English and English Literature Coursework Dubliners Essay Example for Free

English and English Literature Coursework Dubliners Essay These stories are all about escape and how characters are unable to escape. In the light of this quotation, I am going to discuss Dubliners, with close detailed reference to two of the stories, Eveline and The Boarding House. There are many similarities between these two stories, as well as contrasts. In Eveline, her father is a drunkard and is also the head of the house, whereas in The Boarding House, Pollys father, was a shabby stooped little drunkard who lives separated from his family. Pollys father has been cut-off from her life, and Evelines mother is dead. The similarity here, is that each child has had one of their parents cut off from a period of their life. Eveline wants to escape to Buenos Aires, to get away from her poverty in Dublin. Mr Doran wants to escape from the prospect of marriage. This brings us to one of the main points of the book, the characters inability to escape. Eveline has been given the chance to escape from her life, where she had to work hard both in the house and at business. Poor Eveline, however, finds that she is unable to move forward. She lacks the courage and strength to make that leap that will free her of her oppressive situation. . Shes sees her lover as a possible source of danger: All the seas of the world tumbled about her heart. He was drawing her into them: he would drown her. Instead of an uncertain but hopeful future, her paralysis will make a certain and dismal future that may well repeat her mothers sad life story. In Mr Dorans case, the theme of powerlessness is conveyed his situation. As with many other characters in Dubliners, various social pressures, like his job and his reputation, combine to rob him of choice. Mrs Mooney wants her daughter to escape her current poverty and the possibility of a working life for marriage, while Mr Doran wants to escape the tying down of marriage and enjoy his free life. Mr Doran nonetheless cannot escape. At the end of The Boarding House, Mrs Mooney tells Polly, Come down, dear. Mr Doran wants to speak to you. The reader is struck by the tremendous irony of the situation, since it is clear that Mr Doran does not really want to speak to Polly. He has been bullied and terrified into proposing marriage to her. These simple words are the hallmark of Mrs Mooneys accomplishment. Frank wants to take Eveline away, but Eveline is unsure. It was hard work-a hard life-but now that she was about to leave it she did not find to a wholly undesirable life. Polly wants to settle with Mr Doran, but Mr Doran is unsure, however he does not have a choice: What could he do now but marry her or run away? He could not brazen it out. Mr Doran has the choice to run away, but this is not an option for Dublin is such a small city: everyone knows everyone elses business. Both Frank and Mr Doran can be seen as saving the two girls from poverty. Mr Doran and Eveline are both described as helpless. Mr Doran himself says, I felt helpless, while Eveline is described as passive like a helpless animal. At the end of each story, an iron railing is mentioned. Eveline gripped with both hands at the iron railings, using them as an anchor, preventing her from drowning into the seas of the world. The railings help Eveline think of thoughts which keep her from leaving. Polly uses the iron railings as an anchor to clear her thoughts. There was no longer any perturbation visible on her face. Both Mr Doran and Eveline feel that it is their duty to stay and face the consequences. Mr Doran longed to ascend through the roof and fly away yet a force pushed him downstairs step by step. Eveline finds that she is paralysed by the needs of her father and her promise to her mother to keep the home together as long as she could. Eveline starts a series of stories dealing with various kinds of marriage and courtship. In Eveline, marriage presents the possibility of escape. The Boarding House gives us marriage as a social convention and a trap. Two Gallants reduces marriage and courtship to its animal. Two Gallants gave us men taking advantage of a young woman. The Boarding House gives us a more respectable social setting, but the basic cynicism about love and relationships between the genders remains. The economic conditions are also expressed in Eveline and The Boarding House. To save money in The Boarding House, pieces of broken bread are collected to help make Tuesdays bread-pudding. The sugar and butter is kept safe under lock and key. In Eveline, there is an invariable squabble for money on Saturday nights. Evelines dead mum controls her while Mr Doran is controlled by Mrs Mooney. Mrs Mooney and Evelines mum are both very different people in the sense that Mrs Mooney is strong and independent and Evelines mum is weak and dependent. Evelines love for Frank leads her to escape whereas Mr Dorans love for Polly leads him to confine his life with marriage. Eveline is forced into making her decision to stay by duty to her family. Mr Doran has put himself into his situation and it driven further by Mrs Mooney. Both Eveline and Mr Doran have occupational restrictions. Mr Doran had been employed for thirteen years in a great Catholic wine-merchants office and publicity would mean the loss of his sit. All his hard work would be gone for nothing. Eveline, however, is oppressed by her employer and would not cry many tears at leaving the Stores. One of the striking elements of The Boarding House is Mrs Mooneys silence. Her daughters respect is not really a concern, because she knows about the affair from the start. What matters to her is trading on her feigned outrage to get a social arrangement that will benefit her daughter. Mrs Mooney manipulates the weaker Mr Doran, using his concern