Blindness and Sight - Lack of Vision in Oedipus the King :: King Lear essays

Parental Blindness in King Lear As Shakespeare presents to us a tragic pattern of parental and filial love, in which a prosperous man is devested of power and finally recognises his "folly", empathy is induced in the audience. In "King Lear", it is noted from the beginning of the play that both Lear and Gloucester suffer from self-approbation and will consequently find revelation by enduring "the rack of this tough world". While Lear mistakenly entrusts the shallow professions of love from his "thankless" daughters - Goneril and Regan - instead of the selfless words of Cordelia, Gloucester shadows a similar ignorance by initially entrusting love in the evil Edmund, rather than Edgar, whom we consider to be a "truly" loyal "noble gentlemen". Undeniably, both parents misjudge appearance for reality, as it is only in this way that they can "let the great gods that keep this dreadful pudder O'er [their] heads / Find out their enemies" where "all vengeance comes too short". When Lear is rejected by Goneril and Regan and stripped of his "hundred Knights and squires", he is left with "nothing" in the wilderness, besides the loyal company of Kent and the Fool, and later on, Edgar and Gloucester. It appears that at this stage he senses his "folly", that he "did [Cordelia] wrong". But Lear has yet to gain full insight. Although, before entering the hovel, he realises that he has been a "man more sinned against sinning", the process of self-discovery is not complete until all truth is unveiled. As Lear realises his foolishness in bannishing Cordelia - his "joy" and the only daughter who truly loves him - we sense Lear's increasing sorrow and despair. By revealling his "sin", he is subjecting himself to punishment. Perhaps it is a deserving motion, since he had passed judgement and punished Kent and Cordelia for coming between "the dragon and his wrath", that is, him and his power. Now the gods above rightfully control Lear's destiny, abiding by the process that man has to suffer to gain peace. At this particular moment, Lear is still unaware of Kent's identity, disguised as Caius, ever since he bannished Kent for defending Cordeila's thoughtful choice to "love and be silent". We understand that the disguise is a way in which Kent can protect and continually serve the "poor, weak and infirm" Lear. Lear begins to accomplish understanding through the change in his contemptuous behaviour to a sympathetic learning man.

How do bacteria affect human lives? Essay

Bacteria interact and are a constant in our day to day lives, perhaps more than suspected. Bacteria are often thought of as bad, however this is untrue, there is also many types of ‘good’ bacteria. ‘Good’ bacteria can benefit us by simply helping our digestive system work and helping us in the process of fermentation. Bacteria are extremely helpful in the production of many things such as fuel and medicine. But bacteria directly affect our production of food which, therefore, directly affects us. Without bacteria we wouldn’t have things like; cheese, sour cream and yoghurt. Bacteria are extremely helpful in the dairy industry as it works within food as a decomposer. Bacteria is needed in cheese as a starter culture, the culture grows in the milk, converting the sugar, lactose, into lactic acid giving the cheese the correct amount of moisture and the correct acidity. Cultures are also used in yoghurt, where it does a similar job as the one done in cheese. The culture is responsible for its taste, texture and once more, its acidity. The viscosity of the yoghurt is determined by its quantity of polysaccharide chains. Food products other than dairy which use bacteria in their production are; wine, dried meats and health food industries, where yeast, lactic bacteria and starter cultures are used. Bacteria doesn’t stop helping us with food there, some bacteria defend against harmful bacteria and aid digestion. These are all examples of bacteria benefiting human life. Bacteria even help destroy toxins and help the immune system mature (1)! However they’re bad bacteria often found in foods, products like milk can contain less beneficial bacteria which can be harmful. Most bacteria in milk comes from the skin of the cow and in production, however healthy cows equal less bacteria. This means in third world countries such as Uganda, where they often use unhealthy cows and goats as their main source of milk, more bacteria is likely to be within the milk making some ill and passing on disease. In places such as Britain, the milk goes through many processes making sure all or most harmful bact eria have been removed. An example of when bacteria are really not that beneficial to our lives is  disease causing bacteria. Bacterial pathogens can cause things like salmonella (food poisoning). Bacteria can also cause diseases like Cholera. Cholera is a huge killer, killing 120,000 a year and making many others extremely sick. Its bacterium is Vibrio Cholerae which is often killed by acidic conditions in the stomach, where the hydrochloric acid and digestive juice stay. Vibrio Cholerae is often taken in to the body through the ingestion of water contaminated with faecal matter containing the pathogen and rarely the ingestion of food, also containing faecal matter with the pathogen. Carriers then carry the pathogen; therefore it is able to spread making it very deadly. Unfortunately, cholera has few or no symptoms, so it is hard to tell if someone has Cholera meaning it sometimes spreads unnoticed. A symptom which can be linked with cholera is diarrhoea, meaning many carriers are often left being severely dehydrated. The amount of deaths that Cholera causes really reflects on how much this disease affects our lives. In 2010 and 2011, certain areas went through the major cholera epidemics, these were; Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Central Africa and the Pacific region with Papua New Guinea. The major cholera epidemic started in Haiti in October 2010, and it also affected its close neighbouring country, the Dominican Republic. At the end of 2011 (when the outbreak was still ongoing) there were 522,335 cases of cholera and 7001 deaths had been reported by the 25th of December in Haiti (2). Another example of bacteria benefiting us is bacterial vaccines. Bacterial vaccines are full of killed or attenuated bacteria. It seems crazy to inject bacteria which cause very harmful diseases into the body; however since they are dead they are not able to harm the body. But they do activate the immune system as it recognises it as foreign so it has to attack the bacteria. The immune system starts to produce antibodies for that particular bacteria and these build up and build up until there is enough to destroy the bacteria, this bacteria and antibody is then are remembered by memory cells meaning that next time they are infected with that bacteria the immune system instantly recognises the bacteria therefore killing it straight away, preventing the disease and preventing the same bacterial infection later. One example of a bacterial vaccine is the Tuberculosis vaccine (3). The BCG vaccine is the most common vaccine. It gets to over 80% of all new born  children in the countries which are part of the national childhood immunisation programme. In 2011, in the countries who were hoping to vaccinate each and every child, the levels of use of the vaccine ranged from 53% in Equatorial Guinea and 54% in Ethiopia, to more than a much larger 99.5% in India and China, two largely expanding countries (4). The increase of vaccinations in poorer areas of the world has lead to a much higher life expectancy, greatly affecting our lives. Bacteria are majorly affecting every single one of us in our lives, from common colds or to making cheese. The ‘good’ and ‘bad’ bacteria help and harm us. Overall, bacteria affects our lives more than any other and are highly beneficial and dangerous. References (1) – http://www.effca.org/content/bacteria-food-production (2) – http://www.who.int/gho/epidemic_diseases/cholera/epidemics/en/ (3) – http://www.drugs.com/drug-class/bacterial-vaccines.html (4) – http://www.tbfacts.org/bcg-tb-vaccine.html (5)

