Saturday, November 30, 2019

Satire free essay sample

Although little is known about this object, it was said to be useless and far too expensive. After years of frustration with this board, it was retired from the classroom altogether. This board allowed a teacher to draw out information to their students and project it on a screen. † Greg laughed hysterically at the foolish concept of such a silly object, and dismissed the idea as obsolete. The guide continued on with her speech. â€Å"In 2010, Microsoft and Mac joined to create the revolutionary KnowledgeMaker 360 software, which allowed entire academic departments to move their classes online. And after Wikipedia published its trillionth article in 2021, it was clear that lists of Wikipedia articles would replace textbook readings forever. † Many students had finally had enough of their schooling today, and decided to fulfil their education hours later. Greg had to return to his day job anyhow. While putting on his nametag, Greg exited the museum in a haughty fashion and advanced down the crowded street, not making eye contact with anyone. We will write a custom essay sample on Satire or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page The grey booths along the street meant it was freedom of information day, the eight day of the week. After the economy collapsed more than one hundred years ago, the government tacked on another day to the week. This day, known as freedom of information day, helped revive the economy because it allowed people to go out and spend their money on consumer goods. Since then, it has simply become just another day of the week. Greg hated this day because all of the new upgrades for advanced gadgets usually came out and he could never afford the new technology.. Many of Greg’s friends laughed at him because his gadgets were shamefully outdated. Greg often found himself crying in the night, for his friends, who marched deeper into the realm of technology, constantly poked fun at him. Greg had to park four blocks away because of the crowds. He had to weave his way through the sea of bodies to get to his office located in the Circuit City headquarters building, near the Oreo cookie district. It is quite interesting, as Circuit City owns every building for communication and all major cities, towns, and streets are named after popular junk or fast foods. In case you did not already know, Circuit city won the communication and retail franchise wars that had occurred two years earlier. Also, it is important to note that the world population had come to rely so heavily on junk and fast food, that the government decided to name many areas after these popular cuisines. This decision was ultimately made in an effort to help the population become more familiarized with their surrounding area. While Greg disliked technology, he came to rely on it, just like everyone else in the world. As soon as Greg had made it to work, he began to imagine what life would have been like without the great BooBert.

Tuesday, November 26, 2019

Chicago Referencing †Citing an Edited Book (Proofread My Paper)

Chicago Referencing – Citing an Edited Book Chicago Referencing – Citing an Edited Book With Chicago referencing, citing an edited book or a chapter from a collection of essays isn’t quite the same as referencing other books. There’s also a difference between the two formats used in Chicago referencing (author-date citations and the footnote and bibliography system). In the following, we run through both. Author-Date: In-Text Citations The Chicago author-date system requires giving the author’s surname, the year of publication and relevant page numbers in parentheses for citations: Ricoeur is â€Å"attuned to plurality† (Langsdorf 2002, 41). With an edited book, it’s usually the author of the chapter that you should cite. The only time to use the editor’s name in citations is when citing an edited book in its entirety. Author-Date: Reference List In the reference list, the information required for a chapter from an edited book is: Author Surname, First Name. Year of Publication. â€Å"Title of Chapter.† In Title of Book, edited by Editor Name, page range. Place of Publication: Publisher. For instance, the paper cited above would appear as: Langsdorf, Lenore. 2002. â€Å"The Doubleness of Subjectivity: Regenerating the Phenomenology of Intentionality.† In Ricoeur as Another: The Ethics of Subjectivity, edited by Richard A. Cohen and James L. Marsh, 33-55. Albany: State University of New York Press. If referencing the volume as a whole, cite the editor(s) in place of the author(s): Cohen, Richard A., and James L. Marsh, eds. 2002. Ricoeur as Another: The Ethics of Subjectivity. Albany: State University of New York Press. Note that when a book has more than one author/editor, it’s only the first listed whose names are reversed. Footnote and Bibliography: Footnote Citations In the footnote and bibliography system, superscript numbers are used to indicate a citation (e.g., 1, 2, 3). In the footnote, the information to provide for a chapter from an edited book is: n. Author Name(s), â€Å"Chapter Title,† in Book Title, ed. Editor Name(s) (Place of Publication: Publisher, Year), page number(s). In practice, this would appear as follows: 1. John van den Hengel, â€Å"Can There Be a Science of Action?,† in Ricoeur as Another: The Ethics of Subjectivity, ed. Richard A. Cohen and James L. Marsh (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2002), 73-74. As above, cite the editor(s) in place of the author(s) when referencing an edited volume as a whole. Subsequent citations of the same source can then be abbreviated to just the author/editor surname, chapter title and page numbers: 1. John van den Hengel, â€Å"Can There Be a Science of Action?,† in Ricoeur as Another: The Ethics of Subjectivity, ed. Richard A. Cohen and James L. Marsh (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2002), 73-74. 2. Richard A. Cohen and James L. Marsh, eds., Ricoeur as Another: The Ethics of Subjectivity. (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2002), viii. 3. van den Hengel, â€Å"Can There Be a Science of Action?,† 80. Footnote and Bibliography: Bibliography In the bibliography, the information required for a chapter from an edited book is similar to the first footnote, but with different punctuation, a complete page range and the first listed author/editor’s name reversed: van den Hengel, John. â€Å"Can There Be a Science of Action?† In Ricoeur as Another: The Ethics of Subjectivity, edited by Richard A. Cohen and James L. Marsh, 71-92. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2002.

