William ShakespeareS Titus Andronicus Essays - Titus Andronicus

William Shakespeare'S Titus Andronicus William Shakespeares earliest tragedy entitled Titus Andronicus is one of much action and spectacle. The majority of the characters actions are motivated by revenge which is an essential theme throughout the work. Titus Andronicus, unlike all of Shakespeares later plays, falls in line with Aristotles six elements of tragedy putting plot before character. Characters are developed through the use of action in this work rather than the character determining the plot. Through close examination of the text in Act 4, Scene 1, lines 30-62, the ever-present theme of revenge and constant action can be observed. Sexuality, power and death although honour, and revenge are three essential themes, which are present throughout the entire play. Titus Andronicus invites us to contemplate multiple murders, human sacrifice, severed heads and hands, the rape, murder, and dismemberment of Lavinia, and a cannibal feast featuring Titus' crazed cookery of Tamora's sons. In the particular lines previously mentioned, Lavinia has just been raped and had her tongue and hands cut off by the sons of the Goth Queen, Tamora. Motivated by the need to avenge her sons death, Tamora urges her two sons to take out their lust on the young bride. Each character seems to have their own agenda and pursues revenge until the bitter end. In Shakespeares later tragedies, such as Hamlet, characters are revealed through the use of soliloquy or speech rather than spectacle. However, in Titus Andronicus, Shakespeare uncharacteristically uses action in order to reveal the characters. An example of this can be found in Act 4, Scene 1. It begins with young Lucius fleeing from his aunt Lavinia, fearing that she is crazed. However, she merely wants to get to the book he is carrying, Ovid's Metamorphoses. She turns through its pages until she reaches the story of Philomela and Tereus (Tereus rapes his sister-in-law Philomela and then cuts off her tongue so that she cannot reveal the crime), which she shows to her father and uncle to indicate what has been done to her. Marcus urges her to carve the name of the culprits in the sand. Holding the staff with her mouth and guiding it with her stumps, she writes, Stuprum [Latin for rape] -- Chiron -- Demetrius. They all kneel and take a vow to not rest until the treacherous Goths have been made to pay with their blood. Here it can be seen that like Aristotles poetics, plot is of first importance. The events, which take place and the actions committed by all of the characters, are the determining factors as to how each of them acts individually. As Lavinia is physically pared down, her narrative and thematic importance escalates, drawing our attention to the importance of spectacle on the stage. Shakespeare

How Teflon Sticks to Nonstick Pans

How Teflon Sticks to Nonstick Pans Teflon is DuPonts brand name for polytetrafluoroethylene or PTFE, a fluoropolymer in which the fluorine atoms are so tightly bonded to the carbon atom that everything else slips right off. Its a miracle of modern chemistry that you encounter whenever you use non-stick cookware. But... if Teflon is non-stick, then how do they get it to stick to pans in the first place? How Teflon Sticks to Pans You might guess Teflon somehow sticks to metal better than it does to eggs, but in reality, the polymer slides right off of metallic surfaces, too. In order to get Teflon to stick to a pan, the metal is sandblasted. A primer coat of Teflon seeps into the tiny holes and cracks. The Teflon is baked into the pan. It doesnt stick to the metal, but the plastic has a hard time working its way out of the nooks and crannies. A finishing layer of Teflon is applied and baked onto the primed surface. Teflon has no trouble polymerizing with itself, so this layer bonds to the prepared pan without any problem. Keeping the Teflon in Place You can ruin your Teflon-coated pan two ways. You can damage the Teflon coating or scratch beneath it if you use metal utensils or too much force stirring or scraping food. The other way to ruin the pan is by applying too much heat, which can happen if you burn your food or heat the pan without any food in it. When too much heat is applied, the carbon bonds break, releasing fluorocarbons into the air. This isnt great for either the pan or your health, so non-stick cookware shouldnt be subjected to extremely high heat. What Is Plastic? | Make Plastic from Dairy

7 Forms of Emphasis in Writing

7 Forms of Emphasis in Writing 7 Forms of Emphasis in Writing 7 Forms of Emphasis in Writing By Mark Nichol At least seven strategies for calling attention to one or more words exist, but few of them are appropriate for a document that one wishes to consider professional looking. The purposes and relative merits of various approaches are discussed below. 1. All-Caps Styling a word, phrase, or sentence entirely in uppercase letters has limited utility: All-caps are employed either to represent speaking at a high volume (therefore, people who use all-caps in email or to comment on online content are often facetiously admonished to stop shouting) or to identify text on signage or in a notice. Assiduously avoid the style, otherwise; reading all-caps is fatiguing to the eye because readers are not used to recognizing so many capital letters in succession. 2. Boldface/Asterisks Boldface is often used for display copy (headings, subheadings, and other text other than the running text, or default wording in a piece of content); another use is to highlight introduced terms that may be defined within the text or in footnotes or a separate glossary. Some writers frame a word or phrase in asterisks to replace the boldface style; notice that in Microsoft Word, doing so will cause the enclosed text to convert to boldface. Avoid boldface for other emphatic uses. 3. Italics/Underscore Italics is the most frequently used type format to indicate emphasis. It is employed for foreign words and phrases that have not been adopted into English, for titles of compositions such as films and books, to represent emphatic speech (for example, in â€Å"You’re not really going to tell her, are you?†), or to refer to a word as a word (for example, â€Å"Define hubris†). The low-tech variation is to frame a word or phrase between underscores (_), but doing so in Microsoft Word will convert the text to italics. 4. Different Point Size Text can be rendered in a larger (or smaller) point size than surrounding text to make a point, but this not recommended for most publications or documents; exceptions include advertising, lighthearted or whimsical content, or children’s books. (One can, for example, emphasize the distinction in volume between a giant or a miniature being and a normal-sized person by increasing or decreasing the size of the type used to indicate the unusually sized person’s speech.) Exceptions include footnotes, captions, and other supporting text. 5. Quotation Marks Quotation marks are often used to bracket a word or phrase used facetiously or ironically, or to represent the writer’s skepticism or a mocking tone (for example, â€Å"The hotel’s ‘luxury’ suite was nearly indistinguishable from any ordinary accommodations†). Overuse of scare quotes, however, is distracting. Quotation marks are often mistakenly employed when something is being identified or introduced. (For example, no quotation marks are required around the phrase â€Å"Richter scale† in the sentence â€Å"The measurement system, called the ‘Richter scale,’ is algorithmic.†) They do, however, take the place of italics in referring to a term as a term when the term consists of more than one word (or to enclose a single word used as a word when italics are not available to or are not used by a publication), as in â€Å"The phrase ‘eminent domain’ has a specific legal definition.† The similarity of purpose here is likely the cause of confusion. 6. Small Caps Small caps are uppercase letters that are equal in height to lowercase letters; in this style, capital letters are usually represented by full-size uppercase letters. Sometimes, the first phrase or line of the first sentence of a chapter or a section of type is styled in small caps for emphasis, and small caps are occasionally employed in place of all-caps, boldface, or italics to provide distinction. 7. Underlining Underlining for emphasis has largely been supplanted by italics. It is now rarely used outside of instructional text to indicate blank spaces to be filled in. Want to improve your English in five minutes a day? Get a subscription and start receiving our writing tips and exercises daily! Keep learning! Browse the Style category, check our popular posts, or choose a related post below:50 Slang Terms for MoneyThe Six Spellings of "Long E"The Difference Between "Phonics" and "Phonetics"

