Tuesday, December 24, 2019

The Death Of The Author - 1194 Words

In the French theorist’s Roland Barthes’s essay, â€Å"The Death of the Author,† he explores that reading is done through a lens of the authors life. According the Dictionary.com, to read is to â€Å"comprehend the meaning of (written or printed matter) by mentally interpreting the characters or symbols of which it is composed.† Barthes argues that the reader spends to much time allowing the author’s identity to get in the way of comprehending the meaning of the ‘written or printed matter.’ He then goes on to say that reading is way more than just a means to use to judge the author. He proclaims that we stop thinking â€Å"the birth of the reader must be at the cost of the death of the author† (257). In other words, he means the only way we can understand a work of writing is to disregard â€Å"the authors, his person, his life, his taste, his passions† (254) because the readers should not use these things in a bias when i nterpreting a piece of writing. He does not want the reader to be blinded by what the think of the author. Barthes says that we must disregard the essence of the author, I say we use it to further our interpretation of the piece of writing we are reading. While reading Barthes essay for the first time, I thought that what he said was obvious. I was saying to myself, â€Å"of course, I don’t care about the author life! I just care about what is written on this page.† I really did want to agree with Barthes, at first read, he made total sense. Ironically enough, while reading hisShow MoreRelatedDeath and the Author1733 Words   |  7 PagesWe all struggle with our own immortality, many authors use death to declare their thoughts and beliefs on what it feels like, and what happens during the process of death. Stories such as Dorothy Richardson’s â€Å"Death† and Katherine Anne Porter’s â€Å"The Jilting of Granny Weatherall†, use a stream of conscious narration to get across to the reader that death is different and one in the same for everyone. R ichardson and Porter use the stream of consciousness to add depth to their characters, and to tellRead MoreDeath of the Author864 Words   |  4 Pages‘Death of the Author’ Analysis Roland Barthes is a French literary philosopher born in 1915. In one of his theories ‘Death of the author’ he argues that by â€Å"giving a text an author is to impose a limit on that text†. He claims that having knowledge of the author’s background and purpose for the text restricts the readers imaginative license to build their own interpretations, and that the author and text are completely unrelated. Barthes declares, The death of the author is the birth of theRead MoreEssay on Critique Of death Of The Author775 Words   |  4 Pagesquot;Death of the Authorquot; nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;The title to the story quot;The Death of an Author,quot; by Roland Barthes, suggests this story may be a fictional novel about the story of an authors death. Perhaps one might pick it up, and skim the foreword in hopes that beneath the cover of this book there would be a mystery, a story of detectives, eye- witnesses, clues, and a puzzle for the reader to solve. Before I read this story, the title quot;The Death of an Authorquot;Read MoreThe Author of the Black Death: John Aberth Essay828 Words   |  4 PagesAuthor, John Aberth was born on July 6, 1963. He currently lives in Roxbury, Vermont and serves as an associate academic dean at Castleton State College. There he teaches several history class. He has also taught at many other colleges in Vermont, including the University of Vermont. In 1992, John Aberth received his Ph.D. from the University of Cambridge in Medieval Studies after he received his masters from the University of Leeds. He is the author of five books, whose main focus is the effectsRead MoreEssay on An Analysis of Roland Barthes’ Death of the Author2707 Words   |  11 PagesAn Analysis of Roland Barthes’ Death of the Author â€Å"The birth of the reader must be at the cost of the death of the Author.† – Roland Barthes Must the Author be dead to make way for the birth of the reader? In Roland Barthes’ essay â€Å"The Death of the Author,† Barthes asserts that the Author is dead because the latter is no longer a part of the deep structure in a particular text. To him, the Author does not create meaning in the text: one cannot explain a text by knowing aboutRead MoreFacing Death in Tuesdays with Morrie, the author, Mitch Albom814 Words   |  3 Pagessociety as a civilization we are constantly being reminded of death. In Tuesdays with Morrie, the author, Mitch Albom, conveys the story of his professor, Morrie Schwartz, whom is dealing with a life threatening disease. In his life Mitch is so caught up materialistic possessions that he begins to lose focus on the true meaning in life. After this realization Mitch comes in contact with Morrie and writes down on a piece of paper a list, â€Å"death, fear, aging, greed, marriage, family, society, forgivenessRead MoreAuthor Mill er’s Death Of A Salesman: A Family’s Misguided Attempt At The American Dream 707 Words   |  3 Pages Death of a salesman is a two-act play set in the late 1940s. The death of a salesman is a tragic story of one family’s failed attempt to live the American dream. Majority of the action in the play takes place in the Loman’s home and yard. The Loman family consists of Wily, Linda and their two sons Biff and Happy. Overall I consider Death of A Salesman a fascinating Play. To begin with I found my self-having difficulty reading the play. I immediately began writing off the play as another story ofRead Moreâ€Å"Because I could not stop for Death† and â€Å"Annabel Lee†: Similarities, Differences, and Their Authors1494 Words   |  6 Pageswords and sentences. This is the case, for example, of Edgar Allan Poe’s poem â€Å"Annabel Lee† and Emily Dickinson’s poem â€Å"Because I could not stop for Death.† Both poems focus on the same theme of death, but while Poe’s poem reflects that death is an atrocious event because of the suffering and struggle that it provokes, Dickinson’s poem reflects that death is humane and that it should not be feared as it is inevitable. The two poems have both similarities and differences, and the themes and characteristicsRead MorePersonification Of Death859 Words   |  4 Pagesof death is unknown to everyone. Death is eternal. A person cannot come back to tell the l iving about the death experience. Death is the one aspect of life that is guaranteed no matter what the circumstance. In the poem, â€Å"Because I could not stop for Death† by Emily Dickinson, she uses personification, symbols and metaphors to portray death as a person. In the poem, â€Å"Because I could not stop for Death†, Emily Dickinson personifies Death. In the first line, â€Å"Because I could not stop for Death†, theRead MoreWilliam Shakespeare s Everyman, The Summoning Of Everyman1378 Words   |  6 Pagesinterpretation. However, Death takes most of critical role (Goldhamer, 1973). Everyman is the main character but without Death, the play would lack its illuminative and illustrative nature. Nonetheless, the author depicts Death as the messenger of God, cruel judge as well as rescuer of humankind. According to the author, human kind is supposed to be answerable for the mistakes committed by Adam. Indeed, the bad deed raises the sins of Everyman Perception and treatment of Death The author of the play, notwithstanding

