Saturday, January 25, 2020

Fordism and Post-Fordism: Concepts of Capitalism

Fordism and Post-Fordism: Concepts of Capitalism Understanding Dawn Dusk:  The Evolution of Capitalism from the Perspectives of Fordism and Post-Fordism. The pursuit of profit was not a science born perfect. Instead, as one technological or organizational invention after another led to ever increasing rates of incremental improvement in the efficiency and effectiveness of the enterprise. These improvements either reduced the cost structure, increased the market demand or both. It was just such an ‘incremental’ improvement in the early twentieth century that led Henry Ford and his Model T to begin an era of ‘namesake’ capitalism that dominated until the 1980’s and persists even today. The methods that began the period of capitalism known as Fordism was not so much just the additional of an assembly line but rather a line that moved to the worker rather that the other way around. This technology of this method was not new, having been utilized in Chicago slaughterhouses since at least the 1890’s but it was the first time that it have been used on such a scale to consumer goods with the end effect of making the automobile affordable. Perhaps even more importantly, the application of this method to automobile production, enabled the use of additional organizational technologies to be deployed. For example, bottlenecks and other production issues could be readily identified and solved and it became possible for a smaller number of managers to ‘control’ the output of a larger group of workers (Grint, 1991, p. 294-295; Clarke, 1992, p. 17). Because of the organizational paradigm shift, these methods were quickly and successfully adopted at other companies in a many different industries. Together, changes introduced in technology and management paved the way to broader sociological changes. At the heart of these was the rise of â€Å"management† as controlling influence upon workers. While Taylorism implemented strict measures of control and efficiency to the workers, the organizational impact of Fordism harnessed individual productivity back into the firm. In some ways, practices at the Ford Motor Company were quite progressive such as his â€Å"Five Dollar Day† policy by which workers were paid for their time. While significant from a labor perspective, it also merits commented on based on the fact that this was compensation. Not just â€Å"pay† but rather compensation for becoming a cog in a wheel and a so-called ‘factor of production’ under somewhat harsh conditions. While some might consider Ford to be generous to pay his employees so a sum, others might not that it could also be viewed as a particularly shrewd means to decrease absenteeism, work interruptions, poor quality and perhaps most importantly, as a means to fend off interest in trade unionization by workers. In fact, once instituted, the results were dramatic as the following were observed, â€Å"absenteeism fell from 10% to less than 0.5% turnover fell from nearly 400% to less than 15%. productivity rose so dramatically that despite the doubling of wages and shortening of the workday production costs fell† (Clarke, 1992, pp. 20-21). With regards to organization and sociological implication, in the past, the dominant method of work was the â€Å"craftsman† who was a skilled worker and spent [his] time on creating specialized and unique projects and the family was, in a sense the primary economic unit of production (Pietrykowski, 1999, p. 191). Ford needed relatively few craftsmen but rather he needed many comparatively unskilled workers that were willing to submit to Tayloristic-type management in exchange for â€Å"†¦regularly rising wages†¦ as well as general guarantees of employment security† (Freidman 2000, p. 60). The widespread employment of an emerging American middle class by a growing number of large, vertically integrated oligopolistic firms bred the beginning of mass production. With ever increasing levels of productivity as a result of newer technologies and greater organizational control, more goods were produced at even lower cost levels. Not surprisingly, in return, this bro ught about new levels of mass consumption of mass-produced products by the burgeoning ranks of the working class (Friedman, 2000, pp. 59-60). This produced a cycle that was both self-reinforcing and self-entrenching. As the system of Fordism perpetuated itself, it began to create a bit of a monster. Almost by definition, Fordism is epitomized and stereotyped by very large corporations. For example, General Motors, employing the same tactics as Ford (General Motorism does not have quite the ring to it of Fordism), became the largest corporation in world in the 1950’s to the extent that this one firm had a macroeconomic impact on the US gross national product (think of Wal-Mart today with over $250,000,000,000 in annual sales). These companies that made their profits on economies of scale on the consumption of goods that were mass-produced and mass-consumed until they hit a bit of a ‘speed bump’ in the 1970’s. These speed bumps took on the form of a number of historical events as well as growing trends. For example, the oil crisis of the 1970’s, a wheat shortage and unrest among organized labor groups in addition to a â€Å"saturation of the market in consumer dur ables† let to the beginning of the end of what had came to be known as the Fordism era. The economy-wide, these changes were greatest for the types of companies that profited most from the technological and organizational developments that created them. Thus, the changes for ‘big’ corporate America came about through the combined phenomena of changes in markets and changes in labor, ironic but fitting as the very things that made them were undoing them, or, at least, causing them to learn to re-make themselves as conditions changed (Pietrykowski, 1999, p. 181). As America consumers had consumed about all they could, firms began to logically seek out new markets such as Latin America, Asia or European regions that had yet to be hardly touched with regards to US produced consumer goods. This globalization of business introduced a number of ‘new’ concepts to US firms. Perhaps most importantly, that simply selling the same widget may not be a path to profit. Interestingly enough, the corporate giant General Motors, in the now ubiquitous tale, was one of the first to discover this lesson as management noticed very disappointing sales for the Chevrolet Nova automobile south of the US border. Only later did they learn that â€Å"No va† exactly translates to â€Å"no go†Ã¢â‚¬ ¦ a hard but valuable lesson as America goes global. Within the borders of the US, it was not that consumers no longer wanted to make purchases, rather, they wanted new products. Listening to the market was not a strength of the Fordist system. As Henry Ford himself said in regards to the Model T, â€Å"†¦ any color you want, as long as its black†, mass production was not noted for being flexible. The idea of flexibility became central to the emergence of what has come to be known as the post-Fordism era. â€Å"Flexibility† is reflected in post-Fordism in a number of ways. In regards to employment, in an effort to cope with changes in demand, corporations began to turn to the notion of flexible employment arrangements in order to avoid the high fixed costs of maintaining a large workforce in times of low demand. This was reflected by a small, core workforce that was supplemented by subcontractors and part-time workers and, temporary workers, if needed (Pietrykowski, 1999, p. 183). This is much in contrast to the masses of employees who, either through the employer or the Union, operated on the premise of life-time employment. Another means by which post-Fordism employed the concept of flexibity in employment was the introduction of ideas such as ‘cross-training’. Rather than having a one person – one specific job mantra, the new era of productivity espoused employees who were trained to do any number of tasks. This flexible functionality in production employees was adopted by companies with the idea of being able to adapt faster to changing demand and by employees in order to enrich jobs and to gain increased employment security (Pietrykowski, 1999, p. 187); Grint, 1991, pp. 296-297). In addition, firms began to outsource non-core functions such as cleaning or security in order to achieve lower costs and reduce the size of bureaucracies often accompanying large companies (Friedman 2000, p. 71). Overall, the change in markets and market pressures as well as the shifts in labor strategies that began to be noticeable in the 1970’s, marked the transition of the dominance of a few oligopolistic firms from a half century reign of mass-production to the current period of ‘mass customization’. Seemingly at odds with one another, the terms â€Å"mass customization† reveal an dynamic tension that is as evident on the factory floor and is in the market place. As technologies emerged that made it possible to store and analyze large amounts of data collided with the ability to precisely control manufacturing processes, the reality of being able to cost effectively introduced customer-requested variances in the processes of production heralded the birth of mass customization. In stark contrast to a ‘one-option’ Model T, General Motors, Ford and Chrysler (the ‘Big 3’) offered a plethora of models and options ranging from color, upholstery and interior appointments, engines, transmissions and more all for largely the same cost as one ‘off the rack’. This flexibility is easily reflected by a conversation with any US person over age 25 when asked what ordering anything but a ‘stock cheeseburger’ was like in the eighties. Now, the experience is much different with Burger King even going to far as to adopt the slogan, â€Å"We do it your way.† While mass customization continues to grow and flourish, mass production is not dead by any means but continues to be redefined in ways that â€Å"modify traditional [Fordism] relationships between capital and labor† (Pietrykowski 1999, p. 194). At the heart of Fordism is the congruence between large, vertically integrated firms competing in oligopolistic markets by striving for cost efficiencies through mass production principles. In contrast, post-Fordism is a combined economy / method that makes great use of the ability to deliver relatively customized goods on a large scale by using multi-skilled workers in firm that is strives to be market-sensitive so as to be able match demand (Friedman 2000, pp. 59-60). Though in many ways Fordism and post-Fordism could be viewed as being antagonistic to one another, by understanding the progression of early management styles and the accomplishments in productivity achieved, the idea that one is the necessary precursor to the other can not be overlooked. And so, in seeking greater understand of these concepts as periods of time during which there is a changing of dominant paradigms, the analogy of â€Å"night and day† is not so appropriate as perhaps â€Å"dawn and dusk† in that they are two perspectives on the same entity of the path to profitability. Works Consulted Clarke, S. (1992). â€Å"What in the F‘s Name is Fordism†. Fordism and Flexibility. (Gilbert, N., Burrows, R., Pollert, A., eds.). St. Martins Press: New York, New York. Friedman, A. (2000). â€Å"Microregulation and Post-Fordism: Critique and Development of Regulation Theory†. New Political Economy, (5), 1, pp. 59-76. Grint, K. (1991). The Sociology of Work. Polity Press: Cambridge, UK. Pietrykowski, B. (1999, June). â€Å"Beyond the Fordist/Post-Fordist Dichotomy: Working Through The Second Industrial Divide†. Review of Social Economy, (LVII), 2, pp. 177-198.

