With poignant insight and compassion Carson McCul Essay Example For Students

With poignant insight and compassion Carson McCul Essay lers (1917-1967) wrote of human loneliness, unfulfilled love, and the frailty of the human heart. Of all the characters in the work of Carson McCullers, the one who seemed to her family and friends to be most like the author herself was Frankie Addams: the vulnerable, exasperating, and endearing adolescent of The Member of the Wedding who was looking for the we of me. However, Carson once said that was, or became in the process of writing, all the characters in her work. This is probable true of most real writers who often with pain draw from their unconscious what the rest of us would just as soon keep hidden from ourselves and others. So accept the fact that Carson was not only Frankie Addams but J. We will write a custom essay on With poignant insight and compassion Carson McCul specifically for you for only $16.38 $13.9/page Order now T. Malone, Miss Amelia, and Captain Penderton; but familiarity with the work that she was not able to finish would only be only a partial clue to who and what she was. This was not simply because she had not finished what she had to say, but that she was the artist, and as she often quoted, Nothing human is alien to me. So many people were unable to acknowledge Carsons constant closeness to death, and many more resented her for trying to make them face it, but she had lived through enough close calls to convince everyone that she was indestructible. Carson saw her life one way and those intimate with her often perceived it differently. Intentionally or unintentionally, she added to the confusion about herself. An interviewer was more likely to be cannily interviewed than to extract an interview from her. Besides, she simply liked a good story and frequently embellished the more amusing ones of her life. The one person who singled out this quality in a particularly loving way was Tennessee Williams in his unpublished essay Praise to Assenting Angels: The great generation of writers that emerged in the twenties, poets such as Eliot, Crane, Cummings, and Wallace Stevens, prose-writers such as Faulkner, Hemingway, Fitzgerald, and Katharine Anne Porter, has not been succeeded or supplemented by any new figures of corresponding stature with the sole exception of the prodigious young talent that first appeared in 1940 with the publication of her first novel, The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter. She was at that time a girl of twenty-two who had come to New York from Columbus, Georgia, to study music. According to the legends that surround her early period in the city, she first established her residence, quite unwittingly, in a house of prostitution, and she found the other tenants of the house friendly and sympathetic and had not the ghost of an idea of what illicit enterprise was going on there. One of the girls in this establishment became her particular friend and undertook to guide her about the town, which Carson McCullers fou! nd confusing quite imaginably, since even to this day she hesitates to cross an urban street unattended, preferably on both sides. However a misadventure befell her. Too much trust was confided in this mischievous guide, and while she was being shown the subway route to the Juilliard School of Music, the companion and all of her tuition money, which the companion had offered to keep for her, abruptly disappeared. Carson was abandoned penniless in the subway, and some people say it took her several weeks to find her way out, and when she did finally return to the light of day, it was in Brooklyn when she became enmeshed in a vaguely similar menage whose personnel ranged from W. H. Auden to Gypsy Rose Lee. At any rate, regardless of how much fantasy this legend may contain, the career of music was abandoned in favor of writing, and somewhere, sometime, in the dank and labyrinthine mysteries of the New York subway system, possibly between some chewing gum vendor and some weig! ht and character analysis given by a doll Gypsy, a bronze tablet should be erected in the memory of the mischievous comrade who made away with Carsons money for the study of piano. .u155feb98df0aafc6656f596aebbf9428 , .u155feb98df0aafc6656f596aebbf9428 .postImageUrl , .u155feb98df0aafc6656f596aebbf9428 .centered-text-area { min-height: 80px; position: relative; } .u155feb98df0aafc6656f596aebbf9428 , .u155feb98df0aafc6656f596aebbf9428:hover , .u155feb98df0aafc6656f596aebbf9428:visited , .u155feb98df0aafc6656f596aebbf9428:active { border:0!important; } .u155feb98df0aafc6656f596aebbf9428 .clearfix:after { content: ""; display: table; clear: both; } .u155feb98df0aafc6656f596aebbf9428 { display: block; transition: background-color 250ms; webkit-transition: background-color 250ms; width: 100%; opacity: 1; transition: opacity 250ms; webkit-transition: opacity 250ms; background-color: #95A5A6; } .u155feb98df0aafc6656f596aebbf9428:active , .u155feb98df0aafc6656f596aebbf9428:hover { opacity: 1; transition: opacity 250ms; webkit-transition: opacity 250ms; background-color: #2C3E50; } .u155feb98df0aafc6656f596aebbf9428 .centered-text-area { width: 100%; position: relative ; } .u155feb98df0aafc6656f596aebbf9428 .ctaText { border-bottom: 0 solid #fff; color: #2980B9; font-size: 16px; font-weight: bold; margin: 0; padding: 0; text-decoration: underline; } .u155feb98df0aafc6656f596aebbf9428 .postTitle { color: #FFFFFF; font-size: 16px; font-weight: 600; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 100%; } .u155feb98df0aafc6656f596aebbf9428 .ctaButton { background-color: #7F8C8D!important; color: #2980B9; border: none; border-radius: 3px; box-shadow: none; font-size: 14px; font-weight: bold; line-height: 26px; moz-border-radius: 3px; text-align: center; text-decoration: none; text-shadow: none; width: 80px; min-height: 80px; background: url(https://artscolumbia.org/wp-content/plugins/intelly-related-posts/assets/images/simple-arrow.png)no-repeat; position: absolute; right: 0; top: 0; } .u155feb98df0aafc6656f596aebbf9428:hover .ctaButton { background-color: #34495E!important; } .u155feb98df0aafc6656f596aebbf9428 .centered-text { display: table; height: 80px; padding-left : 18px; top: 0; } .u155feb98df0aafc6656f596aebbf9428 .u155feb98df0aafc6656f596aebbf9428-content { display: table-cell; margin: 0; padding: 0; padding-right: 108px; position: relative; vertical-align: middle; width: 100%; } .u155feb98df0aafc6656f596aebbf9428:after { content: ""; display: block; clear: both; } READ: Heart Of Darkness (1292 words) Essay To paraphrase a familiar clich of screen publicity-writers, perhaps a great musician was lost but a greater .

THE MARINER AS A MUSE (FOR FRE essays

THE MARINER AS A MUSE (FOR FRE essays Through this complex poem it is no easy task to contrive one concise explanation that will sum up the poem. The Rhyme Of the Ancient Mariner has strong undertones of God the creator, the animals in his kingdom, and the basic emotional circumstances that make up human existence. While these are broad topics, they can be broken down into cause and effect situations using some of Freud's methodology in Ego Psychology. Freud explained the way the human mind uses defense mechanisms, and there are some examples of these mechanisms in "The Rhyme Of the Ancient Mariner." Freud's ideas on displacement, rationalization, and projection can be used to understand some of the actions seen in the poem. The poem starts out in the present day when the Mariner, uninvited, attends a wedding reception where he takes aside one of the guests and begins to spin his tale of a see adventure which appears to be part fact, hallucination, and religion. The mariner and his fellow seamen are stranded in the middle of the ocean with no wind. There boat has not moved in weeks, the ocean is calm and they are at natures (Gods) mercy. When suddenly out of the blue comes a glorious albatross. In an almost magical way the sails flood with wind and the sea changes from a calm portrait of water into a lively swell of waves and white caps. Almost all the crew begins to rejoice in the albatross and the whether which they believe it brought. Only the Ancient Mariner is anything but happy over the bird's presence and he shoots the bird with a harpoon, killing it. The reason the Mariner killed the bird is not emphasized but a mask of a reason is that he thought the bird was responsible for the bad whe ther. The other sailors turn on the Mariner blaming him for the return of the bad whether by shooting the albatross. They hang the carcass of the Albatross around his neck as a reminder of his crime and are plagued with another calm of the whether. As time goes o...

