Role Of Women In Canterbury Tales Essays - The Canterbury Tales

Role of Women in Canterbury Tales The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer serves as a moral manual for the 1300's and years after. Through the faults of both men and woman, he shows in each persons story what is right and wrong and how one should live. Under the surface, however, lies a jaded look and woman and how they cause for the downfall of men. ?The Knight's Tale? is one of chivalry and upstanding moral behavior. However, beneath the surface lies the theme of the evil nature of women. Emily plays the part of the beautiful woman who captivates the hearts of two unsuspecting men. Those two men are cousins Arcite and Palamon, both knights who duel for Emily's hand in marriage. The two start out as the best of friends and then roommates in a jail cell that is to be shared for eternity. But with one look at Emily, the two start bickering instinctively and almost come to blows over something they will never be able to have, or so it seems. Chaucer's knack for irony revels itself as Arcite is released from his life sentence but disallowed from ever coming back to Athens. He would be killed ever caught within the city again by King Theseus. Because Arcite is doomed to never again see Emily, his broken heart causes him sickness as he's weakened by love. It is only after he comes up with the plan of returning to Athens under an assumed name that he starts to get better. Meanwhile, Palamon remains back in captivity, rendered helpless due to his lifelong punishment in prison. He knows that he will never be able to talk to Emily and certainly not marry her because of his plight. All he can do is watch her from a distance and admire her beauty. Arcite believes that this is a better punishment than his, though, as he says: ?O dere cosin Palamon, quod he, Thyn is the victorie of this aventure Ful blisfully in prison maistow dure; In prison? Certes nay, but in paradys! Wel hath fortuen y-turned thee the dys, That hast the sighte of hir, and I th'adsence. ? But I, that am exyled and bareyne Of alle grace, and in so greet despeir, That ther nis erthe, water, fyr, ne eir, Ne creature, that of hem maked is, That may me helpe or doon confort in this: Wel oughte I sterve in wanhope and distresse; Farwel my lyf, my lust, and my gladnesse!? (58 and 60) Emily has caused him such distress that he cries all the time and contemplates killing himself so he won't have to feel this every day pain that appears to have no end. All of this because of a woman. Emily is a sweet, innocent woman of her times. In a strange twist for a woman of The Canterbury Tales, she is perfectly happy alone and doesn't ever want to be married. Yet, Palamon and Arcite duel twice for Emily's love and Arcite ends up losing his life all because of her. Palamon, winning her by default, serves Emily faithfully for several years before she agrees to marry him, still not loving him, though. No one wins in ?The Knight's Tale,? but it is the two men who fight over the woman who lose the most. The ?Nun's Priest's Tale? is perhaps the best representation of men's downfall due to the influence of women. The story revolves around a rooster, Chauntercleer, the most beautiful cock in all of England with the sweetest voice an any ear has heard. He has seven wives but his favorite was Pertelote, an elegant hen in her own right. It is this woman, this female, that causes Chauntercleer great trouble. One night Chauntercleer wakes suddenly from a bad dream. Seemingly seeking comfort in her, he tells Pertelot about the dream which involves a wild, rampant dog with beady eyes coming after Chauntercleer. But instead of consoling her ?husband?, she challenges his manhood and says that no man hers should be scared of a dream. This causes Chauntercleer to go off on a tangent about the many, many times in history dreams have predicted the future and how non-believers suffered the consciences of not taking the proper precautions. After he done, however, he says that Pertelot is probably

Free Essays on Universal Discoveries

Patricia Smith’s â€Å"What It’s Like to Be a Black Girl (For Those of You Who Aren’t)† is a poem about a young, black girl growing up. This poem describes what it is like for a young girl who is discovering different things going on with her body. This black girl in the poem is 9 years old and in her pre-puberty stage of life. She feels â€Å"like [she’s] not finished† (Smith, 766). She feels out of place because she is in between the stages of being a child and becoming a young adult. She also â€Å"[finds] a disturbance at [her] chest† (766). At the age of 9, I was in the 4th grade. All of my friends were beginning to wear training bras and I was still without enough breasts to fill one. I did not understand that everyone’s body changes differently until then. I felt like I did not belong. She â€Å"[drops] food coloring in [her] eyes to make them blue and †¦ [pops] a bleached white mophead over the kinks of [her] hair† because she wants to have that all-American look of blond hair and blue eyes (766). My cousins and I would pretend we had long hair by putting