The Man with the Golden Arm Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

The Man with the Golden Arm - Essay Example .. Mr. Algren, boy, you are good" ("Review Quote": np). After reading this novel, I am compelled to agree. This novel is at times strange, at times very dark, and always engaging and very interesting. People the world over all know Chicago by reputation, and yet the version of this famous city offered up by Nelson Algren is grittier and edgier than the versions offered up by tourist brochures or television sitcoms. The characters are also intriguing and engaging. There is an almost simultaneous sense of disgust and admiration as we experience how these characters aspire and strive in uncertain and distasteful circumstances. The atmosphere which he creates deepens rather than minimizes the reading pleasure. The novel's world is both plausible and foreign; more particularly, it is an atmosphere which we can imagine existing, but which also seems to be an atmosphere that we will never actually step into personally. There is a certain feeling of safety in this distance, which Nelson Algren provides through the medium of the novel. Finally, i t is also important to note that Nelson Algren chooses and uses his words, both narrative and dialogue, meaningfully and succinctly. He does not bore the reader with tangential information. He does not deaden the plot with unnecessary details. Every word conveys meaning. The result is a novel which is extraordinarily difficult to put down, and even more difficult to forget once the final page is read. This is a book which under normal circumstances I would probably never have read. This book report will explain why I am so happy that I have now read the novel. As an initial matter, this is the story of a Chicago drug addict. This character, Frankie the Machine Makjinek, works as a card dealer at illegal poker games. The golden arm reference is to his steady, card-dealing arm. Frankie has just returned to his old neighborhood in Chicago, from jail and a temporarily successful attempt at detoxification, and he works as a card dealer while he tries to turn his life around. He wants to beat his morphine addiction, and he also wants to stay out of trouble and out of jail. The story revolves around his attempts to straighten out his life while simultaneously existing alongside other drug addicts, attempting to pacify a dominant wife, and striving to beat his own former addiction to morphine. In many ways, this is a similar type of story. A person has made a mistake, the mistake has had negative consequences, and the person wants to pursue a better and a more productive life. There are thousands and thousands of stories premised in the same fundamental fashion. What is different about The Man with the Golden Arm, however, is the way in which the story is presented. There is a tremendous depth in the characters. There is a very particularized depth in the setting. More significantly, Nelson Algren presents this quest by the main protagonist as an almost impossible quest. There is an almost mocking tone extended to notions that human beings are civilized or otherwise capable of suppressing deep-seated urges and instinctive desires. Nelson Algren seems alm ost a cynic and a realist at the same time. He feels sympathy rather than pity for his main protagonist. In this way, the reader is compelled, at times, to question whether Frankie the Machi

