How does Thomas Hardy create and maintain Essay Example for Free

How does Thomas Hardy create and maintain Essay How does Thomas Hardy create and maintain a sense of mystery and malignant, uncontrollable forces in The withered arm Thomas Hardy creates and maintains mystery and malignant, underlying forces by using symbolic descriptions of the setting, the atmosphere and the strange unguessable plot. Thomas Hardy sets the story in the fictional village of Holmstoke. Holm means home and stoke means fire. This gives two impressions, one of a nice cosy warm story, but it also gives the impression that fire is also connected with bad things like Hell and witchcraft. This makes you start to wonder what the story will be like. Thomas Hardy uses natural settings to contrast with unnatural events or behaviour. The heath is used a lot because of this. He also uses the heath because it helps create atmosphere and because it is outside he also uses the weather to reflect the characters mood. An example of this is when Rhoda and Gertrude cross the heath to see Conjuror Trendle and Rhoda does not want to and would have done anything to escape this enquiry, the weather and the atmosphere reflect her dread of what will happen. The thick clouds made the atmosphere dark and it was only early after noon and the wind howled dismally. Hardy also uses the weather to help him describe the changing of time like at the beginning of a paragraph. All the gossip was going on in winter and by the end of the paragraph its in the spring I think Hardy also uses the changing of the seasons as a sort of metaphor to symbolize the changing of the characters. An example is when Gertrude changes from a very beautiful, perfect, kind and caring girl to a scarred irritable superstitious woman. Hardy also has such large gap in time so the changes in Gertrude are more noticeable. Thomas Hardy also uses characters to help him create mystery and underlying forces especially Rhoda Brook. Rhoda is an outsider and she lives out of the village by herself with her son. Shes a little weird because she never mixes with people. People dont really mix with her because of her sleeping with Lodge and having a baby. People think she is a witch. I think this is because people associate her with Trendle. When Gertrude needed to find Trendle the villagers told her to ask Rhoda and she realized that they thought a sorceress would know the whereabouts of the exorcist. But the mystery really begins when she has her vision and next day Gertrude shows her the mark from the vision which is on her arm. The vision is an important part of the story as it is the start of everything and caused everything. Rhoda can not control what is happening to so it helps maintain the uncontrollable forces which are all through this book. Thomas Hardy uses Conjuror Trendle a lot to help create mystery and uncontrollable forces. Just the fact that conjuror Trendle lives on the heath starts to make the reader feel a sense of mystery because the heath represents the weirdness or the story. Trendle also helps create mystery by doing magic in secret and not openly He did not profess his remedial practises openly and it also helps that he was in disguise. He was disguised as a dealer in furze , turf sharp sand and other local products. He had to be disguised because people in that time were very superstitious. I think Thomas Hardy uses Gertrude to help create a sense of uncontrollable forces, this is because things are happening to her mentally and physically which she has no control over. Also because the things that are happening to her are unexplainable, it helps create and maintain malignant uncontrollable forces. Hardy illustrates this physically when her incredible beauty is which is described as the light under a heap of rose petals becomes ruined and scarred by her withered arm; and mentally when she turns from a very nice person to an irritable, superstitious woman Farmer Lodge is not in the story much but none the less is a very important character, because he is the main reason the whole story happens. He is the center of the love triangle of him Rhoda and Gertrude which is why everything happens. As we dont see him much in the story this makes him more important as it helps add to the mystery. Hardy uses imagery to help the reader mentally see whats happening and also to symbolise things. An example of this at the beginning of the booking the lorn milkmaid Hardy paint us the picture of a lot of milkmaids all sitting together gossiping. This gives the impression that the village is quite a close knit place and that one Rhoda Brooke is all by herself on the side not joining in this gossiping. This gives the impression that she is a sort of outsider which no one wants to be friends with which adds to the mystery. A very important image in the story is the withered arm. It creates mystery because the reader will wonder how it happened and malignant uncontrollable forces because the reader will wonder if Rhoda really is a witch. The main themes of the story are witch craft and passion. The passion is in the love triangle between Farmer Lodge, Gertrude and Rhoda. The witch craft is in the vision Rhoda sees and the physical and mental change in Gertrude. Passion and witch craft are the uncontrollable forces in the withered arm. I think one of the things Hardy is trying to say in this book is that life cant always be explained. Thomas Hardy uses many different languages effects. He uses similes and metaphors, to describe Gertrude her face as comely as a live dolls and her face like the light under a heap of rose petals. Hardy also uses extended imagery when he uses the river outside the executioners house to link him to the village, it stood close to the same stream. He also uses personification in describing the river the waters of which emitted a steady roar. Thomas Hardy shows us which characters are common and which arent by having the common ones use dialect. The only person not to use dialect is Gertrude. Another important factor in creating and maintaining a sense of mystery and malignant uncontrollable forces was the plot. The vision coming true and Rhoda beginning to doubt herself really draws the reader in to the story. I think it was a very effective ending giving no clear answers like yes, Rhoda was a witch or not or no, it was all a coincidence and leaving it up to the reader. That really helps maintain mystery In conclusion I think that by using the characters, settings and a strange plot, Thomas Hardy successfully creates and maintains mystery and malignant forces in the withered arm.

