Discuss Ghostwatch in relation to broadcasting's ideology of Essay

Discuss Ghostwatch in relation to broadcasting's ideology of 'liveness' and the centrality of liveness to television OR discuss broadcasting's inherent associations with haunting and the uncanny - Essay Example It has a capacity to broadcast a variety of program genres and can adapt to varying domestic and cultural contexts. It likewise shares with radio the capacity to broadcast events to mass audiences as promptly as they happen. This capacity of the television is viewed as characteristic of liveness (Davis, 2007). As society transforms and continuously becomes a witness to various historical and significant national and world events, the television has continued to develop with regard to its evolution from technological hardware transition to digital broadcasting and satellite services. The technological developments in television programming account for the creation of techno-material quality of television image of which liveness is a feature (Bourdon, 2004). This is without due regard to whether the television show was edited prior to the airing or is strictly ‘live.’ The content of television images is also influential to the concept of liveness, in which the television i mages are considered an audiovisual materiality created by technological processes (Davies, 2007). The technical and material quality of television image comprises its quality of liveness, indicating that liveness is a feature of all television images, regardless of whether the show is recorded and/or edited and strictly live (Davis, 2007). The concept of television liveness remains central to an understanding of television in general, despite a decline in the live broadcasting in the recent years (Bourdon, 2000). It is the viewer’s belief in live broadcasting which constitutes liveness, not merely an actual live performance of a show. This belief is influenced by the social context, the tele-visual text, and the audiences’ social characteristics alongside the temporal sequencing of television viewing. Liveness is not limited to the here and now of a television show, but is rather inclusive of edited shows such as non-fiction and non-live, as

A project is a complex, non-routine, one time effort limited by time, Essay

A project is a complex, non-routine, one time effort limited by time, budget, resources and performance specifications designed to meet customer needs Gray CF & Larson EW - Essay Example If there is a defined process, then standardisation is not a problem. In every software project, standard processes are employed and therefore, these can be standardised. For instance, PMI has created global standards of excellence for project management and so has National Competency Standards for Project Management (NCSPM 2007). Most of these standards are produced on an overall requirement and performance of people across the world. These might not be the ones that one might be able to adapt to their companies. Instead, a standard can be created based on the performance of the company's employees for their own internal requirement. This would ensure that the standards are more attainable and the same can be compared later with the global standards set by others. 2. The primary purpose of project management is to ensure that the customer requirements are met within the budgeted time and cost, in addition to the resources and performance specifications. While this is the target that the project manager would try to meet, there could always be issues which have to be countered by him. The time budget is drawn with the requirement of the customer in mind. The plan for the entire project in terms of time required will be drawn only on the basis of the requirements that the customer brings up. May be the customer or the company's management might bring up a time control in the plan which might make the project manager to recast the plan she has drawn. The time control and the requirements of the customer together will decide on the nature of resources that will be required for the company. Based on the resources that the project manager will employ to meet the requirements and the time limits, the costing budget is drawn. The performance specific ations will be the measure to judge how efficiently the team worked to deliver what was expected out of it, which is nothing but the customer requirements. Therefore, the entire requirements of the customer is the starting point and therefore, when the project manager meets her time schedule, resources, budget and the performance specifications, there will not be any issue in meeting the customer requirements. 3. The time, budget, resources and performance specifications are neither complementary nor competing demands. They are interrelated but not necessarily complementing one another. For instance, the planned time for a project and the constraint of time is related to the resources and the budget. When the resources in the project are increased, there will be a reduction in the time required. Not necessarily a standard mathematical relationship. The reduction may not be proportional to the resources that were employed. The same way, an increase in the time keeping the resources constant will escalate the budget. There could clear relationship between the time, resource and the budget. However, the time increase itself could have been the result of reduced resource availability. In case of performance specifications, these are only measures of the rest of the parameters that make up the project. The project performance ratings that are normally done will be calculated out of the time, bu dget, all resources or specific resources, multiple jobs and then

