Does the Cosby Show challenge conventional stereotypes Essay Example for Free

Does the Cosby Show challenge conventional stereotypes Essay From 1984 to 1992, The Cosby Show (starring comedian/actor/author Bill Cosby) aired on NBC television network. In the storyline , a black doctor and his family (his wife and five children) lived their everyday entertaining lives. Audiences worldwide watched daily to laugh and admire the African American family ; at the same time they began to ponder about the well-off family and what this said about the conventional black family to the world. Two models are most commonly usedâ€Å"the weak family model† and the â€Å"strong family model†, says Wynona Bryant -Williams Ph. D Director â€Å"with nothing in between. † However it was the weak family model that dominated the social sciences literature until the mid 1980s. (Williams) The Cosby’s set a high standard of the stability and lifestyle of the Black American family. A bold message to send, this also challenged the realism of American culture and how it depicted African Americans and their households. Small-time author Tiffany Frizzel had this to say: â€Å"To be perfectly honest, this show does not show typical life for the vast majority of this nations population. There are not many white children in this nation that have a doctor and a lawyer as parents so that criticism lacks substance and social research. Cosby always kept the show somewhat light-hearted and sometimes shied away from some key issues of the time period, but keep in mind that his name was on the program and everything was written as if the characters were sometimes walking on eggshells. † Apparently it was hard to accept that a black family did not have to struggle or stress. Why? Even though the family still had their household disputes and their lessons to learn , the idea that this particular family of color was doing so well was hard to take and swallow. For many observers, The Cosby Show was unique in other ways as well. For example, unlike many situation comedies, the program avoided one-liners, buffoonery and other standard tactics designed to win laughs. Instead, series writers remained true to Cosbys vision of finding humor in realistic family situations, in the minutiae of human behavior. Thus episodes generally shunned typical sitcom formulas by featuring, instead, a rather loose story structure and unpredictable pacing. Moreover, the soundtrack was sweetened with jazz, and the Huxtable home prominently featured contemporary African American art. Several observers described the result as classy. This project, of course, was not without its critics. Some observers described the show as a 1980s version of Father Knows Best, the Huxtables as a white family in blackface. The Huxtables affluence, they argued, worked to obscure persistent inequalities in Americaespecially those faced by blacks and other minority groupsand validate the myth of the American Dream. One audience study suggests that the show strikes a deal with white viewers, that it absolves them of responsibility for racial inequality in the United States in exchange for inviting the Huxtables into their living room. Meanwhile, the same study found that black viewers tend to embrace the show for its positive portrayals of blackness, but express misgivings about the Huxtables failure to regularly interact with less affluent blacks. For the black family sitting at home watching the show however; it was a revelation long anticipated. This motivated and challenged families to grow closer together. Single, married, and divorced individuals all could view their expectations for their family and their futures based on the uplifting obvious message being sent. For the African American culture , this was an epidemic that needed to expand in the mindsets of everyone else in the world. As far as â€Å"Black Americaâ€Å" was concerned; this was an illustrious thing. So what exactly is the difference between â€Å"Anticipated Black America† and â€Å"Conventional Black America†? E. Franklin Frazier’s â€Å"The Negro Family in the United† States supplied a model for the study of Blacks which emphasized family disorganization and dysfunction ,2 describing the black familys present condition of matriarchy, ineffective black males being marginal to the family, casual sex relations, and general dissolution of the black family to be caused by urbanization and the heritage of slavery. Fraziers work was used for the basis of Moynihans conclusions that identified Black matriarchal mothers as responsible for the breakdown and pathology of Black families (who, he claimed, were responsible for high rates of illegitimacy, delinquency, and unemployment)3. On national renown search engine â€Å"Yahoo. com†, when the words â€Å"negro† and â€Å"black† are entered into the search bar ; words such as unemployment, equality, broken homes, proportion, and black community are given as â€Å"helpful hints† to further specify your search criteria. This is not to say that yahoo alone is portraying this image. But it does conclude a point that this issue should very well be recognized. The mental attitude of the black family’s standards in present America are poor indeed when left up to some critics. Nonetheless, Black America is continuously upgrading and