Friday, November 22, 2019

Business operation at Oz Supermarket

The retail industry deals with selling of the goods along with merchandise from any particular location. These locations might include the boutique or kiosk and department store. It further may come from small and individual lots or mail from the direct consumption done by the customers. It might also include services that are subordinated like the â€Å"delivery† (Lewrick et al., 2015). The â€Å"Oz Supermarket† has been one of such retail chains which are built to decrease the exit queues towards the â€Å"check out point†. Besides the important economic flow and ebb in the buying seasons the retail industry has been facing various problems overall. These are often dealt with. The following report explores the outlining of the retail operation. In order to achieve its aim, the steps undertaken are also assessed. Recommendations are made to improve the business process. The purchasers in retail may exist in the form of both business and individuals. Any â€Å"retailer† buys products or goods in huge quantities from the importers and manufactures in commerce. This can be done directly or via the wholesaler. Then it is sold in smaller quantities to the end-user. The retail establishments have been referred to as the â€Å"stores† or â€Å"shops†. The retailers lie at the end part of the â€Å"supply chain† (Çifci, Ekinci & Whyatt, 2014). The manufacturing markets view the retailing process as an urgent section of the distribution strategy overall. The term â€Å"retailer† can be applied where any service provider also delivers the requirements of huge number of customers. The electricity power for the public utility can be a good example of it. For the organizations like Oz Supermarket, the shops may lie on the residential streets or the shopping streets. It may consist of very little houses in a shopping mall. There could also be no house at all (Rezaei, Fahim, & Tavasszy, 2014). Further, the shopping streets might be for the pedestrians only. In several cases the shops might possess a full or incomplete roof to protect the customers. The online retailing is a type of the â€Å"electronic commerce†.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   It is used for the B2C or the â€Å"business-to-customer† transactions and orders from mail. These are the forms of the â€Å"non-shop† retailing. The shopping is indicated as the act to buy products. In several cases it might be done for the necessities like clothing and food. On the other hand, in some cases it can be performed as any recreational activity. The â€Å"recreational shopping† often deals with just looking at and not buying. This is termed as the window shopping (Zakaria et al., 2014). For the non-shopping criterion it can be turned as only browsing that ultimately does not result in purchasing. The Oz Supermarket as adopted the PayWave technology for its customers. It is the latest, secure and contactless technology. One can spend less time at the cash counter. Further it provides freedom to perform the activities that the client wishes to. It never accepts any cash. The customer has to enter the card given during the entry for passing. There are special readers called RFID that are kept installed at the trolleys. As soon as any item is picked or selected, it becomes queued for the payment. Whenever it has been removed the item gets deleted. The customers go on bagging their items while shopping. As the shopping is finished, technically the customer has been absent from the store. The sum total of the items purchased is charged automatically to the user as he walks out of the shop. There has been no queue at the â€Å"check-out† point (Zolnowski, Weiß & Bohmann, 2014). There could be many customers who are devoid of such cards. This includes the children or the tourists. They approach at the front disk to deposit cash temporarily. They are issued with a PayWave card provided by the store. This allows them in shopping. They are capable of leaving the store just like other customers. The balance is needed to give back in cash. It may also be recorder in the database for balancing during future visits (Amin & Broadbent, 2015). Whenever there has been any insufficient amount to cover up any purchases the alarm is set to be ringing.   The tag to each item with the RFID chips exerts additional overheads. The store manages the cost as interest from the customers who had been in rush. The summary stations of the shopping have been placed strategically in every corner of the store. It allows the customers to observe the in detailed list of the items present in trolley (Hanà §erlio?ullar?, ?en & Aktunà §, 2016). The store parks of car have been also time d by the minute when the shopping period is at its peak. During the non-peak times the rates of car park has been lower. The disabling of the parking has been free. The recommendations to Oz Supermarket are as follows: The using of the cloud-based software: It can be helpful in tracking and managing the inventory within real time. This is due to the reason that the retailers has been struggling to balance the customer behavior that are uncertain. They also further face problems from the complex and long supply chains. So, the cloud based software is helpful to make into use. Making sure that the supply chain and the marketing supply chains are in synchronization: Whenever there has been any executing of a promotion, many retailers unnoticed or avoid the alignment in marketing teams and supply chain. The above recommendation is important if any successful launching of the promotion is desired (Pantano, 2017). The employee turnover has been a vital factor disrupting the productivity of retail. It has been hard to get the best out of every individual. It occurs when the team members has been leaving constantly to pursue additional scopes. By engaging them more, the retailers extend the presence of any employee. This saves them money and time. From the very first, the retailers along with their suppliers have been focusing on delivering quality goods to more number of distributions. This was also meant to be done faster. However, in the present scenario they have been under more pressure than before. The retailers require knowing the places where the things are at every time in order to stay competitive. This helps in redirecting the shipments, responding to latest demands and rebalances the inventories that are on fly.   Additionally, they might face any barrier regarding the â€Å"supply chain†. Moreover, they could be unable to receive products in the stores or to the customers. In such cases the retailers along with their suppliers risk in losing their customers. For this reason the above recommendations might be useful. The retail business posses direct communication with the end-users of the services and goods within the value chain. This business acts as the intermediate force between the suppliers and end-users like the manufacturers or the wholesalers. Thus they have in the situation to interact effectively to the changing preferences and responses of the clients towards the sales person or suppliers of the company. This has helped the markets and the manufacturers to define their products again. The changes to the components of the strategy of marketing are also done accordingly (McWilliams, Anitsal & Anitsal, 2016). The manufacturers have needed an effective network for retail. This has been both for the product’s reach and obtaining a strong platform for point-of-purchase advertising and promotions.   The importance of the retailing in the overall value chain is needed to be realized while interacting with the customers. In this manner various manufacturers have intruded into the business of retail. They have set up various exclusive stores for their company’s brands. Direct interaction with the customers has not only occurred here but this method has also served as the advertisement for the firm. It has also helped in delivering the manufacturers by bargaining ability with other retailers. These other retailers are those who have stocked the product of the retailers of the business concerned here (Cartwright, 2013). Moreover, the retailing process has also provided extensive sales, supporting of people for products. These have been intensive in information like the cases of â€Å"consumer durables†. The environment of the retail store acts as a unique role in current world of technologies. The customers create relationships with the firms by various channels and devices (Lee, 2014). However, there are instances where element of the in-person interaction are added in the firms. Here the associates represent voice and face of the company.   The use of surveys gathering the voice of customer indicates about the experience at the store. This has been an effective method top understand the associate. The measurement of the impact of the tactical behaviors is done here. Adding various tactical questions of behavioral type helps in identifying particular behaviors of the associates. The quantifying of their influence on the satisfaction of the customer also helps. Moreover, the satisfaction of the customer could be tied to the â€Å"bottom line†. This could be done by looking at the behavioral information along with transactional information. This helps in understanding the pr imary behaviors has been influencing the revenue. Everyone should be involved in the feedback process. As the corporate believe in anything as important, it helps the staffs to understand their responsibility in the success of the company. This motivates them to continue quality work. The tracking and socializing of progress occurs in the customer feedback process. Here the results of progress are needed to be tracked. In the executive level, regular reports are needed to be sent indicating the influence of minor improvements. It is also done due to designate any executive champion socializing results from below (Ivanauskien? & Volung?nait?, 2014). Lastly the celebrations of victories are done. As any staff feel recognized and are appreciated for their quality activities, they become more receptive towards the constructive criticism. The significance of product quality review should be considered in retail. This is due to its higher quality in price relation and the value for customer. The product qualities are assessed by eight dimensions of product quality. They are product features, product performance, product conformance, serviceability, perceived quality, durability and aesthetics of products. Highly competitive and intensified industry of retails has been compelling companies to go through the strategies yielding larger value for the customers (Germann et al., 2014). Various small retailers would be unable to survive in the market due to the big retailers providing higher value from the perspective of quality of service and quality of product. The negative product quality review can effect in declining the quality of the product. Despite this, there have been various positive aspects to the e-commerce. The issue of decline in quality of product can be eradicated in near future. This must be alarming to the makers of public policy and consumers those who champion the relevance of the online shopping (Choi et al., 2015). In the current competitive market of retailing, as there is any improvement in the service quality the expectation of the customer and the lateral demands at the level of service improves with time. Using the â€Å"Customer Relationship Management† software: These types of software are also useful in managing the experience of the customers. The â€Å"Customer Relationship Management† or CRM software covers a wide collection of application. It is designed to businesses control various processes. This includes automate sales, knowledge and training, resources or assets, marketing, customer support and customer interaction. As the CRM software helps in managing the relationship between the business and the customer, likewise the CRM software systems are utilized to manage various elements (Pousttchi & Hufenbach, 2014). This includes the contact wins, sales leads, clients, contacts, enterprise and the employees. The current software is highly customizable and scalable. They view the opportunities of the business with the predictive analytics. It also includes personalized customer services and streamlines operations. This has been on the basis of the known history of the customer. The prior interactions of them with the business are also looked at. However, the CRM has been difficult to use in several cases. The main concerns of the CRM solutions have been the security, scalability and stability as an â€Å"Enterprise Application†. The usability has never been the main portion of CRM that has resulted in failure of software projects more often. This has been largely attributed to the undue complexity (Venkatesh, 2016). Despite these with the rise in adopting of the CRM applications, the current CRM â€Å"software vendors† utilize the â€Å"usability as the central section† of the products. Amin, A., & Broadbent, D. (2015). Importance of Green Service Offerings for French, Dutch, Swedish and UK Retailers in their Selection of Transport Operators: A study of French, Dutch, Swedish and UK companies operating in the retail industry. Cartwright, J. (2013). A Comparative Case Approach of the Retail Industry: Comparing the Nature of HRM, Emotional Labour and the Influence of the Customer. Choi, S. H., Yang, Y. X., Yang, B., & Cheung, H. H. (2015). Item-level RFID for enhancement of customer shopping experience in apparel retail.  Computers in Industry,  71, 10-23. Çifci, S., Ekinci, Y., & Whyatt, G. (2014, July). A cross validation of consumer-based brand equity (CBBE) scales in fashion retail industry. In  2014 Global Marketing Conference at Singapore  (pp. 1459-1468). Germann, F., Lilien, G. L., Fiedler, L., & Kraus, M. (2014). Do retailers benefit from deploying customer analytics?.  Journal of Retailing,  90(4), 587-593. Hanà §erlio?ullar?, G., ?en, A., & Aktunà §, E. A. (2016). Demand uncertainty and inventory turnover performance: An empirical analysis of the US retail industry.  International Journal of Physical Distribution & Logistics Management,  46(6/7), 681-708. Ivanauskien?, N., & Volung?nait?, J. (2014). Relations between service quality and customer loyalty: An empirical investigation of retail chain stores in emerging markets.  American International Journal of Social Science,  3(2), 113-120. Lee, W. H. (2014). A Study on the Customer Behavior of Using Retail Industry Application. Lewrick, M., Williams, R., Maktoba, O., Tjandra, N., & Lee, Z. C. (2015). Radical and incremental innovation effectiveness in relation to market orientation in the retail industry: triggers, drivers, and supporters.  Successful Technological Integration for Competitve Advantage in Retail Settings, IGI Global, 239-268. McWilliams, A., Anitsal, I., & Anitsal, M. M. (2016). Customer versus Employee Perceptions: A Review of Self-Service Technology Options as Illustrated in Self-Checkouts in US Retail Industry.  Academy of Marketing Studies Journal,  20(1), 79. Pantano, E., Priporas, C. V., Sorace, S., & Iazzolino, G. (2017). Does innovation-orientation lead to retail industry growth? Empirical evidence from patent analysis.  Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services,  34, 88-94. Pousttchi, K., & Hufenbach, Y. (2014). Engineering the value network of the customer interface and marketing in the data-rich retail environment.  International Journal of Electronic Commerce,  18(4), 17-42. Rezaei, J., Fahim, P. B., & Tavasszy, L. (2014). Supplier selection in the airline retail industry using a funnel methodology: Conjunctive screening method and fuzzy AHP.  Expert Systems with Applications,  41(18), 8165-8179. Venkatesh, J. (2016). RFID technology: improving efficiencies and creating a better customer experience in retail industry.  International Journal of Management, IT and Engineering,  6(12), 81-94. Zakaria, I., Rahman, B. A., Othman, A. K., Yunus, N. A. M., Dzulkipli, M. R., & Osman, M. A. F. (2014). The relationship between loyalty program, customer satisfaction and customer loyalty in retail industry: A case study.  Procedia-Social and Behavioral Sciences,  129, 23-30. Zolnowski, A., Weiß, C., & Bohmann, T. (2014, January). Representing Service Business Models with the Service Business Model Canvas--The Case of a Mobile Payment Service in the Retail Industry. In  system sciences (HICSS), 2014 47th Hawaii International Conference on  (pp. 718-727). IEEE. End your doubt 'should I pay someone to do my dissertation by availing dissertation writing services from

