Hemmingway: Catherine as a Code Hero

Catherine: A Manipulative Caretaker In A Farewell to Arms, Frederic Henry is characterized initially by a sort of detachment from life-though well-disciplined and friendly, he feels as if he has nothing to do with the war. These feelings of detachment are pushed away when Henry falls in love with Catherine and begins to realize the hostile nature of the world. In this way, Henry serves the function of a character that becomes initiated in Hemingway's philosophy of an indifferent universe and man's struggle against it. Due to the untimely death of a fiance previous to the events of this book, Catherine is initiated into Hemingway's philosophy, and exemplifies the traits of the Hemingway  code hero  throughout the novel. She is characterized primarily by her disregard for  social conventions  as well as an unfaltering devotion to Henry. Catherine is defined as a code hero because of her honor, courage, and endurance in pain. Honor is defined as having a keen sense of ethical conduct. For Catherine, the ethical conduct is keeping Henry happy, and in doing so, she is keeping herself happy. At first glance, Catherine Barkley appears to be an example of any man’s fantasy girl. She appears as a dull character that asks nothing of Henry and is only there to make him happy. Because of this, it is said that Catherine's character is demeaning to women. Catherine Barkley's basic approach to her relationship with Frederic shows her as being inferior. She appears to gladly accept a lower role in her relationship with Frederic. â€Å"I'll do what you want and say what you want,† she tells him, â€Å"and then I'll be a great success, won't I† (Hemmingway105). Her idea of a successful relationship, and of happiness, is based on making Frederic happy no matter what she has to do. Like the code hero, she handles conflicting needs with grace, giving to both, but shorting none. She uses Henry as a template to fulfill her need for her dead fiance. And because Henry is characterized as unemotional, it is effortless for her to use him as a template to mold him into the man she longs for. She enters the war as a nurse the same time her fiance enters as a soldier, but because he dies she longs for a clutch to keep track of reality. She is always surrounded by wounded soldiers, which does not help her cope with the death of her fiance until Henry comes into her life. His unemotional attitude towards the world provides her with the perfect opportunity bring her fiance back to life—in her mind. In a conversation with Henry, Catherine forces words into his mouth, â€Å"Say, ‘I’ve come back to Catherine in the night’† (30). Henry instinctually repeats as she says without ever questioning her. He even says, â€Å"I thought she was probably a little crazy†¦I did not care what I was getting into† (30). Even though he acknowledges the fact that she might be slightly deranged, he accepts her because he the type of man to gamble. In another instance, Catherine reassures herself that her love will not abandon her again. â€Å"You’re so lovely and sweet. You wouldn’t go away in the night, would you? † (197). Because she loses her love once already, she is unwilling to allow that to happen again. Also, by loving Henry, she saves her from going crazy with grief. When everything is exploding all around them, everything takes on more urgency. In her mind, as well as his, it is normal that she feels so intensely for Henry. And she doesn’t fall apart without him when they are separated, but just keeps on trucking and hoping. She does not need  Henry for anything but love. Although, on the surface, Catherine seems to be the perfect male fantasy, she is in fact quite the opposite. In addition to her honorable acts, she displays courage. Even Ernest Lockridge, author of â€Å"Faithful in Her Fashion: Catherine Barkley, the Invisible Hemingway Heroine† says, â€Å"Catherine frequently displays wit, intelligence, cool irony, and, facing death, she displays dignity and courage—qualities that seems contradictory to the fawning, submissive Catherine† (Lockridge 172). Hemmingway portrays courage in Catherine when she tries to console Henry about her death. â€Å"I’m not brave anymore, darling. I’m all broken. They’ve broken me. I know it now† (Hemmingway 323). Catherine is clearly in fear of death, but she is not trying to run or hide from it. She faces death and tries to console Henry by telling him she is not going to die. After undergoing a caesarian section and giving birth to a stillborn baby boy, Catherine proves just how brave she is. Though she knows she is dying, she still has the dignity and strength to accept such a fate. In face, she finds herself trying to comfort her distraught lover once again. With death approaching, Catherine’s final words to Frederic Henry suggest she possesses some sense or understanding of her own mortality and of what is soon to come. She says, â€Å"I’m not a bit afraid. It’s just a dirty trick† (331). The â€Å"it† Catherine refers to is presumably death, but in fact, the indefinite may be referring to life, a process Catherine views as a â€Å"rotten game† (31), since so much about it is left to chance and death is always the end. Catherine stood brave in the face of a battle with her own body. Like the soldiers, neither her bravery, nor Henry’s love, could save her from death. In Henry’s mind, the death of the soldiers and the death of Catherine are parallel tragedies, which cannot be separated from each other. By weaving the tragedies together, he memorializes both such tragedies, and can perhaps hope to heal a bit of his pain. Critics may argue that Catherine is a clutch for Henry to cope with war, but clearly throughout the novel, Henry is more attached to her than she is to him. Frederic says, â€Å"When I saw her, I was in love with her. Everything turned over inside of me† (Hemmingway 91). He is truly falling in love with her and who she is, but she, on the other hand only loves him for being alive. He is, in fact, her tool to endure the emotional pain for the loss of her fiance. Once again Ernest Lockridge says, â€Å"To preserve her fantasy, Catherine strives to isolate the relationship from others. She speaks Frederic Henry’s name only once†¦by worrying that people will suspect an affair†¦she will not marry Frederic Henry† (Lockridge 174). When Frederic first meets her she laments that she did not marry her fiance before he died. She says that they were engaged for eight years and that they grew up together. She tells Frederic she did not marry her fiance because she thought that it would trap him. She feels she will do the same to Henry. Frederic Henry does want to be married but Catherine thinks this would keep them from being together during the war. When he pressures her, she says, â€Å"We’re really married. I couldn’t be any more married. † She keeps up this attitude until near the end of her pregnancy, when she says, â€Å"I suppose if we have this child, we should really get married† (Hemmingway 115). Frederic says, â€Å"Let’s get married now† (293). But Catherine refuses again and claims to want to wait until after the baby is born. She wants the commitment of marriage, but is very suspicious of it as an institution. Also, Catherine, in her mind, envisions Henry as her dead fiance, so to her she is still completely faithful but in reality, she is with a man that she has not truly come to know. She is at a fragile state where if she acknowledges the death of her fiance, she will be shattered. Her mechanism of coping with the pain of losing a loved one is by replacing him with another body but not in spirit. On a physical sense, she endures pain by being away from Henry as well as the occurrence where she is in labor. While in labor, Catherine is in pain, but she is telling Henry to eat so he is not harmed from hunger. She says, â€Å"That was a very big one. Don’t you worry, darling. You go away. Go have another breakfast† (317). Even with painful contractions, she is more concerned with Henry’s appetite than her own comfort. Catherine has a high endurance for pain, both emotionally and physically. She creates coping mechanisms for both so that she is able to live in reality without seeming insane. Traditionally, Hemingway's heroes are male, and to interpret Catherine as a code hero was inadmissible. Catherine was thought as an undeveloped character in the novel, merely an idealized projection of male desire. Upon closer examination, however, Catherine does share characteristics of the code hero. Hemingway's code hero is a skilled professional. Catherine is a nurse who is skilled in her profession. The code hero lives with courage in a dangerous world. Catherine demonstrates courage when she and Frederic row across the lake to escape into Switzerland, a very dangerous feat, and especially when she tries to deliver their baby, finally realizing that she will die. The code hero also lives in a random universe, but chooses to control himself and endure reality. Catherine cannot control events when she goes into labor, but she endures the pain with dignity until her death. Catherine endures in other ways, as well. She experiences the death of a fiance and faces great fear as an unmarried nurse when she learns she is pregnant. Throughout all of these times, however, Catherine does not feel sorry for herself, and she does not break. Like a code hero, she endures. Works Cited Hemingway, Ernest. A Farewell to Arms. New York: Scribner, 2003. Print. Lockridge, Ernest. â€Å"Faithful in Her Fashion: Catherine Barkley, the Invisible Hemingway Heroine. † The Journal of Narrative Technique, Vol. 18, No. 2 (Spring 188), pp 170-178

Most Important Person in Your Life

One person in my life that influences me the most would be my mother. My mom is by far the strongest person I know and she has gone through more struggles than any person should have to. She had to raise me on her own while facing many health issues and did whatever she had to do to give me what I needed. While I was growing up, she did not get to spend as much time with me as she would like because she worked a lot to take care of the bills and she was often in the hospital sick. We also moved around a lot until I was about 12, then we finally owned our first house and stated to spend more time together.Things started to improve from here, until my Grandpa passed away. This affected my mom and I greatly, but especially my mom. She started to become more distant and she stopped working for a while. I tried to make her smile and get back the close relationship we had. After a few months things went back to normal, she was back to the fun, loving woman I knew. Over the last few years m y mom has grown to be my best friend, we do everything together, but her health has also been progressively getting worse.Even though she is always sick, she does whatever she can to make me happy. Although I do not always appreciate it, my mom has made many sacrifices for me and has taught me many life lessons. I have learned to be responsible, caring, ambitious, confident, and most importantly strong. She has influenced me to become a better person and to always make the most out of what I have. Because of her I know that I can achieve great things and she has inspired me to be the best person I can be.

