Appearance vs. Reality, Hamlet

In William Shakespeare’s Hamlet, the main theme of the play is appearance versus reality. The characters within the play appear to be sincere and honourable when in reality they are corrupt and immoral. Many of the characters within the play illustrate this concept. When looking at them from behind a mask they give the impression of a person who is genuine and honest, but in reality they are plagued with lies and despicable behaviour. Four of the main characters that attempt to deceive Hamlet by hiding behind this mask are Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, Polonius, and King Claudius. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are two of Hamlets childhood friends who are not as they appear. They are asked by the King and Gertrude to spy on Hamlet in order to find the reason behind Gertrude’s â€Å"too much changed son† (II. ii. 36). They give the appearance of being Hamlet’s friend, yet in reality, the pair only came to Elsinore because they were summoned. Surprised by his friends’ unexplained arrival, Hamlet questions what has brought them there. Rosencrantz lies when responding â€Å"To visit you my lord, no other occasion† (II. i. 266). Hamlet instantly sees through their lies and insists â€Å"you were sent for, and there / is a kind of confession in your looks†¦I know the good king and / queen have sent for you† (II. ii. 273-276). Knowing that his so-called friends are lying about the purpose of their visit, Hamlet discloses nothing to them. Having gotten no answers for the King, the two were asked to go to Hamlet once more an d continue to seek the real reason for Hamlet’s behaviour. Hamlet has little patience since being lied to and reveals to the pair that he is aware that they are spies and saying to them: [Y]ou would play upon me, you would seem to know my stops, you would pluck out the heart of my mystery, .. Call me what Instrument you will, though you can fret me, you cannot play upon me. † (III. iii. 343-350) Although appearing to be Hamlet’s friends, he quickly sees that in actuality, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are only trying to pry him for information. The King’s royal associate, Polonius, plays an important role in developing the theme. He’s constantly keeping up the facade of a concerned and caring individual. Polonius appears to be a good father, and honourable man. Upon learning that his son is going to France, he gives several pieces of advice to Laertes, in particular â€Å"This above all, to thine own self be true† (II. iii. 78). He gives advice in order to appear to be a caring father, when in fact he speaks in order to look good rather than to actually be good. Polonius then sends Reynaldo to bring Laertes money but instructs that â€Å"Before you visit him, to make inquire / Of his behaviour† (II. i. 4-5), and then advises him how to be sneaky about it. Throughout the play Polonius conspires with the King on ways to eavesdrop on Hamlet. When Hamlet is going to speak with his mother, Polonius suggests â€Å"Behind the arras I’ll convey myself / To hear the process† (III. iii. 28-29). Polonius acts as if his actions are for the king, when in fact it will benefit him greatly if the reason behind Hamlet’s strange behaviour is because of his love for Ophelia. Polonius also humiliates his daughter Ophelia by forcing her to read love letters from Hamlet aloud to the King and Gertrude. He tells Ophelia that it’s in her own best interest not to keep this secret. His words are those of a loving father, but his actions are quite different. Even though Polonius pretends to be moral and a loving parent, the reality is that he is a devious manipulator. Claudius, the current King of Denmark is the epitome of corruption and immorality although he presents himself to be the rightful king. King Claudius reveals his true maliciousness several times. Claudius only becomes King of Denmark after murdering his brother and marrying his sister-in-law Gertrude in an incestuous marriage. When speaking of his brothers’ death, he justifies the speedy marriage to Gertrude while appearing to have the kingdom’s best interest at heart when explaining â€Å"That we with wisest sorrow think on him / Together with remembrance of ourselves† (I. ii. 6-7). In actuality, Claudius acts out of greed to become king and out of lust for Gertrude. Claudius demeans Hamlet several times throughout the play. While Hamlet is grieving his father’s death, the heartless king requests â€Å"We pray you throw to earth / This unprevailing woe† (I. ii. 106-107), showing his deplorable behaviour by referring to Hamlet’s grief as useless. King Claudius shows his true maliciousness during his final act of manipulation. The king appeals to Laertes guilt and convinces him to kill Hamlet to avenge his father’s death by â€Å"A sword unbated, and in pass of practice / Requite him for your father† (IV. vii. 137-138). King Claudius’s selfish and despicable behaviour leads to the death of all those he had pretended to care for at one point or another: Gertrude, Hamlet, and Laertes. This final act of vengeance brings about the beginning of the end for the entire royal family. While proving that appearances can be deceiving, the characters help to develop the theme of appearance versus reality in the play. While Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, Polonius, and King Claudius all appear to be virtuous and honest people, the reality is that they are continually scheming and plotting against Hamlet. Although appearing to be respectable, each of them is actually tainted by evil and corruption. Unfortunately, Hamlet finds out the hard way that each of them have their own hidden agendas, and corruption spreads like disease throughout the state of Denmark.

