Monday, September 30, 2019

Describe the character of Macbeth in detail Essay

Describe the character of Macbeth in detail, showing clearly in what way his character changes as a result of the action of the play. Consider carefully why you feel Macbeth is a tragic hero and whether you feel any sympathy for him. NOTES: * Beginning – honest; noble; valiant; brave; loyal * End – â€Å"butcher†; not honest, loyal; still brave and prepared to fight till his death – â€Å"at least we’ll die with harness on our back†; he has become cruel and hardened – â€Å"I have almost forgotten the taste of fear†. He is corrupted by power and greed * So What Changes Him? : o Witches give him idea o Wife encourages him/builds on idea o Ambition/determination to be king o Once he starts killing, he can’t stop * Macbeth kills Macduff’s family – turning point for L. Macbeth – she realises what she has turned her husband into. * He can no longer control his ambition and it takes control over his actions * In the very first scene when we meet the witches, we see that Macbeth is closely connected to them, because they are talking about him, saying they will meet him and talk to him – â€Å"there to meet with Macbeth†. However, this is strongly contrasted in the next scene when we hear Duncan talking favourably about Macbeth, saying that he fought bravely and is to be rewarded for his loyalty – â€Å"oh valiant cousin, worthy gentleman†, â€Å"they smack of honour both† * Although it may seem from the start that Macbeth is weaker than his wife, this is not always the case – she never actually kills anyone: she gets Macbeth to kill Duncan because she thinks Duncan looks like her father when he sleeps – â€Å"had he not resembled my father as he slept, I had done’t†. * â€Å"Glamis and Thane of Cawdor: the greatest is behind.† – Here we see Macbeth’s own ambition before his wife has intervened. Also, before he talks to his wife, he considers the witches and if they are telling him the truth or if they are just evil, and he also thinks about ways he could fulfil their prophecy, the murderer of Duncan being one of them – â€Å"my thought, whose murder is yet but fantastical.† * Dramatic irony – just as Duncan and Malcolm are talking about deceit and saying how â€Å"there’s no art to find the mind’s construction in the face†, Macbeth enters. We know he is already deceiving people. * He starts to become evil when, in act 1 scene 4, he thinks about killing Malcolm. Here he starts to rhyme as well, like the witches, – a sign of him changing – â€Å"stars hide your fires†¦when it is done to see† * When Macbeth and his wife are discussing Duncan’s murder, Macbeth is unsure about it – â€Å"we will speak further† – but his wife keeps encouraging him. â€Å"Macbeth† by William Shakespeare is a play about deceit, ambition and betrayal, in which some of the characters change dramatically because of the fast-moving action of the play. One of these characters is the play’s tragic hero, Macbeth himself. Macbeth as we see him at the end of the play is barely recognisable as the same man we meet at the beginning: he has turned from a loyal, noble man to a cruel and hardened â€Å"butcher†, driven mostly by his own ambition to become King. Because Macbeth is a true tragic hero and we can clearly see all his good qualities as well as his bad ones, we do feel some sympathy for him as well. This play is set in Scotland, where Macbeth is a gallant Thane who is recognised and rewarded by King Duncan for his heroic efforts in battle. However, Macbeth is given the idea by three witches that someday he himself will be King and, especially after speaking to his wife on the matter, he becomes determined to fulfil the witches’ prophecy and claim the throne of Scotland. Although, this is not easy and Macbeth resorts to murder and begins to kill anyone who might pose a threat to him, and this eventually leads to his own death. From the very first scene, we see that Macbeth is somehow connected to the supernatural as the three witches speak of meeting Macbeth and talking with him – â€Å"there to meet with Macbeth†. However, this is contrasted is the next scene when we hear Duncan speaking favourably of Macbeth, saying that he fought bravely and is to be rewarded for his loyalty – â€Å"o valiant cousin, worthy gentleman†, â€Å"they smack of honour both† (Macbeth and Banquo). Therefore, before we have even met Macbeth ourselves, we have a mixed opinion of him; is he a valiant and â€Å"worthy gentleman† or does he have a darker side to him as the witches suggest? The answer to this question is that he has both qualities, but they each arise separately. During the course of the play, we see Macbeth quickly changing from a â€Å"gentleman† to a â€Å"butcher†. The first time we meet Macbeth is with the witches, and his first words â€Å"so foul and fair a day† echo the witches’ in the first act – â€Å"fair is foul and foul is fair†. This gives the immediate impression that he is closely connected to them, and in his first soliloquy he is giving second thoughts to what the witches said about his future and he is clearly ambitious from the start – â€Å"Glamis, and Thane of Cawdor: the greatest is behind†. Although Macbeth is thinking about the witches’ words and already considering the possibility of murdering Duncan, he makes it clear he would never actually do it – â€Å"my thought, whose murder is yet but fantastical†. In the next scene, Duncan and Malcolm talk about deceit and they say that â€Å"there is no art to find the mind’s construction in the face†, when, ironically, Macbeth walks in: he is hiding his thoughts about the witches and we know he will be deceitful when he murders Duncan – â€Å"stars hide your fires, let not light see my black and deep desires†. Again, when talking to Lady Macbeth, he is still unsure of the idea. She is trying to persuade him that Duncan’s death would be best but he still says â€Å"we will speak further† and he is worried about someone finding out what he will have done – â€Å"if we should fail†, and it is easy to see that Macbeth is a good and moral person. In Macbeth’s first major soliloquy he weighs up both sides of the argument, thinking about how much Duncan trusts him and thinks he is a good man – â€Å"he’s here in double trust†. Macbeth knows that Duncan is also a good man, and a wonderful king, and it would not be right to kill the king simply because of his own greed, but his ambition to be king leads him on. Macbeth knows that people have â€Å"golden opinions† of him, and he likes being looked upon in such a way, and he does not really want to loose that; he knows that he will if he carries out this murder, and these opinions would be â€Å"cast aside so soon†. However, Macbeth is now determined, although not as much as his wife, to become the King of Scotland and he says that the only thing leading him on is his ambition – â€Å"I have no spur†¦but only vaulting ambition†. Just before, and after, Macbeth murders Duncan, he is at his weakest and feels very culpable. His imagination begins to play on him. In the moments leading up to the murder, his thoughts are filled with evil; he imagines seeing a dagger covered in blood – â€Å"is this a dagger I see before me†¦or art thou but a dagger of the mind, a false creation?†, and he imagines actually killing Duncan – â€Å"I see†¦gouts of blood†. He thinks that â€Å"nature seems dead† and he thinks of wolfs, ghosts, and witches – all symbols of evil. Once Macbeth has murdered Duncan, he still imagines things: he claims to hear voices telling him that he will never sleep again – â€Å"sleep no more: Macbeth does murder sleep† and he cannot wash the blood stains off his hands – â€Å"will all great Neptune’s ocean wash this blood clean from my hand? No†, to which his wife replies, â€Å"a little water clears us of this deed† (only to prove herself wrong later). When Duncan is discovered dead by Macduff, Macbeth acts surprised and angry – â€Å"the wine of life is drawn†, â€Å"th’expedition of my violent love outran the pauser, reason†. However, this may not be just an act: Macbeth could really be feeling that way, and he is angry with himself for what he has done when he sees other people’s reactions. Hence, Macbeth travels to Scone and is crowned King of Scotland. Even though Macbeth has achieved what he wanted – to be king – he does not stop killing. He fears Banquo knows that he killed Duncan, so Macbeth is now suspicious of Banquo, as Banquo is of him – â€Å"there is none but he, whose being I do fear† Therefore, the only option Macbeth sees is to kill Banquo, so he arranges for three men to murder Banquo and his son, Fleance, on the night of a banquet. He tells them that he cannot murder Banquo himself because the risk of being found out is too great – â€Å"certain friends that are both his and mine†¦wail his fall†. This is the point at which we see a major change in Macbeth’s character: he is still nervous and slightly afraid, but is now a little more confident; and he organised the murder by his own free will and without any help – he did not need his wife to set it up or to assist him, whereas et the murder of Duncan it was she who organised everything. Lady Macbeth did not even have any knowledge of Banquo’s murder before it took place and she asks Macbeth â€Å"what is to be done?† and Macbeth tells her to â€Å"be innocent of the knowledge†¦till thou applaud the deed†. Macbeth is pleased to hear of Banquo’s death, but the news of Fleance’s escape troubles him – â€Å"then comes my fit again†¦I am cabined, cribbed, confined†. We can see that Macbeth does still have a conscience when he is at the banquet, as he sees the ghost of Banquo in the hall – â€Å"the graced person of Banquo preset† and he talks to it – â€Å"thou canst not say I did it; never shake thy gory locks at me†; so it is clear that Macbeth still has remorse for what he has done and he cannot hide it, despite his wife telling him to â€Å"look like th’innocent flower, but be the serpent under’t† and he said himself that â€Å"the false face must hide what the false heart doth know†. Macbeth speaks to his wife alone after the banquet, and he says that he will visit the witches again and from now on he will kill anyone who might get in the way of him keeping the throne – â€Å"we are yet but young in the deed†, so we can see Macbeth changing again, this time becoming more confident. This is the last time that he and his wife see each other. Macbeth goes to see the three witches again and his confidence is boosted even more. The witches plan, and succeed, to make Macbeth over-confident and this will be his down fall. They show him three apparitions, each telling him something; the first is an armed head (which is actually his own) and it tells him to â€Å"beware Macduff†, the second is a child covered in blood (Macduff) who tells him â€Å"no man born of a woman shall harm Macbeth†, and the third, a crowned child with a tree in its hand (Malcolm) tells him that â€Å"Macbeth shall never be vanquished until Great Birnam Wood† moves to Dunsinane hill. Finally, a procession of eight kings passes with Banquo following behind them. These apparitions, especially the second and third, make Macbeth more confident in himself and he thinks he cannot be killed by anyone. With his newfound confidence he vows to continue killing, as he cannot be stopped – â€Å"the very firstlings of my heart shall be the firstlings of my hand†, and with the knowledge of Macduff travelling to England, Macbeth turns to murdering every other member of Macduff’s family – â€Å"give to the edge o’th’sword his wife, his babes, and all unfortunate souls†. As Lady Macbeth grows weaker, Macbeth grows stronger. Lady Macbeth is now the one feeling guilty, and she begins sleepwalking and hearing â€Å"foul whisp’rings†, just as Macbeth was before. Macbeth heads into battle against the English army, knowing that his â€Å"way of life is fall’n into the sere†. He has now become hardened and does not care for much, except his wife; when the doctor brings him news of Lady Macbeth’s illness, Macbeth asks him to make her better – â€Å"cure her of that†¦perilous stuff which weighs upon the heart†, so we can clearly see that he still loves her and cares about her, and has not yet completely lost everything that was good about him. Despite this, Macbeth is now a more cruel and, in a way, evil man and he says he has â€Å"almost forgot the taste of fears†, and he is not surprised to hear of his wife’s death – â€Å"she would have died hereafter†. He thinks about life and how it is a â€Å"brief candle† and now his life has lost it’s meaning, so he might as well die fighting – â€Å"life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player†¦then is heard no more†¦signifying nothing†. Macbeth knows he is going to die when he hears that Birnam wood is moving toward Dunsinane but still he is brave – â€Å"bear-like I must fight the course†. Macbeth meets with Macduff outside the castle, where he learns that Macduff was not born of a woman and he can kill him. Now Macbeth knows for sure that he will die there and then and he could have just let Macduff kill him, but he decided to fight bravely till his death – â€Å"at least we’ll die with harness on our back†. Macbeth is truly a tragic hero as he had many of the qualities needed to be king – he was a good man: noble, brave, loyal, caring and loving toward his wife, and he never lost the will to fight bravely, no matter what the outcome may be. However, he changed in a very short space of time to become cruel and hardened, influenced, first by the witches, then by his wife. Because of this, we do feel sympathy for him; because he was good man who was changed by supernatural beings, but also partly by his own ambition. This is a tragic tale of how ambition can tarnish a person and make their life seem pointless, or as Macbeth said â€Å"Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player That struts and frets his hour upon the stage And then is heard no more. It is a tale Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury Signifying nothing†.

