Colonial Fiction: Mister Johnson
The relationship between Rudbeck and Mister Johnson is extremely revealing with regards to the experience of the European administrators and the co-operation of the Nigerians in the colonial endeavour. Johnson is keenly aware that superiority for natives directly depends upon being on good terms with the coloniser. He consistently emphasises his belief that Rudbeck is his ''good friend'', and how he is ''mos' indispensable to ... His Majesty's service'' (85). It could be argued that this should not be passed off as simple native fantasy, put in for the amusement of the European reader. In many cases, Johnson is ''indispensable'' to the inexperienced Rudbeck, and throughout the novel, Johnson is constantly seen as the innovator in the relationship.
In two important and inextricably linked areas, finances and roadbuilding, it is not the colonial government which responds to the needs of Rudbeck, but Johnson. As if to push this European dependence on the native a little further, Cary suggests that Rudbeck relies on Johnson in his personal life as well. For example, while Rudbeck is working on the road, Johnson is left to entertain his wife, Celia, an act of trust that both shocks and impresses the natives. We are told that ''this greatly increases [Johnson's] prestige in Fada, where the Emir does not even trust his chief eunuch with his wives'' (87).
Concern over finances is a predominant theme throughout the novel, both for Johnson who constantly seems to be in debt, and Rudbeck who, due to the stringency of the Treasury, never has sufficient money or resources to carry out developments to the extent he would like. The reader is given the impression that, if he could , Rudbeck would be doing much more with Fada. He is a man of action, who longs to get out on the roads, working hard physically. Yet his ambitions are constantly frustrated, and he is left ''suffering'' (57) in his office, itching to get out again. On many levels - financial constraints, inexperience, communication difficult - his hands are tied.
Johnson's personal finances never seem to pose the same extent of problems to him as do Rudbeck's. When dealing with finances, Rudbeck's ''many sudden depressions'' (77) often climax, and he simply concedes that everything is ''all damn nonsense, anyhow'' (53). Rudbeck knows only too well that he can expec...
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... basics of what he expected from them. However, they are intelligent enough to let Rudbeck do ''most of the work himself'' (55) in the blistering African sun. Cary is hinting that the natives are not as gullible as the coloniser would like to believe. In reality, they are much more subversive. Indeed native subversion and resistance could be seen as one the key themes throughout the novel. In other cases, for example, Cary is not so subtle. He openly portrays Waziri offering Johnson favours and bribes to keep him informed about the contents of Rudbeck's safe, which contains all the papers and information sent from Britain, communications which were essential for indirect rule - a role Johnson carries out without a second thought concerning any moral loyalty to Rudbeck.
As Cary sees it, in the colonial project, personalities and individuals are of no concern. In the imperialist longing for supremacy and the natives' response to this, people are used and discarded at will. Cary gives every indication that the problems faced by Rudbeck are universal throughout the colonial project. The plight of the colonial administrator seems doomed to a life of confusion and disillusionment.
Middle use the money he was stealing for his personal luxurious lifestyle and also for his family and friends. Invest investigators describe Madoff con game like an inside man. In order to keep his con up he had to "work with others who would help him carry out his complex criminal activity and who he could trust not to betray him"(Lewis, 2013 p.289). He works his family members like his brother Peter who later committed suicide during the trial.
Madoff started the scheme by misleading his clients to think that he was an elite investor because he was on a vast amount of important boards. Many believed the scheme and invested billions of dollars with Madoffs company. He was able to achieve some of the scheming through running his investments through a different part of his business. This was a way for only him to see the investments and the financial reports behind the investments. Bernard Madoff involved people
Mary Rowlandson’s “A Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson” and Benjamin Franklin’s “Remarks Concerning the Savages of North America” are two different perspectives based on unique experiences the narrators had with “savages.” Benjamin Franklin’s “Remarks Concerning the Savages…” is a comparison between the ways of the Indians and the ways of the Englishmen along with Franklin’s reason why the Indians should not be defined as savages. “A Narrative of the Captivity…” is a written test of faith about a brutally traumatic experience that a woman faced alone while being held captive by Indians. Mary Rowlandson views the Indians in a negative light due to the traumatizing and inhumane experiences she went through namely, their actions and the way in which they lived went against the religious code to which she is used; contrastingly, Benjamin Franklin sees the Indians as everything but savages-- he believes that they are perfect due to their educated ways and virtuous conduct.
