Thomas Hardys Mayor Of Casterbridges Setting Essays - British Films

Thomas Hardy's Mayor Of Casterbridge's Setting Hardy's The Mayor of Casterbridge does an excellent job of displaying Casterbridge's realistic Western England setting through the architectural buildings, the behavior of the townspeople, and the speech used throughout the novel. All of these aspects combined provide a particular environment Hardy called Wessex which infuses the work with reality and a life. The love which Hardy had, for architecture, is displayed throughout this novel with the descriptions of the surrounding countryside, the buildings, the commerce, the roads, and the amusements that make up the environment of Casterbridge. The town of Casterbridge in Wessex, an ancient name for the West Saxon kingdom of the Middle Ages, is no longer used geographically. It comprises of Doreshire and parts of other western England countries. The country and the town meet at a mathematical line. The town is shut in by a square wall of trees, like a plot of garden grounded by a box-edging. When overlooking Casterbridge, there are towers, gables, chimneys, and casements standing tall and strong to show the development of the buildings. The chief hotel in Casterbridge-namely, the Kings Arms, is a spacious bow-window projected into the street over the main portico. The homes of Casterbridge consist of timber homes with overhanging stories, whose small-paned lattices were screened by dimity c urtains on a drawing-string. There were other houses of brick-nogging, which derived their chief support from those adjoining. The roofs consisted of slate patched with tiles, and occasionally there was a roof of thatch. Detail to buildings of Casterbridge gives readers a visual insight to the composition to the social classes of the town. Leading onto the townspeople who keep Casterbridge alive and productive. Social classes of the townspeople determine each individuals behavior and how others treat each individual based on social class or status. The characters may seem odd to some audiences, yet these characters are at all times real. They are based on people Hardy had grown up with, people whose tragic histories had unearthed during his early architectural apprenticeship, people he had heard about in legends and ballads. The agricultural and pastoral character of the people upon whom the town depended for its existence was shown by the class of objects displayed in the shop windows. The lower-class was classified as mischievous knaves by Hardy for he personally, along with others of status, was not very fond of them. There is one obvious example in the story which displays the greed and importance of show, of the upper class. In Casterbridge's best hotel when the Mayor was having a big dinner party, the blinds were left unclosed so the whole interior of this room could be surveyed from the top of a flight of stone steps to the road-wagon office opposite, for which reason a knot of idlers had gathered there to watch what they couldn't have. The higher classes took what lavishing capabilities they had and frolicked in them for all below to envy and want. Although the behavior and mannerism of the townspeople is blunt, it is realistic and influenced by real life situations through the mind of the author. A less obvious yet realistic part of the setting which can normally be over-looked but is emphasized throughout this novel is the speech, or dialect of the characters and townspeople. Social class is very obviously shown through the speech of every individual. Higher class residents of Casterbridge often spoke much more vulgar terms. They have their own folk dialect which modernly is referred to as slang throughout regions influential on the environment of the speaker. Speech is also an issue with age and maturity which is excellently presented throughout the entire course of the novel in Elizabeth-Jane. Hardy shows the gradual change that takes place in her speech through the years. In the first portion of the novel when Elizabeth-Jane is young, she has a sense of playfulness and good times. But as she grows older and her sorrow increases. Elizabeth-Jane turns more to study and reflection. Towards the end of the novel, Elizabeth-Jane is a full grown woman who has her life establishe d and knows where she stands in social status. She is melancholy and kind. A matronly woman

