Essay about Narrative Styles In Poe, Melville, Hawthorne

narrative styles in Melville’s Bartleby, Poe’s Arthur Gordon Pym, and Hawthorne’s The House of Seven Gables. How all three authors utilize a â€Å"conversational† tone for the function of their work. nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;In works by three of the most classically American authors of the nineteenth century, Melville, Poe, and Hawthorne, a trait that can be considered common to all three authors is pronounced clearly as a means to their narration. This trait is that of deploying a narrative laden with- and moreover led by –conversational phrasing and asides. The flow of passages in these authors’ works, Bartleby, Arthur Gordon Pym, and The House of Seven Gables, takes on a spoken structure, and numerous operations are made by each†¦show more content†¦This feature is then emphasized when the narrator, having finished his resume of Nippers and Turkey, begins his next passage as though backtracking through his speech (pg. 10): â€Å"I should have stated before that†¦Ã¢â‚¬  In The House of Seven Gables Nathaniel Hawthorne utilizes the conversational approach perhaps the most overtly of any of the three authors, at times situating the narration in the first person plural, which thereby has the effect of drawing an assumed commonality between the reader and the party of the narrator. Indeed his use of ‘we’ is scattered through the entire book, as in the passage (pg. 139): â€Å"We must not stain our page with any contemporary scandal, to a similar purport, that may have been whispered against the judge,† and the in this passage further on (pg. 139.): But it is too fruitful a subject, this of hereditary resemblances, -the frequent recurrence of which, in a direct line, is truly unaccountable, when we consider how large an accumulation of ancestry lies behind every man, at the distance of one or two centuries. We shall only add, therefore, that the Puritan- so, at least, says chimney-corner tradition, which so often preserves traits of character with marvelous fidelity –was bold, imperious, relentless, crafty†¦ †¦Whether the judge in any degree resembled him, the further progress of our narrative may show. Not only does Hawthorne’s use of we nominate an intimacy between the literary space betweenShow MoreRelated The American Renaissance Essay1168 Words   |  5 PagesAmerican Revolution. The American Renaissance literary style was coined as Romanticism, an international philosophical movement that redefined the perceptions of Western cultures, and seldom refers to the preconceived notions of love. Some important authors arising out of this era include: James Fenimore Cooper, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Harriet Jacobs, Emily Dickinson, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Edgar Allen Poe, and Herman Melville. These brilliant scholars herald with American literaturesRead More Comparing the Use of Light and Dark by Melville, Poe, and Hawthorne3135 Words   |  13 PagesUse of Darkness and Light by Melville, Poe, and Hawthorne Melville, Poe, and Hawthorne all tend to focus on the darker side of humanity in their writings. In order to allow their readers to better understand their opinions, they often resort to using symbolism. Many times, those symbols take the form of darkness and light appearing throughout the story at appropriate times. A reader might wonder how light functions in the stories, and what it urges the reader to consider. If we look carefullyRead MoreAnalysis Of Edgar Allan Poe s The Raven And The Pit Essay1155 Words   |  5 PagesThe author Edgar Allan Poe is one of the most recognizable in American literature both by name and by work. He is famous for such pieces of literature as The Raven and The Pit and the Pendulum. He is most notable for his virtual invention of the detective/mystery genre as well as, in part, that of the horror genre. During the time of his life and activity in the world of American literature, the country was being swept by a new variety of thought known as R omanticism. The inevitable result ofRead MoreSimilar Gothic Elements in the Work of Edgar Allan Poe and Nathaniel Hawthorne2436 Words   |  10 Pagesthe Work of Edgar Allan Poe and Nathaniel Hawthorne Nathaniel Hawthorne and Edgar Allan Poe are considered masters of American gothic fiction. They used similar gothic elements in their writing and used it to build up a sense of impending doom. Even today numerous readers enjoy, study, and discuss the gothic elements both utilized in their work. Gothic writing is a style that is concerned with the dark side of society, an evil that lies within the self. Poe and Hawthorne contributed stories whichRead MoreThe History of American Literature3501 Words   |  15 PagesRaleigh, Richard Hakluyt, Thomas Harriot, and John White had published accounts of discoveries. The writings of Captain John Smith, an explorer whose travels took him up and down the eastern seaboard of America, represent a shift from exploration narrative toward early history. Early histories, however, were written mostly by settlers rather than by explorers. William Bradford, the first governor of the Plymouth Colony, wrote his Of Plymouth Plantation from 1620 to 1647 . Another important historianRead MoreEarly American Literature Influenced by Religious Ideologies and Philosophies1769 Words   |  8 Pages1st person narrative and were against verbal ornamentation because they believed in simplicity above all else. They also believed that every human being is born sinful and that God’s grace was given freely to everyone. Olaudah Equiano was a puritan writer and in The Interesting Narrative of The Life of Olaudah Equiano portrays his love for God with, â€Å"Behold God is my salvation; I will trust and not be afraid†¦ Praise the Lord†¦Ã¢â‚¬  (Equiano 1). Equiano writes in thoughts and this narrative of his lifeRead MoreA Brief Introduction to American Literature3396 Words   |  14 Pagesand writers. Those American writers, while conquering this wild America, also had conquered the great field of American literature. From its first imitative activities to innovative attempts nowadays, American literature gradually gains its unique style, theme and form, and I ¡Ã‚ ¯m always excited to see their works are more and more America in its true sense. American literature is part of world ¡Ã‚ ¯s literature, however, it always has its unique flavor that cannot be easily ignored. Most critics holdRead MoreInfluences And Life Of A Tortured Soul1994 Words   |  8 PagesInfluences and Life of a Tortured Soul â€Å"Although dissolute in his personal life, when Poe touched pen to paper, he became a disciplined craftsman.† (Carnes 300). Edgar Allan Poe cemented his place in American literature by publishing countless poems and short stories, including â€Å"The Raven† and â€Å"Masque of the Red Death.† Poe effectively invented the detective fiction genre and perfected the horror story. His style, visionary as it was, was not with its influences. A life filled with tragedy, disappointmentRead MoreBrief Survey of American Literature3339 Words   |  14 PagesNative American oral literature / oral tradition - European explorers’ letters, diaries, reports, etc., such as Christopher Columbus’s letters about his voyage to the â€Å"New world†. - Anglo (New England) settlers’ books, sermons, journals, narratives, and poetry Native American / American Indian oral literature / oral tradition creation storiesï ¼Ë†Ã¨ µ ·Ã¦ º Ã§ ¥Å¾Ã¨ ¯ Ã¯ ¼â€° trickster talesï ¼Ë†Ã¦  ¶Ã¤ ½Å"å‰ §Ã¨â‚¬â€¦Ã¤ ¼  Ã¥ ¥â€¡Ã¯ ¼â€° rituals / ceremoniesï ¼Ë†Ã¥â€¦ ¸Ã¤ » ªÃ¯ ¼â€° songs / chantsï ¼Ë†Ã¦â€º ²Ã¨ ¯ Ã¯ ¼â€° Anglo Settlers’ Writings Highly religious and pragmatic - JohnRead MoreANALIZ TEXT INTERPRETATION AND ANALYSIS28843 Words   |  116 Pagescan give information and suggestions that may prove helpful. PLOT The Elements of Plot When we refer to the plot of a work of fiction, then, we are referring to the deliberately arranged sequence of interrelated events that constitute the basic narrative structure of a novel or a short story. Events of any kind, of course, inevitably involve people, and for this reason it is virtually impossible to discuss plot in isolation from character. Character and plot are, in fact, intimately and reciprocally

Literature Compare and Contrast - 1948 Words

Literature Compare and Contrast ENG 125: Introduction to Literature Instructor: December 19, 2011 Literature Compare and Contrast Stories and poems are both constructed differently and have their own meaning behind them. The authors have underlying messages that they are attempting to convey to the reader using their own characterization, style, setting and rhythm that is essentially used in for the purposes of the narrative. The wonderful thing about poems and stories is that they are created from ones imagination. Through their imagination we are able to use our won imaginations to not only read the storyline that is intended but feel it as well. It allows us to use the literary pieces to create a personal connection with the†¦show more content†¦Symbolism is a feature that poetry could not exist without as it is a main feature in the author portraying a story. Colors in a poem could symbolize something new and shiny or they could also symbolize something faded and worn. In the story â€Å"The Wizard of Oz† the â€Å"yellow† brick road is a path that the characters are facing. They color yellow carries much weight on the way the reader portrays they journey the character is about to take. Going down a road symbolizes choice. In Frosts story there are two roads which symbolize choices that may involve conflict or dilemma. In this poem the reader gets the impression that the character is facing two fates based on the path she takes. The two paths are further described when the author says â€Å"And both that morning equally lay in leaves no step had trodden black†. The color black symbolizes death which the reader could interpret that the character may be facing death. While there are choices in the paths that the character may take there is still the thought of the â€Å"unknown† destiny of each of these paths. Looking further into the symbolization of the writing the reader sees that the character is facing conflict with the choice of paths to take. The poem begins to give the impression that character has already made a choice, as mention is made of the character being on one path and opting to stay on that path for another day knowing how one mayShow MoreRelatedLiterature: Compare and Contrast - Literary Devices5483 Words   |  22 PagesLiterature: Compare and Contrast Literary Devices Kathy J. Shannon University of Phoenix Mickeal M. Donald, Instructor September 3, 2010 Compare and Contrast Literature offers a variety of literary works by authors of all ages, writing non-fiction and fictional stories, poetry, and essays. The act of analyzing two different authors by both comparing their work and isolating their contrasting elements, can be difficult, yet rewarding. 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In both cases, the narrators resist the initial urge to repress creativity and thought processes, but later become more in tune with their inner selves as they lose touch with the external reality, where societal expectations act as a heavy burden. Plath gradually utilizes her narrator toRead MoreWriting and Compare-and-contrast Essays1384 Words   |  5 Pagesï » ¿Compare and Contrast This type of writing assignment is common. On a standardized test, you may be asked to analyze literature, evaluate ideas, or make a judgment and explain your reasons. In responding to these types of prompts, you often will compare and contrast characters, concepts, or choices. You will be asked to identify similarities and differences, which are the key to compare-and-contrast essays. There are ways to organize your thoughts about compare-and-contrast topics, which willRead MoreIliad - Self image1193 Words   |  5 Pagestaken home, revised once and computer generated: double spaced, 12 point, three pages minimum, four pages maximum. ( see page three of this document, AP Literature and Composition Draft Requirements) Choose ONE of the following questions Include a List of Works Cited 1. Tragic Hero: â€Å"Achilles is the first great tragic hero in world literature.† Discuss the conflicts of Achilles as developed by Homer and how the author finally resolves them. 2. The Wrath of Achilles: The entire epic is framedRead MoreTheme for English by Langston Hughes and In the Inner City by Lucille Clifton802 Words   |  3 PagesSample Compare and Contrast Essay). In this description of his journey down the hill can you not see the images? This poem is chopped with imagery. 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Yum Chinye: A West African Folk Tale by Obi Onyefulu Read MoreCritical Criticism Of Huck Finn903 Words   |  4 PagesHuckleberry Finn is one of the most educationally required novel for students to read while in school. Although it is a very renowned piece of literature. It has received its fair share of extensive and bitter criticism. Back in the nineteenth century the book was most commonly described as coarse, vulgar, irreverent, and unrefined. For every negative review there is just as many positives, and whether it’s good or bad reviews Huckleberry Finn is one of the most controversial topics between literaryRead MoreComparison Between John Smith and William Bradford737 Words   |  3 PagesWilliam Bradford another pilgrim who arrived to Plymouth on the coast of Massachusetts, wrote a book called â€Å" Of Plymouth Plantation † in which he describes what really happened, how the pilgrims actually lived. The purpose of this essay is to compare and contrast both autho rs and their books. John Smith wrote about the wonderful place the New World was, on the other hand, William Bradford wrote about the realities and difficulties of the New World. In â€Å" A Description of New England †, Smith startsRead More Contrasting of Past with Present in Waste Land1104 Words   |  5 PagesContrast of Past with Present in The Waste Land      Ã‚   Eliot contrasts the past with the present in several ways throughout his poem, The Waste Land. The simplest of these is the simple juxtaposition of one or more descriptions of the present immediately before or after one or more descriptions of the past. The most obvious of these is section two, in which two descriptions of the present (lines 111-139 and 140-172) immediately follow a description of the past (lines 77-110). In this case, the

