The Pearl by John Steinbeck :: The Pearl John Steinbeck

The Pearl by John Steinbeck   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The Pearl by John Steinbeck. This book takes place in Mexico during the nineteen hundreds in the city of La Paz.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The main characters are Kino an Indian pearl diver who finds the magnificent pearl and whose life is partially destroyed by this pearl. Juana is Kino's wife and faithful partner and she is obedient and devoted to her family. Coyotito is Kino and Juana's infant son he is bitten by a scorpion and recovers miraculously only to be later killed by a bullet.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The theme of this book is not to let greed or money to get in the way of you or your family. Greed is a destructive force and if not controlled it will effect you a lot maybe even forever, like the death of Kino’s son Coyotito. Another theme is fate because fate was a major aspect to why Kino did not succeed in his dreams of having a luxurious life. When Kino discovered the Pearl he thought that it would take him out of poverty and into a life of happiness. The pearl was not meant for anyone to find, and the finding of one was luck, â€Å"a little pat on the back by God.†Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚     Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The problem in this story is that Kino is trying to sell his pearl and every one bids a low price. That means he keeps it longer and everyone is trying to steal it from him. The conflict is man vs. man the reason why is that a lot of people are trying to steal it from him the day he got it. It went to the point that people were tracking him for it and attacking him in his sleep.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  I hated it when Kino went pearl diving and found the â€Å"pearl of the world,† and started making a scene. When you find something very valuable like that you keep that a secret and under ground. When you make a discovery with something valuable like that you do not deal in front of an audience you do it privately.

The Blind Heart in Carver’s Cathedral Essay -- Carver Cathedral Essays

The Blind Heart in Raymond Carver's Cathedral  Ã‚   A person’s ability to see is often taken for granted as it is in "Cathedral" by Raymond Carver. Although the title suggests that the story is about a cathedral, it is really about two men who are blind, one physically, the other psychologically. One of the men is Robert, the blind friend of the narrator’s wife; the other is the narrator-husband himself. The husband is the man who is psychologically blind. Carver deftly describes the way the husband looks at life: from a very narrow-minded point of view. Two instances in particular illustrate this. The first is that the husband seems to believe that the most important thing to women is being complimented on their looks; the second is that he is unable to imagine his wife’s friend Robert as a person, only as a blind man. Carver consistently characterizes the husband as the real blind man because he is ignorant of so many simple things in life. One of the first hints of the husband’s blindness is addressed early in the story when the husband thinks about the blind man’s wife and says, Imagine a woman who could never see herself as she was seen in the eyes of her loved one. A woman who could go on day after day and never receive the smallest compliment from her beloved. A woman whose husband could never read the expression on her face, be it misery or something better. (1055) The husband seems to be saying that women need to be seen, that this is the most important or only important thing in their lives. He forgets that Robert can hear his wife’s voice, smell her perfume, enjoy her personality, and touch her skin. According to Dorothy Wickenden "Cathedral" is a story about ignorance and vulnerability – the deep-seated... ...is blind. He constantly disregards his sight which he takes for granted. The husband is so narrow-minded and content within his own world, he neglects to "see" the rest of the world. Marc Chenetien said it best: "A spark of hope in ‘Cathedral’ tends to give a potentially new agenda to stories whose ultimate promise seems to remain that blindness unavoidably undercuts all awakenings" (30). Works Cited Allen, Bruce. "Carver." Contemporary Literary Criticism. Ed. Roger Matuz. New York: Gale Research, 1989. 55:103. Burgeja, Michael J. "Carver." Short Story Criticism. Ed. Shelia Fitzgerald. Pasadena: Salem Press, 1990. 8:23. Carver, Raymond. "Cathedral" The Harper Anthology of Fiction: Ed. Sylvan Barnet. New York: HarperCollins, 1991. 1052-1063. Chenetien, Marc. "Carver." Short Story Criticism. Ed. Sheila Fitzgerald. Pasadena: Salem Press, 1990. 8:44.

