Iron Crowned Chapter 8

There was a long pause as I waited expectantly. Volusian was enjoying this, I realized. He wasn't going to elaborate until I asked because he wanted to draw out the agony. â€Å"Damn it! Tell me what happened!† Volusian got this pleased look on his face that I suspected was the closest he ever came to smiling. â€Å"The Oak King is †¦Ã¢â‚¬  I held my breath. â€Å"†¦ alive.† â€Å"Thank God.† Of course, thinking of my own wounds, â€Å"alive† might not mean much. â€Å"Is he hurt?† â€Å"He is well and uninjured.† I sank gratefully onto my bed, knowing I wore my emotions all over my face. I hated to ever show anything like that in front of Volusian. I wanted to maintain an image of power. This situation was too important, though. Fear and worry for Dorian and the battle had been a knot within me, one I only just now dared to loosen. â€Å"What about the others? Who won?† â€Å"Your forces, mistress.† Again, relief flooded through me. We had won. Dorian was okay. â€Å"Casualties?† â€Å"Inevitable, of course.† Volusian didn't seem particularly concerned, but then, he was never concerned about much. â€Å"Death and injury on both sides. The Oak King's lands and towns remained untouched.† That last part was good news. But death and injury? No, I didn't like that. I wanted to know numbers, but for now, that was irrelevant. One death was too much. I'd get all the stats I needed from Dorian soon enough. I started to thank Volusian, but that wasn't the way our relationship worked. â€Å"Go back to the Oak Land. Tell Dorian I'll be there shortly.† Volusian gave a small nod of acknowledgment. I expected him to vanish instantly, but he paused, eyes narrowing slightly. â€Å"My mistress has also been in a battle tonight.† I shifted slightly, becoming aware of the bandages covering my shoulder and back. â€Å"Yeah, I fought a fetch.† â€Å"Who inflicted great injury.† â€Å"It would appear so, wouldn't it?† â€Å"But not enough to kill you.† The look I gave him was answer enough. â€Å"Pity,† he said. He vanished. â€Å"Damn it,† I muttered. I stayed where I was, staring off into space. I needed to cross to Dorian's land soon, but for now, I allowed the news to percolate in my head for a few moments more. Only, a new distraction presented itself. Otherworldly magic washed over me seconds before a voice spoke. â€Å"You could end it easily, you know.† I jumped up from my bed as the ghost from the mountains appeared before me. Silently, I cursed myself for having packed up my weapons. Since my queenhood, attacks at home had dropped off, lulling me into a false sense of security. It was lazy of me. Foolish. With no care for the other carefully packed items, I upended my bag, dumping everything out. I grabbed my wand, expecting the ghost to attack. Instead, she just hung in the air, face blank. â€Å"You shouldn't have come back,† I said, wand ready and pointed. Weary as I was, banishing magic tingled within me. â€Å"You should have stayed away.† She stayed motionless, uncaring of the threat I presented. â€Å"I told you. I can't. I need your help.† â€Å"And I told you, I can't help you.† â€Å"I can help you,† she said. â€Å"I can help you find the Iron Crown.† The magic welling within me paused and then I dropped it altogether. I eyed her warily. â€Å"How do you know about that?† She gave a weak shrug. â€Å"I've been following you.† I began the banishing again, quickly working out her words. Of course she could follow me. She was a strong ghost, one who could likely flit between this and the Otherworld as easily as I saw her move around here. The magic of the Otherworld, which concealed so many spirits, would make her harder to detect there. Following – and spying – would be easy. â€Å"We're done with this,† I said. Power coursed into the wand. Still, she didn't flinch. â€Å"The Iron Crown,† she repeated. â€Å"I know where it is. I can lead you.† Again, I paused the banishing and recalled something Dorian had said. â€Å"The way is blocked to spirits.† â€Å"Yes,† she agreed. â€Å"But I know the starting point. You don't even know that. I can take you there, and you can go the rest of the way on your own.† â€Å"I don't believe you. I have no reason to. You could just get me mucked up in your little investigation and then disappear.† This finally brought about emotion. Anger flickered in those pale eyes. â€Å"‘Little investigation?' This is my family! Their lives! They mean everything to me.† â€Å"Meant,† I corrected. â€Å"You need to cut your ties to this world.† Her lips flattened into a straight line, as though she fought to control her temper. â€Å"I'll take you there first. After you have the crown, you'll help me. I'll be the one taking you at your word. You have nothing to lose.† â€Å"Nothing except my life,† I muttered. â€Å"A crown that does nothing except lead me on some lethal journey is a big gamble. I don't even believe Masthera's crazy logic.† â€Å"Other spirits say it can do what she says,† the ghost said. â€Å"They're old. They remember it.† Well, that at least answered one of my questions. The dubious nature of the crown aside, I understood how a ghost like this would know about something so ancient. The grief that bound her to this world might make her strong, but she struck me as a new ghost, one that would hardly know about some legendary artifact. â€Å"It's all ridiculous,† I said. â€Å"It's time for you to go.† â€Å"It is,† she agreed. â€Å"Think about my offer. Summon me when you're ready. My name is Deanna.† And as easily as she'd come, she disappeared, beating my banishing. Admittedly, it had less to do with my skill than with my own doubt. Her words had struck something in me. A tiny spark of wonder, wonder that maybe there was some wacky way to end this war. If the legends were true. If Deanna wasn't lying. If I didn't die setting out alone on a treacherous journey. Shaking my head, I once more chastised myself for letting her go. Next time. Next time I'd banish her to the Underworld as soon as I saw her face. For now, I had to go to Dorian. I'd wasted too much time. Hastily, I repacked my bag and went on my way. Tim and Lara still sat in the living room. Recognizing what the bag meant, Tim again muted the TV, an uncharacteristic look of concern on his face. â€Å"Eug †¦ don't you think going over to Never Never Land is a bad idea after getting your ass kicked tonight?† â€Å"You should see the other guy.† I shifted the bag, careful to keep it on my good shoulder and away from my back. â€Å"Besides, sad as it is, I think I'm safer there than here.† He sighed, and I couldn't help a smile. I glanced at Lara. â€Å"I'll be back as soon as I can.† Her face was as grave as Tim's. â€Å"I don't think we're charging enough.† I laughed. â€Å"Probably not.† I left them for a gateway that opened up near Dorian's. I had an anchor in his castle too, and crossing over nearby pulled me to it. I appeared in a small, empty chamber that he reserved purely for the anchor. Even injured, I'd had no difficulty making the transition. A long time ago, I couldn't even cross in human form. I'd come over as my spirit's totem: a dark swan. Now, coming here was as easy as stepping through a door. My power had indeed grown, something that Kiyo and my parents feared. I didn't get very far down the adjacent hall before I was spotted by a servant. â€Å"Your Majesty!† he sputtered, managing a clumsy bow. â€Å"The king has been expecting you.† â€Å"Then take me to him,† I said. Dinner had long since ended, and Dorian was in one of his posh sitting rooms, surrounded by a handful of counselors and generals. To my surprise, Masthera sat there too, off in a corner where she observed rather than participated in the meeting. Dorian's face was calm and collected as he spoke to the others, but his expression broke a little when he saw me. â€Å"Eugenie!† In a few strides, he was across the room. Something cracked inside of me too, something that was so, so glad to see him alive and well. Despite Volusian's report, I'd needed to see Dorian alive for myself. My heart swelled, and I let go of my aversion to gentry customs. I dropped the bag and wrapped my arms around his neck, seeking his lips before he could hardly even get his hands on me. He gripped my hips as we kissed, the power of that kiss sweeping my body and filling it with heat as I pressed against him. It was suddenly easy to understand why gentry sometimes felt the need to have sex in public. No such option was given to me because Dorian's hands slid up my waist, freezing when he touched the bandages. He pulled away abruptly, studying me with astonishment. I still wore my tank top, giving a full view of the hospital's handiwork. â€Å"Good grief, woman,† he exclaimed. â€Å"What happened?† I gave as unconcerned a shrug as he might. â€Å"I got in a fight. With a fetch.† He stared. â€Å"She threw a table at me.† Dorian peered beyond me, over at the servant who'd escorted me to the room. â€Å"Get a healer.† â€Å"No, don't,† I said. The guy hesitated, glancing between us, torn between two commands. â€Å"You need your healers for the armies. This looks worse than it is.† That wasn't entirely true. The painkillers I'd been given were wearing off, making the scratches itchy and sore. Yet, I couldn't shake Volusian's words about death and injury. I wouldn't take any healers away from the armies. I gave Dorian a warning look. â€Å"It's fine.† He returned my look, locking us in a brief battle of wills. â€Å"Fine,† he repeated. He glanced over at the servant. â€Å"She says it's fine. Far be it from me to question my lady. Come join us, dear. I assume your despicable little pet gave you the essentials?† A chair was quickly brought over to me, and I joined the meeting. The details of it were a blur. I was no strategist, not for this kind of war. One-on-one fights were my thing. Mostly I listened to the group, not always understanding, as they studied maps and discussed army movement and strategic targets. Borders and areas with resources – like my copper mines – seemed to be a protective priority, which was about the only part I truly understood. The part that really stuck with me was the recap of this battle. It had been long, even though our superior numbers had ensured victory almost from the beginning. The towns and our food were safe. The number of casualties were recounted briefly. Dorian and his advisors seemed pleased by them, considering them low. I supposed, as far as percentages went in the army, they were. Still †¦ people had died. Gentry or not, it didn't matter. They had families, people who loved them. People who would mourn. I felt sick to my stomach. The meeting closed with plans for our next move, plans I agreed to automatically when consulted. Everyone left, off for bed, except me, Dorian, and Masthera. The pleased, laconic look Dorian had worn for his team vanished once the last person was out of our sight. He turned on me, outrage in those beautiful eyes. â€Å"What were you thinking? I was the one who was supposed to be facing an army today. Not you.† â€Å"I didn't,† I countered. â€Å"It was just a fetch. Did I mention the table?† â€Å"You're making a joke out of this.† â€Å"No more than what you usually do.† I frowned. â€Å"And this is nothing †¦ nothing compared to what you and the others faced.