...y were “earning” that they continued to invest. Most never tried to cash out their earned dividends and had the profits reinvested. There were a few people that did receive their profits and it became known in Madoff’s RICO case that they were all his friends. His friends were able to profit greatly from this scheme. One of his friends Jeffry Picower was able to make $5,771,339,795 from his investments in Madoff’s company. It was well documented in the RICO case that Picower told Madoff how much return on his investment he wanted and then he got that amount. In one particular instance he was able to have over nine hundred and fifty percent returns on his investment. This is an astronomical amount for a return on a stock investment. Picower was one of many believed to have known about the scheme, but most investors did not know they were being scammed.
This case was very interesting and I am really glad I chose it for my paper. Its amazing to me how one man with the right connections and social standing can get away with so much for so long. Nobody ever suspected him because he was the father of the NASDAQ, he couldn’t scam people for billions of dollars. And not just any random people, Mad off targeted his own people, the Jews and groups affiliated with him. He was very picky and pretended like he didn’t want to let anyone in on what he was doing which in turn made more people want to get involved and give him even more money, that’s just human
The conventional image that comes to mind when talking about the native Americans during the period of the building of the new world is brutal. The term “savage” is most closely associated with them and their practices at the time. It is important, as mentioned in P’s class, to remember that all the information we have on native Americans is what had been provided by the settlers. Therefore when studying the autobiography of Mary Rowlandson during her captivity, observing the actions of the native Americans, beyond Rowlandson’s descriptions gave more insight into what the atmosphere at the time was. It is also important to note that the Puritans,
Arthur Conan Doyle’s early life in England contributed a lot to his writing. While he was still in school there were people around him who influenced the characters that he would write about later in life, including one of his professors. “If he needed a model for his detective, he need look no further than a lean figure in Edinburgh, with long white dexterous hands and a humorous eye, whose deductions startled patients as they would readers” (Carr, 2003). He also started looking at things differently which affected his writing style. “He had encountered a curious facility of being able to drop a mental curtain between himself and the world; and by inducing an artificial state of mind, becoming himself the character he wrote about” (Carr, 2003).
The setting is London in 1854, which is very different to anything we know today. Johnson’s description of this time and place makes it seem like a whole other world from the here and now....
Louise Erdrich’s short story “American horse” is a literary piece written by an author whose works emphasize the American experience for a multitude of different people from a plethora of various ethnic backgrounds. While Erdrich utilizes a full arsenal of literary elements to better convey this particular story to the reader, perhaps the two most prominent are theme and point of view. At first glance this story seems to portray the struggle of a mother who has her son ripped from her arms by government authorities; however, if the reader simply steps back to analyze the larger picture, the theme becomes clear. It is important to understand the backgrounds of both the protagonist and antagonists when analyzing theme of this short story. Albetrine, who is the short story’s protagonist, is a Native American woman who characterizes her son Buddy as “the best thing that has ever happened to me”. The antagonist, are westerners who work on behalf of the United States Government. Given this dynamic, the stage is set for a clash between the two forces. The struggle between these two can be viewed as a microcosm for what has occurred throughout history between Native Americans and Caucasians. With all this in mind, the reader can see that the theme of this piece is the battle of Native Americans to maintain their culture and way of life as their homeland is invaded by Caucasians. In addition to the theme, Erdrich’s usage of the third person limited point of view helps the reader understand the short story from several different perspectives while allowing the story to maintain the ambiguity and mysteriousness that was felt by many Natives Americans as they endured similar struggles. These two literary elements help set an underlying atmos...
