Analysis of Coe's The Winshaw Legacy
For a student trustful of today's scientific prowess, the realization that science cannot prove anything came as a surprise to me in high school science class last year. Indeed, a skepticist would say that finding real truth is never possible given the chaotic nature of our world. Such a worldview is among the several interconnected themes in Jonathan Coe's The Winshaw Legacy.
Coe uses the paradox as his primary vehicle of argumentation. The paradox is a statement or argument that seems to be prima facie self-contradictory. However, between the two self-contradictory poles lies some vestige of truth, the mutual hostage of the two opposing sides. Coe's satire is achieved as he points out the absurdities of life at the political fringes, and the dialectic synthesis occurs in the reader's mind as he reconciles the two sides, those being the thesis and antithesis.
The Winshaw family, representing an outrageous contemporary group of capitalist élites, is so absurd that the magnitude of its members' absurdity crushes their believability as characters. In that sense, then, the Winshaws are allegorical of larger sectors of society that possess similar, but less absurd, characteristics. For example, consider Thomas's support of the development of the laser disk. Although it is a "palpably loss-making enterprise," (308), Thomas bankrolls its development because it produces "perfect still frames ... [which suit] his needs so admirably" (308). Certainly Adam Smith did not think of masturbation as being enlightened self-interest, though it is "the very raison d'être" of the laser disk as far as Thomas is concerned (308). His motiva...
... middle of paper ...
..., readers have only accusations by Michael that the Winshaws have killed some friend or family members of his. Now a disguised Winshaw kills Michael, established earlier as the symbolic link between society and the Winshaws, in the way he dreamt. In the end, then, so long as society is dreaming with Michael, it will continue to be abused by the Winshaws, and, eventually, killed like Michael.
In short, the truth in The Winshaw Legacy exists only in readers' minds and in their interpretation of the satirical events. Paradoxically, the truth therefore exists nowhere unless as a figment of readers' minds. Members of society, caught in a dreamy state and unable to distinguish truth from fiction, enable the Winshaws and eventually find themselves killed by the Winshaws and all the social systems that they represent and that the people support.
(Palahniuk ix). This, he argues, is the central paradox that the novel explores; however, for
Coverdale’s “moral,” which implicates all of the reformers, including both Hollingsworth and himself, implies that an Edenic world created by individuals unwilling to acknowledge a deterministic universe ultimately proves destructive, both to the self and to others. It not only proves fatal for the individual—as evidenced in Hollingsworth’s “ruling passion,” Coverdale’s disillusionment, and Zenobia’s suicide—but it also proves fatal to the community, composed of “rich juices” symbolically depicted throughout the novel as fruit, specifically grapes and wine, that represent its members and their desires. When “pressed violently,” these “ruling passion[s]” follow an “unnatural process” that cannot accommodate a “life sweet, bland, and gently beneficent,” or one that accepts a predetermined course not governed by individual human will.
The Linton and Earnshaw family's dependence on the erratic British social classification system galvanized the caustic nature of characters in the story and influenced their decisions greatly. Without the existence of such communal prejudices, the Linton family would have condoned the impecunious past of the Earnshaw family and permitted lovers to love who they had been destined to adore. Catherine Earnshaw and Heathcliff, the two instigators of every emotional and physical situation in the story would have been truly happy, leaving them no need to have any injurious intentions for those around them. The precarious importance placed on British social class had been the sole devastating factor in the characters' lives and the stimulus for the cataclysmic nature of personages in Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights.
Many years later, Heathcliff returns to the Heights to begin his plan of revenge. Therefore, Bronte suggests that society can distort one’s personality because it provides the situation in which money and greed can fulfill one’s vanity and ambitions for social status, and she indicates that revenge is an index of the hatred that the pressures of society can produce. Thus, one uses revenge to cover up their wounded heart and tricks themselves into a cycle of hatred and self-deception.
Hate, love and revenge take place within the Earnshaws’ and Lintons’ story through a dynamic almost solely based on the fundamental importance of class in late 1700’s Yorkshire. Wuthering Heights is Emily Bronte’s story of these families’ struggles with status which were relevant and normal for that time period. The idea of the importance and the struggle of class can be seen throughout the novel. It is brought forth primarily through Heathcliff and others treatment of him. First, through Nelly’s insistence on Heathcliff imagining a better past for himself, Hindley’s treatment of Heathcliff and the effect this has on Catherine’s feeling, Catherine’s and Isabella’s marriages to Edgar and Heathcliff respectively, and Cathy’s marriage to Hareton.
