Fossil Fuels Essays - Fossil Fuel, Fuel, , Term Papers

Fossil Fuels FOSSIL FUELS. Contents Outline 3 I. Introduction (Fossil Fuel Energy) 4 II. Types of Fossil Fuels 6 Coal 6 Oil 7 Natural Gas 8 III. Conclusion 9 Bibliography http://www.energy.ca.gov/education/story/story-html/chapter05.html http://webhome.idirect.com/~bobita/Cretaceous/Uses_Of_Fossils/index.htm http://science.cc.uwf.edu/SH/Curr/fossil.fuel.htm http://www.education.leeds.ac.uk/~edu/technology/ebp97/leec/coal.htm http://www.education.leeds.ac.uk/~edu/technology/ebp97/leec/gas.htm Other References Underwood, Shelly and Gary Energy - How Australia Works Published in Victoria, 1995, by Cardigan Street Publishers. Twist, Clint Facts on Fossil Fuels Published in Great Britain, 1990, by Gloucester Press. Healey, Kaye Energy

The popularity of Credit Derivatives first came into play at the early 1990s The WritePass Journal

The popularity of Credit Derivatives first came into play at the early 1990s Introduction The popularity of Credit Derivatives first came into play at the early 1990s IntroductionCredit Derivative OverviewStructure of Credit DerivativesThe significance of Credit DerivativesCredit Derivatives and the Financial CrisisCredit Derivatives Regulation Conclusion References Related Introduction The popularity of Credit Derivatives first came into play at the early 1990s, when Demchak (Team leader at JP Morgan, responsible for creating CDO’s) and his team have invented these financial instruments (Eisinger 2008). After the failure of the Bretton woods system in 1971, the economy faced a stable state with low interest rates. Banks struggled for profits with a low demand for loans. In these financial circumstances, banks lacked methods that avoid them from bankruptcy, and guarantee that they could survive independently and remain solvent on the collapse of the economy. Credit derivatives were born of such concern, allowing bankers, and others, the ability to reduce their risk by selling risk to other parties (Ayadi, Behr 2009). This paper gives a general overview on the concept of credit derivatives. In its opening section, this paper introduces credit derivatives definition, structure, and its usefulness in the financial market will be introduced. The essay then goes o n to review the existing credit derivatives markets regulation and explains the need to regulate these markets in light of the recent financial crisis. Although credit derivatives may have beneficial effects, but it can only be obtained if credit derivatives are used responsibly by all market participants. This essay will argue that the current regulatory regime is not sufficient to induce market participants to use credit derivatives in a desirable way. Credit Derivative Overview Credit derivatives are financial contracts that effectively shift credit risk, or the default risk, from one party to another. In so doing, for example, Paula Tkac (2007) describes that if participants default on their bond payment, the bond value decreases. The credit derivative, consequently, transfer this credit risk to another market participant for a specific periodic payment. Credit derivatives have achieved a marvelous growth throughout the past decades. According to the British Banker’s Association (BBA), the global outstanding notional volume of credit derivatives was 180 billion USD in 1996. After a decade, the market size of derivatives had increased 112 times the previous size in 1996 with a 20 trillion USD of derivative contracts. Only 2 years later, by mid-year 2008, and as it is shown in the figure 1 below, the fair value of the outstanding amount of credit derivatives was 53.3 trillion USD, reflecting the continuous growth of this market.(Ayadi ,Behr 2009) Structure of Credit Derivatives Credit derivatives can be categorized as portfolio credit derivative (single name) or asset backed security (multiname) (Mengle 2007). The most popular single-name derivative is the credit default swap â€Å"CDS†.   Shah Gilani (2008) illustrates that this is a contract that provides insurance from default risk of a specific party. This party is known as the reference entity and the default risk is identified as a credit event. In a CDS, the buyer of the insurance obtains the right to sell bonds issued by the party for their face value when a default takes place; also, the seller of the insurance agrees to buy the bonds for their face value when the default occurs (Gilani 2008). This face value is known as the CDS notional principal and the periodical payment the buyer of the CDS pays is known as the credit spread (Gilani 2008).   On the other hand, the most popular asset backed derivative is the collateralized debt obligation (CDO). This derivative is created by packaging a pool of similar assets or loans into one single investment that can be traded (Mengle 2007). When a CDO is purchased, the investor ends up with a basket of bonds. This portfolio of bonds generated an income that is used to provide a promised return to tranches. (Mengle 2007) The significance of Credit Derivatives According to David Mengle (2007), credit derivatives came out in response to two traditional problems facing the banking system. First, taking a short position in credit was not possible. Thus, a lender cannot fully insure the safety of the loan from default. Second, diversification of credit risk was difficult to achieve and became a problem in the financial market. Given such problems, the only way to enhance the financial world is by the creation of the credit derivative market. These derivatives helped banks to buy ‘protection’ (insurance) through allowing banks to sell credit and hedge their exposure to credit losses. Moreover, using the single-name derivative CDS do not require any permission from the reference entity (Gilani 2008). Therefore, Mengle   (2007) believes that the second problem can be solved when lenders hedge and reduce their exposure to risky investments, and by that they achieve diversification. Particularly, Ayadi and Behr (2009) researched and found out that the increased use of hedge funds provided an essential source of liquidity in credit derivative markets. This helped banks in reducing their