The Theme Of Alienation Loneliness And Selfhood English Literature Essay

The Theme Of Alienation Loneliness And Selfhood English Literature Essay In Krapps last tape, Krapp systematically distanced himself from companionship and love of other people. When Krapp was twenty nine years old, he lived with a woman named Bianca, whose love he later described as a hopeless business despite the fact that she truly loved him and possessed very warm eyes that always seemed to impress him (Beckett 54). After the death of his mother when Krapp was only thirty nine, he felt that life had lost meaning. This is evident from the words he said to his new love that it was hopeless and there was nothing positive about life. He rejected his lover and completely lived alone from this time onwards, although he was sometimes visited by Fanny, who was a bony old ghost of whore (Beckett 98). At the age of sixty nine, Krapp was only accompanied by his loneliness during his birthday celebration, whereby he spent the day in a pub deeply occupied by heavy thoughts of his past life and his lost chance for love and fulfilled life (Beckett 67). Krapps last tape is a compact statement of a mans predicament as a prisoner of time. He preserved the worst for himself and threw the best away by rejecting love of others. At the age of sixty nine, the only thing he could do was to play a tape he made when he was thirty nine, reminding him of the last love that he rejected when he still had potential for happiness in life (Beckett 89). Krapp was a lonely man, whose isolation was self inflicted. He viewed women as bad influence and valued his career as a writer more than any human companionship or relationship. He confessed that he could not withstand the thought of his future career as a writer being interfered with by women and love (Beckett 89). Krapp chose a tape recorder to be his sole companionship. He seemed to find comfort in recorded voice, which he faithfully listened to, even in old age. However, although Krapp lived like he did not need anyones company, he seems to have been inwardly desperate to have someone to engage in a conversation. He eventually discovered that he had made a terrible mistake by forsaking the rest of humanity (Beckett 130). Loneliness, selfishness and selfhood are clearly illustrated throughout Krapps character and way of life. He never found satisfaction in life even after selfishly living a lonely life that he had chosen to live and he realized that the selfhood that he had discovered had truly misled him. He realized that he needed other people and the rest of the world in order to be fulfilled but it was already too late. In Kate Chopins story of an hour, Mrs. Mallard went through feelings of relief as soon as she received the bad news of her husbands death, which was said to have occurred in a train accident. Although at first she was sorrowful and confused by the news of her husbands death, she was suddenly relieved by the thought of being free from marriage and slavery of love. She knew that no amount of love and security could pay the lack of control over her own existence (Chopins 194). Mrs. Mallard seemed to have been controlled by society, pretending to be happy and fulfilled in her marriage. As molded by the society, she appeared to be a perfect wife, who enjoyed companionship of her husband and loved being a wife. She suppressed her true selfhood and sacrificed her delight to please the society, pretending to be happily married. As expressed in her reaction and sigh of relief when she heard the news of her husbands death, it is quite evident that she had always inwardly struggled with her marriage to Mr. Bently Mallard, that was dominated by male chauvinism. Feminism shown through freedom upon her husbands death explains her happiness and relief to be alone, free from bondage of marriage and love (Chopin 193). Her own feelings of freedom came back possessing her when she first uttered the words free, free! In this story, Mrs. Mallard is described as a woman who had forgotten and abandoned herself throughout the entire period of marriage to her husband. The husband is described as being happy with the marriage, despite the fact that Mrs. Mallard was not happy and inwardly viewed the marriage as slavery. Her emotions had been stiffled and and suppressed to fit into hollow social conventions of the society. She was the submissive woman, who believed that her husband had a right to impose his will on her (Jamil 216). However, she suddenly gained control over herself after discovering that she had been set free from bondage of marriage and slavery of love by the death of her husband. She embraced visions of a bright future and realized that whether she had loved him or not was not important anymore, all what was important to her now was the possession of self assertion that she experienced afte r his death. (Choppin 193, 194). This was the nineteenth century American womans hour of awakening into selfhood, which gives her immesurable joy and beauty of life. (Jamil 215). Her happiness after discovery of her selfhood was so strong that when she realized that her husband was not dead, she immediately collapsed. She could not imagine how she was going to abandon her new found freedom and return to life with her husband, where she would be required to bend her will to his. Mrs. Mallard preferred to live alone, without her husband because that meant freedom to her just like Mr. Krapp chose to live alone and viewed women and love as a hopeless business. To him, they would interfere with his freedom of pursuing his writing career, while to Mrs. Mallard, the presence of her husband was a permanent bondage to slavery that had taken away her freedom and selfhood. The story of a sorrowful woman by Gail Godwin depicts a wife and a mother who gradually withdrew from her family after becoming overwhelmed by her husbands and childs presence and completely shut them out of her life. Their presence was a daily reminder of the fact that she had lost her freedom as well as her self- identity and her life would never be the same again (Godwin 78). She wanted her freedom and