Friday, October 25, 2019

The Strength of Uncle Toms Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe :: Uncle Toms Cabin

The Power of Uncle Tom’s Cabin  Ã‚   Harriet Beecher Stowe’s novel, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, has had a tremendous impact on American culture, both then and now.   It is still considered a controversial novel, and many secondary schools have banned it from their libraries.   What makes it such a controversial novel?   One reason would have been that the novel is full of melodrama, and many people considered it a caricature of the truth.   Others said that she did not show the horror of slavery enough, that she showed the softer side of it throughout most of her novel.   Regardless of the varying opinions of its readers, it is obvious that its impact was large.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   For instance many of the characters in the book have become the stereotypes of slavery in the South.   An example of this is Uncle Tom himself, whose name was eventually degraded into a nickname for blacks who were too subservient to whites.   He became the stereotype of the passive slave who would do anything his master told him, because it was his duty as a slave.   However few remember how the strength of his faith was what allowed him to tolerate the horrors that were enacted upon him.     Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Another example of the stereotyping of Stowe’s characters is Aunt Chloe, Uncle Tom’s wife, and her children.   Aunt Chloe is an excellent example because she has become the â€Å"Aunt Jemima† stereotype.   She had a â€Å"round, black, shining face† and wore a checkered headscarf, and she worked in the kitchen, took care of the kitchen, and basically ran the household.   Not to mention for many years black children were still stereotyped as mischievous like Mose, Pete, and, later in the novel, Topsy.     Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Even the slave owners and traders are stereotypes now.   Mr. Shelby and his wife have become the â€Å"gentlemen and lady† slave holders, who see themselves as good Christian people and attempt to take good care of their slaves, but still don’t see black people as equal to whites.   Simon Legree has become the stereotypical cruel master, who let his estate go to hell, but continued to work his slaves too hard and beat them senseless (or, in Tom’s and other’s cases, to death) when they did not behave as he thought they should.     Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   However there are other ways this novel has been influential to American culture.   After its publishing it helped spread the ideas of the abolitionist movement.

Thursday, October 24, 2019

Nike – good or bad?

Nike is good: A factory called Samyang in Vietnam (a factory under Nike contract) seems to be keeping satisfactory working levels within the building. It employs 5,200 people, most of them being women. The factory is made up of six big buildings with well-kept surroundings. Inside, there are fans keeping the workers cool, fire extinguishers about in the case of an emergency, and workers can easily access goggles, masks and gloves if they need them. Workers get double the local average of $54 per month and an annual bonus of at least one month's salary. Other factories get a lot less – in rural areas, factories pay $35 per month, in suburbs they pay $40 per month, and in cities, $45 per month. In state-owned factories (factories owned by the government), workers get a surprisingly low $15 per month! All this money they are getting has allowed most of them (three quarters) to buy a television, many to have a motorbike, some to have phones, etc. Not only does this improve their life, but it also allows other businesses such as petrol stations, electronic repair shops, etc. to function properly and make money too. This is called the multiplier effect. Nike has made changes to improve health and safety. In 1998, it replaced the very hazardous petroleum-based solvents with less harmful water-based ones. In 1999, an expert in the field went to verify Nike had actually done this at the Tae Kwang Vina factory in Vietnam. The investigator found that Nike had indeed replaced the compound and had also installed local exhaust ventilation systems. They also discovered that Nike had trained certain staff personnel aspects of health and safety. Nike is bad: Nike does not own the factories their clothes are manufactured in. This means they can leave at any time, leaving thousands of workers unemployed and fighting for their life while they find another job. For example, on February 22nd 2008, the BJ&J factory in the Dominic Republic announced that it was going to slowly fire workers and close. The factory, owned by Korean company called Yupoong, was making Nike caps at the time. In the Tae Kwang Vina factory mentioned earlier, some health and safety issues remained. Some sections of the factory were still exposed to hazardous chemicals, and to high heat and noise levels. In 1997, it was found that workers in a different factory were being exposed to 100 times the legal limit of Toluene, a toxic gas. Nike gets its clothes made in countries with free trade zones where it is illegal or extremely difficult for workers to organise into trade unions. It is practically impossible for workers to get better conditions (such as better pay, improved health and safety, etc.) when they cannot get together and form a united group to approach their boss. However, this said, some factory workers have done it before and achieved what they were protesting for. The Ching Luh Nike factory has 21,000 employees, and in June 2008, after going on strike for 2 days, they managed to get Nike to increase their wages by $6 a month. Some people think that the minimum wage in countries is enough to survive because the cost of living in that particular country is lower too. The chart below proves this to be wrong with three primary countries that Nike manufactures in. Nike doesn't pay lots to its workers. In many countries, they live way under the predicted living wage. The table shows the average wage of all the factories in that country, and the living wage in each. The data presented is only an average. Some factory workers earn only $1.60 a day, where the price of three meals a day is $2.00.

