2/11/99 Essays - Essays By George Orwell, George Orwell,

2/11/99 Engl. 108 Final Essay Society's Influence Throughout time society has played a major role in determining what are to be the expected and appropriate actions of a person. Social pressure is common in every facet of life. It influences our every decision in some way, be it positive or negative. Sometimes we are pressured into doing something that we would not normally do even though we know it's wrong. In the short stories "Salvation" by Langston Hughes and "Shooting an Elephant" by George Orwell, there are strong examples of society pressuring people into doing something that they would not normally do and that they don't want to do. The short story "Salvation" is about a twelve year old boy who is forced to lie to his family and the members of a church because of the pressure put on by the people around him. One of the first sentences in the introduction says: "That night I was escorted to the front row and placed on the mourners bench with all the other young sinners, who had not yet been brought to Jesus(Hughes 177)." The author's choice of diction in this sentence is extremely meaningful. His use of the phrase "I was escorted?" is a definite sign that he was not going willingly or was not happy about going. He says that he was "?placed on the mourners bench with all the other young sinners." To a young child the thought of being "...placed?with all the other young sinners" is probably a scary and degrading one. These are both evidences of negative pressure put on just by his surroundings, not by people or what they are expressing verbally. Langston, the main character, was sitting next to another young boy named Westley. He was a rounder's son. A rounder is a minister who travels around preaching at different churches. This is evidence that Westley was brought up around church and probably has a good idea as to what is right and what is wrong. Even though he has this knowledge he still gets pressured into lying, which is an action he probably knows is wrong. He says to Langston: "God damn! I'm tired o'sitting here. Let's get up and be saved (Hughes 178)." This is an obvious attempt to appease the people around him and end a stressful situation. Some might call his actions covertly sacrilegious, but the expectations of the people around him were so great that he put his knowledge of right and wrong aside to do what everyone wanted him to do. Towards the end of the service Langston finds himself alone on the mourners bench and that all the other young children had already gone up and been saved. He says: "Now it was getting late. I began to feel ashamed of myself, holding everything up so long (Hughes178)." The congregation was praying for him and calling him to come forward. The combined pressure of him being the one holding things up and the people calling him to come and be saved was enough to get him to lie in order to do what the congregation expected him to do. He says, "So I decided that maybe to save further trouble, I'd better lie, too, and say that Jesus had come, and get up and be saved (Hughes178)." The fact that the pressure put on caused him to do something as bad as lying in church about seeing Jesus and being saved is terrible. The short story "Shooting an Elephant" by George Orwell contains some vivid examples of societal pressure. The main character, a police officer, is subjected to negative pressure when he is faced with the possibility of him having to kill an elephant. The main character states: "The people expected it of me and I had got to do it: I could feel their two thousand wills pressing me forward, irresistibly (Orwell 240)." This quote shows that he police officers will is being bent by the combined will of the crowd surrounding him. This is an obvious example of the power that a large group has in effecting a person's judgement. The diction used in this sentence not only encompasses the feelings brought up in the story but also spells them out, word for word.

