Writ ex 1 Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Writ ex 1 - Essay Example Secondly, I find the myths concerning this forest unbelievable (James, 2008). However, myths do not illustrate lies. They entail symbolic issues that are communicated by stories. The myths also illustrate art which conveys adequate understanding of the human experience. It is falsehood to illustrate myths as lies. Adequate understanding of the myth concepts ensures appropriate analysis of the overall mythology. Hence, myths cannot be properly addressed without analyzing overall mythology. Myths cannot be separated from mythology. They should be whole or complete, so that the parts work together to ensure the life flow in the myths. Thus the usage of the word ‘myth’ is inappropriate. This shows the ignorance of the individuals and the organizations that misuse the term. But people should not be misused. This because the mythology concept is alive and actively applicable today inform of religion. The only challenge presently is that no single unifying methodology exists. The key religious organizations misuse the term to suit their interests. The multinationals also minimizes the thinking abilities of the individuals (James, 2008). Joseph Campbell illustrates the four key functions of myth. The functions are; metaphysical, pedagogical, cosmological, and finally sociological. The metaphysical function involves analyzing mystery and creation wonders. This enables adequate opening of the mind and also senses to develop awareness for the mystical being that is the origin of the entire phenomena. The cosmological function enables description of the shape of the universe or the entire world. Thus, the cosmos contained in the world becomes alive, with significance. Each and every rock, plant, animal has adequate meaning through the cosmological myth provided by the myth. The sociological function aims at forming ‘the law’. The law guides the moral and the ethical standards of individuals in a particular structure to adhere to. This assists in defining

Photosynthesis deep within ocean waters Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 4250 words

Photosynthesis deep within ocean waters - Essay Example These little organisms find a way to live in such places by adjusting accordingly and are highly resistant. The existence of microbial life in deep sea was discovered ages ago. They have been sorted out into different categories depending upon their properties. The sea bed is a diverse environment which is rich in nutrients. The organic material settles down as sediments at the bottom which comes from dead plants and animals and it is a source of energy for microbial life. Therefore in these sites most particularly the sea floor where nutrients are present diverse microbial communities exists. There are micro organisms which can survive even in energy depleted conditions that is when no or limited amount of nutrients are present. Condition in deep sea is very critical as energy is most depleted there. It is difficult to understand how micro organisms survive in these conditions. (Feast and famine microbial life in the deep sea bed, 1 October 2007). Micro organisms can live in places where there is no light and an example of such place is deep sea. Sunlight cannot penetrate deep into the sea and the existence of microbial life in the dark zone of sea floor is yet to be understood. Researchers have dedicated their studies to explore life in the darkness of deep sea. Recent discovery of microbial communities in deep sea hot spring vents gives the idea that the earliest existence of life might have occurred in the deep sea in the absence of light. Before, this discovery it was assumed that light is necessary to survive as it is the primary source of energy but, now it is known that life that exists in deep sea vents survive on thermal and chemical energy provided by the vent which means that light is not necessary for survival. (Deep sea vent communities: Did life originate in the abyss?) Scientific studies reveals how organisms manage to survive in hydrothermal vents. When cold sea water mixes with the heat of hydrothermal vents it leads to the formation of organi c compounds which is a source of nutrient for the organisms. The presence of vents in oceans also helps in maintaining the temperature and chemical balance of oceans and is a source of many renewable resources. Hydrothermal circulation occurs when sea water penetrates deep into the ocean where it gets heated and then reacts with rocks and rises to the sea floor. This hydrothermal circulation plays an important role in removing and adding up different compounds and in this way maintains the composition of sea water. Hydrothermal circulation also helps in recycling the water of oceans through hydrothermal vents. (Deep sea vent communities: Did life originate in the abyss?) The environment of hydrothermal vents is harsh for survival of life. The pitch darkness of vents, poisonous gases, presence of heavy metals, extreme acidity and enormous pressure makes the existence of life almost impossible. Yet, microbial communities exist at hydrothermal vents. In deep sea there is no light and w hen there is no light the presence of solar energy is out of question. All forms of light require light directly or indirectly as a source of energy but, life in deep sea is light independent. In this case organisms use geothermal energy as their energy source to carry out their life sustaining processes. Such organisms use inorganic chemicals derived from rocks and from sea water where nutrient is abundantly available in soluble form and utilize CO2 as their sole source of carbon. (Jean, Windsor, Between a rock and a hard place,

