Charles Dickens Essay Example for Free

Charles Dickens Essay It also suggests that his previous way of conducting himself has been broken and therefore he has changed. The form of the book and the way that it has been structured has a specific effect on the reader. It breaks the book down into chunks and emphasises the point of each one. The first and last staves, act as a prologue and epilogue to show the Scrooge before and after his moral transformation. This idea is backed up by the fact that the last stave is much shorter than the other four, acting as a round off to the book leaving you to imagine the rest of Scrooges life. In the third stave; The second of the Three Spirits Scrooge meets with the Spirit of Christmas Present who proceeds to show Scrooge how people are spending their Christmases. First he takes Scrooge through the town showing him the hubbub of Christmas shoppers getting food for the forthcoming day. There were ruddy, brown-faced, broad-girthed Spanish Onions, shining in the fatness of their growth like Spanish Friars; and winking from their shelves in wanton slyness at the girls as they went by, and glanced demurely at the hung-up mistletoe. There were pears and apples, clustered high in blooming pyramids; there were bunches of grapes, made, in the shopkeepers benevolence to dangle from conspicuous hooks, that peoples mouths might water gratis as they passed. Dickens uses such descriptive language here to focus on how much the food means to people who cannot afford much, and also how important the meal, and Christmas generally, is to everyone. The idea of food is again a running theme as in Dickenss time large quantities of food, as we commonly see now, were not possible during Victorian times. This was because they had no way of refrigerating food and therefore Christmas was very special in that people could feast at this one time of the year. The language he uses here is important because the way that he personifies the food shows how much attention was showed to it and we see this attention to detail at the beginning of this stave as well when the ghost is sat in a kind of throne of food. Also when the ghost is sprinkling blessings on passing peoples food the ghost tells Scrooge that the poor are more needy than the rich which Scrooge did not realise before as he was always looking out for himself only. Then they visit the Cratchits home where although they are very poor they all love each other and they have a very happy home, this contrasts with Scrooges home and work because although Scrooge is very rich, he is always unhappy. For example although they cannot afford a very big goose for Christmas lunch they are all very happy with it and none of them complain. Dickens especially conveys the feeling of a happy home with the use of a lot of dialogue between family members. Dickenss use of dialogue throughout the book is very effective and attracts the reader as it seems much more realistic. In the forth stave Scrooge meets with the Ghost of Christmas future who has come to show him what his future will be like if he does not change his ways. He is shown his colleges discussing his funeral, and is surprised to realise that none of them care for him. He is also shown a back street merchant to whom his belongings are being sold as no one looked after his house when he died. Finally he is shown that Tiny Tim has died because his family did not have enough money to support him. This stave is very important as it shows Scrooge the short-term consequences of his actions in life if he continues to live the way he is doing so now. And we see that he has fully changed by the end of the stave I will honour Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year. I will live in the Past, Present and Future. The Spirits of all three shall strive within me. This clearly shows that he now cares fully and realises the error of his ways. This is an important part of the novel as it shows that he has changed fully, and the desperation he has at the end of stave four, makes the reader feel sorry for him. This has deliberately been done by Dickens as it shows that a character whom at the start of the story you despised, by the end of this stave you feel sorry for and hope that he does have a chance to show that he is a changed man. Finally in the fifth stave Scrooge gets a chance to show how changed he is as he has been with the spirits only the length of one night. He gets to go and visit his nephew and he raises the salary of his clerk. This particular part, when he raises the pay of his clerk, uses humour again as it shows just how surprised Bob Cratchit is that he is receiving a pay rise, as he cowers and holds up a poker. This use of humour raises the mood of the last stave. Also we see Scrooges mannerisms become much different and he laughs and becomes a different person. During the last stave the most important running theme is emphasised, that anyone can change for the better. This point is shown very clearly because Dickens creates the most horrible character he can and by the end of the book, as a reader you are inclined to like him. The book is appealing to readers because the moral points are important and it is a very heart-warming book that makes people feel better about themselves and want to embrace the spirit of Christmas, which is what Dickens intended.