8 Best Jobs in Retail (And How to Get Them)

8 Best Jobs in Retail (And How to Get Them) Working in retail may not be the glamorous job of your dreams, especially when you have to muster a smile for the 15th customer asking a ridiculous question on your 10-hour shift. But it’s a solid career option, short- or long-term, with a skill set that makes you hireable in many different fields, and lots of opportunities. Along with food service, retail is the biggest pool of jobs in the United States right now. We live in a society that needs stuff, on demand, and that means we also need an army of helpful, knowledgeable people to steer us toward that stuff. If you’re in the market for a retail job (or your next one), there are lots of great opportunities for you. Where Are the Jobs?Everywhere- literally everywhere. From the mom-and-pop store down the street to the big box store that magically has what you want when you want it, stores need staff. Sure, metro centers like New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles will have more job openings, but you don’t need to wo rry about relocating for your career. You can find retail jobs near you.What Are the Best Jobs?Retail can be a hard industry: long hours, demanding shifts, the *ahem* joys of dealing with the public. Where you work can make all the difference between feeling good about your job and wishing you’d gone into animal dentistry instead. Let’s look at some of the best companies out there right now in retail, which offer strong benefits packages and focus on employee well-being as well as paying the bills.CostcoYou probably know you can get an industrial-sized vat of ketchup at Costco, but did you also know it’s consistently rated one of the best places to work? With a median salary of$13.14 according to Investopedia, it’s one of the highest-paying retail employers out there right now. The company also offers a lot of employee-friendly benefits like health insurance, vision insurance, dental insurance, a 401(k) program, and dependent care coverage. Plus an employ ee discount on that ketchup.NordstromWith more than 300 stores in the U.S. and Canada, Nordstrom is one of the biggest upscale retail chains in the country. As a cornerstone in malls around the country, Nordstrom is known for offering a median salary of $14.96 per hour, the highest hourly retail associate pay as of 2016. It also gets high marks among employees for offering benefits to part-time employees as well as full-timers.TargetAs the nation’s second-biggest retailer (after WalMart), department store Target (look for the big red bullseye) is one of the most employee-friendly retail workplaces. The median salary is $9.25 for sales associates, with significant bumps for managers and warehouse workers (who have a median salary of $19.40). The company also offers a number of supplemental benefits which include health insurance, vision insurance, dental insurance, healthy living initiatives, and less common benefits like tuition reimbursements, savings and investment plans, f lexible spending accounts, parental leave, and childcare assistance.CarMaxGone are the days when the phrase â€Å"used car salesman† called to mind a shady guy in a bad suit and a â€Å"trust me† smile. These days, consumers value data and clear information about the investment they’re making in a car. CarMax has parlayed its customer service on that front into becoming the largest used car dealership in the U.S., and one of Fortune’s top 100 companies to work for. CarMax is big on employee appreciation, with $1,000 bonuses and a pizza party for employees who go â€Å"above and beyond.† Top sellers are sorted into â€Å"clubs,† and are rewarded with trips, dinners, and other compensation for their hard work.Lowe’sIf DIY is your passion, then Lowe’s can be a great destination for you. Its salary and benefits are tops in the big box home improvement store game, with a median salary of $12.95 and a strong offering of employee bene fits like health insurance, dental insurance, vision insurance, disability insurance, and retirement benefits.Trader Joe’sWorking in retail doesn’t always mean being a retail associate- creative skills are in demand as well. At grocery chain Trader Joe’s, artists who create the store’s trademark in-store artwork, cartoons, and brightly colored displays make a median salary of $13.64. The company also offers employees health insurance, vision insurance, dental insurance, and a retirement plan. Must-haves: strong art background and a sense of whimsy about organic yogurt.Gap/Old Navy/Banana RepublicGood luck finding a mall or shopping center without one of these stores holding down a corner. With more than 3,300 stores worldwide, The Gap (along with its sister stores/brands Old Navy and Banana Republic) is a retail powerhouse, offering a median salary of $11.86. The stores also offer employees health insurance, dental insurance, daycare assistance, and commu ter benefits.ZapposIf you’re a shoe enthusiast, Zappos probably needs no introduction. If you’re not, Zappos is one of the largest online shoe retailers, owned by Amazon. Ranked #38 on Fortune’s best retail companies list, Zappos emphasizes the â€Å"life† part of â€Å"work-life balance† for its team members. The services they offer to employees include laundry service, car washes, educational and leadership seminars, parental leave and adoption reimbursement, and- one of the most unusual perks of all- expense reimbursement for pet adoption, as well as pet sitters/walkers. (And now my dog wonders why I don’t have a job somewhere that prioritizes her needs better.)How Do I Get These Jobs?The good news is that these companies are all broadly located, with locations all around the country. Assuming the geographic hurdles are low, what do you need to snag one of these opportunities?Build your resume.The starting square for any job hunt, retail or not, is getting your application package together. You’ll need to dust off your old resume, for starters, or (even better) rebuild a bigger, better one from scratch.Be creative.The mall is going to be full of job applicants, but what about that shopping center down the street? Consider applying to stores and jobs in less high-traffic areas.Consider seasonal employment.If you find that there are more applicants than openings at your target store, keep trying. If they hire seasonal help, apply for it. You’ll have a foot in the door, and can show off your stellar retail skills over the holiday rush season.Do your research.What is the company’s status right now? How are its stocks doing? If a company is in its death throes (and just announced a round of store closings), now is likely not the time to apply. But if things look healthy from your research (online searches, nothing too extensive or wonky), then you’re more likely to get a better reception.Put i n face time.Applying online is a great and convenient tool. For retail, though, it’s not necessarily a replacement for showing up, putting in an application, and showing the hiring manager that you have the right stuff. While it’s not a full-on interview, take the opportunity to go down to the store, wearing an interview-ish spiffy outfit, and present your resume in person to the manager. It’s a nice first impression, and can make you more memorable as they sort through your application with others’.Check often for new job postings.Set daily reminders (or even a few times a day) to search for new job listings on the store’s site. Retail is a high-turnover field, and you can never predict exactly when there will likely be more job openings. Keeping an eye on the listings will let you jump on opportunities as they come up, instead of getting there a few days later, after the job has already been filled by Not You.Don’t be afraid of job hopping .â€Å"Job hopping,† or moving from one job to another after a short period of time, used to be frowned upon. These days, it’s become more of an accepted cost of moving up and building skills. If you’re in one job and another opens up that could broaden your experience or give you a bump in pay/compensation, don’t be afraid to go for it.Whether you’re a vet of the retail job scene looking to trade up, or looking for your first retail job, we’ve hopefully laid out a ton of options for you to consider and a path for you to follow. Good luck!

