Odysseus, An Unconventional Hero Depicted in The Odyssey...

An Unconventional Hero According to Greek mythology, a hero is one who values glory above life itself and honorably dies in the battle during his prime period of his life. After the gods and demi-god of Greece, heroes probably are the most admirable figures in society. However, Odysseus seems to defy the conventional definition of a hero. He is overwhelmed with tremendous obstacles and difficulty, often beyond that a normal man could endure but he determines to stay alive rather than die young. Achilles states in Book 11 â€Å"I’d rather be a hired hand back on earth†¦, | Than lord it over all these withered dead†(Odyssey 11.510-512). Achilles’ statement appears to solidify Odysseus’s determination to live and†¦show more content†¦283-284). The strength and brutality of Polyphemus is certainly unquestionable. However, Odysseus plans to draw his â€Å"sharp sword and [drive] it home,| Into his chest†¦Ã¢â‚¬  (Odyssey 9.293). For they would all have perished if Odysseus had drawn his sword since none but Polyphemus could shift the boulder which closes the entrance of the cave. Odysseus clearly understands that he cannot overwhelm Polyphemus and thus devises around his drawback by taking advantage of the Cyclops’ foolishness. Odysseus appears to realize the importance of trickery and its inseparable connection with survival, which is contrasted with the sheer brute strength that the Cyclops employs. Despite Odysseus uses strength to drill a stake into the single eye of Polyphemus, this illustration of force may seem to be his part of plan to deceive the savage. In addition, Books 9 to 12 appear to have no divine figures intervening Odysseus’s recreation of stories except in Book 10 where Hermes digs up â€Å"moly† (Odyssey 10.325) to prevent Circe from casting her spells on Odysseus. Divine intervention seems to be an iconic feature of ancient Greek literature. Gods appear to play an immense and important role in the lives and fates of the mortal dwellers of the earth. 3 An attribute of being a

A Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man free essay sample

What can be said of the menacing literary masterpiece that is A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man is that the gender issues Joyce so surreptitiously weaves into Stephan Dedalus’s character create sizable obstacles for the reader to overcome. Joyce expertly composes a feminine backdrop in which he can mold Stephan to inexplicably become innately homosexual. As Laurie Teal points out â€Å"†¦ Joyce plays with gender inversion as a uniquely powerful tool of characterization. (63) Stephan’s constant conflict with himself and what he wants generate a need for validation that he tries to simulate through day dreams and fantasies but is ultimately unable to resolve. Through exploring the tones of characterization and the character development of Stephan himself, I will argue that Stephan Dedalus rejects his heterosexuality in favor of homosexuality so that he may eventually find himself. Dedalus’s character must inherently be homosexual in able for his story t o progress believably. Joyce conceives his character, a hero in fact, in a moment of genius. A hero must have a fatal flaw. I wish to clarify Joyce’s work and explain how homosexuality IS present in Portrait and does work in creating a hero. Stephan rejects possible companion after companion yet ceaselessly alludes to his constant social isolation. On Stephan’s definition of normal, Garry Leonard has this to say, â€Å"Although Stephan strives for such a system, he also seeks relief from it, declaring all responses illegitimate except for a state he calls ‘esthetic stasis. ’†(Leonard, 81) Joyce’s decision to create â€Å"such a system† within Stephan demonstrates Joyce’s choice to make Stephan unable to delineate from what is normal and was is not. Stephan is confused with himself and with his surroundings. Here, we are able to see that if there was even a chance for Stephan to understand himself at some point, it is now gone. In his creation of a system, Stephan actually makes it harder for himself. He cannot now arbitrarily choose whether something is normal or not, he must run it through his skewed system. Stephan’s sexual relations with the women in the novel are examples of him following this system, in regards to women in a sexual manner and using them as the base sustenance his body needs. He decides that it is normal to experience sex, to view it as a bodily need rather than an intimate connection. However Stephan’s psychological relations with the women he encounters are three hundred and sixty degree turns from the sexual. He regards each female as an example in which to measure himself against. â€Å"He is moved partially by what he perceives as the messy, degrading aspects of womanhood to write his Villanelle: a tender compassion filled his heart as he remembered her frail pallor and her eyes, humbled and saddened by the dark shame of womanhood (P 222). The muck of menstruation humbles her in Stephens imagination. † (Scott, 173) Bonnie Kime Scott illustrates here that Stephan takes this womanly bodily function, that men do not, and usually wish not to understand and uses it to define an opinion. Stephan even creates with this idea. He takes menstruation and uses it as an inspiration and a subject for his writing; writing that is possibly may be the most viable example of Stephan’s true self we are offered. Stephan is not heterosexual here. He definitively offers the reader a genuine glimpse of his