Article Critique Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Article Critique - Essay Example It is vital to understand the methods implemented by single mothers to successfully cope with stress as mothers experiencing stress can be detrimental to the stressors of their children. Similarly, a link has been revealed that shows a correlation between the economic stress of a single mother, the way in which she responds to and raises her child, and the overall outcome of her child in regard to their own behaviors and future economic status. Understanding how economic pressure negatively influences a single mother will also help in gaining an understanding into how maternal optimism promotes positive parenting behaviors despite environmental adversity, thus promoting a positive life for the child. Another purpose that this article serves is to fill the gap of literature pertaining to dispositional optimism within minority ethnic groups, especially in relation to mother-headed homes. Very few studies have been undergone in regard to this; most studies have looked into the negative influences and outcomes of single-mother households, shunting aside the existence of maternal optimism in other families with similar structures. Methods The study began in the mid-1990s, using 889 African American children, their caregivers, and, when possible, an older sibling, all living in Iowa and Georgia. The participants of the study were taken on through telephone interviews. Data was collected between these families in four different waves, starting in 1997 and ending in 2006. Of the original 889 participants available during the first wave, only 86.7% were involved in wave two and three interviews. From this group, families run by single mothers, as opposed to caregivers, were chosen and the others were dismissed. The final sample group of the study consisted of 394 single mother families. During each interview, two two-hour home visits in a span of seven days were made to each family. The first visit involved the giving of consent, both of the mother and the children to p articipate in the study; name and locations of schools were also given, and children’s teachers were authorized to provide further information about the children’s functioning at school. The ages of the participating children varied from ten to fifteen years of age; the mean age of the mothers was thirty-five years of age. The mean education of the mothers was approximately twelve years, and the mean income was $20,689. The mean number of children per family varied between one and two. Various questions were asked of the mothers and children, each pertaining to certain economic situations or behavioral statuses. These variables would be used to measure the overall situations of the individual families. These variables are are follows: Mother’s childhood adversity, which asked eight questions to determine if the mother was subjected to specific adverse childhood advents such as a relative living at home having a serious drinking problem. Economic pressure, which measured four indicators (unmet material needs, cannot make ends meet, financial cutbacks, and no money), all dealing with the financial situation of the household. Mother’s dispositional optimism was then measured, offering yes/no questions to determine the mother’s level of optimism during times of hardship. Mother’s internalizing symptoms, which measured how depressed, discouraged,

What does it mean to be the best qualified Assignment

What does it mean to be the best qualified - Assignment Example Managers know that they would do their best to maintain their integrity once they are offered a chance for they know that they do not have many alternatives waiting for them in the market. Also, people who are not the toppers in their academic career are generally more active and brilliant on the practical side. â€Å"Testing for job skills is appropriate, although employers need to be wary of testing for attributes which do not relate to the requirements of the job.† (Rey and Mignin, 2008, p. 62). It is not fundamentally important for an individual to be pre-equipped with all the knowledge and expertise required for a particular job. What is more important for managers is to make sure that the individuals they hire, have enough spark and talent to fit into the organization as a responsible employee and develop the necessary skills in the least possible time. Such people are indeed, the best qualified for the

Defending Mersult Essay Example for Free

Defending Mersult Essay What is justice? Is it when a person’s demise makes society feel better? Or is it when a suspect gets acquitted of all charges brought against him? Wherever there is justice there is obscurity. No matter how it is looked at, there is no real justice in the judicial system. In Albert Camus â€Å"The Stranger† the narrator, Meursault, is being trialed for the murder of a man he encounters at the beach. At his trial, the prosecutor makes much of Meursault’s demeanor and the prosecutor focuses on irrelevant information like Meursault’s failure to properly show grief at his own mother’s recent funeral. The prosecutor based the trial on events which had taken place prior to the murder. Even though, his points did not have the connection with the murder which the prosecution