Tuesday, November 26, 2019

Goodfellas summary essays

Goodfellas summary essays Wannabe gangster Henry Hill climbs the ladder through the hierarchy of the mob, but Henrys career falls apart after getting involved with drugs and has to rat on his former mob associates in order to save himself. Based on a true story Goodfellas came out in 1990. This movie begins in the late 40s when Henry Hill played by Rat Loitta was a young Italian-American in a New York City neighborhood. At Henrys young age he begins an obsession with the local gangsters in his neighborhood. Henry wants to become a gangster because they seem to have good lives with the way they dress and act. So Henry goes against his parents will to work for the mob. Still just a kid Henry begins parking the cars for the gangsters then continues his young criminal career buy selling stolen cigarettes on the streets. The police arrest Henry for selling stolen cigarettes but his arrest opens his career to new heights when he doesnt tell the police anything about the mob he works for. The local mob boss, Paul Cicero (played by Paul Sorvino) recognizes Henry for his silence to the police. Henry then continues up the gangster ladder working with Tommy DeVito (Joe Pesci) and Jimmy Conway (Robert De Niro) in their teenage y ears. Henry continues his gangster activity and marries a Jewish girl named Karen (played by Lorraine Bracco). Karen falls in love with Henry and is fascinated by his career as a gangster. Henry, Tommy, and Jimmy then steal cargo worth millions of dollars from an airliner at a near by airport (JFK airport) and pay Paul (the mob boss) his share. The gangsters continue their careers. Tommy becomes the most violent one out of the group always trying to prove his toughness with violence. Jimmy becomes obsessed with hijacking and theft. As the years go by the Henry picks up a cocaine addiction and traffics cocaine for profit even though selling drugs is strictly prohibited ...

Friday, November 22, 2019

Merriam-Websters 2015 Word of the Year Isnt Even a Word

Merriam-Websters 2015 Word of the Year Isnt Even a Word Merriam-Webster’s 2015 Word of the Year Isn’t Even a Word Merriam-Webster’s 2015 Word of the Year Isn’t Even a Word By Mark Nichol The selection of -ism as Merriam-Webster’s Word of the Year should be invalidated on a technicality- the dictionary publisher might choose, instead, to refer to the Morpheme of the Year- but the choice is an apt one, as multiple concepts whose names include that suffix have dominated recent public discourse. Merriam-Webster selects the Word of the Year and its competitors on the basis of the number of times visitors to its website search for a particular word and according to how strikingly that figure compares to the number of lookups from the previous year. Based on the results for 2015, the American public, apparently, is preoccupied with isms. Topmost among -ism words in the public consciousness, perhaps, is terrorism, a term referring to acts of violence perpetrated to intimidate people for political ends. Though terrorism has seemed to gain ubiquity only in the last couple of decades- in the United States, the terrorist attacks on New York City’s World Trade Center and on the Pentagon on September 11, 2001, prompted the nation’s preoccupation with the concept- the word was first used in the late eighteenth century, and of course the strategy is as old as political organization. A tangentially related concept, racism- referring to bigotry on the basis of ethnic origin- was also a popular search item at Merriam-Webster.com last year. (The intersection occurs because radical Muslims have been responsible for some notable recent atrocities in the United States and abroad, and many people conflate followers of Islam with a specific ethnic identity. However, though Islam began in Arabia and many early followers of the religion were Arabs, like Christianity, it is a worldwide phenomenon whose practitioners come from a variety of ethnic backgrounds.) The term is also in the news because many people view some of 2016 presidential candidate Donald Trump’s views and proposed policies as racist. In addition, because of a rash of incidents across the United States in which white police officers have appeared to use excessive force against black crime suspects, many observers say that racism remains one of the most significant problems in American society. Another ism that Merriam-Webster highlighted is socialism. The term, referring to a political system in which the government controls the means of production and distribution of goods, is newsworthy for two reasons: Since early in the first of President Obama’s two terms, he has championed what are widely perceived as socialistic policies such as nationalized health care, and 2016 presidential candidate Bernie Sanders, a self-proclaimed socialist, has received much publicity for discussing policies and programs associated with socialism. That term, thanks to political upheavals and international conflicts throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, is fraught with negative connotation, so it’s no surprise that people have sought to investigate its meaning. (I’ll write about socialism and the related term communism in an upcoming post.) In my first paragraph, I suggested that -ism is ineligible for Word of the Year recognition because it’s not a word; it’s a morpheme, a unit of meaning (usually a prefix or a suffix) that is not an independent component of language. But later in the post, I twice wrote ism (once in plural form, and then in singular construction) as if it’s a word. Why? Because it is a word, used to refer collectively to a nebulous set of social concepts. But -ism, by virtue of that hyphen, is a mere morpheme with a different meaning: Unlike ism, it does not stand on its own to refer to a category of concepts; it is a suffix subordinate to the many nouns it serves, altering the noun’s meaning to denote a system of thought related to that noun. Want to improve your English in five minutes a day? Get a subscription and start receiving our writing tips and exercises daily! Keep learning! Browse the Vocabulary category, check our popular posts, or choose a related post below:Punctuating â€Å"So† at the Beginning of a SentenceCapitalization Rules for the Names of GamesDealing With A Character's Internal Thoughts

Thursday, November 21, 2019

Oedipus rex Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Oedipus rex - Essay Example When Oedipus understands that, he is the murderer of Laios , he insults the oracle and mocks him of his psychic power In rage of revealing the truth, the oracle is threatened to be overthrown from the kingdom. During the same encounter, the Oedipus history of killing his father and marrying his mother is revealed which was part of his history. Here we can see the anxiety of a person in knowing his past and the trauma and trouble it brings into the life of self and others. It is an ardent fact that our life is predestined, even though free will is working, God understands our choices and our fate is written far ahead of time. If we are ignorant or knowledgeable, what is destined will happen no matter how we resist it.Oedipus did the mistake of approaching the Oracle to know his past which completely destroyed his peace and mental balance. When it is the matter of argument between Creon and Oedipus , it started due to the conspiracy accusation of latter on former. Creon being a gentle man rationally explained to Oedipus about his disinterest in being a king and how he handed over the crown to Oedipus with full heartedness and kindness. Creon’s major points are that Oedipus’s kingdom is his granting and he explains that he is less interested in power and wealth as he already possesses them being his wife’s brother. The points seem rational as it explains that Creon has no hand in corrupting the throne of Oedipus. Here Jocasta sang a song to Oedipus about her first born son and his death on order to convince him that he is not the murderer of Laius. Oedipus in the play relates his life story to that of Jocasta in order to counter check whether the person he has killed is his own father. The story of Oedipus made Jocasta think that indeed Oedipus i her son as he mentioned he was called bastard by a drunk man in the kingdom of Corinth. The effect of the story on Oedipus was

Tuesday, November 19, 2019

Microsoft Company Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Microsoft Company - Essay Example The company has made a significant impact on the state of the economy in the state of Washington. The company’ growth experiences have had an intense effect on the employment growth in Washington. For 18 years of the company’s existence, the growth rate of employment in Washington alone has expanded at an annual average rate of 1.7 %. Secondly, the company’s consumption rate of goods and other transactions has had a significant boost in the level of income in Washington (Eicher, 2010). Industry analysis/ Benchmark – Microsoft Corporation is the leading producer of computer software. However, its products are facing a stiff competition from products such as Linux, UNIX and Macintosh. The company also faces a strong rivalry from various companies such as the American Software, Apple, Google, Autodesk Inc. and others. Fortunately, Microsoft’s products have unshaken competitive advantage over other companies for the reason that their products are user friendly thus has a stronger market share. For instance, an industry analysis between Microsoft and American software based on net income for two years, 2012 and 2013, shows that Microsoft had a higher net income as compared to its rival. That is, ($ 21,863,000 in 2013; $ 16,978,000 in 2012 for Microsoft) and ($ 10,411,000 in 2013; $ 11,343,000 in 2012 for American Software) (SEC filings, n.d.). Holding period return – the company’s holding period returns as measured by the return on equity and return on investments are as follows: ROE (net income/Total equity), ROI (net profit/Total assets). In 2011, 2012 and 2013, the company’s ROE = (47.6 % in 2011; 27.69 % in 2013; 25.58 % in 2012). This single factor DuPont analysis shows the investors’ reward for the equity contribution. The return could be classified as sufficient and it increased in the year 2013. The ratio shows that the company is efficient. Secondly, the ROI = (25 % in 2011; 15.35 % in 2013; 14 % in 2013). Return on