Sunday, September 29, 2019

Close Relationships Essay

I never have been a very good communicator, be it family, friends or strangers. After reading the article â€Å"Close Relationships Sometimes Mask Poor Communication† it really hit home for me. My husband and I have poor communication skills. We have been together for the past six years, and we still have a problem commutating. He likes to take over the conversation, or cut me off when we are talking. I feel at times that he is talking at , not to me, or he is making me feel like I don’t have a clue on what it going on. He has at times actually told me that I just don’t know as much as he does, therefore his ideas and suggestions should be followed, and not questioned. This has honestly caused a huge amount of arguments and constant disagreements. My lifestyle is so busy I communicate and think very quickly and a lot of the time I guess I expect people to know what I mean without fully explaining it. In my observation over time, people seem to communicate better with strangers than they do with family members. I feel that when communicating with strangers one tends to give more detail, because you never know how a stranger will understand what you are trying to communicate. â€Å"People commonly believe that they communicate better with close friends than with strangers. That closeness can lead people to overestimate how well they communicate, a phenomenon we term the ‘closeness-communication bias,’ (Keysar, 2011) I found this sentence very interesting. A wife who says to her husband, ‘it’s getting hot in here,’ as a hint for her husband to turn up the air conditioning a notch, may be surprised when he interprets her statement as a coy, amorous advance instead,† (Savitsky 2011). It has become very clear to me that even though I may communicate something to my husband, at times when he doesn’t seem to understand, I get frustrated, I plan to try a lot of the communication tools I have learned in this class to try and help clean up my communications with my friends, family and co-workers. â€Å"Our problem in communicating with riends and spouses is that we have an illusion of insight. Getting close to someone appears to create the illusion of understanding more than actual understanding, (Epley, 2011)†. I actually had this situation happen to me last weekend. My husband and I were working in the yard, he was fixing a sprinkler wire, and I was replacing sprinkler heads and drip lines. We were both doing our own things while still working in the yard. I thought everything was going great, then out of now where, my husband says, that I don’t appreciate the effort he is putting into helping â€Å"Me† in the yard. I was completely blown away. I said in a defensive tone, that I didn’t know I had to tell him thank you every time he does stuff around the house. I went on to say that it is his house to, so why do I always have to thank him, or ask him to do things to help out around the house. I know that I could have handled this situation differently; however it really gets tiresome to always have to tell him I appreciate every single little task that he completes. I had another situation between my husband and myself over the weekend. I was talking with him about hanging up our American flag, I asked him if he knew where my curtain rod went, I explained to him the one I was looking for, he finds this small rod and says that he wanted to use that one, I told him I already had plans for that rod, and the one I was looking for was perfect. He continued to take the rod that I did not want to use and put the flag on it, and they tried to hang it up. He kept telling me to just come and look at it. So after telling him for the 7th time that I didn’t want to use that rod, I went to look at it. It was too small and would not hang correctly, I told him that again, and he got pissed off at me, and told me to never ask him to help me do anything ever again†¦ I was pissed that he wouldn’t listen to me; it is always his way or no way. When this happens, it is very easy to become angry with my spouse because we expected them to understand what we meant or said, to listen and try to understand. As couples, we want to believe that we are on the same page all the time because we are so close. Whether we are face to face, back to back, in another room, or on the phone with each other, misunderstandings can and will happen without further questioning from the other spouse. When something is said, it is the other spouse’s responsibility to make sure they are clear in what they are hearing. Without this tactic, there will be misinterpretations between the spouses. This creates unhealthy communication between the spouses. My spouse it not a good family man, he prefers to do what he wants, when he want too. This tends to be a huge problem for our relationship. When my spouse gets mad at me for not listening to him, he starts making threats, like I mentioned earlier, don’t ever ask him to help again, etc†¦ So, I stop including him in those things, then he starts going through all kinds of changes because of it. He would say, I support you in anything you do. Then he would vent like crazy about our life not being the same anymore. Your self-image, in turn, results in your level of self-esteem, the beliefs and feelings you have about yourself. Self-esteem has two primary components: a sense of self-efficacy or your personal effectiveness and a sense of your personal worth and self-respect. However, your self-concept, self-image, and self-esteem are not destiny. You can also enhance your self-esteem through affirmations and positive self-talk, (Sole, 2011). You can build your self-image and your self-esteem by successful experiences. Your successes create self-confidence, which enables you to take on new challenges and continue to increase your self-esteem in an upward spiral of success. It is critical that one learns to communicate accurately; it will help all your relationships become stronger and be successful.

Saturday, September 28, 2019

Essay on Flow Cytometry Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

On Flow Cytometry - Essay Example The light source usually used is a laser light. The cells are hydro-dynamically maneuvered such that only one cell intercepts the laser beam at a given time. When these cells intercept the laser beam, light is scattered by them and absorbed by the fluorochrome. The fluorochrome gets excited and releases a photon of light with specific spectra unique to that fluorochrome. This scattered and emitted light is converted to electrical pulses by the optical detectors. Parallel light waves are picked up by the confocal lenses focused at the point where the cells intercept the laser beam. Optical filters are used to send light to different detectors, where it is processed by a series of linear and log amplifiers and finally the analogs are digitalized to plots and graphs (Berkeley). Flow cytometry is done when the experimenter is not interested in keeping the cells but simply in analyzing the distribution of cell size and/or surface molecules on the cells in the suspension. But if he/she is interested in identifying and separating the cells, then a flow cytometer equipped with fluorescence activated cell sorter (FACS) is required. In FACS, the scattered and emitted signals passed onto the computer are used to generate electrical charge, which is then passed onto the cells-stream just before forming droplets. Having attained a charge, these cells deflect from the main stream as they pass between plates having opposite charge. Positive drops go to negatively charged plate and vice versa. In this way subpopulation of cells can be purified from a collection of cells, distinguished by the labeled antibodies. Data Analysis: An important principle of flow cytometry data analysis is to selectively visualize the cells of interest while eliminating results from unwanted particles e.g. dead cells and debris. This procedure is called gating. This is based on the fact that dead cells have lower forward scatter and higher side scatter than living cells. The data collected by the com puter is represented in several ways like density plots, contour diagrams, and histograms. On density plots each dot represents an individual cell that has intercepted the laser beam. Contour diagrams are an alternative way to demonstrate the same data. Joined lines represent similar numbers of cells. Histograms can be a single parameter or two parameter histograms based on the parameters displayed on the two axes. Single parameter histograms are graphs that display a single measurement parameter (relative fluorescence or light scatter intensity) on the x-axis and the number of events (cell count) on the y-axis. Two parameter histograms are graphs that display two measurement parameters, one on the x-axis and one on the y-axis, and the cell count as a density (dot) plot or contour map (Kenneth 2012). Technical Hints: Single cells must be suspended at a density of 105–107 cells/ml to prevent tubing from clogging up. The rate of flow sorting should be adjusted to 2000–20 ,000 cells/second. If cells have intracellular antigens, these cells have to be fixed and permeabilized prior to adding the fluorochrome. This allows probes to access intracellular structures while leaving the morphological scatter characteristics of the cells intact. Splenocytes: Mouse spleen can have several cell types at any given time. These cells could be B cells and its subtypes, T cells and its sub

Friday, September 27, 2019

Genealogy of Morality By Friedrich Nietzsche Essay

Genealogy of Morality By Friedrich Nietzsche - Essay Example This following quotes further supports my opinion: â€Å" ‘pure one’ is†¦merely a man who washes himself, who forbids himself certain foods that produce skin ailments, who does not sleep with the dirty women of the lower strata, who has an aversion to blood† 4, â€Å"†¦the concept ‘good’ is essentially identical with the concept ‘useful’† 2 â€Å"...they designate themselves simply by their superiority in power or by the most clearly visible signs of this superiority†3 . With how â€Å"useful† politicians had been to the society, the public undoubtedly sees them as good people and their well-painted reputations have earned them the label of â€Å"pure one†. All these vested superiorities, will earn them more supremacy and help them continue with their propaganda and declare themselves as the â€Å"good† people. An equivalence is provided by the creditor's receiving, in place of a literal compen sation for an injury, a recompense in the form of a kind of pleasure—the pleasure of being allowed to vent his power freely upon one who is powerless, the voluptuous pleasure of doing evil for the pleasure of doing it.. the enjoyment of violation 5.I do not believe that having someone who owes you something wins you any right to vent power over that person. Violation can never be justified by the pleasure a creditor gets from taking advantage or venting power over someone, particularly the debtor. Any form of abuse over someone should never be tolerated. The debtor is obliged to pay but it does entail having to take in any form of physical harm. First of all, it is going to be a violation of human rights. Although the next quote is applicable to some societies, there are certain human laws that defy the author's idea and, in opposition, vie to protect human rights in other communities: In "punishing" the debtor, the creditor participates in a right of the masters: at last he, too, may experience for once the exalted sensation of being allowed to despise and mistreat someone as "beneath him" or at least, if the actual power and administration of punishment has already passed to the "authorities," to see him despised and mistreated. The compensation, then, consists in a warrant for and title to cruelty 5. It was here, too, that that uncanny intertwining of the ideas "guilt and suffering" was first effected-and by now they may well be inseparable 6. With this inseparability, the incorrectness, if not immorality, of using pleasure as a justification for violating someone becomes even more visible and disagreeable. It was never proper to hurt anyone. Even statements like the following coul d raise eyebrows. On the contrary, let me declare expressly that in the days when mankind was not yet ashamed of its cruelty, life on earth was more cheerful than it is now that pessimists exist. 7

Thursday, September 26, 2019

Education for the Future Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Education for the Future - Essay Example The pace of learning will increase, whereas the necessary attendance is likely to be reduced, as there will appear such feature as virtual attendance - human hologram will be able to perceive all information, including from sensual channels (see, hear, touch and so on). The concept of education is also likely to alter - from 'teaching' to 'education' in pure meaning, i.e. there will be more attention to individual assignments. Nevertheless, the role of teacher, or, more precisely, tutor, will remain intact, and in addition, the professor's authority and knowledge will become one of the main stimuli for secondary education. In fact, schools will be more adjusted to each person's needs, and classes will be formed according to each student's interests and aspirations for future. From earliest years, students will concentrate on the subjects or topics they find interesting or worth attention, whereas the so-called general disciplines, such as math, history, literature and physics will 's urvive'.

