#but instead of gossip its like. some new science article that came out | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

deathtrapnest · 5 years ago

Text

A Philosophy of Violence

fandom: DC / references to Smallville but not really Smallville characterization?

characters: Bruce Wayne & Lex Luthor (non pairing)

warnings: N/A general/no ships

summary: Bruce and Lex have a history with each other. (Bruce and Lex boarding school fic).

READ @ AO3

When Bruce was eleven years old, he’d punched a reporter in the face and smashed his camera. It was his first year at boarding school- Excelsior Academy, an elite prep school in New England where only the children of the uber rich were accepted. Bruce was a quiet and unhappy child then- stoic and pale and precociously fierce. It was not uncommon for him to get in fights with the other children when he’d first arrived. He was small, and an orphan, and children of privilege are cruel. But after some time he was more or less left alone, because it didn’t take very long for the other children to realize that no matter how much older, or bigger, or stronger the bully was, Bruce Wayne, short and thin and pale as he was, would rather be beaten into the dirt than ever yield and once a wrong was done against him, even if it was delayed, Bruce would find a way to retaliate against the person in equal measure. In no time at all Bruce only had to give his best glower to send his would-be tormenters running. They learned what usually followed his glares. More than that, Bruce was indifferent to the teasing and it was no fun to pick on someone so apathetic.

He had good grades but was not well liked by his professors. Was athletic but did not socialize well. An enigmatic student who talked to others very rarely but was talked about frequently. For most, the incident with the reporter faded into a tapestry of other similarly exciting and mysterious things Bruce did while at Excelsior Academy.

While Bruce’s behavior often seemed inexplicable there was one person at least who knew the truth behind the reporter incident because he’d been the key witness as well as the instigator, and that was Lex Luthor.

Lex Luthor was four years older than Bruce and also a scion to a large family fortune. Lex also had excellent grades and was also unpopular. Lex’s father was infamous in the corporate world and many of the father’s of the other students of Excelsior had been undercut or swindled by him in some way or another, leaving his son vulnerable to their intergenerational hatred. His unpopularity was amplified by the fact that Lex had lost his hair from some illness or accident that had left him completely bald at age nine. The gossip pages in the newspapers at the time had reported on it with a note of schadenfreude toward Lionel Luthor, maybe some thought it was retribution that misfortune fall his young son after a lifetime of evil doings. Headlines called him the ‘hairless heir’. Lex’s peers deemed him a freak of nature and from the time of his enrollment he was a frequent victim to the older, bigger, and more mean spirited boys.

Whatever inner core of strength that Bruce had that made him impervious to the type of cruelty his schoolyard enemies tried to inflict on him, Lex was lacking it. While Bruce seemed immovable, Lex was quick to fury, and he hated to be picked on by people who were physically dominant to him but who were intellectually inferior to him- which was nearly everyone. What Lex had, instead, was an almost neurotic, strident, ambitiousness that manifested itself in the schoolroom, in their fencing matches, in chess club or debate team. But the desperation of this ambition, the neediness of it, only provided more ammunition to his classmates who could now add being a know-it-all to his list of flaws and who lived to see him fail. His high intelligence and drive was to them just another thing that made him a freak, in need of being knocked down a few pegs.

Lex Luthor and Bruce Wayne lived in the same dorm building in Bruce’s first year but were not particularly friendly. That was why it seemed strange to the other students who’d seen it, that Bruce had punched that reporter for Lex.

It had been a grey Tuesday and they’d been walking with the rest of the students from the dorm to class, when a camera had flashed abruptly and Lex had blinked, disoriented. A few of the other kids parted out of the way or kept walking. It wasn’t so unusual for young Luthor to be ambushed by paparazzi who’d snuck onto the grounds. His father’s name was rarely out of the paper and a quote from or photograph of his sickly, freakish, son often added an extra draw to the article. But that day it was different.

The reporter shoved a tape recorder next to Lex’s mouth and said “I’m from The Inquisitor. Do you have a statement you’d like to make about your mother’s death?”

Lex didn’t speak. He didn’t look like he had the capacity to at that moment, though his lips parted. All the color had drained from his face.

“Our sources at the hospital confirmed her death at 5 A.M. this morning. Is there a reason you weren’t present at the hospital at the time of her passing? Have you spoken to your father? What are the plans for the funeral arrangements in Metropolis? Is it true your father was having an affair with her nurse?��

Lex’s silence continued. His eyes were set on some far away point, unseeing. Like he’d exited his body and it only remained upright by some quirk of gravity. Because it was the first he was hearing of it. So his mother was dead.

And then Bruce punched the reporter. He’d had to stand on tip toes and swing upward to achieve it but the blow was impactful. And the reporter doubled over, grabbing at his nose which was bleeding. And Bruce grabbed the man’s camera and smashed it on the ground. It shattered, leaving a corona of broken glass and black plastic across the pavement and a sound that echoed in the ensuing silence.

Bruce did this all wordlessly and with a detached, matter-of-fact, attitude.

The reporter began to yell in protest but Bruce had calmly taken hold of Lex’s arm and was pulling him behind him, and to the reporter he said simply “We have to go to class now.” And walked away.

He had blood on the knuckles of the clenched hand at his side, and the bruising on them that would linger for days would be the only evidence Bruce showed that anything had occurred.

Bruce and Lex continued to not be friends after that day. The next year they both switched dorms and lived on separate sides of the campus. Lex, being a few grades higher, only occasionally crossed paths with Bruce and their interactions were often unremarkable and furthermore, not very warm. In fact, despite that brief act of camaraderie that they’d shared on that day, the two had seemingly grown apart in opposite directions.

By the time Bruce was fourteen he was in talks to be advanced a grade, was excelling in his martial arts extracurriculars and spoke four languages. Lex, by then a senior, had developed his own power at the school. With a turning point at roughly sixteen, Lex had begun to grow into himself physically and at the same time developed a penchant for bad behavior.

With a keen business sense inherited from his father, it came as no surprise that Lex was highly enterprising but his newfound extracurriculars were far from school approved. In short, he was running a thriving import-export of cocaine, marijuana, and various prescription drugs between Metropolis and the dorms. Not that drugs on a prep school campus were anything unusual but Lex excelled at nearly everything he put his mind to. He’d effectively cornered the majority of the market of the campus and it was rumored that some of what he sold was even cut with something of his own creation, made in the chemistry lab after hours, something that was already starting to gain a reputation on the streets and in the clubs of Metropolis. That part may have been nothing more than a rumor, after all, Lex himself denied it when it was brought up- laughing off that he had no real interest in pharmaceuticals, adding cryptically that aerospace and engineering would be the front on which the principle corporate battles of the next century would be waged.

It seemed Lex was able to get away with all this because he was additionally running some sort of blackmail racket that had maneuvered the head of the science department as well as the dean of students, and who knew how many other adults at the academy, effectively under his thumb. The adults weren’t the only ones. The other kids still called Lex a freak, but now they were too scared to say it to his face. Lex had achieved what he’d always wanted- he wasn’t liked by the other students but they were in his pocket and many of them feared him- or at least the more impressionable of them did. But Bruce was hardly impressionable.

Bruce found Lex’s behavior distasteful and made no attempt to hide his distaste. It wasn’t that Bruce was a stickler for the academy’s rules, which he himself often shirked, but as could be exemplified by the incident with the reporter as well as many others, Bruce had his own personal code of honor and when it came to that, he was unyielding.

On the other side of it, Lex certainly never acted like he owed Bruce any favors. In fact, he resented him. And he hated having any competition to be the smartest person in the room. They rarely went head to head academically, being in different years, but the school hardly seemed big enough to contain the force of two personalities like theirs. And in the fencing club, they frequently sparred, with a wordless vigor they seemed to reserve only for each other.

If either of them were less were less apathetic about it, it could almost be referred to as a rivalry. But it never really reared its head in any decisive way until that last year, in the garden, and yet at that time there were no witnesses to verify it.

It was a spring day when the campus air was heavy with heat and the perfume of lilacs, when Bruce slipped the procession of students in their perfectly pressed khakis and oxford shirts on their way to class, and took refuge in a hedge of hemlocks, coming out the other side into one of the campus gardens. He checked over his shoulder, between the leaves, to see if he’d been observed but no one had paused or backtracked to find him. The gardens on the campus were beautiful in the spring, bursting in blooms of kingsblood tulips and hellebores in preparation for tours of incoming students and parents and the spectacle of commencement. A water fountain bubbled a few yards away and in the shade were placed benches baring the names of former donors on gold plates along with the school’s latin motto- “memoria pii aeterna.”

And on the bench shaded partially by a syringa reticulata shedding white petals, Lex was reclining, longs limbs splayed elegantly in a louche, overly orchestrated pose, his bare head cocked slightly askew in thought, a copy of The Genealogy of Morality balancing on his knee but translated in Mandarin. The whole scene looked staged. Like he was waiting for someone to show up to take his picture.

Just eighteen years old and a late bloomer, he was at the age where his body kept abruptly adding inches to his limbs without warning and his khakis ended a little short, revealing a glimpse of bare ankle. He’d always been slim but now there was an artistic angularity to his form whereas before he’d seemed so ungainly, almost colt-like. And Bruce knew from his experience of him in a duel that when he moved he was as lithe and swift as a snake. After years of being mocked for his appearance, he’d grown into himself and despite all odds, was… handsome. Even his baldness which had always made him stick out in a crowd among other teenagers, lent him a sort of mysterious allure and made him seem more mature. Only a slight softness at the curve of his jaw belayed how young he really was.

When he noticed Bruce he looked up and smiled, casual and lazy, like his mouth had nothing better to do so it might as well do this, though his eyes were sharp as they ever were.

“Wayne.” He said. “What are you doing here?”

Bruce gave a last glance through the bushes to see his classmates retreating, not noticing his absence, before turning.

“Hiding out.” he didn’t bother lying. Not to Lex. “I don’t want to go to English class.”

“Really? I saw Mrs.Timm in the hallway earlier today. She’s wearing one of those low cut cashmere sweaters that show off her cleavage. You might want to reconsider.” Lex mused without looking up from his book, dabbing his fingertip with the tip of his tongue before turning the page.

Bruce shoved his hands in his pockets and shrugged his shoulders. “Is that a matter of interest?”

“Or lack thereof?” Lex said, still pretending to pay more attention to his reading than on Bruce. But Bruce saw his eyes slide in his direction, searching for a reaction, before returning to the page.

Distantly, someone in the school building was doing a violin tutorial and the Bach Chaconne in D Minor echoed harsh and tinny over the grounds. Must have been a freshman. The sound was making Bruce’s jaw twitch.

He strolled further into the clearing, invading the invisible border of Lex’s domain, where the smell of the flowers was headiest. He usually avoided Lex but if he left now, he’d likely be caught by a teacher. Though, having detention might be better than having to make conversation.

“Nice reading choice.” he feigned interest. “Didn’t know you could understand Mandarin.”

The corner of Lex’s mouth curled, cat-like. “Oh, I just picked it up recently.” he said breezily, as if it was the sort of thing one picked up as casually as learning a new card game.

“Why aren’t you in class?” Bruce asked.

At this, Lex perked up, finally looking away from his reading. “Haven’t you heard? I’ve already been early accepted to Princeton and Metropolis U.” His chin tilted back slightly, his shoulders falling back, unconsciously preening for Bruce’s benefit. “Scholarships from both, of course. Not that it was much of a surprise. With my SAT scores, they’ll practically pay me just to go to their school.”

Unsurprising, Bruce thought, that Lex’s ego would flourish under such attention. He made a half hearted attempt to suppress a scoff. “Like you need the money.”

Lex acted like he hadn’t heard him, continuing in a bitter tone, “So I hardly bother showing up for class here anymore. The median IQ of the room usually barely tops 100. I’m sick of politician’s sons and society brats who lack the imagination to aspire to be anything more than a parasite that feeds on familial wealth. Taking on some nominal position under their father’s companies.”

Lex had always adamantly said he wanted to build something separate than this father’s empire, even when he was a kid. They had a notoriously bad relationship. While other children came back from spending holidays with their parents looking joyful and with arms laden with new gifts and expensive clothes, Lex always came back from holidays looking pale and fragile, ever since his mother passed.

“And you really think Princeton will be any better?” Bruce asked skeptically.

Lex waved his hand dismissively. “I already have the knowledge to be a graduate from any of these schools. What matters is the resources and connections they can provide. Once you’re an adult you have ownership over your own intellectual property, then you can patent, which leads to industry, and ultimately I have corporate ambitions.”

Bruce could easily imagine Lex as a mad scientist in a white lab coat or as a board room tyrant, both equally frightening.

“And what will you do?” Lex asked. “Gotham University?”

Bruce shrugged, giving him the same, half lie, answer he usually gave when the school guidance counsellor asked him the same thing: “Not sure. I’ll probably travel for a bit after high school. Maybe join the Peacecorps or something like that. Help people.”

This time it was Lex’s turn to scoff.

Bruce gave him a disapproving look. “What? You don’t care about making the world a better place?” he drawled, half joking. Knowing what Lex’s answer would be.

“I save my pity for myself.” Lex quipped. “Us poor little billionaires have enough tragedy on our own, don’t we?”

Bruce smiled wryly. There was a grain of truth to it. They were two of the richest boys at the school. And easily the most miserable. And miserable children, he thought, rarely grow up to be good people. He likely wouldn’t and he didn’t think Lex would either. They’d always been rather alike. More alike than Bruce would’ve preferred.

“There’s lots of other tragedies in the world, Lex. Besides yours and mine.”

“Yes. And you’ve always acted like it was your job to solve them, haven’t you?” Lex said and there was suddenly acid in his voice that Bruce hadn’t expected. But Lex continued, “You think there’s something wrong with the world and that you’re the one who’s going to fix it. But you can’t because there is no such thing as how things ‘should be’, there is only how things are.”

Bruce stared at him, not saying a word in response, but Lex seemed content to monologue.

“You’re wasting your time trying to make things ‘better’ in the world. Someone is always going to be suffering and helpless and someone else is always going to be prospering and in power. It’s preferable to be the latter. You have money, you’re sharp, I’ve even seen your GPA and PSAT scores, there’s no reason for you to have to be the former.”

Bruce narrowed his eyes at him. “And since when do you know so much about me?”

Lex shrugged one shoulder. “I have an acquaintance in student records. He lets me look through whatever files I want. Not that I couldn’t have broken into the office myself if I’d really wanted to- the security here is laughable.”

“You shouldn’t go poking your nose where it doesn’t belong.” Bruce warned him, but Lex looked completely unfazed.

“It’s not just you I’ve looked into. I’m curious about all of my competition at this school.”

“And did it sate your curiosity?”

Lex rolled his eyes. “Hardly.”

“Then what was it you wanted to know?”

He paused for a moment, to think. “Your philosophy, I suppose. Why you act like you do. Why you are the way you are.”

“You mean why I’m not more like you?” Bruce asked.

Lex stilled, his smile caught in place on his mouth but his eyes dark, belaying nothing.

Bruce sighed. “I believe in things that you don’t. I believe in justice.”

At that, Lex brought his hand to his mouth like he was trying to stifle a laugh. “Well, I suppose you are still a child, after all.”

Bruce fixed him with a glare. “That’s childish to you?”

“Don’t be such a cliche. What is justice? To protect the innocent and punish those who would take advantage of them? It just breaks people up into a binary of people who have been wronged and people to seek vengeance against. But wasn’t it Bertrand Russell who said- ‘life is nothing but a competition to be the criminal rather than the victim’?”

“Are you done? With that debate club oratorial?” Bruce said, crossing his arms over his chest.

Lex ignored him. “The truth is, there are no innocents. Everyone tries to get what they want. Some people use kindness to manipulate, or follow the rules hoping one day what they want will be delivered to them by someone stronger and benevolent because they’re too weak to take it themselves. Those people are only ‘innocent’ because of their weakness and their fear of retribution. There is no evil either. Evil is just the name people give to things that hurt them. Evil people are only those with the power and the will to take what they need. People like to say that ‘power corrupts absolutely’ but power means choices, it means freedom. And when people are given the power to choose their own destiny, anyone would choose to be self interested.”

He spoke with just the right touch of ideological fanaticism. It made his face flush slightly with excitement. It made Bruce’s stomach turn. They looked at each other and both knew they were thinking along the same lines- that Bruce hated Lex. And that Lex was glad that Bruce hated him, because there had once been a time when he didn’t and when Bruce had thought Lex was a victim in need of protecting. And Lex would rather be anything than that.

“So?” Lex said. “What do you think?”

“I think you read too much Nietzsche.” Bruce said evenly.

Lex laughed, tapping the cover of the book on his lap. “I would’ve thought this was you all over. Self conquest. Der wille zur macht. Don’t think I haven’t noticed, you have as much to prove as I do.”

“I’m not like that.” Bruce muttered, but Lex heard him.

“Well maybe you ought to be.” The ever present lazy smile on his face started to curl at the corners into a sneer. “There’s lots of students here who will never amount to anything. Because real life isn’t boarding school. If you want to survive and turn things in your favor, you have to adapt. Otherwise you have nothing to blame for your misfortune but your own shortcomings.”

Bruce looked at Lex and wondered if that’s what he’d call it- adapting. He could still see in him the boy who’d cried himself to sleep in his bunk every night because the other kids called him a freak. The boy who’d been older than him but who Bruce had felt sorry for. He didn’t think he would ever feel sorry for him again.

“You think that’s an accomplishment?” Bruce said. “To turn into your father?”

The slit of Lex’s mouth widened, revealing a glimpse of white teeth. “At least I have a father.”

It was not on reflex. It was a choice. But it was a split second one, and decisive. Lex had no time to block or avoid the blow. Bruce’s fist smashed into the center of Lex’s face, knocking him clear off the bench. The book on his lap fell open onto the grass, a drop of Lex’s blood staining the spine. He only hit him once, then turned on his heel and walked away.

Behind him, Lex grabbed his own face, blood pooling on his palm from his freshly split lip. “You’re a freak, Wayne!” He shouted after him. “You’re a fucking freak!”

Bruce clenched his hand unconsciously by his side, not turning around or slowing his pace. He had blood on his knuckles and he knew now from experience, that the bruising on them would linger.

End

( If you liked, please leave me some comments and kudos on ao3! my author’s notes are on there too. Thank you for reading! )

#bruce wayne #lex luthor #smallville #batlex #boarding school fic #my fanfic #bruce and lex #dc fanfic

12 notes · View notes

carolinesiede · 5 years ago

Text

My 2019 Writing Roundup

Not to get too New Age-y, but 2019 felt like a very ~transformative~ year for me. I turned 30, got a literary agent, and became a member of the Chicago Film Critics Association. After feeling like I’d hit a plateau in my late 20s, it was nice to experience a sense of forward momentum again, even if the lack of financial stability in this career is a constant background stress. Still, on the whole my sixth year as a full-time freelancer felt like a time where I kinda, sorta figured out what I’m doing. Instead of struggling in murky waters, I’m at least actively swimming in them.

I continued to write for The A.V. Club, The Spool, and Consequence of Sound, plus took on new outlets in The Verge and Polygon. I also had an article about romantic comedies published in Southwest Airline’s in-flight magazine and was asked to talk about Hallmark Channel Christmas rom-coms on Canadian radio. Speaking of rom-coms, 2019 was the second year (and first full-year) for When Romance Met Comedy, and I feel like the column really came into its own this year. It’s by far the biggest undertaking of my career (I’ve covered 47 films in total so far!), and I’m really excited to continue shaping its voice in 2020.

Beyond finding a regular fitness routine and seeing Cats onstage for the first time, the biggest personal project I undertook in 2019 was immersing myself in the world of film and film criticism—something I started in mid-2018 and really amped up this year. My goal was to watch 300 new-to-me movies this year, and I wound up watching 355! (Including 129 new releases.) Regular access to CFCA screenings and screeners allowed me to be a bigger part of the film critic conversation than I’ve been in the past, which was exciting. I also tackled a bunch of blindspots from the past decade and put together a list of my 50 favorite films of the 2010s, which you can see right here:

Over on the TV side of things, I bid farewell to the Netflix Defenders universe with binge-review coverage of the final seasons of The Punisher and Jessica Jones. Those Marvel binge-reviews were a big part of my early career, so seeing that universe come to a close was bittersweet. It’s always nerve-wracking when a semi-regular assignment ends, but I’m hopeful that new projects will pop up to take its place.

Putting together this year-end retrospective also made me realize I was on a lot of podcasts in 2019, including jumping in as a regular guest on the Cinematic Universe podcast in the latter half of the year. Podcasting is something I really enjoy (I find talking so much easier than writing!), and I’d love to do more of it in the future.

With that, I’ll leave you with wishes for a Happy New Year and a roundup of all the major writing I did in 2019. If you enjoyed my work this year, it would mean a lot if you would support me on either Kofi or PayPal. Or just share some of your favorite pieces with your friends!

My 15 favorite TV shows of 2019

My 15 favorite films of 2019

Op-eds and Features

“Rom-Com Revival” for Southwest The Magazine

Avengers: Endgame doesn’t earn its big “girl power” moment

An MCU breakup could be a terrific step forward for Spider-Man

“What is a weekend?”: A catch-up guide to Downton Abbey’s cast and characters

Nope, seeing Cats the musical will not help you understand Cats the movie

Let’s talk about the ending of Greta Gerwig’s Little Women

TV Coverage

Doctor Who’s 2019 New Year’s Special

The Punisher S2

Jessica Jones S3

The Crown S3

This Is Us S3 and S4

Supergirl S4 and S5

Rent: Live

Jane The Virgin fill-in

The Tony Awards

The Little Mermaid Live!

When Romance Met Comedy

27 Dresses doesn’t deserve your hate and neither does Katherine Heigl

Bride & Prejudice weaves an impressive cultural critique into a Bollywood-inspired Jane Austen update

How does the original What Women Want hold up two decades later?

In 1990, Pretty Woman changed romantic comedies forever

For one brief, wonderful moment, Eddie Murphy reinvented himself as a romantic-comedy star

20 years later, 10 Things I Hate About You remains a model for how to do the teen rom-com right

Lloyd Dobler is Cameron Crowe’s original manic pixie dream date

We're just not that into He’s Just Not That Into You

Romance is the weakest aspect of one of the most celebrated rom-coms of the ’90s

To All The Boys and Netflix reminded the world why it’s smitten with rom-coms

Imagine Me & You gives a lesbian love story the classic rom-com treatment

Queer resilience thrives in this rom-com about love in the time of the AIDS crisis

Gentlemen Prefer Blondes is bubbly and smart, just like Marilyn Monroe

The Best Man capped off one decade of black rom-coms and inspired another

Nicolas Cage romanced Cher in one of the weirdest rom-coms ever made

After a decade of discourse, (500) Days Of Summer is basically the Fight Club of rom-coms

It’s No Strings Attached versus Friends With Benefits in a rom-com showdown

Adam Sandler’s sweetness makes The Wedding Singer a rom-com worth growing old with

The Philadelphia Story delivered one of the most star-studded love triangles ever

13 Going On 30 made Jennifer Garner a rom-com star—and gave tween girls a sleepover staple

Celebrate Halloween with Warm Bodies, the film that tried to make zom-rom-coms a thing

In the 2010s, rom-coms went indie and saved themselves in the process

Sandra Bullock became a rom-com star with a cozy love story about crushing loneliness

With just two storylines, The Holiday paid tribute to the entire rom-com genre

The A.V. Club

The maudlin Five Feet Apart anoints a new pair of winning young stars

After thinks it’s beautiful, that’s what makes it tiresome

Teen Spirit has plenty of it

Ramy is a Muslim millennial comedy with impressively big questions on its mind

Anne Hathaway and Rebel Wilson’s new comedy The Hustle pulls an inelegant con

The Sun Is Also A Star turns a compelling premise into a lackluster teen romance

The Art Of Racing In The Rain is a doggone mess

You don’t need to love Springsteen to like the thoughtful crowd-pleaser Blinded By The Light

The well-meaning Brittany Runs A Marathon can’t quite go the distance

Renée Zellweger zings in a Judy Garland biopic that clangs

The Downton Abbey movie is as pleasant as a cozy cup of tea

Tall Girl’s familiar teen love story fails to reach new heights

The new Lady And The Tramp feels like a ’90s update of a ’50s classic

The Verge/Polygon

Tigers Are Not Afraid puts a Pan’s Labyrinth spin on a poignant Mexican drug war story

The gloriously surreal space epic Ad Astra is half a great movie

An AI affair fuels a midlife crisis in the eerie science fiction drama Auggie

The painfully generic new animated Addams Family deserves no snaps

Maleficent: Mistress of Evil is boldly bonkers

Netflix’s apocalyptic teen comedy Daybreak is an exhausting sugar rush

The Current War is basically Amadeus for electricity

Is Playmobil: The Movie just a reskinned Lego Movie?

