Wednesday, January 29, 2020

The Tyger Symbol Analysis Essay Example for Free

The Tyger Symbol Analysis Essay The symbol of the Tyger is one of the two central mysteries of the poem (the other being the Tyger’s creator). It is unclear what it exactly symbolizes, the Tyger could be inspiration, the divine, artistic creation, history, the sublime (the big, mysterious, powerful and sometimes scary, or vision itself. Really, the list is almost infinite. The point is, the Tyger is important, and Blake’s poem barely limits the possibilities. Line 7: â€Å"Wings† are what the creator uses to aspire to the creation of the Tyger. Essentially, they are the power or inspiration that allows the creator to dare go about the task of creating the Tyger. Smith Tools (Hammer, chain, furnace, anvil) Stanza 4: In the poem, these tools make up an extended metaphor of the creator and his creation of the Tyger. A blacksmith uses these tools to make objects out of super-hot metal. The word forge – to create orform – is a smith term as well as another name for a smith’s furnace. The smith reference also ties into all the fire imagery associated with the Tyger, and heightens the energy and danger of the Tyger’s creation. If you don’t think forging metal is hot or dangerous, you might want to visit even a modern-day steel mill. Line 20: When you read the word lamb, always first think: symbol of Jesus Christ (the Lamb of God). As the tradition holds, animals such as lambs were sacrificed to God or gods in general until God offered his Son, Jesus Christ – his lamb – as the final sacrifice for the sins of mankind. In line 20, Blake references a version of Christianity that states that God created Jesus. Blake asks whether God, who created Jesus, also created the Tyger. Also, don’t forget that The Lamb is the title of another poem by Blake, from the Songs of Innocence. The body parts referenced in this poem – hands, eyes, shoulders, and feet – are examples of synecdoche. Synecdoche is when a part of something is used to refer to the whole thing. For example, when someone yells All hands on deck! he doesn’t actually mean that he wants a bunch of severed hands on the deck; rather, he wants the people and their hands to help with the ship. So, the phrase immortal hand references the whole being or person that the hand belongs to, while at the same time focusing on the hands as the means of creation. The eye is representative of the whole body and person, but lso focuses our attention on the faculty of sight. Also, by including only parts of the creator in the actually poem, Blake contributes to the mystery of who or what he actually is. It’s like having only a few extreme close-ups of a person: you can see the hands, shoulder, feet, and eyes, but you cant see the whole package, and that means you cant even tell who youre looking at. The fire serves multiple purposes as an extended metaphor. First, it’s often associated with the Tyger, which contributes to the Tyger’s ferocity and sublimity (the fact it’s big, powerful, and mysterious). Fire is also a source of energy, and since the Tyger seems to be filled with fire, then he must also be filled with energy. In another sense, the fire of the smith’s furnace is the fire of creation, the means by which the Tyger was formed. Setting An abstract setting; Forests of the night and distant deeps or skies The settings of â€Å"The Tyger,† or at least the worlds this poem seems to conjure up, are extremely varied. In general, though, it takes place in the abstract, without much more than Forests of the night, and distant deeps or skies, to give the reader any sense of location. However, the lack of a concrete setting is just as important as the presence. Think of watching a play in a theatre in which the whole stage is dark except for one spotlight. There is no setting in the sense of it taking place in a house or in a field – it’s abstract. The most important quality, then, is that it has no obvious setting, just like the poem. Blake has placed the spotlight on the Tyger, but where it is, or where the speaker is, are not part of the equation. Leaving the setting fluid keeps the themes fluid and abstract as well. It also highlights what setting is there, if fairly vague. The forests of the night are dark and mysterious, cloaking and hiding the fiery symbol of the Tyger. The distant deeps or skies bring to mind the notions of Hell being underground and Heaven being in the sky. Since the Tyger may have been created in either Hell (deeps) or Heaven (skies), it remains ambiguous as to whether the Tyger is good or bad. Regardless, it would seem to us that being in the forests of the night with a fearful, burning Tyger on the loose, is scary, whether abstract or not.

