Stage of LIfe

Erik Erikson was a psychoanalytic theorist, who believed that all humans go through eight stages of development throughout their lifetime. The first stage is called Trust vs. Mistrust. The second stage is called Autonomy vs. Shame and Doubt. Third stage is Initiative vs. Guilt. The fourth stage is Industry vs. Inferiority. Fifth stage is Identity vs. Confusion. Sixth stage is Intimacy vs. Isolation. Seventh stage is Generativity vs. Stagnation. The eighth and final stage is Integrity vs. Despair (Berger, 17).Each stage occurs at a specific time frame and requires achievement to obtain successful completion. The first stage occurs between birth and one year of age. During this stage, if one’s parents provide familiarity, consistency, and continuity, a feeling that the world is a safe place and people are reliable and loving will develop (Berger, 129). Also, the child learns to trust their body and biological urges that go with it. If the parents are inadequate and unreliable, o r the child is harmed or rejected, then mistrust is developed.This mistrust will result in fear and a belief that the world is inconsistent and unpredictable. If this stage is achieved successfully, children acquire hope, the belief that even when things aren’t going well they will work out well in the end. The second stage occurs in early childhood. The goal of this stage is to achieve autonomy while minimizing shame and doubt. If a toddler is allowed to explore and manipulate their environment they will develop a sense of independence. The child develops self-esteem and self-control (Berger, 129).If parents or caregivers come down hard on toddlers’ attempts to explore and be independent the toddler will give up and assume that they cannot and should not act on their own. Also, giving children no sense of limits, unrestricted freedom, and doing for children what they should do for themselves will lead them to conclude that they are not good for much and shouldnâ€℠¢t do for themselves. A little shame and doubt is beneficial because without it, one will develop a shameless willfulness that leads one to jump into things without proper consideration of one’s abilities.Too much shame and doubt leads to compulsiveness. If the proper balance at this stage is achieved the virtue of willpower is developed. The third stage occurs during preschool years. Goal is to learn initiative without too much guilt. Initiative means a positive response to the world’s challenges, taking on responsibilities, learning new skills, and feeling purposeful (Berger, 198). If parents encourage children to try out their ideas and accept and encourage fantasy, curiosity, and imagination. Capacity of moral judgment has begun.Parents have the responsibility to encourage the child to â€Å"grow up. † If this process is done too harshly or too abruptly, the child learns to feel guilty about their feelings. Too much initiative and too little guilt leads to r uthlessness, taking initiative and doing whatever it takes to achieve the goals. Extreme form of ruthlessness is sociopathy. On the other hand, too much guilt leads to inhibition. This person will not try things because not trying means nothing to feel guilty about. If a good balance is achieved during this stage a sense of purpose is developed.The fourth stage occurs approximately 5-11 years of age. During this stage parents must encourage, teachers must care, peers must accept. Children must learn that there is pleasure in conceiving a plan and carrying it out (Berger, 272). They must learn the feeling of success. If a child is allowed too little success they will develop a sense of inferiority or incompetence. They may never develop social skills. If this stage is achieved children will develop the virtue of competence and the belief in our own abilities to handle the tasks set before them. Stage five occurs in adolescence.The task is to achieve ego identity and to avoid role con fusion. They learn who they are and how they fit into the rest of society (Berger, 348). Through receiving proper encouragement and reinforcement through personal exploration adolescents emerge with a strong sense of self and a feeling of independence and control. Those who are unsure of their beliefs and desires will feel insecure and confused about themselves and their future. Completing this stage successfully leads to fidelity, the ability to live by society’s standards and expectations. Stage six occurs during early adulthood.Erikson believed that a strong sense of personal identity was important for developing intimate relationships (Berger, 456). Those with a poor sense of self tend to have less committed relationships and are more likely to suffer emotional isolation, loneliness, and depression. Successful resolution of this stage results in the virtue known as love, marked by the ability to form lasting, meaningful relationships with other people. Stage seven occurs in adulthood. The focus is on career and family. Success in this stage leads to a feeling of contributing to the world by being active in the home and community (Berger, 473).Failure to attain this skill leads to feelings of unproductivity and non-involvement in the world. Successful handling of this stage leads to the virtue of care, being proud of one’s accomplishments, watching children grow into adults, develop a sense of unity with your life partner are important accomplishments. Stage eight occurs in old age. Those unsuccessful in this stage feel that their life has been wasted and will experience many regrets. They are left with feelings of bitterness and despair (Berger, 530). Those who are successful feel proud of their accomplishments and a sense of integrity.Successful completion means looking back with few regrets, a general feeling of satisfaction, and attaining wisdom even when confronting death. My most favorite stage I have experienced so far is stage seven, G eneratively vs. stagnation. This is true because I feel that I have found a job that allows me to contribute to my society and the world in a positive, helpful way. I am able to watch my children grow into wonderful adults. I am proud of all my accomplishments in school, work, and raising my children. I feel a strong sense of productivity that I have not had before. My least favorite stage was adolescence.It was tough having to discover who I was and what I wanted to be. Peers were very important and it was tough trying to fit in and be a part of a group. I would change my stage six, Intimacy vs. Isolation. My father passed away during this time and I was very close to him. So much of me and my sense of self was related to my father and when he died it was like I lost a big part of me as well. It was a very difficult time for me and I felt a great sense of loss. I believe that it has had an impact on my ability to form close, secure, committed relationships with other people.I am mo st looking forward to continuing in stage seven, Generatively vs, Stagnation. I am enjoying all of my accomplishments and watching my children grow so much that I am looking forward to continuing in this stage. I am dreading stage eight, Integrity vs. Despair because I know there are things and decisions that I will regret as I reflect back on my life. I have learned much and am happy with the majority of my life. Also, during this stage is usually when death occurs and I am not ready to give up my life just yet, I still have some things I would like to accomplish and I want to be around for my children and grandchildren.

