Personality Determinants Essay Example for Free

Personality Determinants Essay Heredity refers to those factors that were determined at conception. Physical structure, facial attractiveness, gender, temperament, muscle composition and reflexes, energy level, and biological rhythms are characteristics that are generally considered to be either completely or substantially influenced by who your parents were, that is by their biological, physiological and inherent psychological makeup. The environmental factors that exert pressures on our personality formation are the culture in which we are raised, our early conditioning, the norms among our family, friends and social groups, and other influences that we experience. The environment to which we are exposed plays a substantial role in shaping our personalities A third factor, the situation, influences the effects of heredity and environment on personality. An individual’s personality although generally stable and consistent, does change in different situations. The varying demand of different situation calls forth different aspects of one’s personality. We should not therefore look upon personality patterns in isolation. Subconscious Programming Most of us sometimes get programmed / conditioned by a wrong messages that â€Å" do not do that†, â€Å"don’t take the risk†, â€Å"you cannot do that† you are not good in †¦and so on†¦.. You can imagine the bad effect such message can have on any person. Our Conscious Mind is like a watch man. And the Subconscious Mind is a store of all the previously programmed or conditioned information / knowledge/ believes. Now programming personality means putting positive believes/ information into the store without the knowledge of the watchman (conscious mind). Suppose you tell yourself that â€Å"you are good at Public Speaking†. And the store has stored based on peoples comments and experience that â€Å"you are poor in communication† â€Å"you cannot speak well in public†, â€Å"you don’t have an impressive body language† †¦.. The watch man sees your sentence and compares it with the knowledge in its store and says â€Å"this information is wrong†. The watchman throws the new information away. He does not allow the new positive information into the store. This is the fundamental difficulty in changing personality behavior of a person. Now the question is how and when we could program our mind for positive personality trait without the obstruction of watchman†¦ The answer is we can program our mind for positive personality traits during the Twilight period just before sleeping and just before waking up. This is the time when the conscious mind is active enough to generate the positive traits for entering into store but inactive to judge/compare and will not obstruct to the positive traits to enter into the subconscious store house. Reinforced Programming / Conscious Programming Autosuggestion and Repetition of the positive traits despite negative response from comparison with the store house also gives success in programming for personality traits. Auto-suggestion is a statement made in the present tense, of the kind of person you want to be. Auto-suggestion are like a commercial about â€Å"Super You†, or â€Å"Future Super You† for yourself what you want to be or achieve. They influence both your conscious and subconscious mind in the long run shaping your personality and attitude. Auto-suggestions are the conscious way to programme the subconscious mind for positive traits. It is the effective method of voluntary development of positive traits and attitudes. Auto-suggestion should be mixed with emotions. All such reinforced / conscious programming which have been emotionalized (giving feeling) and mixed with applied faith, begin immediately to translate themselves into physical or real equivalent. Auto-suggestive thoughts which are mixed with any of the feeling of emotions constitute a â€Å"psycho-magnetic† force which attracts other similar or related thoughts. Our subconscious mind resembling a fertile garden spot, in which weeds will grow in abundance if you the seeds of more desirable crops are not sown therein. Auto-suggestion is the agency of control through which an individual can voluntarily feed his subconscious mind on thoughts of creative/ positive nature or by neglect permit thoughts of a destructive nature to find their way into the rich garden of mind. So Caution should be taken while programming your mind for positive traits only. Defensive Approach One of this type of approach is protest or deny the negative traits at it’s very beginning of the entering in the subconscious store. And the second is to consciously avoid this type of environment or situation. In real life situation it is very difficult because it may lead to confrontation and argument or Inaction. Another problem in this is that most of us have some negative traits previously in our store house due to our past experience and conditioning. Imaginary Anchoring or Invisible Counseling Committee While watching a picture we anchor the Hero, placing ourselves in place of hero. Similarly we can anchor Great men in imagination and let them shape our personality. Another is the Invisible Counseling Committee comprising of great personalities of your choice. We can counsel from these great minds at times or situation. What decision or action he would have been taken in my situation.. Winston Churchill the war time British Prime Minister was following this principle. He had his Imaginary Counseling Committee by the side of his Chamber. Many great decisions he used to take by following these principles. Physical Action / Body Language Approach In general it is the positive practice or experiencing desired traits whether the desired perfection achieved or not. It is generally said that our personality traits control our body language. But it is a fact that the reverse is also true. This meanswe can change our negative traits towards positive traits by consciously practicing the body language for positive traits. Domino-effect. Direct exposure to good personalities or environment Here the direct environment is the driving force in shaping the personalities. When one constantly remains in direct contact with great personalities will enriches his own to be the one. Similarly the organization culture and structure also many times influences ones personality. Sometimes it is the guiding principle for job satisfaction / recruitment.

