A Literary Review of Everyday Use by Alice Walker

A Literary Review of Everyday Use by Alice Walker American writer and activist Alice Walker is best known for her novel The Color Purple, which won both the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award. She has written numerous other novels, stories, poems, and essays. Her story Everyday Use originally appeared in her 1973 collection, In Love Trouble: Stories of Black Women, and has been widely anthologized since. The Plot of 'Everyday Use' The story is narrated in the first-person by a mother who lives with her shy and unattractive  daughter, Maggie, who was scarred in a fire as a child. They are nervously waiting for a visit from Maggies sister, Dee, to whom life has always come easy. Dee and her companion  boyfriend arrive with bold, unfamiliar clothing and hairstyles, greeting Maggie and the narrator with Muslim and African phrases. Dee announces that she has changed her name to Wangero Leewanika Kemanjo, saying that she couldnt stand to use a name from oppressors. This decision hurts her mother, who named her after loved ones. During the visit, Dee lays claim to certain family heirlooms, such as the top and dasher of a butter churn, whittled by relatives. But unlike Maggie, who uses the butter churn to make butter, Dee wants to treat them like antiques or artwork. Dee also tries to claim some handmade quilts, fully assuming shell be able to have them because shes the only one who can appreciate them. The mother informs Dee that she has already promised the quilts to Maggie. Maggie says Dee can have them, but the mother takes the quilts out of Dees hands and gives them to Maggie. Dee then leaves, chiding the mother for not understanding her heritage, and encouraging Maggie to make something of yourself. After Dee is gone, Maggie and the narrator relax contentedly in the back yard. The Heritage of Lived Experience Dee insists that Maggie is incapable of appreciating the quilts. She exclaims, horrified, Shed probably be backward enough to put them to everyday use. For Dee, heritage is a curiosity to be looked at and something to put on display for others to look at, as well. She plans to use the churn top and dasher as decorative items in her home. She plans to hang the quilts on the wall, [a]s if that was the only thing you could do with quilts. She even treats her own family members as curiosities. She takes numerous photos of them, and the narrator tells us, She never takes a shot without making sure the house is included. When a cow comes nibbling around the edge of the yard she snaps it and me and Maggie and the house. But Dee fails to understand that the heritage of the items she covets comes precisely from their everyday use their relation to the lived experience of the people whove used them. The narrator describes the dasher as follows: You didnt even have to look close to see where hands pushing the dasher up and down to make butter had left a kind of sink in the wood. In fact, there were a lot of small sinks; you could see where thumbs and fingers had sunk into the wood. Part of the beauty of the object is that it has been so frequently used, and by so many hands in the family, suggesting a communal family history that Dee seems unaware of. The quilts, made from scraps of clothing and sewn by multiple hands, epitomize this lived experience. They even include a small scrap from Great Grandpa Ezras uniform that he wore in the Civil War, which reveals that members of Dees family were working against the people who oppress[ed] them long before Dee decided to change her name. Unlike Dee, Maggie actually knows how to quilt. She was taught by Dees namesakes Grandma Dee and Big Dee so she is a living part of the heritage that is nothing more than decoration to Dee. For Maggie, the quilts are reminders of specific people, not of some abstract notion of heritage. I can member Grandma Dee without the quilts, Maggie says to her mother. It is this statement that prompts her mother to take the quilts away from Dee and hand them to Maggie because Maggie understands their history and value so much more deeply than Dee does. Lack of Reciprocity Dees real offense lies in her arrogance and condescension toward her family, not in her attempted embrace of African culture. Her mother is initially very open-minded about the changes Dee has made. For instance, though the narrator confesses that Dee has shown up in a dress so loud it hurts my eyes, she watches Dee walk toward her and concedes, The dress is loose and flows, and as she walks closer, I like it. The mother also shows a willingness to use the name Wangero, telling Dee, If thats what you want us to call you, well call you. But Dee doesnt really seem to want her mothers acceptance, and she definitely doesnt want to return the favor by accepting and respecting her mothers cultural traditions. She almost seems disappointed that her mother is willing to call her Wangero. Dee is possessive and entitled as her hand close[s] over Grandma Dees butter dish and she begins to think of objects shed like to take. And shes convinced of her superiority over her mother and sister. For example, the mother observes Dees companion and notices, Every once in a while he and Wangero sent eye signals over my head. When it turns out that Maggie knows much more about the history of the family heirlooms than Dee does, Dee belittles her by saying, Maggies brain is like an elephants. The entire family considers Dee to be the educated, intelligent, quick-witted one, and so she equates Maggies intellect with the instincts of an animal, not giving her any real credit. As the mother narrates the story, she refers to Dee as Wangero. Occasionally she refers to her as Wangero (Dee), which emphasizes the confusion of having a new name and also pokes a little fun at the grandness of Dees gesture. But as Dee becomes more and more selfish and difficult, the narrator starts to withdraw her generosity in accepting the new name. Instead of Wangero (Dee), she starts to refer to her as Dee (Wangero), privileging her original given name. When the mother describes snatching the quilts away from Dee, she refers to her as Miss Wangero, suggesting that shes run out of patience with Dees haughtiness. After that, she simply calls her Dee, fully withdrawing her gesture of support. Dee seems unable to separate her new-found cultural identity from her own long-standing need to feel superior to her mother and sister. Ironically,  Dees lack of respect for her living family members as well as her lack of respect for the real human beings who constitute what Dee thinks of only as an abstract heritage provides the clarity that allows Maggie and the mother to appreciate each other and their own shared heritage.