Brief Outline Of The Problem

Brief Outline Of The Problem 1. Introduction: 1.1 Background: In today’s world of business, information is considered as wealth. The more an organization knows about a particular course of action, the better it is equipped to get on such a pursuit and almost certainly yield success. Information is an empowering advantage that enables an organization to optimize and maximize itself and at the same time move towards their goals and missions. It allows contact with other organizations whether in a competitive or alliance stance (Claudia Klausegger et all. 2007). Managing all the information is the critical function of any organization and needs to be efficiently managed, otherwise it will lead to â€Å"information overload†, which then will contribute to inefficiencies, rising costs, and hinders in business success (Varian, Hal R, 2000). Information is gathered around the key functions of management such as planning, organizing, staffing, controlling and communicating. Among these functions, MIS is c loser to the controlling function as it provides feedback on organizational performance and helps in monitoring. Information management provides a practical insight into the techniques used in assessing the impact of information technology in a business. It uses technology for collecting, processing and considering information with a goal of efficient management (Gordon B. Davis, 2003). Information and communication systems address the absolute need for effective use of information and communication technologies in monitoring and acquiring data, computer-based modelling, and decision support and knowledge-based systems. 1.2 Brief outline of the problem: There so many new technologies out there in so many ways that one may now feel an overload of information, hence, achieving a diminishing marginal utility status in our brains. We have now therefore a need to organize and reorganize these pieces of information constantly as to be able to keep track of which of them are valuable to us and which ones are not. 1.3 Approach and Methodology: All the above will be achieved through desk research or secondary research, the use of recommended materials and lecture notes, internet and related industries. 2 Analyses: 2.1 The glut of information: Attention is undoubtedly one of the most scarce resources around the globe in both public and private sector organizations and increasingly so. There is load of information all around us, on our hard drives, our organizations’ databases, the Internet, printed documents, commercial publications, emails, subscription-based services yet we’re frustrated when trying to locate and use it (Kevin A. Miller, 2004). Organisations are being turned inflexible due to excessive growth or mismanagement of information – this state of overloaded information is called ‘the information glut’. Constant introduction of the information and communication systems does not make the situation any better; in fact it is lay ered over existing systems thus significantly increasing the information load. Therefore, planning and co-ordination of information and communication become of supreme importance to business success (Guus Pijpers, 2010). 2.2 Dearth of attention: Attention involves understanding how to work within an overabundance â€Å"information competition†, whether interfacing with customer, co-workers, or our own priority list. Leaders of organization, for example, must manage attention on several levels. They must direct their own attention to particular project and information, they must focus the attention of their employee on the most profitable activities, and they must attend to the most important buyers, suppliers, and other stakeholders. If the organization is to achieve its goal effectively, the need of managing its information is of critical importance (Iselin, E. R. 1999). The over increasing amount of digital information should not be viewed as a simple data resource or stora ge burden. Rather, it is an asset which holds an organization together. With the right approach, information growth can stimulate growth in the business. Without it, information can be a burden that contributes inefficiencies and rising costs, hinders growth and stiles innovation (Hanka, 2000).

Response to All But My Life Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Response to All But My Life - Essay Example The writings also give analytical views or interpretations of any information given earlier. Finally, there are the concluding statements (CS) of the paragraph. These rephrase the main idea but are shorter. The sentences are also joined by words that effectively provide transition, and thus connect ideas (De, 104). An example of Jane Schaffer’s strategy for writing a two paragraph chunk would be as follows; TS, CD, CM, CM, CD, CM, CM, and CS.     It is about her experiences during World War 2. Jane Schaffer’s writing and applications Gerda has used Jane Schaffer writing strategy in displaying various themes in the book. One of the themes is the sustaining power of hope that act as clear encouragement incentive. The topic sentences of paragraphs that contain bad information are powerful and convey information about hope. Gerda went through severe life misfortune, for example, her parents died mysteriously after being sent to camps. However, she never lost hope and th is is shown in her preamble sentiments as contained in her work. She applied words like â€Å"less suffering and less happiness† (Klein, 150). ... An example is a sentence in which she tells the story of what happened to Lotte in Bolkenhain. The sentence is structured in a way that it brings the significance of bearing witness about any unfortunate occurrence in the world. The sentences give actual information and put the information within the context of the theme. The other sentences in the paragraph give additional information for example names of prisoners and the atrocities they suffered while in prisons. She does this to recognize that the prisoners go through the same troubles that her family members went through. She knows these victims of the Holocaust died in gloom and thus their story has to be told (Zuckerman, 34). The paragraphs are organized in a way that brings the important message of bearing witness, are respectful and capture readers’ emotions. The paragraphs are also organized in a way that brings out the theme of morality. She shows that individuals have their free will. The circumstances or situation s people are in should never take free will from them. People always have the options of being morally upright and humane despite their circumstances. This theme is displayed by giving information about individuals who displayed some unexpected behavior. Information about how Frau Kugler saved her life is contained in a paragraph that follows Jane Schaffer writing strategy. She contained the important information in the first sentence then the other sentences gave an explanation that brought this theme clearly. Frau Kugler worked for the SS yet he saved Gerda’s life, thus showing humanity. This was unexpected as she was a German while Gerda was a Jew.  

We do not have a language to represent female killing Essay

We do not have a language to represent female killing - Essay Example Women aggression and violence is not tolerated in many societies as it deviates from the womanhood. Much stereotyping arises with the women violence and killing cases and media has taken advantage of the cases to report what is not. Involvement of women in violence is associated with lesbianism which is said to be change towards masculinity making women more like men and can do anything men can. Women violence and criminality is unique and unnatural under the natural womanhood and is associated with change towards masculinity and attracts much media attention, which may have an impact in the judicial process which seems biased against women. The Changing Trends Women involvement in criminal activities, violence and even killing has always remained an imagination but it seems it has turned to be a fact. In the twentieth century, several cases involving women aggression and violence were reported and included the Papin Sisters in 1933, Aileen Wurworns in 1989-1990, Stacey Wigginton in 1989 and Sanna Sillanpà ¤Ãƒ ¤ in 1999 were reported. In all these cases, women were involved in violence which led to death of some people. It is interesting that men were the majority victims in all these cases. The society takes the case of women killing differently compared to the cases involving men. Berrington and Honkatukia (2002) confirm that women involvement in crime is exceptional and unnatural. In an interview, Dr Lizzie Seal, the author of the book Women, Murder and Femininity confirms that women who kill are not natural women and they can be called failed women in the society. She goes on to explain that women are nurturing and gentle in nature. In that case, a woman killing is in total contrast to their natural characteristics (Taylor, Seal and Westmarland, 2011). The deviance to get to that level is surprising according to the expectations of women. In any society whether it is in the developed country or under developed, women are expected to be just women with well defined roles. Roles of women include looking after the house, taking care of children and most importantly complimenting the man especially in the white middle class. In this case, women are care givers and nurturers by nature as stated above. The traditional social role of women put them in a situation in which they could not engage in criminal activities. However, the society has been opening up and the roles of women are changing from the traditional social and home roles. These changes are the reasons women are now involved in criminal activities as Rosenblatt and Greenland (1974) explain. According to them, the new changes can easily create opportunities for women to be involved in criminal activities, violence and killing. However, the idea of women killing has not been accepted by many. Most people in the society keep wondering what can inspire women to kill other people. Several theories have been drawn to explain this idea. One theory which is stated in many books states that women can only kill when they have changed in their bodies. In this case, their bodies change to be like those of men. Men bodies are masculine and their traditional roles allow them in some way to kill, though it is not allowed by law. Therefore, a woman would have to be masculine to be able to kill. Barak, Leighton, and Flavin (2007 p.114) point out a women can kill when

