Thursday, October 31, 2019

Adolf Hitler-World War I and II Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Adolf Hitler-World War I and II - Essay Example He was part of the Bavarian Reserve Infantry Regiment 16, where he was involved in major combats. Hitler is also presented as being responsible for the Second World War (Haugen 7). Adolf Hitler is said to have influenced society, economy, politics, and ideas that are there for the people living today. Hitler’s love for the army majorly influenced how he ruled Germany at the time he was a dictator. He used military styles to rule the country. During WW1, Hitler won many awards for being an exemplary soldier who depicted cold-blooded boldness and courage (Haugen 53). Hitler also influenced major economic activities like agriculture in the sense that he idealized rural life, and saw that cities had a corrupting effect to the people’s minds. He supported the preservation of the peasant class. He also influenced the aviation industry through the creation of the Air Ministry. Previously, aviation was only seen in the United States (Nicholls 16). As Hitler rose to power, he preached murder, violence, and hate. When he was the absolute German leader between the 1930s and 1940s, millions and millions of people died because of his wishes. He lied and encouraged prejudice, ironically winning the support of those who believed him (Roberts 6). Politically, WW2 is said to have been caused by Hitler as a result of his 1930s influence on German politics. Hitler has affected the world and ideas of people today through many things such as the massive loss of life. From an economic perspective, the United States is said to have been led out of depression and into the post war era boom. This has enabled it to remain a superpower ever since (Haugen 7). Socially, Hitler has influenced technological advancements, both to civilians and the military. These include atomic energy, jet engines, and synthetic nylon fibers among others. Hitler’s legacy also led to the realignment of many of the states in the Eastern Bloc. From another

Tuesday, October 29, 2019

The wholesale clothing Industry in the US Essay

The wholesale clothing Industry in the US - Essay Example But as the century approached its midpoint, more and more respectable Americans started to buy their clothes off the rack. This was especially true of men whose clothes were loosely fitted and not subject to the volatility of fashion as that of women (Soyer, 2005). During the 1830s, the textile industry became more established in America and machine-made clothes were made available to average households. The ready-made garment industry marked its beginning in America history in the early eighteenth century. The first clothing factory was established in 1831 in New York City. Ready-made clothing, however, remained a small part of the American garment production which was still dominated by home-made clothing. New York rapidly became the center for ready-made garment trade because of its regular shipping connections with southern states. The Civil War brought in demand for soldier's uniforms and this increased production and led to the introduction of standardized sizes. This period also marked a substantial technical change in the mode of manufacture of garments. Sewing machines were introduced into the manufacturing sector and the shift moved from manual to machine labor. This important technical innovation also paved way for mass production of clothing in the industry. Between 1880 and 1920, over 2 million Jews migrated to America to escape persecution in their home countries and to take advantage of the economic opportunities in America. Their skills as artisans and factory laborers became important assets in their adopted homeland. The sheer concentration of Jewish immigrants within the industry helped shape the American garment industry, especially in New York. From the middle of the nineteenth century to the end of the twentieth, the garment industry was the largest manufacturing industry in New York City. By 1900, Eastern European Jews constituted a majority of both workers and employers within the industry. One of the many accomplishments of the Jewish contractors was the priority given to ethnic ties in the industry, as they hired mostly members from their own community. The Jewish immigrants built the New York based garment business into a billion dollar industry. By 1900, ready-made clothing was within reach of the average working family as well. Distribution was handled through a network of department stores and shops across the country. The stores offered a wide range of goods that catered to a broad spectrum of customers. Special sales, newspaper advertisements and window displays worked to entice customers. Mail order catalogues were introduced to reach customers in small towns (yumuseum.org). Followed closely behind the Jews, in flooding the garment industry, were Italians, especially Italian women. On the one hand, they worked in large, modern shirtwaist factories and on the other, they made up approximately 98 percent of the home workers within the industry (Soyer, 2005). The garment industry also played a crucial role in shaping the American labor movement. Many of the rights taken for granted by workers today were fought for by the garment unions. Concepts of such significance today, such as arbitration and collective bargaining, emerged out of the struggles of the then garment unions (yumuseum.org). By the second decade of the twentieth century, workers formed unions that became powerful forces within the indus