The Spool

The LEGO Movie 2: Everything is About Half as Awesome

Isn’t It Romantic: An Instant Postmodern Rom-Com Classic

The Aftermath: Sumptuous but Surface-Level Melodrama

Late Night: A Sparkling Comedy With a Lot On Its Mind

Plus One: An Indie Millennial When Harry Met Sally

The Farewell is A Poignantly Funny Goodbye

Where’d You Go, Bernadette: A whimsical mid-life crisis

After the Wedding: A grown-up drama that doesn’t trust its own story

Falling Inn Love: Love, New Zealand Style

Paradise Hills: Harajuku Gossip Girls

Consequence of Sound

Brexit Takes An Engaging But Ultimately Shallow Look At the 2016 Vote

What Men Want Flips the Script and Finds Mixed Results

Dumbo Delights Without Ever Fully Taking Flight

Someone Great Continues Netflix’s Romantic Comedy Revival

Aladdin Has the Animated Classic’s Songs, But Less of Its Personality

MindMeet Interviews

Nadine Hack and Global Citizens Circle: Creating Connectedness

Podcast Appearances

Filmography: When Harry Met Sally

Filmography: Tim Burton’s mature films (Ed Wood, Sweeney Todd, Big Fish, Big Eyes)

Debating Doctor Who MCU Edition: Avengers: Endgame

Cinematic Universe: Alita: Battle Angel

Hall of Faces: Friends

Cinematic Universe: Joker

Hall of Faces: The West Wing

CBC Radio: Hallmark Christmas movies

Cinematic Universe: The Wolverine

Cinematic Universe: Awards Special—The Cuppies 2019 (Part One)

And here are similar year-end wrap-ups I did in 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, and 2013.

#Best Of #Year End

8 notes · View notes

joaquinwhorres · 7 years ago

Text

Proofreader

HOLD FOR RELEASE SERIES | [PART 1. Chapter 1]

Series Summary: Hawkins Lab is coming back to town, and for the most part, everyone seems ok with it. Except for you. As the only person who seems to remember the mysterious events and horrible rumors circulating around the lab, you’ve made it your mission to expose them.

Pairing: Steve Harrington x OC or Billy Hargrove x OC You choose

Word Count: 1,541

Author’s Note: In celebration of my 1K status, I wanted to take the time and release a new series that’s focused on my followers. So, I’m doing a Choose Your Own Adventure series. You get to make decisions for the character like what she investigates, what her reactions are, and who she ends up with. Each update will be in "Parts” instead of “Chapters” so you can continue the story and seeing where your decisions lead you until you have only one choice: starting the next Part. (It’ll get clearer, trust me.) With that out of the way, I hope you enjoy!

Warnings: Language.

Empowering Your Future.

That is the promise of the U.S Department of Energy's newly re-opened Hawkins National Laboratory: an empowered future. With the arrival of new jobs and partnerships with science classrooms in Hawkins Middle School and Hawkins High School, it seems that Hawkins National Laboratory, nicknamed Hawkins Lab by local residents, is intent on making this promise a reality. Yet, as a community, we should be wary of keeping our eyes so focused on what lies ahead for Hawkins that we ignore our recent past. Just four months ago, public outcry demanded Hawkins Lab shut down all projects and close its gates after it came to light that the lab was responsible for an experimental chemical asphyxiant leak which killed local teen, Barbara Holland…

"So, what do you think?" you shifted your weight to your other leg as you stared at Nancy. Her eyes flicked up from the paper you'd shoved in her face a few minutes ago. "It's…" Nancy looked back down at the paper, her eyes skimming over it as if she could find some word in your journalistic masterpiece to describe it. "Interesting." She offered the draft back, and you took it, sliding the paper in with the rest of your books in your arms.

Your brow furrowed as you studied Nancy. She had turned away from you, instead choosing to pull books from her locker for the next few classes. She was careful to keep her face buried in her locker, but you could still notice that something was off. You'd have to be a pretty shit investigative journalist to not notice it. Whenever you showed Nancy any of your other articles, she had always been nothing but praise and smiles. This Nancy was silent, and her lips were pursed in the same way they were when she couldn't figure out a calculus problem.

"What's wrong with it?" you asked, leaning your shoulder against the locker next to hers, so you could get a better look at her face.

"Nothing," Nancy shook her head, her hair bobbing a little bit. And there was the second clue. The way her voice was just a little too high for the first half of the word. Like when she assured you last year that there was nothing going on between her and Steve Harrington.

"Nance."

Her shoulders dropped with a sigh, as she finally closed the locker and shifted to lean against it. You could see the thoughts pass over her face as she slowly weighed each one and thought the better of it, rejecting the various thoughts. She had been like this since the two of you were children, playing in Nancy's bedroom while your aunt and her mom sat downstairs and gossiped. Whenever it came to something that she thought could hurt your feelings or make it look bad, it took her forever to find the perfect words to convey the truth. She always explained it away saying that she just wanted you to get her exact meaning. You always thought Nancy was just walking on eggshells around your feelings and trying to figure out how to best sugarcoat whatever truth it was. Admittedly, it had been nice to have someone who seemed to give a shit about how you were feeling and how their words affected you. Right now though? A little pit of frustration was growing in your stomach.

"Just say it," you prodded.

"It's just, these are really big accusations," Nancy shrugged, starting forward, and you turned to walk shoulder to shoulder with her down the hall. Around you, the rest of the student body went about their normal Wednesday morning routines. Gossiping about the latest couple, discussing the upcoming test in Mattes' class, formalizing weekend plans. All of them were completely unaware that next Friday, Hawkins was going to be turned upside down, courtesy of your article.

"Don't you need to, you know, get proof? To back up your accusations?" Nancy asked, lightly, as she turned down the hallway. A group of girls waved at the two of you, and you waved back.

"I'm not accusing them of anything they haven't already been convicted of, Nance," you shook your head. "Not yet, anyway. Right now I just want people to stop acting like all of that stuff that happened four months ago never happened? I mean, these are the people that killed Barb, and we're just giving them a pass and letting them come back in because it's a boon to the economy and our schools get better science program? That's bullshit."

Nancy was silent as she continued to walk by your side, biting her lip. She took a deep breath in.

"I agree…it's just–" Nancy paused for a second, and she was weighing her words again. And you knew what was coming. It always came back to this with Nancy and your writing. "I don't want this to be a repeat of what happened last time. I know how much work you put into that story, and I know how much it hurt when everyone–"

"It's not going to be like last time," you cut her off. "For one thing, I didn't have all of the facts about Will and Barb's disappearances. I really should have put a hold for release on that until I could triple check my sources. But this," you tapped the paper for emphasis. "This will make up for that."

You swallowed hard. It had to. It wasn't so much that you wanted redemption for yourself as a journalist, but you owed it to Barb to get this right. To hold the lab accountable for their crimes if no one else would. You had already let her down twice–once because you refused to go to you thought it would be weird for you to make an appearance at his house and then again because you wanted to make things right so badly, you fucked everything up. This time. This time, she was going to get what she deserved.

Nancy pursed her lips, and you weren't sure if she was thinking the same thing as you. If she was sharing in your guilty pity party or if she had moved from it as much as she seemed to have. "If you're sure." She tucked a lock of hair behind her ear, and swallowed. "Just, be careful."

Something within your stomach churned, and suddenly it didn't feel much like frustration. It was that annoying sort of nauseous you had come to know well. That tight feeling that sent up a prickling sensation straight from your gut to your chest. It was in the way she said it last and almost too casually, in the same tone she used the first time she told you that she couldn't hang out because she and Jonathan Byers were going to go to the movies. There was more to the warning than her trying to protect your feelings. The two of you stopped by your classroom door, and you opened your mouth to ask her about it. The warning bell rang, letting any reluctant, slow, or new students know that their ass had better be in a seat in sixty seconds.

You looked back at Nancy, who was gazing off at her classroom, a few doors down. "Should I turn this into O'Brien or not?" you asked, fingering the corner of the page.

"I don't know," Nancy shrugged, looking at you as she slowly started to back away to head off to class. "I'm sorry." She turned and hurried off to her classroom, and you took her cue, ducking into yours.

You came to a screeching halt, looking at the twenty-four other faces that stared back at you. It wasn't unusual for the rest of the class to get there before you. Your locker was all the way on the opposite side of the school, so of course, most of the class should be filled. But what was unusual was to see Brian Cole sitting in your seat next to Samantha Barnes.

"Find a seat, please," Mr. Ward instructed. "Just, mind the board." He tapped the chalkboard behind his desk. Written in his scrawling cursive were the instructions: Sit boy-girl, please. Genetics unit begins today.

You scanned the classroom for any sign of an empty seat, and sucked in a breath seeing that you were left with two options for seating partners.

Billy Hargrove. Or Steve Harrington.

That sickening feeling reappeared in your stomach, as you glanced between the two boys. Like most of the rest of the class, Billy was no longer staring at you. Instead, he has turned around in his seat to talk to Tommy H. and Carol who occupied the table behind him. He looked back over his shoulder and shot you a smirk before going back to talking to them.

Your gaze drifted back over to Steve who seemed to have his eyes glued to you. You made awkward eye contact, and he gave you a half smile as his cheeks flushed pink, before he looked down at the seat next to him.

You took another breath, saying a small prayer that you wouldn't regret this as you walked over to take your seat next to…

Billy Hargove.

Steve Harrington.

(click your choice)

Tags: @upsidedownstevie @morgandakotaq @hairringtonsteve @kyloreneges @lemonchapstick @loserrlauraa @pity-mee @imboredsueme @bands-and-shietz @panda0192 @daryldamnson @madhatterweasley @scintillllating @loveforbrains @harringtonhuddle @sassywheelers @my-simple-musicalfan @loverskisses @adumbledorableee @hawkinsbabe @creamcheese783 @coolyoungbouquetdestinylove @fayefayefn @oomylifeiseternalsufferingoo @spacedoutsher @katethemandrake @disneykidafi @myteenwolf-world @stay-wokke @eggshapeddank @lola-winston-harrington @dontneedbiologytoadopt @xpetersparker @pomerqueen @mentalfictionleftmyassbehind @beststarfighter @4-a-m @hargroovin @ambeazyyy @hazeofeleven

#billy hargrove #steve harrington #billy hargrove x reader #steve harrington x reader #billy hargrove imagine #steve hargrove imagine #stranger things #stranger things fic #stranger things imagine #billy hargrove x you #steve harrington x you #billy hargrove/reader #steve harrington/reader #billy hargrove/you #steve harrington/you #billy hargrove fic #steve harrington fic #choose your own adventure #hold for release series

223 notes · View notes

peacefulwriter88 · 7 years ago

Text

Space in Between - Part 3

Tag List: @sleepretreat @lancetucker @xxhuffelpuff-girlxx

It had been five weeks since your outburst in Dr. Beck’s class. Five weeks of focused lectures, eagerly taking notes and posting small essays. Five weeks of being able to easily ignore the way Dr. Beck made your stomach drop when he looked at you, or teased you when you answered something correctly. Everyone somehow catching on that you were one of those students, the kind that spent too many hours studying and prepared for class, a handful of questions to be asked. It was in the third week that Dr. Beck informed you that he’d stay after class to answer any of them when they started eating into lecture time. And he did, listening and answering each question deliberately as you hastily took notes. You were able to get lost in learning and distract yourself from him. Even when all the other women lingered about to catch a glance and hopefully start a conversation with the handsome, young professor. At first, everyone suspected you did it because you liked him. Then they realized you weren’t a threat, just a young grad student immersed in work. That you came to class early and left late because you loved learning and analyzing and really had no opinion on him.

That you weren’t a threat.

It was on such an occasion that you walked into the lecture hall early. You had woken up in a particularly good mood, and you pushed your thick hair on top of your head as you threw on a mustard dress and tights, boots to match your fall look. You had even found time to throw on makeup and when Hector walked in and whistled.

“Looking good hot stuff,” he whistled, sliding in beside you. “If you weren’t such a nerd, I’d think you were looking good for Dr. Beck.”

He wiggles his eyebrows and you laugh, though you roll your eyes as Mara walks in minutes later, bee lining for you.

“I have juicy, juicy gossip.” She whispers low, pushing past Hector to sit beside you.

“What no hi?” you ask and she rolls her eyes as you pull out a notebook.

“Who has time for that when I have juicy gossip?”

You and hector both look at her before he’s whining, “Well c’mon. You got me all interested and crap.”

She sighs, looking around the room before she bends closer to you both.

“It’s about Dr. Beck.”

You both look at her expectantly and she continues, “I was standing in line for coffee this morning and I didn’t realize I was behind him and one of his colleagues. They were talking about some get together they were having this weekend and then his friend or whatever slaps him on his back and says, ‘Well you gotta get out since you’re a newly single man. Beth’s dating – don’t see why you don’t.’ And then, after some dialogue that I can’t remember the man proceeds to say, ‘Listen, I know you haven’t blatantly said it out loud but I know there’s another girl because of the signs. You always bring up this mystery woman that you’ve been meeting for coffee to discuss environmental science theories because that’s a thing. You always are checking your phone to see if she’s sending you messages and when she does, you smile. Don’t play dumb with me Beck, I know a crush when I see one.”

She looks at you with excited eyes as you and Hector watch her, your faces un phased. She rolls her eyes before she exclaims,

“Don’t look daft guys. It’s obvious. He’s not married anymore – he’s divorced. Probably has been for a while. So you know what that means,” another empty stare from the both of you, “it means Y/N can finally make a move on him! You heard me. Beck has talked about his colleague about this girl who he shares articles with and discusses boring science environment stuff with. That he goes out to coffee to talk with. Who do we know, out of this circle of friends that has been doing that with Beck these past couple of weeks?”

Hector’s eyes automatically fly over to you as you yell out, “What!?”

He howls in laughter, drawing attention to the three of you including Professor Beck who is clearing his throat. Mara shoots Hector a stern look as you shake your head, whispering,

“What do you mean me?”

“Oh c’mon! Hector and I both know you have the biggest crush on the man. Make your move.”

Hector is still laughing as Dr. Beck walks around his desk in jeans and a button up navy blue shirt. You try to bite back the internal groan that threatens to come out as your eye flick to his left hand that is indeed empty. You’ve noticed it before but figured he just took it off and forgot. Never tried to find any more purchase in it.

“He’s a professor.” You whisper and Mara shrugs.

“Who cares? I won’t tell if you don’t.”

Hectors still holding his sides from laughter as Dr. Beck turns to take in the three of you and you stomp on Mara’s foot, causing her to groan.

“You both are ridiculous.” You mumble as his eyes land on yours, that soft smile tugging at the end of his mouth.

The lecture starts about normal. You’re trying to ignore the new information Mara has laid on you, ignore the fact that Dr. Beck was watching you in parallel curiosity. He always did in lectures but you always attested it to your curiosity as a student. You tried to ignore the fact that he was single and available and that changed everything. Remembering that he was still a professor, even if it was guest spot, and it was morally wrong to pursue him.

Then his eyes flit to you and there’s no longer that look of amusement that dances behind the blue irises. Instead, he hungrily takes in your outfit. Your exposed legs in the short skirt of your dress and the way your chest rises, exposing your cleavage in the V neck He does this while absentmindedly listening to a student ask a question, his arms crossed over his chest before he’s looking away, pushing off the desk and walking to the other side of the room. You try to ignore the way your heart is thumping in your chest or the fact you haven’t breathed since he’s looked at you and it’s Mara who lowly whispers,

“That man has a full hard on you for you.”

You hush her as he walks back, writing something on the board. You bend to capture the words, anything to distract you from the way his muscles strain in his back but it’s when you glance up that you catch him staring again. Only this time he makes eyes contact and quickly looks away, beginning to pick up where he left out.

The hour is full of this game of cat and mouse, him looking at you and vice versa, and by the end of the lecture you’re spent. You stand up quickly, pushing your books into your bag before hastily shimming out of the row.

“Y/N.” the way your name falls out of his mouth has you stop mid stride, turning toward him as he smiles leaning against his desk.

“I know its Friday and I don’t want to keep you long but I wanted to share with you some information I found on those notes you asked on Wednesday.”

Mara snickers as you turn back against the wave of students, his normal posse of women even hurrying out. It was not just any Friday. It was Friday before the homecoming game and the few students who found amusement in the game were eager to start the weekend festivities.

He turns, digging in his satchel for notes and Mara’s singsong voice says,

“Well meet you in the library Y/N. I need to drop off a book.” She basically drags Hector who’s idly standing by, curious to see the interaction go down. The door closes and you’re left in the lecture hall alone.

You stare angrily at her betrayal as Dr. Beck turns, the essays in his hands.

“Actually had to hunt down Wat for some of this information. And Jess…this isn’t my specialty.” He grins at you as you reach for the papers, your fingers skimming over the other. The touch is small and innocent but it has you both inhaling your breath before you softly pull the papers from him.

“Thanks for that. Thank your friend Wat….” You mumble as you place the essays in a folder in your bag, your head bending down. Trying to contain the fangirl knowledge that Wat was probably Mark Watney and he had suggested the article you were going to read. It’s when you look back up you notice the way he’s watching you, his blue eyes watching your mouth before they flicker back up to your eyes.

You both stand in silence, watching the other before he throws his hand behind his neck, rubbing the small area.

“You doing anything for homecoming?”

You raise an eyebrow before laughing.

“Studying and preparing my notes for that evil essay you want us to submit before Thanksgiving break. You know, the one you’re making basing half of our grade on?”

He chuckles as he leans against his desk, his hands fall along the edges with ease.

“Ahhh, that paper. But you’re intelligent and witty – I wouldn’t worry about it. Go to some homecoming festivities this weekend. I’m sure your boyfriend wouldn’t mind the company.”

It’s a simple comment but it’s tactful.

“…My boyfriend?”

“Yea,” he nods toward the closed door. “Hector right? The one you sit by each day.”

You watch him with serious eyes for thirty seconds before you burst into laughter. The sound echoes in the quiet space before you raise your hands.

“Hector is not my boyfriend. He’s just, good lord, he’s just a friend.”

A small grin graces his face as he shrugs.

“Thought you were a thing.”

“No! That was never a thing. Besides, it’s Mara and him that have a weird crush thing on each other.”

“Any other guy you’re going to wrangle into going then?”

“You mean, aside from my Book of the Environmental World by Wesley Peterson. No, no guys.”

“….a girlfriend?”

You laugh again, shaking your head.

“Hector would love it if I was a lesbian but nope, not that either. I like men and I’m single. You know, when you’re a double major in your undergrad, it makes it easy. Even taking a break didn’t help because I picked up a residency and now I’m here. No time for guys between all that.”

You don’t know why you admit all of this to him, but he smiles in appreciation, his smile making his whole face shine.

“That’s hard to believe.”

“What?” you ask and he leans into you a bit and you can smell his cologne waft off of him.

“That you weren’t able to convince some guy it was worth the wait. You’re quite the catch.”

You watch him watching you as you bite your lip, shifting your weight.

“Dr. Beck, are you flirting with me?”

He chuckles as he leans back, his eyes taking in your body boldly. When his eyes lands on yours again he whispers,

“Trust me sweetheart, you’d know if I was flirting.”

The air is static with tension. He swallows, his jaw clenching as you play with the necklace around your neck, a nervous habit you had picked up in 1st grade and hadn’t been able to shake since. You’re at a loss of words, wishing you could find something sassy to say but knowing you have nothing creative in you to give. Instead, all you can think about is how you’d feel underneath him, those plump lips flitting all over your body. Wandering what it would feel like to hear him whisper that pet name in your ear as he fucked you sensless.

He gives a knowing smile as leans off his desk suddenly, brushing past you and you exhale, shaking the thought from your brain.

You could not fantasize about your professor. Even if he was single.

“I hope you have a great weekend Y/N. Let me know what you think of those essays.”

His voice is coarse and you give a meek nod.

“You too professor,” you walk toward the door, stopping briefly as you throw him a glance over your shoulder. Ignoring the fact that you know he was watching you walk away. “Try to have some fun this weekend.”

Then, as quickly as you can, you flit out of the door. You don’t catch the small smile on Dr. Beck’s lips, or the way he adjusts himself before grabbing his bag to leave the room.

#chris beck #chris beck x reader #Sebastian Stan

72 notes · View notes

pamphletstoinspire · 7 years ago

Photo

7 Surprising Things That Happen When You Pray the Rosary More Often

If you ever find the rosary hard to pray, or hard to commit to regularly, read on to find out our seven most surprising things that happen in your life when you start to pray the rosary more often!

1. You Become Less Selfish

You know how it is when you love someone or something with all your heart, and you feel so passionate about it or them, but it is sometimes just so hard to act on that love? That is how I feel about the rosary. I love it and I love that we were given it as a gift. I truly believe in its power. But laying time aside to pray it? That requires me to sacrifice and give up some time and energy for myself, and ponder on the Mysteries instead. Praying the rosary helps re-orientate ourselves to Christ, who can lift us out of ourselves and our sin, and teaches us again and again the discipline of refraining from indulging our selfishness.

2.You Become More Disciplined

The more you pray the rosary, the more you want to pray the rosary. The grace of discipline is forged in those times when you quieten your mind to concentrate, pray even when you are tired, or switch your phone for your rosary before bed. These acts of discipline affect all areas of your life. Discipline is like exercise, you can’t just become a marathon runner on your first run. But you can build up to it bit by bit over time. The rosary helps you make those baby-steps towards making God a greater priority in your life. Even those days (or seasons) when you’re not feeling the emotional or spiritual consolations, sticking to the Rosary is a wonderful way to remain faithful, fulfill a duty to God and Our Lady, and follow a “little rule” in your day.

3. Our Lady Reveals Insights

I know that if you have suffered from a bleak introduction to the rosary as a child, perhaps being forced to pray it by well meaning teachers or parents, and associate it with sheer boredom, it can be hard to understand how the rosary can offer anything beautiful or transcendent while actually praying it, even if you do believe in its powerful after-effects. But I really believe that in praying the rosary often, hidden depths are revealed. In mediating on each of the Mysteries regularly, Our Lady, with Christ, has something to give you. Perhaps it is an insight into an area of your life that you are struggling with. Perhaps it is an epiphany over a particular moment in Christ’s life that will really help you. Maybe it is the experience that can happen deep in prayer that you feel you are actually there in the moment of the Mystery itself. There is always something new to be explored, and always something good to be revealed.

4. You Have More Courage

When you start to place your trust and your life and even your heart into the hands of Mary through the rosary, you begin to understand how eminently practical, simple and full of solutions she is. She only wants to get us to Christ, and she loves us so much, with the true tenderness of a perfect mother, that we do her a great honour when we give her our problems. Courage begins to burst forth in a life that is always turning again and again to Mary to ask her help and to trust that she will provide. You can have huge amounts of courage when you know that Mary is by your side! St Maximilian Kolbe said: “I see Mary everywhere. I see problems nowhere.”

5. Your Day Proceeds Calmly

This is what one of our authors said about praying the rosary daily: “It makes my whole day more peaceful, like Mary just is hanging around battling back the bad stuff. Things fall into place easier. I’m more aware of God’s presence.” Praying the rosary doesn’t wipe out suffering in your life, but it does give you a much stronger weapon to battle it with.

6. You Get An Extra Awareness Before the Moment of Temptation

One of the 15 Promises of the Rosary is that: “it will destroy vice, decrease sin, and defeat heresies.” In my experience, when I have prayed the rosary often, I find that the moment before I sin slows down. By that I mean, if I want to procrastinate or gossip for example, I don’t do it automatically. I recognise that those actions begin with a conversation in my head. I have more of an awareness of the temptation before the action, and there is more time for me to consider whether I want to actually do it or not. And in praying the rosary, I start to see my life through a shared perspective with God, and I begin to see what He wants for me is good, and I want it too.

7. You Start to Live Out the Incarnation

The power of the rosary lies in its simplicity. It is so deceptively simple that it can seem stupid to the intelligent mind. So often we think that we need to find complex, clever, rocket-science-type solutions to solve our complex, clever, rocket-science-sized problems. We stare into the abyss of our issues and wonder how we will find the fix to such a gaping wound. We don’t need to. God came to earth as a tiny, weak and helpless baby born into poverty. The rosary, so deceptively simple that it can be prayed in any circumstances, is the most power weapon of prayer that we have.

“There is no problem, no matter how difficult it is, whether temporal or above all spiritual, in the personal life of each one of us, of our families…that cannot be solved by the Rosary.” Sr. Lúcia of Fatima.

