Night of the Scorpion Essay

The father of post Independence Indian English verse, Nissim Ezekiel, was a Mumbai born, Indian – Jewish poet, playwright, editor and art-critic. His works are an important part of Indian literary history. His major themes are love, loneliness, creativity and human foibles. Via his works, he satirized evil practices, superstitions and ignorance of the Indian people, as he has in this poem. He made Indian English poetry digestible for the common man. He wanted simplicity of thought and language in modern poetry. He was awarded the Sahitya Akademi Award for his poetry collection – â€Å"Latter-Day Psalms.† This poem, Night of the Scorpion, is one of his most famous poems. It has been written in ‘free verse’ which means that it is highly irregular in terms of line length and does not follow any rhyming pattern. The ‘Night of the Scorpion’ captures a scene in a rural Indian village where being bitten by a scorpion was a common fear. The narrator is a young child witnessing a horrific event in his life- his own mother writhing in agony of a scorpion’s sting. Along with the anguish of the family members, the poet describes the concern for the mother by the villagers. The child describes the scorpion as the Devil Himself by using adjectives like ‘diabolic’ and also refers to it as the metaphorical ‘Evil One’. However, the poet also says that the scorpion had been forced to â€Å"crawl beneath a sack of rice† by the torrential rain and later had to â€Å"risk the rain again†. This shows a subtle feeling of pity underlying the fact that the scorpion was the Devil Incarnate. Imagery is one of the main literary devices used in this poem. â€Å"With candles and lanterns Throwing giant scorpion shadows On the sun-baked walls† This aids us to visualize the scene of Villagers searching for the scorpion outside the cottage in the steady downpour amidst the sun-baked huts. In most rural Indian villages, the entire village is like a community. Each family shares in each other’s joys and sorrows. This is evident since the poet uses the line â€Å"the peasants came like swarms of flies.† As a hyperbole, this line shows their immense numbers. It also shows that the people were more of a hindrance than a help like a ‘swarm of flies’. It also shows how, in close-knit communities, all news spreads like wildfire. The fruitless passing of time is also shown by the line, â€Å"More candles, more lanterns, more neighbours, More insects and the endless rain.† Another aspect of rural society, unfortunately, is their belief in baseless superstitions and beliefs. Having being denied proper education facilities, they remain unaware of the truth. These uneducated villagers are clueless about proper medication. In an effort to help, they pray to god to paralyze the scorpion so that, as their superstition states, the poison would also be paralyzed in the mother’s blood. The villagers also believe in the Karma philosophy. This philosophy was born in India and in certain cultures it is intertwined with the concept of reincarnation, or life after death. The villagers chant, â€Å"May the sins of you previous birth Be burned away tonight† And, â€Å"May the poison purify your flesh Of desire and your spirit of ambition† Thus, they imply that the mother’s desires and ambitions are the sins that she is paying for. Finally, the mother’s ordeal comes to an end. In a display of mother’s unconditional love, the poem ends with the mother saying, â€Å"Thank god the scorpion picked on me and spared my children†

Novel “Parvana” Essay

Deborah Ellis novel Parvana explores how human can survive in near to impossible situations and misfortune, however Parvana not only survives but thrives. The novel is set in Afghanistan at the height of the theocracy where her father has lost a leg her brother has been killed by a mine and her mother is undergoing extreme stress. However things take a turn for the worst when they thought nothing else could happen, and her father is taken away by the Taliban so she is forced to dress up as a boy and provide an income for the family. Parvana is chosen to do the work for the family then why didn’t her mother dress up as a boy instead or her older sister? It is true that she supported her father every day at the market but is it really right to pick a girl that isn’t even a teenager? Well the answer in quite simple yes the reason being this being her family believes that she is the only family member able to undergo the transformation in gender as well as the mental transf ormation. Once Parvana father is taken away by the Taliban nothing will ever be the same even if he does come back. So Parvana is forced to give up certain aspects of her and her family’s lives in order to insure the family survival an example of this is when she dresses up as a boy in order to go outside, this is a major change to Parvana life because she most definitely did not do this previously, however the differences don’t just stop at family routines if you like and visual differences but also effects the family mentally for example as time goes by Parvana becomes braver and stroner however her mum does not benefit as much and becomes disheartened and depressed.

Gatto Against Schools Critique

Jamille Coy â€Å"Against School: How public education cripples our kids, and why â€Å", is a piece written by John Taylor Gatto which was published in the Harpers Magazine September 2003 issue. Gatto was a New York City public school teacher for about thirty years , who after all this time teaching came to a conclusion that public schooling was nothing but, a system created by the high powers to create a large labour force and to keep the general public under some level of control.He believed that schools stifled a child maturing process and the only way to curb this issue way to educate our own children. Gatto opens his piece speaking about his personal experiences within the public school systems in Manhattan, where he says he became an expert in boredom. His expertise in this area of boredom he claims came from the kids he taught, who always complained about being bored in the class room and being taught by teachers who were also bored and uninterested in their subject.He then said we are to blame for our boredom and the only person obligated to amuse you ways one’s self. He said he learnt this remedy of amusing one’s self to cure boredom from his grandfather. The use of these personal or firsthand experiences were very effective because it tells the reader that the writer isn’t just writing from pure opinion but from something more, which allows you to trust him. He follows by saying that he believes people who didn’t know they were responsible for their own amusement were childish and should be avoided and definitely not trusted.He claims that he often defied custom and bent laws just to help kids to get out of the trap of boredom and childishness. He said teachers had a choice either help kids take an education or help them receive it and he was one who wanted to help kids receive it. Consequently he explains that he was fired after childish adults plotted against him and after nine months of tormented effort and his family having to suffer he was able to reacquire his teachers’ license.In this part of Gatto’s piece he uses a lot of strong words (avoided, not trusted, defy, trap, plotted, tormented) which can be both positive and negative. In one instance it may get scare the reader into believing him and in another it can be seen as terribly biased and cause paranoia. He end off the introductory paragraph quoting Gorge W Bush saying what if when he said â€Å"leave no child behind† he accidentally spoke the truth, was our schools designed to make sure not one child ever grows up?This quotation was the introduction to the main idea of his article and it was very effective because he used authority in using G W Bush and also ended it off with a rhetorical question to leave the reader thinking and preparing him/her for what is about to follow. In the opening to his main argument or body he asks three rhetorical questions which he follows by indirect answers â€Å"Do we really need school? Is it really necessary? If so for what? He then answers all these questions indirectly saying that 2 million happy homeschoolers showed that we didn’t need it.Then he mention some popular Americans who weren’t schooled such as Abraham Lincoln ,Thomas Jefferson, Carnegie and Rockefeller, saying that these people achieved a circumstantial level of success and wealth without schooling. He makes sure and points out that he is just saying school isn’t needed but that he totally agrees that education is, maybe just not the formal system that we all know today. He explains that’s the system (schooling) has made us to believe that school is in direct proportions with success, which he says historically isn’t true both financially and intellectually.The question and answer technique he use was very effective because it first makes the writer think and then by following with answering we unknowing accept and believe his argument. His use of popular A mericans who weren’t schooled is somewhat effective in that once can without a doubt see that some people without school can achieve success but at the same that time can argue that it was a different time and the world has changed and education is much more crucial part of life than it was in the time of Rockefeller and Washington.He used a list to explain that mass schooling was believed to make good people, good citizens and to make each his personal best but this was definitely not so. This list which is actually very effective because its helps the reader to remember and understand main points. He then quotes H. L. Mencken who said the aim of public education is not to fill the young of spices with knowledge and awaken them but it is to simply reduce as many individuals as possible to the same safe level, to breed and train a standardize citizenry to put down dissent and originality .From this quote Gatto wants us to take what Mencken said seriously but coming from a sat irist, it lacks effectiveness. Gatto then goes on to speak about James Bryant Conant who was the president of Harvard for twenty years, world war two poison gas specialists the principal of Colubine High Colorado and the person who introduce standardized testing into the school system. He mention Conant to show a man who had very little background on education influenced it in a big way which was somewhat effective but at the same time could have been considered confusing and misplaced.Another reason for mentioning Conant was to introduce Inglis who believes the reason for school was to stem mass, incurable division so that the underclass’s can never integrate as a dangerous whole. Gatto list what Inglis found to be the purpose of schooling which was: the adjustive or adaptive function, the integrating function, the diagnostic and directive function, the differing function, the selective function and the propaedeutic function. This list was as said before very effective becau se it goes in depth and explains to the reader giving the reader more insight on what the writer is trying to delineate.He starts off his closing points of his argument with the words â€Å"There now you have it. Now you know. † Which somewhat disparages the reader and give a cocky and conceitedness about the writer which can push the reader away from agreement with what he is saying. In this closing argument he says that mandatory schooling had no other objective but to; dumb people down, separate us by classes, encourage us to be lazy not to think at all and to create non-stop consumers.He said that school has turned our children into addicts and it is no accident he quotes Plato and Rousseau to show this. They described our schools as factories in which the raw products (children) are to be shaped and fashioned and built to specification laid down. He said it is obvious what these specifications are; lack of maturity, easy divorce laws, easy credit and easy questions. He u sed very effective rhetorical strategies by comparing children to raw products and schools to factories which gave us images and made his writing more understandable.He concludes by saying that the good news is now that we understand the logic behind modern schooling, its tricks and traps are fairly easy to avoid. He said the answer is to teach own to be leaders and adventurers. He says before we can do this we have to understand that’s schools are laboratories of experimentation on young mind, drill centers for the habits and cooperate society demands. He said that mandatory education serves children only accidentally and the real purpose is to make them servants.He said that the answer is just to let children manage themselves. This closing paragraph was very ambiguous, it was effect in the imagery give with his metaphors but at the same time the answer to the entire thing was bland. After all that he had to say it seems no real solution was given to the problem, which show s he is not very solution oriented and causes his entire article to lose effectiveness. Works Cited Gatto, John Taylor. â€Å"Against School. † Harper's Magazine Sep. 2001: 35-38. Print. MLA formatting by BibMe. org.

