The Kite Runner Essay Example for Free

The Kite Runner Essay During the late 70s early 80s there was a strong disagreement between races in Afghanistan. In particular the Pashtun and the Hazarah. Two forms of the same religion but with only 1 difference. The Pashtun were higher up in the community than the Hazarah. The Pashtun were considered clean and fit to rule because they were primarily of pure descent unlike the Hazarah (Pashtun encyclopedia Britannica page 2). The Hazarah were looked down upon because they are usually of mixed families and were considered below the Pashtun (joshuaproject. net page 1-3). ?As the higher ups the Pashtun were wealthier and had more friends in the higher up chain of command in the Afghani government. They had servants who were normally Hazarah. The Hazarah were lower in class and used their labor to make a living by becoming servants to the Pashtun. Like Hassan was to Amir and Baba. ?Amir the main character and novel narrator is of the Pashtun religion and because of this he is accustomed to having the things he wants handed to him on a silver platter. The only things Amir feels deprived of is a deep connection both emotionally and figuratively with his father Baba. He blames it on himself because he is so different than Baba in so many ways. He also feels responsible for the death of his mother who died during Amir’s birth (muse. jhu. edu page 1-5) ? Hassan who is Amir’s best friend is of the Hazarah religion and is a lower class than Amir and the Pashtun. Amir overlooks this fact and is a loyal friend to Hassan until Hassan gets raped and Amir didn’t do anything to stop it or help him. After Hassan gets raped something changed in Amir. He began to feel guilty and his guilt began eating away at him. He became a total jerk to Hassan and Hassan had no idea why (Hazara encyclopedia Britannica page 1-3). ?Some of Amir’s guilt is directed towards Hassan who receives Baba’s affection instead of Amir. Amir feels that Hassan (a Hazarah and one of his family’s servants) is beneath him and shouldn’t be getting Baba’s affection as much as he is. ?Baba sees Amir as a coward when he is a boy. Amir lets Hassan fight all his battles for him which is why in my opinion Hassan gets more of the affection from Baba. Baba wishes that Amir would learn to fight his own battles from Hassan and ultimately grow a backbone and become more of a man that Baba wants him to become. Although its hard to see in some parts of the novel, religion is always present. Whether it be the beginning of the novel where Amir and Hassan are flying kites or it be at the middle where Amir and Baba are traveling to America. Once in America Baba and Amir began to bond more and ultimately become as close as they wanted to be for a very long time. Baba falls ill after Amir graduates from college. Baba’s last great act before his death is he (on Amir’s behalf) asks for an Afghani general’s daughter’s hand in marriage. Amir then marries her right before Baba’s death. After Baba’s death Amir focuses on his writing the stories he came up with. Once his first novel gets published he gets a call from Baba’s friend back in Afghanistan and he asks Amir to come back to the land of his childhood and take care of him. Amir agrees and travels back to Afghanistan (the kite runner page 194). Once back he meets Baba’s friend and he learns that Hassan wrote him a letter shortly before his murder at the hands of the Taliban. Amir learns that Hassan was actually his brother and that Hassan had a son that got sent away to an orphanage after his murder and it became Amir’s duty to go and find Hassan’s son. ?As Amir takes on the challenge of tracking down Hassan’s son he travels all over Afghanistan until he finally finds where the boy is. Amir talks to the man who took Hassan’s son and saw that he was using the boy for his own entertainment by attaching bells to his hands and feet and made him dance. (the kite runner page 278) The reason why the man is making Hassan’s son dance it to assert his authority and put the Hazarah boy in his place below the man who now is his guardian before Amir gets ahold of him (Hazarah encyclopedia Britannica page 1).