Impact of urbanization on the climate in developing countries Research Paper

Impact of urbanization on the climate in developing countries - Research Paper Example Today, urbanization has been expanded globally. Its rapid expansion has been related to climate change; the phenomenon is more intensive in developing countries. The effects of urbanization on the climate change in developing countries are presented and analyzed in this paper. The literature related to this subject has been critically reviewed in order to identify all aspects of the relationship between urbanization and climate change, in regard to the developing countries. It is proved that urbanization is highly involved in climate change in these countries; however, the level at which urbanization has influenced the climate of developing countries is not standardized. Certain of these countries have been proved as better prepared to control the expansion of urbanization in their territory. Other countries, such as China, face difficulties in managing the effects of urbanization. Due to its radical expansion worldwide, urbanization has been extensively explored as of its environmental effects. In fact, it has been proved that urbanization can impact the environment in regard to all its elements, meaning ‘the atmosphere, the hydrosphere and the lithosphere’ (Joseph 2009, p.11). More specifically, under the influence of urbanization, the levels of CO2 in the atmosphere can reach extremely high levels, depending on the density of local population (Joseph 2009). At the same time, urbanization leads to the reduction of the O2 available in atmosphere, due to the limitation of green areas where O2 is produced (Joseph 2009). In terms of the hydrosphere the expansion of urbanization is reflected to the following fact: the needs for water in urban areas can be quite high (Joseph 2009). The potentials of local water depositories to respond to these needs are often limited (Joseph 2009). In addition, urbanization can affect lithosphere: extensive land areas are

Buy me buy me Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Buy me buy me - Essay Example Less focus on the school commercialization does not indicate an end to it, rather it can be an indication of increases acceptance of this marketing practice. Molnar’s audience here is the district governemnt, educational institutes, parents and students. Molnar also impliedly communicates to the community and government at large. In the article we find a lack of governmental policies and their implication along with a similar blind conscience of community. By making this deficiency apparent in his article, Molnar emphasizes for the promotion of an active resistance on all levels. His persuasive argumentation is casting a strong glimmer of reprimand for the advertising industries. The objective of the article is to evoke an active resistance against the school commercialism and to make it clear that school commercialism has not disappeared yet. In the support of his stance against the prevailing misperception, as he clarifies that it may have only been due to the acceptance of increasing commercialization in educational institutes, as he mentions that "Of particular note again this year was the lack of voice in the education media on commercializing activity in schools" (Molnar and Reaves, 2001). The article’s purpose also is to jolt the authorities of educational institutes and the district governments to stir their ethical educational conscience. The school marketing is misleading the young generation and thereby jeopardizing the future of our country. Molnar aims to highlight the still prevailing unworthy cost of such commercialization, as was the case of Philio Morriss textbook program that was advertising smoking at a subliminal level (Molnar and Reaves, 2001). The article intends to evoke awareness in schools and institutions against the persuasive strategies of the industries, to make the institutes aware of the meager benefits and abundant

