Vampires in Society and Mass Media Essay Example for Free

Vampires in Society and Mass Media Essay Vampires. The living dead. Immortals. They go by many names, but whatever they are called, they are known by people in every culture. They haunt our nightmares and color our dreams, turning the night into a sinister and mysterious place. Whether we see them in movies or books, or hear their stories around the campfire, vampires are all around us, rooted deep in our minds. But what are vampires, exactly, and where did they come from? The unknown has always been a cause for fear in people. The dark, death- we don’t know what they hold, and our imaginations run wild trying to prepare our minds. â€Å" it is not surprising that primitive societies the world over†¦ have created whole pantheons of gods and demons, all supposedly out to gorge themselves on human flesh and blood.† (Frost, 1989) Legends stem back to the beginnings of religious lore, of a female vampire called Empusae by the Greeks, Lamia by the Romans, Lilitu by the Babylonians, and Lilith by the Hebrews, a succubus bent on the ensnarement of young men. So how do people think of vampires today? Until recently, the stereotypical vampire was known to be pale-skinned and soulless; a killer who gorged on blood to survive, who had no reflection and could not bear the presence of any holy object or garlic, could not cross running water, and could be killed with a stake through the heart or from exposure to sunlight, which burned. Today, many different variations of the legend exist, from psychic vampirism, which is a mysterious process whereby certain persons are able to steal other peoples vitality without even touching them (Frost, 1989), to vampirism of a scientific nature, existing in a normal human with a soul. While on the subject of vampires, one must also talk about their slayers. The name Van Helsing always comes up when on the topic of vampire slayers, whether its Abraham Van Helsing form the original Dracula, or Gabriel Van Helsing from the movie, Van Helsing. One must also mention Buffy Summers, from the popular 90s television show, Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Each of these characters hunts and kills evil vampires that prey on and murder innocent victims. They are the heroes. In some stories, however, the vampire slayers are the villains, attempting to murder vampires seen as good or innocent, a newer concept. The most well-known vampire story is Bram Stokers 1897 book, Dracula. Set in Victorian London, it tells the story of Jonathan Harker and his fiancà ©e Mina Murray. Harker is sent to Transylvania to help the mysterious Count Dracula with a real estate transaction, but he soon realizes that he is being held prisoner, kept weak by Dracula’s three wives. Dracula then travels to London and begins feeding on Lucy Westenra, a friend of Minas. Her fiancà ©e, Arthur Holmwood, later known as Lord Godalming, and other suitors, Quincy P. Morris and Dr. John Seward, enlist the help of Dr. Abraham Van Helsing, â€Å"renowned as a specialist in rare diseases of the blood† (Joshi, 2011), when they see her wasting away, and attempt to give her multiple blood transfusions, but she eventually dies and rises again as a vampire to feed on the young children of London. Harker manages to escape from the ‘sisters’ and is met by Mina in Budapest, where they are married before ret urning to England. Dracula begins visiting Mina, and the men quickly realize what is happening to her. With her help, they lure Dracula back to his Transylvanian castle, â€Å"where he is dispatched (with knives) by Harker and Morris† (Joshi, 2011). Originally entitled The Un-Dead, Dracula is written in the form of notes in shorthand and transcribed on typewriters, gramophone recordings, telegraph messages, and journal entries of the various characters. The Count himself is the only major character who does not narrate the story at some point. While Dracula is certainly now well-known by most everyone, it did not become popular until it was adapted for film and the stage. At the Lyceum Theater in London in 1987, Bram Stoker presented a stage reading of an abbreviated version of Dracula. This helped him secure the performance rights for his novel. The first Dracula movie was made in 1922 and titled Nosferatu in an attempt to avoid paying royalties to the Stoker estate. 1931 introduced perhaps the most famous Dracula yet known in Bela Lugosi, a Hungarian actor whose voice and physical appearance formed the character of Dracula for many years to come. Many other adaptations have since been created, the most recent being Bram Stoker’s Dracula in 1992. The closest match to Bram Stoker’s original book is the 1972 film version of Count Dracula. â€Å"Anne Rice has long been credited with reviving the vampire as a cultural icon, introducing it to a huge mainstream audience and influencing most interpretations of the archetype that followed hers.