Herodotus Essays (294 words) - Herodotus, Histories, David Grene

Herodotus Herodotus Essay Herodotus of Halicarnassus was born about 484 B.C. he died 60 years later. For the time he lived in this age was very old though by todays standards it is not. The reason why his age was so outstanding was in his time the average man live for maybe half that because of the harsh living conditions. So with out even any of his writings of thoughts he would standout as a above average man for his time. But his age was not all that was amazing about him. In his life Herodotus traveled a lot. Some of the places he traveled to were southern Italy, Lower Egypt, and the Caucasus. This land was in his time much of the known world, which we now call the ancient known world. I feel and so do some scholars that this is why his writings and theories were so good. With his knowledge of the world around him he had a wider view on what was going on then most of the people of that time. So now we know that he was an old traveler but what else? His great History, which was the first major prose work in world literature. This was his view of his world during the Persian wars. When University of Chicago scholar David Grene translated this book it won Herodotus the title of The Father of History in ancient times. In his book he not only uses what he saw going on around him on his long walks but he told of the feelings that were inside of him. Herodotus was a very old man (by his standers) that loved to travel and write or just the plain old Father of History. History Essays

Friendship Essay Samples Essay Example

Friendship Essay Samples Essay Example Friendship Essay Samples Essay Friendship Essay Samples Essay How I met my best friend It was a hot Sunday afternoon and I decided to take a stroll to the park to stretch my legs. I was so tired after a whole morning of playing video games in my living room. On this particular day, the park seemed to be a bit deserted. Just a few kids playing with their kites and a lone dancer entertaining a young couple who seemed less interested in his acts. It is at that time I saw her! Sitting under a short well-trimmed bush was the most beautiful girl I had ever seen. Her long golden hair was hanging down her neck, and it kept getting in the way of her golden glasses. She was holding a small book, and it seemed she was buried to the neck in the contents of the book. I walked towards her and gently leaned forward to have a closer look at what she reading. A little startled she looked up and saw me smiling down on her extending my hand for a greeting. As if not able to clearly see my face because of the glaring sunlight, she tilted her spectacles slightly down her nose and said hi Friendship Goals It was one of those days that you feel the whole universe is against you somehow. I had woken up late and missed the bus, which meant I would get late for the final exam. Well, I did get late, but that is beside the point. After the exam, I was feeling so forlorn, and the fact that it was raining was not helping either. A few hours later, I was seated in a restaurant crying my eyes out. I had just been robbed and my phone, purse and laptop were lost. I was at my lowest point. I was trying not to attract attention to myself by looking out the window where no one really cared. This lady barely a year older than myself passes by, catches a glimpse of my teary eyes, turns around and walks into the restaurant. All the while I was saying a silent prayer that she does not walk up to me. Well, she did anyway. Without saying a word, she handed me a paper towel, sat down and said, I will still be here when you are ready to talk. It is now five years later, and I do not know what drove her to do what she did. It does not matter anyway, because after knowing her, I have a pretty good idea. My classmate essay : My life may not be too long. One may not say it is too short either. Throughout the time that I have lived, I had many memories. Some are best described as happy and enjoyable much as I also have distressful memories. Importantly though, many of the memories have been an important lesson to me. In any case, events leading to any memories must be significant in ones life. An event would never be remembered unless it caused a significant impact in ones life. Lessons learnt from memorable events often stick in the mind. Today, I have one of the best memories during one of the days in elementary school. I was only ten years attending elementary school in the United States. Throughout my life, I have always found breaks important especially if there is a snack or some meal. This made the lunch break one of my favorite breaks during my year in the elementary level. In addition, my granny was prepared a delicious sandwich and I would always look ahead at having it. Occasionally, we sat together in a group of friends and shared our food. We would then play games such as tether-ball and capture the flag, which made the lunch break more interesting. Moments spent eating and playing with these friends formed the foundation for our strong friendship today. In a period of three years, we formed a strong cycle of genuine friends. I never realized that childhood friends would last that long until lately when I recalled the things we did together. We continued to have lunch. We would still play games during and after lunch, which seems to have strengthened the bond further. Many people believe that dinning