Yes Minister Is A Successful Satire. Discuss. Essays -

Yes Minister Is A Successful Satire. Discuss. The British comedy Yes Minister is a brilliant satire in which the characters are creatively manipulated to form a humorous program. It deals with the wheeling and dealing of political life behind the scenes and attempts to expose its true nature. Although the series is set within the British political scene, it deals with political games and clashes between politicians and the civil service that could be found almost anywhere in the world. Yes Minister started airing in 1980 on BBC 2 with each episode running for about 30 minutes. With its astounding success it ran for six years until Jim Hacker finally became what he always dreamt of throughout the course of the series: Prime Minister. At this point the BBC started a new series called Yes Prime Minister. The series is still shown on television today and people continue to enjoy the satirical British humour. In the third season of Yes Minister and for the first time on 11 November 1982, two years into the series, ran an episode called Equal Opportunities. As its title suggests it encompasses the issues to do with Equal Employment Opportunities, focusing on the Civil Services and their attitudes towards women in the workforce. As in other episodes of Yes Minister, Equal Opportunities aims to educate and summon change, while simultaneously entertaining the audience it is targeted towards. Clever incorporation of a variety of different types of humour creates a jovial fa?ade for the underlying issues. In Equal Opportunities it has allowed the exploration of each sexes emotions and thoughts towards each other in the workforce. A twist of irony occurs when Sarah announces that she is leaving the civil services. She explains to Jim Hacker that she wants a job that will appreciate her as a person and where she personally can achieve things and therefore has accepted a job at a merchant bank. She is absolutely not charmed by the fact that she would be part of a 25% quota and does not appreciate being patronised: Quite honestly, Minister, I want a job where I dont spend endless hours circulating information that isnt relevant, about subjects that dont matter to people who arent interested. I want a job where there is achievement rather than merely activity. I am tired of pushing paper. I want to be able to point to something and say: I did that. Sarcasm is used to cunningly say what is really meant without saying it straight out. What it does say straight out often defiantly contradicts its true meaning: We must, in my view, always have the right to promote the best man for the job, regardless of sex. Sir Humphrey makes out that hes being fair but by calling everyone man and then saying regardless of sex it appears as a contradiction. The use of dialogue allows the viewer a deeper insight into the characters involved in the show. While the male characters in Yes Minister deny being sexist and claim to be looking out for the best interests of women in the workforce, it is obvious through their use of sexist dialogue that this is not the case. Terms such as feminist touch and dear lady are frequently used when referring to women throughout the script. Sir Humphrey often uses circumlocution to confuse the issues. Euphemisms are used by many of the Public Servants involved to get around an issue or to make the issue sound better than what it really is: a pause to regroup, a lull in which to reassess the situation and discuss alternative strategies, a space of time for the mature reflection and deliberation. Yes, you mean drop the whole scheme. Attitudes of people who work in the Public Services are cross-examined and mocked. It is shown that many of the people within the Public Services are lazy, only care about their own success, and believe that advancements happen as a matter of turn: Minister! It takes time to do things! This plays on the fact that because so many people in the Services are caught up doing useless things or are so slow and lazy, it takes a long time to achieve anything major. Jim Hacker mentions Alexander the Great ruling at a very young age,

Old Testament Essays - Religion, Enma Eli, Mythology, Free Essays

Old Testament Essays - Religion, Enma Eli, Mythology, Free Essays Old Testament The Old Testament is a compilation, and like every compilation it has a wide variety of contributors who, in turn, have their individual influence upon the final work. It is no surprise, then, that there exist certain parallels between the Enuma Elish, the cosmogony of the Babylonians, and the Book of Genesis, the first part of the Pentateuch section of the Bible. In fact, arguments may be made that other Near Eastern texts, particularly Sumerian, have had their influences in Biblical texts. The extent of this 'borrowing', as it were, is not limited to the Bible; the Enuma Elish has its own roots in Sumerian mythology, predating the Enuma Elish by nearly a thousand years. A superficial examination of this evidence would erroneously lead one to believe that the Bible is somewhat a collection of older mythology re-written specifically for the Semites. In fact, what develops is that the writers have addressed each myth as a separate issue, and what the writers say is that their God surpasses every other. Each myth or text that has a counterpart in the Bible only serves to further an important idea among the Hebrews: there is but one God, and He is omnipotent, omniscient, and other-worldly; He is not of this world, but outside it, apart from it. The idea of a monotheistic religion is first evinced in recorded history with Judaism, and it is vital to see that instead of being an example of plagiarism, the Book of Genesis is a meticulously composed document that will set apart the Hebrew God from the others before, and after. To get a clear picture of the way the Book of Genesis may have been formed (because we can only guess with some degree of certainty), we must place in somewhere in time, and then define the cultures in that time. The influences, possible and probable, must be illustrated, and then we may draw our conclusions. If we trace back to the first appearance of the Bible in written form, in its earliest translation, we arrive at 444 B.C.. Two texts, components of the Pentateuch referred to as 'J' and 'E' texts, can be traced to around 650 B.C. Note that 'J' refers to Yahweh (YHVH) texts, characterized by the use of the word 'Yahweh' or 'Lord' in accounts; 'E' refers to Elohist texts, which use, naturally, 'Elohim' in its references to God.1 But 650 B.C. isn't our oldest reference to the 'J' and 'E' texts; they can be traced, along with the other three strands of the Pentateuch, to at least 1000 B.C. Our first compilation of these strands existed in 650 B.C.. We must therefore begin our search further back in time. We can begin with the father of the Hebrew people, Abraham. We can deduce when he lived, and find that he lived around 1900 B.C. in ancient Mesopotamia2. If we examine his world and its culture, we may find the reasons behind certain references in Genesis, and the mythologies they resemble. The First Babylonian Dynasty had begun around 1950 B.C. and would last well into the late 16th century B.C.. The Babylonians had just conquered a land previously under the control of the Assyrians, and before that, the Summering. Abraham had lived during a time of great prosperity and a remarkably advanced culture. He was initially believed to have come from the city of Ur, as given in the Bible as "...the Ur of Chaldees". Earlier translations read, however, simply "...Land of the Chaldees"; later, it was deduced that Abraham had come from a city called Haran3. In any case, he lived in a thriving and prosperous world. Homes were comfortable, even luxurious. Copies of hymns were found next to mathematical tablets detailing formulae for extracting square and cube roots.4 The level of sophistication 4000 years ago is remarkable. We can also deduce that it was a relatively stable and peaceful society; its art is characterized by the absence of any warlike activity, paintings or sculptures.5 We also have evidence of an Israelite tribe, the Benjamites, in Babylonian texts. The Benjamites were nomads on the frontier of its boundaries, and certainly came in contact with Babylonian ideas- culture, religion, ethics. The early tribes of Israel were nomadic, "taking with them the early traditions, and in varying latitudes have modified it"6 according to external influences. The message remained constant, but the context would subtly change. In addition to the Benjamites in Mesopotamia, there were tribes of Israel in Egypt during the Egyptian Middle Kingdom period7, which certainly exposed these people to Egyptian culture