“My Life had stood †a Loaded Gun †” Feminist Analysis Essay

This poem was written by the American poet Emily Dickinson around the year 1863. It is probably one of the most complex of all Dickinson’s poems because it does not have a single coherent and satisfactory interpretation. This is due to the fact that it exemplifies her technique of the ‘omitted centre’, a device by which the author omits information that is crucial to the understanding of the poem. Nevertheless, the aim of the present paper is not to discuss the manifold possible interpretations of the poem. Its aim is rather to try to explain it or analyze it from a feminist point of view, highlighting how it gives an image of a woman different from the one people are used to, as well as how it inverts the gender roles but accepting them at the same time. The speaker starts by presenting herself as â€Å"a Loaded Gun†, that is as a mortal weapon capable of killing and destroying. This can be understood as the poet’s rejection of the traditional ideas and images about femininity, she is portraying herself as strong and potentially active in opposition to the common ideas of weakness and passivity associated with women. Later on, in the third stanza, she will compare herself to a volcano, turning the possibility of destruction – a contingent fact up until that point – into a reality. So now she is not only telling the reader that she can be active, dangerous, and destructive, but she is actually being it: the previous threat is now an event. This image of the volcano is even more important because it is a common one, used also by Emerson – one of her greatest influences – to refer to the poet. The difference is that whereas in Emerson’s essay The Poet it is a rather benignant image – this of the volcano – used to portray the poet as a power of nature; in Dickinson’s poem it is a burning and destructive force. With this change in the meaning or connotation of the metaphor, she may be telling us that creation, carried out by a woman, is at the same time an act of aggression. This idea is closely related to the reading many feminists have made of this poem, seeing it as an example of how power in a woman can be seen as a danger or even a threat. As for the gender roles one may argue that there is a contradiction in this poem. On the one hand she depicts herself as the active force in her relationship with her â€Å"Owner† and â€Å"Master†. She speaks â€Å"for Him†; she fights for him and defends him from Salceda 2 his foes. It is important to notice how in the fourth stanza she guards his head while he sleeps, thus preferring or putting her role as defender before her role as lover, i.e. her masculine role before of her feminine role. It is better to kill for him than to lay with him. In this poem she is the â€Å"knight in armor† while the male is, as to say, the â€Å"damsel in distress†. But on the other hand, the reader is told at the beginning that her â€Å"Life had stood – a Loaded Gun – / In Corners† until her â€Å"Owner passed† and â€Å"identified† her. That is, she had no identity of herself; she did not exist as an individual endowed with consciousness until he found her. It is also important to notice that the vocabulary used in the first stanza depicts her as an object. Therefore all her representations of herself as the leading figure in the poem, the strong one, the powerful one are, in some way, undermined by the fact that, at the beginning, she is just an object endowed with subjectivity by a real and pre-existent subject – the male character – who then becomes an object himself. The idea that her subjectivity is only one borrowed from him can be clearly seen in that, throughout the poem, her only goal is to defend him, to protect him form his foes who are at the same time hers. Nonetheless, this dependence on a male subject is, if not denied, at least overcome in the last stanza where the speaker presents herself as immortal. Thus, if she will live long before he has died, her existence must be independent of his. If the last part of my analysis seems confusing and even contradictory, it is because the poem itself, as it has already been said at the beginning, is confusing and even contradictory. To sum up I would like to say that, from my point of view, the important point about this poem is how Dickinson’s attempt to break up with the traditional ideas of womanhood and gender roles, since it is based upon the traditional opposition between femininity/masculinity, passivity/activity, object/subject, proves itself in some way â€Å"futile†. One may notice that she is not defending femininity, or trying to posit it higher or at the same level than masculinity, but what she is doing is taking a male position. This may explain why she takes her identity from a man. She is opposing the fact that being a woman entails being passive and defenseless, but at the same time she is saying that her aggressive character appeared only after a man identified her. So, she is not pulling down the differences or the hierarchy existing between male and female, but interchanging the roles. Nevertheless, one should not think that Dickinson’s poem is a failure – from a feminist point of view –, but on the contrary it is a success, since she manages to highlight the difficulty, or even impossibility, of writing at the same time Salceda 3 from and against a preestablished language and a system of thought, which are the very bases of the discrimination of women.

