Irish Literature Paper Essay

Olivia Barragree Mr. Green Irish Literature 3 17 February 2013 Irish Love In 20th Century Ireland, the practice of marriage remained very strict due to the religious standards of the time. The majority of the Irish population remained strictly Roman Catholic while a small population in the north remained Protestant. The Roman Catholic view on marriage remains to be that marriage should stay within the religion and be life-long, or until death due you part. With divorce removed as an option for the women of the time, and the expectation that a woman would get married earlier in life, it became no surprise that many women became unhappy with their love lives. James Joyce’s Dubliners, a collection of short stories, tells the sad love stories of man Irish women of the time. These stories prove that women, whose only goal becomes to get married like society told them to do so at the time, will end up ultimately stuck in a lifelong pursuit of happiness in religious love that drives them to desperation. One of the youngest love stories in the book presents itself in the story of â€Å"Eveline†. In this story Eveline, a teenage girl, finds herself struggling to make her next move in life. She longs for the love of Frank, her sailor, but feels conflicted about what her relationship with him entails. Eveline does not have an easy home life, which makes her decision to leave with her lover all the more difficult. Eveline lives and breathes the poverty stricken life of many Dubliners, and for her this remains familiar and tradition. Running away with a sailor to a faraway land would not be approved of by anyone in the town of Dublin. Her longing to get married and have a normal life drives her to make plans to leave the country and elope. At first she believes that it will be a good thing when she says, â€Å"Then she would be married—she, Eveline. People would treat her with respect then† (21). Eveline believes that getting married will be the answer to all of her problems because traditionally marriage would be the only thing that should matter to a woman in life. In this time, getting married meant sacrificing everything about your previous life in the pursuit of happiness within someone else’s life. The difference in Eveline’s story becomes that she has so many others depending on her already, and to totally give up her previous life would be a gigantic sacrifice. Eveline has many younger siblings who rely on her as a stand in mother, due to the fact that her mother had passed a few years before. Eveline must help also to provide for the family because her father has little drive and spends most of his time drinking and abusing the children. With so many people counting on her the decision to leave and do what most women of her age would do becomes even harder. In her time of need Eveline, â€Å"prayed to god to direct her, to show her what was her duty† (23). Eveline holds faith in God, as most Irish did at the time, and her decision would be made by what she thinks God would most likely approve of. Although Eveline’s religion would approve of marriage, in this instance her marriage would take her away from the people who keep her within the religion. An elopement at the time would have been frowned upon, and although Eveline loved Frank she knew that God would not approve of what she was doing. Her pursuit of happiness was a desperate attempt to get married and escape the life she lived. Although Eveline did not follow the path that most women would have, it becomes clear that women of the time were pressured to marry and sacrifice everything for the man they chose. Eveline’s lover would not have been the ideal choice for typical happiness for the Dublin woman, and this restriction set up by the church drives Eveline to stay where her beliefs and heritage are deeply rooted. Eveline will spend her life pursuing a happiness that cannot exist with the restrictions set in place upon the people within Dublin. In the next story of young love, â€Å"The Boarding House†, we come across a woman raising her two young adult children in a boarding house. Ms. Mooney, the woman, went through a horrible separation after being trapped in an abusive marriage with a drunkard for several years, and this very relationship has left her on her own to fend for her family with the profits from the boarding house. Ms. Mooney is ostracized by many in the society, and many believe she was wrong to leave her marriage and they criticize her attempt to run her own business. Ms. Mooney’s young daughter remains young and generally happy in life, but she seems to be very flirtatious with most the men who live in the boarding house. Her mother at first tries to eliminate this problem by sending Polly to work in the city, but as time passes she slowly lets her move back into the boarding house. Ms. Mooney sees a relationship beginning to develop between Polly and a man who would lose his reputation if people were to find out about the affair, but instead of trying to put an end to the relationship she monitors as if she is waiting for something to happen between them. With the relationships before she had always drove Polly away from the men, but Ms. Mooney, â€Å"knew that the young men were only passing the time away: none of them meant business† (40). She knew that this man would feel responsible for his actions, and if he tried to run away from his problems, his employer would surely fire him because his boss of thirteen years was a great Catholic wine merchant. Due to the religion and social opinion of the time the man is forced into his decision of marrying Polly. Ms. Mooney believed that, â€Å"For her, only one reparation could make up for the loss of her daughter’s honour: marriage† (40). Even after Ms. Mooney had to suffer through the worst possible marriage, she still wishes for the marriage of her daughter. This may seem surprising to modern views, but at the time it was better to be married and miserable than single. The religious dominance of the time forced many young couples like Polly and Mr. Dorian in to marriage that would most likely result in an unhappy life. When we come across the sad story of â€Å"A Painful Case† this is where the social pressures of the time really come in to play. The main character of this short story, Mr. Duffy, is a man who, â€Å"wished to live as far as possible from the city of which he was a citizen and because he found all the other suburbs of Dublin mean, modern, and pretentious† (70). This man hates all that was Dublin of the time because he believes that the people maintained certain ideas and were fairly mean about the way in which they judged others opinions. This man believed that, â€Å"No social revolution would be likely to strike Dublin for some centuries† (72). This statement of this one man’s opinions shows that many believed that Dublin would always have the same mindset about social issues even if