Bag of Bones CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

The murk came back and transformed that Sunday night's dusk into a thing of decadent beauty. The sun turned red as it slid down toward the hills and the haze picked up the glow, turning the western sky into a nosebleed. I sat out on the deck and watched it, trying to do a crossword puzzle and not getting very far. When the phone rang, I dropped Tough Stuff on top of my manuscript as I went to answer it. I was tired of looking at the title of my book every time I passed. ‘Hello?' ‘What's going on up there?' John Storrow demanded. He didn't even bother to say hi. He didn't sound angry, though; he sounded totally pumped. ‘I'm missing the whole goddam soap opera!' ‘I invited myself to lunch on Tuesday,' I said. ‘Hope you don't mind.' ‘No, that's good, the more the merrier.' He sounded as if he absolutely meant it. ‘What a summer, huh? What a summer! Anything happen just lately? Earthquakes? Volcanoes? Mass suicides?' ‘No mass suicides, but the old guy died,' I said. ‘Shit, the whole world knows Max Devore kicked it,' he said. ‘Surprise me, Mike! Stun me! Make me holler boy-howdy!' ‘No, the other old guy. Royce Merrill.' ‘I don't know who you oh, wait. The one with the gold cane who looked like an exhibit from Jurassic Park?' ‘That's him.' ‘Bummer. Otherwise . . . ?' ‘Otherwise everything's under control,' I said, then thought of the popped-out eyes of the cat-clock and almost laughed. What stopped me was a kind of surety that Mr. Good Humor Man was just an act John had really called to ask what, if anything, was going on between me and Mattie. And what was I going to say? Nothing yet? One kiss, one instant blue-steel hard-on, the fundamental things apply as time goes by? But John had other things on his mind. ‘Listen, Michael, I called because I've got something to tell you. I think you'll be both amused and amazed.' ‘A state we all crave,' I said. ‘Lay it on me.' ‘Rogette Whitmore called, and . . . you didn't happen to give her my parents' number, did you? I'm back in New York now, but she called me in Philly.' ‘I didn't have your parents' number. You didn't leave it on either of your machines.' ‘Oh, right.' No apology; he seemed too excited to think of such mundanities. I began to feel excited myself, and I didn't even know what the hell was going on. ‘I gave it to Mattie. Do you think the Whitmore woman called Mattie to get it? Would Mattie give it to her?' ‘I'm not sure that if Mattie came upon Rogette flaming in a thoroughfare, she'd piss on her to put her out.' ‘Vulgar, Michael, trs vulgarino.' But he was laughing. ‘Maybe Whitmore got it the same way Devore got yours.' ‘Probably so,' I said. ‘I don't know what'll happen in the months ahead, but right now I'm sure she's still got access to Max Devore's personal control panel. And if anyone knows how to push the buttons on it, it's probably her. Did she call from Palm Springs?' ‘Uh-huh. She said she'd just finished a preliminary meeting with Devore's attorneys concerning the old man's will. According to her, Grampa left Mattie Devore eighty million dollars.' I was struck silent. I wasn't amused yet, but I was certainly amazed. ‘Gets ya, don't it?' John said gleefully. ‘You mean he left it to Kyra,' I said at last. ‘Left it in trust to Kyra.' ‘No, that's just what he did not do. I asked Whitmore three times, but by the third I was starting to understand. There was method in his madness. Not much, but a little. You see, there's a condition. If he left the money to the minor child instead of to the mother, the condition would have no weight. It's funny when you consider that Mattie isn't long past minor status herself.' ‘Funny,' I agreed, and thought of her dress sliding between my hands and her smooth bare waist. I also thought of Bill Dean saying that men who went with girls that age always looked the same, had their tongues run out even if their mouths were shut. ‘What string did he put on the money?' ‘That Mattie remain on the TR for one year following Devore's death until July 17, 1999. She can leave on day-trips, but she has to be tucked up in her TR-90 bed every night by nine o'clock, or else the legacy is forfeit. Did you ever hear such a bullshit thing in your life? Outside of some old George Sanders movie, that is?' ‘No,' I said, and recalled my visit to the Fryeburg Fair with Kyra. Even in death he's seeking custody, I had thought, and of course this was the same thing. He wanted them here. Even in death he wanted them on the TR. ‘It won't fly?' I asked. ‘Of course it won't fly. Fucking crackpot might as well have written he'd give her eighty million dollars if she used blue tampons for a year. But she'll get the eighty mil, all right. My heart is set on it. I've already talked to three of our estate guys, and . . . you don't think I should bring one of them up with me on Tuesday, do you? Will Stevenson'll be the point man in the estate phase, if Mattie agrees.' He was all but babbling. He hadn't had a thing to drink, I'd've bet the farm on it, but he was sky-high on all the possibilities. We'd gotten to the happily-ever-after part of the fairy tale, as far as he was concerned; Cinderella comes home from the ball through a cash cloudburst. ‘ . . . course Will's a little bit old,' John was saying, ‘about three hundred or so, which means he's not exactly a fun guy at a party, but . . . ‘ ‘Leave him home, why don't you?' I said. ‘There'll be plenty of time to carve up Devore's will later on. And in the immediate future, I don't think Mattie's going to have any problem observing the bullshit condition. She just got her job back, remember?' ‘Yeah, the white buffalo drops dead and the whole herd scatters!' John exulted. ‘Look at em go! And the new multimillionaire goes back to filing books and mailing out overdue notices! Okay, Tuesday we'll just party.' ‘Good.' ‘Party 'til we puke.' ‘Well . . . maybe us older folks will just party until we're mildly nauseated, would that be all right?' ‘Sure. I've already called Romeo Bissonette, and he's going to bring George Kennedy, the private detective who got all that hilarious shit on Durgin. Bissonette says Kennedy's a scream when he gets a drink or two in him. I thought I'd bring some steaks from Peter Luger's, did I tell you that?' ‘I don't believe you did.' ‘Best steaks in the world. Michael, do you realize what's happened to that young woman? Eighty million dollars!' ‘She'll be able to replace Scoutie.' ‘Huh?' ‘Nothing. Will you come in tomorrow night or on Tuesday?' ‘Tuesday morning around ten, into Castle County Airport. New England Air. Mike, are you all right? You sound odd.' ‘I'm all right. I'm where I'm supposed to be. I think.' ‘What's that supposed to mean?' I had wandered out onto the deck. In the distance thunder rumbled. It was hotter than hell, not a breath of breeze stirring. The sunset was fading to a baleful afterglow. The sky in the west looked like the white of a bloodshot eye. ‘I don't know,' I said, ‘but I have an idea the situation will clarify itself. I'll meet you at the airport.' ‘Okay,' he said, and then, in a hushed, almost reverential voice: ‘Eighty million motherfucking American dollars.' ‘It's a whole lotta lettuce,' I agreed, and wished him a good night. I drank black coffee and ate toast in the kitchen the next morning, watching the TV weatherman. Like so many of them these days, he had a slightly mad look, as if all those Doppler radar images had driven him to the brink of something. I think of it as the Millennial Video Game look. ‘We've got another thirty-six hours of this soup to work through and then there's going to be a big change,' he was saying, and pointed to some dark gray scum lurking in the Midwest. Tiny animated lightning-bolts danced in it like defective sparkplugs. Beyond the scum and the lightning-bolts, America looked clear all the way out to the desert country, and the posted temperatures were fifteen degrees cooler. ‘We'll see temps in the mid-nineties today and can't look for much relief tonight or tomorrow morning. But tomorrow afternoon these frontal storms will reach western Maine, and I think most of you are going to want to keep updated on weather conditions. Before we get back to cooler air and bright clear skies on Wednesday, we're probably going to see violent thunderstorms, heavy rain, hail in some locations. Tornados are rare in Maine, but some towns in western and central Maine could see them tomorrow. Back to you, Earl.' Earl, the morning news guy, had the innocent beefy look of a recent retiree from the Chippendales and read off the Teleprompter like one. ‘Wow,' he said. ‘That's quite a forecast, Vince. Tornados a possibility.' ‘Wow,' I said. ‘Say wow again, Earl. Do it 'til I'm satisfied.' ‘Holy cow,' Earl said just to spite me, and the telephone rang. I went to answer it, giving the waggy clock a look as I went by. The night had been quiet no sobbing, no screaming, no nocturnal adventures but the clock was disquieting, just the same. It hung there On the wall eyeless and dead, like a message full of bad news. ‘Hello?' ‘Mr. Noonan?' I knew the voice, but for a moment couldn't place it. It was because she had called me Mr. Noonan. To Brenda Meserve I'd been Mike for almost fifteen years. ‘Mrs M.? Brenda? What ‘ ‘I can't work for you anymore,' she said, all in a rush. ‘I'm sorry I can't give you proper notice I never stopped work for anyone without giving notice, not even that old drunk Mr Croyden but I have to. Please understand.' ‘Did Bill find out I called you? I swear to God, Brenda, I never said a word ‘ ‘No. I haven't spoken to him, nor he to me. I just can't come back to Sara Laughs. I had a bad dream last night. A terrible dream. I dreamed that . . . something's mad at me. If I come back, I could have an accident. It would look like an accident, at least, but . . . it wouldn't be.' That's silly, Mrs M., I wanted to say. You're surely past the age where you believe in campfire stories about ghoulies and ghosties and long-leggedy beasties. But of course I could say no such thing. What was going on in my house was no campfire story. I knew it, and she knew I did. ‘Brenda, if I've caused you any trouble, I'm truly sorry.' ‘Go away, Mr. Noonan . . . Mike. Go back to Derry and stay for awhile. It's the best thing you could do.' I heard the letters sliding on the fridge and turned. This time I actually saw the circle of fruits and vegetables form. It stayed open at the top long enough for four letters to slide inside. Then a little plastic lemon plugged the hole and completed the circle. yats, the letters said, then swapped themselves around, making stay Then both the circle and the letters broke up. ‘Mike, please.' Mrs. M. was crying. ‘Royce's funeral is tomorrow. Everyone in the TR who matters the old-timers will be there.' Yes, of course they would. The old ones, the bags of bones who knew what they knew and kept it to themselves. Except some of them had talked to my wife. Royce himself had talked to her. Now he was dead. So was she. ‘It would be best if you were gone. You could take that young woman with you, maybe. Her and her little girl.' But could I? I somehow didn't think so. I thought the three of us were on the TR until this was over . . . and I was starting to have an idea of when that would be. A storm was coming. A summer storm. Maybe even a tornado. ‘Brenda, thanks for calling me. And I'm not letting you go. Let's just call it a leave of absence, shall we?' ‘Fine . . . whatever you want. Will you at least think about what I said?' ‘Yes. In the meantime, I don't think I'd tell anyone you called me, all right?' ‘No!' she said, sounding shocked. Then: ‘But they'll know. Bill and Yvette . . . Dickie Brooks at the garage . . . old Anthony Weyland and Buddy Jellison and all the others . . . they'll know. Goodbye, Mr. Noonan. I'm so sorry. For you and your wife. Your poor wife. I'm so sorry.' Then she was gone. I held the phone in my hand for a long time. Then, like a man in a dream, I put it down, crossed the room, and took the eyeless clock off the wall. I threw it in the trash and went down to the lake for a swim, remembering that W. E Harvey story ‘August Heat,' the one that ends with the line ‘The heat is enough to drive a man mad.' I'm not a bad swimmer when people aren't pelting me with rocks, but my first shore-to-float-to-shore lap was tentative and unrhythmic ugly because I kept expecting something to reach up from the bottom and grab me. The drowned boy, maybe. The second lap was better, and by the third I was relishing the increased kick of my heart and the silky coolness of the water rushing past me. Halfway through the fourth lap I pulled myself up the float's ladder and collapsed on the boards, feeling better than I had since my encounter with Devore and Rogette Whitmore on Friday night. I was still in the zone, and on top of that I was experiencing a glorious endorphin rush. In that state, even the dismay I'd felt when Mrs M. told me she was resigning her position ebbed away. She would come back when this was over; of course she would. In the meantime, it was probably best she stay away. Something's mad at me. I could have an accident. Yes indeed. She might cut herself. She might fall down a flight of cellar stairs. She might even have a stroke running across a hot parking lot. I sat up and looked at Sara on her hill, the deck jutting out over the drop, the railroad ties descending. I'd only been out of the water for a few minutes, but already the day's sticky heat was folding over me, stealing my rush. The water was still as a mirror. I could see the house reflected in it, and in the reflection Sara's windows became watchful eyes. I thought that the focus of all the phenomena the epicenter was very likely on The Street between the real Sara and its drowned image. This is where it happened, Devore had said. And the old-timers? Most of them probably knew what I knew: that Royce Merrill had been murdered. And