Mark Twain Short Stories Essay

Samuel Langhorne Clemens, better known by his pen name of Mark Twain, is a widely renowned author whom, throughout his life, wrote countless short stories and essays criticizing politics, media, and other government and social areas. Twain was an avid supporter of civil rights and was extremely critical of the court systems. Twain often criticized how society treatment of criminals changes for every social class. Mark Twain uses his dark humor and irony to convey said theme in three of his more popular short stories, The New Crime, Running for Governor, and A Presidential Candidate. Mark Twain’s short story, The New Crime, illustrates the positive side of having a high social class and the special treatment from the court systems that comes along with wealth. Twain first writes about a series of ordinary murder cases committed by wealthy men and lords in which the murderers are all pardoned from their crimes and giving the insanity plea. The insanity plea basically states that if a person is mentally insane, they cannot be held accountable for any crimes they commit while insane. All of the murders from said cases are ordinary murders, which show no sign of insanity. This clearly displays that the men are only acquitted because of their deep pockets. One of Twain’s favorite literary devices is irony and he often uses it to ridicule the government. In The New Crime Twain uses irony when he writes, â€Å"The servant girl, Bridget Durgin, at the dead of night invaded her mistress’ bedroom and carved the lady literally to pieces with a knife. Then she dragged the body to the middle of the floor and beat and Lemacks 2 banged it with chairs and such things. †¦No such insanity plea was offered in her defense. † (Twain 5) This is ironic because, in Durgin’s case, she is obviously deranged but, since she is of low social standard, she is not offered the insanity plea and, instead, is promptly hanged. The reader knows that Twain is purposefully being ironic because he includes details such as the facts that she has no motive for the murder, saves the woman’s baby, and continues to hike through the snow with the child having left her shoes, which all show how clearly insane the girl is. In using his precious irony, Twain makes his point very clear and makes sure to drive the message of the judicial systems corruptness through to the reader. In Twain’s short story, Running for Governor, he writes about when he was nominated for governor of New York. He uses said story to show the negative side of having a high social status and how the media will treat one differently when they are put in the spotlight. Twain himself is the main character and has never done a single thing in all his life to be ashamed of. When his campaign begins, Twain feels that his advantage over his competition is that he possesses good character whereas, Twain’s two opponents are portrayed in the papers as terrible men. The next day newspapers start to come out accusing Mr. Twain of ridiculous crimes. One of the papers says that Twain has been convicted of perjury by thirty-four witnesses against a native woman in Cochin China! Twain is list all of the absurd accusations in the following pages. What Twain is doing is making the charges serious, such as murder, but also incredibly odd. The reason being to create a subtle, dark humor in all of the newspaper articles so that the reader will see how the media is clearly just making up stories about whomever runs for a political office. Twain uses this same technique in his short story, A Presidential Candidate, in which he jokingly writes that he has made up his mind to run for president but, instead of waiting on Lemacks 3 reporters to publish everything bad about him in the newspaper, he is going to come out with everything bad that he has done in the past. Twain uses dark humor when he writes, â€Å"The rumor that I buried a dead aunt under my grapevine was correct. †¦ Does that unfit me for the presidency? The Constitution of our country does not say so. † (Twain 21) Once again, as he did in Running for Governor, Twain is making up silly crimes that, even though they are serious, one cannot help but chuckle at them. Twain succeeds once more in ridiculing the media through dark humor. Mark Twain wrote hundreds of short stories, essays, and sketches. Many of these works contain two of his favorite techniques; dark humor and irony, which often accompany one another in Twain’s stories. It is through his expert use of the two figurative language devices, along with many others, that Twain was able to criticize the difference in treatment towards different social classes to the extent that he did. Lemacks 4 Works Cited Twain, Mark. Taming the Bicycle: And Other Essays, Stories, and Sketches. Ed. Eric C. Link. New York: Barnes & Noble, 2009. Print.

Creative & Critical Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words - 1

Creative & Critical - Assignment Example plies that literature is significant features in the society with the experiences of the characters in such stories representing the developments in the contemporary society as viewed by the author. The discussion below shows the nature of this relationship by investigating issues of gender, femininity, masculinity and prescribed roles as portrayed in Tickets, please a short story by D. H Lawrence. Set at a time of war, the short story shows different times of wars in a number of contexts. With most of the young and energetic men, fighting in the World War 1 in France a other countries across the world, thus making the society vulnerable and women must take up some of the jobs previously done by men. The key thematic issues in the short story are vengeance, love and sexual war among many others. Gender roles, masculinity, prescribed roles and femininity also come out naturally given the thematic issues the short story analyses. The wartime setting in the short story is effective in showing the struggle that exists between the two sexes in the society. The various thematic issues in the short story are fundamental features that exist in the contemporary society. The development of democracies has enhanced the activities of proponents of gender equality and feminists. The society is currently liberal with women enjoying the same political, social and economic space. As such, gender roles have changed with women taking part in activities considered masculine. This implies that issues of femininity, prescribed roles and masculinity have changed. D. H. Lawrence captures the issues systematically in his novel a feature that makes it easy to compare his thematic issues to the developments in the contemporary society. Annie Stone and a group of numerous other girls are working as conductors in trains, which then became only and reliable mode of transport in the country. Their job is crucial since they keep the country moving. The women work hard in an unfamiliar

