innocent victims. Comparison: A. Role of women in Thirty Years' War of 1618–1648 and Trojan War First of all, one can easily identify that Brecht was totally against Fascism and Nazism. So, he made use of the context of German invasion of Poland (1939) as the plot of his play, Mother Courage and Her Children. But he infused the plot to another context, i.e., the Thirty Years' War. The plot revolves around the life history of Anna Fierling (Mother Courage) and her futile attempt to make a living by serving as a canteen woman. Besides, Mother Courage considers her job as an opportunity to help her family. Bloom makes clear that â€Å"In the opening scene, Brecht uses â€Å"the song of Mother Courage† to project an attitude- Anna Fierling’s response to war as an arena for commerce† ( 37). From a different angle, her involvement in the Thirty Years' War (say, her service in Swedish Army) was indirect but she was forced to face its after effects (the death of her children) in a direct way. Besides, her daughter Catherine was killed during the war, without any solid reason. On the other side, in the play Women of Troy, the playwright portrays the women characters as the victims of the Trojan War. Their status in the society as the members of the royal family does not help them to be safe from the after effects of the war. For instance, the women of Troy faced multiple problems due to the utter defeat in the war with the Greek warriors. Besides, the women characters were not responsible for the war but they were forced to undergo a number of problems. Salisbury states that â€Å"In the Women of Troy, at the end of the war the women of Troy are enslaved, and Euripides shows the horror of warfare through their eyes† (153). Almost all the women characters in the play, like Hecuba, Helen, Andromache and Cassandra were not directly involved in the war. But abduction of Helen was the grass root level reason behind the war. To be specific, the women characters in Play Women of Troy were the victims of the after effects of the Trojan War. B. Family crisis One can easily identify that Brecht makes use of the main female characters in the play Mother Courage and Her Children, as his mouthpiece to communicate with the viewers. For instance, Brecht makes use of the character Anna Fierling and her service in the Swedish Army to unveil the futility of war. Besides, Anna Fierling’s service did not help her to save her children from the after effects of the dreadful war. Instead, her children (Eilif, Kattrin, and Swiss Cheese) were killed during the war. But Carney opines that† When Mother Courage lose one of her children, her immediate reaction is businesslike: it is necessary to divide up the work anew† (101). Her attempt to se rve the Swedish Army in the Thirty Years' War and to save her family became unsuccessful. Her daughter Kattrin (Catherine) was one of the direct victims of the war. Besides, Yvette Pottier, a female character in the play, was a prostitute who used to entertain the soldiers. One can easily identify that these female characters (say, Anna Fierling, Catherine and Yvette Pottier) were not directly involved in the war, but were forced to be the direct victims. On the other side, in the play Women of Troy, the women charac

New Approach in Cancer Treatment Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3000 words

New Approach in Cancer Treatment - Essay Example The different therapies available in the market today target to control the division rate of the tumor cells. However, emerging knowledge reveals that all cancer therapies may be missing the point and this explains why cancers relapse so often even after treatment. The new knowledge suggests that therapy should aim at altering the proliferation rate of cancer stem cells that sustain a tumor. One wonders whether this knowledge is a breakthrough towards discovering a potential cure for cancer. This paper will tackle the potential of this new knowledge to change the picture of cancer treatment, its challenges, and promises. Description of Cancer Stem Cells Cancer originates from a transformation of cells from normal growth pattern to abnormal growth properties. Cancer stem cells are primitive cells that are responsible for the growth and advancement of a tumor. These cells have the capacity to regenerate and the regeneration process yields differentiated cells. The cancer stem cells yie ld malignant cells on renewal. They possess other critical characteristics of normal stem cells. They display multi-potency and experimental evidence reveals that they can give rise to tumors when introduced into normal tissues in organisms with compromised immune systems. Experimental evidence has proved that cancer stem cells are responsible for the new population of cancer cells when a tumor recurs. These experiments reveal that the few multi-potent cancer stem cells have the potential to restore new populations of all various cell populations in the first tumor. Cancer stem cells are the only ones capable of metastasis to other tissues and give rise to new tumors. Cancer stem cells portray resistance to anti-cancer drugs available in the market today (Majumder, 2009:13). Although these drugs succeed in reducing the tumor mass cells by altering different aspects of their proliferation, the cancer stem cells remain unaltered and survive. After some time, these stem cells initiate a new process of tumor formation (Clevers, 2011:5). Since cancer stem cells show very slow proliferation whereas most of the drugs only target the highly proliferative cells, then such drugs leave cancer stem cells intact. Cancer stem cells acquire the potential to activate and repress certain genes just as normal stem cells do. However, stem cells do not respond to certain stop signals that other stem cells respond to and end up gaining an infinite life span. Evidence of the Presence of Cancer Stem Cells The first evidence that cancer stem cells were present in cancers was through analysis of hematological cancers. Researchers observed a small proportion of cells that possessed the self-renewing properties among a sphere of cancer cells. This property is similar to those of normal hematological stem cells. Hematological cancer cells observed a similar hierarchy of differentiation into cells of varying life spans just like the physiological hematological cells. In this hierarchy, ma jority of the cells had short and long life spans. Research revealed that some of the long-term cells possessed characteristics similar to normal hematologic stem cells. This initial evidence probed advanced study on the same concept in other cancer types. So far, research indicates that cancer stem cells are present in the following types of cancers brain, colon, pancreatic, melanoma, prostate and breast cancer (Hayat, 2010:178). In sarcomas, although