modernism would come to the city life. Dubliners were people attempting to move forward, but who were held back by social and religious customs. This thinking becomes challenged when Mr. Duffy meets a woman who will soon become his intellectual companion, Mrs. Sinico, whom remains a married woman. When the relationship begins they talk about things such as philosophy or books, but as time goes on it becomes clear that some sort of intimacy will be involved. Mrs. Sinico lives a very sad life with her husband who works as a merchant. This man does not devote any time to his family or wife and no longer feels any sort of love to this woman. Their relationship has lost its purpose, but due to the standards of society of the time they must stay together even if she and Mr. Duffy were better suited for each other. When Mr. Duffy and Mrs. Sinico’s relationship escalates to a touch of a hand to a cheek one night they realize that what they do will bring them social ostracism, so , â€Å"They agreed to break off their intercourse: every bond, he said, is a bond to sorrow† (73). By breaking off the connection between the two, Mr. Duffy believes he will be doing the right thing because it will eliminate the futile longing they have for one another. The part that he neglects to see becomes the fact that sorrow will remain in Mrs. Sinico’s relationship with her husband. Mr. Duffy’s speak immense truth in the life of Mrs. Sinico because every bond she tries to form with men leads her to immense sorrow. This sorrow becomes her ultimate demise as the pain becomes too much for her and she makes the choice to commit suicide by jumping in front of a newly built tram. Mr. Duffy reads about the suicide in the paper one night as he sits at the diner alone, and at this point he is stricken with immense distain for the woman who killed herself. Mr. Duffy, in an attempt to deal with the pain of loss begins to try to blame Mrs. Sinico and become angry at her for killing herself because she was no longer happy without him. Mr. Duffy becomes filled with immense guilt and must find a way to cope. The sorrow suddenly hits him though when he says, â€Å"One human being had seemed to love him and he had denied her life and happiness† (77). He feels as though the death was his fault and that he should have saved her from suffering through her unhappy life, but due to the social attitude of the time he made the wrong decision. He left this woman to suffer in a life that was most likely chosen due to a younger woman’s desperation to get married and follow the practice of so many other women of the time. These social practices of marriage left her searching for a way to happiness that she could never have. Her marriage that she could not escape trapped her from the outside world which had the potential to make her happy. The story of â€Å"The Dead† comes at the very end of Dubliners which represents a very sorrow filled ending for the book. This story begins with a very vibrant and exciting dinner party, but when the party ends and Gabriel, the main characters goes home with his wife, the sadness really settles in. At the party Gabriel had found his wife immensely attractive and wished greatly to rekindle the love he believed they once had for each other. At the party a guest sings a love song that leaves, Gretta, Gabriel’s wife frozen in thought which makes Gabriel believe that she too thinks of the two of them together once again. The truth sets in though when the couple returns to a hotel where they will be staying for the night. Gabriel, in an attempt to spark some love in their relationship asks his wife what she thought of the song, but to his surprise she tells a very sad story. Gretta tells the story of her deceased lover whom her family would not let her be with. She tells him of the great passion they shared and how the young man had died a month after she had gone off to study at a convent. At a loss for words, Gabriel thinks about how, â€Å"It hardly pained him now to think how poor a part he, her husband had played in her life† (151). Gabriel gives up on finding love for his wife once again, and he now realizes that she does not love him either. These two people remain trapped by the bond of marriage and the fear of being socially unaccepted through divorce. This story of a love where a man had died for his love of Gretta makes Gabriel realize that, â€Å"He had never felt like that himself towards any other woman, but he knew that such a feeling must be love† (152). When young Gretta tells the story of her lover’s death she says that her leaving had killed him, and that he had died for sake of loving her. In response to her loss of her chance at happiness she had married Gabriel in an attempt to replace that love, but to also do the sensible thing of the time. Gabriel and Gretta were forced together, not by choice, but by the expectations people had placed on young people of the time. When they met they had felt a mutual longing for happiness in love, and this feeling had convinced them that they had love for one another. Deep inside, Gabriel realizes this fact and as he watches the snow fall outside he begins to feel a longing to escape Ireland and move westward. In the west ideas were new and people were not looked down upon for their sacrilegious actions or disbelief. At the very end of the story Gabriel talks about the snow that falls outside, and references a newspaper article that says, â€Å"Snow was general all over Ireland† (152). He then says, â€Å"It was falling, too upon every part of the lonely churchyard on the hill where Michael Furey lay buried. It lay thickly drifted on the crooked on the crooked crosses† (152). One of the most cold and lifeless things found in the story, the snow, represents the lack of life within the religious communities of Ireland. Too many people of the time had dedicated their lives to pleasing the church and the social standards it set for its followers. This dedication had made many of them unhappy or bereft of meaning in life. The people within this story look for a way to find love and happiness, but in the end they realize that they cannot obtain it where they remain. Throughout the many sad stories of Dubliners the reader can see that the institution of marriage plays a major role in the unhappiness of many of the characters within the short stories. The institution of marriage when ruled by a church’s strict belief system can be very harmful to a healthy relationship. The characters who marry always seem to become trapped by their marriage because they know that they can never escape it in the future. This longing to escape the social standards set for these couples leaves them in a pursuit of something that will never be reached. Without a trapped feeling surrounding them, the pressure to have a perfect marriage would be diluted and prove much more effective than a marriage kept out of fear of religious persecution.

