Solidarity and purposefulness Essays

Solidarity and purposefulness Essays Solidarity and purposefulness Paper Solidarity and purposefulness Paper The play I am studying is called The Inspector Calls. In this essay I will assess the dramatic impact of the inspector in the play with reference to one other character in the play.  The Inspector Calls was written in 1945 but set in 1912. This means that the audience has insight into the future. For example when Mr Birling states The Titanic-she sails this week-forty-six thousand eight hundred tons-forty six thousand eight hundred tons- New York in five days-and every luxury-and unsinkable. In this situation the audience would be feeling rather smug because they know that the Titanic does sink. Priestly was aiming to show that everybody in the society should be responsible for their own actions instead of just thinking of themselves. He also shows that people should be treated with the same respect whoever they are. Lastly Priestly tries to make people think about their place in society and the effects of their actions. This is revealed as Priestly takes each character in turn and explains to them and the family how their actions have affected Eva Smith. Before the Inspector arrived the well off family, The Birlings, who wrongly believe they are better than other families, were having a party to celebrate their daughter Sheilas engagement to a man called Gerald Croft who was also very well off. Everyone appeared extremely happy and all of them friendly to each other like a family. Then the Inspector entered. The lighting changes from pink and intimate to brighter and harder. The effect of this is that the audience becomes aware that a more sinister atmosphere is approaching and also increases the temper and emotions in the characters. Also making the play more watch able for the audience. The Inspector immediately quietens the atmosphere. By doing this he makes the mood of the celebration tense. He does this by singling out one person personally and asking the questions he imposed specifically to them. He is described as a not very big man. However he also states that he creates a massiveness, solidarity and purposefulness. Priestly also describes him by saying that he speaks carefully, weightily and has a disconcerting habit of looking hard at the person he addresss before speaking. There is an air of menace about him, unlike the other characters in the play. He is single minded in pursuing his chosen line of investigation. He is so certain about his facts that he unsettles the audience because they can tell that there is something strange about him. When the Inspector is around nobody challenges his version of events. This is because he speaks with a lot of authority so nobody questions him and immediately thinks he is right. However the other characters question these facts after he has left. The Inspector is extremely confident when speaking. This conveys to the audience that he is more powerful than the other people in the house. Furthermore it makes him seem strange and suspicious to the audience. This is because he seems to know everything the family is going to say before they say it. Also, he does not really uncover the truth, he already knows it. He only uncovers it for the characters benefit. This makes him not like a real police inspector because they uncover the truth creating tension. The Inspector acts like a narrator in the play. He tells the story at his own pace. The Inspector links separate incidents into one coherent life story. He often supplies dates or fills in back ground. This adds to the tension because the audience does not know where and from whom the Inspector got the dates and the character background information. He undermines that the characters complacent assumption that they are decent citizens. Each character finds this a devastating experience. The characters that resist telling the Inspector the truth suffer more than people who are open with him. For example the Inspector says to Gerald . if youre easy with me, Im easy with you. He makes no judgement upon Gerald and also tries to stop Sheila from blaming herself too much. However he begins to loose patience with Mr Birling. For instance Dont stammer and yammer at me again, man. Im losing patience with you people He is an enigmatic figure. We never learn his first name causing the audience to wonder who he really is. He neither changes nor develops, but frequently repeats, I havent much time. This creates tension because the audience do not know why he has so little time. Inspector Gooles name is a pun on ghoul a malevolent spirit or ghost. He could be seen as some kind of spirit, sent on behalf of the dead girl to torment the consciences of the characters in the play, or as a sort of policeman conducting an inquiry as a preliminary to the Day of Judgement, or even as a for warming of things to come. This adds to the tension because the audience does not know who the Inspector is. Priestly did not want to tell the audience who the Inspector really is. To reveal his identity as a hoaxer or some kind of spirit would have spoilt the unresolved tension that is so effective at the end of the play. The Inspector behaves as the voice of social conscience. For example You see, we have to share something. If theres nothing else, well have to share our guilt. He is a socialist meaning that he believes that everyone should share. The character I am studying is called Eric and he is Mr Birlings son. Eric is characterised as half shy, half assertive. At the beginning of the play he did not know what his parents were really like and at the end of the play he did not like their real personalities. He conveys the difference between young men and older men. This is shown when Eric does not catch onto the jokes Mr Birling and Gerald share. For example in Act one when the Inspector rings the doorbell, Gerald and Mr Birling shares a joke and Eric says, Here what do you mean? and when he realises it was a joke he says Well, I dont think its very funny. This shows the difference in age between the three and also makes Eric seem very young like hes being treated like a young child. When Eric says Here, what. he does not share the joke again between Mr Birling and Gerald. He attracts attention, and then suspicion, by his evident alarm at the news of the Inspectors visit. This makes the audience think that Eric could be hiding something. Eric arouses curiosity with his sudden guffaw in Act one. This may mean that Eric knows something about Gerald that the others do not because Sheila has just been scolding Gerald for not seeing her over the summer because of his work.