† His blase expression returned. â€Å"We had a great victory.† â€Å"We have different ideas of victory,† I said sadly. My eyes landed on Masthera, who watched us intently. â€Å"What are you doing here?† She seemed to read my question as an invitation and moved to a nearer chair. â€Å"Waiting for you, Your Majesty. I sensed that you would come.† I scoffed. â€Å"Volusian came and said I was coming.† The comment didn't bother her. â€Å"You've come to discuss the Iron Crown.† â€Å"Hardly.† Yet, I found myself frowning as crazy thoughts swirled in my head. Dorian arched an eyebrow of surprise. â€Å"Is that true? You made your feelings clear on that last time.† â€Å"They haven't really changed,† I admitted. â€Å"I still don't see it as a convenient end to all of this. Except †¦ well, a ghost came to me today.† â€Å"Ghosts are always coming to you.† â€Å"Yeah, yeah. But this one claimed she could lead me to the crown. Or rather, the place surrounding it. She needs a favor and offered this in return.† Masthera's eyes widened, and she leaned forward. â€Å"This is it! What I've seen. This will bring you to the crown.† â€Å"Presuming this ghost isn't part of some elaborate plan to kill me,† I said. â€Å"Wouldn't be the first time.† â€Å"No, no,† she said. â€Å"This is real. I feel it. I've had a vision of you crowned.† Dorian gave her a sharp look. â€Å"Enough. It doesn't matter if this ghost is telling the truth. I'm not sending Eugenie off into a nightmarish landscape.† â€Å"Hey, you don't send me anywhere,† I retorted. He rolled his eyes. â€Å"Please. Don't start with the mock wounded pride over your capabilities. You're a great warrior; I accept that. You defeat fetches and tables and all other sorts of fiends. But this †¦ no. The risk is too great, and I couldn't help you.† â€Å"But Your Majesty!† exclaimed Masthera. â€Å"You see the opportunity. An end to the war. The power. The fear this would inspire among others.† â€Å"My own fear is more than enough, thank you,† he said dryly. An end to the war. An astonishing thought struck me. â€Å"Gentry would suffer in the iron fields †¦ but I'm not the only half human. I could take Jasmine with me.† Jasmine was almost as unaffected by iron as I was. Touching it caused her no pain, and it was only her cuffs' tight binding that stunted her magic. Otherwise, to my knowledge, simply being near iron wasn't enough to dim her power. â€Å"No,† said Dorian swiftly. â€Å"Absolutely not. I wouldn't have your unstable sister go anywhere near that crown.† â€Å"The queen is right, though,† said Masthera. â€Å"Storm King's younger daughter might be protected by her human blood.† I expected another refusal from Dorian, but he remained silent. He was actually considering this, I realized. Jasmine would be a safe companion – or not. â€Å"No,† he repeated at last. â€Å"If she somehow returned in control of the crown †¦ Well, I wouldn't want to see that. She craves power too much.† â€Å"I thought the crown didn't have power in and of itself,† I said suspiciously. â€Å"It doesn't – but if she possessed it, others would believe she was the daughter to fear. Right now, you carry that honor. I'd like to keep it that way. You can't go with such a dangerous companion.† â€Å"Your Majesty – † attempted Masthera again. â€Å"Enough,† said Dorian, standing up. â€Å"It's late. The discussion is over, and I want to go to bed. You're dismissed.† Masthera looked upset but didn't contradict her lord. After a brief curtsey to each of us, she scurried away. We left as well, staying silent as we walked through the halls, past stationed guards. As soon as we were alone in Dorian's room, I turned on him. â€Å"You have a lot of fucking nerve! Don't ever talk to me like that in front of someone – like you've got the power around here. We're equals in this, remember?† He smiled and took off his cloak and shirt. â€Å"Of course we are. And equals sometimes trade power. When it comes to you making foolish choices, I wield the power.† â€Å"When it comes to making foolish choices, I – never mind. Look, if there's a chance to end this with as little bloodshed as possible, I want it.† â€Å"As do I.† He stood before me and ran a gentle finger along the side of my neck. â€Å"But not at the cost of your life or reputation. Find a better option, and you can go.† He moved his hands down and caught the edges of my shirt, carefully lifting it over my head without disturbing the bandages. â€Å"There you go again,† I growled. â€Å"Acting like you control this.† â€Å"I do. Just as I control this.† He grabbed hold of my waist and jerked me to him, his lips crushing mine in a fierce kiss, one that left me gasping when I managed to pull back. â€Å"You don't control anything,† I said. Yet, that kiss and his closeness made me ache with arousal. Maybe it was my anger or the residual adrenaline from all my fights today. Maybe it was just relief at seeing him, no matter how much he annoyed me now. Whenever I returned from battle, sex was his way of truly confirming I was alive and safe. Today, I shared that. He was alive. I wanted him, and he knew it. â€Å"You see?† His lips moved to my neck, and I felt the edge of his teeth. â€Å"I've got the power here †¦ and you like that †¦Ã¢â‚¬  â€Å"I †¦ that is †¦Ã¢â‚¬  Forming coherent words was difficult for obvious reasons. His mouth was too distracting, as was the rest of his touch. He moved his lips up near my ear, his hands cupping my breasts. I pushed down his pants, feeling how hard he was as my hands slid over him. â€Å"I know you, Eugenie. I know what you want †¦ and here? You want me in control. Really, those wounds you insist on keeping are all that are stopping me from throwing you against the wall or the bed.† The rest of our clothes fell off, piece by piece, while we still attempted some sort of debate. â€Å"Guess you're not as in control as you think,† I said. We were pressed together, bare skin against bare skin. We managed to stay wrapped up with each other as we moved toward the bed. His hands slid up over my breasts, lingering briefly on my nipples. Then – again avoiding any wounded areas – he gripped my shoulders, and I expected him to throw me onto the bed anyway. Instead, he pushed me down onto my knees, so that my back was barely an inch from the bed, and he stood right in front of me. The tip of his huge swelling erection was right against my lips, just like the last time we'd been together, save that I'd been on my back then. â€Å"I still have the control. I can make you do all sorts of things,† he murmured. â€Å"Now, are you going to do this on your own? Or will I have to make you?† There was no coercion needed. I parted my lips and took him into my mouth. Just like the last time we'd had sex, he felt so large and long that I could barely fit him as I sucked and slid my lips along that shaft. He realized I was holding back and tsked disapproval. â€Å"You can do better than that.† His hands were tangled in my hair, and he pulled my head closer, forcing more of him into me, more than I thought I could take as I felt him touch the back of my throat. â€Å"More †¦Ã¢â‚¬  he breathed. â€Å"Take more †¦ or I'll make you†¦.† I increased my speed and intensity as I took him into my mouth over and over. It was as much as I could do, and he knew it, but that didn't matter. This was a game, a game of power. Deciding where I went and who I fought? No. He couldn't do that. But here? He could play master. â€Å"Still not good enough,† he said. He took over from me, and just as he had last time, he thrust into my mouth as steadily and hard as he might have my thighs. His hold on my hair tipped my face up and made me look into his eyes, just as I was forced to take as much of him into my mouth as he chose. â€Å"I wish we'd done this downstairs. Should have taken you †¦ the instant you walked into the room †¦Ã¢â‚¬  He still had that smooth, controlling tone to his voice, but it was cracking a little as the pleasure of this began to take over. â€Å"I wish the whole court could see this. You're so beautiful †¦ so beautiful with your mouth full of me †¦ more beautiful still when I pour my seed into you †¦Ã¢â‚¬  I shivered, making a small groan of desire. He was pumping harder now, almost uncomfortably so for me, yet it was giving me a thrill of my own. â€Å"That was †¦ what you †¦ wanted, wasn't it? Last time?† His voice was low and strained, his whole body suddenly tensing. â€Å"This?† He came, and warm liquid exploded in my mouth. Although he slowed, he still continued sliding in and out as he released himself into me. Then, he pulled out, finishing his orgasm and spilling onto my lips and breasts. I coughed slightly, and he slid a finger across my lips. â€Å"Swallow,† he hissed. â€Å"Swallow it all.† I did, surprised that he'd been able to come so much both in my mouth and on me. The finger toying with my lip slid along my face and down to my breasts, rubbing in his semen. When his finger returned to my lips, I knew what he wanted. I took it into my mouth and licked his finger, sucking on it until there was nothing left. Smiling he helped me up to the bed and laid me down on my side, where he continued massaging my sticky breasts. â€Å"Wasteful,† he said at last. I knew what a big concession it was for him to forgo intercourse. â€Å"Wasteful, but enjoyable.† â€Å"Seeing as this was what I wanted, maybe I had the power here after all,† I teased. â€Å"Hush, woman,† he chastised good-naturedly. He shifted me again, so that my head rested on his chest. His hand slid down my body, his fingers moving between my thighs as deftly as they had under the table. He groaned when he felt how wet I was. â€Å"Wasteful, I say.† I laughed, shifting up to kiss him. â€Å"I've told you before, it doesn't – ah †¦Ã¢â‚¬  Taunting thoughts faded away, and soon all that consumed me was his fingers stroking me harder and faster. He brought his lips back to mine so that we were locked in a kiss when I came. Agonizing pleasure radiated through my body at his touch, and my cries were swallowed into that kiss. He released me only when my shaking stopped and breathing calmed, again letting me rest against his chest. One hand stroked my hair while the one that had just got me off moved to rest on my bare lower back. We both sighed in contentment, and I closed my eyes, exhaustion from the day's battles finally catching up with me. I was nearly asleep – and thought he was too – when quiet words brought me back to consciousness. â€Å"Masthera is right. The crown could solve a lot of problems.† Yes, I was definitely awake now. â€Å"I thought you didn't believe that.† â€Å"Oh, no. I believe it could end this war. I believe it would make Katrice cower in fear.† He sighed. â€Å"I just don't want to risk you. I couldn't cope with losing you.† My heart tightened at his words. I didn't know what to say and simply brushed my lips against his chest. â€Å"And you're both right,† he continued. â€Å"That if I can't †¦ if I can't go with you, then a half-human companion is the ideal choice.† Now I was really surprised. I lifted my head, hardly believing what I'd heard. â€Å"So, what are you saying? I should take Jasmine after all?† â€Å"No. That's still a horrible idea. But not quite as horrible as this one.† He gave another sigh, one that seemed to cause him pain. â€Å"You should bring the kitsune.†

