The Scarlet Letter Summary

Part I The Scarlet Letter opens with an expectant crowd standing in front of a Boston prison in the early 1640s. When the prison door opens, a young woman named Hester Prynne emerges, with a baby in her arms and a scarlet letter "'A" richly embroidered on her breast. For her crime of adultery, to which both the baby and the letter attest, she must proceed to the scaffold and stand for judgment by her community. While on the scaffold, Hester remembers her past. In particular, she remembers the face of a "misshapen" man, "well stricken in years," with the face of a scholar. At this moment, the narrator introduces an aged and misshapen character, who has been living "in bonds" with "Indian" captors. He asks a bystander why Hester is on the scaffold. The brief story is told: two years earlier, Hester had preceded her husband to New England. Her husband never arrived. In the meantime, she bore a child; the father of the infant has not come forward. As this stranger stares at Hester, she stares back: a mutual recognition passes between them. On the scaffold, Boston's highest clergyman, John Wilson, and Hester's own pastor, Rev Dimmesdale, each ask her to reveal the name of her partner in crime. Reverend Dimmesdale makes a particularly powerful address, urging her not to tempt the man to lead a life of sinful hypocrisy by leaving his identity unnamed. Hester refuses. After the ordeal of her public judgment, the misshapen man from the marketplaceher long lost husbandvisits her, taking the name Roger Chillingworth. When she refuses to identify the father of her child, he vows to discover him and take revenge. He makes Hester swear to keep his identity a secret. Part II Now freed, Hester and her baby girl, Pearl, move to a secluded cabin. The narrator explains that There is a fatality, a feeling so irresistible and inevitable that it has the force of doom, which almost invariably compels human beings to linger around and haunt, ghost-like, the spot where some great and marked event has given the color to their lifetime. Whether for this reason, or for others, Hester stays in the colony. She earns a living as a seamstress. Hester has "in her nature a rich, voluptuous, Oriental characteristic" that shows in her needlework. Although the Puritans' sumptuary laws (which regulate personal expenditure and displays of luxury) restrict ornament, she finds a market for her goodsthe ministers and judges of the colony have occasion for pomp and circumstance, which her needlework helps supply. She uses her money to help the needy, although they scorn her in return. Hester focuses most of her love, and all of her love of finery, on her daughter, her "pearl of great price." Pearl grows up without the company of other children, a wild child in fabulous clothing. Even her... Complete The Scarlet Letter Summary

SHORT STORY THE BOY WHO CRIED WOLF

The fable and its history

Francis Barlow's illustration of the fable, 1687 The tale concerns a shepherd boy who repeatedly tricks nearby villagers into thinking a wolf is attacking his flock. When a wolf actually does appear, the villagers do not believe the boy's cries for help, and the flock is destroyed. The moral at the end of the story shows that this is how liars are not rewarded: even if they tell the truth, no one believes them."[2] This seems to echo a statement attributed to Aristotle by Diogenes Lartius in his The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers, where the sage was asked what those who tell lies gain by it and he answered "that when they speak truth they are not believed".[3] William Caxton similarly closes his version with the remark that "men bileve not lyghtly hym whiche is knowen for a lyer".[4] The story dates from Classical times but, since it was recorded only in Greek and not translated into Latin until the 15th century, it only began to gain currency after it appeared in Heinrich Steinhowel's collection of the fables and so spread through the rest of Europe. For this reason, there was no agreed title for the story. Caxton titles it "Of the child whiche kepte the sheep" (1484), Hieronymus Osius "The boy who lied" ("De mendace puero", 1574), Francis Barlow "Of the herd boy and the farmers" ("De pastoris puero et agricolis", 1687), Roger L'Estrange "A boy and false alarms" (1692), George Fyler Townsend "The shepherd boy and the wolf" (1867). It was under the final title that Edward Hughes set it as the first of ten "Songs from Aesop's fables" for childrens voices and piano, in a poetic version by Peter Westmore (1965). Teachers have used the fable as a cautionary tale about telling the truth but a recent educational experiment suggested that reading "The Boy Who Cried Wolf" increased childrens likelihood of lying, while a book on George Washington and the cherry tree decreased it dramatically.[5] The suggestibility and favourable outcome of the behaviour described therefore seems the key to the moral nurture of the young. When dealing with the moral behaviour of adults, however, Samuel Croxall asks, with reference to political alarmism, "when we are alarmed with imaginary dangers in respect of the public, till the cry grows quite stale and threadbare, how can it be expected we should know when to guard ourselves against real ones?"[6] The idiomatic phrase "cry wolf" has been frequently used in the titles of films, books and lyrics, but these rarely refer directly to the fable.