together helps to establish a close and tight bond between members. From a personal experience, this happened and helped me in making lifetime friends from childhood. Teachers knew my circle of friends. They encouraged extend the same friendship in studies. We would discuss and work on assignments together, which helped to improve our performance. In this group was John, a talkative kid, who was always making us laugh almost all the time. I would always hush him when he went too far. He would always make this annoying face whenever I did it. I would always make a joke out of his funny face to calm him down. We grew fond of each other and even started visiting each other at our homes. This friendship was pronounced and parents knew about, and encouraged it. The bond grew stronger and we even went for holidays together. Until now, even though we have families of our own, we still chat and have family meetings and holidays together. How I met my best friend essay It happened about 17 years ago. I was in the 2nd grade, and I happened to spend a lot of time in class talking to the guy who sat next to me. Obviously, the teachers were not pleased. One day, out of frustration, the teacher-in-charge of the class requested me to switch places with one of the students in the front row, next to a quiet and polite little kid. Immediately when I sat next to the kid, the very first thing I noticed was how beautiful and clean his handwriting was. To this day, I think he has the best handwriting I have seen. From then we spent some few years sitting close to one another at school until we switched streams to go to different colleges and then to various universities. But throughout all the years, we have spent hours and hours talking about seemingly irrelevant topics, none of which has been about a person, never have we gossiped. We solved crosses, cycled back from school together, spent every some holidays at each others place playing chase, Play Station g ames soccer and even football. There is no limit to how much I have learned from him. We have had many friends who have come and gone. Some stuck by our side. This one just happens to stick with me. I still find him attractive. Up to date, we still share the same enthusiasm always solving crosswords like young school boys, and discussing the answers online. He even calls me up in the middle of the night just to explain why Jupiter has the highest amount of helium in the atmosphere, of all planets. I dont see why that should change. Interestingly, his name means love and happiness.

Social and economic impacts on health care in present day related to Coursework

Social and economic impacts on health care in present day related to budget - Coursework Example Inadequate funds also lead to inadequate drugs to administer to their patients. A society will eventually have an inadequate health care thus leading to loss of lives to people who played vital roles in boosting the state’s GDP either directly or indirectly. Budgetary cut hinders health organization from expansion. A health institution might not be able to improve its structures or have more branches due to lack of enough funds. It also discourages innovation, since there will be no sufficient funds to support any project such as offering ambulance services to both its incoming and outgoing patients (Wang, 2006). Lastly, budgetary cut lowers morale of health workers. There will be no funds to employ new health workers despite the increasing rate of patients. It forces the old health workers to work extra hours in regardless of compensation. Health workers experience salary cut-off or even payment delays since some urgent projects needed immediate funding that took time to bring back the income (Khan & Hildreth, 2002). In summary, every state should put more emphasis on sensitive sectors that often require more funds during budgetary allocation despite the budget

Michael Eisner's Walt Disney company Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Michael Eisner's Walt Disney company - Essay Example Based on his interest in cartoons, Walt entered into a partnership to form â€Å"Iwerks-Disney Commercial Artists,† an initiative that made Disney develop an interest in the work of animation. To advance in his new career, Walt decided to borrow a camera from an advertising company, which encouraged him do develop further interest in Animation. Based on this drive, he managed to create the â€Å"Laugh-O-Gram Studios.† As his interest advanced in the field of animation, he opted to establish his firm after forming an agreement with Frank Newman to play the cartoons that Disney made in his theatre (Wasko, 2013). Initially, â€Å"Laugh-O-Gram Studios† became relatively big before going bankrupt in Kansas City. A mouse, Mickey, inspired â€Å"Oswald† creation later on. This resulted in the phrase â€Å"It All Started with a Mouse.† However, after Disney lost the rights he had in â€Å"Oswald,† he embarked on the road to creating his unique character, the â€Å"Mickey Mouse.† During this time, Technicolor was taking shape in the industry, making it possible for Walt to introduce additional characters in his work. He won an award in 1932 after Mickey emerged as the most common cartoon in the animation history (Wasko, 2013). Driven by the urge to create a full film, Disney initiated working on â€Å"Snow White† in 1934. He accomplished this initiative in 1937. This emerged as one of the highly successful film for 1938, which fetched more than $8 million for the company. Presently, this figure is equivalent to $132,671,390. After the success of â€Å"Snow White,† Disney embarked on a path to create Fantasia and Pinocchio. With the growth of Disney, Walt went to Hollywood and established the Walt Disney Studio before it went into debt. Here, although movies would not be considered as financially successful in the case of Disney, they had some degree of popularity (Wasko, 2013). Furthermore, during the World War II era, Disney was

