Tv program evaluation (modern family) Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Tv program evaluation (modern family) - Essay Example Among the three families, Claire’s family may seem to be the most traditional, but twists in the plot makes it more complex than usual. Modern Family depicts the possible mixture of modern families in America. It tackle issues that was once in a life time considered taboo, such as inter-racial marriages, same sex unions, and age gap differences. The sitcom introduces a break on the prejudice created by tradition and creates more complex characters, defying proper convention. It is realistic in a way, as it involves problems usually taken by modern families and effective ways to cope with them. An example is the bias depicted against Gloria, a Columbian native with his son Manny who have entered into the lives of the Pritchett by marrying Jay, a man twice his age. Another example is the same sex union between Mitch and Cameron, and their attempt to create a normal family by adopting a child, to which their father Jay, at first did not approve of. The show also breaks stereotype s in gender roles. This is best shown in how Mitch and Cameron, despite being both a man, creates a sort of roles of father and mother. Mitch being a lawyer, is the provider of the family, while Cameron, a former music teacher chose to quit his job to take care of the household and their adopted child, Lily. It shows that even in an unconventional gay family, stereotypes and roles are made.

Hispanic Literature Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Hispanic Literature - Essay Example "Talpa" provides excellent examples of Rulfo's attention to detail and his style of painting a picture of the setting and rough environment. Rulfo utilizes the theme of man vs. environment to describe life in the pueblo. As much as he paints plainly a portrait of landscape, Rulfo's details about the harsh environment often mirror the severity of the characters' actions. Killings are thematic in "The Man" and "Talpa," and the environment is used as a harsh burden punishing the characters for their killings. Rulfo's short stories relate to his life because they occur in the environment that he knows. He is often characterized as a regionalist writer, meaning that his works tell about the people and lifestyle of a specific area -- Rulfo's being the central valley of Mexico in the 1950's. Rulfo was born in 1917 in Jalisco. His childhood was difficult, and the violence in the 1920s probably impacted him and made his writing style as violent and severe as it is. He was left an orphan before the age of ten. These harsh realities of life are echoed in his works, often about killings. That tone is also mirrored within the environment. Monsivis, a notable Mexican journalist, explains Rulfo's place in Hispanic literature, that he is a trustworthy interpreter of the daily life of those living in the pueblos. "En nuestra cultura nacional Juan Rulfo ha sido un intrprete absolutamente confiable de la lgica ntima, los modos de ser, el sentido idiomtico, la poesa secreta y pblica de los pueblos y las comunidades campesinas, mantenidas en la marginalidad y el olvido" (El Poder). Rulfo recounts with authenticity that life in a not so easy. Rulfo makes this theme more complicated by using the human element. He opens his short story "The Man" with this relationship, man vs. environment, in mind. "The man's feet sank into the sand, leaving a formless track, like some animal's hoof. They clambered over the rocks, digging in at the steepness of the ascent, then they trudged on upward, searching out the horizon." "The Man" provides for easy analysis of Juan Rulfo's writing style and his theme of man vs. environment because the main character, struggling along the road, hears his own voice and thoughts through an imaginary secondary character, which appears, trudging along the path behind him. As the main character is walking up the hill, a man speaks, " 'He climbed along here, raking the mountainside,' said the man pursuing him. 'He cut away branches with a machete. You can tell that he was gripped by fear. Fear always leaves marks. That's what will cause his downfall' (42)". Later, when the main character arrives at the river, there is a semblance of peace within the story. He is able to rest. At this point, the imaginary man says aloud: "'Nobody will hurt you, son. I'm here to protect you. That's why I was born before you were and my bones hardened before yours" (45)'. In short, the struggles occurring inside the man's conscience are mirrored in narrative as Rulfo works through the text and sends the character across the landscape. Rulfo's short stories address the real everyday struggles of life. Another great example of this is in his short story "Talpa." As George Schade writes in the introduction to The Burning Plain, "many of

