Effects of Violent TV Programming on Adolescent Behavior Essay

Violent behavior is a central theme in many kinds of media. Television and movies depict violent behaviors as acceptable ways of communicating and resolving problematic social situations (Strasburger & Donnerstein, 1999). During the twentieth century, Americans were introduced to a wide variety of media technology, including televisions, digital computers, video cassette players and handheld electronic machines (Anderson & Bushman, 2001). Although television is but one of the many media venues, it represents the predominant medium to which very young children are exposed. The 1972 report to the Surgeon General found that 96% of American homes have one or more television sets and the average home set is on more than six hours a day and frequent viewing usually begins at about age 3 and remains relatively high until about age 12 (1972, pp. 1-2). Kaiser’s study (1999) found that children spend up to 40 hours per week in front of the television. For children under the age of 7, Wright et al. (1994) found that media exposure averaged just over four hours per day. Other studies have concurred that the television has become a predominant medium of experience for the child. In a 1990 position paper, the NAEYC stated that the trend toward increased depiction of violence in the media jeopardizes the healthy development of significant numbers of our nation’s children (1990, p. 18). The viewing experience is highly complex, subjective, and dependent upon the child’s level of cognitive and emotional understanding (Wright et al. , 1994). Social scientists and policy makers have expressed concern about the potential negative impact of exposure of violence on children (Bushman & Geen, 1990). They have explored the negative impact longitudinally, both experimentally and observationally, and found that children as young as 2 and into adolescence are adversely affected by televised violence. Studies demonstrated that after viewing violent programs, the child behaved aggressively and imitated the scenes of the violent behavior in his play (Anderson & Bushman 2001). This paper explores the current state of research in this area and seeks for the relationship between television watching and childhood violence. Television and Violence The most recent large-scale longitudinal study was initiated in 1994 by researchers at the Universities of California, Texas, Wisconsin, and North Carolina. The National Television Violence Study (NTVS) was deemed the largest scientific study of television violence ever undertaken (Federman, 1998). NTVS involved a three-year effort (1994-1997) to review violence in televised programming. It examined three areas of concern: televised programming context, factors that either positively or negatively alter the risk of viewing violence, and the interactions between programming and the viewers. In this study, nearly 10,000 hours of televised cross-channel programming were examined using five major groupings: broadcast networks, independent broadcast, public broadcast, basic cable, and premium cable. The authors found that 61% of programs contain violence. By the third year of the study, there was more violent interaction observed across the programs analyzed. Specific to the younger child, the study found that children’s programs, as a genre, contained the greatest share (50%) of all high-risk violent interactions, as well as the highest ratio of interactions per hour (. 75) (Federman, Vol. 3, 1998, p. 175). Child-oriented cable programs such as those on Cartoon Network, Disney, or Nickelodeon contained the most high risk violent interactions (27%), compared to general-entertainment basic cable (24%), independent broadcast (19%), and premium cable (17%) (Federman, 1998). Early morning viewing, which is primarily child-focused cartoon programming, has at least one high-risk violent presentation every hour. In one week, a child is exposed to at least 20 violent behavior depictions, and in one year over 1,000, if he watches three hours of early morning television a day (Federman, 1997-1998). The authors also found that over the course of three years there was little change in the overall number of violent programs. However, there was a significant increase (8%) in the portrayals of violent incidents per program and children’s programs continued to depict violence in animated stories (Federman, Vol. 2, 1998). In many of these violent interactions, the main character did not experience any appropriate consequences for aggressive behavior. One of the goals of the NTVS was to encourage more responsible television programming and viewing. The study emphasized the message that understanding the impact of viewed televised violence offers an opportunity to significantly reduce the risks to society that are posed by exposure to televised violence. Young Child’s Experience of Violence The American media is rife with portrayals of justified violence (Federman, 1997-1998). The good guy beats up the bad guy, and laughter or expressions of glee follow hurtful acts. This conveys the message that aggression is an acceptable way to solve problems and express frustration. Children of all ages watch television and videos on a daily basis and are exposed to acts of violence that potentially shape their way of thinking and behaving (Minow & Lamay, 1995, p. 36) Cartoons feature patterns that are more likely to encourage aggression in children, especially if they are under the age of seven (Boyatzis et al. , 1987). Aggressive behaviors, often portrayed in the genre of animation aimed at children, are confusing for the young child. The stories presented as humorous, with laughter accompanying actions that are hostile and aggressive. This may lead to a decrease in his potential fear of danger and may also foster desensitization to harmful situations (Federman, 1997-1998). Significant results revealed that televised violence is changing the behavior of children (Federman, 1997-1998). Individuals of all ages learn through observation. Three important factors affect the impact of learning through modeling. First, the more engaging and attractive the model is, the more the viewer will stay attentive; the less appealing the character is, the more likely the viewer will be distracted or ignore the experience. The second compelling factor is the repeated exposure of the modeling stimuli. As a result of repeated exposure, modeling stimuli eventually produces enduring, retrievable images (Bandura, 1977, p. 25). The third factor, the complexity of the observed experience, affects the rate of observational learning. It is based on the observer’s capacity to process information. However, the young child may imitate without knowing what his behavior means. Bandura suggests that immediate imitation does not require much in the way of cognitive functioning because the behavioral reproduction is externally guided by the model’s action (Bandura, 1977, p. 27). Bandura’s research throughout the 1960s and 1970s with the inflatable Bobo doll demonstrated a relationship between viewing aggressive acts of behavior and performing them. He found that children would more often choose the Bobo doll to punch after viewing a televised violent program than reading a book or choosing a quiet game. Although Bandura’s work on modeling has been challenged over the years, there has been strong support. Later researchers have expanded Bandura’s initial studies, finding that the younger the child is, the more likely he will use imitation rather than rational thinking to choose an appropriate, non-violent way of relating. Eron et al. (1972) reported a strong relationship between viewed violence at age 8 and aggressive behavior. Canton and Sparks (1984) found that preschool children have a greater fear response than older children and react accordingly to what they see. Singer et al. (1999) concluded that there was a significant association linking violent exposure with children’s self-reported violent behaviors. Boyatzis et al. ‘s 1995 study of 52 elementary school children with a mean age 7 years, 9 months, showed how children reacted to watching an episode of The Power Rangers. They found that the child’s aggressive tendency and lack of fear was immediate and markedly greater following an exposure to but a single episode of The Power Rangers. (Boyatzis et al. , 1995, p. 53). Animated programming such as The Power Rangers, Ninja Turtles characterizes the hero as attractive, strong, and powerful. These characters use violence to solve problematic situations and rescue the helpless victim. The NTVS found that a preschooler who watches an average of 2 hours a day of such content will 43 be exposed to at least 10 hazardous portrayals a week, and over 500 in a year (Federman, Vol. 3, 1998, p. 163). Other studies have documented the relationship between exposure to violence and aggressive thought and action. For example, Josephson (1987) presented two television excerpts, one violent and one non-violent, to 396 third-grade boys from 13 schools. She hypothesized that there was a relationship between viewed violence and aggressive play behavior. Significance was found in increased aggressive behavior in boys who played a game of hockey after watching a violent program. Boys who scored high on characteristic levels of aggressiveness used more aggressive behaviors in their hockey game if they were in the groups that viewed violence. Furthermore, she found that the boys who watched the violent tape and were not given verbal cues about appropriateness of the behavior played more aggressively after the tape than either the boys who watched a non-violent tape, or boys who watched a violent tape but were given verbal cues that commented on appropriateness of behavior(Josephson, 1987). Children are being presented with messages that invite aggressive ways of relating to resolve situations and handle life events (Groves 2002). Current televised shows use cartoons, as well as live actors, to display forms of aggression as a means of relating to others and solving problems. A significant shift in televised programming, though, has occurred with the portrayal of aggressive behavior through more real life characterization, as illustrated in shows like The Power Rangers. The visual experience of aggressive behavior has become more like real life to the child because instead of viewing animated characters using aggressive behavior, the child can now watch individuals similar to himself transmogrify into violent machines (Boyatzis et al. , 1995). In this mechanical state, the portrayed behavior is violent and aggressive with the child’s intention of solving a problem. Witnessing these aggressive acts of behavior gives the child a script to construct his social interactions. Since young children create and store behavior that they see, viewing violence becomes a potential way of relating to an experience. Whether the televised programming is in the form of cartoons or real life, social scripts are constructed by the child and are then employed in day-to-day experiences (Groves 2002). Mitigating the Influence of Violent Television Even though there have been numerous studies documenting the impact of televised violence on the behavior of children, the television industry has been reluctant to change violent programming (Singer et al. , 1999). As a result, recent research has focused on how to mitigate the experience of what the child sees rather than waiting for the industry to change what is presented to the public. The child uses internal processes, relying on cognitive and emotional capacities, to actively understand what has been experienced. In his efforts to understand these experiences, the child will find a way to concretize the experience into either emotional or behavioral responses. Younger children need the assistance of another to understand what they experience because they are unable to adjust their viewing and comprehension activities in response to learning instructions (Field & Anderson, 1985, p. 91). Collins, Sobol, and Westby (1981) studied 47 children with a mean age of 7. 8 years. Children who watched a program in the presence of an adult who provided ongoing commentary showed improved comprehension of the plot and the witnessed experiences. Without adult participation, the younger children remembered only the aggressive behaviors without remembering the link to either the motive or the consequence. Huesmann et al. (1983) sampled 169 first- and third-grade children over a two-year period. The focus of the study was to mitigate the relation between aggression and television violence viewing in children through an intervention that altered the children’s attitudes about aggression and violent shows (Huesmann et al. , 1983, p. 899). They found a significant change in how the child responded to violence when the experimenter commented on the violent behavior. More children responded with appropriate answers when they were directly asked, â€Å"what are the bad things that could happen when a child imitates the aggressive behavior of a character? † St. Peters et al. (1991) found that the role of co-viewing by the parent with the child is beneficial. This study was conducted over a two-year period and involved the participation of 271 children, ages 3 to 5 years, and their parents. Parental comments about the televised material helped the children understand what they saw. The parents’ comments differentiated acceptable and non-acceptable behavior for the child. Young children need this clarification and guidance because they have relatively few internal structures to guide them in their behavior (St. Peters et al. , 1991). Kubey (1996) noted that network and cable programming are unsuitable for some children, especially the young child. No amount of adult commenting will completely mitigate what a child experiences. Monitoring and limiting a child’s choice of television shows to reduce the exposure to violent behaviors is similar to monitoring a child’s choice of foods to ensure health and nutrition. Children are victims to the effects of exposure to violence. Parents are critically important as a resource for the child in his attempt to understand the world. Grover (2002) noted that the child who has been exposed to violence responds more favorably to a nurturing, sensitive and caring adult relationship. The more parents know about their child’s changing capacities to understand the world, the better able they are to respond empathically and appropriately to the child (Garbarino, 1992). However, it is essential, as a parent is a primary resource to buffer, explain and clarify life experiences for the child that are beyond the child’s capacity to understand ((Minow & Lamay, 1995). The study by Singer et al. (1980) found that parents influenced their children’s perceptions of the importance of television by the type and amount of television viewing they had. Collins et al. (1981) found that parental commentary helped children understand the implicit program content. The longitudinal study by St. Peters et al. (1991) of 3- and 5-year-olds and their families’ viewing patterns found that parents’ viewing choices play a role in determining a child’s exposure to television programs. Conclusion Young children often copy the violent actions that they have witnessed. Bandura’s work on modeling in the field of social learning has been significant in conceptualizing the relationship between viewing violence and subsequent behaviors. The solution for ameliorating the impact of televised violence focuses on change in parental attitudes as well as profound changes in the entertainment industry. Changing parental attitudes and behavior toward media violence is more feasible than changing the way the entertainment industry portrays violence. Educating parents about the child’s cognitive and emotional developmental capacities has been recommended widely as one solution to lessen the potential impact of media violence. References Anderson, C, & Bushman, B. (2001). Effects of violent video games on aggressive behavior, aggressive cognition, aggressive affect, physiological arousal, and prosocial behavior: A meta-analytic review of the scientific literature. American Psychological Society, 12, pp. 353-359. Bandura, A. (1977). Social learning theory. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall. Boyatzis, C. J. , Matillo, G. M. , & Nesbitt, K. M. (1995). Effects of â€Å"The Mighty Morphin Power Rangers† on children’s aggression with peers. Child Study Journal, 25(1), pp. 45-55.