Hypertext as a Medium for Writing Essay -- Exploratory Papers

Hypertext as a Medium for Writing This paper will compare and analyze theoretical ideas found in Hamlet on the Holodeck by Janet H. Murry focusing on Chapter 10 â€Å"Hamlet on the Holodeck† as it relates to hypertext as a specific medium for writing, and Writing Space by Jay David Bolter focusing on Chapter 7 â€Å"Interactive Fiction† and chapter 8 â€Å"Critical Theory in a New Writing Space† and their emphasis on digital poetry and the increased role of the reader in the reading process. The information taken from these two works will then be compared to the interactive hypertext webpage entitled â€Å"Heading South† by Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) English graduate student, Cheryl Ball. In relation to hypertext, the role of the reader seems to be more interactive than that of a typical offline reading. A large amount of evidence supporting the assumption that the reader plays an increased â€Å"interactive† role in interactive or hypertext material is found in both Hamlet on the Holodeck and Writing Space. These examples show how Cheryl Ball’s poetry is easy to follow and how readers are able to play an interactive part in observing her material. As background information relating to digital poetry and the readers’ role, Janez Strevhovec, Ph.D., Assistant Professor at Academy of Visual Arts, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia states, â€Å"Today digital poetry provides us with new, provocative, and challenging, to sensitivity even testing forms of experiencing. It is a medium that can only be understood on the basis of analysis of the present world of the new media, and new perception forms, which originate in the interface culture† (Streh ovec 4). Strehovec’s description of digital poetry simply addresses that it is presented in a new-aged... ...-established outcomes or only a few to choose from. I believe using hypertext as a medium for writing can only increase the importance placed on the reading, not lesson it. The information from Bolter, Murray, and what I have gained from evaluating Ball’s web site has helped me to become better aware of different aspects of hypertext, and what I will and will not use when creating my own webpage. Works Cited Bolter, Jay David. Writing Space: Computers, Hypertext, and the Remediation of Print. Maywah: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2001. Murray, Janet H. Hamlet on the Holodeck: The Future of Narrative in Cyberspace. Cambridge: The MIT Press, 2001. Strehovec, Janez. â€Å"Text as a Loop/On the Digital Poetry.† The University of Ljubljana, Slovenia, 2003. [Retrieved from the World Wide Web 15 March 2004]. http://hypertext.rmit.edu.au/dac/papers/Strehovec.pdf

The Jmu Mailroom Case

THE JMU MAILROOM CASE If you expect your mail to come with the same â€Å"speedy delivery† made popular by mailman Mr. McFeeley of Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood, you may be disappointed over the next few weeks. While mail delivery is not drastically slower than normal, employees in the JMU postal service warehouse can offer several reasons why they are having trouble delivering mail as promptly as usual. The majority of the five-member crew who work in the warehouse, now located on South Main Street across from Duke’s Plaza say they are upset because postal service management did not take their opinions into account before throwing changes at them. We were consulted, but they didn’t take anything we said into account,† said Eric McKee, a postal service employee who works in the warehouse. Changes have included moving the warehouse to a building 10 minutes from campus which consists of a basement without running water or bathroom facilities. Employees m ust walk outside to the front of the building in order to use bathrooms. McKee, along with another delivery employee who wished to remain anonymous for fear of losing his job, complained of the â€Å"great physical stress† involved in carrying the large tubs of mail instead of carrying mailbags that can be thrown over the shoulder. According to another employee who wished to remain unnamed, in addition to the physical stress, the tub-delivery system slows up mail delivery considerably. The employee said by slinging mailbags over the shoulder it was easier to carry large loads of mail, something nearly impossible with the tubs. According to Terry Woodward, director of postal services, the change from mailbags to bins came the day after the warehouse change location. The changes were brought about to accommodate the growing volume of mail that has come as a result of the increasing numbers of departments and students in the university, Woddward said. Delivering the mail with the tub system instead of a bag system reduces steps, Woodward said, thus speeding the delivery time. While Woodward acknowledged that the changing system is the cause for mail slowdown, he said he expects delivery to speed up as employees get used to the new system. The warehouse used to be located in a trailer behind Anthony-Seeger Hall. The new location is a five-to-ten minute drive to campus, which employees say slows down their delivery time substantially. One delivery worker said the move has brought about â€Å"new obstacles,† such as having to wait 10 minutes for a train to cross in front of him. The facility was forced to move off campus Aug. 3 when the Facilities Management Department took over the trailer postal services used to occupy next to Anthony-Seeger Hall, Woodward said. Woodward said he expected initial resistance to the changes by postal employees, but hoped the workers would keep an open mind while giving the new system time to smooth out. â€Å"There’s certainly been some resistance,† Woodward said about postal employees’ reactions to the changes. One such case of resistance may have brought about the firing of Troy Munford, a summer postal service employee who said the new system is â€Å"unmanageable. † Munford claims he was fired for â€Å"insubordination† by Sonja Mace, operations manager for the postal service, when he told her the system wasn’t working and tried to arrange a meeting between the heads of postal services and the employees. Munford said that after he told Mace â€Å"you promised to give us your best and obviously your best wasn’t good enough,† Mace â€Å"stomped her foot . . . nd said, ‘you’re fired. ’† Due to Munford’s firing about two weeks ago, some employees were afraid to speak out or have their names printed in the paper for fear they may also lose their jobs. By making the changes, Mace â€Å"has doubled, if not tripled, the workload† of the employees, he said. ‘I’m just concerned for the people who are still her e,† Munford said. He said he is afraid some of them â€Å"will hurt themselves eventually, due to the physical difficulty of the job. † Mace refused to comment on any personnel issues regarding the change.

