The Symbolic Pearl :: essays research papers

Most novels usually have a main symbol, which teaches a character, or the reader, a very important lesson or moral. This is true in Nathaniel Hawthorne's classic The Scarlet Letter, where Hester Prynne's daughter Pearl serves as the most extensive living symbol in the entire novel. She is much more of a symbol than an actual character. Pearl symbolizes Hester Prynne and Arthur Dimmesdale's concealed love affair and plays a key character in The Scarlet Letter as well.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Little Pearl, the so-called 'elf child,'; is the daughter and result of the minister Arthur Dimmesdale and Hester Prynne's unthinkable sin of adultery. She is an imaginative, intelligent little girl who is full of life and shows a 'rich and luxuriant beauty; a beauty that shone with deep and vivid tints.'; She is a living, breathing child who can see and talk. The only real characteristics that prove she is an actual person are shown by her emotions; she has a very unfavorable temper and usually ends up getting her way by throwing tantrums. For example, in the forest scene, she sees her mother's scarlet letter discarded on the ground, fusses and screams for her to put it back on, which eventually Hester does. Pearl is obviously a definite person, but she is also a definite symbol of many things. First, she is a distinct symbol of the relationship between Hester and Dimmesdale. She is a representative of the passion, which came with Hester's sin of adultery. Second, she is an active reminder of Hester's sin besides the letter A on her breast. And lastly, Pearl becomes mesmerized by her mother's scarlet letter. She pelts the letter with flowers, 'covering the mother's breast with hurts for which she could find no balm in this world.'; Pearl's 'inevitable tendency to hover about the enigma of the scarlet letter'; is fully developed when Pearl imitates her mother by placing a seaweed letter A on her own breast.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  But the most important symbol that Pearl reflects is when they are in the forest. In one of the book's most dramatic scenes, Pearl blocks her mother's attempt to escape from her symbol of shame. After Hester has tossed her scarlet letter on the ground, Pearl shrieks in a fit and will not recognize or come to her mother until she proceeds to put her letter back on and puts her hair back up under her white cap.

Qualites on a Good Teacher Essay

With my high school years behind me, I would like to reverse roles a bit and offer some advice to teachers. My senior year, I had one of my best teachers ever. Her name was Mrs. Jacob. The area where she excelled the most was in making math interesting and making her students motivated and interested in learning more about math. Some nights, I would look forward to doing my math homework as I first, struggled through ridiculous grammar exercises. I always looked forward to my math class. Mrs.  Jacob used a creative approach to math, she kept a well disciplined class, and she connected with each and every student in her class. Unfortunately, the truth is that our public schools are doing a worse job that most parents would dare to imagine. Not only are most of our high school students completely unprepared for college, the reality is that most of them have not even been equipped with the necessary skills they need to function at a very basic level in the real world. In the Steve Perry book, Push Has Come To Shove , Perry covers the full range of issue holding back today’s students. He states â€Å"some teachers are lazy, that they go through the same sorry ass lessons for twenty years† and â€Å" teachers who think that Monday is the worst day of the week and Friday the best†. A lot of these teachers are not taking the responsibility that is expected of them. They need to understand that many students do not have the guidance they should have. The teachers and the parents need to step up their game and not give up on students that are having trouble with their education. However, we cannot just blame the schools. Many students are lazy, over-extended and discouraged about school. Many students have very few skills to contribute to society, especially after they graduate from high school. It is a national disgrace. The Mike Rose essay, I Just Wanna be Average tells the story about some of the author’s throughout high school. When he was a freshmen, he accidentally got placed into a vocational program. Instead pf putting up a fight to try to get out of it, he made the best of his situation. Rose states â€Å"students will float to the mark you set† It is clear in Rose’s essay that the Vocational Track housed the more unruly and unmotivated students. The question is: why did these students decide not to put effort into their school work? The answer? Look to their teachers. In Rose’s essay, Ken Harvey says he just wants to be average. He believes himself to be below average, and once someone is told, enough times, that he or she is not capable or knows that a teacher expects little from that student, the student begins to believe it. He performs at the lower level expected of him. To successfully engage students in a subject, creativity is paramount. Sure, a teacher can take repacked material