Merchant of Venice Spot Analysis Essay Example for Free

Merchant of Venice Spot Analysis Essay Although the play’s title leads readers to believe its contents to surround Antonio, rather the play surrounds a hated and despised Shylock the Jew. However, as Shakespeare so often does, several scenes are placed almost haphazardly within the conflict and turmoil building amongst the main characters. Often readers question the scenes appropriateness and necessity to the play’s progression, and struggle to create connections to the play’s main conflict and following resolution. The casket scenes regarding the betrothal of the beautiful Portia in The Merchant of Venice play the role of the sources of confusion. Although the game of caskets seemingly represents Shakespeare’s dynamics on love and marriage, the game is really a lesson in human morality, judgment, and tribulations. The lesson learned through Portia’s three suitors is invaluable to the play as well as human life. Shakespeare’s ability to recognize and understand the true nature of man is seen throughout the works of his career, and The Merchant of Venice is in essence a depiction of men judging one another superficially. The three caskets present three versions of common human rationales. As each suitor presents himself for the game, the audience is led through his thought process and ultimate decision. The first suitor, Morocco, refuses the casket of lead and claims â€Å"[a] gold mind stoops not to shows of dross. / I’ll then [neither] give nor hazard [anything] for lead† (2. 7. 20-21). Morocco will not risk anything for the mere hopes of gaining only as valuable as lead. Morocco, so far, is immensely materialistic. He next contemplates the silver casket. Morocco weighs his â€Å"value with an even hand† and decides his worth â€Å"by thy estimation / [†¦] dost deserve enough† (2. 7. 5, 26-27). Morocco’s own self-affirmation does not allow him to stoop to choose silver. Instead, he moves to the golden casket thus furthering his obvious greedy and materialistic nature. â€Å"Is’t like that lead contains her? ‘Twere damnation / [to] think so base a thought. It [is] too gross / [to] rib her cerecloth in the obscure grave† (2. 7. 49-51). Obviously unbeknownst to Morocco, lead is the metal of choice in burial, and the irony only better proves this suitor unfit. Likewise Morocco did not view silver as more precious than gold, and refuses to settle for anything second best. His vanity and greed leave him â€Å" ‘[c]old indeed, and labor lost’† as he unwisely chooses the golden casket, and a lesson in humility and Christian grace is spent (2. 7. 74). The lessons continue with the second suitor, Aragon. He quickly passes the leaden casket and moves to dismiss any affinity toward the golden casket. â€Å"I will not choose what many men desire, / Because I will not jump with common spirits / And rand me with the barbarous multitudes† (2. 9. 30-32). Wisely, Aragon knows not to simply trust the facts beheld by the eyes. He deciphers the riddle as addressing a throng of fools blinded by beauty and oblivious of anything else. However, Aragon has just all but ignored the lead casket, yet he knows â€Å"[Portia] shall look fairer [if he] give or hazard† (2. 9. 21). Aragon knows a risk begets a better reward, but he does not choose this uncertainty. However, he ascertains his own desert without doubt. The silver casket should â€Å"[let] none presume / to wear an undeserved dignity† and Aragon believes men should only receive what is deserved (2. 9. 38-39). He questions the validity of an idealistic world of rightful desert. He wonders â€Å"who shall go about / [to cheat] fortune, and be honourable / [without] the stamp of merit† (2. 9. 36-37). Aragon’s idealism does not consider the true nature of mankind. His rationality is absurdly naive, and this foolishness is all he keeps upon his departure. Bassanio, the final and probably least sincere suitor, also considers each casket before his decision. Bassanio is well aware how sinful and deceitful mankind behaves. He knows â€Å"the outward shows [appearances] be least themselves† (3. . 73). Now the reader knows outward beauties will not fool Bassanio. â€Å"How many cowards whose hearts are all as false / [as] stairs of sand, wear yet upon their chins / [the] beards of Hercules and fwoning mars, / [who], inward searched, have lives white as milk† (3. 2. 83-86) Bassanio asks himself in debate. The readers know Bassanio has spent his fortunes living an extravagant life. Assumedly, Bassanio encountered a vast variety of people in his travels and adventures, and through these experiences, he has discovered the triviality of appearances. Bassanio knows beauty is often an elaborate mask â€Å"[the] seeming truth [in] cunning times puts on / [to] entrap the wisest† (3. 2. 100-101). Bassanio eliminate his doubt and chooses the lead casket, thus ending the game and winning Portia’s hand. Bassanio’s knowledge of men and their sinfully corrupt hearts leads him to wisely solve the riddle and win the desired prize. However, Bassanio is not meant to serve as the moral winner in this game. Instead, Bassanio provides support toward Aragon’s foolishness. Bassanio is the man who undeservedly gains power and advancement. Shakespeare places these scenes within a play full of the corrupt, yet he is able to humanize and evoke sympathy for these men. Shakespeare utilizes these scenes to relay to the audience that human nature is not black and white, good or bad, right or wrong. The bad can feel the good and be intrinsically good; likewise the good often know the bad and choose the evil in the face of personal gain.