Art Apprecition IP Week Four Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Art Apprecition IP Week Four - Essay Example This essay compares and contrasts three artworks from famous Baroque artists: Peter Paul Rubens’ â€Å"The Crucified Christ,† Michelangelo Merisi de Caravaggio’s â€Å"Flagellation of Christ,† and Rembrandt van Rijn’s â€Å"The Raising of the Cross.† These paintings are works of realism, where painters focused on using light, shadows, neutral colors, spatial composition, and vivid themes to depict dynamic spiritual actions in a religious event through somber dramatic effects. The artworks are similar in form because of the use of light, neutral colors, and shadows to interpret different aspects of the Crucifixion. Rembrandt painted images of mythology, religion and landscapes, using generally broad brushstrokes. He maximizes light, shadows, and spatial layout to portray his images and characters, enriching their emotions and personalities (Durham, 2004, p.115). â€Å"The Raising of the Cross† uses luminous light to focus on Christ†™s body. The whiteness of the light symbolizes his purity. The darkness around him conceals the people. Their shadows depict the heaviness of their sins, either as active or passive participants. The direction of the painting is slanting, and most of the lines slanting as well. The same slanting lines are seen in Caravaggio’s â€Å"Flagellation of Christ.† Caravaggio’s style of painting is known for his realism, intense chiaroscuro and the importance placed on co-extensive space. His portrayal of religious themes tends to be somber and dark, and his peers criticized his work for being too realistic, showing the grimmest of human features. In â€Å"Flagellation of Christ,† Christ’s body looks perfectly white, but the people who are crucifying him look like demons with their veined faces, arms, and legs. It seems that they are in extreme pain, when Jesus is the one being flagellated. They are concealed in dark shadows too, like in â€Å"The Raisin g of the Cross.† Aside from having the same light and shadow techniques, these paintings share the same neutral colors- white, black, and brown in different shades. â€Å"The Raising of the Cross† has some cool colors because of the color found in the dress of the white turbaned man and the man in blue beret. Rubens’ â€Å"The Crucified Christ† shows Christ in a vertical position, but his arms and legs are slanted too. Rubens is arguably one of the most central Flemish painters of the 17th century. His style defined the sensual and dynamic techniques of baroque painting. Rubens mixes bold brushwork, glowing colors, and play of light to depict vibrant energies (Spielvogel, 2012, p.480). In â€Å"The Crucified Christ,† the slanted lines connote human pain and misery. There are no people at the background, but the shadows of the clouds and faraway buildings are evident. Sunset presents itself in orange hues at the lower part of Christ’s body too . Like the other two paintings, the light is casted on Christ’s body in â€Å"The Crucified Christ.† His purity is highlighted against the darkness of the world. The luminous light highlights the humanity of Jesus and the pain on his face marks his human anguish. Aside from the same style used on light, color, and shadows, these three paintings maximize spatial layout for dramatic effects. In â€Å"The Crucified Christ,† Christ is put in the middle of swirling dark clouds. Beneath him are dark human structures. The main impact is that Christ is the

Business Law Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words - 10

Business Law - Assignment Example USA), the Supreme Court actually decided against the Pasquantinos, arguing that they have been guilty in violating Federal Wire Fraud laws. In this case, I don’t think that the Pasquantinos and the Hilts would not be able to succeed in their legal argument, given that the nature of the law was against smuggling, the very crime that the Pasquantinos and the Hilts committed. Meanwhile, with regards to the third case (USA v. Dotterweich); I think that he must still be held criminally responsible for violating the Food, Drugs and Cosmetics Act. Although it may be argued that he may have not participated directly in shipping misbranded drugs, this fact does not remove his responsibility to ensure that his business is actually complying with all standards and regulations that are being enforced by the state. In this case, given that it is still his company, such failure to comply with regulations is fully within his

The legal system and its structure Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

The legal system and its structure - Essay Example The market for legal and judicial services revolves around the function of these courts. Legal and judicial assistance is required by individuals as well as businesses to resolve issues in their daily lives. The legal services industry in the UK includes solicitor firms’, barrister chambers, representative groups, regulators as well as businesses outside of the legal profession that provide consultancy services to individual and corporate clients. The legal service market in the UK generated revenues over  £14.3 billion in 2005 and continues to show potential for growth (Business and Consumer Services). But growth does not necessarily mean in terms of revenues for the industry to grow, it must improve upon its existing infrastructure and provide people with better opportunities and results. These markets are inefficient because of numerous reasons, the most important one’s are as follows.Reasons for inefficient marketsThe most important reason for inefficiency of the market is the high levels of profitability by mid-tier firms. Since firm’s charge a lot more than they should and without proper competition from other law firms the market suffers from imperfect competition. Another factor that accounts for inefficiency is the lack of review of business models for individual law firms, law firms that were established a long time ago still rely on the same business models as they did half a century ago. Another reason that contributes to inefficiency is the traditional approach of large law firms.