credit risk by allowing them to transfer assets and credit risk off their balance sheets. Also, it improves their liquidity by providing secondary markets for credit risk. (Ayadi, Behr 2009) Credit Derivatives and the Financial Crisis It is often argued that the flip side of credit derivatives played a major role in the collapse of the financial market. First of all, critics of credit derivatives, such as Tim Weithers (2007), claim that risk transformation ballooned systematic risk, given the difficulty of identifying participants holding the credit risk. Some complain that the CDS notional amount accounting requirements worsen the credit crisis for many financial institutions (Partnoy 2009). Yet, supporters, such as David Mengle (2007), counter that if banks had properly valued their risk exposures at the beginning, they would avoid crash when crisis hit. Second, the argument that credit derivatives increase overall risks by transforming credit risk to less experience with less regulation institutions makes an implicit assumption that government regulation automatically leads to more cautious risk-taking (Partnoy 2009). But this argument ignores the potential moral hazard associated with such an assumption. David Mengle (2007) illustrated that where he believed that unregulated institutions are not protected by the government, such institutions are likely to have incentives to manage credit exposures. (Mengle 2007) Nevertheless, in almost twenty years, credit derivatives have expanded from nothing into a $54.6 trillion market. Nicholas Varchaver, senior editor and Katie Benner, writer-reporter (2008) found that this increase is because an investor does not have to own a bond to buy a CDS on it anyone can place a bet on whether a bond will fail. Indeed, they believed that the majority of CDS now consists of bets on other peoples debt. But, and on the contrary, this problem occurred due to the lack of financial regulation. The supporters of the credit derivatives believe and agree with other critics that these risk financial contracts led to a financial collapse (Mengle 2007). However, the unregulated area of the credit derivatives led to misusing these instruments. For example, during President Clinton phase, the Housing and Urban Development (HUD) secretaries started regulating banks to lend to the poor more (Partnoy 2009). They expected Banks to loosen their lending standards. Yet, Banks undertook investment banking. Specifically, Banks started lending to people whose credit history was suspect and who couldn’t afford mortgage payment (Partnoy 2009). Thus, credit derivatives were used in a wrong manner and led to the deterioration of the financial market. Credit Derivatives Regulation There has been high level of concern with respect to what regulatory steps should be taken to use credit derivatives properly. Ayadi and Behr (2009) have demonstrated several methods that help in regulating credit derivatives properly. First, companies and banks should provide higher transparency through additional reporting requirements. Second, systemic risk should be reduced through the creation of central counterparties (CCPs) for standardized contracts. Finally, banks should impose higher capital requirements for at least some of the market. Yet, these regulations do not mean that credit derivatives are safe from improper use. For example, the creation of CCP’s concentrates the risk in a small number of institutions and creates institutions that are too big to fail. Moreover, high transparency has an impact on market quality and in particular on market liquidity. Madhavan (1995) studied the relation between the market and the availability of trading information to market investors. He shows that fragmented markets are highly demanded by some market participants where their trades are unknown. Madhavan (1995) also shows that greater transparency reduces price volatility. Conclusion Credit derivatives are financial instruments used for credit risk management purposes. The structure of these derivatives enhanced the world financial market and provided a safer investment for banks especially. However, these complex derivative contracts have led to the recent economic collapse. The regulation measures included a lot of mistakes and have lead to the fact that financial institutions created such complex CDO’s and sold them without fully understanding them. Also, the availability of unregulated areas helped in misusing credit derivatives. The true purpose of derivatives was for managing risks and not blind speculation. Thus, if simple derivatives such as put, call options, interest swaps and futures are used wisely, they can be used in productive, safe means. In conclusion, the financial market is exposed always to new participants with new mentalities. Therefore, regulating credit derivatives will not avoid financial crisis in the future if there are no strict control on new participants entering the field. References Ayadi, R. Behr, P. 2009, On the necessity to regulate credit derivatives markets, Journal of Banking Regulation, vol. 10, no. 3, pp. 179-201. British Bankers Association. (2006) Credit Derivatives Report 2006. London, September. Eisinger, Jesse. The $58 Trillion Elephant in the Room. Credit Derivatives Role in Crash. 15 Oct. 2008. Conde Nast Portfolio. 10 Mar. 2009 portfolio.com/views/columns/wall-street/2008/10/15/Credit-Derivatives-Role-in-Crash. Gilani, S. 2008, The Real Reason for the Global Financial Crisis the Story No One’s Talking About, Money Morning, moneymorning.com, vol. 18. Madhavan, A. 1995, Consolidation, fragmentation, and the disclosure of trading information, Review of Financial Studies, vol. 8, no. 3, pp. 579. Mengle, D. 2007, Credit derivatives: An overview, Economic Review, , no. Q4, pp. 1-24. Partnoy, F. â€Å" Derivative Dangers†, Fresh Air, NPR, March 25, 2009 Tkac, P. 2007, Preface- Credit Derivatives: Where’s the Risk?, Economic Review, , pp. v-vii. Varchaver, N. Benner, K. 2008, The $55 trillion question, Fortune Magazine, vol. 30. Weithers, T. 2007, Credit derivatives, macro risks, and systemic risks, Economic Review-Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, vol. 92, no. 4, pp. 43.

