English coursework (Oscar Wilde) Essay Example for Free

English coursework (Oscar Wilde) Essay In an essay of 3-4 pages discuss how Oscar Wilde uses stereotypes and concepts from traditional fairy-tales and in invert them in his short stories. In the majority of Oscar Wildes fairytales there are numerous stereotypical characters and concepts. In an exemplary fairytale there is the philanthropic character, who is very important to the format of fairytale, for instance a Prince or King, This individual usually, forms an advantageous partnership with a bi-character such as Princess, Queen, Frog, or a Wizard, this may work in reverse in some fairy tales where e. g. the Princess is the leading character and the King is the sub-role. The enemy of the protagonist is called as a villain whose only existence in a fairytale is to try and prevent the leading character and his/hers acquaintances from saving the day or more importantly the world. The evil being is primarily associated with negative images for example bad manners, ruthless personality, or the trademark evil express of amusement. In contrast the valiant hero/heroine is linked with a clean depiction. Witches, Dragons, and Wolves are more often than not portrayed as Villains. Fairy-tale writers use techniques in which they lead the reader to believe that the hero/heroine will prevail in the battle against evil, because the story gives the impression that the villain is superior to the central character. Almost ever fairy-tale begins with the opening phrase Once Upon a Time and end with and they live happily ever after. Use of these phrases result in the reader instantaneously recognises that it is a fairy-tale. Castles are prominent buildings in fairytales because most of fairy-tales were written in medieval-times where castles were the biggest buildings you would see, and they are also related to Kings and Queens. Wilde makes extensive use of traditional fairy-tale characters, which do not exist in real life, in his stories such as ogres, giants and talking birds. I think Wilde choose to do this because he knew bizarre creatures put the message of his choice across much easier to the readers, children in particular. I know this from The Happy Prince and The Selfish Giant where the winter season is given human characteristics and actually given a voice to speak: He is too selfish. What separates Oscar Wilde from other writers in Victorian times is that he uses traditional fairy-tale characters to address contemporary issues to express his opinion. In The Happy Prince Wilde embarks upon the difficulty of poverty and privilege, which were disregarded subjects in that era. When the Prince was alive he lived in the palace of San-Souci, here he wasnt allowed to see the outside world, that didnt bother the Prince because there he had everything he wanted and needed. He was very happy this led to people naming him the Happy Prince: My courtiers called me The Happy Prince, and happy I was indeed, if pleasure be happiness. In the Palace no grief would enter, his courtiers fearing the happy prince would see true misery and sadness. The Prince lived a very luxurious and rich life and was easily pleased with his wealth. When he died they made a statue of him and placed high above the city. From this position he had a respectable view of everything. This meant that he was able to life outside the Palace: Beggars starving, children being abused, poverty all this made the Happy Prince grieve because he was powerless to stop any of this as he was a statue. Here Wilde makes a direct comparison between the rich and the poor. Wilde does this to make the reader sympathise with the poor people: When the Swallow flies over the city he sees rich people sitting in the warmth of their expensive residences and beggars sitting outside of their gates. The Swallow also spots to children hungry and cold lying in each others arms for warmth under a bridge to seek shelter from the heavy rain, but they are told to leave by the watchman, and they walk back out into the rain. Incidents like this make the Happy Prince cry every single day as he sits and watches the wretchedness of the city. Wilde sends the message that human fickleness is a weakness in The Happy Prince. As a statue the Happy Prince was very beautiful and expensive. His body was covered in leaves of fine gold, he has two bright sapphires as eyes and a large red ruby encrusted in his sword-hilt. The Happy Prince was admired by many people in the city as a consequence of this awe-inspiring appearance. A mother says to her child: Why cant you be like the Happy Prince She uses the Happy Prince as a role model for her son, little does know of the Happy Prince but him being a very expensive statue. This show how people judge based on small assumptions of physical appearance only. Eventually the Happy Prince loses all his fine possessions, as he has given them away to those whose needs are greater, and two townsfolk spot the statue. They decide to take it down; they compare its value to that of beggars: As he is no longer beautiful he is no longer useful. The Arts Professor believes that without beauty the statue is useless. This indicates that they didnt place the statue above the city as a symbol representing something with