Police Discretion Position Paper Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Police Discretion Position Paper - Essay Example Several myths, such as an inevitable abuse of power, are unsupported by the research. The main causes of police discretion are offender variables, situational variables, and systemic variables. The exercise of police discretion arises in many situations, such as domestic violence and juvenile delinquency, and can often lead to positive resolutions. Discretion is a valuable part of police work. The issue of police discretion, while a seemingly natural aspect of the duties of a law enforcement officer, is a topic which generates much debate. Historically, the concept of police discretion was thought to be associated with police corruption and with an "extralegal" use of police power (O'Connor, 2005: np). Indeed, the recognition of police discretion as a legitimate aspect of police duties was not formally recognized until 1956 when it was formally identified and discussed by an American Bar Association study. This revelation, that the police did in fact use discretion in the course of their duties, generated a substantial amount of controversy: "When it was finally exposed, people like the American Friends Service Committee (1971) called for its abolishment, and police administrators sought a clampdown on discretion (administrative rulemaking)" (O'Connor, 2005: np). In the beginning, though police discretion was an integral part of daily police work, it was viewed with suspi cion. A more modern view posits that police discretion is a valuable and necessary part of police work. To this end, calls for the elimination of police discretion have been replaced by proposals to more carefully define when and how police officers should use discretion. This modern view operates on the assumption that police work is often complex, that situations are rarely neat and simple, and that discretion results in better police work than a mechanistic application of the law. As noted by a National Institute of Justice Research Report, "Each tactical choice by the police, each citizen's response, counter responses by each, and changes in other variables in the context (for instance, intervention of strangers) create a fluid, ever-changing encounter" (1997: pg.35). This essay will define what is meant by "police discretion", a number of common myths associated with the concept, and the real-life sources of the need for police discretion. The essay will then present ten practical illustrations of police discretion in operation in order to compare situations in which discretion is used appropriately and situations in which discretion very well might be abused. Police Discretion: Definitions, Myths, and Sources Discretion means many things and encompasses a tremendous variety of different situations. From a theoretical point of view, it has been referred to as the making of decisions where the law is not clear, where the police officer has alternative courses of action, and where a cost-benefit analysis cautions against the rigid application of the law. Some scholars have defined police discretion as judgments made within the realm of a "regulated autonomy" (De Lint, 1998: pg. 2) and others have characterized discretion as a police officer's role as a public servant whom is sworn to balance the intent of the law against the interests of

Epicenter and Magnitude of the Earthquake Assignment

Epicenter and Magnitude of the Earthquake - Assignment Example To locate the epicenter of the earthquake, the seismologists examine seismograms from three seismic stations. The seismologists measure the time interval of S-waves and P-waves in about 45 seconds and place the vertical lines at an interval of about 2 seconds. The measured S-P time interval will help to determine waves distance of travel from the focus to the station. It is paramount to note that the actual location of the epicenter is on the circle's perimeter to be drawn around the station. Therefore, to triangulate this position, there must be three seismic stations. A circle with an appropriate radius is drawn around every station and where the three circles intersect is the epicenter of the earthquake. Â  The seismologists use a well-known Richter scale to measure the magnitude of an earthquake. To determine the earthquake’s Richter magnitude, seismologists require one to know the surface the wave’s amplitude and the distance to the origin of the earthquake at the seismic recording site or location. The distance of the seismic recording and footage station from the epicenter can be determined by getting the time difference between the arrival of the P-waves and S-waves at the station. The difference is called S-P interval. The amplitude of the surface wave depends on the earthquakes magnitude and the distance between the epicenter and recording station. It is a measure of how many millimeters the ground will move at the recording station. The amplitude and S-P interval is then used to determine the Richter magnitude.

