Antigone Tragic Hero Essay Essay

Most Greek tragedies were based on myths and consisted of a series of dramatic episodes mixed with a chorus who commented on the dramatic action or analyzed the pattern of events. The role of a tragic hero was vital to the tragic plays. Sophocles argues that a tragic hero is a character who possesses six specific traits. A tragic hero must be of noble stature, can not be perfect, their downfall most be their fault, their misfortune is not wholly deserved, the fall is not a total loss, and has a moral purpose. Therefore, Creon is the tragic hero in Antigone because he is of noble stature, posses character flaws, and his fall is not an entire loss. Creon is the brother of Jocasta, who was the wife and mother of Oedipus, who was the king of Thebes. He becomes ruler of Thebes after the s of Oedipus’ two sons, Eteocles and Polynices in the recent civil war. In his speech to the people assuring the citizens that order and safety have returned to Thebes he says, â€Å"I now posses the throne and all its powers†(line 194, page 67). This passage easily shows that Creon is the ruler of Thebes because it says that he posses the throne which is a possession of the king. This shows that Creon is of noble stature, which is one of the necessities of a tragic hero. Throughout the whole play Creon exhibits that he is imperfect. Creon is very stubborn as well as ignorant, which results in his many problems all through the play. In his dispute with Haemon over the fate of Antigone he says, % –show me a greater crime in all the earth! She, she destroys cities, rips up houses, breaks the ranks of spearmen into headlong rout. But the ones who last it out, the great mass of them owe their lives to discipline. Therefore we must defend the men who live by law, never let some woman triumph over us. Better to fall from power, if fall we must, at the hands of a man–never be rated inferior to a woman, never (lines 751-761 page 94).† The word % † basically means â€Å"without a leader.† He makes it sound as if he may be speaking about Antigone. Creon looks at as the unavoidable consequence when insubordination of the law is left with impunity. This excerpt vividly shows how Creon is very stubborn and ignorant. He refuses to see that woman play a  major role in society. He only views them as objects. He visions woman as a threat to masculine superiority and he will stop at nothing to avert this from happening. His refusal to allow Antigone to go free ultimately results in the of his son and his wife. This shows that Creon is imperfect, which is also one of the requirements of a tragic hero. By the end of the play, after the of his wife and son, Creon gains some self-knowledge and learns from what he has done. After Creon learns of the of his wife and son he says, â€Å"Ohhh, so senseless, so insane†¦ my crimes, my stubborn, ly— Look at us, the killer, the killed, father and son, the same —the misery! My plans, my mad fanatic heart, my son, cut off so young! Ai, , lost to the world. Not through you stupidity, no, my own (line 1395-1400, page 124).† This quotation from the play illustrates that Creon realizes that his stubbornness and foolishness is the cause of all of this pandemonium. Creon now understands that his flaws resulted in his family’s . He then goes on to say, â€Å"Oh I’ve learned through and tears (line 1405-1406, page 124).† This shows that he has learned his lesson so the of his family is not a complete loss because now he is aware of the fact that it is because of his stubbornness and stupidity that this occ urred. This shows that Creon’s fall is now a pure loss, which is as well, a condition of a tragic hero. Creon is the tragic hero in Antigone because he is of noble stature, posses character flaws, and his fall is not an entire loss. These flaws eventually are what leads Creon to his demise and to the of his wife and son. In Antigone there were numerous themes. One of the themes is pride and its effect on the characters. Both Antigone and Creon are exceedingly proud, making it impossible for either one of them to back down once they have taken a position on something. This character flaw leads to their downfall. In contemporary times, we can relate this type of tragic hero to powerful figures like Donald Rumsfeld, who does not waver from his positions until others have paid a heavy price for his pride. Another theme is Moral Law vs. Human Law. This is shown when Antigone’s conscience influences her to bury her brother, which conflicts with Creons law of the state. It’s a decision of whether morals should be placed above the human law. A semi-modern  example of this can be seen in World War II where the soldiers had to decide between their morals or the decision of the state in the s of the Jews. The third and final central theme is the position of woman. This is brought up several times in Antigone. Creon feels that woman are subordinate to men and should never be placed as high as men. This is also evident in present times because even now women do not have the same opportunities as men do although women have come a long way in just this century. There will always be tragic heroes in any society. They are usually high-profile people who rise and fall in the public eye. Hopefully, those of us who watch their stories unfold can learn from their experiences by debating the merits of the decisions a one-time hero made to render him/her tragic. The presence of a tragic hero is evident in modern society because even now we have people who are examples of tragic hero’s.

