Use of Symbolism in Joseph Hellers Catch-22 Essay example

Use of Symbolism in Joseph Hellers Catch-22 The clerk sneezed three times in rapid succession and looked at me through watery eyes. What did you say your name was? I told him my name and he turned to a towering file cabinet overflowing with papers and brown manila envelopes. After sneezing three times and searching through a drawer, he pulled out a thin folder and laid it on the counter. Ah, he said in a nasal voice laden with condescension and impatience. I see you have no experience in our particular area of expertise. Come back when you get some experience. I explained that I was there to get experience. Well, I dont see how you can find any work with your experience, the clerk groused, peering at me through a pair of†¦show more content†¦He spends extensive time in the squadron hospital with various contrived maladies. He tries acting insane to be grounded and sent home, but in this encounters Catch-22, a shady rule that prevents Yossarian from going home throughout the novel. If Yossarian only asks to be grounded for insanity, he will be. However, showing that he knows he is insane makes him sane, and he will be cleared for the next mission. As his friends die one by one and the insanity and confusion of everyone in the squadron become overwhelming, Yossarian finally decides that Catch-22 does not exist and that the only way to escape is to quit and flee to Sweden. Throughout the novel, Heller uses his characters to symbolize various wrongs found in society that Heller sees. For instance, the insensitivity and dehumanization of the officers shows what Heller perceives as the loss of morality and compassion in the modern world. In what seems to be one of the main themes of the book, the mess officer Milo Minderbender seems to symbolize the military-industrial complex that dominated the Cold War. Following World War II, President Eisenhower coined the term military-industrial complex to describe the relationship between private arms manufacturers, the armed forces and the government. This coalition collaborated to bloat the American military budget in order to make money for the companies. Corruption in the government contributed to allowing this. TheShow MoreRelated`` Catch 22, By Joseph Heller1788 Words   |  8 Pagesdebate of whether soldiers’ lives are being lost for necessary causes. Unlike other war novels, Joseph Heller criticizes the cruel bureaucracy within the military, influenced by his own experiences as a bombardier in World War II. In Heller’s satirical novel, Catch-22, he defines the infuriating, contradictory processes the military uses to run its soldiers’ lives and control their fates through his use of satirical dark humor, literary techniques, structure and various themes. Satire is woven throughoutRead MoreDefying Convention, By Joseph Heller2506 Words   |  11 PagesDefying convention, Joseph Heller in Catch-22 dehumanizes the soldier and introduces the reader to the decay of a grim world structured by bureaucracies. With the amalgamation of incoherent chronology and scattered symbols throughout the novel, he presents his ideas in an absurd manner. His sullen irony mirrors that of society. Rendering mankind’s abilities moot, Heller dismantles language and its significance. The very substance of his work - the mindless symbols, dark satire, and deconstruction

Qualitative Validity and Reliability Qualitative Data Collection Assignment

Essays on Qualitative Validity and Reliability Qualitative Data Collection Assignment The paper "Qualitative Validity and Reliability Qualitative Data Collection" is a wonderful example of an assignment on education. 1. Throughout the article, the authors establish qualitative validity and reliability through the use of a historical perspective which is heavily laden with statistical information. This statistical information and their historical perspective lay a firm foundation for the proper evaluation of the research article on homeless women with preschool children. Additionally, the sampling choices consisting of two groups of different environments ensured that the research was presented with a case that covered all the possible environments, thereby resulting in a more reliable representation of the issue under research (Creswell 2013, pp. 188). This was further augmented through the use of focus groups as a data collection mechanism, which helped ensure reliable data consequently improving the validity and reliability of the research holistically.   2. The qualitative article primarily uses focus groups to collect the data used in the research article. This is whereby the researchers come up with a conducive setting and ensure that the sampled individuals feel safe about giving out as much information about the topic as possible (Averitt 2003, pp. 85). The safety and confidentiality associated with such focus groups ensure that the data is as reliable and valid as possible. Moreover, the researcher gets to interact with the sample in such a way that he/she experiences the effects of homelessness in the context that it is presented. Women for the focus groups were selected from the two identified shelters based on their adherence to criteria that filtered them based on having at least one preschool child. These sessions are then recorded, and this is what constitutes the data collection mechanism for qualitative research.