Wednesday, September 25, 2019

An Assessment of Training - Part II Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

An Assessment of Training - Part II - Assignment Example But having said all these, I have a question or an issue with the selection made for the training program. The training program selected specific people belonging to mid-level management. My question therefore has to do with why not making provision to include at least a sample from all other management levels so that the competency gained could be evenly distributed across the organization. I was particularly happy that you identified the gap that exists in management practice when it comes to the measurement of outcomes and drivers associated with HR. It was therefore a step in the right direction that the proposed training program was made to be around this all important area of organizational development. My major issue with your training program however has to do with the limited use of assessment metrics and modules in knowing or determining the outcome with the program. As quote (Becker, Huselid & Ulrich, 2001) noted, the real measure of the success of a training program is in the extent to which the outcomes match the objectives. It would have therefore been important if you clearly stated your objectives and supported them with a metric that makes it possible for you to assess the training. Going into the future also, I strongly suggest that all training programs can be as thoroughly involving of all employees as

Tuesday, September 24, 2019

Managing Revenue and Working Capital to Avoid Factoring in Health Orga Essay - 1

Managing Revenue and Working Capital to Avoid Factoring in Health Organization - Essay Example Another risk is that when debtors default in paying their invoices on the stipulated date the hospital risks paying more interest to the factoring company which was not budgeted for. Lack of proper management of working capital and revenue inflow might lead to the business getting to a situation of insolvency. Creditors to the health organization might be claiming from the organization more than the assets of the organization which might lead to bankruptcy. This might tatter the image of the organization and lead to poor performance of the credit rating of the hospital. Banks and other financial organization will refuse to extend any loan to the hospital in future date which might cripple the organization when a need for capital arises in future dates. When the health organization gets into this situation it will lack the liquid capital to grow, pay suppliers or meet unexpected costs within the health unit. Some of the measures that the finance officer has to take into consideration to avoid such situations are: The health organization will need to balance between acquisition of assets and payment of its recurrent expenditure like salaries and wages. The moderate form of working capital policy would suit the health center to avoid situations of the need of having to look for short-term debts to pay for its current and long-term assets. This policy will do away with risks that come with the aggressive policy of working capital where short-term debts will be needed to finance fixed or permanent working capital. The fluctuating working capital will be financed through short-term borrowing. This situation will eliminate a situation of financing all the working capital needs from short-term loans which may lead to factoring within the health unit (Nowicki, 2011). The health organization might be expanding or buying long-term assets like medical equipment.  Buying of these assets will lead to huge cash outflows which will affect the availability of cash to meet other expenditures.

Monday, September 23, 2019

Project #4 Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Project #4 - Essay Example It commands the movement of the cursor on the cursor on the screen and also issues commands to the computer. The mouse can either be attached to the computer using a cable or can be connected through a wireless connection technology (Tyler, 2008). It is not hard to use since it contains only two buttons and a scrolling wheel. It is very accurate since the pointer is moved to the exact point to be selected. The movement of the mouse is minimal as compared to the movement that the cursor makes on the screen. It is, therefore, effective and increases the speed of work. It is economical on space since it requires a slight space to control the cursor on the screen. It is an input device that is similar to a mouse and is used to move the cursor on the screen. Its visual aspect is similar to that of a mouse, but it operates in a stagnant position. The cursor is moved by rotating ball using two fingers or the palm (Tyler, 2008). It also has buttons that send instructions to the computer. The trackball is easy to use since moving the cursor is done by simply rotating the ball. However, the balls rotation makes it hard to select fine details, and it may waste a lot of time in such a situation. Its accuracy is as good as that of a mouse. The space required for its operation is equal to the space it occupies even when not in use. The trackball does not require any movement in order to move the cursor and is hence economical in space. The touch pad is a pressure sensitive pointing device that is mainly found in laptops and modern external keyboards. It is a stationary pointing device just like the trackball. In real senses, it does not occupy any space since it is mounted on either a laptop or a keyboard. It is very fast in selecting items on the screen and can be efficiently used even when dealing with fine details. Its ease of use depends on the sensitivity of the touch pad. It is an input device with the shape of a pen

Sunday, September 22, 2019

Indian Philosophy. What Is Indian Philosophy Essay

Indian Philosophy. What Is Indian Philosophy - Essay Example The main consideration is that, the practical drive of Indian Philosophy is motivated by the view that human life is full of suffering. Human beings suffer in their journey to realize actual truth about their life. Despite of many sufferings, Indian philosophy brings into light the importance of worship and meditation to achieve peace and liberty provided by the Supreme Being. Indian philosophy is strongly spiritual and emphasizes the need of realizing the truth about life. The philosophy aims at achieving the knowledge of truth. It helps human beings to attain instinctive vision of reality and perception of truth, which leads to actual realization. According to Datta (571), Indian philosophy is intimately linked with religious facts. For instance, Indians believe on the fact that existence does not come from non-existence. In other words, there is nothing in this world comes out of nothing. There is a supreme being who is sole cause and source of the universes. This contradicts with Descartes who in his philosophy believed that all philosophy do not start with God’s scripture. Descartes believed that all philosophy should start with the argument â€Å"I think I am†. Descartes assumed that existence occur in the essence of being perfect being without believing in the essence of finite thing. This follows that; the existence of human beings should not be compared with God’s existence. Secondly, most of Indian philosophies are derived from Vedas principles. Basically, these principles explore that just as a seed flourishes one time, human beings have all knowledge to become the best. The Vedas principles guide human beings to live in peace with one another and life in reference with the fear of Supreme Being. The principles guide human beings to live a life that is fulfilling in the spiritual realm. Indian philosophy accepts the principles and authority of Veda. Therefore, human beings are unable to seek realization and truth openly and freel y. This contradicts with the Western philosophers who believe in having complete freedom to do and act the way one wishes. Indian philosophy rejects the notion of doing things as per one’s desires and wishes but as per principles that guide human beings to live in harmony with one another. The nature of man depends on the nature of reality and his destiny. The Indian’s philosophy affirms that man is not an animal or plant, but a spiritual and thinking being set to accomplish his dreams and goals for higher purposes. Human beings should strive to live an integrated life that honours the maker. The accepted position in Indian Philosophy provides steps of obtaining truth to life. First, human beings are encouraged to read and hear the truth from a book or a teacher. Secondly, it is crucial to apply what one has heard or read in search for truth. Thirdly, human beings should meditate on the teachings and truth taught in books or by teachers. Indian philosophy values the co ncept of meditation as one that seize and motivates human beings to have a peace of mind and live in peace with another. According to Datta (571), Indian philosophy depends on direct and mystical experience. Indian philosophy is concerned with norms and values that relate to religion. However, western philosophy relates to the notion of science and nature, and in most cases it is concerned with facts. The doctrine or principle of inwardness is a major concern for Indian philosophy. Specifically, Indian philosophy is mainly concerned with the aspect of changing man’s mind rather than changing the world in which human being live. The whole aspect points out on the importance of changing the mindset to succeed and achieve the best in life. Based on this analysis, one would argue that Indian philosophy

Saturday, September 21, 2019

It’s Time for a Change Essay Example for Free

It’s Time for a Change Essay Social issues have lingered in the shadows of American history since the day that our independence was signed in 1776, a mere two hundred and thirty ­nine years ago. At that time, social issues consisted of our founding father’s debate over which men were to be considered equal, and the social issue of slavery as a whole became prominent to our young nation. From slavery to suffrage, the United States is no stranger to defining these particular social wrongs, and striving to make them right. As time has developed, the issues of old have passed, but now, new ones have arose. Currently, sitting in 2015, the United States is again being subjected to another social issueÍ ¾ that is police brutality and the use of body cameras as a means of holding all parties involved accountable for their actions. It is simply irresponsible not to implement this new means of technology and I believe that it’s use is a key factor in solving the social issue of police brutality, and the untrust and stigmas that stem from this abuse of power. Names like Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, and Eric Garner have dominated headlines of many major news outlets for the past two years. The common factor between the three being the excessive use of force upon unarmed civilians. In the cases of Martin and Brown, both men were fatally shot, both were unarmed, and both had two conflicting sides of the story detailing the events leading up to and after their respective shootings. In each instance, many in the public were led to believe that racial stigmas were the determining reasons for the pulling of the trigger, and as a result mass protests and riots have occurred in towns such as but not limited to, Ferguson, Missouri and New York City. This is where body cameras demonstrate their necessity in our society and culture. As previously mentioned, both Michael Brown and Trayvon Martin’s deaths both went unrecorded, and the only substantial evidence of what occurred is the accounts of those who fired the fatal bullets. This is a defined problem. Despite either the positive or negative intentions of the officers who fired their weapons, each one has a bias, and with that, it can lead to that party giving a skewed opinion on how the events of each occurrence actually went down. The idea of a human source is just simply too unreliable, and it comes down our own human nature with bias’, and the fact that every single person has one. The use of body cameras instead in these instances would ultimately resolve this problem. Real footage would clearly display whether or not the use of fatal force was indeed necessary to use upon an unarmed civilian, and if not, it would hold the actually guilty party accountable for their actions. By simply attaching a recording device to an officer’s person, society is able to cut out human bias, and reveal the true nature of the event. The benefit alone in these new technologies makes the investment worth every dollar.

