...Two especially prevalent elements within The Adventures of the Huckleberry Finn are only a few examples of the many reasons scholars consider it to be the quintessential American novel: The Mississippi River, symbolic of escape and freedom, and the strong independence from the frontier days. The Mighty Mississippi is a symbol that is entirely American, running straight through the heart of the country, beginning in lake Itasca in Northern Minnesota, running across a variety of terrains on its way down to New Orleans, where it empties into the Gulf of Mexico. Similarly, the River is the heart of this novel, taking Huck and Jim on a journey that sets them free. In the final few chapters of this novel, the social roles and troubles thrown over...
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...Mark Twain’s widely known and appreciated novels, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn follow countless boyhood adventures between the rambunctious young boys, Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn. While Twain’s novels depict long playful summer days spent in the sun, his work is far from children’s literature. Twain’s novels include dark adult themes such as death, ignorance, physical punishment, deceit and most prominently, racism. Twain modeled both novels based on his own life experiences growing up along the Mississippi River (Frost), hoping to mirror how one's surroundings influence their character development, furthermore shaping who they will become. To do so, Twain creates a world of struggle for his protagonists,...
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...women represent traditional southern maternal figures, as they are determined to civilize Huck and indoctrinate him with conventional southern values and religion, thereby suppressing his individuality and preventing him from developing his own moral compass. The Widow represents the more positive aspects of southern society, as she has Huck attend school and is not terribly strict with Huck. According to Huck, “The Widow Douglas, she took me for her son, and allowed she would sivilize me” (Twain 1). Though the Widow was relatively gentle in her control of Huck, she represents society’s influence on Huck, and she has a majors impact on Huck’s life, educating him and teaching him manners. Miss Watson on the other hand, attempts to control even Huck’s smallest actions, saying “‘Don’t put your feet up there, Huckleberry;’ and ‘don’t scrunch up like that, Huckleberry - set up straight;” and pretty soon she would say, “Don’t gap and stretch like that, Huckleberry - why don’t you try to behave?’” (Twain 2). She also attempts to teach Huck how to pray, although Huck eventually decides that praying will not do any good for him. These two women pressure Huck to change his actions and habit in order to conform to society, representing a part of the influence of society on the...
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...“It's not as bad as it sounds.” (Huckleberry Finn) Compare how the theme of outsiders is presented in Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn, D.B.C Pierre’s Vernon God Little and Sylvia Plath’s Ariel. Throughout the history of literature, the idea of an outsider unable to find his place within society is explored frequently in all three texts. The theme of the outsiders is presented in all novels but separated due to the different time periods in which they were set, thus resulting in controversy and criticisms making it difficult to find a place within literature. Mark Twain’s ‘Huckleberry Finn’ is the story of a young boy, Huck Finn, who is faced with a restraint enforced upon him by society and later acknowledges this restraint once he comes to the realization that there is no escape from the society. ‘Vernon God Little’, like Huckleberry Finn, is also a story of a young boy framed as an accessory in a High School Massacre and is rendered to be an outcast in a society which revolves around manipulation and gullibility. Both Pierre and Twain portray the limitations and issues placed upon a young boy growing up in society. Sylvia Plath was viewed as a feminist icon, her collection ‘Ariel’, adopts the theme of outsider, as she believed women were classed as second-tier in a male dominant society and posed as a response to patriarchy in which oppressed women. The three texts intertwine in the portrayal of the outsider and act as a commentary on the societies in which these writers...
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... “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” has many important reflections upon society and human nature. Society is, as Twain illustrated, a mob, it has the mentality of a mob. Society works the same way a mob does. The members of society go along with slavery because that's what people before them believed and to go against the mob is to be a disgrace. Society itself may be a fraud as there are people who are members in the mob only out of fear of being cast out from society. The mob is a huge metaphor for the morality and integrity of a society vs the morality of the individuals. Huck’s interaction with the mob is what forces him to create his own beliefs. The mob consists of four parts, the first part is the head officer. The head officer is the soul force behind society, the only man in the mob who actually believes what he says, who’s willing to act upon it. “A mob;...
