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Saturday, August 31, 2019

Technology and Nature in Timothy Findley’s The Wars

â€Å"The Wars can be interpreted as exploring the modern conflict between nature and technology. † The Conflict of Nature and Technology The wars is a story about Roberts life primary in the Great War, or WWI, throughout the story there are many elements of nature and technology that are introduced to the story, often in which, the two collide. Timothy Findley uses the Elements of Nature (Air, Water, Earth and Fire) and shows them in two different perspectives, sometimes harmful, sometimes helpful.The reason however that they have become harmful, is due to the perversion of nature that happens within a war. Nature is corrupted by the technology around it created by man to kill one another, it can be damaged (e. g. when chlorine gas seeps into the earth) or it can be used to cause damage (The flamethrowers). All in all, the whole war was a massive struggle between technology and nature; however one individual throughout the story is the link between Nature and Technology.Rober t Ross uses technology to kill others throughout the war, an unnatural thing, but he also cares deeply for those things that are of nature. He is the bridge between the natural and technological world. The war on nature via technology is one of the most common themes in The Wars. It is very prominent when they bring the horses over on the S. S. Massanabie, and what condition the live in while on that boat while they are transported. â€Å"Each horse was lifted in a harness by a gigantic crane and lowered into the hold like cargo. 1 This is an example where cruelties against things that are natural are portrayed by the fact that the animals are treated no better than inanimate objects. The soldiers saw the horses as nothing more than another piece of technology that they would use in the war. Robert Ross has to take over from Harris while he is on the boat, and is charged in taking care of the animals. He then finds himself in the situation of having to kill the horse because it bro ke its leg. Robert doesn’t want to do it but he decides that he has to do it to prove himself.Unfortunately Robert doesn’t kill it with the first shot and is emotionally disturbed. â€Å"Robert forced his eyes to open: aimed-and fired again. This time the horse was hit on the withers. Robert sank to his knees. He could hear himself breathing. He held the gun in both hands. He pressed it hard behind the horse’s ear and swore at the horse: God damn it, damn it, damn it-stop. His knees were wet and he drew himself into a ball and pushed with all his strength. He began to squeeze the trigger and he squeezed it gain and again and again-so many times that when the Sergeant-Major pulled him away the gun went right on clicking in his hands. †(60-61) Robert has to use technology on something he cares a lot about, animals, something natural, and it bothers him greatly. Having this is another perversion of nature, and demonstrates and re-emphasizes how the horses ar e seen as little more than another part of the war machine. Chlorine gas is a development in technology that the German’s have made towards the war effort and it is one of the most detrimental things to nature in the whole war.It is a prime example of how nature things can be corrupted my things that are man-made, because not only does the chlorine gas kill people it also â€Å"kills† the surrounding natural things. All of the surrounding land and terrain has the chlorine gas seep into it, and naturally destroys it, making the land barren and devoid of life, and the air toxic. Robert notices the green fog in the air when he and his bugler are riding. â€Å"The air was thick with green fog. There was a smell Robert could not decipher. ‘What’s that smell? ’ he said to Poole. prob’ly chlorine,’ Poole replied†¦. ‘You mean you think there’s a gas attack going on up front? ’ Robert had not yet had this experience. P oole had had it twice. ‘No sir. But the groun’ is full of it here. There’s some that says a handful of this clay could knock a person out. ’† The earth and the air have been corrupted with the chlorine gas, so much so that the area will not be viable for living or growing anything for quite some time. This is yet another example of the atrocities of war technology on nature, one that will harm the area for a long time to come.When Rodwell goes down the lines, it is shown to its truest extent how corrupted nature has been by the mechanized chaos that is war. For now it is human nature that has been corrupted, so badly they the have turned into savages. These were men who had spent the entire time while the flamethrowers burned around them, and this new technology had damaged their primal instincts. Rodwell arrive to a scene of horror, were the men were burning rats and mice alive in their cooking pots, not for food, but for pure entertainment.He tried to stop them, but he could not and they would not listen. They then did something that he could not deal with â€Å"Seeing that he took an interest, they forced him to watch a killing of a cat. Half an hour later, Rodwell wandered into No Man’s Land and put a bullet through his ears† (135) The corruption of the human mind has gone to an extent, that once normal human-beings had reverted to taking out the pain that they felt from the Germans and inflicting it on helpless creatures.Robert Ross can relate to Rodwell’s pain, because like Rodwell he also was deeply compassionate for animals. Over the course of the book technology takes its toll on nature, be it natural instincts of humans, or natural things being destroyed. Technology is one of the most detrimental things to nature there can be, and it is up to mankind whether or not it is controlled within reasonable limits, or unleashed, to an extent in which it could destroy everything. One of the largest underly ing themes in the whole book is the war within the war, or technology against nature.

Friday, August 30, 2019

Metaltom

English Lit Act 3 Questions 1) Giles Corey is expelled from the court because he won’t tell the court the name of his informant which is also why Daneforth won’t hear his evidence. He was arrested because of contempt the court. 2) Marry Warren is in court because she was charged with witchcraft and she tells Daneforth that Abigail is lying but he is suspicious of her because it’s her word against the other girls and he thinks she could be possessed by the devil. Proctor reminds her of the Angel Raphael because he took her in and tries to save her from Abigail and the other girls. ) Parris nullifies proctors testament by pointing out that if Mary could pretend to faint before she should be able to faint now but since marry couldn’t faint then and there she couldn’t have faked it before. 4) The professed purpose of the court is to deal Justice but the court becomes very unjust because it doesn’t even need witnesses. It doesn’t need witne sses because of the idea that a Witch can unconsciously call forth her spirit to harm someone. 5) Proctor confesses lechery because it would portray Abigail as a harlot and he believes that Daneforth and Hathorne will know that he wouldn’t ruin his good name.Daneforth and Hathorne don’t believe him though because it’s his word against Abigails. 6) Elizabeth tells the court that she didn’t throw out Abigail for a harlot but she only says this because she doesn’t want to ruin Proctors name but this is an unfair test because it’s a natural lie to tell. 7) Abigail turns the court against Marry Warren by mimicking all that Mary says as to make it look like her Phantom is controlling them and then Abigail and the other girls all pretend to run away in fear from Marry Warrens Phantom. 8) Hale denounces the proceedings because he believes them to be unjust and that there are no witches in Salem.

Thursday, August 29, 2019

Strategic Alliances Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Strategic Alliances - Essay Example Risk taking is ubiquitous feature among the organizational managers these days. Strategic alliance is a kind of concept in which risk is an integral factor while developing such decisions. Strategic Alliance is an â€Å"an agreement between firms to do business together in ways that go beyond normal company–to–company dealings , but fall short of a merger or a full partnership† (Khurana & Singhal 2010). Any business decision involves planning and there is always a threat of failure of the plan. The move taken even after knowing the risks and evaluating their effects can be termed as risk. Similarly, strategic alliance is a kind of business decision which would involve amalgamation with outside companies not on a full partnership basis but a little different from daily intercompany dealings (Das & Teng, 1999). There may be a number of situations at risk as a result of the strategic alliance between two companies. The performance of the partner company, cooperation among the companies and the opportunistic approach of the companies involved among others could be the probable circumstances rendering risk to the decision in practice (Alders, Van Liere, Berendsen, & Pieters 2010). However, largely the risk situations can be categorized into four categories namely; the contextual risk, the transactional risk, the relational risk, and the performance risk. The contextual risk involves the risk influenced by the market scenario like meeting of the demand in the market, the competition faced by the company and also the technological and the regulatory influences. Thus, this can be also referred to as the external risk (Alders, Van Liere, Berendsen, & Pieters 2010). The transactional risk involves the importance of cooperation between the partners involved in the alliance. A proper cooperation and sharing of mutual trust can pay off to minimize risk to a great extent. Therefore, this may be referred as internal risk (Alders, Van Liere, Berendsen, & Pieters

Wednesday, August 28, 2019

Apostle Creed Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Apostle Creed - Essay Example This essay shall list the doctrines contained in the Apostles' Creed, following from which it will discuss both Christology and Soteriology. The determination of the doctrines contained within the Apostles' Creed is dependant upon the prior identification of the Articles contained within it. These articles, totaling twelve, are clearly enumerated prior to each declaration of belief, faith, expressed in the creed: 1. I believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth. 2. And in Jesus Christ His only Son our Lord, 3. Who was conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary, 4. Suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead, and buried, 5. He descended into hell; the third day He rose again from the dead, 6. He ascended into heaven, and sitteth on the right hand of God the Father Almighty; 7. From thence He shall come to judge the quick and the dead. 8. I believe in the Holy Ghost, 9. The Holy Catholic Church; the Communion of saints; 10. The Forgiveness of sins; 11. The Resurrection of the body, 12. And the Life Everlasting. As directly derived from the above quoted articles of the Apostles' Creed, are the Christian doctrines of Theology, Cosmology, Pneumatology Part I, Soteriology Part I, Soteriology Part II, Christ's Physical Resurrection, Eschtatology Part I, the Sovereignty of God, Pneumatology Part I, Ecclesiastology Part I and Ecclesiastology Part I. The ordering of these twelve doctrines corresponds with the ordering of the twelve articles. Christology, of course, is a definitive outcome of the Creed but its complexity is such that it cannot be related to any one single article. As a theological doctrine or area of study within Christianity, Christology is both complex and uniquely important. Concerned with the nature of Jesus, the Christ, Christology is intimately related to articles two and three of the Creed of the Apostles and, to the extent that it may be identified as seminal to the Christian faith, to the entirety of the mentioned creed. The question which Christology simultaneously raises and responds to concerns the nature of Christ and, more specifically, the manner in which the divine and the human can be contained within his person and the way in which these two natures interrelate with one another. Indeed, the interrelationship between the divine and the human in the person of Christ is the primary concern of Christology and given the vastness and complexity of this concern, one notes that its subtopics embrace essential Christian doctrine such as Incarnation, Resurrection and Soteriology, or the salvic work of Jesus the Christ. In other words, Christology may very well be identified as the starting point for both the acceptance and understanding of the Christian theology insofar as its acceptance and understanding signifies the embrace of essential Christian doctrines. As may have been deduced from the preceding, Christology is immediately concerned with questions such as the Trinity, Unitarianism and Binitarianism; that is, questions which relate to the nature of God. Within a Christian theological context, the named doctrine is not simply concerned with the manner in which divine entities interact one with the other, but how the divine and the human can co-exist within the person of Jesus and how they interact with one another within that same person. The importance of Christology derives

Tuesday, August 27, 2019

International Strategic Marketing Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 4750 words

International Strategic Marketing - Essay Example As a result, the establishment of two major rail franchises that sells more than just the usual travel tour packages offered by the Virgin Company. Aside from the focus of the company on travel operations, the franchise establishments also sell entertainment materials such as magazines and music videos and DVD gadgets. There also came the establishment of the Virgin Mega stores that serve as the major mall-like establishments of the company that mostly offer materials in connection with entertainment. Aside from the many operations that the Virgin Group of Companies caters to, there are also other services that they still offer the public. The said services include balloon flights, beverages, bridal stores, cosmetics, financial services, health clubs, Internet services, mobile phone services, publishing, and a record label. (2007) As closely observed, the entire concern of the company is to provide recreation, entertainment and leisure to its clients. Hence, it could be noticed that most of its market comes from the upper level of the global economy. This directly refers to the fact that most of the clients that are able to appreciate and consume their products and accept their services are those who have the capability to pay for the amount of their business transactions. Being in the industry that holds much the competition as it is directly connected to entertainment and travel systems which is now the most in demand services in the society, how are the Virgin group of Companies able to cope up with the competition that is present in the business society How are they able to refine their strategies of market approach considering that they are considered as a multinational company that has to deal with multicultural society of workers Aside from this, as the company grows even larger and ventures to different areas of business, how are they able to keep a strong stand in the competitive pace of the global business culture These questions and more shall be answered on the chapter discussions that follow. CHAPTER 2 The Competitive Strategies of the Virgin Group (Literature Review) In business, there is always competition. According to Milton Snoeyenbos, "Competition is the essence of putting up a business and making things happen for a certain company" (1992). This is indeed true. As obviously seen today, different types of competition that naturally determines their status in the global business arena govern the global industry of business. Furthermore, Snoeyenbos adds that: "the ability of a business entity to keep up with the competition that it is supposed to have engagement with measures its capability of keeping up with the fast paced development of global trade and industries" (1992) Certainly, multinational companies, such as the Virgin Group, directly experience such competitive environment of operating in the global market. There are many companies that naturally would want to have the same 'fair share' of market especially when it comes to travel operations and entertainment. It is indeed true that to be able to survive in such a competitive world of business, a company, or a business