Drama and Play

————————————————- DRAMA Origin of Greek tragedy and comedy Drama, in the western world, begins with ancient Greece, where the two major forms of drama †¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦.. tragedy and comedy †¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦.. were an aspect of religious ritual. Greek tragedy is believed to have begun in the sixth century B. C. with Thespis who introduced the first actor on the stage. The first dramatic dialogue lies in the conversation of this actor with leader of the satiric chorus. The dramatic element was subsequently added by Aeschylus in the fifth century B. C. and later by Sophocles of the same period.They added a second and third actor on the stage respectively. Euripides, a contemporary of Sophocles, used drama as a medium for dealing with the problems of human existence. As the Greek drama developed, the chorus was detached from the main action. Of these ancient Geek trage dies, thirty-two plays are now extant †¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦. seven by Sophocles, and eighteen by Euripides. Greek comedy originated from the humorous side of the Dionysian rites. A actual feature was the singing procession, or comos. Their song along with a kind of mummery or play-acting developed into comedy. Greek comedy passed through three stages †¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦..Old Comedy, Middle Comedy, and New Comedy. The Old comedy was the comedy of political and personal satire. The satirical plays of Aristophanes were directed against Euripides. The Middle comedy was a transition from this to the comedy of social life and manners. The satire became impersonal. In the New Comedy, the love intrigue became the dominant theme. The best known writer of the New Comedy was Menander who died in the third century B. C. His plays are now extant in Latin translations by Plautus and Terence. Drama and in Rome The Romans wrote comedies and tragedies in the manner laid down by the Greeks.The characters were mostly stock figures like the comic slave, the braggart soldier, the proud cook, the young lover, the hunch-back, the cuckold and so on. The outstanding writers were Plautus (200 B. C. ) and Terence (150 B. C. ). Twenty plays of Plautus are now extant, including the â€Å"Menaechmi†, from which Shakespeare took the plot for â€Å"The Two Gentlemen of Verona†. Only six plays of Terence are extant. The most important writer of Roman tragedy was Seneca, who was a statesman and philosopher in the Stoic School. His ten plays are translated into English during the Elizabethan period. Drama in EnglandLike other countries, the drama in England had its origin in the services of the church. In the Middle Ages, the services of the church used to be in Latin, and the Bible was therefore, beyond the comprehension of the common people. The clergymen started illustrating Biblical stories by dump shows in order to bring the religious doctrines within the comprehension of the laym en. They were enacted within the church and the actors were all clergymen and monks. In due course, dialogue, first in Latin, then in the vernacular, was introduced and thus the ritualistic representations in the church developed into full-fledged drama.Subsequently the place inside the church was found inadequate and so the representations were transferred to the churchyards. When this also proved insufficient, the drama passed from the church to the street, from the clergymen to the laymen. The mystery and miracle plays The Mystery and Miracle plays mark an advancement in the development of the medieval religious drama. The Mysteries dealt with themes taken from the Bible, whereas Miracle plays dealt with the lives of saints. The institution of the festival of Corpus Christi by Pope Urban IV in 1264 gave an impetus to the growth of these plays.Until the thirteenth century Miracle plays were annually performed at several important towns like Chester, York, Coventry, and Lancaster. Curiously enough, these religious plays combined serious theme with farce, buffoonery, and coarse humour. Devil and Vice were depicted in a funny manner. The Devil was represented as a hideous monster, hairy and shaggy with horns, hoofs and a tail. Vice appeared in a fantastic, variegated dress carrying a wooden dagger and indulging in mad tumultuous pranks and jokes. He continued to have a comic role in English drama for long.This sort of medieval religious drama reached its highest point of development in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. The â€Å"cycles† presenting a series of plays containing a story of the creation of the world were popular in England in the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth centuries. Of these, four cycles †¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦ Chester comprising twenty-five plays, York comprising forty-eight plays, Wakefield comprising thirty-five plays, and Coventry comprising forty-two †¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦ have been preserved. Monks and scholars generally wrote the plays. Their settings were elaborate.Heaven was presented in an awe-inspiring manner while Hell was presented as a dragon’s mouth. Theatrical effects were obtained by several devices as trap doors, pulleys, and the beating of drums. The aim of these was to instruct an entertain people. The Moralities and Interludes The end of the fifteenth century witnessed a parting between the serious and comic elements in these plays. The serious part of the story was treated separately in plays called â€Å"Morality Plays†. The comic or the lighter side was presented in â€Å"Interludes†.In the Morality Plays religious instruction was substituted by moral teaching and biblical figures were substituted by personified virtues and vices. Mostly the theme was the struggle for a man’s soul. The purpose of these plays was to inculcate virtue by showing the forces of Good and Evil in action. The characters were mostly personifications of abstract qualities like Sin and Repentance. The first known Moralities called â€Å"Paternoster† plays were performed in the latter part of the fourteenth century. It dealt with the conflict between the Seven Moral Virtues and the Seven Deadly Sins.The best Morality play is, however, â€Å"Everyman† published in the early sixteenth century. Humour was kept alive in the character of the Vice, who may be regarded as the forerunner of the Shakespearean clown. The term â€Å"Interlude† is applied to a species of professional performance carried out on special occasions like banqueting. It was used to fill intervals. It marks a definite advance in the art of comedy and forms a bridge of sorts between the Moralities and the Elizabethan drama. The characters were living human beings, and the aim was to amuse and entertain the audience.With the interlude, drama lost its didactic character and became a vehicle of secular entertainment. The most famous interlude is John Heywood’s â€Å"The Four Ps† printed in 1569. The characters in are a Palmer, a Pardoner, a Pothecary and a Pedlar vying with another in telling the biggest lie. The verdict goes in favour of the palmer who stated that of the five hundred women he had known he had never seen one â€Å"out of patience†. The five divisions of the dramatic plot The basic of every dramatic story is conflict. It may take different shapes.It may be between the hero, representing good, and the villain representing evil, it may of the hero against fate or circumstances, or against social conventions and customs. It may also be an inward war as in the case of Macbeth. In any case, a kind of conflict is the central element of the dramatic story. The plot begins with the opening of this conflict and ends with its conclusion. If we sympathise with the struggler, the play is a tragedy, and if laugh at him, it is a comedy. The theme of the play passes through five stages. They are exposition, complication, climax, denou ement, and catastrophe.This is called â€Å"the dramatic line†. Perhaps this five-fold structure of dramatic story accounts for the common division of play into five acts. The Exposition introduces the circumstances or situation from which the initial incident is to begin. Its aim is to give all the information necessary for the audience to understand the play. This is not an easy part of the play and its management may be regarded as a real test of a dramatist’s skill. Mrs. Stowe admits in her book â€Å"The Minister’s Wooing†, †When one has a story to tell, one is always puzzled which end of it to begin with.You have a whole corps of people to introduce what you know and your reader does not; and one thing so presupposes another that whichever way you turn your patchwork, the figures seem ill-arranged†. This is the experience of a novelist who can recourse to direct narrative and explanation. We can, then presume the difficulty of a dramatis t who is denied such privileges. The least dramatic among the methods adopted by the dramatists is that of speech given by one of the characters, or a prologue. An example is the dialogue in the Second Scene of Shakespeare’s â€Å"The Tempest†. A good exposition takes the form of a dialogue which is natural nd appropriate. It is brief, clear and dramatic. The first portion of the play after the initial incident comprises the Complication or the Rising Action or the Growth of the conflict towards the crisis. It should be characterised by clearness and logical consistency. Every incident should appear natural, and nothing that is essential should be obscured by unimportant details. The proper relation between character and action should be maintained. Every scene should have its role in the development of the plot or add to our knowledge about the characters should be indicated.If the conflict is between two persons, both the characters should be made familiar to the aud ience, and if it is within the mind of the hero, hiss qualities and conduct should be presented carefully. The foundation for the following action should be thus laid. In climax or Crisis, the story reaches a point at which the balance begins to learn decisively to one or the other side. This is therefore known ass the turning point also. The treatment of the crisis may vary according to the circumstances. It may consist of a single incident or a group of incidents.Generally the crisis is placed about the middle of the action, tin Shakespeare’s plays, it is generally towards the close of the third act or the beginning of the fourth act. In â€Å"Macbeth†, the Banquet scene, which comprises the crisis, occurs In Act III. After the appearance of Banquo’s ghost and the escape of Fleance, Macbeth’s fortunes are reversed. The dramatist should be careful that the event which determines the whole course of the action to its catastrophe comes out of the action it self and is not superimposed from outside.The crisis over, we enter upon the denouement which is the falling action. In comedy it implies the removal of the obstacles or the clearing away of the misunderstanding which has hitherto been hindering the good fortune of the hero and the heroine. In tragedy it lies in the removal of those resisting powers which have been holding the powers of evil in check. In any case, our uncertainty and suspense come to an end and we rejoice in the happiness of the hero and the heroine or sympathise with them. The denouement presents to the dramatist the difficulty of maintaining the nterest of the audience after they are able to forsee the fortune of the characters. Small wonder Fielding hated â€Å"the man who invented fifth act†: Oddly enough, in Shakespeare tragedies, our interest continues even after the ending of the play can be clearly foreseen. CatastropheI is the final stage of the plot. The dramatic conflict comes to an end. The play t o an end. The play usually ends with a sense of finality. But in modern plays and novels nothing is concluded and as Tennyson said, we seem to be poised on the crest of a wave which does not break.This inconclusiveness is supported by those who favour realism, for, in life, they say, there is no such things as an â€Å"end† yet we must bear in mind that drama is a series of incidents selected for dramatic treatment. Audience demand a story in which no loose threads are left. The dramatist has to make the catastrophe the natural outcome of the forces which have been at work in the play. Aristotle recommended that the unraveling of the plot must arise out of the plot itself, and must never be brought about by a dues exmachina.Though modern dramatists do not resort to a â€Å"God out of the machine† they employ such means as he timely removal of the villain by an accident, or the turning up of a will, or the discovery of a birthmark or something that reveals the real iden tity of the hero, or the unexpected arrival of an uncle long reported to be dead and so on. More common is the sudden change of heart of one of the characters to make the story end happily. The dramatist who employs such contrivances in a comedy may not do so when writing a tragedy. The reason is not far to seek. In comedy life is treated in a light and superficial manner..Criticism of life in the drama The drama is different from novel in being objective. The novel permits the writer to intrude often to express his interpretation of life. He can do it directly or indirectly while the dramatist is forced to confine himself to the indirect method alone. According to Henry James, an novel is a personal impression representation of life. It is not, therefore, easy to detect in a play, the writer’s philosophy of life. The dramatist throws on our shoulders the entire responsibility of finding his meaning and even explaining what he has merely implied. But occasionally the dramatis t escapes from the estraints imposed on him by making one of the characters in the play represent him. The Chorus of the Greek tragedies was thus a representative of the dramatist. He is often the mouthpiece of the dramatist’s philosophy of life. The modern dramatist no longer makes use of such a device. The main function of the chorus was to report the events that took place off stage and to make some comments on the morality of the actions presented on the stage. In modern plays, its place is often taken by one of the characters in the drama. Thus Enobarbus in Shakespeare’s â€Å"Antony and Cleopatra† is a kind of chorus.With his critical comments he serves to bring out the cause of Antony’s degeneration uner the spell of the â€Å"Serpent of old Nile†. In modern problem plays, we often come across a character whose principal function in the play is merely to move through it as a philosopher spectator. He expounds moral problems on behalf of the writer. The French critics call him â€Å"raisonneur†. But it is not always right to identify an out-spoken character with the dramatist. For instance some commentators hhave made the mistake of discovering in the melancholy Jacques in â€Å"As You Like It† the representative of Shakespeare.But Shakespeare makes all the other characters in the play laugh at him which indicates that he does not express Shakespeare’s views. The dramatist may very often find the Chorus –like character or the â€Å"raisonneur† inadequate to express his views on life. He often makes his view clear to the audience through the utterances of the various characters. Even while speaking in accordance with their personalities and situations, they may express the writer’s ideas about me and things. We can thus gain a clear idea of Shakespeare’s ideas and judgements from the utterances of his characters.The difficulty lies in discriminating the particular moments when they express the dramatist’s views. Canon Beeching holds the opinion that the sentiments put into the mouth of these characters with whom we are expected to sympathise invariably express the writer’s views. But we notice that even the characters unable to arouse our sympathy may sometimes express moral truths, defined by them on earlier occasions. For instance, when Edgar says at the end of â€Å"King Lear†, â€Å"The Gods are just and of our pleasant vices make instruments to plague us†,Edmund, the villain replies, â€Å"Thou hast spoken right; ‘tis true; the wheel has come full circle; I am here†. Shakespeare’s commentary upon the plot is provided more by Edmund than Edgar on this occasion. We should ,therefore, be careful in examining the sentiments expressed by the various characters in a play. In conclusion, we can say without any shadow of doubt that dramatist’s criticism of life is embodied in the whole spirit of the play. The world that the dramatist creates, with all men and women, their