Critically Discuss the Role of Self-Control free essay sample

Self-control separates us from our ancient ancestors and the rest of the animal kingdom, thanks to our large prefrontal cortices. Rather than responding to immediate impulses, we can plan, we can evaluate alternative actions, and we can refrain from doing things well regret. We can also take advantage of these innately human abilities by developing wisdom and willpower. Neuroscientists often report that, although we have only one brain, we have two minds: one that works impulsively and seeks immediate gratification and another one that controls our impulses and delays gratification until we meet our future goals. When these two minds have competing goals, we face challenges related to the strength of our will. The writer and health psychologist at the University of Stanford, Kelly McGonigal, says strategies from her book entitled The WillPower Instinct: How Self-Control Works, Why It Matters, and What You Can Do to Get More of It and her themes include diet and weight loss, health, addictions, smoking cessation, temptations, procrastination, stress, exercise, self-remorse and shame. I will continue my essay by indicating some studies and their results. People behave differently when theyve ingested calories recently as opposed to when they havent. Less hungry organisms might be more patient, less punitive, and better able to concentrate on a task before them, for instance. This should seem intuitive to all of us who get really grouchy when we havent eaten in a while (as in the hungry people in commercials from the clever series of Snickers ads) and makes a lot of sense from the standpoint of thinking about how to design an organism that has many possible priorities. Hungry organisms should be expected to behave differently from full ones, generally shifting their attention and energy toward getting food, to the exclusion of other priorities. A new paper by Molden et al. o appear in Psychological Science, The Motivational versus Metabolic Effects of Carbohydrates on Self-Control, reports four experiments that put these ideas to the test. ‘In the first study, the authors wanted to address a shortcoming of prior work by using very accurate tools to measure glucose. Subjects fasted for four hours, had their blood glucose measured, performed a self-control task frequently used in this literature, and then had their blood glucose measured again. For the glucose model of self-control to be correct, the readings must be lower after the task than before. Not only did glucose not go down, but it went up (from 81. 7 mg/dL to 82. 39 mg/dL), though not statistically significantly. To connect this back to the key paper in this literature (cited 287 times, as of this writing), in that paper (Gailliot et al. , 2007), across four studies reported (for subjects who did not fast), glucose also went up about 1 mg/dL. So thats consistent with the prior results. It contrasts, however, with the report from that same paper of a drop of 5. 88 mg/dL, results from subjects who had fasted. This implies that there was indeed a problem with the measurement in that study, or there was some other problem with the data. In a second experiment, the authors drew on some studies from the exercise literature that there is in the paper in Evolutionary Psychology. In this work, it was found that merely rinsing with sugar solutions increases performance on physical activity (e. g. , bicycling), suggesting that increased performance on cognitive tasks might be due to the sensation of reward when one drinks a beverage with carbohydrates in it, rather than willpower fuel. ’ Molden et al used a similar procedure, having people complete a self-control task and then swish—but not swallow—solution with sugar or a non-sugar sweetener. Briefly, they found that swishing the glucose solution—but not the sweetener—yielded effects frequently seen in this literature, suggesting that that, just as in the exercise case, its the reward, not the glucose itself, thats affecting behavior. A third study replicated the second, the last study showed that swishing with the sugary solution doesnt give rise to more glucose in the blood. In sum, these data, as well as other sets of results, clearly show that exerting self-control does not, in fact, reduce glucose, a finding which is not surprising, given that it is consistent with what is known about brain metabolism. The results that apparently contradict this result, those reported by Gailliot et al (Study 1), might very well, it seems, be due to error in the measurement device, or some other factor. The findings that exerting self-control doesnt reduce blood glucose critically undermines the larger model, which turns on the idea that whatever the resource is, performing self-control task uses it up. If self-control tasks do not reduce blood glucose, then the reason for subsequent drops in self-control tasks cant possibly be due to a drop in glucose. The willpower is a useful definition to understand an abstract concept, but unlike the hysical strength, willpower is not something that anyone can practice. Or maybe is? It is commonly known that the practice of specific brain functions improves performance on projects that require the use of these functions. But unearthed some fascinating broader impact of cognitive training: recent research indicates that cognitive training can lead to improvemen ts in other aspects of life. A study that published in the journal Psychological Science, showed that daily brain training can help boost willpower and promotes healthy lifestyle choices in many ways. Researchers from the University of Amsterdam studied a group of alcoholics who had trouble controlling the automatic urge to consume alcohol. The researchers hypothesized that enhancing cognitive functions such as working memory, which is important for the maintenance and manipulation of information for prospective targets, could indirectly help alcoholics to control their impulses and drink less. To test this theory, the researchers divided the participants into two groups. The team completed 25 training sessions daily challenge of working memory involving exercises. Participants in the control group also completed daily exercises for working memory, but only performed the easiest level for each one. To test this theory, the researchers divided the participants into two groups. The team completed 25 training sessions daily challenge of working memory involving exercises. Participants in the control group also completed daily exercises for working memory, but only performed the easiest level for each one. The results showed that the training group improved their memory capacity and also consumed less alcohol than the control group. In addition, improvements were duration: one month later the group participants had even less education level of alcohol consumption compared with the control group. This research indicates that daily cognitive exercise can contribute to gains in lifestyle in addition to improving the functioning of the brain may contribute to the overall smarter decisions, which can sustain the body healthy. Both the mind and body derive from the same source of power. But what is the source? Matthew Gailliot, a researcher at the University of Amsterdam states that ‘the fuel of willpower is glucose. Somehow this is not surprising, since glucose is the dominant fuel material of our body. It is the same material used by skeletal muscles to exert their power and the same material that the brain uses for various projects. What is surprising is that willpower utilizes much of this material, even when the body is resting. According to Gailliot, ‘willpower is a costly mental energy, using many b rain areas and requiring high levels of glucose. ’ (Gailliot et al. 2007) The Gailliot and colleagues showed that self-monitoring simple actions require high levels of glucose. In one set of studies Gailliot, participants had to control their thoughts, feelings or behavior. Immediately after each self-energy, glucose levels in the blood of participants decreased. Glucose levels did not fall during similar projects in which the participants had no self control. Participants then were asked to repeat the actions of self. Those whose glucose levels had fallen more in the first exercise, had the worst performance in the second attempt. The participants were given a sugary drink between projects were more able to exert willpower during the second attempt. A recent publication in the journal NewScientist study conducted by psychologists at Florida State University, said that whenever a man enters the test to resist a temptation then exhaust and some of its stored power for temperance. For example, a man who follows a specific diet plan and frequently goes to the dilemma whether to succumb to the temptation to eat or not to eat a cake and break the diet, then every time a bit of exhaust stocks of temperance. The more often tucked into similar temptations, the more certain is that it will soon be rid of inhibitions. The researchers concluded that ‘every time we practice self-control we use some of the saved will power and it is required some time to complete the stocks again. ’ Perhaps this explains the fact that most people who follow for a first time a hypocaloric diet usually apply it more consistently, with each subsequent effort becomes increasingly difficult. In the same study, researchers found another conclusion. The people who had drunk one juice a few minutes before the imminent process of resistance exercise showed much greater ability continence than those who had not eaten anything or had consumed a beverage with sugar substitute. The glucose that is contained in the natural juice has been a key factor to increase the levels of abstinence before the sight of a tempting cake. Finally, the researchers concluded in another conclusion. The constant effort to reduce restraint stocks glucose to the brain so if there is constant replenishment of the body with glucose from natural sources such as fruits and natural juices then willpower is a matter of time run out with mathematical precision leading to a vicious cycle of bulimia episodes, guilt and stop dieting. For someone to train his willpower and self-control will have to exert just as we entered the process to develop the muscular system in a gym. Adopting clocked stable meals as described above is the first step in developing a sound nutritional awareness. Establishing a specific time to exercise, for example, every evening at 6 pm will create a new neural interface that would relieve the daily dilemma when to exercise or if you have the time to workout, leaving more room in willpower to be used for other potential dilemmas. If these goals are precise and not obscure or generally then increase the chances to be implemented. It is preferable to have in mind a positive outcome rather than bother with the fear of failure. The vision and focus on a positive outcome is the best strategy for achieving a goal. Imagine in a room hundreds of four year old children who enjoy delicious cookies and candy. Before they manage to enjoy the next cookie, the researcher offered two options: †¢ to immediately get one last cookie †¢ take two cookies, but if they wait 15 minutes. Can toddlers resist the sweet temptation and wait for 15 minutes, or are delivered to the immediate gratification of their appetites? This simple test of willpower and similar studies that followed in subsequent years, revealed the importance of self-discipline and self-control in children, and showed that these characteristics affect subsequent adulthood. Decades after the experiment with the sweet and having analyzed the data from the children, who participated, scientists have identified the underlying brain circuits responsible for willpower. Lets look at the details and conclusions of the experiment: Want a cookie? Nearly 40 years ago, more than 600 children participated in the experiment of sweets designed by psychologist Walter Mischel and his colleagues at Stanford University. ‘Sometimes researchers do not have enough time to finish their speech about the experiment and the children had already begun to eat candy or cookie,’ said neuroscientist BJ Casey from the Medical College Weill Cornell, which has taken part in several studies from this research. ‘But other four year managed to wait, playing or creating imaginary friends, so they were distracted. The researchers then noticed that many of the children who quickly succumbed to the temptation had lower school grades, higher body mass index and a slightly increased risk of substance abuse later. Casey called these children quickly gave in and did not succumb to the temptation as a ‘weakness’, while the other succumbed as ‘high r esistance’. ‘Of course, if you are in the group of weakness, you are not doomed to a life of poor quality. These results are the average of the whole group and not applicable for everyone,’ said Casey. ‘Personally, I think we need both types, high and low resistance. The high impedance is more methodical, while low resistance may be more prone but pay more attention to new or interesting things tempting. If you need investigators, the low resistances are the ones you want. ’ Individuals weakness could be said to be living in today, here and now, are creative, social, features live, become the focus of our attention. But for all that the price is the lack of preparation for tomorrow. Individuals high resistance geared for tomorrow, paving the way for future successes, saving economies and make healthy choices of activities. Naturally risking everything because there is a risk they expect to achieve in the future may not be ever! Mischel meet again the children of the experiment after 14 years, when they were teenagers and he spotted on their celebrities almost the same features. The ‘abstinent’ kids that had shown resistance to impulse, characterized them confidence, reliability and good performance in their courses, while ‘non-abstinent’ the professor found them to be stubborn and impulsive, with an average grade at test that the abstemious made†¦ In another study by Mischel and his colleagues found some tricks that could use small children to resist temptation. For example think of sweets like cookies or clouds as images. Probably next surveys will determine if educating people to pay attention to things that help them regulate their behavior, could help them defeat obesity or an addiction. In a recent study presented by Professor Philip Zimbardo, psychology at the annual meeting of the American Psychological Society, found that there is another important dimension to the ability or inability of the kid to ostpone immediate consumption of sweets. According to the American psychologist, the kids directly ate the sweets are captives of current needs, while those who postponed consumption is future-oriented and decisions taken for the long term. We all seem to have something inside us that guides our decisions, which is formed by a multitude of factors, such as family environment, our financial position, our level of education, the geographical area in which we grow and the culture to which we belong . According to Garavan, although it is difficult to define exactly what makes a man impulsive or cautious by looking his brain, age always brings changes and this gives researchers information. The front lobes are parts of the brain that matures last: they grow and change even during the decade of 20-30 years. This may explain the difficulty of adolescents to demonstrate self-control. But the elderly have the reputation that they have no inhibitions, especially as regards the expression of their views. Brain imaging studies have shown that with the passage of time more and larger areas required to maintain self-control, which means that as we age the system becomes less efficient and requires strengthening. The sex finally appears to play a role as men are more impulsive than women and even from an early age. Perhaps that explains the fact that boys exhibit more behavioral problems such as aggression or attention deficit and hyperactivity, compared with girls. Garavan ascribes this to the influence of sex hormones on the brain. Besides neurological, scientists have identified and physiological differences between compulsive and moderate people. Suzzane Segerstorm from the University of Kentucky found that people with greater ability to resist temptations showed a temporary increase in HRV (heart rate variability, an indicator of small variations in heart rate), which was followed by his fall. As there are people with higher HRV index, it is reasonable to assume that they pose for intrinsically greater capacity self. In terms of physiology, however, glucose levels in our blood seem to be crucial for maintaining the strength of our will. The granting of a sweet lemonade volunteers before exercise self-control, increased the chances of success than those who did not drink the lemonade or those where the lemonade instead of sugar was added artificial sweetener. This observation may explain why they fail grandiose plans: to stop smoking may require all reserves of self-control and not something left over for regular exercise and healthy eating. Given that all of the above shows that the strength of our self-control determined by biology, we can conclude that there is no reason to try to change what we have inherited. The researchers did not agree and explain that willpower is like our muscular system: open practice and improvement. Additionally it was found that if someone exercises self-control in one part of his life, the improvement will extend to several areas. What we have to do, researchers say, is a detailed written plan of objectives (found to the complete recording of the target dramatically increases the chances of implementation), to maintain high levels of glucose and attack!

Somalia Essays - Geography Of Somalia, ItalySomalia Relations

Somalia Somalia is a nation in eastern Africa. It is situated on the coast of the Indian Ocean and the Gulf of Aden, along the projection land known as the Horn of Africa. The region was famed in ancient times for its frankincense and myrrh, fragrant substances derived from trees. Modern Somalia came into being in 1960, with the union of the former colonies of British and Italian Somaliland. THE PEOPLE. The Somalis are thought to be descended from African and Arab peoples. Almost all speak the Somali language and practice the Muslim religion. Somalis have ethnic ties with peoples in neighboring Djibouti and in the Eritrea and Ogaden regions of Ethiopia. In addition to Somali, the official language, Arabic and some Italian and English are also spoken.(Somalia. Helen Metz. 1992). The majority of Somalis are nomadic or seminomadic herders of livestock, who travel long distances seeking pasture and water for their animals. About 25 percent of the population are settled farmers, who cultivate the limited areas of fertile soil. Their struggle for existence in an often inhospitable land has made the Somalis a strong and proudly independent people. (Africa Today. Raph Uwechue. 1991). THE LAND The far northern part of Somalia consists of hills and low mountains, which reach a height of about 8,000 feet. To the south and west is aregion of low plateaus. The chief rivers are the Webi Shebeli and the Juba. The land between them is the country's chief farming region. The southwestern part of Somalia is largely savanna, or grassland. About 25 percent of Somalia's total land is considered to be desert. Only about 13 percent is suitable for farming. Most of the rest is used for graze livestock. The climate is generally hot and dry. Average temperatures range from 75 to 88 degrees farinheit. Rainfall is often scarce and drought is a common occurrence. (Africa South of the Sahara. James Bennett. 1996). THE ECONOMY. Somalia's economy is based on livestock raising. Agriculture is second in importance. The raising of cattle, camels, sheep, and goats is the main occupation in the north. Bananas are the most important commercial crop grown. Exports of live animals, meat, and meat products, hides and skins, and bananas are the principal source of Somalia's income. The major food crops are corn, sorghum, rice, and beans. Somalia also grows sugarcane and is one of the world's few producers of frankincense and myrrh, used in making incense and some perfumes. Industry is limited. The chief manufactured products include refined sugar, canned meat and fish, and other processed foods, leather, and textiles. (Somalia. Helen Metz. 1992). HISTORY AND GOVERNMENT. Somalia was known to the ancient Egyptians for its sweet incense. Arabs arrived from the mainland of Asia in the 10th century, settling mainly along the coast. Large-scale European colonization of the region gegan in the late 19th century. The British established themselves in the north, in what became British Somaliland. the Italians established themselves in the south, which became Italian Somaliland. Britain gained control of Italian Somaliland in 1941, during the World War II. The region later became a trust territory of the United Nations. British Somaliland won independence on June 26, 1960. On July 1, 1960, it joined with the former territory of Italian Somililand to create the independent nation of Somalia. (Somalia. Helen Metz. 1992).