Descartes Philosophy Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Descartes Philosophy - Essay Example The cause of the 'magnetism' is the magnet. This form of circular causal reasoning would have had been insufficient for Descartes and it is in this context of a world that is founded on such archaic Aristotelian principles that he meditates the cogito. Descartes wanted knowledge derived from natural science to have the clear and distinct properties of mathematical and geometrical concepts. Descartes presents his method in The Meditations. In order to evaluate its significance to his own philosophy it is imperative to demonstrate how he reaches the conclusion of the cogito. In order to build a proper epistemic approach to knowledge Descartes asks us to suspend our beliefs in propositions whose truth it is possible to doubt even in the slightest. As Descartes advances through the first meditation, our principles for acknowledging reality are elevated ever higher as he demolishes the capacities of recollection and the senses and even rationale in this respect. He presents three skeptica l arguments to fortify doubt, the dream argument, the interventionist creator-God and the imperfect creator/imperfect creation arguments. Discussion and Analysis The first argument, the dream argument says that there is no definite way to discern between when I am awake and when I am dreaming therefore, it is possible that I am dreaming right now and hence that all of my perceptions and sensations are false. It can be said against this that dreams are often hazy and are surreal with an unusual and we can always tell if we are able to dream. But for every notion we have of defining a boundary between dreams and being in a state of awakeness. One other problem with the dream argument as an argument for universal doubt is that it does not cause problems for self-evident 'truths' such as mathematical and geometrical concepts. To introduce the hyperbolic doubt Descartes needs to arrive at the cogito he must conceive of an argument that would make mathematics and logical validity dubitabl e. In order to do this he conceives of God as an all-powerful creator. Because of the omnipotence of God it is possible for Him to disrupt the truth of ideas we perceive as distinctly and clearly such as tautologies and analytic mathematical propositions. The first objection against this argument is that some people would not believe in a God that had sufficient power as to remove the certainty from clear and distinct ideas. Descartes reasons out of this problem by arguing that if our creator-God is less than perfect then we have even more reason to doubt because of our origins from an imperfect being. The other problem from this rebuttal is that assuming that there is a perfect God then it would be contradictory to his perfect being to deceive us. Another point, a God who deceives could have created our minds so that they could we can always have frequently or indeed always, have false thoughts. Accordingly, when we are calculating 2+2=4 and believing it to be self-evident we could be suffering an intervention from an omnipotent God to trick us to believing. It would seem that Descartes has now called even reason itself into doubt. By showing all knowledge is dubitable in the first meditation the significance of the Cogito for Descartes becomes clear. What if Descartes would be able to offer a cognitive principle that would

Chapter 8. WE TAKE NOTHING BY CONQUEST, THANK GOD Assignment

Chapter 8. WE TAKE NOTHING BY CONQUEST, THANK GOD - Assignment Example Though now when everything is forgotten, and it seems absolutely habitual and reasonable that these states belong to the US as they have become its pride and attraction. While several centuries ago these events caused numerous human victims and provoked serious disputes in the society. The question if this expansion can be considered justified or it is only a byproduct of the growing America`s pride and ambitions was raised in the society. Is there any way to persuade society and church that annexing the territories belonging to other nation is a necessary step for the country? Of course, there is! Such mechanisms as provoking revenge, manipulating socialoseopinion, and telling lies worked in the circumstances and will work as long as the human race exists. I was impressed by the thoughts of Colonel Hitchcock who managed to show the essence of this conflict and express the ambiguity of this choice for the nation: â€Å"I have said from the first that the United States are the aggressors. . . . We have not one particle of right to be here. ... It looks as if the government sent a small force on purpose to bring on a war, so as to have a pretext for taking California and as much of this country as it chooses, for, whatever becomes of this army, there is no doubt of a war between the United States and Mexico. . .. My heart is not in this business ... but, as a military man, I am bound to execute orders†. So after the horrible and cunning provocation which lead to the murder of the American General the country started acting more violently and forcefully. That was the time when the concept of the â€Å"manifest destiny† appeared and Americans felt the right to decide whom to live and whom to die. It is strange how the feeling of superiority can infect even religious people. The following quote evoked strong paradoxical feelings in me: â€Å"The Reverend Theodore Parker, Unitarian minister in Boston, combined eloquent criticism of