Wednesday, November 20, 2019

Addonney Beauty Shop Coursework Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 4000 words

Addonney Beauty Shop - Coursework Example This project will contain the E-marketing Plan for Addoony Beauty Shop. Some of the topics that will be discussed in this project are: - Firm description - Addressing the role of internet in marketing firm’s products/services - Online Consumer Behavior Addoony is an e-commerce company designed to become the market leader in Web-based sales of beauty services and products. The shop is located in Qatar. Although many Internet companies have recently joined the market and created stiff competition and failed, the Internet is expected to support several e-commerce businesses for many years to come. Most of the dot-coms failed to establish their ground in the e-market because of poor strategies that they laid for their businesses that had no true revenue streams. Addoony tends to overcome these problems with easy to use website for its customers and a distribution system that is efficient for their products throughout Qatar. Addoony’s mission is to provide the best services and products using the Internet to lower the consumer's cost. The online shop exists to attract and maintain customers through their daily interaction with the website to check for any new product in the market and the introduction of new services. When Addooney’s beauty shop adheres to this maxim, everything else will fall into place. The shops services will, therefore, be expected to exceed the expectations of the customers in Qatar. This will help maintain an enormous proportion of clients to sustain the shop for long and .further help to advertize it. In the coming years, the beauty shop intends to create an icon in e-commerce. In the process, it will brand in the sale of beauty products and services and will grow to a high generating revenue online shop.

Tuesday, November 19, 2019

Spirituality Occupational Model Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Spirituality Occupational Model - Essay Example It includes creation of new friendly relations, learning other opinions, acknowledging different beliefs and values, and grabbing each chance one has to go to new places. Occupational therapy has conventionally focused on psychodynamics, behaviorism, humanism, and multiculturalism however now a days spirituality is developing the most influential force. Spirituality is a person's assessment arrangement and it is obvious that consumers' values in general and immigrant consumers' values in particular enter into occupational therapy. Occupational therapy clear the significance of dealing with a consumer's ideals, values and attitudes, consequently investigating how occupational therapy incorporates spirituality as a fundamental argument is imperative. On the other hand, integrating spirituality into occupational therapists training programs might produce quarrel for therapist educators and counselors for the reason of differing analysis of the significance of spirituality. Spirituality is defined as an internal constituent of a person's discernment of veracity. So Spirituality is an association with an Inspirational Creature that promotes logic of connot ation, reason, and assignment in life.

