Weaknesses that Wealth Creates According to the Stories of Ernest Hemingway Essay Example for Free

Weaknesses that Wealth Creates According to the Stories of Ernest Hemingway Essay Financial abundance is perhaps the most sought-after purpose of modern men. We spend a significant part of our lifetime doing jobs and chasing profits even if it is against our own will. In the context of the money driven world, we even have a notion that money would endow us a certain sense of strength—a resounding name in literature contests that notion. Ernest Hemingway, a household name for those who appreciate literature, had written several stories that depict material wealth as a source of weakness for humanity. Moreover, in Hemingway’s multiple depictions of wealth, multiple types of weaknesses had also surfaced. To be more specific, the stories that would be used to support this argument will be coming from the collection of short stories titled â€Å"Snows of Kilimanjaro. † The three stories would be â€Å"The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber†, â€Å"Fifty Grand†, and a story of the same title as the collection, â€Å"Snows of Kilimanjaro. † The short story â€Å"The Short Life of Francis Macomber† is basically centrifugal to the relationship of Francis Macomber and his wife Margaret, who is also referred to as Margot. Francis Macomber was a wealthy man who is able to take his wife to a big-game hunt. Hemmingway had satisfyingly described the marriage of the characters â€Å"Margot was too beautiful for Macomber to divorce and Macomber had too much money for Margot. † From the previous sentence alone, the type of weakness that wealth had generated is already surfaced. Hemmingway is seemingly suggesting that wealth could leave materially rich people poor—poor in terms of love. The situation of the main characters shows us that money could even corrupt a supposedly sacred concept such as marriage. In addition to that, this kind of wealth-inflicted weakness is inline with the popular notion that money can never buy love. In â€Å"Fifty Grand,† the title immediately talks about money giving the readers a hint as to what the story will be about money. The plot was revolved around the life of an aging boxer who is preparing for his last fight. The aging boxer is aware that there is no chance for him to win against his opponent who is seemingly on his prime. He had acknowledged his own weakness and attempted to turn the tables around. Interestingly, he had placed a bet for his own opponent. He was almost sure that through losing he would end up winning â€Å"I’m through after this fight†¦I got to take a beating why shouldn’t I make money on it? † Hemmingway complicates the plot by placing two shrewd gamblers as antagonists. The antagonists had come up with a brilliant plan of making the opponent of the protagonist to hit him below the belt, making him lose his fifty grand. In this particular story, the type of weakness that wealth could give an individual is a welcomed weakness. All the characters were willing to give up their pride, conscience, and even self-worth just to gain material wealth. In some respect, wealth could strip us the things we could never buy. The characters in â€Å"Fifty Grand† were all seemingly devoid of any self-worth, especially the protagonist. In addition to that, the protagonist sees doubling his life-savings as the only way he could live a happy pot-boxing life. In one of Hemingway’s best works, â€Å"Snows of Kilimanjaro†, he had written about how wealth could ruin a writer. Through this theme, readers would easily jump to the assumption that this particular story is quasi-autobiographical. The plot talks about a writer browsing through his memories while on a safari in Africa. He was infected through a wound that he got from a thorn. The protagonist collects his memories as he was awaiting a slow and seemingly inevitable death. He had realized that his life was full of wonderful memories. However, the tragedy was he was unable to write about those wonderful memories. Instead, he had focused much on the misery that his wealthy wife had inflicted to him. The weakness that â€Å"Snows of Kilimanjaro† had talked about is that wealth could kill an individual’s passion. The protagonist’s passion for writing was gradually killed by his adaptation to the lifestyle of his wealthy wife. The protagonist had become dependent to the wealth of his wife. He refers to his wife’s wealth as â€Å"†¦your damned money is my armour. † Unfortunately, his passion for writing was sacrificed—he had failed to write about the important things, instead he had spent most of time mingling with wealthy yet uninteresting people. All in all, these three stories reveal to us Hemingway’s distaste for material wealth. It is common in the three stories that things of priceless value like self-worth and passion are being neglected when pursuing wealth. Perhaps what Hemmingway may have wanted for us to realize is that material wealth should not be pursued at all. Instead, we should give more value to the things that could never be bought. And he is seemingly suggesting that being materially wealthy just means that we had lived our lives poorly.