Monday, December 16, 2019

Five Factor Theory Free Essays

One of the long held goals of psychology has been to establish a model that can conveniently describe human personality and disorders therein, with the intent to use this model in the remedying of personality disorders and improving general understanding of personality. Currently, a handful of models have risen to prominence, and have thus far stood the test of time. Some models are more generally accepted than others. We will write a custom essay sample on Five Factor Theory or any similar topic only for you Order Now Support for some models seems to come and go in cycles. One of the more prominent models in contemporary psychology is what is known as the five-factor model of personality. This theory incorporates five different variables into a conceptual model for describing personality. These five different factors are often referred to as the â€Å"Big 5†. The five-factor theory is among the newest models developed for the description of personality, and this model shows promise to be among the most practical and applicable models available in the field of personality psychology. Thorough critical attention is given to the proposal that the five-factor model is in fact a great theory. As it became evident to many psychologists that, mathematically, combinations of five factors were useful in describing personality, there was a need to clearly define what these factors were. Indeed, this process led to some dissent in the ranks. One dissenter from the five-factor theorists was renowned psychologist H. J. Eysenck. Eysenck felt that, due to overlaps in the five factors and their correlates, in fact a three-factor model was more appropriate and accurate. His theory is called the PEN model (which stand for psychoticism, extroversion, neuroticism), or sometimes is even shortened to the two factor E-IN model (extroversion-introversion, neuroticism). Many psychologists support Eysenck’s PEN model. However, of the major â€Å"factor-analytic models†¦ the Big Five dominates the landscape of current psychological research† (Ewen, 1998, p. 141). Through extensive debating and experimenting, there is currently a general consensus in the realms of scholarly psychology as to the identity of the five factors, and their basic interpretations and values to analysis of personality. The five factors are extroversion-introversion, neuroticism, agreeableness, conscientiousness, and openness. Extroversion has long been one of the traits that has appeared in factor-analytic models, and is one of the two traits to appear in both the five-factor model and Eysenck’s PEN and E-IN models. Extroversion also is sometimes referred to as social adaptability, though the popularity of this term seems to be waning. Extroversion is defined as a trait characterized by a keen interest in other people and external events, and venturing forth with confidence into the unknown. Neuroticism is the other trait to play a role in most of the contemporary factor models for personality. In some studies, adjustment is examined as a factor, instead of neuroticism. In this case, higher scores will indicate a positive result, consistent with the other four factors. This is because the term neuroticism has an inherent negative denotation (Bradshaw, 1997). The bases of neuroticism are levels of anxiety and volatility. Within these bounds, neuroticism is a dimension of personality defined by stability and low anxiety at one end as opposed to instability and high anxiety at the other end. Openness, agreeableness, and conscientiousness are all terms with which most people outside the realm of psychology are familiar. In general, openness refers to how willing people are to make adjustments in notions and activities in accordance with new ideas or situations. Agreeableness measures how compatible people are with other people, or basically how able they are to get along with others. Conscientiousness refers to how much a person considers others when making decisions. As with the two factors in the big five from Eysenck’s E-IN, these three are also placed on sliding scales. These three scales, like neuroticism and extroversion, slide between their limits to give a clear picture of personality. The limits of these scales give a clear idea of their applications and are defined as trusting and helpful versus suspicious and uncooperative (agreeableness), hard working and reliable versus lazy and careless (conscientiousness), and nonconformist and creative versus conventional and down-to-earth (openness). Never the less, there are many other theorist who have evaluated the five factor theory in a much boarder aspect. These researchers began by studying all known personality traits and then factor- analyzing hundreds of measures of these traits in self-report and questionnaire data, peer rating and objective measures from experimental settings in order to find the basic, underlying factors of personality. The big five factors of personality are five broad domains or dimensions of personality which have been scientifically discovered to define human personality at the highest level of the organization. These five over-arching domains have been found to ontain and subsume more or less all known personality traits within their five domains and to represent the basic structure behind all personality traits. They have brought order to the often-bewildering