Fundamental Finance Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Fundamental Finance - Research Paper Example Significantly, its financial policy in the funding of its expansion in operational capacity is sound. It has a mix variety of funding sources: (a) from cash from operations, (b) long-term debt instruments, and (c) increase in paid up capital. The growth of revenues and consequently the net income is the result of the company's expansion on its investment on revenue producing assets which are the container vessels and dry-bulk carriers. With 20 vessels, including those under construction in 2006 it had grown to 33 vessels. The revenues increased by 37% in 2007 over 2006, and net income increase of 40% over the preceding year. Moneywise, the investment on property and equipment on vessels alone was $244,684 million in 2007 against $131,720 million in 2006, or an increase in investment totalling $112,974 million. The company had been financing from the same mix of sources. However, since it was listed in the London Stock Exchange it was able to raise larger amounts of funds. Table below is a summary of the funding source and the changes over the last two years: Prior to its listing the company had been funding its operations mostly from cash generated by operations and to a small extent long-term debt. However, in recent years Goldenport Holdings, Inc. has availed more on both the sale of its shares and much larger issuance of long-term debt instrument. ... However, in recent years Goldenport Holdings, Inc. has availed more on both the sale of its shares and much larger issuance of long-term debt instrument. Below is a table showing the relationship of debt and equity and the gearing ratio: (in US$) In US$ 2007 2006 Total debt 193,001,000 93,961,000 Total equity 181,442,000149,528,000 Debt/equity 1.06/1 0.63 /1 The company increased its debt in 2007 to further finance the acquisition/construction of vessels. In 2006 the company had a favourable debt to equity ratio of $.063 debt for every $ of equity. However, in 2007 as a result of additional borrowings the debt to equity ratio or gearing ratio has deteriorated to $1.06 debt to $1 of equity. In a sense, the company went into trading on the equity. The gearing ratio in 2006 was favourable to the firm because it was on that year that it was listed on the Exchange, and has raised funds on this IPO in the amount of $115,465,000. The company has a policy to declare dividends equivalent to 50% of net income during the year, and retained the balance for reinvestment on property and equipment, more particularly its marine fleet of containers and dry-bulk cargo. However, in 2007 the Board decided to declare dividends equivalent to 52% payout on the its net income for the year. This means a lesser retention of income for reinvestment. Dividends The company has a policy to declare dividends equivalent to 50% of net income for the year. However, for the year ended 2007 the company declared 52% of the net come, or an increase of 4% over the preceding year. This policy had twin objectives. It improved its dividend image with its current and potential

Discuss whether the European Monetary Union would benefit from British Essay

Discuss whether the European Monetary Union would benefit from British membership - Essay Example This would also assist in promoting reforms of the supply-side in the EU which would in turn encourage further exploitation and specialization of comparative advantage In the UK’s several sectors in the economy in the long run. Boost price transparency Any country’s membership to the EMU makes it possible for consumers to compare relative price levels across a number of member states. Britain’s membership would increase price transparency in the EU. This is more so because Britain is a big economy on its own with a wide range of markets. This would in turn encourage cross border trade and competition across a number of different markets. Allocative efficiency would be greatly improved thus improving consumers’ welfare within the EU. This is would be a great benefit to the EMU as it would encourage more and more states to join the Euro Zone. The price transparency theory can be explained; prices of different goods differ in different countries as a result o f different currencies and different Value added taxes. Although it is hard vto eliminate the differences brought about by VAT, the currency born price differences can be completely eliminated by forming a single currency. This increases transparency as there are no currency exchanges in the transactions. Common currency also increased competition kicking out of the markets firms that have inefficient production methods. If Britain joins the EU, currency differences will be a matter of past tense and price transparency will ensue. Increase in foreign investment flows Britain, being a major recipient of foreign direct investment especially in the recent periods would greatly increase the inflow of foreign investments into the Euro Zone. This would greatly facilitate the development of Multi-nationals enterprises within the EMU. Scholars have argued that apart from these foreign investment inflows benefiting the EMU if Britain joined, they would also help the economy of the Great Brit ain through the development of its multinational enterprises. Actually, it has been suggested that if Britain continues to say outside the system, these foreign investment flows may be threatened in the near future. High employment rates and wages for workers in the EU zone. A sustainable convergence between the euro zone countries and the UK would bring about potential employment benefit to all member countries. This would include potentially reduced prices and relatively higher wages. This is simply because UK has a big economy that EU would use to bring these long- term household benefits. Reduced transaction costs; If UK joins the European Monetary Union, there will be a single currency in use between the country and the countries already in the Euro zone; this means that there will be no conversion costs emanating from currency conversions. This will reduce the total transaction costs in trade. This is especially significant in Britain’s case because majority of transact ions in the EU zone are done with Britain. Therefore, by Britain joining the EU, these transaction costs will be eliminated. This is a benefit to both Britain and the European monetary union. Rival to the ‘Big Two’ The Japanese yen and the American dollar are the two strong currencies in the world today. These two countries have millions of inhabitants and strong economies. A new currency in Europe through

Travel Time Reliability Analysis

Travel Time Reliability Analysis CHAPTER TWO Literature Review 2.1 Introduction Lyman (2007) states that travel time reliability is vital measure of congestion and can serve as benchmark for prioritizing improvements into a city transportation system. This research start with a literature review of travel time reliability and its worth as a congestion measure. Travel time reliability can be denoted as the probability of successfully completing a trip within specified time interval (Iida, 1999). Therefore, the increase of travel time will lead to the unreliability and variability of travel time (Recker et al., 2005). The better understanding of travel time reliability and variability might assist transport planner to select proper transport policy in conjunction with reduction congestion problems as well as lessening the impact of different type of incidents (Recker et al., 2005). It can be said that, the more reliable the transportation system, the more stable is the performance. In addition, lower travel time fluctuation also contributes to less fuel consumption as well as less emissions due to a reduced amount of acceleration and deceleration by vehicles (Vlieger et al., 2000). Moreover, from a transport users point of view, more reliable travel times mean more predictable journey times and improved activity schedules. In accordance with just in time services, reliable travel time will significantly increase the freight industrys performances to deliver goods (Recker et al., 2005). As travel time reliability considers the distribution of travel time probability and its variation at road network, the higher travel time variance the lower travel time reliability (Nicholson et al., 2003). It can be also said that under ideal conditions travel time reliability would have a variance equal to zero. Indeed, the increase of its variance will therefore significantly reduce its reliability. However, the relationship between travel time variance and its reliability is not linear, so that, it cannot be generally accepted that a double of travel time variance will lead to a half of its reliability. To conclude, the greater travel time fluctuations will have significant impacts on transport network reliability. According to different purposes of travel time reliability study, there are several travel time reliability surveys. By comparing different aspect of the travel time study and by considering the complexity of data collection as well the data analysis, Lomax et al. (2003) has reviewed the suitable assessment of travel time reliability. Based on the scope and the limitation of each method this work suggested the different study in terms of measurement travel time variability and travel time reliability. The analysis of the archive traffic data is not proper in measuring the travel time reliability due to the lack of data constant and the lack of other attribute related with the traffic condition. However, the data is easy to obtain. In addition, the micro simulation techniques have been used extensively, however according to Lin et al (2005) there are some deficiencies in travel time micro simulation modeling in terms of the high need for data calibration. In order to gain real life traffic conditions, some travel time reliability research used the probe vehicle methods. Since this method requires ext ensive labour and only covers some of the study area or some of the road segments, it cannot be applied in terms of assessing the travel time reliability on large road networks. Indeed, Lomax et al also recommended some reliability measurements by examining the reliability and variability percentage (e.g., 5%, 10% and 15%). Those approaches take into account the effect of irregular conditions in the forms of the amount of extra time that must be allowed for travelers. The first measurement is the percent variation which expresses the relationship between the amount of variation and the average travel time in a percentage measure. The second is the misery index that calculates the amount of time exceeded the average slowest time by subtracting the average travel time with the upper 10%, 15% and 20% of average travel rates and the last is travel time buffer which add the extra travel time of 95% trips in order to arrive on time. In addition, since reliable travel time is the key indicator of users route choice there are many recent research works which investigated the travelers behaviour under unreliable travel time. According to travelers behavior in route choice survey, the greater the variance of travel time of selected links the less attractive it is (Tannabe et al., 2007). Additionally, Bogers and Lint (2007) investigated traveler behavior on three different road types in The Netherlands under uncertainty conditions, as well as the impact of providing traveller information on route choice. They conclude that providing traveler information has significant impact on effecting travelers decision, in addition, based on travelers experience they will choose the route with minimal travel time variance. It means that the routes that have high travel time reliability are not attractive for users. Indeed, according to Lomax et als review that the best alternative to measure the travel time variability and route choicer behaviour under uncertainty condition is by using probe vehicles. Though this method was highly labourious and expensive, it is more realistic (Lomax et al., 2003). Then Tannabe et al (2007) undertook an integrated GPS and web diary in Nara, Japan. This study found that travelers might change their route to reduce the uncertainty in travel time. In addition, there was a positive correlation between coefficients of variation (CV) of the commuting routes. It is found that the appropriate functional hierarchy of road may be disturbed by the uncertainty of travel time. These findings suggest that a reliability index of travel time is very useful and important for evaluating both actual level of service (LOS) and functional hierarchy of road network. Recent travel time reliability research investigated the relationship between the traveler behavior and their response to the provision of travel information system while they experience high travel time variability. Asakura (1999) concluded that the Stochastic User Equilibrium model can generate the user route choice behavior based on the different levels of information provision. This study analyzed two different groups, the first group being the well informed users and the second the uninformed users. He concluded that providing better information can improve the transportation network reliability. In order to find out the different perspectives of travel time reliability for different persons with different purposes, Lo et al (2006) studied the notion of the travel time budget, in which each traveler seeks to minimize their own individual travel time budget (the amount of time that the individual is prepared to devote to travelling), which means the total travel time of the individual should not exceed their allocation of time to travel. To evaluate the link between the presence of ramps on motorways and travel time reliability, recent reliability network research has been undertaken in The Netherlands. Th is study analyzed whether the geometry of road network also affected the travel time reliability (Tu et al., 2007) by investigating the presence of ramps on six major. This study concluded that the presence of ramps in the road network has reduced the travel time reliability. Since road network reliability considers the probability of transportation system failures in how to meet performance parameters such as reasonable travel time and travel cost, level of service and the probability of connectivity of the transport network and lack of measuring the consequences of link failure to the community, the concept of road network vulnerability might be an alternative way to fill some of road network reliability deficiency, particularly in assessing the adverse socio-economic impact to community (Taylor et al. 2006). ROAD NETWORK VULNERABILITY Due to the potential socio-economic cost of degraded transport network to community, the concept of road vulnerability has been developed by researchers under transport network reliability umbrella. The definition of vulnerability has not yet been generally agreed. Several authors notion of the vulnerability focused on the negative events that significantly reduced the road network performance. Berdica (2002) defined the vulnerability as a susceptibility to incident that can result in a considerable in road network serviceability. The link /route/road serviceability described the possibility to use that link/route/road during a given period of time. Furthermore, since accessibility depend on the quality of the function of the transportation system, this concept relate to the adverse of the vulnerability in terms of reducing accessibility that occurs because of the different reasons. As the idea of network vulnerability relates to the consequences of link failure and the potential for adverse socio- economic impacts on the community (Taylor et al., 2006, Jenelius, 2007a), thus vulnerability can be defined in the following terms: 1. A node is vulnerable if loss (or substantial degradation) of a small number of links significantly diminishes the accessibility of the node, as measured by standard index of accessibility. 