Decline in Black Admissions to Universities :: essays research papers

If you are a student at an HBCU, looking around your classroom or on the yard hoping to see a familiar brown face is probably never an issue, but for students at colleges and universities where African American enrollment is now steadily declining, it is definitely a concern. Larissa Lincoln, a senior sociology major at the University of Washington knows what it is like to feel alienated or alone on campus. â€Å"Sometimes when I’m in a lecture there will be 200 people and I can count about six or seven black students. Its very noticeable walking around that there is not enough blacks being admitted to college.† After the 2003 Supreme Court decision that required schools like the University of Michigan to change their admittance procedure and evaluate students not based on their minority status, but individually, Michigan is now reporting the smallest class of African American freshmen in 15 years. Many state universities in California, Georgia and much of the Midwest have also noticed a significant decline when it comes to admitting blacks. Enrollment for freshmen at the University of Georgia was down by 26 percent, 29 percent for Ohio State and 32 percent at the University of Illinois’ Urbana-Champaign. While there is no single explanation for the low numbers, a few factors should be taken into consideration. According to Jason S. Mironov, President of the University of Michigan’s student body, the process for getting accepted to Michigan has become more challenging. â€Å"The application became significantly harder. Unless you were absolutely sure you wanted to go to Michigan, many students were reluctant to spend a great deal of time with the application.† Rising tuition costs also play a role in discouraging lower-income students from applying and out-of-state fee’s for many schools seem almost unattainable for many students. Affirmative action laws also have their place in the decline of black students, many students feel that if it weren’t for affirmative action or other guidelines set to help minorities, then they would not consider applying to more prestigious schools.

Pride and Prejudice Essay

The concept of love is developed and endured throughout an healthy relationship in Jane Austen’s novel, Pride and Prejudice. She successfully incorporates different examples of marriage in nineteenth century and distinguishes the perfect marriage from the hopeless marriage. The definition of authentic love is caring for someone unconditionally. It means putting someone before yourself and not asking for anything in return. There are a variety of different examples of marriage in the novel, but Elizabeth, Jane, and Lydia’s marriages are the best examples of a perfect marriage, easily-influenced marriage ,and a hopeless marriage. It is emphasized that Elizabeth and Darcy will have the happiest marriage within the novel because of their commited relationship with each other. The perfect marriage between a man and a woman in the nineteenth century would probably be centered around Elizabeth and Darcy’s marriage. Elizabeth’s character was always honest to herself and especially to others. Her defiant attitude made her stand out from the rest of the women according to Darcy. Although Elizabeth did not love Darcy at first, her loved developed through the ups and downs of their relationship. Once Darcy figured out that he could not win the heart of Elizabeth by lying and being prideful, he started to change for the better good of their relationship. Elizabeth fell head over heels for Darcy and accepted his proposal, â€Å"The happiness which this reply produced, was such as he had probably never felt before; and he expressed himself on the occasion as sensibly and as warmly as a man violently in love can be supposed to do† (Austen 200). Once she realized that he had a change of heart and his affectionate love for her was unconditional, Elizabeth knew that her marriage with Darcy would be one to last for a life time in complete and utter happiness. Love at first sight is not authentic in some cases. It takes time to love one another to recognize each others flaws and weaknesses. The ability to overcome our flaws and problems with our significant other helps us to develop authentic love with our partner. Jane and Bingley’s relationship was not produced over time, yet they knew that they were soul mates after two dances at the ball. The reason why Bingley came into town was to find a wife; â€Å"It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife† (Austen 1). Their marriage and relationship will probably be amusing and entertaining in the beginning, but their marriage will sooner or later fall apart. Since they barely knew each others faults and weaknesses before they entered into marriage, their relationship might crumble because of the lack of stability each other has in their relationship. Jane and Bingley’s character are both described as innocent people in society. For example, Elizabeth describes Jane’s character as, â€Å"Affectation of candour is common enough— one meets with it everywhere. But to be candid without ostentation or design— to take the good of everybody’s character and make it still better, and say nothing of the bad— belongs to you alone† (Austen 29). Rather than making their own decisions, they usually obey the commands of others and depend on other people’s judgments. The main reason why many people elope