my daddy’s long T-shirts on our heads and letting them hang down our backs. We would pretend we were the cast of â€Å"Saved by the Bell† because of the long pretty hair all the girls had. We would â€Å"[primp] in front of mirrors that [denied our reflections]† the same way she would (766). What we would see in the mirror and what we were pretending to be were two completely different things. We were definitely trying to be something we were not, as was the girl in the poem. As she gets older and develops more, young men start to notice her and she does â€Å"not [know] what to do with the whistles† (767). As my cousins and I grew older, we were the same way. We would walk to the park and young men would be playing basketball there. They would notice us and try to strike up conversations. We would blush and grin from ear to ear. We never â€Å"[jump... Free Essays on Universal Discoveries Free Essays on Universal Discoveries Patricia Smith’s â€Å"What It’s Like to Be a Black Girl (For Those of You Who Aren’t)† is a poem about a young, black girl growing up. This poem describes what it is like for a young girl who is discovering different things going on with her body. This black girl in the poem is 9 years old and in her pre-puberty stage of life. She feels â€Å"like [she’s] not finished† (Smith, 766). She feels out of place because she is in between the stages of being a child and becoming a young adult. She also â€Å"[finds] a disturbance at [her] chest† (766). At the age of 9, I was in the 4th grade. All of my friends were beginning to wear training bras and I was still without enough breasts to fill one. I did not understand that everyone’s body changes differently until then. I felt like I did not belong. She â€Å"[drops] food coloring in [her] eyes to make them blue and †¦ [pops] a bleached white mophead over the kinks of [her] hair† because she wants to have that all-American look of blond hair and blue eyes (766). My cousins and I would pretend we had long hair by putting my daddy’s long T-shirts on our heads and letting them hang down our backs. We would pretend we were the cast of â€Å"Saved by the Bell† because of the long pretty hair all the girls had. We would â€Å"[primp] in front of mirrors that [denied our reflections]† the same way she would (766). What we would see in the mirror and what we were pretending to be were two completely different things. We were definitely trying to be something we were not, as was the girl in the poem. As she gets older and develops more, young men start to notice her and she does â€Å"not [know] what to do with the whistles† (767). As my cousins and I grew older, we were the same way. We would walk to the park and young men would be playing basketball there. They would notice us and try to strike up conversations. We would blush and grin from ear to ear. We never â€Å"[jump...

A review on delay-minimized routing protocol in mobile cognitive ad hoc networks

A review on delay-minimized routing protocol in mobile cognitive ad hoc networks Mobile Cognitive Ad Hoc Networks is one of the cognitive radio networks which is the advanced networking technologies for spectrum scarcity problem constrain in the Federal Communication Commission (FCC). The cognitive radio networks are the cognitive network which abjects its network parameters with respect to the network environment. In cognitive radio network two users namely the primary and secondary or cognitive users will access the available spectrum to communicate each other when the spectrum is accessed by the primary user the secondary user must leave the spectrum and access the spectrum when spectrum holes available for transmission. So routing is challenging issues in cognitive networks and it is very challenging in mobile cognitive networks due to the node mobility, primary user interface and spectrum scarcity in this paper some routing protocols based on mobile ad hoc cognitive networks and a review on the delay-Minimized routing protocol are presented. Cognitive Radio Networks (CRN) is the new technology used to overcome the spectrum scarcity problem in current wireless networks by the Federal Communication Commission (FCC). In cognitive radio network is a network which has primary and secondary users which access the network based on Dynamic Spectrum Access (DSA). The primary user is the licensed user and secondary user is unlicensed user when the licensed user is accessing the spectrum the unlicensed user are not allowed so the secondary user has to sense the spectrum periodically to find the presence of primary user, presence of primary user is in dynamic in nature so the spectrum holes created by primary user is dynamic so the Cognitive user uses the DSA. While using the DSA routing is the challenging in cognitive radio networks. Classification of Cognitive radio networks Cognitive Radio Networks (CRN) is of infrastructure and infrastructure less, in infrastructure network it has a fixed structure like base station primary users secondary users and so on, in infrastructure network it has no fixed structure. Centralized and Decentralized networks the Centralized network is the network in which