2. A network link is critical if loss (or substantial degradation) of the links significantly diminishes the accessibility of the network or of particular nodes, as measured by standard index of accessibility. Therefore, it can be concluded that road vulnerability assesses the weakness of road network to incidents as well as adverse impacts of the degraded road network serviceability on the community. In relation with the road network vulnerability definition which focuses on two different aspects; selecting critical road network elements and consequences of measurements, Jenelius (2007a) has identified that road network vulnerability assessment can be distinguished into two stages. The first stage is to select a critical link by identifying the road network likelihood and by quick scanning of wide road transport and the second one is measuring the consequences of link disruption to community. Based on previous works, different approach has been applied in order to scan wide road network. Jenelius et al ( et al., 2006) selected particular major arterial road which connect the district at the Northern Sweden to be the worst case scenario and selected road links randomly as the average case scenarios. Scott et al (2006) has also introduced topology index and the relation between capacity and volume then select the critical link. Indeed, Jenelius (2007a) has suggested that conducting comprehensive assessment of road network will be helpful for identifying roads that are probably affected by the traffic accident, flood and landslides. Berdica et al (2003) undertake a comprehensive study in order to test 3 types of software to mode l road network interruptions. This study simulated the short duration of incidents on University of Canterbury networks by using SATURN, TRACKS and Paramics. They modelled a total block of one link on the small network then run the model at the macroscopic level by using TRACKS, at mesoscopic level by using SATURN and at the microscopic level by using Paramics. Based on the simulation, the different packages gave different result in terms of their responsiveness to model the short incidents, for instance, Paramics might be considered as a suitable software package for short duration incidents because it is more responsive than other softwares. SATURN which is more detail in its formulation than TRACKS has less responsiveness than TRACKS. Given the lack of generally recognized measurement of road vulnerability, it has been common practice to consider measures such as the increase of the generalized travel cost, the changes of the accessibility index or the link volume/capacity ratio when one or more links were closed or degraded as road vulnerability measurement. Taylor et al (2006) studied the network vulnerability at the level of Australian national road network and the socio economic impact of degradable links in order to identify critical links within the road network, by using three different accessibility approaches. The study introduced the three indices for vulnerability. The first method was the measurement of the change of the generalized travel cost between the full network and the degraded one. This method has concluded that by degrading one particular link the generalized travel cost will increase, and then the links which gave the highest travel cost was determined as the most important link. The second method used the changes of the Hansen integral accessibility index (Hansen, 1959) in order to seek the critical links. It was assumed that the larger the changes were after cutting one link, the more critical that link was on the basis of the adver se socio-economic impacts on the community. The last approach considered the changes of the Accessibility/Remoteness index of Australia (DHAC, 2001). This method was similar to the second method which sought the critical link depending on the difference between the ARIA indices in the full network and the ARIA indices in degraded network. Moreover, Taylor et al (2006) also studied the application of the third approach at the regional level in the state of Western Australia. This study concluded that removing a link gave different impacts for the cities, for example, by cutting one link, the impacts on the several cities were only local, in contrast, other cities where they were available similarly alternative road performance did not give significant changes of the ARIA indices. Due to the importance of a particular link within the wide road network, Jenelius et al (2006) introduced a similar approach to Taylor et al (2006). They studied the link importance and the site exposure by measuring the increase in generalized travel cost in the road network of the Northern Sweden where the road networks were sparse and the traffic volumes were low. By assuming the incident was a single link being completely disrupted or closed so the generalized cost increases, then the most critical link of the operation of the whole system and the most vulnerable cities because of the link disruptions were determined. The study concluded that the effect of closing a link was quite local and the worst effect was in the region where the road network was sparser with fewer good alternative roads. This research suggests that the road network vulnerability assessment can be applied in road network planning and maintenance, to provide guidance to the road administration for road prioritization and maintenance. In addition, Taylor (2007) studied the road network vulnerability in South Australia road network which included all the freeways, highways and major main roads. This research used a large complex road network and evaluated the ARIA indices changes for about 161 locality centers with populations exceeding 200 people. This study found the top ten critical links in the South Australia regional road network. Moreover, in relation with vulnerability approach in D Este and Taylor (2003), Chen et al (2007) tries to assess the vulnerability of degradable networks by using the network based accessibility and by combining with a travel demand model. Their study concluded that themodel can consider both demand and supply changes under abnormal conditions. Thus the vulnerability network assessment can be measured by considering the duration of the disruption (increase the travel time) and modeling the user equilibrium both the cases when there are alternative roads or the case when there are not alternative roads (Jenelius, 2007b). Indeed, Scott (2005) introduced the measurement of the Network Robustness Index by considering the ratio between the link capacity and link volume and assigning topology index for each link then test whether the particular links can cope with the changes of the traffic demand when one or more links were closed or degraded (Scott et al., 2005). Jenelius (2007b) introduced the new method in order to incorporate dynamic road condition and information by assessing the increase travel time using the extended of the user equilibrium model. This study assumed that there was no congestion and there was at least one alternative route between the origin and destination. Further, this study also assumed that the road users have perfect road information about the length of road closure so that they can decide whether they need either to take a detour or to go back to their origin and wait until the road reopened. This method calculated the additional travel time which is calculated since the road users were informed about the road closure, the waiting time until the road reopened. The difference between the normal travel time and t he additional travel time due to road closure was assigned as the increase travel time. However, this study did not take into consideration the change of the travel flow at the alternative routes. This assumed that the mix of the current and diverted traffic can flow at the free flow. In order to assess the increase of the flow when the diverted traffic mix at the current traffic which already meet the capacity or are already congested, the study which conducted by Lam et al (2007) can be considered. This method introduced the path preference index which is the sum of the path travel time reliability index and the path travel time index. To examine road network vulnerability in an urban area, Berdica et al. (2007) studied the vulnerability of the Stockholm road network by examining 12 scenarios involving partial and total closure of selected links, including bridge failure. Also, it assessed the road network degradation in three different times of day, morning peak hour, middle of d ay and afternoon peak hour. This study concluded that by closing one link or all links as well as bridge failure would increase the total travel time and total trip length (on the assumption that travelers chose their minimum time route based on user equilibrium method). The model of different scenarios at different times gave different results but the most vulnerable links were the Essinge route and the failure of Western bridge scenario. To conclude this study calculated the increase of total travel time a day and then multiply that by 250 days to obtain the total increase travel time for yearly basis. Though the highest total travel time increase in only 8% per day, however if it is calculated by 35 SEK (travel cost per hour) it gave significant impact of total travel cost increase. However, it did not take into account the duration of the closure and left some discussion of link disruption impacted such as the effect of noise and pollution during the road closure. Moreover, Knoo p and Hoogendoon (2007) assess the spillback simulation in dynamic route choice in order to examine the spillback effects then evaluated the road network robustness and the vulnerability of links. This study concluded that it is necessary to assess the spillback effect in order to identify the most vulnerable link within the wide road network. Tampere (2007) investigated the vulnerability of highway sections in Brussels and Ghent. This work was quite challenging, it tried to consider the different aspect of the road network vulnerability criteria related to the amount of vehicle hours lost due to major incidents. This work compromised of two steps; the first one is the quick scanning of the most vulnerable link from the long list into short list by considering the several aspects and then by obtaining the short list links then the vulnerability measure was conducted. Since this method used the dynamic traffic assignment, there are some drawbacks during the model run such as the lack of traffic distribution after the occurrence of the incident which resulted an illogical of travelers route choice. In general this method has successfully measured the vulnerability by not only considering the traffic condition but also taking into account the different road networks. Though this method has not considered traffic assignment criteria, it is still considered as a refinement over similar studies Measures of Congestion used in Transportation Planning Measures of congestion are intended to evaluate the performance of the transportation network and to diagnose problem areas. They provide information on how well the system has met certain stated goals and targets, and can also help to explain variations in user experiences of the system. There are four general categories of congestion measures. The first category contains measures that explain the duration of congestion experienced by users in some way; these include delay, risk of delay, average speed, and travel time. The next category includes measures that analyze how well the system is functioning at a given location. This category primarily consists of the volume to capacity (V/C) ratio, which is usually expressed as a level-of-service (LOS) category. LOS is a performance rating that is often used as a technical way to express how well a facility is functioning. For example, a facility functioning poorly is likely to be rated as LOS F, but could just as easily be