African American Hardships Essay -- African American Studies

African American Hardships During pre-colonial African kinship and inheritance, it provided the bases of organization of many African American communities. African American men were recognized for the purpose of inheritance. They also inherited their clan names based on their accomplishments, as well as other things when one decease. Land was not owned in many parts of Africa during the pre-colonial period. It was yet held and distributed by African American men. Access to the land by women depended on their obligations or duties within the gendered division of labor. Agriculture was the job of many African women. Men believed in having several wives that would all work together as farm workers and do whatever duties necessary as required. Africa is considered to be a multi-lingual country. There are eleven officially recognized languages their, many of which are often spoken but not widespread. English is generally understood across the country. It is one of the eleven common spoken languages but it only ranks 5th out of the eleven spoken languages. During the 15th and the 19th century, major changes had happened to the African and North American continents. Europeans ventured to Africa where they began a trans-Atlantic slave trade. Many Africans were taken as free people and then forced into slavery in South America, the Caribbean and North America. This slave trade had brought about a different type of racism. It was the color of your skin that determined whether a person would be a free citizen or be enslaved for life. This slave trade also devastated African lives and their heritage. Some slaves were sold and traded more than once, often in a slave market. Families were torn apart, children hysterically cried while t... ...t units to serve in the civil war. Most blacks did not care about what the issues of the war was. They joined because it provided a better income which was an alternative way of making money compared to the poorly paid domestic labor that most blacks had endure. The civil war resulted in the 13th Amendment of the Constitution which abolished slavery all together. Although black soldiers fought in the war which eventually ended slavery, they still did not have civil rights. The whites did not want to share political power with African Americans. This had brought about the 14th and 15th Amendments to the Constitution. African Americans were now guaranteed civil rights. This change opened doors for African Americans so that they can progress and excel in the political system. Public schools were now established and access to jobs outside domestic labor was now available.

HR Management Essay

Innovation is identified as one of the viable ways of ensuring a sustainable competitive advantage for organisations in the modern highly competitive global market economy. Innovative practices in an organisation are solely dependent on the skills, qualifications and objective commitment of the company workforce towards the underlying goals of the organisation (Korman & Kraut, 1999, p. 31). This dictates for the recruitment, training and retention of the best and reliable employees in any organisation. Still, another important practice for ensuring innovative strategic practices in organisation is by ensuring the implementation of an effective employee engagement policy (Tyson, 2006, p. 41). Such serve to promote the commitment and thus the productive ability of the employees to the firm. Therefore, since human resource management services the purpose of recruiting, training, and retaining as well as motivating employees, it has a key role to play in developing innovative strategic practices in order to contribute to organisational performance in today’s rapidly changing economy. This essay will identify some ways in which human resource management can engage in enhancing innovative practices in the company. In order to ensure the sustainable realisation of innovative strategies in an organisation, human resource management should engage in recruiting skilled and qualified workforce for the organisation (Jackson & Schuller 1996, p. 51). It has been sufficient established that new employees bring with them new ideas into the organisation. Therefore, as an important role by the human resource department to conduct employee recruitment, it should ensure a free and fair recruitment process that is based on qualification and individual personality compatibility to the set corporate ethical conduct of conduct in the company. Another important practice by the human resource management department is to engage in effective employee training programmes which are reflective of the underlying competitive needs of the organisation (Storey & Sisson 2000, p. 8). Marketplace demands are evidently changing constantly just as technologies and innovative products are flooding the market. All these are creating new loopholes for stiff competition in the market economy. Due to this reason, human resource management is charged with the responsibility of ensuring that employees in the various company departments are equipped with the