Business Analysis of Bank of England Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Business Analysis of Bank of England - Essay Example As within the majority of other industrialized nations, monetary plan functions in the United Kingdom mostly by controlling the value on which money is given as loan, or, to say differently, the interest rate. The Bank's price constancy goal is made clear in the existing monetary plan structure. It has two most important components: (1) a yearly ‘price rise’ objective set every year by the rule, and (2) an assurance towards an open as well as responsible policy-making system. The Bank has taken a most significant part in retaining the constancy of the United Kingdom's economic system for â€Å"300 years† (Lamoreaux, p. 43, 1996) and it is, at the moment, a major function of nearly all central banks. An established and unwavering economic system is significant in its individual right and imperative to the competent behaviour of economic plan. From the year 1997, the Bank has had accountability for the strength of the economic system as one, at the same time as the Financial Services Authority (FSA) oversees individual banks as well as other financial systems together with accepted financial interactions, for instance, the London Stock Exchange (Huxley, p. 77, 1980). â€Å"Setting monetary policy - deciding on the level of short-term interest rates necessary to meet the Government's inflation target - is the responsibility of the Bank. In May 1997, the Government gave the Bank operational independence to set monetary policy by deciding the short-term level of interest rates to meet the Government's stated inflation target - currently 2%† (Bank of England, 2011). The Bank is devoted to rising knowledge as well as perceptive of its functions and tasks, â€Å"across both general and specialist audiences alike† (Hankey, p. 34, 2009). It generates a huge amount of standard as well as extemporized periodicals on main features of its effort and provides an array of learning resources. The Bank provides scientific support and information to other central banks by its â€Å"Centre for Central Banking Studies, and has a museum at its premises in Threadneedle Street in the City of London, open to members of the public† (Cobbett, p. 293, 2010) at no cost. For the most part, these days, individuals believe the usually supporting function of private monetary markets - countrywide as well as worldwide - like an influential driver of fiscal development. That has not to say they are foolproof, but they are generally seen - even in the rising world that undergoes so much harm from the latest unpredictability - as the most excellent way one has of assigning funds to where they can be most efficiently utilized. Nevertheless, economic markets cannot carry out that task successfully without a dependable as well as conventional lawful structure, without obviously drawn lines of accountability - â€Å"between and within the public and private sectors† (Francis, p. 212, 2001), without rightfully imposed prudential cou rse of action prevailing the activities of banks as well as other financial institutions, or without definite and apparent accounting values functional constantly. Weaknesses in these fields, with others, were openly defined by the rising markets catastrophe, although they are definitely not restricted to those markets. A massive attempt is in progress globally, concerning both administrator as well as private specialized bodies, to strengthen the infrastructure in each of these fields. All of this is an obligatory state for the more successful execution of

Is Racism and anti-Semitism still a problem in the United States Essay

Is Racism and anti-Semitism still a problem in the United States - Essay Example The country has literally shed blood of innocent civilians to fight for few basic rights that are God-given. Racism and anti-Semitism are prevalent in American society due to enactment of affirmative action, ethnic profiling post September 11, and the vague existence of the KKK. Racism and anti-Semitism still exist in American society due to the fact that affirmative action legislatures were enacted to give minorities an opportunity for employment. Affirmative action, are set public policies that are specifically designed to help diminish racism and prejudice based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin, is under attack(Morris, 2011, p. 25). After the blood shed and citizen after the civil war, Congress passed the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, which abolished slavery (Morris, 2011, p.30). In addition, the Fourteenth Amendment guarantees equal protection under the law while the Fifteenth Amendment declines racial discrimination during elections. However one must wonder, even with all the legislations enacted, discrimination continues to be the focal point in society. Clearly, the 1866 Civil Rights Act guarantees every citizen "the same right to make and enforce contracts ... as is enjoyed by white citizens...† Thus, how is that African Americans and other minorities continue to struggle to find employment and are deterred from entering academic intuitions (Morris,2011, p.34)? Clearly, anti-affirmative action enables minorities to be embedded in the work and schools so society does not discriminate against them. Keeping everything in constant, the American society is designed in a way to protect White workers against job layoffs since majority of the executives in the American Society are dominated by male executives. Hence, racism becomes a â€Å"sparking fireball,† as many Americans feel as if they would be unemployed as minorities will continue to take their current posts. Evidently, the root cause of job displacement that W hite workers face with have to do with corporate decisions to downsize, and labor outsourcing internationally along with, computerization and automation. Downsizing. The small majority of minorities that do occupy an outstanding position often become key victims of hatred and discrimination. While substantial gains have been made to promote minorities, women and African America; the smaller groups continue to be harshly faced with discrimination and prejudice in the corporate world. Undoubtedly, the enactment of affirmative action legislature, companies confirms that racism and anti-Semitism are still prevalent in society. Another vital reason why racism and anti-Semitism no doubt continue to still exist in American society is due to the fact that ethnic profiling plagues society even in the modern 21st century. Prior to September 11, immigration laws were somewhat moderate as many immigrants from Asia and Middle East continue to migrate to America for jobs. As the World Trade Cente r fell, citizens of America were scared and horrified. Twenty-five days later, still reeling with shock, the government quickly took decisive action to make Osama Bin Laden, leader of Al-Qaeda to be responsible for the attacks. Bin Laden was part of an Islamic conservative group that believed in implying sharia. Thus, Muslims become the focal point of issue in society. After the September 11 attacks, many people became interested in Islam, yet the government discouraged the public from learning about different viewpoints (Friedman

Staffing as the Phase of the Management Process Article

Staffing as the Phase of the Management Process - Article Example Nevertheless, upon their encounter, Fred Western got mesmerized with the noteworthy credentials of Mimi Brewster, not to mention her being knowledgeable and well-versed about the Chinas customs, traditions, and its business situation. However, Mr Westerns impression of Mimi is counteracted by Miss Virginia Flanders discovery of some background information from one search engine on the web. Indeed, the facts that have been discovered by Miss Flanders undeniably stirred the mind of Mr Western, thereby putting him in a considerable dilemma— whether to hire Mimi and approve her candidacy to suit the position, or otherwise. The aforesaid issues revolve around one important management elements or functions, that is staffing. â€Å"Staffing is the third phase of the management process, where the leader or manager recruits, selects, orients, and promotes personal development to accomplish the goals of the organization† (Marquis and Huston 229). As such, the success of this process depends upon how efficient and efficacious is the leader or manager in fulfilling his or her roles and functions all throughout this phase (Marquis and Huston 230). In response to the scenario in the case study, Mimi's academic and previous work backgrounds are undeniably sufficient to meet her desired position. In fact, her credentials are superb: (1) she graduated with honours (cum laude) and (2) excellent recommendations from previous employers. The literature says that it is really very important to check the academic and professional credentials, as well as reference checks, of the job applicants or candidates (Marquis and Huston 246). In this regard, there is really nothing wrong with Mimi's application except for some internet articles describing her as somewhat â€Å"activist†.Nevertheless, since those distracting articles were published more than eight years ago, they can be disregarded. This is supported by the literature as Marquis and Huston affirmed that  information obtained by any method may not be used to reject an applicant unless a justifiable reason for disqualification exists.  

WK3 Discussion 2 Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

WK3 Discussion 2 - Assignment Example With regard to Consumer Kaleidoscope, Hispanics, Asians, Blacks, and multi-race individuals are gradually increasing in number and they are likely to displace the white’s cultural dominance. From the three strategies it is evident that the populations are overlapping each other as we move towards the 25 years projected. For example, the baby boom generation has just entered their early 20’s while the population of the Hispanics, Asians, Blacks, and Multi-race individuals is also increasing. For this reason, American culture is likely to shrink and their dominance wiped out by the changing trends like delayed marriage and longer life expectancies (DEBRA UMBERSON, 2012, p. 613). Consumer Kaleidoscope approach is an indication that the projected demographic changes are likely to fit into the projections. Currently, the Hispanic accounts for 23.2% of total American population by 2010 while the blacks accounted for 12.2%. The Asian population accounted for 4.7% by the same year. These trends indicate that 40% of the American population is occupied by multi-raced population groups and that is a threat to the white’s cultural dominance in the US (White, 2012). The changes in demography are likely to change the marketing niches and environment especially with the changing

Lessons learned document Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Lessons learned document - Essay Example I learned that working in a group project entails a lot of collaboration and regular communication. Likewise, member should have developed a sense of cohesiveness to enable the delivery of high performance and productivity. There should be smooth interpersonal relationships to avoid petty conflicts and miscommunication. For some minor conflicts, these were resolved through effective communication, compromise, and accommodation of conflicting parties’ contentions to meet halfway. In completing this project, I learned that I could be an effective team member and could work collaborate with others. I surmised that the ability of the leader to govern and delegate tasks equitably, as well as monitor the progress of each members’ assigned tasks, is instrumental to the success of the group outcome. The project, in its entirety, is still in the process of implementation. As such, it still provides ample avenues for learning through sharing of experiences of each member; assisting each other in addressing urgent issues and concerns; and encouraging feedback or inputs to ensure that the group project would turn out to be better than what all the members initially planned it to

Stalinism and Leninism Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Stalinism and Leninism - Essay Example There is no generally accepted point of view. The adherents of the continuity theory believe that Stalinism was the direct continuation of Leninism whereas their opponents do not (Evans, 1993). Paradoxically but they use the same citations and rhetoric to approve their believes. Stalin was a deserving successor of his teacher and comrade thus many phenomena of Stalinism had their roots in the theoretical postulates proposed by Lenin. Such conceptual views like democratic centralism in the governing, expectation of international revolution, and single party rule (ibid) are characteristic both for Leninism and Stalinism. However some Stalin's contributions are distinctive of Lenin's views. Thus he supported thesis of the possibility to built socialism in one country, and developed the theory of "aggravation of the class struggle along with the development of socialism" (Stalin, 1933). The critics of Stalinism (e.g. Leon Trotsky and his followers) as well as the historians Discontinuity who support alternative theory argue that Stalinism discontinued the development of Lenin's ideas. Lenin proposed the rule of party and dictatorship of the revolutionary proletariat while Stalin replaced this thesis with the absolute power of party leader. Theoretical achievements of Stalin's works were non-significant thus Stalinism is more related to the style of governing than to true political theories (Fitzpatrick, 2000). Some researchers found the relation between the traditional Russian autocracy (Tzar's government) and Stalinism (Kotkin, 1997; McCauley, 2003). They consider that Stalin adopted traditions to the new ideology and built the cult of own person. Contrarily Lenin never emphasized his own role in the Bolsheviks party. Of course, many features of Stalinism could be linked to the trends occurred during Lenin's rule. Thus Red Terror developed the tools and infrastructure for the further repressions. Lenin wrote in 1917 "One out of every ten idlers will be shot on the spot". He gave hundreds orders for repressions and murders but he never use his weapon and deterrent against members of his party - they could be exiled from Russia but their lives were preserved. Nevertheless the idea of political control through terror is related Lenin. "It was Lenin who laid the police state foundations which made Stalin's monstrous feats technically possible" (Leggett, 1981, cited by D02C143HP, 2003). Stalin was not too liberal, he "killed more Communists than Hitler, Mussolini and Franco together. He destroyed Lenin's Bolshevik Party and murdered all its leaders" (Woods, 2004). During the "purges" thousands of people were expelled from the Bolshevik Party and then arrested, imprisoned or persecuted later. But the number of Stalinism victims was estimated at the millions. They put their lives to the basement of Soviet Empire and its leader, Stalin. There is interestingly that Lenin understood the dangerosity of his comrade, Stalin, for Bolshevik Party. He wrote in his Testament: "Comrade Stalin, having become General Secretary has immeasurable power concentrated in his hands, and I am not sure that he always knows how to use that power with sufficient control" (Lenin, 1922) Lenin and Stalin demonstrated different approaches in the economic policy of Communist State. Vladimir Lenin introduced the New Economic Policy and restored the agricultural and industrial