† (Joshi, 2011) Although she originally had trouble reading as a child, Rice wrote Interview with a Vampire in 1973, based on a short story she had written in 1968. Interview with a Vampire is about a man who is turned into a vampire and does not want to kill. Her second Vampire Chronicles novel, The Vampire Lestat, is tells the story of Lestat, who originally created Louis from Interview with a Vampire, and he dissents with Louis’s opinions of him and gives much more information of the vampire world than was given in Interview with a Vampire. She continues Lestat’s story with The Queen of the Damned, The Tale of the Body Thief, Memnoch the Devil, and The Vampire Armand. Then, she crossed her vampire Chronicles novels with her Mayfair witches series in Merrick, Blackwood Farm, and Blood Canticle. To date, Interview with a Vampire and The Queen of the Damned have been adapted into movies, and a play named Lestat, based on Rice’s Vampire Chronicles, has been adapted for the theater. In 2005, Stephenie Meyer began the first novel in her Twilight saga. The series consists of Twilight, New Moon, Eclipse, and Breaking Dawn. It follows Bella Swan, an awkward teenager who meets a mysterious boy in school and comes to find he is a vampire. As the series continues, several attempts are made on Bella’s life because she knows about vampires, and eventually she marries Edward and is turned into a vampire after giving birth to a human-vampire hybrid. The books have so far been made into four movies, and a fifth is scheduled to come out November 16. Other vampire stories are created simply as movies. The Underworld series is about a race of vampires that is at war with a race of werewolves, called Lycans. It includes the movies Underworld, Underworld: Evolution, Underworld: Rise of the Lycans, and Underworld: Awakening. Recently movies like Daybreakers have been made, where vampires have basically overrun the humans. In the movie Blade, Blade is a human-vampire hybrid who protects the humans from vampires. Vampires have even been introduced into children’s shows. The Disney channel show My Babysitter’s a Vampire has a cast full of teenage vampires protecting their small town of Whitechapel from other strange monsters. Even in Sesame Street, The Count teaches small children how to count and the alphabet. The 2000 movie The Little Vampire is about a little boy who tries to save his new vampire friends and their family from an evil vampire slayer. Vampires have been a big part of society and entertainment. From books to movies to TV, everyone has heard of, read about, and watched vampires throughout their lives, and it is unlikely that they will go out of style anytime soon. With the Edward Cullens, Lestats, and Draculas of the world out there, it looks like we will always have vampires around, and we’re okay with that. Vampires help us consider life after death, mortality, and even our relationships with other people. They show us that no matter how bad things get, you can always change for the better. Works Cited Bram Stoker’s Dracula. Dir. Francis Ford Coppola. Columbia, 1992. Film. Florescu, Radu and McNally, Raymond T. The Complete Dracula. Acton: Copley, 1992. Print. Frost, Brian J. The Monster with a Thousand Faces: Guises of the Vampire in Myth and Literature. Bowling Green: BGSU Popular Press, 1989. Print. Interview with a Vampire. Dir. Neil Jordan. Warner Bros., 1994. Film. Jenkins, Mark Collins. Vampire Forensics: Uncovering the Origins of an Enduring Legend. Washington: National Geographic, 2010. Print. Joshi, S. T. Encyclopedia of the Vampire: The Living Dead in Myth, Legend, and Popular Culture. Santa Barbara: Greenwood, 2011. Print. Kane, Tim. The Changing Vampire of Film and Television: A Critical Study of the Growth of a Genre. Jefferson: McFarland, 2003. Print. McClelland, Bruce A. Slayers and their Vampires: A Cultural History of Killing the Dead. Ann Arbor: UM Press, 2003. Print. McNally, Raymond T. A Clutch of Vampires: These Being Among the Best from History and Lit erature. 25 vols. Greenwich: NY Graphic, 1974. Print. Schott, Gareth and Moffat, Kirstine, eds. Fanpires: Audience Consumption of the Modern Vampire. Washington: New Academic, 2011. Print. The Queen of the Damned. Dir. Michael Rymer. Roadshow, 2002. Film. Underworld. Dir. Len Wiseman. Warner Bros., 2003. Film. Wright, Dudley. The Book of Vampires. New York: Causeway, 1973. Print.