Working with a Diverse Workforce Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Working with a Diverse Workforce - Essay Example Benefits of diversity in workforce in the workplace are numerous, and thus, can not be negated. However, effective leadership and management of a workforce, diverse in nature require much more than conventional leadership and management skills. A diverse workforce calls for an increased dedication and determination not only from the leader and/or manager, but also, from all other personnel that make part of the hierarchy of organizational structure. It is therefore, imperative that this issue is attended and the individualistic needs of all employees concerning the diversity in work place are satisfied so that optimum benefit from such a workforce may be gained. Diversity in workplace is a growing concern all over the world owing to the enormous benefits it has to offer. Employers look forward to hiring employees with differing origins, race, genders, cultures, linguistic abilities, knowledge, and competence with a view to enrich the organizational structure multifariously. In order to make a diverse workforce deliver its maximum, individualistic needs of workers need be addressed. In fact, work system involving diverse workforce can not be efficient as long as all members of the staff do not feel comfortable with one another and have not removed differences conventionally prevalent among their respective origins and cultures. Management of a diverse workforce loads a manager with big challenges, having met which, a manager makes the organizational culture conducive for profitable business. In order to make the work environment favorable for a diverse workforce, it is imperative that individualistic needs of every member of the workforce are realized and addressed. Some of the needs common to members from all cultures are generalized below: Before hiring the candidates, the ad should clearly state that the organization fundamentally looks forward to developing a

Case Study Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words - 6

Case Study - Essay Example An instant EHR access also permits many doctors to be referencing the chart concurrently. Similar EHR systems provide physicians delivering enhanced quality of medical care adopting the â€Å"Intergy HER† as all measures and instructions that are recorded are capable to be checked and confirmed to be proper for the deliberated intention thus lessening the scope of mistakes. The physicians, through the implementation of same HER system are trying to reduce the healthcare costs of the patients. It has been researched that the physicians adapting Intergy EHR are much more proficient at providing medical support as repetition is possible to be minimized. The quick reference to the HER system is important in the case of diagnostic procedures like blood reports, x-rays, ultrasounds etc. that are usually re-conducted since the preceding outcomes are not available to simply â€Å"retrieved, reviewed or compared.† The EHR permits a physician to have access to all investigative results, images etc. at any point of time, as a result eliminating the scope of duplication. The EHR system also sends electronically the information recorded to the hospitals billing system enabling precise data to be recorded in the clinic’s billing system consequently dropping the instances of claim rejections by the insurance company due to missing data. The EHR solution provides physicians with the capability to record clinical information related to a patient efficiently with less errors and lapse at the point of care. Patients are capable to have access with their whole medical history obtainable to physicians and clinicians at anytime devoid of the requirement to physically locate and recover documented medical records. There is a struggle involved in maintaining the nonverbal communication, specifically eye contact and lulls in conversation while documenting the appointment in an EHR. EHR is known to be distracting. There

The Annual Report Project Essay Example for Free

The Annual Report Project Essay General Electric, short as GE, is a leading multi-industrial company involving in energy, appliance, finance and transportation businesses. It has more than 100 years of history, and generally be viewed as one of the most successful product and service providers across continents. GE has gross revenue of more than 147 billion dollars, and is currently ranking No.6 in Fortune 500 U.S. by revenue. A. Introduction General Electric Company (GE) is a multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Fairfield, Connecticut, United States. Its core business contains four segments, including Energy, Finance, Technology infrastructure, and Consumer and Industrial. GE was founded initially by Thomas Edison, and then merged with Thomson-Houston Electronic Company in 1892. It was one the original 12 companies that were included for Dow Jones Industrial Average calculation in 1896, and is the only one that still being listed as of today. * Name of the Chief Executive Officer: Jeffrey R. Immelt * Corporate Headquarters: 3135 Easton Turnpike, Fairfield, CT 06828 * Ending of last fiscal year: Dec 31, 2011 * Description of the company’s principle products or services: General Electronic contains four major business sectors. GE Energy is constructed by two major departments. The Oil Gas department is a drill solution and refinery service provider, and the power department is one of the leading manufactures in designing and producing innovative, reliable, efficient, and high-performance jet engines. GE Technology Infrastructure is a business group dealing with machine production for healthcare and transportation. GE Capital is the financial service provider primarily focuses on loans and leases that it underwrites to hold on its own balance sheet rather than on generating fee by originating loans and leases. GE Home Business Solutions is another GE major business unit composed of intelligent platforms department and lighting department. The intelligent platforms are involving in producing next generation hardware and software for industrial control, and lighting department mainly engaged in home appliance production and maintenance. * Main geographic area of activity (in order of revenue significance): United States, Canada, Europe, Asia, Australia, Africa. * Name of Company’s independent accountants (KPMG LLP). Base on the analysis of independent auditor, the GE consolidated financial statements released to the public presented fairly, in a whole, the financial position of GE as the date of Dec 31, 2011 and 2010. Also, the statements of operations and cash flows for the three consecutive years from 2009 to 2011 are conformed to U.S. generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP). The independent accountants also declared that the GE maintained effective internal control over financial reporting as of Dec 31 2011, according to the criteria established in Internal Control-Integrated Framework issued by COSO. * The most recent price of company’s stock and its dividend per share The current price of GE stock is $20.62 as of Nov 20, 2012. The most recent dividend payment date was Oct 25, 2012 (record date was Sep 24, 2012) with amount per share of $0.17. B. Industry Situation and Company Plans GE Energy unit is a product and service provider across different energy industries, including coal, oil, natural gas, nuclear power and renewable energy like wind or solar energy. In general, global energy business experienced a boosting period in the past twenty years due to the economic rapid growth in Asia. Coal, Oil and natural gas are top 3 widely used fossil fuels in energy industry, accounting for 55% of total energy demands. GE Energy has the advantage of applying advanced technology from drilling and production, liquefied natural gas pipelines and storage to industrial power generation and it is the largest natural gas provider in U.S. Based on GE’s patents on renewable energy, it greatly expands its business cooperation in Asia in the past three years within the countries that have great environmental issues, like China. In 2009~20011, GE acquired two wind turbine companies, Scan Wind and Wind Tower System, and became one of the largest engine manufactures, second o nly to well-known British company, Rolls-Royce plc. Healthcare in GE Technology Infrastructure business unit takes the dominant position in the field of diagnostic imaging service and integrated clinical system providers. While it has offices around the globe, the Healthcare department has major regional operation in Europe and Asia. Transportation in GE Technology Infrastructure business unit basically produces locomotive and its accompanied equipment, large electric motors and propulsion systems for mining, oil drilling and engine industries. Because of its comparative advantage of research and development, the GE Transportation unit experienced a fast expansion in the past several years, and in 2011 they announced plans to build another locomotive factory in Texas to meet the increasing demand. GE Capital has two major parts of services, aviation services, and energy financial services. The aviation service is responsible for the leasing of aircraft and associate equipment to airlines. According to 2005 Airfinance Journal Operating Lessor Survey, GE aviation service department is the largest aircraft lessor in the world by the fleet size. The success of this business is primarily due to the heavily competition between the airlines, and each airline company intends to lease cheap aircraft to reduce their cost. The capital intensive companies, like GE, has the advantage to meet their needs. Energy financial services department is primarily responsible for auxiliary role such as providing financial and technological investment in energy infrastructure projects around the world, and their major investments are the projects across the different business segment of the General Electric. GE Home Business Solutions is composed of GE Lighting and GE Intelligent Platforms. GE Lighting is well known for its household appliance traced back from Thomas Edison’s work on lighting. Because of its dominant position in the business, lighting department generates descent amount of the revenues for the whole group. In 2011 the gross revenue for GE Lighting is about 3 billion. Intelligent Platforms departments designs, manufactures, and supplies hardware and software products for industrial control and automation. Their hardware products including programmable logic controllers (PLCs), programmable automation controllers (PACs), as well as software products including supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) has good reputation in the market, its major role is to provide research and development support for other GE business units to evolve their products. The revenue in Intelligent Platforms is about 135 million, and is not a huge profit resource for the whole grou p.

