William Shakespeare s A Midsummer Night s Dream Essay

In William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Shakespeare crafts a play with three very different viewpoints that can be interpreted in many ways, some with obvious interpretations and other with much less obvious ones. Shakespeare also ends A midsummer Night’s Dream, with an apology that is just as less obvious as some of the play’s interpretation. Yet, If a person looks past the obvious interpretations of the play, one can begin to piece together the possible message, that mortals no matter the status or power they may have on earth, are all subject to greater unseen powers regardless of whether they believe in them or not. Shakespeare’s epilogue at the end of A Midsummer Night’s Dream has also confused many critics about the meaning and has resulted many different interpretations. Shakespeare through the character Robin clearly tries to give a message to the audience but does not give that message clearly for everyone to understand. It appears to be a type of disclaimer, but the exact nature of the offense and the reasoning behind isn’t made clear: â€Å"If we shadows have offended, Think but this, and all is mended: That you have but slumbered here, While these visions did appear† (Epilogue 1-4). If the â€Å"shadows† in the play offend the audience, one wonders how and why. It is clear that Shakespeare had wished to escape â€Å"the serpent’s tongue,† which leads one to believe he was aware of a possible negative reaction. Therefore, he suggests to those who may be offended toShow MoreRelatedWilliam Shakespeare s A Midsummer Night s Dream1339 Words   |  6 PagesHonors For A Midsummer Night s Dream By William Shakespeare 1. Title of the book - The title of the book is called A Midsummer Night s Dream by William Shakespeare. 2. Author s name - The author of the book A Midsummer Night s Dream is William Shakespeare. 3. The year the piece was written - A Midsummer Night s Dream by William Shakespeare was believed to have been written between 1590-1596. 4. Major Characters - There are three major characters in the book A Midsummer Night s Dream by WilliamRead MoreWilliam Shakespeare s A Midsummer Night s Dream1474 Words   |  6 Pagesinstance, one could look at the movies A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Shakespeare in Love. The latter follows the life of William Shakespeare himself, everything from his love affair with Viola de Lesseps to his creation of Romeo and Juliet. A Midsummer Night’s Dream, is one of the most famous plays of Shakespeare’s, revolving around the tumultuous relationships of four lovers, aided, and sometimes thwarted by the mischief of fairies. Although Shakespeare in Love outlines a few of the characteristicsRead MoreWilliam Shakespeare s A Midsummer Night s Dream1548 Words   |  7 Pagesspoken by Helena in Act 1 Scene 1 line 234, explains that it matters not what the eyes see but what the mind thinks it sees. In the play, A Midsummer Night s Dream, written by William Shakespeare, there are several instances where the act of seeing is being portrayed. The definition of vision is the ability to see, something you imagine or something you dream. This proves that even though one has the ability to see; the mind tends to interfere and sometimes presents a different picture. VariousRead MoreWilliam Shakespeare s A Midsummer Night s Dream867 Words   |  4 Pagesspecifically how they will benefit that other person, you’re in love.† In A Midsummer Night s Dream, William Shakespeare intertwined each individual characters. Through the concept of true love and presented to the audiences a twisted yet romantic love story. The love stories of Renaissance are richly colorful, so Shakespeare used multiple literary techniques to present to the readers a vivid image of true love. Shakespeare applied metaphor in the lines of Lysander. In Act 1, scene 1, Lysander saysRead MoreWilliam Shakespeare s A Midsummer Night s Dream990 Words   |  4 PagesSymbols in William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream Symbols help to play an important part in giving a deeper meaning to a story. William Shakespeare uses a variety of symbols in his play A Midsummer Night’s Dream and by using these symbols he offers some insight onto why certain events take place in the play. Symbols are sometimes hard to decipher but as the reader continues to read the symbol’s meaning might become more clear. Shakespeare uses a variety of symbols in A Midsummer Night’s DreamRead MoreWilliam Shakespeare s A Midsummer Night s Dream1397 Words   |  6 PagesShakespeare’s comedies, like those of most Renaissance playwrights, involve love and its obstacles. Much of the comedy in A Midsummer Night’s Dream derives from the attempt of Lysander and Hermia to remain together while overcoming the adult authority figure who attempts