Friday, September 20, 2019

Working In Brick Factories Children And Young People Essay

Working In Brick Factories Children And Young People Essay 1. Background Bricks are seen as a part of Nepalese art and architecture from the very beginning. Old Nepalese temples are the testimonial of long history of brick production and its various uses. Archaeologists have the opinion that production of bricks started in Kathmandu valley and spread to other parts of the country as the oldest monument and temples here are constructed using bricks. The excavation of Lumbini contains remnants of old buildings which tell that the history of brick manufacturing dates more than three thousand years back. Usually when there was no technology to fire the bricks, raw and sun-dried bricks were used. Some old houses of Kathmandu valley are still seen to make houses using raw bricks. Increasing urbanization within the valley has fueled a growing construction industry and soaring demand for bricks. Even though the history of brick production is very long, the mode of production and working environment is as worse as ever. Despite investment on this industry is very large, brick industry still falls under small/cottage industry group. Work in brick factory is time bound and seasonal, starting from October through May, until the monsoon season. Brick kiln work is usually easy to find and there is no need for specialized training or education. Hence, brick factories attract a lot of unskilled workers. These seasonal laborers represent a cross section of the most disadvantaged groups in Nepal internally displaced by armed conflict, natural disasters victims, landless and having no source of income to survive in their home village, or those looking for seasonal employment. Others include women and children who face domestic violence and harassment. Extreme poverty and marginalized caste status have denied them access to education and healthcare, and made these women and children vulnerable to exploitation and trafficking. Rampant poverty and lesser work opportunities in the countryside compel the poor to migrate to far off places and do menial labor in meager wages. Child labor remains a major economic and social phenomenon in Nepal. Children of brick kiln workers usually accompany their parents to the factories and are compelled to help their parents due to the cash incentive, which help them and their families for hand to mouth existence. Most of the displaced children work in brick factories; stone quarries, coalmines and majority of them are aged 11-13. These children work in the worst conditions imaginable and face serious risk of injury, chronic illness or even death. There are 700 brick kilns in Nepal and the number is highest in Kathmandu valley. Out of 176, 250 kiln workers, 59,925 are estimated to be children. Among these children, 21 percent belong to the socially marginalized castes and 74 percent are economic migrants from different districts.  [i]  Children working in the brick factories in the valley are a mix of different castes. These children along with their families migrate seasonally from remote communities like Lalitpur, Makwanpur, Rolpa, Sarlahi, Kavre, Ramechhap and Sindhuli.  [ii]  According to the 2011 survey, 32% of total brick factory work forces were child laborers. Among them, 54.2% were girls while 45.8% were boys. 59.6% were below ten years of age, 36.6% belonged to 11-14 years and 3.7% were older than 14 years.  [iii]   Unobserved by the outside world these children miss their education damaging their future prospects. Also, taking a day off to rest means not earning enough to eat, so health problems escalate as sick or injured children continue working putting themselves at risk of long-term debilitation. Hence, we need some sustainable plan of action to mitigate these problems and prevail practice of employing children in such hazardous work places should be prohibited. In 2003, the literacy rate of the Nepalese population above 15 years of age was 45.2%. One of the most effective ways to combat child labor is to change misunderstanding from within. This can only be done through education. Education acts not only as means to develop the minds of children, but also as a foundation for social change. 2. Introduction Powerful Hands, a non-profit organization was established in 2011, led by a group of young and energetic youths from various educational and career backgrounds. This organization works with a belief that it is not necessary to do different things but do things differently under the upcoming issues related to Environment, Health and Education. Powerful Hands, significantly works in the field of education and environment for sustainable development, Powerful Hands in collaboration with Aastha Foundation, another non-profit organization with a mission to advocate for the rights of women and children have incepted this project to educate children working in brick factories. 3. Aim Reduce repetition and dropout rate by giving education continuity for children who migrate seasonally to work in brick factories 4. Objectives To create opportunities for continuing education for children (7 to 16 years of age) of brick industry workers during their seasonal migration to Nepal To create awareness on the importance of education. To reduce child labor. To promote education and awareness among brick industry workers on health and sanitation To motivate children to take up and continue formal education 5. Target Groups The poorest of the poor join the brick factory in November. This is when the land is dry and suitable for brick production. The children arrive with their entire family. The children either look after the younger ones and take care of the household or join as laborers. The kilns do not provide for basic needs such as shelter, food, education or medical services. As a result the families live in makeshift shelters: small huts made out of unfired bricks or iron sheets. As brick kilns can usually be found in rural areas, with no proper road access, and far away from shops, schools, and hospitals, life at the kiln is a struggle for survival. The project expects to cover 9 brick factories situated in Harisiddhi VDC where 300-400 children work as laborers. These children will be divided in different groups according to their age and grades. The younger ones will be given basic education who are about the age to join school. The rest who are school dropouts will continue their education, so that they can sit for the exam and are promoted to higher classes. 6. Working area About 8km far from the capital of Nepal, on the way to southeast Godawari forest, there is a historical village named Harisiddhi Village where surname Maharjan of Newar caste is lived most. Goddess Harsiddhi, whose 4-storied temple is situated in the middle of the village, names this village. The word Harisiddhi is by mistakenly used. Actually, it should be Hara (Shiva) and Siddhi (Parbati) or Harasiddhi that indicates a half of body is Shiva and the remaining half is Parbati or the attribute of ShivaParbati. According to the Hindu Econography goddess Harsiddhi has 4 hands with Damaru, Kamandalu, Khadga and Kalash. The origin of this goddess is Ujjain India. This village is about 4400ft high from the sea level. Its latitude is 270 38 north and longitude is 850 21 east and the temperature is between 20C 340C. This village is surrounded by Godawari Stream in the east and Kodku Stream in the west. Most of the land in this village is plain and because of fertile soil, the crops are very good here. There is Siddipur VDC in the east, Dhapakhel VDC in the west, Thaiba VDC in the south and Imadol VDC lies in the northern part of this village. 7. Project Details The name of the project will be Shiksha Sadan, an Educational School. This school will be opened in the project site for easy access to the children. Though, the project targets to give formal education to the children it will be an informal type of teaching as they are already affiliated with some of the schools in their villages. The project has targeted children aged 7 to 16, as this will be the right age to start and finish school. Motivational factors: The project will have numerous edutainment activities to make learning easy and fun. Children will be provided lunch after their study hours. For each class, Ayahs will be responsible to take care of the children. Two of the staff members will be appointed in the project site and a teacher will be hired to teach everyday except on holidays. The project foresees to continue the program as far as the brick factory endures where number of children work day and night. The insight of the project is not only to educate children but also to teach them to use soap to wash their hands, brush their teeth twice a day, take bath, use latrine to keep them healthy and fit. A medical person will check their health at least once a week and proper medicines will be prescribed. The findings from the project site are attached. (See Annex I) Holistic approach 8. Outcomes: Lessen repetition and dropout rates of students. Create awareness on importance of education to reduce illiteracy rate. Minimize rate of Child labor Motivate to live healthy lives 9. Strategies and Activities Proposed Steps Conduct Rapid Assessment of number of children in the working area Conduct classes as per their age and grades Organize free check-ups for the children as well as their parents Organize interactive meetings with stake holders (laborers, contractors, brick kiln managers, community leaders, labor union, representatives from government including District Development Committee etc. Define main needs and interventions Establish services and monitoring and evaluation systems Create awareness and exposure at the local, provincial and national level and ensure legal welfare rights for the children. Need of advocacy The conditions of working children are largely unknown to the public. The brick kilns operate without monitoring, far away from urban centers. Since many of the brick kiln workers are laborers the priority intervention should be advocacy for ending this. By creating a presence at the brick kilns throughout the season we can at least monitor and evaluate human rights abuses and together with other organizations lobby for permanent solutions to the problems. c) Educational needs of children It is not convincing to send the children to school, as their families need extra support and money. Establishing Siksha Sadan in the region will serve different purposes, such as education, health check-ups and awareness on health and sanitation. Siksha Sadan provides a secure and fun environment for children. Siksha Sadan prepares children for formal education and helps develop socio-emotional and cognitive skills. This project will also work as a shelter for children. The children will stay there from their work to learn, eat and rest. The very young children will be take care of by the Ayahs. 10. Project Management a) Human Resource Siksha Sadan will hire local teachers from Harisiddhi VDC. The teachers, who volunteer, will be trained by one of the teacher trainers to make the program effective and successful. They will work throughout the project time. The support staff will help them and hired Ayahs will assist them. The classes will be conducted as per Nepal Governments policy. b) Project Timeline The project will be initiated from November till May. The project will be inactive from June to October. During off-season Powerful Hands and Aastha Foundation will prepare reports and budget for next season to give continuity. c) Project Budget The project budget is designed according to the plan of the project for six months, each year. The budget report will be presented every after completion of project activities. The project budget is attached with this concept letter (See Annex II) d) Monitoring and Evaluation The tools for monitoring and evaluation will be developed in order to monitor project activities each year. It is important to monitor and evaluate the project to ensure that the target groups have benefitted from the project so that each year the children go back home and prepare for their examinations. Annex I Findings from the survey During seasonal migration, children who come with their parents cannot continue their studies. Children migrate with their families to earn money in brick factories. Some of the children are admitted in schools and some are not. Most of the students repeat classes and some students fail to get promoted, as they do not attend classes. Most of the parents are uneducated and illiterate and do not value education. They feel that their children need to work in order to earn money and support the family. Although, one center is working in the area, it is difficult to give continuity because it is seasonal and after six months the workers leave for their homes. The factory owners have sent the children to school at Harisiddhi, but the children were not regular because the parents felt going to school was very far and they did not want them to go alone. The parents want their children in front of them working and earning money. In fact, children love to work with their parents rather than study. They get paid well working on daily wages. The parents are happy to make their children work for money despite of their age. If any kinds of accidents are encountered, the community leaders demand money; from which the diseased get only a few percentage and the rest will be kept by them. To avoid such losses, factory owners want children to go to school or attend informal education classes. During the survey, the owners of brick factory raised questions like whether it is possible to guarantee the safety of children, facility of pick up and drop, to place education center nearby, how well the parents are convinced and motivated etc. It can be analyzed that the factory are not sure whether the children will participate in the program. It is very clear that the family needs to be convinced to send their children or not.

Thursday, September 19, 2019

Heinz †Beech Nut Merger :: Business Mergers Acquisitions M&A M+A

Heinz – Beech Nut Merger The word â€Å"merger† is very common term that everyone in America has to deal with in some aspect of life. Banks, oil companies, car manufacturers, computer makers†¦the list goes on for ever, and the mergers of these companies have a direct effect on our daily life. For decades the US government and the court systems have tried to regulate how mergers can and cannot happen and why. The reason(s) as to why a merger is allowed or not has varied over the years, but one major concept has remained the same: too many mergers within a particular market can reduce competition and create a monopoly (or a near monopoly condition). Merging firms often state that a merger could help them reduce costs and to develop better products. They claim this would clearly be a benefit to the consumers of their product(s). The 1960’s and 70’s were considered the earlier era of merger law by economists. During this time frame he courts and governments were more concerned with the NON-economic aspects of mergers: reducing market concentration, protecting small business, consumers rights†¦etc. Since 1979 those concerns have faded and the court system is now more concerned with economic concerns. The difference between right and wrong has been blurred recently, which allows judges to consider ALL factors in a case (economic and non), and be flexible when looking at specific cases. The merger guidelines were revised in 1997 to allow efficiencies to be used as a defense. Clearly, efficiencies are a key part of the defense, and are looked at very closely by the courts, especially in cases with a high market concentration. The Merger Guidelines state: â€Å"Efficiencies almost never justify a merger to monopoly or near monopoly.† (Kwoka and White, 2004) Posner and Bork said that the antitrust laws and economic efficiency helped only the consumers, not the firms. They encouraged the courts to look at efficiencies in antitrust analysis generally. They claimed that an efficiency defense could possibly make investigating a merger intractable in litigation. The term â€Å"intractable† as defined by Wikipedia are â€Å"problems that are solvable in theory, but cannot be solved in practice†. This means that what Posner and Bork are saying is that while in the litigation stage of a trial, the efficiency defense could theoretically come up with a solution that appears and sounds good, but in real life business situations (practice) would not work. Heinz – Beech Nut Merger :: Business Mergers Acquisitions M&A M+A Heinz – Beech Nut Merger The word â€Å"merger† is very common term that everyone in America has to deal with in some aspect of life. Banks, oil companies, car manufacturers, computer makers†¦the list goes on for ever, and the mergers of these companies have a direct effect on our daily life. For decades the US government and the court systems have tried to regulate how mergers can and cannot happen and why. The reason(s) as to why a merger is allowed or not has varied over the years, but one major concept has remained the same: too many mergers within a particular market can reduce competition and create a monopoly (or a near monopoly condition). Merging firms often state that a merger could help them reduce costs and to develop better products. They claim this would clearly be a benefit to the consumers of their product(s). The 1960’s and 70’s were considered the earlier era of merger law by economists. During this time frame he courts and governments were more concerned with the NON-economic aspects of mergers: reducing market concentration, protecting small business, consumers rights†¦etc. Since 1979 those concerns have faded and the court system is now more concerned with economic concerns. The difference between right and wrong has been blurred recently, which allows judges to consider ALL factors in a case (economic and non), and be flexible when looking at specific cases. The merger guidelines were revised in 1997 to allow efficiencies to be used as a defense. Clearly, efficiencies are a key part of the defense, and are looked at very closely by the courts, especially in cases with a high market concentration. The Merger Guidelines state: â€Å"Efficiencies almost never justify a merger to monopoly or near monopoly.† (Kwoka and White, 2004) Posner and Bork said that the antitrust laws and economic efficiency helped only the consumers, not the firms. They encouraged the courts to look at efficiencies in antitrust analysis generally. They claimed that an efficiency defense could possibly make investigating a merger intractable in litigation. The term â€Å"intractable† as defined by Wikipedia are â€Å"problems that are solvable in theory, but cannot be solved in practice†. This means that what Posner and Bork are saying is that while in the litigation stage of a trial, the efficiency defense could theoretically come up with a solution that appears and sounds good, but in real life business situations (practice) would not work.

