Richard Wright Essay Example for Free

Richard Wright Essay In this story written by Richard Wright, we see a man who struggles to come to terms with asserting his independence on the people around him. The main character in the story, Dave, is portrayed by the author as someone who sees that ownership of a gun as the starting point whereby he can prove to his peers and his parents that he is a man. However, as the story progresses, we also witness how Dave fumbles along the way of becoming a man. I believe that many of us have, at one point in our lives, felt the same way as Dave when he wanted to break free from his youth by doing something that was basically within the turf of being an adult. For Dave, becoming a man meant being able to own and fire a gun. Dave felt, or believed, that owning a gun was synonymous to being able to stand up for yourself, or talk to him â€Å"as though he were a little boy†. Unfortunately, Dave focused on the benefits of having a gun instead of focusing on the responsibilities attached to owning a gun. In the course of his struggle for independence, Dave was able to convince his mother to buy a guy but only with the promise of immediately surrendering the gun to his father upon purchase. Naturally, Dave did not live up to this promise and instead tried the gun for himself. And in doing so, he killed the mule of his employer and instead of proving himself worthy of being called a man, his peers saw that he was still not ready to take on the responsibility. In this story, we see different points of view on independence. How does one come of age? For Dave, it was owning a gun but for his parents, it meant being responsible for your actions. In the end, Dave proved himself that he met his own criteria of being a man by owning and firing a gun. But in the sight of many, he is still that man who was almost a man. Almost but not quite.

Review of Platos The Allegory of the Cave :: World Literature

In Plato's "The Allegory of the Cave," Socrates tells an allegory of the hardship of understanding reality. Socrates compares a prisoner of an underground cave who is exploring a new world he never knew of to people who are trying to find a place of wisdom in reality. According to Socrates, most people tend to rely on their senses too much and believe the world as it is appeared to our sight. In order to free our souls from this mental prison, Socrates suggests that we should go through a phase that does not only prepare ourselves for the real world but also prevent us from heading to the wrong direction to seek the truth - education. In conclusion, Socrates believes those who have reached a higher level of knowledge and wisdom should bear a responsibility to lead the community and improve it because they are blessed with better education and are able to enjoy a different reward than the power to control others like most politicians do. Two thousand years after Plato has written down the allegory, it is amazing how we can still relate it to our everyday lives. As Plato wrote in "The Allegory of the Cave," education is a very important phase that leads us to wisdom and helps us to get accustomed to the real world with less difficulty. Apparently, this theory has proven to be correct for the past two thousand years. Until today, those of higher wisdoms are mostly people who have mastered a thorough and solid education; and they certainly have become the leaders of the community who share their knowledge and enlighten many people. We can also find Plato's theory on rulers of countries relevant to the world today.

