Article Discourse Analysis: Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

Article Discourse Analysis: Israeli-Palestinian Conflict A Critical Discourse Analysis of an article on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict With increasing global media synergies, media studies seems to be gaining popularity in academia. One part of this discipline involves the close examination of media texts, be they written, spoken, or symbolic. To analyse texts linguistically, two dimensions are often considered: that of coherence, involving semantics or the construction of meaning, and that of cohesion, or syntax. This analysis can be done through various types of frameworks, including grounded theory, narrative semiotics, conversation analysis, and critical discourse analysis (CDA). According to Barthes (1994), texts are always multi-dimensional and their meanings are uncovered differently depending on the reader, context and setting. Particularly in the media, they are interconnected to other texts, through means such as quotations, indirect or direct references, photos or historical facts; thus, it could be said that the media produce and reproduce not only texts, but from these, social meaning, which is then further reinforced through subsequent intertextuality (Ibid). Baudrillard (2000) adds that language itself is not necessarily powerful; what makes it more so is its use by powerful people—in today’s society, this being epitomised by the globalised media. Critical discourse analysis is also sometimes referred to as critical linguistics (Wodak and Busch, 2004). Its roots lie in classical rhetoric, sociolinguistics and applied linguistics, and it is often used to illustrate the relationships that power, hierarchy, race and gender have with language (Fairclough, 1995). CDA is especially used today by academics that regard the discursive unit of a text to be one of the most basic units of communication. In fact, it is so widely used within scholarly environments that its legitimacy as a tool for examining power imbalances has been called into question by some, such as Billing (Wodak and Busch, 2004). He claims that because CDA has become so entrenched in academic discourses, it is thus subject to the same rituals and jargon as institutionalized knowledge, thus negating its potential to demystify the functions and intentions of CDA research. While these points are interesting and worthy of further exploration, the scope of this paper will not allow such examination, and furthermore, the assumptions of this paper are that CDA does, in fact, provide useful tools for critical analysis of media texts. Thus, this paper will apply CDA to one article by Rory McCarthy in the Guardian newspaper, dated Wednesday, December 12th, 2007. CDA will be employed to illustrate overt and underlying assumptions and beliefs, as well as the construction of social meaning. Wodak and Busch (2004) claim that all texts can help reproduce and produce unequal relationships in power between men and women, racial groups, social classes, ethnicities, and nations. This can be done through the creation of the Other, which involves the textual representation of a group as being ‘perpetrators and agents’ operating outside the law (Ibid, p. 99). They further claim that after the terrorist attacks of September 11, anti-Islamic prejudices became more pronounced in the media, which characterizes Muslims in anonymous and criminal terms (Ibid). Additionally, ‘strategies of generalization, blaming the victim, and victim-perpetrator reversal are increasingly prominent’ (Ibid, p.100). Analysing the text in the Guardian, these strategies do indeed seem to be in place. For example, actions attributed to Palestinians in the article often involved negative activities, whereas verbs related to the Israelis were more neutral: Palestinian actions: firing rockets, accused, complained, fired back, were detained, were reported, appeared to be Israeli actions: mounted an incursion, said, issue tenders for It is only when the voice of the article shifts from the writer to a direct quote from a Palestinian official that any harsher activities are attributed to the Israelis: sabotage, place obstacles The first sentence of the article is also interesting: Israeli troops in tanks and armoured vehicles mounted an incursion into Gaza yesterday, killing at least six Palestinians†¦.As many as 30 tanks and vehicles were involved in the operation†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦ Although the facts in the article imply that the Israeli army killed several Palestinians, it is important to note the syntax of the sentence removes direct responsibility from the army and pins it on ‘the incursion’. What is more, semantically, Israeli activity is never referred to as an ‘invasion’ or an ‘attack’ but is referred to as a mere ‘incursion’ or ‘operation’, or in the title, ‘Israeli tanks enter Gaza’. The Israelis have neutral ‘troops’ which are seeking ‘members of Islamic Jihad’ ‘a hardline Palestinian militant group’ or ‘Palestinian fighters’. These phrases imply that Palestinians are the only ones operating outside the law. Although it is clear from the facts stated in the article that Israel is the aggressor in this particular case: (tanks enter Gaza, killing at least six Palestinian militants) the writer felt it was necessary to include the feeble reaction of the Palestinians to this ‘incursion’ even though no Israelis were killed or even injured by the Palestinian action: ‘Palestinian fighters fired back’. This structure implies a fair battle, although it is abundantly clear that Israel is the only party here with fierce military power. The body count is kept low in the piece, which claims ‘at least six Palestinian militants’ were killed, rather than emphasizing a larger number, such as ‘about ten’ or even ‘half a dozen’ even though it seems certain that more than six were killed. Importantly, only the deaths of the ‘militants’ are mentioned here: it could be quite possible, then, that several hundred civilians were also killed. Although ‘as many as 30 tanks and vehicles’ seems a high number, the fact that these machines, and not people, were semantically involved in the invasion diminishes personal, human responsibility for the invasion and deaths. The sentence: ‘most of the dead appeared to be members of Islamic Jihad†¦Ã¢â‚¬â„¢ only slightly suggests the possibility that ‘innocent civilians’ were also killed in the attack, and the words ‘appeared to be’ mean that there was no firm confirmation that the dead were, in fact, members of Islamic Jihad. ‘Several Palestinians were reported injured’ is another vague sentence which refuses to offer quantitative data regarding how many were injured, or give information about who, exactly, gave this report, which makes it sound dubious. The simple use of Palestinians is also vague and fails to clearly state the possible injury of ‘innocent civilians’. The situatedness of this text historically and politically supports Barthe’s claim that social meaning is reinforced through intertextuality. There is no mention or even implication that the Palestinians are, in fact, fighting to free their homeland from an illegal oppressor, and there is also no overt mention of the illegitimacy and illegality of Israel’s acts: for example, by choosing the word ‘settlement’ in the sentence: ‘†¦an Israeli decision†¦to issue tenders for more than 300 houses in the East Jerusalem settlement of Har Homa’ allows for a form of Israeli ‘newspeak’ to whitewash what is essentially an illegal occupation that has destroyed the natural environment of the Abu Ghneim forest and stolen more land from the Palestinians (poica.org) . Moreover, there is no mention of how Israel has repeatedly been condemned by the United Nations for its illegal ‘settlements’ such as that in Har Homa (Ibid). In fact, after reading such an article as the one in the Guardian, readers could well be left wondering just why the Palestinians have been ‘firing rockets’ or why they have been ‘detained’ or have become ‘militants’, although the article makes Israeli grievances easier to understand by employing the very lexis just mentioned previously (as well as: Islamic Jihad, accuse, complain). Thus, victim-perpetrator relationships are skewed by the semantics and syntax used in the article. There is no doubt that Israel is an oppressive power and disturbing presence in the Middle East, yet it is rarely portrayed as such in the media. There could be several reasons for this, but one may reside in Foucault’s notion of discourse, which states that discourse is an institutionalized way of thinking about something, or in other words, it defines the limits of what constitutes acceptable speech on a topic. Discourse is thus related to power, and defining discourses are often taken to be defining of reality itself (Foucault, 1997). Wodak and Busch (2004) state that the dominant discourse on Israel generally supports this state, possibly as a kind of backlash after the blatantly anti-Semetic propaganda that was once so common in Europe before and during the Second World War, but also because power relationships have shifted: Israel is a key ally to the most powerful nations in the world, including the United Kingdom and the United States, and as mentioned by Baudrillard (2000), the powerful use language to keep power structures intact. The final sentence of the article illustrates this point well: Although Israeli and Palestinian leaders and negotiators have been meeting regularly for months, today’s meeting marks the beginning of talks intended eventually to bring the creation of an independent Palestinian state. This paragraph implies that talks to create a Palestinian state are just beginning, and that a Palestinian state could possibly be created for the first time. Both of these assumptions are erroneous. Without delving too deeply in the politics of the Middle East, it is generally known by most that shortly after Israel’s inception, talks to negotiate Arab/Jewish territory have gone on almost continually. Secondly, in 1919 Palestine was provisionally recognized as an independent nation by the League of Nations in League Covenant Article 22(4) as well as by the 1922 Mandate for Palestine that was awarded to Great Britain. This recognition continues today due to the conservatory clause found in Article 80(1) of the United Nations Charter (Boyle, ) . Thus, ‘the creation of an independent Palestinian state’ negates the fact that such a nation has already existed. Incidentally, legally, Israel does not have fixed and permanent borders (except most recently with respect to Egypt) and yet it is generally considered by the media to be a legitimate state (Ibid). What is important to note here is that history is practically being rewritten in the Guardian text. Van Djik’s (1990) explanation as to how this is possible is closely connected to Barthes (1994) and Baudrillard’s (2000) ideas mentioned above. He claims that journalists and media consumers own ‘mental models of the world’ and thus any text that is understood contains only the ‘tip of an iceberg of information’ (Ibid, p.6). The tip is expressed through syntax and