Crocs Essay Example

Crocs Essay Crocs began marketing its shoes at a November 2002 boat show. Crocs were originally intended to be sold to boaters, because of their slip proof, non-marking sole and the fact that they are waterproof and odor resistant. However, this market soon expanded to include gardeners, healthcare workers, waiters, and other professionals who had to be on their feet all day. This market began to encompass markets Crocs had never considered. Over the course of a year what had started out as simply an idea on a sailing trip evolved into one of the greatest footwear phenomena of the decade. Products and Target Market Crocs currently targets multiple market segments ranging from boaters to gardeners to simply individuals wanting a comfortable pair of sandals. However, the firms initial target market was boaters. Crocs initial foray into the market was an effort to provide a comfortable pair of nonslip boating shoes to a niche market. This target market soon expanded to others who would pay a premium price for comfort. Nurses, retail store clerks, and others who spent most of the day on their feet quickly recognized the value proposition Crocs offered: while expensive, these individuals were willing to pay a premium to avoid the discomfort of traditional shoes. Today, Crocs targets an even wider swath of the market. Crocs product category advertisements state that Crocs are for women, men, kid, sports, and everyone. To further broaden their market, Crocs advertises that among these segments, customer will find its products to be comfortable on the beach, around the house, in the rain, in cold weather, off the road, for walks in town, and even something that will look good in the office. Crocs has kept its original characteristics of light-weight, non-slip, brightly colored product lines while created additional styles to accommodate the needs of different consumers. Crocs also offers apparel products such as t-sh irts, shorts and even womens leggings. We will write a custom essay sample on Crocs specifically for you for only $16.38 $13.9/page Order now We will write a custom essay sample on Crocs specifically for you FOR ONLY $16.38 $13.9/page Hire Writer We will write a custom essay sample on Crocs specifically for you FOR ONLY $16.38 $13.9/page Hire Writer

About Architect Michael Graves and Postmodernism

About Architect Michael Graves and Postmodernism Architect Michael Graves postmodernist designs were provocative and innovative. He brought color and playfulness to tall, office buildings, while at the same time designing everyday objects such as teakettles and kitchen trashcans for ordinary consumers. Paralyzed late in life, Graves also become a spokesman for universal design and Wounded Warriors. Background: Born: July 9, 1934 in Indianapolis, Indiana Died: March 12, 2015 in Princeton, New Jersey Education: University of Cincinnati, OhioHarvard UniversityFellow at the American Academy in Rome Important Buildings and Projects: Michael Graves home, New Jersey, now part of Michael Graves College at Kean University1982: Portland Building, Portland, Oregon1983: San Juan Capistrano Library, California1985: Humana Tower, Louisville, Kentucky1987-1990: The Dolphin and Swan Hotels, Orlando, Florida1990: Denver Public Library, Denver, Colorado1991: Team Disney Building, Burbank, California1993: U.S. Post Office, Celebration, Florida1995: Engineering Research Center, Cincinnati, Ohio1997: United States Federal Courthouse, Washington, DC1998-2000; 2013-2014: Washington Monument Illumination, Washington, DC2011: The Wounded Warrior Home Project at Fort Belvoir More Than Architecture: Household Designs Michael Graves has designed furnishings, artifacts, jewelry, and dinnerware for companies such as Disney, Alessi, Steuben, Phillips Electronics, and Black Decker. Graves is most famous for designing more than 100 products, ranging from a toilet brush to a $60,000 outdoor pavilion, for Target stores. Related People: Robert Venturi and Denise Scott BrownPhilip JohnsonPart of the New York Five,   subject of the MoMA exhibition and book Five Architects, along with Peter Eisenman, Charles Gwathmey,  Richard Meier and John HejdukDisney Architects Michael Graves Illness: In 2003, a sudden illness left Michael Graves paralyzed from the waist down. Confined to a wheelchair late in life, Graves combined his sophisticated and often whimsical approach to design with a deeper understanding of the importance of accessibility. Awards: 1979: Fellow of the American Institute of Architects (FAIA)1999: National Medal of Arts2001: Gold Medal, American Institute of Architects (AIA) More About Michael Graves: Michael Graves is often credited with moving American architectural thought from abstract modernism to post-modernism. Graves founded his practice in Princeton, New Jersey in 1964 and taught at Princeton University in New Jersey for 40 years. His works range from grand projects such as the Public Services Building in Portland Oregon to designs for furniture, teapots, and other household items. Borrowing heavily from the past, Graves often combined traditional details with whimsical flourishes. He was, perhaps, at his most playful when he designed the Dolphin and Swan Hotels for the Walt Disney World Resort in Florida. The Dolphin Hotel is a turquoise and coral pyramid. A 63-foot-dolphin sits on top, and water cascades down the side. The Swan Hotel has a gently curved roof-line topped with 7-foot swans. The two hotels are connected by an awning-sheltered walkway over a lagoon. What Others Say About Graves: Michael couldn’t abide students who didn’t take their work seriously. But he was especially generous with those who did, and unlike most other teachers, he could draw every building he taught them. He was a consummate talent, an artist-architect, and a teacher who challenged how we think by how we see. Very few can do that. Very few ever try. Michael did try, and therein is the mark of a hero, a master of the discipline who passed on everything he knew.- Peter Eisenman, 2015 Learn More: Five Architects: Eisenman, Graves, Gwathmey, Hejduk, Meier Sources: Peter Eisenman quote from A Special Tribute to Michael Graves: 1934–2015 by Samuel Medina, Metropolis Magazine, May 2015; Michael Gravess Residence, Rejected by Princeton, Is to Be Sold to Kean University by Joshua Barone, The New York Times, June 27, 2016 at www.nytimes.com/2016/06/28/arts/design/michael-gravess-residence-rejected-by-princeton-set-for-sale-to-kean-university.html [accessed July 8, 2016]

Human Resources in Business Case Study Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Human Resources in Business - Case Study Example Other rewards might be social gatherings for different departments, free access to sports clubs or events, and gift packages for vacations or weekend getaways. Both controlling costs and promoting fairness are equally important in designing a reward system. I believe the key to a successful organization is to try and balance between the controlling costs and promoting fairness. The above mentioned company for which I worked 5 years and in two different countries, the reward system, the bonuses in particular were adjusted several times. This, though, was not as a result of the modifying organizational strategies, but a change made in order to respond adequately to the extra money that employees were earning. The statistics showed that some employees are earning the same bonus as the amount of their salary and senior managers decided to change the bonus system, so that greater revenues stays with the company. Therefore, on the various new reward systems that were introduced, hard-working employees who reached their target each month received fewer bonuses. I had experience in job evaluation schemes and I think I was lucky to have a great team leader, who encouraged me to develop the skills that I lacked and gave me the confidence to relate to the job position. The positive aspects might be that although you know that you are performing well, you still need another point of view of your achievements. Employees are not able to look their work from aside so job evaluation is a good way to adjust the barometer of the performed job. A negative aspect might be that everyone has been evaluated under the same criteria, which is very general, and sometimes subjective. Therefore, people, who have different attitude, abilities, predispositions are evaluated under the same common denominator, which destroys the individuality and divides employees into already set

Asses project risks Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Asses project risks - Assignment Example This would thus increase the cost of repairing the damages and increasing the labor cost. Furthermore, this risk is high since it is beyond the control of the project management. The second event that poses risk to the irrigation project is the delay in the delivery of the materials that will be necessary in constructing the water routes (Larson & Gray, 2011). The delay in such delivery risk bringing the project to a halt hence leading to non-achievement of the projects objective. This risk can be minimized by ensuring that reliable suppliers are contracted to deliver the materials and communications made in time. The third event that poses the risk to the project is the destruction of the plants when being planted or pruned. In such cases, the cost of purchasing additional plants or that of paying for the additional labor cost will negatively affect the project implementation. It also has the risk of delaying the completion of the project. Furthermore, destruction of the plants may lead to poor delivery of substitute plants, which are not of the same quality. The fourth event that poses risk to the irrigation project is labor disputes. In such a project, the number of persons employed is many and range from those with specialization and casual laborers (Linkov & Ramadan, 2004). Any delay in the payment of their remuneration or low rewards could make them down their tools and delay the timely completion of the project. Moreover, in the event that the equipments used in the building of the irrigation scheme is destroyed, the project could take longer periods. The cost of repairing the equipments will also increase the cost of the project hence resulting into total failure. Breakdown in the equipments could also arise when the actual digging is taking place and substandardised equipments have the potential of derailing the quality of the future construction or buildings. Spraying of the plants

