Philosophy the Meaning of Life Essay

There are many different views as to what makes life meaningful. Philosopher, Thomas Nagel, presents a good argument as to why a â€Å"Sisyphisian† existence is meaningless. This does not necessarily mean that all lives are meaningless, because Richard Taylor and Raymond Martin provide strong evidence that prove otherwise. According to Greek mythology, â€Å"The Myth of Sisyphus†, by Albert Camus, condemns Sisyphus to forever roll the same rock up a hill; only to see it roll back down once he reached the top. Sisyphus’ â€Å"scorn of the gods, his hatred of death, and his passion for life† was the reason for his punishment and endless turmoil in accomplishing nothing (Camus 775). In Nagel’s essay â€Å"The Absurd†, his views on the meaninglessness of life and the absurdity of it, provide evidence that Sisyphus leads a meaningless life and how all people are condemned to lead this life. He points out that the absurd comes about by â€Å"the collision between the seriousness with which we take our lives and the perpetual possibility of regarding everything about which we are serious as arbitrary, or open to doubt†(Nagel 769). In other words, the things people take seriously in their lives are always open to doubt. Nagel believes that human life becomes absurd when the realization of living an unreasonable life becomes known. â€Å"Once the fundamental doubt has begun, it cannot be laid to rest†(771). When people begin to doubt their existence, they search for answers that cannot be justified. Humans are capable of being self-conscious and self-inspiring which gives them the ability to step back and observe themselves from an outside point of view. This allows them to see the reality and pointlessness of their goals. Some people try to escape the absurd and try to add meaning to their lives by giving themselves a role in something bigger. When Nagel says, â€Å"a role in some larger enterprise cannot confer significance unless that enterprise is itself significant†, he means that the larger enterprise cannot have meaning, unless the enterprise as a whole has meaning (770). According to Nagel, for something to be meaningful it must be objectively meaningful. For example, Sisyphus leads an objectively meaningless life because he is condemned to roll the stone up the hill forever and achieving nothing. Nagel says that the life of a mouse is not absurd because the mouse is not aware that it is only a mouse; it does not have the ability to perceive its life like humans can. â€Å"Absurdity is one of the most human things about us: a manifestation of our most advanced and interesting characteristics†(774). The absurdity shows people that their lives are meaningless; and when this is recognized, the logical conclusion is suicide. This solution to absurdity is not accepted; instead it is suggested to keep on living in spite of the absurdity of life. â€Å"If we relied hard on reason our life would have collapsed† because relying only on reason would leave people with many philosophical questions, leaving them to dwell on the doubts of life (773). One way to achieve some concept of the meaning of life is to consider the meaninglessness of it as Richard Taylor has done. Like Nagel, Taylor views the endless cycle of Sisyphus pushing the stone up the hill over and over again as a perfect example of a meaningless existence. Taylor proves that a life is meaningless if it is spent in pointless and repetitive toil. Sisyphus’s repetitive act of rolling a stone up a hill never gets him anywhere nor does anything come from it, and therefore his life is meaningless. However, Taylor came up with concepts that could provide some meaning and hope to Sisyphus’s life. First, if Sisyphus were still condemned to endlessly rolling stones up a hill, but instead of the stones rolling back down, they would â€Å"become the foundation for a vast and beautiful indestructible temple†¦with this construction going on and on, endlessly, and the temple gradually becoming ever more beautiful and inspiring and capable of enduring to the end of time† (Taylor 788). With these conditions, Sisyphus’s actions now have a purpose because something results from his efforts and creates lasting significance; but his efforts are still endless and therefore still have no meaning. He is still doing the same repetitive routine, and if the temple were to be finished, what then? Taylor believes that â€Å"the greatest evil that can be inflicted upon anyone is unrelieved boredom†, which means that if Sisyphus were to ever complete his task he would become engulfed in boredom until he finds another task. Mankind continues the daily routine to escape this evil; without projects and activities man would be bored. Taylor concludes that human life from an objective viewpoint is â€Å"described as a clockworklike thing, without purpose or meaning† because it will always consist of a routine that will never end (790). Another case in which Sisyphus’ life can become meaningful is if his strongest desire was to push stones up a hill, for this is what makes him happiest. This makes his life subjectively meaningful; it is meaningful to him because it is fulfilling his desire. Taylor states â€Å"Sisyphus, will view his life, not as one of hard labor, certainly not one of meaninglessness, buts as good† because he is sentenced to forever doing something that he enjoys (791). This case still does not show a completely meaningful life because it is not whether he enjoys his existence; it is if his existence has meaning, which is still spent in routine. Taylor concludes, â€Å"the only genuinely meaningful existence is one that is creative†(792). For instance, if Sisyphus was willing to roll the stones up the mountain to build an everlasting temple that is not only â€Å"beautiful to his eyes, but truly beautiful, in the eyes of every future generation†¦we have, finally, the perfect image of meaningfulness†(792). Taylor says that one can make anything meaningful by making it creative; not only in the sense of creating physical objects, but also that creativity is a state of mind. â€Å"Some can – live meaningfully, by creating our own meanings, whether great or small, and then literally glorying in them, caring not in the least what we â€Å"get† from it all†(793). Having this creative sense leaves people able to find meaning everywhere. Finding out the meaninglessness of life helped Taylor find concepts that could make life meaningful. Martin’s essay, â€Å"A Fast Car and a Good Woman†, addresses the problems of both Nagel and Taylor by depicting his own meaning of life. He describes the difference between the problems of the meaning of life and the problems of life itself. Martin says that the problem of the meaning of life is the philosophical question of whether or not life can be worth living. Instead of focusing on this subject, Martin discuses how the problem of life, â€Å"is a practical question of how to live our lives so that they are as worth living as they can be†(Martin 1). Since there is no objective meaning in life as Nagel says, Martin does not try and find it, but tries to see what would make life meaningful in the psychological sense. Martin believes in practical wisdom, â€Å"if we take proper care of our lives, questions of meaning will take care of themselves†, that way people are not worried about the meaning of life. If someone worries about the meaning of life, like Nagel said, and tries to give it reason, it will result in madness. There are those people who cannot set questions of meaning aside; Leo Tolstoy is a prime example of this kind of person. When Tolstoy says, â€Å"†¦And I was absolutely unable to make any reply. The questions were not waiting and I had to answer them at once: if I did not answer them, I could not live†, he means that he needs to be able to understand the questions of meaning before he can move on with his life (1). Martin says that philosophical questions bring about existent anguish, for instance, when one’s sense of security is lost because it was built on a foundation of unquestioned beliefs. For example, a person whose sense of security that rests on religious beliefs suddenly become subject to doubt, results in such suffering that calls into question the meaning of life. Philosophical questions normally only challenge the beliefs we depend on for security and not necessarily the meaning of life. Martin says that the suffering is not because of the philosophical problem of the meaning of life, but the sudden realization that our personal beliefs rest on uncertain assumptions. Nagel and Tolstoy both believe that â€Å"philosophical challenges to the meaning of life are an important source of psychological problems†(3). With this belief, Martin’s view of practical meaning is wrong. Not being able to overlook the philosophical questions of meaning will ultimately bring you down because of the realizations it brings. Nagel claims that there is not solution to this, because the absurd cannot be avoided. Martin believes that when life is at its subjective best, that questions of the meaning of life do not arise. At this moment one has temporarily solved the problem of life because the thought of meaning did not arise. This statement makes practical wisdom valid because, â€Å"when we are happy, questions about the meaning of our lives rarely ever become problems†(3). To become happy one must take chances, and if one goes down the wrong path to happiness, it could lead to philosophical problems about the meaning of life. Taylor, like Nagel, uses philosophical questions differ between objective meaninglessness and subjective meaning. He views that life is objectively meaningless, but not completely meaningless. According to Martin, Taylor finds meaning everywhere and Nagel finds is nowhere. However, neither one is psychologically valid because they both rely on philosophical questions for their meaning. Martin says that Taylor’s view is too romantic and makes meaning too easy and Nagel is the opposite with an intellectual view, which makes meaning too hard. Martin agrees with a view suggested by Taylor’s discussion, â€Å"that people have meaningful lives not when they are doing what they will to do but when they are doing what they love to do†(4). Martin believes that life is not essentially meaningful but that it can become meaningful if one does something they love to do. When at one’s subjective best, when not disturbed by questions about the meaning of life, are you also completely satisfied at this moment? According to Martin, it is close enough to being completely satisfied, but it does not last long. â€Å"Since satisfaction doesn’t last, then either we have to continually resatisfy ourselves or successfully and pleasantly distract ourselves from the fact that we haven’t†(5). This is our fate, but it does not completely provide a solution to the problem of life. Therefore, Martin suggests that everyone is chronically unsatisfied. This repetitiveness is one of Taylor’s reasoning’s to the meaninglessness of life, which is reason to why life is not essentially meaningful. To solve the problems of life one does what makes them happy, for Martin this consists of a fast car and a good woman. Happiness is different for everyone. Martin’s view on life seems to be the most reasonable and ultimately provides happiness for people. He avoids suffering by completely ignoring the philosophical question of the meaning of life. Nagel and Taylor both concentrate on this meaning of life, which lead to no happy results. At least Martin lives a subjectively happy life by not being troubled by the meanings of it. However, Nagel’s argument completely rejects Martin’s because according to Nagel, the absurd cannot be ignored once it is recognized. Martin clearly recognizes but puts it aside to make him believe that there is meaning. If someone lives a life believing that it is meaningless, then what is the point of living? For the reason of trying to perceive any sort of meaning for human life is so that humans do not always live in doubt. Overall, life objectively has no meaning but that does not leave human existence in utter turmoil. The evidence that Taylor provides, gives us a sense of how there is hope for a meaning in life. Eventually concluding that life would need to be given meaning, purpose, variety, and the sense of creativity to become meaningful, â€Å"the only meaningful existence is a creative existence†(Taylor 792). This is the only meaning for the philosophical meaning of life. Taking Martin’s view, and putting aside philosophical meaning and taking the psychological meaning, gives humans a positive outlook on life by letting subjective happiness be the basis to the solution to the problem of life. All views of life are all based on the struggle to overcome doubt, so ultimately â€Å"the itch of desire returns†¦until death ends the struggle – perhaps forever†(Martin 6).

