Thursday, January 30, 2020

Grendel and Cain Essay Example for Free

Grendel and Cain Essay In the story of Beowulf you get a glimpse of many different themes throughout this epic. Those themes range from good and evil to those of death and glory. The story itself depicts a period in history when life was lead blind through the teachings of the book of the lord and his spoken words. At this same period in history traditional pagan religious practices and beliefs have slowly given way to the ideals and philosophy of Christianity. Many of the themes held within the pages of Beowulf stem from the proverbs and fables recited and practiced in the Old Testament, while concurrently adding pagan beliefs of monsters, demons, and multiple gods. The most striking of these biblical comparisons is viewed between Grendel (the protagonist, evil rival of Beowulf) and Cain (the evil brother of Able). In the Old Testament, Cain kills his brother Abel and is consequently punished and banished from the Garden of Eden by God. His actions proved to have a dramatic effect on the life of Grendel and the choices he makes throughout his life until his epic struggle for victory over the Geats and Beowulf himself. Symbolically and genetically, Grendel assumes the role of his ancestor Cain in this epic story as an outsider, disowned from the rest of society, finding a home only among the unknown (evil) and those who have sinned. Feeding on the flesh and blood of gods creations, Grendel starts a vigorous battle to destroy all that is good and the things he can not have. To the Anglo-Saxons and the creators of Beowulf, one of the worst crimes a person could have committed in life was that of murdering ones kin (or the killing of ones brother). During the era of this writing the figure of Cain is used metaphorically to represent the unknown (chaos, evil) and the presence of evil. Cain defies gods will and so he secludes himself to the evils of the surrounding world only to foster a hatred of god and a family cursed for eternity. The period in which Grendel and Cain resided in was deeply structured around the book of the lord (bible) and as a result created a society structured around the teachings and morals of its stories. The idea of friendship and kin being desecrated through the act of murder is one of the worst things a person can do and the consequences of that are severe. Grendel is a victim of his own world and the actions of his ancestors. The society for which Grendel wants to conquer and deny existence  proves to be the creator and destroyer of his tragic being. In the classic story of Cain and Able, Cain enviously slays his brother Able in a vicious outcry of jealousy and anger. For his sin, he was banished from mankind for eternity and left only to live life displaced from the routines of normal beings and forced to live among the dark and the sinful. Cain was the first of a cursed family to be exiled for the sins he committed. His punishment proved to have a drastic effect on him and the future of his blood line. His punishment spawned his dedication to holding a grudge against god himself and the unreachable light he has been denied of. After being the first born of Adam and eve, Cain went on to become a farmer of the ground, while his brother Abel followed the pursuits of a keeper of the sheep. Cain became a self-willing, vindictive man, defiant in his attitude towards God and his relation to his kin. His eternal sin was committed on the seventh day or Sunday of the week while the two brothers were presenting offerings to the lord. Abels offering was of the firstlings of his flock and of the fat (Gen. 4:4), while Cains was of the fruit of the ground (Gen. 4:3). For Abels sacrifice, he gave the best he had and so his offering was respected by his elders while Cains offering was scorned and dismissed. It was for this reason Cain brood anger towards his kin; the worst of which was focused on his younger brother Able. After his disgrace towards the lord and his family, Cains apathy towards his brother produced feelings of murderous intention and hatred. Sooner or later this desperate outrage led him to murder Able in raw uneventful hatred. For his sin he was expelled from Eden. From that day on he led the life of an exile, doomed to be a fugitive and wanderer