The Negatives of Cosmetic Surgery Essay Example for Free

The Negatives of Cosmetic Surgery Essay Cosmetic Surgery, the thing that people get but ends up going totally wrong. Many people are against cosmetic surgery for many reason, health risk, the surgens that perform the surgery and many more. Let’s learn further more about cosmetic surgery and other risk it has. What is cosmetic surgery? Cosmetic Surgery the reshaping of body parts through surgical procedures. Common cosmetic surgery procedures include breast reduction or enlargement, facelift, hair replacement, and liposuction. Cosmetic surgery is done to approve the appearance of a person’s normal body structures. It also improve the appearance of a person and there body parts that are damaged by congenital defects, injury, burns, tumors, or diseases. But with all being done this can also lead to health risk as well. With this comes health risk, many reason why people are so against getting this done is because of the after math once you get the surgery done. For example as with any surgery, there is a risk of postoperative complications. Patients with a history of cardiovascular disease, lung disease, or obesity are at higher than average risk of developing pneumonia or having a stroke, a heart attack, or blood clots in the legs or lungs after surgery. Other risks include bleeding, infection, skin breakdown, or accumulation of clear fluid (seroma) or blood (hematoma) beneath the incision (Opposing Viewpoints Online Collection). Sometimes cosmetic surgery don’t produce the results the patient desires. This is often a problem with with the skill of the surgeon. There is always the negative impact of having a surgery done and being unhappy with the results. For example, people can botox, lip injections, tummy tucks, liposucstion, etc. after getting it done and during the processe they look horrible from what they did before they go the procedures.The outcome may have been exactly what the physician described, but the patient still is unhappy with the results. Another prime  example is when after surgery the doctor write’s up a proscription for the patient to esse the pain but if anyone knew, doctor’s like over medicate their patience. There are some people that can be addicated to pain killers

Hardys Tess of the dUrbervilles - Existentialist Failure to Create an

Tess of the d'Urbervilles - Existentialist Failure to Create and Preserve Meaning      Ã‚  Ã‚   When wilt thou awake, O Mother, wake and see†¹ As one who, held in trance, has laboured long By vacant rote and prepossession strong†¹ The coils that thou hast wrought unwittingly; Wherein have place, unrealized by thee, Fair growths, foul cankers, right enmeshed with wrong, Strange orchestras of victim-shriek and song, And curious blends of ache and ecstasy?†¹ (Hardy, "The Sleep-Worker")    Inherent in the ruthless progress of society, there paradoxically lies a growing moral deterioration. In Tess of the d'Urbervilles, Thomas Hardy "faithfully present[s]" Tess as a paragon of virtue, utilizing her as an instrument of criticism against a society too debauched to sustain the existence "of its finest individuals" (Wickens 104). Unwilling to compromise her strict adherence to personal morals, Tess suffers immensely; her ultimate inability to exist on this "blighted" (21) star exposes the regression of a hypocritically sanctimonious society, whose degraded values catalyze her destruction.    Innocently unaware of "cruel Nature's law[,]" (115) Tess is violated by the response which her sexuality arouses in Alec. Yet, although it is nature which induces Tess to lose her virginity, it is society which renders this loss a sin. Tess's change from "a mere vessel of emotion untinctured by experience" (8) to one stained by a "corporeal blight" (98) elicits a severe social condemnation. Ironically, in its attempt to deny the natural instincts of mankind, social selection takes on the characteristic ethical absence of natural selection, "ensuring that the social relations among people will... ...Hardy, "The Darkling Thrush")    Works Cited Beer, Gillian. "Finding a Scale for the Human." Tess of the d'Urbervilles. Ed. Scott Elledge. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 1991. Hardy, Thomas. Tess of the d'Urbervilles. Ed. Scott Elledge. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 1991. Hardy, Thomas. "The Sleep-Worker." Tess of the d'Urbervilles. Ed. Scott Elledge. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 1991. Hazen, James. "The Tragedy of Tess Durbeyfield." Howe, Irving. "At the Center of Hardy's Achievement." Tess of the d'Urbervilles. Ed. Scott Elledge. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 1991. Hyman, Virginia R. "The Evolution of Tess." Ethical Perspectives in the Novels of Thomas Hardy. Wickens, G. Glen. "Hardy and the Mythographers: The Myth of Demeter and Persephone in Tess of the d'Urbervilles."   