Applying theory to a practice problem 3 Research Paper

Applying theory to a practice problem 3 - Research Paper Example Luke's Hospital School of Nursing. She earned both Master of Science in Nursing and a PhD from Case Western Reserve University in 1987 and 1997 respectively. Currently Kolcaba is serving as Associate Professor of nursing at Akron College of Nursing. Kolcaba has received many awards, including the Midwest Nursing Research Society award of Advancement of Science Award and the Case Western Reserve University award Cushing Robb Prize. Since retiring from professional teaching, she has been volunteering with the Honor Society of Nursing and the American Nurses Association. She has done various publications including Comfort Theory and Practice: A Vision for Holistic Health Care and Research. On the other hand, Dr. Margaret Jean Watson was born in 1940 in West Virginia and grew up in an extended family (Watson, 2010). Watson graduated with her bachelors of Science in Nursing at the University of Colorado. She earned her master’s in psychiatric-mental health nursing, and a doctorateà ¢â‚¬â„¢s in educational psychology and counseling (Johnson & Webber, 2010). She joined the teaching profession and became a distinguished Professor in Nursing and holds a Chair in Caring Science at the University of Colorado Health Science Center (Johnson & Webber, 2010). ... Dr. Watson is a fellow in the American Academy of nursing. She has national and international honors (Watson, 1997). When Watson created the caring theory, she had in mind the purpose to capture the medical standard of the patient and the environment in which they lived (Watson, 2008). This paper seeks to describe a nursing theory established by the above described nursing theorists and the influences contributed by the theorists, the concepts and the propositions of the theory, and then apply the theory to a practice problem through demonstrating the links to the elements of the theory and the problem. According to Kolcaba (1993), comfort theory addresses the satisfaction of human needs that arise from stressful health care situations. The paper seeks to apply this theory in the field of patient negligence. This involves the lack of coordination and communication in care, and also the management and control of symptoms, before the disease is aggravated. This problem is experienced i n both the public and private sector hence Kolcaba (1993) sort to address this issue and return sanity in the administration of patient care. According to L.J. Morrison and R.S Morrison (2006), palliative care are important in the care of elderly people as they require close monitoring. The problem is quite a matter of interest, quoting from statistics most patients die due to negligence by nurses. If the issue is addressed appropriately this will prevent the end of avoidable deaths. Kolcaba (1993) acknowledges that various scientific steps such as the muscle relaxation procedure and the therapeutic touch have been made to ensure that patients are well taken care of. In addition to the acknowledgement of the work of Katharine Kolcaba, The University of

Analysing Elizabeth Browning And Lord Tennyson English Literature Essay

Analysing Elizabeth Browning And Lord Tennyson English Literature Essay Two of the most successful poets of the 19th century, particularly between 1830 and 1900, were Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Alfred Lord Tennyson. The poems being studied throughout this essay are Aurora Leigh and The Cry of the Children by Elizabeth Browning, and The Lady of Shallot, In Memoriam and The Lotus-Eaters by Alfred Tennyson. All of these poems show how poets of the Victorian era dealt with the concept of morality in their own modern worlds. In detail, this essay will focus on Elizabeth Brownings feminist nature in her poems. Browning also writes about the contemporary issues during her lifetime, like the conflicts women faced as regards their home and work lives. This is shown on Aurora Leigh in great detail. She also writes about the struggle of young children and this is evident in the poem The Cry of the Children. This essay will also discuss Alfred Lord Tennyson and the different themes that he used throughout his writings, such as loss, romance and loneliness. His p oetry is based a lot on emotions. It is sometimes suggested that he based his poetry on his own life and his emotional state at different times in his life. Both of these poets give opportunities to the reader to see deeper into the life of society back in the 19th century. Elizabeth Barrett Browning was one of the most famous poets in England in the Victorian era for several reasons. Her feminine status aided her poems in getting noticed and in getting read. In most of her poems she shows an interest or at least a glimpse into the world around at the time. Her poem Aurora Leigh (1857) is written in the form of a novel poem. At the time that she wrote this it wasnt know for women to write novel or epic poems, if they were to write it would only be short verses, or in some cases like Browning they would also write sonnets. The poem has a contemporary setting and it shows issues of the modern society, especially in relation to the conflict between gender and genre in poetry. In Victorian society, there was a lot more emphasis put on the purity of women and also there was the sense that women would be looked down upon if they didnt uphold these ideals. Elizabeth Browning wrote in a way, against society, so to a point she was a typical Victorian poet. She was, in a sense, feeding into modernism, moving away from your typical society ways. We can see this too in her poem Aurora Leigh when she says Their sole work is to represent the age, their age, not Charlemagnes, this live, throbbing age (ll. 202-203). In an article by Joyce Zanona on Elizabeth Browning there is a lot of discussion around the feminist nature of Aurora Leigh. She goes through how Aurora talks of the treatment of women, and hoe women to Aurora were being treated as offal. In The Norton Anthology of English literature it tells us of how there were many contemporary artists at this time, such as Emily Dickinson or John Ruskin that admired her work for her moral and emotional ardour and her energetic engagement with the issues of her day. Her poetry is noted to have a general sense of morality running through, in both her early works and her later works after her marriage to Robert Browning, in poems like The Cry of the Children and in her sonnets. In The Cry of the Children Elizabeth Browning gives an insight into gender roles in society in the 1800s, the industrial revolution and also into the system of morality that some say failed during the Victorian period. In the poem, Browning describes the life of little children in the 1800s, during the time of the Industrial Revolution. In the lower classes they were made to work from a very young age, whether it was in the workhouses or on farms or anywhere. A lot of Victorian writers wrote for the cause that was the life of these little kids, and the social life mainly of the poorer classes and the social struggles. In The Cry of the Children Browning say They are weeping bitterly! They are weeping in the playtime of others, in the country of the free (ll. 10-12). A lot of poets felt like it was the lives of the kids that needed to be protected during the hard times of the revolution and the 19th century in general. Her poem, even from the first line, suggests the sorrow of the chi ldren in the 19th century and they sad times that they were faced with. She paints the picture of a nice picturesque place to live with The young lambs are bleating in the meadows, the young birds are chirping in the nest (ll.5-6). She also wonders if the young children wonder why they cry so much. The images of the lifeless trees and dying hope also suggests that at the time that Browning wrote the poem there was a lot of troubles and hardships in society. The damaged images may represent the damaged society that was around then, in that they had a lot of rules and ideals which Browning and other poets felt needed to be forgotten. Alfred, Lord Tennyson, was mostly known for his short poems, a lot of which had themes of a mythological nature, like Ulysses. Separate to these however was In Memoriam, which was written in memory of his fellow poet and best friend Arthur Hallam, written in 1850 and being one of the biggest successes he produced throughout his career. In his poetry Tennyson can be seen to have reflected on a common concern that was also evident among other poets of that era, the conflict that was occurring between the expansion of knowledge in the scientific world and the religious faith. In his poem In Memoriam he doesnt really put emphasis on one way of thinking or a particular religion, however in his poem Ulysses Tennyson writes about how it is better to live in the present than dwell on the past, how you need to look forward to the future and move forward with knowledge and experience. In the poem he says that the mind acts to strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield (l. 70), so he is leaning towards the side of science, that if you have wisdom you can move forward and be happy, faith isnt a necessity. In In Memoriam Tennyson struggles a little because of his faith, how it started to disappear after the death of his friend. As the poem goes on, the tone changes to a brighter, more pleasant feeling because it seems he has come to the conclusion that his faith cannot be destroyed, especially not by knowledge or science. The Lady of Shallot was originally written in 1832 but it was later revised by Tennyson and finally it was published a decade later, in 1842. The Lady of Shallot can be viewed as being similar to the story of the Maid of Astolat, however Tennyson always said that it was actually based on a personal experience, on an old Italian Romantic encounter. In Flavia Alayas book it says Interpretations of The Lady of Shallot represent it as one of Tennysons many unresolved expressions of his peculiar dilemma: artistic dedication vs. Social responsibility, failing to make an essential distinction between disposition and activity whereby his meaning becomes less paradoxical. He struggled with trying to decide whether or not writing about things that mattered to him, like politics history and general humanitarian issues would take away from his poetry what he worked so hard to put into it, magic. The Lotus-Eaters is a poem which describes a couple of mariners who after eating lotus are isolated from the world. In The Lotus-Eaters there is the theme of whether or not a poet should create work to celebrate the world, or whether they should just enjoy the world simply by living in it. The poem suggests that by giving in to the power that the flower conveys, the mariners are misleading themselves. In the poem Tennyson says meadow, set with slender galingale; a land where all things always seemed the same! (ll.23-24). It is almost as if by eating the lotuss that the mariners were leaving reality and they instead were entering a world where thing seemed to be different than they actually were. The poem The Lotus Eaters considers the differences between living in a community and living on ones own in isolation. Unlike in The Lotus Eaters, in his poem The Lady of Shallot, the woman is isolated but in a different way than the mariners. The difference in their isolation being that she doesnt really have a choice in the situation, she cannot leave whereas the mariners could leave the island. She has no choice in her isolated state. The Lady is lured away and there is also a curse involved. One could make the argument that Tennyson was writing about his own life, the struggle from being isolated and torn between it and the public eye because of his poetry. In both Elizabeth Barrett Brownings and Alfred Lord Tennysons writings, the issue of womens sexuality and their place in the Victorian era is evident. The societal status of women in the Victorian era showed problems in the national power of England with appalling social conditions. Difficulties grew more and more for women because there was this idea where there was the ideal woman. This was at the time when there was gender inequality in both politics and society. Women were seen to have a domestic purpose and to maybe do work in the workhouses if they were poor, but in the poem Aurora Leigh, Elizabeth Browning writes about Auroras success in both her professional and home lives, and this too poses the question of what the role was for women in the Victorian era was. Browning seems to of put some of her own experiences as a woman writer in this era into Aurora Leigh, almost as if she is completely writing about herself under a disguised name, her problems as a woman. This essay has shown how in their own different ways, both of these poets dealt with the issue of morality and society in their own way and in their own lives. It also showed the different ways that poets and writers in the Victorian era tried to deal with social issues, like Elizabeth Browning and child labour and feminist activity or Alfred Lord Tennyson and the emotions people had to deal with along with problems et cetera. It showed clearly how there was an awful lot of problems facing writers in the 19th century and it showed the different emotional states which they all went through and how they portrayed these in their poetry. It showed their way of dealing with the moral function of poetry in the modern world.

