Essay on Tension Essay Example for Free

Essay on Tension Essay The Turn of the Screw, which was written in the late nineteenth century, is acclaimed by critics for the build up of tension and the suspenseful atmosphere that its author, Henry James, creates throughout the novella. James achieves this by exploiting several characters and features of the book. James manipulates the prologue of the novella by creating a group of listeners who are in anticipation for the story; furthermore the character who narrates the story is not immediately able to retrieve the manuscript, this deliberate slow down of tempo, builds suspense preceding the tale and it prepares the reader for a thrilling story. The setting of the novella is also used to build atmosphere, a technique that James regularly employs is contrasting a moment of tranquil with one of danger. This produces a sharp difference and thus makes the scene of peril seem even more suspenseful. The ghosts of Quint and Jessel are perhaps the largest contributors to the atmosphere and tension within the novel; James uses both ghosts to create a threat to the children which causes tremendous tension and it is the central plot in the book. The children themselves are also manipulated by James to create atmosphere, their behaviour is continually reiterated as perfect and virtuous to such an extent that the reader is almost persuaded to think that their is something not quite natural about them. James uses the prologue to introduce the story and also to create a suspenseful atmosphere about what is to follow. During the prologue there are a group of guests who James uses to create tension. These listeners evidently enjoy listening to stories, especially if they involve ghosts and horror. sufficiently breathless, no comment was uttered are phrases which are used to describe their attitude towards the stories, clearly conveying the interest and avidness that the guests and frame narrator have for the stories being told. The listeners create an atmosphere of eagerness for the story which is very effective since James readers might also imitate this feeling. The character of Douglas plays a pivotal to the build up of tension in the prologue. Upon the first mention of his story, he plays on the emotions of the listeners by continually reiterating how horrifying and terrible the story that he has all of them waiting in anticipation for is. It is quite too horrible, nothing at all that I know touches it; Douglas is gradually building up the suspense before his story by mentioning how horrible it is, this feeling of impending disaster that the other guests wait in buoyant expectancy for, before knowing the full details of the story adds to an atmosphere of suspense. The combined facts that the manuscript has to be sent for and further compounded by the knowledge that is locked away also contributes to the same effect, the prolonged wait for the manuscript adds to a feeling of avidness for the story and also the fact that it is locked away has cryptive connotations which suggest that its contents are so terrible that it must be kept away from the world. By now it seems that Douglas appears to have his listeners transfixed upon him and have necessity to listen to his story. The interjection, oh how delicious which was cried by one of the women present; the term delicious possibly infers a feeling which is almost desperation for the story. Likewise the way, in which the audience gives a unanimous groan, when the telling of the tale is delayed suggests that they long to hear the story. This deliberate slow down, builds up the tension to what the audience and reader are prepared for a gruelling tale. The gradual build up of suspense through the prologue preludes the main story, in order to exemplify an atmosphere of anticipation and dread of what is to follow. James now uses the setting of the novella to create tension. He allows us to see into the Governess mind and we, like her anticipate Bly to be a place of dread since she had expected something so melancholy. It is usual for one to expect that a large country estate which is the setting of a ghost story will be isolated, old and gothic. James cleverly manipulates our assumptions to create an atmosphere of tension. Instead of the gothic building that we expect, we are introduced to something much more pleasant; the Governess upon her arrival is surprised and delighted at what she sees what greeted me was a good surprise I remember as a most pleasant impression. This peaceful setting lulls the reader into a false sense of security, however at the back of our minds is the idea from the prologue that the story will be horrifying which makes the reader suspicious of the circumstances surrounding the following events; thus creating an atmosphere of tension. This same technique is used before the introduction of Peter Quint. In the pages preceding his apparition there is a vivid description of an idyllic setting such as the beauty and dignity of the place golden sky. James does this in order to produce a sharp contrast when the ghost appears, making the emergence of the ghost more of a shock and therefore more terrifying for his audience. With the ghost of Peter Quint now firmly entrenched within the story, James uses him as a key contributor for creating an atmosphere of tension. James uses Miss Groses detestable presentation of Quint while he was alive in order to create tension. She describes him as Impudent and depraved, spoiled, these quotations give a negative impression of Quint and portray him as an antagonist. However perhaps worst of all he is also related by Grose as clever and deep, exemplifying him as calculating and sinister. Because of his negative introduction the reader is therefore continually persuaded to think of Quint as a dangerous to the children. Upon each appearance Quint is seen closer to the Governess and hence successively more threatening and horrifying. Additionally each time Quint appears he is closer to the children, leading us to suspect that his apparitions are with some sort of intention rather than random. As a result of our perception of him as somebody dangerous and also because he is getting closer and closer to the governess, the reader feels the suspense gradually building since we see him as a threat to both the Governess and the children. The first time she sees him he is distanced at the top of a tower although still narrating the scene as stricken with death suggesting dread, horror and fear. The second time there is only a window separating them and the governess by saying A nearness that Made me catch my breath and turn cold, makes the point clear that it was the closeness that made it more fearsome. However on the third appearance which is described as the most formidable, they are adjacent to one another, it is this that made the experience so terrifying according to the governess, At such close quarters that gave the whole horror. By making Quint continually more frightful James creates tension because the reader is constantly anticipating more horrifying encounters.

