Film Analysis

â€Å"A History of Violence† is a 2005 American thriller movie that is based on a novel bearing the same name and it tells the story of Tom Stall (Viggo Mortensen), a restaurant owner in the small town of Millbrook, Indiana, who lives with his lawyer wife Edie (Maria Bello), son Jack (Ashton Holmes), and daughter Sarah (Heidi Hayes). Through the lives of these characters, the movie depicts that violence is in the blood of the family members.Advertising We will write a custom essay sample on Film Analysis – â€Å"A History of Violence† specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More Stall is a mild-mannered man, popular resident of the town and he seems to know everyone by name. However, this faà §ade of normality is interrupted when he foils a vicious attempted theft at his restaurant by killing two-sought-after criminals in self-defense so as to protect his clients and friends. Heralded as a hero for his action, the life o f Stall never becomes the same again as he attracts countywide attention. The story then becomes a classic tale of an ordinary citizen trying to do his best to prevent the escalating incidences of crime in the country. However, a man in a sharp black suit, named Carl Fogarty (Ed Harris), soon pays him a visit and accuses him of crimes he did some years ago in Philadelphia. Carl Fogarty: his isn’t a completely dead eye, it still works a bit. The problem is, the only thing I can see with it is Joey Cusack, and it can see right through him†¦ right through your husband, Edie. I see what’s inside him, what makes him tick. He’s still the same guy. He’s still crazy fucking Joey! And you know it, don’t you? How much do you really know about your husband, Edie? Where he’s from, where he’s been, his life before he met you some 20 years ago? (The Internet Movie Database, 2010, introduction section). The allegations that Fogarty makes in the motel scene depicts that Stall has a long history of violence that he was trying to hide from. Violence was in his blood and he could not hide from it. More so, he was avoiding the media after his heroic act because he did not want his dark past to be exposed to the public.Advertising Looking for essay on art and design? Let's see if we can help you! Get your first paper with 15% OFF Learn More According to Fogarty, Stall was in fact a criminal called Joey Cusack who had efficient skills in killing. Fogarty reminds him that they still have some unfinished businesses in Philadelphia. In spite of Stall’s persistent denial, these accusations strain his relationship with his family members. Stall’s dark background is exposed more when Fogarty and his men go to his home so as to insist on his going back to Philadelphia with them. However, Stall succeeds in murdering them in his yard using the same accuracy he used before to slay the other two criminals. Anoth er evidence that violence seems to start in the family is seen when Jack shoots at Fogarty and kills him instantly in defense of his father. After this second incident, Stall is admitted to the hospital and he confesses to his wife about his dark criminal past. He tells her that he is in fact Joey Cusack and that he had moved out from Philadelphia with the intention of starting a new life, free of criminal pursuits. The scene in which Stall’s brother, Richie Cusack (William Hurt), is killed also illustrates that violence is in the blood of the family members. Stall gets a call from his brother who also insists that he has to get back to Philadelphia since the other criminals he had mistreated there were prohibiting him from getting higher positions in the powerful criminal organization in the town. Stall offers to reconcile; however, Richie issues a command to his guards to murder him. Skilled in self-defense, Stall manages to overpower the men and to kill his brother togethe r with his men. This shows that indeed violence starts in the family. Richie, Stall’s brother, was a member of a powerful criminal organization in Philadelphia and since he wanted to gain more power in the group, he tried to compel his brother to return. It seems the family of the Cusack’s had a â€Å"history of violence† that is why they participated in so many criminal acts. Carl Fogarty seems to be aware of this: Carl Fogarty: Yeah? Well, why don’t you ask â€Å"Tom† about his older brotherAdvertising We will write a custom essay sample on Film Analysis – â€Å"A History of Violence† specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More Ritchie in Philadelphia? Ask â€Å"Tom† how he once tried to rip my eye out with barbed wire. And ask him, Edie†¦ ask him how come he’s so good at killing people (The Internet Movie Database, 2010, introduction section). The revelation of the dark past of Stall also seems to affect the other members of his family, especially his teenage son, Jack Stall. Soon, Stall discovers that his son has opened a can of whoop-as on the people who are mistreating him. Jack’s unjust actions in school also reinforce the idea that the history of violence starts within the family. Jack may have started to do this because of his dad’s â€Å"violent genes† (nurture principle) that propelled his action. On the other hand, his dad’s bad example (nature principle) may also have set the precedence for his uncalled for behavior. The excerpt below of the dialogue between Jack and his father illustrates this: Tom Stall: In this family, we do not solve problems by hitting people! Jack Stall: No, in this family, we shoot them! [Tom slaps Jack] (The Internet Movie Database Inc., 2010, middle section). When Jack breaks the law in a later scene, the film’s director theme in portraying the history of violence within the fam ily becomes even more evident. It is interesting to note that Stall’s family did not attempt to dig deeper to find out more about his sordid past. This seems to imply that Tom had accustomed them to that way of life and they took it as a normal occurrence within the family. Only Tom’s wife was uncomfortable about the behavior of her husband. Jack and Sarah accepted the life that their father lived. This is seen in the diner scene when Tom arrives at his tension-filled house from the hospital and his children are the ones who took notice of him. In conclusion, â€Å"A History of Violence,† takes the stand that violence originates from the family. This is evident from the life of Tom, his brother Richie, as well as his son Jack. It seems that violence was in their blood.Advertising Looking for essay on art and design? Let's see if we can help you! Get your first paper with 15% OFF Learn More Reference List The Internet Movie Database Inc. (2010). Memorable quotes for A History of violence. Retrieved from https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0399146/quotes This essay on Film Analysis – â€Å"A History of Violence† was written and submitted by user Daphne Rush to help you with your own studies. You are free to use it for research and reference purposes in order to write your own paper; however, you must cite it accordingly. You can donate your paper here.