Wednesday, October 23, 2019

Book Report on “Fathers and Sons” by Ivan Turgenev Essay

â€Å"Fathers and Sons† is, perhaps, the most interesting book by the Russian writer Ivan Turgenev, which gained international recognition. It has been first published in 1862 and concurred with a complicated period of Russian history, known as the â€Å"Great Reforms†. Abolition of serfdom, reforms of administrational system, industrialization and raise of revolutionary ideas caused profound changes in the Russian society and in the minds of people. Turgenev’s book is devoted t this dramatic mental and psychological break. â€Å"Fathers† are old generation who share conservative views and â€Å"sons† are youth, dreaming of revolution and demonstrating nihilism and disrespect towards traditional values. The narrator of the story – Nikolai Petrovitch Kirsanov, is a son of a general, who has been a hero of Napoleonic wars. His life is rather unremarkable. Being unable to serve in the army because of the childhood trauma, he has married and lived happily with his wife till her early death. After that he devoted all his life to his only son Arcady. The novel opens when the older Kirsanov stands before the door of his dominion waiting for his son returning from the university. Finally the son comes back, but he is not alone, he is accompanied by his new university friend Yevgeny Vasil’evich Bazarov. Soon Nikolai Kirsanov finds out, that his son has completely fallen under influence of Bazarov’s nihilistic and realistic views. He dreams of bloody revolutionary changes and disputes with Kirsanov about the future of Russia: â€Å"Aristocracy, liberalism, progress, principles,† said Bazarov. â€Å"Just think what a lot of foreign . . . and useless words! To a Russian they’re no good for anything! â€Å", says he. Further along the novel Bazarov continues to play a role of a â€Å"revolutionary demon†. He is pretty charismatic, so such miserable people as Sitnikov and Kukushkina fall under his influence. Those two are represent a sort of â€Å"progressive thinkers† whose â€Å"progrogressism† comes to be reduced to absurd. They are ready to admire any new nihilistic ideas being completely unable to think of them critically and add any own reasoning to them. Bazarov openly contemns Sitnikov and flirts with Kushkina to allay his boredom. What is really interesting for Bazarov are his disputes with Pavel Petrovitch Kirsanov, older brother of Nikolai Kirsanov They feel antipathy from the very first moment of their acquaintance. Pavel Kirsanov speaks of Bazarov’s nihilism as of an unfounded doctrine existing in vacuum. Bazarov’s manner of thinking is purely utilitarian: â€Å"We act by virtue of what we recognize as useful,† went on Bazarov. â€Å"At present the most useful thing is denial, so we deny†. Pavel strongly disagrees â€Å"But allow me,† began Nikolai Petrovich. â€Å"You deny everything, or to put it more precisely, you destroy everything . . . But one must construct, too, you know. † [33] But Bazarov remains sure, that to construct something it is first necessary to â€Å"Clean the ground†. Perhaps this dispute between Pavel Kirsanov and Bazarov puts forth the basic idea of the book: conflict of conservatism and revolutionary doctrine. In order to iron out the differences between Pavel Kirsanov and Bazarov Arcady tells Bazarov the story of Pavel’s life. Once Pavel was a luminous officer, but love to a woman, duchess R† ruined his life and left him completely drained. Pavel only retained his sophisticated taste, fair manners and Anglomania. Although she is not present in the novel, duchess R† seems to be one of the characters because even after years she continues to determine Pavel’s actions. He asks for satisfaction from Bazarov, when he sees him kissing Fenichka, but the real reason is not Bazarov’s behavior, but that Fenichka somehow reminds Pavel duchess R†. While men in the story are symbols of social classes and positions, women represent something, what can be called â€Å"normal life†, whether it is duchess R† – a symbol of Russian magnificent nobility, Fenichka – a symbol of common sense, or Mme Odintsov. Mme Odintsov is a very special character. On the one hand she is perfectly educated and progressive woman, on the other she does not in any way share Bazarov’s enthusiasm about social cataclysms. She is sure, that society is to be bettered by bettering of human, but not by reconstruction of it’s formation. She asks Bazarov a question which he is unable to directly answer: â€Å"And you suppose,† said Anna Sergeyevna, â€Å"that when society is reformed there will be no longer any stupid or wicked people? † [56] Bazarov starts explaining that a proper society will make no difference, but inside he feels, that Odintsova is right. Love to a woman is so contrary to Bazarov’s views, that he is unable to accept it, putting cynicism on himself, and then leaving her house. He attempts to find some occupation for himself, flirts, fights at a duel and tries to speak about his ideas with peasants. The peasants are in fact those, who are to be enthusiastic about the revolution, at least as Bazarov thinks. So he is unhappily surprised to find out, that peasants do not want to understand complicated teaching and think of him as of a cheat. Bazarov’s ideas collapse: he finds no support both with educated and common people, so he has to recognize, that revolution is actually unnecessary to anyone and that it is nothing more, than a fashionable game. Pavel Kirsanov is right: doctrines of Bazarov exist in vacuum. It is not clear whether Bazarov’s death was a suicide, but his behavior itself is suicidal, and he accepts the certainty of death calmly. The only thing he wants is to say farewell to Odintsova. At his deathbed he openly confessed, that all his prod ideas went down to the pan. He continues to speak of himself as of a giant, but now the only task he puts for himself is to die with dignity. Six month after his death the two couples married: Nikolai Kirsanov to Fenichka and Arcady to Kate – Odintsova younger sister. The normal life continues even after Bazarov’s death, and Arcady, his former confederate, becomes a wealthy landowner, representing an antithesis to Bazarov’s views. Bazarov’s grave is almost forgotten, and only his parents sometimes come to shed tears over it. Although â€Å"Fathers and Sons† is a novel about pre-revolutionary Russia, it’s lesson is useful for all generations. Sons always rise against their fathers, willing to change this world and create a totally new one for themselves. And Turgenev demonstrates how mental dissoluteness and spiritual weakness can destroy even the most sharp-minded person. The whole revolutionary fervor of Bazarov is destroyed by romantic love – the real motivation of the world. At the end of his life â€Å"the demon† feels lost and betrayed, while conservatism triumphs over his grave. Works cited: Ivan Turgenev (1998) Fathers and Sons. Oxford: Oxford University Press

