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Causes of Stress Essay - 757 Words

Causes of Stress Introduction So, what causes the stress that can be so bad for you? Some people may have a nervous system that goes into a stress reaction more readily than others. This could be due to individual differences in genetics and brain chemistry. To try to understand stress better, we need to consider the psychological factors involved - emotional and cognitive (thinking) factors. Research has suggested that major stressors in our lives are life changes, for example, moving house, marriage or relationship breakdown. Work-related factors, including unemployment and boredom, are also common causes of stress. Differences in personality may also play a part. A†¦show more content†¦Other research in the 1990s showed a correlation between high levels of negative life events with increased vulnerability to colds. The trouble with this social readjustment rating scale is that it does not account for the fact that some people will find the same sort of event less stressful than others - for example, divorce could be perceived as a relief or a disaster. We cannot give reliable predictions about risks of stress-related illness based on this scale. Lazarus and colleagues in the 1980s came up with a different stress measurement scale called the hassles and uplifts scale. They claimed that, rather than major life changes, it is day-to-day hassles or small uplifts that determine our overall levels of stress. It has been found that found that high scores on hassles - for example, being stuck in traffic or minor arguments with partner - correlated with symptoms of anxiety disorders and depression. Personality and stress In the 1970s, Friedman and Rosenman carried out a nine-year study of 1000 people to try to find out if personality type affected stress levels. They came up with the idea of the Type A personality - illustrated below: The typical type A person is competitive, time-conscious, workaholic and easily frustrated with others. Researchers have suggested that this sort of person would be likely toShow MoreRelatedCauses of Workplace Stress969 Words   |  4 PagesCauses of Workplace Stress There are many factors that can exacerbate the causes of stress in the workplace. The challenges faced by people in the workplace make the job more exciting and interesting. However, there are challenges that can also have negative effects. The normal reaction to stress is tension, anxiety and excitement and work-life goes back to normal after a while. If however, the stress becomes overwhelming or if it happens too often, there can be a problem getting back to the normalRead MoreCause And Effect Of Stress1029 Words   |  5 Pagesthe day of the week? Why adults cannot be as happy as little kids? 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Harry Houdini Free Essays

Sarah Busi Ms. Roach Honors American Literature 12 March 2013 Harry Houdini: World’s Greatest Magician â€Å"Remembered for his ability to escape from bonds and containers, Houdini is the world’s most famous magician, and his name is instantly recognized, although he died over 70 years ago† (â€Å"Harry 1†). Harry Houdini was much more than any ordinary magician a mother might hire for their child’s birthday party. We will write a custom essay sample on Harry Houdini or any similar topic only for you Order Now When one thinks of Harry Houdini, the furthest thing from their mind would be the cliched pulling a rabbit out of a hat or amateur card tricks. Houdini forced his audience to question reality with his outstanding and incomprehensible ability to make the impossible possible. During the 1920s, crime, gangster activity, and racial discrimination were at their peak, but Harry Houdini was able to offset some of those harsh realities by entertaining and fascinating people using the mystery and illusion of his magic tricks. Harry Houdini’s early life influenced and sparked his interest in entertainment and magic. The Weiss family, consisting of Mayer Samuel, Cecilia Steiner Weiss, and their five children, were originally from Budapest, Hungary and later immigrated to Appleton, Wisconsin (Higbee). Harry Houdini was born on March 24, 1874 (â€Å"Harry 2†). Harry Houdini’s father, a rabbi named Mayer Samuel, did not necessarily agree with his son’s interest in magic, but when Harry was sixteen, his father passed away, and he felt free to pursue his passion as a career. Harry’s brother, Theodore Hardeen, born Ferencz Deszo Weiss, helped him to kick-start his career by becoming his magic assistant. The duo became known as the â€Å"Houdini Brothers† (Higbee). Houdini later met Wilhelmina Beatrice â€Å"Bess† Rahner, and two weeks later, he made her his wife. Bess was also in the entertainment business as a struggling singer, so she