Ken Kesey, Novelist and Hero of 1960s Counterculture

Ken Kesey, Novelist and Hero of 1960s Counterculture Ken Kesey was an American writer who attained fame with his first novel, One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest. He helped define the 1960s as both an innovative author and a flamboyant catalyst of the hippie movement. Fast Facts: Ken Kesey Born: September 17, 1935, in La Junta, ColoradoDied: November 10, 2001 in Eugene, OregonParents: Frederick A. Kesey and Geneva SmithSpouse: Norma Faye HaxbyChildren: Zane, Jed, Sunshine, and ShannonEducation: University of Oregon and Stanford UniversityMost Important Published Works: One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest (1962), Sometimes a Great Notion (1964). Known For: In addition to being an influential author, he was the leader of the Merry Pranksters and helped launch the 1960s counterculture and hippie movement. Early Life Ken Kesey was born September 17, 1935, in La Junta, Colorado. His parents were farmers, and after his father served in World War II, the family moved to Springfield, Oregon. Growing up, Kesey spent much of his time in the outdoors, fishing, hunting, and camping with his father and brothers. He also became involved in sports, especially high school football and wrestling, exhibiting a fierce drive to succeed. He picked up a love of storytelling from his maternal grandmother and a love of reading from his father. As a child he read typical fare for American boys at the time, including western tales by Zane Grey and the Tarzan books of Edgar Rice Burroughs. He also became an ardent fan of comic books. Attending the University of Oregon, Kesey studied journalism and communications. He excelled as a collegiate wrestler as well as at writing. After graduating from college in 1957, he won a scholarship to a prestigious writing program at Stanford University. Kesey married his high school girlfriend, Fay Haxby, in 1956. The couple moved to California for Kesey to attend Stanford and fell into a lively crowd of artists and writers. Classmates of Kesey included writers Robert Stone and Larry McMurtry. Kesey, with his outgoing and competitive personality, was often the center of attention and the Kesey house in a neighborhood called Perry Lane became a popular gathering place for literary discussions and parties. The atmosphere at Stanford was inspiring. Teachers in the writing program included authors Frank OConnor, Wallace Stegner, and Malcolm Cowley. Kesey learned to experiment with his prose. He wrote a novel, Zoo, which was based on the bohemian residents of San Francisco. The novel was never published, but it was an important learning process for Kesey. To make extra money while in graduate school, Kesey became a paid subject in experiments studying the effects of drugs on the human mind. As part of the US Army studies, he was given psychedelic drugs, including lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD), and instructed to report on its effects. After ingesting the drugs and experiencing profound effects, Keseys writing was transformed, as was his personality. He became fascinated with the potential of psychoactive chemicals, and began experimenting with other substances. Success and Rebellion While working a part-time job as an attendant in a mental ward, Kesey was inspired to write what became his breakthrough novel, One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest, published in 1962. One night, while taking peyote and observing patients in the mental ward, Kesey conceived the story of the inmates in a prison mental hospital. The narrator of his novel, the Native American Chief Broom, sees the world through a mental haze influenced by Keseys drug experiences. The protagonist, McMurphy, has feigned mental illness to avoid laboring on a prison work farm. Once inside the asylum, he finds himself subverting the rules imposed by the institutions rigid authority figure, Nurse Ratched. McMurphy became a classic American rebel character. A teacher from Stanford, Malcolm Cowley, had given him editorial advice, and with Cowleys guidance Kesey turned undisciplined prose, some of it written while under the influence of psychedelics, into a powerful novel. One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest was published to positive reviews and Keseys career seemed assured. He wrote a another novel, Sometimes a Great Notion, the story of an Oregon logging family. It wasnt as successful, but by the time it was published Kesey had essentially moved beyond mere writing. The theme of rebellion vs. conformity became a central theme in both his writing and his life. The Merry Pranksters By 1964 he had gathered a collection of eccentric friends, dubbed the Merry Pranksters, who experimented with psychedelic drugs and multi-media art projects. That year, Kesey and the Pranksters traveled across America, from the West Coast to New York City, on a garishly painted converted school bus they named Further. (The name was originally misspelled as Furthur, and appears that way in some accounts.) Dressed in colorful patterned clothes, a few years before hippie fashion became widely known, they naturally attracted stares. That was the point. Kesey and his friends, which included Neal Cassady, the prototype for Dean Moriarity in Jack Kerouacs novel On the Road, delighted in shocking people. Merry Pranksters on Further, their fabled bus, in San Franciso, 1965. Getty Images Kesey had brought along a supply of LSD, which was still legal. When the bus was pulled over by the police on several occasions, the Pranksters explained they were filmmakers. The drug culture that would scandalize America was still a few years in the future, and the cops seemed to shrug off the Pranksters as something akin to eccentric circus performers. An official from the Smithsonian was quoted as saying it was not a typical bus, adding Its historical context is important for what it meant to the literary world of a certain generation. The original bus, the article noted, was at that time rusting away in an Oregon field. It never was acquired by the Smithsonian, though Kesey at times pranked reporters into believing he was preparing to drive it cross-country and present it to the museum. The Acid Tests Back on the West Coast in 1965, Kesey and the Pranksters organized a series of parties they called The Acid Tests. The events featured the ingestion of LSD, bizarre films and slide shows, and free-form rock music by a local band, which soon began calling itself the Grateful Dead. The events became notorious, as did a party at Keseys ranch in La Honda, California, which was attended by other counterculture heroes, including poet Allen Ginsberg and journalist Hunter S. Thompson. Kesey became the heroic main character of journalist Tom Wolfes deeply reported chronicle of the San Francisco hippie scene, The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test. The Wolfe book solidified Keseys reputation as a leader of the burgeoning counterculture. And the basic pattern of the acid tests, exuberant parties with rampant drug use, rock music, and light shows, set a pattern which became standard in rock concerts for years. Kesey was arrested for possession of marijuana and briefly fled to Mexico to avoid going to jail. When he returned, he was sentenced to six months on a prison farm. Once released he backed off from active involvement in hippie adventures, settled with his wife and children in Oregon, and joined his relatives in the dairy business. Author Ken Kesey at a 1991 public reading. Getty Images   When the film of One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest became a hit in 1975, Kesey objected to how it had been adapted. However, the film was wildly successful, sweeping the 1976 Oscars with five awards, including Best Picture. Despite Keseys refusal to even watch the film, it propelled him from his quiet life on an Oregon farm back into the public eye. Over time he began writing and publishing again. His later novels were not as successful as his first one, but he regularly attracted a devoted following at public appearances. As something of a hippie elder statesman, Kesey continued to write and give speeches until his death. Ken Kesey died in Eugene, Oregon, on November 10, 2001. His obituary in The New York Times called him the Pied Piper of the hippie era and a magnetic leader who had been a bridge between the Beat writers of the 1950s and the cultural movement that began in San Francisco in the mid-1960s and spread across the world. Sources: Lehmann-Haupt, Christopher. Ken Kesey, Author of Cuckoos Nest, Who Defined the Psychedelic Era, Dies at 66. New York Times, 11 November 2001, p. 46.Kesey, Ken. Gale Contextual Encyclopedia of American Literature, vol. 2, Gale, 2009, pp. 878-881. Gale Virtual Reference Library.Kesey, Ken. The Sixties in America Reference Library, edited by Sara Pendergast and Tom Pendergast, vol. 2: Biographies, UXL, 2005, pp. 118-126. Gale Virtual Reference Library.

Recruitment Policy Case Study Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

Recruitment Policy - Case Study Example The paper states that the human resource management’s recruitment policies must ensure high job applicant turnout. Hiring companies include in their recruitment policies that recruitment advertisements at graduate recruitment presentations or in notices placed at job centres must not include a â€Å"warts and all† policy. The absences of the Warts-and-all aspects during the recruitment process to delivery a realistic and message at the selection stage as a means of helping the companies attract and employ job candidates to establish the job applicants’ suitability for the jobs concerned. First, stating that the company will not hesitate to fire employees having lackluster job performances will create fear in the hearts of the faint-hearted job applicants. The absence of the warts-and-all statements will increase job applicant volume. The recruitment office must focus on the â€Å"suitor† approach over the â€Å"realistic or negative† in order to win the approval of the Job applicant. The company can show that current and prospective employees can have there are coffee or snack breaks in the morning and in the afternoon. Likewise, the company can offer a car plan to employees generating excellent or very satisfactory job performances. The company can offer rewards and promotions to employees constantly exceeding established monthly benchmarks. To increase the job applicant database, the negative or warts-and-all hiring policy must be included during the second phase of the recruitment process, the interview phase.

Criminal Law Theft Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Criminal Law Theft - Essay Example An appropriation of property would occur when a person assumes â€Å"the rights of an owner†3 and resorts to â€Å"keeping or dealing with it as an owner.†4 In Ria’s case the actus reus may be established, because (a) the property in question are the cards, because property would include â€Å"money and all other property, real or personal†¦Ã¢â‚¬ 5 (b) they belong to the manger and Sonia respectively, because they facilitate drawing on credit accounts in their respective names and are regulated by the Consumer Credit Act of 19746 (c) Ria has appropriated the cards and used them as if they belonged to her. It may not even be necessary to establish that the taking occurred without the consent of the owners.7 Even a temporary appropriation of property8 or accepting another’s property as a gift can amount to appropriation.9 Where the manager’s card is concerned, Ria cannot argue that because she is also a staff member, she has a right to use the card and is thereby not guilty of theft.10 Ria could try and use the defense of consent, i.e that the manager would have granted consent to use of the card11, but a taking, even with consent, still amounts to an appropriation12 especially if such consent was obtained through fraudulent means.13 In the case of R v Morris14 theft was established when price labels on the products were changed to allow the defendant to purchase the product at a lower price. In this case, Lord Roskill stated that the concept of appropriation also includes â€Å"an act by way of adverse interference with or usurpation† of the owner’s rights.15 This was later disapproved in the case of R v Gomez16 where the House of Lords stated that appropriation can occur even in a case where the owner has consented to allow possession of the property by another, if such consent has been obtained through false representation17. Ria would be criminally liable because it is not only actus reus but also the mens rea which can be

The City Of Greensburg Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

The City Of Greensburg - Essay Example The present evacuation program by the Department of Emergency Department seemingly fails to recognize the presence of the vulnerable population especially those who are disabled or those who are suffering from chronic illnesses. It is important to note that the City Council has made sure that all public buildings are easily accessible by the disabled people and even homes where there is a disabled person are advised to ensure that the home allows for easy movement of the disabled person. This is a great way enables the easy evacuation of disabled people or people suffering from chronic illnesses that impair their movement, in case a disaster occurs.Intensive care units in health care facilities normally cater for vulnerable patients of which some of them depend on life support machines that are powered by electricity and therefore, in case of a power blackout there are likely to die. However, healthcare facilities not only in the City of Greensburg but also in most parts of the count ry have a power back up or generators that will power-on immediately there is a power blackout and hence, ensuring that vulnerable patients are not affected. Nevertheless, in case of a disaster, the generators may even fail to provide power and patients will be transferred to other health care facilities where there is electricity. The evacuation of patients from facilities that have been affected by a disaster to safer facilities. If the severity of the disaster is not high to an extent that roads are inaccessible.

