Comparing Melvilles Moby Dick as a Mans Story and Naslunds Novel, Ah

Comparing Melville's Moby Dick as a Man's Story and Naslund's Novel, Ahab's Wife as a Woman's Story Throughout my reading of Moby Dick and Ahab's Wife, I was disturbed by the fact that the most tempting way to situate the two novels in a relationship was to categorize them as "male" and "female." Moby Dick was, of course, the man's story and Ahab's Wife was its womanly counterpart. This comparison makes sense when you consider the gender of the authors, Melville and Naslund, the gender of their respective narrators, Ishmael and Una, and the experiences portrayed throughout the texts. Many readers argue, "There are no female characters in Moby Dick- how could it be anything but a man's story?" In that context, it is easy to position Ahab's Wife at the opposite end of the literary spectrum because the novel is told solely from a feminine perspective. Viewing the texts in this way indicates that our conceptions of gender have not changed much since the days of Adam and Eve. In that story the man, Adam, came first and provided the foundation for humankind. Eve was an afterthought, born e from a single rib. The rib that became Una can be found in Moby Dick- a single reference to Ahab's spouse back in Nantucket. Adam and Eve represent a clear division between male and female that established the gender binary we now impose on these two texts. I find this dichotomy troubling and ultimately inadequate for several reasons. First of all, I don't agree with the spectrum concept that places maleness on one side and femaleness on the other, then locates Moby Dick and Ahab's Wife at these opposite poles. However, this formula exists in almost every field of study. The scientific term for the differences between males and females of a s... ...the finishing to posterity." (663) Just as Melville left room for Naslund, she has opened the door for more stories to emerge from Moby Dick and more towers to be constructed. Sources Cited Chase, Cheryl. "Hermaphrodites With Attitude: Mapping the Emergence of Intersex Political Action." from "Questions of Gender/Engendering Questions", 130-141 Garber, Marjorie. "Spare Parts: The Surgical Construction of Gender" from "Questions of Gender/Engendering Questions", 361-368 Hemmeter, Gail. "Ambiguous Sexes" from "Questions of Gender/Engendering Questions", 96-118 Melville, Herman. Moby Dick. New York: W.W. Norton & Company Inc, 2002. Naslund, Sena Jeter. Ahab's Wife. New York: William Morrow and Company, Inc, 1999. Slaughenhoupt, Bruce L. "Diagnostic Evaluation and Management of the Child With Ambiguous Genitalia." KMA Journal 95 (1997): 135-141.

Gandhi’s Contribution to World War I Essay

Why? 1)He had begun to approve of the idea of home rule, but he had no interest in exchanging government by British elite for rule by an Anglicized Indian elite. If swaraj was to come to India, he argued, it must come as part of a wholesale social transformation that stripped away the old burdens of caste and crippling poverty. 2)Gandhi had said – â€Å"I felt then that it was more the fault of individual officials than of the British system, and that we could convert them by love. If we would improve our status through the help and cooperation of the British, it was our duty to win their help by standing by them in their hour of need.† 3)He had been almost alone among Indian leaders who had argued for unconditional support to Britain in her hour of need in the hope of a worthy gesture at the end of the war. 4)The issue in Champaran involved European traders forcing illegal dues and payments upon the peasants; Ahmedabad’s problem was centred on the unfair treatment of industrial workers; and the predicament in Kheda was caused by the government ignoring the farmers’ appeals for the remission of land revenue. Gandhi solved each dilemma using unique, yet effective methods which gained him the respect and commitment of many political workers. These events depict the growing unrest in India very clearly. India was itching to fight for independence, which would be a very bloody battle indeed. Gandhi, therefore, decided to support the British Empire in the war, hoping that in return, India would gain independence. What? 1)In April 1918, during the latter part of World War I, the Viceroy invited Gandhi to a War Conference in Delhi. Gandhi agreed to actively recruit Indians for the war effort.[43] In contrast to the Zulu War of 1906 and the outbreak of World War I in 1914, when he recruited volunteers for the Ambulance Corps, this time Gandhi attempted to recruit combatants. In a June 1918 leaflet entitled â€Å"Appeal for Enlistment†, Gandhi wrote â€Å"To bring about such a state of things we should have the ability to defend ourselves, that is, the ability to bear arms and to use them†¦If we want to learn the use of arms with the greatest possible dispatch, it is our duty to enlist ourselves in the army.† 2)Early in 1918, the war seemed to be going badly for the Allies; a German thrust was expected on the western front, and the Viceroy summoned prominent leaders of Indian opinion to a War Conference in Delhi. Gandhi supported the resolution on recruitment with a single sentence in Hindi: â€Å"With a full sense of my responsibility, I beg to support the resolution.