Horatio Alger, Jr., was a prolific author in the 19th and early 20th centuries whose books inspired its readers to work hard and persevere through adversity. Alger’s books – 128 in all – recount how a “can-do spirit” and individual initiative can allow anyone to …
After reading The Death of Horatio Alger written by Paul Krugman, I need to answer the following questions: 1. Who is Horatio Alger? Why doesn't Krugman explain who he is in his essay? 2. Krugman's conclusion is very brief. Do you find it effective? Explain. 3. What is Krugmans claim, and where does he state it most clearly . 4.
Oct 24, 2016 · Horatio Alger was a optimistic man. Someone who aspired to inspire those in the lower classes, hoping to help them reach greatness. Paul Krugman, the author of this article puts an end to Horatio unfortunately. Depicting how the money hungry, greedy upper class have destroyed the possibility of class change in today’s society.
Oct 24, 2016 · The author uses pathos as the entire article is filled with actually statistics which back up the points made in the article. In conclusion, this article was informative with all the raw data included. This was a very interest approach to this problem. Krugman, Paul. The Death of Horatio Alger. The McGraw-Hill Reader Issues across the disciplines.
In its portrayal of perseverance, hope, optimism, possibility, and success, the Horatio Alger Myth is perhaps a uniquely American invention, mirroring closely the tenents of the American Dream and its promise of reward for dedication and tenacity.
The protagonists are usually young, white males living in large urban areas — New York City, Boston, and Philadelphia are some of the most common settings — and they are usually self-employed in menial, low-paying jobs of little respect and import.
The novel was originally serialized in several parts beginning in 1867 in a magazine called Student and Schoolmate and follows the story of Ragged Dick, a 14 year-old boy working as a shoe shine—also known as a blackboot in those days—trying to scrimp by on the streets of New York City. Dick befriends an elder customer who gives him five dollars for an act of kindness on Dick’s part, which the protagonist then parlays into a small fortune through frugality, courage, and wisdom.
Alger’s work was the recipient of universal critical and commercial success from the 1860s through the 1880s and '90s, though today many scholars and academics believe this success was a product of a time in American history known as the Gilded Age. The country experienced massive industrial and economic growth from the end of the Civil War through the last years of the 19th Century. American optimism was on the rise, and young, hungry entrepreneurs were making huge fortunes in manufacturing, transportation, and labor. Critics argue it makes sense then that Alger’s work struck a chord with a nation that believed in the value of hard work and the possibility to transcend socio-economic and class status in an age when “Average Joe” could set up shop in town and turn a small business into an empire of commerce.
1. Horatio Alger was a real person. Born in 1832, Horatio Alger, Jr. grew up in a middle class Massachusetts family, attended Harvard, and worked briefly as a pastor before putting his pen to paper professionally in the early 1860s.
In an aside, Claudius murmurs, “It is the poison’d cup: it is too late” (V.ii.235). Laertes remarks under his breath that to wound Hamlet with the poisoned sword is almost against his conscience.
The next day at Elsinore Castle, Hamlet tells Horatio how he plotted to overcome Claudius’s scheme to have him murdered in England. He replaced the sealed letter carried by the unsuspecting Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, which called for Hamlet’s execution, with one calling for the execution of the bearers of the letter—Rosencrantz and Guildenstern themselves. He tells Horatio that he has no sympathy for Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, who betrayed him and catered to Claudius, but that he feels sorry for having behaved with such hostility toward Laertes. In Laertes’ desire to avenge his father’s death, he says, he sees the mirror image of his own desire, and he promises to seek Laertes’ good favor.
The queen falls. Laertes, poisoned by his own sword, declares, “I am justly kill’d with my own treachery” (V.ii.318). The queen moans that the cup must have been poisoned, calls out to Hamlet, and dies. Laertes tells Hamlet that he, too, has been slain, by his own poisoned sword, and that the king is to blame both for the poison on ...
In the final scene, the violence, so long delayed, erupts with dizzying speed. Characters drop one after the other, poisoned, stabbed, and, in the case of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, executed, as the theme of revenge and justice reaches its conclusion in the moment when Hamlet finally kills Claudius. In the moments before the duel, Hamlet seems peaceful, though also quite sad. He says that he feels ill in his heart, but he seems reconciled to the idea of death and no longer troubled by fear of the supernatural. Exactly what has caused the change in Hamlet is unclear, but his desire to attain Laertes’ forgiveness clearly represents an important shift in his mental state. Whereas Hamlet previously was obsessed almost wholly with himself and his family, he is now able to think sympathetically about others. He does not go quite so far as to take responsibility for Polonius’s death, but he does seem to be acting with a broader perspective after the shock of Ophelia’s death. Hamlet’s death at the hands of Laertes makes his earlier declaration over Polonius’s corpse, that God has chosen “to punish me with this and this with me,” prophetic (III.iv.174). His murder of Polonius does punish him in the end, since it is Laertes’ vengeful rage over that murder that leads to Hamlet’s death.