Social networking phenomenon in e-business

Social networking phenomenon in e-business Abstract Nowadays the social networking with its gradual growth has affected the image that we have about the web dramatically. In the following paper some issues about social networking are discussed. In particular, a critical exploration of the social networking phenomenon is presented and an evaluation of the impact on e-commerce and e-business is discussed. Furthermore some possible applications that concern opportunities, benefits and risks are given. A synthesis of the above provides a summary of conclusions that can be drawn and recommendations that can be made as well. Introduction Everyday practice shows that Social Networks popularity is increased day by day. If facebook were country it would be the worlds 4th largest after China, India and USA having over 250.000 users. Many companies have realized this phenomenon and have already started to reform their marketing policy in order to benefit from the Social Networking growth. Many professionals from music artists to business enterprises advertise themselves in social networking web sites via uploading some of their new songs, images or videos. It is obvious that Social networking has a direct impact in e-business. In order to provide an evaluation of the social networking impact on e-business, we are starting our attempt from word-of-mouth marketplaces or overstock auctions or reputation systems. Reputation Systems like Amazon or e-bay is an online marketplace that augments traditional auctions with a social networking component (Christo Wilson 2008). Furthermore some social networks applications have several critical factors that we should consider (benefits, risks, opportunities). Our research demonstrates that the gradual growth of social networking has several benefits and several risks. In particular recent surveys have shown high levels of fraud in online markets (Bhattacharjee, Goe 2005). Some of the most important malicious aspect of social networking is ballot stuffing, bad mouthing and data theft which will be described in detail in the third sector of this paper. On the other side as it was previously mentioned social networking has several benefits. Customers have lost trust in traditional sales, marketing and service or Customer Relationship Management and this plays a pivotal role in increasing of positive impact of social networking in e-business. Many people have changed their buying culture and have orientated in online reputation systems such as e-bay and Amazon that have direct relation with social networking aspects. In a few words this paper provides an overview of the social networking phenomenon evaluates its direct impact in e-business and e-commerce and presents some opportunities benefits and risks that are included. Social networking as phenomenon Social Networking is a phenomenon that has affected the whole Web and many aspects of our lives dramatically. Social networking web sites such as Facebook, MySpace, Hi5, Friendster etc. provide the ability to their member/users to create their personal profiles where they can share some information, brief CVs or personal photos. Thus they have the ability to search for their old acquaintances or familiars. Furthermore they can upload or trade with other users photos, comments or videos. In fig.1 a profile sample is provided. Human beings used to create groups that consisted of people with whom they shared common interests. It was therefore expected that these networks will quickly transported to the online world. Social networks are created for many reasons and for different publics. Despite their differences the social networks are concerned with the following concepts: Profiles Each member creates and maintains an online profile that contains information regarding individual interests, skills or any part of his personal status. For example some people provide their CV in order to find a (new/better) job Connections -Social networks enable their members to keep connections with each other chat trade images, comments and in general keep in touch via the Web (Boyd, Ellison 2007). Even though the gradual growth of social networking is something recent it is not something new as a concept. Forums, chat rooms, blogs and creations of personal web sites (even though are not something new) are also functions regarding by social networking aspects. Several sites that contained the social networking element appeared in the start of new millennium. The gradual social networking expansion is a part of a wider online phenomenon named Web 2.0. Web 2.0 is a dynamic wide web platform in which several users are enabled to interact with each other without having specialized knowledge in computer systems or network issues. Evaluation of Social Networking impact on e-commerce and e-business The social networking phenomenon has undoubtedly a direct impact on e-business. Several benefits and risks could affect (negatively or positively) e-business. Some benefits could derive from contacts between professionals, ranging from finding the right expertise to identifying cross-organization sales opportunities. Whats more many professionals are eager to create an internal reputation, and to explore career prospects. Personal contacts between the workers could help job satisfaction and the maintenance and development of the local community could help in rapidly professionals resolution. Sharing of information and communication, a priority and challenge for many companies, could improve (Blackwell 2009). One more Social Networking aspect that should be considered in order to provide a deeper evaluation of the Social Networking impact in e-business is the one introduced Overstock in Auctions. Overstock Auctions is an e-commerce website that combines traditional auctions with a social networking