Employment Rights Act Essay Example for Free

Employment Rights Act Essay 1. Know the statutory responsibilities and rights of employees and employers within own area of work. 1.1 List the aspects of employment covered by law Here is a list of the aspects of employment covered by law; minimum wage, discrimination, health and safety, holiday entitlements, redundancy, dismissal, training, disciplinary procedures, union rights and consultation, maternity rights, protected disclosures, working time regulations, particulars of employments. Working hours and holiday entitlements, Sickness absence and sick pay, Anti – discrimination provisions, Data protection, Relevant equalities legislation. 1.2 List the main features of current employment legislation is : Health and Safety Act 1974 Equality Act 2010 Date Protection Act 1998 Employment Rights Act 1996 Part Time Workers Regulations Act 2000 Working Time Regulations Act 1998 National Minimum Wage Act 1998 1.3 Outline why legislation relating to employment exists. Legislation relating to employment exists to protect the rights of employers and employees by providing rules and regulations that must be followed. It prevents employers from abusing or taking advantage of employees. To prevent exploitation and To ensure safe working environment. 1.4 Identify sources and types of information and advice available in relation to employment responsibilities and rights. Sources and types of information that are available to employment responsibility and rights include: Employment contracts -copy, company policies, manager of team, Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service, Jobcentre Plus, Citizens Advice Bureau, Department for Work and Pensions, Employment Appeals Tribunal Service, Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs, Access to Work (to help pay towards a support worker or the equipment you need at work) and Direct.gov website. Understand agreed ways of working that protect own relationship with employer.