Monday, August 26, 2019

What impact does globalisation have on the environment Essay

What impact does globalisation have on the environment - Essay Example tinational enterprises (MNEs) can profit substantially from the consequent cross-country variations in environmental regulations by transferring the capacity of production to those nations most agreeable to make use of loose environmental policies as an encouragement for investment. Confronted with the possibility of an industrial flight, the debate goes on, countries are compelled to join a ‘race to the bottom’ and develop into ‘pollution havens’ or compromise high incidences of unemployment and the attrition of their tax base.2 In a sense then, globalisation weakens the ability of the government to safeguard the environment through corporate behaviour regulation. Conversely, advocates of globalisation argue that lower trade barriers and FDI motivate corporations to move environmental technologies as well as management systems from nation-states with more stringent environmental policies to developing nations, which cannot manage to acquire environmental technologies and capacities. The failure of the government to safeguard the environment, it is proposed in this assumption, could also be improved through self-regulation of firms’ environmental conduct in developing nations.3 Self-regulation â€Å"refers to a firm’s adoption of environmental performance standards or environmental management systems (EMS) beyond the requirements of governmental regulations.†4 Globalisation has the capability to boost pressures in self-regulation in various ways. Primarily, globalisation raises the investment of MNEs in developing nations wherein their subsidiaries can self-regulate their own environmental conduct more than that of the capacity of local firms.5 Moreover, MNEs can move their more sophisticated environmental technologies as well as their management systems designed to adjust to the stricter regulations in developed nations to their subsidiaries. Also, MNEs confront demands from interest groups to perk up their international environmental

Sunday, August 25, 2019

Week 7 Hand-in Assignment Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Week 7 Hand-in Assignment - Essay Example Of late, use of secure versions of HTTP and HTML (called HTTPS and SHTML respectively) has made micro-payment systems faster and safer. (Visa, 2012a; Visa, 2012b; Michel, 2001) Payclick deploys the basic principles of e-commerce transaction management. The working methods satisfy both the international legal and technical standards. It can be stated that it operates through a peer-to-peer fiscal management framework which involves extensive but careful utilization of the Internet. â€Å"An example system includes a payment processor that executes software instructions for creating and managing electronic payment accounts and an accounts database to store account data from the payment processor. The payment processor may be configured to receive a payment request from a payer, the payment request including information to identify a payee and a payment amount.† (Perlman. 2011, Abstract) In other words, simplicity of a micro-payment system lies in its transaction processing method. The main challenge is to keep the costs of the transaction processing and delivery charges as low as possible, hence less complicated and simply synchronic IT applications are called for. Principle of working of Payclick is basically the same as explained by Perlman (2011). According to the company, â€Å"You (the customer) can add funds to your payclick account using your Visa, MasterCard, credit, debit or prepaid card, or your bank account through BPay. And that’s that. You are ready to buy online wherever you see the payclick button.† (Visa, 2012a) Payclick thus supports small value payments at lower costs of transaction with least holdup and in exchange to the services and products that are instantaneously deliverable. The money transferring processes are hassle free and supported by several vendors and technologies to impart greater suppleness and

About Hp company Research Proposal Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

About Hp company - Research Proposal Example any’s major product lines comprise personal computing devices, enterprise servers, related storage devices, printers, and imaging products (HP 2008). The company has been declared by market research firms Gardner and IDC as the largest global seller of personal computers surpassing its closest rival Dell Inc. After having long commanded the industry, the latter has been taken over by 3.9% gap in market share. During 2006, HP generated annual sales of $91.7 billion then jumped to $104 billion the following year making it as the first information technology company to exceed the $100 billion sales mark (HP reaches 100 billion 2008). As opposed to other competing firms in the information technology industry like Apple, HP consumers are the middle and lower income consumers who opt for more affordable products. Even in its establishment, the company has long been committed in serving these consumers who are more price-sensitive and prefers more affordable products with lesser features. The company serves households and small and medium enterprises worldwide, always tailoring its products in order to suit the evolving needs and demand of the buyers. The success of HP can be traced to its ability to price its product more competitively in the market. It should be noted that the company’s sales have been generated by ensuring that consumers’ have an affordable choice in order to suit all their computing needs. The mere size of the company is also an advantage. It should be noted that since the business organization caters to a lot of markets worldwide, it is able to distribute it cost more efficiently through economies of scale. The large number of output that it produces in its plants allows it to distribute fixed cost thereby making its unit production cost relatively lower. This makes it possible for the company to charge prices which are more competitive than its other rivals in the industry. The company’s reach and exposure to both industrialized and

Saturday, August 24, 2019

Coursework #3 Case Study Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Coursework #3 - Case Study Example With that stated, the expected return on this portfolio is halfway between the expected returns on the two individual securities; however, the standard deviation is less than halfway between the standard deviations on the two securities. Therefore, unless the investor was very risk averse, meaning he would look at this case, where he might choose to invest only in security A. However, if he were not risk averse he would invest in the portfolio rather than invest in the two securities separately (Gitman, 2009). Standard deviation is defined as the common statistical indicator of an assets risk; it measures the dispersion around the expected value. This is another way that a firms risk and expected return directly affect its share price. Risk and return are the two key determinants of a firms value. It is generally a financial managers responsibility to assess carefully the risk and return of all major decisions. Managers use this to ensure that the expected returns justify the level of risk that someone will introduce (Gitman, 2009. The definition of (CAPM) or capital asset pricing model is the basic theory that links risk and return for all assets. We describe this relationship between the required return, r. The no diversifiable risk of the firm as it is measured by the beta coefficient b. This is important in finance because the model CAPM links non-diversifiable risk and return with all assets. Generally, there are five sections. The first deals with the beta coefficient, which is a measure of the non-diversifiable risk. The second section presents an equation of the model itself. The third section graphically describes the relationship between risk and return. The fourth section discusses the effects of changes in inflationary expectations and risk aversion on the relationship between risk and return and the fifth section offers some comments of the CAPM. The CAPM model in general relies on historical data. The betas

Friday, August 23, 2019

Explaining Second Language Learning Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Explaining Second Language Learning - Essay Example After evaluating and analyzing all theories presented by Lightbown and Spada, we shall conclude which theory has consistencies. Cognitive theory is consistent because it draws how the mind can achieve second languages irrespective of the role of environment and social context. Therefore, cognitive theory has proven to be consistent than sociocultural and social interaction theories. This is because sociocultural and social interaction theories focus on the role of environment and social context, thus making these theories be inconsistent (Lightbown, & Spada, 2012). Cognitive theory helps us understand that all second language learners, irrespective of their environment and social context have at present learned and acquired at least one language. It also elucidates that the human mind has the capability of learning anything new. Thus, it explains that human cognizance can be divided into twofold complex kinds of representation: prior knowledge and procedural knowledge (Lightbown, & Spada, 2012). Prior knowledge represents first language acquisition that is stored in long-term memory through schemas and images, and procedural knowledge represents L2 and this indicates that the human minds have the aptitude of learning anything new successfully. So, the central fact that makes cognitive theory consistent is the ability to expound that learning begins with prior knowledge, which is slowly modified to become proceduralized knowledge (Lightbown, & Spada, 2012). This means that learners of second languages have a conscious mind with advanced fluency and competency of the first language, and this will orient their thinking and speaking toward second language acquisition. Subsequently, cognitive theory expounds that the mind work in an information-processing model and this help human learning to achieve. For second language acquisition to be

Thursday, August 22, 2019

The opening of Pride and Prejudice Essay Example for Free

The opening of Pride and Prejudice Essay How does Jane Austen in the opening of Pride and Prejudice decide the subject and the tone of the novel? How does this prepare the reader for rest of the book? Pride and prejudice is Jane Austen most popular Novel. In this novel Jane Austen has portrayed the book on a real life story and tells us about the initial misunderstanding between Elizabeth and Darcy. Darcy is a handsome, rich man, and full of attitude, this is what Elizabeths point of view is Elizabeth thinks like this of him because he was being very mean and arrogant on their first meeting this can be a misunderstanding, its possible that Mr Darcy will take some time to get along with her or he is acting like this maybe because he is finding the atmosphere very annoying. Mrs Bennet can be the cause of that, because they way she acts show how desperate she is about getting her daughters married and Mr Darcy finds it very annoying. Mr Bringleys sisters husband offers Mr Darcy to dance with many ladies but he refuses to because he doesnt find anyone much attractive, he also refuses to dance with Elizabeth and when says that she, in particular, is not pretty enough for him to ask her to dance. Mrs Bennets daughter Elizabeth heard that, but being a very simple and down to Earth kind of a person she ignored it. The Novel starts with showing how curious and crazy Mrs Bennet is about getting all her daughters married to rich men, which is not good for her daughters future. This way they might find men who are rich but they wont be able to stay happy with them later on in life. On the other hand Mr Bennet being the father of all these girls shows no interest in what Mrs Bennet is up to. He is a very sensible man and is going to let his daughters decide who they want to marry. In the beginning of the novel when Mrs Bennet finds out that Mr Bringley is moving to their neighbourhood she tells Mr Bennet to go meet him so he could get close to the family, (because she wants Mr bringley to see one of her daughters and marry them) but Mr Bennet doesnt want to and shows no interest in this. As the novel moves on we will see that Mrs Bennets pressure is going to cause her daughters to marry guys they wont be happy with, later on in life. They might marry these guys because of their mother wants them to, and because of that they wont stay happy with them. Elizabeth Bennet is a very simple girl and would want to marry someone who is very simple and has no attitude unlike Mr Darcy. She would want a loving and caring husband, but as I see it she might end up marring Mr Darcy because of her mothers pressure on her, or it can be possible that she would herself want to marry Mr Darcy because they both might fall in love and build up good relationship.

