Classic Pen Company Case

A VOTRE SANTE: PRODUCT COSTING AND DECISION ANALYSIS IN THE WINE INDUSTRY Priscilla S. Wisner Department of Accounting and Information Management College of Business University of Tennessee 638 Stokely Management Center Knoxville, TN 37996 Phone: 865. 974. 1714 Email: [email  protected] edu Case: A Votre Sante Page 1 of 17 Electronic copy available at: http://ssrn. com/abstract=1659912 BACKGROUND A Votre Sante (AVS) is a small, independent winery owned by Kay Aproveche. Kay has a relationship with a grower who grows two types of wine grapes, a Chardonnay and a generic white grape.AVS buys the grapes at the point that they have ripened on the vine. AVS is responsible for harvesting the grapes and all further processing of the grapes into wine. In 2010, AVS earned an operating margin of almost $100,000 on sales of $848,000, for an 11. 6% margin (see Exhibit 1). The process of winemaking is fairly simple, yet requires much attention to process details. After the grapes are harvested, they are brought to the winery for washing and crushing. The crushing process separates the juice from the pulp, skin and stems.The juice is used to make the wine; the pulp, skin and stems are recycled back onto the fields whenever possible or otherwise disposed of. The amount of wine generated from the grapes is dependent each year on a number of climatic and growing factors such as temperature, length of growing season, rootstock and fertilizers used. Once the juice is extracted, it moves into the fermenting process. The Chardonnay wine grape is fermented using oak barrels; the oak in the barrels gives flavor to the Chardonnay wine.The barrels are expensive ($500 each), but are sold after four years for $200 apiece to another smaller winery. The juice fermenting in each barrel results in the production of 40 cases of wine. The generic white grape juices are fermented in a holding tank; a full tank would result in the production of 1,500 cases of wine. The fermenting process takes place in a temperaturecontrolled environment; however, each fermenting method results in some wine loss through evaporation. Kay Aproveche estimates that theChardonnay will lose approximately 10 percent of its volume through the fermentation process, while the generic white will lose approximately 5 percent of its volume. Harvest takes place in the late summer and early fall months; typically, the time elapsed from harvest to final sale is about 11 months. Case: A Votre Sante Page 2 of 17 Electronic copy available at: http://ssrn. com/abstract=1659912 PRODUCT INFORMATION AVS bottles three wines: a Chardonnay-Estate, a regular Chardonnay and a Blanc de Blanc.Data related to the three wines is as follows: Chardonnay-Estate contains only Chardonnay grapes that are grown for AVS; the expected sales price is $22/bottle. The market demand for Chardonnay-Estate wine is estimated to be 24,000 bottles for 2010. Regular Chardonnay is blended by combining the Chardonnay wine left over after bo ttling the Chardonnay-Estate with the fermented generic wine; the blend mixture is two parts Chardonnay grapes and one part generic grapes. The expected sales price is $16/bottle.Blanc de Blanc wine is made from all remaining generic white grapes; the expected sales price is $11/bottle. All three wines are bottled at AVS using one bottling line. In a typical year, AVS bottles enough Chardonnay-Estate to meet the predicted market demand, then bottles the regular Chardonnay after blending all remaining Chardonnay wine with the necessary amount of generic grapes. The Blanc de Blanc is the last wine to be bottled, using all remaining generic white grapes. Kay again expects the wines from this harvest year to sell out.ADDITIONAL OPERATIONAL AND COST DATA Chardonnay Grapes 2009 harvest – 100,000 pounds purchase price of $85,500 expected loss in volume through fermentation and bottling – 10% Case: A Votre Sante Page 3 of 17 Electronic copy available at: http://ssrn. com/abstr act=1659912 Generic White Grapes 2009 harvest – 60,000 pounds purchase price of $38,500 expected loss in volume through fermentation and bottling – 5% Wine-making Chardonnay grapes are fermented in oak barrels; each barrel results in the production of 40 cases of wine Barrels cost $500 apiece, and can be used for our years and sold for $200 each at the end of four years; assume that you have to purchase all new barrels for the 2009 harvest Generic white grapes are fermented in the holding tank; the tank can hold up to the equivalent of 1,500 cases of wine Bottling Requires 36 pounds of grapes (post-fermenting) for one case (12 bottles) of wine In the bottling process, the wine is put into bottles, with both corks and labels added during this process. The materials cost associated with the bottles, corks and labels are estimated to be $2. 50/bottle. Direct Labor Harvest labor is paid an average of $7. 5 / hour. It is estimated that 80 pounds of grapes can be harvested e ach hour. Crush labor is paid an average of $8. 00/hour. It is estimated that it will take 300 hours to crush the grape harvest. Overhead Expenses Administrative rent and office expenses – Estimated to be $20,000 / year. Depreciation is charged based on the following equipment schedule: Case: A Votre Sante Page 4 of 17 Equipment Tractors Crushers Holding Tank Bottle Lines Cost $15,000 $6,000 $40,000 $10,000 Est. Life 10 years 10 years 20 years 10 years 5 years Other Production Equipment $15,000Indirect Materials – Part of the wine-making process involves introducing yeasts and other additives into the wine to help the fermentation process and to help balance the flavors in the wine. Indirect production materials average $1. 55 per case of wine. Lab expenses – Lab expenses of $8,000 are incurred for lab supplies and equipment. The lab is used by the production supervisor and the wine master to test the grapes and wine at various stages of production. Liquor taxes – AVS is required to pay a liquor excise tax of $3/bottle on every bottle of wine sold.Production office – AVS pays a part-time person to help administer the production function. This person orders supplies, reviews and approves production invoices, and performs other administrative functions. The production office budget is estimated to be a flat rate of $12,000. Sales and related – Kay’s sister, Bebe Cadadia, is paid $30,000/year on a contract basis to sell AVS wines. She works through distributors, who are paid $2/bottle for each bottle sold. Supervision – Kay’s brother, Kan Pai, supervises the production of wine from the harvest through the bottling processes. His salary and benefits total $55,000 annually.Case: A Votre Sante Page 5 of 17 Utilities – Utilities costs are incurred primarily to maintain a constant temperature in the fermenting process. These are expected to be $5,500. Waste treatment – After crushing, the pul p, skins and stems that are left over must be disposed of. One-half of the waste can be recycled back onto the fields as a compost material; the other one-half must be disposed of at a landfill dumping cost of $2,000. A winemaster is employed to help formulate and test the wines. This is done on a contract basis; AVS pays the winemaster $5,000 for each type of wine that is formulated.Kay’s role is to manage the AVS business. Her annual salary and benefits total $75,000. CASE QUESTIONS 1. Create a single company-wide contribution margin income statement for AVS that includes each expense category. Also calculate the average revenue and net income for one bottle of wine. (Note: Do not break out the variable or the fixed costs by type of wine. ) 2. Another grower has available 20,000 pounds of Chardonnay grapes from the 2009 harvest. AVS has the opportunity to buy the juice from these grapes (they have already been harvested and crushed).If AVS could blend these grapes with the generic white grapes (using the 2:1 blend formula) to produce a new Chardonnay wine to be priced at $14/bottle, and required a 15% return on sales for this wine, what is the maximum amount that AVS would pay for a pound of grapes? 3. Other than the cost of the grapes, what factors would you consider to support your purchase of the grapes, and what factors would cause you to reject buying the grapes? 4. Kay Aproveche recently read an article about Activity Based Costing (ABC) and is intrigued by the costing methodology.She would like to be able to better assign costs to each of AVS’s products, and has collected the following information about AVS activities. Use this Case: A Votre Sante Page 6 of 17 information, along with the information given in the case, to construct a product cost analysis using ABC. Assume that AVS did not buy the grapes referred to in Question 2. Harvesting activity – The Chardonnay grapes can be harvested at the average rate of 71. 5 pounds/hour, while the generic white grapes are harvested at the rate of 100 pounds/hour.Includes costs related to tractors and harvest labor. Crush activity – Relates to the pounds of grapes crushed. Includes costs of crusher equipment and crush labor. Fermenting Activities – Barrel costs relate to the Chardonnay wines by the percentage of wine used in each wine type. Holding tanks relate to the Blanc de Blanc and the Chardonnay regular wines by the percentage of wine used in each wine type. Lab and Supervision Activities – Kan Pai estimates that these activities are split 60% Chardonnay-Estate, 25% Chardonnay regular and 15% Blanc de Blanc.Other production activities and costs not directly associated with a specific wine – allocate according to the number of bottles produced of each wine. Administrative activities – Allocate according to sales revenues. 5. Write a brief memo to Kay Aproveche that explains what ABC is, and that discusses both the benefits and costs of doing an ABC analysis. What would you recommend to Kay Aproveche regarding the ABC analysis? Case: A Votre Sante Page 7 of 17 Exhibit 1 A Votre Sante Income Statement – 2010Sales Chardonnay – Estate Chardonnay (non-Estate) Blanc de Blanc Total Revenues Product Costs Grapes Bottle, labels, corks Harvest labor Crush Labor Indirect Materials Depreciation Lab expenses Production office Utilities Waste treatment Wine Master Supervisor Barrels Total Product Costs Gross Margin Administrative & Sales Costs Administrative rent & office Liquor taxes Sales commissions Sales manager Administrative salary Total Fixed Costs Operating Margin price $ 22 $ 16 $ 11 # bottles 24,000 $ 9,000 16,000 49,000 $ $ 528,000 144,000 176,000 848,000 124,000 122,500 14,500 2,400 6,329 8,100 8,000 12,000 5,500 2,000 15,000 55,000 4,725 380,054 467,946 $ $ 44. 8% 55. 2% $ $ $ 20,000 147,000 98,000 30,000 75,000 370,000 97,946 11. 