Analysis Of The Writing Style Of Octavia Butler - 1432 Words

Tinotenda Muchenje Dr. Shinn Sophomore Seminar 25 September 2017 First Essay Assignment Kindred By Octavia Butler The writing style of Octavia Butler is heavily influenced by her historical period and her life experiences. This is evident through investigation of her historical period, life experiences, her novel; Kindred. Butler’s writing is a unique mixture of neo- slave narratives, exaggerated tales, cultural rituals, fantasy, folklore, science fiction, and spirituality. Butler uses science fiction and fantasy as a means of exploiting racism, suffering, and the black female narrative of isolation and disconnectedness from society in many of her novels, namely, Kindred. Though her intent was not to be a science fiction†¦show more content†¦Board of Education of Topeka (1954). This case said that segregated schools were unconstitutional and resulted in the forced integration of schools. Overall the civil rights era was an era where ideas of black power and black excellence proliferated. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., the Black Panthers, and Malcolm X are often seen as symbolic figu res during this time. Even though black females like Ella Baker; Septima Clark; and Rosa Parks are not as recognized. Octavia Butler was born on June 22 1947 in Pasadena, California. She was the only child of Laurice and Octavia Margaret (Guy) Butler, but was raised by her mother and grandmother as a result of her father’s death during infancy. Her mother was a strict, overprotective, Baptist woman who worked tirelessly to support Octavia and her grandmother. Butler was immersed in a reality with strong female protagonists who endured extreme isolation, humiliation and misery. She watched her mother as she single handedly provided for the family and took the cruel, dehumanizing rhetoric of her white employers with a stone face. She listened to her grandmother, a slave who was forced to work in the cane fields of Louisiana, as she spoke of her past. As if their struggles were passed down through her blood, young Butler wore their mental scars like armour and spun exaggerated tales where their courage and heroism could be seen and commended. If my mother hadn t put up with all thoseShow MoreRelatedHills Like White Elephants : A Critical Analysis1708 Words   |  7 Pagesâ€Å"Hills Like White Elephants†: A Critical Analysis Introduction: One of the many themes in his stories for which Ernest Heming way is known, includes feminism. At Hemingway’s time feminism was known as a famous movement and it affected many important writers like Octavia Butler and Virginia Woolf. Hemingway was a literary icon of his time and he was influenced by the political, social and human rights movements of his time. He was also touched by the hopelessness of women and how their thinkingRead MoreHistory of Social Work18530 Words   |  75 Pages............................................................................25 Elizabeth Gurney Fry ...............................................................................................................................................25 Octavia Hill ..............................................................................................................................................................26 Arnold Toynbee ............................................................. ....

Martha Stewards Insider Trading Case Study Example

Essays on Martha Steward's Insider Trading Case Study The paper â€Å"Martha Steward’s Insider Trading" is a  dramatic example of a case study on finance accounting. The financial world relies on the integrity of information to make numerous decisions. The participants in the stock market are not supposed to have asymmetric information. Asymmetric information occurs when one party has superior information compared to others (Investopedia, 2011). Since everyone is supposed to have equal access to information the Securities and Exchange Commission prohibits the practice of inside trading. An insider can be defined as a person who is restricted from some kinds of trading in a company’s stock because he has access to privileged information (Teweles Bradley Teweles, 1992, pg. 538). The action of inside trading violates the fiduciary duty of the board of directors and the executive management team to safeguard the interest of their shareholders. Insider trading gives an unfair advantage to a person in the stock market. Tha t person can distort the price of common stocks by either selling or buying massive amounts of a stock based on privileged knowledge that can help that person illegally obtain above-normal profits from the transaction.Martha Steward took advantage of a personal relationship with Sam Waksal, CEO of ImClone, to obtain privileged information concerning the rejection of FDA approval for its cancer drug Erbitux (Hoffman, 2007). She used that information to avoid losses in the market by selling all her ImClone stocks a day before the FDA rejected the drug. The stock price went down after the announcement. I believe that the shareholder's interests were jeopardized. The CEO of the company put the company at risk by revealing trade secrets to outsiders. Martha should have never received that information from Waksal. The firm has to question whether its CEO had incurred in similar unethical behaviors in the past to help him and his friends' profit in the market. The interests of the sharehol ders were jeopardized because its CEO violated the SEC mandates. He placed the company at risk of fines and civil lawsuits.  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The Martha Steward case affected a lot the investor community. The general public was discussed at the fact that a billionaire worth nearly $750 million dollars would have such low ethical standards to use insider information to further increase her fortune. The accounting profession was at a crossroads at the time of this scandal which occurred in December 2001. The following year the SEC and the US Congress passed new legislation called the Sarbanes Oxley Act (SOX) of 2002. SOX raised the accountability of corporate officers. Unscrupulous CEOs such as Sam Waksal after the passage of SOX are now liable for up to 20 years in prison if found guilty of fraud. Society learned how important it is to protect information from getting into the wrong hands. Inside trading is now viewed in a harsher manner by society. The business community after this cas e realized that corporations needed better internal controls to prevent leakages of information that can hurt the integrity of the stock market. I believe that another lesson that was learned from the Martha Steward case is that greed can poison anyone.