Friday, January 17, 2020

The Use of Symbolism in Hemmingway’s A Farewell to Arms

A Farewell to Arms is one of the greatest tragic love stories of the twentieth century. The novel which was written by Ernest Hemingway was published in 1929, and could possibly be one of the best novels that was been written about World War I. Throughout the novel Hemingway tries to bring light to the truths about war. He does not focus on the heroic picture that many picture of war, as shines a light on the hardships of war. The author makes use of symbolism throughout the novel in order to show the reader the struggles such as hardships with death, wounds inflicted from war, and the toll war can take on relationships.The Use of Nature To be able to properly analyze the novel, the reader has to understand how the symbolic structure is formed by the author. In this case, Hemingway has used nature as a way to contrast with the emotions of the characters. Chapter 1 begins with the following: â€Å"In the late summer of that year we lived in a house in a village that looked across the river and the plain to the mountains†¦the plain was rich with crops†¦and beyond the plains the mountains were brown and bare† (Hemingway 3). The author positioned the main character on a kind of lookout point which effectively conveys feelings of detachment (Bloom 31).But for several scholars, this is just another example of Hemingway’s style: â€Å"lean, understated, evocative, spare and without emotion† (Bloom 31) The introductory line to the novel sets the mood for the rest of the chapter. This form of imagery was used in the first chapter, leaving it up to the imagination of the reader to interpret the characters emotions. The author does this so that he does not have to go into detail about the characters feelings. Bloom says that Hemingway’s use of nature as symbolism is no surprise as he is one author well-known for his â€Å"love of open water and other wild places in nature† (Bloom 31).Hemingway portrays life in the first chapter as– brown, bare, hopeless when he uses the words bare and dusty to describe a road that the troops marched on. The narrator goes into detail describing the plains as follows: â€Å"The plain was rich with crops; there were many orchards of fruit trees and beyond the plain the mountains were brown and bare† (Hemingway 3). This description allows the reader to know that the people of the town were able to go on with their lives, with plenty of food on the table, living as comfortably as they could while the war went on in their backyards.The author shows us that this place is considered a normal home for villagers. Yet, with all that is occurring on the side of the mountains, how can home be considered normal? Hemingway uses nature as symbolism in chapter 1 when he describes the following night. â€Å"In the dark it was like summer lightning, but the nights were cool and there was not a feeling of a storm coming† (Hemingway 3). The villagers knew that fighting wa s going on all around them, but it was far enough away that it did not impact their daily lives. Towards the end of Chapter 1 a switch occurs.While not much had occurred in the village, the fighting had become quite unsuccessful. When the troops had experienced this change in the fighting force, they also experienced a change in the weather- fall was arriving. The author uses this change in weather and foreshadows that something terrible is coming. The author tells the reader that things went very badly. Winter had arrived, and with winter came the permanent rain which accompanied cholera. The intestinal disease took out seven thousand soldiers that year from the Italian Army. In the novel, the rain was used as a symbol of death.A year passed between Chapters 1 and 2, and the name of the main character, Frederick Henry, had yet to be introduced to the reader at this point. The protagonist isn’t much of a bold character. He tends to sit back and observe the crowd with no comme ntary; he is an observer. Henry is a Lieutenant serving in the ambulance corps in the Italian Army. As spring began to approach, Frederick finds himself stuck in a state of confusion about his life. The war is affecting him and others in such a way that he becomes uncertain with what he’s doing in his life, whether he is content or not.As Henry goes through these changes within himself, spring is upon his and with spring comes a sign of hope. The Use of Light With the change of the season, change occurs immediately upon reading Chapter 4. â€Å"The battery in the next garden woke me in the morning and I saw the sun coming through the window and got out of the bed† (Hemingway 15). The light is symbolic towards Henry’s mood, even though the character himself doesn’t know it yet, everything is going to change for him. It was on this sunny day that he met Ms. Catherine Barkley. In the beginning of their romance, the reader is confused by the actions