array of specific lower level personality concepts that are constantly being proposed by psychologists, which are often found to be overlapping and confusing. These five factors provide a rich conceptual frame work for integrating all the research fi ndings and theory in personality psychology. Three sets of researchers have worked independently for decades on this problem and have indentified generally the same Five Factors. They are Goldberg at the Oregon Research Institute, Cattell at the University of Illinois, and Costa and McCrae at the National Institutes of Health. These three sets of researchers used somewhat different methods in finding the five traits, and thus each set of five factors has somewhat different names and definitions. However, all three sets have been found to be highly inter-correlated and factor-analytically aligned. The Big Five Factors are commonly known as Openness, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness and Neuroticism, also Known as OCEAN or CANOE. OPENNESS Openness is a general appreciation for art, emotion, adventure, unusual ideas, imagination, curiosity, and variety of experience. The trait distinguishes imaginative people from down-to-earth conventional people. People who are open to experience are intellectually curious, appreciative of art, and sensitive to beauty. They tend to be, compared to closed people more creative and more aware of their feeling. They are more likely to hold unconventional beliefs. In addition, people with low scores on openness tend to have more conventional, traditional interest. They prefer the plain, straight forward and obvious over the complex, ambiguous and subtle. They may regard the arts and sciences with suspicion, regarding these endeavours as abstruse or of no practical use. Close people prefer familiarity over novelty. They are conservative and resistant to change. CONSCIENTIOUSNESS Conscientiousness is the tendency to show self-discipline, act dutifully and aim for achievement. The trait shows a preference for planned rather than spontaneous behaviour. It influences the way in which we control, regulate, and direct our impulses. Conscientiousness includes the factor known as Need for Achievement or NAch. It is obvious that the benefits of conscientiousness are high. Conscientious individuals avoid trouble and achieve high levels of success through purposeful planning and persistence. They are also positively regarded by others as intelligent and reliable. On the negative side, they can be compulsive perfectionists and workaholics. EXTRAVERSION Extraversion is characterized by positive emotions, surgency and the tendency to seek out stimulation and the company of others. The trait is marked by pronounced engagement with the external world. Extraverts enjoy being with people and are often perceived as full of energy. They tend to be enthusiastic, action oriented individuals who are likely to say â€Å"I most certainly will! † or â€Å"Come on let’s go! † to opportunities that will excite them. When placed in groups they are likely the first to talk, and assert themselves, just to draw attention to themselves. However, Introverts lack the exuberance, energy and activity levels of extraverts. These individuals tend to be quiet, low-key, deliberate, and less involved in society. Their lack of social involvement should not be interpreted as shyness or depression. Introverts simply need less stimulation than extraverts and more time alone. AGREEABLENESS Agreeableness is a tendency to be compassionate and cooperative rather than suspicious and antagonistic towards others. The trait reflects individual differences in general concern for social harmony. Agreeable individuals value getting along with others. They are generally considerate, friendly, generous, helpful and willing to compromise their interests with others. Agreeable people also have an optimistic view of human nature. They believe people are basically honest, decent and trustworthy. On the other hand, disagreeable individuals place self-interst above getting along with others. They are generally unconcerned with others’ well being and are less likely to extend themselves for other people. Sometimes their scepticism about others’ motives causes them to be suspicious, unfriendly and uncooperative. NEUROTICISM Neuroticism is the tendency to experience negative emotions, such as anger, anxiety or depression. Emotional instability it is sometime called. Individuals who score high in neuroticism are emotionally reactive and vulnerable to stress. They are more likely to interpret ordinary situations as threatening and minor frustrations as hopelessly difficult. Their negative emotional reactions tend to persist for unusually long periods of time, which means they are often in a bad mood. These problems in emotional regulation can diminish the ability of a person scoring high on neuroticism to think clearly, make decisions and cope effectively with stress. However, on the other end of the scale, those who score low in neuroticism are less easily upset and are less emotionally reactive. These individuals tend to be calm, emotionally stable, and free from persistent negative feelings. Freedom from negative feelings does not mean that low scorers experience a lot of positive feelings. Frequency of positive emotions is a component of the Extraversion domain. How to cite Five Factor Theory, Papers