for his job and his fear of scandal. The story concludes with the fact that Mr Doran has spoken to Mrs Mooney and now wants to speak to Polly. This probably suggests a proposal of marriage, and the trap is implied in the final line: Then she remembered what she had been waiting for. Marriage is the price which Doran must pay in order to keep his job, since Dublin is such a small city: everyone knows everyone elses business The stages-of-life structure continues in Eveline. In previous stories like The Sisters and Araby, children had been main characters. Eveline is an adult, a young woman old enough to get married. Joyce gives us the terrible poverty and pressure of her situation. The weight of poverty and family responsibilities bear down on this young woman heavily and her financial situation is far worse than that of the three boy narrators of the previous stories. She is trapped in an ugly situation, responsible for her siblings and the aging father who abuses her. In conclusion, it can be said that Joyce presents the themes of escape and paralysis in Dubliners. They show how Joyce sees the city of Dublin.

The Culture of Montserrat ::

The Culture of Montserrat Culture on the island of Montserrat can be most easily characterized through the examination of the many natural forces influencing the lifestyles and customs of its people. Montserrat’s physical features have played a crucial role in shaping the attire, diet, shelter, and crops of the island’s inhabitants. Volcanic rocks and native plants scattered throughout the island were the source of a number of customs that remain prevalent in contemporary Montserratian culture. Prior to colonization by the British, the island of Montserrat was occupied by a number of Amerindian groups from Venezuela who made their living through fishing and cultivation. There is evidence from a small artifact found in the soil from roughly 500 B.C.E. that the first inhabitants of Montserrat were the Ciboney, known as the ‘stone people.’ The Arawaks arrived on the island around 400 C.E. and built their villages near the coastline. These were a peaceful people who made their living fishing and gardening, and made ceramic vessels, stone tools, and conch shell adzes. While the Arawaks had a few centuries on the island, at the time of European contact the Caribs had gained dominance by driving them to the north. By 1500 the cannibalistic Caribs practiced both permanent and shifting cultivation and built their villages and gardens near the coast with a pole framework and leaf thatch. Caribs grew a mix of economic plants for cultivation, including many from South America and some from the Old World, which modified Montserrat’s vegetative cover in addition to some structures, composed of saplings, reeds, and foliage. The Carib name for Montserrat was Alliouagana, meaning â€Å"island of the prickly bush,† which most likely referred to the native species of Acacia. When Montserrat was first settled in 1632, British colonial officials believed the land and people of their island colonies to be profitable machines and this view greatly determined the way in which a culture based on agricultural production and slave labor emerged. The British had sent Irish Catholics from St. Kitts to colonize Montserrat and these people were growing tobacco and sugar by 1654. By the 1650s, English and Anglo-Irish landowners formed the wealthy ruling class, and Irish indentured servants formed the bulk of the population. The Culture of Montserrat :: The Culture of Montserrat Culture on the island of Montserrat can be most easily characterized through the examination of the many natural forces influencing the lifestyles and customs of its people. Montserrat’s physical features have played a crucial role in shaping the attire, diet, shelter, and crops of the island’s inhabitants. Volcanic rocks and native plants scattered throughout the island were the source of a number of customs that remain prevalent in contemporary Montserratian culture. Prior to colonization by the British, the island of Montserrat was occupied by a number of Amerindian groups from Venezuela who made their living through fishing and cultivation. There is evidence from a small artifact found in the soil from roughly 500 B.C.E. that the first inhabitants of Montserrat were the Ciboney, known as the ‘stone people.’ The Arawaks arrived on the island around 400 C.E. and built their villages near the coastline. These were a peaceful people who made their living fishing and gardening, and made ceramic vessels, stone tools, and conch shell adzes. While the Arawaks had a few centuries on the island, at the time of European contact the Caribs had gained dominance by driving them to the north. By 1500 the cannibalistic Caribs practiced both permanent and shifting cultivation and built their villages and gardens near the coast with a pole framework and leaf thatch. Caribs grew a mix of economic plants for cultivation, including many from South America and some from the Old World, which modified Montserrat’s vegetative cover in addition to some structures, composed of saplings, reeds, and foliage. The Carib name for Montserrat was Alliouagana, meaning â€Å"island of the prickly bush,† which most likely referred to the native species of Acacia. When Montserrat was first settled in 1632, British colonial officials believed the land and people of their island colonies to be profitable machines and this view greatly determined the way in which a culture based on agricultural production and slave labor emerged. The British had sent Irish Catholics from St. Kitts to colonize Montserrat and these people were growing tobacco and sugar by 1654. By the 1650s, English and Anglo-Irish landowners formed the wealthy ruling class, and Irish indentured servants formed the bulk of the population.

