Practice report Coursework Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Practice report - Coursework Example The paper is an analysis of the issue of managing across cultures for the benefit of an organization. Cross cultural management is a very important in the daily operations of any organization that is situated in a multicultural environment. Understanding different cultures and appreciating their differences is essential in determining how people within the organization are going to interact with each other and with other people outside the organization. Proper cross cultural management ensures that there is understanding in and out of the organization (Tjosvold and Leung, 2003). This helps create conducive working environment, which eventually translates into better returns for the company. In this paper, I will look at different sources that have information about cross- cultural management and communication. I will analyze all the sources, and pick two which are most relevant to my area of research. Currency: it is not clear how recent the information is. However, it is indicated at the bottom of the article that the webpage was last updated on 22nd November, 2010. the information seems to be up to date with the requirements of my topic. Reliability: The information in this article is basically about what cross cultural communication is all about, its global rise and its incorporation into educational organizations. The content appears to be well balanced. The author does provide some references for his article. This adds to the reliability of the content. Authority : No one is indicated to be the author of the article, but Wikipedia may be regarded as its owner. Wikipedia is an online encyclopedia that can be accessed free of charge by anyone. Wikipedia is not a very reputable source since nothing is known of the credentials of the author. The publisher (Wikipedia) does not have any interest in the content of the article. There are no

Contract law and neoclassical contract law Essay

Contract law and neoclassical contract law - Essay Example Contract law is made up of certain rules that are set to govern the connection, substance and legitimacy of a formal agreement between two or more parties- which may include individuals or organizations- for the purpose of selling of goods or services, or exchange of business interests12. Contract law is applicable to these and many other business activities between multiple parties who want to enter into a valid agreement or contract for the accomplishment of their business objectives. This agreement contains such rules that are also recognized by the law which means that if one party is offended when the other party breaks the rule, then the former party has all rights to submit petition in the court of law against the later party and can sue it. Before signing the agreement, the two parties may want to hold pre-emptive discussions or negotiations. These discussions are not part of the contract but only a preliminary exchange of views. For example, if a bookstore is displaying book s with price tags on its shelves, then before the contract between the seller and the buyer is formalized, the seller may go into bargain and bring the seller down to a lower price. Once the price is confirmed, the buyer then pas the price and enters into a contract. The contract law, on one hand, tends to protect the law from breaking and on the other, defines terms and conditions when a dispute occurs. According to Larson3, a contract must involve mutual consent of the two parties, offer and acceptance, mutual exchange of something of value, delivery, good faith, and no violation of the public policy. The present status of contract law is referred to as neoclassical contract law and it addresses the downsides of the classical contract law. Macneil4 defines neoclassical contracting as the one that offers â€Å"a different contracting relation that preserves trading but provides for additional governance structure†. So, there is a third party involved that solves the disputes and brings about settlement between the two parties involved in the agreement. According to Williamson5, â€Å"perceptive parties reject classical contract law and move into a neoclassical contracting regime because this better facilitates continuity and promotes efficient adaptation†. The two parties remain autonomous but the contract is interceded by a third party regulatory agency6. Examples from Relevant Areas of Contract Law Internet Sales Contract Regulations One good example of the application of contract law is the online market. The Internet Sales Contract Regulations have specifically been designed for the consumers who are either the residents of Alberta or engage in e-commerce with companies located inside Alberta. This contract deals with only those goods and services which are worth more than $50 bought or sold for personal use. The regulation deals with formal business transactions within companies and not with a single individual. There are certain disclosure statements stated in the regulations that instruct the online vendor or seller to provide certain information to the consumer before making the transaction. This information is very vital for the consumer’s satisfaction so that he knows that he is entering into a safe and protected contract with the company and that there is no chance of any fraudulent activity. This information is to be printed on the website. The company is liable to provide the consumer with a copy of the contract made either in the electronic form or in paper, according to the consumer’s requirement. Consumer Protection Legislation The EU’s contract law, referred to as consumer protection legislation, consists of several Acts that ensure the protection of consumer guaranteed from the seller’s side. These Acts include Fair Trading Act 1973 (ensures fair e-commerce), Supply of Goods (Implied Terms) Act 1973 (deals with hire-purchase contracts), Sale of Goods Act 1979 (describes the rig hts of the seller), Supply of Goods and Services Act 1982 (describes the