of both M s.Barkley and Mr. Frederick. â€Å"He is impulsive and fatalistic about his choices [such as driving the ambulance for the Italians while he is an American], and she plays with the notion that everything has an explanation [â€Å"I was brought up to think there was†]† (Bloom 33). As one see’s how the relationship between Catherine and Henry develops, they can see how quickly the two have become intimate with one another due to the effects of the war. At first, Catherine seems to be using Henry for comfort due to her loss. Catherine then reveals to Henry about her previous engagement to a man whom she’d lost due to the war.Although he did not believe so himself, Henry was falling in love with Catherine. At first Henry had wished it would simply be a relationship based on sexual pleasure. Hemingway represents the love that the two have for each other through Catherine’s hair. Henry says: â€Å"I loved to take her hair down and she sat on the bed and kept very still, except suddenly would dip down to kiss me while I was doing it†¦ and it was the feeling of inside a tent or behind a falls† (Hemingway 114). â€Å"Henry and Catherine being inside her hair which forms a kind of tent over them, while they make love, may be taken as a womb symbol† (Rao 57).Her hair also being seen as a womb is symbolic as for later in the novel when Catherine becomes pregnant by Henry. The Use of Symbols One can go into great detail trying to analyze the many ways that Hemingway uses symbolism in the novel A Farewell to Arms. Taking a look at the novel, the occurrence of rain is constant from the beginning to the end. The author has presented the rain in many different manners such as rivers, lakes, rain and snow. As was covered in Chapter 1, the reader is able to contrast that rain symbolizes death. â€Å"Catherine sometimes sees herself and Henry dead in the rain† (Rao 59).This was the most direct ways that Hemingway used r ain as a symbol of death. Although, when reading through the climax of the novel, the author gives the reader hope for it was through means of water that Henry escaped the war and returned to Ms. Barkley. The rain was a symbol of trouble and turmoil for Henry. â€Å"When Fredrick was wounded, he is taken to the field hospital and â€Å"a rain† of blood falls on him from the stretcher above him. This is used to associate rain with destruction and pain, struggles and sufferings† (Shams).Catherine is seen to be afraid of  the rain due to her fear of seeing herself dead. â€Å"As Frederick and Catherine try to escape to Switzerland across the lake in a boat, their journey is lashed by rains† (Shams 45). The events that occurred when Catherine went into labor are tragic, and could be foreshadowed upon when it rained the day that she told Henry of her pregnancy. To finish the novel, after Henry discovered that Catherine and the baby were gone, he left the hospital a nd walked back to the hotel in the rain. (Hemingway 332). The author ended the novel with the word rain. The main character was left with nobody.He had fled the Army, snuck off to be with Catherine and the baby, to be left with only rain. The river and the lake are used symbolically to divide the opposing sides from one another. The Austrian front is separated from the Caperatto retreat in Chapter 3 by a river. Fredric and his company were trapped in the enemy side of the river. This shows how the river is used to divide territories, creating a place where one can distinguish the sides between the opposing and the allies. Ishteyaque Shams takes note that it is important to see that the retreat of the Italian Army, which occurs at Gorizia, is accompanied by rain (45).Fredric’s escape from capture and death by jumping into the river shows how the river is symbolic when dividing the enemy lines. The river was the divider between his life and his death. Snow represented the first time that the soldiers weren’t fighting. â€Å"â€Å"Snow† is seen as able to postpone the consequences of death but doesn’t really cure mortality; it is viewed as an aesthetic† (Shams). Whether it is the snow or the color white, it brings a sense of false hope into the novel, for death is only delayed for a little while longer. The snow is a form of safety, like when Catherine and Henry were in the Swiss Alps surrounded by snow.Other means of representing the tragedy that occurs throughout the novel is with the mountains. The battle front is located upon mountains where the battle is fought, and where many dead lay. Fredrick was wounded at the end of a long mountain, and he is bothered by the violence that arises from the mountains. The snowing in the mountains of Switzerland encourages Catherine and Fredrick to go to the mountains. Irony is then implemented into the novel, because Catherine and Frederick escaped to the mountains of Switzerland so that they could escape from the war.The plains in the novel are similar to the symbols used