Imagination in Romantic Poetry Essay Example for Free

Imagination in Romantic Poetry Essay A large part of those extracts on Romantic imagination which are contained in the fascicule on pages D64 and D65 – are strictly related to an ancient theory about Art and Reality’s imitation, the Theory of Forms concieved by a Classical Greek philosopher, mathematician Plato in Greek: ÃŽ  ÃŽ »ÃŽ ¬Ãâ€žÃâ€°ÃŽ ½, Plà ¡tÃ… n, broad; from 424/423 BC to 348/347 BC. The Theory of Forms in Greek: á ¼ °ÃŽ ´ÃŽ ­ÃŽ ±ÃŽ ¹ typically refers to the belief expressed by Socrates in some of Platos dialogues, that the material world as it seems to us is not the real world, but only an image or copy of the real world. Socrates spoke of forms in formulating a solution to the problem of universals. The forms, according to Socrates, are roughly speaking archetypes or abstract representations of the many types of things, and properties we feel and see around us, that can only be perceived by reason in Greek: ÃŽ »ÃŽ ¿ÃŽ ³ÃŽ ¹ÃŽ ºÃŽ ® that is, they are universals. In other words, Socrates sometimes seems to recognise two worlds: the Apparent world, which constantly changes, and an unchanging and unseen world of forms, which may be a cause of what is apparent. This theory is proposed in different ways in Blake’s, Coleridge’s Shelley’s extracts. The former says that â€Å"This world of Imagination is the world of Eternity† (A Vision of the Last Judgement, 1810) a place which resembles to a sort of otherworldly realm where â€Å"Exist [] the Permanent Realities of Every Thing (the Form) which we see reflected in this Vegetable Glass of Nature (the Apparent world)†. A similar thing is exposed by Samuel Coleridge an english romantic poet who divides Imagination in Primary and Secondary. The former is â€Å"the living Power and prime Agent of all human Perception, and as a repetition in the finite mind of the eternal act of creation in the infinite†, the latter is an echo of the former who â€Å"dissolves, diffuses, dissipates, in order to re-create† (Biographia Literaria, 1817) a thing which is totally different from Fancy. Even in Shelley the poetry is presented as â€Å"something of divine [] not like reasoning† (A Defence of Poetry, 1821) which beholds as the poet, the present, the past, and the future. In Keats and Wordsworth the poetry became â€Å"the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings [originating] from emotion recollected in tranquillity† (Preface to Lyrical Ballads) and the poet â€Å"the most unpoetical of any thing in existence; because he has no Identity† (A Letter to Richard Woodhouse, October 27th 1818). So Art is imitation, a feature of both of Platos theories. In the Republic, Plato says that art imitates the objects and events of ordinary life. In other words, a work of art is a copy of a copy of a Form. It is even more of an illusion than is ordinary experience. On this theory, works of art are at best entertainment, and at worst a delusion. This theory actually appears in Platos short early dialogue, the Ion. Socrates is questioning a poet named Ion, who recites Homers poetry brilliantly but is no good at reciting anything else. Socrates is puzzled by this; it seems to him that if Ion has an art, or skill, of reciting poetry he should be able to apply his skilled knowledge to other poets as well. He concludes that Ion doesnt really possess skilled knowledge. Rather, when he recites Homer, he must be inspired by a god. The Ion drips with sarcasm. Plato didnt take the art by divine inspiration theory very seriously. But many ancient, medieval, and modern artists and aestheticians have found it irresistible.