character, a glimpse that can only be construed as homosexual. I believe that Stephan’s homosexuality is extremely deeply rooted in his development at Clongowes. Stephan’s experiences with Father Dolan created contempt of masculinity. Here, Stephan connects masculinity with Dolan’s indifference to his explanation of his broken glasses and the subsequent beating Father Dolan gives him: â€Å"And his white-grey face and the no-coloured eyes behind the steel-rimmed spectacles were cruel looking because he had steadied the hand first with his firm soft fingers and that was to hit it better and louder. (Joyce, 44) Stephan says that the prefect of studies appears cruel because â€Å"he had steadied the hand first with his â€Å"firm soft fingers. † A firm, soft finger may be an allusion to a penis. This phallic image becomes distorted by the pain experienced by Stephan and in so wrongly, subconsciously interpreted as sexual cruelty. Stephan’s continued isolation and inability to recognize normal is initiated at thi s time. Stephan regards the beating not as a normal party of Irish schooling, but as a personal attack on his being. The adjectives of firm and soft are employed by Joyce to â€Å"mood† the setting and produce sexual connotation instead of disciplinary connotation. This confused sexuality is the whole purpose of the passage. We need it only to see that in Stephan’s development, he has created an inversion in his thought process. Suddenly, masculinity is violence, arrogance even. Stephan admittedly wants to feel acceptance, a harmony with his environment. Harmony is the opposite of violence. Here, Stephan finds a feminine niche in which to live: harmony without masculine violence. Soon there after, Stephan’s triumph after speaking with the rector creates a joy that he has not experienced before. The act of telling the rector that he was mistreated by the prefect of studies initiates a weakness within Stephan that he can no longer deny. This confusing turn of events leaves Stephan’s subconscious in shambles and exposes him in the most crucial stages of development. By rejecting the masculine urge to suck it up, he forfeits his right to the male gender. The pairing of the two incidences forms a â€Å"queer† confusion in which Stephan disillusions himself from the male gender and becomes part of the female gender. From here on out, Stephan searches for masculine force to latch onto, creating the first homosexual tendencies seen in Portrait. His feminine niche is only invaded if he wishes it so. Stephan’s new homosexual identity prevents this niche even to be viewed by the other characters and most readers because there is an innate fear with his difference since all Stephan wants from life is to be accepted, loved. This is why homosexuality is never publicly claimed by Stephan. In fact, there is no mention of his preference in a companion anywhere. Stephan idealizes women but never actually gives the reader a description of what or who would satisfy him completely. Though Stephan may now officially be deemed homosexual, any acknowledgement of this by Stephan himself is never seen as I expressed earlier. The experiences Dedalus has during his stay at Clongowes make sure of that. Joyce employs a setting of all boys in which Stephan develops an unconscious hatred of himself. We see that through out his school years, a number of boys are ridiculed after being accused of homosexual behavior. This number of boys could easier be omitted by Joyce if there was no meaning behind them. Joyce’s mention of smugging and Lady Boyle and how these situations and people are treated influence Stephan’s mind and body. Stephan, after hearing of these things, becomes almost homophobic, joining in on the taunts of Lady Boyle and ponderously thinking on the boys caught smugging. He rejects himself before he knows who he is. Stephan also develops into himself in the same moment he rejects his being. Clongowes is the place where Stephan emphatically decided to be feminine as illustrated by his meeting with the rector. Joyce deliberately incorporates all so that the reader may comprehend Stephan and his relations with his surroundings. The femininity of Ireland as noted by Joyce’s repeated naming of the country as a her and the stark masculine harshness of Clongowes force Stephan into a corner where he must uncover his true individualism within himself. This individualism shaped primarily by these two modes happens to be homosexuality hidden beneath a strong sense of sensuality and just insecurity. Stephan is also not guided by men as he matures but by the women he desires as he lets his body place claim on his mind and create fowl fantasies that are never kept in check. For example, when Stephan feels â€Å"the slight change in his house; and those changes in what he had deemed unchangeable were so many shocks to his boyish conception of the world,† he does not turn to his father to seek guidance but retreats into himself to Mercedes. In his reverie, Stephan recognizes that there will come an instant where he will become â€Å"transfigured. Joyce purposefully does not give Stephan the opportunity to mature in this instant, but chooses to give him the opportunity to rid himself of â€Å"weakness and timidity. † The passage as a whole displays the image of a gender inversion: â€Å"He returned to Mercedes and, as he brooded upon her image, a strange unrest crept into his blood. Sometimes a fever gathered within him and led him to rove alone in the evening along t he quiet avenue. †¦.. They would be alone, surrounded by darkness and