J.B. Priestly & the story Essay Example for Free

J.B. Priestly the story Essay After the Inspectors departure Birling admits that he has learnt a loti from his visit. However, he immediately singles out Eric as youre the one I blame for this [the scandal]i , so he still seems to have little notion of community as he should, if he had learnt anything, be saying were the ones to blame for thisi. Instead he seems to be shifting blame from himself. We can also see that as soon as the characters begin to construct doubts about the legitimacy of the Inspector he tries to find a way out of his predicament. As the story unravels he becomes excitedi on discovering that the Inspector is not real and soon he has managed to put the whole episode out of his head, despite protests from Eric and Sheila who try to tell him that you still havent learnt anything. i Birling is far more concerned about what may happen if the news comes out in public than whatever he did to Eva Smith and makes fun of Eric and Sheila for not being able to take a jokei. However, the phone call he receives at the end of the play is not at all funny to him. To sum up, from the play we can see that when Birling preaches his every man for himselfi philosophy he is very assured that he is right. The Inspectors questioning manages to make him change his mind slightly although he is still sure of what he believes in. When he sees a chance to get out of the embarrassing situation he has been put into he grabs it with both hands and manages to forget the lesson he has learnt during the evening. Sheila is probably the character who changes the most during the play. At the start of the action she is very happy about her engagement, pleased with life and rather excitedi. However, even at this point we pick up some of the qualities in her that are so marked later in the play, such as her clear stating of opinions which can be seen when she half-teases Gerald about his absence during the summer and her opinion of wine drinkers. Sheilas reaction on receiving her engagement ring from Gerald show her state of mind: Sheila: Oh its wonderful! Look Mummy isnt it a beauty? Oh darling! i Sheila appears to be inattentive over her fathers speeches at the dinner table and has to be told to listen. This suggests that she neither find his opinions interesting nor agrees with them, which may point to her future conduct in the play. Sheilas explanation of her conduct when interviewed by the Inspector shows how naive and thoughtless she was up to that point. However, unlike Birling she feels very upset about her conduct, shown by her running out of the room sobbing when first shown the photograph of Eva Smith. She also swears that she will never, never do it [behaving like that towards others] again to anybodyi. This is a turning point in the play for Sheila. Almost at once she sheds her image of being a naive and ignorant young lady and takes on the most profound understanding of the Inspectors message. During the rest of the play she often makes several cutting remarks during the other characters i interviews with the Inspector. For example, when the Inspector is talking to Mrs Birling she warns her mother not to block herself from Eva Smith in her answers to his questions: Mrs Birling: And in any case I dont suppose for a moment that we can understand why the girl committed suicide. Girls of that class Sheila : Mother, dontplease dont For your own sake, as well as ours, you musnt. Mrs Birling: Musnt what? Really, Sheila! Sheila : You musnt try to build up a kind of wall between us and that girl. If you do, the Inspector will just break it down Incidences such as this, where Sheila is clearly contradicting the opinion of her parents, lead Mrs Birling to remark to the Inspector that You seem to be making a great impression on the childi. The Inspectors response, that we often make an impression on the young onesi is proved to be true. The younger characters Sheila, Eric and to an extent Gerald, are able to see the Inspectors message realise that he is right. However, the older characters are too entrenched in their beliefs and still stubbornly cling to what they believe in.

Life Struggling Against Death in Shakespeares Sixtieth Sonnet (Sonnet

Life Struggling Against Death in Shakespeare's Sixtieth Sonnet (Sonnet 60) Shakespeare's sixtieth sonnet is probably addressed to the same young, male friend to whom most or all of the earlier sonnets are said to be addressed. The sonnet does not specify this, however, so it could be to anyone or everyone. The theme is certainly universal; time steals human life away, but poetry is immortal. The poet uses diction and imagery to paint a picture of life struggling against death and losing.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   The speaker of the sonnet tells the audience in the first quatrain that human life is fleeting. He or she refers to life as "our minutes" (813). This is a twist on the traditional expression "our days." The use of "minutes" in place of "days" makes life seem even shorter and gives the poem a sense of urgency. The speaker uses wave imagery to show the audience that life is rushing: "Like as the waves make toward the pibbled shore,/ So do our minutes hasten to their end" (813). The wave is a very appropriate symbol for life. First it is nonexistent, then it becomes a small groove on the water, then it swells to greatness. As it grows in size, it speeds up, as life seems to speed up as people grow older.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   The speaker says that the minutes of life are "Each changing place with that which goes before,/ In sequent toil all forwards do contend" (813). The speaker treats the minutes of life without glamour. The minutes, like the waves, pass in the same way as those that wint before them. The speaker uses the word "toil" to imply that life is drudgery. The wave, even when swollen to its zenith acts in an imitative and monotonous way. Then it begins to shrink more quickly than it grew, finally dissipating as it crashes o... ...d nothing stands but for his scythe to mow," but in the next line says that the "verse shall stand" (813). The speaker also implies that the poetry might be written more in spite of Time than in praise of the audience. "The worth" of the audience is mentioned only once, while the mighty enemy, Time, is the focus. The victor over Time is the verse.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   The speaker of the poem tells the audience that he or she should be flattered that they were chosen as the subject of the speaker's poetry. The speaker convinces the audience that life is weak and Time is strong, but the speaker's poetry is stronger still. Perhaps the speaker felt that the audience was not appreciative enough of some previous efforts at immortalizing him or her in verse! For whatever reason, the speaker of Sonnet Sixty gives the audience a profound example of the importance of poetry.   