rebelling in all fields of education and occupation. Our greatest and highest recognized entertainers, scholars, preachers, political figures, and moguls are filled with African American people. Many inventions are in existence today because of African Americans. A Black figure is currently running for president of the country! The Cosby Show does not challenge Black America as much as it motivates and really disciplines the mentalities and ethics behind us. The show’s head writer ,John Marcus, had this to say regarding the co-writer and star of the show Bill Cosby: I think Bill knows that he has a power, and that he thinks of it very judiciously. He is conscientious and sensitive to the minds of people who watch the show. And he is very respectful of their intelligence, said Markus. He sees that a more powerful tool in education is to entertain and engage the audience in a delicate manner rather than to hammer home a message. We want to educate black America, but we never want to Sermonize. (1990) It was never the intention of the show nor the writers behind it to preach about high time living to the black families of America. Yet, it was extremely obvious that there was luxury behind the hard work, and it’d all came from the benefit of great education. In the series, Huxtable is a doctor married to an awfully attractive, independent minded, and intelligent woman who has become quite a successful and well established lawyer. His five children all attend school and his children eventually all attend college following after their parents, but with different career motives that they each discover throughout their development from children to young adults. The Cosby Show ’s family is fiction but based on a lifestyle that is meant to be lived and enjoyed by the Black families of America. With the right motivation and the desire to become educated and to fulfill their selves , anyone of any race could very well live a full life without much struggle. The Cosbys did not live without flaws and disappointments. But they dealt with it as a strong and confident family with the continuous support and love of each and every one of their family members. This is a message that needs to be spreaded more and more everyday. The Black family can better themselves if they can get together and make a change to better their mentalities and their environment as well. Following the Cosby’s example; the Black family can succeed. â€Å"If every parent in their community taught their children how to act and teach them the life lessons that they need to succeed. Wouldnt that as a whole help the black community, one family at a time? † This was the question asked in an online discussion about upraising of children in the black community. It begins at home. If we do not or refuse to maintain order at home, there will be none outside of our households. The Cosby Show displays for us that restrictions and rules set inside the house also better govern our black children as they are outside of the household or away from home. By laying down the law in the house, the children were not as in as much trouble as friends and classmates. This distinguished them from the other children in other families on the show as well. With rules came responsibility. According to Senior Magazine Online, as humans responsibility is given to us automatically â€Å"because we are a part of society. † It is also stated that â€Å" It is in this area that we seem to be losing our children. † The main focus within the Cosby family was, without any doubt, family. The family came first. Before work, before friends, and before the personal wants of any individual; the entire family came together and worked together to make their home the joyous place it was. It was stressed as an importance that everyone was responsible in remembering birthdays, talking to their parents about their issues, and continuously seeing that a personal (perhaps assigned) chore was completed everyday. In conclusion, the Cosby Show is due many thanks and many praises. It stands, even today, as a landmark of hope and inspiration for the Black family. Although there are many public voices that are motivating us to push forward and challenge ourselves to complete education and a fulfilling life; the Cosby Show had a powerful message that is not easily forgotten and forever appreciated. The family is the most important part of our foundation. When we look back at what helped us to grow, we should find our family. References 2008 Discussion on saving the Black Community. http://answers. yahoo. com/question/index? qid=20070209125845AAYhqrg. 4 May E. Franklin Frazier (American Sociologist). The Negro Family in the United States. 1939 Interview with Head-writer of The Cosby Show, John Marcus. http://www. medialit. org/reading_room/article344. html (1990) Jhally, Sut, and Justin Lewis. Enlightened Racism: The Cosby Show, Audiences, and the Myth of the American Dream. Boulder, Colorado: Westview, 1992. Senior Magazine Online. http://www. seniormag. com/caregiverresources/articles/caregiv Tiffany Frizzel quoted , The Internet Movie Database, http://us. imdb. com April Wynona Bryant- Williams Ph. D Director , ,http://www. blackperspective. com/pages/mag_articles/sum01_blackfamily. html erarticles/parenting/taking-reponsibility. htm

