Huck Finn :: essays research papers

Huckleberry Finn - A Racist Novel? There is a major argument among literary critics whether Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain, is or is not a racist novel. The question boils down to the depiction of Jim, the black slave, and to the way he is treated by Huck and other characters. The use of the word "nigger" is also a point raised by some critics, who feel that Twain uses the word too much and too loosely. Mark Twain never presents Jim in a negative light. He does not show Jim as a drunkard, as a mean person or as a cheat. This is in contrast to the way Huck's (white) father is depicted, whom Twain describes using all of the above characterizations and more. We see Jim as a good friend, a man devoted to his family and loyal to his companions. He is, however, very naive and superstitious. Some critics say that Twain is implying that all blacks have these qualities. When Jim turns to his magic hairball for answers about the future, we see that he does believe in some foolish things. But all the same, he is visited by both blacks and whites to use the hairball's powers. This type of naivete was abundant at the time and found among all races-the result of a lack of proper education. So the depiction of Jim is not negative in the sense that Jim is stupid and inferior, and in this aspect of the story clearly there is no racism intended. It is next necessary to analyze the way white characters treat Jim throughout the book. Note that what the author felt is not the way most characters act around Jim, and his feelings are probably only shown through Huck. In the South during that period, black people were treated as less than humans, and Twain needed to portray this. The examples of the way Jim is denigrated: by being locked up, having to hide his face in the daytime and how he is generally derided, are necessary for historical accuracy. So, Mark Twain had to display Jim's treatment in this manner, even if it is not the way he felt. Huck, however, does not treat Jim as most whites do. Huck looks at Jim as a friend, and by the end of their journey, disagrees with society's notion that blacks are inferior. There are two main examples of this in the story.

