When Rainclouds Gather free essay sample

Matenge is clearly the antagonist of the novel. Head’s characterisation of Matenge is almost comical. He is a overweight and egotistical meglomaniac. He lives off the poor and his inherited unpaid slaves. He parades his wealth and strokes his own ego in his dress and through his actions. He wears a purple robe and sits in high-backed, throne-like chair. He is primarily concerned with bolstering his own image and nursing his ideas of his own self-importance. He believes that his status as sub-chief is an inherited and fixed position and therefore unable to be challenged by anyone he considers inferior. Therefore, when he is threatened by Makhaya and Gilbert, he acts arrogantly and without consideration for the potential they offer to the community he is supposed to lead. Matenge is ultimately undone because of his despotism and ruthless disregard for his villagers. Even his own brother is relieved by his death. We will write a custom essay sample on When Rainclouds Gather or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page Matenge is the main antagonist in the story. He is the sub- chief and ruler of Golema Mmidi, but also the brother of paramount chief Sekoto. The sub-chief is regarded by the people as a tyrant. Matenge is a egotistical megalomaniac, who has inherited un-paid servants and land so therefore feels superior. It is this personality which leads him to fight with everybody who has the intelligence to threaten his position. The conflicts with Makhaya. As Makhaya is the main protagonist, it is obvious that there would be a conflict between, him, the kind-hearted and the evil tyrant, Matenge. The conflict between the sympathetic Makhaya and the dictator Matenge, is the main theme in the book as Matenge is ruling the people in the way which made Makhaya leave South Africa. For more information about his past go to Hints of Makhayas Past. Matenges persistence to rid himself of Makhaya is evident after Makhaya is called to Matenge mansion, and insults Matenge and Joas Tsepe. Chief Matenge has a personality which causes a gut feeling, one which would indicate that he is after power and the ability to control; in other words evil. His sense of royalty is sickening, he treats all of his servants like slaves, and his one friend, another man looking for power, Joas Tsepe like a dog. These actions evoke the feeling which, all hero versus evil, stories have; in this case Matenge versus Gilbert and Makhaya. The satire in Chapter 5 helps to provoke the reader into despising this characte

Free Essays on What It Takes

What it Takes Perhaps more than at any other time in history, today’s parents are concerned about the future of their children. They want a child who will be happy, caring, and compassionate (Christopherson 3). A parenting style choice can mold a child to be this way or to be completely opposite. Parenting style captures two important elements or parenting: parental responsiveness and parental control (Darling). Parental responsiveness is how well parents respond to their children’s needs and demands. Parental demanding ness is how well parents assert disciplinary efforts and how well they supervise. Categorizing parents according to whether they are high or low on responsible demanding ness and responsiveness creates a typology of four parenting styles: indulgent, authoritarian, authoritative, and uninvolved (Darling) Of these styles, authoritative parenting is the most effective. In this style, parents are highly demanding and responsive. â€Å"They monitor and impact clear standards for their children’s conduct. They are assertive but not intrusive, but not intrusive and restrictive. Their disciplinary methods are supportive, rather than punitive† (qtd. in Baumrind 162) (Darling). There are several contributing factors that lead to effective authoritative parenting. It is not easy and takes an abundance of time as well as patience and critical thinking. Authoritative parents focus on giving clear appropriate commands. By doing so, children know that parents mean business. A clear command is a simple imperative sentence. It is not asking a favor, sending an invitation, asking a question, or proposing a threat (Chidekel 119). A clear command is simple: â€Å"Pick up your toys† is an example. Its meaning is simply clear and direct. From this children will gain the knowledge of power of authority. Most children want to belong to a peer group, but promoting the social- skill to do so is a parents task (... Free Essays on What It Takes Free Essays on What It Takes What it Takes Perhaps more than at any other time in history, today’s parents are concerned about the future of their children. They want a child who will be happy, caring, and compassionate (Christopherson 3). A parenting style choice can mold a child to be this way or to be completely opposite. Parenting style captures two important elements or parenting: parental responsiveness and parental control (Darling). Parental responsiveness is how well parents respond to their children’s needs and demands. Parental demanding ness is how well parents assert disciplinary efforts and how well they supervise. Categorizing parents according to whether they are high or low on responsible demanding ness and responsiveness creates a typology of four parenting styles: indulgent, authoritarian, authoritative, and uninvolved (Darling) Of these styles, authoritative parenting is the most effective. In this style, parents are highly demanding and responsive. â€Å"They monitor and impact clear standards for their children’s conduct. They are assertive but not intrusive, but not intrusive and restrictive. Their disciplinary methods are supportive, rather than punitive† (qtd. in Baumrind 162) (Darling). There are several contributing factors that lead to effective authoritative parenting. It is not easy and takes an abundance of time as well as patience and critical thinking. Authoritative parents focus on giving clear appropriate commands. By doing so, children know that parents mean business. A clear command is a simple imperative sentence. It is not asking a favor, sending an invitation, asking a question, or proposing a threat (Chidekel 119). A clear command is simple: â€Å"Pick up your toys† is an example. Its meaning is simply clear and direct. From this children will gain the knowledge of power of authority. Most children want to belong to a peer group, but promoting the social- skill to do so is a parents task (...