The Ghost’s Appeal: Man’s Interest in the Superficial in Toulouse-Lautr

The Ghost’s Appeal: Man’s Interest in the Superficial in Toulouse-Lautrec’s At the Moulin-Rouge Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec’s famous painting, At the Moulin-Rouge, combines striking coloring with abnormal lighting to create a work that addresses men’s superficial interest in women. The dark scene depicted in the painting includes ten people scattered about a restaurant. In the center, two women and three men sit casually around a table while the background portrays two men and a woman peering into mirrors; a second woman (in the foreground) observes the situation. The most arresting aspect of the picture is the dominating, pale face of a woman in the right foreground of the picture. A careful analysis of the painting begins with the study of the portrayal of the brightly-lit women and how the men’s gazes focus that representation and concludes with the viewer’s natural confirmation of that portrayal. This textual look at the picture leads the viewer to the conclusion that it is a woman’s external pomp that attracts a male. Because of Toulouse-Lautrec’s use of lighting, it is clear that the women are central to the painting. Despite the intermixing of men and women, the light falls only on the women, and the men are left in the shadows. Because of this, the eye wanders, not to the men, but to the women; thus, they become the subject of the painting. While this lighting does not appear unnatural, it is far from the customary distribution of light. Hence, the lighting of the women is an intentional attempt to focus the observer on them. Clearly, the objective of At the Moulin-Rouge centers on women. Having established that the females are integral to the work, it is interesting to see how the illumination reveals more about th... ...illed with interesting scenes, people, and ideas, has a distinct theme that emerges by looking at both the women and their male counterparts. From their similarities to actresses to their depiction as ghosts, Toulouse-Lautrec’s women are superficial. It is the men’s obsession with this, however, that reveals the work’s complete theme. Namely, that it is the outward grandeur of a woman that charms men. This point is brought close to home as the viewer realizes that he joins the men in the painting with the same curious interest in the superficial. Toulouse-Lautrec’s masterpiece brings the theme of superficiality’s appeal full-circle by engulfing both the subjects and the audience. NOTES *At the time, "fl†°neur" described the rich, male population that had time to observe and appreciate art. Artists of the day knew that their audience consisted largely of fl†°neurs.

Prom Nights from Hell Chapter Ten

It worked perfectly. Almost. There were six guards blocking the exits and another four at the door, checking everyone as they left. Ten total. All in body armor and masks, explaining patiently that there had been a bomb threat and it was important to evacuate as quickly as possible. No one questioned why they were armed with the automatic weapons they kept using to push the crowd along. No one except Dr. Trope, who went up to one of them and said, â€Å"Young man, I ask you to keep your weapons away from my students,† distracting him just long enough for Miranda and Sibby to get swallowed into the middle of the crowd. They'd navigated by the first two storm troopers, with only two left when Ariel yelled, â€Å"Dr. Trope? Dr. Trope? Look, there she is, Miranda Kiss. I told you she crashed the prom. She's right there in the middle. You have to-â€Å" Four men with automatic weapons suddenly swiveled and waded into the mass of students. Miranda whispered, â€Å"Duck,† to Sibby and the two of them bobbed beneath the surface of the crowd, crawling back into the Great Hall. Behind her she heard Dr. Trope saying, â€Å"Where is she? Where did she go? I'm not leaving one of my pupils in there.† And the storm trooper saying, â€Å"Please, sir, you need to evacuate. We'll find her. Rest assured.† Miranda decided that if she got out of this alive, she'd be a lot nicer to Dr. Trope. If. She dragged Sibby over to Old Faithful and said, â€Å"In there. Now.† â€Å"Why can't I hide in the White House? Why does it have to be in the volcano?† â€Å"I might need part of the White House. Please, just do it. They won't be able to make you out if they have night goggles.† â€Å"What about you? You're wearing white.† â€Å"I match the decorations.† â€Å"Wow, you're really good at this. This planning stuff. How'd you learn how to-â€Å" Miranda was wondering the same thing. Wondering why as soon as she'd heard the announcement some part of her brain had started measuring her distance to the exits, looking around for weapons, watching the door. Her senses going into overdrive was a relief; it meant some of her powers were cooperating. But did she have the strength to take on ten armed men? The most she'd ever taken on at one time before was three, and they hadn't been toting machine guns. She'd have to be crafty rather than direct. She said to Sibby, â€Å"Give me your boots.† â€Å"For what?† â€Å"To get rid of some of our competition so we can get out of here.† â€Å"But I really like these-â€Å" â€Å"Give them to me. And also a rubber bracelet.† Miranda set her trap, then held her breath as a guard approached. She heard him say into the walkie-talkie, â€Å"Southwest pillar. I've got one,† and saw the ribbons stir as he used the butt of his gun to push them aside. Heard him say, â€Å"What the-â€Å" And fired George Washington's sugar nose at him with the slingshot she'd made out of Sibby's rubber bracelet and a fork. All her target work paid off because it hit him at exactly the right point to send him plunging forward. He went down headfirst just hard enough to be disoriented and docile while she tied his hands and feet with the ribbons from the pillar. â€Å"I'm really sorry,† she said, flipping him over to gag him with a piece of dinner roll, then smiled. â€Å"Oh, hi, Craig. Not your day, is it? I hope your head's feeling better. What? It's not? It will. Try rubbing some insta-hot on your wrists and ankles when they untie you. Bye.† She'd just grabbed the boots she'd used at the base of the column as a decoy when she heard another guard coming fast from her left. She threw a boot at him Frisbee style and heard a satisfying swack as he fell down, too. Two down, eight to go. She was apologizing to the one she'd hit with the shoe, who was out cold-it was nice to know ankle boots were good for something-when the walkie-talkie on his belt came to life. â€Å"Leon, this is the Gardener. Where are you? State your position. Copy?† Miranda picked up the unconscious guard's walkie-talkie and said into it, â€Å"I thought your name was Caleb Reynolds, Deputy. Why the Gardener stuff? Or, as my friend likes to call you, Plant Boy.† A crackle. Then Deputy Reynolds's voice through the walkie-talkie. â€Å"Miranda? Is that you? Where are you? Miranda?† â€Å"Right here,† she whispered in his ear. She'd snuck up behind him, and now as he turned, her arm came around his neck with the heel of the boot pointed at his throat. â€Å"What are you stabbing me with?† he asked. â€Å"All you need to know is that it's going to cause you a lot of pain and probably a bad infection if you don't start telling me how many people there are here and what their plan is.† â€Å"There are ten in here, five more watching the exits outside. But I'm on your side.† â€Å"Really, Gardener? That's not how it looked at the house.† â€Å"You didn't give me a chance to talk to the girl.† â€Å"You're going to have to do better than that. I'm not a mix tape, you can't play me.† â€Å"Do you have any idea what she is?† † What she is? Not really.† His heart rate sped up now. â€Å"She's a real-life flesh-and-blood prophet. The Cumean Sibyl. She's one of ten people who between them supposedly know and can control the whole future of the world.† â€Å"Wow. I thought she was just an annoying fourteen-year-old with wild hormones.† â€Å"The Sibyl operates through different bodies. Or that's what they think. These people I'm working with. Wack jobs. They pretend they want to protect her, keep her prophecies from being exploited by the unscrupulous, but I think they're actually into extortion. I heard one of them say they could ransom the girl for eight figures.† His heart rate slowed as he talked. â€Å"My job was to find out where she was supposed to be picked up, so they could send someone there with some trinket of hers to show we had her, and get the Overseer to pay up.† Miranda didn't like the sound of the word trinket at all. â€Å"But you weren't going to?† â€Å"They're just using this religion stuff as a cover for their greed. It's disgusting. I'm all set to stop them, and then you†-getting agitated, his heartbeat spiking-â€Å"you come along in the middle and mess it up.† Miranda knew he was genuinely angry. â€Å"Stop them how?† â€Å"I was supposed to be getting the location of her pickup place from her, right? When you crashed in, I was going to tell her what to say, a place I'd picked out with the task force, then when the wackos went there, they'd be picked up by the police. Meanwhile I'd get the Sibyl safely to the real rendezvous. But you come in and blow it. Months of police work down the tubes.† His heartbeat was slow and even again. Miranda let him go. â€Å"I'm so sorry,† she said. He turned to scowl at her, changing it to a half smile when he saw what she was wearing. â€Å"Nice look on you.† He paused for a second, then said, â€Å"You know, there's a way we could still make this work. Do you have another outfit like that?† â€Å"My skating uniform? Yeah. But it's not the same color. It's more blue.† â€Å"That doesn't matter as long as it's close. With you two dressed as twins we'll be able to fool them into thinking that you're the Sibyl, use you as a decoy while we sneak her out to safety.† Talking quickly, he outlined the rest of his plan. Miranda said, â€Å"It would be better if we wore the wigs and masks, too. To complete the disguise.† â€Å"That's right. Perfect. Go toward the employee entrance, the one you used to sneak in. There's someone guarding the outer door but there's a door on the left that is clear. It goes to an office. I'll deal with these guys and then come-â€Å" He stopped talking, lifted his gun, and fired behind her. Turning, Miranda saw he'd shot one of the guards. â€Å"He saw us together,† he told her. â€Å"I couldn't let one of those bastards get you or tell the others. I'll distract them, keep them over here. You get the Sibyl, change, and wait for me in the office.† She was already moving away when she paused and said, â€Å"How did you find us?† His heartbeat slowed. â€Å"Put out a bulletin on your car.† â€Å"I should have thought of that,† Miranda said, then took off as he radioed, â€Å"Man down-man down.† Sibby was frantic when Miranda got back to her. â€Å"What happened? Did you get shot?† â€Å"No. I got us a ride out of here.† â€Å"How?† Miranda explained as they changed, then skirted the edges of the Great Hall toward the director's office. As they moved, she heard Deputy Reynolds barking orders to the guards, keeping them busy in other parts of the room, saying at one point, â€Å"No, don't turn on the lights-that will give them an advantage!† At another, heard a grunt of pain that sounded like someone being knocked out. She was impressed. They reached the director's office without running into anyone. Sibby sat in the desk chair. Miranda was pacing, walking back and forth to the ticktock of the big clock on the director's mantelpiece, picking up and putting down objects, a crystal bowl, a box of stationery, weighing them in her hand. A family picture of a man, woman, two small boys, a dog sitting together at the edge of a pier with the sun setting behind them. The dog was wearing someone's hat, a real full member of the family. A hand came down in front of the picture. â€Å"Hello, Miranda? I was asking you something?† Miranda put the picture down. â€Å"Sorry. What?† â€Å"How do you know you're right about him?† â€Å"I just do. Trust me.† â€Å"But if you're wrong-â€Å" â€Å"I'm not.† The clock ticked. Miranda paced. Sibby said, â€Å"I hate that clock.† Tick. Pace. Sibby: â€Å"I'm not sure I can do this.† Miranda stopped and looked at her. â€Å"Of course you can.† â€Å"I'm not brave like you.† â€Å"Excuse me? The girl who got-how many guys is it now? Twenty-three?† â€Å"Twenty-four.† â€Å"Twenty-four guys to kiss her? You're brave.† Miranda hesitated. â€Å"Know how many guys I've kissed?† â€Å"How many?† â€Å"Three.† Sibby gaped at her, burst out laughing. â€Å"Gods, no wonder you're so repressed. This had better work or you'll have had one seriously sad life.† â€Å"Thanks.†