IT Strategy and Network Design Proposal Essay

The GFK School of Motoring was established in 1960. Since then, the school has grown steadily and now has a several offices in the London area. However, the Organization is expanding and a new branch is to be built that will link with the existing network and also utilise the latest technologies such as simulators, the internet and the World Wide Web. Furthermore, improvement is needed in the communications and sharing of information between offices spread around the London. The Director wants to take advantage of the Internet to change the way the company operates. The new branch will allow prospective clients to browse the website and make an initial registration. Interview and the checking of documents can then be arranged on-line. Once a client has been registered any payments due can also be made on-line via any of the various credit and debit cards. Flexibility in the provision of services to clients also requires that once registered, a client can take a driving lesson at any of the centres. Hence an integrated and up-to-date database system is to be implemented. The Director of the organization feels that too many mistakes are being made with the current system and that the success of the organization will be short-lived if he does not do something to overcome the situation. He knows that a good IT strategy and network design could help in part to solve the problem and has approached our team to help create a new branch and implement an efficient and reliable information system to support the running of the organization as a whole. 1.3 DESCRIPTION OF GFK OPERATIONS. Each office has a manager (who tends to be a senior instructor), Several senior instructors, instructors and administrate staffs. The staff hierarchy is as follows: – Manager – Senior instructors – Instructors – Office personnel. The manager is responsible for the day-to-day running of the office. Clients must first register on-line or at an office and this requires that they complete an application form, which records their personal details. Before the first lesson, a client is requested to attend an interview with an instructor to assess the needs of the client and to ensure that the client holds a valid provisional driving license. A client is free to ask for a particular instructor or to request that an instructor be changed at any stage throughout the process of learning to drive. After a successful interview, the first lesson is booked. A client may request individual lessons or book a block of lessons for reduced fee. An individual lesson is for one or two hours which begins and ends either at the client’s home or at the office. A lesson is with a particular instructor in a particular car at a given time. Lessons can start as early as 6a.m. and as late as 8p.m. After each lesson, the instructor records the progress made by the client and notes the mileage used during the lesson. The Organization has a pool of cars, which are adopted for the purpose of teaching. Each instructor is allocated to a particular car. As well as teaching, the instructors are free to use the cars for personal  use. The cars are inspected at regular intervals for faults. Once ready, a client will be given a test date by the instructor. It is the responsibility of the instructor to ensure that the client is best prepared for all parts of the test. The instructor is not the responsible for testing the client and is not in the car during the test but should be available to drop off and pick up the client before and after the test at the testing centre. If a client fails to pass, the instructor must record the reasons for the failure. 1.4. AIMS OF THE PROJECT. 1. To design and implement a network solution for the new Barking branch . 2. To redesign or upgrade the company’s existing network system. 3. To connect GFK to the Internet and provide full internet service. 4. To design a desktop and its delivery to all GFK’s client computers. 5. To address security and back-up issues. 6. To design a network monitoring policy to maintain and/or improve performance in the future. This particular aspect of the group work is investigated in detail by Student number: 0212251 in Part B. 1.5 BUSINESS REQUIREMENTS FOR THE PROPOSED NETWORK SYSTEM. The design of the Local Area Network for the new branch and its communication  with the rest of the GFK network will be approached in view of satisfying two fundamental business functions: – Information sharing: refers to having users access the same data files, exchange information via email, or use the internet. – Resource sharing: refers to one computer sharing a hardware device (e.g., printer) or software package with other computers on the network to save costs. The main benefit of information sharing is improved decision making, which is one of the goals of the GFK School of Motoring. Any application, e.g. a web browser, on the GFK LAN will have the following functions: 1. data storage 2. data access logic 3. application or business logic 4. presentation logic Based on these functions we will be implementing client/server network architecture at the new branch. We will be using 3-tier client/server architecture to spread the load between the clients (microcomputers) and the servers (more powerful microcomputers). This is illustrated in the diagram below: (FitzGerald & Dennis, page 46, top). In this case, the software on the client computer is responsible for presentation logic, an application server is responsible for the application  logic and a separate database server is responsible for the data access logic and data storage [1, page 45]. Since the main advantage of a client/server architecture is also its weak point i.e. enabling software and hardware from different vendors to be used together, we will recommend a middleware software such as CORBA (Common Object Request Broker Architecture). It will perform two vital functions: 1. It enables a standard way of communication by translating between software from different vendors 2. It manages the message transfer from clients to servers (and vice versa) so that clients need not know the specific server that contains the application’s data. The application software on the client sends all messages to the middleware, which forwards them to the correct server. The application software on the client is therefore protected from any changes in the physical network. If the network layout changes (e.g., a new server is added), only the middleware must be updated [1, page 44]. By choosing this architecture for the new branch, we have achieved two things: 1. Better load balancing between the servers on the network 2. Scalability. In the future, if due to business demands the system needs to be extended, this can be easily done by adding one or more servers. 1.6 REQUIREMENTS ACQUISITION. In order to obtain valuable information about the GFK School of Motoring, the group decided to send out questionnaires to members of the organization who uses the old system regularly and have a good knowledge of it. We decided on questionnaires because we believe that the users, being under no pressure as they answer questions about the existing system, will provide a reliable feedback. 1.6.1 QUESTIONNAIRE 1. User: Mr A. Patel. Position: Instructor. Time at Company: 3 years. Branch: Stratford Branch. 1. Question: How often do you use the system? Answer: Daily. As many as 20 times a day, when at work. 2. Question: Are you comfortable using the company network? Answer: Sort of. 3. Question: What do you normally use the system for? Answer: Browsing the internet, enquiring about client information, entering client details, sending and receiving emails etc. 4. Question: Which of these tasks do you found most daunting and why? Answer: No doubt, it is obtaining information about clients. The process is very slow and frustrating especially during peak hours. For some reasons the system is sluggish and it slows down the business. 5. Question: From question 4, do you sometimes have to abort the task? Answer: No, because a client details got to be entered. It’s frustrating, but you wait until it’s done before moving on. As a result we tend to record client details at the whenever the system tend to be responsive. This might be a couple of days later. 6. Question: Which of these tasks do you find easiest to do and why? Answer: No doubt, surfing the internet, sending emails, registering clients on-line. 7. Question: Have you had experiences of viruses causing disruption on the system and how? Answer: Certainly on many occasions. I can remember on one occasion a few of my clients and me couldn’t use our computers because it was totally corrupted and my section had to be closed down while the techie people sorted it out. We lost most of the files on our computers. 8. Question: From question 7, on how many occasions did this happen? Answer: I’ve experienced it about 6 or 7 times. 9. Question: What advice were you given about using the systems in terms of avoiding virus infection? Answer: The normal stuff. Don’t open email you don’t the source, log-off the system before you close for the day, etc. But despite taking these measures, we still have the problem. 10. Question: Do you normally back-up your files yourself and how often? Answer: Yeah, files are supposed to be backed up on cd-roms at the end of every working day but not everybody does it. 11. Question: Do you case of lost customer files and how often? Answer: Yeah, we do. I know a few of my mate who do. We just try to re-acquire it from the customer without the knowledge of management. Someone has been reprimanded for it in the past. Sometimes, it’s the fault of the  system. As I said earlier, it can be frustratingly slow. 12. Question: If you can change the system, what will you change and why? Answer: Definitely, it will be the enquiry procedure. Anything that makes the process faster will do.

PMS Financial Plan Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

PMS Financial Plan - Essay Example The most important factor in our case is the continuous occupancy of the properties. Therefore, there is a need to develop an effective strategy to deliver the services such as repairs and maintenance.The following table details the assumptions that are made .These figures are annual and monthly assumptions that show the consistent growth of the company.Since the operation is on a monthly collection basis, it is assumed that the majority of the collections will be timely and in full.The following chart indicates our financial indicators for the first two years of operation. PMS foresees growth in both in customers who want their property to be managed as well as increase in the growth margin percentage.PMS cash flow depends on the monthly collection from property owners. A 25-day grace period is provided after which unpaid accounts will inhibit our cash flow. However, the monthly basis of cash flow should maintain the steady level of cash flow.The following table and the accompanying chart details the break-even analysis for this project. The projected fixed costs will be $6,000 per month with a variable per-unit cost of $200 which shall be ideally accounted for by 28 properties that is rented at $3,000 per month. The payment scheme of PMS using this rent figure will then be $1500 for the 1st month that the unit is occupied by a tenant or 50% of the rent. A 10% rent management commission or $300 fee starting from the first month until the tenant occupies the unit shall also be collected. To account for the fact that the $1500 will only be paid on the first month and that the break-even analysis is on a per month basis, the total fee collected by the PMS for each month would be $300 plus $ 125 ( $1500 / 12 months). Thus the total fee is $425 per month. The break-even assumes that all rent shall be paid in a timely manner such that the owner of the property can pay PMS also on time. This situation is ideal and as such, it is expected that the initial break-even per unit will likely be higher. Break-even Analysis: Monthly Units Break-even 10 Monthly Revenue Break-even $16,380 Assumptions: Average Per-Unit Revenue $200.00 Average Per-Unit Variable Cost $425.00 Estimated Monthly Fixed Cost $6,000 The projected profit and loss for PMS is shown on the following table. Management fees are increasing from about $624,000 in 2006 to above $701,000 after the second year. The net profit for the first year alone amounts to $160,000. The projected gross margin will be about 69% for the first year. The net profit for the second year is seen to be above 20% The planned projections are included in the attached Profit and Loss Table. Pro Forma Profit and Loss 2006 2007 Professional Fees $624,000 $701,000 Direct Cost of Fees $192,000 $205,000 Other $0 $0 ------------ ------------ Total Cost of Property Managing $192,000 $205,000 Gross Margin $432,000 $496,800 Gross Margin % 69.23% 70.87% Expenses: Payroll $120,000 $135,000 Sales and Marketing and Other Expenses $15,600 $16,000 Depreciation $3,815 $6,500 Leased Equipment $15,000 $15,000 Utilities $8,000 $9,000 Insurance $9,000 $10,500 Maintenance $8,500 $9775 Rent $3,000 $4,000 Payroll Taxes $18,000 $19,700 Other $0 $0 --

The Inheritors by William Golding Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

