Essay On Community Service Essay Example for Free

Essay On Community Service Essay Community service can be a chore for some and a delight for others. It can be tedium for one or a chance to help others from the bottom of his or her heart for another. Many believe that putting community service in the curriculum in the form of Values-in-Action (ViA) hours was something of a joke, something to guffaw at or simply something atrocious. I agree wholeheartedly with such people. Community service should be totally voluntary and not part of the school curriculum. By doing so, we are able to better evaluate a one’s character, able to work with people who truly wish to help others and increase the amount of help given. For a start, by eliminating community service from the school curriculum, we can better judge someone’s character. The problem with community service as part of the school curriculum is that people will feel that they are obliged to do community service and this will cause many students to take part in many activities so as to beef up their portfolios. Hence, all applicants, for example, at a particular company will have the exact same portfolios, all replicas of the other. If such a scenario occurs, how in the world are companies able to handpick and develop people who are truly capable and efficient workers? There is a chance that companies accidentally hire people who are churlish and truculent but what can we blame except this education system. This is especially disadvantageous to major companies that have many global sectors. Therefore, we need to remove community service from the school curriculum so that we can truly see who are worthy to be hired by a company. Next, the removal of community service from the school curriculum also means that in community service projects, people who truly wish to help the needy will be working together, giving rise to more successful projects. Without community service as part of the school curriculum, those who wish to give a helping hand and those who want to help from the bottom of their heart will be able to band together without the problem of people participating in community projects for the sake of getti ng ViA hours. These two groups of people have very differing goals and visions but by removing community service from the curriculum, such apathetic pupils will not be a burden to the community service industry. Instead, there is a higher likelihood of success in this sector with the increase in productivity, enhancement of teamwork and the sense of camaraderie within these teams working together for a common purpose. Furthermore, apathetic souls could  also lead a happier life without the â€Å"hassle† of community service bugging their minds. It is basically killing two birds with one stone! Lastly, many people think that by removing community service from the school curriculum, the amount of help given to the needy will drop drastically. However, this is definitely not so. By taking away community service from the school curriculum, we are also taking away those with apathetic mindsets. This means that there is a stronger circle of helpers for the needy. Hence, there will be more freedom in expressing ways to give a hand for the various needy communities. This means that people will not restrain their thoughts and ideas but instead, share it with others for them to improve and create. Thus, the visions that people have are very likely to turn to reality and with successive projects; there is a higher chance for a rapid in flow of ideas, giving rise to even more projects targeted for the less fortunate. This means an increase in the amount of help given and not a drop. After all that has been said and done, I strongly encourage that community service is rid off from the school curriculum. I believe that it can do wonders for our world and change it for the better. With better individuals with a morally upright character, they can influence others to follow suit and the acts of iniquity around our country may decrease significantly. Honestly, what more could we ask for?

Free Hamlet Essays: The Foils :: GCSE English Literature Coursework

Foils of Hamlet  Ã‚   Hamlet is a play about a young man who is seeking revenge for his father's death. In the process of doing so, different things happen and it becomes more and more of a complex plot. Throughout the play, we are introduced to many different foils. One of which is Laertes. Shakespeare chooses to portray Hamlet and Laertes differently although they are both so similar. Hamlet and Laertes are all in basically the same position. Both of their fathers have been killed and they are both looking to avenge those fathers' deaths. However, we see when we are reading that some characters are set up so that they gain more sympathy and such than others from the reader. For example, Shakespeare makes Laertes look like a "bad guy" because he wants to kill Hamlet but in essence, Hamlet is doing the same exact thing to Claudius. It is as if Shakespeare is saying that it is okay for Hamlet to kill but it isn't ok for Laertes to feel the need for revenge. Hamlet begins a soliloquy with the line, "How all occasions do inform against me and spur my dull revenge!" (Act IV, sc. IV, li. 32-33) It is like Shakespeare is trying to make it look like it is such a shame the Hamlet's plans aren't working out so well and that he isn't as stable as he wants to be. It is almost like Shakespeare wants to reader to take pity on Hamlet who is not such a genuine person. He has killed Polonius and some say he has killed Ophelia. Should people really pity him because his plans to kill his uncle aren't falling correctly into place? Shakespeare is almost trying to get the reader to do so. On the other hand, there is Laertes who is Hamlet's position. His father was killed, actually by Hamlet, and he is out to avenge that death. He is furious and passionate about it just like Hamlet is but it almost seems that when one is reading the play, they should think of Laertes as a "bad guy" and as the antagonist. Laertes says "It warms the very sickness in my heart that I shall live and tell him to his teeth, "thus did'st thou." (Act. IV sc.VII. li. 55-57) He is basically saying that he would make him so happy to kill Hamlet and to show his what he really did.

