Extremely Loud Incredibly Close Jonathan Safran Foer Essay Example

Extremely Loud Incredibly Close Jonathan Safran Foer Paper Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close Barnaby T. Chuckles Mr. Kubacki Jonathan Safran Foer’s novel, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, is a tightly woven web of interrelated metaphors and thematic elements. Getting into every single one could take between a life-time and forever so for the purposes of this essay I will only focus on the few main themes; growing into adulthood, which is the quest that Oskar takes on when he sets out to find out about the key, accepting the unknowable in the universe, the random and the unquantifiable that separate life from mathematics, and duality. The last is the trickiest to wrap ones head around and, as typified by the interrelatedness mentioned earlier, ties in to the other two themes. As Oskar grows up he has to come to accept the way in which not everything in the universe can be explained, learn to make his scientific mind can come to grasp a chaotic world, and come to understand how humanity can be essentially illogical. It would be pointless, of course, to point out that Oskar’s quest is as crazy as you can get, but that being said we can begin to grasp that his journey is to get in touch with and become accustomed to his own craziness as a human being. We will write a custom essay sample on Extremely Loud Incredibly Close Jonathan Safran Foer specifically for you for only $16.38 $13.9/page Order now We will write a custom essay sample on Extremely Loud Incredibly Close Jonathan Safran Foer specifically for you FOR ONLY $16.38 $13.9/page Hire Writer We will write a custom essay sample on Extremely Loud Incredibly Close Jonathan Safran Foer specifically for you FOR ONLY $16.38 $13.9/page Hire Writer And he way in which Oskar gets a palate for his own madness is by tasting the insanity of others. Each Black that he visits throughout the course of the book not only teaches Oskar something about people, but also mirrors his struggle. The first four Blacks he visits seem relatively insignificant, they can’t give him any information on the key. Yet, each somehow reflects Oskar’s journey into adulthood. When he goes to visit Aaron Black, after setting foot in Queens for the first time, symbolizing how the quest is the catalyst that sends Oskar out of his shell into the big, bright world, he finds that the man is literally paralyzed and can’t come down to greet him. Aaron Black’s literal paralysis mimics Oskar’s inability to come out into the real world, or as the case may be, up to the seventh floor, where he fears a terrorist attack (a fear he will later overcome). The two are unable to connect in a metaphorical sense as well as an actual one. Oskar begins by playing the orphaned child card and tells Aaron his dad is dead immediately, not trying to forge any sort of bond. When he learns of Aaron’s infirmity he can’t take it and runs away (in retrospect he says, â€Å"if I could do it again I would do it differently. But you can’t do it again. †), representing how he cowers away from his dad’s death when he bruises, invents and retreats into his shell. Abby Black, who becomes much more significant later in the book and whom I will discuss later in the essay as well, holds much more import for Oskar’s development, even this early in the book. On first read-through they seem to get along swimmingly. Oskar extolls her beauty when she first opens the door, making her crack up literally as well as figuratively, as when someone laughs the barrier between two people breaks down a little bit. Also, Abby is an epidemiologist, so Oskar connects to her through his pedantic knowledge of science. However, common interests don’t necessarily make two people compatible, and Oskar uses his, for lack of a better word, nerdiness to connect to Abby, instead of exploiting the real connection they have as two people in crises, two scientists. When Oskar first asks her about the key and she says she knows nothing about it, he can tell right off the bat that there’s something wrong and she’s not telling the whole story. Oskar can read Abby but he doesn’t know how to react to what he reads. Before he enters her apartment he fibs to get in saying, â€Å"I didn’t feel great about lying, and I didn’t believe in being able to know what was going to happen before it happens, but for some reason I knew I had to get inside her apartment. † This is when Oskar gets his first lesson in the irrational way in which people (in this case, himself) operate. What he’s describing is intuition, which is manifestly unquantifiable, so he chooses to ignore it as some kind of supernatural phenomenon, which he’s duty bound as an atheist to ignore. However, by ignoring his intuition and proceeding â€Å"logically† he misses the most important detail in his visit; that Abby’s husband must also be a Black and may know something about the key. Later when he asks to kiss Abby and she says no he gets his second lesson in the duality of reason