Iceland Crisis and Causes Led to the Crisis

Iceland and the rest of the world reeling. In retrospect Iceland was essentially operatinglike a firm with a highly unviable growth model. However, the political relationship between Iceland and Britain also greatly added to the economic downturn and financialcrisis. Britain’s use of anti-terrorism laws, in an attempt to protect their economicinvestments in Iceland, essentially labeled Iceland as a terrorist state which onlycontinued to stagnate the inflow of foreign capital.Although without a doubt the primarycause of the Icelandic financial crisis was economic, political factors such as therelationship and interdependence between Iceland and Britain exacerbated the alreadydire situation. Iceland began as an isolated, fairly impoverished country whose survival was based largely on its fishing trade. 1 However, in recent years Iceland had been successfulat establishing itself as a premier offshore banking hub. At one point Icelanders wereecstatic and celebrated the fact that t heir tiny country of about 300,000 people had 3 banks in the worlds largest 300 banks. 2The Icelandic government was able to enticeforeign investors by setting interest rates very high, which encouraged foreigners toinvest largely in financial assets. The large inflow of foreign capital associated with suchmass foreign investment caused the krona to greatly appreciate. Since the krona wasgreatly overvalued it made all imports in both goods and services very inexpensive for Icelanders; the overvalued krona also made it a lot easier for Icelanders to borrow moneyfrom abroad. 3 The high interest rates, gargantuan capital inflow, and an appreciatedcurrency all aided in creating the economic boom that Iceland enjoyed for many years ?This economic boom encouraged Icelanders to borrow from abroad and many failed toforesee that such economic prosperity was limited and that a bust is inevitably going tofollow a boom. The lack of government oversight on the banking system also was an economic factor that led to the financial crisis. One large problem with the Icelandic banking sector is that the banks became so large that the Icelandic government was unable to operate asa lender-of-last-resort simply because Iceland with its mere 300,000 people has a verysmall tax base. 4 At the end of 2006 the total assets of its banks grew to be nine times aslarge as the countries GDP. It would have been less of a problem for the banks to be solarge if they had not remained domiciled in Iceland. It was perhaps too large and ideal of a goal for such a small country like Iceland to become an international financial center. Iceland was essentially acting like a firm when indeed they should have been lookingafter the economic stability of their whole country. The Icelandic government simplylacked the ability to financially sustain their banks in times of economic crisis. If some of the banks in Iceland had foreign lenders-of-last-resort they might have been able toweather out the economic storm.Iceland’s economic growth model was mainly built upon foreigninvestors being able and willing to keep on giving. However, due to the global economiccrisis foreign capital ceased coming in and when it did the myriad of public and privatedebt became quite evident. ? 6 Some analysts argue that problems with the krona have prevented Iceland from being able to control the financial crisis. Since Iceland does not have an effectual currency to manipulate they are largely unable to support the banks andhave no practical ways to bring down the inflation and interest rates, which have beenstaying in the double digits. This is just one of the many economic situations currentlyaffecting Iceland. Without a doubt the prime cause for Iceland’s financial crisis is largely theeconomic circumstances previously discussed. However, political factors such asIceland’s relationship with Britain also played a role in exacerbating the crisis and preventing Iceland from any chance it might have had of financial viability. Iceland andBritain once had a very mutually beneficial friendship, which could be seen in that theywere NATO allies and frequent trading partners.However, as the global economic crisis began to take hold this friendship became tenuous at best. The problems between Icelandand Britain began in late 2008 when Britain, in an attempt to protect its financial assets inIceland, invoke its 2008 anti-terrorism laws to freeze the British assets of a failingIcelandic bank. 8 Specifically Britain froze the assets of Landsbanki and seized the assetsof Kaupthing Singer & Friedlander. 