Gossip Girl by Cecily von Ziegesar :: essays research papers

This book is basically following the gossip of the privileged, beautiful, and filthy rich teens. While many novels have a one-person view of their story, this one allows you to understand each character’s thoughts. Welcome to New York City’s Upper East Side, where teenagers have unlimited access to money and whatever else they could ask. This book begins when the girl everyone loved to hate, Serena van der Woodsen is back from boarding school. Everyone claims she was kicked out. Blair Waldorf and Serena were best friends until Blair knew what it was like to be in the light Serena used to take up. Blair’s mother, Eleanor Waldorf, and her soon to be step-father, Cyrus Rose, threw a dinner party when Blair met the her nightmare. This was the first time Blair had seen Serena in two years. Blair knows that if Serena is around Nate, her boyfriend, she’ll end up stealing his heart. The rest of the book follows Blair’s parties and new gossip heard over Serena. Blair is on the organizing committee for the Kiss on the Lips party, when she can’t seem to find someone to print the invitations. Jenny Humphrey agrees to make them if she can have invitations for herself and her brother, Dan. Serena tries to straighten up her life by doing more extracurricular classes at Constance school for girls. She decides she might join the Interschool Drama Club where they are doing a modern version of Gone With The Wind. She later blows that off and joins another drama group. A girl named Vanessa Abram is the director of her version of War and Peace. Serena was the best person for the part Natasha, but Vanessa doesn’t want Dan, as Prince Andrei, to swoon over Serena during the play. Jenny finally convinces her brother to take her to the Kiss on the Lips party. Serena blew off the party and called Vanessa to see if she would help her make her own movie. Vanessa agrees to help and invites Serena to a bar called The Five and Dime where her sister’s band would be playing.