Vanity Fair by William Thackeray Essays

Vanity Fair by William Thackeray Essays Vanity Fair by William Thackeray Essay Vanity Fair by William Thackeray Essay Essay Topic: Literature This extract from Vanity Fair by William Thackeray follows the interaction of several characters, namely, Mr Sedley, Miss Rebecca and Miss Amelia, where the attention is focused on Mr Sedleys hesitation. Several characteristics of this passage are how the author has portrayed society, the way in which the author has expressed his characters, and the stylistic techniques of his writing. In this extract, Thackeray has used recollection and the surroundings to depict society. When Miss Rebecca began to ask questions about India, Mr Sedley replied and recounted all his memories. Through his recollection, we are able to gain an impression of what society was like due to his experiences. We are given the notion that Mr Sedley is part of the wealthy class due to his travel to India, Miss Rebecca asked him a great number of questions about India, which gave him an opportunity of narrating many interesting anecdotes about that country and himself, as at that time (the book was written in 1847) travel was very expensive and not many could afford that luxury. He goes on further to mention, the balls at Government House, which also further suggest that he is part of this affluent class as he is able to attend them. The manner in which he describes his experiences of India, and subject choices he chose to tell were also superficial. He illustrates his experiences in a very barbaric and shallow manner, which adds to our impression of his social class. Even the manner in which Miss Rebecca replies and where she laughs at, or comments upon, could all be considered conventions of the wealthy upper class. Descriptions of their clothing, and their activities that they engage in, all reflect their society, such as when Mr Sedley was, pulling up his shirt-collars, and when Miss Rebecca was knitting the green silk purse. Also, when some song which was performed in the other room came to an end, and caused him to hear his own voice so distinctly that he stopped, is an example of a characteristic of their society. Music was considered leisure and entertainment, and this was a frequent occurrence within their life. The way in which Thackery has expressed his characters is also a characteristic of this passage. In this passage, Mr Sedley is shown as a timid person. However, for a brief moment, due to Miss Rebecca, he is no longer timid and hesitant, but talkative and brimming with confidence. The author has portrayed Mr Sedley as a stereotypical quiet character who cannot hold a conversation with the opposite sex, until Miss Rebecca comes along. We notice in the first line that, almost for the first time in his life, Mr Sedley found himself talking, without the least timidity or hesitation, and again several times throughout the passage, and as he talked on, he grew quite bold, and actually had the audacity to ask Miss Rebecca for whom she was knitting the green silk purse? And if we still were not sure what sort of person he was, the author has used other characters to emphasise Mr Sedleys character, through Mr Osborne and Miss Amelia, Did you ever hear anything like your brothers eloquence? Why, your friend has worked miracles. The author has also suggested that Mr Sedley is a man who is easily swept up into dreams, and easily jolted out of them, when he boasts about his bravado about facing dangerous animals, and when hes jolted out of his reverie when the music stopped. And in the author presenting another side of Mr Sedley (the talkative side, as opposed to the quiet side), it also casts a light on Miss Amelia, who is the person responsible for showing the talkative side. We see Miss Rebecca as a lovely lady, who is talkative, willing to listen and easy to talk to, from her interactions with Mr Sedley and comments made by the other characters. In talking to Mr Sedley, it has reflected back upon her good qualities, as people generally like to talk to outgoing people, not timid people, and this good view we have of her is further reinforced by Mr Osbourne, Why, your friend has worked miracles. In displaying a character, he has also shown another characters qualities and also through the interaction between them. Much of the narrative technique is a characteristic of this extract. The author has used long sentences, which allow him to elaborate upon the scene at hand, and also reflects upon their society. Another technique he employs is constant sign posting. He signals what is to come, and this is done with every new idea or aspect, Sedley was going to make one of the most eloquent speeches possible. In doing this, it lacks the surprise; however, it reflects the society at the time, where everything was anticipated. Another characteristic of this extract is the authorial intrusion. Thackery lets the scene play out, then he adds in his authorial intrusion which is written in such a manner that it seems like common knowledge but really are his opinions. This is quite notable at the end of the extract, For the affection of young ladies is of rapid growth as Jacks bean stalk, and reaches up to the sky in a night. In this extract from Vanity Fair by Thackeray, there are various noteworthy aspects of this passage. They are how the author has portrayed society, the way in which the author has expressed his characters, and the stylistic techniques of his writing.