Saturday, December 7, 2019

Countryside v.sCity Life free essay sample

Have you ever thought about your birth place? Do you make your own decision where to live? I believe every person, in a certain time, think about the place they should live: countryside or city? To make the best choice, we must look at three big differences between countryside and city: the environment, education, entertainment. First of all, the countryside has a quiet and peaceful environment. Since most people living in the countryside make their living mainly on farming, the atmosphere is kept fresh and healthy. They are living close to the nature with green vegetables, pure water. In the countryside, people are neither in a hurry, nor anxious. They can stay in their house until they feel the need to visit their farm. On the contrary, the city has a busy and stressful environment. Everyday city dwellers have to face with pollution by noise and smoke from a huge amount of vehicles. We will write a custom essay sample on Countryside v.sCity Life or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page Since many people work in factories or offices, and they also get paid by working hours, every day they are full of schedules and plans. As a result, they are suffering more pressures than those living in the countryside. The next difference between city and countryside is education. In the countryside, there are not many high graded school, many students have to go to the big city for higher education. While schools in the countryside don’t provide much services for students, many schools in the big city are equipped with modern labs supporting for practice and research. Others with workshops on or off campus give the learners the best training for later work. Schools in big cities also offer many activities for low grade students like field trips and boys and girls club. In higher levels, with many exhibitions, fairs, festivals and conferences, students are much easier to do their researches. Entertainment is another concern of many people. In the countryside, entertainment is only in some physical activities: fishing, biking, hiking, swimming. These things, in fact, are only practice outside and sometime not enough for the human nonstop needs. In big cities, there are more culture activities like concerts and cinemas making the richness of mental life. Entertainment of the nightlife including casinos, clubs, hotels, recreation and shopping centers, gyms, fashion centers, contributes to the liveliness of a city, which we are hardly find in the countryside. In conclusion, both countryside and city has their own values. Therefore, people can choose living in the countryside or in the city depending on their most needs. For me, each person only has one life. We are not able to choose the birth place but we completely can choose the place to live. That is the part of reaching our most optimal peak of life. Once we look back we are proud of the happy time we have ever lived in that place.