MOTIVATION BOOK - Creating Success From The Inside Out

Overview

Praise For Creating Success From The Inside Out "At once inspirational and highly actionable, Creating Success from the Inside Out serves as a definitive manual for achieving success through self-actualization in today's daunting entrepreneurial landscape. Ephren Taylor has succeeded in systematically constructing a blueprint for business and personal wealthon various levels. This is very compelling material." Neal Lemlein, President, Around the Bend Media, Inc., and former senior marketing executive at Universal Studios, Twentieth Century Fox Pictures, and D'Arcy Masius Benton and Bowles Entertainment "Ephren Taylor, an early phenom in the entrepreneurial business community, has proven himself a true professional who understands the power and principles of success. Creating

Success from the Inside Out inspires all of us to become the next Michael Jordan, Tiger Woods, Peyton Manning, or Oscar De La Hoya of the business world." Omar Tyree, New York Times bestselling author "Many believe that past years of experience and education are the biggest predictors of future success. Wrong! Ephren Taylor is living proof that success can come on your own terms, at any stage, and at any age. His refreshing industry insight is exactly what the next generation of wealth-builders needs to grow." Marshawn Evans, Esq., President, EDGE 3M Sports & Entertainment, and former contestant on The Apprentice

REPORT MENTAL HEALTH :A REPOET OF THE SURGEON GENERAL Since the turn of this century, thanks in large measure to research-based public health innovations, the lifespan of the average American has nearly doubled. Today, our Nations physical healthas a wholehas never been better. Moreover, illnesses of the body once shrouded in fearsuch as cancer, epilepsy, and HIV/AIDS to name just a fewincreasingly are seen as treatable, survivable, even curable ailments. Yet, despite unprecedented knowledge gained in just the past three decades about the brain and human behavior, mental health is often an afterthought and illnesses of the mind remain shrouded in fear and misunderstanding. This Report of the Surgeon General on Mental Health is the product of an invigorating collaboration between two Federal agencies. The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), which provides national leadership and funding to the states and many professional and citizen organizations that are striving to improve the availability, accessibility, and quality of mental health services, was assigned lead responsibility for coordinating the development of the report. The National Institutes of Health (NIH), which supports and conducts research on mental illness and mental health through its National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), was pleased to be a partner in this effort. The agencies we respectively head were able to rely on the enthusiastic participation of hundreds of people who played a role in researching, writing, reviewing, and disseminating this report. We wish to express our appreciation and that of a mental health constituency, millions of Americans strong, to Surgeon General David Satcher, M.D., Ph.D., for inviting us to participate in this landmark report. The year 1999 witnessed the first White House Conference on Mental Health and the first Secretarial Initiative on Mental Health prepared under the aegis of the Department of Health and Human Services. These activities set an optimistic tone for progress that will be realized in the years ahead. Looking ahead, we take special pride in the remarkable record of accomplishment, in the spheres of both science and services, to which our agencies have contributed over past decades. With the impetus that the Surgeon Generals report provides, we intend to expand that record of accomplishment. This report recognizes the inextricably intertwined relationship between our mental health and our physical health and well-being. The report emphasizes that mental health and mental illnesses are important concerns at all ages. Accordingly, we will continue to attend to needs that occur across the life span, from the youngest child to the oldest among us. The report lays down a challenge to the Nationto our communities, our health and social service agencies, our policymakers, employers, and citizensto take action. SAMHSA and NIH look forward to continuing our collaboration to generate needed knowledge about the

brain and behavior and to translate that knowledge to the service systems, providers, and citizens. Nelba Chavez, Ph.D. Steven E. Hyman, M.D. Administrator Director Substance Abuse and Mental Health National Institute of Mental Health Services Administration for The National Institutes of Health Bernard S. Arons, M.D. Director Center for Mental Health Services

RESEARCH JOAN SHORENSTEIN CENTER

Research
Reports, research and discussion papers written by journalists and scholars associated with the Shorenstein Center are published frequently and are available on the Center's website. The Center also leads the research component of the Carnegie-Knight Initiative on the Future of Journalism Education. Faculty affiliated with the Shorenstein Center are actively engaged in research, and teaching students at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government. Thomas Patterson, Bradlee Professor of Government and the Press, contributed a chapter on "Political Roles of the Journalist" to The Politics of News: The News of Politics, and completed the seventh edition of his classic textbook, We the People. The latest book by Shorenstein Center director Alex S. Jones is Losing the News, which will be published by Oxford University Press in July 2009. Kalb Professor of Global Communication, Matthew Baum, has written an article for a recent issue of the Journal of Politics, "The Oprah Effect: How Soft News Helps Inattentive Citizens Vote Consistently." Pippa Norris, McGuire Lecturer on Comparative Politics, is editing a new book based on papers written for her World Bank-Shorenstein Center conference, The Roles of the News Media in the Governance Agenda. Fellows at the Shorenstein Center spend their semester researching and writing a paper on press/politics. In January 2009 the Center published a paper by Eric Pooley, fall of 2008 Kalb Fellow, titled How Much Would You Pay to Save the Planet? The American Press and the Economics of Climate Change.