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...Society In Mark Twain's novel, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Twain develops the plot into Huck and Jim's adventures allowing him to weave in his criticism of society. The two main characters, Huck and Jim, both run from social injustice and both are distrustful of the civilization around them. Huck is considered an uneducated and unusual boy, constantly under pressure to conform to the “humanized" surroundings of society. Jim, a slave is not even considered as a real person, but as property. As they run from civilization and are on the river, they ponder the social injustices forced upon them when they are on land. These social injustices are even more evident when Huck and Jim have to make landfall, and this provides Twain with the chance to satirize the socially correct injustices that Huck and Jim encounter on land. The satire that Twain uses to expose the hypocrisy, racism, greed and injustice of society develops along with the adventures that Huck and Jim have. The ugly reflection of society we see should make us question the world we live in, and only the journey down the river provides us with that chance. Throughout the book we see the hypocrisy of society. Miss Watson constantly corrects Huck for his unacceptable behavior, but Huck doesn't understand why, "That is just the way with some people. They get down on a thing when they don't know anything about it". Later when Miss Watson tries to teach Huck about Heaven, he decides against trying to go there, "...she...
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...be most convenient to himself to being willing to risk his own life for Jim. This friendship develops throughout the story as Jim and Huck spend increasing amounts of time together while facing many different problems, most of them having to do with their own morality. Huck starts our story as a young, racist, white fourteen year old boy trying to escape his former identity while taking advantage of any help he can get from a runaway slave by the name of Jim. Huck slowly makes the transition from using Jim to further help himself to going against what society says is right despite the fact that...
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...Self Reflection Report to Improve Leadership Skills Free Essay, Term Paper and Book Report Self-Reflection Essay What better way exists to examine key concepts of organizational behaviour than to reflect on one's own experiences and beliefs as they apply to workplace successes and failures? In this report, I intend to review a variety of theories relative to organizational behaviour by considering each in relation to my own experiences as a mid-level manager. This reflection will focus primarily on three themes including personality, working in groups, and leadership. Throughout this report, I will consider my own personal strengths and weaknesses, attempting to determine how each affected situational outcomes. Many of these strengths and weaknesses were highlighted through a series of self-assessment exercises completed as part of the "Prentice Hall Self-Assessment Library" (Robbins and Judge, 2007), the results of which will be regularly referred to in this report. In closing, I will summarize areas requiring continued personal effort in order to ensure ongoing development and both personal and professional growth. Personality Personality seems a logical start...... Word Count: 3238 Page Count: 12.9 (250 words a page / double spaced) What is Your Time Worth? Get INSTANT UNLIMITED ACCESS to this Essay and 15,000 other Essays & Term Papers . Only $12.99! View This Essay Now Get instant access to this essay paper and 15,000 term papers, essays, and book...
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...Introduction Ethics is the systematic study of the fundamental principles of morality. It is an attempt to explain moral principles. It is concerned with the question of right or wrong in human behavior. It explains how men ought to behave and why it is wrong or right to behave in a certain way. Ethics weighs human actions or inactions on a moral scale to determine whether the action is morally good or morally bad. Thomas Hobbes on ethics explained it as the science of “virtue and vice.”1 Morality and ethics cannot be divorced. Morality is the basis of ethics, the latter is the explicit reflection on, and the systematic study of the former (Joseph Omoregbe 1993 p.3)2. How then do we decide what is morally right? Is it based on universal laws or divine instructions? Are laws truly universal? If they are not, how then can the rightness or wrongness of culturally divergent societies be determined? Philosophers agree and disagree in varied proportions on answers to these questions. It is normal if you disagree too. For the purpose of this paper, an attempt will be made to look into the concept of ethical relativism, its importance and areas of deviation from ethical absolutism. History of Ethical Relativism Though moral relativism did not become a prominent topic in philosophy or elsewhere until the twentieth century, it has ancient origins. In the classical Greek world, both the historian Herodotus and the sophist Protagoras appeared to endorse some form of relativism. The early...
