The role that work has in one’s life Essay Example for Free

The role that work has in one’s life Essay In today’s busy world of lightning fast communication, what has the term â€Å"work† come to mean? It can be anything that one must do out of necessity and not out of joy; like raking one’s yard. It may also be defined as a task one must accomplish in a timely manner to be compensated with monetary gain. Pride and self-worth are achieved through work. Moving up in a career and station in life are achieved accordingly to how much heart, attention and sweat one puts into their job and their work. Respect from family and friends can be directly related to a person’s work ethic. â€Å"That Uncle Frank is such a good provider, he was able to send his son to Harvard and buy him a new Jeep after graduation. † This is an example of accolades that appear in casual conversation, praising a family member who is a high achiever. The act of working can keep a person on focus. Having a defined schedule can often keep people out of trouble by keeping them busy. Work also helps one set goals and meet them in a timely manner. By working, most people expand their knowledge base and are often forced to learn about new theories and keep up with new technology advances that they may be left behind on, if it was not mandatory for their career. Work makes the world go ‘round and operate like a fine tuned machine. Just imagine if no one wanted to work in the capacity of a garbage collector. In a matter of weeks, our country would be covered in debris and terribly unsanitary. Likewise, if no one desired to be a nurse, many people would die as a consequence. The act of working also directly determines how well one will live. Depending on what job one takes and how often they work, directly affects how much money they will bring home. Our economy is dependant on workers. Workers equate to consumers. If people don’t work, the products will not get produced. If people don’t work, or if they work infrequently, they will not be able to consume. We as a nation depend on our citizens to be consumers, as this makes our economy stronger. The act of working and having a job also helps form a person’s social structure. Many people end up being friends and socializing with co-workers. This is often how families find a group to blend in with. Marriages, church associations and life long friendships are often forged through jobs. One’s work situation can definitely impact their economic welfare and their family’s joy factor. So, in conclusion, work smart and hard, and choose your job wisely.

Toni Morrisons Contributions to American Literature

Toni Morrisons Contributions to American Literature Chapter One: Toni Morrisons Contribution to American Literature Paradoxically, immortality is not achieved through the defeat of biological death, but rather through the indomitability of the spirit, which leaves behind the fruits of wisdom and humanity, putting forevermore things in a different perspective for generations to come. This, however, is not a smooth and linear process and nor does it leave one untransformed. Referring to the motto above, Toni Morrisons lifelong work has been an accurate reflection of her and her races upheaval. Albeit she fictionalizes her novels to a great extent, her work does not fail to constitute a palindromic iteration of her thoughts, feelings, and experiences felt both directly and vicariously. To be more precise, if we overlook the minute details of her novels, one cannot tell where her fiction ends and her life begins, or vice-versa: they read the same, regardless of whether we â€Å"read† them from fiction to reality or from reality to fiction. This mirror in which Toni Morrison sees herself and w hose projections â€Å"fall† on the surface of our own interpretations and are thusly decoded and re-encoded is not hung there for the purpose of throwing vanity glances; instead she uses it to question the endlessness of possibilities and that of answers to such broad questions as those relating to racism in the U.S. or to an idealistic state of affairs. My books are always questions for me. What if? How does it feel to? Or what would it look like if you took racism out? Or what does it look like if you have the perfect town, everything you ever wanted? And so you ask a question, put it in a time when it would be theatrical to ask, and find the people who can articulate it for you and try to make them interesting. The rest of it is all structure, how to put it together. (Rustin) Timing is of immediate importance, as Toni Morrison herself points out, especially since her debut novel appeared on the cusp of the civil rights and feminist movement: a time of great transformations and unparalleled historical significance. She times the appearance of The Bluest Eye so well that its impact reverberates strongly into the present. This is no wonder since her writing is not intended to cater for the general masses, nor does it follow the narrow furrows and strictures of fiction writing which are usually implicitly understood. The importance of her work does not only extend along the dimension of aesthetic value: her work is not cathartic in the sense of presenting true beauty loftily idealized; instead she endows her fictional voices with daring, cunning, resolve, resilience; they are often the loud or muffled voices of the surprisingly articulate and heart-rending insane, the latter perversion of mind being perceived in relation with mind-numbing senseless conformity . One may never tell where artistry begins and ends and to what extent her literary offerings will shape future mentalities, but one thing is for sure: her unquenchable thirst for racial justice and her innovative techniques will never cease to challenge our take on things. If only to weave a flimsy mesh of interpretation around Toni Morrisons undeniably invaluable contribution on American literature and beyond, a closer scrutiny of her work would be most auspicious, especially if we proceed along the lines of racial formation, the importance of family and community, identity, conformity, independence, allegiance, displacement and all the binaries therefrom. Racial Formation and Toni Morrisons Literary Manifest Racial formation never has never been and never will be (one could safely imagine) a smooth and linear phenomenon of innocuous application. Not only that, but never has there been a time in American history when race wasnt a troublesome matter, from the initial clash between the early settlers who achieved the â€Å"conquest of paradise† and the native population, through every aspect of affirmative action, to present frictions with and around immigrants and the border (i.e. with Mexico), all still wrapped in the warm blanket of the American covenant. The exodus of people crossing the ocean has always been a defining feature of the rugged American fabric and trouble and tension an inherent aftermath, for as Thomas Sowell puts it:    The peopling of America is one of the great dramas in all human history. Over the years, the massive stream of humanity—45 million people—crossed every ocean and continent to reach the United States. They came speaking every language and representing every nationality, race, and religion. (qtd. in Girgus 64) Even though noble rank has been outlawed by the very Constitution of the United States, this does not necessarily ensure the homogeneity of multiethnicity. The social tension described by American sociologist Thomas Sowell and quoted by Sam B. Girgus in â€Å"The New Ethnic Novel and the American Idea† is that caused by the conflicting values brought to the American land, together with languages, customs, and, more importantly, creeds and moral values that this veritable Tower of Babel is still finding very difficult to take in and transform into a meld of acceptable conformity. A tendency existed and steeply evolved in the not very long course of American history to assert the superiority of the Aryan waspish faction of the American nation over all other non-Aryan groups. Since the budding nations ideals have always been slightly adumbrated by the skulking presence of slavery, the African-American paradigm of socio-cultural and political struggle has been conferred upon speci al significance and attention. As such, the status of African-Americans has undergone severe and painful shifts, from the moment they were brought to America as slaves, until at least quite recently. These days, the life of African-Americans in the United States is undoubtedly improved, a fact which can easily be proven by the recent election of the first â€Å"black† president in the entire history of this country. Not only at the highest level, but in all walks of life evidence exists of inclusion in the earnest of members of society belonging to the African-American race.   Albeit banned on some level for instance Executive Order 8802 issued by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt banned outright discrimination in the case of jobs related to the federal government and defence contractors open discrimination continued throughout the decades, the segregation and gerrymandering trailing for many decades. Several boiling pressures, however, undermined these discriminatory tactics, such as the Brown vs. Board of Education of 1954 or the Montgomery Bus Boycott of 1955. These and other actions precipitated the adoption of affirmative action, a bomb which exploded in the face of Presidents Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson, who had to make efforts to redress these social injustices through as some like to call it â€Å"positive† or â€Å"reverse† discrimination, in spite of Martin Luther King Jr.s dream, a veritable gem of rhetoric. His world-famous 1963 I Have a Dream speech is a watershed moment not only for the Civil Rights Movement a cause that i s brilliantly, persuasively and most important, peacefully championed but for every group that during the course of (American) history had been discriminated against. In it he advocates equality and fraternity, the vital prerequisites of coexistence in a sphere so decidedly multiethnic that, as Herman Melville phrases it, â€Å"You can not spill a drop of American blood without spilling the blood of the whole world.† (qtd. in Girgus 65). The attitude taken by American people concerning the preference for or against affirmative action is linked to what everyone was educated to believe. The factor that leaves the greatest imprint on our mind is education and the vehicles for achieving this, such as literature, films, and other media, to say nothing of standardized school curricula and society at large. It is the first of these vehicles that will be investigated in what follows, tracing Toni Morrisons efforts as an epitomic endeavour, in order to isolate its influence on our belief system, values and life choices. Significantly, an original national literature was the first mark of Americas declaration of independence from Europes influence and the African-American one the declaration of independence from â€Å"white† hegemony. Benjamin Franklin believed that â€Å"A good example is the best sermon† (qtd. in Marcovitz 55), while Emerson, the father of transcendentalism urged the American people to be self-reliant above all. Though a maverick at heart throughout his entire glorious existence which, while dappled with tragedy, his work has been no less prolific in spite of all his hardships and his originality, humour and unmatched industriousness Mark Twain, The Father of American Literature, has been a most controversial and compliant figure (only in the sense of providing such an inspiring string of examples in the sense of self-reliance) in his time and continues to be so even today. If at first his masterpiece The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn was criticized for the language and subject matter by both his contemporaries and later admirers (Ernest Hemingway would provide a notable example) for being trite and vulgar and even excoriated by public libraries such as the Concord Public Library in Massachusetts or New Yorks Brooklyn Public Library, recent controversy has been focused around racial matters. Critics are split