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There is a wide range of concepts and definitions for companies The company is a contract whereby committed by two or more people that all of them contribute in a project designed to profit .by providing a share of the money or work-sharing that may result from the project of the profit or loss. Because of the definition of the company as a contract that requires the company to need to undergo this decade, the general rules and laws in the contracts and therefore recognize freely contractors in the organization and determine what arises from the rights and obligations and duties . Another definition of the company which is an association or group of individuals, members and people sharing common goals , vision and unite in order to focus about various organizing skills collectively or available resources to achieve the stated goals specific. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Company There is a wide range of companies in the Sultanate of Oman and the most important and oldest of these companies are Oman Telecommunications Company Omantel is the leading company in the provision of integrated telecommunications services in the Sultanate of Oman and through the provision of a variety of modern and advanced services . Oman Telecommunications Company offers range of services that keep pace with technological development in the world. Omantel provides transmission networks that cover all parts of the Sultanate of Oman and enjoy this network signal strength . Oman Telecommunications Company Characterizes in sophistication in dealing with clients it is always listen to their ideas and opinions , proposals. They try very hard to achieve all the promises to keep up the needs of customers . The Omantel is considered as one of the tributaries o... ...t obtain approvals from other competent authorities and the following companies : 1 - The financial leasing companies , banks and financial institutions, and exchange companies that want to establish a commercial activity in Oman obtain approval from the Central Bank of Oman 2 - the insurance companies and the relevant agencies that want to set up business in Oman must get approval from the Department of Insurance in the Ministry of Trade and Industry / Capital Market Authority . 3 - industrial companies that want to set up business in Oman should get approved by the Ministry of Trade and Industry. 4 - medical products must be obtained approval by the Ministry of Health. the activities of printing and publishing and broadcasting must obtained approval for by the Ministry of Information and Culture. http://www.pkf.com/media/506937/doing%20business%20in%20oman.pdf

Are young people feel to being too protected Essay

Parents often believe that it is better to be safe than sorry. Do you consider young people to be too protected? Whenever you come across the word â€Å"childhood†, you can sense the freedom to do everything, you can see yourself on all smiles and even you can remember the silly things you have done with your friends when you were young which could make induce a sense of humour till now. Well not anymore. In today’s world, parents prevent them from letting them go out and venture, they do not allow their children to do activities and lastly solving their children’s own problem. Nowadays, helicopter parents do not allow their child to go out and venture the world. Helicopter parents do not allow their children to go out as they are afraid about their child being kidnapped. If this continued, children would be immature and sad to say that they would continue to . To prove my point, a research was done by Cambridge University on the crime rate from ten years ago till now. The results tells us that crime rate has decreased by a whopping 86.81%. On the contrary, some critics may argue that children are immature, thus they are unprepared to face the world. But this is part of life, learning should never be obstructed and the more experienced they are, the more matured they will be. Ernest Dimnet once said that, â€Å"Children have to be educated, but they have also to be left to educate themselves.†. Therefore, this brings to me to my point that parents are overprotective. In today’s world, it is a common sight to see helicopter parents preventing their child to do activities such as cycling, skating or even walking to school. They are chained to their home making children prisoners in their own homes. This is because they are afraid that their child may contract something â€Å"disastrous† such as fever, minor injuries. Research conducted by Cambridge University tells us that children ten years ago have 65% lesser children suffering from obesity than children now. This is due to parents not allowing their child exercise. If this continued, children will get obese and may get long term medical conditions such as High blood pressure.  