Saturday, November 16, 2019

Indian Republic Day Essay Example for Free

Indian Republic Day Essay In the life of every nation there are certain days which are considered as red-letter days. The Republic Day celebration held on 26th January every year in our country is one of those days. It is perhaps the most important day of our country. It marks the birth of our nation as a republic. Therefore this day is celebrated all over the country with great pomp and show. The origin of Republic day goes back to pre- independence days of 1929, when the Indian National Congress during its Lahore session under the President ship of Pt. Jawaharlal Nehru passed a resolution declaring ‘Complete Independence’ as the goal of the nation and decided to celebrate 26th January every year as the Independence day throughout the length and breadth of the country. From then on till the dawn of independence on Aug. 1947, the nation celebrated 26th Jan. as Independence Day. Later, when India wanted a day to mark its official birth 26th January, the independence day of the pre-independence days was chosen. On this day, 26th Jan. 1950 Indian constitution came into force and India was proclaimed to be a sovereign, democratic and a republic’ Soldiers from different wings of the armed forces, units of paramilitary and police forces march to the tune of the military band. The President takes the salute. A colourful %-past by helicopters and aeroplanes makes the ceremony most spectacular. Folk dances by cultural troupes and various performances are put up by school children to keep the audience spellbound. The tableaux of states depicting the cultural wonders of the states follow the school children. The procession lasts for several hours and finally ends up at Red Fort. Hundreds of people from far off places come to watch the charming show of military might and national glory. It is a great day for all of us. It is a day of remembrance, thanksgiving, and rejoicing. It is also a day of national pledge when we decided to make our country, sovereign, democratic, and republic. A great deal more remains to be done, to achieve this pledge. It is up to you and me to redeem this pledge and make our nation truly democratic and republic.

Thursday, November 14, 2019

Assassination at Sarajevo :: Essays Papers

Assassination at Sarajevo Important Places/Dates of event: April,1914- Narodna Obrandna recieves paper that says that Francis Ferdinand will be coming to Sarajevo on June 28, 1914 Sarajevo-June28, 1914- Francis Ferdinand and Sofia Chotek are assassinated July 23- Austria sends ultimatum to Serbian leaders July 28-Austria declares war on Serbia August 1, 1914- Germany declares war on Russia August 2, 1914- Germany asks for free transit in Belgium; Belgium refuses, but German’s enter anyway August 3, 1914- Germany declares war on France August 4, 1914- Germany admits to violation of Belgian rights, promises to restore order after war October 12, 1914- Gavrilo Princip’s trial Key Idnividuals/Roles: Francis Joseph- emperor of Austria-Hungary Francis Ferdinand –Archduke, heir to the thone; assassinated Sofia Chotek- Francis Ferdinand’s wife; assassinated Gavrilo Princip-assassin and revolutionary terrorist Description/Summary of Event: Of all the European rulers at the time, none was probably more unlucky or unhappy as Francis Joseph, emperor of Austria-Hungary. Francis Joseph’s brother Maximillian was killed by a Mexican firing squad, his sister-in-law went insane, his wife was killed by an anarchist, and his son had either committed suicide or was murdered along with his mistress. As if this wasn’t enough on Sunday June 28,1914 Francis Joseph’s nephew and heir was assassinated along with his wife in Sarajevo. The assassin at Sarajevo was a 19-year-old man named Gavrilo Princip, a member of Narodna Obrandna, which was a secret Serbian patriotic-terrorist group. This groups goal was to restore Serbia back to the way it used to be and becoming free of Austrian rule. In April of 1914 Narodna Obrandna received a piece of paper saying that Francis Ferdinand will be coming to Sarajevo on June 28, 1914. The Serbs saw this event as an insult and an opportunity. June 28 is day in the hearts of all Serbs called Vidovnan. On this day the Turks conquered the old Serb kingdom at the battle of Amsefelde in 1389. It also was the day during the 2nd Balkan war when Serbian armies took revenge on the Turks. Francis Ferdinand’s visit on this day made Serbian’s mad but it meant something totally different for the Narodna Obrandna. They saw this as an opportunity to kill Francis Ferdinand and start the revolutionary movement against Austria-Hungary. From the date Narodna Obrandna received the paper telling of the event, to a few days before they prepared the assassination. The guns and hand grenades were bought from Major Tankosic, a leader of a Serbian radical group.