The Flea John Donne Analysis

The Flea John Donne Analysis Born in 1572, John Donne was an English poet and perhaps one of the best metaphysical poets of his era. His works are notable for their realistic style and include sonnets and love poetry. One of his most famous piece of work is The Flea. Historians are yet to determine the exact time this poem was written, but as a posthumous publication, it was published in the year 1633. One must remember the time this poem was composed, the behavior of people was a very conservative one therefore, using conceit to woo the girl, and he tries to break the barriers. The theme of the poem is disguised in the form of a simple insect such as the flea representing lust and seductive desires. A very avid theme of poetic conceit is used in the duration of this poem. This method is used as an extended metaphor, in this case the flea itself. It is indeed a very humorous method of extending the metaphor to add life to the poem. The guy is asking the girl present to observe a flea in their presence, and is almost imploring her to think how little is what he asks from her. This is one of the best examples used in this work of poetic conceit. He has compared the flea and the blood within it to them being as good as married. The flea has sucked his blood and hers, therefore coming to the conclusion, that, the flea consists of both of their bloods mingled in it. He is very suggestive in implying they are almost more than married. In the olden days, making love amongst two lovers was considered mingling their bloods, they would have to be one flesh before they could do the deed. So, when he refers to the flee having their bloods mingled already, he implies there is no reason for her to say no to him. He draws her attention to the fact that now that their bloods are already mingled and mixed, giving herself to him would not be considered as a shame or a sin or loss of her virginity as they are already one entity. He feels that the flea has joined them in such a manner, And this, alas! Is more than we would do. In the next stanza of the poem, as the story progresses, it seems the girl wishes to kill the flea, and the boy stops her by saying O Stay where hes asked her to stop, as he tries to convince her that this flea not only contains its own life, but also theirs. Clare Middleton from the English Review has made an interesting observation regarding his behavior towards women saying, This speaker excels in dazzling his female conquests with his wit and intelligence. In The Flea, his argument that the woman should submit sexually to him twists and turns in response to her unheard words and unseen actions. He claims initially that the flea represents the tiny moral decision facing her (How little that which thou denyst me is) and then quickly adopts a less flippant tone, suggesting that the flea in fact represents the great sanctity of their sexual contract, because were met/and cloistered in these living walls of jet. When the woman confounds him by killing the flea, its insignificance, which is implicit in her Cruel and sudden act, is the cue for the final twist of his argument: Just so much honor, when thou yieldst to me,/Will waste, as this fleas death took life from thee. From a female point of view, the wittily blasphemous argument is impressive not so much for its details as for its persistence. The phallic imagery of the flea, which pampered, swells with on e blood made of two, implies that the amount of intellectual energy expended in the pursuit is directly proportionate to the physical efforts that might follow the womans capitulation. It may not be politically correct, but it is highly erotic. (Middleton) Once again, using the idea of conceit, he describes in a very metaphysical manner the connection they have with each other using the flea as a center that is holding their lives within it. He tries to woo her on by saying the flea is like their marriage bed and marriage temple, in which their relationship is sanctified and nothing is wrong with it. He hopes she thinks that due to using that as a metaphor, she feels the purity of the deed he wishes to commit and does not look at it as a sin or matter of shame. He extends the flea from just being the institution of the marriage to it now being their marriage bed or marriage temple. Wisam, in The Explicator published in Washington has expanded on this by stating, Donne fundamentally probes the dominant, male sexuality that the text appears to be pushing the woman toward. In fact, the male speaker in the poem assumes the position of the woman seduced rather than that of the invading flea, whose conduct provides a medium for his contention. The male speaker declares that he is sucked [] first (3), and the ambiguity of this in line 5 implies that what cannot be said / A sin, or shame refers to some extant to the speakers experiencing pleasure by that sucking. Mansour, Wisam. The Explicator. v. 65 no1 (Fall 2006) p. 7-9 Very cleverly he plays with words where he says, And cloisterd in these living walls of jet. Jet, is a deep glossy black stone. In this case, he is referring to the color of the flea. He generates strong imagery in this line, by comparing a lifeless black stone with the living walls. She moves to kill the flea, and he aptly implies she would be killing him and additionally herself. He refers to her killing herself as suicide and mentions sacrilege if she were to do it, as she would be committing 3 sins at one go, taking his life, committing suicide and killing the flea. Donne has used a lot of symbolism in the entirety of the poem. Throughout the poem, hes used the flea as a symbol of their togetherness, and expands on it being their marriage bed. He alludes to the symbolism of the Holy Trinity when he talks about three things in one body. One of the very interesting modes of symbolism he has used is blood, particularly in the last stanza. Blood symbolizes life and Donne has used it to symbolize erotic passion and religious devotion. In the last stanza, she crushes the fly, not paying any heed or attention to his advances on her. He has already mentioned blood of theirs being intermingled in the body of the flea, representing them being one flesh. He admonishes her and asks her regarding the sin the poor flee had committed other than the fact that the flea just sucked a little blood from them. It is worth mentioning here the role of the female in this poem. Her objections are never noted, just reacted to, and she makes a very powerful yet non-verbal statement by crushing the flea. Very interestingly the reader can see the conceits in which he first tries to show the flea being greater than the church, the sacred relationship between a man and woman and then slowly showing the church and the relationship being greater than just a mere flea. He has realized that she has not fallen for his arguments; therefore he changes tactic and his argument therein. He carries his conceit through, now giving her no reason not to sleep with him, he argues that killing the flea was an easy thing, as she shows it did not harm them, he claims then yielding to him would have just been as easy and painless as killing the flea. To summarize, this work is a metaphysical play with words, wherein themes such as lust, religious imagery, and playful nature are being used. Donne has used words which allude to spiritual aspects of living in that era which give more than one view on what he is actually trying to say. In conclusion, the poem uses a lot of religious imagery as it helps add a sort of authority to the poem, as Donne has shown and argued that what they were about to do was not only supported by religion and God, but not doing it would be sacrilege too. The method of poetic conceit was used very cleverly to extend the flea to have many different meanings to it and add more color and humor to it. Kerins, in another Journal talking about The Flea makes an interesting observation, Donne was the first to have the flea bite both him and his mistress, thus making it a symbol not of the lovers desire but of the desired union {The Elegies . . . , 174). The flea becomes a union symbol because in its mingling of bloods it symbolizes the mingling of bloods thought to take place during coition (cf. Gardner, 175).