Glendun river fieldwork report CCEA

The aim of my fieldwork is to study how a river's dynamics change downstream. Specifically I shall be looking at how particle size, discharge, cross sectional area, velocity, gradient and width change downstream. Planning To give a clear aim to my investigation I have decided to prove or disprove three hypotheses. These are based on the ideal river model and they are: * Downstream discharge will increase * Downstream particle size will decrease * Downstream the gradient of the river will decrease As a class we decided that the Glendun River was an appropriate river to study since its length facilitates for a noticeable change in results between its source and its mouth. The river is also only an hour's driving time from our school and the river has relatively easy access. It also has minimum human interference which could corrupt our data. This location has also been used in past river studies by our school and no safety problems arose in the past. We also discussed the possible safety issues that we should be aware of such as Weil's disease, slippery rocks and pot holes in the river. We then ensured that a first aid kit was brought with us as well as mobile phones in case of an emergency and that appropriate clothing was worn. Also everyone was made aware of what procedures to follow in an emergency. The week before the fieldtrip we conducted a small pilot study in a small stream in the grounds of our school where we tested each piece of equipment to make sure it functioned correctly. We discovered that our flow metre was faulty so we decided to instead to time how long it took for an object to cover a stretch of river. We decided to use an orange since it is buoyant and brightly coloured and to use a 10 metre stretch of river since we are using it for other measurements and it is long enough to give reliable results. Also on the week before of our teachers went down to the river on a pre-site visit to check that all of our pre-determined sites were viable to use. She concluded that all our sites were practical to use in our investigation. Data Collection: Collected on Thursday 25th October The primary data used in this investigation is the results we took down on the fieldtrip. The secondary data sources we are going to use are the internet, our class notes and handouts, the David Wough AS level textbook and the Ordnance survey map. The type of sampling used on the fieldtrip was systematic; the sites chosen to investigate were 1.3km apart. Pragmatic sampling would have to have been used in the event that one of the pre defined sites proved to be inaccessible on the day; none of which were. Particle Size Particle size was recorded at each stop by two people measuring the longest axis of 30 stones from the river bed while a third person recorded the results. The average of the lengths was taken for each stop. The equipment used was a metre ruler. Cross Sectional Area The width of the river was measured by two people with a measuring tape at either side of the river. The depth was then recorded by another person with a metre stick taking measurements from the measuring tape to the riverbed in increments of 0.5 metres until the whole width of the river was recorded and then an average depth was calculated from these results. The cross sectional area was then worked out by multiplying the average depth by the average width. Velocity A ten metre stretch of the river was measured with the tape measure. An orange was dropped at the upstream end and a stopwatch was used to record the time taken for the orange to travel the ten metre stretch. This was repeated three times and an average taken. If the orange got stuck that particular attempt would be scrapped and then it would be carried out again. Gradient The gradient of the river was calculated with an abney level and a gauging pole. We used the same ten metre marking used when we measured velocity. We took three readings along the ten metre width and calculated the average gradient from them. Discharge The discharge of the river was worked out by multiplying the average velocity and the average cross sectional area found at each site to give the discharge.

Summery Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words - 5

Summery - Essay Example However, people who fall in the minority group category still face discrimination even in a democratic society. In most cases, discrimination happens on grounds of sex, race, and religion. The American society gives the best-learnt lesson of discrimination based on race. Although the blacks and whites now have the same freedoms and rights, discrimination according to race is still an issue of urgency. This is because many people still suffer from the effect of racial discrimination. Discrimination comes in forms including indirect discrimination, direct, victimization and harassment. The article â€Å"Two Muslim religious leaders sue airlines for discrimination† written by Jim Barnett, shows a classical example of discrimination according to race at present. In this case, the two imams sued the Delta Airlines for the discrimination meted on them. The Muslim leaders underwent checking three times before the plane took off (Barnett 2011). Even after boarding, and the plane had left the gate where they had undergone a second checking by the security, the pilot felt uncomfortable with the imams and took the plane back to the gate for the imams to undergo checking. The essay sums it all by emphasizing the need to phase out discrimination in all its forms. All people are equal as per the Declaration of Independence. Legislation, education, and promotion of inter group contacts can help in reducing discrimination and

Learning Theories Paper Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Learning Theories Paper - Essay Example he constructivist theory allows for a more dynamic role on the part of the learner by engaging him/her actively to analyze, conceptualize and synthesize the current objective in light of the previous knowledge by forming constructs. A constructivist classroom is a dynamic and ‘happening’ place where most of the learning process is carried out by the students themselves, with the teacher merely facilitating by putting forth queries that keep up a healthy classroom discussion. The teacher always makes the students recall any previous knowledge they might have, and shares the learning objective to be achieved. Student input is invited as to how the object might be achieved by following certain success criteria. The query put across to the class is ‘This is what we’ll learn today; how do you think we might go about learning it?’ Active participation from all members of the class, individually as well as in groups, enables the class to reach a conclusive construct regarding the learning objective at hand. Group formation not only instils the value of teamwork in the class, it also reinforces respect for a differentiated working environment having students belonging to various academic, social and cultural backgrounds. The teacher always bears in mind that individual student’s faith and background has a significant effect on the extent of their learning capability and subtly tries to maximize it. He encourages each student to give their response and ask questions, however insignificant they might seem, hence facilitating the emotional fulfilment of the class The constructivist theory impacts the students positively. Repeated application of constructivism enables the student to acquire knowledge that is multidimensional while transforming them into confident, original, responsible and creative individuals. The teacher looks out for misconceptions which are evident as a result of discussion and guides the students in the right direction of questioning. In

Summaries Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Summaries - Assignment Example The author claims that science does not end with one discovery, because a new finding often leads to further questions which serve as a new challenge for scientists. The article outlines the four-step process undertaken by scientists to come up with new theories. The scientific process always starts with a fruitful question. A fruitful question is a question which in spite of taking into consideration everything known about the object or event, still crops up and remain a mystery about such object or event (The scientific state of mind 399). After identifying a fruitful question, the scientist comes up with several hypotheses that are possible answers to the questions. These hypotheses are then tested, either through laboratory experiments or through scientific observations. If a hypothesis is proven to be true, then it will be considered as a theory. The fourth stage follows which is known as the â€Å"question chain† because after coming up with a scientific theory, new ques tions come up that will again go through the scientific process. One can therefore say that the scientific process is a cycle because it goes on and on. ... The arguments enumerated by the author are clearly presented in the essay. First, he asserts that prostitution provides job opportunities for women. It pays more than the other lowly jobs such as servants and factory workers (Enough already, it's time we decriminalize prostitution 437). Furthermore, based on his interviews with prostitutes, some of these women freely chose to become prostitutes and are happy with their jobs. The author also argues that the decriminalizing prostitution offers safeguards to both the prostitutes and their clients. Problems such as sexually-transmitted diseases and low rates are better addressed. Prostitutes get police protection. Clients obtain a sense of security because prostitutes are required to register with the authorities and they undergo medical testing. The author professes that criminalization of prostitution is worse. He cites Sweden’s experience after it criminalized commercial sex in 1998. He says that the rates became lower, clients were fewer and there were more incidences of violence. The author concludes by stating that people should not make hasty generalizations by saying that â€Å"sex workers are victims and all clients are demons† (Enough already, it's time we decriminalize prostitution 437). He goes on further to say that people should not be moral judges and instead be more honest on the issue of prostitution (Enough already, it's time we decriminalize prostitution 437). Improvements Made and Principles Discovered Through these exercises one has learned that in summarizing articles, it is important first to state the title and author. One must also identify the main thesis of the article and state

Explain the key arguments presented by Thomas Szasz (in the texts Essay

Explain the key arguments presented by Thomas Szasz (in the texts studied on this course) against the current practice of psychiatry. Assess the significant strengths and weaknesses - Essay Example psychiatry is against autonomy and individual choice; psychiatry is based on false assumptions which cannot be proven; and finally, that psychiatry should be a means through which there is an attempt to help individuals understand themselves and others in society. One of the most significant arguments made by Szasz against psychiatry is that psychiatrists are successors to priests and other religious figures. This succession came about through getting directly involved in the attempt to solve the various problems that seem to be plaguing individuals, especially in the case where it was believed that these individuals needed spiritual intervention (Szasz 1974, p.181). He argues that this is exactly the case with modern psychiatry where practitioners seek to classify the various problems of living that some individuals in society might have as mental illnesses. The argument of classification is strength because it creates a situation where the psychiatrist comes to have incredible control over the lives of his patients and this in such a manner that he is able to determine what he would like to do with them. That psychiatrists have a level of power over their patients comes about through their being able to recommend that they be confined in me ntal institutions for a certain period as a means of treating their mental illnesses. It creates a situation where it is extremely difficult for individuals in society to escape the clutches of control because psychiatrists, using medical terms, act as priests did using religious terms, can still impose control over those who have put their faith in them. A weakness of this argument is that it does not attempt to show the origins of the behaviours which can be considered as not being normal within human society. Such behaviours include the mentality of murderers who do not feel remorse for their actions despite the latter being horrific. However, one would agree with Szasz’z argument because it is a means of showing the

Choose one country in the world and answer the following questions. i Essay

Choose one country in the world and answer the following questions. i pickd Brazil - Essay Example language is Portuguese, and although Brasilia is the capital city, Sao Paulo is the largest city in the country (as of 2012 its population stands at massive 11.2 million). Rio de Janeiro, Belo Horizonte and Salvador are also hugely populated. The annual population growth rate currently stands at 1.17%- one of the fastest in the world. Life expectancy in Brazil is one of the highest in the world at 73.1 years, with an average annual income of $12,917; the GDP (nominal exchange rate) is $2.5 trillion, while the GDP (purchasing power parity) is $2.3 trillion (Richard 52). Annual growth stands at 3.5% as of 2012. According to the Brazilian government’s 2011 statistics, 90.3% of the adult population is literate and the infant mortality rate is 22.5/1,000, representing 22.5 deaths per a thousand births. What surprised me most about Brazil is that the country’s land size and population just about matches that of the United States. Apart from this, I was also slightly taken aback to realize that Brazil actually manufactures its own aero planes and jets, being the fourth largest producer of commercial planes and jets in the whole world. Something else which got me scratching my head is that it is also the only Latin American country to own, service and maintain its own aircraft carrier; I consider this to be quite an achievement. Compared to the United States, life in Brazil is cheaper, taking into consideration that both countries are large, populated and heavily industrialized (Richard 74). Just like the United States, the population is very diverse as it is composed of people of Portuguese, Spanish, German, Italian Japanese and Middle Eastern heritage in addition to indigenous peoples. Brazilians are hardworking and dedicated, but they are also one of the friendliest and fun loving people in the world. They lead lifestyles that can be considered liberal and free. According to Richard (105), 60% of the world’s largest tropical rainforest and ecosystem (the Amazon)

Global Fashion insights Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Global Fashion insights - Essay Example The essay "Global Fashion insights" analyzes the fashion insights. Included also in the visual display are the different roles that each group member plays in the general success of the project in this fashion design class. The visual display also details the design of the project including recommendations and future improvements that are t be adjusted. An all dying process is included in the visual display that will be presented o the viewer on this trade fair show. The process of sewing together the different elements of the project are also included in the visual display. For our project, our group was also going to need a table for the purposes of setting up the stage for presentation. I detailed the design of the table in the visual display of the company. Last but not least, in included he names of the various sources of help that our group sort after. Parody is a local company that is composed of a team of students with the aim of providing tank tops to the various customers h at are in need f t. To enhance the group’s work, in set up a video to display the various elements that are indeed critical to the success of this project in the trade show. Visual display of this product is critical to the success of this project since it makes it easier to explain and distribute the video material to a wider audience. This visual display begins y detailing the name of or group members, the name of the project, he purpose of the project, the target group for our project, the source of raw materials for our project.