semiotics, but the rest is assumed to be supplied by the underlying knowledge of previous texts. For this reason, Van Djik states that ‘the analysis of the implicit†¦is very useful in the study of underlying ideologies’ (Ibid, p.6). In conclusion, this paper has illustrated how critical discourse analysis can be a useful tool for unearthing implicit meanings in text, through the analysis of syntax, semiotics, and assumptions implicit through intertextuality. Furthermore, it has given examples of how current discourses of power can influence the content of media texts. There is no doubt that after several years of exposure to standard news formats, broadcasters and audiences alike are prone to overlooking the covert messages in news content. For this reason, a critical perspective is certainly important, and furthermore, if news texts are assumed to be a system of encoding reality, then the agendas of the encoders must be understood before a thorough deconstruction of their messages can be possible. Appendix 1 Israel tanks enter Gaza on eve of peace talks Rory McCarthy, Jerusalem Israeli troops in tanks and armoured vehicles mounted an incursion into Gaza yesterday, killing at least six Palestinian militants on the eve of a new round of peace talks. As many as 30 tanks and vehicles were involved in the operation in southern Gaza, near the Sufa crossing and close to the town of Khan Yunnis. Several Palestinians were reported injured. The Israeli military said it was a routine operation against militants, but Palestinian officials accused Israel of trying to disrupt the peace talks. Israeli and Palestinian negotiators were to meet today at the King David hotel in Jerusalem to start a new process of talks in the wake of the Middle East conference in Annapolis late last month. Palestinian officials have already complained about an Israeli decision last week to issue tenders for more than 300 houses in the East Jerusalem settlement of Har Homa. ‘The Israeli policy of escalation aims to sabotage and place obstacles before the negotiations even before they start,’ said Nabil Abu Rdeneh, a spokesman for the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas. Most of the dead appeared to be members of Islamic Jihad, a small but hardline Palestinian militant group which ahs been responsible for firing makeshift rockets from Gaza into Israel. Around 60 Palestinians were detained in what was the largest Israeli operation in months. Palestinian fighters fired back and hit one Israeli tank. Although Israeli and Palestinian leaders and negotiators have been meeting regularly for months, today’s meeting marks the beginning of talks intended to eventually bring the creation of an independent Palestinian state. References Barthes, R, (1994) Mythologies, Hill and Wang, London Baudrillard, J, (2000), Routledge Critical Thinkers, Routledge Publishing, London Boyle, F, (2007) Elements of Palestinian Statehood, in The European Journal of International Law, Vol.18 No 3 Fairclough, N (1995) Critical Discourse Analysis, Longman, Harlow. Foucault, M (1997) The Politics of Truth, Semiotext(e), France McCarthy, R, Israel tanks enter Gaza on eve of peace talks, in the Guardian, December 12, 2007 Van Djik, T. A. (1990). Discourse Society, in Van Djik, T. A (ed.), (2007) A New Journal for a New Research Focus, Volume 18 No 2, Sage Publications, London Wodak, R and Busch, B, (2004) Approaches to Media Studies, in Downing, J, The Sage Handbook of Media Studies, Sage, London http://www.poica.org/editor/case_studies/view.php?recordID=1207

The Ageing Population in Mauritius

The Ageing Population in Mauritius Discussions Impact of aging population in Mauritius The first objective of this study aims to provide a thorough understanding of the actual impacts of aging population in Mauritius. Since old people retire from their jobs, the incomes they generate are reduced and thus they have to rely on pensions or insurances. Consequently, the aging population is very often faced with income security and poverty. Among the 80 questionnaires that were distributed, there were 18.5% of the respondents were above 65 years. This was a very significant number and was the second larger percentage after the age group of 20-35 years. Moreover, the Mauritius Statistics forecasts that 20% of the Mauritian population will be above 65 years by 2025. One of the main impacts of an aging population is that it increases the dependency ratio. There are relatively more people claiming pension benefits and less people working to pay taxes. With the ever-growing aging population in Mauritius, it is probable that this will cause problems in the future. Though 14.8% of the respondents still live with their grand-parents and 12.3% of them still help their grand-parents financially, the dependency on the pension benefits do not seem to decrease. Another impact is the increased Government spending on health care and pensions. In UK, the old age pension is currently  £113.10 per pensioners per week (Population Ageing Statistics, Rutherford) as compared to Mauritius, where the pension fund is Rs5, 000 per pensioners per month. Since the percentage of old age is said to increase to up to 25% by 2025, the Government spending will increase even more. Presently, the budget for old age health problems amounts to approximately Rs9.7 billion per year and with a promising and significant growth in the number of old people in the future, Mauritius is likely to face serious budget issues. As such, as demonstrated in table 4.5 in the previous chapter, 56.8% people have that working people should pay a token for the elders’ medical services. This gesture can remove a huge burden from the Government expenditure since people are not prepared to remove old age pension funds even if an alternative, such as building homes for the elder ly with all their required needs, is given to the old people as shown by the majority of people who voted ‘No’ to the suggestion. Moreover, an aging population directs to a shortage of workers in a country. Since the old people retire and live on pension, and there are lesser number of new-borns to eventually work to pay taxes, the country faces a lack of workers. Mauritius is not far behind from a shortage of workers. In this effect, 48.1% of the respondents thought that encouraging Mauritians to reproduce will solve the problem whereas 50.6% of them thought it would be better to hire immigrants to work here. Furthermore, since Mauritius will be putting a higher percentage of income into pension funds in the future, due to the increasing amount of old people, it could reduce the amount of savings available for more productive investments. Thus, leading to lower rates of economic growth. Impact of security budget on aging population The second objective emphasizes on the impact of security budget on aging population. With greater number of old people, comes greater expenses in terms of security. As of now, the Government is spending approximately Rs27.1 billion on social security solely in the year 2015 and as per our research conducted by the questionnaire, 38.3% people feel concern about this amount of expenditure only on social security. 76.5% of the respondents agreed that the well-off should be cut off from pension facilities. This is a considerable idea because the Government is spending way too much money on old people and getting nothing-in terms of finance-in return. Though many people (approximately 75.3% of the respondents) thought that the newly elected Government was right to increase old age pension from Rs3, 600 to R5, 000 in December 2014, a significant percentage (61.7) agreed that it was merely a political technique to gain votes. This increase in the pension fund has resulted in an increase of over 50% in the Government expenditure as compared in 2014. Over 186, 000 people benefit from the universal pension. The National Monetary Fund (IMF) has already sounded the alarm about the aging population of Mauritius that could jeopardize the national pension fund. The financial institution recommends an urgent review of the payment of this social benefit formula. As concluded by a Working Paper of the IMF entitled Pension Reforms in Mauritius; Fair and Fast Balancing Social Protection and Fiscal Sustainability, Mauritius’ old age pension situation is considered unsustainable in the long term. While now it amounts to 5% of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), funding for different pension schemes should reach 11% in 45 years. The aging population is putting strong pressure on public finances. The number of people over 60 years will be 50% in 2050, whereas they represented 13% of the population in 2013. The result of expenditures on pension benefits, especially the non-contributory pension scheme will be exacerbated (Takoor, Petri, and Martin). If major reforms are not undertaken, the pension funds could cause a shortfall and could eventually be liability for the state especially when 79.0% of the respondents said they are not ready to further sustain the social security financially, besides their contributions in VAT and NPF. Problems faced because of gender in an aging population According to a study made by the UN organisation, women make up a significantly larger share of the older population. This is because women tend to live longer than men and thus rendering them more dependent on health care facilities and pensions schemes provided by their country. In 2014, Mundi calculated the ratio of females to males above 65 years old to be 66, 643: 45, 145 of the total population. The elderly dependency ratio was calculated to be 12.8%. Also, the UN found that older women experience some of the lowest literacy rates in the world. Average levels of illiteracy for women aged 65 or over are as high as 78% in Africa and 53% in Asia, compared to 58% and 29% respectively for men in these regions. This seriously impacts on the lives of the older women, preventing them from accessing health services, securing incomes, and moving out of poverty. Moreover, the fact that women’s life expectancy is greater than men’s means that health problems that increase with age, such as disability, affect a greater number of women worldwide. It is anticipated that the overall prevalence and severity of disability among older women will continue to increase, in line with the growing aging population and the higher proportion of women in the old age groups. For example, older women are more likely to suffer from blindness than older men, especially in low-income countries where 44% of cases are caused by cataracts. The greater the number of older women, the greater is the dependency on health care services. Furthermore, despite increased awareness of abuse, discrimination, and violence against women, concerns over the situation of older women have largely been ignored. Data on violence against women over the age of 60 is severely limited and research focusing on abuse of older women tends to be confined to developed countries and based on small sample sizes. Impact of sustainability on the level of protection of the old age The challenge for the future is â€Å"to ensure that people everywhere can grow old with security and dignity and that they can continue to participate in social life as citizens with full rights†. At the same time â€Å"the rights of old people should not be incompatible with those of other groups, and reciprocal intergenerational relations should be encouraged.