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Il Postino (The Postman) – Summary, Analysis

I’ve ranged the far-famed seas, 

the nuptial stamen of each island,

I’m a great paper seafarer, 

and I ran, ran, ran, 

to the uttermost foam 

Pablo Neruda, El Canto General (1950) 

Summary: 

In the 1950s, in a fishing port on a small Italian island in the Mediterranean Sea, Mario, illiterate and unemployed, dreams of a more attractive elsewhere (The New World, America). At the local cinema, he watches newsreels and hears of the impending arrival in the village5 of the great exiled poet from Chile, Pablo Neruda, which leads to his employment as postman charged with bringing Neruda his daily mail. 

The daily encounters between the two men, one illiterate the other a future Nobel Prize-winning writer, slowly transform into a friendship. Under the benevolent authority of the maestro, Mario is slowly initiated into the mysteries of poetry. His vision of the world, of human beings and of things is slowly being transformed and he begins to write poetically himself, bold enough to imitate, even copy, Don Pablo himself. 

He falls in love with Beatrice, the waitress in the village restaurant, carefully watched over by her sour-tempered aunt, Donna Rosa. Carried away by the power of brand-new words that move him deeply, and assisted by Neruda, he conquers and marries her, or rather she allows herself to be conquered. His mentor leaves, leaving him alone with his illusions, corresponding only occasionally and inconsistently. His disappointment is big: ‘He treated me like a friend, like a brother’. He becomes radicalised politically, identifying with the communist cause. He opposes the corrupt official who in order to get elected promises to bring running water to the village, he defends exploited fishermen and finally dies during a turbulent demonstration against the social democrats’ election victory. When Don Pablo returns to the village, he simultaneously learns about Mario’s death and the birth of Mario’s son, Pablito. 

Analysis: 

As a novel and film about apprenticeship, Il Postino can be considered on three interconnected levels that suggest the hero’s progressive maturation in terms of his intellectual ability, love life and political consciousness. 

Poetry, arguably literature’s most accomplished form, represents something like magic for Mario. It awakens his dormant sensibilities; it allows him to name things; and to name what is beyond things. He, whose father is illiterate like the other fishermen, begins to realise that the physical world is legible, decipherable, and that he did not know anything about it. Having a novice’s innocence, he asks the question that recurs throughout the film: what is a metaphor? This figure of speech, which enriches thought by hiding a first meaning in favour of a hidden meaning, is thus a form of creation. Mario breathes the air of gods, he is transfigured. He will invent images without even knowing it. Don Pablo confesses that poetry cannot be explained, it is felt. ‘It is only with the heart that one can see rightly’, Saint-Exupéry said in The Little Prince. In the film, Neruda says: ‘Better than any explanation is the experience of feelings that poetry can reveal to a nature open enough to understand it’. Mario is open and ready. 

Because of the letters Don Pablo receives, Mario believes with a touching naiveté that poets are loved by women. It gives him the strength to approach voluptuous Beatrice, whom he calls ‘one of the wonders of the island’ and who speaks to him primarily through her body. To describe her, Mario finds new words like new-laid eggs – ‘Your smile spreads like a butterfly’ – while throughout the film a deeply symbolic table football suggests how the line – immobile and flat – transforms into the three-dimensional roundness of the earth and the stars. Mario discovers nature, which the director wanted to look ‘oppressive and beautiful’ – a volcano towers over the landscape – he is transported, ennobled, grows. 

Through poetry, the man who, borrowing Don Pablo’s words, said that he was ‘tired of being a man’ obtains a sort of superhumanity and, like Rimbaud’s poet, sees what human beings only imagined they saw. Words and their sonorous flesh invade him, the rhythm of a sentence dances as if tossed on a boat. However, words are not innocent; if we believe Donna Rosa they carry tensions and threats, in love as well as in politics. Words are ‘loaded guns’ (Brice Parain). 

But for Mario everything acquires a poetic dimension, the real is transposed: the beauty of women, the sky, the sea, the sound of waves, the belly of a pregnant woman, all things that he records with the tape recorder that Pablo leaves him, so as to lose nothing of the vibrations of the World and the Universe. Mario, the character and Massimo, the actor with a suffering body – do they realise that the end is close? 

This island fable is historically based on the communist poet’s Italian sojourn. After the Communist Party was banned, Neruda went into hiding, and in 1949, into exile.6 It benefits from the discrete music dominated by a tango leitmotiv, ‘as if it came out of Neruda’s soul, took the little postman and makes him into an accomplished human being’ (L. Bacalov). The rich chromatic palette (the ocre of the house, the Mediterranean vegetation, and the warm and intense blue of the sea) provide a setting favourable to a spiritual odyssey. 

The film was successful in both Europe and the United States, where it played in 270 cinemas, an exceptional number for a foreign film. It received multiple awards, including an Oscar for Best Dramatic Score (and four other nominations) and three BAFTA awards. This success was to some extent connected to Massimo Troisi’s tragic death a few days after the end of shooting. Suffering from a cardiac malformation, he had been advised against making the film and told to wait for a heart transplant. He decided otherwise, but could stay on his feet for only a few moments, and was doubled in many scenes.7 

A gaunt body marked by illness, looking a bit like Pasolini, a nasal Neapolitan voice, facial expressions, expressive gestures and eloquent hands also evoke the tragedy of existence for a Mediterranean soul like Mario. With this film, we are at the source of the history of the Mediterranean (mare nostrum) which worships the word, the verb, exhaling as if with the promise of a great spiritual civilisation to come. ‘The honor of mankind, sacred SPEECH’, (Paul Valéry). 

In Mario’s destiny and in the film itself, there is both the sun of Eros and the shadow of Thanatos. 

And it was at that age … Poetry arrived 

in search of me. I don’t know, I don’t know 

where 

it came from, from winter or a river.

I don’t know, how or when, 

no, they were not voices, they were not 

words, nor silence, 

but from a street I was summoned, 

from the branches of night 

abruptly from the others, 

among violent fires 

or returning alone, 

there I was without a face 

and it touched me. 

Pablo Neruda 8

Daniel Armogathe (translated by Sabine Haenni)

Notes 

1. Michael Radford, a British filmmaker born in India (New Delhi) has made 13 films as director and 8 films as screenwriter. Il Postino is his sixth film. 

2. Massimo Troisi (1953–1994) was born in Campania, in the Province of Naples, appeared as actor in seven film comedies, and as actor-director in six other films. 

3. Philipee Noiret, born in 1925 in Paris, has acted in more than 200 films and has directed 5. 

4. Maria Grazia Cucinotta was born in Messina, Sicily, in 1960. Il Postino was her fifth film. 

5. The village in ruins was reconstructed by the filmmaker. 

6. He would receive the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1971. 

7. His double is Gerardo, who resembled Troisi so much that at Troisi’s funeral, people thought he was Troisi’s ghost. 

8. This text appears at the end of the film, before the final credits. Paul Valéry, ‘The Pythoness’ in Charms, trans. James L. Brown, Chico, CA, Forsan Books, 1983, p. 69. 

Cast and Crew:

[Country: Italy, France. Production Company: Cecchi Gori Pictures, Pentafilm, Esterno Mediterraneo Film, Blue Dahlia Productions, Le Studio Canal. Director: Michael Radford.1 Producers: Mario and Vittorio Cecchi Gori and Gaetano Daniele. Screenwriters: Anna Pavignano and Furio Scapelli (based on the novel Ardiente Paciencia by Antonio Skármeta). Cinematographer: Franco di Giacomo. Music: Luis Bacalov. Editor: Roberto Perpignani. Cast: Massimo Troisi2 (Mario Ruoppolo), Philippe Noiret3 (‘Don’ Pablo Neruda), Maria Grazia Cucinotta4 (Beatrice Russo), Renato Scarpa (Telegrapher), Mariano Rigillo (Di Cosimo), Anna Bonaiuto (Matilde), Linda Moretti (Donna Rosa).] 

Further Reading 

Ann Ryan, Il Postino, Study Guide, Irish Film Institute. Available at www.irishfilm.ie/downloads/ il_postino.pdf. Marie-Pierre Zoui, Il Postino. Un film de Michael Radford, Dossier pédagogique, Les Grignoux, Liège, 1997. 

Source Credits:

The Routledge Encyclopedia of Films, Edited by Sarah Barrow, Sabine Haenni and John White, first published in 2015.

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Essay On The Postman – 10 Lines, Short and Long Essay for Kids

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Key Points To Note: Essay On The Postman For Lower Primary Classes

10 lines on the postman for kids, a paragraph on the postman for children, short essay on ‘the postman’ in english for kids, long essay on ‘the postman’ in english for children, what will your child learn from this essay on the postman.

The task of writing an informal and formal essay in primary classes, both as a homework assignment or test assignment, aims at increasing understanding and accelerating the process of learning. An essay on the Postman can prepare you for various competitions and speeches for events in school. An essay on the postman for classes 1, 2 and 3 can enlighten kids on the usefulness of this job as a public servant and how postmen deserve our sympathy and regard for their great work. It highlights the life and work of a postman and how they serve our society. Here are some key points to remember while writing an essay on the postman for lower primary classes.

Good essay writing needs more than just inspiration. Here are some key points to remember when writing an essay for lower primary classes:

  • Read and understand the topic.
  • Plan and organise your ideas well.
  • Make a draft without any spelling, punctuation, or grammatical errors.
  • Structure your essay into an introduction, body, and conclusion.

Essay for classes 1 and 2 need to contain short and simple sentences. Here are ten lines on postman for kids that can catch a child’s interest quickly.

  • A Postman is a government employee.
  • The postman is a simple, hard-working, and honest man.
  • The postman works in a post office.
  • He wears khaki-coloured clothes.
  • He wears a khaki turban/cap on his head.
  • He delivers letters, money orders, parcels and posts to residences and businesses.
  • He brings news of both joy and sorrow.
  • He is known to carry a leather satchel.
  • A postman generally travels on a cycle while others go on foot.
  • The postman is our community friend.

