Agenda Setting Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Agenda Setting - Essay Example As such, the input of the media in setting the agenda in such circumstances is vita since it helps decipher some of the prevailing political events at the time. The mass media is more likely to influence the opinions of an electorate during campaigns than the actual politician is. The structure of the media characterized with the various gatekeepers implies that decision of the mass media is informed therefore factual. The electorate therefore relies on the communications from the media. The elite are always more interested in politics that the illiterate in a society because politics of a country influences their wellbeing. Such a group considers the information they obtain from the media. The group relies on the media to initiate debates in social circles. The illiterate on the other hand believe the mass media content which often help them make their own personal decisions. The mass media gives intensified attention to specific issues in the society through repetitive coverage thus ensuring that the public discusses them at various stages. The article discusses the role of mass communication research in understanding the various effects of the mass media. The media continues to remain a vital section of the society that influences the actions, thoughts and feelings of the public. This implies that media is a vital aspect that does not only inform the public but influences the actions and thoughts of their target audience. By heightening research in the field, the scholar explains that the practitioners in the industry would discover new appropriate ways of ensuring that the media performs its functions effectively without harming the public. Mass communication research just as in any other discipline serves to develop new knowledge thereby informing the future of the profession. The book suggests specific features of the profession that requires effective research in order to uphold

The new york times, the best laws money can buy july 12, 2010 Essay

The new york times, the best laws money can buy july 12, 2010 - Essay Example Lobbyists have been around for decades. There is really not much that the common people know about them, except that they lobby. But what does that really mean and why do they have to flock over in the halls of the very foundations of the nation’s sovereignty, the Senate and the House of Representatives. The most common question deduced is what do they actually do and how do they affect us. It seems at first glance that there are really so little of what they do that directly affects the people or the government. They guise in the fact that their main job is to point out to legislators one or two small details in pending legislations for them to take a second look and reconsider the proposal. The congressman or senator then acts as a mercenary for these interests. Now the succeeding question is what is so important with these minute details that people, groups or corporations have to hire lobbyists to do their bidding. A 1986 article written in Time magazine appropriately titl ed â€Å"Peddling Influence† was an in-depth depiction of the growth of lobbying as a profession. From being a very reticent profession, as specifically pointed out even congressmen back then do not want to be seen talking with a lobbyist, it has blossomed into a very public and media frenzied occupation. As pointed out, â€Å"One man’s loophole is another man’s socially useful allowance, and one man’s lobbyist is another man’s righteous advocate. Nonetheless, the voices most likely to be heard are often the ones that can afford the best-connected access brokers† (par. 4). Steven Brill has painted a clearer picture in how lobbying has affected our nation. As an explicit example he has cited Private Equity Council, a trade group that wants to augment taxes on carried interest. It keeps on its payroll Capitol Tax with a $30, 000 retainer each month ensuring the taxes on its members are kept low. This type of payment is not limited to only Capi tol Tax as there are other firms they employ. It has been reported that they have spent $4.2 million from 2009. Keeping in mind that there are other groups lobbying for the same cause, all in all, according to Brill, this amounts to about $15 million. This already seems like a lot of money but this is small change as it equates to an investment for about $100 billion in taxes in the next 10 years. This will actually save them around $10 billion in taxes. Furthermore, their lobbyists have afforded them the added bonus that it becomes effective this year instead of 2010. Saving them another $2 billion (Brill, par.4-5). In comparison, the $15 million does not sound that much. It is but a mere insignificant percentage compared to what they will be able to save. But what does this really mean to us because so what if they are able to save as much. It is uncomforting to think that this â€Å"payoff is all the more remarkable when you realize that this tax break is going to some of the we althiest Americans and that all the reformers wanted originally was for those folks to pay the same graduated income-tax rate that normal wage earners do† (Brill, par.6). It is but the virtue of equity that this tax policy should have been implemented. As the saying so aptly puts it, ‘absolute power corrupts, absolutely.’ There seems to be no satiation to the hunger that what the rich wants is to be richer while others are

