Sherlock Holmes stories Essay Example for Free

Sherlock Holmes stories Essay The Sherlock Holmes stories were first published in strand magazines in the year 1891. The author Conan Doyle, was inspired by other writers including R. L Stevenson, who wrote adventure stories, and Edgar Allen Poe who wrote horror and crime stories. He was also influenced by real events, such as the Jack the Ripper case which was happening at the time. Many people at that time thought it was nosy and disrespectful to read real life stories about dead people, so these fictional stories made them feel less guilty. The fictional stories also calm the public because many real life cases werent solved but the Sherlock Holmes cases always were. This gave people hope and made them less scared. Conan Doyle engages his readers by portraying life in Victorian England in an engaging way. In the man with the twisted lip the reader is introduced to opium dens. Opium was a legal drug at the time of the Victorians. They used to go the little dens underground which women were deprived of using: There were bodies lying in strange fantastic poses, with bowed shoulders and bent knees. Dr Watson said Isa Whitney made good of an opium den in the farthest part of the east of the city. This showed that Watson morally disapproves of these drugs. The fact that they smoked in the east is that they dont want to smoke I an respectable area so the have opiums farthest part of the east of the city. Colonialism was portrayed in The Speckled Band as Dr Roylott set up a medical practice in India. Another thing about Victorian times was the difference in authority and rights, and how the white upper class could easily get away with murder. An example of that was colonialism; in the story Dr Roylett killed his native butler who was Indian. However Dr Roylett was English and people like him were seen as powerful. So when he killed his butler he could easily get away with the capital punishment. However if he was an Indian he would have got a death sentence. This is because in the Indian culture who ever murders shall be repaid by being sentenced to death. Britain was as patriarchal society where the men were dominant and the bread-winners, and governed their own families by paternal right. An example is of Dr Roylott, his wife died, and she had left a lot of money. However the money had to go to his daughters when they marry. That is when the complications happen as Dr Roylott did not want to give the money away. Arthur Conan Doyle indulges and engages his readers into his books, Doyles talent was seen as he was describing his characters in an interesting way, e. g. The Man with the Twisted Lip. Holmes was disguised as an old man and he was very thin. Also much wrinkled bent with age, and an opium pipe dangling between his knees. He went to the opium bar where people drink and smoke cocaine, he thinks that the dens are dark gloomy and socially unpleasant place to be. This is shown of the sentence; approached by a steep flight of steps leading down to a black gap like the mouth of a cave. Also I found the latch and made my way into a long, low room, thick and heavy of an emigrant ship. This is strange for the readers as they do not expect a detective that solves mysteries and problems to admit that he also smoke cocaine. Further the author gave Holmes a personality that surprises readers. He says I suppose that you imagine that I have been addicted opium smoking and to cocaine injections. This shows that he has a dual personality. He is two sided, smoking cocaine then solving a mystery which is eccentric. Conan Doyle uses contrast in The Red Headed league to represent Holmes, it states and extreme languor to devouring energy. This suggests that one minute Sherlock was tired and lazy, the next he was bursting with energy. Conan Doyle is also good at using sexual imagery. Where it states lust of the chase, that would suddenly come upon him, this shows that he is passionate about his job and loves it the way a man loves a woman. He also uses effective animal imagery, Hunt down describes him as a vicious as a predator hunting down its prey. Conan Doyle describes settings in an interesting way. In The Red Headed League he uses exaggeration when he says every man who has a shade of red in their hair into the city answered the advertisement. He also uses good personification e. g. fleet street was choked. This is good because the reader knows that Fleet Street is not human because only humans choke when there is too much food consumed so suffocating. However fleet Street choked means it was crowded up with people and hardly any space. This is a good way too keeps the readers engaged and thinking. Color imagery to gives a better image of the scene e. g. Irish setter, brick, liver, clay. So it is not just saying red or blue bricks however adding metaphors. So it is making the reader imagine the colors it their head on what it looks like. Conan Doyle also uses a range of similes e. g. court looked like a casters orange barrow it gives the reader a picture on how many red headed people, its crowded this showed how the court may have looked like. Furthermore he describes the settings of his stories in a way that interest the readers. In the speckled band, as Conan Doyle uses pathetic fallacy. Pathetic fallacy is when nature reflects the mood, like; the wind was howling, rain was beating splashing against the window. This is a bit like personification which gives an impression that the weather is horrible, reflecting the awful tragedy that is occurring in the house. The weather represented the mood and atmosphere of the scene in the story. The house was described as, the building was of grey, lichen-blotched stone, with a high central potion and two curving wings, like the claws of a crab, thrown out on each side, in one of these the windows were broken and blocked with wooden boards, while the roof was partially caved in, a picture of ruin. The poor state of the house represents the deterioration and poor mental health of Dr Roylett. The stories are all structured in a similar way. In Sherlock Holmes stories is usually detective work it usually follows as. A client introduces the case to the detectives. In The Speckled Band there are two victims, one already dead, the other, Miss Helen Stoner, fearing for her life. When we first see Miss Helen Stoner in the story, she is dressed in black and heavily veiled. We can tell that she is terrified straight away when she talks. The first thing she says is It is not cold which makes me shiver, said the woman in a low voice. It is fear, Mr. Holmes. It is terror. The impact on the reader for this shows exactly how she was feeling, and how scared she was because she believes that she is going to die like her sister that died two years before. She believes that her sister was either frightened to death or killed by gypsies, because when this woman Helen found her sister the last words that she said were: Helen! Oh my God, Helen! It was the band! The speckled band! Next the detective analyses the client to demonstrate their detective skill. This was shown when he observed a train ticket in Mrs. Helen right glove. He also worked out that she took a cart before reaching the station because her jacket was muddy. He worked that one out because he said there is no vehicle save a dog cart which throws mud in that way, and then only when you sit on the left hand side of the driver. This gave Helen stoner a shock as to the series of accurate information. This shows that Sherlock was a bit of a show off demonstrating his extraordinary skills. Being as clever as that is essential for a successful detective. After that the detective visits the crime scene. At night Sherlock went to Dr Roylottes house. He gave the woman set instruction to lock herself in her room so the detectives would sleep in her sisters room for the night. So Sherlock wanted to investigate why there is a constant whistle during the night. Holmes investigated the whole house and he build up a plan to catch the murderer. Holmes had found out that there was an air-vent that was inside the house between the sisters room and the stepfathers. Holmes now was in the room that Helen was supposed to be in and suddenly the light was lit in the stepfathers room, and then Sherlock jumped and hit the bell robe under the air-vent which revealed a snake.