Why Nicholas II Survived the Revolution of 1905 but Not that of 1917 Es

Why Nicholas II Survived the Revolution of 1905 but Not that of 1917 When Father Gapon and his followers marched peacefully on the Winter Palace on 22nd January in what came to be known as Bloody Sunday due to the extreme reaction leading to the massacre of the protestors, it sparked the revolution of 1905, consisting of workers' strikes and protests in addition to terrorising the wealthy and important upper classes. As well as being a response to Bloody Sunday, the 1905 revolution was a result of pent up dissatisfaction with the autocracy in Russia and with the vast social inequality. However, in spite of the unrest within the country, the tsar managed to retain power after this revolution. In 1917, when the people revolted again, he was not so lucky, and the autocracy fell. There are many reasons why the Tsar was able to survive the 1905 revolution, not least of which was the benefit of good ministers to advise him well. Stolypin tried to have a moderating influence on the Tsar and to help him make concessions to the people which would promise to improve their lives enough that the revolution would die down. However, by 1917 both Stolypin and Witte were dead, and the Tsarina Alexandra was in charge of the running of the country due to the Tsar's absence to the front to fight with the army. During the time in which he was away, Alexandra replaced many of Nicholas' ministers with her own personal favourites, most of whom were poorly equipped to hold such influential positions at such an unstable time. Due to this, the Tsar had few capable ministers to advise him through the crisis when revolution broke out and help him emerge unsca... ...es stipulated therein played a large part in his downfall in 1917. The emergence of the free press after 1905 granted the right to express opinions by publication meant that the Tsar was widely criticised to the public for the first time, whereas previously none of his wrong-doings had ever been made known, and he was viewed as ordained by god. Now however the Russians began to see him as fallible and to question his actions, leading to further unrest. Similarly, and perhaps most importantly, the Duma in 1917 provided a viable alternative to the autocracy which had not been present in 1905. Ironically, just as freeing the serfs had led to them wanting more and assassinating Tsar Alexander II, Nicholas' grandfather, so granting the people their Duma in 1905 in part led to the eventual downfall of the Tsar in 1917.