Take My Eyes Essay Example for Free

Take My Eyes Essay 1.Spousal abuse physically and mentally are obviously the central theme to this movie, there are however a few other underlying themes. First of the theme of reforming or not reforming is shown through the abused women ´s decision in whether or not to go to Madrid and start a career she loves or to stay home with an abusive husband. In the end, the main character finally chose not to reform to her cultures ways and leaves for Madrid. Unlike her mother who stayed with an abusive husband until he died. Another theme would be how abuse affects the entire family. This is really seen with the son of the abused mother and abusive father. Even though the father was never abusive towards his son, he was still gravely affected by the abuse. The sister of the abused women was also affected because she saw what was happening and tried to help but her sister wouldn’t listen. This would have definitely kept her up at night at least. 2.There is explicit and implicit violence throughout the film. The beginning starts out with a ransacked apartment and the abused mother and her son running to her sister’s house. This would be an example of implicit violence. On the other hand when the husband slams her against walls and throws her around that is an example of explicit violence. The director does a good job of not using too much explicit violence because it could cause the film to become hard to watch by some viewers. 3.It is said that the eyes are the portal to one’s soul. When the husband demands for his wife’s and sons eyes, he is attempting to force his control into their soul. The tittle â€Å"take my eyes† represents the husbands need to have everything of her even her soul. The sex scene when he says give me your arms, give me your legs, and so on, is meant to show that he has not changed at all and still sees her as an object. In that scene however, she followed his request by saying take my arms, take my legs, which means she must have enjoyed some of it. 4.Art plays the role of her increased freedom and confidence. It starts with a small job working as a cashier at a religious museum, then becoming a voluntary tour guide at the museum that described and told the religious story of the painting, all the way to getting a job interview in Madrid. The more she chased art the farther it pulled her out of the hell she was in. Another important role was the one of clothes. As she gained confidence she began to dress better and take pride in herself. This angered her husband but because of her work she had to keep it up dressing nice which gave her more and more self-worth. 5.This movie is a serious study of a serious social pathology. Only two men in the movie were portrayed to be abusive monsters. The rest of the males were good honest people who the women enjoyed. It would be ignorant to claim this as male bashing. It is a good tool to advocate for those women.

Tupac Shakur :: Art

Tupac Shakur Tupac Shakur, in my thoughts, is the best rapper there is. Tupac Amaru Shakur was born on June 16, 1971. He was born in New York. Tupac Amaru are Inca words. Tupac Amaru means a "shining serpent." Shakur means "thankful to God," and that came from the Arabic language. When Tupac was 12 years old, his first performance was a play "A Raisin in the Sun." In that play Tupac played Travis. In June of 1986, Tupac’s family moved to Baltimore from New York. That is where Tupac wrote his first rap. 3 months later Tupac attended Baltimore School for the arts. That is where he studied ballet and acting. About two years later Tupac moves west of the United States to Marin City, California. He moved in with a neighbor and then he began to sell drugs. In 1990 Tupac joins Digital Underground a record label where he was a dancer and a rapper. At the beginning of 1991 Tupac makes his album debut on his new label Digital Underground. In November of 91 2Pacalypse Now was released. Shortly after his 2Pacalypse release. Tupac charged a lawsuit of 10 million against an Oakland Police for brutality after being arrested for jaywalking. On January 17, 1992 Tupac makes his first movie appearance in Ernest Dickenson’s Juice, where he played a betrayal role of Bishop. On September 22nd, Vice President Dan Quayle accused that Tupac’s 2Pacalypse Now "has no place in our society." Next year on February 1, 1993 Tupac came out with another album. Once it was released it went platinum. It went platinum on April 19, 1995 along with 2Pacalypse Now but that went gold only. On July 23, 1993 Tupac makes his second movie appearance on John Singleton’s Poetic Justice. Just before filming the movie Janet makes 2Pac take an HIV test before kissing him in any scenes. On Halloween of 93’ 2Pac gets arrested for shooting two-off duty police officers from Atalanta. 