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In Good to Great, Jim Collins (2001) notes that the leaders of phenomenal companies, in which he studied throughout his career, paid tremendous amounts of time and resources when striving to hire the “right people” for their organisations.
Get original essay"In determining the right people, the good-to-great companies placed greater weight on character attributes than on specific educational background, practical skills, specialized knowledge, or work experience. Not that specific knowledge, or skills are unimportant, but they viewed these traits as more teachable (or at least learnable), whereas they believed dimensions like character, work ethic, basic intelligence, dedication to fulfilling commitments, and values are more ingrained” (Collins, 2001)
Collins (2001) stresses the actuality that “good-to-great” companies have a lucid understanding that people serve as a company’s biggest asset when attempting to gain a competitive advantage within their respective marketplace. These deemed “great” companies understand that once an individual with the right talent is found, he or she can obtain the specific knowledge and skills needed for a particular role through training (Gordon, Crabtree, 2006). According to an Economic News Release published by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, in 2017, 368,000 students earned an associates degree. 1.2 million students earned a bachelors degree, and 442,000 students earned an advanced degree, that being, a master’s, professional, or doctoral degree in the United States of America (bls.gov, 2018). What seems astonishing on the surface, in reality serves as a crisis. The excess supply of university graduates serves as problematic for human resources departments, responsible for recruiting, attracting, hiring, and retaining initiatives. Similarly, students find themselves constantly searching for fruitful methods to differentiate themselves from the excessive and oversaturated candidate market.
In the United States ### students participate in collegiate-athletics, as well as balance the mandatory curriculum in which the Institution sets amongst all of its’ students, with no exceptions. Employers are beginning to recognize the value in which student-athlete’s experiences bring forth to their corporation and overall work environment. As a result, new recruiting and career services firms, with undeviating focus on acting as intermediaries between corporate businesses and former athletes, are becoming more prominent. In an interview with the CEO of Game Theory Group, Vincent McCaffrey, he stated, “Six out of the past 11 U.S. presidents were collegiate athletes… You can train an employee on the day-to-day job requirements, but you cannot change work ethics. Athletes already have that dedication.” However, oftentimes the value in which collegiate-athletes bring to the “real world” goes left unnoticed by not only the corporations in which they aspire to work for, but also the student-athletes themselves.
In some cases however, student-athletes recognize their worth, as well as the applicable skills in which their collegiate-athletics career brought to the surface of their life. But what, precisely, are these embodied skills? Are they of value to corporate organizations, and are they capable of creating a competitive advantage in the workplace? Historically, scholars have continually questioned the extent to which intercollegiate athletics align with the mission of higher education (Enlinson, 2013; McCormick & McCormick, 2006; Sack & Staurowsky, 1998; Sperber, 1990, 2000; Zimbalist, 1999). When it comes to drawing correlations between intercollegiate athletics and education in the United States, most of the existing research is concentrated and targeted towards GPA and other conventional educational views. However,
The broad goal of higher education, however, is to prepare individuals for the rest of their lives and develop productive members of society (Dressler, 2014). There are many different theories on how to best accomplish this task, but most scholars agree that a broad-based, holistic education is tremendously valuable (Haynes, 1990). Intercollegiate athletics issue students a chance to receive an aggregate learning experience and education. However, miniscule research has been conducted in order to gain a true perception as to how these sporting activities directly impact students, beyond the physical skills they develop on the field or on the court.
While there has been informal and bounded research hypothesizing that participation in intercollegiate athletics may make athletes more marketable when applying for employment (Long & Caudill, 1991; Henderson et al., 2006; McCann, 2012; Rivera, 2011; Shulman & Bowen, 2001; US Department of Education, 1990), there is limited literature specifically addressing this phenomenon. By distinguishing and pinpointing the distinct palpable skills, capabilities, and intangible qualities that are associated with intercollegiate sports participation, this study aims to contribute to the already existing literature examining the value of athletics. The results of this study will assist in determining whether or not intercollegiate athletics are aligned with the goals of higher education, and ascertain whether or not they help develop student-athletes into future business leaders. If so, what competitive advantages, if any, can these former student-athletes provide for human resources sectors that understand the value in hiring for long-term success?
The overarching motivation of this study is to distinguish the tangible skills and intangible qualities that are commonly associated with former student athletes. As well as the addressing of the competitive advantages, if any, accumulated by former student-athlete acquisition in Corporate America. A great deal of well established corporations are beginning to target former collegiate-athletes for employment opportunities and this dissertation assignment aims to discern why. Strictly speaking, the perceived attributes in which employers closely identify with former collegiate-athletes will be at the forefront of discussion, as well as the value in which former collegiate-athletes believe they bestow upon the corporate world.
In an interview with Business Insider (2015), business owner Steve Bell-Irving was quoted saying, “Employers see how athletes are driven to compete, strive to constantly improve, and have the thick skin to accept critical feedback. Industries that require great tenacity target these individuals when hiring, because the employer believes these skills will transfer to the workplace.” The results of this study aim to broaden awareness of how employers view these extracurricular activities in comparison to other supplemental experiences highlighted on a resume submission. Also, being evaluated is whether the specific sport, gender of participant, level of competition, success levels, and leadership experience, have a distinct effect on employers overall view on employable collegiate-athletes. Lastly, interviews will be conducted with student-athletes in order to garner an idea of their experiences with collegiate-athletics, academia and employment opportunities. Whether or not they are even cognizant of their perceived value will surface. With companies constantly striving to find and maintain competitive advantages, people are becoming corporation’s biggest “assets”, not solely business processes, or technology, making selection process information relevant in present times.
I am Thomas Edison. You probably know me best for developing the phonograph and electric light bulb, but I innovated and invented much more. I held 1,093 U.S. patents, and am credited with creating the first industrial research laboratory1.
Get original essayWith the kind of reputation I have, you should expect me to be a huge proponent of the advancement of science and technology. I was homeschooled by my mother, who was one of the great inspirations in my life. She inspired me to work hard, if only not to disappoint her, and she is where much of my motivation early in life came from.
When I was 19, in 1866, I became a telegraph operator, working for Western Union on the news wire. I asked for the night shift, so I could have extra time during the slow news hours to read and experiment. I might have experimented a little too much, though, since it cost me the job a year after I took it. I spilled sulfuric acid one night, and it ran through the floor – to my boss' desk underneath, and was fired the next morning2. Inspired by my work as a telegrapher, I worked on several inventions, like a stock ticker, but my first patent came on June 1, 1869, for an electric vote recorder. Another telegrapher bought a $100 interest in it, and brought it to Washington, D.C. to show to a Congressional committee. The chairman was unimpressed, not liking the improved speed the recorder gave to counting votes. The slow method of voting allowed filibusters and motivating others to change their votes3. Many more patents came throughout my lifetime, always inspiring me to revise them and advance my different inventions.
I moved to New York City where I improved my telegraph inventions. I was fairly successful after working at selling them to the telegraph companies, and my big break came when I sold a stock ticker for $40,000. With the profits I made, I started a laboratory in Newark, New Jersey, and after a few years moved to Menlo Park, developing the first industrial research lab4. I created the first phonograph, the first of hundreds of new inventions and innovations here. One of them, possibly my most famous, was the incandescent electric light bulb. Light bulbs had already been invented, or at least proposed, but it was me who made it practical for general use. Others burned out quickly or were too expensive5.
My other large contribution to popular culture was the “kinetograph,” or movie camera. I built a “kinetoscope,” a simple machine that enabled people to watch moving pictures through a small hole. Within a few years, kinetoscopes sold well in Europe, helping me to fund my new laboratory in West Orange, New Jersey. I continued inventing, helping the United States during World War I, and becoming the fourth most prolific inventor in history.
