Reflection on Coatess Argument Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Reflection on Coatess Argument - Essay Example The black people were denied the opportunity to access good housing facilities since they were cut out of the legitimate home-mortgage market starting from the 1930s to 1960s.I also believe that previous efforts by the subsequent government to improve the living standards of Black Americans through welfare programs, affirmative action and subsidized housing have been minimal. In my view, although the current Constitution grants equal protection of the law, racism and discrimination against Blacks still exist and thus only reparations can address these social problems. Although the author argues that reparations may be expensive given the huge spending by the government on other social programs that benefit the entire American population, I differ since a debt to Black people is owed and American has the resources to pay the reparations.   The black people deserve reparations since the available statistics indicate that they are at the wrong end of all the socio-economic indicators. For instance, blacks are three times likely to encounter homicide than other racial groups while the infant mortality rate of black neighbourhoods is twice that of the national average. Although the current Black people might not have been slaves, the truth is that they were denied their inheritance and good upbringing since their parents were poor and mistreated by the government. There is a prove that slavery is responsible for Black Americans socio-economic status due to discrimination, lack of property rights and lack of voting rights.

Why did the United States get involved in the war in Korea In what Term Paper

Why did the United States get involved in the war in Korea In what sense was it an outgrowth of the Cold War - Term Paper Example Cold War is a state of affairs between the former USSR and the USA which are at odds with each other except for the understanding that it is for the best interest of the world that they should avoid direct armed conflict. Instead, they just try to outdo one another in building their armaments and in expanding their allies. The enemy of the USSR became the automatic best friend of the US and vice versa. Whenever the USSR assists another country in the latter’s own conflict, the US immediately goes to the rescue of the enemy of the USSR allies. Stated otherwise, the cold war was a game of chess. The USSR and the US agreed to avoid direct armed fighting and just play chess instead. The world became the chessboard, the Kings were their own countries, the Queens were their atomic bombs, the other officials were their armies and the pawns were the smaller countries like the divided Korea and divided Vietnam among others. The general game plan was to propagate the capitalist-democratic ideology while containing the other’s communist-authoritarian regime. The player is willing to sacrifice his pawns and even officials just to secure the position of the King on the board. And in this game of chess, the North and South Koreas became the opening pawns. The USSR was at first not interested in Kim Il-Sung’s plan of invasion, in the same way that the US was already in the process of withdrawing its troops from South Korea. But when the communist north had crushed the capitalist south, the US executed its game plan and plunged itself into war. The US can never allow communism to gain more space in the world. The US got involved in the war in Korea in order to stop communism from spreading and to protect the capitalism’s position at the peninsula. The National Archives paper has so succinctly puts it, â€Å"Thus, when North Korean troops invaded the South, the Truman administration

Describe and Evaluate two theories of the formation of romantic relationships Essay Example for Free