Tuesday, November 12, 2019

History and Laws of Salmon Management in the Pacific Northwest Essay

1.  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Understanding the regulatory framework for managing salmon Five major environmental or regulatory laws that impact salmon Fishery Conservation and Management Act of 1976. According to Conservation Library, (2010) it empowers regional fishery management councils to prepare plans for the conservation and management of each federally managed fisheries in the exclusive economic zone and thus establish standard habitat conservation measures aimed at conservation anadromous fish such as salmon. It seeks to identify these habitats and delineate them so to protect habitats for all anadromous fish. The act requires that before the federal agencies that involve in any activities that might have adverse impacts on the habitats for anadromous fish, they have to consult with the National Marine Fisheries Service in order to carry out environmental impact assessment of the project so that the NMFS gives its recommendations. Fish and Wildlife Coordination Act of 1974 requires that the federal regulatory and construction agencies should undertake environmental impact assessment on fish and wildlife resources before project planning is done on any water related activities or before making applications for federal permits and licenses thus they must consult with state and federal fish and wildlife agencies before doing this (Conservation Library, 2010). This act ensures that environmental impact assessment is done whenever any project in water or that would affect life in water so that appropriate mitigation measures are put in place or the project cancelled. Federal Water Pollution Control Act Amendments of 1972 requires that any industry discharging its wastes into water has to acquire permit from the Environmental Protection Agency. Thus the agency must check the measures put in place by the industry to treat its effluents before issuing any permit (Conservation Library, 2010). This act ensures that fish or any other living organism in water is not affected by the pollutants from industries. Anadromous and Great Lakes Fisheries Conservation Act of 1965 gives the secretaries of the Interior and Commerce authority to establish terms and conditions that ensure permanent protection of estuarine areas (Conservation, 2004). According to (Resource Laws, 2010) it also gives him or her authority to enter into cost sharing agreements with the states and other non-federal interests in conservation, development and enhancement of the nation’s anadromous fish. This act protects and conserve estuaries where most fish bread or grow and develop since most salmon fish tend to live at estuaries in the oceans and any interference with such features might greatly affect the production fish since it would interfere with the fish habitat. National Environmental Policy Act of 1969. According to Digest of Federal Resource Laws of Interest to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, (2010) this law requires that federal agencies environmental impact assessment on activities that affect the quality of human environment in order to analyze the short term gains of the activity would have on the long term productivity of the environment. In doing this they have to apply an interdisciplinary approach in decision making on matters affecting the environment. Considerations on both the technical and economic impacts are also done. Since the human environment includes all the living things around him, this act protects the anadromous fish like the salmon fish. Any activity that has an adverse effect on water has to be analyzed in its totality and appropriate action taken before being carried out.  Agencies and organizations involved in managing and restoring our salmon The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife as a state agency aims at improving the protection of the endangered salmon fish by identifying wild roaming salmon fish and returning them back to water. It involves communities its programs and seeks to identify fish habitat and to construct fish hatcheries. It is also involved in removing barriers to fish migration by removing invasive plants along rivers, wetlands and estuaries; restoring wetlands and estuaries; and restoring and protecting fish habitat including stream habitat which is very important to salmon fish. This agency therefore plays a major role in salmon migration, spawning and incubation of its eggs. (Resource Laws, 2010). Yuba River Fish Passage Feasibility, according to Edmondson, (2008), is an organization which was established with an aim protecting and conserving the anadromous fish in Yuba River under the Fishery Conservation and Management Act. It is contracted to conserve and manage the essential fish habitats in the Yuba River above Englebright Dam, Central Valley spring-run Chinook and California Central Valley steelhead. It carries out studies and does analyses and evaluation on options for restoring access to spawning and rearing; and sustainable habitat for the anadromous fish. This would include identifying potential suitable habitats and routes for fish passage and mechanisms to support movements of fish upstream and downstream during their migration. This organization there focuses on how best to enable migration of the anadromous fish such salmon from the ocean to stream and from the sea to ocean. 2010 10 â€Å"Waters to Watch, according to Resource Laws, (2010), is an organization which seeks to conserve aquatic life through partnerships. It includes projects in; Bobs Creek, Pennsylvania; Diamond Lake, Iowa; Fairbanks and Soda Springs, Nevada; Georgetown Creek, Idaho; Green River Basin, Colorado, Utah; Wyoming Koktuli River, Alaska; Lake Vermilion, Minnesota; Mackeys Creek, Mississippi; Wasilla Creek,   Alaska; West Branch; and Machias River, Maine. The project seeks to improve the current conditions rivers, streams, lakes and watersheds by co-ordinating the conservation efforts in these various regions. This organization aims at improving the habit for fish including the anadromous fish which is ever migrating in various maters. The Salmon River Restoration Council (SRRC), according to Harding, (2008) is an organization that was established in 1992 to protect and conserve Salmon River watershed in California by conserving its ecosystem particularly the anadromous fish such as the salmon fish. It involves the local community in its programs aimed at conservation of the ecosystem so as to achieve a sustainable economy. National Marine Fisheries Service which is a state agency was established to conserve and manage living marine resources in USA. According to Conservation Library, (2010), its function is to oversee and undertake conservation of marine ecosystem thus promoting healthy marine ecosystem within the United States’ Exclusive Economic Zone which extends to about three hundred and seventy kilometers from the coastline. The agency is mandated to endangered marine species like wild salmon, whales and sea turtles. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is a state organization mandated to protect valuable fish and wildlife resources along the Gulf coast. It monitors activities that may have negative impacts on marine ecosystem and involves geological survey it involves deep water manning to determine impacts of certain occurrences as well as mitigating the impacts of such hazards on marine life. It does impact assessment and give recommendations on the anticipated occurrence. (US Fish and Wildlife Service, 2010) The Environmental Protection Agency which established the Federal Clean Water Act aims at controlling water pollution setting standards to be met by industries and other organizations discharging effluents into water resources. It therefore protects wetlands and aquatic habitat in general throughout the USA and its waters. These provisions put by this agency aims at restoring development of fish by improving the habitat for fish by fully implementing the Federal Clean Water Act. (Whatcom Salmon Recovery, 2003). Washington Department of Ecology in Washington aims at protecting and preserving Washington’s environment. This agency plays a role in the health of salmon fish by involving in planning watershed utilization, allocation of water rights and conserving the quality of water within Washington. (Department of Ecology state of Washington, n. date).  The Nooksack Salmon Enhancement Association, according to Whatcom Salmon Recovery, (2003) is an organization which seeks to return naturally spawning salmon to streams in Whatcom County through restoration and monitoring. They also engage in salmon production by placing woody debris habitat structures in streams. The organization strives to achieve all these through community education.   The Maine Atlantic Salmon Commission is the only agency that given the authority and responsibility to manage the Atlantic salmon fishery in USA (Conservation Library, 2010). It has the responsibility of protecting, conserving and restoring salmon h abitat in inland waters and ocean waters. Summary Salmon management and conservation is not only a concern to the government but a concern to individuals, communities, corporates and non-governmental organizations. Conservation related activities such as providing financial donations to agencies committed to conservations the salmon fish; conducting research activities on salmon’s habitat; providing education to communities living around the water resources and the general public by writing articles and books on salmon fish; and conservation, protection, restoration and management activities towards the salmon fish. 2. History and economics of salmon In 1770s and below America was mainly populated by the Indians and they depended on salmon fish, mainly for food. Euro-Americans began coming to the Pacific Northwest in 1770s. In 1880s, Lewis recognized the salmon fish and wrote descriptive detail about it long before it was given a taxonomic name. The migration of the Euro-Americans into the Pacific Northwest greatly influenced the native’s culture and perception towards the exploitation of natural resources, salmon fish included. Most of these immigrants became farmers. According to National Academies of Sciences (1996), conflicts arose between American Indian ways and non Indian ways and therefore to resolve this, treaties were signed beginning 1854 between the Euro-Americans and the Indian tribes recognizing their land ownership, sovereignty and rules for fishing and hunting. These treaties marked the beginning of radical changes in salmon’s history. There was a transition from ownership salmon landscapes ownership to a more communal ownership which was the beginning modern ways of harvesting, marketing, engineering and conservation. Intervention and mitigation measures were now put in place for sustainable development.  These treaties have been included in the US Supreme Court and have created a solution to contemporary fishing by the Indian tribes. The Bellion decision of 1969 and Boldt Decision of 1974 enabled the signatory tribes a right to access the salmon fish (National Academies of Sciences , 1996). Continued exploitation of natural resources by Euro-Americans led to the decline of the beaver which was very important for the coastal streams as well as the arid regions more importantly provided a rearing habitat for salmon fish (National Academies of Sciences, 1996).  The first salmon cannery was established in 1864 along the Sacramento River in Northern California along the west coast. The cannery was shut down in 1886 and transferred along Colombia River due to sediments which were caused hydraulic mining. From then, many canneries were established and the canneries grew to forty by early1990s. Most of these salmon fish which were harvested to be taken to the canneries were Chinook salmon. However, by 1870s, Chinook salmon catch form the rivers began to steadily decline and so they had to harvest other species of salmon fish which included, Coho, Sockeye and Steelhead salmon (National Academies of Sciences, 1996).  Due continued decline in the fish population, these canneries had to close down and the last to close down along River Colombia was in 1975. The fish catch had significantly dropped form forty three million in 1880s to about two and a half million in 1990s. This was majorly attributed by high inland and ocean fishing, dam constructions along the rivers and modification fresh water streams such as irrigation projects which greatly affected spawning and rearing habitats for the salmon fish (National Academies of Sciences, 1996). These concerns about over fishing and salmon depletion led to the construction of salmon breeding station along Clackamas River in 1877 by the Oregon and Washington Fish Propagation Company. It was later shut down in 1888 because it could not be sustained. This led to construction of hatcheries in 1890s and has greatly increased in numbers to date. It was noted that salmon population did not have any significant increase whenever fish were released from the hatcheries. Thus, between 1930s and 1950s many hatcheries were closed down due to their low returns and problems of diseases and instead this period witnessed an increase in the construction of dams until 1970s. The negative impacts of the dams on the upstream of rivers made most of the salmon fish to migrate to the lower streams of the river (National Academies of Sciences, 1996). In 1960s pasteurized and formulated feeds were invented and this became a solution to diseases caused by artificial propagation thus more hatcheries we re built. Today hatchery facilities are widely distributed throughout the Pacific Northwest (National Academies of Sciences, 1996). The effects of livestock grazing in the rangelands have also had a massive impact on the production of salmon fish. Most of plants that are important for maintaining the wetlands have been seriously reduced and besides, many tanks and dams are constructed along the fresh water streams to provide drinking water for livestock. Overexploitation of trees by humans through lumbering has also contributed to this. The first sawmill to be constructed was in 1827 in Vancouver, Washington. This has destroyed the water catchment areas for most streams. Decline in salmon population is linked to among many factors, global climatic change and other human activities. According to Stanford University (2003, September 23), there has been a decline in salmon fish catch of about 80% between 1970 and 2000. This has mainly been attributed by the global climatic change. It states that salmon fish farm production has greatly improved since the 1980s and has a high market share world wide while the market share for wild-caught salmon from Alaska, British Columbia and Washington has been declining.