Using the Question Mark

Using the Question Mark Using the Question Mark Using the Question Mark By Guest Author This is a guest post by Steven Pittsley. If you want to write for Daily Writing Tips check the guidelines here. Although often taken for granted, the question mark can be used for more than ending a direct question. Really? Yes. The question mark was first seen in the eighth century when it was called the punctus interrogativus. There are many theories about the origin of the symbol, which has changed several times before settling on its current form in the eighteenth century. For example, the Latin word for question is quaestio, which was abbreviated to ‘Qo’ in the Middle Ages. It’s thought that the modern symbol represents the ‘Q’ placed over the ‘O’. Regardless of its origin, the question mark can be used in a variety of ways. One such use is to end a verb-less sentence. Although verb-less sentences may not be considered proper sentences in some circles, they are used quite frequently. Some examples include: What? When? Where? Really? Ending a tag question is another use for the question mark. A tag question is a statement that is followed by a question, such as: He left early, didn’t he? The recipe calls for one cup sugar, right? In a sentence containing a series of questions, you may include a question mark after each. Be careful with this type of writing. Although the use of a question mark is accepted, readers may find a long string of questions confusing. Who saw the victim last? Her husband? Her son? Her daughter? Which way are we supposed to turn at the corner? Right? Left? Two places where the question mark should not be used are at the end of indirect questions or courteous requests. Although these types of sentences may seem to be questions, they do not require the use of the question mark. I asked my son if there were any messages. Will you please reply as soon as possible. Although the choice to use the question mark us usually a fairly easy decision, some situations like these can make you think twice. You can follow Steven on Twitter @drumming4you. Want to improve your English in five minutes a day? Get a subscription and start receiving our writing tips and exercises daily! Keep learning! Browse the Punctuation category, check our popular posts, or choose a related post below:"Based in" and "based out of"Top 11 Writing Apps for iOS (iPhone and iPad)How to Style Titles of Print and Online Publications

Metaphor Definition and Examples

Metaphor Definition and Examples A metaphor is a  trope or figure of speech in which an implied comparison is made between two unlike things that actually have something in common. A metaphor expresses the unfamiliar (the tenor) in terms of the familiar (the vehicle). When Neil Young sings, Love is a rose, the word rose is the vehicle for the term love, the tenor. The word  metaphor  itself is a metaphor, coming from a Greek term meaning to transfer or carry across. Metaphors carry meaning from one word,  image, idea, or situation to another. Conventional Metaphors Some people think of  metaphors  as little more than the sweet stuff of songs and poems- such as love is a jewel, a rose, or a butterfly. But people use metaphors in everyday writing and speaking. You cant avoid them: They are baked right into the English  language. Calling a person a night owl or an early bird is an example of a common  or  conventional metaphor- one that most  native speakers  readily understand. Some metaphors are so prevalent  that you may not even notice that they  are  metaphors. Take the familiar metaphor of life as a journey. You can find it in advertising slogans: Life is a journey, travel it well.- United AirlinesLife is a journey. Enjoy the Ride.- NissanThe journey never stops.- American Express Many other categories  of metaphors enhance the English language. Other Types Metaphor types range from conceptual and visual to dead metaphors, which lose their impact and meaning due to overuse. (You might say, metaphorically, they are done to  death.) A specific type of metaphor is even used in psychological counseling. Following are the main types of this figure of speech: Absolute:  a metaphor in which one of the terms (the  tenor) cant be readily distinguished from the other (the  vehicle). Your Dictionary  notes that these metaphors compare two things that have no obvious connection but are joined to make a point such as: â€Å"She is doing a tightrope walk with her grades this semester.† Of course, she is not a circus performer, but the absolute metaphor- tightrope walk- clearly makes the point about the precarious nature of her academic standing. Complex:  a metaphor in which the  literal meaning  is expressed through more than one figurative term (a combination of primary metaphors). The website  Changing Minds  says that a complex metaphor occurs where a simple metaphor is based on a secondary metaphoric element, such as using the term light to indicate understanding, as in the sentence He  threw light  on the subject. Changing Minds also gives these examples: That lends weight to the argument.They stood alone, frozen statues on the plain.The ball happily danced into the net. Conceptual: a  metaphor in which one idea (or  conceptual domain) is  understood in terms of another- for example: Youre  wasting  my time.This gadget will  save  you hours.I dont  have  the time to  give  you. In the last sentence, for example, you cant actually have or give time, but the concept is clear from the context. ​Creative: an original comparison that  calls attention to itself as a figure of  speech. It is also known as a  poetic, literary, novel, or  unconventional metaphor, such as: Her tall black-suited body seemed to carve its way through the crowded room.- Josephine Hart, DamageFear is a slinking cat I find / Beneath the lilacs of my mind.- Sophie Tunnell, FearThe apparition of these faces in the crowd; / Petals on a wet, black bough.- Ezra Pound, In a Station of the Metro A body cant carve anything, fear is not a slinking cat (and no mind contains lilacs), and faces are not petals, but the creative metaphors paint vivid pictures in the readers mind. Extended:  a comparison between two unlike things that continues throughout a series of sentences in a paragraph or lines in a poem. Many lyrical writers use extended metaphors, such as this drawn-out circus image by a best-selling author: Bobby Holloway says my imagination is a three-hundred-ring circus. Currently, I was in ring two hundred and ninety-nine, with elephants dancing and clowns cartwheeling and tigers leaping through rings of fire. The time had come to step back, leave the main tent, go buy some popcorn and a Coke, bliss out, cool down.- Dean Koontz, Seize the Night Dead:  a figure of speech that has lost its force and imaginative effectiveness through frequent use, such as: Kansas City is  oven hot, dead metaphor or no dead metaphor.- Zadie Smith, On the Road: American Writers and Their Hair Mixed:  a succession of incongruous or ludicrous comparisons- for example: Well have a lot of new blood holding gavels in Washington.- Former U.S. Rep. Jack Kingston (R-Ga.), in the  Savannah Morning News, Nov. 3, 2010Thats awfully thin gruel for the right wing to hang their hats on.-   MSNBC, Sept.  3, 2009 Primary:  A basic intuitively understood metaphor- such as knowing is seeing  or time is motion- that may be combined with other primary metaphors to produce complex metaphors. Root:  An  image,  narrative, or fact that shapes an individuals perception of the world and interpretation of reality, such as: Is the whole universe a perfect machine? Is the society an organism?- Kaoru Yamamoto,  Too Clever for Our Own Good: Hidden Facets of Human Evolution Submerged:  a type of metaphor in which one of the terms (either the  vehicle  or tenor) is implied rather than stated explicitly: Alfred Noyes, The Highwayman The moon was a ghostly galleon tossed upon cloudy seas. Therapeutic:  a metaphor used by therapists to assist clients in the process of personal transformation.  Getselfhelp.co.uk, a British website that offers psychotherapy resources and information, gives this example of passengers on a bus: You can be in the driving seat, whilst all the passengers (thoughts) are being critical, abusive, intrusive, distracting, and shouting directions, or sometimes just plain nonsense.  You can allow those passengers to shout and chatter noisily, whilst keeping your attention focused on the road ahead, heading towards your goal or value. The metaphor aims to help present someone seeking help with a way to stay focused on whats important by shutting out distracting, negative thoughts. Visual: the representation of a person, place, thing, or idea by way of a visual  image  that suggests a particular association or point of similarity.  Modern advertising relies heavily on visual  metaphors. For example, in a magazine ad a few years ago for the banking firm Morgan Stanley, a man is pictured bungee jumping off a cliff. Two words serve  to explain this visual metaphor: A dotted line from the jumpers head points  to the word You, while another line from the end of the bungee cord points to Us. The metaphorical message- of the safety and security provided by the firm in times of risk- is conveyed through a single dramatic image. The Value of  Metaphors We need  metaphors,  James Grant wrote in his article Why Metaphor Matters published on OUPblog, a website operated by Oxford University Press. Without metaphors, many many truths would be inexpressible and unknowable. Grant noted: Take Gerard Manley Hopkins’s exceptionally powerful metaphor of despair: selfwrung, selfstrung, sheathe- and sheterless, / thoughts against thoughts in groans grind. How else could precisely this kind of mood be expressed? Describing how things appear to our senses is also thought to require metaphor, as when we speak of the silken sound of a harp, the warm colours of a Titian, and the bold or jolly flavour of a wine. Science advances by the use of metaphors, Grant  added- of the mind as a computer, of electricity as a current, or of the atom as a solar system. When  using metaphors  to enrich writing, consider how these figures of speech are more than just ornaments or decorative accessories. Metaphors are also ways of thinking, offering readers (and listeners) fresh ways of examining ideas and viewing the world. Source Noyes, Alfred. The Highwayman. Kindle Edition, Amazon Digital Services LLC, November 28, 2012.

Violent video games Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Violent video games - Research Paper Example They had not much opportunities other than playing games to spend their free time. However, teenagers of current era are getting more opportunities to spend their free time. The arrivals of computer, internet, television and mobile phones have brought immense opportunities to them. These channels or media offer many opportunities to play video games. It should be noted that playing some kind of games in the ground require some physical effort. On the other hand, not much physical effort is needed for playing videogames. That is why lazy modern generation is running after videogames. Two features of video games fuel renewed interest by researchers, public policy makers, and the general public. First, the active role required by video games is a double-edged sword. It helps educational video games be excellent teaching tools for motivational and learning process reasons. But, it also may make violent video games even more hazardous than violent television or cinema. Second, the arrival of a new generation of ultraviolent video games beginning in the early 1990s and continuing unabated to the present resulted in large numbers of children and youths actively participating in entertainment violence that went way beyond anything available to them on television or in movies. Recent video games reward players for killing innocent bystanders, police, and prostitutes, using a wide range of weapons including guns, knives, flame throwers, swords, baseball bats, cars, hands, and feet (Anderson) Some people argue that videogames help teenagers to increase their mental abilities and it should be encouraged as much as possible. On the other hand others are of the view that over influence of videogames may affect the physical, mental and emotional developments of teenagers. In do believe that playing excess videogames is not at all good for the teenage community. This paper argues against excessive playing of videogames with the help if arguments in favor and against videogame playing. â€Å"Gentile & Anderson (2003) state that playing video games may increase aggressive behavior because violent acts are continually repeated throughout the video game. This method of repetition has long been considered an effective teaching method in reinforcing learning patterns† (p.4). One of the major negative impacts of playing videogame is the development of aggressive behavior among the children. Anderson & Dill (2000) also pointed out the development of aggressive behavior among the teenagers as a result of excessive videogame playing. In their opinion, â€Å"long term video game players can become more aggressive in outlook, perceptual biases, attitudes, beliefs, and behavior than they were before the repeated exposure or would have become without such exposure† (Anderson & Dill, p.774). Aggressive behaviors are increasing day by day among teenage communities. It should be noted that in schools of western countries, plenty of shooting and violent inci dents are taking place periodically. On the other hand, such violent behaviors among teenage communities in the underdeveloped countries are less. This is because of the fact that teenagers in the developed countries are getting more opportunities to play videogames because of the

Memo's Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words - 1

Memo's - Essay Example Fundamental Company included; Ineffective interaction between the internal audit committee and the management, which limited the independency of the company’s internal audit committee; lack of formal manuals and auditing guidelines in accordance with the GAAP with respect to operational, budgeting and financial standard which resulted into over reporting of the financial records of the company; and inadequate financial reporting and accounting systems and processes which would enhance accuracy of the reports and increase the pace of auditing. NetLogic Microsystems, Inc. is a fabless semi-conductor corporation which develops, designs, and sells integrated processors and circuits mainly used in wireless and mobile infrastructure networks. In their financial and auditing report for the accounting period dated Feb. 15, 2012, the company reported a series of limitations in the auditing exercise. As highlighted by the audit committee, auditing process indicated flaws covering from management to financial projections. The internal audit control policy of NetLogic Microsystems is highly influenced by the senior management boards, thus limiting the independence and autonomy of the internal audit body. On the other hand, the audit committee identified the following material weaknesses in the internal control of NetLogic Microsystems, Inc: first, consolidated financial statement analysis and preparation weaknesses. In the fiscal period 2011, NetLogic Microsystems, Inc did revise its net cost allocation methodology to comply with th e GAAP. However, internal auditing report revealed that the proposed methodology of allocation failed to report major program costs. This prompted the officials to reconsider and revise net cost statement to present cost valuations. Besides, it was noted that Managements Discussion and Analysis (MD&A) contained irrelevant information and therefore were incorrectly accounted for