If people are just complex machines, what does that suggest about the Essay

If people are just complex machines, what does that suggest about the moral status of machines Could I be committing murder every time I turn off my computer - Essay Example Every machine has a system that makes it work, which is composed of several electrical and mechanical subsystems. Likewise, human body functions as a result of mutual work of circulatory system, digestive system, and respiratory system etc. On the other hand, like every machine either needs charging or fueling to work, human body needs food for the systems to work. This paper analyzes the moral status of the act of turning a computer off and discusses whether it can be called as a murder or not in light of the perception that humans are just complex machines. While humans may qualify to be called machines keeping these factors in mind, there is a very important factor that humans contain that machines do not; Emotions. Humans have feelings. They can not only think, but also evaluate the pros and cons of different options and select the most suitable option in a given context. Machines do not have this capability. Some machines like computers do have the capability to evaluate the different variables of certain mathematical procedures, but that knowledge is fed into the computer by humans themselves. A computer does not have the capability to feel for something nor does any other machine. On this basis, it is irrational to define humans as complex machines. Hence, on the basis of the argument that humans are much more than complex machines, it is not justified to comment upon the moral status of machines as the laws of machines are different from those of the humans. While a human can be sentenced to death for having committed the murder of another human, a machine cannot be dealt with in the same way since the machine cannot commit murders in the first place. Likewise, turning a computer off is not similar to committing a murder. Concluding, on the basis of the points discussed in this paper, it is wrong to think of the act of turning a computer off

The acid and enzymatic hydrolysis of glycogen Essay

The acid and enzymatic hydrolysis of glycogen - Essay Example Glycogen structure is similar to the amylopectin molecule and it is highly branched. The presence of the monomer compounds are identified by both acid and enzymatic hydrolysis. The acid hydrolysis takes place over a period of time. The acid hydrolysis by the mineral acids takes place readily. The acid hydrolysis product is glucose.(Melville and Alsberg 1930). The enzymatic hydrolysis of the glycogen by the a-amylase (a(1 ®Ã‚  4) glucan, 4-glucanohydrolase, E.C.3.2.1.1) cleaves the alpha 1ïÆ'   4 linkage in the glycogen molecule yielding a mixture of glucose, maltose and dextrin at the end. (Barbour, 1929). The alpha 1ïÆ'   6 hydrolysis does not takes place as the enzyme is specific for the alpha 1ïÆ'   4 cleavage. As the hydrolysis occurs in a random manner, a variety of the products are formed. (Plummer, 2001).In both the hydrolysis procedures the end product differs. The glucose is the only compound in acid hydrolysis whereas in the enzymatic hydrolysis glucose, maltose and dextrin are the products. The end products are reducing sugars hence the estimation of the reducing sugars is carried out by the Dinitro salicylic acid method. The increase in the number of the reducing sugar production as the hydrolysis takes place is determined by the Dinitro salicylic acid method. The reducing sugars have free carbonyl group with them. This free carbonyl group is oxidized by the 3,5-dinitrosalicylic acid (DNS). Simultaneously the DNS is reduced to 3-amino,5-nitrosalicylic acid under alkaline conditions. This is a basic redox reaction. (Miller, 1959). The reducing sugars are easily measured by the 3,5-dinitrosalicylic acid (DNS) method. According to the Lambert Beer’s law, the concentration of the solution is directly proportional to its optical density. So if the absorbing index of a particular solution is known then the concentration of the given solution at that particular wavelength can be determined by measuring the optical

Monomania Psychology Analysis: Ideal Ego and Ego Ideal

Monomania Psychology Analysis: Ideal Ego and Ego Ideal Abstract: This paper Moby Dick: Obsession, Evil and the Passion of Ignorance, argues that monomania is a passion of ignorance. It contends that this passion of ignorance is situated precisely between the ideal ego and the ego ideal. The ideal ego is the fantasy an individual has of themselves, a narcissistic illusion of completeness. It is a representation based on an image of the self fixed at the infantile period. The ego ideal is the goal of a process, a movement towards an idealized self based on internalised significant early role models, people admired and preferred in favour of the self. In monomania, the ideal ego seeks to eradicate the other, the ego ideal. This is an act of envy, an attempt to kill and steal the others good because it represents what one should be or could have been. Such an act is never conscious. It is a passion of ignorance. The saga of Captain Ahab and his obsessive desire to obliterate the Great White Whale is illustrative of this dynamic. The yearning for absolutes is a hall-mark of monomania. Monomania is a passion of ignorance and is to be found in the boundary between love and hate. It is inherently evil because it excludes and destroys reality. In monomania, ignorance functions as a parochial and universalised concept of reality, marked by a certainty and rectitude which enables the harming of others with humanitarian conviction and moral purpose. The passion of ignorance is situated precisely between the subject and the fantasy of himself. The ideal ego wishes to eradicate the other, the ego ideal, What is at the heart all psychopathological behaviour is an incapacity to communicate with aspects of the self that have, as part of the self protective mechanism of the psyche, been obscured because they are too painful to be addressed. At the time of obfuscation, the only perceived path for survival has been the isolation and dissociation of something intrinsic. Analytical psychology recognizes that there are dark recesses people carry deep within in which lurk forbidden secrets which are treated as unapproachable. These dark places and forbidden secrets are not passive, they pulsate with the presence of malignant, carnivorous forces that reek of fear and anarchy. It is no accident that the developmental arm of analytical psychology is preoccupied to the determining effects of family history, for it is in the family setting that people experience the strongest and most primitive feelings, where relationships take on their most stark and forceful forms. A persons experience within the context of family has its genesis at a time before coping mechanisms are developed, before and independent sense of security and stability has had time to consolidate. Analytical psychology understands that the individual is deeply affected by the net of past experiences. They impact on the way in which present experiences are assimilated or repressed. They determine what may be allowed to come to consciousness and what must be assigned to the unconscious. The unconscious is occasioned by a number of factors, by repression, instinctual inheritance, social conditioning and repressed trauma. It can be personal or collective. In all its aspects, the unconscious represents that part of an individuals psychic existence that is, by multiple strategies, consigned to function without conscious control. Thus analytical psychology attempts inexorably to draw one deeper and deeper into a journey of confrontation with ones self. It calls on the individual to overcome his defences, to transcend the bounds of secure systems he has established to keep full and immediate experience at bay. In the tale of Moby Dick, Ahab misuses his power, disregards the safety of his crew and the profitability of the voyage, even forfeits his own life in order to avenge himself on the whale who robbed him of his leg. He does this, all to avoid a confrontation with himself and his own vulnerabilities. The Story: The tale of Moby Dick begins with the enigmatic words of the narrator, Having little or no money in my purse, and nothing particular to interest me on shore, I thought I would sail about a little and see the watery part of the world. It is a way I have of driving off the spleen, and regulating the circulation. Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntary pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet, and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping onto the street and methodically knocking peoples hats off – then, I account it high time to get to see as soon as I can. (Melville 1992 p. 1) With these words Ishmael the story teller announces his intention to go to sea. He makes the journey to New Bedford, Massachusetts where he takes accommodation at a whalers inn, but as the inn is very full he finds himself sharing a bed with a stranger, Queequeg, a harpooner from the South Pacific. Queequeg is a cannibal from a South Sea Island. His strange physical form appears bizarre to Ishmael. He is covered in strange tattoos and apart from his alien appearance has strange habits and customs. Ishmael is terrified by the encounter but as time passes he is able to move beyond the outward exterior of Queequeg to understand that they are both men, and this strange creature from the South Seas, far from being a terrifying beast is human, and one with a particularly kind heart and generous spirit. The two men join forces and set out to seek work together as whalers. They secure work on the Pequod, a whaling vessel decked out with the bones and teeth of its victims, Peleg and Bildad, t he Pequods Quaker owners, tell them of their Captain, Ahab, who on his last voyage found that sperm whales are not defenceless victims, but creatures with teeth; Ahab has had his leg ripped from him by an enormous white whale. The hunted became the hunter and had struck back. The Pequod leaves the safety of the harbour in Nantucket on a bitterly cold Christmas Day, its crew a diverse mixture of nationalities and cultures. Days later, as the ship makes into warmer waters, Ahab finally appears on deck, balancing unsteadily on his prostheses carved from the jaw bone of a sperm whale. Ahabs intention: to pursue and kill Moby Dick, the great white whale who took his leg. To Ahab, this whale is the embodiment of evil. He must be killed and killed by Ahab. To this end he nails a gold doubloon to the mast and announces to all that the man who first sights Moby Dick will have the coin. Aboard one of these ships is a crazed prophet called Gabriel who predicts doom to all who pursue Moby Dick and the superstitious crew of the Pequod share their sea-stories of how those who hunted the whale met with ill fortune. It is not long before misfortune is seen and known by the crew. While butchering their catch, the harpooner Tashtego falls into the mouth of a dead whale which tears free of the Pequod and sinks. Queequeg dives after the drowning man, slashes into the slowly sinking head with his knife and frees the seaman. During another whale hunt, the black cabin boy Pip, jumps from a whaleboat and is left stranded at sea. He is rescued but the trauma renders him mentally disturbed. He is left mindless and uncanny, a prophetic jester onboard the ship. Still the hunt continues. One day, the Pequod encounters the whaler, the Samuel Enderby. Captain Boomer the skipper has lost an arm in a chance meeting with Moby Dick. As the two captains discuss the whale the contrast becomes evident. Boomer is happy simply to have survived his encounter, and he cannot understand Ahabs lust for vengeance. Queequeg becomes ill and asks the carpenter on board the Pequod to make him a coffin in preparation of his death but he does recover, and the coffin becomes the Pequods replacement life buoy. In expectation of finding Moby Dick, Ahab orders a harpoon to be forged and baptizes this harpoon with the blood of the Pequod harpooners, and his own. Although the Pequod is still hunting whales, it is the hunt for Moby Dick that always hangs over the life of the ship. Then, one day, Fedallah makes a prophesy regarding the death of Ahab. Ahab will see two hearses, the second made from American wood and he will be killed by hemp rope. To Ahab, this means he will not die at sea, for at sea there are no hangings and no hearses. A tropical storm encompasses the Pequod, illuminating it with electrical fire. To Ahab this is a sign of imminent confrontation and success. To Starbuck, the ships first mate, it is a bad omen and he contemplates murdering Ahab to end the obsession. The tempest ends, but then one of the sailors plummets from the ships masthead and drowns—a grave forewarning of what lies ahead. As Ahabs obsessive desire to find and destroy Moby Dick intensifies, the mad Pip becomes his constant companion. It is near the equator that Ahab expects to find Moby Dick, and it is here that the Pequod meets two whalers, the Rachel and the Delight; both have had recent fatal encounters with the Great Whale. The Captain of the Rachel pleads with Ahab to help him find his son, lost in the battle with Moby Dick, but Ahab has only one goal, to find and kill the whale. Days pass, and then, finally, Ahab sights Moby Dick. The harpoon boats are launched. Moby Dick rams Ahabs harpoon boat, destroying it but Ahab is saved by his crew. The next day, Moby Dick is sighted once more. The whale is harpooned but again, Moby dick strikes back and once again rams Ahabs boat. Fedallah is trapped in the harpoon line, is dragged overboard to his death. Starbuck saves his Captain by manoeuvring the Pequod between Ahab and the enraged beast. On the third day, the boats are launched once again and are sent after Moby Dick. The whale turns and attacks the boats, and they see that Fedallahs corpse is still lashed to the whale by the harpoon line. In the ensuing battle, Moby Dick rams the Pequod and she begins to sinks. Ahab, caught in a harpoon line, is hurled out of his whale boat to his death. The remaining whaleboats and crew are caught in the vortex of the sinking Pequod and dragged to their deaths. Ishmael, thrown from his boat at the beginning of the hunt, is the only man to survive. He floats, alone on Queequegs coffin, the only remaining flotsam from the wreckage, an isolated figure in a watery world. On the second day, a sail drew near, nearer, and picked me up at last. It was the devious-cruising Rachel that in her retracing search after her missing children, only found another orphan. (Melville 1992 p. 583) An Uncanny Tale In telling the story of Moby Dick, Melvilles narrator, Ishmael, engages in a process of repetition that brings the dead back to life. His narrator offers what appears to be a sober account of his real experience but in the recounting it is immediately evident that this experience is anything but commonplace. Melvilles combination of reality and the fantastic, the credible and the incredible, compel the reader to accept the