rather than marry into a relationship is due to the fact that they want to make their relationship official as soon as possible. A rushed marriage will only cause more problems because it is partially due to get it over with, or to hide their relationship from the people that they love. Lydia and Wickham’s marriage was an elopement rather than a real marriage. Both characters acted upon their foolishness instead of their heart and mind. Lydia’s character was described as, â€Å"Her character will be fixed, and she will, at sixteen, be the most determined flirt that ever made herself and her family ridiculous. A flirt, too, in the worst and meanest degree of flirtation; without any attraction beyond youth and a tolerable person; and from the ignorance and emptiness of her mind, wholly unable to ward off any portion of that universal contempt which her rage for admiration will excite. In this danger Kitty is also comprehended. She will follow wherever Lydia leads. Vain, ignorant, idle, and absolutely uncontrolled! (Austen 156). Infatuation also played a huge part within Lydia’s relationship towards Wickham. He knew that he could easily sweep Lydia off her feet because she was the youngest and most immature one in the Bennet family. Wickham was self-indulgent in his plan to fancy Lydia. All Wickham ever wanted was money and pleasure, he did no care for Lydia as much due to his self-contempt. Since Wickham was in finnancial trouble with creditors, he made the foolish mistake of eloping with Lydia to get out of town. His decision proved that he did not care about Lydia’s reputation, but only himself’s. Although love may develop in a variety of ways, there should still be the distinction between infatuation and authentic love. Infatuation does not last as long as authentic love does, rather it sets a person up for heart breaks and instability. The elopement of Lydia and Wickham are the perfect example of infatuation because Lydia only loved Wickham for his devious ways of fancing her and Wickham only loved Lydia for her money and her being as an excuse to get out of town. Jane and Bingley’s marriage defined love, but not authentic love. They knew each other’s strengths and priorities, but they did not know each other’s flaws and weaknesses. Both Jane and Lydia’s marriage are the ones to be slightly less felicitous compared to Elizabeth’s marriage because they did not with hold the unconditional love that Darcy and Elizabeth had for each other. In order to have a healthy long-living marriage, both persons within the relationship need to know each other’s strengths and weaknesses, and are willing to help one overcome their flaws. The love they should have for each other should be based upon the love that Darcy has for Elizabeth. He put Elizabeth before himself and his problems in order to prove his devotion towards her. Austen made Elizabeth and Darcy’s relationship the ideal marriage in order to show society how a man and woman should love each other.

Broadcasting of the BBC Documentary ‘The Secret Policeman’ Essay

On Tuesday 21st October 2003, the BBC’s documentary The Secret Policeman was broadcast to approximately 5 million viewers in Britain. Mark Daly, an undercover reporter had spent seven months posing as a fellow trainee at the Bruche National Training Centre in Cheshire to film an exposà ¯Ã‚ ¿Ã‚ ½ on racism among police recruits. The film not only provided evidence of police racism but also highlighted the stereotypical representations of Black identity within Western ideology. In this essay I propose to investigate how the British media’s representation of Blacks has, rather than reflecting reality, constructed it. My research predominantly focuses on evidence gathered from racial reports and theories of the 1980’s until the present day and examines the development, if any, within race representation in the media. Pre-1980’s case studies are generally omitted because of the rapid development of discussion of racial issues as a reaction to the brutal riots of that decade. Additionally, the institutional and individual stereotyping revealed within The Secret Policeman can be directly related to prevalent issues specifically within the media of the previous two decades. Controversially, I ultimately aim to depict The Secret Policeman as a symbol of advancement in Black representation within Britain. â€Å"The use of the term ‘Black bastard’ and ‘Nigger’†¦ isn’t racist† The Secret Policeman’s inclusion of a clip of racist remarks by the Police Federation’s Representative in 1983 is an accurate reflection of the racial turmoil that Britain’s Institutions and communities were in. Black lawlessness was an image that dominated the Press reporting on riots from 1980 – 85. A predominantly Black riot against at Bristol’s police force in 1980 was followed by further confrontational outbreaks in 1981. The first two years of riots gained Britain’s (particularly young) West Indian community the reputation for being â€Å"notorious for muggings, assaults and murders†2 but nonetheless presented a slight initial interest into the awareness of the underlying causes. The scale of Britain’s urban unrest between these years varied considerably but the sequence of violence after 1980 forced the political agenda to include an examination of the origins of the protests. The Press employed Brixton (1981) to highligh t the need for enhanced Government economic policies; â€Å"As we condemn the senseless terror†¦ we also condemn the deep seated social problems†¦which spawned them.