Of Mice and Men :: essays research papers

In John Steinbeck’s novel, Of Mice and Men, he uses Crooks to express loneliness because his character is a perfect example of how it was to be a black man. Steinbeck uses Crooks to show his readers what it was like to be lonely. Crooks is the loneliest in the novel because he has no one to talk and he is black.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Crooks was introduced to the novel as just a black stable buck. Before his character appeared, the men talked about him as if he were a horse, and they made fun of him because he walked with a limp. He had a limp because he was kicked in the spine by a horse once. When he finally showed up, it was just to receive an order, and the way he did it seemed like he was a frightened animal, terrified of his owner’s whip. He had no one to talk to, no one to keep him company and no one to treat him like he was important. In chapter 4, Lennie goes into Crooks’ room and they start talking about being lonely. Crooks says to Lennie †Ã¢â‚¬â„¢Books ain’t no good. A guy needs somebody ___ to be near him.’ He wined, ‘A guy goes nuts if he ain’t got nobody. Don’t make no difference who the guy is, long’s he’s with you’†(72). This shows you how lonely Crooks gets all by himself with nothing to do but re ad. Even though it seems like he is talking about any guy that is lonely, he is expressing what he feels inside. That is one of the many examples that shows how Crooks feels.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚     Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  In the nineteen thirties, the Great Depression occurred. It was a time when money was scarce, lots of people lost their jobs and became poor, and sometimes homeless. Crooks did hard labor and obeyed every command given by the boss. If he lost his job, he would have no where to go. No one would hire anybody because of the money problem in that time, and if they did, it wouldn’t be a black man, let alone, a crippled black man. So Crooks was basically stuck in the same place for awhile, and he was without anybody to talk to. At least being a stable buck he had people around him most of the time. In chapter 4, Crooks and Lennie have a conversation about Crooks being a black.