Sunday, October 27, 2019

Steganography: Uses, Methods, Tools and Examples

Steganography: Uses, Methods, Tools and Examples Steganography by Mohammed Almintakh ABSTRACT This paper talks about steganography, steganography is the art or hiding data within a medium without letting others to know about that data is exsisting. I will go through an introduction about it , then explaining the background of it and more information about the uses of this technique , and how organization use it in their own good. This topic surprisingly is new for most of people who read its name , ill try to simplify the idea of this approach as much as possible. 1. Introduction Steganography is the art of hiding a message. The purpose of steganography is to hide a message from a someone you don’t want to see it. It is different than cryptography, the art of secret writing, which is intended to make a message cannot be read , but does not hide the existence of the secret communication. Although steganography differs from cryptography, there are many analogies between the two, and some authors classify steganography as a form of cryptography since hidden communication is a type of secret writing. Steganography works by changing bits of useless or bot used  data in regular computer  files  (such as graphics, sound, text,  HTML) with bits of different, invisible information. This hidden information can be  plain text,  cipher text, or even images. 2. Steganography Background: Information hiding is related to two fields, Steganography and watermarking. There are three main aspects for information hiding, capacity, security, and robustness. Capacity means the amount of information that can be hidden, security refers to the unability of an eavesdropper to detect hidden information, and robustness to the amount of modification the cover medium can resist before the hidden information is corrupted. In general, information hiding goes through these processes: 1. Identification of redundant bits in a cover medium. Redundant bits are those bits that can be edited without taking care of the quality of the cover medium. 2. Then, we select a subset of the redundant bits to be replaced with data from a private message. The stage medium is created by replacing the selected redundant bits with message bits. The modification of redundant bits can change the statistical properties of the cover medium. As a result, statistical analysis may reveal the hidden content. 3. Uses of Steganography Steganography means of storing data in a way that it hides the existence of them. Steganography used to carry out hidden exchanges .For example, Governments are interested in two types of communication of hidden data: first, which supports national security and second, which does not. Steganography support both types, also business have similar concerns, about trade secrets for new technologies or products information. Of course, using steganography to communicate greatly reduces the risk of information leakage. Businesses takes advantage of another form of steganography, called watermarking. Watermarking is mainly used to identify and entails hidden unique part of information within a medium without touching the medium. For example , let’s say that I have design an image , with that image , I have embedded a watermark that identifies me as the one who created this image, later on , when this image is spread with people , I can later identify myself as the creator and I can of course prove that I am the owner of this. This approach is used by companies for the copyrighted digital media a lot for the purpose of protection. Also, steganography enhances the privacy individually, although it is not a substitute for encryption, of course this is effective only if the hidden embedded information is not detected. If the communication is almost never exists, this will becomes so private to be caught. Like many tools, steganography: 1. Steganography can be a way which makes it possible to send news and information without being censored and without the fear of the messages being intercepted and traced back to us. 2. It is also possible to simply use steganography to store information on a location. For example, several information sources like our private banking information, some military secrets, can be stored in a cover source. When we are required to unhide the secret information in our cover source, we can easily reveal our banking data and it will be impossible to prove the existence of the military secrets inside. 3. Steganography can also be used to implement watermarking. Although the concept of watermarking is not necessarily steganography, there are several steganography techniques that are being used to store watermarks in data. The main difference is on intent, while the purpose of steganography is hiding information, watermarking is merely extending the cover source with extra information. Since people will not accept noticeable changes in images, audio or video files because of a watermark, steganography methods can be used to hide this. 4- Steganographic Methods: The formula below describes the process of steganography as discussed above: cover_medium + hidden_data + stego_key = stego_medium The explanation of this formula is, The cover medium refers to the file that we are going to put our information on it. Hidden data obviously is the data we want to keep secret. An encryption advanced which is a choice for us. The result shall be a stego medium , which is the same file as the cover medium. The easiest way to hide the data in an image , is called LSB(least significant bit) insertion. Figure 1: shows a common taxonomy of steganographic techniques. 