6% Case: A Votre Sante Page 8 of 17 TEACHING NOTE: A VOTRE SA NTEThe A Votre Sante (AVS) case is multi-faceted in that it requires students to incorporate operational measures into product costing results, and also to understand cost accounting from a variety of perspectives, such as: Product versus period costs Variable versus fixed costs Activity based costing Relevant costs and opportunity costs Additionally, the case questions require both quantitative and qualitative analyses of the business issues faced by AVS. AVS has been used in a graduate-level managerial accounting class for MBAs, and would be most appropriate for an advanced undergraduate or a graduatelevel accounting or MBA course. The detail in the case is rich enough to support a variety of analyses.Alternative uses could be to have the student construct a cost of goods manufactured statement or a traditional financial statement, both of which reinforce the differences between product and period costs. Students must know the difference between product and period costs to success fully complete the ABC analysis, but they could be made more explicit by requiring the statements. Additionally, alternative decision analysis questions could be developed using the variable and fixed cost structures described in the case. Case question number two is only one example of a potential decision analysis question. The following discussion contains the answers to the questions listed in the case, and does not detail the solutions to alternative questions. Case: A Votre Sante Page 9 of 17Question 1: Contribution Margin Income Statement To develop the contribution margin income statement, you first have to calculate the number of bottles of wine produced by AVS. This number is dependent upon the yield from the grapes. The relevant calculations are as follows: Chardonnay Grapes 100,000 10,000 10% 90,000 Generic Grapes 60,000 3,000 57,000 Yield: Pounds harvested Loss in processing Yield Bottles of wine produced: 5% Chardonnay Estate Regular pounds of grapes: Chardonnay grapes Generic grapes Total pounds of grapes Bottles (3 lb. / bottle) 72,000 72,000 24,000 18,000 9,000 27,000 9,000 Blanc de Blanc 48,000 48,000 16,000 Total 90,000 57,000 49,000The contribution margin income statement (Teaching Note Exhibit 1) is fairly straightforward, with the following concepts / calculations causing the most difficulty: The inclusion of liquor taxes and sales commissions in variable costs: These are both period expenses, but are clearly based upon the number of bottles sold, and therefore are included in the variable costs. Where to include the wine master expense: Since the wine master is paid according to number of blends, not number of bottles, this expense is listed as a fixed cost. Arguably, it could be listed as a variable cost, given that the cost will be based on the number of wines produced.As part of the discussion we will examine the rationale behind listing wine master as a fixed or a variable expense. Barrel expense: The case states that the barrels pro duce the equivalent of 40 cases of wine. A case of wine is post-fermentation/bottling and therefore after the 10% loss has occurred. The Case: A Votre Sante Page 10 of 17 barrels contain the wine at the start of the process. Therefore, there have to be enough barrels to hold all the wine at the beginning of the process, not at the end. This factor results in 63 (62. 5) barrels being required for the harvest1. Question 2: Additional Purchase Opportunity, Quantitative Analysis Case Question 2 asks what is the maximum amount that AVS would pay to buy an additional pound of Chardonnay grapes.There are three parts to calculating this answer: the benefit from the additional Chardonnay wine to be sold, the relevant costs related to producing this wine and the opportunity cost of not producing as much Blanc de Blanc wine. Teaching Note Exhibit 2 displays the calculations relevant to this decision. Chardonnay regular wine requires a 2 to 1 mixture of Chardonnay and Blanc de Blanc wine. There fore, the 18,000 pounds of Chardonnay grapes will be combined with 9,000 pounds of generic grapes. The 27,000 pounds of grapes will result in an additional 9,000 bottles of Chardonnay regular wine being produced. However, it will also result in a 3,000-bottle decrease in the amount of Blanc de Blanc wine produced, since some generic grapes will now be used for the Chardonnayregular wine.Question 3: Additional Purchase Opportunity, Qualitative Analysis The following factors would support AVS’s decision to purchase the additional grapes: Potential increase in market share Diversification of suppliers Ability to leverage fixed costs over more production If quality of purchased grape is perceived to be better To block a competitor from buying the grapes 1 Each case of wine requires 36 pounds of grapes (post-fermenting). A barrel holds the equivalent of 40 cases of wine (post-fermenting), or 1,440 pounds of grapes (40 x 36). To convert the post-fermenting grapes to prefermenting g rapes, they must be divided by . 9, or 1,440 / . 9 equals 1,600 pounds of grapes. The harvest of 100,000 pounds of grapes therefore requires 62. 5 barrels for storage (100,000 / 1,600). Case: A Votre Sante Page 11 of 17Ability to focus time and effort on wine making (rather than harvesting and crushing) Creates an incentive for the current grower to control costs The following factors would support AVS’s decision to reject the grape purchase: Poor quality of the grapes An additional AVS Chardonnay wine creates confusion in the marketplace Lack of control over the harvest and crush process Lack of confidence in the additional sales forecast Inability of the current capacity (e. g. bottling line, space) to support additional production Inability to use the additional barrels purchased in future years Cannibalization of the current Chardonnay, Chardonnay-Estate or Blanc de Blanc sales Reliability concerns with the new supplier Other hidden costsQuestion 4: ABC Quantitative Analy sis Teaching Note Exhibit 3 contains the ABC product costing analysis, and shows both the per product line and per unit costs. The ABC outcome demonstrates that the Chardonnay-Estate is the most profitable wine for AVS, the Chardonnay-Regular is marginally profitable, and the Blanc de Blanc is not profitable. While Blanc de Blanc is not profitable, a product-line contribution analysis would need to be completed to determine if Blanc de Blanc has a positive contribution margin, and therefore contributes to covering fixed costs of AVS. Case: A Votre Sante Page 12 of 17 Question 5: ABC Qualitative Analysis The first part of this question asks for an explanation of ABC, and a discussion of the benefits and costs of an ABC analysis.Relevant points are that ABC is a method of assigning costs that first assigns costs to the activities identified in the business, and these costs are assigned to the cost objects (in this case, the three wines) in a manner which reflects each cost object†™s use of the activity. Using ABC to assign costs is especially beneficial where there exists either variation in processes or variations in cost object requirements. It is also useful as a tool to calculate activity or process costs, which can act as a benchmark against which to judge future improvements. A well-defined ABC cost allocation will provide more accurate costing information than a less-sophisticated cost allocation system. The costs of ABC are that it is a time-consuming process and it requires a comprehensive knowledge of the entire operation to successfully complete.For a small company such as AVS, software costs would be minimal; the ABC system could easily be constructed using a spreadsheet program. After looking at the results of the ABC analysis, it is clear that the Chardonnay-Estate wine is driving the profitability of AVS. The Blanc de Blanc is the poorest performer; recommendations to Kay Aproveche would be to explore both pricing and cost control opportunit ies for the Blanc de Blanc wine. One â€Å"rule of thumb† used in the wine industry is that the price of a bottle of wine is approximately related to the cost of a ton of grapes by a factor of 100 to 1. If you multiply the $11 price per bottle by 100, the result is $1,100.AVS pays $1,283 for a ton of generic grapes, which suggests that AVS is not receiving enough value for Blanc de Blanc wine relative to the price of the grapes. Perhaps AVS is paying too much for this grape, or they are underpricing the wine. The answer to this cannot be fathomed by data in the case, and is subject to many other variables (such as strength of the harvest and strength of the wine market); however, it is mentioned here as performance measure that is used in the industry. Although some students will suggest that AVS discontinue producing Blanc de Blanc, because it has a Case: A Votre Sante Page 13 of 17 positive contribution margin it would not be to AVS’s benefit to discontinue this wine without having a better substitue.Looking at the line item costs, students should note that the costs for bottles, labels and corks are the same for each of the wines, which may not be correct or appropriate. Students should question whether this makes sense, and note that AVS might decrease costs in the Blanc de Blanc line by buying lower-priced bottles, labels and corks. Another interesting piece of information from the cost analysis is the Wine Master cost and how large it is on a per-unit basis when the number of bottles is low. This helps demonstrate to the students how volume creates economies of scale, and often leads into a discussion about how to expand product lines without incurring additional fixed costs, especially when initial volume is expected to be low.Summary The AVS case is based upon actual wine industry data, although the data has been simplified to reinforce the teaching points and concepts. It is also true to the wine making process, with the exception of AVS ’s process of making the Chardonnay regular wine from the fermented Chardonnay and Blanc de Blanc wines. This can be done, but most commonly the juice from the wine grapes is combined at the start of the fermenting process, so that they can ferment together. Because of the different yield rates in the fermenting process, the case had the wines ferment separately and blend at the end. The case can be taught in a 75-minute class, or by omitting the decision analysis question 50 minutes would be sufficient.I have also used it to teach the differences between the financial income statement reporting (product and period costs) and the contribution margin income statement reporting (variable and fixed costs), and then assigned decision analysis and/or the ABC costing as an additional assignment. Case: A Votre Sante Page 14 of 17 Teaching Note Exhibit 1: Contribution Margin Income Statement Sales Chardonnay Chardonnay – Estate Blanc de Blanc Total Revenues Variable costs Grap es Bottle, labels, corks Harvest labor Crush Labor Indirect Materials Liquor taxes Sales Barrels Total Variable Costs Contribution Margin Fixed Costs Administrative rent & office Depreciation Lab expenses Production office Sales Supervisor Utilities Waste treatment Wine Master Administrative salary Total Fixed Costs Operating Margin price $ 22 $ 16 $ 11 # bottles 24,000 $ 9,000 16,000 49,000 $ 528,000 144,000 176,000 848,000 avg. revenue per bottle: $ 17. 1 $ 124,000 122,500 14,500 2,400 6,329 147,000 98,000 4,725 519,454 328,546 61. 3% 38. 7% $85,500 + 38,500 # bottles x $2. 50 2,000 hours x $7. 25/hour 300 hours x $8/hour # bottles x 1. 55/12 $3/bottle $2/bottle 63 barrels x $300/4 years $ $ $ 20,000 8,100 8,000 12,000 30,000 55,000 5,500 2,000 15,000 75,000 230,600 97,946 11. 6% $ 2. 00 per bottle $ $ Case: A Votre Sante Page 15 of 17 Teaching Note Exhibit 2: Decision Analysis, Additional Grape Purchase Yield Chardonnay grapes 20,000 2,000 18,000 9,000 pounds loss (10%) yield 2 p ounds of Chardonnay grapes per bottle (along with 1 pound of generic grapes) 9000 bottles @ $14 / bottle bottlesAdditional Chardonnay Product Line Revenue: $ 126,000 Costs: generic grapes $ 6,079 bottles, labels, corks 22,500 indirect material 1,163 liquor taxes 27,000 sales distribution 18,000 barrels 975 wine master 5,000 Total costs: $ 80,716 Gain from new Chardonnay $ 45,284 Lost Sales of Blanc de Blanc Wine Revenue: $ 33,000 Costs: generic grapes $ 6,079 bottles, labels, corks 7,500 indirect material 388 liquor taxes 9,000 sales distribution 6,000 Total costs: $ 28,966 Lost Contribution Margin $ 4,034 Net Impact Required Return Total Net Benefit Pounds of Grapes Maximum Price $ $ 41,250 $ 18,900 $ 22,350 20,000 1. 12 9000 pounds x. 6754 / pound $2. 50 / bottle $1. 55 / case $3 / bottle $2 / bottle 20,000 pounds / 1, 600 each blend 3000 bottles @ $11 / bottle 9000 pounds x. 6754 / pound $2. 50 / bottle $1. 55 / case $3 / bottle $2 / bottle 15% per poundCase: A Votre Sante Page 1 6 of 17 Teaching Note Exhibit 3: Activity Based Costing Income Statement C – Estate Sales Revenue Driver Grapes pounds of grapes Bottle, labels, corks # bottles Harvest labor harvest labor hours 1 Tractor Depreciation harvest labor hours 1 Crush Labor pounds of grape crushed2 Crush Equip. Depr. pounds of grape crushed2 Indirect Materials # bottles Lab and Supervision # bottles Liquor taxes # bottles Sales # bottles Wine Master # blends Barrels percentage of wine3 Holding Tank percentage of wine4 Other Production Expenses Depreciation # bottles Prod. Office # bottles Utilities # bottles Waste treatment # bottles Administrative Expenses Admin.Salary % of sales revenue Admin rent & office % of sales revenue Sales % of sales revenue # bottles rev. /bottle 24,000 22 $ 528,000 68,400 60,000 8,117 840 1,200 300 3,100 37,800 72,000 48,000 5,000 3,780 308,537 1,959 5,878 2,694 980 11,510 46,698 12,453 18,679 77,830 Total Expenses Operating Margin 397,877 $ 130,123 24. 6% $ $ product l ine data C – Reg. B de B 9,000 16 144,000 23,180 22,500 2,717 281 442 111 1,163 15,750 27,000 18,000 5,000 945 316 117,403 735 2,204 1,010 367 4,316 12,736 3,396 5,094 21,226 142,946 1,054 0. 7% $ $ 16,000 11 176,000 32,421 40,000 3,666 379 758 189 2,067 9,450 48,000 32,000 5,000 1,684 175,614 1,306 3,918 1,796 653 7,673 15,566 4,151 6,226 25,943 209,231 (33,231) -18. % $ Total 49,000 $ 848,000 124,000 122,500 14,500 1,500 2,400 600 6,329 63,000 147,000 98,000 15,000 4,725 2,000 601,554 4,000 12,000 5,500 2,000 23,500 75,000 20,000 30,000 125,000 750,054 97,946 11. 6% $ $ 22. 00 $ 16. 00 $ 11. 00 2. 85 2. 50 0. 34 0. 03 0. 05 0. 01 0. 13 1. 58 3. 00 2. 00 0. 21 0. 16 0. 00 12. 86 0. 08 0. 24 0. 11 0. 04 0. 48 1. 95 0. 52 0. 78 3. 24 16. 58 5. 42 $ 24. 6% 2. 58 2. 50 0. 30 0. 03 0. 05 0. 01 0. 13 1. 75 3. 00 2. 00 0. 56 0. 11 0. 04 13. 04 0. 08 0. 24 0. 11 0. 04 0. 48 1. 42 0. 38 0. 57 2. 36 15. 88 0. 12 $ 0. 7% 2. 03 2. 50 0. 23 0. 02 0. 05 0. 01 0. 13 0. 59 3. 00 2. 00 0. 31 0. 00 0. 11 10. 98 0. 08 0. 24 0. 11 0. 04 0. 48 0. 97 0. 26 0. 39 1. 62 13. 08 (2. 08) -18. 9% per-unit data C – Estate C – Reg. B de B Case: A Votre Sante Page 17 of 17