maintained. Therefore, the prosecutor created an unfair trial, by not giving Meursalt adequate time to speak in his own defense, bringing up irrelevant situations such as his relationship with his mother and his beliefs. Meursault was not given the chance to defend himself because of questions from the prosecutor and lack of knowledge of his lawyer. The case was rather built upon his lack of feelings towards his mother’s death and his choice not to believe in God. Typically, throughout a trial, the defendant is given time on the witness stand to plea innocence, and explain why he committed the crime. Meursault, however, stood before the judge and was asked yes or no questions. This left him with little or no time to plead his case. Before he could say anything else, he was back on his way to the jail. Meursault said, I didnt even have time to think. I was taken out, put into the van, and driven to prison (Camus88). At first he did not know what was going on, but knew he wanted to say something. Then every time he would try to say something, his lawyer would simply say â€Å"Just keep quiet- it wont do your case any good (Camus98). Meursaults lawyer would not let him say anything, and this bothered Meursault. Every now and then, during the trial, Meursault would have the urge to stand up and yell in his head, Wait a minute! Whos the accused here? Being the accused counts for something. And I have something to say â€Å"(Camus;98).This made Meursault feel alienated from the trial that was going to determine the rest of his life. The prosecutor had involved his personal feelings about Meursaults beliefs into the case, which was definitely not needed. The prosecutor had repeatedly asked Meursault about his belief in God, and eventually got agitated because Meursault did not believe in God. â€Å"drawing himself up to his full height and asking me if I believed in God. I said no. ‘Do you want my life to be meaningless?’ he shouted†(Camus;69). The prosecutor had absolutely no right to bring personal feelings about Meursalt into the case. He clearly was mad and irritated, because Meursault did not believe in God. The prosecutor was offended at the fact that, he had no belief, because of this he began to mock Meursault. â€Å"That’s all for today, Monsieur Meursalt† (Camus; 71). As a prosecutor you are there to do your job, and not to build relationships or hatred for people. However the prosecutor had allowed Meursaults views to dictate the outcome of the trial. The prosecutor went about the whole trial, asking Meursault, his acquaintances and also his friend’s personal questions about his relationships with people. The prosecutor focused mainly on the irreverent events that had happened prior to the trial. The prosecutor focused on his reaction to his mother’s death and relationship with her. Firstly, Meursault is a human being with a lack of emotions. Maybe most of the people will get freaked out or think that he is a monster, but he actually isn’t. For example, he loves his mother and care for his girlfriend Marie, but he just doesn’t have the strong emotions for them. He doesn’t cry on his mother’s funeral, he thinks marrying another girl will be the same. However Meursault lifestyle is indifferent, it’s quite hard for him to show emotions, on the other hand, because of this Meursault should not be judge. Nonetheless the prosecutor somehow found his relationship, with his loved ones to be relevant to the case, when it was not. â€Å"He asked me why I had put Maman in the home. I answered I didn’t haven’t money to have her looked after and cared for†(Camus;88). As one may see, the prosecutor had personalized the case by asking him why he had put his mother in a home. Meursault inability to care for his mother was irreverent, however because the prosecutor may had feel that Meursault is â€Å"monster† for putting his mother in a home, he wanted everyone else to have the same perspective. The case had end up focusing on the relationship his mother and how bad of a son he was to her, rather than the killing of the Arab. The prosecutor had brought the director in to witnesses, badgering the director with unnecessary questions about the relationship. â€Å"He had asked whether Maman ever complained about meTo another question he replied that he had been surprised by my calm the day of the funeral†(Camus89). As it is shown the prosecutor was more interested by Meursault lack of emotions and lifestyle. Throughout the whole trial the prosecutor was more so trying to prove everyone that Meursault was a bad son and self centered person. In conclusion the judicial system may definitely be corrupted at times and proceed unfair sentences. Just as Meursaults trial which was based on emotions of the prosecutor rather than the facts of the day of the killing. The prosecutor relied on events prior to that day, which were absolutely not significant to the ruling. Meursault’s relationship with his mother and how he had decided to proceed with his life had no connection to the trial. The prosecutor had also not given Meursault an ample amount of time to answer or prepare for is questions, it happened all so fast for Meursault. As a result, he created an unfair trial and unrelated points against Meursault. All in all the interpretation of these events, provided by the prosecution was largely unfounded.