between those regarding the portrayal of Jim as disparaging and as a consequence offensive and those who find Jims superstitious behaviour to be an indication of an alternative perception of our bond with nature, or a more powerful connection with our spiritual side, to say nothing of the steep dissonance between the Waspish past and the politically correct present. In Toni Morrisons Playing in the Dark, Mark Twains The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is analysed from the perspective of the importance of the Africanist presence, a presence much silenced and only timidly analyzed for decades. Discussed in terms of socio-historic development, the distinction between â€Å"black† and â€Å"white† themed by Twains novel reaches a peak in the mid-nineteenth century, as evidenced in Toni Morrisons interpretation. This can be verified by the juxtaposition between Jims utter love for his masters and the â€Å"baroque† (Morrison 57) torture Huck and Tom subject him to. The â€Å"white† line of argumentation is brilliantly outlined in Mark Twains masterpiece and shrewdly detected by Morrison, who finds Jim â€Å"unassertive, loving, irrational, passionate, dependent, inarticulate†, which is exactly how the â€Å"others† are perceived. The religious, scientific, political, cultural and societal practices were so fas hioned around the time when Mark Twain lived as to legitimate slavery and abuse. Starting from the assertion that white people around Jim seek forgiveness and supplication veritable keystone concepts in Christian religions which, however, did not extend to everyone, considering the hovering doubt about the existence of the soul of the â€Å"others†, they (i.e. religions through their cloistered leaders) instead providing convenient ways for turning a blind eye on slavery and even extermination on condition that he accept his inferiority. Thus, she argues, only a representative of the African-American race could have been painfully humiliated by children after being presented as a father and an adult, while no one, not even a white convict, could have been submitted to this kind of treatment. Toni Morrisons discourse is by no means vituperative: she does not intend any reversed oppression through her writing, either in Playing in the Dark or in any of her works of fiction. However, her writing is so compelling that when Beloved does not win her the National Book Award, as many as forty-eight African-American authors and critics write to the New York Times claiming her literary prowess, which afterwards earns her the laurels of the Pulitzer Prize, and rightly so. Her lack of bias is evident when she praises the former President Bill Clinton calling him the â€Å"first black President, since he displayed almost every trope of blackness: single-parent household, born poor, working-class, saxophone-playing, McDonalds-and-junk-food-loving boy from Arkansas† (Cooke), while her discursive equanimity can be traced from the way she analyses the Africanist presence in literature and the way it is regarded from the perspective of its relationship to mainstream literature and criticism: Like thousands of avid but nonacademic readers, some powerful literary critics in the United States have never read, and are proud to say so, any African-American text. It seems to have done them no harm, presented them with no discernible limitations in the scope of their work or influence. I suspect, with much evidence to support the suspicion, that they will continue to flourish without any knowledge whatsoever of African-American literature. (Playing in the Dark 13) While she does not wish to challenge or criticise anyone for their views and choices, Toni Morrison cannot bear to look the other way when the literary Jim Crow era is still so fiercely enforced. That it might be convenient for anyone to ignore any slice of reality or exclude any of the fibres in the fabric of a nation is quite obvious, and while this approach does not impair our intellect, it does however limit our understanding. This selective interpretation of things which leaves Africanist representation in a cone of darkness is especially significant, since it underpins racism and it bolsters its moral justification, especially along the lines of racial formation: a deeply-seated phenomenon which pervades every aspect of life in America and a very hurtful process for those slighted by it. The relevance of racial formation is underscored throughout Toni Morrisons work and, in their extensive study entitled Racial Formation in the United States: from the 1960s to the 1990s, Michae l Omi and Howard Winant, the two American sociologists who developed racial formation theory, argue that race is an artificial concept, because the bases according to which any particular individual can be labelled as â€Å"white†, â€Å"black†, and so on, may start from certain biological traits, but race transcends these. To illustrate the point, a person of â€Å"mixed blood† is considered from the point of view of North American and then Latin American racial identification whereby the same categorization would have the same individual first â€Å"black† and then unable to â€Å"pass† as â€Å"black†. At the other extreme, Brazilian legislation is willing to accept the assignation of several racial categories to various members of the same family. In addition to being intricate and far-reaching, these considerations help provide grounding for our study of Toni Morrisons work and its impact on American literature and even life in America and also help account for the perception of other races by the early settlers, whose religious and even scientific tenets had to be broached to accommodate these â€Å"new† categories, such as the â€Å"noble savage,† and dispute the very existence of their soul. This blatant dismissal of a persons soul based solely on the abstract and arbitrary consideration of race is an outrage that Toni Morrison starkly exposes in Beloved, about which Susanna Rustin comments the following in â€Å"The Guardian†: It is a novel of unspeakable horrors. But even more than the physical brutality, Morrison confronts us with the irreparable harm done by what Margaret Atwood described in a review as one of the most viciously antifamily institutions human beings have ever devised, a system that sought to deprive human beings of what it is that makes them human. (Rustin) Sethe, her heroine, learns the truth and is shocked to realise that her masters, whom she is so devoted to, are taught to distinguish between her human and animal characteristics, which means, in other words, that she is but a soulless beast of burden. Thats when I stopped because I heard my name, and then I took a few steps to where I could see what they was doing. Schoolteacher was standing over one of them with one hand behind his back. He licked a forefinger a couple of times and turned a few pages. Slow. I was about to turn around and keep on my way to where the muslin was, when I heard him say, No, no. Thats not the way. I told you to put her human characteristics on the left; her animal ones on the right. And dont forget to line them up. I commenced to walk backward, didnt even look behind me to find out where I was headed. I just kept lifting my feet and pushing back. When I bumped up against a tree my scalp was prickly. [] Flies settled all over your face, rubbing their hands. My head itched like the devil. Like somebody was sticking fine needles in my scalp. I never told Halle or nobody. (Beloved 224) This episode in Sethes existence can never be erased nor her pain alleviated. The suffering she is caused is absolute and boundless. Her feelings of outrage surge like torrents in her brain and she feels utterly discombobulated. This memory will forever haunt her; it will shape her future and her attitude towards life, her behaviour towards her children, and it will serve as a constantly open wound. Whats even more tragic is that this mind-boggling injustice spared no one: men, women, or children. Remembering his own price, down to the cent, that schoolteacher was able to get for him, he wondered what Sethes would have been. What had Baby Suggs been? How much did Halle owe, still, besides his labor? What did Mrs. Garner get for Paul F? More than nine hundred dollars? How much more? Ten dollars? Twenty? Schoolteacher would know. He knew the worth of everything. It accounted for the real sorrow in his voice when he pronounced Sixo unsuitable. (266) Proceeding along these lines of dehumanization, monetary worth is assigned to each individual and that is the extent of ones value when assessed by the slave owner. Reality is raw, harsh, and beyond shocking, but sugar-coating it would not help if we are to learn the truth about racism and racial formation. The accuracy of Toni Morrisons writing in spite of the degree of fictionalization is the keystone of her discourse. It is her head-on confrontation of the underlying reality that lends Toni Morrison her uniqueness and that has earned her in equal measure respect and criticism. Despite the narrative voices that assert their own individuality in Toni Morrisons works, Sam B. Girgus comments on present-day African-American literary discourse, finding it too elaborate, and somewhat digressive to the detriment of thematic concerns such as the daily life, values, sorrows, tragedies, successes, woes, accomplishments, and so forth. He argues his point by referring to African-American writers Toni Morrison and Henry Louis Gates, Jr.: both Morrison and Gates typify qualities of ethnicity that are common to many of the writers in the literary and cultural renaissance under discussion. They all write in English even when extolling a particular vernacular speech, dialect, or region. They are all extremely sophisticated artists who use the most complex modern and postmodern techniques to convey their highly individualized visions of experience. Although rooted in ethnic communities and concrete historic situations, their works as cultural artifacts and products are nevertheless aspects of complicated technological and bureaucratic systems of cultural and social production that often differ from the language, values, and daily life of the cultures for which they speak. (Girgus 61) This may be so if we for instance pick up Toni Morrisons Pulitzer-awarded novel Beloved where we find passages of stream of consciousness, dialectal dialogue, flashbacks from the past and the conflation of past and present resulting in a destabilized horizon of racial and individual formation. Toni Morrisons formal education may have driven a wedge between herself and the culture she was born into and which she proudly represents, but she still manages to put together an incredible manifesto that reaches deeper truths and meanings with absolute valences. In her novel the three heroines mother and two daughters have overlapping individualities and they represent good and evil in equal measure. Their existences are nonlinear and they run both ways along the temporal axis. This is especially true of Sethe, the mother, whose past still haunts her and impacts greatly her present and future; an impact which extends to her family as well. The state of nonlinearity, conflation, and duality is also found in other novels, such as The Bluest Eye or Sula, in which the heroines manage to become displaced from their status, they are isolated from their respective families and friends, and are forced into pursuing painful valences of individuality. From this point of view, Toni Morrison herself manages to overreach her scope by challenging the perceptions, values, mores, and principles we are ingrained with by society and education. Agnes Suranyi, a contributor to â€Å"The Cambridge Companion to Toni Morrison†, edited by Justine Tally, expresses just such a view: â€Å"The borderline between decent women and man-eating prostitutes is erased; only the latter are capable of giving love to Pecola, whose quest for it elsewhere is futile.† (16-17). This view is of great significance because it epitomizes Toni Morrisons take on life: nothing in her work is â€Å"fed† to us already masticated; it is quite the c ontrary that occurs: we have to interpret the facts stated, the innuendoes, the streams of consciousness, the multifaceted and split personalities, their actions and inactions all by ourselves, through our own filters and open up to a more thorough interpretation that must override dated tenets.     