Tenets of Neoclassical Economy

The objective of this academic essay is to discuss the main tenets of neoclassical economic liberalism, explain whether less developed countries should entirely depend on developed countries not and give the reasons. According to Schumpeter (1954), the classical school of economics was developed in the 1750 and lasted as the mainstream of economic thought until the late 1800.Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nation book published in 1776 can be used as the formal beginning of classical economics but it actually evolved over a period of time and was influenced by Mercantilist doctrines, Physiocracy, the enlightenment, classical liberalism and the early stages of the industrial revolution. Adam Smith is recognized as the originator of classical economic. John Stuart Mill a British philosopher 1806-1873 is often regarded as the synthesizer of the school.While Adam Smith would be regarded as the originator and leader of the school, David Ricardo 1772-1823 should be credited with establishing the form and methods of school. Neoclassical economic liberalism is based on principles of namely free competition, a self-regulating market economy, and low or no taxes on income and property, while sharing with other forms of liberalism â€Å"a belief in progress, the essential goodness of the human race, and the autonomy of the individual and standing for the protection of political and civil liberties.Liberalism has long history rooted in the theories of liberal political thought. It focuses mainly on the individuals rights. It attaches a lot of value to personal freedom be it political or economical. It strives to limit the state’s influence in the economic and social life of society. Liberal theorists believe that economic life should not be interfered by constitutional and legal rights to run all the national or public services. Economic life should be let flourish on its own without interference by the state.Therefore, the cornerstone or the most important thought o f liberalism are free trade and free competition (Schumpeter 1954). Neo-classicists see the market for organising economic activities and individuals and companies are rewarded for their efficiency. The market is seen to be at the centre for economic growth and not the state. In other words, Neoclassical seek to understand economic development in terms of the market behaviour of individual actors and therefore can be described as essentially individualistic (Downs 1957).Economics is a science that studies human behaviour as a relationship between ends and scarce means that have alternatives uses. Neoclassical economics pursues this study by means of supply and demand models that determine prices based on the subjective preference for determining prices in order to escape from the so called objective value theory of classical economics, according to which the value of goods could be established by reference to some basic commodity or the labour input required to produce a good.Neo-cl assicists hoped that by throwing away objective values, economics could be placed on a more scientific basis as an essentially descriptive and predictive theory of human behaviour (Thirlwall, 2006). Neoclassical economics can be understood in terms of both its subject matter and its method. The subject matter of economics deals with variables such as incomes and prices, and aggregates like gross national product, employment levels and inflation rate.The methods offer a way to think about large number interactions within markets, although in principle the range of social institutions can be extended to include politics. The characteristic feature or main tenets of the neoclassical method are instrumental rationality, methodological individualism, economic self interest, equilibrium analysis and the use of mathematical techniques (Riker, 1982). With instrumental rationality entails that agents are supposed rational in a broad sense that their behaviour can explained in term of their p references.Preferences are assumed to be determined by the individuals’ desires and beliefs and well ordered with regard to outcomes. For many purposes, preferences can remain specified only up to certain abstract structural features, such as consistency, completeness and complexity. The latter requirement forms the basis of relative price analytics focused on behavioural effects of changes in the relative prices of different objects of value. More specifically, rational individuals are assumed to respond to any increase in the price of a good by consuming less of it.This simple relative price proposition turns to be surprisingly powerful in predicting behaviour in economic setting and includes specifically the basis of institutional analysis: Institutions yield different social outcomes because they alter the incentives that agents face (Buchanan, 1975). In principle, individuals’ preference could have any content whatsoever: agents could be benevolent or could be dri ven by group interests or a desire to comply with group norms. But in practice , there is a strong tendency to ascribe predominantly self interested motives o individuals and to rely more on institutional mechanism that bend interests to the service of duty than on individuals inherent sense of dutifulness. Accordingly, the first question economists are likely to ask of institutions is what economic incentives they give rise to. Equally, when individuals agents interact, neo-classicists generally assumes that each agent maximizes his or her own well being, considered apart from the well being of the other agents with whom he or she interacts.According to Downs (1957) in the resultant interplay among rival interests, neoclassical economists tend to conceptualize stable social outcomes as form of â€Å"equilibria,† in which the strength of the various contenders are in balance. Furthermore, analysis proceed by examining changes in external circumstances that would alter the str ength of different forces and thereby induce all to change their behaviour in particular directions.The external circumstances in question include policy change by government and changes in broader institutional arrangements though there is an issue as to how far government action should be regarded as external to the social system. Buchanan (1975) argues that the distinct feature of the neoclassical approach to economics can be usefully illustrated with reference to classical economics, in particular to Adams Smith’s metaphor of the invisible hand.Smith’s metaphor express the idea that, under certain conditions, the behaviour of agents who act in their own interests can also ultimately promote the public interest. Smith claimed specifically that the freely operating market under the system of natural liberty would constitute such an invisible hand process. Although agents are assumed to be neither particularly benevolent nor cooperate by nature, the exchange processes that the free market were seen to mobilize vast benefits from large scale human cooperation that are individually not attainable.The neoclassical version of the claim is embodied in the so called fundamental theorems of welfare economics, which asserts that