Filipino People and Rizal Essay

Introduction: During Rizal’s time, he showed us what a real character of a woman is on those times. He told in one of his letter that from his infancy woman are with agreeable manners, beautiful ways, and modest demeanor. But he also told us that there was in all an admixture of servitude and deference to the words or whims of their so-called â€Å"spiritual fathers†, due to excessive kindness, modesty, or perhaps ignorance. They seemed faded plants sown and reared in darkness. The woman of Rizal’s time responded to the first appeal in the interest of the welfare of the people. Rizal said: now that you have set an example to those who, like you, long to have their eyes opened and be delivered from servitude, new hopes are awakened in us and we now even dare to face adversity, because we have you for our allies and are confident of victory. This term paper will discuss what are the identity of Filipina from the past and the women identity today. The significance of woman from the past who followed Rizal’s bravery to fight for their right and their characters, will also try to see what kind of woman identity should a Filipino have, the Filipino women in Rizal’s novel or some of our woman leaders of todays. What is a Filipina? Is she Asian or Western? Is she the reluctant leader Corazon Aquino, or is she the self-proclaimed â€Å"symbol of beauty for her people† Imelda Marcos? Is she the modern-day Gabriela Silang who envisions and works towards cross-sectoral changes, or is she one of the millions of faceless and nameless struggling multitude who does anything just to put rice on the table, the ordinary Juana de la Cruz? The implication of an early paradigm of gender character and equality may have, to some extent, begun the process of identity formation. On the surface, the Philippine myth does not seem to introduce the notion of conflict. What is projected is compatibility and harmony. Just when and how, then, did the problems of identity conflict for the Philippine woman come about? The language of the colonizer is found to not only serve as a vehicle for literary expression, but also for setting forth the idealized image of a Filipina from a male perspective. A brief glance at literature shows an evolution of sorts of the Filipina from the pre-colonial Maganda of indigenous folklore, to the early 1800s Laura who epitomizes beauty and faithful acceptance of her role as prescribed by culture, religion, and society; and to the fictional characterization of womanhood drawn from two works of historical fiction by Jose Rizal, Noli Me Tangere and El Filibusterismo. Although Rizal’s central protagonists in both novels are men, the significance of the women characters lies in their symbolic portrayals of a people of many images, of a country torn apart by race, culture, and class. In Rizal’s attempt to define a nation’s identity by addressing the need for national reforms and by exposing the evils of colonialism, he may have also encouraged the need to demystify the Filipina. The colonial Spanish period’s desired image of a Filipina is embodied in the character of Maria Clara–beautiful, demure, modest, patient, devoutly religious, cultured, submissive, and virginal. The blood that runs through her veins is more European than native. Her ancestry is noted since it has a bearing on the idealized model of a Filipina, the Roman Catholic’s Virgin Mary, and European and foreign. Maria Clara belongs to the elite; her kindness is not to be equated, however, with social awareness. She is a repressed woman and her weakness and despair over a lost love overwhelm her, enabling powerful and sinister forces to slowly drive her to death. Perhaps, to a certain degree, this â€Å"ideal† is still upheld today, contributing to the confusion of identity formation, for the original application of the character â€Å"Filipino† was only for Spaniards and their descendants who lived on the islands; the indigenous natives were simply called â€Å"indios. † The 19th century saw a character reversal process: the latter (â€Å"indios†) who have capitulated, are now called â€Å"Filipinos† while the former, mostly direct descendants of colonizers, now prefer to call them â€Å"Spanish. † The character Dona Victorina is a reflection of the triumph of colonialism–the alteration of behavior and thinking patterned after the character’s perception of a superior race. One hundred years ago, there was a Dona Victorina. Today, the trappings of a colonial mindset persist, and are expressed in the attraction to look Western and to consume Western goods. Dona Victorina is a characterization of lost identity. Her frivolity, and that of Paulita Gomez, who is greatly enamored by the trappings of the elite, who loves the man who could maintain the needs of her class, and who is a vain and flighty version of Maria Clara, may be seen today in the persona of Imelda Marcos. The likes of Imelda Marcos also mirror, ironically, another Rizal character, Dona Consolacion, who can be described as an interesting specimen of colonial deformation. She may serve as an example of â€Å"the dehumanization of the indio,† a case of total alienation from her original self, or from her potential self. The character Sisa also represents the opposite image of Paulita, a contradiction of the so-called high status and the liberated label describing the Filipino women today. She is the woman Mary Hollensteiner speaks of in her article, â€Å"The Wife†: quietly suffering from subjugation, sacrificing to put food on the table, living only for her sons. Sisa represents the silent victims of an oppression which drove her to madness and death. There are millions of Sisas in the Philippines today: the unfortunate women who are scavenging for food in the mountains of trash, the degraded women whose bodies are used as commodities, and the abused wives who are repeatedly beaten by their husbands. The other woman, Juli, emerges as the one character that chooses death over a life in shame. She suffers abuse and humiliation working as a servant to pay her family’s debt. She brings to mind the women of today who work for starvation wages. Juli refuses to be coerced; her death liberates her from oppression. Among these characters, perhaps Juli best characterizes a sense of purpose and identity. In Rizal’s characters, the women who seem to be able to obtain their desired needs no matter the consequences are Dona Victorina, Paulita Gomez, and Dona Consolacion. On the other hand, misfortune seems to be the fate of the women whose consciousness could be raised to levels higher than that of self-sacrifice. The all-giving attitude of Maria Clara, Sisa, and Juli leads them to their deaths. Within their social strata, each character is confronted with varying degrees of oppression which in turn defines the parameters of liberation. In their ambition to hold on to the symbols of the ruling class, the former group has made themselves seemingly strong and highly visible handmaidens of a system which feeds on varying levels of coercion and subjugation. The latter group’s retreat into death or madness carries two concurrent views: 1) the strength to exercise a final liberation as a form of defiance to oppression, and 2) the weakness and inability to confront any form of injustice. Who is more oppressed? Who has really liberated herself? Perhaps, what we are seeing is the notion that oppression has slowed down the process towards a national identity in general and towards a Filipina identity in particular. The reality is that the Philippines is a country still going through the throes of colonization. Indeed, there are those who have catapulted to the highest ranks, such as Corazon Aquino and Imelda Marcos, who embody differences in substance, style, and character. However, there are contradictions. Corazon Aquino’s high visibility, status, and power contradicts the image of a meek and subservient wife loyal to the memory of her husband; while Imelda Marcos, the â€Å"Iron Butterfly† of unparalleled extravagance, is a drastic contrast to the image of a once dutiful and subservient wife. Despite the fact that both overcame the traditional roles assigned to women of their social class by reaching positions of political power, they remain subservient to the memories of their husbands, but exemplify the interests of the class they represent. Class interest is perhaps the overriding difference between highly visible women, such as Corazon Aquino and Imelda Marcos, and the fervent activist women carrying the legacy of an intellectualized Gabriela Silang. While women in power and women working for empowerment both assert a heritage and demand a platform, the contradiction probably lies in the former’s subservience and the latter’s ability to address issues that cut across class lines. But class again diametrically separates political women from those who suffer in silence, such as the patient and self-sacrificing women who toil to feed their families, work in sweat shops, as vendors, scavengers, and prostitutes. There are also those who come faceless and nameless for they may flit and slide and go seemingly where the wind blows, all these, indeed a kaleidoscope of conflicting Filipina identities. Not only do Rizal’s novels provide a matrix for identity and conflict, they also allow a rare view of a people’s past which formed their culture today, and of a social cancer of which, up to the present, â€Å"the best cure† is still to be found. In the process of identity formation or perpetuation of identity conflict, the women in Rizal’s novels best serve as bridges in the development process, allowing the flow from the early 1800s mythical formation to the current emerging identity. The social, cultural and political context of both past and present are mirrored in the novels. The myth of the â€Å"high status† of the Filipina has caused Philippine women, wittingly or unwittingly, to become at times participants in their own oppression. This â€Å"containment by elevation† has allowed the essence of womanhood to be subjected to and dictated by rules and regulations formulated by and for the satisfaction of a colonial society. Philippine women find themselves attempting to wade out of a quagmire of confusion over their identity. Remembrance of Rizal is fast disappearing when it ought to be cherished and honored by all Filipinos. It was he who, more effectively than anyone else among his compatriots, unified the disparate inhabitants of our archipelago into one nation. It was he who made them share a common rage against the foreign intruder and a common aspiration for the freedom of their land. Rizal awakened the national conscience from its lethargy not through the force of arms but with the armies of his pen. These were the â€Å"Noli† and â€Å"El Filibusterismo,† his â€Å"Letter to the Women of Malolos,† his youthful poems for the Motherland, his â€Å"Mi Ultimo Adios† that he secreted in a lamp in Fort Santiago hours before his death, and other irrefutable accusations against the Spaniards. His words were like mighty legions that won for our country the freedom we now enjoy. Summary As we all see, that woman of today are very different from the past. Filipino women today are brave and strong enough just like Rizal to fight for what they think is right. There also some women from the past who fight for their rights like education but as compare today woman are more confident to stand. There are woman activist who really do what a Filipino woman can do to make a stand for their fellow poor Filipino people especially those people who are uneducated, they take everything to achieve their goals. Nowadays, we are now equal with man in almost everything most especially in terms of education, all people in our country, man and woman, rich and poor are now equal in getting education. Because of it we are now challenge to face the adverse circumstances and continued to fight for changes, not just to limit our roles as housewives but also to continue fighting for what is right, and that’s what a real Filipino woman identity today. Just like Rizal, he focused on self-improvement, showing to Spain and the rest of the international community that, given the opportunity to achieve their full potential, Filipinos could stand alongside the best in the world and were eligible for self-rule. Then he set out to apply what he had learned as an ophthalmologist, providing a basic service that was badly needed by his impoverished compatriots. In his writings he emphasized the importance of education, seeing it as the path to national progress rather than armed revolt. We all know that prudence does not consist in blindly obeying any whim of the little tin God, but in obeying only that which is reasonable and just, because blind obedience is itself the cause and origin of those whims, and those guilty of it are really to be blamed. Rizal said that God gave each individual reason and a will of his or her own to distinguish the just and the unjust, all were born without shackles and free, and nobody has a right to subjugate the will and the spirit of another. I hope we can revive the reverent sentiments of gratitude to him for his efforts in releasing us from foreign bondage. Political rhetoric is not enough to keep his heroism alive. Let us remember that he forsook the enticements of his youthful and gifted life and embraced instead the ultimate sacrifice for the welfare of his country. That is the best homage we can pay the greatest hero of our race. Conclusion The issue of racial equality is today hardly disputed in intellectual circles. During Rizal’s time, however, the claim that â€Å"all races are essentially equal† was a highly debated topic among anthropologists, biologists, and philosophers. The readers of his novels, essays, and letters are familiar with his portrayal and denunciation of Spanish colonial rule. His insistence on the education of the native Indios, the representation of the Philippines in the Cortes Generales, and more so the recognition of the civil rights of the Filipino are all based on the belief that there are neither â€Å"essentially† superior nor â€Å"essentially† inferior races. In this belief stems the conviction that his fellow Filipinos had the capacity for autonomy and enlightenment. The present Filipino youth must know that in order to make their presence felt, they must understand Rizal. To understand Rizal, they must have the spirit and motivation to do so. Without such spirit or motivation, they will never be able to understand Rizal’s objectives or even the other heroes who fought for equality and freedom for the sake of the Fatherland. I believe that the Filipino youth will be able to move the society through these implied teachings of Jose Rizal that will sprout a new love to the Filipino Hero, I admit that I only considered Rizal’s Life and Works as another general education subject that is needed to be taken. But what I get is more than just knowing Rizal, but also knowing my Filipino identity and that I must fight at all cost to defend my identity. A lot of what Rizal had dreamed of has now come true for many people in the state. He was already a modern democrat when he advocated participation in the state and society with education. Today, education is no longer a privilege among the small elite, for everybody’s participation in all public matters has become a right and duty. † One’s right to express him or her in all matters is founded on compulsory education with the required quality standards. References: Jose Rizal’s Writings in Europe and its message to the Filipino Youth Today Zaide, Gregorio F. & Zaide, Sonia M. 1998. Jose Rizal: Life, Works and Writings of a Genius, Writer, Scientist and National Hero. Capino, Gonzales and Pineda: Rizal’s life, works and writings:their impact on our National identity Colonization: It’s Impact on Self-Image Philippine Women in Rizal’s Novels and Today By Linda Acupanda McGloin.