Ethics and Morals in Criminal Justice Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Ethics and Morals in Criminal Justice - Essay Example ince their inception, these laws have inordinately targeted particular segments of our society, creating a perpetual underclass and left millions of people unable to escape from the criminal justice system. Not only is continuing these kinds of policies politically and economically unsustainable, these laws are ethically shameful. Legalizing and decriminalizing addictive substances, but controlling their distribution as the government does with many other goods, represents the moral and necessary solution to a problem that has persisted through a half of a century. However, inherent to the question of change-from comes the question of change-to; that is, if we are to repeal the War on Drugs and restrictive policies, what is the best solution moving forward? After looking at the kind of economic and normative imperatives we face from our drug policies, the kinds of solutions available in the aftermath of decriminalization shall be made apparent using case studies of other nations who have enjoyed success moving in this progressive direction. Although drug policies are well-intentioned, they do have harmful unintended social and moral consequences. For instance, looking at the economics of addiction, government regulation of addictive substances has large-scale and adverse consequences. The substitution and set-point effects of drugs harm a larger number in the preregulation population (Gifford Jr., 1999). Some authors have found a direct correlation between the Drug War and homicide rates in certain populations. These same studies conclude that empirical results indicate drug-control policy is far more expensive and less prohibitive than expenditures made by the criminal justice system. That is, decriminalization of controlled substances is the only financially stable option (Brumm & Cloninger, 1995). In addition to being a massive liability for the Federal government both militarily and with civilian law enforcement, the War on Drugs is the social costs on

The Fugitive Light Essay Example for Free

The Fugitive Light Essay Fugitive Light by Mohamed Berrada is a narration of life of an old, aging painter named Al Ayshuni. Set in Tangier, the novel opens in the house of the said painter who was caught with artistic paralysis—not able to produce what he thinks into an artistic work. He could not paint or even sketch what were on his mind. In the middle of this paralysis, Al Ayshuni would be disturbed by the presence of another character: the divorced Fatima. A young, beautiful, and highly-spirited woman, Fatima would introduce herself to Al Ayshuni, admitting that she is an avid admirer of the artist and his works. Later in the story, Fatima will play a vital part to Al Ayshuni’s life. She will bring memories to the painter as the author will try to slowly reveal the woman’s character and her connection to Al Ayshuni’s past. It would then be revealed that Fatima is the daughter of Al Ayshuni’s past lover, Ghaylana. Not only through that case could Al Ayshuni find a connection to Fatima. Their relationship would deepen as the story progresses. The divorced young lady would eventually serve as the artist’s model for his works, muse for social gatherings, and finally, lover. Al Ayshuni would struggle between his feelings for Fatima and his unfinished business with her mother Ghaylana. Most importantly, he would try to turn back time just to find again the fugitive of his life his youth. Towards the end of the story, Al Ayshuni would finally proclaim his defeat not only in the aspect of love but in the aspect of life itself. Fatima returned to Menton, a town in the Italian border, with his new husband Matthias. The old artist has failed to regain his fugitive light that he once had. Berrada has described the artist’s feeling through using his paintings as a metaphor: Who among us does not run away from something? I return to my lines and colors: I run away from the words of these memoirs and renounce the illusion of recording through them the experiences I lived. I am content to repeat: Whats gone is gone, light and color remain for me as well as space, of which I dream through them. . . . Everything else is prattle and sermonizing blown by the winds. The Novel’s Characters Al Ayshuni, as the protagonist of the novel, has showed a variety of his character while the story progresses. Those progressions in his character, nevertheless, were evidently portrayed by Berrada. Al Ayshuni was an adopted child of a rich mentor who fostered his artistic talents by providing him his financial needs and bringing him up as man of wit and intellect. He chose to further his artistic craft instead of committing his life to Ghaylana, his first love When he met Ghaylana, though, he missed the opportunity of being with her as he chose to follow his dreams and go to Spain. Ghaylana, who is much younger than Al Ayshuni, was left heartbroken; her family has able to find her a husband. Fatima, on the one hand, was described by Berrada as â€Å"†¦friendly, her words flowed