to hinder the love of a young couple. The overcoming of an obstacle functions as a common motif in Renaissance comedy. The audience must wonder, however, whether Lysander and Hermia, as well as Demetrius and Helena, actually loveRead MoreWilliam Shakespeare s A Midsummer Night s Dream1207 Words   |  5 PagesWilliam Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream has been categorized as a comedy play because of all the characters being passionately in love to the point of being foolish. It’s a play all about love, and the characters that are in love are only young adults, so they are still naive when it comes to love. Their naivety and foolishness regarding love is what allows them to be taken advantage of by mischievous fairies when they all run away into the woods. By critiquing the love affairs and numerousRead MoreA Midsummer Night s Dream By William Shakespeare1882 Words   |  8 PagesWritten during the Elizabethan era where gender roles played an important part in society and relationships, A Midsummer Night’s Dream by William Shakespeare portrays the interaction between both sexes, and the women’s respo nse to the expectation of such norms. Although the characters: Hippolyta, Hermia, Helena, and Titania, are portrayed as objects (both sexual and material) contingent upon their male lovers, they are also given empowerment. During the Elizabethan Era, and present throughout MNDRead MoreWilliam Shakespeare s A Midsummer Night s Dream1277 Words   |  6 Pagestogether. Nor will love ever be a controllable compulsion. Maybe we are fools for going into the perilous, eccentric universe of love; yet what fun would life be without it? William Shakespeare s play A Midsummer Night s Dream investigates the unconventional, unreasonable and unpredictable nature of love during his time. Shakespeare conveys this through the main plot of the play, which is composed of the relationships between three couples. The three couples show examples of three different types ofRead MoreWilliam Shakespeare s A Midsummer Night s Dream1442 Words   |  6 Pages William Shakespeare is estimated to have lived from 1564 to about 1616. He is often recognized as great English poet, actor, and playwright, and paved the way for many on all of those categories. Over that span he wrote many pieces that are still relevant today such as Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, and Macbeth. I would like to take a deeper look into one on his pieces â€Å"A Midsummers Night’s Dream.† This piece is estimated to have first been preformed in about 1595 and then later published in 1600. Many William Shakespeare s A Midsummer Night s Dream Essay Shakespeare’s play A Midsummer Night’s Dream presents an assortment of characters whose difficulties with their lover’s present itself in many situation of the play through these unique relationships. In Act 3 Puck is reporting to Oberon about Titania and Bottom when Demetrius and Hermia enter the scene Puck states â€Å"This the woman but not this the man† (3.2.44). Puck’s quote holds a simple but repeated metaphor of the play itself and its reoccurring themes on the mystery love presents. Puck’s motives throughout the play don’t ever seem to get clearer aside from knowing that he services Oberon, and makes one mistakes to shake up the entire story before choosing to cause his own mischief. Through the entire story the fairy Puck plays one of the main antagonists, even from the beginning he is responsible for a lot of problems but later solutions. Shakespeare cast Oberon and Puck as character to create a living metaphor for the m ystery behind conflict and resolution experienced in relationships. The maelstrom the characters find themselves in originates from the quickly running emotions produced from the mystery love presents each of them. The conflicts that arise in the play are exemplified situations in which many people experience in their own relationship. In Act 3 Shakespeare plays with the how uniquely delicate relationships are when love is unclear between the characters it create chaos for everyone. Puck is viewed as a moderator between the characters of theShow MoreRelatedWilliam Shakespeare s A Midsummer Night s Dream1339 Words   |  6 PagesHonors For A Midsummer Night s Dream By William Shakespeare 1. Title of the book - The title of the book is called A Midsummer Night s Dream by William Shakespeare. 2. Author s name - The author of the book A Midsummer Night s Dream is William Shakespeare. 3. The year the piece was written - A Midsummer Night s Dream by William Shakespeare was believed to have been written between 1590-1596. 