† From 1983 to 1985 Britain’s poor and predominantly West Indian and Asian neighbourhoods experienced social disturbances, as was the case in 1981. Once more, the media endorsed the riots as the criminal acts of black, inner-city youths but this time they were not linked to ethnic inequality, oppression or socio-economic frustration but only to the Blacks’ position in society and their undermining of the law and cultural traditions of the minority communities themselves. The British press’s reaction to the prominence of riots particularly during 1985 was to decline both generally to examine the reasons for them and specifically to consider ethnical inequality as a cause. Subjects of immigration, housing, employment, social facilities and race relations within the civic authorities that were central to the causes of the urban violence, were abandoned for crude simplifications that represented Blacks as the sole initiators of the violence. The criminal identity with which the media had labelled Blacks was not wholly fictitious. Anecdotal evidence of provocative quotes and repetition of unreliable stories would always ‘operate within a dominant regime of truth’4. Crimes involving Blacks were given disproportionate coverage that suggested a behavioural generalisation that would never be suggested of Whites. Stereotyping was not the only form of racism; more covertly the press would exclude or misconstrue statistics such as those that showed Blacks to be twice as likely to be out of work as their counterparts. The coverage of Tottenham’s 1985 riot gave less publicity to the death of a lack woman than the ensuing disturbances in which a police constable was murdered. The policeman’s role as a victim totally overshadowed the mourning of the aggressor that the Black fatality was consigned to. ‘The perspective within which coloured people are presented as ordinary members of society has become increasingly overshadowed by a news perspective in which they are presented as a problem.’ Teun. A. Van Dijk was highly influenced by Hartmann and Husband’s early study of racism in the press which concluded the above labelling of Blacks. According to Van Dijk the riots were topicalized in a style recognisable across the entire media front; the event, the causes and the consequences. Contrary to using these journalistic traits to investigate all areas of the riots, Britain’s media manipulated it as a means of reporting on selective data. The event was described as the attacks of ‘mobs’ of black youths; in order to maintain the stimulus once the disturbance was over the primary definition of the cause of the riots was in terms of Black criminality in preference to the inner city conditions. Finally, the exoneration of Institutional Britain was enabled through the report’s focus into future containment, policing and inquiries. The report pattern of Black mob, Black crime and Black prevention was typical of a whole generation’s instinc tive approach to Black Britain. The media’s response to the 1980’s riots created and regurgitated images of Black male criminals. Blacks in non-race stories were not considered newsworthy. Encouragingly by the 1980’s Black was on the political agenda; however by 1985 it had been relegated from the social issue some commentators had perceived, via a social problem to a social evil. If the media’s hegemonic reports and editorials in the 1980’s were classed as a barely disguised belief in White supremacy, The Secret Policeman strangely that that attitude to Blacks is as strong today as ever it was then. â€Å"I’m a firm believer that Paki’s create racism.† â€Å"Most Asians carry knives.† â€Å"The thing in London is, the majority of street robbery is Black† In 1982 the Commission for Racial Equality published the first code of practice on eliminating discrimination and promoting equal opportunities, which was speedily identified by a Daily Telegraph editorial as ‘bossy nonsense’. Arguably the code of practice was counter-productive. Attacks on anti-racist and equal rights movements were at their height during the period of 1983 to 1986, when Black became Britain’s pretext for social disturbances. Resistance towards such movements was accused of stirring racial tension through excessive political correctness. For much of the press, racism was a manufactured problem of the anti-racist left, found in social science research programmes, anti-racist projects and multi-cultural education. The anti-racist social learning process created accusations of ‘anti-English’ indoctrination thus posing a threat to White elitism, dominance and control. Thatcher’s Institutionally right-wing Britain defined itself as a protagonist of the attacks from the left that they believed favoured special treatment of multicultural Britain. Significantly, the immediate Government response to The Secret Policeman undercover investigation was given by the home secretary David Blunkett, who criticised the BBC for their â€Å"intent to create, not report, a story†¦as a covert stunt to get attention† According to the Guardian’s most recent statistics, ethnic minorities make up 9% of the UK’s population. In more urban areas such as Greater Manchester where The Secret Policeman was filmed, this percentage is believed to reach figures as high as 30%. However, the documentary showed Warrington police training base to consist of 118 white and one Asian recruit. Notably, Black