Charles Herreshoff
After Agnes Muller died in the cold Prussian winter of 1766, her three-year-old son was alone in the world. It was said later, though there was no proof, that Agnes’s husband Corporal Eschoff went mad with grief – surely only that could have explained his subsequent abandonment both of his post as bodyguard to Frederick the Great and of his only child. In any case, he disappeared forever, leaving his former townsfolk with only the vague notion that he had "gone to Italy."
The boy’s childhood has been lost to the past. An account written two centuries later by a descendant suggests that he lived with maiden aunts until the age of eight, when the women sent him to live with a professor in Potsdam. This, the account explains, is how the boy finally met Frederick the Great – the monarch consulted with the boy’s professor. Another, more sordid tale mentions the rumors that Frederick himself had fathered the child. Frederick, the story goes, was completely impotent and thus flattered by the suggestion. And so, this version continues, partly out of pride and partly as a joking revenge for the desertion of his bodyguard Corporal Eschoff, the emperor took the boy under his wing and sent him to a school for the children of nobles, equipped with the names of two kings and a surname that meant "lord of the manor": Karl Friederich Herreschoff.
What is certain is that Karl Friederich left his native Prussia for the United States around 1786. This voyage across the Atlantic marked the beginning of a metamorphosis: that of Karl Friederich Herreschoff, uncertain but cultured young immigrant, into Charles Frederick Herreshoff, promising young merchant.
Charles struggled for a decade in his adopted country, first starting his own firm and going bankrupt; eventually, he went to work for a mercantile firm where wealthy and successful John Brown was a senior partner. The young man’s pleasant demeanor and charm, as well as his talent for good conversation and elegant music, are mentioned in more than one account. He had no good family name and no money other than what the firm paid him – but he had personality, and he hoped that would be enough to catch the eye of Brown’s much-beloved younger daughter, Sarah.
By 1798, Charles appears to have already made some kind of declaration to the young woman he affectionately called Sally.
Being a war correspondent people describes Charles as being quite a dull person but also accurate, papers such as ‘The Age’ and ‘The Argus’ started to stop publishing Charles’ stories as for it had an “unappealing” style
Lynda Barry’s One Hundred Demons is based on the idea of drawing a “demon.” It is an assortment of seventeen short comics, containing themes of Barry’s childhood. Barry got the idea of drawing demons from a painting practice used by a Japanese monk from the sixteenth century, who painted demons on a hand-scroll (Barry 9). By making the decision to paint them in the form of comics, the demons come out in what she calls an autobifictionalography (Barry 4). The autobifictionalography tells the many stories of Lynda Barry’s childhood and teenage years through part autobiography and part fiction. Barry was often unaccepted; she has very few friends and got involved with sex and drugs at a young age (Barry 71). The relationship with her mother was very weak, but she had a very strong bond with her grandmother (“Lynda Barry”). To combine fact and fiction in her memoir is something you don’t see often. I consider Lynda Barry to be not only an author; but a story teller, artist, and very unique individual as well. Many books we read are very easy to predict; they tell a true story, mystery, adventure or maybe even a biography. Lynda Barry’s One Hundred Demons is a memoir of some truth facts and some made up ideas. When writing a memoir many authors give facts on what has happened in their life good or bad. Although Barry states many factual events in her life, she also states many fictitious events. Lynda Barry presents fact and fiction throughout her memoir in a very responsible manner. She has presented it in a way that reflects her way of life or the events she believes will happen throughout her life time.
James’s childhood was full of narrow escapes and secret dwellings. He, unlike his brother, Charles II, was dour and serious, in ad...
Towards the end of the first paragraph we begin to get more of an insight into what Charlie’s father is really like. The first example of this is “I’d like to take you up to my club, but it’s in the Sixties, and if you have to catch an early train I guess we’d better get something around here”.
Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder is a disease that afflicts up to six million Americans, however all its characteristics are yet to be fully understood. Its causes, triggers, attributes, and variations are still unknown although effective medicines exist to treat the symptoms. OCD is a very peculiar disease as Rapoport discusses it comes in many different forms and have different symptoms yet have many similarities. One sure aspect is that it appears, or at least its symptoms do, out of the blue and is triggered either by stressful experiences or, most of the time, just appears out of nowhere. One example is a boy who's father was hard on him for being affected by the worlds "modern ways", the boy at a high school party tries LSD ( a hallucinatory drug), after that thoughts of whether his mind was dangerously affected by the drug. What seemed like completely appropriate worrying and anxiety turned into attacks of anxiety, he couldn't shake the thoughts that something was wrong with his mind. Essentially he had "his mind on his mind" constantly and that haunted his days his thought were as follows: " did the lsd do anything to my mind? The thought never went away ; instead it got more and more complicated. There must be something wrong with my mind if i am spending so much time worrying about it. Is there something wrong with my mind? Was this from the lsd? Will it ever get better?" (The boy who, J. L. Rapoport 125,126) Dr. Rapoport promptly put him on Anafranil (an anti-depressant, used for OCD, not marketed in the U.