Ã‚   Applying the above stated, upon perusing Toni Morrisons novel Beloved, one cannot miss the connection between melding and overlapping identities and the life of people struggling with racial formation and being forced into conformity and assimilation. This assertion is further reinforced by the fact that Sethe lived in the time of the Underground Railroad, a time which saw a sharp increase in the severity of punishments for escaping bondage. The tenseness of life on the black / white divide is passed on to later generations who carry on with their incessant frictions all the way to Martin Luther King Jr. and beyond. In a 2004 interview with Rachel Cooke for â€Å"The Observer† Toni Morrison successfully proves why the battle with racism is not yet over, in spite of all the things that have changed since the beginning of affirmative action. I dont pass without insults. Let me give you an example. I walk into the Waldorf Astoria in New York to check in. Were going to have a drink, and then my friend is going to go home. She stands behind me, as I check in. Finally, the guy says, Oh, are you registering too? He thought I was the maid. My friend was trembling with anger. It was so personal. But the irony of it was that I was on the cover of a magazine that month, and there were these posters with my face on them all over New York. (qtd. in â€Å"The Observer†) The Bluest Eye her debut novel for instance, has had its popularity delayed many a year precisely because of the stark way in which Toni Morrison approached taboo subjects and because she strived to prove that â€Å"black† did not equal â€Å"ugly†. Growing up is difficult and the girls in the novel find their race assignation which is no fault of theirs a difficult burden to carry around. They do not have the easier lives of the lighter-skinned people in their community and their perceived ugliness is a feature which gradually seeps into their consciousness to such a degree that it becomes overbearing. The validity of this externally-imposed ugliness is reinforced not only by the white members of society, but by the very families themselves. In Pecolas case, her own mother finds her daughter repulsive and troublesome, choosing to love a white child more than her own an unforgivable and heinous deed. But then the destabilization of identity is a practice quite comm on for Toni Morrison, and rightly so, because although identity is formed at an early stage in our existence, the vector of external factors leave multiple indelible marks upon the essence of our character. For Toni Morrisons characters the insurmountable obstacles they have to overcome take too great a toll on their resilience, which ultimately becomes defeated. This reciprocal allegoric relationship between private and collective (in this case racial) identity is a true-to-life representation of many generations of oppressed African-Americans and their struggles to survive in a disparaging mainstream society. In Sula, the African-American writer uses the Bottom as a twofold metaphor: on the one hand the location of this neighbourhood is on top of a hill which, as the slave owner explains to the slave, is the bottom of the world from where God is watching and from which â€Å"the blacks† took â€Å"small consolation in the fact that every day they could literally look down on the white folks† (11), while on the other we see little black girls being picked on by the most recent immigrants who themselves would endure abuse, thus continuing this loop which is closed by the proximity to God that the hills afford them. The ramifications do not stop here: it seems that in any place in the novel, any novel of Toni Morrisons, there is a starting point for a new insight, for a new interpretation, for a kernel of postmodernist truth about life and literature, for novel literary technique and what it entails for both the novel itself as a genre, as well as for the reader and his/her perception of things thats constantly being challenged, just like the readers matrix of social tenets and belief system. Possibly the best example of this is served by the story which inspired Toni Morrison to write Beloved, the story of the African-American woman who would rather kill her own daughter than suffer to have her returned to bondage. As Nellie Y. McKay, the co-editor alongside William L. Andrews of â€Å"Toni Morrisons Beloved A Casebook† states another critics point of view (i.e. Karla F. C. Holloway, writer of â€Å"Beloved: A Spiritual†), Toni Morrison really manages to come up with a fresh and reinvigorating approach   For example, with myth as a dominant feature of Beloved, Morrison not only reclaims the Garner story from those who interviewed her after her childs death and expressed enormous surprise at her calm but also, as mythmaker, achieves a complete revision of the episode. [] The oral and written history that Morrison revises, consciously and unconsciously felt, considers many aspects of each life and reflects an alternative perspective on reality. [] In addition, Morrison, like many other African and African-American writers, often defies the boundaries separating past, present, and future time. This allows her to free Beloved from the dominance of a history that would deny the merits of slave stories. As Morrisons creation, Beloved is not only Sethes dead child but the faces of all those lost in slavery, carrying in her the history of the sixty million and more. Holloway sees Beloved as a novel of inner vision: the reclamation of black spiritual histories. (15) As Morrison herself points out in the novel, the press has no interest in presenting the truth detachedly. It also does not concern itself with such â€Å"trite† topics as the abominable abuses of slavery and it does not give praise where praise is due. Instead, it engages in shameless hectoring of a mother who kills her own daughter. If taken out of context, we would expect it to do no less and, but for Toni Morrisons reframing and revamping of the story, we probably wouldnt have given the story a second thought. But we cannot be left to stand idle before such brazen hypocrisy as regarding Sethe more animal than human, and then a murderess guilty of a heinously premeditated act done whilst in full possession of her faculties. Furthermore, her case is stripped of context, just as the plethora of various other deeds similarly perpetrated as a result of extraordinary duress. This time around Morrison gives ample space to her heroine to justify her actions, while not allowing her , however, to be absolved of the guilt she must bear until the end, hence the muddled border between temporal references, actions, characters, and individualities, which again escape their expected linearity and contiguity. Perception is a fickle thing, especially when something is stretched, filtered, re-filtered, decoded and re-encoded, challenged and stereotyped and warped in every way imaginable. We cannot assert our identity as long as we are unable to find the appropriate compromise between the adoption and rejection of every aspect that is debatable and that can be transacted over this social Carrefour of exchanges. But, more importantly, we can no longer acquiesce in this moral comfort zone set out by society, which overshadows whole groups based on artificial considerations, especially when the relativism of the preceding adjective becomes too overbearing and too painful to stand. The point being made here is that while maybe artificial in essence, the segregation inflicted on these groups and others, as well (while Toni Morrison is clearly concerned with the African-American case, it cannot fail to be propitious to generalise an assertion that we should internalise already if we havent done so and apply to any case in which double standards might occur) is absorbed by those whose mental health is abused incessantly and whose resilience truly worn out and even suppressed. What Toni Morrison attempts is to sow the seeds of individual and discernible thought willing and capable enough to probe things deeper than the shallowness of their outward appearance. Toni Morrisons works are soul-wrench ing panegyrics dedicated to the memory of the former slaves and her contemporaries who were still enslaved through omission and discrimination, as well as a testimony of the noblest and most dedicated application of ones moral ideals. Chapter Two: The Importance of Family and Community in Beloved, The Bluest Eye, and Sula Tell us what it is to be a woman so that we may know what it is to be a man. What moves at the margin. What it is to have no home in this place. To be set adrift from the one you knew. What it is to live at the edge of towns that cannot bear your company. (nobelprize.org) It is no secret or surprise that, first family and then family and community, have the greatest impact on our personality, shaping and reshaping our existence, validating and supporting our preferences and choices or going to great lengths to lay stumbling blocks in our path towards achieving these. Furthermore, the conceptions and principles professed within familial confines are based on the patterned behaviour of ones surrounding environment. This, in turn is founded on what is deemed just and acceptable behaviour leading to harmony and cooperation and is related to civic duty. According to Freuds structural model of the psyche, the development of the human psyche is a three-stage process which corresponds to the three most important stages in our existence. In the first stage, the id, our psyche is so shaped as to want nothing but to fulfil its own needs and wishes, regardless of those of everyone else. Then, as we start learning to distinguish betwee Toni Morrisons Contributions to American Literature Toni Morrisons Contributions to American Literature Chapter One: Toni Morrisons Contribution to American Literature Paradoxically, immortality is not achieved through the defeat of biological death, but rather through the indomitability of the spirit, which leaves behind the fruits of wisdom and humanity, putting forevermore things in a different perspective for generations to come. This, however, is not a smooth and linear process and nor does it leave one untransformed. Referring to the motto above, Toni Morrisons lifelong work has been an accurate reflection of her and her races upheaval. Albeit she fictionalizes her novels to a great extent, her work does not fail to constitute a palindromic iteration of her thoughts, feelings, and experiences felt both directly and vicariously. To be more precise, if we overlook the minute details of her novels, one cannot tell where her fiction ends and her life begins, or vice-versa: they read the same, regardless of whether we â€Å"read† them from fiction to reality or from reality to fiction. This mirror in which Toni Morrison sees herself and w hose projections â€Å"fall† on the surface of our own interpretations and are thusly decoded and re-encoded is not hung there for the purpose of throwing vanity glances; instead she uses it to question the endlessness of possibilities and that of answers to such broad questions as those relating to racism in the U.S. or to an idealistic state of affairs. My books are always questions for me. What if? How does it feel to? Or what would it look like if you took racism out? Or what does it look like if you have the perfect town, everything you ever wanted? And so you ask a question, put it in a time when it would be theatrical to ask, and find the people who can articulate it for you and try to make them interesting. The rest of it is all structure, how to put it together. (Rustin) Timing is of immediate importance, as Toni Morrison herself points out, especially since her debut novel appeared on the cusp of the civil rights and feminist movement: a time of great transformations and unparalleled historical significance. She times the appearance of The Bluest Eye so well that its impact reverberates strongly into the present. This is no