Comparison in the Issue Between USA and South Africa Essay

This paper seeks to make a comparison on freedom of expression between the United States and South Africa. The question to be answered in contained the definition of the problem. II. Definition of the Problem (or Issue/Topic) Is the freedom of expression now in the Republic of South Africa now comparable with that of the United States? III. Nature and Extent of the Problem in the Two Countries The Republic of South has evolved into a republic not many years ago which signifies its adoption of democratic framework which basically includes the freedom of expression as part of the rights of the citizens. The US Constitution which includes the freedom of expression on the other hand has been in existence much longer in number of years as compared with RSA’s. Given the extent of the proliferation of the technology and the universal nature of human rights at this point, it is interesting to evaluate whether the rights or freedom of expression are comparable or have close similarities between the two countries. IV. Dynamics of the Problem This part would refer to the factors that could create or perpetuate the problem or those that would tend toward elimination/resolution of the problem. What could create the problem may include lack of vigilance of the citizens in protecting their rights. Democracy requires vigilance of its citizens (Shaw, S. , 2001; Africa Research Bureau, 1981) and the failure of these citizens to assert their right could result to the demise or non-enjoyment of the right. Another factor is the support of the courts to uphold the right of the citizens by the nature of the decisions made. It is also required that courts need to have independence from the political branch of the government (Lieberman, 2006; Bowman Iii, 2005). What could work towards elimination or resolution could come from the factors that c could create or perpetuate the problem. If the citizens therefore are vigilant, there is a great chance that the right would triumph in the court battles. Similarly if the courts are independent from the political branches of government and that the resulting decision are based on the spirit and letter of the rights or freedom of expression (Pasqualucci, 2006; Pannill, 2002), they by all mean, the conflict if any on these rights may be resolved in favor of their assertion and eventual enjoyment by its citizens V. Analysis on the Degree of Comparability It could be cited that RSA’s ratification of its 1996 Constitution, signaled the adoption of some of the best practices from the different part of the world including that of the US. Since US is believed to the leader in the area of human rights, it could be thought the RSA may actually have improved on what is has adopted. The IFLA/FAIFE World Report: Libraries and Intellectual Freedom (1998) indicates that South Africa still requires more time to have its freedom to be considered comparable to the US. There is thus the RSA court decision involving the freedom of expression thing and what came out was that the Supreme Court has just even overruling previous decisions in favor of the upholding better right of freedom of expression. This means that RSA’s judicial system needs more time to really attain what the US as leader in human rights has attained as to freedom of expression. The IFLA/FAIFE World Report: Libraries and Intellectual Freedom (1998) has cited a decision on defamation in favor of â€Å"City Press† where the court has recently removed the unfair burden of legal liability on media. Without this ruling, the media would continue to be inhibited in its ability in championing the right to freedom of expression. This recent ruling was therefore considered as a victory of the principles of freedom of expression as contained in RSA’ Constitution. Since it was just made recently because of the RSA’s history of more repressive regimes, it could be asserted that it may require more time before RSA could match the kind of right now enjoyed in the US. VI. Conclusion Based on recent rulings of South Africa’s Supreme Court, it could be deduced that citizens of RSA could now be having more freedom of expression. But as stated in the dynamic of the problem, there are factors that could determine the resolution of conflicts pertaining to the right and the same factors could also be influenced the decrease or demise of the rights to expression. One of this is vigilance that must be asserted by the citizens of South Africa. The present level of technology could be a great help for them to use to protect their right by their acts of vigilance. The courts too need to be independent from political branches of government and be not cowed by the experiences of past regimes in South Africa. It has taken South Africa to adopt those of the US principles on human rights including the freedom of expression. It should be enough to conclude, it could not be that fast to reach what the US has attained in many decades for RSA’s freedom expression of expression to attain high degree of comparability with the US. VII. References Africa Research Bureau (1981) Africa Research Bulletin, Africa Research, Ltd. , 1981 Bowman Iii (2005) Mr. Madison Meets a Time Machine: The Political Science of Federal Sentencing Reform; Stanford Law Review, Vol. 58 ICL (2008) The Constitution of South Africa, Act 108 of 1996, {www document} http://www. servat. unibe. ch/icl/sf__indx. html, Accessed November 11, 2008 IFLA/FAIFE World Report: Libraries and Intellectual Freedom (1998), {www document} http://www. ifla. org/faife/report/south_africa. htm, Accessed November 11, 2008 Lieberman (2006) Sorting the Revolutionary from the Terrorist: The Delicate Application of the â€Å"Political Offense† Exception in U. S. Extradition Cases; Stanford Law Review, Vol. 59 Pannill (2002) Free Speech, â€Å"The People’s Darling Privilege†: Struggles for Freedom of Expression in American History; Journal of Southern History, Vol. 68, 2002 Pasqualucci (2006) Criminal Defamation and the Evolution of the Doctrine of Freedom of Expression in International Law: Comparative Jurisprudence of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights; Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law, Vol. 39 Shaw, S. (2001) South Africa’s Transition to Democracy: An African Success Story : a Resource Book on the Positive Changes of the Nineties, The Author

Economic Implications for Producer Investments in Value-Added Business Research Paper

Economic Implications for Producer Investments in Value-Added Business - Research Paper Example This has resulted in the increase of production costs and lowering of profits for the grower of commodities that run the cycle of human existence. Consequently, the producers are identifying opportunities for their own growth and investing in value addition of the products that they produce. This removes many of the intermediaries in the supply chain resulting in lowered prices for the consumer and increasing profits for the producer. For today’s growers, the reins of the future are in their hands. Producer investments in value added business with a workable strategy is not only lucrative but also increases the potential of the producer with minimum output, therefore a very attractive option for the producers around the world. Economic Implications for Producer Investments in Value-Added Business The global economic spectrum has changed drastically in the last decade. The rise in population, inflation and prices of raw materials has changed the economic equilibrium that existed in demand and supply change. With the rise in population, the demand for food items is also on the rise resulting in increasing demand of agriculture produce. This should mean higher income opportunities for the producers. The fact is the other way around due to the rise in the prices of raw materials required for agriculture and diminishing consumer capability to buy. As a result, the returns that the farmers and the ranchers earn on agriculture produce decreases thereby affecting the entire rural class that makes up a good number of populations in many agriculture-producing countries. To get higher returns, more farmers and growers are investing in their produce to make them more value added even to the level of retailer. With the final produce reaching the stores and retailers directly from the prod ucers, the profit margins for the agriculture related people has increased significantly resulting in growth of agriculture and of economic prosperity of the growers. Another benefit that the farmers get through these investments is freedom from industrial exploitation making it very beneficial for them (pg11-18, Tadlock Cowan, 2003). The Need of Producer Investment in Value Added Businesses The growing competition in the global market is changing the attitudes of the farmers by motivating them to improve their quality of produce by employing latest technology in farming and growing. Today, the farmers know the market economies and the latest technology that they can use to convert their produced raw material to more finished goods. The modern growers keep in the view the requirements of the end-user of the produce and try to develop the products keeping that in mind. This bold change in the

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Global issues Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Global issues - Assignment Example It had proved to be rather tenable, when used partially, as it was in the post-war Britain, where sacred nature of private property and private enterprises were combined with nationalized industries; in other words, in the mixed economy. Keynes’ purpose, to the contrary, was to subject economy to the governmental central planning. His position implied that the government should take control over the key industrial and economy sectors, regulating them – particularly, via price control. However, this purpose wasn’t achieved to the full extent, as the ideas began to collapse with growth of inflation, unemployment, poverty and extreme forms of governmental control – totalitarian, like in Nazis’ Germany – posing a threat to democracy. His theory had proved to be efficient for wartime but ineffective in the time of peace. However, Keynes remained among the most influential economists of the 20th century. The term â€Å"Commanding Heights† was first mentioned in the speech pronounced by Lenin regarding the key sectors of economy that should be run by the government. To my thinking, governments should own commanding heights only partially to avoid excessive control over economy. There is a huge plus in the global economy, which is absence of boundaries in mutual help, and this is illustrated by operation of numerous international economic organizations like International Monetary Fund. However, there should still be at least partial control over the national economies to prevent negative side effects of globalization; therefore, mixed economy seems the most tenable

Masters Entry Diploma in Management - Management Development Essay

Masters Entry Diploma in Management - Management Development - Essay Example OBJECTIVES OF STUDY Measuring the effectiveness of a sales or marketing technique requires comparing it against other methods under similar conditions. This study will have three major objectives to achieve the purpose of comparing hard-sell techniques to other sales techniques. The first objective is to define and describe what a consumer would consider hard-sell techniques, based on previously extant literature and studies. The second objective will then be to assess customer opinions of and responses to salespeople that use the previously-defined hard-sell methods. Finally, the third objective is to compare those responses with responses to sales pitches that do not use those techniques and analyse the results to determine if the aggressive tactics are as or more effective at closing the sale. LITERATURE SEARCH Academic sources define hard-sell techniques as those sale tactics that tell customers to take action and use forceful language (Englis, 1994, pp. 143). A hard-sell techniq ue sets up a framework between the salesperson and the customer â€Å"where there is a 'winner' or 'loser'† (Meredith 2009, pp 36). ... Generally, what a consumer refers to as a hard sell approach involves pushy and possibly rude salespeople, overly long sales pitches, and multiple demonstrations of a product they have already turned down (Consumer Affairs, 2002). Alternatively, the low-pressure or â€Å"soft sell† salesperson focuses on forming a relationship with the customer (Meredith 2009, pp 36). These techniques advocate listening to the customer, asking the right questions, and waiting for the customer to request a solution before offering a product (Rosen, 2007). According to an analysis by Pine and Davis, manufacturing of custom products to fill an individual customer's needs is the future in many industries (1999, pp 263). Customization would be the epitome of soft-sell techniques, as exactly what the customer requests is what the salesperson could provide. What is not covered in their study, however, is whether the availability of customization will replace the need for strong sales tactics; simply being able to solve a customer's problem does not guarantee a sale. When using a hard-sell method, the salesperson must be careful not to ignore what the customer needs in the interest of moving product; but a less aggressive salesperson may take too long in offering a specific solution and lose the sale in that way (Rosen 2007). Both of these failures to please the customer could hurt repeat business. Customer satisfaction, with not only the product but with their experience of the sale, is the key determinant of whether the customer will return for future business, recommend the product or service to a friend, or purchase upgrades and other services (Ahearne et al, 2005). Customer

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Sophocles Electra - Essay Example Chrysothemis is the youngest daughter of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra Chrysothemis. Even though, she knows her mother is corrupt, and she understands her unjust murder of her father, she refuses to mourn the way her sister Electra does. She recognizes that she will benefit enormously by siding with those in authority. On the contrary, Electra who sticks to the doctrines of justice, Chrysothemis sides to the principle of pragmatism in a bid to satisfy and benefit on her own demands (Sophocles and Roisman 54). Electra who plays the hero has a difficult role in ensuring that the principle of fairness and honor is in play at all times. She finds it inevitable to participate in her mothers killing. Her position is increasingly evident though out the drama of the uncertainty of Electras understanding on the very levels of justice that motivate her. It is evident from the onset that Electra is right to cry for the murder of her father by her mother. Her mourning is a natural reaction to a hor rible manifestation, and she purports that even though she does not certainly decide on grief, she feels compelled, by the values of integrity, to performance as she does. Electras mourning arises from mistreatment by both Aegisthus and Clytemnestra to her, who, possibly susceptible by Electras denial to forget the past. Electra is ready to feel pain because of integrity and honesty. She lawfully longs to revenge her fathers death (Sophocles and Roisman 125). Electra soon weakens her situation in her opening meeting with Clytemnestra. Clytemnestra claims that she killed Agamemnon to apply vengeance for his sacrifice of their daughter. Electra retaliates by opposing that integrity cannot be attained by countering murder of one person with another killing. Electra represents the woman in Greek society.

The growing globalization of markets Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

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Final Exam Biology Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2750 words

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Term Papers and College Essay Examples Essay Example for Free

Term Papers and College Essay Examples Essay Its easy to access all of our free essays and term papers. We simply ask that students create a free account and submit one of their own research papers. Remember, you should always write your own coursework. We have a large selection of model essays to help you improve your own writing ability. Start searching today. American History (2421) Biographies (1156) Book Reports (2429) Business (6027) English (7888) History Other (2336) Miscellaneous (5864) Music and Movies (888) Philosophy (846) Psychology (1528) Religion (903) Science (2253) Social Issues (4547) Technology (1793) Read more:  A person you admire essay Essay Stats Essays: 40 924 Todays essays: 17 Comments: 14 796 Ratings: 51 919 Members: 511 805Newest Essays Project Post Mortem Future Of Fashion Find The Time Sociology Of Sport Performance Management Accounting 250 Internet Shopping Rhondas Paper Human Resources The Fairness More Essays  » Popular Topics Hindi Essay Marathi Essay Importance Of Education My Childhood Memories Advantages And Disadvantages The Most Unforgettable The Person i Admire Advantages And Disadvantages The Most Memorable Day Of My In Kannada More Topics  » Subscribe to our Term Papers and College Essay Examples Welcome to All Free Essays, where you can search essays, term papers and reports written by students for free!