René Descartes (1596â€1650) Essay

Renà © Descartes is often credited with being the â€Å"Father of Modern Philosophy.† This title is justified due both to his break with the traditional Scholastic-Aristotelian philosophy prevalent at his time and to his development and promotion of the new, mechanistic sciences. His fundamental break with Scholastic philosophy was twofold. First, Descartes thought that the Scholastics’ method was prone to doubt given their reliance on sensation as the source for all knowledge. Second, he wanted to replace their final causal model of scientific explanation with the more modern, mechanistic model. Descartes attempted to address the former issue via his method of doubt. His basic strategy was to consider false any belief that falls prey to even the slightest doubt. This â€Å"hyperbolic doubt† then serves to clear the way for what Descartes considers to be an unprejudiced search for the truth. This clearing of his previously held beliefs then puts him at anepistem ological ground-zero. From here Descartes sets out to find something that lies beyond all doubt. He eventually discovers that â€Å"I exist† is impossible to doubt and is, therefore, absolutely certain. It is from this point that Descartes proceeds to demonstrate God’s existence and that God cannot be a deceiver. This, in turn, serves to fix the certainty of everything that is clearly and distinctly understood and provides the epistemological foundation Descartes set out to find. Once this conclusion is reached, Descartes can proceed to rebuild his system of previously dubious beliefs on this absolutely certain foundation. These beliefs, which are re-established with absolute certainty, include the existence of a world of bodies external to the mind, the dualistic distinction of the immaterial mind from the body, and his mechanistic model of physics based on the clear and distinct ideas of geometry. This points toward his second, major break with the Scholastic Aristotelian tradition in that Descartes intended to replace their system based on final causal explanations with his system based on mechanistic principles. Descartes also applied this mechanistic framework to the operation of plant, animal and human bodies, sensation and the passions. All of this eventually culminating in a moral sys tem based on the notion of â€Å"generosity.† The Modern Turn a. Against Scholasticism Descartes is often called the â€Å"Father of Modern Philosophy,† implying that he provided the seed for a new philosophy that broke away from the old in important ways. This â€Å"old† philosophy is Aristotle’s as it was appropriated and interpreted throughout the later medieval period. In fact, Aristotelianism was so entrenched in the intellectual institutions of Descartes’ time that commentators argued that evidence for its the truth could be found in the Bible. Accordingly, if someone were to try to refute some main Aristotelian tenet, then he could be accused of holding a position contrary to the word of God and be punished. However, by Descartes’ time, many had come out in some way against one Scholastic-Aristotelian thesis or other. So, when Descartes argued for the implementation of his modern system of philosophy, breaks with the Scholastic tradition were not unprecedented. Descartes broke with this tradition in at least two fundamental way s. The first was his rejection of substantial forms as explanatory principles in physics. A substantial form was thought to be an immaterial principle of material organization that resulted in a particular thing of a certain kind. The main principle of substantial forms was the final cause or purpose of being that kind of thing. For example, the bird called the swallow. The substantial form of â€Å"swallowness† unites with matter so as to organize it for the sake of being a swallow kind of thing. This also means that any dispositions or faculties the swallow has by virtue of being that kind of thing is ultimately explained by the goal or final cause of being a swallow. So, for instance, the goal of being a swallow is the cause of the swallow’s ability to fly. Hence, on this account, a swallow flies for the sake of being a swallow. Although this might be true, it does not say anything new or useful about swallows, and so it seemed to Descartes that Scholastic philosophy and science was incapable of discovering any new or useful knowledge. Descartes rejected the use of substantial forms and their concomitant final causes in physics precisely for this reason. Indeed, his essay Meteorology, that appeared alongside the Discourse on Method, was intended to show that clearer and more fruitful explana tions can be obtained without reference to substantial forms but only by way of deductions from the configuration and motion of parts. Hence, his point was to show that mechanistic principles are better suited for making progress in the physical  sciences. Another reason Descartes rejected substantial forms and final causes in physics was his belief that these notions were the result of the confusion of the idea of the body with that of the mind. In theSixth Replies, Descartes uses the Scholastic conception of gravity in a stone, to make his point. On this account, a characteristic goal of being a stone was a tendency to move toward the center of the earth. This explanation implies that the stone has knowledge of this goal, of the center of the earth and of how to get there. But how can a stone know anything, since it does not think? So, it is a mistake to ascribe mental properties like knowledge to entirely physical things. This mistake should be avoided by clearly distinguishing the idea of the mind from the idea of the body. Descartes considered himself to be the first to do this. His expulsion of the metaphysi cal principles of substantial forms and final causes helped clear the way for Descartes’ new metaphysical principles on which his modern, mechanistic physics was based. The second fundamental point of difference Descartes had with the Scholastics was his denial of the thesis that all knowledge must come from sensation. The Scholastics were devoted to the Aristotelian tenet that everyone is born with a clean slate, and that all material for intellectual understanding must be provided through sensation. Descartes, however, argued that since the senses sometimes deceive, they cannot be a reliable source for knowledge. Furthermore, the truth of propositions based on sensation is naturally probabilistic and the propositions, therefore, are doubtful premises when used in arguments. Descartes was deeply dissatisfied with such uncertain knowledge. He then replaced the uncertain premises derived from sensation with the absolute certainty of the clear and distinct ideas perceived by the mind alone, as will be explained below. b. Descartes’ Project In the preface to the French edition of the Principles of Philosophy, Descartes uses a tree as a metaphor for his holistic view of philosophy. â€Å"The roots are metaphysics, the trunk is physics, and the branches emerging from the trunk are all the other sciences, which may be reduced to three principal ones, namely medicine, mechanics and morals† (AT IXB 14: CSM I 186). Although Descartes does not expand much more on this image, a few other insights into his overall project can be discerned. First, notice that  metaphysics constitutes the roots securing the rest of the tree. For it is in Descartes’ metaphysics where an absolutely certain and secure epistemological foundation is discovered. This, in turn, grounds knowledge of the geometrical properties of bodies, which is the basis for his physics. Second, physics constitutes the trunk of the tree, which grows up directly from the roots and provides the basis for the rest of the sciences. Third, the sciences of medicine, mechanics and morals grow out of the trunk of physics, which implies that these other sciences are just applications of his mechanistic science to particular subject areas. Finally, the fruits of the philosophy tree are mainly found on these three branches, which are the sciences most useful and beneficial to humankind. However, an endeavor this grand cannot be conducted haphazardly but should be carried out in an orderly and systematic way. Hence, before even attempting to plant this tree, Descartes must first figure out a method for doing so. Method Aristotle and subsequent medieval dialecticians set out a fairly large, though limited, set of acceptable argument forms known as â€Å"syllogisms† composed of a general or major premise, a particular or minor premise and a conclusion. Although Descartes recognized that these syllogistic forms preserve truth from premises to conclusion such that if the premises are true, then the conclusion must be true, he still found them faulty. First, these premises are supposed to be known when, in fact, they are merely believed, since they express only probabilities based on sensation. Accordingly, conclusions derived from merely probable premises can only be probable themselves, and, therefore, these probable syllogisms serve more to increase doubt rather than knowledge Moreover, the employment of this method by those steeped in the Scholastic tradition had led to such subtle conjectures and plausible arguments that counter-arguments were easily constructed, leading to profound confusio n. As a result, the Scholastic tradition had become such a confusing web of arguments, counter-arguments and subtle distinctions that the truth often got lost in the cracks. (Rules for the Direction of the Mind, AT X 364, 405-406 & 430: CSM I 11-12, 36 & 51-52). Descartes sought to avoid these difficulties through the clarity and absolute certainty of geometrical-style demonstration. In geometry, theorems are deduced from a set of self-evident axioms and universally agreed upon  definitions. Accordingly, direct apprehension of clear, simple and indubitable truths (or axioms) by intuition and deductions from those truths can lead to new and indubitable knowledge. Descartes found this promising for several reasons. First, the ideas of geometry are clear and distinct, and therefore they are easily understood unlike the confused and obscure ideas of sensation. Second, the propositions constituting geometrical demonstrations are not probabilistic conjectures but are absolutely certain so as to be immune from doubt. This has the additional advantage that any proposition derived from some one or combination of these absolutely certain truths will itself be absolutely certain. Hence, geometry’s rules of inference preserve absolutely certain truth from simple, indubitable and intuitively grasped axioms to their deductive consequences unlike the probable syllogisms of the Scholastics. The choice of geometrical method was obvious for Descartes given his previous success in applying this method to other disciplines like optics. Yet his application of this method to philosophy was not unproblematic due to a revival of ancient arguments for global or radical skepticism based on the doubtfulness of human reasoning. But Descartes wanted to show that truths both intuitively grasped and deduced are beyond this possibility of doubt. His tactic was to show that, despite the best skeptical arguments, there is at least one intuitive truth that is beyond all doubt and from which the rest of