Ocean of information Essay Example for Free

Ocean of information Essay Information seeking skills are needed whenever there is a search for new information. With the advent of the internet there is suddenly a lot of information available at the click of a mouse and yet, one needs to have some knowledge and skills to obtain the relevant information from the vast ocean of information on the internet. When it comes to searching on the internet, there are many search tools available: search engines, subject directories / virtual libraries, invisible (deep) web databases, Meta search engines, etc (Barker, 2007). Search engines such as Googleâ„ ¢, AlltheWeb, MSN, Teoma, AltaVista and Wisent provide specific information (Bazac, 2006). Metasearch engines such as ez2Find, Division, Info Grid, Info NetWare, boogie, etc can be used when searching for a unique search term, or in-depth information on a particular subject (Bazac, 2006). Web directories such as Googleâ„ ¢ Directory, Open Directory Project (ODP), Yahoo! Zeal, JoeAnt and Gimpsy provide general information on popular topics, and scholarly information is best got from virtual libraries such as Librarians Index to the Internet, INFOMINE, and Internet Public Library (Bazac, 2006). Real time information is best obtained through deep web which are specialized databases (MU, 2007). Examples of excellent invisible web databases are Profusion, Invisible-web. net, Complete Planet, Resource Discovery Network and direct search (Moore, 2007). Robert Muldrow Cooper Library, attached to the Clemson University, is known for its automated information retrieval system, the Clemson facilities (CU, 2007). Numerous periodical indexes are housed on-line and available for automated searching. The collections deal mainly with agriculture, natural and physical sciences, economics and technology. Many of the databases that include full text of many articles are available for access through the internet. There are many links to web indexes, search engines, and tips on searching and evaluating sources (CU, 2007). The essential steps in an internet-based search strategy are having a focus, identifying and understanding the key concepts of the topic, finding alternative terms for these concepts and identifying the place for searching and this includes synonyms, plural/singular forms, spelling variations, variations of root words and acronyms (MU, 2007). If the initial information is too little or too much, the search terms should be modified. A search may be broadened by any of the following steps: reducing the number of concepts, using an OR search, looking for alternative terms, using more general search terms, using subject headings as search terms or using alternate spellings. On the other hand, a search may be narrowed by using an AND or NOT search, looking for more specific alternative terms, using subject headings as search terms, or using more precise terms (MU, 2007). Journal websites that can provide full text articles for nursing students and professionals include NursingCenter, Medscape, Hardin MD and Online Journals (Research Medical Library). CINAHL sources provide links to websites of interest to various journals of interest to nursing and allied professions (CINAHL, 2007). CINAHL stands for Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature. Other important websites for nursing information include Medscape, Toxline and AIDSLINE, Journal of Nursing Management, NursingCenter, and The American Journal of Nursing (AJN). The AJN site allows one to find articles from more than 50 trusted nursing journals, including AJN and Nursing2007. Registration is free (AJN, 2007). Thus, the internet is a treasure trove of information for the searcher with the right set of searching skills. Bibliography: CINAHL (2007). http://www. cinahl. com/csources/csources. htm Barker, Joe (2007). Finding Information on the Internet: A Tutorial. http://www. lib. berkeley. edu/TeachingLib/Guides/Internet/FindInfo. html MU (Monash University) (2007). Library Online Tutorials. http://www.monash.edu/library

Social Constructivism and the Cold War

Social Constructivism and the Cold War Introduction This essay will answer the question on how the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) has changed its operations to tackle with the changing world landscape, especially after the end of the Cold War, by holding the concept from Constructivism (Social Constructivism) as a key theoretical framework. Generally, Constructivism is a social theory which is concerned about the relationship and process between agents and structures (Barnett, 2008; Jackson Sorensen, 2007). Therefore, the essay will argue that, in response to the shifts in world politics, the UNSC (noted as an actor) accordingly has changed its operations by constructing norms or so called, international norms, (noted as a structure), in collaboration with other actors, as preconditions in order to be legitimizing and supportive tools for any changing operations. To develop my argument, the essay will be structured into three sections. Firstly, the background of the question, the snapshot of the shifts in world politics and t he main objective of UNSC including its operations will be provided briefly in the first section as a platform for the analytical section. In the second part, the ideas of Constructivism which will be taken into account for the explanation of how the UNSC has changed its tasks, especially with the Finnemore and Sikkinks concept of the life-cycle of norms (1998, pp. 894-905), will be elaborated here. The third section will follow up by using the