Eve’s Apology Essay -- Literary Analysis, Aemilia Lanyer

Is this an apology or blame? In the beginning, God tells Adam not to eat the forbidden fruit. Adam disobeys God by doing so, but most people put the blame on Eve. In the poem, â€Å"Eve’s Apology,† Eve expresses her feelings toward the entire situation and shows how she is not to blame. She blames Adam for the pain we endure today. Eve eats from the forbidden tree out of curiosity. She wants to share it with Adam, so he can feel like she feels. Eve gives the fruit to Adam out of love, but she does not force him to eat it. Adam has control of his mind, so he disobeys God on his own. â€Å"Do not the thing that goes against thy heart† (Lanyer 424). Aemilia Lanyer, the author of the poem, â€Å"Eve’s Apology,† lived in the mid 1500’s and 1600’s. Living in this time period, had much influence on her writing. She published her landmark book, Salve Deus Rex Judaeorum, the same year that the King James Bible and three of Shakespeare’s plays were published (Wilhelm 424). Lanyer brings out the life of this poem with the poetic devices, irony, and unusual language. To begin, the poem, â€Å"Eve’s Apology,† uses many different poetic devices such as alliteration, assonance, rhyme scheme, and simile. The author uses a great number of alliteration, which is the repetition of constant sounds generally at the beginnings of words. Alliteration can be seen in the words â€Å"what† and â€Å"weakness† in line 3. Some more examples of alliteration throughout the poem are â€Å"subtle serpent’s† (23), â€Å"he had him† (24), and â€Å"with words which† (30). Assonance, the repetition of the same or similar vowel sounds in stressed syllables that end with different consonant sounds, is another poetic device that the author uses greatly. Some examples of assonance are found in lines 10 â€Å" The ‘p... ...g this poem, the author reveals older examples of words and phrases that we do not know or use today. Throughout "Eve's Apology," Layner confidently makes her point of female inequality and female injustice by using poetic devices, while continuing to keep an ironic tone and bring out unusual language. She is clearly trying to prove that woman and men are equal. She suggests that because Adam is a man, thus "stronger" than Eve, he should be held responsible for eating the forbidden fruit rather than the "weaker" Eve. Layner believes that men should not look down upon women as lesser and weaker than themselves; she successfully proves that women deserve an equal status with men. Throughout the poem, Layner makes the point that the reason men have always been condescending to woman is dishonest because men are actually more at fault for the pain we endure today.

The CBD (the Central Business District)

The typical CBD is in the commercial and cultural activity in a city. In many large cities, it is immediately recognizable by tall skyscrapers, the neon lights at night and the very high density of buildings, traffic and people. The CBD is usually highly accessible. It is the focus of roads, with bus and railway stations near by. The CBD usually has the highest density of bus services and taxis in the whole of the urban area. Although the residential population is only very small, during the day and evening the CBD is crowded with people working, shopping or seeking entertainment. Main functions of the CBD Shops: The CBD is usually at the top of the shopping hierarchy in a city. It has the widest range of shops and the largest department stores. Shops mainly sell comparison or high-order goods and they draw their customers from a wide sphere of influence. The highest land costs are in the centre of the CBD. In the core of the CBD, there are large department stores and branches of many national chains of shops. Smaller shops, often privately owned, are located on the edges of the CBD in the fringe area called the frame. Some shops, such as clothing, shoe and jewellery shops tend to cluster together to take advantage of competition, while others are more dispersed, such as newsagents and chemists. Offices: Banks, building societies, solicitors, company headquarters, insurance companies and government offices occupy high-rise office blocks or the upper floors above shops in the CBD. Culture & entertainment: Parts of the CBD ‘come alive' at night as the theatres, cinemas, clubs, bars and restaurants attract customers. Certain parts of cities have become famous for their nightlife, such as London's West End. The CBD of a city is not static; it is a dynamic area going through phases of growth and decline. You will see some areas in decay in a CBD of a large city, with closed shops and a rundown appearance, and others that appear lively, smart and successful. The CBD also has problems with traffic congestion, parking and pollution, as well as those caused by lack of space and shortage of land. Local planners have implemented a variety of different schemes to attempt to solve the problems of the CBD. Problems and attempted solutions in the CBD: Traffic congestion: Lots of cars and shops, services and employment in the CBD create massive problems of congestion and parking in the city centres. Roads are often narrow, with little pavement space. Some solutions include: * Ring roads and by-passes to divert traffic not going into the city centre * Urban motorways and flyovers * Public transport schemes such as ‘park and ride', the Newcastle metro, trams in Manchester * Multi-storey car parks * Pedestrianization of high streets Lack of space and the high cost of land: Competition for land has led to high prices, and growing firms find it difficult to find space. In some CBDs the smaller retailers have been forced away from the city centre because of the high costs. Some solutions include: * High-rise buildings to increase the floor area available * New retailing areas in out-of-town shopping centres in the suburbs or rural-urban fringe, in a process called decentralization Pollution: Water, land, air and noise pollution are all common in city centres. Pollution is thought to contribute to the stresses of living in urban areas and to some diseases, such as asthma and bronchitis. Some solutions include: * Laws against litter and dumping sewage in rivers * Improved provision of litter bins and road sweeping * Clean Air Acts that allow only the use of smokeless fuels * Clean-fuel technology and vehicles that run on methane gas or electricity * Banning heavy lorries from passing through city centres * Increased planting of trees and shrubs Urban decline: Parts of some CBDs have declined. Shops and offices have closed down and the empty buildings and vandalized. City centres compete with out-of-town shopping centres to cater for the growing demands of shoppers. Some solutions include: * Redevelopment of zones of decline in the CBD such as King's Cross and Covent Garden in London * Expansion of the CBD into areas of the inner city – old factories and substandard terraced housing have been cleared, rehousing the occupants in the suburbs or New Towns and filling the space with new shopping and office developments