Relationship Between The Nation State And Global Market Economics Essay

Relationship Between The Nation State And Global Market Economics Essay This paper discusses the relationship between the nation state and the global market. Giddens Structuration theory is used to conceptualise nation states as agents and the global market as the structure. It is argued that nation states may shape the global market according to their vested interests and needs and that power plays an important role in this process. A strong and effective state is therefore better able to use the opportunities offered by global market. Globalisation and Developing CountriesThe term Globalisation has been widely used in literature in a number of contexts. It has been seen as the global integration of financial markets (Walker and Fox, 1999:2), interconnectedness of world economy (Neuland and Hough, 1999:1), trans-border movements of capital and goods (Gill, 2000:4) and breakdown of national borders (Redding, 1999:19). Braibant (2002) further includes the development of advanced means of communication, growing importance of multinational corporations, population migrations and increased mobility of persons, goods, capital, data, ideas, and even that of infections, diseases and pollution in the process of globalisation. One aspect that is common among these perspectives is the breakdown of borders between countries, governments, economies and communities that has given rise to the global markets that are not controlled (but may be influenced) by a single country. The use of the term globalisation for the purpose of th is paper is limited to that of trade, finance and investment. A variety of terms are used to differentiate between developed and developing countries (for example north/south and rich/poor etc.), however the literature has come a long way since the days of using the terms such as first world and third world countries. This paper will stick to the term developing countries, which is used to refer to a number of heterogeneous groups of countries. For example it may mean the rapidly growing economies in Asia, negative growth economies (in terms of GDP/capita) in Africa, middle income and very poor countries, small and large, landlocked and ocean access and heavily regulated and recently liberalised countries. This paper however, when referring to developing countries includes all low- and middle-income countries as defined by World Bank (2000). There is a growing body of literature on the affects of globalisation and the opportunities and problems it may cause to the developing countries. The developing countries are characterised by weak economic, legal and political institutions that lead to corruption, insecurity, conflict and lack of competitiveness in labour, technology and skills. The introduction of trade liberalisation and increased international competition in such conditions can have serious consequences for the infant industries in the developing countries (Stiglitz, 2000). However it is generally claimed that opening to the global markets increases the flow of foreign direct investment into the developing countries, allows them to catch up with the latest technology without need for considerable investment or research, bring capital into the country, build expertise, induce innovation, and thus contribute to the general economic growth. Francois and Schuknecht (2000) provide some empirical evidence that openness to global markets leads to GDP growth. These findings are of course challenged by others. The Hegemony of Global Market StructureIn the sizable amount of literature, a form of structuralism can be observed that views the relation between the global market and the nation state as a zero-sum game where the growth of globalisation is seen as increased shrinking of sovereign state. Last two decades of 20th century saw proliferation of the literature that predicted the eclipse, retreat, crisis and even the end of the nation states as a result of growing forces of globalisation. The main premise of these viewpoints is that the nation states have lost control over their territorial boundaries, national economies, currencies and even their cultures and languages as well and thus the macroscopic form of power has shifted from the nation-states to the global market represented by global institutions and multinational corporations (Barrow, 2005). For example Castells (1997:243) in his chapter named A powerless state? argues that State control over space and time is increasingly bypa ssed by global flows of capital, goods, services, technology, communication, and information. Similarly Hardt and Negri (2000:xi) in their book Empire claim that along with the global market and global circuits of production has emerged a global order, a new logic and structure of rule-in short, a new form of sovereignty. Empire is the political subject that effectively regulates these global exchanges, the sovereign power that governs the world. Similar view is held by Camilleri and Falk (1992:98) global processes and institutions are invading the national state and à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦ [are] dismantling the conceptual and territorial boundaries that have traditionally sustained the theory and practice of state sovereignty. The authors concluded that the nation state little choice other than delegating their authority to international and supranational organisations. Hence, it may be a bit exaggerating that the globalisation is the only reason that has resulted into the degradation of s tate authority but it appears from the literature that it is seen by many as the central one (Evans, 1997). Various examples are given to support this point of view. The powers of World Trade Organisation (WTO) to enforce sanctions and punish individual countries are cited as one of the ways in which the global capitalist system coercively seeks conformity. It is argued that individual countries have little influence on the creation and enforcement of rules in the system and even on the level of their own integration into the world economy. A well cited example of this is the attempt of Indonesian government to protect its domestic automobile industry by providing facilities such as tax holidays, lower import duties for spare parts and very low interest loans. These actions and their positive effect on Indonesian automobile industry did not go well with the global automobile exporters who saw their market share potentially in danger. A case was therefore raised against the Indonesian government at the WTO where it was defeated and thus forced to either roll back the measures it had taken t o protect and promote one of its nascent industries or risk severe sanctions (Hartungi, 2006). Another adverse effect of growing power of global capitalist system is that the developing countries have to increasingly compete within each other to attract the FDI which is termed by some as a race to bottom (Chau and Kanbur, 2006). In order to prove them more attractive to the MNCs, developing countries are forced to deregulate hastily and keep the wages and taxes low. Any attempt by these countries to increase the minimum basic wage, labour safety standards or restrictions on capital may result in relocation of MNCs from the country. This exposes the work force to further exploitation in countries where union representation, legal protections and access to basic facilities such as health and education and any kind of social safety net is already limited. Labour exploitations therefore have been reported in Bangladesh, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Kenya and the Dominican Republic where govern ment is forced to keep the wages low due to for example competition from countries like India and China where the garment giants Levi-Strauss and Gap have been considering to relocate due to availability of raw materials as well as packaged services such as cutting, sewing and packaging etc (Hartungi, 2006). Similarly developing countries are coerced into various agreements (such as Trade Related Agreements on Intellectual Property Rights, TRIPS) under the auspices of WTO that are unreasonably costly for these countries to implement. It cost Mexico for example US$30 million to upgrade and enforce intellectual property laws (Finger and Schuler, 1999). Some developing countries such as Nigeria, Uganda, Morocco and Cambodia are forced by the US government to enforce patent protection mechanisms for pharmaceuticals that go way beyond the standard TRIPS agreement and are known as TRIPS Plus. One of the many additional obligations forced on developing countries under TRIPS Plus is the extension of patent terms beyond the 20 years required by standard TRIPS agreement and used commonly by most countries in the world. The Almighty StateThis strand of literature focuses on the role of individual nation-states in enacting and reifying the global market structure. It views these as the principal agents of globalisation and the patrons of the political and material conditions required for its sustainability and influence. Its main premise is that the nation states are going through a transition in order to adjust to the new global political economy and balance the contradictory pressures of global requirements and national interests, hence there is considerable realignment taking place within the state apparatuses which many scholars incorrectly interpret as a decline of nation state. It is argued that without the intervention of the state, the existence and the reproduction of global capitalist market is not possible. The process of creation and strengthening of this system therefore requires active role of the nation states (Aglietta, 2000). However, the policies, attitude and institutions that are required to shape the capitalist structure of global scale take time to develop and thus the developing countries must manage the conflict between domestic and global interests until such institutions take root in the society (ibid.). This point of view is partly based on the work by Robert Cox (1987) published as a book titled Production, Power and World Order in which he challenged the notion that state is in decline and instead proposed the concept of internationalisation of the state. He argues that internationalisation of state is the conversion of state into an agency for adjusting national economic practices and policies to the perceived exigencies of the global economy. The state becomes a transmission belt from the global to the national economy, where heretofore it had acted as the bulwark defending domestic welfare from external disturbances. (Cox, 1987:254) Similar views have been expressed by Panitch (1993) who believes that far from witnessing a by-passing of the state by a global capitalism, what we see are very active states and highly politicised sets of capitalist classes (p63). He adds that the global capitalist structure as it stands today has been authored by the states and it has primarily rearranged rather than by passed states. The level of influence that individual states have on global markets may be different but ultimately the imperial economic and political relationships are not organised by the multinational and transnational firms, but by a system of states that have unequal influence across the globe. Aglietta (2000) therefore defines imperialism as a system of hegemony through which states are coerced by other state/s to adopt a set of rules that favour the stability of global system that may be inclined heavily towards promoting the benefits of stronger states. Thus the current form of globalisation has been constituted by a number of states with uneven inter-state relations and strengths. The role of states strength/power in benefiting from the global capitalist system is substantiated empirically by the work of Weiss (2005) by examining the evidence from Japan and East Asian NICs (Newly Industrialised Countries). The author concluded that the states with strong hold over the socio-economic goal setting and strong relationship with domestic audience were better able to adapt to the process of globalisation and crucially, were also better able to promote the internationalisation strategies of their corporations. Thus the differences between the states capacity (strength) directly affect its ability to exploit the opportunities of international economic change.