component. However, samplings of user feedback shows that transactions between partners connected on the social network result in significantly higher user satisfaction. Official research also shows that Overstocks business ratings have big degree of accuracy, in that they have a strong correlation with user satisfaction after their transaction. According with official research it has investigated that a big percentage users of Overstock Auctions have friends common to both their business as well as personal networks. That means that we have the trust element that plays a pivotal role in marketing. Unfortunately, traditional marketing users are often unable to locate their desired merchandise in their social network. Edelman Trust Barometer mentioned that the most reliable information source about an enterprise is a person like me'. The survey relates that in the U.S., trust in a p erson like me increased from 20% in 2003 to 68% today. Thats why they prefer to buy any suggested product from a friend over a perfect stranger. Academic researchers have observed that 6% of users have 100% of their personal contacts involved in the business networks, which demonstrate that users have either only dealing with their social acquaintances, business partners or guests to participate in the personal network their friends (Wilson, Boe 2008). The next topic that we will discuss concern Word-of-mouth marketing. The companies that have only traditional marketing methods and not Social Network element are in crisis with low productivity and benefits as a result of TV and Radio advertisement saturation. On the other side companies like Amazon, Google and Hotmail succeed with virtually no marketing based solely on word of mouth. Word-of- mouth is the best predictor of business growth because it contains the trust element that plays pivotal role in e-business (Pedro Domingos 2005). Possible applications, opportunities, benefits and risks The following section provides some possible applications focusing on opportunities benefits and risks. Opportunities There are several opportunities of using social network applications such as sharing information and media with peers, finding an audience for creative works, helping young people keep in contact with peers or allowing young people to develop new contacts and friendships with each other. In businesses the importance of internal social software use is increased daily. Given that the next generation of employees will use the social software as the main medium of communication, the companies must bridge generation gaps and boundaries via the supporting of this communication method with its use in workplaces. Despite the difficulties the benefits are still huge. At first a high user percentage is directors or company representatives indicating that Social Networking Software has a wide range of potential customers or active users. Secondly by bringing this social software tool in the company, the relevant elements regarding the contacts, interests and activities of the workers are available and archive-able from the company by providing new resources and new abilities for human resources comprehension. In case these tools are not provided by the company the employees have the right to seek social software tools such as facebook etc. Benefits There are undoubtedly several possible business benefits of the gradual growth of social networking applications. At first within social network sites the employees are able to keep in touch with their colleagues. Unfortunately the percentage of distant colleagues and in general distant working relationships is increasing day by day. So it is obvious that we draw attention to the necessity of awareness increasing and contact between distant partners via the social network tools. Within several companies keeping touch and maintaining relationship in an organization is a critical factor for an successful career. Thus the social network tools help the companies to maintain or improve their productivity independently from their employees distance. Another beneficial social network application is the user support regarding the exploring and learning about the new employees and the team members. This endeavor makes the searching of colleagues with special skills or discovering of past experiences in activities that could be useful for new projects easier. Organization-based social networks could also help the professionals to approach work (or non work) issues of common interest something that improves the communication between people who interact for the first time (Joan Morris DiMicco 2007). Risks Social networking has several risks except from benefits such as bullying, abuse and exploitation of young people, too much time (distraction) spend on the computer / internet addiction, ballot stuffing or bad mouthing Ballot Stuffing A seller manages to make fake transactions via the positive ratings after collusion with other buyers. So Ballot Stuffing has as a result the inflating a sellers reputation.