History of the First Credit Card

Charging for products and services has become a way of life. No longer do people bring cash when they buy a sweater or a large appliance, they charge it. Some people do it for the convenience of not carrying cash; others put it on plastic so they can purchase an item they can not yet afford. The credit card that allows them to do this is a twentieth-century invention. At the beginning of the twentieth century, people had to pay cash for almost all products and services. Although the early part of the century saw an increase in individual store credit accounts, a credit card that could be used at more than one merchant was not invented until 1950. It all started when Frank X. McNamara and two of his friends went out to supper. The Famous Supper In 1949, Frank X McNamara, head of the Hamilton Credit Corporation, went out to eat with Alfred Bloomingdale, McNamaras long-time friend and grandson of the founder of the Bloomingdales store, and Ralph Sneider, McNamaras attorney. The three men were eating at Majors Cabin Grill, a famous New York restaurant located next to the Empire State Building, to discuss a problem customer of the Hamilton Credit Corporation. The problem was that one of McNamaras customers had borrowed some money but was unable to pay it back. This particular customer had gotten into trouble  when he had lent a number of his charge cards (available from individual department stores and gas stations) to his poor neighbors who needed items in an emergency. For this service, the man required his neighbors to pay him back the cost of the original purchase plus some extra money. Unfortunately for the man, many of his neighbors were unable to pay him back within a short period of time, and he was then forced to borrow money from the Hamilton Credit Corporation. At the end of the meal with his two friends, McNamara reached into his pocket for his wallet so that he could pay for the meal (in cash). He was shocked to discover that he had forgotten his wallet. To his embarrassment, he then had to call his wife and have her bring him some money. McNamara vowed never to let this happen again. Merging the two concepts from that dinner, the lending of credit cards and not having cash on hand to pay for the meal, McNamara came up with a new idea - a credit card that could be used at multiple locations. What was particularly novel about this concept was that there would be a middleman between companies and their customers. The Middleman Though the concept of credit has existed longer even than money, charge accounts became popular in the early twentieth century. With the invention and growing popularity of automobiles and airplanes, people now had the option to travel to a variety of stores for their shopping needs. In an effort to capture customer loyalty, various department stores and gas stations began to offer charge accounts for their customers which could be accessed by a card. Unfortunately, people needed to bring dozens of these cards with them if they were to do a day of shopping. McNamara had the idea of needing only one credit card. McNamara discussed the idea with Bloomingdale and Sneider, and the three pooled some money and started a new company in 1950 which they called the Diners Club. The Diners Club was going to be a middleman. Instead of individual companies offering credit to their customers (whom they would bill later), the Diners Club was going to offer credit to individuals for many companies (then bill the customers and pay the companies). Previously, stores would make money with their credit cards by keeping customers loyal to their particular store, thus maintaining a high level of sales. However, the Diners Club needed a different way to make money since they werent selling anything. To make a profit without charging interest (interest-bearing credit cards came much later), the companies who accepted the Diners Club credit card were charged 7 percent for each transaction while the subscribers to the credit card were charged a $3 annual fee (begun in 1951). McNamaras new credit company focused on salesmen. Since salesmen often need to dine (hence the new companys name) at multiple restaurants to entertain their clients, the Diners Club needed both to convince a large number of restaurants to accept the new card and to get salesmen to subscribe. The first Diners Club credit cards were given out in 1950 to 200 people (most were friends and acquaintances of McNamara) and accepted by 14 restaurants in New York. The cards were not made of plastic; instead, the first Diners Club credit cards were made of paper stock with the accepting locations printed on the back. In the beginning, progress was difficult. Merchants didnt want to pay the Diners Clubs fee and didnt want competition for their store cards; while customers didnt want to sign up unless there were a large number of merchants that accepted the card. However, the concept of the card grew, and by the end of 1950, 20,000 people were using the Diners Club credit card. The Future Though the Diners Club continued to grow and by the second year was making a profit ($60,000), McNamara thought the concept was just a fad. In 1952, he sold his shares in the company for more than $200,000 to his two partners. The Diners Club credit card continued to grow more popular and didnt receive competition until 1958. In that year, both American Express and the Bank Americard (later called VISA) arrived. The concept of a universal credit card had taken root and quickly spread across the world.