and human’s irrationality. He asks to take a picture of her but seems to realize a picture of her face isn’t good enough, so he takes one from behind her head, basically acknowledging that he doesn’t know her. Yet by accepting their position as strangers he brings himself to a greater understanding of how they relate to each other. Next comes Abe Black, a few chapters later. He convinces Oskar to ride the Cyclone, a huge step for Oskar, as he would normally never accept that embracing danger as an essential part of life. â€Å"’It would be a shame to die without riding the Cyclone,’ he told me. It would be a shame to die,’ I told him. â€Å"Yeah,’ he said, ‘but with the Cyclone you can choose. ’† Oskar finds that though life is filled with death the best way to deal with it is to live life to the fullest. He finds that there are some things that can’t be missed out on and that that’s all that matters in the end, even if the end is alw ays death. He goes on to say his day with Abe was the perfect day aside from not finding anything about the key. This, paired with the roller coaster, is the first time Oskar just gets lost in living. He doesn’t care about inventing or the key or his dad, he’s just having a good time at the fair. The next Black, Ada, mirrors Oskar’s struggle, and by reflecting it also illuminates it. Oskar starts off by grilling her about all the money she has. From the first reader can tell it’s a subject she feels uncomfortable about. She’s very clearly thought hard about the questions Oskar asks her and doesn’t have a good answer. She’s essentially in conflict with herself, saying, â€Å"I know what I am, but I don’t like what I am,† which shows Oskar’s conflict of not knowing what he is and not knowing whether he likes it or not. It’s the first time that Oskar sees that the â€Å"rules† can be broken. Ada’s philosophy is that it’s unfair to have so much when others have so little, but she has given up knowing that she can’t possibly hope to change the world. Oskar learns that it is possible to live with shades of grey and values being compromised. Having learned all this Oskar is now ready to meet the most important Black in the story. He is unnamed, perhaps because he is the most important Black and represents all the Blacks and what they have to teach Oskar. Close to death though he is, Mr. Black has done the most living of any of the Blacks or really anyone in the story. He’s loved and lost, fought and won, seen great events unfold and performed small gestures of love. As he said, he’s, â€Å"lived every day of the twentieth century. † Mr. Black represents a more complete picture of Oskar, in a metaphorical sense because he lives in an identical apartment above him, with two floors, representing a wiser man, but also in a literal sense as he has lived a more life. He spent his days working as a journalist, mirroring Oskar’s fixation on analytical thought and desire to get to the truth. Oskar immediately wants to emulate Mr. Black, mentally jotting down everything he says, but as one read on one sees that Oskar not only wants to mimic all the amazing things he’s done with his life, but to gain the knowledge that Mr. Black has accrued in all his years. When Mr. Black tells the story of the Russian artists feeding each other and says, â€Å"That’s the difference between Heaven and Hell. In Hell we starve, in Heaven we feed each other. Oskar without thinking replies, â€Å"I don’t believe in the afterlife,† to which Mr. Black responds, â€Å"Neither do I but I believe in the story. † When the story is told Oskar lets his knowledge get in the way of his understanding of the story, while Mr. Black can also know there’s no afterlife while grasping the larger significance of the story. Oskar gets his n ext lesson in the duality of human nature here. He learns that one can believe in the deeper significance of something without sacrificing his scientific perspective. This is mirrored in the way Mr. Black hammers a nail into his bed every morning, despite it having no significance other than it pleasing him to do so. What is really extraordinary about Mr. Black is he gains is wisdom not from knowing everything as Oskar seems to want to, but by accepting what he doesn’t know. Mr. Black has completely turned off his hearing aids and stopped leaving his apartment, shutting himself off from the world. He realizes his quests and loves are over and that he now needs time to gain wisdom from those experiences. But even this is not the end, for when he meets Oskar he sees himself reflected in the boy and realizes he’s ruminated enough and it’s time to go back out into the world again. Having added a new character into the equation, the next few Blacks reflect not only Oskar but Mr. Black as well, who in turn reflects back onto Oskar. This is shown first by the trip to find Agnes Black. Oskar opens the door on a woman who can’t speak English. Only Mr. Black can talk to her. He laughs and jokes with her and eventually finds out that Agnes Black died in the World trade center the same as Oskar’s