The History of Scientific Management Theories Essay -- administrative

In the history of management thinking, there are many ways to manage an organization, such as scientific management and administrative management. This essay will discuss the notion that scientific management was a ‘good’ idea in the history of management thinking, by looking at the historical backgrounds and political beliefs of economist, also how the develop management theory by conducting experiments, and how their theories made it into the managing business does and how do they work. First of all, what is management itself? Management as explained in the Organizational Behaviour book, is a set of activities such as planning, decision making, organizing, leading and controlling the organization’s resources including human, financial, physical, and information. In order for high performance result, achieving organizational goals efficiently and effectively. (Wood et al, 2006. pp12-13) This essay would focus on the scientific management theories; it is where the concept of job specialization and division of labour are born, during that time it was the days of industrial era. The business was expanding, yet the productivity was labour intensive since technology was not much help at that time. Thus managers must find a way to improve the performance of individual workers, and that; the scientific management theory was created. The history of scientific management closely related with Fredrick Winslow Taylor (1856-1915), known as the father of scientific management. Other than Taylor, there are other four renowned economist; Frank and Lillian Gilbreth, and Henry Ford. Each manager has their own way of scientific managing, Taylor who is considered to be the father of scientific management, as explained in the book prepared by... ...rove output production and efficiency of an organization. We could see this specialization everywhere in a workplace, the easiest way to create an example of this in department store; everyone has their own task, the cashier work on the cashier machine, the customer service work on helping visitors and pointing out information. Also in the restaurant, in the kitchen itself, there different task done by different people, the high chef manage the other workers and guiding them with the cooking recipe, then they have other workers who would just do one task such as boiling, frying, cutting, and then the waitress deliver the food. Those are few examples of specialization in the line of work we see today. With that fact, it is clear that scientific management was a good idea in the history of management, providing ways in organizations to achieve more productivity.