Building the 787 Essay Example for Free

Building the 787 Essay Boeing is an Aerospace science company and is the worlds most leading aerospace science company and is the largest manufacturer and producer of commercial and military aircrafts. Boeing creates and produces rotorcraft, electronic and defense systems, missiles, satellites, launch vehicles and advanced information and communication systems. A little known fact about Boeing is that they are a major services supply to NASA and Boeing helps to operate the International Space station. Boeings main corporate office is located in Chicago, Illinois and employs over 158,000 individuals throughout countries all over the world. Boeing also outsources some its manufacturing business to national and foreign countries. The main assembly hub is located in Washington at a place called Everett plant. Unlike other traditionally built jetliners, the 787 is about 20 percent lighter which saves fuel and lowers overall cost of travel because the jet is made of nearly 80 percent composite material. Along with the new lighter sleeker look, the 787 was redesign with better headroom, larger windows and electronics in the passenger cabinets as well as the flight deck. While this new undertaking seems to be business as usual, Boeing was actually changing the way it now built aircraft. Bousch (2010, December) said it best when he stated, with the 787, Boeing set out to do something revolutionary by tapping suppliers not only for materials, parts, and components, but also innovation. And in doing so, it set out not only to bring a new platform to market as quickly as possible, but also, ironically, to reduce business risk by reducing its dependence on its own operations. The newly developed 787 was to be first aircraft from Boeing manufactured almost exclusively through outsourcing. Almost 70 percent of the plane’s parts were built in other countries. According to Hill (2011), this was Boeing’s gamble that outsourcing would contribute to the huge costs of production while utilizing the expertise of worlds most efficient producers thereby driving down the costs of making the plane (p. 564). Additionally, Boeing thought that outsourcing the planes components would help reduce planes normal develop time of six years to four while building brand awareness and sales in the countries where manufacturing was performed. Boeings’ Risks associated with Outsourcing While Boeing had plenty of cost-cutting reasons for outsourcing nearly 70 percent of the 787 aircrafts manufacturing to 17 contractors in some 10 countries, I’m not sure the risk associated with such a huge amount of outsourcing was truly evaluated by Boeings management. This change in philosophy was evident by the fact that in the company’s past production of Boeing models 777, 767 and 707 some of its components were outsourced to companies around the globe, but not in any of those models was more than 50 percent sent to outside manufacturers. Nevertheless, the initial response to the 787 was tremendous. Mike Blair, Vice- President and General Manager of the 787 program declared, as July 31, 2007, 47 customers worldwide have ordered more than 683 airplanes worth more than $110 billion dollars at current list prices, making the 787 Dreamliner the most successful commercial airplane launch in history. And there’s more to come! (Aeromagazine (2007), p. 4). Those po sitive sentiments from Boeing didn’t last very long. Boeings’ efforts to be leaner and â€Å"cut out the fat† cause them to rely to heavily on key components to be delivered by outsourced contractors and suppliers. By December 2007, Boeing was starting to question its move to global outsourcing. Boeing’s most fierce competitor Airbus had already suffered from problems with delays due to outsourcing when it produced the Airbus A380 Super-Jumbo. With the company now experiencing breakdowns within the supply chain, final preparation and assembly was ultimately impossible. Boeing realized that it was more difficult than expected to navigate so many different suppliers and get required components to its assembly plant within a specified time to complete assembly. Scott Carson, Boeings executive vice president of commercial airplanes, put it succinctly: â€Å"It has simply proved to be more difficult than we anticipated to complete the structural work on the airplane out of sequence in our Everett, Washington factoryâ⠂¬  (Teresko, 2007, p. 1). As delays mounted, Boeing had to finally admit that the weak link in the production of the Dreamliner 787 was its global outsourcing. There were issues from the start that the public never knew about. Boeing overestimated there ability to have proper oversight over contractors. Some suppliers, outsource there work to other suppliers and some had difficulty getting approval and licensing to manufacture there products. The risk that Boeing took was one that could have backfired based on the fact that delays are continuing and in the end, this outsourcing relationship of manufacturers and supply chain management could whine up costing the company more than money. Is Boeing giving up its competitive advantage by outsourcing its core components to suppliers across the world? One would question whether this choice to outsource so much of its design and components and technology to the Japanese will eventually even the playing field. Newhouse (2007) claims that â€Å"Boeing developed much of the materials, manufacturing processes, tooling, tolerances and allowances, and other design features, which are then transferred to suppliers in Japan, Italy and elsewhere. Over time, institutional learning and forgetting will put the suppliers in control of the critical body of knowledge, and Boeing will steadily lose touch with key technical expertise† (p. 4). Newhouse goes on to say that Japanese suppliers are acquiring so-called core competences, hence giving up its competitive edge by outsourcing major parts of the Boeing 787 (p.4). Whatever the opinion, only time will tell if this systematic change of having suppliers and there governments absorb the financial risk will undoubtedly by the rise or fall of Boeing as the world foremost leader in commercial aircraft. Managing the Globally Dispersed Supply Chain By mid 2008 the Boeing 787 had out sold the Airbus A380 by almost 400 orders. The Boeing flagship aircraft was order by more than 50 airlines with orders totaling 857 worth more than 144 billion dollars. These orders, originally schedule to be delivered for May 2008 were now being pushed back to the end of the year due to what Boeing called delays in dealing with its global supply chain which have affectively crippled there assembly lines. It appears that Boeings undertaking was more than just attempting to change the assembly and supply chain processes but it attempt at changing the materials in which aircraft are made seemed daunting enough. The delays appear to be due in part because the supply chain had so many suppliers and contractors trying to protect their own financial investment that all parties eventually suffered from continued delays and wound up risking profits. The continued changing and late delivery dates inevitably cost Boeing and its suppliers billions of dollars. After almost three years the Boeing 787 is still missing its self imposed deadlines for deliveries. According to Cohan (2010), Boeing has missed deadline after deadline with the 787 program – six times over the last two-and-a-half years-and it now looks poised to do so for a seventh time (p.1). Scott Hancher, the Boeing 787 programs third director, seems incline to blame the delays on instrument changes and suppliers inability to properly install parts for the tail-wing. Regardless of his accusations, the 787 still needs to be tested by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) before there is any certification. Not all of blame is on the contractors and suppliers. Boeing knew that they were embarking on unprecedented ways to produce commercial aircraft and there engineers should have developed software that could predict how the aircrafts composite materials would hold up under the normal stresses of air travel. This inability to predict the safety of the plane caused problems with cracks in the plane and delays imposed by the FAA until they issues were resolved and the aircraft deemed safe for passenger travel. Boeing now appears to making the anticipated changes by taking on more work and responsibility to the supply chain in order to effectively manufacture and produce the 787 aircraft to the specifications of the FAA. In 2009 Boeing brought its Dreamliner operations from two of its suppliers that were said to have had the most problems along the supply chain. This change has stepped up production of parts because other suppliers have realized the financial drawbacks and possible lost of contracts. This has prompted quicker responses and resolutions that have fixed the flaws in the manufactured products. Boeing in there attempt to be innovative and to create a new market forgot that there largest competitor Airbus was continuing to grow its market and create opportunities from Boeings mishaps. We can only hope that Boeing follows Airbus as the second major aircraft developer to increase restrictions on contractors and require that they only outsource a small portion of work to Asian countries in an attempt to develop partnerships for production and possibly development. McInnes (2008) was correct when he asserted that with a consortium of EADS (owners of Airbus) and Northrop Grumman winning a 40 billion dollar order from the United States government to build 179 refueling aircraft for the US Air Force, Boeing could do good with just getting the 787 certified and get on with deliveries as soon as possible (p.4). Is Boeing’s Outsourcing essentially sending American Jobs Overseas? The question about outsourcing has many Americans worried that jobs are being shipped overseas where labor is cheaper. Boeing the world’s largest commercial aircraft producer has made outsourcing its primary means for development of its groundbreaking commercial aircraft, the Boeing 787 Dream-liner. In an unprecedented move, Boeing decided to outsource nearly 70 percent of the development and component manufacturing to suppliers and contractors around the world. With its primary assembly plant in Seattle, Washington area, Boeing and its employees are worried that this trend will continue and cost many of them their jobs. In a recent Seattle-Post Intelligencer poll, 80 percent of the pollsters thought that outsourcing overseas will hurt the economy in the long-term. Americans have reason to worry, it’s not none how many jobs have been lost overseas thus far but its believed that over 2 million service jobs will be lost in the next decade or so. According to Cook and Nyhan (2004), Perhaps no player in the local economy has sent more jobs overseas than Boeing.Skip navigation The company makes no excuses for sending work to South Africa, Italy, China, Russia and other far-flung parts on the globe and the company argues it has no choice. It must build planes with fewer and more productive workers to remain competitive (p.2). In an effort to cut cost and look for the best manufacturers and engineers at there craft Boeing feels there move to outsourcing was inevitable because it is the future of airplane development. This effort to compete has forced the hand on over 40,000 employees that have lost there jobs at Boeing since 2001 and have benefited countries like China and Russia where we seen as many as 5,000 new jobs created for engineers and those with aerospace technologies and manufacturing skills. Though opinion will continue to be varying when it comes to outsourcing, Boeings’ says the company is committed to a stab le workforce. He believes the red-hot success of the Dream-liner 235 firm orders so far goes a long way to validating the new outsourcing strategy. Without the ability to reduce the planes overall development costs and be able to sell at prices comparable to older jetliners, success would be far less assured (Holmes, 2006, p. 4). The approach by Boeing has caused much concern but for now has been profitable with the huge orders for the 787 Dream-liner. The true test will be when be when supply chain again fails to be dispersed efficiently and the cost increase with the manufacturing of an aircraft. Will this cause the destabilization of the American workforce? Will it decrease Boeings new dependency on using outsourced foreign technologies and manufacturing? These questions will not be answered until there is another downturn in which large companies again turn to outsourcing in an effort to reduce production cost to stay competitive. Reference Blair, M. (2007, August). Building the dream: Boeing 787.retrieved from: http//boeing.com/commercial/aeromagazine.com Cohan, P. (2010, July). Boeing 787 delays: will the seventh missed deadline be the last? Daily Finance. Retrieved from: http://www.dailyfinance.com/story/company- news/boeing-787-delays Cook, J. and Nyhan, P. (2004, March). Outsourcings long-term effects on U.S. jobs at issue. Seattle PI Business. Hill, C. (2010). International Business, 8th Edition. Irwin/McGraw-Hill/MBS. Holmes, S. (2012). Boeings Global Strategy. Bloomberg Business. Retrieved from:http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/06_05/ Newhouse, J. (2007, March).Boeing Versus Airbus: Flight Risk, Outsourcing Challenges. Retrieved from:http://www.cio.com/article/29096/Boeing_Versus_ Airbus_Flight_Risk_Outsourcing_Challenges_?page=3 Teresko, J. (2007, December). Boeing787: a matter of materials – special report: anatomy of a supply chain. Retrieved from: http://www.industryweek.com/articleid-15339showall=1 Boeing. (2010). History. Retrieved on August 24, 2012 from http://www.boeing.com/history/narrative/n001intro.html

Hidden Meaning in Laura Esquivel’s Like Water for Chocolate Essay

Hidden Meaning in Laura Esquivel’s Like Water for Chocolate   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚     Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Laura Esquivel’s novel, Like Water for Chocolate, is a contemporary novel based on romance, recipes and home remedies. Very little criticism has been done on the novel. Of the few essays that are written on this work, the majority of them consist of feminist critique. This novel would be most easily approached from a feminist view because of the intricate relationships between women. However, relationships between women are only one of the many elements touched upon in the novel. Like Water for Chocolate is a novel that uses recipes as a crypt for many important themes in the novel. Jaques Derrida defines crypt as something that, "disguise[s] the act of hiding and to hide the disguise: the crypt hides as it holds" (Derrida 14). The recipes are more than just formulas, they hold, concealed within them, memories. These crypts are revealed through food and the process of food production. Esquivel has personal ties with food and feels that the prod uction of food creates a center of the household. Tita, being the person most closely associated with food preparation in the novel, becomes the primary focus in the structure of her family. The crypts that Esquivel uses are opened throughout the novel in a variety of ways. Tita is constantly struggling against her mother, tradition and inevitably her own destiny. Along the way many aspects of her trials are revealed in her cooking. Eventually, Tita is able to free herself from the emotional chains that her mother has bound her. In the end her destiny is revealed, which in return sets her free from her struggles. Esquivel begins each chapter of the novel with a different recipe. The various recipe... ...rodic Consumption of Popular Romance Myths in Como Agua Para Chocolate." Latin American Literary Review. 24.48 (1996): 56-66. Esquivel, Laura. Like Water for Chocolate. Trans. Carol Christensen and Thomas Christensen. New York: Doubleday, 1992. Ibsen, Kristine. "On Recipes, Reading and Revolution: Postboon Parody in Como Agua Para Chocolate." Hispanic Review. 25 (1996): 133-146. Januzzi, Marisa. Laura Esquivel. "Like Water for Chocolate: A Novel in Monthly Installments, with Recipes, Romances and Home Remedies." Review of Contemporary Fiction. 13 (1993): 246-246. Loewenstein, Claudia. "Revolucion interior al exterior: An Interview with Laura Esquivel." Southwest Review. 79.4 (1994): 592-607. Valdez, Maria Elena. "Verbal and Visual Representation of Women: Como Agua Para Chocolate/Like Water for Chocolate." World Literature Today. 69.1 (1995):78-82.

Why I avoid social interaction

Over the last few days I have been trying to find out why I avoid social interaction. Usually, I don’t feel comfortable to meet new people. After meditating for sometime I found out that this problem was not an issue that came up in one single day but has developed over a number of years. I therefore went further to think about my past life and the experience that may have led to this kind of behavior. This essay analyzes these experience and their theoretical explanation using psychological eye. My mother is a teacher while my father is a doctor. They are both hardworking and have achieved a lot in their professionals. They always show me some of the medals they were awarded for their good performance in their respective institutions. Apart from that, I have attended and witnessed them receiving the awards. The most significant instances included a ceremony where may father was named the doctor of the year after carrying out a surgical operation which was thought to be too complicated and difficulty to perform. Just a month later, I witnessed my mother receiving a present as the teacher whose subject was best performed in that year. I was so moved by these two occasions that I promised to work hard and become a doctor like my father. One thing I didn’t like in these ceremonies was that particular moment when my parents introduced me to their friends. I was normally filled with fear and shyness. My parents also realized that I was having a very difficulty time whenever we attended such occasions. We all discussed about my problem. They told me that even when I was young I was not only afraid of strangers but also shy. They concluded by telling me that this reaction would not stop all of a sudden but would even continue in the future. They both agreed that this may be the reason why I was uncomfortable whenever I met new people. Back in my school, meetings were often held to evaluate the performance of the students. This was done to ensure that every student did well in examinations as well as to find out, if any, the problems why some students didn’t perform well. Those students who performed poorly in exams were punished and ridiculed. They were even nicknamed. On one particular day I was almost about to fall under this category of students. My parents were annoyed and cautioned me about the kind of friends I had in school. I was promised a present if I improved in school. I had to dedicate more of my time in studies. I used to spend most of my leisure time in watching movies and soaps. Though I didn’t like this at first, I had no alternative since my family and I had moved to this country in which I was quite unfamiliar with. I eventually came to love watching the T. V and currently I prefer this to going out and meeting new people. I usually spend most of the afternoon watching the TV and I have come to associate evenings with watching the TV. The presents my parents received motivated me so much that I had to set my personal goal of being like them or even doing better. A child personality is usually shaped by their personal interaction with their parents and forces which are unconscious. According to Maslow â€Å"the inner need to fulfill one’s potential† which he referred to as ‘self actualization’ is a process that continues all though one’s life. In other words, it is not only applicable to childhood but also across on individual’s lifespan (Slater A, Bremner G, 2003, pp. 57-58). I always felt I that I would only achieve ‘self actualization’ at that time when I will become a doctor and I had to give more time to my studies then going out to meet new people. Psychoanalytic theory (Maslow theory of self actualization) is the reason why I always worked hard to become a doctor. However the theory may not explain my behavior since I have already changed my mind about my future career and I no longer long to be a doctor. My parents’ explanation about my behavior can be traced to trait theories where our actions in childhood are supposed to be manifested even when we grow old. On the other hand this may not explain my behavior since not all what I did in my childhood is manifested in my current life situations (Ewen R, 1998, pp109). Watching some students being punished and humiliated in front of their schoolmates forced me to work even harder to avoid the same. My parents’ reaction to my poor performance and their promise to reward me mounted pressure on me to spend more time in studying. Social learning theory is the reason why I spend more time in books and discouraged me to meet new people. I learned how grievous it was to fail in school by â€Å"observing behaviors of others and outcomes of these behaviors† (Bandura A, 1977, pp. 21-23) However some of my classmates still go out to meet new friends and their performance in class is excellent. Others spend more time studying and perform poorly so this may not be the reason why I avoided social interactions. Watching the T. V came to be part of my life even though I didn’t like it at first. classical conditioning is the reason why I long for the evenings because I love to watch movies and songs. According to Pavlov P. , conditioning implies to that â€Å"process where neurological patterns become sufficiently established to make a response† and there must also be reinforcement (Cropps R, 1986, pp. 98). I no longer watch TV in the evening. From the theory of classical conditioning the evening can can be taken to represent the conditioned stimuli while the Tv soaps and movies represent the unconditioned stimuli. I enjoyed watching the Tv in the evening so much and an evening always reminded me of the soaps and movies. This theory may also not sufficiently explain my behavior because though I no longer watch the Tv in the evening, i still don't like going out to meet new people. All the theories discussed above do not sufficiently explain my behavior even though they may be part of the explanation. I still don't have a concrete explanation of my behavior up to date.

Critical Thinking Assignment Essay

Secular Humanism regarding the question of origin, seems to lean toward the determination â€Å"that matter has always existed and given enough time and chance, the end result is what you see around you today.† (Weider, Gutierrez 64). There is a lack of evidence that God exists and man is viewed rather as a machine, having no control over their existence and once man’s life has come to an end, this machine ends (65). Humanists answer questions of identity by believing that, â€Å"mankind is a product of evolutionary forces† (66). Mankind is viewed as a more refined animal, however mankind is not of higher quality over the animal kingdom. The answers to the question of meaning or purpose is, at best, answered on the basis of his or her importance (68). It is up to him or her to give any true benefit to their life, by making an impact in their life (69). Through this, they are able to make a clear and confident impact in another human beings life. However, since â€Å"man is a machine and ultimately not in control of what happens, life cannot have any real value or significance.† (69). Morality and ethics asks what is morally and ethically right versus wrong and how a human being should live, then God must exist to deliver what is right and wrong (71). That being so, secular humanism does not believe in a God, and nor does He exist. Secular Humanists believe that there is no â€Å"absolute truth†, and relies heavily on the fact that â€Å"truth is dependent upon the individual or society and is subject to change† (71). Secular Humanism is not worried about the question of destiny. Once a human being has passed on, all that matters is what they did do on this earth and making a difference in another person’s life (73). The Biblical/Christian worldview, in comparison to secular humanism on the question of origin, is through theism. (65). Through God, and under one God, everything exists. While the secular humanist has no belief in God and man has no control much like a machine, theism believes â€Å"God is the first cause, the answer to why there is something rather than nothing† (65). The question of identity through secular humanism believes  mankind and the animal kingdom are of equal value, the Biblical/Christian worldview believes that mankind is above the animals, and we are responsible to take care of them (69). While secular humanists place man and his purpose through impacting others in their lives, the Biblical/Christian worldview believes our purpose is having a personal relationship with God and His Son, Jesus Christ (70). While secular humanists have no mutual agreement on the question of morality, and reject â€Å"the absolute truth†, and depends on our society, the Biblical/Christian worldview bases morality or ethics through â€Å"Special Revelation† (72). The need for redemption must take place as we were all born in sin, and we can only be saved through Jesus Christ (72). Mankind is not concerned with destiny, through a secular humanist belief. Whereas, the Biblical/Christian worldviews on destiny is â€Å"dependent upon a person’s choices and their personal relationship with God† (75). Works Cited Dr.Weider, Lew and Dr. Ben Gutierrez. Consider. 2013. Print.