Discussion Forum Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Discussion Forum - Essay Example none of my family members would support me in this relationship, alongside this I took the advice positively and left having assured him that I would consider everything carefully. The best thing is that he did not close my options. I can say I resolved this form of dissonance by focusing on a belief that outweighs the dissonant belief (Cooper), taking into a consideration that I love this woman without caring what tribe she comes from. The other actions that I would have taken are that I would reduce as much as possible the importance of the conflicting belief. Still I can try to change the conflicting belief for it to be in line with the other beliefs or behaviors (Cooper). This is derived from the fact that I would wish to treat my case as independent as possible and make judgments, decisions and evaluations with quite high degrees of value attached to them. This would be to the benefit of all the parties in equal

The income gap between the rich and the poor in China Research Paper

The income gap between the rich and the poor in China - Research Paper Example Over the last decade, China has exceeded the Gini coefficient index threshold by 0.4 close to the warning level given by the United Nations (Cai, 128). This article analyzes the extent of the income disparity in China between the rich and the poor, it cause and effect and the plausible solutions to this problem. Research has shown that income disparity in China between the rich and the poor have continued to increase since 1978 when China opened it boundaries for trade with the rest of the world. According to the China national bureau of statistics, the standard income earning of the 10% richest people in china was 10.9 times higher compared to that of the 10% poorest in the year 2009. In 1985, the figure was just 2. 9 times ((Anon, 148). It can be seen that the gap between the poor has thus increased incredibly. Since 1978 when China opened it door to international trade, per capital income has increased unbelievably. For instance, within the period of 1985 to 2010, the per capital income has increased by 55 times. This has however come from the urban area with the rural area experiencing lesser growth. The earning gap between the rural and city dwellers had reduced from 2.6 to 2.5 times in the 1970 and from 2.3 to 1.9 times in the 80s. However, it widened to 3.3 times in 2009. This is disregarding the fact that there are some social amenities such as good roads, health care house subsidies and other amenities enjoyed by the city dweller which are not available to the rural people further increasing the disparity (Cai, 130). This thus implies that the disparity many even be more than six times larger. The major obstacle in overcoming the income disparity issue is because the affluent have a greater opportunity of increasing their wealth compared to other people. For instance, from 1985 to 2010, the rich recorded a 38 fold increase in their earnings; the people in the middle class register a 21fold increase while the poor only