Motif of Blood in Shakespeares Macbeth :: GCSE English Literature Coursework

Motif of Blood in Macbeth Shakespeare In William Shakespeare’s Macbeth, the motif of blood plays an important factor in the framework of the theme.   A motif is a methodical approach to uncover the true meaning of the play.   Macbeth, the main character in the play, thinks he can unjustly advance to the title of king without any variation of his honest self.   The blood on Macbeth’s hands illustrates the guilt he must carry after plotting against King Duncan and yearning for his crown.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Shakespeare used the image of blood to portray the central idea of Macbeth, King Duncan’s murder.   The crime is foreshadowed in the second scene of the first act.   The king shouts, â€Å" What bloody man is that?† (I,ii,1)   He is referring to a soldier coming in from battle.   The soldier then explains to King Duncan of Macbeth’s heroics in battle.   One assumes that Macbeth is bloody just like the soldier.   The soldier describes Macbeth in action â€Å"Disdaining Fortune, with his brandished steel, / Which smoked with bloody execution.† (I,ii,17-18)   This line connects Macbeth with killing, and hints at the future.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   The evil deed of murdering the king becomes too much of a burden on the Macbeths.   The blood represents their crime, and they can not escape the sin of their actions.   Macbeth realizes that in time he would get what he deserves.   Since he can not ride himself of his guilt by washing the blood away, his fate may have been sealed.   They   try to use water for vindication, but Macbeth says that all the water in the ocean could not cleanse his hands.   He imagines the blood from the murder staining the ocean red.   Lady   Macbeth differs from her husband in this aspect.   She believes her conscience would be cleansed at the time her hands are physically cleaned.   She tells her husband to have the same beliefs as she or he would be driven to insanity.   Ironically, Lady Macbeth is the one that is driven to the brink of lunacy as she commits suicide at the end of the tragedy.     The image and scent of blood symbolizes the unending guilt of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth.   The blood on their hands represents the inability to annul the murder from their memories.   While sleepwalking, Lady Macbeth was aggravated with own hands.   She was seen muttering, â€Å"Out damned spot! Out, I say!† (V,I,39)   This proves that her evil deed in still on her conscience.

