Pyramid scheme

returns he was generating and the growing balances shown on clients’ account statements were all illusions. Bernard Madoff was actually running a Ponzi scheme, using money from some of his investors to make payouts to others. During the stock market meltdown of 2008 and client desires to retract their investments, Madoff exposed his now failed scheme and confessed to his sons who alerted authorities. He was arrested and sentenced to serve 150 years in prison (Ferrell, Fraedrich, & Farrell,…

Imagine leaning against a single tree in a warm, sunny meadow surrounded by nothing but the sounds of nature when, suddenly, you are confronted by your deepest fear in such a surreal way, that questioning it would be trivial. One of two things would occur at this point: either your situation would spiral into irreversible chaos, or you would realize you are in the general outline of a Mark Strand poem. This method of juxtaposing absurd instances of insight with serious personal struggle is…

“Vuelta de Paseo” is from the collection, “Poeta en Nueva York” which was published posthumously in 1940. The work is divided into ten major sections of uneven length. “Vuelta de Paseo” is the first poem in the first section, “Poemas de la soledad en columbia”. This section consists of four poems in total. The collection was written by Federico García during a life changing trip to New York, Cuba and Vermont between June 1929 and April 1930. “Poeta en Nueva York” is atypical in several important…

But unlike the villanelle, the rhyming scheme of the sestina is difficult. The sestina requires the repetition of six words at the end of the first stanza’s lines to the end ends of the lines in the other six-line stanzas. Elizabeth Bishop uses this complexity in her poem, “Sestina”. She repeats…

Three Controversial Messages Messages Through the Poems of Auden and Cummings There are three messages in the poems, The Unknown Citizen, Old Age Sticks, and Anyone lived in a pretty how town. All of the messages have to do with the way we live our lives and our outlooks on life. All of these poems have controversial themes and can be hard to understand. They show the looks on life and these three messages through different characters. These characters consist of an old person, an ex-patriot,…

Importance of Caribbean Cultural Identity and Diaspora Cultural identity is one of the most important aspects of human life, which can understand in many different ways. People usually regard culture as one shared thing, which remains unchanged throughout their lifetime. In Stuart Hall’s “Cultural Identity and Diaspora” essay, he illustrates the essential features of cultural identity by providing and discussing two important definitions of cultural identity and diaspora. Hall’s first…

Smart by Shel Silverstein on page 157 is an enjoyable poem about a naïve child who believes he is more astute than every person he associates with. For example, the child thought he was getting the better deal when he received a dollar and “swapped it for two shiny quarters/ ’Cause two is more than one” (lines 3-4). By choosing quantity over quality the child is displaying a lack of understanding between amount and worth. Silverstein’s lyrical poem, uses repetition, rhyme, meter, and tone of…

Both Dojoji and Hamlet showcase some of the major differences between Asian and Western thought and customs. The first text, of Japanese origin, places a meaningful emphasis on religious imagery. The play uses the images of dragons, rosaries, a bell, and cherry-blossom trees several times during its relatively short duration. On the other hand, Hamlet shows diverse Christian themes, present in Ophelia’s burial, the words uttered by Hamlet’s father’s ghost, and in some of Hamlet’s thoughts.…

The rhyme scheme is of alternating rhymes in groups of four, ABAB CDCD EFEF. However, these are broken up in an irregular way, rather than being presented as quatrains. From line 1 through 5, Wilfred Owen states “Bent double, like old beggars under sacks, Knock-kneed…

The brief introduction of “Legend” and “Drinking Alone Beneath the Moon” The theme of “silence” is a primary symbol in the two poems “Legend” and “Drinking Alone Beneath the Moon.” However, each poem expresses the idea of silence differently based on the author’s cultures. They not only express silence, but also articulate contemplation. However, on account of the dissimilar cultures of the two authors, “Legend” has a fiery love behind it, while “Drinking Alone Beneath the Moon” has an occupied…