5. Steganography Tools: A  steganography  software tools allows a user to attach hidden data in a carrier file, such as an image or video, and sometimes it could be an audio , and later take off that data. It is not necessary to hide the message in the original file at all. Thus, it is not necessary to edit the original file and thus, it is hard to detect nothing. If a given part of the message is subjected to successive bitwise manipulation to generate the cyphertext, then there is no evidence in the original file to show that it is being used by a third party. to encrypt a file. An example of this method is described in a self-published science fiction novel. In that example a file is encrypted using a 1949 photo from a digital archive of National Geographic magazine. 6. Steganography Example: There are software that preform steganography, some of well knows programs are : Hide4PGP (http://www.heinz-repp.onlinehome.de/Hide4PGP.htm) MP3Stego (http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~fapp2/steganography/mp3stego/) Stash (http://www.smalleranimals.com/stash.htm) Steganos (http://www.steganos.com/english/steganos/download.htm) S-Tools (available fromhttp://www.webattack.com/download/dlstools.shtml) 7- Describing a tool of Steganography and how it works: Take a look on this picture Figure 2: Stego picture This picture looks ok , nothing suspicious , nothing wrong with it , but in reality it has a hidden message. If you use a software tool to analyze the pictures , this result will come up: Figure 3: QuickStego program Basically , this technique is done by these steps below : Figure 4: Steganography process 8- Deep knowledge of Steganography: Steganography comes from the Greek words for â€Å"covered writing†.It is the practice of disguising the existence of a message.Generally, innocent looking carriers, e.g., pictures, audio, video, text, etc. that hold the hidden information The combination of hidden data-plus-cover is known as the stego-object Stegokey An additional piece of information, such as a password or mathematical variable, required to embed the secret information Typical Scenario Sender Sender Hides Secret Message In a Cover Using a Stegokey Transmitted Carrier Appears Innocuous Receiver Decodes Secret Message by Removing the Cover Using the Stegokey Receiver Reads Secret Message 9.Steganography and Security As noted above , steganography is an effective and efficient way of hiding data, it is just protecting the data from the unauthorized or unwanted interception. But stego is merely one of many methods to defend the confidentiality of data. It is probably the best used in integration with another data-hiding method. When used in collection, these ways can all be a part of a layered security mechanism. Some good complementary methods include: Encryption-  Encryption  is the operation of crossing data or plaintext through a series of mathematical processes that generate an alternate form of the original text known as ciphertext. The encrypted text can only be read by one who have been given the proper key to decrypt the ciphertext back into its original plaintext form. Encryption doesnt hide data, but it does make it difficult to read! Hidden directories (Windows)- Windows provides this feature, which allows users to hide files. Using this mechanism is as easy as changing the characteristics of a directory to hidden, and hoping that no one can view all types of files in their explorer. Hiding directories (Unix)- in current directories that have a lot of files, such as in the /dev directory on a Unix implementation, or making a directory that starts with three dots () versus the normal single or double dot. Covert channels- Some tools can be used to transfer important data in seemingly normal network traffic. One such tool that does that is Loki. Loki is a tool that hides data in ICMP traffic (like ping). 10.  Steganography vs. Encryption The goal of steganography is to not keep others know the hidden information, of cource , to keep others from thinking that the information even exist.if a method of steganography causes someone to suspect the medium which carries the data , then the method has failed. Encryption and Steganography achieve separate goals, encryption is changing the meaning of the message so it cannot be read, steganography does not change the meaning or change the data to make it unusable or unintended, rather, it prevents the third party from suspecting that there is a communication or data even exists. For these people who want to reach ultimate in security or privacy , can combine both approaches , encryption and steganography. Encrypted data is difficult to be differentiate from normal occurring phenomena than a normal plain text (which is a raw text) in the medium, there are several steganography tools that can encrypt data before hiding them in a chosen medium. Steganography should not be confused with encryption .Encryption disguises the content of a message. The existence of the message is usually obvious.Steganography disguises the existence of the message .However, additional security can be obtained if steganography is combined with encryption. 