her self -identity back. She wanted to stay away from her husband, her child and the rest of the community and live a lonely life because to her that would be more fulfilling, just like Mr. Krapp. She viewed marriage as a source of pain, that had taken away her identity, her selfhood and her freedom. She further wanted to stay away from the society that advocated for marriage and therefore decided to live a lonely life. However, what she considered as freedom and selfhood did not give her the fulfillment that she had longed to have. Her dissatisfaction with her role as a mother and a dutiful wife made her to try many other alternatives in life but she did not find satisfaction in any of the options that she tried out. She did not find any particular role that could suit her and therefore she ended up withdrawing from the rest of the world. This is illustrated by the coldness and isolation of the undecorated white room that she moved into. She even pictured herself as a virgin in a tower, untouchable and profoundly isolated (Goldwin 117). This shows that she had not only isolated herself physically from her family and the rest of the world but also emotionally thus making herself an outsider looking in on the world. She viewed her family as source of bondage, slavery and dissatisfaction in life. However, isolating herself from the rest of the society did not give her any satisfaction like she had expected. She only ended up being a lonely woman, both physically and emotionally. The theme of alienation, selfhood and loneliness cut across the three stories discussed. The three main characters in the stories viewed family as a source of bondage, limitations and dissatisfaction in life. It is portrayed as a form of slavery that would tie women and men to their families and take away their freedom as well as their selfhood. These stories portray traditional marriages whereby women are supposed to be submissive to their husbands and be good home makers as unfulfilling and undermining to women. The women discussed here are seemingly tired of living under bondage and slavery of their husbands and the entire society and are looking for liberation and freedom. They want to rediscover themselves and find more fulfilling roles that define them and give them a voice as useful members of the society. They can no longer stand the idea of being dominated by society as well as by their husbands as clearly observed when Mrs. Mallard collapsed on discovering the truth that he r husband was truly alive and not dead as it had been reported. On the other hand freedom in these stories is categorically accompanied by loneliness and lack of fulfillment as portrayed by Krapp and Godwin. The woman in Godwins story did not find any satisfaction in her loneliness after abandoning her family and the society at large. Her freedom brought more emotional and physical dissatisfaction as she tried to rediscover herself and even to assign her new roles, which only tormented her mental and emotionally, causing even more pain to her life. After spending all his life alone with the tape recorder as his sole companion, Krapp finally came to his senses and realized that he had actually ruined his own life because he was lonely and desperate for companion. He realized that listening to the tape recorder alone could not give him the delight and the fulfillment that he had longed to have in his entire life. However, it was already too late as he was already an old man.

Electoral Basis Of The Two-par :: essays research papers

In the article â€Å"Electoral Basis of the Two Party System† by Maurice Duverger, the political party systems are dissected and looked at from many points of view. Democratic countries can have the political party system range from a two party system, such as the one in the United States, to a many party system, such as the party system in France and Italy. This article also gives the specific views of those few people whom are opposed to the political party systems as well as those few that are for the political party systems. In speaking of those that are in opposition to the political party system, many views and opinions are expressed. The political party system is called a party oligarchy because of the way the election process occurs. The article says, â€Å"The party oligarchy is widened without ever becoming a democracy, for the election is carried out by the members, who are a minority in comparison with those who give their votes to the party in general elections.† Duverger also states that parties usually tend to create an opinion formed by propaganda and improper procedure, such as the ballot procedure. In conclusion, â€Å"the party system is less a photograph of opinion is a projection of the party system.† According to this statement, Duverger expresses that â€Å"the general development of parties tries to emphasize their deviation from the democratic regime [which is a mode of system of rule or government].† The electoral processes are gradually losing ground in the appointment of leaders by nomination or co-option. Because of this fact, â€Å"discipline among members is tightened both by these material means and by an even greater effort of propaganda and persuasion which leads them to venerate the Party and its leaders and to believe in their infallibility.† This statement leads others to believe that a system without political parties would be better for the country as well as for the governmental system of that particular country. Democracy was built on the basis of the eighteenth-century philosophical ideas, which the experts think is true and justifiable. Duverger states that all governments are oligarchic, which means the domination of many by the few. Governments of all types imply discipline, which means â€Å"All discipline is imposed from without: ‘self-discipline’ is itself the result of education, which implies a prior external discipline, and is always very limited.† After looking at a few things that are wrong with governments and why the political party system should be non-existent, â€Å"true democracy is something different, more modest but more real.