Difficult Obstacle In Learning English English Language Essay

Difficult Obstacle In Learning English English Language Essay Vocabulary is the most difficult obstacle in learning English. However, English word formation is an effective way to learn English, because it can help us to correctly identify the word form, part of speech, and to understand the meaning of the word, and to rapidly expand our vocabulary. Among them, affixation is the strongest one, and it forms the largest number of words, and it is considered to be one of the best ways to learn English. Besides, compounding, conversion, blending, clipping, acronymy, back-formation are also the efficient ways of learning English. In the paper, the ways and characteristics of word formation are analyzed in affixation, compounding and conversion. Keywords: English word formation, affixation, compounding, conversion 1. Introduction Learning a language must to learn the speech, grammar and vocabulary. In these three elements, vocabulary occupies a pivotal position. Well-known scholar Wilkins said, without grammar, very little can be conveyed, without vocabulary, nothing can be conveyed. Vocabulary scientist McCarthy said more simply, no matter how well the student learns grammar, no matter how successfully he masters the sounds of a L2, without words to express a wide range of meanings, communication in that language cannot happen in any meaningful way. So many teachers and students pay a lot attention to the vocabulary learning. And the expansion of vocabulary in modern English depends chiefly on word formation. There is a variety of means being at work now. The most productive are affixation, compounding and conversion. Talking about word-forming patterns means dealing with rules. But not all words which are produced by applying the rule are acceptable. The acceptability is gained only when the words have gain ed an institutional currency in the language. Therefore, rules only provide a constant set of models from which new words are created from day to day. Rules themselves are not fixed but undergo changes to a certain extent. For instance, affixes and compounding processes may become productive at one time or lose their productivity. By word formation processes, we concentrate on productive or on productive rules. While applying the rules, we should keep in mind that there are always exceptions. Then I will analyze the ways and characteristics of word formation in affixation, compounding and conversion. 2. Affixation Affixation is generally defined as the formation of words by adding word-forming or derivational affixes to bases. This process is also known as derivation, by which new words are derived from old or base forms. The words that are created in this way are called derivatives. According to the positions affixes occupy in words, affixation falls into two subcategories: prefixation and suffixation. Prefixation is a way of forming new words by adding prefixes to stems. Usually, prefixes do not change the word-class of the stem but only modify its meaning. Prefixes can be divided, based on their meanings, into: negative prefixes, reversative prefixes, pejorative prefixes, prefixes of degree or size, prefixes of orientation and attitude, locative prefixes, prefixes of time and order, number prefixes, conversion prefixes, miscellaneous prefixes. For instance, negative prefixes include: 1) a-, apolitical, asexual, atypical; 2) dis-, disobey, discredit, disloyal; 3) in-, il-, ir-, im-, inaudible, illegitimate, irresistible, improbable; 4) non-, non-classical, non-smoker, non-violence; 5) un-, undemocratic, unwillingly, unbuilt. Suffixation is the process of forming new words by adding suffixes to the end of stems. Suffixes have primary function being to change the word class with a slight modification of meaning. Suffixes can be divided into noun suffixes, adjective suffixes, adverb suffixes and verb suffixes. For instance, noun suffixes include: 1) denominal nouns, -eer, -er, -age, profiteer, teenager, mileage; 2) deverbal nouns, -ant, -ent, -ing, assistant, respondent, christening; 3) de-adjective nouns, -ity, -ness, productivity, youthfulness; 4) noun and adjective suffixes, -ese, -an, -ist, Chinese, Australian, Methodist. Affixation is the strongest word formation, and it forms the largest number of words, and it is considered to be one of the best ways to learn English. Linguist David Crystal said, no matter how big your vocabulary is, only you know the range of prefixes and suffixes, and you know the main limitation of using them, your vocabulary will sharp increase soon. Famous author Lord Chesterfield said, the shortest and best way of learning a language is to know the roots of it, that is, those original primitive words of which other words are formed. Etymology scientists John Kennedy said, the stem and its value are the basis of the English language. 3. Compounding Compounding or composition is a process of word formation by which two or more stems are put together to make a new word. Words formed in this way are called compounds. So a compound is a à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‹Å"lexical unit consisting of more than one base and functioning both grammatically and semantically as a single wordà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢, Quirk et al said that. Compounds can be divided into noun compounds, adjective compounds and verb compounds. For instance, noun compounds include: 1) noun+ noun: moon cake, end product; 2) noun+ verb: toothache, frostbite; 3) verb+ noun: crybaby, tell-tale; 4) adjective+ noun: deadline, blueprint; 5) noun+ verb-ing: brainwashing, air-conditioning; 6) verb-ing+ noun: cleaning lady, wading bird; 7) noun+ verb-er: stockholder, crime reporter; 8) adverb+ verb: outbreak, downfall; 9) verb+ adverb: sit-in, have-not; 10)verb-ing+ adverb: going-over, carryings-on; 11) adverb+ verb-ing: up-bringing. And compounds have noticeable characteristics, such as phonolog ical features, semantic features, grammatical features and orthographical features. 4. Conversion Conversion is the formation of new words by converting words of one class to another class, without changes in morphological structures. New words are new only in a grammatical sense. For instance, the word paper as a noun has four senses: 1) material in thin sheets made from wood or cloth, 2) a newspaper, 3) a piece of writing for specialists, and 4) wallpaper. When turned into a transitive verb, it is related only to 4) as in à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‹Å"She papered the room greenà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢. 5. Conclusion English words are difficult to learn and hard to remember, but there are internal rules can be found. If we start from word formation, we can make vocabulary learning become simple and efficient, and make it possible for the rapid expansion of vocabulary. Word formation is an efficient way and powerful weapon for English study. We should grasp the three main ways, affixation, compounding and conversion, especially for our English major students.