Wednesday, August 21, 2019

High Level Programming Language Of Java Computer Science Essay

High Level Programming Language Of Java Computer Science Essay Java technology is a combination of programming language and a platform. This technology supports the state of art programs assisting the games, utilities also services related to the business applications. As of 2012, Java was one of the most important and wanted programming language, in particular for client-server based applications, with more than 10 million users. Java has become the most important part of performance operations for lots of applications and websites. Without Java being installed, it might not be able to run or operate them, as it provides much secure, speed and efficiency. The Java programming language is an authentic and object-oriented high level language. This language evolved from a language called Oak, which was developed in early 90s as a mode of communication involved in entertainment appliances such as video games animation also in VCRs. Java is also addressed as interpreted language because of its byte code, which is created by the compilation of source code. This compiled source code is interpreted by JVM and is then converted to a machine dependent code which is also called as Native code. The High-level programming language of Java is characterized by all of these following listed buzzwords: Simple Architecture neutral Object oriented Portable Distributed High performance Interpreted Multithreaded Robust Dynamic Secure With most programming languages, you either collate or depict a program so that you can run it on your computer. But, Java is particularly designed to reduce the number of dependencies as less as possible, during the process of implementation. The Java programming language is unusual, wherein a program is both compiled and interpreted. With the compiler, first program is first translated into an intermediate language called Java byte codes -the platform-independent codes interpreted by the interpreter on the Java platform. The interpreter determines and runs each Java byte code instruction on the computer. Compilation happens just once; interpretation occurs each time the program is executed. The following figure illustrates how this works. Description: g1 Fig: 3.3 .1 Java is an Object oriented Programming concept which guides us to the core ideas concepts behind object-oriented programming such as: Objects, messages, classes and interests. A clear picture of what are they, why you would want to write one and how to write is described clearly using the interfaces inheritance, which are few among those object-oriented concepts of Java. You can think of Java byte codes as the machine code instructions for the Java Virtual Machine (Java VM). Every Java interpreter, whether its a development tool or a Web browser that can run applets, is an employment of the Java VM. Java byte codes help make write once, run anywhere possible. The program can be congregated into byte codes on any platform that has a Java compiler. The byte codes can then be run on any implementation of the Java VM. That means that as long as a computer has a Java VM, the same program written in the Java programming language can run on Windows 2000, a Solaris workstation, or on an iMac. Description: helloWorld Fig: 3.3.2 The Java Platform A platform is the hardware or software environment in which a program is set to run. The makers construct applications to match the actual requirements of users. An application may be created to provide service for one user at a time, many users at once or even to serve users at different locations at any given time. This platform of Java apprehends the various challenges that are generally faced by the developers and gives out a proposal of various choices of different technologies based on necessity of users needs. The two important aspects of this Java platform are the Java runtime environment (JRE) and the Java Development Kit (JDK). The Java runtime environment when equipped on to a computer provides the operating system with the means to run the programs of Java, whereas Java Development Kit is the combination of the tools that are being used by a programmer creating the Java based applications. The Java platform versions contain additional Java APIs for generating various types of applications such as Java Standard edition, Java Enterprise Edition Java Micro Edition. Java standard edition (Java SE) helps in creating desktop applications applets. Basically this application is created to serve small number of users at once. Java enterprise edition (Java EE) is mended for complicated applications to make it more suitable for both medium and large business units, and this is designed as server based application so as to focus on serving the needs of more number of users at a time. Java Micro Edition is implemented on mobile and entrenched devices such as PDA, Printers, tuner box, Cell phones, etc. Weve already mentioned some of the most popular platforms like Windows 2000, Linux, Solaris, and MacOS. Most platforms can be characterized as an amalgamation of the operating system and hardware. The Java platform varies from most other platforms in that its a software-only platform that runs on top of other hardware-based platforms. The two components of Java platform are: The Java Virtual Machine (Java VM) The Java Application Programming Interface (Java API) Java VM is already introduce in previous sections as a base for the Java platform and is ported onto various hardware-based platforms. The Java API is a huge assembly of ready-made software components that contributes many useful capabilities, such as graphical user interface (GUI) widgets. The Java API is grouped into libraries of related classes and interfaces; these libraries are known as packages. The next section answers, What Can Java Technology Do? This Section highlights what functionality some of the packages in the Java API will provide. The following figure given below depicts a program thats running on the Java platform. As the figure shows, the Java API and the virtual machine shields the program from the hardware. Description: g3 Fig: 3.3.3 Native code is code that after the completion of compilation, the compiled code is further processed or run on specific hardware platform. As a platform-independent environment, the Java platform is relatively slower compared to that of native code processing. However, smart compilers, well-tuned interpreters, and just-in-time byte code compilers combination would perform very close to that of native code without menacing the portability. What Can Java Technology Do? The most common types of programs written in the Java programming language are applets and applications. If browsed through net for related data, it makes it much easier and reliably familiar with applets context. An applet is a program that sticks to particular type of conventions that allow the Java enabled browser to run the applications faster. However, the Java programming language is not just for writing cute, entertaining applets for the Web. The general-purpose, high-level Java programming language is also a powerful software platform. The generous API can also be used to write different types of programs. Being a strong and most used programming language in day to day activities, the features gained by implementation of Java platform are development tools, Application programming interface (API), deployment technologies, user interface toolkits integration libraries. These features provide all necessary tools needed for compiling, running, monitoring, debugging, and documen ting the applications. API was the key provider of core functionality which provided a vast cluster of useful classes ready for implementation in the users applications. The core concept of API is extremely wide so as to provide the different classes that are very much necessary for creation of an applet and the further classification of these applets were used to communicate with the applet contexts. It also helped in providing the standard mechanism for extending the applications to the end users. To make the creation of complicated Graphical User Interface more simple, user interface toolkits were used such as Swing Java toolkits. To have an easy access to the database and collaboration of remote objects integration libraries feature was used. An application is a stand-alone program that runs directly on the Java platform. A special kind of application known as a server serves and supports clients on a network. Examples of servers are Web servers, proxy servers, mail servers, and print servers. Another specialized program is a servlet. A servlet can almost be thought of, as an applet that runs on the server side. Java Servlets are a prevailing choice for building most interactive web applications, by replacing the use of CGI scripts. Servlets are much similar to applets, where in the only difference between these two is that they are runtime extensions of applications. Instead of working in browsers, the servlets run within Java Web servers, configuring or tailoring the server. How does the API support all these kinds of programs? It does so with packages of software components that provides a vast options for the functioning of applications. Every full implementation of the Java platform gives you the following features: The essentials: Objects, strings, threads, numbers, input and output, data structures, system properties, date and time, and so on. Applets: The set of conventions used by applets. Networking: URLs, TCP (Transmission Control Protocol), UDP (User Data gram Protocol) sockets, and IP (Internet Protocol) addresses. Internationalization: This helps in writing the programs that can be locally available for all the users worldwide. Programs can automatically adapt to specific locales and can also be displayed in the appropriate language according to the user requirements. Security: Both low level and high level, including electronic signatures, public and private key management, access control, and certificates. Software components: Known as JavaBeans, can plug into existing component architectures. Object serialization: This feature allows the lightweight persistence and communication via Remote Method Invocation (RMI). Java Database Connectivity (JDBCTM): Provides uniform access to a wide range of relational databases. The Java platform also has different types of APIs that includes 2D and 3D graphics, accessibility, servers, collaboration, telephony, speech, animation, and more. The following figure depicts what is included in the Java 2 SDK. Description: gs5 Fig: 3.3.4 Java Technologys Impact on Users: Even though Java technology cannot promise its users the fame, fortune, or even a job, it helps the users to learn the Java programming language. Java technology is one of those programming languages which has wide acceptance all over the world, with its huge amount of important and robust features. Still, it is likely to make the programs better and requires less effort than other languages which simplifies the process of understanding and implementing Java technology without any complications and confusions. Wide variety of dynamic, completely secured and safe independent applications can be created by implementing Java, which is the main reason behind that gradual and rapid increase in the number of users; and it is also believed that Java technology will help in doing the following functions/actions more effectively: Get started quickly: Java being a user friendly programming language, it is very easy to write and understand. As the programming doesnt need any pointers or memory to be managed explicitly, highly secured applications can be used without any interruptions. Although the Java programming language is a powerful object-oriented language, its makes the program or application easy to learn, especially for programmers already familiar with C or C++. Write less code: Comparisons of program metrics (class counts, method counts, and so on) suggest that a program written in the Java programming language can be four times smaller than the same program in C++. Different rules of OOPs (Object Oriented Programming) like inheritance, encapsulation, and polymorphism are followed during the processing/ while running the operation which makes Java different from other languages such C and C++. Write better code: The Java programming language encourages good coding practices, and its garbage collection helps you avoid memory leaks. Its object orientation, its JavaBeans component architecture, and its wide-ranging, easily extendible API let you reuse other peoples tested code and introduce fewer bugs. Develop programs more quickly: Your development time may be as much as twice as fast versus writing the same program in C++. Why? You write fewer lines of code and it is a simpler programming language than C++. Avoid platform dependencies with 100% Pure Java: You can keep your program portable by avoiding the use of libraries written in other languages. The 100% Pure Java Product Certification Program has a repository of historical process manuals, white papers, brochures, and similar materials online. Write once, run anywhere: Because 100% Pure Java programs are compiled into machine-independent byte codes, they run consistently on any Java platform. Distribute software more easily: You can upgrade applets easily from a central server. Applets take advantage of the feature of allowing new classes to be loaded on the fly, without recompiling the entire program. ODBC Communicating with remote objects distribute over the network is set through the Java programming. It contains all required data base in its libraries with sources such as RMI and CORBA which are very much essential to develop any network applications. All Primary data types can be considered as objects using covering classes to make Java a dully Object oriented, wherein class is considered a basic unit of Java and Objects are the entities which follow the prototypes that are defined by class. Java applications are more reliable in different ways. It helps compile time checking to identify at early stages the causes of bugs, run time checking, eliminated the use of pointers which can usually cause the corruption of memory or unnecessary access of memory, waste/garbage collection management to free the unused memories automatically, barring handling to handle the situation at the time of occurrence of any error and a lot more. Microsoft Open Database Connectivity (ODBC) is a standard programming interface for application developers and database systems providers. Before ODBC became a defacto standard for Windows programs to interface with database systems, programmers had to use proprietary languages for each database they wanted to connect to. Now, ODBC has made the choice of the database system which is highly irrelevant from a coding perspective, which is as it should be. Application developers have much more important things to worry about than that of which syntax is needed to port their program from one database to another when business needs that sudden change. Through the ODBC Administrator in Control Panel, one can specify the particular database that is associated with a data source, wherein a ODBC application program is written to use. Think of an ODBC data source as a door with a name on it. Each door will lead the users to a particular database. For example, the data source named Sales Figures might be a SQL Server database, whereas the Accounts Payable data source could refer to an Access database. The physical database referred to by a data source can reside anywhere on the LAN. The ODBC system files are not installed on users system by Windows 95. Rather, they are installed when the user setup a separate database application, such as SQL Server Client or Visual Basic 4.0. When the ODBC icon is installed in Control Panel, it uses a file called ODBCINST.DLL. It is also possible to conduct the users ODBC data sources through a stand-alone program called ODBCADM.EXE. There will be a 16-bit and a 32-bit version of this program and each of them are maintained as a separate list of ODBC data sources. From a programming perspective, the beauty of ODBC is that the application can always be written to use the same set of function calls to interface with any data source, irrespective of the database vendor. The source code of the application doesnt change whether it negotiates to Oracle or SQL Server. The only two examples that can be used at this point are as follows. There are ODBC drivers available for various dozen popular database systems. Even Excel spreadsheets and plain text files can be changed over into different data sources. The operating system implicates the Registry information written by ODBC Administrator to determine which low-level ODBC drivers are needed to talk to the data source (such as the interface to Oracle or SQL Server). The loading of the ODBC drivers is transparent to the ODBC application program. In a client/server environment, the ODBC API even controls many of the network issues for the application programmer. The advantages of this scheme are various, this make the users to think that there must be some catch. The only disadvantage of ODBC is that it isnt as efficient as talking directly to the native database interface. ODBC has had various detractors make the charge that it is too slow. Microsoft has always proved that the critical factor in performance is the quality of the driver software that is used. In our humble opinion, this is true. The availability of good ODBC drivers has improved a great deal recently. And anyway, the criticism about performance is somewhat analogous to those who said that compilers would never match the speed of pure assembly language. Maybe not, but the compiler (or ODBC) gives users that opportunity to write cleaner programs, which means the users can finish their programming sooner. This faster compilation of program or application makes the computers get faster every year. Java Database Connectivity (JDBC) JDBC is a Java-based data access technology from Sun Microsystems. . In an accomplishment to set an independent database standard API for Java; Sun Microsystems developed Java Database Connectivity, or JDBC. This technology is an API for Java programming language that characterizes how a user gets access to the database. This connectivity offers various methods for challenging and updating the data into the users database. Aside from being easy to write, using the JDBC API, it is robust, secure, and automatically downloadable. Also, JDBC automatically appreciates these benefits of Java, by virtue of being written in Java. JDBC is determined towards relational databases, and this bridge of JDBC ODBC accredits the connection to any other ODBC accessible data source in the actual JVM host ambiance. JDBC provides a comprehensive SQL database access mechanism that offers a dependable interface to a variety of RDBMSs. This consistent interface is gained through the use of plug-in database connectivity modules, or drivers. If a database vendor chooses to have JDBC support, he or she must provide the driver for each platform that the database and Java can use to run the application. To gain a wider acceptance of JDBC, Sun based JDBCs framework on ODBC. As you discovered earlier in this chapter, ODBC has widespread support on a variety of platforms. Basing JDBC on ODBC will allow vendors to bring JDBC drivers to market much faster than developing a completely new connectivity solution. JDBC was announced in March of 1996. It was released for a 90 day public review that ended June 8, 1996. Because of user input, the final JDBC v1.0 specification was released soon after. The remainder of this section will cover enough information about JDBC for you to know what it is about and how to use it effectively. This is by no means a complete overview of JDBC. That would fill an entire book. JDBC concedes multiple applications to exist and to be used by the same application. To support this, API allows a mechanism for dynamically filling the reliable Java packages, followed by registering them with the driver manager of JDBC. Driver manager acts as a connection factory for developing different connections of JDBC. There are different sets of drivers for JDBC, which are client-side adapters, which is already equipped on to client system, and not on the server. These drivers then convert the requests from Java programs to a detailed protocol that can be easily understood by Data-Base management system (DBMS). These drivers of JDBC are further classified into commercial and free drivers that are easily applicable for most of the relational database servers. The drivers usually fall into one among these types: Type 1 which calls the native code of locally available ODBC driver.

