Style Exercise

Precision

On 23 February 2008, in the Rákóczi street, downtown, Pécs, in the cold night (temperature: 3°C) at 23:12 pm in the middle of heavy drinking of various alcoholic liquors (beer, wine, whiskey) right after 2 hours 13 minutes and 56 seconds of skateboarding, 5 friends of mine (two at the age of 21, three at 18) and me (born at Pécs, 25. 07. 1986) got stopped by 3 bald persons (age: 16, 18, 19, weight: too heavy to mention, IQ: -20), governed by prejudice and racism. One of them (the biggest and most aggressive one) grabbed me by my coat, right above the last button, but below my neckerchief (Middle English nekkerchef, from nekke + kerchef kerchief. Date:14th century) and started to list my ancestors with non-pleasurable attributes (no example granted). After 43 minutes and 23 seconds of tutor-speech about why we shouldn’t get exterminated, we managed to be able to ”walk” away at 20 km/h speed, mostly on foot.

Surprises

Check this out! We’ve just started to drink after skating-hey! Just what a great spot we found! – when we –and you wouldn’t believe this! Bumped into 3 stupid skinheads! Three of them! Imagine how we felt then-and guess what: we didn’t even make up a fight! Hell no! Though we were 5! What we did was: we just walked away! Really we did! Crazy, isn’t it?

Hesitation

How it was? Well I’m trying to make up my mind here.. There were like .. 6 of us? No wait!.. Five! It was Five! And we were culling flowers I guess..or maybe.. getting drunk? But we were interrupted by some..some.. how do you call them..those Shaolin folks you know..but.. let me see. Oh they were no Shaolins but bald anyway.. I remember them having some problem with us..I dunno..I’m wondering if they did know?.. So one of them asked me the time..oh sorry, they actually insulted us..and..uuhhmm...we grabbed our skateboards and beat the living crap out of them?..No, I got it!.. we walked away...

Dream

I’ve had a nightmare.. Can’t really remember the whole of it.. It was dark.. pitch black it was. And freezing. First my friends were with me but after it felt like I’m all alone. Then they appeared! Those.. Monster-like creatures! They approached me! Wild and strong beasts. One of them even touched me! Man, I get the creeps just by thinking of it! Its hands - or whatever it had – were cold as ice, but its breath.. as it laid close to me for a few seconds.. breathing fiery and stifling in my face.. Then all of a sudden.. it was gone!

Notation

Saturday night. The time for our usual going out. Skateboards and booze in the hand. Five of us going down on Rákóczi Street. Three skins coming upwards. They pick at us. Of course they do. We’re not in for a fight. We tell them. They don’t care and grab me anyway. We’re telling them some hodgepodge about us all standing on the same side. It works. They are easily controlled. We move along.

Family Structures of the Lilliputians and Houyhnhnms

If we study the family structure of the Lilliputians and the Houyhnhnms in Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels, we find out soon enough that they have some key similarities. But what are these? And just what are the differences? In my essay I am meditating on the answer for such questions.

To begin with, let us gather the main characteristics of the family model in Lilliput. Obviously the Lilliputians (just as Gulliver’s character himself) are a great subject for irony and satire, representing human kind with its every-day ”battles” shrank (Just like the exercise of the army held on Gulliver’s Handkerchief). Likewise, their family values are also satiric in a way. By the great Law of Nature, men and women of Lilliput join together because of their sexual needs and in order to keep up the population. Presumably they are enormous in numbers this way. Because of this whole process they believe that the ”result” of their joining does not owe his/her parents a single thing. The same reasoning serves as base for even further convictions: their Opinion is, that Parents are the last of all others to be trusted with the Education of their own Children (part I. chapter VI.). - Instead they are obliged to send their children into public nurseries at the age of twenty moons: still as an infant. Exceptions are cottager and labourer parents, who can stay with their children, making the reader believe that these families are probably the most healthiest considered in a social way. After the separation of children and parents, the youngsters are taught the basic principles of the Lilliputian Society: They are bred up in the Principles of Honour, Justice, Courage, Modesty, Clemency, Religion, and Love of their Country (part I. chapter VI.). During this time, the parents are only allowed to see them twice a year - yet for one hour - and they are forbidden to bring the children presents. The next time the family can get together is at the marriageable age of twelve years, when the parents actually bring their children home.