Saturday, November 16, 2019

The Matrix, or Two Sides of Perversion Essay Example for Free

The Matrix, or Two Sides of Perversion Essay When I saw The Matrix at a local theatre in Slovenia, I had the unique opportunity of sitting close to the ideal spectator of the film namely, to an idiot. A man in the late 20ies at my right was so immersed in the film that he all the time disturbed other spectators with loud exclamations, like My God, wow, so there is no reality! †¦ I definitely prefer such naive immersion to the pseudo-sophisticated intellectualist readings which project into the film the refined philosophical or psychoanalytic conceptual distinctions. (1) It is nonetheless easy to understand this intellectual attraction of The Matrix: is it not that The Matrix is one of the films which function as a kind of Rorschach test [http://rorschach. test. at/] setting in motion the universalized process of recognition, like the proverbial painting of God which seems always to stare directly at you, from wherever you look at it — practically every orientation seems to recognize itself in it? My Lacanian friends are telling me that the authors must have read Lacan; the Frankfurt School partisans see in the Matrix the extrapolated embodiment of Kulturindustrie, the alienated-reified social Substance (of the Capital) directly taking over, colonizing our inner life itself, using us as the source of energy; New Agers see in the source of speculations on how our world is just a mirage generated by a global Mind embodied inthe World Wide Web. This series goes back to Platos Republic: does The Matrix not repeat exactly Platos dispositif of the cave (ordinary humans as prisoners, tied firmly to their seats and compelled to watch the shadowy performance of (what they falsely consider to be) reality? The important difference, of course, is that when some individuals escape their cave predicament and step out to the surface of the Earth, what they find there is no longer the bright surface illuminated by the rays of the Sun, the supreme Good, but the desolate desert of the real. The key opposition is here the one between Frankfurt School and Lacan: should we historicize the Matrix into the metaphor of the Capital that colonized culture and subjectivity, or is it the reification of the symbolic order as such? However, what if this very alternative is false? What if the virtual character of the symbolic order as such is the very condition of historicity? Reaching the End Of the World Of course, the idea of the hero living in a totally manipulated and controlled artificial universe is hardly original: The Matrix just radicalizes it by bringing in virtual reality. The point here is the radical ambiguity of the VR with regard to the problematic of iconoclasm. On the one hand, VR marks the radical reduction of the wealth of our sensory experience to — not even letters, but — the minimal digital series of 0 and 1, of passing and non-passing of the electrical signal. On the other hand, this very digital machine generates the simulated experience of reality which tends to become indiscernable from the real reality, with the consequence of undermining the very notion of real reality — VR is thus at the same time the most radical assertion of the seductive power of images. Is not the ultimate American paranoiac fantasy that of an individual living in a small idyllic Californian city, a consummerist paradise, who suddenly starts to suspect that the world he lives in is a fake, a spectatle staged to convince him that he lives in a real world, while all people around him are effectively actors and extras in a gigantic show? The most recent example of this is Peter Weirs The Truman Show (1998), with Jim Carrey playing the small town clerk who gradually discovers the truth that he is the hero of a 24-hours permanent TV show: his hometown is constructed on a a gigantic studio set, with cameras following him permanently. Sloterdijks sphere is here literally realized, as the gigantic metal sphere that envelopes and isolates the entire city. This final shot of The Truman Show may seem to enact the liberating experience of breaking out from the ideological suture of the enclosed universe into its outside, invisible from the ideological inside. However, what if it is precisely this happy denouement of the film (let us not forget: applauded by the millions around the world watching the last minutes of the show), with the hero breaking out and, as we are led to believe, soon to join his true love (so that we have again the formula of the production of the couple! ), that is ideology at its purest? What if ideology resides in the very belief that, outside the closure of the finite universe, there is some true reality to be entered? (2) Among the predecessors of this notion, it is worth mentioning Phillip Dicks Time Out of Joint (1959), in which a hero living a modest daily life in a small idyllic Californian city of the late 50s, gradually discovers that the whole town is a fake staged to keep him satisfied†¦ The underlying experience of Time Out of Joint and of The Truman Show is that the late capitalist consummerist Californian paradise is, in its very hyper-reality, in a way irreal, substanceless, deprived of the material inertia. So it is not only that Hollywood stages a semblance of real life deprived of the weight and inertia of materiality — in the late capitalist consummerist society, real social life itself somehow acquires the features of a staged fake, with our neighbors behaving in real life as stage actors and extras†¦ The ultimte truth of the capitalist utilitarian de-spiritualized universe is the de-materialization of the real life itself, its reversal into a spectral show. In the realm of science-fiction, one should mention also Brian Aldiss Starship, in which members of a tribe leave in a closed world of a tunnel in a giant starship, isolated from the rest of the ship by thick vegetation, unaware that there is a universe beyond; finally, some children penetrate the bushes and reach the world beyond, populated by other tribes. Among the older, more naive forerunners, one should mention George Seatons 36 Hours, the film from the early 60ies about an American officer (James Garner) who knows all the plans for the D Day invasion of Normandy and is accidentally taken prisoner by Gernans just days before the invasion. Since he is taken prisoner unconscious, in a blast of explosion, the Germans quickly construct for him a replica of small American military hospital resort, trying to convince him that he now lives in 1950, that America won the war and that he has lost memory for the last 6 years — the idea being that he would tell all about the invasion plans for the Germans to prepare themselves; of course, cracks soon appear in this carefully constructed edifice†¦ (Did not Lenin himself, in the last 2 years of his life, lived in an almost similar controlled environment, in which, as we now know, Stalin had printed hor him a specially prepared one copy of Pravda, censored of all news that would tell Lenin about the political struggles going on, with the justification that Comrade Lenin should take a rest and not be excited by unnecessary provocations.) What lurks in the background is, of course, the pre-modern notion of arriving at the end of the universe: in the well-known engravings, the surprised wanderers approach the screen/curtain of heaven, a flat surfaced with painted stars on it, pierce it and reach beyond — it is exactly this that happens at the end of The Truman Show. No wonder that the last scene of the film, when Truman steps up the stairs attached to the wall on which the blue sky horizon is painted and opens up there the door, has a distinct Magrittean touch: is it not that, today, this same sensitivity is returning with a vengeance? Do works like Syberbergs Parsifal, in which the infinite horizon is also blocked by the obviously artificial rear-projections, not signal that the time of the Cartesian infinite perspective is running out, and that we are returning to a kind of renewed medieval pre-perspective universe? Fred Jameson perspicuously drew attention to the same phenomenon in some of the Raymond Chandlers novels and Hitchcocks films: the shore of the Pacific ocean in Farewell, My Lovely functions as a kind of end/limit of the world, beyond which there is an unknown abyss; and it is similar with the vast open valley that stretches out in front of the Mount Rashmore heads when, on the run from their pursuers, Eva-Marie Saint and Cary Grant reach the peak of the monument, and into which Eva-Marie Saint almost falls, before being pulled up by Cary Grant; and one is tempted to add to this series the famous battle scene at a bridge on the Vietnamese/Cambodgian frontier in Apocalypse Now, where the space beyond the bridge is experienced as the beyond of our known universe. And how not to recall that the idea that our Earth is not the planet floating in the infinite space, but a circular opening, hole, within the endless compact mass of eternal ice, with the sun in its center, was one of the favorite Nazi pseudo-scientific fantasies (according to some reports, they even considered putting some telescopes on the Sylt islands in order to observe America)? The Really Existing Big Other What, then, is the Matrix? Simply the Lacanian big Other, the virtual symbolic order, the network that structures reality for us. This dimension of the big Other is that of the constitutive alienation of the subject in the symbolic order: the big Other pulls the strings, the subject doesnt speak, he is spoken by the symbolic structure. In short, this big Other is the name for the social Substance, for all that on account of which the subject never fully dominates the effects of his acts, i. e. on account of which the final outcome of his activity is always something else with regard to what he aimed at or anticipated. However, it is here crucial to note that, in the key chapters of Seminar XI, Lacan struggles to delineate the operation that follows alienation and is in a sense its counterpoint, that of separation: alienation IN the big Other is followed by the separation FROM the big Other. Separation takes place when the subject takes note of how the big Other is in itself inconsistent, purely virtual, barred, deprived of the Thing — and fantasy is an attempt to fill out this lack of the Other, not of the subject, i. e. to (re)constitute the consistency of the big Other. For that reason, fantasy and paranoia are inherently linked: paranoia is at its most elementary a belief into an Other of the Other, into another Other who, hidden behind the Other of the explicit social texture, programs (what appears to us as) the unforeseen effects of social life and thus guarantees its consistency: beneath the