a deep philosophical intent, but merely as an appealing decoration for the city. Wilde also shows some fickleness and its consequences in The Nightingale and the Rose where the nightingale observes a young student who is in love with his teachers daughter. He wants to give her a rose which symbolises his love for her, but cannot afford one. The nightingale sympathises for the young student, he decides to go through agony and in the end sacrifice his life to get that rose for him. The student receives the rose, and goes to the professors daughter to ask her if she will accept his rose, but she frowns and says that she has been given far better gifts from another man. The student walks away in disgust and throws the rose into the gutter where gets flattened by a cart-wheel. The nightingales sacrifice was in vein. The student decides to exclude himself from ever loving again and he dedicates the rest of his life to studying philosophy. This tale has had an important morale stressed by Oscar Wilde. He uses a dramatic ending to emphasise his point. He undoubtedly show s the destructiveness of a fickle nature. The fairytale The Selfish Giant explores selfishness and ignorance by portraying the stereotypical character of a giant as a ruthless monster in some part of the story. Wilde uses little children to contrast the enormous giants dominance. When the giant arrives at his castle he finds children playing innocent games in his garden. The giant furiously chases them away and builds a high wall around his garden. As a result of this no seasons but winter enters his doomed garden. As summer, autumn and spring comes and goes one constant climate remains in the giants garden and his only. Wilde uses the endless winter a metaphor for the ongoing sentence of the giants misery, that winter has sentenced him for being selfish and cruel to the children. The giant soon realises his that all that time he was away, the little children had been preserving his garden and now that they were away it was winter forever. He figures this out when he sees one of his trees blossoming because a group of children climbed upon it. The giant apologises to the children and breaks down the stone fence: and my garden shall be the childrens playground for ever and ever. The giants change of heart causes his garden to blossom and allow the other seasons to enter accordingly. When the giant dies, he goes to paradise. Wilde does this to stress the storys morale and message by showing that if you stop being selfish you will be rewarded. Wilde does use many traditional fairytale conventions but still his stories are different from the tradition in a variety of ways. Traditionally the good triumph when they have made a noble sacrifice. Wilde doesnt necessarily do this. In fact he tends to not do it at all. This is evident in The Nightingale and the Rose where a nightingale unselfishly sacrifices his life for something as minor as getting a red rose to a student who is in love. In the end the student is rejected by the girls he loves, and the nightingales sacrifice was in vein. This story shows that Oscar Wilde will write sorrowful endings if he has to emphasise his point. A reasonable amount of Wildes tales do not introduce the story with the phrase Once upon a time and conclude it with And they all lived happily ever after. Wilde is very attentive in the ways in which he opens a fairy tale, but when it comes to ending one he usually goes with a harsh approach, and does not include psychological twists. In a world of magic and wonder Wilde does not exclude the use of religious imagery, this is hardly ever done in fairy tale. For example; when the Happy Prince and his little assistant the swallow both die doing their heroic deeds. God orders an angel to bring Him the two best things in the city the angel chooses the Happy Prince and the Swallow, because they were recognised for doing good deeds and therefore rewarded with an entry to Gods paradise. In the Selfish Giant we also see Wildes strong belief in God, when the giant dies and allowed entry in Paradise by God, because the giant has become a better individual. I think Wilde does this because he himself believes that good things come to those who deserve it, and he wants to encourage the readers to believe in that too. This is especially aimed at younger readers. Though Wildes stories are fairy tales they bare a resemblance to modern day life. In the beginning of storytelling fairy tales were used as a form of entertainment and written for that purpose as well. Where Wildes tales differ is when the tales carry a message hidden behind a great storyline, this not only done to give the reader a good read but also to teach and educate things that they perhaps didnt know or had a different perspective of. Nowadays stories always have these messages in them, but Oscar Wilde was one of the first to introduce this style of story-formatting, as readers crave for more than just a good story. The drama and intensity was also quite unusual elements Wilde added in his tales. These days drama is an essential ingredient to almost every genre of literature, Wilde was one of the first to discover this, which is one of many reasons why his tales are still loved and admired across the world to this day.