†(United Nations, World Population Ageing 1950-2050, Population Division) Social protection of the old age approach has addressed the multiple interlinked global challenges of poverty eradication, environmental sustainability, and economic equity, and gender equality, equitable distribution of resources, human rights, and inequality. In Mauritius, though about 50% of old people do not take public transport, the latter is still free for people above 60 years old. However, about 21.0% find that this system should be abolished. Basic income security for people in old age is considered as necessary to avoid poverty among the old age. However, approximately 49.4% of Mauritians find that Rs5, 000 is a risk factor to the life of the elders. This amount of money is considered to be too much and can put the life of the elders at stake. Conclusion This chapter has discussed the various objectives of the research work together with the data that was obtained and calculated in the previous chapter, data analysis. As shown, some data obtained were in line with the objectives of this study. The next chapter will talk about the proposed recommendations. Recommendations and Conclusion Introduction In this chapter we will propose a list of recommendations of how the impacts of aging population can be minimised. We will also recommend ways in which the security budget can be controlled, how gender equality and equity can be ensured, and how to ensure a sustainability in the aging population of Mauritius. Housing for seniors: Elder friendly housing Specific measures can be taken to facilitate the development of retirement housing by the private sector, in particular, varying the length of land leases to lower land costs, to facilitate elders’ needs in terms of housing. Also, through a review of the Code on Barrier-Free Accessibility, the Government can consider introducing guidelines for the provision of accessibility and safety features in the homes for the elder people so that they have a more elder-friendly environment to live in. in this way, the elders will more likely have a healthy lifestyle and thus lessening the health expenditure for the Government. Stretching the workforce and working hours The participation rates of women and elderly people in the workforce should be increased to ensure more contribution is being brought economically to Mauritius. According to the Organisation of Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), 49% of the people aged between 60 to 64 years old in USA are still gainfully employed. There are many ways in which a higher participation of the ‘young’ seniors (aged between 60 and 65) can be achieved. Among them, the most important are to correct the inducement of early retirement, reduce the period of entitlement to unemployment benefits, and eliminate high severance payment, extensive job dismissal protection as well as seniority principles. Also, by implementing new child-minding arrangements and more creative working time models and speeding up organisational reforms, the participation of women within the workforce can be increased. Additionally, the annual working and/or average weekly times can also be increased such that fewer workers have to work for more hours in order to compensate for a negative demographic effect on potential growth. Thus, a higher share of women will be put in the workforce and a greater number of part-time jobs will be switched to full-time positions. It will also require an increase in collectively agreed weekly working times. Migration Immigration can help to slow down the process of aging and shrinking of the population and mitigate its negative economic consequences. The younger, more flexible and better qualified the population, the more favourable the outcome will be. Mauritius should promote migration and set suitable migration policies where the policies do not only stop at identifying suitable immigrants but also help them integrate well into the society. It is also very important for Mauritius to promote harmonious race relations-which is not very difficult, considering the fact that we are ourselves a multi-racial nation. Better use of existing resources and adoption of new technologies. We can help people to stay active, healthy and autonomous by building age-friendly cities and â€Å"smart homes† that deploy a range of monitoring and supportive devices to help older people manage life more effectively. We can re-engineer health systems to focus on disease prevention and early screening, rather than on expensive intervention. With these measures, we will contribute to creating better quality lives for older people: lives that are also inclusive and sustainable. Preventing falls strategies Given the magnitude of this public health problem, policymakers should elevate falls prevention as a priority and support policies and programs that aim to reduce risk factors among older adult populations. This may be accomplished in multiple ways. For instance, increased funding may be provided to Area Agencies on aging for broader implementation of community-based falls prevention programs. Certain falls prevention strategies, such as home safety assessments, could also be integrated into existing senior outreach services and programs, such as Meals on Wheels. Enhance opportunities for physical activities among older adults It is recommended that policymakers enhance the opportunities for physical activity among the elders. Especially, they should implement policies and targeted strategies that support active living for seniors. This involves identifying and addressing the barriers that currently prevent seniors from participating in physical activities, ramping up education and outreach efforts, and promoting community-based programs that incorporate strength, endurance, balance, flexibility training programs. Some communities for elders offer other social benefits, such as peer interaction and support. This should be put into practice by all the communities for the elderly. Additionally, policymakers should support a broad continuum of programs, ranging from low to high intensity levels, available to people of all abilities, cultures, and ethnic backgrounds. 6.7 Additional benefits for additional years worked Some countries offer financial incentives to workers who keep on working even though they have reached their retirement age. Normally, the incentives are calculated on the basis of contribution period, for example, an additional day, month, quarter, or year worked after the retirement age. They can come be in the form of a single bonus payment or a percentage increase in the final pension. If Mauritius were to adopt this system, it will ensure more people working and thus more people paying the taxes. Encourage employers to retain and recruit older workers The Government should encourage employers to retain and recruit older workers. One way in which this can be achieved is for the Government to directly contribute to the consts of employing older workers (Gineste, 2012). Reducing unemployment benefits for older people Reducing unemployment benefits and lowering pensions could be an incentive to work longer. If the elders have lower pensions and reduced unemployment benefits, they will be more keen to work for longer periods of time so that they achieve a more satisfying and comfortable lifestyle for the time when they are not able to work at all. 6.10 Conclusion This research work has tried to highlight the impacts of the aging population and appraise what is being done the Ministry of Social Security, National Solidarity, and Reform Institutions to bring about a sustainable development in the aging population of Mauritius. With the decrease in fertility and mortality rates, life expectancy at birth has increased drastically. And despite this rapid aging population, it can be said that the Government, along with the concerned institutions, are striving to keep the population an economically productive and healthy one. To conclude we have also tried to formulate some suggestions which can be implemented in order to ensure that the aging population process stays in control and that Mauritius does not suffer or at least suffers the minimum impact of such a population.

Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness and Carl Jungs Principle of Opposite

Carl Jung was a pioneer of psychoanalytic theory along with his former partner and mentor, Sigmund Freud. Though Jung split from Freud and diverged onto his own unbeaten trail of psychoanalysis two years before his decease, they are both highly revered for the myriad of ways in which they developed the understanding of the mind. Parallel to this period, Joseph Conrad penned and published the novella Heart of Darkness, which tackled much of what Jung had found about the psyche and its inner workings. In Heart of Darkness, both Marlow and Kurtz are representations of strong reoccurring archetypes within human myth, religion, and folklore. They work together to epitomize one of Jung’s Cores of Personality: the Principle of Opposites. The Principle of Opposites states that both sides of opposite pairs—good and bad, light and dark, joy and despair, et cetera—are present to complete the other. In this way, Marlow and Kurtz are opposite replications of each other in Co nrad’s Heart of Darkness; they are doppelgà ¤ngers that complete each other, as in Jungian theory. Marlow is the raconteur of Heart of Darkness, and therefore is one of the more crucial characters within the plot. He embodies the willingness to be valiant, resilient, and gallant, while similarly seeming to be cautiously revolutionary. He is, seemingly the epitome of bravery, going into the jungle. Marlow’s voyage is, in essence, a â€Å"night journey into the unconscious, the confrontation with an entity within the self† (Guerard 38). The ominous coast is an allegory for the idea of the unconscious mind. â€Å"Watching a coast as it slips by the ship [†¦] there it is before you—smiling, frowning, inviting, grand, mean, insipid, or savage, and always mute with an air of whispering† (1... ...Works Cited Burke, Colleen. "Colleen Burke - Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness - A Metaphor Of Jungian Psychology." 15 Nov. 2011. . Conrad, Joseph, and Paul B. Armstrong. Heart of Darkness: Authoritative Text, Backgrounds and Contexts, Criticism. New York: W.W. Norton &, 2006. Guerard, Albert J. Conrad the Novelist. Cambridge, MA.: Harvard U. Press, 1958. Hughs, Richard E. The Lively Image: Four Myths in Literature. Cambridge, MA: Winthrop Publishers, 1975. Jung, C. G. Collected Works of C. G. Jung, Vol. 9, Part 1., 2nd ed., Princeton University Press, 1968. 451 p. (p. 54-72). Lord, George de Forest. Trials of the Self: Heroic Ordeals in the Epic Tradition Hamden, Conn.: Archon Books, 1983. Spivack, Charlotte. "The Journey to Hell: Satan, The Shadow, and the Self." Centennial Review 9:4 (1965): 420 - 437.