Business information system Essay

1. What might have happened to Apple if its top executives had not supported investment in iPads? If the top executives had not supported investment in pads, the new product will be known by less people. Without investment in iPad, people will not receive the information of new technology. 2. Why would it be unethical for Apple to sell its iTunes customer information to other businesses? The customer’s information is about personal privacy, any company can’t sell customer’s information without their permit. 3. Evaluate the effects on Apple’s business if it failed to secure its customer information and all of it was accidentally posted to an anonymous website. The customers will not trust apple again, and they will not leave personal information on iTunes. This will influence Apple that people will not use apple store for purchasing. If the security problem let customer’s credit card information been stolen, Apple will response for that. 1 Do you agree or disagree that Apple’s iTunes, iPhone applications and iPad applications give the company a competitive advantage? Be sure to justify your answer. Yes, I agree with that. One of the main factors that brought Apple back from near oblivion was its ability to produce, market, and sell IT products such as the iPod, iPhone, and customer developed applications. If Apple’s top executives did not have the foresight to view the MP3 players as a competitive advantage, then chances are the company would not have made a strong comeback in the highly competitive electronics market. People who got iPhone, iPad, they will go to Apple’s store to download and buy the application. Other company can only develop application to Apple; they can’t sell or provide their application to customer directly. This is a big advantage for Apple. 2 Why are data, information, business intelligence and knowledge important to Apple? Give an example of each type in relation to the iPad. Data are raw facts that describe the characteristics of an event or object. Before the information age, managers manually collected and analysed data, a time-consuming and complicated task without which they would have little insight into how to run their business. Lacking data, managers often found themselves making business decisions about how many products to make, how much material to order, or how many employees to hire based on intuition or gut feelings. In the information age, successful managers compile, analyse, and comprehend massive amounts of data daily, which helps them make more successful business decisions. Examples include: Sales date, Quantity sold, Cost, Sales price, Total profit, Shipping address, Customer address, Wireless type, Memory amount, Colour. Information is data converted into a meaningful and useful context. Having the right information at the right moment in time can be worth a fortune. Having the wrong information at the right moment; or the right information at the wrong moment can be disastrous. The truth about information is that its value is only as good as the people who use it. People using the same information can make different decisions depending on how they interpret or analyse the information. Thus information has value only insofar as the people using it do as well. Business intelligence (BI) is information collected from multiple sources such as suppliers, customers, competitors, partners, and industries that analyses patterns, trends, and relationships for strategic decision making. BI manipulates multiple variables and in some cases even hundreds of variables including suc h items as interest rates, weather conditions, and even gas prices. For instance, BI can predict inventory requirements for a business for the week before the Super Bowl if, say, the home team is playing, average temperature is above 80 degrees, and the stock market is performing well. This is BI at its finest, incorporating all types of internal and external variables to anticipate business performance. Knowledge includes the skills, experience, and expertise, coupled with information and intelligence that creates a person’s intellectual resources. Knowledge workers are individuals valued for their ability to interpret and  analyse information. Today’s workers are commonly referred to as knowledge workers and they use BI along with personal experience to make decisions based on both information and intuition, a valuable resource for any company. 3 Analyze Apple using Porter’s Five Force model. Apple’s buyer power was low when it first introduced the iPod since it was first to market with the product. Now, there are many competitors to Apple’s iPod and its buyer power is increasing since customers can choose from many different manufacturers of MP3 players. Apple’s supplier power was high and now it is decreasing since buyers have many choices of whom to buy from. Apple can use environmental scanning, or the acquisition and analysis of events and trends in the environment external to an organization, to analyse rivalry. Apple can use environmental scanning to analyse everything from competitor strategies to understanding new and shifting market trends to determining the strategic placement of Apple stores. Without watching its environment and understanding what its competitors are doing and where the market is headed, Apple will have a difficult time setting its strategic direction, as Steve Jobs determined when he thought he had missed the MP3 bandwago n. 4 Which of the three generic strategies is Apple following? Apple follows a focused strategy. 5 Which of Porter’s Five Forces did Apple address through its introduction of the iPhone? Apple decreased the power of its buyers and increased its own supplier power by introducing the iPhone. Since the iPhone was the first to market with an internet access, data storage, MP3 player, etc., its buyers had no power and no choice but to purchase the product from Apple. Unfortunately, Apple could not create an entry barrier and soon many other companies began offering integrated cell phones, which increased buyer power and reduced supplier power. 6 Which of Porter’s Five Forces did Apple address through its customer-developed applications? Apple decreased the power of its buyers and increased its own supplier power by introducing customer developed applications. Since the iPhone was the first to market with an internet access, data storage, MP3 player, which could all accept customer developed applications, its buyers had no power and no choice but to purchase the product and the applications from Apple. Unfortunately, Apple could not create an entry barrier and there are more and more companies offering customer developed applications such as Google and its Android operating system.

Gender Discriminations as Portrayed in Budd Schulberg’s “On the Waterfront” Essay

Literary forms reflect most of the time social conditions and scenario. This is because most writers have the gift of being sensitive to their surroundings. A lot of writers have already wrote about the pains of war, the stories of success, and criticisms about the existing flaws of the society. When narrating about war, writers never forget to touch the topic of patriotism. When it is a story of success that they want to write, they always incorporate the keys to success. However, when criticizing the society, most writers focus often on two themes: the struggles between the wealthy and the poor and gender discrimination. For example, in Budd Schulberg’s â€Å"On the Waterfront†, gender criticism is one of the compelling themes the author has presented and embedded in the story. However, unlike other gender-based novels, ‘On the Waterfront† does not mainly focus on one gender but tackles both criticisms pointing to males and females. The novel suggests that gender-defined roles damage both gender along with greed for power. Criticisms on Women In the society that Schulberg has created, the D and D society, women seem to be victims of double jeopardy. Here the women are being discriminated in two levels. First, they are abused as being women in general and second, they are abused by their own society led by Johnny Friendly. In the novel, women already experience household violence, specifically coming from their husbands or other members of the family. For example, Edie, has experienced to be limited by his own father. It could be remembered that Edie’s father wants her to continue pursuing college: â€Å"But Pop, I’ve seen things that I know are so wrong. Now how can I go back to school and keep my mind on†¦ on things that are just in books, that-that-that aren’t people living? † Although one way of empowering women is to educate them, it is more empowering for them to follow their own will and not be dictated by others. Edie’s decision to stay in Brooklyn to search the truth behind the death of his brother could be considered as more rewarding than to attain a degree in college. Her father, on the other hand, might not be aware of what he did. Nevertheless, his action could be considered an act of limiting the rights of women to think and act on their own. Criticisms Against Men Clearly, the novel shows more cases of criticisms and abuse against men than women. Unlike women, men in the D and D society are not victims of two-level criticisms. However, the abuse they experience seems to be as heavy as the abuse those of women. In their society, those who are in power mainly abduct their rights—the members of the mob-connected union, particularly their leader Johnny Friendly. The novel clearly shows how the rights of men to live and to speak the truth were violated. They are not simply hurt physically; they lose their lives once they go against the union. But Schulberg did not stop on that; he even explored the psychology of how men hurt each other’s feelings. For example, one of the biggest conflicts in the story is the dispute between siblings Terry and Charley: â€Å"You don’t understand. I coulda had class. I could have been a contender. I could have been somebody, instead of a bum, which is what I am, let’s face it. It was you, Charley. † (Shulberg p. 266) These lines from Terry clearly shows that it was indeed a hard life for people to live having dispute with their family. Greed for Power Aside from gender criticisms, another theme that is present in â€Å"On the Waterfront† deals with the greed for power. In the story, Schulberg clearly shows how man can become a monster just to achieve a power comparable to that of a god. This universal truth, in reality, also damage both gender. Being greed for power could push a person, regardless of gender, to commit actions that violate both the law and morality. In the novel, killing people and oppressing them just to remain in power is one vivid example. Johnny Friendly, together with other members of the union, is evidently guilty of it: â€Å"You want to know what’s wrong with our waterfront? It’s the love of a lousy buck. It’s making love of a buck— the cushy job— more important than the love of man! † (Schulberg p. 225). These lines from one of the characters in the novel is an attempt to verbalize the problem with the D and D society. People are so absorbed on how to gain power over other people. Thus, one effective way to do this is to gain an incredible amount of money. In summary, â€Å"On the Waterfront† tries to capture forms of abuse that are a result of greed and the need for power. The novel clearly shows, through the character of Johnny Friendly, how man can be blinded by his constant pursuit for money and power. Generally, it is the greed for wealth that a person could lose his sense of what is right and what is wrong. To dream of becoming rich is not a bad dream. It is in the nature of man to look for ways on how to improve himself and his condition. But when the dreamer let himself to be carried away by the grandiosity of wealth, the dream will suddenly turn into a nightmare. As a result, greed for money and power both damage men and women. Both are threats to the rights and freedom of people. Moreover, it is a stain of our society, Work Cited Schulberg, Budd. On the Waterfront. Pennsylvania: Continuum Intl Pub Group, 1985

Boing 737 Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Boing 737 - Assignment Example However, in the early 1990s many commercial aircraft manufacturers including Douglas Aircraft, McDonnell Aircraft, and Boeing switched to horizontal integration through mergers. The major drivers to this shift were technology that progressively became more specialized, costs of production using vertical integration became uncompetitive and the dire need for management efficiency. On the other hand, factors such as lower costs due to increased economies of scale and increased market power made Airbus maintain vertical integration. Horizontal industry structure seems to be a benefit since it helped resuscitate Boeing that had stagnated after many years of vertical integration structure. It helped it install a lean system and clean up the production of the 737. The evolution of the auto industry is similar to that of the commercial aircraft industry. Major players in the industry have adopted the â€Å"lean production system†. However, competitive forces are far from being static, and hence vehicle manufacturers can no longer rely on excellence in production only (Shih and Pierson