Pauls Case Essay Example for Free

Pauls Case Essay A Misunderstood Person Paul is a very interesting character, who has struggles within himself in the story of Paul’s Case by Willa Cather. His teachers misunderstand him and see him as a trouble maker throughout the story. So Paul begins to be self-conscious about how people portray him because of his actions. Paul reflects on his actions and begins to confuse reality life to fantasy life where he is comfortable in because of all the amenities he had. Paul is misunderstood by his teachers so; Paul begins to live in his fantasy world where he makes his mistakes in the real world. Paul is misunderstood by his teachers because of the way he looks and acts during the meeting the teachers have about him with the principal. This part of the story says. â€Å"His teachers felt this afternoon that his whole attitude was symbolized by his shrug and his flippantly red carnation flower, and they fell upon him without mercy, his English teacher leading the pack. †(Cather pg. 245) This is explaining how his teachers are portraying him by comparing his body language to a flower. Which symbolizes him shrugging off what his teachers though about him but, deep inside him he cared because Paul always thought someone was watching him. As the story said, â€Å"Paul was always smiling, always glancing about him, seeming to feel that people might be watching him and trying to detect something. †(Cather pg. 245) His teachers are explaining him as being a selfish person thinking about himself all the time, but what they don’t know is that he does think about them and what they think about him. Paul thinks that someone is always watching because of his teachers always trying to find something wrong about his life style. â€Å"He stood watching the approaching locomotive, his teeth chattering, his lips drawn away from them in a frightened smile, once or twice he glanced nervously sidewise, as though he were being watch. †(Cather pg. 260) Towards the end of story he thinks before he jumps because begins to think about someone watching him. Showing how he is always thinking about what others thought about him and how know one ever quiet seem to understand him. Paul seems to always be looking for someone to understand him, but in the end he was always misunderstood because of his choices that he made. Paul begins to confuse his fantasy life to reality and begins to make bad choices in his life. â€Å"The moment he inhaled the gassy, painty, dusty odor behind the scenes, he breathed like a prisoner set free, and felt within him the possibility of doing or saying splendid, brilliant things† (Cather pg. 251) His fantasy was to become a part of theatre in any way he could. So he begins to think of going to New York to pursue his dreams, but what he doesn’t understand is that, that’s only his dream not reality. Paul pursues this dream by stealing, â€Å"There was above two thousand dollars in checks, and nearly a thousand in the banknotes which he had taken from the book and quietly transferred to his pocket. † (Cather pg. 255) Paul takes the money for his selfish reasons of wanting to live his fantasy. It is wrong because he is living in his fantasy life and thinks nothing about it. All Paul wants to do is be rich because that’s the way he portrays himself in his fantasy life without working for the money. â€Å"Presently he came out of his white bathroom, resplendent in his new silk underwear, and playing with the tassels of his red robe. The snow was whirling so fiercely outside his windows that he could scarcely see across the street† (Cather pg. 254) In the hotel Paul is living the good life because of the money he has stolen just as in his fantasy. The following sentence shows how he finally begins to see reality because it’s showing how he is having a battle within himself about the bad things he did, which end up killing him inside. At the end of the story Paul ends up killing himself because he was never understood by his teachers or anyone else in his life. That made him unhappy within himself so he began to believe more in his fantasy world because he felt comfortable there. Paul didn’t seem to care about anything because he was living his fantasy life of being rich and going to New York. It took Paul a while to understand that he was doing wrong by stealing money and living in his fantasy life instead of reality. Towards the end Pauls’ fantasies end up killing him, since he is never figure out he tries to escape to his fantasies to make him happy but, by doing so he causes more problems to himself making him deeply unhappy. So he decides to kill himself to live free from all the worries that made his life so confusing to him.

Death of a Salesman Essay Example for Free

Death of a Salesman Essay An essay on the use of dashes in Arthur Millers play, Death of a Salesman The dash is a handy device, informal and essentially playful, telling you that youre about to take off on a different tack but still in some way connected with the present course only you have to remember that the dash is there, and either put a second dash at the end of the notion to let the reader know that hes back on course, or else end the sentence, as here, with a period. __ Lewis Thomas How does a writer a good writer convey epiphanies exactly so that its grammatically appropriate for eureka! a dash is used placed just so to convey, establish a mood, feeling, tone a character feels whilst saying a line, monologue even an exclamation wherein characters experience a lot of feeling and dominance is implied when a line is ended by a dash interruption in short by another character allowing the reader to see feel the personality traits, characteristics of a character subtlety. This simple line the dash is a many faceted gem a treasure that can be used to highlight many ideas key terms certain events jump off the page because of the use of a dash rather than an ellipsis causes a noticeable break a sharp break unlike that of an ellipsis which immediately gives off the impression of abruptness just as it appears visually a sharp-edged line in the center of a line that breaks the fluidity of words just as the dash in a sentence breaks the flow of thought or conversation. Dashes menial as they are give substance to a pause, break charging it with emotion and meaning no number of words could do the same. Although dashes may seem like a punctuation mark so rarely used, it is an integral tool in writing conversations. The dash represents a discontinuation of an intended statement a visual representation of the abruptly derailed trail of a train of thought allows the writer to interrupt characters as is normal in an average conversation like most of Linda and Willys conversations. Lindas lines are often ended by a dash interrupted by another speaker subtlety informing the reader of Lindas subservient personality. The dashes imply the abruptness of Willys interruptions thereby insinuating that he doesnt listen to her including times when she expresses her adoration for him clarifying that Willys view behavior towards Linda is rather poor- which in turn personifies Willys personality. Linda: You are, Willy. The handsomest man. Youve got no reason to feel that- Willy: Ill make it all up to you, Linda, Ill- Linda: Theres nothing to make up, dear. Youre doing fine, better than- Willy: Whats that? Linda: Just mending my stockings. Theyre so expensive- Willy: I wont have you mending socks in this house! Now throw them out! (Page 39) This whole conversation establishes the relationship between Willy and Linda Willy being the dominant though insensible one, while Linda is the subservient although quite practical one as well as giving insight to Willys guilt over the woman all done with four appropriately placed dashes at the end of a characters lines. However, dashes are not only useful at the end of lines but in the midst of a sentence as well. Just as the dash on the page is a break from the stream of words a break in the voice is represented by a dash on the page. Thus, when a character is overcome by emotions, a dash is placed in the proper place in the sentences structure and a feeling of overwhelming portions is conveyed to the reader. In a tragic play such as Death of a Salesman, the proper use of the dash is essential to establish certain key conversations and the significance of the feelings of the character and their significance in the overall meaning of the story line. Such a conversation is seen when Willy is affirmed of Biffs love (Page 133) where there was placed four dashes upon the page in the span of the conversation each of which insinuates a great deal of emotion. It is these emotions that help build the tragedy in the story line characterizing Willy and Biff in the process. When Biff tells his mom or whoever it is he is speaking to to put Willy to bed Put him-put him to bed. the dash stresses the exhaustion that Biff feels his inability to finish his sentence implies a deep caring for his father an overwhelming emotion. It is the strength of this emotion that astonishes Willy and awakens Willy to the fact that Biff still loves him, and the following lines he says are also broken with dashes so choked with love and boundless joy is he That boy-that boy is going to be magnificent! (Page 133). These statements foreshadow Willys decision to kill himself for the sake of his sons making an impact greater or equal to that of Willys statement on page 98 where he states After all highways, and the trains, and the appointments, and the years, you end up worth more dead than alive. Both statements imply that Willy is going to commit suicide, playing against each other. The quote on page 98 establishes that Willy was considering the option the possibility while the conversation with Ben prior to Biffs outburst acknowledges the cause of Willys hesitance and indecisiveness the effect the suicide would leave on Biff the opinion that Biff would have of him afterward. Thus, when Willy is offered that which is all he really wants his life as it was before, with a loving relationship with his Adonis son and the admiration that this son once had for him through Biffs compassionate voice and tears Willy makes a definite choice as to what he intends to do first seen in his line That boy-that boy is going to be magnificent! (Page 133). It is this line that resolves the inner conflict that Willy feels over Biff and over his lack of success it is in this line that Willy decides to kill himself. Without the use of the dashes, the emotions would not have been conveyed to the reader appropriately losing its power and significance in the overall storyline. Another significant line dash in the play though not necessarily filled with emotion begins Biffs voyage into realization and truth. A dash can represent a hesitance changing of mind as to what must be said to convey the thoughts and sometimes feelings of the character. I tell ya, Hap, I dont know what the future is. I dont know-what Im supposed to want. The dash before what Im supposed to want, allows the reader to realize that Biffs restlessness and lack of success is not failure not in the true sense of the word, for Biff would have to truly attempt thus want success in order to fail. Biffs definition of success is different to that of his familys and this makes him uneasy insecure as to what his life really means. This dash allows the reader to acknowledge that Biff is at a loss of exact words to define what he means and the thoughts running through his head. It is this pause that changes the overall meaning of the sentence without the pause, the sentence would pass over unnoticed. The pause dash underlines Biffs uncertainty which continues throughout the play until Biff realizes the absurdity of his situation and awakens. The dash informs the reader that here lies Biffs conflict this dash is the resolution wherein the conflict is introduced. The dash is the conflict. As a modern tragedy, Death of a Salesman is when broken down an informal play, thus the dash is the perfect punctuation for the certain situations -and sentences that needed to be highlighted in the subconscious. The dash evokes an awareness that is subtle sliding beneath our minds eye to implant ideas emotions and feelings thereby creating importance to an event or phrase. When a dash is used, its used to emphasize and encourage analysis of a phrase. The involuntary response to a dash should be curiosity as to the purpose of this dash. A dash is not so easily used and is thus, so rarely seen. Therefore when a dash is used in writing be it at the end of a line or in the midst of a sentence so attention must be paid1! Bibliography: Arthur Miller (1949) Death of a Salesman Penguin Books USA Inc. 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA 1 Page 56 said by Linda. Jolene Kui September 6, 2002

