Wife of Bath in The Canterbury tales Essay Example for Free

Wife of Bath in The Canterbury tales Essay Scholarship identifies the personae of the Wife of Bath in The Canterbury tales with various distinctive interpretations including feminist, antifeminist, irreverent, arrogant, ridiculous, and sophisticated. Scholar Rosalyn Rossignol points out that â€Å"‘the good Wife’ has attracted a great deal of critical attention, partly because of the controversy that arises over interpreting her character† (298). The Wife is both emotional and cerebral, a comic figure and a real person. She has been seen as a feminist challenging patriarchy, but she has also been viewed as a satiric and complaisant anti-feminist. How is it possible that she can be seen in such contrasting perspectives? E.T. Donaldson proposes a solution that Chaucer â€Å"discloses a world in which humanity is prevented by its own myopia, the myopia of the describer, from seeing what the dazzlingly attractive externals of life really represent† (935). However, if the Wife is everyman and everywoman, then all of these perspectives can be true. Rather than a singular, marginalized character with limiting aspects, the Wife is a complex and comprehensive blend of Chaucer’s creations, and the center to which all of the other pilgrims and their tales return. Her portrait is more descriptive than any other character portrayed, but it also demonstrates the characteristics uniquely identified with each of the other characters. The prologue to her tale is the longest of any of the other characters. Is she just long-winded and full of prideful arrogance? I suggest that the limited details each of the other characters possess emanates from the comprehensive detail of the Wife’s portrait and prologue which completes a circular exposà ©. I propose that Chaucer’s Wife is not just a Wife, or even a woman; she is an amalgamation of literary possibilities. Her literary knowledge is suspect, but her worldly experience spans a lifetime through which she acquires autonomy. In the introduction to The Wordsworth Chaucer, Editor Larry Benson discusses how Chaucer the poet draws on his own literary experience in creating his tales, and so too does Allisoun of Bath possess the experience that allows her to transcend the limits of definition (11). She is deaf in both ears and therefore cannot hear the hyperbole of dominant male discourse. She does not argue her right to speak, she just speaks. Contrary to acceptable femininity, she is a hypersexual woman, but sex is neither for enjoyment, nor procreation. Finally, Chaucer is not writing as a woman, or as a man attempting to write as a woman or using masculine writing to portray a female, he is writing in a manner that is useful to educate everyone to limitless possibilities. The Wife of Bath then, rather than a singly signified representation based on scholarship perspective, is, in reality, the nexus of the Canterbury Tales. Although like the Wife there are limitless possibilities for proving this argument, it is my plan to defend this thesis through the tropes of status, voice and experience as seen in her portrait, and the prologue to her tale. To prepare the way for the convergence of his themes, where everything and everyone emanate from and return to a central focus in the Wife of Bath, a General Prologue begins the tales with a representation of the biblical creation story in its hierarchical progression. In the opening lines, first there is water and wind, plants, followed by animals, and finally, portraits of the travelers are depicted. It is spring, a time of new beginnings, as well as a time of pilgrimage to give thanks for past favors, and in Chaucer’s fourteenth century world, twenty-nine diverse pilgrims â€Å"with ful devout courage† (22), gather at a public inn to sojourn to Canterbury, site of the holy shrine of the martyred Thomas à   Beckett. Born in Cheapside, London, Be cket’s inclusion in the tales illustrates human diversity, from vacuous impoverishment to reverential saintliness, themes also recurring throughout the tales and demonstrated by the Wife’s portrait and prologue. Twenty-four pilgrims are presented in the portraits which begins with the highest rank, â€Å"a Knyght ther was, and that a worthy man† (43), and ends with the lowliest, â€Å"a gentil Pardoner† (669). According to a popular websites, Alisoun, a name which means â€Å"of nobility†, and â€Å"sacred flame† (1), is also a common Middle English name. The name given by Chaucer to the Wife, it is apparent from the multiplicity of meanings that Alisoun represents both high and low culture, a correlation to the cross-cultural representations of her fellow travelers. Taken together, the pilgrims represent every facet of society, facets seen inclusively as the Wife’s total composition. Each line of her portrait represents an attribute or characteristic illustrated in the portrait of one of the other pilgrims. While some of the travelers mimic one another in style or attribute, no other pilgrim possesses all of the qualities signified in each of the others. That Chaucer the poet repeated his themes over and over is not surprising, but that those themes all converge in the Wife of Bath is significant since it centers privilege in a woman. If the Wife is the Nexus, then Chaucer’s allusion to the creation story points to her as the Eve from whom all women are descended. While Eve is not mentioned in the prologue to the Canterbury tales, she is a pivotal component of the creation story to which Chaucer alludes. Chaucer would have wished to avoid accusations of heresy, a realistic concern in his time period. To have openly equated Eve with the Wife, with specificity