Tuesday, January 21, 2020

Comparing Daisy Buchanan of The Great Gatsby and Brett of The Sun Also

Daisy Buchanan of The Great Gatsby and Brett Ashley of The Sun Also Rises      Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Written right after the publication of Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises is apparently influenced in many ways.   The most obvious of Fitzgerald's influence is manifested in Hemingway's portrayal of his heroine, Brett Ashley. Numerous critics have noted and discussed the similarities between Brett and Daisy Buchanan, and rightly so; but the two women also have fundamental differences. Compared to Daisy, Brett is a more rounded, complex character, and Hemingway has treated her with more sympathy than Fitzgerald has with Daisy. Some similarities between Brett Ashley and Daisy Buchanan include their physical beauty, their extravagant/ flamboyant lifestyle, and their unhappy marriages. However, their most important similarity is the destructive influence they have on their suitors.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Daisy attracts Jay Gatsby with her beauty--not only her physical appearance, but also the entire carefree, comfortable, luxurious lifestyle: Gatsby was overwhelmingly aware of the youth and mystery that wealth imprisons and preserves, of the freshness of many clothes and of Daisy, gleaming like silver, safe and proud above the hot struggles of the poor (157). To Gatsby the rich life is temptingly desirable because it was equaled to Daisy herself. Her life far detached from the sweaty hard struggling seems to hold as much enchanted beauty as she holds for Gatsby. He falls in love with that beauty, and Daisy has become his one and only goal and dream in life. With this, Fitzgerald is putting the blame for Gatsby's fall--his indulgence in the wrong dream, and his wrong choice of means to achieve his end--on Daisy. But t... ... S. "Brett and Her Lovers." Brett Ashley. Ed. Harold Bloom. New York: Chelsea House Publishers, 1991. 105-122. Martin, Wendy. "Brett Ashley as New Woman in The Sun Also Rises." New Essays on The Sun Also Rises. Ed. Linda Wagner-Martin. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987. 65-82. Works Consulted: Hemingway, Ernest. "The Unpublished Opening of The Sun Also Rises." (5-8). Fitzgerald, F. Scott. "Letter to Ernest Hemingway (June 1926)." (8). Whitlow, Roger. "Bitches and Other Simplistic Assumptions." (148-156). Cohen, Milton A. "Circe and Her Swine." (157-165). Bloom, Harold. Brett Ashley. New York: Chelsea House Publishers, 1991. McCay, Mary A. "Fitzgerald's Women: Beyond Winter Dreams." (311-324). Fleischmann, Fritz, ed. American Novelists Revisited: Essays in Feminist Criticism. Boston: G. K. Hall & Co., 1982.      