people in are massively under-represented in Parliament. New Western societies still show many forms of institutional and everyday discrimination that David Blunkett arguably hoped to dismiss with a similar response to the 1980’s critical analysis of racist exposs. Over a month before The Secret Policeman was broadcast, John Gieve, the permanent Secretary at the Home Office wrote to the BBC a letter that they described as ‘unprecedented’ pressure to bully them into withdrawing the programme. The chief constable of Greater Manchester Police also intimidated the BBC with the threat of a ‘Hutton-style’ inquiry that â€Å"could destroy the BBC’s relationship with the police†. Mark Daly’s work within the police force was cut short when arrested on suspicion of deception and damaging police property; charges were dropped when embarrassingly for the police, the public were informed of the institutional racism. The Observer newspaper considered the Whitehall and police resistance worthy of its front-page headline ‘Home Office ‘tried to axe’ BBC police race expos’. Headlines are carefully devised as a pithy synopsis of the story. They quickly impart knowledge in a way which facilitates both understanding and recall. The headlines of news reports about ethnic affairs summarize events that the media’s white academics, teachers, writers and political activists define as relevant to white and black readers’ interests. The media’s manipulation of headlines dramatized the 1980’s anti-racism only to emphasise the Western ideology of Black negativity. For example the Telegraph’s conspicuous headline ‘bossy nonsense’ clearly established the tedium felt by the author towards the issue of tackling racism. The Observer’s recent negative portrayal of institutional antagonists of anti-racism reveals a positive shift from the media’s earlier resentment towards the anti-racist movements. So what is the ideological implication of the shift from 1980’s resentment to the Observer’s stance? How is the exposure of racism in today’s society a sign of improved race-relations? Who is to blame for today’s existing racism? â€Å"Is it the BBC’s fault this has happened?† BBC Radio One questioned both the responsibility of the police and the media in the revelation of The Secret Policeman. Radio One criticised the constable of North Wales for his reference to the hysteria related to terrorism, extremist Muslims and asylum as the rationale for increased racist views. Blaming society, it commented, was no option for police professionals who should â€Å"concentrate on training†¦ and challenge prejudice†15. Is the BBC’s accusation equitable or is pardoning society a means of pardoning the media to ultimately pardon itself? ‘How we are seen determines in part how we are treated; how we treat others is based on how we see them; such seeing comes from representation.’16 Traditionally founded on Reithian ideas of independence, access and expression, the BBC aimed to inform, educate and entertain the masses. The BBC devised itself an identity as the national cultural institution that would represent Britain’s public through Britain’s voice. In a statement following the arrest of Mark Daly, the BBC reflected the all-purpose mission they were founded upon: ‘We believe this to be a matter of significant public interest’17. The BBC, in essence, the media, is a powerful realm of social whiteness that manipulates the patterns of inter-elite communication. The ethnic minorities in Britain even today remain concentrated in relatively few areas. As a result huge numbers of the White majority rely almost exclusively on the media for knowledge of issues concerning their Black counterparts. The formations and continuance of White attitudes are therefore highly reliant upon the media’s portrayal of race-relations; most frequently found in the news. The news is an everyday routine structure, and in literal terms can be defined as a ‘classical realist text’. However, Nichols recognises that ‘the reality of news takes precedence over the news of reality’18, thus enabling it to empower, or dis-empower its subject. In these terms the subject is Black and the empowerment is integral to the serious issue of Black nationhood and identity. When reality is represented, its former unequivocal status becomes ambiguous; news is static but its context is not. For example, patterns of race reporting can attach themselves to the wider subjects of Black British existence, a procedure that Sarita Malik terms leitmotif. During the 1980’s riots, the Black identity was frequently referred to in terms of former race-related violence. Leitmotifs thus manipulated the reality to familiarise the White-eye with often-unrelated parables of Black anger that consequently created a distorted mis-informatio n about the original conflict. In contrast, representing reality can be equally deceitful through a negation of context. The news according to Malik is best at representing ‘what’ and ‘why’ but regularly fails to recognise the socio-political reasoning behind it. In terms of race relations of the last two decades Britain’s media tends to focus excessively on the wider context of Black struggle yet too seldom on the social context that fuels this struggle. The BBC’s decision to resist Governmental and Federal pressures and broadcast The Secret Policeman implied a positive shift in its allegiance to the White ruling classes. Although this documentary was yet another