Christchurch Earthquake Essay

On Tuesday 22nd of February 2011 there was a 6.3 magnitude earthquake at 12:51pm. The damage in Christchurch was far more substantial than the damage caused in the 7.1 earthquake only 5 months before. 185 people were killed in the February earth quake and thousands more were injured. The epicentre of the earthquake was very close to Lyttelton and only 10 kilometres out from Christchurch Central city. The fault line that ruptured and caused the earth quake was the 15 kilometre fault along the southern edge of the city from Cashmere to Avon Heathcoat estuary. The build-up of stress or pressure in the rocks below Christchurch The earth is made up of many tectonic plates. It is the movement of these plates that has created the geographical features of many countries. New Zealand lies on the boundary between two of these plates: The Pacific Plate and the Australian Plate. This boundary is most obvious along the Southern Alps. From this main fault there are many smaller ones spreading outwards. Some of these spread into Canterbury. Before the 2010 and 2011 earthquakes it was not thought that there were any significant fault lines near Christchurch. Now we know there are. Stress is not caused by the movement of tectonic plates, but more by when the edges of the plates jam against each other and stop moving. The pressure builds up behind the part that has jammed. Eventually the pressure is so great that the plate moves suddenly and this causes earthquakes. The build-up of stress and the sudden movement when the stress is released shakes the rocks deep under Christchurch. The fault lines under and near the city shake, causing the rocks to move. This causes the major earthquakes.The outer core of the earth is layer of molten rock. On top of this is the mantle. On top of the mantle is the earth’s crust that we live on. The mantle gets very hot and in thin places molten rock rises to its top. Because of this hot and cold relationship, the crust on top is broken into tectonic plates. The movement of molten rock causes energy to be moved upwards into the crust. When the crust can no longer hold this energy, it moves along the boundaries of the tectonic plates. These boundaries are the weakest parts of the crust and will therefore be the first bits to break and move. Release of stress The Port Hills fault line that caused the 6.3 magnitude earth quake in February was 15km long and stretched east to north east along from Cashmere to the Avon Heathcoat estuary. The fault line that caused the Feb 22 quake was one that was previously unknown close to the Port Hills. This fault line did not break the earth’s surface, so there was nothing visible for scientists to go and look at. Using instruments that measure earthquakes and earth movement scientists were able to determine exactly where this fault was and that the bit that actually moved, causing the earthquake was 15km long. Fault lines are the weakest part of the earth’s crust. When there is stress caused underneath by movement, the fault lines are the first part to move. It is a bit like a piece of glass: if there is a crack in the glass that will be the first place where the glass will break. So pressure is released under the earth’s crust. The earth’s crust will actually hold a lot of t his pressure. When the pressure becomes too much for the crust to hold, the fault lines are the first bits to move. One of the ways scientists measure and record the fault movement was through the displacement of GPS stations, whose displacements were used to create the fault slip model. http://www.gns.cri.nz/Home/Our-Science/Natural-Hazards/Recent-Events/Canterbury-quake/Hidden-fault The transmission of energy through the earths crust The energy released when a fault line moves is like a stone being dropped in a puddle of water. It causes ripples to move out from the centre. The ripples are worst nearest the centre and they get smaller as they get to the edge of the puddle. The centre of an earthquake is the epicentre. When energy is released at an epicentre, waves of energy move outwards, causing the ground to shake. As the epicentre of the Christchurch earthquakes was quite close to the city, the energy that caused the ground to move under Christchurch was violent. If the epicentre had been further away the quakes would have felt smaller.There was movement up, down and sideways during the February quake. The block of land on the south side of the fault line rose about 2.5 metres – this included the Port Hills. The land on this side of the fault also moved westwards. The land on the north side of the fault moved eastwards towards the sea. However, much of this movement was underground. The land has risen as much as 40 centimetres around the western side of the Avon-Heathcote estuary.The amount the Port hills has risen  varies a lot , under Lyttelton Harbour it has risen about 5 centimetres but at the base of the hills near the Heathcote valley, it has risen to a maximum of around 25 centimetres. As a result of the fault slip, areas like Bexley, Aranui, Wainoni, Avondale and New Brighton have sunk, mostly by less than 15 centimetres. Northern, northeastern and central areas of Christchurch have also sunk, but generally by less than 5 centimetres. Earth quakes / fault movements are measured with a sensitive instrument called a seismograph. Earth quakes generate seismic waves and the seismograph is used to detect them. The magnitude of an earthquake depends on how big or small the fault is and the amount it has slipped. The seismograph shows the recordings made on the seismographs detected at the surface of the earth to determine how large the earthquake was. A short wiggly line that doesn’t move very much means a small earthquake, and a long wiggly line that wiggles a lot means a large earthquake. Through the seismograph we get the Richter scale. The Richter scale is a scale used for expressing the magnitude of an earthquake based on the height of the largest shake 100km from the epicentre. There are different types of seismic waves that can be detected; there are P waves and S waves (primary and secondary) P-waves are travel at the greatest velocity through the earth making them the first waves to be recorded on a seismograph during an earthquake. S waves are transverse waves that travel slower than P waves but are more destructive because of their large amplitude. The effects on man-made structures and aftershocks Liquefaction is a substance where strength and stiffness of a soil is reduced by tectonic plates shifting or other rapid movement. Liquefaction occurs in sodden soils. The water applies a pressure on the soil particles this controls how tightly the particles are pressed together. Before an earthquake, the water pressure is relatively low. However when the tectonic plates start shaking it can cause the water pressure to build up to the point where the soil particles can readily move. Some Areas of Christchurch are more prone to others as some suburbs have up to 9cm of liquefiable substances such as sand and soft soil. These substances turn into liquefaction easily as they mix well with the water underground. Costal areas are also more prone as the soft sand mixes well with the water also. There was more damage caused by liquefaction in the central city and eastern  suburbs than other places simply because it depends on the soil. Since Christchurch is built on marsh land our soil is very susceptible to liquefaction and there is very little we can do to stop it. Some Areas of Christchurch are more prone to others as some suburbs have up to 9cm of liquefiable substances such as sand and soft soil. These substances turn into liquefaction easily as they mix well with the water underground. Costal areas are also more prone as the soft sand mixes well with the water also. Most buildings that survived the Christchurch earth quake were wooden because when wood is shaken it is able to bend and twist with the movement, whereas for bricks and stone they can’t move at all and just have to absorb the shock of the shaking which generally leads to buildings collapsing all together E.g. Christchurch Cathedral, CTV building and Knox church. Buildings like the Christchurch Women’s Hospital survived through the September and February earthquake because its foundations are base isolated. Base isolation is when a building is separated from the ground that it is built on. Large plates separate the ground and the building. One plate is secured to the ground and the other is secured to the bottom of the building. During an earth quake these plates only move a little bit, absorbing mos t of the shock from the earthquake minimizing damage to the rest of the building. Also depends on the soil under the building, if it is prone to liquefaction or not. Some houses had liquefaction coming up through their floors damaging the foundations so much they had to leave their homes, and basements of office buildings or apartment blocks were flooded with liquefaction, making them un-use able.A tsunami didn’t occur after the Christchurch earth quake because the epicentre was in land and no seismic energy was released under the sea. Tsunamis only happen when the epicentre is in the sea, making the energy from the earth quake ripple the water on to land. The bigger the earth quake is, the bigger the tsunami. Aftershocks? After shocks are a lots of smaller earth quakes that happen after the initial earth quake. They occur because the fault line that ruptured needs to settle down again and release stress, aftershocks are the fault lines way of releasing remaining energy. According to http://www.christchurchquakemap.co.nz/february there have been 8673 after  shocks since February 22nd 2011 as of Monday 19th May 2014. Including after shocks that have been so big they are classed as an earth quake of their own like the 13th of June 2011 and the 23rd of December 2011. After shocks do not occur in the exact same place, but they do occur along the same fault line and in the same region. The main earthquake has already happened and released most of its energy already, but further along the fault line the rocks are now out of place and the grinding between them causes more earthquakes (aftershocks). Bibliography http://www.ipenz.org.nz/IPENZ/forms/pdfs/ChChFactSheets-Answers-critical-questions-buildings.pdf http://keithwoodford.wordpress.com/2011/02/27/understanding-the-christchurch-earthquake-building-damage/ http://scienceblogs.com/startswithabang/2013/05/10/where-does-an-earthquakes-energy-come-from/ www.scoop.co.nz/stories/SC1103/S00054/the-canterbury-earthquakes-scientific-answers.htm http://www.mona.uwi.edu/earthquake/quickinfo.php http://all-geo.org/highlyallochthonous/2011/02/magnitude-6-3-earthquake-rocks-christchurch/ http://www.gns.cri.nz/Home/Our-Science/Natural-Hazards/Recent-Events/Canterbury-quake/Hidden-fault http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peak_ground_acceleration http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/SC1103/S00054/the-canterbury-earthquakes-scientific-answers.htm http://file.stuff.co.nz/stuff/12-51/ http://www.teara.govt.nz/en/historic-earthquakes/page-13