silence: and in that moment of supreme tenderness he would be transfigured. He would fade into something impalpable under her eyes and then in a moment he would be transfigured. Weakness and timidity and inexperience would fall from him in that magic moment. † (Joyce, 56) Here, Stephan recognizes that a woman will change his life but not because she completes him or fulfills his life but because he will become what would normally be gender-identified as male. He wishes to shed any femininity â€Å"in that supreme moment of tenderness† and evolve. This gender inversion is from female to male, not what is to be expected from a biological male. At this point, Stephan is plainly admitting that weakness, tenderness and timidity rule him, and that he is feminine, but also admits that he desires to fulfill his biological role. Joyce presents the reader with Mercedes and asks them to see that Stephan needs some mode of escape from what he cannot emotionally deal with (his father’s failure), and simultaneously allows Stephan to reach an epiphany in which he realizes that at some point he will have to face reality. Joyce gives the reader two choices in this passage: the reader is either forced to choose to believe Stephan and his desires or reject them and this daydream. I believe that Joyce allows Stephan to access this subconscious desire in a daydream so that he may have another chance to present the reader with Stephan’s hidden identity, hidden desire to become heroic. This instance is similar to the villanelle written by Stephan that which I previously mentioned. Joyce is clearly toying with the reader’s image of Stephan and characterizing him as weak. The reader now has access to the true Stephan through an unguarded moment presented as a whimsical, almost sexual fantasy. The reader now understands the internal conflict within Dedalus. I propose that this is the epiphanic moment where Stephan actually regards himself as homosexual. Here, Stephan understands himself clearly and his able to delineate from what he is and what he longs to be, normal from abnormal It becomes visibly clear that Stephan rejects his biological sex from childhood and only now tries to reclaim it. Joyce is clarifying Stephan’s flaw. Stephan acknowledges his weakness, and deals with it simply. He is wary, yet not enough to act upon it. Joyce is showing the reader that they must sympathize with his character and must understand him completely if any meaning is to be attained from the novel. Though Stephan may recognize his desire to undergo a mental sex change of sorts, I feel that he never truly reverts back to male, never reaches his moment of supreme clarity. He is unable to reclaim his sexuality because Stephan never wholeheartedly works at it. While fantasizing about the Virgin Mary, Stephan refers to himself as a sinner and offers us a hint of his inability to commit to working towards his dream: â€Å"Her eyes seemed to regard him with mild pity; her holiness, a strange light glowing faintly upon her frail flesh, did not humiliate the sinner who approached her. If ever he was impelled to cast sin from him and to repent the impulse that moved him was the wish to be her knight. If ever his soul, re-entering her dwelling shyly after the frenzy of his bodys lust had spent itself, was turned towards her whose emblem is the morning star, BRIGHT AND MUSICAL, TELLING OF HEAVEN AND INFUSING PEACE, it was when her names were murmured softly by lips whereon there still lingered foul and shameful words, the savour itself of a lewd kiss. † (Joyce, 92-3) This passage can be viewed as a very strong example of homosexuality. Stephan seems to have sex with his imagined Mary as he validates himself. The Virgin does not reject Stephan in his daydream and he is internally consoled. Because she does not reproach him, he feels accepted on some level and his brief moment of longing to become male is forgotten in the beauty of his vision. Stephan justifies his actions by creating unreal situations in which he is happy, in which he can live without his fear of being different. He is not sexually stimulated by Mary herself but of the validation of his mind, body and soul. Stephan is sexually aroused by himself in the form of the Virgin Mary. Joshua Jacobs analyzes the same passage and notes that â€Å"†¦Joyce frames this ostensible purification as a regression to Stephan’s soul and desire, Stephan imagines a vaguely sexual union in which he is utterly impalpable, surrounded by darkness and silence. † At any time during his musing could Stephan stop and remember his previous desire but he does not. Instead, Stephan creates an unreal instance in which he may feel comfortable at in his own shoes. Because of the social conditioning Stephan receives at Clongowes, he is unable to cope with his own sexuality. Stephan’s experimental relations with Emma additionally add homosexual tones to his character. Stephan uses Emma to test himself and clarify his understanding of his true soul. Every instance in which Emma appears, Stephan remains confused and unsure because he is too often ruled by his body. Sexual attraction may be the initial reason for Stephan’s interest by I suggest that the real reason Emma is so unattainable to him is because he subconsciously views her as a maternal figure in which he yearns to attract. Once again, Stephan’s desire to become more masculine emerges and presents itself here. He is attracted to her because of her outer-lying appearance but senses that he wants to be her. After putting himself in the female position and searching