human knowledge can be deduced. This is precisely the project of Descartes’ seminal work, Meditations on First Philosophy. In the First Meditation, Descartes lays out several arguments for doubting all of his previously held beliefs. He first observes that the senses sometimes deceive, for example, objects at a distance appear to be quite small, and surely it is not prudent to trust someone (or something) that has deceived us even once. However, although this may apply to sensations derived under certain circumstances, doesn ’t it seem certain that â€Å"I am here, sitting by the fire, wearing a winter dressing gown, holding this piece of paper in my hands, and so on†? (AT VII 18: CSM II 13). Descartes’ point is that even though the senses deceive us some of the time, what basis for doubt exists for the immediate belief that, for example, you are reading this article? But maybe the belief of reading this article or of sitting by the fireplace is not based on true sensations at all but on the false sensations found in dreams. If such sensations are just  dreams, then it is not really the case that you are reading this article but in fact you are in bed asleep. Since there is no principled way of distinguishing waking life from dreams, any belief based on sensation has been shown to be doubtful. This includes not only the mundane beliefs about reading articles or sitting by the fire but even the beliefs of experimental science are doubtful, because the observations upon which they are based may not be true but mere dream images. Therefore, all beliefs based on sensation have been called into doubt, because it might all be a dream. This, however, does not pertain to mathematical beliefs, since they are not based on sensation but on reason. For even though one is dreaming, for example, that, 2 + 3 = 5, the certainty of this proposition is not called into doubt, because 2 + 3 = 5 whether the one believing it is awake or dreaming. Descartes continues to wonder about whether or not God could make him believe there is an earth, sky and other extended things when, in fact, these things do not exist at all. In fact, people sometimes make mistakes about things they think are most certain such as mathematical calculations. But maybe people are not mistaken just some of the time but all of the time such that believing that 2 + 3 = 5 is some kind of persistent and collective mistake, and so the sum of 2 + 3 is really something other than 5. However, such universal deception seems inconsistent with God’s supreme goodness. Indeed, even the occasional deception of mathematical miscalculation also seems inconsistent with God’s goodness, yet people do sometimes make mistakes. Then, in line with the skeptics, Descartes supposes, for the sake of his method, that God does not exist, but instead there is an evil demon with supreme power and cunning that puts all his efforts into deceiving him so that he is always mistaken about everything, including mathematics. In this way, Descartes called all of his previous beliefs into doubt through some of the best skeptical arguments of his day But he was still not satisfied and decided to go a step further by considering false any belief that falls prey to even the slightest doubt. So, by the end of the First Meditation, Descartes finds himself in a whirlpool of false beliefs. However, it is important to realize that these doubts and the supposed falsehood of all his beliefs are for the sake of his method: he does not really believe that he is dreaming or is being deceived by an evil demon; he recognizes that his doubt is merely hyperbolic. But the point of this  Ã¢â‚¬Å"methodological† or ‘hyperbolic† doubt is to clear the mind of preconceived opinions that might obscure the truth. The goal then is to find something that cannot be doubted even though an evil demon is deceiving him and even though he is dreaming. This first indubitable truth will then serve as an intuitively graspe d metaphysical â€Å"axiom† from which absolutely certain knowledge can be deduced. For more, see Cartesian skepticism. The Mind a. Cogito, ergo sum In the Second Meditation, Descartes tries to establish absolute certainty in his famous reasoning: Cogito, ergo sum or â€Å"I think, therefore I am.† These Meditations are conducted from the first person perspective, from Descartes.’ However, he expects his reader to meditate along with him to see how his conclusions were reached. This is especially important in the Second Meditation where the intuitively grasped truth of â€Å"I exist† occurs. So the discussion here of this truth will take place from the first person or â€Å"I† perspective. All sensory beliefs had been found doubtful in the previous meditation, and therefore all such beliefs are now considered false. This includes the belief that I have a body endowed with sense organs. But does the supposed falsehood of this belief mean that I do not exist? No, for if I convinced myself that my beliefs are false, then surely there must be an â€Å"I† that was convinced. Moreover, even if I am being deceived by an evil demon, I must exist in order to be deceived at all. So â€Å"I must finally conclude that the proposition, ‘I am,’ ‘I exist,’ is necessarily true whenever it is put forward by me or conceived in my mind† (AT VII 25: CSM II 16-17). This just means that the mere fact that I am thinking, regardless of whether or not what I am thinking is true or false, implies that there must be something engaged in that activity, namely an â€Å"I.† Hence, â€Å"I exist† is an indubitable and, therefore, absolutely certain belief that serves as an axiom from which other, absolutely certain truths can be deduced. b. The Nature of the Mind and its Ideas The Second Meditation continues with Descartes asking, â€Å"What am I?† After discarding the traditional Scholastic-Aristotelian concept of a human being as a rational animal due to the inherent difficulties of defining â€Å"rational† and â€Å"animal,† he finally concludes that he is a thinking thing, a mind: â€Å"A  thing that doubts, understands, affirms, denies, is willing, is unwilling, and also imagines and has sense perceptions† (AT VII 28: CSM II 19). In the Principles, part I, sections 32 and 48, Descartes distinguishes intellectual perception and volition as what properly belongs to the nature of the mind alone while imagination and sensation are, in some sense, faculties of the mind insofar as it is united with a body. So imagination and sensation are faculties of the mind in a weaker sense than intellect and will, since they require a body in order to perform their functions. Finally, in the Sixth Meditation, Descartes claims that the mind or â€Å"I† is a non-extended thing. Now, since extension is the nature of body, is a necessary feature of body, it follows that the mind is by its nature not a body but an immaterial thing. Therefore, what I am is an immaterial thinking thing with the faculties of intellect and will. It is also important to notice that the mind is a substance and the modes of a thinking substance are its ideas. For Descartes a substance is a thing requiring nothing else in order to exist. Strictly speaking, this applies only to God whose existence is his essence, but the term â€Å"substance† can be applied to creatures in a qualified sense. Minds are substances in that they require nothing except God’s concurrence, in order to exist. But ideas are â€Å"modes† or â€Å"ways† of thinking, and, therefore, modes are not substances, since they must be the ideas of some mind or other. So, ideas require, in addition to God’s concurrence, some created thinking substance in order to exist (see Principles of Philosophy, part I, sections 51 & 52). Hence the mind is an immaterial thinking substance, while its ideas are its modes or ways of thinking. Descartes continues on to distinguish three kinds of ideas at the beginning of the Third Meditation, namely those that are fabricated, adventitious, or innate. Fabricated ideas are mere inventions of the mind. Accordingly, the mind can control them so that they can be examined and set aside at will and their internal content can be changed. Adventitious ideas are sensations produced by some material thing existing externally to the mind. But, unlike fabrications, adventitious ideas cannot be examined and set aside at will nor can their internal content be manipulated by the mind. For example, no matter how hard one tries, if someone is standing next to a fire, she cannot help but feel the heat as heat. She cannot set aside the sensory idea of heat by merely willing it as we can do with our idea of Santa Claus, for example. She also cannot change its internal content so as to feel something other than heat–say, cold. Finally, innate ideas are placed in the mind by God at creation. These ideas can be examined and set aside at will but their internal content cannot be manipulated. Geometrical ideas are paradigm examples of innate ideas. For example, the idea of a triangle can be examined and set aside at will, but its internal content cannot be manipulated so as to cease being the idea of a three-sided figure. Other examples of innate ideas would be metaphysical principles like â€Å"what is done cannot be undone,† the idea of the mind, and the idea of God. Descartes’ idea of God will be discussed momentarily, but let’s consider his claim that the mind is better known than the body. This is the main point of the wax example found in the Second Meditation. Here, Descartes pauses from his methodological doubt to examine a particular piece of wax fresh from the honeycomb: It has not yet quite lost the taste of the honey; it retains some of the scent of flowers from which it was gathered; its color shape and size are plain to see; it is hard, cold and can be handled without difficulty; if you rap it with your knuckle it makes a sound. (AT VII 30: CSM II 20) The point is that the senses perceive certain qualities of the wax like its hardness, smell, and so forth. But, as it is moved closer to the fire, all of these sensible qualities change. â€Å"Look: the residual taste is eliminated, the smell goes away, the color changes, the shape is lost, the size increases, it becomes liquid and hot† (AT VII 30: CSM II 20). Howeve r, despite these changes in what the senses perceive of the wax, it is still judged to be the same wax now as before. To warrant this judgment, something that does not change must have been perceived in the wax. This reasoning establishes at least three important points. First, all sensation involves some sort of judgment, which is a mental mode. Accordingly, every sensation is, in some sense, a mental mode, and â€Å"the more attributes [that is, modes] we discover in the same thing or substance, the clearer is our knowledge of that substance† (AT VIIIA 8: CSM I 196). Based on this principle, the mind is better known than the body, because it has ideas about both extended and mental things and not just of extended things, and so it has discovered more modes in itself than in bodily substances. Second, this is also supposed to show that what is unchangeable in the wax is its extension in length, breadth and depth, which is not perceivable by the senses but by the mind  alone. The shape and size of the wax are modes of this extension and can, therefore, change. But the extension constituting this wax remains