Saturday, November 9, 2019

Charles Baudelaire

Born in Paris in 1821, Charles Baudelaire has long been recognized as not only one of the greatest poets of the nineteenth century but also a forefather of modern art. Baudelaire lived during a tumultuous time in French history and his work was impacted by a number of political events. However, his personal life was also turbulent: One of the most scarring episodes of his life was the death of his father in 1827 and his mother's hasty remarriage to a general in the French army. Baudelaire detested his stepfather both personally and as a symbol of the corrupt July monarchy established following the 1830 Revolution.He went to great lengths to upset his stepfather, squandering his inheritance and living a bohemian lifestyle. Worried about his behavior, his family sent him on a trip across the Mediterranean, whose exotic beauty left a lasting impression on the young poet. Shortly after Baudelaire's return to Paris, the 1848 Revolution overthrew the July monarch and established a republic in France for the first time in more than fifty years. Baudelaire greeted the revolution with enthusiasm, fighting among the barricades and openly defying his stepfather in public.However, his joy soon turned to disenchantment when Louis Napoleon, the original Napoleon's nephew, overthrew the Second Republic in 1851. Louis Napoleon's coup d'etat instituted the Second Empire, ending the hopes for a republican form of government that men like Baudelaire favored. His disenchantment then turned to despair when Louis Napoleon began an intense rebuilding and public works project aimed at modernizing Paris. Baudelaire was horrified with the destruction of the ancient and medieval sections of Paris that he had called his home. His longing for the â€Å"old† Paris would play a major role in his poetry.Baudelaire's disgust with politics led to a rejection of reality in favor of an obsessive fantasy world inspired by drugs, the exotic beauty of the Mediterranean, and the search for lov e. He was strongly influenced in this regard not only by his experiences along the Mediterranean but also by Edgar Allen Poe, whose writings he translated into French. Baudelaire was fascinated by Poe's evocation of the dark side of the imagination, and he found a comparably sinister seductiveness in the paintings of Eugene Delacroix and Edouard Manet, as well as the music of Wagner. These themes and influences play a redominant role in Baudelaire's 1857 collection of poetry, The Flowers of Evil, which juxtaposed the negative themes of exile, decay, and death with an ideal universe of happiness. Baudelaire's exotic themes quickly caught the attention of the government, which condemned The Flowers of Evil for immorality. Unlike his friend, Gustave Flaubert, whose Madame Bovary was also put on trial, Baudelaire lost his case, had to pay a fine, and was forced to remove some poems from the collection. Baudelaire was devastated by this rejection of his work, which he attributed to the h ypocrisy of a bourgeoisie incapable of understanding artistic innovation.Yet at the same time, he saw the condemnation of his work as the culmination of the different themes and events that had shaped his artistic talent since his youth: no achievement of beauty could be unaccompanied by bitterness and disappointments. Indeed, with this philosophy, Baudelaire shifted the attention of the art world to the darker side of life, inspiring contemporary and future artists to new levels of perception and provocation. Analysis A confession of hopes, dreams, failures, and sins, The Flowers of Evil attempts to extract beauty from the malignant.Unlike traditional poetry that relied on the serene beauty of the natural world to convey emotions, Baudelaire felt that modern poetry must evoke the artificial and paradoxical aspects of life. He thought that beauty could evolve on its own, irrespective of nature and even fueled by sin. The result is a clear opposition between two worlds, â€Å"spleen † and the â€Å"ideal. † Spleen signifies everything that is wrong with the world: death, despair, solitude, murder, and disease. (The spleen, an organ that removes disease-causing agents from the bloodstream, was traditionally associated with malaise; â€Å"spleen† is a synonym for â€Å"ill-temper. ) In contrast, the ideal represents a transcendence over the harsh reality of spleen, where love is possible and the senses are united in ecstasy. The ideal is primarily an escape of reality through wine, opium, travel, and passion. Dulling the harsh impact of one's failure and regrets, the ideal is an imagined state of happiness, ecstasy, and voluptuousness where time and death have no place. Baudelaire often uses erotic imagery to convey the impassioned feeling of the ideal. However, the speaker is consistently disappointed as spleen again takes up its reign. Read also Edgar Allan Poe DrugsHe is endlessly confronted with the fear of death, the failure of his will, and the suffocation of his spirit. Yet even as the poem's speaker is thwarted by spleen, Baudelaire himself never desists in his attempt to make the bizarre beautiful, an attempt perfectly expressed by the juxtaposition of his two worlds. As in the poem â€Å"Carrion,† the decomposing flesh has not only artistic value but inspires the poet to render it beautifully. Women are Baudelaire's main source of symbolism, often serving as an intermediary between the ideal and spleen.Thus, while the speaker must run his hands through a woman's hair in order to conjure up his ideal world, he later compares his lover to a decomposing animal, reminding her that one day she will be kissing worms instead of him. His lover is both his muse, providing ephemeral perfection, and a curse, condemning him to unrequited love and an early death. Women, thus, embody both what Baudelaire called th e elevation toward God and what he referred to as the gradual descent toward Satan: They are luminous guides of his imagination but also monstrous vampires that intensify his sense of spleen, or ill temper.The result is a moderate misogyny: Baudelaire associates women with nature; thus, his attempt to capture the poetry of the artificial necessarily denied women a positive role in his artistic vision. Baudelaire's poetry also obsessively evokes the presence of death. In â€Å"To a Passerby,† a possible love interest turns out to be a menacing death. Female demons, vampires, and monsters also consistently remind the speaker of his mortality. However, the passing of time, especially in the form of a newly remodeled Paris, isolates the speaker and makes him feel alienated from society.This theme of alienation leaves the speaker alone to the horrific contemplation of himself and the hopes of a consoling death. Baudelaire further emphasizes the proximity of death through his relia nce on religious imagery and fantasy. He earnestly believes that Satan controls his everyday actions, making sin a depressing reminder of his lack of free will and eventual death. Finally, elements of fantastical horror–from ghosts to bats to black cats– amplify the destructive force of the spleen on the mind.Baudelaire was inspired by Edgar Allen Poe's Tales of Mystery and Imagination, and he saw Poe's use of fantasy as a way of emphasizing the mystery and tragedy of human existence. For example, Baudelaire's three different poems about black cats express what he saw as the taunting ambiguity of women. Moreover, the presence of tortured demons and phantoms make the possibility of death more immediate to the speaker, prefiguring the fear and isolation death will bring. Summary Baudelaire famously begins The Flowers of Evil by personally addressing his reader as a partner in the creation of his poetry: â€Å"Hypocrite reader–my likeness–my brother! In â⠂¬Å"To the Reader,† the speaker evokes a world filled with decay, sin, and hypocrisy, and dominated by Satan. He claims that it is the Devil and not God who controls our actions with puppet strings, â€Å"vaporizing† our free will. Instinctively drawn toward hell, humans are nothing but instruments of death, â€Å"more ugly, evil, and fouler† than any monster or demon. The speaker claims that he and the reader complete this image of humanity: One side of humanity (the reader) reaches for fantasy and false honesty, while the other (the speaker) exposes the boredom of modern life.The speaker continues to rely on contradictions between beauty and unsightliness in â€Å"The Albatross. † This poem relates how sailors enjoy trapping and mocking giant albatrosses that are too weak to escape. Calling these birds â€Å"captive kings,† the speaker marvels at their ugly awkwardness on land compared to their graceful command of the skies. Just as in the introdu ctory poem, the speaker compares himself to the fallen image of the albatross, observing that poets are likewise exiled and ridiculed on earth. The beauty they have seen in the sky makes no sense to the teasing crowd: â€Å"Their giant wings keep them from walking. Many other poems also address the role of the poet. In â€Å"Benediction,† he says: â€Å"I know that You hold a place for the Poet / In the ranks of the blessed and the saint's legions, / That You invite him to an eternal festival / Of thrones, of virtues, of dominations. † This divine power is also a dominant theme in â€Å"Elevation,† in which the speaker's godlike ascendancy to the heavens is compared to the poet's omniscient and paradoxical power to understand the silence of flowers and mutes. His privileged position to savor the secrets of the world allows him to create and define beauty.In conveying the â€Å"power of the poet,† the speaker