and efficiently transmit it. But, to be a great teacher, he or she needs to know how to develop creative lesson plans and projects. He or she needs to have an arsenal of techniques and also to be a problem-solver. Perry states that students want to be â€Å"entertained. † If the teacher bores them in a conversation they would decide not to pay attention. That is why teachers need to be creative with their lesson plans. For example, Mrs. Jacob, my senior math teacher , always showed us creative ways to solve a math problem. She showed us different techniques so the students could choose which technique they liked better. She always found creative ways to engage us. Limitations can be a good thing to motivate creativity. In creative teaching, assignment limitations provide a way to change the student’s work habits. When a student isn’t allowed to repeat a familiar pathway into the work, additional creative effort is expended to succeed. As long as the difficulty level is reasonable, new learning happens. Creative teachers make mistakes, but they also search for ways to overcome mistakes. Each time they try something, they review the outcomes and try to imagine ways to make improvements. An effective teacher will teach students to be responsible and respectful to both their peers and to their teachers. If there were no discipline, people would do what they wanted and make mistakes without putting the consideration of others first. A teacher will demand that his rules are clear and that, if they do not follow the rules, clear consequences go into motion. For example , when I was at my Catholic high school, teachers made their expectations for behavior crystal clear, which led to organized and well behaved students. When I was late to class, my teachers would make sure I will stay after school and clean up the rooms or they would send me to room 114 to have a long talk with the vice principal to get additional consequence from him. They also did not allow students that were graduating to just have average grades. The students needed to prove to them that they want their diploma. I feel that every high school should be that way. The truth is that there are some teachers who abuse the discipline process sending every student who is even slightly out of line to the office. In I just Wonna be Average, Rose states â€Å" his teachers act like they could care less about teaching their students and, instead use physical violence or lack of lessons plans to control them. † Teachers should find different ways to control their student and not just by giving them lesson plans to control them. That will not work. In the Vocational track, especially, they should know how to handle these students. The key is earning respect. Respect will go a long way in being a strong disciplinarian. No teacher will have success in classroom unless he or she connects with students. Teachers who have a caring relationship with students are academically more successful . A caring teacher can transform the school experience, especially for students who face enormous difficulties, such as dropping out or dysfunctional home lives. Carl T Rowan’s essay Unforgettable Miss Bessie tells the story about his former high school teacher , Miss Bessie, and how her teachings had deeper meaning than just the subjects she taught in class. Mrs. Bessie states â€Å"Carl, never frets about what you don’t have. Just make the most of what you do have. -a brain† Since she knew Carl was not wealthy ,she had that connection with him. She taught Carl never to be bothered by what he did not have. Miss Bessie made a big impact on Carl’s life. Miss Bessie was an important factor in his life because she gave him the push and motivation he needed to succeed the way he did. She was influential to many students and to Carl in particular. Teachers should be mentors that shape the characters of their students to prepare for the society. These teachers would want their student to achieve in life no matter what situation they are in. I had a great connection with my math teacher; I was able to talk to her about things especially when my grandmother died. I was so depressed, that I did not want to do a thing. She was the type of teacher who would not cut down homework because you had problems, but she gave me extra time to do it. She would always be there to help you after school or even before school. That’s why having a connection with the teacher is always best because if the teacher really does care, just like Miss Bessie. Such a teacher would do anything to help you as long as you care and are willing to pass the course. In the modern approach to education , good teaching is becoming increasingly important and a teacher can make a tremendous impact on a students education. While students’ test scores have become an indicator of practices and it is possible to identify who the very good teachers are and who the poor teachers are the caring attitude of some teachers makes them rise above the others. Mrs. Jacob fell into that category, she would continue to inspire students the way they should be and always be right their when students need her for any sort of way not just the subjects she teaches. Now an days we need teachers like Mrs. Jacob so students could achieve more in their academics and in life itself.