The Inheritors by William Golding - Essay Example The story line of the book mainly portrays the relationship between ancient or pre-historic men and the Homo sapiens. William Golding has made ‘The Inheritors’ even more conspicuous by creating one of the pre-historic men as the protagonist. Readers acquire a proximity to the various aspects of nature by reading the entire story from the view of the primitive man, who is still unknown to the evil form of the world. The Inheritors has brought into light, the imagination of the author, where he brought together primitive humans and modern Homo sapiens. Throughout the story, William Golding has asked his readers an intricate, but relevant question, i.e. â€Å"Is mankind evil?† The entire story has been based on a particular type of pre-historic men, known as the Neanderthals, who lived in a group. One of the adult Neanderthals, named Lok guides us throughout the story according to his knowledge of the world. The story narrates a peaceful and contented life of the Nea nderthals, until some modern men interfere into it and creates the sense of fear in them. The last chapter has been described from the human point of view, wherein they run away from the habitation of these men, taking away a baby Neanderthal with them. The creation of this unique book by William Golding has enlightened the readers with the fact that â€Å"evil† did not exist in human beings when they belonged to the prehistoric times. But, the introduction of modern men in their serene environment changed their views about life extensively. Inherited Violence William Golding has repeatedly concluded in the book that the Neanderthals did not know the meaning of evil and violence, but they were prone to eating dead meat of animals, which is clearly an act of violence as they were feeding on another natural creature. All types of human beings have evolved from animals that are quite callous about violence, so it has always been in the blood of the Neanderthal Homo sapiens as we ll. It has also been alleged that the Neanderthals did not kill animals to feed on them, but history says that man has killed animals to feed on them. These ideas of a non-violent mentality have been produced by the author to formulate a gap between the nearly modern men and the pre-historic ones so that modern men can be blamed at every phase of the book. Existence of Knowledge The discovery of producing fire by rubbing stones was also brought about by primitive Homo sapiens. But, the author posed the Neanderthals to be completely unaware about the world and any kind of discoveries. This is an indirect insult as no other human beings were available to teach the primitive men about any discoveries; their individual knowledge was all the help that they got. The author has put the nearly modern Homo sapiens in the shadows, concluding them as the villains and keeping the Neanderthals in the light of innocence. Man has gained knowledge with time, and the Neanderthals have done so as wel l. Instead, the violence in them has marked the chapters of world history throughout. The partiality of the author towards the primitive men is clearly visible as he has made â€Å"Lok† the protagonist, and devoted only one chapter to the modern Homo sapiens. The view of the modern men has not been given importance at all. Ignoring Science The text created by Golding on the pages of The Inheritors is good for imagination, but it does not have true scientific explanation. A portion of the book quotes â€Å"Lok’s ears spoke to him†, but just before that it has already been mentioned that Lok had actually been sleeping. The personification of Lok’s ears is impressive through literature, but science concludes that sense organs do not possess the ability to

Mina Shum's Double happiness Movie Review Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Mina Shum's Double happiness - Movie Review Example Because she fears being disowned and hurting her family, while she manages to land a few bit parts on camera, Jade spends most of her time working in the shop owned by a family friend, performing the duties of a respectful daughter and suffering through arranged dates with prosperous young Chinese men. When her family decides she's old enough to be committed to a man, the matchmaking (which is Chinese tradition) begins and Jade is set up with Andrew. Andrew is a successful and handsome Chinese lawyer. The tradition in Chinese families is that the father, whom is the revered head of household, sanctions a match. Once he has sanctioned the match the daughter must obey or she runs the risk of being ostracized by her family and brings shame to them. Ultimately, she is running the risk of being disowned. When her father's childhood friend arrives for a visit, however, Jade must juggle her competing identities even more carefully than usual, lest her choice of professions -- and boyfriends -- shame her father. The problem for Jade is that she can hardly imagine being married without being in love with the man she marries. Jade watches her best friend and others experience romance. It is something that she is supposed to act out, but she has never been able to experience.

Organizational Behavior Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Organizational Behavior - Assignment Example In the business world emotions can lead to bad decisions. A leadership theory that describes the action of the leader, Ron Hunter, is the transformational leadership model. Transformational leadership occurs when leaders broaden and elevate follower’s interest and stir followers to look beyond their own interest for the good of others (Schermerhorn & Osborn & Hunt, p.301). During the climax event of the movie which occurred when Ron took over the ship in order to stop Frank Ramsey from launching a nuclear missile Ron displayed transformational leadership. Ron was able to gain the trust and confidence of the crew who risk their careers by following Ron. The crew realized that Ron’s orders were more logical due to the fact that without a confirmation to launch the Alabama could initiate world war III. There were two characters that displayed power in the film. The two people that displayed power in the film were Frank Ramsey, Commanding Officer, and the Executive Officer Ron Hunter. Frank Ramsey due to his position had legitimate power. Legitimate power or formal authority exits when the leader has the right to tell others what to do and the employees are obligated to comply with the directives (Clark). Ron Hunter was able to gain the trust of the crew by the utilization of rational persuasion. The key conflict of the film occurred when Frank Ramsey wanted to launch a nuclear missile to Russia without receiving the confirmation he needed. The communications went down and Frank assumed that the order to launch was imminent. Ron could not in his right mind accept that decision due to the fact that the repercussions of the action were horrendous if the Alabama made the wrong decision. The conflict that occurred could be considered dysfunctional. The conflict passed through the four stages of conflict which are antecedent conditions, perceived conflict, manifest conflict, and felt conflict. The consequences of the conflict

Personal statement for cambridge University graduate admission Assignment

Personal statement for cambridge University graduate admission - Assignment Example Hopefully working as a business analyst who specializes in corporate governance and due diligence. I should have worked my way up the corporate ladder by the age of 45. I expect to be working as a financial manager for one of the large UK firms by this time. Biding my time until the age of 50 when I see myself as finally landing my dream job of Vice-President of Finance for a major corporation that shall be determined as my career advances. My plans include retiring at the age of 60 while dabbling a bit in non-executive advisory positions on various board of directors for companies I previously worked with. I am honestly looking forward to being able to mentor the up and coming real estate and finance professionals at that time and sharing my wisdom gained from work experience with them. I might even work as a part-time teacher just to keep my financial juices flowing while I am in retirement. After all, it is important to give back to the community by helping to train those who will be the future business titans of New Zealand. Word Count: 300 Question 2 : Reasons for Applying this Course (500 words) My family has a long, deep, professional, and personal relationship with the world of business and Finance. Tracing our roots all the way back to Beijing, China, our family has always excelled in all fields related to banking and finance for more than 3 generations now. Our ancestors have always worked in senior positions in the most respected and leading banking and financial institutions in China. Our most current relatives serve in senior positions in the same industry under some of the biggest banking and finance company names in the region. My parents began their banking and finance careers in Beijing but eventually had an opportunity to work in New Zealand. It was a chance of a lifetime for them and they took it. they currently have thriving careers in the same field in New Zealand at the moment and I am hoping to follow in their inspiring footsteps in the f uture. I am currently part of the third generation of my family that is involved in the business and finance sector aiming for a solid and fruitful career in Finance. Since I still have family members who work in senior finance positions in Beijing, I know that I am on the right track with my decision to pursue advanced studies in finance. They have helped me realize that the world of finance is about to undergo a major change in policies and guidelines in terms of banking, investments, and finance. I need to be prepared for that eventuality by arming myself with the best possible education that I can have which will help me survive that rapid change in the finance sector. I am going to return to China to set up my Asian office and start putting my Asian connections to work in the financial market. Everyone knows that the Asian countries shall be the leaders of the financial world order in the future. I should make sure that I will be a good position to take advantage of the situati on once it finally becomes a reality. This is how I plan to carve my niche in the Asian market. After all, I have the family connections to make it happen, it would be such a waste to not take advantage of it. With the Euro

International Business and Trade. WTO Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

International Business and Trade. WTO - Essay Example The widest application of the protectionist movement is in the incubation of new industries which by themselves cannot survive the harsh realities if the competitive market, the idea being the protection will be withdrawn once the company is established (Iowa State university, n.d.). This concept is however extended in modern times and as captured by the events of the case study evolved to be proactive rather than reactive, where we see that the European Countries, namely France, Germany, Spain and Great Britain formed an alliance whose sole purpose was to gather enough capital to birth and sustain an aircraft manufacturing business with enough resources to effectively compete with the hitherto world monopoly of US based Boeing, the result of which was the birth of Airbus (Holmes, 2004). Given its current market strength, Boeing was enjoying vast economies of scale thus posing a significant barrier to entry to any interested private firm, and in the absence of competitive forces, concentrated more in research and development rather than marketing, and thus when they interfered with this monopoly power, the European governments eroded Boeing's potential returns from its investment, thus interfering with the market mechanism, and hence the first issue/conflict of the study. The second issue has to do with the governments' support of private enterprise, especially as it relates to the struggle that exists between one side trying to eliminate while the other struggles to sustain a major world monopoly. As mentioned above the aircraft industry is extensively capital intensive, and whatever labour is involved is highly skilled and specialized, as evidenced by the investments in Research and Development by both sides of the conflict presented in the study. The world authority on trade, the World Trade Organization clearly prohibits the support of private enterprise by governments and other public entities. Differences in terms of reference is also a major issue that has been highlighted in the case study. The Americans do not consider the massive government contracts that were awarded to Boeing as any form of government support, that is they argue that they did not interfere with the market but rather only participated in it, in a willing buyer willing seller fashion. This is of course in sharp contrast with the Europeans' initial direct capital investment into Airbus, let alone the continuing capital inflows into the company for continuing research and development in the form of very soft loans. The effect of governments' activities on both sides is basically the same, essentially to strengthen the respective aircraft manufacturers, therefore the argument lies in channels through which support was availed, rather than whether it was actually availed or not. The relation of the above activities to protectionism is where we find on one side a government being the largest and most lucrative domestic customer to the company, thereby not only preventing any foreign competition in the domestic market, but also propelling it into world dominance (fulfilling the mercantilist view of what protectionism is all about) and preventing other foreign nations from producing the same product and

Pledge of Allegiance in School Essay Example for Free

Pledge of Allegiance in School Essay Pledge of Allegiance in School My choice of writing for the Rogerian essay is on the topic of the Pledge of Allegiance in School. â€Å"In a decision that stunned the nation, a federal appeals court in June ruled that reciting the Pledge of Allegiance in public schools is unconstitutional because the pledge contains the words under God â€Å" (Chmielewski). The banning of the Pledge of Allegiance is a very large controversial topic because one side believes that while the foundation of our country is religion, the other side believes that the reciting of the Pledge of Allegiance is an infringement on our First Amendment right. The Pledge of Allegiance began in 1892. It was a way of showing a sense of celebration for being an American. Since 1892 the â€Å"Pledge† has been changed four times, and in 1954 the words â€Å"under God† were added (Chmielewski). A cause of the Pledge of Allegiance being banned from school is mostly because of these two words â€Å"under God†. An Atheist by the name, Newdow, filed the claim against the pledge because he did not want his second grade daughter pressured into saying something that he does not believe (Chmielewski). I believe that this topic has quite a bit of historic meaning because it basis is on our historical beginning. I think that because the times of our country and have changed so much, in that, religion is not just based on Christianity for our country anymore, it does way on peoples mind. I would like to show in this essay that the Pledge of Allegiance is an important part, not just in our schools, but in our nation. My research on this is going to be a bit strenuous. There are so many articles about court proceedings and individual states that it might be difficult to find a common ground. Most of what I have read has just been the individual states versus the Supreme Court or, as in the case above, the Nine District Court. I have read articles from Massachusetts, California, Washington, and Nevada, to name a few. Most of the articles also are very one sided. Meaning that the author shows what the problem in question is and then turns the article to what they believe.