Philippines Literature Essay

The diversity and richness of Philippine literature evolved side by side with the country’s history. Long before the Spaniards and other foreigners landed or set foot on Philippine shores, our forefathers already had their own literature stamped in the history of our race. Our ancient literature shows our customs and traditions in everyday life as traced in our folk stories, old plays and short stories. Our ancestors also had their own alphabet which was different from that brought by the Spaniards. –> LITERATURE: the body of oral and written works, text, books, poetry, etc. these are the several things that concern this subject. we have been exposed to literature ever since we were young. reading, writing, that’s what we do. but is this really the essence of literature? the time i realized that i was going to take up â€Å"Philippine Literature† this semester, i was rather a bit curios about what would be in store for me, for the whole class. our Literature instructor Ms. Dinah Laguna-Mission is very enthusiastic in teaching us. never came a time that i felt sleepy or bored during our lit. subject. she has a lively voice and pronunciation, lively gestures and the witty use of words were the things i looked forward to every time she came. at first, i expect that the subject content and the teaching method was just a repetition of what has been taught to us during high school. but i was wrong, the different genre of literature, different devices and ever famous figures of speech were the ones being taught to us. after all the experiences and new knowledge imparted to me, i realized that Literature is not only about just reading the stories, poems, riddles, etc. but either its understanding them deeply. i thank Ms. Mission for imparting this knowledge imparted to me and the whole class for making this journey bearable and truly enjoyable one. it was beyond doubt an accomplishment for us and so, even if i finish the subject Philippines Literature, the things i  learned, the memories and experience will truly mo no matter what. ^_^