Describe and Evaluate two theories of the formation of romantic relationships Essay In 1970 Byrne and Clore introduced the reward/ need satisfaction theory for the formation of relationships. They suggested that we are attracted to individuals whose presence is rewarding for us, and that naturally we find stimuli rewarding if it meets an unmet need; the more rewards someone provides for us, the more we should be attracted to them. They believed that the formation if relationships was linked with the idea of classical and operant conditioning, with operant conditioning we are likely to repeat behaviours that leads to a desirable outcome and avoid behaviours that lead to undesirable ones, so we enter the relationships because the presence of some individuals is directly associated with reinforcement, making us have positive feelings, which makes them more attractive to us. For classical conditioning, we tend to prefer people who we associate with pleasant event, so for example if we meet someone somewhere where we are having a good time, then we will associate this person with this good time and find them more attractive in the long run. Byrne and Clore believed that the balance between positive and negative feelings in a relationship was crucial as relationships where the positive outweigh negative feelings were more likely to develop and succeed. Griffitt and Guay (1969), participants were evaluated on a creative task by an experimenter and then asked to rate how much they liked the experimenter. The rating was highest when the experimenter had positively evaluated the participant’s performance on the task. This study supports the claim that we like people who are associated with pleasant events. This provides strong support that similarity is important in attraction, but also highlights reciprocal liking also is factor in the formation of relationships; however this may not be the only factor influencing this. The experiment was only of an imaginary description, the participant is unlikely to truly demonstrate how they feel towards the stranger. The experiment doesnt demonstrate interaction of people, but rather just presents a statement about them, which reduces how far conclusions can be drawn. Although similarity may be a factor, how people socially interact is also important to how a person perceives another. In a laboratory experiment, Lehr and Gehr (2006) studied participants of both sexes to test the importance of reciprocal liking. Knowing that someone likes you is particularly rewarding and so is more likely to end up in mutual liking. Participants were given a description of a stranger, with varying degrees of similarity of the strangers attitude to the participants. In each description was a statement that the stranger either liked or did not like the participant. Researchers found significant effects for attitude similarity and liking. However this study doesn’t have ecological validity from where it was done in a lab setting and didn’t reflect real life situation or conditions However Cate et al (1982) asked 337 individuals to assess their current relationships in terms of reward level and satisfaction. Results showed that reward level was superior to all other factors in determining relationship satisfaction, however this theory only explores the receiving of rewards, the results may not be completely accurate though as some people may have picked the socially desirable answers. These studies all ignore natures influence on attraction and that it is to some extent an evolutionary need to have a partner that meets physical requirements. This model may be very culturally bound as all the studies done were in the western world’s individualistic cultures. In other cultures one partner may not expect rewards and may be entirely giving, or arranges marriages will also go against this theory as the long term is made to happen. For example, Lott (1994) suggests that in many cultures women are more focused on the needs of others rather than receiving reinforcement. This suggests that this theory is not a universal explanation of relationship formation and therefore culturally biased. However, this theory is supported by another theory on how relationships are formed Byrne, Clore and Smeatons Similarity Theory (1986) states that it is important that people are similar in order to be able to form a relationship. They theorise that there are two stages to deciding who to seek relations with first we sort out the people most dissimilar to us and secondly then seek out those who are most similar. Caspi and Herbener found that in married couples, those who were the happiest were those with the most similar personality traits.