Critical thinking Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words - 1

Critical thinking - Essay Example Its workforce of over 17, 000 men and women voted Iceland Frozen Foods the third most successful company compared with all other companies in motivating them to do their best. Four years before the turnaround, morale was ‘at rock bottom after 40% of staff at the Deeside head office were made redundant’ (The Sunday Times, 2009). It is quite reasonable to assume in retrospect that top management at the time was incapable of motivating the workforce to achieve profitability and ensure the survival of the firm. It is quite likely that ‘scientific management’ or Taylorism as it is also called, may have been, the paradigm under which the top managers of Iceland Frozen Foods worked, in running the day to day affairs of the company. Or, they may not even have given much thought to motivating the workforce, but merely continued on traditional lines, hiring and firing believing that labour was a disposable item. Taylorism is explained as the ‘decoupling of the labour process from the skills of the workforce’, and has been defined as ‘management strategies that are based upon the separation of conception from execution’ Pruijt, 2000). The knowledge and skills of how best to run the enterprise are confined to the heads of the few top mangers. The rest of the workforce merely follows orders to the letter. They have no discretion as to how they do their day to day jobs. They have to follow strictly laid out procedures. This may work well in some industries, say on a car assembly line, but in enterprises with close customer contact, this approach is unlikely to be optimal. Nevertheless, Prujit also acknowledges that McDonalds and call centres (customer service operations) use such strategies and can claim success by ensuring ‘predictability and controllability’ (op. cit.). After Taylorism , Herzberg’s two-factor motivational theory became influential in alerting management to the value of tapping into the need for

Top 10 News Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Top 10 News - Essay Example This article effectively provides the details that it promised it would in the lead. This article starts off with a look at the Prince Charles and Diana wedding and then talks about the Prince William and Kate Middleton wedding that took place recently. It mainly talks about the government and the general population and attempts to look at how this wedding actually affects the average person, if at all. The marriages of other royals are also mentioned in passing. There is one picture with the article and that is of the massive crowds that gathered to watch the wedding. It seems an appropriate picture in this case as the article does discuss the people who watched the wedding and their attitudes towards the monarchy rather than give details of the wedding itself. This articles starts with a reaction from Chile’s president followed by a details of a major face in this event-the shift manager who tried to keep things organised underground when the miners were trapped. There is a brief description of the events that led to this rescue followed by the names of the men who were trapped underground. The article is effectively written. This article describes the destruction in Haiti as a result of the earthquake that occurred. It provides information about what other countries have said about their staff in the country and also the scale of the destruction. There are three pictures and the first is a schematic showing the epicentre of the earthquake. The second and third are satellite images of two cities affected by the earthquake. The first picture is appropriate for this article as are the other two. This article is very effectively written. The lead provides us with an indication as to the scale of the event by mentioning that this is the biggest earthquake and tsunami in Japan’s history. The article goes on to discuss the concerns over the nuclear plant, reports on Japan’s main city Tokyo and provides information of international

Graduate Work and Becoming a Better Manager Essay

Graduate Work and Becoming a Better Manager - Essay Example Additionally, I realized that being a better manager required effective professionalism, which is achievable through furthering my education. Present day business environment is characterized by excessive competition. This requires managers to have professional strategies that will enable them to compete with other businesses effectively. Additionally, I realized that enrolling for MBA at Walden University would enable me to understand the ethical and legal requirements of the business society which facilitate becoming an effective member of the business community (Walden University, 2012b). Graduate school is quite different from the undergraduate programs. In graduate school, the level of training is more rigorous and oriented toward professionalism. As opposed to undergraduates in business courses who study broadly, graduates specialize in a specific area. By enrolling in MBA, I hope to acquire skill in corporate hunting skill, coaching of employees as well as skill on how to analyze benefit for effective decision-making. In my opinion, being an effective manager requires one to be able to bargain collectively, relate well with employees, encourage employee development programs, and understand employment laws as well as business policies. By enrolling for the MBA, I believe I will be able to attain the above skills and apply them later. This will make me a professional and better manager (Walden University, 2012b). After reviewing the list of â€Å"Student Conduct and Responsibilities,† I realized there are a number of similarities and differences between scholarly conduct and business conduct. Scholarly conduct is different from business conduct in that scholarly conduct I based on the level of education while business conduct is professionalism. Both scholarly conduct and business conduct are similar since they center on trust, responsibility,