Movie Concept Proposal Essay Example for Free

Movie Concept Proposal Essay The gender of the target audience I believe would mostly be males because in gangster films, males take the prominent role and women are sometimes degraded in the roles they play. For our film, the gender of the target audience would mainly be males, though females could be attracted to the film also. 4. Background: I. Time:1949-1980 II. Place:Taipei III. Event or specific social context:In December 1949, Chiang evacuated his government to Taiwan and made Taipei the temporary capital of the ROC (also called the wartime capital by Chiang Kai-shek). Some 2 million people, consisting mainly of soldiers, members of the ruling Kuomintang and the intellectual and business elites, were evacuated from mainland China to Taiwan at that time, adding to the earlier population of approximately six million. After the 228 Incident, the conflicts between the benshengren and waishengren turn white hot. The different goals of the Chinese Nationalists and the Taiwanese, coupled with cultural and language misunderstandings served to further inflame tensions on both sides. The early Han Chinese immigrants known as the benshengren (Chinese: ; literally home-province person) in Chinese, which often referred to native Taiwanese in English, but the term is also frequently used for the Taiwanese aborigines. The people who emigrated from mainland China after 1945 known as waishengren. 5. Characters:(1) Xiang( ) (2) Shin( ) (3) Mei( ) (4) Li( )Xiang’s father (6) Han( )Shin’s father 6. Scenario:The relationship between Xiang, Shin and Mei was just a case of playmates in their childhood. Xiang’s father, Li, was one of the soldiers who evacuated from mainland China to Taiwan at 1949. One day, when Li was working at canny plant, he met Hua, a beautiful Hak-ka girl, and then they fell in love. Xiang was born in 1954, Taipei. Xiang’s family and Shin’s family lived next door; as a result, they became best friends. When they got to elementary school, they met Mei. They didnt keep anything from each other. After Graduated from elementary school, they entered a school in which most of the students were born locally. As one of only three non-locals in Xiang’s class, he became a frequent target of bullying; he and fellow students with roots in the mainland began to form gangs for their own protection. He didn’t know why, and He was confused that why those local students hate him. He swore to take their revenge on those who bullied him. He joined a local gang at 12, and United Bamboo Association (uniting all the non-local gangs to stand up against another local gang) was created a couple of years later. The friendship between Xiang and Shin was broken. After few years, Shin became a cup and Mei married him†¦ This is a story about love and hatred between them and also the struggles about family, nation and gangster. 7. Main Issues: (1) the contradiction and struggles between Benshengren and Waishengren (2) the struggles and conflicts between friendship and gangster (3) the love and hatred between young people (4) the grief of nobody in the great era (5) Cooperation and Symbiosis is the only way for a Healthy Taiwan 8. Marketing Strategy: (1) Where:Focus on metropolis. Taipei, New Taipei City, Taichung, Tainan and Kaohsiung. (2) How: (a) Starting up to a year before the release of a major studio movie, distributors run movie trailers that are meticulously edited and audience-tested. The idea is to give moviegoers a taste of the laughs, special effects and plot twists of the studios upcoming releases, while leaving them wanting more. (b) About the same time that the first trailers hit the theaters, the movie studio will unveil an official Web site for the film. Typical movie Web sites allow visitors to view multiple versions of the trailer, watch behind-the-scenes interviews and mini-documentaries, read plot synopses, download cell-phone ringtones and desktop wallpaper, play games, and chat in forums and even pre-order tickets. (c) As the release date of the film draws closer, try to get early favorable press coverage in newspapers, magazines and on entertainment TV shows. (d) To bombard the public with so many images and promos for the movie that it becomes a cant miss event. Plaster the sides of buses with huge ads, run tons of teaser trailers on TV, place full-page ads in major newspapers and magazines, and the movies stars will show up on all of the major talk shows. (e) Place rich, interactive ads on the Web sites most trafficked by their target audience. They can also release behind-the-scenes clips, and other viral videos on video-sharing sites like YouTube. 9. Poster Design (pictures amp; copywriting) The characters in the poster from left to right are Xiang, Mei and Shin. In the poster, the Chinese word â€Å"Yi†(? )means the loyalty in friends or gangster, where is Xiang’s second family, just like his home. The historical novel â€Å"Romance of the Three Kingdoms† glorified Guan Yu by portraying him as a righteous and loyal warrior. Guan Yu was one of the most altered and aggrandized characters in the novel, which accounted for his popular image in Chinese society. As a result, I used the image of â€Å"Guan Gong† to represent the meaning of â€Å"Yi†, which also means loyalty in Chinese word.

