Animal Farm by George Orwell Essay

Question 3: â€Å"Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.† To what extent does this saying apply to George Orwell’s Animal Farm? The quote â€Å"power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely† made by Lord Acton relates to the novel Animal Farm significantly. This quote expresses the fact that power can be abused and some infamous cases in history has shown that this can end in a tragedy. Power is a way through which authority and control is developed. It can be attained through the form of respect or in some infamous cases, fear. The idea that â€Å"absolute power corrupts absolutely† relates most directly to the pigs who possess the most power over the farm but neglect their duties to the farm and its habitants, leading to a dictatorship. One of the pigs who displays power over the animals was Old Major. Old Major was someone who â€Å"was so highly regarded on the farm that everyone was quite ready to lose an hour’s sleep in order to hear what he had to say† (page 1). He used their respect for him to persuade them to strive for the creation of a better life. Old Major had power but wasn’t corrupted. His main goal was to create a utopian society in which equity is practised. After the death of Old Major, the responsibility of leading the farm naturally fell on to the shoulders of Snowball and Napoleon. When commencing their leadership, Snowball and Napoleon were focused on helping to develop a better life for all the animals but as the novel progressed, Napoleon’s idea of leadership became corrupted. In contrast to Old Major, Napoleon took actions which were for the sole benefit of the pigs. He abused his power and neglected his responsibilities as a leader. Napoleon first attained power through respect but later maintained it through fear a lot like the infamous Hitler. The animals weren’t permitted to oppose Napoleon as they feared him, â€Å"but suddenly the dogs sitting round Napoleon let out deep, menacing growls, and the pigs fell silent and sat down again† (page 40) . Hitler, like Napoleon, gained power over Germany but later used these powers to enforce his own beliefs onto the people. It was evident to the reader that Napole on was corrupted from when â€Å"the animals(including Snowball) trooped down to the hayfield to begin the harvest, and when they came back in the evening it was noticed that the milk had disappeared† (page 18). Snowball was victim to the corrupted Napoleon. One sole reason as to why Snowball was evicted from the farm was due to Napoleon’s hunger for absolute power. Although this is not clearly pointed  out by Orwell, it is evident for the reader. Napoleon, before the eviction of Snowball, did have power and authority over the animal, but he did not have their undivided attention. â€Å"The animals formed themselves into two factions under the slogans, â€Å"Vote for Snowball and the three-day week’ and ‘Vole for Napoleon and the full manger’†(page 37). Napoleon craved for more power and as the quote states â€Å"absolute power corrupts absolutely†, he became absolutely corrupted after he gained absolute power through the eviction of Snowball. Napoleon became more and more like Jones and the humans he once despised. The most significant indication of the immense corruption in Animal Farm can be ascertained through the altering of the Seven Commandments. After the rebellion, the responsibility of following these commandments were given to every animal on the farm. These commandments were what distinguished the animals from humans. They helped the animals recognise the vices of human beings and assisted them in remembering these corruptions so they themselves, would never adopt them. Throughout the book, these commandments were continuously altered to the pigs’ preferences, such as the situation in which Snowball’s followers were executed. As the pigs did not want the other animals to think that the Commandments had been violated, the sixth Commandment â€Å"No animal shall kill any other animal† was changed to â€Å" No animal shall kill any other animal without cause†. â€Å"Somehow or other the last two words had slipped out of the animals’ memory. But they saw now that the Commandment had not been violated.† (Page 66). Additionally, the presence of a corrupted leader resulted in a corrupted government. The pigs placed themselves higher than other animals to whom the author often referred to as slaves. The pigs persuaded the animals through fear of Jones’ return, â€Å"it is for your sake that we drink that milk and eat those apples. Do you know what would happen if we pigs failed in our duty? Jones would come back!† (Page 25). They lived in luxury while the other animals starved as â€Å"once again all rations were reduced except those of the pigs and the dogsâ€Å"ï ¼Ë†page 81ï ¼â€°. The Farm has not become the utopian society strived for due to the corrupted government. The pigs regarded themselves to be on a higher tier than the other animals, completely violating the last and most important Commandment â€Å"All animals are equal†. This corruption led to the failure of the rebellion. â€Å"Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely† is one quote which  summarises the events occurring in the novel â€Å"Animal Farm†. It expresses the negligence and abuse of power such as that of the pigs. The corruption of the pigs, particularly their leader, Napoleon, expressed the truth behind this quote. The presence of corruption eventually led to the failure of the rebellion.

Oedipus the King Essay

One of the most important literary devices used by Sophocles in his play Oedipus the King is what is known to modern critics as the â€Å"Greek Chorus. † The chorus was an important part of Greek tragedy, not only in the plays of Sophocles, but in the work of many other playwrights as well. Sophocles, in addition to incorporating well-known myths and historical motifs into his play, used the chorus as an additional method by which to ensure the audience’s understanding of the action on the stage. He also used the chorus to help the audience to feel a sense of a participation in the action of the play and to direct their sense of the plot and to focus the audience’s sympathy on appropriate characters. The use of the chorus in Greek tragedy was, as mentioned, a common literary device, but Sophocles is well known for being a creative adapter of conventions and in his hands, the chorus functions in myriad capacities, some obvious and some subtle. In order to appreciate the importance of the chorus in a play like Oedipus the King, it is crucial to first have an understanding of how the chorus traditionally functioned in Greek tragedy. Physically, the chorus was made up of â€Å"an anonymous group of fifteen† (Taplin 12) who, in addition to functioning as characters within the play, proper, also participated in the orchestra, providing â€Å"musical accompaniment [†¦ ] on the aulos, a double pipe with reeds [†¦ ] the aulos-player stood in the orchestra, also in tragic costume† (Taplin 12). The chorus also chanted, snag, and danced â€Å"the choral odes which divide the acts of tragedy† (Taplin 12) while occasionally singing or chanting † in lyric dialogue with the actors† (Taplin 12) . In addition to these roles, the traditional chorus also featured a leader: â€Å"the koryphaios, probably distinguished slightly by costume† (Taplin 12) who might also contribute dialogue to the play. Furthermore, the chorus held a connotation for Greek audiences which is all but unknowable to modern observers and this connotation relates to the presence of â€Å"chorale† bodies of chorus-like arrangements in everyday Greek society. Even the rudimentary aspects of the chorus in its theatrical incarnation: singing and dancing, held for the Greeks, a very different social and cultural resonance than for moderns. In Greek life, † a chorus was an integral part of many communal occasions, religious and secular—festivals, weddings, funerals, victory celebrations,† (Taplin 13) and the chorus also helped to lend a sense of ritual and ceremony to â€Å"all ‘festive’ occasions in Greek life† (Taplin 13). As such, the chorus as a literary device held for the Greeks in relation to theater: â€Å"a prominent and important place [†¦ ] in the performance as a whole† (Taplin 13). The distinction between ancient and modern observers is a very important distinction to make when discussing the Greek chorus as a literary device. Quite simply, for the modern observer, the best understanding of the function of the chorus may well be that the modern observer should regard the chorus as a kind of bridge between the mythical action of the play and the audience who observes this action. In fact some critics assert that this â€Å"bridge† role was also intended by Greek playwrights who used the chorus and specifically intended to be used this way by Sophocles in Oedipus the King. For these critics, the chorus represents â€Å"an â€Å"ideal spectator† that directs our thought and attention† (Hogan 44) and this is an intentional function of the chorus as a literary device as adopted by Sophocles. Obviously, in its function as a bridge between the audience and the action on the stage, the chorus in Oedipus the King plays a pivotal, rather than decorative role. For example, in relating a sense of irony to the audience, the chorus is used by Sophocles specifically â€Å"On three occasions† (Hogan 21) to provide a focal point of ironic realization on the audience’s behalf. Therefore, when â€Å"Oedipus defends his innocence [†¦ ] both he and the chorus of Athenians remain profoundly sensitive to the pollution that still clings† (Hogan 21) while, similarly, when â€Å"Oedipus rationalizes the murder† (Hogan 21) he invokes the sense of the chorus-as-court-of-law. The irony, of course, being that both the chorus and the audience are sympathetic to the plight of Oedipus just as it is hoped on Oedius’ behalf that â€Å"A court of law would be sympathetic† (Hogan 21). Another example is when Oedipus speaks to the chorus and says: â€Å"I pray god that the unseen killer, whoever he is, and whether he killed alone or had help, be cursed with a life as evil as he is, a life of utter human deprivation. † (Sophocles 28, 297-300). Here, the coryphaeus, or leader of the chorus, also speaks lines which, ironically, indicate that he â€Å"is thinking of the killer, who is much nearer for questioning than he knows† (Hogan 36). Each of these uses of the chorus by Sophocles heightens the sense of irony in the play while simultaneously promoting a sense of audience involvement and, obviously, forwarding the plot of the tragedy. The chorus is exceptionally important as a device in helping to direct the action of the play to and through the climax. The verbal interplay between Oedipus and the chorus increases near the end of the play. By inspecting â€Å"Oedipus’ words (and to the Chorus’) during the final part of the play, we will learn what beliefs and allegiances have survived† (Sophocles 14) and what little glimmer of redemption can be said to exist in the play’s tragic climax and aftermath can be gleaned from the words of the chorus, which close the play. Although Oedipus’ closing speeches are filled with pain and lamentation, the human world remains to him as â€Å"he hears the voice of the Chorus. Clarity and poise return as he tells the Chorus it was Apollo who destroyed his life, but that it was he and no one else who chose to strike out his own eyes† (Sophocles 14). The chorus,then, emerges as the target Oedipus’s confession and the implied target of the â€Å"moral† of his story. The audience, of course, is the chorus and vice-versa, so that the closing lines of the play: â€Å"Don’t call a man god’s friend until he has come through life and crossed over into death never having been god’s victim† (Sophocles 67, 1765-1766) emerge as the cathartic â€Å"lesson† distilled from the mythic action of the story, by way of the chorus, to enrich the audience’s understanding. Works Cited Hogan, James C. A Commentary on the Plays of Sophocles. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press, 1991. Sophocles. Oedipus the King. Trans. Robert Bagg. Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts Press, 1982. Taplin, Oliver. Greek Tragedy in Action. London: Routledge, 2003.