Analysis of the Term Victorian Through Literature

Analysis of the Term Victorian Through Literature The era of Queen Victorias reign witnessed the passing of milestones in social, economic, and personal progress. It was the age of industrialisation, a time of travel, a battleground for the conflict between science and religion. Yet further to these great markers by which many of us recognise the nineteenth century, and indeed because of them, Victorias reign inspired change within the individual; a revaluation of what it meant to be a human being. The literary artists gave new form to the questions on the lips of the society around them: questions that were no longer so easily answered by Christianity. This dissertation will explore how the term Victorian does or doesnt fit into the context from which it supposedly arises. I will look at trends such as the development of literary criticism, pioneering scientific discoveries, the exploration into psychic phenomenon, the increasing independence of women, the mapping of the world, all of which contribute to what we know and understand as Victorian, and have in some way shaped the work of authors such as Eliot, Conan Doyle, and H.G Wells. Using some close textual analysis I hope to identify the nature of the inspiration behind the literature of the time and whether or not such work transcends the limits of the term Victorian. Many great literary minds of the time such as Arnold, Dickens, and Ruskin helped define the era in their critical attitudes towards it. (Davis 2002, p.10). Criticism appears to have become a form of exploration in an attempt to turn what concerned and worried the artist into something that questioned and reassured. Arnold, in his dissertations in Criticism (Arnold 1865, p.V) explains how he perceives the difference between logical and artistic thought The truth is I have never been able to ht it off happily with the logicians, and it would be mere affectation in me to give myself the airs of doing so. They imagine truth something to be proved, I something to be seen; they something to be manufactured, I as something to be found. It is this growing awareness of difference that was to become a defining feature of Victorian literature. Differences appeared in the very perception of things, which led to feelings of isolation, despair, alienation all prominent themes in nineteenth century work. In Arnolds A Summer Night (http://whitewolf.newcastle.edu.au/words/authors/A/ArnoldMatthew/verse/EmpedoclesonEtna/summernight.html) we see the poetic mind struggling to find meaning on a moonlit street where the windows, like hostile faces, are silent and white, unopening down: And the calm moonlight seems to say Hast thou then still the old unquiet breast That neither deadens into rest Nor ever feels the fiery glow That whirls the spirit front itself away, 30 But fluctuates to and fro Never by passion quite possessd And never quite benumbd by the worlds sway? And I, I know not if to pray Still to be what I am, or yield, and be Like all the other men I see. Arnold recognises that the society around him is unfulfilled, that men are giving their lives to some unmeaning taskwork and he questions whether he should be questioning at all. He is aware of a gap between the reality of working life and life outside of work; a difference that he strives to find explanation for. Arnold appears to be lost amidst the streets of his own mind afraid of not being able to define who he is, what he is. These feelings in part express what it meant to be a Victorian struggling to place thoughts and feelings which appear to no longer fit into society. The Victorian era contained much of what had past and much of what was still to come it cannot be seen as an isolated time, nor as an isolated term. It contained aspects of the Romantic period for instance in Arnolds poem, The Buried Life, we see vestiges of Wordsworths legacy of Ode to Immortality. In both poems there is a sense of something lost an old passion or instinct that has gone with the passing of time yet Arnold, unlike Wordsworth, finds it more difficult to come to terms with this: A longing to inquire / Into the mystery of this heart that beats / So wild, so deep in us, to know / Whence our thoughts come and where they go. (http://www.web-books.com/Classics/Poetry/Anthology/Arnold_M/Buried.htm). The language is more passionately discontent than the resolute tone of Wordsworths visionary acceptance: We will grieve not, rather find/Strength in what remains behind. (Wordsworth 1928, p.136). The styles are obviously connected, but the trouble with defining the era using literary terminology is that it is clearly neither a quirky extension of the Romantics vision, nor is it a straightforward path to the modernists. The 1870s saw the maturation of authors such as Anthony Trollope who brought out his later novels, yet only twenty years later in 1896 these publications are sitting beside the considerably different form and subject matter of work such as H.G. Wellls The Time Machine and The Island of Dr. Moreau, with literary experiments with the modern such as Richard Jefferies The Story of My Heart (a spiritual autobiography) -occurring between in 1883. A growing concern in nineteenth century life was the potential loss of the Romantic link between human nature and the natural world, and the gap which sudden industrial progress highlighted between nature and mechanisation. As technology developed so did the notion of artificiality. It is worth noting J.S.Mills dissertation on Nature (Mill 1874, p.65) where he says that it is mans nature to be artificial, to remedy nature by artificial pruning and intervention. Further to this, a contemporary of Mills Richard Jennings also drew a line between the province of human nature and the external world. (Lightman 1997, p.80). In the countryside more efficient methods of farming were employed (see the contrast between Henchards methods and Farfraes ciphering and mensuration in Hardys Mayor of Casterbridge, (Hardy 1886, p.122)), and new machines introduced which no longer required the labour force to run them, encouraging people to migrate to towns and cities. The urban reality was harsh in 1851 roughly four million people were employed in trade and manufacture and mining, leaving only one and a half million in agriculture. (Davis 2002, p.13). City life, as portrayed by Dickens, was a cruel, unhealthy and unwholesome existence for many. Working conditions in cities were often cramped, unhygienic and poorly ventilated, and living conditions could be even worse. Mrs. Gaskell, living in Manchester, witnessed the appalling pressures that these conditions forced upon family life, and in North and South depicts the difficulties of urban living, offering that salvation for the working classes lay with themselves and their employers, working together. However, city life was not all desolate based in cities, the development of the detective novel brought the city back to human scale (Lehan, p.84). Detectives pieced together and reconstructed past events through clues for example, the murder of Bartholomew Sholto in The Sign of Four by Conan Doyl e: As far as we can learn, no actual traces of violence were found upon Mr Sholtos person, but a valuable collection of Indian gems which the deceased gentleman had inherited from his father had been carried off. The discovery was first made by Mr Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson () Mr. Athelney Jones, the well-known member of the detective police force, happened to be at the Norwood police station () Mr Jones well-known technical knowledge and his powers of minute observation have enabled him to prove conclusively that the miscreants could not have entered by the door or by the window but must have made their way across the roof of the building, and so through a trapdoor into a room which communicated with that in which the body was found. (p.66) The city provided an exciting backdrop to crime scenes its labyrinthine streets similar to the mapping of the pathways of the human mind so that the two became inextricably linked. As Joseph McLaughlin says in Writing the Urban Jungle, the urban jungle is a space that calls forth a pleasurable acquiescence to something greater, more powerful, and, indeed, sublime () also an imaginative domain that calls forth heroic action: exploring, conquering, enlightening, purifying, taming, besting. (McLaughlin 2000, p.3). Further to what McLaughlin suggests, the Victorians perception of time and space in the city and the countryside was changing radically from the medieval perceptions that still existed in the Romantic period. People saw the finished products in both manufacturing and farming no longer involving the long, drawn-out means to an end, instead the end result was being achieved faster and with more control. Here developed the root of modern industry which continues today in intensive farming and factory lines. Yet here too the beginnings of waste and excess. Richard Jefferies, a nineteenth century naturalist and mystic, known for his dissertations on nature, remarks on the abundance of food in the natural world in his dissertation Meadow Thoughts: The surface of the earth offers to us far more than we can consume the grains, the seeds, the fruits, the animals, the abounding products are beyond the power of all the human race to devour. They can, too, be multiplied a thousandfold. There is no natural lack. Whenever there is lack among us it is from artificial causes, which intelligence should remove. (Jefferies 1994, p.26). Unfortunately there was plenty for those who could afford it but not enough to spare for the poorer lower classes. (Ritvo 1997, p.194). Trends of over production and wastage which became a worry in Victorian times are reflected in the literary concerns of Jefferies childrens story, Bevis, where words, despite their abundance, are in danger of becoming an insufficient medium of expression and not filling the metaphysical space on the page. In describing a sunrise and the thoughts and feelings associated with watching it, Jefferies struggles to articulate the beauty before him: The sun had not yet stood out from the orient, but his precedent light shone through the translucent blue. Yet it was not blue, nor is there any word, nor is a word possible to convey the feeling. (Jefferies 1881, p.391) We see too in James Thomsons City of Dreadful Night (Thomson 1892, p.2) the desperateness of trying to articulate thoughts and feelings: Because a cold rage seizes one at whiles To show the bitter old and wrinkled truth Stripped naked of all vesture that beguiles, False dreams, false hopes, false masks and modes of youth; Because it gives some sense of power and passion In helpless impotence to try to fashion Our woe in living words howeer uncouth. In both passages there is a sense of trying to convey so much more than the words will allow. And that is the essence of the problem of defining the era with a word which the era itself selected Victorian like the authors of its time struggles to convey the enormity and the condensed nature of its changing environment. Victorian literature is thus perhaps best studied between the lines of its texts rather than for what it offers at face value. Thomsons words to try to fashion our woe in living words although appearing dismal could actually withhold a more positive message: it deals with the notion of perseverance that by creating words, however difficult, the author is refusing to give in to despair by trying to transform it into creative energy. There is a sense of crisis in the work of Thomson, just as there is to be found in Jefferies futuristic After London where the lone explorer Felix discovers the land after humanity has overreached itself to sociological disaster and has lost the harmonious relationship between mankind and nature. London becomes no more than a crystallised ruin in a ground oozing with poison unctuous and slimy, like a thick oil. (Jefferies 1885, p.205). Through work like this we see that Victorian was an era of possibility where visions of the future suddenly became tangible concerns and possible realities, and where contemporary conceptions of language and life might no longer hold up to the pressures of the time. In H.G. Wells the Time Machine, the time traveller discovers a land in the year 802,701: The air was free from gnats, the earth from weeds or fungi; everywhere were fruits and sweet and delightful flowers; brilliant butterflies flew hither and thither. The ideal of preventative medicine was attained. diseases had been stamped out. I saw no evidence of any contagious diseases during all my stay. And i shall have to tell you