actions, passions and motives, their struggles followed by success or failure, is a world for which the dramatist lone is responsible.It goes without saying then that it is a projection of his own personality. The whole play, therefore, reveals the temper of his mind, the way in which he looks upon things, the line of hs thoughts, his interests, and his attitude towards life. Characterisation in Drama One of the differences between drama and novel lies in the exposition of character. Usually it is thought that drama is concerned with action and, therefore, characterisation is a secondary matter in it. According to Mr. Henry Arthur Jones, â€Å"The first demand of an average theatrical audience is always the same as the child’s †¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦ Tell me a story†.But story in a drama is childish and unintellectual unless it is related to character. If the story is nothing more than a successio n of incidents, it is not much different from the adventures of a highway man. The story in a play should display the various aspects of human nature. As Hudson says, â€Å"Characterisation is the rally fundamental and lasting element in the greatness of any dramatic work†. This is illustrated best by Shakespeare’s plays. Centuries have passed since Shakespeare wrote them, but we are still interested in them, and our interest is by no means less than that of the Elizabethan audience.What keeps our interest alive are the men and women in them. The essential quality of â€Å"Macbeth† lies not in the murders Macbeth commits, but in the character of Macbeth. Even lago, the villain, can hold us spellbound with his villainous schemes, originated in his brain. â€Å"Hamlet† is nothing more than a revenge play when we consider its plot, but none of these revenge plays that hooked the Elizabethan audience can appeal to us now as â€Å"Hamlet† does. Shakespe are has worked miracle out of that raw material by developing the psychological element in it, and that accounts for the immortal appeal of â€Å"Hamlet†.The first condition in characterization in a lay is brevity. The dramatist has to portray the motive and conduct of a person within a few scenes. Since characterization and action cannot be divorced in a play, and the progress of the story has to be kept up, the task of the dramatist is not easy. This can well be illustrated with Shakespeare’s delineation of Macbeth. In the first act, the dramatist gives us an account of Macbeth’s courage on the battlefield, the evil fermenting in him, the confidence that others, including King Duncan, had in him, and above all, his superstitious nature.The essential qualities of Lady Macbeth are also portrayed with equal precision. Her moral courage, her singleness of purpose, her influence over her husband’s sensitive nature are all laid before us in the first act itse lf. Yet Shakespeare has allotted to Lady Macbeth less than sixty speeches in the whole play, and Macbeth speaks about 150 times, and none of the speeches is long. â€Å"Macbeth† thus illustrates Shakespeare’s skill in characterization. Concentration is another necessary condition in characterization in plays. The main qualities of a character should be emphasized.Every word of the dialogue may be used for this purpose, and supererogatory talk may be avoided. A dramatist sometimes commits the mistake of being absorbed in the development of the character to such an extent that those qualities which do not influence the action may also be mentioned. This is called over characterisation , characterisation in accused Shakespeare of this tendency.. Impersonality is another necessary condition in characteriisation. Unlike the novelist, the dramatist has to spend apart from his characters.He cannot take them to pieces and lay their soul bare before us or pass judgement upon th em. The plot and the utterance of the characters are the only means by which the dramatist can reveal his men, and women, their thoughts, their motives and passions. The dramatist, therefore, makes use of movement of the story, then crises and situations in it to display the intellectual and moral qualities of his characters. In the words of Hudson, â€Å"We know them by what they do, as the tree is known by its fruit†. In a good play, as in a good novel plot rests upon character.A number of men and momen of different dispositions, motivated by different passions asr brought together and the clash of their interests constitutes the plot. The evacuation of the story then reveals thir dispositions, their motives and passions. Dialogue plays an important role in characterization. The characters exhibit their passion and motives, feelings and conflicts in their utterances. When the interest of the drama is psychological, the plot concerns itself rather with the play of the forces behind action, and then dialogue becomes an adjunct to action or an integral part of it.Dramatic dialogue as a means of characterization can be classified under two heads. They are utterances of a given person and the remarks made about him by the other characters in the play. In the words of modern psychological playwrights like Ibsen, the utterances of the given person serves the purpose. Shakespeare generally reveals the fundamental qualities of his characters as soon and as clearly as possible. Though self-portrayal is the principal means of characterization by dialogue, the comments made by others about a person may be add to it. It is not correct to take every work uttered by a character as an indication of his nature.His situation, his sympathy, antipathy and similar aspects should be taken into consideration. Occasional phrases uttered by a man can never be a reliable guidance to his character unless they are reinforced by various other utterances scattered through the play . Shakespeare uses this method in his â€Å"The Merchant of Venice†. Antonio is praised lavishly by all the other characters in the play. Salanio speaks of him as â€Å"the good Antonio†, Lorenzo refers to him as a â€Å"true gentlemen†, Gratiano loves him abundantly, and the gaoler grants him special privileges.The same method is employed in revealing the character of Brutus inn â€Å"Julius Caeser† too. Soliloquy, which is a minor subdivision of â€Å"aside† is another means employed by the dramatists to take his audience down into the hidden recesses of a person’s nature. Certain aspects of a man’s character cannot be revealed in his action or his own word. Neither can the dramatist dissect his men and women as the novelist does. He, therefore, makes the characters themselves do ht work of dissextion, for we cannot understand them well unless we know the workings of their mind.They think aloud, and we overhear what they say. A man, especially a villain, cannot disclose his design to a confidant, and in such a case, he is allowed to reason then imagine, not that the man is talking to himself or to us, but only thinking, and that we are concealed spectators of his thoughts. Modern critics however, condemn the use of Soliloquy, especially in realistic plays,. It is now regarded not only as clumsy, but also as non-dramatic, and the play that contains it is stigmatized as â€Å"old-fashioned†.Modern critics accept the confidant, but also on condition that he has an essential part in the action. The different types of drama Drama has been divided broadly into two categories †¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦. Tragedy and Comedy, the former dealing with adversity and unhappiness, and the latter dealing with joy and mirth. Aristotle in his â€Å"poetics† defined tragedy as â€Å"artistic imitation of an action that is serious, complete in itself, and of adequate magnitude†. He gave importance to suffering or rather, â€Å"an incident of a destructive or painful sort, such as violent death or physical agony†.In order to evoke pity, he recommended a hero neither too good nor wholly vicious, but â€Å"brought low through some error of judgement or shortcoming† known as â€Å"hamartia† or tragic flaw. It existed within the character of the hero, but inn modern plays, the tragic law exists in the milieu more than in the hero who merely becomes a victim of external circumstances. The effect of tragedy, according to Aristotle, is to arouse the emotions of pity and fear in such a way as to effect that special purging and relief known as â€Å"catharsis†. It can be brought about by proper constructions of the plot, which must have a beginning, a middle and an end.Pity and fear are aroused not merely by the complete action but by salient incidents in the plot. Tragedy can be divided in the basis of form and content. From the point of view of form or structure, it is di vided into the classical and the romantic tragedy. The former is based on Greek conventions, and the latter follows it own rules. One of the main features of the classical tragedy is the Chorus. It is consisted of a band of singers and dancers. In Greek tragedy the men and the women forming the Chorus belonged to a lower social rank than the chief characters.Its main function was to report the events that occurred off stage and to make some comments from time to time. In the preface to â€Å"Merope†, Mattew Arnold explains the function of the chorus as to collect and weigh the impression which the action would at each stage make on a pious, thoughtful mind. It deepened the feeling aroused in the spectacular by reminding him of the past, and by indicating what was to come. To combine, to harmonize and to deepen the feelings excited in the audience by sight of the play was the function of the chorus.Its importance dwindled as Greek drama developed. In Aeschylus, it takes part i n the action, but in Sophocles, it becomes a mere commentator, and in Euripides, it is a lyric element. The Elizabethan dramatists in England reduced it to a single speaker, unrelated rest of the characters, who spoke the prologue or occasional interpretations of the plot. In modern plays it is rarely used as in Eliot’s â€Å"Murder in the Cathredal†. The Three Unities is another feature of the classical tragedy. The theory of unities was first propounded by Aristotle a Greek philosopher of the fourth century B.C. They are of time, action, and place. Actually Aristotle mentioned only two †¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦. Unity of time and unity of action. The unity of place was implied in the first, by the unity of action he meant that the story should be the imitation of one action, and of the whole of this , and that the parts should be so arranged that if any of them is transposed or taken away the whole would become different and change. By the unity of time, mentioned in â⠂¬Å"Poetics 5 â€Å"he meant that tragedy should confine itself to ne revolution of the sun, or slightly exceed the limit.His statement (â€Å"Poetics 17†) that, as contrasted with epic, tragic episodes are short and (â€Å"Poetics 26†) confined in less extended limits †¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦ crowded into a narrow compass, is the nearest he comes to any utterance regarding Unity of place. In short, Aristotle’s requirements were interpreted to mean that the action of the play should be a unified whole, the time should be limited to twenty-four hours, and the scene should be unchanged, or it should at least remain within the limits of a single city.According to some, Aristotle, insisted on the unity of action only, and the other two unities were added by critics of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. They argued that verisimilitude †¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦ an illusion of reality †¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦ could be achieved only by the observance of the three unities. In England romantic tendencies were stronger than academic precepts and therefore, the playwrights violated the theory of the unities came from Dr. Johnson who defended the romantic playwrights for following laws of nature rather than those of art imposed by the critics.It is universally admitted that more than Sophocles and Aeschylus, Seneca, the Roman dramatist, influenced the tragic writers of the renaissance in England. It happened so on account of the melodramatic elements in his plays and because he wrote in Latin which was treasured more than Greek then. His understanding of the working of human emotions commended itself to he Elizabethan playwrights in England. Moreover, Seneca showed in his plays a moral tone and system of philosophy popular in England. The moral purpose and the rhetorical methods of Senecan play appealed to them.While Aeschylus, Sophoclus, and Aristotle believed that man had some chance for happiness. , Seneca showed that man was sure to be beaten. But he introduced a stoical remedy that appealed to the Elizabethan dramatists. Senecan plays were immersed in honours, epigrammatial moralizing and stichomuthia or line repartee. The Senecan tradition also associated with supernatural arents like ghosts. Kyd’s â€Å"Spanish Tragedy†, and Shakespeare’s â€Å"Hamlet† and â€Å"Macbeth† show Senecan influence. The Neo-classical tragedy departed from the Senecan model in two points. They were the introduction of romantic love and the dropping out of chorus.The ancient playwrights held the opinion that the introduction of romantic love would mar the dignity of the hero and the high seriousness of the narrative. The Neo-classicists, however, trudged in the footsteps of the classicist in observing the Three Unities rigorously, and in making the drama basically narrative. Nearly everything, especially of a violent character, happens, in a neo-classical theory, off the stage and is narrated to the audience. The n eo-classicists as well as the romantic dramatists dealt with great legends of the past and were in this respect not different from classicist.The chief characters were all majesty, far above the ordinary human beings. The dialogues were stately, devoid of homely phrases, and mostly poetic. No attempt was made by the neo-classicists to mirror ordinary life. The romantic plays, though dealing with aristocratic character, were different in the method of treatment. The tragic hero is placed in a common world, among ordinary people. The dialogue had many touches of familiarity and even colloquialism. Realistic details like King Lear’s famous, â€Å"Pray you, undo this button† abound. Thus the romantic tragedy was a combination of the idealistic and realistic elements.To the romantic dramatists, unity of action meant not a single action, but organic connection among the various action presented in the play. Subplots, like the comic plot in Shakespeare’s â€Å"The Tem pest† were introduced, provided the two plots were independent. Moreover, the romantic drama is, unlike the neo-classical plays, a drama of action. Nearly, everything happens in the stage. Duels are fought, murders and suicides committed, and battles waged in full view of the spectators. The play of Shakespeare and his contemporaries thus satisfied the appetite of the Elizabethan audience for the action.The romantic dramatists differed from the neo-classicists in their attitude towards the theory of unities too. They ignored the unity of time and place. Even Shakespeare moved his scenes from town to town, and from country to country, and described the events of many years. Tragic comedy is a new form of play. The classical dramatists never allowed any comic element to enter their tragedies though they allowed serious element in their comedies. But the romantic playwrights disregarded this line of demarcation between tragedies and comedies. They freely mingled tragic and comic scenes in their plays.Addison calls it â€Å"One of the monstrous inventions that ever entered into a poet’s thought†. Dyrden agreed with him by commenting, â€Å"There is no theatre in the world which has nothing so absurd as English tragic-comedy†. Though considered a non-Aristotlean form, the trig-comedy was successful. Shakespeare’s â€Å"The Merchant of Venice† is an example for it. The important characters in tragi-comedies were drawn from both the high class and the low class. A serious action is introduced as threatening the protagonist who, by a sudden change of fortune, escapes and the play ends happily.The term â€Å"tragic-comedy† is sometimes applied to play with double plots, one serious and the other comic. On the basis of content, tragedy may be divided into various types. One of them is the horror tragedy, developed in England in the early part of seventeenth century by Ford and Wesbter. The appeal to the audience is made in these plays, not by characters, but by incidents. The aim of the writers who wrote horror tragedies was stage