Carol Ann Duffy Childhood and Youth Essays

Carol Ann Duffy Childhood and Youth Essays Carol Ann Duffy Childhood and Youth Essay Carol Ann Duffy Childhood and Youth Essay Essay Topic: Carol ann Duffy Poems Literature Carol Ann Duffy has portrayed her views on childhood and youth in various ways in the three poems, Mrs Tilschers Class, Education for Leisure and Comprehensive Duffy has written about her own personal experiences but has inverted the poems to address the audience as many readers from the same decade would have experienced the same scenarios as Duffy depicts in her poems, this is particularly true in the poem Mrs Tilschers Class. In Mrs Tilschers Class Duffy presents childhood an innocent stage of a persons life where they are engrossed in this metaphorical perfect world within the classroom, away from the dangerous outside world. The child is on a journey to knowledge in the last year of primary school and becomes more experienced, and developed through this discovery. The theme of wanting something from life is carried on with Education for Leisure where a young person, most likely a teenager is desperate to be recognised, I have had enough of being ignored. The teenager wants to be noticed and have an impact at school, as presently he is going through the education system with no feeling or desire to achieve anything. In this poem childhood is presented as an isolation from the rest of society, the teenagers are driven to almost kill or carry out violence to be noticed, which tells us that this stage of their lives where difficult as they feel they have no purpose or meaning. In Education for Leisure it is clear that the teenagers education is not doing him any good, as he has not been able to find work as he is on the dole, and not working, nor has it helped him to control his boredom or frustration. I squash a fly against the window with my thumb. This is reflected in Mrs Tilschers Class where the primary school children are bored of the primary school, and are curious to know more about the world, e. g how they were born. This shows that the school system in the 20th century did not satisfy the needs of children and have led them into the world without the experience and knowledge they needed. In the poem Comprehensive Duffy presents the division between the white children and the immigrant c hildren. There is a significant difference between the attitude of the two different groups, which shows the immigrants wanting to be able to learn and do something with their lives, yet the British children are more resentful and have fewer goals and ambitions. The poem shows a sense of diversity in the school but no community spirit or emphasis on learning in place; this may be the cause of uneducated children such as the teenager in Education for Leisure who feel they are being failed by schools. The poem In Mrs Tilschers Class is autobiographical and explains Duffys own personal experiences during her time at primary school. The theme of the poem shows the development from innocence at primary school to understanding and knowledge in the wider world. This transition is also shown in the physical form of a young child to adolescence. Duffy portrays primary school as a safe haven and when the child becomes more aware of their surroundings they begin to take that metaphorical journey to knowledge however the teacher, or in the case of Carol Ann Duffy Mrs Tilscher does not help them to take that step, they must move on by themselves. Leaving primary school for the last time is like an escape that children are eager to make but which takes them from the safety of the classroom into a dangerous unknown world you ran through the gates, as the sky spilt up into a thunderstorm. A thunderstorm could metaphorically represent the threat this would poses on these innocent children who are inexperienced and not prepared for real life. As the poem progresses the child becomes more inquisitive and starts to grow up, this is reflected by the humid weather, that feverish July and the ill feeling a person feels in the hot weather, untidy hot, fractious under the heavy sexy sky is associated with the physical changes as a child goes through the stage of becoming an adolescence. This poem is similar to Comprehensive as it is set in another school, this time in a secondary school and Duffy represents the feelings of children from different cultures in separate monologues. In Comprehensive Duffy describes the segregation between different ethnic minorities within a non-selective comprehensive school. The reality of a Comprehensive school is highlighted in this poem and there is a contrast between the views of English students and those from different backgrounds. The white children are ones with less ambition in life, but have bitter resentment against the immigrant children, Whereas the other children want to seek the opportunity and wasnt to succeed and have a positive outlook, I have hope and am ambitious. Yet the reality when they arrive is very different and they realise life is not any better in the UK, than back home. Education for Leisure is a dramatic monologue and shows one youths feelings towards life. The poem describes the thoughts and feelings of this disturbed youth who feels undervalued and convinces himself that it is necessary to carry out violence so he will be noticed. The poem shows two sides to this youth, one that he is a creative genius, but the other that he believes no-one appreciates his feelings and talent. They dont appreciate my autograph. So to try and erase this lack of distinction he decides that it would be clever to kill. He connects changing somethings world with his genius, implying that he is going to kill. In terms of language features in Mrs Tilschers Class poem, Duffy uses the second person pronoun you to address the reader. The poem is about her own experience in Mrs Tilschers Class but writing in the second person she is targeting the audience an d calls upon us to share her experience. This same pronoun is again utilised in the poem Education for Leisure, in the final line where the teenager reaches out to touch our arm. Duffy has created an atmosphere of fear as it the first time in the poem that the child has contact of with a human, and as a reader Duffy is trying to show that the child has potential to harm us. The use of pronouns is essential to this poem and there is a noticeable reputation of the phrase Im going to is effective in the way that it shows the determination of the youth, and his desire to make a difference. In Comprehensive Duffy uses an interesting range of pronouns, for example when each speaker is talking about their experience they refer to the children from other backgrounds as them or they rather than their names, theyre different from us, showing they are lacking importance