( Bhattacharjee, Goel, 2005) Bad Mouthing On the other hand a group of buyers may be conspiring (it could be after a collusion with a rival vendor) to deliberately give negative feedback to a particular vendor and hence less reputation. This is known as bad mouthing. ( Bhattacharjee, Goel, 2005) Malicious goals Some people tend to create fake profiles to bully, lie cheat and steal. Even though there are several benefits in communication via social network applications such as keeping touch and relationship management there is also always the potential to receive negative, insulting or unsuitable comments. In several interviews several social networking users mentioned that the rude culture of some users was a common disadvantage. There was only a small percentage that disagreed with the term disadvantage. Unlike in the real world according to the new users opinion the social network sites have not social limitations or boundaries. This means that users could behave in whatever way they want without limitations via posting rude or abusive messages. However in worst cases the rude culture of some users transact into malicious culture indicating that many users use fake profiles in order to insidiously steal data or money. I.e. A user might give his credit card password in order to buy something from an advantageous market. Thus a malicious user having the credit card password is enabled to steal money. (Davies, Cranston 2008). Distraction In an organization a social networking software installation should undoubtedly offer several benefits and tremendous power to factors regarding the productivity and profits. However Surveys have found that social networking may be a distraction to workers. In particular it was found that 8% of the work time (30 minutes in 8-hour work-time) concern with social non-working activities. I.e. even though sending of personal photos among employees could provide some indirect benefit to a company, it could also be a distracter for the employees with bad impacts to productivity and profits. Synthesis As it was mentioned Social Networking as concept is not something new. It is exist from the internet creation since 20 years. In fact Social networking is part of a wider Internet phenomenon named Web 2.0 indicating the recent Social Network event is its gradual growth due to Web 2.0 creation. Although companies are aware of the marketing and PR opportunities, using social networking software in a given company or organization is still in relatively early stage .Our main concern in this research paper is the emphasis on the need for transaction costs for a word-of-mouth system to work well and in order to avoid phenomenon such as ballot stuffing or bad mouthing . Not only is the transaction costs important for an word of mouth system to function well, the reputation of earned premiums to the seller should be associated with the transaction costs It should also be reported that not only enterprises but all of us have to protect ourselves from malicious users via permanent information. Conclusion Our study provided an overview regarding the Social Networking Phenomenon. It has also provided an evaluation of the impact of social Networking on e-business. In the stage of our evaluation we discuss about overstock Auctions. Overstock Auctions is a kind of an e-commerce website that makes a strong combination between traditional auctions and the social networking component. We have also discussed about reputation systems. The research has shown that Social Networking has both benefits and risks. Some of the risks that could be lurking are the excessive use of social network applications in workplaces, i.e the use of facebook in workplace from an employee for non business reasons. Other risks that are involved are ballot staffing and bad mouthing in reputation systems. Ballot stuffing is the creation of fake fame after collusion between the reputation System company and fake buyers. Unlike bad mouthing is the defamation of the reputation system company via fake unhappy customers .S ome benefits that could be shown are the improvement of customer support in a company. A complicated problem for a company could be solved by finding an expert or locate implicit knowledge via a social network application. In particular a questioner could contact via a Social Network Site with an expert who has solved a similar problem in the past and find a solution to their problem. This paper also provides the trust component that plays pivotal role in e-commerce. Customers have lost their trust to the traditional marketing methods. The social networks enables the customer to interact with a person like him in order to get the appropriate information for any product. Thus even though the majority of users perform few transactions with their virtual friends on social network, many sampling feedbacks showed that transactions between companies representatives and customers have increased the user satisfaction degree. Also a conclusion has been drawn that Overstocks business ratings are accurate, in that they have a strong correlation with user satisfaction after their transaction. Thus a valid conclusion would be that there exists a necessity of transaction costs for a well functioning reputation system References Bhattacharjee, R. Goel, A., 2005. Avoiding ballot stuffing in ebay-like reputation systems. In Proceedings of the 2005 ACM SIGCOMM workshop on Economics of peer-to-peer systems. p. 137. Blackwell, J. et al., 2009. Design and adoption of social collaboration software within businesses. In Proceedings of the 27th international conference extended abstracts on Human factors in computing systems. pp. 2759-2762. Boyd, d. m., Ellison, N. B. (2007). Social network sites: Definition, history, and scholarship. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, DiMicco, J. et al., 2008. Motivations for social networking at work. In Proceedings of the ACM 2008 conference on Computer supported cooperative work. pp. 711-720. DiMicco, J.M. Millen, D.R., 2007. Identity management: Multiple presentations of self in Facebook. In Proceedings of the 2007 international ACM conference on Supporting group work. pp. 383-386. Domingos, P., 2005. Mining social networks for viral marketing. IEEE Intelligent Systems, 20(1), 80-82. Goad, R and Mooney, T, The impact of Social Networking in the UK (Hitwise Experian, 2007), Swamynathan, G. et al., 2008. Do social networks improve e-commerce?: a study on social marketplaces. In Proceedings of the first workshop on Online social networks. pp. 1-6. Withers, K, Young People and Social Networking Sites: Briefing to guide policy responses Institute of Public Policy Research (IPPR, 2007).