Strong Continental Empire :: essays research papers

There are five key ingredients in building a strong continental empire. A strong continental empire must be able to up-hold these five things to survive. These five important things are: a strong central government; foreign policy, to deal with others countries, manifest destiny, to deal with matters, and the ability to solve internal problems such as social, economic, and political problems. America is a continental empire and runs itself by using these five things. The most important of these is probably the strong central government. A strong central government ensures that the government will be able to run smoothly in a time of crisis and have the capability to make sound decisions that will benefit the American populace. Foreign policy was developed so that America would know where it stood when it came to dealing with other countries. It was important that America dealt with international problems in a uniform manner. Manifest destiny deals with the issue of how America and Am ericans will acquire land. Infrastructure is America working together. America depends on many things to keep it running, when these things cross paths we develop an infrastructure. America must solve internal problems all of the time. What these problems are and how we solve them is what shapes America. America slowly began to build a continental Empire.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  America developed a strong continental empire by accomplishing the five things needed for a strong continental empire. America started slowly by developing a government that was rusted by the people. Once they accomplished this they started to filling in the pieces of the continental empire puzzle. They developed a strong central government. Then America began to gain land, which led to conflicts with foreign nations. As the United States of America grew, it's infrastructure of money, transportations, and other aspects grew.

China vs. the World: Whose Technology Is It?

China vs. The world: Whose technology is it? Executive summary China, the country with incredible fast-growing speed of development, now is becoming more attractive to Western investing companies than ever. China governments know that and they try to take advantage over that point by forcing the multinational companies to share technology in the exchange of future investing opportunities. This strategy has created a lot of argument and discontent between China government and foreign companies. China government recognized the importance of technologies and investment in R&D in the processing of becoming the world’s top five economies.They developed three-pronged plans to solve this problem, mainly by investing in certain industries, by learning and generating economics scale, and by receiving technologies from foreign partners. Chinese government also know that it is possible to lose their foreign partners’ investment to other emerging countries while they still depend m uch on technology of Western and developed countries( Japan, Korea). Many strategies are processed by government to limit the control of the foreign companies over the domestic market and to support their own players.For instance, multinational companies only could hold 49% of the equity stake of new company or 70% of each system had to be locally. In the software industries, government decreases tax for domestic companies, they require the foreign software has to disclose their source and requires the software version for China. Local banks even give loans with below-market rate to domestic companies. However some certain industries of China are still unable to compete with strong and competitive foreign companies. The conflicts between China and the U. S. have been raised due to China’s policies.The author mentioned that the main reason is because of the basic difference of policy and culture: China focuses on saving for future and U. S. cares about current consumptions. Ho wever in the bright side both of them are pragmatic, operate at the top and both of them want to enhance the trade flow between two countries. Among the interaction between China and the U. S. the multinational companies have to find their own ways to adjust and overcome that tension. For most foreign companies that want to succeed in China market, teaming up the Chinese executive and making themselves indispensible to the Chinese government is essential.Once they have something that China wants and no one else has, they are able to win the bargain with Chinese government. However it is rare exception, mostly they are still learning to protect their intellectual property in China. Personal arguments The article brought up the very interesting topic of China and its role in global economy in the 21st century. It helps us to understand how China government is heading for and how they use their policies to fight in the global market.If China succeeds in these policies to promote the hi gh-technology, we would likely to see a boom technological boom in some years since the market became more competitive, both China and developed countries would be pressed to gain new innovation with faster speed or else they would be able to lose the market share to their competitors. After all, the one who get benefits most is consumers because now we can easily purchase high-tech products with affordable price, it changed the high-tech products from niche product to become mass product.Besides, it looks like Chinese government is trying to learn the lesson from Japan in the past. After the post-war, Japan was successful in buying technology from the west. It started developing high- tech products and production facilities. Lastly, from China’s point of view, China’s current policy is very helpful to meet the urgent requirement of development. However for the long-term, Chinese government need to gain their own resource of technology and innovation. Otherwise in some situation they will lose in bargaining with their foreign partners because they can always shift to other emerging countries.

How Television Programs Can Support And Facilitate Word...

Introduction For many years, parents have relied on using educational programs to teach and engage their children with new concepts and materials. Conversely, many children have also used television as an opportunity for learning and language development. For example, the rise of television programs like Elmo Street and Teletubbies demonstrates this upward trend of substituting media sources for teaching and learning. However, despite the increasing support from parents toward television programs, many researchers have mixed reviews on putting our children into viewing long hours of what they considered unnecessary learning. Thus in what follows of this paper, I will focus on explaining how television programs can support and facilitate word development. Moreover, I will also discuss the mixed literacy support for using television as a learning tool and finally, I will conduct a study that measures, specifically, the relationship between watching educational TV and learning novel words. Hopefully , with these measures, I will be able to find supporting evidence that proves educational TV can be a good predictor for word learning. Throughout the years, one continuous point of debate has been whether educational TV can facilitate and improve word learning in children. Many studies on this debate have found distinct and mixed research outcomes. For example, one study has been Mabel’s Rice Word from Sesame Street, in which he found mixed supporting evidence that televisionShow MoreRelatedMass Media as an Agent of Socialisation1747 Words   |  7 Pagesbook â€Å"Interdisciplinary English† by Loretta F. Kasper, Socialization is the process in which a child learns how to behave in life and participate in a group in society. 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