Persuasive writing Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words - 2

Persuasive writing - Essay Example Out of this number, at least 4,922 deaths occurred owing to the Ebola virus (The World Health Organization, 2014). So far, the key response to controlling the spread of Ebola has been total isolation of affected areas, restriction of travel to affected areas, and thorough medical screening of persons arriving from affected areas, and these strategies have not recorded much success. This present essay seeks to persuade the audience that the best strategy to deal with the Ebola virus is to send health workers from all different countries into the affected areas in order to curb the spread of this disease. Those against this proposition would argue that restricting movements within the affected countries and even entry and exit from the countries is the best strategy of curbing the spread of Ebola to other parts of the World. The reasoning behind this opposition is that by sending health workers from other countries, there is high chances the health workers could be infected with virus and in turn transfer it to other parts of the world where they will travel. So far restricting of travel within, to, and from the affected areas has not yielded much success since there are new infections been reported although the rate of new infections is slow, moreover, new cases are reported in country assumed to very precautious such as the United States and Spain (BBC News Africa, 2014). According to Jim Yong Kim, the World Bank Group President, the best way to deal with the Ebola epidemic is to move in areas that are worst hit and try to curb its spread from within those affected areas (The World Bank Group, 2014). Because Ebola is not a common disease it means that health workers in the affected countries are probably not trained or familiar with the best approach in which to care for those infected and even handling of dead bodies. A collection of health workers from

Panera Bread Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Panera Bread - Essay Example The company main competitive advantage is its ambiance that serves an escape from the daily hustle. Based on the SWOT analysis on Panera Bread, its brand image is strong in the US. By focusing on its competitive advantage, the company has maintained a strong customer loyalty due to its appealing ambiance. Panera Bread core competency is its artisan foods considered the best by its loyal customers. The primary components of Panera Bread value chain include: customer service, operating performance, and inbound logistics. The inbound logistics is more crucial as it acts as a product differentiation mechanism (Srinivasan, 2006). The management should reconsider its strategic measure of refranchising its 73 stores and its attempt to augment its share buyback. The underlying reason is that this will increase the company debt level and thus lowering its future profitability. Panera Bread should instead focus on other effective measures of competing against its rivals such as Starbucks. For Panera Bread to strengthen its competitive position in the global food industry, it should focus on promoting its organic food (Gamble, & Thompson 2012). As earlier mentioned, most people are shifting their consumption pattern to healthy organic foods as they become more conscious of their health. Therefore, this will help strengthen the company competitiveness and its business

Denial of service issues and solutions Dissertation

Denial of service issues and solutions - Dissertation Example (Chau) The real intent of those attacks is to shut down a site and not to penetrate it. Purpose may also be vandalism, extortion or social action including terrorism. (Crocker, 2007) 1.3 How DoS works The nature of DoS can be explained using Figure 1.1. In the figure, Bob is the authentic user of the system and he sends messages using the insecure Internet to the server. Darth, the attacker interfere the services offered by server and make the genuine user, Bob, invisible to server. In a normal connection, users transmit a message to the server to get authentication from the server. Then, the server returns a message to authenticate to the user as a genuine user of the system. Also, from the user side, the acknowledge message is sent back to approve the server and the connection between the user and the server is established. Figure 1.1 Denial of Service (Stallings, 2006) When a denial of service attack is taken place, the server receives several authentication requests, seemingly ca me from the authentic users, which have false return addresses. The server fails to successfully locate the user while trying to return the authentication acknowledgement. Then, the server waits so that it can authenticate the user before stopping the connection. In most DoS attacks, the attackers flood the servers with forged requests and make servers delayed. 1.4 Types and Generation of DoS Attacks Generally, there are three major classifications of DoS attacks depending on the victims targeted by attackers—users, hosts or networks though there are several types of DoS attack prevalent on Internet. US Cert advisory suggests that the three main types of DoS attacks are bandwidth, protocol and software vulnerability attacks. The major aspects that most DoS attacks are focusing on are bandwidth, CPU time and memory. Most common DoS attacks can be summarized as the following. 1.4.1 TCP SYN Flood Attack Flood type attacks are the first known form of a DoS attack and their attack ing mechanism of is quite simple – attackers send more traffic to a server than it can handle. (Georgieva, 2009) SYN Flood attack is a protocol type and exploits the weakness of TCP/IP protocol. US CERT advisory defines SYN flood as â€Å"an asymmetric resource starvation attack in which the attacker floods the victim with TCP SYN packets and the victim allocates resources to accept perceived incoming connections†. In TCP SYN flood attack, the legitimate users are ignored when the attacker initiates a TCP connection to the serve with a SYN. The victim server responds to the request with spoofed IP address and waits for ACK from the client side. Then, the connection table of the server is filled up and it neglects all new connections from legitimate users. This phenomenon can be clarified using Figure 1.2. Figure 1.2 Comparison of Normal TCP 3 ways Handshake and TCP SYN Flood attack demonstration (cisco.com) Flood type attacks are so common and powerful. Georgieva (2009 ) suggests that â€Å"even if a webmaster adds more bandwidth, this still is not a sufficient protection against a flood attack†. Because of the bandwidth insufficiency, even the normal volume of legitimate requests may appear as flood attacks. 1.4.2 Ping of Death Attack The Ping of Death or POD attack is another DoS attack with simple principle. It exploits software vulnerab