The Inferno by Dante Alighiere Essay -- essays research papers

The Inferno by Dante Alighiere Translated by John Ciardi „ «Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Summary of plot, organization and resolution o  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The Inferno is the first of a three part series by Dante known as the Divine Comedy. In this Divine Comedy Dante chronicles his journey to God through the levels of Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise. The Inferno is his description of his journey through the levels of Hell. The Inferno begins with Dante lost in a dark wood, which possibly represented sin. Dante tried to exit the wood, but three impassible beasts blocked his path. Dante is rescued when the spirit of Virgil is sent to lead him to salvation, however, Dante must journey through hell to reach salvation. Dante and Virgil then journey through the levels of hell, with the occasional help of a heavenly messenger sent to aid Dante in his journey. Virgil describes Hell as cone shaped, made up of increasingly smaller levels depending on the severity of the sins which a person committed. The levels of Hell were often sub-divided allowing for even more discrimination depending on the severity of your sin. Dante com pletes his journey through hell when he and Virgil reach the deepest pit of hell, where they climb down the body of Lucifer to emerge in the southern hemisphere. „ «Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Tie to the middle ages and/or transition to the renaissance o  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The Inferno in some ways follows the mold of the middle ages, but the o...

Racism or Class Discrimination

Racism is an issue that has been prevalent within America for hundreds of years. We overcame slavery with the help of famous American leaders like Abraham Lincoln and fought for equal rights with the help of Martin Luther King Jr. Today we face the issue of a more discreet kind of racism- the kind of racism that is more felt than heard. A sales associate who may not ask a customer to leave because of the color of their skin, but follows the customer around the store to make sure he or she isn’t stealing is an example of discreet racism. This type of racism is harder to fight because it is harder to recognize than outward discrimination. It seems as though minorities, especially African-Americans, have a disadvantage from the time they are born. According to Leondar-Wright, â€Å"The median white family has more than $120,000 in net worth (assets minus debts), while the median black family has less than $20,000. † There are many reasons why black families’ net worth is so much lower than white families’, but among the most obvious reasons is discrimination. Children from low-income families tend to have more responsibilities than those from middle or high-income families. These responsibilities may take away from time spent on schoolwork. For example, if a fourteen year old must work to help pay household expenses because his or her parents are having trouble making ends meet, it is highly possible that time spent working could be taking away from time spent doing schoolwork. Even if a student does not have to work while in school, it is still possible that his or her parents (if the student is lucky enough to live with both their mother and father) work hours that would render him or her responsible for extended amounts of housework. Either way, it is likely that a low-income, minority student must work much harder than a middle or high-income student to achieve the same academic status. If and when African-American students are accepted into college, it is much harder for them to be granted a loan to help pay for their college education. Because loans are given based on current income to debt ratio, banks are more weary of lending money to low-income families for fear of not getting their money back. Even in college, many African-American students must work to support themselves, which takes up time. Time spent working, again is time that they could be using to study. Because of all the obstacles