wasn't it possible wasn't it likely that what had killed him might come among them as they sat in their pews or gathered afterward around his grave? That it might steal some of their force their guilt, their memories, their TR-ness to help it finish the job? I was very glad that John was going to be at the trailer tomorrow, and Romeo Bissonette, and George Kennedy, who was so amusing when he got a drink or two in him. Glad it was going to be more than just me with Mattie and Ki when the old folks got together to give Royce Merrill his sendoff. I no longer cared very much about what had happened to Sara and the Red-Tops, or even about what was haunting my house. What I wanted was to get through tomorrow, and for Mattie and Ki to get through tomorrow. We'd eat before the rain started and then let the predicted thunderstorms come. I thought that, if we could ride them out, our lives and futures might clarify with the weather. ‘Is that right?' I asked. I expected no answer talking out loud was a habit I had picked up since returning here but somewhere in the woods east of the house, an owl hooted. Just once, as if to say it was right, get through tomorrow and things will clarify. The hoot almost brought something else to mind, some association that was ultimately too gauzy to grasp. I tried once or twice, but the only thing I could come up with was the title of a wonderful old novel I Heard the Owl Call My Name. I rolled forward off the float and into the water, grasping my knees against my chest like a kid doing a cannonball. I stayed under as long as I could, until the air in my lungs started to feel like some hot bottled liquid, and then I broke the surface. I trod water about thirty yards out until I had my breath back, then set my sights on the Green Lady and stroked for shore. I waded out, started up the railroad ties, then stopped and went back to The Street. I stood there for a moment, gathering my courage, then walked to where the birch curved her graceful belly out over the water. I grasped that white curve as I had on Friday evening and looked into the water. I was sure I'd see the child, his dead eyes looking up at me from his bloating brown face, and that my mouth and throat would once more fill with the taste of the lake: help I'm drown, lemme up, oh sweet Jesus lemme up. But there was nothing. No dead boy, no ribbon-wrapped Boston Post cane, no taste of the lake in my mouth. I turned and peered at the gray forehead of rock poking out of the mulch. I thought There, right there, but it was only a conscious and unspontaneous thought, the mind voicing a memory. The smell of decay and the certainty that something awful had happened right there was gone. When I got back up to the house and went for a soda, I discovered the front of the refrigerator was bare and clean. Every magnetic letter, every fruit and vegetable, was gone. I never found them. I might have, probably would have, if there had been more time, but on that Monday morning time was almost up. I dressed, then called Mattie. We talked about the upcoming party, about how excited Ki was, about how nervous Mattie was about going back to work on Friday she was afraid that the locals would be mean to her, but in an odd, womanly way she was even more afraid that they would be cold to her, snub her. We talked about the money, and I quickly ascertained that she didn't believe in the reality of it. ‘Lance used to say his father was the kind of man who'd show a piece of meat to a starving dog and then eat it himself,' she said. ‘But as long as I have my job back, I won't starve and neither will Ki.' ‘But if there really are big bucks . . . ?' ‘Oh, gimme-gimme-gimme,' she said, laughing. ‘What do you think I am, crazy?' ‘Nah. By the way, what's going on with Ki's fridgeafator people? Are they writing any new stuff?' ‘That is the weirdest thing,' she said. ‘They're gone.' ‘The fridgeafator people?' ‘I don't know about them, but the magnetic letters you gave her sure are. When I asked Ki what she did with them, she started crying and said Allamagoosalum took them. She said he ate them in the middle of the night, while everyone was sleeping, for a snack.' ‘Allama-who-salum?' ‘Allamagoosalum,' Mattie said, sounding wearily amused. ‘Another little legacy from her grandfather. It's a corruption of the Micmac word for â€Å"boogeyman† or â€Å"demon† I looked it up at the library. Kyra had a good many nightmares about demons and wendigos and the allama-goosalum late last winter and this spring.' ‘What a sweet old grandpa he was,' I said sentimentally. ‘Right, a real pip. She was miserable over losing the letters; I barely got her calmed down before her ride to VBS came. Ki wants to know if you'll come to Final Exercises on Friday afternoon, by the way. She and her friend Billy Turgeon are going to flannelboard the story of baby Moses.' ‘I wouldn't miss it,' I said . . . but of course I did. We all did. ‘Any idea where her letters might have gone, Mike?' ‘No.' ‘Yours are still okay?' ‘Mine are fine, but of course mine don't spell anything,' I said, looking at the empty door of my own fridgeafator. There was sweat on my forehead. I could feel it creeping down into my eyebrows like oil. ‘Did you . . . I don't know . . . sense anything?' ‘You mean did I maybe hear the evil alphabet-thief as he slid through the window?' ‘You know what I mean.' ‘I suppose so.' A pause ‘I thought I heard something in the night, okay? About three this morning, actually. I got up and went into the hall. Nothing was there. But . . . you know how hot it's been lately?' ‘Yes.' ‘Well, not in my trailer, not last night. It was cold as ice. I swear I could almost see my breath.' I believed her. After all, I had seen mine. ‘Were the letters on the front of the fridge then?' ‘I don't know. I didn't go up the hall far enough to see into the kitchen. I took one look around and then went back to bed. I almost ran back to bed. Sometimes bed feels safer, you know?' She laughed nervously. ‘It's a kid thing. Covers are boogeyman kryptonite. Only at first, when I got in . . . I don't know . . . I thought someone was in there already. Like someone had been hiding on the floor underneath and then . . . when I went to check the hall . . . they got in. Not a nice someone, either.' Give me my dust-catcher, I thought, and shuddered. ‘What?' Mattie asked sharply. ‘What did you say?' ‘I asked who did you think it was? What was the first name that came into your mind?' ‘Devore,' she said. ‘Him. But there was no one there.' A pause. ‘I wish you'd been there.' ‘I do, too.' ‘I'm glad. Mike, do you have any ideas at all about this? Because it's very freaky.' ‘I think maybe . . . ‘ For a moment I was on the verge of telling her what had happened to my own letters. But if I started talking, where would it stop? And how much could she be expected to believe? ‘ . . . maybe Ki took the letters herself. Went walking in her sleep and chucked them under the trailer or something. Do you think that could be?' ‘I think I like the idea of Kyra strolling around in her sleep even less than the idea of ghosts with cold breath taking the letters off the fridge,' Mattie said. ‘Take her to bed with you tonight,' I said, and felt her thought come back like an arrow: I'd rather take you. What she said, after a brief pause, was: ‘Will you come by today?' ‘I don't think so,' I said. She was noshing on flavored yogurt as we talked, eating it in little nipping bites. ‘You'll see me tomorrow, though. At the party.' ‘I hope we get to eat before the thunderstorms. They're supposed to be bad.' ‘I'm sure we will.' ‘And are you still thinking? I only ask because I dreamed of you when I finally fell asleep again. I dreamed of you kissing me.' ‘I'm still thinking,' I said. ‘Thinking hard.' But in fact I don't remember thinking about anything very hard that day. What I remember is drifting further and further into that zone I've explained so badly. Near dusk I went for a long walk in spite of the heat all the way out to where Lane Forty-two joins the highway. Coming back I stopped on the edge of Tidwell's Meadow, watching the light fade out of the sky and listening to thunder rumble somewhere over New Hampshire. Once more there was that sense of how thin reality was, not just here but everywhere; how it was stretched like skin over the blood and tissue of a body we can never know clearly in this life. I looked at trees and saw arms; I looked at bushes and saw faces. Ghosts, Mattie had said. Ghosts with cold breath. Time was also thin, it seemed to me. Kyra and I had really been at the Fryeburg Fair some version of it, anyway; we had really visited the year 1900. And at the foot of the meadow the Red-Tops were almost there now, as they once had been, in their neat little cabins. I could almost hear the sound of their guitars, the murmur of their voices and laughter; I could almost see the gleam of their lanterns and smell their beef and pork frying. ‘Say baby, do you remember me?' one of her songs went, ‘Well I ain't your honey like I used to be.' Something rattled in the underbrush to my left. I turned that way, expecting to see Sara step out of the woods wearing Mattie's dress and Mattie's white sneakers. In this gloom, they would seem almost to float by themselves, until she got close to me . . . There was no one there, of course, it had undoubtedly been nothing but Chuck the Woodchuck headed home after a hard day at the office, but I no longer wanted to be out here, watching as the light drained out of the day and the mist came up from the ground. I turned for home. Instead of going into the house when I got back, I made my way along the path to Jo's studio, where I hadn't been since the night I had taken my IBM back in a dream. My way was lit by intermittent flashes of heat lightning. The studio was hot but not stale. I could smell a peppery aroma that was actually pleasant, and wondered if it might be some of Jo's herbs. There was an air conditioner out here, and it worked I turned it on and then just stood in front of it a little while. So much cold air on my overheated body was probably unhealthy, but it felt wonderful. I didn't feel very wonderful otherwise, however. I looked around with a growing sense of something too heavy to be mere sadness; it felt like despair. I think it was caused by the contrast between how little of Jo was left in Sara Laughs and how much of her was still out here. I imagined our marriage as a kind of playhouse and isn't that what marriage is, in large part? playing house? where only half the stuff was held down. Held down by little magnets or hidden cables. Something had come along and picked up our playhouse by one corner easiest thing in the world, and I supposed I should be grateful that the something hadn't decided to draw back its foot and kick the poor thing all the way over. It just picked up that one corner, you see. My stuff stayed put, but all of Jo's had slid . . . Out of the house and down here. ‘Jo?' I asked, and sat down in her chair. There was no answer. No thumps on the wall. No crows or owls calling from the woods. I put my hand on her desk, where the typewriter had been, and slipped my hand across it, picking up a film of dust. ‘I miss you, honey,' I said, and began to cry. When the tears were over again I wiped my face with the tail of my tee-shirt like a little kid, then just looked around. There was the picture of Sara Tidwell on her desk and a photo I didn't remember on the wall this latter was old, sepia-tinted, and woodsy. Its focal point was a man-high birchwood cross in a little clearing on a slope above the lake. That clearing was gone from the geography now, most likely, long since filled in by trees. I looked at her jars of herbs and mushroom sections, her filing cabinets, her sections of afghan. The green rag rug on the floor. The pot of pencils on the desk, pencils she had touched and used. I held one of them poised over a blank sheet of paper for a moment or two, but nothing happened. I had a sense of life in this room, and a sense of being watched . . . but not a sense of being helped. ‘I know some of it but not enough,' I said. ‘Of all the things I don't know, maybe the one that matters most is who wrote â€Å"help her† on the fridge. Was it you, Jo?' No answer. I sat awhile longer hoping against hope, I suppose then got up, turned off the air conditioning, turned off the lights, and went back to the house, walking in soft bright stutters of unfocused lightning. I sat on the deck for a little while, watching the night. At some point I realized I'd taken the length of blue silk ribbon out of my pocket and was winding it nervously back and forth between my fingers, making half-assed cat's cradles. Had it really come from the year 1900? The idea seemed perfectly crazy and perfectly sane at the same time. The night hung hot and hushed. I imagined old folks all over the TR perhaps in Motton and Harlow, too laying out their funeral clothes for tomorrow. In the doublewide trailer on Wasp Hill Road, Ki was sitting on the floor, watching a videotape of The Jungle Book Baloo and Mowgli were singing ‘The Bare Necessities.' Mattie was on the couch with her feet up, reading the new Mary Higgins Clark and singing along. Both were wea ring shorty pajamas, Ki's pink, Mattie's white. After a little while I lost my sense of them; it faded the way radio signals sometimes do late at night. I went into the north bedroom, undressed, and crawled onto the top sheet of my unmade bed. I fell asleep almost at once. I woke in the middle of the night with someone running a hot finger up and down the middle of my back. I rolled over and when the lightning flashed, I saw there was a woman in bed with me. It was Sara Tidwell. She was grinning. There were no pupils in her eyes. ‘Oh sugar, I'm almost back,' she whispered in the dark. I had a sense of her reaching out for me again, but when the next flash of lightning came, that side of the bed was empty.