has on the base station in the central and have primary users are present. The decentralized network is the network which has no centralized base station and has the secondary users to communicate and primary users Static and dynamic networks the static networks the position of the base station, primary users and secondary users are fixed but in the dynamic (Ad-Hoc) the position on primary users and the secondary user will change (Mobility is nature). Routing in Cognitive radio networks Routing in Cognitive radio networks is based on available spectrum and knowledge of spectrum to nodes in the network. Routing solutions for the Cognitive radio networks are of two types one is Full Spectrum Knowledge routing and second is Local Spectrum Knowledge routing. Local Spectrum Knowledge routing has Minimum Power Routing, Minimum Delay-based Routing, Maximum Throughput-based Routing, Geographic Routing and Class-based Routing. Spectrum-Aware Routing (SPEAR) Spectrum-Aware Routing (SPEAR) is an on-demand and link-based protocol support end-to-end throughput by integration of flow-based and link-based approaches, it used RREQ for route discovery by control channels it takes decisions with the collaboration of PHY and MAC layers it handles mobility issues with Timeout field in periodic channel reservations messages. It takes the best path by maximum throughput, minimum hop count and link quality it has a communication overhead by route setup and route tear down. Spectrum-Aware Mesh Routing (SAMER) Spectrum-Aware Mesh Routing (SAMER) is a link state routing protocol with a minimum hop count and spectrum availability it gives end-to-end thought with the path with high spectrum availability, long-term stability and short-term opportunistic utilization of spectrum. The routing decisions are taken by PHY and MAC layers. Spectrum-Aware On-Demand Routing Protocol (SORP) Spectrum-Aware On-Demand Routing Protocol (SORP) is an AODV protocol with control channel which uses the path delay and node delay (switching and back off delay) for path selection. In route discovery phase RREQ message is broadcast with an SOP append in the packet the control channel exchange the routing protocol messages and it gives end-to-end thought put SORP doesn’t have link failure handling mechanism. Multi-hop Signal-transceiver Cognitive Radio Network Routing Protocol (MSCRP) Multi-hop Signal-transceiver Cognitive Radio Network Routing Protocol (MSCRP) is an AODV protocol with on control channel. It is a spectrum aware routing and leaves/ joins messages of the nodes so it has the communication overhead of RREQ. In the route discovery phase, all nodes append their sate information and available channels set. The routing decision is taken with the collaboration of MA C, Physical and Network Layers. Routing in Opportunistic Cognitive Radio Networks Routing in Opportunistic Cognitive Radio Networks is an on-demand graph-structured network protocol which uses the routing metric based on the probabilistic definition of available capacity over channel it has no link failure handling capacity and it discovers the route by using OSPF, Dijkstra-link algorithm. By using this Dijkstra-link algorithm it gives end-to-end throughput Local Coordination Based Routing and Spectrum assignment in Multi-hop Cognitive Radio Networks Local Coordination Based Routing and Spectrum assignment in Multi-hop Cognitive Radio Networks is a modified version of AODV which is on-demand routing protocol it has full mesh topology which uses channel scanning and beacon broadcast for neighbor discovery with control channel used for load balancing in routing. The route discovery is done by using RREQ and route decision is based on MAC and Network Layer. It has a link failure handling capability which gives less end-to-end delay and performance. Multipath Routing and Spectrum Access (MRSA) Multipath Routing and Spectrum Access (MRSA) is Mesh routing protocol based on round robin fashion data striping with minimum hop count by route discovery with control channel, Broadcasting RREQ messages. The messages sent to nodes periodically it can handle path failures by sending RERR messages and it has a communication overhead based on multiple flows on a single radio. Cognitive Tree-based Routing (CTBR) Cognitive Tree-based Routing (CTBR) is the tree-based routing protocol with centralized routing it broadcast the root announcement (RANN) message periodically with a packet and used cumulative metric for path selection. It selects the path based on local and global decision schemes. It does not have a route recovery mechanism to handle link failure s and it has a control bytes transmission overhead. Fault-Tolerant Cognitive Ad-Hoc Routing Protocol (FTCARP) It is a fast and efficient routing protocol for route recovery in presence of path failures during data delivery. It uses different route recovery mechanisms for different path failures. Cognitive Destination Sequence Distance Vector (C-DSDV) Protocol It is a table-driven routing protocol. To optimize the system performance of multi-hop CR ad-hoc networks by using multichannel routing table are updated immediately when