11. Steganalysis and its techniques: Steganalysis , is the counter measure of steganography, is the art of detecting that there is a steganography exists , or a decoded data within a medium. There are two main major tools in Steganalysis, information theory and statistical analysis. Mainly , this reveals clearly the tremendous potential for hidden information in the interner data of course as long as a set of data can be compressed to smaller sizes.there should be a space for hidden data within the medium. Steganalysis can be classified in a similar way as cryptanalysis methods, largely based on how much prior information is known : Steganography-only attack: The steganography medium is the only item available for analysis. Known-carrier attack: The carrier and steganography media are both available for analysis. Known-message attack: The hidden message is known. Chosen-steganography attack: The steganography medium and algorithm are both known. Chosen-message attack: A known message and steganography algorithm are used to create steganography media for future analysis and comparison. Known-steganography attack: The carrier and steganography medium, as well as the steganography algorithm, are known. 12. Method of Steganography: A lot of methods are available for digital Steganography. But exploiting the lenient constraints of a file formats is the most famous one. There are a lot of softwares that uses this technique. a- Image as carriers: One of the ways to hide data is using images , which is a good method. The difficulty to reveal the data hidden increases with the detailed in an image, and that makes it harder to guess or to suspect that image. JPHIDE/JPSeek is a package that uses the coefficients to hide the information. (http://linux01.gwdg.de/~alatham/stego.html). There was a new method of that , that embeds data in visually insignificant parts of an image. These both methods modify the image. The user however can explore image degradation with different messages and images of different length. Another way is for GIF images, is to modify an image’s palette for hiding its data. Gifshuffle, which is a tool , that doesn’t modify the image itself, in any visible way. It permutes a GIF image’s color map, that will leave the original image completely intact. b- Audio File Carriers: A lot of packages also available for embedding and hiding data in the audio files. One of the tools for audio file hiding stego is the MP3Stego,which does not only hide information effectively , of cource arbitrary, rather also claims to be partly strong method of watermarking the targeted MP3 audio files. The WAV formal , which stands for Wavaform Audio File Format, is a Microsoft audio format which mainly windows depends on, however, this format lets users hide data using StegoWave or Steghide (http://www.radiusnet.net/crypto/steanography/Java/stegowav.zip) (http://steghide.sourceforge.net/). These sites refer to both programs in order. Steghide modifies the LSB of data to be transmit in the carrier medium. Using an audio file as a medium is less popular than using an image as a steganography medium. c- Data Ordering: The data ordering which does not have ordering constrains, is usually a very good method of steganography. Each change of a group of objects could be pointed to a positive integer. pointing can then be used to encode the hidden data by modifying the sequence of objects that are not considered in ordered by the carrier medium. While this technique mainly, does not change the information quality, the data which are hidden can of course easily get lost if the medium is encoded again. For example, if we have a GIF which its color map consist of hidden data, we could then open the GIF in our favorite graphics-editing tool package that will be used , and save it again. Visually, the result will be both identical , from the original file to the second file, but the ordering of the color map may have been lost. 13. Limitations: Steganography is limited just like that encryption is, if bob wants to send an image with a hidden message to alice , he have to first agree secretly with alice on a way of steganography. Underneath the encryption model , alice can be fairly sure when she has got some ciphertext. Let us have a scenario about alice ,when she wants to borrow bobs camera and neglects to tell him to be careful for every 73rd byte in the images she sends him.Bobs will be ignorant of Alice’s steganography efforts. The chanses that bob will let alice borrow his digital camera will decrease the large number of pictures he will receive from her.The amount of data that could be effectively hidden in a medium is heading to be limited by the size of the medium itselt. The less limitations that exist on the integrity of the medium, the more potential it has for hiding data. 14. Conclution I have briefly explained and defined steganography , which is in my opinion an effective tool to do so many things regarding security or reliability in any field of communication .what I mean that , this technique can be used in any section in real life, military , businesess, educational , governments and more.Also , I have shown varous tools and how they function well. 15- References: 1- Artz, D. (2001). Digital steganography: Hiding data within data. IEEE Internet Computing, 75-80. 2- Provos, N., Honeyman, P. (2012). Detecting Steganographic Content on the Internet. 3- Classification of Hiding Techniques Ref: F.A.P. Petitcolas, R.J. Anderson, and M.G. Kuhn, â€Å"Information Hiding A Survey,† in Proc. Of the IEEE , vol. 87, No. 7, July 1999, pg. 1063 Kessler, G. (2001, September 11). Steganography: Hiding Data Within Data. Retrieved December 6, 2014, from http://www.garykessler.net/library/steganography.htmlhttp://www.garykessler.net/library/fsc_stego.html Kessler, G. (2004, February 2). An Overview of Steganography for the Computer Forensics Examiner. Retrieved December 6, 2014, from http://www.garykessler.net/library/fsc_stego.html http://www.symantec.com/connect/articles/steganography-revealed http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steganography#Network http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/S/steganography.html http://quickcrypto.com/free-steganography-software.htm

