Thursday, January 30, 2020

The conflicts of the play Essay Example for Free

The conflicts of the play Essay How does Arthur Miller use the stage and dramatic techniques to introduce the conflicts of the play? The Crucible was written by Arthur Miller; the play is about the witch trials that took place in Salem, Massachutes in 1692. Arthur Miller wrote the play because the communist trials were taking place at that time in the United States. Miller and some of his friends were involved in the trials. Many of the conflicts of the communist trials were similar to the Salem witch trials, which is why I think that Miller wrote The Crucible. In act 1 and act 2 Miller uses the staging and dramatic techniques to reflect these conflicts. The main conflicts of the play are: good verses evil, which is show in act 1. Public invading the private this is also show in act 1, and the personal relationship between John Proctor and Elizabeth Proctor, this is shown in act 2. Arthur Miller starts to introduce the conflicts of the play with his set design. Act 1 takes place in Reverend Parriss house, in the attic room. The characters involved in the opening set are Parris and his young daughter Betty. Act 2 takes place in the Proctors house, it is set in the common room. There are no characters in the opening of act 2 but soon after John Proctor and Elizabeth enter. Act 1 the room is lit by light from the sun, Through its leaded panes the morning sunlight streams the light is pure which symbolises reverend Parris as pure. However it is entering the room is through a narrow window, which shows Parris is a narrow-minded person. This symbolises that in act 1 the characters are pure but restrictive as the window is leaded. This shows the conflict of good verses evil. Whereas in act 2 the room is described as low dark and rather long living room this shows that the proctors are dark and shows that they are hiding a secret, the secret is that john had committed adultery with Abigail. The only light in the room is that from the fireplace. This symbolises that in act 2 characters are dark and gloomy people. In act 1 the bedroom is upstairs with a staircase leading downstairs, this symbolises that the characters in this scene start off with a high status but throughout the play they are moving downwards towards hell. There are also people downstairs, which shows the conflict of the public are intruding on their private lives, whereas the Proctors lives are private and personal. The warmth in each sets also shows the differences between the characters, in act 1 the room is lit by only a candle, this symbolises that Reverend Parris is a cold-hearted man, however the Proctors house is also very cold its winter in here. Another difference between the set designs is that act 1 has a clean spareness this shows that its empty of love and nurturing. In act 2 the room is cold because Elizabeth is cold of suspicion. The idea of a crucible plays a large part in both acts. A crucible removes impurities through intense heat, which is what the play is about, the characters are put thorough an intense trial which at the end will prove who is pure and who isnt. As the curtain rises in act 1 we are shown Betty lying inert and sickly on the bed. Reverend Parris is praying at the side of the bed. He is concerned about Betty, he is on his knee, which symbolises that he is asking for forgiveness. Tituba rushes in, as she is concerned about Betty. We can see that she is troubled and distressed, but as soon as she steps in she immediately steps backwards, this symbolises that she is worried about Betty but she also know her place as a servant and is afraid of Parris. Parris is concerned about Betty but he is more concerned about his reputation ith the people downstairs. Act 2 opens on a dark and low room, but we can hear Elizabeth softly singing to the children, this shows that she is a loving mother. John Procter walks in with a gun and places it down, he then walks over to the food and tastes it then he adds salt this shows he is not satisfied with Elizabeths cooking. The stew is a symbol of John and Elizabeths relationship, the stew is plain like Elizabeth, so John spices it up with salt the same way he spiced up his life by committing adultery with Abigail. After that he washes his hands and sits down for dinner when Elizabeth joins him. He washes his washes his hands when he hears Elizabeth coming, this shows that it is a guilty act. She brings him his food and sits with him while he eats. When john is asked how the food tastes by Elizabeth he lies and says its well seasoned he lies to her to cover up the guilt of having an affair with Abigail. When they are talking to each other we can sense some distance between them, John is trying to make it up to her I mean to please you, Elizabeth but Elizabeth is finding it hard to forgive him as she finds it hard to reply to him. In my opinion I think Arthur Millers style was very effective. He used different ways to symbolise the differences between the scenes and characters. His set designs were very helpful to judge the type of people the play was about.