Understanding Of Media Audiences

Understanding Of Media Audiences Audiences are a critical subject in studying media. Audience is the term used to describe a large number of unidentifiable people, who usually united by their participation in media use. (Hartley, 2002) Media has a huge power to influence audience thinking and behaviour. There are many approaches to deconstruct the relationship between the audience and the text. The question arise here is, how do human receive text from television, or internet etc.? How do human analyse and affect by the text? In this essay, we will discover two approaches looking into the audiences and how will they related the media or how do we understand media audiences from these approaches. In term of media, Uses and Gratifications (UG) Theory and two-step flow theory are the essential approaches of understanding the audiences. There are many academic studies developed under the UG theory since this idea arises over the past 100 years. On the other hand, two -step flow theory explains that the audiences will be influenced by the media or other opinion leader. Although these two theories has been criticized and negated, they help us to understand the relationship between the media and receiver. In the first part of the essay, we will discover two theory of study the audiences. The first approach is Uses and gratifications theory, this approach focus on the consumer and the audience, rather than the message. It is concern about how people (media audience) made choices and what they did when consuming texts. According to Katz (1959), ask not what the media can do to people, but what the people can do with media. In other words, audience should be an active role to use media for pursues their own needs. Blumler and Katz in The uses of mass communication bring up an idea: à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦something of the way in which individuals uses communications, among other resources in their environment, to satisfy their needs and achieve their goals, and to do so by simply asking them. (Blumler Katz, 1974) Blumler and Katz (1974) concluded that different people use the same media for different purposes; therefore, the same media content may satisfy different needs for different individuals. Rosengren (1974) developed the idea of Katz and other scholars and presented the following diagram: mmm Figure 1 (Blumler, 2004 p.271) The diagram put more attention to the society and individual characteristics affect much of people needs. In term of individual characteristics, not just Psychological Set-up, but also added the Social Position, and Life History. Moreover, Rosengren build up `Perceived problem and solutions it explains human psychological process between needs and motives. Those elements not previously emphasized by Blumler and other scholars. In the diagram, basic needs, individual characteristics and society structure are three factors interact and result in people use media for variety of gratifications. Lucas and Sherry (2004) put more simplified model of Rosengrens paradigm.   According to psychologist Maslows hierarchic theory of needs, (1943) basic needs are divided five main cataloguers including physiological, safety, love and belonging, esteem and self-actualization.(Maslow, 1943) More detail shows in the following figure: http://levelupliving.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/hierarchy-of-needs3.png Figure 3 (ICT Learning, 2010) However, in media perspective, according to Katz et.al put `needs into five different categories: cognitive, affective, personal integrative, social integrative and tension release needs. (Iqbal, 2010) In term of individual characteristics and society, we can clearly see these factors including psychological set-up, social position, life history and media structure in figure 1. Audience thinks perceived solutions when he realizes there is a perceived problem and thereby creates motives. After that, audience use the media, make choice to choose different types of media, how much time they going to spends with media etc. Audience also uses with other behavior such as personal contacts or other means of communication. At the end, audience decides to continue use the media while he could obtains gratification or non-gratification. Blumler et.al. concern audiences use media as a sough gratification. They point out UG theory is built up on five assumptions. The first assumption is that the audience is conceived as active (Blumler Katz, 1974) In other words, UG establishes people play the active role to discover their own satisfied information for different reason and in different ways. Secondly, they assume in the mass communication process much initiative in linking need gratification and media choice lies with the audience member. (ibid.) This is an idea that people can allow the media to influence them. `The media competes with other sources of need satisfaction. (ibid.) is the third assumption of UG. This is an idea that mass media is only one of the resources to satisfied people needs. Therefore, mass communication must compete with other non-media resources such as interrelationship communication aim to produce the need. The forth assumption is `many of the goals media use can be derived from data supplie d by the individual audience members themselves. (ibid.) It assumes audience is rational, and can fully understand their choices and motives. Audience also are able to explain them clearly. The last assumption is `value judgments about cultural significance of mass communication should be suspended while audience operations are explored on their own terms. (ibid.) This assumption believes people determinate the value of the media. These five assumptions help us to understanding the relationship between the media and audiences. For the motivation for media use, McQuail, Blumler, and Brown (1972). proposed a model of media-person interactions to classify four different gratifications: diversion, personal relationships, personal identity and surveillance. (Katz, E.) Diversion refers to people escape from reality like everyday problem and the constraints of routine. Secondly, personal relationship is about social interaction, people using the media as a substitute companionship. Thirdly, personal identity is including people referencing, learning and exporting themselves from the text. Lastly, surveillance is means the information could be helps our life such as weather report and news. In 1983, McQuail purposed four typology of common reasons for media use, there are information, personal identity, intergration and social interaction, and entertainment. (Chandler, 1994.) This is similar with media-person interactions in 1972 which have been mentioned above. Nevertheless, this typology had emphasis more on soc ial environment and psychological. With other theory, UG theory received some criticism. Ang, L claims that theory did not emphasis on social context and audience is individualistic. UG ignore the content of media, stressed that is the active audience needs. The research found out that the audience is not selective on the messages delivered to them. The result is a contradiction with the theory of assumption that audience is active to make choice for the use of media. The terms of need, motivations, and expectation have not clearly define while gratification sought and gratification obtained is indistinguishable. Despite this theory challenged by these factors, still has its value of researching by the audiences point of view of media. The