The significance of conflict Essay Example for Free

The significance of conflict Essay In the Kite Runner, conflict is evident throughout; physical conflict of the war, Baba’s internal fight against cancer, Hassan’s constant battle with the society he lived in, Sohrab’s struggle to accept and trust Amir, but none more prominent than Amir’s conflict with his emotions and his own image of himself. The entirety of Hosseini’s novel is based around the self-conscious narrative of a guilty man who struggles to come to terms with the consequences of the, decisively wrong, decisions he made as a child, which seems to have caused a domino effect on his whole life, never truly able to make the right choice until the end of the novel when he finally chose to stand up and stand up for what is right instead of running and hiding- saving the last ounce of his brothers happiness, his son, Sohrab. The very first line of the novel is suggestive of Amir’s inner turmoil, â€Å"I became what I am today at the age of twelve†, as it gives the impression that he doesn’t even think himself to deserve being thought of as human, but rather prefers to be looked at as some sort of creature, incapable of acting in a humane manner, through the authors choice for the narrator to use the word â€Å"what†, rather than â€Å"who†, in the hopes of making us dislike the narrator, as he does himself. This emotional havoc that he faces effects the resolution of the story, as the crushing remorse that he has carried with him since he was twelve years old, propelled him forward, so he could finally begin to unload some of it after having done a good deed, his actions pleading for forgiveness from all he has hurt, especially Hassan, his friend and brother. Robert Browning’s ‘The Laboratory’ is a poem about the conflicted emotions of a woman who wishes to punish those who have hurt her, seeming to be very enthusiastic about the crime she was about to commit, though her confidence can be used to mask the way she was desperately trying to fight her conflicted emotions away. In my opinion, the female narrator in this poem is trying desperately to hide the fact that she is undoubtedly terrified of the reality of what she was doing, which is shown in the way Browning writes â€Å"He  is with her, and they know that I know†- the simplistic, monosyllabic structure of this line suggests that the narrator feels that she must remind herself of the thing that her driven her to act in such a way, fuelling her anger so she was able to complete the task with no remorse. As the poem begins in medias res, we aren’t entirely sure of the events that occurred that were able to drive her to such a point, in which she had contemplated taking another person’s life, but we do know that it was these occurrences that caused the confusing mix of feelings that swarmed her mind and affected the resolution of the poem. Her confusion seems to be a result of the narrators need for some sort of revenge, to soothe her pain, heartbreak and humiliation combined with sorrow, as she seems to believe the affair was entirely her partner’s mistress’s fault as she was said to have â€Å"ensnared him†, still loving her companion dearly. This anger pushed her forwards into doing something she wasn’t entirely comfortable in doing, her anxiousness being repeatedly shown throughout the poem in her curiosity, for example â€Å"is that poison too?†, yet she completes the task she set out to so as to punish those she felt necessary. In The Patriot, one of the types of conflict experienced by the narrator would be an internal battle over whether he truly considered himself to be guilty of the crime they were punishing him for. It is suggested throughout the poem, that the narrator is a man who has fallen from grace, after having been considered a God-like figure that everybody respected and looked to for guidance, but failed to provide it, even though he tried his best. For example, a quote from the poem says â€Å"it was I who leaped at the sun to give it to my loving friends to keep†, giving the impression that he really did try to give the best to the people of the town as he cared for them all, considering them as his closest friends, and is trying to convince the reader that he is not guilty, pleading innocence, as the only crime he had committed was being human, and making a mistake. His own opposition to this argument, however, is underlying all of his words, in the repetitive and never changing rhyme scheme, which is indicative of his resignation and acceptance of his fate, choosing unconsciously not to argue with what the people were doing to him, because he, in some ways, agrees with what they are doing as, though he doesn’t feel guilty of the things they say he did,  he feels responsible for his actions causing so much trouble. This affects the resolution of the story as the narrator seemingly allows the people do whatever they please, choosing to surrender without a fight, glad to be gone in the end as he feels he would be safer with God- â€Å"God shall repay: I am safer so.† In Browning’s ‘The Pied Piper of Hamelin’, there is a more overt physical conflict between two of the main characters of the poem; the mayor and the pied piper. The resolution of the poem was affected by a dispute over an issue of pride and money. The piper was a very proud man, who was well aware of his capabilities and wanted to ensure everyone who knew him, knew that he was their hero, believing he deserved some sort of recognition for his talents, in a rather arrogant manner as he is seen to boast to anyone who will listen about the challenges he had already faced, and those he planned to face, in his ‘career’- â€Å"having left, in the Caliph’s kitchen, Of a nest of scorpions no survivor†, choosing to name drop, to show how impressive he was thought to be. The selfish nature of the mayor is portrayed in the way that he is said to have spent the taxes of the townspeople on â€Å"gowns lines with ermine† for himself and the rest of his â€Å"corporation†, when the town was writhing in rats that were wreaking havoc in everyone’s daily lives. This clash of personalities affected the resolution of the poem greatly as, had the mayor not been so completely concerned with his own wellbeing over that of the town he was supposed to be looking after, and paid what the pied piper was promised and deserving of (â€Å"A thousand guilders! Come take fifty†), the piper would not have been angered and humiliated, and so, would not have resulted in the capturing of the children of the town.