Dog Soldiers :: essays research papers

Dog Soldiers is a story laced with despair, paranoia, and several other not so fuzzy moods, and this quote from the main character elegantly demonstrates this mood. The tone of the book was a point of interest and displeasure for me, since this was one of my first experiences with total negativity, it was a fun struggle for me to understand the point or the necessity of such an angry mood. At the same time it made me very uncomfortable, sometimes to the point where I would have to stop reading for the day. There is a constant stream of action in this story, which makes it rather difficult to process what's going on as it happens. The story rarely drags and it is written so that it feels very real and alive. Slang terms are used often too, which are also hard to understand. But after the first few chapters it seems that most readers are able to get around this and start enjoying the fast paced style in which the book is written. This style also adds to the mood of panic and paranoia that encompass the entire book as Marge, Hicks, and Converse try to flee with their dope. Marge, Hicks, and Converse are the book's three main characters, and as the plot follows first Converse's activities and then moves back and forth between Hicks and Converse, these two main characters develop into very complicated people. Marge's character isn't delved into as much, but it didn't seem to be that she was usually thinking about much besides the next time she could get high. Some of the things Converse and Hicks did or said still baffle me, just like the characters that are a part of my real life. Because all of the characters are so weak and hurt each other with such frequency and carelessness, I found it hard to like them, but I liked the fact that not many stories center on people of such violent natures. I had to read Dog

