George Eliot’s The Lifted Veil
When George Eliot’s gothic story The Lifted Veil appeared in Blackwood’s in 1859, her partner George Henry Lewes was busy publishing his study of human anatomy, The Physiology of Common Life (1859). Intriguingly, this work of Lewes’s contains a brief tale which is as strikingly morbid as Eliot’s own. Unlike her story, his is not fictional — it is a scientific anecdote prefacing a detailed discussion of the respiratory system — but like The Lifted Veil its dark melodrama recommends it as “not a jeu d’esprit, but a jeu de melancolie.”[1] It concerns the case of a suicidal Frenchman, M. Déal, who, disillusioned by an unremarkable life and lack of reputation, resolves to exit the world in such a way as to remedy his perceived failings. To do so, he determines to asphyxiate himself on the poisonous fumes of burning charcoal while recording in a narrative the experience of his rapid demise. This testimony, he thinks, will be of much use to science, and so confer on him posthumously the intellectual dignity hitherto lacking in his life. Accordingly, he plans his suicide with the orderliness of an experimental scientist, as Lewes explains:
I have thought it useful, in the interest of science,’ he wrote, ‘to make known the effects of charcoal upon man. I place a lamp, a candle, and a watch on my table, and commence the ceremony. It is a quarter past 10; I have just lighted the stove; the charcoal burns feebly’. (Lewes, 1859, pp.347‑8)
Having begun the macabre experiment, Déal awaits his fate and prepares to document his deteriorating condition at strict ten-minute intervals. Very soon he reports a thick vapour filling the room and the beginnings of a violent headache as his pulse becomes agitat...
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Aristotle once quoted “the ultimate value of life depends upon awareness and the power of contemplation rather than upon mere survival.” The subject of life and its value sparks much controversy and many base their beliefs regarding this issue on personal opinion. In the book, Out of the Silent Planet, by C.S. Lewis, three characters land on an extraterrestrial planet, Malacandra, to find its population consists of rational human-like beings that still resemble familiar animal life on Earth. While on this planet, Devine, Weston, and Ransom all show how they value life.
The writing style of Edgar Allan Poe shows the writer to be of a dark nature. In this story, he focuses on his fascination of being buried alive. He quotes, “To be buried alive is, beyond question, the most terrific of these [ghastly] extremes which has ever fallen to the lot of mere mortality.” page 58 paragraph 3. The dark nature is reflected in this quote, showing the supernatural side of Poe which is reflected in his writing and is also a characteristic of Romanticism. Poe uses much detail, as shown in this passage, “The face assumed the usual pinched and sunken outline. The lips were of the usual marble pallor. The eyes were lusterless. There was no warmth. Pulsation had ceased. For three days the body was preserved unburied, during which it had acquired a stony rigidity.” page 59 paragraph 2. The descriptive nature of this writing paints a vivid picture that intrigues the reader to use their imagination and visualize the scene presented in the text. This use of imagery ties with aspects of Romanticism because of the nature of the descriptions Poe uses. Describing the physical features of one who seems dead is a horrifying perspective as not many people thing about the aspects of death.
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In 2010, Google broadcasted that they created an archetype of a car that can drive itself; its purpose, to avert collisions, allow citizens more time, and cut down on harmful pollutants that vehicles produce (Poczter & Jankovic, 2014). The heart of the self-driving automobile is lasers that are mounted on the roof of a modified Toyota Prius that produces a precise three-dimensional atlas of the area surrounding the car. Furthermore, the automobile is outfitted with four radars, and another laser around the vehicle that allows it to precisely create a 3-D map of its surroundings (Poczter & Jankovic, 2014). The vehicle calculates the laser dimensions with high-resolution maps of the globe, which allows it to drive itself without human intervention, while evading obstacles and obeying traffic laws (How Google’s self-Driving Car Works, 2011).
Damrosch, David, et al., ed. The Longman Anthology of British Literature: Vol. B. Compact ed. New York: Longman - Addison Wesley Longman, 2000. p. 2256
Text messaging has become a norm in our generation, as technology rapidly advances and gives way to more efficient forms of communication in a fast-paced world; and many are skeptical about the influence this new form of interaction is having on our society, especially with our younger generation. David Crystal, a professor at the University of Wales, writes “2b or Not 2b?” in support of text messaging. He insists, despite those who underestimate or negate the beneficial influence text messaging has on language proficiency, that “there is increasing evidence that [texting] helps rather than hinders literacy” and that the fairly recent form of communication has actually been around for a while and “is merely the latest manifestation of the human ability to be linguistically creative and to adopt language to suit the demands of diverse settings. In contrast, Jeffery Kluger argues in “We Never Talk Anymore: The Problem with Text Messaging” that text messaging is rapidly becoming a substitute for more genuine forms of communication and is resulting in difficulty among young peoples of our generation to hold a face-to-face conversation, engage in significant nonverbal expression, and ultimately build effective relationships with family, friends and co-workers. Both writers’ present valid arguments, however, my personal experience with text messaging has led me to agree more with Crystal’s view on the matter. Text messaging is indeed having a positive effect on society by making frequent texters primarily aware of the need to be understood, as well as offering betterment of spelling and writing through practice, and reinventing and expanding on a bygone dimension of our language through the use of rebuses and abbreviations.
A self-driving car would essentially be a computer on 4 wheels that gets inputs from the sur...
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Damrosch, David, et al., ed. The Longman Anthology of British Literature: Vol. B. Compact ed. New York: Longman - Addison Wesley Longman, 2000.
One of the things that cell phones have changed drastically is the way we communicate with others. With the birth of cell phones eventually came the invention of text messaging, or “texting.” Texting is sending simple messages over the air to another cell phone. People these days, especially the younger generation, find it much easier and quicker to text a person rather than call them or talk to them face to face. “Text messaging is the premier choice” says Jaletta Desmond, an expert on how cell phones have changed us over time. The reason why most of the younger generation prefers texting rather than talking is because they don’t value talking out loud one on one as much as the older generation does. Another reason why texting is the first choice for most people is that it gives a sense of privacy. No one can put their ear to the door and hear your texting conversation. In this day in age, we’ve made it nearly impossible to get in touch with others without having a cell phone on you. Cell phones have just become p...
These teens tended to score lower on literacy tests than those that did not (Plester, Wood, Bell 143). It was also observed that high texters scored lower on verbal and non-verbal reasoning than those who do not text and minimal texters (Plester, Wood, Bell 140). Results from studies on texting indicated an overall negative effect on literacy test results (Verheijen 595). It has been suggested that students are not distinguishing between informal and formal environments and are texting at the wrong times and places (Verheijen 587). The general message that the media sends about the effects of texting tend to be rather negative overall. For example, texting and driving is considered very dangerous due to a distracted driver. Many teens are involved in accidents due texting and driving. It was elicited during a study that participants took longer and made more errors when they had to read text messages as opposed to reading Standard English (Kemp and Bushnell 18). Thurlow is quoted saying that texting “signals the slow death of language” and is “a threat to social progress” (qtd. in Verheijen 586). Texting has more of a negative effect on teens’ literacy and could possibly cause the English we use today could become