The recent advance in gene manipulation and gene therapy essays

The recent advance in gene manipulation and gene therapy essays This essay will show how the recent advances in technology have improved genetic engineering and gene therapy techniques. Genetic engineering will be explained regarding its use for gene diagnosis, drug synthesis and the production of vaccines. The influences of gene therapy on certain illnesses will be researched and social and ethical issues on genetic engineering and its use for therapies will be evaluated. Genetic engineering is the subject of many debates. It involves altering the genotype of an organism. There is some argument about what actually constitutes genetic engineering but, in general, it means taking a gene, or genes, from one organism and inserting them into another. This may be done for a number of reasons. It may be used to produce a desirable characteristic in the target organism, it may be used in order to make the target organism produce useful substances that are easily harvested, it may be used to attempt to treat genetic diseases or it may be used to further research how genes may be controlled. Whatever the reason, the principles involved remain the same. The development of techniques for manipulating and transferring genes has opened up opportunities to use microorganisms to synthesise biological compounds on a large scale, to enhance food production and to introduce treatments for human genetic disorders The procedure for genetic engineering involves inserting genes into microbes. In the first step it is necessary to remove the target DNA from the cell. This can be done using a detergent such as Sodium Dodecyl Sulphate which disrupts the plasma and nuclear membrane. Once this is done, enzymes are used to break down proteins so that the DNA can be safely extracted. In the next step restriction endonuclease enzymes are used to cut the required gene out of the host DNA. However, this is not a random process. Each of these enzymes will recognize a specific sequence of DNA and only cleave ...

The Universe Essays (1255 words) - Physical Cosmology, Big Bang

The Universe Essays (1255 words) - Physical Cosmology, Big Bang The Universe It is always a mystery about how the universe began, whether if and when it will end. Astronomers construct hypotheses called cosmological models that try to find the answer. There are two types of models: Big Bang and Steady State. However, through many observational evidences, the Big Bang theory can best explain the creation of the universe. The Big Bang model postulates that about 15 to 20 billion years ago, the universe violently exploded into being, in an event called the Big Bang. Before the Big Bang, all of the matter and radiation of our present universe were packed together in the primeval fireballan extremely hot dense state from which the universe rapidly expanded.1 The Big Bang was the start of time and space. The matter and radiation of that early stage rapidly expanded and cooled. Several million years later, it condensed into galaxies. The universe has continued to expand, and the galaxies have continued moving away from each other ever since. Today the universe is still expanding, as astronomers have observed. The Steady State model says that the universe does not evolve or change in time. There was no beginning in the past, nor will there be change in the future. This model assumes the perfect cosmological principle. This principle says that the universe is the same everywhere on the large scale, at all times.2 It maintains the same average density of matter forever. There are observational evidences found that can prove the Big Bang model is more reasonable than the Steady State model. First, the redshifts of distant galaxies. Redshift is a Doppler effect which states that if a galaxy is moving away, the spectral line of that galaxy observed will have a shift to the red end. The faster the galaxy moves, the more shift it has. If the galaxy is moving closer, the spectral line will show a blue shift. If the galaxy is not moving, there is no shift at all. However, as astronomers observed, the more distance a galaxy is located from Earth, the more redshift it shows on the spectrum. This means the further a galaxy is, the faster it moves. Therefore, the universe is expanding, and the Big Bang model seems more reasonable than the Steady State model. The second observational evidence is the radiation produced by the Big Bang. The Big Bang model predicts that the universe should still be filled with a small remnant of radiation left over from the original violent explosion of the primeval fireball in the past. The primeval fireball would have sent strong shortwave radiation in all directions into space. In time, that radiation would spread out, cool, and fill the expanding universe uniformly. By now it would strike Earth as microwave radiation. In 1965 physicists Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson detected microwave radiation coming equally from all directions in the sky, day and night, all year.3 And so it appears that astronomers have detected the fireball radiation that was produced by the Big Bang. This casts serious doubt on the Steady State model. The Steady State could not explain the existence of this radiation, so the model cannot best explain the beginning of the universe. Since the Big Bang model is the better model, the existence and the future of the universe can also be explained. Around 15 to 20 billion years ago, time began. The points that were to become the universe exploded in the primeval fireball called the Big Bang. The exact nature of this explosion may never be known. However, recent theoretical breakthroughs, based on the principles of quantum theory, have suggested that space, and the matter within it, masks an infinitesimal realm of utter chaos, where events happen randomly, in a state called quantum weirdness.4 Before the universe began, this chaos was all there was. At some time, a portion of this randomness happened to form a bubble, with a temperature in excess of 10 to the power of 34 degrees Kelvin. Being that hot, naturally it expanded. For an extremely brief and short period, billionths of billionths of a second, it inflated. At the end of the period of inflation, the universe may have a diameter of a few centimetres. The temperature had cooled enough for particles of matter and antimatter to form, and they instantly destroy each other, producing fire and a thin haze of matter-apparently because slightly more matter than antimatter was formed.5 The fireball, and the smoke of its burning, was the universe at an age of trillionth of a second. The temperature of the expanding fireball dropped rapidly, cooling