Nature Writing, and the Problem of Canonical Elision Essay

The research paper is quite possibly the most common assignment in English courses at CGU. For tips on how to approach your research papers, see our brochure on Writing in English Courses. The Paper| The struggle now being waged in the professoriate over which writers deserve canonical status is not just a struggle over the relative merits of literary geniuses; it is a struggle among contending factions for the right to be represented in the picture America draws of itself. (Tompkins 201) In 1850, with the help of her well-known father, James Fenimore Cooper, Susan Fenimore Cooper publishedRural Hours, a natural historical account of one year in the Otsego Lake area of New York state. I mention her father’s name in order to situate Susan Fenimore Cooper in literary history, or, more accurately, to position her book in relation to our understandings of literary history. For truthfully, if literary history were faithful to the developments of, and reactions to, literature of the past, Susan Fenimore Cooper’s name would be well-known to all scholars of nineteenth-century American literature. Her book was immensely popular both in America and abroad; it went through six printings by 1854, the publication year of Thoreau’s Walden. Rural Hours was reissued with a new chapter in 1868, reprinted again in 1876, and then abridged by 199 pages and reissued in 1887. When critics praised Rural Hours1 and the volume sold well, Susan Fenimore Cooper achieved literary fame as a writer of natural history. However, while many of her contemporaries knew her name, most scholars in the 1990s know only of her father. Why this oversight in the construction of literary history?2 In 1968, David Jones, a visitor to the Otsego Lake region in New York, reissued the 1887 edition of Cooper’s book. In his introduction he compares Rural Hours to the canonically established Walden and claims, â€Å"Rural Hours is not, like Walden, a multi-level book† (xxxvii). Instead Cooper’s text, Jones asserts, â€Å"tells us as [well] as a book can†¦how a representative part of the rural northeastern United States looked, sounded,  smelled, and even felt in the middle of the nineteenth century† (xxxvii-viii). Admittedly, portraying a location so fully is no small task, and although Jones intimates that Rural Hours provides enjoyable light reading, he clearly believes that Thoreau’s text far surpasses Cooper’s in its complexity and depth. I want to suggest that Jones’s evaluation of Rural Hours overlooks subtle but important textual intricacies, that Cooper’s text is multi-levelled, and is, in fact, concerned with much more than the local flora and fauna of the Otsego Lake region. One problem in determining the literary value of Rural Hours lies in our inability to classify its genre. The book takes the form of a nonfictional journal, but Rural Hours cannot be classified as autobiography in the traditional sense of one writer imparting the story of his or her life experiences. Cooper portrays her outside world as much as her personal experiences, and she relates her writings to her community more than to her own life. One is tempted to call Rural Hours â€Å"nature writing† and, in fact, her contemporary supporters do classify her text as such, but Cooper’s text does not meet the typical criteria for this genre, either. This is in part because of the imprecision of definitions of nature writing itself. Critics generally agree that nature writing is non-fictional prose in which the writer functions as an observer of the outside world, attempts to represent that outside world in language, and typically, reflects on the process of giving language to the natural world. It is commonly agreed that nature writing also evinces the author’s reflections of his or her individual spiritual growth. Sharon Cameron, in writing about Thoreau, suggests that â€Å"to write about nature is to write about how the mind sees nature, and sometimes about how the mind sees itself† (44). In his recent study of several nature writers, Scott Slovic echoes and expands Cameron’s definition: â€Å"[Nature writers] are not merely, or even primarily, analysts of nature or appreciators of nature–rather, they are students of the human mind† (3). We find, then, that according to our current definitions, â€Å"nature writers† write about their environment, but they also consider their personal relationship to it. Therefore, a writer like Cooper, who concerns herself more directly with her surroundings and less with her personal  reactions to them, somehow does not quite fit the criteria for the genre. How can a book such asRural Hours, rich with observations on the botany, ornithology, and natural history of an area, not be considered nature writing? I submit that we have been trained to read books about the natural world and the human relationship to it in ways that affect our abilities to find value in texts that deviate from the canonical Thoreauvian form–a form based on personal reflections regarding one’s relationship with nature, one’s connection to the community, the difficulties of conveying perceptions through language, and, most importantly, perhaps, the process of forming identity. When contemporary readers realize and examine the expectations that they bring to Rural Hours, and willingly suspend those expectations, thereby allowing the text to reveal its own agenda and voice its own concerns, they will discover that Cooper’s work is rich with insights regarding nineteenth-century America’s social, natural, and historical politics. Rural Hours is not so directly involved in exploring â€Å"how the mind sees nature† or â€Å"how the mind sees itself.† Instead, Cooper concerns herself with the ominous task of giving words to each aspect of her natural surroundings and to exploring the implications of this environment not for herself as an individual, but for her larger community, and ultimately, for the entire nation. We must ask, then, not only if Rural Hours has literary value, but also if we as critics can consider expanding our current conceptions of nature writing to accommodate a book such as Rural Hours. In his attempt to summarize what he considers to be the weaknesses of Cooper’s book, Jones quotes a description of autumn in Rural Hours and uses Cooper’s words to create an analogy concerning her prose: autumn, like Cooper’s prose, is â€Å"variable, changeable, not alike twice in succession, gay and brilliant yesterday, more languid and pale today† (xxxvii). â€Å"As literature,† Jones further explains, â€Å"Rural Hours varies from ‘brilliant’ in one passage to ‘languid and pale’ in another† (xxxvii). Jones offers very little support for this critical assessment of the book and, therefore, I cannot help but wonder why he truly found the narrative to be â€Å"languid and pale.† As we will see, Jones’s explanation for the â€Å"weakness of Miss  Cooper’s work† is circular and underdeveloped, and supports the conventional notion that quality nature writing portrays less of nature, and more of the author’s engagement with the natural world. Further examination of his criticisms will help to explain the exclusion of Rural Hours from most records of literary history. Jones explains, â€Å"[Cooper] brought realism and vitality to her portrait of rural life by revealing its ‘variable’ and ‘changeable’ nature, to be sure, but the very act produced a major flaw in the book† (xxxvii). Jones here suggests that Cooper’s realistic portrayal of the natural world is the very downfall of her book. However, her narrative dedication to the natural world, to its vitality and constancy, necessitates that portions of the text be purely descriptive. Jones thus seems to contradict himself: the â€Å"one level† at which Cooper’s text is â€Å"unsurpassed,† he asserts, is in its ability to so accurately and faithfully describe the natural world. This strength, however, is also the weakness of the book. Finally, Jones does not define this â€Å"flaw† at all; instead, he proceeds to discuss Thoreau’s Walden. Jones assumes throughout his introduction that Thoreau’s book is far superior to Cooper’s, that readers ofRural Hours will agree with this assessment, and that, therefore, his assessment requires no justification. This method of reasoning also presupposes that Walden and Rural Hours afford the same criteria for judgement, or, that they exhibit similar attempts at representing nature.3 If Cooper and Thoreau actually engage similar projects, this assessment is valid. If, however, these writers differ in their purposes, or represent–and react to–the natural world in distinct ways, then we need to examine these criteria of evaluation. How do we approach a text that attempts to represent the natural world on its own terms? Have we been taught to read texts whose straightforward depiction of the natural world is, seemingly, their main goal?4 If, as Jones suggests, Cooper’s prose remains so loyal to her subject that it is too realistic, and therefore borders on boring, we need to ask how we expect Cooper to represent nature so as to hold our attentions and why her  contemporaries were not also bored by her book. Many questions arise: what are contemporary readers’ expectations of writing that engages the natural world? How do our expectations differ from those of readers in the nineteenth century? Assuming that readers bought and consumed Cooper’s text because they found interest in both its subject matter and its perspective, how does Cooper’s direct conveyance of the natural world reflect her culture’s interests and concerns?5 What is the role of nature in such a text, as opposed to the role of people? How often do we require that a â€Å"realistic† portrayal of nature be replaced by metaphor or symbolism, thereby preventing â€Å"languid and pale† prose? How often do we want to read specifically about nature, and how often are we more interested in exploring the human presence in nature? Finally, is Rural Hours actually poorly written, or boring? Such questions, originating from an attempt to understand the immense success and warm reception of Rural Hours in the mid- to late-nineteenth century, cause us to examine our conceptions of how writers should relate to nature, how their relations should be represented through language, and how we–as readers–should read such texts. Read within our common understandings of nature writing, a conception that stresses writings influenced by the Romantics, Cooper’s prose may seem languid and pale, but if we approach Cooper’s text in other ways, as I will demonstrate, we will discern the richness of Rural Hours. Interest in writing that depicts the environment has increased in recent years. Clearly, texts such as Emerson’s â€Å"Nature† and Thoreau’s Walden have dominated our reading lists, but studies such as Cecelia Tichi’sNew World, New Earth and Annette Kolodny’s The Lay of the Land and The Land Before Her investigate the history of American interest in the environment and invite us to consider a variety of literary forms as important in understanding how Americans have related to their natural environment through the centuries. Tichi