wonder since her writing is not intended to cater for the general masses, nor does it follow the narrow furrows and strictures of fiction writing which are usually implicitly understood. The importance of her work does not only extend along the dimension of aesthetic value: her work is not cathartic in the sense of presenting true beauty loftily idealized; instead she endows her fictional voices with daring, cunning, resolve, resilience; they are often the loud or muffled voices of the surprisingly articulate and heart-rending insane, the latter perversion of mind being perceived in relation with mind-numbing senseless conformity . One may never tell where artistry begins and ends and to what extent her literary offerings will shape future mentalities, but one thing is for sure: her unquenchable thirst for racial justice and her innovative techniques will never cease to challenge our take on things. If only to weave a flimsy mesh of interpretation around Toni Morrisons undeniably invaluable contribution on American literature and beyond, a closer scrutiny of her work would be most auspicious, especially if we proceed along the lines of racial formation, the importance of family and community, identity, conformity, independence, allegiance, displacement and all the binaries therefrom. Racial Formation and Toni Morrisons Literary Manifest Racial formation never has never been and never will be (one could safely imagine) a smooth and linear phenomenon of innocuous application. Not only that, but never has there been a time in American history when race wasnt a troublesome matter, from the initial clash between the early settlers who achieved the â€Å"conquest of paradise† and the native population, through every aspect of affirmative action, to present frictions with and around immigrants and the border (i.e. with Mexico), all still wrapped in the warm blanket of the American covenant. The exodus of people crossing the ocean has always been a defining feature of the rugged American fabric and trouble and tension an inherent aftermath, for as Thomas Sowell puts it:    The peopling of America is one of the great dramas in all human history. Over the years, the massive stream of humanity—45 million people—crossed every ocean and continent to reach the United States. They came speaking every language and representing every nationality, race, and religion. (qtd. in Girgus 64) Even though noble rank has been outlawed by the very Constitution of the United States, this does not necessarily ensure the homogeneity of multiethnicity. The social tension described by American sociologist Thomas Sowell and quoted by Sam B. Girgus in â€Å"The New Ethnic Novel and the American Idea† is that caused by the conflicting values brought to the American land, together with languages, customs, and, more importantly, creeds and moral values that this veritable Tower of Babel is still finding very difficult to take in and transform into a meld of acceptable conformity. A tendency existed and steeply evolved in the not very long course of American history to assert the superiority of the Aryan waspish faction of the American nation over all other non-Aryan groups. Since the budding nations ideals have always been slightly adumbrated by the skulking presence of slavery, the African-American paradigm of socio-cultural and political struggle has been conferred upon speci al significance and attention. As such, the status of African-Americans has undergone severe and painful shifts, from the moment they were brought to America as slaves, until at least quite recently. These days, the life of African-Americans in the United States is undoubtedly improved, a fact which can easily be proven by the recent election of the first â€Å"black† president in the entire history of this country. Not only at the highest level, but in all walks of life evidence exists of inclusion in the earnest of members of society belonging to the African-American race.   Albeit banned on some level for instance Executive Order 8802 issued by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt banned outright discrimination in the case of jobs related to the federal government and defence contractors open discrimination continued throughout the decades, the segregation and gerrymandering trailing for many decades. Several boiling pressures, however, undermined these discriminatory tactics, such as the Brown vs. Board of Education of 1954 or the Montgomery Bus Boycott of 1955. These and other actions precipitated the adoption of affirmative action, a bomb which exploded in the face of Presidents Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson, who had to make efforts to redress these social injustices through as some like to call it â€Å"positive† or â€Å"reverse† discrimination, in spite of Martin Luther King Jr.s dream, a veritable gem of rhetoric. His world-famous 1963 I Have a Dream speech is a watershed moment not only for the Civil Rights Movement a cause that i s brilliantly, persuasively and most important, peacefully championed but for every group that during the course of (American) history had been discriminated against. In it he advocates equality and fraternity, the vital prerequisites of coexistence in a sphere so decidedly multiethnic that, as Herman Melville phrases it, â€Å"You can not spill a drop of American blood without spilling the blood of the whole world.† (qtd. in Girgus 65). The attitude taken by American people concerning the preference for or against affirmative action is linked to what everyone was educated to believe. The factor that leaves the greatest imprint on our mind is education and the vehicles for achieving this, such as literature, films, and other media, to say nothing of standardized school curricula and society at large. It is the first of these vehicles that will be investigated in what follows, tracing Toni Morrisons efforts as an epitomic endeavour, in order to isolate its influence on our belief system, values and life choices. Significantly, an original national literature was the first mark of Americas declaration of independence from Europes influence and the African-American one the declaration of independence from â€Å"white† hegemony. Benjamin Franklin believed that â€Å"A good example is the best sermon† (qtd. in Marcovitz 55), while Emerson, the father of transcendentalism urged the American people to be self-reliant above all. Though a maverick at heart throughout his entire glorious existence which, while dappled with tragedy, his work has been no less prolific in spite of all his hardships and his originality, humour and unmatched industriousness Mark Twain, The Father of American Literature, has been a most controversial and compliant figure (only in the sense of providing such an inspiring string of examples in the sense of self-reliance) in his time and continues to be so even today. If at first his masterpiece The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn was criticized for the language and subject matter by both his contemporaries and later admirers (Ernest Hemingway would provide a notable example) for being trite and vulgar and even excoriated by public libraries such as the Concord Public Library in Massachusetts or New Yorks Brooklyn Public Library, recent controversy has been focused around racial matters. Critics are split between those regarding the portrayal of Jim as disparaging and as a consequence offensive and those who find Jims superstitious behaviour to be an indication of an alternative perception of our bond with nature, or a more powerful connection with our spiritual side, to say nothing of the steep dissonance between the Waspish past and the politically correct present. In Toni Morrisons Playing in the Dark, Mark Twains The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is analysed from the perspective of the importance of the Africanist presence, a presence much silenced and only timidly analyzed for decades. Discussed in terms of socio-historic development, the distinction between â€Å"black† and â€Å"white† themed by Twains novel reaches a peak in the mid-nineteenth century, as evidenced in Toni Morrisons interpretation. This can be verified by the juxtaposition between Jims utter love for his masters and the â€Å"baroque† (Morrison 57) torture Huck and Tom subject him to. The â€Å"white† line of argumentation is brilliantly outlined in Mark Twains masterpiece and shrewdly detected by Morrison, who finds Jim â€Å"unassertive, loving, irrational, passionate, dependent, inarticulate†, which is exactly how the â€Å"others† are perceived. The religious, scientific, political, cultural and societal practices were so fas hioned around the time when Mark Twain lived as to legitimate slavery and abuse. Starting from the assertion that white people around Jim seek forgiveness and supplication veritable keystone concepts in Christian religions which, however, did not extend to everyone, considering the hovering doubt about the existence of the soul of the â€Å"others†, they (i.e. religions through their cloistered leaders) instead providing convenient ways for turning a blind eye on slavery and even extermination on condition that he accept his inferiority. Thus, she argues, only a representative of the African-American race could have been painfully humiliated by children after being presented as a father and an adult, while no one, not even a white convict, could have been submitted to this kind of treatment. Toni Morrisons discourse is by no means vituperative: she does not intend any reversed oppression through her writing, either in Playing in the Dark or in any of her works of fiction. However, her writing is so compelling that when Beloved does not win her the National Book Award, as many as forty-eight African-American authors and critics write to the New York Times claiming her literary prowess, which afterwards earns her the laurels of the Pulitzer Prize, and rightly so. Her lack of bias is evident when she praises the former President Bill Clinton calling him the â€Å"first black President, since he displayed almost every trope of blackness: single-parent household, born poor, working-class, saxophone-playing, McDonalds-and-junk-food-loving boy from Arkansas† (Cooke), while her discursive equanimity can be traced from the way she analyses the Africanist presence in literature and the way it is regarded from the perspective of its relationship to mainstream literature and criticism: Like thousands of avid but nonacademic readers, some powerful literary critics in the United States have never read, and are proud to say so, any African-American text. It seems to have done them no harm, presented them with no discernible limitations in the scope of their work or influence. I suspect, with much evidence to support the suspicion, that they will continue to flourish without any knowledge whatsoever of African-American literature. (Playing in the Dark 13) While she does not wish to challenge or criticise anyone for their views and choices, Toni Morrison cannot bear to look the other way when the literary Jim Crow era is still so fiercely enforced. That it might be convenient for anyone to ignore any slice of reality or exclude any of the fibres in the fabric of a nation is quite obvious, and while this approach does not impair our intellect, it does however limit our understanding. This selective interpretation of things which leaves Africanist representation in a cone of darkness is especially significant, since it underpins racism and it bolsters its moral justification, especially along the lines of racial formation: a deeply-seated phenomenon which pervades every aspect of life in America and a very hurtful process for those slighted by it. The relevance of racial formation is underscored throughout Toni Morrisons work and, in their extensive study entitled Racial Formation in the United States: from the 1960s to the 1990s, Michae l Omi and Howard Winant, the two American sociologists who developed racial formation theory, argue that race is an artificial concept, because the bases according to which any particular individual can be labelled as â€Å"white†, â€Å"black†, and so on, may start from certain biological