and are just branded as another class people also the reader does not know who they or them is so will interpret it as they wish. Many metaphors are used in the poem In Mrs Tilschers Class, particularly in the last stanza where there is an essence of time moving on and the child growing up quickly. At the beginning of the last stanza when Duffy refers to feverish July it is the child who is feverish and anxious to find out more about the world, especially how you were born. Then the reports are handed out, almost as if these are the end to primary school, an end to childhood for Carol Duffy and then the thunderstorm breaks, which is a metaphor for freedom. As the sky spilt open into a thunderstorm The newly created adolescence is now able to explore the world, with a changed attitude and perspective on life. In the beginning of the poem Duffy creates a strong image of a primary school classroom with the children tracing the route with their fingers on a map, You could travel up the blue Nile with your finger tracing the route then after an hour comes a bottle of milk which was a popular tradition in the 1960s. The window pole and the handbell are also familiar objects. The simile, The laugh of a bell swung by a running child echoes the vigorous ringing of the bell after lessons had ended. Another simile used is the classroom glowed like a sweet shop which signifies that the classroom is really where the child wants to be, as it is full of bright attractive colours and has the same qualities as a popular sweetshop. The language Duffy uses in both Comprehensive, In Mrs Tilscher class as well as Education for Leisure is basic English, to represent a childs perspective for example I see that it is good. Both poems also use natural speech in the first person, to show the direct experiences of real- life children. The language spoken in Comprehensive varies with each of the seven accounts, because each of the students is from another multi-cultural background they have a different way of speaking, for example the African girl talks very monosyllabic and simple English, similar to the Ejaz the Asian boy, suggesting that English is their second language. Wayne, who is British, speaks is again speaking in very simplistic yet with a colloquial dialect. His single word sentences show a lack of effort to communicate and his pessimistic attitude. Wayne. Fourteen. Gamers are for Kids. Finally the last Asian girl proves to speak the most fluent and well structured English with the use of vocabulary such as ambitious, this implies she is from a well educated background. So overall all the language used in the poem is different dependant on the origin of the speaker. In Education for Leisure there is a constant reference to identity, with many of the sentences beginning with the pronoun I. I am a genius and I am going to change the world. The short sentence structure gives a sense of simple declarations of what the teenager intends to carry out and gives an abrupt tone to the poem. Duffy shows the speakers lack of interest at school through Shakespeare, he thinks that Shakespeare is a foreign language and also now the fly which he kills is also in another language, or a language that he does not understand. Yet the speaker contrasts this confusion with his obnoxious attitude that he is a genius. Duffy foregrounds the world I to the front of the sentence to show the speakers motives. The speaker also uses many ordinary every day objects in a menacing way such as a bread-knife and goldfish, the emotive language is portrayed in his intention of killing in the last two sentences. In Mrs Tilschers Class is structured with two stanzas of eight lines and two stanzas of even lines. The poem has no rhyming pattern or rhythm. But is set in two very definite halves, the security of childhood in the classroom defines the first half and the great outdoors with tadpoles and the playground shows the movement to knowledge and discovering more beyond the safety of the classroom. Similar to Mrs Tilschers Class, the poem Comprehensive has not set rhythm or rhythm; it is structured in seven stanzas of different length to show a conversational structure. The poem Education for Leisure is in five stanzas, each of four lines. They do not rhyme with any specific beat or rhythm. The lines are mostly end stopped, and every stanza finishes with a full stop, which is effective as it signals a dramatic stop to each stanza, which makes the reader think about his actions. In Conclusion all three poems are different, because Mrs Tilschers Class shows the innocence of childhood but Comprehensive shows the outcome of when these primary school children develop into teenagers, and the harsh reality of a Secondary School. The message that Duffy is trying to portray is that despite the stereotypical image of teenagers who dont care about their future or have no sense of ambition there are still children from across the globe who want to succeed in their life and desperately want the opportunity to do well. This shows the segregation between the whites and those from other backgrounds. Yet in Primary School, the atmosphere is different and all children are inexperienced and are yet not aware of the wider world, therefore all children desire to seek knowledge and there is a huge divide between the willingness to learn from when a child is a young age compared to when they reach adolescence. Education for Leisure demonstrates the unhappiness of many teenagers, who feel they are not recognised, and noticed enough, driving them to violence through sheer boredom and frustration. In Comprehensive, Duffy does not show any sense of what school is about or the learning aspect of school; instead the attention is focused on the collection of diverse teenagers with their own problems. These problems affect life inside the classroom as well as outside the classroom and the less education a child receives the more troubled they will become in later life as demonstrated in Education for Leisure Overall we can learn that 20th century youth were a mixture of different backgrounds with many different outlooks on life. Compared to present day where many teenagers of different backgrounds mix freely the 20th century seemed to have a division between these various cultures, and Duffy offered a negative view of White British children by portraying them as racist, which indicates there was more violence and tension between the immigrant and the British children. Childhood and Youth can be a pleasant time for those who have the desire to do well and share the same eagerness as they do in primary school, but can also be a lonely time for those who have a powerful sense of their own importance and insignificance of others, and a greater sense of grievance that no one else notices them and they are undervalued.