Stocking the Online Community :: Internet Web Cyberspace Essays

Stocking the Online Community I must have a net worth of one million dollars by the time I'm forty. Sounds like a plan to me. Retirement, living the good life. My plan would be to go to school full?time, quit the job, and move into the country. (Not necessarily in that order) The Ad's I see have to be working for someone. The internet and stock trading were meant for each other. More and more people are getting on the band wagon so get on early. "But these hot High?tech stocks and you can't miss," followed by, "The next five winning I.P.O.'s free, just log onto www...." Sure there is some risk involved but people are making a ton of money and I want my share. Show me where to buy. I have some cash put aside I can risk it, I'm young. I can go online find a couple reputable communities, put out the feelers and take the plunge. The help will be free, I'll just give them my email address and they can send me junk mail. It's not hard to delete it. I will have to do some research to find someone to purchase stocks thro ugh that does not charge too much. In addition, I'll need a source for researching which stocks to buy. One or two emergent stocks, buy and sell at the right time and I'm on my way to early retirement. The operation I buy the stocks from will need to have a low price for trades and a low starting balance. It must be quick and easy to trade stocks and I will need quick confirmation to know how much money I've made. Not through the web but in a magazine article I found a rating of six online trading companies they are Scottrade, E?Trade, Suretrade, Smith Barney, Charles Schwab and DLJ Direct. The two most important things to me are the cost of a trade and the amount and quality of access to research. Scottrade has the lowest trade price of $5.95 and Smith Barney with the highest at $24.95. The research is especially good with Smith Barney and Charles Schwab slightly below in quality is Suretrade. Another thing I learned is that most of these companies require a minimum balance to start, E?Trade wants $1000 while Smith Barney starts with $2000. While Suretrade requires no minimum and Scottrade requires only $200. Stocking the Online Community :: Internet Web Cyberspace Essays Stocking the Online Community I must have a net worth of one million dollars by the time I'm forty. Sounds like a plan to me. Retirement, living the good life. My plan would be to go to school full?time, quit the job, and move into the country. (Not necessarily in that order) The Ad's I see have to be working for someone. The internet and stock trading were meant for each other. More and more people are getting on the band wagon so get on early. "But these hot High?tech stocks and you can't miss," followed by, "The next five winning I.P.O.'s free, just log onto www...." Sure there is some risk involved but people are making a ton of money and I want my share. Show me where to buy. I have some cash put aside I can risk it, I'm young. I can go online find a couple reputable communities, put out the feelers and take the plunge. The help will be free, I'll just give them my email address and they can send me junk mail. It's not hard to delete it. I will have to do some research to find someone to purchase stocks thro ugh that does not charge too much. In addition, I'll need a source for researching which stocks to buy. One or two emergent stocks, buy and sell at the right time and I'm on my way to early retirement. The operation I buy the stocks from will need to have a low price for trades and a low starting balance. It must be quick and easy to trade stocks and I will need quick confirmation to know how much money I've made. Not through the web but in a magazine article I found a rating of six online trading companies they are Scottrade, E?Trade, Suretrade, Smith Barney, Charles Schwab and DLJ Direct. The two most important things to me are the cost of a trade and the amount and quality of access to research. Scottrade has the lowest trade price of $5.95 and Smith Barney with the highest at $24.95. The research is especially good with Smith Barney and Charles Schwab slightly below in quality is Suretrade. Another thing I learned is that most of these companies require a minimum balance to start, E?Trade wants $1000 while Smith Barney starts with $2000. While Suretrade requires no minimum and Scottrade requires only $200.

Communities Essay -- Group Communication Community Essays

Communitites When most people talk about community, they think of a location, an area in which people live. By definition â€Å"community† is a group of people living in the same location and under the same government. Community can also be defined as a group of people with the same common interests or segments in society. However, these definitions, which can be found in any dictionary, are only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to explaining what community really is. Community is the memories and traditions of a certain area, as well as the interactions and responsibilities of its members. In order to truly belong to a community people must follow a set of values. These communal values are needed to provide stability among communities in this ever changing world. In the past ten years, with the advent of the internet and many other forms of communication, communities have become less interactive and isolated. In this paper I will be discussing the purpose of communal values and why t hey should be protected. Having a sense of belonging within a community is very important. Many people who have moved since childhood will always remember where they grew up. It is the memories and history they have there that will always make it home. In the play The Piano Lesson, the author shows the conflict between Boy Willie and his sister Berniece both of whom are African American. The conflict of the story centers on gaining a sense of belonging from one’s past. Boy Willie wishes to buy the land where his ancestors were slaves. In doing this Boy Willie must sell an antique piano which has been in his family for generations. Berniece wishes to hold on to the antique piano because it holds the history of their family in its unique carvings. In Boy Willie’s mind, gaining the piece of land would make his life meaningful and give him a sense of belonging. This story shows how the powerful bonds of memories and history are enough to create conflict between even the closest individuals. However , sense of belonging in a community does not require the history and memories of a place. People can gain a sense of belonging from simple but meaningful acts within the community. In Scott Russell Sanders’s essay on community, he explains how simple acts such as making bread with his daughter and children from the neighborhood gives him a sense of belonging and hope. Communal inte... ...o their communities as a whole. Throughout this paper we see the common problem of limiting the interactions between community members, and how this will hurt communities. Only when these issues become so evident that they begin to cause large problems will they be looked at, and by that time it could be too late. Schools now should be teaching children the importance of group thought and how it forms the basis of community structure around the world. The children of the future must not be sheltered from the outside world with new technology and packaged communities. Works Cited Collie, Tim. â€Å"In 21st Century, Americans are increasingly mobile creatures.† Sun-Sentinel [Fort Lauderdale, FL] 3 Jan. 2001: A4. Ehrenfeld, David. â€Å"Pseudocommunities.† Vitek and Jackson 20-24. Kline, David. â€Å"An Amish Perspective.† Vitek and Jackson 35-40. Paige, Harry W. â€Å"Leave If You Can.† Vitek and Jackson 11-14. Sanders, Scott Russell. â€Å"The Common Life.† Vitek and Jackson 40-49. Tall, Deborah. â€Å"Dwelling: Making Peace with Space and Place.† Vitek and Jackson 104-12. Vitek, William, and Wes Jackson, eds. Rooted In The Lan: Essays on Community and Place. New Haven: Yale UP, 1996.

Bag of Bones CHAPTER FOURTEEN

The ringing of the phone or, more accurately, the way I received the ringing of the phone was as familiar as the creaks of my chair or the hum of the old IBM Selectric. It seemed to come from far away at first, then to approach like a whistling train coming down on a crossing. There was no extension in my office or Jo's; the upstairs phone, an old-fashioned rotary-dial, was on a table in the hall between them in what Jo used to call ‘no-man's-land.' The temperature out there must have been at least ninety degrees, but the air still felt cool on my skin after the office. I was so oiled with sweat that I looked like a slightly pot-bellied version of the muscle-boys I sometimes saw when I was working out. ‘Hello?' ‘Mike? Did I wake you? Were you sleeping?' It was Mattie, but a different one from last night. This one wasn't afraid or even tentative; this one sounded so happy she was almost bubbling over. It was almost certainly the Mattie who had attracted Lance Devore. ‘Not sleeping,' I said. ‘Writing a little.' ‘Get out! I thought you were retired.' ‘I thought so, too,' I said, ‘but maybe I was a little hasty. What's going on? You sound over the moon.' ‘I just got off the phone with John Storrow ‘ Really? How long had I been on the second floor, anyway? I looked at my wrist and saw nothing but a pale circle. It was half-past freckles and skin o'clock, as we used to say when we were kids; my watch was downstairs in the north bedroom, probably lying in a puddle of water from my overturned night-glass. ‘ his age, and that he can subpoena the other son!' ‘Whoa,' I said. ‘You lost me. Go back and slow down.' She did. Telling the hard news didn't take long (it rarely does): Storrow was coming up tomorrow. He would land at County Airport and stay at the Lookout Rock Hotel in Castle View. The two of them would spend most of Friday discussing the case. ‘Oh, and he found a lawyer for you,' she said. ‘To go with you to your deposition. I think he's from Lewiston.' It all sounded good, but what mattered a lot more than the bare facts was that Mattie had recovered her will to fight. Until this morning (if it was still morning; the light coming in the window above the broken air conditioner suggested that if it was, it wouldn't be much longer) I hadn't realized how gloomy the young woman in the red sundress and tidy white sneakers had been. How far down the road to believing she would lose her child. ‘This is great. I'm so glad, Mattie.' ‘And you did it. If you were here, I'd give you the biggest kiss you ever had.' ‘He told you you could win, didn't he?' ‘Yes.' ‘And you believe him.' ‘Yes!' Then her voice dropped a little. ‘He wasn't exactly thrilled when I told him I'd had you over to dinner last night, though.' ‘No,' I said. ‘I didn't think he would be.' ‘I told him we ate in the yard and he said we only had to be inside together for sixty seconds to start the gossip.' ‘I'd say he's got an insultingly low opinion of Yankee lovin,' I said, ‘but of course he's from New York.' She laughed harder than my little joke warranted, I thought. Out of semi-hysterical relief that she now had a couple of protectors? Because the whole subject of sex was a tender one for her just now? Best not to speculate. ‘He didn't paddle me too hard about it, but he made it clear that he would if we did it again. When this is over, though, I'm having you for a real meal. We'll have everything you like, just the way you like it.' Everything you like, just the way you like it. And she was, by God and Sonny Jesus, completely unaware that what she was saying might have another meaning I would have bet on it. I closed my eyes for a moment, smiling. Why not smile? Everything she was saying sounded absolutely