Characters
There is more than a touch of the picaresque rogue in Jim Dixon. Jim perpetrates a succession of practical jokes, tricks, and deceptions on other characters in the novel, especially those who offend his democratic sensibility.
He has a talent for "pulling faces" and projecting voices gestures Amis uses to enhance Jim's social commentary. He is sometimes aided and abetted in his roguery by his fellow boarder, the salesman Bill Atkinson.
On campus, in addition to Welch, Johns, and Margaret, Jim is seen interacting with certain female students to whom he is attracted and with Mr.
Michie, an ardent overachiever who keeps pushing Jim to provide him with the syllabus for Jim's honors tutorial.
Off campus, Jim meets Christine Callaghan and eventually steals her away from
Bertrand Welch. Through Christine he meets her uncle Julius GoreUrquhart, a wealthy entrepreneur and critic who hires Jim as his personal secretary.
Themes
As in all good comedy, the theme of this book is the difference between appearance and truth, between illusion and reality. The theme plays itself out through the conventional concerns of romantic love. Jim is caught between the falsity of Margaret
Peel and the freshness of Christine Callaghan. He is caught between one job, the future of which involves kowtowing to Welch until he becomes an historical fossil like his superior, and another job the prospect of which offers a supportive employer and interesting work. Amis projects Jim through a series of complications during the course of which the author critiques the stodginess of England's moribund social system. The obligatory happy ending is fulfilled when Jim ends up with the proper woman and the proper work.
Techniques/Literary Precedents
Lucky Jim is a conventional novel; its narration is third person, its development is chronological, and its style is a conventional mixture of dialogue and description. The characterizations are clearly and sharply drawn. The novel abounds in verbal wit, comic gesture, and good natured satire. One of its most distinguished qualities is the pacing and power of key descriptive passages. Amis controls and builds excruciatingly comic tension in such descriptions as Welch attempting to pass a van on a curve with a
This scene, of escalating argument, presents a different type of humor. While the first was a slapstick, exaggerated and dark humor, the argument is more sarcastic, intelligent and cutting.
The films Young Frankenstein and One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest can be viewed as a critical analysis of society’s issues and dysfunctions in the form of satire and parody using humor. While Young Frankenstein, Mel Brooks cinematic version of the gothic novel, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, uses parody in the form of Horatian satire, which is achieved through gentle ridicule and using a tone that is indulgent, tolerant, amused and witty. The film One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest, the adaptation of the Ken Kesey novel, uses a form of satire called Juvenalian satire which is demonstrated in the form of attacks on vice and error with contempt and indignation. Horatian satire will produce a humor response from the reader instead of anger or indignation as Juvenalian satire. Juvenalian satire, in its realism and its harshness, is in strong contrast to Horatian satire (Kent and Drury).
Thoughtful laughter is a technique used frequently in satirical pieces in literature. It allows for the audience to enjoy the wittiness of a work, later ponder on the meaning, and then apply the message to reality. Thoughtful laughter is often an inner experience that can only be achieved by authors who write meticulously. Two examples of satirical works in literature that display this concept explicitly are Voltaire’s Candide and C.S. Lewis’ The Screwtape Letters. Both authors explore the depths of satire and simultaneously deliver an important message to readers through skillful technique.
Now that this distinction has been made, the issue of humor in modern and post modern l...
Mandel, Oscar. "What's so funny? : The Nature of the Comic." Antioch Review. 30.1 (1970): 73-89. Print.
Hopkins and Sugerman (2006) and Stone (1991) developed the image of Morrison as a shaman and as Lizard King based on the development, by Morrison, of his role as a shaman and the image of the Lizard King. This image was the “existing value structure” of Morrison at the time of his death, despite attempts made by Morrison to change this image. As the “the way in which the total image grows determines or at least limits the direction of future growth,” Hopkins and Sugerman (2006) and Stone (1991) were working within the parameters of Morrison's image. Thus, the image of Morrison as a shaman and Lizard King became internally coherent and consistent through repetition and served to organize both historical and posthumous ideas about Morrison, superseding reality.