Much of my success in the business world came from being able to create mass-production systems, much like my friend Henry Ford did.
Human Rights and Self Determination
I patented much of my work to protect it from others who wanted to profit off of it. I am a strong believer in the system of patents, and an extension of that, capitalism. If someone has an idea, they should be able to protect it and profit from it.
Critics of mine like to point to an incident involving my technicians copying and distributing a French film and profiting off of its showings in America. In 1902, my workers acquired a copy of filmmaker Georges Méliès' new work, A Trip to the Moon. They allegedly bribed a theater technician in order to get it, but I have no knowledge of money exchanging hands. I made copies and held showings of it in the United States. Méliès did not receive compensation, as he did not protect his film here in the U.S., or invest in the copying or distribution of it. Reports state that he was planning on refunding the movie's high cost with showings here, but there was not much interest when he did bring it over6. He became effectively bankrupt. Whether or not it was my fault, indirectly or not, I do not know.
War is only acceptable when it is necessary for the betterment of humankind – which is why I helped the United States when it entered World War One. I agreed to only help with defensive weapons, following a path of nonviolence. The Secretary of the Navy turned to me and made me the president of the new Naval Consulting Board. I brought on many fellow scientists to help work towards a counter-measure to the German submarines, and together we developed various methods for detecting submarines by sound, improved torpedoes, and underwater lights7. My laboratory also worked on finding substitutes for goods that were imported from Germany, like chemicals and dyes.
I have been categorized as a “freethinker,” and an atheist by some, thanks to comments I made on religion and God that made their way to the New York Times. I said that “nature is what we know. We do not know the the gods of religions... Nature made us, … not the gods of the religions.8” By this I did not mean to denounce the existence of a god – what some call God I call Nature. It is observable that we are nothing more than clusters of cells, so I rely on scientific fact to base my opinion on. Because of that, I believed in no afterlife or the concept of us humans having what some call a soul. Regarding afterlife, when asked about it, I answered that it does not matter, since no one knows.
In regards to religion, I did have another problem, one that directly affected my work and the public's perception of it. The World's Columbian Exposition took place in Chicago I 1893. Millions of people visited, intrigued and amazed by new technology and wanting to listen to presenters' speeches on many different subjects. However, the fair might not have been open as much as I, and many others, would have liked. The managers of the fair debated keeping the fair open on Sundays. Puritan blue laws stated that no businesses were to be open on Sunday, but for hard-working Americans who only had Sunday off, they would then not be able to visit. If the fair was to remain open on the extra day, it would open a world art, education, and appreciation. I was so upset about the fair not staying open that I signed a petition, subtitled “Religious Toleration is Christian Civilization,” arguing for the opening on Sundays. Many of my laboratory
workers also signed their names9. Even though the petition may have put me in a negative light to some, it was important for me to express my views that as many people as possible should be able to come to the fair, and in turn, witness the inventions and innovations of myself and others.
Within his work The Prince, Machiavelli presents a double perspective on rulership that works to focus the direction of outlook beyond the habitual leader to leader approach we have previously seen. Breaking from tradition, Machiavelli's idea that "in order to properly understand the behavior of rulers one needs to be a member of the lower classes" introduces a whole new set of problems for the reader that introduce the dynamic between the people and the prince. (p.6). This relationship creates a type of double-layered viewpoint, as neither the people nor the prince have a complete perspective. Thus the people are not predictable, and it is this assertion that really individualizes Machiavelli's political theory. Bringing in the peoples' viewpoint breaks with traditional political theory in that it allows for a type of real-world analysis and contextual accuracy that is not possible within theoretical and ideological discussions of rulership - relevant historical examples and personal experience supercede moral arguments about goodness in Machiavelli's realistic doctrine.
Get original essayOne of the major effects of such a populist vantage point is its concentration on the people's actual realistic relationship with the ruler. Rather than "constructed imaginary republics and principalities that have never existed in practice and never could" Machiavelli chooses to acknowledge that "the gap between how people actually behave and how they ought to behave is so great that anyone who ignores everyday reality in order to live up to an ideal will soon discover he has been taught how to destroy himself" (p. 48). Through the prism of this wisdom Machiavelli illustrates many significant aspects of the actualities of ruling a population. The most prominent of these features are the omnipresent ideas of fear and the fragile and fallible nature of control.
Machiavelli looks at the conditions around him to illustrate these tenets of leadership - talking about the King of Spain, Machiavelli remarks that the King "is always plotting and carrying out great enterprises, which have always kept his subjects bewildered and astonished, waiting to see what their outcome will be?he has never left space between one [enterprise] and the next for people to plot uninterruptedly against him" (p.68). Thus the populace can be governed without fear of uprising. "As far as bring feared?is concerned, since men decide for themselves who they love, and rulers decide whom they fear, a wise ruler should rely on the emotion he can control" (p.53). This idea breaks radically from the previous ideas of social control we have seen, because its illustration is based both in reality and in the opinion of the populace of the ruler, rather than the ruler of the populace.
Machiavelli also utilizes the analysis of the populace when instructing what to do about mixed principalities. He puts forward that "one of the best policies?is for the new ruler to go and live in his new territories. This will make his grasp on them more secure and more lasting. As a consequence [the subjects] have more reason to love you, if they behave themselves, and, if they do not, more reason to fear you" (p.9). The acknowledgement of such realities as region-specific cultural institutions and traditions is a conception achieved from the view of the populace, one that is overlooked in previous political philosophies with their much more vague and malleable citizens. Machiavelli asserts with his every instruction the individualized and highly personified character of the populace, reinforcing the reality that people are ruled, rather than figurative sheep.
The simple fact that it is people that are being ruled creates the fundamental notion of a dynamic between the ruler and the citizens. Human nature is unpredictable, and Machiavelli acknowledges this by working so hard to explore the outlines of this dynamic. He does this through persistent examples of how the people must be dealt with while understanding this dynamic, with everything from violence to cultural appreciation defining the necessary qualities of a good ruler. "Fear restrains men because they are afraid of punishment, and this fear never leaves them" (p.52). The idea of founding violence is also a large part of the relationship to the populace. "In order to get a secure hold on [territories] one need merely eliminate the surviving members of the family of their previous rulers. In other respects one should keep things as they were, respecting established traditions" (p.8). Machiavelli very logically instructs to concentrate the bad and disperse the good, thus creating a stable and satisfied popular impression of the ruler. Machiavelli asserts once again the importance of human nature in the dynamic between ruler and people: human memory makes men "quicker to forget the death of their father than the loss of their inheritance" (p.52).
The vantage point of the people also enables Machiavelli to address seemingly quotidian issues, such as "subjects'? exactions" that actually deeply affect the power of the ruler because ignoring them could create popular hostility. Such an unseen before bottom-up method allows a level of thoroughness that Machiavelli exemplifies in his appraisal of local politics at the time. His explanations of the political strategy of everyone from the King of France to Caesar lets the reader see for himself the significant breadth of the lower-class viewpoint. Yet at the same time the ultimate fallibility of a reliance on either viewpoint is shown - human nature can not be predicted from either the mountain or the valley, and perhaps that is Machiavelli's ultimate goal, to illustrate the complex dynamic between populace and ruler without relaxing into the traditional comfort of aristocratic idealism.