Wednesday, January 22, 2020

Critical Themes in the Writings of Hemingway: Life & Death, Fishing, Wa

Critical Themes in the Writings of Hemingway: Life & Death, Fishing, War, Sex, Bullfighting, and the Mediterranean Region Hemingway brought a tremendous deal of what is middle class Americanism into literature, without very many people recognizing what he has done. He had nothing short of a writer’s mind; a mind like a vacuum cleaner that swept his life experiences clean, picking up any little thing, technique, or possible subject that might be of use (Astro 3). From the beginning, Hemingway had made a careful and conscientious formula for the art of the novel (Hoffman 142). This preconceived formula contained certain themes that recur with great frequency and power throughout Hemingway’s writings. Such themes include an obsessive fascination with life and death, an interest in fishing, war, bullfighting, a strange perception of sex and an unusual fixation on the Mediterranean region. In Hemingway’s writings, the symbols are implicit; they follow the laws of reality to such a degree that in themselves they form a whole story (Wilson 2). Hemingway’s hero’s battles consist of conquering dread, a dread which is connected with earlier experiences, and which appears as a fear of life or death. These two elements, life and death, seem to take two opposite forms, but in reality they are the same. Life ends with death, because death is a constituent part of life, therefore life includes death (Scott 24). If you follow the main lines through Hemingway’s writings, you will very easily discover that everything deals with a sick, mortally wounded man’s fight to overcome the dread arising from his meeting with life (Young 21). In Hemingway’s world, death begins in childhood, as described with unsurpassed mastery in the short story â€Å"Indian Camp.† This story tells of young boy, Nick, who is present while his father, the doctor, performs a cesarean section on an Indian woman, without anesthesia, equipped with only a jackknife and fishing leaders to sew the wound up with. The Indian woman’s husband lies in the upper bunk during the operation, with the woolen blanket drawn up over his head. When they lift up the blanket, he has cut his throat. It is here that Hemingway’s long autobiography begins; this is how it feels to be human. Nick, the hero, has received his wound. He is scared to death, and all of his later experiences are more or less repetitions... .... Detroit: Gale, 1973. 142. Geismar, Maxwell. â€Å"Ernest Hemingway: At the Crossroads.† American Moderns: From Rebellion to Conformity. (1958): 54-8. Rpt. in Contemporary Literary Criticism. Ed. Carolyn Riley. Vol. 1. Detroit: Gale, 1973. 142. Fiedler, Leslie A. â€Å"Hemingway.† Love and Death in the American Novel. (1966): 316-17. Rpt. in Contemporary Literary Criticism. Ed. Carolyn Riley. Vol. 1. Detroit: Gale, 1973. 143. Frohock, W.M. â€Å"Ernest Hemingway-The River and the Hawk.† The Novel of Violence in America. (1957): 166-98. Rpt. in Contemporary Literary Criticism. Ed. Carolyn Riley. Vol.1. Detroit: Gale, 1973. 141. Oliver, Charles M. Ernest Hemingway A to Z. New York: Facts on File, 1999. Reynolds, Michael S. Hemingway’s First War: The Making of â€Å"A Farewell to Arms.† New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1976. Rovit, Earl. Ernest Hemingway. Boston: Twayne, 1963. Scott, Nathan A. Jr. Ernest Hemingway: A Critical Essay. Michigan: William B. Eerdman, 1966. Wilson, M. â€Å"Ernest Hemingway.† Lost Generation (1993). 16 Feb. 2001 {http://www.lostgeneration.com/hembio.html}. Young, Philip. Ernest Hemingway. Great Britain: The Oxford University Press, 1964.