Tuesday, October 22, 2019

Globalisation essay

Globalisation essay Globalisation essay Globalisation essayThe development of the world economy and international relations becomes vulnerable to the overwhelming impact of globalisation which affects all countries, even though they conduct isolationist policies, such as North Korea, for instance. Moreover, once started, the process of globalisation is likely to be irrevocable. Globalisation is the process of the international economic, political and cultural integration of nations. The economic integration is the major driver of the process of globalisation. Even though many researchers (Dunning, 1998) insist that globalisation has a positive impact on the economic development of the world because the emergence of international trade stimulates the economic growth worldwide, but long-run effects of globalisation may be negative, especially for the poor nations which cannot compete with well-developed nations in the global market.Background of globalisationGlobalisation has started as the increasing economic cooperation b etween nations at the regional level and steadily evolved into the global trend. The economic cooperation between countries was the result of the accumulation of capital by leading companies operating in the national market. The accumulation of capital made national markets inattractive for companies because they have saturated them and they needed further export of capital and international market expansion. In such a situation, the international market expansion prior to the globalisation era was not always profitable because of high costs of such expansion. The high costs of international market expansion and, therefore, international economic cooperation between nations, was the result of high fiscal barriers, which local governments introduced to support their domestic economies. The process of globalisation emerged after the beginning of the elimination of fiscal barriers to developer free trade between countries. The free trade implied the elimination of fiscal barriers that stimulated companies operating in different countries expand their business internationally. At the dawn of globalisation, there were interstate agreements involving two or three states, as was the case of the NAFTA signed by the US, Canada and Mexico, but soon such agreements involved multiple parties and, today, free trade agreements involve the majority of nations. At this point, it is worth mentioning the EU as one of the most advanced and integrated international community that united European nations and evolved from the economic union into the supranational political union which unites European countries, members of the EU.Therefore, the process of globalisation involves the elimination of fiscal barriers and limitations on the movement of capital, goods, commodities, and human resources. The increasing economic cooperation between nations stimulated the development of multinational corporations which operated globally. The overwhelming majority of multinational corporations were based in well-developed countries. Multinational corporations in their turn encouraged governments to eliminate fiscal barriers and develop free trade further to facilitate their further international market expansion. At the same time such policy resulted to the consistent strengthening of the process of globalisation which has become the mainstream trend in the contemporary economic development of the world.Effects of globalisation on developed nationsGlobalisation has had a considerable impact on developed countries. In this regard, one of the effects of globalisation was the development of trade between well-developed nations mainly. In fact, the trade between developed nations comprises the larger share in the total world trade. Moreover, developed nations focus on the trade with each other rather than with under-developed nations which they tend to use as suppliers of natural resources, such as fossil fuels, for instance.The economic cooperation is beneficial for develope d nations because they have technology, capital and well-qualified human resources which are key factors contributing to the competitive advantage of companies in the global market (Martin Van Gunten, 2002). Developed nations and companies based in developed countries use their technologies to enter new markets and take the dominant position in international markets. They often take the leading position in the global market as is the case of Microsoft, for instance, and develop their business successfully. More important, globalisation involving the free trade opened large opportunities for companies based in developed countries to purchase natural resources and other basic supplies from developing countries. As a result, companies