Comparison of note from underground, conclusion and aurora leigh Essay

Comparison of note from underground, conclusion and aurora leigh - Essay Example He can envisage of love only as the total control of a person over another. In order to feel that he has contributed to life in some way; he often initiates arguments with others and subjects himself to profound humiliation. This gives the Underground Man a sense of satisfaction and power, as he was the cause of the shame himself. He barely cares if the outcome is negative or positive as long as he can exercise his power. When we encounter the Underground Man, he is a complete nihilist: he has no desire to interact with anyone and has total contempt for the society at large. As a young man, he is misanthropic, proud, self-effacing and bitter although he clings to certain ideas. He craves for human attention and wants others to respect and admire him for his intellect and zeal. His inability to interact with people causes his attempts to form relationships and contribute to life ends in tragedy and drives him further underground (David, & David, 2009). When he meets Liza, he has absorbed the fictitious epitome of the converted prostitute and has shed himself as the superman who will set free Liza. Later, however, her character becomes more intricate. At first, she matches the typecast of a young prostitute: bored, cynical, and somewhat naà ¯ve. He gives her a speech that moves her and she decides to visit him where she is turned away by cold words. Liza, even though a prostitute, still idealizes romantic love and longs for respect and affection. She treasures the one affirmation of love she has received, a note from a medical student who has no idea she is a prostitute. The Underground Man is touched by the fact that Liza so clearly treasures this letter, but his attitude toward her emotion is somewhat flippant. She is disappointed at how the Underground Man treats her after she had come to him with help and love. In Elizabeth Barett Browning’s Aurora Leigh, there is the theme of love and people who are willing to love.

Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words - 1

Essay Example Balducci, who brings the prisoners, claims that the accused had killed his cousin because of a family squabble over grain. However, it is surprising that there are high rates of insecurity in the region because Balducci has to return to El Ameur to watch over the territory. In as much as several concepts and themes are evident in the narration, the author highlights the theme of injustice, loneliness, and deficiency; consequently, it is necessary to analyze the story based on literary concepts. Analysis of the Guest by Albert Camus The title â€Å"guest† is suitable for the story based on varied reasons. Initially, several things that are happening in the story are alien to the inhabitants of the region. The meetings between people who are unknown to each other signify the need for tolerance. The Arab and Balducci are the guests in the story. According to Camus (2), the story and the characters become anxious because a guest is expected. Indeed, the guest is a character in the story that the author does not disclose directly to the audience. Omnipresent narration is used figuratively to describe the characters in the tale. The narration works well because the reader can understand the events that followed the period after the drought. According to Camus (7), people are dealing with different forms of insecurities. Consequently, the prisoner in the story should receive punishment for his wrongdoings. The Guest depicts a time when people were encountering several forms of challenges in their societies. This is clear because the region where the story is set experiences instability. The author states that the place had experienced war and its negative effects for a while. The characters in the story are instrumental in painting a picture of the real condition that the author describes (Camus 4). For example, Daru is indecisive because he questions the events surrounding his life as apparent in numerous instances. He is supposed to deliver the Arab to the au thorities in Tinguit; however, he is unwilling to do so. Daru talks about the bags of wheat that would be used by the families facing hunger (Camus 1). From the analysis of the story, farming plays a decisive role to livelihood of the characters in the plays. The author further states that learning is no longer taking place at the school compound. As witnessed in the story, the schoolmaster arrives at a deserted. He is annoyed with the prevailing conditions in his country as apparent in the conversation. The guest revolves around the theme of justice. There is a lot of anxiety among the characters in the scene (Camus 6). None of them is certain about his future following the drought and wars. The divergent themes in â€Å"the guest† are instrumental because they highlight the uncertainties in the contemporary European community. It is surprising to state that the Arab is also a guest yet he had committed a crime initially. Indeed, referring to a wrongdoer as a guest represent s sarcasm in the story. The theme of morality is also present in the play using different scene. For example, it is questionable when Daru chooses to sleep naked yet he is a grown up person (Camus 6). The behavior is expected only among children in the society. Symbolism is equally evident in most part of the story. It is evident that people were suffering because of their own mistakes after carefully looking at various instances of imagery (Camus 3). For example, the prisoner will suffer for having