Article by Ruth Baker: Ruth Baker is 26 and comes from England. She loves running, wild camping and writing and thinks there is almost nothing better than the feeling of satisfaction after a day out in the mountains. She is currently studying Creative Writing at university. Her faith means everything to her.

#praying the holy rosary

114 notes · View notes

bigyack-com · 5 years ago

Text

How Monkeys Taught Me to Appreciate Teen Sleepovers

“Can we have a sleepover?” Barring anything involving fire, blood or hospitals, these five words are the ones I dread most as a parent. Sleepovers tend to involve too much noise and junk food and too little sleep.And yet, after spending the last few years researching and writing a book about the science of friendship, I am looking with fresh eyes at sleepovers, video games and many of the other ways children and teenagers like to spend their time together. I’ve realized that the critical thing is exactly that: that they spend time together. One of our chief jobs as parents is to encourage them to make and maintain strong friendships. It is one of the skills they will need most in life.My epiphany came from a reporting trip when I spent a week at a monkey colony in Puerto Rico watching rhesus macaques socialize. The animals sit close together and groom one another, strengthening their bonds. The primatologists charting this behavior are like exacting gossip columnists — recording who does what to whom and what happens as a result. Researchers have found that the monkeys with the strongest social bonds — with quality friendships — turn out to have more and healthier babies and to live longer. In evolutionary terms, you can’t do better than that.I came home to Brooklyn and found my oldest son hanging on the couch with his best friend playing the video game NBA2K. It felt as if they had not moved while I was away. Granted, they had just graduated from high school, and had earned some downtime. And yes, I knew that they did, in fact, get outside to play basketball, too.But the video games were driving me crazy: They are violent, they objectify women, and they cast an unbreakable spell over our children. They are also annoying. Listening to the roar of the fake crowd on FIFA — again — makes me roar myself, and not in celebration.Surely there was something more valuable these kids could be doing with their time. And then it hit me. They were doing something valuable. They were sitting close together and doing the human equivalent of grooming — laughing and talking, strengthening their bond before they left home for different colleges. Even I, who was spending my days thinking about friendship, had nearly missed that. I was so focused on the video game I didn’t see the visceral connection.I’m trying to do better. I have learned to relax about social media. A raft of new research shows that, generally speaking, it is not nearly so detrimental as we have been led to believe. In a rigorous analysis of more than 350,000 teenagers, researchers at the University of Oxford reported last year that technology use has a nearly negligible effect on adolescent well-being, accounting for less than half a percent of the variation. Eating breakfast had a larger effect for the better and being bullied a much larger effect for the worse. Even wearing glasses had a more negative impact on teenage well-being than social media use.Where there are benefits to social media use, they are often relational. Video games are a critical form of socializing. In 2018, 97 percent of boys and 83 percent of girls were playing them, and they rarely played alone. According to the Pew Research Center, nearly three-quarters of teens use voice connections to engage with other players. Instead of focusing on the amount of time spent online, parents should be asking what kids are doing there and with whom. If my son is with his best friend, I take note.I’m also much more likely now to say yes to overnight hangouts, much to the joy of my 16-year-old, who loves nothing better. The good old-fashioned sleeping-bags-on-the-couch, talking-into-the-wee-hours sleepover is one of the last chunks of unscheduled, unstructured time in the lives of many of today’s modern kids. Let’s let them have it. (Caveat: Wise to the faux sleepover sometimes used to disguise the evening’s true destination, my motto is trust but verify.) My son will be tired the next day, but he and his friends will have satisfied their craving to be together, invested more time in their friendship, and they will have had fun.What I’m really doing is giving more weight to the friendship factor in my parental decisions. Having and being a good friend counts for as much or more than the many other achievements we push our kids toward in the classroom, on the basketball court or in the orchestra. Friendship is where kids build social skills — companionship, trust, loyalty, reciprocity and reconciliation — that they can only learn from peer relationships. These are muscles they need to strengthen for adulthood. As they age, strong friendships will be as important for our children’s health as diet and exercise. Friendship and its opposite, loneliness, shape not only psychological health but physical health as well. Social relationships have been linked to cardiovascular and immune systems, stress responses, sleep quality and cognitive health.Of all the evidence I uncovered, one statistic stands out. According to the long-running Harvard Study of Adult Development, the best predictor of how healthy and happy a person is at 80 is not wealth or professional success, but the strength of that person’s relationships at 50. And many of those middle-aged relationships begin much earlier. Friendship is a lifelong endeavor. Every 50-year-old was once a 15-year-old begging his mother to let him have a sleepover.Lydia Denworth is the author of “Friendship: The Evolution, Biology and Extraordinary Power of Life’s Fundamental Bond.” Read the full article

#health #HealthNews #monkeys #Sleepovers #taught #Teen

0 notes

margdarsanme · 4 years ago

Text

NCERT Class 12 English Novel The Invisible Man

NCERT Class 12 English :: The Invisible Man

(English Novels)

ABOUT THE NOVELIST

Herbert George Wells was born on 21 September, 1866 in Bromley, Kent County, England. He was an English author best known for his work in the science fiction genre. He began his career as a novelist with a popular sequence of science fiction that remains the most familiar part of his work. He was also a prolific writer in many genres, including contemporary novels, history, politics and social commentary. His middle period novels were less science fictional; they covered lower middle class life. In 1894, he published his first novel, ‘The Time Machine’ which was followed by a series of scientific fantasies, and ‘The Island of Dr. Morean’ (1896), ‘The Invisible Man’ (1897), ‘The War of the Worlds’ (1898), ‘When the Sleeper Awakes’ (1898), ‘The First Men in the Moon’ (1901) and ‘The War in the Air’ (1908). His works of non-science fiction include ‘Love and Mr. Lewisham’ (1900), ‘Kipps’ (1905) and ‘The History of Mr. Polly’ (1910). His works of science fiction have retained their popularity. They have also won academic regard for integrating the fantastic with the realistic. In addition to works of fiction, he has produced many discursive books, pamphlets, and articles. He wrote several dozen short stories and novels. He has been described as the most serious of the popular writers and most popular of the serious writers of his time. He died on 13 August, 1946.

ABOUT THE NOVEL

First published in 1952 and immediately hailed as a masterpiece, The Invisible Man is one of those rare novels that have changed the shape of American literature. For not only does Ralph Ellison’s nightmare journey across the racial divide tell unparalleled truths about the nature of bigotry and its effects on the minds of both victims and perpetrators, it gives us an entirely new model of what a novel can be.As he journeys from the Deep South to the streets and basements of Harlem, from a horrifying “battle royal” where black men are reduced to fighting animals, to a Communist rally where they are elevated to the status of trophies, Ralph Ellison’s nameless protagonist ushers readers into a parallel universe that throws our own into harsh and even hilarious relief. Suspenseful and sardonic, narrated in a voice that takes in the symphonic range of the American language, black and white, The Invisible Man is one of the most audacious and dazzling novels of our century.

MAJOR CHARACTERSDr. Kemp: Dr. Kemp is a scientist living in the town of Port Burdock. He is an old friend of Griffin, who comes to his house to hide after Griffin’s transformation into the “invisible man”.Kemp has a hard time accepting the fact that his friend, who he had not seen for years, suddenly appears uninvited and invisible, but eventually he overcomes his shock, sits down and talks with Griffin.Mr. Hall: Mr. Hall is the husband of Mrs. Hall and helps her run the Coach and Horses Inn. He is the first person in Iping to notice that the mysterious Griffin is invisible: when a dog bites him and tears his glove.Mrs Hall: Mrs. Hall is the wife of Mr. Hall and the owner of the Coach and Horses Inn. A very friendly, down-to-earth woman who enjoys socialising with her guests, Mrs. Hall is continually frustrated by the mysterious Griffin’s refusal to talk with her, and his repeated tantrums.Thoma – I a rvel : Thomas Marvel is a j oily old tramp unwittingly recruited to assist the Invisible Man as his first visible partner. He carries around the Invisible Man’s scientific notebooks for him, and, eventually, a large sum of money that Griffin had stolen.Col. Adve: Col. Adye is the chief of police in the town of Port Burdock. He is called upon by Dr. Kemp when the Invisible Man turned up in Kemp’s house talking of taking over the world with his “terrible secret” of invisibility. A very able-bodied and reliable officer, Adye not only saves Kemp from the Invisible Man’s first attempt on his life but also spearheads the hunt for the unseen fugitive.Dr Cuss: Dr. Cuss is a doctor living in the town of Iping. Intrigued by tales of a bandaged stranger staying at the Coach and Horses Inn, Dr. Cuss goes to see him under the pretence of asking for a donation to the nurse’s fund. The strange man, Griffin, scares Cuss away by pinching his nose with his invisible hand.J. A. Jaffers: J. A. Jaffers is a constable in the town of Iping. He is called upon by Mr. and Mrs. Hall to arrest Griffin after they suspected him of robbing the Reverend Bunting.The Rev. Mr. Bunting: The Rev. Mr. Bunting is a vicar in the town of Iping.Griffin: Griffin is a gifted young university medical student with albinism, who studies optical density. He believes he is on the verge of a great scientific discovery. Working reclusively in his flat, he invents a formula to ‘bend light and reduce the refractive index of physical objects, making them invisible. He experiments on himself and makes himself invisible.

SUMMARY OF THE NOVEL

The Invisible Man starts with a stranger arriving at the town of Iping. He’s a private guy, which is a problem when you live in a town where the major export is gossip. The stranger doesn’t get along with the villagers, especially the people who own the inn where he’s staying. He spends most of his time trying to do something scientific in his room. But eventually – after the villagers (rightfully) accuse him of robbery – the stranger snaps. He takes off all his clothes and reveals that he’s – wait for it – invisible!The Invisible Man fights the village and flees, leaving his important scientific notes behind. To get them back, he forces a homeless dude named Marvel to help him. They go back to Iping and get the Invisible Man’s stuff, but the villagers attack and craziness ensues. The Invisible Man beats them to a pulp and wreaks some major havoc.At another town (Port Stowe), the Invisible Man steals money and drops it into Marvel’s pockets. Like the lousy sidekick he is, Marvel runs away to Burdock, money in hand (or in pocket, we guess). The IM tries to kill Marvel, but a bunch of people at a bar fight him off; one person evenshoots him, but it’s just a scratch. The Invisible Man takes shelter in a house that happens to be owned by an old college friend named Kemp, and this is where we learn that our not-so- hero’s name is Griffin.While staying in his digs, Griffin tells Kemp his back story, story which is several chapters long. Here’s the gist: he was poor and he wanted to study invisibility (as most young people do), so he stole money from his father, who then committed suicide (we’re not entirely sure why). Finally Griffin figured out the invisibility thing and proceeded to do a few things:

burn down his landlord’s building;

wander around London;

steal from a department store;

put on a ridiculous outfit from a theatrical costume shop and go to Iping to work.

Turns out Kemp had alerted the police to Griffin’s whereabouts when he arrived, but when they come to arrest him, he escapes. (Remember, he’s invisible, so it’s not too tough.) Kemp works with the police to catch Griffin, who in turn, tries to catch Kemp. In the end, a bunch of people in Burdock gang up on the Invisible Man and kill him. As he dies, Griffin loses his invisibility and we get our first glimpse of the Visible Man.Finally, in the epilogue, we learn that Marvel still has Griffin’s scientific notes, which probably have all sorts of cool inventions in them.

CHAPTERWISE SUMMARY & QUESTIONSChapter-1

The story starts with a stranger arriving in a snowstorm at the Coach and Horses, an inn/bar in Iping. (If you’ve read War of the Worlds, you know that Wells often likes to set his stories in real places, Iping is a real town in England.)The stranger is totally covered, with only his shiny nose showing. He’s also wearing spectacles with sidelights, which basically look like goggles. At least one person says he looks like he’s wearing a diving helmet (the old-fashioned kind, of course.)The stranger looks, well, strange, but he’s got money, so Mrs. Hall, the innkeeper, gives him a room.

Still, Mrs. Hall is surprised by his appearance when she sees him in his room without his hat.His forehead above his blue glasses was covered by a white bandage, and another covered his ears, leaving not a scrap of his face exposed excepting only his pink, peaked nose. The thick black hair, escaping as it could below and between the cross bandages, projected in curious tails and horns, giving him the strangest appearance conceivable.Luckily, he’s covered the lower part of his face with a serviette (a napkin), so she doesn’t have to deal with what’s there.Mrs. Hall assumes that this guy was in an accident. She tries to get him to talk about what happened, but he doesn’t want to talk about his “accident” with a gossipy innkeeper.Instead, he asks her about getting his luggage from the railroad station. Not quite as good for gossip. Sorry, Mrs. Hall.

I. PLOT/THEME-BASED

Question 1:Why was Mrs. Hall shocked to see the visitor when she came to him with a mustard pot?Answer:When Mrs. Hall put the mustard pot over the table in the strange visitor’s room and asked his hat to let dry, the visitor turned round, face-to-face with Mrs. Hall. The visitor had raised his head and was looking at her. For a moment, she stood shocked and gaping wide at him. He held a white cloth over the lower part of his face, so that his mouth and jaws were completely hidden, causing his muffled voice. But what shocked Mrs. Hall the most was his forehead, above his blue glasses, fully covered by a white bandage. Another covered his ears, not leaving an inch of his face exposed except his pink nose. Mrs. Hall assumed that he might met with an accident.

Question 2:Why did Mrs. Hall tolerate the strange visitor as long as she does?Answer:Though Mrs. Hall was continually frustrated by the strange man’s refusal to talk with her, still Mrs. Hall tolerated the stranger as she had got some gold coins from this visitor without any condition from his side. Mrs. Hall was too excited to even remember her guest’s name as it was unusual for a guest to stop by in the cold and snowy month of February.

Question 3:What was the conversation made between the visitor and Mrs. Hall when the visitor was smoking a pipe?Answer:When Mrs. Hall went to clear away the strange visitor’s lunch, he was smoking a pipe.He told Mrs. Hall that his luggage was at Bramblehurst station. He enquired how soon he could have it collected. Mrs. Hall told him that it would be possible only the next day which seemed quite disappointing for him. Answering his questions about bringing the luggage, Mrs. Hall developed a conversation by discussing steep roads and accidents.But the visitor ended their conversation by abruptly asking for some matches as his pipe was out.

II. CHARACTER-BASED

Question 1:Describe the way the strange visitor was dressed.Answer:The strange visitor was wrapped up from head to foot in bandages and clothes, put on thick gloves. He was wearing a soft felt hat covering his forehead. His face was covered with bandages with only his shiny nose visible. He is also wearing spectacles with sidelights, which basically look like goggles. He had covered the lower part of his face with a napkin, so that his mouth and jaws were completely hidden, causing his muffled voice. He also wore a dark-brown velvet jacket with a high collar turned up about his neck. He tied a silk white muffler round his neck to put the mouthpiece to his lips.

Question 2:Describe the character-sketch of Mrs. Hall.Answer:Mrs. Hall is the wife of Mr. Hall and the owner of Coach and Horses Inn at Iping in Sussex. She is a very friendly and down-to-earth woman who enjoys socialising with her guests. This she had proved by asking for the stranger’s coat to let it dry in the kitchen.She tried to get into conversation with her visitor and narrated her nephew’s injury by a knife.

Chapter-2

Teddy Henfrey is a villager and clock mender, which might sound awesome, but it just means that he fixes clocks. Henfrey makes his way to the Coach and Horses Inn that afternoon.Mrs. Hall wants Henfrey to fix a clock in the stranger’s room. They enter his room without knocking, which is a bad idea whether your guest is a mad scientist or not. For a moment, Mrs. Hall thinks the stranger has a giant mouth, but he covers his face again.The stranger tells Mrs. Hall that he would like to be left alone. See, he’s an “experimental investigator” – which means scientist – and he’s got some research that could be messed up by people entering whenever they want.Also, he was in an accident, and his eyes are sensitive, that is why he’s always covered and wearing his dark glasses.Mrs. Hall leaves Henfrey to fix the clock. Henfrey takes a long time with the clock on purpose, so that he can see more of the stranger. The stranger catches him wasting time, though, and tells him to finish up quickly and get out.Henfrey wonders what the man’s secret is – maybe he’s wanted by the police? On his way through the village, Henfrey runs into Mr. Hall and tells him, “there’s a weird guy staying at your place.”This gets Mr. Hall a little suspicious. But he’s also a little drunk (that’s his hobby), so his wife tells him to mind his own business. Although, truth be told, Mrs. Hall is herself a little ” suspicious of the stranger.

I. PLOT/THEME-BASED

Question 1:What two reasons did the stranger give to Mrs. Hall for not being interrupted by anyone?Answer:The stranger told Mrs. Hall that he was an experimental investigator. He was really too cold and fatigued and needs complete rest. He told that his reason for coming to Iping was a desire for solitude. He also told that he did not want to be disturbed in his work. The second reason for not been disturbed by anyone is the accident that needs a certain rest. His eyes sometimes got so weak and painful that he has to shut himself up in the dark for hours together. At such times the slightest disturbance, the entry of a stranger into the room, is a source of excruciating annoyance to him. He wanted that Mrs. Hall should understand his situation.

Question 2:Why did the stranger get angry with Mr. Henfrey?Answer:Mrs. Hall took Henfrey to the stranger’s room to mend the clock in that room. They 4 entered his room without knocking which was a bad idea. The stranger told Mrs.Hall that he had got some research work that could be messed up by people entering whenever they want. Also, Henfrey took a long time with the clock on purpose, so that he could see more of the stranger. The stranger caught him wasting time and tells him , to finish up and leave.

Question 3:What information did Henfrey share with Mr. Hall?Answer:On his way through the village, Henfrey met Mr. Hall and told him that there was a weird guy staying at his place. This made Mr. Hall a little suspicious. But Mr. Hall was also a little drunk as usual. His wife told him to mind his own business without any questioning.

Chapter-3

The next day, the stranger’s luggage is brought from the station by a man named Fearenside, who has a dog which makes Fearenside our favourite character so far.The stranger has lots of luggage, including boxes of glass bottles cushioned by straw.He would probably love to yell at people to be careful with his boxes, but Fearenside’s dog attacks him and rips his glove and trousers.The stranger runs back to his room to change his clothes.Mr. Hall, nice guy that he is, checks on the stranger to make sure he wasn’t hurt. But when he enters the room without knocking, he sees something strange. Unfortunately, Mr. Hall gets pushed out of the room before he can figure out what he saw.The villagers are now hanging around the luggage, gossiping and saying what they would do if a dog bit them. These people clearly don’t have TVs.When the unhurt stranger gets the boxes, he starts unpacking all of his bottles and gets to work immediately.Mrs. Hall brings him dinner, but – surprise! – enters without knocking. So, of course, two things happen: firstly she catches a glimpse of something strange (he has very hollow eye sockets, but then he puts on his glasses); and second he complains about being interrupted.Mrs. Hall fusses over the mess that he’s making, but the stranger just tells her to bill him.Down at a local bar, Fearenside and Henfrey gossip about the stranger. Fearenside says the stranger has black legs – he apparently saw the leg when his dog ripped his pants. Since the stranger has a pink nose, says Fearenside, maybe he’s colored like a piebald horse.

I. PLOT/THEME-BASED

Question 1:Describe how the stranger was attacked by a dog.Answer:The next day, the stranger’s luggage was brought from the station by a man named Fearenside, who had a dog. The stranger had a lot of luggage, including boxes of glass bottles cushioned by straw, apparatus, books, tools etc. He would probably love to yell at people to be careful with his boxes. Suddenly, Fearenside’s dog began to growl savagely at the stranger. The dog sprang straight at his hand. Things happened in a flash. The dog’s teeth had slipped the stranger’s hand. It received a hard kick. It jumped sideways and went for the stranger’s legs. His trousers were torn. The stranger glanced at his tom glove and trousers, turned and rushed up the steps into his bedroom.

Question 2:How was Mr. Hall greeted by the stranger in his room upstairs at the Inn?Answer:As the stranger was bit by the dog and he moved upstairs to his room, he was followed by Mr. Hall to ask for any help. He went straight upstairs and entered the room through the open door without knocking. He seemed to see a handless arm waving towards him, and a face of three huge indeterminate spots in white. Then he was struck violently in the chest, hurled out, and the door slammed in his face.

Question 3:What did Fearenside tell Henfrey about the strange man?Answer:Down at a local bar in the evening, Fearnside told Henfrey that he had seen through the tear in the strange man’s trousers. In place of the pink skin, he had seen only blackness. He told that this man had a piebald. Black here and white there in patches. He also said that the stranger might be ashamed of it and due to this reason, he had covered his skin with bandages.

Chapter-4

The narrator tells us that after the dog incident not much happens in Iping until the club festival (which is around the Christian holiday of Whit-Monday). Instead, the village settles into something of a routine.This is the routine: when Mrs. Hall complains about his messes, the stranger tells her to bill him extra, which works fine until April, when he starts to run out of money.No one in Iping really likes the stranger and everyone has a theory about why he’s so weird. (How strange is he? He doesn’t go to church on Sundays and he goes for walks at night. Clearly there’s something wrong with this guy. Where are the police when you need them?)Some people think he’s a criminal or an anarchist or a lunatic or simply a freak who could make a fortune charging people at county fairs to check him out.Whatever his deal is, everyone seems to agree that the stranger is too irritable for a village, “though his irritability might have been comprehensible to an urban brain-worker”.One villager who does want to talk to him is the town, doctor Cuss. On Whit Sunday, Cuss goes to talk to the stranger – partly because he’s curious, partly because he’s jealous of all his bottles. After the talk, Cuss runs out to see Bunting, the priest.Cuss wanted gossip, but this is apparently what happened instead: while the stranger was telling him a story about why his research was taking so long (a scientific formula got burned in a fireplace), the stranger revealed that his sleeve was empty. Then he seemed to use an invisible hand to tweak Cuss’ nose. To be clear, if you’re trying to hide the fact that you’re invisible, tweaking people’s noses with your invisible hand is not a good strategy.

I. PLOT/THEME-BASED

Question 1:What did Mrs. Hall tell the villagers about her guest, the strange visitor, staying in her Inn?Answer:The stranger did not have any social life. Mrs. Hall declared that her guest was an ‘experimental investigator’. When pressed to explain what that meant, she would remark with a touch of superiority that most educated people knew such things. She explained that he discovered things. Her visitor had an accident, which temporarily discoloured his face and hands. Being a sensitive and touchy person, he was averse to public exposure.

Question 2:Describe the life of the stranger at the Inn.Answer:No one in Iping really liked the stranger and everyone had a theory about why he was so weird. He did not go to church on Sundays and he goes for walks at night. The stranger compensated for his messes by paying extra bills raised by Mrs. Hall clearly. There was something wrong with this guy. Some people thought he was a criminal or an anarchist or a lunatic or simply a freak who could make a fortune, charging people at county fairs to check him out. Whatever his deal is, everyone seems to agree that the stranger is too irritable for a village.

Question 3:Discuss the meeting of Dr. Cuss with the stranger.Answer:Dr. Cuss, the medical practitioner, was particularly curious for the stranger. The bandages excited his professional interest. The reported thousand and one bottles aroused his jealousy. He awaited an opportunity to talk to the stranger. Towards Whitsun tide he hit upon the subscription- list for a village nurse as an excuse. He was surprised to find that Mr. Hall did not know his guest’s name. Cuss entered the room of the visitor. Mrs. Hall heard the murmurs of voices followed by a cry of surprise, a stirring of feet, a chair flung aside, a bark of a laughter, quick steps to the door, and Cuss appeared white-faced and eyes bulging. He left the door open behind him and ran down and out with his hat in hand.

Question 4:What did Dr. Cuss tell Rev. Bunting, the vicar?Answer:Cuss narrated how he tried to pry into the stranger’s work, how he offered a prescription for the man’s sniffing and cold, how during their talk the man’s hand came out of his pocket, how it was an empty moving sleeve with nothing inside, how his remark about the sleeve being empty haunted the stranger, how the hand extended towards Cuss and how what appeared like a finger and a thumb gripped Cuss’s nose. When he hit the arm, it felt exactly like hitting an arm but there was not an arm. There was not the ghost of an arm!