chaos of market, the degradation of morals, etc., there is the purposeful strategy of the Jewish plot†¦ This paranoiac stance acquired a further boost with todays digitalization of our daily lives: when our entire (social) existence is progressively externalized-materialized in the big Other of the computer network, it is easy to imagine an evil programmer erasing our digital identity and thus depriving us of our social existence, turning us into non-persons. Following the same paranoiac twist, the thesis of The Matrix is that this big Other is externalized in the really existing Mega-Computer. There is — there HAS to be — a Matrix because things are not right, opportunities are missed, something goes wrong all the time, i. e. the films idea is that it is so because there is the Matrix that obfuscates the true reality that is behind it all. Consequently, the problem with the film is that it is NOT crazy enough, because it supposes another real reality behind our everyday reality sustained by the Matrix. However, to avoid the fatal misunderstanding: the inverse notion that all there is is generated by the Matrix, that there is NO ultimate reality, just the infinite series of virtual realities mirroring themselves in each other, is no less ideological. (In the sequels to The Matrix, we shall probably learn that the very desert of the real is generated by (another) matrix. ) Much more subversive than this multiplication of virtual universes would have been the multiplication of realities themselves — something that would reproduce the paradoxical danger that some physicians see in recent high accelerator experiments. As is well known, scientist are now trying to construct the accelerator capable of smashing together the nuclei of very heavy atoms at nearly the speed of light. The idea is that such a collision will not only shatter the atoms nuclei into their constituent protons and neutrons, but will pulverize the protons and neutrons themselves, leaving a plasma, a kind of energy soup consisting of loose quark and gluon particles, the building blocks of matter that have never before been studied in such a state, since such a state only existed briefly after the Big Bang. However, this prospect has given rise to a nightmarish scenario: what if the success of this experiment will create a doomsday machine, a kind of world-devouring monster that will with inexorable necessity annihilate the ordinary matter around itself and thus abolish the world as we know it? The irony of it is that this end of the world, the disintegration of the universe, would be the ultimate irrefutable proof that the tested theory is true, since it would suck all matter into a black hole and then bring about a new universe, i. e. perfectly recreate the Big Bang scenario. The paradox is thus that both versions — (1) a subject freely floating from one to another VR, a pure ghost aware that every reality is a fake; (2) the paranoiac supposition of the real reality beneath the Matrix — are false: they both miss the Real. The film is not wrong in insisting that there IS a Real beneath the Virtual Reality simulation as Morpheus puts to Neo when he shows him the ruined Chicago landscape: Welcome to the desert of the real. However, the Real is not the true reality behind the virtual simulation, but the void which makes reality incomplete/inconsistent, and the function of every symbolic Matrix is to conceal this inconsistency — one of the ways to effectuate this concealment is precisely to claim that, behind the incomplete/inconsistent reality we know, there is another reality with no deadlock of impossibility structuring it. The big Other doesnt exist Big Other also stands for the field of common sense at which one can arrive after free deliberation; philosophically, its last great version is Habermass communicative community with its regulative ideal of agreement. And it is this big Other that progressively disintegrates today. What we have today is a certain radical split: on the one hand, the objectivized language of experts and scientists which can no longer be translated into the common language accessible to everyone, but is present in it in the mode of fetishized formulas that no one really understands, but which shape our artistic and popular imaginary (Black Hole, Big Bang, Superstrings, Quantum Oscillation†¦). Not only in natural sciences, but also in economy and other social sciences, the expert jargon is presented as an objective insight with which one cannot really argue, and which is simultaneously untranslatable into our common experience. In short, the gap between scientific insight and common sense is unbridgeable, and it is this very gap which elevates scientists into the popular cult-figures of the subjects supposed to know (the Stephen Hawking phenomenon). The strict obverse of this objectivity is the way in which, in the cultural matters, we are confronted with the multitude of life-styles which one cannot translate into each other: all we can do is secure the conditions for their tolerant coexistence in a multicultural society. The icon of todays subject is perhaps the Indian computer programmer who, during the day, excels in his expertise, while in the evening, upon returning home, he lits the candle to the local Hindu divinity and respects the sacredness of the cow. This split is perfectly rendered in the phenomenon of cyberspace. Cyberspace was supposed to bring us all together in a Global Village; however, what effectively happens is that we are bombarded with the multitude of messages belonging to inconsistent and incompatible universes — instead of the Global Village, the big Other, we get the multitude of small others, of tribal particular identifications at our choice. To avoid a misunderstanding: Lacan is here far from relativizing science into just one of the arbitrary narratives, ultimately on equal footing with Politically Correct myths, etc. : science DOES touch the Real, its knowledge IS knowledge in the Real — the deadlock resides simply in the fact that scientific knowledge cannot serve as the SYMBOLIC big Other. The gap between modern science and the Aristotelian common sense philosophical ontology is here insurmountable: it emerges already with Galileo, and is brought to extreme in quantum physics, where we are dealing with the rules/laws which function, although they cannot ever be retranslated into our experience of representable reality. The theory of risk society and its global reflexivization is right in its emphasis one how, today, we are at the opposite end if the classical Enlightenment universalist ideology which presupposed that, in the long run, the fundamental questions can be resolved by way of the reference to the objective knowledge of the experts: when we are confronted with the conflicting opinions about the environmental consequences of a certain new product (say, of genetically modified vegetables), we search in vain for the ultimate expert opinion. And the point is not simply that the real issues are blurred because science is corrupted through financial dependence on large corporations and state agencies — even in themselves, sciences cannot provide the answer. Ecologists predicted 15 years ago the death of our forrests — the problem is now a too large increasee of wood†¦ Where this theory of risk society is too short is in emphasizing the irrational predicament into which this puts us, common subjects: we are again and again compelled to decide, although we are well aware that we are in no position to decide, that our decision will be arbitrary. Ulrich Beck and his followers refer here to the democratic discussion of all options and consensus-building; however, this does not resolve the immobilizing dilemma: why should the democratic discussion in which the majority participates lead to better result, when, cognitively, the ignorance of the majority remains. The political frustration of the majority is thus understandable: they are called to decide, while, at the same time, receiving the message that they are in no position effectively to decide, i. e. to objectively weigh the pros and cons. The recourse to conspiracy theories is a desperate way out of this deadlock, an attempt to regain a minimum of what Fred Jameson calls cognitive mapping. Jodi Dean(3) drew attention to a curious phenomenon clearly observable in the dialogue of the mutes between the official (serious, academically institutionalized) science and the vast domain of so-called pseudo-sciences, from ufology to those who want to decipher the secrets of the pyramids: one cannot but be struck by how it is the oficial scientists who proceed in a dogmatic dismissive way, while the pseudo-scientists refer to facts and argumentation deprived of the common prejudices. Of course, the answer will be here that established scientists speak with the authority of the big Other of the scientific Institution; but the problem is that, precisely, this scientific big Other is again and again revealed as a consensual symbolic fiction. So when we are confronted with conspiracy theories, we should proceed in a strict homology to the proper reading of Henry James The Turn of the Screw: we should neither accept the existence of ghosts as part of the (narrative) reality nor reduce them, in a pseudo-Freudian way, to the projection of the heroines hysterical sexual frustrations. Conspiracy theories, of course, are not to be accepted as fact however, one should also not reduce them to the phenomenon of modern mass hysteria. Such a notion still relies on the big Other, on the model of normal perception of shared social reality, and thus does not take into account how it is precisely this notion of reality that is undermined today. The problem is not that ufologists and conspiracy theorists regress to a paranoiac attitude unable to accept (social) reality; the problem is that this reality itself is becoming paranoiac. Contemporary experience again and again confronts us with situations in which we are compelled to take note of how our sense of reality and normal attitude towards it is grounded in a symbolic fiction, i. e. how the big Other that determines what counts as normal and accepted truth, what is the horizon of meaning in a given society, is in no way directly grounded in facts as rendered by the scientific knowledge in the real. Let us take a traditional society in which modern science is not yet elevated into the Master-discourse: if, in its symbolic space, an individual advocates propositions of modern science, he will be dismissed as madman — and the key point is that it is not enough to say that he is not really mad, that it is merely the narrow ignorant society which puts him in this position — in a certain way, being treated as a madman, being excluded from the social big Other, effectively