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