The Pains Of Sleep By Robert Southey Essay - 1394 Words

The couplets encompass the odd tension of The Pains of Sleep : the ending is both over-long, extending the natural length of the stanza by an additional two lines, and abrupt, answering the universal despair of wherefore fall on me? with an admittedly lacklustre response. The insistent repetition - such, wherefore, love - furthers the resounding resolution of the poem. Coleridge s draft of the poem in a letter to Robert Southey suggests that there is potential for movement beyond the declaration of the last line, for he affixes -- c c c c c -- onto the end of the line, and whilst a large portion of the draft is altered for its publication in 1816, this line remains untouched. Perhaps the clue is in one of the lines from The Pains of Sleep which is altered for its 1816 publication but exists in the draft version sent to Southey as well: The self-created Hell within. (Letter to Robert Southey, September 12 1803.) The unfathomable Hell within. ( The Pains of Sleep , line 46.) The poem can be seen as a verbal translation of the self-created Hell within: whilst the poem is structurally contained, the unfathomable interior world it describes, and the claustrophobic blending of reality and unreality, all contribute to it seeming incomplete upon interrogation. Coleridge rejects the universal question in favour of a personal answer because the poem cannot adequately make sense of the distorted images it contains. UnlikeShow MoreRelated Samuel Taylor Coleridges Life and Achievements1007 Words   |  5 Pagesability to fight or even ride a horse, Coleridge quit. With so much occurring in his life, Coleridge would soon branch out into the poetry world. In 1795, Coleridge married Sara Fricker. The so-called â€Å"marriage† was setup by his former colleague, Robert Southey. Unable to deal with the pressure, Coleridge had a difficult time pleasing and keeping a woman he did not love. The next year their first son, Hartley, was born. Luckily, Coleridge would meet someone who would not only better, but transform bothRead MoreThe Romantic Victorians Essay1707 Words   |  7 Pagesthe Ancyent Marinere. Unfortunately, He took opium to relief his rheumatic pains and that is when his addiction began. Coleridge’s addiction to opium is not accepted by his society and he became more and more dependent. The poem â€Å"Kubla Khan† is greatly influenced by opium and he leaves the ending of the poem to the imagination of the reader. He also sends a poem entitled â€Å"The Pains of Sleep† to his brother in law Robert Southey to explain to him his suffering of depending on opium. Coleridge shows signsRead MoreLiterary An alysis Of Samuel Taylor Coleridge3984 Words   |  16 PagesSamuel Taylor Coleridge was an influential British philosopher, critic, and writer of the early eighteenth century. He was a prominent member of a literary group known as the â€Å"Lake Poets,† which included renowned writers like William Wordsworth and Robert Southey. His writings and philosophy greatly contributed to the formation and construction of modern thought. He possessed an extensive, creative imagination, and developed his own imagination theories in his writings. However, his personal life was absorbedRead MorePOETRY 2 11389 Words   |  46 Pages— Poems  1. Where the Mind is Without Fear 5 — 7 Rabindranath Tagore 2. The Inchcape Rock 7 — 11 Robert Southey 3. In the Bazaars of Hyderabad 11 — 14 Sarojini Naidu 4. Small Pain in My Chest 14 — 17 Michael Mack 5. The Professor 17 — 20 Nissim Ezekiel 6. Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening 20 — 23 Robert Frost 7. A Doctor’s Journal Entry for August 6, 1945 23 — 26 Vikram Seth 8. If Thou Must Love Me 26 —