great, especially once you cleared the confines of Michael Noonan's dirty mind. It sounded like we might have the expected fairy-tale ending, if we could keep our courage and hold our course. And if I could restrain myself from making a pass at a girl young enough to be my daughter . . . outside of my dreams, that was. If I couldn't, I probably deserved whatever I got. But Kyra wouldn't. She was the hood ornament in all this, doomed to go wherever the car took her. If I got any of the wrong ideas, I'd do well to remember that. ‘If the judge sends Devore home empty-handed, I'll take you out to Renoir Nights in Portland and buy you nine courses of French chow,' I said. ‘Storrow, too. I'll even spring for the legal beagle I'm dating on Friday. So who's better than me, huh?' ‘No one I know,' she said, sounding serious. ‘I'll pay you back for this, Mike. I'm down now, but I won't always be down. If it takes me the rest of my life, I'll pay you back.' ‘Mattie, you don't have to ‘ ‘I do,' she said with quiet vehemence. ‘I do. And I have to do something else today, too.' ‘What's that?' I loved hearing her sound the way she did this morning so happy and free, like a prisoner who has just been pardoned and let out of jail but already I was looking longingly at the door to my office. I couldn't do much more today, I'd end up baked like an apple if I tried, but I wanted another page or two, at least. Do what you want, both women had said in my dreams. Do what you want. ‘I have to buy Kyra the big teddybear they have at the Castle Rock Wal-Mart,' she said. ‘I'll tell her it's for being a good girl because I can't tell her it's for walking in the middle of the road when you were coming the other way.' ‘Just not a black one,' I said. The words were out of my mouth before I knew they were even in my head. ‘Huh?' Sounding startled and doubtful. ‘I said bring me back one,' I said, the words once again out and down the wire before I even knew they were there. ‘Maybe I will,' she said, sounding amused. Then her tone grew serious again. ‘And if I said anything last night that made you unhappy, even for a minute, I'm sorry. I never for the world ‘ ‘Don't worry,' I said. ‘I'm not unhappy. A little confused, that's all. In fact I'd pretty much forgotten about Jo's mystery date.' A lie, but in what seemed to me to be a good cause. ‘That's probably for the best. I won't keep you go on back to work. It's what you want to do, isn't it?' I was startled. ‘What makes you say that?' ‘I don't know, I just . . . ‘ She stopped. And I suddenly knew two things: What she had been about to say, and that she wouldn't say it. I dreamed about you last night. I dreamed about us together. were going to make love and one of us said ‘Do what you want.' Or maybe, I don't know, maybe we both said it. Perhaps sometimes ghosts were alive minds and desires divorced from their bodies, unlocked impulses floating unseen. Ghosts from the id, spooks from low places. ‘Mattie? Still there?' ‘Sure, you bet. Do you want me to stay in touch? Or will you hear all you need from John Storrow?' ‘If you don't stay in touch, I'll be pissed at you. Royally.' She laughed. ‘I will, then. But not when you're working. Goodbye, Mike. And thanks again. So much.' I told her goodbye, then stood there for a moment looking at the old fashioned Bakelite phone handset after she had hung up. She'd call and keep me updated, but not when I was working. How would she know when that was? She just would. As I'd known last night that she was lying when she said Jo and the man with the elbow patches on the sleeves of his sportcoat had walked off toward the parking lot. Mattie had been wearing a pair of white shorts and a halter top when she called me, no dress or skirt required today because it was Wednesday and the library was closed on Wednesday. You don't know any of that. You're just making it up. But I wasn't. If I'd been making it up, I probably would have put her in something a little more suggestive a Merry Widow from Victoria's Secret, perhaps. That thought called up another. Do what you want, they had said. Both of them. Do what you want. And that was a line I knew. While on Key Largo I'd read an Atlantic Monthly essay on pornography by some feminist. I wasn't sure which one, only that it hadn't been Naomi Wolf or Camille Paglia. This woman had been of the conservative stripe, and she had used that phrase. Sally Tisdale, maybe? Or was my mind just hearing echo-distortions of Sara Tidwell? Whoever it had been, she'd claimed that ‘do what I want' was the basis of erotica which appealed to women and ‘do what you want' was the basis of pornography which appealed to men. Women imagine speaking the former line in sexual situations; men imagine having the latter line spoken to them. And, the writer went on, when real-world sex goes bad sometimes turning violent, sometimes shaming, sometimes just unsuccessful from the female partner's point of view porn is often the unindicted co-conspirator. The man is apt to round on the woman angrily and cry, ‘You wanted me to! Quit lying and admit it! You wanted me to!' The writer claimed it was what every man hoped to hear in the bedroom: Do what you want. Bite me, sodomize me, lick between my toes, drink wine out of my navel, give me a hairbrush and raise your ass for me to paddle, it doesn't matter. Do what you want. The door is closed and we are here, but really only you are here, I am just a willing extension of your fantasies and only you are here. I have no wants of my own, no needs of my own, no taboos. Do what you want to this shadow, this fantasy, this ghost. I'd thought the essayist at least fifty per cent full of shit; the assumption that a man can find real sexual pleasure only by turning a woman into a kind of jackoff accessory says more about the observer than the participants. This lady had had a lot of jargon and a fair amount of wit, but underneath she was only saying what Somerset Maugham, Jo's old favorite, had had Sadie Thompson say in ‘Rain,' a story written eighty years before: men are pigs, filthy, dirty pigs, all of them. But we are not pigs, as a rule, not beasts, or at least not unless we are pushed to the final extremity. And if we are pushed to it, the issue is rarely sex; it's usually territory. I've heard feminists argue that to men sex and territory are interchangeable, and that is very far from the truth. I padded back to the office, opened the door, and behind me the telephone rang again. And here was another familiar sensation, back for a return visit after four years: that anger at the telephone, the urge to simply rip it out of the wall and fire it across the room. Why did the whole world have to call while I was writing? Why couldn't they just . . . well. . let me do what I wanted? I gave a doubtful laugh and returned to the phone, seeing the wet handprint on it from my last call. ‘Hello?' ‘I said to stay visible while you were with her.' ‘Good morning to you, too, Lawyer Storrow.' ‘You must be in another time-zone up there, chum. I've got one-fifteen down here in New York.' ‘I had dinner with her,' I said. ‘Outside. It's true that I read the little kid a story and helped put her to bed, but ‘ ‘I imagine half the town thinks you're bopping each other's brains out by now, and the other half will think it if I have to show up for her in court.' But he didn't sound really angry; I thought he sounded as though he was having a happy-face day. ‘Can they make you tell who's paying for your services?' I asked. ‘At the custody hearing, I mean?' ‘Nope.' ‘At my deposition on Friday?' ‘Christ, no. Durgin would lose all credibility as guardian ad litem if he went in that direction. Also, they have reasons to steer clear of the sex angle. Their focus is on Mattie as neglectful and perhaps abusive. Proving that Mom isn't a nun quit working around the time Kramer vs. Kramer came out in the movie theaters. Nor is that the only problem they have with the issue.' He now sounded positively gleeful. ‘Tell me.' ‘Max Devore is eighty-five and divorced. Twice divorced, in point of fact. Before awarding custody to a single man of his age, secondary custody has to be taken into consideration. It is, in fact, the single most important issue, other than the allegations of abuse and neglect levelled at the mother.' ‘What are those allegations? Do you know?' ‘No. Mattie doesn't either, because they're fabrications. She's a sweetie, by the way ‘ ‘Yeah, she is.' ‘ and I think she's going to make a great witness. I can't wait to meet her in person. Meantime, don't sidetrack me. We're talking about secondary custody, right?' ‘Right.' ‘Devore has a daughter who has been declared mentally incompetent and lives in an institution somewhere in California Modesto, I think. Not a good bet for custody.' ‘It wouldn't seem so.' ‘The son, Roger, is . . . ‘ I heard a faint fluttering of notebook pages. ‘ . . . fifty-four. So he's not exactly a spring chicken, either. Still, there are lots of guys who become daddies at that age nowadays; it's a brave new world. But Roger is a homosexual.' I thought of Bill Dean saying, Rump-wrangler. Understand there's a lot of that going around out them in California. ‘I thought you said sex doesn't matter.' ‘Maybe I should have said hetero sex doesn't matter. In certain states California is one of them homo sex doesn't matter, either . . . or not as much. But this case isn't going to be adjudicated in California. It's going to be adjudicated in Maine, where folks are less enlightened about how well two married men married to each other, I mean can raise a little girl.' ‘Roger Devore is married?' Okay. I admit it. I now felt a certain horrified glee myself. I was ashamed of it Roger Devore was just a guy living his life, and he might not have had much or anything to do with his elderly dad's current enterprise but I felt it just the same. ‘He and a software designer named Morris Ridding tied the knot in 1996,' John said. ‘I found that on the first computer sweep. And if this does wind up in court, I intend to make as much of it as I possibly can. I don't know how much that will be at this point it's impossible to predict but if I get a chance to paint a picture of that bright-eyed, cheerful little girl growing up with two elderly gays who probably spend most of their lives in computer chat-rooms speculating about what Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock might have done after the lights were out in officers' country . . . well, if I get that chance, I'll take it.' ‘It seems a little mean,' I said. I heard myself speaking in the tone of a man who wants to be dissuaded, perhaps even laughed at, but that didn't happen. ‘Of course it's mean. It feels like swerving up onto the sidewalk to knock over a couple of innocent bystanders. Roger Devore and Morris Ridding don't deal drugs, traffic in little boys, or rob old ladies. But this is custody, and custody does an even better job than divorce of turning human beings into insects. This one isn't as bad as it could be, but it's bad enough because it's so naked. Max Devore came up there to his old hometown for one reason and one reason only: to buy a kid. That makes me mad.' I grinned, imagining a lawyer who looked like Elmer Fudd standing outside of a rabbit-hole marked DEVORE with a shotgun. ‘My message to Devore is going to be very simple: the price of the kid just went up. Probably to a figure higher than even he can afford.' ‘If it goes to court you've said that a couple of times now. Do you think there's a chance Devore might just drop it and go away?' ‘A pretty good one, yeah. I'd say an excellent one if he wasn't old and used to getting his own way. There's also the question of whether or not he's still sharp enough to know where his best interest lies. I'll try for a meeting with him and his