sensationalism. The inner struggle in these tragedies depends upon external events. Horror from situation dominates these plays. An example is â€Å"The Duchess of Malfi†.The Heroic tragedy was cultivated during the Restoration Period by a number of dramatists, the prominent among whom are Dryden and Otway. The subjects of these plays were love and valour and the themes were developed to epic magnitude. An air of exaggeration prevailed in them. Dryden himself said, â€Å"Heroic play is the representation of nature wrought up to a high pitch†. The scenes in them were laid in distant countries like Peru, India and Mexico. The characters were men of superhuman power and women of immortal beauty and unattainable virtue. The speeches were magnificent, marked by a declamatory style.The heroic meter, instead of blank verse, was employed in them. Its Artistic beauty a nd effect were marred by its artificially and exaggeration. Domestic tragedy was a type of play written in the eighteenth century. The term is also applied to some of Ibsen’s plays and some Elizabethan tragedies like† A Woman Killed with Kindness†. It is a serious play, realistic in style with its hero drawn from the low or middle class and its action concerned with personal or domestic matters. The domestic tragedies were written mostly in prose. They were devoid of emotional force and was based on pity and sympathy.An example is Lillo’s â€Å"The London Merchant†. Comedy, according to Aristotle, deals with â€Å" some defect or ugliness that is painful or destructive†. The characters, mostly from low classes were drawn from observation and experience. The writers were often satirical and the characters became caricatures of actual human beings. The plots were less complicated than those of tragedy. Misunderstandings and mistaken identities p layed a prominent role in them. Yet a good comedy can penetrate deeply into the roots of the human nature, and make the audience aware of man’s limitations.Aristotle believed that the play is rendered comic by making the characters in it worse than they are, thereby making them objects of merriments. Ben Johnson also believed that whatever is awry in men provokes laughter. A number of critics from Kaunt to Hazlitt have found that the source of laughter is incongruity. In sidney’s opinion also, â€Å"Laughter almost ever cometh of things most disproportioned to ourselves and nature†. Allardyce Nicoll traces the source oof laughter to a desire for liberation from the restraints of society.It goes contrary to Bergson’s view that the source is automatism which implies that the conditions of comedy are unsociability on the part of the object of laughter. The first regular drama in English in the form of a comedy was â€Å"Ralph Roister Doister† written by Nicholas Udall in 1550 or so. The writer seems to have been influenced much by Latin comedies of Plautus and Terence. The second English comedy was â€Å"Grammer Gurton’s Needle† of doubtful authorship performed at Christ’s college in Cambridge in 1552. Both these comedies had the classical division into five acts, and the action was limited to a single day and a single locality.On the basis of form, the comedy may be divided into classical and romantic comedies, which differ from each other in the same manner the two types of tragedies do. On the basis of content, comedy may be divided into various types. The comedy of Humours was written chiefly by Ben Johnson who used the term â€Å"humours† in the medieval sense in which it reffered to the four fluids: blood, phlegm, yellow bile and black bile in the human body. According to the theories of humours, a person’s physical, mental and moral conditions are determined by the state of his humours.A n imbalance in their proportion affected the behaviour of the person, and a perfect balance created an ideal man. The dramatists who adopted this theory designed â€Å"humourous† characters, whose behavior was determined by a single humour. Ben johnson’s â€Å"Every Man in His Humour†is the earliest play written in this way in 1598. Shakespeare has introduced â€Å"humourous† characters like the melancholy Jacques in â€Å"As You like it†. Johnson drew comedy down to real life, using it to present the follies of contemporary London. The comedy of humours disregarded humour as the term is used now.It depended on wit and satire. The comedy of Manners developed in the Restoration period. The writer were influenced by the French dramatist Moliere and the Spanish dramatist Claderson. It is realistic in nature, and concentrated on the activities, intrigues and amorous achievements of gay, frivolous men and women who used to meet in cafes, chocolate house s, clubs and gambling centres in London. Reputations were murdered and Clandestine love affairs were carried out by them. A lot of senseless prattle went on with scandal mongering in the air.This degraded life of the aristocratic classes of the day is presented in these comedies. Satire was an integral part of these comedies. It was the satire at the follies of those who strive to enter the elegant circle by plotting against their rivals and competitions in love. Besides satire, it made use of wit which is seen in the repartees that abound in these plays. It has been critised for its obscenity and immorality. The Genteel Comedy was developed by Colley Cibber in the middle of the eighteenth century. His â€Å"The Careless Husband† is regarded as the first genteel comedy in English.The term was first used by Addison for the type of comedy that portrays more artificial life than the comedy of manners. Affectations ruled the life of the upper class society then, and these affecta tions are presented in humorous manner in these comedies. Laughter arises not out of the playful fancies of intellectual men, but ou of the affectations of the high class society. The Comedy of Intrigue came into inception in the days of Fletcher and continued to be popular till the end of the eighteenth century. In this type of comedy laughter arises out of the disguises and the intrigues and complications of the plot.An important writer of this type of comedy is Fletcher. The play captures our attention with a series of situations leading to innumerable mistakes and amusing denouements. There is little wit, no humour, no satire, but there are several comic situations. Its laughter depends on external sources, and it provides little intellectual mirth. The Sentimental Comedy of the eighteenth century was a reaction against the comedy of manners of the Restoration period. The sentimental comedy was opposed to the light-hearted fun in the comedy of manners.In fact, it is opposed to t he spirit of comedy itself. Humour is driven out of it, and as Allardyce Nicoll says, it presented tears in place of laughter. The place of humour was taken by pathos. Wit or brilliance had no place in this type of comedy. The writer aimed at moral edification, for they felt that the taste of the readers had been degraded by obscenity and vulgarity depicted in the comedy of manners. Distressed middle class characters were presented in these comedies to evoke sympathy. The principal writers of this type of comedy were Richard Steele, Huge Kelly and Cumberland.It developed not only on account of the theatrical and social changes of the time, but also because the rising middle class demanded a different type of comedy. The sentimental comedies provided moral lectures and lacked emotional appeal. Hazlitt aptly says, â€Å"It is almost a misnormer to call them comedies; they are rather homilies in dialogue†. The One Act Play The origin of the one-act play can be traced back to the short farces that flourished in Italy from the fourteenth to the seventeenth centuries and the miracle and mystery plays of became a curtain-raiser. In 1903 when W. W.Jacob’s play â€Å"The Monkey’s Paw† was acted as a curtain-raiser, it appealed to the audience so much that most of the people left the theatre when the curtain descended upon this play became a series rival to the long play. The one-act play may be tragic as in Synge’s â€Å"Riders to the Sea†, it can be didactic as Willis Hall’s â€Å"The Day’s beginning†, it can be comic and satirical Houghton’s â€Å"The Dear Departed†, or oit can be a fantasy like Lord Dunsany’s ‘The Golden Doom†. It can be farcial too Arnold Bennet’s â€Å"The Stepmother†, or melodramatic like ‘The Monkey’s Paw†. It can be written in verse like Christopher Fry’s â€Å"A Phoenix too Frequent†.The outstanding cha racteristic of the one-act play is that it turns upon a single idea or situation, presenting a single mood or single aspect of character, though it presents a conflict like long plays. A few characters are introduced and the interest is concentrated on a single dominant character in whom a single trait is revealed in a flash. Dialogues are short, and the dramatist cannot unities of action, time and place are observed. It has an immense future because modern people have less time and inclination for long plays, it is cheaper to produce, and can be performed by amateurs.Above all, the growth of radio and television has made it popular. The importance of the opening scene of the play The Exposition as given in the essay on drama. Soliloquy and the Aside The aside like the soliloquy indicates that dialogue is not the only substitute for the dramatist for direct analysis and commentary of the novelist. Soliloquy is a convention by which a character, alone on the stage, utters his thought s aloud. The audience is thus provided with the information necessary to understand the character’s motives and the state of mind.Aside is another similar stage device in which a character, not necessarily alone on the stage, expresses his thoughts in a short speech which is supposed to inaudible to the other characters on the stage. Both these conventions, prevalent in the Elizabethan and later drama, were adopted by the dramatist to take the audience down into hidden recesses of a person’s nature. The dramatist, being denied the privilege o dissect his characters as the novelist does, has to resort to such means to enable the audience and readers to understand his characters well.In soliloquy and aside the characters are not supposed to be speaking to us or to themselves, but they are merely thinking aloud. The conventions, however, fell into disuse in the nineteenth century when realism was insisted upon. Melodrama â€Å"Melos† is a Greek term meaning â€Å" song†, and the term melodrama wass, therefore, applied to musical accompaniment was a characteristic of most of the plays, because â€Å"legitimate† plays were permitted only in the Drury Lane and Covent Garden theatres while musical entertainment had no such restrictions at all. In melodrama the hero and heroine were embodiments of virtue, and the villain was a monster of evil.The plot was centered round intrigues and violent effect and emotional excitement. Now the term â€Å"melodrama† is applied to any work that contains improbable events and sensational actions. Tragic Flaw / Hamartia In Aristotle’s view, tragedy should evoke pity. To do so he recommended a hero neither superlatively good and just or wholly vivious and depraved. He brought to misery through some mistaken act caused by an error in his judgement or some shortcoming in his nature. This error of judgement is called â€Å"hamartia† or â€Å"tragic flaw†. It exists within the character and causes the tragedy.In Greek tragedies a common form of hamartia was pride which tempts a man to disregard divine power. It moves us to pity because the hero is not an essentially evil man, and his misfortune is far more than what he deserves. In modern social drama the tragic flaw often exists in the milieu, and the hero becomes a victim of external circumstances. Catharsis â€Å"Catharsis† in Greek signifies â€Å"purgation† or ‘‘purification†. The effect of tragedy, according to Aristotle, is to arouse the emotions of pity and fear in such a way as to effect purging and relief, and this is known as â€Å"catharsis† in tragedy.Recently, Aristotle’s â€Å"Catharsis† has been interpreted as applying not to the effect on the audience, but to an element within the play itself. It then signifies the purgation of the guilt attached to the hero’s tragic act by demonstrating in the course of the drama that the hero p erformed this act without knowledge of its nature. Aristotle distinguishes the tragic from comic and other forms by this effect. In any case, he accounts for the extraordinary fact that many tragic representations of suffering, defeat and death leave on the audience a feeling, not of depression, but of relief and exaltation. Comic ReliefComic relief is the relief provided by a spell of fun between two serious scenes or just before a serious incident in a play. It is achieved by the use of a humourous characters and their speeches. This was common in Elizabethan tragedy. They are necessary to provide a sort of relaxation to the audience after witnessing a grave scene or to prepare themselves for a grave incident. Sometimes the comic relief is provided by an intrusive episode or dialogue. It not only alleviates the tension, but also adds variety to the play . in some plays they become an integral part of the play and serve to intensify the tragic note.An example is the â€Å"Porter S cene† in Shakespeare’s â€Å"Macbeth†. Dramatic Irony Dramatic Irony s an utterance by a character in a play when he is ignorant of the real significance of his words. It is a situation in which the audience shares with the author knowledge of something which the speaker in the play is ignorant of. The character acts in a way inappropriate to the circumstances or says something which turns out to be true later though he did not expect such a turn of events. Writers of Greek tragedy, who generally borrowed their plots of this device.For instance, in Sophocles’s â€Å"Oedipus†, the king (Oedipus) hunts for the evil-doer who has brought plague upon Thebes without being aware that the culprit is himself. The English Chronicle plays Chronicle plays are plays for which the source is the Chronicle, or rather, record of events in the chronological order preserved in a king’s court. These historical materials are dramatized into chronicle plays. In En gland, Marlow’s â€Å"Edward II†, and are taken from Holinshed’s â€Å"Chronicles†. They were popular in the Elizabethan period when patriotic fervor rising out of the defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588 reigned supreme in English society.The early chronicle plays merely presented a series of events during the reign of an English King. The plays were effective on the account of the battles presented on the stage and the pageants and spectacles that accompanied the victory in battle. Marlowe, for the first time selected and rearranged materials from Holinshed Chronicles for his â€Å"Edward II†. The Elizabethan chronicle plays are often called history plays. Parallelism in drama Parallelism and contrast are two elements in the composition of the plot of a play.The central idea of one part of the action reappears in another part of it, and each serves to illustrates and reinforce the other. Shakespeare seems to have been very fond of this stage devi ce, for he often uses it to add to the dramatic interest of the story. However, the best example of parallelism in Shakespearean play is found in â€Å"King Lear†, the two plots of which correspond in every detail. Shakespeare has here worked upon two narratives from two sources. In one story we come across a father deceived in the character of his daughters, ultimately getting real love from the one he had spurned.In the other story, we have a father deceived in the character of his sons, finding love in the one he has tried to kill. The Shakespeare, each supplementing the other in tragical emotions. A sort of burlesque parallelism is found in the comic scenes in Marlowe’s â€Å"Doctor Faustus†. The tragic hero Aristotle recommended for the tragedy a hero who is neither too good nor too evil. This is best seen in Shakespeare’s tragedies. His heroes are all men of high rank and great eminence, but they are brought low by some weakness in their nature.In M acbeth, it was indomitable ambition, in Othello it was an over-credulous nature, and in hmlet, it was a wavering spirit. Tragedy proceeds from the character or the actions of the hero. But Fate or circumstances also plays a dominant role in bringing about the tragedy. The suffering and calamity that fall to the lot of the hero are not of the ordinary type. They are exceptional. Macbeth is pricked by a guilty conscience to such an extent that he feels â€Å"life is a meaningless tale, told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing†.