Replication of the Stroop Effect

Replication of the Stroop Effect Abdus Azad Abstract This experiment is a replication of the Stroop effect, in which you are supposed to identify colors, where colors are in different texts. Also the name of the word when in different colors. There was one experimenter and the participants were 20 (15 females, 5 males) Hunter College Psychology 250 students. The age ranged from 19-32 with a mean age of 23.5. The Experimenter tested the participant’s in two effects and three conditions. In one effect they were to identify the word, in three conditions congruent (matching the color), incongruent (different color), and control (neutral black text). In another effect the students were tasked with identifying the color in three conditions, congruent (same color matched), incongruent (different text), and control (neutral black text). We hypothesized there will be an increase in the mean time when participants are tested in the incongruent conditions due to interference. Using a one-way repeated measures ANOVA the result of this study found that there is a significant difference in incongruent condition when participants were tasked to name the color F (1.554, 23.32) = 7.434, p= 0.0055. Using a second one-way ANOVA for naming words, the results showed no significance F (1.845, 27.68) = 0.1289, p= 0.8642. A Replication of The Stroop Effect When we focus our attention to do one task, this is called selective attention. This means to exclude any other stimuli which may cause distraction. While on the other hand divided attention is when we have the ability to divide our attention to a few tasks, sometimes while doing these tasks, it may become an automatic process which makes dividing your attention between these two tasks much easier. Automatic processing, is when you cannot control your thought process, it can be thought as implicit thinking, in other words thinking that may occur unconsciously. Automatic processing may not always be helpful, you may have conflict with automatic and controlled processing. The Stroop Effect tested how these processes worked. James McKeen Cattell (1886) had originally conducted research and found that objects and colors when compared to their corresponding words, took longer to speak aloud. He knew there was an interference with automatic and controlled processing. Even though he had already made this connection, Ridley Stroop (1935) is more recognized for work with color and words. Stroop in his experiment had used six colors and did three different experiments. The experiment’s consisted of participants reading lists of colors, on one list color was written in black, and on the other list was color written in different colored inks. They were supposed to identify the color of the words and also timed. The other experiments that he did was similar involving shapes. The way Cattell and Stroop’s research differs is that Cattell ha d concluded there was an interference between automatic and controlled processing, while Stroop’s research was more about developing an understanding as to why this interference is occurring. In Stroop’s article â€Å"Studies of Interference in Serial Verbal Reactions† he had concluded that your mind can automatically decide the semantic meaning of a word, hence when the color matched the word the time it took to figure out the color was much quicker vs when the colors did not match the word. Further replications of the Stroop test were performed, J.D. Dunbar and C.M. McLeod’s (1990) replication like Stroop also consisted of a congruent condition (words with the same color as the text) and incongruent conditions (colors don’t match the word text). They also added a control condition, the words were in a neutral color. Flowers, Warner, and Polansky (1979) did a variation of Dunbar and MacLeod’s Stroop test. They used rows numbers, the number was the same in each row and they asked the participants to determine how many numbers were in the rows. The findings by both Danbar, McLeod (1990) and Flowers, Warner, Polansky (1979) showed there was a noticeable gap in time and errors made in the incongruent condition compared to the control and congruent conditions. With their replications, we can conclude that participants in the incongruent group take more time identifying the color and made more errors Haely (1994) spoke of further research on automatic processing. An experiment was conducted on how we process words that we use frequently, words like â€Å"of†, â€Å"the†, etc. It showed that participants found it harder to focus on the individual letters of the words. She gave the participants some English text to read and asked them to circle every letter â€Å"t† that they saw. The findings showed that participants frequently missed letters that were in more common words, words like â€Å"the†, â€Å"then†, etc. When it came to less used words they were able to more easily identify it. These findings showed how we automatically process words. Words that are commonly used daily, when reading them, we see a whole entity, instead of the individual components. This way our brain automatically reads words further supports Stroop’s findings. In our experiment we will attempt to do a modified replication of Stroop’s experiment to see how our results correspond to his. We will have two groups one will be to Name The Color, and the other to Name The Word. Our null hypothesis is that there will be no significance mean difference in time recorded for participants in congruent and incongruent groups from the control group. The alternative hypothesis for our experiment is that the time recorded for participants in the incongruent groups will be significantly more. From the many studies done on Stroop Interference, mostly all suggesting that the incongruent group will take more time to identify the color or word due to Stroop Interference, this is where our alternative hypothesis has come from. Method Participants The participants of this study were all Hunter College students. There were 5 males and 15 females, ages from 19-32 (M=23.50, SD=3.80). 