Tuesday, August 20, 2019

Causes And Impact Of Global Warming

Causes And Impact Of Global Warming The global warming means that our plants temperature rises which happened as a result of the human activities and industries. Global warming has become perhaps the most complicated issue facing the world leaders in order to protect the planet and the future .The earth has warmed by about 1Â °F over the past 100 years. Why it is happened The scientist in the past decades was not sure, but now they know that the most prominent cause being man-made pollution. This pollution happened because of the human activities that produce carbon dioxide or as known greenhouse gas, which traps heat within the atmosphere of the earth and contributes to global warming which is yet another. Large part of the pollution is happened because of burning the fuels in order to power the internal combustion engine vehicles and as we know that the number of the cars , trainers , ships the air planes are increasing day by day without widespread alternative energy sources which actually increase the effects on the global warming . Burning coal to produce electricity as well as use it to move the trains is another meaning of fossil fuels that produce more carbon dioxide. On the other hands, the scientist found that the main cause of global warming is the human. The human attributed in increasing the carbon dioxide by their normal requirements such as breathing process, food, electricity and transport, but these requirements are increasing day by day, by the increasing in the number of the population that live in our planets. The agriculture contributes in global warming because the farmers use many different types of fertilizers and the dung produced by cattle which produce prominent source of methane that affect the atmosphere. The global warming has many complications and has a huge affects in the earth. It threatened the human life the quality of life in the direct and indirect way. Many statistics show that the number of chronic diseases and lung diseases has been increase comparing with the last decades which is associated directly to the global warming. The changing in the food supplies, water and the weather is the indirect way impact on global warming which leads the humans to be uncomfortable and threatened about his essential needs and requirements. Similarly, the global warming has affected the other living things such as animas plants and the increasing in the temperatures cause many animals species to lose their habitat like polar bears and tropical frogs. The animal migration patterns have been irregular and hugely affected by changing in the climate. Animal extinction is the most serious result of global warming , According to the Intergovernmental Panel on (IPCC), an increase in global temperature by 1.5 to 2.5 degrees will make 20 to 30 percent of species vulnerable to extinction, while a rise of about 3.5 degrees will make 40 to 70 percent species vulnerable to extinction. On the other hand, the global warming impact on non living thing. The global cause change on the natural terrain characteristics of the earth such as the sea level to be rise several meters which leads to cause many of the low lying areas to submerge underwater and which could displace millions of people. In Maldives, is already starting to look for a new home because of sea levels rising .Melting huge amount of ice such as whole of the Antarctic ice sheet melts may cause the global sea level is expected to rise by 10.5 meters. Also , The acidic rain and the climate affect the agriculture and the human architecture. The Acidic rain is resulted from combination of carbon dioxide with the rain which cause a massive crop failures over time . Moving the sands and the desert to the living area is another cause of global warming which usually called deforestation especially in the tropical forests for wood, pulp, and farmland. All of these factors has been contributed in 90% chance that 3 billion people worldwide will have to choose between moving their families to milder climes and going hungry due to climate change within 100 years. Because of previous affects of the global warming , many scientists argue about the issue of climate change , some was thinking that it is a very slow process and it need years and years to affect directly the human life and be threatened .Other opinion was a against this opinion and they consider that they forget that the factors which cause global warming are rapidly rising and if we could not control it now at the present time it will be difficult to control it in the future and they expected that these factors will rise at a faster rate in the future. I think that we have already done enough damage to our planets , and we may not live to face the direct consequences of global warming , but it is our duty to protect our planet now and control our activities in order to reduce the global warming or until the scientist find an efficient , working solution for global warming . It is our duty to gift a safty, healthy planet for our grand grand children and to the future generation . Also it is their right to have a healthy safe planet similar to thats belongs to our grand fathers . First: how global warming affects the UAE in particular The global warming has been noted in all the countries in the whole world including the UAE . The global warming affects the UAE in many ways . It cause an increase in the temperature which affect the agriculture and the life under the sea . Recently , the UAE News was warning the people from consuming some type of fish because its already dead by the phenomenon of red tides that attacks the UAE beaches specifically in Dibba Al Fujairah . This phenomena not only kill the fish but it also affect the human overall health because it cause respiratory irritation like coughing, sneezing, and tearing when the red tide organism is present along a coast . The global warming also cause the desertification where more sand move into living areas and affect the movement and transportation of peoples . Desertification may affect the agricultural crops because the tons of sands buried the crops plants . On the other hand , the UAE regions could significantly increase temperatures because of global warming which may affect the tourism in the UAE and influence the economy. In detail , the UAE economy depend mostly in the tourists and tourism , so any change or decrease on the total number of tourist that will cause a decrease in the financial income and economical problems . The UAE life , despite being quite a small population , is contributes produce high amount of carbon dioxide which increase the global warming. The statistics of the UAE show that the increase in CO2 emissions is within the range of 33% and 35% between 1997 2006 and this precentage may increase in the next years (Energy Information Administration. , 2008). The UAE has one of the highest carbon footprints on a per capita tonne basis in the world. In fact, four of the worst offenders are from the GCC Qatar, UAE, Bahrain and Kuwait. (Global warming could displace millions in the Middle East , 2008) Second : What should we do here what is the role of the UAE What should the UAE do Because of the high percentage carbon dioxide , the UAE governments and people should cooperate together in order to reduce the outcome gases and control its impact on the global warming . Recently , UAE has become a member in the earth hour and encourage people to switch off the electricity for 1 hour in order to reduce carbon dioxide gas which at least will help to reduce the affect on the global warming . UAE do not view the earth hour as only electricity shut down, but they also view it as a chance to educate the people about the global warming and the importance of the cooperation to solve this problem , so as we observe from last couple weeks , many people from different age and gender were worry for the mother earth and they involve in the earth hour . In 27th of January 2009 , the UAE signs statute establishing the International Renewable Energy Agency, IRENA , the purpose of this agency is to focus in renewable energy is one of the key solutions to the current challenges facing the worlds energy future and the global warming . Many countries are involve in IRENA and they foster the production and use of renewable energy through different approaches. The UAE believe on the importance of energy as a main driver for the economic growth and they trust that renewable energy is crucial to the worlds future safety . The UAE governments launched the Estidama Program and the Pearls green building rating system which would become integrated into the building code and the launch of the Emirates Green Buildings Council . The Estidama Program can be considered as an important step towards low carbon emission buildings in the UAE which buildings plays a key role in protecting the environment, reducing energy consumption and checking on energy efficiency . This would help to improve the energy usage and the water required for cooling properties in the hot summers. Similarly to Estidama program , the UAE government started to develop the worlds greenest city in Abu Dhabi . The government started before several years to find a friendly way to produce the energy with minimum amount of gases , zero waste city, a silicon valley for renewable energy. Masdar city will be the global home of Renewable Energy .This city focuses on the complete value chain of the renewable energy sector and claims once ready , it will be a carbon neutral place to live where no cars will be allowed to enter. Masder is the new clean future for our next generation and it is the model to encourage other cities to follow . Masder support the human right believe in the future generation rights , so it is very unique , modern idea . The government of UAE encourage the renewable energy and believe that it is the future . The solar-hydrogen energy system is one of the newest energy that used in the UAE , in order to reduce the pressure on the oil usage and to find new technology that is friendly to our environment . The government put many precious awards to encourage the people and the companies to use this clean energy source . Zayed Future Energy Prize Awards is one of the biggest energy awards that encourage the clean, alternatives energy use inside our country and the prizes reach up to $1.5 million Dollar. All of this awards are reflect the view of our governments which summarize in few words when HH General Sheikh Mohammed said In commemoration of this humanitarian approach, the award was established to recognize and motivate creative minds and innovators in the field of renewable energy, with the ultimate purpose of maintaining a healthy and clean environment for future generations, The UAE government put many Policies and legislations to reduce the energy demand . For example , the government put many roles to reduce the number of the cars use in the streets by increasing the fuel prices . In Dubai , and recently Abu Dhabi started to put fees in some parking which is usually lied in the middle of the cities . There is something new called Salik which is means in Arabic open or clear , and it is the latest generation technology in tolling, working without battery , it is like the street fees which is mainly purpose to avoid the traffic jam and reduce the number of vehicles , so the amount of the gases will be reduce especially in the main streets . Also , the governments in the UAE try to reduce the burning the fuels by encouraging the population to use the big buses rather than the private cars . In Dubai , for example , the governments try to reduce the number of the cars by building the Metro which connect multiple places in the city , and they are thinking now to connect all the UAE cities together in order to reduce the total number of cars in the country and make the transportation more easy safe . What about us the people role in the UAE is very important in spreading the awareness about the global warming . Understanding and believing of the problem is the first steps . The mother earth give us everything we need for life and its is very important to give her back by protecting her and stop the damage . The people role is to spread the knowledge through the awareness campaigns and Media . We have to teach ourselves and our children how to reduce our carbon foot prints in order to avoid the global warming from being very serious problem . I think what the UAE government does now is very important, because they believe on protecting our planet , but I think it is not enough to make a huge reduction in the bad outcomes gases . UAE government should increase the fees on the public taxies and private cars , so this will encourage the people to use the public buses or the metro . Also , they should be more strict on the laws policies regarding the manufactories because it usually produce high amount of toxics . The recycle process should be a law and not a suggestion and any manufacture do not follow have to pay fees or even close it because the environment and its effect on our health is more important than production items . The people and government should cooperate in order to get the high benefits . Conclusion : Summary support the thesis + opinion . My notes : IT is still not enough , tax for the private car , In the UAE, and as an important oil producer with the fifth largest proven oil reserves in the Middle East, we also believe on the importance of energy as a main driver for our economic growth and sustainable living. UAE trust that renewable energy is crucial to the worlds future prosperity. Abu Dhabis Plan 2030 establishes a clear vision for sustainability as the foundation of any new development occurring in the Emirate and capital city of Abu Dhabi. This commitment is a reflection of the values and ideals of our nation. The tenets of sustainable living in the Middle East is the guiding force behind Estidama. More than just a sustainability program, Estidama is the symbol of an inspired vision for governance and community development.

Monday, August 19, 2019

Americans Motivation to Work Essay -- Labor Supply Economics

American's Motivation to Work The majority of Americans get up each morning and go to work in order to earn money. But what are the true motivators for working and where do they come from? How do wage rates and other forms of compensation affect the quantity of labor supplied to the market? This essay will discuss how labor effects the economy. Each person working plays a role in society and production output. These are areas that need to be addressed when the supply of labor is being discussed. The motivation to work arises from a variety of social, psychological and economic forces. People need income to pay their bills, feel that they have a role in society and also feel a sense of acheivement. Although there is always a choice, that is not working and not getting paid. People choose between labor and leisure according to the percieved rewards of each. The marginal utility of labor reflects the satisifaction to be gained from added income, as well as any direct pleasure a job may provide. A worker compares these satisfactions with those of leisure and chooses the one that yeilds the greatest utility for available time and wage rates. As it may seem obvisous to some, the more a worker gets paid, the more encouragement that worker has to work more hours and produce more output. Thus, higher wages may increase the marginal utility of an hour's labor, this being a substitiute for labor. But it can also have the opposite effect. This being that if a wor...