later that even the processes of putrefaction and decay had been profoundly affected by these changes. (Wells 1995, p.28) In this description of a futuristic age the Victorian imagination still retains the idea of a paradise a place full of butterflies and flowers. This Christian concept is a literary hangover from Miltons Paradise Lost, and remains an important theme for the moderns such as D.H. Lawrence. The Victorian age suffered from a dualistic split between a bright future on the one hand promised by leaps in technology, education and economical success and an increasingly alienated, confused society on the other. There were those writers like Huxley who believed that by human intervention within a political and economic framework humans could evolve out of their condition seeing no limit to the extent to which intelligence and will () may modify the conditions of existence (Huxley, 1893, Evolution and Ethics, The Romanes Lecture (http://aleph0.clarku.edu/huxley/CE9/E-E.html), and there were those like Hardy whose characters were destined to fail because they were not emotionally fitted into the cosmos out of which they evolved . It was the nineteenth century spiritual crisis which precipitated the literary shift into the new genre of the realist novel. By the mid-nineteenth century, society had begun to grow away from the idea of atonement for sin within an omnipotent religion, where judgement would come solely in heaven, and towards the more humanistic idea of God as in-dwelling, so that salvation could be achieved on earth: We have now come to regard the world not as a machine, but as an organism, a system in which, while the parts contribute to the growth of the whole, the whole also reacts upon the development of the parts; and whose primary purpose is its own perfection, something that is contained within and not outside itself, an internal end: while in their turn the myriad parts of this universal organism are also lesser organisms, ends in and for themselves, pursuing each its lonely ideal of individual completeness. (Gore (ed) 1890, p.211) A spiritual lack created a need to define, order and categorise a world that suddenly appeared chaotic. When Darwin published On the Origin of Species in 1859 he raised issues of public concern as to the truth of the bible and the essence of Christianity. However, its content and its methodology were seriously criticised (Appleman 2001, p.200). It was a difficult work to accept as it caused the public to rethink and redefine their history that they were a product of evolution and not a tailor made being came as a shock. The future of thought and literature was suddenly changed as people tried to sew together the threads of the past. Natural Science became a national obsession exotic flora and fauna from across the world were brought into London daily, to be displayed in the British Museum or Kew Gardens (Lightman, 1997 p.1). In literature, we see the author begin to play the part of evolutionist: Eliots Middlemarch although concerned with the evolving character of Dorothea Brooke follows the threads of sub-plots and the successes and failures of other characters which form a pattern of development. As Gillian Beer says: There is not one primitive tissue, just as there is not one key to all mythologies () emphasis upon plurality, rather than upon singleness, is crucial to the developing argument of Middlemarch. (Beer 2000, p.143). Gone is the tradition of the valiant hero or heroine singularly conquering their environment (a trend set by classics such as Homers The Odyssey (1967)) and in its place a landscape upon which the author grafts and nurtures developing shoots of life. It is this sort of growth that is in danger of remaining unseen to the contemporary historian or critic as it can become shrouded by generalising concepts which are so often prescribed to the term Victorian concepts such as repression, old-fashioned and prudish. (http://www.victorianweb.org/vn/victor4.html). These sort of terms restrict the individuals perception of the era when it was a time when growth was encouraged rather than restricted. Authors used the metaphor of pruning and nurturing plant life to symbolise the development of the self for example in North and South Gaskell discusses the problem of the working individual who struggles to reach his or her potential when the manufacturers are unsparingly cutting away all off-shoots in the direction of literature or high mental cultivation, in hopes of throwing the whole strength and vigour of the plant into commerce. (Gaskell 1865, p.69). For Gaskell, it is through the everyday interaction between people that such difficulties are given the chance to be overcome. And this was the essence of the realist novel set amidst a world which had witnessed such alteration to transform the lostness felt by society into a seeing of the smaller things in life which could withhold qualities of greater spiritual value. As Philip Davis says, the realist novel was the holding ground, the meeting point, for the overlapping of common life. (Davis 2002, p.144). And it was within this common life that a more calm acceptance of the new state could be achieved. Gillian Beer suggests that through her novels organisation Eliot creates order and understanding of the evolving process of novel-writing. In Middlemarch, the naming of Casaubons books Waiting for Death, Two Temptations, Three Love Problems draws attention to the books organisation by emphasising categorisation: But the process of reading leads into divergence and variability. Even while we are observing how closely human beings conform in the taxonomy of events we learn how differently they feel and think. For Dorothea and Casaubon waiting for death means something very different from what it means for Mary Garth and Featherstone. The relations are different. The distances between people are different. Lydgate, here at one with the project of the book, longed to demonstrate the more intimate relations of living structure (1:15:225). In this double emphasis on conformity and variability George Eliot intensifies older literary organisations by means of recent scientific theory. In Darwinian theory, variability is the creative principle, but the type makes it possible for us to track common ancestry and common kinship. (Beer 2000, pp.143-4) Writing itself was becoming an almost divine representation, an inner order of a chaotic external world. The idea that humans had evolved from primates meant that the boundaries between what was one thing and what was another were no longer so clearly defined. There developed a fear of the animate and a fear of the inanimate, and efforts were sought to understand them. As Harriet Ritvo says in The Platypus and the Mermaid: Depending on the beholder, an anomaly might be viewed as embodying a challenge to the established order, whether social, natural, or divine; the containment of that challenge; the incomprehensibility of the creation by human intelligence; or simply the endless and diverting variety of the world. And beholders who agreed on the content of the representation could still disagree strongly about its moral valence whether it was good or bad, entrancing or disgusting. (Ritvo 1997, p.148). In a world where categorisation was important but not so easily achievable, the novel too became neither one thing nor another; realism became a melting pot for ideas, a sort of hybrid of styles. In Eliots The Lifted Veil realism is used as a vehicle for the exploration of her ideas into psychology and psychic phenomena. Latimers clairvoyance forces him to endure a painful insight into the minds of the people around him: I began to be aware of a phase in my abnormal sensibility, to which, from the languid and slight nature of my intercourse with others since my illness, I had not been alive before. This was the obtrusion on my mind of the mental process going forward in first one person, and then another, with whom I happened to be in contact: the vagrant, frivolous ideas and emotions of some uninteresting acquaintanceMrs Filmore, for examplewould force themselves on my consciousness like an importunate, ill-played musical instrument, or the loud activity of an imprisoned insect. But this superadded consciousness, wearying and annoying enough when it urged on me the trivial experience of indifferent people, became an intense pain and grief when it seemed to be opening to me the souls of those who were in a close relation to me when the rational talk, the graceful attentions, the wittily-turned phrases, and the kindly deeds, which used to make the web of their characters, were seen as if thrust asunder by a microscopic vision, that showed all the intermediate frivolities, all the suppressed egoism, all the struggling chaos of puerilities, meanness, vague capricious memories, and indolent make-shift thoughts, from which human words and deeds emerge like leaflets covering a fermenting heap.(Eliot 1859, pp.13-14) Latimer is no longer caught up in the web of peoples characters. Eliot plays with the idea that his consciousness has the ability to transcend the mundane the rational talk, the kindly deeds in order to gain insight into an alternative and not so rosy vision of the mechanics of the human mind where thoughts are make-shift and chaotic. The nineteenth century saw the acceptance of the concept of otherworldly phenomena into the working classes. Robert Owen, a social reformer, who influenced the British Labor movement (Oppenheim 1985, p.40) encouraged many working class Owenites to follow him into the spiritualist fold, where they enthusiastically continued their ongoing search for the new moral world. Interests such as spiritualism and psychology which had previously been more underground pursuits, were brought out into the open. The concept of telepathy, a term coined by Frederic Myers in 1882 (Luckhurst 2002, p.1) even helped to theorize the uneasy cross-cultural encounters at the colonial frontier. (Luckhurst 2002, p.3) These developments suggest that the Victorians felt imbued with the power of their age they felt confident of their ability to communicate on different planes of consciousness. So it could be argued that Victorian was not simply a time devoted to the discovery of the self and the workings of the inner mind, but a time that also focused on the projection of ideas and thoughts outside of the self; ideas which themselves stand outside of the category Victorian. In 1869 the Spiritualist Newspaper began selling first as a fortnightly, then as a weekly publication. (Oppenheim 1985, p.45). This draws the discussion to the point of representation the social nature of Victorians seems to suggest that they enjoyed the focus being on themselves. Self-obsession is an aspect of the time which the term Victorian usefully represents: by specifically referring to the rule of the Queen the term draws attention to the importance of the individual. The era saw the development of many different styles of fashion and the use of photography. As part of the Freudian influence great importance was placed on childhood and it was during the nineteenth century that the first laws concerning child welfare were passed. (Mavor quoted from Brown (ed) 2001, p.i) The focus on the central, the ego, was paramount. As Mavor says, it was as if the camera had to be invented in order to document what would soon be lost, childhood itself; and childhood had to be invented in order for the camera to document childhood (a fantasy of innocence) as real. (Brown (ed) 2001, p.27). Perhaps because of societys awareness of change there seems to have been a necessity to record and keep track of the world around. Discovery took place on a much grander scale in the exploration of the world. The British Empire was global, yet as Patrick Brantlinger suggests in Rule of Darkness, (Brantlinger 1988, p.4) imperialism was not generally reflected in the literature of the time. What we do see evidence of however is the mapping of new worlds and territories (Richard Jefferies Bevis). The development of the adventure story suggests that Victorians desired to explore what lay outside of what they knew and in this respect the term Victorian which people can think of as representing a society closed within in itself is misleading. The rise of imperialism began to shape the ideological dimensions of subjects studied in school (Bristow 1991, p.20) and so through literature the Victorian child was offered an exciting world of sophisticated representation and ideas with the knowledge that the world was theirs to explore. Does the term then encourage us to think of the society as a class of people set apart from the rest of the world? In