4. Major Characters - There are three major characters in the book A Midsummer Night s Dream by WilliamRead MoreWilliam Shakespeare s A Midsummer Night s Dream1474 Words   |  6 Pagesinstance, one could look at the movies A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Shakespeare in Love. The latter follows the life of William Shakespeare himself, everything from his love affair with Viola de Lesseps to his creation of Romeo and Juliet. A Midsummer Night’s Dream, is one of the most famous plays of Shakespeare’s, revolving around the tumultuous relationships of four lovers, aided, and sometimes thwarted by the mischief of fairies. Although Shakespeare in Love outlines a few of the characteristicsRead MoreWilliam Shakespeare s A Midsummer Night s Dream1548 Words   |  7 Pagesspoken by Helena in Act 1 Scene 1 line 234, explains that it matters not what the eyes see but what the mind thinks it sees. In the play, A Midsummer Night s Dream, written by William Shakespeare, there are several instances where the act of seeing is being portrayed. The definition of vision is the ability to see, something you imagine or something you dream. This proves that even though one has the ability to see; the mind tends to interfere and sometimes presents a different picture. VariousRead MoreWilliam Shakespeare s A Midsummer Night s Dream867 Words   |  4 Pagesspecifically how they will benefit that other person, you’re in love.† In A Midsummer Night s Dream, William Shakespeare intertwined each individual characters. Through the concept of true love and presented to the audiences a twisted yet romantic love story. The love stories of Renaissance are richly colorful, so Shakespeare used multiple literary techniques to present to the readers a vivid image of true love. Shakespeare applied metaphor in the lines of Lysander. In Act 1, scene 1, Lysander saysRead MoreWilliam Shakespeare s A Midsummer Night s Dream990 Words   |  4 PagesSymbols in William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream Symbols help to play an important part in giving a deeper meaning to a story. William Shakespeare uses a variety of symbols in his play A Midsummer Night’s Dream and by using these symbols he offers some insight onto why certain events take place in the play. Symbols are sometimes hard to decipher but as the reader continues to read the symbol’s meaning might become more clear. Shakespeare uses a variety of symbols in A Midsummer Night’s DreamRead MoreWilliam Shakespeare s A Midsummer Night s Dream1397 Words   |  6 PagesShakespeare’s comedies, like those of most Renaissance playwrights, involve love and its obstacles. Much of the comedy in A Midsummer Night’s Dream derives from the attempt of Lysander and Hermia to remain together while overcoming the adult authority figure who attempts to hinder the love of a young couple. The overcoming of an obstacle functions as a common motif in Renaissance comedy. The audience must wonder, however, whether Lysander and Hermia, as well as Demetrius and Helena, actually loveRead MoreWilliam Shakespeare s A Midsummer Night s Dream1207 Words   |  5 PagesWilliam Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream has been categorized as a comedy play because of all the characters being passionately in love to the point of being foolish. It’s a play all about love, and the characters that are in love are only young adults, so they are still naive when it comes to love. Their naivety and foolishness regarding love is what allows them to be taken advantage of by mischievous fairies when they all run away into the woods. By critiquing the love affairs and numerousRead MoreA Midsummer Night s Dream By William Shakespeare1882 Words   |  8 PagesWritten during the Elizabethan era where gender roles played an important part in society and relationships, A Midsummer Night’s Dream by William Shakespeare portrays the interaction between both sexes, and the women’s respo nse to the expectation of such norms. Although the characters: Hippolyta, Hermia, Helena, and Titania, are portrayed as objects (both sexual and material) contingent upon their male lovers, they are also given empowerment. During the Elizabethan Era, and present throughout MNDRead MoreWilliam Shakespeare s A Midsummer Night s Dream1277 Words   |  6 Pagestogether. Nor will love ever be a controllable compulsion. Maybe we are fools for going into the perilous, eccentric universe of love; yet what fun would life be without it? William Shakespeare s play A Midsummer Night s Dream investigates the unconventional, unreasonable and unpredictable nature of love during his time. Shakespeare conveys this through the main plot of the play, which is composed of the relationships between three couples. The three couples show examples of three different types ofRead MoreWilliam Shakespeare s A Midsummer Night s Dream1442 Words   |  6 Pages William Shakespeare is estimated to have lived from 1564 to about 1616. He is often recognized as great English poet, actor, and playwright, and paved the way for many on all of those categories. Over that span he wrote many pieces that are still relevant today such as Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, and Macbeth. I would like to take a deeper look into one on his pieces â€Å"A Midsummers Night’s Dream.† This piece is estimated to have first been preformed in about 1595 and then later published in 1600. Many