of declaration, would have opened him up to, at the very least, severe criticism, which was not what he was interested in. He was interested in opening up the minds of the people by writing alternative realities. However, there are two prominent women in Chaucer’s prologue, why wouldn’t the Prioress be Eve? The Prioress is dainty, prepossessing and high in the social strata. Her portrait appears before the Wife’s portrait in the general prologue. She has beautiful manners and is very sympathetic to even the smallest creature. Additionally, the Prioress is a nun, a woman who swears obedience to authority when she takes her vows. She is not a good prototype for Eve since the Prioress is certainly willing to acquiesce, whereas Eve and the Wife are not. The Wife is strong, bold, does not care what people think of her, she is her own person and like Eve, who was unwilling to accept the dictates of authority and wanted to control her own destiny, the Wife is also in search of control over her life. While Eve is not specifically referenced in Chaucer’s creationism allusion, she is definitely alluded to by virtue of the hierarchical progression of pilgrims that Chaucer introduces to his readers. Adam and Eve occur in natural hierarchical progression in the creation story, from the lowest to the highest, water to man/woman, similar to the Chaucerian hierarchy in which the Wife is introduced to the reader. A compelling testament to the argument of the centrality of her character as binder for the tales is witnessed in the make-up of this very Chaucer class, where approximately sixty percent of the students have chosen to write their term paper on some characteristic aspect of the Wife. No two representations are even similar, and analysis of her character ranges from psychological to pornographical arguments with everything in-between. The very diversity of these contemporary arguments do, however, represent the critical diversity argued over the past seven centuries but existing scholarship fails to recognize her important thematic centrality.

Henry Moore Essay -- essays research papers

Henry Moore was the most celebrated sculptor of his time, and the second part of his career, in particular, demonstrated that Modernist sculpture was, after all, surprisingly adaptable to official needs. In this sense, Moore was the contemporary equivalent of the great Neo Classical sculptors such as Canova and Thorwaldsen. Moore was born in July 1898 in Castleford, Yorkshire, the seventh child of a mine manager who had worked at the pit face. Both parents were strong and supportive personalities, and Moore's childhood was a happy one. He became a student teacher in 1915, and by 1916 was teaching in the local elementary school which he had attended in his boyhood. At seventeen he joined the army, as the youngest member of his regiment, the Civil Service Rifles. For him the First World War was not the traumatic experience it was for so many others: he remembers the army as being 'just like a bigger family' and says that 'for me the war passed in a romantic haze of trying to be a hero.' He was gassed at Cambrai but made a swift recovery, and finished the war as a physical training instructor. In September 1919, after a brief return to elementary-school teaching, he went to Leeds School of Art on an ex-serviceman's grant. He was soon recognized as a star pupil, and in 1921 won a scholarship to the Royal College of Art in London: I was in a dream of excitement. When I rode on the open top of a bus I felt that I was travelling in Heaven almost. And that the bus was floating on the air. Moore made the most of the opportunities London offered, regularly visiting the museums, where he acquired a great interest in primitive art: he was particularly struck by pre-Columbian sculpture. In his first year at the Royal College of Art he went to Paris with his fellow student Raymond Coxon, who had been with him at Leeds; these visits were to be many times repeated. In 1925 he visited Italy on a travelling scholarship - something which caused a certain creative blockage as he tried to work his way through what he had seen and experienced. Even before he went to Italy Moore had been fortunate enough to be offered a part time post as Assistant in the Sculpture Department at the Royal College of Art. In 1926 he held his first one man show, which attracted some distinguished purchasers including Augustus John, Henry Lamb and Jacob Epstein. He was also commissioned to prov... ...nd for the resulting insensitivity of surface in many of his larger works. The best of his late work is to be found in his drawings. While those of his active maturity nearly always seem to have been made with sculpture in mind (almost the sole exception to this being the celebrated series of Shelter Draivings made during the Second World War), the very late drawings are often pictorial rather than sculptural. Moore's studies of trees, made in old age, can be compared to similar sheets by Rubens and Van Dyck. In the post war years Moore was loaded with official honours - it is difficult to think of any which he might have coveted which were not offered to him. He was made a Companion of Honour in 1955, and a member of the Order of Merit in 1963. These marks of distinction showed the extent to which Modernist art had now been absorbed and accepted by the traditionally conservative British cultural establishment. They also demonstrated the extent to which Moore himself now identified with this establishment. Though his work remained in demand to the end of his life, and continues to fetch high prices at auction, it now seems very far from the mainstream of sculptural development.