Case Study: Red Bulls Integrated Marketing Mix

Case Study: Red Bulls Integrated Marketing Mix Teresa Cochran What are Red Bulls greatest strengths and risks as more companies enter the energy drink category and gain market share? Established in 1987, Red Bull is an established beverage company. Red Bull, who specialized in energy drinks, greatest strength is its unique marketing strategy and alignment with distributers. Its dominance can be attributed to the organizations capacity to focus on its strengths while compensating for weaknesses. By having an awareness its strengths as well as shortcomings, Red Bull can keep up its present position of dominance in the energy drink market. A quality Red Bull has over its closest competitors is that they are well established in the caffeinated drink market and hold a 70 percent share of it. Furthermore, their product line which is entirely caffeinated drinks, strengthens their position. By focusing on one segment of the market, caffeinated drinks, Red Bull has created a strong hold on their market that competitors are struggling to imitate. The companies unique marketing strategies have enabled the company establish itself as the best energy drink producer in the wor ld (Donovan Henley, 2010). Following Red Bulls success soft drink giants such as Coca-Cola, Pepsi and Monster have launched their own energy drinks. This development will surely diminish Red Bulls market share. Per Kotler Keller (2012), this development will affect the companys profitability because in addition to the lost market share, the company must devote more resources in marketing its products. Red Bull has a method of marketing that is unique to its organization, setting them apart from the competition in the business. Kotler and Keller (2012) discussed the various methods utilized noting that rather than maintaining standard advertising strategies, the company has chosen to focus on an informal exchange via non-traditional means. They also feature celebrities and engage potential consumers at sports events by providing free samples in efforts to generate increased interest in their products. Free Red Bull products are provided in areas including sporting events and high profile parties to reinforce the brand image among the target market in addition to their promotions (Kotler Keller, 2012). Other marketing efforts that attributes to Red Bulls strengths are their sponsorships and campaigns. These unconventional advertising methods help to expand the Red Bull trademark, but they also increases brand awareness. Despite its significant strengths, Red Bull also has numerous weaknesses that it must address to remain dominant in the highly-competitive energy drink industry. Red Bulls small product selection, extremely elevated amounts of sugar and caffeine, and cost offer chances for other manufacturers to acquire market share. Should Red Bull do more traditional advertising? Traditional means of advertising, print, television, and radio ads, have not been utilized by Red Bull to market their brand although the company may consider expansion to more traditional advertising strategies to reinforce their image in more mature markets. Kotler Keller (2012) states, Red Bull employs traditional advertising techniques to reinforce the brand to mature markets, but they do not use it to establish the market. The company has been very successful following its unique marketing strategy. Rather than depending entirely on television and print advertisements, Red Bulls unique guerrilla advertising methodology is at the heart of Red Bulls marketing and advertising strategy. If Red Bull adopts a traditional marketing strategy like its competitors, it will lose this uniqueness. The use of sponsored events and buzz-marketing has helped the companys product stand apart. As such, the company should not use traditional advertising strategies particularly to establish markets ; they should stick to their current buzz-marketing and sponsored events strategy (Donovan Henley, 2010). Traditional advertising should be used only to reinforce the companys brands in mature markets. Although sponsoring extreme events is expensive, it brings a special kind of brand awareness particularly to the younger adult demographic, which is the main market of the Red Bulls products. This group of consumers has little time with traditional marketing strategies; they go with the cool trends in the market (Cornwell, 2014). Extreme events attract young people and thus present Red Bull a great opportunity to reach out to them. Therefore, I would suggest Red Bull to maintain their non-traditional marketing strategy. Donovan Henley (2010) point out that the current strategies are unique and consistent with Red Bulls brand image; adopting traditional methods will water down the companys unique proposition. Effectiveness of Red Bulls sponsorships Red Bull excels at sponsoring events. The companys sponsorship programs are spread over a wide range of extreme sports, artists and athletes. The events the company sponsors range from dancing, motorsports to extreme sailing. These sponsorship programs have attracted many of the current and potential consumers of the companys products (Cornwell, 2014). Per Kotler Keller (2012), sponsoring events is a form of advertising for the company where attendees, usually teenagers and young adults get to experience the companys products, sometimes for free or for subsidized prices. From here, these people spread the word about the companys products, thus becoming Red Bulls brand ambassadors. These marketing strategies though unusual have proved to be very effective for the company. Bull Stratos is one example of the success the company achieves with these sponsorship programs. This program for example provided young people with a dream to look forward to. Cornwell (2014) argues that such events tap into the critical part of young people minds showing them that they can achieve what their dreams. As such, when the Bull Stratos made a safe landing, it provided a sign to these young people that anything is possible. Thus, many young people associate Red Bull with those people who do the impossible. Therefore, I think these sponsorship programs are a good use of the Red Bulls marketing budget and they should continue carrying them out. It is however important for Red Bull to regularly evaluate its marketing programs to ensure they are effective and relevant. The company needs to draw the line when the strategies become ineffective. When this happens, the company needs to be ready to change its marketing approach to remain competitive in the market. Thus, the company should monitor the market continuously for emerging trends to help it change quickly when need be (Cornwell, 2014). References Cornwell, T. B. (2014). Sponsorship in marketing: Effective communication through sports, arts, and events. Routledge. Donovan, R., Henley, N. (2010). Principles and practice of social marketing: an international perspective. Cambridge University Press. Kotler, P., Keller, K. L. (2012). Marketing management. New Jersey, US: Pearson Education.

The Unfulfilled Elisa in John Steinbecks The Chrysanthemums Essay

The Unfulfilled Elisa in John Steinbeck's The Chrysanthemums â€Å"The Chrysanthemums† is a short story in The Long Valley, a collection of short stories by John Steinbeck. This story dramatizes the efforts made by a housewife, Elisa Allen, to compensate for the disappointments which she has encountered in her life. Steinbeck makes it clear that Elisa yearns for something more in her life then the everyday routines of farm life. While Elisa is portrayed as strong, in the end, her strength serves to be insufficient in having the courage to effect any real change in her life since her fragile self-esteem proves to be too susceptible to outside forces. From the beginning of the short story, Steinbeck emphasizes that Elisa is a strong, competent woman who finds her considerable energy channeled into things, such as her garden, which never give her the sort of recognition or satisfaction that she craves. For a brief moment, she senses that she is capable of much more and feels her own strength only to, once again, have a man bring down her efforts, and her self-esteem. The story opens with Elisa working in her garden. Steinbeck makes a point of telling the reader that she is thirty-five. Her age at once implies a woman almost at her middle-age who may be reexamining the dreams of her youth as she contemplates the second half of her life. Steinbeck emphasizes Elisa’s strength as he writes, â€Å"Her face was eager and mature and handsome† (Steinbeck 279). Her husband, Henry, comes back to the house having just completed the sell of some cattle. He is complimentary towards her gardening and comments on her talent. He sugg ests that she put her talent to work in the orchard growing apples, and Elisa considers his offhand comment seriously,... ...’s nature which yearns for expression. For a moment, she feels she touched on such a shared intimacy with the tinker and it is easy to see why she could have been so easily mistaken because the tinker does imply that he also has that sort of aesthetic sensibility when he describes the chrysanthemums which will bloom later in the summer, â€Å"Kind of a long-stemmed flower? Looks like a quick puff of colored smoke?† (282). When the tinker casts her plants aside, it is almost as if he cast aside Elisa’s dreams as well. It’s not just this brief episode that makes Elisa’s cry, but what is really upsetting her is the thought of a future where she feels unfulfilled and unchallenged. Work Cited Steinbeck, John. "The Chrysanthemums." Literature: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, and Drama. Ed. X. J. Kennedy and Dana Gioia. 6th ed. New York: Harper Collins, 1995. 239-47.

Essay on Appearance vs Reality in Yellow Wallpaper, Story of an Hour, a

Appearance versus Reality in Yellow Wallpaper, Story of an Hour, and Lottery  Ã‚     Ã‚  Ã‚   Authors often write literature to have an emotional impact on the reader. These effects vary from work to work, and they may include happiness, sorrow, anger, or shock. Even authors who try to achieve the same effect may go about it in very different ways. This paper discusses three short stories written to shock the reader, but each uses a different method to achieve its effect. While Kate Chopin's "The Story of an Hour" uses a sudden shift in plot at the end of a short narrative, Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery" gives hints throughout the story preparing the reader for a shocking ending; in contrast, Charlotte Perkins Gilman's "The Yellow Wallpaper" shocks its readers through careful character development. The narrator of Gilman's 1892 short story "The Yellow Wallpaper" is a woman who seeks professional medical assistance to treat her mild depression and nervousness; ironically, the treatment is much worse than the illness itself. At the time Gilman wrote "The Yellow Wallpaper," the accepted treatment for depression was complete rest in an isolated environment. The narrator's husband, a doctor, forces her to undergo this treatment; consequently, he imprisons her in a small room with no one to talk to and nothing to do. When the narrator is trapped in this prison, her only enjoyment is secretly writing in her journal. Since ... ...ing, but "The Story of an Hour" is more sudden. It is not shocking, however, that all three stories successfully impact the reader. Works Cited Jackson, Shirley. "The Lottery." Literature and Its Writers: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, and Drama. Eds. Ann Charters and Samuel Charters. Boston: Bedford Books, 1997. 308-14. Chopin, Kate. "The Story of an Hour." Literature and Its Writers: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, and Drama. Eds. Ann Charters and Samuel Charters. Boston: Bedford Books, 1997. 158-9. Gilman, Charlotte Perkins. "The Yellow Wallpaper." Literature and Its Writers: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, and Drama. Eds. Ann Charters and Samuel Charters. Boston: Bedford Books, 1997. 230-42

Costco Wholesale Corporation Essay

Costco Wholesale Corporation was created in 1983 when its first store opened in Seattle. Costco runs on a membership warehouse concept, which was first created by Price Club in 1976. Now, though Costco has only subsidiaries in eight countries, but Costco is the ninth largest retailers around the world, and is one of the most successful discount warehouse firms in North America. In 2008, Costco open the store in Australia. Through the leadership of Jim Sinegal, Costco has been able to create value for shareholders as well as consumers. Part of Costco’s strategy is to attract customers through a combination of low prices. Although it is a success strategy, they will not likely has the same level of success moving forward due to intense competition in the industry. Costco began its e-commerce business in November 1998. According to a Compete.com survey in 2008, the Costco’s website attracted at least 58 million visitors. In addition, Costco online shop provide the membership additional products which can not find in store, and also provide digital photo processing, pharmacy, travel, and membership services. However, Costco operates Costco Online, electronic commerce web sites only in Unite States, Canada and UK. Objective: This report will through analyze Costco internal and external environment, potential customers, and online market needs to make a strategy plan to expand Costco’s e-commerce into the international market, and bloom it’s online sales. Costco Wholesale Corporation was created in 1983 when its first store opened in Seattle. Costco runs on a membership warehouse concept, which was first created by Price Club in 1976. Now, though Costco has only subsidiaries in eight countries, but Costco is the ninth largest retailers around the world, and is one of the most successful discount warehouse firms in North America. In 2008, Costco open the store in Australia. Through the leadership of Jim Sinegal, Costco has been able to create value for shareholders as well as consumers. Part of Costco’s strategy is to attract customers through a combination of low prices. Although it is a success strategy, they will not likely has the same level of success moving forward due to intense competition in the industry. Costco began its e-commerce business in  November 1998. According to a Compete.com survey in 2008, the Costco’s website attracted at least 58 million visitors. In addition, Costco online shop provide the membe rship additional products which can not find in store, and also provide digital photo processing, pharmacy, travel, and membership services. However, Costco operates Costco Online, electronic commerce web sites only in Unite States, Canada and UK.