How Economists Use Total Factor Productivity

How Economists Use Total Factor Productivity Conceptually, total factor productivity refers to how efficiently and intensely inputs are used in the production process.  Total factor productivity (TFP) is sometimes referred to as multi-factor productivity, and, under certain assumptions, can be thought of as a measure of level of technology or knowledge. Formula for TFP Given the macro model: Yt ZtF(Kt,Lt), Total Factor Productivity (TFP) is defined to be Yt/F(Kt,Lt) Likewise, given Yt ZtF(Kt,Lt,Et,Mt), TFP is Yt/F(Kt,Lt,Et,Mt) The Solow residual is a measure of TFP. TFP presumably changes over time. There is disagreement in the literature over the question of whether the Solow residual measures technology shocks. Efforts to change the inputs, like Kt, to adjust for utilization rate and so forth, have the effect of changing the Solow residual and thus the measure of TFP. But the idea of TFP is well defined for each model of this kind. TFP is not necessarily a measure of technology since the TFP could be a function of other things like military spending, or monetary shocks, or the political party in power. Growth in total-factor productivity (TFP) represents output growth not accounted for by the growth in inputs. - Hornstein and Krusell (1996). Effects on TFP Disease, crime, and computer viruses have small negative effects on TFP using almost any measure of K and L, although with absolutely perfect measures of K and L they might disappear. Reason: crime, disease, and computer viruses make people AT WORK less productive.