in the earth (Gen. 4:12) and denied the rights of a normal man, only to bare the mark of a sinner and warning to others. With this Cain walked into the land of Nod (unknown, evil, dark), only to leave a legacy felt by the generations of his offspring. When Cain killed Able, he ignited the eternal flame of a cursed family. From Cains blood came the curse of his exile and sprang ogres and elves and evil phantoms and the giants too (Beowulf. Pg. 35), darkness entailed is legacy and evil embodied his future. Grendel is a descendant of Cain, so he shares Cains exile from all that is good and light. Cain may have been the  first displaced person after Adam and Eve, but he was not the last. Grendel shares his ancestors punishment, he is exiled not only from whatever land or wealth he would have had if he were human, but he is also abandoned by God and all who followed and indulge in his faith and grandeur. It is this abandonment that causes Grendel to destroy and murder. The treasure seat, he was kept from approaching; he was the Lords outcast (Beowulf pg.36), since he cannot approach the throne of the Lord like the rest of mankind, he chooses to attempt to destroy it. He has no love for God and his children if he can not be with them hand in hand. However, unlike Cain and his parents, Grendel is doomed from his creation by being conceived into a blood line stricken by an eternity of banishment from Gods light because of Cains sin against his brother. It is for this reason why Grendel kills. He can never be in the light because he is constantly fighting a lonely war against God and all of his creations. Because of his expulsion from that which is good, he is moreover discarded by everything that follows in the wake of gods will (people, society, life, etc.). The text refers to him as spurned and joyless (Beowulf pg. 47); it is no wonder why Grendel was considered so monstrous. He did not accept his banishment without fighting back. Like most people who are enraged and apathetic and then placed between a rock and a hard place he fought back insensible to pain and human sorrow (Beowulf pg. 35) for those he murdered. The reason behind his actions is not because he is an unruly monster, but instead, he is overwhelmed by jealousy because he is not able to share in the spoils god has made accessible to humanity. With this in mind, if Grendel can not step into the light and become part of the life as witnessed from the outside. Then he will destroy it and leave it for no one. Just as Cain did before him, Grendel will never be content with himself as long as he must bare witness to the celebrating of life and love enjoyed by all whom lavish in the glow of Gods hands. Whether it is Grendel or his ancestor Cain, they both suffer from the agony of trying to survive in a world as cursed beings, forced to loath around in the outskirts of the cold night and the loneliness of a sun scorched day. After destroying the perfect image of a content person in the name of jealousy and anger, Cain; forbidden to enter the known world forever,  created a sphere of influence which played into the future of his children and his grandchildrens children and so on. Even though the mark of Cain is not evident on Grendels physical characteristics, the presence of his cursed nature is. He like Cain suffers from an abandonment of faith and humanity. As outcasts they both find resentment and hatred towards the things they want most, whether its acknowledgement by god and all that is good in the world or the ability to wander freely without fear of ridicule and hostility. To humanity they pose a threat worse then the sum of most peoples fears. They represent all that is bad in the world and as a result find themselves rejected by everything good the world has to offer. It is circumstances like these that have proven to bring out the worst in a person, such as they did in Cain and his later ancestor Grendel. What would you expect from those forced to live among the displaced in a world resentful of there existence. Instead of being accepted for there misfortunes and forgiven for there sins, they where rejected for what they where and what they had become, resulting in a creature motivated by pain and apathy inflicted by the keeper of there being and the audience of there lives.