10 of the participants spoke English as a second language. The hours of sleep the participants had varied from 4 -7 hours (M=5.36, SD=1.02). Only one participant had reported vision problems. Ethnicity and socioeconomic status were not taken into consideration. All of the students who participated were from the Psychology 250, class that meets on Mondays Thursdays from 8:00 am to 11:20 AM. The participants will all be compensated in the form of a letter grade from the professor. Materials The testing was taken on a consisting of three conditions. Control (color of word written in black text), congruent (word was written in same color), and incongruent (color of word was different from text), the time it took to answer was recorded by the computer. The results were displayed on the screen and were written on paper with a pen or pencil. The students transferred their results into a shared excel data table which was uploaded on Blackboard. The participants completed the test in a computer lab using computers. Procedure There was informed consent and the students were briefed on the experiment with no deception. The students were all presented with the same instructions. We conducted a within subjects design, to select the order of the participants a counterbalancing method was used to avoid possible sequence effects. Each participant was assigned a number from 1-6. Depending on your assigned number you would start with a different condition. 8 participants started with the Control, 6 participants started with the congruent, and the remaining 6 started with the incongruent condition. 3 participants were chosen at a time and went took the experiment on different computers in three different rooms. Once in the room the participant closed the door, and started with the assigned condition. There was two effects, in one the participant was required to Name The Word, and the other the participant was supposed to Name The Color. Each effect had three conditions. The control condition was black colored text displaying a color. The congruent condition had both had a text corresponding to the color. The incongruent condition had a text of a color displayed in a different color. Words would display and the user was required to click the answer as quickly as possible, after one condition was completed they moved on to the next. After a participant was complete another participant shortly followed to the empty computer following the sequence previously mentioned. We chose to exclude any extreme values from our data any person with values  ± 2.0 SD from the mean Results When the participants were required to Name The Word, in the control condition the mean score and standard deviation was (M=1494.89, SD= 314.19), in the incongruent condition the mean score and standard deviation was (M=1545.93, SD=283.30, and in the congruent condition the mean score and standard deviation was (M=1483.74, SD= 264.03) see Figure 1. In the second effect when the participants were required to Name The Color, in the control condition the mean score and standard deviation was (M=1661.22, SD=248.22), in the incongruent condition the mean score and standard deviation-n was (M=17.63.41, SD=416.93), and in the congruent condition the mean score and standard deviation was (M=1400.78, SD=454.59) see Figure 2 . A one way repeated measures ANOVA was conducted twice once to test Name The Color and another to test Name The Word. It was found there was significance difference in mean time for Name The Color group F (1.554, 23.32) = 7.434, p= 0.0055, the post hoc analysis shows inco ngruent had a significant mean time slower at (p p= 0.8642. Our hypothesis was partially correct, our results show that when naming color there is a significant delay in the incongruent condition. While when naming the word there is no significance. Discussion The aim of this study was to do a modified replication of the Stroop effect. We hypothesized that participants would have an increase in interference with more complex tasks. In other words, the mean reaction time will be significantly higher between the incongruent conditions. The results proved our hypothesis partially correct, which was that participants would have an increase in mean time in the incongruent condition. In other words, the mean reaction time will be significantly higher in Naming The Color and Naming The Word incongruent conditions. Our result found significance when participants saw words with different colors and they were required to name the color. There was no significance when they were required to name the word. The findings were somewhat inconsistent with our hypothesis because other previous studies also showed that when the word conflicts with the ink color, people are slower to respond