Leadership and Supervision Issues in Nathaniel Philbrick’s In the Heart of the Sea Essay

Nathaniel Philbrick’s In the Heart of the Sea describes the tragic final voyage of the Nantucket-based whaler Essex in 1820. The Essex was a floating factory, a comparatively small but sturdy vessel designed to travel great distances to find, kill, and process whales, thus yielding the extremely valuable whale oil and other products. In the Heart of the Sea also describes a series of errors, mishaps and miscalculations—often with fatal results—in the management, leadership and supervision of the enterprise. These events, despite the distance in time, provide scenarios to compare and contrast present-day concepts of leadership and supervision. The story of the Essex illustrates numerous instances of (a) poor planning before and during the journey, (b) poor staffing decisions before and during the journey, (c) indecisive and/or poor leadership and (d) poor supervision which contributed to the difficult journey, the sinking of the Essex and the horrible aftermath. Typical of the practices of the era and locale, Essex was captained, but not owned and provisioned, by a sailor-officer who had risen through the ranks. This would be the first command voyage of Captain George Pollard, Jr. By all accounts he had successfully risen to First Mate of the Essex on previous voyages and was given captaincy when the former captain was given a newer and larger vessel. Unfortunately he inherited a worn ship soon to be out of commission. Accordingly the owners spent as little as possible on repairs of the vessel and even less on provisions for the multi-year cruise. There is no indication Pollard had any input in either decision. As this was his first command he was likely to remain in his employers’ good graces and refrain from insisting on better repairs and outfitting. To further compound these initial as well as future problems was the wage payment structure in which Pollard and the crew were essentially working on commission. Payment to officers and seamen alike would be a portion based on rank and seniority paid only if the valuable whale oil was safely in port. Other experienced captains had the ability and option to add to the original provisions. Pollard either decided to set sail despite the meager provisions or was unable to supplement them by his own means. This system strongly contrasts to management practices of the day as well as contemporary practices. Owner-operated businesses were not at all uncommon in the era with a strong â€Å"hands-on† style of leadership. Most striking would be the owner-operated vessels with a captain well-versed on ship maintenance and outfitting. Obviously today anyone would be considered naive at best and insane at worst to take on such a logistical task of any sort without having been given decision-making authority. Today even with companies having distant or publicly held ownership the leadership and decision-makers of the company are urged to â€Å"buy into† the company in the sense of making decisions and leading in a manner consistent with actual ownership. If Pollard can be excused to some extent for the poor decision-making at home port, the disastrous lack of planning during his maiden voyage is his burden alone. After almost loosing his ship virtually at the onset of the voyage he is either unable or incapable of tactical or strategic planning when the Essex is destroyed. With a previously damaged vessel prudence would dictate some sort of â€Å"disaster plan† short of a belief that lightening will not strike the same place twice. While the Essex was sinking it was the foresight of others who managed to salvage essential items. Some decisions defied common sense. Instead of cooking and preparing a substantial amount of available turtle meat he simply placed two live turtles with each surviving whaleboat. Perhaps Pollard did not think the unthinkable could happen again. Such planning and preparedness is not something novel, for his era or ours. It is simply the ability to survive the unexpected and the wisdom to learn from it. Contemporary leadership in management, government, and virtually any other field must be prepared for the unexpected. The unexpected and the disastrous will certainly occur, usually when least expected. It then also becomes a learning experience for leadership to plan and think for the â€Å"unplanned and unthinkable†. Consistent with the idea of poor or non-existent planning was the Nantucket concept of staffing vessels with the unskilled. Pollard’s ship was manned by a significant number of â€Å"sailors† who had never lived in Nantucket nor experienced life on a whaler. Other â€Å"sailors† included inexperienced Nantucket youngsters anxious for their first cruise as well as officers sailing in newly-promoted ranks. It was expected of Pollard and his officers to essentially conduct on-the-job training for the unskilled staff. However, once again, if Pollard can be excused for having to deal with something out of his control, the staffing decisions made during the disaster were his alone. Most glaring was the decision regarding the placement of the survivors in what would become their lifeboats. No consideration was given to skill, ability or health. Instead, it was a system based on whether a sailor was black or white, Nantucketer or not. Apprenticeships and on-the-job training are time-honored practices dating back centuries and still valid today. Both systems are based on both a lengthy or at least sufficient period of time and a non-critical or at least supervised situation. The apprentice or OJT worker will make mistakes and is given the opportunity to make them and learn from them in a controlled situation. Once skilled, the staffing pattern must be developed to maintain whatever production or quality standard is to be met. In an emergency situation such decisions must be made by leadership without being distracted by pointless issues of race, class, or place of birth. Again, Pollard can be shielded to some extent by the customs and practices of his day. Contemporary leaders have no such excuse. Decision-making is often made in the lonely vacuum of sole command, something that Pollard, at times, was unable or willing to do. â€Å"Leadership by consensus† was not something he learned, but he did indeed practice. Additionally, indecision is in fact a decision, and one that eats time. After the initial near-fatal keeling of his ship Pollard commits both errors: he abdicates sole leadership, procrastinates, reverses himself, and by trying to lead by consensus ultimately leads his ship to disaster. Again, forces work against Pollard. To turn back with a damaged empty ship would result in no wages and possibly a loss of command. By deciding to continue the voyage with a damaged ship, lost provisions, and lost whaleboats Pollard was not talking a calculated risk, he was essentially dooming his ship and crew to disaster. Modern management case studies abound with the disastrous stories of managers failing to decide and having that â€Å"activity† yield worse results than a bad decision. Most missions are time-critical and while many, if not most missions can have a built-in method of correcting erroneous decisions there is no method for reversing time lost in indecision. The texts are equally full of the horror stories of leaders who take the â€Å"ahead at all costs† attitude without a realistic appraisal of whether their â€Å"ship† can handle the journey. This inevitably results in the learned experience that â€Å"profitability at all costs† is very unprofitable. After the sinking of the Essex a variety of decisions were made, some based on common sense, or lack of same, and others based on the nautical knowledge of the time. Perhaps the most glaring was the decision to allow the surviving whaleboats to operate in an individual fashion, without tying together during the night. While a questionable seafaring decision, it casts some light on broader contemporary issues. During critical situations, whether a production run or a full-scale emergency it is common sense and a practical necessity to maintain communication and command. Failure to maintain either can jeopardize the personnel and the mission. In the Heart of the Sea is filled with numerous examples of poor supervision. From the very onset there is no indication Pollard really supervised the repair and provisioning of his vessel; it all likelihood he delegated a great deal of this responsibility to his First and Second Mate. There is no indication he did a thorough, hands-on investigation of his damaged vessel after the initial near-sinking. Once whaling he was out in a whaleboat, as was the custom, instead of being in a position on deck to supervise all of the events that would unfold. There is no indication he personally undertook a surveillance of Henderson Island to determine if it could sustain the crew, or in the alternative, if it could better provision the survivors on their continued voyage. During many of the catastrophic events Pollard seemed overwhelmed and incapacitated by the situation. He was unable to command and supervise what can only be described as life-threatening or life-saving activity unfolding in front of him. Once all was lost he decided to allow the boats to go their own way, and was unable to maintain the supervision of survivors when that was his most critical duty. Throughout the disastrous journey the questionable command of Pollard is and will be debated. What is certain is there was considerable doubt at the time that he exercised the decision-making responsibilities in a prudent manner. The captain of a ship and the leader of a corporation must be able to face a situation, whether mundane or critical, and make very quick and decisive actions. First and foremost is the decision of whether to take a â€Å"hands on† approach or delegate responsibility. There is no easy or set answer, and either method can be disastrous, if a leader usurps a subordinate’s better command of a situation or if responsibility is delegated to someone incapable of handling the situation. However, the command of a ship is unique and very similar to many organizational situations in that the leader at the very top is expected to be well-versed and capable of every function in the entire organization. If that is not the case, then the leader must have a clear understanding of his personal abilities and limitations as well as that of all of the subordinates in the chain of command. Throughout the narratives and accounts which the book is comprised of there is mention of, and no doubt that the captain knew his ship better than anyone. However, it became very obvious at the onset that his knowledge of his and his officers’ capabilities was suspect. At only one point was Pollard described as acting with the authority and decisiveness normally required of a ship’s captain. He quickly and ferociously responded to an early â€Å"protest† by the crew relating to what they considered poor rations. His outburst and threatened action quelled the protest and certainly left the crew with no doubt of his intent. However, what is missing is the not-unusual comments and attitude from crewmen indicating complete respect of their captain and their willingness to follow his commands, regardless of outcome, because of their knowledge of him and his ability. It is imperative upon leaders to not just know their workplace, but to know their staff. It is not enough to â€Å"go ballistic† once in a while to let the staff know what will happen if something is discovered amiss or in response to what behavior is not to be tolerated. Command through intimidation is foolhardy; what is necessary of leadership is to prove competency to staff and subordinates to the point where there is no doubt there is respect in the leader’s ability. At that point leadership becomes â€Å"natural† if and when the staff and subordinates believe the leadership will in fact lead, but do so in a manner that takes into account the well-being, if not survival, of all. In modern society â€Å"survival† is often economic survival, and depending on the organization or industry economic survival must be paramount in management’s priorities. Pollard lost on both counts; the voyage was a complete economic disaster and resulted in the deaths of the majority of his crew. The journey was a voyage of poor planning, staffing, decision-making and supervision. It is an epic of missed opportunities and unrealistic goals. It is a blueprint for any manager or leader in what not to do. Leadership cannot afford to be unprepared in any of the areas noted above. Each interact and influence the other, often in ways unanticipated and noted only too late. It is easy, but very necessary to look at situations with twenty-twenty hindsight if lessons are to be learned and errors prevented in the future. There is a host of what-if questions presented by In the Heart of the Sea which every leader should take to heart.