Friday, October 25, 2019

Victorian Clothing :: European Europe History

Victorian Clothing Through out history people have been influenced by many things in society, art, music, and role models are all some of examples. One of the biggest things that makes us who we are and that we can use to tell other people what we are all about is clothing. Lawyers and doctors don't wear jeans and t-shirts. Instead they may sport a coat or shirt and tie. You don't see many garbage men wearing suits and tuxes. It was the same way through history as it is today. Clothing is, many times, very much over looked. Clothing in the dark ages where tainted with black and gray colors. Very plain and blunt styles were used, as different to the Enlightenment era where colors were first used and showed up in some clothing. During the time when Queen Victoria was ruling, France and British were very elegant yet plain in the same sense. Women wore dresses with dull colors yet were big and bulky. One of the most popular eras for clothing, even today, is the Victorian style. Victorian style is a combination of both light and dark colors that are put onto expensive fabrics and usually given an elaborate design. The main contrast between Victorian clothing and Queen's style was the amount of skin showing on the women's dresses and clothing. The Queen did not permit any skin being shown save the face and neck. Women were expected to ware gloves and dresses or aprons that went down past their feet or ankles. The men wore a button plain button down shirt. Most men would wear a dark vest with two or three buttons on it and button one or two. On the bottom they would ware black or gray pants. This was one of the first times it became rather popular to ware a hat outside. The hats were usually light colors, maybe a tan or light blue color. The women wore dresses and even long skirts or dresses of different colors and styles. The milk maid style is very popular. The women would sometimes were dresses with aprons over them. The aprons were not like the ones we have today. Instead they are very intricate with designs and come in many colors. The colors were usually soft and casual yet when put with the very beautiful designs they were quite a sight. The women, like men sometimes wore hats or, in some cases, bonnets.