and they are faster if the word agrees with the ink color, (Cohen, Dunbar, McClelland, 1990). So, previous studies agree with our results. Our findings were consistent with the first and second experiment, which was done by Stroop (1935). Our results agree with Stroop’s study because in both studies tested participants in different conditions and the conditions were counterbalanced to avoid order affects. Stroop had found a delay in his second experiment when the color was supposed to be named with different words, and no significant delay in the first experiment. Our replication yielded similar results. In both studies, participants had a task of naming words of colors which were written in a different color (incongruent) and then also naming neutral words (control). Since previous research had already explained that when a word complements its ink color, it leads to the processing of naming the word and the color together and if the color and the word are different it takes a longer time of reaction or response, (Cohen, Dunbar, McClelland, 1990), we can conclude that both studies would have similar findings. Our result was also consistent with the second study done by Algom, Eidels, and Townsend et al. (2009) which found that when a participant is given the task of naming color words that are printed in color, they report the ink color faster if that color word is the name of the color rather than the name of a different color. By doing this study we were able to see that when faced with two tasks at the same time our brain responds to the immediate visible one. So, when we see the word blue written in the color green, we automatically are triggered to name the word, which is blue because that is processed in our brain first. However, if we are told to say the name of the color that the word is written in, like blue written in green, it takes a longer time because now the brain has to overcome the first step in automatically just recognizing the word, we have to voluntarily pay attention to the word and it’s incongruent color to name just the color of the word, which takes a longer time, as explained by Cattell (1886), Posner and Snyder (1975), Shiffrin and Schneider (1977) in their studies. Some limitations of this study was that the sample size was too small (N=20) so it was not representative of the larger population. There is a biased sample, the age group of the participants is fairly narrow. So the results obtained would not be acceptable to generalize the whole population. With a larger sample, the results may have varied. Also, the experiment was done too early in the morning when people are usually tired, sleepy, moody or hungry. So, their moods can have a great effect in how much time they take when testing in the three different conditions. And since, condition 3 took more attention and concentration, certain moods or hunger could have affected their concentration. Future studies should examine look at Stroop test in regards to color and shape.in color-object naming instead of just color-word naming to see if our brain works the same way for both tasks. The sample size should be much larger and there should be more variability. Also, gender should be divided equally because in our study, there were 9 females and only 3 males. Also, future studies should do the Stroop task with other different age groups and compare how one age group’s mean reaction time is different from that of a younger or older age group. References Cattell, J. M. (1886). The time it takes to see and name objects. Mind,  11, 63-65.85). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. Cohen, J., Dunbar, K., and McClelland, J. (1990). On the Control of Automatic  Processes: A Parallel Distributed Processing Account of the Stroop Effect. Psychological Review, 97 (3) 332-361. Retrieved from www.psych.stanford.edu/~jlm/papers/CohenDunbarMcC90.pdf. Eidels, A., Townsend, J., Algom, D. (2009). Comparing perception of stroop stimuli infocused versus divided attention paradigms: Evidence for dramatic processing differences Cognition, doi:10.1016/j.cognition.2009.08.008. Flowers, J.H., Warner, J.L., Polansky, M.L. (1979). Response and encoding factors in ignoring irrelevant information.Memory Cognition, 7,86-94 Healy, A. (1994). Letter detection: A window to unitization and other cognitive processes in reading text. Psychonomic Bulletin Review, 3, 333-334 Shiffrin, R. M., Schneider, W. (1977). Controlled and automatic human  information processing: II. Perceptual learning, automatic attending,  and a general theory. Psychological Review, 84, 127-190. Stroop, J. R. (1935). Studies of interference in serial verbal reactions. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 12, 643-662. Figure1. -. The control condition the mean score and standard deviation was (M=1494.89, SD= 314.19), in the incongruent condition the mean score and standard deviation was (M=1545.93, SD=283.30, and in the congruent condition the mean score and standard deviation was (M=1483.74, SD= 264.03). The bars represent SD from the mean Figure 2.- The control condition the mean score and standard deviation was (M=1661.22, SD=248.22), in the incongruent condition the mean score and standard deviation-n was (M=17.63.41, SD=416.93), and in the congruent condition the mean score and standard deviation was (M=1400.78, SD=454.59). The â€Å"**† represents a p

Gender Roles in Edward Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Essay