Kublai Khan The Conqueror History Essay

Kublai Khan The Conqueror History Essay Here is a story about Kublai khan. He had a little family but they were next in line for the thrown. His uncle Genghis khan and his brother Mongke influenced him because they were great emperors. So next after his brother was Kublai khan. So when he was emperor he conquered not just to get land but also to help them get their education. Here is a little tale about Kublai khan. Kublai khan was born in 1215.He was the fourth son of Tule also the son of Genghis khan. He had a little family. His brothers were Mongke, Ajir boge, and Ariq boge khan. In 1251 Kublai khan controls eastern Chinese territories by his brother Mongke being emperor. Kublai khan was also in charge of expeditions. Mongke being emperor. Kublai khan was also in charge of expedition into western Chinese territories but was killed by the Chinese defense in August 1259.In 1260 Kublai khan was elected mongkes successor. Kublai khans younger brother Ajig boge khan strongly disagreed and his younger brother Arig boge khan as well. So Arig boge khan proclaimed himself khan at karakorum, Mongolia. 1264 he defeated his brother Arig boge khan. After he defeated his brother he started to trade with the west of china. There were several directed exchanges of missions between the pope and the great khan. Kublai khan in trusted the polo brothers in 1266 to carry a request to the pope about scholars and t echnicians. Kublai khan was a Mongolian leader not only through conquest, but also by ruling successfully. He was so interested in Chinese culture that they over threw him. In 1287 Marco polo accomplished Kublai khan to defeat his uncle and his rivals the Nayan after a long battle Kublai khan and Marco polo defeated his uncle and his rival the Nayan. Then Kublai khan died on February 18, 1294. Kublai khan ruled over Mongolia. Mongolia is in between Russia and china in Eurasia. He was known in history as a great emperor and powerful one. So he was a Mongol dreamer, and ruler, during the 13th century, desired to unite different religious, nationalities, and cultures together under the Yuan Empire. While he was Mongolian by birth, he was a great sympathizer for the Chinese people. Even thought he didnà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢t always trust them, he was fascinated with there culture, traditions, and art. He conformed to Chinese ways so well that the conservative Mongolians were offended and repeatedly caused him problems. In 1287 Marco polo and Kublai khan went on an expedition to explore the world and also to defeat his uncle and his rival nayan. So then the nayan had 300,000 solders. But Kublai khan had 460,000. So he had them beaten by 160,000. So after a horrible but great battle Kublai khan won against his uncle and the Nayan. So after he defeated his brother Arigh boki. He was named the great khan. So since he was empire Kublai khan transformed from conqueror to ruler led to many developments in Chinese culture. He provided for his people free religion, created aid agencies, increased the use of postal stations, established paper currency, reorganized and improved roads, and, expanded water ways. In his rule the winter capital was moved to Chinese territory in the city of dadu, which is modern day Beijing. In summer hr moved the capitol to Shangdu, which is referred as Xanadu. The Yuan dynasty failed, because Kublai khan died of, many reasons. His decision to move the capitol to Chinese territory and to in stall his beautiful palace at Xanadu offended his Mongolian advisers. So he was torn apart between his country and the following traditional nomadic ways of his people. Eventually he was sanitized and his Mongolian influenced government battled between their ways and the demands of the Chinese. The divi sions in the Chinese people were not the only reasons only reasons for his death. He sought expansionism to appease his trusted Mongolian advisers and sought after java and Japan. He attempted but he failed which cost his government money. So the paper currency he created caused inflation and continual conflicts between disgruntled religious groups arose into the mixed society he fosted. In 1281 the death of his favorite wife dies also along with his son as well. So he went into a depression Consequently, with a decling government in his hands and an ache in his heart, so he became an obese drunk and died at the age 79. Regardlessly of him to demise, the yuan dynasty made alasting impact on china and established the legacy of the great khan. Kubali khan was a great emperor in the yuan dynasty. He was a powerful emperor. He had a little family. He had three brothers, mom and dad. When he conquered the Chinese it was for the entire better. He helped then get education and also to conquer land and show what a great emperor. So when he started his downfall first his wife died and also his son so when they died he started letting down his empire. So later on he died of a broken heart by letting his people down. He helped the world by spreading education. I also learned that by conquering land you also help them by giving them what they donà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢t have yet. So he also proved that you could die of a broken heart.