Democracy in Nigeria Challenges

Democracy in Nigeria Challenges NIGERIAN DEMOCRACY TODAY: THE EXPECTED DIVIDENDS AND CHALLENGES BY FRANKLINS A . SANUBI, Ph.D Abstract After a long period of military interregnum, the anxiety and high expectations which characterized the disposition of the local Nigerian polity shortly before 1999 had almost waned in barely a decade of the country’s democratic experiment due to bad and corrupt governance resulting in some fresh pessimism about the workability of democratic governmentt in the country These expectations which have been encapsulated into a new paradigm in Nigerian politics known as â€Å"dividends of democracy† have aroused some academic and policy concern about the claims of those who professed to have secured some â€Å"dividends† for their people and those who believed that such acclaimed dividends are a ruse. Using a structural-functional analytical framework in a descriptive research design, this paper presents some of the relevant arguments for and against the claim to the dividends of democracy in Nigeria, pointing out some of its key challenges. It observes among others, th at while the claim to attaining dividend of democracy may be arguable under the platform that the adoption of democratic governance in Nigeria may have secured some favourable external image for the nation in recent years, there are ample evidence that much of the claims by political actors to dividends of democracy are not supported by tangible functional structures of an enduring democracy The paper recommends among other things, a vigorous pursuit of the institutional fight against corruption and an expedited reform of the country’s electoral system. Introduction The peculiarities of a nation’s practice of democracy distinguish it from another’s. As a social process, democracy should naturally be expected to respond to the dictates of its immediate milieu while as much as possible it aspires to some universal principles or standards in its practice. From its definitions as ‘a government of popular sovereignty’ democracy permits the majority of the governed to have its â€Å"will† enthroned in governance at least in deciding who should direct its own affairs in political authority at elections. In Nigeria’s barely half-a-century of political independence, some attempts at democratic governance may have totalled up only to nineteen years of its nationhood. Of this however, much will be desired of any one to identify the boundaries of a ‘true democracy’ as defined above if any, that is existing in the Nigerian experience. Typically, a democracy is characterized among others, by a regular general election, a highly defined electoral procedure, a high degree of the rule of law (with an independent and transparent judicial structure) and a people whose human rights is optimally guaranteed by existing executive, legislative and judicial institutions. While it may be argued at some academic forum that no ideal (true) democracy can be found in any nation today, there is however much compelling impulse to associate some current western democracies with a high degree of ideal democratic phenomenon. The Nigerian democracy would, comparatively rank very low in such continuum in terms of both practice and dividends. Democratic Dividends: A Definition Our discomfort with the use of the term â€Å"dividend† in the analysis of political performance, and especially in Nigeria where self-interest seems to vehemently override nationalistic aspiration, lies not in its auspiciousness but in its origin. The term â€Å"dividends† is a business one, particularly in the area of investment. To expect a dividend in future is to invest today. Investment is seen from the point of view of economics as â€Å"part of present income spent on goods or services in order to generate a high future income†. Such goods however are investment goods as distinguished from consumer goods. This view of investment sees the process as a â€Å"risk taking† endeavour. To assure a risk-taker of a dividend is to minimize his risks elements while investing. Higher risks bring higher dividends. The most successful investors therefore belong to the class of high risk takers. By importing this process into politics, Nigerian politicians may b e described as political investors who see their attainment of political office as a management of political investment rather than a call to service for one’s fatherland. Hence, when you hear an average political office holder talk of dividends of democracy, he is implicitly referring to the size of the national cake he is able to cut for himself, albeit his people. Democratic dividends in Nigeria may therefore not be seen merely as yielding a desired purpose of attaining national good governance for the benefit of the entire polity but particularly as an expression of a competitive struggle for natural economic resources to the satisfaction of competing individuals or groups often