Customer Relationship Strategy Case Study: Sainsburys

Customer Relationship Strategy Case Study: Sainsburys Research background: This research paper is focused strategy fallowed by Sainsbury to maintain customer relationship. In this research paper we will go through the different methods implemented by Sainsbury to gain relation with a customer. In todays global market relationship management had gained a lot of importance in every  business. The customer relationship is not confined with service industry, now a days  manufacturing industries too fallowing good relationship with their customers. The customer relationship management is applied by most of organizations because customer is the king in every business and he is the centre point to provide the revenue to a organization. Customer relationship management is a transparent wall between the customer and organization. Customer relationship will be measured based on the loyalty presenting by customer. So now going to discuss about the strategy fallowed by Sainsbury to maintain customer relationship 3. Organization background: Sainsbury is a super market which will operates its business in retail sector from the year 1869. Sainsburys is started by james and Mary Ann Sainsburys. The growth and development of the Sainsbury was increased rapidly and leads to one of the major player in the retailers of UK. It started from single shop and now grown up to 900 retail outlets in the UK. It performs its business operations with 180,000 employees. Sainsburys is the first supermarket which came in market with their own products like soft drinks, food materials and glossaries. It is one of supermarket which provides it services by online and the customer in the store is also given the chance to bill their products. The major competitors of the Sainsbury are TESCO and ASDA. In the part of business, store deals with different range of products for all class of people in the society. Sainsbury maintains good customer relations. Pest Analysis of Sainsbury Political Factors Taxation Sainsbury will get taxed based on their taxation code provided by the governing  bodies of taxation. Salary The employees are paid highly when compared to the other supermarkets.   Working hours They will give only 2 hours per school children and 20 hours for the  people aged above 18. They follow equal employment and wages act and they provide more health and safety to  employees. Economical Factors- Inflation Rates Unemployment Levels Income Labour laws Skill level of work force Social Factors Demographic Trends Level of education Culture living styles Lifestyles and Attitudes Technological factors Online shopping facility Self checkout tills Widespread availability and high speed broadband internet Electronic Data Interchange 4. Rational for the chosen topic: It is decided to research on the above topic, because of academic, personal and business perspectives. In academic carrier, research proposal study is very appropriate subject for course and my future purpose .This research paper is focused strategy fallowed by Sainsbury to maintain customer relationship. In this research paper we will go through the different methods implemented by Sainsbury to gain relation with a customer. In todays global market Customer relationship management (CRM) is one of the important  tactics to gain the relation between consumer and organisation. Customer relationship  management will leads to the enhancement of popularity of the organization in the global  market. In todays market many of the organisations are implementing this customer  relationship management because customer is the centre point at every business. From the  past records organisation came to single opinion i.e. which organisation has good relation  with it customer will survive for long period in the market. 5. Literature review: According to (Mike Hoots), Customer relationship management is implemented by most of  organizations to know the potential customers of their business and their requirements  expecting from organization side. The organization position in the global market may defined by the customer relations and  their satisfaction. In todays scenarios customer is the king and he is one and only option for  generating the revenue to the business. Customer plays a key role in almost of all the  industries which are service and manufacturing. The organization which is having good  customer satisfaction and excellent customer relationship will gain the business from the  market and the growth of that particular organization will be more when compared with other  organizations which are giving less priority to customer relationship. 6. Research questions: According to the reviewed literatures, they all mentioned that the important of customer satisfaction programme and in which ways it is gained in an organisation. But they did not discover that how the customer satisfaction programmes and customer satisfaction draws a path to a organisation toward success. Thus, this research proposal proposes to analyse to answer these questions: 1. What are the key activities included into Customer relationship management? 2. What are the customer services provided towards customer satisfaction? 3. To what extent does the Customer relationship management contribute to Sainsbury financial success? 7. Research objectives: Objectives of this research paper are to present the evidence for some of the questions and to  gain theoretical knowledge on whats customer relationship management and its effects on  the business. Find out Sainsburys improvement in customer satisfaction and its relationship with existing customers? What are the best approaches to gain a relationship with a loyalty customer? What are the influences of customer relationship on the Sainsburys business and its  development? What are the important strategies implementing by Sainsbury in customer relationship  management to return to its old market position in the retail sectors? 8. Methodologies: Methodology Exploratory research method chosen for this research paper Exploratory research will present the relationship which is existing between two different  variables. Before starting with exploratory research we shall know about the advantages in  taking this kind of research method and how it is more helpful than the other research  methods. Exploratory defines the relationship between the two distinct factors and it will be more  convenient method for this research. This research method is very flexible for providing a  understanding during the decision problems and opportunities. This research method will  help in grabbing the strategy fallowed by sainsburys for gaining the relationship with the  existing customers and to attract the new customers from the global market Sainsbury and customer relationship management are the two distinct variables in this  research paper. This research will goes on what are the different strategies fallowed by  Sainsbury to maintain good customer relationship. Exploratory research will be comfortable  method to carry this research. Data is gathering from either sides of the organization. Inside of a organisation data is  collected from employees and from the customers of Sainsbury That to data is collected from  the employees who are involved in maintaining customer relationship management. Data is  gathered by introducing myself to the customer and explaining the objective of the project  and later had chat about the satisfaction and impression on the organization. Due to casual chat with customer and enquired by about some important things like cost, quality and services providing and finally collecting the information from employees about the customer number of visits to that particular shop Later i followed the passive style, in which i observed reactions of the customers for the  services providing by the employees in the Sainsburys. This research paper is mainly focused to gain a brief understanding about the customer  behaviour; this study was done more qualitative rather than quantitative research. Qualitative  method was carried based on three types which are mentioned below. Face to face interview Semi-structured interview Passive style Face to face Interview- The face to face interview was done with topic related employees in  the Sainsburys and later conducting a interview to a customer directly. This face to face  interview is also called as In-depth interview. Semi-structured interview this is same as face to face interview but i distributed the pre-questionnaire concerning about the interview. Passive style- Passive style is the process of observing the customers without informing them. The customers are identified secretly when the employees are providing service. Apart from the three methods, fallowed the survey method. In the survey method i went through the secondary data like, company website, news papers  and the articles related to the Sainsbury. In this research paper the data collected through both quantitative and qualitative methods. In  the quantitative method the data is in the form of numbers and which is collected by using the questionnaire. The qualitative data which provides the information in the form of description  which is collected by conducting the interview to customers and the employees of  Sainsburys. This research paper needs a detail study so sample questionnaire is supplied to the existing and new customers of Sainsbury and even collected the information orally by asking about the services provided by Sainsbury. Data collection: When conducting data collection, the un structured interviews will be used with Tescos employees and customers to evaluate customer loyalty programme and investigate the customer perspectives. The data concern with perspectives like thinking, satisfaction and believes. To collect these qualitative data, un structured interviews will be suitable than other methods. Because, we can not have predetermined questions for the perspective which might change for place to place as well as person to person. That is why it is decided to conduct un structured interviews. The data will be collected with selected sample units by asking one or two opening questions and conversations for ten or fifteen minutes. The questions will interact with some matters, for example, why Tesco introduced loyalty card?, why the customer prefer often to shopping in Tesco?, how the customers fell when using loyalty card in Tesco?, what are the other services provided to customer? Is the loyalty programme useful to customer? At the mean time, do Tesco achieve its purposes by that programme? This interview will be conducted once a week for five weeks in the Tesco in London. Every time will choose different areas for research; this is because the answers of customers will vary from place to place. And 3 sample units will be selected to investigate each time. 6. Data Analysis: The collected data from fifteen sample units by interviews, will be analysed to accomplish the objective of research proposal. The obtained qualitative data such as opinions, satisfaction and believes will be analysed to decide that really the customer loyalty programme brings customer satisfaction as well as customer satisfaction brings financial success for Tesco within competitive market in UK. References Alan Bryman Emma Bell,2007, Business Research Methods, second edition, Oxford  University press, UK. Mc Burney White, 2007, Research methods, eighth edition, wadsworth cengage learning,  USA. John gill and Phil Johnson, 1991, Research methods for managers, first edition, paul chapman  publishing ltd, UK. AD Jankowicz,2000, Business Research projects, third edition, Thomson learning, UK. Judith Bell, 2008, Doing your Research project, fourth edition, open university press, MC  Graw hill education. UK. www.sainsburys.co.uk, 2010, Sainsbury company overview, (Online), Available from URL   http://www.j-sainsbury.co.uk/index.asp?pageid=12, Accessed on 27th -03-2010. www2.sainsburys.co.uk, 2010, customer and marketing, (Online), Available from URL-  http://www2.sainsburys.co.uk/aboutus/recruitment/Store+Support+Centre/Custo mer+and+Marketing/Customer+and+Marketing+Overview.htm, Accessed on 01-04-2010.a www.thisislondon.co.uk, 2008, Sainsbury defies the City with yet more sales growth,  (Online), Available from URL-http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard- business/article-23496207-sainsbury-defies-the-city-with-yet-more-sales-growth.do, Accessed on 02-04-2010. www.oppapers.com, 2010, Customer relationship management, (Online), Available from  URL-http://w ww .oppapers .com/es s ays /Cus tomer- R elationship-Management/189988, Accessed on 07-04-2010. www.rgis.com, 2010, Sainsbury overview, (Online), Available from URL-  http://www.rgis.com/assets/pdfs/casestudies/Sainsbury_Case_Study.pdf, accessed  on 09th-04-2010. Corporate Strategy: Financial Strategy and Cultural Effects Corporate Strategy: Financial Strategy and Cultural Effects Introduction The objectives of this paper are two-fold: first, the paper looks at the role of financial strategy in an organisation, the risks faced by an entity and how these risks affect the financial strategy; second, the paper provides a discussion in relation to whether cultural factors have an impact on corporate strategy, as well as whether it is beneficial for an organisation to be ethical. The paper begins by looking at financial strategy and organisational risks. It will later consider cultural and ethical issues. The role of financial Strategy in an Organisation. Financial strategy can be defined as the practices adopted by a firm to achieve its financial objectives. (Harvey, 2004). According to Calandro and Flynn (2007) â€Å"financial strategy can be defined as an interdisciplinary methodology to more efficiently allocate resources within a firm to better or more economically satisfy customer preferences over time†. The later definition stresses the need for customer satisfaction indicating that shareholder value creation depends on customer satisfaction. Although an organisation’s overall objective is shareholder value maximisation, it can only achieve this through high levels of customer satisfaction because it is only through high levels of sales that profit can be generated and high levels of sales can only be achieved through high levels of customer satisfaction. The main financial objective of a profit-making entity is to maximise shareholder value. (Ogilvie, 2005). Shareholder value is measured by the returns shareholders receive each year, represented by the dividend received each year, plus the capital gains from capital appreciation, which is measured by the growth in the share price of the entity. In addition to maximising shareholder value an organisation may have other objectives such as satisfactory returns, high sales levels, high level of customer satisfaction, etc. (Ogilivie, 2005; Calandro and Flynn, 2007). Kaplan and Norton (1996) identify three different stages for a business and note that each of these stages has its own unique financial objectives. The three stages include: (1) rapid growth; (2) sustain; and (3) harvest. (Kaplan and Norton, 1996). At the rapid growth phase the financial objective will be to achieve sales growth, achieve sales in new markets and to new customers, achieve sales from new products and services, maintain adequate spending level for product and process development, establish new marketing, sales and distribution channels. At the sustain phase the organisation will emphasize traditional financial performance measurements, such as return on capital employed, operating income and gross margin. Standard discounted cash flows and capital budgeting analysis will be used to appraise investments although some companies may emphasise the use of more recent appraisal techniques such as economic value added and shareholder value added. At the harvest phase, the main financial objective will be to achieve sustainable levels of cash inflows, in which case any investment project must have immediate and certain cash paybacks. (Kaplan and Norton, 1996). Financial strategy constitutes three main stages, which are temporarily linked in a financial feedback loop as shown in figure 1 below. These stages include: (1) strategy formulation; (2) resource allocation; and (3) performance measurement. An important aspect of strategy formulation is strategic planning, which according to Myers (1984) involves the process of deciding how to commit the firm’s resources across different lines of business. Based on the above discussion, one can observe that financial strategy plays an important role in an organisation. It enables the organisation to formulate its strategy, determine how to allocate its resources and enables the company to measure its performance. Financial strategy enables an entity to make an assessment of its financial needs, the sources of support required to meet its objectives and fulfil its mission while at the same time planning for growth and stability. Financial strategy is an indispensible prerequisite for the formulation and development of the budget. Organisations often face a number of risks. These include liquidity risks, interest rate risk, business risks, financial risks, etc. these risks may affect the financial strategy in a number of ways. Financial risk for example is the risk that the company may be unable to meet its commitments to repay interests and principal repayments on its long-term financial obligations. The effect of such a risk on the financial strategy is that the company will emphasise the use of internally generated funds and equity to finance long-term projects rather than issue bonds or other long-term debt securities. Interest rate risk may also affect the firm’s capital structure decision in that perceived high levels of interest rates on long-term debt may reduce the company’s motivation to use debt financing. Foreign exchange rate risk may affect the company’s prospects to expand production abroad, as well as the currency denomination of foreign contracts and sales. Liquidity risks may affect the company’s short-term borrowing. The presence of high liquidity risk may warrant the company to resort to a just-in-time inventory system, reduce short-term debtors by maintaining more strict short-term credit policies and factoring of accounts receivables. Effect of Cultural Factors on Corporate Strategy Andrews (1997: p. 52) defines corporate strategy as â€Å"the pattern of decisions in a company that determines and reveals its objectives, purposes, or goals, produces the principal policies and plans for achieving those goals, and defines the range of business the company is to pursue, the kind of economic and human organisation it is or intends to be and the nature of the economic and non-economic contribution it intends to make to its shareholders, employees, customers, and communities†. Corporate strategy in effect maps out the businesses in which an organisation intends to compete in a way that focuses resources to convert distinctive capabilities into competitive advantage. (Andrews, 1997). The definition of corporate strategies emphasises the need for the organisation to satisfy the needs of all the stakeholders if the organisation is to achieve is overall objective of maximising shareholder value. Stakeholders include employees, customers and the communities in which the organisation operates. Employees, customers and communities therefore have a significant impact on the success of the organisation and thus on the corporate strategy of the organisation. In formulating corporate strategy, organisations need to identify and priorities strategic issues, which involves scanning, selecting, interpreting and validating information. (Schneider, 1989) To properly formulate its corporate strategy, an organisation must assess its organisational strengths and weaknesses, as well as its environmental threats and opportunities, which will enable it choose among alternative courses of action. (Hofer and Schendel, 1984) cited in Schneider, (1998). This indicates that an organisation must perform a SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats) analysis prior to formulating corporate strategy. A number of factors have been identified as having an effect on corporate strategy formulation: for example, Kets de Vries and Miller (1984) suggest that managerial personality and experience is an important determinant of the strategy formulation process; Janis (1972) considers group dynamics as an important factor affecting the formulation of corporate strategy while Frederickson (1984); Lyles and Mitroff (1985) suggest that organisational structure plays an important role in strategy formulation. Schneider (1998) citing Schein (1985) notes that National culture could play an important role in strategy formulation as it derives from assumptions regarding relationships with the environment as well as relationships among people. Schneider (1998) argues that these assumptions will influence how information is gathered and how that information is interpreted within the organization. The strategy formulation process can therefore not be considered ‘culture-free’ because information is embedded in social norms and acquires symbolic value as a function of a particular set of beliefs in a particular set of cultures. (Feldman and March, 1981). There are considerable differences in cultures across countries. Culture is defined as â€Å"a system of shared assumptions that has developed over time to solve problems of environmental adaptation and internal integration†. (Schneider,, 1998: p. 152) citing Schein (1985); Van Maanen and Barley (1983). Culture is expected to affect the process by which the environment is known and responded to because it is thought to influence the way people perceive, think, feel and evaluate. (Schneider,, 1998). There are two sets of cultural assumptions that are thought to be specifically relevant to the formulation of corporate strategy. These include external adaptation and internal integration. (Schneider, 1998). On the one hand, external adaptation refers to the relationship with the environment while internal integration on the other hand refers to the relationships among people. The forgoing indicates that cultural factors have a significant effect on corporate strategy and thus calls for a critical consideration of cultural differences especially for multinational companies that usually operate in a number of different countries with varying degrees of culture. A company therefore stands to gain a lot from being ethical. Companies that are perceived as being unethical may suffer from declining sales and thus declining profit margins. There are also differences as far as ethical issues are concerned. What may be considered unethical in one country may be considered ethical in another country. For example, Muslim communities do not eat pork meat and thus will consider a company that attempts to market pork related products as contravening their cultural believes. In addition there are considerable differences in relation to organisational hierarchy across countries. In countries where power distance is considered very important, information is likely to flow only from top to bottom and not from bottom to top. In addition, an autocratic form of leadership is likely to prevail in such societies. On the contrary, in a country where power distance is considered less important, there would be a two way flow of information and a democratic leadership style is likely to prevail. For example, Motorola faced a number of problems when it expanded its activities to South Korea. (Siegal et al., 2007). In like manner IKEA, the giant furniture dealer faced difficulties when it expanded its activities into the United States. (Grol et al., 1998). BIBLIOGRAPHY Andrews K. (1997). Resources and Strategy: A Reader, edited by Nicolai J. Foss. Oxford University Press, ISBN 0198781792, 9780198781790 Calandro, J. Jr., Flynn, R. (2007). â€Å"On Financial Strategy†, Business Strategy Series, vol. 8, No. 6, pp. 409-417. Harvey G. (2004) â€Å"Financial strategy† available online at: http://financial-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Financial+strategy Grol, PC, Schoch, C, CPA. (1998). IKEA: managing cultural diversity. In Cases in International Organizational Behavior. Oddou G, Mendenhall M (eds.). Blackwell: Malden MA; 88-112. Janis, I. L. (1972) â€Å"Victims of groupthink†, Boston: Houghton-Mifflin. Kaplan, R. S., Norton, D. P. (1996), â€Å"Linking the Balanced Scorecard to Strategy†, California Management Review, vol. 39, No. 1, pp. 53-79. Feldman, M. S., and J. G. March (1981) â€Å"Information in organizations as signal and symbol†, Administrative Science Quarterly, vol. 26, pp. 171-186. Fredrickson, J. W. (1984) â€Å"The comprehensive of strategic decision processes: extension, observations, future directions†, Academy of Management Journal, vol. 27, No. 3, pp. 445-466. Kets de Vries, M. F. R., and D. Miller (1984) â€Å"The neurotic organization†. San Francisco : Jossey Bass. Lyles, M. A., and I. I. Mitroff (1980) â€Å"Organizational problem formulation:  an empirical study†. Administrative Science Quarterly, vol. 25, pp. 102-119. Myers, S. C. (1984). â€Å"Finance theory and financial strategy†, INTERFACES, vol. 14 No. 1 pp. 126-137 Ogilvie, J. (2005). Financial Strategy, Butterworth-Heinemann ISBN 0750664894, 9780750664899 Schneider S. C. (1989), â€Å"Strategy Formulation: The Impact of National Culture†, Organization Studies, vol. 10, pp. 149-168. Siegel, J. I., Licht, A. N., Schwartz S H. (2007). Egalitarianism, Cultural Distance, and FDI: A New Approach available at: http://ssrn.com/abstract=957306