there is a change in channels the techniques is that combines the routing and channel allocation. In route discover phase common control channel use to broadcast the route updating in the routing table in this protocol best path selection is based on sequence number. In C-DSDV channel switching is used to improve the system performances. If there are more primary users routing overhead will be increased Cognitive Ad-Hoc On-demand Distance Vector (C-AODV) Protocol Cognitive Ad-Hoc On-demand Distance Vector (C-AODV) Protocol is based on AODV a wireless network protocol it is designed according to avoid primary users activates regains for routing formation and packet discovery. It gives the minimized route cost by forwarding packets through the joint pat h and channel selection at each node it takes the advantage of the availability of multiple channels to improve the overall performances. SER-Spectrum and Energy Aware Routing Protocol SER is an on-demand routing protocol which provides high throughput in multi-hop networks it selects an energy efficient route and assigns channels and timeslots for a connection request. The communication segment assignment algorithm is used for balances traffic load among the CR users. In route discovery phase it broadcasts Route Request Messages to other nodes so it has routing overhead of RRE, RREP, RERR and ROP messages. GYMKHANA Protocol GYMKHANA is an on-demand routing protocol and an enhanced version of AODV used the GYMKHANA algorithm using virtual graphs and evaluate the cost by using the Laplacian matrix. It has a secondary user’s self-interference overhead. UNITED NODE Protocol UNITED NODE Protocol is a distributed and efficient based interference-aware routing protocol. It incorporates the spectrum availability cost and interference metrics into the routing algorithm to find better routes between the nodes it repairs routes by using route preservation method. It provides adaptability to the environment and increases throughput and reduces data delivery latency. DELAY-MINIMIZED ROUTING PROTOCOLS FOR MOBILE COGNITIVE RADIO Ad-Hoc NETWORKS POPCORN Protocol ROPCORN Protocol is the on-demand routing protocol which was designed for data transportation using link modeling and used to minimized delay for a set of users in the network. It broadcast the packets in link with the low cost and no primary user is affected. POPCORN is based on RACON protocol it uses buffers in the intermediate nodes and forwards the packets there is no overhead due to the use of spectrum availability and load estimation, the optimal route selection is based on the spatial or temporal locality of link disconnection. SEARCH A Routing Protocol It is the on-demand routing protocol and an enhanced version of AODV which is based on the geographic routing and follows the greedy forwarding and PU avoidance for joint channel-path optimization algorithm to find the best path. SEARCH undertakes both the path and selection to avoid PU activity region and tries to maintain end-to-end latency it has routing overhead due to the RRE, RREP, RERR and ROP messages. Link Prediction-Based Ad aptive Routing Link Prediction-Based Adaptive Routing is based on the link-availability prediction. The link –availability prediction considers primary user activity and user mobility. This routing reduces the energy consumption and gives the least delay by enhances network performance. It works based on link prediction and topology control Joint Routing and Channel Assignment Joint Routing and Channel Assignment (JRCA) approach based on delay prediction and a heuristic algorithm which used the collision probability and Link Stability Prediction. It is an on-demand routing protocol which user AODV type of routing with heuristic values and can find out the path with minimal end-to-end (e2e) delay. Adaptive Delay Tolerant Routing Protocol (ADTRP) The ADTRP algorithm finds a stable sequence of instances of the mobile graph and the communication topology of interest such that the number of transitions from one instance of the topology to another in the sequence is the global minimum. The algorithm uses the average lifetime of the mobile graphs in the stable sequence for communication topology and it is a generic for a stable sequence of any communication topology it uses the heuristic topology for routing so it improved throughput, better packet delivery ratio, decreased packet drop and reduced delay. STOD-RP: A Spectrum-Tree Based On-Demand Routing Protocol STOD-RP is an on-demand routing protocol which was designed for reduces the control overhead and average end-t-end delay minimization and it is an extension of the original Ad-hoc On-demand Distance Vector (AODV) protocol which uses spectrum tree addresses, spectrum decision and route selection in an efficient way for this route matrix is used. Fast and efficient spectrum-adaptive route recovery method is used when the path is damaged. In routing is challenging issues in cognitive networks and it is very challenging in mobile cognitive networks due to the node mobility primary user interface and spectrum scarcity this paper concludes that every protocol is designed for overcome certain problem in networks one is for multiple problems and one is for single problem like improving performance, minimized end-to-end delay, overall throughput increasing and so on. There is a for more protocols or improved versions of protocols for increasing problems and recruitments. In further work on this paper, a delay minimized routing protocol is proposed and implemented that improved version protocol in NS3 will be presented