Anguish, hope, and forgiveness may not be the first connections a person makes to the idea of birds. In her novel, Speak, Laurie Halse Anderson is able to transform ordinary birds into powerful symbols. Heavy/controversial topics are discussed in Anderson’s work, and not all of her message can be conveyed through literal concepts on the sentence level. The symbol of birds reflect protagonist Melinda’s inner conflicts as the story progresses. Anderson uses the evolution of birds and their meaning to Melinda Sordino to unify themes related to trauma, redemption, and freedom.
Get original essayThe evolution of the meaning of birds in this novel can be traced back to the Sordino family’s symbolic Thanksgiving turkey. The disastrous bird represents tradition - solidified by years of innocent childhood memories - that Melinda can no longer understand after being raped. On the other hand, Melinda’s parents idolize this turkey and what it stands for. They consider succeeding at their annual “holy obligation” as redemption for their failures as a family every other day. To Melinda’s mom in particular, “Thanksgiving dinner means something...if her mother cooks a proper Thanksgiving dinner, it says they’ll be a family for one more year.” The corrosive nature of Melinda’s criticism of her ignorant mother shows how much she has changed. Anderson’s use of hyperbole when describing how badly the turkey was butchered creates a caustic, contemptuous tone. After Melinda’s dad butchers the turkey further, he “buries the soup in the back yard next to their dead beagle, Ariel.” Melinda’s naive parents can not begin to understand what she’s going through, what she’s lost, or what the turkey means to her. Her scornful tone shows that Melinda wants support, but can not reach out to her neglectful parents. They don’t understand her condemnation of tradition and the past, which she’s buried away like the failed Thanksgiving soup. This broken tradition relates to Halse Anderson’s message that until victims of traumatic experiences accept what has happened and forgiven themselves for it, their outlook on life is completely changed. Melinda’s parents don’t realize she lost more than her virginity the night she was raped. She lost her innocence, her past, the traditions that made her who she used to be. Anderson’s use of the turkey symbolizes all that Melinda once was, and what she could become if she forgave herself for the those losses.
As a rape victim carrying the extra burden of crippling depression, redemption is especially important to Melinda. The turkey bones were transformed from an item in the trash to a work of art; full of emotion and meaning. This symbol represents second chances, and the growing hope for someone like Melinda to heal. Her statue shows Melinda’s ability to turn scarred bits and pieces into something whole, something wanted. She learned from her teacher and friend, Mr.Freeman, to “hang on to everything a normal person would throw out...” Still, the turkey bone statue also shows that Melinda is still struggling. Under the constant burden depression places on her, Melinda is floundering. Although she’s beginning to figure out how the broken pieces of her former self fit together, she still needs to find the strength to rip off “the piece of tape over Barbie’s mouth” that keeps her from speaking up. Anderson’s use of tactile imagery when describing the statue and tape contributes to the idea that Melinda is physically unable to speak. This situation is as if a tangible, real force is holding back Melinda. This statue ultimately relates to themes of redemption. When someone forgotten, broken, or left behind is given a second chance, they can become whole again. Melinda’s journey had come to a point where she realized this, but still had a long ways to go before leaving behind the burdens of her past.
Towards the end of Melinda’s story, birds take on a whole new meaning for her. The freedom symbolized by a bird’s flight is something she achieves by releasing the guilt, shame, and self-loathing that held down her wings. On her final art project, she “draws them without thinking - flight, flight, feather, wing.” After countless attempts to perfect her work, Melinda decides to leave her perfectionism and anxiety behind to begin a new life. Without a doubt, hope is on the horizon as her “birds bloom in the light, their feathers expanding promise.” Anderson’s intentional choice in diction when describing how the birds “bloom” with “expanding promise” creates an optimistic tone. This voice is important in setting up the stage for an outcome where Melinda is not only free like a bird in flight, but hopeful and ready to take on the opportunities that lay ahead. After being held back for so long, the release of guilt and shame liberates Melinda. She learns that forgiveness can save anyone from the burdens of a painful past; even if that forgiveness comes from yourself. Before, birds represented restrictions; limits that kept Melinda from growing, healing, or most importantly, from being free. Finally, her newfound flight has led her to a life where she can truly be alive.
As Melinda Sordino grew as a person, the symbol of birds changed with her. The Thanksgiving dinner, the statue, and Melinda’s final art project became more than their more evident meanings. By taking characteristics associated with these individual symbols, Laurie Halse Anderson transforms an everyday creature into significant symbols that bring to focus themes related to trauma, redemption, and liberation. Readers ached with the protagonist in her darkest times; grew hopeful with when she realized she could heal; and rejoiced when a little bird told them that Melinda would finally be free.
Ativist Greta Thunberg once said that “All you can talk about is money and fairy tales of eternal economic growth. How dare you!”. Greta Thunberg is a Swedish environmental activist who rose to fame in 2018 for her efforts of bringing awareness to climate change by initiating the Fridays for Future movement, which is an organisation that forms strikes for children in school (during school time) that is held internationally. Thunberg went on to make many fierce speeches at climate events after the organisation went viral online, including speaking at the United Nations Climate Action Summit in 2019.
Get original essayGreta was born on the 3rd of January of 2003 in Stockholm, Sweden. She was raised by her father Svante Thunberg, who is know for the movie Skärgårdsdoktorn (1997) and her mother Malena Ernman who is a famous Swedish opera singer. Malena earned international fame when she represented Sweden at the Eurovision Song Contest in Moscow (2009). Greta also grew up with her younger sister Beata Thunberg who was born in 2004. She followed her mother’s footsteps into becoming a famous singer in Sweden. Greta and Beata both share the condition of OCD, along with Greta also having been diagnosed with Asperger’s syndrome.
She first learned about the climate changing when she was eight years old, she said she couldn’t understand why so little was being done about it. She stated, “I kept thinking about it [climate change] and I just wondered if I am going to have a future”. By the age of eleven she felt so stressed about the issue that she stopped eating, growing and speaking (condition known as selective mutism). After feeling so helpless, Greta decided that she needed to make a positive change. She convinced her family to start making environmentally friendly choices (including stopping traveling by plane). That also meant convincing her mother (as she was an international opera singer) to stop travelling for her career, which her mother agreed to stop flying and to only perform in Stockholm.
Her first step into making a difference was that she entered in a climate writing competition held by a Swedish newspaper in 2018. Greta entered her essay ‘We know- and we can do something now’, it was later announced she was one of the winners for the competition. That essay was published in the newspaper, which was one of the first minor, yet still important impacts towards helping the cause. After getting her essay published, Bo Thorén (a climate activist) reached out to Greta to try and help her raise awareness towards the issue. Bo told Greta about a group of teenagers in Florida, USA who were striking to change the gun laws after there was a school shooting earlier on in the year. That made Greta feel inspired and wanted to do the same in Sweden for climate change. So, on August 20th in 2018, Greta held the first school strike for climate change. Greta decided to go alone as no one wanted to go with her. She sat down on the floor outside the Swedish Parliament and was there for the full length of a school day. Sitting on the floor, she held a sign with the now- famous words ‘Skolstrejk for Klimatet’ (School Strike for Climate). Greta posted a few pictures on her Twitter and Instagram, which started to gain some traction. The following day when she went to go strike, she was not alone. People started to join her strikes, lasting until the Swedish National Election which was held 21 days after Greta started her strike.
After a while, the school strike started to gain a lot of popularity all over the world. Because of the popularity, Greta started to make speeches across the world. It was mainly aimed at world leaders for not caring about the issue. She also went to some of the strikes in support of the cause. In March of 2019, an international school strike was held with 1.6 million people taking part of it from 2,233 cities in 128 countries. A few days before the strike, it was announced that Greta was nominated for the 2019 Nobel Peace Prize, which would have made her the youngest person to ever win a Nobel Peace Prize if she had won (lost to Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed). Later in 2019, Greta attended the United Nations Climate Action Summit in New York. She travelled from Sweden to New York by boat which took her 2 weeks to travel across the ocean. It was all worth it for her as Greta delivered the most powerful and emotional speech she has ever delivered.