Wednesday, September 18, 2019

net bans :: essays research papers

In July of 1995, Florida put into effect a new law banning the use of gill nets in all inshore water of Florida. The law contained two significant provisions: 1) some non-gill nets would be allowed, but maximum size would now be limited to 500 square feet; and 2) unemployment compensation would be available to affected netters through a 20 million dollar fund set aside to purchase the nets that would be made obsolete(Stearns, par.5). This ban on nets has led to a dramatic comeback for a variety of fish species, including the Spanish mackerel and Florida mullet. In the following essay I intend to show the ban laws, what they encompass whom they affected, as well as their reaction. Most importantly, I intend to show the ban has made an overall improvement on Florida's marine environment. Over the past 100 years, Florida has been known for having some of the best recreational fishing as well as marine environments. Locals and tourists alike could pick any given day to spend on the water and return with a wide variety of game fish. Unfortunately, over the past decade this trend has been on the decline. The cause of this decrease in the population of Florida's marine environment as well as in other parts of the world, is the indiscriminate use of the monofilament fishing net (par.2). One of the areas that have seen just how destructive these nets can be, is the Florida Coast. In 1990, commercial gill-netters harvested 26 million pounds of mullet (DeYoung, par.56). In 1994, Florida's became alarmed when the mullet spawning population plummeted to about 15 percent of normal. They also felt the impact this loss of forage food had on game fish. One of the largest causes of this plummet is the lucrative market in the Far East for mullet row, which had almost completely decimated Florida's stock of these fish (Stearns, par.2-3). Due to this large decline, the Florida Marine Fisheries Commission (MFC) placed restrictions on recreational and commercial harvest of mullet. In 1992, recreational fishermen were now limited to fifty fish per boat per day, with no size limit, while commercial fishermen have no "bag limit", but are required to release any mullet under eleven inches in length. The results of the restrictions lowered the harvest on mullet by recreational fishermen from four million to one million pounds. There was a 75 percent reduction in recreational harvest as a result of the FMC's restrictions.

Tuesday, September 17, 2019

Essay --

You all know the Chocolate Company: Hershey's; but where did it all begin? As with Walt Disney, it started with a dream. A dream that a certain person could rule the candy market. This certain person is Milton Snavely Hershey. Milton Hershey founded Hershey’s Chocolate Company in 1900. Did you know that his first product wasn't chocolate? No, he created and sold many other confections; his greatest being caramel. His highest achievement of all was creating the world's largest candy manufacturing company today. Milton S. Hershey learned most of his work from Joe Royer, the owner of an Ice Cream Parlor and Garden. Joe Royer taught Milton for four years until he quit. Milton didn't quit because he didn't like the apprenticeship. No, he quit to start his own confectionary business. Milton S. Hershey gave this world a company that changed the way we see chocolate today. Milton Snavely Hershey was born on September 13th, 1857. Hershey didn’t start off with candy right away. Young Milton was sometimes very clumsy and made mistakes. Sam Ernst, a person who started Milton off with an appren...

Monday, September 16, 2019

Belonging – Short Story

Screaming in pain, Rebecca was about to give birth to her first baby. She was forced to have a homebirth as there were no hospitals around for miles. Her shrieks of pain had woken everyone in the neighbourhood, many came up to the house to get a glimpse of the situation. One of Rebecca’s friends, Rick, had rushed into the house in a matter of minutes after he heard the screaming. Rick stayed with Rebecca for several hours that followed to comfort her as best he could. His best attempts to calm her down, it seemed, were not good enough. At last, the ordeal was over. After ten hours of labour she had finally given birth to a baby boy. As Rick turned to face Rebecca, he saw an expression of sadness in her eyes. He knew that she didn’t want the baby, that she wasn’t capable of providing for it with her waitressing job at a cafe. In the months that followed, Rebecca had a tough time trying to earn money to feed herself, let alone her son. She turned to drugs to fight her depression, but she found that they had no effect. When her son, who she named William (Billy), was six years old, he started school. There, he was a social outcast; no one wanted talk to him. Five more years passed before he decided to quit school and stay at home, he felt that he didn’t belong anywhere else. Billy started experimenting with cocaine when he saw his mother using it, but she had been sober for a few years now. It seemed that for every year she got sober, her son’s heart simultaneously grew colder. He joined gangs, Billy had built a reputation that he could hustle and steal, but he got caught once and was sent to jail for three years. During his time at prison, he was working as an informant for the guards on staff in exchange for protection from all the rapists and paedophiles that roamed the prison. When Billy had gotten out of jail, the reputation that he had built up had been crumbled; he was kicked out of the gang because the other members were too suspicious of him. He once again dropped to the rank of social outcast. In a vain attempt to get back into the gang, he tried to act tough, fighting people over little things, his attempts went unnoticed. He had turned to selling crack to the people on the streets for money. He sold crack until he had enough money to move up to cocaine, trying to fulfil the fantasy stuck in his brain. Tired of trying to get back into the gang, he pursued a path to be with the hardcore gangs, with the cutthroats and the thugs. But when he stepped up to the gang, they turned him down saying â€Å"any coward can sell drugs, anyone with a gun can kill a man. But only a real thug has stabbed someone till they die, standing in front of them staring straight into their eyes†. Feature Article –  The Plane of the Sleeping Beauty Analysis Billy knew these men were well guarded, that they wanted to test him before business started. They proposed that he kill a woman to show he was cold hearted. Now Billy had a choice between going back to his life or making money with ‘made men’ in the higher ranks. His dreams about cars and drugs made him agree, a hardcore gangster is all he ever wanted to be. He met them the next week, at night on a lonely street. They drove around the town, slow while it was raining, smoking and drinking for entertainment. Late at night they saw a woman walking alone, coming back on her way home. They quietly got out of the car and followed her, one of the people wrapped a shirt around her face and pushed her onto the floor. Billy picked her up and took her into an empty building, forcing her to go up onto the roof. They were yelling at her and telling her to stop moving and screaming, when she wouldn’t listen, Billy hit the woman on the face until he had broken her jaw. Blood leaking through her clothes, she cried silently, praying to god. They proceeded to abuse her for the next few hours. At the end, one of the people next to Billy pulled out a handgun and gave it to him. They told him that if he killed her, he was guaranteed a spot in the gang. Right before he killed her, he thought about the drugs, women and respect he would get and felt strong standing next to his new gang. He put the gun right to her head and pulled back the shirt from her face. What he saw made him cringe and stutter because he was staring into the eyes of his own mother. Rebecca started crying harder than when they were beating her up, broken inside that her own son was going to kill her. His whole world stopped, he couldn’t contemplate what had just happened. His need to belong to a group he barely knew had ripped him apart from the one person he had the strongest bond with, his mother. He turned away from the woman who had once given him birth. As Billy dropped the gun, one of the other men picked it up and shot her in the head. Billy screamed out to the sky because he was lonely and scared; right then he knew what it meant to be empty and cold and jumped off the roof and died with no soul. After that, the gang members hid their bodies and never spoke about it, as if they never existed. His death was much like his birth, painful, shrieking and a mistake.

Sunday, September 15, 2019

Are Child Proof Containers Really Child Proof??

Are Childproof containers really childproof Not really or you could say that they are (semi) child proofing but I say no! To me if 5-10 children can et the so called childproof container top off te its not childproof. Their not really childproof if the child can bang it on a hard surface for a while and manage to get the top off. A child can really get the cap off a pill bottle by throwing it or banging it on a hard surface cause I've seen it before i started this research and with one of my test subjects.The containers aren't child proof they're just a little tougher for old people to get them open and child resistant. I chose to this project cause I wanted to know : 1. What were childproof containers invented to prevent? 2. How does childproof containers work? 3. Are childproof containers really childproof? 4. Can a young child learn to open a childproof container? I went into this project wanting to know the answers to these questions. So I did this by gathering four â€Å"childp roof† containers and cleaning them thoroughly and sanitizing them .I gathered a cough medicine botle, prescription pill bottle, a toilet bowl cleaner bottle, a over the counter pill bottle, a cleaning supplies spray bottle, disposable gloves, test subjects, stop watch, masking tape, a permenant marker, a lab notebook, and graphing paper. With all this I tested a good amount of toddlers around the age 5-6 to see if they could get the childproof tops off the containers. I gave each subject a minute to open each container and if they couldnt get it open I showed them how to open it without any verbal contact and giving them another minute and a second try to open it.After testing all of the subjects I saw that many struggled trying to open the toilet bowl cleaner bottle and the aspirin container. Children that age, know that a way to get the top off a container is to twist. Many of my subjects didn't get the top off the toilet bowl cleaner nor the aspirin pill bottle. These two c ontainers need a little more than just a twist. The toilet bowl cleaner needs weight pushed on the top and then a twist.On the aspirin the two triangles are needed to be lined up and the kids don't know why the triangles are there so I didn't expect any to get that top off but a few proved me wrong. So when I saw them open it I was stunned! Some just twisted the top until the triangles luckily lined up and the top was eligible of being open. But test subject 18 opened it with seriously with no problem! In my mind I'm like okay who taught you that or are you at home just randomly being allowed to play with pill bottles at home? I really wanted to ask the fella but I said nawl its none of my business.On the other hand some of the kids just used the twisting the top to get the tops off. The pharmacy pill bottle and the cleaning supplies spray bottle is what the kids didn't have a problem getting off. Parents nowadays tend to let their children play with these containers cause their sup posingly â€Å"child proof†. Parents fail to realize that only some child proof containers are really childproof while the others are selling a lie. Due to these tops posing as a childproof top over 1 million children are accidently poisoned every year.These containers are false and the company should run test to make sure for a fact that they are a childproof top. Parents think the safety cap is going to give 100 percent security. They don't know how easily little kids can get into things like. Every 7 minutes a child is rushed to the emergency room because they are unintentionally poisoned. These containers play not only a role in the company but also in the parent/gaurdian or whomever is around at the time cause if the child isn't being watched then there ain't no telling what that child will get into.According to Consumer Product Safety Commission only keep out about 80 percent of the children under the age 5. The government isn't being hard enough when it comes to issues like this. If the government was harder on things like this then companies would change the way the tops on these containers are made. Once the companies change the way the tops are made by making them tougher to open then you'll have a lesser percentage of kids accidentally getting poisoned.Everything starts with the government but the company should want to change it if they see that their tops aren't as childproof as they think they are. Companies must realize that these things are life threatening and isn't a joke. A recent study showed that children as young as 2 can get into these containers. So what that tell you. Parents also need to realize that these tops are not child proof only child resistant. After doing this project I realize that all these containers posing of what they aren't. Not child proof but child resistant.