defined in ethnocentric terms. Yet this term â€Å"dividend† of democracy has been a household one in the language registers of political actors in Nigeria. Structural-Functionalism and Democracy: A theoretical framework An auspicious social theory under which the analysis of the â€Å"dividends of democracy in Nigeria† may be comfortably made is the theory of structural-functionalism. The functionalist school believes that the understanding of a given system (under this circumstance, the Nigerian political system in the democratic dispensation) must necessarily comprise not only the understanding of the institutions (or structures) which make up the system but also their respective functions1. The adherents of structural-functionalism insist that these institutions must be placed within a meaningful and 1 Igwe, O. (2007) Politics and globe dictionary, New ed., Aba: Eagle Publishers dynamic historical context if they are to be properly understood an idea that stands in sharp contrast to the prevailing approaches in the field of comparative politics such as the state-society theory and the dependency theory. The structural-functional approach is based on the view that a political system is made up of several key components including interest groups, political groups and branches of government. According to Almond Powell, a political system performs some key functions such as political socialization, recruitment and communication2. Socialization may be seen as a process by which a society passes along its values and beliefs to succeeding generations while from a point of view of politics, socialization (and hence political socialization) may be described as a process by which a society inculcates civic virtues, or the habit of effective citizenship. Political recruitment on the other hand may be seen as a process by which a political system generates interest, e ngagement and participation from citizens while communication describes a process by which a system promulgates its values and information. A variant of structural-functionalism based on the analysis of Gabriel Almond sees all political systems as comprising four major characteristics namely: that all political systems including the simplest ones have political structures; that the same functions are performed in â€Å"all political systems even if they may be performed with different frequencies and different structures; that both the political structures of the primitive and the modern societies are multifunctional no matter how specialized they are and; that all political systems are mixed in the cultural sense†3. 2. Almond, G.A. Powell Jnr. B.G.(1966) Comparative politics: A development approach, Boston: Little Brown.. 3 Offiong, O.J. (1996) Systems theory and structural functionalism in political analysis. In A.O. Oronsaye, (Ed.) Nigerian government and politics, Benin City: United City Press. As a political system in transition (as Nigeria,) moves from one state of equilibrium to another, the various political institutions or structures should be expected to bring about a required social change in their performance of the socialization, recruitment and communication functions. A social change according to Talcott Parsons occurs through four distinct and inevitable processes namely: differentiation ( that is, the increase in the complexity of social organizations); adaptive upgrading (that is, social institutions becoming more specialized in their processes) inclusion ( where groups previously excluded from a society because of such factors as race, gender, social class etc are now accepted) and; value generalization (that is, the development of new values that tolerate and legitimate a greater range of activities) 4. The application of democratic governance in Nigeria should therefore be seen from a structural-functional perspective as a desire to effect a required social change in our political development by the various democratic institutions performing their required functions in that respect. The Nigerian democracy therefore will be not meaningful, that is, not structurally functional, if it is not performing its required social functions (or yielding the expected dividends). The Dividends of Nigerian Democracy and the Challenges If any thing else, Nigerian democracy should be directed at fulfilling the nation’s philosophical goals as expressed in the official document of its Second National Development Plan (1970-1974) namely: â€Å"the creation of a free and democratic society; a just and egalitarian society; a united, strong and self reliant nation; a great and dynamic 4Kuper, A. (1988) The invention of primitive society: Transformation of an illusion, London: Routledge economy and, a land of full and bright opportunities for all citizens†5. Expectedly, Nigerian democracy should ensure the enthronement of a national consciousness, integrity and service. There should be strong desire to build one’s own nation by its citizen rather than a plunge-it-down syndrome typical of much of our current dispensation. Democracy should provide equal opportunities to genuine service-minded individuals to express themselves in seeking political office through elections. Democracy should be a platform for the provision of political enlightenment for the teeming apathetic and economically-emasculated people of the countryside and metropolises. Democracy is expected to guarantee an un-biased allocation and application of naturally determined