for a masculine counterpart, Stephan is hit with a gender-disorienting bomb named Emma. His masculine side wants to claim her but his feminine side wishes to be her. In an article by Brian Hogue he mentions Eugene A. Waith’s ideas: â€Å"He thinks of EC, like Davins temptress, as a bat like soul waking to the consciousness of itself and surmises that her soul had begun to live as his soul had when he had first sinned. The composition of the final stanza is described as an imaginary act of sexual intercourse, in which EC is metamorphosed into the words of the poem while both are symbolized by flowing water. No passage in the book links temptation more unequivocally with artistic creativity, and none make clearer that the emphasis is not finally upon sin. † (122-123) EC was and remains throughout the entire novel unabl e to fulfill Stephan. Stephan quietly submits to him loneliness and inability to find true companionship: â€Å"He had known neither the pleasure of companionship with others nor the vigour of rude male health nor filial piety. Nothing stirred within his soul but a cold and cruel and loveless lust. His childhood was dead or lost and with it his soul capable of simple joys and he was drifting amid life like the barren shell of the moon. †(127) Even with a prostitute, Stephan is unable to connect: â€Å"His lips would not bend to kiss her. He wanted to be held firmly in her arms, to be caressed slowly, slowly, slowly. In her arms he felt that he had suddenly become strong and fearless and sure of himself. But his lips would not bend to kiss her. (Joyce, 135)Stephan views the prostitute here as a surrogate mother. He wishes to feel strong in her arms instead of seek please from her lips. Again, Stephan blends his sexual needs with his instinctual need to become legitimate. Stephan’s refusal to deny these thoughts and to sit beside a prostitute and still look at her as a maternal figure illustrates his homosexuality. He does not want her to touch him sensually but to show him the primal pleasure o f sex. Stephan views the prostitute as a tool to release his sexual needs, not desires. Though the text in not explicit on the sexual orientation of its main character, I believe that Joyce’s intention was for Stephan to deny any implied fact given about his desires so that the story could have an alternate meaning underneath the actual text. Joyce creates a homosexual undertone to Stephan to comment on the social conditions of Ireland. It is extremely apparent that the novel has a strong undercurrent of social commentary. The deliberate femininity of Ireland in Joyce’s work parallels the deliberate femininity presented within Stephan himself. I previously have defined the connects Stephan has created with the females in the novel. I now wish to explore how Joyce had intended the novel to read. My understanding of the novel is that Stephan is a lost, unrecognized genius. His homosexuality only helps to exemplify this. Joyce understood that to create respect for such a weak, seemingly uninteresting character he would have to create a flaw, relevant to the setting and plot of the novel, that would take weakness and turn it into an understandable fear. What I aim to validate is the genius present within Joyce’s work. Homosexuality here is not a plot point, it is a fatal flaw that only a true hero could carry as his burden. Perhaps this explains Joyce’s addition of Parnell into the story line. It is safe to say Stephan was greatly influenced by his father, as every son is. Mr. Dedalus’s love of Parnell, love of this hero of Ireland is Stephan’s first encounter with the heroic. â€Å"He was for Ireland and Parnell and so was his father. † (Joyce, 32) As Stephan understands the magnitude of the love that a hero such as Parnell receives, he subconsciously registers that love with heroism. Joyce clearly understood this and had to find a way to demonstrate it discreetly. Parnell’s fatal flaw was his affair. Stephan’s fatal flaw is his homosexuality. This similarity is easily conceived when one understands Joyce’s motive. Stephan must be heroic for any reader to sympathize, even to care at all. Every instance in the novel where Stephan feels the need to connect with another human, he views as a transaction. Stephan takes his life and at each crossroads he asks himself whether what he is about to do is normal. His misgiving is his inability to realize that he is heroic and does not need validation from anyone. I think that Joyce’s goal in Portrait was not to tell a story, but to uniquely craft a situation in which the character of his story does not understand himself and searches for life’s meaning when in fact, the character is heroic, is able to feel acceptance without actually doing anything. Homosexuality here is marvelously employed as a literary device. I have explained how Joyce has created this homosexual being and how he left it veiled from the reader and the actual character himself but to understand the novel, we must understand why. Homosexuality as a literary device is used here to demonstrate Joyce’s true genius with words. Joyce skillfully shapes a situation in which his character cannot emerge as a hero so that he may pull them from their mundane pages and create brilliance without the character ever knowing. It is up to the reader to pull this meaning from the pages if they are able. I have explored homosexuality so that I may illuminate this reading of A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man so that the true aptitude for literature that James Joyce instinctively has.