knowledge necessary to act more competitively against those of other competing organisations (Ulrich, Husel id, & Becker 2001, p. 73). Due to the importance of engaging employees in training programs based on informed decisions, which are reflective of the market demand, human resource management should be on the forefront in studying, qualifying, and quantifying the constant swings in the market trend (Tyson 2006, p. 38). This makes an effective human resource management practice more than just striving to ensure a productive workforce for the organisation. Another important aspect for the realisation of effective employee training is devoted involvement of the human resource in influencing the decision making process in the organisation (Carroll, Gupta, & Martell, 1996, p. 3). This aids in persuading the company management in appreciating the need and thus factoring enough company resources for executing employee training programs. Still, it has been evidently claimed that the human resource management should endeavour in identifying skills and talents among the various employees of the organisation (Carroll, Gupt a, & Martell 1996, p. 21). Just to be appreciated here is the fact that not all qualified members of the workforce have the reliable innovative and leadership skills required for sustaining the competitive advantage of the organisation in the marketplace. Therefore, training programmes in the organisation should only be prioritised for the highly talented workforce. Retention of employees is another important human resource management practice for promoting sustainable innovative strategic practices in an organisation (Korman, & Kraut 1999, p 46). The loss of reliable employees in an organisation is found to impact negatively on the sustainable competitive advantage of the organisation. This is closely attributed to two reasons. First is the high costs incurred by the organisation in nurturing their skills. The second reason is the fact that the company risks loosing its business secrets to their competitors (Korman, & Kraut 1999, p. 49). It is due to this reason why employee engagement remains an important function of human resource management as it enhances employee fulfilment and thus retention. To realise constant innovative practices in the organisation, human resource managers should be more of leaders than managers. By so doing they motivate and inspire the workforce to engage in innovative activities as well as providing suggestions on possible solutions to challenges affecting the organisation (Storey & Sisson, 2000). Another important practice for human resource management is ensuring effective organisational succession practices. This is crucial in ensuring sustainable continuation of the innovative strategic practices in the organisation, a factor that helps in realising and sustaining a competitive business advantage for the organisation in the marketplace. In conclusion, human resource management is the most important function for realising a practical long term innovative strategic practices in a company. The HR is responsible for recruiting, nurturing, and retaining skilled and talented workforce for the organisation (Storey & Sisson, 2000). To achieve this, human resource management should engage in conducting recruitments and employee training programmes based on the competitive market demands of the time. On the question of employee retention, human resource managers should act like employee leaders to inspire innovation while enhancing openness among employees to identify and resolve any eminent problems. This enhances employee commitment in executing company objectives.

A Critical Analysis of Wilfred Owen’s Disabled Essay

Wilfred Owen, a Soldier Poet who spent time in several military hospitals after being diagnosed with neurasthenia, wrote the poem â€Å"Disabled† while at Craiglockhart Hospital, after meeting Seigfried â€Å"Mad Jack† Sassoon. A look at Owen’s work shows that all of his famed war poems came after the meeting with Sassoon in August 1917 (Childs 49). In a statement on the effect the Sassoon meeting had on Owen’s poetry, Professor Peter Childs explains it was after the late-summer meeting that Owen began to use themes dealing with â€Å"breaking bodies and minds, in poems that see soldiers as wretches, ghosts, and sleepers† (49). Disabled,† which Childs lists because of its theme of â€Å"physical loss,† is interpreted by most critics as a poem that invites the reader to pity the above-knee, double-amputee veteran for the loss of his legs, which Owen depicts as the loss of his life. An analysis of this sort relies heavily on a stereotypical reading of disability, in which â€Å"people with disabilities are more dependent, childlike, passive, sensitive, and miserable† than their nondisabled counterparts, and â€Å"are depicted as pained by their fate† (Linton, 1998, p. 5). See more: how to write a good critical analysis essay Such a reading disregards not only the subject’s social impairment, which is directly addressed by Owen, but it also fails to consider the constructed identity of the subject, as defined by the language of the poem. A