national economic resources for the benefit of the entire polity while providing relevant opportunities for component region or states to harness local potentials for healthy competitive development initiatives. Democracy should provide relevant safeguards against corruption and unauthorized acqu isitions of national resources by individuals and groups who see themselves high above the corporate goals of the nation. Judicial safeguards in terms of regular prosecution and punishment should especially be adequately entrenched into such a political system. Democracy should provide relevant and adequate checks and balances between the three organs of government and as much as possible a freer press as the fourth estate in the realm. The phenomenon of wanton arrest, detention of journalists and the forceful closure of media-houses whenever they purvey any information acclaimed by political authorities 5. Federal Republic of Nigeria, (1970) Second National Development Plan 1970-1974, Lagos: Federal Ministry of Information,,p.32 as inimical to their existence (albeit the corporate existence of the nation) typical of our current democratic experiment will therefore require some policy refinement and for policymakers to demonstrate subtlety. Democracy should be expected to yield the above ascribed â€Å"dividends† to Nigeria through its practice over the years. Alternatively, the Nigerian democracy has yielded few, if any, of the ascribed dividends to its citizens. The typical dividends however has remained the propagation of ethnic dominance in the appropriation of national resources through what Deutsch6 describes as aa zero-sum game approach in form of appointments to vital national and state positions, regional self determination through the core vs. peripheral perception of resource allocation7, , thus engendering a clamour for regional economic independence popularly called â€Å"resource control† by the oil bearing peoples of the Niger Delta. Notwithstanding and on the positive side, democracy may have succeeded somewhat in sensitizing the citizens in appreciating the need for good governance among political office holders. There is a growing wave of civic awareness among people in Nigeria today than it had ever been. The increasing quest for probity and accountability and the adoption of due process principles (even with its default) may be regarded as a vital recipe for the re-branding of our local democratic culture and practice. But for the seeming inadequacies such as the area of official responsibility and accountability, and electoral malpractice, the Nigerian practice of democratic governance may have helped to 6 Deutsch, M. (1973), The resolution of conflicts: Constructive process, New Haven: Yale, 7 Noel, C.L. (1969), A theory of ethnic stratification: Social problems. Journal of Sociology, Vol. 16.(2). grow the nation’s international image as a major regional power in the African sub-region. The United Nations has often called on Nigeria to lead its team in the execution of its major international (especially African regional) economic, social and military initiatives. Nigerian’s growing involvement in regional peace keeping and other humanitarian missions and the African continent derives mainly from its recognition not only primarily as an economically-endowed nation, but also as a democratic entity with abundant hope. This perhaps may be adjudged as the most important dividend of the Nigeria’s democracy so far. Much however is yet to be desired of this image as its electoral process undergoes reform. The impetus provided by Ghana and South Africa in their respective recent elections have further strengthened the national call for electoral reforms and political transparency. The relevance of such call is underscored by a growing optimism in the national popu lace about the possible workability of the democratic arrangement as a better alternative in governance after having been overwhelmed by military dictatorship (with it accompanying slow pace of economic development) for over two-thirds of its nationhood. By a tacit recognition of the â€Å"expected† and â€Å"perceived† dividends of the Nigerian democracy, it becomes a little easier to identify some of the major challenges of the Nigerian democratic experience so far. At the apex of the challenges is the issue of electoral reforms. The want of a credible independent electoral process has unfortunately created institutional safeguards for political parties (especially incumbents) to exploit the existing political machinery for their electoral advantages. The office of the president has most often exploited its advantage as the appointing institution to impact significantly on the activities of the successive electoral commissions in the country. The result is that electoral rigging have been institutionalized often with threats of arrests on credible opposition. In the 2007 state and federal elections particularly the former, this anomaly was not only typical of but also rampant. Democratic government are expected to be less prone to corruptive tendencies since there are supposedly more institutional safeguards against them than the military regime. Unfortunately, the Nigerian democracy is yet to vindicate itself as a better alternative in this respect. Phenomenally, what may be regarded as some institutional arrangement created by government against corruption and other economic crimes though looked initially very impressive and