Great Expectations & Oliver Twist Essays (1632 words) -

Great Expectations & Oliver Twist During his lifetime, Charles Dickens is known to have written several books. Although each book is different, they also share many similarities. Two of his books, Great Expectations and Oliver Twist, are representatives of the many kinds of differences and similarities found within his work. Perhaps the reason why these two novels share some of the same qualities is because they both reflect painful experiences which occurred in Dickens' past. During his childhood, Charles Dickens suffered much abuse from his parents.1 This abuse is often expressed in his novels. Pip, in Great Expectations, talked often about the abuse he received at the hands of his sister, Mrs. Joe Gargery. On one occasion he remarked, "I soon found myself getting heavily bumped from behind in the nape of the neck and the small of the back, and having my face ignominously shoved against the wall, because I did not answer those questions at sufficient length."2 While at the orphanage, Oliver from Oliver Twist also experienced a great amount of abuse. For example, while suffering from starvation and malnutrition for a long period of time, Oliver was chosen by the other boys at the orphanage to request more gruel at dinner one night. After making this simple request, "the master (at the orphanage) aimed a blow at Oliver's head with the ladle; pinioned him in his arms; and shrieked aloud for the beadle."3 The whole beginning of Oliver Twist's story was created from memories which related to Charles Dickens' childhood in a blacking factory ( which was overshadowed by the Marshalsea Prison ).4 While working in the blacking factory, Dickens suffered tremendous humiliation. This humiliation is greatly expressed through Oliver's adventures at the orphanage before he is sent away. Throughout his lifetime, Dickens appeared to have acquired a fondness for "the bleak, the sordid, and the austere."5 Most of Oliver Twist, for example, takes place in London's lowest slums.6 The city is described as a maze which involves a "mystery of darkness, anonymity, and peril."7 Many of the settings, such as the pickpocket's hideout, the surrounding streets, and the bars, are also described as dark, gloomy, and bland.8 Meanwhile, in Great Expectations, Miss Havisham's house is often made to sound depressing, old, and lonely. Many of the objects within the house had not been touched or moved in many years. Cobwebs were clearly visible as well as an abundance of dust, and even the wedding dress which Miss Havisham constantly wore had turned yellow with age.9 However, similarities are not just found in the settings. The novels' two main characters, Pip and Oliver, are also similar in many ways. Both young boys were orphaned practically from birth; but where Pip is sent to live with and be abused by his sister, Oliver is sent to live in an orphanage. Pip is a very curious young boy. He is a "child of intense and yearning fancy."10 Yet, Oliver is well spoken. Even while his life was in danger while in the hands of Fagin and Bill Sikes, two conniving pickpockets, he refused to participate in the stealing which he so greatly opposed. All Oliver really longed for was to escape from harsh living conditions and evil surroundings which he had grown up in.11 However, no matter how tempting the evil may have been, Oliver stood by his beliefs. Therefore, he can be referred to as "ideal and incorruptible innocence."12 "It is Oliver's self-generated and self-sustained love, conferred it would seem from Heaven alone, that preserves him from disaster and death."13 Unfortunately, many critics have found it hard to believe that a boy such as Oliver Twist could remain so innocent, pure, and well spoken given the long period of time in which he was surrounded by evil and injustices.14 Pip, on the other hand, is a dreamer. His imagination is always helping him to create situations to cover up for his hard times. For example, when questioned about his first visit to Miss Havisham's house, he made up along elaborate story to make up for the terrible time he had in reality. Instead of telling how he played cards all day while being ridiculed and criticized by Estella and Miss Havisham,

Cluster Analysis

Cluster Analysis Cluster analysis is a statistical technique used to identify how various units like people, groups, or societies can be grouped together because of characteristics they have in common. Also known as clustering, it is an exploratory data analysis tool that aims to sort different objects into groups in such a way that when they belong to the same group they have a maximal degree of association and when they do not belong to the same group their degree of association is minimal. Unlike some other statistical techniques, the structures that are uncovered through cluster analysis need no explanation or interpretation – it discovers structure in the data without explaining why they exist. What Is Clustering? Clustering exists in almost every aspect of our daily lives. Take, for example, items in a grocery store. Different types of items are always displayed in the same or nearby locations – meat, vegetables, soda, cereal, paper products, etc. Researchers often want to do the same with data and group objects or subjects into clusters that make sense. To take an example from social science, let’s say we are looking at countries and want to group them into clusters based on characteristics such as division of labor, militaries, technology, or educated population. We would find that Britain, Japan, France, Germany, and the United States have similar characteristics and would be clustered together. Uganda,  Nicaragua, and Pakistan would be also be grouped together in a different cluster because they share a different set of characteristics, including low levels of wealth, simpler divisions of labor, relatively unstable and undemocratic political institutions, and low technological development. Cluster analysis is typically used in the exploratory phase of research when the researcher does not have any pre-conceived hypotheses. It is commonly not the only statistical method used, but rather is done in the early stages of a project to help guide the rest of the analysis. For this reason, significance testing is usually neither relevant nor appropriate. There are several different types of cluster analysis. The two most commonly used are K-means clustering and hierarchical clustering. K-means Clustering K-means clustering treats the observations in the data as objects having locations and distances from each other (note that the distances used in clustering often do not represent spatial distances). It partitions the objects into K mutually exclusive clusters so that objects within each cluster are as close to each other as possible and at the same time, as far from objects in other clusters as possible. Each cluster is then characterized by its mean or center point. Hierarchical Clustering Hierarchical clustering is a way to investigate groupings in the data simultaneously over a variety of scales and distances. It does this by creating a cluster tree with various levels. Unlike K-means clustering, the tree is not a single set of clusters. Rather, the tree is a multi-level hierarchy where clusters at one level are joined as clusters at the next higher level. The algorithm that is used starts with each case or variable in a separate cluster and then combines clusters until only one is left. This allows the researcher to decide what level of clustering is most appropriate for his or her research. Performing A Cluster Analysis Most statistics software programs can perform cluster analysis. In SPSS, select analyze from the menu, then classify and cluster analysis. In SAS, the proc cluster function can be used. Updated by Nicki Lisa Cole, Ph.D.

Radical Theater Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Radical Theater - Research Paper Example For this reason, much of the theatre developed in this time period â€Å"represented the safe middle-class milieu and world-view aspirations of the audiences that would come to see them† (Batty, 2005). The purpose of theatre had been reduced to provide a rather thoughtless, structured evening of culture without the necessity of challenging beliefs or social norms. â€Å"They didn’t want anything else, they were perfectly happy to put their feet up. That was what going to the theatre was normally about, going and putting your feet up and just receive something, received ideas of what drama was, going through various procedures which were known to the audience. I think it was becoming a dead area† (Batty, 2005). At the same time, playwrights and producers had to be careful regarding the content and presentation of their material to be sure it fell within the strict regulations of the Lord Chamberlain’s office. This harsh environment saw the number of theatre s with permanent repertory companies fall from 96 to 55 between the years 1950 to 1955 (Clough, 2006). It was this constraining atmosphere that ironically gave birth to the radical theater movement brought forward by Peter Brook.