Songs of Innocence and Song of Experience Analysis

William Blake lived from 1757 – 1827 in London. He was primarily an engraver then painter until later writing his famous poems. In his childhood he was educated at home although he later attended a drawing school, Henry Pars' and was an autodidact. Blake also claimed to have visions, most notably a vision when he saw and conversed with the Virgin Mary and the Angel Gabriel. In 1779, Blake became a student at the Royal Academy in Old Somerset House. His studies required no payment but he was expected to supply his own materials throughout the six years he would stay. He married in 1783 to Catherine Boucher, based solely on love and to this day is defined as a romantic poet. He was Associated with the Romantics because he had similar ideas that the imagination was very important. Byron, Shelly and Coleridge believed that the imagination was important – much more then rational thought. They were all against industrialisation of the countryside. The Romantics were an artistic movement which started in the 1770s through the Industrialisation of Europe continuing into the early Victorian period. They were classed here because of certain shared beliefs. The Romantics disliked the effects of the Industrial revolution. They lived during the civil war of America and the French revolution, due to the sudden questioning in the role of Monarchy and Church. William Blake produced poems, most notably the two companion poems of Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience. One of his beliefs was that innocence is something good and generally saw experience as a bad thing. Evidence shows from his poems that he detested the expansion of industrialisation and very much liked the countryside as well as his deep religious attitude. Also you can read Analysis July at the Multiplex Songs of Innocence and Experience was written in 1790. The main theme Blake stressed was that a child remains innocent in his or her youth. The songs of Innocence are written in a child's point of view. They still strive strong even though there is evil around them. Blake felt as you grew older you lost that innocence as you gained more experience. The songs of Experience are written in an experienced point of view, which had realised the true evil around him or her and hated it. The first two examples are the lamb from Songs of innocence and the Tyger from songs of experience. Firstly, the lamb consists of two stanzas with five rhyming couplets. The Lamb is about innocence and Blake utilises the symbolism of a child to emphasize the theme. â€Å"He is meek & he is mild†. A lamb is a small, timid and weak animal and can portray innocence and peacefulness, properties we can associate with a child. It may also have deeper meaning, such as the Lamb of God. It was Jesus who became known as the Lamb of God because as the Jewish faith believes, sacrificing a lamb would take away your sins. The Christians saw Jesus as acting like a lamb so he could take away everyone's sins after becoming crucified, an image which shows self-sacrifice and innocence. Blake, who has a passion for religion gives praise to God for creation of a creature like the Lamb. The alliteration of â€Å"Little Lamb† gives the effect of softening the tone and adding to the imagery of innocence and possibly Blake tried to make the Lamb seem like a Nursery Rhyme, which portrays the poem being narrated by a child, therefore linking back to the theme of innocence. In the Tyger, the poem consists of six stanza's, with two rhyming couplets in each stanza. The Tyger is about experience and Blake utilises this using industrial and colour imagery like in the fourth stanza such as â€Å"what the hammer† or in the first stanza â€Å"forests of the night†. The Tyger needs experience to survive, as it needs to kill to live. Blake is questioning God â€Å"What immortal hand or eye, / could frame thy fearful symmetry† to why God would want to make animals like tigers, such as mankind. This is one of Blake's rhetorical questions throughout the poem. Read also  Case 302 July in Multiplex The â€Å"immortal hand† refers to the power of God to create. The â€Å"fearful symmetry† refers to the complexity in the tyger by the divine artistry, almost being so perfect as to be fearful to understand. Blake saw the Tyger as a very intricate animal, asking how God created it, â€Å"In what furnace was thy brain / What the anvil,†. The comparisons between the two is that the Lamb has pastoral imagery, such as language, â€Å"Vale†, â€Å"mead†, â€Å"stream†, This helps the reader picture a pastoral scene. This was the ideal life of William Blake, evidence for his want for the time before the industrial revolution. The Tyger has industrial imagery, â€Å"furnace†, â€Å"hammer†, â€Å"anvil†, to show how the Tyger is made as if it were in a factory. This imagery shows a pessimistic view of the Tyger. Blake does this because of his hate of industrialisation and saw it as an impurity to the countryside. In the penultimate stanza of the Tyger, Blake quotes Genesis, â€Å"Did he smile his work to see†. Blake is talking about the sixth day of creation when God had finally stopped and looked at his work, and saw it was good and rested on the seventh day. But then Blake adds â€Å"Did he who made the Lamb make thee! † Blake gives this rhetorical question to state whether the same God made the â€Å"little lamb† also made the â€Å"Tyger†. Here Blake questions the omniscience of God. If God is kind and all knowing shouldn't he have known evil and suffering would exist due to the creation of creatures like the Tyger. In general, Blake examines two separate animals, the Lamb and the Tyger which express his feelings on ideas about creation and the creator. Blake appreciates an innocent creature like the Lamb and is awe-struck by the complexity of the Tyger but is asking why God would make a Tyger with properties like having to kill in order to survive. Blake sees innocence as something good because as age your experience in the world increases. People see the sinister side of the world; therefore Blake would have seen ignorance as bliss. The next poems I will be analysing are The Chimney sweeper from Songs of innocence and The Chimney sweeper from Songs of Experience. The Songs of innocence version was written in 1789. Blake saw around him the child cruelty and shows this through