Though usually viewed as a violent play about turbulent marriages, Edward Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? should be regarded as an early feminist text. Bonnie Finkelstein writes that the 1962 play portrays and analyzes the damaging effects of traditional, stereotypical gender roles, particularly for women; the play serves to point out how unrealistic, useless and extraordinarily damning they ultimately are. Finkelstein notes that the 1963 publication of Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique unofficially began a re-evaluation of gender roles in the United States (Finkelstein 55). Friedan explores the idea that women need more fulfillment in their lives than can be provided by the drudgery of childrearing and housekeeping. The book also carefully lays out what society has determined to be the ideal gender role requirements for women: â€Å"They could desire no greater destiny than to glory in their own femininity. Experts told them how to catch a man and keep him, how to breastfeed children and handle their toilet training†¦how to dress, look, and act more feminine and make marriage more exciting†¦They learned that truly feminine women do not want careers, higher education, political rights†¦All they had to do was devote their lives from earliest girlhood to finding a husband and bearing children.† (Friedan 15-16) And, more specifically: The suburban housewife†¦she was healthy, beautiful, educated, concerned only about her husband, her children, her home. She had found true feminine fulfillment.† (Friedan 18) Albee echoes this, noting by contrast what the ideal men and women in 1962 should be. In other words, his characters have failed at living up to gender roles and the play shows us how this quest has destroyed th... ...s flawed, proof that these gender roles are impossible to emulate. As Finkelstein notes, all four characters are afraid of Virginia Wolf, because she is, in 1962, the only icon of female equality society had. (Finkelstein 64) Works Cited Albee, Edward. Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? New York: Atheneum House, 1962. Finkelstein, Bonnie Blumenthal. â€Å"Albee’s Martha: Someone’s Daughter, Someone’s Wife, No One’s Mother.† American Drama (5) no. 1, Fall 1995. pg. 51-70. Friedan, Betty. The Feminine Mystique. New York: WW. Norton & Company, 1963. Julier, Laura. â€Å"Faces to the Dawn: Female Characters in Albee’s Plays.† Edward Albee: Planned Wilderness. Interviews, Essays and Bibliography. ed. Patricia De La Fuente. Edinburg, Texas: Pan American University Print Shop, 1980. Vogel, Paula. How I Learned to Drive. New York: Dramatists Play Service, 1998. Gender Roles in Edward Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Essay Though usually viewed as a violent play about turbulent marriages, Edward Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? should be regarded as an early feminist text. Bonnie Finkelstein writes that the 1962 play portrays and analyzes the damaging effects of traditional, stereotypical gender roles, particularly for women; the play serves to point out how unrealistic, useless and extraordinarily damning they ultimately are. Finkelstein notes that the 1963 publication of Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique unofficially began a re-evaluation of gender roles in the United States (Finkelstein 55). Friedan explores the idea that women need more fulfillment in their lives than can be provided by the drudgery of childrearing and housekeeping. The book also carefully lays out what society has determined to be the ideal gender role requirements for women: â€Å"They could desire no greater destiny than to glory in their own femininity. Experts told them how to catch a man and keep him, how to breastfeed children and handle their toilet training†¦how to dress, look, and act more feminine and make marriage more exciting†¦They learned that truly feminine women do not want careers, higher education, political rights†¦All they had to do was devote their lives from earliest girlhood to finding a husband and bearing children.† (Friedan 15-16) And, more specifically: The suburban housewife†¦she was healthy, beautiful, educated, concerned only about her husband, her children, her home. She had found true feminine fulfillment.† (Friedan 18) Albee echoes this, noting by contrast what the ideal men and women in 1962 should be. In other words, his characters have failed at living up to gender roles and the play shows us how this quest has destroyed th... ...s flawed, proof that these gender roles are impossible to emulate. As Finkelstein notes, all four characters are afraid of Virginia Wolf, because she is, in 1962, the only icon of female equality society had. (Finkelstein 64) Works Cited Albee, Edward. Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? New York: Atheneum House, 1962. Finkelstein, Bonnie Blumenthal. â€Å"Albee’s Martha: Someone’s Daughter, Someone’s Wife, No One’s Mother.† American Drama (5) no. 1, Fall 1995. pg. 51-70. Friedan, Betty. The Feminine Mystique. New York: WW. Norton & Company, 1963. Julier, Laura. â€Å"Faces to the Dawn: Female Characters in Albee’s Plays.† Edward Albee: Planned Wilderness. Interviews, Essays and Bibliography. ed. Patricia De La Fuente. Edinburg, Texas: Pan American University Print Shop, 1980. Vogel, Paula. How I Learned to Drive. New York: Dramatists Play Service, 1998.