Employment law Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 6000 words

Employment law - Essay Example t or set of circumstances that can arise. This is particularly so in labour industries where economies and policies are constantly changing to accommodate the realities of the times. With so many sources of law and with employment laws perpetually evolving, obtaining a balance can be a mammoth task. However, because the labour market is constantly in a state of change, the need to maintain a balance between legal certainty and fairness for the purpose of avoiding conflict requires that the law changes to meet those challenges. What is legally certain and fair today may not be certain and fair tomorrow. In this regard, the current law reflects the dynamics and demands of labour market changes and the constant demand for labour market reform. This research paper illustrates this best by critically assessing the current labour laws relative to employee status, contractual terms of employment, unfair dismissal and equality. These areas of employment law best illustrate the need for a var iety of sources of flexible laws and the attending challenges for maintaining a balance between legal certainty and fairness. I. Employee Status Historically, the contract of employment makes provision for the basic employee/employer relationship. However, the terms and conditions of that contract have always been interpreted by reference to statute, hence the significance of the term â€Å"status†.5 The fact is, although the employment status may be agreed to and reflected in an employment contract, the matter does not end there.6 This is entirely important because employee status will often correspond with the degree of employee protection and rights. The law therefore intervenes to ensure fairness in the construction of the employment contract with a view to providing a greater degree of legal certainty and fairness in the determination of the employee’s status. The implications are far reaching in terms of creating a balance between fairness and legal certainty. To begin with, the inequality of bargaining power in the employment relationship is well recognized and accepted. As Edwards explains, it was necessary to depart from the concept that employees and employers were at liberty to negotiate and finally reach an agreement as to what will form the essential terms/conditions of the employment contract resulting from the parties’ own different positions in relation to one another. Specifically, party autonomy is undermined because it necessarily levels the playing field between the relative power imbalances between the employee and the employer.7 In this regard, statute intervenes to define the term employee and even then, provides a degree of legal certainty by leaving the definition vague enough to ensure that adjudicators can flexibly determine whether or not employee status can be inferred. To this end Section 230(1) of the Employment Rights Act 1996 provides the term â€Å"employee† refers to a person who either has or â₠¬Å"works under† an employment con

A Critical Analysis of Article 5 of UCP 600 Essay

A Critical Analysis of Article 5 of UCP 600 - Essay Example More especially the fact that banks are not concerned with the terms of the contract to which it is attached, means that regardless of whether or not the goods are delivered or not or conform to the terms of the contract or not, the letter of credit must be honoured by the bank. This paper will analyse the consequences of Article 5 of UCP 600 and the potential for fraud and other forms of injustice to the parties impacted by a letter of credit. Letters of Credit In its simplest form, a letter of credit is a device by which a bank or other similar party agrees to provide credit to a specific party on behalf of another party upon receipt of the relevant supporting documents.4 A standard letter of credit is comprised of at least four parties: the vendor (exporter); the purchaser (importer) and each of their banks.5 The importer/purchaser’s bank typically issues the letter of credit which imposes a duty on the importer/purchaser’s bank to pay the specified sum to the vendor /exporter once the particularized documents are received.6 A key feature of the letter of credit is the fact that it is independent of the underlying contract to which it applies. In other words, the bank’s responsibilities under the letter of credit are segregated from any other contractual duties existing between the parties to the letter of credit. This would include contractual duties between the vendor and the purchaser or any duties on the part of â€Å"reimburse the bank for payments made† by virtue of the letter of credit.7 The banks involved in the letters of credit are typically referred to as the â€Å"issuing bank† and the â€Å"conforming bank†.8 The issuing bank is asked by the purchaser who is commonly referred to as the applicant to assume responsibility for paying the vendor who is commonly known as the beneficiary, a specified sum upon the presentation of specific documents. The conforming bank is the bank selected by the beneficiary tha t acts as a â€Å"correspondent of the issuing bank to advise the beneficiary on the terms of the credit† and usually assumes the â€Å"same liability towards the beneficiary as the issuing bank†.9 The autonomy of the letter of credit was fortified in the case of Gian Singh & Co. Ltd. v Banque de L’Indochine in which the court ruled that the autonomy doctrine obliges an insuring bank to make payment to the beneficiary even if the specified documents submitted by the beneficiary pursuant to the letter of credit were forged.10 It was also held in IE Contractors Limited v Lloyds Bank Plc that the duty of issue payment under a letter of credit is not conditional upon ascertaining whether or not the supporting documents presented by the beneficiary are correct.11 The autonomy of the letter of credit is justified in the grounds that contractual disputes occur quire frequently. It would therefore be obstructive to international trade to permit one party to use a contra ctual dispute to delay payment and thus the â€Å"assurance given to the beneficiary would be severely undermined† and thus â€Å"documentary guarantees would become unacceptable†.12 The autonomy principle of the letters of credit therefore illustrate that indeed, banks are only concerned with documents and not the underlying transaction to which it is attached. Although the rationale for the autonomy principle rests on limiting the risks of delaying or stopping payments in international trad

A sole trading business in Western region Assignment

A sole trading business in Western region - Assignment Example A sole trading business in Western region This international buying and selling of flowers by the sole trading business would be able to take advantage of the several measures taken by the government in improving the performance of the flower industry of UAE. The sole trading business under the name of Florist Fragrance would be in an advantageous position as they would be able to gain from the benefits of the innovative logistics centre set up for the trading of flowers. This would help the sole trading business to deliver the orders of their flower products to the international markets with less time and high quality of flowers with customized fragrance for their customers especially in the western markets. The business of sole trading under the name of Florist Fragrance would face specific disadvantages due to the product chosen for the international buying and selling in the western markets. Despite the resources and facilities available in the flower industry for quick delivery of the flower and the accessory products, the international business faces the disadvantage due to the high volume of cost to be incurred for restoration of the quality and fragrance of the flowers to be delivered to the customers. The flowers are considered to be perishable items which have a fixed span of life beyond which the products perish. The sole trading business are thus required to ensure that the flower goods and the orders of the customers reach them in the overseas market in the proper condition as delivered during the point of sale.