Power of One

Chapter One Summary On his Granpa's farm in the province of Natal in South Africa, an unnamed blonde infant is suckled by his black Zulu nanny. She sings to him of warriors and women washing at the baboons' water hole. At five, the little boy's mother has a nervous breakdown and he is sent to an Afrikaans boarding school. He is the youngest student by two years, and is hated because he is the only English-speaker in the school, which makes him a â€Å"rooinek† (Afrikaans for â€Å"redneck,† a derogatory term for the British, inherited from the Boer War).Two eleven-year-olds put the little boy to trial – he is made to kneel naked in the shower, where he says a prayer to his Zulu nanny instead of to God. The Judge, along with his â€Å"council of war†, pee on the boy. The little boy has never seen a shower before – his nanny always washed him in a tin tub. The matron of the hostel, simply called â€Å"Mevrou† (â€Å"Missus† in Afrikaans) , smells the pee on the boy and drags him to the showers. She switches on the cold faucet, but the boy thinks that she too must be peeing on him. The Judge asks the boy why he wets his bed. The boy cannot answer.The Judge pulls down the boy's pants, and the kids all look and laugh at his â€Å"hatless snake† – his circumcised penis. They all chant â€Å"pisskop† (â€Å"pisshead†), which becomes his nickname. The Judge now displays his own large, uncircumcised penis. The little boy manages to whittle the tortures down to one hour a day. His bedwetting still lingers, however, causing him shame and misery. Mevrou examines his bed every morning and sends him to wash the rubber sheet until his hands reek of the carbolic soap. The boy learns that he needs to adopt a camouflage in order to cope. As part of this camouflage, he resolves never to cry.This decision infuriates the Judge. The boy gains some respect from the other kids for holding the school record for the largest number of beatings, yet they continue to ostracize and torment him verbally and physically. At the end of the first term, the boy's district doctor and the flyhalf for the Northern Transvaal rugby team, Dr. Henny Boshoff, picks him up to drive him home to his Granpa, and nanny on the farm. The Judge, impressed by this grand exit from the school, promises the boy better treatment after the holidays. Dr. Henny tells the boy that his mother is recovering from her reakdown, but is not ready to return home yet. It is late summer, and on the farm, the black women spend their days singing as they gather cotton. Nanny prays for Inkosi-Inkosikazi, the great black medicine man, to visit them to solve the little boy's bedwetting problem. Inkosi-Inkosikazi eventually arrives in a black Buick. The women gather gifts of food for him, among them being some â€Å"kaffir chickens,† not quite dead. One of the chickens reminds the boy of his Granpa. The only difference rests in the eyes: the cock has beady eyes whereas the boy's Granpa has eyes â€Å"intended for gazing over soft English landscapes. The boy's Granpa despises Shangaan people (one of the black tribes of South Africa), but he respects the Zulu medicine man, Inkosi-Inkosikazi, who once cured his gallstones. Inkosi-Inkosikazi is considered the last of the sons of the famous Zulu king, Dingaan, who fought off both British and Boers (Afrikaners). The boy's Granpa welcomes him to the farm. Inkosi-Inkosikazi orders the black women to let the chickens loose and catch them a second time. Then he uses â€Å"low-grade magic† to put them to sleep. He beckons the boy to sit with him on the â€Å"indaba† (meeting) mat – a great honor, since only chiefs are allowed to sit on these mats.Inkosi-Inkosikazi now summons Nanny to tell the boy's bedwetting story in Shangaan. Nanny brings the women to tears with her impressive elocutionary skills. Dee and Dum, the twin kitchen maids, are dazzled by Nanny's story. But Inkosi-Inkosikazi simply scratches his backside and orders â€Å"kaffir beer. † That night Nanny hugs Peekay, telling him he has brought honor on her by allowing her to show that a Zulu woman can rival Shangaans in tale-telling. The following day Inkosi-Inkosikazi's magic Ox shinbones tell him to visit the boy in his dreams. In his dreams, the boy must leap over three waterfalls and cross ten stones of a river.Inkosi-Inkosikazi puts the boy to sleep and speaks him through the dream landscape, calling him the â€Å"little warrior of the king. † Then he wakes the boy and tells him that he can always find him in the â€Å"night country. † Inkosi-Inkosikazi now teaches the boy his magic chicken trick and gives him one of the chickens – the one that looks like his Granpa – on which to practice. The boy names the chicken Granpa Chook. Analysis The novel opens with the startling image of a blonde boy being suckled by a black wet nur se. We are immediately confronted with the issue of race, and more specifically of idiosyncratic racial relationships.The voice narrating-that of the protagonist Peekay-is critical of any racial intolerance it encounters. A reflection on Afrikaners' hatred for the English, spawned during the time of the Boer War, ushers in the description of five-year-old Peekay's arrival at boarding school. As the narrator explains, the Boer War (1899–1902) was fought between the Boers (the Afrikaans-speakers of South Africa) and the British (the English- speakers of South Africa) for full possession of the country. Both Boers and British believed themselves to be the rightful inheritors of South Africa.It witnessed the first concentration camps in the world—the British confined the Boers to these concentration camps, where twenty-six thousand men, women, and children died. The derogatory Afrikaans term â€Å"rooinek† (redneck)-used to describe the British-was coined at the tim e of the war since the necks of the British burnt crimson under the hot African sun. By introducing the historical conflict between the two â€Å"white tribes† of South Africa, Peekay reminds readers that racial tension goes beyond difference in skin color-in his words, it enters the â€Å"bloodstream,† and extends to all kinds of cultural and ideological differences.He subtly critiques this inherited â€Å"hatred,† which the descriptions of his torture at the hands of the boarding school boys serve to illustrate. Peekay's adult voice uses hyperbole, or exaggeration, to describe the torture sessions the Judge and his â€Å"council of war† forced upon his five-year-old self. The military and legal metaphors that Peekay uses seem apt when one considers the extreme violence exercised upon the boy-he is urinated on, caned, and severely beaten. Moreover, many of the terms-such as â€Å"standing trial† and â€Å"passing sentence†-are the boys' own invention.We are required to compare the cruel imagination of the boarding school boys with the imagination Peekay discovers at the end of the novel through Inkosi-Inkosikazi. While the narrator keeps an ironic distance between himself and the younger self he is narrating (demonstrated by the narrator's sophisticated vocabulary such as â€Å"stentorian† and â€Å"carbolic†), he often portrays events through five-year-old eyes. He introduces the theme of the difficulty of defining death by providing us with young Peekay's thoughts on the topic: â€Å"I wasn't quite sure what death was.I knew it was something that happened on the farm in the slaughterhouse to pigs†¦ The squeal from the pigs was so awful that I knew it wasn't much of an experience, even for pigs. † The latter quotation also reveals the narrator's sense of humor-throughout the novel, the narrator finely balances tragedy and comedy, suggesting that laughing is sometimes the only way of coping w ith adversity. Chapter Two Summary The holidays end. The little boy's bedwetting problem is solved, but he remains concerned about his â€Å"hatless snake,† even though he recalls that Inkosi-Inkosikazi assured him they shared that anatomical trait.Nanny packs the boy's bags, and includes a red sweater that his mother sent from â€Å"the nervous breakdown place. † They drive in Granpa's Model A Ford truck with Mrs. Vorster, the neighboring widow. The boy, his nanny, and Granpa Chook travel in the back. Nanny is going to town in order to send money to her family in Zululand since there has been a drought. They arrive at the boarding school early, so the boy and Granpa Chook perch in the boy's secret mango tree. Later, the boy leaves Granpa Chook in a clearing in a citrus orchard while he visits Mevrou—he reports that he no longer has a bedwetting problem.Mevrou answers that her â€Å"sjambok† (caning stick) will be lonely. On returning to the clearing, the boy watches Granpa Chook fight a grass snake. The chicken wins, biting off and eating the snake's head. The boy hangs this second â€Å"hatless snake† from a branch near his dormitory window. That night the other kids return. The Judge and his â€Å"jury† beat the boy up for comparing the Judge's new arm tattoo to a â€Å"kaffir† woman's face tattoos. The Judge boasts that his tattoo is a swastika, the symbol of Adolf Hitler. He tells the boy that Adolf Hitler is going to help the Afrikaners exterminate the English.All the boys swear death to all Englishmen in South Africa. Afterwards, the little boys try to figure out who Hitler is. Danie Coetzee, the little boys' spokesman, guesses that it is the new headmaster. That night the little boy experiences â€Å"the loneliest moment that had ever been. â€Å"The next morning, Granpa Chook wakes everyone up with his cock-a-doodle-doing on the boy's windowsill. When Mevrou enters, she notices the â€Å"chicken shit † on the boy's bed and canes him. She wants to butcher Granpa Chook, but when the chicken kills two cockroaches in her defense, she gives him the position of â€Å"cleaner of creepy-crawlies† in the kitchen.Months pass. The boy–still only known to us as â€Å"Pisskop†Ã¢â‚¬â€œbecomes the Judge's servant. In class, Pisskop quickly learns to read Afrikaans and becomes the best in his class in all subjects, even though he is the other boys' junior by two years. In addition to English and Afrikaans, he also speaks the African languages of Zulu and Shangaan fluently. However, aware that his intelligence may be detrimental to his safety, he pretends not to be as clever as he actually is. World War II arrives. A new headmaster comes.The old headmaster, who has a drinking problem, leaves, but only after announcing the â€Å"good news† that Hitler will save the Afrikaners and destroy the English. The Judge warns Pisskop that he will be the first of their pris oners of war. In class, Pisskop's ear gets mauled when the new teacher, Miss du Plessis, hits him for pretending not to know the twelve times table. Then she faints. Another teacher, Mr. Stoffel throws Pisskop against a wall and blames him for killing the teacher. When Pisskop wakes up, he is relieved to find that Dr. Henny is looking after him.Mevrou makes Pisskop lie to Dr. Henny and say that he fell out of a tree. Miss du Plessis has a nervous breakdown and a new teacher, Mrs. Gerber, arrives. Pisskop believes that he has caused both his mother's and Miss du Plessis' breakdowns. Analysis Chapter Two explains the title of the book and introduces us to the novel's main theme: the importance of independence. The five-year-old Pisskop has already learned the necessity of developing an independent spirit within himself. His experiences show him that he cannot rely on anyone at the boarding school; he must nourish this power on his own.Adaptation, or survival through camouflage, is as important as independence for survival. The boy, whose constant consideration of how to cope with his difficult life makes the novel's style approach a kind of stream-of-consciousness, believes that he must camouflage his brilliant mind. He asks himself questions such as â€Å"How could you go wrong with a friend like [Granpa Chook] at your side? † He also occasionally uses the imperative voice, as though counseling himself: â€Å"†¦adapt, blend, become part of the landscape, develop a camouflage,†¦try in every way to be an Afrikaner. In some senses, the author keeps the boy camouflaged from us as well. For example, we are implicated in referring to him as â€Å"Pisskop† or â€Å"rooinek† since we have no other name for him. The notion of naming-as- identifying becomes a vital issue in this novel, where white people do not distinguish between black peoples, but instead clump them all together under the derogatory term â€Å"kaffirs. † Naming so meone else is a powerful tool for establishing identity–as a bedwetter, an English-speaker, or a black person.With the continuation from Chapter 1 of the little boy's education, the novel begins to suggest that its genre is that of the â€Å"bildungsroman†-a novel which follows a protagonist from early childhood to maturity. The fact that the novel is narrated by the protagonist-as-adult from some safe point in the future confirms this genre. The narrator tells the events as he perceived them through his five-year-old eyes, but at the same time gives glimpses of his mature perspective on the events. For example, there is wry irony in the description of how the little boys agree that the new headmaster must be Adolf Hitler.The narrator does not contradict the boys' view, but allows the reader to chuckle at the misunderstandings of young minds. The protagonist already begins to stand out, however; in spite of his naivete, his observations are often uncannily accurate. We are by no means to mock the boy, but rather to marvel at his resilience in this tough world. The narrator confronts the reader with the nastiness of the situation through vivid, immediate story-telling through an abundance of dialogue. The language is often shocking or crude-at one point the five-year-old Pisskop exclaims to himself, â€Å"What a shit of a day already! At other times, however, Pisskop does not possess enough vocabulary to describe the experiences with which he is confronted-for example, he refers to the mental institution simply as â€Å"the nervous breakdown place. † Chapter Three Summary The Judge and his jury interrogate the boy about why his names are â€Å"Pisskop† and â€Å"rooinek. † The Judge pulls down the boy's pajama pants and tells him he is an English â€Å"rooinek† because his â€Å"snake has no hat. † Boers, in contrast, have hats on their snakes. The boy's punishment is to march around the playground every day, co unting backwards from five thousand.However, he actually spends this time doing the Judge's homework in his head. The boy helps the Judge with his homework, reasoning that if the Judge passes the school exams, the boy will no longer have to deal with him. He manages to convince the Judge to allow him to become his full-time homework helper. He realizes, however, that the teacher Mr. Stoffel will smell foul play if the Judge's mental ability drastically improves. The Judge compliments the boy for being a â€Å"slimmertjie† (a little clever one). In return for the help, the Judge annuls the marching after school, and promises not to tell Hitler about the boy.Everything seems to be proceeding more smoothly for the boy and Granpa Chook. The boys hear that Newcastle disease has erupted on a chicken farm nearby. The boy worries about his Granpa, his mother, and himself. He ardently wishes to live with his nanny in Zululand, hidden from Hitler. The Judge reports news of the war, sin ce Mr. Stoffel allows him to listen to his radio. Hitler has taken Poland, which the boy thinks must be in South Africa, owned by the â€Å"Po† tribe. No