It is much easier to blame an invisible, ill-tempered foe than to consider that ‘Evil’ may come from within us.
As a child Frederick wondered about his age. The white children could tell their ages. He did not understand why he should be deprived of not having the privilege to know his age. It was considered improper, important and evidence of a restless spirit to ask any questions about yourself to the master. Black children were taken from their mothers at the age of 12 months. The old woman then raised them. Frederick believed they were separated from their parents at such a young age to destroy the affection between a mother and a child.
Nathaniel Hawthorne’s Young Goodman Brown illustrates vividly how society and culture can very much influence a person’s sense of identity and belonging, or in the case of Young Goodman Brown the lack thereof. Being a Puritan man in a society that scorned the ways of witches and the devil, Young Goodman Brown grew up with a very pious outlook on life. Yet when it occurs to him to look at life a little bit differently, Young Goodman Brown receives more than he has bargained for. The journey he embarks on sheds a whole new light on his society that not only creates a struggle between himself and his fellow men but also one within himself.
A man will seek for what he yearns. Jay Gatsby comes from an underprivileged family but is able to rise to the top of wealth—something every American in the 1910-1920’s was trying to do. “Gatsby transforms to get to the top,” (Galley). He entirely transforms himself to a superbly prosperous young man or in other words went from “rags” t...
Obsessive-compulsive disorder involves a chemical imbalance in the brain. This chemical imbalance is thought to be the main reason for obsessions and compulsions, although there may be other factors as well. Nearly one in every fifty people suffers from symptoms of OCD ("Escape"), and approximately 5 million Americans are affected by it (George 82+). To be diagnosed with OCD, an individual must suffer from obsessions and compulsions that actually interfere with their daily lives (Lanning 58+).
Obsessive-compulsive disorder is defined by select characteristics (compulsions) and thoughts (obsessions). Obsessive-compulsive disorder usually consists of irrational obsessions, fears, and compulsions. (Mayo, 1) Though obsessions and compulsions are common, it is not necessary to have both when defining Obsessive-compulsive disorder. Some individuals with OCD only have obsessions or compulsions. (Mayo,1)
Theroux begins the novel by having Charlie constantly boast about his father, through diction, it is implied that Charlie tends to idolize his father. “Father, an inventor, was a perfect genius with anything mechanical” (7). The diction of “an inventor” and “a perfect genius” i...
When the first settlers arrived in the Americas during the 15th century, some of the first literature they produced were descriptions of their new life far from the English mother country. The Puritans settlers specifically, owing to their emphasis on education. William Bradford, governor of the Plymouth Colony in what would become Massachusetts, is a well-known writer of these types of colonial “chronicles”. In his work Of Plymouth Plantation, Bradford provides a chilling description of the colony’s first winter. He describes the colony’s perilous position when he writes “Being thus passed the vast ocean, and a sea of troubles before in their preparation (as may be remembered by that which went before), they had now no friends to welcome them nor inns to entertain or refresh their weather-beaten bodies; no houses or much less town to repair to, to seek for succor.”
There are several things that are included in OCD, including its symptoms, treatments and its involvement with the brain. Obsessive Compulsive Disorder recognize their symptoms to be ego-dystonic which are thoughts one would not usually have and not within one’s control but is still a product of one’s mind. The two common symptoms of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder are obsessions and compulsions. Obsessions take the form of persistent and uncontrollable thoughts, images, impulses, worries, fears or doubts. An anonymous writer wrote about his/her images, “These images included hitting, stabbing, poisoning and shooting people, even the people I loved the most…” However, compulsions are either repetitive physical behaviors or mental thought rituals that are performed over and over again to help relieve a person’s anxiety. Over time compulsions can become more elaborate and time- consuming. Shirley Brinkerhoff mentions in her book Amanda, a high school girl facing OCD, said, “Then I started having to count my steps. Like, 387 steps to the bus stop, and if missed...
Always washing your hands? Or perhaps you are always counting things or checking things. Are these actions taking over your life or constantly occupying your mind? Perhaps you have obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD). It was once thought that OCD was rare; however, recently it has been found that 2-3% (or 7 million Americans) of people have OCD. People with OCD are usually diagnosed by between the ages of 20 and 30, and about 75% of those who will develop OCD will show symptoms by age 30. (1) This leads to a couple questions that need to be answered: What is OCD? What causes it, and what is the most effective treatment? These questions will be answered throughout the paper.