Monomania Psychology Analysis: Ideal Ego and Ego Ideal

Monomania Psychology Analysis: Ideal Ego and Ego Ideal Abstract: This paper Moby Dick: Obsession, Evil and the Passion of Ignorance, argues that monomania is a passion of ignorance. It contends that this passion of ignorance is situated precisely between the ideal ego and the ego ideal. The ideal ego is the fantasy an individual has of themselves, a narcissistic illusion of completeness. It is a representation based on an image of the self fixed at the infantile period. The ego ideal is the goal of a process, a movement towards an idealized self based on internalised significant early role models, people admired and preferred in favour of the self. In monomania, the ideal ego seeks to eradicate the other, the ego ideal. This is an act of envy, an attempt to kill and steal the others good because it represents what one should be or could have been. Such an act is never conscious. It is a passion of ignorance. The saga of Captain Ahab and his obsessive desire to obliterate the Great White Whale is illustrative of this dynamic. The yearning for absolutes is a hall-mark of monomania. Monomania is a passion of ignorance and is to be found in the boundary between love and hate. It is inherently evil because it excludes and destroys reality. In monomania, ignorance functions as a parochial and universalised concept of reality, marked by a certainty and rectitude which enables the harming of others with humanitarian conviction and moral purpose. The passion of ignorance is situated precisely between the subject and the fantasy of himself. The ideal ego wishes to eradicate the other, the ego ideal, What is at the heart all psychopathological behaviour is an incapacity to communicate with aspects of the self that have, as part of the self protective mechanism of the psyche, been obscured because they are too painful to be addressed. At the time of obfuscation, the only perceived path for survival has been the isolation and dissociation of something intrinsic. Analytical psychology recognizes that there are dark recesses people carry deep within in which lurk forbidden secrets which are treated as unapproachable. These dark places and forbidden secrets are not passive, they pulsate with the presence of malignant, carnivorous forces that reek of fear and anarchy. It is no accident that the developmental arm of analytical psychology is preoccupied to the determining effects of family history, for it is in the family setting that people experience the strongest and most primitive feelings, where relationships take on their most stark and forceful forms. A persons experience within the context of family has its genesis at a time before coping mechanisms are developed, before and independent sense of security and stability has had time to consolidate. Analytical psychology understands that the individual is deeply affected by the net of past experiences. They impact on the way in which present experiences are assimilated or repressed. They determine what may be allowed to come to consciousness and what must be assigned to the unconscious. The unconscious is occasioned by a number of factors, by repression, instinctual inheritance, social conditioning and repressed trauma. It can be personal or collective. In all its aspects, the unconscious represents that part of an individuals psychic existence that is, by multiple strategies, consigned to function without conscious control. Thus analytical psychology attempts inexorably to draw one deeper and deeper into a journey of confrontation with ones self. It calls on the individual to overcome his defences, to transcend the bounds of secure systems he has established to keep full and immediate experience at bay. In the tale of Moby Dick, Ahab misuses his power, disregards the safety of his crew and the profitability of the voyage, even forfeits his own life in order to avenge himself on the whale who robbed him of his leg. He does this, all to avoid a confrontation with himself and his own vulnerabilities. The Story: The tale of Moby Dick begins with the enigmatic words of the narrator, Having little or no money in my purse, and nothing particular to interest me on shore, I thought I would sail about a little and see the watery part of the world. It is a way I have of driving off the spleen, and regulating the circulation. Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntary pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet, and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping onto the street and methodically knocking peoples hats off – then, I account it high time to get to see as soon as I can. (Melville 1992 p. 1) With these words Ishmael the story teller announces his intention to go to sea. He makes the journey to New Bedford, Massachusetts where he takes accommodation at a whalers inn, but as the inn is very full he finds himself sharing a bed with a stranger, Queequeg, a harpooner from the South Pacific. Queequeg is a cannibal from a South Sea Island. His strange physical form appears bizarre to Ishmael. He is covered in strange tattoos and apart from his alien appearance has strange habits and customs. Ishmael is terrified by the encounter but as time passes he is able to move beyond the outward exterior of Queequeg to understand that they are both men, and this strange creature from the South Seas, far from being a terrifying beast is human, and one with a particularly kind heart and generous spirit. The two men join forces and set out to seek work together as whalers. They secure work on the Pequod, a whaling vessel decked out with the bones and teeth of its victims, Peleg and Bildad, t he Pequods Quaker owners, tell them of their Captain, Ahab, who on his last voyage found that sperm whales are not defenceless victims, but creatures with teeth; Ahab has had his leg ripped from him by an enormous white whale. The hunted became the hunter and had struck back. The Pequod leaves the safety of the harbour in Nantucket on a bitterly cold Christmas Day, its crew a diverse mixture of nationalities and cultures. Days later, as the ship makes into warmer waters, Ahab finally appears on deck, balancing unsteadily on his prostheses carved from the jaw bone of a sperm whale. Ahabs intention: to pursue and kill Moby Dick, the great white whale who took his leg. To Ahab, this whale is the embodiment of evil. He must be killed and killed by Ahab. To this end he nails a gold doubloon to the mast and announces to all that the man who first sights Moby Dick will have the coin. Aboard one of