The Gothic Genre :: Literature

Throughout the late twentieth century, and now into the twenty-first, critics have expressed growing anxiety about the slippery boundaries of the Gothic genre. (Rintoul 701) The capacity of the Gothic to survive, and particularly to interbreed with other imaginative modes so as to engender much more complex and valuable literary phenomena than itself, was extraordinary. (Moynahan 110) Overview of the Gothic Novel The Gothic novel is said to "flourish in disrupted, oppressed, or undeveloped societies, to give a voice to the powerless and unenfranchised" and therefore "often carries a heavily political or metapolitical charge" (Moynahan 111). For this reason, particular groups of writers, such as women (Ellis 48) and Anglo-Irish people (Moynahan 111), were often associated with the genre. While the relationship between Anglo-Irish writers and their usage of Gothic conventions may be related to the formation of the genre of the national tale, it may be less clear why and how women employed the genre. Although it is uncertain whether women actually did participate in reading more Gothic novels than men did the Gothic romance in particular has long been associated with women. The other major genre associated with women at the time -- the novel of Sensibility -- may actually be understood by some scholars as being in conflict with the genre of the Gothic. Patricia Meyer Spacks, for instance, sugges ts that "the relationship between sublimity and sensibility presents real complications...[and while] Gothic novels typically attempt sublimity, [they] rely heavily on sensibility [instead]" (198-199). As sites of contradiction and contentment in this regard, and with the great propensity of female Gothic writers, it is unsurprising that the genre "became the site of a heartfelt and, at times, bitter debate about the nature and politics of femininity" (Ellis 48). The Children of the Abbey as a Gothic Novel I would like to suggest that the Gothic romance is a way of reinscribing the basic Pamela situation, in which a young lady is cut off from the controlling and protecting influence of her parents, is threatened (in life, limb, and virtue) by a villain; partly by good fortune and partly by the skillful use of her own native resources, the young lady is ultimately able to overcome and surmount the threat and is rewarded by being married to a young man of good family, wealth, and ethical standing.