The Doctrine of ‘Personality Rights’ in the UK

The Doctrine of ‘Personality Rights’ in the UK The United Kingdom has never acknowledged a specific doctrine of ‘personality rights’; the law provides neither coherent nor consistent protection, as the courts are ‘sceptical about creating monopoly rights in nebulous concepts such as names, likeness or popularity’.[1] Therefore celebrities and other high-profile individuals rely on a combination of passing off, trademark, copyright and privacy laws for protection of the commercial value of their personality. None of these were invented to protect personality rights; however they are gradually developing to adjust to the commercial reality of the value of celebrity merchandising and endorsements. Misleading the public by giving a false impression of endorsement of a product by a celebrity has been to commit the tort of passing off for over a decade.[2] The tort of passing off was traditionally defined as ‘nobody has the right to represent his goods as the goods of someone else’.[3] The ‘ classical trinity’ is necessary to succeed in passing off: ‘the goodwill or reputation must be attached to the products or services of the plaintiff, the misrepresentation must lead to the confusion as to the source of the goods and services, and this confusion must cause damage to the claimant’.[4] In the case of Fenty Ors v Arcadia Group Brands Ltd (t/a Topshop) Anor,[5] high street fashion retailer Topshop licensed an image of popstar Rihanna’s face from a photographer and printed it on a t-shirt without either her permission being sought nor obtained. Rihanna then sued for passing off. Mr Justice Birss applied the doctrine to the dispute. Although on very particular facts, Birss J found in favour of Rihanna and established a general principle that arguably goes against any celebrities who might have hoped to see the creation of a doctrine of personality rights. This decision develops the tort of passing off to small degree whilst emphasising that, in each case, the facts are decisive.[6] The debate about the recognition of personality rights in the UK is gathering impetus in the wake of Fenty with academics like Walsh questioning if ‘personality rights are finally on the agenda’.[7] In the 1970s the UK courts were regularly unwilling to find false impressions relating to merchandising resulted in misrepresentation because of the need to show that they were engaged in a ‘common field of activity’. This introduced a somewhat blunt test for confusion and there often would be no proximity between, for example, a radio broadcaster and a cereal manufacturer.[8] Until the test was discarded, at least as an absolute condition,[9] it limited attempts to expand the categories of misrepresentation to cover licensing connections.[10] Where the absence of a common field of activity was not conclusive the court for example held the use of the name of the pop group Abba on merchandise did not amount to passing off on the basis that there was no real possibility that the public would be confused into thinking that Abba had approved the goods merely because their name or photograph appeared on them.[11] Likewise the use of a photograph of the Spice Girls on the cove r of a sticker collection was held not to constitute passing off.[12] An important exception came when it was held passing off had been established where cartoon characters, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, were on clothing without authorisation, since the public did expect the goods to be licensed.[13] This case was distinguished from the Abba scenario on the basis that it was brought in the context of the unauthorised reproduction of images of cartoons in which copyright existed, rather than the image or name of a celebrity. Yet the decision is generally viewed as opening up character merchandising law in the UK. In the seminal case of Irvine Laddie J held passing off covered cases of false endorsement, like where Talksport had altered an image of racing driver Eddie Irvine to have him hold a branded Talksport radio for advertising purposes without his permission. Laddie J considered the increasingly popular marketing practice of personality licensing, including the licensing of a personality’s name or likeness outside a celebrity’s area of expertise as a common and lucrative practice for them, to reject the ‘common à ¯Ã‚ ¬Ã‚ eld of activity’ condition. Laddie J identified the inherent flexibility of passing off by saying ‘the sort of cases which come within the scope of a passing off action has not remained stationary over the years†¦passing off is closely connected to and dependent upon what is happening in the market place’.[14] Although Irvine was celebrated as a turning point in the protection of personality rights, the important limitation in the judgment was that passing off was limited to false endorsement and excluded merchandising cases. The classic celebrity-merchandising situation seems similar: the celebrity has a reputation and the public knows that it is common practice for celebrities to market their popularity by granting merchandise licenses.[15] Laddie J differentiated between cases of endorsement and merchandising, however in Fenty Birss J approved Laddie J’s reasoning but made it clear there is no difference in merchandising cases and that the legal principles apply equally well in passing off if the public had been deceived into thinking the celebrity had authorised the product. Rihanna easily established sufficient goodwill in the fashion industry, as a style icon because of her ‘cool, edgy image’.[16] This was demonstrated in her endorsement contracts with Nike and Gillette, her fashion design and promotion work with rival retailer River Island, and she had worked with HM, Gucci and Armani to collaborate on and design clothing. Birss J therefore stated Rihanna’s ‘identity and endorsement in the world of high street fashion was perceived†¦to have tangible value by an organisation well placed to know’.[17] Misrepresentation was the key issue. Topshop argued the clothing was simply a t-shirt bearing an image of Rihanna and the public had no expectation that it was authorised by her, whereas Rihanna contended that the particular facts of the case meant customers were misled into believing she had endorsed the t-shirt herself. The court considered the point in depth, addressing the various circumstances before considering the issue as a whole. Certain evidence considered was found to be neutral to finding a misrepresentation. The fact there was other unauthorised clothing bearing Rihanna’s image on sale did not imply that the public would necessarily believe that such clothing was authorised. Topshop had sold both clothing bearing authorised images and clothing, which was approved or endorsed by celebrities. Overall, its customers were neutral: having no positive expectation either way when considering clothing bearing a celebrity’s image. Also the t-shirt was fashionable an d on sale in a high street retailer. Certain factors indicated finding in Topshop’s favour. Some of Rihanna’s official merchandise included an ‘R slash’ trademark logo or her name, the t-shirt lacked both, and apart from a few days online the word ‘Rihanna’ was not used at all. There was also no genuine evidence of actual confusion. However on balance, significant factors supported RIhanna. Topshop had made considerable effort to emphasise connections in the public consciousness between the store and celebrities notably Kate Moss, and now more importantly Rihanna. This made it more likely purchasers would conclude that the t-shirt was authorised and being a fashion retailer, consumers would reasonably expect Topshop to publicise and sell products authorised by celebrities. Topshop’s prior association with Rihanna was important as Topshop ran a competition in 2010 to win a personal shopping appointment with Rihanna. Rihanna also visited Topshop in 2012 which they chose to publicise by tweeting to their 350,000 Twitter followers, just before the t-shirt went on sale – a significant commercial communication in the eyes of Birss J, to a demographic who valued social media highly. Topshop had therefore repeatedly associated itself and it products with Rihanna in a high-profile manner and this demonstrated Topshop were looking to take advantage of Rihanna’s position as a style icon. The image on the t-shirt was taken during the video shoot of RIhanna’s single ‘We Found Love’ from her 2011 ‘Talk that Talk’ album. Importantly, it showed Rihanna with the same hairstyle and headscarf as the album cover. This meant that the image was not just recognisably Rihanna but looked like a promotional shot for the music release. The court found that it was entirely likely that, to her fans, the image might be regarded as part of the marketing campaign. This was a critical point in the de cision. Although Birss J believed a ‘good number’ of purchasers would buy the t-shirt without considering the question of authorisation, he concluded that, in the circumstances, a substantial proportion of those judging the t-shirt (specifically Rihanna fans) would be encouraged to think that it was clothing authorised by the popstar. They would have recognised that particular image of Rihanna not simply as an image of her but as a particular image of her connected with the particular context of the album. Many of these purchasers would have bought the product because they thought that Rihanna had authorised it; others would have bought it because of the value of the perceived authorisation itself. In each case, the idea that it was authorised was part of what motivated them to buy the product and in each case they would have been deceived. The test for damage was also easily satisfied. If a substantial number of purchaser’s were deceived into buying the t-shirt because of a false belief that it was authorised by Rihanna herself, then that would have damaged Rihanna’s goodwill, both by way of sales lost to her merchandising business and a loss of control over her reputation in the fashion sphere.[18] Considering the particular facts, it is not surprising Birss J found in Rihanna’s favour. The classical trinity of passing off were fulfilled, however this decision is unlikely to open the floodgates for cases to be brought every time a celebrity’s image is used without a merchandising license, as it was made clear ‘the mere sale by a trader of a t-shirt bearing an image of a famous person is not without more, an act of passing off’.[19] Birss J was eager to emphasise that ‘there is today in England no such thing as a free standing general right by a famous person (or anyone else) to control reproduction of their image.’[20] The judgment is useful as a confirmation of the general principles of passing off applied to unauthorised use of celebrity images.[21] If the UK is approaching the creation of a doctrine of personality rights in some form, it is necessary to analyse the justifications and gauge whether they are robust enough to validate the subsequent restraints that would be placed upon society. The justifications suggested in support of personality rights fall largely into three groups: moral, economic and consumer protection arguments. The labour-based moral justification is founded on John Locke’s theory of property.[22] Essentially, itprovidesthat an individualhasamoralrightintheobjectofvaluetransformedbecauseoftheir efforts. Nimmer supported this point by contending that the person who has ‘long and laboriously nurtured the fruit of publicity values’ and has spent ‘time, effort, skill, and even money’ in their creation, is presumably allowed to enjoy it.[23] Professor McCarthy feels personality rights are ‘a â€Å"common-sense†, self-evident right needing little intellectual rationalisation to justify its existence’.[24] However, Madow deconstructs these arguments by contending that fame is something ‘conferred by others’ and is not necessarily down to the efforts of the individual.[25] Moreover according to Madow the labour argument ignoresthe fundamentalrole themediaplayinthecreationofcelebrities.He uses the example of Einstein andobservesthatth emedia selectedhim becausehedidinterviews, wasquotable and hehadtheright‘look’.[26]TheimageofEinsteinthat is familiar today,what itmeanstothe pubic themadbutpleasant scientistwith bushywhitehairandmoustache wasa personality createdby themedia. Therefore only when the media and public take notice and attach importance to a personal image can it fully enter into the market place.[27] Thus contrary to the statement by McCarthy, it would appear a celebrity cannot justify that they solely created their public image and consequently cannot stake an indisputable moral claim to the exclusive ownership or control of the economic value that comes with it. Personality rights can also be justified on economic arguments. Economic theory proposes persons should be economically incentivised into ‘undertaking socially, enriching activities’ such as creating a persona that benefits society culturally,[28] and this creativity can only be encouraged if the person is given exclusive right to control their creations, because this ‘provides incentive for performers to make economic investments required to produce performances appealing to the public’.[29] However Carty doubts whether personality rights would produce increases in ‘economic activity’ or ‘innovation’.[30] Following Madow’s ideas, the UK is currently without a personality right, yet celebrities still gain significant income from their publicity values and failure to introduce such a right in the future will not stop individuals profiting from the income already gained through endorsements and merchandising officially authoris ed by them.[31] According to Madow such protection also has ‘distributional consequences’,[32] whereby personality rights elevate the price of merchandise and advertising in general, placing more wealth in the hands of a select few, who already derive significant income, and away from the mass of consumers making up society.[33] Another justification for personality rights is the consumer protection argument focusing on the idea that without protection, the public will be misled about the authorisation of a celebrity’s association with a product or service. At first sight the consumer protection argument appears advisable, joining protection of the celebrity’s success with protection of the consumer, and it mirrors the traditional rationale for trademark and passing off.[34] However personality rights would allow celebrities to stop commercial uses of their personas that are not fraudulent or deceptive, and Professor Shiffrin states personality rights give celebrites power ‘to control the dissemination of truth for his or her own profit’.[35] On another level, Madow argues the degree to which personality rights would stop the consumer being misled is generally superfluous,[36] because in situations where there is a realistic chance that, consumers will be deceived or confused about a celebrity’s association or endorsement, legal mechanisms better adapted for that reason already exist, notably passing off. In conclusion, the extent to which Fenty constitutes a creation of a doctrine of ‘personality rights’ is limited. In the words of Roberts ‘this judgment does not change the law; and it does not create an â€Å"image right†. It simply applies the existing doctrine of passing off to the evolving commercial reality of the value of celebrity endorsements’.[37] The decision is important as it improves a flaw in the Irvine verdict,[38] in the same way that Irvine marked the first time that passing off was applied to false endorsement, Fenty is the first time it has been applied to false merchandising featuring a real person, with merchandising claims having only previously succeeded in relation to fictional characters,[39] and indicates that UK courts are slowly recognising the need to protect the commercial value of celebrity merchandising. It is clear from the case that the result was carefully balanced on particular facts and that if for example Rihanna had not been a fashion icon or the image was different she would have less chance of being successful. Fenty highlights the issue of misrepresentation is however always one of fact, and the false belief of the purchaser is key: to constitute passing off, a false belief incited in the mind of the prospective purchaser must play a role in their choice to buy. Although there are persuasive advocates of the creation of a doctrine of personality rights,[40] and there is also no definite rationale for an absolute rejection,[41] it would seem the decision in Fenty should be welcomed because there are substantial drawbacks in the moral, economic and consumer protection justifications put forward. The decision develops passing off to a small degree to keep up with modern business practice without creating personality rights, which are not necessary as celebrities are already sufficiently protected. The tort of passing off has again demonstrated its inherent flexibility and that it is ‘ closely connected to and dependent upon what is happening in the market place’. To sum up, ‘without an element of consumer deception, English law in this area remains characteristically cautious’,[42] and this should be welcomed. [1] J. Klink, ’50 years of Publicity Rights in the United States and the Never Ending Hassle with Intellectual Property and Personality Rights in Europe’, (2003), 4 IPQ 363, p.366. [2] Irvine v Talksport Ltd [2003] EWCA Civ 423 [3] Reddaway v Banham (1896) 13 RPC 218 at 244 per Lord Halsbury [4] Reckitt Colman v Borden [1990] 1 WLR 491 at 499 per Lord Oliver [5] [2010] EWHC 2310 (Ch) [6] D. Meale, ‘Rihanna’s face on a T-shirt without a licence? No, this time it’s passing off’, (2013) 8(11) JIPLP 823, p.823. [7] C. Walsh, ‘Are personality rights finally on the UK agenda?’, (2013) 35(5) EIPR 253, p.253. [8] McCulloch v Lewis A May [1947] 2 All ER 845 [9] Lyngstad v Anabas Products [1977] FSR 62 at 67; [10] Wombles Ltd v Wombles Skips Ltd [1975] FSR 488 Ch D; [11] Lyngstad v Anabas Products [1977] FSR 62 [12] Halliwell Ors v Panini Ors (6 June, 1997, unreported) [13] Mirage Studiosv Counterfeat Clothing [1991] FSR 145 [14] [2002] FSR 60 at para 13-14 [15] J. Klink, op.cit., p.375. [16] Fenty v Topshop [2013] EWHC 2310 (Ch) at [46] [17] Ibid at [42] [18] Ibid at [72] [19] Ibid at [75] [20] Ibid at [2] [21] H. Beverley-Smith and L. Barrow, ‘Talk that tort†¦of passing off: RIhanna, and the scope of actionable misrepresentation: Fenty v Arcadia Group Brands Ltd (t/a Topshop), (2014), 36(1) EIPR 57, p.61. [22] J. Locke, The Second Treatise of Government, (New York: Liberal Arts Press, 1952) [23] M.B. Nimmer, ‘The Right of Publicity’, (1954) 19 Law and Contemporary Problems 203, p.216. [24] J.T. McCarthy, The Rights of Publicity and Privacy, (New York: C.Boardman, 1987), s.1.1[B] [2] at 1-5; s.1.11[C] at 1-46. [25] M. Madow, ‘Private Ownership of Public Image: Popular Culture and Publicity Rights’, (1993), 81 CLR 125, p.182. [26] Ibid, p.190 [27] J. Fowles, Celebrity Performers and the American Public, (Washington D.C.: Smithsonian Institute Press, 1992), p.84. [28] J.T. McCarthy, ’Melville B. Nimmer and the Right of Publicity: A Tribute’ (1987) 34 UCLA LR1703, p.1710. [29] D.E. Shipley, ‘Publicity Never Dies: It just Fades Away, (1981) 66 Cornell LR 673, p.681. [30] H. Carty, ‘Advertising, Publicity Rights and English Law’, (2004) 3 IPQ 209, p.251. [31] M. Madow, op.cit., p.211 [32] Ibid, p.218. [33] Ibid [34] H. Carty, op.cit., p.252. [35] S. Shiffrin, ‘The First Amendment and Economic Regulations: Away from a General Theory of the First Amendment’, (1983) 78 NW ULR 1212, p.1258. [36] M. Madow, op.cit., p.233. [37] J. Roberts, ‘Face off: Rihanna wins â€Å"image rights† case’, (2013), 24(8) Ent LR 283, p.285. [38] A. De Landa Barajas, ‘Personality rights in the United States and the United Kingdom – is Vanna too much? Is Irvine not enough?’, (2009) 20(7) Ent LR 253, p.258. [39] J. Roberts, op.cit., p.285. [40] S. Bains, ‘Personality rights: should the UK grant celebrities a proprietary right in their personality? Part 2’, (2013) 18(6) Ent LR 205 [41] [42] H. Beverley-Smith, op.cit., p.61.