states, â€Å"Consistently since the seventeenth century [environmental reform] has formed an integral and important part of our cultural and literary history† (x). American interest in the land infiltrates our earliest documents, as Tichi proves in her study. In early  America, â€Å"the American spirit and the American continent were bonded ideologically,† and arguably continue to be bonded ideologically, albeit in different ways (Tichi ix). Another important study of Americans’ conceptions of the wilderness as reflected in literature is Bernard Rosenthal’s City of Nature. Rosenthal’s study focuses on Cooper’s predecessors and contemporaries, and concludes that two ideas of nature emerge in the writings of the American Romantics. He locates one idea of nature in the conception of wilderness as the space to be assumed by the emerging American city. The second idea of nature concerns the â€Å"new religious myth,† an individual journey into nature for the purpose of establishing what Rosenthal terms â€Å"the city of the self† (27). Put another way, â€Å"two irreconcilable connotations emerged as the most important definitions of the word nature†: one in which â€Å"nature represented commodity being transformed into civilization,† and one in which â€Å"nature became the metaphor for a new spiritual mythology† for the nineteenth-century individual (Rosenthal 31).6 Rosenthal suggests that, during the nineteenth century, the majority of Americans conceived of nature in this first way, and that most of the American Romantic writers worked within the second understanding of nature (71).7 These two conceptions of nature largely inform our readings of nineteenth-century texts that center, in some way, around the natural world. We have been taught not only to conceive of the natural world as a metaphor for our own society, but also to read texts that depict the natural world in terms of what they impart regarding the individual human spirit.8 We therefore approach texts that describe the natural world and that share personal reflections regarding the landscape with the expectation that they will either consider â€Å"the transformation of nature into its purest form, civilization,† or that they will explore nature â€Å"as spiritual place,† as the site of â€Å"an interior journey to a private place† in the spirit (Rosenthal 18), or that the author will attempt both visions of nature. 9 As readers we are taught that while purely descriptive prose may be poetically beautiful, it is boring, contains no metaphor or symbolism, and therefore lacks importance because it does not pertain to individual  spiritual growth. In the words of a colleague, â€Å"We skim over the flowers and birds and pretty things and look for what really happens.† However, what â€Å"really happens† often happens within the descriptive prose that we overlook. In relying on metaphor for our readings of such texts — either the metaphor of nature as civilization or nature as self — we fail to investigate the implications of capturing nature in language or the process by which a writer envisions elements of nature and transforms that vision into linguistic representation. We fail, finally, to ask how this investigation into the natural world functions not only for the individual or for society, but for the natural world itself. At this point, some may accuse me of oversimplifying nature writing; some may argue that metaphor and symbolism are the more complicated ways in which authors employ language, and that to dismiss these linguistic forms is to reduce nature writing to the parroting of knowledge of natural history, or the meaningless naming of colors, sounds, and sights. I am not, however, suggesting that nature writing texts not be considered for their metaphorical value, only that we consider the implications of only considering them in this way. Susan K. Harris makes a similar point in her study of nineteenth-century women’s sentimental novels written between 1840 and 1870: There appears to be an unspoken agreement not to submit nineteenth-century American women’s novels to extended analytical evaluation, largely†¦ because the evaluative modes most of us were taught devalue this literature a priori. (44) While Harris’s study focuses on fictional writings, the implications of her study for the study of nature writing and Susan Fenimore Cooper’s text are multiple and deserving of some attention. Harris finds that the criteria upon which scholars often scrutinize texts in order to determine their literary merit and the methods they employ in â€Å"analyzing† texts disregard important alternative aspects of texts. Harris suggests reading texts through a method she calls â€Å"process analysis,† a method of reading and interpreting a text that â€Å"foregrounds the relationship of the literary critical task to the critic’s stance in her own time† (145) and that considers the public, political and social context from which the  text emerged.10 Harris explains her belief that it is â€Å"important to establish the terms of the debate(s) in which the text participates the positions it takes, and how these positions are embodied in its textual structure† (46).11 Thus, as the language of the text is foregrounded, we look at the text as â€Å"both reactive and creative,† and disregard the traditional concern that the text â€Å"self-consciously embody ‘timeless truths'† (45). A text such as Cooper’s Rural Hours faces many of the obstacles in contemporary criticism that the sentimental novels that interest Harris face, especially when considered as part of the category of writing that has come to be called nature writing. Not only does Cooper’s book adopt a prosaic style that is contrary to those of canonized texts, but her book also forms part of a genre that itself is not very well established in the canon. She is, finally, a woman writing in a denigrated style within in a genre largely ignored by traditional scholarship. As critics have only recently begun to realize, historical and contemporary writers who represent their relationships to their surrounding environments exemplify differing ways of using language, and the linguistic methods these writers employ to represent and conceive of the natural world reflect, in complicated ways, the ideological implications of our cultural conceptions of nature. An understanding of the content of such writings, the issues they raise, and the methods of linguistic construction they employ will enable us, as literary scholars and historians, to realize how our language reflects our attitudes toward the earth, and more pointedly, how such attitudes have determined, prevented, or justified our actions against, and reactions to, the earth. The traditional approaches to such texts consider â€Å"timeless truths† in the forms of metaphors concerning nature as civilization or journeys to nature as journeys to the self. But these views often neglect to consider the author’s interest in the political and social opinions of the time concerning the proper relationship of society and the earth, and how writers in our society throughout history have coded such opinions in language.12 Studies such as Harris’s often center on cultural conceptions of gender in women’s fiction.13 The recent critical focus on issues of gender differentiation has lead contemporary critics to ask if women â€Å"naturally† relate to the outside world differently than men. In keeping with this interest, Annette Kolodny suggested in her 1975 study,The Lay of the Land, â€Å"that women’s writings and linguistic usages have all along been offering us alternate means of expression and perception† (ix) and that an examination of women’s writings on the subject of nature could yield better understandings of American conceptions of the wilderness. Kolodny also states that â€Å"a conscious and determined struggle to formulate for themselves the meaning of their landscape characterizes the writings of nineteenth-century Americans† (Lay of the Land 71). Certainly both Cooper and Thoreau’s texts engage in this struggle, although their engagements take different forms. Although I am not aware of any critical investigations as to whether Cooper’s and Thoreau’s alternative narrative styles are based in gender differences,14 most recent critics of Cooper (of which there are few) do seize on the issue of gender when exploring her text. Unlike Jones, they quickly dismiss Thoreau from their studies, and instead suggest that Cooper’s text presents a representative depiction of woman’s relationship to the natural world in nineteenth-century America.15 The most recent study of Rural Hours appears in Vera Norwood’s Made from This Earth, in which the author devotes a chapter to Susan Fenimore Cooper and her arguable influence on the women nature writers subsequent to her.16 Norwood argues that Cooper represented a â€Å"literary domestic,†17 a woman writer who wrote to deliver the â€Å"scenes and values of middle-class homes to a wide readership† (27). Thus, Norwood suggests, Cooper used the occasion of her book not only to describe her natural surroundings, but also to impart valuable lessons to her readers in a non-threatening manner. Norwood asserts that Cooper turned to nature to discover what nature teaches about the roles of women in the domestic realm.18 For example, Cooper describes robins and praises the mother robin’s dedication to her young, implicitly suggesting that human mothers should emulate the robin’s self-sacrificing nature (Cooper 39-40/Norwood 37-8). Thus, Norwood sees a conversation in Rural Hours, a dialogue that Cooper creates in her text between the  natural and human worlds in which gender roles in nature inform and enlighten gender roles in human society. Finally, Norwood claims that Cooper â€Å"was consumed with understanding what nature suggests about female roles and family responsibilities, and how gender definitions and familial arrangements help people comprehend what they see in nature† (37). Cooper does occasionally focus on gender roles and responsibilities in Rural Hours, but to state that she is â€Å"consumed† with such issues greatly exaggerates her narrative interests. As Norwood points out, Cooper ruminates on the devoted mother robin, but she also, interestingly, refers to the â€Å"voluntary imprisonment† of the mother, and to her â€Å"generous, enduring patience† (Cooper 40). While this patience is clearly â€Å"a noble attribute of parental affection† for Cooper, the scene leaves her somewhat incredulous and stunned by the mother’s consistent, uncomplaining waiting: Cooper admits this is a â€Å"striking instance† of parental devotion (40). While she may advocate human parental devotion, she also recognizes that the natural world is more willingly generous than the human world,19 and that whereas humans can learn from nature, there are also aspects of the natural world beyond human comprehension.20 Interestingly, and perhaps even provocatively, Norwood does not point out that the voluntarily imprisoned mothering robin is accompanied by the â€Å"male† of the â€Å"little family,† who â€Å"occasionally relieves his mate by taking her place awhile† and â€Å"exerts himself to bring her food, and to sing for her amusement† (40). Cooper includes his participation in her description of â€Å"voluntary imprisonment†; his is also a â€Å"striking instance† of parental affection. If Cooper invokes the mother robin as a testament to giving mothering, her invocation of the father bird suggests his necessary assistance around the â€Å"nest.