Poetic Drama /Verse Drama of Modern age Essay

Eliot’s plays attempt to revitalize verse drama and usually treat the same themes as in his poetry. They include Murder in the Cathedral (1935), dealing with the final hours of Thomas ÃÆ' Becket; The Family Reunion (1939); The Cocktail Party (1950); The Confidential Clerk (1954); and The Elder Statesman (1959)..(1) Indeed, Eliot hoped that the study and critical reception of early modern verse drama would shape the production of modernist verse drama. In the 1924 essay â€Å"Four Elizabethan Dramatists,† Eliot calls for the study of Elizabethan drama to have a â€Å"revolutionary influence on the future of drama.†(2) Yet, in his later writings as a verse dramatist, Eliot always keeps an arm’s length between himself and the early modern dramatic poets, especially Shakespeare, whom he saw as his strongest precursors in the development of a modernist English verse drama. In the 1951 piece â€Å"Poetry and Drama,† on the matter of verse style in his ow n first major poetic drama, Murder in the Cathedral, Eliot writes, â€Å"As for the versification, I was only aware at this stage that the essential was to avoid any echo of Shakespeare.†¦ Therefore what I kept in mind was the versification of Everyman.†(3) Elsewhere, he is keenly aware of the challenges of writing verse drama for a modernist theatre: â€Å"The difficulty of the author is also the difficulty of the audience. Both have to be trained; both need to be conscious of many things which neither an Elizabethan dramatist, nor an Elizabethan audience, had any need to know.†(4) Eliot finds his whip for training his [p. 105] audience and himself, as dramatist, less in the examples Shakespeare and his contemporaries provide than in the works their medieval predecessors left behind. This essay examines Eliot’s status as a medieval modernist. The periodicity of Eliot’s Middle Ages, problematic as it is, represents the convergence of his animus against modernity and liberalism with his desire for a religiosity that is not marginal, fragmented, and â€Å"compartmentalized† but rather central to the activity of everyday life in a culture and society best characterized by the words unity, integration, and order—the ideological language of conservatism. In part, the concept of Eliot as  Ã¢â‚¬Å"medieval modernist† is indebted to Michael T. Saler’s work on visua l modernism, the English avant-garde, and the London Underground transport system. What Saler describes in terms of medieval modernism is very much a stance or attitude towards the relationship between aesthetic production (imagination) and the utility of consumption (reception) grounded in a social functionalism thought to have its origins in the medieval. I should be quick to point out that Saler is rather ambivalent on the point with regard to Eliot himself: â€Å"While T. S. Eliot might be called a medieval modernist because of his admiration for the organic and spiritual community of the Middle Ages together with his â€Å"impersonal† conception of art, his elitist and formalist views isolate him from several of the central terms of the tradition as I have defined it.Eliot’s ambivalence towards the early modern and repeated turns to the medieval evidence a contradiction between Eliot’s life-long desire for a clearly articulated unity, integration, and order in all aspects of everyday life, including writing and religion, and his fetishization of an early modern period he imagines in terms of anarchy, disorder, and decay. Eliot repeatedly mystifies the early modern period. In his introduction to G. Wilson Knight’s The Wheel of Fire, Eliot gives voice to a vision of the early modern past as a period of phantasmagoric peril, uncertainty, even unknowability: â€Å"But with Shakespeare, we seem to be moving in an air of Cimmerian darkness. The conditions of his life, the conditions under which dramatic art was then possible, seem even more remote from us than those of Dante Verse drama is any drama written as verse to be spoken; another possible general term is poetic drama. For a very long period verse drama was the dominant form of drama in Europe (and was also important in non-European cultures). Greek tragedy and Racine’s plays are written in verse, as is almost all of Shakespeare’s drama, and Goethe’s Faust. Verse drama is particularly associated with the seriousness of tragedy, providing an artistic reason to write in this form, as well as the practical one that verse lines are easier for the actors to memorize exactly. In the second half of the twentieth century verse drama fell almost completely out of fashion with dramatists writing in English (the plays of Christopher Fry and  T. S. Eliot being possibly the end of a long tradition). As Eliot sank ever more deeply into his Anglo-Catholic schtick and he no longer had Pound around to cut the fat and grain filler out of his work, he turned to writing verse drama. He wanted to  reach  people.  He  probably  wanted  to  be  Shakespeare.  Murder in the Cathedral was the first of these verse dramas, and the only one I can even begin to tolerate. The title is intended to evoke a whodunnit; it may be a ponderous Eliotian attempt at a â€Å"witticism†. The joke, such as it is, is that the murderee is Archbishop St. Thomas à   Becket, the killers are some of Henry II’s knights, and the scene of the crime is Canterbury Cathedral, anno domini 1170. If you happened to be hanging around Canterbury in 1935, this was a big win because Canterbury Cathedral is where the thing was first performed. (If you were hanging around  Canterbury  in  1170,  call  me;  we  should  talk).  The background: King Henry II’s wanted to gain influence over the Church in England. He appointed Becket as Archbishop of Canterbury to that end because Becket was his boy. Once in office, Becket’s loyalty shifted to the Church. The two came into conflict over the practice of trying clergy in ecclesiastical courts for civil offenses, and Becket fled to France. While  in France he continued to defy Henry, going so far as to excommunicate some of Henry’s more loyal bishops. At the beginning of the play, Becket returns from his seven-year exile in France. He goes straight to Canterbury, arriving in time for Act I. Four Tempters tempt him. Meanwhile, Henry has put on his John Stanfa hat and made an offhand remark to some of his knights about how convenient it would be if Becket weren’t around any more. The knights draw the obvious conclusion about what he means, and they depart for Canterbury. When they arrive, Becket explains that he is loyal to a higher power than the king. They reply that they aren’t, and they kill him at the altar. The bloodshed is followed by a flourish of self-exculpatory forensic rhetoric from the knights: They argue persuasively that they’ve done the right thing, but not too persuasively because the author doesn’t agree. Exeunt knights; some priests pray at each other and asperse the audience; good  night,  good  night.  Historically, Henry disavowed the whole thing, the knights fell into disgra ce, and Becket was canonized. The whole thing suffers from Late Eliot Syndrome: No tack is left unsledgehammered. He lectures us about his points rather than demonstrating or illustrating them, and the writing is  often less than inspired. Still, it’s better than his other verse dramas: The form and the language are at least appropriate to the material, and the material holds up under the weight of the Message. Eliot later attempted to pile similar Messages onto midcentury English bourgeois melodrama  -in  verse!  It  didn’t  work.  At the height of his powers, Eliot might have done something really interesting with Murder in the Cathedral. Christopher Fry, who has died, aged 97, was, with TS Eliot, the leading figure in the revival of poetic drama that took place in Britain in the late 1940s. His most popular play, The Lady’s Not For Burning, ran for nine months in the West End in 1949. But although Fry was a sacrificial victim of the theatrical revolution of 1956, he bore his fall from fashion with the stoic grace of a Christian humanist and increasingly turned his attention to writing epic films, most notably Ben Hur (1959). The Lady remains Fry’s most popular play: the leading role of Thomas Mendip has attracted actors as various as Richard Chamberlain, Derek Jacobi and Kenneth Branagh. Today, one is struck by the way in which Fry’s euphuistic language – at one point, the hero describes himself as a â€Å"perambulating vegetable patched with inconsequential hair† – overtakes the dramatic action. But in a postwar theatre that had little room for realism, Fry’s medieval setting, rich verbal conceits and self-puncturing irony delighted audiences, and the play became the flagship for the revival of poetic drama. At the same time, Eliot’s The Cocktail Party enjoyed a West End vogue, and a new movement was born. Though less of a public theorist than Eliot, Fry still believed passionately in the validity of poetic drama. As he wrote in the magazine, Adam: â€Å"In prose, we convey the eccentricity of things, in poetry their concentricity, the sense of relationship between them: a belief that all things express the same identity and are all contained in one discipline of revelation.† For a period in the late 1940s and early 50s, Fry helped to revive English verse drama, to which he brought colour, movement and a stoic gaiety. How many of his plays will survive, only time can tell. But, at his best, he brought an undeniable, spiritual elan to the drab world of postwar British theatre. He certainly deserves to be remembered as something more than the inspiration for Margaret Thatcher’s famous remark, â€Å"The lady’s not for turning†. For many centuries from the Greeks onwards verse was, throughout Europe, the natural and almost exclusive medium for the composition and presentation of dramatic works with any pretensions to  «seriousness » or the status of  «art ». Western drama’s twin origins, in the  Greek Festivals and in the rituals of the medieval church, naturally predisposed it to the use of verse. For tragedy verse long remained the only  «proper » vehicle. In comedy the use of prose became increasingly common – giving rise, for example, to such interesting cases as Ariosto’s I suppositi, written in prose in 1509 and reworked twenty years later in verse. (La cassaria also exists in both prose and verse). Shakespeare’s use of prose in comic scenes, especially those of  «low life », and for effective contrast in certain scenes of the tragedies and history plays, shows an increasing awareness of the possibilities of the medium and perhaps already contains an implicit association between prose and  «realism ». Verse continued to be the dominant medium of tragedy throughout the seventeenth century – even domestic tragedies such as A Yorkshire Tragedy (Anon., 1608) or Thomas Heywood’s A Woman Killed With Kindness (1603) were composed in blank verse. For all the continuing use of verse it is hard to escape the feeling that by the end of the seventeenth century it had largely ceased to be a genuinely living medium for dramatists. Increasingly the prevailing idioms of dramatic verse became decidedly literary, owing more to the work of earlier dramatists than to any real relationship with the language of its own time. By 1731 George Lillo’s The London Merchant, or The History of George Barnwell, for all its clumsiness and limitations, in its presentation of a middle-class tragedy in generally effective prose archieved a theatrical liveliness and plausibility largely absent from contemporary verse tragedies – from Addison’s Ca to (1713), Thomson’s Sophonisba (1730) and Agamemnon (1738), or Johnson’s Irene (1749). The example of Racine was vital to such plays, but it was not one that proved very fertile. Lillo was praised in France by Diderot and Marmontel, in Germany by Lessing and Goethe. It is not unreasonable to see Lillo’s work as an early and clumsy anticipation of Ibsen’s. The London Merchant constitutes one indication of the effective  «death » of verse drama. Others are not far to seek. In France, Houdar de La Motte was also writing prose tragedies in the 1720’s, and Stendhal, in the 1820’s was insistent that prose was now the only possible medium for a viable tragedy. Ibsen largely abandoned verse after Peer Gynt (1867), in favour of prose plays more directly and realistically concerned with contemporary issues. A well-known letter to Lucie Wolf (25 May 1883) proclaims that  «Verse has been most injurious to the art of drama†¦ It is improbable that verse will be employed to any extent worth mentioning in the drama of the immediate future since the aims of the dramatists of the future are almost certain to be incompatible with it ». Against the background of such a pattern of development, later dramatic works in verse have often seemed eccentric or academic; this should not blind us, however, to the considerable achievements of modern verse drama and to the importance of the testimony they bear to an idea of drama often radically different from the prevailing modern conceptions. A genre which has given rise to some of the most interesting work of D’Annunzio and Hofmannsthal, Yeats and Eliot, is surely not a negligible one. In the English context, the verse dramas of the Romantics and the Victorians already constituted a kind of  «revival » part of a conscious effort to bring poetry back to the theatre. For the Romantics there was still a potential audience with some sense that verse was the proper  medium for tragedy. The theatrical inexperience of the poets, however, made them ill-equipped for real dramatic achievement. The efforts of Wordsworth (The Borderers), 1795-6), Coleridge (eg. Remorse, 1813), and Keats (Otho the Great, 1819) remain of only antiquarian interest, judged as works for the theatre, though all have much to tell about their makers, and the Borderers, at least, is a work of considerable poetic substance. Perhaps slightly more praise might be extended to some of Byron’s verse dramas (eg. Manfred, 1817; Marino Faliero, 1820; Sardanapalus, 1821) and Shelley’s Cenci (1818) contains some scenes of considerable power. For most of the English romantics, however, the sha dow of Shakespeare proved oppressive; admiration, or rather reverence, for his example produced in their own work a poetic and theatrical idiom lacking all freshness and contemporaneity. It was in the work of other lands and languages that the example of Shakespeare could work more positively. In Germany, for example, there emerged a rich new tradition of verse drama in the works of Lessing (eg. Nathan Der Weise, 1779), Goethe, Schiller, Werner, Kleist (notably in Penthesilea, 1808, and Der Prinz von  Homburg, 1821) and others. In Italy the early plays of Manzoni (Il Conte di Carmagnola, 1820; Adelchi, 1822) provided en example which only a few poet-dramatists endeavoured to follow, while others -such as Niccolini – were more concerned with an attempt to revive Greek models of tragedy. (In Italy verse drama could often not escape from the shadow of the operatic tradition). In America too, verse drama was being attempted by dramatists such as John Howard Payne (eg. Brutus, 1818), Robert Mongomery Bird (The Gladiator, 1831) and, a work of some quality, George Henry Boker’s Francesca da Rimini (1855). In 1827-8 the English troupe made its famous visit to Paris, performing, amongst other works, all four of Shakespeare’s major tragedies. The impact was enormous. One of those most affected and impressed was the young Victor Hugo. In Hugo’s plays, much influenced by Shakespeare, romanticism found far more effective expression in verse drama than it had ever found in England. In plays such as Hernani (1830), Le roi s’amuse (1832), Ruy Blas (1838) and Les Burgraves (1843), Hugo creates a verse idiom of immense vigour which articulates visions of concentrated and extreme human emotion. At his best Hugo’s discrimination of character, if crude, is also striking. Other succesful versedramas later in the century included Francois Coppà ©e’s Severo Torelli (1883) Les Jacobites (1885) and Pour la couronne (1895), as well as Edmond Rostand’s Cyrano de Bergerac (1897). Certainly it is in the work of French and German poets (in plays by Hebbel, Grillparzer and Grabbe as well as those of the poets mentioned earlier) and in the early verse plays of Ibsen notably Brand (1866) and Peer Gynt (1867) – that something li ke the full potential of verse drama is expressed. In