Essays are a specific form of creative expression. Here is a paragraph that can throw light on the role of a postman who faces many challenges yet succeeds in doing his job well.

A postman plays an important role in society, as he carries crucial professional and personal information to the general public. These public servants operate both in a village or a metro city. The postman is clad in a uniform of Khaki fabric and colour, which makes him stand out from the crowd. A postman carries letters, money orders, and other postal articles in his bag to distribute to people. Despite the modernisation of the postal system, he generally travels in a cycle or walks on foot to do his job. Thus, we need to respect his hardships and value his contribution to society.

Essay writing helps students improve their creativity, critical thinking, and logical reasoning skills. Here is an essay for classes 1, 2 and 3 that would help get a general idea of a postman’s life.

A postman is a government servant, also known as ‘Dak Peon.’ He is a familiar figure primarily seen in rural or urban areas. Be it rain or sun; he ensures on-time delivery of mails so that we receive our letters or parcels on time. He is a government employee who reports every morning to the post office. From sorting out the letters and posts to delivering them in specific areas and stamping all the letters to verify them, a postman ensures that valuable information or important messages reach the right hands. A postman has to cover challenging terrains, uneven roads, and rural areas or go through dangerous areas like the forests to fulfill his duties. Despite all the pain and hardships, the postman usually doesn’t get adequately paid. But, he is a trustworthy person who works round the clock to deliver letters and make people’s lives easier.

A well-crafted essay helps to inform and entertain its readers. Here is an essay for class 3, which will indeed develop a kids’ understanding of a postman’s life and improve their child’s writing expressions.

The post office has always contributed to the social and economic development of the country. In ancient times, people relied on pigeons or messengers to send messages to each other. However, as times changed, the postal system, a more reliable communication medium, replaced it.

A postman is a familiar face in the neighbourhood. A postman wears a khaki uniform and a matching cap and carries a bag full of letters, gifts, parcels, and other items like cards and money orders. He is a community assistant who works like doctors, teachers, police officers, and shopkeepers. A postman helps to connect people by conveying messages, collecting letters from the post office, and distributing them to the public. He finds the designated addresses where he needs to travel and accomplishes the work till the evening. The honesty of his work makes him an important member of society. He has a challenging job that is not appreciated most time. Sometimes he travels long distances to ensure that every letter reaches its rightful owner at the correct address and on time.

Additionally, a village postman also takes the responsibility of reading out the letter patiently to some villagers who aren’t able to read. Apart from delivering personal letters, he also provides people with magazines, newspapers, and professional documents. A postman performs indoor jobs as well. From collecting money orders with cash from the treasury, collecting parcels, and going out for distribution outside the Post Office to bringing back the returned and undelivered/unpaid letters/money orders to the post office, he handles everything. He does his work with great honesty and dedication, which needs to be recognised by the government and us. The importance of the postman may have significantly reduced with the advent of technology. However, he is still an essential part of our community and brings all kinds of news to our doorstep.

Importance of a Postman in Society

India has the world’s largest network of postal systems, with more than 1.5 lakh post offices widely spread across the country. From delivering mails and collecting signatures from recipients, they perform other support tasks related to organisations like operations, administration, and management duties. Postal employees get trained by postmasters to handle customer transactions like selling postage, money orders, or collecting post office box rent, supervise mail processing, and address post office regulations-related queries to customers.

Challenges Faced by a Postman

The job of a Postman is full of challenges and responsibilities. He delivers letters to the general public, whether it’s raining, scorching hot, or cold. He even has to find the best possible routes based on the addresses to ensure that people receive their parcels on time. The salary of a postman is generally not very high as most postmen are not qualified enough. He reports to the post office every morning, collects all the letters, and distributes them to different addresses. In case of any delivery gets misplaced, reaches the destination late, or the letter reaches the wrong address, a postman can be questioned by the postmaster. He may even face punishment in such cases, lose his job or suffer a pay cut from his salary in such a situation.

A postman composition teaches the value of hard work, determination, and honesty in one’s profession. It is an excellent way to teach kids about such occupations and how people fulfil their duties by overcoming all their problems and hurdles.

City people might have got advanced and don’t avail many postal services. But in rural areas, you will see people waiting for the postman to know the news from their loved ones. Take your kids out to spot a postman on the street, distributing happiness all around.

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Home — Essay Samples — Nursing & Health — Death — “Amusing Ourselves to Death” by Neil Postman

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"Amusing Ourselves to Death" by Neil Postman

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Published: Sep 16, 2023

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The age of show business, the impact on public discourse, relevance in the digital age.

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the postman essay conclusion

  • Essay On Postman

Postman Essay

500+ words essay on postman.

Whenever the word ‘postman’ comes into our mind, a picture of a man wearing a khaki dress, riding a bicycle and carrying a bag is created in front of us. The postman delivers letters to our homes. When the communication system was not so strong, letters were the medium for communication. People kept in touch with their relatives and loved ones who lived far away in towns or villages through letters, and the postman was a medium to carry these letters. Nowadays, apart from bringing letters, a postman does other work as well. In this Postman Essay, students will get to know the importance of a postman and the duties performed by him. The “Essay on Postman” is a very common topic and is highly expected to be asked in the exam. So, students are advised to go through this essay and then try to write their own.

Postman and Their Duties

A postman is a government employee who delivers the “post” or the mail. Their job also includes sorting and handing out mail letters and packages at post offices, selling postal products like stamps and specialised boxes, and taking in letters from customers. Postmen can be found in every part of the country, whether it is a village or a metro city. They go door to door to deliver parcels, couriers, letters, money orders, gifts, greeting cards etc. A postman is a familiar face in society.

Everyone waits for the postman to knock on the door. He is always welcome. The postman has a dress code. They wear a khaki uniform and carry a bag full of letters, documents, telegrams, parcels, etc. Some postmen move on bicycles, while many of them go on foot to deliver the letters. They also collect the letters from the letter boxes and assemble them at the post office. Then, these letters are sent through mail vans or trains from one post office to another. Subsequently, the letters are collected at the destination post office and sent to the respective addresses. A postman may bring joy to some, while for others, at times, he may have sad news.

A postman starts work early in the morning. Sometimes, it depends upon the mail receipt at his Post Office. A postman has to sort the mail, arrange them according to his beat, collect money orders with cash from the treasury, collect parcels and move outside the post office for delivery. He brings back the returned and undelivered/unpaid letters/money orders to the post office and hands them to the concerned person. So, a Postman not only performs outdoor duties but also assists in indoor jobs.

Importance of the Postman

India has the largest postal network in the world. More than 1.5 lakh post offices are spread across the country, and most of them are situated in rural areas. Post offices are the backbone of communication, and thus, the postman has a significant role to play. They have played a crucial role in the social and economic development of the country. People often send money orders, gifts and other important parcels via post. A telegram was sent in case an urgent message had to be conveyed.

Postal services are impacting the lives of Indian citizens in many ways, such as delivering mail and accepting deposits under Small Savings Schemes. Nowadays, the services in post offices also provide life insurance coverage under Postal Life Insurance (PLI) and Rural Postal Life Insurance (RPLI). People can also avail of retail services like bill collection, sale of forms, etc. The post offices act as an agent for the Government of India in discharging other services for citizens, such as the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS), wage disbursement and old age pension payments.

The importance of the postman may have reduced with time due to the introduction of modern communication systems. However, they are still an essential part of our community. They still deliver many important posts, money orders and other government schemes. They reach remote places for their work, whether it is mountains and valleys, hilly areas, or deserts. Postmen carry out their duties in all seasons, no matter how cold or hot the day is. Whether it’s raining heavily or flooded with water, they do their work with full responsibility.

Essays Topics for Students’ Practice

After writing an essay on the postman, students must practise essays on more similar topics. To help them with this, we have provided a few essay topics as suggestions:

  • Essay on Milkman
  • Essay on my Favourite Teacher
  • Essay on Doctor
  • Essay on My Dream of Becoming a Lawyer
  • Essay on Policeman

Frequently Asked Questions on Postman

What is the importance of postmen in our life.

Postmen play an important people in our lives. They facilitate communication among people from various parts of the world. They deliver letters, parcels, money orders and telegrams to our doorsteps.

Is the work of a postman hard?

Postmen are hard-working people. They are honest with their work and make people’s lives easier. Sometimes they have to travel a long distance to deliver the parcel. The tasks they perform do not do justice to the pain and hardships they have to go through.

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What I'm Reading: Amusing Ourselves to Death, Neil Postman

Author: Jason Kelly '95

Published: April 3, 2018

Abraham Lincoln confessed to a debate audience in 1858 that, in the mere half hour allotted to him for rebuttal, he could not possibly address all the points Stephen Douglas had raised in his 90-minute oration.

“I hope, therefore, if there be anything that he has said upon which you would like to hear something from me, but which I omit to comment upon, you will bear in mind that it would be expecting an impossibility for me to cover his whole ground,” Lincoln said.

Amusing Ourselves To Death

In Amusing Ourselves to Death , Neil Postman writes, “It is hard to imagine the present occupant of the White House being capable of constructing such clauses in similar circumstances. And if he were, he would surely do so at the risk of burdening the comprehension or concentration of his audience.”

At the time Postman published his indictment of the technology-shriveled American attention span, the occupant of the White House was Ronald Reagan. The year was 1985 and the culprit was television, the perfected instrument of what Postman called the Age of Show Business.

That seems like a long time ago, technologically and politically speaking, but the insights in Postman’s book feel all the more acute and applicable now that Reagan, in retrospect, seems positively Lincoln-esque compared to many of today’s elected officials. Granted, nobody cites the Reagan-Bush debates from the 1980 Republican primary as a high point in American political discourse. “There you go again” and “Where’s the beef?” endure as the sound bites of that era.