On the other hand, parents may argue by not allowing their children, they can prevent their children from being kidnapped by con man. This is the same worry once Lenore Skenazy, author of free range kids and America’s Worst Mom, had this same problem when she let her 9 year old to take the subway. But soon it has paid off when her son returned home all smiles. Therefore, this tells that children are overprotected. Lastly, a research done by National University of Singapore tells us that a whopping 78.69% of children, between the age of 10 to 15, who participated in the research lacks basic problem solving skills and a majority of children are brought up by helicopter parents. Nowadays, children share their problems to their parents, soon their parents will be worried and they will handle their problems. Because of that, children lack problem solving skills and become more reliant to their parents. On the other side of the coin, some critics may argue that children can pick up problem solving skills by attending courses or go for counselling. But which children will be interested to attend courses or go for counselling, and also a famous author, Paulo Coelho, once said that â€Å"People never learn anything by being told, they have to find out for themselves.†. Thus, this can tell us that young people are overprotected. To oppose this point, some critics may argue that children are naive and gullible. They make decisions without analysing the aftermath of it. Afraid of that, parents prevent their children from making decisions. To illustrate this point, here is an scenario. Imagine your 15 year old daughter was proposed by a guy. Being in a dilemma whether to accept or not, she follows her intuition and accepts his proposal. So without you knowing she has been hanging out with her â€Å"life partner†. Then one day, she comes at your doorsteps, crying and limping at the same time. Then she tells you what had happened. Then you came to know that she got raped by the guy she had proposed without you knowing. There goes her virginity. There goes your pride. There goes your faith. There goes your daughter’s future. You cannot rewind back into time to stop this. And there you are now feeling that you were a useless parent to your daughter. Back to my point, to prevent this types of problem, parents should effective communication with their children  and when they have done something wrong, you should advise them on what they should do to prevent the situation to happen again, rather than yelling and abusing them which would not bring any solution to the problem but making the problem even worse. In this way, we could prevent being an overprotective parent and establish a bond something more than a Parent-Child relationship. Before I end off my essay, let me tell you my opinion about this topic. Parents do show more care and compassion to their children than anyone could do. Due to that, parents tends to become over protective and they aim to let their child have a stress-free life. But the problem is that with the aim of theirs, their children are being over protected. Thus, their children becomes immature, becoming less confident to solve their own problems and lastly becoming less experienced. Thus, I can firmly conclude that young people are being overprotected!

Cochlear Implant Research On The Deaf Community - 962 Words

Monica Lopez Block 3 - ASL II May 15, 2015 Cochlear Implant Research Paper A cochlear implant is an ear adequate size complex electronic device. This electronic is used to provide sound to a person who is completely deaf or to a high intense hard-of-hearing. This product has had a great impact in the deaf community and has continued to evolve for over 40 years. There is two parts to getting this type of implant; the internal and external part. The external part consists of a microphone, a transmitter, and a speech processor. The microphone is a small like box that sits right behind the ear to pick up sounds. A speech processor works together with the microphone and transmitter which is under the skin to computerize the coded signals that have been analyzed in the speech processor. With the internal part of this implant it is surgically implanted by drilling in the temporal bone and mastoid bone. To the internal part there is two parts, the receiver and the electrodes. The receiver takes the coded signals that came from the transmitter and sends them to the array of electrodes that were surgically implanted in the cochlea. The electrodes stimulate the fibers of the hearing nerves,and make the sounds recognizable. The inventor of the cochlear implant is Graeme Clark. This Australian doctor was inspired by his deaf father. Clark started doi ng research in 1967 on a device that would enable for someone to hear. In the 1970s when Clark had his first recipient fromShow MoreRelatedHearing Aids : The New Era Of Understanding Technology And Incorporating It Into Everyday Life Essay1636 Words   |  7 Pageshearing aids has been surpassed by the cochlear implant. A cochlear implant is an electronic device that, unlike hearing aids, replace the sensation of sound by replacing the damaged inner part of the ear. This brings the issue of the growing cultural gap between the deaf community and the Speech- Language Pathologists who encourage the use of the implants. 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The use of cochlear implants has become a very controversial topic within the deaf community. My question was inspired by the sources â€Å"Why Is Dancing So Good for Your Brain† and â€Å"from Mapping the Bilingual Brain†. Both sources mentioned sign language, which made me think about the debate over whether deaf people should receive a cochlear implant or communicate solely through sign language. The first single channel