2Pac said that he was harassed as a black motorist. The charges were dropped. During the end of November 94’ while 2Pac is on trial for sex and weapons he was robbed $40,000 of jewelery and was shot five times. The $40,000 worth of jewelery was stolen in a recording studio in Times Square. The robbers had stole 2Pac’s $30,000 diamond ring and $10,000 of gold chains. They left his diamond-encrusted gold Rolex. Tupac Shakur :: Art Tupac Shakur Tupac Shakur, in my thoughts, is the best rapper there is. Tupac Amaru Shakur was born on June 16, 1971. He was born in New York. Tupac Amaru are Inca words. Tupac Amaru means a "shining serpent." Shakur means "thankful to God," and that came from the Arabic language. When Tupac was 12 years old, his first performance was a play "A Raisin in the Sun." In that play Tupac played Travis. In June of 1986, Tupac’s family moved to Baltimore from New York. That is where Tupac wrote his first rap. 3 months later Tupac attended Baltimore School for the arts. That is where he studied ballet and acting. About two years later Tupac moves west of the United States to Marin City, California. He moved in with a neighbor and then he began to sell drugs. In 1990 Tupac joins Digital Underground a record label where he was a dancer and a rapper. At the beginning of 1991 Tupac makes his album debut on his new label Digital Underground. In November of 91 2Pacalypse Now was released. Shortly after his 2Pacalypse release. Tupac charged a lawsuit of 10 million against an Oakland Police for brutality after being arrested for jaywalking. On January 17, 1992 Tupac makes his first movie appearance in Ernest Dickenson’s Juice, where he played a betrayal role of Bishop. On September 22nd, Vice President Dan Quayle accused that Tupac’s 2Pacalypse Now "has no place in our society." Next year on February 1, 1993 Tupac came out with another album. Once it was released it went platinum. It went platinum on April 19, 1995 along with 2Pacalypse Now but that went gold only. On July 23, 1993 Tupac makes his second movie appearance on John Singleton’s Poetic Justice. Just before filming the movie Janet makes 2Pac take an HIV test before kissing him in any scenes. On Halloween of 93’ 2Pac gets arrested for shooting two-off duty police officers from Atalanta. 2Pac said that he was harassed as a black motorist. The charges were dropped. During the end of November 94’ while 2Pac is on trial for sex and weapons he was robbed $40,000 of jewelery and was shot five times. The $40,000 worth of jewelery was stolen in a recording studio in Times Square. The robbers had stole 2Pac’s $30,000 diamond ring and $10,000 of gold chains. They left his diamond-encrusted gold Rolex.

Formal and Informal Communication Essay

1.The most prominent quality of a human being is the effective and meaningful way of communication. Humans have a unique and well developed way of imparting or interchanging thoughts, opinions, or information by speech, writing, or signs. Communication is well established but not only limited among humans but also in animals and in manmade machines such as computers Communication 2.The word communications comes from a Latin word â€Å"Communis † which means to share. One definition of communication is â€Å"any act by which one person gives to or receives from another person information about that person’s needs, desires, perceptions, knowledge, or affective states. Communication may be intentional or unintentional, may involve conventional or unconventional signals, may take linguistic or nonlinguistic forms, and may occur through spoken or other modes. † Styles of Communication 3.There can be two broad categories of communication, based on the style of communication. They are categorized as formal and informal communications that have their own set of characteristic features. For simplicity of understanding, it just depends on the situation and the organization or a person involved in that chain of communication. If some high ranking officials or personalities are involved or some prestigious organizations are addressed, the content and the matter of the communication will be formal in its language and formatting. For example our correspondence or letters to the Air Headquarters will differ in wording and format from a note that we scribble on a draft piece of paper an email that we write to our everyday friends. 4.There are numerous situations in our daily life that involve lot of correspondence and communication. However, where no high ranking agencies or personalities are involved in that chain, the communication styles and format used can be quite informa. 