Essay on Prejudice and Pride in Pride and Prejudice -- Pride and Preju

Prejudice and Pride in Pride and Prejudice      Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   In any literary work the title and introduction make at least some allusion to the important events of the novel. With Pride and Prejudice, Austen takes this convention to the extreme, designing all of the first and some of the second half of the novel after the title and the first sentence. The concepts of pride, prejudice, and "universally acknowledged truth" (51), as well as the interpretation of those concepts, are the central focus of the novel. They dictate the actions of almost all the major characters (not just Darcy and Elizabeth), and foreshadow all of the major events in the novel, especially in the first few chapters, involving the first ball at Netherfield. While Darcy comes to represent pride, and Elizabeth prejudice, all of the characters in Pride and Prejudice are impacted by both pride and prejudice, and their scorn towards the two central characters in the novel becomes only hypocritical.    While everyone (at first) scorns Darcy's excessive pride, that very same pride in self and family effects the actions of many of the characters. Pride in her daughters makes Mrs. Bennet confident that they will soon be married off. "It is very likely," she tells her husband, "that [Bingley] may fall in love with one of them" (52). Pride makes the early Darcy cold and disrespectful, and Miss Bingley haughty, jealous, and spiteful. "[The Bingley sisters] were in fact very fine ladies...but proud and conceited. They were rather handsome, had been educated in one of the first private seminaries in town, had a fortune of twenty thousand pounds...and were therefore in every respect entitled to think well of themselves, and meanly of others" (63). Pride drives Mr. Col... ...Donald Gray. New York: Norton and Co., 1993. Butler, Marilyn. Jane Austen and the War of Ideas. Oxford. Claredon Press, 1975 Harding, D. W. "Regulated Hatred: An Aspect in the Work of Jane Austen." Pride and Prejudice. By Jane Austen. Ed. Donald Gray. New York: Norton and Co., 1993. pp. 291-295. "Jane Austen, " Discovering Authors' Modules, http://galenet.gale.com/a/acp/netacgi/nphrs?d=DAMA&s1=bio&s2=Austen,+Jane&1=50&pg1=DT&pg2=NM&p=17    Johnson, Claudia L. "Pride and Prejudice and the Pursuit of Happiness." Pride and Prejudice. By Jane Austen. Ed. Donald Gray. New York: Norton and Co., 1993. pp. 367-376. Mudrick, Marvin."Irony as Discovery in Pride and Prejudice." Pride and Prejudice. By Jane Austen. Ed. Donald Gray. New York: Norton and Co., 1993. pp. 295-303. Sherry, Norman. Jane Austen. London. Montegue House, 1966   