narrative on its own terms. The tale confronts the reader with narratorial anxiety in both the telling of the tale and in the horror of its content. Melvilles narrative method exemplifies the de-familiarisation of the familiar, the domestication of terror that characterises the uncanny. Freud characterises the uncanny as that which arouses dread and horror; (Freud 1919 p. 339) it is that class of things which lead us back to what is known of the old and familiar. (Freud 1919 p.340) It is precarious, this combination of the familiar and the unfamiliar, where the opposites of the homely, customary and congenial also denote the secret that is concealed and kept from sight. (Freud 1919 p. 347) We believe we are at home in the immediate circle of beings. That which is, is familiar, reliable, ordinary. Nevertheless, the clearing is pervaded by a constant concealment in the double form of refusal and dissembling. At the bottom, the ordinary is not ordinary; it is extra-ordinary, uncanny. (Heidegger 1971 p. 53) Freud argues that one of the most anxiety-producing devices of the uncanny is the double. Freud considers the uncanniness of the double to be the effect of the egos projection of the object ‘outwardly as something foreign to itself. What is inside is experienced as coming from outside, (Freud 1919 p.358) split off and isolated through a process of repression and dissociation. The subject may identify with another to the extent that he is not sure which identity he is or he may substitute the extraneous self for his own. In the tale of Moby Dick it is this lack of difference which dominates Ahabs relationship to the whale. While Ahab may try to establish himself as a saviour, he too, deep down, is dangerous and destructive. It is this sameness that is problematic. When it becomes too obvious that the other is contained in the self, the other becomes an object for irrational hostility. In this dynamic, both the object (the whale) and the subject (Ahab) become doubles of each othe r in the psyche of the person who is enmeshed in the projection. The notion of the double always inspires the subject with dread and can be summed up as a dividing and interchanging of the ego. There is an inevitable cyclic repetition of the initial trauma. It is an inescapable loop until the doubling is concluded. Aboard ship, Ahab imposes an irresistible dictatorship in order to pursue his obsession. Moby Dick had injured him and that fact contravened Ahabs entire view of how the world should be ordered. The self-righteous, imposing Captain of the Pequod smoulders with the fires of hell. His all consuming pride and rage against the white whale blaze in the great speech before his crew where he proclaims, That inscrutable thing is chiefly what I hate; and be the white whale agent, or the white whale principal, I will wreak my hate upon him Talk to me not of blasphemy, man, Id strike the sun if it insulted me. (Melville 1992 p. 167) Ahab cannot see Moby Dick for what the great while whale is, because the reality of the animal is subsumed under the passion of Ahabs projection. But because this ‘relationship is skewed, the rest of Ahabs world suffers. Ahab has no connection to any other person or thing beyond the white whale. It is inevitable that the whale proves to be his nemesis; it is the whale that inflicts retribution and vengeance, not Ahab. The Orphan With the first sentence of Moby Dick we are confronted with the complex figure of Ishmael. The narrative begins with the words Call me Ishmael. The name has come to symbolize orphans and social outcasts but it has another aspect to it. The word literally means ‘God hears. Ishmael, according to the Hebrew Scriptures, was the first son of Abraham, born to a slave woman, Hagar because Abraham believed his wife Sarah to be infertile. But when God granted Sarah a son of her own, Ishmael and his mother were turned out of Abrahams household. Isaac inherited the birthright from Abraham. Ishmael was left to die under a bush in the wilderness by his distraught and starving mother. But in her distress she cried out and God heard her cry and the cry of the child. 15When the water in the skin was gone, she cast the child under one of the bushes. 16 And God heard the voice of the boy; and the angel of God called to Hagar from heaven, and said to her, What troubles you, Hagar? Do not be afraid; for God has heard the voice of the boy where he is. 18Come, lift up the boy and hold him fast with your hand, for I will make a great nation of him. 19Then God opened her eyes and she saw a well of water. She went, and filled the skin with water, and gave the boy a drink. 20God was with the boy, and he grew up; he lived in the wilderness, and became an expert with the bow. (Genesis 21: 15 – 20 The Bible NRSV 1988) From a Judeo-Christian perspective Ishmael was an outcast, the result of his fathers failure to believe and obey YHWHs promise to give him a son through his wife Sarah. As a consequence, Ishmael was the one repressed and rejected. But Ishmael was heard and taken care of by God. Throughout his life, Melville was preoccupied with the imagery of orphans and in particular with the character Ishmael. In Mardi he writes, But as sailors are mostly foundlings and castaways, and carry all their kith and kin in their arms and legs, there hardly ever appears any heir-at-law to claim their estate. (Melville 2004 p. 139) In Redburn, Melville writes, at last I have found myself a sort of Ishmael on the ship, without a single friend or companion. (Melville 1957 p. 60) In Pierre Melville writes, so that once more he might not feel himself driven out, an Ishmael into the desert, with no maternal Hagar to accompany him and comfort him. (Melville 1962 p. 125) Edward Edinger argues that Melville had an Ishmael complex which had two sources; personal life experience and identification with an archetypal image. (Edinger 1995 p. 23) The personal cause would be the insanity and death of his father and the ensuing hardships this caused. Melville was twelve and a half when his father died, close to the age of the biblical Ishmael who was thirteen. In addition, he was rejected by his mother, who favoured her first son. According to Arvin Newton, Melville, as an elderly man, once remarked to his niece that his mother had hated him. (Arvin 1950 p.30) The pain of his rejection is poignantly evident in the tale of Mob y Dick Most of the action is seen through the eyes of Ishmael. He will thus represent the authors ego (Edinger 1995 p. 24) Ishmael, the lone survivor of this misadventure is the story teller. At the outset of the story, Ishmael presents as one who is in pain and internal distress. He is impoverished, hostile, depressed and potentially suicidal. He heads for the sea, to Nantucket to find work on a whaler. In the past he has found sea voyages as a way of containing his internal conflict and pain. But before he can find a ship, his poverty forces him to find accommodation in a squalid inn, sharing a bed with a harpooner. When the harpooner enters the room in which Ishmael is sleeping he awakes in horror at the apparition before him, a man who appears to have just returned from the ministrations of a surgeon, his face covered with sticking plaster. But that is not the reality. The harpooner is a cannibal from the pacific, tattooed in his native islander tradition. He carries a tomahawk, a seal skin purse with the hair still attached and a shrunken head. The overall impression is alien, bizarre and terrifying to Ishmael. He watches from beneath the counterpane as the stranger uses the tomahawk as a pipe, then quietly