I Heart Huckabees: Concept of Dasein Essay

This is one of my attempts to highlight a few of the connections between the thought provoking scenes of this movie and the Existential movement in 19th and 20th century Philosophy. I do list and describe a few scenes and quotes, so i’ll throw on a SPOILER alert just in case. One of the most prominent concepts in I (Heart) Huckabees is that of Martin Heidegger’s Dasein. Dasein, literally meaning â€Å"Being-there†, is Heidegger’s method in which he applies another prominant Existential philospher, Edmund Husserl’s phenomenology to human beings themselves. What it does is instead of defining a â€Å"thing† and putting it into a preconceived category, one waits for the â€Å"thing† to reveal itself in its own time. The remarkable thing about Heidegger is that he never calls human beings â€Å"man†, but instead we are Dasein – in other words, we are simply in a field of being where we are free to define who we are for ourselves. Our being Dasein is our â€Å"thrownness† into life(a prominant theme to the Existential movement), and we are â€Å"thrown† into life with other Dasein(you and I). This then leads to mitdasein (â€Å"with-there-being†), meaning we are still â€Å"being-there†(Dasien), but now we are there with other Dasein. I (Heart) Huckabees demonstrates Heidegger’s Dasein and mitdasein multiple times, usually emphasized by Dustin Hoffman’s character, Bernard. In the first few scenes of the movie, Bernard speaks of infinity and â€Å"the blanket. † He holds up a blanket and asks us to imagine that it is the entire universe. Each part of the blanket is a different person, place, or thing; whether it is a hammer, or Paris, or you, the reader of this review. The point he makes is that everything in the universe is interconnected and we can’t tell where one person begins and another ends. Bernard also tells us, â€Å"The universe is an infinite sphere, the center is everywhere and the circumference is nowhere. † This is a wonderful example of Heidegger’s Dasein; our being has no outside to speak of, it is totality. The blanket represents mitdasein, demonstrating that we are not alone in our infinite field of being, but instead are accompanied by every other Dasein, all overlapping. Another of Heidegger’s Existential ideas is tossed about in I (Heart) Huckabees, though not as defined as the illusions to Dasein. When Tommy (Mark Wahlberg) and Albert (Jason Schwartzman), meet the French nihilist, Caterine (Isabelle Huppert), she introduces Heidegger’s concept of authenticity and inauthenticity. In the scene, Caterine has Tommy and Albert repeatedly bash each other in the face with a large ball; they continue to hit one another until the one being beaten ceases to think for a brief period. They have discovered what Caterine calls â€Å"Pure Being. † In ceasing to think, Albert and Tommy are allowed to simply be free to exist (Dasein, again), but they are soon pulled back in their minds, which Caterine names human drama. Though they think they can teach themselves to stay in a state of â€Å"Pure Being† all the time, Caterine explains that it will always be a cycle, going from â€Å"Pure Being† to human drama and back again. According to Heidegger, before we realize our selves, we are in a state of Verfallenheit, or â€Å"fallen-ness. † In this state, we are slaves to what Heidegger calls the One (â€Å"human drama†), or rather the public life. We are part of this public creature and we are categorized for being as such. This constricts us as Dasein and doesn’t allow us to realize our full potential. It is during this state of Verfallenheit, and being part of the One, that we are inauthentic. We are not being true to ourselves as Dasein, and therefore not allowing ourselves to rise to the level of existence we need to reach. It is only when we break free from the One and enter the level of Self that we become authentic, true selves. Heidegger understands, however, that sometimes we are pulled back into Verfallenheit, and must then go back through the One, or human drama as Caterine puts it, and back into the level of self. As Heidegger explains our cycle of inauthenticity and authenticity, Caterine explains much the same thing in her description of the cycle between â€Å"Pure