the same and permits the judgment that the body with the modes existing in it after being moved by the fire is the same body as before even though all of its sensible qualities have changed. One final lesson is that Descartes is attempting to wean his reader from reliance on sense images as a source for, or an aid to, knowledge. Instead, people should become accustomed to thinking without images in order to clearly understand things not readily or accurately represented by them, for example, God and the mind. So, according to Descartes, immaterial, mental things are better known and, therefore, are better sources of knowledge than extended things. God a. The Causal Arguments At the beginning of the Third Meditation only â€Å"I exist† and â€Å"I am a thinking thing† are beyond doubt and are, therefore, absolutely certain. From these intuitively grasped, absolutely certain truths, Descartes now goes on to deduce the existence of something other than himself, namely God. Descartes begins by considering what is necessary for something to be the adequate cause of its effect. This will be called the â€Å"Causal Adequacy Principle† and is expressed as follows: â€Å"there must be at least as much reality in the efficient and total cause as in the effect of that cause,† which in turn implies that something cannot come from nothing (AT VII 40: CSM II 28). Here Descartes is espousing a causal theory that implies whatever is possessed by an effect must have been given to it by its cause. For example, when a pot of water is heated to a boil, it must have received that heat from some cause that had at least that much heat. Moreover, som ething that is not hot enough cannot cause water to boil, because it does not have the requisite reality to bring about that effect. In other words, something cannot give what it does not have. Descartes goes on to apply this principle to the cause of his ideas. This version of the Causal Adequacy Principle states that whatever is contained objectively in an idea must be contained either formally or eminently in the cause of that idea. Definitions of some key terms are now in order. First, the objective reality contained in an idea is just its representational content; in other words, it is the â€Å"object† of the idea or what that idea is about. The idea of the sun, for instance, contains  the reality of the sun in it objectively. Second, the formal reality contained in something is a reality actually contained in that thing. For example, the sun itself has the formal reality of extension since it is actually an extended thing or body. Finally, a reality is contained in something eminently when that reality is contained in it in a higher form such that (1) the thing does not possess that reality formally, but (2) it has the ability to cause that reality formally in something else. For example, God is not formally an extended thing but solely a thinking thing; however, he is eminently the extended universe in that it exists in him in a higher form, and accordingly he has the ability to cause its existence. The main point is that the Causal Adequacy Principle also pertains to the causes of ideas so that, for instance, the idea of the sun must be caused by something that contains the reality of the sun either actually (formally) or in some higher form (eminently). Once this principle is established, Descartes looks for an idea of which he could not be the cause. Based on this principle, he can be the cause of the objective reality of any idea that he has either formally or eminently. He is formally a finite substance, and so he can be the cause of any idea with the objective reality of a finite substance. Moreover, since finite substances require only God’s concurrence to exist and modes require a finite substance and God, finite substances are more real than modes. Accordingly, a finite substance is not formally but eminently a mode, and so he can be the cause of all his ideas of modes. But the idea of God is the idea of an infinite substance. Since a finite substance is less rea l than an infinite substance by virtue of the latter’s absolute independence, it follows that Descartes, a finite substance, cannot be the cause of his idea of an infinite substance. This is because a finite substance does not have enough reality to be the cause of this idea, for if a finite substance were the cause of this idea, then where would it have gotten the extra reality? But the idea must have come from something. So something that is actually an infinite substance, namely God, must be the cause of the idea of an infinite substance. Therefore, God exists as the only possible cause of this idea. Notice that in this argument Descartes makes a direct inference from having the idea of an infinite substance to the actual existence of God. He provides another argument that is cosmological in nature in response to a possible objection to this first  argument. This objection is that the cause of a finite substance with the idea of God could also be a finite substance with the idea of God. Yet what was the cause of that finite substance with the idea of God? Well, another finite substance with the idea of God. But what was the cause of that finite substance with the idea of God? Well, another finite substance . . . and so on to infinity. Eventually an ultimate cause of the idea of God must be reached in order to provide an adequate explanation of its existence in the first place and thereby stop the infinite regress. That ultimate cause must be God, because only he has enough reality to cause it. So, in the end, Descartes claims to have deduced God’s existence from the intuitions of his own existence as a finite substance with the idea of God and the Causal Adequacy Principle, which is â€Å"manifest by the natural light,† thereby indicating that it is supposed to be an absolutely certain intuition as well. b. The Ontological Argument The ontological argument is found in the Fifth Meditation and follows a more straightforwardly geometrical line of reasoning. Here Descartes argues that God’s existence is deducible from the idea of his nature just as the fact that the sum of the interior angles of a triangle are equal to two right angles is deducible from the idea of the nature of a triangle. The point is that this property is contained in the nature of a triangle, and so it is inseparable from that nature. Accordingly, the nature of a triangle without this property is unintelligible. Similarly, it is apparent that the idea of God is that of a supremely perfect being, that is, a being with all perfections to the highest degree. Moreover, actual existence is a perfection, at least insofar as most would agree that it is better to actually exist than not. Now, if the idea of God did not contain actual existence, then it would lack a perfection. Accordingly, it would no longer be the idea of a supremely perfect being but the idea of something with an imperfection, namely non-existence, and, therefore, it would no longer be the idea of God. Hence, the idea of a supremely perfect being or God without existence is unintelligible. This means that existence is contained in the essence of an infinite substance, and therefore God must exist by his very nature. Indeed, any attempt to conceive of God as not existing would be like trying to conceive of a mountain without a valley – it just cannot be done. 6. The Epistemological Foundation a. Absolute Certainty and the Cartesian Circle Recall that in the First Meditation Descartes supposed that an evil demon was deceiving him. So as long as this supposition remains in place, there is no hope of gaining any absolutely certain knowledge. But he was able to demonstrate God’s existence from intuitively grasped premises, thereby providing, a glimmer of hope of extricating himself from the evil demon scenario. The next step is to demonstrate that God cannot be a deceiver. At the beginning of the Fourth Meditation, Descartes claims that the will to deceive is â€Å"undoubtedly evidence of malice or weakness† so as to be an imperfection. But, since God has all perfections and no imperfections, it follows that God cannot be a deceiver. For to conceive of God with the will to deceive would be to conceive him to be both having no imperfections and having one imperfection, which is impossible; it would be like trying to conceive of a mountain without a valley. This conclusion, in addition to God’s existenc e, provides the absolutely certain foundation Descartes was seeking from the outset of the Meditations. It is absolutely certain because both conclusions (namely that God exists and that God cannot be a deceiver) have themselves been demonstrated from immediately grasped and absolutely certain intuitive truths. This means that God cannot be the cause of human error, since he did not create humans with a faculty for generating them, nor could God create some being, like an evil demon, who is bent on deception. Rather, humans are the cause of their own errors when they do not use their faculty of judgment correctly. Second, God’s non-deceiving nature also serves to guarantee the truth of all clear and distinct ideas. So God would be a deceiver, if there were a clear and distinct idea that was false, since the mind cannot help but believe them to be true. Hence, clear and distinct ideas must be true on pain of contradiction. This also implies that knowledge of God’s existence is required for having any absolutely certain knowledge. Accordingly, atheists, who are ignorant of God’s existence, cannot have absolutely certain knowledge of any kind, including scientific knowledge. But this veridical guarantee gives rise to a serious problem within the Meditations, stemming from the claim that all clear and distinct ideas are ultimately guaranteed by God’s existence, which is not established  until the Third Meditation. This means that those truths reached in the Second Meditation, such as â€Å"I exist† and â€Å"I am a thinking thing,† and those principles used in the Third Meditation to conclude that God exists, are not clearly and distinctly understood, and so they cannot be absolutely certain. Hence, since the premises of the argument for God’s existence are not absolutely certain, the conclusion that God exists cannot be certain either. This is what is known as the â€Å"Cartesian Circle,† because Descartes’ reasoning seems to go in a circle in that he needs God’s existence for the absolute certainty of the earlier truths and yet he needs the absolute certainty of these earlier truths to demonstrate God’s existence with absolute certainty. Descartes’ response to this concern is found in the Second Replies. There he argues that God’s veridical guarantee only pertains to the recollection of arguments and not the immediate awaRenà ©ss of an argument’s clarity and distinctness currently under consideration. Hence, those truths reached before the demonstration of God’s existence are clear and distinct when they are being attended to but cannot be relied upon as absolutely certain when those arguments are recalled later on. But once God’s existence has been demonstrated, the recollection of the clear and distinct perception of the premises is sufficient for absolutely certain and, therefore, perfect knowledge of its conclusion (see also the Fifth Meditation at AT VII 69-70: CSM II XXX).