Meaning of Life and Poem Essay

`Tis he who always tears our books, Who leaves the door ajar, He pulls the buttons from our shirts, And scatters pine afar; That squeaking door will always squeak, For, prithee, don’t you see, We leave the oiling to be done By Mr. Nobody He puts damp wood upon the fire, That kettles cannot boil; His are the feet that bring in mud, And all the carpets soiled. The papers always are mislaid, Who had them last but he? There’s no one tosses them about But Mr. Nobody. The finger marked upon the door By none of us are made; We never leave the blind unclosed, To let the curtains fade. The ink we never spill; the boots That lying round you. See Are not our boots they all belong To Mr. Nobody. SYNOPSIS: The poem is about a person,Mr. Nobody, who does notexist, but who is created bythe persona to take theblame for all kinds of mistakes and irresponsiblebehaviour that happens inthe persona’s house. The persona is probably introuble for doing thingswrong and is blaming Mr. Nobody so that he or she willnot be scolded or punished. MEANING OF THE POEM STANZA 1 :- The funny little man mentioned in the poem is a little boy, perhaps three to five years old. This is because; a child within that age usually does not talk much rather than making things that require them to learn. However, they often create trouble to people around them. Like in this stanza, there are cracked plates but people tend not to scold them because they are in the learning process though people know they do it. STANZA 2 :- The same thing happen mentioned in this stanza, the child creates another trouble in the house. Some of the troubles are the books have been torn, the buttons have been pulled out from the shirts and the pins are scattered. However, seeing that the little boy needs to learn, they leave the squeaking door to be oiled by the boy for him to learn. STANZA 3 :- Within this age also, the child may be doing something that may annoy some other people. The examples are given in this stanza such as Mr. Nobody puts damp woods upon the fire which causes the kettle cannot be boiled, bringing the mud into the house and make the carpet soiled, and papers are mislaid. People know that no one could do such things except for Mr. Nobody. STANZA 4 :- However, though people like Mr. Nobody is quite troubling, they need to be directed and to be taught the meaning of life. Not to forget they become like that because they are in the process of learning. Therefore, we as adult or people that are older and already matured must show a good talent for them to follow the right role model. For example in this stanza, Mr. Nobody does not know the meaning of privacy which he lets the door and the curtain open, leaving the boots not in the right place and spilling inks. THEMES: Family life. Taking things for granted. Responsibility. Honesty. MORAL VALUES: We must always tell the truth. We must be responsible members of a family. We should not blame others for our mistakes. We must admit our mistakes. We must appreciate everyone within our family. PERSONA: The persona could be a parent or grandparents who wants to admonish (menegur) the children foralways running away from responsibility and forblaming others for the mischief that they have done. Type of Poem : A poem on life Title : A suitable title because the purpose is to blame nobody. Nobody is a non-person so he is the best person to push the blame to. 1. Write a personal response to a selected poem Why you will choose this poem ? What u think / feel after you read this poem ? What is the theme of the poem ? why ? Theme : 1. Nature 2. Love 3. Friendship 4. Childhood What you learn from this poem ? other†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦. Not more than 350 words 2. Write reflection on the task you have complete. Your reflection will be assessed on the following data : Maturity of your thought in reflection Language The reflection must be including At first, what you think/ feel when you received this assignment? ( stress ? anxiety ? or ? how you solve this problem?) Thanks for the lecturer Mdm. Syamsina Zahurin Shamsuddin for guide to do this assignment†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦ Thanks my friend to listening my presentation†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦.. Thanks my groups member Lee Shun Fong ( coorperation ) Where you search the material of this poem (Internet and book)†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦ What you feel when you processing this assignment†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦ Facing what problem when you processing this assignment maybe hard to find material or something like that †¦ Finally †¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦ Guidelines for implementation of project 1. Using the APA format 2. Work should be type written with 1. 5 spacing and font Arial size 12.