relies on the language of the mythically subli me and on spiritual exoticism. The godlike aviation of the speaker's spirit in â€Å"Elevation† becomes the artistry of Apollo and the fertility of Sybille in â€Å"I love the Naked Ages. † He then travels back in time, rejecting reality and the material world, and conjuring up the spirits of Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Rembrandt, and Hercules in â€Å"The Beacons. † The power of the poet allows the speaker to invoke sensations from the reader that correspond to the works of each artistic figure.Thus, he uses this power–his imagination– to create beacons that, like â€Å"divine opium,† illuminate a mythical world that mortals, â€Å"lost in the wide woods,† cannot usually see. After first evoking the accomplishments of great artists, the speaker proposes a voyage to a mythical world of his own creation. He first summons up â€Å"Languorous Asia and passionate Africa† in the poem â€Å"The Head of Hair. † Running his fingers through a woman's hair allows the speaker to create and travel to an exotic land of freedom and happiness.In â€Å"Exotic Perfume,† a woman's scent allows the speaker to evoke â€Å"A lazy island where nature produces / Singular tress and savory fruits. † The image of the perfect woman is then an intermediary to an ideal world in â€Å"Invitation to a Voyage,† where â€Å"scents of amber† and â€Å"oriental splendor† capture the speaker's imagination. Together with his female companion, the speaker expresses the power of the poet to create an idyllic setting just for them: â€Å"There, all is nothing but beauty and elegance, / Luxury, calm and voluptuousness. † FormBaudelaire was a classically trained poet and as a result, his poems follow traditional poetic structures and rhyme schemes (ABAB or AABB). Yet Baudelaire also wanted to provoke his contemporary readers, breaking with traditional style when it would best suit his poetry's overall effect. For example, in â€Å"Exotic Perfume,† he contrasted traditional meter (which contains a break after every fifth syllable in a ten-syllable line) with enjambment in the first quatrain. The result is an amplified image of light: Baudelaire evokes the ecstasy of this image by juxtaposing it with he calm regularity of the rhythm in the beginning of the poem. Other departures from tradition include Baudelaire's habit of conveying ecstasy with exclamation points, and of expressing the accessibility of happiness with the indicative present and future verb tenses, both of which function to enhance his poetry's expressive tone. Moreover, none of his innovations came at the cost of formal beauty: Baudelaire's poetry has often been described as the most musical and melodious poetry in the French language. Commentary The Flowers of Evil evokes a world of paradox already implicit in the contrast of the title.The word â€Å"evil† (the French word is â€Å"mal,â₠¬  meaning both evil and sickness) comes to signify the pain and misery inflicted on the speaker, which he responds to with melancholy, anxiety, and a fear of death. But for Baudelaire, there is also something seductive about evil. Thus, while writing The Flowers of Evil, Baudelaire often said that his intent was to extract beauty from evil. Unlike traditional poets who had only focused on the simplistically pretty, Baudelaire chose to fuel his language with horror, sin, and the macabre.The speaker describes this duality in the introductory poem, in which he explains that he and the reader form two sides of the same coin. Together, they play out what Baudelaire called the tragedy of man's â€Å"twoness. † He saw existence itself as paradoxical, each man feeling two simultaneous inclinations: one toward the grace and elevation of God, the other an animalistic descent toward Satan. Just like the physical beauty of flowers intertwined with the abstract threat of evil, Baudelair e felt that one extreme could not exist without the other.Baudelaire struggled with his Catholicism his whole life and, thus, made religion a prevalent theme in his poetry. His language is steeped in biblical imagery, from the wrath of Satan, to the crucifixion, to the Fall of Adam and Eve. He was obsessed with Original Sin, lamenting the loss of his free will and projecting his sense of guilt onto images of women. Yet in the first part of the â€Å"Spleen and Ideal† section, Baudelaire emphasizes the harmony and perfection of an ideal world through his special closeness to God: He first compares himself to a divine and martyred creature in â€Å"TheAlbatross† and then gives himself divine powers in â€Å"Elevation,† combining words like â€Å"infinity,† â€Å"immensity,† â€Å"divine,† and â€Å"hover. † The speaker also has an extraordinary power to create, weaving together abstract paradises with powerful human experiences to form an ideal world. For example, in â€Å"Correspondences,† the speaker evokes â€Å"amber, musk, benzoin and incense / That sing, transporting the soul and sense. † He not only has the power to give voice to things that are silent but also relies on images of warmth, luxury, and pleasure to call upon and empower the reader's senses.In â€Å"Exotic Perfume,† the theme of the voyage is made possible by closing one's eyes and â€Å"breathing in the warm scent† of a woman's breasts. In effect, reading Baudelaire means feeling Baudelaire: The profusion of pleasure-inducing representations of heat, sound, and scent suggest that happiness involves a joining of the senses. This first section is devoted exclusively to the â€Å"ideal,† and Baudelaire relies on the abstraction of myth to convey the escape from reality and drift into nostalgia that the ideal represents. This theme recalls the poet's own flight from the corruption of Paris with his trip along the Mediterranean.In â€Å"The Head of Hair,† the speaker indeterminately refers to â€Å"Languorous Africa and passionate Asia,† whose abstract presence further stimulates the reader's imagination with the mythical symbolism of â€Å"sea,† â€Å"ocean,† â€Å"sky,† and â€Å"oasis. † The figure of women further contributes to this ideal world as an intermediary to happiness. The speaker must either breathe in a woman's scent, caress her hair, or otherwise engage with her presence in order to conjure up the paradise he seeks. His fervent ecstasy in this poem derives from the sensual presence of his lover: â€Å"The world†¦ o my love! wims on your fragrance. † Spleen and Ideal, Part I Summary Baudelaire famously begins The Flowers of Evil by personally addressing his reader as a partner in the creation of his poetry: â€Å"Hypocrite reader–my likeness–my brother! † In â€Å"To the Reader,† the speaker evok es a world filled with decay, sin, and hypocrisy, and dominated by Satan. He claims that it is the Devil and not God who controls our actions with puppet strings, â€Å"vaporizing† our free will. Instinctively drawn toward hell, humans are nothing but instruments of death, â€Å"more ugly, evil, and fouler† than any monster or demon.The speaker claims that he and the reader complete this image of humanity: One side of humanity (the reader) reaches for fantasy and false honesty, while the other (the speaker) exposes the boredom of modern life. The speaker continues to rely on contradictions between beauty and unsightliness in â€Å"The Albatross. † This poem relates how sailors enjoy trapping and mocking giant albatrosses that are too weak to escape. Calling these birds â€Å"captive kings,† the speaker marvels at their ugly awkwardness on land compared to their graceful command of the skies.Just as in the introductory poem, the speaker compares himself to the fallen image of the albatross, observing that poets are likewise exiled and ridiculed on earth. The beauty they have seen in the sky makes no sense to the teasing crowd: â€Å"Their giant wings keep them from walking. † Many other poems also address the role of the poet. In â€Å"Benediction,† he says: â€Å"I know that You hold a place for the Poet / In the ranks of the blessed and the saint's legions, / That You invite him to an eternal festival / Of thrones, of virtues, of dominations. This divine power is also a dominant theme in â€Å"Elevation,† in which the speaker's godlike ascendancy to the heavens is compared to the poet's omniscient and paradoxical power to understand the silence of flowers and mutes. His privileged position to savor the secrets of the world allows him to create and define beauty. In conveying the â€Å"power of the poet,† the speaker relies on the language of the mythically sublime and on spiritual exoticism. The godlike aviation of the speaker's spirit in â€Å"Elevation† becomes the artistry of Apollo and the fertility of Sybille in â€Å"I love the Naked Ages. He then travels back in time, rejecting reality and the material world, and conjuring up the spirits of Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Rembrandt, and Hercules in â€Å"The Beacons. † The power of the poet allows the speaker to invoke sensations from the reader that correspond to the works of each artistic figure. Thus, he uses this power–his imagination– to create beacons that, like â€Å"divine opium,† illuminate a mythical world that mortals, â€Å"lost in the wide woods,† cannot usually see. After first evoking the accomplishments of great artists, the speaker proposes a voyage to a mythical world of his own creation.He first summons up â€Å"Languorous Asia and passionate Africa† in the poem â€Å"The Head of Hair. † Running his fingers through a woman's hair allows the speaker to create and travel to an exotic land of freedom and happiness. In â€Å"Exotic Perfume,† a woman's scent allows the speaker to evoke â€Å"A lazy island where