Deep satiric meaning are also to be found if looking at the family structure of the holly good Houyhnhnms: in a society, where human kind is altered by the superiority of the noble values of these horse-like creatures who do not even have a concept for evil things or one’s own opinion. In their utopian way of thinking the deciding factor is always reason. This is what mainly defines their every act, so thus their family models. In contrast with the Lilliputian society, the Houyhnhnms made up law, which controls the maximum number of children a family may have and even the gender they need to be: one of each sex. As everything else in the country, this also has its own purpose: This Caution is necessary to prevent the Country from being overburthened with Numbers (part IV. Chapter VIII.). Purity gets a huge importance here: In their Marriages they are exactly careful to choose such Colours as will not make any disagreeable Mixture in the Breed (part IV. Chapter VIII.). In the meantime, males are expected to be strong and females to be pretty. After giving birth to the children, the male and female Houyhnhnms would not stay together. In case the couple would not succeed in ”producing” a boy and a girl, a special solution is ordered: ...if a Houyhnhnm hath two Males, he changeth one of them with another that hath two Females... (part IV. Chapter VIII.). When the children are old enough they get together (by decision of the parents and friends) to start a family but never get married: they do not know such thing.

In the end we can see that both societies are largely grotesque in a way. Although their basic ideas of breeding differ, they have a common idea of separation: both the Lilliputians and Houyhnhnms leave their children during the time of studies, moreover, the Houyhnhnms even ”exchange” them. This proves a sense of estrangement in the families,the lack of affection and love to each other. It might be a mitigating cause in this social sense for the Lilliputians that their primary reason for breeding is joy and that they have several social gatherings to entertain themselves, but these are totally missing from the Houyhnhnms’ lives. On the other hand, teaching, learning and good morals are equally essential for both societies. Normally I wouldn’t like to live in any of these societies, but maybe I would still prefer Lilliput for obvious reasons: more liberty. Here people still have a need for enjoyment, as well as social needs and a bit more contact with the family. In the Houyhnhnm society this opportunity for free entertainment is gone with the lack of concept for own opinion. Meanwhile, the utopian pureness of the Houyhnhnms actually provides a crime free life for all, which Lilliput surely lacks for they have certain laws against criminals. I believe that none of the two societies are proper for a full life, but both offer good values and examples from which we humans could truly learn to make our own environment a better place to live.

Used sources:

"Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels - Houyhnhnms as Ideal ?." 123HelpMe.com. 05 May 2008
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"Essay on Swift's Gulliver's Travels and Orwell's 1984." 123HelpMe.com. 05 May 2008
.

Analysis of Caliban

Caliban’s character in Shakespeare’s The Tempest is definitely dependent: he is obeying a current master of him through the whole play, which master is in total control of his slave. However, his attitude to his different masters vary vastly.

As we first meet Caliban we see him as a slave of Prospero, in a situation where he is treated cruelly and strictly: “Thou poisonous slave, got by the devil himself Upon thy wicked dam, come forth!”. In spite of the slandering it is interesting how Prospero explains his daughter, Miranda how largely Caliban’s “services” are needed: “But, as 'tis, We cannot miss him: he does make our fire, Fetch in our wood and serves in offices That profit us.” The basis of the relationship between Caliban and Prospero seems to be fear; Caliban fears his master’s huge power, his knowledge in magic: “I must obey: his art is of such power, It would control my dam's god, Setebos, and make a vassal of him.”. It also gets clear soon enough that the “animal-like” and mostly instinctly acting Caliban hates Prospero, he does not respect him. He speaks with an ignorant and raw voice, curses his master with dirty words. He can not even stand getting orders from him. At the same time, Caliban’s hatred is not baseless for he was the one, who was already on the island when the cast out Prospero and his daughter Miranda have arrived. The island belonged to Caliban’s mother, the witch Sycorax who was defeated by Prospero and now should belong to him. Instead he is a slave on his own island. This makes him outraged and as he blames Prospero his speech seems quite disappointed and hopeless: “This island's mine, by Sycorax my mother, Which thou takest from me. When thou camest first, Thou strokedst me and madest much of me, wouldst give me Water with berries in't, and teach me how To name the bigger light, and how the less, That burn by day and night: and then I loved thee And show'd thee all the qualities o' the isle, The fresh springs, brine-pits, barren place and fertile”. Even so he obeys Prospero but only because of his fear from the cruel punishment which he knows very well.