described as poor. The third category is that of spatial measures, including queue length, queue density, and vehicle miles traveled. It is important to note that some of the duration and spatial measures are actually measured as point measures. The final category of measures is the other category, consisting primarily of travel time reliability and the number of times a vehicle stops because of congested conditions. Easily the most common measure of traffic congestion is the volume-to-capacity ratio. The V/C ratio measures the number of vehicles using a facility against the number of vehicles that the facility was designed to accommodate. This ratio is an important measure for planners to use, and represents an easily understandable measure of whether or not a roadway is congested. However, it can lead to some philosophical problems, such as whether transportation systems should be built to handle the highest demand or the average demand, and what level of service is acceptable. In addition, it is difficult to accurately measure the capacity of a roadway. The volume-to-capacity ratio is an important tool for comparing a roadways performance to other roadways and over time, but does not necessarily reflect the overall user experience and values in the system. Despite the prevailing usage of the volume-to-capacity ratio, and perhaps because of its inherent philosophical difficulties, the (FHWA) ha s strongly encouraged agencies to consider travel time experienced by users as the primary source for congestion measurement. They also state that currently used measures of congestion are inadequate for determining the true impact of the congestion that clogs up the transportation system from a users perspective, and that they are not able to adequately measure the impacts of congestion mitigation strategies. What is travel time reliability? As mentioned in section 1.1.1, the OECD (2010) provides a general definition for Travel Time Reliability: The ability of the transport system to provide the expected level of service quality, upon which users have organized their activities. The key of this definition is that a route is reliable if the expectations of the user are in accordance with the experienced travel time. But this does not directly lead to a TTR measure. Nonetheless, this definition shows that user expectations should be taken into account when selecting a proper TTR measure. Congestion is common in many cities and few people will dispute this fact. Drivers become used to this congestion, always expecting and plan for some delay, especially in peak driving times. Most drivers budget for extra time to accommodate traffic delays or adjust their schedules. Traffic delays are mostly much worse than expected when it happens. All travelers are less tolerant of unpredicted delays, the effect is that it makes then to be late for work or vital meetings, miss appointment, or suffer additional childcare fees. Shippers and freight forwarders who experience unpredicted delay may lose money and interrupt just-in-time delivery and manufacturing processes. Traffic congestion used to be communicated only in terms of simple average in time past. Nevertheless most travelers experience and remember a different thing than the simple average as they commute within a year. Travelers travel time differ from day to day, and remember the few bad days they suffered through unexpect ed delays. Commuter build time cushion or buffer in planning their trip to account for the variability. The buffer helps them to arrive early on some days, though not a bad thing, but the additional time is carved out of their day time which could have been used to pursuit other activities than to commute. Travel time reliability time frames Travel Time Reliability can be categorized by its time frame. Bates et al. (2001) discusses three levels of variability: inter-day, inter-period and inter-vehicle. Martchouk et al. (2009) explains these as follows: Inter-day: Variations in the travel time pattern between days. Some days of the week might have substantially different traffic volumes than others. For example, a Sunday will generally have less traffic than a Monday. Same weekdays should have about the same travel time pattern, but there can still be variations. Also, events such as road works or inclement weather cause inter-day variations. Inter-period: Variations in travel times during a day. Many road sections have a morning and evening peak, during which travel times are larger. These variations are caused by variations in traffic volume. Inter-vehicle: Relatively small differences in travel times between vehicles in a traffic stream. These are caused by interactions between vehicles and variations in driver behavior, including lane changes and speed differences. Although Martchouk et al. (2009) shows that individual travel times on a motorway section can vary strongly in similar conditions, due to driver behavior, this study focuses on inter-day variations. It is assumed that inter-vehicle variations have no significant influence on Travel Time Reliability. In urban areas, the speed difference between vehicles will generally be smaller than on highways. The reasons for this are: the average speed on highways is higher, there is more overtaking, trucks cannot drive at the maximum allowed speed, and routes are longer. Inter-period variations are also not considered, because it is presumed that road users know that travel times within a day vary according to a more or less fixed pattern. It is the deviations from this daily pattern which are interesting in the light of TTR, since these cannot be predicted by road users. Therefore, the focus of this investigation is on inter-day variation. Why travel time reliability is important? Travel time reliability is vital to every user within the transportation system, whether they are freight shippers, transit riders, vehicle drivers and even air travelers. Reliability allows business travelers and personal to make better use of the own time. Because reliability is so significant for transportation planners, transportation system users, and decision makers should consider travel time reliability as a key measure of performance Traffic management and operation activities is better quantified and beneficial to traffic professionals by the use of travel time reliability than simple average. For instants take into consideration a typical before and after study that attempts to quantify the benefits of an accident management or ramp material program. The development in average time may seem to be modest. However reliability measure will show a much greater development because they show the effect of improving the worst few days of unexpected delay. The Beginning of Travel Time Reliability as a Performance Measure Hellinga (2011) states that in the past, analysis of transportation networks focused primarily on the estimation and evaluation of average conditions for a given time period. These average conditions might be expressed in terms of average traffic stream speed; average travel time between a given origin and destination pair; or some average generalized cost to travel from an origin to a destination. This generalized cost typically includes terms reflecting time as well as monetary costs. These terms are summed by multiplying the time based measures by a value of time coefficient. A common characteristic of all of these approaches is that they reflect average or expected conditions and do not reflect the impact of the variability of these conditions. One reason for this is that models become much more complicated when this variability would be included. Also, a vast amount of data from a long period of time is needed. Unfortunately, collecting data is often costly and time-consuming. H ellinga (2011) also observes that more recently, there has been an increasing interest in the reliability of transportation networks. It is hypothesized that reliability has value to transportation network users and may also impact user behavior. Influence on traveler behavior may include: destination choice, route choice, time of departure choice, and mode choice. It is useful for road managers and planners to have knowledge about the relations between TTR and road user behavior, because this can be used to predict or even deliberately influence this behavior by applying traffic management measures. Consequently, there has been an effort to better understand the issues surrounding reliability, and to answer a number of important questions such as: 1. How is transportation network reliability defined? 2. How can/should network reliability be measured in the field? 3. What factors influence reliability and how? 4. What instruments are available to network managers, policy makers, and network users that impact reliability and what are the characteristics of these causal relationships? 5. What is the value of reliability to various transportation network users (e.g. travelers, freight carriers, etc.) and how is this value affected by trip purpose? 6. How do transportation network users respond to reliability in terms of their travel behavior? (E.g. departure time choice, mode choice, route choice etc.) 7. How can reliability (and its effects) be represented within micro and macro level models? (Microscopic models focus on individual vehicles, while macroscopic models pertain to the properties of the traffic flow as a whole.) 8. How important is it to consider the impact of reliability in transportation project benefit/cost evaluations? 9. Does the consideration of the impact of reliability within the project evaluation process alter the order of preference of projects within the list of candidate projects? Hellinga (2011) states that the above list of questions, which is likely not exhaustive, indicates that there currently exists a very large knowledge gap with respect to reliability. Various research efforts around the world are beginning to fill in these gaps, but the body of knowledge is still relatively sparse and there is not yet even general agreement on terminology. Note that the first, second, and (partially) fifth question are part of this investigation What measures are used to quantify travel time reliability? The four recommended measures includes 90th or 95th percentile travel time, buffer index, planning time index, and frequency that congestion exceeds some expected threshold. These measurements are emerging practices, some of

Militant Monks Essay -- essays research papers fc

The Knights Templar, a military order of monks answerable only to the Pope himself, were founded in 1118. Their primary responsibility, at least initially, was to provide protection to Christians making pilgrimages to the Holy Land. They rose in power, both religious and secular, to become one of the richest and most powerful entities in Christendom. By the time of their disbandment in 1307, this highly secretive organization controlled vast wealth, a fleet of merchant ships, and castles and estates spanning the entire Mediterranean area. When the crusaders captured Jerusalem from the Muslims in 1099, the Church encouraged all faithful Christians to visit that holy city in order to affirm their faith. The area, however, was still subject to sporadic attacks from various non-Christian factions. A small group of knights, led by Hugh de Payens, vowed to protect the pilgrims. The group was granted quasi-official status by King Baldwin II of Jerusalem, who allowed them quarters in a wing of the royal palace near the Temple of Solomon. It is from this initial posting that the order derived its name. They took the standard vows of poverty, chastity and obedience and were bound to the rules of the Augustinian order. [Upton-Ward 1] The order languished in near-anonimity for several years, despite generous contributions from various European personages. In 1126, Count Hugh of Champagne, having donated his estates to Bernard of Clairvaux for use in building a monestary for the Cistercian order, arrived in Jerusalem to join the Templars. This action indirectly obligated Bernard to support the newly chosen advocacy of his benefactor. He wrote to the count, "If, for God's work, you have changed yourself from count to knight and from rich to poor, I congratulate you." [Howarth 49] In the year 1126, King Baldwin found two reasons for wanting official recognition of the order. First, he had, perhaps prematurely, bestowed upon Hugh de Payens the title of Master of the Temple. Second, the king had the opportunity to launch an attack on the city of Damascus, but he needed more knights. Papal recognition would allow open recruiting in Europe for the order. King Baldwin sent a letter to Bernard of Clairvaux, the order's primary patron, later known as Saint Bernard, asking him to petition the Pope for official recognition of the order. [Howarth 50-51] The King's letter ... ...ghts Templar. The final blow, however, was probably three-fold: a general unpopularity of the order among the European aristocracy, due in part to jealousy; a chronic shortage in the French treasury, despite heavy taxation; and Master de Molay's refusal to consider a merger of the Templars with the Hospitallers, as suggested by the Pope. The fact remains, however, that no evidence of heresy was ever found. [Burman/Templars 180] An order founded by nine knights in Jerusalem came to amass great wealth and power, which speaks well of their integrity and discretion. They became the "shock troops" of the Holy See. When they lost their original mission of protecting pilgrims upon the fall of Jerusalem, their downfall became inevitable. [Sinclair 37] Works Cited: Burman, Edward. The Inquisition. New York: Dorset, 1984. --. The Templars. Rochester, VT: Destiny, 1986. « Howarth, Stephen. The Knights Templar. New York: Dorset, 1982. Payne, Robert. The History of Islam. New York: Dorset, 1987. Robinson, John J. Born in Blood. New York: Evans, 1989. Sinclair, Andrew. The Sword and the Grail. New York: Crown, 1992. Upton-Ward, J. M. The Rule of the Templars. Suffolk: Boydell, 1992.

