Characteristics of the Market Essay Example for Free

Attributes of the Market Essay a. National market Handling the little forte nourishments with a wide product offering and deals of $300 million every year which a food specialists speak to the organization to the retail evolved ways of life by the system. This organization progressively centered around ethnic food fortes which including serving of mixed greens dressings, sauces for Italian pasta and toppings, for example, claims to fame pickles. b. Two plants delivered item One in the Central Valley of California at Fresno and the other in Illinois south of Chicago which they purchase the fixings from different nourishments providers to keep away from the pinnacle occasional qualities experienced by food packers. The organization creation has occur in huge amounts to keep up low creation costs and guarantee predictable item quality. c. By and large request on little amount Organization has requested from provider adding up to five to six cases for every request in particular or around 150 to 200 pounds one after another. d. Poor conveyance Notwithstanding, clients have remarked that the organization have a poor conveyance administrations as a result of a considerable lot of fixings are transported over significant distances and it has relying upon the season. e. Two significant office the board This is incorporate the Marketing and Sales and furthermore has Production division and a few staff units for faculty, buying and fund. Both of offices are answerable for advertising the product offerings such advancement, item stock at the open stockrooms, giving deals support and furthermore marketing. There is likewise a national project supervisor who obligation regarding keeping in touch with food dealers, organizing open stockrooms and mastermind conveyance 1) Case Summary (What’s the issue?) Skyline Foods Corporation (from this point forward â€Å"Horizon†) is a despite everything developing, across the country nourishments association that is broadly known for its great items. With $300 million deals every year, the firm has been generally effective up until this point, increasing great notoriety and exciting a lot of enthusiasm of people in general through its merchants and neighborhood retailers. Be that as it may, as the organization flourishes and clients request more, Horizon anticipates a coming emergency. The dispersion issue, which the organization has looked for some time, is currently causing stock-outs, and expanding rivalry in the market is undermining the company’s piece of the pie. Specialists included neglect to investigate the issue and its motivation, and they are anxious to accuse each other for the issues. The division of work between two significant offices †Marketing and Sales, and Production †appears to require a total modif ication for a progressively effective procedure. Skyline ought to likewise break down its present image situating in the market and modify its systems if necessary. 2) Q1. What are the qualities of the market served by the Horizon Foods Corporation? Skyline is a forte nourishments processor. It has served a national market made out of food dealers who speak to retail location networks. The food specialists make requests to Horizon. By and large, the requests are little. The creation is done in two unique plants on account of the fixings from some food providers. The plants are situated in horticultural territories to decrease the expense of transportation. Besides, Horizon delivers in huge amounts, and the food created is excellent in quality. The creation is dispatched to a few open distribution centers. At that point, these distribution centers use contract bearers to convey the items to the clients. In light of the little requests, the transportation cost to retail locations can be high. The market is serious since huge numbers of Horizon’s food contenders likewise offer a total creation line

Media coverage of Big Brother Essay Example for Free

Media inclusion of Big Brother Essay An examination of how the famous figure Jade Goody was spoken to in media inclusion of Big Brother. In spite of being the subsequent last ousted from the older sibling house, and separated from being well known in the open watchers eyes, Jade Goody has been depicted by the media as a truly shocking person whom is most likely named as the most exceedingly terrible housemate ever. In The Sun Jade has been uncovered, as a dumb and drippy challenger who they emphatically feel ought to be ousted from the house at the earliest opportunity due to their cliché methods of remarking about a person. The language in The Sun is deficient, Dated 18 June an article in The Sun utilizes different competitors in the house as their fundamental proof of her loudmouthed habits, which has affected and brought an upheaval into a significant number of the media press for Big Brother. Jade capriciously, doesn't know about the outside world. The sun utilizes slang to get messages across to the peruser which puts the perusers mind in a condition of familiarity, something they also can have a chuckle at. In article the press go excessively profound into her own life and utilize an inclusion about her criminal father to portray her outside life. They utilize this sobriquet so as to make pressure and bias about jades direct in the Big Brother house. Jade here is spoken to as a trouble maker from a terrible family who perhaps has a ton of things that she can be differentiated too which characteristically is the manner in which The Sun mark individuals. Being known as a pig and being removed, as a pig is anything but a wonderful method to discover the thing the press has said about you. Jade in articles composed by The Sun. Another feature that starts utilizing her sexuality is the article dated June 19 in which the feature figuratively alludes to the sexual insinuation they make about her and PJ resting together, toe-employment to blows work is implication of her sexual life. In that specific article the author attempted to make jade as an individual who is irritating as she is alluded to as loud jade, sorrowful which doesnt show her as a solid participator toward the start of something that can modify her direction life. Utilizing Jades moms sexuality lesbian mother influences people in general as they are placed in spot where they are entranced to feel that it isn't right to not be hetero. To the open perusing an article about the sexual coexistence of big names delights them and carries diversion to their psyches, anyway it tends to be a tragic thing to where the VIP feels deceived by individuals around them. The articles composed by The Sun utilize numerous individual terms and stories to stand out that it appears that the media like to misuse her private life to the general population for individual rights. Be that as it may, it is by all accounts ailing in equity on the grounds that doesnt jade have her privileges as a person? Her mom is portrayed as an unmarried Jackie Budden, which adds to the heap of individual issues. Does it truly make a difference if her mom wasnt wedded and it shouldnt truly have an impact or change o the manner in which jade will continue winning to second place. The Sun appear to be predisposition, they dont appear to like jade goody in view of the way that her fathers in prison, her moms sexuality and the manner in which it varies from jade. Being a dental medical caretaker has been differentiated to the way she doesnt appear to have helped individuals like her on the grounds that in the sun she has been designated as the countries generally abhorred. It shows that they utilize her occupation also to depict her disappointment in the house. Numerous different sorts of examinations are made about jade, for example in an another article her yawing got by a camera is differentiated to a primate imitating jade which is fairly unexpected about her tendency. Numerous photos that are placed into the articles by The Sun depict her as an unflattering individual, huge boobs all deliberately chose to make her look ugly and not somebody youd especially need to follow in sync shrewd. In the Jade should keep her enormous mouth shut article an image of disgustingly easting a pizza fits with the heading. Underneath they utilize a similar sounding word usage to draw out the play on words in her. Another type of symbolism utilized by The Sun is an image of her bosom dropping out of her two-piece which has a heading of Jade Boobs again which could be a clothing about her weight which isnt a decent method of speaking to somebody. All through her time in Big Brother The Sun utilized numerous abominable, biased remarks about Jade to one might say engage the perusers. Anyway by introducing her as a pig, dolt and numerous different types of skeptical and famous portrayals the sun made a disdainful and harsh side to jade. In light of the homophobic, cliché notoriety that The Sun holds it fits the idea of the articles composed by them to remark upon her like this. Anyway in The Daily Mirror they utilize another method of introducing jade. In spite of the way that she may have been named a pig, a dairy animals it doesnt stop them making the counter Big Brother crusade, which they take all out, sides on Jade. The first page of the Daily Mirror has 3 pictures of Jade looking rather discouraged and confined. She is wearing a cross; with a white top, which could be a method, this paper uses to draw out another side of Jade. Her blamelessness probably. The feature begins with Nobody Loves me, and underneath the image the columnist has included his emotions however I do. which makes nervousness just as fervor to the perusers of who could be the individual who does, and why. The page 10 inclusion is fairly extraordinary to the Suns provides details regarding Jade as here she has been portrayed as not the most keen pin but rather who cares. This is a defining moment to a debateable inquiry of whether jade is a positive or negative contender. The article incorporates better photos of her grinning, seeming as though she can have some good times and as a guiltless individual. The article itself is hopeful about jade Kevin OSullivan concedes that he has compassion toward the heavenly ms Jade which is fairly unexpected in sense for the individuals who have recently perused the sun articles on jade goody. The article utilizes antonyms from the articles that are cynical about her. The language here is progressively thoughtful and near the heart. It appears to be progressively agreeable in light of the fact that the peruser doesnt need to feel like they are pushed to accept each word. Anyway here she is put as a poor young lady who lavishly has the right to win. Anyway there are ridicules about how she wont win excellence challenges and how she is a blonde bumshell-sorry stunner which shows that the author in a manner sees her as upsetting he attempts to keep it careful. The article states how the reasons why they have made an enemy of elder sibling effort was on the grounds that they believed that they too fitted the group along these lines it was the ideal opportunity for a change. This speaks to jade as someone else, here in this article she isn't differently misused however gently remarked upon. It additionally appears that in light of the way that the sun has been remarked upon by numerous individuals the Daily mirror expected to abstain from being remarked upon as well. By making a thoughtful picture to the peruser they can help pull in more perusers. The day by day reflect by embracing the title The counter Big Brother crusade appears to have removed them from war, since September eleventh. By putting another enemy of subject separated from it assists perusers with escaping from strain and to having some type of delicate diversion. Both article feel sorry for jade anyway in the sun they utilize individual remarks to make disruption by the perusers for jade goody while in The Daily mirror they attempt to make compassion and warmth. It truly involves choices made by the perusers of whom they favor one side on. Jade has been introduced rather inadequately all through her time in Big Brother because of her looks and character. By making her as an individual that is amusingly a disappointment in the show they have had the option to catch a structure tattle segment for their perusers to appreciate.

The Most Comprehensive List of Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS) in the World

The Most Comprehensive List of Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS) in the World Recruitment is among the most crucial parts of running a successful business. If you’d like to make your hiring process a bit easier, you should consider getting an applicant tracking system. © Shutterstock.com | baranqIn this guide, we’ll introduce you to 1) what an applicant tracking system (ATS) is, 2) how to pick the right ATS, and 3)  60 of the top ATSs in the world.WHAT IS AN APPLICANT TRACKING SYSTEM?Before we introduce you to the 60 prevalent application tracking systems (ATSs), it’s auspicious to take a look at what these systems are all about.ATS is essentially a software application that enables the digital handling of recruitment. It helps a company to store and organize candidate and job related data, making the tracking and monitoring of different parts of the hiring process easier.As we’ll see from the ATSs below, most modern systems operate as a cloud-based software. Nonetheless, ATSs systems can also often be operated offline.The common features of ATSs include the following functions:The ability to post job openingsThe option to screen resumesThe generating of interview requestsThe ability to pre-screen questionsThe creation of effectiveness repor ts and option to track sourcesWatch the below video explaining how a typical ATS operates: HOW TO PICK THE RIGHT ATS?When you are thinking about finding the right ATS for your business, you need to focus on two key aspects: the business’ needs and the available price range.Understand your business’ needs by answering the following questions:Do you need to consider compliance? Compliance-oriented ATS can help with regulatory complying, which can be crucial for certain businesses, such as healthcare or manufacturing companies. In these instances, ATSs such as Taloe, Kenexa-Brassring, and ADP can be a good option.Are you a start-up? There are start-up specific ATSs which can help the company at an earlier stage of the business cycle. Consider ATSs like Jobvite, Greenhouse, and JobScore.Do you hire different types of applicants? If your business hires a variety types of candidates, you might want to consider going for a large business focused ATS, as they might be able to offer more options. On the other hand, it’s possible to use two different ATSs.In addition to mapping out your needs, you should also keep in mind the price of the platform. You don’t want to opt for software, your business can’t afford. While there are plenty of good, free ATS available, such as Fitzii, Breezy HR and Jobularity, you might want to consider a paid system if you need a lot from the software.THE TOP 60 APPLICANT TRACKING SYSTEMS (ATS) IN THE WORLD#1: TaleoAvailable onLinux, Mac, Windows and web-based serviceRecommended business sizeMedium to large companyPriceContact the company for pricing; varies depending on your chosen packageThe most commonly used ATS in the US is a solid choice for large companies, with nearly half of Fortune 100 companies using it. The program offers comprehensive HR options from recruiting to onboarding. You are able to create job postings, ensure smoother paperwork compliance and optimize employee ROI.The software provides a comprehensive system f or optimizing candidate tracking. It allows a functional review of candidates at various stages in the recruitment process, which can help a business improve its recruitment process. On the other hand, the interface can seem difficult to use at first and the functionality suffers from the web-based interface, as it uses Adobe Flash.#2: RecruiteeAvailable onLinux, Mac, Windows and web-based serviceRecommended business sizeSmall companyPriceStarting from $19/month; cost depends on the active jobs requirementRecruitee is another cloud-based solution to support applicant tracking and sourcing. You are able to create career sites and publish your job postings on job boards. Furthermore, you can import talent directly from social media platforms such as LinkedIn.The option for allowing oneclick applications through LinkedIn is, in fact, one of the unique features of the platform. It can make the application process much more efficient, although you can also create your own application for ms.#3: Jobvite HireAvailable onLinux, Mac, Windows and web-based serviceRecommended business sizeMedium to large companyPriceContact the company for pricing; varies depending on the size of the companyJobvite offers support for both the recruiting and sourcing to onboarding of candidates. Jobvite Hire allows the creation of reports from candidate applications, the sharing of job opportunities on social platforms and encourages employee referrals within the organization.The unique feature is the Jobvite Video, which allows on-demand video screening within the platform. This can be used for candidate interviews or as an enhancement to job posts. The software suffers from slight integration issues with other business management tools.#4: Kenexa â€" BrassringAvailable onLinux, Mac, Windows and web-based serviceRecommended business sizeLarge companyPriceContact the company for pricing; varies depending on the size of the companyIBM’s Kenexa provides you support for acquiring, hiring, t raining and developing your candidates and employees. The ATS can be used to identify applicant pools and attract candidates with the help of social media.The platform’s strength lies in the customized talent questionnaires, which are a great way to understand what impact different actions might have for the business.#5: iCIMSAvailable onLinux, Mac, Windows and web-based serviceRecommended business sizeSmall to large companyPriceContact the company for pricing; varies depending on the size of the companyThe iCIMS software offers a comprehensive tool with customizable career portals, social media distribution, job posting and HR screening. It’s more than just an ATS; it is a tool to manage a business’ entire talent lifecycle, from sourcing to onboarding.The unique feature in the iCIMS web-platform is its ability to help with career site search engine optimization (SEO). This can boost your job visibility online instantly. The vastness of the software can, on the other hand, tak e some time getting used to.#6: ADP Workforce NowAvailable onLinux, Mac, Windows and web-based serviceRecommended business sizeMedium companyPriceContact the company for pricing; varies depending on the size of the companyFor a comprehensive HR solution, the ADP Workforce Now software offers plenty of features from recruitment to payroll and talent management. You can view the application status and analyze the business’ sourcing efficiency by viewing where your applications are coming from.The software offers a unique benefit creation module, which is great for letting candidates and employees know more about the different benefit plans your business offers. Since it’s a comprehensive tool, certain features, such as the tax reporting, might seem unnecessary if you are just looking for an ATS.