Concept and Impact of the Hegemony

Concept and Impact of the Hegemony Introduction The major objective of this study is to explore the concept of hegemony by demonstrating some examples that can enable the reader to fully conceptualize the term. In addition, the study will also examine the effects associated with transnational corporations either positive or negatives.Advertising We will write a custom essay sample on Concept and Impact of the Hegemony specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More Finally the study will embark on discussion of the function of education with demonstration of examples from personal real life or reading. Discussion What is hegemony? Hegemony is a term with several meaning but it largely depend on the situation where the term is used. People define hegemony as the situation whereby a particular entity has power over another. However, the ability to influence and take control over political affairs is what many people consider as hegemony. In addition, many people consider hegemony as le adership or dominance of one nation up on another. Politically, hegemony is considered as a cycle in which when global power begins to lose its control or influence on a particular nation it starts to cause its down fall. For instance, Britain colony was considered as hegemony during 19th century before it began to experience troubles from its colonies such as the Indian among others. There are several theories of hegemony whose purpose is to expound on how a nation or group of people could maintain their powers. Example of hegemony is the British rule in the North America States that include the Virginia, New York and Massachusetts during the period of colonial unrest (Naiman 127). Impacts of transnational corporations Transnational corporations have both positive and negative effects on peoples’ lives for instance they bring about increase in labor productivity by training skilled manpower and supply of foreign technology. In addition to this, they pay substantial wages to the causal labor force thus improving the standard of living for the workers.Advertising Looking for essay on political sciences? Let's see if we can help you! Get your first paper with 15% OFF Learn More Another positive impact of transnational corporation is that it stimulates local entrepreneurship through offering contracts to local industries with an aim of enhancing competition. It is also noted that transnational corporations lead to introduction of goods and services that are unavailable. In contrast, transnational corporation can led to unemployment by the introduction of labor saving technology. In addition, the coming of transnational corporation has led to the introduction of inappropriate technology, consumption pattern and products. These are some of the positive and negative effects of transnational corporations (Naiman 143). Functions of Education Education is helpful to the people being educated because it initiates the process of socializati on meaning that through education people can learn the best means through which they could relate and interact with others. However, it is through education whereby culture is transmitted for instance, education teaches people new styles of living by civilizing them. It has been noted that through education, people lives can attain certain degree of change emanating from behavioral modification. In addition, people being educated consider education as important to their lives because it promotes physical, mental and moral growth meaning that uneducated people experience low level of growth compared to educated ones. For example, a teacher can think big than a herd’s man among others. Based on this, many people have considered education vital to their lives because it empowers them to develop own ideas, opinions, responsibilities, decision making abilities and independent behavior. An example of this is how lecturers develop lesson plans for their teaching activities. Another function of education is that it brings about desirable changes in economy, social and technological areas that are crucial in determining peoples’ standards of living in every nation. For instance, education opens avenues through which people could become rich therefore b able to live luxurious lives such as driving an expensive car and living in self contained houses among others (Naiman 159). Work Cited Naiman, Joane. How societies work, class, power and change in a Canadian context. 4 Edn. London, InfoBase Publishing, 2007.Advertising We will write a custom essay sample on Concept and Impact of the Hegemony specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More

Are You Ready for the Next Edition of How to Write a KILLER LinkedIn Profile Your Input Requested!

Are You Ready for the Next Edition of How to Write a KILLER LinkedIn Profile Your Input Requested! IMPORTANT: SURVEY LINK ENCLOSED! Win *your choice* of $50 off any service from The Essay Expert – or a $25 Amazon gift card! CLICK HERE TO ACCESS MY SURVEY Last week, LinkedIn officially announced to the world its upcoming changes, which have started to roll out across its platform. With membership in the U.S. at approximately 133 million, and worldwide membership up to 467 million, it’s more important than ever to stand out on LinkedIn. Thankfully, as far as I can tell, effective LinkedIn strategies have not changed with the new platform. You still need to follow my 3 Ls: Locatability (have 500+ connections and use keywords effectively) Likeability (have a personable, professional photo and a unique Summary section) ALiveness (stay active on LinkedIn and network off the site as well) My hope is that the free platform will be more user-friendly- that it will be easier to post articles, easier to keep track of important notifications, and easier to figure out how you’re connected to people and companies. What’s clear is that many things will look different and be organized differently; that the Advanced Search function will function differently; and that you will no longer be able to use Notes and Tags unless you have Sales Navigator. Here are LinkedIn’s videos on the new changes. LinkedIn Desktop Redesign Puts Conversations and Content at the Center How to Make the Most of the New LinkedIn Search As the author of How to Write a KILLER LinkedIn Profile, I face my own dilemmas about how to handle these new changes. Not to worry: I will be revising my e-book, and if you are subscribed, you will get the new version! I have other questions as well, however, as to when to publish my next e-book version and whether to create a new print book at all. I thought I’d ask you to help me out. Would you be so kind as to complete this quick 6-question survey? I would be very grateful! And youll be entered to win *your choice* of $50 off any service from The Essay Expert or a $25 Amazon gift card! CLICK HERE TO ACCESS MY SURVEY Your input will help me greatly in making decisions about future publishing decisions. Thank you! If you’d like the current e-book of How to Write a KILLER LinkedIn Profile, complete with lifetime updates, click here. For the print version, click here. Save

Unemployment within the Labour Market is Primarily Voluntary Essay

Unemployment within the Labour Market is Primarily Voluntary - Essay Example Unemployment within the labour market is primarily voluntary But this hope was to prove a mirage as the trend reversed in subsequent months. Though the UK took a little while to catch up with the crisis in the United States, at the beginning of the second quarter of 2008, the region’s economy was in acute recession. It has been close to four years since the onset of recession and subsequent economic slowdown in the UK and the prospects for a turnaround in the region remains distant. The question of unemployment in the labour market, and whether or not it is ‘voluntary’ needs to be studied under these prevailing economic conditions. Also, a historical view of the role and operation of labour markets will lend clarity to the topic in question. This essay endeavours to do the same by way of analysing and synthesizing related scholarly resources on this subject. A look at the current unemployment problems in the UK reveals how acute a social, political and economic problem it has now become. For example, â€Å"Concerns have be en raised for a "lost generation" in the North East after the region was highlighted as a blackspot for youth unemployment. New research reveals that almost a third of people claiming unemployment benefit in the region are aged between 18 and 24, making the North East the worst region for youth joblessness in England. The figures released by the GMB union, showed there were 18,765 claimants within the age bracket in the North East last month, 30.9% of the total. That figure rose to 35% in County Durham, the fifth worst local authority area in the UK for young claimants.† (Lawson, 2011, p.6)... ng claimants.† (Lawson, 2011, p.6) Many politicians and social activists believe that increasing unemployment will lead to a ‘lost generation’ of such young people. This situation could lead to social fissures, with attendant increase in crime. Already, statistics from the North East is troubling: â€Å"six out of the nine areas in the region had more than the national average for young claimants. County Durham, Sunderland, Northumberland, Hartlepool, South Tyneside and Darlington were all above the national average of 28%† (Lawson, 2011, p.6) Further, for many youth in the region, there are no clearly defined career paths ahead. Such was not the case during the 1960’s and 1970s. Whether or not this unemployment situation is voluntarily sought or involuntarily imposed can be learnt from several surveys undertaken recently. What these surveys clearly indicate is the definite sense of ‘fear’ in the hearts and minds of the unemployed. To the extent that fear is seldom a voluntarily embraced choice, unemployment in present day Britain is imposed on eligible and willing workers. Participants of the survey were asked what they think will be the prospects for employment over the next year: â€Å"The balance between positive and negative answers has averaged 25 since its inception in 1982-the higher the number, the more people expect unemployment to rise. The findings shows, fear of unemployment rose very strongly in mid-2008, just as the unemployment rate started to rise, but then fell back through early 2010 to a low of 30 in February. The balance was 35 in May, 40 in June and 54 in July. The last increase of 14 points is the second-largest in the series ever, behind an increase of 15 in January 1991, when unemployment was also 7.8 per cent and rising.†

Do you agree or disagree that city life is preferable over life in the Essay

Do you agree or disagree that city life is preferable over life in the country Defend your position, or choose ONE of the other following topics below - Essay Example If an individual gets pulled over by a cop, or is disciplined at work or school, the whole town knows before the person gets home. In the city, people do not know each other. This anonymity makes it easier to avoid gossip and rumors. Teachers, employees, and landlords do not know all of a person’s relatives in the city. This makes living up to a big sibling, parent, or other relative irrelevant. Anonymity can be peaceful after living in the country. Entertainment is another positive aspect of city life. In small communities or the country the only entertainment is television, drinking with friends, or other limited options. In the city, plays are scheduled at all hours. Movie theaters can be accessed twenty-four hours a day. Putt putt golf, skating rinks, and numerous other entertainment venues are available to city dwellers. In the city, entertainment is readily available at all hours. Instead of limited options, a whole world of possibilities is open to city dwellers. This is an advantage over country life. Convenience is another benefit to city dwellers. If a person does not want to cook a meal, they do not have to. Restaurants, delis, and other eateries are open. Some are open twenty-four hours a day. People that live in the country normally have to shop for groceries once or twice a month. In the city, people can shop daily. This allows the person to have fresher and healthier foods. If an individual gets hurt hospitals are easily accessed in the city. Country people might have to drive hours to reach the nearest hospital. Shops carrying clothes, hardware, and other necessities are also more convenient in the city. There are benefits to living in the country. Smaller crowds, cleaner air, and lower crime rates are some of these benefits. However, some individuals do not like the loneliness of the country. Air pollution is normally not noticed by those that live

How Does Mood Affect the Performance of Singers Research Paper

How Does Mood Affect the Performance of Singers - Research Paper Example The amazing process of how the brain controls the capabilities of humans to express themselves shall be examined herein as well as a solution to the best possible ideas and results that the researcher could garner from the procedures taken into consideration within this piece of work.Music is an undeniably fine type of art that has captured the hearts of human individuals around the globe. Ever since the human generation began, the existence of music as a primary source of expression has given a chance for the many human generations passing history to preserve the right kind of mark that they would want to leave as legacies of their civilization. From the different developments of the said entity of the human society, there is one particular contributory element that makes all these things possible, the human voice.Voice is noted as the primary sound that comes out of a person’s mouth as demanded and commanded by the brain. Through this particular element, the thinking of any individual is expressed to others. IT is also the voice of humans that makes the existence of music creation possible. From this particular indication, it could then be identified that as one person sings, there are several procedures being involved before the actual sound of the song comes out of any body’s mouth as a form of music that sends messages to the ears and towards the brains of everyone else hearing it.If the expression of one’s thinking through the utilization of the human voice is controlled by the brain, how is the performance of singers actually affected by the emotions that they feel every now and then? Considerably, this is one of the main issues that shall be handled within the context of this research. From this question, it could be expected that the study would revolve on the capability of the brain to control the emotional display of failure, anger, distress, happiness, excitement and so on and so forth as seen through the skills and the voices o f singing performers.