American Home Products Corporation Essay

1. How much business risk does American Home Products face? How much financial risk would American Home Products face at each of the proposed levels of debt shown in case Exhibit 3? How much potential value, if any can American Home Products create for its shareholders at each of the proposed levels of debt? A combination of business risk and financial risk shows the risk of an organization’s future return on equity. Business risk is related to make a firm’s operation without any debt, whereas financial risk requires that the firm’s common stockholders make a decision to finance it with debt. a) American Home Products has been operating on four main lines of business that are less uncertainty about product demand; for example, one of its business lines is food products because whenever people buy foods. It means that AHP’s business risk is low. As mentioned above, if a firm does its operation activities regularly without leverage, it means that its busines s risk is not significant high. Thus, ratio of cash to total assets is calculated by following: According to Figure 1, AHP’s cash was about 23% of total assets, rose constantly since 1978 to 1981, and reached 28.2% in 1981; thus, it has enough cash flow to finance its daily operation.  Also, return on assets can show that a firm’s ability to cover its operating cost by generating income. According to the calculation below, American Home Products Corporation’s ROA was stable and approximately 19.2 % in 1981; consequently, AHP earned sufficient amount of income to cover its operating cost. Figure 2 Return on Assets of Amercan Home Products Corporation, 1972-1981 ($ in millions) Add to these above explanations, Exhibit 1 shows that AHP’s peak annual growth in sales was 14.1% in 1978 and compare to it, annual growth in sales decreased by 5.3% in 1981; as a result, it became disadvantage to AHP because consumers started to interest into competitors’ products. Risk aversion was the most fundamental component of AHP’s culture; consequently, they prefer to acquire or take license of previously developed goods or produce similar products with its competitors rather than to develop new-products. Although it seems to save R&D expenses, acquisition cost or a cost of time response to steal other’s innovation would be still appeared. Thus, AHP should try to improve its sales. b) Financial risk is related to business risk, so we measured NOPAT, ROIC, ROE whose uncertainty future can determine a firm’s business risk in Figure 3. Figure 3 Pro Forma 1981 Results for Alternative Capital Structures ($ in millions except ratios) Above pro forma illustrates that total debt and financial risk have straight correlation with each other and AHP’s total debt increased, so its financial risk would rise. Then if American Home Products Corporation could not pay its loan and interest by schedule, it would meet the financial risk and the risk of bankruptcy. According to Exhibit 4, AHP used excess cash of 233 million dollars on each of the proposed levels to repurchase stocks and remaining amounts were financed by debt; thus, its common shares outstanding would decreased by 19.8 million shares on 30% dept ratio and 36.6 million shares on 70% debt ratio. It means that equity will goes down, so its return on equity will rise. AHP should consider about financial risk to change the capital structure. American Home Products Corporation can save taxes to pay by increasing debt. Figure 4 illustrates that its taxes savings can be advantage to AHP if it uses heavier capital structure. Figure 4 Pro Forma 1981 Taxes Savings ($ in millions) According to Figure 4, if the company’s capital structure is 70% debt to total capital, comparing to 30 % debt to total capital structure, it can save approximately 1.9 times greater money; thus, its shareholders would benefit from it. 2. What capital structure would you recommend as appropriate for AHP? What are the advantages of leveraging this company? The disadvantages? How would leveraging up affect the company’s taxes? How would the capital markets react to a