Contemporary Chinese female art and artists Essay

Introduction In the 1990s, China adopted western feminism and it influenced and rapidly raised the Chinese feminism concept. There were many themes of exhibition focused on female art and female artists, an example of this is the â€Å"Chinese Women Art Exhibition†1 â€Å"Chinese Women Art Exhibition† in 1998, the Frauen museum (Women’s Museum), Bonn, Germany â€Å"Ã¥ Å Ã¥ ¤ ©Ã©â€šÅ -ä ¸ ­Ã¥Å"‹å ¥ ³Ã¦â‚¬ §Ã¨â€" Ã¨ ¡â€œÃ¥ ±â€¢Ã¢â‚¬ , é‚ ±Ã¨  Ã§ ­â€"åŠÆ', Ã¥ ¾ ·Ã¥Å"‹æ ³ ¢Ã¦  ©Ã¥ © ¦Ã¥ ¥ ³Ã¨â€" Ã¨ ¡â€œÃ¥ Å¡Ã§â€° ©Ã© ¤ ¨, Ã¥ Æ'Ã¥ ±â€¢Ã¨â€" Ã¨ ¡â€œÃ¥ ® ¶Ã¦Å"‰ä ¸ ­Ã¥Å"‹, æ ¸ ¯Ã¥  °Ã¥ Å Ã¦ µ ·Ã¥ ¤â€"å… ±Ã¨ ¨Ë†25ä º º. in 1998 and the â€Å"Century Female Art Exhibition†2 â€Å"Century Female Art Exhibition† in 1998, the China National Art Gallery, Beijing, China â€Å"ä ¸â€"ç ´â‚¬,Ã¥ ¥ ³Ã¦â‚¬ §Ã¨â€" Ã¨ ¡â€œÃ¥ ±â€¢Ã¢â‚¬ , Ã¥ â€¡Ã¦â€" ¹Ã¨Ë†Å¸Ã§ ­â€"åŠÆ',ä ¸ ­Ã¥Å"‹èâ€" Ã¨ ¡â€œÃ§  â€Ã§ © ¶Ã©â„¢ ¢Ã¦â€"‡åÅ'â€"èâ€" Ã¨ ¡â€œ,Ã¥ ¤ §Ã¥Å" °Ã¨ ³â€¡Ã§â€ ¢Ã§ ® ¡Ã§ â€ Ã¦Å"䎪 Ã¥â€¦ ¬Ã¥  ¸Ã¤ ¸ »Ã¦Å' ,Ã¥ ±â€¢Ã¨ ¦ ½Ã§  »Ã¥ ±â€¢(é™ ¶Ã¥â€™ Ã§â„¢ ½Ã¤ ¸ »Ã¦Å' ),èâ€" Ã¥â€œ Ã¥ ±â€¢(Ã¥ ¾ Ã¨â„¢ ¹Ã¤ ¸ »Ã¦Å' ),Ã¥ ¤â€"Ã¥Å"˜å ±â€¢(ç ¾â€¦Ã© ºâ€"ä ¸ »Ã¦Å' ),ç‰ ¹Ã¥ ±â€¢(è ³Ë†Ã¦â€" ¹Ã¨Ë†Å¸Ã¤ ¸ »Ã¦Å' )四個éÆ' ¨Ã¥Ë†â€ .Ã¥ ±â€¢Ã¨ ¦ ½Ã¨ ¨ ­Ã§ «â€¹Ã¤ ¸â€°Ã¥â‚¬â€¹Ã§ Å½Ã©  â€¦:æâ€"‡åÅ'â€"èâ€" Ã¨ ¡â€œÃ¥ ­ ¸Ã§ ¤ ¾Ã§ Å½(ç  ²Ã§ Å½Ã¨â‚¬â€¦:Ã¥ ¡Å¾Ã¥ £ ¬Ã¨â€" Ã¨ ¡â€œÃ¥ · ¥Ã¤ ½Å"Ã¥ ® ¤,劉è™ ¹,èâ€"݊ ¿ Ã§â€˜â€¢,æžâ€"Ã¥ ¤ ©Ã¨â€¹â€",æ ¢ Ã¦ ´ Ã© Ë†) æ‰ ¹Ã¨ ©â€¢Ã¥ ® ¶Ã§ Å½(ç  ²Ã§ Å½Ã¨â‚¬â€¦:Ã¥ §Å"æ  °,Ã¥ ­ «Ã¨â€˜â€º,æžâ€"Ã¥ » ¶,æâ€"‡é ³ ³Ã¥â€žâ‚¬,æ Å½Ã¨â„¢ ¹) æ” ¶Ã¨â€" Ã¥ ® ¶Ã§ Å½(ç  ²Ã§ Å½Ã¨â‚¬â€¦:Ã¥ ¤ Ã¤ ¿Å Ã¥ ¨Å",Ã¥ ¾ Ã¦Å¡ Ã§â€¡â€¢,Ã¥ ¼ µÃ¦ º «Ã¥ ¸â„¢,Ã¥ ­ «Ã© ¼Å½Ã§Å½â€°,Ã¥ ¾ Ã¨â„¢ ¹) in 1998. Only female artists could participate in this category of art exhibition. Although the exhibitions revealed the importance of women art in modern Chinese art, there was no specific description to define the quality of female art and female artists. From this it can be asked: What is Chinese female art and is it a category in the making of the modern and contemporary Chinese art? Contemporary Chinese art frequently referred to as avant-garde art, sustained to expand ever since the 1980’s as an improvement of contemporary, post-Cultural art developments. During this period, China opened the economic door to world and western influence poured into Chinese culture; bringing the concept of feminism in China. Furthermore, Chinese artist were also released from the control of extreme political condition, and female artists were set about to re-create their own image, contributing to a gradual awakening of women’s consciousness. Indeed, it is in this newly awakened consciousness that Chinese female art in contemporary world can be delineated. In this paper, I would like to discuss how three generation groups of female artists (1980s, 1990s, and overseas) present their works and how they express their female quality through those art pieces. Finally, I also would like to bring out the concept and definition of quality of female art in contemporary Chine se art. The ’85 New Wave Art’ movement brought about many young female artists who devoted themselves to approach the woman’s nature of body and also found new ways to present the attention on the female subject. Female artists alongside male artists, expressed their own attitudes towards contemporary China. In the beginning stages of this period, women artist paid little attention to their own expression through maintaining with the large scale influence and borrowing from modern western art. However, the nature of contemporary art developed so that the concept of women’s artistic consciousness started to emerge. After 1989, neo-expressionism brought new stage in China. Artists, both male and female, started to focus on the essence of human spirit and also emphasized on rational and critical concepts. Women’s consciousness began to emerge and women began to explore their own experience and find an appropriate way of expression in contemporary Chinese art. Most female artists pursued to define the essence of women’s consciousness or confirm women’s consciousness itself. They promoted freedom from traditional male-dominated society and pursued women’s equal position with men. Many women art exhibitions were also held in this period, and female art and female artists began to be paid attention. Since the 1980s, not only local Chinese female artists came about to give rise to Chinese women’s art, but some overseas Chinese female artists also worked to this end. They created the works through different experiences and feelings in looking for the essence of women’s consciousness. These artists mostly left China after the Cultural Revolution, prior to the social changes in China. They have their unique ways to present their ideas and expressions, like looking back to Chinese history and pursuing the art essences that they need. With differences in personal backgrounds and generations, female artists in all these three groups have varying and unique ways in presenting their art through different content and influence. But to Chinese female artists, the intention is to express their female touch and feeling in a changing Chinese society in which the women’s gender role is constantly changing and reshaping. In their art, females in these three groups share not only expressions and feelings based on their female sensitivity but also their observations to social concern. In the following sections, I choose three contemporary Chinese female artists, Hung Liu, Yu Hong, and Cui Xiuwen, and define the quality of female art through their works. Traditional female role in China Most literature focuses on Chinese culture and history with key stresses on the function of language, geography, philosophies, and art. On the other hand, women are missing in almost all fields. Chinese civilization’s culture and arts are male-dominated and male-oriented. Chinese art, whether primordial or contemporary, is art that instigated in or is practiced in China mostly by Chinese male artists. The arts of a society mirror man’s values and attitudes. Women were always portrayed as objects of observation by men. Moreover, according to I-Jing, â€Å"women are more naturally aligned with the spiritual and emotional bodies, which are more non-linear and spatially oriented (all those yin qualities); while men are more naturally aligned with the mental and physical bodies, which are more linear and temporally oriented (all those yang qualities).†3 Malin, David. 2006. Creating Sacred Space. Bodymath.com. http://www.bodymath.com/articles/archives/Feb06_Creating_Sacred_Space.pdf (February, 2006) Yang is mostly considered more important than yin, and is regarded as of secondary importance. This makes gender roles have typical stereotypes with women always portrayed with weakness and sickness. Chinese women had been confined to the family, at the mercy of their husbands for thousands of years. History and tradition have stifled women’s voices. In China, women lived within a society dominated by men, where women were not authorized to involve themselves in the public field and consequently were not integrated in historical descriptions. For example, in the Forbidden City, women were not allowed to walk in some public spaces because those spaces were symbolized as the male’s power and authority. â€Å"No woman ever took part in the grand ceremonies staged before the Hall of Supreme Harmony, which were supreme demonstrations of male ruling power.†4 Wu, Hung. Beyond Stereotypes: The Twelve Beauties in Qing Court Art and the â€Å"Dream of the Red Chamber†. Writing Women in Late Imperial China, ed. Ellen Widmer& Kang-I Sun Chang, 315-316. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1997. Undertakings by Chinese women highlight the custom of foot binding succeeded from late Song to Ming Dynasties and even sustained to several indications into the 20th century. Foot binding has an effect to a degree in all classes of Chinese women and at a certain point, persuaded women to have bound feet and to dwell in the private sphere of their homes. Having bound feet was directly correlated to Chinese art in modern times. Contemporary Chinese women role The year 1976 marked a shift in political, economic, and cultural policy, a shift that erupted out of the self-imported isolation of three decades and opened China up to the outside world. Western influence started to come into China and brought many new concepts to strike Chinese society. During the 1980s, the western feminism also began to influence and raised rapidly women’s consciousness. â€Å"By the mid-1980’s, though, the plethora of newly founded women’s magazines explicitly discussed women’s problems at work and in the family. The pages of China Women’s News were filled with exposà ©s and denunciations of discrimination faced by women. â€Å"Feminist outcries† began to appear with some regularity in print. This recognition of gender inequality also found expression in the emergence of separate women’s organizations–schools, professional societies, and women’s studies groups.†5 Hershatter, Gail& Honig, Emily. Feminist Voices. Personal Voices: Chinese Women in the 1980’s. 308. Stanford, CA:Stanford University Press, 1988. Women became aware of their unequal state in society and began to pay attention on female issues. In 1990s, new modern women images emerged. Women focused on individual characteristic and pursued their confidence and profession. The new women were as strong and intellectual as men or better, and they could even afford more of what they desire without anymore having to depend on men and be at a lower statute in society. â€Å"Metropolis ran a special feature on women of talent in its November 1999 issue. One illustration show a confident woman pointing to the screen of her laptop computer while a male colleague with furrowed brow struggles to comprehend what he sees. An article entitled â€Å"Thirty Traits of the Talented Woman†6 â€Å"Thirty Traits of the Talented Woman† explains that the woman should be intelligent, sharp-witted, well-informed, knowledgeable, well-spoken, and has good taste; she is independent, self-respecting, and conscious of women’s equality; she if principled but gentle, with a good sense of humor, and easy to get along with. She is understanding, generous, and sensitive to the feelings to others, but not suspicious. She is a doer-straightforward, efficient, and self-controlled. She is a bit of a rebel but not confrontational. While she may be attractive to men, her attraction is based on personality, not beauty. Her life is well-balanced; love is never her only concern. Dadushi (Metropolis) 14 (November 1999): 102-103 lists her characteristics.†7 Julia F. Andrews and Kuiyi Shen. The New Chinese Woman and Lifestyle Magazines in the Late 1990s. Popular China: Unofficial Culture in a Globalizing Society. Ed. Perry Link, Richard P. Madsen, and Paul G. Pickowicz, 151. Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 2002 New modern women were portrayed as beautiful and intellectual individuals. They could stand in the same level in society with men. Contemporary Chinese female artists and works Contemporary Chinese female artists use a lot of ways to express and convey their feelings and this is done effectively in their image. Basically, there are five important themes involved in their works to describe their voice and thought. First, female artists usually use their sensitivity to express women’s touch through body and gesture. Body and gesture presentations help artists to voice their opinions and feelings accompanied with their understanding of being women. Cui Xiuwen8 Cui Xiuwen, born in Heilongjiang, China, 1970. She graduated with MFA from the Central Academy of Fine Art, Beijing, China in 1996. Cui Xiuwen’s works have consistently engaged themes of sexuality and gender. Her paintings show the blurred boundary between public and private, and the relationship between history and memory. She uses a wide range of media and subject matters to explore the messages she wants to pass, bringing disturbing insights to bear on those issues. , her series works, â€Å"Lovers† (1999), she creates bold and sensitive relationship and intimate activity between man and woman. In the piece, she reveals both heterosexual and homosexual features, and presents a nervous sexual interaction that hints at Paul Cezanne’s colors. In â€Å"Lovers 5† (1999), strong and intense orange color background emphasizes the two human figures in the front when having sex, and also marks the nervous and excited atmosphere between them. While seeing this painting, the feeling is along with two figures through position, activity, and touch. This is primary human nature and human form however is heterosexual or homosexual. â€Å"†I create themes about gender, not themes about sexuality,† she explains. â€Å"I focus on human beings, only the human form in the world. If you want to know what it is to be human, you have to gain an insight into the relationship between man and woman.†Ã¢â‚¬ 9 Ma, Maggie. The Colors of Cui Xiuwen. Artzine: A Chinese Contemporary Art Portal. http://www.artzinechina.com/display_vol_aid168_en.html Yu Hong’s10 Yu Hong, born in Xi’an,China, 1966. 1995 earned MFA from the Central Academy of Fine arts, Beijing, China. Simple and realistic are the two best words to describe her works. Initially, Yu Hong’s paintings combine highly realistic portraits wit unreal surroundings and colorations, suggestion a sense of dislocation from the world. She presents her world and experience through works without any extraordinary images or ideas. Though paintings often represent a tranquil feeling, they depict the significance of life. Her early work, â€Å"Nude† (1988) was against masculinity appropriation of the spectacle of woman’s body in the Cultural Revolution. She portrays realistically, woman’s naked body, smooth and soft pose which present the touch and quality of female. Yu Hong reverses the traditional must-be female image. She depicts naked woman body in front only with red high heel shoes. â€Å"Chinese pictures of the human body, clothes or semi-clothed, (in a furtive pornography [of specifically erotic pictures]), are-to Western eyes-meager, schematic and inadequate†.11 Angela Zito & Tani E.Barlow.The Body Invisible in Chinese Art?. Body, Subject & Power in China. Chicago: The university of Chicago Press. There were no naked body images in traditional Chinese pictures, but here Yu Hong presented the naked woman body to represent the true nature and beauty of human form intended   against masculinity of the body and tradition. Another type of presentation, like Hung Liu’s12 Hung Liu, born in China on the eve of the Cultural Revolution, 1982 earned her MFA in mural painting from the Central Academy of Fine Art, Beijing, China, immigrated to the United States later on and also earned MFA in visual arts from University of California, San Diego. She is interested in looking at how women existed in Chinese history for long time. Her works are touched with the painful reality of women’s status on China. As a Chinese woman and immigrant in the United States, Hung Liu chooses different ways to identify herself through looking back the Chinese history and portraying female issue on art work. Her paintings are based on late 19th and early 20th century Chinese photographs. Some were taken by foreign tourists, while others were taken by the Chinese. Often, the pictures are of beautiful young prostitutes. In traditional Chinese society, prostitutes belong to the low social class and disdained by people. But, indeed, they play an important role during that period, especially for photograph art and portrait paintings. In her work, â€Å"Odalisque† (1992), she creates a monumental altar to an anonymous woman, a turn of the century Chinese prostitute. Hung Liu reclaims a place in history for the Chinese prostitute by transforming the small photograph into large scale painting. â€Å"To the painting, with their flattened surfaces, Liu attaches wooden altars, on which she sets small jade-colored vases of glass flowers or tiny embroidered shoes for bound feet. Like the lacquer panels and the lifeless glass flowers, the prostitutes are mere decorations, passive, powerless, and empty in a culture that traditional counted emptiness as a female virtue.†13 Kim, Elaine H.1996. â€Å"Bad Women†: Asian American Visual Artists Hanh Thi Pham, Hung Liu, and Yong Soon Min. Feminist Studies, Inc. http://www.jstor.org/pss/3178131 The traditional Chinese clothing of the woman contrasts with the ornate, Western design of the sofa upon which she reclines and the flowered, Victorian-style backdrop. In addition, her gaze turns to the viewer and marks us conscious of viewer’s role as outside observers. The painting recalls the western artist, Edouard Manet’s painting, â€Å"Olympia† (1863). She touches a moment that registers the encounter between a past China and the trope of the prostitute, sexuality as commodity advertised through the relation of displayed body to the gaze of that Western technology, camera. â€Å"â€Å"I don’t want their stories to be forgotten; I don’t want them to disappear without a trace.† 14 Kim, Elaine H.1996. â€Å"Bad Women†: Asian American Visual Artists Hanh Thi Pham, Hung Liu, and Yong Soon Min. Feminist Studies, Inc. http://www.jstor.org/pss/3178131 As she says, she intends to document the anonymous women in history. Hung Liu’s painting combines western aesthetics with Chinese subject matter (prostitute), a cross-cultural blend that communicates her unique sense of beauty and emotion to the viewer through extraordinarily skillful handing of paint. Second, family and growing background are the significant influences to female artist when creating their works. Their works sometimes are revealed the images about family or childhood memory, and even extend to related personal expression and concern. Yu Hong, â€Å"Witness to Growth† (1966-2006), in which Yu Hong uses her own family photographs to create a self-portrait for each year of her life, and portraits for each year of her daughter’s life. The idea and composition of paintings dwell deeply in her concerned questions: What is the social expectation to female role in our society? How do these expectations build up the life of a woman? In this series of paintings, she not only narrates the story in how growing process, but also how society changes a woman’s life. Yu Hong discards an enthusiastic and rational thinking, but returns to the history by an imperturbable and objective manner instead. Yu Hong chooses a newspaper or magazine spread to complement each image of painting, and makes connection between private and public area of her own life. â€Å"Witness to Growth†(1995),a painting of herself aged twenty-nine years old, Yu Hong’s daughter lying on her body, family burden (role of mother) and society change (modern woman) bring heavy pressure and make her rethink the meaning of gender role and seek the balance between those roles. Next to the painting, artist places a contemporaneous China 1995 newspaper depicting â€Å"women waiting for job opportunity†. Chinese economy was flourishing rapidly during this period, and it also brought extremely competition in working position. Many women lost jobs, and many young girls lost opportunity of education. Society change quickly marked negative effect to female and deprived of their chance. At this time, western feminism came into China; women began to pursue their equality to men in society and also look for their female identity. This feminism trend aroused women to think about their roles between family and society as mothers and working women. In contrast, one year-old Yu Hong’s daughter, she seemed a new generation is growing. A new age is coming. The painting engages the juxtaposition of the weight of contemporary China’s history with the simplicity of life in its purest, most uncomplicated state of being. Here is a relatively quiet life lived in the midst of an almost constant political, cultural, and economic maelstrom. Yu Hong provides the necessary retreat into ordinary that enables the progression of life through the juxtaposition of the photograph and painting. Cultural Revolution was a significant historical event, especially rooted in people who grew up during this period. Hun Liu’s stunning reproductions of historical photographs of Chinese life, which address the cultural collisions she faced while coming of age during the decade of the Cultural Revolution in China. Personal items such as photographs were forbidden during Cultural Revolution, and her family destroyed most of their family photos out of fear. As a result, Hung Liu creates her paintings from anonymous photographs of historical China, particularly with reclaiming the lost histories of nameless women, has been strongly influenced by the losses she and her family suffered. Many of her paintings depict restrictive Chinese Cultural Revolution Scene and express her voice to against this history. Hung Liu’s painting, â€Å"Three Graces† (2001), the source photographs for this painting depict women in paramilitary uniforms in heroic poses, shown from below to give the appearance of greater height and stature. These fighters for Mao’s cause carry primitive rifles as they march forward to engage in the revolutionary struggle. During the Cultural Revolution, young students and young people were mobilized by Chinese government, called â€Å"red guards† or â€Å"Hong Wei Bing†. The Hong Wei Bing traveled throughout China, going to schools, universities, and institutions, spreading the teaching of Mao. They aimed to attack the old society (old ideas, cultures, manners, and customs) with violence, but indeed they followed blindly by government’s propaganda. And the Cultural Revolution also put young intellectuals and artist like Hung Liu into the rice fields to be â€Å"re-educated† by peasants. Hung Liu chooses plain clothes worn by the women in the original photographs with flowers, painted in the traditional Chinese style. The drips of oil paint that enliven the painting’s surface are a part of Western praxis with its reference to the personifications of beauty, charm, and grace. As she says, â€Å"â€Å"The oil washes and drips hat seep through my paintings contributes to a sense of loss while dissolving the historical authenticity of the photographs I paint from. Color is a way of making contact with subjects that are fading into the gray tones of history.