Puck: Character Analysis Essay

Puck One of the most interesting characters in Shakespeare’s play, Midsummer Night’s Dream, is Puck. Puck’s whimsical spirit, magical fancy, fun-loving humor, and lovely, evocative language permeate the atmosphere of the play. Being brought to the audience’s attention when carrying out Oberon’s orders, Puck is often overlooked in relation to the attention given to other events occurring in each plot. Puck is servant and jester to the Fairy King Oberon and it is his charm and enchantment that serves useful to him and also Oberon. He is poised but not as sugary as the other fairies; as Oberon’s jester, he is given to a certain roughness, which leads him to transform Bottom’s head into that of an ass merely for the sake of enjoyment. Being a fairy of a mischievous nature is what leads Puck into triggering many of the memorable moments in the play. It is because of Puck’s many different character tendencies, along with his ever present m ischievous nature that it is possible to analyze his character in three different ways. The first way to analyze Puck is through his own eyes. A fairy many be the simplest way to describe Puck but he knows he is seen well as a goblin, or a creature of chaos. Agreeing that the previous would more accurately fit his description, Puck knows that he is prone to misadventure and cruel but good-hearted tricks. Knowing that Puck is a mischief maker and creator of chaos, Oberon still relies on him to carry out his orders that way he intends for them to happen. To puck chaos is correct, and it is that chaos that Oberon secretly relies on. When Oberon sends Puck to Titania and her lover, Bottom, it easily foreseen before Puck even arrives that something unfortunate would soon spoil Titania’s evening. Here Puck’s lighthearted, yet cruel trickery gets the best of him where he could not but help himself in turning Bottom’s head into that of an ass. Also, without his wit, creativity, and trickery, Puck would not have been able to trick the mortal men into chasing him. Puck is able only then to lead the mortal men far into the forest where eventually they both tire and fall asleep. Puck knows that his mischievous nature is more than just his entertainment, but that it is also his greatest strength that proves to be useful to his master, Oberon, himself, and also the audience. A second way to view Puck is as a bringer of love, a Cupid of some sort. Although the concept of the love spell was Oberon’s, he delegates the task to Puck. The mortals are not important enough for him to take care of himself and so he delegates this responsibility to puck, acting almost as Hermes to Zeus. As previously stated, Puck is fun-loving and prone to unfortunate mistakes and with this in Oberon’s full knowledge Puck is still given the flower with the power of love. After receiving the flower Puck sets off with the best of intention but his personality wins out. Upon seeing the mortals lying sleeping, Puck confuses which mortal man he is to put the spell on and chooses the wrong one. Creating havoc rather than love, when the mortals wake up Puck realizes what he has done and amused and to some degree pleased, he does not get in any hurry to fix the mistake. He is not sorry, nor does he panic at the thought of Oberon finding out his mistake. Puck instead, blames the misfortune on the lover’s own foolishness. Not having done the work himself the first time, Oberon once again must entrust Puck to undo his mistake. Even after turning the young lover’s world upside down, it is Puck who is sent to restore order and set things right between the lovers, ensuring the play’s happy ending. In many of Shakespeare’s play there is a character whose main purpose is informing the audience of the important aspects of the past, the present, and the future action of the play. These characters are known as the chorus and are prevalent in many of Shakespeare’s dramas. This is third way to view Puck’s character. Sometimes the events taking place are only discussed by the chorus, and other times the chorus seems to make predictions that lead the audience to expect the event. More often than not though, a twist ending is what the audience usually comes to accept. As the chorus, Puck not only directs the drama of A Midsummer Night’s Dream but brings the audience along with him. He keeps them updated on what has happened and what is happening throughout the play. Given that there are two plots, Puck pulls off the task of narrator and fairy guide effortlessly as he ensures that no one gets lost as the two plots continuously weave in and out of each other. To decide between these three different personalities as to which Puck would more closely fit would be interesting and yet near impossible. It is only  when the three personalities are combined that the real exploration and analysis of Puck’s true character can begin. Chaos is usually looked at as a derogatory term, but there can be good and bad chaos. Puck is exactly that, good and bad chaos. In fact, one could say Puck almost perfectly straddles the line between tranquility and chaos in that when it comes to his many unfortunate events, one gets fixed usually before more situations arise. Depending on the recipient of his work, Puck is not evil, just playful enough to cause problems and also smart enough to go back and help undo or fix the multitude of problems he causes throughout the play. Shakespeare’s inclusion of Puck as the form of knowledge shows that there is more to Puck’s character than just a mischievous hobgoblin you see at first glance. His chara cter plays an important, if not major, role in the process of telling the story of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Puck is not to be undermined as just a jokster fairy, but understood in his own right.