turns into the bed with Ishmael. He is unaware of Ishmaels presence and reacts with instinctive aggression. In the fracas that follows Ishmael calls out in terror to the landlord for help. ‘Landlord! Watch! Coffin! Angels! Save me! (Melville 1992 p. 25) Peter Coffin, the landlord, soothes the moment. He introduces the men to each other and Ishmael is suddenly aware that this frightening apparition is a person, with a name. Queequeg is no longer a nameless savage, a cannibal with a shrunken head and a death dealing tomahawk. The tomahawk is also a peace pipe, and he shares the smoke from this unique instrument with Ishmael. The tomahawk-pipe has now become a symbol for both life and death, a symbol of reconciliation and peace. In this initial encounter with Queequeg a transformation is begun in Ishmael. In symbolic terms, he has embraced, in the symbolic form of Queequ eg, both death and life as indivisible partners, and when he wakes the following morning he begins to see the world from a different perspective. Ishmael understands the mixture of life and death that Queequegs tomahawk-come-pipe represents, and realizes, at least in that moment, that such experience can lead to renewal. The Obsession, Ahab demonstrates the dangers of an all consuming focus; the object of his obsession is the solitary great white whale, nicknamed Moby-Dick by the whalers. On his previous voyage, Ahab had his leg ripped off by Moby-Dick, and at the Ishmaels story begins, he has sworn to take his vengeance by hunting down and killing the great whale. It never occurs to Ahab that he lost his leg while trying to take the whales life and while in the process of killing countless other whales for monetary gain. Ahabs obsession has more to do with what Moby Dick represents than with the great whale himself. He saw Moby Dick as the prey and could not cope with the idea that he was not omnipotent in this relationship, that he was outdone by another creature. As Ahab reasons in a fiery speech to the crew of the Pequod, all visible objects are like pasteboard masks that hide some unknown but still reasoning thing. Ahab hates that inscrutable thing that hides behind the mask of appearance. The only way to figh t against it, he proclaims is to strike through the mask! Moby Dick, as a mysterious force of nature, represents the most outrageous, malevolent aspect of natures mask. To kill it, in the mind of Ahab, is to reach for and seize the unknowable truth that is hidden from all people. He cannot conceive of the concept that there is a simpler reality; he is not the master of all other species. He sees his failure to be able to take life at will as a reversal of his role as the predator and therefore can only conceive of himself now as the one preyed upon. This he cannot accept and so is driven to destroy that which in his mind denies his appropriated reality. Ahabs insane obsession and hunt for Moby Dick describes the consequences of viewing the world as a mask that hides unknowable truth. It is Ahabs frustration with the limits of human knowledge and power that lead him to reject both science and logic and instead embrace violence and the dark magic of Fedallah his demonic advisor. Like Christopher Marlowes Doctor Faustus, he has made a pact with the devil. Thinking he is immortal, Ahab attacks Moby Dick, striking at the mask of appearance that supposedly hides ultimate truth. His devotion to the idea that truth exists behind or beyond the physical world forces him to destroy himself in the attempt to reach it. Ahab can only relinquish his illusion by dying, or killing the object upon which his illusion has rested. Ahabs ideal ego, that is the fantasy he has of himself as one who is in control and omnipotent, is in the process of destroying his ego ideal, that is, his potential as man, captain and hunter. He believes he must eradicate the evil of the whale, but in reality, because he is caught in this doubling with the whale, he is intent on murdering himself. His passion of ignorance has overwhelmed his reason, blinded him to his own creative potential. All that is left is the passion and it knows no reason People thus reduced inflict the traumatic pain of their void on others. The evil they engender is not just about destruction but emerges from the chaotic principle of pure drive which has loss at its centre and therefore must occasion more loss. The important point is not that the symbolism of what Ahab lost, but the symbolism of the loss itself. Revenge is only sought when there has been a great loss, a loss that is seen to embody an injustice, and an injustice imposed by an enemy over whom victory should have been assured. Ahab lost his leg to a beast, an inferior creature. His quest for revenge could just as easily have been instituted by the loss of an arm, a child, or a father. The loss implies inferiority to a foe that is deemed to be unworthy of such a victory. Revenge becomes obsession because only with revenge can the world become again that which supports the adopted perception of order. For Ahab, revenge can only be perceived as the re-imposition of superiority and ascenda ncy. It is the adoption of this delusional sense of what order is, that gives rise to the monomania that attends a thirst for revenge. Ahabs loss of limb is immediate and it is personal but despite losing a leg he can still walk, he can still captain, he can still go on a whaleboat and harpoon. It is the greater loss which is the mechanism standing behind the driving revenge and his monomaniacal pursuit of it. As if to be human is forever to be prey to turning your corner of the human race, hence perhaps all of it, into some new species of the genus of humanity, for the better or for the worse. (Cavell 1998 p.154) For this reason Ahab must inflate the object of his revenge and recreate it as something larger in context. To accomplish this, Ahab must imbue Moby Dick massive power, power beyond comprehension. By placing the capacity of evil upon the whale, Ahab can fool himself into thinking that Moby Dick is a greater being than he really is and therefore his own loss appears greater than it really is. For Ahab, the delusion attendant to the psychosis of revenge suppresses the reality that he is merely a man bent on attempting to restore his lost sense of superiority. This reality is replaced with a grandiose vision of one who is a redeemer for humanity. But it is not humanity Ahab is attempting to redeem; it is his own inflated ego whose ascendancy has been usurped. By imputing to Moby-Dick a demonic power he does not really possess Ahab, blinds himself to any reality of what Moby Dick actually is, to any real strength and intelligence that the whale possesses. This blindness springs not from mere ignorance, but from a consciously willed ignorance, from the desire not to know, from the ambition not to understand. In order to sustain his delusional conception of himself, he must appoint concomitant distortion to the world which surrounds him, and particularly to the object of his obsession. Ahab desperately wants Moby Dick to be inscrutable. He wants him to be a thing that is incapable of being understood, because that enables him to categorize his nemesis as sheer evil. Therefore he is compelled to refuse any effort at understanding and it is this iron-willed ambition to remain ignorant, to label this thing as ultimate evil that generates the ironic twist whereby Ahab himself becomes the ultimate danger, the evil which he imagines he is seeking to eradicate. It is Ahab who causes the complete destruction of all that surrounds him. Evil and the