Kite Runner Essay

â€Å"There is a way to be good again† (2). This is the line that rolls through Amir’s mind over and over throughout Khaled Hosseini’s novel, The Kite Runner. This is the story of a man’s struggle to find redemption. The author illustrates with the story of Amir that it is not possible to make wrongs completely right again because it’s too late to change past. In this novel Hosseini is telling us that redemption is obtainable, and by allowing us to see Amir’s thought process throughout the novel, Hosseini shows us that it guilt is the primary motivation for someone who seeks redemption. Hosseini also uses not only the main character, but other secondary characters to show how big of a part that guilt plays in the desire for redemption. In this novel, redemption is not when things are justified, because the wrong has been done and you can’t go back to the past and change things to make it right. Rather, as defined in a letter to Amir by an old family friend, Rahim Khan, redemption is when the guilt from something wrong leads to something good (302). Guilt is a strong incentive in a quest for redemption and it isn’t easy to shake. There is a way to be good again† Rahim Khan said to Amir in the beginning of the novel, insinuating that there was hope. That there was a way for Amir to have peace with himself and let go of his guilt. This phrase was something that echoed in Amir’s mind throughout the novel and would be a reminder that there was a way to be rid of the guilt that plagued him, a way to be good again. We can see how heavy this guilt is even at the beginning of the novel when we don’t even know the reason why he would be guilty. Amir begins his story by telling us â€Å"I became what I am today at the age of 12† 1). The first thing we notice is that he says â€Å"what I am today† rather than â€Å"who† and as we finish the first chapter it leaves us with the slightly bitter feeling that the narrator has dark past that he cannot shake, a past that has been hovering over his life. He gives us the idea that he is not happy with who he has become, and it was his wrong doing that made it that way. Hosseini shows that it is Amir’s immense guilt that drives him to want to make things right and to earn redemption. We learn about Amir’s guilt through his memorie s. It is caused by a lack of response at a time when his loyal servant and close friend Hassan is in trouble. Amir makes a conscious decision to hide in the distance and just watch, not because he was afraid. He sacrifices Hassan in order to earn his father’s attention and affection. This decision results in Hassan suffering though a traumatic experience and is the root of Amir’s lasting regret. At first, Amir does not seek to earn redemption. We know that he is ashamed at what he has done but he prefers to hide his guilt rather than confess and redeem himself right away. After the incident, Amir attempted to avoid Hassan at all costs. Even when Hassan approached him to see if he wanted to go for a walk, like they used to do frequently, Amir refused to go with him and told him to go away (88). He knew that he didn’t deserve his friends unwavering love and loyalty. This is just the beginnings of his guilt. We leave Amir’s childhood memories and return to the summer of 2001, where Amir and Baba, Amir’s father, have moved to America (191). Amir embraced this move as a chance to bury his memories and forget his past in hopes to remove his guilt. With Hassan on the other side of the world, Amir doesn’t have any problem avoiding him and yet many times his memories would still sneak up on him. Some of the littlest things would remind him of his friend, and bring back the shame of the wrong that he had done. When Amir first saw the Pacific Ocean he recalls a promise he made Hassan that one day they would walk and play along the beach (136). Even after ten years had gone by, he continued to attempt to bury his past, but we see that the guilt still doesn’t leave. When he discussed his story with Soraya, his future wife, she told him about the time she taught one of her families hired servants how to read. This conversation reminded him of how he used to take advantage of Hassan’s illiteracy (151). Also he remembered that on his wedding night he found himself wondering if Hassan had gotten married and to whom (171). Like these examples, Amir is unsuccessful in removing his guilt by trying to run from it but instead the past constantly came back to haunt him. There are many instances where we can see the guilt that still burdens Amir even later on in the story. More than twenty-five years later, after Amir learns about the death of Hassan, he can’t help but wonder if Hassan would have still been alive if he hadn’t driven Hassan’s family out of his house when they where children. Rahim Khan called Amir back to Pakistan and told him that there was indeed â€Å"a way to be good again† (192). He gives Amir the opportunity to redeem himself by asking him to save Hassan’s son, Sohrab. Amir refuses at first and attempts to come up with excuses to be able to turn Rahim down without adding to his guilt. To convince himself that he wasn’t obligated to save Sohrab. He told himself that he had to be back home with his family and his job, but again the line that Rahim said played through Amir’s head. â€Å"There’s a way to be good again. † Amir knew that this was his last chance to earn his redemption and end his guilt (226). Amir had taken his guilt out on the very people that he had betrayed and then tried to run away from it all. He realizes this and asks himself â€Å"what had I ever done to right things† (303). As Rahim says â€Å"Redemption comes when guilt leads to good. You can may never fully get rid of the guilt or make right what has been wronged, but it is this guilt that motivates you to try. We see in his thought process just how motivated he is by guilt. As much as he doesn’t want to help Sohrab, he is drawn by the need for redemption, and the need to remove his guilt. This line running through his head over and over again shows just how much that guilt has driven him to yearn for things to be right. We don’t get to see Amir reach his point of redemption and we don’t get to watch him be completely relieved of his heavy laden of guilt. However the ending does leave us hopeful. Although nothing has been made right it was the beginning and leaves us with hope and the assurance that Amir is on his way to finding his redemption. Amir describes Sohrab’s lopsided smile at him being like the first snowflake melting in the spring, the first bit of good that had come out of his quest (371). Amir is not the only one who is haunted by his past in this novel. We can also see how guilt drives some of the other characters to find their redemption. This is a huge secret and we learn from Rahim Khan that Baba, for fear of being shamed, had hid the fact that Amir’s lifelong friend was actually his half-brother (223). Rahim tells Amir in a letter that the guilt that Baba carried from, keeping this secret was why he cared so much about the poor, built an orphanage and gave to whoever needed money (302). Even after Baba had done so much good, his past still had haunted him. One example of this was at Amir’s graduation, Baba wished Hassan could have been there too since he was like one of the family (133). Unlike Amir who ran from his chances for redemption, Baba took advantage and made right what was wrong. Rahim Khan also carried this secret with Baba, and this was something that he too sought redemption from. In the same letter, he asked Amir for his forgiveness. Even when Amir was a child Rahim treated him well and was sympathetic to his needs and his lack of self respect. Another secondary character who was searching for redemption in this novel was Amir’s wife Soraya. Before they get married confesses to him about the time she ran away with someone as a teenager and clears up her past which had also haunted her (164). Even after she confessed to Amir, people still talked down about her because of her past (178). Amir, like Baba, Rahim Khan and Soraya, had sinned by what he had done, or rather what he didn’t do. This caused guilt which he attempted to hide, but the memories and the past continued to haunt him, nag at him, and remind him of the person who had loved him so much. The person he had turned around and betrayed in their time of need. This guilt of betrayal weighs on Amir’s character throughout the story, and pushes him to seek out redemption. He longs to â€Å"be good again† and get rid of the guilt that he has carried since he was just twelve years old.