Musical Subculture

Punk rock is primarily a British musical genre that reached its creative and popular peak during 1977 and 1978. The precursors of punk rock were those American and British groups of the late 1960s and early 1970s who played rock music with an aggressive feel, with loud distorted guitars and nihilistic lyrics. While most punk rock groups drew influence from some earlier bands, they were specific about rejecting the majority of music produced in the early 1970s. In particular, punk rock musicians did not like what they termed the hippie music of progressive rock. Central to any discussion of punk is the band The Sex Pistols (Sabin 78). Not the first punk rock group but certainly the most influential was The Sex Pistols. The group was formed in late 1975. Shortly after this the band started touring on the pub rock and college gig circuits. Early songs such as ‘Submission’ and ‘Anarchy In The UK’ lyrically mocked what the band perceived to be the traditional and boring nature of British society. They were against a backdrop of rambunctious guitars and drums. It was not long before The Sex Pistols attracted a fanatical following of punks equally disillusioned with British society and culture (Sabin 123). The media furore that made early Sex Pistol’s gigs was nothing in comparison to the outrage that emerged after their actions in December 1976. Following the cancellation of an appearance by the group Queen, The Sex Pistols were invited to appear on the early evening London television show Today. After drinking heavily before the show, the band verbally insulted interviewer Bill Grundy, and caused a tabloid storm with their explicit language. This set the stage for the release of their ‘God Save The Queen’ single, a week before the Queen’s Jubilee weekend in June 1977. Again tabloid newspapers and the public in general were shocked by the band’s direct attacks upon an institution central to British society, the monarchy. In particular the record cover, created by the band’s ‘Art Director’ Jamie Reid, created a sensation with its image of the Queen with a safety pin through her nose (Sabin 123-125). ‘God Save The Queen’ was The Sex Pistol’s high point. Later in 1977 the band released their one and only official album, Never Mind The Bollocks. Like all the band’s releases it came in a trademark Jamie Reid cover that mimicked the style of a ransom note, and contained direct attacks on central facets of British culture. The Sex Pistols found that they were unable to obtain gigs in Britain because promoters and venues showed an unwillingness to allow them to perform. Band tensions reached a head following the band’s tour of the USA, and they split in early 1978. The band’s lead singer Johnny Rotten reverted to his real name John Lydon, formed Public Image Limited, and left the punk rock genre. The band struggled on in his absence, but the drug-related death of bass player Sid Vicious led to their inevitable demise (Strinati 89). However, some commentators claim that the ‘spirit of punk’ is not to be found in those groups who sound like their 1970s counterparts, but in the house, techno and jungle acts who make music for reasons other than commercial gain. For many of the first generation of punk rock groups, making music was about ‘making do’ with the available technology, and they were therefore opposed to the kind of learned musicianship of previous rock genres. It is understandable that house, jungle and techno acts, with their cheap sampling equipment and their own production technology, consider themselves to be the direct descendants of the first punk rock bands. The Sex Pistols were attracting media attention, a whole wave of other punk rock bands were forming, notably The Damned and The Clash in London and The Buzzcocks in Manchester. Although none received the same mixture of notoriety and fame as The Sex Pistols, many considered them to be musically more interesting. In the wake of the successes of The Sex Pistols, many young people began to form their own bands in 1977 and 1978. In particular these bands developed a ‘DIY’ attitude to making music. The Sex Pistols developed different styles of punk, but maintained a central ethos of opposition to mainstream British society. Either implicitly or explicitly, this political ethos was central to punk rock (Sabin 103). The degree to which The Sex Pistols has influenced subsequent rock styles is hotly debated. Throughout the 1980s, new bands formed and drew inspiration from the events of 1976 and 1977. In particular, indie bands’ faith in the seven-inch single and suspicion of the LP has been interpreted as directly related to punk’s ‘DIY’ approach. Musically, The Sex Pistols has been particularly influential upon American bands, with Nirvana, Hole and Mudhoney all having had chart successes in Britain. These ‘post-punk’ bands developed a similar sound to the stripped-down aggression of the first generation of The Sex Pistols. Some British rock groups, such as The Wildhearts, Therapy and the Manic Street Preachers also have their musical roots in punk rock (Curtis 60). In fact, the absence of a symbol of class solidarity made The Sex Pistols more important than it had ever been before. Moreover, punks realized that they no longer had to be passive spectators, for rock ‘n' roll had always meant self assertion of one kind or another. In this sense, the key punk song is the Sex Pistols' â€Å"No Feelings,† especially the line, which Johnny Rotten screams over their version of the wall of sound, â€Å"I'm in love with myself.† What we have here is an assertion, not of a political program, but of the discovery of what Daniel Yankelovich called personal entitlement. The Sex Pistols made a terrific impact because through them their audience discovered that they didn't have to go through their lives saying â€Å"sir.† It was as though they had discovered the working-class equivalent of black pride, and had realized that they didn't play the equivalent of Uncle Tom to their betters—or to their peers, either. After seeing them for the first time, Coon noted: What impressed me most†¦was their total disinterest in pleasing anybody except themselves. Instead, they engaged the audience, trying to provoke a reaction which forced people to express what they felt about the music. Quite apart from being very funny, their arrogance was a sure indication that they knew what they were doing and why (Coon 70). For many people, spiked hair and dog collars had become a joke, the domain of soda pop ads and television dramas. But did punk disappear with the utter sell-out of its foremost corporate spokesband, the Sex Pistols? Did punk rock vanish when pink mohawks could be found only on pubescent heads at the shopping mall? If the spectacular collapse of punk rock was also the collapse of spectacular subcultures? What crawled from the wreckage? In what ways can young people express their unease with the modern structure of feeling? A new kind of punk has been answering these questions. Today, to a certain extent, punk rock means post-punk – a nameless, covert subculture reformed after punk rock. To recap: early punk rock was, in part, simulated ‘anarchy;’ the performance of an unruly mob. So long as it could convince or alarm straight people, it achieved the enactment. For its play to work, punk rock needed a perplexed and frightened ‘mainstream’ off which to bounce. But when the mainstream proved that it needed punk rock, punk's equation was reversed: its negativity became positively commercial. As mainstream style diversified, and as deviant styles were normalized, punk rock had less to act against. Punk rock had gambled all its chips on public outcry, and when it could no longer captivate an audience, it was wiped clean. Post-punk, or contemporary punk, has foregone these performances of anarchy and is now almost synonymous with the practice of anarchism. Long after the ‘death’ of classical punk rock, post-punk and/or punk subcultures coalesce around praxis. The Sex Pistols called attention to themselves with their clothing as well as with their music. The torn clothing, which they wore, like the tattered shirts, the chains wrapped around their bodies, the safety pins in their cheeks, said something of great importance. The Sex Pistols created a fresh moral panic fuelled by British tabloids, Members of Parliament, and plenty of everyday folk. Initially, at least, they threatened ‘everything England stands for’: patriotism, class hierarchy, ‘common decency’ and ‘good taste’ (Curtis 98). When the Sex Pistols topped the charts in Britain, and climbed high in America, Canada, and elsewhere, punk savoured a moment in the sun: every public castigation only convinced more people that punk was real. Fortunately, The Sex Pistols meant more than excitement in a few clubs and big sales in safety pins. The Sex Pistols also produced one of the great bands of the seventies—The Clash. If rock ‘n' roll is a universe, The Clash and the Sex Pistols are different planets. Works Cited Coon, Caroline. The New Wave Punk Explosion, New York: Hawthorn Books, Inc., 1978. Curtis, Jim. Rock Eras: Interpretations of Music and Society, 1954-1984. Bowling Green State University Popular Press: Bowling Green, OH, 1987. Sabin, Roger. Punk Rock, So What? The Cultural Legacy of Punk. Routledge: London, 1999. Strinati, Dominic. Come on Down? Popular Media Culture in Post-War Britain. Stephen Wagg. Routledge: New York, 1992.               