5.There are specific requirements and some general rules as to how and when there is a need of a formal or an informal way of communication. There are both benefits and ill effects of the two kinds of communications. For further elaboration both the situations are debated. Formal Communication 6.Formal communication includes all situations where communication has to occur in a set formal format. This can include all sorts of business communication, corporate communication or government official communication. The style of communication in this form is very formal and official. Official conferences, meetings and written memos and corporate letters are used for communication. When two people meet for the first time, the way they communicate with each other can also be utterly formal. Hence formal communication is straightforward, official and always precise and has a stringent and rigid tone to it. Communication takes place through the formal channels of the organization structure along the lines of authority established by the management. Such communications are generally in writing and may take any of the forms, policy, manuals, procedures and rule books, memoranda, official meetings, reports, etc. 7.Advantages of Formal CommunicationThere are definitely some advantages of formal communication: (a)They help in the fixation of responsibility and  (b)Maintaining of the authority relationship in an organization 8.Disadvantages of Formal Communication (a)It is generally time consuming, cumbersome and (b)Sometimes it leads to a good deal of distortion at times Informal Communication 9.For simplicity of understanding communication arising out of all those channels of communication that fall outside the formal channels is known as informal communication. Informal communication includes instances of free unrestrained communication between people who share a casual rapport with each other. Generally it is built around the everyday social relationship of members of an organization. Informal communication requires two people to have a similar wavelength and hence occurs between friends and family. At times, in informal communication, it is difficult to fix responsibility about accuracy of information. Such communication is usually oral and may be covered even by simple glance, gesture or smile or silence. It often works in group of people, i.e. when one person has some information of interest; he passes it on to his informal group and so on. 10.Informal communication does not have any rigid rules and guidelines. Informal conversations need not necessarily have boundaries of time, place or even subjects for that matter since we all know that friendly chats with our loved ones can simply go on and on. 11.Advantages of Informal CommunicationSome of the advantages of Informal communication are: (a)It acts as a valuable purpose in expressing certain information that cannot be channeled via the official channels (b)Informal communication also facilitates to ameliorate managerial decisions as more people are involved in the process of decision-making 12.Disadvantages of Informal CommunicationInspite of many advantages, informal communication has certain disadvantages: (a)Informal communication contains facts, deceptions, rumors and unclear data. (b)The informal channels of communication may transmit completely imprecise information that may harm rather than help an organization.

Ntuc Fairprice Essay

NTUC FairPrice is a social enterprise of Singapore National Trades Union Congress (SNTUC), the only trade union centre in Singapore. Founded in 1973, the vision of the organization was to moderate the cost of living. NTUC FairPrice is now the largest supermarket chain in Singapore, they consist of 1.FairPrice Supermarkets 2.FairPrice Finest 3.Cheers 4.FairPrice Xtra, 5.FairPrice Xpress 6.FairPrice Online 7.providing their service to 300,000 odd customers daily (Superbands). IKEA IKEA was founded in Sweden in 1943. Their uniqueness lies in their design furniture for flat packs for self assembly, by the customers (IKEA, 2011). IKEA’s business practice is known for cost control and continuous product development.IKEA is operating in 38 countries. Although IKEA’s primary intention is to have its end users to transport the furniture by themselves, in Singapore, where many of its consumers may not have their own transport, they also offer delivery service. Procurement, Purchasing And Sourcing FairPrice Firstly, we take a look at Fairprice’s logistic processes, Procurement, purchasing and sourcing. Searching suppliers and conclude agreement Suppliers require meeting Fairprice’s product quality requirements especially for their cold chain management. It helped Fairprice and suppliers gain competitive advantage by contribute quality products for a long period to the demand customers as it gave positive effect on its revenue.For each product group, only limited number of suppliers can supply. Receiving stock requirement from NTUC’s stores They are IT enabled where stock requirement are sent to DC based on their inventory management in which stocks reaches its reorder point needs to start ordering new stocks. Purchasing orders with suppliers Tracking their orders, invoices and payments via SAP Ensuring delivery sent at DC/Stores Perishable products are sent directly to stores. Non-perishable products like butter, cheese are sent to DC. Processing consumer returns and non conformance To process non conformance in which suppliers fails to meet Fairprice’s product quality requirements in their product and dealing with returns in stores using Goods Returned Note. Fairprice’s procurement assures to have a long last and continuous relationship with their suppliers. IKEA All products from IKEA are manufactured according the designed code of conduct â€Å"The IKEA way on Purchasing Home Furnishing Products†(IWAY), as it require main IKEA’s relationship with their suppliers. All suppliers must achieve