Comparing Brave New World to Modern Day

Comparing Brave New World to Modern Day Prediction to future technological warfare in Brave New World When thinking about the greater good and scientific advancement, most people believe that they are always beneficial to society but brave new world gives us the negative perspective of technology advancements. In the novel, brave new world written by Aldous Huxley, warns it readers about technological disadvantages and harms. Particular these disadvantages are evident in the field of biology and technology. Firstly, scientific advancement of which Aldous Huxley warns us is about biological technology used. The huge production of humans is achieved and made through process of bokanovsky process. The Director said , But a bokanovskified egg will bud, will proliferate, and will divide [à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦] every embryo into a full-sized adult (Huxley pg.3-4). Humans are being genetically modified and engineered in the experimental laboratories rather naturally. In the real world scenario, it is seen that cloning is a huge scientific advancement that has been made and is still being developed but is considered unethical when living things are brought into the matter of especially human cloning. This idea is also evident the book of thousand splendid suns where the Taliban controls , brain washes and teach lies , deny other religions , restrict from having freedom of thought from the people of Afghanistan also where weapons are a form of power such as guns and drones. Moreover, connecting to pre sent world we can see that embryonic stem cell research is a real thing where an egg cell is fertilized by a sperm to create a human embryo or basically create life. Keeping in mind this process can be seen unethical by some people as they have different values and beliefs. Just like the bokanovsky process this process is also is messing with an embryo and altering gods work. In Brave new World person intelligence is dependent on the amount of alcohol injected into their individual embryos before the process of life starts. Mr. Foster says that, We can make a new one with the greatest ease-as many as we like (Huxley pg.128). Epsilons have a heavy amount of alcohol injected in the decanting process whereas alphas and betas do not go through that process because Epsilons being a lower class society. Todays science is capable of modifying a person DNA but is not able to fully develop a human being by its own yet cloning of animals has been done in our world. For example, Dolly the shee p is a cloned animal who lived a normal live which offered hoped to scientists to use cloned cells in medicine also it was seen that cloned animals age quicker than normal offspring. But this first cloning done my humanity was a big step towards the future and biological advancement. By making a world where human beings are massively produced biologically, Brave new World illustrated those advancements in the aspects of biology, which display it being dangerous despite the wellbeing and betterment of the human race. According to Huxley, advancements in technology can also be a threat to mankind and the society. Among technological advances, one danger is the growth of pharmacology or the in taking of drugs by people and its side effects. The director says that, One cubic centimetre cures ten gloomy sentiments (Huxley pg.46). Soma helps the users into a dream world, providing them with total relief from fear and providing them with happiness. This relates to the character Abigail William, from the crucible where she is acting as soma to the society. Abby manipulates people to get what she wants; her intentions are solely to benefit herself. She does not care about the consequences of her actions as well as she is able to manipulate the town to hurt the people she does not like. Just like the soma which is acting as positive thing for the people of brave new world but in reality a negative one, we can see how medical advancements such as x-ray devices, MRI machines and medical drugs help a person restore his/ her health and making the average human life expectancy much better as years are passing. Technology effects entertainment by altering all the games to be played by humans. Mustafa Mond says that, All conditioning aims at making people like their inescapable social destiny(Huxley pg. 13). Game make less organization, making a person bound to a superficial entertainment as it defies the ideology to be creative. This relates to a thousand splendid suns because men in the book do not care what happens to a women, so do the people of brave new world not care about connecting on an emotional level with each other, everybody serves their purpose within society and each person is there for anybody to use (even sexually) which is similar to a thousand splendid suns where the wife only role is to serve their husbands purpose and fulfill their needs just like Laila providing Rasheed with an heir. This can also relate to our present teenagers gaming mindset where advancement in ga ming technology have caused massive violence and hatred among teens making them do crime. For example Grand theft Auto is a game about stealing, shooting and hurting random people. Due to his game one of the incident that occurred in United States was the one teenager who shot two police men and was prisoned due to his crime. Similar to biological disadvantages, technology can be a dangerous factor towards the society if used inappropriately and without the regarded for the well-being of the human race. Society must ensure that technology and scientific advancements is changing to suit human needs but rather changing human race to suit science. Moreover the world one day without individual free will and sense would make it impossible to overcome these factors. Works Cited Huxley, Aldous, Margaret Atwood, and David Bradshaw. Brave New World. London: Vintage ,  2007. Print.