† 3)When World War I broke out, Gandhi was on the high seas, he was homeward bound, though he hoped to spend a few weeks in England. On August 6, 1914, he landed on English soil and lost no time in calling a meeting of his Indian friends to raise an ambulance unit Public opinion 1)Gandhi did not favour a bargain with the government by offering cooperation at a price and said: â€Å"That we have been loyal at a time of stress is no test of fitness for swaraj (self-government). Loyalty is no merit. It is a necessity of citizenship all the world over.† 2)During the years 1916-18, Gandhi did not take active part in politics. The Moderates did not like his extra-constitutional methods of Satyagraha, the Extremists did not like his studied tenderness to the British Government during the war Consequence And having fought a war whose supposed purpose was to protect the rights of small states and independent peoples from tyranny, the rhetoric of British rule in India had begun to ring hollow 1)In this atmosphere, the harried British government made a frightful mistake. They elected to follow the recommendations of the Rowlatt Committee, which advocated the retention of wartime restrictions in India–including curfews and the suppression of free speech. Gandhi, reading the soon-to-be-passed Rowlatt Act in his sickbed, was too weak to mount a protest, but his loyalty to the Empire, which he had long viewed as the guarantor of Indian liberties, suffered a major blow. 2)Gandhi learned through the Sedition Committee Report that the government of India was going to introduce legislation to curb civil liberties. All of the Indian soldiers lost their lives in vain because the British Empire had absolutely no plans to give India its freedom. 3)Heartbroken, India grew more and more restless. When General Dryer heartlessly slaughtered 379 people at Jallianwala Bagh, the country could take no more. Awhile later, Gandhi launched a nation-wide struggle. And finally, on August 15th, 1947, India finally won its independence. 1)Charlie Andrews confirms, â€Å"Personally I have never been able to reconcile this with his own conduct in other respects, and it is one of the points where I have found myself in painful disagreement.†[46] Gandhi’s private secretary also had acknowledged that â€Å"The question of the consistency between his creed of ‘Ahimsa’` (non-violence) and his recruiting campaign was raised not only then but has been discussed ever since. 2)They wondered, could the apostle of peace ask them to take up arms in defense of the Raj? About 1.3 million Indian soldiers fought in the war. 47, 746 soldiers died and 65, 126 were wounded from the Indian army. This doesn’t seem like something Gandhi would want, right? Many people wonder why Gandhi wanted Indians to fight, since he always strictly adhered to non-violence. His support for India’s involvement in World War One causes us to question his consistency and perhaps even his belief in ahimsa. 3)He did, however, stipulate in a letter to the Viceroy’s private secretary that he â€Å"personally will not kill or injure anybody, friend or foe

Gustave Flaubert and Madame Bovary Essay

Madame Bovary consists of a Realist critique of Romanticism with Emma Bovary portrayed as the emotionally overwrought romantic who destroys herself and others in her attempts to fulfill her unrealistic dreams. For writing about such a horrible woman Gustave Flaubert, the author, was charged with corrupting the morals of French society. He was acquitted of the charge at a public trial. The major characters of the novel include Emma Bovary, the title character and the villain who brings ruin to herself and others in her efforts to realize her romantic illusions; Charles Bovary, a mediocre country doctor who is lackluster at best but deeply in love with his wife Emma; Leon, a law clerk who is a fellow romantic to Emma with whom he eventually has an affair; Rodolphe, a â€Å"gentleman† landowner and womanizer with whom Emma has an affair; and Lheureux, a merchant and money-lender. Lheureux† in French means â€Å"the happy,† and this character becomes happy by preying upon Emma as she attempts to buy the reality of her dreams. Selections, Summaries, and Commentary We meet Charles Bovary who struggled in school to become a doctor. He assumed a practice at Tostes, France, and married. But his wife died. One evening, Charles was summoned to a farm to set a broken leg. Here Charles made the acquaintance of Emma Rouault, the daughter of the patient. Char les, at the invitation of Mr. Rouault, ate breakfast with Emma; and, among other things, they talked of Emma’s dislike for the country. They had closer contact when both of them reached for Charles’ riding crop after it had fallen to the floor. â€Å"Instead of returning to [the farm] in three days as he had promised, he [Charles] went back the very next day, then regularly twice a week†¦. † Though Charles never had the nerve to ask Mr. Roualt for the hand of his daughter, Roualt figured things out, and the marriage was contracted. â€Å"Emma anted a midnight wedding with torches, but old Rouault could not understand such an idea. † It was a country wedding. They walked a mile and a half to and from the church, Emma’s dress trailing on the ground and gathering grass and thistles. After