Wwii (474 words) Essay Example For Students

Wwii (474 words) Essay WwiiSummary of World War II in EuropeIn World War II the Allied Forces had a â€Å"Europe First† campaign of invading the Atlantic countries before the Pacific. This is because Germany served as a bigger threat than Japan to the Allied Powers. In the United States, Franklin Delanor Roosevelt was the President. He kept America neutral at first, but later entered in after Pearl Harbor. George Patton was a popular U.S. Army leader who started tank warfare in America. Bernard Montgomery commanded the 8th Army which had victories in Europe including D-Day. At the near end of the war Omar Bradley toured through Germany notifying the rest of the world what had gone on there with all of the death camps during the Holocaust, which was where the murder of over 6 millioin Jewish people took place. Important leaders from other countries also arose during World War II. Joseph Stalin was from the USSR and was recognized as killing as many as 50 million of his own people from the USSR from b ad-mouthing him. He helped the U.S. by fight Japan while Britain and the U.S. fought Germany. Winston Churchill replaced Chamberlain for Britain’s Prime Minister in 1938. He showed great resistance to Germany and his people followed in the leadership. Lastly, Charles DeGaulle was the French leader who ran and exiled the Free French Government in London. Important places in Europe included sites such as Stalingrad and Normandy. Stalingrad perhaps was the bloodies battle in all of Europe, also a major turning point for the Allies during World War II. The other gruesome battle took place in Normandy, France. The battle was called D-Day and almost signified the end of German resistance. In the Belgian town of Dunkirk, British Naval forces rescued the bulk of the army along with some French and Belgian units. Due to the French surrendering, Germans attacked North Africa to support the failed Italian efforts. Under the leadership of General Erwin Rommel, German forces pushed eastward to take Egypt until the British at the Battle of El Alamain halted their advance. U-Boats, which were kind of like submarines, were the Germans’ main defense against Britain for naval battle. Adolf Hitler, the German leader planned all these offensives in his goal to rule the world. Benito Mussolini, the Italian leader helped Hitler achieve this goal s omewhat. While none of this was achieved the Allies attacked Sicily, then Italy moving north towards Rome. Because of his bad leadership and ruling, Mussolini was executed by his followers. The Battle of the Bulge was perhaps the end of the War for both sides in European warfare. Russian forces came in from the East and Allied forces from the West, centering in on Berlin to take over Germany, thus ending war on the European front. History