#7: SAP-SuccessFactorsAvailable onLinux, Mac, Windows and web-based serviceRecommended business sizeLarge companyPriceContact the company for pricing; varies depending on the size of the co mpanyThe web-based ATS features a number of other functions such as HR, payroll, applicant tracking, onboarding, performance review and compensation management. It’s therefore much more than just a stand-alone ATS.The Jam social collaboration tool makes SuccessFactors’ software unique. It allows the creation of training materials, video recording and content sharing. SuccessFactors can be rather hard to understand with no previous experience in HR management tools and the integration with other programs is not as straightforward as you’d wish.#8: PeopleFluentAvailable onLinux, Mac, Windows and web-based serviceRecommended business sizeLarge companyPriceContact the company for pricing; varies depending on the size of the companyPeopleFluent’s ATS features applications such as Recruiting, Management, Learning and Succession, meaning it provides a comprehensive tool for the acquisition, performance and development of talent. Furthermore, the software uses video, social media in tegration and different analytics tools to guarantee a better recruitment experience.The biggest benefit to using PeopleFluent is its near full integration with other core HR and HCM systems. There are some issues with the PeopleFluent’s support system, which isn’t as responsive as in other software options.#9: Silkroad RecruitingAvailable onLinux, Mac, Windows and web-based serviceRecommended business sizeSmall and medium companyPriceContact the company for pricing; varies depending on the size of the companySilkRoad is famous in the HR industry, having been named as “Visionary” in 2013 and 2014 in the Magic Quadrants for Talent Management Suites by Gartner. The SilkRoad Recruiting software is used for streamlining recruitment. It does so using free job board distribution across job boards such as Glassdoor and Simple Hired. The platform allows mobile application, with strong marketing options for both digital and mobile platforms.The referral options on Silkroad Recruiting are among its biggest strengths. The existing employees in your company can view your open jobs and refer candidates directly from their own social networks. The drawback of the ATS is the lack of reporting options, with not many tools available for custom reports.#10: iRecruitment/PeopleSoftAvailable onLinux, Mac, Windows and web-based serviceRecommended business sizeSmall to large companyPriceContact the company for pricing; varies depending on the size of the companyPeopleSoft is another comprehensive tool for staying on top of your recruitment needs. You can integrate it with modules such as workforce management and talent management. The program features compliance rules and it can be used for compensation administration and performance tracking.The database integration works extremely well, allowing you to utilise your previous candidate databases also on PeopleSoft. PeopleSoft arguable suffers from complexity. It’s not an appropriate ATS and HR system, if your business has no previous experience on these platforms.#11: UltiProAvailable onCloud-based service; Mac and WindowsRecommended business sizeMedium to large companyPriceContact the company for pricing; varies depending on the size of the companyUltiPro’s software is much more than just an ATS tool, as it also delivers payroll management, compensation resources and labor management solutions.The UltiPro platform features unique set of HR tools, which give it a competitive advantage over stand-alone ATSs. On the other hand, if you are simply looking for an ATS platform, most functions will seem a burden, even though the scalability option is there for different sized businesses.#12: GreenhouseAvailable onLinux, Mac, Windows and web-basedRecommended business sizeSmall to medium companyPriceContact the company for pricing; varies depending on the size of the companyGreenhouse software offers a comprehensive option, as it doesn’t just help with basic ATS needs, but also provides additional tools for companies to manage the recruitment process. You are able to track your recruitment ROI and optimize your future campaigns.Greenhouse’s consistency in setting the application process, with interviews, can be a great help in ensuring you can compare between your applicants. The automated tools in the software can also automatically scan the resumes. However, the scalability and integration of the software are still lacking behind, as the platform is relatively new.#13: AkkenCloudAvailable onLinux, Mac, Windows and web-based serviceRecommended business sizeSmall to large companyPriceContact the company for pricing; varies depending on the size of the companyAkkenCloud allows you to post jobs online, track your incoming applications and create a comprehensive candidate database. It also offers a fully integrated email service, which makes contacting candidates straightforward.The client database is particularly strong on the AkkenCloud ATS. It allows easy monitoring of applicants within your system and makes scanning previous applicants for new roles fast and simple. On the other hand, the system has occasionally suffered from not highlighting how different candidates have applied to your job, which can make the analysis of ROI more difficult.#14: Newton SoftwareAvailable onLinux, Mac, Windows and web-based serviceRecommended business sizeSmall to medium companyPriceStarting from $149/monthThe web-based ATS has claimed a name in the industry and some of its strength comes from being designed by recruiters for other recruiters. The software ensures compliance with guidelines like AA and OFCCP. Furthermore, it offers automated email templates, requisition approvals and customized reporting.Newton Software benefits from swift implementation. It’s not only easy to use, but you won’t need to spend weeks having the software integrated into your business practices.#15: JobScoreAvailable onLinux, Mac, Windows and web-based serviceRecommended business sizeSmall to large companyPriceStarts from $99/monthThe JobScore ATS is extremely scalable, with the option to add different features, as company needs change. You will have features such as social media recruitment, resume database, reporting for analytics and job posting available for you even with the basic version.The JobScore ATS has a clear and clean interface and management of workflows is straightforward.#16: LumesseTalentLinkAvailable onLinux, Mac, Windows and web-based serviceRecommended business sizeLarge companyPriceContact the company for pricing; varies depending on the size of the companyLumesse TalentLink’s client list includes the likes of British Airways and Merck, and it’s therefore a tried and tested ATS. The cloud-based software uses an apps-based model, ensuring you can scale the tools according to your needs. It also provides the basic job recruitment functions through its mobile interface.Lumesse’s unique feature is the availability of over 20 languages, making i t a truly global ATS. Furthermore, it integrates extremely well with other business management tools.#17: WorkDayAvailable onLinux, Mac, Windows and web-based serviceRecommended business sizeSmall to large companyPriceContact the company for pricing; varies depending on the size of the companyThe comprehensive HR system includes talent and performance management options, aside from its ATS. The system allows full social media integration, allowing you to recruit talent directly from sites like LinkedIn.With WorkDay, you’ll be able to view applicant activity in real time, which can speed the recruitment process. The internal job opening sharing is also extremely useful as it allows employees to utilize their networks. On the other hand, the application process only works well when the applicant either uses LinkedIn or fills out their job history on the system itself.#18: LeverAvailable onLinux, Mac, Windows and web-basedRecommended business sizeSmall to large companyPriceContact th e company for pricing; varies depending on the size of the companyThe features you get to enjoy include customized job postings, one-click referrals and referral links, an option to synchronize emails and a customized candidate pipeline. You can view reports on where specific candidates drop out and analyze candidate performance.Lever’s strengths are also in the robust employee referral system, which allows the users to share jobs on platforms such as LinkedIn and Twitter. As a rather new ATS, it still suffers from low integration with other HR systems.#19: PeopleAnswers/ InforAvailable onLinux, Mac, Windows and web-based serviceRecommended business sizeLarge companyPriceContact the company for pricing; varies depending on the size of the companyThe Infor HR tool has received plenty of praise from research companies such as Forrester. The software can be streamlined with applicant tracking and employee tracking, with the system being available either as an on-premise product or a hosted solution.The software is great for companies with varying needs, as it can be integrated with other HR tools and you can scale the system depending on your business requirements.#20: KronosAvailable onLinux, Mac, Windows and web-based serviceRecommended business sizeMedium companyPriceContact the company for pricing; varies depending on the size of the companyKronos’ comprehensive human resource and workforce management applications are in place in over half of Fortune 1,000 organizations. You can integrate your recruitment platforms with the workforce management, providing you a more comprehensive HR experience to simple ATS software.You can opt for on-premise installation or a hosted, web-based service, giving more flexibility in terms of your business’ IT capabilities.#21: JazzAvailable onLinux, Mac, Windows and web-based serviceRecommended business sizeSmall companyPriceStarting from $249/monthWhile the company is relatively new, the Jazz ATS is used by over 2,000 com panies in a variety of industries. The sourcing tools allow you to post jobs, implement an approval process, syndicate jobs to other job boards and create a streamlined recruiting and hiring process.The team’s unique ability is how you can limit what different team members see on the platform, ensuring you can include collaborators without providing them full access. Unfortunately, the platform has limited integration and linking options for collecting resumes from other job platforms.#22: HRSmartAvailable onLinux, Mac, Windows and web-based serviceRecommended business sizeSmall and medium companyPriceContact the company for pricing; varies depending on the size of the companyAs a comprehensive HR tool, the HRSmart software is among the best. The software not only allows applicant tracking, but also monitoring of employee performance, succession planning and the management of employee development. The system has a number of big clients ranging from Capital Source to Skandia.The HR Smart software offers applicants and more impressively, the new employees to complete and send all required paperwork electronically, which in its depth is rather unique within the ATS industry. The downside to the software is the lack of flexibility when it comes to integration and the limited availability of customer support.#23: MyStaffingProAvailable onLinux, Mac, Windows and web-based serviceRecommended business sizeMedium and large companyPriceContact the company for pricing; varies depending on the size of the companyMyStaffingPro is a web-based ATS offering scalable recruitment and onboarding solutions for businesses. You can integrate the software with background checking and learning, and performance management systems.With 15-years of experience in the industry, the software allows a comprehensive and efficient way to review and export candidate data from career search screens. However, the option to merge applicant’s different applications is missing and could mean you end up with different applications from the same candidate.#24: BirdDog SoftwareAvailable onLinux, Mac, Windows and web-based serviceRecommended business sizeMedium and large companyPriceContact the company for pricing; varies depending on the size of the companyBirdDog’s ATS offers tools for the different parts of employee’s journey from recruitment and onboarding to learning and succession. You can use it for diversity tracking, applicant scoring and for creating customized interview questions.The platform is especially suitable for industries such as construction, engineering and skilled trades due to its rigorous compliance focus. When using the automated posting option for other job boards, you must stay vigilant as your jobs aren’t automatically sponsored and therefore pushed at the top of the list.#25: CeridianAvailable onLinux, Mac, Windows and web-based serviceRecommended business sizeMedium and large companyPriceContact the company for pricing; varies depending on t he size of the companyCeridian is another company that offers a complete human capital management system, with ATS included in the package. The software provides support for recruitment, payroll, administration and onboarding. The analytics tools provide plenty of insight not only on the candidates, but also for the functionality across departments.The platforms big benefit is the video interviewing option, which allows you to interview candidates and input this information directly to the recruitment file. The system’s big drawback is the report writing, which can be difficult to understand.#26: HireBridgeAvailable onLinux, Mac, Windows and web-based serviceRecommended business sizeSmall and medium companyPriceStarting from $125/monthHireBridge is a stand-alone ATS allowing your business to better manage the recruitment process. You are able to view your job postings and see the number of applicants, as well as the details on how long the job has been open. You can create new req uisitions, which are posted on a number of job boards.HireBridge is extremely easy to set up as it operates as an on-demand web-based service. You therefore won’t have to buy software or wait for the system to be implemented. Perhaps the main issue is that there’s not much integration with recruiting firms.#27: PCRecruiterAvailable onCloud-based service; Mac and WindowsRecommended business sizeSmall to large companyPriceStarting from $85/month; cost varies depending on the requirements of the companyThe PCRecruiter ATS provides a complete solution for attracting and contacting applications and for managing the applicant flow within your business. You can use it for requisition submittal, online job inquiries and create customized assessments and interviews.The ATS is an especially good option for third-party recruiters, as it allows the integration and communication between different platforms. There are also plenty of customization options from creating approval emails to and m onitoring the candidates. On the other hand, since the software is ingrained in third-party recruitment, certain features are not useful for internal recruiters.#28: BambooHRAvailable onLinux, Mac, Windows and web-based serviceRecommended business sizeMedium companyPriceStarting from $99/month; cost varies depending on company sizeThe software is a single system for employee and HR related data and it makes management of HR activities easier. The BambooHR ATS uses a centralized database, with personalized information. You can also publish job openings and assign ratings for candidates.The system allows you to provide specific permission access to the software, ensuring data security while allowing more comprehensive viewing of candidate applications, for example. There are certain integration issues with specific business software programs and the cloud-based system cannot be hosted on your company’s own servers.#29: ClinchAvailable onLinux, Mac, Windows and web-based serviceRecom mended business sizeSmall and medium companyPriceContact the company for pricing; varies depending on the size of the companyClinch’s ATS makes the promotion of job postings simple as it can help you manage the workflow of your recruiting process. It provides access to existing templates to use during the application process, which can also be modified according to your business needs.The unique benefit to using Clinch comes from its ability to provide data on the candidates that viewed your job posting, but never applied for the role. This can provide insight into what type of candidates you attract and why certain talented individuals still don’t apply. But you should remember Clinch is not an ATS in the traditional sense and you will most likely need another ATS to use alongside this software.#30: ApplicantProAvailable onLinux, Mac, Windows and web-basedRecommended business sizeSmall to medium companyPricePrice varies between $800 to $3,000 a yearThe ATS comes with the core f unctions of creating job postings and posting them on over 5,000 job boards such as Simply Hired. The ApplicantPro system also supports sharing on social media. You can also create a branded career site. You’ll enjoy customized reporting options, including most common compliance reports.The unique feature of ApplicantPro allows the creation of a back-end system, which automatically disqualifies candidate applications, which don’t meet basic requirements set by you. The disadvantage of the ATS is the reporting system, which can seem rather complicated and at times limited, especially compared to other ATSs on the market.#31: ATSOnDemandAvailable onLinux, Mac, Windows and web-based serviceRecommended business sizeSmall to medium companyPriceContact the company for pricing; varies depending on the size of the companyATSOnDemand provides everything you need from an ATS. It allows the creation and posting of job listings to career sites and job boards. You can manage and review the t alent pool and include onboarding options for your package.The ATSOnDemand team will provide you a web development team that can help create an unique career page to match your company website, which is a good branding opportunity. The downside is the lack of available custom reporting and the software could use better data analysis in the existing reports.#32: ApplicantStackAvailable onLinux, Mac, Windows and web-basedRecommended business sizeSmall and medium companyPricePrices starting from $65/month; vary depending on business sizeApplicantStack is both an applicant tracking and an onboarding solution for businesses. It can be used to generate applications, share these on social media, and to create screening questionnaires for your applications. Furthermore, you can manage hiring communication, employee information and related paperwork on the module.There’s no long-term commitment requirement with ApplicantStack and free trial is available. The issue for bigger firms might be that you can’t link information from the software to other HR systems.