Sunday, August 18, 2019

Ralph Waldo Emerson and Transcendentalism Essay -- Biography Biographi

Ralph Waldo Emerson and Transcendentalism      Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Ralph Waldo Emerson believed in the potential within every individual to achieve a heightened state of being and awareness through a close observation of the world and an introspective look at himself. Infused in his work are the influences of transcendentalism and his life as a Unitarian pastor. James D. Hart, when discussing the spirit of transcendentalism, states, "Man may fulfill his divine potentialities either through a rapt mystical state, in which the divine is infused into the human, or through coming into contact with the truth, beauty, and goodness embodied in nature and originating in the Over-Soul. Thus occurs the doctrine of correspondence between the tangible world and the human mind, and the identity of moral and physical laws" (Hart 674). This concept is the embodiment of Emerson's sermons and essays, and any one of his works fulfills or inspires a divine potential.    "Self Reliance," published in 1841, is one of Emerson's most influential essays, and its title addresses a central concept of American Transcendentalism. The essay promotes self trust and independence of the individual, and this idea is expressed in the final lines, "Nothing can bring you peace but yourself. Nothing can bring you peace but the triumph of the principal" (Lauter 1638). The principal he refers to is a moral truth that can only be developed in one's own mind. As man lives in search of this truth, he achieves human divinity. "There is a time in every man's education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance; that imitation is suicide; that he must take... ... and divine because nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind" (Lauter 1624).    Works Cited    Emerson, Ralph Waldo. Young Emerson Speaks. New York: Kennikat Press Inc., 1938.    Hart, James D., The Oxford Companion to American Literature. 6th ed. New York: OxfordUniversity Press, 1995.    Howe, Daniel Walker. The Unitarian Conscience. Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1970.    Lauter, Paul, ed. The Heath Anthology of American Literature. 3rd ed. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1998.    Emerson, Ralph Waldo. "Self Reliance."Lauter 1622    Emerson, Ralph Waldo. "Nature."Lauter 1582    Whitman, Walt. "Song of Myself."Lauter 2743    Wilbur, Earl Morse. A History of Unitarianism In Transylvania, England, and America. Boston: Beacon Press, 1945.

Diana of the Crossways: A Novel :: Free Essays Online

Diana of the Crossways: A Novel Before reading Diana of the Crossways it is important to understand the facts surrounding the life of George Meredith, as corresponding elements can be found in many of his works. George Meredith was born on February 12, 1828 in Portsmouth. During his early years he faced several accounts of hardship. His mother died when he was hardly five years of age. Shortly after her death, George Meredith's father, Augustus, inherited a failing business and heavy debts from his own father. Augustus was forced to declare bankruptcy and travel to London to earn a living, leaving young Meredith in the care of relatives. At age fifteen, Meredith attended the Moravian school at Neuwied on the Rhine. He remained there for less than two years accounting for his only formal education. Meredith was apprenticed to Richard Stephen Charnock who introduced Meredith to his literary circle of friends. Among them were Edward Peacock and his sister Mary Ellen Nicolls. Mary Ellen Nicolls can be described as havi ng lively intelligence and wit. This seems to characterize many of Meredith's heroines. They married in 1849, but they had very little success as a couple. Since they were both intelligent and demanding they desired more from the relationship. In 1858 Mary Ellen Nicolls eloped with artist Henry Wallis ending her relationship with Meredith. From here, Meredith married his second wife Marie Vulliamy who was the contrast of Mary Ellen Nicolls. She was a very practical, domestic woman who was a good hostess and housekeeper. It is quite ironic that Meredith would desire a helpmeet relationship when all of his works surround the independent, headstrong woman. Meredith was an energetic man who would frequently toss around a weight nicknamed "the beetle" for exercise. In the 1870's Meredith began to develop symptoms of locomotor ataxia, which crippled him. In 1892 Meredith was elected president of The Society of Authors, a position that was previously held by Alfred Lord Tennyson. In 1905 h e was awarded the Order of Merit. Over the years, Meredith became increasingly disabled and deaf before passing away on May 18, 1909 (Casal, The Victorian Web). During his lifetime Meredith produced fifteen novels, eight poetry collections, and countless minor works; most of which are out of print today. His best work is characterized by brilliant insights, carefully chosen diction, and powerful imagery. Diana of the Crossways is rich and interesting with realistic characters that come alive for the reader.

Saturday, August 17, 2019

Recruitment and Army Essay

1.0 Opportunities and dangers to be considered by the Army in externalising the recruitment processes. a. Preston (2012 P.36) shows how the two-way process of recruitment ‘should be as much about the applicant finding out whether the business is right for them as about whether they are deemed acceptable by the business’. c. Having employment opportunities for the soldiers who are being made redundant will allow the knowledge and experience of ex-soldiers to remain forefront of recruitment helping recruiting the right person be more effective. An explanation by Preston (2012, P.36) tells us how if ‘appointees don’t fit then profitability is affected’; this key can show that the benefits of externalization will bring spending cuts by selecting only the right persons increasing retention. d. Being seen as ‘perverse’ is a danger because if the Army gives a bad image of high staff redundancies while spending highly on hiring this could be open to stereotypic views as Preston explains ‘Many people are deterred from entering certain professions because of general stereotypical images which exist in their society or culture’ (2012, P.38). Col Richard Kemp in the case study says how ‘previously using a civilian company was not a success’. This could have a detrimental impact upon future recruits if the civilian company cannot deliver what is expected. It will also have an  impact upon the Army’s image if it doesn’t work out the second time round. 2.0 Methods of selection and their advantages and disadvantages for selecting soldiers. Interviews – Used to understand key facts of the job and recruit for either parties and determine suitability to one another. This method is an opportunity the Army can utilize to lay out main facts of what they have to offer. It’s also a chance for the recruit to decide whether or not they are happy with the opportunities. The advantage to the Army using this method would remove unexpected expectation at an early stage reducing cost from training soldiers who realized it’s not what they thought at a later stage. The disadvantage however would be that interviews are seen as ‘too subjective to the individual and place a ‘cloud’ over an individual’s ability (Preston, 2012 P.43) Tests – Used to measure a person’s ability and aptitude relevant to the job. This Method would allow the Army to see suitability of potentials under set tests giving a further indication on whether the Army is a job the candidate is suitable for before subjecting them to full training further reducing cost at an earlier convenience. Preston (2012) also explains that this can also be a way to reduce inherent subjectivity of the interview method. This method has disadvantages of not being able to incorporate all what the Amy needs to see as some areas of the Army require more subjective tests. This can increase costs if at a later stage the applicant is found unable to cope with certain areas of the job and pulls out. Assessment Centre – Can show the applicant in certain situations relevant to the job. This shows the Army the recruits in a role play scenario or group activity which can indicate the applicant’s ability under a selection of techniques in multiple combinations. This can incorporate a more subjective assessment of the individual so it can be determined further whether the Army can offer a position to the recruit. This would help the Army in selecting those who are of correct skill level generating more quality recruits increasing retention. However the assessment centers only provide the Army with a short insight to certain scenarios as the Army is a specialized area of recruitment the individual cannot be seen faced with all possible problems the recruit may encounter as  a soldier. 3.0 Recommendations for organising induction and socialisation of newly hired soldiers to enhance retention. Induction is whereby a new recruit is welcomed into the organisation through a short term introduction to areas shown by Preston (2012, P45) like what their job description is, what’s expected of them or underlining policies and procedures. Such inductions are critical to the Army as it helps new recruits become accustomed to their surroundings and allows them to adopt the organisational culture and written rules helping them understand what is expected and what is accepted. Typical activities include group welcoming (showing videos), simple team working (to help get to know each other) and tours of the premises (to learn the surroundings). Socialisation is a long term process shown by Preston (2012) to ‘help understand in terms how the newcomer makes sense of the business and their role within it’. This would be of importance to help the Army ensure the recruits are following the correct procedures and polices but also helping to keep track of the recruit’s process ensuring they are settling in and managing well. To help the activities could include meetings to see the recruit’s progression, group socialising to help with settling, appraisals to show they are doing well and promotions to help encourage further progression. To help improve retention and reduce dropouts induction techniques recommended would be having already serving soldiers at a welcome day to have questions asked and stories from first hand experiences. As documented by Harding (2011) in the case study ‘the most effective recruiters were young soldiers who had already served on operations’. This could expel any rumors and help new recruits understand the demands of Army life at an early stage. This technique would also allow the introduction of policies and procedures and what to expect. Using mentoring as a socialising technique would give recruits quantitative information based on their progression into the business and how well they are integrating into the  role. This information can be persuading for new recruits to show them they are on the right track and doing well, resulting in increased momentum and a desire to keep going. As Preston (2012) says ‘socialisation is understanding how the newcomer makes sense of the business and their role within it’. Mentoring through the early stages can keep track of the recruit and provide them with the help and support to succeed in turn, reducing dropouts and increasing quality recruits. References: Harding T. (2011) ‘Army to pay civilian firm  £1bn to recruit new soldiers’ The Telegraph 11 October [Online]. Available at http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/defence/8819327/ Army-to-pay-civilian-firm- £1bn-to-recruit-new-soldiers.html (Accessed 1 September 2014). Preston, D (2012), An introduction to human resource management in business, Milton Keynes, The Open University. Prà ©cis: From the tutor group forum discussions I have learnt that there are many views on what people have in the work place. The work place HRM polices and business cultures can be dramatically different from business to business and different people have different views on them and how they incorporate them into their working lives. Activity 2.3 shown how businesses HRM polices and culture can mix well or clash badly as such Pauls Bourne shows how that if people of a work place buy into the ‘norm’ this can sometimes override what the HRM polices state resulting in problems. However that HRM polices should be a state of first call when people need to be reminded what is truly expected of them in the place of work. All the ideas coming together has taught me to think more logically about the place I work and how the business culture is upheld through normal behaviour of people through unwritten rules up to the policies and procedures in place to help maintain a uniformed business. Reference: Bourne P, (2014) ‘Activity 2.3 HRM and Culture’ The Open University 19 November 2014 [Online]. Available at https://learn2.open.ac.uk/mod/forumng/discuss.php?d=1210164 (accessed 25 November 2014).

Friday, August 16, 2019

The Growth Stage

The growth stage brings many challenges to blended value businesses, and one of the most significant concerning mission preservation involves changes in leadership during scaling, especially to the role of the founder. It is common in early-stage businesses for the founder to guide all aspects of the organization. When companies begin to grow, however, things start to change. From this moment onward, the involvement of the founder with the company must evolve as much as the firm itself does. At this point, formal governance systems and processes must be created to take the place of the informal ones employed during the start-up phase. The transfer of responsibility from the charismatic individual, the founder, to the governing board is one hallmark of a more substantial shift toward a more systemized, collaborative approach that needs to take place in all businesses as they grow (Clark, Emerson & Thornley, 2014). For social entrepreneurships, it can signal a dangerous moment for the social mission. Often the founder's leadership—his or her passion and vision—is what establishes the clear connection between the business and mission in the first place. As the leadership shifts from founder to governing board, new ways need to be found to embed mission in the systems that will provide direction for the business from this point on. Shifting leadership from founder to board can be a challenge for many types of organizations, but it may present a particular obstacle for social entrepreneurships. The figure of the founder looms large in the social impact world encouraged by a high number of prizes and programs aimed at individual entrepreneurs. Partly as a result of such well-meaning support efforts, some founders have risen to personal prominence alongside their blended value companies, becoming public faces for their businesses, ambassadors for their brand with high media, and field level visibility. At the growth stage, such over-emphasis on founders can create the conditions under which so-called founder's syndrome can arise.