father. It’s a very strange dynamic that in Oskar’s quest the two most important people can’t be part of the conversation. Agnes’s only connected, posthumously, to the latina woman and Oskar is connected only through Mr. Black. However, Mr. Black and the latina woman are not only connected by a common language but by the fact that they are both old and decrepit. Even though the two cannot see each other as the latina woman is in a wheel chair and Mr. Black is too tired to go up the stairs, they form a stronger connection by not seeing each other, much in the same way that Oskar and Agnes are connected by the invisible specter of Oskar’s dad. The next few Blacks are gone through quickly. They don’t tell him anything about the key but they tell a little about themselves and therefore a little about Oskar. Albert Black, the actor who moved to New York to be far away, teaches Oskar how you can become someone else. Alice Black, the artist who draws the same man over and over again, gives Oskar a glimpse of dedication, or perhaps obsession. Allen Black, the overqualified doorman who misses his job as an engineer, shows Oskar about taking comfort in the continuity of life, as Allen is comfortable being a doorman as long as it means his son will be a doctor. Arnold Black simply comes across as a jerk, and Oskar had to learn there are jerks out there eventually. Then there were several Blacks which only get a sentence or two in the book. The one that sticks out in my mind is old Chinese man who has â€Å"I heart NY† posters all over his room, but thinks they mean â€Å"I love you. When Oskar points this out he can’t read the expression on Fo Black’s face, saying â€Å"I couldn’t tell what he was feeling, because I couldn’t speak the language. † Georgia Black and her husband live on Staten Island (which can only be reached by ferry, so even going there is a big step for Oskar) and made museums to each other. Oskar gets his first taste here of how human irrationality can make people much happier. There is nothing more irrational than love but Mr. and Mrs. Black dove in head first and never regretted it.

Lenin Essays - Economic Ideologies, Vladimir Lenin, Socialism

Lenin Essays - Economic Ideologies, Vladimir Lenin, Socialism Lenin Lenin Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov, later known as Lenin was a key figure in European history. Lenin led the Bolsheviks (which later became known as communists) to overthrow the Russian Tsar, and to bring socialism to Russia. Lenin introduced Communism to Russia. This changed the history for Russia as well as the rest of Europe, and to this day has had a huge effect on the Russian economy. Lenins impact on Europe and Russia consisted of him applying Marxist ideas, which later led to complete Communism, and a threat to Europe and the rest of world. In developing his plan of socialism in Russia, Lenin followed the examples of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, the original developers of the communist theory. The main aspect of any kind of government, and especially socialism, is its economic structure. Lenin explained that in his economic theory, called Imperialism, the first step was to gradually move into a joined monopoly - capitalist phase, which later would become communism. Lenin went on to say that based on the disproportion between economic development of the monopoly stage, which is the beginning of full socialism, and capitalism, which is the meaning of a private life and freedom from others. The only problem with that theory is that a Monopoly and Capitalism are complete opposites of each other, and were bound to cause problems.(http://venus.spaceports.com/theory/economy_1.htm) Lenin knew of this problem, but considered it a stepping stone in the right direction. He predicted problems, but thought in due time his economi c machine would operate with great success, and make Russia into a world mega power. Lenins plan of communism for Russia was supposed to be great. People were supposed to get free education, free medical care, everybody makes the same amount of money, working equally as hard, and everybody was supposed to get the same advantage in life. But it would never work out quite as planed. On October 25, 1917 (November 7th according to the new Gregorian calendar), Lenin led the Bolsheviks in a Socialist Revolution that would lead Lenin in charge of Russia. Everything that had been set in stone about the life and culture of Russian over the past centuries, would change during the course of one night. People were expecting great things, Lenin and others associated with his party, made Karl Marxs ideas about Communism sound great. Once Lenin came to power and tried to execute his plans towards his nation things went terribly wrong for the people of Russia. The problems started with the working class or the proletariat, the people that Lenin put in charge of the nation. As common knowledge, proletariats are not the most educated people, with no knowledge of how to help run a Socialist government. So the proletariats started making decisions that would hurt the common man in Russia. Decease, hunger and even cannibalism struck over some parts of the nation, where as before in the Monarchy rule under Tsar Nicholas II, Russia was as rich in agriculture as any other country in the world.