Comparative Analysis of the Literary Work, Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov and the Artistic Works of Balthasar Klossowski de Rola, Better Known as Balthus Essays

Comparative Analysis of the Literary Work, Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov and the Artistic Works of Balthasar Klossowski de Rola, Better Known as Balthus Essays Comparative Analysis of the Literary Work, Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov and the Artistic Works of Balthasar Klossowski de Rola, Better Known as Balthus Paper Comparative Analysis of the Literary Work, Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov and the Artistic Works of Balthasar Klossowski de Rola, Better Known as Balthus Paper Essay Topic: Lolita Comparative Analysis of the Literary work, Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov and the Artistic Works of Balthasar Klossowski de Rola, Better Known as Balthus Lolita is written as a memoir in the first person by its main character, Humbert Humbert. This is a story that could be viewed in two very different ways, two very different perspectives. One could look at it as a story of a middle age pedophile as evidenced by the quote â€Å"Humbert Humbert is without question an honest-to-God, open-and-shut sexual deviant, displaying classic ruthlessness, guile and above all attention to detail. And the other, of a middle aged man in anguish over his love for a prepubescent girl, a forbidden love. â€Å"Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Lo-lee-ta: the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth. Lo. Lee. Ta. She was Lo, plain Lo, in the morning, standing four feet ten in one sock. She was Lola in sl acks. She was Dolly at school. She was Dolores on the dotted line. But in my arms she was always Lolita. â€Å" I chose to view this work as the later. To me it showed a middle aged man trapped in a moral dilemma. A statement from the first page of the book best says how I feel about the story. â€Å"Lolita is not about sex, but about love. Almost every page sets forth some explicit, erotic emotion or some erotic action and still it is not about sex. It is love†. Nabokov started writing Lolita in 1949 and finished in 1954. When he finished his work he had a hard time getting it published. Publishers were nervous about printing a book supposedly narrated by a pedophile. Four American publishers turned him down before he was finally able to get it published by Olympia Press of Paris and in 1958 in America. Controversy over the book only increased its readership and sales rose. To understand this controversy you need to understand the story and further understand why I considered it to be more of a tragic love interest rather than the perceived pornographic pedophile story thought of by others. The story starts out with a boyhood Humbert having his first taste of a love affair with the love of his young life, Annabel. They laugh, sneak around and display affection like young lovers do, but after three months Annabel dies of typhus and leaves a broken hearted Humbert. Though Humbert experiences relationships throughout his adult life he always feels hollow, like something is missing. Though he grows in age he still yearns for his young love. Humbert takes to fantasizing about young girls and goes as far as sitting in parks just to view the girls to get a glance of a â€Å"nymphet†. Humbert didn’t just want any young girl; she had to have certain traits that made her a â€Å"nymphet†, his â€Å"nymphet†. His criterion was a girl between nine and fourteen but as he states in his memoirs â€Å"Between those ages, are all girls nymphets? Of course not. Otherwise we, who are in the know, we lone voyagers, we nympholepts, would long have gone insane. Neither are good looks any criterion. A true nymphet is strikingly inferior to that of provisionally plain, just nice or â€Å"cute† or even â€Å"sweet â€Å"or attractive little girl. You have to be an artist, and