his poem. â€Å"When my mother died I was very young,† from the first stanza immediately shows Blake's choice to make the poem in a child's perspective thus increasing the empathy, which he has tried to do repeatedly â€Å"in soot I sleep† to show the reader the bad life of poor children. Yet they continue to strive as best they can and treat each other well compared to the adults. â€Å"soot cannot spoil your white hair†, from the second stanza is about another child trying to comfort another child. In the penultimate line in the First stanza, â€Å"Could scarcely cry † ‘weep! ‘weep! ‘weep! † † is the child's attempt to say â€Å"sweep! , sweep! â€Å", which was the common street cry of chimney sweepers. It shows the child is very young and cannot even talk properly, adding to his innocence. Also this poem shows that the children have a very optimistic attitude on life, they try to make the greatest of what they have and do not fear death. This can be shown through a religious theme. When â€Å"the Angel told Tom, if he'd be a good boy, He'd have God for his father & never want joy†. Here Blake is showing that the children will live happily for eternity if they followed God's rules. Blake therefore believes the innocence of the children is what keeps them believing they'll have a better life after this wretched one because their innocent minds were easy to manipulate with the guarantee of an afterlife. The Chimney Sweeper from Songs of experience was written in 1794. The Chimney sweeper show evidence of his former innocence and is the same chimney sweeper from songs of innocence but matured and grown to realise the real world around him. Now, the Chimney sweeper blames his parents for the life he was put in, the first stanza say's, â€Å"Where are thy father & mother†. He is miserable in his position â€Å"notes of woe† and also blames â€Å"God & his Priest & King†. Blake purposefully made this child's perspective different from the companion poem to show the chimney sweeper has been influenced by society and therefore has an experienced point of view. Through the child's experience, Blake has portrayed the child detesting religion. In the first stanza the child speaks out for his parents, but he knows â€Å"They are both gone up to the church to pray. The child is angry that the people who follow God are the same people who â€Å"taught me to sing the notes of woe. † The child is bitter towards his life and believes he has been done wrong by the adults and believes they find joy in their misery â€Å"Who make up a heaven of our misery†. Blake has done this because of the controversy around the role of the church and monarchy and is an indication of someone who is experienced to question the role of church and monarchy. The Comparisons between the two is that they both contain metaphors prophesizing a most likely death. The Songs of innocence also has dark colour imagery inside the metaphor, â€Å"Were all of them lock'd up in coffins of black. † The â€Å"black† being themselves covered in soot and â€Å"lock'd† inside the chimneys, as was a lot of boys misfortunes. The Songs of experience shows the child knowing what his parents have done to him and is aware of a possible death. â€Å"They clothed me in the clothes of death†. The metaphor also shows that he was â€Å"clothed† from the real world during his younger years of innocence, meaning he felt he was living a lie. Further colour imagery is used in the songs of innocence such as, â€Å"cannot spoil your white hair†, white symbolising something pure as well as in the fourth stanza when the children â€Å"naked and white†, go and â€Å"wash in a river, and shine in the sun†. Here Blake uses pastoral imagery to make the countryside seem like a heaven and uses more themes of religion linking â€Å"naked and white† to Adam and Eve, where they â€Å"wash in a river, and shine in the sun†, this being the Garden of Eden. Blake is using the innocence and naivety of Adam of Eve to link this with the Children. The colour imagery in the chimney sweeper from Songs of experience relates to darkness in a â€Å"black thing among the snow. † This meaning the soot covered child is an oddity among everyone else. Blake stresses that he is all alone among the world and tries to win the readers sympathy. Using the word â€Å"snow†, Blake has used the snows property of being cold to portray society's ill attitude to life. In general, Blake has tried to expose the churches twists of their religion to benefit themselves. Blake has used the chimney sweepers as evidence of this. They were taught that if they do their â€Å"duty they not fear harm. † And as the innocent children they believed blindly until gradual experience revealed that is was the church that â€Å"taught me to sing the notes of woe. † Most children were brought into chimney sweeping when they reached 5 and continued that life until their size grew too big to fit inside. Many died from becoming trapped, getting tuberculosis, asthma and testicular cancer. William Blake lived in London his whole life and wrote the poem London for Songs of experience. London was written in 1794, in the aftermath of the French Revolution. This was a time of great political conflict in Britain. It exposes the distance in classes between those in power and the poor. In the second stanza, â€Å"mind-forg'd manacles†, this metaphor contains a deeper meaning then at first glance. The â€Å"mind-forged† relates back to the tyger's meaning of being created as if it were a machine. â€Å"manacles† are chains to the arms, which is being used to say London was a like a prison. The powerful minority had imposed their laws and removed freedom of the majority. We see this as how the powerful people were granted charters to control the streets of London and the river. Blake is obviously displeased that the streets are â€Å"chartered† but more obviously for the â€Å"Chartered Thames†, which shouldn't be controlled by laws. This is evidence for his views on the removal of freedom. Blake writes the â€Å"weakness† and the â€Å"woe† has appeared â€Å"in every face† to show the misery to try and make the audience feel sympathy for the poor. The repetition of â€Å"marks† and â€Å"every† reveals the extreme anxiety which â€Å"marks† of misery show up in â€Å"every Man† and â€Å"every Infants† faces which inform us that the Londoners are weakened in mind, body and spirit by the imposing of laws and