Nurses Essay -- essays research papers

As hospitals across the country face a shortage of nurses, two South Jersey hospitals are revisiting a method health systems have used in the past - recruiting nurses from other countries. Susan Nicolosi, a health-care recruiter at Our Lady of Lourdes Medical Center in Camden, and Grace Corteza, a registered nurse originally from the Philippines, recently went to that Asian nation to sign 26 nurses for two-year commitments. The hope is that they will make South Jersey their home. "It's a very future-thinking thing," Nicolosi said after her return. "We are looking down the road. This nursing shortage is just going to get worse." Underwood-Memorial Hospital in Woodbury has contracted with a recruitment service to help it bring in 11 nurses from overseas. Despite the cost and immigration issues, recruiting nurses from outside the United States is a tactic many other hospitals and health systems are trying, or at least considering. "Everyone is looking at it," said Geri Moon, the New Jersey Hospital By 2020, there will be 20 percent fewer nurses than are necessary to staff hospitals, nursing homes, school infirmaries and other health institutions throughout the United States. The World Health Organization last year said the shortages amounted to a global staffing crisis. New Jersey Colleagues in Caring predicts a 30 percent shortfall of registered nurses in the Garden State - or a deficit of 24,100 by 2020. "I think the most recent survey that we did found 168, 000 nursing positions for which hospitals are recruiting and trying to fill, but are unable to do so with domestically trained nurses because the schools are not graduating them in the numbers they did 20 or 30 years ago," said Carla Luggiero, senior associate director of federal relations with the American Hospital Association. Health systems say the shortage is not affecting patient care, although some nurses' organizations say it does. There are now more nurses in their mid-to-late 40s than there are nurses in their 20s, the reverse of 20 years ago. Half the RN work force will be at retirement age in 15 years. Others are leaving the profession for more lucrative and less demanding jobs where they can use their skills. The problem is magnified by a significant drop in people enrolling in nursing schools and aging baby boomers who will soon barrage heal... ... president, who moved to New Jersey in 1984 around the same time as the wave of now- established Filipino nurses. Most have stayed with the hospitals that hired them for as long as 10 years, she said. In fact, her husband Leo- Felix Jurado - whom she met at an association meeting - was recently hired by his former recruiter to help review tests of the current group of Filipino applicants. When they arrive, Filipino nurses will find a familiar community in South Jersey. Census figures show 6,276 of the 1.2 million people in the tri-county area are of Filipino descent. The state nurses association, which sets up educational and cultural programs for new nurses, has seven regional chapters, including one in Mount Laurel. As far as other local health systems are concerned, Virtua Health and the Cooper Health System say they may recruit from the Philippines in the future. Kennedy Health System says it has no plans to do so. All the health systems here - including Lourdes - have outreach programs geared to local elementary and secondary school students. Of foreign recruitment, Nicolosi said: "We don't see it as a permanent fix, but we certainly see it as an opportunity."

The Character of Esteban in The House of the Spirits :: House of the Spirits Essays

The Character of Esteban in The House of the Spirits Allende portrays Esteban as having a strong and harsh character in the novel, The House of the Spirits. Yet, after leaving, his mother and sister, and starting a new and independent life, Esteban changes much. For the first time he is successful and wealthy. He feels as if he has no problems, mainly because he does not have a family to weigh him down. Trueba's move to Three Marias seems to appease his hunger temporarily, before his monstrous, demanding, and ever growing needs overwhelms him. The type of lifestyle achieved by Esteban Trueba in Three Marias far surpassed that of living with his mother and sister, however only brief moments of satisfaction are incurred. These, previously mentioned, moments created a hunger for perfection and greed that would continue perpetuate at any cost. Receiving a letter from Ferula brings back memories for Esteban of his sad life with her and his mother, which forces him to endure his memories of poverty and pain. He even remembers the smell of medicince, which had encompassed their home. These memories force Esteban to reflect on the reasons why he left them. He reminisces on that portion of his life, occupied by the deterioration of his family. Ferula endured many burdens as well, due to their father's drinking, then his death, their mother's age, her chronic sicknesses, and Esteban's childho od care. A direct result of these chaotic years is the siblings inability to relate. When Esteban bought a luxury, an elaborate coffee with his money she scolded him for "spending Mama's medicine money on [his] private little whims" (Allende 43). Eventually Esteban tires of this oppressive way of life and goes to search for a "destiny that was bright, free, and full of promise" (Allende 44). At Tres Marias he hopes to find his Eden. All this cargo from his past is called to his attention by the letter he receives from Ferula. The letter does result in inflicting guilt on Esteban, for his lack of morals and complete selfishness. Ferula tells Esteban, in the letter, that their mother wants to see her son again before she dies. "Esteban had never really loved his mother or felt at ease in her presence," but he knew that resisting this visit to pay his last respects would be unethical (Allende 71).

Importance of Symbolism in Timothy Findley’s “War”.