Direct Market Offers Design and Testing

Direct Market Offers Design and Testing Charanjot Sethi DEFINITION OF DIRECT DESIGN MARKETING: Direct marketing is a channel-agnostic form of advertising which allows businesses and nonprofit organizations to communicate straight to the customer, with advertising techniques that can include cell phone text messaging, email, interactive consumer websites, online display ads, database marketing, fliers, catalog distribution, promotional letters, targeted television commercials, response-generating newspaper/magazine advertisements, and outdoor advertising. Amongst its practitioners, it is also referred to as Direct Response. HOW THE CUSTOMER RESPOND: So the customer can buy the product online and they can send feedback though the mail, telephone and paper based or electronic. Companies get the customer details like name, address and contact information and payment information and also delivery details.   Design three direct response offers HP LAPTOP Features description 16 GB RAM -AMD duel core A4- 1200 -2 TB Internal hard drives WI-FI Connectivity -Webcam -AMD Radeon HD8180 graphics -1 * HDMI 3* USB -1 *VGA -1 *Multi SD card reader Details Computer type- laptops Display size (inches) 15.6 Resolution (pixels) 1366*768 Screen resolution- HD Display type- LCD Touch screen- yes Processor type- AMDA4 Processor-AMD DUEL CORE A4 Processor model number- 1200 COMPANYs   OFFER TO THE CUSTOMER This Offer consists a very good deal if you buy HP laptop. The offer gives you free product key (Microsoft office key) for three years free of charges. The offer which we are giving from DIGITAL STUDIO it will not be able to get from anywhere else it usually costs $150.00 to customer to buy it but this   exclusive   offer we providing to our valuable customers. This is value for money if you buy $800 worth laptop direct from our store and we are providing free LAPTOP BAG ($40.00) Additional Offers/ Incentives FIRST 20 callers will get Free postage and handling Interest free installment plan up to 12 month Free 3 year extended warranty  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   DIGITAL CAMERA-CANNON HDR- AS100V Cannon HDR- as100V full HD action camcorder 13.5m Sensor Multi camera control ( up to 5 cams) Overview HDR- AS100V Action cam delivers more stunning image quality that ever before. It is all new zeiss tessar 170 degree wide angel lenses, ultra powerful BIONZ X image processor and 13.5 megapixel sensor, will now capture all the excitements you can handle, for the first time , in eye popping full HD. COMPANY OFFER TO THE CUSTOMER; Buy one cannon get an extra view finder for free of cost. Prizing offers spend $1000 get 25% off and its increase the business Extended the warranty and guarantee and build up the strengthen relationships. People can pay in installments and it can increase the business. LED TELEVISION-SAMSONG Key Features 32/81cm Screen Connect Share Movie 1366 x 768 Resolution 50Hz Refresh Rate HD Tuner 1 x USB Port 2 x HDMI DETAILS Screen Size (Inches) 32.0 Screen Type LED-LCD Screen Resolution HD Resolution (Pixels) 1366 x 768 Refresh Rate (Hz) 50 TV Tuner HD Tuner 3D False HDMI Ports 2 USB Ports 1 DOCUMENTS OF APPROPRIATE TYPES OF OFFERS Direct sales. Our company offers the products directly and they offer them to buy from the store. Ongoing accounts: Our companies provide the updating service to their customer so the customer can get up to date information. Leads: our company takes order in advance so they can provide the deliveries on time. Expression of interest: our customer can tell us their requirement about their products they want to buy from us, and we can assemble their products according to their needs for example what capacity of hard disk drive they need and the resolution of the screen. FEEDBACK QUESTIONS QUES 1was the offer was clear? QUES 2 what did your survey audience like or dislike about the offers? QUEA 3Which of the offers would most tempt them to purchase from this store? QUES 4what suggestions did they have that would improve the offers? QUES 5 how they compare our company with others? QUES 6 how they get product after service? THE RESULTS OF YOUR TESTING FOLLOWING QUESTIONS The offer was clear like laptop bag and product key was free with laptop so most of the people like and bought it and 40% people did not like the offer. 90% of my colleagues like the offer which was great quality of the product and great color and designs. Rest of my friends did not like the delivery period they said it was bit late. More than 70% of the people liked the installments payment like they can buy the product easily and it is good for the company that they can increase the profit. So most of the people recommend for the trial period so that they can use the product for some days and if they did not like they can send back to the company. People also compare with other companies they said the prize are reasonable in this store and get the loyalty cards. But some people recommend to get increase the warranty and guarantee. Most of the people said company get positive response after the product like if they get any fault after deliver they send staff to fix it up or they replace the product. But some people said sometime staff takes time to get the delivery. PREPARE A REPORT FOR THE CLIENT We offered to the customers a bag and product key for life time for free of cost with laptop and people liked this offer and company increased the income. People recommend bringing more offers like this so that they get free stuff. The testing process was used Purchase sale 1000 laptops x 100=10000 Sale prize 1200 laptops x100=12000 So the company got 2000 profit. THE RESULTS OF YOUR TESTING As we got feedback from our customers and they are happy with the 14 days free trail period. As we offered our customers payment plan was good as many customers cannot make the full payment out front at once however they are willing to buy our product. It was highly appreciated and moreover the free capon of $10 over $100 purchase worked tremendously. Result of our testing worked very well

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee :: To Kill a Mockingbird Essays

â€Å"To Kill A Mockingbird†   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  After watching To Kill A Mockingbird, the characters I see the author trying to teach me through is Atticus Finch, Scout and Jem, and Arthur â€Å"Boo† Radley.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  To begin, Atticus Finch has experienced and understood evil throughout his life. He has been confronted with prejudice and racism, but has not lost his faith in the human capacity for goodness. Atticus understands from his own experiences and reflection that most people have both good and bad qualities. Also, through Atticus, the important thing in life is to appreciate the good qualities and understand the bad qualities by treating others with sympathy and trying to see life from their perspective. He tries to teach this ultimate moral lesson to Jem and Scout to show them that it is possible to live with conscience without losing hope or becoming cynical. For example, in this way, Atticus is able to admire Mrs. Dubose’s courage even while deploring her prejudice. In much the same way, Scout’s progress as a character is defined by her gradual development toward understanding the lessons Atticus Finch tries to teach her when Scout at last sees Boo Rad ley as a human being. Her newfound ability to view the world from his perspective ensures that she will not become jaded as she loses her innocence.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Secondly, I believe the most inspirational and in depth character in this movie was Jean Louise â€Å"Scout† Finch. From beginning to end, she learns to control her temper, to back away from fights, and to respect Calpurnia. She really learns her value to the family. Scout is also able to maintain her basic faith in human nature despite the shock and unfairness of Tom Robinson’s courtroom conviction. However, Jem’s faith in truth, justice and humanity is very badly damaged. He does not understand why all of this is happening. Prejudice and racism does not make any sense to Jem. Initially, Scout and Jem assume that all people are good by nature and tolerant of others. It is not until they see things from a more realistic adult perspective that they are able to confront evil, as well as prejudice, and incorporate it into their understanding of the world.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Lastly, Arthur â€Å"Boo† Radley has for decades been maliciously slandered in the county. The people that have done so do not know Boo and the reason they can make such judgments escapes me. When there was a series of pets being mysteriously slaughtered, the consensus was that it was performed by Boo.

Childe and Anthropology :: essays research papers

Essay Questions 1. Childe equated civilization with urbanism. Other social scientists, while admitting a considerable overlap, distinguished between the cultural phenomena characteristic of urban areas and those of "civilized" societies. Childe identified 10 formal criteria that, according to his system, indicate the arrival of urban civilization. These are: increased settlement size, concentration of wealth, large-scale public works, writing, representational art, knowledge of exact sciences, foreign trade, full-time specialists in non-subsistence activities, class-stratified society, and political organization based on residence rather than kinship. He saw the underlying causes of the urban revolution as the cumulative growth of technology and the increasing availability of food surpluses as capital. Further archaeological evidence demonstrated that the formal criteria Childe proposed were, in reality, not universal. A core of basic structural trends, however, appeared to be essential as cities appeared in different areas at different times. Some of the problems that may arise with any given set of criteria(s) for defining civilization and the process in which they develop lie within things such as time frame, area, mental capacity of the peoples of the society, and material advancement. In reference to ancient Mesopotamia and Egypt, Childe’s criteria apply somewhat directly. This is said because both of these societies had some forms of sciences (i.e. mummification/Egypt), wealth or caste system, and a public works for buildings and city-states. Their only difference lies in that in ancient Egypt, the politics were balanced by kinship rather than residence. 2. Archaeological excavations in Mesopotamia, conducted since about 1840, have revealed evidence of settlement back to about 10,000 BC. Favorable geographic circumstances allowed the peoples of Mesopotamia to pass from a hunter-gatherer culture to a culture based on husbandry, agriculture, and permanent settlements. Trade with other regions, tribes, and chiefdoms also flourished, as indicated by the presence in early burial sites of metals and precious stones not locally available.