Uruguay Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Uruguay - Research Paper Example In light of this, road users must travel 34.245 kilometres within Montevideo and 18 kilometres within Salto (Distance Calculator. (2014). As of 2013 Salto market had grease monkey competitors including VIP Cars and Rental Car Deals (Talento and Terra 73). In Montevideo, Sixt, Thrifty, Multicar, Budget and Europcar were the primary competitors offering oil replacement and lubrication service (Todd, Martinez and Triunfo 307). Based on the 2013 estimates, Montevideo’s purchasing power parity is $30 billion, while Salto’s is $5 billion (Index Mundi, 2013). According to Distance Calculator (2014), rental car locations in Montevideo are Puerto de Montevideo, west of Montevideo, Carasco located in central Montevideo, Colonia near Atento, along Acevedo Diaz highway, and Colonia Nicolich north of De Carrasco International Airport. In Salto, rental cars are available at the central Salto Itu location, Indaiatuba along the Capinas-Itu highway, Valinhos south of Jardim Sao Francisco, and around Parq Das

Beneficial Effects of Overseas Travel Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2750 words

Beneficial Effects of Overseas Travel - Essay Example The "Beneficial effect of overseas travel" demonstrates positive effect that traveling has on adventurers. It also contains personal experience of some travelers. The learning on an overseas trip begins from the point where the person enters the terminal for international flights. As one moves ahead through check-in counter, one learns the laws and regulations regarding international travel. The swarms of people arriving and departing from the airport is a sight in its own where one experiences a place where no single culture is dominant, people of different ethnic backgrounds and belonging to different countries can be seen talking and waiting for their flights to depart. This is one place where a passenger will have a chance to observe his own people and their personalities and traits in comparison to those of people from around the globe. You may have heard of someone returning from an excursion and telling you about what different people were wearing at the airport or how they sp oke etc. Also if you have a connecting flight and have a stop over at a certain airport on the way you will mention the food available and what you liked and disliked. A personal experience of this sort happened on a trip to Malaysia with a stop over in Bangkok. The Bangkok airport which is known to be one of the biggest and busiest airports allows you to meet and interact with people from so many different places. It is hard for a person to walk out without learning a new thing about the people from many parts of the world. I for instance found most people at the airport to be very fashion conscious. Nearly every

Chance within the play Romeo and Juliet Essay Example for Free

Chance within the play Romeo and Juliet Essay George Aberto once said above anything else, fate is what brings lovers together. In Shakespeares play, Romeo and Juliet, fate, chance, and coincidence are all important to the development and eventually the conclusion of this tragedy. Without these three closely related themes the play would not have been able to make it out of the first act. These themes are pivotal to the development of the play and there are many instances where this is very obvious. These themes play a part in the feud between the Capulets and the Montagues, the invitation of Romeo to the ball, and the death of the two lovers, Romeo and Juliet. For as long as the two families, The Capulets and The Montagues, can remember, they have both been at war with each other and held an ancient grudge (Prologue). The purpose and goal of this feud is never revealed thus it must be assumed through the Prologue that their hatred is solely based on tradition from past generations. This feud is visible within the first line of Act 1 Scene 1 where Sampson, a servant of the Capulet family says that he will not carry coals (1.1.1). He says this in talking to another servant, Gregory, about how he will not be humiliated by a Montague servant. This allows the audience to see the importance of the feud between the Capulets and the Montagues. Romeo, a Montague, and Juliet, a Capulet, meet and fall in love at the ball in Act 1 Scene 5. This is visible in Romeos dialogue O, she doth teach the torches to burn bright! / It seems she hangs upon the cheek of night / Like a rich jewel in an Ethiops ear. (1.5.46-48). It is chance that Romeos true love happens to be part of the family he was brought up to hate. Romeo is aware that Juliet is a Capulet but