case study of humanitarian intervention as one of the UNSCs contemporary operations to demonstrate the insights provided by the Constructivists framework. The Shifts in World Politics and the UNSCs Operations When or which period can be defined as a turning point of the shifts in world politics is the first question I have to address in order to make the argument clearer in terms of period of time. To do so in this essay, I will take opinions of many political scientists (Taylor Curtis, 2008; Weiss Daws, 2007) who have commonly spotted the turning point of the changes in world politics to the end of the Cold War. Then, what are the changes of the UNSCs operations correlating with the changes in world politics will be explained in a snapshot here. After the end of the World War II, the United Nations (UN) and The UNSC were established in 1945. The UNSC was reinvented not only to solve the problems of the League of Nations Council but also intentionally to maintain international peace and security as the main responsibility (Taylor Curtis, 2008, p. 315). That is the goal the UNSC has not changed until nowadays even though its operations have changed significantly after the end of the Cold War. During the Cold War period, which Realists had seen as the bipolar system, the world addressed themselves to issues and problems regarding with state-centric notion. The role of sovereignty and the principle of self-determination had been actively mobilized throughout the world. Therefore, most of issues and operations of the UNSC at that time totally related to those ideas. The operation about decolonization and inter-state conflicts are explicit examples. Cameron R. Hume (2004, p. 607) also reiterated that the era of decolonization was coincident with the Cold War. Additionally, the Cold War thwarted the functioning of the UNSC, especially with the vetoes of the two majors (Taylor Curtis, 2008, p. 319). The veto game between the US and the USSR produced an inefficiency of the UNSCs function particularly on the use of force in relevant to Chapter VII (Ibid.). There were a few cases that the Council passed the resolution to call up the use of force and the first one has to wait until 1966 in the case of Rhodesia (Boyd, 1971, p. 223). These are the situation in brief before the end of the Cold War. After the end of the Cold War, world politics has shifted precisely out of the state-centric debates and issues as stated. It is the beginning of the decrease of the role of state sovereignty in many ways. As same as Weiss Daws (2007), they concluded that even there is no refusal about the sacred of borders in international relations but their importance is less than in 1945. Reversely, the world stage has welcomed some trends ignoring to the notion of state sovereignty, which also affected to the role of the UNSC and its operations. According to Hume (2004, pp. 609-610), there are three important trends in the world politics that have been changing the work of the UNSC since the early 1990s. Firstly, regarding the type of conflict, there was a shift from the inter-state conflicts to intra-state conflicts, and leading to the problem of failing states. The second trend is the more regional initiatives and cooperation and their role to resolve conflicts within particular regions. And the last one is the arrival of transnational issues such as environmental issues, climate change, and terrorism. In the aspect of the UN Secretary-Generals High-level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change, there are six categories of the new emerging threats in world affairs: the economics and social threats such as poverty and climate change; inter-state conflict; intra-state conflict such as civil war; nuclear, radiological, chemical and biological weapons; terrorism; and transnational organized crime (The Secretary-Generals High-level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change, 2004). From all above mentioned changes, it can be conceptualized into one grand trend emerging after the collapse of the Cold War. It is the individual consciousness or so-called, the humanitarian impulse, (Weiss, The Humanitarian Impulse, 2004). In accordance to Weiss (2004, pp. 48-49) and David M. Malone (Security Council, 2007), the dominance of the humanitarian impulse has changed the decision-making p rocess of the UNSC since the end of the Cold War. Also, the range of its operations has to take increasingly the relevance of humanitarian values and individual consciousness into account. To be specific, it appears that human rights are no longer likely to disappear from the Councils radar screen anytime soon (Weschler, 2004, p. 67). To sum up, it is the shift of world politics from state-centric notion to individual consciousness or humanitarian notion. Consequently, the UNSC must change many of its operations accordingly to tackle this main shift which particularly by taking into account the notion of humanitarianism. However, my argument is to answer the question of how its operations has changed by applying the Constructivists ideas which logically can be applied and generalized to those of many changing operations. Therefore, I firstly will ignore the question of what those changing operations look like, when and where the changing occurs. Secondly, I will focus only on the UNSCs operation on the use of force, not all its operations. Lastly, I will use humanitarian intervention, as one of the operation on the use of force, to be my case study because it is emerged directly in response to humanitarian impulse (Weiss, The Humanitarian Impulse, 2004). Theoretical Framework: Constructivism and the Life-Cycle of Norms This section will provide a brief general concept of Constructivism and the Life-Cycle of Norms as a theoretical framework of the essay. Constructivism is the school of thought that