With reference to one specific area of the media discuss the ways it may be termed popular culture :: essays papers

With reference to one specific area of the media discuss the ways it may be termed popular culture For this essay I am going to be studying the popular animated TV series ‘The Simpsons’ and saying why I think that it is a classic example of popular culture texts. The programme is twenty-five minute animation about a family at the bottom of the social ladder, the Simpsons. Revolving around the central family the show takes a sideways look at the life of ‘ordinary’ American people. The family has five main members; Homer the father of the family is a blue-collar worker at the local nuclear power station. Marge the mother is a housewife who stays at home all day, then there are the children. Bart (a mischievous prankster) and Lisa (school swat) are pre-teens and lastly there is baby Maggy who doesn’t do that much at all. Every week the family get into various and amusing scrapes and generally carry out the activities that a working class family are ‘supposed’ to do. There are many factors that could categorise ‘The Simpsonsâ €™ as being popular culture, one of them being its intertexuality. The show makes great use of both parody and pastiche as a reference to other popular culture texts such as Star Wars, Psycho and the James Bond films. The programme also features guest appearances by stars of popular culture, such as actors, sports personalities and musicians. Very few people in these roles could be classed as examples of high culture. The other major factor in ‘The Simpsons’ being termed popular culture is the fact that the show is in animated form. No form of animation has ever been seen as a worthy piece of culture by academics and those who decide what is significant and what is not. To establish just why ‘The Simpsons’ can be termed as popular culture we have to define just what it is that we mean by the phrase ‘popular culture’. To put it in its most simple form popular culture can be anything that isn’t categorised as high culture. Academics and members of certain social groups look down on anything termed popular culture as dumbed down entertainment for the masses and something that isn’t worthy of reading. These people attack popular culture as being vulgar and brash, they say its texts are insignificant culturally and that they are only superficial forms of entertainment.

How will emiratization succeed? Essay

The UAE government is struggling to encourage more Emiratis to work in the private sector. But they will first have to change the educational and labor conditions in the country, say analysts. Shifa Salem, an Emirati pursuing her Masters in Educational Leadership at Zayed University, is extremely ambitious, has high aspirations, and wants to develop her professional career. But when asked if she would work in the public sector or the private sector, her response is immediate. â€Å"The public sector,† she says, arguing that working for the government offers better pay and job security. But what if a private sector role is more tailored to Salem’s qualifications, and will give her a chance to achieve her dreams better? â€Å" If I am stable in my financial status, and I find something that will really develop my career path in the private sector, then I might go for it,† she says. Salem’s opinion, mirrored by many other young Emiratis like her, is one of the reasons that the government’s emiratization program has still not significantly boosted the number of UAE nationals entering the private sector. According to recent figures, 80 percent of the UAE nationals work in public sector. The reasons for this are obvious: the salaries are better (the UAE cabinet recently granted a 70 percent pay rise for nationals working in the federal government), the hours are usually shorter, and the jobs are secure. An estimated 12 percent of the Emiratis are unemployed, according to the International Council on Security and Development. A primary reason for this is that UAE nationals tend to pursue employment in the public sector, rather than the more diverse private sector. â€Å"They know that they will have a chance in the public sector,† says Salem. â€Å"I think they have hope, and they are given hope. I think that as an Emirati, the message that I get is that there is a space for me in the governmental sector.† Salem points out that Emiratis who are choosy about finding a particular kind of job could face a long search – but those who broaden their criteria have many jobs to choose from.

The Civil War Of The United States Essay - 1054 Words

The American civil war, also known as â€Å"The War Between the States†, is considered to be one of the bloodiest wars in America, lasting from 1861-1865. The civil war was a war that was fought between the northern states, also know as the â€Å"Union states† and the southern states, also known as the confederacy states. The northern states were more industrialized and the southern states had more of a agrarian economy, this is what lead to the northern and southern states to have different social, cultural, and political beliefs. All of these led to disagreements on slave and non-slave states, states rights versus federal rights, taxes, and tariffs. One of the main issues that caused the civil war, was a debate over the future of slavery. The northern states, over time had gradually abolished slavery. With a steady flow of immigrants, from Ireland and Germany during the 1840s and the 1850s, led it to where the northern states had many laborers that they could hire. Ma ny of immigrants worked for low wages, diminishing the need for slavery in the north. The south was more of a agrarian economy which utilized slaves, the south used slaves, to help work on the large plantations and the many other duties on farms. The debate over slavery led to a secession, the secession caused a war between the northern and southern states because the north wanted to preserve the Union, and the south wanted to establish its own southern independence as a new confederation of states, with its ownShow MoreRelatedThe Civil War : The United States1622 Words   |  7 PagesThe Civil War divided the United States with its’ origin in the struggle to preserve the Union from the Confederacy’s succession. A war to maintain the United States quickly progressed to battles fought because of the controversial beliefs on slavery in the North and South. 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