Law Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2250 words

Law - Assignment Example Winston cannot be defined as a consumer and therefore cannot rely on the rights awarded under the Sale and Supply of Goods to Consumers Regulations. An express term of a contract is that which is expressly agreed by the parties, either orally or in writing. As a general rule, the courts hold the written document as a complete agreement so that the terms inscribed within form the total extent of the contract and no further terms may be added or varied later by external evidence (Jacobs v. Batavia & General Plantations Trust Ltd. [1924] 1 Ch 287). However, since this instance is concerned with misrepresentation and terms which are implied into the contract (Hutton v. Warrren [1836] 1 M & W 466), the courts are seen to cater to parole evidence wherever necessary and the rule is likely to be excluded. In this instance, the express agreement necessarily includes the requirements mentioned in the standard form contract stipulating inter alia the description of the vehicle: â€Å"White Tra nsit XL, 48072 miles† as well as the exclusion clause mentioned. Moreover, it would also include the express oral representations that pertain to the description of the vehicle, â€Å"†¦ just the vehicle for you†¦ 48,000 miles on the clock, barely run in for a van like this †¦ and all the storage space you’re likely to need †¦Ã¢â‚¬ . ... v. SS Turid (Owners) [1992] 1 AC 397), or it may be implied by common law, where the term must not just be reasonable but also equitably just and â€Å"necessary to give business efficacy† to the contract (Lord Simon in BP Refinery (Westernport) Pty Ltd v. Shire of Hastings (1978) ALJR 20, 26). The terms implied by Statute of the Sale of Goods Act 1979 are more applicable to Winston’s situation. Application of Sale of Goods Act 1979 Sale by Description Where the goods are described before they are sold, there is an implied condition that they correspond to that description (s. 13). It is arguable what the description of the van actually completely comprises, as Daly never expressly agreed that the maximum load of the van in question is 1 ton, even though it was later discovered by the registration documents to be 0.5 tons. It is accepted that a â€Å"White Ford Transit XL† with 48000 miles falls part of the description, but the maximum load and capacity was never stipulated, even though Winston mentioned the specifications of the earlier van with which the new one had to be replaced; the earlier van fitted the requirements at 200 feet capacity and 1 ton load, the new van had 150 feet capacity with 0.5 tons maximum load, which fell short of requirements. Thus, if this falls part of the description, Winston may be allowed to reject the van on the basis of a breach of s.13. This is further supported by the fact that Daly had special knowledge in dealing with vans, and reliance was placed by Winston on his word (Harlingdon and Leinster v Christopher Hull Fine Art Ltd (1990)). For the purposes of a breach of description, it is irrelevant that Winston examined the van before purchasing (s. 13(13)). The description

Dq3-Sheila Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Dq3-Sheila - Essay Example One major setback is of the great extent of information asymmetry involved as it is evident that various departments are involved leading to a varied opinion amongst each and every one of them (Pot, 2011). Taking the case of two standard departments in most organizations that are, the human resource and finance department. The human resource deals with many of the issues relating to the employees of an organization or company such as the management of benefits and new staff recruitment and may also team up with the management to reach a common goal. Whereas the finance department deals with organizing the financial and accounting affairs of the organization, for example, the proper presentation and preparation of reports. Having these two distinct units be aligned to a similar goal impedes the whole process thus negatively affecting the business intelligence foundations for use at the departmental level. The departmental effort for aligning goals can also affect positively the business intelligence for use at the corporate level (Schneider, 2013). This can be explained by the fact that, an organization operates as one whole unit. Through the system, information is enabled to all departments that allowed easier coordination of work within the organization. From the intelligence, leaders will make decisions that are aligned with the primary goals and objectives and recognize the efforts of all departments. As they operate with similar missions, the system performance becomes efficient, and goal accomplishment is made possible. Business intelligence can be briefly described as the strategies an organization adopts to achieve its purposes. In addition, the business intelligence, due to goal alignment can be affected by inhibiting the whole and could be more efficient information from being operational due to goals being set by top management, or the relevant

How effectively did the three armed services combine in the Falklands Essay

How effectively did the three armed services combine in the Falklands campaign - Essay Example Despite being over 8,000 miles away and at a tremendous logistical disadvantage, Prime Minister Thatcher sent an invasion force consisting of ships of all varieties, airplanes, helicopters, soldiers and one British Prince. Mrs. Thatcher wanted to prove to the USSR and communist governments throughout the world that western powers were not going to back down from a conflict, especially a colony or territory that contained a large number of western inhabitants. Thatcher was informed that Soviet intelligence reports stated that even if Thatcher were to go ahead with a military invasion, the English would lose if they went at it alone. Again, The Iron Lady took offence and set out to prove them wrong. The British Prime Minister realized the implications of this crisis. She knew that what ever she chose to do would be setting one precedent or another. It was in Thatcher's hands to decide which precedent she would set. For her, there was no question, she could not let it seem that the Sovi ets could freely choose a Western territory or colony and simply invade it without fearing the consequence of military action. In most of the renowned strategists’ opinion, the Falklands War has been referred to as like two bald men fighting over a comb. Neither country particularly needed the Falklands, and the Falklands had very little that either country coveted, but it was the symbol that was important. (Gordon 2006) Argentina lost the war in part because the comb wanted to go to England but more importantly because they simply were not prepared to fight a war against the whole world. How did British Royal Forces Show Leadership Styles The British royal armed forces used dramatically different leadership styles portrayed by British Officers at the battle of Goose Green. As regards to these two characters are the most prominent: the Battlegroup Commander Colonel H Jones who was famous for assaulting a trench single handedly and was subsequently killed. The second character is that of the B Company commander Major John Crosland who successfully lead an assault on Burntside Hill and demonstrated a markedly different style of leadership than that of Colonel Jones. These two characters have been chosen because of their almost polar opposite approaches to initially the orders process and then their own leadership style. They demonstrate just how subjective the orders process can be and the affect that a differing approach can have on the battle itself. Jones demonstrated how an autocratic style of leadership coupled with a positionalist approach to war fighting lead to near disaster, whereas Crosland showed how a slightly more Laisser Faire attitude and an understanding of mission command could prove successful. How could two such different approaches be present in what was to all intents and purposes was the same organization? The first - the orders delivered by Jones for the Assault on Goose Green and secondly his individual leadership style. These will then be contrasted with that of Major Crosland and his assault onto Burntside Hill. Colonel H Jones was a renowned figurehead of the 2nd Battalion the Parachute Regiment. He was known for his fiery temper, his embrace of the Parachute Regiment ethos and his dogged tenacity (Middlebrook, 1985). His actions

Evaluating an International HRM Strategy Assignment - 1

Evaluating an International HRM Strategy - Assignment Example At the same time, the company should introduce active employee participation policy. The Chinese food and beverage market has become the largest market in the world (Asia Perspective, 2014). Asia Perspective (2014) maintains that the current status of the Chinese food and beverage market is contributed by the fact that the Chinese economy has experienced a phenomenal growth in the recent years and has been able to maintain the growth trend over these years; and it is the fruit of this sustainable economic growth that has enabled its food and beverages market to obtain and retain the current status; consequently, it has attracted many local and international firms to invest in its growing food and beverage market. This graph clearly demonstrates the market potential of Chinese grocery market. The table highlights that the current grocery market are mainly shared by both local and international investors in which lead or majority of the market share is owned by Wal-Mart China as reflected by the table 01. At the same time, some local companies are also competing in the market. Due to this collective investment of both local and international investors, the Chinese grocery market has become balanced as it enables the consumers to experience the benefit of healthy competition in which they will be able to buy products at very competitive prices. In addition, China has a very strong and stable consumer purchasing power and this trend has experienced a sustainable growth and stability over these years. For example, consumers aged 25 to 39 remain the highest earners and they continue to increase as the Chinese market has stable job market for the current and potential graduates (Global Analysis Report, 2014). Fierce competition is unavoidable in the Chinese grocery market. the current trend highlights that many local and international firms actively pursuing their

Ethnicity and Health Assignment Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Ethnicity and Health Assignment - Essay Example Regarding this issue it is stated by Julian that â€Å"the low mortality and morbidity among migrants despite the low socioeconomic location of many is explained by the fact that migrant selection includes a medical examination leading to the exclusion of those with medical problems† (Australian Institute of Health and Welfare 1996, p. 35; National Health Strategy 1993, pp. 37, 40-43, in Julian, 106). In other words, the preventive medical tests provided to migrants (mostly as a precaution against a possible ‘contamination’ of the population of the greater area) in fact has been proved to be valuable as it leads to the identification of diseases that could be diagnosed only when developed at a high level. From a different point of view, the study of Julian showed that â€Å"the health of migrant women is influenced by ethnicity, class and gender† (108). It is also noticed that there are certain health problems that are not appropriately addressed, like ‘pregnancy/child ­birth and domestic violence’ (Julian, 108). In accordance with the above the higher injury rates and the depression in migrant women could be explained by the problems that face with their health on a permanent basis due to events that are mainly connected with their gender and social characteristics. The conditions of life of migrants could justify the health problems (particularly the injuries and the depression) that this part of the population faces continuously. However, generally the health problems appeared in migrants could be characterized as less ‘fatal’ than the relevant problems appeared in the native born Australians. For this reason, a relevant research showed that â€Å"overseas-born persons experience all-cause death rates 10% to 15% lower than for Australian-born persons. Asian-born immigrants have especially low death rates for