John Hick and Pluralism free essay sample

John Hick was born in 1922 in England to a middle class family. He developed an interest in philosophy and religion in his teens, being encouraged by his uncle, who was an author and teacher at  Manchester University. Hick initially pursued a  law degree  at  Hull University, but converted to  Evangelical Christianity  from the fundamentalist Christian beliefs with which he was raised, and decided to change his career and enrolled at the  University of Edinburgh  in 1941. During his studies, he became liable for military service in  World War II, but as a  conscientious objector  on moral grounds, enrolled in the  Friends Ambulance Unit. After the war, he returned to Edinburgh and became attracted to the philosophy of  Immanuel Kant, and began to question his fundamentalism. In 1948, he completed his MA dissertation, which formed the basis of his book  Faith and Knowledge (Peters). He went on to earn a Doctorate in Philosophy from  Oxford University  in 1950 and a Doctorate in Literature from Edinburgh in 1975. In 1953, he married Joan Hazel Bowers, and the couple had three children. After many years as a member of the United Reformed Church, in October 2009 he was accepted into membership of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) in Britain. Hick has twice been the subject of heresy proceedings. In 1961-1962, when he was teaching at Princeton Theological Seminary, he sought, as a Presbyterian minister, to join the local Presbytery of New Brunswick. He was asked whether he took exception to anything in the Westminster Confession of 1647 and answered that several points were open to question; for example, he was agnostic on the historical truth of the Virgin Birth and did not regard it as an essential item of Christian faith. Because of this, some of the local ministers appealed against his reception into the Presbytery. Their appeal was sustained by the Synod. A year later, a counter-appeal was sustained by the Judicial Committee of the General Assembly, and Hick became a member of the Presbytery (Furlong). In the mid-1980s, when teaching at the  Claremont Graduate University  in California, Hick sought to join the local Presbytery of San Gabriel. His application was strongly opposed by certain local ministers. After long discussion, the relevant committee told him that his application would be extremely divisive and invited him to withdraw it, which he did (Furlong). John Hick is often cited as one of the most—if not simply the most—significant philosopher of religion in the twentieth century (Cramer). His contributions to this field have been so substantial that they easily spill immense implications over into related fields. Clearly, Hick’s work has such implications for theology. Hick challenges theologians to transform Christian Religion to address effectively the modern world, which is now undoubtedly pluralistic. He both criticizes what he considers outmoded Christian in light of recent developments in religious epistemology, while simultaneously suggesting new possibilities for the enrichment of Christian experience as religious experience. While some of these suggestions are certainly open to debate, it is nonetheless certain that Hick, like Columbus, has discovered the new world—a new pluralistic world—which all future theology must take into account (although it is clear that, despite this recent discovery, the Indians—though this time the  real  Indians—have long since beaten us here as well). In light of his Kantian influences, Hick claims that knowledge of the Real (his generic term for Transcendent Reality) can only be known as it is being perceived. For that reason, absolute truth claims about God (to use Christian language) are really truth claims about perceptions of God; that is, claims about the phenomenal God and not the noumenal God. Furthermore, because all knowledge is rooted in experience, which is then perceived and interpreted into human categories of conception, cultural and historical contexts that inevitably influence human perception are necessarily components of knowledge of the Real. This means that knowledge of God and religious truth claims pertaining thereof are culturally and historically influenced; and for that reason should not be considered absolute. This is a significant aspect of Hicks argument against Christian  exclusivism, which holds that although other religions might contain partial goodness and truth,  salvation  is provided only in  Jesus  Christ, and the complete truth of God is contained only in Christianity (Hick, Christ. Theo. ). Perhaps the simplest manner in which to understand Hicks theory of pluralism of religions is to share the comparison he makes between his own understanding of religion and the Copernican view of our solar system. Before Copernicus disseminated his views of the solar centered universe, the Ptolemaic system ruled in which the stars were painted in the sky, the earth was flat, and the sun rose and set around the earth. In short, the rest of the universe existed for and was centered on our little planet. On the other hand, Copernicus asserted that the earth and other planets as well, circled the sun, which in fact, did not move, but only appeared to move due to the revolution of our planet. Copernicus introduced our world to the understanding that other planets took similar paths around the sun; while each path differed, all served the same purpose and generated the same result: every planet makes a full path around our central star, and those revolutions create day and night for each planet, just as day and night occur on earth. Although the time frames for a full trip around the sun and for a full day-night cycle, differs on a planet-by-planet basis, the concept remains constant throughout our solar system (Hick, Christ. Theo. ). Similarly, Hick draws the metaphor that the Ptolemaic view of religion would be that Christianity is the only way to true salvation and knowledge of the one true God. Ptolemaic Christianity would assert that everything exists and all of history has played out in specific patterns for the glory of the Christian God, and there is no other possibility that will lead to salvation. Hick appears as Copernicus, offering the belief that perhaps all theistic religions are focused toward the one true God, and simply take different paths to achieve the same goal (Hick, God Univ. f Faith). A speaker on religious pluralism, Keith E. Johnson, compares Hicks pluralistic theology to a tale of three blind men attempting to describe an elephant, one touching the leg, the second touching the trunk, the third feeling the elephants side. Each man describes the elephant differently, and, although each is accurate, each is convinced of their own correctness and the mistakenness of the other two. Robert Sm id  states that Hick believes that the tenets of Christianity are no longer feasible in the present age, and must be effectively lowered'. Moreover, Mark Mann notes that Hick argues that there have been people throughout history who have been exemplars of the Real (Mann). Hicks position is â€Å"not an exclusively Christian inclusivism [like that of Karl Rahner and his ‘Anonymous Christian’], but a plurality of mutually inclusive inclusivism†Ã‚  (Hick, 23). Hick contends that the diverse religious expressions (religions) are the result of diverse historically and culturally influenced responses to diverse perceptions of the Real. He states that the different religious traditions, with heir complex internal differentiations, have developed to meet the needs of the range of mentalities expressed in the different human cultures. Criticism of Hicks theory comes from many places but in essence, they offer the same major critiques. A major concern is Hicks concept of the Real. If this is the center of the universe and also unknowable, are we not just worshipping an idol when we follow the path of Christi anity, Buddhism or Islam? Another issue is Hicks Christology in which he says that the incarnation is just a myth made up by the early Church and that Jesus is not divine in any way. I can see his point from a scientific standpoint and can agree to a point. Hicks hypothesis also does not take seriously the otherness of the major religions; how can monotheistic and polytheistic or primitive and highly developed religions all be lumped together? Although there is much within the religions that are similar, some things are contradictory and Hick does not give an adequate explanation for why these things are so if there is the same God behind it all. Although Hicks model is perhaps appealing to our post-modern sensibilities that wish to condemn no one, his theory still raises too many questions for many Christians to accept it in full. The person and work of Jesus Christ is central to the Christian faith and for Hick to devalue the divinity of Jesus so much is to perhaps move Christianity away from its very core. As such, Hick offers a view that can challenge our exclusive positions but that perhaps is not much use in our debate about religious pluralism. We live in a pluralistic world with regard to religious beliefs. This is all the more evident today with globalization and greater mobility of people and ideas. This raises the question of what is the relationship between the major world religions and more specifically how Christianity relates to the other major faiths. The traditional exclusivist position is not that helpful for our discussion because it is offensive and does not take seriously the goodness in the other religions. The pluralist position, while challenging is also not that helpful because it does not take the otherness of religions seriously and it also discounts the centrality of Christ. The inclusivist position, while far from perfect offers an alternative middle ground that affirms the centrality of Christ in salvation. This position also takes the other religions seriously and can serve as an appropriate model for which to base Christian interaction with the world. This interaction can take the form of hospitality, dialogue and mission from joy both at the micro and macro level.