EQUALS being mad. Madness is not the designation which can be grounded in a direct reference to facts (in the sense that a madman is unable to perceive things the way they really are, since he is caught in his hallucinatory projections), but only with regard to the way an individual relates to the big Other. Lacan usually emphasizes the opposite aspect of this paradox: the madman is not only a beggar who thinks he is a king, but also a king who thinks he is a king, i. e. madness designates the collapse of the distance between the Symbolic and the Real, an immediate identification with the symbolic mandate; or, to take his other exemplary statement, when a husband is pathologically jealous, obsessed by the idea that his wife sleeps with other men, his obsession remains a pathological feature even if it is proven that he is right and that his wife effectively sleeps with other men. The lesson of such paradoxes is clear: pathological jealously is not a matters of getting the facts false, but of the way these facts are integrated into the subjects libidinal economy. However, what one should assert here is that the same paradox should also be performed as it were in the opposite direction: the society (its socio-symbolic field, the big Other) is sane and normal even when it is proven factually wrong. (Maybe, it was in this sense that the late Lacan designated himself as psychotic: he effectively was psychotic insofar as it was not possible to integrate his discourse into the field of the big Other. ) One is tempted to claim, in the Kantian mode, that the mistake of the conspiracy theory is somehow homologous to the paralogism of the pure reason, to the confusion between the two levels: the suspicion (of the received scientific, social, etc. common sense) as the formal methodological stance, and the positivation of this suspicion in another all-explaining global para-theory. Screening the Real From another standpoint, the Matrix also functions as the screen that separates us from the Real, that makes the desert of the real bearable. However, it is here that we should not forget the radical ambiguity of the Lacanian Real: it is not the ultimate referent to be covered/gentrified/domesticated by the screen of fantasy — the Real is also and primarily the screen itself as the obstacle that always-already distorts our perception of the referent, of the reality out there. In philosophical terms, therein resides the difference between Kant and Hegel: for Kant, the Real is the noumenal domain that we perceive schematized through the screen of transcendental categories; for Hegel, on the contrary, as he asserts exemplarily in the Introduction to his Phenomenology, this Kantian gap is false. Hegel introduces here THREE terms: when a screen intervenes between ourselves and the Real, it always generates a notion of what is In-itself, beyond the screen (of the appearance), so that the gap between appearance and the In-itself is always-already for us. Consequently, if we subtract from the Thing the distortion of the Screen, we loose the Thing itself (in religious terms, the death of Christ is the death of the God in himself, not only of his human embodiment) — which is why, for Lacan, who follows here Hegel, the Thing in itself is ultimately the gaze, not the perceived object. So, back to the Matrix: the Matrix itself is the Real that distorts our perception of reality. A reference to Levi-Strausss exemplary analysis, from his Structural Anthropology, of the spatial disposition of buildings in the Winnebago, one of the Great Lake tribes, might be of some help here. The tribe is divided into two sub-groups (moieties), those who are from above and those who are from below; when we ask an individual to draw on a piece of paper, or on sand, the ground-plan of his/her village (the spatial disposition of cottages), we obtain two quite different answers, depending on his/her belonging to one or the other sub-group. Both perceive the village as a circle; but for one sub-group, there is within this circle another circle of central houses, so that we have two concentric circles, while for the other sub-group, the circle is split into two by a clear dividing line. In other words, a member of the first sub-group (let us call it conservative-corporatist) perceives the ground-plan of the village as a ring of houses more or less symmetrically disposed around the central temple, whereas a member of the second (revolutionary-antagonistic) sub-group perceives his/her village as two distinct heaps of houses separated by an invisible frontier†¦(4) The central point of Levi-Strauss is that this example should in no way entice us into cultural relativism, according to which the perception of social space depends on the observers group-belonging: the very splitting into the two relative perceptions implies a hidden reference to a constant — not the objective, actual disposition of buildings but a traumatic kernel, a fundamental antagonism the inhabitants of the village were unable to symbolize, to account for, to internalize, to come to terms with, an imbalance in social relations that prevented the community from stabilizing itself into a harmonious whole. The two perceptions of the ground-plan are simply two mutually exclusive endeavours to cope with this traumatic antagonism, to heal its wound via the imposition of a balanced symbolic structure. Is it necessary to add that things stand exactly the same with respect to sexual difference: masculine and feminine are like the two configurations of houses in the Levi-Straussian village? And in order to dispel the illusion that our developed universe is not dominated by the same logic, suffice it to recall the splitting of our political space into Left and Right: a Leftist and a Rightist behave exactly like members of the opposite sub-groups of the Levi-Straussian village. They not only occupy different places within the political space; each of them perceives differently the very disposition of the political space — a Leftist as the field that is inherently split by some fundamental antagonism, a Rightist as the organic unity of a Community disturbed only by foreign intruders. However, Levi-Strauss make here a further crucial point: since the two sub-groups nonetheless form one and the same tribe, living in the same village, this identity somehow has to be symbolically inscribed — how, if the entire symbolic articulation, all social institutions, of the tribe are not neutral, but are overdetermined by the fundamental and constitutive antagonistic split? By what Levi-Strauss ingeniously calls the zero-institution, a kind of institutional counterpart to the famous mana, the empty signifier with no determinate meaning, since it signifies only the presence of meaning as such, in opposition to its absence: a specific institution which has no positive, determinate function — its only function is the purely negative one of signalling the presence and actuality of social institution as such, in opposition to its absence, to pre-social chaos. It is the reference to such a zero-institution that enables all members of the tribe to experience themselves as such, as members of the same tribe. Is, then, this zero-institution not ideology at its purest, i. e.the direct embodiment of the ideological function of providing a neutral all-encompassing space in which social antagonism is obliterated, in which all members of society can recognize themselves? And is the struggle for hegemony not precisely the struggle for how will this zero-institution be overdetermined, colored by some particular signification? To provide a concrete example: is not the modern notion of nation such a zero-institution that emerged with the dissolution of social links grounded in direct family or traditional symbolic matrixes, i. e. when, with the onslaught of modernization, social institutions were less and less grounded in naturalized tradition and more and more experienced as a matter of contract. (5) Of special importance is here the fact that national identity is experienced as at least minimally natural, as a belonging grounded in blood and soil, and as such opposed to the artificial belonging to social institutions proper (state, profession†¦): pre-modern institutions functioned as naturalized symbolic entities (as institutions grounded in unquestionable traditions), and the moment institutions were conceived as social artefacts, the need arose for a naturalized zero-institution that would serve as their neutral common ground. And, back to sexual difference, I am tempted to risk the hypothesis that, perhaps, the same logic of zero-institution should be applied not only to the unity of a society, but also to its antagonistic split: what if sexual difference is ultimately a kind of zero-institution of the social split of the humankind, the naturalized minimal zero-difference, a split that, prior to signalling any determinate social difference, signals this difference as such? The struggle for hegemony is then, again, the struggle for how this zero-difference will be overdetermined by other particular social differences. It is against this background that one should read an important, although usually overlooked, feature of Lacans schema of the signifier: Lacan replaces the standard Saussurean scheme (above the bar the word arbre, and beneath it the drawing of a tree) with, above the bar, two words one along the other, homme and femme, and, beneath the bar, two identical drawings of a door. In order to emphasize the differential character of the signifier, Lacan first replaces Saussures single scheme with a signifiers couple, with the opposition man/woman, with the sexual difference; but the true surprise resides in the fact that, at the level of the imaginary referent, THERE IS NO DIFFERENCE (we do not get some graphic index of the sexual difference, the simplified drawing of a man and a woman, as is usually the case in most of todays restrooms, but THE SAME door reproduced twice). Is it possible to state in clearer terms that sexual difference does not designate any biological opposition grounded in real properties, but a purely symbolic opposition to which nothing corresponds in the designated objects — nothing but the Real of some undefined X which cannot ever be captured by the image of the signified? Back to Levi-Strausss example of the two drawings of the village: it is here that one can see it what precise sense the Real intervenes through anamorphosis. We have first the actual, objective, arrangement of the houses, and then its two different symbolizations which both distort in an amamorphic way the actual arrangement. However, the real is here not the actual arrangement, but the traumatic core of the social antagonism which distorts the tribe members view of the actual antagonism.

