Anton Chekhovs `Heartache` and William Faulkners `A Rose for Emily`

Throughout his work Faulkner demonstrates this ability to create characters whose loneliness functions both as a dramatic fact and as a psychological theme. In The Sound and the Fury Quentin Compson's personal despair, or sense of irrevocable isolation, is related to his puritan meddling with the lives of others. In As I Lay Dying the individual members of the Bundren family are motivated by secret and lonely desires that are in strong contrast to the apparent solidarity of the family venture.Darl Bundren's madness is the price he pays for a full understanding of human loneliness, of how â€Å"the clotting which is you† struggles to preserve its identity in the relentless flux of time. The moral themes of Light in August are directly related to Joe Christmas's puritan loneliness. But his loneliness is only a product of his desperate search for moral absolution. Human isolation is implicitly identified in such novels with the search for selfhood in a dynamic and time-ridden wor ld.An individual's sense of isolation is never a quality imposed upon him by circumstances; it is rooted in human nature, and circumstances only bring to light its destructive consequences. Loneliness has its particular origin at the heart of puritan self-consciousness, when man tries to create a bulwark of morality and reason against the fear that nothing in this world really matters. Only Faulkner's nonrational characters are free of the destructive fluctuation between moral pride and amoral despair.His primitive characters are never lonely; they never see themselves as isolated human agents. Faulkner's success in portraying human loneliness lies in the fact that only individuals can be lonely — and the characters of his early novels are always individuals. But in Faulkner's later novels a character's sense of isolation is treated primarily as an abstract or universal theme. The opposition between man and his social world becomes a question of philosophy and not of dramatic organization.Atmosphere is defined in the Dictionary of World Literature as â€Å"The particular world in which the events of a story or a play occur: time, place, conditions, and the attendant mood. † When, as in â€Å"A Rose for Emily,† the world depicted is a confusion between the past and the present, the atmosphere is one of distortion–of unreality. This unreal world results from the suspension of a natural time order. Normality consists in a decorous progression of the human being from birth, through youth, to age and finally death. Preciosity in children is as monstrous as idiocy in the adult, because both are unnatural.Monstrosity, however, is a sentimental subject for fiction unless it is the result of human action–the result of a willful attempt to circumvent time. When such circumvention produces acts of violence, as in â€Å"A Rose for Emily,† the atmosphere becomes one of horror. Horror, however, represents only the extreme form of ma ladjusted nature. It is not produced in â€Å"A Rose for Emily† until the final act of violence has been disclosed. All that has gone before has prepared us by producing a general tone of mystery, foreboding, decay, etc. so that we may say the entire series of events that have gone before are â€Å"in key†Ã¢â‚¬â€œthat is, they are depicted in a mood in which the final violence does not appear too shocking or horrible.We are inclined to say, â€Å"In such an atmosphere, anything may happen. † Foreshadowing is often accomplished through atmosphere, and in this case the atmosphere prepares us for Emily's unnatural act at the end of the story. Emily is portrayed as â€Å"a fallen monument,† a monument for reasons which we shall examine later, fallen because she has shown herself susceptible to death (and decay) after all.In the mention of death, we are conditioned (as the psychologist says) for the more specific concern with it later on. The second paragraph depicts the essential ugliness of the contrast: the description of Miss Emily's house â€Å"lifting its stubborn and coquettish decay above the cotton wagons and the gasoline pumps–an eyesore among eyesores. † (A juxtaposition of past and present. ) We recognize this scene as an emblematic presentation of Miss Emily herself, suggested as it is through the words â€Å"stubborn and coquettish. The tone–and the contrast–is preserved in a description of the note which Miss Emily sent to the mayor, â€Å"a note on paper of an archaic shape, in a thin, flowing calligraphy in faded ink,† and in the description of the interior of the house when the deputation from the Board of Aldermen visit her: â€Å"They were admitted by the old Negro into a dim hall from which a stairway mounted into still more shadow. It smelled of dust and disuse–a close, dank smell. † In the next paragraph a description of Emily discloses her similarity to the house: â€Å"She looked bloated, like a body long submerged in motionless water, and of that pallid hue.Emily had not always looked like this. When she was young and part of the world with which she was contemporary, she was, we are told, â€Å"a slender figure in white,† as contrasted with her father, who is described as â€Å"a spraddled silhouette. † In the picture of Emily and her father together, framed by the door, she frail and apparently hungering to participate in the life of her time, we have a reversal of the contrast which has already