Racial and Ethnic Stereotypes Essay Example for Free

Racial and Ethnic Stereotypes Essay People being indiscriminate based on partial and inexact information by sources as television, cartoons or even comic books This is a description that seems to go against many public standards. The above words are the exact description of stereotypes. Stereotypes as implicit from the description, goes mostly hand in hand with media only not the standard meaning of the blameless media we know. Media propaganda is the other form of media that is somewhat described as media treatment. In this paper, the subsequent will be discussed: first, how stereotypes of ethnic groups operate in propaganda, why does it function so satisfactorily, and finally, the consequences of these stereotypes on the life of Egyptians in particular in society. A fair inspection will be conducted on this example of stereotypes through clarification examples and research consequences from researches conducted from reliable sources. The real association between Egyptians’ stereotypes and propaganda discussed in this paper shall magnify the suggestion of stereotypes and propaganda in common. It seems essential for this paper to start with some clarification of the circumstances related with propaganda. Propaganda can be thought of as a foster parent for stereotypes. Propaganda is recognized to be the planned manipulation of public opinion through concealed messages in advertisements and other media functions. Thus, propaganda uses numerous techniques to be able to consign theses hidden messages to the public and influence their view. Fear, brainwashing, name calling, glittering generality, misinformation and much more are some of the ways that propaganda uses to persuade and manipulate the opinions of the masses. Propaganda finds the usefulness of stereotypes in the fact that it’s easy, quick and direct to the public. In the case of stereotypes about ethnic groups, Egyptians in this case are being portrayed as uneducated, unethical, ignorant, desert animal raisers, terrorists and uncultured ethnic group. These name calling and misinformation techniques are what propagandists use to contrive the society to portray Egyptians as humans of the underworld and Egypt as a deserted country that hunger and ill health are its residents. The preceding are all stereotypes that are propagandas of the media to convince such generality into truth and facts. Racial stereotypes particularly function usually through propaganda of the media, due to the improbability of every man travelling to every country, with the technique of ‘misinformation’ through movies, shows, and news reports. Egyptians have been stereotyped as desert residents for many years regardless of the reality and actual state of Egypt as a country. For instance, the stereotypes pointing that Egyptians are mostly uneducated due to their ignorance of the importance of education is proven false by studies of trustworthy sources. Among those studies, the one conducted by the American university in Cairo, Egypt. Al-Ahram weekly, a credible newspaper known all across the Arab world, has posted in its October issue of 1998 the following: â€Å"According to Sahar El-Tawila, the essential researcher on the team, interviews conducted with girls and boys nationwide demonstrate convincingly that work and marriage were rarely stated by boys and girls respectively as reasons for departing school†¦ These may be options for those who have already left school, but they are not the impetus behind their decision to leave† (Al-Ahram 1998). Therefore, according to an American research, Egyptians are not uneducated conceited nation. After all, there is at least an American University known worldwide built in Cairo where many Egyptians have gotten their Bachelors, Masters and PhD’s from. Still, the media has successfully manipulated the public opinion to reason Egyptians as desert wonderers. Now that the first concern, of how such Egyptian-bashing stereotypes work in propaganda, has been discussed, an interesting question then must be asked: how did it come about so successfully for the public of North America to view Egyptians in such state of mind? Media being a powerful information source to the majority of North Americans, and sometimes the only source of information about specific ethnic groups, has the ability to convince the public viewpoints and opinions. Of course with stereotypes powered by propaganda in movies is very thriving in view of that American films are the most favored and appreciated media function. Openly, in one of the movie reviews now on a review website about the movie â€Å"The Mummy† which takes place in Egypt from start to end, the subsequent sentence was stated: â€Å"The Mummy is a lot of fun. So the story is unsophisticated and the characters are all stereotypes (particularly the Egyptians, who are either noble desert warriors or smelly illiterate pig-things). Who cares? The special effects are truly spectacular. † (Jennifer Mellerick, 1999). Easily, stereotypes are even expected by who understands them and the media propaganda generates more and more. To attest that such depiction is a stereotype and not fact, the website ‘Egypt WWW Index’ has a list of all universities in Egypt (an estimated thirty educational institutions in total), many links to political and governmental committees and services, business, commercial, and entertainment facilities, as well as links to political women figures in the Egyptian society. More than the average North American could even imagine of Egypt , and it is all owed to the media propaganda that produced this image of Egyptians. People being indiscriminate based on partial and inexact information by sources as television, cartoons or even comic books This is a description that seems to go against many public standards. The above words are the exact description of stereotypes. Stereotypes as implicit from the description, goes mostly hand in hand with media only not the standard meaning of the blameless media we know. Media propaganda is the other form of media that is somewhat described as media treatment. In this paper, the subsequent will be discussed: first, how stereotypes of ethnic groups operate in propaganda, why does it function so satisfactorily, and finally, the consequences of these stereotypes on the life of Egyptians in particular in society. A fair inspection will be conducted on this example of stereotypes through clarification examples and research consequences from researches conducted from reliable sources. The real association between Egyptians’ stereotypes and propaganda discussed in this paper shall magnify the suggestion of stereotypes and propaganda in common. It seems essential for this paper to start with some clarification of the circumstances related with propaganda. Propaganda can be thought of as a foster parent for stereotypes. Propaganda is recognized to be the planned manipulation of public opinion through concealed messages in advertisements and other media functions. Thus, propaganda uses numerous techniques to be able to consign theses hidden messages to the public and influence their view. Fear, brainwashing, name calling, glittering generality, misinformation and much more are some of the ways that propaganda uses to persuade and manipulate the opinions of the masses. Propaganda finds the usefulness of stereotypes in the fact that it’s easy, quick and direct to the public. In the case of stereotypes about ethnic groups, Egyptians in this case are being portrayed as uneducated, unethical, ignorant, desert animal raisers, terrorists and uncultured ethnic group. These name calling and misinformation techniques are what propagandists use to contrive the society to portray Egyptians as humans of the underworld and Egypt as a deserted country that hunger and ill health are its residents. The preceding are all stereotypes that are propagandas of the media to convince such generality into truth and facts. Racial stereotypes particularly function usually through propaganda of the media, due to the improbability of every man travelling to every country, with the technique of ‘misinformation’ through movies, shows, and news reports. Egyptians have been stereotyped as desert residents for many years regardless of the reality and actual state of Egypt as a country. For instance, the stereotypes pointing that Egyptians are mostly uneducated due to their ignorance of the importance of education is proven false by studies of trustworthy sources. Among those studies, the one conducted by the American university in Cairo, Egypt. Al-Ahram weekly, a credible newspaper known all across the Arab world, has posted in its October issue of 1998 the following: â€Å"According to Sahar El-Tawila, the essential researcher on the team, interviews conducted with girls and boys nationwide demonstrate convincingly that work and marriage were rarely stated by boys and girls respectively as reasons for departing school†¦ These may be options for those who have already left school, but they are not the impetus behind their decision to leave† (Al-Ahram 1998). Therefore, according to an American research, Egyptians are not uneducated conceited nation. After all, there is at least an American University known worldwide built in Cairo where many Egyptians have gotten their Bachelors, Masters and PhD’s from. Still, the media has successfully manipulated the public opinion to reason Egyptians as desert wonderers. Now that the first concern, of how such Egyptian-bashing stereotypes work in propaganda, has been discussed, an interesting question then must be asked: how did it come about so successfully for the public of North America to view Egyptians in such state of mind? Media being a powerful information source to the majority of North Americans, and sometimes the only source of information about specific ethnic groups, has the ability to convince the public viewpoints and opinions. Of course with stereotypes powered by propaganda in movies is very thriving in view of that American films are the most favored and appreciated media function. Openly, in one of the movie reviews now on a review website about the movie â€Å"The Mummy† which takes place in Egypt from start to end, the subsequent sentence was stated: â€Å"The Mummy is a lot of fun. So the story is unsophisticated and the characters are all stereotypes (particularly the Egyptians, who are either noble desert warriors or smelly illiterate pig-things). Who cares? The special effects are truly spectacular. † (Jennifer Mellerick, 1999). Easily, stereotypes are even expected by who understands them and the media propaganda generates more and more. To attest that such depiction is a stereotype and not fact, the website ‘Egypt WWW Index’ has a list of all universities in Egypt (an estimated thirty educational institutions in total), many links to political and governmental committees and services, business, commercial, and entertainment facilities, as well as links to political women figures in the Egyptian society. More than the average North American could even imagine of Egypt , and it is all owed to the media propaganda that produced this image of Egyptians. Racial and Ethnic Stereotypes Furthermore, Egyptians are stereotyped to be uninformed owing to the reality that they are thought of as technology uneducated. In a website found throughout the study on this topic, a person of an Indian ethnicity by the given name of Shani Rifati has set up a website, which he calls â€Å"Please Call Me Rom†. To right the depiction of his race to North Americans, Shani said: â€Å"I am not a Gypsy. The term Gypsy comes from peoples ignorance, when we were wrong for Egyptians† (Rifati). Remarkable huh! Here is an example of a person that is defending his own nationality from stereotypes, yet uses stereotypes. What is even more interesting than that is the reality that the Egyptian history has been known to be the supreme civilization of all times, yet such culture is simply bashed by supercilious that all Egyptians are just ignorant Gypsies. â€Å" African American and Latino children who are aware of broadly held stereotypes about academic aptitude perform more disappointingly on a cognitive task when that task is described as a measure of capability than when the same task is described as a problem-solving duty. † (Carol Hyman 2003). Therefore racial or ethnic stereotypes that work in media propaganda or rather called media manipulation, has not only had influences on adults, but also is passed over with the youth of tomorrow. It is easy to give out information with no truthful back up, but the public inclination is what can moreover stop media propaganda from disturbing the public opinion or simply energize such unsafe aspect of the media, stereotypes. Furthermore, Egyptians are stereotyped to be uninformed owing to the reality that they are thought of as technology uneducated. In a website found throughout the study on this topic, a person of an Indian ethnicity by the given name of Shani Rifati has set up a website, which he calls â€Å"Please Call Me Rom†. To right the depiction of his race to North Americans, Shani said: â€Å"I am not a Gypsy. The term Gypsy comes from peoples ignorance, when we were wrong for Egyptians† (Rifati). Remarkable huh! Here is an example of a person that is defending his own nationality from stereotypes, yet uses stereotypes. What is even more interesting than that is the reality that the Egyptian history has been known to be the supreme civilization of all times, yet such culture is simply bashed by supercilious that all Egyptians are just ignorant Gypsies. â€Å" African American and Latino children who are aware of broadly held stereotypes about academic aptitude perform more disappointingly on a cognitive task when that task is described as a measure of capability than when the same task is described as a problem-solving duty. † (Carol Hyman 2003). Therefore racial or ethnic stereotypes that work in media propaganda or rather called media manipulation, has not only had influences on adults, but also is passed over with the youth of tomorrow. It is easy to give out information with no truthful back up, but the public inclination is what can moreover stop media propaganda from disturbing the public opinion or simply energize such unsafe aspect of the media, stereotypes.