The Island of Dr. Moreau it is not just the future of science that is explored but the concept of a new territory and its effects on the mind. For example, when the protagonist first sees the beast-servant on board the ship he is immediately frightened: I did not know then that a reddish luminosity, at least, is not uncommon in human eyes. The figure, with its eyes of fire, struck down through all my adult thoughts and feelings, and for a moment the forgotten horrors of childhood came back to my mind. Then the effect passed as it had come. An uncouth black figure of a man, a figure of no particular import, hung over the taffrail, against the starlight. (Wells 1997, p.31). The circumstances of being at sea is disorientating and causes the imagination to play tricks so that the man is first one thing a figure with its eyes of fire and then suddenly becomes an uncouth black figure of a man. The effect is that the protagonist suddenly regresses to the forgotten horrors of childhood. This sudden fluctuation is important as it represents the fluidity of the era and how change and discovery on a global scale, although empowering, also caused instability within the individual. Therefore, when considering the age in the context of its name we can understand that the term was perhaps created out of both the desire to represent achievement but also out of a need to belong. This desire to belong which manifested itself during an age ruled by one woman placed great importance on the role of the female in society. It was a time when women began to travel and write without the necessity of using a pseudonym (see Cheryl McEwan on Kingsley in West Africa, (2000, p.73)). In books such as Hardys Tess of the DUrbervilles the idea of the fallen woman is tested when Tesss crucial lack of belief in herself causes her never to discover the paradise with Clare that might have been. The nineteenth century began to be more explicit concerning issues of gender: for example, the relationship between Arthur Munby and Hannah Cullwick (see McClintock 1995, pp.132-138) where Cullwick is photographed cross-dressed as a farm worker. A Victorian man however appears to have had more stigma attached to him and in this context the term is commonly associated with heroism and English valour (Ridley/Dawson 1994, p.110). There is less flexibility surrounding the notion of Victorian men -as if the term somehow threatened their masculinity. However, this did not seem to affect the male authors of the time. Lewis Carroll captured the public imagination through Alices Adventures in Wonderland, which although following the story of a little girl, depicts many male characters. (see Carroll 2000). In conclusion, the term Victorian although useful to refer to a specific time period in history, does however encourage us to make sweeping generalisations without investigating how diverse the era was. In terms of the subject matter of Victorian Literature there is no clear cut distinction between early, middle and late Victorian for example, Bulwer-Lytton attempts at the beginning of the century what Richard Jefferies does at the end the difference is in style and form. Within that time frame there was condensed an incredible diversity of styles, tastes and attitudes, yet the term suffers from being associated with prejudices and assumptions about Victorians. However, it is worth bearing in mind that prejudices were indeed a part of Victorian society. When the Victorians explored the rest of the world they made generalisations and assumptions based on what they found (eg: The Island of Dr. Moreau) where experience and the nature of what is discovered defines behaviour. As a critic in 1858 wrote we are living in an age of transition (quoted from Houghton 1957, p.1); therefore when considering the Victorian age we should remember that values and trends were evolving it was not a static time governed by repression or old fashioned values. From the research carried out for this dissertation it appears that through the gaining of knowledge, Victorians also realised how little they knew and how much more there was to discover. As Arnold says in A Summer Night: How fair a lot to fill / Is left to each man still. (http://whitewolf.newcastle.edu.au/words/authors/A/ArnoldMatthew/verse/EmpedoclesonEtna/summernight.html). In this context the term Victorian can be dualistically representative: discoveries of the time, although revolutionary, were often rudimentary in nature, and it was humbling for the individual to consider how much further knowledge and discovery had yet to go. On the other hand, the term suffers too from being inadequate: a single word is too smaller term for the vast wealth and diversity of discovery, and it could be argued that the era is better realised if seen as a second revolution. Like the Victorian authors themselves we are left with no suitable words to convey the entirety of an era as John Lawton says in his introduction to The Time Machine (1995, p.xxvi) the term Victorian is used too loosely to encompass a sequence of eras, the diverse reign of a woman who lent her name to objects as diverse as a railway terminus and a plum. When studying Victorian Literature it is worth bearing in mind the fluidity of the time and the changeability which arose out of living on the cusp between the passing away of old values and the unknown territory of the new. Realism recognised the gaps which were forming in society such as the distancing of the self from religion and offered to paper the cracks through its vision of bringing people together on a mundane level. Its territory stretched to include the darkest recesses of the mind to the smallest of everyday events, celebrating the grey area between extremes as we now know as Victorian. Bibliography Arnold, M., Reprint of 1865 ed. dissertations in Criticism With the addition of Two dissertations not hitherto reprinted. London: Routledge. Appleman, P, 2001, Darwin. London: Norton Beer, G., 2000, Darwins Plots. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Brantlinger, P, 1988, Rule of Darkness:British Literature and Imperialism. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press Bristow, J., 1991, Empire Boys:Adventures in a Mans World. London: Harper Collins. Brown, M., 2001, (ed) Picturing Children. Aldershot: Ashgate Bulwer-Lytton, E., 1853, A Strange Story. Analysis of the Term Victorian Through Literature Analysis of the Term Victorian Through Literature The era of Queen Victorias reign witnessed the passing of milestones in social, economic, and personal progress. It was the age of industrialisation, a time of travel, a battleground for the conflict between science and religion. Yet further to these great markers by which many of us recognise the nineteenth century, and indeed because of them, Victorias reign inspired change within the individual; a revaluation of what it meant to be a human being. The literary artists gave new form to the questions on the lips of the society around them: questions that were no longer so easily answered by Christianity. This dissertation will explore how the term Victorian does or doesnt fit into the context from which it supposedly arises. I will look at trends such as the development of literary criticism, pioneering scientific discoveries, the exploration into psychic phenomenon, the increasing independence of women, the mapping of the world, all of which contribute to what we know and understand as Victorian, and have in some way shaped the work of authors such as Eliot, Conan Doyle, and H.G Wells. Using some close textual analysis I hope to identify the nature of the inspiration behind the literature of the time and whether or not such work transcends the limits of the term Victorian. Many great literary minds of the time such as Arnold, Dickens, and Ruskin helped define the era in their critical attitudes towards it. (Davis 2002, p.10). Criticism appears to have become a form of exploration in an attempt to turn what concerned and worried the artist into something that questioned and reassured. Arnold, in his dissertations in Criticism (Arnold 1865, p.V) explains how he perceives the difference between logical and artistic thought The truth is I have never been able to ht it off happily with the logicians, and it would be mere affectation in me to give myself the airs of doing so. They imagine truth something to be proved, I something to be seen; they something to be manufactured, I as something to be found. It is this growing awareness of difference that was to become a defining feature of Victorian literature. Differences appeared in the very perception of things, which led to feelings of isolation, despair, alienation all prominent themes in nineteenth century work. In Arnolds A Summer Night (http://whitewolf.newcastle.edu.au/words/authors/A/ArnoldMatthew/verse/EmpedoclesonEtna/summernight.html) we see the poetic mind struggling to find meaning on a moonlit street where the windows, like hostile faces, are silent and white, unopening down: And the calm moonlight seems to say Hast thou then still the old unquiet breast That neither deadens into rest Nor ever feels the fiery glow That whirls the spirit front itself away, 30 But fluctuates to and fro Never by passion quite possessd And never quite benumbd by the worlds sway? And I, I know not if to pray Still to be what I am, or yield, and be Like all the other men I see. Arnold recognises that the society around him is unfulfilled, that men are giving their lives to some unmeaning taskwork and he questions whether he should be questioning at all. He is aware of a gap between the reality of working life and life outside of work; a difference that he strives to find explanation for. Arnold appears to be lost amidst the streets of his own mind afraid of not being able to define who he is, what he is. These feelings in part express what it meant to be a Victorian struggling to place thoughts and feelings which appear to no longer fit into society. The Victorian era contained much of what had past and much of what was still to come it cannot be seen as an isolated time, nor as an isolated term. It contained aspects of the Romantic period for instance in Arnolds poem, The Buried Life, we see vestiges of Wordsworths legacy of Ode to Immortality. In both poems there is a sense of something lost an old passion or instinct that has gone with the passing of time yet Arnold, unlike Wordsworth, finds it more difficult to come to terms with this: A longing to inquire / Into the mystery of this heart that beats / So wild, so deep in us, to know / Whence our thoughts come and where they go. (http://www.web-books.com/Classics/Poetry/Anthology/Arnold_M/Buried.htm). The language is more passionately discontent than the resolute tone of Wordsworths visionary acceptance: We will grieve not, rather find/Strength in what remains behind. (Wordsworth 1928, p.136). The styles are obviously connected, but the trouble with defining the era using literary terminology is that it is clearly neither a quirky extension of the Romantics vision, nor is it a straightforward path to the modernists. The 1870s saw the maturation of authors such as Anthony Trollope who brought out his later novels, yet only twenty years later in 1896 these publications are sitting beside the considerably different form and subject matter of work such as H.G. Wellls The Time Machine and The Island of Dr. Moreau, with literary experiments with the modern such as Richard Jefferies The Story of My Heart (a spiritual autobiography) -occurring between in 1883. A growing concern in nineteenth century life was the potential loss of the Romantic link between human nature and the natural world, and the gap which sudden industrial progress highlighted between nature and mechanisation. As technology developed so did the notion of artificiality. It is worth noting J.S.Mills dissertation on Nature (Mill 1874, p.65) where he says that it is mans nature to be artificial, to remedy nature by artificial pruning and intervention. Further to this, a contemporary of Mills Richard Jennings also drew a line between the province of human nature and the external world. (Lightman 1997, p.80). In the countryside more efficient methods of farming were employed (see the contrast between Henchards methods and Farfraes ciphering and mensuration in Hardys Mayor of Casterbridge, (Hardy 1886, p.122)), and new machines introduced which no longer required the labour force to run them, encouraging people to migrate to towns and cities. The urban reality was harsh in 1851 roughly four million people were employed in trade and manufacture and mining, leaving only one and a half million in agriculture. (Davis 2002, p.13). City