large reason for the imposition of pity comes from the pen of Owen, himself, who wrote that the chief concern in his poetry is â€Å"War, and the pity of War. The poetry is in the pity† (Kendall, 2003, p. 30). Owen’s pity approach to poetry succeeded in protesting the war because it capitalized on human losses. Adrian Caesar makes it very clear that the experience of war was Owen’s reason for joining. Even after being hospitalized for neurasthenia, Owen chose to return to France because he knew his poetry had improved due to his experience in the trenches (Caesar, 1987, p. 79). Whatever the case, Owen had neurasthenia, or shell shock, a mental disability. â€Å"Disabled,† which is about a veteran with a physical disability, should be viewed as an observation, and when the poem is closely examined, it can be seen to present a myth of disability rather than a realistic depiction. Rosemarie Garland-Thomson, a renowned literary critic in the field of Disability Studies, states that literary representation of disability has consistently marginalized characters with disabilities, which in turn facilitates the marginalization of actual people with disabilities. More often than not, writes Garland-Thomson, disability is utilized for its â€Å"rhetorical or symbolic potential† (1997, p. 15). When the reader considers Owen’s quote about pity, taken along with his intent to protest the war, the disabled subject of his poem becomes little more than a poster-child for pacifism. Moreover, Owen’s treatment of the subject exemplifies Garland-Thomson’s conclusion that â€Å"When one person has a visible disability . . . it almost always dominates and skews the normate’s process of sorting out perceptions and forming a reaction† (p. 12). The normate, or the nondisabled person, brings to the text a whole set of cultural assumptions, on which Owen depends, to leave the reader believing war is futile and not worth the cost in human lives and injuries. My purpose is not to argue to the contrary; I am not examining the value of war, but the devaluation of the disabled figure in Owen’s poem. Disabled† consists of seven stanzas, which Daniel Pigg breaks down into five vignettes, representing the soldier’s life. The first vignette, or first stanza, according to Pigg, â€Å"sets the stage for understanding this alienated figure that [the poet] observes† (1997, p. 92). Already the reader finds that the speaker occupies a privileged position, because he has no first-hand experience of what it is like to be an amputee and is merely an observer. The speaker sees a â€Å"legless† man, â€Å"waiting for dark,† dressed in a â€Å"ghastly suit of gray† (Lines 1-3). This pathetic image proffered to the reader creates a relationship based on pity, meaning that the reader places a high value on his functioning body while devaluing the losses of the subject. â€Å"Waiting for dark† could be interpreted as waiting for death, and the â€Å"ghastly suit of gray† may as well be the vestige of a ghost. The subject, who is seated near a window, hears male children at play in the park, â€Å"saddening† him until sleep â€Å"mothered† the voices from him (Lines 4, 6). The reader is to assume, as Owen has assumed, that the subject is saddened by memories of times past, when he, too, would play in the park with the other boys. So is the reader to assume that â€Å"play and pleasure after day† (Line 5) are no longer available to the subject? The end of the first stanza invites the reader to accept the subject as being dependent and child-like, as sleep â€Å"mothered† him from the voices. Owen has effectively molded his subject into a convincing Other, a man near death and halfway into the grave. The second vignette, or the second stanza, delves into the subject’s past, when he was nondisabled. As a contrast to the first stanza, where the language and imagery is bleak and foreboding, the second stanza begins with colorful images of the town, before the subject acquired his injury. However, the jubilee is short-lived as the reader is soon thrust back into the subject’s present reality, after he â€Å"threw away his knees† (Line 10). In this line the reader becomes aware that the subject feels a certain amount of guilt and self-acknowledgment in the role he has played in the loss of his legs. But before exploring the subject’s motives for joining the war, the reader is treated again to Owen’s dreary outlook on the veteran’s life. This time, the discussion is centered on women and how the subject will no longer be able to enjoy their presence or company, for girls now â€Å"touch him like some queer disease† (Line 13). Pigg’s analysis of the word â€Å"queer† is worth noting because he uses it as an example of the subject’s social displacement. It is in the second stanza that the reader is first encouraged to consider not just the physical impairment, but the social impairment of the subject. Pigg shows that early usage of the word â€Å"queer† to denote homosexuality began officially in a 1922 document written by the government. Based on this finding, Pigg assumes that the word could have been known and used by popular culture as early as 1917, when Owen’s poem was penned (1997, p. 91). Pigg claims that Owen’s use of the term illustrates a â€Å"loss of potential heterosexual contact,† while at the same time expressing that â€Å"society has made him what he has become . . . the use of the concept in the poem makes one more aware of oppression in a society that has brought the soldier to this state† (p. 1). Even though Pigg analyzes the social construction of the subject’s identity, he limits his discussion to society’s role in pressuring the soldier to join the war and not with the systematic oppression of disability, the result of the subject joining the war. However, this subject is best represented by Owen’s final two stanzas. In the next section of the poem, Owen reiterates the format of the previous stanza by giving the reader a glimpse of the subject’s â€Å"normal† life, before becoming an amputee, when his youth and vitality were admired by an artist. Very quickly the reader is transported back to the veteran’s present situation. This juxtaposition of normal/abnormal within the stanzas â€Å"forces an ‘us and them’ division† between the reader and the subject (Linton, 1998, p. 23). The remembrances of the subject offer an illustration of a typical life with which the reader can relate, which is then placed next to lines of the poem that offer a picture of what Owen would hope the reader to define as a horrible existence worse than death. The subject, which is an actual person, becomes Owen’s mascot for the anti-war effort. The next three stanzas of the poem discuss the subject’s reasons for entering the war. Again, Pigg offers an interesting interpretation of this section of the poem. According to Pigg, the subject joins the war in an effort to create an identity for himself, an identity which is ultimately based on a lie about his age. In lines 21-29, the subject reminisces about the time he decided to join the war and tries to pinpoint which intoxication lead him to such a decision: a victorious football game, a brandy and soda, or the â€Å"giddy jilts†? In each case there is an overabundance of ego involved; the subject seeks to capitalize on his ephemeral successes and perpetuate them as long as possible. In joining the war, he sees a way to do this, because society identifies those who go to war as heroes and those who do not as less than men. The subject decides it is a girl named Meg he tried to impress, then says â€Å"Aye . . . to please the giddy jilts† (Line 27). A â€Å"jilt† is a capricious woman, a woman who is unpredictable and impulsive. Owen’s point here is to allow the reader omniscient knowledge of the subject and his belief that the girls will love you for going to war, but if you return with a substantial injury, they become uninterested. This suggests that the girls are more interested in the idea of the soldier, the perfect body, as opposed to the reality of the soldier. Lines 30-36 further explain the subject’s reasons for enlistment, stating that they were not because of an interest in foreign affairs, but for the superficial benefits of joining the military. Owen then inserts a small, three-line stanza as a transition from the subject’s memories to his current status. Again, the reader is jarred by the juxtaposition of the normal and the abnormal. Instead of receiving a hero’s welcome, the subject is patronized by his own memories of what he had imagined his return to England would be like: â€Å"Some cheered him home, but not as crowds cheer Goal† (Line 37). The irony re-enlists the help of pity, as the reader is encouraged to feel sorry for the subject’s decision and subsequent loss. Owen’s purpose is to show that those who return from the war injured are pitied for their loss, rather than being honored for their sacrifice. The final stanza of the poem completes the circle that brings the reader back to the subject’s self-dissolution. He has accepted society’s estimation of his worth, or lack thereof, and has resigned himself to â€Å"spend a few sick years in institutes/ and do what things the rules consider wise† (Lines 40-41). The passive young veteran has acquiesced his life without a fight, but will continue to follow the orders of a society that deems him as invalid. He has officially become disabled, in every sense of the word. The subject has assumed his role as an object of pity and is ready to take whatever pity â€Å"they may dole,† â€Å"they† being the nondisabled (Line 42). Before the poem ends, though, Owen returns the reader yet again to the â€Å"giddy jilts† and their capricious desires, as their eyes avoid the subject’s changed body to look at the men who are still â€Å"whole,† suggesting it was not just the soldier they were interested in, but the idealized standard of beauty (Line 44). Here, the reader is expected to remember the subject’s reasons for joining the military. The subject’s concern with maintaining a nadir of masculinity and sexual attraction is ironically juxtaposed with his total loss of sexuality, which Owen implies is a total loss of identity, except as a spectacle and object of pity. The poem ends with the speaker’s frantic plea, â€Å"How cold and late it is! Why don’t they come/ And put him into