Evaluate a given assessment instrument for bias Essay

Evaluate a given assessment instrument for bias - Essay Example Mr. Alvarez is described as a "salesman" and so makes the role gender specific. This is a form of stereotyping. The equality of treatment of all members of society requires that occupations in which both genders are feasibly able to carry out the role, that the job description be gender inclusive. This is critical to the practice of fairness, and in being able to interact with others with impartiality to their religious affiliation, physical appearance or abilities, gender, age, ethnic group or sexual orientation. It is suggested that the introductory sentence be changed to: Mr. Alvarez works as a sales assistant at a furniture store. This would align with Guideline 4 of the ETS standards, for the use of appropriate terminology when referring to others. 2. Students in the Physics & Astronomy Club are buying telescopes to watch the upcoming lunar eclipse. They found comparable telescopes, at the following prices, each either on sale or with a special pricing offer: Firstly, there is no reason given for the four students being chosen from the club, as there are six members who went shopping. Secondly, there is only one female in the group, and this is a science class club, which reinforces the stereotype that women and girls do not like science. I would make Louis (a) and Bernie girls. Thirdly, t Thirdly, there is complex vocabulary in that not everyone is familiar with a lunar eclipse. This is a rare phenomenon that occurs in the evening, when most are asleep, and so can be considered an unfamiliar or specialized term. Rather, replace with: star gazing. 3. A teacher needs help carrying a class set of textbooks to the department office. The teacher asks five students to carry the 35 books. If each student carried the same number of books, how many books did each student carry A. 5 B. 6 C. 7 D. 8 Item Status: No Bias Comments and revision(s) (if necessary): The teacher's gender is not mentioned, neither that of the students, and is not necessary in order to ask the question. No complicated syntax or vocabulary is used either. Neither is the item religiously, ethnically, or physically specific (e.g., feasibly, one of the student's could have been in a wheelchair). 4. The Johnsons are considering hiring an au pair for their child. One very good applicant requests a stipend of $800 per month and health insurance, which will cost

A television show (LOST) Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

A television show (LOST) - Essay Example All of these questions feed into the show’s elaborate mythology. Unlike other TV shows, most of what we want to know about Lost is kept from us, hidden out of sight. That is one of the reasons it has had such a cultural impact. It is a bit like Plato’s cave. We can only see the shadows on the wall and would love to see what on Earth is actually casting them. It has also made all of its cast members into big stars. People identify with these people who are confused about their lives, have no idea where they are, and are seem to be directed by forces they can’t understand. In Lost, the storytelling shifts between the survivors trying to adapt to their strange new lives and to understand the island on which they are marooned and then shifts to flashbacks that explain us understand the personal history of each of the many character. We get to see what sort of lives they were living before they came to the island. For the most part these are pretty unhappy lives. Lives in which they were also being directed by forces they didn’t really understand either. Some people object to this, wishing instead that they focused exclusively on the events on the island, but I think that this is wrong. If you focused merely on the events on the island, it would be only an adventure story, but through the flashbacks we learn so much about what makes the people tick that the series becomes as much a character study as an adventure. And this helps us to understand what motivates the characters and lets them stand in for various archtypes. By the end of the season, w e get to know the characters so well that we can anticipate how they are going to respond to even the smallest events. We learn very quickly that the island contains a host of mysteries, including invisible monsters whose location and function remain unknown until the end of the first season (if we even understand them then). There are passageways that lead to strange places, there are promises of

Understanding levers for organizational change the case of AB Ltd Essay

Understanding levers for organizational change the case of AB Ltd - Essay Example Whenever there is a change in the overall organizational strategy for success, it is followed by a significant change in the organization. These changes may be found in the operational management spectrum or in the total organizational culture itself. Such changes are bound to happen just as they happen in the case of any life cycle process. Under those circumstances it becomes the responsibility of the top management of the organisation to perceive the nature and methods of such changes and prepare the organization to meet the challenges of such changes.The changes are due to take place in any organization simply due to the passage of time where the organisation's life is longer and hence it may become necessary to introduce changes in the operating strategies and plans. This necessitates significant strategic practices in all functional areas of management. In order to make the change process successful it is important that the change leaders have a thorough understanding of the co ntext of change. This includes a thorough insight into the basic organizational systems and structures as well as the external environment in which the organisation is operating. Organizational context is created and renewed through tangible and concrete management actions. (Ghosal, S. and Bartlett, C. A. 1994) Unless the changes in the organisation are preceded by an in-depth analysis of the internal and external environments, any endeavour by the management to bring about changes may not produce the desired results. Thus an evaluation of performance of each link in the organization is an essential prerequisite for effecting the organizational change. Another equally important consideration while deciding on the changes in the organization is the impact of the external environmental forces on the effectiveness of the organizational performance. With this background this paper presents a report on the nature and methods of change management in the 2.0 Change Process in AB Limited The following is the change process as evidenced by the senior management in the case of AB Ltd. The process is identified through a series of interviews with the managers and team leaders of Change management in the Company. The description involves a detailed report on the change process being effected by the company. 3.0 Change Process The process of change being a complex in nature must be well planned so that the change process is accomplished without hurdles. The change process involves the following steps: Discovery Process - Making a case for organisational change Commitment from the top management Defining change strategy Alignment of change strategy with the overall business strategy Implementation of the change and Monitoring and refinement (Kaplan Consulting) 3.1 Discovery Process The first step in bringing about any changes in the organisation is to make a strong and airtight case for the introduction of such changes. In this step the change leaders may take the help of tools like (a) Online surveys conducted on various issues that may be the core change aspect (b) High impact interview protocols may also help effectively in the process (c) An analysis of the competitive environment of the business including the analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of the competitors (d) Technique of benchmarking will also be one of the useful tools (e) A well defined assessment of the customers and suppliers may also lead to the identification of change areas (f) Gap analysis is another tool that helps in the identification of changes required in the organisation 3.2 Commitment from the Top Management It is vitally important that the top leaders are prepared intellectually and motivationally for the introduction of changes as they are the people, who have to pilot the change process, sell it among other organisational members and arrange for the deployment of the necessary resources. The steps involved in this process are

How Schools Mirrior the Dominate Culture Assignment

How Schools Mirrior the Dominate Culture - Assignment Example It is considered to be part of effective classroom management by teachers for a few reasons. First, it is assumed that being immersed in a language makes on be fluent. Secondly, it is believed that it is destructive for every one to speak in a different language while in class especially in ELL classroom (Beare par. 1-3). Characteristics of wealthy white children have been incorporated into school systems as the only authentic standards of behavior. Other cultural expressions which may be adequate in acquiring skills from have been seen as inadequate and, therefore, rejected. This results in inadequate communication and assessment, leading children from poor minority cultures being deemed slow or poor learners. These children end up making the most representation in the special education program as they are assessed according the standards set for middle-class white students. In these tests it is assumed that failure to meet standards mean developmental delay even if the child has knowledge in other developmental areas. Wealthy and middle class white schools often have better performances than others because they pay better hence attracting better teachers (Goldy par. 1). This is at the expense of poor schools for the minority groups as they do not get the best teachers. As stated by the London School of Economics, there is a direct relationship between teachers pay and student performance. If a teacher is paid well, the student tends to perform well and when payment is poor as is the case of minority schools for the poor, their performance tends to be poor. Yet at the time of assessment the standards used do not put into consideration this fact, but judge by the standards of the dominant group (Goldy par. 1). The dominant culture of the white people is mirrored in many ways in schools; these are just a few examples. English language is used extensively in

Dietrich Bonhoeffer Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Dietrich Bonhoeffer - Research Paper Example Upon his graduation, Bonhoeffer spent a considerable amount of time in America and Spain and this exposure gave him a wiser outlook on life in addition to also helping him move from academic study towards what was a more practical interpretation of the Gospel. As a young man, he was quite moved by the Church’s involvement in both social injustice and the protection of the oppressed people (Bonhoeffer, 2005). Bonhoeffer eventually returned to Berlin in 1931 where he was ordained as a priest while at the age of 25 years. The period around the early 1930s were marked by great upheaval across Germany as a result of relatively high levels of mass unemployment due to the effects emanating from the Great Depression and the general instability of Weimar German that led to Hitler’s election in 1933. Although Hitler’s election was largely welcomed by parts of the church and the German population, Bonhoeffer emerged as one of the few firm opponents of Hitler’s philosophy. In January 1930, barely two days after Hitler’s successful election as the Germany’s chancellor, Bonhoeffer made a radio broadcast that essentially criticized Hitler and particularly so the rather idolatrous cult of the Fuhrer. This broadcast was however cut off mid air (Larsen & Larsen, 2002). Bonhoeffer’s criticism of Hitler’s regime did not end with the radio broadcast and in April 1933, He publicly raised opposition to the Jewish persecution that was being conducted by Hitler and pointed out that the church had an inborn responsibility to ensure that it effectively acts against this kind of policy. Bonhoeffer sought to try and organize the German protestant church so as for it to firmly reject the Nazi ideology that was gradually infiltrating the church. This resulted in the creation of a breakaway church – the Confessions Church which Bonhoeffer himself helped to form together with Martin Niemoller. The Confession church as