Toni Morrisons Contributions to American Literature

Toni Morrisons Contributions to American Literature Chapter One: Toni Morrisons Contribution to American Literature Paradoxically, immortality is not achieved through the defeat of biological death, but rather through the indomitability of the spirit, which leaves behind the fruits of wisdom and humanity, putting forevermore things in a different perspective for generations to come. This, however, is not a smooth and linear process and nor does it leave one untransformed. Referring to the motto above, Toni Morrisons lifelong work has been an accurate reflection of her and her races upheaval. Albeit she fictionalizes her novels to a great extent, her work does not fail to constitute a palindromic iteration of her thoughts, feelings, and experiences felt both directly and vicariously. To be more precise, if we overlook the minute details of her novels, one cannot tell where her fiction ends and her life begins, or vice-versa: they read the same, regardless of whether we â€Å"read† them from fiction to reality or from reality to fiction. This mirror in which Toni Morrison sees herself and w hose projections â€Å"fall† on the surface of our own interpretations and are thusly decoded and re-encoded is not hung there for the purpose of throwing vanity glances; instead she uses it to question the endlessness of possibilities and that of answers to such broad questions as those relating to racism in the U.S. or to an idealistic state of affairs. My books are always questions for me. What if? How does it feel to? Or what would it look like if you took racism out? Or what does it look like if you have the perfect town, everything you ever wanted? And so you ask a question, put it in a time when it would be theatrical to ask, and find the people who can articulate it for you and try to make them interesting. The rest of it is all structure, how to put it together. (Rustin) Timing is of immediate importance, as Toni Morrison herself points out, especially since her debut novel appeared on the cusp of the civil rights and feminist movement: a time of great transformations and unparalleled historical significance. She times the appearance of The Bluest Eye so well that its impact reverberates strongly into the present. This is no wonder since her writing is not intended to cater for the general masses, nor does it follow the narrow furrows and strictures of fiction writing which are usually implicitly understood. The importance of her work does not only extend along the dimension of aesthetic value: her work is not cathartic in the sense of presenting true beauty loftily idealized; instead she endows her fictional voices with daring, cunning, resolve, resilience; they are often the loud or muffled voices of the surprisingly articulate and heart-rending insane, the latter perversion of mind being perceived in relation with mind-numbing senseless conformity . One may never tell where artistry begins and ends and to what extent her literary offerings will shape future mentalities, but one thing is for sure: her unquenchable thirst for racial justice and her innovative techniques will never cease to challenge our take on things. If only to weave a flimsy mesh of interpretation around Toni Morrisons undeniably invaluable contribution on American literature and beyond, a closer scrutiny of her work would be most auspicious, especially if we proceed along the lines of racial formation, the importance of family and community, identity, conformity, independence, allegiance, displacement and all the binaries therefrom. Racial Formation and Toni Morrisons Literary Manifest Racial formation never has never been and never will be (one could safely imagine) a smooth and linear phenomenon of innocuous application. Not only that, but never has there been a time in American history when race wasnt a troublesome matter, from the initial clash between the early settlers who achieved the â€Å"conquest of paradise† and the native population, through every aspect of affirmative action, to present frictions with and around immigrants and the border (i.e. with Mexico), all still wrapped in the warm blanket of the American covenant. The exodus of people crossing the ocean has always been a defining feature of the rugged American fabric and trouble and tension an inherent aftermath, for as Thomas Sowell puts it:    The peopling of America is one of the great dramas in all human history. Over the years, the massive stream of humanity—45 million people—crossed every ocean and continent to reach the United States. They came speaking every language and representing every nationality, race, and religion. (qtd. in Girgus 64) Even though noble rank has been outlawed by the very Constitution of the United States, this does not necessarily ensure the homogeneity of multiethnicity. The social tension described by American sociologist Thomas Sowell and quoted by Sam B. Girgus in â€Å"The New Ethnic Novel and the American Idea† is that caused by the conflicting values brought to the American land, together with languages, customs, and, more importantly, creeds and moral values that this veritable Tower of Babel is still finding very difficult to take in and transform into a meld of acceptable conformity. A tendency existed and steeply evolved in the not very long course of American history to assert the superiority of the Aryan waspish faction of the American nation over all other non-Aryan groups. Since the budding nations ideals have always been slightly adumbrated by the skulking presence of slavery, the African-American paradigm of socio-cultural and political struggle has been conferred upon speci al significance and attention. As such, the status of African-Americans has undergone severe and painful shifts, from the moment they were brought to America as slaves, until at least quite recently. These days, the life of African-Americans in the United States is undoubtedly improved, a fact which can easily be proven by the recent election of the first â€Å"black† president in the entire history of this country. Not only at the highest level, but in all walks of life evidence exists of inclusion in the earnest of members of society belonging to the African-American race.   Albeit banned on some level for instance Executive Order 8802 issued by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt banned outright discrimination in the case of jobs related to the federal government and defence contractors open discrimination continued throughout the decades, the segregation and gerrymandering trailing for many decades. Several boiling pressures, however, undermined these discriminatory tactics, such as the Brown vs. Board of Education of 1954 or the Montgomery Bus Boycott of 1955. These and other actions precipitated the adoption of affirmative action, a bomb which exploded in the face of Presidents Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson, who had to make efforts to redress these social injustices through as some like to call it â€Å"positive† or â€Å"reverse† discrimination, in spite of Martin Luther King Jr.s dream, a veritable gem of rhetoric. His world-famous 1963 I Have a Dream speech is a watershed moment not only for the Civil Rights Movement a cause that i s brilliantly, persuasively and most important, peacefully championed but for every group that during the course of (American) history had been discriminated against. In it he advocates equality and fraternity, the vital prerequisites of coexistence in a sphere so decidedly multiethnic that, as Herman Melville phrases it, â€Å"You can not spill a drop of American blood without spilling the blood of the whole world.† (qtd. in Girgus 65). The attitude taken by American people concerning the preference for or against affirmative action is linked to what everyone was educated to believe. The factor that leaves the greatest imprint on our mind is education and the vehicles for achieving this, such as literature, films, and other media, to say nothing of standardized school curricula and society at large. It is the first of these vehicles that will be investigated in what follows, tracing Toni Morrisons efforts as an epitomic endeavour, in order to isolate its influence on our belief system, values and life choices. Significantly, an original national literature was the first mark of Americas declaration of independence from Europes influence and the African-American one the declaration of independence from â€Å"white† hegemony. Benjamin Franklin believed that â€Å"A good example is the best sermon† (qtd. in Marcovitz 55), while Emerson, the father of transcendentalism urged the American people to be self-reliant above all. Though a maverick at heart throughout his entire glorious existence which, while dappled with tragedy, his work has been no less prolific in spite of all his hardships and his originality, humour and unmatched industriousness Mark Twain, The Father of American Literature, has been a most controversial and compliant figure (only in the sense of providing such an inspiring string of examples in the sense of self-reliance) in his time and continues to be so even today. If at first his masterpiece The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn was criticized for the language and subject matter by both his contemporaries and later admirers (Ernest Hemingway would provide a notable example) for being trite and vulgar and even excoriated by public libraries such as the Concord Public Library in Massachusetts or New Yorks Brooklyn Public Library, recent controversy has been focused around racial matters. Critics are split between those regarding the portrayal of Jim as disparaging and as a consequence offensive and those who find Jims superstitious behaviour to be an indication of an alternative perception of our bond with nature, or a more powerful connection with our spiritual side, to say nothing of the steep dissonance between the Waspish past and the politically correct present. In Toni Morrisons Playing in the Dark, Mark Twains The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is analysed from the perspective of the importance of the Africanist presence, a presence much silenced and only timidly analyzed for decades. Discussed in terms of socio-historic development, the distinction between â€Å"black† and â€Å"white† themed by Twains novel reaches a peak in the mid-nineteenth century, as evidenced in Toni Morrisons interpretation. This can be verified by the juxtaposition between Jims utter love for his masters and the â€Å"baroque† (Morrison 57) torture Huck and Tom subject him to. The â€Å"white† line of argumentation is brilliantly outlined in Mark Twains masterpiece and shrewdly detected by Morrison, who finds Jim â€Å"unassertive, loving, irrational, passionate, dependent, inarticulate†, which is exactly how the â€Å"others† are perceived. The religious, scientific, political, cultural and societal practices were so fas hioned around the time when Mark Twain lived as to legitimate slavery and abuse. Starting from the assertion that white people around Jim seek forgiveness and supplication veritable keystone concepts in Christian religions which, however, did not extend to everyone, considering the hovering doubt about the existence of the soul of the â€Å"others†, they (i.e. religions through their cloistered leaders) instead providing convenient ways for turning a blind eye on slavery and even extermination on condition that he accept his inferiority. Thus, she argues, only a representative of the African-American race could have been painfully humiliated by children after being presented as a father and an adult, while no one, not even a white convict, could have been submitted to this kind of treatment. Toni Morrisons discourse is by no means vituperative: she does not intend any reversed oppression through her writing, either in Playing in the Dark or in any of her works of fiction. However, her writing is so compelling that when Beloved does not win her the National Book Award, as many as forty-eight African-American authors and critics write to the New York Times claiming her literary prowess, which afterwards earns her the laurels of the Pulitzer Prize, and rightly so. Her lack of bias is evident when she praises the former President Bill Clinton calling him the â€Å"first black President, since he displayed almost every trope of blackness: single-parent household, born poor, working-class, saxophone-playing, McDonalds-and-junk-food-loving boy from Arkansas† (Cooke), while her discursive equanimity can be traced from the way she analyses the Africanist presence in literature and the way it is regarded from the perspective of its relationship to mainstream literature and criticism: Like thousands of avid but nonacademic readers, some powerful literary critics in the United States have never read, and are proud to say so, any African-American text. It seems to have done them no harm, presented them with no discernible limitations in the scope of their work or influence. I suspect, with much evidence to support the suspicion, that they will continue to flourish without any knowledge whatsoever of African-American literature. (Playing in the Dark 13) While she does not wish to challenge or criticise anyone for their views and choices, Toni Morrison cannot bear to look the other way when the literary Jim Crow era is still so fiercely enforced. That it might be convenient for anyone to ignore any slice of reality or exclude any of the fibres in the fabric of a nation is quite obvious, and while this approach does not impair our intellect, it does however limit our understanding. This selective interpretation of things which leaves Africanist representation in a cone of darkness is especially significant, since it underpins racism and it bolsters its moral justification, especially along the lines of racial formation: a deeply-seated phenomenon which pervades every aspect of life in America and a very hurtful process for those slighted by it. The relevance of racial formation is underscored throughout Toni Morrisons work and, in their extensive study entitled Racial Formation in the United States: from the 1960s to the 1990s, Michae l Omi and Howard Winant, the two American sociologists who developed racial formation theory, argue that race is an artificial concept, because the bases according to which any particular individual can be labelled as â€Å"white†, â€Å"black†, and so on, may start from certain biological traits, but race transcends these. To illustrate the point, a person of â€Å"mixed blood† is considered from the point of view of North American and then Latin American racial identification whereby the same categorization would have the same individual first â€Å"black† and then unable to â€Å"pass† as â€Å"black†. At the other extreme, Brazilian legislation is willing to accept the assignation of several racial categories to various members of the same family. In addition to being intricate and far-reaching, these considerations help provide grounding for our study of Toni Morrisons work and its impact on American literature and even life in America and also help account for the perception of other races by the early settlers, whose religious and even scientific tenets had to be broached to accommodate these â€Å"new† categories, such as the â€Å"noble savage,† and dispute the very existence of their soul. This blatant dismissal of a persons soul based solely on the abstract and arbitrary consideration of race is an outrage that Toni Morrison starkly exposes in Beloved, about which Susanna Rustin comments the following in â€Å"The Guardian†: It is a novel of unspeakable horrors. But even more than the physical brutality, Morrison confronts us with the irreparable harm done by what Margaret Atwood described in a review as one of the most viciously antifamily institutions human beings have ever devised, a system that sought to deprive human beings of what it is that makes them human. (Rustin) Sethe, her heroine, learns the truth and is shocked to realise that her masters, whom she is so devoted to, are taught to distinguish between her human and animal characteristics, which means, in other words, that she is but a soulless beast of burden. Thats when I stopped because I heard my name, and then I took a few steps to where I could see what they was doing. Schoolteacher was standing over one of them with one hand behind his back. He licked a forefinger a couple of times and turned a few pages. Slow. I was about to turn around and keep on my way to where the muslin was, when I heard him say, No, no. Thats not the way. I told you to put her human characteristics on the left; her animal ones on the right. And dont forget to line them up. I commenced to walk backward, didnt even look behind me to find out where I was headed. I just kept lifting my feet and pushing back. When I bumped up against a tree my scalp was prickly. [] Flies settled all over your face, rubbing their hands. My head itched like the devil. Like somebody was sticking fine needles in my scalp. I never told Halle or nobody. (Beloved 224) This episode in Sethes existence can never be erased nor her pain alleviated. The suffering she is caused is absolute and boundless. Her feelings of outrage surge like torrents in her brain and she feels utterly discombobulated. This memory will forever haunt her; it will shape her future and her attitude towards life, her behaviour towards her children, and it will serve as a constantly open wound. Whats even more tragic is that this mind-boggling injustice spared no one: men, women, or children. Remembering his own price, down to the cent, that schoolteacher was able to get for him, he wondered what Sethes would have been. What had Baby Suggs been? How much did Halle owe, still, besides his labor? What did Mrs. Garner get for Paul F? More than nine hundred dollars? How much more? Ten dollars? Twenty? Schoolteacher would know. He knew the worth of everything. It accounted for the real sorrow in his voice when he pronounced Sixo unsuitable. (266) Proceeding along these lines of dehumanization, monetary worth is assigned to each individual and that is the extent of ones value when assessed by the slave owner. Reality is raw, harsh, and beyond shocking, but sugar-coating it would not help if we are to learn the truth about racism and racial formation. The accuracy of Toni Morrisons writing in spite of the degree of fictionalization is the keystone of her discourse. It is her head-on confrontation of the underlying reality that lends Toni Morrison her uniqueness and that has earned her in equal measure respect and criticism. Despite the narrative voices that assert their own individuality in Toni Morrisons works, Sam B. Girgus comments on present-day African-American literary discourse, finding it too elaborate, and somewhat digressive to the detriment of thematic concerns such as the daily life, values, sorrows, tragedies, successes, woes, accomplishments, and so forth. He argues his point by referring to African-American writers Toni Morrison and Henry Louis Gates, Jr.: both Morrison and Gates typify qualities of ethnicity that are common to many of the writers in the literary and cultural renaissance under discussion. They all write in English even when extolling a particular vernacular speech, dialect, or region. They are all extremely sophisticated artists who use the most complex modern and postmodern techniques to convey their highly individualized visions of experience. Although rooted in ethnic communities and concrete historic situations, their works as cultural artifacts and products are nevertheless aspects of complicated technological and bureaucratic systems of cultural and social production that often differ from the language, values, and daily life of the cultures for which they speak. (Girgus 61) This may be so if we for instance pick up Toni Morrisons Pulitzer-awarded novel Beloved where we find passages of stream of consciousness, dialectal dialogue, flashbacks from the past and the conflation of past and present resulting in a destabilized horizon of racial and individual formation. Toni Morrisons formal education may have driven a wedge between herself and the culture she was born into and which she proudly represents, but she still manages to put together an incredible manifesto that reaches deeper truths and meanings with absolute valences. In her novel the three heroines mother and two daughters have overlapping individualities and they represent good and evil in equal measure. Their existences are nonlinear and they run both ways along the temporal axis. This is especially true of Sethe, the mother, whose past still haunts her and impacts greatly her present and future; an impact which extends to her family as well. The state of nonlinearity, conflation, and duality is also found in other novels, such as The Bluest Eye or Sula, in which the heroines manage to become displaced from their status, they are isolated from their respective families and friends, and are forced into pursuing painful valences of individuality. From this point of view, Toni Morrison herself manages to overreach her scope by challenging the perceptions, values, mores, and principles we are ingrained with by society and education. Agnes Suranyi, a contributor to â€Å"The Cambridge Companion to Toni Morrison†, edited by Justine Tally, expresses just such a view: â€Å"The borderline between decent women and man-eating prostitutes is erased; only the latter are capable of giving love to Pecola, whose quest for it elsewhere is futile.