Adrienne Rich Free Essays

string(206) " This allows the reader to become part of an oral history for the nation, and thus a map maker in a sense, as memory is presented by Rich as a type of map, it is with this metaphor that the poems progress\." This essay will present the motif of the mapmaker in Adrienne Rich’s book Atlas of the Difficult World.   The themes throughout the book will be extolled in this essay and dissected through the theme of this subject brought together through metaphor, concrete imagery and the allusion to place as well as destination which Rich suggests throughout her work in concepts both metaphysical, and real. Rich’s title poem of Atlas of the Difficult World brings forth a voice which is cut into a duality of realism as well as a harsh sense of that reality. We will write a custom essay sample on Adrienne Rich or any similar topic only for you Order Now    The images prevalent in this poem brings the images of the map into a bizarre reality which suggests a striking and honest concept of Americana in a disturbing light.   This is the key factor of the theme of map in Rich’s Atlas of the Difficult World: which is, in the very least, best described as disturbing. The title poem relates to the reader the concept of women’s work.   This poem then imagines for the readers the idea of placement such as topographical, geographical or landscape; Rich presents the concept to the reader of where a woman is in relation to the margins of the country. The poem further expounds upon this notion by suggesting the idea, or rather of questioning the reader as to the nature of the woman’s   place in relation to ‘our’ consciousness in a topographical sense of the term.   This would seem as though Rich is delving into a political stream of consciousness, but it is in the map, in the geography, or landscape which rests as the pinnacle of the poem’s place as it relates to the reader. In the issue of maps, of place, Rich also brings forth the concept of roles, of patriarchy and the woman’s dialectic towards such a predestined role.   Rich goes on to extrapolate from the concept of topography the idea of a woman’s place, or women’s work. The poem is a tantalizing tease between the idea of women’s work in the margins of the country, and the map of women’s recorded obsequious nature, but not her unrecorded consciousness as to her own definition of place.   Ã‚   The title poem then serves as a gateway from the speaker to the reader through the path of topography into the un-traversed landscape of indirect and misguided concepts of what women’s work is, and the conscious factor of that work and its place in the United States.   The poem serves as an undercurrent to an alternative to the idea of landscape, of the United States in regards to feminism (as is a standard theme in Rich’s poems), politics, and personal space. The way in which boundaries of the ‘map’ (politics, consciousness, gender, etc.) are disregarded by the speaker is a fundamental element in the poem; this disregard allows for both the speaker and the reader to explore other areas of the typography, and the structure of such devices as gender, roles, etc. Thus, the speaker allows the reader to realize the relation of self, role, politics, and all of the above, to the composition of the atlas, and the role that an individual, or in this case, the role of the reader as a map reader: I promised to show you a map you say but this is a mural then yes let it be these are small distinctions where do we see it from is the question (pt. II, ll. 22-24). Thus, the concept of personal roles comes into play in the poem as a question of perspective. The role of the narrator then is to allow the reader a chance to be guided through the atlas.   The atlas in the poem pays attention to not only geography but also stories; such stories are in relation to historical facts as well as personal lives. This allows the reader to respond to the poem through various avenues of perspective such as they may be presented through historical place, and geography as well as body and mind locations; thus, each reading of the poem by individual readers will give a different perspective of the atlas since each reader is coming from their own personal frame of reference. The poet, the narrator comes into the poem and suggests or brings forth to the reader the daring possibility of questioning their own place in the atlas, the landscape. This challenge is perpetuated from the concept of women’s work, and the changing definition of what that entails, â€Å"These are not roads / you knew me by. But the woman driving, walking, watching / for life and death, is the same† (pt. I, ll. 77-79). The narrator presents women on the map, or the road to the reader, and the reader in turn becomes an active part of the poem since the reader brings their own interpretation through personal reference to the perspective of these women. The poems then are different roads along the entirety of the atlas, and the question which the poet reiterates to the reader is where do the poems take the reader; which direction?   