The Heroic Figure of the Frontier in The Last of the Mohicans :: essays papers

The Heroic Figure of the Frontier in The Last of the Mohicans In The Last of the Mohicans, many themes are introduced through the exploration of the frontier. As Cora, Alice and Heyward travel through the dark and dangerous forest they are surrounded by the raging war between England and France. Their unfortunate experience with Magua early in their travels ultimately leads to the introduction of Hawkeye and the Mohicans, which enlightens their minds to the differences between good and evil, civil and savage. There were many types of people in and around the colonies during this time, including the English, French, and Natives. When western expansion began, it led to the stratification of society, which separated each individual by sex, class, and race. Who set guidelines for the division of types of people? Furthermore, who was distinguished as civilized or savage? As Cora, Alice, and Heyward encounter unfamiliar races, they experience many new beliefs, and ways of life. To them anything different was considered strange and barbarous. The Mohicans think of the Hurons, or Iroquois as savage beings, incapable of normal human emotions or actions. We see this portrayed later in the novel, when the Indians attack the English troops as they leave Fort William Henry in peace. But how can Hawkeye, Chingachgook , and Uncas be thought of as civilized, if they too scalp, kill, and yell in their anger? It is shown however, that the Mohicans, demonstrate restraint, while the Iroquois were unable to control their rage. Another question is Hawkeye's position between the two classifications. He is said to be "the perfect frontier hero", and he feels at home in the forest rather than the settlements.

A poem which depicts a violent incident Essay

TASK: Choose a poem in which there is a dramatic or violent incident. Show how the poet conveys the incident using various poetic techniques. ‘Glasgow 5 March 1971’ by Scottish poet Edwin Morgan effectively conveys a violent incident which occurs on a busy street in Glasgow. The incident captured in this instamatic poem involves a violent attack on a young couple who are pushed through a shop window by thieving youths. The incident is shown vividly through various techniques such as imagery, word choice and structure. Through this poem, Morgan effectively criticises society and our reluctance to help others in need. One of the ways in which Morgan helps us understand the incident is through the use of imagery. The poem begins with a striking metaphor to describe the â€Å"ragged diamond of shattered plate-glass†. The broken glass is being compared to a diamond to help us picture the sharp, glinting edges of the window. This immediately shows how violent the incident is. He goes on to describe the man’s face as â€Å"bristling with fragments of glass†. This metaphor compared the numerous shards of glass on his face to a beard. This again highlights the pain and damage caused to the innocent â€Å"young man†. The serious nature of the injuries is also conveyed by the words â€Å"spurts of arterial blood† which creates the image of blood gushing out of the girl. Her â€Å"wet-look white coat† emphasises the amount of blood and the contrast of red blood on white which creates a strong visual image. The poem then moves on to describe the attackers using effective word choice to convey the lack of compassion shown to the victims. The incident is described as the â€Å"operation† which suggests that this is a purely business-like transaction for these people. There is no emotion. The word â€Å"loot† suggests that the youths’ only care is to grab as many valuables as possible and do it â€Å"smartly†. This highlights the impersonal, business-like manner again, showing a lack of humanity. Again this is done with â€Å"no expression† which shows no concern or care for the couple whose faces show â€Å"surprise† and â€Å"shock†. The word choice used here effectively shows the selfishness of the youths whose only care is to steal with no concern for who gets hurt in this violent incident. . Morgan achieves this by using the present tense, â€Å"a young man and his girl are falling†, â€Å"their arms are starfished†. This creates the effect of seeing the event as a picture rather than an ongoing event. The writer emphasises this with the words â€Å"sharp clear night† which relates to a camera image again. This helps the reader stand back and look at the event objectively without be involved. Morgan is trying to make the point that this is what we do in society when we see violence occurring – stand back and not get involved. This theme of society’s reluctance to help others is shown through the deliberate reference â€Å"in Sauchiehall Street†. This makes it clear that this violent incident took place on a busy street in Glasgow where lots of people would be. He goes on to refer to drivers â€Å"in the background† which again highlights the fact that people do not come forward to help the victims; they â€Å"keep their eyes on the road†. This final line effectively conveys Morgan’s attitude that people turn a blind eye to violence, most likely from fear or lack of compassion. Through presenting this ‘snapshot’ of the incident in â€Å"sharp clear† detail, it makes the reader think about what we would have done in this situation and why people failed to act. In conclusion this poem effectively conveys a violent incident on a busy Glasgow street. Edwin Morgan successfully highlights the lack of concern in our society for others. He achieved this through his instamatic technique, vivid imagery and effective word choice. These techniques helped me visualise the incident well and understand the writer’s message. The poem really made me think about how we treat one another in society as this incident is set in Glasgow in a busy street. It made me wonder if this would actually happen and if people would help or turn a blind eye.