Virginia Woolf Essay -- Novelists Authors Writers Essays

Virginia Woolf In recent times there has been a renewed interest in Virginia Woolf and her work, from the Broadway play, â€Å"Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?† to the Academy award nominated film â€Å"The Hours† starring Nicole Kidman. This recent exposure, along with the fact that I have ancestors from England , has sparked my interest in this twentieth century British novelist. During the early part of the twentieth century, artists and writers saw the world in a new way. Famed British novelist Virginia Woolf was very sensitive to this change, for she felt that human relationships such as ones between a husband and wife of master and servant were shifting, due to all of the political, religious, and social changes. These, of course, transformed into modifications in literature (Richter 3,4). Conventional forms of writing did not portray truth, but rather dealt with certain aspects of life that were distorted and then pieced together via descriptions, coincidences, and transition passages (Blackstone 13). Feminine sensibility was an aspect that could be brought into the novel, and therefore Woolf employed new forms and techniques to her novels (Bernard 12). Through these changes, she consciously made the decision to change the novel from a genre that was developed and dominated by men, to a form that would depict the â€Å"movement of things under the surface--the free play of thought, emotion, insight† (Blackstone 12-13). Due to the transforming atmosphere of the time, Woolf was allowed to explore new territories. At the thrust of Virginia Woolf's writing was the creation of reality. â€Å"The center or meeting place for experience was, to Virginia Woolf, the moment—a cross-section of consciousness in which perception and feelings conv... ...iracy: Vanessa Bell and Virginia Woolf. Boston: Little, Brown, 1990. King, James. Virginia Woolf. New York: W. W. Norton, 1994. Marder, Herbert. Feminism & Art, A Study of Virginia Woolf. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1968. Naremore, James. â€Å"The World Without a Self: Virginia Woolf and the Novel.† Twentieth-Century Literary Criticism. Ed. Sharon K. Hall. Detroit: Gale Research, Vol. 5, 1981. Richter, Harvena. Virginia Woolf, The Inward Voyage. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1970. Woolf, Virginia. Mrs. Dalloway. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1925. Virginia Woolf. The Literature Network. 22 Jan 2005. Virginia Woolf. Wikipedia Encyclopedia. 22 Jan 2005. â€Å"Virginia Woolf.† Encarta 98 Encyclopedia. CD-ROM. Microsoft, 1994.

Shakespeare’s presentation of the Courtly World of Messina in the play’s opening acts

The concept of the courtly world goes beyond the mere setting of the royal court and is largely presented as a life style, especially with regards to romance. This idea has transcended time, with Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales depicting a similar courtly world in the Knight’s tale, a story that possessed broadly similar features to Much Ado About Nothing. This world is set firmly in a period where the monarchy was the centre of English life. This, perhaps, explains why some aspects, especially the apparent degradation of women until they become objects, are somewhat uncomfortable for modern readers as our liberal society views this as sexist, far from a Victorian audience’s view that this was normal life. The structure of the play is instrumental in establishing the recurring themes of a courtly world, most notably the hierarchical and patriarchal structures that operate in this setting. This is most obvious from the dramatis personae, with its order beginning with men at the top and women at the bottom highlighting the gender roles within the courtly world and love itself as it is men who essentially do the courting. This idea is alluded to in the war-like scenes of ‘take her hearing prisoner’ as war is usually the domain of men and by referring to love as a battlefield, it is therefore inferred that love is the domain of men, with the reference to a woman as a ‘prisoner’ reinforcing the passive, helpless female role. This point is further emphasized by the fact that most scenes are initiated by a male as this establishes the idea that men come first and are the dominant presence, a concept that is perpetuated through this courtly world. The form is repeatedly used to reinforce the features of the courtly world to the audience. Being a play, the dominant role of men is highly apparent though their overrepresentation in the dialogue, nowhere more so than in conversations with Hero. Her lack of a response to ‘Speak, cousin; or if you cannot, stop his mouth with a kiss’ encapsulates the idea that women weren’t valued for their opinions, but merely their sexuality as a wife and childbearer as the ‘kiss’ suggests – Hero can only communicate with men though sexual appeal rather than her intelligence or personality. Ironically, despite being outspoken, Beatrice is only able to do so by adopting ‘masculine’ traits such as the scorner of love persona emulated by Benedick. The mere fact that the only way that Beatrice is able to speak up is through being ‘one of the guys’ reinforces the idea that it was unnatural for a woman of the courtly world to be opinionate d as it was a trait primarily associated with men. The language used, in itself, is largely representative of the features of the courtly world. The men, in particular, use witty, almost poetry like phrases, such as ‘My visor is Philemon’s roof; within the house is Jove/ Speak low if you speak love’. This passage is almost in ballad form, which, being the poetry of love, reinforces the romance associated with the courtly world. The fact, however, that such poetic language is used, is somewhat representative of the idea that the courtly world is a fantastical aspiration for most people as, like poetry, it is the construct of an individual’s imagination and is not really representative of real life. The masquerade ball, talk of which dominates much of the first part of the play, further encapsulates this idea. I say this because the idea of dissembling is highly apparent in the ball and dissembling is not too far from the idea that the view portrayed of the people, like the courtly world, is mainly a construc t, yet underneath, the reality is a lot less perfect than the what audience actually sees. The main feature of the courtly world appears to be power as this idea recurs in many ways throughout the play. The witty language used by the men is not only symbolic of the constructed courtly world, but is used mainly a tool for them to show off and gain power over one another. The same can be said for the structure as the dramatis personae is essentially a power list going in descending order. What is most interesting about this, however, is the fact that women are always at the bottom which suggests that this is less about power than it is playing to gender roles where men are required to assert themselves, just as woman are required to remain passive. This idea would sit at odds with a modern audience, as our post-feminism society finds fault with everything that separates men and women into gender roles and this patriarchal courtly world would be considered highly sexist in our modern day.