Thursday, August 15, 2019

Athletes Are Not Above the Law

Should any athlete be judged on what kind of person he or she is on or off the field, court, or swimming pool? The answer is yes, athletes should be punished for actions which occur in their own personal lives. In today’s world, sport stars and other athletes are looked up to by all ages. Everyone loves them. They look great in the eyes of the everyday public. They appear on television; they perform like rock stars, and do this with the entire world watching. But do athletes’ responsibilities affect only his or her performance on the field of play or does it also extend to his personal life as well? There are many who claim that it is wrong for a sophisticated society to force a set of behavior expectations on people who just happen to do extremely well in sports. â€Å"I am not a role model† (I’m Not a, par 1). That statement was said by former National Basketball Association (NBA) player Charles Barkeley. Some other players agree with him, in the fact, they do not and don’t expect to be considered role models (I’m Not a, par. 1). But the truth is, whether they like it or not, they are role models to many young fans who watch their every move on and off the field, and models their lives after how their favorite player does. Athletes should be judged on their actions off the field. First, they are role models to millions of young fans. Secondly, athletes are not above the law and should not be treated that way. Finally, they are representatives of their team, school, sport, and countries. First of all, athletes should be judge for their actions off the playing field because they are the role models of millions of young fans. Great athletes are always in the eye of the public and media, and their actions are seen both on and off the field, sometimes even when they think nobody is watching such as Olympic Gold Medalist and swimming phenomenon, Michael Phelps. Phelps is looked at as a national hero for is world record breaking efforts in the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, and a role model to millions of young kids all over the world. Recently, he was caught in a photograph smoking marijuana. In our exclusive photo Michael Phelps, who won a record EIGHT gold medals for swimming at the Beijing games last summer, draws from a bong†(Dickenson). Even though, Phelps thought he was in a trusted environment, and the photographer showed a severe lack of class in taking the photograph, just for a little cash. Phelps was seen by millions of people and the young fans who adore him and should be punished for is illegal actions not only by the law but in his sport, as well, because of his responsibility as a role model in the eyes of his young fans. Because of his of his great accomplishment and the affect it brought upon his young fans to model their lives after Phelps, what will his fans say when they are offered to smoke marijuana? â€Å"I saw Michael Phelps do it, so it cannot be that bad,† and make a wrong decision because of the actions of their hero. Athletes should be accounted for their actions of the playing fields because the negative influence they could put in the hands of their young fans. Secondly, athletes are not above the law, and should be monitored on and off the field. There are no double standard rules for athletes when they are in trouble with the law. They are regular human beings, such as you and I, and we should all be treated equally in the court of law: They are not above the law, and it's at least satisfying to see them pay the consequences as well (some of the time) like the regular folk. But, even if they are drunk or sober, should we at least expect some decent conduct in their spare time. These guys are doing what some of us hope or used to hope, happen to us. That is to get the opportunity to make a great salary doing something we love for a portion of the year! I’m Not a, par. 5) Athletes are not superior to the rest of us; they are just as prone to the consequences of the law as you or me. Athletes are not above the law, and should not be treated that way. They are just regular people like everyone else, they just have this lime light over their head twenty-four-seven. Finally, athletes represent their teams, schools, sports, and countries with every action they make on and off the field. When wearing the colors of their school or country while doing an unlawful act, it will give that rganization a bad reputation of leniency and not being a serious institution. â€Å"Two 20-year-old Duke University lacrosse players were arrested early Tuesday on charges of raping and kidnapping a stripper hired to dance at an off-campus party†(Duke Lacrosse Players, par. 1). Even though, the accusations were false and later dropped; the scandal forced the coach to resign, brought shame upon the university and the team’s season to an early end. Therefore, athletes are ambassadors of their teams, schools, sports and countries and they represent them on and off the field. Athletes are role models to millions of young fans. Secondly, athletes are not above the law and should not be treated that way. Finally, they are representatives of their teams, schools, sports, and countries. For those reasons, athletes should be judged for their actions off the field. Great competitors are always in the eye of the media, and decisions could affect the lives of their fans, team members, coaches, and clubs. So they should strive to not be only outstanding athletes on the field, but outstanding citizens off the field. Work Cited http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5348321