#33: HRMDirect/ClearCompanyAvailable onLinux, Mac, Windows and web-based serviceRecommended business sizeSmall and medium companyPriceContact the company for pricing; varies depending on the size of the companyThe software links up the three core functions of recruiting, employee on boarding and performance management together. The ClearCompany ATS features templates and bulk emails, allows corporate site integration (including mobile career sites), provides an option for managing referrals and even has an function for background checks.The software ensures full EEO and OFCCP compliance, in addition to a proper ROI analysis. On the downside, the application process doesn’t have the same customization available as certain other ATSs on the list.#34: BullhornAvailable onLinux, Mac, Windows and web-based serviceRecommended business sizeSmall and medium companyPriceStarting from $99/month; varies depending on the company needsBullhorn is another popular ATS, which offers contact management, candidate tacking and filling of positions. The web-based platform offers plenty of customization options from screen layout to user interface.The strength of Bullhorn is its scalability and the option to integrate it with other business management systems. The setting up process can take a few weeks and the additional costs can climb up if your business needs are vast.#35: Cornerstone OnDemandAvailable onLinux, Mac, Windows and web-based serviceRecommended business sizeSmall to large companyPriceContact the company for pricing; varies depending on the size of the companyFor a fully integrate talent management suite, Cornerstone OnDemand is a professional and efficient platform. You can use it for recruitment, training and managing of your business’ human capital.The platform is easily scalable and there’s plenty of flexibility in what functions you have added to your software. The software has toppe d a number of talent management reviews. For instance, in 2013 it was included in the Magic Quadrant for Talent Management suites for Gartner. But if you are a new user, the complexity might be overwhelming.#36: SmartRecruitersAvailable onLinux, Mac, Windows and web-based serviceRecommended business sizeSmall to large companiesPriceStarting from $3,500/year; price increases with business sizeThe web-based service provides tools for making the recruitment process more streamlined. You can post jobs, review candidates and remove applications. There’s an enhanced focus on social features to improve collaboration and candidates can be reviewed and hired as a team effort.SmartRecruiters’ strength is the mobile optimization. You can view the platform on mobile, make job postings and even browse the career profiles on a mobile platform. The ATS doesn’t, however, suit third-party recruiters well, as resumes can’t be sent forward.#37: CATS ATSAvailable onLinux, Mac, Windows and web-b ased serviceRecommended business sizeSmall companiesPriceStarting from $99/month; cost varies depending on hiring needsCATS was introduced as an open source application, allowing it to quickly grow into a global ATS. The internal search engine searches resumes and highlights your chosen keywords, providing you a comprehensive view of the candidate pipeline. It allows the use of both job boards, with automated job postings, and internal resumes.There are a number of add-ons available, including Outlook and social media platforms such as LinkedIn. The downside to CATS is its limited international job site integration and the interface is not as fast and responsive that in many other ATSs on the list.#38: SmartSearchAvailable onLinux, Mac, Windows and web-based serviceRecommended business sizeMedium companyPriceContact the company for pricing; varies depending on the size of the companySmartSearch’ functions include assessment of candidates, resume parsing and search, as well as onbo arding. You can integrate it with a number of job boards and it allows you to complete background screening.The SmartSearch platform’s strengths include the ability to monitor all candidate communication and you can search this information easily with the search functions. If your business uses Mac or Linux-based operating systems, certain additional tools might not be available, such as the Outlook toolbar.#39: LuceoAvailable onLinux, Mac, Windows and web-based serviceRecommended business sizeSmall to large companyPriceContact the company for pricing; varies depending on the size of the companyLuceo makes job requisition simple, as you can either use pre-created templates or create the whole process from scratch. You can post the job on your business’ careers page or the intranet, and to Careerbuilder. The software also stores candidate data and then generates custom reports to view where the hires are coming from, for example.Luceo’s unique feature is how it aggregates data from the Careerbuilder site and recommends users additional job locations for posting, in terms of search volumes for the post’s specific keywords. The downside to using the system is the slow implementation as it can take some time to get the software up and running.#40: PerelessAvailable onLinux, Mac, Windows and web-based serviceRecommended business sizeMedium and large companyPriceContact the company for pricing; varies depending on the size of the companyPereless is one of the frontrunners in the industry, having launched all the way back in 2000. The platform allows the creation of a centralized recruitment and onboarding process.The strength of Pereless comes from the custom branded career portal, which allows the creation of career portals that match the business brand. This can be especially important for growing businesses. If you want to fault the Pereless ATS, it suffers slightly from a lack of automated reporting options.#41: SimplicantAvailable onLinux, Mac, Windows and web-based serviceRecommended business sizeSmall to large companyPriceContact the company for pricing; varies depending on the size of the companyThe web-based ATS allows the posting of job positions, sourcing of potential candidates from a company database and the use of employee referrals. After the application process is done, you can organize the candidate profiles, and evaluate and score candidates.The built-in employee referral system is an advantageous addition to the software. It allows employees to share the job positions with their contacts with a click of a button, creating a number of possible applications.#42: BrightMoveAvailable onLinux, Mac, Windows and web-based serviceRecommended business sizeSmall to large companyPriceContact the company for pricing; varies depending on the size of the companyBrightMove utilises over 1,000 resume databases, providing your business plenty of sourcing options for finding the best talent. The software can be integrated with social media platforms, which can provide additional data to your candidate profiles.BrightMove’sBrightMatch tool makes it easy to instantaneously align qualified candidates from the database to your open job positions. The system has some functionality problems, with the software suffering from the occasional glitching due to it being hosted on off-site servers.#43: CareerPlugAvailable onLinux, Mac, Windows and web-based serviceRecommended business sizeMedium and large companiesPriceContact the company for pricing; varies depending on the size of the companyThe CareerPlug software shares your job postings to job boards such as Indeed, as well as provides you with the option to create a branded careers site. You can also use the custom job builder for implementing pre-screen questions that allow the identification of qualified candidates.The function to build onboarding checklists and documents is useful as the candidate transitions to being an employee. The downside can be the inability to sort out candidates for future hiring needs.#44: FitziiAvailable onCloud-based service; Linux, Mac and WindowsRecommended business sizeSmall to medium companyPriceStarts free; paid options availableFitzii’s web-based ATS includes functions such as job posting, job ads, and screening tools, which include video screening and automated reference. You can also start using the basic functions for free, which offers a limited but relatively comprehensive ATS experience.The unique function of the Fitzii ATS is the objectivity mode. This allows you to view candidates without information such as pictures, names or dates and locations. For larger companies, the options might seem too limited and if you require more than basic ATS functionality this software might not be suitable for your business.#45: Graylink/ NeptuneAvailable onLinux, Mac, Windows and web-based serviceRecommended business sizeMedium and large businessPriceContact the company for pricing; varies depending on the size o f the companyNeptune provides multi-channel job posting and talent sourcing options for both internal recruiting and third-party recruiters. It creates your business a brand-aligned careers website and provides the option for one-click job posting, shortening the time it takes to start recruiting.The strength of Neptune’s ATS comes from the integration with onboarding options, whether it’s payroll or HRMS. You can also classify your candidates with a number of different ways, ensuring your candidate scores are based on company needs.#46: HaystackAvailable onLinux, Mac, Windows and web-based serviceRecommended business sizeMedium companyPriceStarting from $19/monthHaystack provides you access to advertising jobs, collecting resumes in a number of different formats and customizing your screening questions. You can also use the Haystack skill database to find out more about the skills that might push your business forward.The software’s unique feature is the short video applicati on, which allows candidates to upload a short video along with their resume. This can make the application and recruitment process much more personalized.#47: TalentsquareAvailable onLinux, Mac, Windows and web-based servicesRecommended business sizeSmall and medium companyPriceStarting from $50/month; cost varies depending on company size and use of softwareWith the TalentsquareATS you are able to access detailed recruitment data, manage candidate profiles and promote jobs on social media and a variety of job boards such as Indeed. You can also provide feedback for candidates and let candidates use the system as a job-searching platform.One of the main strengths of the Talentsquare software is the option for candidates to update resumes, meaning you always have the most up-to-date information available to guide the recruiting process. Getting to grips with the software can take some time, as the interface can be hard to navigate.#48: TribeHRAvailable onLinux, Mac, Windows and web-b ased serviceRecommended business sizeSmall and medium companyPriceStarting at $5/month per employeeTribeHR is flexible software, which offers stand-alone applicant tracking that you can also combine with the company’s other features such as performance reviewing and goal management. It also integrates with payroll software.The unique pricing structure makes it a viable option for small companies, as you are billed according the number of employees within the company.#49: Zoho RecruitAvailable onLinux, Mac, Windows and web-based serviceRecommended business sizeSmall to large companyPriceStarting from $25/monthZoho Recruit offers resume parsing and storage, job board posting and customizable business career website, and interview scheduling to make recruitment a breeze. The software also integrates well with many Google applications, which can remove the need for repetitive data administration.If you are looking for a quick way to get started with ATS system, the web-based platform is a good option, especially as it provides a free trial and it doesn’t require you to sign up for a lengthy contract. However, the platform doesn’t offer as much flexibility in terms of customization and scalability.#50: OTYSAvailable onLinux, Mac, Windows and web-based serviceRecommended business sizeSmall and medium companyPriceContact the company for pricing; varies depending on the size of the companyOTYS’s software helps automate the recruitment process. The platform provides you functions such as CRM, newsletter creation, automatic resume extraction and resume matching tools.Furthermore, the software implements SEO and social media integration. This allows you to not only gain an advantage on online job postings, but also allows you to better source candidates.#51: RecruiterboxAvailable onLinux, Mac Windows and web-based serviceRecommended business sizeSmall to large companyPriceStarting from $490/monthThe Recruiterbox software prides itself as “the simplest recruitin g software in the world”. The features include creating job postings, accepting resumes, social media and job site integration, and customized hiring process. You can implement different interview options to create better candidate screening.One of the upsides to using the platform is how you can monitor correspondence with the candidates, and to include multiple recruiters who are able to assign tasks for themselves. The downsides to Recruiterbox ATS include lack of reporting options and integration availability with other HR programs.#52: Talentnow RecruitAvailable onLinux, Mac, Windows and web-based serviceRecommended business sizeSmall and medium companyPriceContact the company for pricing; varies depending on the size of the companyTalentnow Recruit makes the entire recruitment cycle straightforward. It removes most of human intervention, with automated job posting, candidate monitoring and ranking, and onboarding. You are also able to use it with social media platforms, like LinkedIn.The feature, which allows different recruiters to view resumes, can make it easier to ensure recruitment is a department-wide process. Since you can comment and monitor changes, collaboration in terms of hiring is easier. On the other hand, the system provides no options for background screening or reference checking.#53: Crelate TalentAvailable onMac, Windows and web-based serviceRecommended business sizeSmall to large companyPriceStarting from $65/month per user; costs depend on company needs and level of support requiredCrelate Talent’s ATS is specially designed for third-party recruiters. The software has features such as accessing candidate data, contacting the candidates directly through the platform and the storing of candidate data. It can also help with onboarding and training of new talent.The visualization of applicants makes assessing the candidates easier. You can assign different color codes based on candidate information such as a new applicant, a short-li sted candidate or a possible candidate. You can easily drag-and-drop candidates to different categories to help you find the right talent for the position. The downside for certain companies might be the lack of API.#54: Vultus RecruitAvailable onLinux, Mac, Windows and web-based serviceRecommended business sizeSmall and medium companyPriceContact the company for pricing; varies depending on the size of the companyVultus Recruit groups recruitment processes and makes bulk operations, such as emailing, straightforward. You are able to create different candidate lists and view communication options with specific candidates easily. You can also search candidate progress and candidate data with the use of keywords.The Vultus Recruit ATS offers plenty of analytics information with unique reporting options and recruiting metrics. The different chart types make data visualization easier and makes business decision-making smoother.#55: Breezy HRAvailable onLinux, Mac, Windows and web-basedR ecommended business sizeSmall and medium companyPriceFree  to $299/monthThe Breezy HR software can offer plenty of customized recruitment features for international businesses. The platform has good communication tools from custom email templates, which can be used for auto-responses, to interview scheduling. The software also allows candidate sourcing from other platforms such as LinkedIn and career sites like AngelList.One of the main strengths of the platform is the drag-and-drop interface option, which allow quick organization of applicants. The automated options for communication also bring a lot of efficiency to your recruiting. On the other hand, the software requires a good level of tech literacy, meaning it’s not necessarily the right pick for businesses with small IT capabilities.#56: HireCentricAvailable onLinux, Mac, Windows and web-based serviceRecommended business sizeSmall and medium companyPriceContact the company for pricing; varies depending on the size of the co mpanyHireCentric’s web-based service allows you to view recruitment information from anywhere with an Internet connection â€" you can even use mobiles and tablets. The applicant portal allows brand customization, meaning your job postings are full of company-specific information and imagery.The candidate evaluation forms allow plenty of customization, meaning you can decide the ways candidates are ranked and what requirements are emphasized. You can also match previous candidates with new job postings.#57: HyrellAvailable onLinux, Mac, Windows and web-based serviceRecommended business sizeSmall to large companyPriceStarting from $200/month up to $800/monthThe Hyrell software eases candidate recruiting and hiring processes by allowing you to discover, track and follow-up with talent. You can utilize customizable email templates for candidate communication, track the resumes and profiles from anywhere and the software automatically recognizes qualified candidates and scores them.The automated interview setup makes organizing interviews increasingly simple. You just need to input available times and the software does the rest for you. The integration with other online job boards is still rather limited.#58: JobularityAvailable onLinux, Mac, Windows and web-based serviceRecommended business sizeSmall to large companyPriceFree subscriptionJobularity’s ATS provides interactive job posting, with extensive communication options with applicants from video posting to video interviews. You can also enjoy third-party applicant testing to ensure proper assessment of candidates.Naturally, the free subscription is a unique feature of the software. But furthermore, there are other unique features like the utility calculator, which helps applicants to sort out job postings according to corporate culture.#59: Hiring ThingAvailable onLinux, Mac, Windows and web-based serviceRecommended business sizeSmall companyPriceStarting from $24/monthThe web-based ATS can smoothen your recruitment process through the use of user-friendly tools. You are able to post customized job listings, rate and organize candidates and send our automatic rejection letters.Job listings are easy to personalize according to business needs. You can include the company logo, use the company colors and add customized job descriptions better than in many other ATSs. The problem comes from the fact that adding and editing candidate information is difficult without the need to “Apply” for the position.#60: WorkableAvailable onLinux, Mac, Windows, web-based serviceRecommended business sizeMedium companyPriceStarting from $39/monthWorkable is a standalone ATS, with the system replacing emails and spreadsheets through a unified way of finding candidates, setting up interviews and making hires. As the system is web-based, you won’t need to spend any time getting started and the platform is simple to use.The program benefits from linking with platforms such as LinkedIn and job boards l ike Indeed. On the other hand, it’s not focused on data analytics as much as some of the other software options on the list.