Three Common Reasons for Medical School Rejection

Three Common Reasons for Medical School Rejection After months of waiting and hoping, you get the word: Your application to medical school was rejected. It’s never an easy email to read.   You’re not alone, but knowing that doesn’t make it easier. Get angry, grieve, and then, if you are considering reapplying, take action.   Medical school applications are rejected for a wide range of reasons. Often it is as simple as too many stellar applicants and too few spots. How do you increase your odds of gaining admission next time? Learn from your experience. Consider these three common reasons why medical school applications may be rejected. Poor GradesOne of the best predictors of achievement is past achievement.   Your academic record is important as it tells admissions committees about your academic capacities, commitment, and consistency. The best applicants consistently earn a high grade point average (GPA) in their general education classes and especially their premed science curriculum. More rigorous courses tend to be weighted more heavily than less challenging classes. Admissions committees might also consider the institution’s reputation in considering an applicant’s GPA.   However, some admissions committees use GPA as a screening tool to narrow the applicant pool, without considering applicants’ coursework or institution.   Like it or not, have explanations or not, a GPA of less than 3.5 can be blamed, at least partly, for being rejected from medical school.   Ã‚  Ã‚   Poor MCAT ScoreWhile some medical schools use GPA as a screening tool, the majority of med schools turn to Medical College Admission Test (MCAT) scores to weed out applicants (and some institutions use a combined GPA and MCAT score).   Applicants come from different institutions, with different coursework, and different academic experiences, making it difficult to draw comparisons. MCAT scores are critical because they are the only tool admissions committees have for making direct comparisons among applicants – apples to apples, so to speak.   A minimum MCAT score of 30 is recommended.   Do all applicants with MCAT scores of 30 get accepted or even interviewed? No, but 30 is a good rule of thumb as to a reasonable score that can keep some doors from closing.   Lack of Clinical ExperienceThe most successful medical school applicants obtain clinical experience and relay this experience to the admissions committee. What is clinical experience? It sounds fancy but it is simply experience within a medical setting that allows you to learn something about some aspect of medicine.   Clinical experience shows the admissions committee that you know what you are getting in to and illustrates your commitment. After all, how can you convince a committee that medical career is for you if you haven’t even observed medical personnel at work?   Discuss this experience in the activities and experience section of the   American Medical College Application (AMCAS). Clinical experience can include shadowing a physician or two, volunteering in a clinic or hospital, or participating in an internship through your university. Some premed programs offer opportunities for premed students to acquire clinical experience. If your program doesn’t offer help in obtaining clinical experience, don’t worry. Try speaking with a professor or visit a local clinic or hospital and offer to volunteer. If you go this route make contact with someone at the facility who will supervise you and consider asking a faculty member at your university to establish contact with your supervisor. Remember that obtaining clinical experience is great for your application but it is especially helpful when you can specify site and faculty supervisors who can write recommendations on your behalf. No one wants to read a rejection letter. It is often hard to determine exactly why an applicant is rejected, but GPA, MCAT scores, and clinical experience are three critical factors.   Other areas to examine include recommendation letters, also known as letters of evaluation, and admissions essays.   As you contemplate reapplying, reevaluate your choices of medical schools to ensure that they best fit your credentials. Most important, apply early to have the best odds of admission to medical school. Rejection Is not necessarily the end of the line.