nature produces / Singular tress and savory fruits. † The image of the perfect woman is then an intermediary to an ideal world in â€Å"Invitation to a Voyage,† where â€Å"scents of amber† and â€Å"oriental splendor† capture the speaker's imagination.Together with his female companion, the speaker expresses the power of the poet to create an idyllic setting just for them: â€Å"There, all is nothing but beauty and elegance, / Luxury, calm and voluptuousness. † Form Baudelaire was a classically trained poet and as a result, his poems follow traditional poetic structures and rhyme schemes (ABAB or AABB). Yet Baudelaire also wanted to provoke his contemporary readers, breaking with traditional style when it would best suit his poetry's overall effect.For example, in â€Å"Exotic Per fume,† he contrasted traditional meter (which contains a break after every fifth syllable in a ten-syllable line) with enjambment in the first quatrain. The result is an amplified image of light: Baudelaire evokes the ecstasy of this image by juxtaposing it with the calm regularity of the rhythm in the beginning of the poem. Other departures from tradition include Baudelaire's habit of conveying ecstasy with exclamation points, and of expressing the accessibility of happiness with the indicative present and future verb tenses, both of which function to enhance his poetry's expressive tone.Moreover, none of his innovations came at the cost of formal beauty: Baudelaire's poetry has often been described as the most musical and melodious poetry in the French language. Commentary The Flowers of Evil evokes a world of paradox already implicit in the contrast of the title. The word â€Å"evil† (the French word is â€Å"mal,† meaning both evil and sickness) comes to sign ify the pain and misery inflicted on the speaker, which he responds to with melancholy, anxiety, and a fear of death.But for Baudelaire, there is also something seductive about evil. Thus, while writing The Flowers of Evil, Baudelaire often said that his intent was to extract beauty from evil. Unlike traditional poets who had only focused on the simplistically pretty, Baudelaire chose to fuel his language with horror, sin, and the macabre. The speaker describes this duality in the introductory poem, in which he explains that he and the reader form two sides of the same coin. Together, they play out what Baudelaire called the tragedy of man's â€Å"twoness. He saw existence itself as paradoxical, each man feeling two simultaneous inclinations: one toward the grace and elevation of God, the other an animalistic descent toward Satan. Just like the physical beauty of flowers intertwined with the abstract threat of evil, Baudelaire felt that one extreme could not exist without the other . Baudelaire struggled with his Catholicism his whole life and, thus, made religion a prevalent theme in his poetry. His language is steeped in biblical imagery, from the wrath of Satan, to the crucifixion, to the Fall of Adam and Eve.He was obsessed with Original Sin, lamenting the loss of his free will and projecting his sense of guilt onto images of women. Yet in the first part of the â€Å"Spleen and Ideal† section, Baudelaire emphasizes the harmony and perfection of an ideal world through his special closeness to God: He first compares himself to a divine and martyred creature in â€Å"The Albatross† and then gives himself divine powers in â€Å"Elevation,† combining words like â€Å"infinity,† â€Å"immensity,† â€Å"divine,† and â€Å"hover. † The speaker also has an extraordinary power to create, weaving together abstract paradises with powerful human experiences to form an ideal world.For example, in â€Å"Correspondences,â €  the speaker evokes â€Å"amber, musk, benzoin and incense / That sing, transporting the soul and sense. † He not only has the power to give voice to things that are silent but also relies on images of warmth, luxury, and pleasure to call upon and empower the reader's senses. In â€Å"Exotic Perfume,† the theme of the voyage is made possible by closing one's eyes and â€Å"breathing in the warm scent† of a woman's breasts. In effect, reading Baudelaire means feeling Baudelaire: The profusion of pleasure-inducing representations of heat, sound, and scent suggest that happiness involves a joining of the senses.This first section is devoted exclusively to the â€Å"ideal,† and Baudelaire relies on the abstraction of myth to convey the escape from reality and drift into nostalgia that the ideal represents. This theme recalls the poet's own flight from the corruption of Paris with his trip along the Mediterranean. In â€Å"The Head of Hair,† the sp eaker indeterminately refers to â€Å"Languorous Africa and passionate Asia,† whose abstract presence further stimulates the reader's imagination with the mythical symbolism of â€Å"sea,† â€Å"ocean,† â€Å"sky,† and â€Å"oasis. † The figure of women further contributes to this ideal world as an intermediary to happiness.The speaker must either breathe in a woman's scent, caress her hair, or otherwise engage with her presence in order to conjure up the paradise he seeks. His fervent ecstasy in this poem derives from the sensual presence of his lover: â€Å"The world†¦ o my love! swims on your fragrance. † Spleen and Ideal, Part II Summary Despite the speaker's preliminary evocation of an ideal world, The Flowers of Evil's inevitable focus is the speaker's â€Å"spleen,† a symbol of fear, agony, melancholy, moral degradation, destruction of the spirit–everything that is wrong with the world. The spleen, an organ that rem oves disease-causing agents from the bloodstream, was traditionally associated with malaise; â€Å"spleen† is a synonym for â€Å"ill-temper. â€Å") Although the soothing ideal world in the first section does remain a significant presence for the speaker, it will now serve primarily as a reminder of his need to escape from a torturous reality. Even â€Å"The Ideal† begins with â€Å"They never will do, these beautiful vignettes. † Baudelaire's juxtaposition of the poem's title (â€Å"The Ideal†) with its content suggests that the ideal is an imagined impossibility.He insists that he cannot find the ideal rose for which he has been looking, declaring that his heart is an empty hole. The comforting, pure, and soothing presence of a woman has also given way to â€Å"Lady Macbeth, mighty soul of crime. † As the speaker acknowledges in â€Å"Earlier Life,† the beautiful majesty of blue waves and voluptuous odors that fill his dreams cannot ful ly obscure â€Å"the painful secret that lets me languish. † Baudelaire uses the theme of love and passion to play out this interaction between the ideal and the spleen.In â€Å"Hymn to Beauty,† he asks a woman: â€Å"Do you come from the deep sky or from the abyss, / O Beauty? Your look, infernal and divine, / Confuses good deeds and crimes. † The speaker projects his anxiety at a disappointing reality onto a woman's body: Her beauty is real but it tempts him to sin. Both angel and siren, this woman brings him close to God but closer to Satan. He then refers to his lover as a witch and demon in â€Å"Sed non Satiata† (â€Å"Still not Satisfied†). The reality of her tortuous presence awakens him from his opium-induced dream, his desire pulling him toward hell.This ambivalence between the ideal and the spleen is also played out with the juxtaposition of the speaker's lover to a decaying corpse in â€Å"Carrion. † While out walking with his lo ver, the speaker discovers rotting carrion infested with worms and maggots, but which releases pleasing music. He compares the carrion (a word for dead and decaying flesh) to a flower, realizing that his lover will also one day be carrion, eaten by worms. Just like the corpse, nothing will be left of their â€Å"decomposed love. † The theme of death inspired by the sight of the carrion plunges the speaker into the anxiety of his spleen.The nostalgic timelessness and soothing heat of the sun are replaced by the fear of death and a sun of ice in â€Å"De Profundis Clamavi† (â€Å"From Profoundest Depths I Cry to You†). The mythical and erotic voyage with a woman in the ideal section is now phantasmagoric pursuit by cats, snakes, owls, vampires, and ghosts, all of whom closely resemble the speaker's lover. In two separate poems both entitled â€Å"The Cat,† the speaker is horrified to see the eyes of his lover in a black cat whose chilling stare, â€Å"prof ound and cold, cuts and cracks like a sword. In â€Å"The Poison,† the speaker further associates the image of his lover with death. Unlike opium and wine, which help the speaker evade reality, the evasion of his lover's mouth is the kiss of death: â€Å"But all this doesn't equal the poison kiss / Arising in your green eyes. † The section culminates with four poems entitled â€Å"Spleen. † Depressed and â€Å"irritated at the entire town,† the speaker laments the coming of death and his defunct love, as a ghost and the â€Å"meager, mangy body of a cat† evoke the haunting specter of his lover. In the next â€Å"Spleen,† the speaker watches the world around him decompose.He is swallowed up by death, comparing himself to a cemetery, a tomb, and a container for withered roses. Empty physically and spiritually, only the miasma of decay is left for him to smell. In the fourth and final â€Å"Spleen,† the speaker is suffocated by the tradi tionally calming presence of the sky. Devoid of light, â€Å"the earth becomes a damp dungeon, / When hope, like a bat, / Beats the walls with its timid wings / And bumps its head against the rotted beams. † Drenched by rain and sorrow, the bells of a nearby clock cry out, filling the air with phantoms.Horrified and weeping with misery, the speaker surrenders