Passion of Ignorance Ahab desires to attach to Moby Dick all the evil that exists in the world. Moby Dick is a creation of his infantile envious omnipotent sadistic phantasies. Ahab himself identifies the ultimately personal source of what he sees as a universal evil when he says, It was Moby-Dick that dismasted me; Moby-Dick that brought me to this dead stump I stand on now it was that accursed white whale that razeed me; made a poor pegging lubber of me for ever and a day! (Melville 1992 p.166). Moby Dick took away Ahabs ability to literally stand on his own two feet. The loss of his leg can also be seen as a symbolic emasculation and that symbolism is made all the more apparent by the fact that Ahabs quest is for a sperm whale. Moby-Dick contains sperm; Ahab does not. In his quest for revenge, all of Ahabs creative potential is voided because he cannot accept that there is a reality that is greater and stronger than himself. It is in the attempt to deny the reality and existence of that which surpasses him that he divorces himself from his own creative life potential. Captain Ahab is both the psychotic parent in command of the infant and the infant overwhelmed with his own omnipotent phantasy. In the tale of Moby Dick, Herman Melville created a character whose motives of vengeance typify the behaviour of a psychotic person. Captain Ahab, in his delusion, could not allow Moby Dick to share the same space in his paranoid and infantile world. Ahab experienced the loss of his leg as a lethal wound that was potentially reparable only by a copy-cat act of vengeance taken upon the alleged guilty Moby Dick. That intangible malignity which has been there from the beginning Ahab did not fall down and worship it, but deliriously transferring its idea to the abhorred white whale, he pitted himself, all mutilated, against it He piled upon the whales hump the sum of all the general rage and hate felt by his whole race from Adam down; and then as if his chest had been a mortar, he burst his hot hearts shell upon. (Melville 1991 p. 187) We Cannibals must help these poor Christians. The relationship between Ishmael and Queequeg is the antithesis of the relationship between Ahab and Moby Dick. Ishmael and Queequeg develop a relationship that is based on the recognition of their dissimilarity and separateness. Ahab and Moby Dick are joined together by Ahabs projection and obsession. With Queequeg and Ishmael, the difference is something to be explored. The relationship between Queequeg and Ishmael has a germ of creativity; that between Ahab and Moby Dick is founded on destruction and butchery. The initial encounter between Queequeg and Ishmael provokes both terror and aggression. The landlord intervenes, calming the situation and bringing them both to an awareness of the necessity of living alongside of each other. This generates a realisation in both Ishmael and Queequeg that they are both men despite the visual and cultural dissimilarities. As time passes and conversation is enjoined, they begin to comprehend both their differences and their commonly shared objectives. According to the customs of Queequegs home, Ishmael and Queequeg are married after a social smoke out of the tomahawk pipe. Queequeg gives Ishmael half of his belongings, and the two men continue to share a bed. The tattooed body of Queequeg is much like the patchwork quilt that covers them both as they sleep. These tattoos are a written narrative of the universe but no one, save the prophet who inscribed them can decipher their meaning, not even Queequeg. And this tattooing had been the work of a departed prophet and seer of his island, who, by those hieroglyphic marks, had written out on his body a complete theory of the heavens and the earth, and a mystical treatise on the art of attaining truth; so that Queequeg in his own proper person was a riddle to unfold; a wondrous work in one volume; but whose mysteries not even himself could read, though his own live heart beat against them; and these mysteries were therefore destined in the end to moulder away with the living parchment whereon they were inscribed, and so be unsolved to the last.(Melville 1992 p. 491) For Ishmael, Queequeg represents the dangerous and the forbidden for which Ishmael secretly yearns. Queequeg also symbolizes the explorative and adventurous aspect of Ishmaels personality. Once Ishmael recognizes this, his fears lessen and he embraces the savage into his life. Ishmaels initial hostility to Queequeg is a projection of the suppression of a part of his own personality. Exotic and unique, Queequeg represents the unknown. Ishmael is able to recognise this, to admit it, and to realise that his fear is due to ignorance. With this awareness comes the further realisation that he, Ishmael, must travel to the sea in order to gain life experience by exploring and embracing the unknown. The friendship between the two men, although troubled by prejudice and slow to develop into a full understanding of one anothers character, is solidified with their ‘marriage contract. They effectively become one person, illustrating the full integration of Queequegs otherness into Ishmaels personality. At the end of the book, Ishmael survives because of Queequegs coffin. In accordance with their marriage contract, Queequeg offers Ishmael protection from the sea-hawks, sharks and sea in the form of his coffin. In turn, Ishmael carries on Queequegs spirit, carved into the wood of the coffin. Queequeg represents that part of Ishmael which

Eth/125 Gender and Sex Worksheet

Associate Program Material Gender and Sex Worksheet Answer the following questions in 50 to 150 words each. Provide citations for all the sources you use. What is gender? What is sex in biological terms? Are gender and sex the same thing? Explain why or why not? According to  Ã¢â‚¬Å"Eldis†Ã‚  (2013),  Ã¢â‚¬Å"'Gender' refers to the socially constructed roles of and relations between men and women. , while ‘Sex' refers to biological characteristics which define humans as female or male. † (1) Gender and sex are similar but they are not the same thing.I say this because a person can have the sexual characteristics of a man but still have the gender of a woman e. g. transgender. According to  Lesbian & Gay Community Services Center, Inc. (2013),†Transgender,† at its most basic level, is a word that applies to someone who doesn't fit within society's standards of how a woman or a man is supposed to look or act e. g. â€Å"Transgender† may be used to describe someone who was assigned female at birth but later realizes that label doesn't accurately reflect who they feel they are inside.This person may now live life as a man, or may feel that their gender identity can't be truly summed up by either of the two options we're usually given (male or female). (1, 2) How do gender and sex contribute to the concepts and constructions of masculinity and femininity? According to  Planned Parenthood Federation of America Inc  Ã‚  (2013),   â€Å"Culture determines gender roles and what is masculine and feminine. What does it mean to be a woman or man? Whether we are women or men is not determined just by our sex organs. Our gender includes a complex mix of beliefs, behaviors, and characteristics.How do you act, talk, and behave like a woman or man? Are you feminine or masculine, both, or neither? These are questions that help us get to the core of our gender and gender identity. † Gender and sex does help with the construct ion of masculinity and femininity, but culture plays a huge role in determining your gender e. g. a boy that raised without a father figure