Norteno Music Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Norteno Music - Essay Example There are a lot of regional styles in Norteno music. Much regional Mexican music entertained by radio and many Norteno artists also get popularity from Mexican-American community. Local radio stations are the Proclamatorysource in popularizing Norteno music. While exploring rural areas their way of entertainment people found that Norteno is originated from rural areas and also popular in urban areas. Norteno started to assemble by music lovers around 1860s and become popular. (LAST FM) Mexico people listened music deliberately from all over the world, by listening all forms of music they produce their own forms which they called traditional Mexican music which are modern music becomes popular with people of all ages and these Mexican traditional music are full of variety, style, colorful, passionate and derive from origins of Mexican culture; rich country. (TRADITIONAL MEXICAN MUSIC) American accordionist introduces Norteno music in Texas. In Tamaulipas and Tijuana derives from the C aribbean Norteno music. Sexophone is also use by different bands like Chihuahua and Zacatecas. Tejano or â€Å"Tex-Mex† is a new form of popular music derived from Norteno and influenced by swing and American Rock. Tejano includes English poetry and sounds are like American Rock but Norteno came first and Ramon Ayala is based on basics of Norteno music.Today Norteno music is popular because of Grupo Pesado who is the leader of Norteno music. Musical instruments of different types with some new music styles introduce by Czech and Bohemian famous people like accordion. This music style combined with the present Norteno music style and this style played by local bands. This is the start of the transformation and evolution of Norteno in which still accordion theme is present in it. The main instrument accordion and Bajo sexto distinguish Norteno. Rhythm is like in a steady motion and the pace of this rhythm is middle (normal) or fasts tempo depending on song’s type. Double bass instruments and guitar is used in Norteno type music. Two famous bands Banda and duranguense have only bass instruments instead of an accordions and guitars.However Banda and duranguense introduces and plays the same songs as Norteno bands musicians playedthem have the same beat and music levels same as Norteno.Many of the bands named as Mexican states or a general description of geographical and they basically played â€Å"Regional Mexican Music†.(HISTORY OF MEXICAN MUSIC) Two major forms of Norteno music is Corridos and Narcocorridos. Corridos entered the â€Å"Golden Age† in 1910-1920s where Mexican people play these Corridos in border. Corridos are basically based on narrative songs in a poetry form and they depend on history, peasant’s daily life,socially important and legendary importance.Around in 1980s started Narcocorridos when Los Alegres de Teran who sang a song about a Narco.Narcocorridos are the same as Corridos but are based on drug smugglers and the cartels. Music critics also compared Narcocorridos to â€Å"Gangster rap†. There are two types of Norteno which are Classical Norteno and Modern Norteno. Classical Norteno music becomes famous by very recognizable bands in which Ramon Ayala, Los Tigeres Del Norte, Los Tucanes de Tijuana. Modern Norteno having advance features from original â€Å"oldie† Norteno this type of Norteno first played by Narciso Martinez and his groups related to Narciso before 1950s. Modern percussion and Electric bass guitars are the

Ragtime and Blues Essay Example for Free

Ragtime and Blues Essay Ragtime and Blues are the two music styles that give Jazz her name and life. Ragtime and blues, which are generated and rose into popularity at mostly the same time of period, are usually considered as closely connected because of Jazz and yet are very distinctive music styles. They affect Jazz in different perspectives, such as Ragtime in the usage of syncopation, the swing feeling, and Blues in the composition form, the improvisation, and the â€Å"Soul†. Similarity and difference: What both Ragtime and Blues share is their Black regions. They are both a classic and important component of early Black popular music. Almost all commentators expressed their view that the originators of Ragtime were black, and even some believe that it was imported from Africa; and yet Blues was believed to start in slavery which involved with large population of African Americans. As Scott Joplin, one of the most influential Ragtime musician, stated, â€Å" There has been ragtime music in America ever since the Negro race has been here. † and this poetic statement would perfectly apply to Blues as well. Historically, ragtime and blues started and rose into popularity at basically the same time. Ragtime’s huge popularity was abetted with the huge dimension of the print of â€Å"Maple Leaf Rag† by Scott Joplin