Character Analysis of the Glass Menagerie

Tom’s double role in The Glass Menagerie—as a character whose recollections the play documents and as a character who acts within those recollections—underlines the play’s tension between objectively presented dramatic truth and memory’s distortion of truth. Unlike the other characters, Tom sometimes addresses the audience directly, seeking to provide a more detached explanation and assessment of what has been happening onstage. But at the same time, he demonstrates real and sometimes juvenile emotions as he takes part in the play’s action. This duality can frustrate our understanding of Tom, as it is hard to decide whether he is a character whose assessments should be trusted or one who allows his emotions to affect his judgment. It also shows how the nature of recollection is itself problematic: memory often involves confronting a past in which one was less virtuous than one is now. Because The Glass Menagerie is partly autobiographical, and because Tom is a stand-in for the playwright himself (Williams’s given name was Thomas, and he, like Tom, spent part of his youth in St. Louis with an unstable mother and sister, his father absent much of the time), we can apply this comment on the nature of memory to Williams’s memories of his own youth. Even taken as a single character, Tom is full of contradiction. On the one hand, he reads literature, writes poetry, and dreams of escape, adventure, and higher things. On the other hand, he seems inextricably bound to the squalid, petty world of the Wingfield household. We know that he reads D. H. Lawrence and follows political developments in Europe, but the content of his intellectual life is otherwise hard to discern. We have no idea of Tom’s opinion on Lawrence, nor do we have any indication of what Tom’s poetry is about. All we learn is what he thinks about his mother, his sister, and his warehouse job—precisely the things from which he claims he wants to escape. Tom’s attitude toward Amanda and Laura has puzzled critics. Even though he clearly cares for them, he is frequently indifferent and even cruel toward them. His speech at the close of the play demonstrates his strong feelings for Laura. But he cruelly deserts her and Amanda, and not once in the course of the play does he behave kindly or lovingly toward Laura—not even when he nocks down her glass menagerie. Critics have suggested that Tom’s confusing behavior indicates an incestuous attraction toward his sister and his shame over that attraction. This theory casts an interesting light on certain moments of the play—for example, when Amanda and Tom discuss Laura at the end of Scene Five. Tom’s insistence that Laura is hopelessly peculiar and cannot survive in the outside world, while Amanda (and later Jim) claims that Laura’s oddness is a positive thing, could have as much to do with his jealous desire to keep his sister to himself as with Laura’s own quirks. Amanda Wingfield If there is a signature character type that marks Tennessee Williams’s dramatic work, it is undeniably that of the faded Southern belle. Amanda is a clear representative of this type. In general, a Tennessee Williams faded belle is from a prominent Southern family, has received a traditional upbringing, and has suffered a reversal of economic and social fortune at some point in her life. Like Amanda, these women all have a hard time coming to terms with their new status in society—and indeed, with modern society in general, which disregards the social distinctions that they were taught to value. Their relationships with men and their families are turbulent, and they staunchly defend the values of their past. As with Amanda, their maintenance of genteel manners in very ungenteel surroundings can appear tragic, comic, or downright grotesque. Amanda is the play’s most extroverted and theatrical character, and one of modern American drama’s most coveted female roles (the acclaimed stage actress Laurette Taylor came out of semi-retirement to play the role in the original production, and a number of legendary actresses, including Jessica Tandy, have since taken on the role). Amanda’s constant nagging of Tom and her refusal to see Laura for who she really is are certainly reprehensible, but Amanda also reveals a willingness to sacrifice for her loved ones that is in many ways unparalleled in the play. She subjects herself to the humiliating drudgery of subscription sales in order to enhance Laura’s marriage prospects, without ever uttering so much as a word of complaint. The safest conclusion to draw is that Amanda is not evil but is deeply flawed. In fact, her flaws are centrally responsible for the tragedy, comedy, and theatrical flair of her character. Like her children, Amanda withdraws from reality into fantasy. Unlike them, she is convinced that she is not doing so and, consequently, is constantly making efforts to engage with people and the world outside her family. Amanda’s monologues to her children, on the phone, and to Jim all reflect quite clearly her moral and psychological failings, but they are also some of the most colorful and unforgettable words in the play. Laura Wingfield The physically and emotionally crippled Laura is the only character in the play who never does anything to hurt anyone else. Despite the weight of her own problems, she displays a pure compassion—as with the tears she sheds over Tom’s unhappiness, described by Amanda in Scene Four—that stands in stark contrast to the selfishness and grudging sacrifices that characterize the Wingfield household. Laura also has the fewest lines in the play, which contributes to her aura of selflessness. Yet she is the axis around which the plot turns, and the most prominent symbols—blue roses, the glass unicorn, the entire glass menagerie—all in some sense represent her. Laura is as rare and peculiar as a blue rose or a unicorn, and she is as delicate as a glass figurine. Other characters seem to assume that, like a piece of transparent glass, which is colorless until light shines upon it, Laura can take on whatever color they wish. Thus, Amanda both uses the contrast between herself and Laura to emphasize the glamour of her own youth and to fuel her hope of re-creating that youth through Laura. Tom and Jim both see Laura as an exotic creature, completely and rather quaintly foreign to the rest of the world. Yet Laura’s crush on the high school hero, Jim, is a rather ordinary schoolgirl sentiment, and a girl as supposedly fragile as Laura could hardly handle the days she spends walking the streets in the cold to avoid going to typing class. Through actions like these, Laura repeatedly displays a will of her own that defies others’ perceptions of her, and this will repeatedly goes unacknowledged.