a madman, a creature of infinite melancholy, with a bubble of hot poison in your loins in order to discern at once, by ineffable signs the little deadly demon that I deem a nymphet. † Humbert marries and tries to suppress his desire; he becomes bored with his married life and in the same time frame discovers his wife is having an affair. This leads him to divorce her and leave Paris and move to America. Once there, while looking for a place to stay he visits a home with a room to rent, the Haze home. While looking over the house Humbert is not impressed and is looking for a way to leave but during his tour of the house spots Dolores Haze, Lo, Lola, Lolita, the 12 year old daughter of the home owner, Charlotte Haze, Big Haze. He is struck; she is the nymphet that he has been searching for. Humbert agrees to rent the room, to be near his nymphet. Humbert proceeds to try to win Lo’s affection while Lo’s mother wishes to win Humberts’ affection. He ends up marrying â€Å"Big Haze†, Lo’s mother to get near her. Big Haze dies in a tragic accident soon after their wedding. This sets the stage for Humberts seduction of Lo. He ends up with his nymphet, losing her to a rival, killing the rival and dieing in jail. Ironically Lo dies soon afterward giving birth to a child. As you can see, this is more of a story of intense love rather than that of a pedophile. The situation Nobokov faced after writing Lolita is very much similar to that faced by the polish painter Balthasar Klossowski de Rola, better known as Balthus. Balthus had a difficult time getting his paintings displayed in his early days. His paintings were viewed as pornographic, almost taboo. They often depicted pubescent young girls in erotic and voyeuristic poses. He was best known for his disturbing and erotic works of girls on the verge of womanhood. One of the most notorious works from his first exhibition in Paris was The Guitar Lesson (1934), which caused controversy due to its depiction of a sexually explicit lesbian scene featuring a young girl and her teacher. As you can imagine the Guitar Lesson caused quite a controversy when it was first released. Balthus painted many pictures of young girls, most in provocative poses and situations. Balthus’ obsession with young girls parallels that of the early Humbert Humberts with the exception that he seemed to desire multiple girls and Humbert only wanted his nymphet, his Lolita. Other Balthus works that seem to parallel the plot of Lolita and the exploitation of young girls are The Golden Days, which seems to show a topless young girl sitting in a chair while her older lover seems to be building a fire in the fire place in preparation of a romantic night. One could almost envision this scene coming right out of the book. The other painting that puts you in mind of book and its controversial content is pictured here. I couldn’t locate the name but you can clearly see the relationship of this Balthus painting to the character Quilty, Humberts rival for Lo’s affection. This looks as though it were taken right out of the text, displaying Quilty and the semi nude Lo. Other samples of Balthus’ works are shown on the following page. Notice the young girls in various stages of undress, a reoccurring theme. The tie between the book and especially Humbert and the works of Balthus are very strong and if the book were in need of illustration, I’m sure Balthus would have did an excellent job as its illustrator and would have thoroughly enjoyed the job. So you would ask yourself, â€Å"Is Balthus the outstanding preserver of tradition or a mediocre painter who is only remarkable for sexual perversion and snobbery? Do his typical paintings of little girls testify to desires beyond the area of taboo or are they untouchable archetypes of purity? Balthus, who had staged his life, partly constructed his vita and surrounded himself with an aura of mystery, leaves art lovers and historians with a lot of riddles to solve. †