has been recently put in place more significantly in describing the international relations since the beginning of the 1980s or almost the end of the Cold War (Jackson Sorensen, 2007, p. 162). Broadly, constructivism is a social theory dealt with the relationship between actors/agents and structures. According to Michael Barnett (2008, p. 162), Constructivism in the context of international relations commonly concerns with how ideas define the international structure; how this structure shapes the identities, interests, and foreign policies of states; and how state and non-state actors reproduce or transform that structure. International structure is seen as a group of thought and ideas, including a set of norms, which has been constituted by the process of intersubjective awareness among actors at speci fic time and place (Jackson Sorensen, 2007). Together with, Constructivism emphasized on the process of understanding things or actions and assigning meaning to them (Ibid.). Besides, Constructivists also mentioned about the concept of social construction of reality which is the operation to produce social facts such as norms. Social facts will be constructed by human agreement and at the same time will provide the legitimization of those facts like some universal norms such as jus in bello (Barnett, Social Constructivism, 2008). Then, these social facts can also constrain and shape the behavior of actors. Noticeably, the main characteristic of Constructivism is a cyclical process. This is similar to Finnemore and Sikkinks (1998) concept of the Life-Cycle of Norm which is a theoretical tool to explain in the later section how the UNSC has changed its operation as argued before. This concept explained how norm as a structure is institutionalised or internationalized before diffusing and constraining actors behaviour which reversely can affect to the status of such norm in terms of reproducing, reforming or even constructing new norm. This cycle consists of three stages; norm emergence, norm cascade and norm internalization. In order to make clearer understanding of this concept in conjunction with the argument, I will give details of each stage in parallel with the case study of humanitarian intervention in the last following section. Case Study: Humanitarian Intervention However, before taking the concept of the Life-Cycle of Norm in hand to explain and analyze how the UNSC has changed its operations by using the case study of humanitarian intervention, the very brief background of the UNSCs operations on the use of force should be described here. In reference to UN Charter, there are only two legally-accepted categories for the use of force as an operation of the UNSC; self-defence and authorization by the UNSC relating to Chapter VII (Roberts, 2004). Nevertheless, after the end of the Cold War, there are two more emerging doctrines of the use of force which importantly differ from the two traditional and legal ones. Both debated doctrines are humanitarian intervention and preemtive measures against emerging threats. These two new doctrines not only were seen as the challenge to principles of state sovereignty and non-intervention in Article 2(4) of the UN Chater (Ibid.) but also unavoidably as pending-to-be new operations of the UNSC. Later on, I w ill apply the concept of the Life-Cycle of Norm in details to explain the process that the UNSC constructs a norm as a precondition in order to legitimize humanitarian interventionas as as its new operation. Now, bringing back the Life-Cycle of Norm concept, the first stage, Norm emergence, is the stage that the norm entrepreneurs try to convince flock of actors to welcome their new norms until reaching the critical or tipping point (Finnemore Sikkink, 1998). Normally, at the first period, there will be a nature of competition between norms including the old and the other new ones. The entrepreneurs can be state, non-state actor, individual or international organizations and they need launching platforms to start promoting their norms which usually are international organizations (Finnemore Sikkink, 1998). At this point, according to Finnemore (Finnemore M. , 1993), she reiterated that international organizations are able to be tools to promote and diseminate emerging norms. Besides, in terms of methods, the entrepreneurs will use many ways such as speeches, conferences, and advertisements to promote the new way of thinking about and understanding issues or new norms. Considering the c ase of humanitarian intervention which has been brought into the focus of world community since the end of the Cold War, we can see the process of norm emergence from the following details. In terms of the constellation of emerging norms, there were many competing meaning and debates about humanitarian intervention in the UNSC and outsides like Joanna Weschler (2004, p. 66) mentioned that the attitude of the UNSC regarding to humanitarian intervention has been spasmodic which is covered with series of progress and decline. For instance, as identified by Ramesh Thakur (2007, p. 388), humanitarian Intervention is the use of military force on the territory of a state without its consent with the goal of protecting innocent victims of large-scale atrocities. On the contrary, humanitarian Intervention has been criticized by the Realists as a legitimization of new interventionist norms of Western states and for serving their benefits from the intervention (Chandler, 2004). Also, some of t raditional security analysts may argue about the intervention, especially in Bosnia and Kosovo, since the end of the Cold War that such actions were aimed to protect the credibility of NATO and its presence in Europe. However, in the eyes of Constructivists, it is the ignorance of the occurance of humanitarian value as a constructed interest of actors like states (Glanville, 2006, p. 163). Moreover, according to the report of the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty (ICISS), invented by Canadian Government, it proposed another competing idea which is called, the responsibility to protect, into the discussion in The UN and the UNSC and now has been accepted by the General Assembly during the 2005 World Summit (Glanville, 2006). Then, in terms of who are norm entreprenours and their strategies, the key entreprenour for promote the issue of humanitarian intervention are international organizations like the UNSC itself and the UN. Alike the ICISS concluded that the most suitable organ to authorize intervention in the case of immense human rights violations is the UNSC (Weschler, 2004, p. 66). However, there are not only the UNSC as an organizations in the construction of norm but also individuals, states, public and media which has been collaboratively promoting humanitarian intervention to be constructed as a new norm. Individually, the role of the UN Secretary-General (UNSG) is a good instance. The first UNSG after the end of the Cold War, Boutros Boutros-Ghali and his work, Agenda for Peace, written in early 1992, are examples supporting a more role of the UNSC and the UNSG in coping with armed conflict and humanitarian crisis (Weschler, 2004, p. 63). Together with, in the General Assembly on September 20, 1999, the next UNSG Kofi Annan urged international community to support the principle that massive and structured violations of human rights should not be allowed to occur and ignited the issue of humanitarian intervention (Weschler, 2004, p. 65). The state-actors which have been always supporting this norm in the UNSC are explicitly the US and the UK. Regarding to the role of public and media, in the early 1990s, it is the climax of their enthusiam for humanitarian issues. They have used a number of their sources, platforms and instruments to provide fruitful debates about not only the international right for humanitarian intervention but also the need to do it (Malone, Conclusion, 2004, p. 627). Briefly, it is clear with these empirical evidence that the norm of humanitarian intervention has emerged by the interactive process between diverse actors, with the leading of the UNSC itself. Continually, the second stage is Norm cascade. This stage there will be norm leaders who promoted their norms until gaining the most support and acceptance from other actors. The leaders will try to make other actors to adopt and imitate those norms through a process of socialization (Finnemore Sikkink, 1998). Also, the leaders or actors who are capable of socializing still can be state, non-state and international organizations. In this stage, the norm leader which is still the UNSC will try to mobilize intersubjective beliefs of the concept of humanitarian intervention among other actors by the process of socialization in order to gain human agreement; then, the idea of humanitarian intervention will be agreed to be a social fact, norm or so-called a structure. On the other hand, international organization, like the UNSC, also serves to legitimize the emerging international norms (Barnett Finnemore, 2007). So, when humanitarian intervention is constructed as a social fact, it also means that it is one of legitimized norms as well. However, at present, the UNSCs construction of humanitarian intervention to be a norm is still in this process because some are still not agree to this idea. For example, in the case of Somalia and Haiti, its legality seems to be supported by most states but in the case of Kosovo 1999, it was criticized by many states (Roberts, 2004, p. 147). Also, it can be seen from debates suc h as about the Iraq War 2003. Likewise, Adam Roberts (Roberts, 2004, p. 146) mentioned radically that all attempts since the early 1990s to legitimize humanitarian intervention have failed. In the third stage which is called, Norm internalization, norms will be automatically adopted by actors and have a quality of taken-for-granted. It is no debate on those institutionalized norms anymore and such norms will be powerful and cannot be ignored (Finnemore Sikkink, 1998). In the last stage, the UNSC will be a key player in the process of trasmitting and diffusing the norm of humanitarian intervention, if it passes the second stage in the future. Last but not least, after the third stage, the constituted norm of humanitarian intervention will legitimize the use of force with reference to humanitarian intervention and can constrain the behavior of actors like states. It is similar to what Thakur (2004) has said that the international organization can be the hub for the interplay between changing norms and constraining states behaviour. Nontheless, actors behavior and their interaction will affect cyclically to the constructed norms and restart the process from the first stag e. Conclusion Since the end of the Cold War, the traditional state-centric theme of world politics has been gradually replaced by humanitarian value and individual consciousness. The UNSC, consequently, has to change its operations to control and manage the challenges coming from that shift in world affairs. In order to make such changes accomplished, the UNSC will have to meet preconditions by inventing, promoting, cascading and internalizing international norms to legitimize those changes in its operation. Like Luke Glanville (2006, p. 162) said about humanitarian intervention that the refusal to acknowledge the role of norms will make scholar cannot explain the increment of the cases relating to humanitarian intervention after the end of the Cold War. More importantly, this process of creating norms, according to Barnett Finnemore (2007), has to incorporate the role of states, non-state actors, individuals and media in order to provide more effectiveness.