England nothing of similar power exists in the nineteenth century. The  plays of James Sheridan Knowles (1784-1862) – such as William Tell (1825) and The Love Chase (1837) – provided effective roles for the great actor-manager Macready, but have little now to offer. Macready also acted in Lytton’s The Lady of Lyons (1838) and Richelieu (1839), both of which had considerable theatrical success, and are not entirely without enduring merits. Poets such as Tennyson (eg. Queen Mary, 1876; Harold, 1876; Becket, 1879) and Browning (eg. Strafford, 1837; A Blot in the Scutcheon, 1843) also wrote for the theatre but displayed very little sense of the genuinely theatrical (Tennyson assumed that he could leave it to Irving to  «fit »Ã‚  Becket for the stage). Other poets wrote closet dramas never intended for performance – Sir Henry Taylor’s enormous Philip Van Artevelde (1834) is an archetypal example of the genre, a work which, its author readily confessed  «was not intended for the stage » and was  «properly an Historical Romance, cast in dramatic and rythmical form ». Much the same might be said of two later and finer works: Swinburne’s Bothwell (1874) of which Edmund Gosse rightly observes that  «in bulk [it] o ne of the five-act Jidai-Mono or classic plays of eighteenth-century Japan, and it could only be performed, like an oriental drama, on successive nights », and The Dynasts (19038) of Thomas Hardy, the text of which occupies some 600 pages and which is described in its subtitle as  «An Epic-Drama of the War of Napoleon in Three Parts, Nineteen Acts, and One Hundred and Thirty Scenes ». The requirements and possibilities of practical theatre have clearly been left far behind; the divorce of the poet from the performers seems complete. Yet there were others who sought to maintain the relationship between poetry and theatre. The plays of Stephen Phillips, for example (eg. Herod, 1901; Ulysses, 1902; Paolo and Francesca, 1902; The King, 1912) have neither the psychological perception of Swinburne nor the historical insight of Hardy, but they did hold the stage with considerable success. Phillips had plenty of theatrical experience, having been an actor in the theatrical company of his cousin, Frank Benson. Phillips’ verse plays were produced by Beerbohm Tree, and they display a sophisticated command of theatrical effect and a wide-ranging, if almost wholly derivative, verse rhetoric which has, very occasionally, genuinely poetic moments. Elsewhere in the early years of the century there is to be found worthwhile work by a multitude of minor figures. Lawrence Binyon’s Attila (1907) and Ayuli (1923); Gordon Bottomley’s King Lear’s Wife (1915) and Gruach (1923); John Masefield’s Good Friday (1917), Esther (1922) and Tristan and Isolt (1927); John Drinkwater’s Cophetua (1911) and Rebellion (1914); Arthur Symons’ The Death of Agrippina and Cleopatra in Judea (1916); T.Sturge Moore’s Daimonissa (1930) – are all of interest and substance, but none can be said to make an overwhelming case for the genre, and all are, in varying degrees unable to escape from the long shadow of Shakespeare, especially as reinterpreted by the nineteenth-  century. Under fresh influences – French Symbolism and Japanese Noh theatre in particular – verse drama began to explore new possibilities. Gordon Bottomley’s later works – such as Fire at Callart (1939) showed an awareness of the possibilities offered by the model of the Noh. Yeats, of course, had more fully explored such possibilities in works such as At the Hawks’ Well, The Only Jealousy of Emer, The Dreaming of the Bones and Calvary (composed c.1915-20), insofar as they were the means of liberation from the obligations of a naturalistic theatre. Verse, music, ritual and dance were woven into a complementary whole. (Irish successors to yeats include Austin Clarke, whose verse plays have been performed by the Abbey Theatre, the Cambridge festival Theatre and others). In later plays such as The Herne’s Egg (1935) and Purgatory (1938) evolves a personal and convincing idiom (both verbally and theatrically) for verse drama. These are superficially simp le, but metaphysically profound works, both verbally exciting and theatrically striking. Elsewhere in Europe, the work of Gabriele D’Annunzio (eg. La città   morta, 1898; Francesca da Rimini, 1901; La figlia di Iorio, 1904) and Hugo von Hofmannsthal (eg. Jedermann, 1912; Das grosse Salzburger Welttheater, 1922) was bearing eloquent testimony to the continuing potential of the genre. In France Claudel was creating a series of verse plays upon religious and philosophical themes, whose intense lyricism and startling imagery for long went without full appreciation (eg. Partage de midi, 1906; Le pain dur, 1918; Le Soulier de satin, 1928-9). Other French twentieth-century verse-dramas include works by Char, Cà ©saire and Cocteau, but the poetic qualities which characterise much that has been most striking in modern French drama have more generally found expression in prose plays rather than verse plays – as, for example, in the work of Giradoux, Anouilh, Beckett, Ionesco and Vian. In Spain, Lorca mixes verse and prose in his plays. In Britain the 1930’s saw a new generation of poets whose experiments did much to broaden the range – in terms both of form and content – of verse drama. The Dog Beneath the Skin (1936) and The Ascent of F.6 (1937) were collaborations by W.H. Auden and Christopher Isherwood which brought a fresh wit and intellectuality, a new radicalism of social comment and contemporary relevance, to the genre. T.S.Eliot’s plays – notably Murder in the Cathedral  (1935) and The Family Reunion (1939) offered persuasive instances of how verse might, for the dramatist, be the means by which one could  «get at the permanent and universal » rather than the merely ephemeral and naturalistic. Murder in the Cathedral was written for performance in Canterbury Cathedral, while The Family Reunion was composed for the commercial theatre. The  idioms of the two plays are, therefore, necessarily very different; taken together the two offer a promise not wholly fulfilled by Eliot’s later plays, such as The Cocktail Party (1950), The Confidential Clerk (1953) and The Elder Statesman (1958). In these later plays the verse lacks the confidence to be genuinely poetic – the linguistic intensity of the pre-war plays gives way to something far more prosaic. Murder in the Cathedral is, in part, striking for its mixture of verse forms and idioms; the Auden and Isherwood collaborations drew on the techniques of the music hall, the pantomime and the revue. From the 1930’s onwards verse dramas have continued to be composed in Britain (and America), many of them works of considerable distinction. Most have been composed for performance outside the commercial theatre – for churches and cathedrals, for universities or drama schools, or for some theatrical groups devoted to verse drama. In London, for example, the Mercury Theatre in Notting Hill Gate, holding no more than 150, was opened by Ashley Dukes in 1933 and was home to E.Martin Browne’s Pilgrim Players. Browne was central to the revival of verse drama in the middle years of the century. He directed all of Eliot’s plays, including the first performance of Murder in the Cathedral. In the 1940’s he directed, at the Mercury, several important verse plays – both religious (eg. Ronald Duncan’s This Way to the Tomb, 1945; Anne Ridler’s The Shadow Factory, 1945) and comic (eg. Christopher Fry’s A Phoenix too Frequent, 1946; Dona gh MacDonagh’s Happy as Larry, 1947). Browne was also associated with the remarkable religious plays by Charles Williams (eg.Thomas Cranmer of Canterbury, 1936; Seed of Adam, 1937; The House of the Octopus, 1945). Indeed, the variety of the verse drama produced in these years was very considerable. It includes the grave beauty of Williams’ plays and the fantastic gaiety of Happy as Larry, its language informed at every turn by the ballads of Dublin and the idiosyncrasies of  colloquial  «Irish ». In the plays of Christopher Fry there is a substantial body of work characterised, at its best, by both a vivacity (even exuberance) of language and a well-developed theatricality. Plays such as The Lady’s Not for Burning (1948)), Venus Observed (1950), A Sleep of Prisoners (1951) and Curtmantle (1961) display a considerable range. Fry can be funny and moving, dazzling and beautiful. He can also be verbose and sentimental. Immensely successful – critically and commercially – at the beginning of his career, Fry’s reputation has suffered since. His best plays are both intelligent and entertaining, and will surely continue to find admirers. There is much that is rewarding, too, in the work of Ronald Duncan – in Our Lady’s Tumbler (195 0), which has some fine choric writing, or in Don Juan (1953); Stephen Spender’s Trial of a Judge (1938) is an intriguing experiment, with some highly effective moments. Louis MacNeice’s The Dark Tower (1946) is a rich and  mysterious  «radio parable play » in verse. The tradition of verse drama has continued to attract writers, and they have continued to produce interesting plays; such plays have, however, largely been seen (or read) only by specialised audiences. Few have found their way on to the commercial stage. Robert Gittings’ Out of this Wood (1955); Jonathan Griffin’s The Hidden King (1955); John Heath-Stubbs’ Helen in Egypt, (1958); Patric Dickinson’s A Durable Fire (1962) the list might be extended considerably. More recent years have seen the production (or publication) of significant verse plays by, amongst others, Peter Dale (The Cell, 1975; Sephe, 1981), Tony Harrison (eg. The Misanthrope, 1973; Phaedra Britannica, 1975; The Oresteia, 1981; The Trackers of Oxyrhynchus, 1990), Seamus Heaney (The Cure at Troy, 1990) and Francis Warner (eg. Moving Reflections, 1982; Living Creation, 1985; Byzantium, 1990). In America the tradition begun in the nineteenth century and continued by dramatists such as Josephine Preston Peabody (eg. Marlowe, 1901) and William Vaughn Moody (eg. The FireBringer, 1904), has had such later practitioners as Percy Mackaye (The Mystery of Hamlet, 1949), Maxwell Anderson (eg. Elizabeth the Queen, 1930; Winterset, 1935), Richard Eberhart (eg. The Visionary Farms, 1952; The Mad Musician, 1962) and Archibald MacLeish (eg. J.B., 1958; Herakles, 1967). Modern verse-drama has extended the formal possibilities of the genre far beyond the traditions of  blank-verse tragedy. A wide range of verse forms, of free-verse, and of experiments derived from the techniques of revue and music-hall have played their part in the evolution of new and striking theatrical forms. Why have so many writers continued to be attracted to verse drama when, as Peter Dale observes, his chances of seeing his work performed are generally very slight? If, like Ibsen after Peter Gynt, the dramatist’s aim is to write  «the genuine, plain language spoken in real life » (letter of 25 May 1883 quoted above) he will not, presumably, be attracted to verse as a likely medium. If, on the other hand, he feels with Yeats that the post-Ibsen prose of Shaw’s plays was devoid of  «all emotional implication », or if he shares the sentiments expressed by T.S.Eliot in his 1950 lecture on  «Poetry and Drama », it is more than probable that he will feel it necessary to turn to verse: It seems to me that beyond the nameable, classifiable emotions and motives of our conscious life when directed towards action – the part of like which prose drama is wholly adequate to express – there is a fringe of indefinite extent, of feeling which we can only detect, so to speak, out of the corner of the eye and can never completely focus †¦ This peculiar range of sensibility can be expressed by dramatic poetry, at its moments of greatest intensity. At such moments we  touch the border of those feelings which only music can express. We can never emulate music, because to arrive at the condition of music would be the annihilation of poetry, and especially of dramatic poetry. Never the less, I have before my eyes a kind of mirage of the perfection of verse drama, which would be a design of human action and words, such as to present at once the two aspects of dramatic and musical order †¦ To go as far in this direction as possible to go, without losing tha t contact with the ordinary everyday world with which drama must come to terms, seems to me the proper aim of dramatic poetry. Such thoughts enable us to see modern verse drama as much more than that reaction against naturalism as which it has often been depicted. At its best  verse drama is too positive an aspiration for it to be adequately understood merely as a reaction to the dominant idiom of the time. Much of what is best and most attractive in European theatre of the last 40 years might be described as post-naturalist, rather than merely anti-naturalist; verse-drama has made, and should continue to make, important and distinctive contributions to post-naturalism. According to Francis Fergussan, a poetic drama is a drama in which you â€Å"feel† the characters are poetry and were poetry before they began to speak. Thus poetry and drama are inseparable. The playwright has to create a pattern to justify the poetic quality of the play and his poetry performs a double function. First, it is an action itself, so it must do what it says. Secondly, it makes explicit what is really happening. Eliot in his plays has solved the problem regarding language, content  and  versification. In the twentieth century, the inter-war period was an age suited to the poetic drama. There was a revival and some of the poets like W. B. Yeats and T. S. Eliot tried their hands in writing of poetic plays. This was a reaction against prose plays of G. B. Shaw, Galsworthy and others because these plays showed a certain lack of emotional touch with the moral issue of the age. W. B. Yeats did not like this harsh criticism of the liberal idea of the nineteenth century at the hands of dramatists like G. B. Shaw. So he thought the drama of ideas was a failure to grasp the reality of the age. On the other hand, the drama of entertainment (artificial comedy) was becoming dry and uninteresting. It was under these circumstances that the modern playwrights like T. S. Eliot, J.M. Synge, W. B. Yeats, W. H. Auden, Stephen Spendor and so on have made the revival the poetic drama possible. The Choruses. A striking feature of â€Å"Murder in the Cathedral† is Eliot’s use of poetic choruses like the choruses in ancient Greek drama. The producer must decide the method which will project most effectively in the theatre these recurring choral passages, spoken by the Women of Canterbury. There are eight poetic rhapsodies or choruses, comprising approximately one fifth of  the text. The poetry in the choruses invites all the imaginative enrichment which light, music and dance can give it.  The chorus commenced in Greek drama, originally as a group of singers or chanters. Later, a Greek playwright called Thespis introduced an actor on the stage who held a dialogue with the leader of the chorus. Playwrights like Aeschylus and Sophocles added a second and a third actor to interact with the chorus. Finally, the chorus took on the role of participants in the action and interpreters of what is happening on stage. Eliot has based â€Å"Murder in the Cathedral† on the form of classic Greek tragedy. He uses the chorus to enhance the dramatic effect, to take part in the action of the play, and to perform the roles of observer and commentator. His chorus women represent the common people, who lead a life of hard work and struggles,  no matter who rules. It is only their faith in God that gives them the strength to endure. These women are uneducated, country folk, who live close to the earth. As a result, they are in tune with the changing seasons and the moods of nature. At present, they have an intuition of death and evil. They fear that the new year, instead of bringing new hope, will bring greater suffering. The three priests have three different reactions to Becket’s arrival. The first reacts with the fear of a calamity.The second is a little bold and says that there can hardly be any peace between a king who is busy in intrigue and an archbishop who is an equally proud, self-righteous man. The third priest feels that the wheel of time always move ahead, for good or evil. He believes that a wise man, who cannot change the course of the wheel, lets it move at its own pace.