Wednesday, January 22, 2020

Small changes for the urban teacher :: Education Teaching Learning Papers

Small changes for the urban teacher I think there are a lot of minds going to waste in our urban environments, minds that could be reinventing the world, but are, for some reason, only keeping themselves down and out of a culture that needs them. Why are there so few college bound kids graduating from our urban schools, and why are the ones who do go to college so ill-prepared when its obvious how capable they are? I claim that it is possible to change how we teach in a manner that doesn’t take more time, but yields more opportunities for the multicultural classroom to learn. Treisman’s article was not only a big resource, but a huge inspiration for my paper and personal goals. Being from a rural community, I feel very under-educated when it comes to the urban community. He gave me a lot of information, some of which I would have assumed, but was reassured to see it in writing, and some of which I would not have thought up with on my own. Another resource I used was ‘Problems and Solutions in Urban Schools’ edited by Gwendolyn Duhon. It was a very helpful tool, and written by many different authors, which was great for getting a few different voices behind my arguments. A final resource for me was ‘Becoming a Successful Urban Teacher’ by Dave Brown. This book probably helped me more personally than specifically for this paper. I loved that it went over so many of the questions I have had and left plenty of room for personal reflection. I would like to begin by saying that every teacher has his or her own personality, and the incorporation of that could alter some of the specifics of each of my principles, but I do believe the general make-up of the principles to be universal. I think that the best way my principles could be summed up would be in three stages: Pre-classroom, Firstweek, and Yearlong, each having equal importance. Pre-classroom would be the most time consuming of the stages, because it involves reevaluating all of your mathematical content knowledge. I think drastic changes would occur if the teacher could spend even one week, part-time, prior to the class, reading and questioning the text book. You could familiarize yourself with every hang-up you have, working them out as you go. You could take notes of possible hang-ups the students will have and the basics they will need to overcome these. Small changes for the urban teacher :: Education Teaching Learning Papers Small changes for the urban teacher I think there are a lot of minds going to waste in our urban environments, minds that could be reinventing the world, but are, for some reason, only keeping themselves down and out of a culture that needs them. Why are there so few college bound kids graduating from our urban schools, and why are the ones who do go to college so ill-prepared when its obvious how capable they are? I claim that it is possible to change how we teach in a manner that doesn’t take more time, but yields more opportunities for the multicultural classroom to learn. Treisman’s article was not only a big resource, but a huge inspiration for my paper and personal goals. Being from a rural community, I feel very under-educated when it comes to the urban community. He gave me a lot of information, some of which I would have assumed, but was reassured to see it in writing, and some of which I would not have thought up with on my own. Another resource I used was ‘Problems and Solutions in Urban Schools’ edited by Gwendolyn Duhon. It was a very helpful tool, and written by many different authors, which was great for getting a few different voices behind my arguments. A final resource for me was ‘Becoming a Successful Urban Teacher’ by Dave Brown. This book probably helped me more personally than specifically for this paper. I loved that it went over so many of the questions I have had and left plenty of room for personal reflection. I would like to begin by saying that every teacher has his or her own personality, and the incorporation of that could alter some of the specifics of each of my principles, but I do believe the general make-up of the principles to be universal. I think that the best way my principles could be summed up would be in three stages: Pre-classroom, Firstweek, and Yearlong, each having equal importance. Pre-classroom would be the most time consuming of the stages, because it involves reevaluating all of your mathematical content knowledge. I think drastic changes would occur if the teacher could spend even one week, part-time, prior to the class, reading and questioning the text book. You could familiarize yourself with every hang-up you have, working them out as you go. You could take notes of possible hang-ups the students will have and the basics they will need to overcome these.

Tuesday, January 14, 2020

The Role Of Protein Misfolding And Aggregation In BSE

When a protein misfolds it changes its behavior and function. If it becomes hydrophobic after once being polar. The properties and functionality of the protein are no longer useful to the organism and disaster results. PrPSc is hydrophobic, it avoids water inside of the cell†¦it attracts and attaches other proteins to misfolds and become hydrophobic †¦Misfolding spreads because the PrPSc act as chaperone proteins to convert PrPc TO PrPSc and cannot be converted back to PrPc.The normal homeostasis would be reached and health regained by PROTAEOSOMES (protein destroyers) eating the corrupt PrPSc proteins BUT.. These are not recognized by the proteasomes and so are not destroyed. They keep multiplying and they clump together and aggregate inside the cell and the cell stops doing its normal work and eventually it dies. Prion – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. (n. d. ). Retrieved November 23, 2013, from http://en. wikipedia. org/wiki/PrPSc How enzymes work Enzymes are co mplex protiens whose main function is to reduce or speed up the energy required for a reaction to occur.This happens thru the enzymes ability to break or form a bond within a substance that results in 1 or 2 new substances without changing the protein configuration of the enzyme itself – this keeps the enzyme available to continue its work. The area on the enzyme where the work takes place is called the active site. The specific molecule that becomes transformed is called a substrate.It seems to me that enzymes with the suffixes dehydrogenase break up substances and sythetase combine substances to make new products. Anaerobic Glycolysis occurs when there is continuing muscle activity. This produces some ATP for continued muscle work but not a whole lot. Lactic acid builds and eventually the muscles get fatigued and activity must stop. The blood then diffuses this lactate to the liver where it is converted back to glucose and enters into the citric acid cycle and more ATP is c reated.If a certain enzyme were to be lacking in the citric acid cycle if would grind it to a halt, ATP enery would not be produced and cell death would occur is one of the assisting molecules that help the electrons cross the intercellular membrane of the mitochondria. The electrons are then passed from enzyme to enzyme in the inner membrane of the mitochondrion, in an energy gradient and they lose some of their energy at each step. This transfer which causes in a high concentration of H+ protons is what results in the phosphorylation of ADP to ATP (and energy).The final transfer involves the combining of electrons and H2 atoms with oxygen. This forms water. The molecules that take part in the transport of these electrons are referred to as the electron transport chain. Oxaloacetate is the first substrate to bind to the enzyme. This induces the enzyme to change its conformation, and creates a binding site for the acetyl-CoA. Only when this citroyl-CoA has formed will another confor mational change cause thioester hydrolysis and release coenzyme A. This ensures that the energy released from the thioester bond cleavage will drive the condensation. Oxaloacetate will be regenerated after the completion