Young people often do not know what to expect of the future. They do not know how to act when something unexpected comes along, and their actions are based on what they do know; usually limited, biased information. This idea is central to the short story, ? War,? by Timothy Findley. The young boy, Neil Cable, narrates the day he found out his father had joined the army. He speaks of his actions, feelings, and confusion surrounding that day. At first glance, his actions are all too often misinterpreted as violence and hatred, but after careful consideration, one can see that they are merely his way of dealing with the troubling news.He has not experienced enough in his lifetime to have a true understanding of war, and acts upon what he does know. In the short story, ? War? , by Timothy Findley, the young boy’s image of war and actions throughout are explained through the use of symbolism. Many symbols in the story give the reader an idea of the war that Neil pictures in his min d. He sees the war to be incredibly violent, and full of blood and anger. This image is shown through the mention of trenches. The word is used repeatedly in the story, suggesting that Neil is very much aware of what happens at war.When Neil is hiding from his father, he builds a trench out of hay in the barn, suggesting that subconsciously, he is trying to prepare his father for what is to come. He thinks that if he can show his father what it is like to be in the army, maybe he will back out. As a young boy, he knows only what he has seen or heard about, which focuses on the violence and danger of going to war. This idea sparks fear within Neil, resulting in anger and rebellion. Another important symbol that shows Neil’s image of war is the stones that he finds at Arthur Robinson’s summer cottage.They are red stones, and he later uses them to throw at his father, trying to keep him away. The stones may symbolize bullets, making the confrontation between Neil and his father in the barn much more important. He throws them at his father, not necessarily trying to do harm, but trying to scare him so maybe he will change his mind about going to war. The colour of the stones is also significant; they are red, a colour which is known to symbolize anger, hurt, and passion.These are all emotions that Neil knows will run through his father while he is away at war. Interestingly, they are also the feelings that rage inside of Neil while he creates a plan of attack against his father. The stones, along with Neil’s actions with them, suggest that Neil is trying to prepare his father for the extreme violence that lies ahead of him. When hiding away in the barn, Neil continuously acts like his father will while he is gone; ? I was just trying to figure out how I could get him before he saw me-and that was all? (Dawe 133).Neil does not realize the meaning of his actions, but as a reader one can see that something deep down inside of him is trying to cre ate a scene of the war; this is his way of demonstrating his feelings and disapproval of his father going to war. Uncle Frank and the birch bark box show that all Neil knows about war is that people come back hurt. He does not want to accept the fact that his father has joined the army, because in his mind it means that he will never see his father again. The only story that Neil knows about being in the army is about his Uncle Frank, who did years after coming home due to war injuries.Neil knows that his uncle never got his life back after getting hurt, and thinks that everyone who joins the war ends up the same way. After finding out his father has joined the army, and recalling the memory of his Uncle Frank, Neil states: ? †¦in the army you always went in a trench and got hurt or killed? (Dawe 124). Neil has never heard an uplifting story about war, so in his mind anyone who joins the army is giving up their life. This idea is confirmed by the birch bark box that Neil gives to both his parents.This box could symbolize a coffin, showing that Neil truly is afraid of losing his father. He wants to make sure that he gets the box before leaving for the army, so that he has it with him when he dies. The box is mentioned at the end of the story, when Neil says that the family picture taken before his father left still remins in the box, suggesting that Neil’s fears become a reality. These two symbols show Neil’s lack of knowledge about war, and explain why he acts the way he does; he thinks that his father signing up for the army means that he will never see him again.Neil’s fear of ducks and the dark suggest that he is afraid of the future; he knows that anything could happen once his father leaves for war. His fear of the future is the reason he runs away and hides in the barn. He thinks that if he can keep things the way they are that the future would remain the way he imagined it would be. Neil says multiple times in the story that he is afraid of ducks. Ducks are migratory birds; they are constantly leaving and returning. Although they travel in bunches, it is common for not all of the ducks to return every year. This pattern is very much like the army.They come and go, some staying for longer periods of time, and some never returning at all. Neil is afraid of this uncertainty with his father; he does not want to live in fear f his father never returning home, or of never knowing what will happen next. Neil also states that he is very much afraid of the dark. He does not like not knowing what it in front of him, and wants to always be able to see what is coming. This is very important when analysing Neil’s fears. The reader knows that he does not adjust well to change, and is very uncomfortable when dealing with the unknown.He says: ? At least, if you sit still you know where you are- but if you move around, then you don’t know where you are? (Dawe 12). This statement tells the reader that Neil is also worried about the change in his life. If things do not change, then he knows what is going to happen, but as soon as thigns are different, life becomes a guessing game. these fears are the reason that Neil acts the way he does; he does not know how to deal with the uncertainty of the future and thus portrays a very angry, confused young boy.When Neil Cable receives the news that his father has joined the army, he lashes out at him and seems to be a very troubles young boy. After examining the story, one can see that this behaviour is the result of being young, naive, and unaware of the world around him. His knowledge about war is limited, and causes him to react with violence and aggression, but the reader soon realizes that this is the only way he knows how to deal with his fear. By interpreting the many symbols in the short story, ?War? , one can see that Neil Cable’s image of war consists of violence, possible death, and an unknown future. The story is based upon the idea that young people are not experienced enough to deal with difficult situations; simply because they have not lived long enough. They pften react in very unexpected and sometimes troublesome ways. In order to understand their actions, one needs to see things from a child’s perspective: innocent, naive, and in the process of learning about the world around them.

Research Paper on Empathy Essay

The purpose of this essay is to define empathy and discuss its use on how it is used on a daily basis and what makes people feel empathy for others. Empathy is being able to feel and understand what another person is going through or what they have experienced. Typically, it would be a happiness, sadness or anger that would immediately affect how we feel, we would generally feel the same emotion as the person we are in contact with, where as sympathy we would be in agreement on the emotion, really just respecting one another. Empathy is used as a noun, the dictionary meaning for empathy is the intellectual identification with or vicarious experiencing of the feelings, thoughts, or attitudes of another. The second dictionary meaning of empathy is, the imaginative ascribing to an object, as a natural object or work of art, feelings or attitudes present in oneself. Empathy is became apart of the English language in 1909 by E.B. Titchener, while try to translate the German word Einfà ¼hlungsvermà ¶gen. Later near the end of the 19th century it was changed to empathie and is now being used as that in Germany. The German meaning of empathy is, physical affection, passion, partiality and also passion† or â€Å"suffering. The word was founded by Hermann Lotze and Robert Vischer to be added to the German language as Einfà ¼hlung which means (feeling into) while later Edward B. Titchener translated to the English term Empathy. Empathy, in the 1900-05, was also used from the Greek word empà ¡theia which in turns means affection. Empathy is used in so many forms and has so many definitions and starts off being imaginative. Imagining how the other person feels, putting yourself in the other person shoes and being able to feel what the person is going to through. Empathy involves being able to understand the emotional state how people feel, empathy would be described as a bodily feeling. Bodily feelings include body language, facial expression, and tone of voice. Being able to relate to one of the following and immediately responding to it is what empathy is. Automatically knowing what the other person is thinking and in turn making you feel the way the other person feels. Scientifically, some scientist believe that empathy is linked to observing another person’s emotional state activates parts of the neuronal network involved in processing that same state in oneself. Certain objects are known to automatically activate neural representations, and activation automatically to prime or generate the associated autonomic and somatic responses, unless inhibited. This very example that scientist have worked on trying to prove, is compared to common coding theory between perception and action. Meaning empathy is determined by whatever activity is going on around the person and how the brain perceives it. This theory also means that some people may have beliefs that are different from one’s own, and is thought to involve the cognitive component of empathy. Empathy has been linked to be genetically inherited in our DNA its labeled as traditional science and used as alternative healing practioners. Empathy has been linked to being associated with mental disorders like, Psychopathy, Narcissistic personality disorder, Sadistic personality disorder, Anger and Distress. These kinds of disorders have been known to scientist to cause rapid activity of neurotransmitters that deal with emotion and personality. Like psychopathy, some are able to pick up on others theory of mind mimic others emotionally and convince others their feeling a certain way when they really are not. In some cases psychopaths may be able to sense what others are feeling but may not be able to put themselves in their position. This shows that empathy in the brain waves of psychopaths are dysfunctional. Another mental disorder would be Narcissist one feeling them own self and unable to feel for others. So with this being said they would lack empathy to protect and make them self feel secure for the sake of their own vulnerability. Now Sadistic disorder this is most likely shown in 16 to 18 year old boys with aggressive problems. This is a conduct disorder where the boys showed too much aggression. Performing violent behaviors and taking pleasure out of other peoples pain. Showing no sign of empathy for the victims of these violent crimes at all. Emotion like anger is another form linking to empathy. When people get angry over a certain situation somebody else that is close to them would immediately feel what their feeling also. Anger has a affect on certain people directly and indirectly its known to triggers states of empathetic angers. Empathy and anger linked together has been investigated as negative arousal. That was only if empathetic behavior triggered a response to anger. Distress is also another form of empathy, feeling pain for somebody else which in turn can immediately turn into empathetic anger for somebody else. This would include feelings such as guilt and injustice, etc. Some scientist say this can be seen as pro social and moral behavior. These are some example statements to define what empathy means. Jean Decety: â€Å"A sense of similarity in feelings experienced by the self and the other, without confusion between the two individuals.† Frans de Waal: â€Å"The capacity to (a) be affected by and share the emotional state of another, (b) assess the reasons for the other’s state, and (c) identify with the other, adopting his or her perspective. This deï ¬ nition extends beyond what exists in many animals, but the term â€Å"empathy† †¦ applies even if only criterion (a) is met.† Alvin Goldman: â€Å"The ability to put oneself into the mental shoes of another person to understand her emotions and feelings.† Heinz Kohut: â€Å"Empathy is the capacity to think and feel oneself into the inner life of another person.† Wynn Schwartz: â€Å"We recognize others as empathic when we feel that they have accurately acted on or somehow acknowledged in stated or unstated fashion our values or motivations, our knowledge, and our skills or competence, but especially as they appear to recognize the significance of our actions in a manner that we can tolerate their being recognized.† In conclusion, empathy is a strong emotion exerted from an emotional level to feel, think and understand what somebody else is feeling at the time of any emotion they may be experiencing. References: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empathy http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/empathy?s=t http://healing.about.com/cs/empathic/a/uc_empathtraits.htm