the ceremony, the guests ate until night. â€Å"Charles, who was anything but quick-witted, did not shine at the wedding. † Two days after the wedding, Charles and Emma left for Tostes. Charles now â€Å"had for life this beautiful woman whom he adored. For him the universe did not extend beyond the silky circumference of her petticoat. For Emma, on the other hand, things were different, â€Å"Before [her marriage to Charles] she thought herself in love; but since the happiness that should have followed failed to come, she must, she thought, have been mistaken. And Emma tried to find out what one meant exactly in life by the words bliss, passion, ecstasy, that had seemed to her so beautiful in books. † Emma, we learn, had been fed a steady diet of romanticism at the convent where she was placed at age thirteen. â€Å"Accustomed to the quieter aspects of life [in the country], she turned instead to its tumultuous parts. She loved the sea only for the sake of its storms, and the green only when it was scattered among ruins. † She found herself attracted to the mystical aspects of the religious life. An old maid at the convent kept the girls dreaming. She [the old maid] knew by heart the love-songs of the last century, and sang them in a low voice as she stitched away. She told stories, gave them news, ran their errands in the town, and on the sly lent the big girls some of the novels, that she always carried in the pockets of her apron, and of which the lady herself swallowed long chapters in the intervals of her work. They were all about love, lovers, sweethearts, persecuted ladies fainting in lonely pavilions, postilions killed at every relay, horses ridden to death on every page, somber forests, heart-aches, vows, sobs, tears and kisses, little boatrides by moonlight, nightingales in shady groves, gentlemen brave as lions, gentle as lambs, virtuous as no one ever was, always well dressed, and weeping like fountains. Girls at the convent hid keepsakes with engravings. Here [on the engravings] behind the balustrade of a balcony was a young man in a short cloak, holding in his arms a young girl in a white dress who was wearing an alms-bag at her belt; or there were nameless portraits of English ladies with fair curls, who looked at you from under their round straw hats with their large clear eyes. † After Emma returned home to the farm, she became disgusted with the country. When Charles came to call on her father, she saw Charles as her knight in shinning armor, come to rescue the damsel in distress. Something â€Å"sufficed to make her believe that she at last felt that wondrous passion which, till then, like a great bird with rose-coloured wings, hung in the splendor of poetic skies, — and now she could not think that the calm in which she lived was the happiness of her dreams. † Emma is a victim of the mass media, dying because she read the escapist, romantic fantasies and mistook them for reality. She wondered, â€Å"Why could not she lean over balconies in Swiss chalets, or enshrine her melancholy in a Scotch cottage, with a husband dressed in a black velvet coat with long tails, and thin shoes a pointed hat and frills? Charles’ talk, in contrast, was dull. He provoked no emotions in her but disgust; he had no desire to do or see anything. Charles’s conversation was commonplace as a street pavement, and every one’s ideas trooped through it in their everyday garb, without exciting emotion, laughter, or thought. He had never had the curiosit y, he said, while he lived at Rouen, to go to the theatre to see the actors from Paris. He could neither swim, nor fence, nor shoot, and one day he could not explain some term of horsemanship to her that she had come across in a novel. A man, on the contrary, should he not know everything, excel in manifold activities, initiate you into the energies of passion, the refinements of life, all mysteries? But this one taught nothing, knew nothing, wished nothing. He thought her happy; and she resented this easy calm, this serene heaviness, the happiness she gave him. Flaubert writes that â€Å"ennui, the silent spider, was weaving its web in the darkness, in every corner of her heart. † But after a few months, Emma and Charles were invited to the Vaubyessard estate by the Marquis d’Andervilliers (â€Å"Another Village†). Charles had cured the Marquis from an abscess in the mouth, and the Marquis had requested some offshoots of the cherry trees that were in the Bovary’s little garden. When the Marquis came to thank Charles personally, he saw Emma. He thought her pretty and sophisticated enough to invite to the chateau. Charles and Emma arrived at nightfall along with many others. An elaborate dinner was served, and they prepared for the ball. When Charles intimated that he would dance, Emma replied, â€Å"Why, you must be mad! They would make fun of you; stay in your place, as it becomes a doctor. And when he kissed her on her shoulder, â€Å"’Don’t touch me! ’ she cried; ‘I’ll be all rumpled. ’† The dancing began, and when the atmosphere grew warm and heavy, a servant broke out the window panes. Through the windows Emma â€Å"saw in the garden the faces of peasants pressed against the window looking in at them. † She was reminded of her own heritage, the days of the farm, but â€Å"the splendor of the