these ships is a crazed prophet called Gabriel who predicts doom to all who pursue Moby Dick and the superstitious crew of the Pequod share their sea-stories of how those who hunted the whale met with ill fortune. It is not long before misfortune is seen and known by the crew. While butchering their catch, the harpooner Tashtego falls into the mouth of a dead whale which tears free of the Pequod and sinks. Queequeg dives after the drowning man, slashes into the slowly sinking head with his knife and frees the seaman. During another whale hunt, the black cabin boy Pip, jumps from a whaleboat and is left stranded at sea. He is rescued but the trauma renders him mentally disturbed. He is left mindless and uncanny, a prophetic jester onboard the ship. Still the hunt continues. One day, the Pequod encounters the whaler, the Samuel Enderby. Captain Boomer the skipper has lost an arm in a chance meeting with Moby Dick. As the two captains discuss the whale the contrast becomes evident. Boomer is happy simply to have survived his encounter, and he cannot understand Ahabs lust for vengeance. Queequeg becomes ill and asks the carpenter on board the Pequod to make him a coffin in preparation of his death but he does recover, and the coffin becomes the Pequods replacement life buoy. In expectation of finding Moby Dick, Ahab orders a harpoon to be forged and baptizes this harpoon with the blood of the Pequod harpooners, and his own. Although the Pequod is still hunting whales, it is the hunt for Moby Dick that always hangs over the life of the ship. Then, one day, Fedallah makes a prophesy regarding the death of Ahab. Ahab will see two hearses, the second made from American wood and he will be killed by hemp rope. To Ahab, this means he will not die at sea, for at sea there are no hangings and no hearses. A tropical storm encompasses the Pequod, illuminating it with electrical fire. To Ahab this is a sign of imminent confrontation and success. To Starbuck, the ships first mate, it is a bad omen and he contemplates murdering Ahab to end the obsession. The tempest ends, but then one of the sailors plummets from the ships masthead and drowns—a grave forewarning of what lies ahead. As Ahabs obsessive desire to find and destroy Moby Dick intensifies, the mad Pip becomes his constant companion. It is near the equator that Ahab expects to find Moby Dick, and it is here that the Pequod meets two whalers, the Rachel and the Delight; both have had recent fatal encounters with the Great Whale. The Captain of the Rachel pleads with Ahab to help him find his son, lost in the battle with Moby Dick, but Ahab has only one goal, to find and kill the whale. Days pass, and then, finally, Ahab sights Moby Dick. The harpoon boats are launched. Moby Dick rams Ahabs harpoon boat, destroying it but Ahab is saved by his crew. The next day, Moby Dick is sighted once more. The whale is harpooned but again, Moby dick strikes back and once again rams Ahabs boat. Fedallah is trapped in the harpoon line, is dragged overboard to his death. Starbuck saves his Captain by manoeuvring the Pequod between Ahab and the enraged beast. On the third day, the boats are launched once again and are sent after Moby Dick. The whale turns and attacks the boats, and they see that Fedallahs corpse is still lashed to the whale by the harpoon line. In the ensuing battle, Moby Dick rams the Pequod and she begins to sinks. Ahab, caught in a harpoon line, is hurled out of his whale boat to his death. The remaining whaleboats and crew are caught in the vortex of the sinking Pequod and dragged to their deaths. Ishmael, thrown from his boat at the beginning of the hunt, is the only man to survive. He floats, alone on Queequegs coffin, the only remaining flotsam from the wreckage, an isolated figure in a watery world. On the second day, a sail drew near, nearer, and picked me up at last. It was the devious-cruising Rachel that in her retracing search after her missing children, only found another orphan. (Melville 1992 p. 583) An Uncanny Tale In telling the story of Moby Dick, Melvilles narrator, Ishmael, engages in a process of repetition that brings the dead back to life. His narrator offers what appears to be a sober account of his real experience but in the recounting it is immediately evident that this experience is anything but commonplace. Melvilles combination of reality and the fantastic, the credible and the incredible, compel the reader to accept the narrative on its own terms. The tale confronts the reader with narratorial anxiety in both the telling of the tale and in the horror of its content. Melvilles narrative method exemplifies the de-familiarisation of the familiar, the domestication of terror that characterises the uncanny. Freud characterises the uncanny as that which arouses dread and horror; (Freud 1919 p. 339) it is that class of things which lead us back to what is known of the old and familiar. (Freud 1919 p.340) It is precarious, this combination of the familiar and the unfamiliar, where the opposites of the homely, customary and congenial also denote the secret that is concealed and kept from sight. (Freud 1919 p. 347) We believe we are at home in the immediate circle of beings. That which is, is familiar, reliable, ordinary. Nevertheless, the clearing is pervaded by a constant concealment in the double form of refusal and dissembling. At the bottom, the ordinary is not ordinary; it is extra-ordinary, uncanny. (Heidegger 1971 p. 53) Freud argues that one of the most anxiety-producing devices of the uncanny is the double. Freud considers the uncanniness of the double to be the effect of the egos projection of the object ‘outwardly as something foreign to itself. What is inside is experienced as coming from outside, (Freud 1919 p.358) split off and isolated through a process of repression and dissociation. The subject may identify with another to the extent that he is not sure which identity he is or he may substitute the extraneous self for his own. In the tale of Moby Dick it is this lack of difference which dominates Ahabs relationship to the whale. While Ahab may try to establish himself as a saviour, he too, deep down, is dangerous and destructive. It is this sameness that is problematic. When it becomes too obvious that the other is contained in the self, the other becomes an object for irrational hostility. In this dynamic, both the object (the whale) and the subject (Ahab) become doubles of each othe r in the psyche of the person who is enmeshed in the projection. The notion of the double always inspires the subject with