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Men's employment status is still their main source of self-worth (Bronzed and Herrmann 1999; Broodier 2001; Connell 2002; Hear 2004), and thus advertising, which aims to convince men that they should take consumption more seriously needs to place commodities in the context of public achievement – particularly if these also involve purchases for the sterilization of men's own bodies, their personal appearance and the personal realm in general.Yet, even the growing impact of male lifestyle magazines – mainly addressing younger men – has not been totally successful in persuading mainstream adult men that they should consume in a more conspicuous way: on the one hand more like women, yet still distinctively as ‘real' men. Therefore, advertising uses all tricks of the trade to masculine its products through its promotional appeals, to invoice the male target group that it Is no longer enough Just to be a man and act like a man: the message is that men must demon strate and legitimate dominant status by masculine ways of consumption (Williamson 1986; Nixon 2003, Gristle 1998).In her study of popular media from a feminist perspective, van Zone maintains that as a cultural form, ‘advertising displays a preoccupation with gender that Is hardly matched In any genre' (1994: 67). Referring to Saffron's seminal work of 1979 on gender and advertisements, van Zone underlines the obsession with gender which is typical for advertising as a form of popular culture: ‘This obsession Is said to spring from the â€Å"signifying power† of gender.Advertisements and commercials need to convey meaning within limited space and time and will therefore exploit symbols that are relevant and salient to society as a whole. As one of the most deeply felt elements of subjectivity and the social structure, gender provides such symbols most effectively (1994: 67). The typical conventions In advertisements addressing either men or women reflect he struc tural gendered differences based on the private/public dichotomy.Stereotypically, female audiences are addressed with fantasies of Woman as body, as object or provider of physical pleasure for others, whether In sexualities or non- sexualities ways. The personal, Intimate context and the care for self or other are always emphasized, either 220 Martha convince the male target group that it is no longer enough Just to be a man and act status by masculine ways of consumption (Williamson 1986; Nixon 2003, Sureties hat as a cultural form, ‘advertising displays a preoccupation with gender that is hardly matched in any genre' (1994: 67).Referring to Saffron's seminal work of 1979 which is typical for advertising as a form of popular culture: ‘This obsession is said to The typical conventions in advertisements addressing either men or women reflect the structural gendered differences based on the private/public dichotomy. Object or provider of physical pleasure for others, wheth er in sexualities or non- sexualities ways. The personal, intimate context and the care for self or other are

Linear A Undeciphered Writing System of the Minoans

Linear A is the name of one of the writing systems used in ancient Crete between about 2500–1450 BCE, before the arrival of the Mycenaean Greeks. We dont know which language it represents; nor do we fully understand it. It isnt the only ancient script that has so far evaded decipherment; nor is it even the only ancient Cretan script of the time that remains undeciphered. But there was another script in use by the end of Linear As period called Linear B, which British cryptographer Michael Ventris and colleagues deciphered in 1952. There are tantalizing similarities between the two. Undeciphered Cretan Scripts Linear A is one of two main scripts used during the Minoan Proto-palatial period (1900–1700 BC); the other is a Cretan hieroglyphic script. Linear A was used in the central-southern region (Mesara) of Crete, and Cretan hieroglyphic script was used on the northern and northeastern parts of Crete. Some scholars see these as simultaneous scripts, others argue that Hieroglyphic Cretan developed slightly earlier. Conceivably, a third script of the period is that stamped into the Phaistos Disk, a flat disk of fired ceramics about 15 centimeters (6 inches) in diameter. Both sides of the disk have been impressed with mysterious symbols, arranged in lines that spiral towards the centers. The disk was discovered at the Minoan culture site of Phaistos by Italian archaeologist Luigi Pernier in 1908. The symbols on the Phaistos Disk are similar to but not identical to other symbols in use throughout the Mediterranean. Theories about the meaning of the symbols abound. It may or may not be Cretan. It could be a fake or,   if authentic, it could be a game board. Some scholars suggest that the maker wasnt writing anything, she or he simply used motifs that were familiar from seals and amulets and assembled them into groups in order