A Brief History of the Selfie

A Brief History of the Selfie Selfie is the slang term for self portrait, a photograph you take of yourself, usually taken using a mirror or with a camera held at arms length. The act of taking and sharing selfies has become widely popular due to digital cameras, the internet, the ubiquity of social media platforms like Facebook and, of course, because of peoples endless fascination with their own image. The word selfie was even chosen as the Word of the Year in 2013 by the Oxford English Dictionary, which has the following entry for the word: a photograph that one has taken of oneself, typically with a smartphone or webcam and uploaded to a social media website. History of the Self Portrait So who took the first selfie? In discussing the invention of the first selfie, we have to first pay homage to the film camera and the early history of photography as photography self portraits were taking place long before the invention of Facebook and smartphones. One example is American photographer Robert Cornelius, who took a self portrait daguerreotype (first practical process of photography) of himself in 1839. The image is also considered one of the earliest photographs of a person. In 1914, 13-year-old Russian Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna took a self portrait using a Kodak Brownie box camera (invented in in 1900) and sent the photograph to a friend with the following note, I took this picture of myself looking at the mirror. It was very hard as my hands were trembling. Nikolaevna appears to have been the first teenager to take a selfie. So Who Invented the Selfie?   Australia has laid claim to inventing the modern day selfie. In September 2001, a group of Australians created a website and uploaded the first digital self portraits onto the internet. On 13 September 2002, the first recorded published use of the term selfie to describe a self portrait photograph occurred on the Australian internet forum (ABC Online). The anonymous poster wrote the following along with posting a selfie of himself: Um, drunk at a mates 21st, I tripped over and landed lip first (with front teeth coming a very close second) on a set of steps. I had a hole about 1cm long right through my bottom lip. And sorry about the focus, it was a selfie. A Hollywood cameraman named Lester Wisbrod claims he is first person to take celebrity selfies, (a self-taken photo of himself and a celebrity) and has been doing so since 1981. Medical authorities have begun to associate the taking of too many selfies as a potentially unhealthy sign of mental health issues. Take the case of 19-year-old Danny Bowman, who attempted suicide after failing to take what he considered the perfect selfie. Bowman was spending most of his waking hours taking hundreds of selfies everyday, losing weight and dropping out of school in the process. Becoming obsessed with taking selfies is often a sign of body dysmorphic disorder, an anxiety disorder about personal appearance. Danny Bowman was diagnosed with this condition.

Red Supergiants are the Largest Stars in the Universe

Red Supergiants are the Largest Stars in the Universe Red supergiants are among the largest stars in the sky. They dont start out that way, but as different kinds of stars age, they undergo changes that make them big...and red. Its all part of star life and star death.   Defining Red Supergiants   When astronomers look at the largest stars  (by volume) in the universe, they see a great many red supergiants. However, these behemoths are not necessarily- and almost never are- the largest stars by mass. It turns out theyre a late stage of a stars existence and they dont always fade away quietly.   Creating a Red Supergiant How do red supergiants form? To understand what they are, its important to know how stars change over time. Stars go through specific steps throughout their lives. The changes they experience are called stellar evolution. It starts with star formation and youthful star-hood. After they are born in a cloud of gas and dust, and then ignite hydrogen fusion in their cores, stars usually live on something astronomers call the main sequence.  During this period, they are in hydrostatic equilibrium. That means the nuclear fusion  in their cores (where they fuse hydrogen to create helium) provides enough energy and pressure to keep the weight of their outer layers from collapsing inwards. When Massive Stars Become Red Supergiants A high-mass star (many times more massive than the Sun) goes through a similar, but a slightly different process. It changes more drastically than its sun-like siblings and becomes a red supergiant.  Because of its higher mass, when the core collapses after the hydrogen burning phase the rapidly increased temperature leads to the fusion of helium very quickly. The rate of helium fusion goes into overdrive, and that destabilizes the star. A huge amount of energy pushes the outer layers of the star outwards and it turns into a red supergiant. At this stage, the gravitational force of the star is once again balanced by the immense outward radiation pressure caused by the intense helium fusion taking place in the core. The star that transforms into a red supergiant does so at a cost. It loses a large percentage of its mass out to space. As a result, while red supergiants are counted as the largest stars in the universe, they are not the most massive because they lose mass as they age, even as they expand outward. Properties of Red Supergiants Red supergiants look red because of their low surface temperatures. They range from about 3,500 - 4,500 Kelvin. According to Wiens law, the color at which a star radiates most strongly is directly related to its surface temperature. So,  while their cores are extremely hot, the energy spreads out over the interior and surface of the star and the more surface area there is, the faster it can cool. A good example of a red supergiant is the star Betelgeuse, in the constellation Orion. Most stars of this type are between 200 and 800 times the radius of our Sun. The very largest stars in our galaxy, all red supergiants, are about 1,500 times the size of our home star.  Because of their immense size and mass, these stars require an incredible amount of energy to sustain them and prevent gravitational collapse. As a result, they burn through their nuclear fuel very quickly and most live only a few tens of millions of years (their age depends on their actual mass). Other Types of Supergiants While red supergiants are the largest types of stars, there are other types of supergiant stars. In fact, it is common for high mass stars, once their fusion process passes beyond hydrogen, that they oscillate back and forth between different forms of supergiants. Specifically becoming yellow supergiants on their way to becoming blue supergiants and back again. Hypergiants The most massive of supergiant stars are known as hypergiants. However, these stars have a very loose definition, they are usually just red (or sometimes blue) supergiant stars that are the highest order: the most massive and the largest. The Death of a Red Supergiant Star A very high-mass star will oscillate between different supergiant stages as it fuses heavier and heavier elements in its core. Eventually, it will exhaust all its nuclear fuel that runs the star. When that happens, gravity wins.  At that point, the core is primarily iron (which takes more energy to fuse than the star has) and the core can no longer sustain outward radiation pressure, and it begins to collapse. The subsequent cascade of events leads, eventually to a Type II supernova event. Left behind will be the core of the star, having been compressed due to the immense gravitational pressure into a neutron star; or in the cases of the most massive of stars, a black hole  is created. How Solar-type Stars Evolve People always want to know if the Sun will become a red supergiant. For stars about the size of the Sun (or smaller), the answer is no. They do go through a red giant phase, though, and it looks pretty familiar. When they begin to run out of  hydrogen fuel their cores begin to collapse. That raises the core temperature quite a bit, which means theres more energy generated to escape the core. That process pushes the outer part of the star outward, forming a  red giant. At that point, a star is said to have moved off the main sequence.   The star chugs along with the core getting hotter and hotter, and eventually, it begins to fuse helium into carbon and oxygen. During all this time, the star loses mass. It puffs off layers of its outer atmosphere into clouds that surround the star. Eventually, whats left of the star shrinks to become a slowly cooling white dwarf. The cloud of material around it is a called a planetary nebula, and it gradually dissipates. This is a far more gentle death than massive stars discussed above experience when they explode as supernovae.   Edited by Carolyn Collins Petersen.