Natural Sciences Essay

What is it about theories in natural and human sciences that make them so convincing? During the course of my Biology HL syllabus, I came across the theory of the fluid mosaic model. I instantly considered this theory to be absolute and accurate. This level of certainty was created with the first reading of the theory, and evoked the question as to what makes the theories formulated in natural and human sciences as convincing as they are. Both Natural and Human scientists take pride in the fact that their work is the result of long, precise and experimental research and the fact that their theories are able to overcome the skeptical approach of human nature and produce enough certainty in people to accept their work without further questioning. I will attempt to state and explain the reasons for this creation of such certainty by incorporating three areas of knowledge. Firstly, natural sciences and how they are so convincing despite the lack of certainty. Then I will elaborate on the human sciences and how its theories are debatable and the difference between the two sciences. Lastly I will intrude into the ethical aspect of the knowledge issue, as conflicting emotions and reason are essential in creating the faith and belief in the theories formulated by these explicit and evidence rich areas of knowledge. We as humans are generally skeptical about various sources of information, but this skeptic approach does not apply to science as we consider all scientific information to be true and from a reliable source. This approach reveals the fact that evidence and understanding of the concept is a key factor assisting the reasoning of the mind. While studying Taxation in microeconomics, I realized that theories that are said to produce a certain effect are not realistically proven or implemented in the real world. For example, a theory in taxation states that, if a tax is imposed on a producer with inelastic supply then the entire tax incidence is borne by the producers themselves. But, in reality such a situation does not exist, the producers generally raise prices to higher levels where the revenue is more than sufficient to pay the tax imposed on them, which means that the consumers actually bear the brunt of the new taxation policy. We accept such theories at first as they are said to be formulate by a reliable source and seem to be probable. So why do the theories from these areas of knowledge appear so convincing to us despite the uncertainties that are presented by them? Why are they accepted as the truth even before they are completely evaluated? It is evident that the reason we trust science as a reliable and infallible source of information is because we believe in science. This belief has led to the creation of faith towards science, which has compelled us to accept all that science offers without a doubt of reason. The psychology behind this belief exclaims that we believe in science the same way as we believe that our new car is not going to explode on its first travel. Cars stay safe more often than not and science in the same way has proven itself accurate many more times than it has been proved wrong. The belief and faith induced by scientific theories has been developed over time through constant provision of proof and evidence, which are the basic requirements for human beings to trust in something. While studying and understanding theories regarding sub-atomic particles, which are practically invisible, such as the VSEPR theory or the theory of hybridization, I don’t question the strength of the theory itself as it is a result of extensive research and has overcome the challenges posed by many to prove them wrong. Thus, the efforts to prove the theory wrong and the failure to do so have actually strengthened the belief in science, thus providing a logical and universal explanation justifying the theory formulated. Also, human nature suggests that we need to believe in something, and more often than not people choose the logical, experimental and evidence rich path provided by science. We tend to believe in the ideals a majority believes, be it a country, a city, a community or even our immediate family. For example, if your family believes that the economic crisis will eventually affect your future, even you tend to follow â€Å"convention† and believe in the same thing. Taking the example of the cure for cancer, people at first did not believe that cancer was ever curable due the number of deaths that had amounted. Their belief that the drug developed, actually cured cancer was eventually strengthened as the positive evidences kept increasing. Today if a scientist says that he has developed a new cure for cancer, people would believe in the drug as they know science has accomplished it before, and hence can probably achieve the same feat again. In the natural sciences, research begins with a hypothesis which is followed by experiments and later proof of whether the hypothesis is accurate or is invalid. In contrast to this, we observe that in many experiments conducted, the results vary marginally and hence hamper the certainty of the research, which means that scientists have o rely on various degrees of certainty based on their recorded values to establish the overall certainty of a research project. This implies that many of the theories being applied today are not of absolute certainty, thus the use of such theories can be attributed to our belief and faith in science as a reliable source of information. Shifting the focus to my second area of knowledge which is human sciences, I’d like to state its primary objectives to help understand the formulation of the theories more effectively. The aims of virtually all human sciences are the same: to explain human behavior, formulate theories to predict it, and then develop remedies for the problems identified by those predictions. They use the same scientific method as natural sciences but cannot hypothesize the reactions of the human beings, as each of them respond to the research questions in different ways and depict different and forms of emotion and reasoning depending upon the kind of questions asked. Most research in human sciences begins with intuition which then leads to proof. Here, the scientists believe that a particular stimulus would produce a certain behavioral effect on a person or a community that is being experimented upon and the statistics collected are processed to analyze the change in behavior. These theories regarding human behavior are accurate for a majority of the trials but often there are exceptions which destabilize the foundation of the theory, which again affect the belief people have in the theories in human sciences. Taking an example from economics; the Keynesian and the Monetarist views are contrasting market development methods which argue the role of the government in regulating the market function in the economy. One proposes intense government intervention whereas the other proposes minimal intrusion by it respectively. Till the 2007 global recession the markets followed the monetarist model but the immense financial problems caused and market failures recorded called for a reform which turned the governments towards the Keynesian model. This signifies that more often than not the theories in human sciences stand, but they can be overcome and felled with the inclusion of a strong stimulus. And if the theories prove ineffective there would always be another theory formulated as backup which could be applied and the same expected results could be yielded. The economic example presented here stresses on the fairly large margin for error present in the human sciences, which primarily differentiates it from natural science which are purely dependent on proofs and evidence. Also the common element prevalent in both these sciences is that of research period. Theories of both sciences require a long and strenuous research period to incorporate all the hypothesis, observations, experiments, and data collection, which are required to prove the theory. These similarities and dissimilarities introduce us to the ethical concept of certainty which plays a vital role in balancing out the conflict between emotion and reason. We perceive science to be a reliable and an accurate source of information due to its extensively experimental, research dependent and foolproof nature, i. . we are emotionally inclined towards the sciences as they have the proof to back up their theories. But as we see from the examples, they do not offer complete certainty as there is always an exception to a particular theory and hence by reason, our belief in science should be far less than it actually is. The simple explanation to this would be that reason favors science as it has proven itself more often than not and as we have observed, failure to prove theories wrong increases and strengthens our belief in its relevance and accuracy. Thus we can conclude by answering the primary question staged in the introduction as to what makes theories formulated by the sciences so convincing. The extensive research involved and the proof presented in favor of the theory play a major role in developing the certainty, this is well complimented by the belief and faith science has cultivated in human beings and the strong the emotional and reasonable backing that has been made available by this belief in them.