Reversing the Burden of Proof Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Reversing the Burden of Proof - Essay Example The International Covenant on Civil, Cultural and Political Rights (ICCPR) contains iron-clad guarantees to protect the rights of the accused facing trial for a crime. Articles 9, 14 and 15 spell out these rights in great detail - from the presumption of innocence to the right against self-incrimination to the right against double jeopardy and to the famous Miranda doctrine. Closer to home, under Article 6(2) of the European Convention on Human Rights, an accused enjoys a presumption of innocence. (Keane, 2006) At a time when human rights advocacy for the accused has been made unpopular by the rising rate of crime and thus, there is a greater risk of possible infringement of constitutional guarantees by overzealous constables, vigilance is imperative. '...the more serious the crime and the greater the public interest in securing convictions of the guilty, the more important do constitutional protections of the accused become. The starting point of any balancing inquiry where constitutional rights are concerned must be that the public interest in ensuring that innocent people are not convicted and subjected to ignominy and heavy sentences, massively outweighs the public interest in ensuring that a particular criminal is brought to book...Hence the presumption of innocence, which serves not only to protect a particular individual on trial, but to maintain public confidence in the enduring integrity and security of the legal system'. However, there are some statutes which attach a specific burden of proof on the defendant. As stated by Cooper (2003), "neither the courts nor the legislature have been slow to impose a legal burden of proof on a defendant in a criminal case." A concrete example of a statute where the shift of the burden of proof is present is the English law on libel. The onus is on the defendant to prove the truth of the statement or communication charged to be libelous. The prosecution enjoys a presumption that the statement is false. There is much agreement among legal scholars that English law is tilted in favor of the prosecution, and there is perhaps no case that has thrown English defamation laws under scrutiny and criticism as much as the McLibel case, or the case of Steel & Morris v United Kingdom (68416/01) [2005] E.M.L.R. 15 where the multi-billion dollar food chain won on account of English laws that shifts the burden on the defendants to prove that their claims were truthful. For coming up with a pamphlet entitled What's wrong with McDonald's: Everything they don't want you to know, the defendants were found guilty because they were not able to point-by-point prove the veracity of their allegations. It was a pyrrhic victory for McDonald's, and it led to the European Convention on Human Rights ruling that British laws on libel are antiquated and unfair to the defendants. In the law of evidence, however, it is rare that the burden of proof shifts completely to the defendant. He is merely required to prove an evidence of defense that refers to one particular element of the

The importance of statistics and consumer research in marketing Essay

The importance of statistics and consumer research in marketing - Essay Example In this way, both consumer research and statistics are found involved in marketing operation. This study is going to explore of how consumer research and statistics are important to marketing. The importance in terms of application and the outcome will be explored and described in this study. The objective here is to understand the relationships between marketing and consumer research and between marketing and statistics altogether. Importance of Consumer Research and Statistics in Marketing During marketing operation, strategists and marketers are keen to understand their consumers. They are deliberately in search of knowing their consumers’ perception, behaviors and their buying attitudes which help the marketers to bring effective marketing campaigns and strategies (Roosi and Allenby). For this comprehensive knowing and understanding, marketers plan the operation of consumer research which digs out all the information pertinent to consumers and their behaviors. Decisively, consumer needs and wants are uncovered through market consumer research (Mazzocchi). Consumer research basically gives the manifestation about how customers behave and what are their levels of motivations towards specific products or services. This research sets the direction for marketers that they bring a comprehensive marketing strategy, which is closer to consumers’ behaviors and their buying choices (Mazzocchi 10). ... Marketers conduct consumer research in order to understand the dynamics of a particular market. Definitely, each market has a distinctive background and which modifies or changes with the aspect of time and with the changes in attributes and characteristics of consumers present in that market (Mazzocchi). For understanding the varying dimensions of a market, the varying dimensions of consumers are important to be known, which is only possible by conducting effective consumer research and consumer diagnosis. Without studying the market and consumers trends, a marketer cannot devise a sound workable marketing strategy (Roosi and Allenby). The strategy, which can impact the dynamics of a market and can attract diverse market consumer, may certainly require a comprehensive consumer research. For all these reasons, marketers consider consumer research as a significant part of marketing planning. They realize that without consumer research, marketing plans cannot be effectuated or even ini tialized. A well-organized consumer research is actually a source to ideate a well-incorporated marketing plan. This indicates that strategically and distinctively there is a significant relationship between consumer research and marketing. Without consumer research marketing is incomplete and similarly without marketing consumer research is reasonless or futile. This shows a certain sort of connection between marketing and consumer research. Both are part of each other and so are dependent on each other (Mazzocchi 30). In marketing, the core objective of consumer research is to gather consumer related information. This process of information collection in consumer research is made possible by means of statistical models and techniques. There are different

Argument Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Argument - Research Paper Example These needs related to videogames make students finish the activity as technology-dependent students (Apostol, Zaharescu, & Alexe, 2013). Videogames have the possibility to teach both formal and informal academic and non-academic skills, and, as fun tool, they motivate students to be more collaborative, promote social learning, share information, and increase their attainments (Kebritch, Hirumi, & Bai, 2010). Video games have the ability to evoke feelings of strong emotional bonds as a part of the students’ experience (Bengoechea, 2009). Learning starts bringing emotions like any other pleasant occupation. Students begin to like the leaning process itself and acquire the motivation. Ground1:   In Japan a mixed method was used to investigate the impact of integrating videogames into an existing curriculum, and two researches were conducted. In Study 1 (n = 9), new words were included in task sheets. Study 2 (n = 11) included the tasks on vocabulary. the results showed that the learners were affected positively (Hitosugi, Schmidt, & Hayashi, 2014). According to Mifsud (2013), an group of the research participants, who applied videogames in Malta demonstrated considerable improvement in the study of English as a Second Language in comparison to those learners, who were offered usual approach. 79.1 % of 1163 students with an age range between 11-16 years feel that video games can provide them with an opportunity for and help them acquire new skills , and 77.5% of 149 teachers believe that students can learn from videogames in class. Furthermore, 83% of 783 parents also believed that educational videogames have become an important tool in classroom learning. Gjedd e (2014) conducted a research on Danish public secondary school that use mixed method of the qualitative case study, and surveys evaluations every week to implement curriculum, and models of educational live action role play (edu†LARP). Approximately 98 students participated in the research.

The witches are the most unsettling example Essay Example for Free

The witches are the most unsettling example Essay To the most extent I do not agree that the witches are the most unsettling example of the supernatural in Macbeth. There are other factors within the play such as the ambition of Macbeth and the wickedness of Lady Macbeth that cast an eerie and shocking atmosphere over the play. The reason I believe this to be the case because as part of a modern society, we have a lot more psychological horrors, and both Macbeth and Lady Macbeth are considered to be insane. Whereas witches are seen more as a fantasy for us; compared to the Jacobean period, where they were considered real. It is evident from the beginning that Macbeth’s fatal flaw is ambition. When the witches tell him that he is going to be king, his mind immediately begins to ponder on the possibilities of killing Duncan, â€Å"My thought, whose murder yet is but fantastical, shakes so my single state of man†¦Ã¢â‚¬  His ambition is unsettling because it sets of the sequence of events throughout the play that lead to his downfall. Clearly Lady Macbeth is the driving force behind Macbeth’s ambition, because she forces him to overcome his guilt by insulting him, â€Å"And live a coward in thine own esteem, letting I dare not wait upon I would, Like the poor cat I’th’adage? † However once his ambition takes over him, it spirals out of control, leading to more murders to cover up all his wrongdoings, and leads him to being tormented by apparitions and guilt. In the end he doesn’t get the chance to enjoy the â€Å"fruits of his labour† and is beheaded by McDuff. A modern audience would view Macbeth’s actions as maniacal and ridiculous, because he became too obsessed with the idea of becoming King, that it lead to the murder of many people; this ended up being futile because he died in vain anyways. It shows that only some aspects of society have changed since the Jacobean period, rather than society as a whole. However, a Jacobean audience would have found Macbeth’s actions more deplorable. A Jacobean audience at the time would frown upon Lady Macbeth’s behaviour in convincing her husband to commit murder, and use the graphic images that she does. â€Å"Have plucked my nipple from his boneless gums and dashed the brains out, had I so sworn as you have done to this† This would have especially shocked Jacobean women, because there were certain morals and taboos that they followed. Women of that period were supposed to be pious, follow religion strongly, be against violence, and had to follow demands made by men. Lady Macbeth goes against all of these morals, but commits the taboos. She would’ve also been seen as malevolent because she gives suggestions that are intended to cause harm to others. â€Å"Come, you spirits that tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here and fill me from the crown to the toe topfull of direst cruelty†¦Ã¢â‚¬  However, women in today’s society would find Lady Macbeth’s behaviour less disturbing than woman of the Jacobean period because females have become largely independent today compared to the restrictions that were placed upon them in earlier times.