Thursday, October 24, 2019

Observation and Description

The teacher used colorful manipulative materials, visual aids, overhead projector, projector screen, blackboard, and chalk in teaching equivalent fractions. The students gathered their desk together and worked in groups.   There were four students in each group.   Each group member has colorful fraction pieces of paper in a plastic bag to help them perform the Mathematical activities on equivalent fractions. The classroom is spacious and there are shelves filled with learning materials.   There is also a television set above the blackboard.   The classroom is well lighted, orderly and the environment is conducive to learning. b. Describe the observed teaching situation in video 2. Students worked in groups.   There are three students in each station.   Every station has a variety of activities designed to help students learn the concepts of geometry.   Students have used the resources available in the station in learning geometry. The classroom is spacious, orderly and well lighted.   There are several learning materials inside the classroom.   The environment is conducive to learning. c. Describe the observed delivery of instruction in video 1. The teacher has an organized way of preparing the class for the lesson.   Before presenting the lesson, the teacher instructed her students to get the materials needed for the Math lesson such as fraction pieces of paper and notebooks.   Then, she asked them to put all the colors of the fraction pieces of paper together so they could easily use the materials. The teacher was able to give instructions in a clear manner.   She initially used her manipulatives and the overhead projector to demonstrate how to find one half of the circle.   This prompted the students to follow what she did and discover different combinations of one half using their fraction pieces of paper. d. Describe the observed delivery of instruction in video 2. The teacher allowed the students to discover the principles of geometry on their own.   She went to the stations to observe and check on what the students are doing.   She guided some students and tell them how other students approach the problem and work on the activities.   Probing was also done when she asked the students â€Å"this one connects to that vertex, is there another one that this one could be connected to?†Ã‚   All instructions given by the teacher were clearly understood by the students. There was a good follow-up on what the students have learned when the teacher asked some students about the types of information that they have used to describe the shapes, and what they have discovered when the vertices were connected.   In addition, she also had a good control of the flow of lesson and classroom situation when she asked the student, who was busy working on the activities in the tangram station, to write a reflection on what they have learned.   The teacher also expressed appreciation on the effort of the students. e. Describe student interaction with the observed instruction in video 1. After the teacher demonstrated how she was able to get the equivalent fractions using her manipulatives, the students use the fraction pieces of paper that they have and they were able to work on their own in discovering the equivalent fractions. The teacher went around the group to ask questions as students work on their fraction pieces of paper.   There were positive interactions between the teacher and the students. f. Describe student interaction with the observed instruction in video 2. Students had positive interactions with their classmates and with the teacher.   They spoke and listened to one another, shared what they have discovered, considered the ideas of their classmates, and sometimes agreed or disagreed with their ideas. Each member of the group contributed to the learning process.   They shared the resources found in their respective stations. Analysis, Exploration, and Reasoning a. Explain the pedagogical purpose of the observed teacher’s lesson in video 1. The teacher has used modeling when she initially demonstrated how to discover the equivalent fractions.   The cooperative learning method has encouraged small groups of students to work together and discover the different combinations of equivalent fractions using the fraction pieces of paper. While working in groups, the active learning environment was established and students learn by performing the activities, discussing their work with their group mates and seeing different combinations of fractions that their group mates have done. b. Explain the pedagogical purpose of the observed teacher’s lesson in video 2. The teacher has used cooperative learning in grouping students in each station.   The activities in each station were structured to help students learn geometry through their own discovery and to make them fully engaged in the learning process. The teacher made some observations, listening and intervening whenever necessary so students can meet the goal in learning the concepts of geometry.   Students have hands-on learning experience, good interaction and cooperation as they share their ideas with their classmates and use the resources that are found in the stations.   This encourages retention of the lesson and appreciation of learning. c. Analyze the observed teacher’s possible purpose for using a specific strategy in video 1. Math is a subject that a lot of students fear and do not appreciate.   The teacher has used her creativity in utilizing manipulatives in teaching fractions to make the lesson interesting to the students. A lot of students are visual learners and the mathematical activities involving the use of colorful manipulatives and overhead projector as visual aids and fraction pieces of paper for hands-on learning develop eye-hand coordination and critical thinking. d. Analyze the observed teacher’s possible purpose for using a specific strategy in video 2. The activities that were structured in every station were observed to be in various levels of difficulty.   Learning about shapes is easy, connecting the vertices and discovering if there are similarities between the number of vertices and the number of lines connecting them has an average level of difficulty.   The tangram station is challenging because students are required to put the polygons together to form some patterns. The possible purpose of using the cooperative learning strategy is to allow students to work at their own pace and within their intellectual capacity.   Asking students to write what they have learned in each station is a good way of checking whether they find the lesson interesting or if they are ready to move to a different station in their next lesson. e. Analyze the impact of the observed teacher’s instructional strategy on student learning in video 1. Students were performing the activities in fractions without realizing that they were adding, subtracting, or multiplying numbers to discover equivalent fractions. Cooperative learning allowed students to work with other students and gain knowledge through their own discovery while interacting with their teacher and with other members of the group. f. Analyze the impact of the observed teacher’s instructional strategy on student learning in video 2. All students were fully engaged in the activities.   Cooperative learning led students to engage in a lot of discussions, sharing of ideas and critical thinking. Students are learning the principles of geometry through hands-on activities.   They also learn through exploration and discovery.   With the variety of activities, students are not bored and they appreciate the lesson.