lawyer while I'm up there, but so far I haven't managed to get past his secretary.' ‘Rogette Whitmore?' ‘No, I think she's a step further up the ladder. I haven't talked to her yet, either. But I will.' ‘Try either Richard Osgood or George Footman,' I said. ‘Either of them may be able to put you in touch with Devore or Devore's chief counsel.' ‘I'll want to talk to the Whitmore woman in any case. Men like Devore tend to grow more and more dependent on their close advisors as they grow older, and she could be a key to getting him to let this go. She could also be a headache for us. She might urge him to fight, possibly because she really thinks he can win and possibly because she wants to watch the fur fly. Also, she might marry him.' ‘Marry him?' ‘Why not? He could have her sign a pre-nup I could no more' introduce that in court than his lawyers could go fishing for who hired Mattie's lawyer and it would strengthen his chances.' ‘John, I've seen the woman. She's got to be seventy herself.' ‘But she's a potential female player in a custody case involving a little girl, and she's a layer between old man Devore and the married gay couple. We just need to keep it in mind.' ‘Okay.' I looked at the office door again, but not so longingly. There comes a point when you're done for the day whether you want to be or not, and I thought I had reached that point. Perhaps in the evening . . . ‘The lawyer I got for you is named Romeo Bissonette.' He paused. ‘Can that be a real name?' ‘Is he from Lewiston?' ‘Yes, how did you know?' ‘Because in Maine, especially around Lewiston, that can be a real name. Am I supposed to go see him?' I didn't want to go see him. It was fifty miles to Lewiston over two-lane roads which would now be crawling with campers and Winnebagos. What I wanted was to go swimming and then take a long nap. A long dreamless nap. ‘You don't need to. Call him and talk to him a little. He's only a safety net, really he'll object if the questioning leaves the incident on the morning of July Fourth. About that incident you tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Got it?' ‘Yes.' ‘Talk to him before, then meet him on Friday at . . . wait . . . it's right here . . . ‘ The notebook pages fluttered again. ‘Meet him at the Route 120 Diner at nine-fifteen. Coffee. Talk a little, get to know each other, maybe flip for the check. I'll be with Mattie, getting as much as I can. We may want to hire a private dick.' ‘I love it when you talk dirty.' ‘Uh-huh. I'm going to see that bills go to your guy Goldacre. He'll send them to your agent, and your agent can ‘ ‘No,' I said. ‘Instruct Goldacre to send them directly here. Harold's a Jewish mother. How much is this going to cost me?' ‘Seventy-five thousand dollars, minimum,' he said with no hesitation at all. With no apology in his voice, either. ‘Don't tell Mattie.' ‘All right. Are you having any fun yet, Mike?' ‘You know, I sort of am,' I said thoughtfully. ‘For seventy-five grand, you should.' We said our goodbyes and John hung up. As I put my own phone back into its cradle, it occurred to me that I had lived more in the last five days than I had in the last four years. This time the phone didn't ring and I made it all the way back into the office, but I knew I was definitely done for the day. I sat down at the IBM, hit the RETURN key a couple of times, and was beginning to write myself a next-note at the bottom of the page I'd been working on when the phone interrupted me. What a sour little doodad the telephone is, and what little good news we get from it! Today had been an exception, though, and I thought I could sign off with a grin. I was working, after all working. Part of me still marvelled that I was sitting here at all, breathing easily, my heart beating steadily in my chest, and not even a glimmer of an anxiety attack on my personal event horizon. I wrote: [NEXT: Drake to Raiford. Stops on the way at vegetable stand to talk to the guy who runs it, old source, needs a good & colorful name. Straw hat. Disneyworld tee-shirt. They talk about Shackleford.] I turned the roller until the IBM spat this page out, stuck it on top of the manuscript, and jotted a final note to myself: ‘Call Ted Rosencrief about Raiford.' Rosencrief was a retired Navy man who lived in Derry. I had employed him as a research assistant on several books, using him on one project to find out how paper was made, what the migratory habits of certain common birds were for another, a little bit about the architecture of pyramid burial rooms for a third. And it's always ‘a little bit' I want, never ‘the whole damn thing.' As a writer, my motto has always been don't confuse me with the facts. The Arthur Hailey type of fiction is beyond me I can't read it, let alone write it. I want to know just enough so I can lie colorfully. Rosie knew that, and we had always worked well together. This time I needed to know a little bit about Florida's Raiford Prison, and what the deathhouse down there is really like. I also needed a little bit on the psychology of serial killers. I thought Rosie would probably be glad to hear from me . . . almost as glad as I was to finally have something to call him about. I picked up the eight double-spaced pages I had written and fanned through them, still amazed at their existence. Had an old IBM typewriter and a Courier type-ball been the secret all along? That was certainly how it seemed. What had come out was also amazing. I'd had ideas during my four-year sabbatical; there had been no writer's block in that regard. One had been really great, the sort of thing which certainly would have become a novel if I'd still been able to write novels. Half a dozen to a dozen were of the sort I'd classify ‘pretty good,' meaning they'd do in a pinch . . . or if they happened to unexpectedly grow tall and mysterious overnight, like Jack's beanstalk. Sometimes they do. Most were glimmers, little ‘what-ifs' that came and went like shooting stars while I was driving or walking or just lying in bed at night and waiting to go to sleep. The Red-Shirt Man was a what-if. One day I saw a man in a bright red shirt washing the show windows of the JC Penney store in Derry this was not long before Penney's moved out to the mall. A young man and woman walked under his ladder . . . very bad luck, according to the old superstition. These two didn't know where they were walking, though they were holding hands, drinking deeply of each other's eyes, as completely in love as any two twenty-year-olds in the history of the world. The man was tall, and as I watched, the top of his head came within an ace of clipping the window-washer's feet. If that had happened, the whole works might have gone over. The entire incident was history in five seconds. Writing The Red-Shirt Man took five months. Except in truth, the entire book was done in a what-if second. I imagined a collision instead of a near-miss. Everything else followed from there. The writing was just secretarial. The idea I was currently working on wasn't one of Mike's Really Great Ideas (Jo's voice carefully made the capitals), but it wasn't a what-if, either. Nor was it much like my old gothic suspense yarns; V. C. Andrews with a prick was nowhere in sight this time. But it felt solid, like the real thing, and this morning it had come out as naturally as a breath. Andy Drake was a private investigator in Key Largo. He was forty years old, divorced, the father of a three-year-old girl. At the open he was in the Key West home of a woman named Regina Whiting. Mrs. Whiting also had a little girl, hers five years old. Mrs. Whiting was married to an extremely rich developer who did not know what Andy Drake knew: that until 1992, Regina Taylor Whiting had been Tiffany Taylor, a high-priced Miami call-girl. That much I had written before the phone started ringing. Here is what I knew beyond that point, the secretarial work I'd do over the next several weeks, assuming that my marvellously recovered ability to work held up: One day when Karen Whiting was three, the phone had rung while she and her mother were sitting in the patio hot tub. Regina thought of asking the yard-guy to answer it, then decided to get it herself-their regular man was out with the flu, and she didn't feel comfortable about asking a stranger for a favor. Cautioning her daughter to sit still, Regina hopped out to answer the phone. When Karen put up a hand to keep from being splashed as her mother left the tub, she dropped the doll she had been bathing. When she bent to pick it up, her hair became caught in one of the hot tub's powerful intakes. (It was reading of a fatal accident like this that had originally kicked the story off in my mind two or three years before.) The yard-man, some no-name in a khaki shirt sent over by a day-labor outfit, saw what was happening. He raced across the lawn, dove headfirst into the tub, and yanked the child from the bottom, leaving hair and a good chunk of scalp clogging the jet when he did. He'd give her artificial respiration until she began to breathe again. (This would be a wonderful, suspenseful scene, and I couldn't wait to write it.) He would refuse all of the hysterical, relieved mother's offers of recompense, although he'd finally give her an address so that her husband could talk to him. Only both the address and his name, John Sanborn, would turn out to be a fake. Two years later the ex-hooker with the respectable second life sees the man who saved her child on the front page of the Miami paper. His name is given as John Shackleford and he has been arrested for the rape-murder of a nine-year-old girl. And, the article goes on, he is suspected in over forty other murders, many of the victims children. ‘Have you caught Baseball Cap?' one of the reporters would yell at the press conference. ‘Is John Shackleford Baseball Cap?' ‘Well,' I said, going downstairs, ‘they sure think he is.' I could hear too many boats out on the lake this afternoon to make nude bathing an option. I pulled on my suit, slung a towel over my shoulders, and started down the path the one which had been lined with glowing paper lanterns in my dream to wash off the sweat of my nightmares and my unexpected morning's labors. There are twenty-three railroad-tie steps between Sara and the lake. I had gone down only four or five before the enormity of what had just happened hit me. My mouth began to tremble. The colors of the trees and the sky mixed together as my eyes teared up. A sound began to come out of me a kind of muffled groaning. The strength ran out of my legs and I sat down hard on a railroad tie. For a moment I thought it was over, mostly just a false alarm, and then I began to cry. I stuffed one end of the towel in my mouth during the worst of it, afraid that if the boaters on the lake heard the sounds coming out of me, they'd think someone up here was being murdered. I cried in grief for the empty years I had spent without Jo, without friends, and without my work. I cried in gratitude because those work-less years seemed to be over. It was too early to tell for sure one swallow doesn't make a summer and eight pages of hard copy don't make a career resuscitation but I thought it really might be so. And I cried out of fear, as well, as we do when some awful experience is finally over or when some terrible accident has been narrowly averted. I cried because I suddenly realized that I had been walking a white line ever since Jo died, walking straight down the middle of the road. By some miracle, I had been carried out of harm's way. I had no idea who had done the carrying, but that was all right it was a question that could wait for another day. I cried it all out of me. Then I went on down to the lake and waded in. The cool water felt more than good on my overheated body; it felt like a resurrection.