present hour† made her almost doubt she had ever been there. Supper was served, and at three o’clock the cotillion (more dancing) began. Emma danced with a Viscount, and proved to be a highly courted partner. Charles, in the meantime, had spent five consecutive hours watching people at the card tables â€Å"without understanding anything about it. † Lunch was served the following day, and then Charles and Emma left for Tostes. Emma believed the life of Vaubyessard to be the kind of life she wanted and deserved, and her immediate surroundings grew even more dreary. â€Å"She longed to travel or to go back to her convent. She wanted to die, but she also wanted to live in Paris. † She became increasingly irritated with Charles and her surroundings to the point of becoming ill. She suffered from heart palpitations, and she exhibited altered states of hyperactivity and torpor. She constantly complained about Tostes, and Charles thought that perhaps her illness was due to the town itself. From that thought on, â€Å"Emma drank vinegar to lose weight, contracted a sharp little cough, and lost all appetite. † The Bovarys moved to a new town, Yonville (â€Å"yonder village†), a small market town some twenty miles from Rouen. Here the Bovarys had a daughter, whom Emma names Berthe, after a young lady she had encountered at Vaubyessard, and the Bovarys sent Berthe to be nursed by a carpenter’s wife. Emma was not a very good mother. She really wanted a son who would be free to â€Å"explore all passions and all countries, overcome obstacles, taste of the most distant pleasures. † She did not care for the realities of motherhood. On one occasion, after returning home, Berthe approached Emma. â€Å"‘Leave me alone,’ repeated the young woman quite angrily. Her expression frightened the child, who began to scream. ‘Will you leave me alone? ’ she said, forcing her away with her elbow. Berthe fell at the foot of the chest of drawers against the brass handle; she cut her cheek, blood appeared. Emma then felt sorry for her treatment of the child. The Bovarys met Leon Dupuis, a clerk for the town notary. Leon and Emma were fellow romantics. They spoke of their desire for change as opposed to routine. They talked about their desire for walking in the country, witnessing sunsets, visiting seashores, mountains, lakes, waterfalls. They related their love for music and reading by the fire. The two of them fell in love with one another, but did not yet allow themselves to express their love. â€Å"Weary of loving without success,† Leon eventually left for Paris to pursue a law degree. Emma became unhappy and ill again. A â€Å"gentleman† named Rodolphe Boulanger brought one of his workers, who wanted to be bled, to see Dr. Bovary. Rodolphe had just acquired an estate that consisted of a chateau and two farms that Rodolphe cultivated himself, â€Å"without, however, taking too many pains. † Rodolphe â€Å"lived as a bachelor, and was supposed to have† a sizeable income. When Emma was called to assist in the bleeding, Rodolphe became infatuated with her beauty. But he only desired her as a mistress. Flaubert described Rodolphe as â€Å"having had much experience with women and being something of a connoisseur. † Rodolphe thought to himself, â€Å"Three gallant words and she’d adore me, I’m sure of it. She’d be tender, charming. Yes; but how to get rid of her afterwards. † His present mistress, an actress in Rouen, was beginning to bore him. During an Agricultural Fair, Emma and Rodolphe strolled around, arm in arm, eventually ascending to â€Å"the council room† on the first floor of the townhall. The room was empty, and Rodolphe suggested they could enjoy the show there more comfortably. Flaubert showed his appreciation of irony when, in the background, he awarded the first prize for manure at the same time Rodolphe told Emma, â€Å"A hundred times I tried to leave; yet I followed you and stayed†¦. As I would stay to-night, to-morrow, all other days, all my life! † Also, as Emma and Rodolphe gazed at each other, â€Å"as their desire increased, their dry lips trembled and languidly, effortlessly, their fingers intertwined,† a prize was awarded to an old peasant woman for fifty-four years of faithful service at one farm. Emma was susceptible to Rodolphe’s charms. After some six weeks, a time chosen by Rodolphe for the purpose of not appearing too eager, he visited Emma. He knew just how to play her. When Charles returned home, Rodolphe suggested that riding might be good for Madame Bovary’s health. Charles thought it a good idea. At first, Emma objected, but Charles talked her into it. She and Rodolphe rode and walked. Sometime into their first outing, Emma â€Å"abandoned herself to him. † Charles bought her a horse. Emma and Rodolphe rode regularly, and they began exchanging letters, placing them in the cracks of a wall located near the river at the end of the garden attached to the Bovary home. If Charles left early enough, she would sneak off, on foot, to see Rodolphe at his estate and return to Yonville before anyone awoke. She would cry when she had to leave Rodolphe, and her farewells would go on forever. Rodolphe suggested her visits were too dangerous; she was compromising herself. So, Rodolphe began coming to the garden at night, throwing sand against the shutters, and