Chapter-5

It occurred in the small hours of Whit-Monday, the day devoted in Iping to the Club festivities. Mrs. Bunting woke up suddenly before dawn, hearing the door of their bedroom open and close. She sat up in bed listening. Then she heard the pad, pad, pad of bare feet coming out of the adjoining dressing room and walking along the passage towards the staircase. Now she aroused the Rev. Mr. Bunting as quietly as possible. Without striking a light he went out on the landing to listen. He distinctly heard a fumbling going on at his study desk down-stairs, and then a violent sneeze. Armed with a poker he descended the staircase as noiselessly as possible. Mrs. Bunting came out on the landing. The hour was about four. Everything was still. Then something snapped, the drawer was opened, and there was a rustle of papers. A match was struck and the study was flooded with yellow light. Mr. Bunting was now in the hall, and through the crack of the door he could see the desk and the open drawer and a candle burning on the desk. But there was no robber. They heard the chink of money, and realised that the robber had found the housekeeping reserve of gold-two pounds ten, all in half sovereigns. Gripping the poker firmly, Mr. Bunting rushed into the room. “Surrender!” cried he.Mrs. Bunting was close at his heels all the while. They stood amazed in the study. There was nobody there to surrender.“I could have sworn—” cried Mr. Bunting. “The candle!” said he. “Who lit the candle?”“The drawer!” said Mrs. Bunting. “And the money’s gone!”There was a violent sneeze in the passage. As they rushed out the kitchen door slammed. “Bring the candle,” called Mr. Bunting, and led the way. They both heard the sound of bolts being hastily shot back. As he opened the kitchen door he saw through the scullery that the back door was just opening. It opened, stood open for a moment, and then closed with a slam. He was certain that nothing went out of the door. They entered the kitchen. The place was empty. There was not a soul to be found in the house, search as they would.

I. PLOT/THEME-BASED

Question 1:Describe the robbery episode at dawn in the Buntings’ house.Answer:It was four in the early morning before dawn, Mrs. Bunting woke up suddenly on hearing the door of their bedroom open and close. The vicar (priest) and his wife heard the noises in the house and went to investigate. They distinctly heard a fumbling going on at his study desk down-stairs, and then a violent sneeze. Armed with poker, he descended the staircase as noiselessly as possible. Everything was still. Then something snapped, the drawer was opened, there was a rustle of papers. A match was struck and the study room was flooded with yellow light. A candle was lit on the desk, but there was no robber. They heard the sound of money, and realised that the robber had found the housekeeping reserve of gold. The money was gone from the drawer. As they rushed out in the passage, the kitchen door slammed. They entered the kitchen. The place was empty. There was no one to be found in the house.

Chapter-6

Back at the Coach and Horses inn, the Halls head down to the cellar to water down their beer.Mr. Hall has to go back upstairs to get some sarsaparilla to cover the taste of the watered-down beer. On his way, he notices some strange things: the front door is unlocked and the stranger isn’t in his room.The lady of the house, Mrs. Hall, comes to check in on the situation in the stranger’s room.She peeks in and, after a few sneezes, the blankets and pillows start flying around the room, and the furniture starts banging around.Mrs. Hall immediately assumes that the stranger has put ghosts into her furniture. (There’s a joke here about “spirits,” which can mean both ghosts and alcohol. Since alcohol goes into bottles, maybe ghosts could also, and maybe that’s what the stranger has in all of his bottles. At least, that seems to be what Mrs. Hall thinks.)Some of the villagers – including Sandy Wadgers, the blacksmith, and Mr. Huxter, the general shop owner – get involved in the mystery of the stranger’s disappearance and the haunted furniture. With so many people, not much gets done.Finally, the stranger comes out of his room and demands to be left alone.

I. PLOT/THEME-BASED

Question 1:What did Mr. and Mrs. Hall experience when they entered the room of the stranger? How do you explain this behaviour?Answer:Mr. Hall knocked the door of the stranger’s room but got no response. He opened the door and entered. It was as he expected. The bed and the room were empty. The guest’s garments and bandages lay strewn on the bedroom chair and along the rail of the bed. His big slouch hat was cocked over the bedpost. Mr. Hall told it to his wife. When they both came up, they heard someone sneezed on the staircase. She found the pillow and clothes very cold in the guest’s room as if the guest was up for many hours. The bed¬clothes gathered together and jumped over the bottom rail. The stranger’s hat hopped off the bed-post, whirled a circle in the air and whacked Mrs. Hall in her face. The . bedroom chair, flinging the stranger’s coat and trousers aside, turned itself up with its four legs charging at her. She screamed and the couple were pushed out of the room by the chair. The door slammed violently and was locked. And then suddenly everything was still. Any person, who believes in ghosts and spirits, may believe this act to be of spirits haunting the room.

Chapter-7

The Halls hear rumours about the burglary the night before.Everyone at the bar is interested in the strange behaviour of the stranger, who strangely stranges the strange. He’s strange and the villagers don’t like him.He remains in his room, but Mrs. Hall does not bring him any food.Mrs. Hall and the stranger start arguing about money because he hasn’t paid his bill recently. But he says he found some more money recently and would be happy to pay.This, of course, makes everyone think that he was behind the burglary at the vicar’s house.Finally, the stranger gets so fed up that he reveals himself to the people at the bar:“You don’t understand,” he said, “who I am or what I am. I’ll show you. By Heaven! I’ll show you.” Then he put his open palm over his face and withdrew it. The centre of his face became a black cavity.The people in the bar are terrified and run away.The village people freak out, naturally. They were prepared for scars and ugliness, but what on earth is this?All the villagers who aren’t in the Coach and Horses come running in to see what all the screaming is about. There are a bunch of people out in the town, since this is a festival day (Whit Monday).Eventually, Constable Jaffers comes to arrest the stranger. But when he (and some other brave people) go to the inn, they find a headless figure eating some bread and cheese.The stranger explains that he’s the invisible man. This isn’t much of an explanation, but it’s the first time “invisible man” has been used in the text. So from now on, that’s what we’ll call him.The stranger – the invisible man – fights with the crowd and seems to be losing. Finally, he says he’ll surrender, but instead, he just takes off all his clothes. Of course, this makes him totally invisible and he starts winning the fight like whoa.The invisible man starts to beat down on crowd and they all panic. Constable Jaffers falls pretty hard on his head, and it’s not clear whether he’s dead or just unconscious.

I. PLOT/THEME-BASED

Question 1:Describe the episode of the unveiling of the stranger at the Hall’s Inn.Answer:Mrs. Hall and the stranger started arguing about money because he had not paid his bill recently. But he told that he found some more money recently which made Mrs. Hall suspicious about his involvement in the burglary at the vicars. In anger, Mrs. Halls wanted to know what he had been doing to her chair upstairs, and how he entered the empty room again. This made the stranger so frustrated that he revealed himself to the people at the Inn. He removed the cloth wrapped over his face with his palm. His face became a black cavity. He stepped forward and handed her his pink shining nose. Mrs. Hall took it in shock and dropped screaming and staggering back. Then he removed his spectacles, his hat, his whiskers and bandages. The stranger was a solid figure upto the coat-collar, but nothing above at all. Those present at Hall’s establishment fell over each other fleeing in horror. In came Mr. Hall, very red and determined, followed by Mr. Bobby Jaffers, the village constable. They came armed with a warrant to arrest him in case of robbery last night.

Question 2:Describe the escape of the stranger from Coach and Horses Inn.Answer:Constable Mr. Jaffers told the stranger that even if you have no head, warrant says ‘body’ and duty’s duty. Mr. Jaffer moved forward to arrest the stranger. In a moment Jaffers gripped the handless wrist and caught the invisible throat. After a small fight, the stranger surrendered, panting headless and handless. Jaffers produced a pair of hand-cuffs to arrest him. The Stranger told that he had every body part except that he is invisible. Abruptly the figure of the stranger sat down, and before any one could realise what was being done, the slippers, socks, and trousers had been kicked off under the table. Then he sprang up again and flung off his coat in order that he became invisible. The invisible man started beating down on the crow. Constable Jaffers fell pretty hard on his head, and it was not clear whether he was dead or just unconscious.

Chapter-8

Gibbons, the amateur naturalist of the district, was lying out on the spacious open downs without a soul within a couple of miles of him. Almost dozing, he heard the sound of a man coughing, sneezing, and then swearing. Gibbons looked up, but saw no one at all. The voice continued to swear in the rich vocabulary of a cultivated man. It grew to a climax, diminished gradually, and died away in the distance, going in the direction of Adderdean. It finally ended with a chocked sneeze. Gibbons had heard nothing of the morning’s occurrences at Iping. Disturbed by the strange occurrence he got up hastily and hurried down the hill towards the village.

I. PLOT/THEME-BASED

Question 1:What did Gibbons experience while taking a nap in the open fields of the village?Answer:Gibbons was lying out,on the spacious open downs without any single person within a couple of miles of him, taking a peaceful nap, as if dozing. Suddenly, he heard close to him the sound of a man coughing, sneezing and then swearing himself savagely. The sound grew to a climax, diminished again, and died away in the distance, going as it seemed to him in the direction of Adderdean. It lifted to a high and unexpected sneeze and ended. The whole phenomenon was so alarming and disturbing that his peace vanished and he hurried down the steep hills towards the village, as fast as he could go.

Chapter-9

Mr. Marvel is a tramp – a homeless, jobless guy who wanders around. Marvel wears a shabby high hat, and we first meet him considering two pairs of boots, both probably given to him as charity.As he ponders the boots, Marvel hears a voice, but he can’t see who’s talking. So, of course, he wonders if he’s drunk or crazy.To prove that he’s real and just invisible, the voice starts throwing rocks at Marvel.When Marvel is finally convinced that there might actually be someone there, he is able to make out some bread and cheese in front of him.The Invisible Man explains that he needs Marvel’s help. He knows Marvel is also an outcast, plus he promises to reward the homeless man for helping him. He explains, “An invisible man is a man of power.” Then he sneezes violently.

I. PLOT/THEME-BASED

Question 1:Narrate the episode of Mr. Thomas Marvel’s first meeting with the invisible man.Answer:Marvel was sitting with his feet in a ditch by the roadside on the way to Adderdean. He was trying on a pair of boots given to him as charity. He put the four shoes in a group and looked at them. It occurred to him that both pairs were exceedingly ugly.“They’re boots, any how,” said a voice behind him. Mr. Thomas Marvel replied with no sign of surprise that they are charity boots. Then he realised that as he was drunk, it might have been the echo. To prove that he was real and just invisible, the voice started throwing rocks at Marvel. When Marvel was convinced that there might be someone there, he was able to make out some bread and cheese in front of him. The invisible man explained him that he needed Marvel’s help. He knew that Marvel is an outcast, plus he promises to reward the homeless man for helping him as an invisible man is a man of power to do wonders. Then he sneezes violently.

II. CHARACTER-BASED

Question 1:Give a brief character-sketch of Mr. Thomas Marvel.Answer:Mr. Thomas Marvel is a jolly old tramp with no home or job. He wanders from place to place, usually asking people for food or money. The author has unwittingly recruited him to assist the invisible man as his first visible partner. He carries around the Invisible Man’s books for him. He wears a shabby high hat, and we first meet him considering two pairs of boots, both probably given to him as charity. There is an air of abandon and eccentricity about him. He was bearded, plump and of short limbs. He wore a furry silk hat, twine and shoelaces are a substitute for buttons at critical points of his costume. He drinks a lot and when he heard the invisible man for the first time, he thought that it was his dizziness due to drink that he sounded like this. He is a practical man as he acceded to the request of the invisible man after knowing that an invisible man is a man of power and can help him a lot.

Chapter-10

At first, the village people of Iping panicked after the invisible man showed himself, or, uh, didn’t show himself.But after a while, people relaxed and went back to the festival. As the narrator notes, “Great and strange ideas transcending experience often have less effect upon men and women than smaller, more tangible considerations”.Soon, though, another stranger comes to Iping. Stranger to the villagers, at least: we can recognise him as Marvel thanks to his shabby high hat. This new guy acts suspiciously around the Coach and Horses.For instance, Huxter, the shop owner, sees this guy waiting outside a window of the inn, holding a bag. A bag! Well, this town hasn’t had a great track record with strangers recently.So, Huxter runs after the guy, yelling “Thief!” But, before he can catch the man, something trips Huxter and knocks him out.

I. PLOT/THEME-BASED

Question 1:How were the villagers of Iping celebrating their Whit-Monday?Answer:Iping was gay with decorations, and everybody was in gala dresses. Whit-Monday had been looked forward to for a month or more. By the afternoon even those who believed in the invisible man were beginning to join in little amusements. Haysman’s meadow was gay with a tent, in which Mrs. Bunting and other ladies were preparing tea, while, outside, the Sunday-school children ran races and played games. Members of the county club, who had attended church in the morning, were splendid in badges of pink and green.

Question 2:Discuss the entry of a new stranger in the village after the invisible man’s escape from that place.Answer:A short, stout, shabbily dressed stranger entered the village from the direction of the downs. He hurriedly entered the Coach and Horses, opened the door of the parlour of the Inn. In the course of few minutes he reappeared, wiping his lips with an air of satisfaction. He walked out of the Inn in a furitive way towards the gates of the yard, upon which the parlour window opened. Mr. Huxter, the shop owner, watching all his moves thought that the stranger was up to thieving ran out into the road to intercept the thief. As he did so, Mr. Marvel, the stranger, reappeared, carrying a big bundle in one hand and three books in another. Seeing Huxter he turned sharply to the left and began to run. Mr. Huxter ran after him, yelling “Thief1, but before he could catch the man, something tripped Huxter and knocked him out.

Chapter-11

Doctor Cuss and the vicar Mr. Bunting are going through the invisible man’s papers, including his diaries. But they can’t understand the diaries and, honestly, they’re not even sure that they’re written in English.Marvel lets the Invisible Man into the room with Cuss and Bunting. They obviously don’t see the invisible man, but they ask Marvel to leave.Once he does, Cuss and Bunting lock the door so that no one will interrupt them. Unfortunately for them, this also means that no one will interrupt the Invisible Man when he starts to beat the living daylights out of them.The invisible man wants to know where his stuff is, including his clothes. He threatens to kill the two men.

I. PLOT/THEME-BASED

Question 1:Give a brief account of the investigations made by Dr. Cuss and Rev. Mr. Bunting in the room of the invisible man at Coach and Horses.Answer:Doctor Cuss and the vicar Mr. Bunting were going through the invisible man’s papers . including his diaries. But they could’t understand the diaries as they had no pictures or diagrams and were written in Greek. Honestly, they were not even sure that they were written in English. Marvel lets the invisible man into the room for his clothes and papers. Cuss and Bunting could not see the invisible man, but they asked Marvel to leave. Once he did Cuss and Bunting locked the door so that no one will interrupt them. In the closed room, the invisible man threatened them for prying into his room in his absence. He threatens to kill the two men.

Chapter-12

From the bar, Teddy Henfrey and Mr. Hall hear some weird goings-on in the room where the invisible man was staying.They start to investigate, but Mrs. Hall interrupts them, thinking that Mr. Hall and Henfrey are just spying on Cuss and Bunting for fun. And as we know, that’s her job.At that moment, Huxter yells out about a thief and goes running off after the man in the shabby high hat.The people in the inn come out to see what Huxter is yelling about. They see Marvel running off and (for some reason) think that he’s the invisible man . They all go running after Marvel, but just like Huxter, they all get tripped. Kind of a hilarious image if you ask us.At this point, Cuss comes out of the stranger’s room in the inn, revealing that the invisible man stole his and Bunting’s clothes. Bunting is actually trying to cover himself in a newspaper, which a hilarious little detail that we love to picture.Once again, the invisible man starts beating people up and breaking things: “his temper, at no time very good, seems to have gone completely at some chance blow, and forthwith he set to smiting and overthrowing, for the mere satisfaction of hurting”. Everyone else, including Marvel, runs away.Naturally, the invisible man breaks every window at the inn, cuts the telegraph cable, and does some other damage just for fun.

I. PLOT/THEME-BASED

Question 1:Describe the episode of Mr. Marvel vanishing by the corner of the church wall.Answer:Mr. Marvel was seen vanishing by the comer of the church wall. Mr. Hall and two labourers ran after him. Mr. Hall had hardly run a dozen yards before he gave a loud cry and went flying headlong sideways taking one labourer with him to the ground. A second man in pursuit was tripped by the ankle just as Huxter had been. Then, as the first labourer struggled to stand on his feet, he was kicked sideways by a blow that might have felled an ox.

Question 2:Why was Mr. Cuss shouting to hold Mr. Marvel and not to drop the parcel that he was carrying?Answer:The people in the inn came out to see what Huxter was yelling about. They saw Marvel running off and thought that he was the invisible man. They all went running after Marvel and all get tripped. At this point, Cuss came out of the stranger’s room in the inn, revealing that the invisible man stole his and Bunting’s clothes. Bunting was trying to cover himself in a newspaper. Cuss ran out and joined the chase, but was kicked and thrown on the ground. He rose again and was hit severely behind the ear. He staggered and set off back to the Coach and Horses Inn. In another moment, Mr. Cuss was back in the parlour. He told Mr. Bunting that the invisible man has gone mad and is coming back to kill them.

Chapter-13

Next time we see them, the invisible man is threatening Marvel. Apparently, Marvel tried to run away (though he claims he didn’t). That would not have been cool, since Marvel is carrying all of the invisible man’s stuff, including his research notes.The invisible man is also upset that the news of all this hub-bub will be in the paper. It’s too bad he didn’t think of that when he was beating the heck out of people.Even though Marvel points out that he’s a bad sidekick, the invisible man won’t let him leave.Marvel makes excuses like he is weak, he could make mess of his plans, he wants to die, etc. but all in vain.This has no effect on the invisible man. The invisible man threatens him to do as is told and not to make excuses for resignation.

I. PLOT/THEME-BASED

Question 1:What attempts were made by Mr. Marvel to resign from the post of assistant of the invisible man which the invisible man declined quickly?Answer:On the way to Bramblehurst, Mr. Marvel tried to convince the invisible man that he was not fit for the job assigned to him. His reddish face expressed anxiety and tiredness. He told the invisible man that he was a weak miserable tool, his heart was weak, that he could have dropped any time, he had no strength for the sort of thing the invisible man want from him to do. He would, out of sheer panic and misery, mess up his plans. He wished he were dead.

Question 2:What reaction did the invisible man give to Mr. Marvel on his pleading for resignation?Answer:The invisible man pointed out to Mr. Marvel that all his efforts to get resignation were quite ineffectual on him. He shut him up and told to do what he was supposed to do. If he insisted on the same thing again and again, he would twist the wrist of Mr. Marvel again. He finally told Mr. Marvel that he would keep his hand on his shoulder all through the village and warned not to try any foolery. It would be the worse for him if he tried it. Mr. Marvel sighed painfully.

Chapter-14

The next day, in Port Stowe, Marvel nervously waits on a bench, and ends up chatting with an elderly mariner (that is, a sailor).The sailor thinks he hears coins jingling in Marvel’s pockets, though Marvel is clearly a money less tramp.The old man tells Marvel all about this amazing Invisible Man that he read about in the newspaper. This isn’t some crazy hoax from America, but a story about something going on in England.The sailor thinks the story is believable because it comes equipped with names and details.He also thinks that an invisible man would make a great thief since no one could see or stop him.Marvel takes the opportunity to prove that he’s kind of a dud: right before he tells the sailor that he knows the invisible man, he looks around. Does he expect to see the invisible man?In any case, the invisible man is there and starts hurting Marvel secretly.Marvel quickly covers his tracks, saying that the invisible man is just a hoax. Then he gets out of there quickly (or maybe he’s pulled by the invisible man).The sailor is annoyed at Marvel for letting him go on about this invisible man. But later, the sailor hears stories about a bunch of robberies and how people saw money just floating away.After that, he realises what had gone down on the bench in Port Stowe, and just how close he had been to the invisible man.

I. PLOT/THEME-BASED

Question 1:Why did the old mariner get annoyed with Mr. Marvel after the conversation on the topic of the invisible man?Answer:In Port Stowe Marvel nervously waits on a bench outside a small inn, and ends up chatting with an old mariner. The mariner thinks he hears coins jingling in Marvel’s pockets, though Marvel is clearly a moneyless tramp. The old man tells Marvel all about this amazing invisible man that he read about in the newspaper. The sailor thinks the story is believable because it comes supported by names and details. Marvel takes the opportunity to reveal the truth of the invisible man but immediately gets hurt by the invisible man secretly. Marvel quickly covers his track, saying that the invisible man is just a hoax. Then he runs away quickly. The sailor is annoyed at Marvel for letting him go on about this invisible man.

Question 2:What unusual things were happening around Iping as heard by the old mariner?Answer:The old mariner heard about “fist full of money” travelling by itself along St. Michael’s Lane. A brother mariner had tried to snatch it but was knocked down by an unknown object. Then there were reports of money disappearing from homes and business places and floating along by walls and shady places. All these, undetected, were safely deposited in the pockets of that agitated Mr. Marvel, sitting outside the little inn on the outskirts of Port Stowe.

Chapter-15

Dr. Kemp is in his study overlooking the town of Burdock. Kemp’s study is full of science stuff, which explains why he’s looking out the window: who wants to look at all that science stuff?So, looking out of his window, Kemp sees a man with a shabby high hat running down into town. Kemp thinks this might just be another fool who is afraid of the invisible man. Kemp, of course, is too scientific to believe in an invisible man.But outside, the running man looks terrified. Everyone around freaks out, and for good reason: the invisible man is chasing after the running man.

I. PLOT/THEME-BASED

Question 1:What did Dr. Kemp see from the window of his study?Answer:Dr. Kemp was in his study overlooking the town of Burdock. Kemp’s study was full of science stuff, which explained why he was looking out of the window. He saw a man with a shabby high hat running down the hills into the town. Kemp thought he might just be another fool who was afraid of the invisible man. Kemp was too scientific to believe in the story of an invisible man. But outside, the running man looked terrified. Everyone around freaked out. It was shouted that the invisible man was chasing after the running man.

Chapter-16

In the town of Burdock, at a pub called The Jolly Cricketers, a bunch of people are chatting.Suddenly, Marvel bursts into the pub, yelling for people to save him from the invisible man. The invisible man is definitely there, because someone is breaking windows (the invisible man’s favorite pastime.) The bartender hides Marvel in a backroom and an American with a gun gets ready to shoot the invisible man when he comes in the front door.The invisible man, suddenly sneaky, goes in through the back door. He begins to attack Marvel, but the other men in the pub rescue him in time.The guy with the gun fires it carefully and is sure he hits the invisible man. He tells everyone to go feel for his invisible body.

I. PLOT/THEME-BASED

Question 1:How did Mr. Marvel escape from the grip of the invisible man inside the kitchen of the Jolly Cricketers bar?Answer:As the man with the beard put his revolver back in its place, people present in the bar heard Mr. Marvel squeal like a small animal. Marvel was dragged by the neck into the kitchen. There was a scream and a clatter of pans. Marvel, head down and lugging back, was being forced to the kitchen door. Then the policeman rushed in and gripped the wrist of the invisible hand that collared Marvel. He was hit in the face and went reeling back. Soon the kitchen door opened and Marvel made a frantic effort to lodge behind it. Then the cabman collared the invisible man. The barman’s red hands came clawing at the unseen. In this way Mr. Marvel, released, suddenly drooped to the ground and made an attempt to crawl behind the legs of the fighting men and got escaped.

Question 2:Who was sure that he killed the invisible man?Answer:The struggle between policeman, cabman and the invisible man inside the kitchen blundered round the edge of the door opening to the yard. The cabman suddenly whooped and got kicked under the diaphragm. Soon the others were shaken off and lost their grips which freed the invisible man. A piece of tile whizzed by the head of the policeman into the yard. At that very moment, the man with the black beard fired five bullets one after the other into the yard and a silence followed. He was sure that the invisible man was shot. He asked for a lantern to search for the dead body of the invisible man.

Chapter-17

Back at Kemp’s house, Kemp is busying himself with some works of speculative philosophy.Kemp gets interrupted by the shots and looks out to see a crowd at the Jolly Cricketers. Shortly after, he’s interrupted again when someone rings his doorbell. But his housemaid tells him that there was no one at the door.On his way to bed, after a long day of speculative philosophy, Kemp notices some blood on the floor and on the handle of his bedroom door. When he opens the bedroom door, he sees some floating, bloody bandages, which makes him feel “eerie”.The invisible man calls Kemp by his name and tells him not to panic. Of course, when an invisible man tells someone not to panic, that person panics.So the invisible man wrestles Kemp down (which, in our experience, usually doesn’t help stop people from panicking). The invisible man tells Kemp that he knows him from school: he’s really a guy named Griffin. He then gives us a little more 4-1-1: he’s almost an albino, he’s a little younger than Kemp, and he won a medal for chemistry at University College.Kemp calms down enough to give Griffin some whiskey, clothes, and a cigar. Griffin takes a glass of whiskey, which looks like it’s just suspended in mid-air. Then he puts on clothes, which look like they’re floating. And finally, he smokes a cigar, so the smoke outlines his mouth and throat.It was just a coincidence that Griffin broke into Kemp’s house to recover, but now he needs Kemp’s help. Luckily, the bullet that got him just scratched his wrist, so he’s not going to die. Griffin needs help because his partner stole his (stolen) money.He tells Kemp that he’s too tired to tell the full story now and he needs to sleep. He also adds that he doesn’t want people to capture him, which we’d say is an odd request for a guest. But that’s the kind of guy Griffin is: strange.