as, â€Å"Anguish, atrocious, despotic, / On my curved skull plants its black flag. † Form Baudelaire uses the structure of his poems to amplify the atmosphere of the speaker's spleen. In â€Å"Spleen† (I) each stanza accumulates different levels of anguish, first beginning with the city, then creatures of nature and nightmare, and finally, other objects. This layered expression of pain represents Baudelaire's attempt to apply stylistic beauty to evil. Moreover, his sentences lose the first-person tense, becoming grammatically errant just as the speaker is morally errant.By beginning the first three stanzas of â€Å"Spleen† (IV) all with the word â€Å"When,† Baudelaire formally mirrors his theme of monotonous boredom and the speaker's surrender to the inexorable regularity and longevity of his spleen. Another aspect of Baudelaire's form is his ironic juxtaposition of opposites within verses and stanzas, such as in â€Å"Carrion,† with â€Å"flower† and â€Å"stink. † Commentary Baudelaire is a poet of contrasts, amplifying the hostility of the speaker's spleen with the failure of his ideal world. Like the abused albatross in the first section, the poet becomes an anxious and suffering soul.It is important to remember that the speaker's spleen is inevitable: It occurs despite his attempts to escape reality. The flowers he hopes to find on a â€Å"lazy island† in â€Å"Exotic Perfume† do not exist: It is the stinking carrion that is the real â€Å"flower† of the world. The failure of his imagination leaves him empty and weak; havi ng searched for petals, he finds their withered versions within himself. The poetry itself suggests a resurgence of the ideal through its soothing images only to encounter the disappointing impossibility of calming the speaker's anxiety.In this sense, the speaker's spleen is also the poet's. Indeed, the gradual climax and terror of the speaker's spleen in â€Å"Spleen† (IV) has often been associated with Baudelaire's own nervous breakdown. The hostile and claustrophobic atmosphere of the speaker's world is most eloquently expressed in the failure of his ability to love. The poet originally intends his love to be a source of escape but is soon reminded of the cruel impossibility of love that characterizes his reality. For him, love is nothing but a decomposing carrion. Instead of life, love reminds him of death: A woman's kiss becomes poisonous.Baudelaire often spoke of love as the traditionally artistic attempt to escape boredom. Yet he never had a successful relationship and as a result, the speaker attributes much of his spleen to images of women, such as Lady Macbeth and Persephone. Cruel and murderous women, such as the monstrous female vampire in â€Å"The Vampire,† are compared to a â€Å"dagger† that slices the speaker's heart. But Baudelaire also finds something perversely seductive in his demoniacal images of women, such as the â€Å"Femme Fatale† in â€Å"Discordant Sky† and the â€Å"bizarre deity† in â€Å"Sed non Satiata. Baudelaire often described his disgust at images of nature and found fault in women for what he saw as their closeness to nature. However, what comes through in the poetry is not so much Baudelaire's misogyny as his avowed weakness and insatiable desire for women. The speaker's spleen involves thoughts of death, either in the form of an eventual suicide or the gradual decay of one's body. Sickness, decomposition, and claustrophobia reduce the expansive paradise of the speaker's ideal to a single city pitted against him.Baudelaire felt alienated from the new Parisian society that emerged after the city's rebuilding period, often walking along the city streets just to look at people and observe their movements. This self-imposed exile perfectly describes the sense of isolation that pervades the four â€Å"Spleen† poems. Yet while the city alienates and isolates, it does not allow for real autonomy of any kind: The speaker's imagination is haunted by images of prison, spiders, ghosts, and bats crashing into walls.Unlike the albatross of the ideal, the bat of the spleen cannot fly. This restriction of space is also a restriction of time, as the speaker feels his death quickly approaching. Baudelaire saw the reality of death as fundamentally opposed to the imagined voyage to paradise; rather, it is a journey toward an unknown and terrible fate. The â€Å"frightful groan† of bells and the â€Å"stubborn moans† of ghosts are horrific warning signs of the impending victory of the speaker's spleen. According to the poet, there are no other sounds. Parisian Landscapes SummaryBaudelaire now turns his attention directly to the city of Paris, evoking the same themes as the previous section. In â€Å"Landscape,† he evokes a living and breathing city. The speaker hears buildings and birds singing, also comparing window lamps to stars. He considers the city a timeless place, passing from season to season with ease. It is also a space of dreams and fantasy, where the speaker finds â€Å"gardens of bronze,† â€Å"blue horizons,† and â€Å"builds fairy castles† during the night. Paris becomes an enchanted city, where even a beggar is a beautiful princess.For example, the speaker admires the erotic beauty of a homeless woman in â€Å"To a Red-headed Beggar Girl,† especially her â€Å"two perfect breasts. † He does not see her rags but, rather, the gown of a queen complete with pearls formed from drop s of water. The speaker then laments the destruction of the old Paris in â€Å"The Swan. † Evoking the grieving image of Andromache, he exclaims: â€Å"My memory teems with pity / As I cross the new Carrousel / Old Paris is no more (the shape of a city /Changes more quickly, alas! than the heart of a mortal). All he sees now is the chaos of the city's rebuilding, from scaffolding to broken columns. Baudelaire then juxtaposes the pure but exiled image of a white swan with the dark, broken image of the city. The swan begs the sky for rain but gets no reply. The speaker forces himself to come to grips with the new city but cannot forget the forlorn figure of the swan as well as the fate of Andromache, who was kidnapped shortly after her husband's murder. The presence of the grieving Andromache evokes the theme of love in the city streets.But in the modern city, love is fleeting–and ultimately impossible– since lovers do not know each other anymore and can only cat ch a glimpse of each other in the streets. In â€Å"To a Passerby,† the speaker conjures up a beautiful woman and tries to express his love with one look: they make eye contact, but it is quickly broken, as they must each head their separate ways. The encounter is tragic because they both feel something (â€Å"O you who I had loved, O you who knew! â€Å") and yet they know that their next meeting will be in the afterlife; a foreboding presence of death looms over the poem's end.Baudelaire continues to expose the dark underside, or spleen, of the city. (The spleen, an organ that removes disease-causing agents from the bloodstream, was traditionally associated with malaise; â€Å"spleen† is a synonym for â€Å"ill-temper. â€Å") In â€Å"Evening Twilight,† he evokes â€Å"cruel diseases,† â€Å"demons,† â€Å"thieves,† â€Å"hospitals,† and â€Å"gambling. † The different aspects of the city are compared to wild beasts and anthills, while â€Å"Prostitution ignites in the streets. † Paris becomes a threatening circus of danger and death where no one is safe.By the end of the section, in â€Å"Morning Twilight,† â€Å"gloomy Paris† rises up to go back to work. Form It is important to note that most of the poems in this section are dedicated to Victor Hugo, who composed long epic poems about Paris. In this context, Baudelaire abandons the structure and rhythm of the previous section in order to emulate Hugo's own style. However, in â€Å"To a Passerby,† Baudelaire returns to his original form, using a traditional sonnet structure (two quatrains and two three-line stanzas).As in â€Å"Spleen and Ideal,† he emphasizes the imperfection of the speaker's spleen with imperfections in meter, isolating the words â€Å"Raising† and â€Å"Me† at the beginning of their respective lines. Commentary Baudelaire was deeply affected by the rebuilding of Paris after the r evolution of 1848. Begun by Louis-Napoleon in the 1850s, this rebuilding program widened streets into boulevards and leveled entire sections of the city. Baudelaire responded to the changing face of his beloved Paris by taking refuge in recollections of its mythic greatness but also with a sense of exile and alienation.The swan symbolizes this feeling of isolation, similar to the â€Å"Spleen† poems in which the speaker feels that the entire city is against him. The Swan asks God for rain in order to clean the streets and perhaps return Paris to its antique purity but receives no response. Suddenly, the city itself has become a symbol of death as its rapid metamorphoses remind the speaker of the ruthlessness of time's passage and his own mortality: â€Å"The shape of a city /Changes more quickly, alas! than the heart of a mortal. † The speaker sees Paris as a modern myth in progress, evoking such mythological figures as Andromache and Hector.Even the negative aspects o f city life, ranging from prostitution to gambling, are described as animals, giving Baudelaire's poetry an allegorical quality. For example, in â€Å"Evening Twilight,† the poet evokes â€Å"Dark Night,† which casts its shadow over the ants, worms, and demons, symbolizing Parisian prostitution, theater, and gambling. Together, the city, its vices, and its people form a mythical, â€Å"unhealthy atmosphere,† instructing the reader to learn his or her lesson. Yet Paris is primarily a cemetery of failed love, as described in