Juliet is not aware that Romeo is a Montague and even though the feud between the families is existent, fate takes its course and allows enough time for Juliet to fall in love with Romeo. Therefore, once Juliet learns that Romeo is a Montague, she has already fallen in love with Romeo and she cannot turn back now. This is one of the most important examples of fate in the play because if she had known that Romeo was a Montague she would have never pursued a relationship with him and the rest of the play would have never turned out the way it had. Romeo and Juliets relationship begins at the Capulets house during the ball  without Juliet knowing that Romeo is a Montague although the fate involved in getting Romeo to the ball is just as important as Juliet not knowing Romeos last name because if Romeo would not have gone to the ball then he would have never met Juliet and fallen in love with her. It all starts with one of the Capulets servants in the streets of Verona with a list of the different guests which are invited to the ball. This list contains the names Mercutio, Tybalt, and Rosaline among others. The servant which is given the list is not able to read and this is another example of fate because once Benvolio learns that Rosaline is going to be at the ball he decides that him and Romeo will attend. Benvolio wants to Compare her face with some that I shall show / And I will make thee think they swan a crow. Meaning that he will bring Romeo to the ball to show that a comparison of Rosaline with other girls will make a difference and possibly relieve his sadness and love for Rosaline. This is also fate because if Rosaline was not invited, Benvolio didnt create a plan, and if the servant would have been able to read then Romeo would have never been invited and he would have never met Juliet. The meeting of the two lovers is important although the death of the two lovers is probably one of the most important roles fate plays in the play. The first instance where fate makes its mark leading up to the death of the two lovers, Romeo and Juliet, is when the Prince banishes Romeo from the city of Verona for the death of Tybalt. The Prince reacts to the situation by saying that for that offence / Immediately we do exile him hence. This gets the ball rolling on the events that will lead to the two lovers death. After Romeo flees on the recommendation of Benovlio, Romeo finds himself hiding out in Friar Laurances Cell and then in Mantua. The next event which fate is involved in is the idea of Juliet faking her death so that she is not required to marry Paris. Friar Laurence devises a plan which he tells Juliet in Scene 1 of Act 4 as they are both talking in the Friars cell. He tells her to: Hold, then; go home, be merry, give consent To marry Paris: Wednesday is to-morrow: To-morrow night look that thou lie alone; Let not thy nurse lie with thee in thy chamber: Take thou this vial, being then in bed, And this distilled liquor drink thou off, (4.1. 91-96) These lines explain everything she must do so that she does not have to marry Paris and can be with Romeo instead, although he has forgotten to tell her one thing. That one thing is that the Friar has not told Juliet to tell Romeo that she is going through with this plan, faking her death. Friar Laurence realizes this and sends Friar John to give Romeo, who is hiding in Mantua, the message of his plan. What happens next is a perfect example of chance and coincidence. Right as Friar John is preparing to deliver the message an outbreak of the Plague occurs in the city of Verona and Friar John could not send it,here it is again,- / Nor get a messenger to bring it thee, / So fearful were they of infection (5.2.14-16). Therefore this causes Romeo to not receive the message of the Friars plan but instead he receives news of Juliets death so it then becomes a race to the tomb, in which Juliet was placed, to stop Romeo from seeing Juliet dead. So Friar Laurence Now must I to the monument alone; Within three hours will fair Juliet wake(5.2.25-27) . Fates second last appearance in the play occurs Romeo arrives at the tomb first, before the Friar, and he sees Juliet, his love, dead. If the Friar would have arrived first, Romeo and Juliet would have never killed themselves and they would have been able to live together but that was not the case and it led to the suicide of both lovers. The final appearance of fate occurs after the lovers death and it is the end of the feud between the two families. It was fate for the lovers to die and resolve this feud. Fate, Chance, and Coincidence play an extremely pivotal part of the development of the play as well as the ending and without them the play would have turned out anything like it had and it would have never gotten  out of Act 1. The feud between the Capulets and the Montagues, Romeos invitation to the ball, and the death of the two star-crossed lovers which led to the end of the feud between the two families are all examples of how fate was able to sway the development of the story so it would lead to the death of Romeo and Juliet, For never was a story of more woe /Than this of Juliet and her Romeo.