all perfectly competitive equilibria are Pareto optimal, and all Pareto-optimal points are equilibria of a perfectly competitive market under some initial distinction of goods. Pareto optimally is defined as the situation in which all possible mutually beneficial moves have been made. Interestingly, the neoclassical version of this result follows David Ricardo’s formulation in which gains from exchange arise from exploiting natural differences among agents according to principle of ompetitive advantage. In Adam Smith’s version by contrast, the gains from exchange arise not merely from natural difference but from gains from specialisation (Buchanan 1975). There is however, a more significant limitation to fundamenta l theorem of welfare economics. The theorems are restricted in their scope to private goods that are excludable. Markets cannot guarantee the optimal provision of public goods and collective consumption goods. Under plausible conditions, non excludable goods such as defence or law and order and non patentable discoveries may not be provided at all.Even accepting the limited normative reach of paretian concepts, therefore, markets cannot reliably deliver much that is required for their successful operation, such as a secure system of property rights and many goods that are important for human flourishing, such as public health measures or plausible theories about the working of the economy (Thirlwall, 2006). Furthermore, Pareto–optimal outcomes are not necessarily just. Pareto-optimality is consistent with slavery if slaves cannot purchase their own freedom.It is also consistent with very large disparities in income levels. Although the fundamental theorem of welfare economics state that any Pareto-optimal outcome can be realized by a suitable initial redistribution of goods, perfectly competitive markets remain themselves neutral with regard to distributive issues. In other words, the neoclassical defence of perfectly competitive markets can offer only a partial foundation for a comprehensive theory of cooperation, because the normative basis of evaluation that the neoclassical approach offers is too thin.Political philosophers such as Robert Nozick (1974) and David Gauthier (1986), for example, have taken this lack of normative justification as a starting point to embed markets into broader theories of social and economic cooperation that balance efficiency considerations with concerns for justice. Nevertheless, the neoclassical analysis of markets carries important normative implications. First, the analysis demonstrates that the benefits available from human cooperation are considerable.Neoclassical economics depicts social interaction as potentially â€Å"positive sum. † Beyond enjoyed by some individuals need not imply a loss to other and can lead to additional gains. Second, in mobilizing the mutual benefits available, there is a significant task of coordination among individual participation, a task that markets perform well for private excludable goods. Third, in part, markets work well in this coordination role, because they induce predominantly self-interested persons to serve others’ interests.It might be said that markets economize on benevolence, which tends to be a scarce good for many human interactions. Finally, the neoclassical account help to identify cases of market failure cases in which markets cannot guarantee optimal outcome (Emrah, 2008). Less developed countries cannot depend entirely on the notion of neoclassical economic liberalism or markets mechanism to the extent developed countries. This is because most markets in developing countries are characterised with widespread imperfection.One e xample is lack of information and existence of uncertainty that most individual producers face. Most producers in developing countries are generally unsure about the size of local markets, the existence of other producers and the availability of inputs both domestic and imported. Therefore in such a situation profit-utility maximising may be based on incorrect information and in the end lead to inefficient allocation of resources. (Todaro and Smith, 2009) Under such circumstance, the government may perhaps intervene to provide information by guiding producers and consumers.Therefore it can be analysed that, although free market economies have been successful in developed economies, it cannot be so in developing countries and the only recourse is the model of the mixed economy or social market economy. According to Thirlwall (1989), the true benefits of free market outputs may not be reflected in the prices because of the presence of substantial externalities. A number of goods may h ave high social value that is not reflected in their market prices.Because of market distortion or imperfections, the prices may not reflect marginal cost and many social goods and services such as health and education may not be produced at all or offered at a low price even free because markets are incomplete and private sectors have no incentives to produce them. In addition there is no guarantee that market mechanism will distribute resources equitably. Therefore, the government usually has the responsibility to provide them. Todaro and Smith (2009) further argue that although markets may ensure efficient allocation of resources, it can also lead to high levels of income inequalities.Over dependence on market may not improve the distribution of income but it worsen it. Due to these kinds of market failures, different developmental experts and economist have argued in the past that there must be government intervention in the development process and adopt various forms of plannin g models to allocate resources. In some countries resource allocation or planning is managed by bureaucrats and not by consumers. The government plan how resources are allocated across different sectors of the economy (Thirlwall, 1989). In conclusion, the welfare role of the state is retained in a social market economy which cares for the poor.In cases where the poor countries are striving towards a free market economy, there should be certain segments controlled by the state but with prevalence of free enterprise such that efficiency is restored and the country moves towards economic prosperity. Free market economy under centralized political control is the most effective way for distributing resources. BIBLIOGRAPHY Aydinonat, N. Emrah. (2008) The Invisible Hand in Economics: How Economists Explain Unintended Social Consequences: Routledge, New York. Buchanan, J. M. (1975). TheLlimits Of Liberty :University of Chicago Press, Chicago: Downs, A. 1957). An Economic Theory of Democracy . Harper, New York: Gauthier, D. P. (1986), Morals by Agreement: Clarendon Press, Oxford, UK. Nozick, R. (1974), Anarchy, State, And Utopia: Blackwell,Oxford, UK. Riker, W. H. (1982), Liberalism against populism: A confrontation between the theory of democracy and the theory of social choice: Freeman, San Francisco. Schumpeter, Joseph A. (1954), History of Economic Analysis: Oxford University Press, New York. Thirlwall, P. A (2006), 8th ed Growth And Development; Macmillan, London. Todaro, M and S. Smith (2009) Economic Development : Dorling, New Delhi.