Humor in War Movies Essay

There is more than one way to get a point across in the movies. Movies based on actual events, movies made using actual facts but not always about true events, documentary films and those films that use humor or satire to get their point across. I think the three films that I chose fall into the last category. The first film (released in 1953) is Stalag 17, a film about American prisoners of war being held in a German prison camp. This film seems to follow the typical war movie theme, group unity for a common cause and no single hero. The movie stars William Holden who as Sergeant Sefton, a wheeler-dealer who doesn’t hesitate to trade with the guards and who has acquired goods and privileges that no other prisoner seems to have is accused of being a German spy by his fellow prisoners. The Germans always seem to be forewarned about escapes and in the most recent attempt the two men, Manfredi and Johnson, walked straight into a trap and were killed. For some in Barracks 4, especially the loud-mouthed Duke, the leaker is obvious. An officer is passing though on the way to another camp, tells of how he sabotaged an ammunition train by luck using matches. The Germans find out and now he has to hide so he can escape to avoid being shot. The director Billy Wilder created a popular film loaded with subversive subtexts, his signature cynicism and humor (although it’s sometimes a feeble attempt at humor it is humor just the same). WW II wasn’t even a decade old yet and maybe it wasn’t the right time to make a movie depicting the conditions of the German prisoner camps in such a realistic manner, but there seem to be a goldmine of possibilities within that setting for the directing genius of Wilder. By today’s standards it may be difficult to appreciate Stalag 17 as a classic film due to the TV show Hogan’s Heroes that it inspired. Wilder’s directing style, wit and perception are lost in the interpretation, but the films humor still remains. Another reason for lack of appreciation the basics of the Stalag 17’s plot have become the staple in terms of wartime incarceration and general prison-break films. Still, it is interesting to see the matter-of-fact style in an escape film. Most focus on the details of the laborate plan, but Stalag 17 follows the most practical route make a run for the fence while the guards are diverted which, when you think about it, is a more likely scenario besides how easy do you think it is to lay your hands on a pair of wire cutters in a prison camp. Broadly played, the humor, serves as a good method for getting away with the more subtle subversive aspects of the film. As Wilder once was quoted â€Å"that if one was going to tell the truth, be funny or they’ll kill you. † There is a long musical scene as one of the POWs sings while the rest celebrate Christmas by dancing with each other. The men are nice and toasted after having raided Sefton’s booze and Animal is desperately pining over Betty Grable. When Shapiro stuffs yellow straw under a bonnet as a gag, Animal thinks his dream girl has come to life and starts to dance and come on to Shapiro as he thinks Shapiro is Betty Grable. You can’t say that Sgt. Sefton is the hero of the movie, even Holden sited the unlikeability of the character, but his vicious, sharp and charismatic demeanor was enough for you to forgive him and root for him anyway. Holden’s character doesn’t change his wheeling and dealing ways at the end of the movie and one of his fellow prisoners remarks as Sefton is escaping â€Å"Maybe he just wanted to steal our wire cutters. You ever think of that? † Wilder had little use for such sentimentality and it is reflected in Stalag 17 because it’s an examination of the human condition not a moral tale. Such a cynical perspective in the depiction of actual combat would have to wait another twenty years and the dismal aftermath of two unpleasant wars to have the American audience fully ready for it. While a number of novels about World War II were able to capture such themes, Wilder was ahead of his time. Film critic Richard Corliss once suggested that, Wilder may have been â€Å"less a cynic than a premature realist. † Stalag 17’s dramatic scenes seem to hold up much better than the comedic scenes, considering many of people in the original audience had fought in the WWII and that American POWs were then being held in the current military conflict going on in Korea. It seems that the extensive comic segments might have been a used to defuse scenes that would have hit home more then than it would now. Back then I don’t think that many Americans audiences would have been willing to sit through an insistently grim POW drama. The bit about the soldier, his wife, and the baby on the doorstep must have made a few people in the audience very uneasy. It’s important to remember that this film was made and released in the early 1950’s. It is no mistake that the real traitor to American values was the head of â€Å"security† Price. At the time of the films release the congressional members of the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) was busy protecting American security by depriving citizens of their right to be different in very much the same ways as those depicted in the film. Like Sefton, however, Wilder is no hero. It can be argue that this is very much the film’s real message, Wilder cleverly hides it under enough comedy and plot that he runs no risk of offending Sen. McCarthy’s communist hunters. The next film Mister Roberts released in 1955 is about life on a Navy supply ship the â€Å"Reluctant† dubbed the â€Å"Bucket† by its crew. The Reluctant is commanded by an oppressive Captain Morton, who takes sadistic pleasure in undermining the crews’ morale. Lt. Doug Roberts (aka Mister Roberts) intervenes on the crew’s behalf as much as possible and watching him butt heads with the captain seems to lift the crew’s spirits while providing most their entertainment. This film doesn’t seem to follow the war movie theme. The main character Mister Roberts seems to be out for himself, with the war drawing to an end he wants to see some action. His weekly requests to be transferred are always turned down by Capt. Morton, who according to Roberts is using Roberts to promote himself. The fact that the crew is not happy with their situation is secondary to Roberts’ problem. One of the more sympathetic and insightful films from the 1950s to deal with World War II was Mister Roberts. It was an indication of the distance the public as well as filmmakers had come from the war. This distance would allow for a more sophisticated and dramatic treatment of the conflict and the people involved. Of all the films during this time that also reflect the new maturity, Mister Roberts was the most successful of them all, though getting it made properly took real work. Director John Ford was perfect for the project; he retired from the reserves as a rear admiral. Ford may have been too close to and slightly too old to do justice to the script to this subject, also he was up against the competing personality of star Henry Fonda. Fonda had scored a huge hit with the Broadway version of Mister Roberts and he had given up any hope of ever doing the movie version since he hadn’t been on-screen in eight years. Ford insisted on Fonda to star as a condition to directing the film, but the two were at odds from the beginning over the production, mostly over the director’s tendency to inject rough-house comedy into his movies. Ford used such an approach to breathe life into some of his other movies like Fort Apache. However, Mister Roberts was a character-driven film with very little real action and Fonda thought the Fords’ emphasis on laughs would destroy the integrity of the material. Ford’s demanding dictatorial directing style combined with his excessive drinking created tension between the two. Ford left the production, he was replaced by director Mervyn LeRoy who basically asked the cast to use their best judgment and make the kind of movie Ford would’ve made. The result is a finely textured character study that captured the best dramatic moments of the play. Some of the comical scenes in the movie were when the sailors discover that they can have a clear view of the nurses’ shower room in a hospital on the nearby coast by looking through binoculars. This provides them with their first release from drudgery in over a year. The ship’s morale officer, young Ensign Pulver, is also aware of the nurses and finagles a trip to the hospital to pick up aspirin for Doc. While there, he convinces head nurse, Lt. Ann Girard, to come to the ship later by promising to share a bottle of scotch with her. Back on board, Pulver is distressed to learn that Roberts, the owner of the scotch, has used it to bribe an official to send the Reluctant to a liberty port. Roberts and Doc mix up simulated scotch, called â€Å"jungle juice,† from alcohol, Coca-Cola, iodine and hair tonic for Pulver to use in place of the scotch. When the nurses appear, Pulver, With Roberts’ permission, pretends to be the ship’s cargo officer and shows them around. The nurses, who are undeceived by his pretensions, discover the sailors’ view of their quarters and leave immediately to hang curtains. Another humorous point happens during a night onshore, the men unleash all their pent-up energy, they crash an Army dance, fight with soldiers, terrorize women, steal an admiral’s goat and mistake the French Colonial governor’s mansion for a bordello. Roberts hopes the night will give them strength for the â€Å"miserable, endless days ahead of them. The next day, the ship is banished from the port. Mister Roberts also made two appearances as a TV series, once in 1965 and again in 1984. As far as public was concerned enough time had passed that most Americans were able to laugh at some of the kookier aspects about military life and Hollywood provided just the right amount of seriousness and irreverence with this 1955 hit. The third film I chose is M*A*S*H released in 1970. The movie is about a mobile army surgical hospital set in the Korean War conflict (1950-1953). This movie breaks from the traditional war theme movies. It not about any one person at any given time but it’s not about the unit as a whole either. The plot in M*A*S*H is not defined; instead the unusual characters are involved in a sequence of darkly comic episodes. M*A*S*H is a black comedy about life in a Mobile Army Surgical Hospital unit located only three miles from the front lines. The mission of any MASH unit is to provide immediate medical treatment to those wounded in combat, and the young surgeons are always up to their elbows in blood and guts for long periods of time. When they’re off duty, the MASH unit personnel keep their sanity by pursuing a wacky, irreverent lifestyle that leads to some hilarious adventures. Some of the hilarious scenes in the movie are; they sneak a microphone under the bed of Major â€Å"Hot Lips† Houlihan, and broadcast her lovemaking to the entire camp, a tent that is pulled away from the showering Major Houlihan an attempt to settle a bet about her being a natural blonde, they drug a general and photograph him in a brothel, a Last Supper parody where a man whose impotency has made him despondent is duped into a faux suicide and a rather lengthy football game sequence. The way they present humor in â€Å"M*A*S*H,† is almost metaphysically cruel, there is something about war that inspires practical jokes and the heroes (if you can call them heroes (Donald Sutherland (Hawkeye), Elliot Gould (Trapper John) and fellow camp members) are inspired and utterly heartless. We laugh because it is so true to the sadist in all of us. There is perhaps nothing so wonderful as achieving sweet mental revenge against someone we hate with particular enthusiasm. And it is the flat-out, poker-faced hatred in â€Å"M*A*S*H† that makes it work. Most comedies want us to laugh at things that aren’t really funny; in this one we laugh because they’re not funny. We laugh, so that we do not cry. This movie depends upon timing and tone to be funny. Hawkeye, Trapper John and the members of their merry band of pranksters are offended because the Army regulars Major Burns and Houlihan who don’t feel deeply enough. They are only concern is with Army protocol and not with war. Hawkeye and Trapper John dancing on the brink of crack-ups, dedicate themselves to making them feel something. Their facade offends them; no one could be that unaffected by the work of this hospital. And so if they can crack their defenses and reduce them to their own level of dedicated cynicism, the number of suffering human beings in the camp will go up by two. Even if they fail, they have a hell of a lot of fun trying and of course, it’s a distraction to the war. Although the movie is set in Korean War, no one seeing â€Å"M*A*S*H† in 1970 confused the film for anything but a sarcastic comment on the Vietnam War. This is one of the counterculture movies that exploded into the mainstream at the end of the ’60s. Altman wanted his 1970 audience to think in terms of Vietnam, where another unpopular war was still in progress. Altman’s style of cruel humor, overlapping dialogue, and densely textured visuals brought the material to life in an all-new kind of war movie (or, more precisely, antiwar movie). Audiences had never seen anything like it: vaudeville routines played against spurting blood, fueled with open ridicule of authority. The film’s huge success spawned the long-running TV series, a considerably softer take on the material. The concept of war comes in three parts, the training, the actual combat and the repair of the casualties of the combat. Each part has it’s critics and it’s supporters, both championing for their side. Not seen in the earlier combat films was the concept of why we fought. Those wars before the Korean War were world wars with many countries involved being fought in many different countries. The Korean War and all those that followed up to the present were mostly two sided with the Americans at the spearhead of each. Yes, the United Nation forces were involved in many of these wars, but it was the Americans leading the way. After such a history, Americans could very well sustain their unity against the Axis Powers during WW II, but they could not readily accept a limited war such as the Korean War, in which negotiations with the enemy to bargain for objectives far short of his destruction accompanied the very fighting of the war. Dissents against the Korean War also were encouraged by an uneasy political atmosphere troubling the United States in 1950. WW II had produced not a satisfactory peace but an ongoing Cold War with communism led by the Soviet Union, to which the United States held out the prospect of no more triumphant but an outcome of containment. Such a change in the ways of war was perceived by Americans were truly visible in a lot of modern day war films. Reference http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0046359 http://www.amazon.com/Mister-Roberts-Henry-Fonda/dp/6305225761 http://www.fandango.com/misterroberts_v64788/summary http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0066026 http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/19700101/REVIEWS/40812002/1023