Thermal Energy :: essays research papers

Lab #7: Thermal Energy Heat is thermal energy being transferred from one place to another, because of temperature changes. This can take place by three processes. These three processes are known as conduction, convection, and radiation. When we place two objects with different temperatures in contact with each other, the heat from the hotter object will immediately and automatically flow to the colder object. This is known as conduction. Some objects make excellent conductors of heat while others make poor conductors of heat or excellent insulators. Silver, copper, and gold make excellent conductors of heat. Foams and plastics make good insulators of heat but make poor conductors. Last night for dinner, I made myself a grilled cheese sandwich and a bowl of tomato soup. I heated the soup faster than I cooked the sandwich so I poured the hot soup into a bowl and finished cooking the sandwich. Once I was done cooking, I gabbed the soup bowl and burned my hand. The heat from the soup made the bowl hot. This is an example of conduction.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The process of conduction between a solid surface and a moving liquid or gas is called convection. The motion of the fluid may be natural or forced. If a liquid or gas is heated, its mass per unit volume generally decreases. If the liquid or gas is in a gravitational field, the hotter, lighter fluid rises while the colder, heavier fluid sinks. For example, when water in a pan is heated from below on my stove, the liquid closest to the bottom expands and its density decreases. The hot water as a result rises to the top and some of the cooler fluid descends toward the bottom, thus setting up a circulatory motion. This is also why the heating of a room by a radiator depends less on radiation than on natural convection currents, the hot air rising upward along the wall and cooler air coming back to the radiator from the side of the bottom. Because of the tendencies of hot air to rise and of cool air to sink, radiators are positioned near the floor and air-conditioning outlets near the ceiling for maximum efficiency.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Radiation is fundamentally different from both conduction and convection in that the substances exchanging heat need not be in contact with each other. All substances emit radiant energy merely by virtue of having a positive absolute temperature.