one explains to him that South Africa is on England's side. The Judge holds â€Å"war councils† behind the school toilets.The senior hostel boys are called â€Å"storm troopers. † The boy and Granpa Chook are the â€Å"prisoners of war† and are tortured and interrogated. The boy must submit to â€Å"Chinese torture†-that is, holding an iron bar with his arms stretched out in front of him-and â€Å"shooting practice,† where he holds tin cans into which the storm troopers catapult stones. In the interrogation, the boy is forced to call his mother a â€Å"whore† who sleeps with â€Å"kaffirs. † They burn him and put biting ants in his pants, but nothing they do can make him cry. The boy's stoicism infuriates them.The boy admits to us those he only cries inwardly-in the â€Å"nig ht country. â€Å"The school term draws to a close. Mr. Stoffel holds up the Judge as an example of academic improvement. The Judge shows no gratitude to the boy for his help. Instead, during a final torture session, he tries to make the boy eat human feces. The boy refuses, keeping his mouth tightly shut. The Judge thus rubs the feces into the boy's teeth, lips, face, and hair. As the Judge cries â€Å"Hail Hitler! † to the skies, Granpa Chook defecates into the Judge's open mouth. In retaliation, the Judge catapults a stone into the â€Å"kaffir chicken rooinek,† breaking his ribcage.The boy begs them not to kill Granpa Chook, but they pelt the chicken to death. The boy cries for the first time-thus ending the drought in Zululand. He gives Granpa Chook a fine burial, and covers his battered body with stones. The â€Å"loneliness bird† settles inside the boy. At dinner that night, the boy is told he must visit Mevrou in the dispensary after the meal. Analysis Chapter Three adds the notion of an inner and an outer self to the theme of the power of one. Pisskop learns how to lead a double life–how to be â€Å"in two places at once†Ã¢â‚¬â€œso that he can appear to have a tough exterior, while hiding his vulnerable interior.In fact, everything that the boy has learnt in Chapter One and Two becomes complicated in Chapter Three. Suddenly the Judge shows glimpses of humanity by treating the boy â€Å"not entirely without sympathy. † Although the litotes-or double negative of â€Å"not entirely without sympathy† indicates that the Judge has only microscopically improved his behavior, it nevertheless shows that the boy has learnt that this is not a clear-cut fight between good and evil, Afrikaners and English, black and white.Bathos, or anti- climax, also serves to highlight that the boy's torturers are human beings, not nameless demons: at the end of Chapter Three we finally learn that the Judge has a name–Jaap ie Botha. While the boy realizes that his imagination is his one way out of the horror of his life, at the same time he has to recognize that â€Å"imagination is always the best torturer. â€Å"As the first person narrator, the boy describes not only the events of his early life, but all his emotions and philosophies. He shares with us universally valid musings that he has extracted from his experience: â€Å"One thing is certain in life.Just when things are going well, soon afterward they are certain to go wrong. It's just the way things are meant to be. † The reader's compassion, or sense of pathos, for the protagonist increases because the descriptions of his neglect by his mother are subtle. Instead of blaming other people, Pisskop becomes everyone's scapegoat. We learn that no one has recognized his birthday when he remarks, in a non-accusatory tone: â€Å"I had turned six but nobody had told me, so in my head, I was still five. † Chapter Four Summary After din ner in the boarding house, the boy visits Mevrou.She hands him a train ticket to Barberton, a small town in the Eastern Transvaal province. The journey will take two days and two nights. The boy's Granpa had to sell his farm to their neighbor, Mrs. Vorster, because Newcastle disease killed off his chickens. The following day from his secret mango tree, the boy watches the other kids leave. Then Mevrou marches him off to buy â€Å"tackies† (sneakers) at the Jew Harry Crown's shop. The boy has never owned shoes before–on the farm, the kids simply wore khaki shorts, shirts, and a sweater if it was cold. When they arrive at Harry Crown's shop, it is closed.Mevrou sends the boy to wash his feet at a garage, and the boy notices a sign above a workshop entrance that reads â€Å"BLACKS ONLY. † He wonders why whites are forbidden there. Harry Crown, jaunty and jocular, arrives. He brews up some coffee for Mevrou and gives the boy a raspberry sucker. He expresses shock wh en, on asking the boy his name, he replies â€Å"Pisskop. † With the money the boy's Granpa has sent, Mevrou buys him some tackies which are two times too big for his feet-she stuffs them with balls of newspaper so they will fit. Pisskop feels grand in them, even though he can barely walk.Harry Crown packs four more suckers into the shoe box while Mevrou is not looking. He also invents a new, more sanitary name for the boy-Peekay. The boy likes the name and decides to adopt it for himself. That evening Mevrou takes Peekay to the train station. She puts his Granpa's change-a shilling-into a pocket on his clothes. When the train arrives, the stationmaster introduces Peekay and Mevrou to the train guard, Hoppie Groenewald, who he says is â€Å"champion of the railways. † Peekay trips up the train steps because of his tackies getting in the way but Hoppie kindly gathers him up in his arms.Hoppie keeps Peekay company in the train compartment, and allows him to take of the t ackies. Peekay asks Hoppies about the sepia photographs hung on the walls- they show Cape Town and Table Mountain. This sets Hoppie off talking about how he almost competed in the National railways boxing championships in Cape Town. He begins giving Peekay a boxing lesson, slipping some leather boxing gloves onto Peekay's hands. Although the gloves are far too big, they feel comfortable to Peekay. Peekay secretly delights that Hoppie may be able to each him how to defend himself against the likes of the Judge. Hoppie tells Peekay that when he grows up he will be the welterweight champion of South Africa. He urges Peekay to start boxing lessons as soon as he arrives in Barberton. When the train refuels at Tzaneen, Hoppie treats Peekay to a mixed grill at the Railway Cafe where the bar ladies interrogate Hoppie about his next boxing fight. Peekay notices that Hoppie likes the younger woman, who has very red lips. Peekay falls asleep and the last image he remembers is Hoppie tucking hi m into bed. AnalysisThe novel's main plot, involving boxing, begins in Chapter Four as Peekay meets Hoppie Groenewald. Peekay compares Hoppie's role in his life to that of a sudden and temporary â€Å"meteorite† and calls him a â€Å"mentor. † The boxing plot initiates a new theme in the novel: the role of mentors in education. Education is not defined merely in formal terms, but as relating to the development of the person in his entirety. In such a way, the novel begins to tackle possible prejudices against sport, and particularly boxing, which is often assumed to give leeway only to violence and aggression.The boxing plot also incorporates the theme of the power of one, since Peekay's ambition to become the welterweight champion of South Africa, and then of the world, is purely his own ambition. The people Peekay encounters later in the novel support him in his endeavor, but often do not understand it. Chapter Four also introduces the main milieu–or backdropà ¢â‚¬â€œof the novel: apartheid. ‘Apartheid' is an Afrikaans term meaning simply ‘apartness,' and was coined by the Nationalist president of South Africa, Daniel Malan, in 1948.Chapter Four occurs before 1948, however, when white supremacist behavior was already in operation, but not yet systematized. Peekay's first consciousness of apartheid comes in this chapter, when he notices the â€Å"BLACKS ONLY† sign. In keeping with his childlike perspective, however, the author does not explain apartheid but pushes it to the background. Peekay's lack of understanding of apartheid established dramatic irony, as the reader understands the social institutions which define and affect Peekay from a more informed point of view.Peekay's confusion is not intended to be analyzed as a childlike confusion, however–the questions Peekay asks are terrifyingly legitimate and precise. For instance, when he wonders why white people cannot enter the workshop, he unwittingly touches at the irrationality of racism and apartheid. The novel is clearly founded in its South African context, with the author extremely conscious of the fact that he is writing for an international audience. He italicizes South Africanisms such as â€Å"stoep† (verandah) and â€Å"doek† (headcloth), and explains concepts that non-South Africans could not be expected to understand.For example, Peekay explains that years after his meeting with Hoppie he â€Å"discovered that the Cape Doctor was a wind that blew in early spring†¦Ã¢â‚¬  At the same time, Peekay's meteorite simile reveals a yearning for something much larger. The author is clearly aiming to make a universal statement about the pointlessness of discrimination against any group of people. The introduction of a Jewish character, Harry Crown, discloses that discrimination works on all levels-racial, cultural, and religious.The fact that Harry Crown coins Peekay's name for him is of vital importance-the author offers the lesson that people can make a difference in one another's lives regardless of how short their period of contact. Chapter Five Summary Peekay wakes early and surveys the savannah outside the train window. He expresses amazement at the washbasin which Hoppie shows him, neatly stashed away beneath the compartment table. Hoppie tosses away Peekay's soggy packed food from Mevrou and insists on buying him a proper â€Å"first class fighter† breakfast.As Hoppie lifts Peekay out of bed, Peekay covers his penis and apologizes to Hoppie for being a â€Å"verdomde rooinek† (a damned redneck). He expects â€Å"retribution. † Nothing happens, however, and Peekay begins to lose his fear of being an Englishman. Hoppie takes Peekay to the dining car where the waiter walks past and asks Hoppie the â€Å"odds† on his fight. Peekay wonders what â€Å"odds† are. He asks Hoppie whether he is frightened for the fight, eliciting another inspiring lecture from Hoppie, who is a â€Å"southpaw† (left-handed boxer). Lunch arrives with free steaks for Hoppie and Peekay.All of the passengers chat enthusiastically about Hoppie's imminent boxing bout. The waiter takes money for bets, and Hoppie has to explain what â€Å"betting† is to Peekay. Hoppie encourages Peekay to bet ten to one with his Granpa's shilling. Peekay is a little worried since Mevrou told him only to use the shilling in emergencies. Hoppie tells Peekay this could be considered an emergency. In Gravelotte, Hoppie takes Peekay to his home on the railway mess. Then they go to buy new tackies for Peekay at â€Å"Patel and Son,† which is owned by an Indian man, Mr.Patel. Hoppie treats Mr. Patel and his daughter–whom Peekay notices as being very beautiful–with disdain and tries to swap Peekay's large tackies for new ones. When Mr. Patel recognizes Hoppie as the famous boxer â€Å"Kid Louis† (Hoppie's boxing name, taken from a black non-Afric an boxer), he wants to return Hoppie's nine pence. Hoppie tells him to give the money to Peekay instead. Mr. Patel hands Peekay a shilling. Peekay is relieved his Granpa's money has strangely been restored. Mr. Patel says that he has bet ten pounds on Hoppie's victory.On the way back to the railways, Hoppie tells Peekay not to address â€Å"coolies† (derogatory term for Indian or â€Å"colored† people) as â€Å"Mister. † They head for the billiard room, where Hoppie's opponent, Jackhammer Smit, comes swaggering towards them. He laughs at Hoppie's small stature and calls him a â€Å"midget. † Hoppie tosses back a witty comment before exiting. Peekay meets Hoppie's friends Nels and Bokkie. At his home, Hoppie educates Peekay in pre-match rituals: a shower, a lie-down, and glasses of water every ten minutes (since it is deathly hot). At dinner, Hoppie introduces Peekay to people as â€Å"the next welterweight contender. Peekay remembers all that Hoppie tell s him, and Hoppie marvels at Peekay's perfect recall. Hoppie's army forms arrive in the mail–he tells Peekay that he has been summoned to war. He explains that Hitler is a very bad man–the enemy, not the ally. Analysis The racism of whites towards non-whites in South Africa becomes clearer in Chapter Five. Peekay's description of Mr. Patel's daughter as wearing â€Å"diaphanous cloth† and having â€Å"dark and very beautiful† eyes contrasts with Hoppie's racist description of Indians as â€Å"coolies. † Thus, the theme of people contradicting themselves in their behavior emerges further here.While showing extreme generosity and compassion to Peekay, Hoppie shows only arrogant racism towards the Patels, and tells Peekay not to call Mr. Patel â€Å"Mister. † Peekay thus becomes more than simply the protagonist-he becomes a moral yardstick by which we are to judge the other characters. Peekay shows respect and courtesy to everyone he meets. Alt hough Peekay's insight into the world remains limited and somewhat humorous, he is fast being forced to grow up. The bildungsroman structure usually involves a series of shifts from one setting to another, with very few visits to past settings.With Peekay surrounded by fresh faces on a train bound for Barberton, a new town, this novel certainly continues to fulfill the bildungsroman criteria. Moreover, most readers are in the same position as Peekay-unclear of the exact details of apartheid, and without an intimate knowledge of the boxing world. When Peekay confides that he does not understand Hoppie's â€Å"boxing parlance,† we share his newcomer's perspective. Chapter Five offers a couple of examples of the author's method of characterization–a simple, conventional method whereby a character's name is subsequently furnished with a short physical sketch.Peekay illustrates Mr. Patel's daughter, for instance, through the following description: â€Å"She was a mid brown color, her straight black hair was parted in the middle†¦Ã¢â‚¬  While the author pursues a conventional characterization method, the reader can understand his preoccupation with appearance, and particularly with skin tone. By Peekay almost taking inventory in noticing the woman's â€Å"mid brown color,† the author highlights the impossibility of categorizing people, especially according to something as nuanced as skin color. People should not be quantified and pigeonholed, he suggests.Yet some of the character descriptions fall into stereotypes or caricatures, contradicting this notion. Mr. Patel, for instance, speaks in a caricatured Indian dialect, using expressions such as â€Å"very-very† and â€Å"by golly. † Such stereotypes suggest that the book belongs to the genre of â€Å"popular adventure. † The characters and events, as will be seen in the rest of the novel, lack authenticity but replace it with the kind of exaggerated magic found in ch ildren's fairy tales. Chapter Six Summary Jackhammer Smit, a miner, has all his fellow miners on his side.The miners have constructed a makeshift boxing ring on Gravelotte's rugby field. All the townspeople gather on the stands (bleachers), with the black denizens having to squat underneath and peer through the whites' legs. Bokkie and