Creativity And Its Importance Commerce Essay

Creativity And Its Importance Commerce Essay According to the oxford dictionary of the English language creativity is the use of imagination or original ideas to create something and innovation is the action or process of making changes in something established, especially by introducing new methods, ideas, or products. However creativity and innovation are so much more; they are the cornerstones of our economy, the foundations of our modern society and high quality of living, what gives meaning and purpose to our existence. Creativity is a unique characteristic of the human race. Of all the creatures roaming this planet, only humans have the ability of abstract thinking and creativity. Our history is the history of human creativity and innovations. From the first steps that Homo sapiens took on Europe, the weapons they created to hunt for food and fend off dangers, to the pendants that they crafted to indicate statues and the amazing petroglyphs found in France (Vallà ©e des Merveilles), Greece (Irakleia Cyclades), Italy (Bagnolo stele) and Spain (Galicia). Creativity and innovation are what created the pyramids in Egypt, Stonehenge in the UK and the megalithic monuments in Marta. Innovation is what armed the Greeks in Thermopylae and gave them a tactical advantage against an army ten times their own, and again in Salamis and Plataea. Creativity is what build the Parthenon and guided the arm of Phidias to sculpt some of the most important everlasting sculptures this world has ever seen. Then the Maced onians and other Greeks of Alexander the Great started spreading on most of the known world, and after them the romans and the mighty legions established the first superpower and Rome as the first mega city and all these started from few creative people that envisioned and created new ideas, new technologies and methods, new innovations (Association, 2008). Innovations, that paved the way, after hundreds of years of darkness, the dark ages, for the Renaissance and the age of Creativity; Michelangelo, Rafael, the great Leonardo Da Vinci as well as Copernicus, Galileo Galilei and Gutenberg. The human races intellectual revolution, all based on creativity and innovations. Our modern age starts with the industrial revolution that took place in the UK in 1750. Few very creative very innovative people started shaping the world to what it is now. Brunel, Watt and Maudslay; their dreams and creations can still be seen in the city we live in. The British Empire and the establishment of the first form of international trade and together with it the first multinational corporations like the Dutch East India Company that helped create the first global economic ideas and theories, as theses were described by Adam Smith in his book An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (1776). And then to the 19th century of the two world wars, but also of Dali, Picasso, Matisse and Einstein, Plank, Bohr and Heisenberg. Our history, the human existence on this planet, is a hymn to creativity, innovation and survival (Association, 2008). Creativity plays a very important role in the improvement of our society and of our living standard. New innovations make our lives easier, allow us to do things that we could not do before, as well as create workplaces and bust the economy (Bennett, 2006). Everywhere we look creativity and innovations is there; from an art gallery displaying Van Goghs masterpieces, to our mobile phones that provide us with information and functionality that previous generations could only dream of, to the way we shop using the internet and the new digital economy we live it. I, and the majority of people in the western world, can, from the comfort of my home, stream my favour movie and watch it on my smart TV any time I want, order a pizza online by using my mobile and at the same time keep an eye on the FTSE 250, live from New York. Actually digital and mobile applications and devices can do more, a lot more. They help people with diabetic monitor their disease, they guide millions of motorists, wi th the use of GPS, to their destinations, they connect the entire world, as well as help me, and thousands of students, find the information I want in order to write this assignment. Innovations and creativity in the medical field help people live longer, healthier lives, cure diseases that once thought to be incurable, and provide comfort and hope to all. Even things we now have come to consider small, trivial, every-day, like running water, public transportation or the post we receive every morning, were the inspirations and work for people, and are very important in rising our quality of life. Can anyone in the western world even consider every-day life without running water or even without the weather forecast? I think not. Our modern society, has recognised the importance of creativity and continuous innovation, and improvement, and has adapted both its educational and business systems to encourage it, incubate it and reword it (Burleson, 2005). Schools promote creativity and some even go as far as trying to teach pupils how to be creative. However, creativity is not something you can force on someone. Creativity is the result of a number of conditions that have to be met, with the primary being freedom. Freedom to speak, freedom to write, freedom to think and express yourself as you like, and freedom to choose what to do, what to create. Also, creativity is not the characteristic of an individual, no matter how intelligent, creative and innovative this individual is; it is a social characteristic; small ideas, in a free environment with no communication barriers, linking up, combining, to create a big great idea. It is not a coincidence that there are periods in human history that great minds come tog ether and lay the foundations, or start, industrial-scientific-intellectual-spiritual revolutions. The great Athenian philosophers of the 5th century BC, the great British engineers of the 1700s century, the great theoretical physicists of the beginning of the 19th century, and now the great digital minds of our era, are some of the examples that one can think. Creativity can be taught, however, as with all other aspects of the human mind and nature, creativity is a talent too. Some people have it and some do not. As a society however, we are a creative innovative society, a society that looks into the future, creates ideas, dreams and designs about how it wants this future to be and then starts working on making it happen (Casson, 2007). Business, innovation and creativity are interlinked terms. Business, any business, cannot exist without creativity. The common characteristic between a broker in New York, a fair trade luxury furniture shop owner in Islington, London, an independent cocoa farmer in Equator and a the owner of a silk textiles family business in China is creativity. The very notion of starting up your own business, take calculated risks and give your best to succeed, is the definition for entrepreneurial creativity. Innovation is what makes the difference, what gives a company a competitive edge, what turns a small garage business to a multinational with offices around the world and with billions of pounds in its corporate accounts. Creativity, realised through innovation is what drives our economy, is what capitalism is built on, is what creates companies like Apple, Microsoft, and Dyson and Goldman-Sacks (Davis, 2009). The important role of creativity and innovation in the entrepreneurial process Every sector of business and every sector of life is subject to creativity and innovation. If is strange that when the word creativity is mentioned most people think of painters or sculptors or even photographers, the likes of Modigliani and Petrocelli, and when the word innovation is used they think of technological advances, like 3D TVs, and companies like Apple and Siemens. If for example the banking industry is used as an example of innovation in a lecture, the majority of people from the audience will most like wonder about the appropriacy of the use of the word, when it comes to financial institutions such as Goldman-Sacks, J. P. Morgan and even the Royal Bank of Scotland. However, the financial institutions that compose our economic system are the epitome of innovation. Their continuous innovation in creating new financial products and finding ways to generate wealth is what led to the technological, commercial, entrepreneurial and consumption boom that started after the end o f the 2nd world war and is still going strong now, even after many financial crisis that this same system produced, with the most serious being that of 2008 with many countries and millions of people still experiencing its effects. Nowadays creativity and innovation is the driving force of the economy, usually in the form of digital and mobile applications and devices. Economists have even given this new type of economy a, very appropriate, name; digital economy. Iphones, ipads, tablet PCs, smartphones and millions of applications that help the user cook a nice meal, pay his bills online or even monitor his diabetes are the life-line of the post 2008 crises economy. And rightly so, as they provide incredible flexibility and utility to the users, improving their way of life and quality of life, and at the same time generating new jobs and money. They also provide a platform on which small businesses, utilising the benefits of the new technologies and the new digital marketplace, can compete even with multinational corporations in a global marketplace. However the link between creativity, which gives birth to innovations, with the business process is deeper than just new products and services, no matter how revolutionary these might be. The whole idea of starting up a new business, a new company, comes from ones creativity. (Eysenck, 2008) The starting up of a business is creation. The new entrepreneur wants to be independent, to do what he enjoys and believes he is best in doing, to leave his mark, to create. It is creativity that enables an entrepreneur to act on the opportunities that present to him, in order to create competitive advantage for his company. His company does not need to be about revolutionary technology, new designs or new products. He does not need to be an inspirational writer, a painter or an architect. He is creative because he made that first very important step of becoming an entrepreneur. So, not all entrepreneurs are innovative, however those who are, shape the world we live in with their creations. Innov ation is the next step of creativity; it is its materialisation and the means to generate wealth. It is, or it can be, the financial link between ones thoughts and fantasies with the economy. Creativity is the heart of entrepreneurship and innovation is the oxygen that is keeping it alive. Creativity needs a spark and innovation needs fuel. These are provided in the form of physical rewards and generation of wealth; money. Money has been blamed for many things, and most of the times rightly so, however, together with an inherited ability and need for humans to be creative, it is the most common motive for business creativity and innovation. Not the only, but one of the most significant reasons why people want to become entrepreneurs and push themselves to create something new, something exciting, something that other people, many other people, will buy. So creativity and innovation are fundamental factors of wealth generation which is the cornerstone of our capitalistic economic system, which is the only applicable economic system in the world, as we speak. One can even go as far as saying that creativity and innovation is business. Is the creative process a way to trigger self-actualisation and motivation? The question about what motivates us humans to do what we do, to wake up in the morning to go to work, to wait three hours in the rain in order to buy tickets for our favourite pop group or to create new art, technology and literature has fascinated many people before, among them many famous philosophers, like Hume and Kant. When someone first asks about what motivates us to do what we do, the first answer he will usually receive is money. However, this in not, in the majority of times, true, or at least, not the entire truth. Self-actualisation is the desire to become more and more what one is, to become everything that one is capable of becoming (Goble, 1970). Maslow in his theory of basic needs, states that the goals for self-actualisation are as fundamental as those of education, continues learning and self-improvement and creativity. These goals or some may say needs or fundamentals of human existence promote and focus on learning in relationship to imagination, creativity, experience and challenge. However, all these notions are interconnected between them. Learning, experience and creativity are essential to self-actualisation, as self-actualisation is a fundamental requirement for learning and creativity. The idea of self-actualisation comes from Maslow. He describes two human need systems; the deficiency needs system, also called D values, and the Being system, also called B values. D values denote the defensive nature of humans that leads us to be as safe as possible in all situations, but sometimes stops us from experiencing, improving and growing, and B values are the opposite, is what drives us to learn, experience, get in love, try new things and enhance our abilities, taking risks. According to Maslow, the most self-actualised people are mature adults with a history of a productive involvement in their work (Maslow, 1943). Creativity is