Stock Track Simulation Sample

PART1-Investment Policy Statement Purpose of Policy Statement The purpose of the Policy Statement is to create an agreement between XXXX, YYY, and ZZZ to collectively manage a mock $1,000,000 portfolio during the 2011 fall semester. It will define the investment objectives, strategies, and risks associated with this portfolio. Investment Objectives The objective of our team is to seek capital appreciation of portfolio in three months.Moreover, given the little risk tolerance of the team, our nominal return should exceeds the rate of inflation over some period of the time through capital gains, and increase the purchase power of our group. The chosen benchmark to beat is the S&P index. Investment Strategies Our investment strategies are somewhere in between to maximize expected returns and to minimize risks. We use Market timing as one of our strategies to maximum our returns. The market timing strategy is to making buy or sell decisions of financial assets by attempting to predict fu ture market price movements.The prediction is based on an outlook of market or economic conditions resulting from technical or fundamental analysis. Also we another strategy is to analysis base on performance of a particular financial asset. The start-up fund was divided into six parts: 10% cash, 5% mutual funds, 55% stocks, 30% bonds, and may vary by+/-5%. Given the short time frame, liquidity is a concern and as such long-term speculative investments such as real estate, art and antiques, and collectibles will be avoided.Only those investments than can be traded on a short-term notice will be used. Taxes and trading costs will not be considered since this is a simulation. Investment Risk On the grounds of strong risk aversion expressed within the team, risk bearing in excess of general market risk is not tolerated. Moreover, the team strives to mitigate the inevitable share of market risk as much as possible. As to the weight assigned to each stock that is central to risk control, there is a cap of 25% of the fund that is available to each stock.No extra use of fund is allowed on single stock basis. PART2-Methodology 1. Well-Diversified & Best Risk-Return Trade-off Portfolios After we established the investment policy that specified our investment objectives, risk tolerance, allocation of different types of securities in details, we then sought for the best selections of securities. Generally, our first methodology was very simple but useful: maintain an appropriate level of portfolio diversification, and maximize the total return on our investment meanwhile limit the total risk.According to this basic approach, firstly, we divided our bond investment into four portions equally in Treasury Bonds and different corporate bonds, which enjoyed good credits, rated above A, and operated stable and profitable in the long-run: |Table1 Bond Selections | | |Coupon Rate/Maturity |Rating | |T-Note |3. 75%/15-Feb-2013 |AAA | |MetLife Inc. |5. 000%/15-Jun-2015 |A | |Morg an Stanley |5. 250%/02-Feb-2012 |A | |Merck & Co Inc. |4. 000%/30-Jun-2015 |AA | Secondly, with respect to the reserved attitude for mutual funds, our team decided to only invest in two of them, taking up 5% of our whole portfolio value totally.The following table provides summary information on these two funds: |Table2 Mutual Fund Selections | | |Blackrock Aggressive Prepared P (BCAPX) |Goldman Sachs Trust Equity Growth (GAPAX) | |Category |Large Blend |World Stock | |YTD Return |-3. 94% |-5. 30% | |Morningstar Overall Rating | | |Beta |1. 01 |0. 96 | |Mean Annual Return |1. 02 |1. 00 | |R-squared |96. 63 |95. 10 | |Standard Deviation |20. 05 |22. 64 | |Sharp Ratio |0. 0 |0. 52 | |Treynor Ratio |10. 53 |10. 21 | |Source: www. yahoo. com/finance | |www. reuters. com/finance | |All information are based on 3 years performance of the mutual funds |Finally, we would invest into two major kinds of stocks with different risk-return trade-offs. We would buy and hold value stocks from well-known, high-credited and strong firms with the attempt to diversify our portfolio and gain a stable growth. On the other hand, we would also choose some other growth stocks, which were generally characterized as higher-risky, non-US and more volatile, aiming at buying them low and selling them high to â€Å"speculate† or â€Å"gamble† the extraordinary gains in a relatively short period.Due to the complex and crucial features for stock selection, we thereafter developed a comprehensive procedure particularly, called a blend of â€Å"Specific Analysis† and â€Å"Overall Analysis† by our own, to help us select our portfolio wisely. 2. Specific Fundamental Analysis When choosing the value stocks, we primarily applied the fundamental analysis including different kinds of analyses for sectors, firm’s specific potentials, cash flows, earnings, and dividends. This procedure had approximate four steps: To begin with, we would view the sector and firm ’s overall ability because we were buying a business, not a stock.Generally, corporates in prosperous industries and growing stages would likely take our prior consideration. An important indicator to show whether a corporate has potential ability was the historical prices of its stock. Therefore, a long-run descend stock price usually implied the decline of the firm, which largely against our favor. Then we needed more fundamental analysis for a firm’s earning ability in depth, such as earning per share that shows how well earning support its shareholders’ benefits and the P/E ratio that indicates how investors expect its future earning power.General speaking, we preferred earning growth at least 7% annually and P/E ratios at the lowest 10% of all equity securities when selecting the growth stocks. After viewing a firm’s possible return, we next looked into another important factor-the risks along with the firm. Basically we would like to know the firmâ €™s Beta that measures how much the systematic risk affects the firm’s stock and the leverage ratio that discloses its financial stability and stress. Thus we were looking for firms having low Beta and D/E ratio of no more than 1.Finally, we would use the discounted cash flow model to find out the reasonable market value for the firm’s stock and to see whether it is incorrectly undervalued by the market. The following table provided the summary of our holding-oriented equity securities: |Table3 Stock Selections | | | |Google Inc. (GOOG) | |New Oriental Education & Technology Group Inc. EDU) | 3. Overall Performance Analysis After well knowing the firms and their stocks we chosen from the comprehensive selection procedure, we took one more step to mix then together and see how much our portfolio’s overall proposition fits our objectives and expectations. We decided to combine all equity securities, bonds and mutual funds, which we would like to hold for a rel atively long time span and calculate the overall expected rate of return and risk using Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM). 4.Tracking and Monitoring Process While the efficient market hypothesis (EMH) claimed that the stock prices were reflecting all relevant news and information and always showing the inherent value of the company, valuing a stock was just a vain attempt. Our team members, however, were more inclined to believe that the EMH was honestly set up in the academic wonderland. Thus, beside the stock valuation analysis addressed above, we also made the agreement that paying attention to both whole market and firm specific news on daily basis and making appropriate adjustments according to the news in time.In addition, we would keep tracking and recording our portfolio’s overall performance and rating on a week basis meanwhile monitoring the growth stock’s specific performance on daily basis because day-time monitoring and trading could enable us to avoid th e big loss due to the high volatility of them and grab the best time to gain the extraordinary profits. PART3-Microanalysis of the Market During this stock simulation, our group has learned that it’s quite instrumental to analyze and, if possible, follow the market trend for the sake of wise investment.Hence, microanalysis of the market is equally, and sometimes more important as the number analysis. Since the stock simulation only lasted for three months, out group mainly did the short-term analysis. Depending on our analysis, world’s financial market has become more volatile and unpredictable for the short run, primarily because the global economy grows sluggishly and involves more risky events. Several reasons are illustrated as follows. The euro zone debt crisis is the number one big headache. The debt problem in Europe has become persistent and pervasive. Greece experienced the most serious situation.Simply, Greece has borrowed much more money than they can pay ba ck. Italy is in better financial shape, but still risky since investors continued demand high interest rate of its bond. Other countries, such as Spain and even France, the second largest euro zone economy, have also been under pressure as investors question the creditworthiness of every euro zone government. Consequently, the global stocks, especially European and American Stocks have caught the euro zone flu. Investors have become super sensitive about each piece of information associated with the term, euro zone.Our group has recorded that the Dow Jones Industry Average index fluctuated mostly following the euro zone policy changes. It soared rapidly when European Union announced the Greek rescue plan and plumped immediately when the Greek government announced the Greek referendum the next day. â€Å"Markets always want short, sharp, simple solutions. † said Bob Janjuah, fixed income analyst at Nomura Securities (‘The eurozone†¦Ã¢â‚¬â„¢, 2011). † In additi on, the future of U. S. economy is ambiguous. U. S. has been through a tough time since the subprime mortgage crisis. Analysts share different point of views about whether U.S. is experiencing a recovery or recession. First, the macroeconomic data tells an unclear story. The growth rate of real GDP (As illustrated by the figure below) in the third quarter is 2. 0%, higher than the previous two quarters. While compared to the previous year, we can see the U. S. economy has slowed down. Though the U. S. economy has jumped out of the mire in 2008, it remains unstable. While we focusing on the recent year data, we can see no big signal of an up-coming boom or bust. As showed below, the unemployment rate has remained above 9 percent.New jobs are created, but not sufficient. Average Hourly Earnings remains the same. CPI and PPI both declined on October, primarily due to the decline of energy price. In addition, the 2011 U. S. fiscal policy remains neutral. The market is unlikely to get fu rther stimulus. Also we can forecast an increase in the rate of fiscal tightening at the federal level over the next period of time. Overall, U. S. economy still remains unsustainable and U. S. financial market is highly sensitive, which can be immediately shocked by each piece of up-coming information, whether positive or negative. Table4 United States – Monthly Data | |Data Series | | |Our Value |Rank |S&P500 |Comparison with peers | | | | | |Google |Kraft |BRK-B |BP | |09/13/2011 |529. 2 |34. 23 |68. 85 |36. 45 | |09/20/2011 |546. 63 |34. 52 |69. 72 |38. 77 | |09/27/2011 |539. 34 |34. 93 |72. 07 |37. 94 | |10/4/2011 |501. 90 |32. 86 |73. 17 |35. 42 | |10/11/2011 |543. 8 |34. 40 |73. 41 |38. 36 | |10/18/2011 |590. 51 |35. 24 |75. 07 |41. 11 | |10/25/2011 |583. 16 |34. 93 |75. 74 |43. 52 | |11/1/2011 |578. 65 |34. 56 |75. 52 |42. 72 | |11/8/2011 |612. 4 |35. 48 |78. 16 |44. 70 | |11/15/2011 |616. 56 |35. 48 |75. 93 |43. 70 | |11/18/2011 |594. 88 |34. 77 |75. 37 |42. 48 | |To tal Return |12. 34% |1. 58% |9. 47% |16. 54% | Source: www. google. com/financeFrom the table and graph above, we could clearly see that the best performer in our portfolio was BP with a 16. 54% total return, while the worst one was Kraft with a total return of 1. 58% during the holding period. Among all of the four holding-oriented securities, the only one underperformed than the benchmark, namely S&P500, was Kraft. All other three stocks had much better return than the S&P500 of 3. 64%. Overall, these observe actually proved that our selection approach for holding-oriented stocks was successful. PART5-Conclusion What we did successfully:Generally speaking, the first class we learned from this three-month stock simulation is how to select stocks and establish a portfolio wisely and systematically. From initially setting up the investment policy, we explored how to select and allocate the individual securities, how to diversify our portfolio to minimize the risks, and how to find th e best return-risk trade-off for our portfolio. Through this procedure, we really needed to use all financial knowledge we have learned before, including fundamental analysis, ratio analysis, technical analysis, free cash flow analysis and so on.Another significant difference is that we did pay a lot attention to follow macroeconomic and financial news, as well as particular news about our securities. It brought us more quickly and sensitive observe ability to what happened all over the world than before. In addition, we did well on diversifying our portfolio and minimize the systematic risks. Since we established an investment policy in details that we strictly implemented, we had everything under control and didn’t expose to any extraordinary risks out of our expectation.What we would improve in the future: Unfortunately, we did beat the benchmark performance finally, although we once did well and ranked better during the trading period. Firstly, we had to admit that someti mes we have delayed trading and tracking our portfolio, resulting in great losses on some particular stocks. Besides, we had limited experience on daytime trading and using on-time information, so we sometimes encounter unexpected results. For example, we sold Apple’s stocks immediately after we got the news about its CEO, Steven Jobs’s death.However, as we all know, the Apple’s price wasn’t affected a lot in the next trading date. In the way that was expected, unlike our holding-oriented stocks, our gambling-oriented stocks general performances were typically unsatisfied. Therefore, we concluded that wisely selecting stocks according to the macroeconomics and fundamental analysis and then holding them for a relatively long period would be the best way to gain profit from security market.Interestingly, we also found that people might not that know themselves on risk tolerance. Whatever from our investment policy or our trading strategy and results, our po rtfolio is somewhat risk-averse, so we well diversified our investment and always holding a relatively high level of bonds and mutual funds, as well as some excess cash. Interesting finding is that, however, our group members got all high-risk-tolerance ranking in the survey that we finished on class. Appendix1 Ratio Calculation Spreadsheet pic] Appendix2 Class Ratings [pic] References â€Å"The eurozone debt crisis just won't quit†, retrospect from: http://finance. yahoo. com/news/eurozone-debt-crisis-just-wont-211300837. html â€Å"StanChart warns on China’s local-government debt†, retrospect from: http://www. marketwatch. com/story/stanchart-warns-on-chinas-local-government-debt-2011-09-20 Data, retrospect from www. yahoo. com/finance Data, retrospect from www. reuters. com/finance Data, retrospect from www. google. com/finance