9 The British seizure of Kaupthing Singer &Friedlander was followed shortly by the collapse of its parent bank, Kaupthing, which theIcelandic government had desperately been trying to keep viable.In many Icelanderseyes and certainly in the eyes of the Icelandic government Kaupthing was the last of theMohicans and its demise signaled the end of the Icelandic banking system ? T he political decision to invoke anti-terrorism legislation against Iceland essentially branded it as a terrorist state, which in the eyes of every Icelander was athorough abuse of a small neighbor. Due to this one political action Iceland was listed onthe British Treasury Department’s page with terrorist groups and states such as Al Qaeda,Sudan, and North Korea. 11At this point in the crisis the foreign capital inflows intoIceland were already dismal but this British action triggered an immediate freeze on anyremaining banking transactions between Iceland and abroad. Essentially no one wants todo business with a terrorist state. President Olafur Ragnar Grimsson stated that, â€Å"It(Britain) was absolutely being a bully against a small country because I am absolutelycertain that if it was the case of France and Germany, the British government would nothave acted in the same way- absolutely not†. The Icelandic Prime Minister at the time,Geir H.Haarde, believed that Gord on Brown had â€Å"sacrificed Iceland for his own short-term political gain thereby turning a grave situation into a national disaster†. 12 From the perspective of the Icelandic government their once cordial, neighborly relationship withBritain had been thoroughly abused to the point that a British foreign policy decision played an integral factor in the meltdown of the Icelandic financial sector Undoubtedly Britain’s political decisions affected the financial crisis in Iceland,yet, the Crisis in Iceland also greatly impacted Britain’s economic conditions.Like therest of the world, thanks to the downturn of the global economy Britain has beensuffering its own financial woes. When foreign capital inflows ceased in Iceland thiscaused the krona’s value to fall, which led Icelandic banks to be unable to finance their debts most of which are in foreign currency. This realization by all of the foreigninvestors who were once so eager to invest created a mad rush to get their money out of the failing Icelandic banks.Unfortunately, Icelandic banks did not have proper reservesto cover the massive withdrawals leading all three of Iceland’s banks to be nationalized. 13 Regrettably many British universities, municipal governments, charities and hospitals had been lured in by the high interest rates to invest in Icelandic accounts. CambridgeUniversity had $20 million invested in Icelandic accounts while 15 British police forceshave approximately $170 million frozen in Iceland. 14Many groups that had invested inthe Icelandic banking sector had done so in the convenience of their own home statesthrough the use of online investing sites such as Icesave. co. uk. On their website Icesavenow displays the message that â€Å"We are not currently processing any deposits or withdrawal requests through out Icesave Internet accounts. We apologize for anyinconvenience this may cause our customers†. 15 Certainly for large investors such asCambrid ge University this is much more than a small inconvenienceAt the center of Iceland’s financial troubles is that their banking sector was highlydependent upon a continued inflow of foreign capital. In turn, Iceland’s foreign investorswere also very dependent upon Iceland’s banks to maintain their viability. However,when the inflow of capital stopped the interdependence of Iceland and its investors became very clear. This is exemplified by the Icelandic-British relationship. Britishcitizens and companies alike had been ensorcelled by the call the of high interest rates inIceland.The viability of the banks was based largely on the ability to keep foreign capitalcoming into the country, which allowed the krona to appreciate. When the foreign creditmarket froze and investment decreased drastically the financial interdependence of Iceland and Britain manifested itself Iceland’s main pitfall and cause of its financial crisis is that they essentiallytreated their country as a firm and allowed the banking sector to get far too hugeconsidering, as we have seen, that it had no financial stronghold to back it up.Althoughthe blown-up banking sector and other economic factors created the financial crisis it wascertainly exacerbated by the failed diplomatic relationship between Iceland and Britain. Britain’s use of its antiterrorism legislation only made the economic woes of Icelandworse by essentially making it a pariah that should be avoided by the rest of theinternational community. In the end, Iceland’s financial practices had sown the seeds of their own destruction but the political actions of Britain ensured that it would be a longtime before Iceland’s financial sector will germinate once more.

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