† Ultimately, then, to read Cooper’s text in terms of its interest in gender affords some intriguing insights: Cooper clearly remains within her position as a middle- to upper-class â€Å"lady† throughout her narrative and, just as clearly, seeks confirmation of gender divisions and domestic roles from the natural world.21 These instances, though, are rare in Cooper’s  text. The themes and issues that arise more often in Rural Hours concern the establishment of a national identity and history, and while Cooper does not divorce her gender from the concerns that inform her larger agenda, she also does not encompass her interest in nationalism within explorations of domesticity. Certainly one aspect of Cooper’s desire to explore the natural world in order to formulate a national identity concerns the place of women in society, but to read Rural Hours solely in terms of its attempt to explore the implications of gender roles as exemplified in the natural environment greatly simplifies the complexities and layers of Cooper’s book. I do not wish to suggest that traditional feminist readings of Cooper’s text are unwarranted or unnecessary, nor that such readings will prove unproductive. I do believe, however, that reading Cooper’s book through too narrow a focus is hazardous not only in seeking to establish her in the canon of â€Å"serious† and â€Å"teachable† writers, but also in that such a reading sidesteps many larger cultural issues that her text engages. A critical reading of Cooper’s text should investigate her representations and explorations of gender roles in mid-nineteenth century America as well as her other complex and overt concerns, such as the creation of an American history, the treatment of American Indians, the problems of deforestation, and the religious connotations of the natural world, all of which fall under the rubric, in Cooper’s text, of the establishment of a national identity.22 As Jones points out, the majority of Cooper’s text contains descriptions of her surroundings. Her reflections are not always couched in metaphor, as Jones also suggests, but this does not detract from the value of Cooper’s text, nor does it indicate that Cooper does not entertain significant issues in her writing. Cooper’s descriptions of her surroundings reflect and embody her larger concern for the development of a national identity based in the land. In her view, the establishment of a national identity is linked to individual conceptions of the land, its flora and fauna, its people, and the relationship of the country’s peoples to the land. Cooper depicts the landscape of Otsego Lake, relates the history of the land and  its peoples, and describes the indigenous plants, animals, and waters of the area in an attempt to create an identity of place. The landscape, and the life the land supports, create the identity of this place. Cooper’s â€Å"literature of place†23 serves not only to create a natural identity for the Otsego Lake region, but also to assert the need for a similarly constructed national identity. The creation of a national identity, then, is the â€Å"cultural work† of Cooper’s text; she seeks to locate the â€Å"natural† identity of her new nation. Cooper’s development of this theme — a national identity rooted in the landscape — is subtle and calculated, but a scrupulous reading of Rural Hours reveals the careful construction of Cooper’s text. The opening pages ofRural Hours share observations that reflect the intentions of the book as stated in Cooper’s 1850 preface: The following notes contain, in a journal form, the simple record of those little events which make up the course of the seasons in rural life. In wandering about the fields, . . . one naturally gleans many trifling observations. . . The following pages were written in perfect good faith, all the trifling incidents alluded to having occurred as they are recorded. (Preface) In her first chapter, we read of the coming of spring: snow thaws, buds appear, robins return to the area. These are seemingly â€Å"little events,† â€Å"trifling† in their lack of worldly significance. One almost immediately notices, however, the pride Cooper takes in plants and animals â€Å"peculiar† to her â€Å"native land,† those that are uniquely America’s own. In contrast to the European robin, â€Å"our robin never builds [a nest] on the ground† (21), and the â€Å"pretty† white-bellied swallow, which â€Å"has been confounded with the European martin† is, Cooper assures, â€Å"peculiar to America† (56). Cooper also explains the uniqueness of American plants, complaining that the â€Å"wild natives of the woods† are often crowded out by European plants that were introduced by the colonists and that â€Å"[drive] away the prettier natives† (81).24 In her discussion of autumn in America, Cooper ruminates, â€Å"Had the woods of England been as rich as our own† English writers would  have praised the season in their writings long ago (336). Instead, â€Å"one is led to believe that the American autumn has helped to set the fashions for the sister season of the Old World† (335). American writers’ reflections on the landscape have encouraged English writers to do the same, Cooper suggests. These â€Å"trifling† observations begin to speak together, and we find Cooper asserting the importance of knowing the natural forms indigenous to one’s place. Thus, for Cooper, determining which birds, animals, and plants are native to America, as well as which of these are unknown to Europeans, helps to define the American landscape, and therefore helps to establish a national identity. She takes pride in her land and in its natural wealth. Cooper also mourns the losses that her land incurs, suggesting that any depletion of the natural aspects of a place drastically alter its identity. Like her seemingly innocent cataloging of natural plants and animals indigenous to America, which emerges as a plea for national pride and definition based on the natural world, her repeated lamentings of disappearing or decreasing portions of the natural world emerge as a plea for the preservation of the wilderness. Like Cooper’s gently emerging concern for identifying indigenous plants and animals, Cooper gradually develops this theme of loss throughout her text. â€Å"Little events,† when taken cumulatively, have large implications. Cooper observes wild pigeons in early March, for instance, and recalls a previous season when â€Å"they passed over the valley in†¦ large unbroken flocks several miles in extent succeeding each other.† Then she remarks, â€Å"There have not been so many here since that season† (18). The reader might dismiss this observation due to its early position in her book, but as one progresses through the text and continually comes across this motif of longing for previous times when–somehow–nature was more complete, one realizes that Cooper is truly concerned about the changes taking place in her surroundings. Her concern becomes much more overt, but not until much later in the book.25 Cooper’s seemingly minor concern for the losses of groups of  birds or plants culminates in her consideration of the rapid deforestation occurring in the country.26 She returns to the subject many times throughout the course of Rural Hours and, further along in the book, strongly criticizes people for their careless use of timber: One would think that by this time, when the forest has fallen in all the valleys — when the hills are becoming more bare every day–when timber and fuel are rising in prices, and new uses are found for even indifferent woods–some forethought and care in this respect would be natural in people laying claim to common sense. (213-14) Clearly, Cooper is warning her contemporaries by suggesting that they discontinue the destruction of trees for purposes of fueling their homes. The continual destruction of the forests so radically alters the landscape that Cooper cannot conceive of continued deforestation. She not only seeks to educate her audience regarding the benefits of preservation; she also makes the preservation of the American landscape a moral imperative. This moral duty for national preservation becomes linked to Cooper’s feelings regarding the â€Å"red man,† or Native Americans (93). Again, Cooper subtly portrays this sense of the loss of the indigenous peoples early in Rural Hours. When standing beside a clear running spring, she states, â€Å"one seems naturally to remember the red man; recollections of his vanished race linger there in a more definite form than elsewhere† (93). The rolling, clear water somehow evokes the â€Å"vanished† race: â€Å"yesterday they were here, to-day scarce a vestige of their existence can be pointed out among us† (94). However, later in Rural Hours, Cooper more overtly conveys her feelings regarding the colonists’ treatment of the indigenous peoples, which she finds integral to the colonists’ treatment of the landscape. While viewing a forest grove, she laments: â€Å"It needs but a few short minutes to bring one of these trees to the ground† (193). She reminds her readers that entire generations will come and go in the time that it takes for one of these mature trees to reach such magnificent heights: The stout arm so ready to raise the axe to-day, must grow weak with age, it must drop into the grave; its bone and sinew must crumble into dust long before another tree, tall and great as those, shall have grown from the  cone in our hand (193-94). In the same paragraph, Cooper calls for a reinstitution of wilderness, claiming that the wild deer, the wolf and the bear â€Å"must return from beyond the great lakes,† and then, significantly, that â€Å"the bones of the savage men buried under our feet must arise and move again. . . ere trees like those† ever appear again, so large, so wild (194).27 The mistreatment of Native Americans emerges as a large theme in Cooper’s text. She advocates retaining the names they gave to places and portions of the natural world, partly because of the beauty in â€Å"Indian words,† which â€Å"[unite] both sound and meaning† (484). In the creation of a national identity, Cooper intimates, the power of names is very suggestive: names reveal history and meaning, and the Indians words capture both elements. She argues against re-naming places not only due to the beauty of the Native American’s languages, however, but also because she believes that somehow European-Americans owe the indigenous peoples something. The refrain of loss that resonates throughout Cooper’s text reaches its climax in the following passage. I quote at length to impart Cooper’s passion: There are many reasons for preserving every Indian name which can be accurately placed; generally, they are recommended by their beauty; but even when harsh in sound, they still have a claim to be kept up on account of their historical interest, and their connection with the dialects of the different tribes. A name is all we leave them, let us at least preserve that monument to their memory; as we travel through the country, and pass river after river, lake after lake, we may thus learn how many were the tribes who have melted away before us, whose very existence would have been utterly forgotten but for the word which recalls the name they once bore. (485) As these words suggest, Cooper’s concerns in Rural Hours are far-reaching. Cooper finds little distinction between the establishment of a national identity based in the uniqueness of the land, the preservation of the wilderness, and the maintenance of the influence of indigenous cultures.28 The â€Å"natural† history of this place and its people provide its meaning. These enmeshed issues resonate even more strongly when Cooper places them in accordance with her religious ideals. Although her Christianity by no means permeates the text, its presence offers a cohesion between her many areas of interest. Cooper envisions each and every aspect of the natural world as belonging to part of God’s plan for Americans. For example, while admiring a particularly beautiful sky, Cooper says, At hours like these, the immeasurable goodness, the infinite wisdom of our Heavenly Father, are displayed in so great a degree of condescending tenderness to unworthy, sinful man, as must appear quite incomprehensible- entirely incredible to reason alone–were it not for the recollection of the mercies of past years, the positive proofs of experience†¦.What have the best of us done to merit one such day in a lifetime of follies and failings and sins? (73-74) I do want to stress that these moments are rare in Cooper’s text, that her homilies are short and few, but that they clearly convey her sense of wonder about the natural world.29 She finds value in each aspect of the natural world, and seeks to preserve the world as a testament of her faith in God. While maintaining the Puritan notion that the â€Å"new world† was intended for the colonists to cultivate, and that their duties included imparting Christianity to the Native Americans,30 Cooper also stresses the need to balance the human presence on, and cultivation of, the land with careful preservation of it. She envisions a society that works with the