James Naismith essays

James Naismith essays James Naismith, better known as the Father of Basketball, was born in Ramsay, a town near Almonte, Ontario on November 6, 1861, where he was the eldest son of Scottish immigrants John and Margaret Naismith. Ever since he was a young lad he had a passion for sports. Although he wasnt the head of his class in academics, he was a leader among his peers in all-physical activities and showed signs of becoming a fine athlete. Ever since he was a young child, he lived a rough life. In 1869, at the age of eight, James moved with his family to Grand Calumet where his father began work as a sawhand. Orphaned at age ten, when his parents contracted typhoid fever while working in the milling community, James and his brother and sister spent the next two years in Bennie's Corners living with their maternal grandmother. Where he attended grade school in a one-room schoolhouse. James was known in the neighborhood as a strong and skillful boy, but at school his monthly report cards showed poor grades. Mr. Thomas B. Caswell, James' grade school teacher, instructed him in reading, writing, arithmetic, advanced mathematics, Latin grammar and other subjects.(Glenn Dickey) When their grandmother died in 1873, the Naismith children, Annie, James and Robbie, were left under the care of their authoritarian uncle, Peter Young. Before and after school hours, Jim was assigned chores around the farm and worked in the w oods. James learned to chop trees, saw logs, and drive horses. As well, James learned many lessons in honesty, initiative, independence, and ruggedness. When James was sent into the field or the woods with a team of horses, he was expected to do the assigned job without asking for help. If trouble arose, he was depended upon to take care of it himself. Despite the burden of farm duties, there was time for play. In Bennie's Corners the blacksmith shop was the gathering spot for the children of the area. Here ...

A Babel of Tongues †The Dialectic of Communication and Solitude in Virginia Woolf

