Kurt Vonnegut Essays (1898 words) - Kurt Vonnegut,

Kurt Vonnegut Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. is a contemporary American author whose works have been described by Richard Giannone as comic masks covering the tragic farce that is our contemporary life (Draper, 3784). Vonnegut's life has had a number of significant influences on his works. Influences from his personal philosophy, his life and experiences, and his family are evident elements in his works. Among his comic masks are three novels: Cat's Cradle, The Sirens of Titan, and God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater. Throughout these novels, elements such as attitude, detail, narrative technique, setting, and theme can be viewed with more understanding when related to certain aspects of his life. These correlations are best examined in terms of each influence. One of the most significant influences from Vonnegut's life on his personal philosophy has been his participation in World War II. During the war, Vonnegut served in the American army in Europe and was captured by German soldiers. As a prisoner of war, he witnessed the Allied bombing of the city of Dresden, in which more than 135,000 people died due to the resulting fires (Draper, 3785). This experience had a profound impact on Vonnegut. From it, he developed his existential personal philosophy and his ideas about the evils of technology. He states, I am the enemy of all technological progress that threatens mankind (Nuwer, 39). The influence of Dresden shows up in each of the novels. In Cat's Cradle, one element of his experience at Dresden that Vonnegut portrays is his fear of technology. Initially, the intention of the story is for the narrator to write about what the scientists who invented the atomic bomb were doing the day it was dropped on Hiroshima. To this effect, one of the scientists in the story said, Science has now known sin, to which another replied, What is sin? (Vonnegut, Cradle, 21). The focus on technology quickly changes to a material called ice-nine, which has the ability to freeze water at room temperature. This technological breakthrough, by a scientist who worked on developing the atomic bomb, has the ability to destroy the world by freezing all its water. Even though the people with ice-nine are very careful all through the plot, they lose control of it in the end and the world becomes frozen. With ice-nine, Vonnegut thematically demonstrates how relatively simple technology can lay waste to the world, as the Allies did to Dresden (Draper, 3785). Cat's Cradle is an excellent example of Vonnegut's existentialism, a philosophy that emphasizes the uniqueness and isolation of the individual experience in. . . [an] indifferent universe, [and] regards human existence as unexplainable (Bookshelf '94). Before the novel even starts, just below the dedication, he declares, Nothing in this book is true. 'Live by the foma [harmless untruths] that make you brave and kind and healthy and happy' (Vonnegut, Cradle). Vonnegut carries this concept all through the story, that the universe is meaningless and each person must exist for oneself. He even goes to the extent of inventing a religion, Bokononism, with which humans attempt to make some sense of everything, while realizing that everything is nonsensical. Vonnegut's existential philosophy also takes the form of a religion in The Sirens of Titan. The Church of God the Utterly Indifferent is established, on the principle that puny man can do nothing at all to help or please God Almighty, and Luck is not the hand of God (Vonnegut, Sirens, 180). Toward the end of the story, two existential ideas are developed: first that human life is incomprehensible (in this case controlled by aliens from another planet for a trivial purpose), and second that people must make a meaning for life on their own. When one character states, The worst thing that could possibly happen. . . would be to not be used for anything by anybody, Vonnegut is suggesting that a good meaning for life might simply be to be useful (Vonnegut, Sirens, 310). The theme and plot of meaninglessness and uselessness mirror Vonnegut's experiences in the aftermath of Dresden (Amer. Lit. Bio., 301, 303-304). God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater also exhibits elements of Vonnegut's take on technology and existentialism in plot and theme. The protagonist, millionaire Eliot Rosewater,