The yellow wallpaper -- essays research papers

Using examples from all of the texts from this specific unit compare and contrast the conflicts that drive these struggles of the main characters. Look for similarities and look for differences within those similarities. Look for differences and look for similarities within those differences.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  In the story â€Å"The yellow wall paper† the main character struggles due to her husband oppression and she suffers herself until getting mental ill. She is put by her husband on a nursery home to be taking care of, but her fear, anxiety and necessity of communication and comprehension from her husband and with the outside world doesn’t make her any better â€Å"I sometimes fancy that in my condition if I had less opposition and more society stimulus-but John says that very worst thing I can do to think about my condition and confess it always makes me feel bad† (507). She is stalwartly hoping to be taken out of the nursery but she had never confronted her husband. â€Å"I wish I could get better† (509). â€Å"But I most not think about that† (509).The yellow wallpaper found in the character’s bedroom grabbed her attention since she first saw it. She found a resemblance of her life and what the wallpaper represents. She w ants to be in her own stated of mind again, but her husband is going to take her physician fro nervous disorder if she doesn’t get better â€Å"John says if I don’t pick up faster he shall send me to Weir Mitchell in the fall† (511). She wishes to be cure but her fears to John don’t allow her to have a confrontation with him. She is very afraid of him and as a consequence, she keeps focusing in the wall paper as a way of escaping from that life that she has.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã¢â‚¬Å"The Gilded six-bits† is a story of love, infidelity, and pardon. Joe has a modest but cheerful home. Newlywed, he and his wife Missie May have a joyful and unpretentious life; until a polished and stylish stranger enters into their community demolish their marriage. The infidelity and disloyalty is what makes the main character struggles. Missie May have a relationship with an affluent gay that had moved into their neighborhood â€Å"Oh Joe, honey, he said he wuz gointer give me dat gold money and he jes’ kept on after me† (1278). That was her excuse for the infidelity. Even though Joe was wounded, he never left his wife, â€Å"She loved him too much, but she could not u... ...† (2047). Norma tries to do weights and heavy work while Leroy has a disable condition. They both struggle trying to find who they really are and what they want to accomplish in their life. Finally, after this life change, they realize that their marriage is now devastated and tried to repair by going away. The struggles that they went through made one of them fainted and Norma finally noticing that her life has nonsense and that she doesn’t really know who she is, tries to kill herself.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚     Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The story â€Å"Painting Churches†, reveals the story of a complex relationship between a family conformed by aged parent and a young daughter, trying to pursue an artist carrier. While the family tries to move out of their old house, Mags, the young daughter, comes in from Boston to help them move out of the house and at the same she wants to do a portrayal of them â€Å"It’s a perfect opportunity. There will be no distractions; you will be completely at my mercy† (2154). When the time goes by in the story, in between wrapping, rhetoric and painting, it begins to survey deeper into the hostility, grudge and misapprehend of the Church family.

A Comparison of Orlando and Othello Essay -- comparison compare contra

Orlando and Othello In her novel Orlando: A Biography, Virginia Woolf draws upon Shakespeare's Othello to both enhance the images within her novel through allusion and further Orlando's character development using juxtaposition. Spanning about 400 years, various historical eras, and gender ambiguity in the characters, Orlando is certainly not a traditional novel. Thus, it follows that its use of historical information and literature breaks from convention as well. This is true for Woolf's use of Shakespeare's Othello. While the play is drawn upon in various contexts, from character traits to plot line, Woolf carefully places her allusions such that they support her plot line at one moment while they may be inconsistent at another. This works well within her novel because as she breaks from convention by utilizing multiple timelines and shifts in gender and sex for her characters she is able to shift in her parallels from the characters in Othello to the characters of Orlando. These shifts accen t the changes she is making within her characters and plot line and also force the reader to break with the long standing views of gender and "otherness" established in Shakespeare's work. During the first half of Orlando: A Biography, Woolf clearly draws off of the play Othello. At times this is clearer than others. In both Orlando and Othello, there is little reference to Othello by name. He is referred to instead by an ethnic background--he is the Moor. One might question the certainty of the Moor representing the figure Othello in the novel Orlando. In the case of the play, it is quite obvious that Othello is being referred ... ...his ideal of love. Orlando is jealous because of actions he observed Sasha make. While it seems that he would have more of a reason to be upset, he does not take the same magnitude of action. While is does have a long term effect on his life, he eventually moves on with his life instead of destroying it. 1 Orlando, pg. 13 2 Orlando, pg. 15 5m 3 Haines-Wright, Lisa and Kyle, Tracy L. "Fluid Sexuality in Virginia Woolf" Virginia Woolf: Texts and Contexts New York, NY: Pace University Press, 1996 4 Byles, Joan M. "The Winter's Tale, Othello and Troilus and Cressida: Narcissism and Sexual Betrayal" American Image: Studies in Psychoanalyss and Culture 36, no.1: 81 5 Byles, Joan M. "The Winter's Tale, Othello and Troilus and Cressida: Narcissism and Sexual Betrayal" American Image: Studies in Psychoanalyss and Culture 36, no.1: 83