Cognates of Cognition

Cognates of Cognition Cognates of Cognition Cognates of Cognition By Mark Nichol Cognition is the use of mental processes such as learning, remembering, thinking, and understanding. It stems from the Latin verb cognoscere, meaning â€Å"become acquainted with.† Not every word with the letter string â€Å"c-o-g† is related, but quite a few are. Details about cognition’s cognates follow. But first, a look at the construction of the words. The syllable cog isn’t the basis of terms related to knowing and thinking; cognoscere consists of co- and gnoscere; that word means â€Å"come to know.† Know itself is cognate with gnoscere and the Greek verb gignÃ… skein- the basis of gnome, best known as the name of a subterranean dwarflike creature in folklore but also a synonym for maxim, and gnosis, a word referring to spiritual knowledge that is also the root of prognosis (literally, â€Å"foreknowledge†) and diagnosis, meaning â€Å"identification† or â€Å"analysis.† Cognate itself is not cognate with cognition: It means â€Å"related,† and stems from the Latin word nasci, meaning â€Å"to be born,† and is cognate with nascent (and native). Nor is cognomen, which means â€Å"nickname† or â€Å"additional name† and derives from the Latin noun nomen, meaning â€Å"name.† Interestingly, cogent, meaning â€Å"necessary† or â€Å"urgent,† and especially its cognate cogitation, which means â€Å"intent thought,† are also unrelated to cognition; they derive respectively from the Latin verb agere, meaning â€Å"drive,† and its frequentative (repeated or recurrent) form agitare, which is also the origin of agitate. Another word with a distinct etymology is cog, referring to a tooth on a wheel in a gear mechanism and probably borrowed from a Scandinavian language. Words in the cognoscere family in English include recognition (literally, â€Å"knowing again†) and precognition (literally, â€Å"knowing before†); the latter was the unusual ability of the Precogs in Steven Spielberg’s film Minority Report and the Philip K. Dick short story on which it is (loosely) based. Two other words that are related- unexpectedly so- are reconnaissance (â€Å"military survey†) and that word’s verb form, reconnoiter, both adopted from French but ultimately stemming from recognoscere, the Latin origin of recognize. Other relatives are cognizance (â€Å"awareness,† â€Å"acknowledgment,† or â€Å"responsibility†) and recognizance, derived from an earlier sense of reconnaissance (â€Å"acknowledgment†) and used in legal contexts in phrases such as â€Å"released on his own recognizance† to indicate that someone recognizes his obligation to appear in court at a later date. Connoisseur (â€Å"expert†), from French, and its Italian cousin cognoscente (which in English developed a separate sense of â€Å"someone in the know†) are also related, as are incognito (â€Å"unknown,† from Italian and referring to being in disguise or anonymous or using a false name) and â€Å"terra incognita† (literally, â€Å"unknown land†), taken directly from Latin. Want to improve your English in five minutes a day? Get a subscription and start receiving our writing tips and exercises daily! Keep learning! Browse the Vocabulary category, check our popular posts, or choose a related post below:20 Types and Forms of Humor3 Types of Headings10 Terms for the Common People