Analyzing Macbeth According To The 7 Habits Of Highly Effective Teens :: Stephen Covey, Seven Habits

In reading William Shakespeare's play, MacBeth, readers can plainly see that character development is crucial to developing the plot, as well as the overall appeal of the literature. One can see the growth in Macbeth and Lady Macbeth throughout the story. The changes in the characters' personas is very much visible to the reader throughout the storyline. In analyzing MacBeth, one can use Sean Covey's insightful book, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Teens, to show the seven characteristics, as Covey describes them, show the changes in Macbeth and Lady Macbeth.To teach one's self a lesson in changes of character, one should read up on the character Macbeth. This man made a turn from a, more or less, flat character in the beginning of the story to a much rounder character with many complex parts of a personality by the time the story was over. But the common denominator within his character in all parts of the story was that, despite his stature as a "good guy" or a "bad guy", Macbeth exhibited absolutely no good qualities as shown in Seven Habits. When the witches foretold of his destiny, Macbeth did not Begin with the End in Mind. Hewas not proactive in helping his destiny come to pass, having his wife actually scheme to assassinate King Duncan. He did not follow the habit: "Seek First to Understand, Then to be Understood". He never tried to understand anything. He just followed what his wife told him to do. When he thought that there was a threat to his position he would do anything, included cold-blooded murder, to alleviate the strain in his deranged mind. Even those close to him such as Banquo and others were killed just because of MacBeth's reactive nature. This is definitely a sign of a man with a win-lose paradigm. It was his way or the highway. MacBeth also had bad habits, such as being a procrastinator, waiting for Lady MacBeth to come up with a plan before he thought about the consequences. On the other hand, Lady MacBeth exhibited some positive habits during the story. When she found out of MacBeth's destiny to become Thane of Glamis, Thane of Codor, and ultimately, king, she took initiative in planning out the king's untimely murder. She cunningly planned and plotted, all for the straight-forward reason of her husband being able to assume the throne as king.

Music, Truth, Profundity :: Philosophy Art Papers

Music, Truth, Profundity PART I 1. Theme One of my long-standing philosophical ‘worries’ is what I describe as a ‘cognitive dilemma’ in relation to musical communication. How can an art form which lacks a discursive element and addresses itself primarily and indeed immediately to the auditory sense, be discerned as conveying ‘truth’ or ‘profundity’? The power is amply attested — so much so that alone among the arts music occasionally figures as a ‘surrogate religion’. The pieces of this kaleidoscope — ideas culled from Schopenhauer, Langer, Jung and others — did not fall together until recently after reading Peter Kivy’s Music Alone, an account of his quest for musical profundity which ends (as he confessed) in failure, but from whose dissection of the presuppositions I gained a platform for a synthesis of my own. In this essay the key concepts of an embryonal theory are presented as a quasi ‘abstract’ of the 19K draught which comprises its first formulation. 2. Sense and Mind Kivy’s main point is that profundity must be understood as â€Å"treating a subject matter in a profound way†, i.e. discursively. Accordingly the principal means of achieving profundity are verbal, in art the tools of novelists, dramatists and poets. But musicians lack those resources; therefore, as Kivy’s analysis of Bach’s Well-tempered Clavier shows, no further yield than superb craftsmanship results — but how is this distinguishable from the craft of a Fabergà ©? These travails point to an underlying critical malaise, namely the comprehensive prejudice that reason and cognition are inherently discursive: to understand is plainly the ability to describe what one has understood. Therefore his failure to nail down musical profundity amounts to a tacit acknowledgement of the ‘ineffability’ of instrumental masterpieces — resulting in musical ‘truths’ being consigned to its sensory modality or else to a demand for marshalling verbal paraphrase for explicit decoding. My proposition is that both of these are blind alleys. Firstly, verbal analogues foster the illegitimate notion of a ‘residual language component’ (of which more infra). Secondly, sensory cortices are merely the incidental conveyances of communicative values; they are not possible sites for the germination of humanly significant meanings. Consider that speech is necessarily sound before it can be interpreted as utterance and thus belongs to the same sensory modality as music; but from this it follows that discrimination between words-as-sounds and words-as-meanings cannot be the work of the auditory cortex, but only of a mind.