Evolution and revolution as organizations grow

Evolution and revolution as organizations grow Growing organization move through 5 phases of development, each of which contains a relatively calm period of growth that ends with a management crisis. Each developmental phase is strongly influenced by the previous one. Thus by knowing an organization's development history it is possible to be more prepared for the next developmental crisis. These crises can be used in order to achieve future growth.Evolution- long periods of growth with no major organizational problem Revolution- crisis periods, where companies need to find solutions to newly occurred rganizational problems Phasel : Creativity This developmental phase is a period of evolution. At its birth stage an organization focuses on creating a product and a market. So the company's founders are entirely focused on making and selling a new product. They don't focus on management activities. Communication among employees is informal. Long hours of work are rewarded by modest salar ies.The control of activities comes from marketplace feedback. As the company grows the first revolution period occurs: the leadership crisis: Increased number of employees, needs of additional capital and new accounting rocedures demand new management responsibilities. So the first critical development choice is to find and install a strong business manager who is acceptable to the founders and who can pull the organization together. Phase 2: Direction Those companies that survive the first phase by installing a good business manager embark on another evolutionary period.A function organizational structure is introduced. Different business activities occur. Job assignments become more specialized. Accounting systems are introduced. Incentives, budgets and work standards are adopted. Communication becomes more formal. New managers take the managing responsibility while lower level supervisors act as tunctional specialists However these techniques become eventually inappropriate for controlling a larger and more complex organization.This is when the second revolution occurs: the autonomy crisis: Lower-level employees find themselves restricted. They feel being torn between following procedures and taking initiative on their own. So lower level managers demand more autonomy. The solution adopted by many companies is to move toward greater delegation. Yet it is difficult for top managers to give up esponsibility. And lower-level managers are not accustomed for making decisions for themselves.As a result many companies struggle during this revolutionary period, because many lower level employees leave the organization since they stick to centralized methods. Phase 3: Delegation The next evolution period evolves from the successful application of decentralized organization structure. Much greater responsibility is given to lower-level managers. Bonuses are used to stimulate motivation Top executives manage by exception based on periodic reports from the fieldManage ment focuses on new gains, which can be lined up beside other decentralized units However a serious problem eventually occur: the control crisis: when top executives feel that they are loosing control over a highly diversified field operation because of autonomous field managers. In order to move ahead companies need to find a new solution in the use of special coordination techniques. Phase 4: Coordination During this phase the evolutionary period occurs by the use of formal systems for acheveing greater coordination and by top executives taking responsibility for the dministration of these new systems.Decentralized units are turned into product groups Many staff personnel are hired to control and review line managers Capital expenses are carefully weighed and distributed across the organization Each product group is treated as an investment center Certain technical functions are centralized at headquarters, while daily operating decisions remain decentralized. Stock options and co mpanywide profit sharing are used to encourage identity with the firm as a whole. All these new coordination systems prove useful for achieving growth through more fficient allocation of a company's limited resources.But lack of confidence builds between line and staff and between headquarters and the field. This is where red- tape crisis is created. Organizations have become too large and complex to be managed through formal programs and rigid systems. ase 5: Collaboration The last phase gives importance to strong interpersonal collaboration in order to overcome the red-tape crisis. This evolution phase builds around a flexible and behavioral approach to management. The focus is on solving problems through team action.Teams are combined through task group activity Headquarters staff experts are reduced and are combined into teams to consult with team units Previous formal systems are simplified Educational programs for teamwork and behavioral skills are introduced Team performance becomes more important Experiences in new practices are encouraged The revolution after the 5th stage of evolution is still unclear. Predictions have been made that the employees will eventually become exhausted by the intensity of teamwork and the pressure for innovative solutions.