Thursday, November 7, 2019

overtones essays

overtones essays In Alice Gerstenbergs Overtones, she presents two deceitful women, both insanely envious of the other, who meet one day over coffee. Two other actors living out their true feelings and being honest show the jealous, rude, but truthful, side of each of the women. The real women put on an act, saying or doing nothing that they actually feel towards each other; they are entirely dishonest. The play illustrates how envy leads straight to hatred and unhappiness, which I believe to be the theme. How can you love yourself when you are longing to be someone else, wanted everything they have and hating them for it? The message I got from the play was that deep jealously has only negative effects and to be happy you must be your true self and true to yourself. The play made me see how silly it is when one puts on phony layers to impress another. Because there were two different mindsets of the women, I would have two of everything, one on a lower stage and then a set just like it on a ra ised stage. The women hid their true feelings, so I would place the primitive ones on the raised stage back from the audience, behind a layer of sheer material. The raised stage can be thought of somewhat like a mind bubble. As everyone shows a fake side of himself sometime, I want the audience to relate to the play and to see themselves in somewhat of a similar situation. I want there to be known tension between the real women, but I also want to create humor between the counterparts as a relief of the tension between the two different women, using a lot of sarcastic language and actions. I want the audience to leave feeling thankful for what they have. ...

Tuesday, November 5, 2019

Facebook Advertising for Authors Part 2

Facebook Advertising for Authors Part 2 Facebook Advertising for Authors, by Mark Dawson: Part 2 Facebook advertising is a marketing technique that is rising in popularity among many independent authors. As any other technique, it takes time, testing and iteration to produce results. And as for any other technique, it works better in certain genres and for certain books than others.However, we believe there is a great untapped potential in Facebook advertising for authors and this is the reason why we interviewed internationally bestselling author Mark Dawson. You can read part 1 of the interview here, where he focuses on growing a mailing list through Facebook ads. You can also play the full video below to enjoy a nice French chateau decorum and hear just how fascinated Mark is by the potential of Facebook marketing. Or, if you’re familiar with both, read part 2 of the transcript below!Here, we focus on advertising from Facebook directly to Amazon and how to track the results, on top of decrypting how Amazon’s wonderful algorithms work and how to get the most out of your faithful reviewers! Hi Mark! In part 1 of this interview, we discussed how you use keep separate mailing lists and automated email sequences to drive sales. I am subscribed to your mailing list, and I noticed that before I get to the email where you offer me to buy the next book in the series, you offer several free books and really try to build a relationship with the reader.Yes, and that’s really important. One thing I’ve worked very hard on is to turn those subscribers into readers, then into fans, then super-fans, and finally into friends. That’s kind of the way I look at it. So I’ve got a street team with nearly 900 people, which is now closed because 900 is enough for what I need.But I answer every single email from readers, whether it comes from they finding my email address on my website or from a reply to an email I sent out, I reply to everything. I also try to answer every message on Facebook.I think that’s really important, and it might be one of those thin gs I’ll not be able to do forever, because I’ve got probably 20,000 people on my lists now and am very busy writing new stuff and running the business. So at some point I’ll have to sit down and ask myself: â€Å"can I justify spending an hour every day answering email correspondence from readers?†; but I’ll put that off as long as I can, because I think that’s one of the main reasons why last year was so successful.I’ve now got fans who I can really rely on: when I say I’ve got a new book out, I know they’ll go and buy it. And if that happens in certain numbers, then Amazon starts marketing for you and everything becomes a virtuous circle at that point.Yes, it’s really all about hitting that point where Amazon starts doing the work for you, isn’t it? And the launch is a particularly crucial moment for that, right?Yes, I’ve launched quite a few books like year and monitored and studied the dynamics o f the launches, so I’ve got it down now to a reasonably fine art. I know, for example, that if you’ve got 1,000 people on your list and you’re confident that 100 of them will buy the book when it comes out, you don’t want them to buy the book on the same day. Amazon rewards you for steady sales rather than spikes. So it’s better to have 20 every day for 5 days rather than 100 on day 1 and then nothing on days 2 to 5.That kind of stuff is quite important, and if you’ve got - like I do - segmented lists, you’re able to â€Å"massage† the sales into a pattern that you think will be best for Amazon to notice this new book.And if we go back to Facebook ads, what I might do for the launch is set up an ad just targeted to people on my mailing list. One thing that Facebook allows you to do is to import your email addresses from your mailing list and they will then match these email addresses with Facebook accounts (provided that thes e people have one). So I will also serve ads to those people as well. Some people might say: â€Å"why are you saying the same thing twice? You’re already sending them an email asking them to buy the book.† Well, not all emails are opened (50% is already a very high open rate), and it’s a standard advertizing theory that it takes more than one touch for someone to make a buying decision. So that kind of joined-up campaign is going to be more effective than just an email blast or just a Facebook campaign.Yes, that’s what we call â€Å"re-marketing† in the business world, and it’s a widely used technique to engage with users who sign up for your services but then don’t end up â€Å"buying† anything. Facebook’s â€Å"custom audiences† are a great way to do that indeed. Another amazing feature that Facebook has is â€Å"lookalike† audiences, do you use those?Oh yes, all the time. For those who don’t know what one is, you can import your mailing list into Facebook and then tell them: â€Å"please, generate a lookalike audience based on this mailing list†. Facebook will then try to assess what the people have in common in your mailing list, and algorithmically search for people matching the same interests, demographics, etc.And how are the results, compared to the standard campaigns simply based on â€Å"interests†?Sometimes better. My best sales ad for one of the boxed sets I have on sale is a 2.2M list of people based in the United States defined as a â€Å"lookalike† of my mailing list. I optimize the ads for clicks and typically generate a %50-%100 ROI every day.For the ads that redirect to Amazon, how do you track the results? Because you can track what happens on your website, but you cannot track what happens on Amazon, right?That’s an interesting question and one I’m looking into right now. At the moment, I use affiliate linking: you can set up an affiliate account and direct your ads to the affiliate links, so Amazon will tell you through their affiliate program exactly how many people have bought your book coming from that affiliate URL.Unfortunately, I’ve been looking into this as I said, and it looks like you’re not really allowed to use an Amazon affiliate link in a Facebook ad, which is really really annoying. So what you’ll probably have to do is send the traffic from Facebook to your website where you have a sales page, and then your sales page has the affiliate links. And I hate that, on the one hand, because it’s putting a step between the ad and the buying decision, but on the other hand you can put things on your sales page that you cannot have on Amazon, like a video, or clips from the audiobook, etc.Of course, if that doesn’t prove to work, the alternative is just not to use affiliate links and directly send the traffic to Amazon, on a normal link. You’re less pre cise on your numbers that way but provided you know what you were selling before, you can get a rough idea of how effective the campaign is being.Last question for you Mark, to wrap this up and let you go back to your other activities. Let’s say I’m an author, I have a mailing list with 20 subscribers, and I’ve just implemented a â€Å"reader magnet†, where I offer a free book for readers to subscribe to my mailing list. I’m still getting only 2-3 reviewers a week. What kind of actionable steps can I take in order to get more subscribers?First, make sure that the call to action for that reader magnet is everywhere. You need to advertize the reader magnet on your product page, because a subscriber is more important than a sale. So if a reader sees it on the page but doesn’t buy the book, don’t worry: once they’re on your list, you can offer them book 2, book 3, etc. You need to look at it as a long term financial proposition rat her than short term financial gain.So put it on the product page, put it on your Amazon (and Reedsy) author page, put in on your books - front and back: front so readers see it if they use the â€Å"look inside† functionality on Amazon, back so readers who enjoy your book can subscribe to get more - and everywhere else: link your social media profiles to your landing page.Provided all that is in place, I suggest you look into Facebook ads, because that’s one pretty hot area right now with incredible growth opportunities for us.Thank you so much for all this advice, Mark!  If you want to learn more on Facebook ads, visit Mark Dawson’s course, Self-Publishing Formula, here!Have you tried using Facebook advertising to grow your mailing list? Or to sell more books? What do you think of Mark’s tools for success? Leave your thoughts, or any questions for Mark, in the comments below!

Sunday, November 3, 2019

Multinational Enterprises and Global Capitalism Research Paper

Multinational Enterprises and Global Capitalism - Research Paper Example There are several reasons why a multinational may choose to undertake foreign direct investment. One of these reasons is that the company has been very successful in selling its product with success and efficiency, and has been successful on satisfying the demand for this product to a full extent in the area of its origin. After seeing its success in that area, perhaps the exhaustion of demand within the area, the company may be tempted to open up a second location in a different country. The main reason, in this case, would be that the company would be seeking to satisfy the demand of consumers elsewhere, at that point. It will see a profitable business investment to open up a new location near these new potential customers because it predicts a similar response from them as it got in the country it was originally operating in. This new group of customers would be an attractive basis for foreign direct investment for any company, and once it has evaluated the possible risks associat ed with the possible expansion, it will surely consider the expansion as feasible, profitable and the next logical step to their expansions and operations (Jones, pp. 74, 2005). A company will not expand to a county in which it does not perceive the demand for its product (Seymour, pp.104, 1987). For example, one can consider a company, which produces food products, which use ham as the main ingredient. This company may be extremely successful in a non-Muslim country like the United States. Here, consumers in all age groups, as well as several different socio-economic statuses, may love its product. This would logically mean that once the company finishes expanding within the areas of the US where it finds functioning feasible, it could expand to and invest in even the less developed countries because it knows by experience that its product is well accepted by people of lower-middle income statuses as well. This logic will not apply in those countries, however, which have a majority of Muslim population. This is because, even though the acceptance of the company’s product has proven to be high amongst previous consumers, these new Muslim consumers would not warm up to them because their ingredients include pork, which they do not eat. In this regard, even when a product has been popular in several countries, the company will have to make several other inquiries before it can assume whether it is a good idea to undertake foreign direct investment in a newer area. In other words, the product needs to be tested in any region to where the multinational corporation (MNC) wishes to expand because, without that, the FDI will have very slight chances of yielding a successful result. Another reason is the political stability that is present in that country. Political stability is an important factor to consider for any MNC when it chooses to undertake foreign direct investment (Yoshitomi, & Graham, pp. 30, 1996). This is because it has a large bearing on how smo othly the company is able to operate in that area with hindrances, strikes and other interruptions, which often result in large losses, which make a large profit out of their daily operations. The political stability of the country is an important factor because it affects the consumer market of the country.