Learning Experiences with Linear and Systemic Questioning Essay

In this paper I will have a detailed interview process laid out in order of focus. First, I am focusing my interview on the background of my partner and what motivates her to go to school and further her education. Secondly, I will ask her why she chose to specialize in her field of work and what are side hobbies or enjoyments that she does besides working towards her career goal. Lastly, I will be asking about her family and their views on education. I will be asking both linear and systemic questions to get my answers. I have looked up the meaning of linear and systemic questioning and their differences before writing out the questions I am using for Michele. I feel like this assignment has helped me to understand and recognize the difference in the questions being asked and which ones will give me a more detailed answer. Learning Experience with Linear and Systemic Questioning I am doing an interview process with Michele Renner to learn more about her as a student, professional, and person. I know that this assignment is a stepping stone to learning all I need to know to be a MFT. The interview process will teach me how to reply and question in a professional matter and how to talk with a complete stranger without there being any uneasiness. I believe that this interview essay is relevant to my education needed for MFT work. I think it is a great way to quickly get to know a part of my fellow classmate’s life and see the inside without having met her yet. Michele has a very busy life, I know this much from reading her introduction in class. She has six children and that isn’t the only thing keeping her on her toes. I admire the fact that she is continuing her education despite all that is going on in her life; it shows that her motivation is strong. Michele not only has a strong motivation for continuing her education but a very inspirational story. Question Development Michele chose education to be the main focus of our interview process with me as her interviewer. I have lined up eight linear questions and seven systemic questions all around the topic of education and how it affects her family and time with extracurricular activities. My questions are listed in Appendix A. Since Michele only chose education I was able to format my questions in a way to gain more insight on her everyday life by asking how education affects her, her kids, her spouse, and her work. All the questions are relevant to my case and were not over personal or intruding. She was a great person to talk to and I could imagine myself laughing with her over coffee or in an actual counseling set up. Linear Questions I developed my linear questions based on the information she may be willing to share. I am asking some closed questions that only require a short answer and some open questions that will follow with the systemic questions I have lined up next. The open ended questions will give Michele a chance to go into further detail with the question and her answers. Linear questions are questions that are problem explanation and definition questions, they usually begin with Who, What, Where, When, and Why? They are investigative questions that lead up to gaining some insight to the person you are talking to but they don’t give a full explanation. The limitations of linear questions are that they are narrow, short-term questions and don’t get to the heart of the problem. Short-term, linear approaches have several inherent limitations. First, they are based on a problem-solving model that is more associated with American corporate thinking than with client suffering and therapeutic healing. Typically, the model includes the following sequence: (a) identify the problem, (b) consider various interventions to solve the problem, (c) choose the best interventions, (d) apply the interventions, (e) assess progress periodically, and (f) modify the interventions as needed. This clear-cut, linear approach appeals to executives, administrators, and others in positions of authority and has proven itself effective as an approach to solving problems in corporate and other settings. It is no accident that the trend toward streamlined, linear approaches in clinical work coincided with the rise of managed care and its corporate mentality (Ackley, 1997; Miller, 1996c). Linear questions don’t help the client without the involvement of also another form of questions. Using linear questions alone are ineffective to getting the desired results from the client, which can leave the client and the counselor both feeling misunderstood and upset. Systemic Questions I developed my systemic questions based on what my linear questions were about. I wanted to make sure some of the questions were the same type of question as my linear question but worded in a circular way that would get me more detailed answers and more depth behind her answers. Systemic questions are both circular and reflexive. They are behavioral effect questions, difference questions, hypothetical future questions, and observer perspective questions. The reflexive questions are intended to indirectly influence the family and are predominantly facilitative. The circular questions are more exploratory as the counselor tries to discover the way everything is connected together. Because the distinction between lineal and circular may be regarded as complementary, and not just as either/or, these assumptions and their associations may overlap and enrich one another. Most therapists have internalized these concepts to varying degrees and probably operate with both sets of ideas, but in differing ways, with differing consistency, and at different times. Although these assumptions and presuppositions tend to exert their effects covertly and non-consciously, they still have a significant effect on the nature of the questions asked. Hence, this second dimension adds considerable depth to an understanding of differences among the questions asked. If the therapist assumes that influence only occurs indirectly, through a perturbation of preexisting circular processes in or among family members, the influencing questions are considered â€Å"reflexive questions. † (Tomm, 1988, p. 3). If the therapist has established a Batesonian cybernetic orientation toward mental process, and has developed skills in maintaining a conceptual posture of circular ypothesizing, these questions will come easily and freely. Two general types of circular questions, â€Å"difference questions† and â€Å"contextual questions,† have been associated with Bateson’s fundamental patterns of symmetry and complementarities. The Interview When I called Michele I was immediately at ease with her as a person. She was very upbeat and forthcoming with her information. After asking her how she was I jumped right into the questions. I explained to her which questions I was doing first and how many there were for each linear and systemic questionings. She had no problems going into elaborate detail about her life and why she is doing what she is doing today, she talked as fast as I could type her answers! Since I did not have a recorder I did have to ask her to repeat herself if I did not finish typing the answers that she was giving me but she was very nice about it and as soon as we concluded our interview I made sure to immediately formulate the answers into more coherent sentences while it was all fresh in my mind. Interview Themes  The themes and content that came out of this interview with Michele are few. One theme or content that was revealed to me was that her inspiration for education came from her mother who did not complete high school. The content that came out from the systemic questions would be how supportive her family is even though it is a financial strain on them. The linear questions brought out her main reasons for wanting her education and the systemic questions went into more depth of what the education means for her and her family as a whole. Theme one. The first theme would be her mention of her mother and losing her father when she was young. She brought up her mother quite a bit in our interview and I could tell that her mother was a great factor in her decision to keep going to school no matter how long it took her to succeed. She is very proud of her mother for the way she was, raising children alone with no degree and no financial backups. Michele doesn’t want her kids to ever have to worry about wanting or needing things and she wants to get her degree to be able to enjoy what she loves doing most. Theme two. The second theme is that of finances. She did bring up the fact that she has been in school for a very long time because she is only taking one class per quarter so that she can pay for it and still have time to do her work, school, and family life in a balance that is easier on her. She teaches her children that it doesn’t matter how long it takes you to get there, it is important to have dreams and goals and make them come true. The future of her children won’t be as hard on them as it was on Michele growing up. Interviewer Role Stance. As an observer for the linear questions I realized that the questions were straight to the point without asking for more detailed information from Michele and it was pretty basic. I felt that I was getting to know Michele through my linear questions but I was able to understand more through the systemic questioning. My systemic questions were open-ended questions that helped our conversation go into further detail because Michele felt that the questions opened up for her to go into more of her life story. Relationship with the interviewee. I started each set of questions by letting Michele know what type of questions I was asking. She was very forthcoming and she said that some of the questions I asked her were really good because she hadn’t thought about it in the way that I asked it. She is a very nice person, easy to talk to and get along with. We talked about how we both found Capella, the weather changes, and the state we live in. The systemic approach definitely went into further detail but I feel like I gained a lot of insight from the linear questions as well. Multicultural/diversity issues. Michele and I did not talk about cultural backgrounds as she only wanted to talk about her educational background. I feel now, that I could have incorporated some cultural questions into the topic of education. We did talk about her family and how they are very supportive of her career and educational goals and we never stepped on a touchy subject that made her hesitate to answer me. Curiosity. I am naturally a very curious person about other people and how they think and what they do and why they do it. So it was no problem for me to ask more questions on top of the ones I have listed. I knew by intuition which topics not to go into further detail with her about since I don’t know her that well and it was irrelevant to her education. One thing I wanted to know was more about her dad. I did however; ask her about her grandparents influence and more about her mother. My curiosity helped me to see in greater detail the aspects of her relationship with each member of her family. Assessment of Interviewer. I really liked the questions that I asked, and I was polite and made jokes so that we were on easy footing. I do think back on the interview and wish I had asked different questions because some of them seemed to be repetitive even though she answered them each in a different way. For example, What made you change your path to this specific one? Was a question I asked after asking why she chose being an MFT. She had answered in the previous question the answer to both questions which turned out to be one and the same. I had chosen that question because in my experience most people at one time had wanted to be something else first and then changed their mind later in life.

Goal and Career Action Plan

University of Phoenix Material Professional Career Action Plan Outline Complete this professional career action plan outline after viewing the Career 101 workshop link on the student website. You may need to research specific careers or companies to answer all of the questions. A professional career plan details career goals, rather than personal goals. This plan will look at your professional strengths and weaknesses, the type of company you wish to work for, any knowledge gaps that exist, and your professional resume.Create three to five professional goals (for example, â€Å"I want to get a job in a health care facility in the emergency services department†), and then complete this outline with those goals in mind. 1. Goal #1 2. Goal #2 3. Goal #3 I. Self-Awareness a. Professional strengths i. ii. b. Personal strengths i. ii. c. Professional weaknesses i. ii. d. Personal weaknesses i. ii. e. Write 4 to 5 sentences, using the strengths and weaknesses above, to describe yours elf to a potential employer. II.Ideal Next Objective (or position) – based on your self-assessment, where will you go next? a. Required competencies i. ii. b. Compensation requirements i. ii. c. Company culture i. ii. d. Compromises i. ii. III. Gap analysis, plan, and execution – these are skills you already have a. Credentials i. ii. b. Responsibilities i. ii. c. Accomplishments (personal and professional) i. ii. d. Career management gaps (lacking credentials) i. ii. IV. Personal marketing a. Resume (include) b. Cover letter (include) c.Networking – what do you do to network? i. ii. d. Interviewing techniques and skills i. ii. V. Periodic career audit a. How often will you evaluate career plan? b. What influences or affects career plans i. ii. Professional Career Action Plan Outline Complete this specialized career action plan outline after watching the Career 101 workshop link onthe student website. You may need to investigate precise careers or companies to a nswer all of theinquiries. A professional  career  plan specifics  career  objectives, rather than personal objectives.Thisproposal will look at your specialized fortes and faintness, the kind of business you wish to work for,any knowledge gaps that exist, and your expert recommence. Create three to five objectives professionals (e. g. , â€Å"I want to get a job at a health center in the unitof emergency services†), and then thorough the picture with the objectives in mind. 1. Goal  #12. I would  get a job in a  supported living community  as a health manager. 3. Goal  #24. I love to finish my  education with a  DrPH. 5. Goal  #3I excelsior’s link program for paramedic’s. I.Self-Awarenessa. Professional fortesi. Communication  talentsii. Written abilitiesb. Personal fortesi. People  expertiseii. Trust  worthyc. Professional  weaknessesi. Computer skillsii. Typing skillsd. Personal  faintnessi. I over-extend myself  ii. e. Wri te  4 to 5 sentences, using the  fortes and faintness above, to describe you  to apotential company. I am a very outbound and optimistic thinking individual with brilliant leadershipskills. I am a instigator and very honest and trust worthy. I must declare I need toprogress my computer and typing talents