Free Essays on Fuente Ovejuna

The play’s central plot focuses on Frondoso (Andy Schlichter COL ’02), a peasant who is forced to defend his honour and his love, Laurencia (Danielle Cantrel, SFS ’02), against a tyrannical overlord. Played out against the backdrop of the 15th-century Spanish Catholic monarchy, the village of Fuente Ovejuna finally rises against the tyrannical Commander (Sean Greene, COL ’01) to protect its two citizens. The importance of collective action and responsibility saturates the story, and all of the characters are solid in their own performances. Cantrel is a standout as the energetic heroine, as is Alex Banks (COL ’01) who plays the hang-loose Esteban. Cabrera dilutes the historical aspect of the play with contemporary costumes and a simple set that imitates Gaudi using soda bottles. Her attempt to relate the events of the play with those of modern times is understandable because "Fuente Ovejuna" adapts historical details for mainly poetic purposes. Stripped down to its bare bones, the story deals with the reconstruction of a perfect world. However, the play is tightly tied to its setting in that it revolves around class struggles specific to the period. These important themes are weakened in her modern translation and leave the play unbalanced. Cabrera’s most ambitious decision is to present the play through a feminist perspective, adding an interesting element to the power struggles within the play. Most of the male characters are chauvinistic and self-important; women portray the obedient or manipulative characters. Cabrera also casts some actors in two opposing roles, allowing them to experience two characters with varying degrees of power and importance. It becomes as much a learning experience for the actors as it does for the audience. By the third act, the play’s cohesiveness begins to disintegrate. De Vega’s script, which appears to lose its drive, is partly to blame. It is as if he became bored with t... Free Essays on Fuente Ovejuna Free Essays on Fuente Ovejuna The play’s central plot focuses on Frondoso (Andy Schlichter COL ’02), a peasant who is forced to defend his honour and his love, Laurencia (Danielle Cantrel, SFS ’02), against a tyrannical overlord. Played out against the backdrop of the 15th-century Spanish Catholic monarchy, the village of Fuente Ovejuna finally rises against the tyrannical Commander (Sean Greene, COL ’01) to protect its two citizens. The importance of collective action and responsibility saturates the story, and all of the characters are solid in their own performances. Cantrel is a standout as the energetic heroine, as is Alex Banks (COL ’01) who plays the hang-loose Esteban. Cabrera dilutes the historical aspect of the play with contemporary costumes and a simple set that imitates Gaudi using soda bottles. Her attempt to relate the events of the play with those of modern times is understandable because "Fuente Ovejuna" adapts historical details for mainly poetic purposes. Stripped down to its bare bones, the story deals with the reconstruction of a perfect world. However, the play is tightly tied to its setting in that it revolves around class struggles specific to the period. These important themes are weakened in her modern translation and leave the play unbalanced. Cabrera’s most ambitious decision is to present the play through a feminist perspective, adding an interesting element to the power struggles within the play. Most of the male characters are chauvinistic and self-important; women portray the obedient or manipulative characters. Cabrera also casts some actors in two opposing roles, allowing them to experience two characters with varying degrees of power and importance. It becomes as much a learning experience for the actors as it does for the audience. By the third act, the play’s cohesiveness begins to disintegrate. De Vega’s script, which appears to lose its drive, is partly to blame. It is as if he became bored with t...