Big Cities Vs Small Towns Cultural Studies Essay

Big Cities Vs Small Towns Cultural Studies Essay When speaking to an individual of experience, possibly an explorer or an elder, someone may be informed about the way people from particular towns behave. Such as, ‘people from big cities are always in rush’ or ‘citizens from smaller towns are friendlier’. As John Jake states, â€Å"The big city and small town have been stereotyped in the American experience as being at opposite ends of an imagined social gradient–the former more a place of cold impersonality in social relations and the latter more a place of warm personalized community. Assumptions about urban-based â€Å"mass society† largely blinded Americans through the twentieth century to the existence of, and importance of, locality-based community in big cities. Early in the century, most urban Americans emigrated from rural and small town circumstances, bringing to the nation’s cities strong rural and small town proclivities at neighboring. Both central city working-class neig hborhoods and affluent suburbs mirrored the small town.†(Jakle,1) But, for someone born, raised and living in that small town, these differences may seem clearly an opinion, and perhaps some distinctions are. So why, then do so many people prefer one type of life style over the other? Specific characteristics such as economics, population, crime rate, traffic, city planning and also architecture, differentiate one region from the next. In order to form an opinion, one must analyze two towns on opposing ends of the spectrum. By comparing two towns: a small town, and also a busy suburb, the differences in the characteristics of citizens, the city, and their daily life, make it seem as though small towns and big cities are practically from different countries. As John Jake confirms, â€Å"America’s small towns and big cities occupy opposite ends of an urban spectrum. Early in the twentieth century, commentators on American life clearly differentiated towns and cities as s ocially different–the two kinds of place sustaining very different ways of life.†(Jakle,1) In a small town, at first one might notice the appearance. It is not generally uncommon to see an assorted crew of soiled young children come running into the neighborhood supermarket without shirts or shoes and buy candy. The cashier, rather than ushering the inadequately clothed children out the door, asks them how their parents have been, they just so happen to live next door. This sort of incident would not go over so well in a big city. The same young children would have been asked to leave and later admonished by their parents for going out in public looking so disarrayed. For example, in a Clockwork Orange a young fifteen-year-old boy known only by the name of Alex is the antihero. Alex and his three â€Å"droogs† are a gang of youngsters who goes around in the dangerous streets of London, fighting, raping, pillaging, and all the basic doings generally associated wit h anarchy. In a small town, this would be less likely to happen. Overalls, dirty jeans and hats are not uncommon apparel for citizens out running errands and are almost a necessity for the distinguished elderly man. Aside from the readily differences, citizens of small towns seem to have contrasting personality traits as well. Take the scene of a crowded store during the holidays, for instance. In a busy, crowded big city, a shopper with a cart overflowing with items in the checkout lane would simply be focused on checking out and planning on where they need to go next. However in a small sleepy town, that same shopper may check to see if the person just behind them, with only a couple of items, might want to go ahead. Then, possibly even strike up a conversation with a total stranger. As John Jake explains, † To Simmel, large cities overloaded residents with social stimuli, producing in people defensive behaviors both patterned and regularized. The urban personality was reser ved and detached. Contact person-to-person in the city might be face-to-face, but even those encounters tended to the impersonal, the superficial, and the transitory (Wirth 1938). The metropolis was seen as a mass of separate individuals variously practicing social avoidance, especially in public spaces. City streets were seen as cold and unfriendly (Gross 1965). Small towns, on the other hand, with limited populations interacting in limited geographical areas, tended not to produce social overload. There, people could personalize relationships, even the cursory spontaneities of chance encounter in public space. Small town streets were warm and friendly. The idealized small town was likened to a nurturing extended family, whereas the city was made out to be a place of alienated individuals (Smith 1966).†(Jakle,1) Another strange exception happens to be a relative disregard for locking the doors at night or even at all. This such behavior is unheard of in the big cities of larg er towns. In small towns neighbors have a tendency to look out for the good of the neighborhood, and are always cautious, but with such low crime occurrences, such preventative measures as door-locking are not required.