Deconstruction/ Krapp’s Last Tape

General overview The auther of this essay is interested in finding the meaning of absurdity, Beckett is master of absurd theater, and Krapp’s last tape is one of the most influencial plays in absured theater which is deconstructed by nature. Not just the work and auther but the approach itself help the auther of this essay to find the true meaning of absurdity which itself leads human, after passing a chaos, to absolute peace. In the following paragraphs, first there is a biography of Samual Beckett the auther of Krapp’s last tape.Then the discussion goes through deconstruction which is not actually an approach but a reading stategy and short part is devoted to introsucing Lacan’s model of human psyche. Afterward the application of deconstruction and some other points on Krapp’s last tape is placed. At the end there is a conclusion of all what the auther of this essay trying to say. A Biography of Samual Beckett â€Å"Samuel Barclay Beckett (April 13, 190 6 – December 22, 1989) was an Irish avant-garde and absurdist playwright, novelist, poet and theatre director.His writings, both in English and French, provide bleak, and darkly comedic, ruminations on the human condition. He is simultaneously considered as one of the last modernists and one of the first postmodernists. He was a main writer in what the critic, Martin Esslin, termed the â€Å"Theatre of the Absurd. † The works associated with this movement share the belief that human existence has neither meaning nor purpose, and ultimately communication breaks down, often in a black comedy manner.Beckett studied French, Italian and English at Trinity College Dublin from 1923-1927, whereupon graduating he took up a teaching post in Paris. While in Paris, he met the Irish novelist James Joyce, who became an inspiration and mentor to the young Beckett. He published his first work, a critical essay endorsing Joyce’s work entitled â€Å"Dante†¦Bruno. Vico†¦Joyce† in 1929. Throughout the 1930s he continued to write and publish many essays and reviews, eventually beginning work on novels.During World War II, Beckett joined the French Resistance as a courier after the Germans began their occupation in 1940. Beckett’s unit was betrayed in August of 1942, and he and Suzanne fled on foot to the small village of Roussillon in the south of France. They continued to aid the Resistance by storing arms in his backyard. He was awarded both the Croix de Guerre and Medaille de la Resistance by the French government for his wartime efforts. Beckett was reticent to speak about this era of his life.Beckett continued writing novels throughout the 1940s, and had the first part of his story â€Å"The End† published in Jean-Paul Sartre’s magazine Les Temps Modernes, the second part of which was never published in the magazine. Beckett began writing his most famous play, Waiting for Godot, in October 1948 and completed it in Jan uary 1949. He originally wrote this piece, like most of his subsequent works, in French first and then translated it to English. It was published in 1952 and premiered in 1953, garnering positive and controversial reactions in Paris.The English version did not appear until two years later, first premiered in London in 1955 to mixed reviews and had a successful run in New York City after being a flop in Miami. The critical and commercial success of Waiting for Godot opened the door to a playwriting career for Beckett. He wrote many other well-known plays, including Endgame (1957), Krapp’s Last Tape (1958, and surprisingly written in English), Happy Days (1961, also in English) and Play (1963). He was awarded the 1961 International Publishers’ Formentor Prize along with Jorge Luis Borges.In that same year, Beckett married Suzanne Dechevaux-Dumesnil in a civil ceremony, though the two had been together since 1938. He also began a relationship with BBC script editor Barbar a Bray, which lasted, concurrently to his marriage to Suzanne, until his death, in 1989. Beckett is regarded as one of the most influential writers of the twentieth century. He was awarded the 1969 Nobel Prize in Literature. He died on December 22, 1989, of complications from emphysema and possibly Parkinson’s disease five months after his wife, Suzanne.The two are interred together in Montparnasse Cemetery in Paris. †(1) Methodology and Approach â€Å"Deconstruction, as applied in the criticism of literature, designates a theory and practice of reading which questions and claims to â€Å"subvert† or â€Å"undermine† the assumption that the system of language provides grounds thatare adequate to establish the boundaries, the coherence or unity, and the determinatemeanings of a literary text. Typically, a deconstructive reading setsout to show that conflicting forces within the text itself serve to dissipate theseeming definiteness of its tructure and mean ings into an indefinite array ofincompatible and undecidable possibilities. The originator and namer of deconstruction is the French thinker Jacques Derrida, among whose precursors were Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) andMartin Heidegger (1889- 1976)—German philosophers who put to radical question fundamental philosophical concepts such as â€Å"knowledge,† â€Å"truth,† and â€Å"identity†Ã¢â‚¬â€as well as Sigmund Freud (1856-1939), whose psychoanalysis violated traditional concepts of a coherent individual consciousness and a unitary self.Derrida presented his basic views in three books, all published in 1967, entitled Of Grammatology, Writing and Difference, and Speech and Phenomena; since then he has reiterated, expanded, and applied those views in a rapid sequence of publications. Derrida's writings are complex and elusive, and the summary here can only indicate some of their main tendencies.His point of vantage is what, in Of Grammatology, he calls â€Å"the axial proposition that there is no outside-thetext† (â€Å"il n'y a rien hors du texte,† or alternatively â€Å"il n'y a pas de hors-texte†). Like all Derrida's key terms and statements, this has multiple significations, but a primary one is that a reader cannot get beyond verbal signs to any things-in-themselves which, because they are independent of the system of language, might serve to anchor a determinable meaning.Derrida's reiterated claim is that not only all Western philosophies and theories of language, but all Western uses of language, hence all Western culture, are logocentric; that is, they are centered or grounded on a â€Å"logos† (which in Greek signified both â€Å"word† and â€Å"rationality†) or, as stated in a phrase he adopts from Heidegger, they rely on â€Å"the metaphysics of presence. † They are logocentric, according to Derrida, in part because they are phonocentric; that is, they grant, implicitly or explicitly, logical â€Å"priority,† or â€Å"privilege,† to speech over writing as the model for analyzing all discourse.By logos, or presence, Derrida signifies what he also calls an â€Å"ultimate referent†Ã¢â‚¬â€a self-certifying and self-sufficient ground, or foundation, available to us totally outside the play of language itself, that is directly present to our awareness and serves to â€Å"center† (that is, to anchor, organize, and guarantee) the structure of the linguistic system, and as a result suffices to fix the bounds, coherence, and determinate meanings of any spoken or written utterance within that system. (On Derrida's â€Å"decentering† of structuralism, see poststructuralism. Historical instances of claimed foundations for language are God as the guarantor of its validity, or a Platonic form of the true reference of a general term, or a Hegelian â€Å"telos† or goal toward which all process strives, or an intention to s ignify something determinate that is directly present to the awareness of the person who initiates an utterance. Derrida undertakes to show that these and all other attempts by Western philosophy to establish an absolute ground in presence, and all implicit reliance on such a ground in using language, are bound to fail.Especially, he directs his skeptical exposition against the phonocentric assumption—which he regards as central in Western theories of language— that at the instant of speaking, the â€Å"intention† of a speaker to mean something determinate by an utterance is immediately and fully present in the speaker's consciousness, and is also communicable to an auditor. (See intention, under interpretation and hermeneutics. ) In Derrida's view, we must always say more, and other, than we intend to say.Derrida expresses his alternative conception that the play of linguistic meanings is â€Å"undecidable† in terms derived from Saussure's view that in a signsystem, both the signifiers (the material elements of a language, whether spoken or written) and the signifieds (their conceptual meanings) owe their seeming identities, not to their own â€Å"positive† or inherent features, but to their â€Å"differences† from other speech-sounds, written marks, or conceptual significations. See Saussure, in linguistics in modern criticism and in semiotics. ) From this view Derrida evolves his radical claim that the features that, in any particular utterance, would serve to establish the signified meaning of a word, are never â€Å"present† to us in their own positive identity, since both these features and their significations are nothing other than a network of differences.On the other hand, neither can these identifying features be said to be strictly â€Å"absent†; instead, in any spoken or written utterance, the seeming meaning is the result only of a â€Å"self-effacing† trace—self-effacing in th at one is not aware of it— which consists of all the nonpresent differences from other elements in the language system that invest the utterance with its â€Å"effect† of having a meaning in its own right. The consequence, in Derrida's view, is that we can never, in any instance of speech or writing, have a demonstrably fixed and decidable present meaning.He says that the differential play (jeu) of language may produce the â€Å"effects† of decidable meanings in an utterance or text, but asserts that these are merely effects and lack a ground that would justify certainty in interpretation. In a characteristic move, Derrida coins the portmanteau term differance, in which, he says, he uses the spelling â€Å"-ance† instead of â€Å"-enee† to indicate a fusion of two senses of the French verb â€Å"differer†: to be different, and to defer.This double sense points to the phenomenon that, on the one hand, a text proffers the â€Å"effect† of having a significance that is the product of its difference, but that on the other hand, since this proffered significance can never come to rest in an actual â€Å"presence†Ã¢â‚¬â€or in a language-independent reality Derrida calls a transcendental signified—its determinate specification is deferred from one linguistic interpretation to another in a movement or â€Å"play,†as Derrida puts it, en abime—that is, in an endless regress.To Derrida's view,then, it is difference that makes possible the meaning whose possibility (as adecidable meaning) it necessarily baffles. As Derrida says in another of his coinages, the meaning of any spoken or written utterance, by the action of opposing internal linguistic forces, is ineluctably disseminated—a term which includes, among its deliberately contradictory significations, that of having an effect of meaning (a â€Å"semantic† effect), of dispersing meanings among innumerable alternatives, and of negating any specific meaning.There is thus no ground, in the incessant play of difference that constitutes any language, for attributing a decidable meaning, or even a finite set of determinately multiple meanings (which he calls â€Å"polysemism†), to any utterance that we speak or write. (What Derrida calls â€Å"polysemism† is what William Empson called â€Å"ambiguity†; see ambiguity. As Derrida puts it in Writing and Difference: â€Å"The absence of a transcendental signified extends the domain and the play of signification infinitely† (p. 280) Several of Derrida's skeptical procedures have been especially influentialin deconstructive literary criticism. One is to subvert the innumerable binary oppositions—such as speech/writing, nature/culture, truth/error, male/female— which are essential structural elements in logocentric language.Derrida shows that such oppositions constitute a tacit hierarchy, in which the first term functions as privileged and superior and the second term as derivative and inferior. Derrida's procedure is to invert the hierarchy, by showing that the secondary term can be made out to be derivative from, or a special case of, the primary term; but instead of stopping at this reversal, he goes on to destabilize both hierarchies, leaving them in a condition of undecidability. Among deconstructive literary critics, one such demonstration is to take the standard hierarchical opposition of literature/criticism, to invert it so as to make criticism primary and literature secondary, and then to represent, as an undecidable set of oppositions, the assertions that criticism is a species of literature and that literature is a species of criticism. A second operation influential in literary criticism is Derrida's deconstruction of any attempt to establish a securely determinate bound, or limit, or margin, to a textual work so as to differentiate what is â€Å"inside† from what is â€Å"outsideâ €  the work. A third operation is his analysis of the inherent nonlogicality, or â€Å"rhetoricity†Ã¢â‚¬â€that is, the inescapable reliance on rhetorical figures and figurative language—in all uses of language, including in what philosophers have traditionally claimed to be the strictly literal and logical arguments of philosophy.Derrida, for example, emphasizes the indispensable reliance in all modes of discourse on metaphors that are assumed to be merely convenient substitutes for literal, or â€Å"proper† meanings; then he undertakes to show, on the one hand, that metaphors cannot be reduced to literal meanings but, on the other hand, that supposedly literal terms are themselves metaphors whose metaphoric nature has been forgotten.Derrida's characteristic way of proceeding is not to lay out his deconstructive concepts and operations in a systematic exposition, but to allow them to emerge in a sequence of exemplary close readings of passages from writings that range from Plato through Jean-Jacques Rousseau to the present era—writings that, by standard classification, are mainly philosophical, although occasionally literary. He describes his procedure as a â€Å"double reading. † Initially, that is, he interprets a text as, in the standard fashion, â€Å"lisible† (readable or intelligible), since it engenders â€Å"effects† of having eterminate meanings. But this reading, Derrida says, is only â€Å"provisional,† as a stage toward a second, or deconstructive â€Å"critical reading,† which disseminates the provisional meaning into an indefinite range of significations that, he claims, always involve (in a term taken from logic) an aporia—an insuperable deadlock, or â€Å"double bind,† of incompatible or contradictory meanings which are â€Å"undecidable,† in that we lack any sufficient ground for choosing among them.The result, in Derrida's rendering, is that each text deco nstructs itself, by undermining its own supposed grounds and dispersing itself into incoherent meanings in a way, he claims, that the deconstructive reader neither initiates nor produces; deconstruction is something