they face, African-American students must work much harder to accomplish the same achievements as white students. Once in the work place, whether it be after college or not, African-Americans still must work harder than Whites to attain the same level of success. Simply finding a job can prove to be a challenge for minorities. The old saying, ‘it’s not what you know, but who you know’ holds true for the job finding process. For many minority young adults, parents and relatives who may be able to assist in the job search have fewer connections than white families. Therefore, students from low-income families must work harder to find jobs than many students from white or middle-class families. Even the simple process of applying for a job proves to be yet another hurdle for minorities. In the essay ‘Institutional Discrimination’ by Robert Cherry, the term â€Å"statistical discrimination† is brought up. Statistical discrimination is referred to as â€Å"the process by which individuals are discriminated against when firms use group characteristics to screen individuals. † Because employers often have a large amount of applications to go through to fill one or just a small amount of positions, they often base their choices off ‘of group characteristics rather than individual information. ’ Because employers do not want to spend a lot of time screening potential candidates, they chose to discriminate against groups of people that, in their minds, are not as productive as others. According to a study by Irons and Moore, African-American workers tend to be left out of the â€Å"informal communications network. † This basically means they are left out of water cooler conversations that may provide valuable information to them pertaining to their work. The study also found that on average, it took much longer for African Americans to be promoted than their White co-workers, and that â€Å"They had to demonstrate over and over and over again that they were worthy of promotion. (Cose 78) Overall, the study found that success came later, harder, and at a lower degree for Blacks than Whites in America. Another point mentioned in Coses’ ‘Rage of a Privileged Class’ is something called the â€Å"self-fulfilling prophecy† (Cose 88), which basically states that performance is greatly based on expectations. For example, if someone believes they are expected to perform well at a particular task, they will most likely perform better than if he or she is expected to perform poorly. This concept can easily be applied to the classroom setting. If a teacher expects her white students to perform better than her minority students, this can have a great effect on her student’s performances. While racism is still an issue in the United States today, the main problem can be traced to the issue of class discrimination. The majority of minorities come from low-income families; â€Å"Poverty rates for Blacks (at 24. 3%) in 2006 were 16. 1% higher than Whites (at 8. 2%). † (H. T. Edney) Once born into a lower class family, your life will be filled with uphill battles and constant struggle. Lower class citizens are discriminated against everywhere in the United States. Banks hesitate to lend money to low-income students going to college, even though they must work harder to get into college than upper class students. Because they must work harder, low income students are more likely to appreciate the opportunity given to them and less likely to take advantage of any help he or she may receive along the way. If you are a lower-class African-American reading this essay, you may be wondering who today’s Martin Luther King Jr. ill be, or if there will be anyone from our generation who will pioneer for your rights. On the other hand, if you are a white, upper-middle class person reading this essay, you may not find racism to be an especially important issue in our society today. No matter your particular situation it is an inarguable fact that the socioeconomic class you are born into will become the chief factor in determining how far you will be able to go in life. Whether this is a good thing or not, may be up for some debate.