From being an eleven-year-old and being so upset about climate change to being in the has made extreme efforts in trying to save our planet, inspiring millions of people around the world to make an effort to save our environment. She has said she’s not stopping anytime soon. Greta’s plans for the future are to keep going to more and more school strikes and to visit regions that are most affected by climate change. Greta has been an inspiration to everyone fighting for climate change, she has said she isn’t a climate scientist, just the spokesperson n for a cause so little is being done about.
Frozen food items are an incredible convenience that almost everyone in the developed world uses on a daily basis. Most families even have a freezer in their house to keep such items fresh for a scrumptious meal later. Even though frozen food is so convenient, should it be the first option for a meal and should it be served in places like schools every day?
Get original essayIncreased rates of heart disease and diabetes can be partially attributed to the amount of unhealthy processed items that are so easily added to frozen and prepackaged food. From local grocery stores to fast food restaurants, the world is obsessed with larger portions and fattier food items, which stay fresh, sometimes for years, in a freezer. Big businesses help run America, so it’s no wonder that the world really does run for Dunkin’ Donuts and that the government hasn’t done much to try to reverse this spiraling obesity effect. Like the number of restaurant chains around the world, humans continue to grow in physical size and population. All over the world, adult and child weights are increasing at striking rates, and with no reason to believe that there will be any break in this trend in future years, extra large could be the only size humans come in.
There is nothing better than sitting on the couch after a long day. Before that,though, one of the first thoughts running through a person’s head probably is, “I wonder what I should eat for supper?” After working for roughly eight hours or longer, no one wants to do is stand over a hot stove for an hour when he or she could be spending that time getting caught up on their favorite Netflix show. Instead of firing up the grill, she pushes a few buttons on a microwave, and voilà! A delicious plate of frozen food, be it pizza bites or a corndog, and cooked to perfection in seconds. Although this is what happens on a regular night in most households, it is a tradition that needs to be put to a stop before it is too late. It’s time for people to face the hard and unwelcome facts. Frozen food causes obesity, not just in American, but around the globe.
It is not common knowledge who came up with the modern way of freezing foods. Many individuals developed the quick-freeze method that is currently used by most frozen food companies, but Clarence Birdseye receives most of the credit. Birdseye wanted to create a way of freezing food to keep it fresh all year long for his family. On a trip to Alaska, he watched the local Inuits freeze the fish they caught in seawater. He tried some of the fish after it was later thawed out and cooked and noticed that it tasted the same as it would if it had not been frozen at all.
Birdseye worked on two different techniques, one in which the food was taken from negative 40 degrees Fahrenheit to negative 45 degrees with a solution of calcium chloride (Who Invented, 2017). The more popular method of the two was where the food was held under pressure between a pair of hollow plates and brought down to negative 25 degrees Fahrenheit by evaporating ammonia. Both of these freezing methods were much more popular than the version the United States was using during the time Birdseye was developing his process for frozen foods. The original way of freezing items took much longer and often damaged the food.
In 1923 Birdseye finally created a way to package fruits and have them stay fresh. His company, General Seafoods, started to use this process on poultry, beef, and vegetable products in 1927, the same year his quick-freeze process was also patented. Two years later in 1929, Postum Cereal Company bought Birdseye’s business and was rebranded as General Foods, incorporating a frozen food division called Birds Eye Frosted Food (Nix, 2016). The American public wouldn’t have much need for frozen foods until the 1940s during World War II when there were fewer canned goods because of a tin shortage, causing the America to turn to frozen foods as a last resort.
Frozen foods aren’t anything new in areas where it’s cold enough to freeze meat in water as the Inuits did. The Chinese have been storing frozen food in ice cellars since 1000 B.C., but the ease of frozen food has become more popular with each passing year. During The Great Recession from 2008 to 2010, frozen food sales increased 3.1 percent even with all of the economic troubles engulfing the country and its citizens. Frozen food has become so popular that there are aisles in every grocery store in the world that are dedicated to frozen chicken. Thanks to effective marketing strategies, these icy food items are finding their way into most homes.
Swanson was the first company to advertise their food on a national scale back in 1950. After Thanksgiving that year, the heads of the organization weren’t sure what to do with the remaining turkey leftovers, when inspiration struck. They decided to market the leftover turkey as TV dinners, shipping them off all over the country. The turkey stayed well-preserved thanks to Birdseye's quick-freeze method (Ferdman, 2014). Swanson sold over 25 million frozen dinners that year and built an empire on unwanted turkey parts.
The reasons for why frozen meals are a fan favorite among all age groups is glaringly apparent. A pre-packaged meal requires little preparation; the hardest part is sticking it in the microwave while mouths water and stomachs growl during the wait for food. The meals are incredibly convenient for people living alone as they are already proportioned for a single person to eat (Schmidt, 2017). The pre-proportioned meals are essential because the number of single-occupant homes in America has risen from 5 percent in 1920 to 27 percent in 2013, making frozen meals the most straightforward way for one person to enjoy a meal without wasting any valuable time.
Another reason for the rise in frozen food sales is the packaging. Sarah Nassauer, a reporter for The Wall Street Journal states, “So [Dole] very intentionally said, ‘Let’s put it in these stand-up bags, put shiny graphics on it, suggest healthy recipes like smoothies on the back of the bag.’” Nassauer’s specialty is the food business (America Loves Smoothies, 2014). Tactics like this are only one example of how businesses change how their products look, but not what is actually in those pretty blue and pink bags with a celebrity on the front telling the customer that she must have this specific packet of blueberries.
Big industries want to keep the frozen food manufacturers happy, as seen in a headline on Industrytoday.com: “The Frozen food industry was founded on the principle of safely preserving healthy food. Today, Frozen food companies seek to remain true to that proud heritage” (Frozen Foods, 2010). This headline doesn’t stay back along the black text in the body of the paragraph. Instead, it blurts it out in bold block letters, daring the reader to think anything else. If that reader does dare to think differently, the words will likely beat them over the head with a club and ask them if they would like to rethink their stance on the matter. There is, however, another side that begs to differ on the healthiness of frozen foods and will risk taking a club to the head to voice their opinion.
Frozen meals have also led the way for other processed meals to enter into the American diet. Dr. Carlos A. Manteiro, a Professor of nutrition and public health, was the senior author of a study that asked children and adults what they had eaten within a 24-hour period. The study showed that a large part of the average American diet included ultra-processed foods. In 2013 United Kingdom citizens purchased 443 pounds of ultra-processed foods, Canadians 507 lbs, and Americans coming in at number one, buying 677 pounds of the killing fiends (Kaplan, 2016).
Over 40 percent of adults in the U.S. say that they think frozen meals offer little to no nutritional value. They feel the same about processed dinners, too, but they continue to eat them anyway. Of their daily intake, almost 1000 calories, 61 percent, in American diets come from highly processed foods, according to a study from the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. A study with statistics from over 157,000 shoppers indicated that another 16 percent of calories were coming from moderately processed foods and drinks, giving the average American around only 20 percent of caloric consumption that has not had anything added to it or removed.
Another reason for choosing frozen and prepackaged foods is the price. Recently, Republicans in Congress tried to cut four billion dollars from the Supplemental Assistance Nutrition program, also known as SNAP, which used to go under the name of Food Stamps. The average SNAP meal is already at a low of only $1.50 per meal (Drewnowski, 2010). The funds available for meals make it apparent why frozen items are often the number one choice for low-income families, as they are usually significantly cheaper than fresh foods.