Human Trafficking of Young Women to be sold in Prostitution Essay

Before going into details, it seemed important to define what human trafficking is. Human trafficking regardless of its type is a criminal offense. The UN Convention against transnational crime define human trafficking as â€Å"the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harboring or receipt of a persons, by means of the threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the use of power, or of a position of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation† (UN Resolution 25, 2001, cited by Vandermey, Meyer, Rys, and Sebranek 2009, p. 246). Under Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act, the US Department of Justice and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) are working hard not only to make sure the laws are put into practice, but also to contain this problem (Hart 2009, p. 43). The most severe forms of human trafficking have been defined in U. S. law as sex trafficking in which â€Å"a commercial sex act is induced by force, fraud, or coercion, or in which the person induced to perform such act has not attained eighteen years of age†¦Ã¢â‚¬  (Troubnikoff 2003, p. 3). In order to perpetrate this crime, it needs at least twelve to fifteen people who will be actors. These include an agency manager, office staffs (at least three), recruiters (at least two), a coordinator, drivers, safe house, document vendors, corrupt public officials, operator, cook, and at least six armed men who will take charge of the â€Å"recruits. † It also needs an office space, office equipments, and a safe house. This crime model further needs mobile communication equipments, tainted cars, and high powered guns, and contacts with other transnational crime syndicates are essential in this operation that will facilitate the deployment of women to their prospective clients. Where and how this crime model operates? This type of crime operates in countries where many people are poor and are longing to escape from the grinding poverty. Among their base of operation are the third world countries in Asia, the former Soviet republics especially Russia and Africa. They can easily prey on young women through their promise of dollar earnings plus other benefits that are not available in their country. This crime model operates on two fronts: by fronting a fake man power agency which lured young women into prostitution under a false pretenses of high paying jobs as waitresses, dancers, models, and au pairs abroad, and by kidnapping beautiful young women. The ‘hired’ and kidnapped women will then be required to stay in the safe house where they will be strictly guarded on a twenty four hour basis. The role each actor played On the democratic front, the roles each actor played in this crime model are crucial and communication with clients as well as secrecy is of utmost importance. The roles played by the recruiters, coordinators, the armed men, and the agency manager are the most crucial as they are the ones that are most exposed to their victims. They would be the one that will be subject of the victims’ families rage if their crimes are divulged as well as the object of police manhunt. Thus, they would need to create fictitious names, addresses, and pertinent information. Like in ordinary manpower agencies, the manager confirms the applicants’ application and provides assurance to their â€Å"client† as well as direction of the entire operation. The recruiters are responsible for recruitment and hiring of women. But they need to be very careful because of the government drive to contain the problem of human trafficking. Indeed, they need to use all their convincing power that they offer real job. The agency manager is also the head of the entire operation and is responsible to make their operation smooth and successful. The role played by the coordinator is also important. He is the one that has contact with the clients. In other words, he holds key position and is in contacts â€Å"in some segments† of the operation, and â€Å"organize their services (Zhang 2007, p. 97). Zhang pointed out that the coordinator is central to human trafficking operation though they have â€Å"nothing more than the right connection for to acquire the necessary services for a fee† (p. 97). Drivers, cook, and safe house operators are also important actors towards the deployment of women. Under the law all these actors are equally liable for the crime. But the operation of this crime will not be successful at all without the connivance of a corrupt public official. Corrupt government officials who hold vital responsibility towards the review and issuance of travel documents makes the operation highly successful. The document vendors provide real or false document needed for the deployment. But on the autocratic front, the most critical role played by the actors is that of the armed men who must insure that no one could get away or escape. It is critical because if any of the victims escape, the full force of the law will surely hunt them, as well as those behind them. These men therefore need to be heartless, ruthless, and hardened criminals who would not hesitate to shot or kill anyone would attempt to escape. The Blue print of deceit Ciment and Shanty (2008) asserted that there are various schemes of deceits human traffickers employed to collect and traffic women for prostitution. Among these methods is deception, the recruitment of prostitutes, purchase or rent from relatives, boyfriends, and friends, Kidnapping, and as payment of debt (p. 220). This crime model is a rich source of illegal money as according to estimates, a single individual or a group involved in trafficking women and children for commercial sex â€Å"can make about US$122,000 from one woman in a year† Ciment, J. D. and Shanty, F. G. 008, p. 221) or an estimated 12 billion dollars annually. Deceptions of women are usually done through the form of either false promise of employment or false promise of marriage, or in some cases, a false promise of education. False marriages and mail order brides are used a means of deception to bring women for overseas prostitution. But all these promises are broken once the women are in the hands of the traffickers. They are then turned over to the safe house operators who insure maximum security with the help of armed men assigned to secure any possibility of escape. Recruitment of prostitutes also involved deception as despite these women knew what type of job awaits them. Ciment and Shanty noted that what they are not aware of is â€Å"the degree of exploitation to which they will be subjected (p. 220). The danger for this operation however is that when the supposed victims verify the identity of employment agency with proper government authorities regarding the legality of such employment agency, or the truth about the offered job with embassy of the particular country where the jobs are supposedly available. The same with the mail order bride, there is a need to verify the information of the man