I. PLOT/THEME-BASED

Question 1:Describe the meeting of the invisible man with Dr. Kemp in Kemp’s bedroom.Answer:Dr. Kemp heard a voice of a man — “Good Heavens! – Kemp!” The voice asked Kemp to control his nerve, and not to panic. The voice introduced itself as an invisible man. To confirm the presence, Dr. Kemp stepped forward and his hand extended towards the bandage, met invisible fingers and recoiled in fear. The hand gripped his arm and struck at it. The invisible man told Kemp that he knew him from school – he is really a guy named Griffin, almost an albino. He was a little younger than Kemp, and he won a medal for chemistry at University College. Kemp calms down enough to give Griffin some whiskey, clothes and a cigar. It was just a coincidence that Griffin broke into Kemp’s house to recover, but now he needs Kemp’s help because his partner, Marvel had stolen his money.

Question 2:What unusual things did Dr. Kemp observe in his house when he came out of his study?Answer:Dr. Kemp, feeling thirsty, took a candle and went down to the dinning room. As he crossed the hall, he noticed a dark spot on the floor covering near the mat at the foot of the stairs. He touched the spot and found it sticky with the colour of dried blood. Returning upstairs he noticed the door-handle of his own room was blood-stained. He found a mess of blood on his bed also. On the furtherside the bed clothes were depressed as if someone had been recently sitting there. Then he distinctly heard a movement across the room, near the wash-hand stand. Suddenly he saw a coiled and blood stained bandage of linen rag hanging in mid-air, between him and the wash-hand stand. It was a bandage properly tied but quite empty.

II. CHARACTER-BASED

Question 1:Draw the character-sketch of Dr. Kemp as shown in the Chapter-17.Answer:Doctor Kemp is a scientist living in the town of Port Burdock. His house is situated near the Jolly Cricketers Pub. Dr. Kemp is cool and methodical in approach. He does not easily believe in supernatural things. He is an old friend of Griffin, the invisible man, who comes to his house to hide after Griffin’s transformation into the invisible man. Kemp has a hard time accepting the fact that his friend, whom he had not seen for years, suddenly appears uninvited and invisible, but eventually he overcomes his shock, sits down and talks with the old friend of University College.

Chapter-18

After Griffin makes sure the bedroom is secure and after Kemp promises not to turn him in, Griffin goes to sleep.Kemp can’t sleep right now. For one thing, he’s worried briefly about his sanity (was that really an invisible Griffin?). For another thing, Griffin took his bedroom.Instead, Kemp spends some time reading the newspapers from that day. The top news story is about a dangerous invisible man. Kemp wonders why Griffin was chasing that tramp. That didn’t look like innocent fun.Kemp worries that Griffin may become more unstable and dangerous. He hesitates, but eventually decides to write a note to Colonel Adye.Then he hears Griffin wake up. As usual, Griffin starts his day off with, an evil temper by tossing some furniture around. Kemp hurried upstairs and knocks eagerly.

I. PLOT/THEME-BASED

Question 1:How did Griffin assure his safety in Kemp’s house?Answer:Griffin refused to take Dr. Kemp’s assurance for granted. Though exhausted and wounded, he examined the two windows of the bedroom, drew up the blinds, and opened the sashes to confirm that one could escape through them if necessary. Then he took in his custody the keys of the bedroom and the two dressing-room doors. Kemp closed the door softly behind him, and the key was turned and the door locked from within.

Question 2:How did Dr. Kemp behave on reaching his little consulting-room?Answer:As Dr. Kemp came to his little consulting-room, he picked up the morning’s paper and came across the account of a “strange story from Iping” and read it swiftly. Next, he picked up the St. James’ Gazette and read the heading “An Entire Village in Sussex goes Mad.” He re-read the paper again to find out where does the tramp come in? Why has he been chased? When dawn, came Kemp was still pacing up and down, trying to grasp the incredible. His servants thought that over-study had affected their master. He instructed them to lay breakfast for two in the top floor study and then to confine themselves to the basement and ground floor. Then Dr. Kemp continued to pace the dining room until the morning’s paper came.

Question 3:What did Dr. Kemp decide to do about the invisible man?Answer:Firstly, Dr. Kemp thought it would be a breach of faith if he would inform the police about Griffin. Later, he went to a little desk and wrote a note. He took an envelope and addressed it to “Colonel Adye, Port Burdock,” keeping that note in the envelope.

Chapter-19

Actually, Griffin threw some stuff around because he’s just kind of an angry guy, as Kemp notes.Kemp tells Griffin that he wants to help, but first, he needs to know his story. So strap yourself in for Griffin’s story.Griffin was a medical student at the same time as Kemp, but Griffin switched to physics because he was interested in light. He came up with a loose theory for how to make objects invisible, but needed to figure out a method to actually do it.(There’s some pretty hilarious dialogue here, too. After Griffin gives a long comment on reflection, refraction, and absorption of light, Kemp remarks: “that is pretty plain sailing”. If it’s not plain sailing for you, you can always read up a little more on the concepts.)Griffin left London (and University College) six years ago and went to Chesilstowe, where he was a teacher and a student. What he really wanted to do, though, was to continue his research into invisibility.Still – and this is his big problem – his professor (Oliver) was “a scientific bounder, a journalist by instinct, a thief of ideas—he was always prying!”. Griffin didn’t want to publish his research because then Oliver would get a lot of credit for it.Griffin had done all this work himself. As he notes, “In all my great moments I have been alone”.One night, alone, Griffin figured out how to make a human invisible. Pretty soon he was thinking about making himself invisible, since it would get him out of his life as “a shabby, poverty-struck, hemmed-in demonstrator, teaching fools in a provincial college”. Harsh!After three years of teaching and research, he didn’t have the money he needed to complete his research. So, he did the obvious thing i.e. he robbed his dad.Unfortunately, the money he stole was not actually his dad’s, and so his dad shot himself.

I. PLOT/THEME-BASED

Question 1:‘The secret is out, I gather it was a secret”. What did Mr. Kemp mean by this statement and what was the object behind it?Answer:“The secret is out, I gather it was a secret, ” by this statment, Mr. Kemp meant that the entire people residing in qpd around Iping had come to know about the invisible man. His hiding at the parlour was no longer a secret and everyone has come to know this. And sooner or later he would be caught. Though this statement seems to be used to scare Griffin, but in reality it was meant to extract the truth from him rather it was used as a threat. Mr. Kemp, being a scientist and an old friend of Griffin really wanted to help him and for that he wanted to inquire about his invisibility.

Question 2:Which subject fascinated that invisible man and why?Answer:The Invisible man was initially a student of medicine, However, subsequently he switched over to Physics because he was fascinated by light and its wonderful characteristics. He was attracted by the marvels and miracles of that were there in the subject of Physics. He also had curiosity and a desire to find out a method to change colours of substances without changing their fundamental properties. He also wanted to carry out a research on this topic using various principles and laws of Physics such as reflection, refraction. All this phenomena were concerned with light and its properties. He was also enchanted by the phenomena of visibility and invisibility of objects. He had a loose theory on invisibility and he wanted to find out methodology to figure it out. It was, therefore, he was fascinated by the subject of Physics.

Question 3:What do you understand by the title “Certain first Principles”, the invisible man and Mr. Kemp are discussing about?Answer:The chapter “Certain first Principles” receives its title, because a considerable part ofthe chapter covers a conversation on some principles about light under the subject of Physics. Mr. Kemp and the Invisible man are involved in a deep conversations on those scientific principles. As Griffin, (the Invisible man) shows with Mr. Kemp how he was fascinated by light’, he states the principles of Refraction. Refraction and absorption of light. Griffin gives Mr. Kemp a long and detailed talk on those principles, as to how and why those phenomena take place and how its application can lead to visibility and invisibility of objects. There is also a detailed talk given by the Griffin about various parts of human body made up of transparent tissues.It is because of this fact that many scientific principles are discussed in this chapter, it has been given an appropriate title.

Question 4:Did the study of medicine and knowledge about physiology, in any way, help the invisible man in his discovery of invisibility? If yes, then explain how.Answer:Yes, it seems quite so. Knowledge about Physiology acquired through study of medicine provided a lot of help in guiding Griffin, the invisible man in his discovery of invisibility. By studying medicine, he acquired a lot of knowledge about human physiology especially the fact that all the parts of human body, barring a couple of things are made up of transparent tissues. It was this very knowledge that encouraged him and helped him to propound the theory of human invisibility and convert it into a reality along with the principles he learnt in Physics covering reflection, refraction and absorption of light.In this way, his invisibility was really an outcome of the combination of both these knowledge acquired in medicine and Physics.

II. CHARACTER-BASED

Question 1:Draw a character sketch of Mr. Oliver, the professor.Answer:As illustrated in this chapter, Mr. Oliver is a Professor by profession but a journalist by instinct. Griffin was his student. Oliver was a scientific founder. As described by Griffin, Oliver was a thief of ideas. He was, as stated, a journalist by instinct, always in an attempt to steal idea, theory, thesis, fact and research conceived and developed by others and,to receive *11 the credit for some other’s work. As a result, he was always prying at every one whom he came into contact. It is therefore, evident, that he was not a trustworthy person even being into a holistic profession of teaching and do not form a good opinion of himself among his press and students. People would like to keep distance from him to prevent any kind of intellectual harm.

Chapter-20

Back at Kemp’s house, Kemp offers his chair to Griffin, mostly to get Griffin away from the window.Griffin continues his story: after his dad died, he moved into a cheap boardinghouse in London to continue his research.He did go to his dad’s funeral (which is awfully nice of him), but he didn’t really feel sorry for him. You may gather this if you’re a very careful reader and read the following sentence: “I did not feel a bit sorry for my father”.In fact, except for his research, the whole world seemed distant and unimportant to Griffin.His research, Griffin adds, is all written down in a code in his books, except for a few parts that he chose to remember himself. Just in case the code wasn’t enough.Back at the boardinghouse, Griffin continued his experiments. He made some wool invisible and then he made a neighbourhood cat invisible. That cat experiment took a few tries, and the cat didn’t seem to like it so much.Unfortunately for Griffin, the cat’s noise attracted an old woman who lived in the boardinghouse and who had always suspected Griffin of vivisecting animals. (Around this time, England was making some anti-vivisection laws. Check out The Island of Dr. Moreau (1896), for the story of a scientist who is doing research on animals.) Eventually, though, Griffin got annoyed by the cat and let it out.Then, as usually happens when one gives away his only friend, Griffin had a little breakdown. He started to have nightmares and was no longer interested in his work. But he took some strychnine (a drug) and felt energised. He is really a terrible role model.At one point, the old woman and the landlord came up to make sure that Griffin wasn’t experimenting on animals. They got into a little bit of a fight, which ended with Griffin pushing the landlord out of his room.Realising that this would lead to trouble, Griffin decided to disappear.He sent his books off by mail to some places where he could pick them up. Then he started the process of turning himself invisible, which really hurt. (It almost makes him feel bad for that cat that he experimented on.) During the process, the landlord tried to give Griffin an eviction notice, but Griffin already looked so strange that the landlord ran away.At some point, Griffin became almost totally invisible, except that “an attenuated pigment still remained behind the retina of my eyes, fainter than mist”.The landlord and his stepsons tried to break in, which angered Griffin so much that he planned to bum down the house. But he couldn’t find any matches. Dam.When the landlord and company finally broke down the door, they couldn’t find Griffin. Turns out he was hiding outside the window, “quivering with anger”.Griffin destroyed his equipment, found some matches, and set his room on fire because “it was the only way to cover my trail—and no doubt it was insured”.Now that he was invisible, he started thinking about “the wild and wonderful” things he could do as an Invisible Man. Shmoop has some ideas, too, but we’ll let you use your imagination.

I. PLOT/THEME-BASED

Question 1:Was the experiment on the cat a complete success? Describe.Answer:The experiment of invisibility attempted on the cat by Griffin was a great success. However, it may not be termed as a complete success. Previously, after successfully making a piece of white wool completely invisible, which was a non-living thing, Griffin tried to experiment with the cat, which was a living thing. After administering the drug the entire body of the cat became invisible except for the two eyes because the pigment Tapetum at the back of the cat’s eye did not budge.

Question 2:Describe how did Griffin manage to protect and secure his theory of invisibility.Answer:In order to secure his theory of invisibility, he wrote the entire theory in Cipher language in three note books so that no one else could decode it and come to know about his note books along with a check book to a tramp and directed them from the nearest Post office to a house of call for letters and parcels in Great Portland Street.

Question 3:What did Griffin scare initially when he saw the landlord visiting his house along with an old Polish Jew?Answer:When the landlord first visited the house along with the old Polish Jew Griffin was scared of exposure of his act that he had made this old woman’s cat invisible. He presumed that the old lady had made the complaint with the landlord about vanishing of the cat from his house and the landlord had come to enquire about it. Griffin was aware that the law of that country against vivisection was very severe and that he might be held liable for the missing cat. He was also scared that if he is caught by the authorities, all his research and experiment would be exposed.

Question 4:Why did Griffin decide to destroy all the evidence at the house?Answer:Griffin had used the house taken on rent, for his scientific experiments on invisibility. He had converted the house into a laboratory with all kinds of equipment, gadgets, apparatus required to realise his research. However, the landlord after the brawl with Griffin, came up again with the eviction order. Griffin had neither time to reestablish his laboratory nor money to move out of that place at a very short notice.As a result, he decided to administer the drug of invisibility on him hurriedly and became invisible. And to prevent exposure of his acts, research laboratory, he decided to and destroy all the evidence.

Chapter-21

Griffin continues his story:While he was still pretty excited to be invisible, he realised that invisibility had some drawbacks. For one thing, he couldn’t see his feet, which made walking down stairs a little strange.The fact that people couldn’t see him had advantages and disadvantages.Advantage: he got to pretend that a man’s bucket was crazy.Disadvantage: a man running to catch the bucket jammed his fingers into Griffin’s neck.Also, Griffin was always cold and started to get the sniffles. Oh, and a dog could totally find him.Wandering around London, Griffin came across a Salvation Army march, which drew a crowd. Crowd are dangerous to Griffin, since he can’t slip through them – people can feel him even if they don’t see him.He tried to get out of the way, but he had stepped in some mud and left muddy footprints. Some street urchins started to follow him, which is never good.Then it started to snow and Griffin got tired of his adventure. Of course, he couldn’t go home since he had set his apartment on fire (he probably should have thought of that before).Back in Kemp’s study, listening to this story, Kemp looks out the window. What is he looking for? What does he see? Kemp asks Griffin to go on.

I. PLOT/THEME-BASED

Question 1:Describe what did Griffin experience while getting downstairs.Answer:While going downstairs Griffin experienced an unexpected difficulty. He, because of his invisibility was not able to see his feet, as a result he could not put his steps at right places on the staircase, as a result of which he stumbled not once but twice. He was also not able to hold the latch and hence, was not able to bolt the door with strength. He felt an unaccustomed clumsiness in gripping the bolt.

Question 2:Why was the invisible man, Griffin fearful of dogs?Answer:While running Griffin had an event with dogs. Though no men were able to detect him because of his invisibility, yet the dogs were able to detect him by virtue of their olfactory (smelling) sense of nose. Even though they were not able to see him, they barked at him and leapt over him. He was, therefore, afraid of dogs that he might be detected by them by their smelling sense.

Question 3:How did Griffin manage to stop six to seven persons from following him?Answer:Griffin was barefoot when he left his lodging. While leaving he ran over white steps of a house and stood there until the entire procession of salvation Army passed by. As a result, his feet were creating footmarks and some people were able to detect this and were astonished. They followed him using his footmarks.As soon as he observed that these people were following him with the help of the white foot marks created by his barefeet, twice he moved across the corners and thrice he crossed the road and returned to mislead them and with the feet growing hotter and drier, the damp impression gradually faded away and lastly he cleaned his feet with hands to wipe it out completely.

Question 4:What left the people amazed and diverting their attention from him?Answer:Griffin had completely exhausted while running. All his energy had oozed out. He had stiff back and sore on one foot. As a result he was limping also. While moving ahead he saw a blind man approaching him. Because of the natural intuition of the blind man, he feared that he might be defected by the blindman as a result, even limping, he ran speedily and while doing so he collided with two or three people. People were therefore amazed who collided with them as no one was visible.

Chapter-22

Griffin continues his story. This is one invisible man who needs to get some stuff off his chest, apparently.With a January snowstorm blowing in to London, Griffin needed to find a place to stay. He couldn’t get into a house, so he decided to do the next best thing: go shopping.Seriously, he went to a giant department store named Omniums. (Omniums isn’t a real place, but there were department stores in England in the 1890s, though they were pretty new.)Griffin waited until the place closed, then he started searching around for things he could use. He stole some food and clothes. Over by toys, he saw some fake noses, which started him thinking about wigs and other costume stuff that could help him pretend to be normal. Like Halloween all year.He slept in the department store, living out every child’s dream. Unfortunately, it wasn’t as fun as you’d think: he had nightmares about being forced into his father’s grave and buried because no one could see him.Griffin woke up when the workers came back the next morning, and he almost got caught. The workers chased him around the store (they could see him because he was wearing clothes); but once again, Griffin took off his clothes to become invisible.Since he couldn’t steal clothes, Griffin had to leave the store with nothing – the sort of sad experience we all can empathise with.

I. PLOT/THEME-BASED

Question 1:How did Griffin plan to return to his normal self?Answer:A snowstorm had been building up in the town. Griffin had no clothes, no refuge, no appliances. He felt famished, cold, painful and wretched. Then he got an idea. He reached a big departmental complex where he could get everything he needed, to make himself an acceptable figure so that he could get a refuge somewhere and recover his books. He succeeded in entering the complex somehow. He walked down the shops and at last reached a section where he found a resting place among a pile of mattresses. He remained there till the shop were closed. After the shop closed, he got up and collected items like, gloves, trousers, vests, socks, jacket, overcoat, hat etc. Then he went upstairs where he had coffee and cold meat. In another section, he got an artificial nose and took spectacles. Then he went to sleep in a heap of quilts.In the morning, when shop opened, Griffin began looking for some way to get out. He had to cast away all his clothing to escape attention of anyone. He waited inside the warehouse till the day grew warmer. Then he went out with further plans in his mind.

Question 2:What did Griffin see in the dream at night at Departmental Complex?Answer:Griffin had a horrible dream at night. He found himself at the cemetery, attending his father’s funeral. The clergyman was uttering indistinctly “Earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust” at his father’s open grave. He heard a voice, “you also.” He was being forced towards the grave. He struggled and appealed to the mourners but he was invisible and inaudible to them. As he fell upon it, the gravel heaped over him. Nobody was aware of him. He made struggle and awoke.

Question 3:Describe the scene at the Departmental Complex at closing time.Answer:As the closing time came, blinds of windows were drawn and customers were marched doorwards. A number of young men started to tidy up the scattered goods. All the goods displayed for sale were whipped down, folded up and slapped into tidy receptacles. Then all the chairs were tumed up on the counter to clean the floor. Then a number of youngsters, carrying pails and brooms came and scattered sawdust. The floor was cleaned. At last, there was noise of locking doors and after that silence came upon the place.

Chapter-23

Griffin continues his story. Oh, when will it end?Griffin was getting more and more upset about the whole invisible situation.He made his way to a costume shop to find wigs, noses, and other stuff, so that he might appear “a grotesque but still a credible figure”.When Griffin found his way to a store, the very alert shop owner almost caught him. The shop owner had a revolver, and he kept locking doors behind him.This made Griffin angry, which seems to be his only emotion. So, he knocked out the shop owner and tied him up. (And that’s the last we hear of that guy. Kind of sad for him.)Kemp interrupts Griffin’s story to tell him that he isn’t following “the common conventions of humanity” when he knocks people out in their own homes. Griffin points out, though, that he’s not a common person.Back to the story: Griffin went ahead and stole money and clothes. At least now people will be able to see him.Griffin stops his story for a minute in order to give Kemp a long speech about how being invisible isn’t so great. For one thing, he can’t eat in public because he can’t reveal his mouth. (This explains why he never ate in front of people at the Coach and Horses in the earlier chapters.)Kemp wants to keep him talking, so he asks what happened after he got all dressed up.Griffin continues his story:He got his books and ordered the equipment he would need. All he wanted was to figure out how to reverse the invisibility treatment. Unfortunately, those gossipy people of Iping interfered with this plan. He asks, “Why couldn’t they leave me alone?”Now that everyone has gotten in his way – especially Marvel – Griffin is even angrier than before and plans on killing people. We would be worried about that, but when was the last time one of Griffin’s plans went well?

I. PLOT/THEME-BASED

Question 1:How did Griffin dress himself to go out into the world as a credible figure?Answer:First of all, Griffin found some bread, cheese and brandy. After eating, he collected useful things like handbag, some powder, sticking plaster, rouge, mask, dark glasses, whiskers, a wig, calico dominoes, cashmere scarvers, boots and ten pounds in gold and shillings. He dressed to his best and checked himself in the mirror. Then he went out in the street and was not noticed by anyone.Then he went to a restaurant and ordered lunch. But he realised that he could not eat without exposing his face. So, he walked out and entered another restaurant. There, he demanded a private room saying that he was disfigured. He ate a full meal.

Question 2:Describe the thoughts of Griffin when he came out after dressing at the Costumer’s shop.Answer:Griffin had thought that his troubles were over and he had impunity to do whatever he chose. He could vanish anywhere and no person could hold him. He could take money where he found it. But he realised that an invisible man was a helpless absurdity in a crowded civilised city. He had dreamt of a thousand advantages. But it was all disappointment. Although invisibility made it possible to get things, but it was impossible to enjoy them after getting them. He could not enjoy a meal without exposing himself to the people. He had become a wrapped-up mystery, a swathed and bandaged caricature of a man.

II. CHARACTER-BASED

Question 1:Write the character sketch of the owner of Costumer shop.Answer:The owner of the costumer shop had an uncanny sense of hearing and he turned around at the slightest sound to see himself. When the invisible man entered the costumer shop, the sound of door brought the owner to the entrance. Seeing no one at the door, he cursed the street boys. The invisible man followed him about the rooms. If he heard any sound, he blamed the rats or some ghost. While walking through the costumes in the room, things fell off from the shelves and made a noise. This made the owner angry and he was there with a revolver. He started locking all the rooms.

Chapter-24

Kemp sees some people coming up the hill to his house, so he tries to keep Griffin talking.Griffin says he had planned to go someplace warm, like South America, where he wouldn’t have to wear clothes (at least not during spring break).But since he met Kemp, he’s changed his plans. Griffin now realises how little one person can do on his own.Invisibility is especially useful for killing people, so Griffin plans to establish a new Reign of Terror – with Kemp’s help, of course.First, though, he needs to get his books back from Marvel, who is locked up at the jail for his own safety.Suddenly, Griffin hears some people sneaking up in the house, and he realises that Kemp has betrayed him.Sad and angry, Griffin takes off his clothes.Kemp tries to capture Griffin with the help of the three men, including Colonel Adye, the police captain who got Kemp’s letter.Griffin pushes past them with as much violence as he can and escapes.

I. PLOT/THEME-BASED

Question 1:What were the plans of Griffin before meeting Dr. Kemp? How did they change after they both met?Answer:Griffin had planned to visit some warm place like South America where he would not have to wear clothes. His plan was to get aboard a steamer to France. From there he could go by train to Spain or else get to Algiers. He was thinking of using the tramp Marvel who could carry his money box and luggage. But since he met Kemp, he had changed his plans. He realised that a person cannot do all on his own. For him, invisibility is , especially useful for killing people. So, Griffin plans to establish a new reign of terror with the assistance of Dr. Kemp. He found that now he had a collaborator, a hideout, food and a resting place. They could join hands to mutual advantage. They could terrorise the whole town and amass wealth. Anyone who did not pay up or objected could be killed off easily.

Question 2:How did Griffin escape from Dr. Kemp’s house?Answer:As Dr. Kemp was advising Griffin to publish his discovery and become the hero to the world, Griffin heard the footsteps coming upstairs. The invisible man advanced to the door with arms extended. And then things happened very swiftly. As Kemp tried to block the way of Griffin, Griffin cried him a “traitor” and undressed his gown. Kemp got out and tried to lock Griffin inside the study. However, as he closed the door with force, he key fell off the keyhole. At that time three men were coming upstairs. Griffin pulled _ open the door and gripped Kemp by his throat and threw him down. The empty dressing gown was flung on top of Dr. Kemp. Colonel Adye, the chief of Burdock police saw Kemp fall on stairs and he himself received a heavy blow midstairs. He was hurled headlong . down the staircase. The front door of the house slammed violently. The invisible manwas gone out of the house.

