Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Essay Example for Free

Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Essay Throughout the novel the Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao Yunior tells the story of oscars family that is allegedly cursed by the Fuku. The dominican family that roots back to when Trujillo was in power has been tragical effected by the Fuku. The main character Oscar is an awkward Dominican that balms his failures on the curse of the Fuku. The curse started back in the Dominican republic when the oppressive dictator Trujillo convicted oscars grandfather Abelard who was a respected doctor for conspiracy. When oscars grandfather was put in jail he was tortured and beaten, this was the origin of the curse for the Waos. Like a gene the curse has been passed down the family to oscar. The author Junot Diaz uses the motif of the Fuku to illustrate how bani allows her awful past to dramatically affect her and children. Everyone that lived in the dominican was in some way negatively effected by Trujillo. Oscar Wao was a living example of the fuku and how not only Trujillo effected the dominican people of his time but even the people two generations later. For example (p.5)â€Å"wether I believe in what many have described as the great american doom is not really the point. You live as long as I did in the heart of Fuku country, you hear these kinds of tales all the time everybody in san domingo has a Fuku story knocking around in their family.† Yunior is expressing the fact that even if you are not a believer of the Fuku curse if you are dominican there is a good chance it has affected you or your family. When oscars mother was left an orphan she was put through unbelievably awful circumstances much like her fathers. This time in Banis life effect who she became and how she parented Oscar.(78)â€Å"From 1951 on, â€Å"hija† and â€Å"madre† running their famous bakery near the plaza central and keeping their fading, airless house in tip-top shape. (before 1951, our orphan girl had lived with another foster family, monsterous people if the rumors are to be believed, a dark period of her life neither she nor her madre ever referenced. Their very own pagina en blanco). This quotation refers to how oscars mother was effected by the Fuku. The reason she was an orphan was because Trujillo killed her parents. The events of her childhood were a direct result of Trujillo but Bani had the power to put the past in the past and parent Oscar the right way, because Bani did not do this the Fuku lives on. Many times in the book a Wao has been injured almost to the point of death. Once was when Oscar attempted suicide. Oscars Suicide attempt was not just because he lost the first girl he has ever loved it was also because of how Oscar had almost no self esteem. Even his own mother would belittle him from a young age. The suicide attempt went wrong and Oscar survived to live another day. (p.191) â€Å"Except that this one of the garden dividers that they planted shrubs on and he hit the freshly tilled loam and not the concrete.† Because he hit the fresh loam he survived with many harsh injures instead of plummeting to his death as planned. This was an incident in Oscar Waos life that was a result of his failures like his failure to love or be loved. This failure stems back to how his mother raised him with very tough love because of the her childhood. The novel clearly illustrated how the Fuku has effected all Dominican people even if they had immigrated off the island. To me this novel is not about dominican people and there history it is about how only one man effected millions of lives not only in one point it time but for generations to come. Junot Diaz shows the reader how we all have the power to stop horrible things like the Fuku from effecting the next generation but you must have the power to leave the past in the past.

The literature concerning Essay Example for Free

The literature concerning Essay The literature concerning welfare rights movement at least in the 1960s can be characterized by the growing cry to bring radical positive changes in the welfare system of the United States. For these scholars, the current welfare system of the United States is producing a new form of inequality despite the resources that it is providing to the poor. The current system of welfare which is limited and somehow rigid had failed to erase the problem on poverty. In this sense, these scholars are providing a new light in solving the problem on welfare and its effectiveness. Numerous scholars like Richard Cloward and Frances Fox Piven had argued for the radical extension and expansion of the current welfare system of the United States. For them, the existing system of welfare which is rigid and limited had failed to really help and provide assistance for the poor. The system of welfare that existed is somehow impotent in nature in relation to its capacity to erase poverty. What they are recommending is a radical change in the system that will allow more people that eligible for welfare to be subsisted on it. They also argue for an increase in amount of welfare that will not just feed the people subsisting it but will also allow them to move forward in the hierarchy that will enable them to prosper at least domestically. This can also be related to the situation of minimum wage. Minimum wage are kept at bay not on the basis of economic sustenance or company stability. Rather, wages are kept low for the workers and employees not to really prosper to come up to a point that can rise and leave their jobs. The era of individual pursuit of interest had proved to be inadequate in easing poverty among Americans. Though there are real and concrete examples of people escaping poverty on the basis of their individual merits and actions, the other people who failed to move up in the hierarchy should also be taken to consideration. The system should not just support the exceptional people who can manage to rise. Rather than providing individual reforms, what must be embrace are collective terms of actions that will provide a fertile ground for groups of people to grow and prosper. This is comparable with labor unions that push reforms, benefits and wage hikes not on the basis of individual levels but on the basis and scope of the group. For these scholars, this is the way to go if we are really aiming for the problem of poverty to be solved. References Blumer pp. 303-306 Cloward, R. Piven, F. (1966) The Weight of the Poor: A Strategy to End Poverty. Common Dreams. Web. Accessed. 10 August 2010. Retrieved from [http://www. commondreams. org/headline/2010/03/24-4] OConner, pp. 158-169 Spitzer pp. 112-115