My Experience Essays (617 words) - ITunes, Smartphones, IOS

I want to design the worlds most advanced computer software and the way I wanna do it is my way. I believe that I will one day be the best and most advanced system out there. When I was a young boy I first learned about computers from my mom and dad. They had a old windows 98 computer and oh boy was that computer slow. When I was about 9 years old I got this dream that I was gonna create the most advanced operating system for a computer and that?s still my dream today. When I got my first computer I was 14 it was a Windows XP computer and that is when I really wanted to learn to manipulate the system to make it the way I wanted because I didn?t like they way windows operated. When I was 16 I started learning how to manipulate windows, as I was almost done learning my dad bought me an iMac and I loved the mac operating system and I have stayed Mac because Windows is so broken and hard to figure out but Mac is easy to understand and to teach to people the mechanics of the operating system. When I was 16 I was able to teach people how to use Mac OS and to customize it to there liking and whatever other things they want. I got my first iPhone and loved it, it was the best phone out in my opinion. It had the first developed apps and the first facebook app. Then android came out and I found the phone I wanted it was the HTC Droid Eris. So when my contract was up with AT&T, I got Verizon and bought the Droid and that opened up a whole new world of hacking/breaking for me. I had one of my good friends Jon Sakura teach me how to break the android software and I finally did it myself. With the break I could change colors, sounds, and a whole bunch of other things. I have come to this conclusion that android is tedious and requires a lot of work to keep the break going or the phone gets to be really slow and eventually stops working.When I was 17 I got my first iPod, I started reading about hacking/breaking the operating system on the iPod to make it yours. So I read up and practiced it and bricked (crashed the operating system which makes them useless) a couple iPods. I gave up for a while and decided that maybe computers is what I was meant to do. To me computers are the easiest thing out there, some people think cars are easy or math but to me computers are. When I was 18 I got a brand new smartphone and I couldn't wait to break the system and make it mine. I didn?t know that all the smartphone manufactures put a block on there system and made it almos t impossible to break the system. So I tried and tried and it just wouldn't work and I started breaking my way and got rid of the block completely and that is what is making me go to college is to be a programmer and find out what all goes into making a system complete and how people break them. Now Im 19 and I have my iPhone and I have officially jailbroken over 50 iPods and 23 iPhones and I will be taking my programming class and be that much closer to my degree in what I love doing. Within my friends I have been dubbed the hacker and that is now what my friends call me.