traits, but race transcends these. To illustrate the point, a person of â€Å"mixed blood† is considered from the point of view of North American and then Latin American racial identification whereby the same categorization would have the same individual first â€Å"black† and then unable to â€Å"pass† as â€Å"black†. At the other extreme, Brazilian legislation is willing to accept the assignation of several racial categories to various members of the same family. In addition to being intricate and far-reaching, these considerations help provide grounding for our study of Toni Morrisons work and its impact on American literature and even life in America and also help account for the perception of other races by the early settlers, whose religious and even scientific tenets had to be broached to accommodate these â€Å"new† categories, such as the â€Å"noble savage,† and dispute the very existence of their soul. This blatant dismissal of a persons soul based solely on the abstract and arbitrary consideration of race is an outrage that Toni Morrison starkly exposes in Beloved, about which Susanna Rustin comments the following in â€Å"The Guardian†: It is a novel of unspeakable horrors. But even more than the physical brutality, Morrison confronts us with the irreparable harm done by what Margaret Atwood described in a review as one of the most viciously antifamily institutions human beings have ever devised, a system that sought to deprive human beings of what it is that makes them human. (Rustin) Sethe, her heroine, learns the truth and is shocked to realise that her masters, whom she is so devoted to, are taught to distinguish between her human and animal characteristics, which means, in other words, that she is but a soulless beast of burden. Thats when I stopped because I heard my name, and then I took a few steps to where I could see what they was doing. Schoolteacher was standing over one of them with one hand behind his back. He licked a forefinger a couple of times and turned a few pages. Slow. I was about to turn around and keep on my way to where the muslin was, when I heard him say, No, no. Thats not the way. I told you to put her human characteristics on the left; her animal ones on the right. And dont forget to line them up. I commenced to walk backward, didnt even look behind me to find out where I was headed. I just kept lifting my feet and pushing back. When I bumped up against a tree my scalp was prickly. [] Flies settled all over your face, rubbing their hands. My head itched like the devil. Like somebody was sticking fine needles in my scalp. I never told Halle or nobody. (Beloved 224) This episode in Sethes existence can never be erased nor her pain alleviated. The suffering she is caused is absolute and boundless. Her feelings of outrage surge like torrents in her brain and she feels utterly discombobulated. This memory will forever haunt her; it will shape her future and her attitude towards life, her behaviour towards her children, and it will serve as a constantly open wound. Whats even more tragic is that this mind-boggling injustice spared no one: men, women, or children. Remembering his own price, down to the cent, that schoolteacher was able to get for him, he wondered what Sethes would have been. What had Baby Suggs been? How much did Halle owe, still, besides his labor? What did Mrs. Garner get for Paul F? More than nine hundred dollars? How much more? Ten dollars? Twenty? Schoolteacher would know. He knew the worth of everything. It accounted for the real sorrow in his voice when he pronounced Sixo unsuitable. (266) Proceeding along these lines of dehumanization, monetary worth is assigned to each individual and that is the extent of ones value when assessed by the slave owner. Reality is raw, harsh, and beyond shocking, but sugar-coating it would not help if we are to learn the truth about racism and racial formation. The accuracy of Toni Morrisons writing in spite of the degree of fictionalization is the keystone of her discourse. It is her head-on confrontation of the underlying reality that lends Toni Morrison her uniqueness and that has earned her in equal measure respect and criticism. Despite the narrative voices that assert their own individuality in Toni Morrisons works, Sam B. Girgus comments on present-day African-American literary discourse, finding it too elaborate, and somewhat digressive to the detriment of thematic concerns such as the daily life, values, sorrows, tragedies, successes, woes, accomplishments, and so forth. He argues his point by referring to African-American writers Toni Morrison and Henry Louis Gates, Jr.: both Morrison and Gates typify qualities of ethnicity that are common to many of the writers in the literary and cultural renaissance under discussion. They all write in English even when extolling a particular vernacular speech, dialect, or region. They are all extremely sophisticated artists who use the most complex modern and postmodern techniques to convey their highly individualized visions of experience. Although rooted in ethnic communities and concrete historic situations, their works as cultural artifacts and products are nevertheless aspects of complicated technological and bureaucratic systems of cultural and social production that often differ from the language, values, and daily life of the cultures for which they speak. (Girgus 61) This may be so if we for instance pick up Toni Morrisons Pulitzer-awarded novel Beloved where we find passages of stream of consciousness, dialectal dialogue, flashbacks from the past and the conflation of past and present resulting in a destabilized horizon of racial and individual formation. Toni Morrisons formal education may have driven a wedge between herself and the culture she was born into and which she proudly represents, but she still manages to put together an incredible manifesto that reaches deeper truths and meanings with absolute valences. In her novel the three heroines mother and two daughters have overlapping individualities and they represent good and evil in equal measure. Their existences are nonlinear and they run both ways along the temporal axis. This is especially true of Sethe, the mother, whose past still haunts her and impacts greatly her present and future; an impact which extends to her family as well. The state of nonlinearity, conflation, and duality is also found in other novels, such as The Bluest Eye or Sula, in which the heroines manage to become displaced from their status, they are isolated from their respective families and friends, and are forced into pursuing painful valences of individuality. From this point of view, Toni Morrison herself manages to overreach her scope by challenging the perceptions, values, mores, and principles we are ingrained with by society and education. Agnes Suranyi, a contributor to â€Å"The Cambridge Companion to Toni Morrison†, edited by Justine Tally, expresses just such a view: â€Å"The borderline between decent women and man-eating prostitutes is erased; only the latter are capable of giving love to Pecola, whose quest for it elsewhere is futile.† (16-17). This view is of great significance because it epitomizes Toni Morrisons take on life: nothing in her work is â€Å"fed† to us already masticated; it is quite the c ontrary that occurs: we have to interpret the facts stated, the innuendoes, the streams of consciousness, the multifaceted and split personalities, their actions and inactions all by ourselves, through our own filters and open up to a more thorough interpretation that must override dated tenets.     Ã‚   Applying the above stated, upon perusing Toni Morrisons novel Beloved, one cannot miss the connection between melding and overlapping identities and the life of people struggling with racial formation and being forced into conformity and assimilation. This assertion is further reinforced by the fact that Sethe lived in the time of the Underground Railroad, a time which saw a sharp increase in the severity of punishments for escaping bondage. The tenseness of life on the black / white divide is passed on to later generations who carry on with their incessant frictions all the way to Martin Luther King Jr. and beyond. In a 2004 interview with Rachel Cooke for â€Å"The Observer† Toni Morrison successfully proves why the battle with racism is not yet over, in spite of all the things that have changed since the beginning of affirmative action. I dont pass without insults. Let me give you an example. I walk into the Waldorf Astoria in New York to check in. Were going to have a drink, and then my friend is going to go home. She stands behind me, as I check in. Finally, the guy says, Oh, are you registering too? He thought I was the maid. My friend was trembling with anger. It was so personal. But the irony of it was that I was on the cover of a magazine that month, and there were these posters with my face on them all over New York. (qtd. in â€Å"The Observer†) The Bluest Eye her debut novel for instance, has had its popularity delayed many a year precisely because of the stark way in which Toni Morrison approached taboo subjects and because she strived to prove that â€Å"black† did not equal â€Å"ugly†. Growing up is difficult and the girls in the novel find their race assignation which is no fault of theirs a difficult burden to carry around. They do not have the easier lives of the lighter-skinned people in their community and their perceived ugliness is a feature which gradually seeps into their consciousness to such a degree that it becomes overbearing. The validity of this externally-imposed ugliness is reinforced not only by the white members of society, but by the very families themselves. In Pecolas case, her own mother finds her daughter repulsive and troublesome, choosing to love a white child more than her own an unforgivable and heinous deed. But then the destabilization of identity is a practice quite comm on for Toni Morrison, and rightly so, because although identity is formed at an early stage in our existence, the vector of external factors leave multiple indelible marks upon the essence of our character. For Toni Morrisons characters the insurmountable obstacles they have to overcome take too great a toll on their resilience, which ultimately becomes defeated. This reciprocal allegoric relationship between private and collective (in this case racial) identity is a true-to-life representation of many generations of oppressed African-Americans and their struggles to survive in a disparaging mainstream society. In Sula, the African-American writer uses the Bottom as a twofold metaphor: on the one hand the location of this neighbourhood is on top of a hill which, as the slave owner explains to the slave, is the bottom of the world from where God is watching and from which â€Å"the blacks† took â€Å"small consolation in the fact that every day they could literally look down on the white folks† (11), while on the other we see little black girls being picked on by the most recent immigrants who themselves would endure abuse, thus continuing this loop which is closed by the proximity to God that the hills afford them. The ramifications do not stop here: it seems that in any place in the novel, any novel of Toni Morrisons, there is a starting point for a new insight, for a new interpretation, for a kernel of postmodernist truth about life and literature, for novel literary technique and what it entails for both the novel itself as a genre, as well as for the reader and his/her perception of things thats constantly being challenged, just like the readers matrix of social tenets and belief system. Possibly the best example of this is served by the story which inspired Toni Morrison to write Beloved, the story of the African-American woman who would rather kill her own daughter than suffer to have her returned to bondage. As Nellie Y. McKay, the co-editor alongside William L. Andrews of â€Å"Toni Morrisons Beloved A Casebook† states another critics point of view (i.e. Karla F. C. Holloway, writer of â€Å"Beloved: A Spiritual†), Toni Morrison really manages to come up with a fresh and reinvigorating approach   For example, with myth as a dominant feature of Beloved, Morrison not only reclaims