Free Essays on What Home Is

It’s a place of comfort, somewhere we look forward to going to. Although some of us may not have created it in the structural matter, we created the atmosphere and warmth to ones personal liking. But besides representing our personality, what is so special about a person’s home? If you think about it, it’s just a place to eat, sleep, and keep possessions, right? Wrong, home is much more than a physical place, it makes a person feel good. Home is a dwelling place; the house in which a person or people live. A place of refuge and rest. It’s the locality where a thing is usually found, or was first found, or where it is naturally abundant. It is also ones native land, the place or country in which persons ancestors dwell or dwelt. All these are different definitions to home, but the one I want to concentrate on is the basic definition. As I think it is with everyone, it’s a place of safety for me, it’s somewhere I can relax and enjoy hobbies of mine. Even times when I’m away and having a good time with friends or something, I can still find myself happy and relieved to go there and relax. It’s a place where people can be themselves and control what they do. I remember going on our annual vacation every summer and relaxing while experiencing fun activities that I can’t experience too. But after the vacation is over and while driving home, even though I like to reflect on the great time I had just had, I can’t wait to get home. When I do I find myself immediately collapsing on a sofa or bed just happy to be there. I have experienced times when I haven’t wanted to go home though. The two most memorable occasions was when I got in an accident and a speeding ticket. It was really hard to go home after the accident because right after I had bought my car it started to have problems and I had used all the money to buy it, so I couldn’t pay for the problems that occurred. So realizing this, my father wo... Free Essays on What Home Is Free Essays on What Home Is It’s a place of comfort, somewhere we look forward to going to. Although some of us may not have created it in the structural matter, we created the atmosphere and warmth to ones personal liking. But besides representing our personality, what is so special about a person’s home? If you think about it, it’s just a place to eat, sleep, and keep possessions, right? Wrong, home is much more than a physical place, it makes a person feel good. Home is a dwelling place; the house in which a person or people live. A place of refuge and rest. It’s the locality where a thing is usually found, or was first found, or where it is naturally abundant. It is also ones native land, the place or country in which persons ancestors dwell or dwelt. All these are different definitions to home, but the one I want to concentrate on is the basic definition. As I think it is with everyone, it’s a place of safety for me, it’s somewhere I can relax and enjoy hobbies of mine. Even times when I’m away and having a good time with friends or something, I can still find myself happy and relieved to go there and relax. It’s a place where people can be themselves and control what they do. I remember going on our annual vacation every summer and relaxing while experiencing fun activities that I can’t experience too. But after the vacation is over and while driving home, even though I like to reflect on the great time I had just had, I can’t wait to get home. When I do I find myself immediately collapsing on a sofa or bed just happy to be there. I have experienced times when I haven’t wanted to go home though. The two most memorable occasions was when I got in an accident and a speeding ticket. It was really hard to go home after the accident because right after I had bought my car it started to have problems and I had used all the money to buy it, so I couldn’t pay for the problems that occurred. So realizing this, my father wo...

My dream car Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

My dream car - Essay Example What more or less could I think of? I started thinking about this car when I was in the high school. I came to know about BMW by its excessive advertising and media exposure. My personal likeness was accompanied by the fame and prestige this car acquired. It further motivated me towards the aim of attaining it one day. At that time, I was a student. I was so fond of that car that I used to search about it on internet so as to discover about it, to have knowledge about its features and functions. I have saved about 1000 pictures of BMW in my computer. My dream car is in the attractive red color which seems very beautiful to me. My dream was fully supported by my plans to fulfill it. I started accumulating money in the school summer vacations. I researched the price of BMW and started working hard to collect the required amount of money. The BMW was worth $8000. I worked at 2 different places in order to achieve my target. By the end of my vacations, I observed that I am still way behind what I aimed to achieve. I could accumulate $4000 only in the vacations. By the start of my schools, my hopes were all shattered and I moved on to buy a cheaper car. I asked for help from my mother and others by seeking their advice and financial support. It was apparent that no one could lend me this huge amount at that time when I was not even done with my studies and was not able to get a reputable job. I used to believe that nothing in this world is impossible. It is quite true in most of the cases but under the circumstances that I faced, I failed to change the impossible factor to possible. The conditions were not going in my favor and it was turning hard for me to buy my dream car. I bought myself a car that was not too expensive, luxurious nor prestigious but instead was very economical, spacious and not much