Mathematics In The Game Of Chess Maths Essay

Mathematics In The Game Of Chess Maths Essay INTRODUCTION: Chess is a two-player board game played on a chessboard, a square-checkered board with 64  squares arranged in an eight-by-eight grid. Each player begins the game with sixteen pieces: one king, one queen, two rooks, two knights, two bishops, and eight pawns. The object of the game is to checkmate the opponents king, whereby the king is under immediate attack (in check) and there is no way to remove or defend it from attack on the next move. The games present form emerged in Europe during the second half of the 15th century, an evolution of an older Indian game, Shatranj. Theoreticians have developed extensive chess strategies and tactics since the games inception. Computers have been used for many years to create chess-playing programs, and their abilities and insights have contributed significantly to modern chess theory. One, Deep Blue, was the first machine to beat a reigning World Chess Champion when it defeated Garry Kasparov in 1997. Matches between individuals took place as early as the 9th century. The tradition of organized competitive chess started during the 16th century. The first official World Chess Champion, Wilhelm Steinitz, claimed his title in 1886; the current World Champion is Viswanathan Anand from India. In addition to the World Championship, there is also the WomenHYPERLINK http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Womens_World_Chess_ChampionshipHYPERLINK http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Womens_World_Chess_Championships World Championship, the Junior World Championship, the World Senior Championship, the Correspondence Chess World Championship, the World Computer Chess Championship, and Blitz and Rapid World Championships (see fast chess). The Chess Olympiad is a popular competition among teams from different nations. Online chess has opened amateur and professional competition to a wide and varied group of players. Chess is a recognized sport of the International Olympic Committee and international chess competi tion is sanctioned by the FIDE. Today, chess is one of the worlds most popular games, played by millions of people worldwide at home, in clubs, online, by correspondence, and in tournaments. Some other popular forms of chess are fast chess and computer chess. There are also many chess variants which have different rules, different pieces, different boards, etc. History Iranian chess set, glazed fritware, 12th century. New York Metropolitan Museum of Art. Knights Templar playing chess, Libro de los juegos, 1283. Chess is commonly believed to have originated in North-West India during the Gupta empire, where its early form in the 6th century was known as caturaà ¡Ã‚ ¹Ã¢â‚¬ ¦ga (Sanskrit: four divisions [of the military] infantry, cavalry, elephants, and chariotry, represented by the pieces that would evolve into the modern pawn, knight, bishop, and rook, respectively). The earliest evidence of Chess is found in the neighboring Sassanid Persia around 600 where the game came to be known under the name chatrang. Chatrang is evoked inside three epic romances written in Pahlavi (Medium Persian). Chatrang was taken up by the Muslim world after the Islamic conquest of Persia (633-644) where it was then named shatranj, with the pieces largely retaining their Persian names. In Spanish shatranj was rendered as ajedrez, in Portuguese as xadrez, and in Greek as zatrikion (which directly comes from Persian chatrang), but in the rest of Europe it was replaced by versions of the Persian shÄ h (king ), which was familiar as an exclamation and became the English words check and chess. Murray theorized that this change happened from Muslim traders coming to European seaports with ornamental chess kings as curios before they brought the game of chess. The game reached Western Europe and Russia by at least three routes, the earliest being in the 9th century. By the year 1000 it had spread throughout Europe. Introduced into the Iberian Peninsula by the Moors in the 10th century, it was described in a famous 13th-century manuscript covering shatranj, backgammon, and dice named the Libro de los juegos. Another theory contends that chess arose from the game xiangqi (Chinese Chess) or one of its predecessors, although this has been contested. ___________________________________________________ Mathematics In The Game Of Chess Legend has it that the game was invented by a mathematician in India who elicited a huge reward for its creation. The King of India was so impressed with the game that he asked the mathematician to name a prize as reward. Not wishing to appear greedy, the mathematician asked for one grain of rice to be placed on the first square of the chess board, two grains on the second, four on the third and so on. The number of grains of rice should be doubled each time. The King thought that hed got away lightly, but little did he realise the power of doubling to make things big very quickly. By the sixteenth square there was already a kilo of rice on the chess board. By the twentieth square his servant needed to bring in a wheelbarrow of rice. He never reached the 64th and last square on the board. By that point the rice on the board would have totalled a staggering 18,446,744,073,709,551,615 grains. Playing chess has strong resonances with doing mathematics. There are simple rules for the way each chess piece moves but beyond these basic constraints, the pieces can roam freely across the board. Mathematics also proceeds by taking self-evident truths (called axioms) about properties of numbers and geometry and then by applying basic rules of logic you proceed to move mathematics from its starting point to deduce new statements about numbers and geometry. For example, using the moves allowed by mathematics the 18th-century mathematician Lagrange reached an endgame that showed that every number can be written as the sum of four square numbers, a far from obvious fact. For example, 310 = 172 +42 + 22 + 12. Some mathematicians have turned their analytic skills on the game of chess itself. A classic problem called the Knights Tour asks whether it is possible to use a knight to jump around the chess board visiting each square once only. The first examples were documented in a 9th-century Arabic manuscript. It is only within the past decade that mathematical techniques have been developed to count exactly how many such tours are possible. It isnt just mathematicians and chess players who have been fascinated by the Knights Tour. The highly styled Sanskrit poem Kavyalankara presents the Knights Tour in verse form. And in the 20th century, the French author Georges Perecs novel Life: A Users Manual describes an apartment with 100 rooms arranged in a 1010 grid. In the novel the order that the author visits the rooms is determined by a Knights Tour on a 1010 chessboard. Mathematicians have also analysed just how many games of chess are possible. If you were to line up chessboards side by side, the number of them you would need to reach from one side of the observable universe to the other would require only 28 digits. Yet Claude Shannon, the mathematician credited as the father of the digital age, estimated that the number of unique games you could play was of the order of 10120 (a 1 followed by 120 0s). Its this level of complexity that makes chess such an attractive game and ensures that at the Olympiad in Russia in 2010, local spectators will witness games of chess never before seen by the human eye, even if the winning team turns out to have familiar names. ________________________________________________________ Rules The official rules of chess are maintained by the World Chess Federation. Along with information on official chess tournaments, the rules are described in the FIDE Handbook, section Laws of Chess.[2] Setup Pieces at the start of a game A b C d e f g h 8 8 7 7 6 6 5 5 4 4 3 3 2 2 1 1 A b C D e f g h Initial position: first row: rook, knight, bishop, queen, king, bishop, knight, and rook; second row: pawns Chess is played on a square board of eight rows (called ranks and denoted with numbers 1 to 8) and eight columns (called files and denoted with letters a to h) of squares. The colors of the sixty-four squares alternate and are referred to as light squares and dark squares. The chessboard is placed with a light square at the right hand end of the rank nearest to each player, and the pieces are set out as shown in the diagram, with each queen on its own color. The pieces are divided, by convention, into white and black sets. The players are referred to as White and Black, and each begins the game with sixteen pieces of the specified color. These consist of one king, one queen, two rooks, two bishops, two knights and eight pawns. ___________________________________________________________________________ Movement White always moves first. After the initial move, the players alternately move one piece at a time (with the exception of castling, when two pieces are moved). Pieces are moved to either an unoccupied square, or one occupied by an opponents piece, capturing it and removing it from play. With the sole exception of en passant, all pieces capture opponents pieces by moving to the square that the opponents piece occupies. A player may not make any move which would put or leave his king under attack. If the player to move has no legal moves, the game is over; it is either a checkmate-if the king is under attack-or a stalemate-if the king is not. Each chess piece has its own style of moving. In the diagrams, the dots mark the squares where the piece can move if no other pieces (including ones own piece) are on the squares between the pieces initial position and its destination. The king moves one square in any direction, the king has also a special move which is called castling and also involves a rook. The rook can move any number of squares along any rank or file, but may not leap over other pieces. Along with the king, the rook is also involved during the kings castling move. The bishop can move any number of squares diagonally, but may not leap over other pieces. The queen combines the power of the rook and bishop and can move any number of squares along rank, file, or diagonal, but it may not leap over other pieces. The knight moves to any of the closest squares which are not on the same rank, file or diagonal, thus the move forms an L-shape two squares long and one square wide. The knight is the only piece which can leap over other pieces. The pawn may move forward to the unoccupied square immediately in front of it on the same file, or on its first move it may advance two squares along the same file provided both squares are unoccupied, or it may move to a square occupied by an opponents piece, which is diagonally in front of it on an adjacent file, capturing that piece. The pawn has two special moves, the en passant capture, and pawn promotion. Moves of a king a B c D e f g h 8 8 7 7 6 6 5 5 4 4 3 3 2 2 1 1 a B c D e f g h Moves of a rook a B c D e f g h 8 8 7 7 6 6 5 5 4 4 3 3 2 2 1 1 a B c D e f g h Moves of a bishop a B c D e f g h 8 8 7 7 6 6 5 5 4 4 3 3 2 2 1 1 a B c D e f g h Moves of a queen a B c D e f g h 8 8 7 7 6 6 5 5 4 4 3 3 2 2 1 1 a B c D e f g h Moves of a knight a B c D e f g h 8 8 7 7 6 6 5 5 4 4 3 3 2 2 1 1 a B c D e f g h Moves of a pawn a B c D e f g h 8 8 7 7 6 6 5 5 4 4 3 3 2 2 1 1 a B c D e f g h * Pawns can optionally move two squares forward instead of one on their first move only. They capture diagonally (black xs); they cannot capture with their normal move (black circles). Pawns are also involved in the special move en passant (below). Check When a king is under immediate attack by one or two of the opponents pieces, it is said to be in check. A response to a check is a legal move if it results in a position where the king is no longer under direct attack (i.e. not in check). This can involve capturing the checking piece, interposing a piece between the checking piece and the king (which is possible only if the attacking piece is a queen, rook, or bishop and there is a square between it and the king), or moving the king to a square where it is not under attack. Castling is not a permissible response to a check. The object of the game is to checkmate the opponent; this occurs when the opponents king is in check, and there is no legal way to remove it from attack. End of the game Although the objective of the game is to checkmate the opponent, chess games do not have to end in checkmate-either player may resign if the situation looks hopeless. It is considered bad etiquette to continue playing when in a truly hopeless position. If it is a timed game a player may run out of time and lose, even with a much superior position. Games also may end in a draw (tie). A draw can occur in several situations, including draw by agreement, stalemate, threefold repetition of a position, the fifty-move rule, or a draw by impossibility of checkmate (usually because of insufficient material to checkmate). As checkmate from some positions cannot be forced in less than 50 moves (see e.g. pawnless chess endgame and two knights endgame), the fifty-move rule is not applied everywhere,[6] particularly in correspondence chess. White is in checkmate a B c D e f g h 8 8 7 7 6 6 5 5 4 4 3 3 2 2 1 1 a B c d e f g h White is in checkmate. He cannot escape from being attacked by the Black king and bishops. Stalemate a B c d e f g h 8 8 7 7 6 6 5 5 4 4 3 3 2 2 1 1 a B c d e f g h Stalemate if Black is to move. The position is not checkmate, and since Black cannot move, the game is a draw. Time control A modern digital chess clock Besides casual games without any time restriction, chess is also played with a time control, mostly by club and professional players. If a players time runs out before the game is completed, the game is automatically lost (provided his opponent has enough pieces left to deliver checkmate). The duration of a game ranges from long games played up to seven hours to shorter rapid chess games lasting usually 30 minutes or one hour per