portrayal of the problem-orientated Black, uniquely the ‘revolting’19 and ‘Appalling, racist revelations’20 were more optimistically acknowledged as White. The television documentary is based on questions of identity that engage with the construction of relationships between subject, audience and the camera or narrator. The cinematography is used as a tool of authority in which the spectator is lured into believing they are a observing a record of untouched and immediate reality. But reality, as clarified previously, can be more ambiguous than anticipated. In fact, the illusion that a documentary allows the subject to speak for itself without moralising or judging is, like the news, a powerful status to possess. Documentaries are the most likely genre to directly address socio-political affairs and on the rare occasion of the media’s attention to multicultural development it is most probable they will be used. Unfortunately, documentaries of the 1950’s were emotive, sentimental and practically vague and similarly. The 1960’s gave little hope for a genre increasingly lacking in sensitivity and awareness towards the Black subject. In contrast to the pathos of the 1950’s White pity toward Blacks, the 1960’s employed tones of hostility, fear and conflict. Thus, the erratic history of the socialist documentary was influential and manipulative towards the enhancement of Governmental attacks that ran adjacent to the anti-racist campaigns of the 1980’s. The development of light and cheap video recording equipment has made the ‘video diary’ an accessible and extremely popular style of documentary since the late 1990’s; a development that enabled the BBC to produce The Secret Policeman. Improved camera technology initiated independent film-making and in effect greater social analysis during the 1990’s, but this was not the only continuity in television’s ‘social eye’. Governmental, cultural and economic forces were evolving towar ds today’s individualistic, consumerist and multicultural society; television had to keep pace. The documentary shifted from social generalisations to pluralism and for the first time society was eclipsed by individualism and lifestyle. Although the 1990’s showed much resistance to an increasingly cross-cultural and mixed-race Britain, the definition of society and ‘Britishness’ undoubtedly required re-examination. â€Å"Isn’t it good how memories don’t fade? He [Steven Lawrence] fucking deserved it and his mum and dad are a fucking pair of spongers.† PC Rob Pulling’s acclamation of the murderers and derision of the family of black student Steven Lawrence shocked viewers of The Secret Policeman. Lawrence’s mother was particularly disheartened, stating, â€Å"that, after all this time, people still held those views.†22 The stereotyping of Black people as spongers or scroungers is one that was upheld and confirmed during the rioting period of the 1980’s. The Diasporas posed a threat to Britain as a consequence of its deficiency in resources and increasing immigration numbers. In 1968 Enoch Powell suggested a much favoured but conclusively rejected topic relatable to Thatcher’s new 1980’s, right wing government; that of repatriation. Repatriation essentially warned Blacks to behave or ‘go home’. Powell returned to his theme in the wake of the 1985 Handsworth riots to create a climate of racist opinion. Immigration had become among the most prominent Press subjects, during which, one tabloid claimed that immigrants cost the taxpayer billions of pounds. Black people were constituted as the welfare state’s problem that added to taxation through an exploitation of the ‘White supremacist’ welfare state. In 1984, the News of the World printed the headline ‘à ¯Ã‚ ¿Ã‚ ½476 a week for waiter Abdul’. The Daily Mail picked up on this story, printing a day later; ‘Jobless Abdul†¦life of luxury in hotels†¦at the taxpayers’ expense.’24 The actuality of this story is that the 476 payment that was referred to was an inclusive sum covering the cost of housing Abdul, his wife and his six children. More interestingly, Abdul Bari was a British citizen. In 1999, six years after the Lawrence incident, Sir William Macpherson undertook a high profile investigation into the racism and discrimination in the Metropolitan Police Force.His Report coined the phrase ‘institutional racism’. This triggered discussions of discrimination within Britain’s leading institutions: the police, the media, the education system and the government. Following the Lawrence enquiry huge numbers of police were forced to undertake intensive training in racial equality and similar, revised programmes are ongoing today. One police force in Britain sent 40 000 employees on race training days within the last year, but Pulling’s overt racism raises questions of the efficacy of the Home Office’s current strategy of challenging prejudice. In the concluding chapter of her book Representing Black in Britain, Sarita Malik makes a discouragingly negative, albeit honest assertion that the accepted sentiment that ‘racist Britain’ is in decline is somewhat false. By this, she suggests that racism in the media, as in other public sectors, has merely been concealed. Malik proposed that truthful representations could emerge only through more diverse, aesthetically innovative and accurate portrayals of Blacks. More relevantly to The Secret Policeman, Malik highlighted the need for a rethink of the constituent parts that compose Britain’s media: