Saturday, June 27, 2020

A Great American Dream - Literature Essay Samples

The Great Gatsby and Babylon Revisited, both by F. Scott Fitzgerald, are stories about the emptiness and recklessness of the 1920s. Each story has its distinctions, but Fitzgeralds condemnation of the decade reverberates through both. Fitzgerald explores and displays insufficiencies of the vacuous period, and does so with sharp clarity and depth, leaving no crude, barbarous habit to imagination. Fitzgerald had a deep and personal affliction with the 1920s (most notably in the Eastern United States), and in both The Great Gatsby and Babylon Revisited, he hones his conflicts into a furious condemnation. The 1920s were a period of sloth, habitual sin, exhausted illustriousness, and moral despondency; the black mark of a society and world usually tilted more toward attempted civility. Fitzgerald conveys this theme through the use of character, symbolism, and wasteland imagery.First, Fitzgerald uses characters to personify the vast recklessness of the generation. The characters in both are incomprehensibly selfish and carefree, though more noticeably in The Great Gatsby. Tom Buchanan, for instance, is almost flippant in acknowledging his affair with Jordan Baker, a local miscreant golf pro. Tom leaves Nick, Daisy, and Jordan at the dinner table to take a call from her. An exchange between Nick Carraway and Jordan while Tom is gone illuminates the situation. Is something happening (Fitzgerald, Gatsby 19), says Nick. To which Jordan Baker replies, I thought everybody knew. Why- Toms got some woman in New York' (Fitzgerald, Gatsby 19). Tom Buchanan has an acknowledged mistress in New York, and he politely and confidently leaves the dinner table to speak with her. He is the absolute personification of the reckless actions and attitudes that characterize the era. Duncan Shchaeffer and Lorraine Qualles, appearing briefly in Babylon Revisited, also represent reckless and selfish behavior. They burst in to a private meeting at the Peters residence just as Ch arlie is coercing Lincoln and Marion in to granting him custody of his child. Fitzgerald describes their behavior: They were gay, they were hilarious, they were roaring with laughter. They slid down another cascade of laughter (Fitzgerald, Babylon 385). This after bursting in to the house of a stranger. They are drunk, juvenile, reprehensible in behavior, and acting more like children than adults. Fitzgerald asserts, however, that their actions characterize the generation of lost souls, and these characters are only used to articulate his condemnation of it.Secondly, Fitzgerald uses symbolism to convey a feeling of futility and hopelessness throughout the novel and short story. Doctor T.J. Eckleburg, especially, symbolizes the distorted perceptions and priorities of the decade. Eckleburg watches over the gray ash-heap near Mr. Wilsons garage with what Wilson thinks an all-knowing eye. Wilson has an unusual reverence to Dr. Eckleburg: he considers him God. In a conversation b etween Wilson and Michaelis, Wilson discusses a conversation he had previously with Mrs. Wilson just before she died:I spoke to her [about her affair with Tom Buchanan]. I told her she might fool me but she couldnt fool God. I took her to the window With and effort he got up and walked the rear window and leaned with his face pressed against it, and I said God knows what youve been doing, everything youve been doing. You may fool me but you cant fool God. Standing behind him Michaelis saw with a shock that he was looking at they eyes of Doctor T.J. Eckleburg. (Fitzgerald, Gatsby 167)Wilson is hopeless and disillusioned, and his connection to Dr. Eckleburg exemplifies the widespread futility of the era.Lastly, Fitzgerald uses wasteland imagery to show how society circa 1920 was dysfunctional and reckless. The apartment of Myrtle Wilsons relation, where Tom and Myrtle usually conduct their affair, is the perfect example of this. Fitzgerald describes the scene at the apartment:Th e apartment was on the top floora small living room, a small diningroom, a small bedroom and a bath. The living room was crowded to the doors with a set of tapestried furniture entirely too large for it so that to move about was to stumble continually over scenes of ladies swinging in the gardens of Versailles. Several old copies of Town Tattle lay on the table together with a copy of Simon Called Peter and some of the small scandal magazines of Broadway. (Fitzgerald, Gatsby 33)The apartments amenities are showy and overdone, and somehow seem more representative of conformity than affluence. The whole generation is caught up in the times, an unthinking, unknowing mob of followers, riding the unenviable wave of recklessness2E The apartment is empty, devoid of any substance at all, a perfect example of the wasteland image. It is where forbidden lovers meet to flirt and cackle, and where people get drunk for only the second time in their life, where people smoke, drink, and live re cklessly together, and the only place where none of it matters: the wasteland.The 1920s were an era of lost personality. The people were caught up in the teaming exuberance, riding the inertia or recklessness further in to itself. Fitzgeralds The Great Gatsby and Babylon Revisited are fitting and definitive condemnations of the irrational time, and critics are right in deeming them so. Fitzgerald, too, is right: The 1920s were wasted years, and fit for condemnation.

Sunday, June 7, 2020

Competence to Support Social and Emotional Development of Children - Free Essay Example

Children need special attention and support on many occasions during their young period to develop-self-esteem, promote their self and ensure that they have flourished in their lives. This paper presents essential competence necessary for support children emotional and social development as well as how to provide positive guidance to them. SELF I will ensure that I have supported emotional and social development for all the children and use all my abilities to offer positive guidance to them. I will too emphases on teaching children to learn and understand their self-value as well as self-worth. To ensure that all children have development self-esteem, I will apply positive reinforcement while encouraging them on the great things that they can achieve. I will solve the common child mistakes with love and avoid condemning them to ensure that the children are emotionally secure. I will too interact with them during the teaching and playing sessions concerning make them feel of value. To ensure that I have taught each child to appreciate self-value by showing them love and handling them with care. Furthermore, I will advise each child on matters concerning individual life such as the need to study and perform well in their studies to ensure that all children flourish in their lives. SOCIAL I will ensure that I have supported emotional and social development for all children and use all my abilities to offer positive guidance to them. I will achieve this by providing necessary life skills which are essential for children to develop their social psyche which will enable them to become productive and trustworthy citizens in future. To initiate a positive social behavior in children, I will use self-control when am handing all students together with other adults I the environment of work as well as its surrounding. This will serve as a role model to them, and as they will be trying to imitate me, they will finally have adopted my positive social behavior. For instance, giving out good implication to children when communicating and arguing with other adults could help them to adjust their communication skills. Presenting well and very smart regarding dressing may also encourage children who respond by trying to adopt your dressing code. By use of etiquette skills, I will teach children on how to approach or interrupt one another. I will too emphasize on showing children the importance of one another among themselves to encouraging them to develop positive relationships among themselves and the need forgiveness one another. I will too encourage positive social interactions among them. By ensuring that children are interacting well while they are playing and making fun of themselves. By encouraging children to share what they have with one another, help and be merciful to the ones in needs such as sick children and help them, I will teach them to foster pro-social behavior. GUIDANCE I will ensure that I have supported emotional and social development for all children and use all my abilities to offer positive guidance to them. By teaching and showing them how to make a good decision using self-discipline and self-control. I will teach them the necessary response that they are supposed to make under trying situation. For instance, to accept their mistake if caught and promise never to repeat it. I will guide them on how to respond to adult (especially their parents and teachers) to address some of their challenging behavior. I will use specific examples of notorious people who failed to succeed in their lives to teach them to stop ill-behavior among themselves such as bullying one another.