Family Matters: Literary Analysis of the Veldt and Heart of a Dog Essay

Family Matters: Literary Analysis of The Veldt and Heart of a Dog A family unit is like a fragile, expensive artifact. It can be absolutely beautiful, but it can also absolutely shatter into a million pieces if the wrong entity gets ahold of it. Sometimes, this critical entity that shatters it may be technology that has been used in the wrong ways. In both The Veldt, by Ray Bradbury, and Heart of a Dog, by Mikhail Bulgakov, the power of technology threatens to bring down the family unit as the reader commonly knows it. The technology in each book first grows the idea of family, but ultimately ends up hurting the social dynamic of the family it had hoped to expand. These books explore the problems that technology causes that were originally trying to fix them. In this way, technology helped to support these families initially, but eventually knocked them down, shattering them hopelessly into the ground. In Ray Bradbury’s The Veldt, the Hadley family wanted technology to make their lives easier, more carefree, and as a life enhancer. They made their house do everything possible to mechanize ordinary household chores. The â€Å"Happylife Home†¦clothed and fed and rocked them to sleep and played and sang and was good to them† (12) this indicated the attempt to create an environment that would be free of worries. The nursery, the dreamlike play place George Hadley had installed because â€Å"nothing is too good for our children† (14) was so amazing that George was â€Å"filled with admiration for the mechanical genius who had conceived this room† (15) In this sense, George was doing what he could for his family, trying to bring them closer by providing the means to a happier existence for his kids, as well as his wife. With every chore taken care of, what worries could one possibly have? As the family would eventually find out, there were quite a few problems. Very quickly did this dreamlike world filled with easiness and carefree living come crashing down on the Hadley’s. With her regular duties such as cooking and cleaning taken up by the omnipresent house, Lydia Hadley was deprived of her usual sanity she finds in her chores. She vents about her replacement as a caretaker in the family when she states, â€Å"I feel like I don’t belong here. The house is wife and mother now, and nursemaid. Can I compete with an African veldt? Can I give a bath and scrub the children as efficiently or quickly as the automatic scrub bath can? I cannot. † (16) While the house was designed to make Lydia’s home life much less stressful, she laments the fact that her place in the family has been overtaken by an inanimate object, and that she has lost all hope of connecting with her family. She is also not the only person whose role has changed via the house’s ‘do everything’ programming. Lydia comments on her husband’s nature by saying â€Å"You look as if you didn’t know what to do with yourself in this house, either. You smoke a little more†¦drink a little more†¦need a sedative every night. You’re beginning to feel unnecessary too. † (17) These mechanical tools that were intended to increase family bonding time by taking away chores have instead induced a sense of laziness. This was a critical step for the Hadley’s, replacing everyday work not with enriching playtime, but with sheer boredom, showing how this technology has worsened their conditions. The technology essentially replaced George and Lydia as parents and caretakers, setting the stage for a social upheaval in the family. When the nursery was left to its own devices, the kids, Peter and Wendy, grew in power, seemingly overthrowing George and Lydia, ceasing to listen to them anymore. A chilling example of this is when George threatens to turn off the house and Peter coldly states, â€Å"I don’t think you’d better consider it any more, Father. † To which George replies â€Å"I won’t have any threats from my son! † (23) This shows how the power balance has shifted from the adults to the kids. Peter turns into a cold, mean-spirited son when George keeps threatening to turn off the