Downsizing: Costs and Assigned Government Executive

Industry downsizing has been a major part of the corporate world, even government agencies are downsizing. GovernmentExecutive. com â€Å"covers the business of the federal government and its huge departments and agencies – dozens of which dwarf the largest institutions in the private sector† on its website. Read the assigned Government Executive article and answer the following questions: Which industries have substantially reduced fixed cost commitments? Do you believe this reduction in costs has substantially impaired the ability of these industries to meet the needs of their customers? It appears that both privite and public sectors are reducing fixed cost. According to Ciccotello and Green, the technology, auto, and government industries have substantially reduced fixed costs. The specific examples referenced in the article, Industry’s Downsizing Lessons, were IBM, Honda, and the DoD; in some cases the downsizing has been beneficial and in others it has been detrimental. DoD has taken the lead in the current round of federal downsizing, instituting several initiatives to reduce permanent staff positions, rely more on temporary help and outsource production. Honda made large cuts in its permanent engineering staff in response to the more volatile sales environment for automobiles since the mid-1980s. These cuts left Honda unable to keep pace with its competitors in the design of new automobiles. The results have been the loss of market share and profit for Honda, which now faces the difficult task of trying to catch up. The consequence of cutting fixed costs too far could be even more dangerous for a government enterprise like DoD. The computer industry is rapidly changing technology is causing companies to reassess large, fixed-cost commitments. As a result, evidence of decreasing operating leverage in this industry abounds. Many large computer firms have made dramatic cuts in permanent staff. Standard and Poor's reports that IBM had more than 370,000 full-time employees in 1990 and fewer than 270,000 in 1994. At the same time, computer firms have greatly increased outsourcing of products and leasing of equipment. Both of these trends reduce the requirement for large in-house expenditures on personnel, plant and equipment. Outsourcing and leasing make the enterprise more nimble, more able to quickly adapt to a rapidly changing sales environment.

A Perception of Sin Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter

Through out the course of history, those who were considered sinners were often out casted from the society. This is much the case with Hester Prynne in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter. After a public trial, Hester is considered a sinner due to her birthing of a so called â€Å"devil child†. Hester is convicted to the life long bearing of a scarlet letter on her chest. The Scarlet Letter that Hester Prynne wears symbolizes the change in perception of sin through out the novel. Due to the revelations of the governor Winthrop and the reverend Dimmesdale, the way sin is perceived changes from one of shame to the idea that every one is a sinner in their own right. In the beginning of the Scarlet Letter, Hester Prynne is standing on a†¦show more content†¦Later on in Hawthorne’s novel, however, the perception of sin begins to change with the death of the governor Winthrop. It was not long after Hester’s visit to the governor’s home, that he passes away. Of course the governor was thought to be a holy man and none of the puritans thought of him as a sinner. However, on the night of his death, the old sexton noticed that in the sky, a scarlet â€Å"A† appeared. â€Å"†¦a great red letter in the sky, - the letter A, which we interpreted to stand for Angel.† (Hawthorne 144). The sight of this mystical â€Å"A† caused a bit of uncertainty for a few reasons. One reason was the meaning of the letter. In Hester’s case, the Scarlet letter was meant to mark her sin but a man of the governors stature was thought to have not ever sinned and thus in theory would have no reason for an â€Å"A† to follow him to his grave. This marked an important change in the perception of the sin represented by the scarlet letter. The puritans began to question the idea of sin because how could a mark of sin show up for someone who obviously has not sinned? In Hester’s case, after the incident with governor Winthrop, many of the puritan people began to see Hester’s â€Å"badge of shame† as more of â€Å"one of good deeds† (Hawthorne 147). This transformation in their way of thinking was done in a way so that Hester was not â€Å"unmarked† but at the same time, the deceased governor was not being looked at as a sinner. Toward the end of the novel,Show MoreRelatedThe Scarlet Letter By Nathaniel Hawthorne1397 Words   |  6 PagesJohn Graves Professor Connie Caskey English 251: American Literature I 8 February 2016 The Scarlet Letter was written by Nathaniel Hawthorne in 1850 which is based on the time frame of the Puritans, a religious group who arrived in Massachusetts in the 1630’s. The Puritans were in a religious period that was known for the strict social norms in which lead to the intolerance of different lifestyles. 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