Children literature timeline paper

Table of Contents Introduction Age The evolution of Children literature The roles of children literature in society References Introduction Many cultures have over time experienced real and dramatic changes in almost every sphere. As time elapses, people evolve. Consequently, there is a paradigm shift in the way people do things and handle various situations that come their way on daily basis. Child literature has been part of people’s lives. It has however undergone tremendous changes over time from one generation to the next.Advertising We will write a custom essay sample on Children literature timeline paper specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More These changes are represented as stages in the lifetime of these generations. The timelines also depict a sense of peoples’ perceptions and outlook on life, defining the norms and cultures that governed institutions at given times (Mulherin, 1982). Many factors have been co nsidered to determine the depth of literature that the child is exposed to with much of this being centered on age and what the adults perceive the child to be. Age Child literature has been classified according to the stages of growth of the child. From infancy through to adolescence (this almost happens at the stages of twelve and thirteen), the child is given different classes of literature that is expected to bring up certain traits in them. The bridge between infant literature and adult literature is the young adult’s literature. This differs from the previous in both maturity level and the content that is represented. The literary skills that are employed are also different. Much of what appears in adult literature also features in literature designed for the children. McGuffey, for instance, alludes that fiction in its many forms such as â€Å"contemporary realism, fantasy and historical fiction, poetry, folk tales, legends, myths, and epics all occur in children lite rature† (McGuffey, 2001). Non-fictional literature spans from subjects that range from literature to humanities. These subjects vary from social issues, biological studies to general sciences and ultimately deals in the earth as the prime topic. Books that are designed to be children’s literature use many methods to pass across the message they are meant to convey, as such pictures that display both visual and audio texts are used to complete the cycle. The evolution of Children literature Children literature as it is known today, has borrowed a lot from the then adult literature. The fairy tales and other fictitious characters were all a part of adult history. Books that were to be used as educative materials went further than providing entertainment to the children, and as such were used to teach, impart moral lessons and improve on a child’s ability to socialize with others effectively. Other books were cautionary to the youth as they warned them on the conseq uences of operating within the set standards and rules that determined the norms of their people (Kubler-Ross, 1999).Children literature came into being at around the seventeenth century.Advertising Looking for essay on literature languages? Let's see if we can help you! Get your first paper with 15% OFF Learn More Before then, children were overlooked and accorded little respect; they were considered a little less of humans and not much was done for them in relation to the literature they got. Cliftons (2006) noted that children in the olden days had it rough with their literature laced with an abnormally barbaric and forceful streak often used to scare the children to get them behave as the parents wished. They were majorly used to caution children and as such the subject in their pieces of literature was either killed or severely punished for a wrong deed. By the end of the seventeenth century, following the publication of John Newberry’s â€Å"A little pre tty pocket book† for children, it dawned on the people that children literature should be a tool for entertainment rather than for education or castigation. This marked the beginning of the official publishing of children literature and as such, set the trend for the other writers and the generations of writers that came afterwards. The roles of children literature in society Children literature, as earlier stated can be used as an avenue to impart several life lessons to the students and thus be an educative tool. It can also be used to pass history from one generation to the next thus expanding the knowledge base of a given child (Hunt, 1995). Child literature in its own capacity could be used to mould character as a cautionary tool to the children that have indiscipline cases in the society. References Cliftons, J. (2006). Old-Time Schools and School Books, New York: Dover Publishers. Hunt, P. (1995). Children’s Literature: An Illustrated History. New York: Oxford Un iversity Press. Kà ¼bler-Ross, E. (1999). On Death and Dying. New York: Macmillan. Print.Advertising We will write a custom essay sample on Children literature timeline paper specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More McGuffey, W. (2001). McGuffey’s Eclectic Readers, 7 book series, Primer–Sixth  Reader. New York: Van Nostrand. Print. Mulherin, J. (1982). Favorite Fairy Tales. London: Granada Publishing. This essay on Children literature timeline paper was written and submitted by user BlackTom to help you with your own studies. You are free to use it for research and reference purposes in order to write your own paper; however, you must cite it accordingly. You can donate your paper here.