It Is A Team Project About Target Example

It Is A Team Project About Target Example It Is A Team Project About Target – Term Paper Example Target Introduction Originally known as Dayton Dry Goods Company, Target Corporation is one of the largest discount retailers in the United States with the company, whose stores are located across the United States, and other nations, offering differentiated products to their consumers. The company’s brand promises relies on providing exceptional products to its customers in an approach that delivers outstanding value, ensures innovation in customer service, and provided exceptional customer experiences whereby the company delivered more products to its customers who paid less (Target.com, 2013). Target faces criticisms regarding the company’s policy towards the living wage of their employees and other important employee issues that influence their performance (Bhatnagar, 2005). The failure to implement a policy that provided for a living wage, and another policy that ensured that the company enhanced their employees’ labor participation, are two factors that hi ghlight the poor working conditions that employees at Target face. In effect, it is important to discover the reasons behind the company’s poor working conditions. In this case, it is crucial to use Hertzbergs two factor theory, which identifies the factors that cause job satisfaction in the workplace while also identifying the set of factors that contributed to job dissatisfaction in the workplace (Sapru, 2008). On the other hand, the job characteristics model proposed by Hackman and Oldham (Fried, & Ferris, 1987) will be crucial in identifying how task identification and skills variety contribute to motivation while the model will identify how autonomy, as a motivator, leads to job satisfaction and performance. We propose the following hypothesis: Hypothesis 1: A Target employee’s task identity will be positively related to their work motivation. Hypothesis 2: A target employee’s low feeling of autonomy will have a direct negative relationship with their motiv ation and satisfaction.Hypothesis 3: The poor working conditions provided for target employees with have a direct negative relationship to employee dissatisfaction.Hypothesis 4: Employee’s being given stimulating work and feelings of achievement will lead to job satisfaction.ReferencesBhatnagar, P. (2005). Just call it Teflon Target. CNN.com. Retrieved from http://money.cnn.com/2005/04/20/news/fortune500/target_walmart/ Fried, Y., & Ferris, G. R. (1987). The validity of the Job Characteristics Model: A review and meta-analysis. Personnel Psychology, 40(2), 287-322.Sapru, R. K. (2008). Administrative Theories And Management Thought 2nd Ed. New Delhi, India: PHI Learning Pvt. Ltd.Target.com. (2013). Mission & Values. Retrieved from https://corporate.target.com/about/mission-values

Overview of the 27th Amendment

Overview of the 27th Amendment Taking nearly 203 years and the efforts of a college student to finally win ratification, the 27th Amendment has one of the strangest histories of any amendment ever made to the U.S. Constitution. The 27th Amendment requires that any increases or decreases in the base salary paid to members of Congress may not take effect until the next term of office for the U.S. representatives begins. This means that another congressional general election must have been held before the pay raise or cut can take effect. The intent of the Amendment is to prevent Congress from granting itself immediate pay raises. The complete text of the 27th Amendment states: â€Å"No law, varying the compensation for the services of the Senators and Representatives, shall take effect, until an election of representatives shall have intervened.† Note that members of Congress are also legally eligible to receive the same annual cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) raise given to other federal employees. The 27th Amendment does not apply to these adjustments. The COLA raises take effect automatically on January 1 of each year unless Congress, through the passage of a joint resolution, votes to decline them - as it has done since 2009. While the 27th Amendment is the Constitution’s most recently adopted amendment, it is also one of the first ones proposed. History of the 27th Amendment As it is today, congressional pay was a hotly debated topic in 1787 during the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia. Benjamin Franklin opposed paying congress members any salary at all. Doing so, Franklin argued, would result in representatives seeking office only to further their â€Å"selfish pursuits.† However, a majority of delegates disagreed; pointing out that Franklin’s payless plan would result in a Congress made up only of wealthy people who could afford holding federal offices. Still, Franklin’s comments moved the delegates to look for a way to make sure people did not seek public office simply as a way to fatten their wallets.   The delegates recalled their hatred for a feature of the English government called â€Å"placemen.† Placemen were seated members of Parliament who were appointed by the King to simultaneously serve in highly-paid administrative offices similar to presidential cabinet secretaries simply to buy their favorable votes in Parliament. To prevent placemen in America, the Framers included the Incompatibility Clause of Article I, Section 6 of the Constitution. Called the â€Å"Cornerstone of the Constitution† by the Framers, the Incompatibility Clause states that â€Å"no Person holding any Office under the United States, shall be a Member of either House during his Continuance in Office.† Fine, but to the question of how much members of Congress would be paid, the Constitution states only that their salaries should be as â€Å"ascertained by Law† - meaning Congress would set its own pay. To most of the American people and especially to James Madison, that sounded like a bad idea. Enter the Bill of Rights In 1789, Madison, largely to address the concerns of the Anti-Federalists, proposed the 12 - rather than 10 - amendments that would become the Bill of Rights when ratified in 1791. One of the two amendments not successfully ratified at the time would eventually become the 27th Amendment. While Madison did not want Congress to have the power to give itself raises, he also felt that giving the president a unilateral power to set congressional salaries would give the executive branch too much control over the legislative branch to be in the spirit of the system of â€Å"separation of powers† embodied throughout the Constitution.   Instead, Madison suggested that the proposed amendment require that a congressional election had to take place before any pay increase could take effect. That way, he argued, if the people felt the raise was too large, they could vote â€Å"the rascals† out of office when they ran for re-election. The Epic Ratification of the 27th Amendment On September 25, 1789, what would much later become the 27th Amendment was listed as the second of 12 amendments sent to the states for ratification. Fifteen months later, when 10 of the 12 amendments had been ratified to become the Bill of Rights, the future 27th Amendment was not among them. By the time the Bill of Rights was ratified in 1791, only six states had ratified the congressional pay amendment. However, when the First Congress passed the Amendment in 1789, lawmakers had not specified a time limit within which the Amendment had to be ratified by the states. By 1979 - 188 years later - only 10 of the 38 states required had ratified the 27th Amendment. Student to the Rescue Just as the 27th Amendment appeared destined to become little more than a footnote in history books, along came Gregory Watson, a sophomore student at the University of Texas in Austin. In 1982, Watson was assigned to write an essay on government processes. Taking an interest in constitutional amendments that had not been ratified; he wrote his essay on the congressional pay amendment. Watson argued that since Congress had not set a time limit in 1789, it not only could but should be ratified now. Unfortunately for Watson, but fortunately for the 27th Amendment, he was given a C on his paper. After his appeals to get the grade raised were rejected, Watson decided to take his appeal to the American people in a big way. Interviewed by NPR in 2017 Watson stated, â€Å"I thought right then and there, ‘I’m going to get that thing ratified.’† Watson started by sending letters to state and federal legislators, most of who just filed away. The one exception was U.S. Senator William Cohen who convinced his home state of Maine to ratify the amendment in 1983. Driven largely by the public’s dissatisfaction with the performance of Congress compared to its rapidly-rising salaries and benefits during the 1980s, the 27th Amendment ratification movement grew from a trickle to a flood. During 1985 alone, five more states ratified it, and when Michigan approved it on May 7, 1992, the required 38 states had followed suit. The 27th Amendment was officially certified as an article of the U.S. Constitution on May 20, 1992 - a staggering 202 years, 7 months, and 10 days after the First Congress had proposed it. Effects and Legacy of the 27th Amendment The long-belated ratification of an amendment preventing Congress from voting itself an immediate pay raise shocked members of Congress and baffled legal scholars who questioned whether a proposal written by James Madison could still become part of the Constitution nearly 203 years later. Over the years since its final ratification, the practical effect of the 27th Amendment has been minimal. Congress has voted to reject its annual automatic cost-of-living raise since 2009 and members know that proposing a general pay raise would be politically damaging.   In that sense alone, the 27th Amendment represents an important gauge of the people’s report card on Congress through the centuries. And what of our hero, college student Gregory Watson? In 2017, the University of Texas recognized his place in history by at last raising the grade on his 35-year-old essay from a C to an A.