land, not against it, and that creates a national identity based on its intimate knowledge of, and respect for, the natural world. She suggests this balance between humans and nature lightheartedly, saying â€Å"Many birds like a village life; they seem to think man is a very good-natured animal, building chimneys and roofs, planting groves, and digging gardens for their especial benefit† (63). But she also asserts the seriousness of her belief in admiring her village, â€Å"rural and unambitious,† and â€Å"quite in proportion with surrounding objects† (114). Cooper further explains her belief in a â€Å"rural ideal,†31 a sustainable balance between civilization and nature, in an essay collected in The Home  Book of the Picturesque, which was published in 1851: The hand of man generally improves a landscape. The earth has been given to him, and his presence in Eden is natural; he gives life and spirit to the garden. It is only when he endeavors to rise above his true part of laborer and husbandman, when he assumes the character of creator, and piles you up hills, pumps you a river, scatters stones, or sprinkles cascades, that he is apt to fail. Generally the grassy meadow in the valley, the winding road climbing the hill-side, the cheerful village on the bank of the stream, give a higher additional interest to the view; or where there is something amiss in the scene, it is when there is some evident want of judgement, or good sense, or perhaps some proof of selfish avarice, or wastefulness, as when a country is stripped of its wood to fill the pockets or feed the fires of one generation. (82) This interest in creating a national identity based upon a balance of civilization, nature, and the preservation of religious ideologies forms the basic underlying motif in Cooper’s text. While her words often convey seemingly simple observations about her surroundings, Cooper’s linking of the natural world and the human treatment of it with the necessity of establishing a national conception of the proper human relationship to nature forms a complex, intricate portrayal of the myriad concerns of nineteenth-century life. Rural Hours also reveals how issues surrounding the formation of national concepts of environmental treatment were intertwined with the establishment of pride in a new country. Additional readings of Rural Hours will undoubtedly uncover themes and tropes unexplored in the present essay. In order for this to occur, however, we must continually ask ourselves how our preconceptions may prohibit finding value in texts that do not meet established, too often unchallenged, criteria for judgements. One can approach Rural Hours, finally, as a natural history engaged in creating the story of a region and as an attempt to appreciate nature on its own terms: not as a commodity for human use, but as beautiful, powerful, and suggestive of God’s greatness. In writing a balance between humans and nature, Cooper sets an agenda not only for her region, but for the country as a whole. Her text is filled with natural history, but it also expounds upon the concerns of an age in America’s  history. As such, it greatly contributes to our understandings of the human presence on the land. Sample Research Paper for an English Course| [1]. Cunningham offers an overview of critical reactions to Rural Hours (339-40) as do Jones (xvii-xxv) and Norwood (27). BACK [2]. The reading of Cooper’s text that follows, as well as my consideration of issues of literary historiography and canon construction owes much to Jane Tompkins’s work, as suggested by my epigraph, but also to Cathy N. Davidson’s study, Revolution and the Word. There Davidson states, â€Å"The issue here is not that literature provides an inaccurate reflection of history but that no documents can simply be ‘read’ as if they were objective, scientific data produced or preserved as some pure product of a people and the abiding record of their time. The record always suppresses more than it tells. Why, we must ask, are certain records kept in the first place? Why are they saved? The whole process of historiography, the archive itself, must be subjected to rigorous analysis. Who is keeping the records and for what purpose? Who is writing, to whom, and why?† (Revolution 2). These are some of the issues and concerns I will address with regard to Susan Fenimore Cooper and Nature Writing. BACK [3]. In her study, Writing Nature: Henry Thoreau’s Journal, Sharon Cameron considers Thoreau’s attempts at representing nature in his journals, and also contrasts this to Walden. BACK [4]. Obviously, I do not think that Cooper’s and Thoreau’s text engage nature similarly. While both writers reflect upon their surroundings and offer descriptions of elements of the natural world, each writer raises his/her own personal areas for concern. Chapters such as Thoreau’s â€Å"Where I Lived†¦Ã¢â‚¬  and â€Å"Economy† are totally absent from Cooper’s record of days. Sections concerned with environmental peril, such as Cooper’s reflections on the hazards of deforestation, which I will discuss later in this paper, are unparalleled in Thoreau’s text. While certainly some similar criteria exist for comparison, Thoreau’s Walden is finally a philosophical investigation of individual man’s â€Å"economy† and â€Å"wakefulness,† in Thoreau’s sense of those words, and Rural Hours does not concern the individual so much as the nation, or the community. Together, these texts offer interesting insights into different conceptions of the natural world in relation of humankind in mid-nineteenth century  America. BACK [5]. Jane Tompkins writes, â€Å"The text that becomes exceptional in the sense of reaching an exceptionally large audience does so not because of its departure from the ordinary and conventional, but through its embrace of what is most widely shared† (xvi). Like Tompkins, I assume that when many readers buy and read a book, they find value in that book, and that when a book’s success is marked by many reprintings and re-issuings, this reflects a cultural interest in the subject matter and in the implicit concerns of the book. BACK [6]. In both conceptions of nature, there is a religious ideology informing notions of meaning and direction. As Tichi so aptly explores in her New World, New Earth, the colonists conceived of the land as God’s gift to them, and their taming of the wilderness as therefore ordained by God. BACK [7]. Rosenthal states, â€Å"In America, the abstractions called nature came to be defined as the civilization that emerged from the wilderness; for the Romantics, who found their vocabulary in the country they inhabited, nature came to be equated with the civilization of the self, the world of inner vision† (71). He divides European and American Romantic writers in this way, but then admits the difficulty of such a radical division, especially when considering Thoreau’s Walden. Ultimately, Rosenthal suggests, American writers conceived of nature in both ways, as their texts reveal. BACK [8]. It interests me that the books of Cooper’s contemporary writers whom we do read in literature classes — Emerson, Thoreau, and, in a particularly daring syllabus, Margaret Fuller — were not nearly as successful during their lifetimes as Cooper’s. Furthermore, as many recent critics of nature writing note, the writings of these three authors more often concerned the human world than the natural world. What does it mean that readers in the nineteenth century were more interested in Cooper’s more focused portrayal of the natural world than in Thoreau’s symbolic and metaphorical vision of nature? BACK [9]. I do not mean to criticize Rosenthal for instituting these methods of reading texts that portray nature. Most readings of the canonical texts that engage nature maintain his model of two alternative ways of seeing the importance of nature, and I appreciate his clear delineation of these versions. BACK [10]. Another important context in which to examine such a text is in its relation to the literary heritage from which it originates. This seems especially crucial when considering a  text such as Cooper’s, because she was so clearly influenced by the place of literature in American society. Her father concerned himself with establishing a literary history in the country; Susan Cooper was extremely well-read (as her text evidences: see pgs. 220, 226-7, and her numerous references to writers), and the theme of the construction of a written history of America surfaces in Rural Hours. An analysis of Cooper’s thoughts regarding literature and the contribution her text will make to an emerging literary tradition in her country would certainly prove valuable in understanding the cultural interest in creating an American literary heritage. BACK [11]. Jane Tompkins raises very similar questions in her 1985 study, Sensational Designs. Tompkins asserts that contemporary critics often read our modern-day concerns into older texts — â€Å"questions about the self, the body, the possibilities of knowledge, the limits of language† — instead of heeding the text’s own concerns, such as the â€Å"religious beliefs, social practices, and economic and po litical circumstances† that may have influenced the author and her contemporaries. BACK [12]. Harris delineates the critical implications for such an approach; although, again, her focus is nineteenth-century women’s sentimental novels: â€Å"Structure and language, then, are the dual focuses of process analysis. Each demands three levels of study: the first, contextual, places the text within its own time; the second, rhetorical, examines narrator/narratee contracts and the ways in which the text may play with cultural significances; the third, retrospective, searches for traces of changing consciousness, building blocks for an ideologically self-conscious literary history. Together, they offer a paradigm that produces evaluative as well as investigate questions† (59). BACK [13]. Such studies, in addition to Harris’s, include Cathy N. Davidson’s Introduction to her edition of Susanna Rowson’s Charlotte Temple, and Jane Tompkins’s study of Uncle Tom’s Cabin in her book, Sensational Designs. Much contemporary feminist criticism similarly engages issues of cultural definitions and determinations of gender roles. BACK [14]. Critics inevitably mention Thoreau in their analyses of Rural Hours, but they mention his text as a benchmark, as a starting-off point (see Cunningham 341, Jones xxxvii, Norwood 26, and Patterson 2). It is very interesting that Thoreau’s text is used to describe Cooper’s when Cooper’s text preceded his, and her text sold well, whereas his did not. BACK   [15]. For such examinations, see Cunningham and Maddox. Cunningham’s essay is the older of these two (published in 1944), and celebrates Cooper’s prominence in Cooperstown while expressing frustration with Cooper’s â€Å"failure to face the obligations of her talent† (348). Cunningham speculates on reasons why Cooper’s Rural Hours was not followed up with more book-length writings, and suggests that â€Å"neither her immediate family circle nor the century into which she was born gave a woman freedom to develop creative talents† (349-50). Cooper’s family kept a very strict hold on both her personal and business affairs, and family duties perhaps curtailed her writing. Maddox’s study, which appeared in 1988, states that the strongest theme in Cooper’s writing is the American woman’s duty as inheritor and guardian of a legacy left by pioneering males. Woman is keeper of nature, maintainer of harmony and balance between nature and culture, and it is woman’s responsibility to ensure the harmony between the domestic and external realms. BACK [16]. Norwood bases her reading largely on Lucy B. Maddox’s study and focuses on similar motifs in her reading of Cooper’s text. BACK [17]. Norwood credits Mary Kelley with this phrase (Norwood 27). BACK [18]. Norwood’s tone and overall reading of Cooper’s text perplex me, as will become clear in this paper. On this particular point, for instance, Norwood explains Cooper’s conjoining of home and nature in a disparaging comment: â€Å"So, parasol in hand, Susan Cooper sallied forth from her domestic hearth to the gardens and woods of her home to speak to all Americans about their native land, in a voice blending lessons from the woman’s sphere with knowledge garnered from the scientist-naturalists whose company she kept and books she read† (30, emphasis added). Norwood writes to praise Cooper’s text, but moments like this one seem to belittle Cooper’s position and purpose. Furthermore, Cooper did not merely parrot the books she read and the naturalists with whom she spent time; in fact, many of Cooper’s references to other naturalists serve to correct their mistakes and to challenge their previous findings. Finally, Norwood overlooks many of the complexities in Cooper’s text, and perhaps too willingly accepts Lucy B. Maddox’s views o f Cooper’s text. BACK [19]. This remarkably â€Å"generous† quality of the natural world is, I will argue, a recurring theme in Rural Hours. BACK [20]. I will return to this theme in Cooper’s text later in this paper. BACK [21]. The publishing business at this time emphasized  Cooper’s status as a â€Å"lady† in their first editions of the book: Cooper was not named as author, but rather Rural Hours was â€Å"By a Lady.