based in developed countries have got an opportunity to decrease costs of production due to the elimination of fiscal barriers and low price of supplies from developing countries. Moreover, they accelerated the consumption of natural resources and other basic supplies from developing countries but purchasing raw materials mainly they sold high tech products to developing as well as developed countries which price was often tenfold higher than the price of raw materials the products were made of.Foreign direct investment flow also tends to the investment of capital into developed countries mainly, while investments in developing countries turn out to be secondary. Therefore, developed countries prefer to invest into other developed countries because they believe such investments and reliable and safe. In addition, investors investing in developed countries can count on low risk of investment and stable level of income. Such investments are stable and profitable.Even emerging economies are secondary targets for investors from developed countries. Instead, the US investors prefer to invest into the EU economy, while the EU investors prefer to invest into the US economy. At this point, it is worth mentioning the fact that the investmen ts between developed countries contribute to their accelerated economic growth that allows them to outpace the rest of the world consistently. Developed nations apparently benefit from such mutual investments because they stimulate their economic growth. One of the reasons why investors from developed nations prefer investing in developed economies than in emerging and developing economies is the risk of such investments. In fact, they do not want to take a risk and invest into unstable countries.  Globalisation   essay part 2

Monday, October 21, 2019

Married life Essay Example

Married life Essay Example Married life Essay Married life Essay Marriage is the third main ideal to be presented in Act 1 of the play. Whilst it is not strictly an ideal in itself, the manner in which it is presented leaves a sense of mocked ceremony. The female leads treat marriage with a deadly seriousness in all respects, with Lady Bracknell saying: an engagement should come on a young girl as a surpriseIt is hardly a matter that she could be allowed to arrange herself this seeming dedication to the meticulous arrangement of a marriage in order to achieve the best results ironically destroys any romantic element, and in that aspect chances of true love. The male attitude to marriage is quite different. When talking with Jack in private, Algernon takes a rather dismissive stance on marriage: A man who marries without knowing Bunbury has a very tedious time of it, this negative view is also shown in In married life three is company and two is none. This is again representative of a characters embodiment of an ideal, or the anathema to one in this case. The attitude of the men changes when in the company of the women, in order to appear courteous and honourable, as the woman superficially believe they are. This pretence of behaviour is something of a microcosm for the ideal of marriage itself. The explicit female view of marriage is dismantled with various epigrams, for instance Lady Bracknell saying that after her husbands death, Lady Harbury looks quite twenty years younger. Again Gwendolens statement that her ideal has always been to love some one of the name of Ernest, is obviously facetious, and through that it is clear that the women have an equally sceptical view of marriage as the men. Yet they are inexorably drawn towards it because of the perceived duty to live up to the romantic ideal of marriage. Wildes satire of this situation again helps to dismiss the validity of the ideal presented. Marriage is probably the most complex of all the ideals presented in Act One of the play, in that the view presented very much depends on the interaction of the two sexes, which in itself is a questionable motif, consequently a definite opinion can not be drawn from it. Ultimately, the presentation and satire of the age of ideals is light hearted and insincere, however there are several poignant facets of this dissection of society that are worthy of note. The duality of human nature, whilst being an over-used speculation is particularly applicable in the play, as it is the habit of the characters to have sincere feelings and yet be incapable of showing them at all. The motiveless and consequently worthless existence of the upper classes is starkly compared to the diligence of a few hard working men of the lower echelons measures up unfavourably. Whereas the objectification of women is quite clearly the biggest irony in the play; as is quite clear from the actions of Gwendolen and Lady Bracknell, they are in fact the ones in charge.