A Babel of Tongues – The Dialectic of Communication and Solitude in Virginia Woolf Virginia Woolf’s answer to Mr. Ramsay’s philosophical pursuits in To the Lighthouse is a reconciliation of both worlds – subjective perception and interpretation, and external objectivity. The first chapter of the novel is entitled â€Å"The Window,† and serves to represent the point of contact between subjective and objective states. This, Woolf believes to be our reality. External facts are arbitrary and meaningless until they are apprehended by a subjective state which gives them form; on a social level, communicating as a participant in society exposes the individual to an incoherent tumult of impressions that have to be reorganized into a coherent whole in solitude. Only then can one achieve peace. The individual is hence continually in search of an equilibrium in the dialectic of communication and solitude. Peter Walsh summarizes this concept in Mrs. Dalloway: For this is the truth about our soul†¦our self, who, fish-like inhabits deep seas and plies among obscurities†¦suddenly she shoots to the surface and sports on the wind-wrinkled waves; that is, has a positive need to brush, scrape, kindle herself, gossiping. However, to re-enter society as a participant entails at least a partial suspension of one’s subjectively constructed reality. Creative organisation is forfeited, and the â€Å"infinite richness† of life that Peter experienced a moment ago gives way to anxiety and a sense that events are spiraling out of one’s control. The city appears to be â€Å"floating off in a carnival,† and the febrile party of life – â€Å"the flare and the glare† – becomes lurid and chaotic. The coherent whole fragments and becomes meaningless isolated elements of reality that wash past Peter in an incomprehensible manner: â€Å"the cold stream of visual impressions failed him now as if the eye were a cup that overflowed and let the rest run down its china walls unrecorded.† The consequence of this is that â€Å"the brain must wake now†¦the soul must brave itself to endure.† Previously, as an invisible flà ¢neur amidst the bustling city, Peter could relax his mind to appreciate the myriad impressions of London life. To join the party would entail shedding invisibility and arresting these mental excursions in order to function socially. He takes out his pocketknife again, as he did when he first went to see Clarissa in the morning. T.E Apter suggests that the pocketknife is â€Å"a tool with which to pare down his perceptions, to preen his identity, and to defend himself against others’ views.† This is observed in Peter Walsh’s proleptic defense constructed in his thoughts against society’s voice, including Clarissa’s. He defends himself against the labels â€Å"Socialist† and â€Å"failure,† asserting that the future of civilization lies in the â€Å"hands of young men like[himself],† a nd diminishes Clarissa’s negative opinions of him by suggesting that she is superficial and snobbish. While Apter feels that Peter Walsh’s pocketknife is not a â€Å"worn-out masculine symbol,† Peter’s self-defensive maneuvers are undeniably offensive. Watching Peter handle his pocketknife, Clarissa imaginatively formulates his self-defense as revealed in his interior monologue – that she was â€Å"frivolous; empty minded; a mere chatterbox.† His self-defense invariably becomes an attack – interaction and communication hence turn into a battleground. Clarissa retaliates â€Å"like a Queen whose guards have fallen sleep and left her unprotected,† and â€Å"summoned to her help the things she did; the things she liked; her husband; Elizabeth; her self, in short†¦to come about her and beat off the enemy (my italics).† Her self, violated by misrepresentation, seeks to validate itself and emerges as the â€Å"indomitable egotism† that safeguards her vanity by overriding Peter’s claims. As a result, both Peter and C larissa â€Å"challenge each other† as in a â€Å"battle.† Clarissa validates her identity through external indicators – â€Å"the things she did; the things she liked; her husband; Elizabeth.† This is because a pattern of symbolic interpretation preexists the objects she names. Husband, daughter and hobbies can therefore be used as symbols representing success and felicity to vindicate Clarissa’s choices in life and challenge Peter’s position. However, these external indicators often make reductive summaries of their characters that they would not accept so easily in solitude. Clarissa chooses to define herself in these terms insofar as they offer her protection against Peter’s accusations; they cannot, however, fully represent her essential being, which explains â€Å"the feeling†¦of dissatisfaction† she often experiences of â€Å"not knowing people; not being known.† On the other hand, using social language to â€Å"preen one’s identity† does scale down the task of defend ing oneself against the whole of society into manageable proportions. One tactic Peter employs is in reproducing the external indicators imposed upon him in a dismissive tone (hence â€Å"preening his identity†), as he does later during the party. This subverts the significance of the criticisms and places him in a more enviable light than the term â€Å"failure† would normally allow. This is done without necessitating a head-on battle against society’s rather ill-founded impositions and labels – a task which would only make him appear insecure and, indeed, even more of a â€Å"failure.† Another means of self-defense is to appeal to another set of external indicators, which Peter does in response to Clarissa’s attack. He draws upon his â€Å"praise; his career at Oxford; his marriage† and tackles society’s implicit criticisms with another implicit social argument, and hence simultaneously defends and misrepresents himself. When one is alone, the self is relieved of the tedious tasks of self-defense and self-validation. The individual is allowed his own subjective understanding of events passing in the world and meets no resistance in his interpretation. Peter, upon leaving Clarissa, can therefore criticize her as having â€Å"something cold,† â€Å"a sort of timidity which in middle age becomes conventionality,† without facing Clarissa’s offensive self-defense. These criticisms are individual interpretations and are expressed in terms that are more subjective and descriptive, though less peremptory (which reduces their defensive power) than the predetermined arguments implicit in reductive and generalized social indicators. While these interpretations would afford a more meaningful debate, their lack of defensive power causes them to be eschewed on social battlegrounds where the more imperious external indicators are favoured. Only in solitude is Peter able to organize a more meani ngful representation of reality based on his own subjective interpretation of the events around him. Social language can be seen to impose frameworks of identity on characters, denying them the validity of their subjectively construed self-representations. It is this imposition of identity that characters in The Hours find unbearable. Cunningham describes his text as a â€Å"riff† on Mrs. Dalloway. Faithfully enough, his text is informed by the same theories of identity as a fluid concept as is seen in Woolf, where the self is constantly foiled and resurrected in an etiology concerning identity shaped by communication and solitude. Richard feels that the party could go on â€Å"with the idea of [him].† His self identity has been subsumed into facile social categorization, and he is defined as the tragic and sick artist who writes â€Å"weird book[s].† It is for this reason that he feels he â€Å"got a prize for [his] performance†¦for having AIDS and going nuts and being brave about it.† The external indicators – his sickness and his lengthy book – once again triumph over the true qualities of the self, here partially represented by the actual contents of his work, which nobody seems to understand. Laura Brown likens her anxieties about meeting her husband to the feeling one gets when â€Å"about to go onstage and perform in a play for which [one] is not appropriately dressed, and for which [one] has not adequately rehearsed.† She is acutely aware of the disparity between her self-perceived identity and the identity society has constructed for her, which she has to assume. She finds social identity – â€Å"the inchoate, tumbling thing known as herself, a mother, a driver† – superficial and meaningless, and liberates herself from the constraints of being a wife in a perfect home by escaping into a hotel. She experiences there â€Å"a sensation of deep and buoyant release,† which is the solace of self-reconstruction in solitude. Having â€Å"slipped out of her life† and escaped social imposition, she experiences â€Å"a sensation of unbeing,† for she has just lost social definition. Formerly, the being and the living had been the existence defined by society – the meaningless performance. The dissolution of the social â€Å"I† in solitude allows her self to emerge and conceive how â€Å"it is possible to die,† how death has a â€Å"dreadful beauty.† The â€Å"neutral zone† of the hotel room is void of socially imposed reality, and it is there, for the first time, that L aura is able to understand the appeal of death. This appeal is Laura’s subjective interpretation of the world (and of death in particular), and is an interpretation that has thus far been suppressed by social definition. Her â€Å"patriotism† for her husband – her civic responsibility to remain by his side and uphold the social tenets of familial duties – previously made such an idea unthinkable. A more insidious aspect of social interaction and communication is highlighted in Mrs. Dalloway and is represented by the two â€Å"Goddesses† of â€Å"Proportion† and â€Å"Conversion.† These are essentially abstractions of social establishments that enforce definitions regarding moral, political, emotional, or aesthetic realities, and which are given a satirical mythological status. They â€Å"smite out of [the] way roughly the dissentient, or dissatisfied† and â€Å"bestow†¦blessing on those who†¦catch submissively from [their] eyes the light of their own,† asserting their blinkered positions to be the only truths. Hugh Whitbread, who kissed Sally Seton to â€Å"punish her for saying that women should have votes,† could be said to be an agent of â€Å"Proportion† and â€Å"Conversion.† He masquerades under the â€Å"venerable name† of â€Å"kindness† and does more harm than â€Å"the rascals who get h anged for battering the brains of a girl out in a train.† Having been converted, he becomes a proponent of the â€Å"Goddesses†: by embodying outward social perfection without real depth of character, he is empowered, under the aegis of society, to stifle imagination, creativity and understanding, and repudiates Sally’s self-conceived reality, which made only the very modest claim that equal voting opportunities are appropriate in a civic moral society. Michael Cunningham, in The Hours, examines Woolf’s â€Å"Proportion† and â€Å"Conversion† in the context of the homosexual identity. By transposing Woolf’s diegesis of anomie onto the postmodern constructionistic concepts of identity, Cunningham is able to intensify the paradoxical tensions concerning the need for validation of one’s subjective experiences and the longing for social acceptance and integration. Walter Hardy, desiring acceptance, succumbs to â€Å"Conversion.