Hard Times demonstrates the importance of imagination in a persons growth and development
'Hard Times demonstrates the importance of imagination in a person's growth and development' Hard Times tells the tale of the dire consequences an upbringing devoid of fancy can have on its characters' abilities to develop emotionally. Mr. Gradgrind's insistence that his children were to be raised on 'fact alone' crushes their sympathetic imaginations, and both Louisa and Tom's stunted emotional growth ultimately leads to their downfall. This is juxtaposed against Sissy, who nurtured her imagination which eventually aids her in her clarity of understanding people. Ultimately, through the fates of the various characters in Hard Times, it is shown that the deprivation of imagination can only inhibit their capacity to reach their full capacity as human beings. Dickens derisively introduces facts as 'the one thing needful', however, it is clear that the 'sowing' of 'facts alone' without the aid of fancy has a detrimental impact. Louisa Gradgrind is introduced with; '...a light with nothing to rest upon, a fire with nothing to burn, a starved imagination keeping life in itself somehow.' The suppression of this 'light' is what eventually gives way to Louisa's apathy in her response to her marriage to Bounderby; 'What does it matter?'Gradgrind's oppressive utilitarianist ideology forces Louisa to submit to the opposite of the embodiment of Victorian femininity; 'cold, silent and
Personal experience of violence.
[image001.gif] My assignment is based on something that changed my life or had an impact on my life in some sort of way. There are a few things that have changed my life but overall it has been very sheltered. For example I go to a public school, which is very strict with behavior and other things. The school acts very seriously upon drugs and crime to help prevent children from having bad experiences with these things. So this brings me to a decision I am going to have to make about what my assignment should be about. It needs to be something meaningful, and not just a little thing that shouldn't really have an effect on anyone. Up until last year I used to watch adverts or programs about abuse and not think anything else but "Oh!", "That's very bad!", and "if I caught him alone...!". But last year on the way to school, something had a huge impact on me mentally. I was going the usual way to school from my house on what seemed like a perfectly ordinary morning, but little did I know that something would happen that day that I would remember for the rest of my life. I guess it was a form of road rage - or was it abuse? Not another man/woman hitting the same gender, but a big six foot, strapping bloke hitting an innocent woman who had simply made a mistake whilst driving to work, or wherever she might have been going. What actually happened not only
A Crime In the Neighborhood.
A Crime In the Neighborhood It was the summer of 1972 when Spring Hill, a Washington, D.C., suburb, got its first taste of an increasingly violent, insecure modern world. The quiet residential area, whose inhabitants traditionally left their doors unlocked and spent the summers attending one another's cookout, was rocked by the news that 12-year-old Boyd Ellison had been raped and murdered, his body dumped behind the local mall. While shaken residents organized a neighborhood watch program and clued detectives in on anyone's suspicious behavior, the inhabitants of at least one house were distracted by a tragedy of their own: 10-year-old Marsha Eberhardt's father, Larry, had run off with his sister-in-law, leaving his wife and three children to manage on their own. Marsha, stunned by her father's abandonment and having broken her ankle, spends the summer witnessing her mother's desperate attempts to cope, the neighborhood's paranoid response to the murder and even the country's disorientation over the unfolding Watergate scandal. The tension proves too great when the Eberhardts' shy bachelor neighbor, Mr. Green, takes interest in Marsha's mother. Though murder is the most visible crime in Marsha's neighborhood, it is by no means the only one, Marsha's father and aunt run off together and Marsha wrongly accusses Mr. Green for the death of Boyd Ellison. Marsha's
Schopenhauer
In this passage Schopenhauer claims that learning by reading can limit one's opinion while being a free thinker will open up one's opinion which is better for "developing the world". I believe in some ways Schopenhauer was correct, but reading books can sometimes open up the mind. For me, reading books can make me look at things in a different way. On the other hand occasionally it is better for me to be able to have time to myself in order to fully understand something. I disagree when Schopenhauer says "Reading forces thoughts upon the mind". I do not believe that reading can force a particular thought on anybody unless they are that dim-witted, to allow readings to change they're opinion. I think that reading a book or magazine whether it is based on facts or opinions, should only make you think not change you ideas completely. Then again educational books such as science books and history books have a tendency to narrow a person opinion because with these types of books you have to accept facts, facts by definition only elicits one view point. With history books if it says that Christopher Columbus sailed in the ocean blue in 1492, that's what you have to believe, there is no opinion to that. Therefore textbooks tend to narrows one's opinion rather than to make one's opinion broader. There are some instances were self-learning or self-thinking is best. When you
Perception is reality! Oh really?
CRITICAL THINKING AND PERCEPTION PAPER by Sharon Buhse PHL251 Professor Vanessa Tom UoP November 19, 2003 Perception is reality! Oh really? A couple of years ago, I witnessed what I thought was a man having trouble getting into his car. There was a man that must have been in his mid 60's tugging on his door handle to his car. I watched him try to fit his arm into a small opening in the widow on the passenger side of the car. Because of the age of this man, it never entered my mind that this man was trying to break into this car to steal it. Another thing that didn't fit the profile of a car thief was the way the man was dressed. He was dressed in a sports jacket and was wearing fairly decent trousers with nice shoes. I walked over to the man and asked him if there was anything I could help him with or if he needed to call someone. He told me he did not have a cell phone, so I offered the use of mine. The man declined saying he just bought the car a couple of weeks ago, and had not had a chance to get a spare key made. He was in the parking lot where I worked at, so I asked him if there was someone he knew inside the building that could give him a ride to the dealership where he bought the car from, and once again he declined by saying he had just stopped by to fill out an application. I asked him again if there was anything I could help him with because I
Nature vs Nurture
Mayur Bedadala Ms. Blair Hon Sophomore Composition 17 October 2008 To begin with what is intelligence? As Merriam Webster dictionary states intelligence is "the ability to learn or understand or to deal with new or trying situations". Some say its nature and some say its nurture. Who is right and who is wrong. From the past decades there is a raging debate going on whether intelligence is nature or nurture, but the results were always inconclusive or full of loopholes. There are many reasons that clearly prove that intelligence is genetic. In this essay the topic that I will be exploring are the differences in intelligence within different races and ethnic groups. Intelligence is clearly more affected by genetics than it is by environmental factors due to the results of twin studies between two different races. From many years scientists have been studying the IQ scores of twins between many different ethnic groups. Some results were very accurate and enlightened the scientists a lot. For example in an article scientist Philippe Rushton informs us that some races have average IQ scores that are higher than others. Rushton also said that twins receive over 50% of their intelligence from their family. Also scientists reported that the average IQ scores for white identical twins was 86 percentile, for Asians .99 and for blacks .80. Therefore these results suggested that
It is difficult to sympathise with Simon's point of view as he fails to see the point of view of others.