†Ã¢â‚¬ 15 Going Away, Coming Home: 80 Blessings from Oakland Artist hung Liu. Port Of Oakland. http://www.museumca.org/press/pdf/Liu%20fact%20sheet%20fnl.pdf Through this revolutionary background, Hung Liu had experienced a deep touch. This painting not only looks for the memory of girls’ but also expresses Hung Liu’s feeling of the Cultural Revolution through the image and drip. Third, artists look for identifying women’s importance and missing recognition of social status because women in society are always ignored and made to play an unimportant role. Indeed, they are actually as significant as men in our world. Hung Liu’s paintings often narrate identity and story issues. She documents in her art the forgotten lives of anonymous people, especially those of women. She tries to recall their erased identity from society and appear their stories and meaning of existence back. Her work, â€Å"We have Been Naught We Shall Be all†(2007), a series of three canvases edged by bands to mimic widescreen film format, those works are inspired by Daughters of China (1949), a Ling Zifeng film based on the heroic actions of a group of women officers and soldiers during the Sino-Japanese War. Hung Liu’s empathetic response to the final moments of the women, as they carry a wounded comrade into the river to draw away enemy fire from the Chinese Resistance fighters, brings to the fore the theme of personal sacrifice. The images of women are taken by realistic presentation, Hung Liu bases on original photographic image of film. She reserves women’s face without any color and intends to keep their original identify and recall their heroic dignity, accompanied by respect. The paintings from left to right, it seems catching the moment and movement when women carrying the wounded body toward the front. Hung Liu uses the yellow color on three canvases, the background of left painting is coloring yellow, yellow is on wounded body and women’s figures of central canvas, and only little yellow color on right canvas. Moreover, yellow symbolizes the sharp memory. Hung Liu arranges the yellow on three canvases perfectly along with women’s action and moment. This presents a balance between image and time. Her art work is concerned about what has been lost in transit between female and history. Hung Liu desires to give those nameless women place in history, and she would like to identify those women as significant heroes in our society. As Hung Liu’s concept, Yu Hong creates the â€Å"She† series to portray the spirit and lives of women. The meaning of â€Å"existence† in our world is then recorded. Different career women have also played different roles to show their importance. â€Å"She-security guard†, Yu Hong arranges one photographic image picked by security guard aside with one oil painting made by her. The photographic image is taken in front of the museum in her leisure time. Security guard wears white shirt with likely smile. In the photo, she raises her hand and poses â€Å"YA†. Contrary to the next, the painting shows her working place. She wears yellow ochrecolor uniform and concentrate on her job with highly respect. The light is the parking light seems leading us to take a glance on her working place and tries to understand her work. Artist organizes this placement purposely and intent to show the importance of security guard in society. Yu Hong depicts the portrait image to let audience snoop security guard’s life between working place and personal life. She is the individual with singularity; no one can replace her in this career position. Yu Hong still presents her realistic style on paintings, and she intends to record different modern female in different levels of life. As she says, â€Å"If life can move slower, people can notice and pay attention in every detail and experience. I wish life could be freed from the restraint, so the essence of real life could be discovered. †16 â€Å"我å ° ±Ã¦Ëœ ¯Ã¥ ¸Å'æÅ"›ç”Ÿæ ´ »Ã§ ¯â‚¬Ã¥ ¥ Ã¦â€¦ ¢Ã¤ ¸â‚¬Ã© »Å¾, 這æ ¨ £Ã¤ º ºÃ¥â‚¬â€˜Ã¥  ¯Ã¤ » ¥Ã¥ ¾Å¾Ã¥ ® ¹Ã¥Å" °Ã§â€Å¸Ã¦ ´ », æ… ¢Ã¦â€¦ ¢Ã¥Å" °Ã© «â€Ã¦Å"Æ'. 我æ ³ ¨Ã©â€¡ Ã§ ´ °Ã§ ¯â‚¬,我å ¾Ë†Ã¥ ¸Å'æÅ"›ç”Ÿæ ´ »Ã¨Æ' ½Ã¥ ¤  Ã¦â€š  Ã§â€ž ¶Ã¤ ¸â‚¬Ã¤ ºâ€º, 這æ ¨ £Ã§â€Å¸Ã¦ ´ »Ã§Å¡â€žÃ¦Å" ¬Ã§Å"Ÿç‹€æ…‹æ‰ Ã¨Æ' ½Ã§Å"Ÿæ ­ £Ã¨ ¢ «Ã¤ º ºÃ¥â‚¬â€˜Ã§â„¢ ¼Ã¨ ¦ ºÃ¢â‚¬ . Enjoy the Life-Yu Hong. Febay.com. http://www.febay.com.cn/magazine/ArticleShow.asp?ArticleID=18433 (April, 2007) Yu Hong represents the reality of space on woman’s personal life and working life, elegant skills on portrait image, and female sensibility on woman’s experience. She also represents an inner desire of a female artist be responsible and conscious of women’s social status. Fourth, the present reality of sadness and pain of Chinese women who are suffering under a cruelly male-dominated world illustrate the image to challenge traditional patriarchy. In the works of Hung Liu, she has examined foot binding, practiced in China from the Song Dynasty until the beginning of the twentieth century. Many Chinese women’s feet were bound from birth to artificially confine their growth, distorting them into small, twisted fists that were sexually attractive to men. The painful, deforming practice of foot binding was used to make a Chinese woman walk in an extremely difficult way, but their mincing steps were considered delicate and lovely. Bound feet left women handicapped, which also ensured that they remained subservient. Moreover, it stressed the value of appearance while making a virtue of hiding one’s pain and suffering, making it a combination of esthetics and cruelty. In one piece of her work called â€Å"Bonsai† (1992), Hung Liu placed a photograph next to an anatomical line drawing showing the cross-section of a human body flanked on either side by Chinese characters. The only decipherable physiognomic attributes in this figural drawing are the heart, what appears to be a spine, and a suggestion of intestinal organs. What are most astonishing observations about this drawing are the absence of legs and the egg shape of the figure that almost mirrors the contour of the woman in the photograph. By placing these two images within the same interpretive context. Hung Liu has reinforced the notion of the woman’s incapacitated movement. Woman’s physical movement had been limited by the mutilation of her feet in the same way that a tiny bonsai tree is confined to restrict its growth. She had been bound by Chinese societal and cultural practices as an object of male gratification. Hung Liu shows the Chinese aesthetic tradition with cruel reality in male- dominated society. She also presents how unfair beauty standards were to women in the long period. As a Chinese woman, the piece would make a you think about your grand grandmother or grandmother suffering this pain in order to satisfy men’s taste and standard. Her art work is concerned about what has been severed from the surroundings. She touches the sadness and painful reality of women’s status in China. As a woman, she uses her sensibility to depict and voice for women’s gender role. From her paintings, not only narrate stories but also represent true reality in our society. The young artist Cui Xiuwen creates bold, sensitive caricatures of works as â€Å"Intersection Series† in 1998. In the piece, she records the full front side of a man’s naked body and dressed a young girl holding a rose. The painting is also done in connection with Cezanne’s colors and narrative story-telling and nervous relationship between female and male. Cui Xiuwen colors the girl’s dress and dog on green color. Green color symbolizes the protection from fears and anxieties connected with the demands of others (men). The rose is represented as girl’s pure virginity which is inviolate. Girl’s face also reveals innocence. On the contrary, man’ genitals are bit off by girl’s dog, blooding through his underwear. His extremely fearful and shocking face shows on his face with opened mouth and big eyes. In traditional Chinese society, patriarchy dominates the world and power. Genitals are the symbol of patriarchy. Cui Xiuwen boldly challenges to patriarchic society and tries to reverse the social position between female and male. In traditional Chinese art, art is confined to the men society. Women always played being viewed characters; men played viewer roles, but here, the artist breaks traditional art concept and reverses art presentation. The reversal shows Cui Xiuwen’s stance on the feminism. She makes up fictional story image to express her own challenging patriarchic desire. Intensive and extraordinary color and story throw a huge stone to the eyes of the audience. This also brings new dispute to contemporary Chinese society. Finally, concern about female and social issues, the year 1976 marked a shift in political, economic, and cultural policy, a shift that opened China up to the outside world. Afterward, society is changing rapidly. There are more and more social issues emerged such as teen-age crime and pregnant teen-age girl. Social value shifts to wrong path. Artists see this situation and use observations to bring the problem and question to audience. Yu Hong, she approaches new art presentation on â€Å"Figure and Ground†. The works portrays some young girls practicing gymnastics. Images seem simple, but paintings neatly summarized a sophisticated thread of thought the artist has been developing over the years, and they express that thought in a way that ties the works visually to certain aesthetic principles found in traditional Chinese painting. As a group, paintings represent a fresh vision and a new level in artist’s oeuvre. Each painting in the series depicts from one to three girls against a blank ground, bent into contorted positions as they practice gymnastics. Yu Hong bases the paintings on photographs she took at her daughter’s gymnastics class. The girls wear black leotards in addition to some combination of tight black pants, black and white striped shirt, and black slippers. â€Å"As the artist has said, the paintings â€Å"are all about girls doing artistic gymnastics. People, especially girls, have to change themselves to suit society.† The images are a simple but highly effective metaphor for the place of young girls in contemporary society.