Cheesy Wheezy Essay

Starting as a small retail store in New Glarus, Wisconsin, the Cheezy Wheezy firm had slowly grown into a chain of nine retail shops located in southern Wisconsin and northern Illinois. In recent years, nearly all its competitors had begun issuing catalogs, widely distributed in late October, advertising gift packages of cheeses, jams, jellies, and other fancy food items. Henry Wilson, son of the firm’s founder, had convinced his father that Cheezy Wheezy should also issue a catalog. It was then March, and the last snows were melting. Henry Wilson had called his third staff meeting in as many weeks to discuss the catalog project. Present were Henry (whose title was vice president); Susan Moore, the sales manager; Jeff Bell, the inventory manager; and Robert Walker, the traffic manager. Also present was Robert Caldwell, from a Milwaukee-based ad agency that was handling many aspects of the catalog project. Moore and Caldwell had just finished describing the catalog’s tentative design and the allocation of catalog pages to various product lines. Caldwell then said, â€Å"We are to the point where we must design the order form, which will be stapled inside the center pages. It will be a single 8 1/2-by-11-inch sheet. The customer will remove it from the catalog, complete it, fold it into the envelope shape, lick the gummed lines, and mail it in. The order form will be on one side of the sheet. On the other will be the instructions for folding and Cheezy Wheezy’s mailing address in New Glarus; the remainder of the space will be ads for some impulse items. Right now we’re thinking of a Santa Claus–shaped figure molded out of cheese. â€Å"Enough of that,† said Wilson, â€Å"this group isn’t here to discuss Santa dolls. We’re here to design the order form. We may also have to talk a little about selling terms. Susan? † Responding to her cue, Moore said, â€Å"Our biggest problem is how to handle the transportation and shipping costs. We’ve studied all our competitors’ catalogs. Some absorb the costs into the product’s price, some charge by weight of the order, some charge by money value of order, and some ship COD. † â€Å"How important are shipping costs, Susan? † asked Bell. â€Å"Plenty,† was her response. They run $2 to $3 for a 1- or 2-pound package. If you take a pound of cheese that we sell in our retail stores for $2, here are our costs if it goes by catalog: cost of goods, $1; order management, 50 cents; overhead, including inventory carrying costs, 50 cents; packaging for shipment, 50 cents; and transportation costs to any point in the United States ranging between $1. 75 and $3. 20. If, however, we’re dealing with bigger shipments, the relative costs vary. †  "I’m not following you,† said Wilson. â€Å"It’s like this,† responded Moore. The wholesale cost of cheese to us is the same per pound, no matter how much is sold. Order-processing costs are approximately the same for each order we’ll be receiving by mail. Overhead and inventory carrying costs are always present but may be allocated in a variety of ways. Packaging costs are also about the same per order. They go up only a few cents as we move to larger cartons. Transportation costs are hard to describe because of their tapers. Right now our whole catalog project is bogged down with the problem of transportation cost tapers. † â€Å"Tapers? † said Wilson, turning to Walker. You’ve never told me about tapers before. It sounds like some kind of animal. † â€Å"That’s tapir, t-a-p-i-r,† said Walker. â€Å"We’re talking about tapers, t-a-p-e-r-s. † â€Å"Oh,† said Wilson. â€Å"What are they? † â€Å"When one ships small packages of cheese,† said Walker, â€Å"rates are based on two factors, the weight being shipped and the distance. As weight or distance increases or both—the rates go up but not as quickly. This is called the tapering principle. To ship 2 pounds of cheese from New Glarus to St. Louis costs $2. 40; 3 pounds cost $3. 30; 5 pounds cost $4. 60; and so on. One hundred pounds—no, 50 pounds is a better example because some of the parcel services we’ll be using won’t take 100 pounds—50 pounds would cost $21. There’s also a distance taper. The 2-pound shipment that costs $2. 40 to St. Louis is $3. 40 to Denver and $4. 15 to Los Angeles. † â€Å"Can’t we use the average transportation costs? † asked Bell. â€Å"That’s what we do with inventory carrying costs. † â€Å"Won’t work,† said Caldwell. â€Å"You’ll be overpriced for small, short-distance shipments and will lose sales. For heavy long shipments, you’ll be underpriced and will make so many sales that you might soon go belly up. Wilson shuddered and inquired, â€Å"Does that mean we charge by weight and by distance? † Moore answered, â€Å"It’s not that easy. In the cheese business, people buy by the pound, but shipping weights—which include packaging—are actua lly more. A customer who orders 3 pounds of cheese is in fact receiving 3 pounds of cheese plus 6 ounces of packaging materials. I wish we could sell a pound of cheese that consisted of 14 ounces of cheese and 2 ounces of packing material, but that would be illegal at worst, and of questionable ethics, at best. † â€Å"We have the same problems with distance,† added Walker. We’re trying to sell in 50 states, but who knows how far they are from New Glarus? We could have tables and maps in the catalog, but they take up valuable selling space. Also, if it looks too complex, we may just turn off some potential customers before they complete their orders. † â€Å"Some of our clients have another problem,† added Caldwell, â€Å"and that is split orders. The customer will want 10 pounds of cheese, but it will be five 2-pound packages sent to five different locations. That has an impact on both packaging and transportation costs. † â€Å"So, what do we do? â₠¬  asked Wilson.