to imitate the appearance of writing. The Phaistos Disk is unlikely to be deciphered unless other examples are found. A Mixed System Invented about 1800 BCE, Linear A is Europes first known syllabary—that is to say, it was a writing system using different symbols to represent syllables rather than pictograms for complete ideas, used for both religious and administrative functions. Although primarily a syllabary, it also includes sematographic symbols/logograms for specific items and abstracts, such as arithmetical symbols showing what appears to be a decimal system with fractions. About 1450 BCE, Linear A disappeared. Scholars are divided about the origins, possible languages and disappearance of Linear A. Some say the disappearance results from invading Mycenaeans who crushed the Cretan culture—Linear B is associated with the Mycenaeans; others such as John Bennett suggest the Linear A script was retooled to include additional signs to record a new language. Certainly, Linear B has more symbols, is more systematic and exhibits a tidier appearance (classicist Ilsa Schoeps term) than Linear A: Schoep interprets this as reflecting the ad hoc nature of reports written in Linear A versus a more regulated archival purpose for those in Linear B. Sources of Linear A and Cretan Hieroglyphic Tablets with inscribed Linear A characters were first discovered by British archaeologist Arthur Evans in 1900. To date, there have been found over 1,400 Linear A documents with about 7,400 different symbols. That is much fewer than Linear B, which has about 4,600 documents with more than 57,000 symbols. Most of the inscriptions are from Neopalatial contexts (1700/1650-1325 BCE), with the end of that period, Late Minoan B (1480-1425 BCE) the most abundant. The vast majority (90 percent) were incised on tablets, sealings, roundels, and nodules, all of which are associated with markets and  trade goods. The other ten percent are objects of stone, pottery, and metal, including some gold and silver. Most of the Linear A documents were found on Crete, but a few are from the Aegean islands, at Miletos in coastal western Anatolia, and possibly at Tiryns in the Peloponnese islands and at Tel Haror in the Levant. Some possible examples have been reported from Troy and Lachish, but those remain controversial among scholars. Linear A scripts have been found in quantity at the Minoan sites of Haghia Triadha, Khania, Knossos, Phaistos, and Malia. More examples (147 tablets or fragments) of Linear A have been found at the Haghia Triadha (near Phaistos) than anywhere else. Why Cant We Crack the Code? There are a few reasons why Linear A is difficult to decipher. Mostly, there are no long text strings, in fact, the documents are primarily lists, with headings followed by a logogram, followed by a number and/or fraction. Classicist John Younger thinks the headers represent a type of transaction, while the entries in the lists are commodities and their descriptions (e.g., fresh/dried, or subset types), and a monetary amount follows that. The purposes of these lists are likely inventories, assessments, collections or contributions, or allocations or disbursements. The lists include several more or less plausible place names: Haghia Triada is probably DA-U-*49 (or da-wo in Linear B); I-DA is likely Mount Ida; and PA-I-TO is likely Phaistos. KI-NU-SU is probably a place name, but recent research has shown it is not very likely to be Knossos. About 10 three-syllable words are identical in A and B, including Phaistos, which occurs 59 times in the corpus. About 2,700 people seem to be recorded in Linear A, some of whom may have been part of a list of available porters. Which Language? Nevertheless, it would help if we knew which languages those who wrote in Linear A spoke. According to John Younger, Linear A is mostly written left to right, in more or less straight rows from top to bottom of the clay document, and sometimes lined. There are at least three vowels, and 90 symbols are used regularly. It is called linear because unlike Cretan hieroglyphs, the characters are abstract, drawn with lines. Hypotheses for the underlying language include a Greek-like language, a distinct Indo-European language, an Anatolian language close to Luwian, an archaic form of Phoenician, Indo-Iranian, and an Etruscan-like language. Computer scientist Peter Revesz has suggested that Cretan Hieroglyphs, Linear A, and Linear B are all part of a Cretan Script Family, with an origin in western Anatolia and perhaps ancestral to Carian.   