Critical analyse of the external and internal environments Essay

From the long run, the economy will only be developed better than before, as long there are no large scales of wars. If the economy in the world is developing in a steady and healthy way, the demand for the cars will be larger and larger. The fact that the number of Japanese cars assembled in North American will soon reach 2 million per year will lead to the oversupply, so it is likely to threaten the price structure of the U.S. auto market and in the meantime, it will bring about negative impact on the revenue of the automotive businesses in the U.S. market. 3.3 Social factors As long as the customers have a certain level of buying power, there will be a large number of car buyers. After the World War II, nearly all countries in the world were making every effort to recover from the war. The war was destructive to all the countries that had participated in the war. In some developing countries, people even had to worry about whether they had to suffer from hunger, let alone buying car to make their life easier. However, as the recovery of economy, people begin to think about the houses and cars to improve the quality of their life(Ravichandran et al., 2005). In the meantime, the social concept is also changing. Men were the trend of the drivers, but more and more women are independent and have good economic conditions, so the demand for cars is also increasing. The changing social trend has enabled Ford to produce various types of cars in order to meet the different demands from different groups. 3.4 Technological factors The advent of the Internet has simplified customers’ life, and the advent of cars have make customers’ life more convenient. However, Ford does not cease to make innovation in terms of technology. For instance, most modern cars have been equipped with intelligent systems such as Global Positioning System (GPS) which enables the customers not to get lost no matter where they go. The intelligent system will be able to provide the car owners with alternative lines according to the actual situation of the road. If there are traffic jams, the system will remind the car owners to choose another alternative. In addition to the intelligent system which will benefit for the car owners, the design of the cars will also be more human oriented. The innovation of technology will bring convenience to customers, so the design and the function of the cars in Ford will ! enable the customers to have better experience of driving. Therefore, more and more customers who can afford cars wil l choose to buy a car. 4. Internal environments of Ford The analysis of internal environment can find out the absolute strengths and weaknesses. If the enterprise sticks to its past successful strategies, they will fail in the new competitiveness for not updating its strategies(Leidner et al., 2011). Every enterprise has its strengths and weaknesses, and the internal strengths and weakness and the external opportunities and threats will be the foundation for enterprise to formulate strategies. This section will use SWOT analysis to explain Ford’s internal environment. 4.1 Strengths Ford has long history and its brand has been well-known to the whole world,  and this strength has enabled Ford to make brand marketing. As long as the brand has been known to the customers, the customer will buy the product due to the brand effect. Then, there is effective customer management system which will enable Ford to target the existing and potential customers more accurately. On the other hand, there is diversified management system that can attract real talents to Ford to make wise decisions. There are many job opportunities that are offered by Ford, and the policies on human resource management are flexible. 4.2 Weaknesses It has reported that the quality of the products has not met the standards in recent years, so many of the cars have to be recalled back to the factory. This incident has indicated that the quality check system has problems, and this may cause public relation crisis. On the other hand, to compare Ford with its competitors, Ford has not introduced sophisticated technology such as robot in the process of manufacturing the products. The third weakness is that the cars that have been produced in Ford have not reached 27.5 miles per gallon fuel efficiency standard(Peppard and Ward, 2004). 4.3 Opportunities As Ford is a multinational company, the international market has been developed due to the market expansion. In such case, the product will not only be sold in the native country  but also in foreign countries. In the meantime, Ford has developed its e-business system on the internet, so the international market is able to enlarge and the market share of Ford is also likely to increase. Then, the low cost of cars does not mean low quality, so the cars will be cost-effective, which will attract more customers to buy them, and thus increase the sales(Peppard and Ward, 2004). 