with spontaneity and affection† (Berrada 2). No wonder that Al Ayshuni easily got closed to and fell in love with her eventually. She, nevertheless, was beautiful as her mother. She has â€Å"†¦ honey-colored eyes shone with an equivocal look and her chestnut hair was cut short a la garconne. Her gown hung down her body, showing its graceful form at the lines of her bosom and waist. † Young and with intellectual maturity, Fatima has easily hooked the heart of the middle-aged artist whose life is haunted by the things he did in the past. The Novel’s Themes Two struggling set of themes can be clearly seen while analyzing the novel. First is the struggle between the ideas of the past and the present, and second, the struggle between the ideas of sexual and intellectual pleasures. Berrada has included in his novel the fight between the idea of the past and the idea of the present. The main character, Al Ayshuni, was portrayed as a man who was nostalgic of his past, desiring to regain his youth. He behaved this way since the start of his romantic relationship with Fatima. While he was living with the woman, he could not control himself to be so reminiscent. He kept thinking about the possibilities he should have encountered if ever she did not leave Fatima’s mother. Moreover, one question always bothers him: If he and Ghaylana ended up together, would he also become a father and raise his own children, probably the same ages as that of Fatima’s? Unable to change the things he did in the past, Al Ayshuni just content himself with his present life—lonely, miserable, and chained to his past life. However, he still acknowledged his mistakes and accepted his faith, saying that â€Å"running after the fugitive light is an act full of torment but it exudes pleasure and the enticements of mirage . . . It can never be compared to the sterile act of searching for words to capture shreds of stored feelings. † The second set of struggling themes that can be found in the story is the issue concerning pleasure, specifically the grapple between sexual pleasure and intellectual pleasure. In the novel, Al Ayshuni left Ghaylana to cater his urge for intellectual pleasure. When finally he has fed this urge, he loss Ghaylana who caters, on one hand, his sexual desires. It was very ironic that when Al Ayshuni gained the other one, he loss the other one. This set-up was challenged though when Fatima entered the scene. Fatima embodied both pleasures. She can cater Al Ayshuni’s sexual as well as intellectual needs. In the novel, Al Ayshuni had written in one of his papers, â€Å"During Fatima’s stay with me, I was perplexed about her; she had invaded my life as my sweetheart’s daughter, she acted with attractive maturity and sensitivity she gave me to taste various kinds of physical pleasure†¦then she refused to tell me about her life. † (Berrada 88). Mohamed Berrada: The Author Mohamed Berrada is a Moroccan writer of fiction. He also critiques works of literature and translates Arabic writings. An instructor of Arabic literature himself, Berrada is being acknowledged as one of Morocco’s finest and relevant modern writers. Berrada believes in a literary movement called attajrib, which translates to English as experimentation. In this kind of movement, the writers are experimenting new techniques in their craft. They give more emphasis on fragmented and individual thoughts, narration, images, and scenes. Underlying Issues The novel tries to tackle the issues of marital relationship, social class, and nationalism. On the first few pages of the novel, Berrada has included a dialogue between Al Ayshuni and Fatima concerning about marriage and divorce. They were watching the television about an investigative report on the situation of cohabitation of men and women in France. According to the report, the number of couples who are actually living together has reached over two million. When asked about her own opinion regarding the issue, Fatima answered that she is in favor of couples living together. For her, this arrangement could be better than marriage because the couples could find time to make sure of their feelings for each other. This stand of Fatima regarding marital relationship was seen through her actions in the story. She agreed living with Al Ayshuni in one roof until she was not sure of her feelings. Towards the end of the novel, she left Al Ayshuni for another man. The issue about marriage and divorce has been subjects of debate even long ago. The underlying themes that could also be connected to this issue are love and commitment. In the novel, Al Ayshuni did not marry Ghaylana because he is still not ready for commitment. It is very much different with Fatima’s case who opted to live with Al Ayshuni instead of marrying him. Both of them were not ready for commitment, although they were in love with each other. The issue of social class was also perceived in the story through the presentation of a clear demarcation between the rich and poor during the time when the novel took place. Al Ayshuni, for example, would never fully develop his talents if without the help of the wealthy man who adopted him. The novel evidently says that education is only for those who have the money and the power. Thus, only those who had the access to education will more or less succeed in life. In line with this, the author has also included the issue of nationalism in presenting his story. In one of the book’s