been presented and which is to be developed later.Even after her father's death, Emily is not monstrous, but rather looked like a girl â€Å"with a vague resemblance to those angels in colored church windows–sort of tragic and serene. † The suggestion is that she had already begun her entrance into that nether-world (a world which is depicted later as â€Å"rose-tinted†), but that she might even yet have been sa ved, had Homer Barron been another kind of man. Just as Emily refused to acknowledge the death of her father, she now refuses to recognize the death of Colonel Sartoris. He had given his word, and according to the traditional view, â€Å"his word† knew no death.It is the Past pitted against the Present –the Past with its social decorum, the Present with everything set down in â€Å"the books. † Emily dwells in the Past, always a world of unreality to us of the Present. Here are the facts which set the tone of the story and which create the atmosphere of unreality which surrounds it. It is important, too, to realize that during the period of Emily's courtship, the town became Emily's allies in a contest between Emily and her Grierson cousins, â€Å"because the two female cousins were even more Grierson than Miss Emily had ever been. The cousins were protecting the general proprieties against which the town (and the times) was in gradual rebellion. Just as each s ucceeding generation rebels against its elders, so the town took sides with Emily against her relations. Had Homer Barron been the proper kind of man, it is implied, Miss Emily might have escaped both horns of the dilemma (her cousins' traditionalism and Homer's immorality) and become an accepted and respected member of the community.The town's attitude toward the Grierson cousins represents the usual ambiguous attitude of man toward the past: a mixture of veneration and rebelliousness. The unfaithfulness of Homer represents the final act in the drama of Emily's struggle to escape from the past. From the moment that she realizes that he will desert her, tradition becomes magnified out of all proportion to life and death, and she conducts herself as though Homer really had been faithful–as though this view represented reality.Miss Emily's position in regard to the specific problem of time is suggested in the scene where the old soldiers appear at her funeral. There are, we are told, two views of time: (1) the world of the present, viewing time as a mechanical progression in which the past is a diminishing road, never to be encountered again; (2) the world of tradition, viewing the past as a huge meadow which no winter ever quite touches, divided from (us) now by the narrow bottleneck of the most recent decade of years. The first is the view of Homer Barron and the modern generation in Jefferson.The second is the view of the older members of the Board of Aldermen and of the confederate soldiers. Emily holds the second view, except that for her there is no bottleneck dividing her from the meadow of the past. Emily's small room above stairs has become that timeless meadow. In it, the living Emily and the dead Homer have remained together as though not even death could separate them. It is the monstrousness of this view which creates the final atmosphere of horror, and the scene is intensified by the portrayal of the unchanged objects which have surrounded H omer in life.Here he lay in the roseate atmosphere of Emily's death-in-life: â€Å"What was left of him, rotted beneath what was left of the nightshirt, had become inextricable from the bed in which he lay; and upon him and upon the pillow beside him lay that even coating of the patient and biding dust. † The symbols of Homer's life of action have become mute and silent. Contrariwise, Emily's world, though it had been inviolate while she was alive, has been invaded after her death–the whole gruesome and unlovely tale unfolded.In the first place, she has been frustrated by her father, prevented from participating in the life of her contemporaries. When she attempts to achieve freedom, she is betrayed by a man who represents the new morality, threatened by disclosure and humiliation. Loneliness is associated rhetorically with abstract humanity. Simultaneously it becomes a cause less for despair than for transcendental affirmation, a theme related in A Fable to the Marsha l's faith in irrevocable human evil.The loneliest experience of all, the reader is told in this novel, is just breathing. But in its identification with the human condition, the concept of loneliness loses all personal meaning. Only by declining to state such identifications can the novelist successfully establish them. In his best work Faulkner demonstrates that loneliness is a particular, never a universal state of mind. Loneliness is not an abstract concept of human experience but the world in which each individual must live.Chekhov in his story, â€Å"Heartache,† dealt with being old and alone in the city. In â€Å"Heartache,† an old cabby lamented the fact that his son had died before him. He was then alone with no one to take care of him and with no one to learn from him. He was completely alone, abused by people, with no one to help him bear his grief. He earned enough to feed his horse and not much else. He slept on a bench in a large room with the other cabbie s. One wonders how long he would last with hunger, cold, and loneliness on his old, tired heels. (Williames 132)