Finding Ones Self in Jane Smiley’s Moo :: Jane Smiley Moo Essays

Finding One's Self in Jane Smiley’s Moo Finding one's self is not without turmoil. This does not pertain to only the young. It takes some people well into old age before they reach the level of ‘knowing’ who they are. An essential element of this maturation is turbulence. Periodic turbulence gives an individual the opportunity to rise above previous deficiencies of personality and provides levels of self-awareness. There are many ways that people face maturation, and many more ways in which they do or don’t face their ‘demons’. Let’s look at some of the characters in Jane Smiley’s novel, Moo. At Moo University there are plenty of examples of turmoil and growth process’. One of the ways that a person matures is through learning to accept themselves for who they are. Cecelia Sanchez is the assistant professor of foreign languages. An immigrant from Mexico, Cecelia is the first in her family to make something of herself, at least in her family’s eyes. She has done all the right things yet she feels dislocated from herself. On arriving at Moo University she experiences a feeling of displacement, as if she doesn’t belong. In her first weeks there "she would have picked a different source of dislocation." (Smiley, 16). Cecelia’s life turns upside down as she attaches herself to the chaotic world of Chairman X. She attempts to locate herself through him. She shops for "transformative items" (Smiley, 261) in an attempt to remake herself into something that Chairman X will want. It isn’t until Cecelia returns home to Los Angeles for the holidays that she feels "a fourth presence enter the room. It was her own sadness." (Smiley, 266). Cecelia tells Tim, "I come from a family who could have LIVED somewhere, but instead just ended up." (Smiley, 378). Cecelia has decided that she does not want to ‘end up’ somewhere. Her turmoil has led her to realize that she has a choice to ‘end up’ in a place of her choosing, not someone else’s. Other people find through turmoil that it is time to release the myths with which they have surrounded themselves. Chairman X and his lifelong companion, Beth, have made a life for themselves that does not fit into the myth they created many years before. They had never married because they originally believed that they must not "in order to subvert the capitalist tradition of marriage as a property relationship and the consequent intrusion of the corporation into private life.

The Dynamics of U.S. “Indian Policy”: 1830-Today :: Essays Papers

The Dynamics of U.S. â€Å"Indian Policy†: 1830-Today U.S. Indian Policy after 1830 is characterized by the strengthening of governmental paternalism primarily demonstrated by U.S. ideals of expansion and prosperity, and is only checked within the explosive political era of the American Indian movement. As a national ideology that still endures in some states to this day, paternalism assumes that native peoples are uncivilized, backward, and in need of foreign leadership and guidance. Often termed ‘cultural imperialism’, this system is inherent to promoting the economic development of a nation state despite the rights and existence of native peoples. As several paternalistic acts of the late 1800s demonstrate, the U.S. government actively sought to destroy traditional Indian values and life styles in favor of more ‘competent’, European systems of society and economic development. However, in the last 50 years, radical Indian opposition and growing political awareness has transformed U.S. Indian Policy a more eq uitable relationship between veritable governments. Today, U.S. Indian policy must account for Indian rights and sovereignty over their own lands, and maintains a growing record of Indian victories in the struggle for justice and racial equality. The purported ideology of the Removal period, as championed by Jackson and his contemporaries, was the salvation of Indian culture and lifestyle. Indeed, under the approval of the newly formed Bureau of Indian Affairs, aptly subservient to the U.S. Dept. of War, removal was advocated for the recovery of Indian heritage in the face of white culture and demands. Yet the Removal period was not the end all be all of U.S. dominance over Indian land and culture. Rather, this tearful time was merely a government tool used to further break up traditional tribal bonds and sow discord between families through co-optation and favoritism to half-whites. This underlying national intention was revealed in the 1840s period of expansion following the Removals of the 1830s. In subsequent decades, U.S. Indian relations were a product of governmental needs for stability and peace, in the midst of war and organization of this new country. Western expansion saw the conquest of the Sioux in the â€Å"fev er† for California and Oregon, and more guns and cattle poured into the west. With the Election of Polk in 1844 and his victory in the Spanish American War of 1848, the South West became US land. While the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1851 established more territory for Indian life and preservation, and more land was granted both in Kansas and Nebraska, U.