† (16-17). This view is of great significance because it epitomizes Toni Morrisons take on life: nothing in her work is â€Å"fed† to us already masticated; it is quite the c ontrary that occurs: we have to interpret the facts stated, the innuendoes, the streams of consciousness, the multifaceted and split personalities, their actions and inactions all by ourselves, through our own filters and open up to a more thorough interpretation that must override dated tenets.     Ã‚   Applying the above stated, upon perusing Toni Morrisons novel Beloved, one cannot miss the connection between melding and overlapping identities and the life of people struggling with racial formation and being forced into conformity and assimilation. This assertion is further reinforced by the fact that Sethe lived in the time of the Underground Railroad, a time which saw a sharp increase in the severity of punishments for escaping bondage. The tenseness of life on the black / white divide is passed on to later generations who carry on with their incessant frictions all the way to Martin Luther King Jr. and beyond. In a 2004 interview with Rachel Cooke for â€Å"The Observer† Toni Morrison successfully proves why the battle with racism is not yet over, in spite of all the things that have changed since the beginning of affirmative action. I dont pass without insults. Let me give you an example. I walk into the Waldorf Astoria in New York to check in. Were going to have a drink, and then my friend is going to go home. She stands behind me, as I check in. Finally, the guy says, Oh, are you registering too? He thought I was the maid. My friend was trembling with anger. It was so personal. But the irony of it was that I was on the cover of a magazine that month, and there were these posters with my face on them all over New York. (qtd. in â€Å"The Observer†) The Bluest Eye her debut novel for instance, has had its popularity delayed many a year precisely because of the stark way in which Toni Morrison approached taboo subjects and because she strived to prove that â€Å"black† did not equal â€Å"ugly†. Growing up is difficult and the girls in the novel find their race assignation which is no fault of theirs a difficult burden to carry around. They do not have the easier lives of the lighter-skinned people in their community and their perceived ugliness is a feature which gradually seeps into their consciousness to such a degree that it becomes overbearing. The validity of this externally-imposed ugliness is reinforced not only by the white members of society, but by the very families themselves. In Pecolas case, her own mother finds her daughter repulsive and troublesome, choosing to love a white child more than her own an unforgivable and heinous deed. But then the destabilization of identity is a practice quite comm on for Toni Morrison, and rightly so, because although identity is formed at an early stage in our existence, the vector of external factors leave multiple indelible marks upon the essence of our character. For Toni Morrisons characters the insurmountable obstacles they have to overcome take too great a toll on their resilience, which ultimately becomes defeated. This reciprocal allegoric relationship between private and collective (in this case racial) identity is a true-to-life representation of many generations of oppressed African-Americans and their struggles to survive in a disparaging mainstream society. In Sula, the African-American writer uses the Bottom as a twofold metaphor: on the one hand the location of this neighbourhood is on top of a hill which, as the slave owner explains to the slave, is the bottom of the world from where God is watching and from which â€Å"the blacks† took â€Å"small consolation in the fact that every day they could literally look down on the white folks† (11), while on the other we see little black girls being picked on by the most recent immigrants who themselves would endure abuse, thus continuing this loop which is closed by the proximity to God that the hills afford them. The ramifications do not stop here: it seems that in any place in the novel, any novel of Toni Morrisons, there is a starting point for a new insight, for a new interpretation, for a kernel of postmodernist truth about life and literature, for novel literary technique and what it entails for both the novel itself as a genre, as well as for the reader and his/her perception of things thats constantly being challenged, just like the readers matrix of social tenets and belief system. Possibly the best example of this is served by the story which inspired Toni Morrison to write Beloved, the story of the African-American woman who would rather kill her own daughter than suffer to have her returned to bondage. As Nellie Y. McKay, the co-editor alongside William L. Andrews of â€Å"Toni Morrisons Beloved A Casebook† states another critics point of view (i.e. Karla F. C. Holloway, writer of â€Å"Beloved: A Spiritual†), Toni Morrison really manages to come up with a fresh and reinvigorating approach   For example, with myth as a dominant feature of Beloved, Morrison not only reclaims the Garner story from those who interviewed her after her childs death and expressed enormous surprise at her calm but also, as mythmaker, achieves a complete revision of the episode. [] The oral and written history that Morrison revises, consciously and unconsciously felt, considers many aspects of each life and reflects an alternative perspective on reality. [] In addition, Morrison, like many other African and African-American writers, often defies the boundaries separating past, present, and future time. This allows her to free Beloved from the dominance of a history that would deny the merits of slave stories. As Morrisons creation, Beloved is not only Sethes dead child but the faces of all those lost in slavery, carrying in her the history of the sixty million and more. Holloway sees Beloved as a novel of inner vision: the reclamation of black spiritual histories. (15) As Morrison herself points out in the novel, the press has no interest in presenting the truth detachedly. It also does not concern itself with such â€Å"trite† topics as the abominable abuses of slavery and it does not give praise where praise is due. Instead, it engages in shameless hectoring of a mother who kills her own daughter. If taken out of context, we would expect it to do no less and, but for Toni Morrisons reframing and revamping of the story, we probably wouldnt have given the story a second thought. But we cannot be left to stand idle before such brazen hypocrisy as regarding Sethe more animal than human, and then a murderess guilty of a heinously premeditated act done whilst in full possession of her faculties. Furthermore, her case is stripped of context, just as the plethora of various other deeds similarly perpetrated as a result of extraordinary duress. This time around Morrison gives ample space to her heroine to justify her actions, while not allowing her , however, to be absolved of the guilt she must bear until the end, hence the muddled border between temporal references, actions, characters, and individualities, which again escape their expected linearity and contiguity. Perception is a fickle thing, especially when something is stretched, filtered, re-filtered, decoded and re-encoded, challenged and stereotyped and warped in every way imaginable. We cannot assert our identity as long as we are unable to find the appropriate compromise between the adoption and rejection of every aspect that is debatable and that can be transacted over this social Carrefour of exchanges. But, more importantly, we can no longer acquiesce in this moral comfort zone set out by society, which overshadows whole groups based on artificial considerations, especially when the relativism of the preceding adjective becomes too overbearing and too painful to stand. The point being made here is that while maybe artificial in essence, the segregation inflicted on these groups and others, as well (while Toni Morrison is clearly concerned with the African-American case, it cannot fail to be propitious to generalise an assertion that we should internalise already if we havent done so and apply to any case in which double standards might occur) is absorbed by those whose mental health is abused incessantly and whose resilience truly worn out and even suppressed. What Toni Morrison attempts is to sow the seeds of individual and discernible thought willing and capable enough to probe things deeper than the shallowness of their outward appearance. Toni Morrisons works are soul-wrench ing panegyrics dedicated to the memory of the former slaves and her contemporaries who were still enslaved through omission and discrimination, as well as a testimony of the noblest and most dedicated application of ones moral ideals. Chapter Two: The Importance of Family and Community in Beloved, The Bluest Eye, and Sula Tell us what it is to be a woman so that we may know what it is to be a man. What moves at the margin. What it is to have no home in this place. To be set adrift from the one you knew. What it is to live at the edge of towns that cannot bear your company. (nobelprize.org) It is no secret or surprise that, first family and then family and community, have the greatest impact on our personality, shaping and reshaping our existence, validating and supporting our preferences and choices or going to great lengths to lay stumbling blocks in our path towards achieving these. Furthermore, the conceptions and principles professed within familial confines are based on the patterned behaviour of ones surrounding environment. This, in turn is founded on what is deemed just and acceptable behaviour leading to harmony and cooperation and is related to civic duty. According to Freuds structural model of the psyche, the development of the human psyche is a three-stage process which corresponds to the three most important stages in our existence. In the first stage, the id, our psyche is so shaped as to want nothing but to fulfil its own needs and wishes, regardless of those of everyone else. Then, as we start learning to distinguish betwee Toni Morrisons Contributions to American Literature Toni Morrisons Contributions to American Literature Chapter One: Toni Morrisons Contribution to American Literature Paradoxically, immortality is not achieved through the defeat of biological death, but rather through the indomitability of the spirit, which leaves behind the fruits of wisdom and humanity, putting forevermore things in a different perspective for generations to come. This, however, is not a smooth and linear process and nor does it leave one untransformed. Referring to the motto above, Toni Morrisons lifelong work has been an accurate reflection of her and her races upheaval. Albeit she fictionalizes her novels to a great extent, her work does not fail to constitute a palindromic iteration of her thoughts, feelings, and experiences felt both directly and vicariously. To be more precise, if we overlook the minute details of her novels, one cannot tell where her fiction ends and her life begins, or vice-versa: they read the same, regardless of whether we â€Å"read† them from fiction to reality or from reality to fiction. This mirror in which Toni Morrison sees herself and w hose projections â€Å"fall† on the surface of our own interpretations and are thusly decoded and re-encoded is not hung there for the purpose of throwing vanity glances; instead she uses it to question the endlessness of possibilities and that of answers to such broad questions as those relating to racism in the U.S. or to an idealistic state of affairs. My books are always questions for me. What if? How does it feel to? Or what would it look like if you took racism out? Or what does it look like if you have the perfect town, everything you ever wanted? And so you ask a question, put it in a time when it would be theatrical to ask, and find the people who can articulate it for you and try to make them interesting. The rest of it is all structure, how to put it together. (Rustin) Timing is of immediate importance, as Toni Morrison herself points out, especially since her debut novel appeared on the cusp of the civil rights and feminist movement: a time of great transformations and unparalleled historical significance. She times the appearance of The Bluest Eye so well that its impact reverberates strongly into the present. This is no wonder since her writing is not intended to cater for the general masses, nor does it follow the narrow furrows and strictures of fiction writing which are usually implicitly understood. The importance of her work does not only extend along the dimension of aesthetic value: her work is not cathartic in the sense of presenting true beauty loftily idealized; instead she endows her fictional voices with daring, cunning, resolve, resilience; they are often the loud or muffled voices of the surprisingly articulate and heart-rending insane, the latter perversion of mind being perceived in relation with mind-numbing senseless conformity . One may never tell where artistry begins and ends and to what extent her literary offerings will shape future mentalities, but one thing is for sure: her unquenchable thirst for racial justice and her innovative techniques will never cease to challenge our take on things. If only to weave a flimsy mesh of interpretation around Toni Morrisons undeniably invaluable contribution on American literature and beyond, a closer scrutiny of her work would be most auspicious, especially if we proceed along the lines of racial formation, the importance of family and community, identity, conformity, independence, allegiance, displacement and all the binaries therefrom. Racial Formation and Toni Morrisons Literary Manifest Racial formation never has never been and never will be (one could safely imagine) a smooth and linear phenomenon of innocuous application. Not only that, but never has there been a time in American history when race wasnt a troublesome matter, from the initial clash between the early settlers who achieved the â€Å"conquest of paradise† and the native population, through every aspect of affirmative action, to present frictions with and around immigrants and the border (i.e. with Mexico), all still wrapped in the warm blanket of the American covenant. The exodus of people crossing the ocean has always been a defining feature of the rugged American fabric and trouble and tension an inherent aftermath, for as Thomas Sowell puts it:    The peopling of America is one of the great dramas in all human history. Over the years, the massive stream of humanity—45 million people—crossed every ocean and continent to reach the United States. They came speaking every language and representing every nationality, race, and religion. (qtd. in Girgus 64) Even though noble rank has been outlawed by the very Constitution of the United States, this does not necessarily ensure the homogeneity of multiethnicity. The social tension described by American sociologist Thomas Sowell and quoted by Sam B. Girgus in â€Å"The New Ethnic Novel and the American Idea† is that caused by the conflicting values brought to the American land, together with languages, customs, and, more importantly, creeds and moral values that this veritable Tower of Babel is still finding very difficult to take in and transform into a meld of acceptable conformity. A tendency existed and steeply evolved in the not very long course of American history to assert the superiority of the Aryan waspish faction of the American nation over all other non-Aryan groups. Since the budding nations ideals have always been slightly adumbrated by the skulking presence of slavery, the African-American paradigm of socio-cultural and political struggle has been conferred upon speci al significance and attention. As such, the status of African-Americans has undergone severe and painful shifts, from the moment they were brought to America as slaves, until at least quite recently. These days, the life of African-Americans in the United States is undoubtedly improved, a fact which can easily be proven by the recent election of the first â€Å"black† president in the entire history of this country. Not only at the highest level, but in all walks of life evidence exists of inclusion in the earnest of members of society belonging to the African-American race.   Albeit banned on some level for instance Executive Order 8802 issued by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt banned outright discrimination in the case of jobs related to the federal government and defence contractors open discrimination continued throughout the decades, the segregation and gerrymandering trailing for many decades. Several boiling pressures, however, undermined these discriminatory tactics, such as the Brown vs. Board of Education of 1954 or the Montgomery Bus Boycott of 1955. These and other actions precipitated the adoption of affirmative action, a bomb which exploded in the face of Presidents Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson, who had to make efforts to redress these social injustices through as some like to call it â€Å"positive† or â€Å"reverse† discrimination, in spite of Martin Luther King Jr.s dream, a veritable gem of rhetoric. His world-famous 1963 I Have a Dream speech is a watershed moment not only for the Civil Rights Movement a cause that i s brilliantly, persuasively and most important, peacefully championed but for every group that during the course of (American) history had been discriminated against. In it he advocates equality and fraternity, the vital prerequisites of coexistence in a sphere so decidedly multiethnic that, as Herman Melville phrases it, â€Å"You can not spill a drop of American blood without spilling the blood of the whole world.