game. Even shorter is blitz chess with a time control of three to fifteen minutes for each player, or bullet chess (under three minutes). In tournament play, time is controlled using a game clock which has two displays, one for each players remaining time. ________________________________________________________ Notation for recording moves Naming the squares in algebraic chess notation Chess games and positions are recorded using a special notation, most often algebraic chess notation. Abbreviated (or short) algebraic notation generally records moves in the format abbreviation of the piece moved file where it moved rank where it moved, e.g. Qg5 means queen moves to the g-file and 5th rank (that is, to the square g5). If there are two pieces of the same type that can move to the same square, one more letter or number is added to indicate the file or rank from which the piece moved, e.g. Ngf3 means knight from the g-file moves to the square f3. The letter P indicating a pawn is not used, so that e4 means pawn moves to the square e4. If the piece makes a capture, x is inserted before the destination square, e.g. Bxf3 means bishop captures on f3. When a pawn makes a capture, the file from which the pawn departed is used in place of a piece initial, and ranks may be omitted if unambiguous. For example, exd5 (pawn on the e-file captures the piece on d5) or exd (pawn on e-file captures something on the d-file). ScholarHYPERLINK http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scholars_mateHYPERLINK http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scholars_mates mate If a pawn moves to its last rank, achieving promotion, the piece chosen is indicated after the move, for example e1Q or e1=Q. Castling is indicated by the special notations 0-0 for kingside castling and 0-0-0 for queenside castling. A move which places the opponents king in check usually has the notation + added. Checkmate can be indicated by # (occasionally ++, although this is sometimes used for a double check instead). At the end of the game, 1-0 means White won, 0-1 means Black won and  ½- ½ indicates a draw. Chess moves can be annotated with punctuation marks and other symbols. For example ! indicates a good move, !! an excellent move, ? a mistake, a blunder, !? an interesting move that may not be best or ?! a dubious move, but not easily refuted.[1] For example, one variant of a simple trap known as the ScholarHYPERLINK http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scholars_mateHYPERLINK http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scholars_mates mate, animated in the picture to the right, can be recorded: e4 e5 Qh5?! Nc6 Bc4 Nf6 Qxf7# 1-0 ________________________________________________________ Strategy and tactics Chess strategy consists of setting and achieving long-term goals during the game for example, where to place different pieces while tactics concentrate on immediate manoeuvre. These two parts of chess thinking cannot be completely separated, because strategic goals are mostly achieved by the means of tactics, while the tactical opportunities are based on the previous strategy of play. A game of chess is normally divided into three phases: opening, typically the first 10 to 25 moves, when players move their pieces into useful positions for the coming battle; middlegame, usually the fiercest part of the game; and endgame, when most of the pieces are gone, kings typically take a more active part in the struggle, and pawn promotion is often decisive. Opening A chess opening is the group of initial moves of a game (the opening moves). Recognized sequences of opening moves are referred to as openings and have been given names such as the Ruy Lopez or Sicilian Defence. They are catalogued in reference works such as the Encyclopaedia of Chess Openings. There are dozens of different openings, varying widely in character from quiet positional play (e.g. the Rà ©ti Opening) to very aggressive (e.g. the Latvian Gambit). In some opening lines, the exact sequence considered best for both sides has been worked out to more than 30 moves. Professional players spend years studying openings, and continue doing so throughout their careers, as opening theory continues to evolve. The fundamental strategic aims of most openings are similar: Development: To place (develop) the pieces (particularly bishops and knights) on useful squares where they will have an optimal impact on the game. Control of the center: Control of the central squares allows pieces to be moved to any part of the board relatively easily, and can also have a cramping effect on the opponent. King safety: Keeping the king safe from dangerous possibilities. A correct timing for castling can often enhance this. Pawn structure: Players strive to avoid the creation of pawn weaknesses such as isolated, doubled or backward pawns, and pawn islands and to force such weaknesses in the opponents position. Most players and theoreticians consider that White, by virtue of the first move, begins the game with a small advantage. This initially gives White the initiative. Black usually strives to neutralize Whites advantage and achieve equality, or to develop dynamic counterplay in an unbalanced position. Middlegame The middlegame is the part of the game which starts after the opening. There is no clear line between the opening and the middlegame, but typically the middlegame will start when most pieces have been developed. (Similarly, there is no clear transition from the middlegame to the endgame, see start of the HYPERLINK http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess_endgame#The_start_of_the_endgameendgame.) Because the opening theory has ended, players have to form plans based on the features of the position, and at the same time to take into account the tactical possibilities in the position. The middlegame is also the phase in which most combinations occur. Combinations are a series of tactical moves executed to achieve some gain. Middlegame combinations are often connected with an attack against the opponents king; some typical patterns have their own names, for example the BodenHYPERLINK http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bodens_MateHYPERLINK http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bodens_Mates Mate or the Lasker- Bauer combination. Specific plans or strategic themes will often arise from particular groups of openings which result in a specific type of pawn structure. For example, the minority attack, that is the attack of queenside pawns against an opponent who has more pawns on the queenside. The study of openings should therefore be connected with the preparation of plans that are typical of the resulting middlegames. Another important strategic question in the middlegame is whether and how to reduce material and transform into an endgame (i.e. simplify). For example, minor material advantages can generally be transformed into victory only in an endgame, and therefore the stronger side must choose an appropriate way to achieve an ending. Not every reduction of material is good for this purpose; for example, if one side keeps a light-squared bishop and the opponent has a dark-squared one, the transformation into a bishops and pawns ending is usually advantageous for the weaker side only, because an endgame with bishops on opposite colors is likely to be a draw, even with an advantage of a pawn, or sometimes with a two-pawn advantage. _____________________________________________________________________________________ Endgame a B c D e f g h 8 8 7 7 6 6 5 5 4 4 3 3 2 2 1 1 a B c d e f g h An example of zugzwang: the side which is to make a move is at a disadvantage. The endgame (or end game or ending) is the stage of the game when there are few pieces left on the board. There are three main strategic differences between earlier stages of the game and endgame: During the endgame, pawns become more important; endgames often revolve around attempting to promote a pawn by advancing it to the eighth rank. The king, which has to be protected in the middlegame owing to the threat of checkmate, becomes a strong piece in the endgame. It is often brought to the center of the board where it can protect its own pawns, attack the pawns of opposite color, and hinder movement of the opponents king. Zugzwang, a disadvantage because the player has to make a move, is often a factor in endgames but rarely in other stages of the game. For example, the diagram on the right is zugzwang for both sides, as with Black to move he must play 1Kb7 and let White promote a pawn after 2.Kd7; and with White to move he must allow a draw by 1.Kc6 stalemate or lose his last pawn by any other legal move. Endgames can be classified according to the type of pieces that remain on board. Basic checkmates are positions in which one side has only a king and the other side has one or two pieces and can checkmate the opposing king, with the pieces working together with their king. For example, king and pawn endgames involve only kings and pawns on one or both sides and the task of the stronger side is to promote one of the pawns. Other more complicated endings are classified according to the pieces on board other than kings, such as the rook and pawn versus rook endgame. Origins of the modern game (1000-1850) A tactical puzzle from LucenaHYPERLINK http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luis_Ramirez_de_LucenaHYPERLINK http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luis_Ramirez_de_Lucenas 1497 book Around 1200, rules of shatranj started to be modified in southern Europe, and around 1475, several major changes made the game essentially as it is known today. These modern rules for the basic moves had been adopted in Italy and Spain. Pawns gained the option of advancing two squares on their first move, while bishops and queens acquired their modern abilities. The queen replaced the earlier vizier chess piece towards the end of the 10th century and by the 15th century, had become the most powerful piece; consequently modern chess was referred to as Queens Chess or Mad Queen Chess. These new rules quickly spread throughout western Europe, with the exception of the rules about stalemate, which were finalized in the early 19th century. To distinguish it from its predecessors, this version of the rules is sometimes referred to as western chess or international chess. Writings about the theory of how to play chess began to appear in the 15th century. The Repeticià ³n de Amores y Arte de Ajedrez (Repetition of Love and the Art of Playing Chess) by Spanish churchman Luis Ramirez de Lucena was published in Salamanca in 1497. Lucena and later masters like Portuguese Pedro Damiano, Italians Giovanni Leonardo Di Bona, Giulio Cesare Polerio and Gioachino Greco or Spanish bishop Ruy Là ³pez de Segura developed elements of openings and started to analyze simple endgames. Franà §ois-Andrà © Danican Philidor, 18th-century French chess Master In the 18th century the center of European chess life moved from the Southern European countries to France. The two most important French masters were Franà §ois-Andrà © Danican Philidor, a musician by profession, who discovered the importance of pawns for chess strategy, and later Louis-Charles Mahà © de La Bourdonnais who won a famous series of matches with the Irish master Alexander McDonnell in 1834. Centers of chess activity in this period were coffee houses in big European cities like Cafà © de la Rà ©gence in Paris and SimpsonHYPERLINK http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simpsons-in-the-StrandHYPERLINK http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simpsons-in-the-Strands Divan in London. As the 19th century progressed, chess organization developed quickly. Many chess clubs, chess books and chess journals appeared. There were correspondence matches between cities; for example the London Chess Club played against the Edinburgh Chess Club in 1824. Chess problems became a regular part of 19th-century newspapers; Bernhard Horwitz, Josef Kling and Samuel Loyd composed some of the most influential problems. In 1843, von der Lasa published his and BilguerHYPERLINK http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Rudolf_von_BilguerHYPERLINK http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Rudolf_von_Bilguers Handbuch des Schachspiels (Handbook of Chess), the first comprehensive manual of chess theory. ________________________________________________________ Competitive play Contemporary chess is an organized sport with structured international and national leagues, tournaments and congresses. Chesss international governing body is FIDE (Fà ©dà ©ration Internationale des Échecs). Most countries have a national chess organization as well (such as the US Chess Federation and English Chess Federation), which in turn is a member of FIDE. FIDE is a member of the International Olympic Committee, but the game of chess has never been part of the Olympic Games; chess does have its own Olympiad, held every two years as a team event. The current World Chess Champion Viswanathan Anand (left) playing chess against his predecessor Vladimir Kramnik. The current World Chess Champion is Viswanathan Anand of India. The reigning Womens World Champion is Alexandra Kosteniuk from Russia but the worlds highest rated female player, Judit Polgà ¡r, has never participated in the WomenHYPERLINK http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Womens_World_Chess_ChampionshipHYPERLINK http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Womens_World_Chess_Championships World Chess Championship, instead preferring to compete with the leading men and maintaining a ranking among the top male players. Other competitions for individuals include the World Junior Chess Championship, the European Individual Chess Championship and the National Chess Championships. Invitation-only tournaments regularly attract the worlds strongest players and these include Spains Linares event, Monte Carlos Melody Amber tournament, the Dortmund Sparkassen meeting, Sofias M-tel Masters and Wijk aan Zees Corus tournament. Regular