Application Software :: essays research papers fc

Application Software   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Computer systems contain both hard and software. Hardware is any tangible item in a computer system, like the system unit, keyboard, or printer. Software, or a computer program, is the set of instruction that direct the computer to perform a task. Software falls into one of two categories: system software and application software. System software controls the operation of the computer hardware; whereas, application software enables a user to perform tasks. Three major types of application software on the market today for personal computers are word processors, electronic spreadsheets, and database management systems (Little and Benson 10-42). A word processing program allows a user to efficiently and economically create professional looking documents such as memoranda, letters, reports, and resumes. With a word processor, one can easily revise a document. To improve the accuracy of one's writing, word processors can check the spelling and the grammar in a document. They also provide a thesaurus to enable a user to add variety and precision to his or her writing. Many word processing programs also provide desktop publishing features to create brochures, advertisements, and newsletters.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  An electronic spreadsheet enables a user to organize data in a fashion similar to a paper spreadsheet. The difference is the user does not have to perform calculations manually; electronic spreadsheets can be instructed to perform any computation desired. The contents of an electronic spreadsheet can be easily modified by the user. Once the data is modified, all calculations in the spreadsheet are recomputed automatically. Many electronic spreadsheet packages also enable a user to graph the data in his or her spreadsheet (Wakefield 98-110).   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  A database management system (DBMS) is a software program that allows a user to efficiently store a large amount of data in a centralized location. Data is one of the most valuable resources to any organization. For this reason, user desire data be organized and readily accessible in a variety of formats. With aDBMS, a user can then easily store data, retrieve data, modify data, analyze data, and create a variety of reports from the data(Aldrin 25-37). Many organizations today have all three of these types of application

Venezuela- The Age of Exploration :: essays research papers

Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela 1.  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Venezuela 2.  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Located on the continent of South America 3.  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  25,017,387 (estimated as of July 2004) 4.  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Size- 912,050 sq km (land/water) 5.  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Petroleum, natural gas, iron ore, gold, bauxite, other minerals, hydropower, diamonds 6.  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  96% Roman Catholic, 2% Protestant, 2% Other Religions   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The Venezuelans were tracked back to about 13,000 BC. The settlers of that time came from three different directions. Present day Guyana, present day Brazil, and present day Antilles were the three directions. At the time there are about 500,000 indigenous peoples living in Venezuela. There was much diversity in the different tribes that settled there during this time. Religion has always been dominated by the Catholic faith. Some Venezuelans of the time had been farmers, hunters, and fishermen. The name â€Å"Venezuela† was given and the literal translation is â€Å"Little Venice.†   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Venezuela was rich with grasslands and had six navigable rivers. There were many streams that also ran through the country. Mountainous areas also were abundant in the Venezuelan countryside. Venezuela has a very tropical climate. It is also rich in mineral resources. The country’s most important resource is petroleum. They are also known for their abundance of diamonds and gold which are found in the mountains.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Christopher Columbus first sighted the coast of Venezuela in 1498. In 1499 Spanish explorer Alonso de Ojeda followed that same coast to Lake Maracaibo. He was the one who named the region Venezuela because it reminded him of the buildings in Venice. The Spanish had started to settle in Venezuela in 1520. In 1528, Charles V of Spain gave the part of Venezuela that lied between Cape Vela and Maracapana to the Weslers, Bavarian bankers to whom he owed money to. The Weslers were to fill and develop the region as part of the arrangement with Charles V. They were also to set up establishments to live. Instead, their representatives enslaved the Native Americans of the area and so demoralized the European settlers that in 1546 the Spanish government revoked the grant and reassumed control. The first important settlement in Venezuela was that of Caracas which later the capital of this country became. It was settled in 1567.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The economy and its activities in the colonial period centered on agriculture, mainly tobacco and cacao. Some livestock were also traded amongst the people. Venezuela became the center of piracy and illegal smuggling, things both of which the English and the Dutch were the most notorious participants in. Venezuela at the time of colonization operated under a number of administrative jurisdictions.