Thus, affirmation of the role of the map is a central motif in Rich’s Atlas of a Difficult World. The following poems of Atlas of a Difficult World then are each designed as a road into the different parts of the atlas on different levels and from different perspectives.  Ã‚   The poems are not limited to the topography of the atlas but also delve into the history of the place.   There are thirteen parts of the book which in turn are vignettes which come from a myriad of women’s lives. The voice which Rich lends to each ‘story’ is relatively urgent and gives the reader a sense that it is important that they read these lines not only for the benefit of the woman who lived the story but for the reader’s personal benefit since it is with the reader that a continuation and change in the story may occur.   This allows the reader to become part of an oral history for the nation, and thus a map maker in a sense, as memory is presented by Rich as a type of map, it is with this metaphor that the poems progress. You read "Adrienne Rich" in category "Papers"    It is by recognizing the importance of history, even in small characters that allows for the roles of women to change from obsequious to strong willed; from patriarchal to gynocentric.   Rich’s purpose in her poems is a striking narrative of forcing the reader to notice how women have been excluded in large part from the history, the geography of the land, the United States’ history. Thus, through use of landscape and the connection of landscape to events, Rich gives the reader a chance to notice these women. In Part I of Atlas of a Difficult World, Rich gives testimonies from a myriad of women who have a vast knowledge of economic hardship which incites fear and which either delays or spurns action forward.   There is also a theme of silence and the breaking of silence in the atlas, the memory of these moments with the different women in the poems. There is one poem which gives details of an unknown woman who was murdered:   The woman was a farm worker who had been in deep exposure to toxins:   â€Å"Malathion in the throat, communion, / the hospital at the edge of the fields, / prematures slipping from unsafe wombs† (ll. 8-10). This woman has a type of communion with death, and her character is anonymous because there are countless other women who are or were in the same situation, so many that their story became one story it had been told too often that the names were unimportant and then, eventually her story was forgotten.   Rich brings the concept of the mapmaker as a memory harvester into her poems to give the reader an interactive part in the poem. Since this story is being retold to the reader, the reader must carry it in their memory, and thus give credit to the live that died, to the woman.   The woman had been oppressed and exposed to environmental dangers, and because the woman had worked to survive but died anyway, it is important that her life be chartered into this ‘atlas’ of memory, of story. Rich does not want the idea of denial of memory to play a major role in the development of the country, of the atlas as she writes, â€Å"I don’t want to hear how he beat her . . ., / tore up her writing . . . / . . . I don’t want to know / wreckage† (ll. 39-40, 48-49). The interesting factor in this woman’s story is that her small death is actually a beginning of a national cover up story, and thus, her story becomes part of the landscape of history, however minute.   The woman’s death is a national cover up which involved violence and amoral behavior and which were the opposite of the striving of America, in industry.   Through the denial of this story, history is changed, is made false through the help of the media. This theme of denial changes the landscape of the map, it erases important structures of the geography, and this lead into Part V of Atlas of a Difficult World in which a queer woman is murdered and yet, her story does not succumb to erasure: I don’t want to know how he tracked them along the Appalachian Trail, hid close by their tent, pitched as they thought in seclusion killing one woman, the other dragging herself into town his defense they had teased his loathing of what they were I don’t want to know but this is not a bad dream of mine (ll. 45-51). In Parts II and III, the poem becomes an evocation of the American ideal or geography.   