Much Ado About Nothing Essay: Love Found and Conflict Resolved

Love Found and Conflict Resolved in Much Ado About Nothing      Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Much Ado About Nothing is a lighthearted play that Shakespeare wrote between 1598 and 1600. It has been described as one of his "more mature romantic comedies" (Bevington, 216). This play focuses on two different relationships, formed by two pairs of lovers. The comparison between how people went about getting married back then and how they do it now is similar in some ways. Much Ado About Nothing portrays the manner in which people fall in love, the way they interact with each other and how they manage to get through the rough times without changing their love for one another. The two couples include the young ladies, who are cousins, Beatrice and Hero, and the gentlemen, Claudio and Benedick. There is a lot of obvious love between Hero and Claudio and he has come to claim her as his own. However, there is some bad blood that runs between Benedick and his Beatrice. Little do they know that they are made for each other.    Messina, Italy, a small province facing the Straits of Messina, in northeastern Sicily, at the estate of the governor of Messina, Leonato is where this play is set. "Don Pedro of Aragon and his men are returning from a series of wars; stopping to visit Leonato, where they make plans to spend the next month. Among the group are Don John (Don Pedro's bastard brother who once led an unsuccessful revolt against him), young Claudio, and Benedick. The young men are reacquainted with Leonato's beautiful daughter Hero, and his spirited niece Beatrice...and once again, the verbal sparks fly between Beatrice and Benedick. Yet Claudio's fascination with Hero is born out of love, not scorn" (http://www.geocities.com/Broadway/1743/ado.html)... ...d Beatrice decide to get married at the same time as Claudio and Hero. In the end, everyone is happy, as expected. Hero and Claudio get what they want, and so do the other two lovers. This is one of the more light-hearted of Shakespeare's plays. It has all the elements of fun, family responsibility, and love. The main problem, the conflict between Beatrice and Benedick, is resolved.    Works Cited Bevington, David. The Complete Works of Shakespeare. 4th ed. New York: Harper Collins Publishers, 1992. Halliday, F.E. A Shakespeare Comparison. New York: Funk & Wagnalls Company, 1952. "An Analysis of Much Ado About Nothing." http://www.cwrl.utexas.edu/~babydoll/coursematerial/fall96/fallstudentwork/jbpublic_html/maana.html (16 April 2000). "Ye Olde Plot Summary: Much Ado About Nothing." http://www.geocities.com/Broadway/1743/ado.html (16 April 2000).