Being† and human drama. Another I (Heart) Huckabees scene with high existential fiber is the short poem about a rock which Albert has written for his â€Å"open spaces† campaign: â€Å"Nobody sits like this rock sits. You rock, rock. The rock just sits and is. You show us how to just sit here†¦ and that’s what we need. † The poem brings to light the term Being-for-itself (etre pour soi), which is most closely associated with famous Existentialist Jean-Paul Sartre. Because of our consciousness, this term is most often applied to human beings and states that we are always beyond ourselves, thinking thoughts of ourselves, obsessively thinking of our pasts and futures, etc. This causes alot of pain and suffering for human kind – causing us to view ourselves in the future or judge ourselves according to the past – failing to be in the present moment, in the NOW. Unlike the rock which is always in the present moment, or, â€Å"being-in-itself†, Sartre believes that we can never possess ourselves fully. We can posses the rock, however, because it is a thing. The rock is not conscious, it is what it is at all moments†¦ but this is something impossible for humans because of our capability to go beyond ourselves in consciousness. In the final scene of the movie, Albert and Tommy are sitting on the rock and Albert claims that â€Å"The interconnection thing is definitely for real. † Heidegger would smile at Albert’s newfound discovery of mitdasein, that we are not alone in our infinite field of being, but instead are accompanied by all others. â€Å"Everything is the same, even if it’s different. † In this closing scene, in the same place as when the movie opened, seeing them both there on the rock made it hard not to think of the characters Vladimir and Estragon from Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot, a famous Existential play in which two men wait endlessly in the middle of nowhere for a man named â€Å"Godot†. The Existentialism that gave birth to many of the scenes in the movie, I believe to be numerous. I have only touched upon a fraction of these. For example, two very famous philosophers – Friedrich Nietzsche and Soren Kierkegaard – can be seen as represented by the characters of Caterine and Bernard. Nietzsche, most well known for his claim that â€Å"God is dead†, may very well be an incarnation in the philosophy shown by Caterine. Kierkegaard on the other hand, who believed that God is not dead, but trully being faithful requires a â€Å"leap of faith†, is brought alive in the enlightening and â€Å"soft† teachings of Bernard and his wife. I wont go into further detail about the works of these two men, but encourage anyone interested to read deeper into their two philosophies†¦ you will certainly find more connections between the movie and the Existential movement. I hope this has helped share some light on those both perplexed by the movie and those interested in knowing the deeper historical and philosophical aspect of I (Heart) Huckabees. If you take some time to educate yourself on the background of Existentialism, you may find that I (Heart) Huckabees prooves to be a totally different experience when viewed a second time around.

Is The Uk Really A Democracy Essay - 1356 Words

IS THE UK REALLY A DEMOCRACY? A democracy, according to Abraham Lincoln, is a government of the people, by the people and for the people. The word democracy comes from the Greek word demos which means â€Å"people and kratia, which means rule (http://educationportal.ontla.on.ca/en/ ). A democracy is a system where the people have a little of control over the government in some specific important processes like voting in elections and decision making. In a democracy, the majority rule and minority rights . Although there are positive sides of the United Kingdom’s democracy, there are negative sides which cause the reliability of democracy in the United Kingdom to be questionable. â€Å"Over half of the world’s countries employ some type of democracy† (Clark, 2001-2016). Democracy is a very popular system of government; In a democratic government, everyone is under the â€Å"rule of law†, people have the power to devise laws and decide how they want to be ruled. 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