4.4 Threats The major threats come from the competitors of Ford, especially the Japanese cars, for the Japanese manufactures are trying to open the market of luxurious cars in the United States. In the meantime, the exchange rate of Japanese yen and the U.S. dollar is ever  changing and not steady. In addition to Japanese cars, the new entrants to the U.S. will also come from China and India(Leidner et al., 2011). Another threat is that the government has been more involved in the regulations and policies on cars. Although there are concessions made by the government, the  concessions may be taken back by the government. 5. Strategies for Ford in the next five years The analysis of SWOT for Ford will be helpful for the decision makers to make the strategies for the future. When the key external and internal factors have been effectively matched together, it will help Ford to be more competitive than its competitors. It is suggest that the decision makers can implement SO strategy. This strategy will enable Ford to take full advantages of its internal strengths and external opportunities(King, 2002). Effective brand marketing and good customer management system, as well as human resource management system will enable the company to develop its e-businesses in the international market. If the famous brand has affordable price for customers, the sales and market share will increase to a certain extent. As long as the market share and sales has successfully increased, the company can rank at the first or second in the same industry. Another plausible strategy is WO strategy which will make use of the external opportunities to make up for the weaknesses. However, the weaknesses can sometimes become obstacles for seizing the opportunities, so if the company should try to overcome ! the weaknesses and turn them to strengths. For instance, if the demand for the cars which have equipped with intelligent system is large, but the factory has not acquired the technology o f equipping the system, so Ford can cooperate with the companies which have this technology. In such case, both companies will benefit from this business. On the other hand, if the company does not want to cooperate with other companies, the employees who have the knowledge of such technology should be employed to the company with high salary in order to assure the technology innovation. 6. Conclusion In conclusion, this report has conducted a close study of the external and internal environments for Ford Motor Company. The political environment has proved that the government has both positive and negative impacts on Ford, and the economic and social factors have turned out more and more people can afford a car, especially the independent women. The technology factors have also contributed to the increasing market share and sales of Ford for its convenience and comfort and affordances. Then the report has made a SWOT analysis of Ford’s internal environment, and it has suggested two plausible strategies for Ford in the next five years. One is SO strategy and the other one is WO strategy, which will enable Ford to realize its stra tegic objectives in the automotive  industry.

Evenin Air Blues

Evenin Air Blues The poem Evenin’ Air Blues written by Langston Hughes was published in 1951. The poem consists of four six line stanzas or sestets. In the poem, a poor black man, who is probably an escaped slave, in a sad tone, speaks about the mismatch between the picture of Northern American states that existed among the Southern slaves and the reality in which although there is no slavery, living conditions are hard, and people can hardly makes their ends meet.Advertising We will write a custom essay sample on Evenin’ Air Blues specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More The first stanza of Evenin’ Air Blues is a sestet, and the rhyme scheme is â€Å"ababcb†. The rhyming words are â€Å"North†, â€Å"fine†, â€Å"months† and â€Å"mind†. The first two words are repeated two times each. He chose those particular words to emphasize the basic introductory information which is the location – North, i ts alleged description – fine, the amount of time he spent there – months, and the effect it had on him – that he almost lost his mind. Some critics have pointed out that rhyming â€Å"fine† and â€Å"minds† is technically a really bad move, and that it takes away much of the poems quality (Tracy, 158). Repetition as a tool is used here to show how rumors about the life in the North are repeated almost like a mantra among the Southern slaves. The second stanza of the poem also consists of six lines with the rhyme scheme is â€Å"efefgf†. The words that carry the rhyme are â€Å"breakfast†, â€Å"air†, â€Å"supper† and â€Å"spare†, the first two of which are used twice. The most prominent words that carry the rhyme are related to food – â€Å"breakfast† and â€Å"supper†, and they are used alongside the word â€Å"air† which is associated with emptiness and void. By doing this, the poe t achieves his goal of vividly describing the day-by-day struggle that all of the black people faced. The main tool here is literal image. Hughes uses it very effectively so the reader can almost feel his long days without food and shelter. The physical repetition of words parallels the sameness of days in his life. That way, we get the