Wednesday, October 23, 2019

Myth Interpretation

The movie industry had delved with so many themes already that creating a fairy tale or a fantasy movie is not something new. These fantasy movies became mainstream attractions thanks to the new technology of 3D and animations that makes imaginary characters come to life and walk and talk like humans. In these fantasy movies, one can not help but question the inspiration for the story; the insight for the roles created; and the symbolism each character represents.There would be parallelism with each fantasy story, as every good fantasy movie would be, since it mainly caters young audiences, like for example the eternal battle between good and evil. Pan’s Labyrinth is not any difference, it tackled the parallelism and many more, although some symbolisms were graphically demonstrated, to the point of disgust, it is still a fantasy movie.These parallelisms between the symbolism in the movie and the myths would be analyzed and discussed in this paper. The liminality as every heroi c tale should have would be pointed out in any way possible as it pertains to the Neo-Platonism idea of The One.Summary of the MoviePan’s Labyrinth or El Laberinto Del Fauno in its original title in Spanish or literally translated as The Faun’s Labyrinth, is a fantasy film that delves in a young girl’s struggle to keep the reality beautiful by completing tasks in another parallel world. In so doing she will take the throne that was rightfully hers and become a Princess once again in the parallel world.There were two worlds in which Ofelia, the protagonist was living. The real world where her mother is sick with the baby, where her ruthless stepfather Captain Vidal lives, and where there are rebels prepared to take offense against the Captain’s forces; and the second world, where Ofelia is the long lost Princess Moana, daughter of the King and she must get back to him as soon as possible. To be able to go back to her father, Ofelia was tasked to complete t hree tasks before the full moon rises, in order to ensure that her â€Å"essence† is intact. First she must retrieve the golden key from the belly of a giant toad that was living off the life of an old tree.She successfully got the key and proceeded on with the next one, with the Faun’s guidance, to retrieve a golden knife from a pale man’s dwelling and she was successful again, but lost the lives of her assistant fairies. The Faun was so angry that he said Ofelia could never return to her kingdom. Meanwhile, the condition of her pregnant mother is getting worse, and the rebels who are against the fascist rule of her stepfather are building a plan of their own. Her mother lost her life in giving birth to her baby brother, her friend Mercedes was caught by Vidal for spying, and Vidal had caught Ofelia lying to him and imprisoned her in the attic with orders of shooting Ofelia first if the rebels attacked.Taking pity on the poor Ofelia, the Faun appeared again and gave her another chance; all she had to do is take her baby brother to the labyrinth. After much hardship and running away from Captain Vidal, Ofelia finally reached the labyrinth where the Faun was waiting for her with instructions to â€Å"prick† her little brother with the golden knife and let his blood flow through the labyrinth. Ofelia refused to hurt her baby brother, this led to the Faun’s disappointment and left Ofelia on her own, as Captain Vidal finally caught up with her, killed her and took the baby.Ofelia’s blood spilled in the labyrinth and Captain Vidal was met by Mercedes and her rebel friends and they killed Vidal. All the while, in another world, Ofelia rose and was called upon by her father as Princess Moana. She was astonished to find herself in a big castle with her father and her mother waiting for her. She had finally come home; while on the other end, Mercedes cradles the lifeless body of Ofelia.Contrasting Concepts and Symbolisms: Good vs. EvilAs every fairy tale is supposed to have, the ensuing battle against the good and the evil, wherein no matter how much hardship the good guys had, the good will eventually triumph over the evil. In Pan’s Labyrinth, Ofelia represents the goodness in both worlds; the real world and the world underneath. The rebels signify the integrity and righteousness in the real world in their fight against the dark evil as manifested by the ruthless Captain Vidal. He is both the evil in Ofelia’s life as well as the rebels, and he had made their lives literally a living hell by torturing and killing the captured rebels, and later on, by taking Ofelia’s innocent life.As Ofelia went through difficult times and losing her life in the process, she triumphed for she had passed the test and did not fall into an evil-like behavior by sacrificing her baby brother. It is the goodness in her heart that finally led her to where she wants to be, with her mother and her father (altho ugh they are all dead already), and the only way she could do that was to die herself, and be reborn as Princess Moana of the Underworld. Ofelia is the epitome of good while Captain Vidal is the utmost evil by killing her. However, the other symbolism for good is the rebels who took Vidal’s life. Although the manner in which they did is not really â€Å"good†, in reality per se it is an acceptable way to end a fairly evil man. In this sense, Ofelia’s objective of making both worlds a better place to live in was achieved – in the fantasy world by completing all her tasks and in the real world through her death.Characters as Compared to Greek MythsThe title itself was a referral to the Greek god Pan, although the director and writer of the story denied having derived the Faun from Pan the Greek God. Perhaps, it is the similarity of the features that was compared to. The Faun personification of half man-half goat was first used in The Chronicles of Narnia as the trickster who wanted to