Why have there been so many wars in the Middle-East since 1945 Essay

Why have there been so many wars in the Middle-East since 1945 - Essay Example Moreover, what scholars suggest the reason for Middle Eastern Muslim decline after 1945 escorts to their inefficiency in making clear choice between war and other formal types of capital formation. This paper will analyse the causes that act as catalyst in initiating Middle Eastern wars since 1945. Analysis will revolve around the concern over factors that led to wars including the legacy of colonialism and superpower rivalry and will examine the contribution of the West in enhancing these factors in the region. Nevertheless, the paper will assess the most common perception that dominates the West by prejudicial images of Arabs. These images were not a brand new creation and were present even before the fall of the Ottoman Empire. The paper will answer the demanding explanation of what factors were present that exaggerated the root cause of continuous wars. â€Å"Four large-scale modern wars during the past two decades has what lead the Middle East towards chronicle instability† (Richards 1995). These are the words of one of many scholar professors that dig deeper into the root causes behind this regions fallacy. The people of the Middle East have been the victims of some of the most aggressive and predatory policies outside powers. Though they have remained undaunted to take part in the rivalries but have suffered through the alliances conducted by the superpowers, like the USSR and United States. Such rivalry turned out to be a conflict which manifested in many ways and have been the reason for suffering through a continuity of wars. Sufferance was due to actual warfare witnessing extreme political violence and factors that rise due to consequences like low-intensity conflict, perceived failure of diplomacy, deadly propaganda, political and economic boycotts, disputes over land and water, resistance to occupation and deeply in grained cultures of antagonism (Milton & Hinchcliffe 2004, p. 2). As Milton & Hinchcliffe (2004, p. 2)

Nokia Information Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Nokia Information - Essay Example Key Points & Key Information The vision of the company is to ‘connect the people’ i.e. connecting ‘we’ and not merely individuals. The company aims to become the leader in mobile solutions. The strategy of the company is to â€Å"create irresistible solutions† through the use of vibrant ecosystems in alliance with the partners (Nokia-f, 2009). Presently Nokia is the top mobile devices manufacturer in the world. In 2009 the volume of mobile devices of the company was 432 million units. In this year the net sales and operating profit of the company was reported at EUR 41 billion and EUR 1.2 billion respectively. Nokia has a strong R&D unit in nearly 16 countries. Its R&D investment amounted to EUR 5.9 billion and employs 37020 people for its research oriented work (Nokia-a, 2010). Management approach, the company, its people The success of the company is based on the commitment and talent of its employees. Nokia works continually towards creating a work place that gives opportunity to the men and women of different ethnic or cultural backgrounds. The company is known for providing excellent career development opportunities and is strongly committed towards high ethical standards towards its employees. By the close of 2009 the company had 55000 employees of 115 different nationalities. In the company’s workplace the women account for 41 percent of the employees. At least half of the company’s senior managers are non-Finnish. The company’s operations are spread across a number of markets. This has also had an impact on the ways of working and cultural fabric of its employees. The management of the company views cultural diversity to bring in a sense of competitive advantage. It is of the view that team diversity leads to better... As the essay stresses the vision of the company is to ‘connect the people’ i.e. connecting ‘we’ and not merely individuals. The company aims to become the leader in mobile solutions. The strategy of the company is to â€Å"create irresistible solutions† through the use of vibrant ecosystems in alliance with the partners. From the paper it is clear that the success of the company is based on the commitment and talent of its employees. Nokia works continually towards creating a workplace that gives opportunity to the men and women of different ethnic or cultural backgrounds. The company is known for providing excellent career development opportunities and is strongly committed towards high ethical standards towards its employees. The company has a reward program in place that gives recognition on the basis of performance of team and individuals. The Investing in People (IIP) policy of Nokia enables it to match the employees’ aspirations with the company needs. The company holds Structured IIP discussion every year where the objectives for a period are framed. The management and control of Nokia is shared among the company’s shareholders, Board of Directors, Executive Board and President. The Board members are accountable to the company shareholders. It responsibilities are more active in nature. These include managing the composition and structure of its top management, monitoring of legal matters and risk management of operations. The duties of the Board include appointment and discharge of CEO, CFO and other members of the company’s Group Executive Board.

Assignment 2 Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words - 15

2 - Assignment Example large data set though the use of bubbles and curves to show how the developing countries are in the same direction towards health and prosperity that developed countries had already taken long time ago. In his presentation, Steven Pinker argues that violence has been on a declining trend over the years and the current generation presents one of the most peaceful in human existence. The decline can be attributed to rapid changes in the social developments that humans have undergone over the years leading to better means of solving problems and handling disputes. He attributes to the fact that his claims have always evoked skepticism, incredulity, and sometimes anger among social analysts and scholars who have reasoned otherwise. He supports his claims by reasoning that people tend to estimate the chances of occurrence of an event from the ease with which they are able to remember the examples and scenes. People have a distorted view of violence due to the information that they receive on a daily basis. Both the speakers have proved successful in the delivery of their information through the use of diagrams and illustrations that tend to support their claims. In this respect, Hans has clearly demonstrated his presentation by showing the audience how the Gapminder operates in its attempt to compress large data sets. The reason why Steven Pinker did not use more practical examples that will be understood easily by the audience is because his presentation is based on social issue while that of Hans is based on scientific matter. Social matters are not easy to demonstrate so that everyone can have a clear understanding of the issues being presented. The audience seem to be satisfied and fully understood the presentation by Hans Rosling mainly because it is well supported by facts and clear illustrations which he offers to present to them. On the other hand, the presentation by Steven Pinker has left more questions than answers and most people in the audience seem

Impact of World War II on the United States Essay

Impact of World War II on the United States - Essay Example Prior to the war, the New Deal was not able to overcome the stagnant state of the US economy despite the concerted efforts of the Roosevelt government. The unemployment rate remained steadily above 14 percent despite having considerably fallen since the darkest years of the depression. A consideration of a more penetrative government fiscal intervention gave way to speculations about real economic recovery in which it was posited that the recovery would become elusive if given to the care of the private sector (Vatter 1985, p. 7). Such recovery required much more Keynesian doses for the New Deal to finally affect full employment (Vatter 1985, p.11). Political impacts include several pursuits that aimed to repair a damaged economy during the New Deal era and the war itself. A political, psychological, and economic shift was a product of the New Deal and World War II in the United States. These concerns troubled the American government during the war years and immediately afterward: big government, the economy, and communism at home and abroad. It was inferred that the bourgeoning bureaucracy that ensued in the United States during the WWII was one characterized by the mounting of commissions, agencies, and administrations, aiming to serve the legal and political necessities of the period. Examples of these are the Foreign Economic Administration, Maritime Commissions and the War Shipping Administration, Selective Service System, US Employment Service, War Manpower Commission, War Labor Board, and War Food Administration (Vatter 1985, p. 87). Each of these had their on designated purposes in which central is the organizing and carrying out of American war-time economic production and output. All of these bureaucratic organizations formed a government front aiming to push through all forms of opposition in the interest of allied victory. The War Production Board (WPB) was established in order to distribute strategic materials as well as suspend the production of consumer products. The WMC attempted to balance the appropriat e distribution of men and women in military, industry, and agriculture during the war (Maddox 1992, p. 193). There was no questioning that the United States placed itself in a hegemonic position as a world power after the war, which may be referred to as one of its political impacts. Likewise, America's preoccupation with the promotion of democracy is essentially an idealist stance that emerged from the moralism and exceptionalism of the America political tradition (Ikenberry 2000, p. 103). This tradition is manifested through actual foreign policy, often carried out at the expense of more sober American international interests (Ikenberry 2000, p. 103). It is for the pursuit of making foreign policy commitments more acceptable to American public that the American democratic stance becomes a minor distraction. The American promotion of democracy after World War II reflects a pragmatic and evolving understanding of creating a stable political order in the international arena, which was later called "an American liberal grand strategy"

The Impact of Leadership Styles on the Organisation Performance Abu Dissertation - 1

The Impact of Leadership Styles on the Organisation Performance Abu Dhabi Municipality - Dissertation Example The latter, in turn, also helps the organisation in attaining the desired level of success. Most of the studies conducted in relation to leadership and its effects on the success of the organisation have been conducted in the context of private organisations (Palestini 2009; Gardner, Avolio and Walumbwa 2005). Nevertheless, the importance of leadership is also evident as regards the members of the public sector. The importance of the concept of leadership in the public sector, however, has long been recognized. It has become one of the most important issues that must be addressed as various states have discovered a gap in relation to the manner by which their public sectors function vis-a-vis the needs of their constituents (Morse and Buss 2008; Christensen 2007) . Undoubtedly, different nations all over the world have discovered that there is something missing with the culture by which public sector is based upon and the fulfillment of public interest (Raffel, Leisink and Middlebroo ks 2009; Van Wart 2003). Usually, complaints as regards the lack of dedication to the values of the public service and the manner by which the interests of the people are taken into consideration are the most evident. In this sense, the common recommendation is to turn to a certain kind of leadership to cater to the said gaps as regards public service and the promotion of the citizens’ interest (Bass 2008; Koch and Dixon 2007). Leadership in the public sector is also affected by a number of factors that are not present in the experiences of private organisations (Koch and Dixon 2007; Gill 2006; Morse and Buss 2008). According to researches conducted in relation to the topic at hand, the following are the most common factors and issues that affect leadership in the public sector: (1) increased demands for the provision of solutions in relation to problems commonly experienced in the public sector; (2) the need for personalized services in a sense that it must cater to the need s of the citizens; (3) the importance of balancing the needs of the public, private and voluntary sectors; (4) the need to respond to pressures as regards continuous improvement, innovation and learning; and lastly, (5) coping with institutional architectures that are complicated (Christensen 2007; Koch and Dixon 2007). The concept of leadership is an essential part of the concept of good public governance. To understand the former, governance pertains to the manner by which the agency of the state (the government) institutionalizes the values of their nation as stipulated in the highest law of the land (in most cases, the Constitution) (Bason 2011; Wallis, Dollery and McLoughlin 2007). In view of this, governance then entails the adherence to the following principles: the separation of powers, system of checks and balances, the development of ways by which power is transferred, accountability and transparency. However, to ensure its proper incorporation, it is of paramount importan ce that these values must be embedded into the system and work of each and every public official. Succinctly, leadership is indeed at the core of the concept of good governance (Berman, Bowman and West 2009). The importance of leadership in the public sector has also been underscored in a sense that the leaders are important as the people look up to them for the solution of

