The Lord of the Rings Essay -- literary Analysis, J.R.R. Tolkien

J.R.R. Tolkien was motivated by different elements in his life to write The Lord of the Rings. Tolkien was an admirable British writer and scholar best known for the author-illustrated children’s book The Hobbit and its adult sequel The Lord of the Rings (O’Neil 1529). The Hobbit is the biggest part of why he wrote The Lord of the Rings, along with every feature of his successful life. In 1930, Tolkien jotted a few enigmatic words about â€Å"a hobbit† on the back of an examination paper he was grading. â€Å"Names always generate a story in my mind,† he observed, and eventually he found out what hobbits were like (Rollyson 4462). The few words Tolkien jotted down led his imagination run wild and his mind hungry for more words. On September 21, 1937, Tolkien’s fantasy and children’s novel, The Hobbit was published (Rollyson 4456). Shortly after this novel was published, Tolkien’s publisher wrote him that his public would want to hear more about the hobbits next year. So in December, he began to construct a new book, The Lord of the Rings (O’Neil 1543). The Hobbit was one of the big things that made Tolkien keep writing, and it took him up to twelve years to write (O’Neil 1544). Everyone, even his friends and family wanted more. His personal life also encouraged him to write The Lord of the Rings, not only that, but just to write in general. His childhood played a significant part in his love and passion for writing. As a little boy, Tolkien has always been fascinated by different themes. The memory of his younger years at Sarehole, the happiest of his boyhood, gave him an abiding love of nature, which formed the basis for one of his principal concepts, â€Å"The inter-relations between the ‘noble’ and the ‘simple’† (Rollyson 4460). Tolkien... ...n England, where Tolkien found even more stirring ideas to include in The Lord of the Rings. The Inklings were a literary group that shared works together and influenced each other (O’Neil 1538). In the group, Tolkien had read bits and pieces of The Lord of the Rings to Lewis and others, each giving back affirmative remarks and urging comments to â€Å"keep going!†(Kellman 2598). The importance of the Inklings cannot be frazzled enough, especially the friendship with Lewis, who had been an astonishing inspiration on the work of The Lord of the Rings (Rollyson 4459). In conclusion, every element of Tolkien’s life has a spot in The Lord of the Rings. His love for themes and languages as a young boy, his World War experiences, his wife and kids love and passion, C.S. Lewis’s positive words, and the Inklings. Each may serve as having its own little chapter in the novel.

Catfish in the Bathtub

Catfish in the Bathtub Response As you walk in past the brown hazelnut colored door, the aroma of Chinese herbs fill your nose and like every other Asian house, there’s a shoe rack right when you walk in the door. Around dinner time, the meter long table would be filled with food—some looking edible while some makes you want to feed it to the dogs. Sometimes the food would be pig blood and liver made into a soup or chicken feet.To me, I don’t eat that stuff and if I had a decision you would see me running to the nearest fast food restaurant for something I considered â€Å"normal†. But it’s one of my parent’s favorite dishes, so it’s usually made often and thus giving me the feeling of wanting to throw up every time I see it. However, to every else that’s just like me; Americanized, it would probably be gross. I mean who would want to eat pig liver and blood or even chicken feet—where it looked like a legit foot chopped s traight off from a chicken just seasoned, cooked, and flavored.But to top it off, being from a Chinese family also meant that anything that was considered â€Å"weird† was not accepted, so since being a left-handed person/writer, have multiply piercings, and so many other things was thought to be weird. For my sister, she started off being a left-handed person, so my mother would slap her hands when she was little to make sure she would write with the proper hand. Of course nowadays, being a left-handed person is normal, but before my parents didn’t believe so.But now that my parents have been living here in the United States for some time now, they have become more Americanized and have let go of some of their cultural traditions—which, at times I am glad of because now I don’t have to worry about being the straight A student or being perfect at everything. But in the end, despite all these weird traditional food and Chinese culture this is who I am. No matter if it’s having dishes like pig liver and blood for soup or chicken feet on the kitchen table, this is my family’s catfish in the bathtub that I end up living and abiding by.

The Basics of Mammalian Temperature Regulation

Do you find it surprising that reindeer, which spend much of their time standing in snow, dont get cold feet? Or that dolphins, whose thin flippers are gliding constantly through cool water, still manage to pursue very active lifestyles? A special circulatory adaptation known as countercurrent heat exchange enables both of these animals to maintain the appropriate body temperature in their extremities, and this is only one of the many clever adaptations mammals have evolved over the last hundred million years to help them to deal with variable temperatures. Mammals Are Endothermic All mammals are endothermic—that is, they maintain and regulate their own body temperature, no matter the external conditions. (Cold-blooded vertebrates, like snakes and turtles, are ectothermic.) Living in widespread environments around the world, mammals face daily and seasonal fluctuations in temperatures and some—for example, those indigenous to harsh arctic or tropical habitats—have to deal with extreme cold or heat. To maintain their correct internal body temperature, mammals must have a way to produce and conserve body heat in colder temperatures, as well as dissipate excess body heat in warmer temperatures. The mechanisms mammals have for producing heat include cellular metabolism, circulatory adaptations,  and plain, old-fashioned shivering. Cellular metabolism is the chemical process that constantly occurs within cells, by which organic molecules are broken down and harvested for their internal energy; this process releases heat and warms the body. Circulatory adaptations, such as the countercurrent heat exchange mentioned above, transfer heat from the core of the animals body (its heart and lungs) to its periphery via specially designed networks of blood vessels. Shivering, which youve probably done some of yourself, is easiest to explain: this crude process generates heat by the rapid contraction and shaking of muscles.   If An Animal Gets Too Warm What if an animal is too warm, rather than too cold? In temperate and tropical climates, excess body heat can accumulate quickly and cause life-threatening problems. One of natures solutions is to place blood circulation very near the surface of the skin, which helps to release heat into the environment. Another is the moisture produced by sweat glands or respiratory surfaces, which evaporates in comparatively dryer air and cools the animal down. Unfortunately, evaporative cooling is less effective in dry climates, where water is rare and water loss can be a real problem. In such situations, mammals, like reptiles, often seek protection from the sun during the hotter daylight hours and resume their activity at night. The evolution of warm-blooded metabolisms in mammals wasnt a straightforward affair, as witness the fact that many dinosaurs were apparently warm-blooded, some contemporary mammals (including a species of goat) actually have something akin to cold-blooded metabolisms, and even one type of fish generates its own internal body heat.