Read the YouTube comments on this Reagan-Bush debate video , though, to discern a retrospective astonishment that the American electorate ever could have had it so good.

“Omg there’s so much much substance and class here. . . .” begins a commenter called Alice Aquarius.

Much much. OMG.

Postman, who died in 2003, no doubt would have much much to say about the impact of the internet in general, and social media in particular, in furthering the degradation from what, by the 1980s, already felt to him like a rhetorical rock bottom. In Amusing Ourselves to Death he palpably longs for the days of Lincoln-Douglas and for American audiences that could stand hours of that kind of thing. A separation of entertainment and state.

That wall, he writes, went down around the turn of the 20th century, when the diverting visuals of photography met the speed of the telegraph wire. Sensational news from far away could be delivered fast — and with pictures! The Age of Typography, as Postman dubs the literate era that showbiz came to overshadow, began to decline even then, with newspapers still ascendant but their journalism yellowing.

Entertainment not only began to be elevated over information, even when it came to issues of serious public importance, but the two also became indistinguishable. News as theater.

Not that information was in short supply. On the contrary, Postman argues, the telegraph inundated us with it — about everything from everywhere. But the demands of the format rewarded superficial breadth. “Implications, background, or connections” became irrelevant, he says, and historical context a telegraphic excess.

So fundamental was the impact of this technological change, it altered the definition of being informed. “Intelligence,” he writes, “meant knowing of lots of things, not knowing about them.”

Telegraph inventor Samuel Morse asked “What hath God wrought?” in the first wired message. Postman answers: “a neighborhood of strangers and pointless quantity; a world of fragments and discontinuities.” His assessment might be cut and pasted into a sentence about social media today.

By the time TV came along, in Postman’s telling, the collective intellectual damage had been done. The appeal of the moving images, the abrupt shifts from one topic to the next — “now this,” as he titles a chapter in broadcast-ese — buried us deeper in an avalanche or names and faces, places and incidents, about which we understood little of significance.

Everybody knew of the Iran hostage crisis of 1979-81, for example, an event that spawned its own TV show, Nightline . It’s hard to imagine the American media giving more sustained air time to a story or the public paying closer attention. Yet in his acerbic pessimism, Postman wonders, “Would it be an exaggeration to say that not one American in a hundred knows what language the Iranians speak? Or what the word ‘Ayatollah’ means or implies? Or knows any details of the tenets of Iranian religious beliefs? Or the main outlines of their political history? Or knows who the Shah was, and where he came from?”

The ignorance of which precluded few from opining as if well-informed, and those views themselves became their own news story — “53 percent of Americans say . . .”  — a self-perpetuating cycle that Postman describes as “a great loop of impotence: the news elicits from you a variety of opinions about which you can do nothing except to offer them as more news, about which you can do nothing.”

That description sounds familiar — and concise enough to fit in a tweet. If the telegraph led to television and our diminishing capacity to accumulate knowledge before emitting opinions, what have Facebook and Twitter made of us? A nation of Abe Simpsons (that passes for a common cultural reference, right?) shaking our fists at clouds.

Postman’s most poignant and pointed conclusion is that we did this to ourselves. He wrote Amusing Ourselves to Death at a time when we were of a mind to evaluate how Orwellian our world had become, how much 1984 resembled Nineteen Eighty-Four . Not so much, Postman determines. At least not in the United States.

We are heirs instead to Aldous Huxley and A Brave New World, he writes. The tools of oppression have not been imposed by an autocratic state, as Orwell’s dystopian vision envisioned. Instead, we binge on our TVs and smartphones, the equivalent of the soma that anaesthetized Huxley’s citizens into pleasurable passivity.

“As (Huxley) saw it,” Postman writes, “people will come to love their oppression, to adore the technologies that undo their capacities to think.”

When I look away from my phone long enough to consider it, Postman’s critique seems all too prescient, although the technologies we turn to today have become so embedded that their use now feels less like adoration than addiction. We want to delete Facebook and deny the access we have granted the public to our digital DNA, but we don’t. On Twitter, people constantly tweet about how terrible Twitter is, a take that’s always good for a few retweets. Speaking of “a great loop of impotence.”

On guard against the imposition of tyranny, perhaps on a Cold War footing, we did not take into account that tyranny could come from within, through what Huxley called our “almost infinite appetite for distractions.” Whatever the medium of the moment, we tune in to tune out.

“Big Brother,” Postman writes, “turns out to be Howdy Doody.”

The reference might be dated, but the sentiment has lost none of its currency. You could make it into a meme and post it.

Jason Kelly is an associate editor of this magazine.

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  • How to conclude an essay | Interactive example

How to Conclude an Essay | Interactive Example

Published on January 24, 2019 by Shona McCombes . Revised on July 23, 2023.

The conclusion is the final paragraph of your essay . A strong conclusion aims to:

  • Tie together the essay’s main points
  • Show why your argument matters
  • Leave the reader with a strong impression

Your conclusion should give a sense of closure and completion to your argument, but also show what new questions or possibilities it has opened up.

This conclusion is taken from our annotated essay example , which discusses the history of the Braille system. Hover over each part to see why it’s effective.

Braille paved the way for dramatic cultural changes in the way blind people were treated and the opportunities available to them. Louis Braille’s innovation was to reimagine existing reading systems from a blind perspective, and the success of this invention required sighted teachers to adapt to their students’ reality instead of the other way around. In this sense, Braille helped drive broader social changes in the status of blindness. New accessibility tools provide practical advantages to those who need them, but they can also change the perspectives and attitudes of those who do not.

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Table of contents

Step 1: return to your thesis, step 2: review your main points, step 3: show why it matters, what shouldn’t go in the conclusion, more examples of essay conclusions, other interesting articles, frequently asked questions about writing an essay conclusion.

To begin your conclusion, signal that the essay is coming to an end by returning to your overall argument.

Don’t just repeat your thesis statement —instead, try to rephrase your argument in a way that shows how it has been developed since the introduction.

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Next, remind the reader of the main points that you used to support your argument.

Avoid simply summarizing each paragraph or repeating each point in order; try to bring your points together in a way that makes the connections between them clear. The conclusion is your final chance to show how all the paragraphs of your essay add up to a coherent whole.

To wrap up your conclusion, zoom out to a broader view of the topic and consider the implications of your argument. For example:

  • Does it contribute a new understanding of your topic?
  • Does it raise new questions for future study?
  • Does it lead to practical suggestions or predictions?
  • Can it be applied to different contexts?
  • Can it be connected to a broader debate or theme?

Whatever your essay is about, the conclusion should aim to emphasize the significance of your argument, whether that’s within your academic subject or in the wider world.

Try to end with a strong, decisive sentence, leaving the reader with a lingering sense of interest in your topic.

The easiest way to improve your conclusion is to eliminate these common mistakes.

Don’t include new evidence

Any evidence or analysis that is essential to supporting your thesis statement should appear in the main body of the essay.

The conclusion might include minor pieces of new information—for example, a sentence or two discussing broader implications, or a quotation that nicely summarizes your central point. But it shouldn’t introduce any major new sources or ideas that need further explanation to understand.

Don’t use “concluding phrases”

Avoid using obvious stock phrases to tell the reader what you’re doing:

  • “In conclusion…”
  • “To sum up…”

These phrases aren’t forbidden, but they can make your writing sound weak. By returning to your main argument, it will quickly become clear that you are concluding the essay—you shouldn’t have to spell it out.

Don’t undermine your argument

Avoid using apologetic phrases that sound uncertain or confused:

  • “This is just one approach among many.”
  • “There are good arguments on both sides of this issue.”
  • “There is no clear answer to this problem.”

Even if your essay has explored different points of view, your own position should be clear. There may be many possible approaches to the topic, but you want to leave the reader convinced that yours is the best one!

  • Argumentative
  • Literary analysis

This conclusion is taken from an argumentative essay about the internet’s impact on education. It acknowledges the opposing arguments while taking a clear, decisive position.

The internet has had a major positive impact on the world of education; occasional pitfalls aside, its value is evident in numerous applications. The future of teaching lies in the possibilities the internet opens up for communication, research, and interactivity. As the popularity of distance learning shows, students value the flexibility and accessibility offered by digital education, and educators should fully embrace these advantages. The internet’s dangers, real and imaginary, have been documented exhaustively by skeptics, but the internet is here to stay; it is time to focus seriously on its potential for good.

This conclusion is taken from a short expository essay that explains the invention of the printing press and its effects on European society. It focuses on giving a clear, concise overview of what was covered in the essay.

The invention of the printing press was important not only in terms of its immediate cultural and economic effects, but also in terms of its major impact on politics and religion across Europe. In the century following the invention of the printing press, the relatively stationary intellectual atmosphere of the Middle Ages gave way to the social upheavals of the Reformation and the Renaissance. A single technological innovation had contributed to the total reshaping of the continent.

This conclusion is taken from a literary analysis essay about Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein . It summarizes what the essay’s analysis achieved and emphasizes its originality.

By tracing the depiction of Frankenstein through the novel’s three volumes, I have demonstrated how the narrative structure shifts our perception of the character. While the Frankenstein of the first volume is depicted as having innocent intentions, the second and third volumes—first in the creature’s accusatory voice, and then in his own voice—increasingly undermine him, causing him to appear alternately ridiculous and vindictive. Far from the one-dimensional villain he is often taken to be, the character of Frankenstein is compelling because of the dynamic narrative frame in which he is placed. In this frame, Frankenstein’s narrative self-presentation responds to the images of him we see from others’ perspectives. This conclusion sheds new light on the novel, foregrounding Shelley’s unique layering of narrative perspectives and its importance for the depiction of character.

If you want to know more about AI tools , college essays , or fallacies make sure to check out some of our other articles with explanations and examples or go directly to our tools!

