Salems Lot and The Shining :: essays research papers

Stephen King sets up the perfect horror scene in room 217 by buliding off of Hitchcock and hos own previous work, Salem's Lot. King uses Hitchcock's definition of great horror to set for the scene in romm 217. He also uses background from his old work, Salems Lot. Alfred Hitchcock's idea of horror involves human suspense and teh realistic aspect of scary situations. Hitchcocks masterful directing leads the audience to be the frist to understand what is going on. The characters are left in the dark until the suspense reaches its climax. As the impending danger builds, the viewer is allowed to wtiness the situation before the character. This raises the level of suspense making it more realistic. Hitchcock takes normal situations and adds a terffiying twist. The twist is always something that has never happened, but is definetely possible. Hitchcocks The Birds is an excellent example of this. He takes normal situation with normal birds and turns them into killers. As the birds gather behind one unsuspecting victim, only the audience is allowed to see the impending danger. The woman is calm and collected as she waits on the bench. Hitchcock adds a little scare music and the woman suddenly realizes she is being watched. She whips around in horror a nd the birds are there ready to attack. This scfene is not a common occurance, but to an overactive imagination it could become a very real possibility. Kings early work Salems Lot helps to prove he has created the perfect horror scene in room 217. Salems lot was, at that time, a suspenseful story about vampires and things that lurk in the night. The plot was predictable, new guys come to town, vampires attack, suspcicious old man is accused. When King wrote Salems Lot his techniques for horror and suspense were still yound and under developed. The element of surprise was more evident than that of suspense. The writing of King matured greatly before he wrote The Shining. The scene in roo, 217 us a perfect horror scene as it takes a realistic situation and turns it frightening. As the beginning of the nover danny is warned by Hallorann not to enter room 217. The first step has been completed, the warning. The second step of building the action begins. Danny steals the passkey, but not only that as Jack has been having hallucinations along with Danny.

A Father’s Story

Stories often have a main character that is centered on because he/she fails at some responsibility of theirs or falls short of their goal. In â€Å"A Father's Story† written by Andre Dubus, Luke Ripley is a character that succeeds in his responsibilities as a father. Luke shows love, compassion and above all a protective instinct and desire to help his daughter. He emphasizes that he is very religious although perhaps not very devout. All of these characteristics help him fulfill his fatherly duties to his daughter during her stay at his house. Luke has had an interesting life preceding the main events of the story. He has lost his entire family, making him alone in a large house with nothing but horses and a radio to keep him company. Despite those trials, Luke has it inside him to continually show love to his family when they do return, especially to his daughter even though she kills a man. Andre Dubus emphasizes this love and compassion Luke has through some of the background information he gives leading up to the main events of the story. Dubus shows small details that Luke a centers his attention on and the efforts that Luke puts forth to try and love his family after they leave him. There also comes a point in the story where Luke's heart's â€Å"longing to love† as he calls it, makes him bitter with Father Paul. Luke's friendship with Father Paul brings about another very interesting character trait in Luke. This is his religious side. Based on the way that Luke recounts the events of his life, religion is a mayor part and focus of his life. He seems not to be very devout and strict; he says that â€Å"being a real Catholic is too hard. † Still though, he goes to each Sunday Mass and Father Paul is his best, and in truth his only friend. Luke wakes up early each morning and rides his horse to the church. Luke falters only twice as far as his chastity and marriage beliefs are concerned and he describes those two incidents as having been in the distant past and not a reoccurring habit. Luke also realizes that he cannot force or tell his children what to believe but he still tries to point them in the direction that he believes to be right. Luke explains that his religion and Father Paul help to keep him company and keep him strong when his family left him. The main focus of this story however is not about Luke's love and compassion, or his religion; it is about just his fatherly instinct and desire to protect and help his daughter. The entire story, up till the climax Top point, is aimed at Luke's ability to empathize with his daughter and provide her with the comfort and help that she needs. First of all, Jennifer is the youngest child, the baby in the family. This automatically puts her in the position to receive more attention and care from her father. Jennifer also seems to be the one that visits her father the most often and for the longest periods of time. Luke enjoys the time that he gets to spend with his daughter. He relishes in the little details and subtle changes that take place over time. He points out how they are growing up and getting steadily more mature. Luke shows us that he understands and empathizes with his daughter and her transformation into a young adult when he says, â€Å"it was womanhood they were entering, the deep forest of it, and no matter how many women and men too are saying these days that there is little difference between us, the truth is that men find their way into that forest only on clearly marked trails, while women move about in it like birds. Jennifer then wakes her father in the middle of the night to tell him that she has just hit a man, and might have killed him. This is enough to test any father's love, patience, and temper. But Luke rises to the occasion and his character doesn't falter he firsts comforts his daughter and learns the whole story of what has taken place and what has upset her so badly. Then after she has calmed down, and only after she has calmed down, Luke leaves to try and find this man. The result is that Luke finds the man, and watches him die because he is powerless to save him at this point, he does not tell his daughter this, he only says that the man is dead. Then Luke says something interesting, he tells us â€Å"If one of my sons had come to me that night, I would have phoned the police and told them to meet us with an ambulance at the top of the hill I could bear the pain of watching and knowing my sons' pain but never my daughter's. This illustrates with perfect clarity Luke's special love for his daughter and desire to protect her in a way that varies greatly from that of his feelings for his sons. Stories often have a main character that is centered on because he/she fails at some responsibility of theirs or falls short of their goal. In â€Å"A Father's Story† written by Andre Dubus, Luke Ripley is a character that succeeds in his responsibilities as a father.