† He possesses physical health, wealth and happiness – the touchstones of social success – leaving not a trace of the â€Å"overweight, desperately friendly† child â€Å"able to calibrate the social standing of other ten-year-olds to the millimeter.† But by accepting society’s criteria for judging success, he affirms its truth. Richard is hence justified in saying that â€Å"eternally youthful gay men do more harm to the cause than do me n who seduce little boys.† At least in seducing little boys, these men are affirming their subjective life experiences (which are their homosexual attractions and emotions), whereas men like Hardy, by their outward subscription to the social norm and passive assimilation of society’s ideological truths, allow the cycle of self-invalidation to continue into the next generation, and end up as simulacra of the â€Å"boys who tortured them in high school,† becoming the very forces that convert other individuals into the â€Å"Proportions† of masculinity and success. Oliver St. Ives is another character that embodies â€Å"Proportion.† Sally remarks â€Å"how much Oliver resembles himself.† The Oliver as movie star is almost identical to the Oliver of real life. As a movie star his image on television is defined through popular appeal, through society’s ideals. That his private image should correspond so well with society’s golden standard reveals Oliver’s lack of true self-identity – â€Å"as if all other brawny, exuberant, unflinching American men were somehow copies of him.† He is the face of the American male. Characteristically, his movie panders to society’s â€Å"Proportion†: an action thriller with a guy â€Å"who saves the world, one way or another.† An additional caveat attached reveals that â€Å"this one would have a gay man for a hero.† Unfortunately, saying that â€Å"it’s not a big deal. He wouldn’t be tortured about his sexuality. He wouldn ’t have HIV† is once again to deny the homosexual experience, to insist homosexuals had â€Å"never been strange children, never taunted or despised,† and to reinforce the experiences of society’s heterosexual norm. As David Bergman points out in â€Å"Gaiety Transfigured: Gay Self-Representation in American Literature,† â€Å"the child who will become gay conceives his sexual self in isolation. I cannot think of another minority that is without cultural support in childhood.† This precarious identity developed in solitude is allowed to be stampeded by the need for social confirmation, and Oliver becomes the very force of â€Å"Conversion.† Sally’s anger with â€Å"every optimistic, dishonest being† who denies their subjectively construed identity in favour of society’s brutal misrepresentation is hence vindicated. Such are the perils immanent in social participation that make a retreat into solitude so appealing. â€Å"Our apparitions, the things you know us by, are simply childish† – here, Mrs. Ramsay recognizes that the self is inevitably distorted by and heavily concealed from society. Human relations are â€Å"flawed,† â€Å"despicable† and â€Å"self-serving at their best,† because people inevitably choose to understand the world in a manner most gratifying to one’s vanity. She relishes the solitude wherein â€Å"she needs[s] not think about anybody,† and needs not continually fight for self-validation. â€Å"Having shed its attachments,† her self is free to wander uninhibited, and â€Å"the range of experience seem limitless.† These â€Å"strangest adventures† are not merely Mrs. Ramsay’s escapist fantasies of traveling to Rome and India; they are life experiences that are reorganized and refashioned by the â₠¬Å"unlimited resources† within one, and which form a subjectively conceived coherence – â€Å"a summoning together, a resting on a platform of stability.† Society foists itself on the individual, and it is only through â€Å"losing personality† and escaping social participation – whether as mother, wife or host – that the external world is held back, enabling one to lose â€Å"the fret, the hurry, the stir† and create â€Å"this peace, this rest, this eternity† by and for oneself. In retreating into the â€Å"wedged-shape core of darkness† of her self, subjective experience seemingly overwhelms the external objective world and turns it into a self-referential mirror – â€Å"She (Mrs. Ramsay) became the thing she looked at.† This mirror affords â€Å"peace† because it is the expression of the â€Å"core of darkness,† the moi splanchnique. Seeing the self reflected on the face of the world lets i t conceive of a harmonious unity, as if the essential truths of reality are indeed within oneself. Woolf, however, as a lover of parties, maintained that communication with the external world is not only desirable, but also necessary. Septimus’ decline into solipsistic insanity corroborates the idea that â€Å"communication is health; communication is happiness.† Septimus may also be seen as Clarissa’s doppelgà ¤nger. The tragic force gathers him, the alienated individual, in its nihilist folds and leads him to a premature death just as the comic force in Clarissa repeatedly pulls her back into society’s embrace in an affirmation of the positive and the social order. Shell-shocked after the war, Septimus appears to repudiate the impositions of the objective world – the social and the external – and constructs a reality based almost exclusively on his thoughts and emotions. His preoccupation with Evans conjures up images of him with hardly any objective stimulus – he hears him sing and speak where there could only possibly be birds singing or people talking. The objective world is lost to him, and he reveals: â€Å"I went under the sea†¦ but let me rest still.† He has collapsed into himself; his reality implodes. â€Å"Under the sea† he stays immersed in his own self and society’s call for him to emerge is feverish, lurid and cacophonic: But let me rest still; he begged†¦and as, before waking, the voices of birds and the sound of wheels chime and chatter in a queer harmony, grow louder and louder and the sleeper feels himself drawing to the shores of life, so he felt himself drawing towards life, the sun growing hotter, cries sounding louder His â€Å"doom† was hence â€Å"to be alone forever.† By the end of the novel he turns away from life and his doctors who are â€Å"forcing (his) soul,† committing suicide to preserve â€Å"the thing†¦that mattered.† This is the self which is â€Å"wreathed about with chatter, defaced, obscured†¦let drop every day in corruption, lies, chatter.† â€Å"Closeness draws apart† because social language is inadequate. He cannot survive in this solitude and appealed to death for â€Å"death was an attempt to communicate.† Clarissa does come to intuit his self-identity in the solitude of her â€Å"little room† by imaginative recreation of his death, drawing material from her own experiences and emotions. She feels his â€Å"terror; the overwhelming incapacity,† the â€Å"indescribable outrage† of a â€Å"soul† being â€Å"forc[ed]† and experiences his death vicariously – â€Å"her dress flame d, her body burnt.† She appeals to her own understanding of the world, remembering how she once felt â€Å"if it were now to die, ’twere now to be most happy.† She seeps into Septimus’ consciousness thus by an empathetic subjective understanding. If Septimus’ death is a triumph against Time’s transience and an offering to the epiphanic moments of life, then Clarissa’s quote from â€Å"Othello† would be representative. In solitude, through these references to her subjective world she achieves communication with Septimus. Woolf thus presents a paradox of opposites which is developed further in To the Lighthouse. Lily Briscoe, the artist, finds that â€Å"distance had an extraordinary power.† Distance enables withdrawal from social participation. As she paints, Lily retreats into solitude, going â€Å"out and out†¦further and further, until one [she] seemed to be on a narrow plank, perfectly alone, over the sea,† in order to peer into â€Å"the chambers of the mind and heart† of Mrs. Ramsay. To understand the â€Å"sacred inscriptions† of Mrs. Ramsay’s soul, Lily has to rely on her subjective understanding of the people and places which completed her. As Clarissa Dalloway suggests, â€Å"to know†¦anyone, one must seek out the people who completed them; even the places.† It would hardly be conceivable to accomplish this mammoth task physically. Lily, however, is able to â€Å"make up scenes,† of which â€Å"not a word†¦was true.† While objectively speaking these events had never occurred they are nonetheless completely plau sible, extrapolated hypothetically based on one’s understanding of other people. Fiction, formed by the creative self, is hence a useful tool for exploring human responses to various situations and elucidating their characters. Lily realizes that â€Å"it was what she knew them by all the same,† and views and reviews Mrs. Ramsay from the subjective viewpoints of the Rayleys, of Mr. Carmichael, Mr. Bankes and the other Ramsays. She felt she needed â€Å"fifty pairs of eyes to see with† in order achieve reconciliation amongst the kaleidoscopic representations of Mrs. Ramsay, so that her portrait is not saturated with her limited perspective. Eventually, like Clarissa, she has to experience Mrs. Ramsay’s emotional and intellectual experiences vicariously to achieve understanding. â€Å"What did the hedge mean to her, what did the garden mean to her, what did it mean to her when a wave broke?† – all these questions Lily strives to answer through imaginative enactment of events. She eventually manages to apprehend the world through Mrs. Ramsay’s consciousness and her fear for Mr. Ramsay segues into love and need – â€Å"she wanted him.† This is probably one aspect of Mrs. Ramsay’s emotional response to her husband which Lily has never shared. In this rare instance of human communication, Lily achieves the same unity and peace that Mrs. Ramsay experienced with the lighthouse beam earlier on, for she had become, â€Å"like waters poured into one jar, inextricably the same, one with the object [Mrs. Ramsay] one [she] adored.† The mirror returns, and she solves Mr. Ramsay’s philosophical conundrum – the relationship between subjective and objective worlds – by creating a work of art that affirms the expression of the subjective self using material from the objective world. Her portrait is accurate for the â€Å"odd-shaped triangular shadow† corresponds with the â₠¬Å"wedge-shaped core of darkness† so essential to Mrs. Ramsay’s identity; the finishing stroke scored through the middle of the canvass is also reflective of the severance in human relationships that Mrs. Ramsay has always fought against. Lily, like Woolf herself, rejects the notion of art as mimesis. â€Å"To be on level with ordinary experience† is to experience the phantasmagoric flux of fact and dream, to interweave between objective reality and subjective organization of that reality. Her painting is hence a â€Å"razor edge balance between two opposite forces; Mr. Ramsay and the picture† – the uncompromising facts of objective reality embodied in Mr. Ramsay and Lily’s own subjective understanding of them come together, equipoised, â€Å"clamped together with bolts of iron. Objectivity in society and subjective latitude in solitude soldered together – this is Woolf’s answer to the dialectic of the comforts of solitude and the asperity of communication in external society.