BPO and Cloud Computing (case study) Case Study

BPO and Cloud Computing ( ) - Case Study Example These applications range from external e commerce and business to business application to internal financial and human resources. An enterprise can have one or more than one data centers. The benefits of the data centers includes supporting business operations round the clock, rapid deployment of applications and consolidation of computing resources and maintenance for sustaining business functions. Enterprises make special arrangement of both the facilities that house the equipment and personnel required for such an operation. These facilities support high concentration of network infrastructure and server resources. A data center is based on the availability of power capacity, cabling, cooling capacity, temperature and humidity control, physical security like restricted access and surveillance systems, fire and smoke systems, rack space and raised floor. Data centers support high speed communication between servers, storage and devices of storage (Arregoces & Portolani, 2004, P.21) . It also increases the availability of mirroring, clustering and replication between database systems and storage devices. These facilities helps in storing the data in multiple locations thus lowering the chances of site failure that prevents chances of normal system operations. Site failures are recovered by the replica of data at different sites thereby creating the need for distributed data centers, distributed server firms and obvious transport technologies for enabling communication between them. Data centers can be local as well as one that is located overseas. A local data center does not rely on connectivity over the internet and therefore negates a possible failure point. Local data collection, correlation and processing are easier with local data centers. Corrective actions can be immediately taken to fix problems. The closer the management components are to the source of the problems, the3 more independent the firms can be for supporting their infrastructure. Corrective management activities can be taken even if the network to the management server is down. Continuous and autonomous monitoring is possible with the help of local data centers. A local database has access to all data sources which are not remotely accessible. In addition to remote interfaces like SNMP, scripting, WMI, the local data centers also have sensors for log files, discovery information, performance data sources- basically anything that is available locally. A local data centre can perform correlation which helps in reducing flood of data into meaningful set of events. Instead of sending thousand log file records over the network to the server for analysis, local data centers filters out extraneous information and allows important problems to be sent to a centralized event console. It helps in reducing false alarms and increases the productivity and efficiency as short term peeks are ignored and no time is spent in dealing with false alarms. It also helps in suppressing dupli cate events that is based on time interval, count of similar events or both. Identical messages that occur within a very short period of time are suppressed and the first event is only forwarded to management server (Murugesan & Gangadharan, 2012, P. 21). Local actions can be executed without the intervention from the management server. The disadvantage of local data center is that keeping each client side database in sync is very difficult. Programming, administration and maintenance of data become nearly impossible. Data integrity, security, data

Descartes Philosophy Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Descartes Philosophy - Essay Example The cause of the 'magnetism' is the magnet. This form of circular causal reasoning would have had been insufficient for Descartes and it is in this context of a world that is founded on such archaic Aristotelian principles that he meditates the cogito. Descartes wanted knowledge derived from natural science to have the clear and distinct properties of mathematical and geometrical concepts. Descartes presents his method in The Meditations. In order to evaluate its significance to his own philosophy it is imperative to demonstrate how he reaches the conclusion of the cogito. In order to build a proper epistemic approach to knowledge Descartes asks us to suspend our beliefs in propositions whose truth it is possible to doubt even in the slightest. As Descartes advances through the first meditation, our principles for acknowledging reality are elevated ever higher as he demolishes the capacities of recollection and the senses and even rationale in this respect. He presents three skeptica l arguments to fortify doubt, the dream argument, the interventionist creator-God and the imperfect creator/imperfect creation arguments. Discussion and Analysis The first argument, the dream argument says that there is no definite way to discern between when I am awake and when I am dreaming therefore, it is possible that I am dreaming right now and hence that all of my perceptions and sensations are false. It can be said against this that dreams are often hazy and are surreal with an unusual and we can always tell if we are able to dream. But for every notion we have of defining a boundary between dreams and being in a state of awakeness. One other problem with the dream argument as an argument for universal doubt is that it does not cause problems for self-evident 'truths' such as mathematical and geometrical concepts. To introduce the hyperbolic doubt Descartes needs to arrive at the cogito he must conceive of an argument that would make mathematics and logical validity dubitabl e. In order to do this he conceives of God as an all-powerful creator. Because of the omnipotence of God it is possible for Him to disrupt the truth of ideas we perceive as distinctly and clearly such as tautologies and analytic mathematical propositions. The first objection against this argument is that some people would not believe in a God that had sufficient power as to remove the certainty from clear and distinct ideas. Descartes reasons out of this problem by arguing that if our creator-God is less than perfect then we have even more reason to doubt because of our origins from an imperfect being. The other problem from this rebuttal is that assuming that there is a perfect God then it would be contradictory to his perfect being to deceive us. Another point, a God who deceives could have created our minds so that they could we can always have frequently or indeed always, have false thoughts. Accordingly, when we are calculating 2+2=4 and believing it to be self-evident we could be suffering an intervention from an omnipotent God to trick us to believing. It would seem that Descartes has now called even reason itself into doubt. By showing all knowledge is dubitable in the first meditation the significance of the Cogito for Descartes becomes clear. What if Descartes would be able to offer a cognitive principle that would