Pleasures of Eating Essay

In â€Å"The Pleasures of Eating† Wendell Berry wants the reader to recognize that eating is a cultural act. He believes we are eaters not consumers and that we should have more knowledge about the food we eat. Berry wants the reader to questions where the food is coming from, what condition is it produced in and what chemicals may it contains. He has found that the food industries blind us to what we are consuming and the effect it has on us. At last Berry believes that we must eat responsibly to live free. Berry first begins with eating as an agricultural act. We think of food as an agricultural product rather than think of ourselves participating in the agriculture. Berry sees us believing we are just consumers, as we buy what we want within our limits and what â€Å"they,† the industrial food companies, want us to buy. With this we ignore the most certain critical questions, â€Å"how fresh is it? How pure or clean is it? How pure or clean is it? How free of dangerous chemicals? How far was it transported? And what did transportation add to the cost? † (Berry 231). Berry recognizes that we are naive to believe that the food we buy is produced on an agriculture farm when we have no knowledge of what kind of far or where it is located. We only know of one process, when it appears on the grocery shelf. Industrial food companies blind us with product commercialization. â€Å"This sort of consumption may be said to be on of the chief goals of industrial production† (Berry 231). Industrial food companies have persuaded us to prefer the consumption of food that is already prepared. They have eliminated the agricultural work giving you the connivence of growing, delivering and cooking it all you for. If industrial food companies could find a way to gain profit from pre-chewing your food and feeding it to you they would do it. â€Å"When food in the minds of eaters, is no longer associated with farming and with the land, then the eaters are suffering a kind of cultural amnesia that is misleading and dangerous. † What Berry means by this is we give up knowing the history of our food and hand over all control and freedom. Like any politics it involves our freedom. By giving someone else the control we, â€Å"neglect to understand that we cannot be free unless our food is free† (Berry 232). Our food wars a much make up as actors (Berry 232). Berry expresses that the food industry wants little to do with our health but more to do with volume and price of their product. As scales increase, diversity declines when this happens so does health. From there the dependence on drugs and chemicals becomes necessary. Food advertising leads up to believe that what we eat is good, tasty, healthy and guaranteed to give us a long life (Berry 233). Industrialism is a trap. Berry believes how to escape this trap is to recognize the food problem as a whole and how eating is inescapable. In order to participate in the agricultural act you must; participate in food productions, prepare your own food, learn your foods origin, cut the middle man when you buy, learn about industrial food companies, good farming and gardening and learn from observation and experience. Berry takes pleasure in eating meat from non-suffering non-farm raised animals. As well as, fruits and vegetables that lived a plentiful life. He believes eating should be an extensive pleasure and the more we participate in agriculture and gain knowledge the more we live, â€Å"free from mystery, from creatures we did not make and powers we can not comprehend† (233). Although Berry made very good points on the importance of a healthy lifestyle he uses excessive amounts of emphasis on knowing what you are eating all the time. I believe if you set limits on the amount of industrialized food you consume, you will still be able to live a healthy and fulfilling life. â€Å"The consumer, that is to say, must be kept from discovering that, in the food industry-as in any other industry-the overriding concerns are not quality and health, but volume and price† (Berry 233) This direct quote was very strong and caught my attention. This made me realize that industrial food companies can be compared to any kind of business as their chief objective is increasing profit. There are, however, certain ways to get around the conventional food industry. It is possible to avoid the trap because after all â€Å"the trap is the ideal of industrialism† (Berry 233). Even though I agree with this certain point, I feel as if there might be a more effective approach that Berry could have taken when describing this so called â€Å"trap. † The way that Berry expresses his views makes it seem as if food industries are out to get you. The description of their goal to make consumers fall into a trap is on the extreme side. Wendell Berry seems to be very into the details of farming and how our meals are processed, but as someone who has been given a very fortunate life style, it is hard for me to relate. When I read I find myself to be having contradictory thoughts as this whole time I have disagreed with most things Berry said; with that being said, the main point of his article is that people take for granted their meals and have no idea the process farmers go through to make our lives the happy ones we live. So yes, Wendell Berry is right in saying people, like myself, should know more about the process and food we absorb each and every day. He does a great job of bringing in his arguments with the tone of his article and repetition of ideas. When he makes a point, he wants to â€Å"hammer it home. † Therefore, I have to applause him for his writing as he is a convincing writer with a strong knowledge base. His position on the food industry and the roles that consumers need to play in order to eat pleasurably is grand but some of his views were too extreme to persuade me.