How informatics has altered nursing Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

How informatics has altered nursing - Essay Example Additionally nurses, while already known in general for having a wide range of skills and competencies, must thus be able to adapt and learn newer skill sets in order to better discharge their duties. All in all, that more and more people in hospitals require intensive care from nurses means that there is an equally dire need for the succeeding generations of nurses to be as competent as they possibly can be. Taking all these things into account, it should not be surprising that nursing as a profession has become highly in-demand, or that nursing has and will forever be changing to adapt with the times – thanks in part to the existence of nursing informatics. It is for this reason that nurses have always been able to reinforce their practices with a constant flow of newer knowledge – which, in this day and age, is something that they will definitely need more than ever before. Nursing Informatics – Past/Present/Future Trends, Benefits of Such Practices Saba and M cCormick (2001) have defined healthcare informatics in general as the integration of the branches of health, computer, information and cognitive sciences in managing healthcare information. Nursing informatics is one of its three subtypes – the other two being health and medical informatics, respectively – and is in turn defined by Hannah et al (1985) as how nurses make use of information technology in carrying out their daily duties. And this definition, too, was further expanded by Graves and Corcoran (1989) as â€Å"a combination of computer science, information science and nursing science designed to assist in the management and processing of nursing data, information and knowledge to support the practice of nursing and the delivery of nursing care† (p. 227). There can be little doubt that it is thanks to this particular branch of healthcare informatics that nurses have always been able to maintain a certain level of quality when it comes to their work; in f act, as stated by Curran (2003), it is absolutely essential that nurses and clinicians alike have some degree of competence here so that they will continue to maintain their competence and the quality of the healthcare they administer. Ball (2003) helps provide an overview of the evolution of nursing informatics. Even as early as the mid-80s, nurses could make use of the then-existing laptop computers during seminars, but today these laptops have become accessible even up to the patient’s bedside. And despite the existence of laptops then, their steep price made them too expensive to be commonplace in hospitals – or anywhere else, for that matter. Typewriters had the advantage of being much less costly, and much easier to use, but the cost of correction fluid could get to be a headache at times – much more so for those nurses who happened to make lots of mistakes while working. However, for the longest time, most nurses – that is, those who neither owned computers nor could afford to spend on them – had to deal with these potentially cumbersome contraptions. This being the case, the advent of computer technology has been a definite godsend. Where a few years ago, a nurse would have to jot down every single detail on a particular patient’