Emma would sneak out after Charles had retired. Six months passed. Rodolphe became increasingly indifferent, and Emma became uncertain herself. One day, news of a new surgical procedure for curing clubfoot reached the apothecary at Rouen. Emma, who wanted more fame and excitement for her husband, and the apothecary, who wanted fame for himself, urged an unwilling Charles to carry out the new operation on a crippled servant at the inn. The servant was pressured and finally consented after the operation was offered to him at no charge. At first, the operation appeared successful, and Emma was delighted with Charles and his prospects. But the device in which they strapped the servant’s foot caused swelling. In response, the device was tightened even further, and gangrene set in. A surgeon was called in for consultation. He laughed and scolded Charles. The surgeon had to amputate the servant’s leg to the thigh. Emma was no longer delighted. â€Å"Everything in him [Charles] irritated her now; his face, his dress, all the things he did not say, his whole person, in short, his existence. † The disastrous operation was further proof of Charles’ stupidity and incompetence, and Emma turned to Rodolphe to fulfill her dreams. She sent Rodolphe love notes, and the two of them made plans to leave for Italy. Emma was apparently willing to leave without Berthe. When she firsts suggested the idea of leaving, Rodolphe asked about the fate of Berthe. Then, Emma, who had obviously not thought of Berthe before, said they would take Berthe with them. But no further mention of Berthe was made in their succeeding plans, and Emma rarely gave Berthe any attention. Rodolphe, who had no real intentions of running off with Emma, postponed the departure on several occasions, and then they set a specific date. On the day of their departure, however, Rodophe sent a letter to Emma through a servant. In the letter he ended the affair and announced that he was leaving without her. He had his servant echo his plans to depart, but he was not actually planning to go anywhere. Though, later in the day, he did decide to go to Rouen. Emma saw him leaving as he passed by the Bovary home. She was devastated and became ill. Charles stayed by her side for forty-three days, neglecting his own affairs. Charles thought the theatre may be good medicine, and so he and Emma went to Rouen to see an opera. The whole experience began to reawaken Emma’s romantic being. After the second act, Charles went to get Emma something to drink and ran into Leon. As the third act began, the three of them left to talk elsewhere. Leon, as it turns out, after his schooling in Paris, had come to Rouen to work as a clerk. Because the three old acquaintances talked through the opera, Emma did not get to see the third act; and since Emma now seemed energized, Charles suggested that she stay the night and see the third act the next day. Charles, however, must return home. Emma stayed, and she and Leon began an affair. As Flaubert wrote it, Emma and Leon apparently consummate their feelings for one another during a long carriage ride through Rouen. When she returned to Yonville, she was informed that Charles’ father has died. Emma was by this time substantially indebted to a shopkeeper and moneylender by the name of Lheureux (â€Å"the happy,† as in the seller of happiness), and he suggested that Emma obtain the power of attorney over Charles’ father’s estate. She manipulated Charles into giving her this power of attorney, and she even earned his gratitude for going to Rouen to have Leon look over the legal papers. Emma’s stay in Rouen lasted three days, after which Leon came to Yonville at times and sent Emma secret letters. Emma then began to make weekly trips to Rouen under the pretense of taking piano lessons. She manipulated Charles into asking her to refresh her skills in this area. She and Leon would stay in a hotel, and she was running up all kinds of debts with Lheureux, spending freely on her trips to Rouen and satisfying all of her whims. Lheureux lent her money on the value of Charles’ father’s estate. Charles was unaware of her spending and her adultery. Leon and she began seeing each other more frequently. She began billing Charles’ patients herself, without his knowledge, and selling things in order to pay on her bills. She gave Berthe no attention. Finally, someone wrote Leon’s mother, telling her that Leon was ruining himself with a married woman. Leon’s mother wrote her son’s employer who then indicated to Leon how important it was to break off the affair. Leon wanted to end it, but he was in love. Eventually Emma’s unpaid bills ran long overdue, and her creditors obtained a judgment against her. On her return from a visit to Rouen, the maid showed her a judgment that commanded her â€Å"by power of the king† to pay the sum of eight thousand francs. She went to Lheureux, who by this time had sold the debt at a discount to a banker at Rouen. Emma tried to talk Lheureux out of the judgment. She â€Å"even pressed her pretty white and slender hand against the shopkeeper’s knee,† but Lheureux would have none of that. She owed a vast sum of money, and the sheriff’s officers arrived to confiscate the family property. Emma tried frantically to raise the money. She went to Leon at Rouen and