Ancestry of Oprah Winfrey

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Decidious Forest Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Decidious Forest - Research Paper Example They are also found in southwest eastern China, Japan, and Russia. Middle East coast of Paraguay and Chile have the largest areas of deciduous forests in South America (Archibold, 1995). (Picture showing location of deciduous forest around the globe) The most significant and common characteristic of these regions is that they all have seasonal changes in temperature and rainfall. The outcome of this is that the tree acquires a special shape so that they can adapt to endure these changes in the environment during the year. The mean temperature in this forest goes up to 50 degree Fahrenheit. The rainfall is also average and ranges between thirty and sixty inches in a year. With the transformation in season, the color of leaves of the deciduous forest also changes (Nagle, 2009). For example, during the month of winter, there is scarcity of water and therefore the leaves can not stay alive. Hence, the leaves start falling off from the plants. But with the advent of spring, the leaves sta rt growing back again. Some plants like evergreens retain their leaves during winter season also. They adapt to the winter and stay alive. There are several species of trees in a deciduous forest their variety depending upon the region they are located in. They generally include species like walnut, hickory, linden, sweet gum, oak, maple, beech, chestnut, and elm. The deciduous forests are further divided into five distinct zones. The Tree Stratum zone is the first zone. In this zone, one would find trees for example oak, beech, maple, chestnut hickory, and elm, basswood, linden, walnut, and sweet gum trees. The zone has a variable height that is from 60 to 100 feet. The second zone consists of sapling and small trees. As the name suggests, the trees here are young and smaller in size. The third zone is known as the shrub zone. Some of the popular shrubs found in this zone are rhododendrons, azaleas, mountain laurel, and huckleberries. The fourth zone is called the Herb zone. As the name indicates, it has very short plants like herbal plants. The fifth and final zone is called Ground zone. It consists of lichen, club mosses, and true mosses (MacMillan, 2003). The number of unlike seasons in the deciduous forests are four in all starting from spring, summer, autumn, and winter. While autumn seasons sees leaves changing their color, in the winter, the tress shed their leaves altogether. Dog Wood Leaves Fringe Leaf Ginkgo Leaves Deciduous forests can survive the extreme seasons of climatic change. They grow in those regions where you get plenty of rainfall, which is necessary for the growth of trees. The rainfall in the moderate deciduous forest is spread out around the whole year. But winter is the season of cold and therefore, everything freezes around and nothing is available to animals for feeding. Therefore, animals living in this region adapt themselves to the extreme cold winter and also hot season of summer (MacMillan, 2003). As leaves start falling in wi nter, there is not much of a cover available to the animals to save themselves from the vagaries of nature. The deciduous forests have animals whose pictures are shown below:- Black bear Fox Brown bear Animals use a special technique of adaptation by hibernating in the winter season and living off what ever is available in the other three seasons. The animals try out the plants and see if

Queensland Principles of Criminal Law Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Queensland Principles of Criminal Law - Essay Example The law provides that under subsection (1) (a), it is immaterial whether the offender did not intend to hurt the particular person who is killed. In the case at bar, there is a clear showing that Brain had the intention to cause injury by physical attacking Jonas and later on pushing him to the river, which is aggravated by the fact that he had personal knowledge that Brian doesn’t know how to swim and that he will die from drowning. Therefore, Brian cannot interpose the defence that he had no intention to kill Brian because from the start, he already manifested his intention to hurt and injure the victim. In the case of R v Willmot (No 2) [1985], the Supreme Court held that the judge or jury will apply their own common sense understanding of human behavior before deriving at a conclusion with regard to the intention of the accused. In the given example, a conviction of wilful or intentional murder requires proof that the accused intended to cause the death of the victim. Whil e intention is a subjective element, its determination requires impartiality, neutrality and devoid of any biases. Intent is derived from what the accused was thinking at the time of commission of the offence. In the absence of any direct evidence which is in the form of an admission in a full-blown trial, the intention of the accused will be decided upon based on the attendant circumstances of the time the offence committed. Intention on the part of Brian to kill Jonas is established by the fact when Brian and Darren designed a plan to beat Jonas and Marko, the two geeks who went out with their girlfriends. There is evident pre-meditation on the part of Brian and Darren because a plan was created and they carried it out until its full accomplishment. Brian and Darren are motivated by feelings of jealousy, resentment and evil motive that caused them to inflict grievous bodily harm on the Jonas and Marko. The physical injury inflicted by Brian on Jonas is a clear indication that he h ad the intention to cause grievous bodily harm on Jonas, which later was the cause of the death of Jonas. Thereafter, the final act of Brian of pushing him to fall off the bridge and land in the river to drown, manifests intent to kill was present on the part of Brian. Jonas informed Brian before hitting the water that he did not know how to swim. Brian saw this as an advantage as he pushed Jonas to the river so that he won’t have means to save himself because nobody was there to help him get out of the river. This final act of Brian ensured that Jonas will die by drowning. Without a doubt, malice and the intention to kill Jonas was present on the part of Brian. The evidence of guilt is strong and shown by Brian’s act of inflicting grievous bodily harm and pushing towards the river to drown. The element of malice is present when Brian pushed Jonas to the river and ensured his death because he knew that no one was there to save Jonas. In the case of Woolmington [1935] A C 462, for one to be convicted guilty beyond reasonable doubt for the crime of murder, two elements must be established: 1.) death as a result of a voluntary act of the accused; and 2.) malice on the part of the accused. Here, both of the elements are present on the part of Brian. Therefore, he should be convicted for the crime of intentional murder under Section 302(1) (a). 2. DPP should charge Darren for the crime of