BRIGADIER GENERAL CHARLES W. SWEENEY :: essays research papers

BRIGADIER GENERAL CHARLES W. SWEENEY Retired Dec. 27, 1979 Brigadier General Charles W. Sweeney was born in Lowell, Mass., in 1919. He graduated from North Quincy High School (Mass.) in 1937. After graduating from high school, he attended evening classes at Boston University and also at Purdue University. Charles Sweeney joined the Army Air Corps as an aviation cadet on April 28, 1941. Receiving his commission as a pilot in the Army Air Corps as an aviation cadet on April 28, 1941. Receiving his commission as a pilot in the Army Air Corps in December 1941, Lieutenant Sweeney spent two years at Jefferson Proving Grounds Ind. From the proving grounds in 1943, Charles Sweeney, now a captain, moved to Eglin Field, Fla., where he served as an operations officer and also a test pilot. In 1944 he was promoted to the rank of major in the Army of the United States. At this time he was acting as a B-29 pilot instructor at Grand Island, Neb. Later in the same year, Major Sweeney was reassigned to Wendover Field, Utah and it was here that he began working in the "Silver Plate" project, the code name of the pilot and crew training program for the coming World War II atomic missions. On May 4, 1945 (at the age of 25 and with the rank of major) Charles Sweeney became commander of the 393d Bombardment Squadron, a B-29 unit, which seven weeks later (on June, 1945) flew to a base on Tinian in the Mariana Islands. It was during August 1945 that Major Sweeney flew the history-making missions and dropped the bomb which brought World War II to a close. In November 1945, Major Sweeney and the 393d Bombardment Squadron returned home to Roswell Air Force Base, N.M. His mission at Roswell was to train aircrews for a third atomic mission -- a peacetime experiment on Bikini. Just a few months later on June 28, 1946, he was discharged from active duty with the rank of lieutenant colonel. Colonel Sweeney, on Feb. 21, 1956, was appointed wing commander by Governor Christian A. Herter. Also in 1956, the unit was again re-designated as the 102d Air Defense Wing, and on April 6, 1956, Colonel Sweeney received his promotion to the rank of brigadier general. 1958 saw the wing receive its present designation as the 102d Tactical Fighter Wing. General Sweeney