in 1897. Almost the same time, classic blues like â€Å"St. Louis Blues† and â€Å"Memphis Blues† was composed by W. C. Handy. For a long period of time, specifically from 1890s to 1920s which was the time when Jazz becomes a dominant popular music style, ragtime was the typical popular music form in America. The popularity of Blues and Ragtime at early ages was strongly associated with the popular theater in late 19th and early 20th century. Even though ragtime and blues share the same origin and same historical path, they are indeed very different music styles, which determines their contribution to Jazz and make it a new and yet unique music. The definition of Ragtime is the music that signifying the broken rhythm, especially a sort of syncopation. Indeed, the word â€Å"rag† is a verb describing the syncopation process of the music. Syncopation is such a significant character of ragtime and it somehow defines the music style of ragtime. Part of the reason that helps determine the syncopation of ragtime is that ragtime is an instrumental based music genre. At early times, ragtime is dominated by piano, especially with great pianists like Scott Joplin and Ben Harney. And Blues, a more vocal based music, does not evidently engage with syncopation. Syncopation is the most important character that ragtime affects Jazz and some people believe that Jazz is a more complex form of syncopated music. Blues, often considered as a music that generated from slavery, was characterized with the improvisation. Improvisation is defined as creating music on the spot. Improvisation is not only a distinctive but also a great character because never has any music genre in the history before is based on improvisation. Even ragtime is based on pre-written music. Jazz took on this character and developed into a even more complicated, spicy music on the spot with different instrument arrangement. Jazz took improvisation to another level from this great tradition in blues. As far as the music style goes, ragtime is more affected by European style from the composition to instrument. Scott Joplin, the great ragtime musician mentioned earlier, was a classical trained piano player and the effect of classical music is obvious in his pieces. However, blues is more affected by its African origin. It is believed that one of the first blues was directly imported from African folk song. It is a very simultaneous music style and consists of a lot of elements of real life, such as the call-and-answer structure. It is also necessary to mention that the composition of blues like 12-bar blues and AABA structure greatly affect the composition of Jazz, especially at early ages. A lot of the early Jazz songs are in such structure, like the first Jazz recording ever, â€Å"livery stable blues† by Original Dixieland Jazz Band. Ragtime, characterized with syncopation and strong rhythm and beats, was created for the need of people to dance. However, Blues has very strong and evident emotions in the performance, especially with the great vocalists that convey those emotions through their great vocal performance. Bessie Smith, one of the best Blues vocalists of all time, combined the strong rhythm sense with an extremely sensitive feeling of pitch and thus convey them to the large audience. In a sense, Blues gives Soul to Jazz, with those emotions and tones of struggle. Evidently, ragtime and blues, the Black Music, struggle to make them merge into different classes, not only popular but also respected. From ragtime and blues, this kind of struggle carried on with Jazz and gives Jazz the identity, the structure, the tone and the â€Å"soul†.

The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe Essay examples -- essays research

The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe By C.S. Lewis   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  My favorite character in this book would have to be Peter. He was a little bit of a tough guy yet timid, but wasn’t afraid to fight for his siblings lives. Peter was the oldest amongst his brother and two sisters and was most likely the brains and brawn of the bunch. In this story, Peter has to fight off a wolf to test his courage or, in Aslan’s words, win his spurs. He returns victorious and is knighted by the lion called Aslan. His brother Edmund, a very mischievous boy and a bother to his sisters Lucy and Susan, looks up to Him though he never admits to it. Peter was definitely the highlight of this book.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Four children, two girls and two boys, are in for an adventure of a lifetime their names were, starting with the oldest, Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy. The story starts off with the children leaving London by train because of war. The place the children took refuge in was a mansion deep in the country where they would be out of harms way. In this mansion there were thousands of rooms, hideaways, secret passageways, many floors and much, much more. Of Course there was nothing more boring than to sit around all day when it did nothing but rain outside. So what do they do? They explore the house of course! And they did. In the process of doing so, they came to a room on the highest floor of the mansion, but all that was in there was a hand-carved wardrobe with not...