Nels, Hoppie's seconds, lead Hoppie and Peekay to the warm-up tent where Hoppie points out the referee–a dwarf–to Peekay. Jackhammer Smit is already decked out in full boxing gear-Hoppie whispers to Peeky that he is â€Å"one big sonofabitch. † Hoppies opts to â€Å"glove up† in the boxing ring to provide more amusement for the crowd.Bokkie, following boxing etiquette, carries the gloves to Jackhammer Smit's seconds so that they may choose. Jackhammer and Hoppie taunt each other verbally, and Hoppie instructs Peekay: â€Å"Never forget, Peekay, sometimes, very occasionally, you do your best boxing with your mouth. † Nels escorts Peekay away from the tent and up the stands to Big Hettie, a large woman who chugs brandy throughout the fight and forgets to conceal her Irish accent when drunk. Hoppie and Jackhammer Smit enter the ring. Big Hettie hurls a curse at Jackhammer and the crowd roars with laughter.Big Hettie calls the dwarf referee â€Å"Sparrow Fart. † The dwarf invokes Biblical imagery, introducing the match as one between David and Goliath. In the first round, Hoppie lands a dozen punches to Jackhammer's left eye. The second round proceeds similarly, except that Jackhammer connects with Hoppie's head three times. Rounds three to five witness Hoppie attempting to wait out Jackhammer by taunting him around the ring. At the end of the sixth round, Jackhammer's left eye is almost shut, and Hoppie's ribs are red from the blows.In the seventh round, the heat begins to take its toll on Jackhammer-his left eye has closed. He manages to punch Hoppie right under the heart, however, and Hop pie crumples to the ground. Jackhammer refuses to move to the corner of the ring, thereby unwittingly giving Hoppie thirty seconds to recover. Hoppie manages to rise on the count of eight. Big Hettie nourishes Peekay with creamy coffee and chocolate cake during the fight. In the eleventh round, Jackhammer purposely knocks the referee backwards so that he cannot witness him headbutting Hoppie to the ground.The railwaymen, supporting Hoppie, cry â€Å"Foul! † After much confusion, and outbreaks of fighting amongst the crowd, the referee decides to award Hoppie the fight on a foul. Hoppie, however, is not satisfied and calls for the fight to resume. In the fourteenth round, Jackhammer knocks Hoppie down-suddenly Hoppie rises with a punch to Jackhammer's jaw, knowcking him out. A â€Å"braaivleis† (barbecue) and â€Å"tiekiedraai† (dance) follow the fight. Hoppie puts Peekay to sleep, next to Big Hettie. Analysis As the narrator matures, his voice gives the story a lyrical tone.The adult Peekay describes the gum trees near the boxing ring with â€Å"their palomino trunks shredded with strips of gray bark,† and the moths and insects which â€Å"danced about the lights, tiny planets orbiting erratically around two brilliant artificial suns. † He uses the same lyricism to describe, almost blow by blow, the boxing match between Hoppie and Jackhammer Smit-indeed, most of Chapter Six is taken up with the fight itself. This foreshadows many similar lengthy fight descriptions in the following chapters: the novel becomes in part a sports novel, with Peekay taking the role of commentator.Yet The Power of One differs from other sports novels in that it raises sport to the level of an art form. Peekay uses music metaphors and similes, subtly comparing boxing to music. For example, he notes how the referee â€Å"orchestrated† the audience to silence, and how Jackhammer Smit bangs his right fist into his left palm â€Å"like a metronom e. † The incongruity of music and a thug such as Jackhammer Smit works like an intellectual conceit-that is, an outrageous comparison that makes sense only after a couple of moments of thought.In such a way, the author compels us to accept boxing as an art form. The rich boxing vocabulary-including terms such as â€Å"straight left†, â€Å"feinting†, and â€Å"clinch†-heightens Peekay's storytelling power. This contrasts with Big Hettie's crude, yet hilarious commentary-she calls the dwarf referee â€Å"Sparrow Fart† and does not listen to a word Peekay says. The fact that the referee is a dwarf, and Big Hettie is partly Irish, adds to the already colorful human landscape of the novel-once again, the author forces us to recall the many types of differences between human beings.Hoppie's victory over Jackhammer is an important plot moment for the young protagonist Peekay since it gives him the faith that â€Å"small† can prevail over â€Å"lar ge. † He admits to the reader that â€Å"Big, it seemed to me, always finished on top †¦Ã¢â‚¬  The battle between small and large takes on a new dimension in Chapter Six: Hoppie teaches Peekay the necessity of strategy, of tactics. His main advice to Peekay is â€Å"First with the head, then with the heart,† an aphorism which Peekay never forgets. Peekay must change his own theme from the battle between small and large to the struggle between brains and brawn.Chapter Seven Summary Peekay awakens on the train to see â€Å"koppies† (little hills) and â€Å"lowveld† (bushland) flashing by outside. He finds a letter and a ten-shilling note attached to the front of his shirt-it is from Hoppie. Hoppie tells Peekay that the ten-shilling note is the money Peekay won from his bet, and in the note he reminds Peekay that â€Å"Small can beat big† and â€Å"first with the head and then with the heart. † Peekay is upset that Hoppie has disappeared from his life, but realizes that Hoppie has given him something to take away-the power of one.Peekay defines this as â€Å"one idea, one heart, one mind, one plan, one determination. † Soon Peekay notices a stench in the train compartment. He looks down from his bunk to see Big Hettie, fully dressed, sprawled on the bed below â€Å"like a beached sperm whale. † She reeks of brandy. When Peekay returns from the toilets, he finds that Big Hettie has half-collapsed onto the floor, with her dress over her ears. Peekay restores her to a normal position by shifting her legs onto the ground. Big Hettie belches in reply and Peekay exclaims â€Å"Boy, did she stink! The conductor, Pik Botha, arrives and gives a melodramatic lament when he realizes that Big Hettie is on his train. He gets even angrier when he discovers that Peekay's ticket is not clipped, and he blames it on Hoppie. Peekay pleads for Hoppie and succeeds. Pik Botha takes Peekay to breakfast, where the boy meets Hennie Venter, a waiter. When they return to the compartment, Botha—a born-again Christian—tells Peekay that Hettie is a â€Å"good example of God's terrible vengeance. † Hettie, however, wakes up to defend herself, calling Botha a â€Å"self- righteous little shit. She sends Peekay to fetch water for her. Peekay returns, and looks after Hettie by cooling her chest with a damp cloth. Hettie orders Botha to engineer a way to get her out of the compartment since she cannot get up. As Botha attempts to climb over Hettie to get a grasp on her, Hettie belches and Botha falls on top of her. Hettie begins to laugh and Peekay realizes that they are â€Å"in a real pickle. † They try a different tactic, with both Botha and Peekay pulling. Peekay loses his grip, however, and falls into Botha's crotch, causing him enormous pain in his waterworks. † They give up for the moment, and Hettie orders a lavish breakfast for herself and Peekay from Hennie. Peekay, no t hungry, gives his helping to Hettie, who scoffs everything. While Hettie eats, she tells Peekay that Hoppie could have been a famous boxer if it were not for the fact that he does not know how to hate. Peekay decides that he needs to learn how to hate. Hettie also tells Peekay about her love affair with a flyweight, who used to beat her up because he could not beat up his opponents. He died of a brain hemorrhage, during a match.Peekay watches Hettie binge herself on food all day, and intuitively realizes that he is witnessing â€Å"a sickness or a sadness or even both. † Hettie cries for herself, and Peekay comforts her. That afternoon the train arrives at the Kaapmuiden station. The railwaymen have to employ monkey wrenches to try to get Hettie out of the compartment. After telling Peekay she has faith in his becoming a great boxer, she dies quietly. Analysis In Chapter Seven, Peekay takes a detour, describing the tragicomic events that occur on his train ride between the towns of Gravelotte and Kaapmuiden.Big Hettie is representative of the â€Å"passing characters† pattern in the novel-some characters remain, while others coexist only briefly with Peekay. As with Hoppie, Peekay takes something away from Big Hettie. He learns about pride and courage. Peekay is learning how to absorb the essence of other people, how to remember what they say. Thus, â€Å"the power of one† does not refer to an individualistic sentiment, but rather to an all-encompassing notion, which acknowledges that the individual is shaped by all those people who pass through his life, whether for a brief or lengthy time.Peekay describes the events of the novel with humor and compassion; events are often both funny and sad. Big Hettie becomes one of the novel's caricatured, burlesque characters, and this chapter could almost be called a tribute to her. Chapter Seven thus deviates from the overarching plot. Hoppie's letter to Peekay, included at the beginning of the ch apter, also works to disrupt the neat, narrative flow and-as Peekay's first letter (and wager won)-it acts as a kind of mark of initiation into a more adult world.The â€Å"toilet humor† apparent in this chapter (Big Hettie's belches, for example) not only works as part of the burlesque, but constructs an invisible hierarchy amongst the characters- proximity to bodily Chapter Eight Summary The train arrives at Barberton station late at night. Hennie Venter says farewell to Peekay and promises to tell Hoppie that Peekay â€Å"behaved like a proper Boer, a real white man. † Peekay does not recognize anyone on the platform and so he sits silently crying, longing for his nanny to arrive and sweep him up. Then he notices a lady approaching.She calls him her â€Å"darling† and holds her against her bony body. Peekay realizes that it is his mother. When Peekay asks her where his nanny is, she simply says that he is too old for a nanny and hurries him out to a car where a certain Pastor Mulvery is waiting to take them home to Granpa. Peekay's mother and Pastor Mulvery spend the car ride home praising the Lord's precious name. Peekay's mother intimates that he must become a born-again Christian at the Apostolic Faith Mission, and Pastor Mulvery says they are on their way to meeting the Lord.Peekay asks if they can meet the Lord the following day–he is too exhausted that night. They both laugh. Peekay longs for the continuation of his past life on the farm. He discovers, fortunately, that the new house has exactly the same furniture as the farmhouse. He surveys the scene: the grandfather clock, the stuffed Kudu head, the painting of the Rourke's Drift massacre, the zebra skin. Peekay's Granpa enters the room and Peekay notices that he remains unchanged too. Only the kettle in the kitchen looks â€Å"new and temporary. † Peekay resolves to question his Granpa about nanny's whereabouts the following day.In the dawn he explores the back g arden, which he finds full of rosebushes–he observes that â€Å"the garden looked like the sort of tunnel Alice might well have found in Wonderland. † Beyond the fences surrounding the garden, Peekay notices plants of a wilder nature-quince, guava, orange, lemon, avocado, poinsettia, and aloe. He decides to explore and, before he realizes, he has climbed high up the hill. Compared to the African bush, the rose garden looks â€Å"tizzy and sentimental as a painting on a chocolate box. † He surveys the town of Barberton from above, and then joins his Granpa in the rose garden.When he asks where his nanny is, his Granpa slowly puffs on his pipe and tells Peekay a cryptic story about his grandmother, for whom he says Africa was too severe. Then he tells Peekay to ask his mother about nanny. Returning to the house, Peekay is reunited with the twin kitchen maids Dum and Dee, who tell him that Nanny is still alive. They also explain to Peekay that his mother has become a seamstress. When Peekay finally confronts his mother about Nanny, his mother tells him that she returned to Zululand because she refused to remove her â€Å"heathen charms and amulets. Peekay shouts that the Lord is a â€Å"shithead† and runs through the â€Å"Alice in Wonderland tunnels† until he reaches the hill. The eggs of the loneliness birds are crushed into powder inside him and, in a moment, he grows up. Analysis Chapter Eight contrasts the preceding two chapters (which cover Peekay's temporary adventures on the train home) by introducing Peekay and the reader to his new permanent place, Barberton. He has to deal with the prospect of a life with his returned mother and her religious fanaticism. He desperately searches for continuity and finds that his Granpa, Dum, and Dee are his only constants.While Peekay's experiences keep shifting from one backdrop to another, his method of narration is not disrupted, but is conventional and linear. Occasionally, he rem inisces about past events, but generally he moves forward chronologically. You may ask how a six-year-old could think like this. I can only answer that one did. The reader finds continuity in the story itself through the recurring motif of the loneliness birds, whose eggs transform to dust at the conclusion of Chapter Eight. This shift is significant, and Peekay observes that, suddenly, he has grown up.He ends the chapter by addressing the reader directly. He specifically addresses the reader's skepticism. It may seem ironic that at the same moment that Peekay announces his burst into the adult world, he confronts the reader's adult rationality. However, as the novel unfolds, it will become apparent that Peekay possesses a special manner of combining adult logic and rationality with a childlike appreciation for the magic and mystery of the world. The literary allusions to Lewis Carroll's novel Alice in Wonderland highlight this belief in magic.It is no accident that the names of the kitchen maids are â€Å"Dum† and â€Å"Dee,† reminiscent of the Carroll's characters Tweedledum and Tweedledee (Peekay presumably provided these nicknames for them in his youth). Not only does Peekay profess to grow up in this chapter, but for the first time he truly begins to grapple with the concept of â€Å"Africa† and his place in it. With his simile comparing his Granpa's rose garden to a chocolate box picture, Peekay consigns the garden to symbolic status-he sees the cultivated garden as a symbol of Englishness.The epithets he uses to describe the garden- â€Å"tizzy† and â€Å"sentimental†-suggest that he wishes to repudiate this part of his identity and allow himself to be captivated by the wild, untamed African land. Chapter Nine Summary While Peekay sits on a rock on the hillside, surveying Barberton, a very tall and thin man with a camera introduces himself as Professor von Vollensteen. He tells Peekay that he could not resist taking a photograph of him as he sat on the rock. He asks for Peekay's permission to call it â€Å"Boy on a Rock. † Peekay notices that the professor is carrying a cactus in his canvas backsack.He asks why the cactus is not pricking the professor, and the old man promises to reveal the secret. He takes the cactus from his bag and introduces it to Peekay as â€Å"Euphorbia grandicornis†¦ a very shy cactus. † He shows Peekay that his backsack is