Point of View Essay Essays - Fiction, Narratology, Point Of View

Point of View Essay Essays - Fiction, Narratology, Point Of View Point of View Essay In the short story "Through the tunnel", Doris Lessing describes the adventure of Jerry, a young English boy trying to swim through an underwater tunnel. Throughout the story, the author uses the third person omniscient point of view to describe the boy's surroundings and to show us both what he and the other characters are thinking and what is happening around them. By using this point of view, the author is able to describe the setting of the story, give a detailed description of the characters, and make the theme visible. By using the third person omniscient point of view, the narrator can give us a detailed and unbiased description of his/her surroundings while still retaining part of the character's view of reality. When the narrator says "It was a wild-looking place, and there was no one there" we are given the mother's view of the boy's beach, which in her opinion is "wild looking". This gives us a clear picture of the setting. Additionally, the sentence "He went out fast over the gleaming sand, over a middle region where rocks lay like discolored monsters under the surface, and then he was in the real sea - a warm sea where irregular cold currents from the deep water shocked his limbs" clearly describes the beach where the boy is swimming and how it is seen by him. With the addition of words like "discoloured monsters" and "real sea" we can tell what the boy's feeling are toward his beach which he considers scary but at the same time challenging. By using the third person omniscient point of view, the narrator is able to render the characters with information related both from direct description and from the other character's revelations. This way, the description remains unbiased, but at the same time coherent with how the various characters see it. For example, after the narrator tells us that "He was an only child, eleven years old. She was a widow. She was determined to be neither possessive nor lacking in devotion.", we are able to understand why the boy is so emotionally attached to his mother and, at the beginning, unwilling to ask her for permission to go to his beach and, later in the story, unwilling to let her know about his adventure through the tunnel. This also explains why the mother let him go without questions, even if she was very worried about him. Also, when the narrator describes the native boys as "big boys - men to Jerry", we realize that although the boys might be only a little older than Jerry, he con siders them as men and he tries everything to become like one of them, even going through the long, dark and dangerous underwater tunnel. I believe that if the writer would have used first person point of view, we would only perceive what that single character is experiencing, thus giving us a limited and one-sided view of the world. In this story, the narrator gives us the important clues that lead us to the theme by letting us know what the characters think. For example, when the Jerry's mother says "Of course he's old enough to be safe without me", we realize that the boy is at a point in his life when he is ready to discover the world by himself. In addition, when his mother thinks "Have I been keeping him too close? He mustn't feel he ought to be with me. I must be careful.", we realize that the author implies that it is wrong to keep him close to her for too long, and both these examples add to the notion that the rite of passage must be undergone without the interference of others. Obviously, this concept wouldn't have been clear without the view of the mother. In addition, Jerry perceives swimming through the underwater tunnel as something that men (the other boys) must accomplish, and that specific action has to be seen as "the rite of passage" in this story. With the third person omniscient point of vie w, the narrator is able to make the theme clearly visible to the reader, which is that a rite of passage (swimming through the

Silicon Facts (Atomic Number 14 or Si)