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Your essay’s conclusion should contain:

  • A rephrased version of your overall thesis
  • A brief review of the key points you made in the main body
  • An indication of why your argument matters

The conclusion may also reflect on the broader implications of your argument, showing how your ideas could applied to other contexts or debates.

For a stronger conclusion paragraph, avoid including:

  • Important evidence or analysis that wasn’t mentioned in the main body
  • Generic concluding phrases (e.g. “In conclusion…”)
  • Weak statements that undermine your argument (e.g. “There are good points on both sides of this issue.”)

Your conclusion should leave the reader with a strong, decisive impression of your work.

The conclusion paragraph of an essay is usually shorter than the introduction . As a rule, it shouldn’t take up more than 10–15% of the text.

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If you want to cite this source, you can copy and paste the citation or click the “Cite this Scribbr article” button to automatically add the citation to our free Citation Generator.

McCombes, S. (2023, July 23). How to Conclude an Essay | Interactive Example. Scribbr. Retrieved April 9, 2024, from https://www.scribbr.com/academic-essay/conclusion/

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Essay on Postman for Students and Children

500+ words essay on postman.

When we say the word postman, an image of a male comes to our mind wearing the khaki uniform who rides a bicycle. However, has anyone ever thought about how important he is for us. Almost everyone is familiar with who a postman is and what he does. He works for the public and is assigned at the post office .

Essay on Postman

A postman has to basically deliver important documents from one place to another. He is a carrier of letters, money orders, greeting cards, parcels and many more. He goes from door to door and street to street to make this happen. A postman is a well-known person. He is a public servant. He works in the post office. He delivers letters, money orders, parcels, greeting cards, etc. from door to door and street to street. His services are very important as they help in the smooth distribution of important documents.

Importance of a Postman

A postman is extremely important for a society. He is a carrier of very important information for both professional and personal reasons. This public servant operates all over the country. If it’s a village or a metro city, you will definitely find a postman there.

The postman always wears a uniform that makes him stand apart from the crowd. In India, he wears a uniform of khaki fabric and colour. A postman’s most prized possession is his bag which he carries the letters in. It contains all types of things from good news to bad news. They generally travel on a cycle while some also go on foot. A postman always has to get up early to start delivering the letters.

It is his duty to sort out the letters and posts so that it can get easy to deliver them in specific areas. He also stamps all the letters to verify them. A postman helps people keep assured that their important information is in the right hands. Furthermore, he is a very trusted person who works day and night to deliver people letters. However, this job is quite challenging and is not appreciated enough.

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Difficulties Faced by a Postman

Postman’s life is very difficult. He has to work continuously all day and search for the exact addresses in localities. He even works at night to deliver important telegrams for people. It does not matter if it’s raining or scorching hot, the postman will always be on duty.

Moreover, a postman also has to cover challenging terrains as well as uneven roads to reach the destination. In the rural areas, the postman goes through dangerous areas like forests and more where there are snakes and all. Postmen are mostly a hard-working lot who earn every penny they get. They are honest with their work and make people’s lives easier.

Despite this, a postman doesn’t get paid sufficiently. The tasks he performs does not do justice to the pain and hardships he has to go through. Moreover, he gets also limited holiday and works on days while the world rests.

Furthermore, at this post, there are little or no chances of promotion. The meager salary makes it hard for a postman to fulfill all the needs of his family. Thus, we should be sympathetic to them. In addition, the government must pay them right so they can have a better quality of life.

FAQ on Postman

Q.1 State the importance of a postman.

A.1 A postman is very important. He delivers important documents from lives place to another and makes our lives easier.

Q.2 What difficulties do a postman have to face?

A.2 A postman always works in all types of weather no matter how harsh. He gets a meager salary and limited holidays.

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The Postman

Essay on The Postman

The unsung hero: the postman.

The postman, a familiar figure in our neighborhoods, is an unsung hero who plays a crucial role in connecting people, delivering news, and fostering communication. Often seen in a distinctive uniform, carrying a bag full of letters and parcels, the postman is a symbol of reliability and service.

The primary responsibility of a postman is to deliver mail promptly and efficiently. They navigate through various terrains, from bustling city streets to quiet suburban lanes, ensuring that letters and packages reach their intended recipients. In doing so, they bridge the geographical gaps that separate friends, families, and businesses.

The significance of a postman goes beyond the delivery of physical mail; they are bearers of news, joy, and connection. In an age dominated by digital communication, the tangible act of receiving a handwritten letter or a carefully wrapped package carries a unique charm. The postman becomes a messenger of emotions, delivering greetings, invitations, and heartfelt sentiments from one person to another.

In addition to delivering personal correspondence, postmen contribute to the functioning of businesses and official communication. They play a vital role in ensuring that important documents, legal notices, and official correspondence reach their destinations on time. Their reliability is a cornerstone of the postal system, facilitating the smooth operation of various sectors.

The postman’s job is not without its challenges. They brave varying weather conditions, from scorching heat to pouring rain, to fulfill their duties. Whether it’s climbing staircases to apartment buildings or navigating remote villages, the postman is dedicated to reaching every doorstep, ensuring that no one is left out of the web of communication.

Over the years, the role of the postman has evolved with technological advancements. While traditional letters still hold sentimental value, the postman now handles a range of items, from online shopping deliveries to official documents. The adaptability of the postman highlights their commitment to keeping pace with changing times.

In rural areas, the postman often becomes a familiar face, known not just for delivering mail but also for being a source of local news and information. They contribute to the social fabric of communities, fostering a sense of connection and belonging.

Despite the rise of digital communication, the postman continues to hold a special place in our lives. The anticipation of receiving a letter or package creates a sense of excitement that technology cannot replicate. The postman’s role extends beyond a job description; they become woven into the stories of the communities they serve.

In conclusion, the postman is a silent but essential figure in the tapestry of our lives. They embody reliability, connection, and service, linking individuals and communities across distances. As we witness the evolution of communication, let us not forget the enduring importance of the postman, the bearer of news, the messenger of emotions, and the unsung hero who keeps our world connected.

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The Postman Essay For Students and Children in 1000 Words

The Postman Essay For Students and Children in 1000 Words

In this article read ‘the postman essay’ for students and children in 1000 words. Meaning, importance, difficulties, work, my village postman, 10 lines and more about postman in this essay.

Lets start the postman essay…

Table of Contents

The Postman Essay (1000 Words)

In India, there are a number of government departments that work to provide services in various sectors. It is a noble profession to work as a government servant. You get an opportunity to serve your country and more importantly, the people in your locality. 

The Postman is one such noble person who does his duty to the general public. Once upon a time, when there were no mobile phones and internet connections everywhere, people used to connect with one another by means of letters, and these letters were delivered by the postman.

Who is called The Postman?

Whenever we think about Postman, we create the image of a person wearing a khaki dress, holding a bag and riding a bicycle in our mind. This is the simplest thought that people have about The Postman. 

A postman is a person who works as a government servant in a post office, and his job is to deliver letters. He travels door to door to deliver letters, parcels, couriers, money orders, and other items. Postmen can be found in every part of the world, as India has the largest postal network in the country.

Apart from delivering parcels and letters, the work of a postman is also to sort the documents at the post office, hand out mail letters to the post office, sell postage stamps, and collect letters from the customers.

The job of a postman starts early in the morning. He collects letters from the mail receipt of the Post Office, sorts the mail, and then he collects money orders from the treasury, before going on his way to deliver the products.

Importance of The Postman

There are over 140 crores of people living in India, spread throughout the country. To make communication faster and easier, the postal department has spread throughout each and every corner of the nation. 

This makes the work of the postman extremely important for society. They are the carriers of useful and essential information and products for professional and personal purposes. 

Furthermore, he plays an important role in the social and economic development of the country. He must make sure that the letters and parcels of the people are in safe and secure hands. 

Difficulties in The Postman Jobs

The job of a postman and his overall work-life is very difficult. He has to work continuously for the whole day, starting from the beginning of office hours. In the morning, he waits for the mail order to release the mail, and from there, he collects all the letters, parcels, and other items. 

He then goes to the treasury to collect the money orders. After collecting all the items, he begins his journey to deliver the products. It doesn’t matter if it’s raining , chilly winter , or scorching summer; the postman has to do his duty no matter what. 

Apart from this, the postman has to go long distances and travel through challenging terrains and rough rural areas , and sometimes they also need to pass through dense forests to deliver things. This journey, the postman either covers by walking or by bicycle.

Postmen really work hard to earn money and make people’s lives easier. Despite the Postmen working hard to accomplish difficult tasks, they don’t get paid sufficiently. Apart from it, they also get fewer holidays, and there are little to no chances of their promotion.

How does a postman help us?

A postman serves as a crucial connecting link between two individuals. He brings news from our family , relatives, friends , business deals, office letters, marriage invitations , and other things as well. 

Money orders are also an important thing that is delivered by the postman. Postman travels from door to door to deliver important documents from one place to another place.

Nowadays, we are able to make contact with anyone through social media apps , internet connections, or direct phone calls. 

However, for people who live in interior areas, where the means of communication is limited, postmen are the only people who act as a means of communication for them. 

My Village Postman

The Postman of our village is a humble man, and everyone likes him. He is a well-known person in our village and all other nearby villages. The Postman always wears a khaki uniform that makes him stand apart from that crowd. 

Anyone can recognize him from a distance just because of his uniform. He always carries a bag with him, where he keeps all the letters, parcels, and money orders. Most of the time, he travels on his bicycle.

However, he prefers to walk when he needs to visit any interior destination. He always delivers the packages on time, and he is never late. 

The Postman also knows us well, and whenever any member of our village gets a letter, the Postman directly goes to his house. He knows everyone’s house properly, along with their names.

This makes the work of our local Postman a little bit easier. He also greets people with a smile and handles the parcel for them.