bed? Why don’t they come? † (Lines 45-46). The speaker epitomizes the nondisabled person’s fear over lack of control of their own bodies and fates. The speaker realizes that he could just as easily be in he position of the subject, and with this knowledge the speaker agonizes over his own projected fears: the cold, desolate, and lonely life of the subject. We will never know the subject’s reality, for Owen has locked him into an eternal battle with despair. Owen uses â€Å"compassionate imagination† to establish a link between the soldier and the civilian in an effort to express the abominable losses that come as a result of war (Norgate, 1987, p. 21). Unfortunately, in so doing Owen magnifies the inferior role disability occupies in society, rather than calling it into question. That which has been given up and that which has been taken away subsumes the identity of the subject. Owen’s one-dimensional representation of disability ignores the will to survive and make the most of the opportunities offered by life, in whatever form it may take. Thompson writes, â€Å"As physical abilities change, so do individual needs, and the perception of those needs† (14). In â€Å"Disabled,† Owen does not allow for change and does not offer the hope of a fulfilling life. Instead, he delivers a scathing portrait of physical and social disablement in early 20th-century England.

Five Moral Dimensions Of The Information Essay

1.The Moral Dimensions of Information Systems The moral dimensions that can control the major ethical and social concerns generated by information systems are as follows: (i) Information Right and Obligation What information rights do individuals and organizations possess with respect to themselves? What can they protect? What obligation do individuals and organization have concerning this information? (ii) Property Rights and Obligations How will traditional intellectual property rights be protected in a digital society in which tracing and accounting forownership is difficult and ignoring such property rights is so easy? (iii) Accounting Liability and Control Determining who should take responsibility for decisions and actions. Many of the laws and court decisions and actions establishing precedents in the area of accountability, liability and control were firmly in place long before information systems were invented. (iv) Quality of System This has to do with data quality and system errors. As werely more on information systems, data quality issues are gaining more importance. These issues affect you as a consumer and as a user. (v) Quality of Life An interesting quality of life issue that affects more and more people personally is the ability to work from home. Before the advent of  information systems most people used to have a regular day job 8.00 a.m. to 5.00 p.m., five days a week in a typical office setting in our society. But with the introduction of information systems people can work seven days a week, all hours of the day, at home and on their wayse specially the management staff in a company. Also, the quality of life issues would be incomplete without mentioning online love affairs. People also lose their jobs and ways of life because of information systems. All these are valid concerns of information systems. 2.Ethical Analysis This section presents various step processes of how one should analyze ethical concerns when confronted with such asituation: (i) Identify and Clearly Describe the Facts This involves finding out who did what to whom, and where; when and how. In most cases, you will be astonished of them is takes in the initially reported facts, and you will find that simply getting the facts straight helps in defining the solution. Also, this assists other opposing parties involved in an ethical quandary to agree with the facts. (ii) State the Inconsistency and Identify the Higher-Order Values Involved The parties involved in disputes over ethical, social and political concerns always claim to pursue higher values such as privacy, freedom and protection of property. It is very important to clearly define the conflict in ethical concerns and identify the ones with higher values. (iii) Identify the Stakeholders You must find out the identity of the stakeholders as every ethical, social and political issues have stakeholders; players in the game who have an interest in the outcome and that have invested in the situation and what they want. (iv) Identify the Reasonable Options to Select It may be discovered that none of the options may ever satisfy all the interest involved while some of the options performs a better job than others. So, sometimes concluding at a good or ethical solution may not always be a balancing of consequences to stakeholders. 3.Property rights and obligations trade secrets copyright patent law Trade secrets are any intellectual work or product used for a business purpose that can be classified as belonging to that business. Copyright protects the creators of a property against copying by others for any purpose during the life of the author. Patent law grants the owner an exclusive monopoly on the ideas behind an invention for 20 years.