Dream Children

An Analysis of Lamb’s Dream Children Or Charles Lamb as a Romanticist Charles Lamb was a famous English prose-writer and the best representative of the new form of English literature early in the nineteenth century. He did not adhere to the old rules and classic models but made the informal essay a pliable vehicle for expressing the writer’s own personality, thus bringing into English literature the personal or familiar essay. The style of Lamb is gentle, old-fashioned and irresistibly attractive, for which there is no better illustration than Dream Children: A Reverie. From the analysis of this essay we can find Lamb’s characteristic way of expression. Dream Children records the pathetic joys in the author’s unfortunate domestic life. We can see in this essay, primarily, a supreme expression of the increasing loneliness of his life. He constructed all that preliminary tableau of paternal pleasure in order to bring home to us in the most poignant way his feeling of the solitude of his existence, his sense of all that he had missed and lost in the world. The key meaning of the story shows the beauty that resides in sadness. There are remarkable writing techniques to achieve such an effect. Through the stylistic approach to Dream Children, we can see that Charles Lamb is a romanticist, seeking a free expression of his own personality and weaving romance into daily life. Without a trace of vanity of self-assertion, Lamb begins with himself, with some purely personal mood or experience, and from this he leads the reader to see life and literature as he saw it. It is this wonderful combination of personal and universal interests, together with Lamb’s rare old style, which make the essay remarkable. 1 Lexical Feature 1. Old-fashioned but elegant diction Lamb prefers to use archaic words in order to reach a certain distance between the author’s real life and his whimsies, such as: (1) and how in her youth she was esteemed the best dancer (esteemed here means admired, respected) (2) here Alice's little right foot played an involuntary movement, till, upon my looking grave, it desisted (desisted here means topped doing) (3) and how the nectarines and peaches hung upon the walls, without my ever offering to pluck them (pluck, also a poetic word, here means pick) (4) he had meditated dividing with her, and both seemed willing to relinquish them for the present as irrelevant (meditated here means thought, and relinquish means give up) 2. Repetition of the word here When regarding for beautiful things and fine actions, Lamb does not f orget to show to the readers the pictures of the children–real children until the moment when they fade away. He repeats the word here altogether eight times, to portray the children’s response. For example: (5) Here Alice put out one of her dear mother's looks (6) Here John smiled, as much as to say, â€Å"that would be foolish indeed. † With this repeating word, we can see these children almost as clearly and as tenderly as Lamb saw them. If we take the essay’s main purpose into account, we will find the more real they seem, the more touching is the revelation of the fact that they do not exist, and never have existed. Sentence Feature 2. 1 Loose structure and post-modification Generally speaking, the tone of this essay is relaxed and comfortable, which can be attributed to Lamb’s use of loose structure and post-modification. Let’s study the sentence below: (7) Children love to listen to stories about their elders, when they were children; to stretch their imagination to the conception of a traditionary great-uncle, or grandame, whom they never saw. If ap plied to daily communication, the former part of this sentence seems tediously long. However, here it gives us a sense of comfort and enjoyment, for in the essay it causes our sympathy with the author of the fondness of innocent children. Therefore, we do not feel weary. 2. 2 Cohesion Sentences in Dream Children are long, sometimes containing more than eighty words in one. The author makes them cohesive with the help of coordination, conjunctions, as well as some adverbs. For instance: (8) Then I went on to say, how religious and how good their great-grandmother Field was, how beloved and respected by everybody (Adverb then and the coordination how†¦how†¦how†¦ here function as cohesive devices. (9) but still she lived in it in a manner as if it had been her own, and kept up the dignity of the great house in a sort while she lived, which afterwards came to decay, and was nearly pulled down, and all its old ornaments stripped and carried away to the owner's other house, where they were set up, and looked as awkward as if some one were to carry away the o ld tombs they had seen lately at the Abbey, and stick them up in Lady C. ‘s tawdry gilt drawing-room. (Conjunction and here functions as a cohesive device. 3 Article Feature 3. 1 Narration enlivened by depiction of the children. As is illustrated in sentence (5) and (6), the author’s narration of the great-grandmother and his brother is enlivened by a certain depiction concerning the children. Incidentally, while preparing his ultimate solemn effect, Lamb has inspired us with a new, intensified vision of the wistful beauty of children–their imitativeness, their facile and generous emotions, their anxiety to be correct, their ingenuous haste to escape from grief into joy. This vision gives us an impression that they seem real, thus makes the revelation in the end touching and pathetic. 3. 2 Unexpected ending Dream Children begins quite simply, in a calm, narrative manner, representing Lamb as sitting by his fireside on a winter night telling stories to his own dear children, and delighting in their society, until he suddenly comes to his old, solitary, bachelor self, and finds that they were but dream-children. In the end of the essay, we read: (10) that I became in doubt which of them stood there before me, or whose that bright hair was; and while I stood gazing, both the children gradually grew fainter to my view, receding, and still receding till nothing at last but two mournful features were seen in the uttermost distance, which, without speech, strangely impressed upon me the effects of speech; â€Å"We are not of Alice, nor of thee, nor are we children at all. The children of Alice called Bartrum father. We are nothing, less than nothing, and dreams. We are only what might have been, and must wait upon the tedious shores of Lethe millions of ages before we have existence, and a name. † Reflecting upon the essay, we will surely be obsessed by the beauty of old houses and gardens and aged virtuous characters, the beauty of children, the beauty of companionships, the softening beauty of dreams in an arm-chair–all these are brought together and mingled with the grief and regret which were the origin of the mood. 4 Rhetorical devices Lamb introduces some rhetorical devices to make his essay vivid and profound, such as: (11) and how the nectarines and peaches hung upon the walls, without my ever offering to pluck them, because they were forbidden fruit, unless now and then (metaphor) (12) till I could almost fancy myself ripening too along with the oranges and the limes in that grateful warmth (empathy) Lamb’s use of Humor and Pathos in Dream Children/ Pathetic beauty presented by Lamb From 1820 through 1825 he contributed a series of essays to the  London Magazine  which were immensely popular. Though he wrote under the pseudonym Elia, these essays, like his letters, are intimate revelations of Lamb's own thoughts, emotions, and experiences of literature and life. He touches on few disturbing subjects. He prefers instead to look to the past for a sense of calm, stability, and changelessness. Yet beneath the wit, humor, and humanity of such essays as â€Å"A Dissertation upon Roast Pig,† â€Å"Witches and Other Night-Fears,† and â€Å"Dream Children,† one finds a gentle  nostalgia  and  melancholy. This bitter-sweet  tone remains the  hallmark  of Lamb's style. Bunyan once said â€Å"Some things are of that nature as to make One’s fancy chuckle while his heart doth ache†. The nature of things mostly appeared to Lamb in that way. Lamb does not frolic out of lightness of heart, but to escape from gloom that might otherwise crush. He laughed to save himself from weeping. In fact, Lamb’s personal life was of disappointments and frustrations. But instead of complaining, he looked at the tragedies of life, its miseries and worries as a humorist. Thus his essays become an admixture of beauty and pain as well as humour and pathos. Examples of his keen sense of humour and pathetic touches are scattered in all of his essays. Let’s focus our discussion on Dream Children: A Reverie. In Lamb’s  writing  wit, humour and fun are interwoven and it is humour which is most notable for its extreme sensitiveness to the true proportion of things. Lamb often brings out the two sides of a fact and causes laughter at our own previous misconceptions. Therefore it borders on the painful realization. Thus his humour is very nearly allied to pathos. They are different facets of the same gem. In his essay Dream Children: A Reverie Lamb talks of personal sorrows and joys. He gives expressions to his unfulfilled longings and desires. He readily enters into the world of fantasy and pops up stories in front of his dream children. He relates his childhood days, of Mrs. Field, his grandmother and John Lamb, his brother. He describes how fun he had at the great house and orchard in Norfolk. Of his relations he gives us full and living pictures – his brother John is James Elia of My Relations, but here is John L-, so handsome and spirited youth, and a ‘king’. John was brave, handsome and won admiration from everybody Charles’ grandmother Mrs. Field is the other living picture. She was a good natured and religions – minded lady of respectable personality. Narrator’s sweet heart Alice Winterton is the other shadowed