The Social Construction of the Amish Community

Sociology 1101 The Amish Community, an Example of Social Construction The Amish culture qualifies as an example of social construction because it is a belief that has important consequences for a large group of people. The people of the Amish community have specific rules they must follow. They believe that the outside culture has a morally polluting effect and that it promotes pride, greed, immorality and materialism. Some of the Amish beliefs include the concept that God will judge them on how well they have obeyed the church rules during their lifetime and that contact with the â€Å"outside world† makes it harder to obey their rules.This is the reason for their extreme isolation. Even though the Amish culture believes that the â€Å"outside world† has a polluting effect on them and their children, there is a time within the Amish community that the parents throughout the community allow their children to participate in events and activities that they usually wouldnà ¢â‚¬â„¢t be allowed to participate in. This time is referred to as Rumspringa. Rumspringa is also referred to as â€Å"running around† This is the term used to describe the period of adolescence Amish experience starting at around the age of sixteen.The parents of the children who choose to participate in this opportunity feel that their children cannot be shunned from the Amish community because they are not yet baptized and they are not yet under the authority of the church. Rumspringa helps the young adults to choose whether they want to join the church or not. The young adults can choose to join a youth group on the weekends usually. These different youth groups have different activities or events they participate in. There are two main groups; one considered the slower or plainer group and the other considered the faster group.The slower groups participates in activities such as volleyball games, and singing groups and are even sometimes supervised by adults while the fa ster group participates in parties and other activities considered less conservative. Although most people seem to think that the youth who participate in these groups are participating in heavy partying, drug use, premarital sex or other extreme behaviors this is usually not the case although these are not unheard of throughout the faster youth groups. The Amish community serves as an example of social construction because the ideas of this culture are passed along by xplaining each aspect of the community through personal interactions and friendships, people begin to believe these strict aspects are what are to be expected because so many other people of the Amish community are believing them and practicing them. Then the strict aspects of the Amish culture are eventually accepted and passed down from generation to generation. â€Å"The Amish people are direct descendants of the Anabaptists of the sixteenth century Europe. Anabaptism is the religion that came about during the ref ormation era.The term Anabaptist first started out as a nickname that meant re-baptizer, because this group rejected the idea of infant baptism, since an infant doesn’t yet have the knowledge of good and evil. The Anabaptists were seen as a threat to Europe’s religious and social institutions and were therefore persecuted. † The idea of Rumspringa first begins because of this specific aspect of the Amish culture, the belief that their children cannot be shunned by the Amish community because they are not old enough to know the difference between good and evil.This then allows the people of the Amish community to consider what the specific age of knowing good from evil is and then they present the specific idea of Rumspringa to the Amish culture. The Amish community passed through the three phases of Berger and Luckmann’s analysis by first; externalizing the ideas of the culture by putting an explanation of the ideas â€Å"out there† The Amish commun ity first presented the idea of Rumspringa to the entire community when they felt that their young adults should have a choice whether or not they wanted to continue to practice the Amish believes and pass them down to their children.Although it may seem that this act of Rumspringa is going completely against what the Amish community believes, the Amish parents do not encourage their youth to leave home and participate in sinful behaviors but they feel there must be at least some room for free choice in the decision to become Amish. Rumspringa was also explained as the time the Amish community allowed their young adult children to participate in youth groups that would lead them to finding a spouse and if this happened and the two young adults decided to get married their time of Rumspringa was over and they were now to be baptized.The second phase they passed their belief through is objectivation. This is the most crucial phase of construction. The strict rules of the Amish communi ty led the people of the Amish community to believe that being exposed to the outside world would pollute their minds. But, when the idea of Rumspringa was first put out there for people to consider, it showed that this would allow their children to participate in activities and groups that they were not usually allowing them too.At first the people of the Amish community felt this idea was crazy, but after it was explained that their children would not be shunned from the community because they had not yet been baptized and were not yet under the authority of the church and that their young adult children needed free choice in whether or not to continue the practices of the Amish culture, people began to really consider this idea. Many Amish families decided this was a good idea and began to practice this new belief.They felt this could actually help their family continue from generation to generation. The third phase of Berger and Luckmann is the phase of internalization. This new ly introduced belief of the Amish community was spreading quickly and more and more people began practicing this belief. More people of the Amish community began to involve this belief into their everyday lives because they felt this could lead their children to marriage and then they would soon be baptized and be considered under the authority of the church.People of the Amish community had children and has these children grew up they were introduced to the idea of Rumspringa and as these children grew into adults and had their own children they passed down the belief to their children and eventually the belief of Rumspringa throughout the Amish culture was now passed down from generation to generation religiously. Even though the idea of Rumspringa was doubted when it was first presented to the Amish community, the people of the Amish community began to actually consider the aspects of this new idea and realize this could help their children and even their families for generations .This is how the beliefs of the Amish community passed through the third phase of Berger and Luckmanns reality of construction. I believe that the beliefs of the Amish community could either be effectively challenged or accepted depending on the person who is examining and judging the culture. The Amish culture thoroughly explains each aspect of their culture and why they participate in each aspect. They have specific background information on why they now accept the idea of Rumspringa.I feel he Amish culture could also be effectively challenged because, even though the Amish culture presents their ideas of Rumspringa and explains that they feel this certain period of time in their children’s lives could effectively alter their lives for the better, this time doesn’t actually let their children move outside the community or even the home. The young adults of the Amish community don’t actually get to experience what it is like to live in a house where there is te levision or dress differently or even eat food they have never tried before.I feel the period of Rumspringa should be widened completely. The young adults should be able to spend six months to year physically living and working in a whole different world and this would actually allow them to make a completely honest choice about whether to join the Amish community church without the heavy influence of their parents. I feel this would effectively allow the young adults experience Rumspringa.