†17 Erickson, Britta. Figure and Ground: Yu Hong’s Gymnastics series. Yu Hong. Beijing, China: Loft. Although the students in Yu Hong’s daughter’s gymnastics class range in age from six to teenage, the age of the girls portrayed in Figure and Ground is narrowed to about nine to twelve. Those are the years when girls move from childhood to puberty and begin to come under the heavy pressure of society’s expectations. Teenage is a special period, and it is easy to lead a child to wrong path. Cui Xiuwen’s strength and certainty seems to have naturally transformed into a desire of the home, of having a family, and in a wish, difficult to admit but naturally inevitable, of maternity. This is what the images of her work, â€Å"Angel†, inspire. Artist approaches her own sensitive observation to current social issue related to young age girl. This work does not want to criticize a social and universal situation. It brings up the awareness and the realization of an individual as a singular feeling. Cui Xiuwen wants to express how a young mother, especially teen-age mother in China feels and what fears she has to face. She uses a young model to create strong emotions. Rows of white young girls, ghost like girls, and the same girl repeated over, and in the same state of pregnancy, but the figures are positioned at various scales, which express the different types of fear they have. Alone, staring at the horizon, scared and worried in a procession that goes from the Forbidden City and continues on what can be a highway such as the Beijing ring road o the expressway to the airport. This represents the time when society is changing, and girls are unable to go back to the prior time and have no choice but to go forwardt. They look at the front but only darkness is surrounding them. â€Å"â€Å"No longer wishing to see the outside world, reality, nor to be confronted by it or to have to deal with it†, is the artist’s explanation. Falling pregnant has distinctly different meanings and implications at different ages of woman. Both for the woman and it terms of how the external world judges the fact. Do they applaud or condemn. Cui Xiuwen asks â€Å"Can a woman choose to have a baby alone, single, because she bows to maternal instinct, and does not feel the need to be married?†Ã¢â‚¬ 18 Smith, Karen. Photo series â€Å"Angel† of 2006 and â€Å"One day in 2004†. Catalog of DF2 Gallery. Los Angeles:DF2 Gallery Cui Xiuwen brings the question to make the audience aware about the young pregnant girl’s problem rather than criticize her . She uses retrospective manner to represent the image on her works. Her works do not strike us, nor are they extraordinarily critical, but rather leave significant questions in our minds. Conclusion Yu Hong, Cui Xiuwen, and Hung Liu though are being in different generation groups; they all aim to represent female qualities and voice for women through their works. Yu Hong was brought into the world at the start of the Cultural Revolution in 1966, during which almost every aspect of Chinese life was being re-evaluated. When re-examining the historical evidence and cultural production of the period, it becomes difficult to imagine life being brought into the world during such a period of upheaval. In many cultural products that are marketed as personal memories, the political economic situation is placed directly into the foreground of the narrative, and personal details become a way of contextualizing the nation’s story. Yu Hong’s method of storytelling makes the personal much more central. Her generation, is a group existing between old (artists were trained as Russian realists) and young (artists were influence by emancipation movement) generations. Yu Hong’s works always present old tradition concept (family as central start point) and new social concept which is related to social issues. Cui Xiuwen has been called many things-avant-garde, transgressive, feminist, controversial, and even over-the-top-buts never creatively stagnant. She is born a new kind of human, who grew up in a relatively open social environment and came of age in the increasingly more globalised information age. Her paintings and later photographs are always with frank depictions of human sexuality and controversial issues, which present her ideas and feelings about the new modern society. But Hung Liu, she was born in 1948 in China. During the Cultural Revolution, she was sent to the country to work in the fields and be â€Å"reeducated†. Hung Liu studied the acceptable artistic style of Socialist Realism while in China. After immigrating to San Diego, she learned that it is important for an artist to think and that art is intertwined with, not separate from life. Her works depict the cultural mixing that takes place when an individual moves to a new country and also reality of hidden history in China. She much focuses on historical sources to present the image of reality. Three generation group of artists have their own unique presentations through their works and also are influenced on their own social backgrounds. But, female are the most important image and concepts of their commonality of works. By focusing on a female rather than on a male, three artists challenge a tradition of patriarchy. In the art pieces, the narrator (three female artists) and the protagonists (female image in works) are all women. As such, they present the viewer with a distinctively female view of the world. In historical constructions, women’s lives were generally touched only indirectly in contrast to their fathers, husbands, or brothers. Yu Hong, Cui Xiuwen, and Hung Liu show the women’s lives being immediately influenced by the external world and also their â€Å"existence† and â€Å"importance† in our society. History, society, and family have been great influences upon the development of female art in China. Because of the oppression that Chinese women have faced from a patriarchal society, female art exhibit intense emotions of sadness, pain, and revolution against the male dominated Chinese social stratification. There are many paintings, and photographs that depict the detrimental state that Chinese women were in during the more rigid periods of Chinese history. Various works of art from photos to paintings show female opposition against various Chinese traditions that have oppressed their gender for generations. Many female artists who driven by extreme emotion focused on work that mirrored their sense of retribution against male dominance. Art work that feature females â€Å"turning the tables† on men are common among more liberal female artists. There is also a lot of work that defy traditional Chinese art that is also patriarchal. Such works make use of non-conventional materials and subjects as a way to challenge the male dominated norms. This shows an image of the Chinese female artist as someone who wants to break free from an oppressive condition through the use of personal expression. The qualities linked with the use of the expression in art for them taking account of use of words importantly as the innermost artistic element, simplification, appropriation, representation of user or popular culture as well as art itself. The artists believe that art makes people realize the truth-at least the truth that is given to all to understand, and brings back eliminated women state in Chinese tradition. Chinese female artists have become more motivated to do art not only because of talent, but they convey reality and truth through art. In currently modern world, the majority is focusing on economic flourishing, globalization, and new technology. Most people have forgotten the essence of life and the simple things that make us live along with the many troubles of humanity and theses contemporary Chinese female artists, through exploring modern art are still preserving the real essence of making art and what art means to them, and the female artists also discover their own experience and find an appropriate way of expression in Chinese art. In relation to this, the female artist thus gives superior importance to the role of women in Chinese society. Many daring works aim to recognize female contribution to the family, government, and society which goes largely undistinguished in past generations. Here the Chinese female artists aim to open viewers’ hearts and minds to the true worth of the Chinese woman. Works of art that show how important Chinese women are also tend to show how much they are taken for granted. The Chinese woman artist was also found to be sensitive with the changing times. As society evolved over years of political, economic, and social change, so did female artistry change with it. In fact, female art can be concluded to be much more versatile than Chinese male art which is considered more traditional and unyielding to time. Another difference duly noted between male and female works of art in China was that females tend to express more depth and daringness in terms of depicting sensual subjects. Years of yearning for equality with their male partners have also implied years of dissatisfaction with how males see copulation rituals. The outlet of this repression can be observed with how meaningful and rich Chinese female works of sensual art are. The female artist takes her time to craft the intricate details that add flavor to a romantic scene. The female artist is able to bring out the humanity of a sensitive scene and does not confine the subject to feral lust. Instead, the focus is upon the intimateness of interaction that is not meant to sexually arouse but rather to emotionally move viewers. Lastly, the image of the Chinese female artist is one that is deeply devoted to the value of family. Influences from childhood memories can be seen in the works of many female artists and is regarded as a sense of personal beauty added to general themes. Those are the themes that provide the overall picture in which female art is framed. Chinese female art can be compared to a strong, demanding voice that echoes the grievances of an oppressed gender and outwardly shows how important it is and why people should take notice. It is forceful and bold, more than willing to reject the norms in order to convey its meaning to an internal society that it deems as largely unsympathetic to their concerns. At the same time, female art is delicate and sweet, showing not intent to please but a true expression of beauty. Lastly, it can be concluded that female art is greatly influenced by changing times and each generation of female artists have their own issues to face which are reflected in the works that they produce. Despite female art showing the capability of female artists, it is also a representation of quality artistic work. These qualities contents highly essence of female touch and voice, and also produce with strong female expression through the artworks. Female art is not only made by female artist, on contrary, it is an art with enthusiastic female quality. These five categories of female quality present the sense of female beauty and expression, artists’’ sensitivity of women, and extraordinary and skillful handling of paint. Observe the female art movement in the western society and Chinese society, there is no gap between them. In the west or China, the essence of quality of female art has maintained the same content and concept. In recently decade, female consciousness emerges and brings new concept to women. Women begin to understand themselves more and express their feelings to others. With a modern course of awareness in Chinese contemporary art in the global market, Chinese female artist are expectant that they will reach their ultimate objective; Chinese female artist must have a say. They will continue to explore and find a new way to express their art and voice for women, and the quality of female art will also get more abundant themes.