The USDA’s Economic Research Service released an article that stated that low-income households have an abundance of money through the SNAP program to buy healthy food. The minimum cost for one of these “healthy” foods, however, is $4.17. The price exceeds the maximum SNAP benefits for one day by 80 percent based off the needs of a four-person family. Most of the foods that are deemed as healthy do not reach the recommended goal for nutritional needs.
Frozen items are also popular in fast-food restaurants, as they can be shipped all over the world quickly and stay in the freezer until the customer orders them. While it is hard to say which restaurant is the first fast-food operator in America, the credit has to be is given to a hamburger joint that opened in Wichita, Kansas, back in 1916 called White Castle (History of Fast Food, 2018). These small square hamburgers can also be purchased outside White Castle restaurants. For example, customers can purchase them in Dillon’s and at the Twilight Theatre in Greensburg, Kansas, for 3 dollars per package.
White Castle’s success led to the creation of a series of other restaurants, including A&W Root Beer in 1920. A&W started curbside service few years later, long before Sonic did. Soon after, nationwide drive-through windows appeared (History of Fast Food, 2018). By the 1950s, fast food was everywhere and efficient. The Merriam-Webster dictionary added the new word, “fast food” in the yearly revamping of the dictionary in 1951.
The most well known fast-food joint, in and out of the U.S., is McDonald’s. The golden arches stand proudly in the air like a beacon, drawing in all customers with hungry stomachs their with hypnotic powers. The first McDonald’s outside of California opened in Des Plains, Illinois, on April 15, 1955 (McDonalald’s History, 2018). Over the course of time, however, Mickey D’s has risen to be the most recognizable restaurant chain in the world. As the restaurant gained in popularity, new offerings began to pop up on the menu. In 1968 the Big Mac was added to the national menu. In 1975 breakfast appeared on the list, and forty years later, was served all day, effectively making McDonald’s the number one place to go for any meal craving.
As McDonald’s grew, so did the size of their products. When the restaurant first opened in 1955, there was only one size of french fries. Those fries weighed 2.4 ounces. Today, a small order weighs 2.6 ounces and a large comes in at a whopping 5.9 ounces, over two times the original weight. Fries aren’t the only items that have changed since McDonald’s first opened. Sodas initially weighed only 7 ounces, but today the smallest size weighs 12 (Shah, 2015). Back in the day, there was only one size of hamburger available, and it weighed 3.7 ounces. Today, there are four different types of burgers available, ranging from 3.5 ounces to 9.2 ounces. McDonald’s is a convenient choice for travelers and busy parents, but this fast-food chain is one of the causes of America’s weight gain as all of their products are frozen while also stuffed with a number of unhealthy additives.
Before the rise of fast food restaurants, most Americans ate their meals in the company of their families at home. It is common knowledge that most women during that time were stay-at-home wives and had more time to prepare meals, whereas today every member of a family is running around with a different schedule and is lucky to eat at home with other family members more than twice a week. Women’s changing roles led to frozen and processed foods becoming popular.
Before frozen foods became a way of life, the Flapper had her debut. The women of the 1920s were much different from that of the Victorian era, which preceded it. Flappers were what was “in” during that time. Goodbye to the long skirts of the past and pinned up hair, hello to bobbed hair and shorter dresses. The stereotypical Flapper often drank, smoke, and performed a number of unladylike actions that would have shocked a Victorian-era woman.
During this time, women gained other freedoms, as well. They could finally vote in 1920 and were finally able to take white-collar jobs if they decided to work outside the home. Because of this, women could afford to live in the thriving economy of the 1920s. Inside the home vacuum cleaners and washing machines started to be used, giving women more time to do tasks other than household chores and preparing meals.
The Jazz Age was a time of dramatic political and social change. More Americans than ever before lived in cities than on farms. The economic growth helped to turn America into a “consumer society,” with people buying more than what they needed. All over the country, people listened to the same music, had the same dances, purchased the same goods, and even used some of the same slang terms. The 1920s saw the first real occurrence of mass culture in the U.S., which would help to push frozen and processed foods to the general population.
The beginning of the 20th century saw an increase in opportunity and public presence for women. The 1930s, however, were much more difficult as disaster struck the U.S. economy with the start of The Great Depression in October of 1929. Women lost some of the freedoms they had earned after the economic downturn occurred. Employers preferred giving jobs to men so that they could support their families.
When World War II began, even before the U.S. was directly involved with the war on the side of the Allied powers, women's roles began to change again, impacting the time available to slave over a stove. The military even created a few specialized divisions for women. They worked in factories, called to action by Rosie the Riveter. The number of women working outside the home increased from 25 to 36 percent during the war. More minorities, mothers, and married women found jobs than ever before, making frozen dishes the most time-efficient choice.
All of these events of the early twentieth century led to new norms for both food preparation and American body size. Back in 1912, before the invention of quick-freeze foods, the average male height for a twenty-one-year-old was around 5 feet, 6 inches. There was an increase by 2012, with the average male’s height becoming about 5 feet, 8 inches (Lazarus, 2012). The typical female was about 5 feet, 3 inches in 1912 and grew in 2012 to around 5 feet, 4 inches. This increase in height can account for some of the great weight gain found in the modern American population, but it doesn’t account for all of the increase.
In the 1950s, before the big fast food, supermarket, and frozen food craze was in full swing, American citizens’ weights were relatively healthy, and in some cases, a little small. In 1955 the high for women that were 5 feet was 118 pounds and 166 pounds for women 6 feet tall. In men 5 feet, 3 inches tall, 141 pounds was considered high, while for men who were 6 feet 3 inches, 195 pounds was overweight (FOOD, 1959).
Today the average American weighs much more than ideal. The average citizen has put on over 15 pounds since the early 1990s without getting taller. The average height has not increased since the late 1970s. Black women have added 22 pounds, and black men have gained 18 pounds while growing 1/5 of an inch. Girls at the age of 11 have gained 7 pounds, while boys have gained an inch as well as 13.5 pounds (Dotinga, 2016).
“We are not doing nearly enough to control and reverse the obesity epidemic and doing far too much to propagate it. This is another notice of that sad fact,” Dr. David Katz said about the results of the study. Dr. Katz directs the Yale University Prevention Research Center and is president of the American College of Lifestyle Medicine. Anthony Comuzzie, an obesity researcher and genetic scientist at Texas Biomedical Research lab in San Antonio, stated that “The finding suggests there will likely be an associated increase in a chronic disease like Type 2 diabetes and heart disease in the coming years.” Unfortunately, he couldn’t be more correct, but the group of individuals these diseases are affecting is unexpected.
Rates of newly diagnosed cases of Type 1 and 2 diabetes due to unhealthy eating abouts are increasing among youth in the U.S. In America, 29.1 million children suffer from a form of diabetes. Around 208,000 are younger than 20. Type 1 diabetes has increased 1.8 percent each year; Type 2 has gone up 4.8 percent. Diabetes shortens life expectancies and increases the cost of healthcare (Diagnosed cases of diabetes, 2017).
Diabetes is caused by the lack of a hormone produced by the pancreas needed to regulate the amount of glucose in the blood. The reason for why Type 1 diabetes occurs in humans is unknown. Type 2 diabetes is frequent in children that are overweight, less active, and often, these children have a parent with diabetes (Hubbard, 2017). “In my career, Type 1 diabetes was a rare disease in children and Type 2 disease didn't exist. And I’m not that old,” said Dr. Robin S. Goland said, who has been in practice for almost 25 years and is the co-director of the Naomi Berrie Diabetes Center at Columbia University Medical Center in New York (Saint Louis, 2014). Diabetes could be prevented in children for the most part but this is challenging to do when almost every frozen and pre-packaged food item is seriously unhealthy and goes against nutritional needs.