Warren G. Harding :: essays research papers

Before his nomination, Warren G. Harding declared, "America's present need is not heroics, but healing; not nostrums, but normalcy; not revolution, but restoration; not agitation, but adjustment; not surgery, but serenity; not the dramatic, but the dispassionate; not experiment, but equipoise; not submergence in internationality, but sustainment in triumphant nationality...." A Democratic leader, William Gibbs McAdoo, called Harding's speeches "an army of pompous phrases moving across the landscape in search of an idea." Their very murkiness was effective, since Harding's pronouncements remained unclear on the League of Nations, in contrast to the impassioned crusade of the Democratic candidates, Governor James M. Cox of Ohio and Franklin D. Roosevelt. Thirty-one distinguished Republicans had signed a manifesto assuring voters that a vote for Harding was a vote for the League. But Harding interpreted his election as a mandate to stay out of the League of Nations. Harding, born near Marion, Ohio, in 1865, became the publisher of a newspaper. He married a divorce, Mrs. Florence Kling De Wolfe. He was a trustee of the Trinity Baptist Church, a director of almost every important business, and a leader in fraternal organizations and charitable enterprises. He organized the Citizen's Cornet Band, available for both Republican and Democratic rallies; "I played every instrument but the slide trombone and the E-flat cornet," he once remarked. Harding's undeviating Republicanism and vibrant speaking voice, plus his willingness to let the machine bosses set policies, led him far in Ohio politics. He served in the state Senate and as Lieutenant Governor, and successfully ran for Governor. He delivered the nominating address for President Taft at the 1912 Republican Convention. In 1914 he was elected to the Senate, which he found "a very pleasant place." An Ohio admirer, Harry Daugherty, began to promote Harding for the 1920 Republican nomination because, he later explained, "He looked like a President." Thus a group of Senators, taking control of the 1920 Republican Convention when the principal candidates deadlocked, turned to Harding. He won the Presidential election by an unprecedented landslide of 60 percent of the popular vote. Republicans in Congress easily got the President's signature on their bills. They eliminated wartime controls and slashed taxes, established a Federal budget system, restored the high protective tariff, and imposed tight limitations upon immigration. By 1923 the postwar depression seemed to be giving way to a new surge of prosperity, and newspapers hailed Harding as a wise statesman carrying out his campaign promise--"Less government in business and more business in government.

Video Vault Case

Introduction: The Video Vault was dominant is the location of major route connecting Westborough to the neighbour communities of Hopkinton and Upton with floor space at 750 square feet, the owners were innovative in displaying their roughly 10,000 units (or 8,000 titles) of inventory, 700 of which were in the DVD format. Peaslee and St. Angelo had 6,000 registered customers, with about half that number being active renters. In order to rent videos at the store, customers provided a credit card number or a $35 deposit, protecting the business against unreturned product or unpaid late fees. New releases, adult videos, and video games rented for $4 per day, catalogue titles rented for $3 per day. The average late fee was $2. 75. Total late fees in 2001 were $6,133. Supply chain performances In revenue sharing contract, the store shares the revenue from the customer with the studio through which it gets its inventory. The widespread use of revenue sharing fundamentally changed the economics of the industry. Under this, distributors sold the tape to the retailer at a much lower price- from $3 to $8 per tape- in return for a percentage of the rental revenue and a percentage of eventual used-tape sales to consumer. But as the same time there were some disadvantages that were came with revenue sharing contract. Store had to share data with the studio and also had to keep maximum and minimum inventory of inventory as per the contract which diluted the controllability of store owners. Since they opened their store, Peaslee and St. Angelo had seen the regular distribution channels and pricing change dramatically. In the past, the partners bought roughly 150 to 200 titles per year, one-third from established distributors that bought directly from studios, and the rest from â€Å"sideways selling†Ã¢â‚¬â€a practice of buying product from other video stores, retailers, or individual traders. The top tier A titles were roughly $70 from distributors and were shipped to stores prior to the video rental release date. Buying product from other avenues resulted in lower prices, but it could take weeks or months after the release date to obtain copies. During 2000 and 2001, however, the Video Vault bought 90% of its product directly from studios, with a few distributors acting as â€Å"fulfillment centers,† shipping product from studios without owning it