Inflation Literature review Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words - 1

Inflation - Literature review Example The markets had assumed that the debt by Euro zone was safe. This made the investors think that all members thereby making them willing to maintain debts even at low interest rates despite countries including Italy and Greece having high debt levels had backed them. After the credit crunching, the investors began being to be more skeptical about the European finances. The other unfortunate occurrence was that the European Union had no strategies in place to deal with the sudden panic. The diagram below shows some debt from Selected European countries between 2007 and 2010. Pettinger on the economics journal of October 2011, tried to analyze the Euro economic crisis critically where he applied a single currency meant that several of the solutions regarding economic problems could not be used. The most difficult task is to reduce the government borrowing levels while managing lower unemployment and economic recovery. He studied several European economies including Greece, Ireland and Portugal and found the following problems. Pettinger best-suggested solution was currency devaluation. This refers to the reduction in the value of exchange rates .This would see regaining of competitiveness, reduction of budget deficit, increase employment rates, and aid in economic recovery. Since economic recovery is the key to reduction in budget deficit. He suggested that Countries should stop the use of the Euro and maintain their own currency. Most countries agree that the renewal of the economic growth is vital in saving the Euro (Pettinger, 2012; Pg. 68). The obstacle is that the effects of steps such as having a banking union, the recently agreed rescue plan may have positive effects to the banking system but may not have any effect to raise the competitiveness in the region’s economies. The second option was inflation, where the country should try to boost