Presentation of the Speech Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Presentation of the Speech - Essay Example I chose this topic because more and more people prefer to spend their holidays in this way. With increasing of the urbanization process, more and more people are trying to get out to nature. However, it is understood that going to such hikes is a serious event, which can be dangerous for health and life. Therefore, if you decide to go to the mountains, you need to know the following important information that helps you to backpack successfully and prevent all possible misfortunes.Hike in the mountains is a wonderful rest. However, in order to avoid some troubles and difficulties during a hike, it is necessary to observe a few important rules. Even experienced climbers often are hesitant to go to the mountains alone. The minimum of tourist group for hike in the mountains is two or three people, and at least two of them must be men.  Warn your relatives or acquaintances that are going camping. You should provide at least approximate date of your return. The minimum set of equipment f or each member of the expedition should include a flashlight and extra batteries to it, reliable lighter or a box of matches, a hunting knife, necessary amount of food and water, first aid kit and a tent. No matter how it is hot, tourists need to have tightly woven clothing: long pants and a jacket or sweater with long sleeves. It is advisable to buy special clothes for hiking in specialized stores. Tissue and cut of such clothes fit ideal for outdoor activities in the mountains. Footwear is a very important part of outfit in such campaigns.

Book Report on A Tale of Two Cities :: essays papers

Book Report on A Tale of Two Cities My favorite scene in A Tale of Two Cities is one of the last scenes, when Sydney Carton is about to go to the guillotine. It takes place in Paris, near a prison, and many people have gathered to watch french aristocrats be beheaded. The atmosphere is tense and chaotic; Sydney, however, remains calm, even though he is about to be killed. Sydney is holding the hand of a young girl who is given no name other than a "poor little seamstress". Sydney and the seamstress, who are both being wrongfully killed, comfort each other just before they reach the guillotine, and they seem to have an instant romantic connection with each other. I loved this scene because it showed that Sydney Carton had finally found someone who could love him, as he could love them, but it saddened me that he had found her just before their deaths. Another scene I particularly enjoyed was the scene in which a large cask of wine had dropped and broken in the street. Because many people had very little to eat or drink, a large crowd gathered around the dirty puddle and began drinking what they could of the spilled wine. This scene was very descriptive, explaining how the people tried to scoop up the wine in their hands, and how they soaked it up with handkerchiefs from women's heads and squeezed the wine into infants' mouths. Other people licked the stones in the street or sucked on the pieces of wood from the cask. This passage showed how unfortunate many of the people were, without actually saying that they were just poor. Specific words and phrases were used to effectively paint a vivid picture of the scene. One of the most important scenes in this novel was the scene in which Dr. Manette is at the house of the Evremondes', tending to a psychotic young peasant girl. The two Evremonde brothers convince Dr. Manette to come with them, to see someone who they believe needs help. When he arrives at their spacious house, he immediately hears piercing screams, coming from upstairs. He is taken to the room, to see a girl, about 20 years old, who is tied down to a bed, shrieking loudly, and thrashing around. The doctor gives her medication, seemingly to no avail. Meanwhile, the "elder" brother takes him to another patient, the girl's brother, who has a fatal wound in his chest.