Charles River Jazz Festival

Decision tree for Friday pressing Mr. Ward is trying to decide on how many CDs to press on the first night of the festival. His intuition combined with his experience allowed him to make some predictions of demand. These take the form of probabilities. â€Å"The probabilities may be subjective estimates from managers or from experts in a particular field, or they may reflect historical frequencies. If they are reasonably correct, they provide a decision maker with additional information that can dramatically improve the decision-making process. Since the problem is limited to Ward’s expected demands for CDs, we can say that our recognizable states of nature are the following: ? Saturday Demand = 1000 and Sunday Demand = 1000 ?Saturday Demand = 1000 and Sunday Demand = 3000 ?Saturday Demand = 3000 and Sunday Demand = 1000 ?Saturday Demand = 3000 and Sunday Demand = 3000 The minimum total demand for both Saturday and Sunday would be 2000 CDs, whereas the maximum total demand fo r both Saturday and Sunday would be 6000 CDs.The intermediate total demand however is consistent at 4000 CDs. We can consolidate them to 3 states of nature: ? Saturday Demand + Sunday Demand = 2000 ?Saturday Demand + Sunday Demand = 4000 ?Saturday Demand + Sunday Demand = 6000 Let’s call these states of nature d2, d4 and d6. We use the TreePlan software to create the decision tree for Ward’s problem. We specified the initial costs of productions as $24,000, $33,000 and $42,000.Additionally, we make sure to deduct the royalties from the sales revenue, since they are considered as future expenses (after the sales occur). Please see below for the decision tree. 2. Maximization of Expected Monetary Value as a criterion The average or expected payoff of each alternative is a weighted average: the state of nature probabilities are used to weight the respective payoffs. ? Therefore the expected monetary value for each alternative is as follows: EMVp2 = $ 6,000EMVp4 = $ 12,000 EMVp6 = $ 10,500 According to the maximization of Expected Monetary Value criterion, we can say that the director of the festival should press 4000 CDs on Friday night, since the Expected Monetary Value of that decision is optimal at $12,000. 3. Paying for perfect information If Ward could obtain information about the demand for CDs prior to committing to the CD production, there will be an upper bound on the sum of money it would be reasonable to spend.The most Ward should pay for perfect information about the two-day demand for CDs can be calculated using the Expected Value of Perfect Information: EVPI = EPC – EMV, where EPC is the expected payoff under certainty, and EMV is expected monetary value with alternative p4. We calculate EPC as: EPC = 0. 5 * 6000 + 0. 25 * 27000 + 0. 25 * 48000 = $ 21,750 EMV = $ 12,000 Total value of perfect information: EVPI = $ 9750 It would be reasonable to pay $9,750 dollars to obtain perfect information. It is thus not worthwhile to spend more than that amount of money to obtain ‘perfect’ information.