dread and can be summed up as a dividing and interchanging of the ego. There is an inevitable cyclic repetition of the initial trauma. It is an inescapable loop until the doubling is concluded. Aboard ship, Ahab imposes an irresistible dictatorship in order to pursue his obsession. Moby Dick had injured him and that fact contravened Ahabs entire view of how the world should be ordered. The self-righteous, imposing Captain of the Pequod smoulders with the fires of hell. His all consuming pride and rage against the white whale blaze in the great speech before his crew where he proclaims, That inscrutable thing is chiefly what I hate; and be the white whale agent, or the white whale principal, I will wreak my hate upon him Talk to me not of blasphemy, man, Id strike the sun if it insulted me. (Melville 1992 p. 167) Ahab cannot see Moby Dick for what the great while whale is, because the reality of the animal is subsumed under the passion of Ahabs projection. But because this ‘relationship is skewed, the rest of Ahabs world suffers. Ahab has no connection to any other person or thing beyond the white whale. It is inevitable that the whale proves to be his nemesis; it is the whale that inflicts retribution and vengeance, not Ahab. The Orphan With the first sentence of Moby Dick we are confronted with the complex figure of Ishmael. The narrative begins with the words Call me Ishmael. The name has come to symbolize orphans and social outcasts but it has another aspect to it. The word literally means ‘God hears. Ishmael, according to the Hebrew Scriptures, was the first son of Abraham, born to a slave woman, Hagar because Abraham believed his wife Sarah to be infertile. But when God granted Sarah a son of her own, Ishmael and his mother were turned out of Abrahams household. Isaac inherited the birthright from Abraham. Ishmael was left to die under a bush in the wilderness by his distraught and starving mother. But in her distress she cried out and God heard her cry and the cry of the child. 15When the water in the skin was gone, she cast the child under one of the bushes. 16 And God heard the voice of the boy; and the angel of God called to Hagar from heaven, and said to her, What troubles you, Hagar? Do not be afraid; for God has heard the voice of the boy where he is. 18Come, lift up the boy and hold him fast with your hand, for I will make a great nation of him. 19Then God opened her eyes and she saw a well of water. She went, and filled the skin with water, and gave the boy a drink. 20God was with the boy, and he grew up; he lived in the wilderness, and became an expert with the bow. (Genesis 21: 15 – 20 The Bible NRSV 1988) From a Judeo-Christian perspective Ishmael was an outcast, the result of his fathers failure to believe and obey YHWHs promise to give him a son through his wife Sarah. As a consequence, Ishmael was the one repressed and rejected. But Ishmael was heard and taken care of by God. Throughout his life, Melville was preoccupied with the imagery of orphans and in particular with the character Ishmael. In Mardi he writes, But as sailors are mostly foundlings and castaways, and carry all their kith and kin in their arms and legs, there hardly ever appears any heir-at-law to claim their estate. (Melville 2004 p. 139) In Redburn, Melville writes, at last I have found myself a sort of Ishmael on the ship, without a single friend or companion. (Melville 1957 p. 60) In Pierre Melville writes, so that once more he might not feel himself driven out, an Ishmael into the desert, with no maternal Hagar to accompany him and comfort him. (Melville 1962 p. 125) Edward Edinger argues that Melville had an Ishmael complex which had two sources; personal life experience and identification with an archetypal image. (Edinger 1995 p. 23) The personal cause would be the insanity and death of his father and the ensuing hardships this caused. Melville was twelve and a half when his father died, close to the age of the biblical Ishmael who was thirteen. In addition, he was rejected by his mother, who favoured her first son. According to Arvin Newton, Melville, as an elderly man, once remarked to his niece that his mother had hated him. (Arvin 1950 p.30) The pain of his rejection is poignantly evident in the tale of Mob y Dick Most of the action is seen through the eyes of Ishmael. He will thus represent the authors ego (Edinger 1995 p. 24) Ishmael, the lone survivor of this misadventure is the story teller. At the outset of the story, Ishmael presents as one who is in pain and internal distress. He is impoverished, hostile, depressed and potentially suicidal. He heads for the sea, to Nantucket to find work on a whaler. In the past he has found sea voyages as a way of containing his internal conflict and pain. But before he can find a ship, his poverty forces him to find accommodation in a squalid inn, sharing a bed with a harpooner. When the harpooner enters the room in which Ishmael is sleeping he awakes in horror at the apparition before him, a man who appears to have just returned from the ministrations of a surgeon, his face covered with sticking plaster. But that is not the reality. The harpooner is a cannibal from the pacific, tattooed in his native islander tradition. He carries a tomahawk, a seal skin purse with the hair still attached and a shrunken head. The overall impression is alien, bizarre and terrifying to Ishmael. He watches from beneath the counterpane as the stranger uses the tomahawk as a pipe, then quietly turns into the bed with Ishmael. He is unaware of Ishmaels presence and reacts with instinctive aggression. In the fracas that follows Ishmael calls out in terror to the landlord for help. ‘Landlord! Watch! Coffin! Angels! Save me! (Melville 1992 p. 25) Peter Coffin, the landlord, soothes the moment. He introduces the men to each other and Ishmael is suddenly aware that this frightening apparition is a person, with a name. Queequeg is no longer a nameless savage, a cannibal with a shrunken head and a death dealing tomahawk. The tomahawk is also a peace pipe, and he shares the smoke from this unique instrument with Ishmael. The tomahawk-pipe has now become a symbol for both life and death, a symbol of reconciliation and peace. In this initial encounter with Queequeg a transformation is begun in Ishmael. In symbolic terms, he has embraced, in the symbolic form of Queequ eg, both death and life as indivisible partners, and when he wakes the following morning he begins to see the world from a different perspective. Ishmael understands the mixture of life and death that Queequegs