made of leather, protecting his back from the cactus' prickles. Peekay says that he could have worked that out for himself, and the professor calls him a â€Å"schmarty pants. † He asks Peekay whether he knows what a professor is, and Peekay has to admit that he does not know. Suddenly the professor notices a rare aloe under the sock on which Peekay is sitting, and yelps â€Å"Wunderbar! Peekay reminds him that he has not yet explained the word â€Å"professor. † The man replies, â€Å"‘A professor is a person w ho drinks too much whisky and once plays goot Beethoven. ‘† Then he tells Peekay that he can call him â€Å"Doc† instead of â€Å"Professor. † Doc and Peekay part ways and Peekay returns home, to a dismal Dum and Dee. Cowering, they tell him that his mother wants to see him. Peekay does not feel scared-his mother does not realize that he is a â€Å"veteran of interrogation and punishment. † Peekay's mother makes him apologize to her, then breaks down into tears of self-pity.At this, Peekay feels relieved because he is more accustomed to this side of his mother. He tells her to lie down, and brings her some tea and an Aspro. Two days later, Peekay sits watching army trucks filled with soldiers passing by the house when Doc arrives. Doc greets Peekay warmly and says that he wishes to speak to his mother-he has brought an aloe and the photograph of Peekay as presents for her. Doc discovers, to his horror, that Doc is a German. Doc tells Peekay's mother that he believes her son is a genius and he wishes to give him music lessons. At first she resists, since she does not accept charity from anyone.Doc eventually convinces her by saying that in return for the lessons he requires Peekay to work for him, collecting cacti. Peekay's mother now agrees- having a son trained in classical music will be a status symbol for her, a â€Å"social equalizer. â€Å"The summer months pass and Peekay spends the majority of his time with Doc, roaming the Barberton â€Å"kloofs† (cliffs) collecting cacti. Doc teaches Peekay â€Å"the priceless lesson of identification. † He teaches Peekay how to observe, how to listen to himself, and how to use his brain for both original thought and as a â€Å"reference library† for storing information.Doc supplements Peekay's outdoors education with morning piano lessons, and frequent trips to the Barberton library, run by Mrs. Boxall. Peekay soon realizes that he is competent but not a gifted musician. His mother, however, is delighted when Peekay stuns all the Barberton citizens at the bi-annual cultural concert by playing Chopin. The Afrikaners leave the concert when all the English people begin singing â€Å"White Cliffs of Dover. † Peekay explains the close relationship between the Boers and the Germans, who gave the Boers assistance during the Boer War. AnalysisDoc, or Professor von Vollensteen, helps Peekay to counter generalizations about Germans. Peekay is at first shocked since he associates all Germans with Hitler's Nazi party. Chapter Nine shows some stylistic deviations from previous chapters by Peekay's deviations into historical descriptions. At the conclusion of the chapter, he provides the reader with a lengthy description of the close relationship that developed between the Germans and the Boers during the Boer War. In such a way, he undertakes to educate the reader-he does not make allusions to historical events; he explains them.This results in the novel being self-contained—one does not have to undertake much external research in order to understand its context. Perhaps the author is suggesting that the very notion of history and historical recording is at stake in this time period. History cannot be taken for granted, and history text books cannot be trusted. By taking Peekay under his tutelage, Doc becomes the next of Peekay's string of mentors. Doc's character introduces a couple of new vocabulary sets into the novel-that of Latin cacti names, and that of his quirky half-German half- invented dialect.He uses nonsense terms such as â€Å"absoloodle,† and German exclamations such as â€Å"wunderbar. † Doc is a caricatured character (he occupies the space of a kind of fairy godfather), who becomes a foil to Peekay's Granpa-the latter confines himself to the preened, meted world of his rose garden, while the former exposes himself to the dangerous, exciting life of cacti and aloes. Although Peekay now has his mother and Granpa with him, there exists a glaring absence of anyone playing a truly parental role in his life.Doc fills this role. Instead of caring for her son, Peekay's mother neglects him in favor of the Lord, and Peekay in fact plays the role of parent to her. Peekay subtly underscores his mother's hypocrisy-while subscribing to the Lord as the only avatar of morality and modesty, she enjoys the status that Peekay's skill at classical piano affords her. Chapter Nine demonstrates a distinct method in Peekay's narrative style: he begins to provide the reader with recaps, or summaries, of events that have already happened.For example, he recapitulates the events of Chapter Eight and the beginning of Chapter Nine as follows: â€Å"The loneliness birds had flown away and I had grown up and made a new friend called Doc and had learned several new things. † The abundance of the coordinating conjunction â€Å"and† stresses Peekay's eagerness to tally these occasio ns-the effect is one of insistence and continuity. The reader can almost hear the tremble in Peekay's voice. The older narrator-Peekay reminds the reader that the younger Peekay has to hold on to the constants in his life-even the loneliness birds have become a constant.The reader senses Peekay's need to impart his life story-it is not a self- aggrandizing process, but a way in which he can circumscribe the uncertainties of his past. Indeed, the chapter concludes with the adult Peekay foreshadowing the loss of Doc from his life. Chapter Ten Summary Peekay skips two classes at the local school. Doc has convinced him that he should drop his camouflage and reveal his intelligence. Doc is Peekay's true teacher. When around Doc, Peekay says that his brain is constantly â€Å"hungry. † As in the summer months, Peekay arrives shortly after dawn each day for his music lesson with Doc.Doc's eyes are often bloodshot and he tells Peekay that the â€Å"wolves were howling† in his head the previous night-his euphemism for being drunk. Doc's Johnny Walker whisky bottles border the path in Doc's cactus garden. One Saturday afternoon in January 1941, Doc and Peekay are working in the garden when Peekay notices a military police van draw up. An officer and a sergeant emerge and, smoking cigarettes, they wait for Doc and Peekay to approach. Then the sergeant arrests Doc under the Aliens Act of 1939. Doc does not resist but instead sadly tells Peekay that he now must care for the cactus garden.Then Doc asks permission to shave and make a change of clothing before leaving for Barberton prison. Peekay brings jugs of water for Doc to wash. Peekay helps Doc to pack, and slips a half-bottle of Johnny Walker into Doc's bag. The sergeant finds the whisky in the bag and wants to share it with Doc, but Doc refuses to drink. The sergeant drinks part of the whisky then pours the rest onto Doc's beloved Steinway piano. Doc smacks the sergeant's wrist with his walking stick, an d the sergeant calls him a â€Å"fucking Nazi bastard† and a â€Å"child fucker. † Doc, however, is already walking towards the military van.The sergeant runs after him and handcuffs him, then kicks Doc's legs so that he collapses onto his knees. Peekay runs after Doc, screaming, and tries to throw his arms around Doc's legs. As he leaps, the sergeant's kick intended for Doc's ribcage connects with Peekay's face and knocks him unconscious. Peekay regains consciousness in Barberton hospital, terribly worried about Doc. The boy's jaw has been broken, making it impossible for him to speak. A fifteen- year-old nurse with acne, Marie, looks after Peekay and calls him her â€Å"skattebol† (fluffball).She tells Peekay that he has become a town hero for trying to restrain a â€Å"German spy. † Peekay's mother and Pastor Mulvery visit him often, and continue their attempts to proselytize him. Peekay remembers Doc's version of God-a force too busy training bees to fuss with silly humans. Peekay's mother calls Doc an â€Å"evil man† who attempted to kill him. Peekay fumes with frustration-he is the only one who knows the truth but he is unable to speak up to defend Doc. He writes to Mrs. Boxall asking her to visit him as soon as possible. Marie eventually agrees to convey the letter on Peekay's behalf. While waiting for Mrs.Boxall, Peekay writes a long letter explaining the details of Doc's arrest. Mrs. Boxall expresses delight at Peekay's testimony and exclaims that it has arrived just in time-the military court is about to put Doc on trial. She shows Peekay the front page of their local newspaper, The Goldfields News. The picture Doc took of Peekay on the rock is headlined with the words â€Å"THE BOY HE TRIED TO KILL! â€Å"Peekay receives a letter from Mrs. Boxall–she has shown his testimony to Mr. Andrews, the lawyer, but he has said that the piece is so sophisticated that no one will believe that a seven-year-old wrote it .Marie, the only person who can understand Peekay's garble through his broken jaw, is thus commissioned to be his interpreter. Peekay, Marie, Mrs. Boxall, and Mr. Andrews arrive at the magistrate Colonel de Villiers' office. Marie takes a while to find her voice, but Peekay manages to prove that he wrote the statement by writing down the names of various Latin succulents. They win the case, but Doc has to remain in prison since he did not register as a foreign alien when he arrived in South Africa fifteen years previously. Peekay visits Doc in prison and meets Klipkop (Johannes Oudendaal) and Lieutenant Smit.Klipkop tells Peekay that he is a boxer, and Peekay begs him to give him lessons. He tells Klipkop he has to become the welterweight champion of the world. Klipkop says that he is too young-the youngest trainee in their boxing prison squad is ten years old. Peekay watches as Klipkop brutally beats one of the black prison servants, accusing him of stealing some biscuits. Smit wat ches quietly, then tells Klipkop afterwards that he was the one who ate the biscuits. The men take Peekay to meet Kommandant van Zyl, who tells Peekay to inform Mrs.Boxall of a surprise he has for the townspeople the following Monday, in the town square. Peekay asks the kommandant if he can box with their squad. Smit is furious with Peekay afterwards. However, Peekay has realized that Jackhammer Smit is Lieutenant Smit's brother. When he refers to the Gravelotte fight, Smit's eyes begin to shine and he accepts Peekay into the squad. Peekay is forbidden from boxing for two years–he may only do technique training. Eventually Peekay gets to see Doc. Doc tells Peekay the â€Å"surprise† on Monday is a very stupid thing.He tells Peekay to meet him in his cactus garden at noon that day, and to find Beethoven's Symphony Number Five in his piano stool, as well as what is above the sheet music (his whisky). Mrs. Boxall becomes very excited when Peekay relays this news to herâ⠂¬â€œshe says Doc is to give a concert. On Monday Smit and Klipkop fetch the Steinway from Doc's house. They introduce Peekay to another warder, Gert Marais. Gert, an Afrikaner who does not speak English, cannot understand Doc and Peekay's conversation. Doc tells Peekay that he does not want to give the concert-he has not performed for sixteen years.However, the prison warders will not allow Peekay to visit him if he refuses. Doc tells Peekay of his musical history-he describes the disastrous concert of 1925 in Berlin where, playing Beethoven's Symphony Number Five, he froze up. As the mayor is introducing Doc in the Barberton town square, a fight breaks out between the English and the Afrikaners. Doc, trembling, takes a swig of whisky and begins to play. The crowd immediately quiets and is captivated by the music. Doc plays beautifully and Peekay has never seen him so happy. AnalysisChapter Ten is one of the novel's longest chapters, taking up almost a tenth of the novel. It carrie s through on Peekay's foreshadowing at the end of Chapter Nine-the loss of Doc and, in a sense, the loss of his childhood. For the first time in his life, at a mere seven years of age, Peekay must confront military and legal institutions-not as a peripheral visitor, but as an eye- witness of Doc's arrest and thus as an insider. Peekay reserves his own critical judgment of the cruel events he experiences (Doc's arrest, Klipkop's brutal treatment of the black prison servant) in order to allow the reader to draw her own conclusions.Peekay takes on the role of objective reporter or observer in these situations. However, he hints that his reserved behavior does not stem from disinterestedness–he realizes that survival in these settings depends on being diplomatic. Neither does the adult narrator withhold critique of the immorality of the prison world-his tone, often earnest, becomes ironic in his descriptions of the prison staff. After describing the office of the kommandant, with its stuffed gemsbok, eland, steenbok, and springbok heads, the narrator illustrates the kommandant himself, who claims to love wild animals.The narrator's precise descriptions–including, for example, the names of all the different kinds of buck on the kommandant's walls–stress the effect Doc has had on Peekay. Doc has taught Peekay how to observe, analyze, record. These skills will be vital to Peekay's success and survival throughout the novel. There are other reasons why it is sensible for the narrator to unleash his criticism of the harsh, racist behavior in South Africa in a subtle, rather than direct manner. Firstly, The Power of One was written at a time when apartheid was still alive in South Africa.The author himself has to take a diplomatic tone. Secondly, the author does not wish readers to see the South African struggle as one between good and evil forces – he paints the prison staff as humans, not monsters. They have redeeming qualities. Klipkop, Lie utenant Smit, and Kommandant van Zyl are all extremely kind to Peekay. The officers who arrest Doc take a moment to have a cigarette. It is a human moment before their violent treatment of Doc. Moreover, Doc's ability to halt the brawling in the town square, with his beautiful rendition of Beethoven, suggests the triumph of our shared humanity.The chapter ends on an optimistic note when it intimates that a universal spirit holds us all together in spite of our myriad differences. This tone of optimism emerges as the novel's distinguishing tone. In spite of Peekay's portrayal of crude or violent behavior, his faith in the notion of â€Å"the power of one† lingers. Chapter Eleven Summary Dee and Dum wake Peekay every morning with coffee and a rusk (a hard biscuit) and he heads to the prison for boxing lessons and then his piano lesson with Doc. The prison staff allows these lessons to proceed since they enjoy the social status afforded by having two classical musicians in their midst.Doc does not understand Peekay's need to box, but he assists Peekay with â€Å"musical analogies. † He says that in music, as in boxing, exercises make up one's foundation. Peekay's visits are so constant that he becomes part of the prison â€Å"shadow world. â€Å"Peekay becomes friends with Gert Marais, the Afrikaans warder. Gert fixes the boxing speedball so that it is low enough for Peekay