Using Critical Thinking Effectively as a Leader Essay

Using Critical Thinking Effectively as a Leader - Essay Example Without critical thinking, chances of success as a leader are minimal. In this paper COBOL Systems, a fictitious IT company which deals in software and hardware, will be used as a reference point. The paper will focus on the critical thinking problems plaguing COBOL and how they can be solved. COBOL Systems manufactures and distributes computer software and hardware. It deals with several high-profile companies in the United States, taking care of their IT needs and offering technical support. The company was formed in 2002 by two young IT graduates with ambitious ideas on how to approach the IT segment. COBOL has since grown to become one of the largest IT firms in the United States. Revenues have grown and new branches have been opened to cater to serve their expanding clientele. It is not all good news however. The last 2 years have seen the company lose out on major deals to rivals, suffer a decline in market share, and launch underwhelming products. In January the board hired an auditing and consulting firm to help it determine what the problem was. There was a problem, that much was clear, but what was it? COBOL has a hierarchy-oriented culture. This means the company is structured, controlled, and leans heavily towards stability, efficiency and doing things right. This is not surprising considering COBOL is run by young, dynamic and highly-educated people who know what to do and how to get it done fast. However, this culture is unbalanced and lacks a quality desirable in all successful firms. Efficiency is not effectiveness, and quick execution does not mean excellent execution. The company lacks critical thinkers who can combine dynamism and efficiency with analytical sharpness to harness its potential. For instance, COBOL recently launched new risk management software that increased efficiency by 20 percent. However, the presentation and marketing of this software was so poor

What could be the expected positive and negative effects of European Essay

What could be the expected positive and negative effects of European Monetary Union on a member country's economy - Essay Example The European Monetary Union (EMU) has been such framework. However, the challenges related to the particular plan have been many. In practice, persuading the member states to align their fiscal and economic policies has been proved a challenging task. The gradual implementation of EMU across member states has been considered as a strategy for controlling risks related to this initiative. The incorporation of ‘the principle of freedom of capital movement in the Treaty for the European Union’, in 1993, has been the starting point of EMU. At the next level, two important activities had to be performed for promoting EMU: ‘the introduction of the legislation related to EMU in all member states and the introduction of the common currency, the euro’. These activities that lasted from 1994 to 1998 have been incorporated in the second phase of EMU’s implementation. From January 1999 the third phase of this plan has started; this phase involves in the replaceme nt of national currencies of member states by euro. In practice, it has been proved that EMU can result to both positive and negative effects for member states. The particular issue is explored in this paper. Reference is made to UK and Spain, as examples, for showing the positive and negative effects of EMU both for countries within the euro zone and for those that are outside the euro zone. In this way also, the potential implications of the entry of a member state in Euro zone are made clear. 2. Which could be the expected positive and negative effects of European Monetary Union on a member country's economy? The participation of countries in a monetary union has been related to a series of benefits. For the member states that participate in EMU these benefits would be also available. According to Albertin (2008) one of the most important benefits of participating in a monetary union is ‘the significant increase of bilateral trade between the countries that have joined such union’ (Albertin 2008, p.3). It is not made clear though whether this benefit can continue in the long term or whether it is related only to the initial period of a country’s entrance in a moneta ry union. On the other hand, a monetary union can protect its members against strong market turbulences. Indeed, during strong financial crises the countries that are members of a monetary union can easier keep their economy stabilized at the level that their interest rates are not highly affected by the crisis, at least not so high as the rates of the countries that do not participate on monetary unions (Farina and Tamborini 2008, p.152). The recent financial crisis can be considered as an indicative example of the above case; the countries that are members of EMU have managed to protect their economy from extensive losses, mostly because they have been under the protection of EMU (Tausch and Heshmati 2012). The fact that not all members of EMU have managed to secure their economy against the global crisis is not related solely to their participation in EMU but it has been also related to their existing fiscal and social policies (Tausch and Heshmati 2012). In any case, the potenti als of a monetary union ‘to protect its members against asymmetric shocks’ (De Grauwe 2012, p.27) seem to be high. Another important benefit of monetary unions is