kidnap Lucy but changed his mind later on. In Pan’s Labyrinth, the Faun was used as the guide with unknown objective – either the good or the bad. Is he telling the truth? Is he just tricking Ofelia to lure her into his trap? But we find out later that he was just testing Ofelia’s good heart if she could spill an innocent’s blood just to achieve her goals.The pale man who was guarding the magical dagger was perhaps derived from the â€Å"Cycladic idols† that archaeologists found in the Cycladic Islands. These figurines have white bodies, featureless faces, and stiff, formal poses and were thought to represent death. Just like the pale man, who represented nothing but death of children (in the drawings and the mountain full of children’s shoes).The stuffing of magic stones into the big toad’s mouth ended his reign thus giving birth to the key by tricking the toad into eating the magic stones when Ofelia pla ced a big bug along with the stones and held out her hand. This was perhaps derived from the Greek myth of the feud between Zeus and his father Kronos. Kronos had this habit of eating his children when they are born, and his wife Rhea, grew tired of seeing her children being swallowed by her husband that she tricked him into swallowing a rock instead of Zeus. Therefore, Zeus grew up and eventually killed Kronos.Underlying Interpretationa. As a belief SystemThe myth surrounding Pan’s labyrinth stemmed through Ofelia’s belief system that was encouraged by the Faun of her being â€Å"The One†. The lost Princess Moana of another world, and longing to escape the present reality in which she wants to save her mother and her unborn brother, she goes on to complete the tasks presented. Ofelia firmly believed that if she could pass the stages and fulfill the responsibilities given to her, she would finally be able to see her father, who was waiting for her for a long tim e.Embodying a Social ConflictPan’s labyrinth was set in the Post Civil War Spain in 1944. Captain Vidal is the head of one unit somewhere in the province who still hunts and kills rebel guerillas who are against the fascist rule. Carmen, Ofelia’s mother, had submitted herself, Ofelia and her unborn son’s fate into the hands of Captain Vidal. Perhaps love? But the sternness of Vidal and the lack of amiability between supposed to be husband and wife (Vidal and Carmen) lead the writer to assume that perhaps it is a mother’s survival instinct. Widowed with one kid during the hard times, perhaps the best chance of survival is to go with a powerful man to protect her self and ensure a good future for her children.Unknowingly, Carmen had entered a dark realm in which the man she though would rescue them, would be the sole reason of their demise. Confronted with the reality that Captain Vidal is a â€Å"bad† man, Ofelia tried to tell her mother who refuses to see the â€Å"real† Captain Vidal. Therefore, having no resolution and powerless to change the situation, Ofelia resulted into building her own world, from her imagination, through the fairy tale books that she was reading. It was through her mind that the blank book that the Faun gave her imprint instructions on what to do and how to do it.It was also with the Faun’s help that Carmen’s health condition got better (for a while) by placing a mandrake root under her bed; although one person in the real world, through Mercedes, may have seem to have the courage to change things, but still powerless to help Ofelia and her mother during their suffering, eventually stepped up to change and had Captain Vidal killed, but it was already too late for Carmen and Ofelia, for both have already lost their lives.c. AllegoryThe tasks performed by Ofelia in the parallel world are an allegory of her trying to escape and stop the cruel ruling of her stepfather Captain Vidal. O felia had pushed the stone that she found at the road to a mouth of a stone sculpture that started the chain of events – Carmen felt better to continue the travel. The Faun represents another entity that forces Ofelia to follow orders and be a good girl – just like Captain Vidal, he gives orders to his men and expects loyalty and respect or else he would kill them. The task of retrieving the magic key inside a giant toad’s stomach could be an allegory of Ofelia trying to find favor from Captain Vidal, but unlike the toad where she was successful; she was repulsed by Vidal and was treated just like anybody else.The pale man in the long table with bountiful fruits and images of children being eaten and mound full of children’s shoes is an allegory of Captain Vidal seating on the same setting, eating delicious food while the rest of the townspeople fall in line to get their rations. The last task that is to sacrifice her little brother for her to be able to open the portal, but did not do so and in the eventuality lost her life; is an allegory of Vidal sacrificing Ofelia’s life, he did what Ofelia did not do, that is to kill, and the consequence of Vidal’s action was death in the hands of the rebels. All the while, Ofelia was pointed out as The One that would make a significant change in the real world, and as The One missing Princess Moana in the parallel world.ConclusionThe movie was full of symbolism and parallelism that are subject to different opinions and interpretations by various scholars. The comparisons and allegories discussed in this paper may seem absurd or untoward by other scholars but myth interpretation is by itself subjective, and as a free and imaginative thinker, through a proper structure, the writer had expressed his/her opinions and views accordingly. There may be some that the writer had missed or other areas that were overlooked, but all things considered, this is a brief analysis of the movie Pan ’s Labyrinth with regards to myth interpretation.ReferencesCampbell, Joseph. The Hero with a Thousand Faces.Powell, Barry B. Classical Myth. Fifth Edition