russian revolution essays

russian revolution essays Eventually, empires and nations all collapse. The end can be brought about by many causes. Whether through becoming too large for their own good, being ruled by a series of out of touch men, falling behind technologically, having too many enemies, succumbing to civil war, or a combination: no country is safe. The Russia of 1910 was in a tremendously horrible situation. She had all of these problems. Russia would not have existed by 1920 were it not for Vladimir Ilich Lenin, the only man capable of saving the failing nation. Russia in 1910 was a very backwards country. Peasants who lived in absolute poverty made up the vast majority of Russias population (Haney 19). Russias version of the feudal system had ended a mere 49 years earlier, but in effect it meant that peasants now owned the meager parcels of land upon which their survival rested. Their ruler, Czar Nicholas II, ruled aloof of his disorganized nation. His government of appointed officials and men in inherited positions did not represent the people (The Tyranny of Stupidity 120). Even though all of Europe had experienced the Industrial Revolution, Russia had precious little machinery. To obtain more advanced machines, the government traded grain to other countries in exchange for machinery, even though it meant that more people would starve (Haney 17). Compound this with the devastation and desperation brought on shortly thereafter by the First World War, and there was no confidence left in the government. Different political factions formed, and none got along (U.S.S.R. 63). Liberal constitutionalists wanted to remove the czar and form a republic; social revolutionists tried to promote a peasant revolution; Marxists promoted a revolution among the proletariat, or urban working class. The people were fed up with Russias state of affairs and ready for change. Change was...