How is recycling affecting interior design Essay

How is recycling affecting interior design - Essay Example inputs (lowering the consumption of raw materials and energy) and outputs (waste that goes to landfills) of a production system (Letsrecycle.Com 2006). A study by the Technical University of Demark studied 55 products in household rubbish, comparing the effects of burning, burying and recycling them. The results proved that recycling was the most efficient way to do with the waste more than 80% of the times, providing a worthwhile energy savings in comparison with production from raw materials: 95% economy for aluminium, 70% fro plastics and 40 % for paper (Economist 2007). Since 1970s recycling is associated with the notions of sustainable design (also green or ecological design) and sustainable community development. According to Green Supply Line (2007), â€Å"Sustainable design is a comprehensive, holistic approach to creating products and systems that are environmentally benign, socially equitable, and economically viable: environmentally, such that the design offers obvious or measurable environmental benefits; socially, so that it fills the needs of everyone involved in its production, use and disposal or reuse; and economically, so that the design is competitive in the marketplace.† Pellow, Schnaiberg and Weinberg (2000) suggest that recycling has become a model of sustainable community development while it has environmental, economic and social benefits, where economic one plays, perhaps, the crucial role (p.7-8). Today recycling is one of the major requirements of sustainable design and sustainable community development. For instance, Santa Monica Green Building Program names â€Å"recycling of demolition & construction waste in construction contracts† and specification of recycled products per EPA purchasing guidelines among its requirements to materials and envelope and space planning (Santa Monica.org). Recycling, together with efficient reduction and reuse of resources (materials and energy) is underlined as one of the major principles in most of the

How can we tell if we are doing the right thing Discuss with reference Essay

How can we tell if we are doing the right thing Discuss with reference to the philosopher Kant - Essay Example The US government set up military action in the Middle East in a move to fight terrorist activities in the region. The attack adversely affected the US economy and resulted to a revolution of the airline and safety regulations in the country. This essay gives an in depth analysis of the 9/11 terror attack and how it changed various sectors in the US. The 911 attack is known as the worst terrorist that the American history that changed the lives of the citizens and the world at large. The attack refers to a sequence of well- organized terrorist attacks that were instigated by the Al Qaeda in New York City (Langley, 2006). Terrorists hijacked two passenger airlines and flew them into buildings in suicide attacks. Two planes were crashed into the World Trade Centre and two hours following the attack the two Towers caved in. The fires and debris fully or partially destroyed the structures that were in the surrounding. Another airline crashed into the West wing of the Pentagon resulting into its partial destruction. The fourth airline crashed in Pennsylvania but was meant to crash in Washington D. C. This essay gives an account of the 9/11. Most Americans were interested in finding out the individuals who were behind the worst terrorist attack in history. Investigation showed that nineteen terrorist hijacked four airlines and all of them were from the Middle East. It was clear that all of them belonged to the renowned Al Qaeda terrorist faction that was headed by Osama bin Laden who was among the most sought after terrorists in the modern times. Al Qaeda is known to be a well- organized terrorist group that practices extreme Islam practices (Langley, 2006). Members of this group are also immensely opposed to Western nations mainly the United States. They termed the 9/11 attack as a revenge mission against the US. The Al Qaeda was highly opposed against the military presence in the Middle East and the attack was a retaliation of the military activity in

Most dangerous game Essay Example for Free

Most dangerous game Essay In the short story,† The Most Dangerous Game†, by Richard Connell, the author uses irony in the short story to support the theme of the book – the roles of hunter and hunted frequently reversed. In the short story, Rainsford, a big game hunter, believes that he is being persuaded by General Zaroff hunt humans with the general. However, Rainsford realizes the truth – he is going to get hunted by Zaroff, not hunting with him. â€Å"You don’t mean – â€Å"cried Rainsford. †My dear fellow,† said the general, â€Å"have I not told you I always mean what I say about hunting? †(11)is an example of situational irony because the reader didn’t expect Rainsford, the big game hunter, to become hunted . The quote supports the thesis because it shows the quick reversal of the role of hunter and hunted in the short story. This quote shows that the role of hunter and hunted are not set in stone; Rainsford realizes that he is losing a role that he had always assumed he would always have. He is big game – not a big game hunter. However, the fluidity of the roles of hunter and prey also works to Rainsford’s favor. After jumping into the ocean, Rainsford swims to Zaroff’s lair and confronts him in a duel. † I congratulate you,† He [Zaroff] said. †You have won the game. † Rainsford did not smile. †I am still a beast at bay†(15) shows the change in the roles of Zaroff and Rainsford. Rainsford infiltrated into Zaroff’s home and is now getting ready to kill the general, regardless of the fact that the â€Å"game† is over. It is what the reader least expects, thus a piece of situational irony because prey run away and get hunted down and killed by the predator Instead Rainsford becomes the hunter, and now his demands rules supreme. Zaroff was ambushed by Rainsford and is now at his mercy. He is now the prey, and the rules that he made while hunter are irrelevant. This situation was clearly different from page 11, where the general cheerfully informed Rainford that he was going to be hunted down and killed, thus supporting the thesis that the roles of the hunted and the hunter are changed around. This shows that the author used irony to show that the roles of predator and prey are interchangeable.

Hitler Social Problem Essay Example for Free

Hitler Social Problem Essay The topic I will be researching as my social problem will be World War Two and Hitler. This topic reminds me of the quote I’ve chosen by Abraham Lincoln, â€Å"Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man’s character, give him power. † This reminds me of Hitler because Hitler was a descent man before he gained power. In this social problem Hitler holds the power. He is able to control a whole army and make them kill the Jewish people. I will be talking about Hitler’s early years his time during war how he controlled his army and so much more. Adolf Hitler was born in Austria on April 20 in 1889 he had six siblings. By the time he was three his family moved from to Germany. When Hitler was a chided h clashed often with his father. Hitler was detached and introverted he differed from his father, because his father didn’t approve of Hitler’s interest in art rather than business. Hitler also showed an interested in German nationalism. The nationalism was his motivating force in his life. Once Hitler was a young man he worked as a watercolor painter and casual laborer. He applied to the Academy of Fine Arts and got rejected twice. He lived in a homeless shelter for several years. During the time of WWI Hitler applied to serve in Germany’s army he was accepted in August of 1914. Hitler was a decorated soldier he had received a metal for bravery, Iron Cross First Class, and Black Wound Badge. Hitler wasn’t satisfied with the collapse of the war effort this reinforced his passion for Germany patriotism; he was shocked by Germanys surrender in 1918. He believed that the German army was betrayed by civilian leaders and Marxists. After WWI Hitler returned home and continued work for the military as an intelligence officer. Hitler was invited to join DAP (the German workers party) and he did in 1919. In 1921 Hitler replaced Drexler as the new DAP; NSDAP Chairman. In front of 3000 people at a large beer hall in Munich Hitler announced that the national revolution had begun and declared a new formation of a new government. Three days after this Hitler was arrested and tried for high treason he had a year in prison. During this time he written his first book â€Å"Mein Kampf Vol. 1† this book outlined his plans to transform German society into a society based on race. Hitler’s rise to power begins, The Great Depression in Germany provided Hitler with a great political opportunity. The Germans were more open to extremist options in government because their faith in their current government is failing. Hitler used this to his advantage. After Hitler lost the presidency vote he was appointed as chancellor in order to promote political balance. He used his position to form legal dictatorship. Having gained control mover legislative and executive branches of Government, Hitler and his political allies embarked on a systematic suppression of the rest of the political opposition. By the end of June the other parties disbanded. After July 1933 Hitler’s Nazi party was the only legal political party in Germany. The day before Hindenburg’s death in August of 1934 the cabinet had made a law inactivating the office of president and leaving all the power to the chancellor. Hitler thus becoming head of state, and was named as Germany’s leader and chancellor. As head of state Hitler had full control of the armed forces. Hitler withdrew from the League of Nations. Thus concluding his rise to power. Hitler’s beliefs were a nation for racial hygiene. New laws included banning marriage between non-Jewish and Jewish Germans, and deprived â€Å"non-Aryans† of the benefits of German citizenship. His early eugenic politics targeted children with mental or physical disabilities then later targeting adults with the same disability. More groups the Nazis targeted were the Jewish people, communists, homosexuals, Jehovah’s Witness, trade unionists, among others. However Hitler never spoke publicly about the killings of these groups of people. Hitler got people to believe in his beliefs by using the great depression to his advantage, people at this time wanted a change and he provided them with one. He also told people of the conspiracy involving the Jewish people. This was Hitler’s use of ethos in his speeches. This is what convinced people to believe this was the right thing happening. You see Hitler was a descent man as you read in his early years. He was descent until he got power. This is why Hitler reminds me of Abraham Lincoln’s quote â€Å"Nearly all men ca stands adversity, but if you want to test a man’s character give him power. † Hitler was given power, and his character turned sour and ended up killing thousands of people.