10 lines on The Postman

  • The Postman is a government servant who works at a post office, and his primary work is to deliver letters, parcels, and money orders to the people.
  • Working as a postman is a noble job as you will get an opportunity to serve the people in your locality with valuable letters.
  • Before there were any means of electronic communication in the world, postmen served as the only means of comm unication through letters.
  • The work of a postman starts early in the morning when he receives all the letters, parcels, and money orders from the office, and by the time he delivers all the things, it turns into night.
  • The work of a postman is extremely difficult as he has to deliver products in all types of weather conditions.
  • Apart from delivering letters, parcels, and money orders, he also collects letters from people’s houses to be sent anywhere else.
  • The postman delivers the parcels and sorts the items and all other documents in the post office.
  • Postmen had to tra vel long distances either by walking or by bicycle to deliver the packages door to door.
  • He had to travel through interior ritual roads, dense forests, and even muddy roads to reach his destination.
  • The Postman is an important part of our society that makes our lives easier.

A postman is a person who delivers things to us within the required time. He makes our lives easier by working hard day and night. He travels a lot and even walks long distances to make sure the work is done. 

We should also make his work easier by writing the receiver’s exact name and location, and address. As such, the postman is an integral part of society and serves us with his work.

I hope you liked the postman essay for students and children in 1000 words.

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Essay on The Postman

the postman essay conclusion

A postman is a useful public servant. He is welcome everywhere because he brings letters from friends and relatives. He delivers parcels and money orders, etc. Without the services of a postmen, life would be paralyzed to a great extent.

A postman can be seen here and there delivering the mail to the addresses. He wears khaki uniform. He can be seen riding a bicycle. He carries the letters in his bag. His work is full of difficulties. He arranges the letters in order. He goes from door to door to distribute the letter and money-orders. He brings the good and bad news from the relatives. A postman’s duty is to deliver the letters, parcels, money orders etc.

His duties are very hard. He has to work under scorching sun and pouring rains. His job is very tough. He reaches for his duty at right time. He is a useful member of the society. He has to keep smiling against all odds. We should respect him for his hard labour.

He is a link between friend and realties. He keeps them in touch by his quick and regular service. So are businessman benefited by him. They reward him for his good service in festivals. The postman’s life is very hard. His salary is very low. His holidays and leisure hours are very few. The Government should raise his salary and lighten his work. The postal department should try to improve his lot.

With the coming up of courier services, e-mail system, the postmen are losing their charm. People have started sending their mails through computers. In the present circumstances, the future of postmen is not bright.

Speech on:The Postman

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English Summary

The Postman Essay

A postman is a well-known person. He is a public servant. He works in the post office. He delivers letters, money orders, parcels, greeting cards, etc. from door to door and street to street. His services are very important.

People wait for his knock on the doo.r He is always welcome. The postman wears a khaki uniform and carries a bag full of letters, etc. He collects letters from letterboxes. Then they are sent through the mail-vans and trains to the addresses at different places.

He delivers letters received in his post office from other post-offices and places. He delivers registered and speed-post articles also. He links people and places. He brings news from friends relatives and near and dear ones from distant places.

He brings greetings and good wishes cards. Sometimes there may be a piece of unwelcome news. But again it is important because it concerns us. The news is news, whether good or bad and must be communicated.

The duties of a postman are difficult. These are more difficult for a postman working in a village. He has to cover long distances on foot, bicycle or sometimes on can boats. Sun or rain, freezing cold or scorching heat, he is on his duty.

But he is poorly paid. His salary is meagre. He has poor chances of promotion. His work conditions and pay should be raised. He should be provided with government accommodation. His children should be given better opportunities for education and training.

He should also be insured as he has to face dangerous situations. In far-flung rural areas, he has to cross rivers and thick forests When he carries money orders, his risks increase all the more.

He deserves our sympathy and regard. He has very few holidays and his hours of work are long and difficult We must give him better treatment and salary

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Postman Essay, Paragraph & Composition

The postman plays a very important role in our society. Communicating between relatives and friends who live far away from each other is the work of a postman. This is why students are often asked to write a postman essay or postman paragraph in school classes or exams. The job of a postman is very laborious indeed, but not very profitable. Despite the modernization of the postal system, the standard of living of those involved in the profession has not improved as expected. Here is a bunch of essays, compositions & paragraphs on a postman in 100, 150, 200, 250, and 300 words for students, highlighting the life & work of a postman.

A Postman Paragraph

Table of Contents

The Postman Essay in English, 250 Words

By: Haque | For Class 6-7 | 26-06-’22

Hints: (i) Introduction, (ii) His dress, (iii) His duty, (iv) His popularity, (v) His monetary condition, (vi) Conclusion.

Introduction: A postman is known to all. He is a small government servant. He is a familiar figure in villages and towns. He is known as “Dak Peon”.

His Duty: A postman has many works to do. He attends the office first. He sorts the letters, money orders, and parcels. Then he goes from house to house with letters, parcels, and money orders, and delivers them to the owners. He walks in the street under the hot midday sun. In the village post office, he also sells postcards and envelopes. He has to walk a long distance to finish his duties in time.

In a town, a postman hardly mixes with the people. He drops the letters in the private letterboxes in the gates.

His Popularity: He is dutiful and sincere. He is regular, honest, and conscious of his duties. He knows that if fails in his duty, it will be a great loss or harm to people. The postman has a cheerful face. He serves everyone smilingly. He brings both good and bad news. So, everyone likes him.

Monetary Condition: The postman gets a low salary. He lives from hand to mouth. He should be given a higher salary.

Conclusion: A postman is an important person in society. He is a great friend of people. He carries news for all but nobody cares for his news.

A Postman Composition, 300 Words

By: Haque | For Class 7-8 | 26-06-’22

Write a composition about the postman by using the following hints. Hints: (i) Introduction, (ii) Who is a postman, (iii) His life, (iv) His qualification, (v) His duties, (vi) Importance of a postman, (vii) Conclusion.

The postman is a very familiar person in both cities and villages . He generally works in the post office. He performs the duty of delivering postal things such as letters, money orders, parcels, etc. to the concerned people. He is a familiar fellow.

The postman is one who is employed by the postal department to deliver postal matters like parcels, letters, money orders, etc. according to their addresses.

The postman begins his daily work in the post office at 9 o’clock in the morning . He works till the afternoon. He leads a busy life.

The postman is a fourth-class government employee. He is a low-paid government servant. He is not so qualified. Though ill paid the necessity of his service to society is great.

Formerly, every postman had to put on a Khaki dress and carry a bag across his shoulder. Hanging bag in his shoulder, a postman goes from house to house on foot over great distances in sun and rain to deliver postal matters. In delivering money orders and registered matters etc. he has to take the addresses, signature on the acknowledgment forms. His sense of duty is very great. During the rainy season , he gets a raincoat of waterproof from the government to perform his duties perfectly and smoothly.

In old days people mostly lived at home with their families . But with the spread of civilization men now live far from their families and friends . So, it is natural for them to be anxious for news from one another. Post and telegraph offices have come into existence to supply this need. Though he brings both good and bad news for us, yet every time he is welcomed by us. We always wait for him. He is more welcomed when he comes with a money order or some good news.

A postman is an important person in society. He has to perform highly responsible duties. The reputation of the department entirely depends on his service but he is ill-paid.

The Postman Essay, 350 Words

By: Haque , For class 8-9, 04-01-’21

Introduction: Every day at a particular time he is seen passing through the streets. A postman delivers letters, parcels, and money orders to us. He is a man of duty in the field of communication. He is a familiar figure in the country because of his duty. We all expect him greatly.

Description: The postman wears a ‘Khaki’ uniform and carries a bag on his shoulders. It contains letters and others. Many of them have to walk to deliver letters but some postmen have bicycles. Nowadays they are seen with motorcycles for speedy disposal.

His Functions / Responsibilities: A postman is a man of hard work. When he is on duty, he remains busy doing his job. He begins his work in the morning . He sorts out letters and stamps them with receiving date. Then he sets out to deliver them to the addresses. His daily round at duty covers a wide area, and he has to walk a long distance laboriously to finish his duty without complaint.

Quality: The qualities of a postman are very great. He maintains time table to do anything. He gets a poor salary, but he is sincere with his work. Really his role in our society is very great.

The Hardship of the Postman: The hardship of a postman knows no bounds. Every day he is to abide by his duty. Even in the rough weather, he is bound to do his duty. On hot days, he sweats heavily. He cannot take any rest. He cannot expose his hardship to anybody walking on the road. He thinks that he has no time to take a rest. He knows that there are valuable letters, parcels, money orders in his bag. He must reach those things to the proper addresses. Because the addresses are waiting for him eagerly. Although the postman does a lot for society, he is a law salaried servant. So, the government should give him just right to his hard work.

Conclusion: A postman is a symbol of duty, sincerity, and honesty . He helps our society in the field of postal communication. Indeed, he is expected by all of us for getting the news.

The Postman Paragraph, 150 Words

By: Haque | For Class 5-6 | 26-06-’22

Write down a paragraph on the importance of A Postman. Mention his daily routine work. You are required to include the service procedure of a postman.

The postman is a very familiar figure in the cities and in the villages . He is a long-awaited person especially to those who expect letters from their dear and near ones. He carries letters, parcels, and money orders from door to door. He has no time to waste because he knows a delay may cause a great loss to the people. He links the world through letters. He is the courier of happy and sad news. He gets a poor salary but his responsibility is great. Although he does an important job, he is not given as much privileges as he requires. As a result, sometimes he becomes corrupt. However, the postal system has now been digitized. That is why there has been a fundamental change in its management. If we want to get the desired service from the modern postal system now, we have to increase the salaries and other benefits of the employees associated with it.

