KINGSLEY AMIS'S lUCKY JIM Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

KINGSLEY AMIS'S lUCKY JIM - Essay Example Indeed, the book was dedicated to Larkin; who had helped to inspire and to edit it. The genesis and reception of Lucky Jim can be found in The Letters of Kingsley Amis. His correspondence with Larkin traces the book through its earliest incarnations, when it was known Dixon & Christine and then The Man of Feeling. Here he is on March 3, 1953 writing, to Larkin: "I've called it Lucky Jim now, to empahsise the luck theme - epigraph Oh lucky Jim, How I envy him bis. ... I'm afraid you are very much the ideal reader of the thing and chaps like you don't grow on trees." Jim Dixon's experience dramatizes the conflict between the lower-middle-class drive to invade a higher social stratum and the resultant guilt and self-contempt for abandoning one's own class. A lower-middle-class youth who yearns for the economic security academic tenure affords, Jim earns a degree in an area he neither likes nor understands. By luck, he gets a job as a junior lecturer in history at a provincial university. But it is bad luck, for not only does he detest the medieval history he teaches but he despises the cultural pretensions of his colleagues with whom he must curry favor, such as the Welches: the pompous senior professor, his wife, and their "artistic" sons. The irony in all of this is that Jim Dixon doesn't feel at all lucky. He's a junior lecturer at a no-account college in provincial England. His daily life is a litany of hilariously (from our perspective, anyway) petty humiliations at the hands of his superiors-notably the odious, conceited Professor Welch-his students and his co-dependent sort-of-girlfriend Margaret. "One theme of Lucky Jim was getting good things wrong," Amis explained in an interview. "Culture's good, but not the way the Welches did it. Education is good ... but it is self-defeating if it isn't done properly." (Firchow 27) He fails as an academic, but, with another dollop of luck (better this time), he gets a superior job outside the academy and, as a kind of added bonus (or revenge), wins from Bertrand Welch a young woman of superior social class. (Clive 20) Throughout Lucky Jim, Amis is concerned with the restructuring of British society which took place after World War II. Some of the effects were intensively felt in the English education system through efforts to open educational opportunities to more members of the working and middle classes. The growth of the provincial universities and the decline of the influence of the culturally elite led to friction between the old and the new orders. In Lucky Jim, such cultural change leads to conflict between Jim Dixon, a young history instructor, and Professor Welch, his department chair. Jim sees history as a means of planning and preparing for a better future; Welch sees it as a means of romanticizing and sentimentalizing the past. Amis expands this conflict through Jim's interactions with his colleagues and acquaintances. Welch asks Jim to give a lecture titled "Merrie Olde England," a title which symbolizes the nature of the conflict. Welch tests Jim to see if he is willing to perpetuat e a myth, while Jim and his fellow veterans are trying to cope with life, love and a new social order. The conflict between Jim as representative of a new England and Welch as defender of the old one expands to include Welch's family and some of Jim's colleagues. As a weekend house

Helen and Hosea Client Profile Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Helen and Hosea Client Profile - Assignment Example Hosea parents were missionaries in Africa, which was where he was born.   Hosea spent the better part of his childhood and teenage years. He studied in different international schools where he developed a love for sports. He graduated from Africa University in 2001 and went on to work for three years with a Sports organization called â€Å"Cheza† which means â€Å"Play† in the African Swahili dialect where he was paid $ 30,000. He later went to Regent University for his Master's degree, which was fully sponsored by the religious organization that employed his parents. He managed to save $ 10,000 by keeping all his expenses to a bare minimum while at college. He started working as an assistant college coach the month after his graduation earning $70,000 for three years then got promoted and started earning $80,000. He plans to continue working with this club for as long as he can. Hosea has written some books on sporting in Africa, which has brought him quite good reve nue returns. He got 475,000 as net income, which he got after the book sales. He plans to write more books before he retires. Helen originally trained to be a social worker. She worked for the inner city program in Ontario for five years after graduating earning $35,000. The pay was not so good but she liked what she was doing and felt fulfilled. It was while working there that she got involved with her current school that was doing a better job in the inner cities. They offered her a job, which paid better; $55,000 and provided free housing within the school’s grounds. It was during a sports tournament when she met Hosea, and later got married. She decided to further her education by pursuing an online Masters degree in education at Regent University, which confirmed her credentials as a teacher. Helen now earns $73,000 and plans to continue working with the school until retirement. She also just opened up old peoples home in a house she inherited from her maternal grandmother, which has been bringing in $150,000 per year. She had taken out a loan of 300,000 to renovate the property and to hire new staff but she believes she will be able to repay the loan in about three to five years. The house is worth $ 2.5 million, as it is located in the more expensive side of town. Her grandmother had come from old money. Helen though believed in living a modest life.  Ã‚  Ã‚