Stoicism Essay -- essays research papers

In the tree of Ethics, there are many twigs and branches that all trace back to a single root: how a person ought to act. Now, the paths that some branches take to get to that single root differ in many ways, yet all arrive at their own definition of how they themselves should live. The ‘branch’ that I will be talking about today, is Stoicism. I will discuss the history and beginnings of Stoicism in the Hellenistic period, the basic ideas of stoicism, and I will share my own personal beliefs and skeptical ideas as concerned with Stoicism. To begin, what does the word ‘stoic’ mean? The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines ‘stoic’ as â€Å"one apparently or professedly indifferent to pleasure or pain.† In the world of Ethics, a stoic is defined as â€Å"a member of a school of philosophy founded by Zeno of Citium about 300 B.C. holding that the wise man should be free from passion, unmoved by joy or grief, and submissive to natural law.† So what school of philosophy are we talking about? Who is Zeno of Cittium? Why did the stoics behave as they did? In the early part of the 4th century B.C. going on into the middle of the 3rd, a man named Zeno of Cittium left his home of Cyprus and went to Athens. There, he began to teach small groups of people about his ideas of ethics. He held his sessions on a painted porch on the Athenian agora known as the Stoa Poikile, from which the terms stoic and Stoicism derive from. At one point, Zeno, who had become adjusted to a life of riches, could not pay a resident tax, and as a consequence, was sold into slavery, where he was bought by a friend and freed. At first glance, one could look at stoicism and dismiss it as a relatively easy way to lead one’s life. At the heart, stoics do not care about abstract reality, about how and why the universe began, or Earth for that matter. To a stoic, the most important concept is that of acceptance in human life. Some of the ideas that Stoicism is based upon comes from the mind of one Heracletus. In the 6th century B.C., Heracletus formed his ideas at his home in Ephesus. In his mind, the universe is an ‘ever-living fire.’ In description, Heracletus came up with the Flux and the Logos. The Logos, in a universal sense, is a single connection between everything in the world, but is always changing with the Flux. Back when philosophers classified everything into 1 of the 4 elements, Heracletus’ Logos w... ...believer in Fate, I am not a true believer. Instead of classical Stoic beliefs, where the Logos governs my every choice towards the final ‘good’, I believe that free will does play a part in philosophical life. Person A comes to choice X, but based on occurrences put out by Fate, makes a decision Y. Fate and free will are 2 strands to a rope, one depending on the other to be strong. Back with emotions, with free will depending on Fate, it depends on emotion as well. Person A comes to choice X, based on occurrences put out by Fate, but still is torn between decision Y and decision Z. Using his emotions and feelings, Person A makes decision Y, because of occurrences put out by Fate as well as feelings he has towards each decision. In conclusion, I feel that Stoicism is almost a valid pattern of thought to live by, but is nonetheless quite interesting to look upon and debate. The basics and foundations of Stoicism, as well as the pillars on which it sits are something to be learned from, and could be wise to cite. My soul, the very being that I am, restricts me from devoting myself completely to Stoicism, although it is the closest thing to my ‘ethical standpoint’ that I have found.