urged him to borrow the money for her, and she even suggested that he steal the money from his office. Leon tried to borrow the money from lenders, but to no avail. On the next morning, people gathering in the market read a notice indicating that the Bovarys’ furniture was for sale. Madame Bovary went to see the town notary. The notary was in business with Lheureux and, so, knew all about Emma’s plight. But he listened as she told him all about it. He then made it clear, in a not so subtle manner, that he would expect a sexual relationship if he were to lend her the money she needed. Emma appeared insulted by his forwardness, shouted that she was not for sale, and left in a fury. She was surely not opposed to exchanging herself for money, but the notary was too crass and straightforward about it. Had he concealed it in more romantic language, she probably would have consented. Later, as Flaubert wrote, â€Å"perhaps she began to repent now that she had not yielded to the notary. † At last, when she heard the sound of Charles coming home, she went to the town’s tax collector and offered herself to him in return for the money. He was offended by Emma’s advances. While Emma was running around, thinking about how to get the money, Charles learned of his family’s financial ruin. Emma, at least, turned to Rodolphe. But even though it seemed the two of them could once again become lovers, Rodolphe was either unwilling or unable to help. Out of shame and despair, Emma poisoned herself with arsenic she obtained from the pharmacy through an unwitting assistant. She hoped to make her death short and sweet. She said, â€Å"Ah! It is but a little thing, death! â€Å"I shall fall asleep and all will be over. † But she suffered long and horribly with vomiting, sweating, pain, moaning, and convulsions. Charles, unable and in no shape to help his wife, called in another doctor, but to no avail. â€Å"A final spasm threw her back upon the mattress,† and she died. Charles appears to be the true hero of the novel. He genuinely loved Emma, would have done anything for her, offered her a decent li fe, was a good husband, a good provider and a good father. But, he was a real human being with real human characteristics and flaws. At the end of the novel, however, Charles becomes a genuine romantic, engulfed by authentic and understandable emotions. Charles decided in favor of a mausoleum for Emma’s tomb, and he wrote the following instructions: â€Å"I wish her to be buried in her wedding dress, with white shoes, and a wreath. Her hair is to be spread out over her shoulders. Three coffins, one oak, one mahogany, one of lead. Let no one try to overrule me; I shall have the strength to resist him. She is to be covered with a large piece of green velvet. This is my wish; see that it is done. The pharmacist and the priest, we are told, â€Å"were much taken aback by Bovary’s romantic ideas. † Charles’ mother shared their view. But Charles now had become a romantic just like Emma, emotionally overwrought with the death of this woman he so dearly loved, refusing to sell any of her possessions to satisfy her debts. Flaubert writes of Charles, â€Å"He was a changed man. † â€Å"To please her, as if she were still living, he adopted her taste, her ideas; he bought patent leather boots and took to wearing white cravats. He waxed his moustache and, just like her, signed promissory notes. She corrupted him from beyond the grave. † Soon, though, Charles discovered the love letters from Leon and Rodolphe hidden in a secret drawer of Emma’s desk; and, shortly thereafter, Charles died of love sickness. A surgeon â€Å"performed an autopsy, but found nothing. † All of Charles’ belongings were sold to satisfy debts, and there remains just enough to send Berthe off to her grandmother. But the grandmother died the same year, and Berthe fell under the care of a poor aunt who sent her â€Å"to a cottom-mill to earn a living. †

Harry Potter

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Memories and Death essays

Memories and Death essays It was the month of June 1996. My dad was very sick in the hospital so my mother sent my younger brother and I to my cousins house for the week. It was a Saturday and I was more than ready to go home for the weekend. I missed my parents and I was anxious to see how my father was doing. My cousins drove us home later that afternoon. My mom had just brought my dad home from the hospital but she had to leave right away to go to work. My dad seemed to be doing great. He was in a very lively mood and was really happy to see us. There was a nurse staying with my dad to help him out with anything he needed. It was hard for him to walk because he was so weak. It hurt to see my father like this. I could remember a time not too long ago when we all used to go camping or fishing together. My dad could do everything a healthy person could do. The nurse was very friendly. She talked to us about how my father was doing and she was very interested in the way we felt about things. She had a very warm heart. Later that evening when my mom came home from work she didnt seem very happy. My father had been in and out of the hospital for a year. Usually when he came home it was a very happy time for us. This time was different. My mom sat down with my brother and I and told us that the doctors couldnt do anything else for him. He only had 6 months to live. I didnt want to believe what she was saying. It just didnt seem real to me. I could feel myself begin to cry, but I tried to hold it back. I didnt want mom to see me cry. She was already going through enough pain. I decided to make the best of things and spend as much time with my dad as I could. Since it was summer time I didnt have school. I didnt go out with friends or go anywhere in fear of losing my father while I was gone. I wouldnt be able to forgive myself if I wasnt there with him. ...