Diabetes doesn’t only affect kids at staggering rates, it impacts their parents who must pay more for medical care. In 2017 alone U.S. citizens paid 3.4 trillion dollars in health care (Bloom, 2017). On average, each person spent 9,596 dollars in 2012, a significant increase from 7,700 dollars in 2007. U.S. citizens pay two times more per capita on average than other developed nations. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services estimate that in 2023 the national average for health care will increase to 14,944 dollars. In 1960, the average cost was 146 dollars, and after adjusting for inflation, the price is now nine times higher.
In 2015, 40 percent of American adults were obese, and 7.7 percent were severely obese. In 2007 only 33.7 percent were obese, and 5.7 percent were severely obese. Youth obesity rates in 2016 were 18.5 percent, up 1.5 percent from the recorded results of 2007. The governments of the world aren’t trying to curb this epidemic in any way. Trump’s NAFTA negotiations team proposed an idea which most major food companies favored that limited the ability of the Canada, Mexico, and the United States to require visible and prominent food labels on frozen and other packaged foods (Jacobs, 2018). These labels include warnings about health risks of foods high in fat and sugar. Frozen foods, as well as fast food, have already increased in sales without receiving any help from the government. Fast food was up 22.7 percent from 2012 to 2017. Frozen and packaged food increased a staggering 88 percent since 2012.
The problems caused by unhealthy processed foods don’t belong to America alone, though. While not the most massive body weight in the world, America does come in third behind the Pacific island nations of Tonga and Micronesia (Ingraham, 2015). From 1980 to today, the number of obese adults has doubled in more than seventy-three countries. “In 2015 a total of 107.7 million children and 603.7 million adults were obese,” according to the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington. “ In 2015 high BMI contributed to 4 million deaths, which represent 7.1 percent of the deaths from any cause.” In Egypt, 35 percent of adults reached a BMI (Body Mass Index) of 30 or higher. A BMI of 22 to 25 is considered healthy. 1990 to 2015 saw a 28.3 percent increase in death rates due to high BMI. Cardiovascular disease accounted for over 70 percent of deaths, and of those, nearly 60 percent were obese persons.
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Get custom essayFrozen foods have helped to cause this global obesity epidemic. Originally not at fault, frozen food companies have found ways to sneak more sugar into every serving. Before too long people who can walk up a flight of stairs without getting winded or play in the yard with their child without having an asthma attack caused by exercise will be almost extinct - they will be a strange dream of the past. It is the job of everyone, including governments, to help reinforce healthy practices for fast food and packaging companies and to encourage healthy decisions in homes, or everyone in the future might have to watch their insulin levels. When Clarence Birdseye created the quick freeze method, he probably never thought of the almost global catastrophe it could cause, and who else could have? It’s hard to imagine that a frozen pizza in a freezer could be much harm to anyone, let alone be a stone cold killer.
Throughout the analysis of the two pieces, “When I have Fears,” and “Mezzo Cammin” there was a similar theme, and use of language to portray it. The former poem was written by John Keats, in 1818, just several years before his death. It expresses sadness, as Keats had ill health and worried that he would not fulfill his potential as a writer. “Mezzo Cammin” was from the perspective of a middle-aged person who expresses that he has let slip half his life without accomplishing anything. It was written in 1842 by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Although the poem, "When I have Fears" is more of a young person's lament and "Mezzo Cammin" takes on a bored and dissatisfied tone, both contribute to a central theme based on fear of death and frustration towards unfulfilling one’s potential.
Get original essayThere are very clear similarities between the theme relating to depression, frustration, and death in the two poems. In “When I have fears,” Keats expresses this sadness, and regrets the way he has lived his life. Line 14 states “Till love and fame to nothingness do think.” He uses this powerful imagery to lament on all the things he will never accomplish; love, and success. However, Keats seems to have accepted the fact that he will die soon. In “Mezzo Cammin,” Wadsworth takes a similar theme in an entire different direction. He says, in a slightly depressed and dissatisfied tone, “Half my life is gone and I have let/the years slip from me and have not fulfilled.” (lines 1-2) In this poem, the speaker seems to be a middle-aged man who is having a crisis. He is dissatisfied and has not carried out all the potential he has. Wadsworth does not know how to live the rest of his life, and regrets the time he has already had. He fears death although it is “Thundering far from the heights” (Line 14). The theme of fear, of death, is exemplified in both poems through imagery, however the tone of each is very different.
The two sonnets were written during very different times, and therefore have very different structures. “When I have fears” is a Shakespearean sonnet, and was written during the romantic movement. Shakespearean sonnets use a distressed tone, with intense imagery revolving around love, sin, and passion. The perspective taken by Keats is shown when he says “And when I feel, fair creature of an hour/that I may never look upon thee more.” (lines 9-10) This line is a heavy example of some characteristics of a Shakespearean sonnet written during the romantic movement. In contrast, “Mezzo Cammin” is a Petrarchan sonnet, written based off Italian literature. The title is also very significant in showing tone. “Mezzo Cammin” references a line taken from Dante’s divine comedy, “In the middle of the journey of our life, I found myself in a dark wood with the right road lost.” This line is a direct reflection of how Wadsworth feels, like he is halfway through his life and has fallen off track. The structure in each poem is significant because it greatly impacts the tone and the direction it is taken.
The poetic devices and word choice used in both poems is slightly similar. John Keats Uses personification to emphasize the beauty of the world that he will be leaving “When I behold upon the nights starr’d face” (Line 5) is an example of his use of intense imagery, this literary device creates a more realistic scene, and allows the reader to imagine they are actually there. Keats speaks of the love he will never experience. He refers to “Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance.” Wadsworth in opposition speaks mostly of death resulting in a very depressing poem he uses personification in the last line by saying “The cataract of death thundering far from the heights. Giving death the ability to thunder makes it seem ever more imminent, and inescapable. The author is restless and believes that he doesn’t not have enough time to fulfill himself as a writer. The two authors use similar word choice and poetic devices to show emotion and their respective themes throughout the poem.
Both poems, “When I have fears” and “Mezzo Cammin,” express themes relating to fear of death, regret, and a frustration at life in general. Keats uses romantic Shakespearean poetry to express sadness at all he will never live to see. In contrast, “Mezzo Cammin” uses the Italian Petrarchan style. Wadsworth gives more of a disinterested depressed tone. The poems exemplify similar themes, but in very different ways.
In her poem, “Daddy,” Sylvia Plath uses violent, unnerving, and controversial imagery to illustrate her tumultuous relationship with her father both before and after his death in 1940. Her work, and this poem in particular, is often distinguished due to the juxtaposition of disturbing metaphor with bouncy alliteration and child-like rhyme scheme. This and other contradictions found within the work depict the speaker’s lack of control and understanding about her relationships with men. Despite the undeniable feminist undertones of the piece, Plath lacks in tangible assertions about equality of the sexes; instead, “Daddy” acts more as a commentary on her struggles with patriarchy and emotional abuse. This idea is supported through the metaphor she creates of herself as a Holocaust victim and her father a Nazi soldier. The way Plath symbolizes Nazism in relation to her father transitions throughout the poem, from subtlety to blatancy, and eventually encompasses her relationships with both her father and her husband, Ted Hughes. While many critics discuss her World War II metaphors and allusions in regards to her personal relationships, this essay will discuss the way in which Nazi imagery in “Daddy” asserts that patriarchy is a form fascism in society as a whole.