Future Updates

Future Updates Future Updates We created this blog so that many of you could get an on-the-ground view of how development of is going. Over the summer, we listened to your feedback and kept track of all the bugs/feature requests that were reported. Last month, we got the go ahead from our Information Systems(IS) Professors/Advisors to continue developing for Fall 2007. We were astounded by the number of users that began using , and by the sheer amount of feedback we received from the community; 117 requests to be exact! Many of you mentioned that you would like the ability to edit bibliographies. This is a feature we’ve been meaning to add since day 1, so look for that to be implemented in the next few weeks. Also, look for Harvard Citation support to be implemented within a month. Alot of you have been asking for the ability to share and tag your bibliographies. In the next month, we’ll be working on the User Interface(UI) and putting in the functionality for that. Even more of you have been asking for database support, and to expand our selection of books, magazines, films, academic journals, and our â€Å"other sources†. Rest assured we are working towards these things in the next 3 months. Some of you have wondered why we haven’t considered a lot of proprietary databases; JSTOR, IMDB, etc. We’d love to support many of these items, but they would incur ridonculous licensing fees that we are unable to absorb in our current state. As always, we depend on you to let us know if you run into any bugs, or if you think a certain feature would be a great addition to . Please feel free to contact us. Cheers! Alvin Fong

Psycho-sexual theory Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Psycho-sexual theory - Research Paper Example Phallic stage is the third and comes between the ages of three years to the age of six years. Here the child starts to get to understand their bodies and the bodies of other people who may include other children and their parents. At this stage, the children start exploring and get the difference between male and female genital organs. Latent is the fourth stage in the theory context of psychosexual theory which continues from the age of six when the child goes to school all the way to puberty stage, here the libido context is transferred from the child to the parent of the same sex, friends and clubs. The final stage of the theory is the genital stage, this starts at the age of puberty all through to adolescence to the entire life of the individual. Here the individual now develops self-interest in the friends and people of the opposite sex. The focus in this gist is on the pleasure of the genitals. From the stages discussed above, the individual develops high libido interest and en ergy as a result he is mostly attracted to the company or people of the opposite sex and is so inferior whenever he/she comes into contact or deals with any matter to do with people of the opposite sex (Sigmund 27). ... The lady is a traitor but not she is willing to, but because the Quantum company has taken her lover and the deal they agreed that if she does not cooperate with them well they will kill him. Here the context of psychosexual theory comes out well clear in that vesper is ready to do anything including turning against her company employers will and grant the favor to the Quantum who are the opponent just to rescue her lover in hostage. This shows that the genital energy that is in possession of a woman is so strong and has taken over her control. In the team designed by vesper and bond, vesper to some kind finds the ego of bond as skeptical and not willing to cooperate with him in the poker game in the casino. Afterwards she helps bond in his struggle with albano, she does so by knocking the gun away. In these occasions, Vesper shows his concern to this man which verify her erogenous interest in the male individuals. James bond in return opts to kiss the blood off the hand of Vesper ju st to show his concern for her. The context also reveals and comes out well when James Bond is struggling to connect the defibrillator, which is external and automatic to his key wire, despite the fact that Vesper is a traitor, she assists him in connecting and relieves him from the stress. She also portrayed the interest on bond by saving him when the Le Chifffres girlfriend poisoned him. On the other hand, James bond also portrayed interest by the act of kissing the blood on her hands which resulted to because of saving him when he was struggling with Steven Obanno. Chiffres work for the Quantum Company and he had disappointed them for misappropriating their funds in the poker games. Bond wins the poker game and as a result, chiffres becomes so annoyed that he

Integrated Marketing Communications Assignment 2

Integrated Marketing Communications 2 - Assignment Example First class passengers are served breakfast along with afternoon and evening meals. There is an onboard shop serving a range of alcoholic, cold and hot beverages. The train service has been identified in various industry awards. In the year 2010, it was awarded as Year’s Best Rail Operator at Travel Globe Awards. It is also known as one of the most preferred domestic passenger service in the United Kingdom. The trains are known to be environmental friendly as their carbon dioxide emission is 78% less than average domestic flights and 76 % less than cars (Virgin Trains, 2013b). Integrated Marketing communication Integrated marketing communication has become as a major phenomenon since early 1990s. Corporate and marketing communications are few of the critical persuasive factors used by organizations for market connection (Constantinides, 2006). The objective is to deliver certain perception of products, services and brands to consumers, customers and stakeholders. As a result o f the increasing variety of promotional and communication tools, modern day channels are able to disseminate messages in wide forms. According to Kliatchko (2008), â€Å"integrated marketing communication is audience-driven business process of strategically managing stakeholders, content, channels, and results of brand communication programs.† Marketing communication planning or mix can be characterized in the form of its communication strategies in the market. The various ways through which an organization communicates to its market are advertising, sales promotions, personal selling, direct marketing and public relations (Gronroos, 1994; Ferdous, 2008). Advertising Advertising can be described as a non-personal strategy for mass communication offering great level of command for people responsible for design, manufacturing and delivering of advertising messages (Fill, 2006). This message is transmitted in a particular style and manner which best suits the customer as well as management’s requirements. Regular usage of advertising is critical for creation and maintenance of brand personality, especially when it is integrated with other elements of the mix. It is a dominant form of advertising communication for many firms (Panda, 2003). In any case, advertising needs a carrier so that message can be delivered to the desired receiver (Pelsmacker, 2001). Sales promotions Sales promotion is used for delivering the action plans. Sales promotion and advertising harmonize each other as promotion is short term to generate sales and advertising is for long term awareness and relationship building. Sales promotion is also a non-personal form of marketing communication targeting a smaller audience. The techniques include offering better offers and adding value with the objective of future sales. Various presentation kits such as, catalogues, selling aids and brochures, are used for sales staff. Financial mechanisms such as, promotional pricing and incentive s, are used as a push strategy by companies (Young and Aitken, 2007). Public relations Public relations can describe as relationship management between an organization and its various stakeholders. It is an attempt to establish and preserve shared understanding, good relationships and goodwill with the secondary targets,