resources, employment and ultimately its national heritage. Whilst the number of Blacks and ethnic minorities on British television has increased dramatically – particularly in urban based soaps such as Holby City and Eastenders – the production teams and editors continue to favour Whites. My premise that The Secret Policemen established an interesting re lationship with the development of British media was formed whilst listening to a Radio Four news programme. It suggested that The Secret Policeman provided hard evidence that racism had gone underground. The programme concluded that although the police understood the ‘should’s and shouldn’t’s’ of racial procedures, impartiality was never entrenched in their hearts and minds. Consistently with my research, the social learning process of the media has potentially played a huge role in PC Pulling’s racist prejudices and discrimination. Racism is not innate after all; it is learned. So how is it that I feel confident to propose The Secret Policeman as evidence of enhanced race-relations within the media? The role of the media is not isolated, but connected in numerous ways to the elites in general; this time it stood alone. The BBC assumed the role of the anti-racist and confronted the majority. The Secret Policeman exposed to huge public numbers, the long-standing stereotypes of the ‘ruling-race’ and gave scope for investigating the origins of such beliefs. More positively the documentary received instant and drastic responses from both the public and the institutions. The Home Office immediately introduced plans for new police integrity tests and understood the need for societal change. The media’s willingness to scrutinise and criticise the racism revealed in The Secret Policeman marked a complete reversal from the attacks on anti-racism evident in the 1980’s. The Secret Policeman has served a distinctive purpose. It has illustrated what has long been apparent but too rarely admitted; White power is dangerously flawed. BIBLIOGRAPHY Ferguson, Robert. Representing ‘Race’, 1998. Arnold: London Gordon, Paul & Rosenberg, David. The Press and black people in Britain, 1989. Runnymede Trust: Nottingham Malik, Sarita. Representing Black in Britain, 2002. Sage: London Solomos, John. Race and Racism in Contemporary Britain, 1989. Macmillan: London Troyna, Barry. Public awareness and the media, 1981. Commission for Racial Equality: London Van Dijk, Tuen A. Racism and the Press, 1991. Routledge: London and New York

How do writings stand the test of time? Essay

What people write and read depends upon what they are thinking and what they are doing. The literature of the period reflects varieties of interests. One of the offices of literature is to take the reader away from the duties that fill the day. But great literature does more than this: great literature enlarges the reader’s world. The short story must always be literary entertainment: it must be always interesting, attention-compelling, and diverting (Perez 13). But real value of short story lies in its significant statement or question about human beings, the world they live in, the rules and custom that govern their actions. Most of the great short stories of the twentieth century fall outside the category of escape literature. There are stories which studies in personality and character, pictures of diverse social conditions, considerations of the validity of social institutions, and presentation of moral problems – all against a background of ordinary events (Perez 18). This paper takes off from the idea of famous critic Samuel Johnson, that literature can only endure the test of time – if and only if it show and deal with situations and characters that are identifiable, which is somehow a part of us, that individuals to individuals commonly share across boundaries of time and place. This essay will therefore examine the particular works of Washington Irving (The Legend of Sleepy Hollow), O. Henry also known as William Henry Porter (The Third Ingredient) and Edgard Allan Poe (The Cask of Amontillado). To juxtapose the significance of these three essays in literature, all three short essays will be explore from the premise of literary critic Samuel Johnson; its quality to be regard as ‘just representation of general nature vis-a-vis least representation of commonly experience. Washington Irving’s stands out as one of the very first American storytellers and humorists. Customs, manners, traditions and legends are the materials of his works. Washington Irving wrote about people. His famous work such as ‘The Legend of Sleepy Hollow’ will carry the reader back where there is no great bridges which spanned the Hudson River, no highways followed the contours of its majestic curves, and no steamboats plied up and down its broad waters. â€Å"From the listless repose of the place, and the peculiar character of its inhabitants, who are descendants from the original Dutch settlers, this sequestered glen has long been known by the name of SLEEPY HALLOW, and its rustic lads are called the Sleepy Hollow Boys throughout the neighboring country (Delgado 12). † Irving introduce the reader to the early Dutch settlers on the banks of the Hudson, immediate descendants of the people who built the first homes, the first villages, who established the first churches and the first schools, in short, the people who began the transformation of a wilderness into the settled and civilized country we know today. â€Å"His