Wednesday, August 14, 2019

Anne Fleche – the Space of Madness and Desire

Tennessee Williams exploits the expressionistic uses of space in the drama, attempting to represent desire from the outside, that is, in its formal challenge to realistic stability and closure, and in its exposure to risk. Loosening both stage and verbal languages from their implicit desire for closure and containment, Streetcar exposes the danger and the violence of this desire, which is always the desire for the end of desire. Writing in a period when U. S. rama was becoming disillusioned with realism, Williams achieves a critical distance from realistic technique through his use of allegory. In Blanche's line about the streetcar, the fact that she is describing real places, cars, and transfers has the surprising effect of enhancing rather than diminishing the metaphorical parallels in her language. Indeed, Streetcar's â€Å"duplicities of expression†(3) are even more striking in the light of criticism's recent renewal of interest in allegory. 4) For allegory establishes the distance â€Å"between the representative and the semantic function of language† (I89), the desire that is in language to unify (with) experience. Streetcar demonstrates the ways in which distance in the drama can be expanded and contracted, and what spatial relativism reveals about the economy of dramatic representation. Tennessee Williams' plays, filled with allegorical language, seem also to have a tentative, unfinished character. The metalanguage of desire seems to preclude development, to deny progress. And yet it seems â€Å"natural† to read A Streetcar Named Desire as an allegorical journey toward Blanche's apocalyptic destruction at the hands of her â€Å"executioner,† Stanley. The play's violence, its baroque images of decadence and lawlessness, promise its audience the thrilling destruction of the aristocratic Southern Poe-esque moth-like neuraesthenic female â€Å"Blanche† by the ape-like brutish male from the American melting-pot. The play is full in fact of realism's developmental language of evolution, â€Å"degeneration,† eugenics. Before deciding that Stanley is merely an â€Å"ape,† Blanche sees him as an asset: â€Å"Oh, I guess he's just not the type that goes for jasmine perfume, but maybe he's what we need to mix with our blood now that we've lost Belle Reve† (285). The surprising thing about this play is that the allegorical reading also seems to be the most â€Å"realistic† one, the reading that imposes a unity of language and experience to make structural sense of the play, that is, to make its events organic, natural, inevitable. And yet this feels false, because allegorical language resists being pinned down by realistic analysis — it is always only half a story. But it is possible to close the gap between the language and the stage image, between the stage image and its â€Å"double† reality, by a double forgetting: first we have to forget that realism is literature, and thus already a metaphor, and then we have to forget the distance between allegory and reality. To say that realism's empiricism is indistinguishable from metaphor is to make it one with a moral, natural ordering of events. Stanley is wrong and Blanche is right, the moralists agree. But the hypocrisy of the â€Å"priggish† reading is soon revealed in its ambivalence toward Blanche/Stanley: to order events sequentially requires a reading that finds Blanche's rape inevitable, a condition of the formal structure: she is the erring woman who gets what she â€Å"asks† for (her realistic antecedents are clear). For the prigs this outcome might not be unthinkable, though it might be — what is worse — distasteful. But Williams seems deliberately to be making interpretation a problem: he doesn't exclude the prigs' reading, he invites it. What makes Streetcar different from Williams' earlier play The Glass Menagerie (I944)(5) is its constant self-betrayal into and out of analytical norms. The realistic set-ups in this play really feel like set-ups, a magician's tricks, inviting readings that leave you hanging from your own schematic noose. Analytically, this play is a trap; it is brilliantly confused; yet without following its leads there is no way to get anywhere at all. Streetcar has a map, but it has changed the street signs, relying on the impulse of desire to take the play past its plots. In a way it is wrong to say Williams does not write endings. He writes elaborate strings of them. Williams has given Streetcar strong ties to the reassuring rhetoric of realism. Several references to Stanley's career as â€Å"A Master Sergeant in the Engineers' Corps† (258) set the action in the â€Å"present,† immediately after the war. The geographical location, as with The Glass Menagerie, is specific, the neighborhood life represented with a greater naturalistic fidelity: â€Å"Above he music of the ‘Blue Piano' the voices of people on the street can be heard overlapping† (243). Lighting and sound effects may give the scene â€Å"a kind of lyricism† (243), but this seems itself a realistic touch for â€Å"The Quarter† (4I2). Even the interior set, when it appears (after a similar wipe-out of the fourth wall), resembles The Glass Menagerie in lay-out and configuration: a ground-floor apartment, with two rooms separated by portieres, occupied by three characters, one of them male. Yet there are also troubling â€Å"realistic† details, to which the play seems to point. The mise en scene seems to be providing too much enclosure to provide for closure: there is no place for anyone to go. There is no fire escape, even though in this play someone does yell â€Å"Fire] Fire] Fire]† (390). In fact, heat and fire and escape are prominent verbal and visual themes. And the flat does not, as it seems to in The Glass Menagerie, extend to other rooms beyond the wings, but ends in a cul-de-sac — a doorway to the bathroom which becomes Blanche's significant place for escape and â€Å"privacy. † Most disturbing, however, is not the increased sense of confinement but this absence of privacy, of analytical, territorial space. No gentleman caller invited for supper invades this time, but an anarchic wilderness of French Quarter hoi polloi who spill onto the set and into the flat as negligently as the piano music from the bar around the corner. There does not seem to be anywhere to go to evade the intrusiveness and the violence: when the flat erupts, as it does on the poker night, Stanley's tirade sends Stella and Blanche upstairs to Steve and Eunice, the landlords with, of course, an unlimited run of the house (â€Å"We own this place so I can let you in† 48 ), whose goings-on are equally violent and uncontained. Stella jokes, â€Å"You know that one upstairs? more laughter One time laughing the plaster — laughing cracked — † (294). The violence is not an isolated climax, but a repetitive pattern of the action, a state of being – it does not resolve anything: BLANCHE I'm not used to such MITCH Naw, it's a shame this had to happen when you just got here. But don't take it serious. BLANCHE Violence] Is so MITCH Set down on the steps and have a cigarette with e. (308) Anxiety and conflict have become permanent and unresolvable, inconclusive. It is not clear what, if anything, they mean. Unlike realistic drama, which produces clashes in order to push the action forward, Streetcar disallows its events a clarity of function, an orderliness. The ordering of events, which constitutes the temporality of realism, is thus no less arbitrary in Streetcar than the ordering of spade: the outside keeps becoming the inside, and vice versa. Williams has done more to relativize space in Streetcar than he did in The Glass Menagerie, where he visualized the fourth wall: here the outer wall appears and disappears more than a half-dozen times, often in the middle of a â€Å"scene,† drawing attention to the spatial illusion rather than making its boundaries absolute. The effect on spatial metaphor is that we are not allowed to forget that it is metaphor and consequently capable of infinite extensions and retractions. As we might expect, then, struggle over territory between Stanley and Blanche (â€Å"Hey, canary bird] Toots] Get OUT of the BATHROOM]† 367 ) — which indeed results in Stanley's reasserting the male as â€Å"King† (37I6 and pushing Blanche offstage, punished and defeated — is utterly unanalytical and unsubtle: â€Å"She'll go] Period. P. S. She'll go Tuesday]† (367). While the expressionistic sequence beginning in Scene Six with Blanche's recollection of â€Å"The Grey oy† (355) relativizes space and time, evoking Blanche's memories, it also seems to drain her expressive power. By the time Stanley is about to rape her she mouths the kinds of things Williams put on screens in The Glass Menagerie: â€Å"In desperate, desperate circumstances] Help me] Caught in a trap† (400). She is establishing her emotions like sign-posts: â€Å"Stay back] †¦ I warn you, don't, I'm in danger]† (40I). What had seemed a way into Blanche's char acter has had the effect of externalizing her feelings so much that they become impersonal. In Streetcar, space does not provide, as it does in realistic drama, an objective mooring for a character's psychology: it keeps turning inside out, obliterating the spatial distinctions that had helped to define the realistic character as someone whose inner life drove the action. Now the driving force of emotion replaces the subtlety of expectation, leaving character out in space, dangling: â€Å"There isn't time to be — † Blanche explains into the phone (399); faced with a threatening proximity, she phones long-distance, and forgets to hang up. The expressionistic techniques of the latter half of he play abstract the individual from the milieu, and emotion begins to dominate the representation of events. In Scene Ten, where Blanche and Stanley have their most violent and erotic confrontation, the play loses all sense of boundary. The front of the house is already transparent; but now Williams also dissolves the rear wall, so that beyond the scene with Blanche and Sta nley we can see what is happening on the next street: A prostitute has rolled a drunkard. He pursues her along the walk, overtakes her and then is a struggle. A policeman's whistle breaks it up. The figures disappear. Some moments later the Negro Woman appears around the corner with a sequined bag which the prostitute had dropped on the walk. She is rooting excitedly through it. (399) The mise en scene exposes more of the realistic world than before, since now we see the outside as well as the inside of the house at once, and yet the effect is one of intense general paranoia: the threat of violence is â€Å"real,† not â€Å"remembered† and it is everywhere. The walls have become â€Å"spaces† along which frightening, â€Å"sinuous† shadows weave — â€Å"lurid,† â€Å"grotesque and menacing† (398-99). The parameters of Blanche's presence are unstable images of threatening â€Å"flames† of desire, and this sense of sexual danger seems to draw the action toward itself. So it is as though Blanche somehow â€Å"suggests† rape to Stanley — it is already in the air, we can see it being given to him as if it were a thought: â€Å"You think I'll interfere with you? Ha-ha] †¦ Come to think of it — maybe you wouldn't be bad to — interfere with†¦ † (40I). The â€Å"inner-outer† distinctions of both realistic and expressionistic representation are shown coming together here. Williams makes no effort to suggest that the â€Å"lurid† expressionistic images in Scene Ten are all in Blanche's mind, as cinematic point-of-view would: the world outside the house is the realistic world of urban poverty and violence. But it is also the domain of the brutes, whose â€Å"inhuman jungle voices rise up† (40I) as Stanley, snakelike, tongue between his teeth, closes in. The play seems to swivel on this moment, when the logic of appearance and essence, the individual and the abstract, turns inside-out, like the set, seeming to occupy for once the same space. It is either the demolition of realistic objectivity or the transition-point at which realism takes over some new territory. At this juncture â€Å"objective† vision becomes an â€Å"outside† seen from inside; for the abstraction that allows realism to represent truth objectively cannot itself be explained as objectivity. The surface in Scene Ten seems to be disclosing, without our having to look too deeply, a static primal moment beneath the immediacy of the action — the sexual taboo underneath realistic discourse: BLANCHE Stay back] Don't you come toward me another tep or I'll STANLEY What? BLANCHE Some awful thing will happen] It will] STANLEY What are you putting on now? They are now both inside the bedroom BLANCHE I warn you, don't, I'm in danger] (40I) What â€Å"will happen† in the bedroom does not have a name, or even an agency. The incestuous relation lies beyond the moral and social order of marriage and the family, adaptation and eugenics, not t o mention (as Williams minds us here) the fact that it is unmentionable. Whatever words Blanche uses to describe it scarcely matter. As Stella says, â€Å"I couldn't believe her story and go on living with Stanley† (405). The rape in Streetcar thus seems familiar and inevitable, even to its â€Å"characters,† who lose the shape of characters and become violent antagonists as if on cue: â€Å"Oh] So you want some roughhouse] All right, let's have some roughhouse]† (402). When Blanche sinks to her knees, it is as if the action is an acknowledgment. Stanley holds Blanche, who has become â€Å"inert†; he carries her to the bed. She is not only silent but crumpled, immobile, while he takes over control and agency. He literally places her on the set. But Williams does not suggest that Stanley is conscious and autonomous; on the contrary the scene is constructed so as to make him as unindividuated as Blanche: they seem, at this crucial point, more than ever part of an allegorical landscape. In a way, it is the impersonality of the rape that is most telling: the loss of individuality and the spatial distinctions that allow for â€Å"character† are effected in a scene that expressionistically dissolves character into an overwhelming mise en scene that, itself, seems to make things happen. The â€Å"meaning† of the rape is assigned by the play, denying â€Å"Stanley† and â€Å"Blanche† any emotion. Thus, the rape scene ends without words and without conflict: the scene has become the conflict, and its image the emotion. Perhaps Streetcar — and Williams — present problems for those interested in Pirandellian metatheatre. Metatheatre assumes a self-consciousness of the form; but Williams makes the â€Å"form† everything. It is not arbitrary, or stifling. Stanley and Blanche cannot be reimagined; or, put another way, they cannot be imagined to reimagine themselves as other people, in other circumstances entirely. Character is the expression of the form; it is not accidental, or originary. Like Brecht, Williams does not see character as a humanist impulse raging against fatal abstractions. (In a play like The Good Person of Setzuan, for example, Brecht makes a kind of comedy of this â€Å"tragic† notion — which is of course the notion of â€Å"tragedy. â€Å") Plays are about things other than people: they are about what people think, and feel, and yet they remove these things to a distance, towards the representation of thoughts and feelings, which is something else again. If this seems to suggest that the rape in Streetcar is something other than a rape, and so not a rape, it also suggests that it is as much a rape as it is possible for it to be; it includes the understanding that comes from exposing the essence of appearances, as Williams says, seeing from outside what we cannot see from within. At the same time, and with the same motion, the scene exposes its own scenic limitations for dramatizing that which must inevitably remain outside the scene — namely, the act it represents. Both the surface â€Å"street scene† and the jungle antecedents of social order are visible in the rape scene, thoroughly violating the norms of realism's analytical space. When Stanley â€Å"springs† at Blanche, overturning he table, it is clear that a last barrier has been broken down, and now there is no space outside the jungle. â€Å"We've had this date with each other from the beginning]† We have regressed to some awful zero-point (or hour) of our beginning. (A â€Å"fetid swamp,† Time critic Louis Kronenberger said of Williams' plays, by way of description. (7) We are also back at the heart of civilization, at its root, the incest taboo, and the center of sexuality, which is oddly enough also the center of realism — the family, where â€Å"sexuality is ‘incestuous' from the start. â€Å"(8) At the border of civilization and the swamp is the sexual transgression whose suppression is the source of all coercive order. Through allegory, W illiams makes explicit what realistic discourse obscures, forcing the sexuality that propels discourse into the content of the scene. The destruction of spatial oundaries visualizes the restless discourse of desire, that uncontainable movement between inside and outside. â€Å"Desire,† Williams writes in his short story â€Å"Desire and the Black Masseur† (I942-46), â€Å"is something that is made to occupy a larger space than that which is afforded by the individual being. â€Å"(9) The individual being is only the measure of a measurelessness that goes far out into space. â€Å"Desire† derives from the Latin sidus, â€Å"star† (â€Å"Stella for Star]† 250, 25I ); an archaic sense is â€Å"to feel the loss of†: the ndividual is a sign of incompleteness, not self-sufficiency, whose defining gesture is an indication of the void beyond the visible, not its closure. The consciousness of desire as a void without satisfaction is the rejection o f realism's â€Å"virtual space,† which tried to suggest that its fractured space implied an unseen totality. Realism's objectivity covered up its literariness, as if the play were not created from nothing, but evolved out of a ready-made logic, a reality one had but to look to see. But literature answers the desire for a fullness that remains unfulfilled — it never intersects reality, never completes a trajectory, it remains in orbit. The nothing from which literature springs, whole, cannot be penetrated by a vision, even a hypothetical one, and no time can be found for its beginning. As Paul de Man reasons in his discussion of Levi-Strauss' metaphor of â€Å"virtual focus,† logical sight-lines may be imaginary, but they are not â€Å"fiction,† any more than â€Å"fiction† can be explained as logic: The virtual focus is a quasi-objective structure osited to give rational integrity to a process that exists independently of the self. The subject merely fills in, with the dotted line of geometrical construction, what natural reason had not bothered to make explicit; it has a passive and unproblematic role. The â€Å"virtual