Marketing Management Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3000 words - 4

Marketing Management - Essay Example The use of English advertising in foreign countries is one that is well-studied. In Japan, for instance, the usage of English connotes sophistication and modernity, as it also does in South Asia countries like India. In India, the usage of English is used to convey sophistication and modernity, while the usage of Hindi, the lingua franca of India, is used to connote tradition and belonging. In the Hispanic population living in the United States, English advertisements is seen as not accommodating, yet is somewhat positive if the listener has linguistic insecurity. Spanish advertisements have the opposite effect they are accommodating, yet are somewhat negative for those with linguistic insecurity. Therefore, the researcher found that a mix of Spanish and English is most effective in these populations, as it mixes accommodation and respect (the Spanish part of the ad) with a positive feeling of linguistic security (the English part of the ad). The use of English in the country of Japan is becoming an increasingly popular phenomenon. The attribution of the high number of loan words in Japan dates back to the Meiji Restoration in 1868, in which Japan was transformed from feudal to a modern state by adopting Western civilization (Takashi, 1990, p. 327). There are a high number of English loan words in the Japanese language, much more so than loan words from European nations. English loan words represent 80.8% of Western loan words in Japan, with the other western loan words coming from France, Germany, Italian and Dutch (Takashi, 1990, p. 327). This is because the Japanese study English more than any other foreign language. There is some thought that the Japanese people regard English as representative of something cosmopolitan and international, and modern English words are seen as conveying sophistication and modernity, especially in they are used in advertising. (Takashi, 1990, p.

Heteronormativity Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Heteronormativity - Essay Example Despite the increased visibility of gay men and lesbian women, there remains no definition of family in the public consciousness that refers to same-sex couples with children. In fact, in the not too distant past, the notions of lesbian mothers/homosexual fathers or lesbian/homosexual families would have been nonexistent. This culture of heteronormativity (Gamson, 2000) dictates that a viable family consist of a heterosexual mother and a father raising children together. Heterosexuality and heterosexual forms of relating are the norm.1 All other forms of relational experience are thus viewed in contrast. For example, the descriptive term "couples" means heterosexual couples, then, there are gay and lesbian couples. Families are nuclear and headed by two heterosexual parents, then, there are gay and lesbian families. Similarly, "woman" means a heterosexual woman, then, there is the lesbian. Heteronormativity supports the dominant norm of heterosexuality by marginalizing any relational structure that defies it.2 A review of the family therapy literature bears this out; until recently the concept of the gay/lesbian family has been virtually unheard of in the family therapy field. This fact was confirmed by two research studies. Allen and Demo3 and Clark and Serovich found that the marriage and family therapy fields generally ignored gay, lesbian, and bisexual issues. For example, Clark and Serovich surveyed 17 journals published from 1975 to 1995. Of the 13,217 articles published, only 77, or 0.006% focused on gay/lesbian issues, used a gay/lesbian sample, or included sexual orientation as a variable.4 Goodrich (2003) cited the availability of only two early texts on working with lesbian couples in family therapy as an indication of the intense homophobia in the field from the 1960s to the 1990s.5 Proceeding from the above stated, heteronormativity has determined that unless the word gay is attached, marriage implies heterosexual marriage. Heterosexuality is the norm. Indeed, as Warner (1993) pointed out, "humanity and heterosexuality are synonymous."6 This notion of heterosexuality goes far beyond the institutions that marginalize and punish any relationship viewed as other. In this vein, heterosexuality is, of itself, a social and political organizing principle.7 Intrinsically linked to the structures of male dominance, heterosexuality can be viewed as a dictatorial patriarchal institution.8 Rich described this culture of compulsory heterosexuality as a powerful cluster of forces within which women have been convinced of the inevitability of both marriage and sexual orientation toward men. Thus, there have been very few attempts to explain how an individual develops a heterosexual orientation.9 Research into the development of heterosexuality is limited by the belief that it is natural and when it focuses upon homosexuality, persistently views it as deviant. Thus, implicit in discussions about sexual orientation is the notion that heterosexuality is both normal and mentally healthy, and that non-heterosexuals are abnormal and psychologically disabled.10 In direct relation to the homosexual/heterosexual categories, Rothblum (2000) pointed out that in a categorical definition of sexual orientation behavior, desire, and identity are assumed to be congruent.11 This is disputed by research.