Wal-Mart’s Unfair Labor Practices in “Down and Out in Discount America

In â€Å"Down and Out in Discount America,† writer Liza Featherstone (2004) exposes the dirty tactics and unfair business practices that fuel Wal-Mart’s success as a giant retail company, and suggests effective strategies to defeat corporate crime. According to Featherstone, Wal-Mart is one company that literally profits and grows from the presence and worsening of poverty situations, as shown by the results of a study conducted by economist Andrew Franklin which revealed that â€Å"Wal-Mart operated primarily in poor and working-class communities.†Most of the retail company’s customers are â€Å"overwhelmingly female, and struggling to make ends meet. † Featherstone argues that Wal-Mart ensures that its market in the low income segment continually expands by â€Å"creating more bad jobs worldwide. † She also points out that Wal-Mart routinely employs illegal and unethical business practices to maintain its competitive edge over other compani es, including violating wage and labor laws that deprive workers of their living wage and health benefits.More importantly, this set-up â€Å"contribute to an economy in which, increasingly, workers can only afford to shop at Wal-Mart. † The biggest brunt falls on Wal-Mart’s overwhelmingly female workers. As a result, the company has been the subject of â€Å"the largest civil rights class-action suit in history† which â€Å"charges the company with systematically discriminating against women in pay and promotions.† The company has also been cleverly using public funds to subsidize its low wages by encouraging its workers to apply for welfare assistance. Despite the company’s glaring offenses, however, poor women continue to patronize Wal-Mart because it is all they can afford. Featherstone therefore contends that the success of a concerted action against the giant company lies in the ability of stakeholders such as labor unions to go beyond the co nsumer mentality, constructed by big business, in creating avenues of resistance.The author notes that â€Å"to effectively battle corporate criminals like Wal-Mart, the public must be engaged as citizens, not merely as shoppers,† in order to form a movement with enough social and political power to challenge Wal-Mart and to advance the interest of the poor and the working class. Arguably, Featherstone’s article is one of the most convincing and informative pieces there is that provides a balanced and level-headed discussion of an issue that is as inflammatory as â€Å"the â€Å"Wal-Martization† of American jobs.†Ã¢â‚¬Å"Down and Out in Discount America† is clearly intended for a wide spectrum of audience. Featherstone assumes that her readers know Wal-mart but they do not know about its unfair practices and illegal activities. Through the clever use of rhetoric and data, the author delivers an essay that is both incisive and engaging. Featherstone u ses both academic data and well-placed personal narratives of the workers of Wal-Mart to build her case.In the process, she does not need to explicitly state that Wal-mart profits from injustice and deepening income divide, this is already substantiated by the real-life cases and hard statistics that speak about the way the company â€Å"profits not only on women's drudgery but also on their joy, creativity and genuine care for the customer† and conditions its consumers to be heavily dependent on the â€Å"relief† brought by Wal-Mart discounted prices. It is interesting to note that Featherstone incorporates contrary ideas into her piece—such as the welcoming attitude towards Wal-Mart held by poor women—to illuminate and strengthen her stance.Thus, Featherstone avoids taking the â€Å"boycott† stance that would have been too simplistic an answer to as big a problem as Wal-Mart. â€Å"Down and Out in Discount America† also does not have the d epressing tone that most articles dealing with serious social issues are often infected with; this is not to say that the article does not evoke an emotional response from the reader but that it presents an image of women workers, who, despite their desperation and sad circumstance, manage to lend their anecdotes to show the multi-dimensionality of the Wal-Mart experience. One therefore finds it hard not to take Featherstone’s side against Wal-mart.The writer undoubtedly presents a well-informed case that explores the Wal-Mart’s labor issues in both a personal and social angle, and attempts to convince the audience on the logic and soundness of why the poor should stop shopping at Wal-Mart (which Featherstone has already conceded is an exercise in futility) but on why there should be more stringent policies to safeguard the poor from unfair labor practices and why there should be adequate legal measures to punish corporate criminal activities that prey upon the despera tion of the poor and the working class.Featherstone is also right in pointing out the need for a political and social movement that would leverage the interest of the poor and the working class above corporate interests. This movement must be a powerful enough presence to generate political pressure on the government and on big businesses to fulfill their social obligations.Clearly, â€Å"Down and Out in Discount America† is a searing portrayal of what happens when citizens literally put their souls out for a â€Å"bargain† with big businesses, which has transformed them into mere consumers whose participation in political and social decision-making is limited to individualistic shopping and purchase decisions. Fortunately, writers like Featherstone are there to remind consumers that they are, first and foremost, citizens and workers with stakes not only in payday discount sales but in the future and direction of labor and living conditions in the community and the cou ntry.