Chapter-25

Kemp explains to Adye that they have to take measures against Griffin because he’s insane, a person of “pure selfishness”.They have some advantages, though. For one thing, they know that Griffin wants to get to Marvel and his stolen books.Also, Griffin basically told Kemp his life story, so they have all that information. Kemp knows that they can keep him unstable by making sure he doesn’t get a moment to eat or sleep. And of course, he knows that they can use dogs against Griffin.Kemp even suggests that they put powdered glass on the roads, but Adye objects that” it’s unsportsmanlike”. At least someone’s worried about that.Kemp counters that Griffin is inhuman, that “he has cut himself off from his kind. His blood be upon his own head”.

I. PLOT/THEME-BASED

Question 1:What measures need to be taken to prevent the invisible man from leaving the district of Burdock?Answer:

He must be prevented from eating and sleeping; day and night.

Food must be locked up and secured so that he will have to break his way to it.

The houses everywhere must be barred for him.

The whole countryside must begin hunting and keep on hunting.

Get Hopps and the railway managers on alert.

Question 2:What inhuman things did Dr. Kemp advise Adye to do in order to catch the invisible man in any case?Answer:

Kemp advised Adye to arrange for the dogs. They could not see him but can wind him by his body smell. Adye told Kemp that the prison officials at Halstead knew a man who has bloodhbunds.

After eating, the food in the stomach shows until it is assimilated. So that he has to hide after eating. You must keep on beating every thicket and every quiet corner.

He also advised Adye to spread powdered glass on roads, though it is inhuman and unsportsmanlike.

Chapter-26

The police swung into action. By two o’clock every passenger train travelled with locked doors, and goods traffic was suspended. Twenty miles around Port Burdock, men in groups of three or four armed with guns and accompanied by dogs were beating the roads and fields. Mounted policemen rode along the country lanes, stopping at every cottage and warning the people to lock up their houses and keep indoors. A proclamation signed by Adye was posted over the whole district by four or five o’clock in the afternoon. Before nightfall an area of several hundred square miles was in a state of siege.There were still people who had not heard of the invisible man. Mr. Wicksteed was brutally murdered within two hundred yards from Lord Burdock’s Lodge gate. Mr. Wicksteed was an amiable man of forty-five or forty-six and steward to Lord Burdock. He lay crushed on the edge of a gravel pit. The weapon used was an iron rod pulled up from a broken fence. Mr. Wicksteed was on his way home for his mid-day meal. A schoolgirl reported seeing him walking towards the gravel pit, away from his direct path home, bent forward and striking repeatedly at something in front of him with his walking stick. An iron rod moving around by itself seems to have aroused his curiosity and led to the tragedy.In spite of all the vigil, the invisible man seems to have eaten and rested that night. He wasback in action with renewed vigour the next day.

I. PLOT/THEME-BASED

Question 1:Why was it impossible for Griffin to have removed himself out of the district after two o’clock in the afternoon?Answer:After two o’clock, every passenger train along the lines on a great parallelogram between Southampton, Manchester, Brighton and Horsham, travelled with locked doors, and the goods traffic was almost suspended. And in a great circle of twenty miles round Port Burdock, men armed with guns and buldgeons were presently setting out in groups of three and four, with dogs, to beat the roads and fields. Mounted policemen rode along the country lanes, stopping at every cottage and warning the people to lock up their houses, and keep indoors unless they were armed, and all the elementary school had broken up by three o’clock, and the children were hurrying home. Kemp’s proclamation, signed by Adye, was posted over the whole district by four or five o’clock in the evening. It gave the necessity of keeping the invisible man from food and sleep, the necessity for continual watchfulness.

Question 2:Give a brief account of the murder of Mr. Wicksteed.Answer:There were still people who had not heard of the invisible man. Mr. Wicksteed was brutally murdered within two hundred yards from Lord Burdock’s lodge gate. He was an amiable man of forty-five and steward to Lord Burdock. He lay crushed on the edge of the gravel pit. The weapon used was an iron rod pulled up from a broken fence. Mr. Wicksteed was on his way home for his mid-day meal. A schoolgirl reported seeing him walking towards the gravel pit, away from his direct path home, bent forward and striking repeatedly at something in front of him with his walking stick. An iron rod moving around by itself seems to have aroused his curiosity and led to the tragedy.

Chapter-27

In the worst letter ever, Griffin tells Kemp that he is taking charge: “Port Burdock is no longer under the Queen, tell your Colonel of Police, and the rest of them; it is under me—the Terror! This is day one of year one of the new epoch—the Epoch of the invisible man. I am invisible man the First” .The letter also says that Griffin will kill Kemp that day.What’s even better is that Griffin sent that letter without a stamp, so Kemp had to pay for it upon delivery. As we said, worst letter ever.Kemp has his housekeeper lock up all the windows and gets his revolver ready. He writes a note for Adye, saying that Kemp will act as bait to catch Griffin.Adye hows up later, saying that Griffin grabbed the note from Kemp’s servant. So now Griffin knows that Kemp wants to set a trap.Then Griffin does what he does best: he breaks some windows. But there’s no way for him to get into Kemp’s house because they’ve anticipated his arrival. This is the siege of Kemp’s house. Adye borrows Kemp’s gun and tries to go for help, but Griffin trips him up and grabs the gun. At first, Adye refuses to help Griffin, but he changes his mind when he realises “that life was very sweet”.The narrator switches point-of-view here, and goes from Adye to Kemp, who is watching all this from an upstairs window. Suddenly, he sees Adye attack Griffin and get shot. It sure looks like Adye is dead, but we’re not sure.Kemp’s housemaid is coming up the hill with two policemen. At the same time, Griffin has found an axe and is using it to break through the shutters over a window.Luckily for Kemp, the police get there in time, and he gives them some fireplace pokers to use as clubs. So it’s pokers vs. axe-and-revolver, though Griffin isn’t a great shot.Griffin knocks out one of the cops, but the other cop hurts Griffin (by aiming near the axe). There’s a snapping sound, so may be his arm gets broken. Griffin drops his weapons and runs away. But when the cops look around, they find that Kemp and his housemaid have also run away. That probably doesn’t make them feel too great about the guy they just saved.

I. PLOT/THEME-BASED

Question 1:Describe the encounter that took place between Griffin and Colonel Adye.Answer:When Colonel Adye went to Dr. Kemp’s house, he was given the letter by Kemp. Suddenly they heard the smashing of glass windows upstairs’ Adye borrowed Kemp’s revolver and decided to go down to the station and get the bloodhounds put on. He had hardly reached the gate when a voice stopped him. The voice asked him to go back to the house. Adye fired in the direction of the voice. He was struck in the mouth and the revolver wrested from his grip. The revolver float in mid-air.The voice told him to go back to the house. Adye turned towards the house. He walked slowly with his hands behind him. Then quickly Adye leapt backwards, swung around to clutch the revolver but he missed it. He fell forward on his face. A shot was fired. Adye raised himself on one arm and fell forward. He lay still.

Question 2:How did the two policemen face the invisible man at Dr. Kemp’s house?Answer:As Kemp stood in the passage, a ringing was heard at the front door. A girl and two policemen entered the house. They heard smashing in the kitchen. There were axe blows on the kitchen door. Both the policemen carried a poker each and went to the dining room. One policeman caught the axe on his poker. The second policeman brought his poker down on the axe and it rattled to the floor.The voice said, “I want that man Kemp.” The first policeman moved forward and aimed his poker at the voice. The invisible man brought the axe down on the head of the policeman. The blow sent the policeman spinning to the floor. The second policeman aimed behind the axe with his poker which hit something soft that snapped. There was a sharp cry of pain and the axe fell to the ground. He put his foot on the axe and struck again. Suddenly the dining-room window opened and there was a quick rush of feet.

Chapter-28

Before now, Kemp’s neighbour, Heelas, didn’t believe in the invisible man. But when he wakes up from a nap and sees Kemp’s house broken into and Kemp running toward him, Heelas does the only sensible thing: he locks himself inside his house and refuses to help his neighbour.From Heelas’s point-of-view, we see Kemp run through the garden followed closely by the invisible man.Kemp continues running towards Burdock. It sounds something like a nightmare: the road is long and empty, and no one in the nearby houses will help him.Still, when Kemp arrives in Burdock, he finds a couple of workmen (navvies) on the road. When he yells about the invisible man, everyone nearby tries to find and hit the invisible man withshovels and all.When the invisible man grabs Kemp, the navvies knock the Invisible Man down. So, maybe these guys are the real heroes of the book?The narrator notes that the next scene might have looked like a game of rugby, but it was actually a big fight between the crowd and the invisible man.Spoiler alert: the invisible man loses. “There was, I am afraid, some savage kicking. Then suddenly a wild scream of ‘Mercy! Mercy!’ that died down swiftly to a sound like choking”.Kemp tries to get people off of Griffin, but the invisible man is already not breathing and possibly dead.Everyone crowds around to see what happened, and slowly, the invisible man starts to become visible (but still naked):And so, slowly, beginning at his hands and feet and creeping along his limbs to the vital centres of his body, that strange change continued. It was like the slow spreading of a poison. First came the little white nerves, a hazy grey sketch of a limb, then the glassy bones and intricate arteries, then the flesh and skin, first a faint fogginess, and then growing rapidly dense and opaque. Presently, they could see his crushed chest and his shoulders, and the dim outline of his drawn and battered features. Cool, and horrible, That’s how Griffin’s experiment in invisibility ends, with people covering up his “naked and pitiful” body.

L PLOT/THEME-BASED

Question 1:How did Mr. Heelas believe the existence of the invisible man in the village?Answer:Mr. Heelas was asleep in his villa when the siege of his nearest neighbour, Kemp’s house began. He slept through the smashing of the windows, and then woke up suddenly. He looked across at Kemp’s house. Every window was broken. As he stood wondering, the shutters of the drawing-room, window were flung open violently, and the housemaid appeared struggling in a frantic manner. Suddenly Dr. Kemp appeared by her side. Mr. Heelas saw Kemp stand on the sill, spring from the window, and stoop and run like a man who evades observation. In a second he was running at a tremendous pace down the slope towards Heelas. It was there that Mr. Heelas struck with an idea that it was the invisible man who was after the life of Dr. Kemp. Mr. Heelas shouted like a bull to close all the doors and windows of his house so that Dr. Kemp could not made an entry, along with the invisible man, to his house.

Question 2:How did the invisible man, Mr. Griffin, meet his end?Answer:Kemp continued running towards Port Burdock. The road was long and empty, and no one in the nearby houses would help him. “When kemp arrived in Burdock, he found a couple of labourers on the road. When he yelled about the invisible man, everyone nearby tried to find and hit the invisible man with shovels. When the invisible man grabbed Kemp, the labourers knocked the invisible man down. It was a big fight between the crowd and the invisible man. There was some savage kicking. Then suddenly a wild ; scream of ‘Mercy! Mercy!’ that died down swiftly to a sound like choking. Kemp tried to get people off of Griffin. But the invisible man was not breathing and possibly dead. Everyone around crowded to see what had happened, and slowly the invisible man started becoming visible as a naked man. One could see his crushed chest and broken shoulders, and the dim outline of his drawn and battered features.

from Blogger http://www.margdarsan.com/2020/09/ncert-class-12-english-novel-invisible.html

#NCERT Class 12 English

0 notes

makingscipub · 6 years ago

Text

Nature’s first article: Huxley on Goethe

I have blogged before about science popularisation during the 19th century and the role of periodicals in this process, as they “played a far greater role than books in shaping understanding of new discoveries and theories in science, technology and medicine”. My interest in popular science magazines was rekindled when I saw an announcement that the journal Nature is this year celebrating its 150th anniversary.

Nature at 150

The journal was founded when astrophysicist J. Norman Lockyer and biologist Thomas Henry Huxley encouraged Alexander Macmillan to publish weekly ‘a general scientific journal’. Its first issue appeared in November 1869 – a bit of a late-comer to the then booming popular science market.

As a recent editorial, announcing the anniversary, has pointed out, Nature was initially “intended to be more like the Scientific American or New Scientist of today”, but it soon morphed into a journal that served the increasingly professionalised scientific community. This meant that it was quite different to journals like Science Gossip, Recreative Science and The Intellectual Observer for example (if you are up for a bit of citizen science sorting the drawings in these 19th-century journals, have a look here).

During this anniversary year, Nature will look back at some of the most influential papers it has published, but also forward to how best to evolve in these changing political and scientific times. (If you want to know more about the history of Nature and the ‘making of a scientific community’, have a look at Melinda Baldwin’s work, here)

Having read the editorial, I got curious and looked back at the very first issue of Nature from 1869 – and I was really surprised.

Goethe and Huxley

When you open the issue, the first thing you see is Nature‘s ‘masthead’, that is, an image representing half a globe, with Britain visible in the middle, emerging from the ocean and/or clouds (see featured image). The engraving, in a style typical for that period, is overlaid with the artistically rendered word Nature.

Underneath this image is the subtitle of the journal written in capital letters: “A WEEKLY ILLUSTRATED JOURNAL OF SCIENCE”. Underneath that in small italics we find a quote from William Wordsworth: “To the solid ground of nature trust the mind which builds for aye.” ‘Aye’ is an archaic word meaning ‘always’. The line is taken from Sonnet 36, Poetical Works (1827), Vol. 2, 290.

But the surprises do not end there. The journal’s first article was entitled “Goethe: Aphorisms on Nature”. It was written by Thomas Huxley who translated Goethe’s aphorisms.

These aphorisms were generally attributed to Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, one of the greatest poets and scientists of the 19th century (in the article Huxley points in particular to his interest in comparative anatomy). However, Huxley notes that Goethe himself wasn’t totally sure whether he had actually written the aphorisms or not. Goethe had been sent the text in 1828 because the sender thought it was his sort of writing, and Goethe, looking at it, thought that it was indeed the sort of stuff he could have written in 1786.

It is now thought that the writer of the aphorisms was Georg Christoph Tobler and that they were “first published in 1783 in the Tiefurt Journal. Tobler wrote the essay after repeated conversations with Goethe.” (Wikipedia)

Huxley himself alludes to this disputed authorship in 1894 when he wrote in Nature: “A better translation than mine and an interesting account of the very curious obscurity which hangs about the parentage of Die Natur are to be found in Mr. J. Bailey Saunders’ recently published ‘Goethe’s Aphorisms and Reflections’.” Saunders’ himself stressed that “we are not entitled to infer that Tobler did more than report or at most arrange the words and phrases used by the poet himself”. There you go!

Aphorisms on Nature

Now what are these aphorisms about? They are about Nature. Nature personified as a woman, a depiction of nature not uncommon for that time and rooted in representations of Mother Nature in Greco-Roman mythology. The aphorisms are written in an effusive, indeed ‘rhapsodic’ style which modern readers might find somewhat irritating – but not only modern readers.

Unlike Ernst Haeckel, who used the German version of the aphorisms to start off his Natürliche Schöpfungsgeschichte of 1868, and Sigmund Freud who, apparently, was inspired by them to study medicine, T. S. Eliot proclaimed, for example, that “To me this falls as dismal as a rural sermon.” (For more information on the reception of these aphorisms before and after Huxley’s translation, see here)

Oma Stanley wrote in 1957, expressing my own thoughts: “The piece is indeed an extravaganza of poetic prose in which Nature parades as a living, breathing matron, active, purposeful, wise, and beneficent.” He quotes some passages such as: “Mankind dwell in her and she in them. With all men she plays a game for love, and rejoices the more they win. With many her moves are so hidden that the game is over before they know” That’s not so bad.

But there are other passages which are more cringe-worthy, at first glance at least: “She envelops man in darkness, and urges him constantly to the light. She makes him dependent on the earth, heavy and sluggish, and always rouses him up afresh.” Or: “Man obeys her laws even in opposing them: he works with her even when he wants to work against her.”

Until one realises that in the first instance ‘man’ is a translation of ‘Mensch’ (human being) and in the second of ‘man’ (one): “Sie hüllt den Menschen in Dumpfheit ein und spornt ihn ewig zum Lichte. Sie macht ihn abhängig zur Erde, träg und schwer, und schüttelt ihn immer wieder auf. ”Man gehorcht ihren Gesetzen, auch wenn man ihnen widerstrebt; man wirkt mit ihr, auch wenn man gegen sie wirken will.” However, ‘Mensch’ is still ‘ihn’, that is masculine….

Nature, romance and science

But how did the original readers of the first issue of Nature react to these aphorisms chosen to celebrate the first issue of a scientific journal and translated by Huxley? Their reaction were interesting! In an article published in Nature in 1932 we find out the following, which made me smile:

“As originally printed, a casual reader might easily conclude that this lyrical composition was the work of Huxley himself, and in a letter to Dohrn [a prominent German Darwinist], written shortly afterwards, he says: ‘It astonishes the British Philistines not a little. When they began to read it they thought it was mine, and that I had suddenly gone mad.’ Darwin himself was stirred to admiration, and wrote to Hooker [a founder of geographical botany and Charles Darwin’s closest friend] as follows: ‘Lord, what a rhapsody that was of Goethe, but how well translated; it seemed to me, as I told Huxley, as if written by the maddest English scholar. It is poetry, and can I say anything more severe?’”

Even more interestingly, Stanley speculated that Huxley, shortly after his translation of the aphorisms, changed his conception of ‘Nature’ from romantic to scientific, after having read and digested John Stuart Mill’s essay “Nature” published posthumously in 1874 (have a look!). Instead of engaging in rhapsodic effusions about Nature as a woman, Huxley would henceforth, it seems, write about nature as a system, as a sum of phenomena, as order. This view of nature, unlike the aphorisms, is still with us, especially in the journal Nature. (Interestingly, the periodic table is also celebrating its 150th anniversary this year – that’s order for you, at least an appearance of order!)

Huxley’s reflections on the aphorisms

Now, Huxley did not only translate and publish the aphorisms in the first Nature article, he also commented on them and how they came about. Most importantly he pointed out what they meant for him with relation to science:

He wrote: “When my friend, the Editor of Nature, asked me to write an opening article for his first number, there came into my mind this wonderful rhapsody on ‘Nature,’ which has been a delight to me from my youth up. It seemed to me that no more fitting preface could be put before a Journal, which aims to mirror the progress of that fashioning by Nature of a picture of herself, in the mind of man, which we call the progress of Science.” (Unlike in the phrase ‘men of science’, ‘man’ is here used, I hope, in the sense of ‘human being (irrespective of sex or age)’ (Oxford English Dictionary)

In his comments overall, he focused on the fact that the aphorisms made Goethe ‘smile’ and made him smile too. Both Goethe himself and Huxley were aware of how these aphorisms went ‘over the top’, so to speak;they were hyperbolic, expansive (even pantheistic) and “superlative”. There translation was, I suppose, intended to transport the readers of Nature on a scientific journey, a science that, at the time, was seen as progress. Modern readers of Nature witnessing ‘Nature’s’ gradual destruction might no longer agree with this conceptualisation of nature and science!

Huxley ends his article by saying: “When another half-century has passed, curious readers of the back numbers of Nature will probably look on our best, ‘not without a smile;’ and, it may be, that long after the theories of the philosophers whose achievements are recorded in these pages, are obsolete, the vision of the poet will remain as a truthful and efficient symbol of the wonder and the mystery of Nature.”

While the metaphor of science’s journey as progress can nowadays be disputed, and while we no longer personify Nature as a woman, nature certainly still hides many mysteries that poets and scientists try to fathom. In the process, many more scientific achievements will become obsolete, but recorded for future inspection in the journal Nature.

Image: Wikimedia Commons

The post Nature’s first article: Huxley on Goethe appeared first on Making Science Public.

via Making Science Public http://bit.ly/2M3a7Sh

#IFTTT #Making Science Public

0 notes

ralphmorgan-blog1 · 6 years ago

Text

Can we just shut up about women’s voices?

What has the vocal fry outcry done to us?

Image: vicky leta / mashable

"If you say 'like' one more time, I'm gonna lose my shit."

These were the words uttered to me through gritted teeth as I sat in green plastic patio furniture on a humid summer night a few years back. The words dried on my tongue; I lost my train of thought. Moments before, I'd been embroiled in a heated debate about millennials and social media, as was my wont. My opponent was an older male journalist and, though he objected to the central thesis of my argument, he chose not to engage with my salient points. Instead he opted to attack something intensely personal: the way I speak.

I came away from that interaction feeling a level of anger that I couldn't quite put into words. I felt ridiculed, undermined, and — worst of all — newly self-conscious about a vocal tick of which I'd been erstwhile blissfully unaware.

I'm not alone. Women are criticised every day for the way they speak. And since terms like upspeak and vocal fry first entered the popular lexicon a few years ago, it's only gotten worse. The buzzwords — which once described non-gender-specific speech patterns — have become yet another weapon used to silence women who dare to voice opinions.

SEE ALSO: YouTube's women of STEM make learning about science fun

They are "easy ways to tell women to shut up," says Jessica Bennett — gender editor at The New York Times and author of Feminist Fight Club.

Women are constantly being told that their voices sound too high-pitched, too "Valley Girl," too shrill. Women are told they apologise too much, that they use too many discourse markers — "like," "ya know," "I mean"— and that they're exhibiting vocal fry and upspeak. Vocal fry means dropping your voice to its lowest natural register, which makes your vocal folds vibrate to produce a creaking sound. Upspeak or uptalk denotes ending a sentence with a rising-pitch intonation, which can sound like you're asking a question.

Once we had the words to define the perceived problem, critics couldn't stop using them to belittle women. But the kicker is, in some cases, these behaviours are just as prevalent in men.

Women in broadcasting frequently find themselves on the receiving end of invective about the way they speak.

After a recent radio interview,Bennett received a tweet from a man telling her to "stop with the vocal fry."

Annie Oh, a host of the Who The F**k Is Gossip Girl podcast, which aims to help a guy who's never seen the drama understand its many scandals years after it went off air, was criticised for her use of the word "like" in an email from a listener. Oh says reading that email for the first time was "shitty," particularly as half of the "essay-long" missive was dedicated to decrying how she speaks.

"Considering it's a free podcast, not advertised, this person went out of their way to find and listen to our podcast," she says. "Dude, you can just stop listening to it."

In an episode of This American Life (TAL), host Ira Glass addressed the emails being sent to the show's female members of staff — they're "some of the angriest emails" the show gets. Glass read aloud one email that referred to Chana Joffe-Walt's purported vocal fry: "The voice of Chana Joffe-Walt is just too much to bear and I turn off any episode she's on." Some of the words used to describe the voices of TAL's female employees: "unbearable," "annoyingly adolescent," "beyond annoying," "excruciating," "detracts from the credibility of the journalist."

When journalist Jessica Grose was co-hosting Slate's DoubleX Gabfest podcast, she also received emails criticising her for her upspeak. She was told she sounded like "a Valley Girl and a faux socialite," and one interviewee said she "sounded like his granddaughter."

Women face a "double bind" when it comes to their voices, Bennett says. "Because our natural style of speech, which tends to be more flexible, experimental, and higher pitched, is not the style of speech that is typically associated with leadership," says Bennett. "In fact, research has found that it's perceived as insecure, less competent, and sometimes even less trustworthy."

Because of this, women employ tactics like vocal fry to make their voices sound deeper and more like those traditionally associated with leadership.

"So in effect, we’re combatting the inflection by trying to deepen our voices, but then arriving at a vocal fry register. Can’t win, right?" writes Bennett in Feminist Fight Club. In a nutshell, you're damned if you do sound like a woman, and, well, you're damned if you don't.

"Men do many of these things just as much (if not more) than women, but it’s women whose voices are constantly being policed."

The internet is littered with utility posts instructing women how they can ditch these speech patterns to sound more professional, more confident, more capable.

But the same isn't true for men.

"Men do many of these things just as much (if not more) than women, but it’s women whose voices are constantly being policed," Erez Levon, reader in sociolinguistics at Queen Mary University of London, told Mashable. Not only have men been the biggest exhibitors of vocal fry, the speech affect was actually started by men, as Levon points out: "Vocal fry was actually associated with men’s speech, and particularly posh men (if you listen to upper-class British men speaking, you’ll hear it all over the place)."

So, if men exhibit vocal fry too, why aren't they getting any stick for it? NYU linguistics professor Lisa Davidson, says because men's voices tend to be lower in pitch, it's harder to discern when they're exhibiting vocal fry. Because women's voices tend to be higher, "it’s really noticeable when a woman is changing from her normal voice to creaky voice, because of the pitch change."