Philosophy: The Immortality of the Soul and Personal Identity

IntroductionThe Concise Oxford Dictionary defines â€Å"soul† as follows: â€Å"Spiritual or immaterial part of man, held to survive death.† This definition highlights the fact that the concept of life after death by means of a â€Å"soul† remains a matter of religious assertion. No authority can prove it. In contrast, the highest authority, the Bible, says: â€Å"The soul that is sinning—it itself will die.† (Eclessiastes 3:11)â€Å"The dust returns to the earth just as it happened to be and the spirit itself returns to the true God who gave it.† In his Commentary, Wesleyan Methodist theologian Adam Clarke writes concerning this verse: â€Å"Here the wise man makes a most evident distinction between the body and the soul: they are not the same; they are not both matter. The body, which is matter, returns to dust, its original; but the spirit, which is immaterial, returns to God† (123).   Similarly, A Catholic Commentary on Holy Scri pture says: â€Å"The soul goes back to God† (90). Thus, both commentaries imply that the soul and the spirit are the same.Through the birth of philosophical notion on the issue of people having an immortal soul, it could then be assured that through the different theories formed by early philosophers, many people were confused about the truth on the matter. Hence, to be able to clearly understand the issue, further studies were made and were formulated to answer the queries of people regarding a living soul. In the paragraphs to follow, the conversation of Miller and Weirob shall be examined as to how the two philosophers arePhilosophy: The Immortality of the Soul and Personal Identity able to clarify the issues of an identical self that continuously thrives even after a person’s death.The Dialogue and the ClaimIn John Perry’s â€Å"A Dialogue on Personal Identity and Immortality†, there is an indication of a conversation that existed between Miller and Weirob. The latter person signifies the existence of a connection between the continuous events in a person’s life that is identified as a personal identity of an individual. According to Miller, the immortality of the soul is the indication that a person’s identity is rather passed on through the years of life of the individual.In the conversation though, it has been pointed out by Weirob that the continuity of a person’s identity does not necessarily depend upon the life and death transition of a person’s experience. However, Miller continues to point out that the continuity of identity that is referred to as â€Å"stage† [a bunch of mental and physical events that are glued together; a set of events that are casually interacting within a person’s life], occurs in a person’s life just once as he is living. The said casual relations are then ‘glued’ together, hence the identity of the person continues well with the years of his life, from the point of his birth towards the days of his old age. A person’s capability of remembering the earlier days of his life helps him identify himself as the same person as he was during the past years compared to who he is at present. Saying this, Miller came up with four major hypotheses about a person’s ability to remember. The said hypotheses are as follows:Philosophy: The Immortality of the Soul and Personal Identity.            If Something is imaginable, it is possible ·Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   It is possible that there will be someone identical with Gretchen Weirob in Heaven ·Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   If identity is imaginable then it is possible.          Survival is identity with a future personThe fact that there has to be a certain connection between the events and the physical experiences that a person passes through life makes the possibility of a life after death experience, or the idea of an immortal soul a poss ible matter at that. According to Miller, the identity of person could only be tracked down through memory. Hence, once an event is remembered by a person then he gains the old personal identity he once had during his earlier or first life. This identity, according to him is someone that exists in heaven. This could be referred to as a complete depiction of the person that is living on earth at present. Hence, this simply means that the person living in today’s world at the present time has an identical person counterpart in heaven, which enables him to remember his past life completely.Weirob however, further argues that even though there exists an immortal soul as other philosophers claim, the said factor of human life [soul] cannot account for identity unlike how people could do as they live. Hence, reincarnation as a way of branching one person’s identity is not at all possible, or someone undoubtedly identical with the person living at present is possible at all.