house, boldly proclaiming â€Å"Oh, how I hate you†¦ I wish you were dead! † (26) This is simply foreshadowing a few pages later when the kids lock George and Lydia into the nursery with the lions, to be brutally murdered. Over the course of just a short time, the reader witnesses how the technology of the house had overturned a seemingly happy family into a socially backward, messed up family. In Mikhail Bulgakov’s Heart of a Dog, Philip Philippovich uses his surgical practices in order to create a family unit, which ultimately runs astray. Philippovich uses his technology on the dog Sharikov in order to transform he dog to a human and assert his dominance over this human that he creates. It is an incredible undertaking in technology that starts with a positive thought about creation, yet ends in pure misery and despair. While Preobrazhensky may not have the stereotypical family situation, it can be argued that by asserting his status as master of Sharikov, Preobrazhensky was claiming his status as a father figure for Sharikov. One such time where Sharikov calls Philipovich his dad is during a meal in which Philipovich is being very impatient with Sharikov, and Sharikov retorts, saying â€Å"You’re getting too hard on my, dad. (70) While Philipovich gets very defensive about this statement, and doesn’t want to be called a dad, the fact that Sharikov even considers this a possibility is a huge telltale sign into their social structure of the home. It is also essentially the beginning of the end for their life as a family unit. While the technology of the surgery may have led to a creation of a family dynamic between Sharikov and Preobrazhensky, however, eventually this same dynamic eventually crashes, and the same technology used to create a human being to a dog, transforms that same hu man back into a dog. This represents the dismantling of a family unit by the hands of the same technology that set it up in the first place. Philippovich has an epiphany near the end of the novel, realizing he does not need to be a creator, a father figure, when nature itself will take care of the creating. Preobrazhensky grumbles, â€Å"[The surgery] might be possible to turn a dog into a highly advanced human. But what the hell for? †¦ Doctor, the human race takes care of this by itself, and every year, in the course of its evolution, it creates dozens of outstanding geniuses who adorn the earth, stubbornly selecting them out of the mass of scum† (103). This is when he decides that the technology he has been using to create his family dynamic is essentially useless, and that the technology of the surgery only caused him more harm than good. In comparing these two books readers can see how the use of different forms of technology worked on each family unit in similar ways, leading to a destruction of family. In The Veldt, the Hadley family comes as an already established, traditional family structure, however, upon the introduction to technology seemingly falls apart at the seams. This is contrasted to the Heart of a Dog, where the definition of family is slightly different. In this book, the reader can see how technology singlehandedly create and then pull apart a family structure, effectively showing the immense power that this technology has. In each book, however, we can see the huge difference that this technology makes on the family. The Veldt has a murderous ending which can be solely attributed to the new technological advances of the nursery. The Heart of a Dog displays a harsh yet familial father-son relationship that breaks down with the misuse of the powerful technology that created it. Through these two novels the reader discovers how technology, when misused, can cause the serious destruction of family. Both Bradbury and Bulgakov challenge the notion that technology is always progressive in nature, and instead offer an alternative, showing how technology can instead break and crumble an important social institution. Both stories can be looked at as at one point incredible artifacts which, via the mistaken power of technology, collapsed onto themselves and shattered into mess.