Learn the Use of Have in English

Learn the Use of Have in English Students of English will eventually both have and have got to express possession. Both forms can express what we own, but also the relationships we have. For example, I have / have got a car and a father. Beginning level students should also know that have is preferred in US English, and have got is much more common in British English. Finally, the fact that US English often uses gotten as the participle for various verbs including phrasal verbs with get, but will also use have got when expressing possession can further confuse students. This guide provides examples of the various uses of both forms. The differences between have and have got can be confusing for beginners. Here is a guide the two forms. When you finish reviewing, try the quiz  to check your understanding. Remember these important points: Have and Have got are used for possession.Example: Jack has got a beautiful house. OR Jack has a beautiful house.Only have is used when talking about actions.Example: I usually have breakfast at 8 oclock. NOT I usually have got breakfast at 8 oclock.The question form for have follows regular present simple:Example: Do you have a fast car? NOT Have you a fast car?Have and Have got are only used in the present simple. Use have for the past simple or future forms.Example: She had a copy of that book.There is no contracted form for Have in the positive form. The contracted form is used for have gotExample: I have a red bicycle. OR Ive got a red bicycle. NOT Ive a red bicycle. Here is a grammar chart showing the construction of the two forms: Forms With Have Got Have got is used both British and American English but is more common in British English. Note that have got is used for possession in American English, but that gotten is used for as the past participle for other uses of get. Subject Positive Form Negative Form Question Form I, You, We, They Subject + have + got + objects - contracted form: ve got They have got a new car. Ive got a number of friends in Los Angeles. Subject + have + not + got + objects - contracted form: havent got We have not got a dog. They havent got time to meet today. (? word) + have + subject + got? How many children have you got? Have we got enough time today? He, She, It Subject + has + got + objects - contracted form: s got He has got a new car. Its got red stripes and yellow stars. Subject + has + not + got + objects - contracted form: hasnt got She has not got a dog. It hasnt got any spots on it (? word) + has + subject + got? How many children has he got? Has it got any gas in the tank? Forms With Have Have is more common in American English when speaking about possession. However, have got, as mentioned before, is also used in American English for possession.   Subject Positive Form Negative Form Question Form I, You, We, They Subject + have + objects - no contracted formThey have a new car. We have classes on Friday. Subject + do + not + have + objects - contracted form: dont have They do not have a dog.We dont have time for lunch now. (? word) + do + subject + have?How many children do you have? Do we have any pasta left? He, She, It Subject + have + objects - no contracted formShe has a new car.He has three children. Subject + does + not + have + objects - contracted form: doesnt haveShe does not have a dog. He doesnt have any friends in town. (? word) + does + subject + have?How many children does he have? Does she have a vacation this month? Note: Sometimes the irregular form Have you a car/house/etc. is used in antiquated (older) forms of British English

Marketing Myopia Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Marketing Myopia - Essay Example A growth industry builds its success by replacing a previous utility or product and it is at risk of such same risk of replacement by future innovations. Thinking outside the box is not some initiative to make a difference or of being creative. Rather, it is a crucial component of every organization’s attempt for competitive advantage and survival. Levitt argued that there is really no such thing as a growth industry because everything works within a cyclical process. Here, an industry or a business may assume its strength because of the unchallenged superiority of the product, which displaced another that it has substituted. His evidences are legitimate and numerous. He cited the experiences of many industries that were considered boom sectors but eventually declined after several years. The cycle features organizations and products constantly replacing another because of wrong management perspective. The examples provided were the dry cleaning industry, the railroad industry and the grocery stores. Levitt also predicted that the electric utilities and gadgetry is in danger of the same trouble because technologies will then be discovered to offer newer and more efficient products. The idea is that when managers fail to think outside the box – beyond the periphery of their visions, their products tend to be swallowed by the cycle. On the other hand, once management think about the future and the decline of their product so that they are able to provide solutions and new innovations that will replace their own, competitors will have less opportunities for competitive advantage. Much of Levitt’s arguments are anchored on one simple principle – that survival for industries rests on perspectives. There are industries that are focused on their products and, hence, myopic in their management models. For example, the railroad company was focused on their product, which is the railroad. Had they opted to adopt a perspective that went beyond it, they would have thought about their business as that of transportation and, hence, was able to prevent the decline of their profits. Personally, I have experienced this myopia on account of my work experiences with three industries. For example, I worked for an Auto dealership several years ago. Now the management of this organization has been focused much on automobiles. For several months of my stay, I saw how such singularity in objective has hurt the sales of the organization. Clients