that simply â€Å"happens† in a critical reading. Derrida asserts, furthermore, that he has no option except toattempt to communicate his deconstructive readings in the prevailing logocentric language, hence that his own interpretive texts deconstruct themselves in the very act of deconstructing the texts to which they are applied.He insists, however, that â€Å"deconstruction has nothing to do with destruction,† and that all the standard uses of language will inevitably go on; what he undertakes, he says, is merely to â€Å"situate† or â€Å"reinscribe† any text in a system of difference which shows the instability of the effects to which the text owes its seeming intelligibility. Derrida did not propose deconstruction as a mode of literary c riticism, but as a way of reading all kinds of texts so as to reveal and subvert the tacit metaphysical presuppositions of Western thought.His views and procedures, however, have been taken up by literary critics, especially in America, who have adapted Derrida's â€Å"critical reading† to the kind of close reading of particular literary texts which had earlier been the familiar procedure of the New Criticism; they do so, however, Paul de Man has said, in a way which reveals that new-critical close readings â€Å"were not nearly close enough. † The end results of the two kinds of close reading are utterly diverse.New Critical explications of texts had undertaken to show that a great literary work, in the tight internal relations of its figurative and paradoxical meanings, constitutes a freestanding, bounded, and organic entity of multiplex yet determinate meanings. On the contrary, a radically deconstructive close reading undertakes to show that a literary text lacks a â€Å"totalized† boundary that makes it an entity, much less an organic unity; also that the text, by a play of internal counter-forces, disseminates into an indefinite range of self-conflicting significations.The claim is made by some deconstructive critics that a literary text is superior to nonliterary texts, but only because, by its self-reference, it shows itself to be more aware of features that all texts inescapably share: its fictionality, its lack of a genuine ground, and especially its patent â€Å"rhetoricity,† or use of figurative procedures—features that make any â€Å"right reading† or â€Å"correct reading† of a text impossible. Paul de Man was the most innovative and influential of the critics whoapplied deconstruction to the reading of literary texts.In de Man's later writings,he represented the basic conflicting forces within a text under the headingsof â€Å"grammar† (the code or rules of language) and â€Å"rhetoricâ₠¬  (the unruly play of figures and tropes), and aligned these with other opposed forces, such as the â€Å"constative† and â€Å"performative† linguistic functions that had been distinguished by John Austin (see speech-act theory). In its grammatical aspect, language persistently aspires to determinate, referential, and logically ordered assertions, which are persistently dispersed by its rhetorical aspect into an open set of non-referential and illogical possibilities.A literary text, then, of inner necessity says one thing and performs another, or as de Man alternatively puts the matter, a text â€Å"simultaneously asserts and denies the authority of its own rhetorical mode† (Allegories of Reading, 1979, p. 17). The inevitable result, for a critical reading, is an aporia of â€Å"vertiginous possibilities. † Barbara Johnson, once a student of de Man's, has applied deconstructive readings not only to literary texts, but to the writings of other critics, includingDerrida himself.Her succinct statement of the aim and methods of a deconstructive reading is often cited: Deconstruction is not synonymous with destruction The de-construction of a text does not proceed by random doubt or arbitrary subversion, but by the careful teasing out of warring forces of signification within the text itself. If anything is destroyed in a deconstructive reading, it is not the text, but the claim to unequivocal domination of one mode of signifyingover another. (The Critical Difference, 1980, p. 5) J.Hillis Miller, once the leading American representative of the Geneva School of consciousness-criticism, is now one of the most prominent of deconstructors, known especially for his application of this type of critical reading to prose fiction. Miller's statement of his critical practice indicates how drastic the result may be of applying to works of literature the concepts and procedures that Derrida had developed for deconstructing the foundations of Wes tern metaphysics: Deconstruction as a mode of interpretation works by a careful and circumspect entering of each textual labyrinth†¦.The deconstructive critic seeks to find, by this process of retracing, the element in the system studied which is alogical, the thread in the text in question which will unravel it all, or the loose stone which will pull down the whole building. The deconstruction, rather, annihilates the ground on which the building stands by showing that the text has already annihilated the ground, knowingly or unknowingly. Deconstruction is not a dismantling of the structure of a text but a demonstration that it has already dismantled itself.Miller's conclusion is that any literary text, as a ceaseless play of â€Å"irreconcilable† and â€Å"contradictory† meanings, is â€Å"indeterminable† and â€Å"undecidable†; hence, that â€Å"all reading is necessarily misreading. † (â€Å"Stevens' Rock and Criticism as Cure, II,† in Miller's Theory Then and Now [1991], p. 126, and â€Å"Walter Pater: A Partial Portrait,† Daedalus, Vol. 105, 1976. ) For other aspects of Derrida's views see poststructuralism and refer to Geoffrey Bennington, Jacques Derrida (1993).Some of the central books by Jacques Derrida available in English, with the dates of translation into English, are Of Grammatology, translated and introduced by Gayatri C. Spivak, 1976; Writing and Difference (1978); dina Dissemination (1981). A useful anthology of selections from Derrida is A Derrida Reader: Between the Blinds, ed. Peggy Kamuf (1991). Acts of Literature, ed. Derek Attridge (1992), is a selection of Derrida's discussions of literary texts.An accessible introduction to Derrida's views is the edition by Gerald Graff of Derrida's noted dispute with John R. Searle about the speech-act theory of John Austin, entitled Limited Inc. (1988); on this dispute see also Jonathan Culler, â€Å"Meaning and Iterability,† in On Deconst ruction (1982). Books exemplifying types of deconstructive literary criticism: Paul de Man, Blindness and Insight (1971), and Allegories of Reading (1979); Barbara Johnson, The Critical Difference: Essays in the ContemporaryRhetoric of Reading (1980), and A World of Difference (1987); J.Hillis Miller, Fiction and Repetition: Seven English Novels (1982), The Linguistic Moment: From Wordsworth to Stevens (1985), and Theory Then and Now (1991); Cynthia Chase, Decomposing Figures: Rhetorical Readings in the Romantic Tradition (1986). Expositions of Derrida's deconstruction and of its applications to literary criticism: Geoffrey Hartman, Saving the Text (1981); Jonathan Culler, On Deconstruction (1982); Richard Rorty, â€Å"Philosophy as a Kind of Writing,† in Consequences of Pragmatism (1982); Michael Ryan, Marxism and Deconstruction (1982); Mark C. Taylor, ed. Deconstruction in Context (1986); Christopher Norris, Paul de Man (1988). Among the many critiques of Derrida and of var ious practitioners of deconstructive literary criticism are Terry Eagleton, The Function of Criticism (1984); M. H. Abrams, â€Å"The Deconstructive Angel,† â€Å"How to Do Things with Texts,† and â€Å"Construing and Deconstructing,† in Doing Things with Texts (1989); John M. Ellis, Against Deconstruction (1989); Wendell V. Harris, ed. , Beyond Poststructuralism (1996). (2) Lacan’s Model of the Human psyche â€Å"THE PSYCHE CAN BE DIVIDED into three major structures that control our lives and our desires.Most of Lacan's many terms for the full complexity of the psyche's workings can be related to these three major concepts, which correlate roughly to the three main moments in the individual's development, as outlined in the Lacan module on psychosexual development: 1) The Real. This concept marks the state of nature from which we have been forever severed by our entrance into language. Only as neo-natal children were we close to this state of nature, a state in which there is nothing but need. A baby needs and seeks to satisfy those needs with no sense for any separation between itself and the external world or the world of others.For this reason, Lacan sometimes represents this state of nature as a time of fullness or completeness that is subsequently lost through the entrance into language. The primordial animal need for copulation (for example, when animals are in heat) similarly corresponds to this state of nature. There is a need followed by a search for satisfaction. As far as humans are concerned, however, â€Å"the real is impossible,† as Lacan was fond of saying. It is impossible in so far as we cannot express it in language because the very entrance into language marks our irrevocable separation from the real.Still, the real continues to exert its influence throughout our adult lives since it is the rock against which all our fantasies and linguistic structures ultimately fail. The real for example continues to er upt whenever we are made to acknowledge the materiality of our existence, an acknowledgement that is usually perceived as traumatic (since it threatens our very â€Å"reality†), although it also drives Lacan's sense of jouissance. 2) The Imaginary Order. This concept corresponds to the mirror stage (see the Lacan module on psychosexual development) and marks the movement of the subject from primal need to what Lacan terms â€Å"demand. As the connection to the mirror stage suggests, the â€Å"imaginary† is primarily narcissistic even though it sets the stage for the fantasies of desire. (For Lacan's understanding of desire, see the next module. ) Whereas needs can be fulfilled, demands are, by definition, unsatisfiable; in other words, we are already making the movement into the sort of lack that, for Lacan, defines the human subject. Once a child begins to recognize that its body is separate from the world and its mother, it begins to feel anxiety, which is caused by a sense of something lost.The demand of the child, then, is to make the other a part of itself, as it seemed to be in the child's now lost state of nature (the neo-natal months). The child's demand is, therefore, impossible to realize and functions, ultimately, as a reminder of loss and lack. (The difference between â€Å"demand† and â€Å"desire,† which is the function of the symbolic order, is simply the acknowledgement of language, law, and community in the latter; the demand of the imaginary does not proceed beyond a dyadic relation between the self and the object one wants to make a part of oneself. The mirror stage corresponds to this demand in so far as the child misrecognizes in its mirror image a stable, coherent, whole self, which, however, does not correspond to the real child (and is, therefore, impossible to realize). The image is a fantasy, one that the child sets up in order to compensate for its sense of lack or loss, what Lacan terms an â€Å"Ideal-I † or â€Å"ideal ego. † That fantasy image of oneself can be filled in by others who we may want to emulate in our adult lives role models, et cetera), anyone that we set up as a mirror for ourselves in what is, ultimately, a narcissistic relationship. What must be remembered is that for Lacan this imaginary realm continues to exert its influence throughout the life of the adult and is not merely superceded in the child's movement into the symbolic (despite my suggestion of a straightforward chronology in the last module).Indeed, the imaginary and the symbolic are, according to Lacan, inextricably intertwined and work in tension with the Real. 3) The Symbolic Order (or the â€Å"big Other†). Whereas the imaginary is all about equations and identifications, the symbolic is about language and narrative. Once a child enters into language and accepts the rules and dictates of society, it is able to deal with others. The acceptance of language's rules is aligned with the Oedipus complex, according to Lacan.The symbolic is made possible because of your acceptance of the Name-of-the-Father, those laws and restrictions that control both your desire and the rules of communication: â€Å"It is in the name of the father that we must recognize the support of the symbolic function which, from the dawn of history, has identified his person with the figure of the law† (Ecrits 67). Through recognition of the Name-of-the-Father, you are able to enter into a community of others. The symbolic, through language, is â€Å"the pact which links†¦ subjects together in one action.The human action par excellence is originally founded on the existence of the world of the symbol, namely on laws and contracts† (Freud's Papers 230). Whereas the Real concerns need and the Imaginary concerns demand, the symbolic is all about desire, according to Lacan. (For more on desire, see the next module. ) Once we enter into language, our desire is forever afterwa rds bound up with the play of language. We should keep in mind, however, that the Real and the Imaginary continue to play a part in the evolution of human desire within the symbolic order.The fact that our fantasies always fail before the Real, for example, ensures that we continue to desire; desire in the symbolic order could, in fact, be said to be our way to avoid coming into full contact with the Real, so that desire is ultimately most interested not in obtaining the object of desire but, rather, in reproducing itself. The narcissism of the Imaginary is also crucial for the establishment of desire, according to Lacan: â€Å"The primary imaginary relation provides the fundamental framework for all possible erotism. It is a condition to which the object of Eros as such must be submitted.The object relation must always submit to the narcissistic framework and be inscribed in it† (Freud's Papers 174). For Lacan, love begins here; however, to make that love â€Å"functionally realisable† (to make it move beyond scopophilic narcissism), the subject must reinscribe that narcissistic imaginary relation into the laws and contracts of the symbolic order: â€Å"A creature needs some reference to the beyond of language, to a pact, to a commitment which constitutes him, strictly speaking, as an other, a reference included in the general or, to be more exact, universal system of interhuman symbols.No love can be functionally realisable in the human community, save by means of a specific pact, which, whatever the form it takes, always tends to become isolated off into a specific function, at one and the same time within language and outside of it† (Freud's Papers 174). The Real, the Imaginary, and the Symbolic thus work together to create the tensions of our psychodynamic selves. (3) â€Å"Jacques Lacan has proven to be an important influence on contemporary critical theory, influencing such disparate approaches as feminism (through, for example, Ju dith Butler and Shoshana Felman), film theory (Laura Mulvey, Kaja Silverman, and the various film scholars associated with â€Å"screen theory†), poststructuralism (Cynthia Chase, Juliet Flower MacCannell, etc. ), and Marxism (Louis Althusser, Ernesto Laclau, Chantal Mouffe, Fredric Jameson, Slavoj Zizek, etc. ).Lacan is also exemplary of what we can understand as the postmodern break with Sigmund Freud. Whereas Freud could still be said to work within an empirical, humanist tradition that still believes in a stable self's ability to access the â€Å"truth,† Lacan is properly post-structuralist, which is to say that Lacan questions any simple notion of either â€Å"self† or â€Å"truth,† exploring instead how knowledge is constructed by way of linguistic and ideological structures that organize not only our conscious but also our unconscious lives.Whereas Freud continued to be tempted by organic models and with a desire to find the neurological and, thus, â€Å"natural† causes for sexual development, Lacan offered a more properly linguistic model for understanding the human subject's entrance into the social order. The emphasis was thus less on the bodily causes of behavior (cathexis, libido, instinct, etc. ) than it was on the ideological structures that, especially through language, make the human subject come to understand his or her relationship to himself and to others.Indeed, according to Lacan, the entrance into language necessarily entails a radical break from any sense of materiality in and of itself. According to Lacan, one must always distinguish between reality (the fantasy world we convince ourselves is the world around us) and the real (a materiality of existence beyond language and thus beyond expressibility). The development of the subject, in other words, is made possible by an endless misrecognition of the real because of our need to construct our sense of â€Å"reality† in and through language.So muc h are we reliant on our linguistic and social version of â€Å"reality† that the eruption of pure materiality (of the real) into our lives is radically disruptive. And yet, the real is the rock against which all of our artificial linguistic and social structures necessarily fail. It is this tension between the real and our social laws, meanings, conventions, desires, etc. that determines our psychosexual lives. Not even our unconscious escapes the effects of language, which is why Lacan argues th t â€Å"the unconscious is structured like a language† (Four Fundamental 203). Lacan's version of psychosexual development is, therefore, organized around the subject's ability to recognize, first, iconic signs and, then, eventually, language. This entrance into language follows a particular developmental model, according to Lacan, one that is quite distinct from Freud's version of the same (even though Lacan continued to argue—some would say â€Å"perversely†Ã¢â ‚¬â€that he was, in fact, a strict Freudian).Here, then, is your story, as told by Lacan, with the ages provided as very rough approximations since Lacan, like Freud, acknowledged that development varied between individuals and that stages could even exist simultaneously within a given individual: 0-6 months of age. In the earliest stage of development, you were dominated by a chaotic mix of perceptions, feelings, and needs. You did not distinguish your own self from that of your parents or even the world around you.Rather, you spent your time taking into yourself everything that you experienced as pleasurable without any acknowledgment of boundaries. This is the stage, then, when you were closest to the pure materiality of existence, or what Lacan terms â€Å"the Real. † Still, even at this early stage, your body began to be fragmented into specific erogenous zones (mouth, anus, penis, vagina), aided y the fact that your mother tended to pay special attention to these body parts. This â€Å"territorialization† of the body could already be seen as a falling off, an imposition of boundaries and, thus, the neo-natal beginning of socialization (a first step away from the Real). Indeed, this fragmentation was accompanied by an identification with those things perceived as fulfilling your lack at this early stage: the mother's breast, her voice, her gaze.Since these privileged external objects could not be perfectly assimilated and could not, therefore, ultimately fulfill your lack, you already began to establish the psychic dynamic (fantasy vs. lack) that would control the rest of your life. 6-18 months of age. This stage, which Lacan terms the â€Å"mirror stage,† was a central moment in your development. The â€Å"mirror stage† entails a â€Å"libidinal dynamism† (Ecrits 2) caused by the young child's identification with his own image (what Lacan terms the â€Å"Ideal-I† or â€Å"ideal ego†).For Lacan, this act m arks the primordial recognition of one's self as â€Å"I,† although at a point â€Å"before it is objectified in the dialectic of identification with the other, and before language restores to it, in the universal, its function as subject† (Ecrits 2). In other words, this recognition of the self's image precedes the entrance into language, after which the subject can understand the place of that image of the self within a larger social order, in which the subject must negotiate his or her relationship with others.Still, the mirror stage is necessary for the next stage, since to recognize yourself as â€Å"I† is like recognizing yourself as other (â€Å"yes, that person over there is me†); this act is thus fundamentally self-alienating. Indeed, for this reason your feelings towards the image were mixed, caught between hatred (â€Å"I hate that version of myself because it is so much better than me†) and love (â€Å"I want to be like that image†).Note This â€Å"Ideal-I† is important precisely because it represents to the subject a simplified, bounded form of the self, as opposed to the turbulent chaotic perceptions, feelings, and needs felt by the infant. This â€Å"primordial Discord† (Ecrits 4) is particularly formative for the subject, that is, the discord between, on the one hand, the idealizing image in the mirror and, on the other hand, the reality of one's body between 6-18 months (â€Å"the signs of uneasiness and motor unco-ordination of the eo-natal months† [Ecrits 4]): â€Å"The mirror stage is a drama whose internal thrust is precipitated from insufficiency to anticipation—and which manufactures for the subject, caught up in the lure of spatial identification, the succession of phantasies that extends from a fragmented body-image to a form of its totality that I shall call orthopaedic—and, lastly, to the assumption of the armour of an alienating identity, which will mark w ith its rigid structure the subject's entire mental development† (Ecrits 4).This misrecognition or meconnaissance (seeing an ideal-I where there is a fragmented, chaotic body) subsequently â€Å"characterizes the ego in all its structures† (Ecrits 6). In particular, this creation of an ideal version of the self gives pre-verbal impetus to the creation of narcissistic phantasies in the fully developed subject. It establishes what Lacan terms the â€Å"imaginary order† and, through the imaginary, continues to assert its influence on the subject even after the subject enters the next stage of development. 8 months to 4 years of age. The acquisition of language during this next stage of development further separated you from a connection to the Real (from the actual materiality of things). Lacan builds on such semiotic critics as Ferdinand de Saussure to show how language is a system that makes sense only within its own internal logic of differences: the word,  "father,† only makes sense in terms of those other terms it is defined with or against (mother, â€Å"me,† law, the social, etc. . As Kaja Silverman puts it, â€Å"the signifier ‘father' has no relation whatever to the physical fact of any individual father. Instead, that signifier finds its support in a network of other signifiers, including ‘phallus,' ‘law,' ‘adequacy,' and ‘mother,' all of which are equally indifferent to the category of the real† (164).Once you entered into the differential system of language, it forever afterwards determined your perception of the world around you, so that the intrusion of the Real's materiality becomes a traumatic event, albeit one that is quite common since our version of â€Å"reality† is built over the chaos of the Real (both the materiality outside you and the chaotic impulses inside you). By acquiring language, you entered into what Lacan terms the â€Å"symbolic order†; you were reduced into an empty signifier (â€Å"I†) within the field of the Other, which is to say, within a field of language and culture (which is always determined by those thers that came before you). That linguistic position, according to Lacan, is particularly marked by gender differences, so that all your actions were subsequently determined by your sexual position (which, for Lacan, does not have much to do with your â€Å"real† sexual urges or even your sexual markers but by a linguistic system in which â€Å"male† and â€Å"female† can only be understood in relation to each other in a system of language).The Oedipus complex is just as important for Lacan as it is for Freud, if not more so. The difference is that Lacan maps that complex onto the acquisition of language, which he sees as analogous. The process of moving through the Oedipus complex (of being made to recognize that we cannot sleep with or even fully â€Å"have† our mother) is our way of recognizing the need to obey social strictures and to follow a closed differential system of language in which we understand â€Å"self† in relation to â€Å"others. In this linguistic rather than biological system, the â€Å"phallus† (which must always be understood not to mean â€Å"penis†) comes to stand in the place of everything the subject loses through his entrance into language (a sense of perfect and ultimate meaning or plenitude, which is, of course, impossible) and all the power associated with what Lacan terms the â€Å"symbolic father† and the â€Å"Name-of-the-Father† (laws, control, knowledge).Like the phallus' relation to the penis, the â€Å"Name-of-the-Father† is much more than any actual father; in fact, it is ultimately more analogous to those social structures that control our lives and that interdict many of our actions (law, religion, medicine, education). Note After one passes through the Oedipus complex, the position of the phallus (a position within that differential system) can be assumed by most anyone (teachers, leaders, even the mother) and, so, to repeat, is not synonymous with either the biological father or the biological penis.Nonetheless, the anatomical differences between boys and girls do lead to a different trajectory for men and women in Lacan's system. Men achieve access to the privileges of the phallus, according to Lacan, by denying their last link to the Real of their own sexuality (their actual penis); for this reason, the castration complex continues to function as a central aspect of the boy's psychosexual development for Lacan. In accepting the dictates of the Name-of-the-Father, who is associated with the symbolic phallus, the male subject denies his exual needs and, forever after, understands his relation to others in terms of his position within a larger system of rules, gender differences, and desire. (On Lacan's understanding of desire, see the third module. ) Since women do not experience the castration complex in the same way (they do not have an actual penis that must be denied in their access to the symbolic order), Lacan argues that women are not socialized in the same way, that they remain more closely tied to what Lacan terms â€Å"jouissance,† the lost plenitude of one's material bodily drives given up by the male subject in order to access the symbolic power of the phallus.Women are thus at once more lacking (never accessing the phallus as fully) and more full (having not experienced the loss of the penis as fully). Note Regardless, what defines the position of both the man and the women in this schema is above all lack, even if that lack is articulated differently for men and women. †(4) In this essay the Writter trys to find binary opposition in the play and explain who they work in an opposite position. How Krapp’s last tape is elaborating Deconstruction would be explain at the same time.Lacanian stages i n the play is also found and is explained. Notes 1. Abrams, M. H. A Glossary Of Litterary Terms, Thomson Learning:United tastes of America, 1999, 7th Edition, p. 55-61. 2. Friedman, Marissa L. â€Å"KRAPP'S LAST TAPE: Samuel Beckett Biography. † KRAPP'S LAST TAPE: Samuel Beckett Biography. N. p. , n. d. Web. 8 June 2012.. 3. Felluga, Dino. â€Å"Modules on Lacan: On the Structure of the Psyche. † Introductory Guide to Critical Theory. Purdue U. 8 June 2012. . 4. Felluga, Dino. â€Å"Modules on Lacan: On Psychosexual Development. Introductory Guide to Critical Theory. Purdue U. 8 June 2012. < http://www. cla. purdue. edu/english/theory/psychoa nalysis/lacandevelop. html>. 5. Beckett, Samuel. â€Å"Krapp’s Last tape†, 7 November 2011, Marl Sullivan,https://www. msu. edu/~sullivan/BeckettKrapp. html 6. Beckett, Samuel. â€Å"Krapp’s Last tape†, 7 November 2011, Marl Sullivan,https://www. msu. edu/~sullivan/BeckettKrapp. html 7. Beckett, Samuel . â€Å"Krapp’s Last tape†, 7 November 2011, Marl Sullivan,https://www. msu. edu/~sullivan/BeckettKrapp. html 8.Beckett, Samuel. â€Å"Krapp’s Last tape†, 7 November 2011, Marl Sullivan,https://www. msu. edu/~sullivan/BeckettKrapp. html 9. Beckett, Samuel. â€Å"Krapp’s Last tape†, 7 November 2011, Marl Sullivan,https://www. msu. edu/~sullivan/BeckettKrapp. html 10. Birkett, Jennifer & Kate Ince. Samuel Beckett :Criticism and interpretation, Longman: Londen, 1999, p. 122. 11. Beckett, Samuel. â€Å"Krapp’s Last tape†, 7 November 2011, Marl Sullivan, 12. Beckett, Samuel. â€Å"Krapp’s Last tape†, 7 November 2011, Marl Sullivan, 13. Beckett, Samuel. Krapp’s Last tape†, 7 November 2011, Marl Sullivan,https://www. msu. edu/~sullivan/BeckettKrapp. html 14. Wikipedia’s Editor. â€Å"The Myth of Sisyphus†. 22 May 2012. 12 June 2012, Work Cited Bibliography 1. Abrams, M. H. A Glossary Of Littera ry Terms, United tastes of America: Thomson Learning, 1999, 7th Edition, p. 55-61. 2. Conner, Steven. â€Å"Voice and Mechanical Reproduction: Krapp’s Last Tape, Ohio Impromptu, Rockaby, That Time†. Samuel Beckett :Criticism and interpretation. Ed. Birkett, Jennifer & Kate Ince, Longman: Londen. 1999. 119- 133 3.Howard, Anne†. †Part IV: Contemporary Culture Stain upon the Silence Samuel Beckett's Deconstructive Inventions†. â€Å"Drama as Rhetoric/Rhetoric as Drama: An Exploration of Dramatic and Rhetorical Criticism†Ã¢â‚¬ . Ed. Hart, Steven. , and Stanley Vincent Longman. University of Alabama Press, 1997. THEATRE SYMPOSIUM A PUBLICATION OF THE SOUTHEASTERN THEATRE CONFERENCE Drama as Rhetoric/Rhetoric as Drama An Exploration of Dramatic and Rhetorical Criticism 4. Weller, Shane. Beckett, Literature, and the Ethics of Alterity. Houndmills,: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006. 70-180 Website 1. Beckett, Samuel. â€Å"Krapp’s Last tape†, 7 November 2011, Marl Sullivan, 2. Friedman, Marissa L. â€Å"KRAPP'S LAST TAPE: Samuel Beckett Biography. † KRAPP'S LAST TAPE: Samuel Beckett Biography. N. p. , n. d. Web. 8 June 2012. 3. Felluga, Dino. â€Å"Modules on Lacan: On the Structure of the Psyche. † Introductory Guide to Critical Theory. Purdue U. 8 June 2012. . 4. Felluga, Dino. â€Å"Modules on Lacan: On Psychosexual Development. † Introductory Guide to Critical Theory. Purdue U. 8 June 2012. ; http://www. cla. purdue. edu/english/theory/psychoa