Silicon Facts (Atomic Number 14 or Si) Silicon is a metalloid element with atomic number 14 and element symbol Si. In pure form, it is a brittle, hard solid with a blue-gray metallic luster. It is best known for its importance as a semiconductor. Fast Facts: Silicon Element Name: SiliconElement Symbol: SiAtomic Number: 14Appearance: Crystalline metallic solidGroup: Group 14 (Carbon Group)Period: Period 3Category: MetalloidDiscovery: Jà ¶ns Jacob Berzelius (1823) Silicon  Basic Facts Atomic Number: 14 Symbol: Si Atomic Weight: 28.0855 Discovery: Jons Jacob Berzelius 1824 (Sweden) Electron Configuration: [Ne]3s23p2 Word Origin: Latin: silicis, silex: flint Properties: The melting point of silicon is 1410 °C, boiling point is 2355 °C, specific gravity is 2.33 (25 °C), with a valence of 4. Crystalline silicon has a metallic grayish color. Silicon is relatively inert, but it is attacked by dilute alkali and by halogens. Silicon transmits over 95% of all infrared wavelengths (1.3-6.7 mm). Uses: Silicon is one of the most widely used elements. Silicon is important to plant and animal life. Diatoms extract silica from water to build their cell walls. Silica is found in plant ashes and in the human skeleton. Silicon is an important ingredient in steel. Silicon carbide is an important abrasive and is used in lasers to produce coherent light at 456.0 nm. Silicon doped with gallium, arsenic, boron, etc. is used to produce transistors, solar cells, rectifiers, and other important solid-state electronic devices. Silicone is a class of useful compounds made from silicon. Silicones range from liquids to hard solids and have many useful properties, including use as adhesives, sealants, and insulators. Sand and clay are used to make building materials. Silica is used to make glass, which has many useful mechanical, electrical, optical, and thermal properties. Sources: Silicon makes up 25.7% of the earths crust, by weight, making it the second most abundant element (exceeded by oxygen). Silicon is found in the sun and stars. It is a principal component of the class of meteorites known as aerolites. Silicon is also a component of tektites, a natural glass of uncertain origin. Silicon is not found free in nature. It commonly occurs as the oxide and silicates, including sand, quartz, amethyst, agate, flint, jasper, opal, and citrine. Silicate minerals include granite, hornblende, feldspar, mica, clay, and asbestos. Preparation: Silicon may be prepared by heating silica and carbon in an electric furnace, using carbon electrodes. Amorphous silicon may be prepared as a brown powder, which can then be melted or vaporized. The Czochralski process is used to produce single crystals of silicon for solid-state and semiconductor devices. Hyperpure silicon may be prepared by a vacuum float zone process and by thermal decompositions of ultra-pure trichlorosilane in an atmosphere of hydrogen. Element Classification: Semimetallic Isotopes: There are known isotopes of silicon ranging from Si-22 to Si-44. There are three stable isotopes: Al-28, Al-29, Al-30. Silicon Physical Data Density (g/cc): 2.33Melting Point (K): 1683Boiling Point (K): 2628Appearance: Amorphous form is brown powder; crystalline form has a grayAtomic Radius (pm): 132Atomic Volume (cc/mol): 12.1Covalent Radius (pm): 111Ionic Radius: 42 (4e) 271 (-4e)Specific Heat (20 °C J/g mol): 0.703Fusion Heat (kJ/mol): 50.6Evaporation Heat (kJ/mol): 383Debye Temperature (K): 625.00Pauling Negativity Number: 1.90First Ionizing Energy (kJ/mol): 786.0Oxidation States: 4, -4Lattice Structure: DiagonalLattice Constant (Ã…): 5.430CAS Registry Number: 7440-21-3 Pure silicon has a shiny, metallic luster. Martin Konopka / EyeEm, Getty Images Silicon Trivia Silicon is the eighth most abundant element in the universe.Silicon crystals for electronics must have a purity of one billion atoms for every non-silicon atom (99.9999999% pure).The most common form of silicon in the Earths crust is silicon dioxide in the form of sand or quartz.Silicon, like water, expands as it changes from liquid to solid.Silicon oxide crystals in the form of quartz are piezoelectric. The resonance frequency of quartz is used in many precision timepieces. Sources Cutter, Elizabeth G. (1978). Plant Anatomy. Part 1 Cells and Tissues (2nd ed.). London: Edward Arnold. ISBN 0-7131-2639-6.Greenwood, Norman N.; Earnshaw, Alan (1997). Chemistry of the Elements (2nd ed.). Butterworth-Heinemann. ISBN 0-08-037941-9.Voronkov, M. G. (2007). Silicon era. Russian Journal of Applied Chemistry. 80 (12): 2190. doi:10.1134/S1070427207120397Weast, Robert (1984). CRC, Handbook of Chemistry and Physics. Boca Raton, Florida: Chemical Rubber Company Publishing. pp. E110. ISBN 0-8493-0464-4.Zulehner, Werner; Neuer, Bernd; Rau, Gerhard, Silicon, Ullmanns Encyclopedia of Industrial Chemistry, Weinheim: Wiley-VCH, doi:10.1002/14356007.a23_721