the Garner story from those who interviewed her after her childs death and expressed enormous surprise at her calm but also, as mythmaker, achieves a complete revision of the episode. [] The oral and written history that Morrison revises, consciously and unconsciously felt, considers many aspects of each life and reflects an alternative perspective on reality. [] In addition, Morrison, like many other African and African-American writers, often defies the boundaries separating past, present, and future time. This allows her to free Beloved from the dominance of a history that would deny the merits of slave stories. As Morrisons creation, Beloved is not only Sethes dead child but the faces of all those lost in slavery, carrying in her the history of the sixty million and more. Holloway sees Beloved as a novel of inner vision: the reclamation of black spiritual histories. (15) As Morrison herself points out in the novel, the press has no interest in presenting the truth detachedly. It also does not concern itself with such â€Å"trite† topics as the abominable abuses of slavery and it does not give praise where praise is due. Instead, it engages in shameless hectoring of a mother who kills her own daughter. If taken out of context, we would expect it to do no less and, but for Toni Morrisons reframing and revamping of the story, we probably wouldnt have given the story a second thought. But we cannot be left to stand idle before such brazen hypocrisy as regarding Sethe more animal than human, and then a murderess guilty of a heinously premeditated act done whilst in full possession of her faculties. Furthermore, her case is stripped of context, just as the plethora of various other deeds similarly perpetrated as a result of extraordinary duress. This time around Morrison gives ample space to her heroine to justify her actions, while not allowing her , however, to be absolved of the guilt she must bear until the end, hence the muddled border between temporal references, actions, characters, and individualities, which again escape their expected linearity and contiguity. Perception is a fickle thing, especially when something is stretched, filtered, re-filtered, decoded and re-encoded, challenged and stereotyped and warped in every way imaginable. We cannot assert our identity as long as we are unable to find the appropriate compromise between the adoption and rejection of every aspect that is debatable and that can be transacted over this social Carrefour of exchanges. But, more importantly, we can no longer acquiesce in this moral comfort zone set out by society, which overshadows whole groups based on artificial considerations, especially when the relativism of the preceding adjective becomes too overbearing and too painful to stand. The point being made here is that while maybe artificial in essence, the segregation inflicted on these groups and others, as well (while Toni Morrison is clearly concerned with the African-American case, it cannot fail to be propitious to generalise an assertion that we should internalise already if we havent done so and apply to any case in which double standards might occur) is absorbed by those whose mental health is abused incessantly and whose resilience truly worn out and even suppressed. What Toni Morrison attempts is to sow the seeds of individual and discernible thought willing and capable enough to probe things deeper than the shallowness of their outward appearance. Toni Morrisons works are soul-wrench ing panegyrics dedicated to the memory of the former slaves and her contemporaries who were still enslaved through omission and discrimination, as well as a testimony of the noblest and most dedicated application of ones moral ideals. Chapter Two: The Importance of Family and Community in Beloved, The Bluest Eye, and Sula Tell us what it is to be a woman so that we may know what it is to be a man. What moves at the margin. What it is to have no home in this place. To be set adrift from the one you knew. What it is to live at the edge of towns that cannot bear your company. (nobelprize.org) It is no secret or surprise that, first family and then family and community, have the greatest impact on our personality, shaping and reshaping our existence, validating and supporting our preferences and choices or going to great lengths to lay stumbling blocks in our path towards achieving these. Furthermore, the conceptions and principles professed within familial confines are based on the patterned behaviour of ones surrounding environment. This, in turn is founded on what is deemed just and acceptable behaviour leading to harmony and cooperation and is related to civic duty. According to Freuds structural model of the psyche, the development of the human psyche is a three-stage process which corresponds to the three most important stages in our existence. In the first stage, the id, our psyche is so shaped as to want nothing but to fulfil its own needs and wishes, regardless of those of everyone else. Then, as we start learning to distinguish betwee

Special Interest Tourism And Niche Tourism

Special Interest Tourism And Niche Tourism Introduction to Special Interest Tourism/Niche Tourism Special Interest Tourism/ Niche Tourism is defined as the provision of customised leisure and recreational experience, experiences driven by the specific expressed interests of individuals; a special interest tourist chooses to engage with a service or product that satisfies particular interests or needs, so special interest tourism is undertaken for a distinct and specific reason. This essay will be focusing in three sectors of the niche tourism, Gastronomy, Volunteer and Medical Tourism. Gastronomy Tourism According to Callanan.M Thomas.S (2011) food is one of the essential elements of the tourist experience. Gastronomy is becoming an important attribute in the development of niche travel; many tourist main interest for travelling is gastronomy according to Kivela.J Jonh. C (2006) gastronomy is often referred to exclusively as the art of cooking and good eating, however Kivela.J Jonh. C (2006) states that that is just part of it flowing with, someone that is seriously interested in gastronomy is often involved in tasting, preparing experiencing, experimenting, researching, discovering, understanding and writing about food. The word gastronomy is derived from Greek gastro meaning Stomach, and gnomos, knowledge or law. According to Home and away rentals (2006) the top five gastronomic break destinations are the following: France, Belgium, Florida, Portugal and Italy. However tourist behaviour is changing over the years they are requesting more than sun, sea, beach, they want to experience something new and take part in other activities, such as gastronomy tourism as any individual could experience that in any day, anytime of the year and anywhere as they do not need to rely on anything to take part in gastronomy tourism. Kivela.J Jonh. C (2006) believes that travel in order to search for, and enjoy prepared food and drink and a unique and memorable gastronomic experience. When travelling to a destination dining out is very especial and attractive as these become transposed into experiences that are often are very personal and no one will be able to take that from you. According to Cohen (1984) phenomenological categorization of tourists lifestyles, following Kivela.J Jonh. C (2006) follows- offer a phenomenological model of culinary tourism experiences. The model of tourism and gastronomy lifestyles depicts tourist attitudes and preferences for food according to four categorizations-recreational, existential, diversionary and experimental gastronomy tourists. However there are three types of gastronomic tourist, the experimental gastronomy tourist-these tourists symbolise the lifestyle through food, usually trendy, they will actively seek the destinations luxury restaurants and cafes that serve innovative menus and provide equally chic service, they keep up with up to date trendy and fashionable foods, latest growths, ingredients and recipes. Following with recreational gastronomy tourists are the more conservative type- they appreciate and actively seek while on holidays the familiarity of the home foods. And the diversionary gastronomy tourists are the kind of tourist that want to escape from the mudanity of everyday life that includes day to day shopping and preparing food for the family, according to Poon ( Gastronomy is a form of a new tourism. According to International Culinary Tourism Association -Almost 100 per cent of tourist dines out when travelling, and each dining opportunity is a chance to get familiar with local food which if the restaurants satisfy them, they will return and pass it on (word of mouth) -Dining is consistently one of the top three favourite tourist activities -Gastronomy art and wine tasting is the only art from that affects all five human senses-sight, sound, smell, taste and touch which is a unique experience -there is a high positive correlation between tourist who are interested in gastronomy and those interested in museums, shows, shopping etc -interest in cuisine when travelling is not reserved to a particular age, sex, or ethic group -unlike other niche products, gastronomy is available year-round, any time of the and in any weather. Volunteer Tourism According to Wearing.S (2001) volunteer tourism is- its roots volunteerism which implies that individuals offer their services to change aspect of society for the better/ to take part in goodwill activities and undertake new experiences in their life. There are many organisations that provide volunteer programs for individuals. The type of organizations that generally fall in the volunteer category of experiences often provide international support and sponsorship for the implementation or research projects and community development. Volunteer tourism is rapidly growing in the travel niche market, fuelled by many different types of tourist with different ages and ethics, interests searching for more sense and personal experience in their holiday. However now days there are multiple of options available for individuals to take part in, it all depends on the amount of time the individual wants to do it for it varies from one week to one year and what type of voluntary work they want to undertake as there is a variety to choose from. More and more people are turning to volunteer abroad in order to give back to our planet and help those people in need. The increasing global demand for volunteering is met by a growing number of volunteer service organisations. Most of them are non-profit oriented, but the amount of commercial providers is highly increasing. According to Mintel (2011) 10% of all the UKs outbound travel expenditure, and 1% of outbound trips, is from the gap year market, with 200,000 people undertaking projects each year- spending an average of  £4,800- the volunteerism sector is worth about  £960 million annually. Medical Tourism Medical Tourism is the process of individuals travelling abroad to receive superior medical, dental and cosmetic care by highly skilled surgeons at some of the most modern and state of the art medical facilities in the world, however medical tourism is not a new concept according to Health Base (2006) medical tourism has been practised by wealthy Europeans and Asians for decades when they would travel within their continent. According to IMTJ (2009) the UK is the sixth most visited destination by international tourist for medical tourism. However different types of tourist take part in medical tourism for different reasons such as, some are attracted to the cost savings, some for dental or cosmetic treatment. Others access new treatments which are not available at home; others still gain access to a better quality of care. According to Discover Medical Tourism (2008) the below are the most popular destinations- -Argentina -Mexico -Brazil -Panama -Costa Rica -Philippines -India -South Africa -Hungary -Thailand -Malaysia -Singapore According to Healism (2011) more than 500,000 Americans travelled abroad to receive medical and dental work in 2006. Every year millions of patients from around the globe travel to top