Beautiful Disasters: Pearl As A Living Breathing Scarlet Letter :: essays research papers

Sometimes beauty is found in places as unexpected as a rosebush growing outside of a prison in a puritan colonial village. Pearl Prynne is an unearthly beautiful child with a wild spirit born under unimaginably sinful conditions, all of which are somehow related to the ideas, actions, and views of others on Hester’s punishment. In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, Pearl serves as Hester’s living, breathing Scarlet letter. Pearl evokes the same emotion and reactions from the townspeople, as does the scarlet letter. The people look at the slight sense of pride Hester has in her letter in the same way they look at the way Hester lets Pearl do whatever she wants. They feel Hester isn’t fit to raise the child. The extremity of gossip from the females of the village in the beginning of the book is only matched by the amount that Pearl’s wild attitude stirs up later on. Hester’s â€Å"A† is the example for all of what sin is. The â€Å"A† makes Hester much avoided and the parents tell their children to watch out for her. Theses same parents say the same things to their kids about avoiding Pearl, who is infamous for her uncontrollable behavior with her peers and other adults. Just as infamous as Hester’s â€Å"A† for the wild sinful actions it symbolizes. Like Hester’s scarlet letter, Pearl shows extreme beauty in a form that is not traditional, positive, tame, or fully accepted. When Hester crafts the â€Å"A† that she has to wear on her chest, She uses a deep, passionate shade of red and embroiders it very intricately with bright gold thread. The â€Å"A† was meant to mark Hester in a negative manor; its purpose is to let everyone know that Hester is a sinner. Hester takes something extremely negative and makes it appear as passionately beautiful. Hawthorne portrays Pearl in a very detailed specific manor, meant to put emphasis on the similarities between Pearl and the â€Å"A†. She is the symbol of Hester’s sin but the tone that is used when referring to her makes her out to appear as a stunningly beautiful creature. The narrator states, â€Å"There was a trait of passion, a certain depth of hue, which she never lost† ( ). Even the adjectives he uses in describing Pearl suggest something color related (â€Å"hue†). There is a feeling of wildness and uncontrollably in Pearl’s appearance; more specifically in her eyes.