picture of the lack of basic existential necessities that the speaker faces. In the third stanza, we get somewhat different but simple rhyme scheme – â€Å"hjhjhj†, but the number of lines is the same as in the first two. The rhyming words in this stanza are â€Å"dancin’†, â€Å"away†, â€Å"stay†, and the first two are, again, repeated two times. The word â€Å"dancin’† is chosen and repeated to transfer the atmosphere of dance nights; â€Å"away† is used in order to show the effect dance has on his sadness, and â€Å"stay† is used to emphasize the permanence of his melancholy on ly occasionally interrupted by dances. In this stanza, the reader is introduced to the idea of dance as an antidote to poverty and suffering in a big city. The main tool in this stanza is personification, which is apparent in the last line, when the poet says how â€Å"blues forgets to stay†. In my view, by using this tool, the poet wants to emphasize how the speaker feels the blues as a conscious force or a spirit because of its power over him. This stanza shows us that artistic expression is what keeps people sane and gives them power to endure the hardships they face.Advertising Looking for essay on american literature? Let's see if we can help you! Get your first paper with 15% OFF Learn More The final stanza is quite distinct from the rest of the poem since it is written in the rhyme scheme â€Å"kkkkkk†, which is a very unusual rhyme. In this stanza, the words that carry the rhyme are â€Å"me†, which is repeated three times,  "be† repeated two times and â€Å"see†. â€Å"Me† and â€Å"be† are used in an altering way to indicate how the speaker’s person is the permanent dwelling of the blues. The word â€Å"see† is used almost as a call for the reader to notice how apparent the cause of his sadness is. As for the number of lines, this stanza conforms to the rest of the poem, which means that it has six lines. The main tool which is used here very effectively is internal rhyme, and it can be found in the last line where the poet rhymes â€Å"me† and â€Å"see† line internally. The poet uses the opportunity to repeat the word â€Å"me† for the fourth time in this stanza almost as a way of physically pointing at himself to draw the attention of the society at his conditions. This effect is made even stronger since the word is rhymed with the verb â€Å"see†, which calls for people’s attention almost like an imperative. In conclusion, one might say that although criticized for its technical issues like problematic rhyme in â€Å"fine – mind† and dialectal inconsistencies, this poem is very valuable because it provides a vivid picture of disappointment in the life in the North. It is also worth adding that the poet has succeeded in transferring the lives of ordinary, poor, black people into artistic expression, and at the same time, he preserved the tone and atmosphere of everyday life by using the colloquial Southern dialect. Tracy, Steven C.. Langston Hughes the blues. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1988. Print.

German V-2 Rocket in World War II

German V-2 Rocket in World War II In the early 1930s, the German military began to seek out new weapons that would not violate the terms of the  Treaty of Versailles. Assigned to aid in this cause, Captain Walter Dornberger, an artilleryman by trade, was ordered to investigate the feasibility of rockets. Contacting the  Verein fà ¼r Raumschiffahrt  (German Rocket Society), he soon came in contact with a young engineer named Wernher von Braun. Impressed with his work, Dornberger recruited von Braun to aid in developing liquid-fueled rockets for the military in August 1932. The eventual result would be the worlds first  guided ballistic missile, the V-2 rocket. Originally known as the A4, the V-2 featured a range of 200 miles and a maximum speed of 3,545 mph. Its 2,200 pounds of explosives and liquid propellant rocket engine allowed Hitlers army to employ it with deadly accuracy. Design and Development Commencing work with a team of 80 engineers at Kummersdorf, von Braun created the small A2 rocket in late 1934. While somewhat successful, the A2 relied on a primitive cooling system for its engine. Pressing on, von Brauns team moved to a  larger facility at Peenemunde on the Baltic coast, the same facility that developed the V-1 flying bomb, and launched the first A3 three years later. Intended to be a smaller prototype of the A4 war rocket, the A3s engine nonetheless lacked endurance, and problems quickly emerged with its control systems and aerodynamics. Accepting that the A3 was a failure, the A4 was postponed while the problems were dealt with using the smaller A5. The first major issue to be addressed was constructing an engine powerful enough to lift the A4. This became a seven-year development process that led to the invention of new fuel nozzles, a pre-chamber system for mixing oxidizer and propellant, a shorter combustion chamber, and a shorter exhaust nozzle. Next, designers were forced to create a guidance system for the rocket that would allow it to reach the proper velocity before shutting off the engines. The result of this research was the creation of an early inertial guidance