Bag of Bones EPILOGUE

It snowed for Christmas a polite six inches of powder that made the carollers working the streets of Sanford look like they belonged in It's a Wonderful Life. By the time I came back from checking Kyra for the third time, it was quarter past one on the morning of the twenty-sixth, and the snow had stopped. A late moon, plump but pale, was peeking through the unravelling fluff of clouds. I was Christmasing with Frank again, and we were the last two up. The kids, Ki included, were dead to the world, sleeping off the annual bacchanal of food and presents. Frank was on his third Scotch it had been a three-Scotch story if there ever was one, I guess but I'd barely drunk the top off my first one. I think I might have gotten into the bottle quite heavily if not for Ki. On the days when I have her I usually don't drink so much as a glass of beer. And to have her three days in a row . . . but shit, kemo sabe, if you can't spend Christmas with your kid, what the hell is Christmas for? ‘Are you all right?' Frank asked when I sat down again and took another little token sip from my glass. I grinned at that. Not is she all right but are you all right. Well, nobody ever said Frank was stupid. ‘You should've seen me when the Department of Human Services let me have her for a weekend in October. I must have checked on her a dozen times before I went to bed . . . and then I kept checking. Getting up and peeking in on her, listening to her breathe. I didn't sleep a wink Friday night, caught maybe three hours on Saturday. So this is a big improvement. But if you ever blab any of what I've told you, Frank -if they ever hear about me filling up that bathtub before the storm knocked the gennie out I can kiss my chances of adopting her goodbye. I'll probably have to fill out a form in triplicate before they even let me attend her high-school graduation.' I hadn't meant to tell Frank the bathtub part, but once I started talking, almost everything spilled out. I suppose it had to spill to someone if I was ever to get on with my life. I'd assumed that John Storrow would be the one on the other side of the confessional when the time came, but John didn't want to talk about any of those events except as they bore on our ongoing legal business, which nowadays is all about Kyra Elizabeth Devore. ‘I'll keep my mouth shut, don't worry. How goes the adoption battle?' ‘Slow. I've come to loathe the State of Maine court system, and DHS as well. You take the people who work in those bureaucracies one by one and they're mostly fine, but when you put them together . . . ‘ ‘Bad, huh?' ‘I sometimes feel like a character in Bleak House. That's the one where Dickens says that in court nobody wins but the lawyers. John tells me to be patient and count my blessings, that we're making amazing progress considering that I'm that most untrustworthy of creatures, an unmarried white male of middle age, but Ki's been in two foster-home situations since Mattie died, and ‘ ‘Doesn't she have kin in one of those neighboring towns?' ‘Mattie's aunt. She didn't want anything to do with Ki when Mattie was alive and has even less interest now. Especially since ‘ ‘ since Ki's not going to be rich.' ‘Yeah.' ‘The Whitmore woman was lying about Devore's will.' ‘Absolutely. He left everything to a foundation that's supposed to foster global computer literacy. With due respect to the numbercrunchers of the world, I can't imagine a colder charity.' ‘How is John?' ‘Pretty well mended, but he's never going to get the use of his right arm back entirely. He damned near died of blood-loss.' Frank had led me away from the entwined subjects of Ki and custody quite well for a man deep into his third Scotch, and I was willing enough to go. I could hardly bear to think of her long days and longer nights in those homes where the Department of Human Services stores away children like knickknacks nobody wants. Ki didn't live in those places but only existed in them, pale and listless, like a well-fed rabbit kept in a cage. Each time she saw my car turning in or pulling up she came alive, waving her arms and dancing like Snoopy on his doghouse. Our weekend in October had been wonderful (despite my obsessive need to check her every half hour or so after she was asleep), and the Christmas holiday had been even better. Her emphatic desire to be with me was helping in court more than anything else . . . yet the wheels still turned slowly. Maybe in the spring, Mike, John told me. He was a new John these days, pale and serious. The slightly arrogant eager beaver who had wanted nothing more than to go head to head with Mr. Maxwell ‘Big Bucks' Devore was no longer in evidence. John had learned something about mortality on the twenty-first of July, and something about the world's idiot cruelty, as well. The man who had taught himself to shake with his left hand instead of his right was no longer interested in partying 'til he puked. He was seeing a girl in Philly, the daughter of one of his mother's friends. I had no idea if it was serious or not, Ki's ‘Unca John' is closemouthed about that part of his life, but when a young man is of his own accord seeing the daughter of one of his mother's friends, it usually is. Maybe in the spring: it was his mantra that late fall and early winter. What am I doing wrong? I asked him once this was just after Thanksgiving and another setback. Nothing, he replied. Single-parent adoptions are always slow, and when the putative adopter is a man, it's worse. At that point in the conversation John made an ugly little gesture, poking the index finger of his left hand in and out of his loosely cupped right fist. That's blatant sex discrimination, John. Yeah, but usually it's justified. Blame it on every twisted asshole who ever decided he had a right to take off some little kid's pants, if you want,' blame it on the bureaucracy, if you want,' hell, blame it on cosmic rays if you want. It's a slow process, but you're going to win in the end. You've got a clean record, you've got Kyra saying ‘I want to be with Mike' to every judge and DHS worker she sees, you've got enough money to keep after them no matter how much they squirm and no matter how many forms they throw at you . . . and most of all, buddy, you've got me. I had something else, too what Ki had whispered in my ear as I paused to catch my breath on the steps. I'd never told John about that, and it was one of the few things I didn't tell Frank, either. Mattie says I'm your little guy now, she had whispered. Mattie says you'll take care of me. I was trying to as much as the fucking slowpokes at Human Services would let me but the waiting was hard. Frank picked up the Scotch and tilted it in my direction. I shook my head. Ki had her heart set on snowman-making, and I wanted to be able to face the glare of early sun on fresh snow without a headache. ‘Frank, how much of this do you actually believe?' He poured for himself, then just sat for a time, looking down at the table and thinking. When he raised his head again there was a smile on his face. It was so much like Jo's that it broke my heart. And when he spoke, he juiced his ordinarily faint Boston brogue. ‘Sure and I'm a half-drunk Irishman who just finished listenin to the granddaddy of all ghost stories on Christmas night,' he said. ‘I believe all of it, you silly git.' I laughed and so did he. We did it mostly through the nose, as men are apt to do when up late, maybe in their cups a little, and don't want to wake the house. ‘Come on how much really?' ‘All of it,' he repeated, dropping the brogue. ‘Because Jo believed it. And because of her.' He nodded his head in the direction of the stairs so I'd know which her he meant. ‘She's like no other little girl I've ever seen. She's sweet enough, but there's something in her eyes. At first I thought it was losing her mother the way she did, but that's not it. There's more, isn't there?' ‘Yes,' I said. ‘It's in you, too. It's touched you both.' I thought of the baying thing which Jo had managed to hold back while I poured the lye into that rotted roll of canvas. An Outsider, she had called it. I hadn't gotten a clear look at it, and probably that was good. Probably that was very good. ‘Mike?' Frank looked concerned. ‘You're shivering.' ‘I'm okay,' I said. ‘Really.' ‘What's it like in the house now?' he asked. I was still living in Sara Laughs. I procrastinated until early November, then put the Derry house up for sale. ‘Quiet.' ‘Totally quiet?' I nodded, but that wasn't completely true. On a couple of occasions I had awakened with a sensation Mattie had once mentioned that there was someone in bed with me. But not a dangerous presence. On a couple of occasions I have smelled (or thought I have) Red perfume. And sometimes, even when the air is perfectly still, Bunter's bell will shiver out a few notes. It's as if something lonely wants to say hello. Frank glanced at the clock, then back at me, almost apologetically. ‘I've got a few more questions okay?' ‘If you can't stay up until the wee hours on Boxing Day morning,' I said, ‘I guess you never can. Fire away.' ‘What did you tell the police?' ‘I didn't have to tell them much of anything. Footman talked enough to suit them too much to suit Norris Ridgewick. Footman said that he and Osgood it was Osgood driving the car, Devore's pet broker did the drive-by because Devore had made threats about what would happen to them if they didn't. The State cops also found a copy of a wire-transfer among Devore's effects at Warrington's. Two million dollars to an account in the Grand Caymans. The name scribbled on the copy is Randolph Footman. Randolph is George's middle name. Mr. Footman is now residing in Shawshank State Prison.' ‘What about Rogette?' ‘Well, Whitmore was her mother's maiden name, but I think it's safe to say that Rogette's heart belonged to Daddy. She had leukemia, was diagnosed in 1996. In people her age she was only fifty-seven when she died, by the way it's fatal in two cases out of every three, but she was doing the chemo. Hence the wig.' ‘Why did she try to kill Kyra? I don't understand that. If you broke Sara Tidwell's hold on this earthly plane of ours when you dissolved her bones, the curse should have . . . why are you looking at me that way?' ‘You'd understand if you'd ever met Devore,' I said. ‘This is the man who lit the whole fucking TR on fire as a way of saying goodbye when he headed west to sunny California. I thought of him the second I pulled the wig off, thought they'd swapped identities somehow. Then I thought Oh no, it's her all right, it's Rogette, she's just lost her hair somehow.' ‘And you were right. The chemo.' ‘I was also wrong. I know more about ghosts than I did, Frank. Maybe the most important thing is that what you see first, what you think first . . . that's what's usually true. It was him that day. Devore. He came back at the end. I'm sure of it. At the end it wasn't about Sara, not for him. At the end it wasn't even about Kyra. At the end it was about Scooter Larribee's sled.' Silence between us. For a few moments it was so deep that I could actually hear the house breathing. You can hear that, you know. If you really listen. That's something else I know now. ‘Christ,' he said at last. ‘I don't think Devore came east from California to kill her,' I said. ‘That wasn't the original plan.' ‘Then what was? Get to know his granddaughter? Mend his fences?' ‘God, no. You still don't understand what he was.' ‘Tell me, then.' ‘A human monster. He came back to buy her, but Mattie wouldn't sell. Then, when Sara got hold of him, he began to plan Ki's death. I suspect that Sara never found a more willing tool.' ‘How many did she kill in all?' Frank asked. ‘I don't know for sure. I don't think I want to. Based on Jo's notes and clippings, I'd say that there were perhaps four other . . . directed murders, shall we call them? . . . in the years between 1901 and 1998. All children, all K-names, all closely related to the men who killed her.' ‘My God.' ‘I don't think God had much to do with it . . . but she made them pay, all right.' ‘You're sorry for her, aren't you?' ‘Yes. I would have torn her apart before I let her put so much as a finger on Ki, but of course I am. She was raped and murdered. Her child was drowned while she herself lay dying. My God, aren't you sorry for her?' ‘I suppose I