Book Summary The Goal Processes and Operations

The Goal Processes and Operations Key Idea The main message of the book is that the proper way to manage any operation, whether it’s a manufacturing plant or a web design shop or a clothing store, is to: 1) Identify what needs to be changed. 2) Identify what it should be changed to. 3) Identify how to execute the change. Summary This story is based around the life of Alex Rogo, Plant Manager for Uniware, which is a division of Unico. After some very upsetting customer approaches Alex’s boss, Bill Peach, is given a challenge to turn the plant around in three months. Due to the limited amount of time available, there are not many outside tools available such as consultants, surveys, and so on. With very few hopes, Alex foresees the inevitable until he remembers his conversation with Jonah, a physicist who Alex knew from a previous job. It is not until Alex’s job is in at risk that he decides to devour into his conversation with Jonah. During the conversation, Jonah asks him several questions to analyze his company’s situation. The conversation leads ultimately to the question, What is the goal of any business? After rethinking his conversation, Alex realizes that the goal of any business is to make money. Furthermore, if the goal is to make money any action toward this goal is considered productive and any action not moving towards the goal is nonproductive. Alex was unsure of such a simple answer and decided to contact Jonah to continue the search for more answers. Once Alex contacts Jonah they define the following measurements to define the success of any plant’s production: 1) Throughout = rate that the system is used to generate money through sales. This measurement would consist of what a product would be worth when sold at market value after deducting operational expense and inventory. 2) Inventory = all the money invested in purchasing items that will be sold. This could include the remains of their machines after being used toward the investment. 3) Operational expense = all the money used to turn inventory into output. This would include such items as depreciation of a machine, lubricating oil, scraps, etc. Jonah explains to Alex that a plant that is continuously productive is considered inefficient. He further explains that continuous production will result in high absenteeism, poor quality and employee turnover. Based on this, he would need to reduce operational expense and inventory to improve throughput to demonstrate a balanced line of production. Jonah leaves him to think about the understanding of two things: what are the dependent events and statistical fluctuations in his plant. During a hiking trip with Alex’s son, he produces a game for a few of the kids to demonstrate an ideal balance line of production. He does this by setting up dependents and uses a die to measure the statistical fluctuations. At the end of the game, he concluded that the bottleneck’s speed of production is what determines the speed of the other dependents. Therefore, inventory moves very slowly because of statistical fluctuations. In the end, this is where Alex began his search inside the plant. After arriving back at work, he and the crew began their search for the bottlenecks. They identify one of the robots, NCX-10, and the heat treatment area as the source of the bottlenecks. Once identified, they began their search for solving them. After following some simple steps they significantly increased production by 12% during the first two months and 20% in the third month. Based on these increases, Alex saves the plant and his got promoted to Bill Peach’s position. Besides the ongoing theme of saving the plant, there is an underlying story about Alex’s personal life. In the beginning Alex’s wife, Julie, and him are constantly arguing about Alex working late in attempts of saving the plant which flows over into not spending any time with his family. Within the first 100 pages of the book, his wife leaves him, after being exhausted of all attempts to save their marriage. However, during his search for reclaiming the plant he does the same with his marriage. I think that the author is telling the audience that there must be a balance between these two lives. It is important for both to be in harmony because eventually they will flow in and out of each environment. Lessons Learned What I enjoyed the most about this book was the layout. It consisted of telling a story about Alex in a novel form, which included dialog, plot, etc. By making the book in this way it broke the specifics down for a layperson, Alex. After all, Alex represents the average person job going down the tube and marriage shortly