schoolhouse was a low building of one large room, rudely constructed of logs: the windows partly glazed, and partly patched with leaves of old copybooks (Delgado 14). † Much of that Irving has written about early life on the Hudson is true: the social life of the wealthy Dutch farmer, the role of the schoolmaster as teacher and local sage, life in the schoolroom – these can be verified by research. Thus Irving’s main interest was not in an accurate representations of the society of time does not detract from the charm and value of his work for modern readers. He represents a halfway point between writers who strove to beguile their American readers with elegant stories laid in Europe and later writers who found in the American scene and the common people of America sufficient beauty and strength for literary material. However, Irving had not entirely escaped from the traditional romanticism of his day is shown by his decorative treatment of Dutch village life on Hudson and his inclusion of the legend of the Headless Horseman. â€Å"Such general purport of this legendary superstition, which has furnished materials for many a wild story in that region of shadows; and the specter is known, at all the country firesides, by the name of the Headless Horseman of Sleepy Hollow (Delgado 13). † On the one hand, ‘The Third Ingredient’ written by O. Henry, who was also one of the most admired short story writers for years and his pattern for short story was imitated by many other writers. Most of his short story is about ordinary American characters doing things that are typical of our ways of life. â€Å"At six o’clock one afternoon Hetty Pepper came back to her third-floor rear $3. 50 room in the Vallambrosa with her nose and chin more sharply pointed that usual. To be discharged from the department store where you have been working four years, and with only fifteen cents in your purse, does have a tendency to make your features appear more finely chiseled (Ramon 46)† The story reveals how a typical individual spends his/her day. It is so cliche that every individual can somehow relate to the story. The pattern of O. Henry story is this: background, characters, time, place and tone – is deftly and vividly sketched. And event occurs that creates a problem. The action that arises from the problem and the background is built up to the climax. The story is concluded with a twist and snaps that is often a surprise – but never a surprise that has not been carefully prepared for in the story. â€Å"After he had tapped at the door and entered. Hetty begun to peel and wash the onion at the sink. She gave a gray look at the gray roofs outside and the smile on her face vanished by little jerks and twitches (Ramon 53). † Edgard Allan Poe is famous for his impressionistic stories of terror and horror. He once said that the end of the story must be in the writer’s mind at the very beginning and that the first paragraph, the first sentence, must be a part of the preparation for the culmination. His impressionistic stories are famous for their predominant mood of terror and horror. â€Å"At length I would be avenged; this was a point definitely settled – but the very definitiveness with which it was resolved precluded the idea of risk. I must not only punish but punish with impunity (Perez 102). † He wrote horror stories and created the detective story. He is not concerned with moral lesson – the horror stories which he created. Poe created a single effect, of terror or horror; while in his detective stories he presents cold and scientific solutions of crimes, not moral judgment on the criminals. Poe believed that there are three essentials for good short story. First: the story should be short enough to be read at one sitting. Next: plot, characters and setting should contribute to a single impression, oneness of effect. Third: nothing should be included which is not positive value in creating the oneness of effect. When you read the stories that follow notice that only those details which are important to the creating of the single effect are presented. â€Å"A succession of loud and shell screams, bursting suddenly from the throat of the chained form, seemed to thrust me violently back. For a brief moment I hesitated – I trembled. Unsheathing my rapier, I began to grope with it about the recess; but the thought of an instant reassured me. I placed my hand upon the solid of the catacombs and felt satisfied. I re-approached the wall. I replied to the yells of him who clamored. I reechoed – I aided – I surpassed them in volume and in strength. I did this, and the clamorer grew still (Perez 104). † I believe that Poe is an effective writer and poet nonetheless, his impressionistic style can somehow affect the quality of the story to be considered as ‘just representation of general nature. ’ However, the typicality of his short story ‘The Cask of Amontillado’ does not necessarily mean it is less effective – the tale conforms to the laws of the three unities: unities of time, place and interest. The story needed a short time to complete the action of the story. And also the way every detail and every word contributed to its general effect. Reference Cited Delgado, Frank. Literature for Philippine High School. Philippines: Punlad Publishing House, 1989. Perez, Salvacion. Literature a Series of Anthologies. Philippines: St. Scholastica, 1995. Ramon, Antonio. Heritage of World Literature. Philippines: Punlad Publishing House, 1992.