Foriegn Direct Investment

Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) FDI or Foreign Direct Investment is any form of investment that earns interest in enterprises which function outside of the domestic territory of the investor. Foreign direct investment is that investment, which is made to serve the business interests of the investor in a company, which is in a different nation distinct from the investor's country of origin Benefits of Foreign Direct Investment One of the advantages of foreign direct investment is that it helps in the economic development of the particular country where the investment is being made.This is especially applicable for the economically developing countries. During the decade of the 90s foreign direct investment was one of the major external sources of financing for most of the countries that were growing from an economic perspective. It has also been observed that foreign direct investment has helped several countries when they have faced economic hardships. Foreign direct investment also permits the transfer of technologies. This is done basically in the way of provision of capital inputs.The importance of this factor lies in the fact that this transfer of technologies cannot be accomplished by way of trading of goods and services as well as investment of financial resources. It also assists in the promotion of the competition within the local input market of a country. The countries that get foreign direct investment from another country can also develop the human capital resources by getting their employees to receive training on the operations of a particular business.The profits that are generated by the foreign direct investments that are made in that country can be used for the purpose of making contributions to the revenues of corporate taxes of the recipient country. Foreign direct investment helps in the creation of new jobs in a particular country. It also helps in increasing the salaries of the workers. This enables them to get access to a better lifestyl e and more facilities in life. It has normally been observed that foreign direct investment allows for the development of the manufacturing sector of the recipient country.Foreign direct investment can also bring in advanced technology and skill set in a country. There is also some scope for new research activities being undertaken. Foreign direct investment assists in increasing the income that is generated through revenues realized through taxation. It also plays a crucial role in the context of rise in the productivity of the host countries. In case of countries that make foreign direct investment in other countries this process has positive impact as well. In case of these countries, their companies get an opportunity to explore newer markets and thereby generate more income and profits.It also opens up the export window that allows these countries the opportunity to cash in on their superior technological resources. It has also been observed that as a result of receiving foreig n direct investment from other countries, it has been possible for the recipient countries to keep their rates of interest at a lower level. It becomes easier for the business entities to borrow finance at lesser rates of interest. The biggest beneficiaries of these facilities are the small and medium-sized business enterprises.