decision by the company to increase the use of debt in its capital structure? Most appropriate capital structure for American Home Products is 30% debt to total capital. Several reasons will explain the reason why this structure gives advantage to AHP. The first, as using 30% debt ratio, the company would be able to be recapitalized; hence, common shares outstanding of 19.8 million can be repurchased. The second, according to Figure 4, AHP would have advantage to save taxes of 37.8 million dollars and its sha reholders benefit by getting more values. Exhibit 2 shows that Warner Lambert company’s debt ratio is approximately 32% and its bond rating is AAA or AA. It means that if AHP uses 30% debt and 70% equity, its bond rating will be same as Warner Lambert; consequently, bond interest to pay will not increase much due to bond rating. Addition to these reasons, AHP would face less risk to compare heavier capital structures. Finally, AHP’s annual growth in sales decreased in 1981 by 2.9% from previous year, so getting debt could be helpful to manage its operation effectively and increase its sales growth. Besides above advantages, using 30% debt and 70% equity capital structure has disadvantages. First of all, if a firm has a loan, it has to be responsible to pay its principle and interest as a schedule; otherwise, it would be reason to bankruptcy; thus, same rule works on case of AHP. In addition to the risk of bankruptcy, if the company’s daily operation requires more investment after recapitalization, gettin g new loan for it would be more difficult. In final, using debt can be reason to increase its financial risk, so it has to be more careful to manage its operation. According to Figure 4, leveraging the company by using 30% debt to capital structure would decrease its taxes of 37.8 million dollars to pay. The capital market would react positively to a decision by the company to use of 30% debt in its capital structure. The company had almost no debt and had excess of cash or higher liquidity and Mr. Laborte who was chief executive of the company was near to give his position because of retirement, so most analysts expected the company to change its conservative capital structure. Also, Figure 5 shows the market positive reaction on the stock price. Figure 5 Stock Price of AHP ($ in millions except per share datas and ratios) According to Figure 5, AHP’s stock price will increase to 31.5. In order to calculate new stock price, we used average price/earnings ratio of both American Home Products Corporation and Warner Lambert Company in Exhibit 2 because exhibit 2 illustrates that while P/E ratio of AHP is 10.6%, 8% for Warner Lambert and unlike Warner Lambert, AHP has less financial risk. All though AHP’s risk will increase after getting leverage and its P/E ratio will decrease, AHP would have better financial position than Warner Lambert, so investors would be interested to buy AHP’s stock rather than stock of Warner Lambert. 3. How might AHP implement a more aggressive capital structure policy? What are the alternative methods for leveraging up? AHP should use heavier capital structure which means that increase to use more debt instead of conservative capital structure; consequently, AHP’s capital structure might be more effective and aggressive. The alternative methods for leveraging up are innovating new products, using better technology, and motivating labor. 4. In view of AHP’s unique corporate culture, what arguments would you advance to persuade Mr. Laporte or his successor to adopt your recommendation? According to Mr. Laporte, his company works in order to increase shareholders wealth, so as using 30% debt to capital would give possibility to save 37.8 million dollars from taxes; thus, its shareholders would benefit getting higher dividends per share. Even though after using debt, its price/earnings ratio might be decreased, its attraction of investors will be still powerful because of stock price increase. Also, if the company uses more debt to the operation, it will be possible to repurchase common stocks of 19.8 millions of shares from market.

