John Updikes A&P Essay -- John Updike A&P Essays

John Updikes A&PIn a small township everything is familiar and a great deal taken for granted. In John Updikes short story, A&P, the main character, Sammy, discovers a beauty unlike anything he has ever seen in his small town before. Queenies simple magnificence so stuns him that he quits his job in her defense. The narrator saysAround they come, Queenie still leading the way, and holding a miniature gray jar in her hand. Slots Three through Seven are unmanned and I could see her delight ining between Stokes and me, but Stokesie with his usual fate draws an old party in baggy gray pants who stumbles up with four giant cans of pineapple plant juice (what do these bums do with all that pineapple juice Ive often asked myself) so the girls come to me. Queenie puts down the jar and I take it into my fingers icy cold. Kingfish Fancy Herring Snacks in Pure Sour thrash well-nigh 49. Now her hands are empty, not a ring or a bracelet, bare as God made them, and I wonder where the mon eys coming from. Still with that prim look she lifts a folded dollar bill out of the hollow at the center of her nubbled pink top. The jar went heavy in my hand. Really, I thought that was so cute. The narrative voice in this selection clearly demonstrates the qualities of the main character, the narrator. Through the diction and tone contained within the narrative voice, it is axiomatic that Sammy is still in his teens and has a very mature perception of women. It is first helpful to know that A&P is written in the first soulfulness and that the narrator is an objective narrator that is, he relies on his observations and never knows what is going on in the minds of others. Sammy is also a participant narrator because he is in the story he is telling. Because Sam... ...t. Sammy has the right to be excited by something out of the ordinary, and it is clear in is tone that he is excited. The use of a relaxed tone in a first-person narrative voice simplifies the langua ge to a degree that suggests the narrator is quite young, probably still in his teens. His job at the A&P may be his first real working experience in his small town, and it is evident that he has adopted a certain mindset about the people who come in. When three unique girls (unique among each other and unique to their environment) enter the store in bathing suits and bare feet, Sammy is excited by the alteration in pace. He becomes so mentally involved with their existence without mentioning any sort of sexual attraction, that even the reader adopts an awe in Queenie and her followers. Sammy is young, but his style is most mature, and certainly admirable.

Censorship :: essays papers

CensorshipCensorship is a variety of things from yelling fire in a crowdedtheater to showing sexual telling on television. These thingsarent all either, there are millions of things we use or see every daythat are censored for a reason. The reason can be many but the threemost important reasons are for an adult or childs well being, for thedecency of our society and for privacy of each other. all in all of thesethings are censored because our lives are influenced by these reasonsin one way or another. This will tell you that with out censorship wewould live in a world so dirty and irresponsible so indecent andshameful that it could not exist. We pretty much ignore the growth in strength and sexual abuse in our movies and on television. Have theygone away? According to researchers at the University of Pennsylvania,by the time an average child leaves high school, he or she will havewatched the happening of 18,000 murders on television. Prime time saysthe National Coalition on Television Violence, is filled with degradingsexual material and incidents where violence is strongly glamorized orused to excite. There have been 85 major studies of the effects ofsuch violence on children. Eighty-four of the eighty- five concludedthat it caused an growing in all manner of aggressive behavior, up toand including homicide. What happened to the one study that disagreed?Well, they were paid off by the National Broadcasting Company that justshows how criminal they are of producing violence from television.Another study shows that American children are having sexualintercourse at an average age of 16. If the te levision was notcensored as much as it is today these things would be much worse, ourchildren would be sexual active at very young ages and crime rateswould shoot upward. A civilization does not rise in the strength ofits laws, however. It rises on the strength of its values. Whatvalues are we teaching by not having censorship in our society? No itsnot freedom of speech and its not freedom of the press. It is decency.What all civilize social orders, including our own, have consistentlyidentified as decent, civilized behavior. The real threat to therepublic is not what might happen to rights, but what is happening to a

Teacher Certification Requirements History :: Education Teachers Teaching Essays

instructor Certification Requirements History The first training facility for instructors dates back to 1785. Many others came about surrounded by 1785 and the early 1800s. It was not until the mid 1830s that these teacher preparation schools became state subsidized. In the year 1839 the first state normal school was established, two others would take note the next year. Also, during the 1830s and 1840s, there was a movement to replace tuition schools with common schools. This created two different types of schools rural, one room school houses, and city schools (Angus). Teacher certification became a requirement in the latter half of the 19th century. The process of certifying teachers began primitively. Prospective teachers were required to take oral examinations conducted by local officials, unremarkably the principal. The purpose of these examinations was mainly to ensure that the prospective teacher was more highly educated than the oldest stud ent attending the school was. Due to the shortage of teachers, the proctor of these exams make sure that almost everyone qualified. Urban boards of education had the liberty to dictate the difficulty of the entrance exams depending upon the current demand for teachers (Angus). An account from Martha Russels journal in 1868 regarding these examinations reads I feel wretched this evening and a good deal relieved as the teachers examinations came off today and I came through alive, as you see. Did better than I expectedthere were six in the class (Macneal). This goes to show that all of the examinations were not as simple where teachers were in less of a demand. In 1897 teacher certification was granted to those who graduated from college without taking any further exams in twenty-eight of the states. Due to the fact that one did not have to have their course in education to teach, only about a dozen out of the 400 colleges and universities offered teaching degrees. Du ring this time 114 colleges and universities only offered specific courses for teachers. At the close of the nineteenth century the state supported teacher schools, or as they were more commonly called, normal schools became popular ways for teachers to be certified.