Kantianism Essay Example for Free

Kantianism Essay The thought of justifying means rather than ends seems to be more ethical in the long run, even if not more productive. As an officer we have trouble in this way of thinking for two reasons. First, we are in a profession in which our ends are what matters. We must produce the results that are needed, when they are needed, or we have failed to perform our duties. This means we have let down those in charge of us, as well as those whom we lead. Second, our means of doing things are also very important. We as officers must be moral in our decisions, for if we aren’t then we also fail to do our jobs. If we go about achieving a good end through bad means then we are no better than our enemies. Maxims are rules of law that we apply in our decision making to be considered rules of the Universe as a way of deciding if our actions are moral or immoral. One example of a maxim would be â€Å"I can use rob a bank or take money from people for financial gain†. When applying Kant’s rules we test it first to see if it can be generalized. This would end up as â€Å"anyone can use force to get what they want. This would not make sense in the long run because if everyone used force to get what they want then the world would be anarchic and full of chaos. Another example of a maxim would be â€Å"I won’t help this drowning person because they probably won’t pay me. † It almost makes sense to do this as doing something for little gain sometimes seems useless. However; if this were to be applied as a general rule then no one would ever get help unless the Samaritan deemed it profitable to them. Both of these show how decision making in Kantianism is the key factor in deciding what to do. There are both good and bad sides to Kantianism. First, as stated previously, we need to do things based on moral reasoning and not just end results. We can’t be officers who can go to the limit of Utilitarianism and allow for things such as an Omelas society. We do need to consider the good of the whole but we must do things that are moral by reason. We need to rationalize why and how we perform so that we can lead the way we’re supposed to. Kantianism is a good means for this and will allow officers to not only have good ends, but a good means of achieving them.