system, which would allow the A4 to hit a city-sized target at a range of 200 miles. As the A4 would be traveling at supersonic speeds, the team was forced to conduct repeated tests of possible shapes. While supersonic wind tunnels were built at Peenemunde, they were not completed in time to test the A4 before being put into service, and many of the aerodynamic tests were conducted on a trial and error basis with conclusions based on informed guesswork. A final issue was developing a radio transmission system that could relay information about the rockets performance to controllers on the ground. Attacking the problem, the scientists at Peenemunde created one of the first telemetry systems to transmit data. Production and a New Name In the early days of  World War II, Hitler was not particularly enthusiastic about the rocket program, believing that the weapon was simply a more expensive artillery shell with a longer range. Eventually, Hitler did warm to the program, and on December 22, 1942, authorized the A4 to be produced as a weapon. Though production was approved, thousands of changes were made to the final design before the first missiles were completed in early 1944. Initially, production of the A4, now re-designated the V-2, was slated for Peenemunde, Friedrichshafen, and Wiener Neustadt, as well as several smaller sites. This was changed in late 1943 after Allied bombing raids against Peenemunde and other V-2 sites erroneously led the Germans to believe their production plans had been compromised. As a result, production shifted to underground facilities at Nordhausen (Mittelwerk) and Ebensee. The only plant to be fully operational by wars end, the Nordhausen factory utilized slave labor from the nearby Mittelbau-Dora concentration camps. It is believed that around 20,000 prisoners died while working at the Nordhausen plant, a number that far exceeded the number of casualties inflicted by the weapon in combat. During the war, over 5,700 V-2s were built at various facilities. Operational History Originally, plans called for the V-2 to be launched from massive blockhouses located at Éperlecques and La Coupole near the English Channel. This static approach was soon scrapped in favor of mobile launchers. Traveling in convoys of 30 trucks, the V-2 team would arrive at the staging area where the warhead was installed and then tow it to the launch site on a trailer known as a Meillerwagen. There, the missile was placed on the launch platform, where it was armed, fueled, and the gyros set. This set-up took approximately 90 minutes, and the launch team could clear an area in 30 minutes after launch. Thanks to this highly successful mobile system, up to 100 missiles a day could be launched by German V-2 forces. Also, due to their ability to stay on the move, V-2 convoys were rarely caught by Allied aircraft. The first V-2 attacks were launched against Paris and London on September 8, 1944. Over the next eight months, a total of 3,172 V-2 were launched at Allied cities, including London, Paris, Antwerp, Lille, Norwich, and Liege. Due to the missiles ballistic trajectory and extreme speed, which exceeded three times the speed of sound during descent, there was no existing and effective method for intercepting them. To combat the threat, several experiments using radio jamming (the British erroneously thought the rockets were radio-controlled) and anti-aircraft guns were conducted. These ultimately proved fruitless. V-2 attacks against English and French targets only decreased when Allied troops were able to push back Germans forces and place these cities out of range. The last V-2-related casualties in Britain occurred on March 27, 1945. Accurately placed V-2s could cause extensive damage and over 2,500 were killed and nearly 6,000 wounded by the missile. Despite these casualties, the rockets lack of a proximity fuse reduced losses as it frequently buried itself in the target area before detonating, which limited the effectiveness of the blast. Unrealized plans for the weapon included the development of a submarine-based variant as well as the construction of the rocket by the Japanese. Postwar Highly interested in the weapon, both American and Soviet forces scrambled to capture existing V-2 rockets and parts at the end of the war. In the conflicts final days, 126 scientists who had worked on the rocket, including von Braun and Dornberger, surrendered to American troops and assisted in further testing the missile before coming to the United States. While American V-2s were tested at the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico, Soviet V-2s were taken to Kapustin Yar, a  Russian rocket launch and development site two hours east of Volgograd. In 1947, an experiment called Operation Sandy was conducted by the US Navy, which saw the successful launch of a V-2 from the deck of the  USS Midway (CV-41). Working to develop more advanced rockets, von Brauns team at White Sands used variants of the V-2 up until 1952. The worlds first successful large, liquid-fueled rocket, the V-2 broke new ground and was the basis for the rockets later used in the American and Soviet space progra ms.