second approach to understand the audiences is Two-Step Flow of communication. (P. E. Lazarsfeld, 1944) Lazarseld, Berelson and Gaudet introduced their hypothesis in 1955. Research had been carried out on the decision making on a Presidential election, the result of the research had concluded that information does not flow directly from the text into the audiences mind but is filtered through `opinion leaders then leader influence other audiences (followers). (Katz, 1955.) There is two distance stage of media text transmitted. The figure illustrates the how this theory works: Figure 4 (Katz, 1955) In the diagram above, messages no longer dispatch from the mass media (producers) to the receivers directly. Messages were first transmitted to opinion leader who then interpreted and give the information to other (followers) in face-to-face. (ibid.) This explains why media may have failed to alter audiences attitude or behavior. In other words, the effect of mass media is not universal, must be assessed to other media channels to influence the information or opinions. Unfortunately, this hypothesis has criticized and being questioned, For example, figure 4 shows followers only received message from opinion leader. Obviously, we can receive the information from mass media directly. In additional, some scholars discover that transmitting information in society not only two step flow. It is involved multi step flow. (Inglis, 1990) The transmitted is more complicated than we imagine. Moreover, we might get confuse who is the opinion leader. It is a general assumption that a person who influences other people can be opinion leader because they use media more, and socially active. Baran, S,J. defines opinion leader as a ` people who initially consume media content, interpret it in light of their own values and beliefs, and then pass it on to opinion followers. (Baran, 2002.) In other words, most of the opinion leaders social position or status or by virtue of their grater interest in the topic at hand. (Robinson, 1976) Nonetheless, we cannot be certain who opinion leader is? For instance, A is an opinion leader of fashion; however, A is a follower in music while B is an opinion leader. Therefore, opinion leader is depends on the position, background and issue etc. These theories receive many critics from scholars due to the confusion of the position of the person. In spite of those criticisms, two-step flow receives praises and influence mass media especially advertising. The theory refined the ability to predict the influence of media messages on audience behavior,(Dave, 2009) and the reason why people sometime does not influence by media. In the second part of the essay will be illustrate how those two approaches contribute to our understanding of media audiences. Through the study of uses and gratifications and two-step flow theory, we can understand what audience can do with media, their motivations to use media and how media can be transmitted. Put these knowledge into a mass media and into the society, we can explain some social phenomenon and why audience influences by each other. Uses and gratifications approach is very suitable in explaining why people watch television. To apply this theory into the context of audiences which watch TV, watching TV provide the basic needs, society media structure and individuals characteristics which will sum up to gratifications in Blumeler Theory where by they are information, personal identity, integration and social interaction, and entertainment. TV channels provide information such as news and advertisement. Audiences can easily find themselves on TV programme like quiz show. For example, audiences can compare with the experts, laugh at the contestants mistake. (Chandler, 1994) In term of integration and social interaction, audiences may watch the TV together and so create an interaction or communication. They also recognize and more importantly to interact with the highly stylized images presented by TV programmer, especially those entertainers, talk show hosts. (Levy, 1979) Audiences entertained by TV programme such a s game shows and soap operas. They are able to relax, escape from reality. Despite new means of media counties come out namely internet and telephone, still, television can `survive in the completion because tally audience needs of UG theory. Subsequencetly, we can use UG theory to explain audience use other means of media such as magazine and radio. On the other hand, many companies and advertiser may apply to two step flow approach. They agree that customer might change their view of the product or company because of other users opinion. Evidently, a business would be a success as long as they gained the opinion leader support. This is because opinion leader will promote for the business. For instance, social network such as Facebook reaches nearly 500 million active users in 2010 since Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg launch the website reaches mere 1 million active users in 2004. (Facebook, 2010) In this case, word of the mouth is `I add you on Facebook or `how come you dont have facebook? The initial opinion leader on Facebook is the founder and his university classmates. The aim of communication within the campus, however, communication has power to influence other. When a follower became an opinion leader, number of users will dramatically increase. Although the initial aim of founder is not a business, which shows how two -step flow works. Again, that theory can apply to other media or business, especially in this information explosion era. People can easy to obtain information or review from `opinion leader. And other example of two step flow is the source of Lazarseld et.al study -election campaigns. They concluded that only 5% of the people changed their voting behavior as a result of these media messages. (Katz, 1955.) The voters influence by their interpersonal communication (such as friends, politic tradition) and short-run considerations (such as candidate attractiveness or current social issue). This view of media effects known as limited effects theory. Audience is a giant subject of studying media. Beside these two approaches, we can extend the study of understanding audience. Those audiences have different preference or motivation in using the media. We can construct the audience to different cataloguers. In some study, gender, ages, and social class are the elements to decide the audience to use media. For instance, newspaper readers in different gender, age and social position will choose to buy/read different newspaper. The following table shows the newspaper readership: (Griffiths, 2010) In conclusion, uses and gratification and two-step flow theories are the important theories to study audiences behavior. Through this theory of UG, we can understand what people do with the media, how audience satisfy their need by using media to establish such needs and why people using different kinds of media or communication such as radio and television. In the same way, we can see sometime media not fully influence the audience in the theory of two step flow. This approach also suggests audiences are influenced by or face-to face communication with the opinion leader who is more active in media uses. There are many other approaches which provide knowledge for understanding the audiences behavior. In spite of some criticisms of these two theories which we had discussed in the essay, Uses and gratification theory and Two-step flow hypothesis are significant theoretically.