Choosing an Auxiliary Verb (Verbi Ausiliari) in Italian

Much like English, all Italian verbs in compound tenses require an auxiliary verb: either avere or essere. The auxiliary (or helping) verb allows the main verb—in its past participle mode, or participio passato—to express itself in different tenses. In English this happens when we say, I have eaten, or I had eaten, I am eating, or I would have eaten: those have and had and am are the English counterparts of Italian auxiliaries and those tenses translate to the Italian passato prossimo, trapassato prossimo, gerund, and condizionale passato. Auxiliaries in English and in Italian do not work exactly the same way and certainly do not correspond by tense (and believe it or not, the English auxiliaries in compound tenses are as baffling to learners of the English language). In fact, in Italian verbs use (or get) essere, avere, or either, not depending on the tense but rather depending on the behavior of the subject and the subjects relationship to the action and the object. How to Decide? Which verbs get  essere  and which  avere? Often you hear that it comes down to whether the verb is transitive—in other words, it has a direct object onto which the action, so to speak, falls; or whether it is intransitive—in other words, it does not have such an object. It ends in itself. According to that rule, transitive verbs get  avere  and intransitive verbs get  essere, and therefore all you need to do is memorize or figure out which ones are which. But that rule is plainly not accurate. In fact, there are many verbs that while intransitive, get  avere. And some verbs can get either, for different uses. Whats Steadfast This we know: All transitive verbs get avere.Reflexive  and reciprocal verbs get essere.Pronominal verbs also get essere.Verbs in impersonal mode get essere. Beyond that, verbs of movement or condition of being (to be born, to die, to grow) also are said to get  essere, but some verbs in some of those groups can also get either. For example, the verb salire, which is a verb of movement: Ho salito le scale (I ascended the stairs) uses avere (and the stairs are the object), but that same action and verb can be intransitive and get essere: Sono salita a casa (I went up in the house). Beyond that, many intransitive verbs get avere, and many can get either. How, then, can one know? A Way of Explaining An easy and truer way to think about it is to reflect on the role of the subject, how he, she, it, or them experience the action—whether they participate in it or are affected by it—and the relationship between the subject and the object: If the action only affects the outer world—the explicit outside object—then the verb gets  avere.  Ho mangiato un panino (I ate a sandwich); ho visto un cane (I saw a dog). It is a pure subject-object relationship. If, on the other hand, or in addition, the subject of the action, or the agent, is subjected or somehow affected by the action (not philosophically but linguistically)—it is its patient, undergoing the action, rather than only its agent—it takes  essere (or it may take both or either). That—the effects of the action—determines whether the verb uses essere or avere and helps makes sense of the exceptions and variations. (Remember, of course: Many, many verbs can be used transitively or intransitively, including reflexively: You can wash your car, you can wash yourself, and two people can wash each other. Depending on the effect of the action, the first uses avere and the latter two use essere because in reflexive and reciprocal mode, the subject is impacted by the action.) Intransitives with Essere Only Many intransitive, non-reflexive, non-pronominal verbs get essere and only essere. The action ends in the subject with no outer object—and, reason bears out, affects the subject. They are verbs of pure movement or state of being on the subjects part. Lets look. Among them are: andare: to goarrivare: to arrivecostare: to costdimagrire: to lose weightdurare: to lastdiventare: to becomeesistere: to existessere: to begiungere: to arrivemorire: to dienascere: to be bornpartire: to departrestare: to remainriuscire: to succeedsembrare: to seemstare: to staytornare: to returnvenire: to come Intransitives With Avere But among Italian intransitive verbs are many that use avere. Why? Because though the verb is intransitive, the action has an impact outside of the subject. Among these intransitive verbs, called accusative, from the Latin, are: agire: to actcamminare: to walkcantare: to singcenare: to dinelavorare: to worksanguinare: to bleedscherzare: to jokeviaggiare: to travel Either Way, No Difference There are a good number of intransitive verbs that can use either essere or avere with little consequence. Among them are germogliare (to sprout), coincidere (to coincide), tramontare (to set, as in sunset), vivere (to live) and convivere (to live together/coexist). La pianta ha germogliato/à ¨ germogliata. The plant sprouted.Il sole ha tramontato/à ¨ tramontato. The sun set.Marco ha convissuto/à ¨ convissuto per due anni. Marco lived with someone for two years. Also, weather verbs can use either, depending on subtleties such as how much it rained or snowed and regional use: ha piovuto or à ¨ piovuto; ha nevicato or à ¨ nevicato. A Matter of Meaning Some verbs can use essere when they are intransitive and use avere when they are transitive, but take on different meanings. The verb passare, for example: Intransitively, it is a verb of movement that affects the subject and, used as such, it gets essere: Sono passata per casa. But passare can also mean to experience (something), and in that case it has an object and it uses avere: Giulia ha passato un brutto periodo (Giulia experienced/lived a difficult time). Same with correre, to run. Il dottore à ¨ corso subito. The doctor ran/came immediately.Ho corso una maratona. I ran a marathon. Among the many verbs whose meaning and use changes depending on whether they are transitive or intransitive and use essere or avere are: Affogare (to drown): Gli uomini sono affogati nella tempesta. The men drowned in the storm.Paolo ha affogato la sua tristezza nel vino. Paolo drowned his sadness in wine. Crescere (to grow/raise): I bambini di Maria sono cresciuti molto. Marias children have grown.Maria ha cresciuto due bei figli. Maria raised two beautiful children. Guarire (to heal/cure): Il bambino à ¨ guarito. The child healed.Il sole ha guarito il mio raffreddore. The sun cured my cold. And seguire (to follow/ensue): Poi à ¨ seguita la notizia del suo arrivo. Then followed/came the news of his arrival.La polizia ha seguito la donna fino allaereoporto. The police followed the woman to the airport. Clearly the verbs with avere have a more active impact on the outside world; the actions with essere concern the very nature of the subject itself. In some cases the difference is subtle. Take volare, to fly: Luccello à ¨ volato via. The bird flew away.Luccello ha volato a lungo sopra il paese. The bird flew at length over the town. Servile Verbs Adapt So-called verbi servili (servile verbs) such as potere, dovere, and volere can take essere or avere, depending on whether the verb they are supporting at that moment uses avere or essere: For example: Sono dovuta andare dal dottore. I had to go to the doctor.Ho dovuto portare Alessandro dal dottore. I had to take Alessandro to the doctor. Andare uses essere and portare uses avere; hence the difference. Or: Marco à ¨ potuto restare a Londra. Marco was able to stay in London.Marco non ha potuto vedere il museo. Marco was not able to see the museum. Restare gets essere and vedere gets avere; hence the difference. Remember the Past Participle Agreement! Regardless of verb mode or reasoning, remember that whenever you use essere as the auxiliary the past participle must agree with the gender and number of the subject (or the object): Ci siamo lavati. We washed ourselves.Mi sono scritta una canzone per rallegrarmi. I wrote myself a song to cheer up.Ci siamo portati i cani dietro tutto il viaggio. We took the dogs with us the whole trip. In the second sentence, the scriversi looks reflexive, but it is not: it means to write for myself; in the third sentence, the portarsi dietro is used pronominally to emphasize the effort of taking the dogs. The function is still transitive. Think and When in Doubt Look It Up Rather than memorization, the best advice on how to is properly choose the auxiliary is to really ponder the relationship between the subject and the object and the action between them. Does the action transcend the object? Is there an explicit or implicit object? And, is the agent only an agent or also a patient of the action? And remember: When you are learning a foreign language it helps to consult a dictionary: Resources such as Treccani, Garzanti, or Zingarelli will tell you whether a verb is transitive or intransitive and whether it gets essere or avere or both and when. You will be surprised by how much you learn. Buono studio!