Drama Therapy free essay sample

Before choosing the one I wanted to explore, I had to literally revisit my old theories of personality’s book and after hours and hours of thinking and analyzing I decided that I should walk this path with Erik Erikson and his Developmental Theory. According to Alloy et al. (1999), â€Å"To Erikson, the major drama of development is the formation of the ego identity, an integrated, unique, and autonomous sense of self† (p. 102). Unlike Freud, Erikson’s theory proposes that the personality is a process which extends from birth to death and it doesn’t take place just in a specific stage of life but on the contrary, is a formative process. According to Erikson, psychosocial development involves changes in our interactions and mutual understanding as well as in our knowledge and understanding of us as members of society. Erikson’s idea of personality is based in the social influence, not in the individual psyche as Freud proposes. As Alloy et al. (1999) states, â€Å" Erikson saw personality development as deeply affected not only by the family but also by teachers, friends, spouses, and many other social agents† (p. 103). To understand Erikson’s theory it is always helpful to make a contrast between his theory and Freud’s. For Freud, it wasn’t the ego but the challenges to the id that would determine the personality. However, for Erikson the role of the ego is central in the developmental progression and it takes place on different stages. As Johnson and Emunah (2009) state, â€Å"†¦with each stage of life there are specific themes that manifest and individual’s way of viewing and interacting in the world, requiring defined roles for that person and significant others to enact† (p. 52). Erikson proposes eight different stages with different needs in each one of them; in fact four of these stages take place during childhood. Also his theory explains that in each of these stages there is a crisis or conflict that needs to be resolve. ( Feldman, 2006, p. 359) It is important to mention that for Erikson the failure in one of these stages does not necessarily represe nts that the person is going to fail in the following stages. The stages that Erikson describes through the psychosocial development theory are: Trust vs. Mistrust, Autonomy vs. Shame and Doubt, Initiative vs. Guilt, Industry vs. Inferiority, Identity vs. Role Confusion, Intimacy vs. Isolation, Generativity vs. Stagnation and Ego Integrity vs. Despair. According to Erikson and as cited in Johnson and Emunah (2009), â€Å"Dysfunction and pathology emerge when these theme-based stages have been unsuccessfully integrated due to role deviation or dysfunctional environment† (p. 252). This is why it is important to resolve the â€Å"conflicts† that each stage presents in order to be prepared for the demands of the next one. However, when one of these stages is not nurtured and accomplished, the mental health of that individual is jeopardize and it is very probable that this person is going to be held in that specific stage. (Johnson amp; Emunah, 2009) This is where drama therapy appears to help the individual overcome these crises. According to the National Association of Drama Therapist (NADT), drama therapy is â€Å"An active, experiential approach to facilitating change. Through storytelling, projective play, purposeful improvisation, and performance, participants are invited to rehearse desired behaviors†¦.. [as they] perform the change they wish to be and see in the world† This definition provides very specific utilities and goals of drama therapy while it mentions different tools to achieve them. For the purpose of this paper we are going work with â€Å"purposeful improvisation† as it is presented how the concept of self and the stages’ crises are intrinsically connected with what is done though improvisation. When thinking about improvisation words such as spontaneity, unconscious, discovery of self, play, creativity, emotions, accepting first thoughts, and narrative, immediately come to mind ( Johnstone, 1992). Though, words like healing or therapy aren’t commonly associated with this theatrical technique. However, according to Chaplin and Gray (2010), There are compelling parallels between the creative and spontaneous moments that occur in the therapeutic encounter and in a two-person dramatic improvisation found in theater training. Both involve the imaginative and creative collaboration of the participants and both involve the mutual responsiveness of storyteller and listener. (p. 254)   Using this quote as reference, it would be suitable to say that improvisation, in fact, is a tool that can be used for therapeutic purposes. Specifically addressing developmental crisis, as presented in Erikson’s theory, improvisational exercise can be really useful, because of the unconscious areas of the brain that this theatrical technique can access. It is important to remember that individuals that experience traumatic events in one of these developmental stages respond to life challenges through the lenses of the stage they got stuck in. For example, if a client had a really traumatic experience in the first stage, where the development of trust is crucial, it is expected that this person is going to have trouble with trusting. The interesting thing about this is that it is very possible that the client is not going to be aware of this since this is product of unconscious processes. (Johnson amp; Emunah. , 2009, p. 54) However, according