passages, Al Ayshuni has observed the plurality of his place, saying that â€Å"†¦it has been a gift to all races and people. A city in common? A woman gone to perdition? Space that can’t bear constraints and boundaries? † The novel is trying to critique the idea of multinationalism and endorsing the importance of having one national identity. The author may unknowingly included in the novel his actual stand about the issue through the words from Al Ayshuni: â€Å"Isn’t all this plurality of fashions, histories, and languages of its residents what brings it close to the soul that always yearns for more than one costume and one mask, for more than one love and one body, for more than one language and one space? † (Berrada 148) Finally, Berrada’s Fugitive Light is a combination of talent and experience of the author. He was able to incorporate somehow his culture and points-of-views through the characters he created. Knowing that he himself is a literary artist, the character of Al Ayshuni is no less similar to his. It could be concluded that everything he presented about this specific character is a reflection of himself and his own stands and opinions towards the same issues that he presented in his novel. In reading the novel, I could not help to question some of the things around me that I am accustomed to believe and to do. For example, I now frequently think about the issues of marriage, divorce, and living in together. Conservative as it may seems, I still believe in the power of marriage. For me, it is not only a social act, but more of an internal practice. Here, you would be able to know and learn more about yourself. I would also like to agree with the author’s own stand about nationalism. For me, the problem now with nations is the blurring of their boundaries and limitations. In the world of globalization, it seems that everything is being globalized; everything serves for specific international purposes. There is nothing wrong with that, I must say. Maybe those kinds of changes are really inevitable. What I propose is that people of all races should still have a firm grasp of their own identity—own culture, own language, own space. It does not matter whether you belong to Third World Countries or First World Nations. The idea is that all of us should still cling to who and what we are. To end, Fugitive Light by Mohamed Berrada is a novel that truly depicts the problems within third world countries: class struggles, nationalism, and even gender roles and perceptions. I would definitely recommend this book for the very mere fact that it is honest. The story does not cater to a specific class only, or for selfish intentions of the less people. It is simply true. Works Cited Berrada, Mohamed. Fugitive Light. New York: Syracuse Un

Comparing three b2b or b2c web strategies :: essays research papers

I. Introduction The worldwide network of computers, called "Internet", provides opportunities for a company to do business in cyberspace. Organisations find it more and more important to represent them on the Internet to get more customers, to increase the public's awareness of the companies and their products, and to sell more of their products. However, corporate leaders are finding it difficult to keep up with fast-moving markets and the customer conditions that are the hallmark of the Internet. There are numerous and widely varying predictions of the potential of doing business via the Internet, including the increasing numbers of people with Internet access, of corporate Web sites, of Web spending by advertisers, and of total online shopping. Yet, confusion abounds concerning exactly what is happening, how much potential there really is, and what businesses should be doing to take advantage of it. The very nature of commerce on the Net can be baffling, even to the experienced marketer . Both businesses and consumers perceive many obstacles to successful online commerce. In order to successfully cultivate online market share, companies are compelled to design marketing strategies specifically for the information highway. I.A. Popularity of the Internet From its comparatively humble beginnings in the 1960s as a means for protecting US mainframe computer systems in the Cold War, to a 1970s link for scientists and academics to share data and research, the Internet has blossomed in the 1990s into the information age's curious marriage of the personal computer and citizens' band radio (Hof and Verity, 1994), instantaneously linking a user with the whole electronic world and providing the means to interact with that world. This explosive growth of the Internet, including commercial networks and services, has been accompanied by an astounding increase in the population of Internet users. The huge potential of customers and consumers has businesses scrambling to get on to the Web, with its low cost and broad reach. Millions of people worldwide can utilize the Web's affordable and easy access to view product, service and information offerings from an unknown number of potential entrepreneurs. (Chaffey et. al., 2003) Estimates say that the business side of the Internet is small today, but with untold billions in potential sales looming ahead. The prospect of millions of bright, well-educated, upwardly mobile people searching for some new outlet in which to spend their money has been too attractive for many businesses to ignore, in spite of slow initial momentum (Johnson, 1995).