for the rain and the mountains. Things such as diseases, suffering, death, non-religious, and war were presented to the novel when the priest says suggested that Henry take leave and go to Abruzzi, the Priest’s hometown. That is has kind and polite people and with hospitality and a sense of natural beauty. â€Å"The plains are some sort of sharp contrast to this, it is characterized with drunkenness, prostitutes, destruction, cheap cafes and some other signs of low level life style† (Shams). ConclusionSymbolism was implemented in many different ways throughout the entire novel. Ernest Hemingway is able to link two things together in a manner allowing the novel to be easily understood by the reader. He manages draws the readers in by using symbols to represent something more than just what it is, such as rain to represent death, weather to represent mood, etc†¦Ã¢â‚¬Å"It is someth ing really important and interesting to see that in A Farewell to Arms Hemingway makes a very intricate but meaningful combination of images and symbols in order to be able to express whatever he has to convey to his readers† (Shams 44).

Thursday, January 9, 2020

About Plate Tectonics - Introduction and Overview

Geologists have an explanation—a scientific theory—of how the Earths surface behaves called plate tectonics. Tectonics means large-scale structure. So plate tectonics says that the large-scale structure of the Earths outer shell is a set of plates. (see the map) Tectonic Plates Tectonic plates dont quite match the continents and the oceans on the Earths surface. The North America plate, for instance, extends from the west coast of the U.S. and Canada into the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. And the Pacific plate includes a chunk of California as well as most of the Pacific Ocean (see the list of plates). This is because the continents and ocean basins are part of the Earths crust. But plates are made of relatively cold and hard rock, and that extends deeper than the crust into the upper mantle. The part of the Earth that makes up the plates is called the lithosphere. It averages about 100 kilometers in thickness, but that varies greatly from place to place. (see About the Lithosphere) The lithosphere is solid rock, as rigid and stiff as steel. Beneath it is a softer, hotter layer of solid rock called the asthenosphere (es-THEEN-osphere) that extends down to around 220 kilometers depth. Because its at red-hot temperatures the rock of the asthenosphere is weak (astheno- means weak in scientific Greek). It cannot resist slow stress and it bends in a plastic way, like a bar of Turkish taffy. In effect, the lithosphere floats on the asthenosphere even though both are solid rock. Plate Movements The plates are constantly changing position, moving slowly over the asthenosphere. Slowly means slower than fingernails grow, no more than a few centimeters a year. We can measure their movements directly by GPS and other long-distance measuring (geodetic) methods, and geologic evidence shows that they have moved the same way in the past. Over many millions of years, the continents have traveled everywhere on the globe. (see Measuring Plate Motion) Plates move with respect to each other in three ways: they move together (converge), they move apart (diverge) or they move past each other. Therefore plates are commonly said to have three types of edges or boundaries: convergent, divergent and transform. In convergence, when the leading edge of a plate meets another plate, one of them turns downward. That downward motion is called subduction. Subducted plates move down into and through the asthenosphere and gradually disappear. (see About Convergent Zones)Plates diverge at volcanic zones in the ocean basins, the mid-ocean ridges. These are long, huge cracks where lava rises from below and freezes into new lithosphere. The two sides of the crack are continually pulled apart, and thus the plates gain new material. The north Atlantic island of Iceland is the foremost example of a divergent zone above sea level. (see About Divergent Zones)Where plates move past each other is called a transform boundary. These are not as common as the other two boundaries. The San Andreas fault of California is a well-known example. (see About Transforms)The points where the edges of three plates meet are called triple junctions. They move across the Earths surface in response to the different motions of the three plates. (see Triple Junctions) The basic cartoon map of the plates uses only these three boundary types. However, many plate boundaries are not sharp lines but, rather, diffuse zones. They amount to about 15 percent of the worlds total and appear in more realistic plate maps. Diffuse boundaries in the United States include most of Alaska and the Basin and Range province in the western states. Most of China and all of Iran are diffuse boundary zones, too. What Plate Tectonics Explains