the requirements.IKEA sources internationally with 5 countries which is China, Italy, Poland, Sweden, Germany. Their 2 main focus is to increase sustainability of their suppliers and increase uses of sustainable raw materials. IKEA aims building long term relationship with suppliers that share same values. They focus to encourage suppliers having developments become sustainable and independent of IKEA presence by committing to IWAY.IKEA’s auditor’s visits suppliers regularly to assure that IWAY’s requirements are met.The compliance and monitoring group (CMG) ensures that same audit requirements are used worldwide. There are 4 major categories of suppliers which is Home Furnishing with 13,800 suppliers, Food with 76 suppl iers, catalogue with 50 suppliers and Transport service with 263 providers. IKEA purchased products both regionally and globally so as to have low price with high quality.They have a purchasing unit called IKEA component in which develops raw materials and components for their product and acts as sub-supplier to IKEA suppliers manufacturing finished products. Inventory Management Fairprice The second logistic process that we are going to look into is the Inventory management. Fairprice and Ikea have designed their inventory management in a way that it will reduce costs and positively impact the company’s return on investment. Fairprice has 2 warehouses and they only hold finished goods in their warehouse. This enables the company to largely reduce the time Fairprice will need to hold the inventory. Inventory cost such as carrying cost and risk cost will be reduce. Fairprice’s inventory management adopts the push approach. The stocks from each outlets will reach a certain stock level where the store staff will make the orders to the GLS (Grocery Logistics of Singapore). GLS will have enough time to consolidate all order from different outlets and enables them to make lesser trips for delivery, thus save the delivery cost and also prevent a stock out situation. IKEA IKEA adopts a special inventory whereby they manufacture their products by a push approach. The operational forecast and the tactical forecast are combined to create a final forecasts on store levels which will be aggregated, reconciled and compared with the same frames based on the retail and distribution services forecast group level. IKEA’s store operations focuses on the Pareto’s law by supporting high-flow facilities and low-flow warehouse that are more manual. In its high-flow warehouses, IKEA employs automatic storage and retrieval systems (AS/RS) to drive down its costs-per-touch. IKEA have large bins, which is sufficient enough to cover sales for one day as what is sold is captured by Point of Sales (POS) system and what comes into the store is also known via Warehouse Management System (WMS). Thus, very little cycle counting is done. However, IKEA is able to detect any abnormalities. For example, when the system expects a certain volume of a particular product to have been sold during a two day period and less products was actually sold, the system will trigger and will direct in-store logistics to head to the location to do manual checks. With this process and system, it enables the right goods to be in the store with higher certainty as compared to the traditional retail forecasting/replenishment process. Warehousing and Distribution Fairprice The third process is warehouses and distribution. FairPrice faced problems till 1993 as suppliers used to deliver their products to Fairprice stores directly. This recorded up to 200 deliveries everyday with more than 30,000 products to managed and their distribution system were unproductive and was prone to errors. After 1993, Fairprice’s manage the Grocery Logistic of Singapore(GLS) Distribution Centre which is central distribution centre(DC) .GLS manages 2 distribution centres at Penjuru and JooKoon. In 2002, Fresh Food Distribution Centre(FFDC) is Fairprice’s centralized refrigerated DC to implement only fresh food items which they need right temperature to kept fresh. This allowed Fairprice improvise their supply chain management of these perishable products through a better temperature management control. It’s essential knowing the temperature for perishable products. Products like milk, chilled pork and dairy products are delivered directly to the stores b y suppliers to avoid spoilage. There are 6 warehouse handled under FFDC with different controlled temperatures ranges between -20 to 18 degree Celsius. The temperature in each of the warehouse is controlled and observed assuring that products are kept safe at the right temperatures. This enables NTUC Fairprice increases its efficiency and manage its supply chain as moving stocks faster helps maintain the freshness and improve quality of products. They provide proper infrastructure to maximize storage management and able to improvise the process of handling the fresh food, especially with the right temperature therefore reducing spoilage. By having Hazard Analysis Critical Control Points (HACCP) certified, they devote maintaining good standard food safety and hygiene in DC. They operate 7 days a week and deliver more than 28 million cartons to the stores per year.