Sunday, October 20, 2019

Chicago Referencing †Citing a Newspaper (Footnote Style)

Chicago Referencing – Citing a Newspaper (Footnote Style) Chicago Referencing – Citing a Newspaper (Footnote Style) News flash! Citing sources is vital in academic writing. But what should you do if you need to cite a newspaper in your work? This all depends on the referencing system you’re using. With Chicago referencing, you have two options: author–date referencing or footnote citations. In this post, though, we’re looking specifically at citing a newspaper with Chicago-style footnotes. Footnote Citations The first time you cite a newspaper article, give full publication information in the footnote. The format for doing this is: n. Author Name, â€Å"Title of Article,† Title of Newspaper, date of publication, page number. In practice, then, the first citation of a newspaper article would look like this: 1. James V. Koch, â€Å"No College Kid Needs a Water Park to Study,† New York Times, January 9 2018, 65. This citation points to an article on page 65 of the New York Times, published on January 9. Online articles won’t have page numbers, though. Instead, give a URL and date of access. For instance: 2. James V. Koch, â€Å"No College Kid Needs a Water Park to Study,† New York Times, January 9 2018, accessed 2 April 2018, https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/09/opinion/trustees-tuition-lazy-rivers.html. If you need to cite the same article again, you can use a shortened format. To do this, just give the author’s surname, a shortened version of the title, and (if relevant) a page number. Bibliography In Chicago footnote referencing, all cited sources are listed in a bibliography at the end of the document. The format to use for a newspaper article here is: Surname, First Name(s). â€Å"Title of Article.† Title of Newspaper, date of publication. As with footnote citations, you should also give a date of access and URL for online articles. For instance, if citing a print article and an online article, the bibliography entries would look like this: Koch, James V. â€Å"No College Kid Needs a Water Park to Study.† New York Times, January 9 2018. Selingo, Jeffrey J. â€Å"You Got into the College of Your Dreams. But Will You Actually Go There?† The Washington Post, March 29 2018. Accessed 2 April 2018. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/grade-point/wp/2018/03/29/you-got-into-the-college-of-your-dreams-but-will-you-actually-go-there/?utm_term=.7ba14166f003

Saturday, October 19, 2019

Discussion 5 Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Discussion 5 - Assignment Example He followed the Lebensraum policy, living room, in order to snatch lands outside Germany and let the German people expand their territory (Spielvogel,1988). In chapter seven the leaders of France and Britain met Hitler to discuss his demands of expanding Germany. They granted him control over a part of Czechoslovakia and in return Hitler pledged to leave the other parts of Czechoslovakia. Hitler broke his promise and took the rest of Czechoslovakia and invaded Poland. This caused the start of World War two. This occurred in September 1939 when German troops invaded Poland and Britain and France declared war. Adolf Hitler’s dream of building a German Empire across Central and Eastern Europe could not be established only through Lebensraum. Lebensraum could only be established by waging a war against the Soviet Union. Hitler’s racial ideology required it, hence the conclusion that World War two was Hitler’s war. Asia, Japan and China also were already at war. More than fifty million people lost their lives during the war, including Germans and also non-Germans In chapter eight Germanies continue with the war and Hitler brought Nazi to power. Hitler enforces his new rules with a secret police, the Gestapo. He formed camps which organized the murder of Gypsies, Jews and political opponents. There was also resistance in the war and the home front was preparing adequately for war (Spielvogel, 1988). In chapter nine the Holocaust took place. It refers to the extensive murders Hitler and his Nazis were accountable for. It involved the formation of squads that followed Hitler’s army to murder Jews and those who were not of German descent. Many camps were set up around Europe and several were determined to murder people. In the years 1939 and 1940, the Nazi army was responsible for the deaths of around fourteen million people which included six million European Jewish people. They