Get original essayIn “Daddy,” I argue that Plath uses inductive reasoning to generate a discussion about the patriarchal world that destroyed her. Though harsh, the symbolism found in her Holocaust metaphors is honest, which seems to be more important to her than being politically correct. Her use of these violent metaphors in “Daddy” can be applied to any power trip: whether it be a Fuhrer, a father, or a husband’s attempt to dominate, the process is brutal and its effects are damaging and long lasting. Plath’s experiences with men inspire her to write candidly about the pain and disempowerment she felt as the victim in a patriarchal society.
The poem introduces our speaker and “Daddy” with a series of contrasts: “black” and “white,” big and small, powerful and fearsome (Plath, 2, 4). However, the contradictions are not just on the surface of the language. Each stanza deals with Plath’s internal contradiction – the desire to hold on versus the desire to let go. Thirty years after her father’s death, she has much to say about it, but communicating is difficult and uncomfortable. While the poem introduces “Daddy” as fearsome, cold, and dominating, in a moment of vulnerability the speaker says, “I used to pray to recover you” (Plath, 14). Despite the dissonance between speaker and father, she wants to reach him, understand him, and know him. The act of praying gives the audience insight in our speaker’s inability to communicate with both her father and also with God, another father-like figure. The only description Plath offers us of her father are distant and fuzzy; the only detail is his German descent, but still does not know exactly where he came from. Perhaps the lack of information is what drives her fixation; she does not understand how a dead man she knows so little about can have so much control over her.
In the sixth stanza, “Ich, ich, ich, ich” carries a wealth of meanings: it is another reinforcement of her father’s German heritage, but it is also a stuttering, which could be caused by the speaker's fear of speaking in front of her father (Plath, 27). However, paired with the following stanza, it seems Plath intended the line to serve as onomatopoeia. If said out loud, the repeated German word resembles the sound of a train. This transitions into her first Holocaust reference: “An engine, an engine / Chuffing me off like a Jew” (Plath, 31-32). Her father's words, represented by the German, are her captors. The train serves as a metaphor for how she feels as her father’s victim. She then says, “I began to talk like a Jew. / I think I may well be a Jew” as she compares the oppression of her father to that of the Holocaust concentration camps (Plath, 34-35). The speaker is so strongly opposed to her father’s language and oppression, she begins to “talk like a Jew” – a denial of the German language and, by default, her father.
Although it has been subtly implied in the previous stanzas, the speaker begins to address her father’s Nazism more directly. Again, she discusses her fear “of you, / With your Luftwaffe, your gobbledygoo;” her fear indeed has layers. She seems to assert directly his involvement with the Nazis by associating him with the Luftwaffe, the German air force. Following her claim with “gobbledygoo” can be seem as a mockery of what the German language sounds like to foreign ears. It seems clear by now that hearing her father speak German had a terrifying affect on her that she struggles to make sense of even this long after his death. For the first time, Plath offers us a physical description of “Daddy.” She says, “your neat mustache, / And your Aryan eye, bright blue” referring not only to the “perfect race” the Nazis were trying to create, but in the “neat mustache” also conjuring the image of Hitler (Plath, 42-44). The speaker's father is now like the German image of terrible perfection – with Hitler's mustache and idealized bright blue eyes. In contrast to “Ach, du” which followed the prayer to bring him back, this stanza ends with the English translation, “O You –” as a reaction to his cruelty.
Now that the speaker has returned to her sigh of "O You" from earlier in the poem, she also returns to the concept that her father seemed like God to her. Now he appears to her to be “Not God but a swastika." He is so black that he blocks the entire sky (Plath, 46). This leads in to one of the most widely controversial and widely discussed lines from the poem: “Every woman adores a Fascist,” which is the first time Plath makes a claim concerning women outside of herself. The question arises: did she choose to be oppressed? This stanza seems to me to be the first glimpse of a new male. It could possibly be inferred that Plath is referring to her tumultuous marriage to Ted Hughes; she could not choose your father, but she did choose her husband. Although the tone here is sarcastic, she is self-deprecating. By saying “every woman,” however, it she appears to be making a broad statement about women as a whole. Perhaps her voice is shifting from simply a victim to something more complicated. Just as she contradicted herself in the beginning of the poem, this line seems to be questioning whether she, and women in general, want to be dominated. This idea can even be reinforced by the title of the poem. “Daddy” is an affectionate term compared to “father” or even “dad.” Calling the poem “Daddy” insinuates the speaker still cares for her father despite her claims throughout the work. The speaker’s relationship with men is both terrifying and dependent and can be interpreted as a metaphor, questioning society’s demand for structure and traditionalism.
Plath again directs the attention back to the speaker when she refers to her “pretty red heart” being broken in two (Plath, 56). These two lines continue the contrast of the father to the speaker. The father is huge, evil, and black, while the speaker, like her heart, is pretty, red, and victimized. Although her father, who she refers to as the devil in stanza eleven, is the “black man” who broke her heart, she admits, “At twenty I tried to die” (Plath, 55, 58). Referring to her suicide attempt while in college, she claims she was trying to “get back, back, back to you. / I thought even the bones would do” (Plath, 59-60). This line contains another contradiction and demonstrates once again how troubled the speaker is by her relationship with her dead father. Despite everything he has done, she has an extremely self-deprecating obsession with her loss. When her suicide failed and the doctor’s “stuck me together with glue,” she was physically healed, but mentally still very troubled (Plath, 62). Sarcastically, the speaker discusses her solution: She “made a model” of her father (Plath, 64). This is where Plath begins to discuss her difficult and painful marriage with Ted Hughes. She says, “I knew what I had to do. / I made a model out of you, / A man in black with a Meinkampf look” (Plath, 63-65). The speaker seems to be mocking her choice in husband. Just as discussed when she said, “Every woman adores a Fascist,” she observes how she, in a way, allowed the trouble back in her life when she married Hughes.
Now that she has the model of her father, she does not need her actual father anymore when she says, “So daddy, I’m finally through” (Plath, 68). The irony here is, “Daddy” has been dead for thirty years, and the speaker is just now letting the obsession with him go. In the fifteenth stanza, she connects her father and husband again: “If I’ve killed one man, I’ve killed two – / The vampire who said he was you / And drank my blood for a year, / Seven years, if you want to know” (Plath, 73-74). Because the only two men mentioned in the poem are the speaker’s father and the “model” of her father, it seems to make sense that those are the two men she has “killed.” She calls her husband “The vampire who said he was you,” insinuating a kind of betrayal, possibly a reference to Ted Hughes' infidelity. The image of her husband as a “vampire” is dark, but also the first time he is depicted as an image separate from “Daddy.” This relationship is different, becasue the image of a vampire illustrates how he had been sucking the life out of her for seven years. She returns all her attention back to her father when she tells him to “lie back” (Plath, 75). She says, “There’s a stake in your fat black heart” (Plath, 76): His heart, here, fits with the previous descriptions of him as black or evil. This image is an important contrast to the one of her heart, shown as “pretty and red” (Plath, 56). Before line 80, the speaker has used the word "Daddy" only four times, not counting the title. By repeating “Daddy” she seems to be working herself up for her finale. The speaker has tried out every way possible to criticize her father--calling him a Nazi, Hitler, the devil, and a vampire--but in the end, she uses the one word that denies him authority and ultimately patriarchy, saying “Daddy daddy, you bastard, I’m through” (Plath, 80).