† Norwood considers the implications of the author’s anonymity (Norwood 27). BACK [22]. Hans Huth offers an insightful reading of the role of national identity in writings of this period. BACK [23]. Pamela Regis asserts a tradition of works and writers that comprise this â€Å"literature of place† genre. See her Describing Early America: Bartram, Jefferson, Crevecoeur, and the Rhetoric of Natural History (xii). BACK [24]. William Cronon’s study of the ecology of colonial New England confirms many of Cooper’s observations regarding plant life and also supports and provides reasons for some of her concerns regarding deforestation practices in nineteenth-century A merica. Cronon’s text is an interesting compliment to Cooper’s first-hand depiction of the imperiled landscape. BACK [25]. I cannot help but believe that Cooper intentionally placed this overt cultural criticism late in the book. Readers became engaged with her text, enticed by her â€Å"lady-like† view of Otsego Lake and its community, drawn in by her â€Å"trifling† observations and records of â€Å"little events,† and then Cooper subtly weaves in her threads of cultural criticism, hidden, as it were, between the plants, birds, and trees. Her society could easily overlook any questionable criticisms Cooper made because they were so buried in Cooper’s text. BACK [26]. Cronon also investigates the rapid deforestation occurring at this time in his Changes in the Land (pp. 108-126). BACK [27]. Cooper experiences a similar desire for a return to an earlier, wilder state of the land in her essay, â€Å"A Dissolving View.† In a fantasy, her view of a rolling, but populated, landscape dissolves into wilderness replete with forests. Finally, though, the â€Å"dissolving view† of her title is implicitly, of course, the dissolving wilderness. In a particularly direct passage, Cooper asserts â€Å"Indeed it would seem as if man had no sooner mastered the art of architecture, than he aimed at rivalling the dignity and durability of the works of nature which served as his models† (84). BACK [28]. Cooper clearly supports the indigenous cultures; however, she also reinforces the white man’s â€Å"duty† in â€Å"educating† and â€Å"civilizing† them. â€Å"This general fertility, this blending of the fields of man and his tillage with the woods, the great husbandry of Providence, gives a fine character to the country, which it could not claim when the lonely savage roamed through  wooded valleys. . .† (224). Later, she states, â€Å"The time seems to have come at last when their own eyes are opening to the real good of civilization, the advantages of knowledge, the blessings of Christianity† (181-82). BACK [29]. This devotion to God and his creation also, I believe, helps explain Cooper’s distance from the natural world. She admires the creation, but has no need to participate in the creation of the world. She seeks only to preserve the work of God, to thank him for his giving to her â€Å"despite our. . .unworthiness† (72). BACK [30]. See Tichi for an exploration of many documents from early America, including sermons and letters, that share this view of the continent. BACK [31]. This is Patterson’s phrase for Cooper’s conception of a relationship between human culture and the natural world. BACK Works Cited| Baym, Nina. Woman’s Fiction: A Guide to Novels by and about Women in America, 1820-1870. 2nd. ed. Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1993. Cameron, Sharon. Writing Nature: Henry Thoreau’s Journal. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1985. Cooper, Susan Fenimore. â€Å"A Dissolving View.† in The Home Book of the Picturesque: Or American Scenery, Art, and Literature. Introduction by Motley F. Deakin. Gainesville: Scholars’ Facsimiles & Reprints, 1967. (Facsimile Reproduction) pp. 79- 94. – -. Rural Hours. New York: Putnam, 1850. Cronon, William. Changes in the Land: Indians, Colonists, and the Ecology of New England. New York: Hill and Wang, 1983. Cunningham, Anna K. â€Å"Susan Fenimore Cooper – Child of Genius.† New York History 25 (July 1944): 339-350. Davidson, Cathy N., ed. Introduction to Susanna Rowson’s Charlotte Temple. New York: Oxford University Press, 1986. – -. Revolution and the Word: The Rise of the Novel in America. New York: Oxford U.P., 1986. Emerson, Ralph Waldo. â€Å"Nature.† in Ralph Waldo Emerson’s Essays and Lectures, ed. Joel Porte. New York: Library of America, 1983. Fuller, Margaret. Woman in the Nineteenth Century. With an Introduction by Bernard Rosenthal. New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 1971. Harris, Susan K. â€Å"‘But is it any good?’: Evaluating Nineteenth-Century American Women’s Fiction† American Literature 63:1 (March 1991): 43-61. Huth, Hans. Nature and the American Mind: Three Centuries of Changing Attitudes. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1957. Jones, David. â€Å"Introduction† to Rural Hours by Susan Fenimore Cooper. Syracuse: Syracuse U.P., 1968. xi-xxxviii. Kolodny, Annette. The Land Before Her: Fantasy and Experience of the American Frontier, 1630-1860. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1984. – -. The Lay of the Land: Metaphor as Experience and History in American Life and Letters. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1975. Maddox, Lucy B. â€Å"Susan Fenimore Cooper and the Plain Daughters of America.† American Quarterly 40:2 (1988): 131-146. Norwood, Vera. Made From this Earth: American Women and Nature. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1993. Patterson, Daniel. â€Å"Susan Fenimore Cooper’s Rural Hours and American Nature Writing.† Delivered at the American Literature Association’s Symposium on American Women Writers, San Antonio, Texas, October 1, 1993. Northern Illinois Press, 1992. Regis, Pamela. Describing Early America: Bartram, Jefferson, Crevecoeur, and the Rhetoric of Natural History.Dekalb: Northern Illinois Press, 1992. Rosenthal, Bernard. City of Nature: Journeys to Nature in the Age of American Romanticism. Newark: University of Delaware Press, 1980. Slovic, Scott. Seeking Awareness in American N ature Writing: Henry David Thoreau, Annie Dillard, Edward Addey, Wendell Berry, Barry Lopez. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1992. Thoreau, Henry David. Walden in The Portable Thoreau, ed. Carl Bode. New York: Penguin Books, 1982. Tichi, Cecelia. New World, New Earth: Environmental Reform in American Literature from the Puritans through Whitman. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1979. Tompkins, Jane. Sensational Designs: The Cultural Work of American Fiction, 1790-1860. New York: Oxford University Press, 1985.

Basant as a Cultural Heritage of Lahore Essay Example for Free

Basant as a Cultural Heritage of Lahore Essay Basant as a cultural heritage of Lahore by Yasir Raza Naqvi Lahore is an exceptionally festive city. The people of Lahore commemorate many festivals and events throughout the year, amalgamating Mughal, Western and current trends. This blending is extended to include the grand and historically significant festival of Basant. Though religiously not a Muslim cultural event, it is widely celebrated by the Muslim majority population Lahore. It is precisely due to the same reason coupled with other ‘non-Islamic’ practices that it has come under severe criticism by the mullahs. The celebration of Basant grew at an increasing rate in the late 90’s till 2005 where it suddenly came under ban due to an increasing number of deaths caused by highly tensile glass coated threads. Due to the official recognition during Musharraf’s early regime, kite making had become an industry, employing hundreds of thousands of people. The implementation of ban of kite flying followed by the ban on kite making left almost 500,000 families employed. Political turmoil followed by the ban on Basant added misery to the already crawling economy of Pakistan as the number of tourists who came to Lahore just to see the magnificent event of Basant fell tremendously. Therefore, In this essay, I tend to analyze the tri fold significance that Basant holds for Lahore. I would briefly shed light on the history of Basant and its transformation over the years till today coupled with the criticism it faced by religious elements of Pakistan. I would later explain how Basant becomes the center of tourist attraction, and generates a lot of revenue for the local industry thus securing an important position in translating the cultural heritage of Lahore. I would also seek to mention the reasons for the implementation of ban on Basant and propose solutions to uplift it. In the pre-partitioned Punjab, Hindus, especially of Lahore- celebrated Basant by flying kites. It was precisely during that time that the Muslims of Lahore, almost equal in number-comprising of the 48% of the population of Lahore, were instructed by the mullahs of that time to refrain from celebrating the event as it was typically a Hindu festival. However, the youth of that time did take part in the event by flying kites. After partition, almost all the Hindus had left Lahore for India but their tradition of Basant remained; and even today Lahoris take pride in Basant and fly kites from their rooftops with the same enthusiasm. Being the historic capital of Punjab there is no other place where Basant is elebrated with as much vigour and enthusiasm as the ancient city of Lahore. Traditionally, a festival confined to the old-walled city, it has now spread throughout the city. The celebration of Basant is incomplete without the kites and it is for the same reason that Michael Palin in his book Himalaya says: â€Å"Everyone in Lahore flies their kites for a day. † (Palin) Marshall Cavendish in his book People of Western Asia briefly states about the history of Basant and its celebration in the following words: â€Å"Lahore’s spring festival, Basant (buh-SAHNT): also known as Jashen-e- Baharan), is celebrated in February or March each year. It is an ancient festival that has become increasingly popular in recent years, attracting visitors from other parts of the country. Basant is celebrated with feasting, music, dance and crafts, and the wearing of yellow costumes or scarves, a symbol of the new spring. The most striking feature of the festival is the kite flying. Thousands of kites of all shapes, sizes and colors fill the skies and soar from parks and city roofs. At night, music rings and while white kites are flown, which reflect lights and fireworks. Throughout Pakistan there are local spring fairs with folk dancing; feasting; fairground attractions, such as swings and ferries wheels (sometimes made of wood in rural areas); music; and sporting contests. † (Cavendish) The celebration of this event which includes the spending on the purchase of kites has constantly being termed by the mullahs as un Islamic. In an interesting piece written by Roy McCarthy in The Guardian (17th May 2003), a young woman supporter of the Jamiyat (religious party) is reported as vehemently arguing against Basant. It is not Pakistani culture. Pakistanis don’t need new festivals. The most obnoxious part of the Basant is that it encourages young men and women to dance together and drink alcohol. This is not Islam. This is not Pakistan. This is not part of our civilization. † (The Guardian) The cry by the Jamiyat