† (qtd. in Girgus 65). The attitude taken by American people concerning the preference for or against affirmative action is linked to what everyone was educated to believe. The factor that leaves the greatest imprint on our mind is education and the vehicles for achieving this, such as literature, films, and other media, to say nothing of standardized school curricula and society at large. It is the first of these vehicles that will be investigated in what follows, tracing Toni Morrisons efforts as an epitomic endeavour, in order to isolate its influence on our belief system, values and life choices. Significantly, an original national literature was the first mark of Americas declaration of independence from Europes influence and the African-American one the declaration of independence from â€Å"white† hegemony. Benjamin Franklin believed that â€Å"A good example is the best sermon† (qtd. in Marcovitz 55), while Emerson, the father of transcendentalism urged the American people to be self-reliant above all. Though a maverick at heart throughout his entire glorious existence which, while dappled with tragedy, his work has been no less prolific in spite of all his hardships and his originality, humour and unmatched industriousness Mark Twain, The Father of American Literature, has been a most controversial and compliant figure (only in the sense of providing such an inspiring string of examples in the sense of self-reliance) in his time and continues to be so even today. If at first his masterpiece The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn was criticized for the language and subject matter by both his contemporaries and later admirers (Ernest Hemingway would provide a notable example) for being trite and vulgar and even excoriated by public libraries such as the Concord Public Library in Massachusetts or New Yorks Brooklyn Public Library, recent controversy has been focused around racial matters. Critics are split between those regarding the portrayal of Jim as disparaging and as a consequence offensive and those who find Jims superstitious behaviour to be an indication of an alternative perception of our bond with nature, or a more powerful connection with our spiritual side, to say nothing of the steep dissonance between the Waspish past and the politically correct present. In Toni Morrisons Playing in the Dark, Mark Twains The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is analysed from the perspective of the importance of the Africanist presence, a presence much silenced and only timidly analyzed for decades. Discussed in terms of socio-historic development, the distinction between â€Å"black† and â€Å"white† themed by Twains novel reaches a peak in the mid-nineteenth century, as evidenced in Toni Morrisons interpretation. This can be verified by the juxtaposition between Jims utter love for his masters and the â€Å"baroque† (Morrison 57) torture Huck and Tom subject him to. The â€Å"white† line of argumentation is brilliantly outlined in Mark Twains masterpiece and shrewdly detected by Morrison, who finds Jim â€Å"unassertive, loving, irrational, passionate, dependent, inarticulate†, which is exactly how the â€Å"others† are perceived. The religious, scientific, political, cultural and societal practices were so fas hioned around the time when Mark Twain lived as to legitimate slavery and abuse. Starting from the assertion that white people around Jim seek forgiveness and supplication veritable keystone concepts in Christian religions which, however, did not extend to everyone, considering the hovering doubt about the existence of the soul of the â€Å"others†, they (i.e. religions through their cloistered leaders) instead providing convenient ways for turning a blind eye on slavery and even extermination on condition that he accept his inferiority. Thus, she argues, only a representative of the African-American race could have been painfully humiliated by children after being presented as a father and an adult, while no one, not even a white convict, could have been submitted to this kind of treatment. Toni Morrisons discourse is by no means vituperative: she does not intend any reversed oppression through her writing, either in Playing in the Dark or in any of her works of fiction. However, her writing is so compelling that when Beloved does not win her the National Book Award, as many as forty-eight African-American authors and critics write to the New York Times claiming her literary prowess, which afterwards earns her the laurels of the Pulitzer Prize, and rightly so. Her lack of bias is evident when she praises the former President Bill Clinton calling him the â€Å"first black President, since he displayed almost every trope of blackness: single-parent household, born poor, working-class, saxophone-playing, McDonalds-and-junk-food-loving boy from Arkansas† (Cooke), while her discursive equanimity can be traced from the way she analyses the Africanist presence in literature and the way it is regarded from the perspective of its relationship to mainstream literature and criticism: Like thousands of avid but nonacademic readers, some powerful literary critics in the United States have never read, and are proud to say so, any African-American text. It seems to have done them no harm, presented them with no discernible limitations in the scope of their work or influence. I suspect, with much evidence to support the suspicion, that they will continue to flourish without any knowledge whatsoever of African-American literature. (Playing in the Dark 13) While she does not wish to challenge or criticise anyone for their views and choices, Toni Morrison cannot bear to look the other way when the literary Jim Crow era is still so fiercely enforced. That it might be convenient for anyone to ignore any slice of reality or exclude any of the fibres in the fabric of a nation is quite obvious, and while this approach does not impair our intellect, it does however limit our understanding. This selective interpretation of things which leaves Africanist representation in a cone of darkness is especially significant, since it underpins racism and it bolsters its moral justification, especially along the lines of racial formation: a deeply-seated phenomenon which pervades every aspect of life in America and a very hurtful process for those slighted by it. The relevance of racial formation is underscored throughout Toni Morrisons work and, in their extensive study entitled Racial Formation in the United States: from the 1960s to the 1990s, Michae l Omi and Howard Winant, the two American sociologists who developed racial formation theory, argue that race is an artificial concept, because the bases according to which any particular individual can be labelled as â€Å"white†, â€Å"black†, and so on, may start from certain biological traits, but race transcends these. To illustrate the point, a person of â€Å"mixed blood† is considered from the point of view of North American and then Latin American racial identification whereby the same categorization would have the same individual first â€Å"black† and then unable to â€Å"pass† as â€Å"black†. At the other extreme, Brazilian legislation is willing to accept the assignation of several racial categories to various members of the same family. In addition to being intricate and far-reaching, these considerations help provide grounding for our study of Toni Morrisons work and its impact on American literature and even life in America and also help account for the perception of other races by the early settlers, whose religious and even scientific tenets had to be broached to accommodate these â€Å"new† categories, such as the â€Å"noble savage,† and dispute the very existence of their soul. This blatant dismissal of a persons soul based solely on the abstract and arbitrary consideration of race is an outrage that Toni Morrison starkly exposes in Beloved, about which Susanna Rustin comments the following in â€Å"The Guardian†: It is a novel of unspeakable horrors. But even more than the physical brutality, Morrison confronts us with the irreparable harm done by what Margaret Atwood described in a review as one of the most viciously antifamily institutions human beings have ever devised, a system that sought to deprive human beings of what it is that makes them human. (Rustin) Sethe, her heroine, learns the truth and is shocked to realise that her masters, whom she is so devoted to, are taught to distinguish between her human and animal characteristics, which means, in other words, that she is but a soulless beast of burden. Thats when I stopped because I heard my name, and then I took a few steps to where I could see what they was doing. Schoolteacher was standing over one of them with one hand behind his back. He licked a forefinger a couple of times and turned a few pages. Slow. I was about to turn around and keep on my way to where the muslin was, when I heard him say, No, no. Thats not the way. I told you to put her human characteristics on the left; her animal ones on the right. And dont forget to line them up. I commenced to walk backward, didnt even look behind me to find out where I was headed. I just kept lifting my feet and pushing back. When I bumped up against a tree my scalp was prickly. [] Flies settled all over your face, rubbing their hands. My head itched like the devil. Like somebody was sticking fine needles in my scalp. I never told Halle or nobody. (Beloved 224) This episode in Sethes existence can never be erased nor her pain alleviated. The suffering she is caused is absolute and boundless. Her feelings of outrage surge like torrents in her brain and she feels utterly discombobulated. This memory will forever haunt her; it will shape her future and her attitude towards life, her behaviour towards her children, and it will serve as a constantly open wound. Whats even more tragic is that this mind-boggling injustice spared no one: men, women, or children. Remembering his own price, down to the cent, that schoolteacher was able to get for him, he wondered what Sethes would have been. What had Baby Suggs been? How much did Halle owe, still, besides his labor? What did Mrs. Garner get for Paul F? More than nine hundred dollars? How much more? Ten dollars? Twenty? Schoolteacher would know. He knew the worth of everything. It accounted for the real sorrow in his voice when he pronounced Sixo unsuitable. (266) Proceeding along these lines of dehumanization, monetary worth is assigned to each individual and that is the extent of ones value when assessed by the slave owner. Reality is raw, harsh, and beyond shocking, but sugar-coating it would not help if we are to learn the truth about racism and racial formation. The accuracy of Toni Morrisons writing in spite of the degree of fictionalization is the keystone of her discourse. It is her head-on confrontation of the underlying reality that lends Toni Morrison her uniqueness and that has earned her in equal measure respect and criticism. Despite the narrative voices that assert their own individuality in Toni Morrisons works, Sam B. Girgus comments on present-day African-American literary discourse, finding it too elaborate, and somewhat digressive to the detriment of thematic concerns such as the daily life, values, sorrows, tragedies, successes, woes, accomplishments, and so forth. He argues his point by referring to African-American writers Toni Morrison and Henry Louis Gates, Jr.: both Morrison and Gates typify qualities of ethnicity that are common to many of the writers in the literary and cultural renaissance under discussion. They all write in English even when extolling a particular vernacular speech, dialect, or region. They are all extremely sophisticated artists who use the most complex modern and postmodern techniques to convey their highly individualized visions of experience. Although rooted in ethnic communities and concrete historic situations, their works as cultural artifacts and products are nevertheless aspects of complicated technological and bureaucratic systems of cultural and social production that often differ from the language, values, and daily life of the cultures for which they speak. (Girgus 61) This may be so if we for instance pick up Toni Morrisons Pulitzer-awarded novel Beloved where we find passages of stream of consciousness, dialectal dialogue, flashbacks from the past and the conflation of past and present resulting in a destabilized horizon of racial and individual formation. Toni Morrisons formal education may have driven a wedge between herself and the culture she was born into and which she proudly represents, but she still manages to put together an incredible manifesto that reaches deeper truths and meanings with absolute valences. In her novel the three heroines mother and two daughters have overlapping individualities and they represent good and evil in equal measure. Their existences are nonlinear and they run both ways along the temporal axis. This is especially true of Sethe, the mother, whose past still haunts her and impacts greatly her present and future; an impact which extends to her family as well. The state of nonlinearity, conflation, and duality is also found in other novels, such as The Bluest Eye or Sula, in which the heroines manage to become displaced from their status, they are isolated from their respective families and friends, and are forced into pursuing painful valences of individuality. From this point of view, Toni Morrison herself manages to overreach her scope by challenging the perceptions, values, mores, and principles we are ingrained with by society and education. Agnes Suranyi, a contributor to â€Å"The Cambridge Companion to Toni Morrison†, edited by Justine Tally, expresses just such a view: â€Å"The borderline between decent women and man-eating prostitutes is erased; only the latter are capable of giving love to Pecola, whose quest for it elsewhere is futile.† (16-17). This view is of great significance because it epitomizes Toni Morrisons take on life: nothing in her work is â€Å"fed† to us already masticated; it is quite the c ontrary that occurs: we have to interpret the facts stated, the innuendoes, the streams of consciousness, the multifaceted and split personalities, their actions and inactions all by ourselves, through our own filters and open up to a more thorough interpretation that must override dated tenets.     Ã‚   Applying the above stated, upon perusing Toni Morrisons novel Beloved, one cannot miss the connection between melding and overlapping identities and the life of people struggling with racial formation and being forced into conformity and assimilation. This assertion is further reinforced by the fact that Sethe lived in the time of the Underground Railroad, a time which saw a sharp increase in the severity of punishments for escaping bondage. The tenseness of life on the black / white divide is passed on to later generations who carry on with their incessant frictions all the way to Martin Luther King Jr. and beyond. In a 2004 interview with Rachel Cooke for â€Å"The Observer† Toni Morrison successfully proves why the battle with racism is not yet over, in spite of all the things that have changed since the beginning of affirmative action. I dont pass without insults. Let me give you an example. I walk into the Waldorf Astoria in New York to check in. Were going to have a drink, and then my friend is going to go home. She stands behind me, as I check in. Finally, the guy says, Oh, are you registering too? He thought I was the maid. My friend was trembling with anger. It was so personal. But the irony of it was that I was on the cover of a magazine that month, and there were these posters with my face on them all over New York. (qtd. in â€Å"The Observer†) The Bluest Eye her debut novel for instance, has had its popularity delayed many a year precisely because of the stark way in which Toni Morrison approached taboo subjects and because she strived to prove that â€Å"black† did not equal â€Å"ugly†. Growing up is difficult and the girls in the novel find their race assignation which is no fault of theirs a difficult burden to carry around. They do not have the easier lives of the lighter-skinned people in their community and their perceived ugliness is a feature which gradually seeps into their consciousness to such a degree that it becomes overbearing. The validity of this externally-imposed ugliness is reinforced not only by the white members of society, but by the very families themselves. In Pecolas case, her own mother finds her daughter repulsive and troublesome, choosing to love a white child more than her own an unforgivable and heinous deed. But then the destabilization of identity is a practice quite comm on for Toni Morrison, and rightly so, because although identity is formed at an early stage in our existence, the vector of external factors leave multiple indelible marks upon the essence of our character. For Toni Morrisons characters the insurmountable obstacles they have to overcome take too great a toll on their resilience, which ultimately becomes defeated. This reciprocal allegoric relationship between private and collective (in this case racial) identity is a true-to-life representation of many generations of oppressed African-Americans and their struggles to survive in a disparaging mainstream society. In Sula, the African-American writer uses the Bottom as a twofold metaphor: on the one hand the location of this neighbourhood is on top of a hill which, as the slave owner explains to the slave, is the bottom of the world from where God is watching and from which â€Å"the blacks† took â€Å"small consolation in the fact that every day they could literally look down on the white folks† (11), while on the other we see little black girls being picked on by the most recent immigrants who themselves would endure abuse, thus continuing this loop which is closed by the proximity to God that the hills afford them. The ramifications do not stop here: it seems that in any place in the novel, any novel of Toni Morrisons, there is a starting point for a new insight, for a new interpretation, for a kernel of postmodernist truth about life and literature, for novel literary technique and what it entails for both the novel itself as a genre, as well as for the reader and his/her perception of things thats constantly being challenged, just like the readers matrix of social tenets and belief system. Possibly the best example of this is served by the story which inspired Toni Morrison to write Beloved, the story of the African-American woman who would rather kill her own daughter than suffer to have her returned to bondage. As Nellie Y. McKay, the co-editor alongside William L. Andrews of â€Å"Toni Morrisons Beloved A Casebook† states another critics point of view (i.e. Karla F. C. Holloway, writer of â€Å"Beloved: A Spiritual†), Toni Morrison really manages to come up with a fresh and reinvigorating approach   For example, with myth as a dominant feature of Beloved, Morrison not only reclaims the Garner story from those who interviewed her after her childs death and expressed enormous surprise at her calm but also, as mythmaker, achieves a complete revision of the episode. [] The oral and written history that Morrison revises, consciously and unconsciously felt, considers many aspects of each life and reflects an alternative perspective on reality. [] In addition, Morrison, like many other African and African-American writers, often defies the boundaries separating past, present, and future time. This allows her to free Beloved from the dominance of a history that would deny the merits of slave stories. As Morrisons creation, Beloved is not only Sethes dead child but the faces of all those lost in slavery, carrying in her the history of the sixty million and more. Holloway sees Beloved as a novel of inner vision: the reclamation of black spiritual histories. (15) As Morrison herself points out in the novel, the press has no interest in presenting the truth detachedly. It also does not concern itself with such â€Å"trite† topics as the abominable abuses of slavery and it does not give praise where praise is due. Instead, it engages in shameless hectoring of a mother who kills her own daughter. If taken out of context, we would expect it to do no less and, but for Toni Morrisons reframing and revamping of the story, we probably wouldnt have given the story a second thought. But we cannot be left to stand idle before such brazen hypocrisy as regarding Sethe more animal than human, and then a murderess guilty of a heinously premeditated act done whilst in full possession of her faculties. Furthermore, her case is stripped of context, just as the plethora of various other deeds similarly perpetrated as a result of extraordinary duress. This time around Morrison gives ample space to her heroine to justify her actions, while not allowing her , however, to be absolved of the guilt she must bear until the end, hence the muddled border between temporal references, actions, characters, and individualities, which again escape their expected linearity and contiguity. Perception is a fickle thing, especially when something is stretched, filtered, re-filtered, decoded and re-encoded, challenged and stereotyped and warped in every way imaginable. We cannot assert our identity as long as we are unable to find the appropriate compromise between the adoption and rejection of every aspect that is debatable and that can be transacted over this social Carrefour of exchanges. But, more importantly, we can no longer acquiesce in this moral comfort zone set out by society, which overshadows whole groups based on artificial considerations, especially when the relativism of the preceding adjective becomes too overbearing and too painful to stand. The point being made here is that while maybe artificial in essence, the segregation inflicted on these groups and others, as well (while Toni Morrison is clearly concerned with the African-American case, it cannot fail to be propitious to generalise an assertion that we should internalise already if we havent done so and apply to any case in which double standards might occur) is absorbed by those whose mental health is abused incessantly and whose resilience truly worn out and even suppressed. What Toni Morrison attempts is to sow the seeds of individual and discernible thought willing and capable enough to probe things deeper than the shallowness of their outward appearance. Toni Morrisons works are soul-wrench ing panegyrics dedicated to the memory of the former slaves and her contemporaries who were still enslaved through omission and discrimination, as well as a testimony of the noblest and most dedicated application of ones moral ideals. Chapter Two: The Importance of Family and Community in Beloved, The Bluest Eye, and Sula Tell us what it is to be a woman so that we may know what it is to be a man. What moves at the margin. What it is to have no home in this place. To be set adrift from the one you knew. What it is to live at the edge of towns that cannot bear your company. (nobelprize.org) It is no secret or surprise that, first family and then family and community, have the greatest impact on our personality, shaping and reshaping our existence, validating and supporting our preferences and choices or going to great lengths to lay stumbling blocks in our path towards achieving these. Furthermore, the conceptions and principles professed within familial confines are based on the patterned behaviour of ones surrounding environment. This, in turn is founded on what is deemed just and acceptable behaviour leading to harmony and cooperation and is related to civic duty. According to Freuds structural model of the psyche, the development of the human psyche is a three-stage process which corresponds to the three most important stages in our existence. In the first stage, the id, our psyche is so shaped as to want nothing but to fulfil its own needs and wishes, regardless of those of everyone else. Then, as we start learning to distinguish betwee