tomahawk-come-pipe represents, and realizes, at least in that moment, that such experience can lead to renewal. The Obsession, Ahab demonstrates the dangers of an all consuming focus; the object of his obsession is the solitary great white whale, nicknamed Moby-Dick by the whalers. On his previous voyage, Ahab had his leg ripped off by Moby-Dick, and at the Ishmaels story begins, he has sworn to take his vengeance by hunting down and killing the great whale. It never occurs to Ahab that he lost his leg while trying to take the whales life and while in the process of killing countless other whales for monetary gain. Ahabs obsession has more to do with what Moby Dick represents than with the great whale himself. He saw Moby Dick as the prey and could not cope with the idea that he was not omnipotent in this relationship, that he was outdone by another creature. As Ahab reasons in a fiery speech to the crew of the Pequod, all visible objects are like pasteboard masks that hide some unknown but still reasoning thing. Ahab hates that inscrutable thing that hides behind the mask of appearance. The only way to figh t against it, he proclaims is to strike through the mask! Moby Dick, as a mysterious force of nature, represents the most outrageous, malevolent aspect of natures mask. To kill it, in the mind of Ahab, is to reach for and seize the unknowable truth that is hidden from all people. He cannot conceive of the concept that there is a simpler reality; he is not the master of all other species. He sees his failure to be able to take life at will as a reversal of his role as the predator and therefore can only conceive of himself now as the one preyed upon. This he cannot accept and so is driven to destroy that which in his mind denies his appropriated reality. Ahabs insane obsession and hunt for Moby Dick describes the consequences of viewing the world as a mask that hides unknowable truth. It is Ahabs frustration with the limits of human knowledge and power that lead him to reject both science and logic and instead embrace violence and the dark magic of Fedallah his demonic advisor. Like Christopher Marlowes Doctor Faustus, he has made a pact with the devil. Thinking he is immortal, Ahab attacks Moby Dick, striking at the mask of appearance that supposedly hides ultimate truth. His devotion to the idea that truth exists behind or beyond the physical world forces him to destroy himself in the attempt to reach it. Ahab can only relinquish his illusion by dying, or killing the object upon which his illusion has rested. Ahabs ideal ego, that is the fantasy he has of himself as one who is in control and omnipotent, is in the process of destroying his ego ideal, that is, his potential as man, captain and hunter. He believes he must eradicate the evil of the whale, but in reality, because he is caught in this doubling with the whale, he is intent on murdering himself. His passion of ignorance has overwhelmed his reason, blinded him to his own creative potential. All that is left is the passion and it knows no reason People thus reduced inflict the traumatic pain of their void on others. The evil they engender is not just about destruction but emerges from the chaotic principle of pure drive which has loss at its centre and therefore must occasion more loss. The important point is not that the symbolism of what Ahab lost, but the symbolism of the loss itself. Revenge is only sought when there has been a great loss, a loss that is seen to embody an injustice, and an injustice imposed by an enemy over whom victory should have been assured. Ahab lost his leg to a beast, an inferior creature. His quest for revenge could just as easily have been instituted by the loss of an arm, a child, or a father. The loss implies inferiority to a foe that is deemed to be unworthy of such a victory. Revenge becomes obsession because only with revenge can the world become again that which supports the adopted perception of order. For Ahab, revenge can only be perceived as the re-imposition of superiority and ascenda ncy. It is the adoption of this delusional sense of what order is, that gives rise to the monomania that attends a thirst for revenge. Ahabs loss of limb is immediate and it is personal but despite losing a leg he can still walk, he can still captain, he can still go on a whaleboat and harpoon. It is the greater loss which is the mechanism standing behind the driving revenge and his monomaniacal pursuit of it. As if to be human is forever to be prey to turning your corner of the human race, hence perhaps all of it, into some new species of the genus of humanity, for the better or for the worse. (Cavell 1998 p.154) For this reason Ahab must inflate the object of his revenge and recreate it as something larger in context. To accomplish this, Ahab must imbue Moby Dick massive power, power beyond comprehension. By placing the capacity of evil upon the whale, Ahab can fool himself into thinking that Moby Dick is a greater being than he really is and therefore his own loss appears greater than it really is. For Ahab, the delusion attendant to the psychosis of revenge suppresses the reality that he is merely a man bent on attempting to restore his lost sense of superiority. This reality is replaced with a grandiose vision of one who is a redeemer for humanity. But it is not humanity Ahab is attempting to redeem; it is his own inflated ego whose ascendancy has been usurped. By imputing to Moby-Dick a demonic power he does not really possess Ahab, blinds himself to any reality of what Moby Dick actually is, to any real strength and intelligence that the whale possesses. This blindness springs not from mere ignorance, but from a consciously willed ignorance, from the desire not to know, from the ambition not to understand. In order to sustain his delusional conception of himself, he must appoint concomitant distortion to the world which surrounds him, and particularly to the object of his obsession. Ahab desperately wants Moby Dick to be inscrutable. He wants him to be a thing that is incapable of being understood, because that enables him to categorize his nemesis as sheer evil. Therefore he is compelled to refuse any effort at understanding and it is this iron-willed ambition to remain ignorant, to label this thing as ultimate evil that generates the ironic twist whereby Ahab himself becomes the ultimate danger, the evil which he imagines he is seeking to eradicate. It is Ahab who causes the complete destruction of all that surrounds him. Evil and the Passion of Ignorance Ahab desires to attach to Moby Dick all