A Postman Paragraph

The Postman Paragraph for Class 6-7

By: Haque | Words: 160 | 26-06-’22

Write a paragraph on ‘The Postman’. Write about his uniform, his duties and the importance of his work.

A postman is one of the most well-known government employees. We eagerly await his arrival every day. He wears a khaki uniform. He has to do a lot of duties. He attends his post office first early in the morning and starts his work. He sorts out the letters, parcels, money orders, and other valuable things. After collecting them, he goes out and moves from house to house and office to office. He carefully delivers the letters to the recipients. For this, he often has to walk a long way. He is not highly educated but carries a great responsibility. He is very punctual, dutiful, sincere, honest, and hard-working. In spite of getting a poor salary, he does his duties sincerely. His duty is very useful and important. He brings important news both happy and sad from our friends and relatives. We can’t think of a civilized society without his services. So, we should look upon him with great love and sympathy.

Check also: Life of a Farmer Essay & Paragraph

The Postman Paragraph, 100 Words

By: Haque | For Class-5 | 26-06-’22

The postman is a very familiar figure. He is known for his dress. He puts on a khaki dress with a bag across his shoulder. He carries letters and goods from our friends and relatives living at home and abroad. So, everybody waits for him and welcomes him. He delivers letters, money orders, parcels to the proper addresses. He is always busy with his job. Everybody knows him. He works hard but his small pay is not enough for his livelihood. Nowadays the usage of paper letters is falling off. So, the postman is also losing importance day by day.

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Postman Essay

Postman Essay | Essay on Postman for Students and Children in English

Postman Essay: The postman is an important public servant. He works for the postal department. His job is to deliver letters, parcels and money orders to the people they are addressed to.

You can read more  Essay Writing  about articles, events, people, sports, technology many more.

Short Essay on Postman 200 Words for Kids and Students in English

Below we have given a short essay on Postman is for Classes 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6. This short essay on the topic is suitable for students of class 6 and below.

Each postman is given a specific area, in which he has to deliver mail. In almost all the big cities, towns and villages, the postman can be seen making his rounds on his bicycle. But in many remote areas of the country, he has to deliver letters on foot.

For many people, writing and receiving letters is the only way to keep in touch with one’s family, relatives and friends in spite of the widespread network of telecommunication like mobiles, phones, fax, and e-mail. As a result, the arrival of the postman is eagerly awaited in such homes. This is especially true in rural areas. Since a large segment of our population is still illiterate, the postman has to read and write their letters for them. Although this is not a part of his job, he does this to help people.

A postman is a hard-working person. He has to work in the open, through extreme weather conditions, including rain. He does not enjoy too many holidays in a year.

Postman Essay

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Essay on Postman in English for Children and Students

the postman essay conclusion

Table of Contents

A postman has always been an important part of our society. His job duties involve reporting to the post office on time every day, sorting the letters according to the addresses, placing them carefully in his bag, delivering them to the correct address and reporting back to the post office in the evening. He reports to the postmaster and follows his instructions. His job is tough but he carries out all his duties with a smile. He also brings a smile on the face of people who receive letters, presents and money orders delivered by him.

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Long and Short Essay on Postman in English

Here are essay on Postman of varying lengths to help you with the topic in your exam. You can find here variety of Postman Essay written under various words limit in order to fulfil your requirement.

We have covered all the points related to the postman such as importance of postman, postman in our village, postman: a tough profession, postman in our neighbourhood, etc.

We hope, you will enjoy reading these essays because they are written in easy and very simple language to make it user friendly.

Short Essay on Postman (200 words) – Essay 1

A postman is a community helper. He is as important to the society as other community helpers such as a doctor, a teacher, a policeman, and a vegetable-seller. He helps in connecting people by conveying their messages to each other.

A postman wears a khaki uniform and holds a bag full of letters on his shoulder. He rides a bicycle and roams around on streets to deliver letters to different addresses. He needs to make sure that every letter reaches the correct address. He also needs to ensure that the letters are delivered timely. Many people subscribe to magazines and newsletters. These are also delivered by the postman. He is reprimanded in case he doesn’t perform his duty well.

Postman’s profession is quite tough. He faces many hardships such as riding the cycle all day long irrespective of the weather outside. Whether it is rainy, windy or sunny, a postman cannot take a leave. He needs to be out on his cycle to distribute the letters so that people do not miss any important message. This can be quite strenuous physically. However, he does his job with dedication. By evening he needs to report to the post office. He is allowed to go home only after the postmaster’s approval.

Despite the hard work, a postman is not paid well. I wish the government increases the allowance of the postmen.

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Essay on Postman (300 words) – Essay 2

‘Importance of Postman’

Introduction

In ancient times, people relied on pigeons to convey messages to their loved ones living in faraway lands. However, as things changed these were replaced by a more reliable medium. Post offices came into being and postmen were hired to deliver important letters, parcels, and documents.

The Importance of Postman in the Earlier Times

A postman was one of the most important community helpers in the times when there were no phones. People communicated with their relatives and friends living in distant lands by way of handwritten letters that were delivered by postmen.

Since banks were not easily accessible and there were no ATMs, people often sent money orders. Gifts and other important parcels were also sent via post. A telegram was sent in case an urgent message had to be conveyed. The role of the postman was thus that of great responsibility in the past.

People relied upon him for receiving money and important messages and things. They keenly waited for postman each day.

The Importance of Postman in the Modern Times

It would not be wrong to say that the importance of postman has lowered to some extent due to the introduction of phones and emails. Instead of writing long letters to each other, people send quick messages or emails to convey the message. They no longer have to wait for days to hear from each other.

They can simply make a call or text their loved ones as well as business associates and connect with them instantly. All the banking transactions including the transfer of money and receiving of documents is also done online. People hardly send money orders these days.

However, receiving handwritten letters is still a great feeling. The importance of postman may have reduced with time but he is still an essential part of our community. He still delivers many important posts such as university results, admission cards, weekly/ monthly magazines, and the likes.

Though we have now shifted to the electronic mediums of communication, however, the role of a postman is still important. It is good to see that most postmen carry out their duties with honesty and dedication.

Essay on Postman (400 words) – Essay 3

‘The Postman in Our Village’

We live in a residential society in a metropolitan city. The sight of a postman is very rare here. The postman usually delivers the letters at the society gate and that is where we pick them from. I only get to see a postman when I visit my grandparents during my summer vacation. They live in a beautiful village in North India. Postman is one of the few people who are awaited eagerly by the people of the village. We also look forward to his arrival each day.

The Joy of Receiving Letters

The atmosphere of villages is quite different from that of the cities. Children are seen playing together in the neighborhood all day long. Elderly people also gather to chit chat during the afternoon and evening hours. I and my siblings also play and run around the village area. The joy of the kids playing around increases particularly when they see the postman coming. They run after him chasing his bicycle, greeting him and giggling away to glory.

Everyone is eager to know if they have received any letter or another postal article. It is like receiving a precious gift. The postman seems as glad as the people around. He stops by at the addresses where the letters are to be delivered. People living in villages are quite courteous. They offer him water. Some of them even offer him sweets on special occasions.

There is no bank or ATM in our village. The nearest one is around 10 km away. It is difficult to withdraw money transferred to the bank. This is the reason why money orders are quite common here. People prefer receiving their payments through money orders. Many children also send money orders to their parents living in the village so that they can purchase things with ease. The postman understands the importance of money orders. He carefully delivers them to the respective recipients.

The Postman Reads the Letters

Many people in the village do not know how to read. So, in addition to distributing letters, the postman also takes it as his responsibility to read the letters to villagers. He does this job with joy. He sits down and patiently conveys the message written in the letter to the people. In case, there is some good news, people reward the postman to express and share their happiness.

The bond between the villagers and the postman is really strong. It is a treat to watch the postman riding through the village. We miss this in the city.

Essay on Postman (500 words) – Essay 4

‘Postman: A Tough Profession’

A postman is a government servant. He is employed to distribute letters, money orders, and other postal articles to people. He roams around on a bicycle all day to complete the work assigned to him. The profession of a postman is not easy. He needs to face many challenges.

The khaki Uniform

A postman wears a khaki uniform. He wears a matching cap and carries a bag full of letters on his shoulder. The bag also contains certain other stuff such as cards, money orders and magazines that need to be delivered at different addresses. The uniform of a postman sets him apart from the rest of the public. A postman’s uniform helps us recognize him from a distance.

The Old Bicycle

A postman rides a bicycle even in today’s times. People have upgraded from cycles to scooters to cars. However, postmen are still assigned bicycles. They roam around on this eco-friendly vehicle the entire day to distribute letters and other important documents to people.

Many people argue that their vehicles should also be upgraded. However, others support this old way of commuting. It may take time for the postmen to reach from one place to another via cycle. However, there are many advantages attached to it too. One of the main advantages is that a postman does not have to worry about traffic jams.

The role of a postman is that of great responsibility. He needs to ensure timely delivery of letters. Driving a car, scooter or tempo can hinder his work as it will make it difficult for him to escape the traffic. Besides, cycles are good for the environment. They do not cause pollution, unlike cars and bikes. Also, riding a bicycle keeps the postman healthy and fit.

Postmen are usually seen riding an old bicycle which has become an integral part of their identity.

A Tough Job

The job of a postman is not easy. He requires reporting to the post office early every morning. He collects all the letters from the post office and then sets out to distribute them in the area assigned to him. The letters need to be distributed at different addresses. He needs to look for the best possible route based on the addresses he needs to visit in order to complete his job by evening.

He needs to ensure that the letters reach people on time so that they do not miss out on any important message. A postman cannot afford to miss any delivery or misplace any letter as he can be questioned for loss or delayed delivery. He can be punished in such cases. He can lose his job or a part of his salary in the event.

In the evening, the postman requires reporting to the post office again. In case, any job is left incomplete he requires completing it before heading home.

It is sad, that even though a postman works hard all day long, he is not paid well by the government.