Analysis Of The Movie Blade Runner Film Studies Essay

Analysis Of The Movie Blade Runner Film Studies Essay The Blade Runner is a science fiction movie that was directed by Ridley Scott in 1982. The movie was written by David Peoples and Hampton Fancher, and was based on Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?† a novel that was authored by Philip K. Dick. The film depicts a 2019 dystopian Los Angeles, a period that is characterized by the construction of genetically modified organic robots that are referred to as â€Å"replicants.† Tyrell manufactured the robots and other big corporations around the world were physically indistinguishable from adult human beings. The replicants are banned and are only used for menial and dangerous works in the off-world colonies. Special police operatives referred to as â€Å"Blade Runners† hunt down the replicants who defy the ban. The film rapidly became a typical sect, with a great following of devoted fans (Hills, 2005). However, as with all sect classics, the movie has had countless critics, and the majority of these critics have gen erated incredibly similar criticism of the movie. They dismissed it as a good-loooking movie formed on the flimsiest of tales, a conquest of creation plan over substance. This statement even though incredibly vital and intrepid is not wholly without matter, with lots of plot turns and variations in the course, the themes are time and again difficult to track, as is the character conversation and the universal run of the plot which can irritate a lot of people and as a result, result in such awful critisism. When talking about this statement, one must assess a number of main scenes in the movie itself, make an analysis of both the story creation design and its content, and form a close reference to both. The first scene of key significance to both the story and the creation design is the prospect in which the observer first gets to know about Racheal. One gets to know about Rachael in the narrative as a Tyrell’s secretary, and a new outline of replicant, which is more or less human. However, she afterward becomes deckards love concern, which is relatively a satirical concurrence due to the reality that it is deckards occupation as a blade runner to execute replicants. Nevertheless the conversation is complex, and presumes too much of the watcher, in the logic, that it presumed that the watcher identifies more with the new globe than is told in actual facts.What is relatively astonishing, are the visuals in this scene which arrest the eye of the watcher easily. There is filming of the movie is done from a distant end of the room, in the evening. This looks out of the base to the ceiling removable window, of more or less prehistoric looking scenery, with pyramids and other prehistoric kind of buildings. The room itself has a distinct sentiment of the Mediterranean. It is in complete dissimilarity to the feeling of architecture of the movie, which has typically been that of grey dull buildings and dark uninviting streets. This is used to indicate the tremen dous disparity in riches amid tyrell, and the rest of the globe. This scene is occupied with classic narrative, although it is frequently difficult to understand the knowledge that is expected by the watcher. The visuals of the scene are exceptional, it is a good-looking backdrop and a visually striking scene, which as well distracts the sight from the character conversation, and creates difficulty to understand the slight scheme particulars in the scene (Sammon & Paul, 1997). In general, this scene is geared in the direction of the creation design side of the movie, and needs to utilize extra time on the story side.

Electoral Record and Contentious Issues Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Electoral Record and Contentious Issues - Essay Example Jack Layton, who was considered as universally respected led the NDP to elections in 2011, although he died from cancer in a tragic manner several months before the onset of the elections. The new leader for NDP, Tom Mulcair, as in the case of Layton, was bilingual and came from Quebec. However, the political career for Layton was based in Ontario, which was an English-speaking region, where Mulcair used to serve as a Minister for the provincial administration of Quebec. The Liberty Party was unsuccessful during the 2008 elections, while under the leadership of Stephane Dion as well as in the 2011 elections when Michael Ignatieff, a previous professor from Harvard led the party (Michaels, 2015). After the loss of the two academics, the party has decided to select a new leader, John Trodeau, whose name was popular as he is the son of Pierre Trudeau, who served as the previous Prime Minister (Michaels, 2015). At the birth of John Trudeau, his father served as the Prime Minister, meaning that in case the Liberal Party succeeded, then Trudeau would manage to step to the house, the Prime Ministerial dwelling situated at 24 Sussex Drive, Ottawa, since that was where he was raised (Brewster, 2015). Unfolding Count Canada is usually spread in times zones of about 4 hours, although the close times gap for the polls are compressed to approximately three hours. With the announcing of the results, bans have been put in place in the recent years with regard to reporting results for those provinces whereby voting is still taking place.