Compare the Ways in Which Two Poets Use the Symbol of a Rose and Explore the Effects of Their Words Upon the Reader Essays

Compare the Ways in Which Two Poets Use the Symbol of a Rose and Explore the Effects of Their Words Upon the Reader Essays Compare the Ways in Which Two Poets Use the Symbol of a Rose and Explore the Effects of Their Words Upon the Reader Essay Compare the Ways in Which Two Poets Use the Symbol of a Rose and Explore the Effects of Their Words Upon the Reader Essay Compare the ways in which two poets use the symbol of a rose and explore the effects of their words upon the reader. A rose is most commonly known to represent love and affection towards another person. However, it can be used to symbolize the opposite feelings as the reader understands in the first poem, A Gift of a Rose. Both poems, A Gift of a Rose and A Red, Red Rose describe the rose, but in two very contrasting aspects of love and desire and hatred and blood.A Red, Red Rose, written by Robert Burns, uses positive connotations of the word ‘Rose’ to describe his affections to his love and uses the traditional cliche of a rose to show this. Robert Burns uses a rose in a conventional way to declare his love in a Sonnet form as one would have done in the 18th century. Through the use of repetition of the word ‘Red’ in the title, it suggests a deep and matured love for the other person. Burns confirms this idea of deep love when he sa ys, â€Å"So deep in luve am I,† telling the reader directly what the poem is about.The poem also consists of hyperboles which also show the depth of his love as he is comparing her to all the things he finds beautiful or fascinating, such as â€Å"a red, red rose,† which is also how he sees her. By using a capital letter at the beginning of the words ‘Luve’ and ‘Dear’, it emphasises his affection for the other person and makes the poem seem more loving and affectionate. In contrast, A Gift of a Rose, written by Fred D’Aguiar, does not use a ‘red, red rose’ as a cliche, but instead subverted the word to describe discrimination, hurt and open wounds, with violent diction, metaphorical phrases and negative connotations.This poem describes a discrimination against a black person. The use of a red rose in this poem is to symbolise violence, anger and bloodshed. The use of a red rose gives a sarcastic tone to the poem, reflectin g on the way black people were treated at the time. Metaphors such as â€Å"a bunch of red roses†, meaning several wounds and â€Å"I have a bouquet of my own for them†, meaning many ways of revenge, add to the harshness of the poem and gives a sense of disturbance to the reader as it makes the thorns on a rose much more prominent than the flower itself. Alliteration is also used such as â€Å"a rose for a rose† to add emphasis on etting revenge and the hurt that has been caused. The phrase â€Å"red, red roses† in this poem, suggests a very deep sense of anger and violence inside the victim and in this case, the lack of love towards the person discriminated. When comparing the two poems, the reader discovers that the rose has many different meanings and can be used to symbolise to very contrasting situations of love and of revenge. A Red, Red Rose is a far gentler poem which uses much softer and flowing words such as ‘played’, ‘mileâ⠂¬â„¢, ‘smile’, ‘will’, ‘still’ etc. they all use the letter ‘l’ which adds a lyrical rhythm to the poem.Whereas A Gift of a Rose uses far harsher and violent diction, such as ‘statistic’, ‘ice’, ‘exit’, ‘epithets’ etc, which all use the letter ‘t’ which is harsh sounding and negative. However, both poems do use repetition for example; â€Å"red, red roses† is used in both poems to show the depth of feeling in the writer. The gift of a rose also repeats the words â€Å"rose† and â€Å"flowers† throughout the poem, emphasising the hurt and pain, whereas a red, red rose only has to say the word once to show his love as the sonnet structure of the poem gives the idea away.In conclusion, the word rose can be expressed in several ways and have several meanings which may contradict one another but overall have similar meanings. A gift of a rose uses the symbol of a rose to show revenge, violence, anger and hurt but still use it in symbolising feelings, whereas the feelings shown in a red, red rose, are very much opposite and have an opposite effect on the reader through use of language, metaphors and the meaning of the rose symbol.

Declaration Of Indepence Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Declaration Of Indepence - Essay Example Consequently, the then congress led by Thomas Jefferson resolved to defy the Britain’s orders (Maddern 534). The document comprises 27 injustices, which the Great Britain despite being aware inflicted on the natives, hence depriving them their dignity and using their own blood soldiers to unleash terror on them (Onuf 71). They also called all the 13 states to declare their sovereignty despite the involved cost by informing the colonial masters they were ready to reclaim their dignity, hence the name â€Å"Declaration of Independence† (Sabato 73). North America, which at presently is the United States of America, suffered untold severity subjected to them by Great Britain who by then was their colonial masters (Maddern 535). This entailed depriving them liberty, freedom and dignity. According to the then congress leaders led by Thomas Jefferson, Great Britain under King George III, did not value the rights of their subjects. This is despite receiving numerous grievances concerning what they were undergoing and neglecting them (Sabato 74). The condition worsened when the Great Britain started using American soldiers to unleash brutality against their own people. Hence, dehumanizing the colonists, which to them implied they do not exactly know their privileges (Onuf 71). â€Å"Declaration of Independence† document outlined 27 abuses, which the King George III used to dehumanize the natives (Onuf 71). Primarily these abuses entailed doing things and instituting certain legislation with the absence of the native’s regime consent. King George III interfered with the natives’ form of government and their judicial system (Sabato 72). Together with the parliament, he interfered with the colonies’ regime systems without their consent to the extent of imposing unfair taxes (Sabato 73). This affected severely trade among the states where the levied taxes deprived them their right of trading freely. Consequently, hindering the

Application of the Cantor Model of Assertive Discipline on Middle Essay

Application of the Cantor Model of Assertive Discipline on Middle School Students - Essay Example The credo upheld by the familiar phrase promotes a sense of authority for the elder to exercise his right over the child. The elder does so with the intention to correct the child of a misdeed and with the purpose of restoring him to a pleasing and proper character. On one hand, it does not permit a loose and passive control of the behavior of the child for no evil deed goes unpunished. On the other hand, it should not, however, get into the verge of total prohibition nor physical abuse for a wrongdoing for the goal is to restore the child. If done beyond appropriate bounds, the child may resent or may develop a sense of fear. A similar philosophy can be applied in the context of classroom management. The Cantor Model, specifically, fosters this idea. The model stresses the importance of assertive discipline. Teachers have to ensure that the class upholds respect for authority and that students may behave as they please but with caution and awareness that they are responsible for the ir actions (Allen, 1996). Body The Cantor Model can be very suitable for Middle School students because in its practice, the students are given the freedom to learn in a fashion they want but they will be made to really think before they act. Being aware that they will be held liable for any inappropriate behavior, they will first have to assess if an action they wish to perform will be beneficial for them or not. This way, critical thinking may be cultivated in them. The age bracket of Middle School generally falls under the start of the adolescent stage. Sixth to eighth graders would fall in this category. It is the stage when the teen wants to explore more, but may have a struggle with his identity. It is also the stage when he may show occasional rudeness to parents, believing they interfere in his independence. Peer groups generally influence his personal style. The teen may also exhibit childish behaviors when stressed. However, it is good to note that at this developmental le vel, the youth becomes more efficient is using speech to express himself, more interested in intellectual pursuits, and is more able to do work may it be physical, intellectual or emotional (Normal Adolescent Development, 2001). Being guided accordingly by the Canter Model, the educator can use several strategies for classroom management for sixth to eighth graders, maintaining proper overall conduct of the class, without being passive nor hostile. Middle School students will be allowed to practice their independence by choosing a learning style that is suitable for them but the teacher ensures that the classroom rules are not bent just to cater to the demands of students. Firstly, the educator may use student engagement strategies to keep students on task. This method recognizes that there is no single formula to get the attention of all the students. Each has his own interests that will get the student working on the task. In application, the teacher may have the class view a film related to the topic being discussed. They shall then make a reflection on it in a way they deem creative but personal. They can express their opinions through their preferred interest—they can make a song, a poem, a story, a drawing, etc. The educator can give a hint of assertiveness in simply setting a strict deadline, or specifications (e.g. story should not be less than ten pages long, or the song should only have a maximum of five minutes