Case analysis Study Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words - 1

Analysis - Case Study Example The main issue in the case of Mega Toys Company is to identify the business level strategy that would propel the company to new financial heights despite the rising competition in the market. This paper looks at possible strategies that the company uses and some indirect strategies that the company has used. Mega Toys main objective is to focus on satisfying the customers’ requirements and preferences so that the business can achieve above average returns. The main question underlying in the customers context is to identify the customer, their needs, and how those needs will be met. The senior management determines these strategies. Understanding the customers is a multivariate concept demanding understanding of demographics, geographical location, life styles and choices, personality traits, consumption patterns, industry characteristics as well as organizational size. To achieve this, the business has to understand and answer to the question â€Å"what are the potential goods and services that are needed by these customers?† This helps in gaining the competitive advantage, which is the main objective of business level strategies. Mega Toys Company main business strategy is to achieve long run growth of the company and to manage seasonal production primarily through cost leadership. Fundamental costs include labor costs, inventory, and delivery on time, and creating unique products. The most important resource for Mega Toys Company is to get seasonal employees in the low cost countries. According to this case, competitors can gain access to the low cost countries but cannot compete with Mega Toys in terms of quality of its products. Its products are of high quality, which are coupled with intellectual properties rights. Additionally their products have a unique design. The company also ensures that the deliveries they make are timely. This makes the Mega Toys products stand out

Construction of identity Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Construction of identity - Essay Example In the period from 1950 to 1990, the unidimensionl identity of modern women ws replced by bidimensionl identity (Nicholson, 1997:380), phenomenon observed lso in other countries (Woodwrd, 1997:240). In generl, women's lbor force prticiption incresed drmticlly during the twentieth century, nd in recent yers, the continuity of women's creers hs lso risen. Mny women becoming mothers now hve greter occsion to develop nd vest themselves in nonfmilil identities thn did women in the pst. But mny of the culturl chnges tht hve ccompnied economic nd demogrphic chnges mke the question of how to live s n dult problemtic in new wys for such women. Prentl roles re no longer tken to define the mening of womn's dult life or of couple's reltionship. Current culturl rhetorics of individulism men tht, mong the middle clss, it is no longer pproprite for dults to scrifice themselves for their spouses or their children; insted the individul is offered culturl imges of self-reliztion nd of "finding one's self" s guides to identity nd the mening of life. Such chnges in the menings of womnhood nd motherhood, however, re contested. Kaplan (1984:112) points out tht conflict over the socil representtion of motherhood s optionl rther thn centrl in women's lives lies t the hert of the politicl debtes on bortion in the United Sttes. Tody Tody's motherhood is more complex nd diverse in mening. Kpln (1992) speks in this regrd of "postmodern" motherhood. The Mdonn imge--representing the scrificing mother-hs been supplemented with the Creer women imge (Kpln, 1992:115). ccording to Crmer (1997), young mothers re well wre of the conflict between trditionl nd modern models of mother hood. In the view of Hys (1996), mothers tody fce two socilly constructed imges, tht is, tht of the "trditionl" mother-who stys t home nd dedictes ll her energy to the fmily--nd tht of the successful "supermom": The ll-round mother who hs "briefcse" qulities. She not only mnges the household nd rises the children, but lso hs her own creer. With respect to the described chnges within society, it is of interest to investigte how tody's dolescent girls nd young women conceptulize motherhood. The trditionl imge is extended with modern imge of motherhood.The representtion of motherhood s primrily biologicl reltionship conceled the gendered politics of socil nd "nturl" reltions. In Western cultures, women's "embodied humnity," most clerly symboliclly expressed by their biologicl cpcity to mother, hs been used to exclude them from "true humnity"-to relegte them to sphere perceived to be outside history, society, nd reson: tht is, "to nture" (Woodwrd, 1997:242). Nture nd womn were both culturlly ssocited nd empiriclly devlued.Feminist nlyses, however, drw even deeper implictions from these culturl ssocitions nd dulisms. Ecofeminism, for exmple, exposes the wys in which gendered constructions of "humn" (msculine) nd "nonhumn" nture hve been embedded in the emergence of modern sciences nd the ssocited politicl-economic reltions of industriliztion nd coloniztion.Ptrirchl conceptions of womn nd nture, they rgue, re t the hert of destructive ecologicl prctices s well s of the oppressive gender, clss, nd rce reltions on which they re built (Kpln, 1992:115). Not surprisingly, mny contemporry feminists re rethinking motherhood. For the nlysis of motherhood, s Hys (1996) points out, hs the