medical tourism destinations in order to receive five-star treatment at convenient prices. Healism (2011) predicts that by 2012, medical tourism will grow to be $100 billion business with more than 780,000,000 patients travelling abroad to receive care from foreign doctors, dentist and hospitals. Appeal and Motivation of Customers Smith.M Puczko.L (2009) states that Medical tourist can be any age but are most likely to be older or retired people from western developed countries where prices for medical treatment are very high and waiting lists are long such as USA and Britain. Smith.M Puczko.L (2009) estimated that in the UK in 2004 over 4 1,000 individuals were expecting to experience a waiting time of 6 months or more to have various surgeries, in the USA medical insurance is particularly very expensive so many residents are uninsured or under-insured, therefore cannot afford medical treatments. The motivation of individuals undertaking medical tourism vary according to what kind of treatment they are having or is needed, some may travel for illness or wellness within the context of medical tourism. Many of medical tourism patients come from the UK and USA; the average client ages is 45-65 and are usually single. However when it comes to individuals motivations for taking part in volunteering Volun Tourism (2009) believes that the following are the seven top motivations- -Altruism -Professional Development -Travel and Adventure -Right time and place -Personal Growth -The individuals program itself -Cultural Exchange and Learning Gastronomy tourism in the UK is estimated to be worth $8billion a year as the market is increasing as years go by, according to Culinary Tourism (2011) gastronomy consumers tent to be couples that have above-average income, are usually professionals and are aged 30-50. According to the International Culinary Tourism Association on average, food travellers spend around $1,200 per trip, with one-third (36% or $425) of their travel budget going towards food related-activities. Economic Impacts The benefits of Niche tourism economic impacts is that it could provide employment opportunities for the locals that are unemployed, it could generate foreign exchange, is also an increase of income, the more the market grows the more income that it will bring. It can be developed with local products and resources it also diverse the economy, it also spreads development, they are the positive impacts of economic, however the economic issues- it can develop excess demand, it could increase vulnerability to economic and political changes, according to Douglas.N et al (2001) the economic impact for the niche market is increasing number of visitors as that can lead to the trap of profitless volume, this can affect an individual business in various ways, for example incurring the expense of putting on a new bus and an additional driver to cater for only the marginal increase in visitor numbers, it can also affect whole areas by requiring massive new capital investment for basic infrastru cture beyond the return, or infrastructure increase that create changes in patterns of normal life. Cultural Impacts There are cultural issues such as authenticity and the careful retention of a distinctive local character and sense of place are increasingly becoming critical to success in cultural tourism, visitors are far more discerning and widely travelled and concerned about the growing sameness of many destinations or how they could have been. Most cultural and traditions activities in many destinations are losing authenticity as they get practice constantly and it becomes an activity that they undertake constantly as they could get tips from tourist, so the locals start thinking more about tips and tourist and start losing the authenticity, for example in the amazon in Ecuador indigenous individuals have their own traditions tribe dances, and as the amazon gets plenty of tourists throughout the year, indigenous start doing the tribe dance for money and not because is a tradition and they enjoy it, there for the tribe dance starts losing its authenticity. Another cultural impact could be that in the urban side there are many more residents than the rural side, negative impact could be that as there are further job opportunities in the urban sides, individuals from the rural side start moving to the urban side the consequence is migration. For example according to Wall.G Mathieson.A (2006) pacific islanderders migrating to New Zealand since 1971. Environmental Tourism According to Douglas.N et al (2001) environmental tourism is based on natural resources and so has an impact on air, land, water, flora and fauna. It is also acute seasonal peaks in demand create pressure on infrastructure, such as water supply, sewerage, systems, roads and community services, usually designed to cater for a much smaller population base. However when it comes to medical tourism there are planet of negative impacts that consumers are not aware of such as Physical hazards for example high altitude, scuba diving, also air travel is utilized by hundreds of millions of people every year, has been considered safe, fast and is often used when peoples health status requires rapid transportation however according to Irmgard.L (2001) cerebral venous thrombosis was described as a health risk to air travellers where five case reports were presented of patients in whom cerebral venous thrombosis was causatively linked with long distance travelling. There are many more health risks that consumers should be aware of before travelling, health risks such as Underwater diving, Temperature, Hypothermia, Hyperthermia, The sun- Queensland is reported to have the highest melanoma rate in the world Irmgard.L (2001), water, Earthquakes, Volcanoes, the 5230 m Sangay Volcano in Ecuador is the most active volcano in the Andes, Sangay is consta ntly erupting, is very unpredictable and tour guides refuse to climb the mountain some tourist however still proceed, although they should not. There are also many more health risks for example through large and poisonous animals, plants, jet lag, motion sickness, air pollution, water pollution, travel exposes the individual to a range of different types of experiences and challenges, one of which is the resistance to health threats from the natural environment, a recommendation for tourist will be to be aware of the above hazards that could happened when travelling. However according to Irmgard.L (2001) tourist are not passive victims of the risks they are exposed to, they expose themselves actively by travelling to risky places or participating in risky activities. Conclusion The essay has looked at the types of modern tourist and three sectors in Niche tourism Gastronomy, Voluntary and Medical Tourism, it has also looked at the motivations that tourist have before travelling following with Economic, Cultural and Environmental issues in the niche tourism market.

Depictions of the Great Depression Essay -- Art, Photography

Pause to recall a picture of the Great Depression. Was this image happy or sad? Maybe it was a scene of a family enjoying the radio, children reading comics, a group of young men playing baseball, the movie theatre, or even children playing Monopoly; however most people would picture a migrant mother with her children, an adult holding a sign asking for a job, a family living in a shack with barely any food, or starving, dirty children. â€Å"For those born after the 1930’s, the Great Depression is something that can be visualized only through photography and film (This Great Nation Will Endure)† and when asked â€Å"What picture do you think of when you hear the words the Great Depression Era?† all thirty high school students recalled a negative image. Today’s mass media’s selection of harsh extreme images of the 1930’s Great Depression Era fail to portray the positive aspects of American life during the time period. Many of the photographs exposed by today’s media and some of the most popular photographs of life during the Great Depression were produced by the FSA or Farm Security Administration. Founded by President Roosevelt the government agency’s goal was to provide loans benefiting tenant farmers and sharecroppers (pg. 772). The FSA launched a photography project whose mission was to demonstrate the hardships of families living on farms to the city residents (Ganzel). The agency hired many photographers and over eighty-thousand photographs were captured through the years 1935-1943; the majority portrayed American life in a negative way (This Great Nation Will Endure). Two of the most well-known photographs taken by the agency, also which are used in several American history textbooks are icons of the Depression Era. Both symboliz... ...produced, radio shows and movies were being produced and several Americans were enjoying life during the 1930’s. These positive aspects of life and positive photographs of the time period are not well-known to the American public today and many people picture the Great Depression only in a negative way. â€Å"For those born after the 1930’s, the Great Depression is something that can be visualized only though photography and film. Certain images have come to define our view of that uncertain time: an anxious migrant mother with her three small children; a farmer and his sons struggling through a dust storm; a family of sharecroppers gathered outside their Spartan home† (This Great Nation Will Endure). Today’s mass media focuses on the harsh, extreme images of the Great Depression and fails to portray the happy, positive aspects of American life during the 1930’s.

Carbohydrates :: essays research papers

Introduction:Carbohydrates are molecules that contain Carbon, Hydrogen, and Oxygen. The most basic sugar- carbohydrate is the monosaccharide. Carbohydrate molecules are categorized by the number of carbons present in the molecule. Glucose, the most common monosaccharide has six carbons per molecule, which is called a hexose. Carbohydrates also have a 2:1 hydrogen to oxygen ratio. This aids in the condensation and hydrolysis reactions. A condensation reaction occurs when two monosaccharides join by the removal of H2O. During condensation synthesis one monosaccharide losses an OH and the other losses a H. As a result the two monosaccharides bond by forming maltose a disaccharide with a by-product of a free H2O. When three or more monosaccharides or monomer are involved in a condensation synthesis a polymer or polysaccharide is formed with a by product of water. Starch and Glycogen are two common chain polymers.Just as the removal of water joins carbohydrates together via condensation synthesis, hydrolysis is the reaction using water to break apart Di and polysaccharide. A Di-saccharide is bound by sharing an oxygen with one hydrogen on each opposing side. When H2O is re-introduced via hydrolysis the two monomers in the disaccharide no longer need to share one H2O, and as a result the opposing sides absorb the OH and H and break apart. This reaction is a common theme in the digestion of complex carbohydrates.Experiment 3: Test for SugarsWe will test five different solutions for presence or absence of reducing sugars using a premixed Benedict's reagent. These dependent variable solutions will be water, glucose , onion juice, potato juice, and starch suspension. When the Benidict's reagent is combined with sugars at a boiling temperature, a color reaction will occur. Our independent variable, Benidict's reagent color is blue.The negative control will be the combination of water and Benidict's reagent. This sample will undergo all the steps of the test except for the one being tested for i.e. sugars. If the end result is negative color change (blue) , it will thus be determined that the experiment and the Benidict's reagent is not contaminated and the experiment may proceed. The negative control will also serve as a comparison to gauge against the color change in the other four sugar tests.EXPERIMENT 3: Test for Sugars: TESTS MAT. & METHODS HYPOTHESIS RESULTSTube 1 1cm water+2cm Benidict's reagent. No color changeNegative control no color change. Neg-sugar. BlueTube 2 1cm glucose solution+ 2cm Benidict's reagent.