Pretty Little Liars Book Review

ENG2D1-03 22 April 2013 Pretty Little Liars The book I have chosen to do a review on will be on the New York Times best-seller novel written by Sara Shepard Pretty Little Liars. Pretty Little Liars is a drama/mystery book that was released in 2006 and has since then had rave reviews and been produced into a television series that is ongoing. The theme of the book is all about your secrets and how they can come back to haunt you and how they play an important role in your life.I choose to do this book because after watching the spin-off into a television series I was intrigued and curious on how it would differ from the television show. My first impression was â€Å"Wow! This is way better than the TV show† because of the little details added and the mesmerizing words I was baffled and fascinated on how the book would end. In the book Pretty Little Liars there are four main protagonists which are Aria Montgomery, Hanna Marin, Emily Fields, and Spencer Hastings and an antagonist â€Å"A†. This book all revolves around their struggles, love life, and primarily the secrets they have.To begin, I will talk about Aria Montgomery a bohemian hipster that likes vintage clothing and has an artsy personality. Montgomery is a resilient teenage girl because she has gone through the affair of her father and her family issues at home. The author states, â€Å"Before he could answer, Aria shot out of the car, blood rushing in her eyes. How was she supposed to be Icelandic Aria, who left the past behind, if one of her worst memories of Rosewood kept bubbling to the surface. † (Shepard, 100) Indeed, this quote reflects Aria’s hardship but also fitting in did not come easy for her.For example, Aria was constantly looked at as an unordinary person for her pink highlights and stuffed pig named Pigtunia when she was on adolescent. The author states, â€Å"Not only was she talking to a cute, smart guy about Europe but, this might be the only guy in Rosewoo d who didn’t know her as Aria – the weird friend of the pretty girl who vanished. † (Shepard, 39) Obviously, this quote reflects Aria’s life before she went to Finland and how she’s been forgotten. The second protagonist I will be talking about is Hanna Marin a confident girl that trives to be popular and never go back to how she used to be. Hannah is very insecure about her appearance and struggles with both bulimia and anorexia. For instance, whenever Hanna eats out of impulse she soon regrets it and makes herself feel as if she’s going to morph into her seventh-grade overweight self again. The author states, â€Å"Hanna was amazed how, even though it had been years since she’d done this, everything felt the exact same. Her stomach ached, her pants felt tight, and all she wanted was to be rid of what was inside her. (Shepard, 122) This quote proves Hanna’s struggle with her appearance is real but it did not come from herself it came from Alison’s constant teasing and always wanting to make her proud. For example, Hanna often wishes Alison could have seen how popular and how she’s transformed to today just for self-satisfaction. The author proclaims, â€Å"But the biggest thing Ali missed? Hanna’s makeover, of course – and it was such a bummer she had. † (Shepard, 46) This evidently confirms Hanna’s ambition to make Alison proud as she tries to appear how Alison used to look like.The next protagonist I will be talking about is Spencer Hastings the ambitious, extremely intelligent girl that has a rivalry with her perfect older sister. Spencer is an extremely competitive girl that is willing to do whatever it takes to win. For example, sometimes she will flirt with her sister’s boyfriend and even kiss them just to get back at her sister. The author states, â€Å"She’d merely wanted to flirt – Ian was wasting all his hotness on her plain vanill a, goody-two-shoes sister-so she gave Ian a peck goodbye on the cheek.But when he pressed her up against his passenger door, she didn’t try to run away. † (Shepard, 57) Another thing is Spencer is often quick to jump to conclusion For example, when Andrew Campbell asked her about how she’s doing since Melissa’s home she automatically thought he was the person who wrote her the email â€Å"A†. The author proclaims, â€Å"What