Asses the View That Childhood Is Not a Fixed Universal Experience Essay

Asses the view that childhood is not a fixed universal experience- Sociologists believe that childhood is not a fixed universal experience, this is called social construct, meaning that the idea about childhood is varied according to time, place, gender, ethnicity and social class. The definition of childhood is a state or period of being a child. Many children in today’s society do not experience this and in the past too. Aries (1960) suggested that today childhood is only a recent social invention. Children in pre-industrial society were mini adults who worked and played the same as adults. Children were seen as economic assets. Aires argued that in the middle ages childhood did not exist. After industrialisation working class children were frequently found working in mines, factories and mills. However, according to Aires, middle class started to change around this time. There was an increase in marital and parental love in middle class families as the infant mortality rate decreased and families had fewer children. This then led into the early industrial times, with the industrial revolution the position of children had changed, but this wasn’t any better. Children were still made to work, but now not in fields but in factories, coalmines and up chimneys. There were no laws to protect the children from this, as the children were seen to be bringing in the much needed income to the household. Gradually laws did come into place to protect the children; this then led to the child-centred society. Aries claimed that childhood began from the early 13th century as fee-paying schools were open to provide the upper class education. The church also began to separate children from adults as saying that they are fragile creatures of god and needed to be punished differently Social attitudes started to change towards children in the nineteenth century. Children were excluded from factories and mines as it was far too dangerous to work in the conditions there. Some working class parents however, resisted these moves as they were ones that depended on their children’s wages to support and feed the family. Beginning of the twentieth century, a child-centred society emerged and the standard of living improved such as flushing toilets and sanit ation, infant mortality rate continued to decline. Due to this child centred society children have become very expensive and this is the reason why people are having less children so they can invest in love, socialisation and protection to the  children they have. Attitudes of children had started to change when society slowly started becoming child centred, so children’s needs of special attention and protection became about to such as the child support act (1991). This law monitored the way parents reared their children. Childhood as we know it today started to come about in the 1950s onwards. Child-centred means that children are now loved, valued and cared for properly. Children now have to attend mainstream school from the ages of 5 to 16. They have their own doctors, teachers and social workers to care for them. Children’s books, magazines, TV programs and films are made especially for them and finally have laws in place to protect them.