reality. The dream children, Alice and John are mere bubbles of fancy. Thus Lamb’s nostalgic memory transports  us back to those good old days of great grandmother Field. But even in those romantic nostalgia the hard realities of life does not miss our eyes. Death, separation and suffering inject us deep-rooted pathos in our heart. Whereas Mrs. Field died of cancer, John Lamb died in early age. Ann Simmons has been a tale of unrequited love story of Charles Lamb. Notably the children are millions of ages distant of oblivion and Charles is not a married man but a  bachelor  having a reverie. In his actual life Lamb courted Ann Simmons but could not marry her, he wanted to have children but could not ha ve any. Thus he strikes a very pathetic note towards the end of his essay when he puts the following word into the mouths of his imaginary children, â€Å"we are not of Alice, nor of thee, nor are we children at all †¦ We are nothing, less than nothing, dreams. We are only what might have been†. Alice is here no other that Ann Simmons the girl Lamb wanted to marry, but failed to marry her. In fact, the subtitle of the essay – ‘A Reverie’ which literally means a daydream or a fantasy – prepares us for the pathos of the return to reality although the essay begins on a deceptively realistic note. Although Dream Children begins on a cheerful note, the dark side of life soon forces itself upon Lamb’s attention and the comic attitude gives way to melancholy at the end of the essay. Throughout the essay Lamb presents his children in such a way that we never guess that they are merely figments of his imagination – their movements, their reactions, their expressions are all realistic. It is only at the end of the essay that we realize that the entire episode with his children is a daydream. We are awakening by a painful realization of the facts. Lamb’s humour was no surface play. In fact, Lamb’s humour and pathos take different shapes in different essays. Sometimes it is due to his own unfulfilled desires, sometimes it is due to the ill-fortunes of his relatives and friends and on some other occasions it is due to his frustration in love etc. If his ‘Poor Relations’ begins humorously of a male and female poor relation, he later gives us a few pathetic examples of poor relations who had to suffer on account of poverty. Again in his ‘The Praise of Chimney Sweepers’ Lamb sways between humour and pathos while describing the chimney sweepers. Similarly the essay ‘Dream Children’  is a beautiful projection of Lamb’s feelings and desire to have a wife and children of his own. It is humorous that in his dream he is married and has two children of his own while he had a disheartening frustration in love. Thus Lamb has painted both the lights and shades of life in full circle. His is the criticism of life in pathos and humours Why is the essay entitled â€Å"Dream Children†? Ans: Charles Lamb entitled the essay â€Å"Dream Children† because he never married and naturally never became the father of any children. The children he speaks of in the essay were actually the creations of his imagination or fancy. 2. Who was Field? How does Lamb present her before his dream children? Ans: Field, pseudonym for the actual person, was Lamb’s grandmother. Lamb presents her as an ideal grandmother in an imaginary and inflated way before his â€Å"dream children†Ã¢â‚¬â€she was extremely pious, fearless and compassionate person besides being the best dancer of the area in her youth. 3. Why is the essay entitled â€Å"A Reverie†? Ans: The essay is subtitled as a ‘reverie’ because Lamb  never married and so he never had children. In the essay he created an imaginary picture of a happy conjugal life—a picture which finally dissolves into nothing as he comes back to reality. 4. How does Lamb present his brother John L—? Ans: Lamb’s elder brother, John L—in his youth was a handsome, high-spirited, strong and fearless person. He loved Lamb very much. But subsequently in his old age he became lame-footed and spent the rest of his life in utter hopelessness, irritation and pain. . Whom does Lamb refer to as â€Å"faithful Bridget† by side? Ans: Lamb had a sister, Mary Lamb, who did not marry since she had attacks of insanity. She has been referred to here as â€Å"faithful Bridget† because she never married and was Lamb’s only companion in his life. At the sudden breakdown of his reverie, he finds her s eated by his side. 6. What, according to you, is the most striking feature of the essay and why? Ans: The chief characteristic feature of the essay is the author’s mingling of pathos and humour. Lamb begins the essay in somewhat deceptive fashion, describing the incidents, full of humour. But gradually he reduces the tone towards the end describing the tragedies of his personal life. 7. How does Lamb present the autobiographical elements in the essay? Or, Why is the essay called a personal essay? Or, What type of essay is Dream Children? Ans: Dream Children is a personal essay. Lamb presents the characters and incidents from his own life—the sketches of his grandmother, Field, his brother—John Lamb, his sister—Mary Lamb, his tragic love-affairs with Ann Simmons. But Lamb is always playing with facts and fictions and transforms the real into the literary. 8. How does Lamb show his knowledge of child psychology? Ans: It is surprising that without ever having children Lamb had acute sense of how children react to the happenings in the world of the adults. By deceptively referring to the meticulous reactions of his dream children, he succeeds in catching the reader immediately. The aesthetic impact of the essay becomes more effective for this reason. 9. â€Å"†¦ till the old marble heads would seem to be live again†¦ o be turned into marble with them†Ã¢â‚¬â€Where does the expression occur? Explain the context. Ans: Lamb told his â€Å"dream children† that in his boyhood he would enjoy rambling in and around the great country house in Norfolk. He would gaze at the twelve marble busts of Caesars in such an intensely meditative way that it seemed to him after some time that those were coming back to life again, or that he w ould be himself transformed into marble with them. 10. Where does the expression â€Å"busy-idle diversion† occur? What does the author mean by this? Ans: Lamb told his â€Å"dream children† that in his boyhood he would enjoy rambling in and around the great country house in Norfolk more than the sweet fruits of the orchard. He would remain busy with this though he had no work to do. 11. â€Å"When he died though he had not been†¦ died great while ago†. Who is referred to as ‘he’? Why is he spoken of? Ans: Lamb loved his brother John L— very much. But very shortly after his death it seemed to him that death had created such an immeasurable vacuum in his life that it made impossible for him to comprehend the significance of the difference between life and death. 2. â€Å"†¦ such a distance there is betwixt life and death†Ã¢â‚¬â€Explain the significance of the line in light of the context. Ans: the immediate absence of his brother John Lamb created by his death forced Lamb to feel the gulf the difference between life and death. He understood that death created a permanent absence a s the dead cannot be restored to life. Again, death is unknowable and Lamb was forced to reflect on his brother’s absence in this way. 13. â€Å"†¦ the soul of first Alice looked out at her eyes with such reality of re-presentment that I came in doubt†Ã¢â‚¬â€Who was Alice? What does the word ‘re-presentment’ mean here? Ans: In the course of his day-dreaming when Lamb looked at his dream-daughter, her physical resemblance reminded him of his dream-girl Alice W—n, a fictitious name for Ann Simmons who did reciprocate his love. 14. â€Å"But John L—(or James Elia) was gone forever†Ã¢â‚¬â€Who was James Elia? Why does the author say this? Ans: At the end of his day-dreaming Lamb coming back to reality finds his sister (Bridget) Mary Lamb by his side; but he realises and remembers that his brother James Elia or John Lamb had died and would no more be with them. So he laments his loss thus. 5. â€Å"Here Alice put out one of her dear mother’s looks, too tender to be called upbraiding†Ã¢â‚¬â€What does the word ‘braiding’ mean here? What makes Alice react thus? Ans: While describing the great country house in Norfolk, lamb tells his â€Å"dream children† that the chimney piece of the great ha ll was decorated by the curving of the story of Robin Redbreasts. At the information  that a foolish person pulled it down, Alice’s countenance changed, which suggested that it should not have been done. The word ‘braiding’ here means castigation or censure. 16. How does Lamb record Alice’s reactions to his story-telling? Ans: While listening to Lamb’s personal tale, Alice reacts firs by spreading her hands when Lamb says how good, religious and graceful person Field had been. Alice reacts to it either in great astonishment or putting up some pious gesture. She also cries out When Lamb talks about his elder brother’s pain and death. 17. How does Lamb record John’s reactions to his story-telling? Ans: At the information of the great house being stripped off its ornaments John smiled, which suggested the foolishness of the work. He was trying to look brave and impress upon his father that he would not have been afraid of the ghosts like his father. At the end of the story, when Lamb was talking of his elder brother’s pain and death, John, like Alice, began to cry. Exercises 1. Give a pen-picture of Field. 2. How would you comment on the style of the essay? 3. â€Å"†¦ We are only what might have been, and must wait upon the tedious shores of Lethe millions of ages before we have existence and a name. †Ã¢â‚¬â€Explain the context. Or, What is the significance of the river Lethe here? Or, Why are the shores of Lethe called ‘tedious’ Or, Why should the ‘dream’ children wait for million years for their existence and name?