Health Care Policy in the United States Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Health Care Policy in the United States - Essay Example Health care in the United States has evolved considerably since its inception. Prior to 1990s, people rarely spoke about health care coverage issues, as health care was considered exclusively for the upper middle class of the society (Kronenfeld, 2002). Over the years of economic development in the United States, the health care policies came to include the middle and lower income classes of society. Over the course of 50 years, the United States has transformed the health care system into a billion-dollar industry. The companies, shareholders, and stakeholders associated with the health care system experienced huge gains and rapid growth throughout the period. The general health care was viewed important by each and every American; they took pride in the development of the system within the country, the increasing use of ever-evolving technologies, and the growth of modernized hospitals located throughout the country (Kronenfeld, 2002). Americans across the nation started believing that health care system was one of the contributing factors behind the enormous economic growth. A series of statistical studies regarding the health care system of the country revealed that they system was collapsing. Several independent researchers within the system concluded that the health care system was in a position of providing proper health care to only 60% of the chronically ill of the country. One of the main reasons supporting this theory was that about 15.8% of Americans were not covered by health insurance despite the United States spending 12% of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in 1990 on health care (Patel & Rushefsky, 2006). The other industrialized countries of the world – mainly Canada, West Germany, and Japan – spent much less on the health care of the country, yet were still able to provide comprehensive coverage to a greater portion of their populations. Use of the most advanced techniques for improving health care thus did not translate into a h ealthy population (Kronenfeld, 2002). Key amongst the problems with the health care system of the United States was the existence of more than one health care system. According to the study made by Torrens in the year, 1988 there were four different health care systems in the country. The first system covered the middle and the high-income group of the country – those were regularly employed and possessed comprehensive health insurance policies. The second system covered the poor population – those without any insurance coverage. The third and the fourth system of health insurance covered the working military personnels and their dependents and the retired military people, respectively (Kronenfeld, 2002). The health care system of the United States in essence had most of the population covered by private insurance and the government providing insurance mainly for the backward section of the society. To overcome the loopholes of the system of health care of the country and to alleviate the problems relating to the presence of more than one health care system in the country, one option is to form a nationalized health care system with the government of the country acting as the single player of the health care system. The total spending of the system of health care would be done from the government budget. Hence the government

What do subcultural theories have to offer our understanding of youth Essay

What do subcultural theories have to offer our understanding of youth crime - Essay Example You wonder why kids, especially the male gender before 18 years of age already have a bad reputation from school, which the criminal courts can also support. These young people already understand their cultural values and what their society upholds to be morally right and wrong, yet they go against it to prove it wrong. They form independent social structures, in which they set their own rules and conduct activities to satisfy their ambitions. Sub-cultural theories have put forward motives that drive most of the young people into crime and deviance. Lynch (2000) mentioned that crime does not necessarily happen because people have been imperfectly socialized, but instead occur, for they get to be socialized in a deviant group and learn its values. Their formulated values and beliefs are what they use to justify their illegal conduct in the midst of the dominant culture. It is the desire for most people to achieve and live the American dream in their lifetime. Acquiring wealth and living a satisfactory life seems challenging and only few in the society have managed that. Although people can get a good salary, the life standard has gone up increasing the expenses incurred. This puts a barrier between the rich and the poor in the society, which determines their power to access their needs and their position in the society. According to Vito, Maahs and Holmes, the American sub cultural theories stem out of anomie and social disorganisation perspective; focusing on the lower class in the society, and the formation and activities that explain the delinquent subcultures (2007, p. 160). The concept of psychological strain on the lower social group in their state of idleness and poverty, make the people to look for alternative means to sustain their lives. Often, it is possible to see states and countries that have low economic and safety nets than others, which have high crime rates. The chances of economic and socially powerful families