Blue Ocean Strategy Essay

Businesses are always striving to be the better contenders than their competitors. Different theories have been thrown out to see which the best one would be. The Blue Ocean Strategy theory says that companies would be better looking for ways in which they compete against themselves and that is all. W. Chan Kim and Renee Mauborgne wrote a book called â€Å"Blue Ocean Strategy†. There is a term called Red Ocean which consists of businesses are viciously fighting against each other for their place in the specific marketplace. These two authors then came up with the idea of the Blue Ocean Strategy where organizations are able to find a way to work in the marketplace that isn’t bloodied by the competition and is free of competitors. The Blue Ocean Strategy is based where a study of 150 strategic moves spanning over 30 different industries. In the book, the authors argue that leading companies will succeed not by battling competitors, but by steadily creating â€Å"blue oceans† of recognized market space ripe for growth. The strategy is the simultaneous pursuit of differentiation and low cost, with the theory behind it not to out-perform the competition in the existing industry, but to create new market space or a â€Å"blue ocean,† thereby making the competition unrelated. Toyota Motor Corporation has moved from being a process innovation to becoming a product innovator thanks to its Value Innovation Strategy. Value Innovation is the simultaneous pursuit of differentiation and low cost, creating a leap in value for both buyers and the company. Because value to buyers comes from the offering’s utility minus its price, and because value to the company is generated from the offering’s price minus its cost, value innovation is achieved only when the whole system of utility, price, and cost is aligned. A Red Ocean Strategy is a strategy which is aims to fight and beat the  competition. In this case Toyota would mainly be focusing on their competitors and what their competitors are doing and how their company would be able to be first in that specific car industry. A Red Ocean Strategy ultimately leads to an organization choosing to follow one of two strategies – differentiation or low cost. Whichever is chosen the organization must align all activities with one of these strategic directions. Companies try to outperform their rivals to grab a greater share of existing demand, usually through marginal changes in offering level and price. As the market space gets crowded, prospects for profits and growth are reduced. Products become commodities, and cut-throat competition turns the red ocean bloody. No matter what decision a company makes there will still be competition for business. Now a day no matter what industry you are in there will always be strong competition. For the industry that I am in there so much competition and so many companies that do the same thing. Although we clearly want all the business that just does not happen. Even though our industry is so large everyone knows each other where we are able to co-market and help each other out. A good friend of mine is a competitor of my company, he has been in the industry way longer than I have and he told me that he would love to help me out. One of the things that he told me was I will help out and there will always be insurance agents that will use different people but as long as we stay on the rotation list then it is all good. It is important for me to gain the relationships and really keep my names and face out there that way clients will know me and eventually I can get a good job out of it. If you stay competitive and not bite the heads off of your competitors you should be ok that way everything stays clean and not messy.