am. Mike, do you know who the other boy was? The crying boy? Was he the one who died of blood-poisoning?' ‘Most of Jo's notes concerned that part of it it's where she got started. Royce Merrill knew the story well. The crying boy was Reg Tidwell, Junior. You have to understand that by September of 1901, when the Red-Tops played their last show in Castle County, almost everyone on the TR knew that Sara and her boy had been murdered, and almost everyone had a good idea of who'd done it. ‘Reg Tidwell spent a lot of that August hounding the County Sheriff, Nehemiah Bannerman. At first it was to find them alive Tidwell wanted a search mounted and then it was to find their bodies, and then it was to find their killers . . . because once he accepted that they were dead, he never doubted that they'd been murdered. ‘Bannerman was sympathetic at first. Everyone seemed sympathetic at first. The Red-Top crowd had been treated wonderfully during their time on the TR that was what infuriated Jared the most and I think you can forgive Son Tidwell for making a crucial mistake.' ‘What mistake was that?' Why, he got the idea that Mars was heaven, I thought. The TR must have seemed like heaven to them, right up until Sara and Kito went for a stroll, the boy carrying his berry-bucket, and never came back. It must have seemed that they'd finally found a place where they could be black people and still be allowed to breathe. ‘Thinking they'd be treated like regular folks when things went wrong, just because they'd been treated that way when things were right. Instead, the TR clubbed together against them. No one who had an idea of what Jared and his prot? ¦g? ¦s had done condoned it, exactly, but when the chips were down . . . ‘ ‘You protect your own, you wash your dirty laundry with the door closed,' Frank murmured, and finished his drink. ‘Yeah. By the time the Red-Tops played the Castle County Fair, their little community down by the lake had begun to break up this is all according to Jo's notes, you understand; there's not a whisper of it in any of the town histories. ‘By Labor Day the active harassment had started so Royce told Jo. It got a little uglier every day a little scarier but Son Tidwell flat didn't want to go, not until he found out what had happened to his sister and nephew. He apparently kept the blood family there in the meadow even after the others had taken off for friendlier locations. ‘Then someone laid the trap. There was a clearing in the woods about a mile east of what's now called Tidwell's Meadow; it had a big birch cross in the middle of it. Jo had a picture of it in her studio. That was where the black community had their services after the doors of the local churches were closed to them. The boy Junior used to go up there a lot to pray or just to sit and meditate. There were plenty of folks in the township who knew his routine. Someone put a leghold trap on the little path through the woods that the boy used. Covered it with leaves and needles.' ‘Jesus,' Frank said. He sounded ill. ‘Probably it wasn't Jared Devore or his logger-boys who set it, either they didn't want any more to do with Sara and Son's people after the murders, they kept right clear of them. It might not even have been a friend of those boys. By then they didn't have that many friends. But that didn't change the fact that those folks down by the lake were getting out of their place, scratching at things better left alone, refusing to take no for an answer. So someone set the trap. I don't think there was any intent to actually kill the boy, but to maim him? Maybe see him with his foot off, condemned to a lifetime crutch? I think they may have gotten that far in their imagining. ‘In any case it worked. The boy stepped in the trap . . . and for quite awhile they didn't find him. The pain must have been excruciating. Then the blood-poisoning. He died. Son gave up. He had other kids to think about, not to mention the people who'd stuck with him. They packed up their clothes and their guitars and left. Jo traced some of them to North Carolina, where many of the descendants still live. And during the fires of 1933, the ones young Max Devore set, the cabins burned flat' ‘I don't understand why the bodies of Sara and her son weren't found,' Frank said. ‘I understand that what you smelled the putrescence wasn't there in any physical sense. But surely at the time . . . if this path you call The Street was so popular . . . ‘ ‘Devore and the others didn't bury them where I found them, not to begin with. They would have started by dragging the bodies deeper into the woods maybe up to where the north wing of Sara Laughs stands now. They covered them with brush and came back that night. Must have been that night; to leave them any longer would have drawn every carnivore in the woods. They took them someplace else and buried them in that roll of canvas. Jo didn't know where, but my guess is Bowie Ridge, where they'd spent most of the summer cutting. Hell, Bowie Ridge is still pretty isolated. They put the bodies somewhere; we might as well say there.' ‘Then how . . . why . . . ‘ ‘Draper Finney wasn't the only one haunted by what they did, Frank they all were. Literally haunted. With the possible exception of Jared Devore, I suppose. He lived another ten years and apparently never missed a meal. But the boys had bad dreams, they drank too much, they fought too much, they argued . . . bristled if anyone so much as mentioned the Red-Tops . . . ‘ ‘Might as well have gone around wearing signs reading KICK US, WE'RE GUILTY,' Frank commented. ‘Yes. It probably didn't help that most of the TR was giving them the silent treatment. Then Finney died in the quarry committed suicide in the quarry, I think and Jared's logger-boys got an idea. Came down with it like a cold. Only it was more like a compulsion. Their idea was that if they dug up the bodies and reburied them where it happened, things'd go back to normal for them.' ‘Did Jared go along with the idea?' ‘According to Jo's notes, by then they never went near him. They reburied the bag of bones without Jared Devore's help where I eventually dug it up. In the late fall or early winter of 1902, I think.' ‘She wanted to be back, didn't she? Sara. Back where she could really work on them.' ‘And on the whole township. Yes. Jo thought so, too. Enough so she didn't want to go back to Sara Laughs once she found some of this stuff out. Especially when she guessed she was pregnant. When we started trying to have a baby and I suggested the name Kia, how that must have scared her! And I never saw.' ‘Sara thought she could use you to kill Kyra if Devore played out before he could get the job done he was old and in bad health, after all. Jo gambled that you'd save her instead. That's what you think, isn't it?' ‘Yes.' ‘And she was right.' ‘I couldn't have done it alone. From the night I dreamed about Sara singing, Jo was with me every step of the way. Sara couldn't make her quit.' ‘No, she wasn't a quitter,' Frank agreed, and wiped at one eye. ‘What do you know about your twice-great-aunt? The one that married Auster?' ‘Bridget Noonan Auster,' I said. ‘Bridey, to her friends. I asked my mother and she swears up and down she knows nothing, that Jo never asked her about Bridey, but I think she might be lying. The young woman was definitely the black sheep of the family I can tell just by the sound of Mom's voice when the name comes up. I have no idea how she met Benton Auster. Let's say he was down in the Prout's Neck part of the world visiting friends and started flirting with her at a clambake. That's as likely as anything else. This was in 1884. She was eighteen, he was twenty-three. They got married, one of those hurry-up jobs. Harry, the one who actually drowned Kito Tidwell, came along six months later.' ‘So he was barely seventeen when it happened,' Frank said. ‘Great God.' ‘And by then his mother had gotten religion. His terror over what she'd think if she ever found out was part of the reason he did what he did. Any other questions, Frank? Because I'm really starting to fade.' For several moments he said nothing I had begun to think he was done when he said, ‘Two others. Do you mind?' ‘I guess it's too late to back out now. What are they?' ‘The Shape you spoke of. The Outsider. That troubles me.' I said nothing. It troubled me, too. ‘Do you think there's a chance it might come back?' ‘It always does,' I said. ‘At the risk of sounding pompous, the Outsider eventually comes back for all of us, doesn't it? Because we're all bags of bones. And the Outsider . . . Frank, the Outsider wants what's in the bag.' He mulled this over, then swallowed the rest of his Scotch at a gulp. ‘You had one other question?' ‘Yes,' he said. ‘Have you started writing again?' I went upstairs a few minutes later, checked Ki, brushed my teeth, checked Ki again, then climbed into bed. From where I lay I was able to look out the window at the pale moon shining on the snow. Have you started writing again? No. Other than a rather lengthy essay on how I spent my summer vacation which I may show to Kyra in some later year, there's been nothing. I know that Harold is nervous, and sooner or later I suppose I'll have to call him and tell him what he already guesses: the machine which ran so sweet for so long has stopped. It isn't broken this memoir came out with nary a gasp or missed heartbeat but the machine has stopped, just the same. There's gas in the tank, the sparkplugs spark and the battery bats, but the wordygurdy stands there quiet in the middle of my head. I've put a tarp over it. It's served me well, you see, and I don't like to think of it getting dusty. Some of it has to do with the way Mattie died. It occurred to me at some point this fall that I had written similar deaths in at least two of my books, and popular fiction is heaped with other examples of the same thing. Have you set up a moral dilemma you don't know how to solve? Is the protagonist sexually attracted to a woman who is much too young for him, shall we say? Need a quick fix? Easiest thing in the world. ‘When the story starts going sour, bring on the man with the gun.' Raymond Chandler said that, or something like it close enough for government work, kemo sabe. Murder is the worst kind of pornography, murder is let me do what I want taken to its final extreme. I believe that even make-believe murders should be taken seriously; maybe that's another idea I got last summer. Perhaps I got it while Mattie was struggling in my arms, gushing blood from her smashed head and dying blind, still crying out for her daughter as she left this earth. To think I might have written such a hellishly convenient death in a book, ever, sickens me. Or maybe I just wish there'd been a little more time. I remember telling Ki it's best not to leave love letters around; what I thought but didn't say was that they can come back to haunt you. I am haunted anyway . . . but I will not willingly haunt myself, and when I closed my book of dreams I did so of my own free will. I think I could have poured lye over those dreams as well, but from that I stayed my hand. I've seen things I never expected to see and felt things I never expected to feel not the least of them what I felt and still feel for the child sleeping down the hall from me. She's my little guy now, I'm her big guy, and that's the important thing. Nothing else seems to matter half so much. Thomas Hardy, who supposedly said that the most brilliantly drawn character in a novel is but a bag of bones, stopped writing novels himself after finishing Jude the Obscure and while he was at the height of his narrative genius. He went on writing poetry for another twenty years, and when someone asked him why he'd quit fiction he said he couldn't understand why he had trucked with it so long in the first place. In retrospect it seemed silly to him, he said. Pointless. I know exactly what he meant. In the time between now and whenever the Outsider remembers me and decides to come back, there must be other things to do, things that mean more than those shadows. I think I could go back to clanking chains behind the Ghost House wall, but I have no interest in doing so. I've lost my taste for spooks. I like to imagine Mattie would think of Bartleby in Melville's story. I've put down my scrivener's pen. These days I prefer not to.