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...Robert Sternberg’s Triarchic Theory of Intelligence Sternberg described three different kinds of intelligence in his model: * Analytical Intelligence (Componential) * Creative Intelligence (Experiential) * Practical Intelligence (Contextual) Applications of the Concept of Successful Intelligence: Triarchic Teaching For Analytical Thinkers… * Analyze (a literary plot, a theory in the sciences, a mathematical problem) * Compare and Contrast (two characters in a novel, two systems of government, the styles of two artists) * Evaluate (a poem, a cultural custom, a strategy in tennis) * Explain (the use of grammar in a sentence, your interpretation of an historical event, the solution to a scientific problem) Analytical Thinkers: “I like…” * Analyzing characters when I’m reading or listening to a story * Comparing and contrasting points of view * Criticizing my own and others’ work * Thinking clearly and analytically * Evaluating my and others’ points of view * Appealing to logic * Judging my and others’ behavior * Explaining difficult problems to others * Solving Logical problems * Making inferences and deriving conclusions * Sorting and classifying * Thinking about things Outcomes of Teaching for Analytical Intelligence Analytical instruction and assessment should enable students to: * Identify the existence of problems * Define the problems * Allocate resources...
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...The Trouble with Wilderness; or, Getting Back to the Wrong Nature William Cronon This will seem a heretical claim to many environmentalists, since the idea of wilderness has for decades been a fundamental tenet-indeed, a passionof the environmental movement, especially in the United States. For many Americans wilderness stands as the last remaining place where civilization, that all too human disease, has not fully infected the earth. It is an island in the polluted sea of urban-industrial modernity, the one place we can turn for escape from our own too-muchness. Seen in this way, wilderness presents itself as the best antidote to our human selves, a refuge we must somehow recover if we hope to save the planet. As Henry David Thoreau once famously declared, “In Wildness is the preservation of the World.“’ But is it? The more one knows of its peculiar history, the more one realizes that wilderness is not quite what it seems. Far from being the one place on earth that stands apart from humanity, it is quite profoundly a human creation-indeed, the creation of very particular human cultures at very particular moments in human history. It is not a pristine sanctuary where the last remnant of an untouched, endangered, but still transcendent nature can for at least a little while longer be encountered without the contaminating taint of civilization. Instead, it is a product of that civilization, and could hardly be contaminated by the very stuff of which it is made...
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...A TEACHER’S GUIDE TO THE SIGNET CLASSIC EDITION OF WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE’S ROMEO AND JULIET By ARTHEA J.S. REED, PH.D. S E R I E S W. GEIGER ELLIS, ED.D., E D I T O R S : UNIVERSITY OF GEORGIA, EMERITUS and ARTHEA J. S. REED, PH.D., UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA, RETIRED A Teacher’s Guide to the Signet Classic Edition of William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet 2 INTRODUCTION William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet is an excellent introduction to Shakespearean drama; teenagers can relate to its plot, characters, and themes. The play’s action is easily understood, the character’s motives are clear, and many of the themes are as current today as they were in Shakespeare’s time. Therefore, it can be read on a variety of levels, allowing all students to enjoy it. Less able readers can experience the swash-buckling action and investigate the themes of parent-child conflict, sexuality, friendship, and suicide. Because of the play’s accessibility to teenagers, able readers can view the play from a more literary perspective, examining the themes of hostility ad its effect on the innocent, the use of deception and its consequences, and the effects of faulty decision making. They can study how the characters function within the drama and how Shakespeare uses language to develop plot, characters, and themes. The most able students can develop skills involved in literary criticism by delving into the play’s comic and tragic elements and its classically...