Francium Facts (Atomic Number 87 or Fr)

Francium Facts (Atomic Number 87 or Fr) Francium is a highly radioactive alkali metal with the atomic number 87 and element symbol Fr. Although it occurs naturally, it decays so quickly its very rare. In fact, scientists have never had a large enough sample of francium to know what it actually looks like! Learn about the chemical and physical properties of francium and what its used for. Francium Basic Facts Atomic Number: 87 Symbol: Fr Atomic Weight: 223.0197 Discovery: Discovered in 1939 by Marguerite Perey of the Curie Institute, Paris (France), francium was the last natural element to be discovered (others are synthetic). Electron Configuration: [Rn] 7s1 Word Origin: Named for France, the home country of its discoverer. Isotopes: There are 33 known isotopes of francium. The longest-lived is Fr-223, a daughter of Ac-227, with a half-life of 22 minutes. This is the only naturally-occurring isotope of francium. Francium rapidly decays into astatine, radium, and radon. Properties: The melting point of francium is 27 Â °C, its boiling point is 677 Â °C, and its valence is 1. It is the second-least electronegative element, following cesium. It is the second rarest natural element, following astatine. Francium is the heaviest known member of the alkali metals series. It has the highest equivalent weight of any element and is the most unstable of the first 101 elements of the periodic system. All known isotopes of francium are highly unstable, so knowledge of the chemical properties of this element comes from radiochemical techniques. No weighable quantity of the element has ever been prepared or isolated. To date, the largest sample of francium consisted of only about 300,000 atoms. The chemical properties of francium most closely resemble those of cesium. Appearance: It is possible that francium may be a liquid rather than a solid at room temperature and pressure. Its expected the element would be a shiny metal in its pure state, like the other alkali metals, and that it would readily oxidize in air and react (very) vigorously with water. Uses: Francium is so rare and decays so quickly, it doesnt have any commercial applications. The element is used for research. It has been used in spectroscopy experiments to learn about coupling constants between subatomic particles and energy levels. Its possible the element may find application in diagnostic tests for cancer. Sources: Francium occurs as a result of an alpha disintegration of actinium. It can be produced by artificially bombarding thorium with protons. It occurs naturally in uranium minerals but there is probably less than an ounce of francium at any time in the total crust of the earth. Element Classification: Alkali Metal Francium Physical Data Melting Point (K): 300 Boiling Point (K): 950 Ionic Radius: 180 (1e) Fusion Heat (kJ/mol): 15.7 First Ionizing Energy (kJ/mol): ~375 Oxidation States: 1 Lattice Structure: Body-Centered Cubic Return to the Periodic Table Sources Bonchev, Danail; Kamenska, Verginia (1981). Predicting the Properties of the 113–120 Transactinide Elements. Journal of Physical Chemistry. American Chemical Society. 85 (9): 1177–1186. doi:10.1021/j150609a021Considine, Glenn D., ed. (2005). Francium, in Van Nostrands Encyclopedia of Chemistry. New York: Wiley-Interscience. p. 679. ISBN 0-471-61525-0.Emsley, John (2001). Natures Building Blocks. Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp. 151–153. ISBN 0-19-850341-5.Lide, David R., ed. (2006). CRC Handbook of Chemistry and Physics. 11. CRC. pp. 180–181. ISBN 0-8493-0487-3.

Week 5 Discuss 2 Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Week 5 Discuss 2 - Essay Example Violence is defined as doing harm to an individual, whether mental or physical. Thus, from this definition, bullying is regarded as a form of violence (Bullying Statistics, 2009). Violence is against the law, and bullying is not considered as a form of violence unless it involves an attack. Majority of people see bullying as an unacceptable form of behavior while bullying is seen as a normal part of life (Boyle, 2011). The Second Amendment gives the right to bear arms, and it is completely binding on the states. Therefore, it limits their capability to create solutions to social issues that suit local values and needs (Stohr, 2010). The basis for the Supreme Court’s decision is on the Fourteenth Amendment, which transforms the meaning of the Second Amendment. They argue that the Framers of the Reconstruction Amendment â€Å"intended the phrase â€Å"privileges and immunities of citizens of the United States† to include the right to keep and bear arms, which was thus explicitly placed beyond â€Å"abridgement† by the states† (Merkel and Uviller, 2002, p14). Thus, the Second Amendment is binding on the states. The Amendment has influenced gun control and gun ownership concerning who has the right to bear and keep arms. The topic has brought intense debate with some opposing and others supporting the decision made by the Supreme Court. Stohr, G. (2010, June 29). States must honor gun rights, U.S. High Court says. Bloomberg. Retrieved from