Beneath Clouds Speech – the Persona of Lena

Mr Teacher was kind enough to invite me here today to inform you of my journey to discover my personal identity and all of the trials and tribulations that came with it. For those of you who don’t know me, my name is Lena and I come from an Aboriginal Irish background. Everyone I want you to imagine feeling so alone, trapped, isolated and different from everyone around you. Feeling so alienated that you absolutely have to get out. That’s how I felt at the beginning of my journey. I was a white girl living in an aboriginal society, isolated by my own heritage. I lived with my mother, stepfather and younger brother in a rural area; they were a typical aboriginal family. My parents were alcoholics and smokers and my brother was a thief. There was no way I wanted to end up like them and I knew my only way out was to find my biological father. My biological father loved to travel so he left me when I was really young so he could live the life that he always dreamed of living. The last I heard he was living somewhere in Sydney. In my head that sounded perfect, I was old enough that he wouldn’t have to do much to care for me so he could still travel and almost anything was better than living with a family that couldn’t care less about me. So I left. I know it was somewhat selfish to abandon my family out of the blue but I was fed up with living a disadvantaged life when I knew I could accomplish so much more. To make matters worse I missed my bus to Sydney because I was busy retching in the bathroom since I ate some revolting food. I was pretty much stranded in the middle of nowhere with no options except to wait for the next bus. To my surprise one of the most unusual things happened, a young boy roughly around my age hopped out of the back of a milk truck. I was almost certain that Dairy Farmers milk didn’t produce young boys, so naturally I assumed there was something dubious about him especially since he reeked of immorality. However he did say something that set off a light bulb in my head. He asked ‘which way is it to Sydney? ’ and he just started walking. Then I thought why the heck was I sitting on my butt when I could be on my way to Sydney, so I set off on foot as well. Eventually I learnt the boy’s name was Vaughn, I tried to remain distant from him though because his whole essence was exactly what I was trying to escape from; the stereotypical life of an Aboriginal. He was on the run because he escaped from a detention centre. Don’t get me wrong, he did have some morals; the only reason he even escaped was to see his Mother because she was on her death bed. However Vaughn was in the detention centre for a reason and some facts are just hard to overlook. Vaughn was actually a relatively nice guy once you got to know him. I remember we both hitch-hiked a ride from a bunch of Aboriginals and the driver slapped a girl in the face. I found his behaviour so repulsive that I told him to stop the car; I would’ve rather walked than stayed in the car with the likes of him. Vaughn had the opportunity to stay with his buddies that he so kindly referred to as ‘cuz’ but he didn’t, instead he got out of the car and walked with me. I have a very tough exterior so the fact that Vaughn was able to break through that and make me feel touched was extraordinary. I think that was the first time that I actually started to trust Vaughn, unfortunately our relationship ran very hot and cold so that never lasted for long. By the end of our journey I believe Vaughn and I made lasting impressions on each other; he taught me the importance of embracing my heritage and I would like to think that some of my morals brushed off on him. Vaughn was such major part of my journey, without him I wouldn’t be who I am today. So when it came time to part ways it was very emotional; we barely spoke and our goodbye was a simple hug, then I was on a train to Sydney. It wasn’t until after the train pulled away that the true reality of the situation hit me, I was never going to see him again that’s when the tears started to roll freely down my face. I’m sure by now many of you are wondering ‘did she ever find her father? Unfortunately I didn’t. When I finally arrived in Sydney I discovered that my father had passed away several years ago which is why he hadn’t remained in contact. I guess it would be kind of difficult to remain in contact when you are on the other side. However my journey wasn’t entirely pointless, I am now living out my dream of being a writer and Sydney gave me all the opportunities that I always thought I deserved. I believe that this entire journey help ed me discover my personal identity. It made me realise that no matter what, you should always stand by your beliefs and persevere. There is a saying ‘the grass is greener on the other side’ but I don’t believe that’s true, I believe ‘the grass is greener where you water it’. So if you put in the effort you can achieve anything. I think that is one of the rules I now live my life by and it was highly influenced by my journey. I would like to thank you all for listening to my speech and I hope I didn’t take up too much of your time.

Marketing Mix Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words - 1

Marketing Mix - Essay Example A marketing mix is an important tool that helps Coca Cola Company to understand what to do to reach out to the target market. Marketing means having Coca Cola drinks at the right place at the right time for convenience for the customer. Coca Cola has numerous elements that form the core of a main marketing system. The elements help Coca Cola achieve its objectives by incorporating them together. A good combination of the elements allows Coca Cola to have a focus on the marketing product. Creation of a pricing strategy by gathering information of the market ensures that the product is not underpriced or overpriced. The strategy involves scrutinizing Coca Cola targets and objectives for the product. Price is one of the elements of a product mix, and it plays an important role in determining the sales of the Coca Cola. In the case of Coca Cola, the price is the value of the drink offered to any individual seeking to quench his or her thirst. Price is the amount that customers pay to purchase Coca Cola from the supplier. Setting the price is important in the development of Coca Cola because it will control the forces of demand and supply for the enterprise. Pricing strategy for Coca Cola helps it to have the ability to determine its sales. The perceived value of the product plays a big role in the determination of the sales of Coca Cola Company. The manner in which a customer values a product is important in the pricing of the beverage company. A positive customer value helps Coca Cola Company successfully charge higher than the monetary of the product. On the other hand, a product should not have a lower value in the eyes of the customer. In the case of the scenario of Coca Cola, the product will be underpriced affecting the sales objectives of the company. About the price, product plays an important role in the marketing mix of a product. Products are the commodities that the company offers for sale. Coca Cola delivers quality products