life, as portrayed by Dickens, was a cruel, unhealthy and unwholesome existence for many. Working conditions in cities were often cramped, unhygienic and poorly ventilated, and living conditions could be even worse. Mrs. Gaskell, living in Manchester, witnessed the appalling pressures that these conditions forced upon family life, and in North and South depicts the difficulties of urban living, offering that salvation for the working classes lay with themselves and their employers, working together. However, city life was not all desolate based in cities, the development of the detective novel brought the city back to human scale (Lehan, p.84). Detectives pieced together and reconstructed past events through clues for example, the murder of Bartholomew Sholto in The Sign of Four by Conan Doyl e: As far as we can learn, no actual traces of violence were found upon Mr Sholtos person, but a valuable collection of Indian gems which the deceased gentleman had inherited from his father had been carried off. The discovery was first made by Mr Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson () Mr. Athelney Jones, the well-known member of the detective police force, happened to be at the Norwood police station () Mr Jones well-known technical knowledge and his powers of minute observation have enabled him to prove conclusively that the miscreants could not have entered by the door or by the window but must have made their way across the roof of the building, and so through a trapdoor into a room which communicated with that in which the body was found. (p.66) The city provided an exciting backdrop to crime scenes its labyrinthine streets similar to the mapping of the pathways of the human mind so that the two became inextricably linked. As Joseph McLaughlin says in Writing the Urban Jungle, the urban jungle is a space that calls forth a pleasurable acquiescence to something greater, more powerful, and, indeed, sublime () also an imaginative domain that calls forth heroic action: exploring, conquering, enlightening, purifying, taming, besting. (McLaughlin 2000, p.3). Further to what McLaughlin suggests, the Victorians perception of time and space in the city and the countryside was changing radically from the medieval perceptions that still existed in the Romantic period. People saw the finished products in both manufacturing and farming no longer involving the long, drawn-out means to an end, instead the end result was being achieved faster and with more control. Here developed the root of modern industry which continues today in intensive farming and factory lines. Yet here too the beginnings of waste and excess. Richard Jefferies, a nineteenth century naturalist and mystic, known for his dissertations on nature, remarks on the abundance of food in the natural world in his dissertation Meadow Thoughts: The surface of the earth offers to us far more than we can consume the grains, the seeds, the fruits, the animals, the abounding products are beyond the power of all the human race to devour. They can, too, be multiplied a thousandfold. There is no natural lack. Whenever there is lack among us it is from artificial causes, which intelligence should remove. (Jefferies 1994, p.26). Unfortunately there was plenty for those who could afford it but not enough to spare for the poorer lower classes. (Ritvo 1997, p.194). Trends of over production and wastage which became a worry in Victorian times are reflected in the literary concerns of Jefferies childrens story, Bevis, where words, despite their abundance, are in danger of becoming an insufficient medium of expression and not filling the metaphysical space on the page. In describing a sunrise and the thoughts and feelings associated with watching it, Jefferies struggles to articulate the beauty before him: The sun had not yet stood out from the orient, but his precedent light shone through the translucent blue. Yet it was not blue, nor is there any word, nor is a word possible to convey the feeling. (Jefferies 1881, p.391) We see too in James Thomsons City of Dreadful Night (Thomson 1892, p.2) the desperateness of trying to articulate thoughts and feelings: Because a cold rage seizes one at whiles To show the bitter old and wrinkled truth Stripped naked of all vesture that beguiles, False dreams, false hopes, false masks and modes of youth; Because it gives some sense of power and passion In helpless impotence to try to fashion Our woe in living words howeer uncouth. In both passages there is a sense of trying to convey so much more than the words will allow. And that is the essence of the problem of defining the era with a word which the era itself selected Victorian like the authors of its time struggles to convey the enormity and the condensed nature of its changing environment. Victorian literature is thus perhaps best studied between the lines of its texts rather than for what it offers at face value. Thomsons words to try to fashion our woe in living words although appearing dismal could actually withhold a more positive message: it deals with the notion of perseverance that by creating words, however difficult, the author is refusing to give in to despair by trying to transform it into creative energy. There is a sense of crisis in the work of Thomson, just as there is to be found in Jefferies futuristic After London where the lone explorer Felix discovers the land after humanity has overreached itself to sociological disaster and has lost the harmonious relationship between mankind and nature. London becomes no more than a crystallised ruin in a ground oozing with poison unctuous and slimy, like a thick oil. (Jefferies 1885, p.205). Through work like this we see that Victorian was an era of possibility where visions of the future suddenly became tangible concerns and possible realities, and where contemporary conceptions of language and life might no longer hold up to the pressures of the time. In H.G. Wells the Time Machine, the time traveller discovers a land in the year 802,701: The air was free from gnats, the earth from weeds or fungi; everywhere were fruits and sweet and delightful flowers; brilliant butterflies flew hither and thither. The ideal of preventative medicine was attained. diseases had been stamped out. I saw no evidence of any contagious diseases during all my stay. And i shall have to tell you later that even the processes of putrefaction and decay had been profoundly affected by these changes. (Wells 1995, p.28) In this description of a futuristic age the Victorian imagination still retains the idea of a paradise a place full of butterflies and flowers. This Christian concept is a literary hangover from Miltons Paradise Lost, and remains an important theme for the moderns such as D.H. Lawrence. The Victorian age suffered from a dualistic split between a bright future on the one hand promised by leaps in technology, education and economical success and an increasingly alienated, confused society on the other. There were those writers like Huxley who believed that by human intervention within a political and economic framework humans could evolve out of their condition seeing no limit to the extent to which intelligence and will () may modify the conditions of existence (Huxley, 1893, Evolution and Ethics, The Romanes Lecture (http://aleph0.clarku.edu/huxley/CE9/E-E.html), and there were those like Hardy whose characters were destined to fail because they were not emotionally fitted into the cosmos out of which they evolved . It was the nineteenth century spiritual crisis which precipitated the literary shift into the new genre of the realist novel. By the mid-nineteenth century, society had begun to grow away from the idea of atonement for sin within an omnipotent religion, where judgement would come solely in heaven, and towards the more humanistic idea of God as in-dwelling, so that salvation could be achieved on earth: We have now come to regard the world not as a machine, but as an organism, a system in which, while the parts contribute to the growth of the whole, the whole also reacts upon the development of the parts; and whose primary purpose is its own perfection, something that is contained within and not outside itself, an internal end: while in their turn the myriad parts of this universal organism are also lesser organisms, ends in and for themselves, pursuing each its lonely ideal of individual completeness. (Gore (ed) 1890, p.211) A spiritual lack created a need to define, order and categorise a world that suddenly appeared chaotic. When Darwin published On the Origin of Species in 1859 he raised issues of public concern as to the truth of the bible and the essence of Christianity. However, its content and its methodology were seriously criticised (Appleman 2001, p.200). It was a difficult work to accept as it caused the public to rethink and redefine their history that they were a product of evolution and not a tailor made being came as a shock. The future of thought and literature was suddenly changed as people tried to sew together the threads of the past. Natural Science became a national obsession exotic flora and fauna from across the world were brought into London daily, to be displayed in the British Museum or Kew Gardens (Lightman, 1997 p.1). In literature, we see the author begin to play the part of evolutionist: Eliots Middlemarch although concerned with the evolving character of Dorothea Brooke follows the threads of sub-plots and the successes and failures of other characters which form a pattern of development. As Gillian Beer says: There is not one primitive tissue, just as there is not one key to all mythologies () emphasis upon plurality, rather than upon singleness, is crucial to the developing argument of Middlemarch. (Beer 2000, p.143). Gone is the tradition of the valiant hero or heroine singularly conquering their environment (a trend set by classics such as Homers The Odyssey (1967)) and in its place a landscape upon which the author grafts and nurtures developing shoots of life. It is this sort of growth that is in danger of remaining unseen to the contemporary historian or critic as it can become shrouded by generalising concepts which are so often prescribed to the term Victorian concepts such as repression, old-fashioned and prudish. (http://www.victorianweb.org/vn/victor4.html). These sort of terms restrict the individuals perception of the era when it was a time when growth was encouraged rather than restricted. Authors used the metaphor of pruning and nurturing plant life to symbolise the development of the self for example in North and South Gaskell discusses the problem of the working individual who struggles to reach his or her potential when the manufacturers are unsparingly cutting away all off-shoots in the direction of literature or high mental cultivation, in hopes of throwing the whole strength and vigour of the plant into commerce. (Gaskell 1865, p.69). For Gaskell, it is through the everyday interaction between people that such difficulties are given the chance to be overcome. And this was the essence of the realist novel set amidst a world which had witnessed such alteration to transform the lostness felt by society into a seeing of the smaller things in life which could withhold qualities of greater spiritual value. As Philip Davis says, the realist novel was the holding ground, the meeting point, for the overlapping of common life. (Davis 2002, p.144). And it was within this common life that a more calm acceptance of the new state could be achieved. Gillian Beer suggests that through her novels organisation Eliot creates order and understanding of the evolving process of novel-writing. In Middlemarch, the naming of Casaubons books Waiting for Death, Two Temptations, Three Love Problems draws attention to the books organisation by emphasising categorisation: But the process of reading leads into divergence and variability. Even while we are observing how closely human beings conform in the taxonomy of events we learn how differently they feel and think. For Dorothea and Casaubon waiting for death means something very different from what it means for Mary Garth and Featherstone. The relations are different. The distances between people are different. Lydgate, here at one with the project of the book, longed to demonstrate the more intimate relations of living structure (1:15:225). In this double emphasis on conformity and variability George Eliot intensifies older literary organisations by means of recent scientific theory. In Darwinian theory, variability is the creative principle, but the type makes it possible for us to track common ancestry and common kinship. (Beer 2000, pp.143-4) Writing itself was