The Require Method in Ruby

In order to create reusable components, ones that can be easily used in other programs, a programming language must have some way of smoothly importing that code at run-time. In Ruby, the require method is used to load another file and execute all its statements. This serves to import all class and method definitions in the file. In addition to simply executing all of the statements in the file, the require method also keeps track of which files have been previously required and, thus, will not require a file twice. Using the 'require' Method The require method takes the name of the file to require, as a string, as a single argument. This can either be a path to the file, such as ./lib/some_library.rb or a shortened name, such as some_library. If the argument is a path and complete filename, the require method will look there for the file. However, if the argument is a shortened name, the require method will search through a number of pre-defined directories on your system for that file. Using the shortened name is the most common way of using the require method. The following example demonstrates how to use the require statement. The file test_library.rb is in the first code block. This file prints a message and defines a new class. The second code block is the file test_program.rb. This file loads the test_library.rb file using the require method and creates a new TestClass object. puts test_library includedclass TestClassdef initializeputs TestClass object createdendend #!/usr/bin/env rubyrequire test_library.rbt TestClass.new Avoid Name Clashes When writing reusable components, its best not to declare many variables in the global scope outside any classes or methods or by using the $ prefix. This is to prevent something called namespace pollution. If you declare too many names, another program or library might declare the same name and cause a name clash. When two completely unrelated libraries start changing each others variables accidentally, things will break-- seemingly at random. This is a very difficult bug to track down and its best just to avoid it. To avoid name clashes, you can enclose everything in your library inside of a module statement. This will require people to refer to your classes and method by a fully qualified name such as MyLibrary::my_method, but its worth it since name clashes generally wont occur. For people who want to have all of your class and method names in the global scope, they can do that using the include statement. The following example repeats the previous example but encloses everything in a MyLibrary module. Two versions of my_program.rb are given; one that uses the include statement and one that does not. puts test_library includedmodule MyLibraryclass TestClassdef initializeputs TestClass object createdendendend #!/usr/bin/env rubyrequire test_library2.rbt MyLibrary::TestClass.new #!/usr/bin/env rubyrequire test_library2.rbinclude MyLibraryt TestClass.new Avoid Absolute Paths Because reusable components often get moved around, its also best not to use absolute paths in your require calls. An absolute path is a path like /home/user/code/library.rb. Youll notice that the file must be in that exact location in order to work. If the script is ever moved or your home directory ever changes, that require statement will stop working. Instead of absolute paths, its often common to create a ./lib directory in your Ruby programs directory. The ./lib directory is added to the $LOAD_PATH variable which stores the directories in which the require method searches for Ruby files. After that, if the file my_library.rb is stored in the lib directory, it can be loaded into your program with a simple require my_library statement. The following example is the same as the previous test_program.rb examples. However, it assumes the test_library.rb file is stored in the ./lib directory and loads it using the method described above. #!/usr/bin/env ruby$LOAD_PATH ./librequire test_library.rbt TestClass.new