Structural form that is most suitable for an SHRM approach Essay

Structural form that is most suitable for an SHRM approach - Essay Example The changing face of the industrialized world has led to changing views of managing the workforce.The concepts governing human resource management have changed with changes in the industrialized world.As business operations have expanded from local to national and on to global markets,organizations are forced to operate in a fast-changing environment Competition, technological advancement, legal requirements, host-country expectations and a changing customer profile place pressure on the internal systems and processes. The organizational structure has undergone changes with the changing environment. The earlier bureaucratic structure with its mono-cultural working community that suited a limited market has given way to a variety of structures that seek to garner the best way to harness talent in a wider area and manage market expectations across cultures. The factors that affected the HRM concepts at work were primarily availability and negotiating power of labor and workforce cultur e. As markets expanded companies faced a need to restructure internally in an effort to maintain flexibility by utilizing the right type of talent to manage the external environment. The central concept of HRM relates to ‘flexibility, responsiveness, ownership of organizational problems†¦ empowerment†¦ commitment’ (Salaman, 2001, p. 157). Connecting SHRM with strategy and structure Strategic Human Resource Management (SHRM) may be considered to be an umbrella term for a set of practices and processes designed to ensure the appropriate use of talent to suit business needs. HR academicians and writers have put forth visions on the models of SHRM, business strategy and structure. Strategy is seen to mould structure and thereby the practices towards managing human resources. Sinclair-Hunt and Simms (2005, p. 4) refer to the external environment as a guiding factor behind strategy. The environment might require quick responses which requires the use of proactive th ought and vision; it may require short term responses that allow survival without greatly impacting the internal processes or it may call for the organization to ‘give in’. The demands of the environment determine the response which should ideally be aided by appropriate strategy and structure. Yet organizations struggle to develop an SHRM approach. Sims (2002, p. 34-36) points out that the linkage between SHRM and overall strategy must cross the first hurdle of drafting corporate strategy. Many times, organizations are hard put to define a larger strategy and prefer to focus on immediate events. The demand for continuing flexibility can make the creation of such a strategy a challenge in itself. Ferris, Rosen and Barnum (1995, p. 135) discuss how even the presence of a larger strategy does not lead to the linear creation of SHRM processes since by the time the implications are translated to HR processes, the environment has forced a change to strategy. Durai (2010, p.3 7-38) mentions the factors that interfere with the development of effective SHRM processes. Absence of support from top management in involving the HR practitioners making key decisions is a major factor. This often stems from the perception that HR is an administrative function Morton, Newall and Sparkes (2004, p. 52). The author believes it is incumbent for the HR department to highlight the business advantage it can provide while providing administrative efficiency. In the absence of a clear strategy is there no scope for a unified approach to the acquisition and management of talent? Strategic human resource management must be considered linked to the context of the business. An organization may not spell out strategy for a variety of reasons ranging from not seeing the need or not knowing how to not considering it relevant. The structure may continue to be hierarchical with speed provided by the adoption of technology. In such a case, business context guides the activities

Political science Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words - 10

Political science - Essay Example Another cause of political violence is the need to control rich resource areas and racial discrimination. During the Second World War Germany demonstrated this by invasion and subsequent conquer of Poland. The massacre of unknown number of Jews also referred to as the ‘holocaust† by Hitler was racial motivated political violence. Differing ideologies between sects can lead to political violence as it did during the great American civil war (Eickelmann, A., Nelson, E., & Lansford, 2005). While political violence is common in many countries, there are ways governments can limit it. In tribal, racially or religious motivated violence, promoting exchange between groups can be an effective means of limiting political violence among groups. The more two or three more groups interact the less likely the groups are going to engage in deadly violence. States can also concentrate on protecting individual freedom and rights to avoid the rise of rebels and insurgencies within the states. Perhaps the most important of all is for states to respect and ensure that justice and reconciliation prevail (Eickelmann et al., 2005). This is demonstrated by the impact the Truth and Reconciliation Commission Nelson Mandela formed at the end of apartheid in South Africa. For a long time people have been debating on the importance of the electoral systems designed to promote democracy and their invaluable roles in the states that apply them as their electoral systems. While most people agree and differ on their preferred electoral system, it is no secret of the importance of the existence of electoral system in democratic governments. Proportional representation and a single member district are two varying electoral systems, used in different states to select a body of members of an assembly or a legislature A single member district is an electoral area that elects one office holder through

Implementation plan Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Implementation plan - Essay Example The number one step for implementing the proposal is to obtain approval from the leaders in the health sector. This will be very important, as you can be sure of their full support. It is always vital that the leaders give you the go ahead in order to proceed with the implementation of the plan. The leaders are responsible for linking you up with the authorities in charge of regulating the health care provision in the country. It also helps in ensuring that you acquire the resources required for successful implementation of the plan. The best strategy to win the approval of the leaders is to enlighten them on the importance of the plan and the massive benefits it will bring on the target population. Equipping them with the full information about the whole plan is vital if they have to give their support for the plan implementation. A written request about the plan to the leaders is necessary as opposed to word of mouth. The leaders must in turn reply in writing. For the members of st aff, seeking for their involvement in implementing the plan will be an easy task once the leadership approve. Once the leadership of the organization gives the go ahead for the plant implementation, the staff is most likely to follow suit. Upon approval by both the leadership and fellow members of staff, the plan can then progress to the next stage. As described in the introductory part, Urinary Tract Infections (UTIs) have consistently grown in prevalence among patients who have indwelling catheters. CAUTI increases cost of medication in hospitals and accounts for a higher percentage for mortality and morbidity (AACN, 2015). CAUTI can be preventable through adoption of viable precautionary measures. One of the major contributing factors to CAUTI is the extended duration of catheterization as well as insertion of the catheters without adequate reason as to their requirements. CAUTI results from three major aspects. One is the