London Analysis by William Blake

London by William Blake A poem which makes a social or political statement is London by William Blake. Blake’s poem is about the social problems, inequalities and Injustice that arose due to the industrial revolution. In London, William Blake brings to light a city that was overrun by poverty and hardship. Blake discards the glorifying view of London. He believes that London is nothing more than a city suffocated by a harsh economy, where Royalty and the church have allowed morality and goodness to deteriorate so that suffering and poverty are all that exist.Blake wrote the poem in 1792 and it was published in 1794 as part of ‘Songs of Experience’. The collection of poems were written to illustrate the negative effects of life on people and nature. The poems highlighted the dangerous industrial conditions, child labour, prostitution, capitalism and mass poverty which were rife during the industrial revolution. The experience poems were written in contrast to †˜The songs of innocence’ poems which Blake wrote with a more positive tone to convey the goodness of humanity, innocence of childhood, love and nature.Blake lived and worked in the capital, so he was arguably well placed to write accurately about the conditions people who lived there faced. . It wasn’t until after his death in 1827 that his work was given recognition, so his life was blighted by poverty. He felt an affiliation with the proletariat and loathed inequality. Throughout this poem Blake uses a range of different poetic techniques to convey the inequalities and unjust treatment of the poorer classes. This gives the reader a stronger understanding overall.The poem is written in the first person. The structure is broken down into four stanzas and is written in mostly iambic tertrameter (It’s so called tetrameter as each stanza has four feet or lines). The third and fourth stanzas use both iambic and trochaic meter. In the first two line of the first sta nza Blake uses repetition â€Å"I wandered thro’ each charter’d street, Near where the charter’d Thames does flow† This scansion serves to reinforce the theme of the whole poem.The word chartered is used ironically to imply ownership, early capitalism and control of trade. The wealth it’s creating in the upper classes and therefore the class divide and poverty that’s been caused as a by-product. Blake writes of the river being charter’d, thus saying even a river that’s meant to be natural and free flowing is controlled. To compare Blake’s use of the word Chartered. His friend Thomas Paine had stated in his book Rights of Man the year before, â€Å"It is a perversion of terms to say, that a charter gives rights.It operates by a contrary effect that of taking rights away†. Blake goes onto say â€Å"And mark in every face I meet, marks of weakness, marks of woe† The repetition of â€Å"marks† emphasizes the visible signs of sickness, misery and suffering experienced by most. Everyone was on the same boat. The literary conventions in the first stanza set the tone for the political and social oppression and strengthens ones understanding. In the second stanza Blake tells the reader what he can hear on the oppressed streets of London. in every cry of every Man, In every infants cry of fear, In every voice: in every ban, The mind- forg’d manacles I hear† Again the repetition and rhythm of ‘every’ reinforces the anger and oppression, everybody’s affected. Even the infant, born into a life of poverty and oppression feels the suffering. In line three ban could refer to every area or it could be used to describe prohibition. In 1789 shortly before the poem was written the French Revolted and used violence and murder to overthrow the aristocracy and those in power.As a throwback Britain’s government grew nervous and restricted freedom of speech. They were worried the British would revolt due to the social and political inequalities felt by most at the time. The mind-for’d manacles is a metaphor for how impoverished people were and how they had no future to look forward to, no escape. People’s thoughts were shackled, perhaps due to the restriction on freedom of speech. The reader understands through the word ‘I’ in line four of the second stanza that Blake was not a distant observer but he was suffering himself.This further enhances ones understanding. In the third stanza. Blake uses an acrostic anagram on the first letter of every line to spell out the word hear. This is to echo the importance and signiificance of what he heard on the streets in the second stanza. He talks of the chimney sweepers cry, in those days children were used to do this job as their tiny frames were able to fit up the chimneys. It was a dangerous job and often resulted in serious death or injury. â€Å"Every black’ning Church appals, and the hopeless Soldiers sigh, Runs in blood down palace walls†.Blackening was used as a metaphor for the smoke coming from the industrialised chimneys staining the church’s walls or metaphorically tarnishing the church’s reputation. Blake is literally wondering what the church is doing to help the impoverished. He believes the church should be using its force for good however he is disillusioned and sees it as a negative power that’s capitalising on child labour and the means of production. The monarchy is controlling all the wealth and cushioning itself with luxuries. All the while men and families are dying with hunger and through industrialised disease.The monarchy like the church are doing nothing to help mankind so the blood of the oppressed is on their hands and metaphorically running down the palace walls. This particular stanza is prominent as it alerts the reader to the oppressive institutions that stand to perpetuate the injusti ce. In the fourth and final stanza. Blake tells the reader that there’s worse to come by using the word ‘But’ as the first word on the first line. â€Å"But most thro’ midnight streets I hear How the youthful Harlot’s curse Blasts the new- born infants tear And blights with plague the marriage hearse†.This is a metaphor which is used to describe how prostitution and venereal disease were prevalent at this time. The harlot is a young victim. She has been robbed of the chance to love her baby, because the baby is the result of means and capitalism through the prostitute’s trade. The prostitutes curse or venereal disease has infected the aristocratic men she copulates with, thus infecting their wives and ripping marriage apart through death and infection. The metaphor and oxymoron â€Å"marriage hearse† is so haunting.With the word marriage the reader imagines a blossoming union between two lovers but hearse lambasts that notion co mpletely with the reader imagining death and suffering. By attacking the institution of marriage and family. One believes that nobody was immune to this downtrodden capitalist society; even the bourgeoisie! It’s a devastating portrait of a society in which all souls and bodies were trapped, exploited and infected. Throughout this poem Blake has successfully conveyed his anger at the institutions he believed should have been in place to help.He has hammered home the notions of inequality and unjust suffering due to the control and ownership of the means of production by the ruling classes. Through the different poetic techniques and structure of the poem one has an enriched understanding and can truly imagine how hard life was during these times. Reference Paine Thomas, The Rights of Man 1791, published by Dover thrift edition, Feb 2000 Various, The Nation’s favourite Poets, BBC worldwide Limited 1996 http://en. wikipedia. org/wiki/London_(poem) http://anglisztika. ektf . hu/new/content/tudomany/ejes/ejesdokumentumok/2007/Racz_2007. pdf