Works Of Andy Goldsworthy

Works Of Andy Goldsworthy It is immediately evident that Goldsworthys works, in general, strongly accentuate texture and shape. Goldsworthy describes the working process as a tactile expression, implying the involvement of a multi-sensory extension of the body, a recurring artistic intention, especially through cues signifying touch and vision. For me, looking, touching, material, place and form are all inseparable from the resulting work. It is difficult to say where one stops and another begins. This obsession with recurring forms in nature using different materials has a ritualistic edge, where the earthworks have lost the purpose and functionalism of the commercial product. This tactile gaze, used as the central way of identifying the object, is further evoked through the use of text. For example, in a photograph of a spherical ice ball positioned aside a bleak Autumn bridge, his texts connotes the image not only in terms of its visual impact but also the texture implied by its aural qualities: Stacked ice sound of cracking. The shape and texture of the river in the 1988-9 Leadgate and Lambton Earthworks symbolizes its sensual form in a way which still identifies it as relating to a river, but without the non-abstracted seamless visual art representation of a river. Goldsworthy describes this process: The snake has evolved through a need to move close to the ground, sometimes below and sometimes above, an expression of the space it occupies. Similarly, rather than use the language of signposts to designate a river (in its non-place), the use of more tactile cues reclaims the spectators newness of vision: in Auges words, the traveller (AG) is recapturing the landscape like it is the first journey of birththe primal experience of differentiation.While Auge asserts that non-places exist only through the words that evoke them, AGs words work to clarify the gaze rather than condense it to a unified vision. But what constitutes this gaze? When we refer to his earthworks, are we referring only to the symbolic object, or the whole space inside the photo frame? Like a travel writer, a heightened perception or rediscovery of the landscape is the central tenet of Goldsworthys working process: Some places I return to over and over again, going deeper- a relationship made in layers over a long time. There is a suggestion by AG that site or context affects and, to an extent, has a significant role in generating the features of his objects: When I work with a leaf, rock, stick, it is not just that material in itself, it is an opening into the processes of life within and around itThe energy and space around a material are as important as the energy and space within While the train, for Auge, is one of the greatest culprits behind the spectators fleeting vision of space, Goldsworthys immobilization and transposition of the train track and its practical function to a snaking in the Lambton earthwo rks?, is a way for AG to recapture the essence of the landscape, to shift its perceptual status from non-place to place: Staying in one place makes me more aware of change. However, part of this awareness is awareness that the land itself is fleeting and transforming according to environmental whim, and that the photograph merely represents a certain moment in a process. His emphasis on spontaneity and change according to environmental and climactic conditions, as well as his own sense of navigation, is significant because he is able to evoke the history of the object through capturing a synchronic moment in its processes. If we look at several of his works in which piles of material are neatly centred with a hollow hole, we sense their impermanence and a foreboding decay from seeing their present formal cohesion. A Cambridge earthwork with leaves is accompanied by this awareness in text, where a materialistic description of the object is transformed into a narrative of it: Torn Hole/horse chestnut leaves stitched with stalks around the rim/moving in the wind. Perhaps more than these smaller-scale earthworks, the earthworks in County Durham most forcefully use the concept of environmental process to allude to the movement of travel, not only through their obvious association with trains, but through the movement implied by the object, as ripples from a thrown stone. Freezing these processes is a way of reawakening the senses, by both seeing the object statically without moving too fast and by being aware of its continuing narrative, rather than being driven by the perpetual series of presents of those unrecognised non-places, exaggerated in Thomas Gurskys digital photos. According to Auge, the language of signposts etc. does not heighten the spectators perception of a place, but merely substitutes their relationship to it as a mere passing acknowledgement. Goldsworthys works seem to reclaim that historicity of the natural object that is lost in the immediacy of the commercial product, including the signs that describe and name features and punctuations in the land, trying to give it a sense of place. Challenging the prescriptions of discourse on our subjectivity, however, has always been a preoccupation in landscape art. Constables landscape paintings, for example, could represent a different challenge to the supermodern construction of landscape into a fleeting non-place, through his holistic, static, formalist and panoramic vision of the land. While Goldsworthy reconfigures the landscapes gaze beyond the static to an awareness of its morphology, materiality, unpredictability and precariousness, Constable and the landscape painters of the 18th century synchronized these natural irregularities, painting the clouds and sun simultaneously and consciously at different periods and freezing the movement of the Hay wain into a stance. In Goldsworthys work, therefore, landscape is no longer a site, implying static, but a process, implying diachronic, in which the object and its place are interdependent. Throughout the earthworks photographs and their accompanying text, two main interconnected subjectivities emerge, both of which seem threatened by the dislocation through the non-place: organic nature and Goldsworthy, who is simultaneously a conscious manipulator of natures autonomous processes as well as driven by the manipulations of nature itself. The larger scope of his County Durham Leadgate and Lambton Earthworks, encourages a more structural and slightly cartographic gaze. A disused railway track becomes the site for a snaking sand track photographed aerially alongside rows of monotonous houses. Their juxtaposition, their mutual encroachment on one another and the snaking imprints echo of movement, in one sense seem to re-establish the inter-dependency of urban structures and nature, and the similarities in the way we perceive them despite serving different functions. In this sense, it allows greater insight to its organic qualities by its association. In a technical sense, it could be argued that there is a tension between Goldsworthys organic creations and their technological control by the intrinsic features of the photograph. However, any hint of the artists exploitation, evoked in works such as Snowball in trees or in references to the name of the excavator driver in the Leadgate and Lambton Earthworks, is balanced out, in exchange, by their precarious existence in nature, where a rock could be precariously balanced on a boulder. This relationship between nature and its manipulations is significant because it represents a reappropriation of our relationship with those places, designated by the artists symbols rather than the symbols of industry with which individuals are supposed to interact only with texts, whose proponents are not individuals but moral entities or institutions. Goldsworthy navigates and finds his non-prescribed place, by being led by climactic and environmental factors rather than such moral entities. Auge defines non-place in detail against the anthropological concept of place, where the traveller occupies a non-communicative, solitary space with the language of ticket machines and train timetables. Accordingly, these public facilities and structures give the spectator an image of their individuality, or a distanced simulated familiarity, by discursively framing and displacing the gaze and the individual essence towards a simultaneous collective individuality, through the individualization of references. In contrast, by allowing the serendipitous influence of nature to produce a unique result on each object, each of the processes in the Earthworks produces individual objects, which, not over-prescribed by images and signs, evolve in partial autonomy.