‘Araby’ by James Joyce Essay

What impression of Dublin and its people does James Joyce give in his story ‘Araby’? James Augustine Alrysius Joyce, an Irish writer, was born in Dublin 2nd February 1882 and died in Zurich, Switzerland 13th January 1941. He was born into a well-off Catholic family and was the eldest surviving child; two of his siblings died of typhoid. Joyce was originally educated at Clongowes Wood College, a boarding school in County Kildare, which he left at the age of 6 because his father could no longer pay the fees. James Joyce studied at home for a brief period of time before being offered a place in the Jesuits’ Dublin School. At the age of 16 he rejected Catholicism which changed his life completely. At the age of 20, after graduating from the UDC (University College Dublin) he left for Paris and tried studying different occupations like teaching, journalism and even a doctor. At the age of 21 he returned to Ireland after receiving news that his mother was diagnosed with cancer. After she had died James Joyce became a heavy drinker but gradually stopped as he got over her death. He then stayed in Dublin for a period of time from 1904-1907 writing the â€Å"Dubliners† and also started many other books. The book â€Å"Dubliners† is a collection of short stories and â€Å"Araby†, like all of them, have â€Å"paralysis† meaning that they can’t leave Dublin. For example in the short story â€Å"Clay† Maria has the chance to make a new life and leave Dublin but turns it down because she is too scared. This also occurs in â€Å"A Painful Case† and â€Å"Eveline†, as they don’t have to courage to leave Dublin. In the short story â€Å"The Boarding House†, Bob Doran wishes to leave Dublin but can’t because he is trapped inside marriage. Most of the short stories, unlike â€Å"Araby†, go in circles, for instance, â€Å"Two Gallants† when Lenehan just wanders around Dublin. This also occurs in â€Å"The Dead† because a horse just goes around and around in circles, and also in â€Å"An Encounter† when a pervert tries to stop but end back in the same perverted world. At the end of the short stories James Joyce always write an epiphany, which is a revelation, but in all but one story the revelation is only noticed by the reader but in â€Å"Araby† both the reader and the protagonist – the protagonist is the main character – have an epiphany – an epiphany is a moment of revelation, usually at the end of the story. In the streets of Dublin James Joyce writes them as being â€Å"blind†, meaning that it’s a dead end and there is nothingness, it also means that you can’t escape and there is nowhere to go (there is no way of getting out of Dublin). The main reason is that there is no vision, meaning that you can’t see how terrible and run down Ireland really is. He describes all things by the colours â€Å"brown† and â€Å"yellow† that symbolises human excrements. He writes â€Å"the lamps of the street lifted their feeble lanterns†, the word â€Å"feeble† shows that the light is not even strong enough to even penetrate the darkness. â€Å"Jostled by drunken men and bargaining women†, the word bargaining in this case can mean two things. The first meaning of it is that they are just selling items and changing the prices of them, and the second meaning is that the women are bargaining for their bodies, they are prostitutes. There are â⠂¬Å"street singers† who sing about the problems in Ireland. Also that weather is always extremely violent, and this is shown by the words â€Å"cold air stung us†, â€Å"rain impinge upon the earth† and â€Å"the air was pitilessly raw†. Religion in Dublin is exceedingly poor. In the second paragraph it says â€Å"a priest, had died† showing that the faith in Dublin has disappeared off the face of the earth. Inside the house of the dead priest there were books that were â€Å"curled and damp† meaning that the interest in them was lost. The books were â€Å"The Abbot† which is a religious story, â€Å"The Devout Communicant† which is a book on how to receive Holy Communion well and the last one â€Å"The Memoirs of Vidocq† which is about a thief. The books are muddled up indicating that religion in Ireland is a sham. When it talks about the priest again it first says â€Å"very charitable priest† making you think that the priest was a good man, and suddenly says â€Å"in his will he had left all his money to institutions and the furniture of his house to his sister† presenting the complete opposite. This means that the priest was only charitable went he knew he was dieing and he wasn’t a nice man. In the dead priest’s â€Å"wild garden† there is an apple tree in the centre signifying the Garden of Eden which is a source of evil. In a bush in the garden, there is a â€Å"rusty bicycle-pump†, this can denote three things. The first description of the bicycle-pump is that there is no escape because, if you can’t pump up your tires, then you can’t go anywhere. The second explanation represents the snake, or Satan, in the Garden of Eden because the pump is approximately the same size a snake. The last reason, symbolizes a heart, meaning that, because the heart is not pumping, there is no love or life in Dublin, symbolizing that everything is hopeless. A good part in the story when you know that religion is just a phoney in Dublin is when the boy’s Aunt says â€Å"I’m afraid you may have to put off your bazaar for this night of Our Lord† actually saying that he should just forget about it in a nasty way. Although she I using religious word she is using them without kindness, meaning that she is not caring about him. The family life in Dublin isn’t very pleasant either. In the beginning of the book, the boy says â€Å"if my Uncle was seen turning the corner, we hid in the shadow† indicating that he doesn’t live with his parents, and also that he’s scared of him. On the night of the bazaar his Uncle came home late, â€Å"I heard him talking to himself† meaning he was obviously drunk and had forgotten all about Araby. The love in Dublin is bland. For the boy he loves and stalks â€Å"Mangan’s sister†. She is called thins because he doesn’t actually know her name so he names her â€Å"Mangan’s sister†. He defines her as â€Å"light† because he thinks of Dublin as the dark and Mangan’s sister as a light to brighten up Dublin. When he looks at her â€Å"her dress swung as she moved her body, and the soft rope of her hair tossed from side to side†, she is describes as lively and everyone else is not. â€Å"Followed her†, or stalking her is the meaning, â€Å"I kept her ‘brown’ figure always in my eye†, â€Å"brown† indicating that she is actually just an ordinary person with nothing special about her. Within one paragraph there are five words â€Å"chalice†, â€Å"prayers†, â€Å"praises†, â€Å"tears† and â€Å"adoration†, he describes her with religious word, and because he left Catholicism she is now his secular religion (one without God). She is also like music to his ears because it says â€Å"my body was like a harp and her words and gestures were like fingers running upon the wires†. Also showing that he uses her in a secular religion is a sentence saying â€Å"I pressed the palms of my hands together until they trembled, murmuring: ‘O love! O love! many times† showing that he worships her a lot. â€Å"At last she spoke to me†, this is the moment he was waiting for the whole time. She then talks about â€Å"Araby† and says she can’t go. While she was talking to him â€Å"she turned a sliver bracelet†, silver indicating bright. In two sentences he uses six words to describe how radiant and bright she is and how drawn he is to her, they are â€Å"light†, â€Å"lamp†, â€Å"white†, â€Å"lit†, â€Å"lit† and â€Å"†white†, repeating â€Å"white† and â€Å"lit†. â€Å"Waking and sleep thoughts† and â€Å"chafed against the work of school† imply that he can’t do anything besides thinking about Araby and Mangan’s sister, and it also says â€Å"I strove to read† hinting the same thing. â€Å"Lie at the window† signals that he stalks and spies on Mangan’s sister, and he is â€Å"singing† because he is happy about getting Mangan’s sister a present. Lastly he has a sexual desire for Mangan’s sister because it says â€Å"border below the dress† suggesting that he is growing quite fast and is into the puberty stage of life. â€Å"Araby† is a fair or, a â€Å"bazaar† – which is a foreign word from the east. In the boy’s eyes, â€Å"Araby† is an exotic place that gets away from all the darkness of Dublin. Also Araby is close to the word Arabia which is in the east signifying that it’s exotic, rich. And because it is in the east it signifies that the sunrise comes from the east, representing a new day, a new hope, a new light. Also Jesus resurrected in the east, epitomizing a new beginning or day. When he eventually arrives to Araby, he goes around the stalls and finds that most of them are closed. There is one that is open but when he sees the people at the stall he discovers they all speak in English accents indicating that the bazaar is not exotic at all. A â€Å"young lady†, who is probably a prostitute, because she is seen flirting with two men at the same time, asks the boy if he wants to buy anything but he says â€Å"no, thank you†. And from this, all of his dreams end because, the items are too expensive and mundane. At the end of the story there is an epiphany, which is the moment of revelation, to both the reader and the protagonist, because usually the epiphany is only recognisable to the reader. On the second from last paragraph at the end it says â€Å"complete darkness† signifying that all hope is gone. The whole of the last paragraph says â€Å"gazing up into the darkness I saw myself as a creature driven and derided by vanity; and my eyes burned with anguish and anger†, this is the exact moment when he realises that all Dublin was in vain and all he did was in vain. He figures out from this that there actually is no love, no romance and no chivalry.