The Issues of Left-Wing or Right-Wing Politics Essay

The Issues of Left-Wing or Right-Wing Politics - Essay Example Further, history has observed a considerable number of conceptual overlaps and cross-laps resulting in an abstract blurriness regarding the exact political and implications these terms bear (Foldvary, 1998). According to Giddens (2001), ‘left’ refers to radical or progressive political groups while the term ‘right’ is used to imply more conservative groups. The left favours intentional political, economic and social change, while the right stands against it (Tansey, 2000). The purpose of this paper is to explore into whether fathomable differences exist within the left and right wings in terms of differential significance placed upon the individual and the group which requires developing a comparative understanding of the central themes these two concepts bear. The practice of using the left-right demarcation to imply particular distinct political inclinations originated in 18th century France during the revolutionary era when ‘Left’ and ‘Right’ were used to refer to the way seating was arranged in legislative bodies of France. Representatives of the third estate, a term collectively used to denote the working class, sat to the left of the president's chair in the Estates General of 1789 while the representatives of the nobility, known as the Second Estate, sat to the right. Again in the French Legislative Assembly of 1791, the Feuillants who were moderate royalists, took seats at the right side of the chamber, while the more radical Montagnards sat on the left (Goodsell, 1988). In subsequent periods the "right" wing assumed meaning based on tradition and was taken to represent and upheld traditional moral values and traditional institutions and power relationships. Through the course of history in Europe and Ameri ca, power had come to be based on not only the institutions of church and state, but also on the race, gender, and ownership of property, particularly land. Left-wing ideology, which arose to counter the right-wing dominance, was based on reason, and the liberal philosophers pointed out at the lack of natural reason for the existence of relations centred around any form of dominance and concluded that all human beings have the same moral worth and thus should have equal rights and all religious practices should be equally treated by law.  Ã‚  

Analyze a business or industry that is likely to be disrupted by the Essay

Analyze a business or industry that is likely to be disrupted by the trends of the big data, this disruption may create a new business opportunities and new business threats - Essay Example The concept of big data has been arising majorly due to the explosive growth of data flow that is caused by digitization taking place in the society. The digitization and automation of firms in the society has led to huge data storage (Feenberg, 2005).These large volumes of data that is being stored by businesses are very critical in terms of business operations. The concept of big data has provided the firms with the advantage to store large data volumes that were not possible in the early years. As the size of big data is incomparable it provides a very strong knowledge base for the firms operating in different industry. In context of businesses the big data trend allows a firm to transform huge sets of data in the form of advanced products, new services, and even improved marketing techniques so as to reach out to more number of customers. The trend of big data has caused an impact on all possible and similarly it has even effected the advisory firms both business and financial. T he advisory firms acts as a consulting group that helps a firm to manage its functions and also at times it controls various managerial functions of a company. The major opportunities that are created by big data in context of managerial and financial advisory firms are creating of best practice portals and knowledge space (Davenport, 2014). These opportunities are majorly based on knowledge accumulation and professional experiences in context of portal for knowledge space for respective economic sectors, environmental changes in the businesses in relation to legal framework, competition, emerging markets, economy, new services and products, etc. The concept of knowledge space may provide opportunities to the advisory firms or may even result into major threats for these firms in respect to long term operations of these firms. The term big data is normally defined to be larger data