5 Words Caught in Semantic Drift

5 Words Caught in Semantic Drift 5 Words Caught in Semantic Drift 5 Words Caught in Semantic Drift By Mark Nichol Is it possible to simultaneously admire the vibrancy and flexibility of the English language and grumble about shifts in meaning that deprive the language of some of its richness? I know it is, because I often do so. Because of the organic nature of language, English is a victim of semantic drift not as cataclysmic as continental drift, but detectable on the rigor scale and I regret the loss of the far-flung flotsam. Semantic drift is the evolution that occurs in the meaning of some words when careless, ignorant usage alters or even reverses their senses. Such change is inevitable, but allow me to mourn the loss of a word here and there, never again to be applicable to an idea or image with such crisp clarity. Here are five terms tainted by semantic drift: 1. Aggravate The essence of aggravate is right there in the middle: grav-, the root of gravity and grave (as in â€Å"serious†; the word for the resting place of a coffin has a different etymological origin). The Latin word gravis means â€Å"heavy,† and aggravate originally literally means â€Å"to make heavy†; the original sense was â€Å"to make worse.† But almost immediately and naturally, because a burden is irritating it acquired the additional sense of â€Å"exasperate.† Use of that meaning now predominates. Wordsmith H. W. Fowler proclaimed that â€Å"to make worse† is the only correct sense of aggravate; he was undoubtedly irritated (not aggravated) to know that popular usage defied his decree. 2. Bemused The root of this word, muse, means â€Å"to think or ponder,† but it has an amusing origin; it is from a Latinate term for â€Å"snout† and became associated with cogitation from the image of lifting one’s nose in the air, perhaps to sniff a scent and consider its source. (It is apparently unrelated to, though influenced by, muse, meaning â€Å"to think,† from the name of the Muses, the Greek goddesses of the arts and sciences; this is also the origin of museum and music.) Bemused (â€Å"confused†) is often confused for amused (â€Å"comically entertained†) because of their original similarity of meaning: Bemused literally means â€Å"thoroughly thinking,† suggesting being confused by thinking too much, whereas the literal meaning of amused is â€Å"without thought,† with the connotation of being diverted from thinking by some lighthearted entertainment. However, bemusement is serious business. 3. Nonplussed This word, taken literally from the Latin words for no and more, originally was used in the noun form to describe a point from which one could not continue because one was perplexed. For five hundred years, that’s what the word meant. But at some point during the twentieth century, people inexplicably began to assume that it refers to the opposite state, that of being unfazed (not unphased!) or at ease, as if being plussed were a state of bewilderment and nonplussed therefore means â€Å"not bewildered.† The antonymic meaning soon went viral, and now one is likely to be unclear about which meaning a speaker or writer has in mind. When that happens, perhaps it’s best to retire a word altogether and fortunately in this case, at least bewildered and perplexed persist (for now) with unequivocal synonymic meaning. 4. Nostalgia This battle was lost long ago, but the case study is interesting. Nostalgia was coined (from the first part of the Greek word for â€Å"homecoming† and the Latin suffix -algia itself originally from Greek and meaning â€Å"pain†) in the late 1600s to refer to the literal affliction of homesickness. For two centuries, nostalgia was treated as a serious ailment suffered by soldiers and others who suffered ailments caused by a melancholic longing for home. That clinical sense itself wasted away, and though nostalgia continued to refer to homesickness, that meaning was overtaken by the idea of a sentimental yearning for a lost state or condition, usually temporally rather than spatially irrevocable. However, I’m nostalgic about the lost meaning. 5. Voluptuous For hundreds of years, voluptuous meant â€Å"luxurious, pleasure seeking, devoted to sensual gratification† (the Latin root is voluptas, meaning â€Å"pleasure†), but back in the early 1800s, the word came to be associated primarily with female beauty, and later the primary sense shifted to that of curvaceousness. Here are some other words that have been affected by semantic drift. Want to improve your English in five minutes a day? Get a subscription and start receiving our writing tips and exercises daily! Keep learning! Browse the Misused Words category, check our popular posts, or choose a related post below:50 Rhetorical Devices for Rational WritingConfusing "Passed" with "Past"May Have vs. Might Have