The Effect of Gender on Risky Profile - Free Essay Example

Sample details Pages: 2 Words: 725 Downloads: 5 Date added: 2019/06/24 Category Management Essay Level High school Topics: Profile Essay Did you like this example? Over 115 people in the United States die every day from an opioid overdose (National Institute of Drug Abuse, 2018), and an estimated 623,000 adolescents between the ages of 12-17 were diagnosed with an Alcohol Use Disorder (AUD) (Alcohol Use Disorder, n.d.). Previous techniques enforced by the government in an attempt to conquer the drug epidemic have been unsuccessful. Using prevention measures is an innovative way to combat addiction by making people informed of the reality of this disease, and how it can happen to anyone. Don’t waste time! Our writers will create an original "The Effect of Gender on Risky Profile" essay for you Create order One way to do so is by addressing the personality traits of individuals early on in life. Behaviors of the substance abuser are often monitored and assessed during their time in treatment. Their vulnerability is projected through various emotions, and these traits are easily recognizable during the recovery process. However, if we monitor an individuals profile through their personality dispositions, it is likely that we can use these results to better understand the risk the population we survey has on developing a substance use disorder (SUD). With this information, we can also asses the level of necessity for prevention methods and other forms of drug abuse education that should be provided to further prevent the epidemic from growing. Gender was defined as an individual who is male, female, or considered other. Risk profile was broken down into four subscales including hopelessness, anxiety sensitivity, impulsivity, and sensation seeking. Each of these subscales represent vulnerable characteristics typically found in individuals with SUDs. These four personality dimensions were to successfully predicted SUDs (Schlauch, Crane, Houston, Molnar, Schlienz, Lang, 2014). Anxiety sensitivity predicted cocaine use, hopelessness predicted coping-motivated drinking, reckless behavior, and illegal drug use, sensation seeking predicted sexual risk taking and other reckless behaviors, and impulsivity predicted alcohol problems, illegal drug use, and reckless behaviors. (Schlauch, et,. al.). Multiple research studies that are related to the four subscales in the SURPS have also successfully predicted drug and alcohol use or abuse. Antisocial behaviors such as selling drugs, using weapons, stealing, and vandalism can be tied into the subscales that we measured such as impulsivity and sensation seeking, which were associated with substance use and depression during adolescence. Male participants with these antisocial behaviors were associated with using alcohol (Mason, Zaharakis, Rusby, Westiling, Light, Mennis, 2017). Self control was another profile characteristic measured in a separate study performed in 2015, where levels of self control, which can also be related with impulsiveness, was defined as a level of mindfulness. The results showed that when an individuals level of self control was low, there was an association with having a drug problem, which specifically heightened in the late thirties (Tarantino, Lamis, Ballard, Masuda Dvorak, 2015). Results of another s tudy showed that men who conformed to risk taking engaged in more hazardous alcohol use as well (Whitley, Madson, Zeigler-Hill, 2018). Risk taking can be reflected through impulsive actions or any form of engagement that results in the individual receiving a desired sensation. Alcohol expectancies were a characteristic measured for AUDs. Survey questions in this study performed in 2017 were interested in learning the reasons for why individuals seek and consume alcohol. One question used was, I would feel friendly, which could be considered an anxiety-driven action to partake in alcohol consumption, specifically focusing on the desire of the behavioral effects alcohol has on individuals. This trait was associated with more frequent drinking (Jarvi and Swenson, 2017). Most previous research regarding risks for drug and alcohol use focused on a male population only. However, those who did measure gender differences amongst various substance use and abuse research had consistent results stating men were more likely to be at risk for SUDs. One example was a study completed by Whitley, Madson, Zeigler-Hill, which stated that college women reported using more protective behavioral strategies (PBS) than men. Examples of PBS included setting a limit to how much alcohol one should consume, using a designated driver, etc. The purpose of this study was to measure if there was a difference between the risk for alcohol and/or drug use by gender. Our sample included gender to measure if there would be different scores using the SURPS (Woicik, Stewart, Pihl, Conrod, 2009). It was important that women were included in the sample due to the lack of research measuring females and their risks for developing SUDs. In fact, there are no previous publications using the SURPS to measure gender differences.

William Wordsworth s The World Is Too Much With Us

Secular Society In William Wordsworth’s â€Å"The world is too much with us,† the speaker both loves nature and wants to be part of a community; this is a conflict because the materialistic worldview of society is causing mass apathy toward nature. The tone is not nostalgic, something that is rare for Wordsworth. Instead of longing for a time gone past, the speaker is longing for a different world. Thus, the tone is melancholy. Wordsworth shows nature is necessary for a relationship with God through the use of word choice, audience, and form. The world that Wordsworth is referring to in the titular line is the secular world; the world that does not have to do with God. The speaker is concerned that society is getting too wrapped up in the world. It is a problem that has gone on for some time already and it is not going away anytime soon. He blames consumerism for the cultural shift, saying that obsessing over â€Å"Getting and spending† has made people forget the powers they held when they worked with nature (lines 1-2). Not only are these undiscovered powers not doing any good, their neglect has led to their deterioration. Society can no longer â€Å"see in Nature that [which] is [theirs]† (line 3). They have become blinded to the spiritual world and can no longer see the hand of God. Worse than that, they have â€Å"given [their] hearts away† as â€Å"a sordid boon† (line 4). In drawing this parallel the speaker is saying that people have given their souls to the world in a filthy, twistedShow MoreRelatedWilliam Wordsworth s The World Is Too Much With Us1448 Words   |  6 PagesPoetry Analysis: â€Å"The World is too Much with Us† William Wordsworth’s poem â€Å"The World is too Much with Us† is a sonnet published in 1807. Williams Wordsworth was an extreme lover of nature, and in the poem, the speaker stresses how the obsession we have with â€Å"getting and spending† causes us to forget the gift and the beauty of nature. The speaker tells about how this world is so overbearing, we cannot respect and appreciate nature, and since we are so caught up in ourselves and money, we do not takeRead MoreWilliam Wordsworth s The World Is Too Much With Us1474 Words   |  6 PagesThere’s Something About Nature In the same way Ted had lost touch with Mary, humans have lost their connection with nature. William Wordsworth, in his poem, â€Å"The World is Too Much With Us; Late and Soon,† illustrates the careless attitude of humans towards nature and all it has to offer. In this Italian sonnet, the narrator, who is Wordsworth himself, is standing on a grassy area overlooking the sea while wishing he could see the glory of nature which humanity has chosen to disregard. He also expressesRead MoreWilliam Wordsworth s The World Is Too Much With Us ``966 Words   |  4 Pages I invited William Wordsworth due to his literary works and the influence that he held on literal romanticism. This, he did with published works such as the prelude that was considered by many to be the crowning achievement of English romanticism. Romanticism was a movement that started as a counter to the Industrial Revolution as can be seen in the works of Wordsworth. For example in the poem â€Å"The World is too much with Us†, he states that humanity is losing touch with nature and all it encompassesRead MoreWilliam Wordsworth s The World Is Too Much With Us1348 Words   |  6 Pagesâ€Å"The World is too much with us† by William Wordsworth and â€Å"A Happening† by Denise Levertov address the conflict between nature and society. Wordsworth’s poem addresses how society is becoming less because of unlimited desires. Levertov reflects Wordsworth’s values, but using unique images to present this idea. Although these poems approach the same theme , literary language and literary devices make them distinct. Literary devices can strengthen the message in a poem. For example, William WordsworthRead More The World is Too Much With Us by William Wordsworth Essay908 Words   |  4 PagesThe World is Too Much With Us by William Wordsworth In William Wordsworths The World is Too Much With Us, this poem heeds warning to his generation. This warning is that they are losing sight of what is actually important in this world: nature and God. To some people both of these are the same thing ...as if lacking appreciation for the natural gifts of God is not sin enough, we add to it the insult of pride for our rape of His land (Wordsworth). With his words, Wordsworth makes this messageRead MoreThe World Is Too Much With Us By William Wordsworth853 Words   |  4 Pagespoem â€Å"The World is Too Much with Us† by William Wordsworth is, in my opinion, one of the best Romantic era poems, and it is a prime example of the values and writing styles that are expressed in Romantic era literature. One of the ways that the poem resembles other literary works of the Romantic period is that one of the main themes of the poem is nature, and nature is also a theme that was very prevalent in the literary works from the Romantic era. F urthermore, the poem by Wordsworth resembles otherRead MoreAnalysis Of `` The World Is Too Much With Us `` By William Wordsworth873 Words   |  4 PagesAnalysis of â€Å"The World is Too Much with Us† by William Wordsworth The poem â€Å"The World is Too Much with Us† by William Wordsworth is, one of the best romantic era poems, and it is a prime example of the values and writing styles that are expressed in romantic era literature. One of the ways that the poem resembles other literary works of the romantic period is that one of the main themes of the poem is nature, and nature is also a theme that was very prevalent in other literary works from the romanticRead More`` The Beat Goes On, I Am Your Host, By Caleb Argent, And Today1629 Words   |  7 Pagesat The Beat Goes on have decided that our journey of reflection will began at the peak of poems in the romantic era with a famous poet named William Wordsworth and his poem â€Å"The World Is To Much With Us† and end in the 21st century with a famous song called Gone by Jack Johnson. In William Wordsworth’s poem â€Å"The World Is To Much With Us† the theme shows us that humanity has lost its way or is losing its way. Over time this idea of â€Å"Humanity losing its way† has brought about many controversial opinionsRead MoreEssay on The World Is Too Much for Us915 Words   |  4 PagesIn William Wordsworths The World is Too Much With Us, this poem heeds warning to his generation. This warning is that they are losing sight of what is actually important in this world: nature and God. To some people both of these are the same thing ...as if lacking appreciation for the natural gifts of God is not sin enough, we add to it the insult of pride for our rape of His land (Wordsworth). With his words, Wordsworth makes this message perpetual and everlasting. William Wordsworth lovedRead MoreEssay Wordsworth’s Sonnets and Technology541 Words   |  3 PagesTechnology In William Wordsworth’s sonnets The World Is Too Much With Us and London 1802, he describes his society as being too dependent on technology. In Wordsworth’s time, the 1800’s, new phases of technology, such as electricity to run machines, were booming and people were relying more on them. With these new innovations, Wordsworth was convinced that people would stop appreciating nature while allowing technology to run their lives. In London 1802, Wordsworth describes how people William Wordsworth s The World Is Too Much With Us Poetry Analysis: â€Å"The World is too Much with Us† William Wordsworth’s poem â€Å"The World is too Much with Us† is a sonnet published in 1807. Williams Wordsworth was an extreme lover of nature, and in the poem, the speaker stresses how the obsession we have with â€Å"getting and spending† causes us to forget the gift and the beauty of nature. The speaker tells about how this world is so overbearing, we cannot respect and appreciate nature, and since we are so caught up in ourselves and money, we do not take the time to appreciate nature. When Wordsworth says â€Å"getting and spending†, he is referring to the lifestyle of people following the Industrial Revolution. This poem is a Petrarchan sonnet on account of it is divided into two parts: an octave of eight lines, and a sestet of six lines at the end. In the Petrarchan sonnet there is usually a noticeable shift in the ninth line, and in the ninth line of the poem, the speaker shifts the mood and begins to show his wanting to be a pagan, because he i s tired of the way things are and it’s getting him down. For the most part, Wordsworth s poem is in iambic pentameter, meaning that each line contains five sections that contain an unstressed syllable and a stressed syllable. For example, in line 10, â€Å"A pa-gan suck-led in a creed out-worn.