and had more female role models might have more feminine traits. Do our concepts of gender and sex contribute to the ways we embrace gender and sex in diversity? Yes, our concepts of gender and sex contribute to the ways we embrace gender and sex in diversity.I say this because it is the norm to act like the sex or gender we or born into or raised up to be. People are afraid of things that are not consider the norm. Do our concepts of gender and sex contribute to our understanding of sexual orientation? Explain. Yes, of gender and sex contribute to our understanding of sexual orientation. I say this because what we understand gender and sex to be is what we use to create our beliefs of sexual orientation e. g. If we don’t believe that culture has anything to do with gender, and gender is what makes a person’s sexual orientation cle ar.Then we couldn’t possibly believe that a person could be â€Å"transgender†. Works cited Eldis. (2013). Retrieved from http://www. eldis. org/index. cfm? objectId=76FB2B59-BFA2-926C-DC2B394188B4DA92    Lesbian & Gay Community Services Center, Inc.. (2013). The Center. Retrieved from http://www. gaycenter. org/gip/transbasics/whatistrans Planned Parenthood Federation of America Inc. (2013). Planned Parenthood. Retrieved from http://www. plannedparenthood. org/health-topics/sexual-orientation-gender/gender-gender-identity-26530. htm Eth/125 Gender and Sex Worksheet Associate Program Material Gender and Sex Worksheet Answer the following questions in 50 to 150 words each. Provide citations for all the sources you use. What is gender? What is sex in biological terms? Are gender and sex the same thing? Explain why or why not? According to  Ã¢â‚¬Å"Eldis†Ã‚  (2013),  Ã¢â‚¬Å"'Gender' refers to the socially constructed roles of and relations between men and women. , while ‘Sex' refers to biological characteristics which define humans as female or male. † (1) Gender and sex are similar but they are not the same thing.I say this because a person can have the sexual characteristics of a man but still have the gender of a woman e. g. transgender. According to  Lesbian & Gay Community Services Center, Inc. (2013),†Transgender,† at its most basic level, is a word that applies to someone who doesn't fit within society's standards of how a woman or a man is supposed to look or act e. g. â€Å"Transgender† may be used to describe someone who was assigned female at birth but later realizes that label doesn't accurately reflect who they feel they are inside.This person may now live life as a man, or may feel that their gender identity can't be truly summed up by either of the two options we're usually given (male or female). (1, 2) How do gender and sex contribute to the concepts and constructions of masculinity and femininity? According to  Planned Parenthood Federation of America Inc  Ã‚  (2013),   â€Å"Culture determines gender roles and what is masculine and feminine. What does it mean to be a woman or man? Whether we are women or men is not determined just by our sex organs. Our gender includes a complex mix of beliefs, behaviors, and characteristics.How do you act, talk, and behave like a woman or man? Are you feminine or masculine, both, or neither? These are questions that help us get to the core of our gender and gender identity. † Gender and sex does help with the construct ion of masculinity and femininity, but culture plays a huge role in determining your gender e. g. a boy that raised without a father figure and had more female role models might have more feminine traits. Do our concepts of gender and sex contribute to the ways we embrace gender and sex in diversity? Yes, our concepts of gender and sex contribute to the ways we embrace gender and sex in diversity.I say this because it is the norm to act like the sex or gender we or born into or raised up to be. People are afraid of things that are not consider the norm. Do our concepts of gender and sex contribute to our understanding of sexual orientation? Explain. Yes, of gender and sex contribute to our understanding of sexual orientation. I say this because what we understand gender and sex to be is what we use to create our beliefs of sexual orientation e. g. If we don’t believe that culture has anything to do with gender, and gender is what makes a person’s sexual orientation cle ar.Then we couldn’t possibly believe that a person could be â€Å"transgender†. Works cited Eldis. (2013). Retrieved from http://www. eldis. org/index. cfm? objectId=76FB2B59-BFA2-926C-DC2B394188B4DA92    Lesbian & Gay Community Services Center, Inc.. (2013). The Center. Retrieved from http://www. gaycenter. org/gip/transbasics/whatistrans Planned Parenthood Federation of America Inc. (2013). Planned Parenthood. Retrieved from http://www. plannedparenthood. org/health-topics/sexual-orientation-gender/gender-gender-identity-26530. htm

How does Michael Henchard Suggest Lucetta Is Shallow where does she come from?

Lucetta enters the story when Elizabeth Jane meets her at her mother's grave. Elizabeth -Jane noticed that it was a lady much more beautifully dressed than she. This mysterious woman disappears in to the distance as Elizabeth goes to confront her. Soon Elizabeth Jane meets Lucetta for the second time, she sits on the bench inside the churchyard. Lucceta asks if Michael is well. She tries to help Elizabeth in her troubles. She soon leaves after she made a proposal about Elizabeth coming to stay with her. Elizabeth accepted the offer and soon she had moved in with Lucetta. The story continues from there. Lucetta's antics begin at chapter twenty one. She begins to show us how shallow she is when she hears her servant showing a visitor into the room. Lucceta decides to put on a little show for a visitor † she flung herself onto the couch in the cymarecta curve with her arm above her brow.† She puts herself into a curved position to make her self look irresistible to any visitor who may happen to step up to her quarters. It turns out that it is Donald Farfrae and of course lucceta knows how to play him like an instrument. At first she stupidly jumps up in fright and hides behind a curtain because she is so pathetic this is already a good example to show how shallow she is, to take time to beautifully arrange herself and when it comes to it she is startled by the thought of herself being seen when that is what she really wants. She hid behind the curtain † in a freak of timidity†. She seems to have a lot of fun taking farfrae to pieces. She explains to him that he must sit down now that he is here. They start chatting and we gather that Lucetta knows a lot about men in the way that she turned a level headed business man to the colour of â€Å"modest pink†. The impression that we get from the conversation with farfrae is that she loves to play with people and she doesn't worry about the consequences. At first she is just playing with Donald, then she finds that he has seemed to get the wrong idea out of the act and has fallen in love with her. Still she plays along in the game and entices him even more with lines such as: † you are quite interesting†. From the window Lucetta sees that a young family is being torn apart because the young man is finding it hard to find a job in Casterbridge. â€Å"The girl's lips quivered† she horrified in the thought. Donald goes to impress Luccetta by giving the men jobs. We can definitely see that he is trying to impress Lucetta because this is something that he would usually do. She explains after that† Lovers ought not to be parted like that. Donald quite agrees and then leaves because he has important work to carry out.