praiseworthy during the moribund Obasanjo’s civilian regime, were later overrun by the same political structure (particularly the executive and legislative arms) which had seen such an arrangement as an erosion of their political and economic ambitions. Thus, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) and the Independent Corrupt Practice Commission (ICPC) became after an initial euphoria, figments of their creator’s imaginations. Corruption still remains a major challenge to Nigeria’s democracy. The ethnocentric clamour for economic self determinism, especially by the people of the Niger Delta has aroused a new awareness about the inevitability of good governance in the area of equitable distribution of natural resources especially in a plural society like Nigeria. The hydra-headed problem of the Niger Delta crisis is a logical aftermath of governments’ inability to address the special environmental and economic needs of the Niger Delta peoples and symptomatic of the continuing absence of agreement on a workable revenue sharing formula after a trial of several sharing principles over the years. This phenomenon has created additional challenges for the attainment of the expected dividends of democracy. Conclusion and Recommendations The claim to the attainment of democratic dividends by political actors in Nigeria will remain as contestable in certain areas as there exist elements of political inadequacies in the three key theoretical areas of political socialization, recruitment, communication. By consolidating on its growing international image as a regional centre of hope, Nigerian policymakers should invest much energy on the institutional fight against corruption by allowing the relevant statutory agencies already created for this purpose to exercise their mandate without unnecessary executive intervention. The pursuit of electoral reform in an attempt to enthrone a great degree of (if not total) internal and external credibility in our public elections should be more vigorous and expeditious so that as early as 2011, fresh and enduring dividends in that aspect can be become visibly clear. Until democratic practice in Nigeria provides more functional evidence in terms of enhanced political participation, eq uitable and acceptable process of resource allocation, credible electoral practice and a political culture of national integrity and transparency, it will remain sharply contestable to lay claim to the attainment of a meaningful dividend of democracy in Nigeria. 1

Complete Case: Amgen Whistleblowing Essay

Read and write up an executive summary on the case, including answers to the following questions. 1. How did Amgen’s unethical behavior contribute to the problems with Medicaid kickbacks? 2. Why does the public consider this scandal to have an unethical dilemma? 3. Explain what is meant by whistleblowing? Include your opinions and identify any gaps between public expectations of ethical standards and universal professional codes of ethical standards. Case : Amgen Whistleblowing Case Amgen, a Thousand Oaks, California–based company, had the unenviable task of dealing with lawsuits filed by 15 states in 2009 alleging a Medicaid kickback scheme.1 To make matters worse, two additional whistleblowing lawsuits were filed against the company in Ventura County. The complaints, which don’t appear related to the fraud alleged by the group of states, were brought by former employees who said they had uncovered wrongdoing at the biotech giant and were terminated after they raised red flags to superiors. One employee alleged the company violated federal law by under-reporting complaints and problems with the company’s drugs after they hit the market. The facts of that lawsuit are described below. Former Amgen employee Shawn O’Brien sued Amgen for wrongful termination on October 9, 2009, alleging he was laid off in October 2007 in retaliation for raising concerns about how the company reported complaints and problems with drugs already on the market. O’Brien worked as a senior project manager for Amgen’s â€Å"Ongoing Change Program,† according to the lawsuit filed in Ventura County Superior Court. His job was to improve Amgen’s â€Å"compliance processes with high inherent risk to public safety, major criminal and civil liability, or both,† according to the lawsuit. The lawsuit alleged that in April 2007, Amgen’s board of directors flagged the company’s process for dealing with post-market complaints about drugs as a potential problem. Federal law requires drug companies to track and report to the Food and Drug Administration any problems with their drugs after they hit the market. In June 2007, O’Brien was put on the case. He soon uncovered facts that Amgen was not adequately and consistently identifying phone calls or mail related to post-marketing adverse events of product complaints. That year, O’Brien warned the company about the seriousness of the issues but, he claims, the company would not take any action or offer any support. In August 2007, O’Brien took his complaint to a senior executive/corporate officer (unnamed) and warned that Amgen’s process for dealing with post-market problems wasn’t adequate. In early September of 2007, O’Brien’s managers instructed him to stop all work and not discuss the issues any further with anyone. Approximately four weeks later he was informed that he was being terminated as part of Amgen’s October 12, 2007, reduction in the work force.