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...Literary Theory: A Very Short Introduction ‘Jonathan Culler has always been about the best person around at explaining literary theory without oversimplifying it or treating it with polemical bias. Literary Theory: A Very Short Introduction is an exemplary work in this genre.’ J. Hillis Miller, University of California, Irvine ‘An impressive and engaging feat of condensation . . . the avoidance of the usual plod through schools and approaches allows the reader to get straight to the heart of the crucial issue for many students, which is: why are they studying literary theory in the first place? . . . an engaging and lively book.’ Patricia Waugh, University of Durham Very Short Introductions are for anyone wanting a stimulating and accessible way in to a new subject. They are written by experts, and have been published in 15 languages worldwide. Very Short Introductions available from Oxford Paperbacks: ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY Julia Annas THE ANGLO-SAXON AGE John Blair ARCHAEOLOGY Paul Bahn ARISTOTLE Jonathan Barnes Augustine Henry Chadwick THE BIBLE John Riches Buddha Michael Carrithers BUDDHISM Damien Keown CLASSICS Mary Beard and John Henderson Continental Philosophy Simon Critchley Darwin Jonathan Howard DESCARTES Tom Sorell EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY BRITAIN Paul Langford The European Union John Pinder Freud Anthony Storr Galileo Stillman Drake Gandhi Bhikhu Parekh HEIDEGGER Michael Inwood HINDUISM Kim Knott HISTORY John H. Arnold HUME A. J...
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...Literary Theory: A Very Short Introduction ‘Jonathan Culler has always been about the best person around at explaining literary theory without oversimplifying it or treating it with polemical bias. Literary Theory: A Very Short Introduction is an exemplary work in this genre.’ J. Hillis Miller, University of California, Irvine ‘An impressive and engaging feat of condensation . . . the avoidance of the usual plod through schools and approaches allows the reader to get straight to the heart of the crucial issue for many students, which is: why are they studying literary theory in the first place? . . . an engaging and lively book.’ Patricia Waugh, University of Durham Jonathan Culler LITERARY THEORY A Very Short Introduction 1 Great Clarendon Street, Oxford o x2 6 d p Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide in Oxford New York Athens Auckland Bangkok Bogotá Buenos Aires Calcutta Cape Town Chennai Dar es Salaam Delhi Florence Hong Kong Istanbul Karachi Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Mumbai Nairobi Paris São Paulo Shanghai Singapore Taipei Tokyo Toronto Warsaw with associated companies in Berlin Ibadan Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countries Published in the United States by Oxford University Press Inc., New York © Jonathan Culler 1997 The moral rights...
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...Specimen Papers and Mark Schemes for English Literature For first AS Examination in 2009 For first A2 Examination in 2010 Subject Code: 5110 Contents Specimen Papers Assessment Unit AS 2 Assessment Unit A2 1 Resource Booklet Assessment Unit A2 2 1 3 9 15 25 Mark Schemes Assessment Unit AS 2 Assessment Unit A2 1 Assessment Unit A2 2 29 31 61 95 Subject Code QAN QAN 5110 500/2493/0 500/2421/8 A CCEA Publication © 2007 Further copies of this publication may be downloaded from www.ccea.org.uk Specimen Papers 1 2 ADVANCED SUBSIDIARY (AS) General Certificate of Education 2009 English Literature Assessment Unit AS 2 assessing The Study of Poetry Written after 1800 and the Study of Prose 1800-1945 SPECIMEN PAPER TIME 2 hours INSTRUCTIONS TO CANDIDATES Write your Centre number and Candidate Number on the Answer Booklet provided. Answer two questions. Answer one question from Section A and one question from Section B. Section A is open book. INFORMATION FOR CANDIDATES The total mark for this paper is 120. All questions carry equal marks, ie 60 marks for each question. Quality of written communication will be assessed in all questions. 3 Section A: The Study of Poetry Written after 1800 Answer one question on your chosen pairing of poets. Heaney: Opened Ground Montague: New Selected Poems 1 John Montague and Seamus Heaney both write about the Irish past. Compare and contrast the two poets’...
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