Negative Effects Of Peer Rejection Psychology Essay

Negative Effects Of Peer Rejection Psychology Essay This paper researches the effects of peer rejection on children, from the beginning of elementary school and transitioning into middle school, and the adverse effects that peer rejection can have. The paper also examines if there are certain factors, such as race, sex, parental care, or societal deviance, that correlate to or can be used as predictors of peer rejection. Looking at peer rejection shows multiple adverse effects, varying from psychological damage, increase in aggression, disinterest in academic life, increase in risk taking behavior, and negative academic performance, with all being related in turn to the duration and intensity of the rejection. This paper examines how peer rejection is correlated to these factors and outcomes, and if they can be used to predict adjustment in adult life. Peer Rejection: An Examination of the Negative Effects of Peer Rejection on Multiple Aspects of a Childs Life Merriam-Webster defines reject as to refuse to accept, consider, submit to, take for some purpose, or use, and peer as one that is of equal standing with another : especially : one belonging to the same societal group especially based on age, grade, or status. From these two definitions we get peer rejection, which can be stated as refusal to accept someone of a similar age, grade or status into a social group. Anyone who has ever been part of a social group in their life, from a school associated club, to a sports team, to a playground group, has dealt with not fitting in. Whether it be due to their race, age, sex, or play preferences, children of all types deal with not being accepted by their classmates. Asking anyone will get you a tale of a time in which they experienced rejection by friends or fellow students, and how they felt when it occurred. But what many people never think about is how this rejection can affect a child, if it continues for a long amount of time, or is more intense then merely an exclusion from one days worth of activity. If this occurs there can be a risk for problems to begin developing. First, we will be discussing the immediately recognizable effects of peer rejection on a child, such as disinterest in school work, drop in grade point average, increase in aggression and overall lack of interest in education. Secondly, we will discuss the long term effects of peer rejection, like increase in risk taking behavior, likelihood of continued low scores in GPA and continued lack of interest in school. Lastly, we will discuss how peer rejection can also be a predictor of other negative things in a childs life, such as deviance, whether it be physical, mental, or social, or even maltreatment by their parents. In 2008, Ladd, Herald-Brown Reiser conducted a study on whether chronic peer rejection would affect and predict a childs class room participation during grade school. It was hypothesized that (a) peer rejection creates constraints that inhibit childrens classroom participation and (b) the cessation of rejection enables children to become more active and cooperative participants in classroom activities. To test the hypothesis, Ladd et al. (2008) took a sample of 398 children, 199 girls and 199 boys, with a largely Caucasian sample, 77.5%, and followed them from age 5 through age 12. The largely Caucasian sample makes the group seem somewhat biased, due to its lack of representing any other race, however, it can be said that it is representative of the population of the United States. According to the 2011 Census, Caucasians make up 78.1% of the United States population, so while it may appear biased, it would seem that instead the sampling is quite accurate if we want to apply the sa mples results to the population. The results of the study, which are shown through a slope format, found that the early chronic rejected (ECR) group of children, or kids who were rejected from kindergarten to third or fourth grade showed little or no increase in participation of class, as well as this downward or stable trajectory continuing well into the other grades. It also found that children who experienced late chronic rejection (LCR), which was from grades four to six, experienced an immediate decline in participation and a continued decline in what was otherwise a normal upward growth of participation. What this show is that the effects of peer rejection are fast in being detrimental to a child, as well as being able to build up to the point that it lasts for periods of time longer then the original period in which peer rejection was experienced. Of note is that fact that, for the ECR group, once rejection ceased in fourth grade, if peer acceptance begins, then an immediate growth of participation, as would be expected in a non-chronic rejected child, will also begin(Ladd et al., 2008). Following this connection between peer rejection and decrease in classroom participation, we can look at a study by VÃ ©ronneau, Vitaro, Brendgen, Dishion Tremblay, 2010, which attempted to find out whether there was a link between peer rejection and academic achievement from middle age children into teenaged children. They hypothesized that academic achievement would decrease with peer rejection, due to an inability to integrate with the other children. VÃ ©ronneau et al. used a sample of 198 girls and 254 boys, almost all of European descent, that were selected from French speaking schools in Quebec. This reveals a bias in the sample, meaning the majority of the children chosen were Caucasians, as well as them being from Canada, which in turn means that the studies results cannot be generalized for all children, which could cause some serious problems if generalized. The lack of knowledge as to whether Hispanics, Asians or African Americans would show similar connections between their academic achievement and peer rejection would be something that a similar study could identify. The study found that academic achievement was a predictor in whether children were accepted