“A Separate Peace” by John Knowles Essay

One of the major themes in A Separate Peace is the coming of age. The theme of maturity can be viewed as a growing realization of the war in the school (in which the students realize that they have to enlist into the war â€Å"as men†), or the private and interior crisis one goes through (such as Gene discovering his identity as the novel progresses). The training and the sudden labors that the Devon students engage in attempt to prepare the boys for their future at the war; this can be seen as the external view of maturity in the novel, whereas the â€Å"internal† view of maturity can be seen in Gene’s thoughts as he searches for his personal identity. Throughout the novel, both Gene and Finny experience important yet damaging issues in their life where they realize the need to face the reality of it or become lost forever. As Gene discovers in the end, true identity can only be reached through maturity. Gene and the students of Devon experience a sense of maturity through the sudden change in their once peaceful and war-shunning environment of the summer. In the beginning of the novel, we can see that Devon is like a â€Å"Garden of Eden†; it resembles a paradise in the center of all the wars and deaths that are happening outside Devon’s barriers. Devon is seen as a milieu within a larger milieu (the rest of America at war). It seems that the students have lived their summer in a peaceful bubble of â€Å"Eden† in contrast with the background of World War II in the rest of the world. The summer of 1942 at Devon can be symbolized as the time of freedom and the exposure of youth; this is a moment in the novel where the students can get away with breaking rules and skipping classes. Therefore, the carefree summer of 1942 represents a time of paradise, where everyone is at peace and simply enjoying life at its fullest. However, Finny’s symbolic â€Å"fall† seems to have brought an end to this delight at Devon and brings in the winter session, where there is labour, orders, discipline, darkness, and despair. This is the moment when the teachers of Devon realize that the students are just on their way of serving the army. The students begin to participate in drills and trips to the railroad and orchard to help out in every way they can. In contrast to the summer of Devon, the winter represents the burdens of maturity and adulthood, and a  time where preparation of the war replaces the joyful atmosphere that was present in the summer. The boys of Devon suddenly feel that they must be responsible and â€Å"established† in order to face whatever their future brings them in the war. They all realize that they must smarten up and become men, because it is time to face the reality of what is going on behind Devon’s peaceful barriers. The phrase â€Å"Innocence must be killed to give birth to experience† says a lot about this time in the novel. Though the teachers had given the students more freedom during the summer and allowed several rule-breakings to take place, they understand that in order for the students to be ready and prepared for the coming conflicts in the army they must stop acting like children and sacrifice their state of immaturity to gain knowledge as adults. They understand that children cannot survive in wars, but men can. Later, the students realize that they must enlist themselves to serve for the army within a short period of time. Most of them become excited about becoming a solider for army, but then the novel takes an ironic twist with the students’ beliefs of the war because they do not yet know the real dangers and certainties of the outside of the barriers of Devon (regarding the world war). An example of such â€Å"blind thinking† was Leper becoming the first to join the war, thinking that he will gain more time in the forest afterwards, but returns devastated and emotionally shattered. His confrontation with Gene proves that there is a war out there and it is horrible as well. Gene, after realizing that he may also suffer from the same mental state as Leper if he enlisted, runs away screaming, â€Å"Shut up; it has nothing to do with me so shut up!†. Here we can see that Gene realizes some truth about the war, and no matter how much he tries to deny the horrible details and evidences that Leper brings back from the outside of Devon he gains new insight and wisdom. It is in this sense as well that Gene matures through the pressures of the war in the background, and that he cannot run from it because it is reality and he has to face it when it is his turn to enlist. The presence of the war, in a sense, also serves as a background for the  emotional development of the students at Devon; the world war actually triggers the buried emotions of the boys. Gene, Finny, and Brinker (for example) become competitive in their own ways; Gene compares his academic standards with Finny’s natural talents for sports, Finny shows a â€Å"win-win† competitive nature towards Gene in the games that they have played together (though he is out of the â€Å"war† mentally)), and Brinker feels insecure about his popularity due to Finny. Each character feels unconfident and is therefore â€Å"at war† with himself. In this novel, the ability to fix these inner conflicts seems to sadly result in either death (like Finny), or insanity (like Leper). For Finny, since he is unable to face certain feelings, he ends up becoming