Private, public and voluntary sector

Private, public and voluntary sector In my assignment Im going to look at the different between three types of organisation which divided to privet sector, public sector and voluntary sector. As we know about the organisation are group of people who are working together, and the privet sector is the organization who is making special profit to develop his/her own company and it made up of sole proprietor , partnership and franchise which I provide it on Tesco as an example . A public sector is owned by the government so it is a public corporations .finally the voluntary sector which is known by non-profit sector owned by both the government and individual charities and going to use Oxfam as an example. The mostly for-profit benefit is the privet sector and it gets the benefit to the maximum extent while the public sector is going out to meet the needs of individuals rather than for-profit and non-profit sector not-for-profit. In any organisation there must be a goal , which they target that goal or that objectives of the organisation so, there is no reason to meaning-based. Each type of organisition has goal and objective . Tesco was established as a local small business to sell goods and expand all over UK becoming a privet business and then after few years later they opened branches over Europe. Tesco has 3,751 branches all over the word and over 70 million costumers .Tesco aims to make profit they aim to do with launch of a new product and services. The purpose of Tesco is to sell products to customers in cases, even at a loss, but they make it through the sale of other products at mark up. SWOT analysis is a very useful tool for understanding and decision-making for all types of situations in business and organizations. SWOT is an acronym for strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. The SWOT analysis headings provide a good framework for reviewing strategy, position and direction of the company or business proposal, or any other nation. SWOT analysis is mainly used for business planning, strategic planning, competitor evaluation, marketing, and business and product development and research reports. The SWOT analysis is an objective assessment of the data organized by the Coordinating Committee for the drudgery of a logical order that helps understanding, presentation, discussion and decision-making. Four dimensions is an extension of the useful list of two basic title for pro and con. SWOT analysis can be used for all types of decision-making, SWOT template can be considered proactive, rather than relying on the usual reactions or instinctive. The application of tools for more efficient, let us consider that the product is being launched in a foreign country Pestle: Designer originally from the work of environmental scanning, and pest or pestle analysis is an analysis of the external environment macro (big picture) in a business that works. These are often factors outside the control or influence in the business, but it is important to be aware of when doing product development, business planning or strategy. Analysis and pestle is often used to go public tool, and find out where the organization or the product is in the context of what is happening outside of this will have some impact at the point of what is happening within the organization. The analysis of the pestle is a business measurement tool, and considers factors external to the organization. Often used in strategic analysis within the strengths and weaknesses, opportunities and threats analysis). Address pestle analysis and a framework to review the situation, and can also be used to review the strategy or position and direction of the company, a proposal, marketing, or idea. There are many variables on this form, including an analysis of the lesions and analysis of the steeple.

Drivers Essay -- essays research papers

Drivers   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Trying to sort out what type of driver a person might be is an extremely challenging task. In a person’s own mind, they think they are the aggressive type of driver, or the cautious type, but no one will ever admit that they are the “I got my license in a cracker jacks box driver';. The only fact that is certain about a person is they are never always aggressive or cautious while they drive. A person’s driving type varies from time, place, and, the most important reason, their attitudes affect one’s driving style.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The roads today are filled with all types of drivers, but one of the worst drivers is the hot shot or aggressive drivers. All the time, day after day, people encounter these maniacs, who drive like they think they are invincible. The short period of time that I have been driving, I have encountered some crazy drivers. The first hotshot driver I saw, was actually two teens who were drag racing down the streets going ninety mph or faster. While they were racing, one of the two cars was actually driving on the opposite lane. Other experiences I have encountered were a high performance bike that was weaving in and out of cars just because he didn’t want to stop. This biker was going real fast for what he was doing he reminded me of a cop chasing a robber movie of just how fast the bike was ...