decided to help her husband with his magic career. Although she replaced Theodore, Bess made a great magic assistant because she could sing, dance, and she was light weight (â€Å"Harry 1†). To most, magic is just a hobby, but instead, Harry Houdini decided to pursue his passion and was very ambitious to become the best in his craft. Houdini’s first exposure to magic was when his father took him to see Dr. Lynn, a touring magician, who used butcher knives to cut off the limbs and head of a victim in a cabinet. Harry Houdini was thereafter infatuated with magic. â€Å"At the age of 12, Houdini ran away from home to find a job and help support his family. When he returned, he greeted his mother with, â€Å"Shake me, I’m magic. † As his mother shook him, coins flew from his body; this was Houdini’s first magic trick. † The young, aspiring magician educated himself primarily with books. Revelations of Spirit Medium by A. Medium exposed the tricks of fake psychics, and The Memoirs of Robert-Houdin was the autobiography of Houdini’s mentor and inspiration. At the age of seventeen, Erich Weiss changed his name to Harry Houdini after Harry Kellar, American magician, and Jean Eugene Robert-Houdin, from whom Houdini took his surname and added the letter ‘i’. Houdini had written, â€Å"From the moment I began to study the art, he became my guide an d hero. I asked nothing more of life than to become in my profession like Robert-Houdin† (â€Å"Harry 1†). Harry Houdini’s thirty-five year magic career was very successful and his well-known, outrageous stunts made him the legendary magician we know him as today. One of Houdini’s first performances got him the name the â€Å"King of Cards. † He was obviously a talented magician but he performed simple tricks that got mediocre reviews (â€Å"Harry 1†). For about seven years, Houdini worked small shows and labored in obscurity. He was on the brink of reevaluating his career when he was given his big break on vaudeville by theater master, Martin Beck. Beck became Houdini’s manager and helped the young magician get nationwide notoriety. This was a huge leap from the twenty-five dollar a week Harry had been previously making. This was a huge turning point for his career (â€Å"Harry 4†). Harry joined the Society of American Magicians (S. A. M. ) in 1904, an organization established in 1902 by professional and amateur conjurers who shared a common interest in publicizing mystery attractions and sharing their tricks at monthly meetings. † Houdini resigned two weeks later because of disagreements regarding his magazine. Harry Houdini and S. A. M. eventually reconciled their differences and Harry not only rejoined the group, but was readmitted as an honorary member in 1912 and was later even elected president, which was a huge honor to Houdini (â€Å"Harry 1†). He sailed to England in the summer of 1900 where he began his first international tour. Upon returning to the United States in 1905, he was feeling pressure to become bigger and better. Houdini toured for the next ten years, constantly finding ways to stay in the public eye and push his abilities to their limits (â€Å"Harry 4†). But Harry was smart. He knew that his vaudeville tours would not last forever so he started finding alternative ways to further his career. He began appearing in silent films such as Master Mystery and Grime Game. This also sparked his idea to found the Houdini Picture Corporation in 1921. The production company debuted its first film the Man From Beyond (â€Å"Harry 5†). Another venture that Harry Houdini was particularly proud of was the Conjurer’s Monthly Magazine (â€Å"Harry 3†). Harry Houdini is known for his death-defying stunts and escapes and his ability to entertain and shock his audience which is why he is considered to be one of the forefathers of magic and illusions. Houdini had two fundamental types of tricks: illusions and escapes. For example, early on in his career, Harry realized that most handcuffs open with the same key. He then took this premise and began to encourage the members of his audience to bring their own handcuffs to lock him into for a sense of believability. This became known as his â€Å"Challenge Handcuff Act†. But later on in his career, his escapes became more and more outrageous. On January 7, 1906, Harry Houdini established himself as a professional magician by escaping from the jail cell of President Garfield’s assassin, Charles Guiteau, in Washington DC. Houdini was stripped down, searched, and locked up in the cell. Not only did he escape from the cell, he also retrieved his clothes that were locked in a different cell, redressed, and switched eight other prisoners to different cells, all in 21 minutes. This stunt was coined, the â€Å"Naked Prison Test Escape†. Harry Houdini then decided to take his escape skills to the next level by