Best Summary and Analysis The Great Gatsby, Chapter 7

Best Summary and Analysis The Great Gatsby, Chapter 7 SAT / ACT Prep Online Guides and Tips Chapter 7 marks the climax of The Great Gatsby. Twice as long as every other chapter, it first ratchets up the tension of the Gatsby-Daisy-Tom triangle to a breaking point in a claustrophobic scene at the Plaza Hotel, and then ends with the grizzly gut punch of Myrtle’s death. Read our full summary ofThe Great Gatsby Chapter 7to see how all dreams die, only to be replaced with a grim and cynical reality. Image: Helmut Ellgaard/Wikipedia Quick Note on Our Citations Our citation format in this guide is (chapter.paragraph). We're using this system since there are many editions of Gatsby, so using page numbers would only work for students with our copy of the book. To find a quotation we cite via chapter and paragraph in your book, you can either eyeball it (Paragraph 1-50: beginning of chapter; 50-100: middle of chapter; 100-on: end of chapter), or use the search function if you're using an online or eReader version of the text. The Great Gatsby: Chapter 7Summary Suddenly one Saturday, Gatsby doesn't throw a party. When Nick comes over to see why, Gatsby has a new butler who rudely sends Nick away. It turns out that Gatsby has replaced all of his servants with ones sent over by Wolfshiem. Gatsby explains that this is because Daisy comes over every afternoon to continue their affair - he needs them to be discreet. Gatsby invites Nick to Daisy's house for lunch. The plan is for Daisy and Gatsby to tell Tom about their relationship, and for Daisy to leave Tom. The next day it is extremely hot. Nick and Gatsby show up to have lunch with Daisy, Jordan, and Tom.Tom is on the phone, seemingly arguing with someone about the car. Daisy assumes that he is only pretending, and that he is actually talking to Myrtle. While Tom is out of the room, Daisy kisses Gatsby on the mouth. The nanny brings Tom and Daisy's daughter into the room and Gatsby is shocked to realize that the child actually exists and is real. Tom and Gatsby go outside, and Gatsby points out that it's his house is directly across the bay from theirs. Everyone is restless and nervous. From the way Daisy looks at and talks to Gatsby, Tom suddenly figures out that she and Gatsby are having an affair. Daisy asks to go into Manhattan and Tom agrees, insisting that they go immediately. He gets a bottle of whiskey to bring with them.There is a short, but crucial,argument about who will take which car. In the end, Tom takes Nick and Jordan in Gatsby's car while Gatsby takes Daisy in Tom's car. On the drive, Tom explains to Nick and Jordan that he's been investigating Gatsby, which Jordan laughs off.They stop for gas at Wilson's gas station. Tom shows off Gatsby's car, pretending it's his own. Wilson complains about being sick and again asks for Tom’s car because he needs money fast (the assumption is that he will resell it at a profit). Wilson explains the he's figured out that Myrtle is cheating on him, so he's taking her the way from New York to a different state. Glad that Wilson hasn't figured out who Myrtle is having the affair with, Tom says that he will sell Wilson his car as he promised. As they drive off, Nick sees Myrtle in an upstairs window staring at Tom and Jordan, whom she assumes to be his wife. (It’s critical to realize that Myrtle now also associates Tom with this yellow car.) It's still crazy hot when they get to Manhattan. Jordan suggests going to the movies, but they end up getting a suite at the Plaza Hotel.The hotel room is stifling, and they can hear the sounds of a wedding going on downstairs. The conversation is tense. Tom starts picking at Gatsby, but Daisy defends him.Tom accuses Gatsby of not actually being an Oxford man. Gatsby explains that he only went to Oxford for a short time because of a special program for officers after the war. This plausible-sounding explanation fills Nick with confidence about Gatsby. Suddenly Gatsby decides to tell Tom his version of the truth - that Daisy never loved Tom but has always only loved Gatsby.Tom calls Gatsby crazy and says that of course Daisy loves him - and that he loves her too even if he does cheat on her all the time. Gatsby demands that Daisy tell Tom that she has never loved him. Daisy can’t bring herself to do this, and instead said that she has loved them both. This crushes Gatsby. Tom starts revealing what he knows about Gatsby from his investigation. It turns out that Gatsby's money comes from illegal sales of alcohol in drugstores, just as Tom had predicted when he first met him. Tom has a friend who tried to go into business with Gatsby and Wolfshiem. Through him, Tom knows that bootlegging is only part of the criminal activity that Gatsby is involved in. These revelations cause Daisy to shut down, and no matter how much Gatsby tries to defend himself, she is disillusioned. She asks Tom to take her home. Tom's last power play is to tell Gatsby to take Daisy home instead, knowing that leaving them alone together now does not pose any threat to him or his marriage. Gatsby and Daisy drive home in Gatsby’s car. Tom, Nick, and Jordan drive home together in Tom's car. The narration now switches to Nick repeating evidence given at an inquest (a legal proceeding to gather facts surrounding a death) by Michaelis, who runs a coffee shop next to Wilson's garage. That evening Wilson had explained to Michaelisthat he had locked up Myrtle in order to keep an eye on her until they moved away in a couple of days. Michaelis was shocked to hear this, because usually Wilson was a meek man. When Michaelis left, he heard Myrtle and Wilson fighting. Then Myrtle ran out into the street toward a car coming from New York. The car hit her and drove off, and by the time Michaelis reached her on the ground, she was dead. The narration switches back to Nick's point of view, as Tom, Nick, and Jordan are driving back from Manhattan. They pull up to the accident site. At first, Tom jokes about Wilson getting some business at last, but when he sees the situation is serious, he stops the car and runs over to Myrtle's body. Tom asks a policeman for details of the accident. When he realizes that witnesses can identify the yellow car that hit Myrtle, he worries that Wilson, who saw him in that car earlier that afternoon, will finger him to the police. Tom grabs Wilson and tells him that the yellow car that hit Myrtle is not Tom's, and that he was only driving it before giving it back to its owner. As they drive away from the scene, Tom sobs in the car. Back at his house, Tom invites Nick and Jordan inside. Nick is sickened by the whole thing and turns to go. Jordan also asks Nick to come inside. When he refuses again, she goes in. As Nick is walking away, he sees Gatsby lurking in the bushes. Nick suddenly sees him as a criminal. As they discuss what happened, Nick realizes that it was actually Daisy who was driving the car, meaning that it was Daisy who killed Myrtle. Gatsby makes it sound like she had to choose between getting into a head-on collision with another car coming the other way on the road or hitting Myrtle, and at the last secondchose to hit Myrtle. Gatsby seems to have no feelings at all about the dead woman, and instead only worries about what Daisyand how she will react. Gatsby says that he will take the blame for driving the car. Gatsby says that he is lurking in the dark to make sure that Daisy is safe from Tom, who he worries might treat her badly when he finds out what happened. Nick goes back to the house to investigate, and sees Tom and Daisy having an intimate conspiratorial moment together in the kitchen. It's clear that once again Gatsby has fundamentally misunderstood Tom and Daisy's relationship. Nick leaves Gatsby alone. It’s amazing how immediately suspect and creepy Gatsby becomes once Nick turns on him. Has our narrator been spinning Gatsby’s behavior from the get-go? Key Chapter 7 Quotes Then she remembered the heat and sat down guiltily on the couch just as a freshly laundered nurse leading a little girl came into the room. "Bles-sed pre-cious," she crooned, holding out her arms. "Come to your own mother that loves you." The child, relinquished by the nurse, rushed across the room and rooted shyly into her mother's dress. "The Bles-sed pre-cious! Did mother get powder on your old yellowy hair? Stand up now, and say How-de-do." Gatsby and I in turn leaned down and took the small reluctant hand. Afterward he kept looking at the child with surprise. I don't think he had ever really believed in its existence before. (7.48-52) This is our first and only chance to see Daisy performing motherhood. And "performing" is the right word, since everything about Daisy's actions here rings a little false and her cutesy sing song a little bit like an act. The presence of the nurse makes it clear that, like many upper-class women of the time, Daisy does not actually do any child rearing. At the same time, this is the exact moment when Gatsby is delusional dreams start breaking down. The shock and surprise that he experiences when he realizes that Daisy really does have a daughter with Tom show how little he has thought about the fact the Daisy has had a life of her own outside of him for the last five years. The existence of the child is proof of Daisy's separate life, and Gatsby simply cannot handle then she is not exactly as he has pictured her to be. Finally, here we can see how Pammyis being bred for her life as a future â€Å"beautiful little fool†, as Daisy put it. As Daisy’s makeup rubs onto Pammy's hair, Daisy prompts her reluctant daughter to be friendly to two strange men. "What'll we do with ourselves this afternoon," cried Daisy, "and the day after that, and the next thirty years?" "Don't be morbid," Jordan said. "Life starts all over again when it gets crisp in the fall."(7.74-75) Comparing and contrasting Daisy and Jordan) is one of the most common assignments that you will get when studying this novel. This very famous quotation is a great place to start. Daisy's attempt at a joke reveals her fundamental boredom and restlessness. Despite the fact that she has social standing, wealth, and whatever material possessions she could want, she is not happy in her endlessly monotonous and repetitive life. This existential ennui goes a long way to helping explain why she seizes on Gatsby as an escape from routine. On the other hand, Jordan is a pragmatic and realistic person, who grabs opportunities and who sees possibilities and even repetitive cyclical moments of change. For example here, although fall and winterare most often linked to sleep and death, whereas it is spring that is usually seen as the season of rebirth, for Jordan any change brings with it the chance for reinvention and new beginnings. "She's got an indiscreet voice," I remarked. "It's full of- - " I hesitated. "Her voice is full of money," he said suddenly. That was it. I'd never understood before. It was full of money- that was the inexhaustible charm that rose and fell in it, the jingle of it, the cymbals' song of it. . . . High in a white palace the king's daughter, the golden girl. . . . (7.103-106) Here we are getting to the root of what it is really that attracts Gatsby so much to Daisy. Nick notes that the way Daisy speaks to Gatsby is enough to reveal their relationship to Tom. Once again we see the powerful attraction of Daisy's voice. For Nick, this voice is full of â€Å"indiscretion,† an interesting word that at the same time brings to mind the revelation of secrets and the disclosure of illicit sexual activity. Nick has used this word in this connotation before - when describing Myrtle in Chapter 2he uses the word â€Å"discreet† several times to explain the precautions she takes to hide her affair with Tom. But for Gatsby, Daisy's voice does not hold this sexy allure, as much as it does the promise of wealth, which has been his overriding ambition and goal for most of his life. To him, her voice marks her as a prize to be collected. This impression is further underscored by the fairy tale imagery that follows the connection of Daisy's voice to money. Much like princesses who is the end of fairy tales are given as a reward to plucky heroes, so too Daisy is Gatsby's winnings, an indication that he has succeeded. "You think I'm pretty