Platos theory of justice Essay

Finding these two phrases, however, is hardly enough to get a clear sense of what justice is. Plato offers two main analogies to examine the definition of justice. The division of parts in the soul as well as the parts of the state; We would now examine the structure of the soul. The soul is divided into three parts, the appetitive, spirited and the rational. By the account of the parts of the soul we are shown how a soul has different wills, yet in order for a soul to stay in the just path it must have some sort of hierarchy. Plato describes the spirited part as the courageous ally of the rational part which has the control over the appetitiveve part. The state is also divided into three types of people, the workers, soldiers and the rulers. It is obvious that that sort of division seems awkward when placed over our own capitalist society. We must keep in mind that in the republic that Plato is describing each individual is directed by vast education and the utmost care towards the work he could do with excellence. The children in the republic are separated from their parents at birth and therefore get the same equal chance of becoming workers or rulers without any prejudice regarding their upbringing or family background, rather, they are evaluated personally, purely according to their natural qualities. The division of people into pre-determined types in the state is assumed to be done truthfully, according to their natural abilities. To soldiers who cannot understand what possessing wisdom means (because they lack it) or to workers that lack both courage and wisdom, Plato uses the â€Å"noble lie†. That is the idea that mother nature creates people out of three materials, gold, silver and bronze when obviously the golden people are fit to rule, the silver are fit to guard and the bronze are best naturally fitted to work. Both the accounts have a similar structure, Plato claims that justice is the same in the soul and in the state. The resemblance suggests that both the workers and the appetitive share the virtue of moderation for they have to be moderate in their desires. Both the guardians and the spirited share the virtue of courage in order to guard the whole. Finally, both the ruler and  the rational share the virtue of wisdom in order to control the workers and the appetitive, with the help of the guardians/spirited, all in one goal that is the good of the whole state/soul. What Plato claims is that a king could rule in a just manner, therefore maintain justice, only if he has knowledge of the true form of justice. That is, true knowledge of the forms. The forms represent the ultimate truth, the way things really are in a more knowledgeable sight then the one offered by science. Once acquiring this knowledge of the forms, and only then, can a ruler be fit to rule in a wise manner for he is abl e to truly put the interest of the whole as his own. Thus, ruling in a manner where justice exists and is carefully preserved. In his theory of justice, Plato defines justice in the two ways we have examined earlier. Supporting those definitions by the parts in the state and the soul and their interaction. The way justice should be is shown clearly both in the state and n the soul and then comes the claim regarding the philosopher-king which is the only combination of a ruler that is fit to rule both in the sense of a just state or a just soul. Critical analysis of platos theory of justice: 1.It lays great stress on duties and has no regard for rights. 2.It divides the society into three classes which is impossible now. 3.Platos unity through uniformity is not stable. 4.It is rigid as it is based on functional specialisation and one man one work throughout life. 5.It stands for non-interference but it is impossible for a ruler not to interfer in the affairs of the subject. 6.Platos justice with communism of property and wives ignore the fundamental human psychology.

Pitfalls Of Relativism Essays - Relativism, Cultural Relativism

Pitfalls Of Relativism Essays - Relativism, Cultural Relativism Pitfalls of Relativism The year was 1943. Hundreds of Jewish people were being marched into the gas chambers in accordance with Adolf Hitler's orders. In the two years that followed, millions of Jews were killed and only a fraction survived the painful ordeals at the Nazi German prison camps. However, all of the chaos ended as World War II came to a close: the American and British soldiers had won and Hitler's Third Reich was no more. A certain ethical position would state that the anti-sematic Nazi German culture was neither right nor wrong in its actions. In fact, it is this view of the cultural relativist that assumes all actions considered right in a culture to be good for that culture alone. Moreover, the relativist claims that these actions cannot be judged according to their ethical correctness because there is no absolute ezdard by which they could be compared. In the above case, this position would not allow for the American and British soldiers to interfere with the Nazis; the relativist would claim that the Allies were wrong in fighting the Germans due to a cultural disagreement. In truth, it is the relativist position which has both negative logical and practical consequences, and negligible benefits. The first logical consequence of relativism is that the believer must contradict himself in order to uphold his belief. The view states that all ethics are relative while putting forth the idea that no absolute ezdard of rightness exists. If this is the case, then what is cultural relativism relative to? From a purely logical point of view, this idea is absurd, for in assuming that something is relative one must first have some absolute by which it is judged. Let the reader consider this example to reinforce the point. A young woman is five feet tall, and her older friend is six feet tall. The younger female considers herself short because she looks at her friend and sees that she is taller than her. It would be illogical to say that the first woman is short if she were the only female in existence; if this were the case then there would not be anyone for her to be relative to in height. However, this logical fallacy is what the relativist assumes by stating that there is no ezdard of rightness for relativity. Quite simply, the cultural relativist is stating that he is relative to an absolute which he considers non-existent. One other logical error that the relativist makes lies in his "Cultural Differences Argument.1" The premise of this argument is that "different cultures have different moral codes." The conclusion that the relativist derives is that "there is no objective 'truth' in morality, [and therefore] right and wrong are only matters of opinion [that] vary from culture to culture.2" The main logical problem with this argument is that the stated conclusion does not necessarily need to be the case if the premise is given. The premise states what different people believe to be true, and the conclusion jumps to the assumption that this belief must necessarily be the case. Let the reader consider this inezce, which closely follows the form of the above given argument. Assume that there is a society that believes that sunning as much as possible in the nude can only benefit a person. Due to scientific study, it has been experimentally shown that overexposure to the sun's ultraviolet rays can cause skin cancer. Being in the American culture, people know this to be true and therefore would disagree with sunning too often. According to the relativist, since the two cultures disagree concerning the practice of sunning there is no objective truth about it. However, this is a faulty conclusion because empirical evidence shows that the first culture would be wrong in its beliefs. In truth, one cannot "derive a subeztive conclusion about a subject (morally) from the mere fact that people disagree about it.3" Having discussed the logical consequences of relativism, it is necessary to expound upon the effects of its practice. The first of these repercussions is that the culture determines what is functionally right and wrong. This means that the individual has no say in the matter, and if there is a conflict between