Herman Melville's Billy Budd and Bartleby; Mark Twain's Pudd'nhead Essay

Herman Melville's Billy Budd and Bartleby; Mark Twain's Pudd'nhead Wilson and Those Extraordinary Twins - Essay Example It’s name means the Atheist and it is the French ship that engages the â€Å"Bellipotent† after Billy’s death. It’s shot leads to the death of Captain Vere, removing the guiding spirit of the â€Å"Bellipotent† which has been corrupted by adherence to tradition. These lines are spoken by Claggart after Billy’s soup spills and leaks across the master-at-arms’ path. They reveal Claggart’s singular attention on Billy, if not his animosity toward him, and indicate the reason why Claggart hates Billy as much as he does. The Dansker says this to Billy after the incident with the gold guineas, warning him that the after-guardsman is working for Claggart to try to implicate Billy in a mutiny scheme. If Billy were smart, he would have gone directly to the authorities about the incident, but, in keeping with his personality and understanding, he keeps quiet. Billy Budd says these words just before he is hoisted up into the rigging as his execution. The phrase is echoed by all the men on the ship and demonstrates Billy’s continued loyalty to the Captain as well as his respect for the rule of law that the Captain upheld in executing Billy. The significance of the brick wall is its ability to personify the character of Bartleby. Like a brick wall, he is described as having very little personality of his own, which makes him ideal for his role as a scrivener. However, he also proves to be equally as unmovable, as uncommunicative and progressively less useful as a brick wall. This was a friend of Judge Driscoll who died at about the same time as Percy Driscoll. Toward the end of the story, Roxy reveals that he was the father of her son, the man most people have known as ‘Tom’ through most of his life. This is Roxy’s real son who is switched with the baby Thomas a Becket Driscoll, the son of Roxy’s owner to be raised as a white man. He is the spoiled and rotten main character who abuses his ‘slave’, the true heir. They are both involved in the case

Personal Statement Adjust(including) Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words - 2

Personal Statement Adjust(including) - Essay Example At that moment, it dawned on me that the most effective way to capture anyone’s attention is via proper communication. My brother had limited vocabulary and did not comprehend much verbal communication but he was able to relate with the show because it spoke his ‘language’. The various presentations of communication caught my interest and have become my passion from then on. The development of communication is a process. I know that to improve my understanding of the process, I have to get involved with different activities that would improve my communication skills. Therefore, I read numerous books, watched many TV shows and enrolled in public speaking courses. During one of my classes at Foothill College, I had my first public speaking experience in front of fifty people which was very memorable. Although I felt nervous about everything, I did my best to focus on my speech. When I saw that my audiences were paying full attention to me, I felt confident and perha ps delivered my speech well because I received a hearty applause when I finished. Going back to Sharma, he said in his book, â€Å"The Monk who sold His Ferrari† that â€Å"the tragedy of life is not death but what we let die in us while we live†. ... As a Christian, I saw it was a great chance for me to serve God by delivering His message through the character I portrayed in the play. The experience further caused a great impact on my understanding about communication and caused a stronger passion for it. Moreover, I landed the position of secretary of the college’s Environment Club. With the extensive communication the job required of me, I learned to associate with different cultures and people from all walks of life. Communication is important but it should not be limited to simply expressing one’s self. People should learn to effectively communicate to highly benefit from the process. However, there are a lot of people who are communicating but not well enough in order to truly understand each other. There are many aspects of communication that need to be researched on and I believe that it should be a continuing process. With the technological advancements, other manners of communication are constantly being di scovered therefore, there is really a need to do more studies about the subject matter. In line with this and my interests, I look forward to being trained by the University of California. Accomplishments are both challenging and fulfilling. They bring hardships that may seem to burden people through the process but the difficulties serve as the very molds that shape a person. From experience, I learned things the hard way but I treasure them because the difficulties I have been through are what made me stronger and better. When I was in high school, I was honored to be selected by the principal to lead a team participating in the 2011 Hong Kong Drama Festival. I was also an actor, director and screenwriter. When I was informed about my role, I was hesitant to

Self Reflection Letter Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Self Reflection Letter - Essay Example It is worth to note that writing of academic paper is not an easy task as I thought before taking this class. With the help of the friendly professor I have learned to conduct a thorough research using library resources and online search engines. Now I am able to produce a well-researched paper on any topic. In addition, I realized that writing of the research paper requires intensive investments of time and efforts - it is not enough to locate several articles and summarize them - it is necessary to review the major points as well as pay close attention to the details. Thinking logically and reasoning critically are two of the skills that have helped me to put information from different sources into one flowing essay. While being in this class, my perception of world issues and of American culture has much enlarged. I have spent three years in United States already, but I cannot claim confidently that I have enough knowledge of culture to understand it. Numerous discussions in class have helped me to make one step towards fuller understanding of the American culture.

Community Development & Social Work Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3750 words

Community Development & Social Work - Assignment Example This essay highlights that one of the principles of social work is treating people with respect and dignity. Intimidation must not form part of social work and cultural differences should be duly recognised. Protection from harm and fair share in resources must be promoted. Any form of discrimination must not be practised; options must be made available; and obstacles must be lessened. In social work, the needs of others must be prioritised and social workers must make use of their skills and abilities in resolving conflicts among the members of the community. Trust and confidence in the exercise of duties must be practised and people should be given the highest quality of service. As the paper declares community development is centered on the values of social justice, self determination, working and learning together, sustainable communities, participation and reflective practise. Some underlying principles that strengthen social justice are showing respect for individuals’ civic and human rights; being sensitive to cultural diversities, differences in beliefs and ideologies; promoting equal career opportunities; and discouraging discrimination. Self-determination can be shown by identifying first and foremost, the root of the problem currently experienced by the community. Developing a sustainable community is one of the goals of a community development worker. The right of the community must be fully respected by community workers in deciding what is beneficial for them. ... Making people aware of the alternatives available and conferring with them about the repercussions and other concerns related to the wide variety of possible choices given; upholding the right perspective that other communities should not be regarded as inferior; and properly addressing clashes within the community are also some ways of exhibiting self-determination (Ontario Healthy Communities Coalition 2011). Another principle essential for the development of a community is the value of working and learning together. This principle can be promoted by establishing that collaborative working is better and more efficient than doing tasks individually. This entails a shorter period of time and less effort for the task to be done, encouraging people to contribute for the welfare of the whole community and urging them to work as one. Moreover, this assures people that all views or suggestions are considered and making them feel that they are essential members of the community, and lastly by trying to build up a culture of knowledgeable and responsible decision makers (Ontario Healthy Communities Coalition 2011). Developing a sustainable community is one of the goals of a community development worker. This can be made by encouraging self-sufficiency among the members of the community, developing the abilities of the people to be productive citizens; upholding the value of independency; learning from past mistakes and by using few resources from the environment while generating less waste and pollution (Ontario Healthy Communities Coalition 2011). The right of the community must be fully respected by community workers in deciding what is beneficial for them. The needs of the community, the

Art Essay Example for Free

Art Essay * Art is a term that describes a diverse range of human activities and the products of those activities, but here refers to the visual arts, which cover the creation of images or objects in fields including paintings, sculpture, printmaking, photography, and other visual media. They are two paintings that have been drawn by Dmitry Levitzky in 1773 and by Millais in 1871. The first portrait by Dmitry levitzky is called Nelidova, Ekaterina Ivanovna who she is the daughter of Lieutenant Ivan Dmitrievich Nelidov. She was raised in the Smolny Institute for Young Ladies and was noticed there by Empress Catherine II, who made her a maid of honor to the Grand Duchess Maria Feodorovna, later Empress, whose husband Emperor Pavel I. She was sincerely attached to him, although their relations were never intimate. She was able to influence Pavel I, preventing some of his unwise decisions and tantrums. She was also a close friend of the Empress Maria Feodorovna. The second portrait by John Everett Millais is called The Martyr of Solway the â€Å"Margaret† depicted by Millais was Margaret Wilson, who was born in 1667 in Glenvernoch in Wigtownshire. She was a young and devout Presbyterian who was a member of the Covenanters, a Scottish Presbyterian movement of the 17th century in Scotland who signed the National Covenant in 1638 to confirm their opposition to the interference by the Stuart kings in the affairs of the Presbyterian Church of Scotland. The Stuart kings embraced the belief of the Divine Right of the Monarch. However, not only did they believe that God wished them to be the infallible rulers of their kingdom – they also believed that they were the spiritual heads of the Church of Scotland. This latter belief was anathema to the Scots. Their belief was quite simple – no man, not even a king, could be spiritual head of their church. The following piece will demonstrate the differences and similarities between the two images in a compare and a contrast manner. Analyze the fundamental differences. Point out the major mutual points.