Physicians Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Physicians - Essay Example Allowing people to select their own doctors will decrease the health care costs in the economy. This move will create an environment whereby Physicians will compete for clients thus leading to better services since physicians will be expecting more referrals from satisfied consumers (Dingwall 59). Doctors should not be licensed. According to the proponents of licensing, information asymmetries in the medical filed is the main aim of licensing since the government needs to protect consumers. Patients do not have prior knowledge of the quality of services to be provided but word-of mouth through referrals and doctor reputation can solve the information asymmetry problem (Dingwall 88). The consumer has still considerable market power since he can shop elsewhere for medical services if the service provided is either expensive or poor thus improving the quality of medical services. Licensing alone is not the best solution to protect the consumers since certification is enough to rid out the incompetent health service providers. Proponents of licensing argue that it makes the licensed Physicians provide competent services in an ethical manner since it makes them accountable for the health outcomes of patients (Dingwall 97). If there was no licensing, the price of Physician services will decline since there would be more competition among the physicians thus leading to reduction in costs. The need to comply with the licensing requirements also increases the costs of services and leads to more litigations that also raise the prices of services (Shi and Singh 78). If the medical field was not regulated, the quality of medical care would increase. Licensing reduces the number of available physicians and inflates the medical costs that limiting the access of health care by the poor population. Licensing also stifles

Emotional and Physical Symptoms of Depression during Pregnancy And Essay

Emotional and Physical Symptoms of Depression during Pregnancy And Different Ways of Treatment 2 - Essay Example In one year, it would be possible to have a favorable sample size. The responsibility of the nurses handling antenatal care is critical in the research, because they would be in charge of patient enrollment and diagnostic procedures. Pregnant women that meet the criterion described in the DSM manual of depression would form the eligible group. Moreover, the research would also consider the treatment strategies used to address the cases, and eventually compare the effectiveness of the strategies. On larger scale, the research would involve the collection of data from different health centers (Kothari, 2005).   After identifying the different treatment strategies used to treat pregnant mothers that suffer depression, a qualitative research on the efficiency of each would follow (p. 56). This would mean that different patients would receive different therapies, and a close monitoring of each would follow. In a bid to determine the most effective strategy, the research would consider the time taken by patients to heal, and aspects of their emotional health after the depression. This research would produce evidence-based results on the most effective treatment. It is important to determine the prevalence of emotional depression during pregnancy. Therefore, the number of patients presenting symptoms in different health centers would be considered for a period of one year. Statistical analysis of the data obtained would help in determining the prevalence of depression in pregnancy. Evidently, the selection of an effective methodology is one of the critical aspects of consideration prior to carrying any research. The selected methodology selected determines the data collected, and hence the findings. As highlighted above, there are different facets of this research, necessitating both quantitative and qualitative researchers. This will help in determining the physical and emotional symptoms of depression in pregnant women. Moreover, the above

Text-Messaging and Orality Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Text-Messaging and Orality - Essay Example The cell phone is perhaps the single most ubiquitous feature of communication technology and according to the CTIA over 82% of Americans own one. Its ubiquity is not only due to its overwhelming ownership but by its very nature considering that neither a computer nor a land-line phone can be carried and used so easily. This facile manipulation of technology hints at McLuhan's comment. Moreover, the overwhelming majority of those cell phones have text-messaging capability. Text messaging as a phenomenon has gained attention from academics and critics primarily because of the proclivity of its users to employ "creative" grammatical and linguistic constructions. Its harshest critics claim that it will, or already has, led to a corruption of language. Indeed its pliable and dynamic structure does allow a manipulation of formal grammatical and linguistic rules that would be difficult to parse in formal essays, such as this one; its function in a civilization that has long been inscribed b y writing fulfills a much different role than essays, or letters- though its effect on language might be inedible and perceived even in those forms. Text-messaging and related channels represent a syncretism between oral and written forms of communication, and while it lacks the formal purity of traditional written forms of communication, it maintains its own separate aesthetic and poetic qualities that emphasize a heavy reliance on context, mnemonic deployment, and efficiency. By analyzing the physical nature, functional and literary features of text-messaging the oral features of text-messaging will be revealed, understanding of course that in the final analysis its essence as a textual form of communication in a hypertextual society remains regnant. In attempting to outline the structural features of text-messaging and related conduits of communication such as instant messaging, it will be juxtaposed to the features of orality that are relevant. Consider Edouard Glissant's quote, "Oralityis inseparable from the body in movement" (MacNeil, 2007). We understand text and the printed word to be primarily outside the body, distinct from the body and its author. Spoken word or talk is understood to be generated from within the body and indistinct from the author. Text-messaging straddles this interior/exterior boundary. The device on which one types or texts undeniably lies outside the body, its reception as well is mediated by a device outside the person. This is an important distinction as one of the salient features of oral communication is that it is received immediately and without explicit and conscious mediation, insofar that the reverberation of sound, the movement of air is not interpreted into words or speech until it is we ll into the ear canal, and though we recognize the source of the sound, its compilation occurs internally (Ong, 1982, pp. 32-33). To some degree this is quite different from the structure of text-messaging, insofar like other textual forms of communication, it is understood that the interpretation occurs on the page, in the visual field. However, in considering the intimate and tight connection between text-message and text-messenger there remains some features of the bodily coextension of orality. The cell phone's mobility and sizes bridges the communication barrier imposed by other devices, such as computers, telephones, even paper. Someone can interact with and use their cell