Prehistoric Saber-Toothed Cats

Prehistoric Saber-Toothed Cats Despite the way theyve been portrayed in movies, saber-toothed cats werent just big felines with enormous front teeth. The whole lifestyle of saber-toothed cats (and their close cousins, the scimitar-tooths, dirk-tooths and false saber tooths) revolved around using their canines to wound and kill prey, most often giant herbivorous mammals, but also early hominids and other big cats that are now extinct. Now we need to dispense with a couple of other misconceptions. First, the most famous prehistoric cat, Smilodon, is often referred to as the Saber-Toothed Tiger, but the word tiger actually refers to a specific, modern genus of big cat. More properly, Smilodon should be called a saber-toothed cat, just like its large-fanged contemporaries of the Tertiary and Quaternary periods. And second, as so often happens in nature, the saber-tooth head plan evolved more than onceand not just in cats, as well see below. Saber-Toothed Cats - True or False? The first carnivores that could reasonably be described as saber-toothed were the nimravids, primitive, vaguely cat-like mammals that lived about 35 million years ago, during the late Eocene epoch. As closely related to early hyenas as they were also early cats, nimravids werent technically felines, but genera like Nimravus and Hoplophoneus (Greek for armed murderer) still boasted some impressive canines. For technical reasons (mostly involving the shapes of their inner ears), paleontologists refer to nimravids as false saber tooths, a distinction that makes less sense when you take a gander at the skull of Eusmilus. The two front canines of this leopard-sized nimravid were almost as long as its entire skull, but their thin, dagger-like structure places this carnivore firmly in the dirk-toothed cat family (dirk being the ancient Scottish word for dagger). Confusingly, even some primitive felines are categorized as false saber-tooths. A good example is the aptly named Dinofelis (terrible cat), whose somewhat short, blunt canines, though bigger than those of any large cat alive today, dont merit its inclusion in the true saber-tooth camp. Even so, Dinofelis was a continuing menace to other mammals of its time, including the early hominid Australopithecus (which may have figured on this cats dinner menu). Exclusion from the true saber-toothed cats makes more sense in the case of Thylacosmilus. This was a marsupial that raised its young in pouches, kangaroo-style, rather than a placental mammal-like its true saber-toothed cousins. Ironically, Thylacosmilus went extinct about two million years ago when its South American habitat was colonized by true saber-tooths migrating down from the North American plains. (A similar-sounding predatory mammal from Australia, Thylacoleo, wasnt technically a cat at all, but it was every bit as dangerous.) Smilodon and Homotherium - Kings of the Saber-Toothed Smilodon (and no, its Greek name has nothing to do with the word smile) is the creature that people have in mind when they say saber-toothed tiger. This long-fanged carnivore was shorter, stockier and heavier than a typical modern-day lion, and it owes its fame to the fact that thousands of Smilodon skeletons have been fished out of the La Brea Tar Pits in Los Angeles (its no wonder that Hollywood has immortalized saber-toothed tigers in countless caveman flicks). Although Smilodon probably snacked on the occasional hominid, the bulk of its diet consisted of the large, slow herbivores crowding the plains of North and South America. Smilodon enjoyed a long time in the prehistoric sun, persisting from the Pliocene epoch to about 10,000 B.C., when early humans hunted the dwindling population to extinction (or, possibly, rendered Smilodon extinct by hunting its prey to extinction!). The only other prehistoric cat to match Smilodons success was Homotherium, which spread across wider swathes of territory (Eurasia and Africa, as well as North and South America) and was perhaps even more dangerous. Homotheriums canines were sleeker and sharper than those of Smilodon (which is why paleontologists call it a scimitar-toothed cat), and it had a hunched, hyena-like posture. (Homotherium may have resembled hyenas in another respect: theres evidence that it hunted in packs, a good strategy for bringing down multi-ton Woolly Mammoths.) The Lifestyles of Saber-Toothed Cats As mentioned above, the gigantic canines of saber-toothed cats (true, false, or marsupial) existed for more than strictly ornamental reasons. Whenever nature evolves a specific feature multiple times, you can be sure that it has a definite purposeso the convergent evolution of saber teeth in various types of carnivores points to a more functional explanation. Based on current research, it seems that the largest saber-toothed cats (such as Smilodon, Homotherium, and Thylocasmilus) pounced suddenly on their prey and dug in their canines - then withdrew to a safe distance as the unfortunate animal wandered in circles and bled to death. Some of the evidence for this behavior is strictly circumstantial (for example, paleontologists rarely find broken-off saber teeth, a hint that these canines were a crucial part of the cats armament). While some evidence is more direct - skeletons of various animals have been found bearing Smilodon or Homotherium-sized puncture wounds. Scientists have also found that Smilodon had unusually powerful arms - which it used to hold down wriggling prey, thus minimizing the possibility of breaking off those all-important saber teeth. Perhaps the most surprising fact about saber-toothed cats is that they werent exactly speed-demons. Whereas modern cheetahs can hit top speeds of 50 miles per hour or so (at least for short bursts), the relatively stubby, muscular legs and thick builds of the bigger saber-toothed cats indicates that they were opportunistic hunters, jumping on prey from the low branches of trees or executing short, daring leaps from the underbrush to dig in their deadly fangs.