Cars Produced at Eros Motors

At Eros Motors, we provide safe, stylish, green and a cutting edge form of individual mobility to our customers. We have been successful in offering what customers feel is important to them. Our cars also come with all the options, which are asked by our customers. We planned our strategy taking into consideration all the aspects of marketing, H. R, finance and operations. Marketing plays a very crucial role in this modern world so we promoted our products through various forms of media. We spent heavily at the start just because we wanted to make our presence felt in the market.We always believed that our team is of utmost importance to us, so we made sure that there is a balance between automation and workforce to maximize production. We also paid them well so that they remain motivated at all times and work towards the goal of the company. Training of employees is a must and this is necessary for the quality of the cars. We noticed that our Warranty claims were high, so by proper training this could have only been reduced. Research and Development is an important area and a good amount of money was spent over the years so that we develop better and environment friendly cars in the times to come.We made sure that the money is not spent on general R&D rather we identified some key areas and invested in those constantly. Finance was an area of concern as we were incurring huge losses; we took necessary steps to improve this. We priced our products aggressively and planned production efficiently. As a result this gave us better sales. We also tried to cut down on costs, which gave us a better gross margin over the years. We started to make profits in the later years and this shows that our products have been well accepted by the market.We offered Alpha (medium) and Beta (large) cars in the beginning then we came up with Delta (city – hybrid) and lastly with Zeta (diesel – luxury). The luxury market was untapped and we thought we could do well by se lling a small number of cars because the margins in a luxury car are huge. The offering was based on the market research and the demand in the market. The design of the cars kept on changing as requested by the customers. This showed that we were catering to all segments of the market in terms of offering and pricing.Our aim is to be a leading car manufacturer by creating stylish, reliable, eco friendly cars by following the principles of enhancing our team, extending our business and enlarging our market. To sustain in this competitive market we have to take into account what the competitor is doing and react accordingly by delivering a better product. The need of the hour is to connect with the customers. The world is moving towards alternative fuels and we will also try to come up with products that are environmental friendly keeping in mind the needs of the customer yet giving stylish, value for money and fuel efficient cars.

Statistical Process Control whilst primarily a manufacturing quality Essay

Statistical Process Control whilst primarily a manufacturing quality technique can be usefully applied in service industries - Essay Example According to above lines, delivery of service is being compared in context to expectation of customers and divergence of expected service quality from delivered quality creates the gap. Ladhari (2009) stated that four characteristics of service like intangibility, heterogeneity, perishability and inseparability make it different from manufacturing offering. . Markovic (2006) argued that manufacturing sector should not be compared with service sector because customers might act as co-producer in service delivery process while customer involvement is negligent in manufacturing process. In such context, Khan (2003) stated that intangibility and inseparability make it difficult to control service quality while there are statistical procedures available to manage quality of manufacturing process. In such context, Chakrabarty and Tan (2007) found that unlike the manufacturing sector, it took time for service sector to realize the importance of Statistical Process Control (SPC) in managing quality. Sulek (2004) argued that most of the common statistical control mechanism can also be used in service sector to manage quality but little bit recalibration of the statistical model is needed in order to utilize it accurate manner in service environment. Discussion Six Sigma & Control Chart Antony (2006) defined the term Sigma as the deviation from service performance characteristics mean while objective of deploying Six Sigma in service sector is to reduce the scope of variation and subsequently improve quality. In order to control variation in the service performance, specific control limit is being assigned (SLupper). Aim of the service performance would be not to cross the upper control limit or the maximum tolerance zone (Yilmaz and Chatterjee, 2000). In case of Six Sigma, distance between SLupper and service process mean is equal to six standard deviations and in this way term â€Å"Six Sigma† has been arrived. In case of six sigma process, deviation in service performance caused by external uncontrollable influences would not exceed the limit of 3.4 parts per million or 3.4 times the service process will show defect out of 1 million times (Antony, 2006). Antony (2006) and Hoerl (2001) stated that Six Sigma process can be applied to service processes like order entry, invoicing, shipping, baggage handling, payroll processing etc. On the other hand, Yilmaz and Chatterjee (2000) measured that defect rate in service sector is less than 3.5 sigma quality level which means 23,000 times the service process will show defect out of 1 million times. In such context, applying Six Sigma as SPC would improve the service performance level to 99.38 per cent. Hoerl and Snee (2002 and 2003) identified benefits of deploying Six Sigma in service sector as 1- decrease in service defect rate which would automatically increase cost efficiency in the service process, 2- management decision would be guided by data driven statistical analysis which would decrease the scope of assumption bases errors and 3- decrease in service defect would significantly decrease customer complaints. Some practical examples can be cited in order to highlight usefulness of Six Sigma model in service sectors. Table 1: Practical Evidences of Implementation of Six Sigma in Service Organizations Organization Benefits J P Morgan Chase (Global Investment Banking) Applying Six Sigma model has helped the company to reduce flaws in service delivery