focus† is, strictly speaking, a nothing, but its nothingness concerns us very little, since a mere act of r eason suffices to give it a mode of being that leaves the rational order unchallenged. The same is not true of the imaginary source of fiction. Here the human self has experienced the void within itself and the invented fiction, far from tilling the void, asserts itself as pure nothingness, our nothingness stated and restated by a subject that is the agent of its own instability. (I9) Nothingness, then, the impulse of â€Å"fiction,† is not the result of a supposed originary act of transgression, a mere historical lapse at the origin of history that can be traced or filled in by a language of logic and analysis; on the contrary fiction is the liberation of a pure consciousness of desire as unsatisfied yearning, a space without boundaries. Yet we come back to Blanche's rape by her brother-in-law, which seems visibly to re-seal the laws of constraint, to justify that Freudian logic of lost beginnings. Reenacting the traumatic incestuous moment enables history to begin over again, while the suppression of inordinate desire resumes the order of sanity: Stella is silenced; Blanche is incarcerated. And if there is some ambivalence about her madness and her exclusion it is subsumed in an argument for order and a healthy re-direction of desire. In the last stage direction, Stanley's groping fingers discover the opening of Stella's blouse. The final set-up feels inevitable; after all, the game is still â€Å"Seven-card stud,† and aren't we going to have to â€Å"go on† by playing it? The play's turn to realistic logic seems assured, and Williams is still renouncing worlds. He points to the closure of the analytical reading with deft disingenuousness. Closure was always just next door to entrapment: Williams seems to be erasing their boundary-lines. Madness, the brand of exclusion, objectifies Blanche and enables her to be analyzed and confined as the embodiment of non-being, an expression of something beyond us and so structured in language. As Stanley puts it, â€Å"There isn't a goddam thing but imagination] †¦ And lies and conceit and tricks]† (398). Foucault has argued, in Madness and Civilization, that the containment of desire's excess through the exclusion of madness creates a conscience on the perimeters of society, setting up a boundary between inside and outside: â€Å"The madman is put into the interior of the exterior, and inversely† (II). (I0) Blanche is allegorically a reminder that liberty if taken too far can also be captivity, just as her libertinage coincides with her desire for death (her satin robe is a passionate red, she calls Stanley her â€Å"executioner,† etc. . And Blanche senses early on the threat of confinement; she keeps trying perversely) to end the play: â€Å"I have to plan for us both, to get us both — out]† she tells Stella, after the fight with Stanley that seems, to Blanche, so final (320). But in the end the play itself seems to have some troub le letting go of Blanche. Having created its moving boundary line, it no longer knows where to put her: what â€Å"space† does her â€Å"madness† occupy? As the dialogue suggests, she has to go – somewhere; she has become excessive. Yet she keeps coming back: â€Å"I'm not quite ready. â€Å"Yes] Yes, I forgot something]† (4I2 4I4). Again, as in the rape scene, she is chased around the bedroom, this time by the Matron, while â€Å"The ‘Varsouviana' is filtered into a weird distortion, accompanied by the cries and noises of the jungle,† the â€Å"lurid,† â€Å"sinuous† reflections on the walls (4I4). The Matron's lines are echoed by â€Å"other mysterious voices† (4I5) somewhere beyond the scene; she sounds like a â€Å"firebell† (4I5). â€Å"Matron† and â€Å"Doctor† enter the play expressionistically, as functional agents, and Blanche's paranoia is now hers alone: the street is not visible. The walls do not disintegrate, they come alive. Blanche is inside her own madness, self-imprisoned: her madness is precisely her enclosure within the image. (II) In her paranoid state, Blanche really cannot â€Å"get out,† because there no longer is an outside: madness transgresses and transforms boundaries, as Foucault notes, â€Å"forming an act of undetermined content† (94). It thus negates the image while imprisoned within it; the boundaries of the scene are not helping to define Blanche but reflecting her back to herself. Blanche's power is not easy to suppress; she is a eminder that beneath the appearance of order something nameless has been lost: â€Å"What's happened here? I want an explanation of what's happened here. † she says, â€Å"with sudden hysteria† (407-8). It is a reasonable request that cannot be reasonably answered. This was also Williams' problem at the end of The Glass Menagerie: how to escape from the image when it seems to have bee n given too much control, when its reason is absolute? Expressionism threatens the reason of realistic mise en scene by taking it perhaps too far, stretching the imagination beyond limits toward an absoluteness of the image, a desire of desire. The â€Å"mimetic† mirror now becomes the symbol of madness: the image no longer simply reflects desire (desire of, desire for), but subsumes the mirror itself into the language of desire. When Blanche shatters her mirror (39I) she (like Richard II) shows that her identity has already been fractured; what she sees in the mirror is not an image, it is indistinguishable from herself. And she cries out when the lantern is torn off the lightbulb, because there is no longer a space between the violence she experiences and the image of that violence. The inner and the outer worlds fuse, the reflecting power of the image is destroyed as it becomes fully self-reflective. The passion of madness exists somewhere in between determinism and expression, which at this point â€Å"actually form only one and the same movement which cannot be dissociated except after the fact. â€Å"(I2) But realism, that omnivorous discourse, can subsume even the loss of the subjective-objective distinction — when determinism equals expression — and return to some quasi-objective perspective. Thus at the very moment when all space seems to have been conquered, filled in and opened up, there is a need to parcel it out again into clearly distinguishable territories. Analysis imprisons desire. At the end of A Streetcar Named Desire, there is a little drama. Blanche's wild expressionistic images are patronized and pacified by theatricality: â€Å"I — just told her that — we'd made arrangements for her to rest in the country. She's got it mixed in her mind with Shep Huntleigh† (404-5). Her family plays along with Blanche's delusions, even to costuming her in her turquoise seahorse pin and her artificial violets. The Matron tries to subdue her with physical violence, but Blanche is only really overcome by the Doctor's politeness. Formerly an expressionistic â€Å"type,† having â€Å"the unmistakable aura of the state institution with its cynical detachment† (4II), the Doctor †¦ takes off his hat and now he becomes personalized. The unhuman quality goes. His voice is gentle and reassuring s he crosses to Blanche and crouches in front of her. As he speaks her name, her terror subsides a little. The lurid reflections fade from the walls, the inhuman cries and noises die our and her own hoarse crying is calmed. 4I7) Blanche's expressionistic fit is contained by the Doctor's realistic transformation: he is particularized, he can play the role of gentleman caller. â€Å"Jacket, Doctor? † the Matron asks him. † He smiles †¦ It won't be necessary† (4I7-I8). As they exit, Blanche's visionary excesses have clearly been surrendered to him: â€Å"She allows him to lead her as if she were blind. † Stylistically, he, realism replaces expressionism at the exact moment when expressionism's â€Å"pure subjectivity† seems ready to annihilate the subject, to result in her violent subjugation. At this point the intersubjective dialogue returns, clearly masking indeed blinding — the subjective disorder with a assuring form. If madness is perceived as a kind of â€Å"social failure,†(I3) social success is to be its antidote. Of course theater is a cure for madness: by dramatizing or literalizing the image one destroys it. Such theatricality might risk its own confinement in the image, and for an instant there may be a real struggle in the drama between the image and the effort to contain it. But the power of realism over expressionism makes this a rare occasion. For the â€Å"ruse,† Foucault writes, â€Å"†¦ ceaselessly confirming the delirium , does not bind it to its own truth without at the same time linking it to the necessity for its own suppression† (I89). Using illusion to destroy illusion requires a forgetting of the leap of reason and of the trick it plays on optics. To establish order, the theatrical device repeats the ordering principle it learns from theater, the representational gap between nature and language, a gap it has to deny: â€Å"The artificial reconstitution of delirium constitutes the real distance in which the sufferer recovers his liberty† (I90). In fact there is no return to â€Å"intersubjectivity,† just a kind of formal recognition of it: â€Å"Whoever you are — I have always depended on the kindness of strangers. † Streetcar makes the return to normality gentle and theatrical, while â€Å"revealing† much more explicitly than The Glass Menagerie the violence that is thereby suppressed. This violence is not â€Å"reality,† but yet another theater underneath the theater of ruse; the cure of illusion is ironically â€Å"effected by the suppression of theater† (I9I). The realistic containment at the end of Streetcar hus does not quite make it back all the way to realism's seamlessly objective â€Å"historical† truth. History, structured as it is by â€Å"relations of power, not relations of meaning,†(I4) sometimes assumes the power of reality itself, the platonic Form behind realism, so to speak, When it becomes the language of authority, history also assumes the authorit y of language, rather naively trusting language to be the reality it represents. The bloody wars and strategic battles are soon forgotten into language, the past tense, the fait accompli. Useless to struggle against the truth that is past: history is the waste of time and the corresponding conquest of space, and realism is the already conquered territory, the belated time with the unmistakable stamp of authenticity. It gets applause simply by being plausible; it forgets that it is literature. To read literature, de Man says, we ought to remember what we have learned from it — that the expression and the expressed can never entirely coincide, that no single observation point is trustworthy (I0-II). Streetcar's powerful explosion of allegorical language and expressionistic images keeps its vantage point on the move, at a remove. Every plot is untied. Realism rewards analysis, and Williams invites it, perversely, but any analysis results in dissection. To provide Streetcar with an exegesis seems like gratuitous destruction, â€Å"deliberate cruelty. † Perhaps no other American writer since Dickinson has seemed so easy to crush. And this consideration ought to give the writer who has defined Blanche's â€Å"madness† some pause. Even the critical awareness of her tidy incarceration makes for too tidy a criticism. In Derrida's analysis of Foucault's Madness and Civilization, he questions the possibility of â€Å"historicizing† something that does not exist outside of the imprisonment of history, of speech — madness â€Å"simply says the other of each determined form of the logos. â€Å"(I5) Madness, Derrida proposes, is a â€Å"hyperbole† out of which â€Å"finite-thought, that is to say, history† establishes its â€Å"reign† by the â€Å"disguised internment, humiliation, fettering and mockery of the madman within us, of the madman who can only be a fool of a logos which is father, master and king† (60-6I). Philosophy arises from the â€Å"confessed terror of going mad† (62); it is the â€Å"economic† embrace of madness (6I-62) To me then Williams' play seems to end quite reasonably with a struggle, at the point in the play at which structure and coherence must assert themselves (by seeming to) — that is, the end of the play. The end must look back, regress, so as to sum up and define. It has no other choice. The theatrical ending always becomes, in fact, the real ending. It cannot remain metaphorically an â€Å"end† And what is visible at the end is Blanche in trouble, trapped, mad. She is acting as though she believed in a set of events — Shep Huntleigh's rescue of her — that the other characters, by their very encouragement, show to be unreal. There is a fine but perhaps important line here: Blanche's acting is no more convincing than theirs; but — and this is a point Derrida makes about madness — she is thinking things before they can be historicized, that is, before they have happened or even have been shown to be likely or possible (reasonable). Is not what is called finitude possibility as crisis? † Derrida asks (62). The other characters, who behave as if what Blanche is saying were real, underline her absurdity precisely by invoking reality. Blanche's relations to history and to structural authority are laid bare by this â€Å"forced† ending, in which she repeatedly questions the meaning of meaning: â€Å"What has happened here? † This question implies the relativity of space and moment, and so of â€Å"ev ents† and their meanings, which are at-this point impossible to separate. That is why it is important that the rape suggest an overthrow of meaning, not only through a stylized emphasis on its own representation, but also through its strongly relativized temporality. (Blanche warns against what â€Å"will happen,† while Stanley says the event is the future, the fulfillment of a â€Å"date† or culmination in time promised â€Å"from the beginning. â€Å") Indeed, the problem of madness lies precisely in this gap between past and future, in the structural slippage between the temporal and the ontological. For if madness, as Derrida suggests, can exist at all outside of opposition (to reason), it must exist in â€Å"hyperbole,† in the excess prior to its incarceration in structure, meaning, time, and coherence. A truly â€Å"mad† person would not objectify madness — would not, that is, define and locate it. That is why all discussions of â€Å"madness† tend to essentialize it, by insisting, like Blanche's fellow characters at the end of Streetcar, that it is real, that it exists. And the final stroke of logic, the final absurdity, is that in order to insist that madness exists, to objectify and define and relate to it, it is necessary to deny it any history. Of course â€Å"madness† is not at all amenable to history, to structure, causality, rationality, recognizable â€Å"though† But this denial of the history of madness has to come from within history itself, from within the language of structure and â€Å"meaning. † Blanche's demand to know â€Å"what has happened here† — her insistence that something â€Å"has happened,† however one takes it — has to be unanswerable. It cannot go any further. In theatrical terms, the â€Å"belief† that would make that adventure of meaning possible has to be denied, shut down. But this theatrical release is not purifying; on the contrary, it has got up close to the plague, to the point at which reason and belief contaminate each other: the: possibility of thinking madly. Reason and madness can cohabitate with nothing but a thin curtain between. And curtains are not walls, they do not provide solid protection. (I6) Submitting Williams' allegorical language to ealistic analysis, then, brings you to conclusions: the imprisonment of madness, the loss of desire. The moral meaning smooths things over. Planning to â€Å"open up† Streetcar for the film version with outside scenes and flashbacks, Elia Kazan found it would not work — he ended up making the walls movable so they could actually close in more with every scene. (I7) The sense of entrapment was fundamental: Williams' dramatic language is its elf too free, too wanton, it is a trap, it is asking to be analyzed, it lies down on the couch. Kazan saw this perverse desire in the play — he thought Streetcar was about Williams' cruising for tough customers: The reference to the kind of life Tennessee was leading rear the time was clear. Williams was aware of the dangers he was inviting when he cruised; he knew that sooner or later he'd be beaten up. And he was. (35I) But Kazan undervalues the risk Williams is willing to take. It is not just violence that cruising invites, but death. And that is a desire that cannot be realized. Since there is really no way to get what you want, you have to put yourself in a position where you do not always want what you get. Pursuing desire requires a heroic vulnerability. At the end of â€Å"Desire and the Black Masseur† the little masochistic artist/saint, Anthony Burns, is cannibalized by the masseur, who has already beaten him to a pulp. Burns, who is thus consumed by his desire, makes up for what Williams calls his â€Å"incompletion. † Violence, or submission to violence, is analogous to art, for Williams: both mask the inadequacies of form. Yes, it is perfect,† thinks the masseur, whose manipulations have tortured Bums to death. â€Å"It is now completed]†(I8) NOTBS I Tennessee Williams, A Streetcar Named Desire, in The Theatre of Tennessee Williams, vol. I (New York, I97I), 246. Subsequent references are to this edition and rear nod by page number in the text. 2 See Conversations with Tennessee Williams, ed. Albert J. Devlin (Jackson, Miss . , I986). 3 Paul de Man, Blindness and Insight: Essays in the Rhetoric of Contemporary Criticism, 2nd ed. , revised (Minneapolis, I983), I2. See de Man, Blindness and Insight, I87ff, where he outlines the critical movements in Western Europe and the U. S. that have thus â€Å"openly raise d the question of the intentionality of rhetorical figures† (I88). Among the critics he cites are Walter Benjamin, Roland Barthes, and Michel Foucault (to whose work I will turn later in this essay). Subsequent references to Blindness and Insight are noted by page number in the text. 5 Tennessee Williams, The Gloss Menagerie (New York, I97I). 6 Stanley is quoting Huey Long. 7 See Gore Vidal's â€Å"Introduction† to Tennessee Williams' Collected Short Stories (New York, I985) xxv. 8 Michel Foucault, The History of Sexuality, vol. I: An Introduction, trans. Robert Hurley (New York, I978), I08-9. 9. Tennessee Williams, â€Å"Desire and the Black Masseur,† in Collected Stories (New York, I985), 2I7. I0 Michel Foucault, Madness and Civilization: A History of Insanity in the Age of Reason, trans. Richard Howard (New York, I965). II. Ibid. , 94. I2 Ibid. , 88. I3 Ibid. , 259-60. Subsequent references are noted by page number in the text. I4 Michel Foucault, Power/Knowledge: Selected