Plate tectonics answers many basic geologic questions: On the three different types of boundary, plate movement creates distinctive kinds of earthquake faults. (see Fault Types in a Nutshell)Most large mountain ranges are associated with plate convergence, answering a long-standing mystery. (see The Mountain Problem)Fossil evidence suggests that continents were once connected that are far apart today; where once we explained this by the rise and fall of land bridges, today we know that plate movements are responsible.The worlds seafloor is geologically young because old oceanic crust disappears by subduction. (see About Subduction)Most of the worlds volcanoes are related to subduction. (see About Arc Volcanism) Plate tectonics also lets us ask and answer new kinds of questions: We can build maps of world geography in the geologic past—paleogeographic maps—and model ancient climates.We can study how mass extinctions are related to effects of plate tectonics such as volcanism. (see Extinction: On the Destiny of Species)We can examine how plate interactions have affected the geologic history of a specific region. Plate Tectonic Questions Geoscientists are studying several major questions about plate tectonics itself: What moves the plates?What creates volcanoes in hotspots like Hawaii that are outside subduction zones? (see A Hotspot Alternative)How rigid are the plates, and how precise are their boundaries?When did plate tectonics begin, and how?How is plate tectonics connected to the Earths mantle below? (see About the Mantle)What happens to subducted plates? (see The Death of Plates)What kind of cycle do plate materials go through? Plate tectonics is unique to Earth. But learning about it during the last 40 years has given scientists many theoretical tools to understand other planets, even those that circle other stars. For the rest of us, plate tectonics is a simple theory that helps make sense of the Earths face.

Wednesday, January 1, 2020

Essay about Society in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

Society in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn Sometimes making a stand for what is right, especially when it is totally against the customary beliefs of your society, is not an easy accomplishment. In the novel Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain, the main character Huck encounters many situations where there is a question of morality. Considering the traditional protocol of his society, Huck has to choose either what his conscience feels is right versus what the customary public views are. In many cases Huck goes with what his conscience feels is right, which always is the proper selection. Ironically, what Huck believes in, unapproved of in the 19th century, is the basis of accepted beliefs in our modern world. Huck lives with the†¦show more content†¦After a long raft-ride, Huck and Jim are finally about to reach Cairo, which on their arrival would make Jim free. With the smell of freedom, Jim rambles on about how he would buy his wife and then steal his children. This sets off a spark in Huck, igniting his conscience and making him very uneasy. Huck couldnt believe that Jim would steal property from a man that hadnt done him any harm. Huck then begins feeling guilty about helping Jim escape from Miss Watson, since she had never done anything to him and didnt deserve for Jim to be stolen from her. At his departure for the town, on a mission to turn Jim in, Jim leaves Huck with these words. Pooty soon Ill be a shoutn for joy, en Ill say say, its all on accounts o Huck; Is a free man, en I couldnt ever ben free ef it hadnt it ben for Huck; Huck done it. Jim wont ever forgit you, Huck; yous de bes fren Jims ever had; en yous de only fren ole Jims got now. (pg.86-87) Hearing these words, Huck realizes how much Jims friendship means to him and decides not to turn in Jim. Finally, the last test of Hucks conscience comes when he finds out that the king and the duke have sold Jim. Huck gets to thinking about how wrong he was to help Jim escape, and decides he should write a letter to Miss Watson. He then changes his mind, seeing that Jim would be worse off as a runaway slave because he would be treated horribly, and HuckShow MoreRelatedâ€Å"the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn†- Meaning of a â€Å"Sivilized† Society2021 Words   |  9 Pagescalled Huckleberry Finn. Many would agree with Earnest Hemingway’s broad statement, but it takes a keen eye to detect and appreciate the brilliant satire that Twain has interwoven throughout his novel. The most prominent topic of his irony is society. Twain questions the â€Å"civilized† nature of white society, which heavily idolizes slavery. Huckleberry is given nothing but contradictory ideas about what kind of boy he should be---on one side he has the â€Å"sivilized† white members of society who seekRead MoreMark Twains Critiques Of Society In The Adventures Of Huckleberry Finn1274 Words   |  6 PagesTwain’s Critiques of Society In Mark Twain s satirical essay, â€Å"The Damned Huma n Race,† Twain critiques human beings by declaring that â€Å"The human race is a race of cowards; and I am not only marching in that procession but carrying a banner.