Learning to Read and Write

Alana Roberts Essay I February 26th, 2013 â€Å"Learning to Read and Write† by Fredrick Douglas is a story about a slave breaking the bondage of ignorance by learning to read and write. During the course of 7 years Douglas discreetly teaches himself to read and write by means of stealing newspapers, trading food with poor white boys for knowledge and books, as well as copying his master’s handwriting. Douglas learning to read gave him extreme awareness of his condition as he says â€Å"†¦I would at times feel that learning to read had been a curse rather than a blessing.It had given me a view of my wretched condition, without the remedy† (Page 168-169). With his new consciousness he suffered with depression envying his fellow slaves for their â€Å"stupidity. † But, like a true underdog, Douglas perseveres and through hope he escapes to the freedom of the North. There’s a quote by Harriet Tubman â€Å"I freed a thousand slaves, and could have freed a thousand more if they had known they were slaves. † Throughout the essay Douglas evaluates his slave master’s ignorance, his fellow slaves ignorance, and most importantly his own.The definition of a slave is â€Å"a person legally owned by another and having no freedom of action or right to property†. Another definition says slave means â€Å"a person under the domination of another person or some habit or influence. † Douglas finds proof of the flawed ideology that is slavery through the book â€Å"The Colombian Orator. † The book validates Douglas’s belief of human rights and gave him ammo to use against slaveholders who thought otherwise. The dilemma in him learning this illuminating information is his inability to figure a way out of slavery.Douglas writes â€Å"It was this everlasting thinking of my condition that tormented me†¦I saw nothing without seeing it, I heard nothing without hearing it† (Page 169). White slav e owners made it unlawful for slaves to read and write, this ignorance kept them in a state of limbo which stopped their evolution. Without the capacity to examine their situation, they did not change their situation and stayed in this wheel of oppression and exploitation. Ignorance also befalls on the oppressors.Douglas sheds light on how slave owners prayed to Christ, went to church every Sunday and yet mistreated people to the upmost degree and punished them for reading. Southerners often justified slavery by saying they were bringing Christianity to slaves. Christianity is a religion based on love and compassion for your fellow man. Since the Europeans did not believe the Africans were worthy to be in the same human category as them they dehumanized them relating them to animals. Although the bible says â€Å"we must never treat any part of God's creation with contempt.When we do, we are indirectly treating our Creator with contempt. † If they did not believe slaves were worthy to be treated as God’s creation then why did they push their religion on them? The answer is to keep them controlled and confused. Europeans stripped Africans of their traditions starting with their name, this in some degree made Africans like blank canvases ready to be painted anew. Christianity gave slaves hope that one day their situation will change if they prayed hard enough and abide by Christ words. It also gave them a brand new vision of what God should look like. White is good, Black is bad.In the Christian bible they saw Jesus as a white man so in turn they could have related the goodness of Christ to the â€Å"goodness† of their masters. Some slaves even argued about whose master was more kind. I guess this is what Douglas was referring to when he called his fellow slaves â€Å"stupid†. I relate the South hypocritical belief system to that of the Catholic Church during Medieval Times. The church dominated everyone’s lives using fear as a means of getting whatever they wanted from its believers. From a very early age, the people were taught that the only way they could get to Heaven was if the Roman Catholic Church approved them.Just like slaves of America many people could not read or write which kept the priests in power. Peasants worked for free on the church land to pay their tithe or to not have the burden of total damnation. The hypocrisy of Christians of the South exemplifies his mistress who he described before as â€Å"Having bread for the hungry, clothes for the naked, and comfort for every mourner that came within her reach† (Page 167). Under the influence of slavery the angelical woman he knew turned into that of a demon in her conquest to prove her superiority over him.With praying to white Jesus not working, Douglas expresses a vulnerable side when talking about contemplating suicide. â€Å"I often found myself regretting my own existence, and wishing myself dead; and but for hope of being free , I have no doubt but that I should have killed myself†¦Ã¢â‚¬  (Page 169). To counter this feeling of hopelessness he birthed a new objective, find the meaning of the word abolition and how it related to himself. Douglas speaks on his ignorance as he writes â€Å" It was always used in such connections as to make it an interesting word to me†¦I found it was â€Å"the act of abolishing†; but then I did not know what was to be abolished.Here I was perplexed. † I find it humorously ironic that he is a prime example of what a abolitionist is and going to become but there was a point in time were he didn’t recognize what the word meant. Using context clues Douglas unmask the true meaning of abolition when reading an article on abolishment of slavery in the District of Columbia. In conclusion Fredrick Douglas’s â€Å"Learning to Read and Write† maturely examines the world in which he lived in. Though Douglas was a slave physically he was never a slave mentally.He analyzes and challenges the norm in his quest for freedom; and because of Douglas’s thirst for knowledge he escapes the bondage of ignorance. Douglas also points out that learning doesn’t make the man free but it is how you use this knowledge to obtain freedom. In our day and age we take for granted things like owning a book, going to school, even the simple principle of being who we want to be. Douglas is a hero to Black Americans as well as people who believe knowledge is power. Work Cited Learning to Read and Write by Fredrick DouglasThe Brief McGraw-Hill Reader http://www. sparknotes. com/lit/narrative/themes. html Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass http://www. historylearningsite. co. uk/medieval_church. htm The Medieval Church http://www. goodreads. com/author/quotes/18943. Frederick_Douglass Fredrick Douglas Quotes http://www. billygraham. org/articlepage. asp? articleid=6217 Christian view on treatment of animals http://www. cliffs notes. com/study_guide/literature/life-of-frederick-douglass/critical-essays/douglass-canonical-status-heroic-tale. html