Jane Austen’s use of coincidence in Pride and Prejudice Essay

  The plot of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice relies heavily on what we call chance and coincidence. Jane Austen’s prime objective seemed to be establishing circumstances, through â€Å"chance and coincidence† which enabled opportunities for Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth to get together. She used major characters such as Mr. Collins, Mr. Wickham and Mrs. Gardiner to appear at the exact moment they were needed to establish situations that brought Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth into close proximity with one another. Through this, Ms. Austin, linked all the characters in the book to one another in some form or another. Mr. Collins is a coincidence himself. He might be an obsequious, pompous fool, who lack’s common sense but he just so happens to be the heir to Longbourn and a clergyman for Lady Catherine de Bough who just so happens to be the aunt of Mr. Darcy. His existence creates opportunities for Elizabeth and Darcy to interact. For example, at Mr. Bingley’ s party in Netherfield, Mr. Collins brought the reluctant lovers together by unwillingly and unconsciously embarrassing himself. In Jane Austen’s time, social classes were treated with the highest respect. Those higher up the social ladder take great care in keeping their position. This requires years of lessons on the proper etiquette and manners on how to behave in public. Mr. Collins, at the time had not been introduced to the prideful Mr. Darcy. Trying to start a conversation with someone of higher stature was a grave offence. Jane Austen used Mr. Collins to create opportunities where Miss Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy were forced to interact, forcing them to get closer to each other. A couple of months after Charlotte had moved in with Mr. Collins, Elizabeth decided to visit her friend and check on how she was doing now that she was living with Mr. Collins.   This visit gave Jane Austen all the freedom to let her characters run free. However, the way Jane Austen went along to write this was all wrong. When Elizabeth visited Charlotte and Mr. Collins at their home in Roseings, Mr. Collins and his wife were invited to have dinner at Lady Catherine de Bourgh’s mansion. Elizabeth was allowed to come because she was a guest of Charlotte’s. At their arrival, the group discovers that just so happened that Mr. Darcy is visiting his aunt at the same time. The same time Elizabeth was visiting Charlotte, Darcy happened to  be there. This coincidence seemed to have happened because Jane Austen wanted, in my opinion, for Mr. Darcy to see how terribly his aunt used her class to bully Elizabeth about herself, her family flaws, and her lower class. This might have brought up some empathy from Darcy, and an ability to recognize how foolish and insulting using class would be. Perhaps this meeting also resulted in some affection towards Elizabeth. Mr. Darcy is an unusual man, he is already prideful, socially awkward and straight to the point. He also always seems to be wherever Elizabeth is. The man is either stalking her or Ms. Austen is bending the truth. On a trip to the countryside with her Aunt and Uncle, Elizabeth got to discover this man’s ways of (word). Being that that Mrs. Gardiner was from a village close to Mr. Darcy’s estate, Pemberley. She decided that it would be exciting to visit the property since they were so close. Elizabeth of course worried about running into Darcy in his own home, she was a bit paranoid. She mentioned that â€Å"She felt that she had no business at Pemberley, and was obliged to assume a disinclination for seeing it.† She tried to no prevail to change her stubborn aunt’s mind â€Å"She must own that she was tired of seeing great houses; after going over so many, she really had no pleasure in fine carpets or satin curtains.† It is at this point that the coincidences Jane Austen weaves seem to get a little out of control. Upon arriving at Pemberley, Elizabeth and her relatives were blown away by the size and grandeur of the estate. Mr. Darcy’s house was so big apparently, that visitors had the opportunity to take tours of the grounds. The Gardiner’s did not come for the house, but the land and forests that surrounded the mansion. Coincidence happens while Elizabeth wanders around Mr. Darcy’s estate. Mr. Darcy suddenly shows up seemingly out of nowhere, â€Å"Their eyes instantly met, and the cheeks of both were overspread with the deepest blush,† It was Jane Austen’s goal, from the start of the book, to get these two together and to start a flame of love between them. It was quite romantic but how Mr. Darcy just appeared, seems strange. Mr. Darcy was heading to London with Mr. Bingley when he left. Being that Darcy know knew that Elizabeth was in town, and that by now it’s clear Mr . Darcy has feelings for Elizabeth, he invites Elizabeth and her Aunt and Uncle to dinner. For the most part of the book, the general mood hasn’t really seen any problems between the characters.    It seems that Jane Austen thought she  had left the characters in Meryton alone for long enough. As Elizabeth received a letter from Jane describing their situation; Lydia had run off with Wickham endangering her and her family’s reputation. The fact that Elizabeth gets this letter when she ran into Darcy, and that Darcy is the only one who could fix the problem does seem suspicions. The arrival and help of Darcy further encourages Elizabeth’s change of heart, Jane Austen planned these coincidences perfectly, pushing Elizabeth’s feeling towards Darcy stronger than before. Mr. Wickham and Mr. Darcy have a history together, throughout the book we slowly get the whole story. These two also share a few coincidences which Jane Austen tried to hide. As a child, Wickham’s father was the steward of Mr. Darcy’s father’s house. However, when Wickham’s father passed away Wickham had nowhere to go. Darcy’s father felt bad for the boy so he was taken in and treated Wickham like his own son. For some time there was peace and happiness; the boys got older as did their father. By the time his adopted father had died, Wickham had turned into a different person. He was gambling, lying, and lowlife. Any inheritance he received from his father’s death was gambled and lost. Darcy on the other hand, who had received the bulk of the cash, was smart and invested most of his money. When Wickham came crawling back for more money, he was refused. This of course didn’t make Wickham a happy man. To get revenge, he tried to elope with the young Georgina Darcy. Before the young couple could leave Darcy ended up dragging his sister back and refusing to ever see Wickham again. Darcy and Wickham are two of the main male characters. Jane Austen has done an amazing job in creating these fictional charters. But, she creates situations and makes them take choices that no normal person would ever do. For example, both Darcy and Wickham, who are from Derbyshire, come to provincial Meryton. Darcy came with Bingley house hunting and Wickham had been moved there in his regiment. However, when they both show up within days of each other, one has to wonder if this really was pure chance. Was it pure coincidence? Would it really happen?   Mr. Wickham, as I explained before, hates Mr. Darcy for refuses to give him the money he thinks he so rightfully deserves. Itching for revenge, Mr. Wickham learns of Mr. Darcy’s plans to go to Meryton. I believe Mr. Wickham jumped at this opportunity. He switched (battalions) to go to Meryton. However, Mr. Darcy was far too powerful and influential for Mr. Wickham to hurt him physically or economically. As a crafty fellow, he went after something dearer to Mr. Darcy’s heart; Elizabeth! It makes sense! I wondered why Wickham would choose Elizabeth of all the Bennet sisters to favour his attentions. He seems to like women who are compliant and preferably with money, yet he picks Elizabeth, who is not as beautiful as Jane, nor as flirtatious as Lydia, and who has no money. He doesn’t seem the sort of fellow who would like a women who challenges and teases him, yet he still chooses Elizabeth. Why? Elizabeth, her sisters and Mr. Collins are walking down the street when they spot Denny and Wickham coming the other direction. Kitty and Lydia want to meet this new handsome fellow, so under the pretense of wanting something from a shop, they lead the others across the street. They have just reached the pavement where they encounter Denny and Wickham who have now chang ed directions and come back –an extraordinarily detailed and unnecessary stage direction, but when you play it out, it means Denny and Wickham are now facing in the direction that they will see someone riding from Netherfield in the direction of Longbourn. Darcy and Bingley ride down the street on their way to Longbourn and distinguish â€Å"the ladies of the group.† They come forward, Bingley converses with Jane, and Darcy proceeded to bow to the ladies. Darcy, who would have been missing Elizabeth’s presence at Netherfield, â€Å"was beginning to determine not to fix his eyes on Elizabeth,† so one can assume that until that point his eyes were in fact fixed on her. Presumably he’s paying no attention to the men in ordinary dress, but when he looks away from Elizabeth as part of his determination not to look at her, he notices Wickham.   Now let’s take the same scene from Wickham’s point of view. He is being introduced to some pretty ladies when Darcy and some other fellows ride up to the group. Darcy’s gaze is fixed on one of the ladies. Wickham would notice Darcy’s presence right away. The observant and enterprising fellow that he is, he would also notice who Darcy happens to be staring at in his love-struck way. Wickham knows Darcy very well, much better than Charlotte Lucas who is then able to recognize Darcy’s interest in Elizabeth. Would he not see it as well, and perceive both a danger and an opportunity there? The very next time Wickham sees Elizabeth, he singles her out and asks her â€Å"hesitatingly† about her acquaintance with Darcy. She  doesn’t mince words in her reply. What an opportunity for Wickham – he can pour his poison into the ear of the woman Darcy wants for himself, and then he’s going to charm her to boot. He’d derive a lot of pleasure from making Darcy’s love interest fall in love with him instead. After Elizabeth returns from Kent, she tells Wickham in late May that she and Darcy became better acquainted at Roseings and that she has changed her mind about him, and she is openly amused when he refers to Darcy’s supposed engagement to Anne de Bough. Wouldn’t Wickham, knowing of Darcy’s past interest in Elizabeth, assume that their relationship might now be romantic? Fast forward to Brighton, where Wickham out of the blue starts romancing Lydia, in whom he has never shown interest before. Is it because she’s easy or because he sees her as Darcy’s potential sister-in-law, and therefore a source of both revenge and money? Suppose, then, that Lydia happens to mention to him in late June the news that Lizzy, who was supposed to go to the Lakes, is going to Derbyshire instead. Why would Elizabeth unexpectedly be going to Derbyshire, and to a village not five m iles from Pemberley? Wickham sees an opportunity, and he elopes with Lydia just over a month later on August 1. It seems likely, broken down that way, that Wickham actively targeted Elizabeth and later Lydia as a means of revenge on Darcy. Pride and Prejudice follows the main character Elizabeth Bennet as she deals with issues of manners, upbringing, morality, education, and marriage in the society of the landed gentry of early 19th-century England. The author Jane Austen did a brilliant job in writing this book, we discover an exciting storyline full of suspense and romance, and a cast of characters that have kept this book alive throughout the ages. Mrs. Austen’s obvious objective was to establish circumstances, through â€Å"chance and coincidence† which enabled opportunities for Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth see past each other’s pride and prejudice to, in the end, get together. To establish situations that brought Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth into close proximity with one another, she used major characters such as Mr. Collins, Mr. Wickham and Mrs. Gardiner to appear at the exact moment they were needed. She was also able to connect all of these characters together in one way or another. Coincidences happ en in our world all the same as the ones in fictional works of art. However, we don’t seem to notice these connections until after we think and reflect. This is what I have done with this essay, I believe that I have uncovered some exciting coincidences Jane Austen wove into Pride and Prejudice, but I don’t believe I have covered them all. This is all the more reason that Jane Austen is an amazing author, she makes us have to go back and think about what we just read to discover the true meaning behind her words.