becoming an almost divine representation, an inner order of a chaotic external world. The idea that humans had evolved from primates meant that the boundaries between what was one thing and what was another were no longer so clearly defined. There developed a fear of the animate and a fear of the inanimate, and efforts were sought to understand them. As Harriet Ritvo says in The Platypus and the Mermaid: Depending on the beholder, an anomaly might be viewed as embodying a challenge to the established order, whether social, natural, or divine; the containment of that challenge; the incomprehensibility of the creation by human intelligence; or simply the endless and diverting variety of the world. And beholders who agreed on the content of the representation could still disagree strongly about its moral valence whether it was good or bad, entrancing or disgusting. (Ritvo 1997, p.148). In a world where categorisation was important but not so easily achievable, the novel too became neither one thing nor another; realism became a melting pot for ideas, a sort of hybrid of styles. In Eliots The Lifted Veil realism is used as a vehicle for the exploration of her ideas into psychology and psychic phenomena. Latimers clairvoyance forces him to endure a painful insight into the minds of the people around him: I began to be aware of a phase in my abnormal sensibility, to which, from the languid and slight nature of my intercourse with others since my illness, I had not been alive before. This was the obtrusion on my mind of the mental process going forward in first one person, and then another, with whom I happened to be in contact: the vagrant, frivolous ideas and emotions of some uninteresting acquaintanceMrs Filmore, for examplewould force themselves on my consciousness like an importunate, ill-played musical instrument, or the loud activity of an imprisoned insect. But this superadded consciousness, wearying and annoying enough when it urged on me the trivial experience of indifferent people, became an intense pain and grief when it seemed to be opening to me the souls of those who were in a close relation to me when the rational talk, the graceful attentions, the wittily-turned phrases, and the kindly deeds, which used to make the web of their characters, were seen as if thrust asunder by a microscopic vision, that showed all the intermediate frivolities, all the suppressed egoism, all the struggling chaos of puerilities, meanness, vague capricious memories, and indolent make-shift thoughts, from which human words and deeds emerge like leaflets covering a fermenting heap.(Eliot 1859, pp.13-14) Latimer is no longer caught up in the web of peoples characters. Eliot plays with the idea that his consciousness has the ability to transcend the mundane the rational talk, the kindly deeds in order to gain insight into an alternative and not so rosy vision of the mechanics of the human mind where thoughts are make-shift and chaotic. The nineteenth century saw the acceptance of the concept of otherworldly phenomena into the working classes. Robert Owen, a social reformer, who influenced the British Labor movement (Oppenheim 1985, p.40) encouraged many working class Owenites to follow him into the spiritualist fold, where they enthusiastically continued their ongoing search for the new moral world. Interests such as spiritualism and psychology which had previously been more underground pursuits, were brought out into the open. The concept of telepathy, a term coined by Frederic Myers in 1882 (Luckhurst 2002, p.1) even helped to theorize the uneasy cross-cultural encounters at the colonial frontier. (Luckhurst 2002, p.3) These developments suggest that the Victorians felt imbued with the power of their age they felt confident of their ability to communicate on different planes of consciousness. So it could be argued that Victorian was not simply a time devoted to the discovery of the self and the workings of the inner mind, but a time that also focused on the projection of ideas and thoughts outside of the self; ideas which themselves stand outside of the category Victorian. In 1869 the Spiritualist Newspaper began selling first as a fortnightly, then as a weekly publication. (Oppenheim 1985, p.45). This draws the discussion to the point of representation the social nature of Victorians seems to suggest that they enjoyed the focus being on themselves. Self-obsession is an aspect of the time which the term Victorian usefully represents: by specifically referring to the rule of the Queen the term draws attention to the importance of the individual. The era saw the development of many different styles of fashion and the use of photography. As part of the Freudian influence great importance was placed on childhood and it was during the nineteenth century that the first laws concerning child welfare were passed. (Mavor quoted from Brown (ed) 2001, p.i) The focus on the central, the ego, was paramount. As Mavor says, it was as if the camera had to be invented in order to document what would soon be lost, childhood itself; and childhood had to be invented in order for the camera to document childhood (a fantasy of innocence) as real. (Brown (ed) 2001, p.27). Perhaps because of societys awareness of change there seems to have been a necessity to record and keep track of the world around. Discovery took place on a much grander scale in the exploration of the world. The British Empire was global, yet as Patrick Brantlinger suggests in Rule of Darkness, (Brantlinger 1988, p.4) imperialism was not generally reflected in the literature of the time. What we do see evidence of however is the mapping of new worlds and territories (Richard Jefferies Bevis). The development of the adventure story suggests that Victorians desired to explore what lay outside of what they knew and in this respect the term Victorian which people can think of as representing a society closed within in itself is misleading. The rise of imperialism began to shape the ideological dimensions of subjects studied in school (Bristow 1991, p.20) and so through literature the Victorian child was offered an exciting world of sophisticated representation and ideas with the knowledge that the world was theirs to explore. Does the term then encourage us to think of the society as a class of people set apart from the rest of the world? In The Island of Dr. Moreau it is not just the future of science that is explored but the concept of a new territory and its effects on the mind. For example, when the protagonist first sees the beast-servant on board the ship he is immediately frightened: I did not know then that a reddish luminosity, at least, is not uncommon in human eyes. The figure, with its eyes of fire, struck down through all my adult thoughts and feelings, and for a moment the forgotten horrors of childhood came back to my mind. Then the effect passed as it had come. An uncouth black figure of a man, a figure of no particular import, hung over the taffrail, against the starlight. (Wells 1997, p.31). The circumstances of being at sea is disorientating and causes the imagination to play tricks so that the man is first one thing a figure with its eyes of fire and then suddenly becomes an uncouth black figure of a man. The effect is that the protagonist suddenly regresses to the forgotten horrors of childhood. This sudden fluctuation is important as it represents the fluidity of the era and how change and discovery on a global scale, although empowering, also caused instability within the individual. Therefore, when considering the age in the context of its name we can understand that the term was perhaps created out of both the desire to represent achievement but also out of a need to belong. This desire to belong which manifested itself during an age ruled by one woman placed great importance on the role of the female in society. It was a time when women began to travel and write without the necessity of using a pseudonym (see Cheryl McEwan on Kingsley in West Africa, (2000, p.73)). In books such as Hardys Tess of the DUrbervilles the idea of the fallen woman is tested when Tesss crucial lack of belief in herself causes her never to discover the paradise with Clare that might have been. The nineteenth century began to be more explicit concerning issues of gender: for example, the relationship between Arthur Munby and Hannah Cullwick (see McClintock 1995, pp.132-138) where Cullwick is photographed cross-dressed as a farm worker. A Victorian man however appears to have had more stigma attached to him and in this context the term is commonly associated with heroism and English valour (Ridley/Dawson 1994, p.110). There is less flexibility surrounding the notion of Victorian men -as if the term somehow threatened their masculinity. However, this did not seem to affect the male authors of the time. Lewis Carroll captured the public imagination through Alices Adventures in Wonderland, which although following the story of a little girl, depicts many male characters. (see Carroll 2000). In conclusion, the term Victorian although useful to refer to a specific time period in history, does however encourage us to make sweeping generalisations without investigating how diverse the era was. In terms of the subject matter of Victorian Literature there is no clear cut distinction between early, middle and late Victorian for example, Bulwer-Lytton attempts at the beginning of the century what Richard Jefferies does at the end the difference is in style and form. Within that time frame there was condensed an incredible diversity of styles, tastes and attitudes, yet the term suffers from being associated with prejudices and assumptions about Victorians. However, it is worth bearing in mind that prejudices were indeed a part of Victorian society. When the Victorians explored the rest of the world they made generalisations and assumptions based on what they found (eg: The Island of Dr. Moreau) where experience and the nature of what is discovered defines behaviour. As a critic in 1858 wrote we are living in an age of transition (quoted from Houghton 1957, p.1); therefore when considering the Victorian age we should remember that values and trends were evolving it was not a static time governed by repression or old fashioned values. From the research carried out for this dissertation it appears that through the gaining of knowledge, Victorians also realised how little they knew and how much more there was to discover. As Arnold says in A Summer Night: How fair a lot to fill / Is left to each man still. (http://whitewolf.newcastle.edu.au/words/authors/A/ArnoldMatthew/verse/EmpedoclesonEtna/summernight.html). In this context the term Victorian can be dualistically representative: discoveries of the time, although revolutionary, were often rudimentary in nature, and it was humbling for the individual to consider how much further knowledge and discovery had yet to go. On the other hand, the term suffers too from being inadequate: a single word is too smaller term for the vast wealth and diversity of discovery, and it could be argued that the era is better realised if seen as a second revolution. Like the Victorian authors themselves we are left with no suitable words to convey the entirety of an era as John Lawton says in his introduction to The Time Machine (1995, p.xxvi) the term Victorian is used too loosely to encompass a sequence of eras, the diverse reign of a woman who lent her name to objects as diverse as a railway terminus and a plum. When studying Victorian Literature it is worth bearing in mind the fluidity of the time and the changeability which arose out of living on the cusp between the passing away of old values and the unknown territory of the new. Realism recognised the gaps which were forming in society such as the distancing of the self from religion and offered to paper the cracks through its vision of bringing people together on a mundane level. Its territory stretched to include the darkest recesses of the mind to the smallest of everyday events, celebrating the grey area between extremes as we now know as Victorian. Bibliography Arnold, M., Reprint of 1865 ed. dissertations in Criticism With the addition of Two dissertations not hitherto reprinted. London: Routledge. Appleman, P, 2001, Darwin. London: Norton Beer, G., 2000, Darwins Plots. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Brantlinger, P, 1988, Rule of Darkness:British Literature and Imperialism. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press Bristow, J., 1991, Empire Boys:Adventures in a Mans World. London: Harper Collins. Brown, M., 2001, (ed) Picturing Children. Aldershot: Ashgate Bulwer-Lytton, E., 1853, A Strange Story.