Enron was the world 's biggest and richest company in the late nineteen-nineties. It 's net value reached 70 billion dollars over the course of a decade and crashed and burned in a single year of savage media coverage and brutal criminal investigations. It 's important to understand how individual arrogance, the corporate recklessness, and U.S. greed collaboratively cost the biggest economic scandal of its kind. Enron was founded in nineteen eighty-five by Kenneth Lay as a natural gas company in the Pacific Northwest. Around that time the energy markets of the US were being deregulated, that is transitioning from government control to free-market. Lay hired visionary Jeffrey Skilling. Under his leadership, the company moved to Houston, Texas
Many literature pieces are written to inform or entertain readers, but there is often humor found in them. Something can be considered humorous if some laugh at it. In Shakespeare’s play, Romeo and Juliet, Sampson bites his thumb at Abram. To bite one’s thumb is equivalent to flipping someone off, so this situation may appear funny to one person while offensive to another. The British novelist J.K. Rowling often uses humor to draw away the reader from the drastic turmoil Harry Potter faces. In one of her many novels, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, the students are practicing
Comedy is by far the most influential factor in deciding whether or not a story is
When put in an ethical situations, people use different reasoning’s’ and perspectives to resolve their problems to their advantage. There was nobody validating what was going on. This brings the ethical conflict of Andy Fastow into play; one of the key problems within Enron. Andy Fastow was the man keeping Enron 's “successful” business appearance. While the company was $30 billion in debt, Fastow manipulated the books to make it look like they were still making profits. Fastow might have not been the one to begin the fraudulent activities, but he did it in order to please his bosses. He created two partnerships called LJM1 and LJM2; with the plan of buying Enron’s poorly performing stock to improve their financial statements. Additionally, Fastow went in front of the board of directors to exempt himself to run the two companies as well as Enron, aka conflict of interest. According to the documentation, Fastow allegedly collected $30 million in management fees while defrauding his own
In July 1985, the Texas based energy firm Enron Corporation was founded by Kenneth Lay by the merge of Houston Natural Gas and Inter-North. Enron primarily focused on the energy markets, due to electrical power markets becoming deregulated Enron expanded into trading electricity and other energy goods. With Enron growing, the company began moving into new markets. In 1999, Enron launched Enron Online, its website for trading goods. The rapid awareness and use of the business website made it the prime business site in the world with a substantial amount of transactions arising from Enron Online. The growth of Enron was extensive and in 2000, the firm was ranked the 7th largest energy firm in the world with year ending accounts 31 December 2000 showing a profit of $979 million and share prices soaring from $40 to $90 in one year.
A tragedy is defined as beginning with a problem that affects everyone, i.e. the whole town or all the characters involved, the tragic hero must solve this problem and this results in his banishment or death [run-on sentence]. A comedy is defined as also beginning with a problem, but one of less significant importance. The characters try to solve the problem and the story ends with all the characters uniting in either a marriage of a party. Although these two genres are seen as being complete opposites of each other, through further analysis one can gather that though they are different certain similarities can also be seen.
If there is one way to bring a smile to someone’s face, it is laughter. Funny jokes, comical stunts, sarcasm- Every person is different when it comes to what makes them laugh. Some find dry humor comical. Others think sarcasm or joke-filled ranting are the best. ‘Comedy’ is such a broad term, broad enough to allow everyone to find something they find comical. In fact, ‘comedy’ includes a specific type of drama, one where the protagonist is joyful and happy endings are expected. Comedy is like a drug; it allows you to escape reality. When we say the word ‘comedy’ in the present, we are generally referring to a type of performance which provides humor. However, in its broadest sense, comedy has only one purpose: comedy makes people smile and
System design in a data center network provides the tools for addressing the challenges that occur with expansion of data center infrastructure. This includes support for the rapid growth of applications and their data and storage bandwidth, managing and modifying data storage requirements, optimize server-processing resources and access information