A whole other attitude can be observed if looking at the scene where Caliban meets the two drunkards Stephano and Trinculo rambling around the island. First he thinks they are spirits of Prospero and that they are only here to whack him: “Lo, now, lo! Here comes a spirit of his, and to torment me For bringing wood in slowly. I'll fall flat; Perchance he will not mind me.” He starts begging at the two oddballs, not to hurt him. Then he realizes that they are not slaves of Prospero but still can not figure out what they are and how they got there so he is still afraid of them. This fear is flawlessly gone after having some of Stephano’s narcotic wine. Caliban gets drunk of the wine he has never tasted before and starts to think that Stephano is some godlike creature: “That's a brave god and bears celestial liquor. I will kneel to him.”. Unlike he did to Prospero, Caliban starts to worship Stephano, as his new “master”, in his bemusement he swears loyalty to him, admires him and kisses his feet: “I'll show thee the best springs; I'll pluck thee berries; I'll fish for thee and get thee wood enough. A plague upon the tyrant that I serve! I'll bear him no more sticks, but follow thee, Thou wondrous man.” Although Caliban’s “new master” contemns and snubs him just as Prospero did, in a way Stephano seems to enjoy the sudden situation and likes the idea that he has a slave now. Caliban does not notice the rude comments on him because of the wine he has drunk. He is desperately seeking for the aid of a greater force which can help him defeat his ’tyrant’ master Prospero. This time he even seems to be happy that he found such an aid and a slight ray of hope for his freedom and the wine of course makes him sing: “No more dams I'll make for fish Nor fetch in firing At requiring; Nor scrape trencher, nor wash dish 'Ban, 'Ban, Cacaliban Has a new master: get a new man. Freedom, hey-day! hey-day, freedom! freedom, hey-day, freedom!”.

From Prospero’s and Stephano’s aspect their relationship with Caliban is largely similar. They both treat him just like a slave (Stephano even calls him a monster), but perhaps Caliban needs the aid and guidance of someone smarter than him anyhow because he possibly could not stand on his own. He needs to be shaped to act more like a human being, to have morals. For this reason maybe Prospero would be his right master, he could teach him to become more civilized, just as he did back in the time when Caliban was younger. Most obviously he still cares much more about Caliban and about his teaching then the drunken Stephano does.

Balla Balla Balla

Peaks reaching for the sky, nice little brooks gurgling down into the valley and the fine air fills out all your lungs. Hell yeah, this is Switzerland! The home for a beautiful landscape, for the snow caps glaring in white and for the Europeada in 2008 of course.

We arrived at our quarters in Segnas late in the night on the 31st of May and the most natural common activity for the whole team was to fall into the bed like sacks of salt. Only thing tricky was getting used to falling asleep to the ding-dong of the cowbells instead of the sound of the crickets, but we managed to catch the Z-s anyway. We didn’t even have the time this way to look at our surroundings, thus the amazement was even sweeter in the morning: looking out our window, we were stunned by the view provided by the nice little groups of houses quilted here and there into the endless green and the brook curlicuing all its way into to the horizon. Gorgeous. All the participating teams were housed in the regions around Segnas, where the canteen and a huge Sport centre was, a good place for training. We, the Germans living in Hungary dined at the canteen. The meal was fine for me, if we do not consider that the repertoire stood of pasta almost every day. The level and quality of football was actually higher then I expected meaning that I personally couldn’t fit into the picture but my more talented mates held the ground gallantly. There was a cultural program in the middle of the week we spent in the Alps, and it took place high in the mountains of Sedrun. Funny part was that one had to take the ski-lift to approach the hall-like building where the event was held. The whole room was filled with the teams of Europe and you could feel the various cultures mixing and merging as the different nationalities represented a part of their own. The common dancing and singing, plus the not slight amount of beer brought an obvious result: the mood was splendid.

After such an exciting, though quite exhausting week, no wonder that we felt our hearts a bit heavy to leave this lovely place, but we didn’t let our selves quail over it for too long, for we’re already looking forward for the next Europeada!