Uptalk is no different. A 2013 study busted the myth that this speech trend is exclusive to young women. "Men don’t think they do it, but they do," said Amanda Ritchart, co-author of the project, said at the time. In a 2016 paper published in the Journal of Sociolinguistics, Levon found that both women and men in London exhibit uptalk, with men using it slightly more than women. He also noted that upspeak is more often employed by young white speakers in London — "older people and black and Asian speakers in London don’t really use uptalk nearly as much."

When it comes to filler words, researchers are divided. An analysis of the gender differences in use of discourse markers in televised interviews found that women did not use these words more frequently than men in their speech. But a study of 200 people by the University of Texas found that female speakers were more likely to use the discourse marker "like."

Levon says these behaviours aren't gender specific, but rather "generation specific." He says the emergence of vocal fry and uptalk over the past two decades can be linked to "changes in the structures of society," and "women’s greater access to the labour market." As society has changed over the years, so too have women's voices. A study by the University of South Australia compared archival recordings of women's voices taken in 1945 with recordings made in the 1990s. It was found that the "fundamental frequency" of women's voices "dropped by 23 Hz" over 50 years. Per the BBC, researchers suspect the significant deepening of women's voices reflects "the rise of women to more prominent roles in society" which has prompted them to "adopt a deeper tone to project authority and dominance in the workplace."

Women's voices and positions in society have changed over the years, but this persistent criticism of the female voice suggests that something is lagging behind: our perception of women.

"I think if women had been in power for all of time, we'd be having this conversation about men's voices," says Bennett.

Sadly, that isn't the case. So, what can we do to move our perceptions forward? Acknowledging that there are fundamental linguistic differences in the way men, women, and non-binary people speak will help us accept that there isn't just one homogenous, correct way to speak. Being open-minded and receptive to linguistic trends will serve every one of us well.

Next time you find yourself feeling irritated by the way a woman speaks: ask yourself whether it's truly the voice you find annoying — or rather the person it belongs to or the opinions they are expressing.

What really needs to change isn't women's voices, but how we think about women and their voices.

WATCH: This woman is cleaning up the streets by turning old chewing gum into new rubber objects

Original Article : HERE ; This post was curated & posted using : RealSpecific

=> *********************************************** Article Source Here: Can we just shut up about women’s voices? ************************************ =>

Can we just shut up about women’s voices? was originally posted by News - Feed

#News - Feed

0 notes

mapstudiodesign-blog · 7 years ago

Text

The world's 50 most powerful blogs

From Prince Harry in Afghanistan to Tom Cruise ranting about Scientology and footage from the Burmese uprising, blogging has never been bigger. It can help elect presidents and take down attorney generals while simultaneously celebrating the minutiae of our everyday obsessions. Here are the 50 best reasons to log on.

The following apology was published in the Observer's For the record column, Sunday March 16 2008 The article below said 'Psychodwarf' was Beppe Grillo's nickname for 'Mario Mastella, leader of the Popular-UDEUR centre-right party', but it's actually his nickname for Silvio Berlusconi. Mastella's first name is Clemente and Popular-UDEUR was part of Romano Prodi's centre-left coalition. And Peter Rojas, not Ryan Block, founded Engadget and co-founded Gizmodo. Apologies.

1. The Huffington Post

The history of political blogging might usefully be divided into the periods pre- and post-Huffington. Before the millionaire socialite Arianna Huffington decided to get in on the act, bloggers operated in a spirit of underdog solidarity. They hated the mainstream media - and the feeling was mutual. Bloggers saw themselves as gadflies, pricking the arrogance of established elites from their home computers, in their pyjamas, late into the night. So when, in 2005, Huffington decided to mobilise her fortune and media connections to create, from scratch, a flagship liberal blog she was roundly derided. Who, spluttered the original bloggerati, did she think she was? But the pyjama purists were confounded. Arianna's money talked just as loudly online as off, and the Huffington Post quickly became one of the most influential and popular journals on the web. It recruited professional columnists and celebrity bloggers. It hoovered up traffic. Its launch was a landmark moment in the evolution of the web because it showed that many of the old rules still applied to the new medium: a bit of marketing savvy and deep pockets could go just as far as geek credibility, and get there faster.

Read more To borrow the gold-rush simile beloved of web pioneers, Huffington's success made the first generation of bloggers look like two-bit prospectors panning for nuggets in shallow creeks before the big mining operations moved in. In the era pre-Huffington, big media companies ignored the web, or feared it; post-Huffington they started to treat it as just another marketplace, open to exploitation. Three years on, Rupert Murdoch owns MySpace, while newbie amateur bloggers have to gather traffic crumbs from under the table of the big-time publishers. Least likely to post 'I'm so over this story - check out the New York Times' huffingtonpost.com

2. Boing Boing

Lego reconstructions of pop videos and cakes baked in the shape of iPods are not generally considered relevant to serious political debate. But even the most earnest bloggers will often take time out of their busy schedule to pass on some titbit of mildly entertaining geek ephemera. No one has done more to promote pointless, yet strangely cool, time-wasting stuff on the net than the editors of Boing Boing (subtitle: A Directory of Wonderful Things). It launched in January 2000 and has had an immeasurable influence on the style and idiom of blogging. But hidden among the pictures of steam-powered CD players and Darth Vader tea towels there is a steely, ultra-liberal political agenda: championing the web as a global medium free of state and corporate control. Boing Boing chronicles cases where despotic regimes have silenced or imprisoned bloggers. It helped channel blogger scorn on to Yahoo and Google when they kowtowed to China's censors in order to win investment opportunities. It was instrumental in exposing the creeping erosion of civil liberties in the US under post-9/11 'Homeland Security' legislation. And it routinely ridicules attempts by the music and film industries to persecute small-time file sharers and bedroom pirates instead of getting their own web strategies in order. It does it all with gentle, irreverent charm, polluted only occasionally with gratuitous smut. Their dominance of the terrain where technology meets politics makes the Boing Boing crew geek aristocracy. Least likely to post 'Has anyone got a stamp?' boingboing.net

3. Techcrunch

Techcrunch began in 2005 as a blog about dotcom start-ups in Silicon Valley, but has quickly become one of the most influential news websites across the entire technology industry. Founder Michael Arrington had lived through the internet goldrush as a lawyer and entrepreneur before deciding that writing about new companies was more of an opportunity than starting them himself. His site is now ranked the third-most popular blog in the world by search engine Technorati, spawning a mini-empire of websites and conferences as a result. Business Week named Arrington one of the 25 most influential people on the web, and Techcrunch has even scored interviews with Barack Obama and John McCain. With a horde of hungry geeks and big money investors online, Techcrunch is the largest of a wave of technology-focused blog publishers to tap into the market - GigaOm, PaidContent and Mashable among them - but often proves more contentious than its rivals, thanks to Arrington's aggressive relationships with traditional media and his conflicts of interest as an investor himself. Least likely to post 'YouTube? It'll never catch on' techcrunch.com

4. Kottke

One of the early wave of blogging pioneers, web designer Jason Kottke started keeping track of interesting things on the internet as far back as 1998. The site took off, boosted partly through close links to popular blog-building website Blogger (he later married one of the founders). And as the phenomenon grew quickly, Kottke became a well-known filter for surfers on the lookout for interesting reading. Kottke remains one of the purest old-skool bloggers on the block - it's a selection of links to websites and articles rather than a repository for detailed personal opinion - and although it remains fairly esoteric, his favourite topics include film, science, graphic design and sport. He often picks up trends and happenings before friends start forwarding them to your inbox. Kottke's decision to consciously avoid politics could be part of his appeal (he declares himself 'not a fan'), particularly since the blog's voice is literate, sober and inquiring, unlike much of the red-faced ranting found elsewhere online. A couple of key moments boosted Kottke's fame: first, being threatened with legal action by Sony for breaking news about a TV show, but most notably quitting his web-design job and going solo three years ago. A host of 'micropatrons' and readers donated cash to cover his salary, but these days he gets enough advertising to pay the bills. He continues to plug away at the site as it enters its 10th year. Least likely to post 'Look at this well wicked vid of a dog on a skateboard' kottke.org

5. Dooce

One of the best-known personal bloggers (those who provide more of a diary than a soapbox or reporting service), Heather Armstrong has been writing online since 2001. Though there were personal websites that came before hers, certain elements conspired to make Dooce one of the biggest public diaries since Samuel Pepys's (whose diary is itself available, transcribed in blog form, at Pepysdiary.com). Primarily, Armstrong became one of the first high-profile cases of somebody being fired for writing about her job. After describing events that her employer - a dotcom start-up - thought reflected badly on them, Armstrong was sacked. The incident caused such fierce debate that Dooce found itself turned into a verb that is used in popular parlance (often without users realising its evolution): 'dooced - to be fired from one's job as a direct result of one's personal website'. Behind Dooce stands an army of personal bloggers perhaps not directly influenced by, or even aware of, her work - she represents the hundreds of thousands who decide to share part of their life with strangers. Armstrong's honesty has added to her popularity, and she has written about work, family life, postnatal depression, motherhood, puppies and her Mormon upbringing with the same candid and engaging voice. Readers feel that they have been brought into her life, and reward her with their loyalty. Since 2005 the advertising revenue on her blog alone has been enough to support her family. Least likely to post 'I like babies but I couldn't eat a whole one' dooce.com

6. Perezhilton

Once dubbed 'Hollywood's most hated website', Perezhilton (authored by Mario Lavandeira since 2005) is the gossip site celebrities fear most. Mario, 29, is famous for scrawling rude things (typically doodles about drug use) over pap photos and outing closeted stars. On the day of Lindsay Lohan's arrest for drink-driving, he posted 60 updates, and 8m readers logged on. He's a shameless publicity whore, too. His reality show premiered on VH1 last year, and his blogsite is peppered with snaps of him cuddling Paris Hilton at premieres. Fergie from Black Eyed Peas alluded to him in a song, and Avril Lavigne phoned, asking him to stop writing about her after he repeatedly blogged about her lack of talent and her 'freakishly long arm'. Least likely to post 'Log on tomorrow for Kofi Annan's live webchat' perezhilton.com

7. Talking points memo

At some point during the disputed US election of 2000 - when Al Gore was famously defeated by a few hanging chads - Joshua Micah Marshall lost patience. Despite working as a magazine editor, Marshall chose to vent on the web. Eight years later Talking Points Memo and its three siblings draw in more than 400,000 viewers a day from their base in New York. Marshall has forged a reputation, and now makes enough money to run a small team of reporters who have made an impact by sniffing out political scandal and conspiracy. 'I think in many cases the reporting we do is more honest, more straight than a lot of things you see even on the front pages of great papers like the New York Times and the Washington Post,' he said in an interview last year. 'But I think both kinds of journalism should exist, should co-exist.' Although his unabashed partisan approach is admonished by many old-fashioned American reporters, Marshall's skills at pulling together the threads of a story have paid dividends. Last year he helped set the agenda after George Bush covertly fired a string of US attorneys deemed disloyal to the White House. While respected mainstream media figures accused Marshall of seeing conspiracy, he kept digging: the result was the resignation of attorney general Alberto Gonzales, and a prestigious George Polk journalism award for Marshall, the first ever for a blogger. Least likely to post 'Barack is so, like, gnarly to the max' talkingpointsmemo.com

8. Icanhascheezburger

Amused by a photo of a smiling cat, idiosyncratically captioned with the query 'I Can Has A Cheezburger?', which he found on the internet while between jobs in early 2007, Eric Nakagawa of Hawaii emailed a copy of it to a friend (known now only as Tofuburger). Then, on a whim, they began a website, first comprising only that one captioned photo but which has since grown into one of the most popular blogs in the world. Millions of visitors visit Icanhascheezburger.com to see, create, submit and vote on Lolcats (captioned photos of characterful cats in different settings). The 'language' used in the captions, which this blog has helped to spread globally, is known as Lolspeak, aka Kitty Pidgin. In Lolspeak, human becomes 'hooman', Sunday 'bunday', exactly 'xackly' and asthma 'azma'. There is now an effort to develop a LOLCode computer-programming language and another to translate the Bible into Lolspeak. Least likely to post 'Actually, dogs are much more interesting..." icanhascheezburger.com

9. Beppe Grillo

Among the most visited blogs in the world is that of Beppe Grillo, a popular Italian comedian and political commentator, long persona non grata on state TV, who is infuriated daily - especially by corruption and financial scandal in his country. A typical blog by Grillo calls, satirically or otherwise, for the people of Naples and Campania to declare independence, requests that Germany declare war on Italy to help its people ('We will throw violets and mimosa to your Franz and Gunther as they march through') or reports on Grillo's ongoing campaign to introduce a Bill of Popular Initiative to remove from office all members of the Italian parliament who've ever had a criminal conviction. Grillo's name for Mario Mastella, leader of the Popular-UDEUR centre-right party, is Psychodwarf. 'In another country, he would have been the dishwasher in a pizzeria,' says Grillo. Through his blog, he rallied many marchers in 280 Italian towns and cities for his 'Fuck You' Day last September. Least likely to post 'Sign up to our campaign to grant Silvo Berlusconi immunity' beppegrillo.it

10. Gawker

A New York blog of 'snarky' gossip and commentary about the media industry, Gawker was founded in 2002 by journalist Nick Denton, who had previously helped set up a networking site called First Tuesday for web and media entrepreneurs. Gawker's earliest fascination was gossip about Vogue editor Anna Wintour, garnered from underlings at Conde Nast. This set the tone for amassing a readership of movers and shakers on the Upper East Side, as well as 'the angry creative underclass' wishing either to be, or not be, like them, or both ('the charmingly incompetent X... the wildly successful blowhard'). Within a year Gawker's readers were making 500,000 page views per month. Nowadays the figure is 11m, recovering from a recent dip to 8m thanks to the showing of a Tom Cruise 'Indoctrination Video' which Scientologists had legally persuaded YouTube to take down. Gawker remains the flagship of Gawker Media, which now comprises 14 blogs, although gossiping by ex-Gawker insiders, a fixation on clicks (which its bloggers are now paid on the basis of) and fresh anxiety over defining itself have led some to claim Gawker has become more 'tabloidy' and celeb- and It-girl-orientated, and less New York-centric. But its core value - 'media criticism' - appears to be intact. Least likely to post 'We can only wish Rupert Murdoch well with his new venture' gawker.com

11. The Drudge Report

The Report started life as an email gossip sheet, and then became a trashy webzine with negligible traffic. But thanks to the decision in 1998 to run a scurrilous rumour – untouched by mainstream media – about Bill Clinton and a White House intern named Monica Lewinsky, it became a national phenomenon. Recent scoops include Barack Obama dressed in tribal garb and the fact Prince Harry was serving in Afghanistan. Drudge is scorned by journalists and serious bloggers for his tabloid sensibilities, but his place in the media history books is guaranteed. And much though they hate him, the hacks all still check his front page – just in case he gets another president-nobbling scoop. Least likely to post 'Oops, one sec – just got to check the facts…' drudgereport.com

12. Xu Jinglei

Jinglei is a popular actress (and director of Letter From An Unknown Woman) in China, who in 2005 began a blog ('I got the joy of expressing myself') which within a few months had garnered 11.5m visits and spurred thousands of other Chinese to blog. In 2006 statisticians at Technorati, having previously not factored China into their calculations, realised Jinglei's blog was the most popular in the world. In it she reports on her day-to-day moods, reflections, travels, social life and cats ('Finally the first kitten's been born!!! Just waiting for the second, in the middle of the third one now!!!!!!!! It's midnight, she gave birth to another one!!!!!!'). She blogs in an uncontroversial but quite reflective manner, aiming to show a 'real person' behind the celebrity. Each posting, usually ending with 'I have to be up early' or a promise to report tomorrow on a DVD she is watching, is followed by many hundreds of comments from readers – affirming their love, offering advice, insisting she take care. Last year her blog passed the 1bn clicks mark. Least likely to post 'Forget the kittens – get a Kalashnikov!!!!!!!' blog.sina.com.cn/xujinglei

13. Treehugger

Treehugger is a green consumer blog with a mission to bring a sustainable lifestyle to the masses. Its ethos, that a green lifestyle does not have to mean sacrifice, and its positive, upbeat feel have attracted over 1.8m unique users a month. Consistently ranked among the top 20 blogs on Technorati, Treehugger has 10 staff but also boasts 40 writers from a wide variety of backgrounds in more than 10 countries around the world, who generate more than 30 new posts a day across eight categories, ranging from fashion and beauty, travel and nature, to science and technology. Treehugger began as an MBA class project four years ago and says it now generates enough revenue from sponsorship and advertising to pay all its staffers and writers. It has developed a highly engaged community and has added popular services like TreeHugger.tv, and a user-generated blog, Hugg. It was bought by the Discovery Channel last year for a rumoured $10m. Least likely to post 'Why Plastic Bags rock' treehugger.com

14. Microsiervos

Microsiervos, which began in 2001, took its name from Douglas Coupland's novel Microserfs, a diary entry-style novel about internet pioneers. It is run by Alvy, Nacho and Wicho, three friends in Madrid, who blog in Spanish. The second most popular blog in Europe and the 13th most popular in the world (according to eBizMBA), Microsiervos concerns itself with science, curiosities, strange reality, chance, games, puzzles, quotations, conspiracies, computers, hacking, graffiti and design. It is informal, friendly and humorous, moving from news of an eccentric new letter font to reflections on the discovery of the Milky Way having double the thickness it was previously thought to have. Least likely to post 'The internet is, like, so over' microsiervos.com

15. TMZ

You want relentless celebrity gossip on tap? TMZ will provide it, and when we say relentless, we mean relentless. The US site is dripping with 'breaking news' stories, pictures and videos, and deems celeb activity as mundane as stars walking to their cars worthy of a video post. TMZ was launched in 2005 by AOL and reportedly employs around 20 writers to keep the celeb juice flowing. It pulls in 1.6m readers a month and is endlessly cited as the source for red-top celeb stories. It was the first to break Alec Baldwin's now infamous 'rude little pig' voicemail last April, for instance. TMZ prides itself on being close to the action, so close, in fact, a TMZ photographer had his foot run over by Britney Spears mid-meltdown. They auctioned the tyre-tracked sock on eBay in aid of US charity the Children's Defense Fund last autumn. Least likely to post 'Paris is a metaphor for Third World debt' TMZ.com

16. Engadget

Engadget provides breaking news, rumours and commentary on, for instance, a camera able to track a head automatically, the very latest HD screen or 'visual pollution' concerns prompted by hand-held pico laser-projectors. The world's most popular blog on gadgets and consumer electronics, Engadget was founded by Peter Rojas in 2004 and won the Web Blogs Awards that year and each year since. Now part of Weblogs Inc (owned by AOL), it is offered on many other sites (including GoogleMail) as a default RSS feed, and is published in English, Spanish, Japanese and Chinese. Last year, a mistake confirmed Engadget's power - upon reporting a supposed email (which turned out to be a hoax) from Apple, informing Apple employees of a delay in the launch of iPhone, Apple's share price fell by 3 per cent within minutes. Rojas also co-founded rival gadget blog Gizmodo. Least likely to post 'An iWhat?' engadget.com

17. Marbury

No matter what happens between now and 4 November, you can be certain the US presidential election of 2008 will be among the most historically important and dramatic of any fought. Having an informed opinion will be a must, but if you are as yet unable to tell your Iowa Caucus from your Feiler Faster Thesis, Marbury – a British blog on American politics – is the place to start. The site's creator, Ian Leslie, is an ex-expat who fell for American politics during a four-year stint living in New York. The site signposts important events and interesting analyses, gives context and witty commentary on everything from the most serious speeches to the silliest election-themed YouTube clips. And West Wing fans will be pleased to note that the blog's name is a reference to the show's British ambassador to the United States, Lord John Marbury, who, appropriately enough, provided an eccentrically British but reliably insightful appraisal of American politics. Least likely to post 'Is it just me or is Romney getting cuter?' marbury.typepad.com

18. Chez Pim

Attracting around 10,000 people from all over the globe to her site every week, Pim Techamuanvivit has tried and tested an awful lot of food. From Michelin-starred restaurants to street food and diners, she samples it all, and posts her thoughts and pictures to share with other foodie fans. She advises her readers on what cooking equipment to go for, posts recipe suggestions for them to try, and gives them a nudge in the direction of which food shows are worth a watch. She's not just famous on the net, she's attracted global coverage in the media with her writing, recipes and interviews appearing in such diverse publications as the New York Times, Le Monde and the Sydney Morning Herald. Least likely to post 'Chocolate's my favourite flavour of Pop Tart' chezpim.typepad.com

19. Basic thinking

Recently rated the 18th most influential blog in the world by Wikio, Basic Thinking, which has the tag line 'Mein Haus, Mein Himmel, Mein Blog', is run by Robert Basic of Usingen, Germany, who aims 'to boldly blog what no one has blogged before', and recently posted his 10,000th entry. Basic Thinking reports on technology and odds and ends, encouraging readers to rummage through an 1851 edition of the New York Times one minute and to contemplate the differences between mooses and elks the next. Least likely to post 'Mein heim, mein gott – I need to get a life' basicthinking.de/blog

20. The Sartorialist

As ideas go, this one is pretty simple. Man wanders around Manhattan with a camera. Spots someone whose outfit he likes. Asks if he can take a picture. Goes home and posts it on his blog. But the man in question is Scott Schuman, who had 15 years' experience working at the high-fashion end of the clothing industry before starting The Sartorialist. He's got a sharp eye for a good look, a gift for grabbing an on-the-hoof pic and an unwavering enthusiasm for people going the extra mile in the name of style. Minimalist it might be, but his site – a basic scroll of full-length street portraits, occasionally annotated with a brief note – is mesmeric and oddly beautiful. The site attracts more than 70,000 readers a day and has been named one of Time's Top 100 Design Influences. So if you're out and about and a guy called Scott asks to take your picture, just smile. You're about to become a style icon. Least likely to post 'Sometimes you need to chill in a shellsuit' thesartorialist.blogspot.com

21. Students for a free Tibet

Taking the protest online, Students for a Free Tibet (SFT) is a global, grassroots network of students campaigning to free Tibet, which has been occupied by China since 1950. Students in Tibet face arrest for posting on the site, but many escape to blog about their experiences in exile. With a history of direct action, the group is now uniting worldwide members through the web, blogging to spread word of news and protests, and using sites like Facebook to raise funds. The organisation, which was founded in 1994 in New York, spans more than 35 countries and gets up to 100,000 hits a month. In 2006, SFT used a satellite link at Mount Everest base camp to stream live footage on to YouTube of a demonstration against Chinese Olympic athletes practising carrying the torch there. Later this year the web will be a critical tool in organising and reporting protests during the games. 'SFT plans to stage protests in Beijing during the games and post blogs as events unfold,' says Iain Thom, the SFT UK national co-ordinator. 'But for security reasons we can't reveal details of how or where yet.' Similarly, a massive protest in London on 10 March will be the subject of intense cyber comment. In response, the site has fallen victim to increasingly sophisticated cyber attacks. Investigations have traced the sources back to China, leading to speculation that the Chinese authorities are trying to sabotage the site to stop online critics. Least likely to post 'Hey guyz, any hotties in the Nepal region?!' studentsforafreetibet.org

22. Jezebel

Last year Gawker Media launched Jezebel – a blog which aimed to become a brilliant version of a women's magazine. It succeeded quickly, in part by acknowledging the five big lies perpetuated by the women's media: The Cover Lie (female forgeries of computer-aided artistry); The Celebrity-Profile Lie (flattery, more nakedly consumerist and less imaginative than the movies they're shilling for); The Must-Have Lie (magazine editors are buried in free shit); The Affirmation Crap Lie (you are insecure about things you didn't know it was possible to be insecure about); and The Big Meta Lie (we're devastatingly affected by the celebrity media). Their regular 'Crap Email From a Dude' feature is especially fantastic, as is their coverage of current stories (opinionated and consistently hilarious) and politics. It offers the best lady-aimed writing on the web, along with lots of nice pictures of Amy Winehouse getting out of cars. Least likely to post 'How To Look Skinny While Pleasing Your Man!' jezebel.com

23. Gigazine

Created by Satoshi Yamasaki and Mazaki Keito of Osaka, Gigazine is the most popular blog in Japan, covering the latest in junk foods and beverages, games, toys and other ingredients of colourful pop product culture. Visitors first witness 'eye candy' such as David Beckham condoms (from China), 75 turtles in a fridge, the packaging for Mega Frankfurters or a life-size Ferrari knitted from wool, learn of a second X-Files movie moving into pre-pre-production, watch a vacuum-cleaning robot being tested and compare taste reports of Kentucky Fried Chicken's new Shrimp Tsuisuta Chilli. Least likely to post 'Anyone seen these charming croquet mallets?' gigazine.net