Thursday, November 14, 2019

The Little Girl Who Changed My Life Essay -- Community Service, Servic

When I was a child, my grandparents always told me that children are the future of our world. A child needs to be shown how much they are able to achieve. A child not shown that will never blossom into the beautiful flower which they are meant to be. That is why I chose to volunteer at my community elementary school. I wanted to live the words that my grandparents told me, the words that would make a difference in my future. I was handpicked by the principal and the teacher to be the friend of a child who needed me. My journey began with a blonde-haired, blue-eyed little girl named Mary. Now, Mary isn’t your normal four-year-old who always wants to tell you what happened from the moment she wakes up. She never said one word to me from the moment I met her. I didn’t say much to her, either. All I kept telling her was we are going to have so much fun this year. When I went home that day, all I could think of was that I was picked for this child for a reason, and that while I was with her, I would make the best effort I could to change her outlook on the worl...

Monday, November 11, 2019

Curbing College Drinking Essay Essay

â€Å"Curbing College Drinking†¦Ã¢â‚¬  The consequences of college binge drinking are more destructive and life- changing than students realize. In the article â€Å"Curbing College Drinking Starts with a Change in Attitude,† by Sara Fritz, published in Pearson’s The Effective Reader in 2011, the author explains the problems resulting from excessive drinking on college campuses. Due to the seriousness of drinking, colleges find, it will take the combined effort of parents, students, and college staff to accomplish the best end result. Fritz begins her article exploring the issues that arise within college campuses when college students drink in excess. With much time invested as a college trustee and through many long discussions with students, Fritz is discouraged to discover that students arent convinced of the severity stating â€Å"our parents drank† making it seem as just a stage that one goes through. It doesn’t stop there†¦as scientists study the problem, they believe the entire student population must be changed. Also, they believe the college enviroment must be changed in order to revolutionize at risk drinkers. Although Fritz appreciates the efforts of the scientists and commends them on their work, the findings were inconclusive. Fritz provides many facts and opinions in her attempt to persuade the readers of the severity of drinking on college campuses and ways to solve the growing issue. She expresses her disgust when she sarcastically states â€Å"What a concept!† Clearly frustrated, the reader can then be convinced that its been a long standing battle within the college and within her career. With little to no progress, Fritz remains bitter. After reading this article, I agree that college drinking is a serious issue. Fritz offered many good ideas for finding a solution to the problem. Through her personal experiences as a college trustee, she has witnessed, first hand, the tragic effects of college drinking. Perhaps, as parents, we should focus on explaining the dangers of drinking to our children. It may be helpful if we relate to them on the issue, rather than pretending it’s something we have no experience with. I hope that one day a solution will be found to this growing problem.

Saturday, November 9, 2019

Detailed commentary between Hamlet and the Ghost Essay

The play ‘Hamlet’ was written in politically tempestuous times in London. Much importance surrounded the outward support of the monarch, Elizabeth. During her reign, religion caused divisions and factions of the Protestant church considered the theatre as sinful, amoral perhaps. In his plays, Shakespeare uses his understanding of humanity to entertain by addressing love, power, loyalty, honour and friendship. These values address unchanging aspects that touch us even today. At the time of this play, Shakespeare was experimenting and developing new theatrical techniques in an attempt to impress his audiences. ‘Hamlet’, a timeless tale of murder, is intended to portray the importance of the monarchy, family dynamics, friendships and betrayals. This then is the underlying setting of the theme for ‘Hamlet’ – opening on a dark winter night, creating an ethos of suspense and intrigue while providing entertainment to an otherwise deprived audience. The conversation between Hamlet and the Ghost can be interpreted and understood in many different ways. It is strongly suggested that the repercussions of this conversation will determine the revenge -tragedy that is the essence of the play ‘Hamlet’. The Ghost begins the colloquy by psychologically manipulating Hamlet into feeling sorry for him; he does so my declaring: ‘When I to sulphurous and tormenting flames,’ thus stating he does not have much time until he has to return to his Catholic purgatory, as he was not allowed to receive the obligatory sacrament before dying: ‘Uhous’led, disappointed, unanel’d. ‘ This would provoke a religious reaction of demonising the Ghost from a predominantly Protestant audience, thus creating a degree of tension – intentionally; a manipulative technique by Shakespeare. Throughout the exchange, ostensibly, the Ghost is attempting to stimulate Hamlet’s motive for revenge on Claudius. ‘If thou didst ever thy dear father love,’ the Ghost targets Hamlet’s filial duty as a son to seek revenge on Claudius because he committed fratricide and regicide. ‘Murder most foul, as in the best it is: but this most foul, strange and unnatural,’ the Ghost further provokes Hamlet to act. Knowing that Hamlet is a procrastinator, the audience is inciting him to take action. How can the Ghost, as the repentant soul it is, ask his son to go against God’s forbiddance of revenge? -‘ Revenge his foul and most unnatural murder? ‘ The Ghost really angers Hamlet when he mentions, ‘That incestuous, that adulterate beast:’ here is where Hamlet is hurt the most, as if adding more fuel to a fire, or rubbing salt to a wound. By use of metaphorical language,’ Prey on garbage’, the Ghost intends to compare itself to the ‘Radiant angel’, Gertrude representing lust and Claudius is the ‘filth’. ‘If thou hast nature in thee, bear it not,’ this really puts Hamlet in an awkward situation; he does feel for his father and clearly wants to seek revenge, but it is clearly against his religion and nature as a person to commit murder. The Ghost’s intention – in providing such vivid detail about his death – is to stimulate and provoke action from Hamlet. Hamlet’s reaction to the Ghost is surprisingly courageous. ‘As meditation or the thoughts of love may sweep to my revenge’. This statement is bursting with courage and bravery and it seems Hamlet will act. ‘O my prophetic soul,’ Hamlet claims he had, (in hindsight) always suspected, that it was Claudius who was responsible for the death of his father, although he has not mentioned it previously. This is a display of youthful assertiveness. ‘O all you host of heaven! O earth! What else? ‘ This statement shows just how distraught Hamlet is by the convergence of having lost his father; his mother perceivably, to Claudius; his throne to Claudius and receiving instruction from a Ghost! This apparition is telling him to seek revenge on Claudius – despite the fact that it may contradict his religious beliefs. By the following non – sequitur statement: ‘O most pernicious woman,’ Hamlet spontaneously turns his attention and thoughts once again towards his mother instead of focusing on the traitor who murdered his father. In this way, he reveals his Oedipus Complex once more: ‘O villain, villain, smiling, damned villain. ‘ This statement could be referring to Claudius, the Ghost itself, or his mother. It is most probable that this statement is referring to his mother because Hamlet seems most distressed by that fact that she re-married! By Hamlet’s light – hearted reference to the Ghost,’ You hear this fellow in the cellarage,’ Shakespeare intends to diffuse the doubting attitude of the audience, adding a fleeting touch of humour, perhaps. ‘As I perchance hereafter shall think meet to put an antic disposition on. ‘ Hamlet states he will behave in an eccentric manner, to appear to have taken leave of his senses – to try and learn more about Claudius’ treachery, To catch the conscious of the King’. What Hamlet has not realised is that even if he does find out more information about his uncle’s treacherous behaviour, no one will believe him because of his perceived madness. A contemporary audience would have been disappointed with Hamlet’s decision because they would have wanted Hamlet to act and seek revenge, not to be seen to hesitate or procrastinate. ‘Thou shall not kill’ – this is Hamlet’s religious belief. Here lies a problem for Hamlet. He has already promised revenge on Claudius, ‘I have sworn’t’ without thinking about the consequences of his actions. Hamlet, as a man of God, will find it difficult nigh impossible to kill, as it goes against the will of God, but would he break oath and defy the Ghost’s will? Hamlet is in a conundrum. The longer he waits, the situation intensifies. He is a well – read scholar, familiar with the melodramatic manifestations of the genre of a revenge-tragedy and therefore he plays the role of the typical tragic protagonist well. The Ghost acts and talks as though he still is was the King, ‘My most seeming virtuous queen. ‘ Here the Ghost reiterates to Hamlet that the Queen had nothing to do with his death and he should not think ill of her. However, the Ghost categorically proclaims that Claudius is guilty, ‘And in the porches of my ears did pour the leperous distilment’ and as a consequence of this he should suffer at Hamlet’s hand. The Ghost has already decided who is to blame; who should suffer and who must die. What gives him the authority to do so? It appears that the Ghost’s main purpose is to thicken the texture of the plot and to add to the theme of revenge. The supernatural serves to add a flavour of suspense, energy and tension to the play.