Saturday, September 14, 2019

Literary Devices Essay

A form of extended metaphor, in which objects, persons, and actions in a narrative, are equated with the meanings that lie outside the narrative itself. The underlying meaning has moral, social, religious, or political significance and characters are often personifications of abstract ideas as charity, greed, or envy. Thus an allegory is a story with two meanings, a literal meaning and a symbolic meaning. Alliteration The repetition of the same sound at the beginning of a word, such as the repetition of b sounds in Keats’s â€Å"beaded bubbles winking at the brim† (â€Å"Ode to a Nightingale†) or Coleridge’s â€Å"Five miles meandering in a mazy motion (â€Å"Kubla Khan†). A common use for alliteration is emphasis. It occurs in everyday speech in such phrases as â€Å"tittle-tattle,† â€Å"bag and baggage,† â€Å"bed and board,† â€Å"primrose path,† and â€Å"through thick and thin† and in sayings like â€Å"look before you leap.† Some literary critics call the repetition of any sounds alliteration. However, there are specialized terms for other sound-repetitions. Consonance repeats consonants, but not the vowels, as in horror-hearer. Assonance is the repetition of vowel sounds, please-niece-ski-tree. Allusion A brief reference to a person, event, place, or phrase. The writer assumes readers will recognize the reference. For instance, most of us would know the difference between one being as reliable as George Washington or as reliable as Benedict Arnold. Allusions that are commonplace for readers in one era may require footnotes for readers in a later time. Ambiguity (1) A statement that has two or more possible meanings; (2) a statement whose meaning is unclear. Depending on the circumstances, ambiguity can be negative, leading to confusion or even disaster (the ambiguous wording of a general’s note led to the deadly charge of the Light Brigade in the Crimean War). On the other hand, writers often use it to achieve special effects, for instance, to reflect the complexity of an issue or to indicate the difficulty, perhaps the impossibility, of determining truth. Many of Hamlet’s statements to the King, to Rosenkrantz and Guildenstern, and to other characters are deliberately ambiguous, to hide his real purpose from them. Analogy The comparison of two pairs which have the same relationship. The key is to ascertain the relationship between the first so you can choose the correct second pair. Part to whole, opposites and results of are types of relationships you should find. Anecdote Short tale narrating an interesting or amusing biographical incident. Anthropomorphism Used with God or gods. The act of attributing human forms or qualities to entities that are not human. Specifically, anthropomorphism is the describing of gods or goddesses in human forms and possessing human characteristics such as jealousy, hatred, or love. Mythologies of ancient peoples were almost entirely concerned with anthropomorphic gods. The Greek gods such as Zeus and Apollo often were depicted in anthropomorphic forms. The avatars of the Hindu god Vishnu possessed human forms and qualities. Antihero A protagonist who has the opposite of most of the traditional attributes of a hero. He or she may be bewildered, ineffectual, deluded, or merely pathetic. Often what antiheroes learn, if they learn anything at all, is that the world isolates them in an existence devoid of God and absolute values. Yossarian from Joseph Heller’s Catch-22 is an example of an antihero. Aphorism A brief saying embodying a moral, a concise statement of a principle or precept given in pointed words. Example: * Hippocrates: Life is short, art is long, opportunity fleeting, experimenting dangerous, reasoning difficult. * Alexander Pope: Some praise at morning what they blame at night. * Ralph Waldo Emerson: Imitation is suicide * Benjamin Franklin: Lost time is never found again. Apostrophe A direct address to a person, thing, or abstraction, such as â€Å"O Western Wind,† or â€Å"Ah, Sorrow, you consume us.† Apostrophes are generally capitalized. Archetype A term used to describe universal symbols that evoke deep and sometimes unconscious responses in a reader. In literature, characters, images, and themes that symbolically embody universal meanings and basic human experiences, regardless of when or where they live, are considered archetypes. Common literary archetypes include stories of quests, initiations, scapegoats, descents to the underworld, and ascents to heaven. See also mythological criticism. Assonance The repetition of vowel sounds, please-niece-ski-tree. Cadence The melodic pattern just before the end of a sentence or phrase – for instance an interrogation or an exhortation. More generally, the natural rhythm of language depending on the position of stressed and unstressed syllables. Cadence is a major component of individual writers’ styles. A cadence group is a coherent group of words spoken as a single rhythmic unit, such as a prepositional phrase, â€Å"of parting day† or a noun phrase, â€Å"our inalienable rights.† Catharsis Meaning â€Å"purgation,† catharsis describes the release of the emotions of pity and fear by the audience at the end of a tragedy. In his Poetics, Aristotle discusses the importance of catharsis. The audience faces the misfortunes of the protagonist, which elicit pity and compassion. Simultaneously, the audience also confronts the failure of the protagonist, thus receiving a frightening reminder of human limitations and frailties. Ultimately, however, both of these emotions are purged because the tragic protagonist’s suffering is an affirmation of human values rather than a despairing denial of them. See also tragedy. Clichà © An idea or expression that has become tired and trite from overuse, its freshness and clarity having worn off. Clichà ©s often anesthetize readers, and are usually a sign of weak writing. Colloquial Refers to a type of informal diction that reflects casual, conversational language and often includes slang. Connotation The emotions, values, or images associated with a word. The intensity of emotions or the power of the values and images associated with a word varies. Words connected with religion, politics and sex tend to have the strongest feelings and images associated with them.†¨ For most people, the word mother calls up very strong positive feelings and associations – loving, self-sacrificing, always there for you, understanding, etc.; the denotative meaning, on the other hand, is simply â€Å"a female animal who has borne one or more children.† Of course connotative meanings do not necessarily reflect reality; for instance, if someone said, â€Å"His mother is not very motherly,† you would immediately understand the difference between motherly (connotation) and mother (denotation). Consonance Repeats consonants, but not the vowels, as in horror-hearer Deism An intellectual religious movement en vogue through the late seventeenth century up to the late eighteenth century concerned with rational rather than faith-based approaches to religion and understanding God. The movement is often associated with the Enlightenment movement, Neoclassicism, and Free Masonry. In general, Deists prided themselves on free-thinking and logic and tended to reject any specific dogma, so it is difficult to define the beliefs of an individual Deist without referring to generalities. Deists were heavily influenced by John Locke’s mechanistic philosophy and Newtonian physics, seeing the universe as a place ruled rationally by cause and effect. They tended to see God as an impersonal but intelligent force, a first cause that created the universe and set it in motion, who then allowed life and matter to proceed on its own without further need for divine intervention. The logic is that, if God is infallible, omniscient and omnipotent, logically he would pre- establish his design in the world in such a way that he would not need to tinker constantly with it or adjust it through supernatural intervention. Deistic writings often refer to the Deity using metaphors of the architect, the watchmaker, the mason, or some other skilled worker who measures out the universe with geometric and mechanical precision. Thus, a common Deist metaphor compares the universe to a perfectly designed watch or clock – a construct created with complex gears and moving parts, then wound up, and finally released to operate on its own without any more effort on the creator’s part. Denotation The literal meaning of a word; there are no emotions, values, or images associated with denotative meaning. Scientific and mathematical language carries few, if any emotional or connotative meanings. Dialect The language of a particular district, class, or group of persons. The term dialect encompasses the sounds, spelling, grammar, and diction employed by a specific people as distinguished from other persons either geographically or socially. Dialect is a major technique of characterization that reveals the social or geographic status of a character. Diction A writer’s choice of words, phrases, sentence structures, and figurative language, which combine to help create meaning. Formal diction consists of a dignified, impersonal, and elevated use of language; it follows the rules of syntax exactly and is often characterized by complex words and lofty tone. Middle diction maintains correct language usage, but is less elevated than formal diction; it reflects the way most educated people speak. Informal diction represents the plain language of everyday use, and often includes idiomatic expressions, slang, contractions, and many simple, common words. Poetic diction refers to the way poets sometimes employ an elevated diction that deviates significantly from the common speech and writing of their time, choosing words for their supposedly inherent poetic qualities. Since the eighteenth century, however, poets have been incorporating all kinds of diction in their work and so there is no longer an automatic distinction between the language of a poet and the language of everyday speech Enjambment A line having no pause or end punctuation but having uninterrupted grammatical meaning continuing into the next line – usually applied to poetic formats. Euphemism Using a mild or gentle phrase instead of a blunt, embarrassing, or painful one. For instance, saying â€Å"Grandfather has gone to a better place† is a euphemism for â€Å"Grandfather has died.† The idea is to put something bad, disturbing, or embarrassing in an inoffensive or neutral light. Frequently, words referring directly to death, unpopular politics, blasphemy, crime, and sexual or excremental activities are replaced by euphemisms. Farce A farce is a form of low comedy designed to provoke laughter through highly exaggerated caricatures of people in improbable or silly situations. Traits of farce include (1) physical bustle such as slapstick, (2) sexual misunderstandings and mix-ups, and (3) broad verbal humor such as puns. Many literary critics (especially in the Victorian period) have tended to view farce as inferior to â€Å"high comedy† that involves brilliant dialogue. Many of Shakespeare’s early works, such as The Taming of the Shrew, are considered farces. Flashback Action that interrupts to show an event that happened at an earlier time which is necessary to better understanding. Foil A secondary character who contrasts with a major character; in Hamlet, Laertes and Fortinbras, whose fathers have been killed, are foils for Hamlet. Foreshadowing Where the author drops subtle hints about the plot development to come later in the story. Hyperbole Exaggeration, often extravagant; it may be used for serious or for comic effect. Idiom In its loosest sense, the word idiom is often used as a synonym for dialect or idiolect. In its more scholarly and narrow sense, an idiom or idiomatic expression refers to a construction or expression in one language that cannot be matched or directly translated word-for-word in another language. For instance, the English expression, â€Å"She has a bee in her bonnet,† meaning â€Å"she is obsessed,† cannot be literally translated into another language word for word. It is a non-literal idiomatic expression, akin to â€Å"She is green with envy.