An Accurate Representation Of Australian Identity

Making an accurate representation of Australian identity will forever be a difficult task with the vast range of lifestyles its people live. However, this concept is challenged and has developed into an obsession. (ConvictCreations, 2000) This is because of the many age groups, class divisions, differences in location and cultural diversity. Since the introduction of television, producers have made humorous and witty shows, interpreting and critiquing the Australian Identity. This critique is referred to as ‘satire’ and is made apparent mostly in television shows such as Chris Lilley’s 2005, hit mockumentary series, We Can be Heroes. The internationally acclaimed show satirises the ‘faults’ in Australian identity while also providing humorous entertainment. In the short, six episode series, a variety of satirised elements are unmistakable. Characters have been developed to represent the many levels of class division in our society. Enhancing the defin ition of such classes is the differences in use of language and knowledge between the characters – an effective tool to categorise the differences in our society. The characters featuring in We Can be Heroes have been carefully constructed and utilise humour to deliver an impression of the complex concept of class division in Australia. From the first episode, class division becomes apparent as three separate storylines are introduced. Pat and Terry Mullins are a lower middle class couple living in the outer suburbs. TheyShow MoreRelatedMulticulturalism : The Emerging And Ever Changing Concept Of Multiculturalism1981 Words   |  8 Pagesbackground, people of colour, or people of all cultures regardless of race† (5) The Australian Government Department of Social Services defines it as a â€Å"term which describes the cultural and ethnic diversity of contemporary Australia,† as well as detailing it as an integral part of Australian society (13). 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