Case study Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words - 29

Case study - Essay Example Human genome is responsible for carrying hereditary information. In human, the structure is known as deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA). The structure carries all the human genes. There are four chemical bases found in the DNA (EDinformatics 1999). They include adenine (A), thymine (T), cytosine (C), and guanine (G) (EDinformatics 1999). Covalent bonds of phosphodiester join the bases together (Makalowski 2001). The bond helps in alignment of bases in specific pairs. Moreover, the structure exhibits a double helical organization. The organization is because of hydrogen bonding between the base pairs (EDinformatics 1999). The hydrogen bond helps in linkage of one complementary strand to the other (EDinformatics 1999). In human, the human genome is stored on 23 pair’s chromosomes (EDinformatics 1999). In these pairs, 22 are autosomal chromosome pairs while the rest is involved in determining sex (EDinformatics 1999). In human, there is a way in which genes are arranged in a genome. For example, they may be in the same (tail to the head) or opposite orientation (head to the head or tail to tail) (Makalowski 2001). The majority of human genomes account for non-exonic sequences (Makalowski 2001). However, a number of genes occupy the same genomic space. In addition, there is a tremendous difference in the human genome. Scientists have shown the difference to be occurring in millions of locations. In these locations, the single base DNA differences (SNPs) takes place in human (EDinformatics 1999). The resulting variation has led to exploitation by various researchers on the use in health screening. On the other hand, there has been interest in human mitochondrial genome (EDinformatics 1999). The genome has been shown to play a significant role in mitochondrial diseases (EDinformatics 1999). The understanding of genetic variation has an immense implication on the field of medicine. In fact, it has generated a vast potential in understanding and promoting

In the current economic climate in Britain,the risks of starting up a Essay

In the current economic climate in Britain,the risks of starting up a new business outweight the benefits.DIscuss - Essay Example Another thing is about financing, the business may require continuous financing that may be unavailable. Finally, the management of a new business can either be a catalyst to failure or success. However, there a few benefits that have encouraged startups such as government policy and availability of raw materials. It is therefore apparent that the risks that a startup business faces in Britain are far much compared to the benefits. Firstly, the business is affected by factors within its control and reach. The management of an upcoming business can easily lead the company to failure due to many challenges that are experienced. They should have both long-term and short-term goals for the business and ensure they are implemented. A shaky management can contribute greatly to a business failure. The business owners have the capacity to find the best individuals to steer the business to success. Marketing strategy should be in place and should have a target market. A failure in this aspect will result to losses in the business hence closure. Financial management is also required when starting a new business; the available resources should be used maximally. Failure to do this will strain the business and if takes long before it breaks even, then there is a possibility of it closing down. Other aspects are outside the business control. These include regulations, market dynamics among other external factors. The demand for several products and services has continued to shift. Despite the increased and improved quality, new business, find it difficult to penetrate the market because the existing demand itself is below the supply. This is the reason why market survey is necessary before engaging in any business. Government regulations especially those developed in the process of establishment of a business can result to closure due to the requirements of conformity. Despite the risks that are associated with new