Get Help Filling out the FAFSA Application

Applying for a student loan from the U.S. Department of Education is free. The application, called the FAFSA, stands for Free Application for Federal Student Aid and may be found on the website  fafsa.gov. The FAFSA can be a complicated form to fill out, and there was once an online service called Student Financial Aid Services, Inc. which helped students complete the complicated form for a fee. This service is no longer available but there are other solutions out there. FAFSA Services Available There are services available to help you fill out your FAFSA, however, the governments FAFSA site warns students that they dont have to pay to apply for a student loan from the government. There are scams out there but there are also legitimate services that can make your life a whole lot easier. Some ways to get assistance include: Exploring the resources available directly from the fafsa.ed.gov websiteVisiting your colleges office of student financial assistance or calling your university directlyAsking for help from your high school guidance counselor or college prep teacherHiring a professional, certified college aid planner from the National Institute of Certified College Planners, or an organization such as  CollegeAidPlanning.com How FAFSA Helpers Aid Students When scholarship scams were more prevalent, it was believed that â€Å"any help that you pay for can be received free from your school or Federal Student Aid. People often objected to paying a professional to prepare the federal student aid application, despite the 137 questions being more complex than most income tax forms, which they were likely to hire a tax consultant for. Neither high schools,  colleges nor the federal student aid telephone help desk has enough trained experts available to assist all college-bound and college students with their financial aid needs. No service is free as the federal help desk and high school counselors are paid with your tax dollars. College financial aid administrator’s salaries are covered by students’ tuition and fees charged. College financial aid offices help their students answer aid application questions, but they don’t have enough trained people or hours in the day to prepare every student’s federal student aid application. The Complexity of Filling out the Form Many people find the federal student aid form to be complex or too time-consuming to do themselves. College-bound students are sometimes unable to turn to a college financial aid administrator for help because they are not members of a college yet. While high school counselors at public and private schools offer college prep guidance, the great majority have no financial aid training nor the time to help every college-bound student prepare their application. The federal student aid helpline will answer individual questions but not advise on an individual’s specific circumstances. Recently, the federal government offered one-on-one phone service to several states on a limited basis. The FAFSA helpline is not open 24/7, such as on weekends and nights, when parents are likely to prepare their children’s FAFSA. Guidance From Student Financial Aid Services Student Financial Aid Services is available at least seventeen hours a day during peak aid application filing times. There is no limit on how often a client calls or how many people from an individual family are spoken to. Fees are relatively modest, ranging from $80 to $100 for a year, and a 100% money back guarantee is offered within sixty days of purchase. Advisors are rigorously trained and catch mistakes that even the Department of Education’s computer misses–mistakes that can deprive students of aid. Their job is to accurately prepare an application and advise clients so they receive the most aid possible, and they currently hold a 99% client recommendation rating. No legitimate FAFSA preparer charges for submitting the form. Fees are for the advice and expertise. The student financial aid system is complicated, as there are nine federal, 605 state,  and about 8,000 college programs each with their own deadlines and rules. All of this information is tracked including policy decisions, rule changes, and more. Disclosures U.S. law does authorize paid FAFSA preparation and the only condition is that a paid FAFSA preparer posts in all of their marketing and on their website that their commercial business is not the Department of Education. The website www.fafsa.com is a domain name the company founder, a college admissions administrator, purchased before the Department of Education had a FAFSA website. For transparency, the following is to be noted: The home page displays in a clear and conspicuous manner a notice that â€Å"We are not affiliated with the Dept. of Education.†The home page also states clearly that FAFSA can be filed for free, can be completed via paper or electronic form, and that professional assistance is not a requirement. It also states that the free service is available at www.fafsa.ed.gov.In the center of the home page, it is stated prominently that the website is the oldest and largest student aid advisory service and there is a fee for the service.Visitors are informed about the free FAFSA option in seventeen other prominent places on the website, and in total, forty-seven links are provided to www.fafsa.ed.gov.On every single page of the website, a disclaimer is included that says the website is not the Department of Education or FAFSA on the web. A link is provided to www.fafsa.ed.gov.The website provides a simple and clear side-by-side comparison of services that differ from the Department of Ed ucation and explicitly notes that the website is a paid service, and also notes that people can prepare the form themselves and file it for free on the other site.Every caller is informed that there is a free FAFSA option and that the FAFSA can be completed without professional help.In the â€Å"About Us† section of the  website, it is clearly stated, â€Å"Student Financial Aid Services, Inc. is a fee-based preparation and advisory company† and the role is outlined.In all of the marketing communications and sales materials, information about the free FAFSA option is included.