upset at the mock trial and dies in the second accident. Leper, on the other hand, believed that by enlisting first would b ring him out from his loneliness, yet returns from the war in a far worse shape. Gene, however, goes through a more painful process by remaining in Devon to fight for salvation within himself. Because the view of maturity in an emotional development is mostly seen in Gene (as narrator, we could see his thought-process as the novel progresses), I will use his private conflicts as an example to further support my thesis. In the beginning of the book, Gene develops a close relationship with Finny, his roommate. However, Gene begins to feel a bit envious of Finny, and sees his way of thinking as the truth. This then lead to an inner conflict in Gene, in which he begins to compare himself with Finny in a â€Å"Win-Lose† way of thinking. As his thinking of â€Å"competition† continues, Gene begins to see certain â€Å"flaws† within himself that leads to his insecurity, though these â€Å"missing traits† are not really flaws. He does tend to â€Å"hold himself back† several times by repeatedly telling himself how lucky he is to have Finny as a best friend, but this excuse soon shatters because he remains selfish. This selfishness of him reveals itself in chapter three, where Finny practically saves Gene from falling, but Gene tries to protect his beliefs of â€Å"Finny being the enemy† by telling himself that it was Finny’s fault for getting him into the me ss in the first place. At the same time, Gene’s admiration for Finny’s personality prevents him from refusing to go out with  Finny; it is in this state that Gene is actually a confused young man, who does not know the true value of friendship, and cannot correct the jealousy that he feels for Finny. The jealousy continues to grow, and soon enough Gene jounces the limb in chapter five, resulting in Finny’s fall. As I have said before, Gene is then forced to review what he has done to Finny and take a good look at himself; his mind, feeling extremely guilty for his actions, pressures him so much about the accident that he is forced to grow up. We see the final stage of maturity in Gene when he realizes near the end of the novel that he needs to become a grown-up and confront his personal war face-to-face once and for all; he confesses to Finny about his part in the accident, and finally gains Finny’s forgiveness and a sense of salvation. It was in this confession that Gene is f orced to see his stupidity and selfishness behind some of his actions. His act of courage to go to Finny and confess is evidence that he has finally grown. The conflict that he feels inside (regarding his relationship with Finny) becomes the source of his final emotional development; because of the â€Å"accident† the he had committed against Finny’s fall, Gene is forced to examine his own feelings over and over again throughout the novel. This repeated painful examination of his feelings and guilt results in growth; by really looking in himself, Gene realizes that he has to be responsible for his actions. It is when Gene finally reaches his peak of maturity that he begins to see his true identity in the end of the novel. Gene has emerged from a sort of shyness into a more confident attitude; he was influenced by Finny to learn about people, events, and life in a way that he had never before. In short, Gene needed Finny in order to realize himself. And sadly, Finny’s death leads to the eulogy that Gene makes in the last chapter, where he remembers the lessons that he was taught during his personal war at Devon. The theme of maturity in A Separate Peace can be reflected from the pressures that Gene (and the others students) endures during the drills, labors, and strict rules at Devon; this can be categorized as the â€Å"external† features of the theme, as well as the background of the novel. However, the theme of coming to age can also be seen in Gene’s heart, as he participates in an emotional struggle within himself prior to Finny’s character. We can see that Gene becomes jealous and envious of Finny, but then there seems to be a development in his character as he slowly begins to realize the truth. In a sense, Gene reaches maturity and becomes an adult after Finny dies, as he realizes that his own enemy was not Finny but his ignorant heart. Both the external and internal features of maturity in this novel gives meaning to the phrase, â€Å"Innocence must be killed to give birth to experience†; the students had to leave their peaceful state in the summer of 1942 and began to get used to the rigors of war and labor to fully understand the realities of war; at the same time, if Finny had not suffered and eventually died in the end, Gene would not have reflected on himself and grow from his experiences in the past. As Gene discovered in the end, true identity can only be reached through a state of maturity. â€Å"A Separate Peace† By John Knowles Essay In â€Å"A Separate Peace† by John Knowles, it is evident that Finny and Leper undergo the most traumatic experiences from the Class of 1943. Through these experiences, both characters lose much of their innocence and naivety. Finny, upon learning of the existence of the war and Gene’s moment of hatred, learns to accept realities and perceive the world as it is, not as the perfect childlike image he wants it to be. However, when Leper enlists in the army, he