Corporal Punishment and Its Effects on a Childs Behavior - Free Essay Example

Sample details Pages: 5 Words: 1537 Downloads: 1 Date added: 2019/07/30 Category Society Essay Level High school Tags: Corporal Punishment Essay Did you like this example? Corporal Punishment and Its Effects on a Childs Behavior Historically, corporal punishment has been has been identified as whipping, flogging and branding. Recently, though, spanking children as punishment for misbehavior has become the definition of corporal punishment. Parents use corporal punishment to correct a childs behavior and to show authority. Traditionally, corporal punishment has been popular among Protestant Christians as a form of correction for their children because of its Biblical roots. Reverend Michael Pearl wrote his book To Train Up a Child based on the Biblical references to corporal punishment. Corporal punishment has become popular because it is an easy and quick form of discipline, and in todays fast paced society, parents do not want to take time to correct a childs behavior in a more time consuming way. Although corporal punishment is seen as a useful method by many parents, it has been proven to cause antisocial behavior, impulsive aggression and other behavioral problems and should not be used as a form of puni shment. Children who have been physically punished are more aggressive and antisocial than those children who have not been exposed to corporal punishment. Don’t waste time! Our writers will create an original "Corporal Punishment and Its Effects on a Childs Behavior" essay for you Create order Corporal punishment has been justified for thousands of years by Protestant Christians and their interpretation of the Old Testament. Versus in the book of Proverbs refer to physical punishment by use of a rod or other hitting device. One verse from Proverbs states, a path of life is his who heeds admonition, bet he who disregards reproof goes astray (Proverbs 10:17). This verse is saying that any person who does not use reproof of punishment will stray from the correct path of life. Parents have used versus such as this one to justify physical punishment to their children. Reverend Michael Pearl and his wife co-author a book entitled To Train Up a Child, which justifies the use of corporal punishment based on the biblical references. Several cases of childrens death and serious injury due to corporal punishment have been linked to Pearls book. An article written by Bryan Lowder tells the story of a couple from Washington was held accountable for the death of their 13-year-old adopted daughter. She was beaten with a plumbing tool, starved, made to sleep and go to the bathroom outside and was found 30 pounds underweight wrapped in a sheet in the backyard. The couple had read Pearls book and used it as a guide to punishing children. Other cases similar to this have been directly linked to Pearls evangelical book using biblical roots to justify harsh corporal punishment inflicted on children (Lowder). In Philip Grevens book Spare the Child he discusses the true message of the Bible regarding corporal punishment. He argues that in the New Testament, Jesus is loving and nurturing towards children and never advocates the use of physical punishment.  Ã‚   He states that parents have used corporal punishment because it is the will of God, and if they did not use corporal punishment they do not love their child and care about his well-being (Greven). The use of corporal punishment on children has shown to increase the amount of anti-social behavior and other behavioral problems in children. Murray A. Straus and Vera E. Mouradian conducted a study to show the relationship between the use of corporal punishment and the behavior of children. They interviewed 1,003 mothers over the phone to gather information about whether or not they used corporal punishment, how frequent the use was, if it was impulsive or not and if they were nurturing to their children all over the course of a six-month period. They also asked questions about the childrens behavior in order to correlate the use of CP and the childs behavior. They asked if children were acting out against other people including the childs family, teachers, and peers (Straus et. Al. 360) as well as if the child was cruel, mean, or destroyed possessions. These aggressive behaviors are categorized as anti-social behavior in Straus and Mouradians study. They found, after interviewing the mothers, that the more corporal punishment that was used by the mother, the more anti-social behavior the child exhibited. They also asked mothers how frequent temper tantrums were and if a child committed any unpredictable explosive acts, which were categorized as impulsive behavior. Similar to the result of anti-social behavior, the amount of impulsive behavior in children was directly related to greater amounts of corporal punishment. Straus and Mouradian not only looked at corporal punishment in general, but they