to Johnson and Emunah (2009),â€Å"The threads of the themes and roles are gradually revealed to the client through etiologically based exploratory role playing† (p. 254). Role playing theory is huge by itself, and it is not going to be discussed on this paper, but it is important to mention that this technique is a big part of improvisation. In fact, through role playing the client is a ble to go back to that specific stage and be that â€Å"child† or that â€Å"adolescent†, while on the other hand â€Å" The role of the therapist is paramount in healing early stages of development† (Johnson amp; Emunah, 2009, p. 54). This is being anything the client need the therapist to be in order to recreate the intended scene. The dynamic that takes place in a therapy session and in a theater scenario is practically the same. In words of Chaplin and Gray (2010), For both scenarios, â€Å"†¦the sense of not knowing what is going to happen ceases to be a threat and becomes instead an opportunity for spontaneous creative involvement. The improvisational skills that are essential to effective acting are teachable and relevant indeed, invaluable to psychoanalytic practice†(p. 65). What these authors are saying is the core of this paper; on one hand theatrical improvisation trains actors to perform effectively in a scenario, and on the other therape utic improvisation trains people to perform well and with mental health in the scenario of life. This improvisation, works as a therapeutic tool as it opens channels of communication with the disruptive self of the client. The situation with developmental crisis is that the notion of self that is build through the years is conditioned by the trauma the client has experience. In his case the work of the drama therapist is to provide non-threatening spaces of play and creativity where the client can be free to explore and discover that, through dramatic enactments he or she is able to learn how to live in the moment and responding to life challenges with spontaneity and openness rather than fixed to the role in which they got stuck. The problems that can be access through this improvisation are extensive. As Johnson and Emunah (2009) state, â€Å"Because the approach is by definition developmental, all ages from infancy to aging and dying are appropriate† (p. 55). In fact this improvisation through the developmental approach can serve people diagnosed with PTSD, autism, anxiety disorders, learning disabilities, eating disorders and addictions among others. Drama therapists can work with this developmental approach based on Erikson’s theory, in different ways. For example, Ritual Drama, using transformational theater, helps the client moving on to the next developmental stage, but not without valuing and recognizing the experience of that transition. In other words, this technique will provide a safe place for a person with an anxiety disorder that is fixed and stuck in the second stage of autonomy, where issues of control and power are very present, and where letting go is major step. Another drama therapy technique that can be very useful is the Developmental Theme Based- Improvisational Drama where the therapist suggests different scenarios or situations to be improvised but in an imaginary place, where the client can work with adaptation and re-adaptation. This could be potentially useful with children with autism, since for these kids adaptation is really difficult. (Johnson amp; Emunah, 2009) Improvisation is like this unique world in which everything is possible and where the unconscious meets the conscious as they dialogue looking for answers. As Chaplin and Gray state, Improvisation consists of moment-to-moment, affective engagement [and free expression] in which patient and analyst [therapist] co- create ways of being with each other. For both, the sense of not knowing what is going to happen ceases to be a threat and becomes instead an opportunity for spontaneous creative involvement. The drama therapy space and the therapeutic relationship becomes a place to review, resurface and rearrange: new relationships are developed. As stated in this paper, Erikson’s psychosocial and developmental theory of personality provides a space to approach and explain the rigidity of roles and life’s crisis through the lenses of the unconscious and the traumas that in some point disrupted one of the stages. As explained through these pages, drama therapy and its techniques seem to be appropriate and useful to help clients overcoming developmental crisis. In words of Johnson and Emunah (2009), â€Å" A clients recovery into wholeness means that s/he can fully experience the uniqueness of each moment†¦ and that s/he has the potential to be in relationship to the archetypal Self to that which can continuously provide the stage for involvement in developmentally stimulated life themes† (p. 280) Amen!!! References: Alloy, L. , Jacobson, N. S. , amp; Acocella, J. R. 1999). Abnormal Psychology: Current Perspectives (8th ed. ) McGraw-Hill College. Chaplin, R. amp; Gray, A. (2010). Theater and Therapy: How Improvisation Informs the Analytic Hour. Psychoanalytic Inquiry,  30(3), 254-266. Feldman. R. S. (2006). Psicologia con aplicaciones en paises de habla hispana. (6ta ed. ) Mexico: McGraw-Hill. Johnson, D. R. , amp; Emunah, R. (Eds. ) (2009). Current approaches in drama therapy. ( 2nd Ed. ) Springfield, IL: Charles C. Thomas. Johnstone, K. (1992). IMPRO: Improvisation and the theatre. New York, NY : Routledge.