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The moon, something we see in the sky every day and every night if the moon could talk it would tell tales older than humanity itself. Since the dawn of man, the moon has always been a mystery to all. The beauty captivates us with her light that shines brightly through the night sky, and her different phases of beauty. Robert Hayden’s Full Moon is an interesting piece of literature, not just the poem itself, but the stanza, rhyme scheme, and its mode. Hayden’s rhyme scheme is interesting because there isn’t one. The poem is a free verse meaning the poem has non-metrical and non-rhyming stanzas that tightly follows a natural rhythm often found in speaking. In most free verses there are lines that do naturally rhyme but poets don’t adhere to a metrical plan in their poem, much like in these 3 lines from Hayden’s poem. “The emphatic moon ascends--the brilliant challenger of rocket experts,the white hope of communications men. ” (4-6)The stanzas are composed of three lines, with different lengths and no meter. Structuring is a key part of writing poetry, without structure in a poem it’s just a small passage.
Get original essayFull Moon is an interesting poem as it has no structure. Hayden’s grammatical arrangement of his stanzas abides by the standards for English capitalization, punctuation, and spelling while writing. His use of capitalization is in a way different than what you would normally read. Hayden’s use of capitalization is used in both an obligatory and unpredicting way. He capitalizes the first word that of the sentences and nouns, which is mandatory to the Standards of English. When writing the rule of thumb is to never start a sentence off with conjunctions like ‘And’ and ‘But’ however, throughout history, many authors and play-rights have broken this rule. Mostly due to it feeling natural, almost like in a conversation. “And burned in the garden of Gethsemane” (13)“And spread its radiance on the exile's path” (16)Hayden also capitalizes names of fictional and nonfiction characters like Mother Goose and The Glorious One, Jesus. He also calls Jesus His holiness but, only capitalizes his to imply possession. “And spread its radiance on the exile's pathof Him who was The Glorious One,its light made holy by His holiness. ” (16-18)The organization of the poem seems to be planned out as each stanza has 3 lines that consist of fifteen to twenty words. Hayden’s seven stanzas and twenty-one lines are short, compact, and has enough content to fit on a page without taking up too much space. The form of the poem is a narrative. Hayden’s narrative is that as time moved on and humanity evolved, we have become less curious about the moon unlike those who came before us. Now that we have evolved into waring countries he states,“Already a mooted goal and tomorrow perhapsan arms base, a livid sector,the full moon dominates the dark. ”(19-21)And maybe someday, the moon will be a militarized base of operations space will be the next frontier of combat, turning it into an “arms base”.
The main idea of Full Moon is that it constantly changes overtime for humanity, everyone that has seen the moon has thought about it after seeing it. “No longer the throne of a goddess to whom we prey,” (1) Many people on Earth would often dream about the moon after gazing, they saw the moon as a goddess in their dreams. Farmers believed that the moonlight told them when to harvest and plant crops. This line sets the attitude of the poem, making it a solemn and serene poem. Hayden narrates the moon’s existence, as he re-accounts significant moments throughout history. From the crucifixion of Christ himself to the NASA moon landing in the 1960s, the main idea that Hayden uses for this poem is that the moon is as old as time itself. The moon was once viewed as a goddess watching over the night sky captivating the minds of many men, giving hope to the hopeless, and a destination for humanity to further explore. “The emphatic moon ascends--the brilliant challenger of rocket experts,the white hope of communications men. And spread its radiance on the exile's pathof Him who was The Glorious One,its light made holy by His holiness. ” (1,4-6,16-18)
There are allusions to other poetic works, historical figures and religious figures in his poem. In the second and third lines he alludes to the Mother Goose Nursery Rhymes about the moon, much like “I See the Moon”, “Man on the Moon”, and “The Cow Jumped Over the Moon”. Other allusions include historical figures like the NASA Apollo team for the first moon landing, not only the NASA Apollo team but us. Everyday we are involved into history, whether it makes a global impact or a local impact. Life is something that is recorded so that in the future our offspring can learn of the one’s who came before them. We leave behind little glimpses of today, so that we can teach the future. “Some I love who are deadwere watchers of the moon and knew its lore;planted seeds, trimmed their hair,Pierced their ears for gold hoop earringsas it waxed or waned. It shines tonight upon their graves. ” (7-12) The other historical and religious figure he alludes to is Yeshua aka Jesus. The tone of the poem is informal, this style of poem has neutral diction and simple vocabulary. “Full Moon” is a informal poem because of Hayden’s use of language, and his free verse flow. Its unlike other poems in the formal category. Hayden doesn’t follow the rules regarding rhyme stanzas used in formal poems.
The theme of the poem is that the moon has been in the background of human history and how much the meaning of it has changed for human kind over time. The moon was often seen as a myth, which is why in line 1 Hayden wrote, “No longer throne of a goddess to whom we pray. ” (1) and over time long after we’re gone the moon will always be there in the night sky. I believe that the overall meaning of the poem is, the presence of something that significant will be in the sky from now until the end of time. I had many interpretations for this poem but this analysis was the one I sought to be the best.
For most people, being alone on Valentine’s Day is simply no fun. Women especially find being alone on Valentine’s Day to be depressing and lonely. However, just because you are not in a relationship does not mean you can’t have a good time on Valentine’s Day. With a little creativity, single girls can have a great Valentine’s Day that they will remember for years and years. In fact they may find they have a better time when they are single on Valentine’s Day than they do when they are in a relationship.
Get original essayThis article will offer a few tips for how single girls can have a great time on Valentine’s Day. Calling up your other single friends and going dancing is a great way for a single girl to celebrate Valentine’s Day in style. You and your friends can get dressed up and head out to a local nightclub together to spend the evening dancing. Many women will actually find they have a better time doing this than going dancing with their boyfriends because their friends are more likely to want to dance all night long.
When they go out with a boyfriend the boyfriend may want to spend more time eating or drinking than he wants to spend on the dance floor. However, single girls who are out on the town often spend hours and hours dancing when they go out and barely take a break all evening.
Another fun idea for single girls on Valentine’s Day is to host a movie night at your place. You can invite over all of your single friends and rent a few romantic comedies. Instead of being sad and depressed you and your friends can watch the movies and make fun of all of the couples in the movie. It may not be the nicest or the most mature thing to do but it will help to prevent you and your friends from feeling depressed during the evening. Or if you prefer you can rent other types of movies such as horror movies or comedies. These will help to keep your mind of the fact that you are single on Valentine’s Day.
Single girls on Valentine’s Day can also have a great time by organizing a matchmaking game. You can call up all of your single friends and ask each of them to bring a single guy to your house for a get together. You can serve light appetizers and have music playing to keep the guests entertained. You can also purchase board games designed for use by couples and match up your single couples to play the game. Answering the questions will probably be pretty hard because the couples will not really know each other but it will be a fun way for some of your single friends and the friends of your friends to get to know each other.
Another way for single girls to celebrate Valentine’s Day is to simply go out to dinner. Restaurants can be extremely crowded on Valentine’s Day because going out to dinner is a very popular idea for couples. However, even single girls have to eat on Valentine’s Day. You and your single friends can plan ahead and make reservations for dinner at one of the nicest restaurants in town. You will likely be surrounded by couples celebrating Valentine’s Day but it does not mean you still can’t have a good time. Get all dressed up and maybe even organize an outing to a spa beforehand so you and all your friends can get manicures and pedicures before you head out for the evening. This will help to make your dinner together even more fun because you will have a great bonding experience beforehand. While you are out to dinner with your single friends, start out with some great appetizers, order a few great dishes to share and don’t forget to finish your meal with an awesome dessert. Leave the dinners of salad and water to your friends who are trying to impress their dates and feel free to indulge in some great food while you are out with your single friends.