The service provided by a postman is essential for society. We should be thankful to these professionals for carrying out their tasks with dedication.

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Essay on Postman (600 words) – Essay 5

‘Postman in Our Neighbourhood’

Since my early childhood years, I remember one person who visits us regularly. He comes to our house many times a week and has become a part of our family. He is our postman, Naresh. While many postmen are transferred to a different area every few years, Naresh has been delivering letters in our vicinity for quite a long time. It has been for several years.

My Grandparents Await Postman Eagerly

While most of us have switched from writing letters to sending a quick email or message, my grandmother still prefers the good old way of writing letters. She and her siblings exchange handwritten letters regularly to keep in touch with each other. I often go with her to the post office to purchase inland letters, envelop and stamps. She also assigns me the task of putting letters in the nearby letterbox. We then await their reply. My grandmother eagerly waits for our postman, Naresh each day and so do I.

Apart from the letters from my grandmother’s siblings, we often receive letters from banks and some other institutions. Naresh knows that my grandmother keenly awaits letters from her loved ones. He rings the cycle bell joyfully as he approaches our place on the days he brings letters for my grandmother.

Just as my grandmother is overjoyed to receive these letters, Naresh is glad to deliver them. Sometimes, her brother sends her gift. No matter how small the gift is, the joy of receiving a surprise parcel is simply unmatched. Naresh makes sure the parcel is carefully kept in his bag to avoid any kind of breakage. He joyfully hands it over to my grandmother who is thrilled at receiving it.

My grandfather, on the other hand, waits for letters from the stock market and bank. While my father carries out all the banking transactions online and receives notifications on his mobile or email, my grandfather still prefers the old way of dealing with such institutions. So, he too awaits Naresh every day. He trusts Naresh completely and thus instead of visiting the bank he often opts for receiving even the most important and confidential documents via post.

My Pen Friend

I love this old way of keeping in touch. To experience the joy of receiving letters, I recently made a pen friend. In this era of mobile phones and chatting apps, this seems quite old fashioned and mundane. But I really wanted to experience this and it is really awesome. I write regularly to this friend and it is exciting to receive letters from her. She even sent me a beautiful birthday card which came as a pleasant surprise.

Our Postman; Our Friend

We are lucky that Naresh has been assigned our area as he is a very sincere professional. He carries out his tasks with honesty and dedication. Many of our relatives complain of missing out on letters and gifts. It is all due to the negligence of the postman in their area. They visit the post office to register complain regarding the same.

However, the lost/ misplaced parcels and letters are seldom found. Thankfully, we have never faced any such problem. This is because Naresh is a thorough professional. He understands the importance of timely delivery of letters and other postal articles and makes sure no one misses out on an important message.

It would not be wrong to call Naresh a true friend. On festivals and other special occasions such as birthdays, we offer sweets and juice to Naresh as he visits our house. My mother also gives him some cash and a pack of sweets for his family. We have been following this ritual for years.

Our postman, Naresh is always on time despite the weather outside. He works tirelessly and always has a smile on his face. His sincerity and dedication inspire me to work hard.

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Sasha taqʷšəblu LaPointe discusses new essay collection

Sasha taqʷšəblu LaPointe, a Coast Salish author from the Nooksack and Upper Skagit Indian tribes, sees her great-grandmother as the quintessential storyteller. “It was her gift, not mine,” she writes in her new book “Thunder Song” — a collection of intimate, meditative essays woven together with metaphors, unabashed honesty and the echoes of spirit songs sung by generations of Coast Salish women.

“In our longhouse ceremonies, songs hold a spiritual power,” LaPointe says of spirit songs in her book. “There are certain songs for prayer, for healing.”

Outside of her family, the community most important to LaPointe was always the punk scene. LaPointe fell in love with punk as a kid in her trailer on the Swinomish Reservation — making mixtapes on a boombox, listening to haunting melodies and Kathleen Hanna of Bikini Kill screaming the lyrics to “White Boy.” Her book explores how she was drawn into the punk world and how it gave her a haven.

“I really feel like the pull was rooted in chosen family,” she says. “A lot of the folks that gravitate towards the punk scene are looking for that. And I was inspired by it. Punks and artists were fiery and passionate about things.” LaPointe is a member of the punk band Medusa Stare . 

LaPointe wears two silver customized name necklaces, one in English and one in her Indigenous language of Lushootseed. She was given her traditional Skagit name, taqʷšəblu, after her great-grandmother Vi taqʷšəblu Hilbert, a linguist who helped preserve the Lushootseed language. In 2006, Hilbert commissioned an orchestral work performed by the Seattle Symphony at Benaroya Hall. She believed that Indigenous songs had the power to heal the world. She died in 2008 at 90 years old. 

When asked what her traditional name means, LaPointe jokes and laments that elders and anthropologists confirmed it doesn’t mean anything.

“I feel really ripped off in this because I want to say it means something so cool. Like ‘woman who runs with wolves,’” she says. “But no, it doesn’t mean anything.” 

Since entering her 30s, carrying this name proudly means carrying her great-grandmother’s legacy within her, a responsibility but also a gift — one she now embraces. “It was a name that always made me feel like I had a lot to live up to,” LaPointe says. “I’m a very different person than my great-grandmother, but I want to make her proud.”

LaPointe’s “Thunder Song,” despite being an essay collection, is just as much autobiographical as LaPointe’s first book “ Red Paint: The Ancestral Autobiography of a Coast Salish Punk ,” which came out in 2022.

“There’s so much memoir and personal narrative in the essays that I think some of them absolutely do start off right where ‘Red Paint’ left off,” LaPointe says.

“Red Paint” was a true confessional, exploring trauma and how it shaped her with a magnifying glass held up to the most vulnerable parts of her childhood and adult life. “Thunder Song” is LaPointe’s call out to the world, a love letter to the Pacific Northwest, an Indigenous riot grrrl manifesto, a time machine to her great-grandmother and the story of her heart dealing with the collective historical trauma that continues to besiege Indigenous people.

“The world is a truly messed up place right now,” she says. “And I think in those moments — the protests, the pandemic, the forest fires — there was a lot of collective anxiety and trauma, and this collection is part of how I could make sense of it.”

Growing up on the Swinomish Reservation, LaPointe lived in the middle of the woods but was enamored by the city. She imagined moving to Seattle and becoming a music journalist or an artist. A runaway at 13 with a court-approved emancipation at 15, eventually, she spent much of her late teens and early 20s living, working and performing in Seattle. 

At 25, she was at a crossroads. Her grandparents had given her a college brochure and she had also been asked to go on tour with a circus band.

“It felt like an assignment from my great-grandmother coming through from the spirit world,” LaPointe says. “She was like, ‘We know you want to go join the circus — but go pursue an education.’”

She decided against going on tour and moved to Santa Fe, N.M., to enroll at the Institute of American Indian Arts. After graduating in 2014, LaPointe moved back to Seattle. She now splits her time between Washington and Southern California — where her partner, Blaine, lives — but she cannot stay away from her Tacoma home for too long. “I have to come back and recharge,” she says. “Being in my Coast Salish territory, literally my ancestral homelands, feels really powerful and significant to me.”

In “Thunder Song,” LaPointe traverses both trauma and tender joyous moments with fearlessness and grace. She talks about sexual assault, abortion, miscarriage and how love depleted and defeated the women in her ancestry.

She expertly crosses between her contemporary influences and Native heritage as she details her obsession with “The Little Mermaid” and the story of the Maiden of Deception Pass, who sacrificed herself for her people, or the story of the Basket Ogress, who could make children disappear, alongside the reality of missing and murdered Indigenous women who are forgotten. 

With special care to the people closest to her, this collection gives LaPointe space to explore past and present relationships including significant moments with her mother, who she, at times, has had a tumultuous relationship with. LaPointe says she was anxious when she showed her mother a draft of the essay detailing their story. 

“We were on one of our walks. She was like, ‘It was so powerful. It was really beautiful. It was right. I’m so proud of you,’” LaPointe says. “That felt like a good ‘mom blessing’ because that [essay] was not easy. I was shaking in my boots.”

Throughout the book, LaPointe narrates how she wades through the various intersections of her identity as a queer, mixed heritage woman, as an artist, as a writer, as a daughter and as a friend.

“Of course, I’m tribally enrolled but I contain multitudes,” she says. “Our traditional languages and stories are really important to me, but so is making mixtapes and going to rowdy punk shows.”

AUTHOR EVENTS

Sasha taqʷšəblu LaPointe, Counterpoint, 256 pp., $27

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“Table for Two” is a collection of six stories and a novella set in two very different cultural capitals.

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The book cover for “Table for Two,” by Amor Towles, shows a black-and-white photograph of a formally dressed couple sitting at a table with drinks.

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Hamilton Cain is a book critic and the author of “This Boy’s Faith: Notes From a Southern Baptist Upbringing.”

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TABLE FOR TWO: Fictions , by Amor Towles

Few literary stylists not named Ann Patchett attain best-sellerdom, but Amor Towles makes the cut. His three lauded novels — “Rules of Civility,” “A Gentleman in Moscow” and “The Lincoln Highway” — hung around on lists for months, if not years. But Towles’s commercial brio belies the care and craft he lavishes on each piece, evidenced now in “Table for Two,” a knockout collection of six stories and a longish novella.

The book spans the 20th century, bringing characters from a range of backgrounds into tableaus of deceit and desire. Beneath his coifed prose Towles is a master of the shiv, the bait and switch; we see the flash of light before the shock wave strikes, often in the final sentence.

“Table for Two” is a tale of two cities, New York and Los Angeles, cultural capitals on opposite ends of the continent but forever tracking the other’s trends and deals, a mutual voyeurism. Towles devotes the first section to New York, its wealthy and famous shuffling against strivers and innocents in La Guardia terminals, musty bookstores or immigrant communities.