Leadership Concepts Term Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2250 words

Leadership Concepts - Term Paper Example Leadership is a concept that receives much talk globally, and has generated a sequence of literature particularly in the field of management (Bass and Stogdill, 1990). There is no uniformity or rather a common definition of leadership. The paper concludes with a list of several recommendations aimed at improving the current leadership skills. Leadership Concepts Excellent leaders have always been associated with a continuous process of learning and not as a result of birth. If one has the desire and the will to become a leader, then an effective leader can come out of the person in question. According to Kidder (1995), it takes not only training to become a good team leader, but it also takes education, experience and a long period of self-dedicated time to study leadership as a skill. For the workforce or juniors to be inspired, an effective leadership has to be, has to know, and has to do a number of things. These things are not achieved while resting on a laurel, instead, they are achieved via continued learning and dedicated study so as to improve the current and already acquired skills as well as learn new skills. This paper aims at looking at the key concepts of leadership; the influence of power on the followers, and evaluate the effectiveness of both transformational and transactional leadership in an organization. Many have defined leadership in various ways. According to Goleman (2000), leadership is a process where a person influences an assembly of other persons with the aim of achieving a common goal. Another definition, put forward by Dwight Eisenhower, â€Å"Leadership is the ability to decide what is to be done, and then getting others to do it† (Larson, 1968). Another definition of leadership comes from Cleeton and Mason (1934), that â€Å"Leadership indicates the ability to influence men and secure results through emotional appeals rather than through the exercise of authority.† The key concept as of these definitions is the abil ity of the person to organize their followers and point them towards achieving a common goal. The difference depends on a number of aspects and the nature of the subjects. For instance, a corporative executive may seek opinion democratically from the subordinates and develop a stratagem to arrive at a common goal. Key Concepts of Leadership In many organizations, numerous personnel are promoted to higher ranks as a result of their hard work. According to Goleman (2000), this is the first mistake companies make. As this paper reports, leadership is a quality that is associated with a number of key concepts. i. Humbleness – arrogance always come to practice during insecure moments, acting as a cover-up. There is no employee who will ever want to see a leader who is remote and haranguing. Instead, they would enjoy working with a leader who is humble and treats them with respect. ii. A good leader will always recognize and appreciate their juniors in the wake of a good performanc e. This has a huge impact on the motivation of the employees, which later yields productive results. iii. One should be a servant. Direct all the efforts towards work and ensure that the juniors have no obstacles that hinder their performance and that they are in possession of all the required tools to accomplish their tasks. iv. A good leader should be visionary in that they can help the juniors to see a better future and excite them on how to get to it. v. Confronting – many classify the word confrontation as a dirty word, but still, one can be confronted positively so as to get others on the right track in a rather gentle way. Confrontation can also be useful in identifying and eliminating from the team ineffective members and those with