Reflective Essay on depression and mental illness

Reflective Essay on depression and mental illness Depression is the commonest mental illness in the world yet only a few can tell you what exactly it is. Most people can well enough to recognise signs and symptoms of heart attack, diabetes, breast cancer and many more medical conditions. This statement is not only true for the general population, medical practitioner are no exclusion. Many different impression, perception and thought about depression from one person to another person, from one culture to another culture and from one place to another place. For me what is common throughout the world about this mental illness is ignorant. No wonder why John Kirwan, former New Zealand All Black rugby player, now rugby coach, recently said about his depression: Beating that was the hardest thing I had to do in my life. I didnt have a clue what was wrong with me, nor did lots of the doctors I saw. I finally found a doctor who really got it, understood. Thats what you need. There are so many preconceptions out there about mental illness. Before I learn this psychiatry module about a year ago, I like many of my friends thought that depression is not so common and it is actually not an illness of any kind. However after knowing that approximately about 20% of women and 12% of men worldwide suffer from depression1, which is higher than prevalence of other common disease such as diabetes where worldwide prevalence is about 2.8% in year 20002, it changes my perspectives on depression. Interestingly even though depression is very common I rarely encounter any patient who was diagnosed with depression during my medical and surgical attachment. I only saw one patient with depression for the whole attachment. This totally contradicts with what I learn where prevalence for depression among patient in hospital is about 10%1. This makes me think why such a gap occurs between what I learn and what I encounter in a real world. I began to question myself in lots of different ways in order to answer this question. I start looking back to myself first how my perception toward depression before I learn about this mental illness. I was clueless about depression. I used to have perception that depression has the same meaning to sadness. Depression is a normal thing to happen to someone that encounter unfortunate event in their life. I never knew depression is a mental illness that needs to be diagnosed and treated accordingly. I never heard people went to a doctor because they feel their life miserable and I also never heard a doctor prescribing a medication to patient because of depression. That was me before I learn this psychiatry module. Majority people in my country, Malaysia, have the same perception like me. There never knew that depression is a mental illness where it has specific criteria to diagnose and need to be treated accordingly like other disease. Why it is like this? In my opinion this is very much related to how culture in my country which is eastern culture where a lot of people believe in mysticism. Even though majority of them will seek medical practitioner when they get other physical illness but when it come to the illness related to mood, feeling or behaviour where there is no obvious physical pain, they prefer to go to shaman or spiritual healer. They believe some other spirit are harming and controlling their inner self. Although many of them are Muslim where they shouldnt believe in such away but a very long history of mysticism in that part of the world has made it hard to be washed away from people perception. This is the perception about depression in this part of the world. Here in Ireland or in the western culture, I find peoples perception toward depression is quite different. Many of people here know the depression is part of mental illness. However a lot of them as other place in the world dont know what exactly we called depression as a mental illness. If they do get depression they dont know to whom they should consult, how to deal with it and what the treatment option are available. Not many advertisements about the illness can be found out there in the public. Apart from that depression as other mental illness carry some stigma in the community here. Stigma that there is no cure for the depression, the depressed person will never come back to normal and they are dangerous to public. It seems clear to me that many factors why people are less likely to seek medical attention when they have depression. As many as two thirds of the people with depression do not realize that they have a treatable illness and do not seek treatment3. Lack of knowledge together with misconception what exactly the depression is unable people to distinguish and determine whether they are having depression or something else. As bad as ignorant about the disease itself, people dont know what to do when they know they have depression. Stigma that surrounding the depression also contribute to this phenomenon. The evidence for this is clearly stated in the conclusion of the research done by Lisa J. Barney et al where they wrote self- and perceived-stigmatizing responses to help-seeking for depression are prevalent in the community and are associated with reluctance to seek professional help4. Then I start to question myself it is only because of the public that do not seek medical treatment that contribute to the under diagnose of depression or there are others factor determine it. When I read an article title Depression over and under diagnosed in primary care4, it make me realise that most GPs have difficulty in diagnosing depression. According to the article a meta-analysis of more than 50,000 patients has shown that general practitioners (GPs) have great difficulty separating those with and without depression, with substantial numbers of missed and misidentified cases of depression5. Doctors in the primary care is the first medical person that patient will come and complaint about their depression symptoms. However if most of these doctors fail to recognise and diagnose it, this will bring the number of undiagnosed depression further up. Why is this happen? Why depression is so common to be unrecognised even by a doctor? I dont know the exact reason but for me may be because of the symptom of depression is a lot and varies from one person to another person make it harder to diagnose. According to the DSM-IV-TR diagnostic criteria for a major depressive episode includes at least 5 of the symptoms which are low mood, anhedonia, significant weight loss, insomnia, loss of energy, psychomotor agitation, feeling worthlessness, low concentration and recurrent thoughts of death for the same 2-week period, representing a change from previous functioning, must include either low mood or anhedonia1. Apart from this criteria patient also present with atypical presentation where major depressive disorder may not initially present. In primary setting patient with depression often come with symptoms such as fatigue, headache, abdominal discomfort or change in weight1. Patients can become more irritable rather than low mood or sad. Initial symptoms of depression in children is harder to recognise and can be misleading as the children may present with irritability, decline in school performance or social withdrawal1. Misdiagnose depression in patients in primary care will lead to inappropriate treatment and poorer outcomes6. In term of treatment of depression, I learnt about biopsychosocial approach which is for me is very unique module of treatment. This type of treatment helps to tackle each aspect of the depression including brain pathophysiology, psychological state and social circumstances of the patient. For most patients with mild to moderate depression psychotherapy (cognitive behavioural therapy, interpersonal therapy) is the treatment of choice. However, the combined approach with medication generally provides the patient with the quickest and most sustained response1. Usually, antidepressant medication such as SSRIs is used for severe depression. In conclusion, learning psychiatry module has change a lot of my perspective toward depression and mental illness generally. It has exposed me to a different and new perception in this topic. Before this I see depression as something that not important to diagnose and treat but now I see depression as a very serious illness that can lead to fatality if left untreated. I will make sure that in the future, I always put depression as part of my differential diagnosis for most medical or surgical cases that I encounter as a doctor.