†, iambic pentameter is used. William Wordsworth uses symbols, imagery, and themes in â€Å"The World is too Much with Us† to discuss how we are out of tune with nature. To start off, Wordsworth harnesses theShow MoreRelatedWilliam Wordsworth s The World Is Too Much With Us1474 Words   |  6 PagesThere’s Something About Nature In the same way Ted had lost touch with Mary, humans have lost their connection with nature. William Wordsworth, in his poem, â€Å"The World is Too Much With Us; Late and Soon,† illustrates the careless attitude of humans towards nature and all it has to offer. In this Italian sonnet, the narrator, who is Wordsworth himself, is standing on a grassy area overlooking the sea while wishing he could see the glory of nature which humanity has chosen to disregard. He also expressesRead MoreWilliam Wordsworth s The World Is Too Much With Us ``966 Words   |  4 Pages I invited William Wordsworth due to his literary works and the influence that he held on literal romanticism. This, he did with published works such as the prelude that was considered by many to be the crowning achievement of English romanticism. Romanticism was a movement that started as a counter to the Industrial Revolution as can be seen in the works of Wordsworth. For example in the poem â€Å"The World is too much with Us†, he states that humanity is losing touch with nature and all it encompassesRead MoreWilliam Wordsworth s The World Is Too Much With Us945 Words   |  4 PagesSecular Society In William Wordsworth’s â€Å"The world is too much with us,† the speaker both loves nature and wants to be part of a community; this is a conflict because the materialistic worldview of society is causing mass apathy toward nature. The tone is not nostalgic, something that is rare for Wordsworth. Instead of longing for a time gone past, the speaker is longing for a different world. Thus, the tone is melancholy. Wordsworth shows nature is necessary for a relationship with God through theRead MoreWilliam Wordsworth s The World Is Too Much With Us1348 Words   |  6 Pagesâ€Å"The World is too much with us† by William Wordsworth and â€Å"A Happening† by Denise Levertov address the conflict between nature and society. Wordsworth’s poem addresses how society is becoming less because of unlimited desires. Levertov reflects Wordsworth’s values, but using unique images to present this idea. Although these poems approach the same theme, literar y language and literary devices make them distinct. Literary devices can strengthen the message in a poem. For example, William WordsworthRead More The World is Too Much With Us by William Wordsworth Essay908 Words   |  4 PagesThe World is Too Much With Us by William Wordsworth In William Wordsworths The World is Too Much With Us, this poem heeds warning to his generation. This warning is that they are losing sight of what is actually important in this world: nature and God. To some people both of these are the same thing ...as if lacking appreciation for the natural gifts of God is not sin enough, we add to it the insult of pride for our rape of His land (Wordsworth). With his words, Wordsworth makes this messageRead MoreThe World Is Too Much With Us By William Wordsworth853 Words   |  4 Pagespoem â€Å"The World is Too Much with Us† by William Wordsworth is, in my opinion, one of the best Romantic era poems, and it is a prime example of the values and writing styles that are expressed in Romantic era literature. One of the ways that the poem resembles other literary works of the Romantic period is that one of the main themes of the poem is nature, and nature is also a theme that was very prevalent in the literary works from the Romantic era. F urthermore, the poem by Wordsworth resembles otherRead MoreAnalysis Of `` The World Is Too Much With Us `` By William Wordsworth873 Words   |  4 PagesAnalysis of â€Å"The World is Too Much with Us† by William Wordsworth The poem â€Å"The World is Too Much with Us† by William Wordsworth is, one of the best romantic era poems, and it is a prime example of the values and writing styles that are expressed in romantic era literature. One of the ways that the poem resembles other literary works of the romantic period is that one of the main themes of the poem is nature, and nature is also a theme that was very prevalent in other literary works from the romanticRead More`` The Beat Goes On, I Am Your Host, By Caleb Argent, And Today1629 Words   |  7 Pagesat The Beat Goes on have decided that our journey of reflection will began at the peak of poems in the romantic era with a famous poet named William Wordsworth and his poem â€Å"The World Is To Much With Us† and end in the 21st century with a famous song called Gone by Jack Johnson. In William Wordsworth’s poem â€Å"The World Is To Much With Us† the theme shows us that humanity has lost its way or is losing its way. Over time this idea of â€Å"Humanity losing its way† has brought about many controversial opinionsRead MoreEssay on The World Is Too Much for Us915 Words   |  4 PagesIn William Wordsworths The World is Too Much With Us, this poem heeds warning to his generation. This warning is that they are losing sight of what is actually important in this world: nature and God. To some people both of these are the same thing ...as if lacking appreciation for the natural gifts of God is not sin enough, we add to it the insult of pride for our rape of His land (Wordsworth). With his words, Wordsworth makes this message perpetual and everlasting. William Wordsworth lovedRead MoreEssay Wordsworth’s Sonnets and Technology541 Words   |  3 PagesTechnology In William Wordsworth’s sonnets The World Is Too Much With Us and London 1802, he describes his society as being too dependent on technology. In Wordsworth’s time, the 1800’s, new phases of technology, such as electricity to run machines, were booming and people were relying more on them. With these new innovations, Wordsworth was convinced that people would stop appreciating nature while allowing technology to run their lives. In London 1802, Wordsworth describes how people William Wordsworth s The World Is Too Much With Us There’s Something About Nature In the same way Ted had lost touch with Mary, humans have lost their connection with nature. William Wordsworth, in his poem, â€Å"The World is Too Much With Us; Late and Soon,† illustrates the careless attitude of humans towards nature and all it has to offer. In this Italian sonnet, the narrator, who is Wordsworth himself, is standing on a grassy area overlooking the sea while wishing he could see the glory of nature which humanity has chosen to disregard. He also expresses the frustration that he has towards all of humanity for choosing to neglect the raw beauty and joy that nature has to offer by destroying its beauty with material objects. The language that Wordsworth uses in this Italian sonnet engenders a feeling of depression that makes the audience feel ashamed and almost embarrassed to be associated with the nature of humans not to acknowledge the beauty that they are surrounded by. Wordsworth is frustrated with the way humans act and ignore the beauty of the natura l world around them by acquiring materialistic things, thus showing not only his irritation and disappointment in society, but also his irritated tone he has throughout the sonnet. Through his use of personification and imagery, Wordsworth is able to communicate that humans, in general, have become detached from nature and it’s beauty because of their infatuation of materialistic objects. The first section of this sonnet begins with a powerful statement of opinion fromShow MoreRelatedWilliam Wordsworth s The World Is Too Much With Us1448 Words   |  6 PagesPoetry Analysis: â€Å"The World is too Much with Us† William Wordsworth’s poem â€Å"The World is too Much with Us† is a sonnet published in 1807. Williams Wordsworth was an extreme lover of nature, and in the poem, the speaker stresses how the obsession we have with â€Å"getting and spending† causes us to forget the gift and the beauty of nature. The speaker tells about how this world is so overbearing, we cannot respect and appreciate nature, and since we are so caught up in ourselves and money, we do not takeRead MoreWilliam Wordsworth s The World Is Too Much With Us ``966 Words   |  4 Pages I invited William Wordsworth due to his literary works and the influence that he held on literal romanticism. This, he did with published works such as the prelude that was considered by many to be the crowning achievement of English romanticism. Romanticism was a movement that started as a counter to the Industrial Revolution as can be seen in the works of Wordsworth. For example in the poem â€Å"The World is too much with Us†, he states that humanity is losing touch with nature and all it encompassesRead MoreWilliam Wordsworth s The World Is Too Much With Us945 Words   |  4 PagesSecular Society In William Wordsworth’s â€Å"The world is too much with us,† the speaker both loves nature and wants to be part of a community; this is a conflict because the materialistic worldview of society is causing mass apathy toward nature. The tone is not nostalgic, something that is rare for Wordsworth. Instead of longing for a time gone past, the speaker is longing for a different world. Thus, the tone is melancholy. Wordsworth shows nature is necessary for a relationship with God through theRead MoreWilliam Wordsworth s The World Is Too Much With Us1348 Words   |  6 Pagesâ€Å"The World is too much with us† by William Wordsworth and â€Å"A Happening† by Denise Levertov address the conflict between nature and society. Wordsworth’s poem addresses how society is becoming less because of unlimited desires. Levertov reflects Wordsworth’s values, but using unique images to present this idea. Although these poems approach the same theme, literar y language and literary devices make them distinct. Literary devices can strengthen the message in a poem. For example, William WordsworthRead More The World is Too Much With Us by William Wordsworth Essay908 Words   |  4 PagesThe World is Too Much With Us by William Wordsworth In William Wordsworths The World is Too Much With Us, this poem heeds warning to his generation. This warning is that they are losing sight of what is actually important in this world: nature and God. To some people both of these are the same thing ...as if lacking appreciation for the natural gifts of God is not sin enough, we add to it the insult of pride for our rape of His land (Wordsworth). With his words, Wordsworth makes this messageRead MoreThe World Is Too Much With Us By William Wordsworth853 Words   |  4 Pagespoem â€Å"The World is Too Much with Us† by William Wordsworth is, in my opinion, one of the best Romantic era poems, and it is a prime example of the values and writing styles that are expressed in Romantic era literature. One of the ways that the poem resembles other literary works of the Romantic period is that one of the main themes of the poem is nature, and nature is also a theme that was very prevalent in the literary works from the Romantic era. F urthermore, the poem by Wordsworth resembles otherRead MoreAnalysis Of `` The World Is Too Much With Us `` By William Wordsworth873 Words   |  4 PagesAnalysis of â€Å"The World is Too Much with Us† by William Wordsworth The poem â€Å"The World is Too Much with Us† by William Wordsworth is, one of the best romantic era poems, and it is a prime example of the values and writing styles that are expressed in romantic era literature. One of the ways that the poem resembles other literary works of the romantic period is that one of the main themes of the poem is nature, and nature is also a theme that was very prevalent in other literary works from the romanticRead More`` The Beat Goes On, I Am Your Host, By Caleb Argent, And Today1629 Words   |  7 Pagesat The Beat Goes on have decided that our journey of reflection will began at the peak of poems in the romantic era with a famous poet named William Wordsworth and his poem â€Å"The World Is To Much With Us† and end in the 21st century with a famous song called Gone by Jack Johnson. In William Wordsworth’s poem â€Å"The World Is To Much With Us† the theme shows us that humanity has lost its way or is losing its way. Over time this idea of â€Å"Humanity losing its way† has brought about many controversial opinionsRead MoreEssay on The World Is Too Much for Us915 Words   |  4 PagesIn William Wordsworths The World is Too Much With Us, this poem heeds warning to his generation. This warning is that they are losing sight of what is actually important in this world: nature and God. To some people both of these are the same thing ...as if lacking appreciation for the natural gifts of God is not sin enough, we add to it the insult of pride for our rape of His land (Wordsworth). With his words, Wordsworth makes this message perpetual and everlasting. William Wordsworth lovedRead MoreEssay Wordsworth’s Sonnets and Technology541 Words   |  3 PagesTechnology In William Wordsworth’s sonnets The World Is Too Much With Us and London 1802, he describes his society as being too dependent on technology. In Wordsworth’s time, the 1800’s, new phases of technology, such as electricity to run machines, were booming and people were relying more on them. With these new innovations, Wordsworth was convinced that people would stop appreciating nature while allowing technology to run their lives. In London 1802, Wordsworth describes how people

Bag of Bones CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT Free Essays

string(30) " never laugh with their eyes\." Ki lay fast asleep just as I had left her, on her side with the filthy little stuffed dog clutched under her jaw. It had put a smudge on her neck but I hadn’t the heart to take it away from her. Beyond her and to the left, through the open bathroom door, I could hear the steady plink-plonk-plink of water falling from the faucet and into the tub. We will write a custom essay sample on Bag of Bones CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT or any similar topic only for you Order Now Cool air blew around me in a silky twist, caressing my cheeks, sending a not unpleasurable shiver up my back. In the living room Bunter’s bell gave a dim little shake. Water’s still warm, sugar, Sara whispered. Be her friend, be her daddy. Go on, now. Do what I want. Do what we both want. And I did want to, which had to be why Jo at first tried to keep me away from the TR and from Sara Laughs. Why she’d made a secret of her possible pregnancy, as well. It was as if I had discovered a vampire inside me, a creature with no interest in what it thought of as talk-show conscience and op-ed page morality. A part that wanted only to take Ki into the bathroom and dunk her into that tub of warm water and hold her under, watching the red-edged white ribbons shimmer the way Carla Dean’s white dress and red stockings had shimmered while the woods burned all around her and her father. A part of me would be more than glad to pay the last installment on that old bill. ‘Dear God,’ I muttered, and wiped my face with a shaking hand. ‘She knows so many tricks. And she’s so fucking strong.’ The bathroom door tried to swing shut against me before I could go through, but I pushed it open against hardly any resistance. The medicine-cabinet door banged back, and the glass shattered against the wall. The stuff inside flew out at me, but it wasn’t a very dangerous attack; this time most of the missiles consisted of toothpaste tubes, toothbrushes, plastic bottles, and a few old Vick’s inhalers. Faint, very faint, I could hear her shouting in frustration as I yanked the plug at the bottom of the tub and let the water start gurgling out. There had been enough drowning on the TR for one century, by God. And yet, for a moment I felt an incredibly strong urge to put the plug back in while the water was still deep enough to do the job. Instead I tore it off its chain and threw it down the hall. The medicine-cabinet door clapped shut again and the rest of the glass fell out. ‘How many have you had?’ I asked her. ‘How many besides Carla Dean and Kerry Auster and our Kia? Two? Three? Five? How many do you need before you can rest?’ All of them! the answer shot back. It wasn’t just Sara’s voice, either; it was my own, as well. She’d gotten into me, had snuck in by way of the basement like a burglar . . . and already I was thinking that even if the tub was empty and the water-pump temporarily dead, there was always the lake. All of them! the voice cried again. All of them, sugar! Of course only all of them would do. Until then there would be no rest for Sara Laughs. ‘I’ll help you to rest,’ I said. ‘That I promise.’ The last of the water swirled away . . . but there was always the lake, always the lake if I changed my mind. I left the bathroom and looked in on Ki again. She hadn’t moved, the sensation that Sara was in here with me had gone, Bunter’s bell was quiet . . . and yet I felt uneasy, unwilling to leave her alone. I had to, though, if I was to finish my work, and I would do well not to linger. County and State cops would be along eventually, storm or no storm, downed trees or no downed trees. Yes, but . . . I stepped into the hall and looked uneasily around. Thunder boomed, but it was losing some of its urgency. So was the wind. What wasn’t fading was the sense of something watching me, something that was not-Sara. I stood where I was a moment or two longer, trying to tell myself it was just the sizzle of my overcooked nerves, then walked down the hall to the entry. I opened the door to the stoop . . . then looked around again sharply, as if expecting to see someone or something lurking behind the far end of the bookcase. A Shape, perhaps. Something that still wanted its dust-catcher. But I was the only Shape left, at least in this part of the world, and the only movement I saw was ripple-shadows thrown by the rain rolling down the windows. It was still coming down hard enough to redrench me as I crossed my stoop to the driveway, but I paid no attention. I had just been with a little girl when she drowned, had damned near drowned myself not so long ago, and the rain wasn’t going to stop me from doing what I had to do. I picked up the fallen branch which had dented the roof of my car, tossed it aside, and opened the Chevy’s rear door. The things I’d bought at Slips ‘n Greens were still sitting on the back seat, still tucked into the cloth carry-handle bag Lila Proulx had given me. The trowel and the pruning knife were visible, but the third item was in a plastic sack. Want this one in a special bag? Lila had asked me. Always sa]b, never sorry. And later, as I was leaving, she had spoken of Kenny’s dog Blueberry chasing seagulls and had given out with a big, hearty laugh. Her eyes hadn’t laughed, though. Maybe that’s how you tell the Martians from the Earthlings the Martians can never laugh with their eyes. You read "Bag of Bones CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT" in category "Essay examples" I saw Rommie and George’s present lying on the front seat: the Stenomask I’d at first mistaken for Devore’s oxygen mask. The boys in the basement spoke up then murmured, at least and I leaned over the seat to grab the mask by its elastic strap without the slightest idea of why I was doing so. I dropped it into the carry-bag, slammed the car door, then started down the railroad-tie steps to the lake. On the way I paused to duck under the deck, where we had always kept a few tools. There was no pick, but I grabbed a spade that looked up to a piece of gravedigging. Then, for what I thought would be the last time, I followed the course of my dream down to The Street. I didn’t need Jo to show me the spot; the Green Lady had been pointing to it all along. Even had she not been, and even if Sara Tidwell did not still stink to the heavens, I think I would have known. I think I would have been led there by my own haunted heart. There was a man standing between me and the place where the gray forehead of rock guarded the path, and as I paused on the last railroad tie, he hailed me in a rasping voice that I knew all too well. ‘Say there, whoremaster, where’s your whore?’ He stood on The Street in the pouring rain, but his cutters’ outfit green flannel pants, checked wool shirt and his faded blue Union Army cap were dry, because the rain was falling through him rather than on him. He looked solid but he was no more real than Sara herself. I reminded myself of this as I stepped down onto the path to face him, but my heart continued to speed up, thudding in my chest like a padded hammer. He was dressed in Jared Devore’s clothes, but this wasn’t Jared Devore. This was Jared’s great-grandson Max, who had begun his career with an act of sled-theft and ended it in suicide . . . but not before arranging for the murder of his daughter-in-law, who’d had the temerity to refuse him what he had so dearly wanted. I started toward him and he moved to the center of the path to block me. I could feel the cold baking off him. I am saying exactly what I mean, expressing what I remember as clearly as I can: I could feel the cold baking off him. And yes, it was Max Devore all right, but got up like a logger at a costume party and looking the way he must have around the time his son Lance was born. Old but hale. The sort of man younger men might well look up to. And now, as if the thought had called them, I could see the rest shimmer into faint being behind him, standing in a line across the path. These were the ones who had been with Jared at the Fryeburg Fair, and now I knew who some of them were. Fred Dean, of course, only nineteen years old in ’01, the drowning of his daughter still over thirty years away. And the one who had reminded me of myself was Harry Auster, the firstborn of my great-grandfather’s sister. He would have been sixteen, barely old enough to raise a fuzz but old e nough to work in the woods with Jared. Old enough to shit in the same pit as Jared. To mistake Jared’s poison for wisdom. One of the others twisted his head and squinted at the same time I’d seen that tic before. Where? Then it came to me: in the Lake-view General. This young man was the late Royce Merrill’s father. The others I didn’t know. Nor did I care to. ‘You ain’t a-passing by us,’ Devore said. He held up both hands. ‘Don’t even think about trying. Am I right, boys?’ They murmured growling agreement the sort you could hear coming from any present-day gang of headbangers or taggers, I imagine but their voices were distant; actually more sad than menacing. There was some substance to the man in Jared Devore’s clothes, perhaps because in life he had been a man of enormous vitality, perhaps because he was so recently dead, but the others were little more than projected images. I started forward, moving into that baking cold, moving into the smell of him the same invalid odors which had surrounded him when I’d met him here before. ‘Where do you think you’re going?’ he cried. ‘For a constitutional,’ I said. ‘And no law against it. The Street’s the place where good pups and vile dogs can walk side-by-side. You said so yourself.’ ‘You don’t understand,’ Max-Jared said. ‘You never will. You’re not of that world. That was our world.’ I stopped, looking at him curiously. Time was short, I wanted to be done with this . . . but I had to know, and I thought Devore was ready to tell me. ‘Make me understand,’ I said. ‘Convince me that any world was your world.’ I looked at him, then at the flickering, translucent figures behind him, gauze flesh heaped on shining bones. ‘Tell me what you did.’ ‘It was all different then,’ Devore said. ‘When you come down here, Noonan, you might walk all three miles north to Halo Bay and see only a dozen people on The Street. After Labor Day you might not see any one at all. This side of the lake you have to walk through the bushes that are growing up wild and around the fallen trees there’ll be even more of em after this storm and even a deadfall or two because nowadays the townfolk don’t club together to keep it neat the way they used to. But in our time ! The woods were bigger then, Noonan, distances were farther to go, and neighboring meant something. Life itself, often enough. Back then this really was a street. Can you see?’ I could. If I looked through the phantom shapes of Fred Dean and Harry Auster and the others, I could. They weren’t just ghosts; they were shimmerglass windows on another age. I saw a summer afternoon in the year of . . . 1898? Perhaps 1902? 1907? Doesn’t matter. This is a period when all time seems the same, as if time had stopped. This is a time the old-timers remember as a kind of golden age. It is the Land of Ago, the Kingdom of When-I-Was-a-Boy. The sun washes everything with the fine gold light of endless late July; the lake is as blue as a dream, netted with a billion sparks of reflected light. And The Street! It is as smoothly grassed as a lawn and as broad as a boulevard. It is a boulevard, I see, a place where the community fully realizes itself. It is the main conduit of communication, the chief cable in a township criss-crossed with them. I’d felt the existence of these cables all along even when Jo was alive I felt them under the surface, and here is their point of origin. Folks promenade on The Street, all up and down the east side of Dark Score Lake they promenade in little groups, laughing and conversing under a cloud-stacked sum mer sky, and this is where the cables all begin. I look and realize how wrong I have been to think of them as Martians, as cruel and calculating aliens. East of their sunny promenade looms the darkness of the woods, glades and hollows where any miserable thing may await, from a hot lopped off in a logging accident to a birth gone wrong and a young mother dead before the doctor can arrive from Castle Rock in his buggy. These are people with no electricity, no phones, no County Rescue Unit, no one to rely upon but each other and a God some of them have already begun to mistrust. They live in the woods and the shadows of the woods, but on fine summer afternoons they come to the edge of the lake. They come to The Street and look in each other’s faces and laugh together and then they are truly on the TR in what I have come to think of as the zone. They are not Martians,’ they are little lives dwelling on the edge of the dark, that’s all. I see summer people from Warrington’s, the men dressed in white flannels, two women in long tennis dresses still carrying their rackets. A fellow riding a tricycle with an enormous front wheel weaves shakily among them. The party of summer fo1k has stopped to talk with a group of young men from town; the fellows from away want to know if they can play in the townies’ baseball game at Warrington’s on Tuesday night. Ben Merrill, Royce’s father-to-be, says Ayuh, but we won’t go easy on ya just cause you’re from N’Yawk. The young men laugh; so do the tennis girls. A little farther on, two boys are playing catch with the sort of raw homemade baseball that is known as a horsey. Beyond them is a convention of young mothers, talking earnestly of their babies, all safely prammed and gathered in their own group. Men in overalls discuss weather and crops, politics and crops, taxes and crops. A teacher from the Consolidated High sits on the gray stone forehead I know so well, patiently tutoring a sullen boy who wants to be somewhere else and doing anything else. I think the boy will grow up to be Buddy Jellison’s father. Horn broken watch for finger, I think. All along The Street folks are fishing, and they are catching plenty; the lake fairly teems with bass and trout and pickerel. An artist another summer fellow, judging from his smock and nancy beret has set up his easel and is painting the mountains while two ladies watch respectfully. A giggle of girls passes, whispering about boys and clothes and school. There is beauty here, and peace. Devore’ s right to say this is a world I never knew. It’s ‘Beautiful,’ I said, pulling myself back with an effort. ‘Yes, I see that. But what’s your point?’ ‘My point?’ Devore looked almost comically surprised. ‘She thought she could walk there like everyone else, that’s the fucking point! She thought she could walk there like a white gal! Her and her big teeth and her big tits and her snotty looks. She thought she was something special, but we taught her different. She tried to walk me down and when she couldn’t do that she put her filthy hands on me and tumped me over. But that was all right; we taught her her manners. Didn’t we, boys?’ They growled agreement, but I thought some of them young Harry Auster, for one looked sick. ‘We taught her her place,’ Devore said. ‘We taught her she wasn’t nothing but a nigger. This is the word he uses over and over again when they are in the woods that summer, the summer of1901, the summer that Sara and the Red-bps become the musical act to see in this part of the world. She and her brother and their whole nigger family have been invited to Warrington’s to play for the summer people,’ they have been rid on champagne and ersters . . . or so says Jared Devore to his little school of devoted followers as they eat their own plain lunches of bread and meat and salted cucumbers out of lard-buckets given to them by their mothers (none of the young men are married, although Oren Peebles is engaged). Yet it isn’t her growing renown that upsets Jared Devore. It isn’t the fact that she has been to Warrington’s; it don’t cross his eyes none that she and that brother of hers have actually sat down and eaten with white folks, taken bread join the same bowl as them with their blacknigger fingers. The folks at Warrington’s are flatlanders, after all, and Devore tells the silent, attentive young men that he’s heard that in places like New York and Chicago white women sometimes even fuck blackniggers. Naw! Harry Auster says, looking around nervously, as if he expected a few white women to come tripping through the woods way out here on Bowie Ridge. No white woman’d fuck a nigger! Shoot a pickle! Devore only gives him a look, the kind that says When you’re my age. Besides, he doesn’t care what goes on in New York and Chicago; he saw all the flatland he wanted to during the Civil War . . . and, he will tell you, he never fought that war to free the damned slaves. They can keep slaves down there in the land of cotton until the end of the eternity, as far as Jared Lancelot Devore is concerned. No, he fought in the war to teach those cracker sons of bitches south of Mason and Dixon that you don’t pull out of the game just because you don’t like some of the rules. He went down to scratch the scab off the end of old Johnny Reb’s nose. Tried to leave the United States of America, they had! The Lord! No, he doesn’t care about slaves and he doesn’t care about the land of cotton and he doesn’t care about blackniggers who sing dirty songs and then get treated to champagne and ersters (Jared always says oysters in just that sarcastic way) in payment for their smut. He doesn’t care about anything so long as they keep in their place and let him keep in his. But she won’t do it. The uppity bitch will not do it. She has been warned to stay off The Street, but she will not listen. She goes anyway, walking along in her white dress just as if there was a white person inside it, sometimes with her son, who has a blacknigger African name and no daddy his daddy probably just spent the one night with his mommy in a haystack somewhere down Alabama and now she walks around with the get of that just as bold as a brass monkey. She walks The Street as if she has a right to be there, even though not a soul will talk to her ‘But that’s not true, is it?’ I asked Devore. ‘That’s what really stuck in old great-granddaddy’s craw, wasn’t it? They did talk to her. She had a way about her that laugh, maybe. Men talked to her about crops and the women showed off their babies. In fact they gave her their babies to hold and when she laughed down at them, they laughed back up at her. The girls asked her advice about boys. The boys . . . they just looked. But how they looked, huh? They filled up their eyes, and I expect most of them thought about her when they went out to the privy and filled up their palms.’ Devore glowered. He was aging in front of me, the lines drawing themselves deeper and deeper into his face; he was becoming the man who had knocked me into the lake because he couldn’t bear to be crossed. And as he grew older he began to fade. ‘That was what Jared hated most of all, wasn’t it? That they didn’t turn aside, didn’t turn away. She walked on The Street and no one treated her like a nigger. They treated her like a neighbor.’ I was in the zone, deeper in than I’d ever been, down where the town’s unconscious seemed to run like a buried river. I could drink from that river while I was in the zone, could fill my mouth and throat and belly with its cold minerally taste. All that summer Devore had talked to them. They were more than his crew, they were his boys: Fred and Harry and Ben and Oren and George Armbruster and Draper Finney, who would break his neck and drown the next summer trying to dive into Eades Quarry while he was drunk. Only it was the sort of accident that’s kind of on purpose. Draper Finney drank a lot between July of 1901 and August of 1902, because it was the only way he could sleep. The only way he could get the hand out of his mind, that hand sticking straight out of the water, clenching and unclenching until you wanted to scream Won’t it stop, won’t it ever stop doing that. All summer long Jared Devore filled their ears with nigger bitch and uppity bitch. All summer long he told them about their responsibility as men, their duty to keep the community pure, and how they must see what others didn’t and do what others wouldn’t. It was a Sunday afternoon in August, a time when traffic along The Street dropped steeply. Later on, by five or so, things would begin to pick up again, and from six to sunset the broad path along the lake would be thronged. But three in the afternoon was Low tide. The Methodists were back in session over in Harlow for their afternoon Song Service; at Warrington’s the assembled company of vacationing flatlanders was sitting down to a heavy mid-afternoon Sabbath meal of roast chicken or ham; all over the township families were addressing their own Sunday dinners. Those who had already finished were snoozing through the heat of the day in a hammock, wherever possible. Sara liked this quiet time. Loved it, really. She had spent a great deal of her life on carny midways and in smoky gin-joints, shouting out her songs in order to be heard above the voices of redfaced, unruly drunks, and while part of her loved the excitement and unpredictability of that life, part of her loved the serenity of this one, too. The peace of these walks. She wasn’t getting any younger, after all; she had a kid who had now left purt near all his babyhood behind him. On that particular Sunday she must have thought The Street almost too quiet. She walked a mile south from the meadow without seeing a soul even Kito was gone by then, having stopped off to pick berries. It was as if the whole township were deserted. She knows there’s an Eastern Star supper in Kashwakamak, of course, has even contributed a mushroom pie to it because she has made friends of some of the Eastern Star ladies. They’ll all be down there getting ready. What she doesn’t know is that today is also Dedication Day for the new Grace Baptist Church, the first real church ever to be built on the TR. A slug of locals have gone, heathen as well as Baptist. Faintly, from the other side of the lake, she can hear the Methodists singing. The sound is sweet and faint and beautiful,’ distance and echo has tuned every sour voice. She isn’t aware of the men most of them very young men, the kind who under ordinary circumstances dare only look at her from the corners of their eyes until the oldest one among them speaks. ‘Wellnow, a black whore in a white dress and a red belt! Damn if that ain’t just a little too much color for lakeside. What’s wrong with you, whore? Can’t you take a hint?’ She turns toward him, afraid but not showing it. She has lived thirty-six years on this earth, has known what a man has and where he wants to put it since she was eleven, and she understands that when men are together like this and full of redeye (she can smell it), they give up thinking for themselves and turn into a pack of dogs. If you show fear they will fall on you like dogs and likely tear you apart like dogs. Also, they have been laying for her. There can be no other explanation for them turning up like this. ‘What hint is that, sugar?’ she asks, standing her ground. Where is everyone? Where can they all be? God damn! Across the lake, the Methodists have moved on to ‘Trust and Obey,’ a droner if there ever was one. ‘That you ain’t got no business walking where the white folks walk,’ Harry Auster says. His adolescent voice breaks into a kind of mouse-squeak on the last word and she laughs. She knows how unwise that is, but she can’t help it she’s never been able to help her laughter, any more than she’s ever been able to help the way men like this look at her breasts and bottom. Blame it on God. ‘Why, I walk where I do,’ she says. ‘I was told this was common ground, ain’t nobody got a right to keep me out. Ain’t nobody has. You seen em doin it?’ ‘You see us now,’ George Armbruster says, trying to sound tough. Sara looks at him with a species of kindly contempt that makes George shrivel up inside. His cheeks glow hot red. ‘Son,’ she says, ‘you only come out now because the decent folks is all somewhere else. Why do you want to let this old fella tell you what to do? Act decent and let a lady walk.’ I see it all. As Devore fades and fades, at last becoming nothing but eyes under a blue cap in the rainy afternoon (through him I can see the shattered remains of my swimming float washing against the embankment), I see it all. I see her as she starts forward, walking straight at Devore. If she stands here jawing with them, something bad is going to happen. She feels it, and she never questions her tidings. And if she walks at any of the others, ole massa’ll bore in on her from the side, pulling the rest after. Ole massa in the little ole blue cap is the wheeldog, the one she must face down. She can do it, too. He’s strong, strong enough to make these boys one creature, his creature, at least for the time being, but he doesn’t have her force, her determination, her energy. In a way she welcomes this confrontation. Reg has warned her to be careful, not to move too fast or try to make real friends until the rednecks (only Reggie calls them ‘the bull gators’) show themselves how many and how crazy but she goes her own course, trusts her own deep instincts. And here they are, only seven of em, and really just the one bull gator. I’m stronger than you, ole massa, she thinks, walking toward him. She fixes her eyes on his and will not let them drop,’ his are the ones that drop, his the mouth that quivers uncertainly at one corner, his the tongue that comes out as quick as a lizard’s tongue to wet the lips, and all that’s good . . . but even better is when he falls back a step. When he does that the rest of them cluster in two groups of three, and there it is, her way through. Faint and sweet are the Methodists, faithy music carrying across the lake’s still surface. A droner of a hymn, yes, but sweet across the miles. When we walk with the Lord in the light of His word, what a glory He sheds on our way . . . I’m stronger than you, sugar, she sends, I’m meaner than you, you may be the bull gator but I’m the queen bee and if you don’t want me stingin on you, you best clear me the rest of my path. ‘You bitch,’ he says, but his voice is weak; he is already thinking this isn’t the day, there’s something about her he didn’t quite see until he saw her right up close, some blacknigger hougan he didn’t feel until now, better wait for another day, better Then he trips over a root or a rock (perhaps it’s the very rock behind which she will finally come to rest) and falls down. His cap falls off, showing the big old bald spot on top of his head. His pants split all the way up the seam. And Sara makes a crucial mistake. Perhaps she underestimates Jared Devore’s own very considerable personal force, or perhaps she just cannot help herself the sound of his britches ripping is like a loud fart. In any case she laughs that raucous, smoke-broken laugh which is her trademark. And her laugh becomes her doom. Devore doesn’t think. He simply gives her the leather from where he lies, big feet in pegged loggers’ boots shooting out like pistons. He hits her where she is thinnest and most vulnerable, in the ankles. She hollers in shocked pain as the left one breaks,’ she goes down in a tumble, losing her furled parasol out of one hand. She draws in breath to scream again and Jared says from where he is lying, ‘Don’t let her! Dassn’t let her holler!’ Ben Merrill falls on top of her full-length, all one hundred and ninety pounds of him. The breath she has drawn to scream with whooshes out in a gusty, almost silent sigh instead. Ben, who has never even danced with a woman, let alone lain on top of one like this, is instantly excited by the el of her struggling beneath him. He wriggles against her, laughing, and when she rakes her nails down his cheek he barely feels it. The way it seems to him, he’s all cock and a yard long. When she tries to roll over and get out from under that way, he rolls with her, lets her be on top, and he is totally surprised when she drives her forehead down on his. He sees stars, but he is eighteen years old, as strong as he will ever be, and he loses neither consciousness nor his erection. Oren Peebles tears away the back of her dress, laughing. ‘Pig-pile!’ he cries in a breathy little whisper, and drops on top of her. Now he is dry-humping her topside and Ben is dry-humping just as enthusiastically from underneath, dry-humping like a billygoat even with the blood pouring down the sides of his head from the split in the center of his brow, and she knows that if she can’t scream she is lost. If she can scream and if Kito hears, he’ll run and get help, run and get Reg But before she can try again, ole massa is squatting beside her and showing her a long-bladed knife. ‘Make a sound and I’ll cut your nose off,’ he says, and that’s when she gives up. They have brought her down after all, partly because she laughed at the wrong time, mostly out of pure buggardly bad luck. Now they will not be stopped, and best that Kito should stay away please God keep him back where he was, it was a good patch of berries, one that should keep him occupied an hour or more. He loves berry-picking, and it won’t take these men an hour. Harry Auster yanks her hair back, tears her dress off one shoulder, and begins to sucker on her neck. Ole massa the only one not at her. Old massa standing back, looking both ways along The Street, his eyes slitted and wary; old massa look like a mangy timber-wolf done eaten a whole generation of chickenhouse chickens while managing to avoid every trap and snare. ‘Hey Irish, quit on her a minute,’ he tells Harry, then widens his wise gaze to the others. ‘Get her in the puckies, you damn fools. Get her in there deep.’ They don’t. They can’t. They are too eager to have her. They arm-yank her behind the forehead of gray rock and call it good. She doesn’t pray easily but she prays now. She prays for them to let her live. She prays for Kito to stay clear, to keep filling his bucket slow by eating every third handful. She prays that if he does take a notion to catch up with her, he will see what’s happening and run the other way as fast as he can, run silent and get Reg. ‘Stick this in your mouth,’ George Armbruster pants. ‘And don’t you bite me, you bitch.’ They take her top and bottom, back and front, two and three at a time. They take her where anybody coming along can’t help but see them, and ole massa stands off a little, looking first at the panting young men grouped around her, kneeling with their trousers down and their thighs scratched from the bushes they are kneeling in, then he peers up and down the path with his wild and wary eyes. Incredibly, one of them it is Fred Dean says ‘Sorry, ma’am’ after he’s shot his load feels like halfway up to east bejeezus. It’s as if he accidentally kicked her in the shin while crossing his legs. And it doesn’t end. There’s come down her throat, come running down the crack of her ass, the young one has bitten the blood right out of her left breast, and it doesn’t end. They are young, and by the time the last one has finished, the first one, oh God, the first one is ready again. Across the river the Methodists are now singing ‘Blessed Assurance, Jesus Is Mine’ and as ole massa approaches her she thinks, It’s almost over, woman, he the last, hold on hold steady and it be over. He looks at the skinny redhead and the one who keeps squinching his eye up and tossing his head and tells them to watch the path, he’s going to take his turn now that she’s broke in. He unbuckles his belt, he unbuttons his flies, he pushes down his underwear dirty black at the knees and dirty yellow at the crotch-and as he drops a knee on either side of her she sees that ole massa’ s little massa is just as floppy as a snake with its neck broke and before she can stop it, that raucous laugh bursts all unexpected from her again even lying here covered with the hot jelly spend of her rapists, she can’t help but see the funny side. ‘Shut up!’ Devore growls at her, and smashes the heel of one hard hand across her face, breaking her cheekbone and her nose. ‘Shut up that howling!’ ‘Reckon it might get stiffer if it was one of your boys layin here with his rosy red ass stuck up in the air, sugar?’ she asks, and then, For the last time, Sara laughs. Devore draws his hand back to hit her again, his naked loins lying against her naked loins, his penis a flaccid worm between them. But before he can bring the hand down a child’s voice cries, ‘Ma! What they doin to you, Ma? Git off my mama, you bastards!’ She sits up in spite of Devore’s weight, her laughter dying, her wide eyes searching Kito out and finding him, a slim young boy of eight standing on The Street, dressed in overalls and a straw hat and brand-new canvas shoes, carrying a tin bucket in one hand. His lips are blue with juice. His eyes are wide with confusion and fright. ‘Run, Kito!’ she screams. ‘Run away h ‘ Red fire explodes in her head,’ she swoons back into the bushes, hearing ole massa from a great distance: ‘Get him. Dassn’t let him ramble, now.’ Then she’s going down a long dark slope, she’s lost in a Ghost House corridor that leads only deeper and deeper into its own convoluted bowels,’ from that deep falling place she hears him, she hears, her darling one, he is screaming. I heard him screaming as I knelt by the gray rock with my carry-bag beside me and no idea how I’d gotten to where I was I certainly had no memory of walking here. I was crying in shock and horror and pity. Was she crazy? Well, no wonder. No fucking wonder. The rain was steady but no longer apocalyptic. I stared at my fishy-white hands on the gray rock for a few seconds, then looked around. Devore and the others were gone. The ripe and gassy stench of decay filled my nose it was like a physical assault. I fumbled in the carry-bag, found the Stenomask Rommie and George had given me as a joke, and slipped it over my mouth and nose with fingers that felt numb and distant. I breathed shallowly and tentatively. Better. Not a lot, but enough to keep from fleeing, which was undoubtedly what she wanted. ‘No!’ she cried from somewhere behind me as I grabbed the spade and dug in. I tore a great mouth in the ground with the first swipe, and each subsequent one deepened and widened it. The earth was soft and yielding, woven through with mats of thin roots which parted easily under the blade. ‘No! Don’t you dare!’ I wouldn’t look around, wouldn’t give her a chance to push me away. She was stronger down here, perhaps because it had happened here. Was that possible? I didn’t know and didn’t care. All I cared about was getting this done. Where the roots were thicker, I hacked through them with the pruning knife. ‘Leave me be!’ Now I did look around, risked one quick glance because of the unnatural crackling sounds which had accompanied her voice which now seemed to make her voice. The Green Lady was gone. The birch had somehow become Sara Tidwell: it was Sara’s face growing out of the criss-crossing branches and shiny leaves. That rain-slicked face swayed, dissolved, came together, melted away, came together again. For a moment all the mystery I had sensed down here was revealed. Her damp shifting eyes were utterly human. They stared at me with hate and supplication. ‘I ain’t done!’ she cried in a cracked, breaking voice. ‘He was the worst, don’t you understand? He was the worst and it’s his blood in her and I won’t rest until I have it out!’ There was a gruesome ripping sound. She had inhabited the birch, made it into a physical body of some sort and intended to tear it free of the earth. She would come and get me with it if she could; kill me with it if she could. Strangle me in limber branches. Stuff me with leaves until I looked like a Christmas decoration. ‘No matter how much of a monster he was, Kyra had nothing to do with what he did,’ I said. ‘And you won’t have her.’ ‘Yes I will!’ the Green Lady screamed. The ripping, rending sounds were louder now. They were joined by a hissing, shaky crackle. I didn’t look around again. I didn’t dare look around. I dug faster instead. ‘Yes I will have her!’ she cried, and now the voice was closer. She was coming for me but I refused to see; when it comes to walking trees and bushes, I’ll stick to Macbeth, thanks. ‘I will have her! He took mine and I mean to take his!’ ‘Go away,’ a new voice said. The spade loosened in my hands, almost fell. I turned and saw Jo standing below me and to my right. She was looking at Sara, who had materialized into a lunatic’s hallucination a monstrous greenish-black thing that slipped with every step it tried to walk along The Street. She had left the birch behind yet assumed its vitality somehow the actual tree huddled behind her, black and shrivelled and dead. The creature born of it looked like the Bride of Frankenstein as sculpted by Picasso. In it, Sara’s face came and went, came and went. The Shape, I thought coldly. It was always real . . . and if it was always me, it was always her, too. Jo was dressed in the white shirt and yellow slacks she’d had on the day she died. I couldn’t see the lake through her as I had been able to see it through Devore and Devore’s young friends; she had materialized herself completely. I felt a curious draining sensation at the back of my skull and thought I knew how. ‘Git out, bitch!’ the Sara-thing snarled. It raised its arms toward Jo as it had raised them to me in my worst nightmares. ‘Not at all.’ Jo’s voice remained calm. She turned toward me. ‘Hurry, Mike. You have to be quick. It’s not really her anymore. She’s let one of the Outsiders in, and they’re very dangerous.’ ‘Jo, I love you.’ ‘I love you t ‘ Sara shrieked and then began to spin. Leaves and branches blurred together and lost coherence; it was like watching something liquefy in a blender. The entity which had only looked a little like a woman to begin with now dropped its masquerade entirely. Something elemental and grotesquely inhuman began to form out of the maelstrom. It leaped at my wife. When it struck her, the color and solidity left Jo as if slapped away by a huge hand. She became a phantom struggling with the thing which raved and shrieked and clawed at her. ‘Hurry, Mike!’ she screamed. ‘Hurry!’ I bent to the job. The spade struck something that wasn’t dirt, wasn’t stone, wasn’t wood. I scraped along it, revealing a filthy mold-crusted swatch of canvas. Now I dug like a madman, wanting to clear as much of the buried object as I could, wanting to fatten my chances of success as much as I could. Behind me, the Shape screamed in fury and my wife screamed in pain. Sara had given up part of her discorporate self in order to gain her revenge, had let in something Jo called an Outsider. I had no idea what that might be and never wanted to know. Sara was its conduit, I knew that much. And if I could take care of her in time I reached into the dripping hole, slapping wet earth from the ancient canvas. Faint stencilled letters appeared when I did: J.M. MCCURDIE SAWMILL. Mccurdie’s had burned in the fires of ’33, I knew. I’d seen a picture of it in flames somewhere. As I seized the canvas, the tips of my fingers punching through and letting out a fresh billow of green and gassy stench, I could hear grunting. I could hear Devore. He’s lying on top of her and grunting like a pig. Sara is semiconscious, muttering unintelligibly through bruised lips which are shiny with blood. Devore is looking back over his shoulder at Draper Finney and Fred Dean. They have raced after the boy and brought him back, but he won’t stop yelling, he’s yelling to beat the band, yelling to wake the dead, and if they can hear the Methodists singing ‘How I Love to Tell the Story’ over here, then they may be able to hear the yowling nigger over there. Devore says ‘Put him in the water, shut him up.’ The minute he says it, as though the words are magic words, his cock begins to stiffen. ‘What do you mean?’ Ben Merrill asks. ‘You know goddam well,’ Jared says. He pants the words out, jerking his hips as he speaks. His narrow ass gleams in the afternoon light. ‘He seen us! You want to cut his throat, get his blood all over you? Fine by me. Here. Take my knife, be my guest!’ ‘N-No, Jared!’ Ben cries in horror, actually seeming to cringe at the sight of the knife. He is finally ready. It takes him a little longer, that’s all, he ain’t a kid like these other ones. But now ! Never mind her smart mouth, never mind her insolent way of laughing, never mind the whole township. Let them all show up and watch if they like. He slips it to her, what she’s wanted all along, what all her kind want. He slips it in and sinks it deep. He continues giving orders even as he rapes her. Up and down his ass goes, tick-tock, just like a cat’s tail. ‘Somebody take care of him! Or do you want to spend forty years rotting in Shawshank because of a nigger boy’s tattle?’ Ben seizes one of Kito Tidwell’s arms, Oren Peebles the other, but by the time they have dragged him as far as the embankment they have lost their heart. Raping an uppity nigger woman with the gall to laugh at Jared when he fell down and split his britches is one thing. Drowning a scared kid like a kitten in a mud-puddle . . . that’s another one altogether. They loosen their grip, staring into each other’s haunted eyes, and Kito pulls free. ‘Run, honey!’ Sara cries. ‘Run away and get ‘Jared clamps his hands around her throat and begins choking. The boy trips over his own berry bucket and thumps gracelessly to the ground. Harry and Draper recapture him easily. ‘What you going to do? ‘ Draper asks in a kind of desperate whine, and Harry replies ‘What I have to.’ That’s what he replied, and now I was going to do what I had to in spite of the stench, in spite of Sara, in spite of my dead wife’s shrieks. I hauled the roll of canvas out of the ground. The ropes which had tied it shut at either end held, but the roll itself split down the middle with a hideous burping sound. ‘Hurry!’ Jo cried. ‘I can’t hold it much longer!’ It snarled; it bayed like a dog. There was a loud wooden crunch, like a door being slammed hard enough to splinter, and Jo wailed. I grabbed for the carry-bag with Slips ‘n Greens printed on the front and tore it open as Harry the others call him Irish because of his carrot-colored hair grabs the struggling kid in a clumsy kind of bearhug and jumps into the lake with him. The kid struggles harder than ever,’ his straw hat comes off and floats on the water. ‘Get that!’ Harry pants. Fred Dean kneels and fishes out the dripping hat. Fred’s eyes are dazed, he’s got the look of a fighter about one round from hitting the canvas. Behind them Sara Tidwell has begun to rattle deep in her chest and throat like the sight of the boy’s clenching hand, these sounds will haunt Draper Finney until his final dive into Eades Quarry. Jared sinks his fingers deeper, pumping and choking at the same time, the sweat pouring off him. No amount of washing will take the smell of that sweat out of these clothes, and when he begins to think of it as ‘murder-sweat,’ he burns the clothes to get shed of it. Harry Auster wants to be shed of it all to be shed of it and never see these men again, most of all Jared Devore, who he now thinks must be Lord Satan himself. Harry cannot go home and face his father unless this nightmare is over, buried. And his mother! How can he ever face his beloved mother, Bridget Auster with her round sweet Irish face and graying hair and comforting shelf of bosom, Bridget who has always had a kind word or a soothing handler him, Bridget Auster who has been Saved, shed in the Blood of the Lamb, Bridget Auster who is even now serving pies at the picnic they’re having at the new church, Bridget Auster who is mamma; how can he ever look at her again or she him if he has to stand in court on a charge of raping and beating a woman, even a black woman? So he yanks the clinging boy away Kito scratches him once, just a nick on the side of the neck, and that night Harry will tell his mamma it was a bush-pricker that caught him unawares and he will let her put a kiss on it and then he plunges the child into the lake. Kito looks up at him, his face shimmering, and Harry sees a little fish flick by. A perch, he thinks. For an instant he wonders what the boy must see, looking up through the silver shield of the surface at the face of the fellow who’s holding him down, the fellow who’s drowning him, and then Harry pushes that away. Just a nigger, he reminds himself desperately. That’s all he is, just a nigger. No kin of yours. Kito’s arm comes out of the water his dripping dark-brown arm. Harry pulls back, not wanting to be clawed, but the hand doesn’t reach for him, only sticks straight up. The fingers curl into a fist. Open. Curl into a fist. Open. Curl into a fist. The boy’s thrashing begins to ease, the kicking feet begin to slow down, the eyes looking up into Harry’s eyes are taking on a curiously dreamy look, and still that brown arm sticks straight up, still the hand opens and closes, opens and closes. Draper Finney stands on the shore crying, sure that now someone will come along, now someone will see the terrible thing they have done the terrible thing they are in fact still doing. Be sure your sin will find you out, it says in the Good Book. Be sure. He opens his mouth to tell Harry to quit, maybe it’s still not too late to take it back, let him up, let him live, but no sound comes out. Behind him Sara is choking her last. In front of him her drowning son†™s hand opens and closes, opens and closes, the reflection of it shimmering on the water, and Draper thinks Won’t it stop doing that, won’t it ever stop doing that? And as if it were a prayer that something is now answering, the boy’s locked elbow begins to bend and his arm begins to sag; the fingers begin to close again into a fist and then stop. For a moment the hand wavers and then I slammed the heel of my hand into the center of my forehead to clear these phantoms away. Behind me there was a frenzied snap and crackle of wet bushes as Jo and whatever she was holding back continued to struggle. I put my hands inside the split in the canvas like a doctor spreading a wound. I yanked. There was a low ripping sound as the roll tore the rest of the way up and down. Inside was what remained of them two yellowed skulls, forehead to forehead as if in intimate conversation, a woman’s faded red leather belt, a molder of clothes . . . and a heap of bones. Two ribcages, one large and one small. Two sets of legs, one long and one short. The early remains of Sara and Kito Tidwell, buried here by the lake for almost a hundred years. The larger of the two skulls turned. It glared at me with its empty eyesockets. Its teeth chattered as if it would bite me, and the bones below it began a tenebrous, jittery stirring. Some broke apart immediately; all were soft and pitted. The red belt stirred restlessly and the rusty buckle rose like the head of a snake. ‘Mike!’ Jo screamed. ‘Quick, quick!’ I pulled the sack out of the carry-bag and grabbed the plastic bottle which had been inside. Lye stille, the Magnabet letters had said; another little word-trick. Another message passed behind the unsuspecting guard’s back. Sara Tidwell was a fearsome creature, but she had underestimated Jo . . . and she had underestimated the telepathy of long association, as well. I had gone to Slips ‘n Greens, I had bought a bottle of lye, and now I opened it and poured it, smoking, over the bones of Sara and her son. There was a hissing sound like the one you hear when you open a beer or a bottled soft drink. The belt-buckle melted. The bones turned white and crumpled like things made out of sugar I had a nightmare image of Mexican children eating candy corpses off long sticks on the Day of the Dead. The eyesockets of Sara’s skull widened as the lye filled the dark hollow where her mind, her prodigious talent, and her laughing soul had once resided. It was an expression that looked at first like surprise and then like sorrow. The jaw fell off; the nubs of the teeth sizzled away. The top of the skull caved in. Spread fingerbones jittered, then melted. ‘Ohhhhhh . . . ‘ It whispered through the soaking trees like a rising wind . . . only the wind had died as the wet air caught its breath before the next onslaught. It was a sound of unspeakable grief and longing and surrender. I sensed no hate in it; her hate was gone, burned away in the corrosive I had bought in Helen Auster’s shop. The sound of Sara’s going was replaced by the plaintive, almost human cry of a bird, and it awakened me from the place where I had been, brought me finally and completely out of the zone. I got shakily to my feet, turned around, and looked at The Street. Jo was still there, a dim form through which I could now see the lake and the dark clouds of the next thundersquall coming over the mountains. Something flickered beyond her that bird venturing out of its safe covert for a peek at the re-arranged environment, perhaps but I barely registered that. It was Jo I wanted to see, Jo who had come God knew how far and suffered God knew how much to help me. She looked exhausted, hurt, in some fundamental way diminished. But the other thing the Outsider was gone. Jo, standing in a ring of birch leaves so dead they looked charred, turned to me and smiled. ‘Jo! We did it!’ Her mouth moved. I heard the sound, but the words were too distant to make out. She was standing right there, but she might have been calling across a wide canyon. Still, I understood her. I read the words off her lips if you prefer the rational, right out of her mind if you prefer the romantical. I prefer the latter. Marriage is a zone, too, you know. Marriage is a zone. So that’s all right, isn’t it? I glanced down into the gaping roll of canvas and saw nothing but stubs and splinters sticking out of a noxious, uneasy paste. I got a whiff, and even through the Stenomask it made me cough and back away. Not corruption; lye. When I looked back around at Jo, she was barely there. ‘Jo! Wait!’ Can’t help. Can’t stay. Words from another star system, barely glimpsed on a fading mouth. Now she was little more than eyes floating in the dark afternoon, eyes which seemed made of the lake behind them. Hurry . . . She was gone. I slipped and stumbled to the place where she’d been, my feet crunching over dead birch leaves, and grabbed at nothing. What a fool I must have looked, soaked to the skin, wearing a Stenomask askew over the lower half of my face, trying to embrace the wet gray air. I got the faintest whiff of Red perfume . . . and then only damp earth, lakewater, and the vile stink of lye running under everything. At least the smell of putrefaction was gone; that had been no more real than . . . Than what? Than what? Either it was all real or none of it was real. If none of it was real, I was out of my mind and ready for the Blue Wing at Juniper Hill. I looked over toward the gray rock and saw the bag of bones I had pulled out of the wet ground like a festering tooth. Lazy tendrils of smoke were still rising from its ripped length. That much was real. So was the Green Lady, who was now a soot-colored Black Lady as dead as the dead branch behind her, the one that seemed to point like an arm. Can’t help . . . can’t stay . . . hurry. Couldn’t help with what? What more help did I need? It was done, wasn’t it? Sara was gone: spirit follows bone, good night sweet ladies, God grant she lye stille. And still a kind of stinking terror, not so different from the smell of putrescence which had come out of the ground, seemed to sweat out of the air; Kyra’s name began to beat in my head, Ki-Ki, Ki-Ki, Ki-Ki, like the call of some exotic tropical bird. I started up the railroad-tie steps to the house, and although I was exhausted, by the time I was halfway up I had begun to run. I climbed the stairs to the deck and went in that way. The house looked the same save for the broken tree poking in through the kitchen window, Sara Laughs had stood up to the storm very well but something was wrong. There was something I could almost smell . . . and perhaps I did smell it, bitter and low. Lunacy may have its own wild-vetch aroma. It’s not the kind of thing I would ever care to research. In the front hall I stopped, looking down at a heap of paperback books, Elmore Leonards and Ed Mcbains, lying on the floor. As if they had been raked off the shelf by a passing hand. A flailing hand, maybe. I could also see my tracks there, both coming and going. They had already begun to dry. They should have been the only ones; I had been carrying Ki when we came in. They should have been, but they weren’t. The others were smaller, but not so small that I mistook them for a child’s. I ran down the hall to the north bedroom crying her name, and I might as well have been crying Mattie or Jo or Sara. Coming out of my mouth, Kyra’s name sounded like the name of a corpse. The duvet had been thrown back onto the floor. Except for the black stuffed dog, lying where it had in my dream, the bed was empty. And Ki was gone. How to cite Bag of Bones CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT, Essay examples