Body and Nature as Metaphor in A Thousand Acres Essay -- Smiley Thousa

Body and Nature as Metaphor in A Thousand Acres Most issues on a farm return to the issue of keeping up appearances. (Smiley p.199) [T]he female body is a reservoir, a virgin patch of still, pooled water where the fetus comes to term. (Paglia p.27) [A] fetus is a benign tumor, a vampire who steals in order to live. (Paglia p.11) The epigraph to this novel is from "The Ancient People and the Newly Come": The body repeats the landscape. They are the source of each other and create each other. We were marked by the seasonal body of earth, by the terrible migrations of people, by the swift turn of a century, verging on change never before experienced on this greening planet. This encompasses much of what the novel is about, every phrase having some significance for its project. Human bodies, as well as the "body of earth", are subject to both seasonal and social change. I argue elsewhere how Ginny's body becomes a signifying system for social intercourse, as does the scenery surrounding her. Here, I would like to explore the multiplex meanings of the motif of the tiles. When Ginny's ancestors arrived, their land was marshy, wet, impossible to farm. Laying down tiles drained the water and became the basis for their wealth- "magically, tile produced prosperity"(15). This signifies the control that capitalist industrial farming exerts toward nature, a control that ultimately becomes destructive. As Jess tells Ginny, the way Larry farms has poisoned the land and its people: "People have known for ten years or more that nitrates in well water cause miscarriages and death of infants. Don't you know that the fertilizer runoff drains into the aquifer?" (165). The surface richness and the treacherous, wet p... ...y to turn the destructive forces to her advantage. The important difference, bringing together issues of body and nature in the novel, is that her poison is not chemical, but natural: the root of water hemlock. Ginny envisions her poisoning of Rose's body as the inevitable result of the incest of Rose, but it is indirectly also the result of the abuse of her: "I thought [...] of that cell dividing in the dark and then living rather than dying, subdividing, multiplying, growing, Rose's real third child [...]. Her dark child, the child of her union with Daddy."(323) When she destroys the jar of poison, the only remaining object of her past life and the metaphoric container of that life's destructive path, she stops the spreading of social and filial poison, hindering its influence on the lives of the future generation: Pammy and Linda. That is the hope of the future. Body and Nature as Metaphor in A Thousand Acres Essay -- Smiley Thousa Body and Nature as Metaphor in A Thousand Acres Most issues on a farm return to the issue of keeping up appearances. (Smiley p.199) [T]he female body is a reservoir, a virgin patch of still, pooled water where the fetus comes to term. (Paglia p.27) [A] fetus is a benign tumor, a vampire who steals in order to live. (Paglia p.11) The epigraph to this novel is from "The Ancient People and the Newly Come": The body repeats the landscape. They are the source of each other and create each other. We were marked by the seasonal body of earth, by the terrible migrations of people, by the swift turn of a century, verging on change never before experienced on this greening planet. This encompasses much of what the novel is about, every phrase having some significance for its project. Human bodies, as well as the "body of earth", are subject to both seasonal and social change. I argue elsewhere how Ginny's body becomes a signifying system for social intercourse, as does the scenery surrounding her. Here, I would like to explore the multiplex meanings of the motif of the tiles. When Ginny's ancestors arrived, their land was marshy, wet, impossible to farm. Laying down tiles drained the water and became the basis for their wealth- "magically, tile produced prosperity"(15). This signifies the control that capitalist industrial farming exerts toward nature, a control that ultimately becomes destructive. As Jess tells Ginny, the way Larry farms has poisoned the land and its people: "People have known for ten years or more that nitrates in well water cause miscarriages and death of infants. Don't you know that the fertilizer runoff drains into the aquifer?" (165). The surface richness and the treacherous, wet p... ...y to turn the destructive forces to her advantage. The important difference, bringing together issues of body and nature in the novel, is that her poison is not chemical, but natural: the root of water hemlock. Ginny envisions her poisoning of Rose's body as the inevitable result of the incest of Rose, but it is indirectly also the result of the abuse of her: "I thought [...] of that cell dividing in the dark and then living rather than dying, subdividing, multiplying, growing, Rose's real third child [...]. Her dark child, the child of her union with Daddy."(323) When she destroys the jar of poison, the only remaining object of her past life and the metaphoric container of that life's destructive path, she stops the spreading of social and filial poison, hindering its influence on the lives of the future generation: Pammy and Linda. That is the hope of the future.

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight: An Analysis of Parallel Scenes Essay

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight: An Analysis of Parallel Scenes The anonymous author of "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight" was supposedly the first to have originated the alternation of temptation and hunting scenes, which both contribute importantly to the effectiveness of the poem (Benson 57). The two narratives are obviously meant to be read as complementary. Therefore, the parallel juxtaposition of seemingly unrelated episodes is the basic characteristic of the narrative. The narrative, which appears parallel, contrasts temptation and beheading tales; which posed the major problem of unity for the early critics (Benson 26). H. L. Savage analyzes the relation between the hunting and temptation scenes and concludes that they are probably the best known explanation of narrative variation in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (Benson 25). Simultaneously, one scene takes place in a bedroom, while the other in a forest. One scene concerns courtship, while the other the vigorous excitement of the chase of wild prey. These two sets of scenes differ in content and emphasis, however ...

Arthur’s Journey to Self Discovery :: essays papers

Arthur’s Journey to Self Discovery The future is inevitable. It is only with experience that one can come to an understanding of any sort. It is only with time that experience can become achievable. Understanding one’s true self can only be made possible with a multitude of experiences, leading to realizations. The entire package of experiences for one individual person can take no less that a lifetime. This reality, in itself, is a tragedy. A tragedy that Arthur, King of Camelot, was destined to realize. Born into a life of deception, even the truth about his maternal origin is kept from him. Innocent and naà ¯ve, Arthur as a young man succeeds in doing what no other could do before. He pulls from a stone the sword named Excalibur. Long before his birth, his father declared that whoever could remove the sword was to be king. Unsure and not at all confident in his abilities, Arthur’s strength and will as king is tested almost immediately. With the help of his sword, Excalibur, he wins a fight against Uriens’ men and saves the castle of another king. Arthur earns his first taste of victory. Accompanying this victory, is the respect of the people within his kingdom. While attempting to cross a bridge, Arthur meets a man who refuses to respect his authority and clear the way across the bridge. Arthur’s â€Å"rage unbalances him†. He agrees to fight to the death over the crossing of a bridge that can easily be traveled around. Arthur’s opponent outmatches him. Arthur is forced to call upon the power of his sword, Excalibur. Arthur is victorious, but in the process, Excalibur is broken. â€Å"[His] pride broke that which could not be broken.† Arthur is remorseful and refers to himself as â€Å"nothing†. It is with this first display of condescension that Arthur realizes that especially because of his stature, his personal mistakes and poor decisions could affect many lives other than his own. Adding an element of contrast to Arthur’s life is Arthur’s friend and mentor, Merlin. As a seer of the future and a man of great intelligence and wisdom, Merlin is everything Arthur is no. Arthur looks to Merlin for guidance. Through Merlin, the king’s many great possessions are put into perspective.