Who Killed Palomino Molero by Mario Vargas Llosa Essay

Who Killed Palomino Molero by Mario Vargas Llosa - Essay Example But the relatively sophisticated Silva is not so quick to jump to conclusions. "Nothing's easy, Lituma," he says. "The truths that seem most truthful, if you look at them from all sides, if you look at them close up, turn out either to be half truths or lies" (86)1. Vargas Llosa, playing on the normal expectations of readers of detective fiction, produces a plot that is surprising for the very reason that it contains no surprises. Yet he simultaneously undermines the expectations of postmodernist readers by keeping his detective story plot on track right through to the end. Who Killed Palomino Molero derives a great deal of its energy from metareading effects similar to those so important in Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter. The text can be read by typical "unsophisticated" fans of detective fiction as an ordinary detective story. The ending of Vargas Llosa's subplot is thus very much like the ending of the detective plots. Silva himself makes the parallel between the plots quite clear: "I've made a vow," he declares early in the book. "I won't die until I screw that fat bitch and until I find out who killed Palomino Molero" (58). 2 The Foucauldian link between sex and epistemology suggested in Who Killed Palomino Molero indicates that these two roles are not all that different.

Project Management Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words - 2

Project Management - Essay Example Microsoft Project is one of the most widely used tools for Project Management as well as for Work breakdown structure. However, there are other alternate software available as well that could facilitate the project managers in managing the project. This report discusses about the use of alternate Project Management software, Project Libre. Project Libre has been one of the most downloaded project management tools in different countries. The software is used in a number of geographic locations as presented in the image below: (Project Libre a, 2013) With 99,770 downloads of the software, this software was one of the most used project management software (Project Libre a, 2013). Therefore this software has been selected in order to compare against Microsoft Project. Project Libre is alternate software to Microsoft Project. Project Libre can also breakdown the project into smaller tasks just like Microsoft Project. Project Libre has also been awarded "Best of Open Source" or BOSSIE awar d by InfoWorld (Project Libre b, 2013). Thus, this confirms the quality of the software and how helpful the software has been around the world particularly for project managers. This report uses the software Project Libre and then a comparison has been presented using the two tools, Microsoft Project and Project Libre. Evaluation of the techniques used have also been presented in this report for the project Enterprise Rent-A-Car. MICROSOFT PROJECT MANAGEMENT TOOLS USED In order to accomplish the project of ‘Enterprise Rent-A-Car’, the project management team has divided the overall project into following smaller tasks. By dividing the smaller tasks, the project management team can better manage the project and make sure that each of the tasks is handled well. By doing so, it will allow the project management team to make sure that the project is completed within the time. The following table shows the activities that are to be completed for this project of Enterprise Re nt-A-Car along with their duration and their predecessors: No. Task Days Predecessor 1 TM Team Development 1 week 2 E-learning Software Purchase 2 weeks 3 E-learning Courses Design 2 weeks 2 4 Hacks Portal 4 weeks 5 Portal Content Set Up 2 weeks 4 6 Trainer Contract 4 weeks 7 TL Training 16 weeks 6 8 Current Training Evaluation 8 weeks 9 Retraining (Current Staff) 16 weeks 7;8 10 PBL Evaluation 8 weeks 9 11 Training (New Trainees) 26 weeks 7 The above tasks are used on two different software; Microsoft Project and Project Libre. The techniques for both the software are evaluated and discussed. Gantt Chart Using Project Libre and Microsoft Project Gantt chart is used to present the tasks of the project along with the starting date and the ending date of that particular task (Cleland, and Gareis, 2006). Modern Gantt chart has started to include the predecessor as well that shows the dependency of that particular task. This allows the project manager to identify the starting as well as the ending date of each task and thus the project can be analyzed. Both the software Microsoft Project as well as Project Libre allow the users to create the Gantt Chart. Project Libre has a similar style and user experience than Microsoft Project. Both the software when starts show a tabular form along with the space for Gantt Chart. As activities or tasks are added in the tabular form, the Gantt chart starts to fill up. As all the information about the activities are added, the Gantt chart