24. Girl with a one-track mind

Following in the footsteps of Belle de Jour – the anonymous blogger claiming to be a sex worker – the girl with a one track mind started writing in open, explicit terms about her lively sex life in 2004. By 2006, the blog was bookified and published by Ebury, and spent much time on bestseller lists, beach towels and hidden behind the newspapers of serious-looking commuters. Though she was keen to retain her anonymity and continue her career in the film industry, author 'Abby Lee' was soon outed as north Londoner Zoe Margolis by a Sunday newspaper. Least likely to post 'I've got a headache' girlwithaonetrackmind.blogspot.com

25. Mashable

Founded by Peter Cashmore in 2005, Mashable is a social-networking news blog, reporting on and reviewing the latest developments, applications and features available in or for MySpace, Facebook, Bebo and countless lesser-known social-networking sites and services, with a special emphasis on functionality. The blog's name Mashable is derived from Mashup, a term for the fusing of multiple web services. Readers range from top web 2.0 developers to savvy 13-year-olds wishing for the latest plug-ins to pimp up their MySpace pages. Least likely to post 'But why don't you just phone them up?' mashable.com

26. Greek tragedy

Stephanie Klein's blog allows her to 'create an online scrapbook of my life, complete with drawings, photos and my daily musings' or, rather, tell tawdry tales of dating nightmares, sexual encounters and bodily dysfunctions. Thousands of women tune in for daily accounts of her narcissistic husband and nightmarish mother-in-law and leave equally self-revealing comments transforming the pages into something of a group confessional. The blog has been so successful that Klein has penned a book, Straight Up and Dirty, and has featured in countless magazine and newspaper articles around the globe. Not bad for what Klein describes as 'angst online'. Least likely to post 'Enough about me – what's your news?' stephanieklein.blogs.com

27. Holy Moly

If a weekly flick through Heat just isn't enough, then a daily intake of Holy Moly will certainly top up those celeb gossip levels. The UK blog attracts 750,000 visitors a month and 240,000 celeb-obsessees subscribe to the accompanying weekly mail-out. It's an established resource for newspaper columnists – both tabloid and broadsheet – and there's a daily 'News from the Molehill' slot in the free London paper The Metro. Last month Holy Moly created headlines in its own right by announcing a rethink on publishing paparazzi shots. The blog will no longer publish pics obtained when 'pursuing people in cars and on bikes', as well as 'celebrities with their kids', 'people in distress at being photographed' and off-duty celebs. But don't think that means the omnipresent celeb blog that sends shivers round offices up and down the country on 'mail-out day' is slowing down – there has been talk of Holy Moly expanding into TV. Least likely to post 'What do you think of the new Hanif Kureishi?' holymoly.co.uk

28. Michelle Malkin

Most surveys of web use show a fairly even gender balance online, but political blogging is dominated by men. One exception is Michelle Malkin, a conservative newspaper columnist and author with one of the most widely read conservative blogs in the US. That makes her one of the most influential women online. Her main theme is how liberals betray America by being soft on terrorism, peddling lies about global warming and generally lacking patriotism and moral fibre. Least likely to post 'That Obama's got a lovely smile, hasn't he?' www.michellemalkin.com

29. Cranky flier

There's nowhere to hide for airlines these days. Not with self-confessed 'airline dork' Brett Snyder, aka Cranky Flier, keeping tabs on their progress. He's moved on from spending his childhood birthdays in airport hotels, face pressed against the window watching the planes come in, and turned his attention to reporting on the state of airlines. His CV is crammed with various US airline jobs, which gives him the insider knowledge to cast his expert eye over everything from the recent 777 emergency landing at Heathrow to spiralling baggage handling costs and the distribution of air miles to 'virtual assistants'. Least likely to post 'There's nothing wrong with a well-conducted cavity search' crankyflier.com

30. Go fug yourself

It's a neat word, fug – just a simple contraction of 'ugly' and its preceding expletive – but from those three letters an entire fugging industry has grown. At Go Fug Yourself, celebrity offenders against style, elegance and the basic concept of making sure you're covering your reproductive organs with some form of clothing before you leave the house are 'fugged' by the site's writers, Jessica Morgan and Heather Cocks. In their hands, the simple pleasure of yelping 'Does she even OWN a mirror?' at a paparazzi shot of some B-list headcase in fuchsia becomes an epic battle against dull Oscar gowns, ill-fitting formalwear and Lindsay Lohan's leggings. The site stays on the right side of gratuitous nastiness by dishing out generous praise when due (the coveted 'Well Played'), being genuinely thoughtful on questions of taste and funnier on the subject of random starlets in sequined sweatpants than you could possibly even imagine. Least likely to post 'Oprah looked great in those stretch jeans' gofugyourself.typepad.com

31. Gaping void

In the middle of a career as an adman in New York, Hugh MacLeod found himself doodling acerbic and almost surreal cartoons on the back of people's business cards to pass the time in bars. Everyone seemed to like the idea, so he kept going. Things started going gangbusters when he pimped his cartoons on the internet, and as he built an audience through his blog, he started writing about his other passion – the new world of understanding how to adapt marketing to the new world of the net. Remember when everybody was madly printing off vouchers from the web that saved you 40 per cent? That was one of his: aimed at helping shift more bottles from Stormhoek, the South African vintner he works with. Least likely to post 'This product really sells itself' gapingvoid.com

32. Dirtydirty dancing

If someone stole your camera, took it out for the night to parties you yourself aren't cool enough to go to and returned it in the morning, you would probably find it loaded up with pictures like those posted on DirtyDirtyDancing. The site seems pretty lo-fi – just entries called things like 'Robin's birthday' and 'FEB16' featuring pages of images of hip young things getting their party on. And that's it. The original delight was in logging on to see if you'd made it on to the site – your chances increase exponentially if you're beautiful, avant-garde and hang out at clubs and parties in the edgier parts of London – but now the site can get up to 900,000 hits a month from all over the world. Least likely to post 'Revellers at the Earl of Strathdore's hunt ball' dirtydirtydancing.com

33. Crooked timber

With a title pulled from Immanuel Kant's famous statement that 'out of the crooked timber of humanity, no straight thing was ever made', it's an amalgam of academic and political writing that has muscled its way into the epicentre of intelligent discussion since its conception in 2003. Formed as an internet supergroup, pulling several popular intellectual blogs together, Crooked Timber now has 16 members – largely academics – across the US, Europe, Australia and Asia. The site has built itself a reputation as something of an intellectual powerhouse; a sort of global philosophical thinktank conducted via blog. Least likely to post 'Did anyone see Casualty last night?' crookedtimber.org

34. Beansprouts

Combining diary, opinion and green lifestyle tips, Beansprouts is a blog that covers one family's 'search for the good life'. Melanie Rimmer and her family of five live in a 'small ex-council house' with a garden on the edge of farmland in Poynton, Cheshire. They grow food on an allotment nearby, keep chickens and bees and 'try to be green, whatever that means'. Rimmer set up the blog nearly two years ago when she first got the allotment and says she felt it was something worth writing about. With one post a day, often more, topics for discussion can range from top 10 uses for apples to making scrap quilts. Least likely to post 'Make mine a Happy Meal' bean-sprouts.blogspot.com

35. The offside

Launched by 'Bob' after the success of his WorldCupBlog in 2006, Offside is a UK-based blog covering football leagues globally, gathering news and visuals on all of it, inviting countless match reports and promoting discussion on all things soccer, from the attack by a colony of red ants on a player in the Sao Paulo state championship third division, to the particular qualities of every one of Cristiano Ronaldo's goals so far this season. Considered by many to be the best 'serious' blog in the game, it nevertheless promises irreverently, 'If there is a sex scandal in England, we'll be stuck in the middle of it. If a player is traded for 1,000lb of beef in Romania, we'll cook the steak. And if something interesting happens in Major League Soccer, we'll be just as surprised as you.' Least likely to post 'Check out Ronaldo's bubble butt' theoffside.com

36. Peteite Anglaise

The tagline of a new book hitting British shelves reads 'In Paris, in love, in trouble', but if it were telling the whole story, perhaps it should read 'In public' too. Bored at work one day in 2004, expat secretary Catherine Sanderson happened upon the concept of blogging. With a few clicks and an impulse she created her own blog, and quickly gathered fans who followed her life in Paris, the strained relationship with her partner and adventures with her toddler. And there was plenty of drama to watch: within a year her relationship had broken up, and she'd met a new man who wooed her online. Readers were mesmerised by her unflinching dedication to telling the whole story, no matter how she would be judged. Soon afterwards, however, Sanderson's employers found out about the blog and promptly fired her. Defeat turned into victory, however, with the press attention she gathered from the dismissal not only securing victory in an industrial tribunal, but also helping her score a lucrative two-book deal with Penguin. Least likely to post 'J'ai assez parle de moi, qu'est-ce que vous pensez?' petiteanglaise.com

37. Crooks and liars

Founded in 2004 by John Amato (a professional saxophonist and flautist), Crooks and Liars is a progressive/liberal-leaning political blog, with over 200m visitors to date, which is illustrated by video and audio clips of politicians and commentators on podiums, radio and TV. Readers post a variety of comments on political talking points of the day, although 9/11 conspiracy theories are often deleted, and there is a daily round-up of notable stories on other political blogs. Least likely to post 'So just what is a caucus?' crooksandliars.com

38. Chocolate and Zucchini

For Clothilde Dusoulier, a young woman working in computing and living in the Paris district of Montmartre, starting a blog was a way of venting her boundless enthusiasm for food without worrying she might be boring her friends with it. Five years later Chocolate and Zucchini, one of the most popular cooking blogs, has moved from being a hobby to a full-time career. The mixture of an insider's view on gastronomic Paris, conversational, bilingual writing and the sheer irresistibility of her recipes pull in thousands of readers every day. This, in turn, has led to multiple books and the ability to forge a dream career as a food writer.The name of the blog is, she says, a good metaphor for her cooking style: 'The zucchini illustrates my focus on healthy and natural eating... and the chocolate represents my decidedly marked taste for anything sweet.' Least likely to post 'Just add instant mash' chocolateandzucchini.com

39. Samizdata

Samizdata is one of Britain's oldest blogs. Written by a bunch of anarcho-libertarians, tax rebels, Eurosceptics and Wildean individualists, it has a special niche in the political blogosphere: like a dive bar, on the rational side of the border between fringe opinion and foam-flecked paranoid ranting. Samizdata serves its opinions up strong and neat, but still recognisable as politics. On the other side of the border, in the wilderness, the real nutters start. Least likely to post 'I'd say it's six of one, half a dozen of the other' samizdata.net

40. The daily dish

Andrew Sullivan is an expat Brit, blogging pioneer and defier-in-chief of American political stereotypes. He is an economic conservative (anti-tax), a social liberal (soft on drugs) and a foreign policy hawk (pro-war). He endorsed George Bush in 2000 and John Kerry in 2004. Barack Obama is his preferred Democrat candidate in 2008. So he is either confused, a hypocrite or a champion of honest non-partisanship – depending on your point of view. He is also gay, a practising Roman Catholic and HIV-positive, a set of credentials he routinely deploys in arguments to confuse atheist liberals and evangelical conservatives. Least likely to post 'Sorry, I can't think of anything to say' andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com

41. The F word

Founded in 2001, the UK's first feminist webzine is responsible for reviving debates around feminism in Britain. Edited by Jess McCabe, the site, which receives around 3,000 hits a day, is dedicated to providing a forum for contemporary feminist voices, with a daily news blog, features on stereotypes and censorship, podcasts on pornography and regular feminist film reviews. Least likely to post 'What's the difference between a woman and a condom?' thefword.org.uk

42. Jonny B's private secret diary

Growing in popularity since its debut in 2003, Jonny B's diary – which is clearly neither private nor terribly secret – catalogues the rock and bowls lifestyle of one man in the depths of rural Norfolk. With the mocking self-awareness of a modern Diary of a Nobody, the author tells tales of wild nights at the village pub and the fortunes of the local bowls team. As a slow, gentle satire on modern village life, it is often held up as an example of blog as sitcom, and has not only attracted a loyal band of readers, but a dedicated fan club on Facebook desperate to work out the real identity of the wit behind the site. Previous guesses have included Chris Evans and Johnny Vaughan, though both have been strenuously denied. Least likely to post 'OMG, I saw Jessica Simpson in Lidl and she signed my bum!' privatesecretdiary.com

43. Popjustice

When Smash Hits! died, Popjustice became the new home of pop music. Founded in 2000 by Peter Robinson, it combines fandom with music news and raw critique, all hilarious, and all blindingly correct. Recent features include a review of Eurovision failure Daz Sampson's new single 'Do A Little Dance' ('The listener is invited to muse on the sad inevitability of their own death') and a furious debate about the future of Girls Aloud. Least likely to post 'I prefer Pierre Boulez's interpretation of Mahler's third' popjustice.com

44. Waiter rant

Rant isn't quite the right word for this collection of carefully crafted stories from the sharp end of the service industry in a busy New York restaurant. 'The Waiter', as the author is known, has been blogging his experiences with fussy customers and bad tippers since 2004, winning a gong at blogging's biggest awards, the Bloggies, in 2007. It's representative – but by no means the first – of the so-called 'job-blogs', with people from all walks of life, from ambulance drivers (randomactsofreality.net) and policemen (coppersblog.blogspot.com) to the greatly loved but now defunct Call Centre Confidential. Between them they chronicle life in their trade, and usually from behind a veil of anonymity. Something about the everyday nature of The Waiter – a person we like to pretend is invisible or treat with servile disdain – deconstructing the event later with a subtle, erudite typestroke, has captured the public imagination and (hopefully) made some people behave better in restaurants than they otherwise might. Least likely to post 'The customer is always right' waiterrant.net

45. Hecklerspray

The internet's not exactly short of gossip websites providing scurrilous rumours of who did what to whom, but some stand out from the rest. Sharply written and often laugh-out-loud funny, Hecklerspray has been called the British alternative to Perez Hilton, but it's different in important ways: the emphasis here is on style and wit, with a stated aim to 'chronicle the ups and downs of all that is populist and niche within the murky world of entertainment'. Basically, it's gossip for grown-ups. Least likely to post 'If you can't say anything nice…' hecklerspray.com

46. WoWinsider

WoWinsider is a blog about the World of Warcraft, which is the most popular online role-playing game in the world, one for which over 10m pay subscriptions each month in order to control an avatar (a character, chosen from 10 races) and have it explore landscapes, perform quests, build skills, fight monsters to the death and interact with others' avatars. WoWinsider reports on what's happening within WoW ('Sun's Reach Harbor has been captured'). It also reports on outside developments and rumours ('A future patch will bring a new feature: threat meters'). Supporters of US presidential candidate Ron Paul promoted on WoWInsider their recent virtual mass march through the WoW. And the blog recently reported that America's Homeland Security are – seriously – looking for a terrorist operating within WoW. Least likely to post 'Who fancies a game of space invaders?' WoWinsider.com

47. Angry black bitch

Angry Black Bitch, which has the tagline, 'Practising the Fine Art of Bitchitude', is the four-year-old blog of Shark Fu of St Louis, Missouri. She has never posted a photo of herself and this 'anonymity' has led recently to her having to fend off claims she's really a white man, even a drag queen. But taken as read, Shark Fu is a much-discussed, 35-year-old black woman, tired of the 'brutal weight' of her 'invisibility'. Least likely to post 'I'm off to anger-management' angryblackbitch.blogspot.com

48. Stylebubble

Fashion blogger Susie Lau says Stylebubble is just a diary of what she wears and why. But few diaries are read by 10,000 people a day. Lau, 23, admits to spending up to 60 per cent of her pay from her day job in advertising on clothes, but now she's viewed as a fashion opinion former, she's being paid in kind. Her influence is such that fashion editors namecheck her blog, Chanel invites her to product launches and advertisers have come calling. Least likely to post 'I even wear my Ugg boots in bed' stylebubble.typepad.com

49. AfterEllen

Afterellen takes an irreverent look at how the lesbian community is represented in the media. Started by lesbian pop-culture guru Sarah Warn in 2002, the name of the site gives a nod to the groundbreaking moment Ellen DeGeneres came out on her hit TV show, Ellen, in 1997. Since then, lesbian and bisexual women have moved from the margins on to primetime TV, and this blog analyses the good, the bad and the ugly of how they're portrayed. It's now the biggest website for LGBT women, with half a million hits a month. Least likely to post 'George Clooney – I wouldn't kick him out of bed' afterellen.com

50. Copyblogger

It's dry, real, and deafeningly practical, but for an online writing-for-the-internet blog, Copyblogger, founded in 2006, is remarkably interesting. Swelling with advice on online writing, it's an essential tool for anyone trying to make themselves heard online, whether commenting on a discussion board or putting together a corporate website. Least likely to post 'Social networking – it's just a phase' copyblogger.com · Join the Debate: If you would like to comment about our choice of blogs, go to blogs.theguardian.com/digitalcontent · This article was amended on Friday March 14 2008. In the article above we wrongly said that Ryan Block founded Engadget and co-founded gadget blog Gizmodo. They were actually founded and co-founded by Peter Rojas. This has been corrected. Read the full article

#Fashionblogger #politicalblogging #post #Thehistory #WoWinsider

0 notes

margdarsanme · 4 years ago

Text

NCERT Class 12 English Novel The Invisible Man

NCERT Class 12 English :: The Invisible Man

(English Novels)

ABOUT THE NOVELIST

ABOUT THE NOVEL

SUMMARY OF THE NOVEL

burn down his landlord’s building;

wander around London;

steal from a department store;

put on a ridiculous outfit from a theatrical costume shop and go to Iping to work.

CHAPTERWISE SUMMARY & QUESTIONSChapter-1

I. PLOT/THEME-BASED

II. CHARACTER-BASED

Chapter-2

I. PLOT/THEME-BASED

Chapter-3

I. PLOT/THEME-BASED

Chapter-4

I. PLOT/THEME-BASED

Chapter-5

I. PLOT/THEME-BASED

Chapter-6

I. PLOT/THEME-BASED

Chapter-7

I. PLOT/THEME-BASED

Chapter-8

I. PLOT/THEME-BASED

Chapter-9

I. PLOT/THEME-BASED

II. CHARACTER-BASED

Chapter-10

I. PLOT/THEME-BASED

Chapter-11

I. PLOT/THEME-BASED

Chapter-12

I. PLOT/THEME-BASED

Chapter-13

I. PLOT/THEME-BASED

Chapter-14

I. PLOT/THEME-BASED

Chapter-15

I. PLOT/THEME-BASED

Chapter-16

I. PLOT/THEME-BASED

Chapter-17

I. PLOT/THEME-BASED

II. CHARACTER-BASED

Chapter-18

I. PLOT/THEME-BASED

Chapter-19

I. PLOT/THEME-BASED

II. CHARACTER-BASED

Chapter-20

I. PLOT/THEME-BASED

Chapter-21

I. PLOT/THEME-BASED

Chapter-22

I. PLOT/THEME-BASED

Chapter-23

I. PLOT/THEME-BASED

II. CHARACTER-BASED

Chapter-24

I. PLOT/THEME-BASED

Chapter-25

I. PLOT/THEME-BASED

Question 1:What measures need to be taken to prevent the invisible man from leaving the district of Burdock?Answer:

He must be prevented from eating and sleeping; day and night.

Food must be locked up and secured so that he will have to break his way to it.

The houses everywhere must be barred for him.

The whole countryside must begin hunting and keep on hunting.

Get Hopps and the railway managers on alert.

Question 2:What inhuman things did Dr. Kemp advise Adye to do in order to catch the invisible man in any case?Answer:

Kemp advised Adye to arrange for the dogs. They could not see him but can wind him by his body smell. Adye told Kemp that the prison officials at Halstead knew a man who has bloodhbunds.

After eating, the food in the stomach shows until it is assimilated. So that he has to hide after eating. You must keep on beating every thicket and every quiet corner.

He also advised Adye to spread powdered glass on roads, though it is inhuman and unsportsmanlike.

Chapter-26

I. PLOT/THEME-BASED

Chapter-27

I. PLOT/THEME-BASED

Chapter-28

L PLOT/THEME-BASED

via Blogger https://ift.tt/31PzzUU

#Blogger #NCERT Class 12 English

0 notes

margdarsanme · 4 years ago

Text

NCERT Class 12 English Novel The Invisible Man

NCERT Class 12 English :: The Invisible Man

(English Novels)

ABOUT THE NOVELIST

ABOUT THE NOVEL

SUMMARY OF THE NOVEL

burn down his landlord’s building;

wander around London;

steal from a department store;

put on a ridiculous outfit from a theatrical costume shop and go to Iping to work.

CHAPTERWISE SUMMARY & QUESTIONSChapter-1

I. PLOT/THEME-BASED

II. CHARACTER-BASED

Chapter-2

I. PLOT/THEME-BASED

Chapter-3

I. PLOT/THEME-BASED

Chapter-4

I. PLOT/THEME-BASED

Chapter-5

I. PLOT/THEME-BASED

Chapter-6

I. PLOT/THEME-BASED

Chapter-7

I. PLOT/THEME-BASED

Chapter-8

I. PLOT/THEME-BASED

Chapter-9

I. PLOT/THEME-BASED

II. CHARACTER-BASED

Chapter-10

I. PLOT/THEME-BASED

Chapter-11

I. PLOT/THEME-BASED

Chapter-12

I. PLOT/THEME-BASED

Chapter-13

I. PLOT/THEME-BASED

Chapter-14

I. PLOT/THEME-BASED

Chapter-15

I. PLOT/THEME-BASED

Chapter-16

I. PLOT/THEME-BASED

Chapter-17

I. PLOT/THEME-BASED

II. CHARACTER-BASED

Chapter-18

I. PLOT/THEME-BASED

Chapter-19

I. PLOT/THEME-BASED

II. CHARACTER-BASED

Chapter-20

I. PLOT/THEME-BASED

Chapter-21

I. PLOT/THEME-BASED

Chapter-22

I. PLOT/THEME-BASED

Chapter-23

I. PLOT/THEME-BASED

II. CHARACTER-BASED

Chapter-24

I. PLOT/THEME-BASED

Chapter-25

I. PLOT/THEME-BASED

Question 1:What measures need to be taken to prevent the invisible man from leaving the district of Burdock?Answer:

He must be prevented from eating and sleeping; day and night.

Food must be locked up and secured so that he will have to break his way to it.

The houses everywhere must be barred for him.

The whole countryside must begin hunting and keep on hunting.

Get Hopps and the railway managers on alert.

Question 2:What inhuman things did Dr. Kemp advise Adye to do in order to catch the invisible man in any case?Answer:

Kemp advised Adye to arrange for the dogs. They could not see him but can wind him by his body smell. Adye told Kemp that the prison officials at Halstead knew a man who has bloodhbunds.

After eating, the food in the stomach shows until it is assimilated. So that he has to hide after eating. You must keep on beating every thicket and every quiet corner.

He also advised Adye to spread powdered glass on roads, though it is inhuman and unsportsmanlike.

Chapter-26

I. PLOT/THEME-BASED

Chapter-27

I. PLOT/THEME-BASED

Chapter-28

L PLOT/THEME-BASED

via Blogger https://ift.tt/31PzzUU

#Blogger #NCERT Class 12 English

0 notes

mapstudiodesign-blog · 7 years ago

Text

The world's 50 most powerful blogs

1. The Huffington Post

2. Boing Boing

3. Techcrunch

4. Kottke

5. Dooce

6. Perezhilton

7. Talking points memo

8. Icanhascheezburger

9. Beppe Grillo

10. Gawker

11. The Drudge Report

12. Xu Jinglei

13. Treehugger

14. Microsiervos

15. TMZ

16. Engadget

17. Marbury

18. Chez Pim

19. Basic thinking

20. The Sartorialist

21. Students for a free Tibet

22. Jezebel

23. Gigazine

24. Girl with a one-track mind

25. Mashable

26. Greek tragedy

27. Holy Moly

28. Michelle Malkin

29. Cranky flier

30. Go fug yourself

31. Gaping void

32. Dirtydirty dancing

33. Crooked timber

34. Beansprouts

35. The offside

36. Peteite Anglaise

37. Crooks and liars

38. Chocolate and Zucchini

39. Samizdata

40. The daily dish

41. The F word

42. Jonny B's private secret diary

43. Popjustice

44. Waiter rant

45. Hecklerspray

46. WoWinsider

47. Angry black bitch

48. Stylebubble

49. AfterEllen

50. Copyblogger

#Fashionblogger #politicalblogging #post #Thehistory #WoWinsider

0 notes