quickly begins to have hallucinations because the reality is too much for him to handle. Nevertheless, he eventually overcomes his insanity and seems to be fairly mentally stable by the end of the novel. Although Finny and Leper’s traumas are the source of a major loss of purity and childhood, they are also the cause of post-tramautic growth and a necessary increase in maturity. Finny goes through several perception-changing events during the course of the novel, but the event that cements his departure from childhood is the acceptance that Gene deliberately shook Finny off the tree. This shock was caused by his own inability to accept the truth in the first place. Despite the ease of denying unwanted information and living in a dream world, it is mentally unhealthy for Finny because of the shock caused upon finally believing the truth. Immediately after Gene’s confession of jouncing the limb, Gene remarks that Finny looked â€Å"older than I had ever seen him† (62). Finny, however, does not yet comprehend feelings of jealousy and betrayal, as he has hardly had any himself and finds it difficult to think of another’s point of view; the information registers on his face, but before he has time to process it and mature he rejects the idea entirely. Gene states â€Å"it occurred to me that this could be an even deeper injury than what I ha d done before† (62). The reality of adult themes such as jealousy, betrayal, and hate is what hurts Finny most, not the crippling injury itself. Another reality that takes away from Finny’s nescience is the war (when he finally believes in its existence). The most dramatic and stunning war in recent history, World War II had a huge impact on millions of lives worldwide. Yet Phineas refused to believe in the war, and instead created a fantasy in which he was the one of the only people who knew that it was all a hoax. When Gene, in disbelief from Finny’s opinion, questions Finny on why he is the only person who is aware of the â€Å"stuffed shirts'† (107) plot to  suppress happiness, Finny emotionally bursts out it is because he has â€Å"suffered† (108). Apparently, Finny has visualized this hoax to shield himself from the disadvantages of his disability, such as enlisting. Nevertheless, Finny quickly accepts the truth of the war after seeing Leper in a mentally disturbed state of mind. The image of what the war did to someone who used to be close to him shook him out of his dream world and spurred his emotional growth. When Finny, at the end of the novel, learned to accept the realities and avoid using denial to cope with shock, he lost the last of his childhood innocence. Leper is easily one of the most naive and innocent characters during the Summer Session. His good-naturedness and passive fascination with nature is such an ideal image of innocence that it seems almost depressing to see him in the traumatized state of mind after enlisting. Even while everyone is volunteering to shovel snow to aid the war effort and discussing their plans for which division to enlist in, Leper is only concerned with the beauty of nature and skis to a beaver dam to watch the beavers develop and build their dam. He is moved to join the army not for vain images of glory and glamor like the other students, but rather for the beauty of skiing down a mountain. Obviously, he soon finds that the army is too much for him, and while absent from the ongoings at Devon he loses every shred of innocence and guilelessness that previously surrounded his character. When Gene meets him, his psyche is obviously changed to such a point that he has hallucinations and other symptoms of sc hizophrenia, caused by his rapid ascension into adult matters. He does not accept reality nearly as well as Finny does because his character was far more innocuous at the start of the novel. So many of his images of the world are shattered that it can be seen that he feels like he has little familiarity to hold onto. He grasps to every gleam of regularity and unchangeable function, which explains his preference for spending time in the dining room of his house simply because he knows that three daily meals will be served there on a consistent basis. However, his time at home seems to have given him time to cope with the images of adulthood. Upon his return to Devon, he seems mentally well and a much more decisive authority than ever before. He accurately and forcefully convicts Gene of jouncing the limb in â€Å"his new, confident†¦ voice† (166).  Gene describes Leper during the trial as â€Å"all energy† (165). Evidently, Leper has dealt with the loss of innocence caused by his abrupt initiation into adulthood and has becom e a more confident, self-assured person in spite of it. Knowles makes it apparent throughout A Separate Peace that while the loss of innocence may often seem to be a sad or tragic event, it is necessary to pave the way for maturation and a transition into adulthood. Had Finny never accepted the truth of the tragedy that occurred to him, he would have never matured beyond his carefree summer days. And had Leper kept living in his own world of vivid imaginations, he would have never developed into the sanguine individual he becomes at the end of the novel. While the loss of innocence is partly a lugubrious experience, John Knowles portrays it as a necessity – a part of maturation and growth that leads to adulthood and self-fulfillment.