and other religious parties to impose ban on purely religious grounds, that is, Basant being a Hindu festival and thus unIslamic; therefore it should not be celebrated for the same reason might not be a reasonable argument. Firstly because, Basant is more of an ethnic event and it was celebrated by the Hindus and Muslims (the younger lot) alike by flying kites on Basant day and kite flying is more of a sport in the contemporary world, so the question of kite flying being Islamic or unIslamic does not arise . Secondly, ‘there is no denial to the fact that religion is very important and integral part of the culture of Pakistan but we should remember that cultural traditions are also a cause to celebrate and if nothing else the celebration of Basant can be viewed by the specific gathering of the ethnic group. This is further strengthened by the statement made by Sheikh Saleem, lahori and a local kite maker, â€Å"eid musalmanon ki hoti hai or Basant lahoriyon ki†. Thus it is purely a cultural event and Basant and kite-flying contrary to fundamentalist perceptions had nothing to do with religion. Thirdly, Basant has always been supported by the sufis of the past who were the early preachers of Islam in the subcontinent and were all very close to religion of Islam. However, during times when the state comes under religious influences (MMA had an impressive victory in October 2002), there are efforts to discourage what is, after all, not a religious festival. Pakistan† (Rengel) Sufis of Sub-Continent have a convention of adjusting to the local culture and language of the places they visited to spread Islam. The Chishti sufis, have not only tried to relate to the South Asian culture and music, they even tested and developed different cultural forms. Basant is a living example of religious open-mindedness and respectfulness of other creations of God. Previously, it was these Dargahs and Khaneqahs, which served as basis where people could share equal liberty, message of transparency and oneness. Basant is a tradition initiated eight hundred years ago by the famous poet Amir Khusro. Thus, the sufis of the past, namely Nizamuddin Auliya, Baba Zaheen Shah, Amir Khusro also took part in celebrating the event of Basant through songs. The song sung on Basant commemorates a special event in a saint’s life. Blum and Neuman) Kite-making and kite-flying interdependent on one another spread from the confines of ‘undroon sheher’ across Lahore, and as the city of Lahore expanded, so did the trade. It grew to such a degree that it attracted people from around the world and made Lahore a place of great tourism for Pakistan and a dynamic source of income for its residents. The festival of Basant transformed over the years due to the introduction of kites of different shapes, sizes and colors and as Saeed writes â€Å"Kite Fighting is an integral part of the Basant Kite festival. Saeed) It is precisely this magnificent display of kite flying on Basant day that made Lahore famous and thus it became the center of tourist attraction. People belonging to upper as well as lower economic classes from around the country and beyond packed city hotels for a few days of late-night festivities. Thus, as the celebrations of Basant got bigger and bigger, more and more support started coming in the form of endorsements by the government, and sponsorship and advertisement by multi-nationals in the private sector such as Coca Cola, Pepsi and Nestle. Official statement of District Chief Nazim of Lahore, 2003, Basant had created a business of Rs. 2 to 3 billion in the province and provided lot of opportunities to common people and owners of cottage industries in the country. To some independent estimates overall euphoria of Basant would generate economic activities of Rs. 4 to 4. 5 billion in the province in 2004†. (Khan) Gradually, the event which was once a general celebration of spring became overly competitive and transformed from being a fun sport to a killer sport claiming hundreds of innocent lives. As the nature of Basant changed so did the demand for the kinds of kites needed and thus new models, enormous kites and ‘dors’ toughened with steel wire, chemical and glass to have room for the ‘kite-fighting’ of Basant replaced the traditional kite design, size and thin ‘dors’ that never utilized anything more than starch. These changes are in-fact the root of the present dilemma. â€Å"Kite flying on Basant has taken 505 lives in the last two years. The supreme court of Pakistan has mentioned 45 kite-flying related deaths in city over the last six months and 460 last year†. Zia) The factor that makes this activity even deadlier is that the dangers to human life from this commotion are multi pronged. In simpler words, the group of people affected by this cannot be specified. Actually, it is so large and all-around a group that the risks seem horrendous. Unlike other hazardous sports, the activity of celebrating Basant and more specifical ly more often than not, affects people who are not even slightly related to kite flying. The deaths quoted above are a testament to this argument. A majority of these deaths were of the unfortunate motorcycle riders who couldn’t endure the wounds after the stray strings, used for kite flying, cut open their throats. Then there were deaths due to the distraction caused by these stray strings. Young boys running after and chasing kites also add up to to this very ill-fated club. The number of wounded people and the number of accidents that kite flying on Basant has been causing is alarming to say the least. But the horror doesn’t end here. Many kite flyers were victims themselves; deaths caused by falling off rooftops, electric shocks due to the use of metal strings and obviously they too have the hazard of the stray thread slitting their throats. The killing of innocent people was not the only reason that the government imposed at a ban on basant. The monetary losses caused by kite-flying are astonishing. Fluctuations in the power supply and frequent electricity trippings have become identical with Basant. Pakistan Times show a grim picture: â€Å"As many as 48,173 power trippings were caused by kite flying were recorded in different parts of the provincial metropolis during the first quarter of current fiscal year. † (Pakistan National News Desk). Every year, the Basant days in Lahore are like a mini-blackout. And the people who have to take the toll are the people who have to work through days and nights to ensure that the people get uninterrupted power supply. The sharp strings and metal twangs can cut through the insulation of wires and every day, hundreds of transformers are left burnt and rendered useless. LESCO: â€Å"The losses suffered by LESCO 350 million rupees during the last 4 years ending 2003 out of which a loss of Rs. 20 million was caused in 2002 by metal wires. Moreover, one grid station had been damaged by metal wire every year during this period resulting in a loss of Rs. 8 to Rs. 9 million and the destruction of 210 feeders. † (LESCO) It is estimated that if there are 50 one-hour breakdowns, it costs Rs. 2. 5 million to WAPDA Steel and glass-edged wires are banned but manufacturers still report roaring trade. (Pakistan times†¦) Kite making is traditionally a family enterprise. Behind every kite is the effort of a minimum of six people. The skill is one that they acquire in their ‘virasat’ as Baqir Ali Butt stated. In some ways kite-making has been altered by the changing circumstances of Lahore but in other ways it has stayed the same. It continues to provide employment for men, women and children, including handicapped persons and the incomes of 500, 000 people are dependent upon the trade â€Å"Around 500,000 families, directly related to the kite flying business, have lost their sources of livelihood because of the ban on Basant†¦[†¦] The ban is costing them Rs 200 million annually, and at the same time damaging other businesses that are indirectly related to the festival. They said that the people related to the industry, including kite makers, twine (dor) makers, wholesalers and retailers, had lost their means of earning a living. The cost of the paper used in kite making is estimated at around Rs 90 million and the cost of the twine used for flying kites is estimated at around Rs 40 million. The process of making kites involves around Rs 40 million, said Lahore Kite Flying Association General Secretary Sheikh Muhammad Saleem. â€Å"These were taken two years back. Now the number must have jumped,† he said, adding that 500,000 families had suffered because of the ban. † (Dawn International) (Tasleem) â€Å"The Supreme Court on Friday directed the Punjab police to register and take affidavits from the manufacturers of strings for kite flying in the province that they would not produce metallic and other dangerous strings which play havoc with human lives and power lines during Basant festivities. The National Assembly was recently informed that Wapda lost Rs30. 2 million in revenues due to Basant-related mishaps in the Punjab from 1999 to February 2004. Basant as a Cultural Heritage of Lahore. (2017, Feb 24). We have essays on the following topics that may be of interest to you

Trade dispute Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Trade dispute - Essay Example However, these wholesalers are usually affiliated with manufacturers, who can legally prohibit retailers from selling the products of competitors. Furthermore, because retailing licenses are required and existing merchants can block the granting of new ones, it is difficult to establish large chain stores that would be less reliant upon existing wholesalers and more prices competitive. The system was criticized because the GATT consensus decision-making rules meant that a party could prevent the dispute settlement process from starting and, even if the process was allowed to go forward, a losing party could prevent formal adoption of a decision against it (and losing parties did so more frequently over time). (Robert, 89) Without adoption, the report remained in limbo; it expressed the view of three experts but had no status in GATT. Thus, the dispute remained unresolved. As a result, there was a perception that the GATT system was not adequate. (Busch, and Reinhardt, 163) Moreover, it was believed that cases that should have been resolved in the system were never even brought to it because of this perceived shortcoming. In the Uruguay Round trade negotiations, the United States in particular wanted to improve and strengthen the dispute settlement system. ... In other words, it gives the owner exclusive rights to the idea or product. A patent is filed with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office in Washington D.C. Patents is considered intellectual property rights and is protected by state and federal laws. If the patent is granted, it is usually granted for a period of time, making the product fair game after the period ends. The Federal Patent Statute of 1952, which was enacted by Congress, is â€Å"intended to provide an incentive for inventors to invent and make their inventions public and to protect patented inventions from infringement† (Cheeseman, 323). As with all cases, the loser can appeal the case. In the case of Vonage, if they were to appeal this case, they would do so through the U.S. Court of Appeals. In the patent infringement case of Vonage versus Sprint, a jury trial was held in the Kansas City, Kansas U.S. District Court, the city of Sprint’s headquarters. Federal courts are the ones that hear patent cases, n ot state courts. These courts also have exclusive jurisdiction. Exclusive jurisdiction occurs when only one court holds jurisdiction in the case, in this case it was Kansas City. The Vonage case was considered a civil trial, not a criminal trial because it occurred between two businesses and was not between a business and the government. If the case had been filed by the government, it would have been a criminal case. (Robert, 22) There are many differences between civil and criminal cases. In both cases, civil and criminal, a jury decides the verdict, however with a civil case; the jury does not need to reach a unanimous vote as it does with a criminal trial. With a civil trial the â€Å"judgment for plaintiff requires specific