one of the fundamental ways to trigger self-actualisation and motivation. When one is creative, he feels good about himself, he feels and is productive, his blood rushes through his veins and his mind is on fire. He is creating something new, he is full of energy and confidence. Also, usually creativity means being social, coming in contact with many people, who themselves are creative and exchanging ideas and opinions, networking, interacting and synthesising hunches and observations to theories and great ideas. Just the process of doing so is what motivates many people and the result and excitement to see your idea materialised what motivates the rest (Becherer, 2008). High self-confidence and belief to you, to your abilities and what you can do, which comes from being creative, being alive and contributing to the society, are the basic ingredients of self-actualisation, which lead you to accomplish your targets, and set new, which again kick-start the creative process that triggers your motivation and enhances your self-actualisation. The creative process, self-actualisation and motivation are all parts of human nature. How creativity can help us in problem solving process? The first step of problem solving is to define the problem. Although this may sound trivial, in many cases it is not. Many people and organisations rush in to tackle a problem by finding a solution, without previously knowing that the problem really is. So, to achieve a solution, one first has to fully understand the problem. Once the problems have been clearly defined, the most important factor in solving it is creativity. Creativity is required in order to create a ask the right questions about the problem and find the correct and appropriate answers to them, creativity is necessary in order to provide out of the box ideas and suggestions and creativity is what defines the process of finding a new way in doing things. Brainstorming is a very popular way to solve a problem and it is a characteristically creative method. It involves the rapid exchange of ideas, any ideas, about the solution to a specific problem. What it does actually is to help people to come up with out of the box unconventional ideas and solutions, which in the majority of times are the combination of various ideas that are thrown during the start of the brainstorming session (McNamara, 2010). Also, creativity is what helps us to overcome the, very natural and common negative initial reaction to a problem; the anger and despair that a problem can cause, and actually make something good out of a bad situation but putting our minds and talents to work in order to find a solution that may just not be the solution to one problem but many (McNamara, 2010). A good example of a very creative solution to a common problem that later became a lifesaving method in medicine is the use of ultrasounds. When the first metallic ships and buildings started to appear, a problem manifested in the form of cracks in the metals that had the potential to result in catastrophic failure. The solution that was improvised in order to detect such material failures was the use of ultrasounds. Soon enough ultrasounds were used in humans to image their anatomy and monitor their health. Ultrasounds are nowadays used in every hospital, having a variety of applications such as in obstetrics, oncology and dermatology. Problem solving requires the generation, the production of something new; a new idea, a new device, a new product or new services. This is what creativity is. Examples of organisations that foster Creativity process Dyson One of the most creative and innovating companies in the UK is of course Dyson. Dyson is a modern British icon of design, functionality, creativity and innovations. The company was started in 1933 by James Dyson, an inventor and designer, after he graduated from the Royal College of Art. What started as a tiny company with a single product, a vacuum cleaner, developed in a tiny workshop in the backward of Sir Dysons family house, is now a multinational company, that sells its products in over 50 countries and which employs more than 3,000 people. The companys headquarters are located in Malmesbury, Wiltshire, UK (Dyson, 2012). Technological innovations such as the cyclone technology and the air multiplier technology have changed the industry of commercial home appliances, giving tremendous status to Dyson. The company makes extensive use of computer aided design software as well as 3D printing and 3D visualisation technologies. It also actively promotes creativity and innovation by encouraging its employees to come forward with new ideas, and by having weekly brainstorming sessions where all employees, no maters their speciality and rank, can seat together and exchange ideas in order to provide solutions in existing problems or suggest new products, technologies and methods. The company also promotes training and education, as it is a firm supporter of the notion that the more your get involved and study something in depth, the more creative ideas arise (Dyson, 2012). In 2002 Sir Dyson founded the James Dyson foundation to support design and engineering education, and the creative process. Google Google is one of the most powerful and rich companies in the world. The company was founded in 1998 and it became a public limited company in 2004. Google currently employs more than 53,000 people worldwide. The companys headquarters, Googleplex, are located in Mountain View, California, United States (Google, 2012). Google is not just an innovator in terms of technology, networking, mobile applications and the internet, but also in terms of company structure and employee motivation and creativity encouragement techniques. One of its most popular and innovative company policies is what Google calls personal projects time (Google, 2012). In essence Google allows and encourages every one of its employees to spend a whole day, every week, working on their personal projects and ideas. Also the company has created an internal blackboard that all personal finished projects are published for testing and for generation of discussion, cooperation and the creation of even more, more advanced projects. Finally, these projects are published on the internet, on Google Labs, for everyone to test and feedback. Google actively promotes and supports innovation and creativity and has faith on the abilities of its employees to deliver outstanding new ideas and products. It is a company founded on a great idea and still working towards the next great idea. It provides a work environment that is designed to keep its employees happy and satisfied and cater to all their needs, in order for them to be able to give back their great ideas. It promotes communication, freedom of expression and clearly sets the priority targets which are none other than the generation of new great ideas and the improvement of old. It is an environment that creativity is not forced, it just happens. Google search, Android, Google Maps and Google Goggles are but a few of the results of the abundance of creativity that this company has (Google, 2012). Apple Apple Inc. is nowadays considered the most innovative company in the world. Its products are rapidly reaching legendary status, with their names being used, in many occasions, to define an entire market sector and not just a product. The IPad is a good example of Apples innovation. Apple actually created the marketplace for tablet PC with its introduction of IPad. Many people will refer to any tablet PC as an IPad. The same goes for the IPhone which was the first, real, smartphone, the smartphone that started the revolution we live today (Apple, 2012). Steven Jobs and Steve Wozniak founded Apple Inc. back in 1977. Jobs and Wozniak worked in Jobs parents garage in order to create the first Apple PC. Nowadays, Apple employs more than 73,000 people around the world, has its headquarters in a 130,000 square metres in Cupertino, California, USA and generates an annual turnover in excess of 156 billion US dollars (Apple, 2012). Apple Inc. is not just a huge, very successful, very profitable company; it is one of the very few companies in the world that successfully combines, promotes and excels in creativity, innovation and design. Products like the Ipad, the Iphone and the Ipod, combine the creativity and vision of a company, and of a very charismatic man, Steven Jobs, who sought to develop (create) new revolutionary products, with innovation of continuously updating and upgrading, introducing new and improved versions with design, aesthetically pleasing, trendy, fashionable devices that are more than a mobile phone or a portable PC, they are status enchanting, life-style items (Business, 2009). Many companies have attempted to do this, very few have achieved it and only a handful have mastered it. Apple is a level above them. Of course this is not just down to the vision and charisma of Steven Jobs. Apple employs some of the most creative mind in the world and provides the conditions for them to create and innovate. The image of Steven Jobs walking around the office barefooted, chatting with his employees about ideas he or they has is characteristic about the company culture (Deutschman, 2010). In building nurseries, a small clinic, dentist, even a virtual reality game suits and more than twelve restaurants are but some of the benefits that Apple employees enjoy. Apple employees are encouraged to think outside the box, to speak up and always share their thoughts, opinions, as well as projects and ideas with their colleagues. It is an inspiring environment that actively promotes thinking. However, Apple has also contributed in the business creativity and innovation field its influence, or the influence its huge success has, to hundreds of other companies, most of them its competitors. Apple has forced its competitors to rethink their products and sales techniques, to focus on design, to innovate. Apple has made other companies creative, by changing the market and the consumers. Apple is a company that its actions reverberate in the entire business and consuming world, as well as in the technological developments of our era. Universities As the topic of this assignment requests for examples of institutes that promote creative thinking and creativity, Universities would not be mentioned here. Although, technically Universities are not companies, so they do not promote business creativity per say, they are the places, the incubators, where the next generation of CEOs, entrepreneurs, managers and directors are bummed. They are the places from where most great ideas start, and although some do not make it to the real world, some do and they change it, they live their mark and the mark of their creator on it. Examples like Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook, David Dell and Dell computers and Erik Wallenberg and Tetra Pak (Leander, 1996), are but few of thousands of great ideas that started in University. Universities are for some the most creative places in the world. They take kids and turn them into scientists and business man and leaders. Although corporate entrepreneurship does not apply here in the sense that applies with Google and Apple, individual imagination, radical viewing of the world and an environment that is designed particularly to direct the mind to create, to dream and image, more than makes up for it. The young human mind, still unshaped, still uncorrupted by the do-nots and should-nots of our world, has an unimaginable capacity for creativity, innovation and ideas generation. It only needs direction and encouragement. Universities are the creativity centres of this world. Corporations have to work closely with them in order to use this creativity in the production processes, as well as in business, for the production of new products and services and for the generation of wealth, and for the betterment of the humankind. Conclusion Creativity and innovation is the foundation of business development and the driving force behind the improvement in the quality of living the western societies have experienced the last centuries. Business is about profit and the generation of wealth. However, what motivates individuals is not just money. The human need to create and to contribute to the society, being social and belonging to a group or a big family, is a fundamental factor of creativity and innovation. Self-actualisation and status is also closely related with creativity. I think, there for I am (Britannica, 2012), to the words of Descartes, a 17th century French philosopher. Hoverer, creativity and innovation is not just food for the mind and the needs of us humans. Creativity and innovation is what has shared the world we leave in today. From the first human being that created the wheel, to creation of Democracy in ancient Greece, and from the industrial revolution to the digital revolution of our era, creativity, materialised to innovation, is everywhere, is our everyday life, our education, entertainment and work, our existence. Creativity can help us solve problems in our personal lives as well as in our business lives and can help a company overcome hard times and go from near bankruptcy to being one of the biggest and richest companies in the world (Apple). More importantly, creativity is that makes us better, what makes opens our minds and makes us see things differently and act differently. It has to be promoted, protected, and encouraged, by businesses, universities and governments alike. One can say that as the only intelligent species on this world, actually the only intelligent species known to exist in the Cosmos, is our destiny to create.