Not long after taking legal possession of the Laird 's house Wringham goes into an unconscious delirium (132). When he wakes he is informed that he had a lover and that he murdered both her and his mother (143). He concludes that he was “possessed by a spirit” to whom he “was wholly unconscious" and whose actions he could not control (136). He ultimately decides that Gil-Martin affected these murders and dreads him “more than hell” (141). The second narrative’s end focuses strongly on the theme of the Devil. Wringham attempts to escape Gil-Martin in the physical world but cannot. In the end he kills himself, banning himself from salvation but also banning Gil-Martin from using him as a vessel to harm the mortal world. Although the two narratives are often contradictory, when put together, they develop the theme of the Devil fully, highlighting it as the main conflict and focus of the
Hindley’s obstructive actions, imposed on Heathcliff’s life, expand an internal anger that arouses as Heathcliff’s time at Wuthering Heights draws to a close. The negligent and condemnatory conditions advanced by Hindley transform Heathcliff’s futuristic outcome and supply him with motives to carry out vengeance on multiple personalities involved in the plot. Heathcliff’s troubled social environment renders it difficult to determine the ethical legitimacy behind his decisions, contributing to the moral ambiguity of his
The issue shall discuss the various differences between science and other types of knowledge and discuss the argument whether the science can rely without the separate theories posted by non-scientific educational bodies. ...
Though each of the above works varies in the degree of satire employed, the pattern among them accentuates how satire can best be understood not only as a lens of criticism, but also in captivating the audience into considering their own role in the criticism. Often times, as has been shown, the authors’ utilize the end-states of protagonists to emphasize critique made throughout the literary work. Yet, the degree of ambiguity serves to engage the audience, which leads to a greater effectiveness of the satire. Therefore, returning to Swift’s quote on satire, the most effective satires not only allow for beholders to discover everybody else’s face, but through degrees of ambiguity, they also are able to discover their own.
With most aspects of life it is frequently the failures, as opposed to successes, from which we learn the most indelible lessons. With this approach in mind, The Beer Game to a large extent serves as the very antithesis of a properly functioning supply chain. In other words, the exercise demonstrates how NOT to manage a logistic operation. Hopefully, an examination of the pitfalls and shortcomings of a worst case scenario and avoiding the same types of mistakes will lend insight how to correctly manage a supply chain. What otherwise appears as a simple classroom exercise actually represents a powerful training tool with enduring lessons directly transferable to real world application.
Local Area Networks also called LANs have been a major player in industrialization of computers. In the past 20 or so years the worlds industry has be invaded with new computer technology. It has made such an impact on the way we do business that it has become essential with an ever-growing need for improvement. LANs give an employer the ability to share information between computers with a simple relatively inexpensive system of network cards and software. It also lets the user or users share hardware such as Printers and scanners. The speed of access between the computers is lighting fast because the data has a short distance to cover. In most cases a LAN only occupies one or a group of buildings located next to each other. For larger area need there are several other types of networks such as the Internet.
IP address is you Internet identity when you are connected to the web. It is synonymous to a postal address.
He uses satire a great deal in the novel to emphasise how it does not
In the beer game, the two main problems that cause high inventory or backorder costs associated with the ordering policy of each participants; are the uncertain demand and the lack of communication between different participants in the game who are the retailer, wholesaler, distributer and manufacturer. In order to operate the supply chain efficiently, the participants of the beer game should be in a coordination to fulfill the customer demand.
Benetton does manufacture much of its production itself, producing in its own factory, but on its supply side the Company also relies heavily on contractors'. Contractors are owned or part-owned companies that provide services to the Benetton factories by knitting and assembling Benetton's garments. These contractors, in turn, use the services of sub-contractors to perform some of the manufacturing tasks. At the moment Benetton has 22 factories operating, 15 of which are located in Italy and one each in Spain, Croatia, India, Portugal, Tunisia, Slovakia and Hungary. The Company utilizes almost 900 subcontractors in Italy to perform one or more steps in the production process.