Bag of Bones CHAPTER FIVE

Once, when I was sixteen, a plane went supersonic directly over my head. I was walking in the woods when it happened, thinking of some story I was going to write, perhaps, or how great it would be if Doreen Fournier weakened some Friday night and let me take off her panties while we were parked at the end of Cushman Road. In any case I was travelling far roads in my own mind, and when that boom went off, I was caught totally by surprise. I went flat on the leafy ground with my hands over my head and my heart drumming crazily, sure I'd reached the end of my life (and while I was still a virgin). In my forty years, that was the only thing which equalled the final dream of the ‘Manderley series' for utter terror. I lay on the ground, waiting for the hammer to fall, and when thirty seconds or so passed and no hammer did fall, I began to realize it had just been some jet-jockey from the Brunswick Naval Air Station, too eager to wait until he was out over the Atlantic before going to Mach 1. But, holy shit, who ever could have guessed that it would be so loud? I got slowly to my feet and as I stood there with my heart finally slowing down, I realized I wasn't the only thing that had been scared witless by that sudden clear-sky boom. For the first time in my memory, the little patch of woods behind our house in Prout's Neck was entirely silent. I stood there in a dusty bar of sunlight, crumbled leaves all over my tee-shirt and jeans, holding my breath, listening. I had never heard a silence like it. Even on a cold day in January, the woods would have been full of conversation. At last a finch sang. There were two or three seconds of silence, and then a jay replied. Another two or three seconds went by, and then a crow added his two cents' worth. A woodpecker began to hammer for grubs. A chipmunk bumbled through some underbrush on my left. A minute after I had stood up, the woods were fully alive with little noises again; it was back to business as usual, and I continued with my own. I never forgot that unexpected boom, though, or the deathly silence which followed it. I thought of that June day often in the wake of the nightmare, and there was nothing so remarkable in that. Things had changed, somehow, or could change . . . but first comes silence while we assure ourselves that we are still unhurt and that the danger if there was danger is gone. Derry was shut down for most of the following week, anyway. Ice and high winds caused a great deal of damage during the storm, and a sudden twenty-degree plunge in the temperature afterward made the digging out hard and the cleanup slow. Added to that, the atmosphere after a March storm is always dour and pessimistic; we get them up this way every year (and two or three in April for good measure, if we're not lucky), but we never seem to expect them. Every time we get clouted, we take it personally. On a day toward the end of that week, the weather finally started to break. I took advantage, going out for a cup of coffee and a mid-morning pastry at the little restaurant three doors down from the Rite Aid where Johanna did her last errand. I was sipping and chewing and working the newspaper crossword when someone asked, ‘Could I share your booth, Mr. Noonan? It's pretty crowded in here today.' I looked up and saw an old man that I knew but couldn't quite place. ‘Ralph Roberts,' he said. ‘I volunteer down at the Red Cross. Me and my wife, Lois.' ‘Oh, okay, sure,' I said. I give blood at the Red Cross every six weeks or so. Ralph Roberts was one of the old parties who passed out juice and cookies afterward, telling you not to get up or make any sudden movements if you felt woozy. ‘Please, sit down.' He looked at my paper, folded open to the crossword and lying in a patch of sun, as he slid into the booth. ‘Don't you find that doing the crossword in the Derry News is sort of like striking out the pitcher in a baseball game?' he asked. I laughed and nodded. ‘I do it for the same reason folks climb Mount Everest, Mr. Roberts . . . because it's there. Only with the News crossword, no one ever falls off.' ‘Call me Ralph. Please.' ‘Okay. And I'm Mike.' ‘Good.' He grinned, revealing teeth that were crooked and a little yellow, but all his own. ‘I like getting to the first names. It's like being able to take off your tie. Was quite a little cap of wind we had, wasn't it?' ‘Yes,' I said, ‘but it's warming up nicely now.' The thermometer had made one of its nimble March leaps, climbing from twenty-five degrees the night before to fifty that morning. Better than the rise in air-temperature, the sun was warm again on your face. It was that warmth that had coaxed me out of the house. ‘Spring'll get here, I guess. Some years it gets a little lost, but it always seems to find its way back home.' He sipped his coffee, then set the cup down. ‘Haven't seen you at the Red Cross lately.' ‘I'm recycling,' I said, but that was a fib; I'd come eligible to give another pint two weeks ago. The reminder card was up on the refrigerator. It had just slipped my mind. ‘Next week, for sure.' ‘I only mention it because I know you're an A, and we can always use that.' ‘Save me a couch.' ‘Count on it. Everything going all right? I only ask because you look tired. If it's insomnia, I can sympathize, believe me.' He did have the look of an insomniac, I thought too wide around the eyes, somehow. But he was also a man in his mid- to late seventies, and I don't think anyone gets that far without showing it. Stick around a little while, and life maybe only jabs at your cheeks and eyes. Stick around a long while and you end up looking like Jake La Motta after a hard fifteen. I opened my mouth to say what I always do when someone asks me if I'm all right, then wondered why I always felt I had to pull that tiresome Marlboro Man shit, just who I was trying to fool. What did I think would happen if I told the guy who gave me a chocolate-chip cookie down at the Red Cross after the nurse took the needle out of my arm that I wasn't feeling a hundred percent? Earthquakes? Fire and flood? Shit. ‘No,' I said, ‘I really haven't been feeling so great, Ralph.' ‘Flu? It's been going around.' ‘Nah. The flu missed me this time, actually. And I've been sleeping all right.' Which was true there had been no recurrence of the Sara Laughs dream in either the normal or the high-octane version. ‘I think I've just got the blues.' ‘Well, you ought to take a vacation,' he said, then sipped his coffee. When he looked up at me again, he frowned and set his cup down. ‘What? Is something wrong?' No, I thought of saying. You were just the first bird to sing into the silence, Ralph, that's all. ‘No, nothing wrong,' I said, and then, because I sort of wanted to see how the words tasted coming out of my own mouth, I repeated them. ‘A vacation.' ‘Ayuh,' he said, smiling. ‘People do it all the time.' People do it all the time. He was right about that; even people who couldn't strictly afford to went on vacation. When they got tired. When they got all balled up in their own shit. When the world was too much with them, getting and spending. I could certainly afford a vacation, and I could certainly take the time off from work what work, ha-ha? and yet I'd needed the Red Cross cookie-man to point out what should have been self-evident to a college-educated guy like me: that I hadn't been on an actual vacation since Jo and I had gone to Bermuda, the winter before she died. My particular grindstone was no longer turning, but I had kept my nose to it all the same. It wasn't until that summer, when I read Ralph Roberts's obituary in the News (he was struck by a car), that I fully realized how much I owed him. That advice was better than any glass of orange juice I ever got after giving blood, let me tell you. When I left the restaurant, I didn't go home but tramped over half of the damned town, the section of newspaper with the partly completed crossword puzzle in it clamped under one arm. I walked until I was chilled in spite of the warming temperatures. I didn't think about anything, and yet I thought about everything. It was a special kind of thinking, the sort I'd always done when I was getting close to writing a book, and although I hadn't thought that way in years, I fell into it easily and naturally, as if I had never been away. It's like some guys with a big truck have pulled up in your driveway and are moving things into your basement. I can't explain it any better than that. You can't see what these things are because they're all wrapped up in padded quilts, but you don't need to see them. It's furniture, everything you need to make your house a home, make it just right, just the way you wanted it. When the guys have hopped back into their truck and driven away, you go down to the basement and walk around (the way I went walking around Derry that late morning, slopping up hill and down dale in my old galoshes), touching a padded curve here, a padded angle there. Is this one a sofa? Is that' one a dresser? It doesn't matter. Everything is here, the movers didn't forget a thing, and although you'll have to get it all upstairs yourself (straining your poor old back in the process, more often than not), that's okay. The important thing is that the delivery was complete. This time I thought hoped the delivery truck had brought the stuff I needed for the back forty: the years I might have to spend in a No Writing Zone. To the cellar door they had come, and they had knocked politely, and when after several months there was still no answer, they had finally fetched a battering ram. HEY BUDDY, HOPE THE NOISE DIDN'T SCARE YOU TOO BAD, SORRY ABOUT THE DOOR! I didn't care about the door; I cared about the furniture. Any pieces broken or missing? I didn't think so. I thought all I had to do was get it upstairs, pull off the furniture pads, and put it where it belonged. On my way back home, I passed The Shade, Derry's charming little revival movie house, which has prospered in spite of (or perhaps because of) the video revolution. This month they were showing classic SF from the fifties, but April was dedicated to Humphrey Bogart, Jo's all-time favorite. I stood under the marquee for several moments, studying one of the Coming Attractions posters. Then I went home, picked a travel agent pretty much at random from the phone book, and told the guy I wanted to go to Key Largo. Key West, you mean, the guy said. No, I told him, I mean Key Largo, just like in the movie with Bogie and Bacall. Three weeks. Then I rethought that. I was wealthy, I was on my own, and I was retired. What was this ‘three weeks' shit? Make it six, I said. Find me a cottage or something. Going to be expensive, he said. I told him I didn't care. When I came back to Derry, it would be spring. In the meantime, I had some furniture to unwrap. I was enchanted with Key Largo for the first month and bored out of my mind for the last two weeks. I stayed, though, because boredom is good. People with a high tolerance for boredom can get a lot of thinking done. I ate about a billion shrimp, drank about a thousand margaritas, and read twenty-three John D. MacDonald novels by actual count. I burned, peeled, and finally tanned. I bought a long-billed cap with PARROTHEAD printed on it in bright green thread. I walked the same stretch of beach until I knew everybody by first name. And I unwrapped furniture. A lot of it I didn't like, but there was no doubt that it all fit the house. I thought about Jo and our life together. I thought about saying to her that no one was ever going to confuse Being Two with Look Homeward, Angel. ‘You aren't going to pull a lot of frustrated-artist crap on me, are you, Noonan?' she had replied . . . and during my time on Key Largo, those words kept coming back, always in Jo's voice: crap, frustrated-artist crap, all that fucking schoolboy frustrated-artist crap. I thought about her long red woods apron, coming to me with a hatful of black trumpet mushrooms, laughing and triumphant: ‘Nobody on the TR eats better than the Noonans tonight!' she'd cried. I thought of her painting her toenails, bent over between her own thighs in the way only women doing that particular piece of business can manage. I thought of her throwing a book at me because I laughed at some new haircut. I thought of her trying to learn how to play a breakdown on her banjo and of how she looked braless in a thin sweater. I thought of her crying and laughing and angry. I thought of her telling me it was crap, all that frustrated-artist crap. And I thought about the dreams, especially the culminating dream. I could do that easily, because it never faded as the more ordinary ones do. The final Sara Laughs dream and my very first wet dream (coming upon a girl lying naked in a hammock and eating a plum) are the only two that remain perfectly clear to me, year after year; the rest are either hazy fragments or completely forgotten. There were a great many clear details to the Sara dreams the loons, the crickets, the evening star and my wish upon it, just to name a few but I thought most of those things were just verisimilitude. Scene-setting, if you will. As such, they could be dismissed from my considerations. That left three major elements, three large pieces of furniture to be unwrapped. As I sat on the beach, watching the sun go down between my sandy toes, I didn't think you had to be a shrink to see how those three things went together. In the Sara dreams, the major elements were the woods behind me, the house below me, and Michael Noonan himself, frozen in the middle. It's getting dark and there's danger in the woods. It will be frightening to go to the house below, perhaps because it's been empty so long, but I never doubt I must go there; scary or not, it's the only shelter I have. Except I can't do it. I can't move. I've got writer's walk. In the nightmare I am finally able to go toward shelter, only the shelter proves false. Proves more dangerous than I had ever expected in my . . . well, yes, in my wildest dreams. My dead wife rushes out, screaming and still tangled in her shroud, to attack me. Even five weeks later and almost three thousand miles from Derry, remembering that speedy white thing with its baggy arms would make me shiver and look back over my shoulder. But was it Johanna? I didn't really know, did I? The thing was all wrapped up. The coffin looked like the one in which she had been buried, true, but that might just be misdirection. Writer's walk, writer's block. I can't write, I told the voice in the dream. The voice says I can. The voice says the writer's block is gone, and I believe it because the writer's walk is gone, I'm finally headed down the driveway, going to shelter. I'm afraid, though. Even before the shapeless white thing makes its appearance, I'm terrified. I say it's Mrs. Danvers I'm afraid of, but that's just my dreaming mind getting Sara Laughs and Manderley all mixed up. I'm afraid of ‘I'm afraid of writing,' I heard myself saying out loud. ‘I'm afraid to even try.' This was the night before I finally flew back to Maine, and I was half-past sober, going on drunk. By the end of my vacation, I was drinking a lot of evenings. ‘It's not the block that scares me, it's undoing the block. I'm really fucked, boys and girls. I'm fucked big-time.' Fucked or not, I had an idea I'd finally reached the heart of the matter. I was afraid of undoing the block, maybe afraid of picking up the strands of my life and going on without Jo. Yet some deep part of my mind believed I must do it; that's what the menacing noises behind me in the woods were about. And belief counts for a lot. Too much, maybe, especially if you're imaginative. When an imaginative person gets into mental trouble, the line between seeming and being has