David St. John :: essays research papers fc

The Work of David St. crapper David St. John writes of love in a pessimistic way in his assemblage of poems, The Red Leaves of Night. His writings suggest love is unattainable and his relationships with people ( peculiarly with females) be portrayed as negative. St. John creates a fallen man in his text, especially when his poems focus on his dilemmas with women. Psychoanalysis plays a large role in the writings of St. John being that he shows the effects of his autumn and the negativity the downfall incorporates. Lacanian psychoanalysis suggests our language is structured like our subconscious and full of desires. Lacanian analysis also shows that the signs in language are split between the signifier and the sensory faculty and the barrier between the two lead to unfulfilled desires. St. Johns poetry is swarming with lines alluding to unfulfilled desires or a longing for things that simply cannot be obtained. St. John establishes the breaking of a psyche and through Lacanian a nalysis we can see that the desires expressed in his poetry will never be met. Through Lacanian analysis, we are able to see that St. John is seeking more, and wanting more substance out of relationships and his life that cannot be obtained. St. John is longing for a sense completeness moreover his completion is something that can never happen. Lacan shows the human psyche in three parts, similar to that of Sigmund Freud. Lacan calls the three parts Orders and they consist of the Imaginary, the Symbolic, and the Real. The Imaginary is the part of the psyche that contains our wishes, fantasies, and, more or less importantly, images (Bressler 156). Lacans major focus is in his theory that our psyche is lack and fragmentation. We have longings for love, for physical pleasureKbut nothing can fulfill our desire to come down to the Imaginary Order and be at one with our mother (Bressler 158). Many of the poems in The Red Leaves of Night withhold the sense that St. John is yearning for something and is never complete. For example, in his poem The Unsayable, the Unknowable & You St. John presents a situation where he is completely captivated by a woman and lusts for more activity with her. My look upon A night alone (again) with you,tracing/This brocade of sweat along your amber shoulder./Lets weave together the dawns superior light-/A script of bodies, inscribed by the summers night (St.

The Lottery Essay -- essays research papers

When you hear the word drafting, you probably think of winning a large sum of money in front being stoned to death. " The Lottery" by Shirley Jackson brings this horrible idea to life. While the overall mood of the chronicle depicts a typical day in a small rural town, through great use of imagery and irony, one is set up for an unusual ending. Shirley Jackson uses the element of surprise. The way of the story ends is unlike anyone could predict.      The main object of The Lottery is the action of the lottery itself and perhaps the slips of paper. The actions that make the story are all connected to the preparation for, drawing of, and consequences of the lottery. Mr. Summers treats the lottery with cold precision as if this duty was as normal as all the other duties he performs for the town. The Townspeople respect the lottery and actually bulge to fear it ever so slightly. Mrs. Hutchinson when faced with the possibility of winning the drawing panic s and tries everything she can think of to decrease her chance of winning or avoiding it altogether. Mrs. Hutchinson is the main pistillate character of the story and is probably the strongest example of a weak, powerless, scared woman in all the stories we reviewed. She is the last to show for the drawing, she disputes the results of both drawings once completed, and she makes every look for to lower her chance of winning by drawing her married daughters into her families drawing. Mrs. Hutchinson sho...

The Lottery Essay -- essays research papers

When you hear the word lottery, you plausibly think of gentle a large sum of money before being stoned to death. " The drawing" by Shirley Jackson brings this horrible idea to life. While the overall mood of the story depicts a typical day in a small unpolished town, through great use of imagery and irony, one is set up for an unusual ending. Shirley Jackson uses the element of surprise. The way of the story ends is unlike anyone could predict.      The main reject of The Lottery is the action of the lottery itself and perhaps the slips of paper. The actions that make the story are all connected to the preparation for, drawing of, and consequences of the lottery. Mr. Summers treats the lottery with cold precision as if this duty was as normal as all the other duties he performs for the town. The Townspeople respect the lottery and actually appear to fear it ever so slightly. Mrs. Hutchinson when faced with the possibility of winning the drawing panics and tries everything she can think of to decrease her chance of winning or avoiding it altogether. Mrs. Hutchinson is the main female character of the story and is probably the strongest example of a weak, powerless, scared woman in all the stories we reviewed. She is the last to show for the drawing, she disputes the results of both drawings once completed, and she makes every attempt to lower her chance of winning by drawing her married daughters into her families drawing. Mrs. Hutchinson sho...