Vishal Engineering Case Solutio

VISHAL  ENGINEERING  ENTERPRISES  CASE  SOLUTION DATA  GIVEN Total  Assets Total  Sales Growth  Rate Cut? off  rate Option  1 Purchase  Price Pre  Tax  Benefits Depreciation Option  2 Lease  Rental Maintenance Post  Tax  Cost  of  Borrowing Option3 Hire  Purchase  Instalment Interest  rate   Useful  Life Analysis  ? Option  1  ? Ownership  and  Operation Rupees  in  Lakhs Sr. No 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Particulars Intial  Cost Benefits  Received Depreciation  (WDV  @  25%) Tax  Sheild  On  Depreciation  (3  x  . 35) Net  Salvage  value Post  Tax  Cash  Flow  (1+2+4+5) Discount  Factor  @  12% Present  Value  (6/7) TOTAL  NPV 0 ? 5. 000 1 18. 000 18. 750 6. 563 ? 75. 000 1. 000 ? 75. 000 24. 563 0. 893 27. 510 2 18. 000 14. 063 4. 922 22. 922 0. 797 28. 753 3 18. 000 10. 547 3. 691 21. 691 0. 712 30. 475 Year 4 18. 000 7. 910 2. 769 20. 769 0. 636 32. 680 222. 368 5 18. 000 5. 933 2. 07 6 20. 076 0. 567 35. 382 6 18. 000 4. 449 1. 557 19. 557 0. 507 38. 603 7 18. 000 3. 337 1. 168 19. 168 0. 452 42. 374 8 18. 000 2. 503 0. 876 6. 000 24. 876 0. 404 61. 592 270 Crores 256 Crores 23% 12% 75 Lakhs 18 Lakhs  per  year 25% WDV 14 Lakhs  per  year 1. 75 Lakhs  per  year 9. 50% 18. 75 Lakhs  per  year 12% 8 Years Analysis  ? Option  2  ? Lease  Contract Rupees  in  Lakhs Sr. Particulars No 1 Intial  Cost 2 Depreciation  (WDV  @  25%) Loss  of  Tax  Sheild  On  Depreciation   3 (2  x  . 35) 4 Lease  Payment Tax  Sheild  On  Lease  Payment   5 (4  x  . 35) 6 Loss  of  Slavage  Value 7 Post  Tax  Cash  Flow  (1+3+4+5+6) 8 Discount  Factor  @  9. 5% 9 Present  Value  (6/7) 10 TOTAL  NPV  ? Cash  Flow 11 LRt(1? Tc) 12 Present  value  (11/8) 13 Present  Value  of  lease 0 75. 000 1 18. 750 ? 6. 563 ? 14. 000 4. 900 75. 000 1. 000 75. 000 ? 14. 663 0. 913 ? 16. 055 ? 9. 00 ? 9. 965 2 14. 063 ? 4. 922 ? 14. 000 4. 900 ? 12. 022 0. 834 ? 14. 415 ? 9. 100 ? 10. 911 3 10. 547 ? 3. 691 ? 14. 000 4. 900 ? 9. 791 0. 762 ? 12. 855 ? 9. 100 ? 11. 948 Year 4 7. 910 ? 2. 769 ? 14. 000 4. 900 5 5. 933 ? 2. 076 ? 14. 000 4. 900 6 4. 449 ? 1. 557 ? 14. 000 4. 900 7 3. 337 ? 1. 168 ? 14. 000 4. 900 8 2. 503 ? 0. 876 ? 14. 000 4. 900 ? 6. 000 ? 7. 976 0. 484 ? 16. 485 ?7. 869 ? 6. 176 ? 4. 657 ? 3. 268 0. 696 0. 635 0. 580 0. 530 ? 11. 312 ? 9. 723 ? 8. 028 ? 6. 168 ? 20. 043 ? 9. 100 ? 9. 100 ? 9. 100 ? 9. 100 ? 9. 100 ? 3. 083 ? 14. 326 ? 15. 687 ? 17. 177 ? 18. 809 ? 111. 903 FOSSILS 1 VISHAL  ENGINEERING  ENTERPRISES  CASE  SOLUTION Analysis  ? Option  3? Hire  and  Purchase Total  Cost Interest  Component Total  Cost  +  interest  =   Hire  Purchase  Installment  per  year 75 Lakhs 72 Lakhs 147 18. 375 Lakhs Life  Exp. 8 years Rupees  in  Lakhs Sr. No 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 Particulars Hire  Purchase  Installm ent Interest  Component Principal  Repayment 0 1 18. 375 16. 794 1. 581 ? 10. 916 ? 1. 581 18. 750 12. 188 ? 0. 310 0. 913 ? 0. 339 2 18. 375 14. 567 3. 808 ? 9. 469 ? 3. 08 14. 063 9. 141 ? 4. 136 0. 834 ? 4. 959 3 18. 375 12. 340 6. 035 ? 8. 021 ? 6. 035 10. 547 6. 855 ? 7. 200 0. 762 ? 9. 454 Year 4 18. 375 10. 113 8. 262 ? 6. 574 ? 8. 262 7. 910 5. 142 ? 9. 694 0. 696 ? 13. 936 ? 120. 137 5 18. 375 7. 887 10. 488 ? 5. 126 ? 10. 488 5. 933 3. 856 ? 11. 758 0. 635 ? 18. 511 6 18. 375 5. 660 12. 715 ? 3. 679 ? 12. 715 4. 449 2. 892 ? 13. 502 0. 580 ? 23. 274 7 18. 375 3. 433 14. 942 ? 2. 231 ? 14. 942 3. 337 2. 169 ? 15. 004 0. 530 ? 28. 321 8 18. 375 1. 206 17. 169 ? 0. 784 ? 17. 169 2. 503 1. 627 6. 000 ? 10. 26 0. 484 ? 21. 342 ?It(1? Tc) ?PRt Depriciation Dt(Tc) NSVn Total  (4  to  8)  ? 6 Discount  Factor  @  9. 5% Present  Value Present  Value  of  Hire? Purchase 1. 000 Hence  from  the  above  we  see  that  the  cost  of  the  Hire? Purchase  option  in  Present  value  Term  is  more  that  that  of  the  leasing  option. So  Vishal  Enterprises  should  go  for  Leasing  option  instead  of  Hire  Purchase. Also  if  the  option  of  Purchasing  and  Owning  the  equipment  is  considered,  it  has  a  very  favourable  NPV  and  this  can  be  considered as  the  best  option  for  Vishal  Enterprises. FOSSILS 2

International Student Essay

Introduction Everybody seeks for a better education whatever the difficulties it might bring. The right to education is a fundamental human right (www. encyclopedia. com, 2008). Education seems to be the initial step toward the success of an individual to reach his goal in his life later on. As time passed by, the trend of education becomes different. Part of which is the implementation of the international education. This system gives an opportunity to particular students to have world class learning. These people of our next generation should be well established in order to bring something significant in the near future. Countries like the United States of America have become the premier destination for foreign students. Most top universities in this country is engage of providing education among foreign students. However, being a foreign student is not an easy thing. It just like being a tourist traveling in his preferred destination, the only thing is that these people seem to have more obligations not only within their study but as well as being a temporary citizen of their preferred country. These foreign students somehow faced a lot issues and difficulties that more or less can affect their studies. The Life of a Foreign Student The life of a foreign student tackles many complications and difficulties. First, they have to deal with the reality that they are in a place where they are a complete stranger to everyone. Aside from that, they will be apart from their families and loved ones as well. Foreign students are engage with a lot of sacrifices ion order to achieve something that will make them grow more and such thing is having a world class education. Mostly, students become culture shocked. Especially if when east meets west. The difference in their culture and beliefs somehow results to discrimination. The usual argument about this matter is the inferiority that mostly western countries imply on eastern countries. Unfortunately, up to this point, this particular incident is still prevailing in most international schools and universities. The discrimination based on the racial group of the people or simply called racism creates a negation perception against the international education. Recently, incidents that are related to this tends to be more violent and inhuman. In Melbourne Australia, racism is making the life of foreign students miserable. It has been reported that the effects are becoming severe as racist attacks in Melbourne are on the rise. The investigation has found out that 135,000 foreign students living in Melbourne faced difficulties. (â€Å"Racism†, 2008) The discrimination is somehow unavoidable between two opposing nations; however, as education is part of the fundamental right of each individual, therefore the difference between the color, race, culture, religion, or belief shouldn’t be the reason for a student not to have the right for quality education (www. encyclopedia . com, 2008). Another problem faced by these students is their incapability to speak the English language fluently. The English language is the standard medium that is used by the schools and universities. And because these students came from different countries from all over the world, obviously, it would be quite difficult for them to speak the language that they are not that capable of. This particular problem can somehow be minimized. The fact that they enter a university to gain knowledge and it would also be necessary for them to have more advance readings regarding the language itself. It would also be appropriate to have some background about the country and the people in it to have more familiarization. Moreover, foreign students also encounter problems regarding their finances. The expenses are usually higher compare to local education. Their financial expenses also include their school admissions, meals, accommodations, transportations, school projects, other personal necessities. However, students now a day can acquire part time jobs to help them cope up with their expenses while studying. In fact, this certain activity will also help them manage their own expenses even if they are away from their family. Aside from that, students who are doing great in class are candidates for the scholarships that some universities granted their students. They provide this type of financial aid to extend their hand on students who are less fortunate but have the tendency to be outstanding in class. Again, it only shows that education is really for everybody, and even the status in life, shouldn’t be a hindrance for one to acquire education. As of now, a lot of countries are providing scholarships among international students. They established this kind of program to provide more education from people across the globe. Lastly, foreign students also encounter technical problems especially the application of their student visa. After the September 11 World Trade Center Bombing in the United States, the application for student visa have become more complicated. The government began to implement certain rules and policies so that the incident won’t happen again. Certain restrictions and policies are also implemented in all countries for them to prevent some illegalities concerning visa applications and tourist visitations. Conclusion As an individual seek for a better future, the hindrances are just part of it and it is something to consider about. Being a foreign student is definitely risky but as they believe in reaching their goals, nothing would be impossible for them. As they start their journey to give their selves the education that they truly deserve, most of them are also face with a lot of challenges that they will encounter along their way. However, despite of all the hardships that every foreign student must face, they should stay well determined and focused. In the first place, they are doing these sacrifices fro their families and their selves so that they would become successful; in their life in the future. School and universities should also share their part as the institutions that provide educations. They must stay consistent on giving the best quality of education to these students who have been suffering enough just to admit their selves in such university. Education is primary for everybody. Let us consider this as the driving force against the negativity that is uttered against it.