Organisation culture and change management Assignment

Organisation culture and change management - Assignment Example In the previous decade, the field of knowledge management was new and had generated anxiety and excitement and also achieved increased recognition for the potential that it had to influence the freshly recognised asset called knowledge and in the process bootstrapped the effectiveness of organisations. During the same decade, the conception emerged that it was possible for organisations to learn and create competencies from that learning that would eventually lead to agility and competitive advantage (Bennet & Bennet, 2004). The fact is that knowledge management is quite a new field, so still a significant amount of learning in the way of trial and error is happening. Nevertheless, knowledge management has been victorious in developing quite an important number of processes that are successful and established its value to quite a number of firms as they still keep putting efforts to respond and understand the prospects and threats that arise from a tumultuous environment. A few insta nces of successful knowledge management processes are knowledge sharing, knowledge acquisition and knowledge audit. While organisational and individual learning have been given recognition as an essential factor for substantial period of time in an environment that is always changing, the idea of organisational learning in comparison to knowledge management is relatively new. This study would mainly focus on their relationship. After providing useful definitions for few of the concepts such as knowledge, organisational learning and knowledge management, the discussion will also involve the importance of organisational learning & knowledge management for being the key factors for achieving organisational competitive advantage and superior performance (Bennet & Bennet, 2004). Data, Information & Knowledge To gain a proper understanding about the relationship of knowledge management and organisational learning, at the outset, an explanation of knowledge can be provided. Knowledge can b e best explained as the ability to take necessary and effective action, with the identification that ability includes both actual and potential capability. Knowledge can be in the mind of a person and/or implementing it in the correct way that is taken in a desired situation. It signifies that an action is of use when it provides the desired and anticipated results. Most of the thoughts that are considered normally to form knowledge (Information, Predictability, Facts, Experience, Concepts, Truths, Theories, Intuition, Judgement and Insight) help in adding to form the ability and understanding that are essential to take necessary action, they all can possess knowledge. Organisations and teams might possess knowledge in collective form (both actual and potential) and thus, be able to take actions that any individual cannot take. While knowledge lays emphasis on making sense and understanding (the â€Å"how and why†), information is about being aware of something (the â€Å"wh at and who†

Blue Cross and Blue Shield Healthcare Program Essay

Blue Cross and Blue Shield Healthcare Program - Essay Example The initial base of finance sprung up from this partnership, which saw the ensuring of approximately thirty thousand people. In the year 1949, a charter got administered to the company for the provision of doctor’s services on the platform of a nonprofit grouping. By the onset of the year, 1955 insurance services had covered a wide span and ensured the uptake of both medical and home insurance services throughout America. After Greenville, BlueCross repositioned to Columbia in the year 1957. On the onset of Medicare, which is a federal insurance service that cares for individuals, suffering various disabilities and senior societal members BlueCross got endorsement nomination by hospitals. The nomination was for the handling of hospital plan in the first phase of the Medicare stipulations. Enactment of Medicare Medicaid in the 1960’s saw the selection of BlueCross and BlueShield by the administration to provide Medicare program. The 1973 Healthcare Maintenance Organizati on Act intensified market competition allowing BlueShield to emphasize more on quality provision and accountability. This led to the improvement of efficiencies on healthcare money expenditure.In the 1970’s the organization premiered new benefits for holding down expenses. Expenses got held down by providing plans that ensured the wellbeing of the customers was improved. In the following year, the two companies merged to become one organization.Gapenski (2003) writes that for the second phase of the Medicare program.

Health risk and benfits of energy drinks Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Health risk and benfits of energy drinks - Essay Example As such, it could be suggested that consumption of energy drinks has increased. The statistics are threatening given the fact that energy drinks have numerous risks that outweigh the benefits of the products as the discussion below portrays. Energy drinks have a number of advantages that manufacturers and marketers continue to sell in order to grow their markets. The main advantage arises from the product’s name and primary purpose. Energy drinks enhance the performance of the body. The drinks have high levels of caffeine and sugar. The sugar exists in the form of fructose and glucose that dissolves rapidly into the blood stream thereby providing a spontaneous boost in the performance of the body. Such impulsive boost in the performance of the body is always desirable especially in cases where the body shows signs of strain that affect the performance. Athletes for example may suffer from acute exhaustion and would require the rejuvenation of their energy levels. An increasing number of young people also continue to use energy drinks given their desire to have full functionality during most hours of the day (Burrows, Pursey & Neve, 2005). The use of energy drinks to revamp the performance of the body requires adequate education in order to possess the basic knowledge on the ingestion of fructose and glucose in the energy drinks. People must consume an adequate quantity of solid foods as well in order to complement the caffeine and sugar in the energy drinks. This way, the body benefits from numerous other nutrients from the solid foods that make it easy for the body sustain the demands of the energy drinks. Most people use energy drinks without eating adequate quantities of other solid foods, such imbalances have varied effects since the body lacks the mass and protein to enhance the increased performance of the body (Reissig, Strain & Griffiths, 2009). Among the