the evil that exists in the world. Moby Dick is a creation of his infantile envious omnipotent sadistic phantasies. Ahab himself identifies the ultimately personal source of what he sees as a universal evil when he says, It was Moby-Dick that dismasted me; Moby-Dick that brought me to this dead stump I stand on now it was that accursed white whale that razeed me; made a poor pegging lubber of me for ever and a day! (Melville 1992 p.166). Moby Dick took away Ahabs ability to literally stand on his own two feet. The loss of his leg can also be seen as a symbolic emasculation and that symbolism is made all the more apparent by the fact that Ahabs quest is for a sperm whale. Moby-Dick contains sperm; Ahab does not. In his quest for revenge, all of Ahabs creative potential is voided because he cannot accept that there is a reality that is greater and stronger than himself. It is in the attempt to deny the reality and existence of that which surpasses him that he divorces himself from his own creative life potential. Captain Ahab is both the psychotic parent in command of the infant and the infant overwhelmed with his own omnipotent phantasy. In the tale of Moby Dick, Herman Melville created a character whose motives of vengeance typify the behaviour of a psychotic person. Captain Ahab, in his delusion, could not allow Moby Dick to share the same space in his paranoid and infantile world. Ahab experienced the loss of his leg as a lethal wound that was potentially reparable only by a copy-cat act of vengeance taken upon the alleged guilty Moby Dick. That intangible malignity which has been there from the beginning Ahab did not fall down and worship it, but deliriously transferring its idea to the abhorred white whale, he pitted himself, all mutilated, against it He piled upon the whales hump the sum of all the general rage and hate felt by his whole race from Adam down; and then as if his chest had been a mortar, he burst his hot hearts shell upon. (Melville 1991 p. 187) We Cannibals must help these poor Christians. The relationship between Ishmael and Queequeg is the antithesis of the relationship between Ahab and Moby Dick. Ishmael and Queequeg develop a relationship that is based on the recognition of their dissimilarity and separateness. Ahab and Moby Dick are joined together by Ahabs projection and obsession. With Queequeg and Ishmael, the difference is something to be explored. The relationship between Queequeg and Ishmael has a germ of creativity; that between Ahab and Moby Dick is founded on destruction and butchery. The initial encounter between Queequeg and Ishmael provokes both terror and aggression. The landlord intervenes, calming the situation and bringing them both to an awareness of the necessity of living alongside of each other. This generates a realisation in both Ishmael and Queequeg that they are both men despite the visual and cultural dissimilarities. As time passes and conversation is enjoined, they begin to comprehend both their differences and their commonly shared objectives. According to the customs of Queequegs home, Ishmael and Queequeg are married after a social smoke out of the tomahawk pipe. Queequeg gives Ishmael half of his belongings, and the two men continue to share a bed. The tattooed body of Queequeg is much like the patchwork quilt that covers them both as they sleep. These tattoos are a written narrative of the universe but no one, save the prophet who inscribed them can decipher their meaning, not even Queequeg. And this tattooing had been the work of a departed prophet and seer of his island, who, by those hieroglyphic marks, had written out on his body a complete theory of the heavens and the earth, and a mystical treatise on the art of attaining truth; so that Queequeg in his own proper person was a riddle to unfold; a wondrous work in one volume; but whose mysteries not even himself could read, though his own live heart beat against them; and these mysteries were therefore destined in the end to moulder away with the living parchment whereon they were inscribed, and so be unsolved to the last.(Melville 1992 p. 491) For Ishmael, Queequeg represents the dangerous and the forbidden for which Ishmael secretly yearns. Queequeg also symbolizes the explorative and adventurous aspect of Ishmaels personality. Once Ishmael recognizes this, his fears lessen and he embraces the savage into his life. Ishmaels initial hostility to Queequeg is a projection of the suppression of a part of his own personality. Exotic and unique, Queequeg represents the unknown. Ishmael is able to recognise this, to admit it, and to realise that his fear is due to ignorance. With this awareness comes the further realisation that he, Ishmael, must travel to the sea in order to gain life experience by exploring and embracing the unknown. The friendship between the two men, although troubled by prejudice and slow to develop into a full understanding of one anothers character, is solidified with their ‘marriage contract. They effectively become one person, illustrating the full integration of Queequegs otherness into Ishmaels personality. At the end of the book, Ishmael survives because of Queequegs coffin. In accordance with their marriage contract, Queequeg offers Ishmael protection from the sea-hawks, sharks and sea in the form of his coffin. In turn, Ishmael carries on Queequegs spirit, carved into the wood of the coffin. Queequeg represents that part of Ishmael which

Flute Acoustics Essay -- acoustic sound

A flute blows a rapid jet of air across the embouchure hole. The pressure inside the players mouth is above atmospheric (usually 1kpa: just enough to support a 10cm height difference in a water manometer). (http://newt.phys.unsw.edu.au/music/) The work done to accelerate the air in this jet is the source of power input to instrument. Sound requires an oscillating motion or air flow. In the flute, the air jet, and the resonance in the air in instrument produces an oscillating component of the flow. As the air starts to vibrate some of the energy (sound ) is radiated out the ends and through any open holes. Most of the energy is lost as a sort of friction (viscous loss) with the walls. The pitch or note can be altered very slightly by breath and lip adjustment, but if changed completely the length of the air must change. This is why the holes in the flute are used to remove the constriction of the air at that particular point. The resonance of the air column in the flute mostly determines the playing frequency which is the pitch. (http://newt.phys.unsw.edu.au/music/) Since the...