Monday, January 13, 2020

Jackie Kay ”Owl” Essay

The faint, almost invisible, line between child and adult, carefree and responsible, becomes more and more blurry and grey the closer you get to it. First, it is said that you reach adulthood and step into the real world, when you confirm your faith in God, but thrusting that threshold yourself, you just know you are not yet an adult. So then, you postpone it until the age of 18. By then you should be starting your career, or at least have an idea of where you are going, and more importantly you are now legally an adult, with the right to vote and take care of others, but also with the hard realities of facing up to your mistakes. Coming to terms with who you are as you grow up and as an adult is not always the easiest thing. The short story â€Å"Owl† by Jackie Kay treats exactly this subject, of whom you end out to be, and what things you choose to hold on to in life. Jackie Kay chooses in her story to make use of the first-person narrator, and this makes it easier as a reader to identify yourself with the main character Anita. The reader reminisces to own childhood memories and feel like they are in close contact with Anita’s feelings, almost as if they were the reader’s own. When Anita tells her story, she does so by starting out in a flashback from her childhood, with the memory that started it all. The time she went on holiday with her parents and Marion and hers, and they first discovered the screeching barn owl, which would become the foundation for their lifelong friendship. This use of flashback gives the reader a more precise conception of who Anita was as a child, and what made her Barn. As most children Barn was selfish and unable to sympathize. She was not held back by leaving out Sandra when it came to who caused the crowd, and keen neither on giving her an owl-related nickname to include her or even changing her own. When it came to telling white lies to uphold the sacredness of her and Tawny’s new best friendship, she did so without the blink of an eye. As Barn retells the stories of their childhood she leaves little comments, which tells the reader that the pettiness and uncompromising attitude she possessed as a child is no longer with her. She has made a development from child to adult, even though she cannot see it  herself. She notices and analyzes, as she retells, the feelings she put Sandra through by excluding her. This also indicates the change she has made from her age of ten until her forty’s; in spite her own lack of recognizing it. It is later on revealed that the same holiday where Barn and Tawny discovered the barn owl, they also found out that their parents had swapped. This collision of two worlds and confusion over splitting parents keeps coming up in Barns mind. She tells Tawny that she cannot stop thinking about that summer, and at first, one might think that this has to do with the owl that tied their friendship together. However, when looking closer you will realize that her own recent split from a man causes her lingering to this memory. It is briefly brought up by her and Tawny but not really spoken of, which is caused by Barn’s conflicting emotions from her parents split. On one hand, their splitting brought her closer to her best friend and gave her something consistent in her life that she knew would never fail her. On the other, she is scared to be alone, and taking over all the responsibility for herself, becoming an adult. Therefore, she leans on Tawny to be the only trusty thing in her life. The owl in this story seem to have significant meaning to the friendship between Barn and Tawny, and while the owl does symbolize the friendship and the passage between child and grownup, it holds a deeper and more hidden meaning. It symbolizes the burden they have both been carrying on their shoulders ever since that night where they found out about their parents. They have never talked about it and the ignorance of what happened and insecurity about love that followed, all of which yet unexplained, is a contributor to Barns insecurity about who she is even now in her forty’s. As they talk about it and decide to move on they both wake up feeling like the weight have been lifted of their shoulders. And this sweet release is exactly what the heron by the Mersey river resembles. The burden flying away, soaring up, up, up in the sky releasing them from their agony, and taking them back to the simplicity of childhood. Therefore, it seems to be the owl that catches them, brings them in while it is yet another bird, the heron, that is bound to set them free. Tawny’s last comment on how Barn will soon need her wings is Jackie Kay’s way of saying that life is not over just because, you are middle-aged, or you split from your partner or your parents get divorced. Life is only just begun, and I believe that this is the message that Jackie Kay wishes to leave the reader with. You cannot, you must not let the bad things bring you down. Cause if you let them do that then how are supposed to fly?

Sunday, January 5, 2020

ABBLS The Assessment of Basic Language and Learning Skills

The ABBLS is an observational assessment tool that measures the language and functional skills of children with pervasive developmental delays, most often specifically those children diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorders. It assesses 544 skills from 25 skill areas which include language, social interaction, self-help, academic and motor skills that typical children acquire before kindergarten. The ABBLS is designed so it can be administered as an observational inventory, or by introducing the tasks as individually introduced tasks to be observed and recorded. Western Psychological Services, the publisher of the ABBLS, also sells kits with all the manipulate objects needed to present and observe the tasks in the inventory. Most of the skills can be measured with items that are at hand or can be easily acquired.   Success is measured in the ABBLS by long-term assessment of skill acquisition. If a child is moving up the scale, gaining ever more complex and age appropriate skills, the child is being successful, and the program is appropriate. If a student is ascending the skill ladder, it is pretty likely that the program is working. If a student stalls, it may be time to reassess and decide what part of the program needs more attention. The ABBLS is not designed specifically for placement or to assess whether a student needs an IEP or not.   The ABBLS for Designing Curriculum and Teaching Programs Because the ABBLS presents the developmental tasks in the order they would naturally be acquired as skills, the ABBLS can also provide a framework for functional and language skill development curriculum. Although the ABBLS was not strictly created as such, it still provides a logical and progressive set of skills that support children with developmental disabilities and put them on the path to higher language and functional living skills.   Although the ABBLS itself is not described as a curriculum, by virtually creating a task analysis (presenting ascending skills to mastery) they can make it possible to scaffold the skills you are teaching as well as skip writing a task analysis!    Once an ABBLS is created by the teacher or psychologist it should travel with the child and should be reviewed an updated by the teacher and psychologist with the input of the parents.   It should be critical for the teachers to ask for a parental report, for a skill that has not be ​generalized to the home is perhaps not really a skill that has been acquired.  Ã¢â‚¬â€¹ Example The   Sunshine school, a special school for children with Autism, assess all incoming students with the ABBLS.  It has become a standard assessment used for placement (putting children with similar skills together,) to decide what are appropriate services, and to structure their educational program. It is reviewed at a bi-annual IEP meeting in order to review and fine-tune the students educational program.