Important lessons about West African history Essay

In light of current events – the resurgence of racism in the U. S. , the political and social upheavals in Africa, and other sad legacies of 300 years of slave trade and colonialism – it is easy to forget that in many ways, Africans brought these evils upon themselves. In the historical novel Segu by Afro-French Caribbean scholar Maryse Conde, we are presented with a vivid portrait of the political struggles and infighting, as well as social and cultural conflicts that put enough stress on traditional African societies so as to allow their exploitation by European powers as well as Arabs and Ottoman Turks. These sweeping events are presented in miniature through the story of Dousika Traore, advisor to the King of Bambara in the city of Segu (located in present-day Mali on the Niger River). His four sons represent the major forces that were tearing at the fabric of traditional African society during the late eighteenth century; Islam, Christianity, the slave trade and Western-style capitalism. Tiekoro, the eldest turns his back on tradition and embraces Islam, a rigidly patriarchal faith with harsh, ascetic demands. It requires that he turn his back on the ancestors, â€Å"protectors of his clan,† (Conde, 35), and required that a man give up many pleasures: â€Å"Monzon, even though he made use of the services of Muslim marabouts, had feelings of the greatest repugnance against Islam, which castrated men, reduced the number of wives they might have, and forbade dolo [an alcoholic beverage] . Could a man live without dolo? Without it, where was he to find the strength to face each succeeding day? † (131). Tiekoro soon learns some hard facts, however, especially in Part I, Chapter 8, as his natural physical drives come between him and his desire to become a devout Muslim. Naba, the youngest, is captured and sold into slavery. While the popular TV mini-series, Roots depicted this sort of kidnapping as perpetrated by white â€Å"slave-catchers,† the reality is this was rarely done. Most often – as depicted in Segu – this happened as the result of kidnapping or capture by other black Africans (typically of a rival nation or clan) or Muslim traders. In fact, it is noteworthy that Conde depicts the aristocracy of the kingdom as more than willing to finance their traditionally hedonistic lifestyles by means of the slave trade. Malobali embraces Christianity, another influence of white Europeans. In part, he appears to be driven to this, being pressured by his elder brother Tiekoro, who thinks what is good for him is good for the others (165). Eventually, he embraces Christianity (252), which involves losing his name and his language as he is renamed â€Å"Samuel† and taught the French language. Yet cultural and family issues (251-292) come between him and his full acceptance of what, like Islam, is a patriarchal and restrictive faith at odds with the cultural values with which he is raised. Siga is the son who attempts to hold on to the traditions of his father. Dousika’s death fairly early in the novel (135) is symbolic of a culture and a society that is dying all around him. As a younger son, Siga is not in a position of power, yet resists Tiekoro’s authority and attempts to force the family to accept Islam. Nonetheless, the forces tearing apart traditional society and culture are too powerful for him; ultimately, Siga adopts the life and occupation of a merchant of wares, enabling him to live in some degree of comfort, but stripping him of what status he might have enjoyed as Dousika’s son. In Segu, the reader has an excellent opportunity to see the slave trade and the exploitive colonization of Africa from the African perspective, gaining a greater understanding of the fact that no people in history have even been conquered without inside help. Work Cited Conde, Maryse. Segu. English ed. (New York: Penguin Books, 1987)Ã'Ž

Math Is The Language Of The Un Essay - 1222 Words

Mathematics, the language of the universe, is one of the largest fields of study in the world today. With the roots of the math tree beginning in simple mathematics such as, one digit plus one digit, and one digit minus one digit, the tree of mathematics comes together in the more complex field of algebra to form the true base of calculations as the trunk. As we get higher, branches begin to form creating more specialized forms of numerical comprehension and schools of mathematical thought. Some examples of these are the applications into chemistry, economics and computers. Further up the tree we see the crown beginning to form with the introduction of calculus based organization. Calculus, a theoretical school of mathematical thought,†¦show more content†¦Patterns are mathematical routes of recognizing the frequency or outcome of events and thus are a mathematically imposed organization. nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;As children grow older, they are introduced to more complex and for most, more difficult ways of using mathematics to organize the world they see around them. One of these methods of mathematical organization is a system known as algebra. Algebra is a more advanced way of dealing with problems than simple arithmetic is. This is because algebra can graphically demonstrate and compare equations, which helps those who are more visual learners, as well as introducing students to the Cartesian Coordinate Plane, the most important graphical assistant in higher mathematics. Algebra has a plethora of large branches within the mathematical community, reaching from the simple solving of linear functions to the complex and secretive factoring and algorithmic functions of cryptology. The more advanced techniques of mathematics are taught to students later on in their scholastic career then simple math. This is because, the average seven year old mind has trouble making a ll of the connections and fullfilling the thought processes required for simple mathematics, and introducing them to the concept that there are an infinite amount of numbers between 1 and 2 would be more of a hinderence then a help. 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