challenging himself to get out of a straitjacket. Sure enough, the master escape artist was able to do it, but how? There are theories that Harry had to dislocate his shoulder in order to get slack. Or perhaps another, and more likely theory, is that Harry expanded his chest and strained against the body straps. While those are just examples of Houdini’s most famous escapes, he is also known for being an illusionist as well. One of Harry’s most famous illusions was the â€Å"Vanishing Elephant† which became such a hit, that Houdini continued to perform it on his tour for nineteen weeks. It first debuted on January 7, 1918 when Houdini’s 10,000 pound elephant, Jenni, walked into an empty cabinet with a door on the back and a curtain in front. Two seconds later, Jenni had disappeared. Needless to say, Houdini left the audience dumbfounded. Unfortunately, however, during Houdini’s tour on October 22, 1926, students from McGill University asked if Houdini could withstand a blow to the stomach. Before Harry had any time to brace himself for the hit, J. Gordon punched the famous magician three times causing his appendix to rupture. Harry survived but not for much longer. A few weeks later he fell ill from streptococcus peritonitis (an inflammation of the abdominal cavity) and died on October 31, 1926. Harry Houdini’s mysterious illusions and risky escapes caught the attention of people all over the world, and he continued to entertain them for the early part of the 1920s. As the forefather of magic, Harry Houdini set the stage for future, aspiring magicians to try to go above and beyond his already extreme tricks. There have been comparable stunts from magicians, such as Chris Angel and David Blane more recently, but Harry was the first to make the impossible possible. For that he will forever be known as the greatest magician of not only the 1920s, but the greatest magician of all time. Works Cited â€Å"Harry 1 Houdini. † American Decades. Ed. Judith S. Baughman, et al. Detroit: Gale, 1998. Biography In Context. Web. 21 Feb. 2013. â€Å"Harry 2 Houdini. Encyclopedia of Occultism and Parapsychology. Detroit: Gale, 2001. Biography In Context. Web. 21 Feb. 2013. â€Å"Harry 3 Houdini’s Magic. † American Decades Primary Sources. Ed. Cynthia Rose. Vol. 1: 1900-1909. Detroit: Gale, 2004. 33-37. Biography In Context. Web. 21 Feb. 2013. â€Å"Harry 4 Houdini. † St. James Encyclopedia of Popular Culture. Ed. Sara Pendergast and T om Pendergast. Detroit: St. James Press, 2000. Biography In Context. Web. 21 Feb. 2013. Higbee, Joan F. â€Å"Houdini: A Biographical Chronology. † Houdini: A Biographical Chronology. Oct. 1996: n. p. SIRS Government Reporter. Web. 22 Feb 2013. How to cite Harry Houdini, Essay examples

Fate vs Free Will in Oedipus free essay sample

Oedipus the King by Sophocles, Oedipus is responsible for the tragedy of his downfall. Fate and free will are two opposing ideas that Sophocles seamlessly blends into the play. Sophocles ultimately leaves it up to the audience to interpret the reality behind this argument. Oedipus is presented with a series of choices throughout the play, and his arrogant and stubborn nature push him to impulsively make the wrong decisions, the decisions that ultimately lead him to his downfall. While Oedipus and those around him consider fate the source of Oedipus problems, Oedipus decisions show the audience that it is he who is responsible. Sophocles is able to drive his message about the pitfalls of human arrogance through Oedipus fatal flaws and the use of metaphorical and literal blindness. Perhaps the most obvious reason Oedipus is responsible is that by the end of the play Oedipus has taken responsibility for his actions. Oedipus states, Now loathed by the gods, son of the mother I defiled coupling in my fathers bed, spawning lives in the loins that spawned my wretched life. What grief can crown this grief? Its mine alone, my destiny-I am Oedipus! (Sophocles 1492). Oedipus clearly declares that he defiled his mother, he coupled with her in his fathers bed. The grief is his alone. Even though he may believe that this was his destiny, he takes responsibility for fulfilling it. Oedipus has no trouble seeing the error of his ways by the end of the play, as he states, I was so wrong, so wrong (Sophocles 1557). Although Oedipus takes responsibility, he is not the only person to blame. Ultimately, the blame could fall on Jocasta and Laius, Oedipus biological parents. The couple was warned that their child was cursed early on, but instead of having Oedipus killed and actually seeing it through, they carelessly had baby Oedipus pinned down on a mountain. Jocasta and Laius never actually made sure that Oedipus was killed. Oedipus references this at the end of the play: If Id died then, Id never have dragged myself, my loved ones through such hell (Sophocles 1487). Oedipus encounter with Laius at the crossroads reveals a great deal about Oedipus character and fatal flaws. In this crucial scene, Oedipus reveals his temper and lack of self-control that sets him on the road to fulfilling the prophecy of his fate. One could even say that Oedpius simply shows a face of ancient road rage. Dr. George Eppley asserts, Had there been a newspaper account of this violent event, the banner headline might have read, Road Rage Kills King Laius and Bodyguards. Murderer Sought' (Eppley 48). Nothing forces Oedipus to kill Laius; there is no accident. The location of a crossroad for this scene is metaphorical of Oedpius choice. Oedipus could have chosen to ignore the dispute and end it peacefully, but he instead lashes out. The use of crossroads as a setting throughout literature and film alike has shown to be symbolic of the unknown outcomes of a group of choices. Some might recall the last shot of the Robert Zimeckis film Cast Away, in which Tom Hanks stands at the center of a crossroad, forced to make a physical and metaphorical choice about his life. Sophocles utilizes that symbolism in this scene. The literal setting of a crossroad serves also as a figurative crossroad in Oedipus life, the point in which Oedipus can veer away from the fateful prophecy or begin fulfilling it. Because he gives in to his quick, impulsive temper, Oedipus chooses the latter. When Oedipus arrives at Thebes, he is presented with yet another choice: to become the king and to wed the queen, or to move on. Once again, Oedipus choice puts him one step closer to fulfilling the prophecy. Oedipus is not forced into marrying Jocasta, this is simply his decision. Fate is not responsible. Regarding fate versus free will, E. R. Dodds says this about the play: we are not entitled to blame Oedipus either for carelessness in failing to compile a handlist for lack of self control in failing to obey its injunctions. For no such possibilities are mentioned in the play, or even hinted at (Dodds 40). Dodds then goes on to say, Oedipus does what he can to evade his destiny (Dodds 41). What Dodds fails to recognize is that Sophocles motif of blindness throughout the play seems to be a direct reference to Oedipus flaws. From the very beginning when he declares, I see- how could I fail to see (Sophocles 70) to the middle when he realizes, [h]ow terrible- to see the truth when the truth is only pain to him who sees! (Sophocles 359) to the end when he laments, [d]ark horror of darkness, my darkness (Sophocles 1450) sight and blindness, the absence of sight, are literal and figurative motifs in the play. Oedipus can attribute his figurative blindness throughout the play to his hubris and arrogance. It is because Oedipus is so quick-tempered and arrogant that he is blind to his own mistakes that lead him to his demise. Sophocles use of blindness in the play gives the reader/audience more insight into Oedipus flaws, and Oedipus flaws are what cause him to fulfill the prophecy. Therefore, Sophocles, in a complexly roundabout way, does in fact hint at the possibility that Oedipus was simply careless. To counter Mr. Dodds argument, Oedipus has plenty of opportunities to make a better choice, he is just blind to those opportunities because of his flaws. To fully understand Sophocles message, the play must be analyzed objectively as well as textually. What is Sophocles trying to say to the audience about human nature? If it truly is an inescapable fate that gets Oedipus where he is, then no point can be made about the danger of arrogance, hubris, and temper. If Oedipus really had no way out of his fate, if he truly was on some sort of rail, then his flaws are essentially rendered obsolete. If it is solely fate that takes care of Oedipus life, then the subtext of Sophocles point through Oedipus is that no man really has free choice; no man can learn from his mistakes because he is trapped inside of a one-track life, a life that is governed by something other than himself. Instead of leaving the reader with this message, Sophocles leaves the argument of fate versus free will far more ambiguous. By the end of the play, two facts remain: Oedipus downfall is prophesized, and Oedipus does fulfill the prophecy. The truth of the matter is that Oedipus choices are what led him to fulfill the prophecy. If the play is viewed in this light, then Oedipus hubris becomes far more consequential, thus giving the play further meaning. While Sophocles never blatantly states, What happens to Oedipus is a result of his own choices, the subtext of the play is rife with evidence that nobody is more responsible for Oedipus than Oedipus. Through Oedipus, Sophocles shows the audience the consequences of carelessness in decision-making and the adversity that is often spawned from inflated ego.