Arthur Conan Doyle :: essays research papers

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was more than just an author. He was a knight, a soldier, a spiritualist, a whaler, a doctor, a journalist, and most of all, he was adventurous. He was not the quiet type of person, so he enjoyed expressing himself. Arthur Conan Doyle was born on the 22nd of May 1859 in Picardy Place, Edinburgh. The second child of Charles Altamont and Mary Foley, he was thought t have been named after the legendary medieval king, Arthur, of the Round Table. Doyle was also named after his granduncle, Michael Edward Conan. He was a descendant of the Irish, and was of the Roman Catholic religion. Doyle had a grandfather, John Doyle. He was political cartoonist, who, financially supported the family.1 Doyle had a pretty rough home life because his father was an alcoholic. As he grew up, Doyle had to take more of the responsibilities around the house into his own hands, because his father was either too sick or drunk to fulfill his daily work at home. Doyle's mother, Mary Foley, wa s a homemaker who took care of her son Arthur and his brothers and sisters, and also worked and cleaned the house everyday.2 Doyle's early education started when he was about seven years old. His mother spent lots of time reading with him and tutoring him, because this is what she thought he needed to become a cultured gentleman. When Doyle was ten years old he left home and went to the Jesuit Preparatory school named Hodder House. This was a boarding school for young boys. Arthur hated this school. Doyle once stated that Hodder House "was a little more pleasant than being confined in a prison." While attending Hodder House, he studied chemistry, poetry, geometry, arithmetic, and grammar. After his experiences at Jesuit Preparatory school, he left and applied for Stonyhurst Academy. Doyle was accepted for enrollment into Stonyhurst and remained there for about five more years. While at Stonyhurst, Doyle, who excelled in cricket, demonstrated some very early signs of litera ry talent. At the academy, he became quite good at telling stories and reading aloud.3 Doyle started reading his old favorite books from his childhood. His favorite childhood writer was Mayne Reid, who wrote The Scalp Hunters. This was his favorite book while he was progressing through life.4 During his last year before attending medical school, Doyle went to Feldkirch, a school in Austria.

The Zebra Storyteller

Once upon a time there was a Siamese cat who pretended to be a lion and spoke inappropriate Zebraic. That language is whinnied by the race of striped horses in Africa. Here now: An innocent zebra is walking in a jungle, and approaching from another direction is the little cat; they meet. â€Å"Hello there! † says the Siamese cat in perfectly pronounced Zebraic. â€Å"It certainly is a pleasant day, isn’t it? The sun is shining, the birds are singing, isn’t the world a lovely place to live today! The zebra is so astonished at hearing a Siamese cat speaking like a zebra, why, he’s just fit to be tied. So the little cat quickly ties him up, kills him, and drags the better parts of the carcass back to his den. The cat successfully hunted zebras many months in this manner, dining on filet mignon of zebra every night, and from the better hides he made bow neckties and wide belts after the fashion of the decadent princes of the Old Siamese court.He began boastin g to his friends he was a lion, and he gave them as proof the fact that he hunted zebras. The delicate noses of the zebras told them there was really no lion in the neighborhood. The zebra deaths caused many to avoid the region. Superstitious, they decided the woods were haunted by the ghost of a lion. One day the storyteller of the zebras was ambling, and through his mind ran plots for stories to amuse the other zebras, when suddenly his eyes brightened, and he said, â€Å"That’s it!I’ll tell a story about a Siamese cat who learns to speak our language! What an idea! That’ll make ’em laugh! † Just then the Siamese cat appeared before him, and said, â€Å"Hello there! Pleasant day today, isn’t it! † The zebra storyteller wasn’t fit to be tied at hearing a cat speaking his language, because he’d been thinking about that very thing. He took a good look at the cat, and he didn’t know why, but there was something abou t his looks he didn’t like, so he kicked him with a hoof and killed him. That is the function of the storyteller.