Alzheimers Disease Essay -- Alzheimers Disease Essays

Alzheimer’s Disease Alzheimer’s disease is a complex illness that affects the brain tissue directly and undergoes gradual memory and behavioral changes which makes it difficult to diagnose. It is known to be the most common form of dementia and is irreversible. Over four million older Americans have Alzheimer’s, and that number is expected to triple in the next twenty years as more people live into their eighties and nineties. (Johnson, 1989). There is still no cure for Alzheimer’s but throughout the past few years a lot of progress has been made. Doctors need a sure way to diagnose the disease before treatment or studies can be done. The diagnosis is an autopsy of brain tissue examined under a microscope. In addition, medical history, a physical exam, and mental status tests are used for diagnosis (Posen, 1995). Often, tests are done to rule out other potential causes of the dementia. This allows the identification of other causes of thinking and behavioral changes to be made before concluding that the patient has Alzheimer’s or another form of dementia. The tests that are requested to be done include CT and MRI scans to rule out strokes or brain tumors which could account for change in memory and behavior; thyroid and psychological tests which can also detect thinking and behavior problems (Posen, 1995). Alzheimer’s is a result from a combination of factors that cause progressive brain deterioration that affects the memory and behavior of an individual. There are two known risk factors. The first risk factor is age. Alzheimer’s usually affects people older than 60, and rarely affects those younger than 40. The average age ALZHEIMER’S 3 of diagnosis is about 80 years old (Johnson, 1989). The incidence is about the same for all races, but women are more likely than men to develop the disease, because they live longer. The second factor is heredity. Family history plays a role in about forty percent of people with early onset of Alzheimer’s (Johnson, 1989). If your parents or a sibling developed the disease, you are more likely to, as well. But there are cases of families with several people who have had this disease and other members are not affected. These two factors are the only proven factors, but environmental research is being done to help with a possible protective effect for the disease. As of now, more research is needed to confirm any be... ...sion of the disease. In addition, the risk factors and preventive measures are quite clear. These can help those who are unaware of what Alzheimer’s disease is or how it progresses. Future studies may prove to be beneficial in preventing the occurrence of Alzheimer’s, or at least the severity of its’ progression. Informing people of this disease, the risk factors, and preventive measures at a younger age, can only prove beneficial in the decrease or possible elimination of this physically and mentally altering disease. Living a healthy life now can only increase your chances of having a healthier life in old age. ALZHEIMER’S 6 Remember: A rolling stone gathers no moss, So exercise your brain now to reduce future loss. ALZHEIMER’S 7 References Johnson, Barbara S. (1989). Psychiatric mental health. (2nd ed.). New York. J.B. Lippincott Company. Posen, P.B (1995, Apr.). Alzheimer’s disease. [ www.document]. (Visited March 12, 2000). URL:Http://www.mayo.edu/research/alzheimers.center. Wallace, Robert. (1998, March). Alzheimer’s disease. [www.document]. (Visited March 12, 2000). URL: Http://www.alzheimers.org/pubs/adfact.htm).

