Epic Hero Hercules Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Epic Hero Hercules - Research Paper Example In his mind, Zeus wanted to have a son with skills and strength to become a hero among men and the gods’ agent. When Hercules grew up performing odd tasks, King Thespius of Thespia recognized him and offered him his 50 daughters to have children with Hercules. Hercules was able to impregnate 49 of the 50 daughters who gave birth to 51 sons, with the eldest and the youngest giving birth to twins (Burges, 2004: 14). Hercules grew up as a hero performing extraordinary tasks. In his lifetime, he performed twelve different labors. As an order from King Eurystheus, Hercules was supposed to perform only ten labors, but since the King nullified two of them, he performed twelve. Hercules was able to murder a Nemean lion and brought back its skin. The Nemean lion had a very thick skin which could not be penetrated through. He murdered the lion by strangling it and with the help of the claws of the lion he penetrated through its thick skin and removed it. From then on, Hercules wore the skin as his armor (Stewart, 2004: 36). Another labor performed by Hercules was when he killed the Lernaean Hydra. The Lernaean Hydra was a monster serpent which had many heads and lived in the Lerna Lake. The Hydra was guarding the way to the underworld. It was so strange that for every head Hercules cut off, two more heads grew back in the cut place. Iolaus, Hercules nephew, had the idea of burning the stumps after cutting the heads so that they could not grow back, and it worked. He then buried the dead body of the Hydra beneath a boulder. He took all his arrows and immersed in the poisonous blood of the Hydra which made them poisonous. However, Eurystheus disqualified this labor of Hercules as he received help from his nephew (Loewen, 1999: 324). Hercules also managed to capture the Ceryneian Hind which was a huge deer sacred to the goddess Artemis. The deer did have hooves made of bronze and antlers of gold. The hind was known to be very fast that it could even outrun an arrow b ut Hercules followed it for a whole year on foot and managed to shoot it on the leg with a non-poisoned arrow. Since the hind was sacred to goddess Artemis, Hercules asked for forgiveness and the goddess forgave him on condition that he would bring back the hind safely (Weisbort, 2005: 26). Hercules captured a great beast that lived on Erymanthos Mountain where goddess Artemis used to visit. The beast was known as the Erymanthian Boar. Hercules was able to force the boar into thick snow with the help of centaur Chiron who advised him to do so. After the boar was in form of thick snow, Hercules captured it and took it to King Eurystheus. Hercules cleaned the Augean stables. King Augeas had the greatest number of cattle in the nation which were his divine gift and were immune to diseases. This meant that it was not necessary for anyone to clean the stables. The king challenged Hercules to perform the task in just one day and he could give him an eighth of his cattle. Being a hero, Her cules redirected rivers Peneus and Alpheus through the stables and the task was done. However, the king did not fulfill his promise to Hercules, which made Hercules angry, and he murdered the king (Weisbort, 2005: 34). Hercules killed man-eating birds known as the Stymphalian birds. The birds had metallic and poisonous feathers that could fire as weapons. The birds lived in the woody area that surrounded Lake Stymphalia and this made it hard for the birds to be

EXPERIENCES OF NURSES WORKING IN PALLIATIVE CARE Dissertation

EXPERIENCES OF NURSES WORKING IN PALLIATIVE CARE - Dissertation Example (Harris, Flowers, Noble, 2011) In a qualitative study by (Brajtman, Higuchi, McPherson, 2006) they looked into the matter related to the challenges the nurses face in palliative care, to explore their experiences in caring for patients with terminal delirium and their families. This qualitative research will emphasize the importance of qualitative interviews as most powerful method for understanding the experiences and meanings related to the topic. This study was conducted in a palliative care unit located in a large Canadian city hospital for 5 nurses working in an interdisciplinary palliative care unit and 4 nurses form palliative home care nursing team located in the same city. Few interview questions have been generated for the nurses to proceed with the qualitative study. Based on the questions results which has been found are like most of the participants said that they experience distress while caring for palliative care patients. They said that if they gather convenient skil ls and knowledge in the identification and diagnosis they can help to support the patient in better way and family during disturbed conditions. Understanding the unique nursing experience is very much important in the process of providing the nurses with required support to make them strong and help them to provide care in challenging situations. Nurses also identified their team members as most major source of support. They also mentioned that effective teamwork would help them to deal with palliative care patients and their families more efficiently. There is need for proper education and training for the nurses to face challenges with palliative care patients. Lack of education may experience in serious stress for these nurses in care of the dying people and their families. It is important to check that nurses should receive appropriate knowledge, skills and support to care for this patient (Brajtman, Higuchi, McPherson, 2006, pp.6-7). Thus from this study we can understand that proper opportunities should be provided to the nurses so that they can face challenges confidently. The support of organization, teammates and family will enhance the quality of care. The number of sample chosen here is very small. A primary research should contain minimum 20 samples to carry on with a proper research. But here amount is very small which is not very good to conduct a research. A larger sample would have been beneficial to obtain greater depth of data as there was no clear evidence to overcome the challenges. White, et al (2004) found similar trends in his study. He explored with qualitative descriptive study using semi structured interviews with nurses caring for palliative care patients. Here 9 experienced palliative care nurses were interviewed. The participants here explained about their experience and challenges they face regularly. The nurses reported that they have enormous impact on their work and personal lives. The nurses here describe about two types of su fferings, physical and emotional or psychological. Most of the nurses reported here that they try their best to relieve a patients suffering and when they cannot help the patient with such condition they get a feeling of helplessness, distress, frustration and a sense of failure. Some of the nurses also mentioned that they did not want to dwell with those things and thus tried to go back home with a fresh