Article Women in PR Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Article Women in PR - Essay Example Jennifer was able to achieve this by sending 10% of the dividends of the labels to the Medicins Sans Frontieres which is a charity meant for the health care globally. In addition to that, a large share of the clothing is retrieved from the artisans that are employed by an Italian non-profit cooperative organization named Cooperativa Rinascere which offers employment and support to the women in the local community. In this way, Jennifer is not only able to contribute to the society through charity but is also able to help raise the rate of employment by retrieving the services from women from the local communities. This is essentially a mutually beneficial relationship between the fashion label and the society. I particularly picked this article because this was brief but precise. The information contained in this article is important in that it not only lends a firm understanding of public relations but also it embarks on the huge tendency of women to do public relations in all

Womens oppression in womens perspective Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Womens oppression in womens perspective - Essay Example Simon de Beauvoir, Jeanne Hyvrard, Darina Al-Joundi, and Mary Wollstonecraft, even though a dedicated all-time existentialist, claim restrictions to the existentialist principle of self-definition and self-creation, reinforce the total freedom of Sartre. On the contrary, these feminists represents an unclear image of human freedom, where in women endures the evident weaknesses of the female body. In the novels of these feminists, namely, (1) La femme rompue by Hyvrard, (2) Le Jeune Morte En Robe De Dentelle by Al-Joundi, (3) and Le jour ou Nina Simone a cesse de chanter by Simon de Beavouir, they outline a form of existential development of a woman’s existence: a narrative of how an attitude of a woman towards her being, body, and societal roles transforms, and of how society shapes this belief. In their novels, they discuss the core of the central issue of female representation: Are the alleged weaknesses of the female body ‘real’ weaknesses which are present obj ectively in every society, or are they only ‘interpreted’ to be disadvantages by the human society? These feminists resolve this issue by examining empirical evidence of the different levels of female existence. In these pieces of empirical evidence the female body is embodied as both negative and positive, and females as both free and oppressed. The female body is the place of this uncertainty, because she can employ it as a means to here liberty and feel demoralised by it. There is no fundamental reality of the issue: it relies upon the degree to which a woman views herself as a liberated entity rather than society’s object of denigration. Hyvrard (1990) remarked that whatever we see, such as other individuals, is made an ‘object’ of our scrutiny and is stereotyped by us. De Beauvoir adopts this argument and relates it to men’s view of women. The core idea of ‘woman’, as argued by de Beauvoir (1997), is a masculine notion: the f emale is constantly the ‘other’ because the man is the ‘seer’ (Alison 2005, 81): ‘he is subject and she the object—the ‘meaning’ of what it is to be a woman is given by men’ (ibid, p. 81). In the aforementioned novels, which will be the sources of the analysis of feminist themes in French literature, it was argued that it is not the natural position of women as such that comprises a disadvantage: it is how a woman sees this situation which makes it negative or positive. As shown in Al-Joundi’s novel, none of the unique experiences of women, such as the menstruation, pregnancy, have a significance in themselves; however, in an oppressive or antagonistic society they can acquire an essence of being a disadvantage and a weakness, as women decide to accept the stereotypes of a patriarchal society. De Beauvoir (1997) stresses that pre-adolescent girls and boys are actually not especially different: they â€Å"have the sam e interests and the same pleasures† (ibid, p. 295).This essay will review the feminist themes of the French novels mentioned above, with an emphasis on the works of De Beauvoir and Wollstonecraft. The Oppression of the Female Body De Beauvoir (1997) claims that as the development of a female’s body takes place, each new phase is endured and separates her ever more roughly from the opposite sex. As the female body develops, society responds in a more and more aggressive and threatening way. Wollstonecraft (2004) refers to the dynamic of ‘becoming’, which is the mechanism whereby an individual understands oneself as a bodily, and sexual being open to the scrutiny of others. This does not have to be detrimental, but inopportunely, girls are frequently compelled to ‘become’ against their free will (De Beauvoir 1997): The young girl feels that her body is getting away from her... on the street men follow her with their eyes and comment on her anatom y. She would like to be invisible; it frightens her to become flesh and to show flesh (ibid, p. 333).