Investments Essay -- essays papers

Investments INVESTMENT JOURNAL I started doing my research in the Microsoft Network using the Custom Search feature in the Stock Screener. Since I was looking for a conservative stock to start with, the first restriction I put was that the stock be a member of the Dow Jones Industrial Average. I also wanted a Large-Cap company so I put the Market Cap to be above 5 billion dollars. Another restriction I added was that its P/E ratio be the lowest possible and that the EPS Year to Year be above 13%. After running the search I got 20 matches. The top three were Exxon, SBC Communications and American Express. After researching them a bit more I decided that Exxon would be a good option because it was a solid company that had a pretty stable history. After analyzing its fundamentals and taking into account the rising prices of gasoline, I decided Exxon would be a good long-term investment. I bought 115 shares of Exxon at $43.36! The second stock I am looking for is a value stock. I want to get a good solid company and buy it for a bargain. The research I did in the Stock Screener was based on the value strategy we learned in class. In the Stock Screener I entered the following restrictions: 1) Market Cap * $500,000,000 2) Return on Equity * Industry Average Return on Equity 3) Return on Assets * ROA 5 year Average 4) Price/Book Value * 1 5) P/E current * P/E current (Industry) 6) Debt to Equity Ratio * 1 7) Previous Day Closing Price near 52 week low I got 10 results and researched each individual company using the research wizard. The company that I liked the most was Loews because it seemed like a good company with strong fundamentals. The company primarily deals with insurance through publicly traded subsidiaries. Other holdings include tobacco, hotels(US and Canada) and watchmaker Boluva. Even though it has the characteristics of a value company its growth potential and estimates are very impressive. I bought 120 shares of Loews at $53.01. Now that I had value in my portfolio I decided to look for a good growth stock that had a positive momentum recently outperforming the market. I still am not sure I want to invest in a technology stock because of their volatility and risk. I used a similar screen to the O'Shaughnessy Growth screen. The screen was almost identical but with a couple of minor alterations. I d... ...ommendation I read in Business Week. It was recommended as a good technology stock that dealt with both equipment and medicine. The company is called Stryker’s Corp. and it basically makes surgical products such as drills, saws, rasps and mixers. Orthopedic implants (including artificial joints, spinal rods, screws, and bone cement) account for nearly 60% of sales. The fundamentals of the stock are very good and the technical analysis indicates it has been heavily oversold. The only negative I found in the stock analysis is that its P/E is higher than the industries and that the PEG is high also. Still I believe the company is going to do well in the near future because it has new products coming out and good numbers are expected. I bought 300 shares of SYK at $55.00. The next transaction I made was one that was very different from my other transactions. I based my transaction on a clearstation.com e-mail report that was sent to me recommending that I short NVDA. I went directly to the stockcharts.com and analyzed its chart. I decided to short the stock based on the information the chart provided (it was heavily overbought). I short-selled 100 shares of NVDA at $84.64.