Electroconvulsive Therapy Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Electroconvulsive Therapy - Essay Example Research has shown that release of certain brain chemicals and stimulation of growth of new blood vessel in certain areas of the brain probably helps the improvement of the condition of the patient ECT is given in a hospital setting in special set rooms called 'ECT Suite'. The current is delivered to the brain of a patient in a controlled way using a special ECT machine. The patient is given an anesthetic so that he is not conscious during the procedure. A muscle relaxant is also given to prevent serious injuries due to muscle spasms. The duration of seizures aimed at is 20 to 50 seconds long. If the current is passed across the whole brain, it is known as bilateral ECT. If it is passed across one side, it is unilateral. A patient will need on average 6 to 8 treatments to complete a course. The procedure of giving ECT involves several weeks. The patient develops several epileptic seizures and receives many anesthetics. There are many side effects for this treatment. Short-term side e ffects include a headache, muscle ache, feeling of muzzy headedness, feeling sick, distress and feeling fearful. However, most patients can tide over this form of therapy with support from nursing staff, light refreshment, and painkillers. In older patients, confusion can occur. There is the small risk of death of 1 in 50,000 cases. the main impact of ECT is long term. The most important long-term side effects are memory problems. Memories return in most of the cases when the course has finished and a few weeks have passed by.

Online blog research Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

Online blog research - Essay Example These considerations carry even more weight when we explore the factors that will determine a successful website that markets toys. The complexity of marketing toys on the Internet begins with the target audience. The website offering toys will be visited by young children, their parents, and grandparents. There will be vast differences in Internet capability and a wide variety of tastes. The site should be simple enough to navigate for a 10-year-old child, yet offer the sense of security and trust required for an adult to feel comfortable. The test of 3 websites offered by major toy retailers showed some important differences in usability across age groups. To begin the investigation, we attempted to shop for two toys on etoys.com, toysrus.com, and fatbraintoys.com. These sites were selected by their prominence on the major search engines, which indicate they are probably most selected by consumers. While toysrus.com and etoys.com are for general toys, fatbraintoys.com has a niche market for educational toys. We looked for an erector set for a ten-year-old boy, and a Barbie doll for a ten-year-old girl. While toysrus.com used age brackets, such as 3-4 and 5-7 years of age, etoys.com and fatbraintoys.com listed each age below 8 separately. ... Shopping by department fared no better. On toysrus.com, we looked for the erector set under building sets and retrieved hundreds of different toys. Narrowing the search by age the results were still overwhelming. Simply shopping for an erector set was not realistic. Only on fatbraintoys.com was the erector set a separate category. However, the search for a Barbie doll was much simpler. ToysRUs and etoys had a listing for 'characters' and 'brand', and Barbie was listed as a main category of toy. In fact, toysrus.com had 50 items listed under the Barbie category priced from $10 to $200. The Barbie department at etoys.com had over 100 Barbie items. The site operated by fatbraintoys did not carry a Barbie doll. When the search was narrowed to the 2008 Holiday Barbie doll, toysrus.com and etoys.com had the doll and both were identically priced. All three websites offered toys that were categorized as boy's or girl's toys. Marketing differentiation is a difficult task on the Internet, and will certainly come down to product placement. Shopping for an erector set simply by narrowing the age group or shopping a department would take more time and patience than any child or adult would expend. However, all three sites have an easy to use site-specific search engine. By entering the word 'erector', all three sites returned their selection of erector sets. However, there were significant differences in the results. While etoys.com listed 3 different erector sets priced between $40 and $100, fatbraintoys.com listed 20 different sets in the range of $18 to $90. However, though toysrus.com only listed 8 different sets, they covered the wider price range of from $20 to $300. Clearly, when a consumer is shopping for a