â€Å"chartered streets†. Blake has utilised this to increase the audience's sympathy. Another main point with deeper meaning is in the third stanza, where Blake utilises imagery of religion and destruction as a paradox. He is implying the fall of religion such as the religious imagery of the â€Å"black'ning church† which represents the loss of innocence and the society's desertion of faith. The â€Å"chimney-sweeper's cry† symbolises trying to clean the soot that covers society and clean what causes their misery. But the â€Å"black'ning church† can also be blackened metaphorically with the shame of not helping the poor with the use of their power. There is also a pun as â€Å"appals† means to become pale, as with fear, but the churches are becoming metaphorically black, with soot. Still in the third stanza, the â€Å"hapless soldiers sigh† is about the aftermath of the French revolution when soldiers were drafted into war, unwilling or willing. Blake uses the imagery of destruction â€Å"Runs in blood down palace walls† to explain why the society is forced to mend their â€Å"weakness† and â€Å"woe† so an uprising will not occur in London. The last stanza reveals Blake's feelings that the next generation will be affected by his generation, â€Å"youthful harlot's curse† symbolises the youth's bad deeds will cause the â€Å"newborn infant's tear† which means the new generation will have to deal with the previous generations problems. This shows how old generations make mistakes for the new such as the current generation creating global warming, which the next generation must deal with. The language in the final stanza such as â€Å"plagues† also symbolises the â€Å"curse†. The â€Å"marriage hearse† symbolises eternity with death, an oxymoron. This makes the effect of showing life is not without death, in every life there is a final misery, death. William Blake wrote Holy Thursday in songs of innocence in 1789. Holy Thursday describes the church's festival to commemorate the ascension of Jesus which takes place thirty-nine days after Easter. On the Thursday, children from the charity schools across London went on a march to attend a service at St Paul's Cathedral. Beadles were lower ranking church members who kept the order of the children as they arrived. The Songs of innocence version of Holy Thursday consists of three quatrains each with two rhyming couplets. The first stanza brings the life to the poem with use of colour imagery â€Å"red, blue and green† to emphasize the children's delight. Blake uses â€Å"innocent faces clean† to once again stress how simple and innocent children are. They are â€Å"clean† because they have not yet acquired experience, which Blake saw experience as something bad. The Beadles are â€Å"Grey headed†, revealing them as possibly old aged. Blake also describes them as â€Å"wise guardians† perhaps because of the knowledge they have acquired till their old age. This is peculiar because the main attitude of Blake was that experience was something bad. It may be that Blake writes this because he is pleased that the children are brought up with a good religious attitude by the church. In the last stanza the children sing above the â€Å"aged men†, more evidence of the beadle's old age and a way to show their experience. Blake may have done this because he believed the Beadles were not â€Å"wise† or bothered to be â€Å"guardians† of the children because they cared not for them, another link to show experience as something bad. In the last line of the last stanza, â€Å"Then cherish pity, lest you drive an angel from your door† is a reference to Hebrews 13:2, â€Å"Be not forgetful to entertain strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels unawares. † This is God telling people to be good to our fellow man as you don't know who they are. This portrays the children as angelic to the reader. Also the sentences of the poem lengthen across the page. This can represent the long marching line of the children towards the church. The Songs of experience version was written in 1794. It is about the same event from the Songs of innocence but the manner is more disheartening. The poem consists of four quatrains and Blake has removed the effect of lengthening the sentences. Pastoral imagery is evident that the children are in a â€Å"rich and fruitful land†. Blake has done this because of the beauty of the actual church itself but he then stresses they are still â€Å"reduced to misery†. This is a reflection to the sour attitude of life expressed in the poem London. Blake is furthermore disapproved of the powerful taking advantage of the poor. Blake furthermore criticises the integrity of the church by writing that the children are â€Å"Fed with cold and usurous hand. † This means that the church has no concern of the children as is only interested in continuing the ceremony so it will benefit the church as â€Å"usurous† meant to lend money for a profit. Blake has also written deeper parts including â€Å"And their ways are fill'd with thorns†, from the third stanza. Blake has used religious imagery to suggest the children's lives will be full of adversity just as Jesus did. The â€Å"thorns† give a reminder to Jesus being flogged along with the crown of thorns. This was the hardship Jesus endured but after being crucified he ascended straight to heaven. Blake is saying the children will endure hardship like this but when the die they will go straight to heaven. Comparisons between the two are that in the last line of the third stanza of the Songs of Experience version, â€Å"It is eternal winter there,† describes how the children see the ceremony from the experienced point of view. This is different from Holy Thursdays of the Songs of innocence. The last stanza of the Songs of Experience version links to the â€Å"winter† by saying that when the sun shines and the rain doesn't fall, there â€Å"can never hunger there† and â€Å"Nor poverty†. But in winter the sun does not shine and rain does fall, so therefore Blake is saying there is hunger and there is poverty. The Songs of innocence version portrays the children as â€Å"flowers of London town†, this gives a good mood of the imagery for the children. But The Songs of Experience version opposes this mood as â€Å"their fields are bleak & bare† which both quotes touch on pastoral imagery. The experience of the children has lead them to become miserable as the adults and are â€Å"bleak and bare† physically and mentally. In general, Holy Thursday is meant to be a joyous occasion as Blake writes about the children in Songs of innocence but the exploitation by the powerful minority has demoralised the poor majority and this foul mood on such an occasion is shown in Holy Thursday from Songs of Experience. William Blake died in 1827. Blake wrote Songs of Innocence and Experience to show the world the bad deeds that society had created, expanding on matters he felt important like religion and morality, child labour and cruelty. It is true that Songs of Innocence and Songs of experience are very complex and Blake has done a good job of helping the reader understand the complexity by using his powerful use of imagery and language and William Blake has definitely expressed his beliefs well though his poems.