Minimum Wage Is The Price Floor For Jobs Essay - 1239 Words

Minimum wage is the price floor for jobs. Many people are either for it or against it, however not denying the fact that it is very important to employees. Because, minimum wage creates a pathway for workers to sell their labour though getting paid less, businesses willingly hire them and workers gain experiences. Yes, in many ways it can benefit both the employers and the employees but there is always a down side to it. When it comes to revenue businesses can only spend so much and it does not benefit the employees in the long run due to cost push inflations and poverty. A study based on minimum wage jobs from 2001-2012 in UK and Romania indicates how minimum wage have an effect on these countries. Youths are also being affected by minimum wage jobs. The article â€Å"Effects of rising minimum wage: theory, evidence and future challenges† closely examines the minimum wage â€Å"based on the contribution of theoretical and empirical research† in the EU countries such as the UK and Romania, and comparing them to the US. They were able to come to the conclusion of the Uk s minimum wage being slightly higher than the USA at 46%. Largest benefit was the gap reduction in the lower wages and a 5% increase of the lowest revenues. Romania stood out the most out of all the EU for minimum wage evolution and the effect of its policies on the labor market in more reasons than one. Using normal values when looking at an economy with high inflation rate is not relevant. Minimum wage wasShow MoreRelatedMinimum Wage And Its Effect On The Workplace886 Words   |  4 PagesPrice floor is most commonly defined as a government price control that establishes the minimum allowable price that can be charged for a particular good or service (Ragan, 2013). 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Federal Minimum Wage Essay1162 Words   |  5 PagesFederal Minimum Wage is $7.25 per hour. In just two years from 2013, the demanded from advocates for raising minimum wage rose from $9 to $15. However, raising the minimum wage is more complex than simply raising the number of federal sta ndard of pay for employees. Relative control groups and other market activities play a part in the outcome of the minimum wage. For example, one instance of market activity was observers said that raising the minimum wage did not hurt individuals; however, wages wereRead MoreThe Minimum Wage Is A Good Or Not? Essay1265 Words   |  6 Pagestopic of minimum wage. What is it? Why people talk so much about it? Why should you care about that topic or even pay attention to that? This paper will try to answer the question of why increasing a minimum wage is a good or not so good idea. I. Definition and history of the minimum wage. Let’s start with the definition of the minimum wage. 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(Grossman) Minimum wag e was set to allow working class citizens an opportunity to work a reasonable amount of hours for pay that would enable individuals to maintain a minimal quality life. In today’s economics minimum wage is used as a price control or price floor that the government enforces. A price floor is a minimum price for a product or service above the market’s equilibrium priceRead MoreRaising The Federal Minimum Wage1225 Words   |  5 Pages Study shows that wage increases do lower poverty, by 2.4% if wage at $8.00, consistent with other studies. (Washington Post/ Arin Dube) 1. Raising the federal minimum wage doesn’t cause substantial unemployment as most economists agree, including over 600 economists who wrote a letter to Congress urging a wage increase, and the Economic Policy Institute. A. Identify shortcomings of the opposition (fallacies they make, or weaknesses in the evidence they use) 1. 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Drastically raising minimum wage is meaningless as high inflation usually comes alongside with wage increases. Past economic statistics have shown that the rate of increase in inflation usually outpaced the rate of increase in minimum wage. Thus, the real value wage workers receiveRead MoreHistory of Minimum Wage1137 Words   |  5 Pagesdefinition of Minimum Wage is â€Å"an amount of money that is the least amount of money per hour that workers must be paid according to the law† (Minimum wage). Minimum wage, like other laws, are used to keep the economy in line. Minimum wage laws were invented in Australia and New Zealand with the purpose of guaranteeing a minimum standard of living for unskilled workers. (Linda Gorman) Minimum wage puts a price on the ser vices one offers. Many different principles can be used to explain Minimum wage and explore