Anglo American Plc report Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

Anglo American Plc report - Essay Example The five major categories of financial ratios are liquidity, financial leverage, asset efficiency, profitability, and market values (Peavler, 2013). The purpose of this report is to analyze the financial performance of the company Anglo American Plc by performing ratio analysis. Trend Analysis Anglo American A trend analysis of some key financial indicators of Anglo American is illustrated below. 2012 (millions) 2011 (millions) % change Sales 28761 30580 -5.94% Gross profit 2768 13237 -79.09% Expenses 30449 21141 44.03% Interest payable 798 695 14.82% Net profit before tax 138 10599 -98.70% Total assets 79369 72422 9.56% Total liabilities 35582 29253 17.79% Capital and reserves 37657 39092 -3.67% Advantages ratio analysis Ratio analysis is a tremendous analytic tool that can be used to evaluate the financial performance of an enterprise. One of the virtues of this type of analysis is that any person with access to the internet can extract the financial statements of a company to real ize the analysis. The basic formulas used as input in ratio analysis mostly utilize data from the financial statements of the company. The use of ratio analysis can help people instantly check weather a company is sound financially (Bott, 2013). Another advantage of ratio analysis is that the ratios can be compared against the performance of other companies or the industry. Financial ratios can also be compared against the financial ratio results of previous years. The ratio analysis performed on Anglo American in this paper includes the use of 21 different ratios. Ratio Analysis Anglo American The net margin of Anglo American in 2012 was -2.1%. Net margin measures the absolute profitability of a company. It is calculated dividing net profit by total sales. A negative net margin result is an unfavorable outcome. This ratio was chosen because it shows the profitability of the firm. In 2012 Anglo American obtained an earnings per share (EPS) metric of -$1.19. The company’s EPS went down by $3.91 since the previous fiscal year. Earnings per share is the portion of a company’s profit allocated to each outstanding share of common stock (Investopedia, 2013). EPS was selected because this metric influences the buying decisions of investors. The return on assets (ROA) of the company in 2012 was -0.8%. ROA is calculated by dividing net income by total assets. The reason I selected this ratio is because it shows how effective a company has been at generating profits from its assets. The efficiency of the company is an important aspect of the operations to measure. Anglo American achieved a return on equity (ROE) in 2012 of -1.4%. This metric measures the extent to which financial leverage is working towards benefiting the company. The formula to calculate return on equity is net income divided by total equity. ROE was used in this analysis because this metric demonstrates the ability of the firm to generate income from its equity. The debt ratio of the com pany is calculated dividing total debt by total assets. Anglo American had a debt ratio in 2012 of 0.45: 1. This ratio shows how well prepared the company is to pay off its long term debt. Anglo American does not seem to have overextended its debt position. The debt ratio was used in the analysis due to the fact that this ratio evaluates the long term solvency of the firm. Typically companies are in trouble when the debt ratio is too