Monday, January 6, 2020

Fight Club And The Man - 1874 Words

Two years into his college career at Harvard, Bill Gates decided to drop out and follow his own path. At the age of thirty one, Bill Gates became the youngest billionaire ever. While education is an important part of our society, it can at times be limiting. There is nothing wrong with the traditional route of four years in school and a subsequent nine-to-five job, but this path leaves no room for the extraordinary. Happy or not, those who conform to this standard sign away their freedom to fulfill someone else’s wishes. Unfortunately, most people pay this price without fully realizing the cost of American conformity. In their novels, Chuck Palahniuk and Sloan Wilson reveal the negative effects of the conformity supported by†¦show more content†¦Moreover, in a less concrete fashion Palahniuk suggest and inner power that is masked by mainstream culture. The best example of this inner power is seen at the beginning of project mayhem: â€Å"â€Å"It’s in the newspaper today how somebody broke into offices between the tenth and fifteenth floors of the Hein Tower, and climbed out the office windows, and painted the south side of the building with a grinning five-story mask, and set fires so the window at the center of each huge eye blazed huge and alive and inescapable over the city at dawn†(Palahniuk 118). Using fire as a symbol for power, and the eyes as a window into that power, the narrator once again suggests that individual power or value is greater than societal power derived from status. Furthermore, the office building is a literal mask that shields the flames. With this symbol, Palahniuk suggests that the traditional office serves only to restrict and inhibit one’s inner power. Similarly, Palahniuk contends that the societal expectations of America create an impersonal and unsubstantial experience. Early on, the narrator gives a telling description of his life as an insomniac in this stereotypical world: â€Å"This is how it is with insomnia. Everything is so far away, a copy of a copy of a copy. The insomnia distance of everything, you can’t touch anything and nothing can touch you†(Palahniuk 21). His insomnia, which is understood to be a side effect ofShow MoreRelatedThe Polarity of a Man (Fight Club)1364 Words   |  6 PagesThe Polarity of a Man The conflict between conformity and rebellion has always been a struggle in our society. Fight Club is a movie that depicts just that. The movie portrays the polarity between traditionalism and an anti-social revolt. It is the story of man who is subconsciously fed up with the materialism and monotony of everyday life and thereafter creates a new persona inside his mind to contrast and counteract his repetitive lifestyle. The main character is actually unnamed, but sometimesRead MoreEssay Fight Club1439 Words   |  6 PagesChuck Palahniuk’s Fight Club is a seductive novel which chronicles an unnamed narrator’s ability to cope with an emasculated, self-centered, materialistic society by creating an alter ego. Throughout the text, the theme of the emasculated modern man is presented both in the life of the narrator, and in the lives of the male characters he surrounds himself with. Through notions of absent fathers, consumerism and an innocuous/aimless existence, Palahniuk presents how men in modern society have lostRead MoreFight Club Essay1016 Words   |  5 PagesFight Club David Flinchers movie, Fight Club, shows how consumerism has caused the emasculation of the modern male and reveals a tale of liberation from a corporate controlled society. Societys most common model of typical man is filthy, violent, unintelligent, immature, sexist, sex hungry, and fundamentally a caveman. In essence Tyler Durden, is the symbolic model for a man. He is strong enough to withstand from societys influences and his beliefs to remain in tact. Jack, the narratorRead MoreThe Movie : A Man With A Gun1723 