are not only interested in cars but they look for things and services that go with it. For example, when sales people have everything there is to know about cars, we cannot answer questions about technology like how their mobile phones can be integrated with car accessories, for example. This is because we did not have them – no products offered beyond cars and, hence, we cannot offer services, much less the know-how. So fewer clients came to visit because we cannot offer more. The clien ts did not come because they did not want to. There was no reason to. This was also the same with some companies in the moving and storage company, which I was connected with for a time. There was a lot of opportunities either as additional services within moving and storage and related and new products and services that could have been served and provided customers the value and convenience of having many services at one outlet or in a single transaction. I can see many other industries not cited in the article that display marketing myopia. For example, there is the

The Ethical Aspects Of The Engineering Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

The Ethical Aspects Of The Engineering - Essay Example This will mean that I need to keep abreast of the technicalities that keep on changing with the passage of time, and the trivial issues that even though are not very useful to know but finding information about them is not a bad thing after all. This is one of the significant elements of my understanding as far as the engineering discipline is concerned, and how I need to move ahead with the changing time dimensions (Kettunen, 2000). Similarly, I must also be well-equipped of the diverse fields of health and safety, because they play a dire role in educating the people regarding the engineering aspects. The environment-related premise is also fundamental towards knowing where and how changes need to be brought in and how these could be resolved to achieve an amicable result all the same. In the same vein, I must also be well-informed of the various legalities that bring a form of genuineness to the whole dynamics of engineering and how electrical engineering is covered from a number of different angles. I believe knowing all these aspects is of immense importance for me because these will help me to grow and develop my means beyond a certain level. What is even more significant is my understanding of the attached links that come in close association with the field of engineering and how engineers at large are provided benefits by the different rules and policies. Since the field of electrical engineering is closely related to risk, identifying the same will only help the engineer to grow beyond a certain level (Johnson, 2004). This will be the basis of his eventual development within the field of electrical engineering. I am sure that if I commit myself wholeheartedly towards this task, much success will come about in the coming times. If I am aware of the looming dangers that haunt my understanding of the engineering field, I will be at par with the very best in this business. This will make me feel at ease with the dangers that haunt the electrical engineers on a consistent basis. Also, it will allow me to inculcate similar measures to the people who are around me or who work along with me. This will make me feel content with what I am doing professionally and how I am growing up and advancing beyond certain means. The professional world of engineering is indeed a very exciting one as has been proven with due research and evidence of study basis. The ethical documentation of an engineer is all the more pertinent to understand since he has to go through the human interaction basis within his work tasks that make him stay one step ahead of his processes at all times. This is indicative of how well he comprehends the nuances of work and what kind of challenges he has to face on a proactively consistent basis. What is even more interesting to note is the fact that engineering in itself is such a platform from where many success areas can be tapped, and more so when the discussion centers on the premise of bringing about development within t he human interactions with gadgets, electrical appliances and so on. What this suggests is an understanding of many different things, and not just which focus on electrical engineering realms alone.

La Grande Odalisque Essay Example for Free

La Grande Odalisque Essay Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres was born on August 28th, 1780. He became one of Jacques-Louis David’s most famous and successful students. During Ingres time working with David, and eventually turning away from him, he became a part of the Neo-Classicism movement; leaving behind, but not forgetting the Romanticism methods. Neo-Classicism is the 18th century restoration of tradition principles which lead Ingres to be one of the most famous draftsmen. Ingres was an extremely precise and talented man of his time and was most famous for his portraits; especially his portraits of female nudes. In the year 1814, Ingres created one of his most famed masterpieces, La Grande Odalisque. It was created in Paris and still remains there in the museum by the name of The Musà ©e du Loure. The painting is well-known for its subject of fantasy and eroticism; she was a passive, mysterious and an unknown being to the Western world, which made her audience long for answers. Throughout Ingres life he created many pieces of work. In his well ahead years, Ingres continued to paint and surprise his faultfinders. He eventually ended up on top, being viewed as â€Å"one of the greatest living artists in France† during that time. (Rifkin 15) He left behind many fans but no apprentices to carry on the Neoclassicism heritage. Ingres painted many historical, mythological, and religious subjects; however, he is probably most respected for his portraits and female nudes. Ingress style highlights skilful formations, along with smoothly painted surfaces, and very thorough drawings. â€Å"In 1814, he created one of his many famous masterpieces, Grande Odalisque. It is 91 cm in height and 162 cm in length (35.8 Ãâ€" 63.8 in).