dumb, don't you?" he suggested. "Perhaps I am, but I have a- almost a second sight, sometimes, that tells me what to do. Maybe you don't believe that, but science- - " (7.123) Nick never sees Tom as anything other than a villain; however, it is interesting that only Tom immediately sees Gatsby for the fraud that he turns out to be. Almost from the get-go, Tom calls it that Gatsby's money comes from bootlegging or some other criminal activity. It is almost as though Tom's life of lies gives him special insight into detecting the lies of others. The relentless beating heat was beginning to confuse me and I had a bad moment there before I realized that so far his suspicions hadn't alighted on Tom. He had discovered that Myrtle had some sort of life apart from him in another world and the shock had made him physically sick. I stared at him and then at Tom, who had made a parallel discovery less than an hour before- and it occurred to me that there was no difference between men, in intelligence or race, so profound as the difference between the sick and the well. Wilson was so sick that he looked guilty, unforgivably guilty- as if he had just got some poor girl with child. (7.160) You will also often be asked to compare Tom and Wilson, two characters who share some plot details in common.This passage, which explicitly contrasts these two men's reactions to finding out their wives are having affairs, is a great place to start. Tom’s response to Daisy and Gatsby’s relationship isto immediately do everything to display his power. He forces a trip to Manhattan, demands that Gatsby explain himself, systematically dismantles the careful image and mythology that Gatsby has created, and finally makes Gatsby drive Daisy home to demonstrate how little he has to fear from them being alone together. Wilson also tries to display power. But he is so unused to wielding it that his best effort is to lock Myrtle up and then to listen to her emasculating insults and provocations. Moreover, rather than relaxing under this power trip, Wilson becomes physically ill, feeling guilty both abouthis part in driving his wife away and aboutmanhandling her into submission. Finally, it is interesting that Nick renders these reactions as health-related. Whose response does Nick view as â€Å"sick† and whose as â€Å"well†? It is tempting to connect Wilson’s bodily response to the word â€Å"sick,† but the ambiguity is purposeful. Is it sicker in this situation to take a power-hungry delight in eviscerating a rival, Tom-style, or to be overcome on a psychosomatic level, like Wilson? "Self control!" repeated Tom incredulously. "I suppose the latest thing is to sit back and let Mr. Nobody from Nowhere make love to your wife. Well, if that's the idea you can count me out. . . . Nowadays people begin by sneering at family life and family institutions and next they'll throw everything overboard and have intermarriage between black and white." Flushed with his impassioned gibberish he saw himself standing alone on the last barrier of civilization. "We're all white here," murmured Jordan. "I know I'm not very popular. I don't give big parties. I suppose you've got to make your house into a pigsty in order to have any friends- in the modern world." Angry as I was, as we all were, I was tempted to laugh whenever he opened his mouth. The transition from libertine to prig was so complete. (7.229-233) Nick is happy whenever he gets to demonstrate how undereducated and dumb Tom actually is. Here, Tom’s anger at Daisy and Gatsby is somehow transformed into a self-pitying and faux righteous rant about miscegenation, loose morals, and the decay of stalwart institutions. We see the connection between Jordan and Nick when both of them puncture Tom’s pompous balloon: Jordan points out that race isn’t really at issue at the moment, and Nick laughs at the hypocrisy of a womanizer like Tom suddenly lamenting his wife’s lack of prim propriety. "She never loved you, do you hear?" he cried. "She only married you because I was poor and she was tired of waiting for me. It was a terrible mistake, but in her heart she never loved any one except me!" (7.241) Gatsby throws caution to the wind and reveals the story that he has been telling himself about Daisy all this time. In his mind, Daisy has been pining for him as much as he has been longing for her, and he has been able to explain her marriage to himself simply by eliding any notion that she might have her own hopes, dreams, ambitions, and motivations. Gatsby has been propelled for the last five years by the idea that he has access to what is in Daisy's heart. However, we can see that a dream built on this kind of shifting sand is at best wishful thinking and at worst willful self-delusion. "Daisy, that's all over now," he said earnestly. "It doesn't matter any more. Just tell him the truth- that you never loved him- and it's all wiped out forever." ... She hesitated. Her eyes fell on Jordan and me with a sort of appeal, as though she realized at last what she was doing- and as though she had never, all along, intended doing anything at all. But it was done now. It was too late†¦. "Oh, you want too much!" she cried to Gatsby. "I love you now- isn't that enough? I can't help what's past." She began to sob helplessly. "I did love him once- but I loved you too." Gatsby's eyes opened and closed. "You loved me too?" he repeated. (7.254-266) Gatsby wants nothing less than that Daisy erase the last five years of her life. He is unwilling to accept the idea that Daisy has had feelings for someone other than him, that she has had a history that does not involve him, and that she has not spent every single second of every day wondering when he would come back into her life. His absolutism is a form of emotional blackmail. For all Daisy's evident weaknesses, it is a testament to her psychological strength that she is simply unwilling to recreate herself, her memories, and her emotions in Gatsby's image. She could easily at this point say thatshe has never loved Tom, but this would not be true, and she does not want to give up her independence of mind. Unlike Gatsby, who against all evidence to the contrary believes that you can repeat the past, Daisy wants to know that there is a future. She wants Gatsby to be the solution to her worries about each successive future day, rather than an imprecation about the choices she has made to get to this point. At the same time, it's key to note Nick’s realization that Daisy â€Å"had never intended on doing anything at all.† Daisy has never planned to leave Tom. We've known this ever since the first time we saw them at the end of Chapter 1, when herealized that they were cemented together in their dysfunction. It passed, and he began to talk excitedly to Daisy, denying everything, defending his name against accusations that had not been made. But with every word she was drawing further and further into herself, so he gave that up and only the dead dream fought on as the afternoon slipped away, trying to touch what was no longer tangible, struggling unhappily, undespairingly, toward that lost voice across the room. (7.292) The appearance of Daisy's daughter and Daisy’s declaration that at some point in her life she loved Tom have both helped to crush Gatsby's obsession with his dream. In just the same way, Tom's explanations about who Gatsby really is and what is behind his facade have broken Daisy's infatuation. Take note of the language here – as Daisy is withdrawing from Gatsby, we come back to the image of Gatsby with his arms outstretched, trying to grab something that is just out of reach. In this case it's not just Daisy herself, but also his dream of being with her inside his perfect memory. "Beat me!" he heard her cry. "Throw me down and beat me, you dirty little coward!" (7.314) Myrtle fights by provoking and taunting. Here, she is pointing out Wilson’s weak and timid nature by egging him on to treat her the way that Tom did when he punched her earlier in the novel. However, before we draw whatever conclusions we can about Myrtle from this exclamation, it’s worthwhile to think about the context of this remark. First, we are getting this speech third-hand. This is Nick telling us what Michaelis described overhearing, so Myrtle’s words have gone through a double male filter. Second, Myrtle’s words stand in isolation. We have no idea what Wilson has been saying to her to provoke this attack. What we do know is that however â€Å"powerless† Wilson might be, he still has power enough to imprison his wife in their house and to unilaterally uproot and move her several states away against her will. Neither Nick nor Michaelis remarks on whether either of these exercises of unilateral power over Myrtle is appropriate or fair - it is simply expected that this is what a husband can do to a wife. So what do we make of the fact that Myrtle was trying to verbally emasculate her husband? Maybe yelling at him is her only recourse in a life where she has no actual ability to control her life or bodily integrity. The "death car" as the newspapers called it, didn't stop; it came out of the gathering darkness, wavered tragically for a moment and then disappeared around the next bend. Michaelis wasn't even sure of its color- he told the first policeman that it was light green. The other car, the one going toward New York, came to rest a hundred yards beyond, and its driver hurried back to where Myrtle Wilson, her life violently extinguished, knelt in the road and mingled her thick, dark blood with the dust. Michaelis and this man reached her first but when they had torn open her shirtwaist still damp with perspiration, they saw that her left breast was swinging loose like a flap and there was no need to listen for the heart beneath. The mouth was wide open and ripped at the corners as though she had choked a little in giving up the tremendous vitality she had stored so long. (7.316-317) The stark contrast here between the oddly ghostly nature of the car that hits Myrtle and the visceral, gruesome, explicit imagery of what happens to her body after it is hit is very striking. The car almost doesn’t seem real – it comes out of the darkness like an avenging spirit and disappears, Michaelis cannot tell what color it is. Meanwhile, Myrtle’s corpse is described in detail and is palpably physical and present. This treatment of Myrtle’s body might be one place to go when you are asked to compare Daisy and Myrtle in class. Daisy’s body is never even described, beyond a gentle indication that she prefers white dresses that are flouncy and loose. On the other hand, every time that we see Myrtle in the novel, her bodyis physically assaulted or appropriated. Tom initially picks her up by pressing his body inappropriately into hers on the train station platform. Before her party, Tomhas sex with her while Nick (a man who is a stranger to Myrtle) waits in the next room, and then Tom ends the night by punching her in the face. Finally, she is restrained by her husband inside her house and then run over. Daisy and Tom were sitting opposite each other at the kitchen table with a plate of cold fried chicken between them and two bottles of ale. He was talking intently across the table at her and in his earnestness his hand had fallen upon and covered her own. Once in a while she looked up at him and nodded in agreement. They weren't happy, and neither of them had touched the chicken or the ale- and yet they weren't unhappy either. There was an unmistakable air of natural intimacy about the picture and anybody would have said that they were conspiring together. (7.409-410) And so, the promise that Daisy and Tom are a dysfunctional couple that somehow makes it work (Nick saw this at the end of Chapter 1)is fulfilled. For careful readers of the novel, this conclusion should have been clear from the get-go. Daisy complains about Tom, and Tom serially cheats on Daisy, but at the end of the day, they are unwilling to forgo the privileges their life entitles them to. This moment of truth has stripped Daisy and Tom down to the basics. They are in the least showy room of their mansion, sitting with simple and unpretentious food, and they have been stripped of their veneer. Their honesty makes what they are doing - conspiring to get away with murder, basically - completely transparent. And it is