Australian Broadcasting Commission Essay -- Media

INTRODUCTION ABC is an acronym referring to the Australian Broadcasting Commission established in 1932 and undertook its first radio broadcast on 1 July that 1932. Television broadcasting took place in 1956 and its independent incorporation was in 1983. The SBS refers to the Special Broadcasting Service took its operations first in 1975 and 1980 saw its first television broadcasting. It however became fully incorporated in 1991 as an independent broadcasting corporation. The ABC and SBS became statutory broadcasting bodies that were established through legislation through the ABS and SBS charters. The two charters provides for the specific functions and roles to be played by ABC and SBS. The ABC Charter for instance provides that the ABC should ensure that it provides innovative and comprehensive and innovative services in broadcasting. They should also ensure that in their provision of high standards of entertainment they maintain and reflect the diversity of Australia’s culture and Australian community. Moreover it is mandated to provide educational programs in nature to ensure promotion of musical, performing arts and drama of the Australian people and transmit it to other countries. The role of dissemination of information on news, current affairs and entertainment should be for encouragement of awareness of Australia’s understanding of world affairs and attitudes. The provision of multilingual and multicultural radio broadcasting forms part of the SBS Charter in its role as a national broadcaster. It goes on to provide that television services should be created to inform, educate and entertain all Australians and should seek to reflect Australia’s multicultural society . Moreover specific functions include, contributing ... ...leem, Saed, and Stephen Shellhammer. TV White Space Sectrum Technologies. Florida: CRC Press, 2011. Campbell, Dennis. International Securities Law and regulations. Sydney: York Hill Law, 2007. Conroy, Stephen. ABS and SBS. Australian Government, Sydney: Department of Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy, 2008. Digital Broadcasting Australia. "SBS chooses 720p High Definition." Digital Broadcasting Australia. Sydney, December 14th, 2006. Grant, Alsadai. Australian Telecommunications Regulation Communications Law Centre. Sydney: UNSW Press, 2004. Murray, Lisa. "SBS caves in over ad breaks." The Sydney Morning Herald, June 2, 2006. Pan, Hui. Asia-Pacific Telecom Monthly Newsletter. Boston: Information Gatekeeper Inc, 2010. Stuart, Cunningham, and Graeme Turner. The Media and Communications in Australia. Singapore: KHL Printing Company Ltd, 2010.

Water In the Middle East: Prospects for Conflict and Cooperation Essay

Reasons and origins of the conflict for water are dating back in the late 40s and the Arab-Israeli conflict. More precisely, the countries involved that represent potential conflict are Israel and Syria, as well as Israel and Palestine. For example, what can be mentioned here are Israeli aspirations to keep tight control over the economically important areas. This is directly linked to the water issues and diverting the water from one to another region. Other Arab countries are strongly opposing such shift as this will increase Israel’s industrial and agricultural capacities and, consequently, will encourage further Jewish immigration to the country. There have been plans to prevent such discourse, but Israeli`s military strikes have prevented these intentions back in 1965−1966 (Kershner, 2013). Even despite the fact that Israel and Jordan have settled their water disputes in the 1994 peace agreement (ibid), the water remains an important source of tension between Israel and Syria and, by default, between Israel and Lebanon. Water disputes are contributing towards failure of the peace talks between Israel and Syria in the 1990s, as well as those between Tel Aviv and the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) (ibid). Many of the water resources in the peninsula have been under Israeli control and some of the construction works of the other countries have been the first significant attempts to challenge the above mentioned status quo. On the other hand, apart for the prospects for conflict, the role of the international community has been from great importance, as it is trying hard to impose a middle ground between the conflicting countries. It is clear that no final agreement is possible until there are agreed-upon borders betw... ...er. The University of Michigan, 1997. 11. Jordan Times, 1 June 1994. 12. Juusola, H. Water Conflicts in the Middle East. December, 2012. 13. Kershner, E. (2013). A Rare Middle East Agreement, on Water. New York Times, Middle East. 14. Middle East International, â„â€" 458, 10 September 1993. 15. Monday Morning. No. 448, September 2002. 16. Muhammad al-Baba Shaaban, Abdallah Khoury et al al-Dzhugrafiya. 1988, Beirut, page 55; US Army Corps of Engineers, Water in the sand: A survey of Middle East water issues. 17. Palace, Z. (2013) â€Å"Business and Water: New Channels for Breaking the Impasse in the Middle East?†. Business and water, panel summaries and transcripts. Forum 2000 18. PBS Online edition: â€Å"A Struggle for Water Resources in Middle East Conflict†. October, 2010. Retrieved from http://www.pbs.org/newshour/extra/video/blog/2010/10/a_struggle_for_water_resources.html