Answer and summarize Management HR Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Answer and summarize Management HR - Essay Example This alignment is to align HR function with business strategy, understand the various aspects of the business and familiarizing with the challenges encountered by leaders so that the various issues can be tackled from both employees and the leader’s perspective. A strategic partner determines the business strategy and oversees the implementation of such strategies. It is imperative to involve key executive leaders and to develop a good team rapport while coming up with HR policy guidelines and strategies, which are very crucial in guiding the organization. In business, the customer is usually the primary concern. To satisfy the customer, the HR head should ensure that the employees are made to feel at home. When employees are happy, customers are also happy. While there may be a success in some organizations with regard to human resource management, in others it remains very elusive. HR is more about understanding the needs of the business and acting with these needs at heart. There should always be contact with the rest of the company to ensure ease of doing business. From a team standpoint, specialization coupled with hard work, enthusiasm, consistency and diligence are of core importance. Strategic partnership with an inclination towards the people element put people first, with the key being retention and development. Long-term forecast is usually desirable, and the agility of the company can make it reap handsome returns faster. Synchronized teamwork is necessary especially in light of changing functions that may occasioned by downsizing. The employees are greatly helped by assisting them in ranking growing responsibilities. An open door policy style of management is attractive. The manager leaves the door â€Å"open† to foster transparency and frankness with employees of the company. In order to encourage performance, the company motivates employees by paying or rewarding