What Happens When There Is a Surplus of Imports Brought Into the US

What happens when there is a surplus of imports into the U S: A surplus of imports is good for consumers but bad for local business. We have to produce and manufacture in order to export. As our export trade shrinks, so does our workforce and economy. The surplus of imported cars for 2012 has exceeded the exportation by $152 billion. Also the shelf life of cars is 1 year. Every year at the end of the cycle the existing models are sold off at huge discounts to make room for the new models, which is good for the consumer. What are the effects of international trade to GDP, domestic markets and university students. International trade comprises exports and imports, the net result of which affects our GDP. Since our imports exceed our exports our GDP would be impacted by our net exports or deficits. The rippling effect of financing deficits is an increase in interest rates from selling bonds that reduces investments and growth. This further reduces GDP. Domestic markets flourish when there is a demand for local products overseas. If the domestic markets have to compete with imported products it could be a struggle. However jobs can be created for the advertising, sales, and distribution of foreign imports. The effect of international trade on university students has recently brought about an awareness of a vibrant industry in the education services. Of the $35billion worldwide market for international students, the U S was able to capture a market share of 45%, showing a healthy surplus of $12. 6Billion in higher education. A foreign exchange rate is the rate at which one currency would be exchanged for another. It is essentially the value of a currency when compared to another and is determined by two fundamental forces of economics, supply and demand. When the supply of a currency exceeds the demand, the value of the currency falls. However when the demand for a currency exceeds the supply the value rises. When the value of a currency is low the exchange rate is low and vice versa. Exchange rates of currencies are influenced and determined as a result of a country’s income, changes in interest rates, price of goods and changes in trade policies. When income is high, imports are high and exchange rate is low. When interest rates are high there is a demand for U S currency to invest in U S assets and exchange rate is high. When the prices of local goods are high there is low demand for the local currency in favor of high demand for foreign goods and foreign currency. This results in a low exchange rate. Trade with a foreign country could be adversely affected by hiking trade restrictions like tariff. This increases the cost of imports and lowers the exchange rate. How do government choices in regards to tariffs and quotas affect international relations and trade Tariffs and quotas are just two of the direct methods used in trade restrictions. There are also indirect methods of trade restrictions like protecting the health and safety of residents seen in the importation of consumables, time consuming inspections on general goods, special codes for packaging. Some of these restrictions are imposed for legitimate reasons but most of them are designed to protect the domestic producers from international competition. The most legitimate form of trade restrictions used are tariffs, which are taxes governments impose on internationally traded goods and quotas, which are quantity limits placed on goods imported. Trade is good for all countries because they all have comparative advantages they try to implement amicably with the use of tariffs and quotas. However these restrictions occasionally are used politically to influence relationships with foreign countries. Why doesn’t the U. S. simply restrict all goods coming in from China? Why can’t the U. S. just minimize the amount of imports coming in from other countries: The first reason why the U. S doesn’t restrict all goods coming in from China is because this action would belie the main purpose of the World Trade Organization (WTO) which is to ensure that trade flows freely between nations. The U. S is the largest importer of Chinese goods. If the U. S stops the importation of Chinese goods, it is unimaginable what they would do with all these unused products. There would be no production or manufacturing of goods. Unemployment would be high, there would be no source of income and the country’s economy would be ruined. As the largest importer of Chinese goods most of the local U. S companies rely on these imports for doing business. They import spare parts, automibles, manufacturing goods, appliances, electronics and building materials just to name a few. If Chinese imports are stopped the economy of both countries would be ruined as well as the world’s economy. In order to minimize the amount of imports coming in from all other countries the U. S government would have to change the regulatory trade restrictions that are resently in place by increasing taxes and quotas. This would not be in the best interest of the U. S economy. We rely heavily on imports. If we do this, the other companies would retaliate. The Smoot-Hawley tariff was tried in 1930 when tariff on imported goods was raised to an average of 60% . As a result, trade wars ensued and the international trade plummeted f rom $60 billion in 1928 to $25billion in 1938. In 2002 President George Bush imposed a 30% tariff on imported steel, the EU countries, Japan, and China retaliated with threats of $335million worth of tariffs on U. S imports (Colander, 2010). No country has all the resources it needs. There might be lots of oil in the desert but there is lack of food, water and trees. Countries have to rely on their neighbors to fulfill their wants and needs. Even though China might want to impose unfair trade practices yet we cannot shut off their imports, because they are our lifeline just as we are theirs. The world satisfies its wants and needs through Trade. Without it lots of countries would not survive. References Colander, D. (2010). Macroeconomics (8th ed.). Boston, MA: McGraw_Hill/Irwin. http://useconomy.about.com/od/tradepolicy/p/Trade_Deficit.htm http://trade.gov/press/publications/newsletters/ita_0909/higher_0909.asp