by peers or rejected by them. This connection was shown by negative correlations ranging from -.12to a -.20, with the scores gradually decreasing towards middle school and adolescence. This not only shows that peer rejection decreases academic achievement, but that it affects it less as children grow older. An explanation could be seen in that as a child grows older, he will not be influenced by teachers and parents negative opinions of children who do badly in school, or that as children reach middle school, student bodies tend to increase in size, meaning they are less likely to know about fellow classmates academic scores and achievements. Now to tie those two studies together we can examine a study done Amy Bellmore in 2011, that looked at associations of Grade Point Average (GPA) and peer rejection and unpopularity. The study chose 901 students, 477 boys and 424 girls, from a school system in a middle sized town in the northeastern United States, with an ethnicity similar to that of the united states, with 65% being Caucasian, 20% African American, 12% Latino, and 3% Asian or other, and followed them from grades four to eighth(Bellmore, 2011). The study found that as peer rejection increased in a semester, GPA would decrease, and that peer rejection in a semester would also predict GPA decrease in the following semester. Bellmore also found that peer rejection and unpopularity function differently from each other, with unpopularity not affecting GPA at all during elementary years, but instead, increasing GPA during middle school! This distinction between actual rejection by peers and a lack of acceptance by peers bri ngs up an interesting thought. While being refused by friends and classmates in elementary school makes a child less likely to participate in class, and less likely to achieve academically, by middle school a general sense of difference and lack of acceptance seems to almost fuel a childs need to prove himself in a purely academic way. While this in no means says that being an outcast from the social norm makes a student better academically, it does seem to validate VÃ ©ronneau et al.s (2010) findings that peer acceptance increases with academic achievement. It also seems to suggest that Ladd et al.s 2008 findings of peer rejection hindering classroom participation could possibly be correlated with a drop in GPA as well. When a child feels like they cannot participate in class, they may learn less due to not asking questions due to fear of classmates reactions, perform less then normal in class projects that require group participation in which they could experience rejection, and overall experience a drop in GPA and academic achievement because of their lack of group work finished and class participation points earned. While the studies seem to have a firm amount of findings from children in elementary and middle school, the lack of research into high school peer rejection and its detriments on academic life, shows that peer rejection still has many opportunities for research. This lack of research leads to another study which examined the effects of peer rejection and its influence on girls risk taking behavior. Conducted in 2004 by Prinstein and La Greca, it aimed to find out if there was a link between peer rejection and aggression and if they could be used as predictors of risk taking behaviors, such as marijuana use and risky sexual behaviors. Prinstein La Greca took a sample of 148 girls from fourth to sixth grade, and then examined them again when the girls had reached tenth to twelfth grade. The samples ethnicity consisted of over half being Caucasian, two sixths being Hispanic one sixth being African American and the remainder of the sample being Asian or other. Also of note is the fact that the sample was composed of mainly girls from middle class families. The conclusions drawn from the sample cannot then be applied to general population, and leave open the question of whether socioeconomic status could predispose girls to peer rejection, or if their socioeconomic status itself leaves predisposition to risk taking behavior. In recent studies, such as that by Shields, Ryan and Cicchetti (2001) and Juvonen (1991), peer rejection was found to be linked to maltreatment by parents and shown to be related to deviance from norms. Beginning with maltreatment by caregivers, Shields et al. 2001 hypothesized that: Maltreated children would evidence maladaptive representations, maladaptive representations would be associated with emotion dysregulation and peer rejection on entry into new social groups, maladaptive representations would foster emotion dysregulation among maltreated children, such that they would be more likely to be rejected by peers. This was done by using a narrative representation by 76 maltreated and 45 non-maltreated girls and boys at a summer camp, of varying race and ethnicity, from ages eight to twelve, all from an inner city environment. While the sample size isnt large enough to accurately predict for the entire population, it is still diverse enough to give us a clear enough picture of ho w maltreatment can affect all types of children, and show up in social groups through peer rejection. The determination of maltreatment versus non-maltreatment was found using Child Protective and Preventative Services records, ensuring that maltreated children came from homes where maltreatment had occurred and would most likely continue due to dysfunctional family, which guards against any bias that could have come from using opinions alone to determine maltreatment. In an effort to keep the samples unbiased, even the types of maltreatment varied from child to child, with sexual abuse, physical abuse and neglect all being types of maltreatment included. After choosing the children, an exercise in which each child was asked to elaborate upon a series of story stems, representing emotional and physical situations involving either a mother or father, was recorded and then transcribed for comparison. After comparing the findings, it was shown that