Amerigo Vespucci, Explorer and Navigator

Amerigo Vespucci (1454-1512) was a Florentine sailor, explorer, and trader. He was one of the more colorful characters of the early age of discovery in the Americas and captained one of the first journeys to the New World. His lurid descriptions of the New World natives made his accounts extremely popular in Europe and as a result, it is his name - Amerigo - which eventually would be modified into America and given to two continents. Early Life Amerigo was born into a wealthy family of Florentine silk traders who had a princely estate near the city of Peretola. They were very prominent citizens of Florence and many Vespuccis held important offices. Young Amerigo received an excellent education and served for a time as a diplomat before settling in Spain just in time to witness the excitement of Columbus first voyage. He decided that he, too, wanted to be an explorer. The Alonso de Hojeda Expedition In 1499, Vespucci joined the expedition of Alonso de Hojeda (also spelled Ojeda), a veteran of Columbus second voyage. The 1499 expedition included four ships and was accompanied by well-known cosmographer and cartographer Juan de la Cosa, who had gone on Columbus first two voyages. The expedition explored much of the northeastern coast of South America, including stops in Trinidad and Guyana. They also visited a tranquil bay and named it Venezuela, or Little Venice. The name stuck. Like Columbus, Vespucci suspected that he may have been looking at the long-lost Garden of Eden, the Earthly Paradise. The expedition found some gold, pearls, and emeralds and captured some slaves for sale, but still was not very profitable. Return to the New World Vespucci had earned a reputation as a skilled sailor and leader during his time with Hojeda, and he was able to convince the King of Portugal to finance a three-ship expedition in 1501. He had become convinced during his first trip that the lands he had seen were not, in fact, Asia, but something altogether new and previously unknown. The purpose of his 1501-1502 journey, therefore, became the location of a practical passage to Asia. He explored the eastern coast of South America, including much of Brazil, and may have gone as far as the Platte River in Argentina before returning to Europe. On this journey, he became more convinced than ever that the recently discovered lands were something new: the coast of Brazil that he had explored was much too far to the south to be India. This put him at odds with Christopher Columbus, who insisted until his death that the lands he had discovered were, in fact, Asia. In Vespuccis letters to his friends and patrons, he explained his new theories. Fame and Celebrity Vespuccis journey was not an extremely important one in relation to many of the others taking place at the time. Nevertheless, the seasoned navigator found himself something of a celebrity within a short time due to the publication of some letters he had allegedly written to his friend, Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco de Medici. Published under the name Mundus Novus (New World) the letters became an immediate sensation. They included fairly direct (for the sixteenth century) descriptions of sexuality (naked women!) as well as the radical theory that the recently discovered lands were, in fact, new. Mundus Novis was followed closely by a second publication, Quattuor Americi Vesputi Navigationes (Four Voyages of Amerigo Vespucci). Supposedly letters from Vespucci to Piero Soderini, a Florentine statesman, the publication describes four voyages (1497, 1499, 1501 and 1503) undertaken by Vespucci. Most historians believe some of the letters to be fakes: there is little other evidence that Vespucci even made the 1497 and 1503 journeys. Whether some of the letters were fakes or not, the two books were immensely popular in Europe. Translated into several languages, they were passed around and discussed exhaustively. Vespucci became an instant celebrity and was asked to serve on the committee which advised the King of Spain about New World policy. America In 1507, Martin Waldseemà ¼ller, who worked in the town of Saint-Dià © in Alsace, published two maps together with Cosmographiae Introductio, an introduction to cosmography. The book included the purported letters from Vespucci’s four voyages as well as sections reprinted from  Ptolemy. On the maps, he referred to the newly discovered lands as â€Å"America,† in honor of Vespucci. It included an engraving of Ptolemy looking to the East and Vespucci looking to the West. Waldseemà ¼ller also gave Columbus plenty of credit, but it was the name America that stuck in the New World. Later Life Vespucci only ever made two journeys to the New World. When his fame spread, he was named to a board of royal advisers in Spain along with former shipmate Juan de la Cosa, Vicente Yà ¡Ãƒ ±ez Pinzà ³n (captain of the Nià ±a on Columbus’ first voyage) and Juan Dà ­az de Solà ­s. Vespucci was named  Piloto Mayor, â€Å"Chief Pilot† of the Spanish Empire, in charge of establishing and documenting routes to the west. It was a lucrative and important position as all expeditions needed pilots and navigators, all of whom were answerable to him. Vespucci established a school of sorts, to train pilots and navigators, modernize long-distance navigation, collect charts and journals and basically collect and centralize all cartographic information. He died in 1512. Legacy Were it not for his famous name, immortalized on not one but two continents,  Amerigo Vespucci  would today no doubt be a minor figure in world history, well-known to historians but unheard of outside of certain circles. Contemporaries such as Vicente Yà ¡Ãƒ ±ez Pinzà ³n and Juan de la Cosa were arguably more important explorers and navigators. Heard of them? Didn’t think so. That’s not to lessen Vespucci’s accomplishments, which were considerable. He was a very talented navigator and explorer who was respected by his men. When he served as Piloto Mayor, he encouraged key advances in navigation and trained future navigators. His letters – whether he actually wrote them or not – inspired many to learn more about the New World and colonize it. He was neither the first nor the last to envision the route to the west that was eventually discovered by  Ferdinand Magellan  and  Juan Sebastià ¡n Elcano, but he was one of the best-known. It’s even arguable that he deserves the eternal recognition of having his name on North and South America. He was one of the first to openly defy the still-influential Columbus and declare that the New World was, in fact, something new and unknown and not simply a previously-uncharted part of Asia. It took courage to contradict not only Columbus but all of the ancient writers (such as  Aristotle) who had no knowledge of continents to the west. Source: Thomas, Hugh.  Rivers of Gold: The Rise of the Spanish Empire, from Columbus to Magellan.  New York: Random House, 2005.