Saudi Arabian Dream and American Dream Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Saudi Arabian Dream and American Dream - Essay Example Therefore, Saudi’s economic model seeks to distribute wealth from one primary source to the citizens. Saudi’s economy depends at least to some extent to imported labor as opposed to american model whereby American citizens drive the economy. However, the most notable disparity between Saudi and America is the level of education. The model of education in Saudi makes it difficult even for graduates to find jobs in the country. Therefore, Saudi is yet to realize full benefit of education as key driver of the economy and therefore cannot follow the American dream model. Whereas Saudi shares similar problem of big gap between the rich and the poor, measures to address this issue are different and therefore Saudi cannot share the ideas of the American dream when it comes to the concept of bridging this increasing gap. Saudi is characterized by unique social and religious values that contrast the American society. Whereas Saudi is Islamic oriented, America is overwhelmingly d iversified. This makes it overwhelmingly difficult for Saudi to follow the American dream model. For instance, Saudi Arabia’s social problems stem from the fact that the country is founded on Islamic tenets. However, it can be argued that Saudi Arabia is borrowing the American dream when it comes to treatment of middle class people. There seems to be a lot of focus on middle class as potential economic driver. Saudi is trying to twist the economy to empower the middle-income earners in the efforts to bridge the gap between the rich and the poor. However, low class people seem to have been forgotten. Considering the above stated issues, it can be safely argued that Saudi Arabia is certainly following a different model of development and may therefore, not borrow heavily from the American dream

Construction Contract Law 2 Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Construction Contract Law 2 - Essay Example However, Comfort Kitchens Limited are currently in default of payments, have failed to comply with the conditions of the contract regarding water isolation and have undertaken repairs in breach of the express terms of the contract. As such, there is no contention that Comfort Kitchens is in breach of contract on a strict interpretation of the express contractual terms (Cracknell, 2003). However, the central issue of contention will be X’s rights against Comfort Kitchens for the breach. In business contracts the law distinguishes between breach of conditions and warranties (Treitel, 2007). Only a breach of condition will permit an innocent party to terminate the contract as a fundamental breach (Chitty 2007). Moreover, a fundamental breach will grant the right to sue for damages for the breach (Treitel, 2007). Material breach of contract in contract law is further referred to as repudiatory breach (Treitel, 2007). In the leading case of Suisse Atlantique Societe d’Armement Maritime SA v NV Rotterdamsche Kolen Centralem ([1966] 1 Lloyds Rep 166), Lord Reid defined fundamental breach as â€Å"a well known type of breach which entitles the innocent party to treat it as repudiatory and to rescind the contract†. Moreover, as a matter of law, in the case of Photo Productions Limited v Securicor Transport Limited ([1980] AC 827) it was held that the relevant factor in determining whether a term was a condition or not was the intention of the parties. This wa s further affirmed in the decision of Edward v Skyways ([1964] 1 WLR 349). Nevertheless, it is necessary to protect against abuse of the presumption especially in unequal bargaining power scenarios and case law acknowledges that the presumption in commercial contracts can be rebutted. For example, in the case of JH Milner v Percy Bilton [1966] 1 WLR 1582] it was determined that the presumption of intention

Research Proposal Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 4000 words - 1

Research Proposal - Essay Example There are various rationales for why a prison inmate harms the self, ranging from psychological disturbances to even attempts to manipulate the prison officers to elicit change to their incarceration circumstances. Self-harm is a phenomenon that occurs with both male and female prisoners, thus it is not a gender-specific problem within the prison system. Statistics indicate that female prisoners, in 2003, represented only six percent of the total prisoners incarcerated in the entire UK prison system, but female self-harm constituted 46 percent of all national reports of self-harm in the country (Borrill, Snow, Medlicott, Teers and Paton 2005). Self-harm in prisons is costly to the prison system, taxpayers, and the health care system for those that require psychological counselling and, oftentimes, recurring medical treatment for this activity. The severity of the problem justifies conducting a research study to analyse the catalysts of self-harm, especially with female inmates that represent nearly half of all national reports of self-harm. Prison officers and medical practitioners have multitudes of responsibility for ensuring prisoner safety, ensuring the integrity of the prison system, and providing health care services to a broader population. Self-harm recurrences and its prevalence in the UK add significant burdens to the health care system and for prison officers that must develop documentation of these events and provide supplementary mental health services to recognised problem prisoners. Examine socio-historical instances of negative lifestyle scenarios that might exist in female prisoners, including, but not limited to, previous childhood or spousal abuse, mental health conditions, or stunted cognitive/developmental growth during various phases of child and adolescent development. The broader purpose of the study is to identify and categorise, statistically, the most frequent and common catalysts of