Monday, January 13, 2020

Wonder Drug

Wonder Drug Most people know that Penicillin is an extremely important drug, but few know just how important and influential it really is. Think about what life would be like today without it. What would be of contemporary medicine today? Would society as a whole succumb to these relentless infinitesimal organisms? What would have been of one’s ancestors if they too like so many before and after incurred a serious infection? This essay shall explore these questions and many like it. It will explain why penicillin is undoubtedly the best medication of the century, perhaps the best medication ever in existence.Penicillin is produced by a bread mold, known as Penicillium. The discovery of Penicillin sometimes referred to as the â€Å"wonder drug† has been the most important drug to date. It has the ability to kill just about any bacterial infection and at the time of it’s creation there was no other drug or anything like it. To this date it has saved millions of chi ldren, women, men and animals. The wonder drug was originally discovered purely by accident by one Alexander Fleming, a Scottish Scientist in the year 1928.Penicillin was later developed further by many different Scientists who were able to use it to create numerous versions of antibiotics to cure a vast range of illnesses. Antibiotics have been used for several years in treatment for a variety of skin disorders, sexually transmitted diseases, strep throat, and respiratory illnesses. Before Penicillin was discovered, if one were to have a serious infection, death was irrefutable. People often would die of the smallest wounds due to bacterial infections. Bacteria mutates quite often, creating antibiotic-resistant organisms. Which makes it become resistant to the drug.Even with this said, there are still only a small amount of bacteria that Penicillin and it’s predecessors can not tackle and over come. One of Penicillin’s most advertised uses was for combating sexually t ransmitted diseases. There are websites that show old advertisements for penicillin on the side of mailboxes that shamelessly state, â€Å"Penicillin cures gonorrhea in four hours see your doctor today. †   Believe it or not during the late 1940’s researchers from the United States performed experimental studies in Guatemala. They had to because these types of studies were not allowed in the states.So with the cooperation of the Guatemalan government, local prostitutes were used to pass on STD’s to prisoners, insane asylum patients, and Guatemalan soldiers to test the wonder drug’s effectiveness. Out of approximately thirteen hundred infected people, eighty three died. Although at that time it was not possible to establish if the experiments were the actual cause of death. Penicillin made a major difference in the amount of amputees and deaths during World War II. Because of the difficulties of manufacturing large amounts of Penicillin, availability was extremely limited.Imagine what the death toll would have been if Penicillin had not been made readily available? In fact Penicillin was so scarce, that in it’s infancy, medical personnel would collect the urine from patients and filter the drug from the urine and reuse it. This is because Penicillin passes through the body at rapid rate, usually in about three to four hours. So some may wonder what makes Penicillin so significant, and what makes it the most important medical drug that has ever come into existence? A lot would argue perhaps Morphine or even the Smallpox vaccines are better examples for the most valuable drug.And although one who would argue this may have some validity to one’s argument in an overall comparison there is really no comparison. Smallpox was a devastating disease that crippled the world, the survival rate was approximately seventy percent, which left the other thirty percent of it’s victims suffering immensely. One who contracted thi s disease would develop blisters and a high fever and often feel malaise with head and body aches and sometimes experience violent vomiting. The blisters were excruciatingly painful and there was little to ease the pain and suffering for its victims.The fever was like none other, often so high that it would cause seizures and hallucinations. It was not until the year 1796 that the Smallpox vaccine was created by a scientist named Edward Jenner. Yet as significant of a vaccine this was it does not outweigh the benefits of Penicillin. At the time Smallpox was a great vaccine for the world. After the world wide eradication though, there was no longer a demand for it. The only people who receive the vaccine currently are military personnel and government contractors traveling overseas. Which in a way is better considering the risks of the vaccine.Some of the risks include seizures, an actual mild case of smallpox, risk spreading it to others by being careless with one’s open woun ds, plus it only provides ninety five percent immunity for up to five years. Penicillin has a decent amount of competing antibiotic drugs such as Clindamycin, Azithromycin, Doxycyclin. First and foremost these would not be in existence if it wasn’t for the creation of Penicillin to perpetuate the making of these. All of the competitor drugs are just various versions of Penicillin so as one can see there is very little argument that it’s predecessors are only what they are because of Penicillin’s creation.The only difference between all of these is the functionality due to the amino group and the gram spectrum of the bacteria one heals. This basically means that each one of these targets a different part or kind of bacteria, but still uses the same principle of the original drug. This is why as stated above there is no argument when it comes to the importance of the creation of Penicillin. This essay has explored what Penicillin is, why it is so influential, and who has benefited from it.It has been used in an array of situations from anything such as a sexually transmitted diseases to strep throat. There is no discrediting the fact that without Penicillin the world as one knows it would never have come into existence, this is why Penicillin is conclusively the most important medical drug ever in existence. Works Cited â€Å"Drugs. † Questions and Answers for Consumers on Penicillin G Procaine. Food and Drug Administration, 23 May 2003. Web. 11 Mar. 2013. . â€Å"Smallpox Disease Overview. † CDC Smallpox. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 30 Dec. 2004. Web. 11 Mar. 2013. .

Sunday, January 5, 2020

Computing Machinery And Intelligence By Alan Turing

Defining intelligence is extremely difficult and researchers now think that there are lots of different aspects to it, including; social, logical, creative, emotional and practical intelligence. The correct representation of the word is arguably a matter of opinion as there are many different definitions. With this argument in mind, it makes the task of arguing a Computers level of intelligence (if any) harder as, ultimately, each person’s definition could be different. A part of being intelligent is the ability for something/someone to be able to think for themselves which most computers aren’t able to do as they are simply programmed to perform certain functions which means that they are not in control of their response. However modern technologies have the propensity to make decisions based on an input from an end user. For example Apples ‘Siri’ service turns voice commands in visual and audio responses. Alan Turing put this argument forward in his 1950 paper Computing Machinery and Intelligence†. His opening pages of the paper begin with the words; I propose to consider the question, Can machines think?† (Alan Turing 1950). My main argument to this is that a computer does not have the ability to think, primarily because it was created rather than ‘born and raised’. What is a computer? There are thousands of different types of computers that are built for an extremely vast range of purposes, but overall, what do you class as a computer? Anything with a CPU?Show MoreRelatedComputing Machinery And Intelligence By Alan Turing1469 Words   |  6 PagesIn his paper â€Å"Computing Machinery and Intelligence,† Alan Turing sets out to answer the question of whether machines can think in the same humans can by conceptualizing the question in concrete terms. In simple terms, Turing redefines the question by posing whether a machine can replicate the cognition of a human being. 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