Essay on “Let Teenagers Try Adulthood” Essay

Leon Botstein’s â€Å"Let Teenagers Try Adulthood† talks about how high schools are obsolete and why they should be abolished. He feels that schools are run like a popularity contest and that high school is a waste of time. Botstein goes on to say that how well a school does in teams sports is how well the community will support that school. He also believes that high schools should be abolished since children don’t learn anything and the rules they play by in school are not the same rules of life. Botstein also thinks that since teenagers are maturing at earlier ages that they should be allowed to make adult decisions at earlier ages as will. According to Botstein, junior high schools should be removed and replaced with a K-10 school and the graduation age of 18 should be dropped to 16. Botstein states â€Å"At 16, young Americans are prepared to be taken seriously and to develop the motivations and interests that will serve them well in adult life.† (Bot stein, 2007)Leon Botstein made some good points as to why high schools should be abolished, but getting rid of high schools is not the answer. He neglects to say that high schools are there to help teenagers develop the skills they need to succeed in life. The American high school needs to make a couple of changes to be more effective in helping teenagers develop the skills to succeed in life. The school system should try to implement a little more diversity in the school. Like Botstein said â€Å"they need to enter a world where they are not in a lunchroom with only their peers.† (Botstein, 2007)Schools should make it a graduation requirement that all students take a class on leadership and how to handle work when they are under pressure. These types of classes will help prepare them for situations they will encounter in life. It is important that we prepare these teenagers for leadership roles. Although some might say that these skills are learned through the work force it is better to prepare them for the future rather than let them fail. Another skill that teenagers will need in life that is developed in high school is  their communication skills. In high school all teenagers do is communicate with each other. Even though Botstein does not believe that missing this social interaction would matter, it really does. In life everyone needs some sort of social interaction. When someone applies for a job they need to be able to talk to the employer, they need to be able to communicate instructions to others. These communication skills are all learned while students and teenagers are in high school. If high schools are removed from our society, many people will not be learning important skills and they will not be able to have a successful life. If two years of high school is cut think of the impact it would have on society. We would be sending teenagers out into the world who are not ready for it. The classes that are taken in junior high and high school are important to everyone. While in junior high and high school the students are learning how to fine tune their skills they need to be able to go out into the world and succeed. Without these schools students would not develop the skill they need to be able to make deadlines, how to use their time wisely to be more efficient. Sure these things can be learned in the workforce, but wouldn’t you wa nt to hire someone who was already prepared instead of spending the extra money to train them. When Botstein talks about the problem with the high school system is the poor quality of recruitment and training for high school teacher he is absolutely correct. He fails to talk about why it is this way. As Americans we don’t put enough money into our education system. The money that we spend on professional athletes could be used to better prepare our teachers. Some teachers feel that they shouldn’t work hard because they are not getting paid enough to do their job correctly. You find better quality teachers in colleges because the pay is better. College professors are getting paid between 20,000 – 40,000 more than high school teachers. We as Americans need to re-evaluate our budget and put more money into our school system so that we can get the kind of teachers we know out teenagers really deserve. Botstein states that â€Å" adults should face that fact that they don’t like adolescents and that they have used high school to isolate the pubescent an d hormonally active adolescent away from both the picture-book idealized innocence of childhood and the more accountable would of adulthood.† (Botstein, 2007) That is definitely not the case; we might dislike some adolescents but not all. There are some adults who do not know how to handle  the changes that these adolescents are going throw, but isolating them is not the answer. We as adults need to find a way to educate these adolescents as well as their parents about these changes and how to deal with them. If we can find a way to implement this in the high school program than abolishing high school wouldn’t be an option to fixing the problem. We as Americans need to stop thinking about a quick solution to a problem and starting thinking about long term solutions that will actually work. If we decide to remove high school from our society and allow adolescents to graduate at the age of 16 instead of 18 we will be destroying our society. Sure adolescents mature at an early age, but do you really think they are ready to make adult decisions at the age of 16. At that age their bodies are still going through changes and they are still learning how to become an adult. They last two years of high school are important and it helps teenagers to prepare for what is in stored for them. Maybe one day we would be ready to have teenagers graduate early, but there are still too many problems in our school system to have that happen. We need to focus on fixing the problem within our education system instead of getting rid of high schools. High school is there to fine tune the necessary skills we need to succeed in life without them most people would not be where they are today. Although Botstein made some good points about high school and the way our society deals with teenagers, we need to put all of our energy in changing the high school system instead of just abolishing it. Reference Botstein, L. (2007). Let Teenagers Try Adulthood. In B. Spatt, Writing from Sources (pp. 175-177). Boston: Bedford/ St. Martin’s.