Algae Production For Biofuel Article Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Algae Production For Biofuel - Article Example Traditional ethanol and oil rich plants such as sugarcane, corn and rapeseed have been tried successfully in various regions of the world to yield biodiesel for industrial use. However, the economics of biodiesel production has still to provide figures for potentially feasible and sustainable means to this end. Algae, which are simple botanical forms of life possessing the ability to reproduce at a fast rate with minimal of inputs are being looked at as a potential sources of biodiesel, as some of the millions of its species have been discovered to be rich in triglycerides and other fats/oils necessary for biofuel production. The major advantage of using algae for biofuel production is that they grow in ponds and wastewater, which do not encroach upon terrestrial territory already reserved for the cultivation of food crops. Moreover, algae possess the ability to double their biomass in as less as one day under optimized conditions (Odlare et al, 2011). The high growth rate however ha s to be optimized in relation to oil production within the organism as these two properties are contradictory to each other (Csavina et al, 2011). Methodologies and technologies are therefore being developed to cultivate algae in controlled conditions to achieve this objective. Lipids, sugar and hydrogen gas are considered the primary units of energy and a study at the University of Arizona reveals that algae have a distinct advantage over terrestrial cultivable crops such as corn as they possess a 300 fold advantage in producing the basic units for producing biofuel (Littin, 2011). Although the cost of production of fuel from algae still exceeds the value of the final product, intensive research is going on at the university as well as other parts of the world to optimize the process towards a profitable direction (Littin, 2011). Moreover, it has been discovered that secondary wastewater rich in nitrogen and phosphorus can be utilized to grow algae eliminating the need of fertilize rs (Littin, 2011). In turn, the algae besides producing lipids for potential use as biofuel purify the water as well, resulting in a double benefit. Grown in controlled conditions of specific light exposure and deprivation of nitrogen and sulfur at particular stages of their life promote lipid production in the algae, which are the strategies being explored by the scientists involved in this research (Littin, 2011). Biofuel or biodiesel can be produced from any biomass which has high lipid content. The process involves extraction of oil from the biomass by a process called transesterification which yields triglycerides, which possess the properties ideal for a biofuel (Taylor, 2011). Algae can either be grown in open ponds or in controlled conditions in what is known as a photo-bioreactor (Taylor, 2011). The latter is a sealed aquaculture system in which conditions can be optimized and manipulated according to required objectives of high lipid production by the organisms. Such biore actors are however costly to build as well as maintain and may not be the ideal means for biofuel production from algae. Identification of the appropriate species and varieties of algae growing in natural ponds and wastewater reservoirs in natural conditions, which provide the maximum yield of lipids can be the only means, once identified, to make economically feasible and sustainable methods for

Learning Styles and Career Preference Coursework

Learning Styles and Career Preference - Coursework Example There are many factors which researchers believe to have some effect on the learning process in the lifecycle of an individual hence affecting career choice (Reid, p.27). Some of these factors are negative while others are positive in nature. The purpose of this research study is to determine whether the different learning styles have an impact on the career choice of an individual. The term learning style has had many definitions and one of them is the process of organizing facts and coming into touch with the reality. Career preference, on the other hand, may be defined as the choice of occupation necessary for one to make a living. The learning style, in this case, is the independent variable whereas the career preference is the dependent variable. The problem under investigation, in this case, is the effect of inadequate knowledge in learning styles on career preference. The purpose or objective of the study is important in that it gives a sense of direction to the researcher. The purpose of this study will be to determine whether there is a correlation between learning styles and the choice of occupation or career an individual selects. A hypothesis is important in any form of research and assists the researcher in sticking to the topic under investigation. The hypothesis of the study, in this case, is: there is a correlation between the learning styles and career choice of an individual. The significance of this study would be to assist tutors in different academic institutions to come up with the best strategies in assisting students in learning. It would also assist in assisting tutors to determine the best learning styles to be adopted for students on different career paths. This would enhance the education system and assist in ensuring that students acquire education in the most effective and efficient way possible. On the other hand, the research would ensure that the needs of the students are fully catered for in that they would feel comfortable learning through.