Beauty in “The Bluest Eye” Essay

The Bluest Eye is a brilliantly written novel revealing the fictional trauma of an eleven-year-old black girl named Pecola Breedlove. This story takes place in the town of Lorain, Ohio during the 1940’s. It is told from the perspective of a young girl named Claudia MacTeer. She and her sister, Frieda, become witness to the terrible plights Pecola is unintentionally put through. Pecola chooses to hide from her disabling life behind her clouded dream of possessing the ever so cherished â€Å"bluest of eyes†. The Breedlove’s constant bickering and ever growing poverty contributes to the emotional downfall of this little girl. Pecola’s misery is obtained through the touch of her father’s hand and the voice of her community’s struggle with racial separation, anger, and ignorance. Her innocence is harshly ripped from her grasp as her father rapes her limp existence. The community’s anger with it’s own insecurities is taken out on this poor, ugly, black, non-ideal, young girl. She shields herself from this sorrow behind her obsessive plea for blue eyes. But her eyes do not replace the pain of carrying her fleeing father’s baby. Nor do they protect her from the shady eyes of her neighbours. Though this book discuses negative and disturbing situations, it teaches a very positive lesson. The theme of The Bluest Eye is that of depending on outside influences to become aware of one’s own beauty and to fabricate one’s own self image can be extremely damaging. Topic Tracking: Beauty Beauty 1: Claudia is constantly faced with white ideals of beauty. For Christmas one year, she receives a blue-eyed, blonde-haired, pink-skinned doll. Rather than adore the doll, she destroys and dismembers it as a result of her anger. Claudia feels she can never measure up to the beauty of white children, the beauty that all the world reveres. Beauty 2: The Breedloves are poor and ugly. At least that is how they think the world views them. Their beliefs that they are ugly come from white American media always portraying whites as representations of what is beautiful. Because of this, they do not strive for more, for they think that they do not deserve to have more. Beauty 3: Pecola wishes that she had blue eyes. She thinks that if her eyes were blue, and therefore beautiful according to white American standards, then her problems would go away and her life would be beautiful. Then maybe, her classmates and teachers would not despise her and think she was so ugly. She so hates hersel f that she stares at herself in the mirror trying to figure out where her ugliness comes from. Beauty 4: For one year Pecola prays that her eyes will turn blue. She has many problems in her life, starting with family issues, and she thinks that if she had blue eyes, her problems might go away. And even more than that, if she had blue eyes, people would see her as beautiful, and then she would be able to see herself as beautiful too. Being a black little girl in a society that idolizes blonde-haired blue-eyed beauty, Pecola thinks she is ugly. Pecola sympathizes for the dandelions because she knows what it is like to be devalued. She finds beauty in the weeds, for she thinks that people see her as a weed. Beauty 5: A new little girl, named Maureen Peal, comes to Claudia and Frieda’s school. Maureen is revered for her looks, which people deem beautiful. She has lighter skin and eyes than most of the other children, and everyone adores her because of this. She is looked upon as beautiful because her characteristics are somewhat more â€Å"white† than other black people’s. This causes many to be jealous of her. However, Claudia and Frieda are not jealous. They see through the standards placed on beauty, and if Maureen is what is beautiful, this means that they are not beautiful (according to society). Beauty 6: When the girls are walking home from getting ice cream after school, they pass a movie theater with a picture of Betty Grable on the building. Maureen and Pecola both say that they love Betty Grable, an icon for white American beauty with her blonde hair and blue eyes. However, showing her disdain for such standards placed on beauty, Claudia says that she prefers the actress, Hedy Lamarr, who has dark hair. Beauty 7: In her younger years, Pauline Breedlove occupied herself by going to the movies. It was here that she got her first glimpse into what idealized beauty was. She saw the Hollywood blonde-haired, blue-eyed bombshells as being true representations of beauty. And anything that strayed from these looks, including her own, was seen as not pretty. American society placed their standards of beauty onto the world, and because of this, many people began to realize how far away they were from those standards. Beauty 8: Pecola goes to visit Soaphead Church with the hope that he will be able to fulfill her wish to have blue eyes. She thinks that with blue eyes, all of her problems will disappear and the world will love her because she will be beautiful. The