if†¦ what if Andrew was the one skulking around spying on her? What if Andrew wrote the creepy â€Å"covet† email? Andrew was so competitive it seemed possible. † (Shepard, 144) Thus proving Spencer usually assumes something without looking at the big picture.The last protagonist is Emily Fields a dedicated swimmer that has a kind personality. The author states, â€Å"She was nearly a straight-A, four-time state champion butterflyer and a hyper-obedient daughter. † (Shepard, 100) Emily also tends to wan t things she cannot have (i. e. Maya) her being bisexual was forbidden so they kept quiet and did not say anything. The disappearance and later announced death of Alison impacted her greatly as she found it hard to love again and share her feelings this is Emily’s character.The antagonist of the novel is â€Å"A† an unknown identity that knows all the girls secrets and manipulates them to do whatever they want. With â€Å"A† not only does this person know secrets about the past that only Alison knew but also the present as well. I believe â€Å"A† is very smart because they never leave a trace or clue behind making them very sneaky. For example, when Hanna had got arrested for stealing and also the time she crashed Sean’s car the only person else who knew and was with her was Mona so how did â€Å"A† get a hold of the information.The author states, â€Å"She checked the note’s address again, but it was just a mess of letters and numb ers. † (Shepard, 96) This proves that â€Å"A† is highly intelligent because she makes sure when sending the ‘liars’ a text her name/addressed cannot be traced. These are the characters in the novel Pretty Little Liars. This book takes place in numerous settings in Rosewood Pennsylvania. There is Maya’s former Alison DiLaurentis’ house, the Kahn’s annual party and the AP English class that they are all in. With Alison’s old house Emily reminisces a lot and feels her presence in a way.The author states, â€Å"The first thing she saw when she pulled up to Alison’s old Victorian Home at the top of the leafy street was a huge pile of trash on the curb and a big sign marked, FREE! † This gives us an understanding on how Alison’s old home looked like. *** The main setting is AP English class with Mr. Fitz (Ezra). In here we get a sense of forbidden love between the both of them. For example, even though they cannot be together Aria still tries. The author states, â€Å"But this isn’t meant to be, you know? ‘Cause, well, you’re my student. I could get in a lot of trouble.You don’t want me to get in trouble, do you? † (Shepard, 103) I think it was an excellent and professional way of Ezra showing Aria they cannot be together. Although there is tender awkwardness in the atmosphere between her and the class because of â€Å"the fly† incident I think the student –teacher barrier should not go any further. These are the settings in the book and how they affect the characters. Pretty Little Liars is a book that talks about forbidden love but primarily secrecy. It seems like everyone in Rosewood is in love with someone they cannot have. There is Aria and her English teacher Mr.Fitz, Spencer and her sister’s boyfriend Wren, Emily and her bisexual friend Maya, and lastly Hanna and the guy of her dreams Sean who always rejects her. In the beginning of the book it starts off with Alison’s disappearance during a sleepover the summer before eighth grade and jumps three years later to a time where the girls have grown apart and live their separate lives. Alison was friends with the exclusive group of girls she was vindictive, manipulative and what you would call the â€Å"queen-bee† of the pack. Before the disappearance, of their beloved friend the ‘liars’ lives were oh so different.Aria was known as the â€Å"odd-ball† of Rosewood, Emily was still a passionate swimmer but had at the time secret feelings for Alison, Hanna was an overweight nerd that strived to be like Alison, and Spencer was still the over-achieve but was the only brave enough to stand up to Alison. The ‘liars’ are a junior in high school now and the disappearance of their old friend has been forgotten about. Suddenly all of the ‘liars’ begin receiving text messages from â€Å"A† an anonymous perso n that knows all of their secrets and stuff from the past.