Words   |  7 PagesThe film opens to a man with a gun in his mouth. We learn that he is the narrator, who remains nameless throughout the film but is referred to as Jack. Jack is the co-creator of Fight Club. He works in the automobile industry, which he greatly dislikes. As a way to deal with the pain and insomnia, he is suffering from he joins a group meeting for those with terminal illness even though he was not ill. Jack goes to these meetings to see those less fortunate than him because it makes him feel as thoughRead MoreFight Club Analysis1125 Words   |  5 PagesMasculinity and Anti-capitalism in FIght Club I am planning to write about the 1999 film Fight Club, directed by David Fincher. This movie is about a nameless insomniac office worker (the narrator) who has become, as he views, a slave to consumer culture. He begins attending support groups for diseases he doesn’t have to subdue his emotional state, and he begins to sleep again. He meets Marla Singer, another fake attendee of support groups, she is an incredibly mysterious woman who is obviouslyRead More Analysis of â€Å"Fight Club† Essay1239 Words   |  5 PagesAnalysis of â€Å"Fight Club† For years David Fincher has directed some of the most stylish and creative thrillers in American movies. His works include: Aliens 3, Seven, The Game and Fight Club. Each of these films has been not only pleasing and fun to watch but each has commented on society, making the viewers think outside the normal and analyze their world. Fight Club is no exception, it is a multi-layered film with many subplots and themes, but primarily it is a surrealistic description of theRead MoreBrief Summary of Fightclub by Chuck Palahniuk Essay1103 Words   |  5 Pages Synopsis nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;Night has fallen. Bombs are placed in the worlds largest building. A man rants about how the first step to take towards eternal life is death; while he shoves the barrel of a gun into the mouth of his best friend. quot; We wont really die.quot; Tyler says. quot;This isnt really death, well be legends.quot;. But soon were the two men are standing will be nothing more than a point in the sky. A time laps camera will pick up all the action inRead MoreFight Club, Hypermasculinity and Misogyny Essay1032 Words   |  5 Pagesnot your bowel cancer. You are not your Grande latte. You are not the car you drive. You are not your fucking khakis--Tyler Durden, Fight Club In 1996, Chuck Palahniuk published his first novel, Fight Club. On the surface it can is seen as a backlash to the feminization of men, and a celebration of violence for violence sake. But what is it really about? Fight Club is a protest against not the feminization of the western male, but against men themselves. (Audio track three on the special editionRead More Comparing the Movies, Fight Club and Gladiator Essay748 Words   |  3 Pagesthe Movies, Fight Club and Gladiator People today enjoy the same things that people enjoyed during the Roman Empire. In the movie, Gladiator, Maximus fights in the Coliseum in front of all the people of Rome. In the movie Fight Club they have fights between different people in front of all the people of the club. This shows that people who lived 1000s of years before us where entertained by violence just like most of us are today. The theme that ties both Fight Club and GladiatorRead MoreEmasculated Reality1001 Words   |  5 PagesEmasculated Reality The novel Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk is filled with a large number of motifs from downward movement and destruction to overall decay. The unnamed narrator uses motifs to show images and pictures of greater themes throughout the novel. The narrator and other main character Tyler Durden share the feeling that civilization has emasculated men and, â€Å"What you see at fight club is a generation of men raised by women† (Palahniuk 50). The author shows the reader many themes by describing