Child Soldiers and Poverty

Child Soldiers and Poverty Child Soldiers in Africa What accounts for the phenomenon of child soldiers in Africa? The primary cause contributing to the recruitment of child soldiers in Africa is poverty. While other factors such as ‘war’ itself, proliferation of small arms, lack of education, displacement all inevitably lead to child soldier recruitment, it is however poverty at the root of these circumstances. Therefore this essay shall argue this case by examining how Africa has come to have such high levels of poverty and by showing the association between other factors and that of poverty. To establish what is meant by the term ‘child soldier’ it must first be defined and a brief description offered that explains the recruitment practices used. This in turn allows the reader to better comprehend the devastating outcomes when underlying causes such as extreme poverty are not addressed. Subsequently this essay examines the factors that account for the phenomenon of child soldiers in Africa and through this examination of causal factors it will become apparent that pov erty is a recurring theme. Once it has been established that poverty is indeed the major cause of child soldier recruitment attention is then given to what is being done to stop it. Finally consideration must be given to the problems that arise when addressing the issues of disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration of the child soldier back into the community, to avoid a replication of the whole cycle. This focus on stopping child soldier recruitment and difficulties faced after hostilities cease, demonstrate an attempt to eradicate the practice at the causal level and show a commitment to assisting children who have already endured and survived this reprehensible process. A Definition of the ‘Child Soldier’ According to UNICEF: A child soldier is defined as any child boy or girl under 18 years of age, who is part of any kind of regular or irregular armed force or armed group in any capacity, including, but not limited to: cooks, porters, messengers, and anyone accompanying such groups other than family members. It includes girls and boys recruited for sexual purposes and/or forced marriage. The definition, therefore, does not only refer to a child who is carrying, or has carried weapons (Cape Town Principals, 1997). Recruitment Children are commonly taken from their homes, their schools, orphanages and refugee camps for displaced persons, directly to military camps for training. Many children are abducted by force while military offences are taking place on a child’s village. In contrast others actually volunteer and join the army (both government and rebel) to receive perceived benefits such as protection, food, opportunities to loot and a sense of power with a gun in their hands. The training commences very shortly after the children are abducted and its main focus is to quickly prepare the children to fight a war. Intense psychological pressure is placed on them whereby the links of the children with society are broken and a programming process is commenced to think of war and only war. This in turn is aimed at dehumanising the children and turning them into killing machines. The discipline is extremely hard and if a child is caught trying to escape often the penalty would be death and more than likely this would be carried out by another child soldier as a deterrent to others. It is also not uncommon to order these children to kill their own relatives, neighbors and to attack and steal from their own villages. This is a deliberate ploy by armed groups to destroy any chance of the child being accepted back into their village (Honwana, 2002). The Primary Cause The Children within African countries are generally at a higher risk of poverty, disease, malnutrition, becoming an orphan and have a higher mortality rate than seen in western developed nations. In addition sexual and labor exploitation (slave labor and armed conflict) has increased in the last twenty to thirty years. Africa is experiencing this state of affairs due to the poor state of socio-economic development in Africa and the nature of the development policies that have given rise to it. This terrible situation these children find themselves in is largely due to the failure of both state governments and markets. The developed world needs to redefine poverty reduction strategies urgently to address this situation and this may include more discriminatory aid allocation that includes debt relief, in agreement with the individual governments commitments to reducing poverty. The poverty we refer to above is predominantly of a rural nature as many of Africa’s poorest live in rural areas and thus depend on subsistence farming to provide food and income. Sub-Saharan Africa has the greater amount rural poor who are living in abject poverty and this includes the rural poor people of Eastern and Southern Africa, a region that has one of the world’s highest number of poor people. Rural poverty in many areas of Africa such as the Sub-Saharan region has its roots in the colonial system and the policy and institutional restraints that it imposed on poor people. Recent developments that affected the poor in Africa can also be attributed to the cold war between the east and west. The competition between the two sides resulted in many countries throughout Africa taking sides and either following a socialist model of development or a neo liberalism approach. After the collapse of the Soviet Union and the fact that many born in recent generations within Africa have been exposed to the later model, many saw their future based within the context of a ‘free market’ system. This system while showing encouraging signs initially started to show cracks into the 1990’s as it became apparent that an ever widening gap was developing between the south and the north. Many countries now found themselves in more debt from borrowed funds that could not be repaid than they were a decade earlier. In short the policy had basically managed to increase the wealth of developed countries, particularly multinational corporations (MNC’s) and the elitists within either African governments / rebel leaders. In contrast the poorest have received little due to a lack adequate social development policy (Baylis Smith, 1999). In recent decades, economic policies and institutional structures have been modified to close the income gap. Structural adjustments have also dismantled existing rural systems, but have not always built new ones. Furthermore in many transitional economies, the rural situation is now experiencing continuing stagnation, poor production, low incomes and the rising vulnerability of poor people. The reduced access to markets is a problem for many small businesses in Africa. The rural population is poorly structured and is often situated in remote locations that make it difficult for any assistance initiatives to reach. As a result more and more government policies and investments where they exist to address poverty reduction will most likely favor urban over rural areas. Given the above situation child labor is likely to keep increasing in Africa into the future  as the families or possibly just the children are dependant on the income they earn to simply subsist. In addition it has been found that if attempts are made to stop children working, it will only worsen the families or individuals situation unless new forms of income producing activities can be provided as an alternative. While this shift in income producing activities may help alleviate the situations where children are exploited and exposed to hazardous working conditions there still is concern that these children are not receiving an education. As the children are often not attending school they are in effect limiting their future chances of actually improving their situation and are more likely to continue a cycle of poverty through to the next generation (Ronald, Hope Sr. Kempe, 2005). Other Causes An obvious but often overlooked cause is simply ‘war’ itself – for without war there would be no need for child soldiers. Other causes consist of a proliferation of small arms since the end of the cold war, lack of education and displacement. These factors are likely to be present when a child is forcefully recruited by means of abduction which is a common occurrence in poor rural remote parts of Africa. Well known targets for this repulsive behavior are schools, walking home from school, refugee camps and from the home, often during the night. Others motivations that may lead to a child ‘voluntarily’ choosing to become a child soldier often stem from a view that the armed force will provide various opportunities not available at home. Additionally they are seen as providing a sense of adventure, survival in the case of an orphan, revenge against killed family members and escape from an either oppressive or abusive home (Cahn, 2005). These ‘other’ causes do indeed contribute to a child decision to become a child soldier, especially if that recruitment has been forcibly undertaken. The ‘state’ is often virtually non existent due to corruption / conflict and thus not able to provide sensible economic policy that may encourage industry and development or any social safety nets. The result is there are simply insufficient jobs; the only organization is that of the army or rebel group and therefore child soldiers in Africa do not exist for ideological reasons, but rather reasons of survival and escape from abject poverty. The fact that war is one of the main causes of child soldier recruitment seems too obvious and it appears quite strange that many non government organisations, researchers and bodies such as the UN have failed to even recognise it as a major cause in their research / discussions as a trigger for child soldier recruitment This ignorance may account for why many of the current efforts such as the millennium development goals (MDG’s) are failing Africa. Moreover as war is such a massive force of destruction and normality in Africa that sadly many children grow up believing it is a part of everyday life. Just being aware of its presence in your backyard / town generates a continuous need where a child must look out for themself through violence. War will cause the collapse of society including, family structures, closure of schools and other places of learning and lead to high unemployment. All of which indirectly lead children to view involvement in military conflicts as the only choice available to them for survival. The circumstances of education have a very immense impact on young children and through childhood and education children are forming their morals, values and goals for later life. Access to education and the content that is actually taught in schools are of equal importance. The relevance of education to employment, the way in which children are treated in their schools, or the way the school operates as a recruiting place are also important when studying the relationship between education and the recruitment of child soldiers. Likewise, the lack of education is a perilous trap because children will find armed violence as the only possible solution to their unappeasable boredom. Whilst studying the significance of education, the link between education and employment is also very important. In many of Africa’s unstable countries, this connection is very fragile and as a result children often find themselves thrown into a world of poverty and unemployment where education has no value. A consistent cycle of poverty leads to one course for its children that appears to offer economic protection and that course is that of armed involvement. As poverty increases in third-world countries the connection between education and employment is rapidly eroding and tragically a child coming to the conclusion that education is not very important in their lives. Singer (2001, p. 45) attributes the expansion of child soldiers to the proliferation of light weapons. â€Å"Rarely mentioned in analyses of world threats, which typically focus on the most complex and expensive systems, light weapons (rifles, grenades, light machine guns, land mines, and other â€Å"child-portable† systems) are the weapons most often used in contemporary warfare and produce 80 to 90 percent of all the casualties. Technological and efficiency advances in these weapons permit the transformation of children into lethal fighters†. After the Cold War there were enormous amounts of small arms in surplus throughout the world. Until recently, the weight and technicality of small arms precluded the employment of children in front-line positions. The proliferation of simple, light arms such as the M16 and AK-47 assault rifles has meant that they are now easily handled and carried by the child. This is due in part to lighter weight, less moving parts, which allows for easy stripping and reassembly even for a child under the age of 10 (Faulkner, 2001). A final contributing factor discussed in this essay is that of ‘displacement’. Children that are separated from a family due to a variety of different reasons will not have any reference for guidance, support or education. These children’s displacement may be the result of past wars that have created a generation of orphans as well as other children that are dislocated. Often these times is when children may identify with an armed group and possibly even volunteer their services to an armed group. However many children most likely initially move to either live on the streets in urban areas or possibly be able to access an orphanage for protection and shelter, although many will end up in refugee camps for displaced peoples. It is from these places of ‘safety’ that these special risk groups are often forcibly recruited and as they are especially vulnerable and feel defenseless they will usually come to acceptance of promises that a powerful armed group will also provide them with protection, shelter, food, and other basics of survival (Save the Children Federation, 2001). International Law Children’s Rights The international community has implemented laws that ban the recruitment and use of child soldiers in conflict. This legal and policy network is comprised of numerous laws developed by many international institutions and have been ratified by many governments. The following lists some organizations that have established many of the laws we see today that prohibit the use of child soldiers in conflict and also some of the major conventions (Hughes, 2000). The League of Nations (1924 Declaration for the Rights of the Child). The UN Security Council – numerous resolutions. The International Labor Organisation – Child labour conventions. The Geneva Conventions were adopted in 1949. The Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child – 2002. Although some of these laws may be imperfect, legal protections now exist and are increasing to protect children from being drawn into military service. Where governments such as seen in Africa are not democracies and therefore may not be accountable to their citizens, non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and International institutions represent the best possible sources of change because they function outside of the state bureaucracy. In some of Africa’s states that are experiencing conflict they may be either unable / unwilling, to protect children’s rights. NGOs have shown success in drawing attention to the problems facing children and in affording services and resources to help them. The Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) has also been fervently promoted by NGOs which has resulted in many countries ratifying the convention (Cahn, 2005). While conventions and laws are importantly necessary to address child soldier recruitment defiance of them needs to be correctly scrutinised, reported and the perpetrators held accountable before tribunals or other bodies such as the Statute of the International Criminal Court. Disarmament, Demobilisation and Reintegration The ‘gun’ gave a sense of power that was not there prior to becoming a child soldier and was most likely used against a child’s own community. This raises two issues, firstly how do these children lose this sense of power and secondly how do the children reintegrate into communities they may very well have alienated? One thing that is obvious it that the process will be long and difficult in many cases and will require feasible and special programs to achieve rehabilitation and reintegration (Zack-Williams, 2001). When children can be induced into formal disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration programmes, there are many factors to address. Firstly the number of soldiers reporting for disarmament and demobilisation need to be counted, their weapons surrendered and consideration given to what communities or other destinations they choose to relocate to. The ideology of violence needs to be addressed by imposing alternative values and non-violent means of confl ict resolution. The following points Malan (2000) demonstrates what needs may need addressing when child soldiers are being demobilised: †¢ Nutrition †¢ Medical treatment (including STD’s and drug abuse) †¢ Respect and self-esteem †¢ Human dignity and confidentiality †¢ Consultation and participation in determining their fates †¢ Reintegration packages and benefits †¢ Community sensitisation in advance of family reintegration †¢ Amnesty from prosecution, protection from retribution for acts committed †¢ Protection from repeat recruitment †¢ Mental ‘disarmament’; †¢ Education, peace education and vocational training †¢ Employment creation. Given the number of needs as shown above there would obviously need to be a huge commitment on the part of all parties involved (not just the NGO’s) to have any hope of achieving a beneficial outcome. Furthermore when considering the above needs it does highlight how much damage child soldier’s recruitment can do to the child. This awareness should encourage further urgent work by all concerned to address the causative factors such as abject poverty which is at the root of the whole child soldier process. Conclusion The entire child soldier phenomenon is a poignant process where children are being deprived of their childhood, denied an education and blocked from actively participating in their chosen culture. As a matter of urgency the underlying abject poverty that is a catalyst for children’s involvement in conflict and war, must be addressed by good governance, social policy and targeted aid / assistance by NGO’s and international bodies such as the UN. Priorities to assist in achieving a reduction in poverty in countries where hostilities have ceased should include the following. Improvements that allow ‘secure’ private sector activity, strengthening the public sector / quality of governance, increasing investment in infrastructure, the creation of service delivery in human development and the creation of a social safety net. Furthermore increased work must be done to not only create laws that prohibit the use of child soldiers in Africa, but to actively prosecute those responsible and apply appropriate penalties as a deterrent to others. Given the large number of needs shown to rehabilitate child soldiers and the subsequent investment in time and money; a serious commitment will have to made by those involved to provide the best chance for the child to attain some ‘normality’ of life and to not see the child return to armed conflict. Reference List Baylis, J Smith, S 1999, The Globalization of World politics – An Introduction to International Relations, Oxford University Press, New York. 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Save the Children Federation 2001, Child Soldiers Care Protection of Children in Emergencies, Save the Children Federation, accessed 20 May 2008, Singer PW, 2001, ‘Caution: Children at War’, Parameters, vol.31, no. 4, winter 2001/2002, p. 40. UNICEF 1997, Cape Town principles and best Practices, UNICEF, accessed 23 May 2008, . Zack-Williams, AB, 2001 Child soldiers in the civil war in Sierra Leone, Review of African Political Economy, vol. 28, no. 87, pp. 73 — 82.