East of Eden by John Steinbeck Essay

Published in 1952, East of Eden is a novel written by John Steinbeck, a Nobel winner). It tells the story of the intertwined lives of two families- the Trasks and the Hamiltons amidst a backdrop of California’s Salinas Valley (Steinbeck, 2003). The novel follows the stories of these two American families from the Civil War to World War I (2003). It is said that the novel, which was published ten years before Steinbeck received a Novel, drew inspiration from the Bible and was dedicated to Steinbeck’s sons- Thom and John IV (Pearson, 1995). The title itself was culled from a Biblical verse, depicting Cain as he set out in the land of Nod, east of Eden (Genesis 4: 16 New International Version). Told in third-person point of view by a narrator who sometimes offers annotations, swings among characters’ vantage points and even suspends the story with snippets of human history, East of Eden tackles the universal theme of good vs. evil, the fall of Adam and Eve and the bitter enmity of Abel and Cain. Dramatizing the societal sins of Salinas Valley and the individual members of the Trask and Hamilton clans, the novel aims to resolve the dilemma on how evil may be overcome by choice. Spanning the period between the American Civil War and the end of the First World War, it dovetails the lives of two brothers- the gentle Adam and the rough Charles. Adam marries the scheming Cathy who deceives him and ran off with Charles on the night of their wedding (Steinbeck, 2003). After giving birth to twin boys, Aron and Cal, Cathy leaves her children to Adam and returns to a life of debauchery. The rivalry between the siblings reignites as they vie for their father’s attention and approval (2003). The story is beautiful and revolting as it unravels the universal problem man has to face: choose to be good or remain on the dark side. The tone is somber, philosophical and perhaps even propitious. Showing how illustrious as a writer should be, Steinbeck is able to create characters with various tempers, contrasting them realistically as possible, polar opposites as one may say. There is Adam, who may very well be the archetype of good intentions and Cathy, the scheming prostitute whom Adam fell in love with. It is also Adam who has been deceived the most, reminiscent of the betrayal of the serpent in the biblical Eden. The novel is peppered with shades of Cain and Abel. In the same vein, the agony of parental rejection, an issue touched with the story of the biblical brothers, is again explored in the novel, like the acceptance of Adam’s puppy gift and the rejection of Charles’ knife gift, reminiscent of Abel’s accepted gift and the rejection of Cain. Cyrus Trask favored Adam over Charles, for no distinct reason. Later on, Adam repeats the cycle with his own sons, favoring Aron over Cal. Throughout the novel, the tension is palpable, giving the reader the proper stimulus to continue reading. It also helps that the setting, Salinas Valley is actually a real place, giving a pragmatic voice to the novel. The words used by Steinbeck are easy to read and understand , and is not loaded with so many symbols that would make the reader spend 98% figuring out what the symbols stood for rather than letting the words flow and grasping its essence. There are no flowery words, either. This is a good sign on the part of Steinbeck, allowing the readers to comprehend the gist without resulting in a head ache. The flow of the story is also commendable, especially as it expands from 1860 to 1918. The incorporation of â€Å"timshel† is also appropriate, fortifying the theme of good winning over evil, of human making the power to decide. East of Eden is grounded in pragmatism and the handling of good and evil may be simple but it speaks one universal truth: that there is good and there is evil and that human beings are flawed, perhaps influenced by their genes or shaped by circumstances, but they have the choice whether to follow that footstep and repeat the mistake or make their own paths and break the cycle. References Pearson, P. (1995). East of Eden. Retrieved February 17, 2009, from National Steinbeck Center Website: http://www. steinbeck. org .html Steinbeck, J. (2003). East of Eden. New York: Penguin Books.