Utopian Society in Brave New World by Aldous Huxley - Free Essay Example

Sample details Pages: 4 Words: 1238 Downloads: 5 Date added: 2019/05/17 Category Literature Essay Level High school Tags: Brave New World Essay Did you like this example? Published in 1932, Aldous Huxley wrote the fictional Brave New World. Huxley uses a utopian world with characters of different social statuses to portray what would happen to an individuals freedom when those in power, such as the Government, have the ability to misuse science as well as change societies thoughts. Huxley uses different characters to portray issues of human sexuality that we can even see today. Don’t waste time! Our writers will create an original "Utopian Society in Brave New World by Aldous Huxley" essay for you Create order He shows how these issues on sexuality are formed by the pressures on a society whose sex is controlled by those of higher power as a means of stability for mass consumption and power. Huxley tries to connect this to the real world by showing the tragedy that follows a society when our basic human rights are taken away and our perception is altered to the point that we no longer portray our emotions. Society in the New World is controlled entirely by the World State. Huxley shows how they are able to genetically engineer people by explaining the bottling room where babies rather born by conception are mass produced chemically in a laboratory type setting. Conditioning is essential as it will determine the jobs and social status they will be placed in depending on their chemical levels of strength and intelligence. Huxley shows how the World State conditions everyone through shock therapy and hypnopedia. The greatest moralizing and socializing force of all time (Huxley, 2014, pg. 25), in order for the individuals to be prepared to live in a certain class of the caste system; that is the secret of happiness and virtue liking what youve got to do. All conditioning aims at that: making people like their unescapable social destiny. (Huxley, 2014, pg.13-14). The World State uses these forms of conditioning as a way to try and eliminate all emotions and change peoples thinking in order to maintain a stable, functioning society. No pains have been spared to make your lives emotionally easy to preserve you, so far as that is possible, from having emotions at all (Huxley, 2014, pg. 40). The World State also tries to ensure that all individuals stay happy by conditioning them to believe that everybody belongs to everybody else (Huxley, 2014, pg. 108), meaning, they are conditioned to be sexually active with as much as they want with as many partners as they want; this is because the World State knows that sex is equal to happiness, and happiness is equal to stability. Huxley, through the use of children, shows a type of conditioning called erotic play in where children are taught from a young age to engage with each other in a sexual manner; this little boy seems rather reluctant to join in the ordinary erotic play. Id noticed it once or twice before. And now again to-day (Huxley, 2014, pg. 28) This is so that they can instill in them from a young age to learn the beh aviors of sex, so they may engage at a young age in order to find happiness, but sterile. Guaranteed sterile (Huxley, 2014, pg. 10). The World State is able to as well make the decision to sterilize some women for the intent for them to not conceive, and for those not sterile they provide birth control and abortions as a means of contraception since they still need eggs for their mass consumption. Huxley portrays one of the characters Lenina, as almost equal to the conditioned citizens of the World State. She has learned to not have feelings of love, or any other emotions and uses her sexuality as means to feel happiness just like other citizens in the World State. Huxley also introduces us to John Savage, another character, to portray the only person different from the rest because of the fact he has a mother whose name is Linda. Since he was conceived, he was never conditioned by the World State and experiences all the emotions of fear, love, passion and read books on Shakespeare to learn of how sexuality was portrayed and used in the past. When Lenina travels to the savage reservation they end up meeting John, where he eventually travels to London, unknown territory he has only read about from his books. This proves to be a very different world than what John was expecting and since he grew up reading Shakespeare and unconditioned, he struggles to find a place in the New World and eventually falls in love with Lenina, he eventually tells her this when she comes to his room; How much I love you, Lenina he brought out almost desperatelyIts like that in Shakespeare too. If thou dost break her virgin knot before all sanctimonious ceremonies may with full and holy rite (Huxley, 2014, pg. 172-173). Johns only true knowledge about sex and how to have intimacy only comes from his readings of Shakespeare, making him full of emotions and feelings of love, unlike Lenina who lacks these intimate feelings. Still wearing her shoes and socks, and her rakishly tilted round white cap, she advanced towards him. Darling. Darling! If only youd said so before! She held out her arms (Huxley, 2014, pg. 175-176). Lenina tries to make John want her by using the only methods she knew how which was to seduce him to have sex with her. However, this fails because of his emotions of passion, love, and respect for her and yells at Lenina. Lenina runs out to escape his madness, and fullness of emotions shes never seen anyone exhibit before. Stupefied by soma, and exhausted by a long-drawn frenzy of sensuality, the Savage lay sleeping in the heather. (Huxley, 2014, pg. 236). In the end we can see how John becomes overwhelmed with emotions and tired of fighting his sexual desires, and ends up giving in and conforming to the rest of society. Someone began to chant Orgy-Porgy and begans to draw John into the sexual ritual where he ends up conforming. After he realizes what he has done, and feeling full of guilt and shame, he hangs himself (Huxley, 2014, pg. 237). Huxley shows this last scene to portray how Johns passionate feelings towards love and intimacy are swallowed up in a society that has been conditioned to use sex for a means to find happiness, with all emotions drowned out. Brave New World should change people to see how members of our own society have already fallen into these same types of sexual habits where we have completely disconnected feelings of love and intimacy from sex. We have seen this portrayed on the topic of porn in our society, and how it typically shows penetration only, rather than the passion, love and desire that is associated with intimacy. Brave New World can also change societies thoughts about homosexuality, how it used to be seen as a mental illness and that stigmatization was fed into society and is slowly overcoming stigmatized norms, becoming more widely accepted. Brave New World can be useful to show as a comparative of how our Government can influence individuals in the sense through the use of sexuality in ads, media, celebrities, and politics. Looking at this extreme world Huxley portrays can make people see how our Government has already, and continues to control societies thought on about what is socially acceptable i n terms of human sexuality. Huxley shows how when only a single individual stands out against a mind-altered society they end up consumed by their ways which ultimately leads to a tragic ending for not only the individual, but society as a whole.