Free sample - Poes Horror. translation missing

Poes Horror. Poe's HorrorINTRODUCTION Edgar Allan Poe (1809 - 1849) was a famous poet in America who wrote many stories and poems (Hossick 28). He was also an editor as well as a writer and he worked with several journals and publishing homes. He is most famous for his stories of mystery. It is believed that Edgar Allan made a generous contribution to the genre of scientific fiction through his stories and poems of mystery. The most outstanding stories by this poet are the black cat, the cask of Amontillado, William Wilson and the man of the crowd. These four stories are the area of interest in this paper and a comparison in the themes of the four stories will be made. DISCUSSION THE STORIES 1.  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   BLACK CAT This story is narrated by Edgar himself and he explains that the story is inspired by his childhood passion for domestic animals. The story is about him and his favorite pet, a cat named as Pluto. Pluto and Edgar were good friends until Edgar changed abruptly, became violent and a drunkard. The situation worsened and Edgar killed the cat, an act that haunted him and prompted him to look for another cat to replace Pluto with. The new black cat does not bring peace to Edgar and the story ends with Edgar killing both the black cat and his wife. The narrator takes the audience through the story with lots of symbolism and imagery. The main theme of this story is the man’s fear of the unknown such as the fear of darkness, illusion and spaces. In the story, Edgar finds his house on fire after killing Pluto, and later he sees an image of a huge cat on the wall of his house. Perverseness is also a theme in this story where the quilt feeling by Edgar causes fear in his life (Barger and Poe, 59). There is also the theme of self destruction which is shown by the way Edgar brings trouble to himself through alcoholism and his violent actions. Another theme is the theme of vengeance (Lippmann 45). The black cat haunts Elgar in order to avenge its death and in the end of the story, the cat alerts draws the attention of the police to the acts of Elgar. The most outstanding elements in this story are the elements of horror and superstition. It is superstition that makes Edgar think that he has seen a cat on the wall of his burnt house, a symbol of Pluto hanging on the noose. Another important element in the story is the cat itself, which plays the roles of an actor, symbol, and a device to develop the plot. It doubles up as both a real creature and a ghost by dying and another cat reappearing in the story. This element of doubling is used in German folklore to signify bad luck or bad omen. The name Pluto is also symbolic as according to Roman mythology, the name symbolizes death or misfortunes. The story is also ambiguous, with the question of whether the reappearance of the cat was natural or superstitious being left unanswered. 2.  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   CASK OF AMONTILLADO In this story the narrator, Montressor, is not happy as the others during the annual celebration of the beginning of Lentern season. The reason why he is not happy is because of the many offenses committed against him by Furtunato. Montressor is out to revenge and he looks for an opportunity to do so. He uses a new wine by the name of Amontillado as bait to catch Furtunato and he succeeds and kills him brutally. The themes in the story are revenge, deception and pride. Montressor is out to revenge against Fortunato for the many offences he has committed, the most recent one being an insult. Deception is another theme shown by the way the way Montressor uses Amontillado to lure Fortunato to the catacombs where he kills him. Pride is evidenced by the believe Fortunato has on his ability to know whether the wine presented to him is truly Amontillado. He believed in his ability even though he was not sober and he was also unwell (Barger and Poe 88). 3.  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   WILLIAM WILSON The story is narrated by a person on the verge of death, and it first builds on flash back. He is disturbed and seeks to get the reader to sympathize with him by informing the reader that his bad deeds were out of unavoidable circumstances. One theme of the story is the enemy within, which means destroying oneself or working against ones interests through alcoholism, drug abuse and others. There is an inner spirit that develops within us and cause fear of some things, depression or lack of sleep. According to Barger and Poe, the narrator is facing such a situation and in his struggle to overcome it, he fights against himself and loses (620). The other theme is the theme of terror which is shown by the way the narrator struggles to fight against an imaginary enemy. 4.  