By utilizing an unbiased stance in his novel, Things Fall Apart, Chinua Achebe promotes cultural relativity without forcibly steering his audience to a particular mindset. He presents the flaws of the Ibo tribe the same way he presents the assets—without either condescension or pride; he presents the cruelties of the colonizers the same way he presents their open mindedness—without either resentment or sympathy. Because of this balance, readers are able to view the characters as multifaceted human beings instead of simply heroes and victims. Achebe writes with such subtle impartiality that American audiences do not feel guilty for the cruel actions of the colonizers or disgusted by the shocking traditions of the tribesmen. The readers stop differentiating the characters as either “tribesmen” or “colonizers”.
In September 2008, Federal agents swarmed the offices of Tom Petters uncovering a billion dollar Ponzi scheme. A similar case in dimension and scale of the well-known Bernie Madoff case is Tom Petters; the mastermind of a 3.7 billion, fourteen-year long deceit, the second largest Ponzi scheme in the United States. Similarly, Robert Allen Stanford, whose scheme emerged in February 2009 and is thought to have lasted ten years, involving the enormous sum of $8 billion, as well as S. Rothstein, who admitted to managing an approximate 1.2 billion dollars Ponzi scheme at the end of 2009. According to Maglich (2014) Ponzi schemes continue to thrive and leave a trail of financial destruction. “In the first six months of 2014, at least 37 Ponzi schemes were uncovered, with a total of more than $1 billion in potential losses” asserts Maglich (2014). Even though Ponzi schemes eventually collapse, Ponzi schemes remain
Knowledge of Africa and the inhabitants of the massive continent were often portrayed as barbaric beasts by the first missionaries to enter the land. Because of skewed writings by European missionary workers, a picture was painted for their readership of a savage Africa saved only by the benevolent, civilized western influence. Achebe successfully attempts to redirect this attitude. Achebe educationally has the means to convey a different perspective, an advantage most other individuals of his culture lack. In his novel Things Fall Apart, rather than glorifying the Ibo culture, or even offering a new view, Achebe acts as a pipeline for information to flow freely without partiality. Achebe's parents were among the first converts of the Igbo, which has exposed him to both the Igbo African culture and western Christian ideology, and can therefore explicate his meaning and experiences from both sides. Achebe is, without doubt, an African novelist, not a novelist writing about Africa; he seems neither to condemn the missionary system, nor condone it. I plan to prove that Achebe portrays the missionary with the same objectivity as he does the Ibo culture in Things Fall Apart.
Chinua Achebe was an influential Nigerian author during the 1900’s who was credited with his three essays which have been fused together into the book “Home and Exile”. In his stories he discusses things such as his own Igbo people, the problems with colonialization, the strength that stories can have and many more topics. A big part of his essays are on his thoughts of colonialism, the impact it has had on his home of Nigeria, and how stories written by others either helped justify colonialism or rejected it. Chinua argues that stories have their own power to fight, and while stories themselves do not have the ability to directly fight colonialism; they do, however with their power of words, stories can motivate and encourage people to stand up against colonialism. In proving this thesis to be a true statement, I will be providing evidence of the how, why and the extent to which stories can fight colonialism.
Mrs. Linde, on the other hand, knows what it is like to not have money to spare. She values money, but for an entire different purpose. The looks at it for what it is worth, and how it can help her survive. Her entire life she has had to work hard for anything that she wanted or needed. “Well, anyway,” she responded to Nora’s remark on having stacks of money, “it would be lovely enough to have enough for necessities” (703). To survive, she “had to scrape up living with a little shop and a little teaching and whatever else [she] could find” (704).
In today’s increasingly smaller world, free trade and globalization have become inevitable parts of our lives. The growing importance of free trade and globalization have undoubtedly impacted the existence and extent of conflicts between nations. Free trade is defined by Mankiw (2015) as “the unrestricted purchase and sale of goods and services between countries without the imposition of constraints such as tariffs, duties and quotas.” The economic argument for free trade is that nations that engage in it will be able to produce and consume more due to the principles of absolute and comparative advantage. More recently, arguments in favor of free trade have emerged not