It is difficult to sympathise with Simon's point of view as he fails to see the point of view of others This story is of a boy, Simon who lived with his mum and dad. When he was young, his dad died. Simon was sent to boarding school where he was happy until one day when his mum came to school and took him for a ride in her car. She told him she was re-marrying and moving house. From this day onwards, he is living in the memory of father. He is alone from now, so this when this problem occurs. Simon is only thirteen years old and he has had a lot to deal with. His dad dieing didn't help as he was the type of boy who enjoyed the company of his father. He talks of: "Lifting Simon up on his shoulder and spinning him till the ceiling whirled. Then putting Simon down and laughing, while Simon tottered, dizzy, on short legs from chair to table, clinging on desperately." This shows the relationship between Simon and his father, one of loving compassion. Another example of this is: "Once father took him out alone in the car and kept shouting, 'shall we go faster, Simon?' and Simon yelling, 'Faster, faster!' and every time he yelled 'faster', Father got more pleased" This shows how his dad enjoys his son. Losing such an influential man in Simon's life is critical, for many reasons. One factor is that he will face growing up into a man alone. He cannot really
Original Writing - Prose: The rain splashes slowly onto the dark cobbles , the gray clouds hanging low as the wind sweeps through the narrow alleyways
Visions The rain splashes slowly onto the dark cobbles , the gray clouds hanging low as the wind sweeps through the narrow alleyways. From a window high above the ground two small eyes peer into the smoky depths of the surrounding city. No movement, however small is missed by those all-encompassing eyes, the soaked leaves blown savagely down the streets. The rats scurrying down into the sewers, the rain-bedraggled cat loping sorrowfully under the shelter of a battered doorway. The small eyes peruse the whole city. Suddenly, an unfamiliar movement is noticed, the eyes peer curiously through the gloom of the smog filled sky towards the direction of the motion. The eyes search out the unrevealed object slowly breaking over the horizon into the line of vision. As the nature of the object is gradually divulged, an unknown excitement builds up in the beholder. There was something of a legend surrounding those eyes, and the boy to whom they belonged. Even as a baby, the eyes of the child had seemed soul-searching, unutterably profound. They appeared two discs of infinite depth, small and dark in the pure white face of absolute innocence. The nurse who had cared for the child after his mother's death during childbirth sensed something odd about the infant but could not, at first, decide quite what it was. Then one day she realised, she had never seen the boy shut his eyes, not
Disability Essay AP
Disability: No Longer a Hindrance Disability is a term that, in today's society, immediately conjures up negatively connotated images in one's mind; stereotypes of disabled people are that they are mentally challenged, incapable, and should be pitied. In this respect, society is ignorant. Most of the disabled beings are just normal people who have either been the victims of traumatic accidents or the victims of incapacitating diseases. These are normal people who are just physically handicapped, yet continue to see society turn its back on them. Nancy Mairs, Andre Dubus, and Harriet Johnson are three disabled authors who have experienced the prejudice of society. Through their essays, they convey a powerful message to society that the disabled are perfectly capable of living and expressing themselves as normal people. Mairs, Dubus, and Johnson all have differing views on the disabled, but they all use similar resources of language to communicate their message; their use of life experiences, exemplification, and emotional tones persuasively express their viewpoints to the reader. Nancy Mairs is crippled with multiple sclerosis, yet knows she is as fully capable as another, non-disabled human being. She is very astute, and it is for this reason she openly criticizes the media in a sarcastic and disgusted tone. Mairs argues that the media needs to stop treating disabilities
"Strangers": a short story. My name is Dean and its everyone else thats crazy, not me.
Strangers Dean My name is Dean and it's everyone else that's crazy, not me. I've never understood why no-one else seems to see the world like I do, but just recently I've given up expecting that someday soon they will. I have become accustomed to the fact that no-one seems to see the smoky fumes spiralling disgustingly into the sky, no-one is deafened by the constant buzzings and bleepings of the latest technologies, and no-one is blinded by the thousand flashing lights they pass by each day. Maybe they don't want to notice, or maybe they're just too busy listening to their iPods anyway. It's the kind of thing a trendy, young-adult, pretentious magazine might call 'modern living'. And I hate it. Yesterday I made a resolution: if one more thing annoyed me that day then I'd get out of here, catch a train to some unknown village of cows and mud and peace, and leave this city forever. Eleven minutes later I saw a man on the street with a guitar and sad eyes and nobody paying him any attention, and that's why I've gotta get out of here. Michael My name is Michael and I am autistic. And I hate how that fact is always so immediate, following straight on from my name, like it's what defines me. It's not what defines me. I am aware that I see things differently to other people, of course I am. But this is how things have always been in my life, so it's normal to me. It's