Far from the madding crowd Assignment Essay

Gabriel never really liked Troy, as he was able to win the woman that he loved without loving her in return. He feels as though Troy may have used Bathsheba to take over the farm. By meditating he allows himself to escape Troy’s world and to return to being himself. The only reason that the men stay at Troy’s party is because they want to make a good impression and also to ensure a winter’s work. Had any man refused to stay and get drunk with Troy, they would most likely have lost their jobs, and would be stuck through the winter. Had Bathsheba, Gabriel or Boldwood held the party, the men would have been free to come and go as they pleased, without the risk of losing their jobs or fear of letting anyone down. This all goes to show the kind of person that Troy is, the way that he is very conceited and feels that he has the authority to push people around as he is better than them. The weather and setting of the storm clearly projects the feelings and moods of the characters. While Gabriel is outside struggling to secure the farm, the thunder symbolises his anger. It shows how he could erupt at any minute because of Troy, yet the calm, quiet breaks in the thunder shows us that he is calm and tolerant, and the fact that he is risking his life for Bathsheba. The rustic characters are very important to the event of the storm, they give Hardy a background to show us the real person that Troy is. If there were only Gabriel, Boldwood and Bathsheba on the farm it would be very difficult to show Troy’s selfishness as one of them might have stood up to and challenged him. As the rustics are at the bottom of the farms hierarchy they are a lot more responsive to Troy’s orders and suggestions. When Troy holds the party in the barn, he makes the reader think that he is not as bad as they might have first thought, he has gone to the trouble of setting up a big party and has invited everyone that is linked with the farm. It is only when he starts to force the men into drinking more than they can handle, when he becomes too forceful it is then that the reader’s opinion of Troy begins to change. Bathsheba tries to reason with Troy to save the men. She says: â€Å"No-don’t give it to them-pray don’t, Frank! It will only do them harm: they have had enough of everything. † In doing this, Bathsheba clearly knows that Troy has gone too far, she can tell that the men can not handle any more alcohol. At this point Troy is only getting started, he does not care for his men, and he just wants to have a good time. In fear that Bathsheba could do something to ruin his party he immediately orders all of the women and children to leave so that he can get the men as drunk as he wishes. Troy shows a typical Victorian male attitude to women by making them all leave the barn, by doing so he shows his true power and ability to manipulate people to suit himself. The majority of Victorian men see women as lower than themselves, not as equals. Troy knows that he has the ability to make them do what ever he wishes. The morning after the storm Gabriel meets Boldwood on his detour back to the farm, Boldwood seems very distant as he struggles to hear and understand what Gabriel is saying to him. Gabriel is shocked to find that the wise and experienced farmer Boldwood has overlooked the ricks on his farm, they been left unprotected and vulnerable to the storm throughout the night. It can clearly be seen that Boldwood is not himself by his reply to Gabriel asking whether his ricks had been protected: â€Å"O yes. ‘ Boldwood added, after an interval of silence: ‘What did you ask, Oak? ‘ I agree that the characters are judged by each other and by the reader through their devotion to the land as the most devoted characters prevail in the end. Gabriel Oak, the most respected and caring of the land, has the trust of the whole farm, the reader and nature. Bathsheba, a caring and devoted businesswoman, is only looking for the opportunity to manage her own farm and to look after the crops. She is again liked by all and obsessed by Boldwood, in the end she too prevails as she ends up in love with a man who truly cares for her, her feelings and the farm. Boldwood, a very mature and experienced farmer who cares dearly for his farm, is lead astray by a joke valentine’s, after he discovers that Bathsheba sent the card he becomes obsessed with her and loses all care for his farm and land. Troy, an untrustworthy, lying, selfish and conceited soldier who only has time for himself ends up in the worst possible position, he has no love for the land and does not even care about the farm, he is hated by almost all of the characters and eventually by his own wife. At the end of the novel his sinful lifestyle takes its toll as he is brutally murdered by Boldwood. Boldwood who lost what little devotion he had also ends up dead, though his ending does not come as a result of a sinful life, but an obsession that drove him to madness, and finally to the grave.