Linear A and Saffron A 2011 study into possible signs in Linear A that might represent the spice saffron was reported in the Oxford Journal of Archaeology. Archaeologist Jo Day points out that although Linear A has yet to be deciphered, there are recognized ideograms in Linear A that approximate the Linear B ideograms, especially for agricultural commodities such as figs, wine, olives, humans, and some livestock. The Linear B character for saffron is called CROC (the Latin name for saffron is Crocus sativus). During his attempts to crack the Linear A code, Arthur Evans thought he saw some similarities to CROC, but reported no specifics and none is listed in any of the other previous attempts to decipher Linear A (Olivier and Godart or Palmer). Day believes a plausible candidate for a Linear A version of CROC might be one sign with four variants: A508, A509, A510, and A511. The sign is found primarily at Ayia Triadha,   though examples can be seen at Khania and the Villa at Knossos. These instances are dated to the Late Minoan IB period and appear in lists of goods. Previously, researcher Schoep suggested the sign referred to another agricultural commodity, perhaps a herb or spice such as coriander. While the Linear B CROC symbol does not much resemble A511 or the other variants in Linear A, Day points out similarities of A511 to the configuration of the crocus flower itself. She suggests that the Linear B sign for saffron may have been a deliberate adaptation of the crocus motif from other media, and it may have replaced the older symbol when the Minoans began using the spice. Assembled Corpora In the late 20th century, researchers Louis Godart and Jean-Pierre Olivier published Recueil des inscriptions en Linà ©aire A, a massive undertaking to bring all of the available Linear A inscriptions onto  paper, including images and context of each and every known example. (Without images and context, the entire corpus of known Linear A scripts would barely fill two pages.) The Godart and Olivier corpus known as GORILA was moved onto the web in the 21st century, using the best of the Linear A fonts at the time, released by D. W. Borgdorff in 2004, called LA.ttf. In June 2014, Version 7.0 of the Unicode Standard was released, for the first time including the Linear A character set, including simple and complex signs, fractions and compound fractions. And in 2015, Tommaso Petrolito and colleagues released a new font set known as John_Younger.ttf. Hands down, the best online source on Linear A is from Linear A Texts Inscriptions in phonetic transcription by John Younger. It makes fascinating reading, and Younger and colleagues continue to update it regularly. Sources Day, Jo. Counting Threads. Saffron in Aegean Bronze Age Writing and Society. Oxford Journal Of Archaeology 30.4 (2011): 369–91. Print.Eisenberg, Jerome M. The Phaistos Disk: One Hundred Year Old Hoax? Minerva 19 (2008): 9–24. Print.Godart, Louis, and Jean-Pierre Olivier. Recueil Des Inscriptions En Linà ©aire A. Études Crà ©toises I-V (1976-1985). Print.Montecchi, Barbara. A Classification Proposal of Linear a Tablets from Haghia Triada in Classes and Series. Kadmos 49.1 (2011): 11. Print.Morpurgo Davies, Anna, and Jean-Pierre Olivier. Syllabic Scripts and Languages in the Second and First Millennia BC. Parallel Lives. Ancient Island Societies in Crete and Cyprus. Eds. Cadogan, Gerald, et al. Vol. 20. Athens: British School at Athens Studies, 2012. 105–18. Print.Petrolito, Tommaso, et al. Minoan Linguistic Resources: The Linear a Digital Corpus. Proceedings of the 9th SIGHUM Workshop on Language Technology for Cultural Heritage, Social Sciences, and Humanit ies. Association for Computational Linguistics and The Asian Federation of Natural Language Processing, 2015. Print.Revesz, Peter Z. The Cretan Script Family Includes the Carian Alphabet. MATEC Web Conf. 125 (2017): 05019. Print.---. Establishing the West-Ugric Language Family with Minoan, Hattic and Hungarian by a Decipherment of Linear A. WSEAS Transactions on Information Science and Applications 14.30 (2017): 306-35. Print.Schoep, Ilse. The Origins of Writing and Administration on Crete. Oxford Journal of Archaeology 18.3 (1999): 265–90. Print.---. Tablets and Territories? Reconstructing Late Minoan Ib Political Geography through Undeciphered Documents. American Journal of Archaeology 103.2 (1999): 201–21. Print.Schrijver, Peter. Fractions and Food Rations in Linear A. Kadmos 53.1-2 (2014): 1. Print.Svizzero, Serge, and Clem Tisdell. The Role of Palatial Economic Organization in Creating Wealth in Minoan and Mycenaean States. Economic Theory, Applications and Issues Working Paper Series 74 (2015): 1–23. Print.Valà ©rio, Miguel Filipe Grandà £o. Investigating the Signs and Sounds of Cypro-Minoan. Universitat de Barcelona, 2016. Print.Whittaker, Helene. Social and Symbolic Aspects of Minoan Writing. European Journal of Archaeology 8.1 (2005): 29–41. Print.Younger, John G. The Pyrgos and Gournia Roundels Inscribed in Linear A: Suffixes, Prefixes, and a Journey to Syme. Studies of Crete and Cyprus Presented to Gerald Cadogan. Eds. Macdonald, Colin F., Eleni Hatzaki and Stelios Andreou. Athens: Kapon Editions, 2015. 67–70. Print.---. Linear a Texts Inscriptions in Phonetic Transcription Commentary. The University of Kansas. Updated December 19, 2017, first published 2000. Web. Accessed May 19, 2018. This page was written by N.S. Gill and K. Kris Hirst.