George Orwells Nineteen Eighty-Four 1984 Essay -- essays research pa

Throughout the evolution of man, power and control have been idealized. When power is attained by manipulative dictators, citizens may initially view them as a means to satisfy their need for structure and direction. An author’s grim prophecy of mankind in a totalitarian society is depicted in George Orwell’s, 1984. Citizens in Oceania are governed by the Party Big Brother, which succeeds in controlling their actions and minds. The concept of oppression is taken to a new level, until there is no sense of humanity within the society. Natural instincts and emotions do not exist for the citizens in Oceania, as they are conditioned since birth to be working bodies, lacking mercy and compassion. â€Å"By careful early conditioning, by games and cold water, by the rubbish that was dinned into them at school and in the Spies and the Youth League, by lectures, parades, songs, slogans and martial music, the natural feeling had been driven out of them.† (Orwell, p.71) The main repetitive means of conditioning were the Party slogans which citizens must adhere to; War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery, Ignorance is Strength. War is linked with peace and security, rather than horror and grief. Freedom is viewed as being an individual, therefore more susceptible to torture. The individual is defeated and therefore enslaved to the government rather than being apart of the government. In result, there is no freedom of thought, expression, language, religion, etc. Ignorance is bliss since there is no need to criticize the gove rnment and therefore, fewer confrontations. The proles (proletariats) in the novel are allowed and appreciate primitive emotions. Sex, scent, expression, and the true sense of freedom embody this in the novel. It is ironic that they reserve a sense of humanity, yet are considered inhumane. Eighty five per cent of Oceania’s population is proles, and they are unaware of their potential power. â€Å"If there is hope, it lies in the proles. Until they become conscious they will never rebel, and until after they have rebelled they cannot become conscious.† (Orwell, p.52) Although it could lead to a counter-revolution, they are content in the purity of their lives, and see no need for power since they have not yet been exposed to the oppression in Oceania. â€Å"The lower strata of the middle class – the small tradespeople, shopkeepers, and retired tradesmen generally, the ha... ...collective mind. Orwell uses this concept to relate to the oppression in society present during the time in which he wrote the novel. During the 1940’s, it was not only WWII, but also the time of the dictators Stalin and Hitler, who used brainwashing techniques to take advantage of their vulnerable societies. The Machiavellian Theorem becomes the sole tactic to survival in Oceania. In order to become a member of the Brotherhood, Winston agrees to commit all the carnage that Big Brother has raged on his people. (Orwell, p.180) With angst to be rid of his oppression, Winston has lost his sense of humanity. He now believes that his end justifies his means. Although he believes he resists internally to the Party, his mentality has inevitably been brainwashed by acts of sabotage, and all that O’Brien had to do to corrupt him was to direct his hate elsewhere. The Inner Party develops intricate ways of attacking a person at their personal weakest, and using their various instruments, can break down body, mind, and soul. Although this novel is merely Orwell’s political speculation, it opens the doors to the many possibilities and outcomes of uncontrolled power in vulnerable societies.

Bond Case Analysis Essay

Summary of Facts Gilda Sears who is enrolled in an Investments class has picked a project on bond price theorems. The two main theorems that she decided to illustrate dealt with coupon rate and term-to-maturity and how these factors influence the price. Thus she included 2 bonds with the same rating and term with a different coupon rate, as well as two bonds with the same rating and coupon rate with different terms. She thought that if the bond markets were efficient, bonds with similar characteristics would be priced so that there would be little difference in the YTM. Besides S&P, she also looked at Moody’s for additional information. There was an increase in the interest rates over 1984-1986 and hence observed the actual YTM at different point in time. Three periods were selected: November 1, 1984, 1985, and 1986. The theorem states that YTM and price, as well as coupon rate and price, should have an inverse relationship, while bond duration and price should have a direct relationship. ** Please refer to Annexure 1 for a summary on the Factual Numbers in the case. Problems The following are the problems of the case: Q1: Using the prices given, calculate the percentage price changes for the three periods for the Boston Edison and American Brand bonds and explain the difference between the changes. Q2: Using the prices given, calculate the percentage price changes for the three periods for the AT&T and Batimore Gas bonds and explain the difference between the changes. Q3: Also, assuming there is a significant decline in interest rates, which of the four bonds would provide the largest potential capital gain? Analysis and Solution ** Please Refer to Annexure 2 for Solution to I and II I. Boston Edison and American Brand * The two bonds have the same rating and maturity dates, but different coupon rates. * American Brand has a higher coupon rate (5.87%) than Boston Edison (4.25%) * The percentage change in the bond prices is inversely related to the YTM and the Coupon Rate. * The difference in the price increase was more significant in the second and the third period. * While the two bonds had comparable percentage price increase in the first period (1985 to 1986), the difference became much more significant in the subsequent periods, where the bond with a lower coupon rate was much higher. * Hence, this is in sync with the Bond Price Theorem. II. AT&T and Baltimore Gas and Electric * The two bonds have the same rating and coupon rates, but different maturity dates. * AT&T has a longer term (2/15/01) than Baltimore Gas and Electric (12/15/98) * The percent increase in price was much more significant in the first period, where the bond with the longer YTM had almost doubled the bond with the shorter YTM. * The percent decline in interest rate was also slightly greater for the bond with a longer maturity date, as longer maturity makes bond price more sensitive to interest rates. III. Largest potential capital gain ** Please Refer to Annexure 3 for Solution to III * I calculated the duration of the bond to make a selection of the bond with the potential capital gain in the advent of a decline in the interest  rates. * Though shorter duration minimizes the risk of actively trading in bonds, bonds with longer durations are less susceptible to fluctuation. * Hence, among the 4 bonds, AT&T is the one with the maximum duration and hence will entail a larger potential gain.