broke it down into two categories of impulsive and controlled corporal punishment. The use of cororal punishment can also lead to another issue, impulsive corporal punishment. This occurs when a parent loses control while punishing a child, causing the parent to exceed the necessary amount of punishment. This could simply be acting out of anger instead of intent to correct behavior. Straus and Mouradian wanted to test if impulsive corporal punishment had a larger effect on children than controlled corporal punishment. Mothers were asked if they ever lost control or came close to losing control and the data showed that the more frequently corporal punishment was used, the more impulsive it became and the heavier the effects were on the child. The end result of this study showed that the more corporal punishment is used and the more impulsive it is, the more anti-social behavior and the more impulsive behavior by children (Straus et. al. 372). Corporal punishment has a direct correlation with increased amounts of impulsive aggression and anti-social behavior in child ren. A childs genetic and cultural surroundings could increase the negative effects on children and cause them to be more distinct. A study conducted by Brian B. Boutwell et al. looks at the effects of several different genetic and cultural risk factors that could also be playing a role in childrens behavior. Instead of just looking at the correlation between corporal punishment and a childs behavior, like the study done by Straus and Mouradian, this study looks at the several genetic risk factors such as race, sex, maternal depression , family adversity, the use of corporal punishment and self-control and their relationship to a childs behavior problems. Each child was given a score by adding up the scores given to each factor and its intensity. For example, for the factor of family adversity mothers were asked how often they argued with their spouses, and the more frequent the arguing, the higher the score given to the child in that environment. This study concluded that both corporal p unishment and genetic risk increased behavior problems individually. When comparing the statistics of corporal punishment and behavioral problems and genetic risk factors and behavioral problems this study discovered that corporal punishment has a more pronounced effect for children with greater genetic risk (Boutwell et.al 565). This study confirms that corporal punishment increases behavioral problems in children, but it also shows that a childs surroundings can increase the impact of the use of corporal punishment on children. A study done by Andrew Grogan-Kaylor discusses the relationship between corporal punishment and childrens behavior. Similar to the studies by Stratus and Mouradian and Boutwell et. al, this study asked parents questions about the frequency of both their use of corporal punishment and specific behavioral problems exhibited by the child. They also looked at the relationship of age, race and sex and antisocial behavior. One conclusion they came to was that childrens age had an effect on levels of anti-social behavior, in that older children exhibited higher levels of anti-social behavior (Grogan-Kaylor 158) They found that older children, over the age of 10, exhibited more antisocial behavior than younger children. Race and sex, however, did not have any effect on the behavior of the children. Through all of the testing that was conducted, it was found that corporal punishment increased the anti-social behavior in children. In fact, the study showed that low levels of corporal punishmen t impacted behavior just as much as higher levels of corporal punishement. Other studies, such as the ones done by Straus and Mouradian and Bouwtell et. al, studied to find a direct correlation between increased corporal punishment and increased antisocial behavior. These two studies confirmed that increased levels of corporal punishment result in increased anti-social behavior. However, the study done by Grogan-Kaylor found that the effect of of corporal punishment on antisocial behavior is nonlinear (Grogan-Kaylor 161). According to this study, small amounts of corporal punishment increase the amount of antisocial behavior in children just as much as higher levels of corporal punishment. It is understandable as to why parents would use corporal punishment, justified by the bible or simply to keep children in line. Never is it understandable to beat a child, but a spanking as punishment is quick and easy. But, knowing the impact of this type of physical punishment on a child changes things. As a parent one should know that corporal punishment can cause anti-social and impulsive behavior. If a parent stops and thinks about the long term effects instead of the short term expediency of spanking, they very well may look at the other options. Options such as rewarding positive behavior, talking about the issue, time outs, et cetera. Corporal punishment has been found to have negative effects on children, and therefore it should simply not be used.