Frederick Douglass’s Narrative :: Essays Papers

Frederick Douglass’s Narrative In Frederick Douglass’s Narrative, Douglas himself narrates the novel using story telling to bring both the reader into the story, and the theme into focus. Through his narration, Douglass also uses narrative strategies like anecdotes, and plot twists. Even with it being a true story, Douglass brings the readers’ attention to a peak with these techniques making the story interesting and appealing. The most influential technique used by Douglass is story telling. He uses little stories, or stories-within-a-story, to make the reader pay attention. With descriptive tales of the plantations he worked on, the beatings and torture of slaves, and learning to read and write, he not only gets the attention of the readers, but he gets them to understand his point of view. For example at the beginning of the narrative Douglass tells a story of his aunt being beating, â€Å"I have often been awakened at the dawn of day by the most heart-rendering shrieks of an own aunt of mine,† (3). He goes on and gets even more graphic and descriptive, â€Å"The louder she screamed, the harder he whipped; and where the blood ran fastest, there he whipped longest.† (4). Also early in the novel, Douglass writes of the plantation he grew up on, â€Å"There were no beds given the slaves, unless one coarse blanket be considered such,† (6). Soon after being sold to Mr. and Mrs. Au ld, he was taught the alphabet. He uses this experience to show to his audience that he is very literate despite his masters’ wishes, â€Å"If you teach that nigger how to read there would be no keeping him,† (20). So this story shows some more cruelty from his master. Just for reading he would be sold, which shows unfair treatment to the reader. Another similar technique used by Douglass very effectively is anecdotes. He uses anecdotes throughout the story to bring a humorous or interesting little side story into the readers’ minds. One good example of this is when he is talking about slave songs, â€Å"I have often been utterly astonished, since I came to the north, to find persons who could speak of the singing, among slaves, as evidence of their contentment and happiness.† (9). This shows the readers of his concerns by just adding a brief story in to interest the reader.

Free Euthanasia Essays: Oregon, Assisted Suicide and Right to Life :: Free Euthanasia Essay

Oregon, Assisted Suicide and Right to Life The reader of this paper will learn how the Right to Life movement is getting involved in a dramatic way in the assisted suicide battle in the state of Oregon. The NRLC(National Right to Life Committee), as well as the state RTL group, is participating in the court battle resulting from Oregon's November, 2001 judicial challenge to Ashcroft's decision -- initiated to keep assisted suicide practices functioning smoothly in Oregon. The National Right to Life Committee and Oregon Right to Life filed a friend of the court brief in the case challenging the recent decision of U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft that the Controlled Substances Act does not permit the use of federally controlled drugs for assisted suicide. Under the Ashcroft decision, physicians who prescribe controlled drugs for assisted suicide could lose their licenses to prescribe any federally controlled drugs, which would effectively end the medical practice of many doctors. The brief supports the position of the United States, arguing that the Ashcroft decision should be upheld. (Oregon) In November of 2001, the State of Oregon brought suit against the Ashcroft ruling charging that it effectively nullifies Oregon's law permitting physician-assisted suicide for the terminally ill. Oregon is the only state to have legalized physician-assisted suicide. Oregon was joined in the suit, Oregon v. Ashcroft, by a number of persons seeking assisted suicide, a physician, a pharmacist, and an assisted suicide advocacy organization. Federal district court judge Robert E. Jones in Portland, Oregon, enjoined enforcement of the Ashcroft ruling pending prompt resolution of the case in his court. The National and Oregon Right to Life brief argues that Ashcroft's decision was fully justified because the federal government can choose to protect all human life through its laws even if the State of Oregon has chosen not to do so. "Just because Oregon allows its doctors to prescribe lethal drug overdoses to patients doesn't mean that the federal government has to agree that this is a legit imate medical use of the drugs," said James Bopp, Jr., General Counsel of the National Right to Life Committee. "The Oregon tail doesn't wag the federal dog. The U.S. government can protect all human lives even if Oregon turns its back on some of them." The brief also argues that the Ashcroft decision avoids constitutional problems by refusing to discriminate against terminally ill persons in enforcement of federal drug laws.