The poems exercise their voice towards symmetry or balance in history in which women’s history is not erased or ruined or made to seem slavish, but instead integrates the real roles of women. In Part IV the poems introduce mourning of the women lost in the margins of the atlas, whose stories were covered up or never known, and the poem cries for ‘still unbegun work of repair’ (1. 25).   In this part, women are alluded to as prisoners, â€Å"locked away out of sight and hearing, out of mind, shunted aside / those needed to teach, advise, persuade, weigh arguments / those urgently needed for the work of perception† (ll. 19-21). It seems that Rich is suggesting that these women were covered up in the landslide of the country, or that they were unchartered in its conception, unrecognized. In Parts VI-VIII Rich gives the allusion of the map and the lives of the women unraveling which becomes apparent as the men in the stories, or poems went on dreaming large dreams in the landscape of the history of the atlas, while the women went on with untold stories of contention, they women went on without receiving. Rich goes on to state in these parts that the men continued in the map of the country thinking, and Rich suggests the irony of this by stating, â€Å"Slaves – you would not be that† (pt. VI, l. 14).   This is a main point made by Rich in which she is stating that the men did not allow themselves to be considered or made slaves through physical force nor psychological devices but that women and others had to bear that history. There is a culmination of the focus of map making in Parts IX-XI which studies the fragmentation of the atlas through false history, as Rich states through the narrator, â€Å"one woman / like and unlike so many, fooled as to her destiny, the scope of her task† (pt. XI, ll. 16-17). In Part XII Rich gives the reader a chance of seeing restoration in the land through the recognition of women’s roles and values by giving the reader these lines to ponder, â€Å"What homage will be paid to a beauty built to last / from inside out . . . / I didn’t speak then / of your beauty at the wheel beside me . . . / – I speak of them now† (ll. 1-2, 9-10, 18). Thus, being a mapmaker, or a keeper of true history is the legacy Rich gives to her readers.   It is through the role of speaking and not remaining silent, of allowing the atlas to grow, and of exploring the roads which were once unchartered that Rich’s motif of map making is an allusion to recognition of women’s history, as Rich writes, â€Å"I know you are reading this poem† throughout the last part because the poem aspires to be nothing less than the unspoken, archetypal stories women know well. Rich concludes, â€Å"I know you are reading this poem because there is nothing else left to read / there where you have landed, stripped as you are† (ll. 36-37) which in its honesty gives women a place on the atlas of the United States instead of remaining in the margins, in the back alleys of the topography. Work Cited Rich, A.   An Atlas of a Difficult World.   W.W. Norton Company.   1991. How to cite Adrienne Rich, Papers

Significance of Vladimir Lenin free essay sample

Breaking the barrier between attaining both economic success and political achievement, Vladimir Lenin almost singlehandedly ended the Tsardom and brought the socialist â€Å"Bolshevik† party to power in Russia. Lenin’s unique experiences in his youth led him to his status as a revolutionary and ultimately changed Russia and the world. Lenin’s early life helped to shape his destiny as a revolutionary leader. As with most people, Lenin’s beliefs and ideals were instilled in him at a young, impressionable age. Lenin was born in a small rural town on the Volga River called Simbirsk on April 10, 1877. He was born Vladimir Ilich Ulyanov, to a family of two sisters and three brothers, all of whom became revolutionaries. Vladimir’s father, Iliya Ulyanov, was a school inspector and was ironically a nobleman. Lenin was raised in an upper-middle class family and even expressed this fact openly at his rallies validating it by saying, â€Å"By their social status the founders of modern scientific socialism, Marx and Engels, themselves belonged to the bourgeois intelligentsia† (What Is to Be Done 2). Marx and Engels were the two inventors of Communism, who were well educated upper-class members of society that believed in social change. One of Lenin’s older brothers, Alexander, was also a revolutionary. In 1887, he and four others were arrested for plotting to assassinate Tsar Alexander III. Alexander Ulyanov was publicly hanged that same year. Before his death, Alexander said that, â€Å"[Vladimir] showed no interest in public affairs† (Gottfried 18). In fact, it was Alexander’s death that triggered