à ‚  Weirob proves this argument by pointing out the differences between remembering and seeming to remember. According to her, there is a big differencePhilosophy: The Immortality of the Soul and Personal Identity between the two activities of the mind. Whereas remembering pertains to the ability of the person to recall the exact things as it all happened to him during an earlier part of his life. However, seeming to remember is to quite know what happened as it happened but not actually knowing the exact events that occurred. To support this claim, Weirob uses an example:  Ã¢â‚¬Å"if for a moment a person is hypnotized to remember as if he has talked to Miller, then another person actually talks to him, the result when asked may not be that easy to distinguish†Thus, a person could be able to remember something if it actually happened to him, however, at some point, some spirit testing and activities also enables a person to remember something that did not even happen. However , remembering in detail would not be that easy to copy as hypnotism does. Hence, here enters the idea of being able to ‘seemingly remember’ things.By stating the said claims, Weirob was also able to come up with her own hypotheses about the matter: ·Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Examining the content of what a person is thinking or saying cannot establish whether that person is identical with a person existing at an earlier time (14,21) ·Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Really remembering a thought or action is just ‘seeming to remember’ it plus having really thought or done it.Philosophy: The Immortality of the Soul and Personal IdentityClearly, Weirob points out that the argument of Miller is plainly proposing that  the real memory is a combination of apparent memory and identity. However, the circularity of the matter proves otherwise. As clearly discussed by Weirob, survival is possible for a person not through the plain ability of being able to rememb er memories but through continuous existence in life. It may not be through being reincarnated or things as such, but through the ability of the person to make himself be remembered by others even when after he dies through his works while he is still living.ConclusionThrough the proofs and the dialogue discussed in this paper, it could then be claimed that the existence of an immortal or immaterial soul is then raised as a questionable theory created by world philosophers. Historians point out that the teaching that man possesses a separate, immortal soul did not originate with the Bible but with Greek philosophy. The New Catholic Encyclopedia observes that the ancient Hebrews did not think of man as being composed of a material body and an immaterial soul. It states about the Hebrews’ belief: â€Å"When the breath of life entered the first man whom God formed out of the ground, he became a ‘living being’ (134). Death was not regarded as a separation of two dis tinct elements in man, as in Greek philosophy; the breath of life departs and man is left a ‘dead being’. In each case the word ‘being’ would be the Hebrew [ne ´phesh], often translated ‘soul’ but, in fact, virtually equated with the person.† That same encyclopedia notes that Catholic scholars recently â€Å"have maintained that the New Testament does not teach the immortality of the soul in the Hellenistic [Greek]Philosophy: The Immortality of the Soul and Personal Identity sense.† It concludes: â€Å"The ultimate solution to the problem is to be found not so much in philosophical speculation as in the supernatural gift of the Resurrection.† Hence, as Weirob and Miller have argued in their conversation, it could be noted that philosophers of both the later and the present era have failed in concluding that there is an immortal soul that continues to thrive after a person’s death to continue one’s identity. I n this regard, it could then be assumed, that as both experts such as Weirob and Miller have argued, there would still be some philosophers who would continue to prove and disprove the matter concerning the existence of a continuum of self-identity after death. However it would be, it would still help if a person tries to search in his own way to be able to find the truth about this theory.BIBLIOGRAPHYCatholic New American Bible. (1970). P. J. Kenedy & Sons, New York.The Protestant Interpreter’s Bible. (1989). Blackwell Publishing Company.Concise Oxford Dictionary. (1987). Blackwell Publishing Company.Ralph Earle. (1997). Adam Clarke's Commentary. Nelson Reference.John R. Perry. (1978). A Dialogue on Personal Identity and Immortality. Hackett Publishing Company  Ã¢â‚¬Å"Dangerous Road†. (July 20, 1990). Time Magazine. Volume 9 Number 5. New York.