(Shinskaya) Another promise that Lenin kept was that he gave the peasants more land. Also, he forced the peasants to move to collective farms, called Kalhoz (Russian). The peasants didnt have any privacy, all their personal belongings were taken and put to public use in their collective farms. An example of the changes going on in the work force, on socialistic collective farm, was farmers, one farmer has two cows, the other had none. In a communistic governm ent, where everybody is completely equal, Lenin would make the two farmers coexist and work with each other, and make the farmer with two cows share with the farmer with no cows at all. Allowing the farmer with no cows to free load off the farmer with two cows. That is Communism; unfair, but too bad, you cant do anything about it. The peasants became outraged and started to strike. Bolshevik at first sight of resistance began to shoot down innocent people fighting for their freedom, all by the order of Lenin.(Isayevich 98) The problems didnt end there. Back in the old days of Monarch Russia, the Russian people had a great belief of the church. In one of Karl Marxs publishings about communism, he replies Religion

Alternate Finance Program Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 7500 words

Alternate Finance Program - Essay Example The AFP program, in Ontario, also aims at procuring private sector involvement in the Design, Build, Finance and long term Facilities Management (FM) of these new public projects. The AFP process introduced the concept of post construction operation of buildings, to the building industry, an area where they hitherto had no significant expertise. A salient difference between the UK model and the AFP in Ontario is a contractual prerequisite for buildings to be accredited in accordance with the parameters set out in the LEED set of guidelines, Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design. These are a set of target driven design standards for producing "Green" or sustainable buildings. There is a swelling trend of looking at the outsourcing of non-core activities by a facilities management as an expert service provider. In this research, we would look at the hard facilities management; this expertise is discussed and provides credibility throughout this research as a fast emerging and strategic partnership role for FM professionals in building design development. The research details the existing roles and responsibilities of FM professionals and shows how they now must be merged into the design, build, finance areas along with their involvement in post construction process. My focus throughout the paper remains that the role of the FM practitioner must be that of a strategic partner to the construction consortium as their experience and expertise in managing the operation and maintenance of buildings is a necessity for successful AFP procurement and post construction execution. Last but not the least, this research involves resource material references, web articles, professional journals and interviews with industry professionals to support the hypothesis that FM Professionals are strategic to successful AFP projects. OUTLINE Chapter 1 Introduction U can add more definations if u think there is a requirement Chapter 2 Literature Review a) The role of facility management in alternative finance program design b) Sustainability and Maintenance in AFP c) LEED Accreditation, Energy and environmental issues Chapter 3 Situational analysis of Ontario It needs to be fixed Chapter 4 Methodology Why have you chosen this method of research Data analysis And add what I asked u to Chapter 5 Conclusion and recommendations Bibliography Questionnaires (whatever you have concluded from the questionnaire will go to data analysis.) Chapter 1: INTRODUCTION Would just suggest if u could add few quotes..it although have manysee for yourself Traditionally, Construction Companies never get involved at an operational level post warranty and the idea of long term responsibility for their product was sometimes new and unknown territory where they had little or no expertise. PPP arrangements are being embraced by different governments around the world, to promote collaboration between public and private sector. The ventures, which are financed and operated, through a partnership of government and involves one or may be more private sectors are referred as Public Private Partnership (PPP). "Any collaboration between public bodies, such as local authorities or central government, and private companies tends to be referred to a public-private partnership (PPP)." BBC (2003) Another definition by Pearce (n d.) will explain it further: "PPP exists where the public and private sector work together in a long term partnership to deliver a common