Vladimir’s resentment toward the Tsarist government and helped to instill a prideful need for revolution. He first demonstrated his beliefs at a protest at Kazan University, for which he was promptly expelled. He was allowed to continue his studies by himself and eventually got his degree in law in 1891. Some of Lenin’s later influences were Karl Marx and Nicholas Chernyshevsky, whose book was the namesake for Lenin’s most popular pamphlet, â€Å"What is To Be Done? † Their philosophy of a â€Å"class struggle† showed that the wealthy upper class took advantage of the lower class for their own benefit. These combined experiences laid the foundation for Lenin’s radical beliefs in revolution. As Lenin began to work as a lawyer and write his many pamphlets, a storm began to brew in his mind regarding the impending revolution. Lenin, like others in the socialist party, wanted social and economic equality for the proletariat, or working class. He also wanted a more just government that was governed by the proletariat as opposed to the aristocrats who had been in power for 300 years. Many protests happened near his place of work in St. Petersburg, as it was a university town and full of young, idealistic minds. Lenin actively participated in many protests and gained a devoted following. This did not go unnoticed, as many times Lenin was arrested for speaking against the tsar. These infractions were trumped by his eventual banishment for actions against the tsar to western Siberia and then to Munich. For most of his exile he traveled across Europe and spoke at rallies and socialist meetings. Lenin returned to his homeland to help in the 1905 revolution, in which he was elected to lead the local Socialist party. After the bloody battles, he resumed his exile until the next revolution in 1917. The more prominent 1917 revolution was a turning point because it became a declaration of war between the â€Å"Red† Bolshevik party and the â€Å"White† Menshevik party. Lenin’s determination and leadership led to the revolutions’ success. His drive to overthrow the provisional government and start a communist Russia is apparent in his many pamphlets: â€Å"When the workers and laboring peasants took hold of the powers of state it became our duty to quell the resistance of the exploiting class† (A Letter to American Workingmen 6). His goal, through much death and bloodshed, was reached. In October 1917, Lenin and the Bolsheviks took power and became the de facto leaders of Russia. This massive power-shift changed Russia and the world for the next century. Lenin worked extremely hard for his county. He is said to have worked long days in ill health, and even did work after the strokes that would eventually kill him (Reed 5). Unfortunately, Lenin’s successor was not so benevolent. After Lenin’s death in 1924 at the age of 53, Joseph Stalin took power and almost strangled it to death. Stalin was a brutal dictator, killing about 60 million of his own people; not even Hitler had that many kills under his belt. Lenin, before his death even foresaw that violence would be nevitable, â€Å"If it has got to the point where [congress] could go so far as to use physical violence†¦ then one can imagine the mess we’ve got ourselves into† (Shuckman 202). Stalinism was a gross bastardization of Leninism and led to Russia’s reputation of being a brutal, warmongering land. This was in no way Lenin’s fault; the most he did was appoint Stalin as his successor and he was loyal to Lenin at the time. Ultimately , though, Russia was a contender for the most powerful country in the world for more than fifty years. Most notably, Lenin’s work led to the long and tense Cold War and the spread of Communism across the globe. The USSR also annexed many lands and called them their own. This led to many conflicts including the Chechen wars and the current war in Afghanistan. Many terrorists in Afghanistan use soviet weapons from the Russian occupation, so the war in Afghanistan can partially be attributed to the former Soviet Union. Communism had a profound impact on Russia and the world. Though many say it was the bane of the 20th century, Communism was and still is an important aspect of history and life. Lenin was truly the forefather of modern Communism and without him, the mighty superpower that was the Soviet Union would not have been. His many works are now standard reading for students of political science and it has found immortality in the many statues and cities in his honor. Even though many democracies still fear the implications of socialism, such as United States Republicans calling President Obama a Socialist, much of the fear and xenophobia has subsided. Lenin’s vision of a utopian society was never fully reached, however, the impact of his dedication to communism can be felt throughout the world almost a century after his death.