The Cape by kenji nakajami Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

The Cape by kenji nakajami - Essay Example These people lived in isolated places outside the main city. The works usually given to burakumins are lowly jobs such as slaughter jobs, tanners, construction workers and butchers. Because of the discrimination, prevalent social and gender issues were noticeable. People engage in vices such as drinking, smoking and sex. Engaging in incest relationships also occur because they live in extended families. Violence was also prevalent. The protagonist tended to escape the harsh reality of life even though the surrounding characters and environment pull him down. He did not know much about his father but he did now want to live the way his father did. As he struggled more towards improvement of his life, the more he became down and much like his father. He slept with his half sister who was a whore. He was engaged in sex, drugs and alcohol. All vices were extensively depicted in the novel. All diseases of the society are undeniably seen in the novel as the characters live in isolation and discrimination is unstoppable. Living in isolation is really a great discrimination since all men are created equal but prejudices in life hinder the equality for all. The burakumins live in their ghetto and do not even have much access to the society unlike ordinary citizens have. They are seen as dirty and lowly jobs are for them. Few of them have reached high school level but the majority were not able to finish elementary education. Why is it that the discrimination has been inherited from their ancestors? Feudal era had been long gone but the discrimination and generalization regarding the image of burakumins still lived on. It is like the isolation of people with a dreaded disease like leprosy in other countries in the ancient times. Maybe, the discriminated people are not as isolated as the lepers but the treatment that the burakumins receive is very poor. In response to the discrimination, burakumins are not able to improve their lives; their environment exhibits much of th e social evils as most people would describe them. They do not live in extravagant homes but in simple houses grouped together separated from the rest of the society. Some may have honest jobs but the pay is not sufficient for their needs. Despite the poverty striking their neighborhood, they still have time for vices and the bad habits are unstoppable. The remaining money is spent on gambling, alcohol, sex and drugs and there is no hope for them to improve their lives. They use the vices as scapegoats for their problems. They tend to â€Å"cure† themselves by indulging into more alcohol, drugs and even crimes later on. It seems that the government neglected the minority of the population. These people are citizens in any case and should be entitled to all of the benefits a citizen enjoys. They should have better livelihood to sustain and support themselves. Great rehabilitation must be done for the members who are addicted to vices and reduce crimes by free access to higher education. They should be able to start again and forget about the dark past. It is not that important if their past was filled with violence and so-called â€Å"social evil† as long as they are willing to change for the better. The novel shows that sex had became part of the lifestyle of the people living in ghettos because they are desperate to earn a living. Even if the job is dirty, they will do it. Since the income is not enough, they quarrel over money and the family relationships are at stake. Brothers, sisters and in-laws

American post civil war (1861 - 1865)poet Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

American post civil war (1861 - 1865)poet - Essay Example on the market in the fifties rather than to, say, Equanil or Valium, gains ominous proportions when put in the perspective of a canvas which makes Lowell see the sun as a feared savage and the white magnolia blossoms as "murderous". True the metaphors are localised and the "rising sun" is symptomatic of the jaundiced imagination of the poet who fears passion and vitality, very much like an Indian savage in "war paint" who "dyes us red.† But what is more important than the intensifying death-in-life existence of the couple as explained by the pun on "dyes", is the association of this feeling of death with the word Miltown in the beginning of the poem. It is now that the word Miltown no longer remains a torment, but goes onto metonymically suggest such terms as Mill town, mill stone, and small town. It becomes an emblem of the space of doubt, of frustration, of angst that loomed large over the American population at a time when the first effects of a looming Cold War was being fe lt. The poets state of anxiety is thus immediately seen as true representation of a larger American dilemma, of a crisis that occurs in Small Town or Any Town in the United States. The image of neurotic fracture is intensified in the second half of the line and the dislocation of humankind is aptly shown in the image of the nuptial bed that has been replaced by "Mothers bed". Lowell seems to imply that this voice of degeneration, of aridity, of being a dislocated whole, is so alike the husband and wife, locked in a social charter called marriage and continuing to feel consummated, exhausted and dead in the relationship. He feels that these shadow lines can only grow larger until of course the marriage falls apart. In a way, the poem, trying to show the failure of the relationship, is an attempt to question the so-called Christian idea of family and happiness. It seems to make a mockery of the Christian values in a world where Miltown, the tranquilliser rules, and a space where, Miltown the