to be marrying with the embassy of the country where that man lives. If this is the case, there is a tendency that the whole operation will be disrupted as when formal complaints is made with government authorities regarding the discovery, the whole operation might be disrupted This operation therefore requires careful planning especially with regards to hiring, keeping and deploying women. One particular problem for them is that the families of these women are keen on the developments regarding their daughter’s longing to work abroad. In other words, they might be sensitive to anything that might be suspicious relating to working abroad. With various laws that apply to this crime such as kidnapping, illegal detention, illegal recruitment, exploitation of women and children and anti-human trafficking laws, they can easily be rapt by the authorities. That is, the families and friends of the victims can report to the authorities what ever they perceived as irregularity on the processes, the very time their daughter left their home as they are supposedly in touched with her, all through out the entire processes. In other words any thing that would create suspicion would mean risk for this business; risk in the sense that these families and friends might report to the police the disappearance of their daughters. Thus, they need to carefully lay out plans for deceitful their schemes. They might even involved in civic duties and social functions, befriend people in high places, and to even to the point of disguising as philanthropist in order to project an image that will unlikely to be suspected of crime involvement, and be generous to the families of the victims during the initial stages of the hiring. The actors in this crime model therefore appear harmless, genuinely concern, and would hardly be suspected of any crime involvement. Outwardly, they are not dangerous, dignified, and innocent but inside; they are ruthless, cruel and hardened criminals. The actors of this crime group however will use its entire means to control these women once they have gotten in their hands these women. They will confiscate all communication devices such as cell phones and devices, as well as passports and other travel documents to ensure no one will dare of escape. In order to appease the families of the ‘hired victims’ the agency might provide cash incentives or advance payment to which after everything has been facilitated particularly the deployment of women to their prospective clients, the office will banish in the thin air to transfer to a new location with a new name, new address, new schemes, but the same people, the same processes, and the same modos operande. Upon hiring of women, they need to provide assurance that everything is fine to avoid any suspicion. However, when this democratic approach proved ineffective, they will use violence to silence the families of the victims. Beeks and Amir (2006) cited that once a woman is in trafficker’s hands, the latter uses any and all means to control her: violence, including sexual assault, threats to the victim’s and her family’s lives, drugs, and threat to turn the woman over to unsympathetic authorities (p. 68). Beeks and Amid stated, â€Å"many women refuse to cooperate with the authorities because there was little or no protection, and they faced deportation, and threats against their families if they cooperate with foreign law enforcement† (p. 68). The extent of this crime model Trafficking of women for prostitution is the worst of all the types of human trafficking. According to Ciment and Shanty, there are an estimated 800,000 to 900,000 individuals that trafficked each year to which the majority come from Southeast Asia, particularly Myanmar, India, Thailand, and Cambodia. The former Soviet Union is now seen to be growing source of trafficking for prostitution and the sex industry (p. 195). The extent of human trafficking is not only confined in Asian countries and the former Soviet Union. Nicola (2009) noted that trafficking in human beings for sexual exploitation, â€Å"has involved all the European Union and more in general Western European countries in the past twenty years (p. 3). The extent of human trafficking for prostitution apparently is global because the demand for commercial sex is global. There are no doubts that about the global extent of trafficking in women for prostitution as according to Jeffereys (1997) prostitution has been â€Å"industrialized internationally† (p. 307). Jeffreys pointed out that prostitution is a result of the increasing â€Å"internationalization of the world economy, in which local communities in the third world become an integral part of the industrialized countries† (p. 308). Jeffreys explained that as a consequence of the lost traditional resources, such as land, paid labor or other means of income were felt greatly by women and girls who have to take care of children and family because of tradition or the disappearance of male support (p. 308). Jeffreys asserts, â€Å"Military prostitution and sex tourism have increased the global demand for prostitution† (p. 309).

Contemporary American Culture and Materialism Essay

Throughout the semester we have covered many different topics during our study of contemporary American culture. We studied topics relating to our everyday lives such as, relationships, life habits, work, and school. The various readings, films, and discussions during class have helped me reflect upon my life. I would like to elaborate and focus on the aspects of this class that directly influence the way I see the world today. Before I took this course my mental image of materialism, happiness, and love were entirely different. I have been exposed to a different perception of our world today that I would have never experienced if I had not taken this course. Our course material helped me analyze how materialism affects me, and it helped†¦show more content†¦There are so many commercials on television that I rarely believe anything I see on television and that is quite sad, because what is shown on television should be regulated and resemble some sense of truth. I have learn ed that owning things are not important in life, and things like family, friends, love, and intelligent thought are more important. However we still need the essential necessities to survive. Another aspect of modern American culture that I hadn’t thought deeply about until taking this course is love. I can relate the materialism to love, because many Americans believe that the expense one spends on a gift reflects how much they love the person receiving the gift. Relationships in our culture today resemble a well-oiled bond between two people who remain strangers all their lives, who never arrive at a central relationship, but treat each other with courtesy and attempt to listen and make each other feel better. Love is only possible if both people communicate with each other, and are able to see things from their partner’s perspective. 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