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   THE MAN OF THE CROWD This is the story of a man in the streets of London who has been suffering from an unknown illness. His sits outside and starts categorizing passers by where he notices one old man and follows him. The pursuit extends to the next day and the man is not able to understand the mission of the old man. The main theme in this story is the theme of mystery which is shown in the way the young man can not categorize the old man from the looks, as opposed to the other people in the streets. Even after following the old man for a long time, the man can not tell the motives of the old man and leaves the reader to find out for themselves (Barger and Poe 298). COMPARISON OF THE STORIES   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Through out the four stories, there are some themes that seem to recur, which are insanity as opposed to rationality, obsession, man and death, double identity, love or hatred, curiosity, resolve among others. About insanity and rationality, in the four stories there are people whose decisions are not driven by rationality but by an element of insanity. In the Black cat, the insanity was brought by influence from alcohol and Elgar is not in control of his decisions (Lippmann 68). Also, in the Cask of Amontillado, Fortunato is driven by drunkenness to accept the challenge to test the wine. The same case applies to the story William Wilson who is so disturbed that his decisions are not rational. In the man of the crowd, the man is driven by an unnamed sickness to sit idly in a coffee shop and categorize people. His move to follow an old man for so long is also an insane decision since he does not stand to benefit from discovering who the old man was.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Another common theme in the stories is obsession. The characters in the stories are obsessed with different things and this obsession is a source of misfortunes or death to the characters. In the Black cat, the narrator is obsessed with the cat, his favorite pet and alcohol while in the story of the cask of Amontillado; Fortunato is obsessed with alcohol (Lippmann 176). There is also the obsession with discovering the truth in the man of the crowd. In the story of William Wilson, the narrator is obsessed with fighting against self and wining.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Throughout the stories, double identity is used to develop the plot. In the black cat, the black cat doubles as a both a natural creature as well as a ghost by dying and reappearing. In the story of the cask of Amontillado, the wine doubles as something to cheer up Fortunato and also as something to kill him. In the story William Wilson, the narrator’s struggle against self results to both a win and a loss while in the story the man of the crowd, the young man doubles as the man we know as well as a mysterious man.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   In the stories, Elgar has employed the use of symbolism, anaphora and first person narration in his work. In the story of the black cat, the cat is used to symbolize misfortune. In the cask of Amontillado, the name ‘Amontillado’ is also used to show bad luck. Anaphora is repeating a phrase or a word before the beginning of lines often to show emphasis and create balance. In the story of the black cat, he uses anaphora as shown in the line â€Å"...I blush, I burn, I shudder, while I pen†¦..†(Barger and Poe 62) and in the story of William Wilson, anaphora is shown in the line â€Å"†¦The same name! The same contour of person! The same of arrival...† (Barger and Poe 625).Irony is also used as shown in the story of the black cat. The cat which was initially a great friend to Edgar turned to be an enemy and cause of trouble to him. In the cask of Amontillado, when Montressor gives Fortunato wine, he toasts â€Å"to his long life† knowing very well that h would kill him. When they are ascending the stairs, he also tells him that his life is respected, which was not true since he was planning to kill him.  Ã‚   CONCLUSION Allan Edgar was a good writer who used various tools in his short stories to develop the story as well as to bring out the various themes. His favorite themes were mystery, obsession and revenge and these are common in most of his works (Hossick 67). He used the first person narration since it is more captivating and also convenient. His short stories are informative, thrilling as well as entertaining due to his literature skills.    WORKS CITED Barger, Andrew and Poe, Allen, E. Edgar Allen Poe Annotated and illustrated entire Stories and Poems. London: Bottletree Books LLC, 2008. Print. Hossick, Malcolm. Edgar Allen Poe. New York: Ardent Media, 2007. Print Lippmann, Babette. Edgar Allen Poe- â€Å"The Philosophy of Composition†: An Analysis of His Work. Norderstedt: GRIN Verlag, 2007.Print