Thursday, November 7, 2019

Looking for Alibrandi essays

Looking for Alibrandi essays Josephine Alibrandi is a 17 year old girl and knows what she wants in her life, but things dont always turn out the way you want them to and thats what Josie soon learns. Josies life is about to be turn up side down. Josie has 3 best friends, Anna, Lee and Sera, they have been friends for five years. (All through high school) They met because when every one was picking their friends they were the only one left one the playground. Josie was voted for vice captain of her school and her worst enemy Ivy was voted captain. Poison Ivy (thats what Josie and her friend call her) and Carley (the second worst enemy) are the two most popular girls in the school and they are the richest, snobbiest and rudest as well. Josie never thought that she would ever meet her dad, but she was wrong. One day when she was about to leave her Nonas house he showed up to talk to her Nona. (Her Nona not knowing that he was Josies dad) Josie knew who he was straight away because of his name, she thought he would be tall and skinny, but he was short, built up and hansom. All Josie really wanted to do was have a big argue with him, but they never did have one. After a while Josies dad (Michael Andretti) gave Josie a job as his assistant, he is a barrister and thats what Josie wants to be. Josies Nona is an old woman from Italy and was forced to come to Australia by her husband in the 1930s. Her name is Katier Alibrandi, when she first got to Australia she hated it, no one spoke Italian and she had to live in the outback, one of the only people she saw Markus Sandford. He didnt speak any Italian but they sort of under stood each other, he tort Katier to speak English and they became best of friends. All this time her husband was off some ware else working. Josie liked the sound of Markus until she found out that he cheated with Nona Katier and that was how ...

Monday, November 4, 2019

Review of litterature Term Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Review of litterature - Term Paper Example Public health seeks to address health concerns for human populations. It addresses the collectivity of individual persons within a society to make up the entire society that is then referred to as the public. In this context, epidemiology deals with the prevention and control of disease for the benefit of the human population or the public for that matter (Savitz, Poole & Miller, 1999). Essentially, this definition dictates the application of epidemiology in addressing public heath matter. This is to say, the scope of epidemiology in the public health context is limited to the cause and effect relationship of disease variables that pose health risks to the public. Epidemiology as process is integrated in research work to come up with up to date information about disease trends and prevalence in the public domain. In this line, epidemiology becomes a research technique that aids the process of addressing public health concerns. It is important to point out that public health does not only deal with addressing existing and emerging public health issues, but also alleviating risk factors that are likely to result in public health issues (Kelsey, et al., 1996). In this respect, epidemiology guides the activities and practices of epidemiologists and other involved stakeholders. Epidemiology is also regarded as scientific field that generates knowledge bases that are significantly utilized in public health domains. The generated knowledge base is due for application in evaluating and analyzing epidemiologic evidence in a context within or without science. Amid this, criticisms mount on epidemiology as scholars work to link epidemiology to an applied aspect of public health. However, the common denominator is that epidemiology has a substantial role to play in enhancing public health prospects. Research into epidemiology and all its influencing variables essentially lead to

Saturday, November 2, 2019

Explain the Role of Pricing within the Marketing Mix Essay

Explain the Role of Pricing within the Marketing Mix - Essay Example In order to use the best pricing strategy for the products, a good estimate of the quantity of money the consumers are willing to spend on the products is required by the company. It is important to note that most companies do not use adequate pricing strategies for the products they generate. Majority of the pricing decisions are cost oriented instead of being value-based as perceived by the consumer (Breidert 2006, p10). Product differentiation entails the modification of the product to make it appear more attractive to a particular group of consumers, thus making it different from the competitor’s products. The main purpose of differentiation is to divide the consumers into segments â€Å"and optimizing the products for the specific needs of the segments. Differentiation requires a sophisticated pricing strategy based on the perceived values of the products† (Breidert 2006, p10). In most cases, product pricing is placed within the penetration strategy. Penetration st rategy determines the factors affecting pricing as noted by Cohen (1983). For instance, a company may want to look for short-term objectives using a defined strategy for a particular type of product. The common objectives mostly used are current product profit maximization or market share increase. Both objectives depend on the knowledge of how the market will respond to diverse pricing patterns. Price is the crucial element for such short-term objectives. This is because it is the mainly flexible component in marketing mix. Price can be adjusted and changed rapidly and short-term adjustments indicates changes in market shares and profits (Breidert 2006, p10). The price of a particular product for most of the companies is based on the consumer’s perceived value, that is, the company uses value-based pricing. The price of the product is considered with other marketing elements before setting the marketing program (Colin 1989). In order to develop a value-based pricing strategy , the company is required to estimate the present perceived value of its product(s). In such a case, the company attempts to measure the products demand and the demand is dependent on the historical sales data and the competitor’s prices. External factors such as holiday and weekends, and advertising also affect the demand for the products. Lastly, the introduction of a new product into the market by a company requires the adoption of different strategies. The launch of a single product requires a pricing strategy such as penetration or skimming strategy. Adoption of a skimming strategy entails charging the consumer for a short period of time a relatively high price for the launched product. Penetration strategy entails setting a lower price for the product to gain a large market share (Breidert 2006, p11). 2. Visit the Easyjet London (Luton) to Madrid for various periods. Return flights assumed with a duration of one week a. Leaving tomorrow 21-28 Jan 21 January, 2012 - Outb ound -â‚ ¬ 73.99 21 January, 2012 - Return - â‚ ¬ 46.99 Total = â‚ ¬ 120.98 b. Leaving in 1 weeks time 28 January, 2012 - Outbound - â‚ ¬ 73.99 4 February, 2012 - Return - â‚ ¬ 46.99 Total = â‚ ¬ 120.98 c. Leaving in 1 months time 21 February, 2012 -Outbound -â‚ ¬ 25.99 28 February, 2012 Return - â‚ ¬ 10.99 Total = 36.98 d. Leaving in 3 months time. April 21, 2012 Outbound - â‚ ¬ 35.99 April 28, 2012 Return – â‚ ¬ 89.99 Total = 125.98 Easyjet generally offers competitive prices to customers on the same routes and