Book review Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Book review - Assignment Example Despite being an anarchist, he strongly opposed the use of violence to solve the problems facing society. Rather, he believed that the society could be reformed through active non-violence. The story in the novel The Adventures of Caleb Williams revolves around Caleb, who despite being a poor orphan, manages to get better education. He later earns a lot of respect from community members owing to his enlightenment. The novel, basically, gives an account of the position taken by Caleb with respect to the wealthiest man in the neighborhood, Mr. Falkland (Godwin 2004, p.5). The fact that Mr. Falkland has a lot of wealth in the village makes his respectable to the extent that villagers, including Caleb, worship him. Nevertheless, Caleb appears to be very suspicious of Mr. Falkland. He believes that Mr. Falkland engages in unethical activities. As a result, Caleb decides to investigate Mr. Falkland’s past only to unearth some damning information. In the novel The Adventures of Caleb William, Godwin as the author tries to expose the rot in the political and social spheres of England during the 18th century (Godwin 2004, p.6). Godwin exposes vices by giving an overview of the injustices that were the orders of the day in the prison system. He also exposes the oppression of peasants by landlords, the oppression of the poor by the elite, as well the oppression of common citizens by government. The author reveals the injustice of the political and social system through various scenes. For example, he exposes an incident in which Mr. Falkland, knowingly and willingly, witnesses the execution of two innocent men for a crime that he committed himself. This is brought out when Caleb exposes the secret murder of Tyrrel, one of the landlords, by Falkland. Immediately after the murder, Caleb informs the public that Falkland used his power and wealth to blame two innocent men for the murder that led to the execution of the two innocent men (Godwin 2004, p.9). Nevertheless, when Falkland discovers that Caleb knows the truth about the incident, he threatens Caleb with grave consequences, warning him against exposing him further to the public. Despite the threats that he receives from Falkland, Caleb goes ahead to expose murder to the public, a move that puts him at loggerheads with Falkland. Caleb ends up paying the price of revealing the truth when Falkland implants jewelry in his bag later accusing him of being a thief (Godwin 2004, p.16). Without the authorities carrying proper and impartial investigations, Caleb ends up in prison. After staying in prison for a while, Caleb makes a daring escape but he is later recaptured in the streets of London. However, his release from prison comes quick with the intervention of Falkland. Falkland actually uses his power and wealth to manipulate Caleb’s release from prison (Godwin 2004, p.20) after he senses that he is in jeopardy of revelation of his deeds to a greater extent if he keeps Caleb in prison. As a result, Caleb is released from prison without a trial. This shows how injustice, impunity, and corruption were rife in the society during the time that the novel was written. Godwin’s fictional story gives a clear depiction of painful and intolerable oppression and the kind of bullying that the good people of 18th century were subjected to in their pursuit for justice and equality. Despite being set

Euglena Gracilis Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Euglena Gracilis - Essay Example Euglena Gracilis, the name comes from the Greek words eus and glne, i.e. good eyeball, which refers to the light-sensitive eyespot. Euglena gracilis uses its eyespot to locate light. This is a minute single-celled nutrient-rich freshwater organism of the genus Euglena, having the presence of chlorophyll, a reddish eyespot, and a single anterior flagellum. Euglena gracilis is just one of the many species of Euglena. Euglenas have spindle-shaped bodies, ranging in size from 1/1000 to 1/100 of an inch (0.025 to 0.254 millimeter) long. Most of the species are green in colour as they contain chlorophyll. Euglena produce food through photosynthesis for themselves, and also serve as primary producers for aquatic ecosystems. Some of the species also eat tiny particles of living matter. Euglena are interesting because they are a sort of combination of plant and animal. One the one hand they can make their own food like a plant, but they can also eat other things, like an animal. They can also swim and move. Scientists argued for years about which Kingdom to put them in, Animal or Plant Right now they are in neither; most scientists put them in the Protist Kingdom with other microscopic organisms, such as amoeba and paramecium. Three membranes surround the complex chloroplasts of Euglena. This is unlike chloroplasts of higher plants and most green algae, which are surrounded by two membranes. The additional membranes present a barrier to the import of chloroplast precursor proteins. Traditionally, the genus Euglena has been divided into several groups or subgenera depending mainly on morphological features of the chloroplast and paramylon and on cell rigidity. Euglena Gracilis also has a flagellum, a long hair-like thing, which is used by Euglena to swim. In this experiment we studied the growth of Euglena over a three week period. We took three jars and put the Euglena in each of them. We put rice in one jar and kept it in the dark. So this Euglena got its nutrients solely from the rice. Euglena in another jar was placed in the light with no rice, and this Euglena got its nutrients solely from the light. In the third jar we put rice and also placed this one in the light, so that this Euglena could get nutrients from both light and rice. Each week we checked on the Euglena jars to see which had the greatest exponential growth; From the experiment, we found that the Euglena in the light only did the best (results are summarized in table-1). Table-1: Growth pattern of Euglena over a three week period Jar-1 Euglena with Rice only (growth-cells per field) Jar-2 Euglena with Light only (growth-cells per field) Jar-3 Euglena with Rice and Light (growth-cells per field) Week-1 28 20 40 Week-2 22 31 35 Week-3 24 44 21 Conclusion It is amply clear that Euglena gracilis do behave like plants as well as animals, because when Euglena gracilis doesn't have enough light to make its own food, it looks for other things to eat. In this case rice supported the growth of Euglena. References: 1. Euglena, available online at http://www.fcps.k12.va.us/StratfordLandingES/Ecology/mpages/euglena.htm (Oct 24, 2006). 2. Woongghi Shin and Richard E. Triemer, "Phylogenetic analysis of the genus euglena (euglenophyceae) with particular reference to the type species euglena viridis", 759-770, available online