Subodh Bhattarai (English & Communication Notes - BBA/BBS/BBBS/BHM/BIM/BMS/MBA/MBS & +2)

Haynes, 1995

‘Shooting an Elephant’ is a 1936 essay by George Orwell (1903-50), about his time as a young policeman in Burma, which was then part of the British empire. The essay explores an apparent paradox about the behaviour of Europeans, who supposedly have power over their colonial subjects. Orwell begins by relating some of his memories from his time as a young police officer working in Burma. He, like other British and European people in imperial Burma, was held in contempt by the native populace, with Burmese men tripping (losing balance) him up during football matches between the Europeans and Burmans, and the local Buddhist priests loudly insulting their European colonisers on the streets. Orwell tells us that these experiences instilled in him two things: it confirmed his view, which he had already formed, that imperialism was evil , but it also inspired hatred of the enmity between the European imperialists and their native subjects . Of course, these two things are related, and Orwell ...

Summary:  Roger Fry , an influential English art critic and theorist, made significant contributions to the field of aesthetics through his essay on the subject. Although Fry wrote extensively on aesthetics, his essay " An Essay in Aesthetics " is among his most famous works. This essay is about understanding what makes art special and how we experience it. Art as a Unique Experience :  Fry explains that when we look at art, we experience it differently from how we experience everyday life. In daily life, we usually think about how things are useful to us. But with art, we just appreciate the beauty of shapes, colors, and designs for their own sake, without thinking about practical uses. Emotions in Art :  Fry talks about a special kind of emotion that art brings out in us, which he calls " aesthetic emotion ." This emotion is different from other feelings because it’s caused by the way the artwork looks (its forms, colors, etc.), not by what the artwork is about. T...

Contents of the Dead Man’s Pocket is a short story by  Jack Finney , originally published by both   Good Housekeeping   and   Collier’s   in 1956 . The story is a suspenseful tale of a man who travels onto a hazardous window ledge (ridge) to retrieve the papers he believes will make his career. Finney was a prolific (creative) writer, recognized for his science fiction novels   The Body Snatchers   and   Time and Again , as well as thrillers, such as   5 Against the House . The story begins with protagonist  Tom Benecke at a desk in the living room of his eleventh-floor apartment in New York City. He is preparing to type up a handwritten memo to be distributed to his office. He finds small ways to distract himself from starting. First, he tries to open a window, but it isn’t easily opened. He has to use quite a bit of force on the frame. Once the window is open, he continues to ignore the typewriter, crossing the room to talk t...

Anton Chekhov (1860-1904) Ø Tells the story of an affair o    Wealthy Banker ( Dmitry Gurov ) o    Young Wife ( Anna ) Ø Builds off of what is expected o    Affair was thought to be a quick experience o    These characters were surprised to find that not the case o    Specially the Banker  Ø After short affair they meet again o    Rekindle their relationship o    Develop a new chapter in their lives o    Discover themselves Ø The writer presents the Theme and Ideas o    Progression of Character: §    Moving from stereotype to developed §    Dmitri: Rich playboy with no depth becomes entwined with Anna. §    Anna: Moves from  The Lady with the Dog to someone with a name. ·        Relates to getting to know people as well as individual development. o    Open Ending and the Ability t...

James Joyce Dubliners  is a collection of fifteen short stories by James Joyce, first published in 1914. The stories depict a naturalistic Irish middle class life in and around Dublin in the early years of the 20 th  century.   CHARACTERS: James Duffy Mrs Emily Sinico Captain Sinico (Ship Captain) Mary In  A Painful Case  by  James Joyce we have the theme of loneliness, isolation, guilt, order and paralysis. Taken from his Dubliners collection the story is narrated in the third person by an unnamed narrator and very early on in the story the reader realises that Joyce, through the use of colour, is highlighting to the reader how lonely the main character,  James Duffy ’s life is a middle-aged bachelor without family or friends, is a cashier in a private bank and lives a Spartan (simple) existence in a Dublin suburb. He dislikes physical and mental disorder, ignores beggars’ pleas for alms (charities), and does not attend church. Hi...

The book, To Know a Fly, is about a scientist and his lifelong fascination with science and the fly. Vincent Dethier is a biologist that loves science and sharing it with the world. The book explains how flies work, shows how science works, and shows a researcher genuinely enjoying his job. He goes into great detail describing his experiments, observations, and discoveries of flies. Dethier chose to study flies for many reasons such as: "the fly is always with us... there are about 50, 000 kinds of flies sharing 'our' world," the fly has many amazing and interesting characteristics, and flies are free, easy to come by, and very cheap to use for experimental purposes, plus animals rights activists do not usually harass scientists for experimenting on flies. Of course, Dethier did mention at least one drawback of working with flies, which is that they have an "uncanny knack of escaping." Dethier says, "An experiment is a scientist's way of asking na...