Home Is Where the Heart Is Essay

Some say â€Å"home is where the heart is. † Home can be everything to some. Home is their safe comfort place they have in life. Home determines a sense of one’s identity. One poem called â€Å"The Youngest Daughter† by Cathy Song involves characters experiencing conflicting situations between the demands of their home and identity. One might think that this poem is simply about mothers versus daughters; however, this poem evokes a broader sense meaning that daughters are torn between either pulling away or pulling closer to home. In one sense, the daughter in this poem is frustrated with her current situation and aspires to do more with her life, rather than devote her time doing what her mother thinks she should be doing. Despite this feeling, she knows she should be caring for her sick mother. The role she has in her home has conflicting messages. Using the elements of tone, narrative poem, and word choice, the poem can be explicated to show how it creates and resolves the meaning of conflict between mothers and daughters. â€Å"The Youngest Daughter† utilizes the narrative type poem, which helps create and resolve the conflict in the poem. The main conflict in this poem is that the daughter has to choose between obligations and desires, while finding her own role in her home. A narrative poem tells a story, and this poem tells a story about a daughter taking care of her elderly mother. The poem is about what the daughter’s daily life is like. This shows the â€Å"obligations† part of her life. The first sentence of the poem is â€Å"the sky has been dark for many years. † This implies that everything that has been going on with her taking care of her mother has been going on for many years. Since her mother became ill, it has been the daughter’s obligation to take care of her. This obligation is based on cultural expectations. In many cultures, children are expected to take care of their parents once they age. The poem is organized into stanzas that are associated with a certain part of the story. One stanza describes what has been going on lately. Another is about â€Å"this morning. † The last stanza is about what goes on â€Å"in the afternoons. † Through the narrative type poem, the daughter is able to express the feeling that her identity is basically taking care of her mother. This identity is also her role in the family. This role limits her own self-identity. Because she is busy caring for her mother, she is unable to develop a sense of self. She is torn between two things: growing away from her mother, and pulling closer to her mother. She knows she has to take care of her, so that aspect makes her seem to pull closer to her mother. Contrary to that, this daughter is a grown woman, and she has a very limited and conflicted life. Her life is devoted to the mother. This is seen by the story of the poem. She wants to grow apart from her mother and do things in her life that interest her. The reader can see that the daughter wants to escape this whole situation because towards the end of the poem it says â€Å"She knows I am not to be trusted / even now planning my escape. † The readers learn here that the mother doesn’t trust the daughter, for reasons unknown. The second line of the above quote shows the readers that this is what the daughter is currently doing to make her mother not trust her. The daughter also desires that her mother’s health improve, because in the poem is says â€Å"As I toast to her health. Love and pity toward her aging mother clash with the feelings of resentment and entrapment of herself. â€Å"The Youngest Daughter† uses word choice to show the conflict of mothers versus daughters, and the daughter’s internal conflict of obligations and desires. The daughter uses middle diction to show her emotions. Like noted in a previous paragraph, the first sentence of the poem is â€Å"the sky has been dark for many years. † This shows that the daughter has been dealing with her mother’s illness for quite some time, and she hasn’t been able to see the sun. She hasn’t been able to do what she wants to do because she has been so overwhelmed with taking care of the mother and fulfilling her obligations. When describing the mother, the daughter says â€Å"her breathing was graveled / her voice gruff with affection. † The word choice of graveled and gruff is interesting. This demonstrates the effort required to breathe and be affectionate. It’s almost as if the writer of the poem wanted the readers to hear what her breathing and voice sounded like by including those two words in there. This implies in a way that the mother has an opinion with the situation too. These two words make these two lines more effective. The daughter says â€Å"I was almost tender / when I came to the blue bruises. † This shows that the daughter feels sorry for what the mother has to go through. Tender is another interesting word choice. The poem also says â€Å"I soaped her slowly,† meaning that the daughter takes her time when washing her mother, because her life has been accustomed to nothing. Another aspect of obligations is that the daughter says â€Å"I scrubbed them with a sour taste in my mouth. The daughter obviously doesn’t want to scrub the mother, but it is obligation, her duty, so she must. Using the sentence â€Å"We eat in the familiar silence† shows that there is tension between them, because if there was no tension, they would be talking when they are eating. Despite this tension, this still occurs each day, and they continue to follow the same routine. If this line just had said â€Å"We eat in silence,† it would have a much lesser effect on the poem as a whole. By adding the word â€Å"familiar,† it allows the reader to understand that eating that way is a commonality and part of a consistent routine. The words