† In the same way, the Spanish phrase, â€Å"Me gustan los arboles,† is usually translated as, â€Å"I like the trees,† but if we were to pull the phrase apart and read it word for word, it would make no sense in analytical English (i.e., â€Å"To me pleases the trees†). Imagery Language that evokes one or all of the five senses: seeing, hearing, tasting, smelling, touching. Each of these types of imagery has a specific name: * Olfactory imagery stimulates the sense of smell. * Tactile imagery stimulates the sense of touch. * Visual imagery stimulates the sense of sight. * Auditory imagery stimulates the sense of hearing. * Gustatory imagery stimulates the sense of taste. * Kinesthesia is imagery that recreates a feeling of physical action or natural bodily function (like a pulse, a heartbeat, or breathing). * Synaesthesia is imagery that involves the use of one sense to evoke another (Ex: loud color; warm gesture). Irony The discrepancy (incongruity) between what is said and what is meant, what is said and what is done, what is expected or intended and what happens, what is meant or said and what others understand. Sometimes irony is classified into types: in situational irony, expectations aroused by a situation are reversed; in cosmic irony or the irony of fate, misfortune is the result of fate, chance or God; in dramatic irony, the audience knows more than the characters in the play, so that words and action have additional meaning for the audience; Socractic irony is named after Socrates’ teaching method, whereby he assumes ignorance and openness to opposing points of view which turn out to be (he shows them to be) foolish. Metaphor A comparison of two dissimilar things, which does not use â€Å"like† or â€Å"as,† Metonymy Substituting a word for another word closely associated with it. Queen Elizabeth controlled the crown for years. The crown = the monarchy He has always loved the stage. The stage = the theater He will follow the cross. The cross = Christianity Motif (1) A recurrent thematic element in an artistic or literary work. (2) A dominant theme or central idea. Mood The emotional attitude the author takes towards the subject. Narrator The voice of the person telling the story, not to be confused with the author’s voice. With a first-person narrator, the I in the story presents the point of view of only one character. The reader is restricted to the perceptions, thoughts and feelings of that single character. First-person narrators can play either a major or a minor role in the story they are telling. An unreliable narrator reveals an interpretation of events that is somehow different from the author’s own interpretation of those events. Often, the unreliable narrator’s perception of plot, characters, and setting becomes the actual subject of the story. Narrators can be unreliable for a number of reasons: they might lack self-knowledge, they might be inexperienced, or they might even be insane. Naive narrators are usually characterized by youthful innocence, such as Mark Twain’s Huck Finn or J. D. Salinger’s Holden Caulfield. An omniscient narrator is an all-knowing narrator who i s not a character in the story and who can move from place to place and pass back and forth through time, slipping into and out of characters as no human being possibly could in real life. Omniscient narrators can report the thoughts and feelings of the characters, as well as their words and actions. The narrator of The Scarlet Letter is an omniscient narrator. Editorial omniscience refers to an intrusion by the narrator in order to evaluate a character for a reader, as when the narrator of The Scarlet Letter describes Hester’s relationship to the Puritan community. Narration that allows the characters’ actions and thoughts to speak for themselves is called neutral omniscience. Most modern writers use neutral omniscience so that readers can reach their own conclusions. Limited omniscience occurs when an author restricts a narrator to the single perspective of either a major or minor character. The way people, places, and events appear to that character is the way they appear to the reader. Sometimes a limited omniscient narrator can see into more than one character, particularly in a work that focuses on two characters alternately from one chapter to the next. Short stories, however, are frequently limited to a single character’s point of view. Onomatopoeia A word whose sounds seem to duplicate the sounds they describe–hiss, buzz, bang, murmur, meow, growl. Oxymoron A statement with two parts that seem contradictory; examples: sad joy, a wise fool, the sound of silence, or Hamlet’s saying, â€Å"I must be cruel only to be kind.† Parable A story or short narrative designed to allegorically reveal some religious principle, moral lesson, psychological reality, or general truth. Rather than using abstract discussion, a parable always teaches by comparison with real or literal occurrences, especially everyday occurrences a wide number of people can relate to. Well known examples of parables include those found in the Gospels, such as â€Å"The Prodigal Son† and â€Å"The Good Samaritan.† Paradox A statement whose two parts seem contradictory yet make sense with more thought. Christ used paradox in his teaching: â€Å"They have ears but hear not.† Or in ordinary conversation, we might use a paradox, â€Å"Deep down he’s really very shallow.† Paradox attracts the reader’s or the listener’s attention and gives emphasis. Parody A parody imitates the serious manner and characteristic features of a particular literary work in order to make fun of those same features. The humorist achieves parody by exaggerating certain traits common to the work, much as a caricaturist creates a humorous depiction of a person by magnifying and calling attention to the person’s most noticeable features. The term parody is often used synonymously with the more general term spoof, which makes fun of the general traits of a genre rather than one particular work or author. Often the subject matter of a parody is comically inappropriate, such as using the elaborate, formal diction of an epic to describe something trivial like washing socks or cleaning a dusty attic. Persona A mask for the author to speak through. In literature, a persona is a speaker created by a writer to tell a story or to speak in a poem. A persona is not a character in a story or narrative, nor does a persona necessarily directly reflect the author’s personal voice. A persona is a separate self, created by and distinct from the author, through which he or she speaks. Personification Treating abstractions or inanimate objects as human, that is, giving them human attributes, powers, or feelings, e.g., â€Å"nature wept† or â€Å"the wind whispered many truths to me.† Point of view Refers to who tells us a story and how it is told. What we know and how we feel about the events in a work are shaped by the author’s choice of point of view. The teller of the story, the narrator, inevitably affects our understanding of the characters’ actions by filtering what is told through his or her own perspective. The various points of view that writers draw upon can be grouped into two broad categories: (1) the third-person narrator uses he, she, or they to tell the story and does not participate in the action; and (2) the first-person narrator uses I and is a major or minor participant in the action. In addition, a second-person narrator, you, is also possible, but is rarely used because of the awkwardness of thrusting the reader into the story, as in â€Å"You are minding your own business on a park bench when a drunk steps out and demands your lunch bag.† An objective point of view employs a third-person narrator who does not see into the mind of any character. From this detached and impersonal perspective, the narrator reports action and dialogue without telling us directly what the characters think and feel. Since no analysis or interpretation is provided by the narrator, this point of view places a premium on dialogue, actions and details to reveal character to the reader. Pun The usually humorous use of a word in such a way as to suggest two or more of its meanings or the meaning of another word similar in sound. It consists of a deliberate confusion of similar words or phrases for rhetorical effect, whether humorous or serious. It can rely on the assumed equivalency of multiple similar words (homonymy), of different shades of meaning of one word (polysemy), or of a literal meaning with a metaphor. Bad puns are often considered to be cheesy. * A hangover is the wrath of grapes. * Without geometry, life is pointless. * Reading while sunbathing makes you well-red. Repetition The return of a word, phrase, stanza form, or effect in any form of literature. Repetition is an effective literary device that may bring comfort, suggest order, or add special meaning to a piece of literature. Satire A literary tone used to ridicule or make fun of human vice or weakness, often with the intent of correcting, or changing, the subject of the satiric attack. Simile A comparison of two dissimilar things using â€Å"like† or â€Å"as† Stereotype A simplified and/or standardized conception or image with specific meaning, often held in common by members of a group. A stereotype can be a conventional and oversimplified conception, opinion or image. Stereotypes can range from those that are wildly inaccurate and negative to those that are more than a little bit true and may even shed positive light upon the group of individuals. They are typically generalizations based on minimal or limited knowledge about a group to which the person doing the stereotyping does not belong. Style Manner of expression; how a speaker or writer says what he says. Suspense The feeling of uncertainty and interest about the outcome of certain actions, most often referring to an audience’s perceptions in a dramatic work. Symbolism When an author uses an object or idea to suggest more than its literal meaning. A person, place, or event stands for something other than it is, usually something broader or deeper than it is. Symbols In general terms, anything that stands for something else. Obvious examples are flags, which symbolize a nation; the cross is a symbol for Christianity; Uncle Sam a symbol for the United States. In literature, a symbol is expected to have significance. Keats starts his ode with a real nightingale, but quickly it becomes a symbol, standing for a life of pure, unmixed joy; then before the end of the poem it becomes only a bird again. Synecdoche When one uses a part to represent the whole. â€Å"Lend me your ears.† (give me your attention) Syntax The way in which linguistic elements (as words) are put together Theme (1) The abstract concept explored in a literary work; (2) frequently recurring ideas, such as enjoy life while you can; (3) repetition of a meaningful element in a work, such as references to sight, vision and blindness in Oedipus Rex. Sometimes the theme is also called the motif. Themes in Hamlet include the nature of filial duty and the dilemma of the idealist in a non-ideal situation. A theme in Keats’s â€Å"Ode to a Nightingale† is the difficulty of correlating the ideal and the real. Tone The writer’s attitude toward the material and/or readers. Tone may be playful, formal, intimate, angry, serious, ironic, outraged, baffled, tender, serene, depressed, etc. Tragedy A story that presents courageous individuals who confront powerful forces within or outside themselves with a dignity that reveals the breadth and depth of the human spirit in the face of failure, defeat, and even death. Tragedies recount an individual’s downfall; they usually begin high and end low. Shakespeare is known for his tragedies, including Macbeth, King Lear, Othello, and Hamlet. The revenge tragedy is a well-established type of drama that can be traced back to Greek and Roman plays, particularly through the Roman playwright Seneca (c. 3 b.c.–a.d. 63). Revenge tragedies basically consist of a murder that has to be avenged by a relative of the victim. Typically, the victim’s ghost appears to demand revenge and, invariably, madness of some sort is worked into subsequent events, which ultimately end in the deaths of the murderer, the avenger and a number of other characters. Shakespeare’s Hamlet subscribes to the basic ingredients of revenge tragedy . It also transcends these conventions because Hamlet contemplates revenge, suicide and the meaning of life itself. The tragic irony is found in tragedies such as Oedipus Rex, in which Oedipus ironically ends up hunting himself. A story that presents courageous individuals who confront powerful forces within or outside themselves with a dignity that reveals the breadth and depth of the human spirit in the face of failure, defeat, and even death. Tragic irony is a form of dramatic irony found in tragedies such as Oedipus Rex, in which Oedipus ironically ends up hunting himself.. Tragic flaw An error or defect in the tragic hero that leads to his downfall, such as greed, pride, or ambition. This flaw may be a result of bad character, bad judgment, an inherited weakness, or any other defect of character. Tragicomedy A type of drama that combines certain elements of tragedy and comedy. The play’s plot tends to be serious, leading to a terrible catastrophe, until an unexpected turn of events leads to a reversal of circumstance, and the story ends happily. Tragicomedy often employs a romantic, fast-moving plot dealing with love, jealousy, disguises, treachery, intrigue, and surprises, all moving toward a melodramatic resolution. Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice is a tragicomedy. Understatement (also known as litotes and meiosis) Casual or light treatment of the subject, it has two effects: (1) shows that the author does not take a subject seriously, (2) calls upon the moral indignation of the reader because the subject does not seem to be taken seriously. * Example: â€Å"I’m really glad that you have come to visit,† said the spider to the fly. Verisimilitude Something that has the appearance of being true or real. Vernacular The everyday or common language of a geographic area or the native language of commoners in a country as opposed to a prestigious dead language maintained artificially in schools or in literary texts. Latin, for instance, has not been a vernacular language for about 1250 years. Sanskrit has not been a vernacular language in India for more than 2000 years. However, Latin in medieval Europe and Sanskrit in ancient India were considered much more suitable for art, scholarship, poetry, and religious texts than the common tongue of everyday people even though (or perhaps because) only a small percentage of the learned could read the older languages.