“The Bootlegger” depicts a woman’s epiphany after a Carnegie Hall concert. In “The Line,” a naïve Communist builds a lucrative business that steers him to Manhattan, where con games lurk on every corner. In “The Ballad of Timothy Touchett,” an allegory of 1990s excess, a rare-books dealer with the Dickensian name of Pennybrook manipulates the sympathies of his young assistant, who forges autographs of eminent authors until he’s busted by one. “Hasta Luego” tells the unnerving story of an alcoholic snowbound in a Midtown bar on the cusp of the millennium; Towles can’t resist mentions of Motorola and Nokia flip phones, reminding us how far away the near past really is.

But the Oscar goes to “Eve in Hollywood,” a novella that unfolds during the filming of “Gone With the Wind.” Towles tricks out the Tinseltown lore in a homage to the heyday of studio moguls and the hard-boiled fiction of Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler, even alluding to actual legends like Errol Flynn’s use of two-way mirrors and peepholes.

Towles plucks a character from “Rules of Civility,” Evelyn Ross, who’d vanished on a Chicago-bound train, picking up her narrative as she’s traveling to California. In the dining car she meets Charlie, a retired L.A.P.D. officer who will later prove an asset. She checks into the Beverly Hills Hotel, where she befriends an eclectic crew: a portly, has-been actor; a chauffeur with stuntman aspirations; and the rising star Olivia de Havilland. Lithe and blond, sporting an upper-class air and a distinctive facial scar, Eve is fearless, equally at home among poolside cabanas and seedy clubs where the music’s loud and the booze flows.

“From across the room you could see that no one had a leash on her,” one petty crook observes. “With the narrowed eyes of a killer, she was sussing out the place, and she liked what she saw. She liked the band, the tempo, the tequila — the whole shebang. If Dehavvy was bandying about with the likes of this one, you wouldn’t have long to wait for the wrong place and the wrong time to have their tearful reunion.”

When nude photos of de Havilland go missing, part of a larger tabloid plot, Eve vows to save her friend’s reputation. She’s a femme fatale turned inside out, matching wits amid an array of villains, including a former cop with a double cross up his sleeve. Towles is clearly enjoying himself, nodding to noir classics such as “The Postman Always Rings Twice,” “Chinatown” and “L.A. Confidential.” The period details are nearly airtight, although I did notice tiny anachronisms about Elizabeth Taylor and the slang term “easy peasy.”

“Table for Two” delivers the kick of a martini served in the Polo Lounge — the cover art is a cropped image of a couple at a bar, dressed in black tie — but there’s more here than high gloss. Both coasts are ideal settings for morality plays about power, as Towles cunningly weaves in themes of exploitation, an allusion to Shelley’s “Ozymandias,” a bust of Julius Caesar glimpsed by Eve on the Ides of March. Whether we’re living in the era of late-stage capitalism is beside the point; money, Towles suggests, will simply mutate into another form, preying on the vulnerable. “When it moves, it moves quickly, without a sound, a second thought, or the slightest hint of consequence,” he writes. “Like the wind that spins a windmill, money comes out of nowhere, sets the machinery in motion, then disappears without a trace.” It’s on us to summon our better angels.

Sharp-edged satire deceptively wrapped like a box of Neuhaus chocolates, “Table for Two” is a winner.

TABLE FOR TWO : Fictions | By Amor Towles | Viking | 451 pp. | $32

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Schneier on Security

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In Memoriam: Ross Anderson, 1956-2024

  • Communications of the ACM
  • April 9, 2024

Ross Anderson unexpectedly passed away in his sleep on March 28th in his home in Cambridge. He was 67.

I can’t remember when I first met Ross. It was well before 2008, when we created the Security and Human Behavior workshop. It was before 2001, when we created the Workshop on Economics and Information Security (okay, he created that one, I just helped). It was before 1998, when we first wrote about the insecurity of key escrow systems. In 1996, I was one of the people he brought to the Newton Institute at Cambridge University, for the six-month cryptography residency program he ran (I made a mistake not staying the whole time)—so it was before then as well.

I know I was at the first Fast Software Encryption workshop in December 1993, the first conference he created. There, I presented the Blowfish encryption algorithm. Pulling an old first edition of Applied Cryptography (the one with the blue cover) down from my shelf, I see his name in the acknowledgments. This means that at either the 1992 Crypto conference in Santa Barbara or the 1993 Eurocrypt in Lofthus, Norway, I, as an unpublished book author who had written a few cryptography articles for Dr. Dobb’s Journal , asked him to read and comment on my book manuscript. And he said yes. Which means I mailed him a paper copy. And he read it, and mailed his handwritten comments back to me. In an envelope with stamps. Because that’s how we did it back then.

This is back when "crypto" meant cryptography, and we would laugh when military types said "cyber" or "cybersecurity." We all called it "computer security" and then "Internet security."

I have known Ross for over 30 years, both as a colleague and a friend. He was enthusiastic, brilliant, opinionated, articulate, curmudgeonly, and kind. Pick up any of his academic papers and articles—there are 302 entries on his webpage —and odds are that you will find at least one unexpected insight that will change how you think about security. He was a security engineer, but also very much a generalist. He published on block cipher cryptanalysis in the 1990s, on the security of large-language models last year, and on pretty much everything else in between.

His masterwork book, Security Engineering —1,200 pages in its third edition—illustrates that breadth. It is as comprehensive a tome on computer security and related topics as you could imagine. Twenty-nine chapters cover everything from access control to tamper resistance, from banking security to nuclear command and control, and from psychology to security printing. Every page is infused with his knowledge, expertise, wisdom, and uncanny ability to cut through the nonsense that too often surrounds traditional security disciplines. (Also note his 15-lecture video series on that same webpage. If you have never heard Ross lecture, you’re in for a treat.)

Ross was a pragmatic visionary. His mastery of both the technologies and the underlying policy issues showed a deep command of multiple fields , and a rare capability to both work within them and synthesize around them. He was also able to weave this knowledge into narratives that were both compelling and comprehensible to the layperson. In his 1993 paper " Why Cryptosystems Fail ," he pointed out that both cryptography and computer security got threat modeling all wrong, and that we were solving the wrong problems. It’s not the math, he wrote; it’s the implementation and the people and the procedures. In 2001, he was the first person to recognize that security problems are often actually economic problems , kick-starting the academic discipline of security economics.

He didn’t suffer fools in either government or the corporate world, giving them no quarter by disproving their security claims. As a graduate student, he defended people accused of stealing from ATM machines by banks who maintained that their security was foolproof. It was a pattern that repeated itself throughout his career: analyze a real-world security system from all angles, understand how it fails, and then publish the results—angering the powers in charge of that security system.

Here’s one example of many. In 2014, he was hired as an expert witness to defend people accused of tampering with the curfew tags used for offender monitoring. He studied the physical tags and their security, and also the economic, policy, and security implications of the tagging system. He even went as far as to wear an ankle bracelet himself. It promptly broke, proving his point. You can read the whole story in Chapter 14 of the third edition of his book.

That sense of justice and confronting power infused much of his work. He fought against surveillance and backdoors. He and I were part of the second and third academic take-downs of government attempts to break encryption. His 2022 rebuttal of child protection as a pretense to break encryption is particularly scathing.

Ross also fought for academic freedom, repeatedly publishing his findings in the face of corporate threats. Many things we all use are more secure today because of Ross’s work.

He was a blistering letter writer to those he believed deserved it. Verbally, he could be a hurricane in your face if he disagreed with you, but he would also engage with your points and was always willing to change his mind. And he enthused about, argued with, and listened to everybody: students, colleagues, partners of students and colleagues, random people he crossed paths with. Everyone was a sounding board for whatever ideas he had in is head.

And his head was constantly filled with ideas—mostly good, some not so good—and seemingly inexhaustible energy to implement them. He founded five different conferences, including the Information Hiding Workshop and Decepticon. He co-founded the Cambridge Cybercrime Centre . He founded the U.K.’s Foundation for Information Policy Research , and wrote most of the papers that the organization submitted to Parliamentary Inquiries on dumb legislative ideas. When the legislative center of power moved to Brussels, he helped form the European Digital Rights organization to provide advice there.

All this was part of his gift of fostering community. And it’s nowhere more evident than his legacy of graduate students at Cambridge University. His CV lists thirty-two of them, and seven more that he was currently advising. Many have carried his legacy of pragmatic security analysis of real-world systems.

Ross was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society and a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering in 2009. In 2016, he was awarded the British Computer Society’s Lovelace Medal, the U.K.’s top prize in computing. From 2021, he split his time as a professor between the University of Cambridge and the University of Edinburgh and was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 2023. He was absolutely rageful against Cambridge University for making him retire at 67—and he was right.

He also play ed the bagpipes throughout his life. I dedicated a 1998 cryptography paper, " The Street Performer Protocol ," to him because he "spent some of his youth busking on the streets of Germany with his bagpipes." Those were good stories.

He is listed in the acknowledgments as a reader of every one of my books from Beyond Fear on. Recently, we’d see each other a couple of times a year, at this or that workshop or event. He hosted me at Security and Human Behavor at Cambridge’s Churchill College in 2022. The last time I saw him was last June at SHB in Pittsburgh. We were having dinner on Alessandro Acquisti ‘s rooftop patio to celebrate another successful workshop. He was going to attend my Workshop on Reimagining Democracy in December 2023, but had to cancel at the last minute. The day before he died, we were discussing how to accommodate everyone who registered for this year’s SHB workshop in December. I learned something from him every single time we talked. And I am not the only one.

My heart goes out to his wife Shireen, their daughter Bavani, and the rest of their family. We lost him much too soon.

Categories: Computer and Information Security

Tags: Communications of the ACM

Sidebar photo of Bruce Schneier by Joe MacInnis.

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  7. How to Conclude an Essay

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