Concepts of Monopoly and Competition

Concepts of Monopoly and Competition Monopolistic competition is a particular market structure which means there are a large number of small firms and companies whose products and services are slightly differentiated with other competitors. (Stephen, I Stuart, W. 2007: 147) Such as food market, apparel market, light industry product market. The characteristics of monopolistic competition can divided into several parts. As Hunter (1969:19) said, to begin with, product differentiation includes both internal and external differences. Internal differences contain quality, capability and so on. External differences contain packing, advertising and so on. Moreover, the consumption of firms and industries are more. In addition, it is more easily for companies to enter the market due to no requirement for too much investment and no need for high technology. Furthermore, manufactures have a slight impact on prices which causes high influence in short run and low influence in long run. Last of all, they face the downward sloping section of its curve which means the elasticity is less than perfect competitive market and more than pure monopolistic market. Monopolistic competition is also called imperfect competition that combines the characteristics both of perfect competition and monopoly. In perfect competition, goods and services are identical so that firms can entry freely. In contrast, pure monopoly just has a single seller because their goods are unique and firms who have monopolistic power are as a price maker. Unlike these two structures, monopolistic competition has its own features between them. Long run defined that in a long period of time, whole scale of production can be varied. Normal profit is the minimum amount required to keep a firm in its current line of production. Monopolistic competition in the long run allows firms enter and exit until they are making exactly zero economic profit. From the diagram, it is easily to see the existence of supernormal profit gives much more freedom to the industry who wants to enter, and then the competition makes firms earn normal profit in the long run. To analyze the figures, firstly, consumers need to pay higher price than that paid in perfect competition because of the average cost curve is above the minimum point. (Stephen, I Stuart, W. 2007: 149)Secondly, price exceeds marginal cost which leads to more profit for the monopolistically competitive firm. Thirdly, there is excess capacity in the monopolistic competition in the long run. E which shows that the average cost curve is tangential to the demand curve is a balanced poin t. F shows the average cost at the minimum level. This situation causes the demand and marginal revenue curves move to the left. (Stephen, I Stuart, W. 2007: 149)While at the same time, the market system reaches the equilibrium which illustrates that no encouragement for new firms to entry and no encouragement for former companies exit. What is most important is to analyze the process of the monopolistic competition in the long run. There is an explanation illustrates that the super profits induce other firms to enter, because of barriers is small, other manufactures can through the imitation and innovation to start making a profit market faces decline in demand. As a result, the curve happen a movement in order to become more elastic and flexible. (Huge, G. Ray, R. 2004:187) Assume there is no changeable for cost curve and move the demand curve to the balanced point which is tangential to the average cost, until the prices equals to costs, resulting in profits for the long run equilibrium state of zero. There are many possible reasons for why monopolistic competitive market structure can only make normal profit. For example, first and foremost, the main reason for that is the supply increases, but at the same time the demand of products or services are stay in the same level, so there are surplus for industries. In order to sell products, supplier will decrease the price which may gives them chances to attract consumers and put losses to a minimum. When the prices fall as same as the cost, firms can just get the normal profit. (Shepherd, W. G. Shepherd, J. M. 2004:43)In addition, more and more firms enter the market system, because it is easy and no barriers so that firms are just do like other former firms, as time goes by, no innovation causes consumers do not have any more demand for goods which also lead the decreased price. Furthermore, in the long run, on the one hand, firms can not easily to cancel the large amount of investment. On the other hand, firms need to change all f actors of production to get more capacity which is very difficult. Last but not at least, although the products of monopolistic competition are different from each other but they still can be instead of other products. If other firms which can produce better quality goods appear, people will more likely to buy. In this situation, old firms need to change their price into low degree so that they can make sure their losses are in a minimum point. Hunter (1969:161) emphasizes that a company just make normal profit can continue its business. The key points to keep balance are demand curve is tangential to average cost, Po=AC and MR=MC. For instance, real estate market now is belonging to monopolistic competitive market. There are many kinds of real estate market which are different but still have some similarities. In these markets which have smaller differences between each other, there will be more competitions. Most of the real estate sellers try to get power to close to monopoly which can reduce more competitions. Change the quality of goods and rise up the promotion are two methods that always seen in society. But just in a short run, they can get abnormal profit unless they become pure monopoly. To conclude, monopolistic competition is a special market structure which related to its features and characteristics. The profit they can make in long run is only the normal profit which depends on the reasons above. It is a nature process and phenomenon. References: Hunter, A. (1969). Monopoly and competition. Penguin, Harmondsworth. Huge, G. Ray, R. ( 2004). Microeconomics. Harlow: Prentice Hall/ Financial Times. Stephen, I. Stuart, W. (2007). Economics. Great Britain, Ashford Colour Press, Hampshire. Shepherd, W. G. Shepherd, J. M. (2004). The economics of industrial organization. Long Grove, Ill.: Waveland Press.

Lorraine Hansberrys A Raisin In The Sun - Mama as the Ideal Mother Es

Mama as the Ideal Mother in A Raisin in the Sun      Ã‚  Ã‚   W. S. Ross once said â€Å"The hand that rocks the cradle is the hand that rules the world.†Ã‚   As simple as this quip may sound, its complex implications are amplified through the life of every person born since the beginning of humanity. What attribute makes a mother such an extraordinary influence over her young? One such attribute is the ability to nurture. Beyond the normal challenges of cooking, cleaning, schooling, singing, feeding, and changing is the motivation by which such sacrifices are made possible. One cannot raise a child without mutual respect. Emotion and anxiety must drive her instincts. Her ability to foster is only heightened by minute personal imperfections and overwhelming responsibility that lead to a lack of confidence. Yet the prevailing characteristic that separates a ‘birth giver’ from a ‘mother’ is the unconditional, undying, and at times underestimated love for her child. To be a mother in the purest sense, she must embrace this notion of nurture.      Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Respect is one of the most sought after elements of society second only to money. Some must have it. Others need to command it. Without it hearts filled with dreams shrivel up like â€Å"a raisin in the sun†(1730). An example of such a circumstance is observed with the character Walter Lee Younger. He is the son of Lena Younger in the play A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry. Walter is caught up with his dream to lead his family out of the ghetto by opening a liquor store (1736). He hopes to do so with an insurance settlement his mother will receive due to the death of her husband (1741).   Mama (Lena Younger) is opposed to the idea because of religious beliefs(1740). Walter then becomes li... ...ild. In the play, A Raisin in the Sun, by Lorraine Hansberry, Mama proves time and again that she is indeed an ideal mother.    Works Cited Brooks, Gwendolyn. â€Å"The Mother.† The Bedford Introduction to Literature. Ed. Michael Myer. New York: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 1999. 1081. Hadas, Rachel. â€Å"The Red Hat.† The Bedford Introduction to Literature. Ed. Michael Myer. New York: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 1999. 864-865. Hansberry, Lorraine. â€Å"A Raisin in the Sun.† The Bedford Introduction to Literature. Ed. Michael Myer. New York: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 1999. 1730-1793. Knight, Etheridge. â€Å"A Watts Mother Mourns While Boiling Beans.† The Bedford Introduction to Literature. Ed. Michael Meyer. 4th ed.   Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 1996. 972 Ross, W.S. . 1, Feb. 1998. Carolyn’s Universe  

Anesthetics :: essays research papers

  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Every thing in life has a question, every question in life has an answer, and every answer in life has a reason. My question is, why be an anesthesiologist? Well why be anything, why be parents, why be young, why is the world getting more and more violent. Because we want to be, we have to be, and that's just where the world is taking us. I want to help people I want to make a difference in the way that people feel. I could very easily be a psychologist but it takes one to know one and I don't want to do that. Being a doctor I have the chance to help people of all ages and I won’t be compromising my physical and mental health.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Going into surgery knocked out by an anesthetic is like stepping on to an airplane, because you are temporarily putting your life into what you hope are trained professionals. Anesthesia has revolutionized the way we look at surgery. Hundreds of new, better and safer anesthetics have been introduced in the past 40 years. Just think of how it would be to be one of the doctors to bring one those new advances into the world. How many millions of people would you be helping?   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Science is rapidly growing in the medical field every day their is a new discovery of a drug, or a procedure that works better than the old, so their for to be a part of the advancing age would be more gratifying than many other things that I can think of. An estimated 15 million people undergo anesthesia each year with only the rarest of complications. The most interesting thing about this miracle is that their is not a person on the face of this earth that can tell you what it is about the drugs we use that makes them do what they do. We don't even know how they work, or understand how they work. Yes this is a very scary thing but just think of the rewards and benefits that you could have if you could come with the answer to all those questions.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The fact is, is that we don't know any more now about anesthetics now than we did 150 years ago when we first started using them. Like many revolutions in medicine, anesthesia was first discovered by chance in the early 1900’s.

Analysis of Willy Russell’s Blood Brothers :: Theatre Drama Blood Brothers Plays Essays

Analysis of Willy Russell’s Blood Brothers Tell me it’s not true Say it’s just a story These words echoed in my head as I entered the Phoenix Theatre. I had had past experience with â€Å"Blood Brothers† by singing the heartbreaking ballad â€Å"Tell Me It’s Not True† in a past show. Therefore I anticipated that the performance I was about to watch was going to be a roller coaster of emotions, with bitter consequences. I expected a first class show with strong, slick performances from the cast and fantastic musical numbers. This expectation of â€Å"Blood Brothers† was partly due to it being in the reputable West End of London and had been running at the Phoenix Theatre since 1991. This made me think that a musical that could still have large audiences coming to see it in the highly competitive London Theatre scene, must have something exceptional. I also has background knowledge about â€Å"Blood Brothers† from reading the script in parts in class. However, some parts of the play were still patchy to me, so I was looking forward to having the entire story acted out from start to finish. It was interesting for me as well because I was familiar with other plays Willy Russell had written. Having seen Shirley Valentine and read â€Å"A Grand Day Out† I enjoyed his of simple, uncluttered style of writing. â€Å"Blood Brothers† is set in Liverpool 1962. Its story stems from an impoverished single mother of six called Mrs Johnstone who, by finding that she is pregnant with twins, is persuaded to give up one of her unborn children to her employer, Mrs Lyons. The story unfolds by portraying how the two brothers grow up so differently without ever knowing they have a twin. â€Å"Of one womb born, on the self same day How one was kept and one given away?† The story deepens when the twins become friends when they are seven but both realise that they have the same birthday and therefore are both â€Å"nearly eight†. They become best friends and declare one another to be their â€Å"Blood Brother†. From then on the story follows their persistence to remain friends and the obstacles each come up against. Sadly though, their forbidden friendship finally leads to one another’s tragic death; never knowing the truth that they were brothers. Never knowing they shared one name Till the day they died I never really absorbed the absurdity of the storyline because the script was so subtle in its telling of the story, and the performance of the cast didn’t over dramatise the events unfolding. If they had, it would have made the story have an unwanted comical element as it