â€Å"familiar silence† contrast each other. Familiar is something that has occurred so often that it becomes accustomed. And what is familiar in this poem? Silence. Silence, though it means quiet, is essentially nothing. Quietness, or nothing, has occurred so much that it is accustomed. The word choice is contrasting obligations with desires. The daughter is obligated to care for her mother. This is evident throughout the entire poem when the daughter describes everything she does for her mother. Despite this, she desires to do something different than just solely care for her mother. This desire is evident when the poem says â€Å"She know I am not to be trusted / even now planning my escape. † The daughter wants to escape, and the mother is aware of it. This contrast between obligations and desires makes the reader of the poem feel that this is an either/or situation. The daughter can either take care of the mother, or she can go off on her own. The last two lines of the poem are very meaningful: â€Å"A thousand cranes curtain the window / fly up in a sudden breeze. These word choices are effective because the words allow the readers to see an ending image. It seems like the cranes flying away is associated with the daughter being set free and escaping her life. It’s ironic how the first line of the poem uses words that talk about the sky, and in the last few lines of the poem the cranes fly into the sky. This line is used as a way for the author of the poem to show that the resolution has occurred. By the end of the poem, the conflict of obligations versus desires is resolved. One of the last lines of the poem says â€Å"As I toast to her health. This shows that the daughter finally realizes that caring for her mother is what’s best for her at this moment. By toasting for her health, she reveals that even though she is sick of caring for her mother, she would rather care for her mother than have her mother be dead. The daughter realizes that there will eventually be a time when the mother dies, and at that time the daughter will be able to do whatever she desires, but right now, her focus needs to be on her mother. The cranes flying into the sky reiterates this fact. When this time comes, even though the daughter will be able to do what she wants, she will be without a mother. She will have no obligations, which in a sense is good for her, because she will be able to do what she wants, yet a part of her life will be missing. Death is always hard to deal with, and even though in the poem she talks about how she wants to escape, in reality she really would miss her mother. The tone is this poem is bittersweet and affectionate; children should care for their aging parents, yet children need to live their own lives. In a way, the tone is also both happy and sad. The way the tone changes correlated with both of the conflicting sides of the poem. It’s happy in the way that the poet shows that there is affection and love between mothers and daughters, yet it is sad in the way that it shows that sometimes conflicts arise between mothers and daughters. This also explains how it is bittersweet. The tone shows that there are moral ties between children and their parents. These moral ties tie in with the obligational part of the conflict. Morally, the daughter feels obliged to care for her mother. The speaker is the youngest daughter of a family, and her duty is to take care of her aging parent. As one can see, looking at a poem through elements can help a reader understand the meaning of it. In â€Å"The Youngest Daughter,† the poem creates the meaning of conflict between mothers and daughters related to the daughter either pulling closer or pulling away from family and having to choose between obligations and desires. The elements of tone, word choice, and narrative poem together effectively create this meaning. In this poem, the home determines one’s identity. The daughter is conflicted between either pulling closer to her home life and her mother, or pulling away from it all and going after her own aspirations. Readers can relate to this poem because many people go through the same predicament in life: taking care of an aging parent. People do it because they love their family. Even though this daughter is having conflicting feelings about taking care of her mother, she does it anyways because family always comes first.

Respective societies Essay

How do the writers of Jane Eyre and Of Mice and Men show Crooks and Jane to be outsiders in their respective societies? Howard Jenkins 11R How do the writers of Jane Eyre and Of Mice and Men show Crooks and Jane to be outsiders in their respective societies? In the novels Jane Eyre and Of Mice and Men both novels are protesting about social injustices. These injustices lead to many of the characters being outsiders or they are outsiders because they don’t fit into accepted conventions. People are outsiders due to injustices and their differences. One of the techniques that both Charlotte Bronte and John Steinbeck use to show both Jane and Crooks as outsiders is by making them ranked lower socially compared to those around them. In Jane Eyre Jane is ranked lower than her Aunt and cousins as they are middle-class and she is someone from the lower class living in their house. This creates the impression on the reader that she is an outsider in their middle-class world very effectively. She is looked down on by her Aunt and cousins as if she does not deserve the respect that a servant would get as at least a servant works for their food and room. This attitude has been conveyed to the servants and Miss Abbott notes, â€Å"She is worse than a servant for she does nothing for her keep. † This technique works very effectively to show that Jane is an outsider. In Of Mice and Men Steinbeck uses a similar