a way of disappearing. Things in the woods, yes, sir. I had one of them right there in my hand as I was thinking these things. I lifted my drink, holding it toward the western sky so that the setting sun seemed to be burning in the glass. I was drinking a lot, and maybe that was okay on Key Largo hell, people were supposed to drink a lot on vacation, it was almost the law but I'd been drinking too much even before I left. The kind of drinking that could get out of hand in no time at all. The kind that could get a man in trouble. Things in the woods, and the potentially safe place guarded by a scary bugbear that was not my wife, but perhaps my wife's memory. It made sense, because Sara Laughs had always been Jo's favorite place on earth. That thought led to another, one that made me swing my legs over the side of the chaise I'd been reclining on and sit up in excitement. Sara Laughs had also been the place where the ritual had begun . . . champagne, last line, and the all-important benediction: Well, then, that's all right, isn't it? Did I want things to be all right again? Did I truly want that? A month or a year before I mightn't have been sure, but now I was. The answer was yes. I wanted to move on let go of my dead wife, rehab my heart, move on. But to do that, I'd have to go back. Back to the log house. Back to Sara Laughs. ‘Yeah,' I said, and my body broke out in gooseflesh. ‘Yeah, you got it.' So why not? The question made me feel as stupid as Ralph Roberts's observation that I needed a vacation. If I needed to go back to Sara Laughs now that my vacation was over, indeed why not? It might be a little scary the first night or two, a hangover from my final dream, but just being there might dissolve the dream faster. And (this last thought I allowed in only one humble corner of my conscious mind) something might happen with my writing. It wasn't likely . . . but it wasn't impossible, either. Barring a miracle, hadn't that been my thought on New Year's Day as I sat on the rim of the tub, holding a damp washcloth to the cut on my forehead? Yes. Barring a miracle. Sometimes blind people fall down, knock their heads, and regain their sight. Sometimes maybe cripples are able to throw their crutches away when they get to the top of the church steps. I had eight or nine months before Harold and Debra started really bugging me for the next novel. I decided to spend the time at Sara Laughs. It would take me a little while to tie things up in Derry, and awhile for Bill Dean to get the house on the lake ready for a year-round resident, but I could be down there by the Fourth of July, easily. I decided that was a good date to shoot for, not just the birthday of our country, but pretty much the end of bug season in western Maine. By the day I packed up my vacation gear (the John D. MacDonald paperbacks I left for the cabin's next inhabitant), shaved a week's worth of stubble off a face so tanned it no longer looked like my own to me, and flew back to Maine, I was decided: I'd go back to the place my subconscious mind had identified as shelter against the deepening dark; I'd go back even though my mind had also suggested that doing so would not be without risks. I would not go back expecting Sara to be Lourdes . . . but I would allow myself to hope, and when I saw the evening star peeping out over the lake for the first time, I would allow myself to wish on it. Only one thing didn't fit into my neat deconstruction of the Sara dreams, and because I couldn't explain it, I tried to ignore it. I didn't have much luck, though; part of me was still a writer, I guess, and a writer is a man who has taught his mind to misbehave. It was the cut on the back of my hand. That cut had been in all the dreams, I would swear it had . . . and then it had actually appeared. You didn't get that sort of shit in the works of Dr. Freud; stuff like that was strictly for the Psychic Friends hotline. It was a coincidence, that's all, I thought as my plane started its descent. I was in seat A-2 (the nice thing about flying up front is that if the plane goes down, you're first to the crash site) and looking at pine forests as we slipped along the glidepath toward Bangor International Airport. The snow was gone for another year; I had vacationed it to death. Only coincidence. How many times have you cut your hands? I mean, they're always out front, aren't they, waving themselves around? Practically begging for it. All that should have rung true, and yet somehow it didn't, quite. It should have, but . . . well . . . It was the boys in the basement. They were the ones who didn't buy it. The boys in the basement didn't buy it at all. At that point there was a thump as the 737 touched down, and I put the whole line of thought out of my mind. One afternoon shortly after arriving back home, I rummaged the closets until I found the shoeboxes containing Jo's old photographs. I sorted them, then studied my way through the ones of Dark Score Lake. There were a staggering number of these, but because Johanna was the shutterbug, there weren't many with her in them. I found one, though, that I remembered taking in 1990 or '91. Sometimes even an untalented photographer can take a good picture if seven hundred monkeys spent seven hundred years bashing away at seven hundred typewriters, and all that and this was good. In it Jo was standing on the float with the sun going down red-gold behind her. She was just out of the water, dripping wet, wearing a two-piece swimming suit, gray with red piping. I had caught her laughing and brushing her soaked hair back from her forehead and temples. Her nipples were very prominent against the cups of her halter. She looked like an actress on a movie poster for one of those guilty-pleasure B-pictures about monsters at Party Beach or a serial killer stalking the campus. I was sucker-punched by a sudden powerful lust for her. I wanted her upstairs just as she was in that photograph, with strands of her hair pasted to her cheeks and that wet bathing suit clinging to her. I wanted to suck her nipples through the halter top, taste the cloth and feel their hardness through it. I wanted to suck water out of the cotton like milk, then yank the bottom of her suit off and fuck her until we both exploded. Hands shaking a little, I put the photograph aside, with some others I liked (although there were no others I liked in quite that same way). I had a huge hard-on, one of those ones that feel like stone covered with skin. Get one of those and until it goes away you are good for nothing. The quickest way to solve a problem like that when there's no woman around willing to help you solve it is to masturbate, but that time the idea never even crossed my mind. Instead I walked restlessly through the upstairs rooms of my house with my fists opening and closing and what looked like a hood ornament stuffed down the front of my jeans. Anger may be a normal stage of the grieving process I've read that it is but I was never angry at Johanna in the wake of her death until the day I found that picture. Then, wow. There I was, walking around with a boner that just wouldn't quit, furious with her. Stupid bitch, why had she been running on one of the hottest days of the year? Stupid, inconsiderate bitch to leave me alone like this, not even able to work. I sat down on the stairs and wondered what I should do. A drink was what I should do, I decided, and then maybe another drink to scratch the first one's back. I actually got up before deciding that wasn't a very good idea at all. I went into my office instead, turned on the computer, and did a crossword puzzle. That night when I went to bed, I thought of looking at the picture of Jo in her bathing suit again. I decided that was almost as bad an idea as a few drinks when I was feeling angry and depressed. But I'll have the dream tonight, I thought as I turned off the light. I'll have the dream for sure. I didn't, though. My dreams of Sara Laughs seemed to be finished. A week's thought made the idea of at least summering at the lake seem better than ever. So, on a Saturday afternoon in early May when I calculated that any self-respecting Maine caretaker would be home watching the Red Sox, I called Bill Dean and told him I'd be at my lake place from the Fourth of July or so . . . and that if things went as I hoped, I'd be spending the fall and winter there as well. ‘Well, that's good,' he said. ‘That's real good news. A lot of folks down here've missed you, Mike. Quite a few that want to condole with you about your wife, don't you know.' Was there the faintest note of reproach in his voice, or was that just my imagination? Certainly Jo and I had cast a shadow in the area; we had made significant contributions to the little library which served the Motton-Kashwakamak-Castle View area, and Jo had headed the successful fund drive to get an area bookmobile up and running. In addition to that, she had been part of a ladies' sewing circle (afghans were her specialty), and a member in good standing of the Castle County Crafts Co-op. Visits to the sick . . . helping out with the annual volunteer fire department blood drive . . . womaning a booth during Summerfest in Castle Rock . . . and stuff like that was only where she had started. She didn't do it in any ostentatious Lady Bountiful way, either, but unobtrusively and humbly, with her head lowered (often to hide a rather sharp smile, I should add my Jo had a Biercean sense of humor). Christ, I thought, maybe old Bill had a right to sound reproachful. ‘People miss her,' I said. ‘Ayuh, they do.' ‘I still miss her a lot myself. I think that's why I've stayed away from the lake. That's where a lot of our good times were.' ‘I s'pose so. But it'll be damned good to see you down this way. I'll get busy. The place is all right you could move into it this afternoon, if you was a mind but when a house has stood empty the way Sara has, it gets stale.' ‘I know.' ‘I'll get Brenda Meserve to clean the whole shebang from top to bottom. Same gal you always had, don't you know.' ‘Brenda's a little old for comprehensive spring cleaning, isn't she?' The lady in question was about sixty-five, stout, kind, and gleefully vulgar. She was especially fond of jokes about the travelling salesman who spent the night like a rabbit, jumping from hole to hole. No Mrs. Danvers she. ‘Ladies like Brenda Meserve never get too old to oversee the festivities,' Bill said. ‘She'll get two or three girls to do the vacuuming and heavy lifting. Set you back maybe three hundred dollars. Sound all right?' ‘Like a bargain.' ‘The well needs to be tested, and the gennie, too, although I'm sure both of em's okay. I seen a hornet's nest by Jo's old studio that I want to smoke before the woods get dry. Oh, and the roof of the old house you know, the middle piece needs to be reshingled. I shoulda talked to you about that last year, but with you not using the place, I let her slide. You stand good for that, too?' ‘Yes, up to ten grand. Beyond that, call me.' ‘If we have to go over ten, I'll smile and kiss a pig.' ‘Try to have it all done before I get down there, okay?' ‘Coss. You'll want your privacy, I know that . . . just so long's you know you won't get any right away. We was shocked when she went so young; all of us were. Shocked and sad. She was a dear.' From a Yankee mouth, that word rhymes with Leah. ‘Thank you, Bill.' I felt tears prickle my eyes. Grief is like a drunken house guest, always coming back for one more goodbye hug. ‘Thanks for saying.' ‘You'll get your share of carrot-cakes, chummy.' He laughed, but a little doubtfully, as if afraid he was committing an impropriety. ‘I can eat a lot of carrot-cake,' I said, ‘and if folks overdo it, well, hasn't Kenny Auster still got that big Irish wolfhound?' ‘Yuh, that thing'd eat cake til he busted!' Bill cried in high good humor. He cackled until he was coughing. I waited, smiling a little myself. ‘Blueberry, he calls that dog, damned if I know why. Ain't he the gormiest thing!' I assumed he meant the dog and not the dog's master. Kenny Auster, not much more than five feet tall and neatly made, was the opposite of gormy, that peculiar Maine adjective that means clumsy, awkward, and clay-footed. I suddenly realized that I missed these people Bill and Brenda and Buddy Jellison and Kenny Auster and all the others who lived year-round at the lake. I even missed Blueberry, the Irish wolfhound, who trotted everywhere with his head up just as if he had half a brain in it and long strands of saliva depending from his jaws. ‘I've also got to get down there and clean up the winter blowdown,' Bill said. He sounded embarrassed. ‘It ain't bad this year that last big storm was all snow over our way, thank God but there's still a fair amount of happy crappy I ain't got to yet. I shoulda put it behind me long before now. You not using the place ain't an excuse. I been cashing your checks.' There was something amusing about listening to the grizzled old fart beating his breast; Jo would have kicked her feet and giggled, I'm quite sure. ‘If everything's right and running by July Fourth, Bill, I'll be happy.' ‘You'll be happy as a clam in a mudflat, then. That's a promise.' Bill sounded as happy as a clam in a mudflat himself, and I was glad. ‘Goingter come down and write a book by the water? Like in the old days? Not that the last couple ain't been fine, my wife couldn't put that last one down, but ‘ ‘I don't know,' I said, which was the truth. And then an idea struck me. ‘Bill, would you do me a favor before you clean up the driveway and turn Brenda Meserve loose?' ‘Happy to if I can,' he said, so I told him what I wanted. Four days later, I got a little package with this laconic return address: DEAN/GEN DELIV/TR-90 (DARK SCORE). I opened it and shook out twenty photographs which had been taken with one of those little cameras you use once and then throw away. Bill had filled out the roll with various views of the house, most conveying that subtle air of neglect a place gets when it's not used enough . . . even a place that's caretook (to use Bill's word) gets that neglected feel after awhile. I barely glanced at these. The first four were the ones I wanted, and I lined them up on the kitchen table, where the strong sunlight would fall directly on them. Bill had taken these from the top of the driveway, pointing the disposable camera down at the sprawl of Sara Laughs. I could see the moss which had grown not only on south wings, as well. I could see the litter of fallen branches and the drifts of pine needles on the driveway. Bill must have been tempted to clear all that away before taking his snaps, but he hadn't. I'd told him exactly what I wanted ‘warts and all' was the phrase I had used and Bill had given it to me. The bushes on either side of the driveway had thickened a lot since Jo and I had spent any significant amount of time at the lake; they hadn't exactly run wild, but yes, some of the longer branches did seem to yearn toward each other across the asphalt like separated lovers. Yet what my eye came back to again and again was the stoop at the foot of the driveway. The other resemblances between the photographs and my dreams of Sara Laughs might only be coincidental (or the writer's often surprisingly practical imagination at work), but I could explain the sunflowers growing out through the boards of the stoop no more than I had been able to explain the cut on the back of my hand. I turned one of the photos over. On the back, in a spidery script, Bill had written: These fellows are way early . . . and trespassing! I flipped back to the picture side. Three sunflowers, growing up through the boards of the stoop. Not two, not four, but three large sunflowers with faces like searchlights. Just like the ones in my dream.