† (Peirce 50) It is an oil painting on canvas, with a subject of make-believe and sexuality. The painting was commissioned by Queen Caroline Murat of Naples, Napoleon’s sister. It was painted in the Neoclassicism movement in P aris, along with many of his other works. This one in particular is of a nude female, who transpires to be an odalisque. â€Å"An odalisque was a female slave in an Ottoman seraglio, especially the Imperial Harem of the sultan.† (Peirce 54) La Grande Odalisque was formed by Ingres using some of David’s ideas and creating a female nude, in a bizarre and unfamiliar way. To the Western world she was nothing like they’d ever seen before, which caused confusion but a desire to want to know everything about her; â€Å"In the mind of an early 19th century French male viewer, the sort of person for whom this image was made, the odalisque would have conjured up not just a harem slave, itself a misconception, but a set forth fears and desires.† (Shelton 75) This was mainly because of the way in which Europe considered Islamic Asia; they viewed the people there as unique, barren and careless. To observers she was located in an almost make-believe world, much like how Western culture viewed the Eastern side o f the world; fantasized. At the time it was ignominious for its physical wrongness; in specific, â€Å"the nude female was thought to have three lumbar vertebrae too many†. (Shelton 78) It was an opinion stressed by art critics, but was never challenged or proven. When it had finally been studied, they found something out of the regular, â€Å"we measured the length of the back and of the pelvis in human models, expressed the mean values in terms of head height, and transferred them to the painting.† (Peirce 81) The falsification was found to be greater than what had been presumed originally; â€Å"La Grande Odalisque had five, rather than three, further lumbar vertebrae†(Peirce 81). Basically, she is structurally impossible; her pose is one that would be impossible to mimic. Since Ingres combined rationality and realism into his paintings some critics believe the deformation may perhaps exist on purpose and stand for an emotional motive. The way in which the woman’s head is placed and how it the distance it is away from her pelvis suggests, â€Å"the artist may have been marking the gulf between her thoughts and her social role† (Shelton 79) The face of the woman is where the observer’s eyes are drawn. Her expression is secluded, care-free and mysterious; giving her an almost secret filled feel about her. Her role as a harem is not to think of feeling; she is there only for the purpose of pleasure. â€Å"This theme is consistent with the role of women in the nineteenth-century views on female gender roles public women, i.e., prostitutes, fulfilled a vitally important social role as repositories of male sexual desire.† (Siegfried, Rifkin, Willey 34) Her gaze pulls viewers into her unknown world; captures and traps. The main reason for her existence is to wait upon a man, but not just any man; her husband. With knowing that her husband is the only man to ever see her in this state, the viewer is pulled in and knowing they will never be able to experience her, â€Å"she was part of the sultan harem, she was there to satisfy the carnal pleasures of the sultan, despise what she may feel or want. She reflects a woman ´s deep thoughts, complex emotions and feelings.†(Peirce 48) Her gaze tortures the viewer into looking and makes it difficult to look away. This piece is full of sensuality, mystery and romanticism. The woman is surrounded by a dark background; black with many different shades of blue. Her and her body are really the only aspect of the painting holding any light colours. With this, she stand out to the viewer; making her more striking than ever. Even with her imperfections she is blessed with flawless skin, shoulders, legs, arms and hands. The items nearby her, the peacock fan, the turban, and the pearls suggest an unfamiliar place; an exotic place. At her feet lies a hookah, which may come to the viewers as a shock; it’s not for tobacco but rather opium. The harem may come off to observers as irrational, passive and drugged, which creates more desire to know what she’s about. Is she offering it, or is she just high? That is a question that will never be answered, a question that keeps the viewers’ attention. La Grande Odalisque is what Western society believes a harem would look like. She is of the unknown but in a way that it becomes familiar. Since this is what the Western part of the world imagines and fantasizes about Islamic Asia, it makes them believe they are superior to what’s in front of them. Ingres conveyed his subject of wants and desires by painting La Grande Odalisque, and having the Western part of the world view it; you want what you can’t have. That is one way in looking at it, another is: â€Å"Some art historians have suggested that colonial politics also played a role.† (Shelton 81) Either way, Ingres combined what was happening to the world around him, two places so unfamiliar colliding together, with what the Western world wanted to see; what is actually happening is a completely different story than what one wants to believe is happening. La Grande Odalisque is recognized for its subject of desire for the unknown; her gaze, her pose, and the inferior, yet exotic, items surrounding her are what makes her so incredible to what people consider the norm. She has deficiencies but her overall appearance is perfect; she is nothing like her observers, which makes her that much more wanted; it’s a conflict between La Grande Odalisque and the viewer. Society, even today, is scared of the unfamiliar. We take situations, events and even the little parts in life that we are unsure of and turn it into something that can be confronted, even if it’s not reality; it’s what human beings do to feel safe from what we consider the abnormal. What makes this painting so unique is that people critique the way in which viewers see her, instead of the way she sees us; she is an unacquainted with us, as we are with her.