Karyotype Analysis to Detect Cancer

Karyotype Analysis to Detect Cancer Abstract A complete set of metaphase chromosomes is called a karyotype. It is widely used to detect the chromosomal abnormalities that are related to the genetic diseases and various type of cancer. As the biomedical science advances, various kinds of techniques are introduced to analyze the human karyotype. These karyotype analyse are widely used in genetic counselling to minimize the risk of having unfortunate abnormalities that can cause serious limitation on quality of life. So, nowadays individual and families are realized the necessity to implement the genetic testing. Introduction In genetic counselling, knowledge of karyotype analysis is greatly used to determine the heritable diseases including cancer. Moreover, pedigree construction based on Mendelian principles was used in days gone by the determinable pattern of inheritance. In recent years, FISH (fluorescence in situ hybridization), PCR (polymerase chain reaction), CGH (comparative genomic hybridization) and SNP (single nucleotide polymorphism) arrays have been developed and hold a promising future for human genetics. Among them FISH is the most currently diagnostic tool for the various chromosomal aberrations that can be visible in karyotype analysis. The most tested chromosomes are 13, 18, 21, 22, X and Y that account for 85% of chromosomal abnormalities (Rodrigo et al., 2010). But now, genetic scientists have carried out all the approaches towards chromosome analysis. On the other hand, with the high risk society is greatly interested to do pre pregnancy counselling to reduce the heritable defective g enes for the next generation. Therefore, use of karyotype analysis has been more and more improved in genetic counselling for the screening and diagnosis as well as for treatment and prevention. Karyotyping Karyotype construction and analysis is the powerful diagnostic method to identify the chromosomal studies in human genetics. Karyotyping is usually done at the metaphase of cell cycle in which the chromosome structure is the most condensed. Therefore, it is easier to identify the complete set of metaphase chromosomes (Nie et al., 1998). There are 46 chromosomes in humans (22 autosome pairs and sex chromosomes). Karyotypes show the number of chromosomes, the sex chromosome content, the presence or absence of individual chromosomes and the nature and extent of any structural abnormalities. Karyotyping can be accessed under a microscope to examine the number and structural variants which must be size of 3 Mb or more. Only DNA sequencing can observe smaller alterations (Klein and Tibboel, 2010). Chromosomes in all human karyotype are divided into seven categories depending on their size and on their bands after staining procedure. Each group is arranged into A to G defined by size and centromere position. These banding patterns help to identify specific defect regions on the chromosome. Thus, any defect in chromosome region can be described as accurately. For example; 1q2.4 defines chromosome number 1, q arm, region 2 and the banding 4 (Trask, 2002). Method For karyotype construction, the specimen can be taken from the white blood cell, skin cells, amniotic fluid cells and chorionic villus cells. Then the cells are prepared to enter mitosis and arrested in the stage of metaphase. Moreover, these preparations are treated with trypsin and staining to obtain the banding pattern. After that, a video camera attached microscope directly sends the images to the computer to generate the karyotypes (Yang et al., 2000). Generally, the karyotype can be used to determine if chromosome of an adult has an abnormality or defect that can be passed on to a child. The origin of complex chromosomal defects is identified by using standard G-banding procedures, fluorescent staining, FISH and CGH. FISH is a recent technology to detect the specific chromosome structure by using particular DNA probes. This method is more accurate and enables the detection of micro-deletions and exact break points involved in each chromosome (Ligon et al., 2007). The karyotype analysis is of benefit to pregnant women at the age of 35 and having the history of a previous child with a defect. Because the risk of chromosome abnormalities is dramatically increased in advanced maternal age and if the mother is an X-linked carrier, the recurrent risk is 1 to 2%. Therefore, antenatal screening tests including karyotyping are carried out to pregnant women who are older than 35 years and those with family history of chromosomal abnormalities. Different tests are done in different stages of pregnancy. In first trimester, these high risk mothers are conducted by non-invasive procedures like high resolution ultrasound for nuchal translucency and PAPP-A (pregnancy associated plasma protein A) for trisomy 21 to exclude the major chromosomal abnormalities. Then triple test consisting of a serum ÃŽÂ ±-fetoprotein, unconjugated oestradiol and human chorionic gonadotrophin is usually carried out in second trimester. If the abnormalities are detected, it is necessary to continue some invasive procedures like chorionic villus sampling and amniocentesis for cytogenetic testing. Chorionic villus sampling is offered at 11-13 weeks of pregnancy, Amniocentesis is done at 15 weeks and fetal blood sampling is carried out at 18-22 weeks of pregnancy. Although all these procedures carry the risk of miscarriage, they are suitable for chromosomal and DNA analysis (Callen et al., 1988). Particularly for the detection of trisomies in chromosome 13, 18, 21, X and Y because which account for more than 85% of all fetal aneuploidies. As a benefit, if a couple has a known risk to offspring, they can choose options to avoid or plan further pregnancy. If the male partner is affected, the couple has the option for artificial insemination of sperm from a donor. If the female is affected with a dominant condition or is an X-linked carrier, the couple has the option for egg donation from another female. Moreover, a relatively new procedure is pre-implantation genetic diagnosis. Initially, this process requires in vitro fertilization. If fertilization occurred, one cell is removed from the stage of the blastocyst and then investigated for the chromosomal disorder. If there is no defect, it will be returned to the uterus (Fukuda et al., 2007). In the molecular genetics, DNA testing is divided into four main categories which are diagnostic testing, carrier detection, pre symptomatic testing for adult onset diseases and prenatal diagnosis. In genetic counselling, karyotype analysis is widely used in carrier detection incase of balanced translocation carrier, autosomal dominant recessive, X-linked female carrier disorder in order to evaluate the risk of having an affected child. Furthermore, karyotyping can be used as a pre symptomatic or predictive test in some individuals who are at risk of an adult onset disorder to determine whether or not they carry the mutated gene for these disorders. This test is of value for autosomal dominant condition because of having a chance is of 50% if one parent is affected. Familial adenomatous polyposis, colon cancer and Huntington disease are the examples of autosomal dominant (Bodmer et al., 1991). Chromosomal aberrations Abnormalities of the chromosomes which are large enough to be visible under the light microscope are termed chromosomal aberrations. They are usually classified into numerical and structural aberrations. A numerical aberration is the disordering of chromosomes due to error in separation of the chromosome in cell division. Aneuploidy represents gain or loss of a specific whole chromosome due to failure of a paired chromosome in meiosis. The one with an extra copy of a chromosome is called trisomy and the one with a missing copy of that chromosome is called monosomy. These can be seen in either autosomes or sex chromosomes. Autosomal trisomy will result in early miscarriage and monosomy of an autosomal chromosome is not compactable with life. Autosomal trisomy is associated with increased maternal age (Harper et al., 1995). Similarly, polyploidy represents a complete extra set of chromosomes due to fertilization by two sperms (dispermy) or failure in maturation divisions of either the eggs or the sperm. For examples, triploidy and tetraploidy depending on the number of extra sets of chromosomes. Triplody occurs in 2% of all conceptions but early spontaneous abortion is usual (Munne and Cohen, 1998). Aneuploidy of the autosome The most commonly seen autosomal aneuploidies are trisomy 21-Downs syndrome, trisomy 18-Edwards syndrome, trisomy 13-Pataus syndrome. Sex chromosomal aneuploidies are Klinefelter syndrome and XYY syndrome in male and Triple X syndrome and Turner syndrome in female. Autosomal monosomy is mostly lethal and autosomal trisomy is relatively common (Rodrigo et al., 2010). The kayotype of Downs syndrome is 47, XX/XY, +21 that is an extra copy of chromosome at chromosome number 21. The disease incidence is 1 in 900 live births if the mother age is at 30 and is strongly correlation with advancing maternal age. More than 90 percent of cases are maternal in origin and are caused by non-disjunction in maternal meiosis 1. The affected children are born with sever hypotonia (floppy) and also show characteristic facies of upward sloping of eyes, small ears and protruding tongue. 40-45% of the patients are presenting with congenital cardiac abnormalities and serious limitation of IQ scores ranging from 25-75. The average life span is 50-60 year if the affected one does not have severe cardiac problems. Most of the patients suffer from Alzheimer disease in later life because of a gene dosage effect of amyloid precursor protein on chromosome 21(Wald et al., 1997). The karyotype of Patau syndrome is 47, XX/XY, +13 and of Edward syndrome is 47, XX/XY, +18. Patau and Edward syndrome share many clinical features in common and are usually found at the time of doing cytogenetic analysis in malformed children. They both show the incidence of 1 in 50,000 and convey a very poor prognosis, with most affected infants dying during the early life. Approximately 60% of cases are caused by non-disjunction and 10% of cases are resulted from mosiacism or unbalanced rearrangement. The recurrence risk is less than 1% if the parent is not a carrier of a balanced translocation (Massiah et al., 2008, Rasmussen et al., 2003). Aneuploidy of the sex chromosome Aneuploidy of the sex chromosomes is more common than the autosomal aneuploidy but has less impact. Unlike the autosomes, monosomy for the Y chromosome is always lethal whereas monosomy for the X chromosome is a viable condition. The commonest syndromes that have ever been seen in the clinical setting are Turner syndrome, Klinefelter syndrome, Triple X syndrome and XYY syndrome (Smith et al., 1960). The karyotype of Klinefelter syndrome is 47, XXY. The additional X chromosome of maternal origin is 56% and paternal is 44%. It usually arises from non-disjunction at either the first or second meiotic division (Lamb et al., 1996). For example, if the father produces XY sperm it can cross over with the maternal X ovum to produce XXY. Overall the birth incidence of 47, XXY is 1 in 1000 male with an increased risk at maternal age and azoospermatic infertile males (Steinberger et al., 1965). This is the single commonest cause of hypogonadism and infertility in male. The other clinical findings include learning difficulties, gynecomastia and taller than average with long lower limbs. There is increased incidence of carcinoma breast and osteoporosis in adult life. But it can be treated with testosterone from puberty onwards and fertility has been achieved by using the techniques of testicular sperm aspiration and intracytoplasmic sperm injection in a small number of affected males. Monosomy of the X chromosome results in Turner syndrome, 45, XO karyotype due to non-disjunction in either parent. It is estimated that 1% of all conception from which 95 to 99% of all 45, XO embryos die before birth. Therefore, the incidence of live birth is very low ranging from 1 in 5000 to 1 in 10,000. It is being detected by routine ultrasound scan during second trimester showing the residue of intrauterine edema with neck webbing. They have significant defects in height, sexual development and fertility but there is no mental retardation (David et al., 1986). The short stature is apparent without growth hormone treatment and it is due to haploinsufficiency of the SHOX gene on the pseudoautosomal region. For the management of infertility, estrogen therapy should be started at adolescence for the development of secondary sexual characteristics and in-vitro fertilization using donor eggs offers the prospect of pregnancy. The karyotype of the super female syndrome is 47, XXX which is also known as triple X syndrome. It usually appears as physically normal but 15- 25% are mildly mentally handicapped and quite oppositional behavior. About three quarters of the affected females are fertile of which one- half of their offspring would expect to have this syndrome (Michalak et al., 1983). Many studies have shown that the additional X chromosome is of maternal in origin in 95% of the cases due to error in meiosis I. Furthermore, another karyotype defect associated with personality disorder is 47, XYY syndrome. It was firstly noted in 1965 in a cytogenetic survey in males for violent and dangerous antisocial behavior and about 4.5% of the males in this survey were shown as XYY karyotype. The frequency of having this characteristic karyotype in the general population is 1 in 1000 birth according to the sub-sequent studies. The recurrence risk for the offspring would be 2XXY : 2XY : 1XX : 1XYY due to production of YY sperm at the second meiotic division or post-fertilization non-disjunction of the Y (Staessen et al., 2003). Structural aberration is the disordering of the structure and shape of the chromosome resulting from chromosomal breakage and error in rejoining mechanisms. Translocation is the transfer of chromosomal material between non-homologous chromosomes but there is no DNA loss. Three recognizable translocations are reciprocal, centric fusion (Robertsonian) and insertion. The one important thing in translocation is the balanced reciprocal translocation which occurs in two non-homologus chromosomes (Michael and Malcolm, 1997). In a normal population, 1 in 500 is known balanced carriers and they are clinically healthy but they can give a problem when they reproduce. It is possible for the balanced translocation carrier to pass on the translocation in an unbalanced form that can lead to miscarriage and physical or developmental problems (Munne et al., 2000). Deletion is the loss of a part of a chromosome that can cause multiple dysmorphic features because of the loss of one or more gene. For a deletion to be seen in karyotype analysis, the amount of deletion must be large. It may also occur as a result of an unbalanced translocation (Barber, 2005). Although deletion of a small piece of chromosome is not a serious problem, deletion of entire chromosome is lethal. Therefore, only a few viable conditions are found with a large deletion. Angelman syndrome Deletion of the terminal portion of chromosome 4 causes the Wolf-Hirschhorn syndrome. Cri du chat syndrome is caused by a deletion in the short arm of chromosome 5. Both conditions are very rare and the incidence is 1 in 100,000 live births (Cerruti, 2001). Wolf-Hirschhorn syndrome usually presents with variable phenotypic features. A characteristic feature of the Cri-du-chat syndrome is having a sound of cat like cry (Niebuhr, 1978). The phenotype is slightly different depending on their chromosome break point. There are two regions of break point in the short arm of chromosome 5 that have been identified in this syndrome. Loss of chromosome segment in 5p15.3 results in abnormal larynx development and deletion in 5p15.2 is associated with mental retardation (Overhauser et al., 1994; Simmons et al., 1995). Prader-Willi syndrome and Angleman syndrome are caused by deletion in the region 15q11-13 or by uniparental disomy (Ledbetter, 1981). If both copies of the chromosome are inherited from the father, the child will have Angelman and from the mother, the child will have Prader-Willi syndrome (Horsthemke, 1996). The incidence of Prader-Willi is 1 in 10, 000 whereas Angelman is 1 in 20, 000 live birth (Clayton-Smith, 1993; Petersen et al., 1995). A characteristic feature of Prader-Willi syndrome is sleepiness and of Angelmans are bouts of laughter (Zori et al., 1992). The children with Prader-Willi syndrome develop marked obesity and learning difficulties in the later life. These cytogenetic microdeletions in the long arm of chromosome 15 can be visible by using either FISH (fluorescence in situ hybridization) or DNA analysis with probes from the deleted region (Nicholls, 1994). Wilms tumour is the one of the micro deletion syndromes and deletion occurs at chromosome 11p13. The affected child develops renal neoplasm (Wilms tumour) together with aniridia (absent iris), genitourinary malformations and growth retardation. This combination is also known as WAGR syndrome. It is due to loss of several genes within this deletion. For example, loss of PAX6 is responsible for aniridia and loss of WT1 causes Wilms tumour. DiGeorge syndrome is caused by a mocro deletion in the proximal long arm of chromosome 22. The incidence is 1 in 400 live births and is presenting with heart abnormalities, thymic and parathyroid hypoplasia. The half of the affected has short stature and partial growth hormone deficiency. In adult life, 25% of the cases suffer from schizophrenia. A micro deletion at the chromosome 7q11 causes Willams syndrome presenting with elf like face, hypercalcemia and supravalvular aortic stenosis. It is due to loss of one copy of the gene that encodes elastin. With the improvement in the cytogenetic techniques and the use of FISH, additional rare micro deletion syndromes are identified, for example; deletion 1p36 syndrome and Smith-Magenis syndrome. The other structural abnormalities include duplication, inversion and mosiacism and the rare structural variants are fragile site, heteromorphisims, isochromosome and ring chromosome. Cancer and chromosomal abnormalities Some of the cancers can be detected by karyotype analysis. The connection between chromosome rearrangement and cancer is evident in hematological malignancies. The several chromosomal translocations are found in various types of leukemia. The specific chromosomal translocation between chromosome 9 and 22 occurs in chronic myeloid leukemia is called the Philadelphia chromosome. In this case, a part of the proto-oncogene, c-ABL on the chromosome 9 moves to the BCR gene on the chromosome 22. The resulting BCR-ABL gene codes for fusion protein that has tyrosine kinase activity in excess. Therefore, Philadelphia chromosome positive cases are prolonged survival with the treatment of tyrosine kinase inhibitor. Moreover, detection of BCR-ABL transcripts in the bone marrow by PCR analysis is also necessity for the clinical follow-up. So, it can be used as a well defined diagnostic tool and prognostic factor. The most specific cytogenetic abnormality in childhood acute lymphoid leukemia is the translocation between chromosome 12 and 21 called TEL-AML1 translocation. Moreover, Philadelphia chromosome translocation also occurs in increasing age and carries a poor prognosis. Acute myeloid leukemia occurs in all age groups and is the common form of acute leukemia. The specific chromosomal abnormalities in acute myeloid leukemia are translocation between chromosome 15 and 17 and translocation between chromosome 8 and 21. In the chromosome 15 and 17 translocation, PML gene on the chromosome 15 is fused to the retinoic acid receptor ÃŽÂ ± gene (RARÃŽÂ ±). Therefore, acute myeloid leukemia associated with this type of translocation is well treated with all-trans retinoic acid and results in good prognosis. Furthermore, core binding transcription factor encoding genes CBFÃŽÂ ± and CBFÃŽÂ ² are involved in a translocation between chromosome 8 and 21. Another form of chromosome rearrangement in acute myeloid leukemia is inversion of the chromosome 16 in which CBFÃŽÂ ² gene is also involved. The four most common chromosome abnormalities in chronic lymphoid leukemia are trisomy 12, structural abnormalities of chromosome 17p, deletion at chromosome 13q14 and 11q23. These abnormalities carry the prognostic significance. Likewise in leukemia, chromosomal abnormalities are also seen in lymphoma. Lymphoma is a group of diseases caused by malignant lymphocytes that accumulate in the lymph nodes. Burkitts lymphoma is caused by viral infection that induces the transfer of C-MYC oncogene on the chromosome 8 to immunoglobulin gene on the chromosome 14. As a result, C-MYC gene is deregulated and the affected one clinically presents with massive lymhadenopathy of the jaw. Moreover, this specific translocation is associated with other forms of cancer including Burkitts lymphoma and multiple myeloma. Chromosome translocation associated with haematological cancers Translocation site Type of cancer t(9;22) Chronic myeloid leukemia (Rajasekariah et al., 1982) t(8;14), t(8;22), t(2;8) Burkitts lymphoma (Margrath, 1990) t(8;21) acute myeloblastic leukemia (Oshimura et al., 1976) t(4;18) follicular lymphoma (Fleischman and Prigogina, 1977) t(4;18) acute lymphocytic leukemia (Oshimura et al., 1977) The proportion of leukemia with a heritable component has been estimated as 25% in monozygotic twins. The risk to sibs in childhood leukemia is 2- 4 times higher than the population incidence. The risk of a relative developing Hodgkins disease is seven fold higher than others (Kelly, 1992). Retinoblastoma is the well known childhood cancer that involves in the developing retina cells of the eyes. The disease onset is usually in the first five years with a white cat eyes reflex or squint. Early diagnosis and treatment will have good long-term outcome. It can occur either hereditary or non-hereditary. In the heritable condition, the disease is an autosomal dominant in manner and is caused by the germline mutation that is the mutation in the RB1 gene. Approximately 5% of the cases reveal interstitial deletion involving the long arm of chromosome 13 in the cytogenetic analysis. In the non-heritable condition, the mutation in the RB1 gene arises as a post-zygotic event in early embryogenesis is also known as somatic mutation. Genetic counselling Genetic counselling is a communication process that deals with the problems associated with the occurrence of a genetic disorder in a family. Genetic disorder is a considerable health and economic problem because there is no effective therapy. So, high risk population group often seek advices as to why it happened and about the risk of having further abnormal offsprings. Therefore, the realization of the need of the individuals and couples together with the awareness of the importance of the accurate information, has led to the widespread introduction of genetic counselling clinics in parallel with clinical genetics. The introduction of genetic counselling services has been provided approximately 40 years ago. Thus, the genetic counselor provides the information related to the medical diagnosis, prognosis, complications and the possible treatment. Moreover, they have to explain the mode of inheritance of the disorder and also have to calculate the risk of the recurrence. Then, they h ave to bring out the options available for dealing with reducing the risks of having a disorder (Frets et al., 1991). . The options are no further pregnancy, adoption, in vitro fertilization with pre implantation diagnosis, artificial insemination-AID by donor (egg donation), termination of pregnancy, or ignore and accept the risk (Zare et al., 1973). AID is performed for husband with AD trait or both are carriers for a serious AR (Taranissi, 2005). In UK, due to the Congenital Disabilities act of 1976, legal action can be brought against a person whose breach of duty to the parents results in a child being born disabled, abnormal or unhealthy. Therefore, antenatal diagnosis with selective termination of pregnancy became a reality in UK with the abortion ACT OF 1967 (Macintyre, 1973). In the setting of genetic counselling, interviews must be conducted with great sensitivity and psychological insight as the parents may feel guilty for their abnormal babies. Therefore, genetic counselling should be offered to both parents and must give adequate time under an appropriate situation. The depth of explanation should be matched to education background of the couples, outlining of the genetic basic of the condition with the aid of diagrams and recurrent risk calculations (Sermon, 2002). The quality of the genetic counselling depends on the availability of facilities that ensure an accurate diagnosis can be made. If the diagnosis is incorrect, it will be totally misleading information. The important thing in genetic counselling must be non- judgemental and non-directive. The aim is to deliver a balanced version of the facts which will permit the parents to reach their own decision with regard to their reproductive future. Moreover, referral to an appropriate support group is also the essential integral component of the genetic counselling process. The recurrence risk is usually calculated by using Bayes theorem that express probability of disease occurrence mathematically. Bayes theorem is also known as Bayesian analysis or Bayesian inference. But some of the limiting factors are delayed age of onset, reduced penetrance and use of DNA marker. These are more complex in the risk calculation. Autosomal dominant trait is the risk to each child of an affected person at 1 in 2. However, the risk estimation in family counselling can be difficult because of the variable penetrance and expression. For example in case of incomplete penetrance, although the parents have a dominant disorder but the disease does not manifest itself clinically. This gives the appearance of the gene having a skipped generation. In Autosomal recessive trait, if one of the parents is carrier, the offspring have a 1 in 4 chance of being affected and a 2 in 3 chance of being carrier (Yoshikawa and Mukai, 1970). Recurrence risk of 1 in 4 chances does not mean that their next three children will be uneffected because of the tossed coin phenomenon and joint probability. Therefore, genetic counselor should be explained that there are 3 chances out of 4 that their next baby will be affected. Autosomal recessive disorders are more severe and higher motality than autosomal dominant. In this case, there is usually no family history although the defective gene is passed from generation to generation. Similarly the sex-linked disorder can be dominant or recessive as the autosomal genes. In an X-linked recessive trait, if females are obligate carriers, one half of her sons will be affected and one half of her daughter will be carriers. If an affected male reproduces, there will be normal sons and carrier daughters. An X-linked dominant condition is very rare and vitamin D-resistant rickets is the best known example. Consanguineous marriage and incestuous relationship in the parents provides further support increases for the risk of recessive inheritance. Risk for consanguinity is common in Arab population. As for the carrier detection, some of the inborn errors of metabolism are autosomal recessive disorder like Tay Sachs disease and haemoglobinopathies but these can be detected only by biochemical analysis. But because of X inactivation, few of these are absolute and this information needs to be combined with the pedigree risk using Bayes theorem (Markova et al., 1984). Fragile X syndrome is an X-inked dominant, single gene disorder rather than chromosome abnormalities. It is a common heritable cause of learning difficulties and affects 1 in 5000 males. The characteristic features are high forehead, large ears, long face, prominent jaw, large testes and repetitive speech. This is due to mutation of FMR1 gene encoding CGG repeats at the end of X chromosomes long arm. It appears as a constriction in the X chromosome in the chromosomal analysis called fragile site. The more repeats, the more severe the disease. If this reaches greater than 200 CGG triplets, it becomes a full mutation. Each son of the carrier woman with full mutation will have a 50% chance of getting this disease. Moreover, 50% of the female carriers with full mutation also have mild learning difficulties and there will have a 25% chance of getting a daughter with learning difficulties. Conditions needed for genetic counselling and investigation (Watson et al., 1992) Infertility one in ten of all couples are involuntarily infertile, such a couple needs chromosomal analysis to exclude a balanced structural rearrangement and Klinefelters syndrome. Recurrence miscarriage one of six pregnancies ends as a spontaneous miscarriage. 3-5% of cases have a balanced structural rearrangement Still birth Perinatal death with multiple malformations Gene therapy The recent progress in molecular genetics is the prospect of successful gene therapy. Gene therapy is the genetic alteration of the cells of the affected persons for curing the genetic diseases. Somatic cell gene therapy consists of the alteration of genes in human somatic cells to treat a specific disorder, for example, X-linked severe combined immunodeficiency disease. In this case bone marrow stem cell has been a prime candidate for somatic therapy because it is a proliferating cell and has a long life span in the body. Currently, the best source is believed to be embryonic stem cells and ethical consideration impinges on almost every aspect of clinical genetics. On the other hand, gene replacement therapy has been used for loss of function mutation. This involves replacing a missing gene product by inserting a normal gene into somatic cells. There are many techniques for introducing of gene into cells but retrovirus and adenovirus are the most commonly used as gene therapy vectors. Another method of gene therapy is the gene blocking therapy to encounter the effect of gain of function mutations. These include the use of antisense molecules and RNA cleaving riboenzymes. Conclusion The benefit of karyotype analysis in high risk populations provides the prevention and early management options to minimize the risk. As genetic science development, researchers and clinicians have more advanced diagnostic tool like multiplex PCR, SNP microarray, CGH (comparative genomic hybridization) to identify the far more complex chromosome abnormalities. Although karyotyping by FISH can detect both balanced and unbalanced translocations, uniparental disomy can only be detected by SNP arrays and high output sequencing. Despite the high cost, enormous benefit can be found for society to evaluate the superior treatment protocols and genomic technologies for the future.