the fact that they can tolerate this level of honesty in each other besides each being kind of a terrible person that keeps them together. Compare their readiness to forgive each other anything - even murder! - with Gatsby’s insistence that it’s his way or no way. The image of Tom and Daisy holding hands, while discussing how to flee after Daisy kills Myrtle, is the crux of their relationship. They are willing to forgive each other everything. Are they secretly the most romantic couple in the book? The Great GatsbyChapter 7 Analysis It's no surprise that this very long, emotional, and shocking chapter is laced through with the themes ofThe Great Gatsby. Let's take a look. Overarching Themes Morality and Ethics. In this chapter, suspicion of crime is everywhere: Gatsby’s new butler has a â€Å"villainous† (7.2) face a woman worries that Nick is out to steal her purse on the train Gatsby lurks around outside the Buchanans’ mansion like â€Å"he was going to rob the house in a moment† (7.384) Daisy and Tom sit and conspire together at the kitchen table This air of the illegal heightens the actual crimes that take place or are revealed in the chapter: Gatsby is a bootlegger (or worse) Daisy kills Myrtle Gatsby hides the car with its evidence of the accident Daisy and Tom decide to get away with murder This descent into the dark side of the Wild East (contrasted with Nick's version of the calm and strictly above-board Middle West) reveals the novel’s perspective on the excesses of the time period. It is interesting that the vast majority of the crime or near crime that is described is theft – the taking of someone else’s property. The same desires that spur the ambitious to come to Manhattan to try to make something of themselves also incite those who are willing to do the kind of corner-cutting that results in criminality. Only Daisy, who is already so established that theft is unnecessary to her, takes crime to the next level. Love, Desire, Relationships. Just as crime is everywhere, so too is illicit sexuality. However, the heat and tension seem to reverse the behavioral tendencies of the characters we have come to know over the course of six chapters. The usually reserved Nick wonders about his train conductor and â€Å"whose flushed lips he kissed, whose head made damp the pajama pocket over his heart† (7.23). He also makes a dirty joke about the Buchanans’ butler having to yell over the phone that he simply cannot send Tom’s body to Myrtle in this heat. The usuallypassive Daisy kisses Gatsby on the mouth in front of Nick and Jordan in a display of rebellion. Later she calls Tom out on his euphemistic description of the times he cheated on her right after their honeymoon as a â€Å"spree† (7.252), a word that just means â€Å"fun good time.† On the other hand, the womanizing Tom primly and hypocritically rants about the downfall of morality and the possibility that people of different races will be allowed to intermarry. Similarly, the normally weak and ineffectual Wilson overpowers his wife enough to lock her up when he finds out about the affair she’s been having. He also feels as bad about the situation as if he had gotten a woman pregnant by accident. Everyone’s desire for someone who is not their spouse is underscored by the way that an ongoing wedding is continuously described as deeply unappealing throughout the chapter. Eventually, the wedding music pops up in the middle of the climactic argument like this: â€Å"From the ballroom beneath, muffled and suffocating chords were drifting up on hot waves of air† (7.261). Married life is suffocating, and these characters spend significant energies trying to break free. Motifs: Weather. The overwhelming heat of the day plays a vital role in creating an atmosphere of stifled, sweaty, uncomfortable breathlessness. Each scene’s overwhelming tension and awkwardness arefurther heightened by the physical discomfort that everyone is experiencing (it’s also key to remember that being hot and slightly dehydrated elevates the level of intoxication that a person feels, these characters pour back whiskey after whiskey). The hot mugginess ratchets up anger and resentment, and also seems to elevate the recklessness with which people are willing to expose and pursue their sexual desires. So crucial is this atmospheric element, that every movie adaptation of this novel makes sure that the actors are covered in sweat during these scenes, making it almost as uncomfortable to watch them as it is to imagine making it through that day. Here’s a quick clip that shows you what I mean. Mutability of Identity. It is fitting that just as lots of wool is removed from lots of eyes, as Gatsby is source of wealth is revealed, and as Daisy is shown not to be the fairytale figment of Gatsby’s imagination, the idea of faà §ades, false impressions, and mistaken identity is front and center. First, on this blisteringly hot day, Daisy is entranced by Gatsby’s projecting an image of looking â€Å"so cool† and resembling â€Å"the advertisement of the man† (7.81-83). Gatsby’s glossy appearance is perfect but also clearly shallow and fake, like an ad. Later, Myrtle seethes with jealousy when she sees Tom driving next to Jordan, and assumes that Jordan is Daisy. This case of mistaken identity contributes to her death, as she assumes that Tom would be driving the same car back from the city that he took there. Third, Daisy and Jordan remember a man named Biloxi who talked his way into Daisy and Tom’s wedding, and then talked his way into staying at Jordan’s house for three weeks as he recuperated from a fainting spell. Their memories make clear that his entire story about himself was a sham – a sham that worked, until it didn’t, like the faà §ades of the main characters in the story. Fourth, Wilson briefly assumes that Michaelis is Myrtle’s lover. His failure to understand who it is that is a really having an affair with his wife leads to the novel’s second murder. The Treatment of Women. Also key this chapter are women characters. First, there is the pairing of Daisy and Jordan, whose outlooks on life are confirmed to be diametrically opposed. Daisy is rich, overindulged, and endlessly bored with her monotonously luxurious life. She grabs on to the romance with Gatsby is a possible escape, but is soonconfronted with the reality of the perfect, idealized being that he would like her to be. Daisy realizes that she prefers the safe boredom and casual betrayal of Tom to the unrealistic expectations – and thus inevitable disappointment – of being with Gatsby. Her fundamental cowardice is a better fit for Tom, as we find out after the car accident when she kills Myrtle. It’s Tom who offers her complicity, understanding, and a return to stability. On the other hand, Jordan is a pragmatist who sees opportunity and possibility everywhere. This makes her attractive to Nick, who likes that she is self-contained, calm, cynical, and unlikely to be overly emotional. However, this approach to life means that Jordan is basically amoral, as revealed in this chapter by her almost complete lack of reaction to Myrtle’s death, and her assumption that life at the Buchanan house will go on as normal. For Nick, who clings to his sense of himself as a deeply decent human being, this is a dealbreaker. Next, we have the comparison between Daisy and Myrtle, two women whose marriages dissatisfy them enough that they seek out other lovers. There are many ways to compare them, but in this chapter in particular what seems important is whether each woman is able to maintain coherence and integrity. What Gatsby wants from Daisy is a complete erasure of her mind, history, and emotions, so that she will match his weirdly flat and idealized notion of her. By demanding that she renounce ever having had feelings for Tom, Gatsby wants to deny her fundamental sense of self-knowledge. Daisy refuses to compromise herself in this way and so is able to maintain psychological integrity. On the other hand, Myrtle, whose physicality has always been her most defining feature, ends up losing even the most basic integrity – bodily integrity – as her body is not only ripped open when she is hit by a car, but this mutilation is witnessed by many people and then also graphically described. Finally, we can look at all three women in terms of whether and how they are controlled by the men in their lives, and whether and how they escape that control. Jordan’s cool aloofness prevents her from being trapped in the same way that Myrtle and Daisy are. Despite even her admission later that breaking up with Nick hurt her feelings, we certainly get the sense that Jordan could take him or leave him. She retains a lot of power in their relationship. For example, when Nick suddenly freaks out about turning 30, she shows him how to be â€Å"too wise ever to carry well-forgotten dreams from age to age† (7.308) and by putting her hand over his with â€Å"reassuring pressure† (7.308). Neither of the other two women is ever on top even in this very mild way. For example, Tom, who is used to putting his hands on people as a way of showing his power over them (in this chapter he does it to the policeman, and then to Wilson), puts his hand over Daisy’s at the end of the chapter to indicate that she is back within his circle of control. But at least Daisy’s escape attempt led her to Gatsby’s presumably gentlemanly treatment. The same can’t be said for Myrtle, who goes from bad to worse, as she escapes her marriage to have an affair with Tom, who feels free to beat her, and then is forced to return to her husband, who feels free to imprison and forcibly remove her from her home. Death and Failure. Death comes in many forms, both metaphorical and horribly real. Of course, the primary death in this chapter is that of Myrtle, gruesomely killed by Daisy. But this is also the chapter where dreams come to die. Gatsby’s fantasy of Daisy undergoes a slow demise when he meets her daughter, and when he learns that she is simply unwilling to renounce her entire history with Tom for Gatsby’s sake. Similarly, any romantic ideas Daisy may have had about Gatsby vanish when she learns that he is a criminal. New York’s Plaza Hotel, famous for being the place where Eloise lives in those kids books, and for being the setting for this novel’s scene of confrontation. Crucial Character Beats Gatsby stops throwing parties at his house and instead carries on an affair with Daisy. Nick, Gatsby,Daisy, Jordan, and Tom have lunch together and decide to go to Manhattan for the day to escape the heat. Both Tom and Wilson realize that their wives are having affairs; however, only Tom knows who Daisy's affair is with. Wilson decides to take Myrtle to live somewhere else. Nick, Gatsby, Daisy, Jordan, and Tom end up in a suite at the Plaza Hotel where everything comes tumbling into the open. Gatsby and Daisy admit that they've been having an affair, Gatsby demands that Daisy tell Tom that she has never loved him. Daisy cannot do this, and Gatsby's dreams are dashed. Gatsby and Daisy drive home together. On the way, with Daisy driving the car, they hit and kill Myrtle, who is trying to escape being imprisoned in her house by Wilson. Gatsby decides to take the blame for the accident, but doesn’t quite realize that it is all over between him and Daisy. Daisy and Tom have an intimate moment together as they figure out what they are going to do next. What’s Next? Compare the novel’s four trips into Manhattan: Nick at Myrtle’s party in Chapter 2, Nick’s description of what it’s like to be a single guy around town at the end of Chapter 3, Nick at lunch with Gatsby in Chapter 4, and insanity at the Plaza in this chapter. Does Manhattan affect the way the characters behave? Does it make them more or less likely to act out to be there? Do they feel comfortable there? Explore this chapter’s many significant motifs: Tom’s insistence on everyone drinking, the ridiculously hot weather, Jordan’s calm excitement about the fall season, dangerous cars, and the strangely invasive music from the hotel wedding. Move on to the summary of Chapter 8, or revisit the summary of Chapter 6. Want to improve your SAT score by 160 points or your ACT score by 4 points?We've written a guide for each test about the top 5 strategies you must be using to have a shot at improving your score. Download it for free now:

Citizen Kanes, essays

Citizen Kane's, essays The film Citizen Kane, by Orson Welles, creates its deep inner meaning by displaying its characters in numerous interrogations and situations from the past. Not only are we offered with an excellent use of lighting, cuts, and angles, but also a great use of the technique of time distortion. Since the film was made out of sync, we as the audience have the opportunity to piece the plot, theme, and characters together piece by piece. Once developed, Orson's strong theme can be understood. Interwoven in a lot of the scenes is the word "Rosebud". We are first introduced to it in the opening scene of the film. After the many eerie shots of Kane's mansion in Xanadu, we get a close up of Kane's rubbery lips as he utters his last word, "Rosebud..." Little do we know that this is the driving engine of the film. We our only left wondering what Kane meant in his last statement. It is this wonder and misunderstanding that draws the audience to the film which allows for Welles to develop his theme. He did this purposely because he knew that from that point on he'd have all of his audience's full attention. Discovering Rosebud's true meaning is a hunt all the way through the film. In one of the final shots of the film, it's finally revealed that Rosebud was the name of Kane's snow sled from his childhood. Seeing the sled burn reveals that Kane was one who lacked the happiness and love from his mother and father. Already knowing about Kane's rough past and pain filled life by means of the interviews, the audience is at last able to see the symbolism of Rosebud. As stated before, there are clues all throughout the film that lead up to the meaning behind Rosebud. In the projection room sequence, the word rosebud is mentioned when the editors speak about Kane's death, "What were the last words he said on earth? Thompson, you've made us a good short, but it needs character." It's interesting that Rawlsto ...

Resourcing and talent management Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2250 words

Resourcing and talent management - Essay Example butother countries as well soared to an all-time high. In the past few years, the countries have tried to recover from the effects that the recession had on them. This is evidenced by economic growth evidenced in the GDP (gross domestic product) of the countries. In the United Kingdom, the economy has been fluctuating since the recession came to an end (LSE, 2013). However, since the end of 2011, the economy of the country has continually deteriorated much to the dismay of many. Economists have referred to this situation as a contracting economy since it has consistently been decreasing. It is important to note that the drops in the GDP are not very dramatic and range between nought point five to point seven (LSE,2013). Based on this information about the reality in the labour market, it is easy to understand the problems facing GIVE. org. It is a charity organization that was formerly among the best. It merged with other mergers, and this affected the group significantly. The greate st problem they are facing is low employee morale. The productivity of an employee is directly related to their confidence. Reduced drive among employees reflects negatively on the business as the staffs do not do their best at work (Nickell and Quintini, 2002, 35). This is especially dangerous for a charity organization since their work is heavily dependent on the optimism of their personnel. A merger during tough economic times can be either extensively beneficial or harmful to the company in question. It is often useful if the merging company is powerful in terms of its capital, for example, (LSE, 2013). In such a case, the more successful business will be able to pull the other through the hard times. On the other hand, amalgamating a business with not one but two smaller firms that were not doing well was not a wise decision for GIVE.org. The merger lowered the performance of the company which in turn affected the confidence of the employees. This is an example of how the event s in the labour market have affected a particular business in this case GIVE.org. Another problem facing the charity business is that most of its employees are leaving. This is probably due to the deterioration of the business as well as the availability of jobs especially from the private sector. This seems to be a contradiction since the economy and the GDP are decreasing. It expected that the companies should be lowering their workforce since their output is low(Nickell and Quintini, 2002, 35). However, in the United Kingdom, this is the complete opposite; the said companies are still hiring more staff even with their output being low. As a result, the employees are under-utilized since they are not working to their full potential. This trend is fast becoming popular and is known as labour hoarding (LSE, 2013). The explanation behind this puzzling development in the labour market, in the U.K., is that the said companies are acquiring the available labour in preparation of a boom in production which will occur when the country experiences economic growth. Many analysts contest this presumption since the labour hoarding has been going on for many years yet no change in the economy has been witnesses. As such, this cannot be the only reason why the companies are still acquiring new employees during this time (Taylor, 2011, 27). This phenomenon explains why the staffs from GIE.org are leaving. They have probably been offered jobs by the private sectors who in spite of the bad

Feasibility study of mobile pizza trucks Research Paper

Feasibility study of mobile pizza trucks - Research Paper Example The document also allows flexibility to change various project parameters to suit the needs of the entrepreneur. Feasibility study is very important for a business. It makes an analysis of all the aspects of a business- the external factors influencing it and also the internal factors. It also analyzes all the costs associated with the project and how the material would be sourced. On the other hand, it will also make an estimate of how much sales are to be expected and what profits would the project make. If the results of the feasibility study are favorable, it is logical to proceed with it. On the other hand, if the results are not favorable no businessman will take a risk on it. Executive Summary 1.1 Background It has always been the researcher’s dream to open his own business-but what type of business he wasn’t sure about. At the end of his years long study in Business Management and Innovations he finally made up his mind-he wanted to run a pizza parlor that would give Papa John’s and Dominos Pizza a run for their money. The pizza industry is a very competitive market. However, in 2010 he decided to go forward with an idea that was brought forward to him by a very close friend-mobile pizza trucks. At first, it sounded like a typical and stupid idea, but when he actually thought about it; it might be just what New York needs-its favorite fast food on wheels. New York has vast amount pizzeria outlets to choose from with 75% of the market being privately owned and the remaining 25% of the market remaining to the franchising pizza making moguls such as Pizza Hut, Papa John’s and Domino’s. The researcher then decided to go into a partnership with someone else who has had extensive amount of experience in the pizza making industry-Jacob Miller. Both researchers decided to call the enterprise Buck’s Mobile Pizzas and their main aim was to bring a twist to the pizza industry. There will be a definite market for a mobile p izza restaurant as there is none in New York and there is a definite demand for pizzas in New York. 1.2 Product and Service Buck’s Mobile Pizzas is a newly established company scheduled to start operations on the 23rd of September 2011 out of the Bronx, New York. As the name suggests ‘Buck’s Mobile Pizzas has no set physical location or space to conduct business and it requires no land. Instead Buck’s Mobile is a customized truck known as the ‘Buck’s Mobile’ that is making America’s favorite deliciously tasting pizzas daily with the most succulent toppings such as; pepperoni pizza, triple meat pizza, Greek style pizza, caramelized onion, Hawaiian pizza, Chicago style pizza, Californian and Mexican style pizzas. Buck’s Pizzas understand and believe in the habits of eating healthy as such our pizzas are being made fresh with wholesome products including; imported cheeses, organic vegetables, and top-shelf meats. The product will also be developed to enhance presentation. Customer service will be Buck’s Pizzas primary priority because considering its current competition it is important to attract new but keep repeat customers.  Buck’s Pizzas is appealing to a wide clientele through the use of its mobility, customer service and affordable pizzas. Buck’s mobility will sure give it an edge over its competitors. Buck’s mobility will make the possibilities endless when gaining market share. The Buck’s mobile will be there to take care of the burning