following it. The source of the problem the whole time was following the rules that were and are continuously engraved into us each day. What I learned about this book is that you should not let your business and processes control you and lead you. Instead, you should be constantly criticizing and reviewing your processes and not settling for any bottlenecks or sticking points. Another major theme in the novel is that the point of a business is to make money, and more specifically, to make a profit. The way to do this is not to create as much as possible, but instead to run as efficiently as possible. That might require making drastic changes to common practices, things that on paper seem like they will hurt the bottom line. For example, in the book, they discover they’re running their manufacturing plant at 80% capacity. That means 20% of the time, they have machines and people just sitting there doing nothing. So they tell their sales manager to get them 20% more work. He says that they can only get it from a client who wants it at below cost, so they would lose money. But Alex convinces him that they only have materials as costs, as they have people doing nothing currently who are getting paid, so their time is not an additional expense. I thought this was very interesting. Application This book would be ideal for anyone interested in simplifying ways to improving any process whether it is manufacturing or service oriented. These back to basics principles, help break down what has become common practice.

Social Network - Facebook Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Social Network - Facebook - Research Paper Example The end users of Facebook site always have a wide variety of information but despite this fact, the privacy implications of accessing and using this information has emerged and immensely affected them (Trepte and Leonard, 2011, pp101). On examining how Facebook has affected privacy, researchers have found massive flaws in the system. The privacy in this social media has usually been undermined by at least three key factors. These three factors, which highly affect the privacy of this social media, include: users disclose too much information, Facebook management does not take crucial steps towards protecting the users privacy, and lastly, third parties are very busy seeking end users information using Facebook (Trepte and Leonard, 2011, pp102). These three factors have made the use of Facebook as a channel of communication and interaction vulnerable, as third parties can easily access the information which was not intended for them. Though Facebook privacy policy settings specify which data will be collected about an individual user, mostly, some part of this policy is vague and confusing to the end users. Some privacy policy standards adopted by Facebook appear confusing and mostly contradict the stipulated privacy rights of the end users, for example, Facebook collects information about its end users from other external sources like newspapers, regardless of the individual use of the website (Trepte and Leonard, 2011, pp103). The gathered information from these external sources is used to supplement the end users profiles unless the individual users specify in their settings that they don’t want that to be done. To this extent, Facebook usually compromises the privacy of many end users who are mainly unaware of such settings. Despite the fact that Facebook clearly indicates what type of information they will be including in their whole process of updating individual user profiles with information they s eek from the external sources, their privacy policy and adherence thereto fall short in various areas. First, they fail to explain to the individuals the use for the extracted data (Trepte and Leonard, 2011, pp104). This means that they can avail of any individual data for various purposes like for Facebook’s marketing partners. Facebook has developed a close relationship with various corporations, thus they take advantage of the individual users and share their information to these associates without their approval. This clearly implies that there is virtually no control of what data Facebook can expose to the advertisers (Trepte and Leonard, 2011, pp105). The law regulating the disclosure allows Facebook to disclose any individual user personal data to the advertisers. This allows the advertisers to create cookies that are not governed by any privacy policy regulating the use of social media. Though there is a stipulated procedure for an individual Facebook user to request Facebook not to share his or her information with third parties, definitely there is no transparency in such procedures as individual users have no evidence of whether their request will be honored or not. In line with privacy of online information, security of information is assured through use of passwords. This allows for a restriction of access of information to those who have only been granted legitimacy to access such information. Facebook, though has vague guidelines about the use of its user’s information, has given users control over their existing information about themselves in the Facebook databases. Their terms of engagement with users clearly state that a user can remove his or her content in the Facebook d