Economy Shipping Company :: Business Management Finances Essays

Economy Shipping Company It is recommended that Economy Shipping Company (ESC) replace the steamboat, Cynthia, with a new diesel powered boat. The analysis assumed no operating cost in 1950. Although ESC was presumably still in service during this analysis, the costs associated with the project evaluation were not accounted for until 1951. It was also implicit in the NPV calculations that any upgrade required subsequent to 1950 could be performed without any interruption to the daily operations and were performed at the beginning of the year. Therefore, the stoker upgrade and the engine replacements were considered on Jan 1st of the intended year and did not require any downtime for the installation. The evaluation considered four different scenarios: 1. Rehabilitation of Cynthia with the stoker conversion occurring in 1950 2. Rehabilitation of Cynthia with the stoker conversion occurring in 1952 3. Purchase of a new diesel-powered boat with 2 shifts, 12-hour working day 4. Purchase of a new diesel-powered boat with 3 shifts, 8-hour working day Since ESC was considering other projects with a rate of return of 10%, each of the above options were considered using the same rate of return. The company?s balance sheet suggests that management was very conservative. The debt-to-equity ratio in 1950 was 0.075, indicating that the company could easily borrow at the going rate of 3% without fear of bankruptcy. Moreover, the company had sufficient funds to purchase four new diesel-powered boats. Overall, ECS was in a very strong position to quickly upgrade their fleet and gain any advantage that may come with the new diesel-powered boats. The influence of the union to change the working hours for the crew members is noteworthy in this analysis. If the union succeeded, the steamboats would not be capable of accommodating the 3-shift requirement and therefore be noncompliant with the new regulation. If the new regulation had fines associated for any vessel not in compliance with the new guidelines, the results for the steamboat scenarios would only get worse. In this case, the diesel-powered boats could accommodate the anticipated ruling and therefore continue to operate without fear of being unlawful. Another disadvantage against rehabilitating Cynthia was its age. At the time of the decision the steamboat had already been in operation for 23 years. Although, the realizable cost to renovate the steamboat was already known, the intangible aspect of this alternative was the status of the boat once refurbished. It should be noted that with any overhaul, there are still aspects to the boat that will remain ?old? and will eventually fail. The maintenance and repairs listed in

Beowulf and Grendel Comparison

Brooklyn Technical High School  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚     Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚     Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Lhadoen Gyephel E4H- pd. 5  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚     Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   04/02/13 Grendel The book Grendel by John Gardner is about a monster, named Grendel, who involves himself with humans. It goes back in time to show the origins of the conflict between them and also to show Grendel’s personal change within. The novel provides the view of the â€Å"monster† that everyone in Beowulf feared and hated.It showcases how certain events and experiences sha ped Grendel, not only as a monster, but as a human and observer. The story focuses on Grendel’s different philosophies of thought. He observes the local humans, the Scyldings’ development as a civilization and as individuals. His first encounters with the outside world are both bewildering and melancholy. His encounter with a bull and humans leads to his search for personal meaning and his desire to torment the humans.All these things show that Grendel is not a monster, but a non-human who possesses human-like qualities, such as emotion and thoughts. Beowulf portrays Grendel as a savage beast, who is solely driven by his nonhuman instincts to torture humans. It gives the reader the feeling that he does not possess the same thought processes as humans do; therefore, he is characterized as a monster. However, in this novel, Grendel’s point of view and thoughts are more developed and deeper than how he is portrayed in Beowulf.The readers get a glimpse of the story through his eyes and it may change their view of Grendel. He is a solitary and disoriented creature who is misunderstood by humans and all those around him. He looks for a place to belong and his quest is to know who and what he is. â€Å"I had become something, as if born again. I had hung between possibilities before, between the cold truths I knew and the heart-sucking conjuring tricks of the Shaper; now that was passed: I was Grendel, Ruiner of Meadhalls, Wrecker of Kings!?But also, as never before, I was alone. † Grendel states this at the end of Chapter 6 and it marks the start of his 12-year war against the humans. It’s significant because it’s Grendel’s step in creating his own identity and place in the world for the first time. It not only indicates that Grendel has a role of the humans’ nemesis but that now, more than ever before, Grendel was alone because he has destroyed the possibility of ever befriending the humans.