† The motif of cowardice and the cruelty of humanity is also present in another one of Twain’s most famous works: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Throughout this novel, Twain passionately decries the immorality and corruption of society through the employmentRead MoreThe Influence of Society in Mark Twains The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn 1104 Words   |  4 PagesThe Adventure of Huckleberry Finn Essay Society controls an individual of what they want them to think or do. 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They meet by coincidence while they are both hiding out on Jackson’s Island located in the middle of the Mississip pi River, Huck is hiding from the townspeople who think he is dead, and Jim has runaway and is hidingRead MoreThe Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is a book that has racial attitudes towards a society. It is1200 Words   |  5 PagesThe Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is a book that has racial attitudes towards a society. It is written in a language which is more artistic than usual. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer may be a book for young adults and children, but the Adventures of huckleberry Finn is not so much for kids. Mark twain shows the evil in his society by satirizing the institution of racism by using irony. Mark Twain’s best works is The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. The main characters in the book are HuckleberryRead More Mark Twains Adventures of Huckleberry Finn - Escape From an Oppressive Society6239 Words   |  25 PagesHuckleberry Finn - Escape From a Cruel and Oppressive Society America... land of the free and home of the brave; the utopian society which every European citizen desired to be a part of in the 18th and 19th centuries. The revolutionary ideas of The Age of Enlightenment such as democracy and universal male suffrage were finally becoming a reality to the philosophers and scholars that so elegantly dreamt of them. America was a playground for the ideas of these enlightened men. To EuropeansRead MoreThemes Taught through Individual Characters and Society in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain902 Words   |  4 PagesIn The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain, many dominant American themes and culture are present. Twain explores these themes through the actions, relationships, and development of different characters in the novel. Freedom, survival of the fittest, and individual conscience are three themes that are explored in individual characters and in society. Freedom, the most blatant theme in the novel, takes on a different perspective for Huck, escaping a civilized lifestyle, and Jim, escapingRead MoreThe Adventures Of Huckleberry Finn By Mark Twain Essay1055 Words   |  5 PagesJhonatan Zambrano Mrs. Patmor AP Lit-Period 5 28 September 2016 Adventures of Huckleberry Finn 1835 Mark Twain embodies realism in almost every aspect of his writing not excluding The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, which in he portrays such a lifelike setting that it almost gives you this sense of reality through the point of view of a young man that has an urge for freedom yet struggles to conform to society s norms due to his adolescence. Twain s ability to unmask the true identities of theRead MoreMark Twain : Seeing America s Flaws1593 Words   |  7 Pageswithout you have read a book by the name of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer , but that ain’t no matter. That book was made by Mr. Mark Twain and he told the truth, mainly. There was things he stretched, but mainly he told the truth† (qtd. in Jones 237). That was the very first line in Mark Twain’s controversial book, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Samuel L. Clemens, as a young boy, grew up on the Mississippi and learned the ways of southern society. Clemens grew up to travel the world and writeRead Mor eRacism : Discrimination Or Antagonism Directed Against Someone Of A Different Race1636 Words   |  7 PagesRacism: discrimination or antagonism directed against someone of a different race. Even though The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is a novel about a young boy the story has an underlying message of the truth of racism. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is a novel set in the late eighteen hundreds hundreds and is considered by many the quintessential American novel. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is a highly controversial book with many supporters and many hecklers. Some consider the book to be