world, seen through blue eyes, will also appear beautiful to Pecola. Beauty 9: Claudia prays that Pecola’s baby will survive. She needs the baby to live to counteract society’s standards set on beauty, which say that blonde-haired, blue-eyed little girls are all that is pretty. Claudia hopes that with this new black baby people will change and see blackness as something that can be admired and something that is beautiful. Topic Tracking: Culture Culture 1: Mr. Henry moves into Claudia and Frieda’s house. One day, the girls come home and when they walk in Mr. Henry greets them. He flatters them by telling them they look just like Greta Garbo and Ginger Rogers, two white American female actresses. These two actresses represented American society’s ideal beauty, with their blonde hair and blue eyes. They, and other actresses like them, were so idealized by the media that it forced young American girls, both white and black, to question their own beauty if it differed from the standard of blond hair and blue eyes. Culture 2: After seeing the cup with Shirley Temple on it, Claudia explains her ill feelings for her. Shirley Temple was the epitome of what all of America adored in little girls: her bouncy blonde curls and big blue eyes. This sickened Claudia, as she was so different from Shirley Temple and all of the other little girls who looked like Shirley. Culture 3: Claudia tells the story about the doll she recei ved for Christmas one year. This doll was a beautiful doll that had blonde hair, blue eyes, and pink skin. Instead of appreciating the doll like most other children would have done, Claudia dismembered and destroyed the doll. She was sick of having American ideals of beauty placed on her, which said that being white with blonde hair and blue eyes was what was deemed as beautiful. Culture 4: This excerpt from a first grade reading primer describes the perfect white family. Morrison uses these excerpts in many points of the story to illustrate the dichotomy between the ideal white family, and the family of blacks, specifically Pecola’s family. The reading book perpetuates the stigma that what is seen as â€Å"ideal† in American culture means having a neat little house, run by two loving parents, with two children, one of which has blonde hair and blue eyes, and a fun loving dog who plays with the children. This social stigma presses on children who are â€Å"different† that are reading these books, and makes them think they are abnormal and unacceptable. Culture 5: The Breedloves are described. They think they are poor and ugly, and it says that much of the reason they think this is because of the white American media. The media, as part of our culture, sets the standards for what defines beauty, and anything straying from these standards is viewed as ugly. Culture 6: Pecola is constantly faced with the standards set on her society by American culture. She cannot even enjoy a piece of candy without feeling that she is different and lacking in some way in terms of beauty. When she goes to eat her Mary Jane candy, she is mesmerized by the little girl of Mary Jane on the cover, a blonde-haired, blue-eyed girl. These cultural pressures of what defines beauty make Pecola aware of just how much she strays from that defined beauty. This eventually leads to her desire for blue eyes, which in turn leads her into madness. Culture 7: When Pecola, Maureen, Claudia and Frieda are walking home from the ice cream shop, they pass a theater with a picture of Betty Grable on it. Young girls are bombarded with American culture’s ideals of beauty, such as pictures of famous actresses. Betty Grable in particular , with her blonde hair and blue eyes, makes Pecola and Maureen want to look like her. However, despite all of their hopes and wishes, they will never be able to look like that, and they are left as the victims of a culture that standardizes and limits young children. Culture 8: During her younger years, Pauline Breedlove spent a lot of time at the movie theater. It was here where she learned American standards of true beauty. Constantly faced with actresses like Jean Harlow, the ultimate Hollywood blonde bombshell, Pauline was forced to examine her own beauty in terms of Harlow’s. She realized that she did not look anything like Harlow, and based on this, came to the conclusion that she must be ugly. However, her feelings of ugliness were purely based on cultural standards set on her through the medium of Hollywood. Culture 9: Claudia feels the need for Pecola’s baby to be alive and healthy. She wants the baby to survive because she wants to counteract the cultural emphasis placed on white girls with blonde hair and blue eyes, exemplified by the types of white baby dolls most children adore (dolls that look like Shirley Temple). If Pecola’s baby lives, maybe people can learn to love a black baby and see black as beautiful too . At least this is what Claudia is hoping for. Culture 10: Pecola beats her arms like a bird, and attempts to fly up to the sky. However, she cannot. The reason she cannot is because she has been held back by the culture in which she lives, a culture that values white beauty, and ignores black beauty. It was an inevitable end result that Pecola would never be able to achieve the standards of beauty she wanted to. She was born a black child, and unfortunately, her culture does not accept black beauty. Thus, her dreams would never be fulfilled. And even though she thinks she has blue eyes, the world around her does not recognize her as she wishes to be seen. And because of this, she is driven to madness, caused by the pressures and social standards of her culture.