Reflection on management Term Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Reflection on management - Term Paper Example Businesses have significant social responsibilities that are not covered by most introductory business courses. Although businesses have a role of ensuring their sustainability through profitable operations, they also have a role of maintain social sustainability. However, most business courses emphasize on profit-making and efficient operation strategies. The course provides learners with concrete information about sustainable management and its significance in modern day businesses. Ancient human activities involved exploiting resources from their natural forms or primary level of production. In such economies, people were not concerned with sustainability since they lived in a world with abundant resources. The course considers this as the sources current management trend where businesses are concerned with making of profits. Although this trend is considered as the norm, people are beginning to consider the need for sustainable businesses. Thus, the course is established on modern management trends, which are aimed at sustainable business practices. At the end of the topic, I had acquired sufficient background information on management and managerialism. However, the topic does not provide a basis of fundamental theories that led to the formation of the current economic blocks. I was interested in information that explains the role of politics and government in shaping world’s management strategies. The second topic covers the move towards modern economies. Need for mass production is the basic aspect that characterized classic businesses in the mid twentieth century. According to chapter two of Locke and Spender, businesses in this era were characterized by unbound growth. Unbound growth of population and human wants made people to believe in unbound businesses (Hirschey 132). The industrial revolution provided the foundation for the era since it provided the required element of efficiency. The topic also addresses controversies surrounding modern management practices. This approach provides a foundation for strategic management practices covered in the third topic. The chapter also elaborates the role of modern businesses to the society. Corporate social responsibility is a significant element of modern business. The element of corporate social responsibility signifies the main difference between successful and unsuccessful businesses. The topic illustrates this analogy throug h case studies covering major global businesses such as Toyota and IBM. However, the businesses have different perspectives on social responsibilities according to the topic. In addition, the companies have experienced a constant transformation in their attitude towards corporate social responsibility. For instance, Toyota has considerably transformed its management practices in relation to its manufacturing systems and marketing structures. The third topic deals with management as a social science. This topic provides essential information concerning people based management system and the role of human capital in modern economies. The topic links theories of organization culture the goals and objectives of an organization. In addition, the atopic covers recent developments in the fields of management that makes the subject an essential science. Management science is based on logical conclusion that results in the satisfaction of all sectors of a business. The topic also covers the evolution of economic concepts and measures that are used to measure economic progress of a country. Although I managed through most of the

Wireless microphone Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Wireless microphone - Essay Example In this scenario, Moores attached the wireless transmitter inside the clothes used by the character Abanazar, and it was an excellent experiment which worked exactly according to plan. However, Moores could not get a patent for his idea for the reason that he was not legally making use of the radio frequency 76 MHz. Hence, it was decided by the producers of the ice show that they would stop making use of this wireless device; and instead of this device they would employ singers and actors in order to perform using secret microphones for dubbing voices of the other ice skaters in order that they could be freed to focus on their skating (Boly Electronics., 2010). In addition, Moores mentioned his prototype of 1947 in the Science Museum in London in the 1972. Since the first usage of wireless microphone it is being used in different forms in different places. A model of wireless microphone introduced in 1958 was manufactured by Sony which was called Sony CR-4 in 1960 and this wireless microphone was being suggested for nightclub acts and theatre performances. As mentioned above, a large number of manufacturers and individuals claim that they are the actual inventors of wireless microphone. In this scenario, Beyerdynamic that is a German equipment manufacturer, claims that the first wireless microphone was transistophone which was invented by Hung C. Lin., However, it appeared in the public in 1962. In addition, in 1964 wireless microphone was used for the first in a film in order to record sound while filming a motion picture in the 1964 film My Fair Lady. First compander wireless microphone came with Wider dynamic range in 1976, which was pr oduced by Nady Systems. Additionally, The Rolling Stones and Todd Rundgren were the first famous musicians that made use of these systems during a live concert. In 1996, Nady, Sennheiser, CBS and Vega got a combined