technique to portray Crooks as an outsider. Because Crooks is black he is seen as inferior to most of the men on the ranch due to the racist views at the time the book was written. As with Jane in Jane Eyre this portrays Crooks as an outsider on the ranch as he is not accepted by most of the other men. Crooks is only too aware of their attitudes and he tells Lennie, â€Å"They think I stink. † The language in the novels also helps to portray the characters of Jane and Crooks as outsiders. In Jane Eyre the story is narrated in the first person narrative. This engages the reader’s sympathy. The narration causes the reader to trust her as she is not liked by everyone and Jane quite openly admits this. Also the surroundings in Jane Eyre show Gateshead to be a miserable place for Jane. The rooms are places that, for Jane, are filled with cold and dread, even in the nursery where you would expect her to feel happy and play with toys is a miserable place. Jane cannot touch the doll’s house furniture, â€Å"for the tiny chairs and mirrors were Georgiana’s property,† This sort of writing shows the reader how hard a life Jane lives at Gateshead and how she is seen by those she lives with. She is not permitted to touch things that belong to those who are a higher social class than her and she is not even happy in the child’s nursery. By demonising the Reed family, Bronte ensures our sympathy for Jane. The harshness of the weather in the novel reinforces the harshness of Jane’s life with the Reeds. The weather is always cold with a winter wind and rain making any outdoor exercise and an escape from the walls of Gateshead quite impossible. Jane looks through the glass of the windows at the grounds â€Å"where all was still and petrified under the influence of a hard frost. † The harshness and cold of the weather reflect Jane’s lack of love at Gateshead. However Bronte allows Bessie to show her affection and Jane says, â€Å"even for me life had its gleams of sunshine† Bronte also uses symbolism elsewhere in the novel. For example the window separates known from unknown, inside from outside. The world outside the window offers Jane more happiness. It is apparent that Charlotte Bronte manipulated her use of language so that the setting and elements in this novel appear as objective reflections for the inner life. Steinbeck does not use symbolism as extensively as Bronte, but the bare, isolated harness room represents his alienation on the ranch. There are many similarities between the characters and situations of Jane Eyre and Crooks. Both of the characters are seeking independence. Jane shows this by always speaking her mind rebelliously and in doing so angering those around her, â€Å"If she were a nice, pretty child one might compassionate her forlornness but one really cannot care for such a little toad as that. † Similarly, Crooks keeps a defensive distance from the others and is described as a â€Å"proud aloof man. † This creates compassion for the characters by the reader. Another similarity between the characters is that they are both seeking for companionship. Jane is excluded form the Reeds and is unloved, but she does not enjoy this isolation, â€Å"If others don’t love me I would rather die than live. † Crooks is also lonely as he is excluded from the other men on the ranch because he is black, but he too feels that loneliness is destructive, â€Å"Books ain’t no good. A guy needs someone to be near him. † When Lennie is taliking about the ranch in Of Mice and Men Crooks is quick to offer his services on the new ranch hoping for some companionship, â€Å"If you guys would want a hand to work for nothing just his keep why I’d come and lend a hand. † Another similarity between the two characters is that they are both bullied by those around them. Jane is bullied by her cousins, especially John Reed, â€Å"He bullied and punished me, not two or three time in the week, nor once or twice in the day but continually. † Crooks has been bullied by other men on the ranch because he is black and different to them, but he is destroyed by Curley’s wife’s cruel taunts and threats and he withdraws into himself, â€Å"Crooks had reduced himself to nothing. There was no personality, no ego – nothing to arouse either like or dislike. † Both Jane and Crooks are physically isolated from the rest of those around them. Jane is banished by Mrs Reed to the kitchen and Crooks is excluded from the other men’s activities. Jane says, â€Å"From every enjoyment I was, of course, excluded† And Crooks tells Lennie, â€Å"They play cards in there, but I can’t play because I’m black. They say I stink. † Jane and crooks are very proud individuals. Jane tells her aunt that the Reed children, â€Å"are not fit to associate with me† and Crooks was a, â€Å"Proud, aloof man† Both writers make their characters more appealing by presenting them as feisty and courageous at times. A common attribute that both Steinbeck and Bronte use to portray Jane and Crooks as outsiders in the novel is that both characters read to escape from their own miserable, lonely existences. Jane says, â€Å"I soon possessed myself a volume, taking care that it should be one stored with pictures,† and, â€Å"With Bewick on my knee I was happy. † Crooks too withdraws into a world of books, â€Å"And he had books too a tattered dictionary and a mauled copy of the California civil code for 1905. † Books are the only things that these characters can communicate with and again their love of literature endears them to us. Overall the authors of Jane Eyre and Of Mice and Men use many similar techniques to make the characters Jane and Crooks appear as outsiders in the novels. The authorial purpose is obvious, the writers have sympathy with the underdog and through their characters they challenge the reader to question their consciences.