Organisation and Management †Assignment One Essay Example for Free

Organisation and Management – Assignment One Essay For the purpose of this assignment I have chosen transport and logistics company Mainfreight Limited. I will be focusing specifically on the outbound night crew. This team is responsible for loading freight from the Wellington region onto trucks to be sent to branches across New Zealand. Inside this team there is one supervisor who works with the loading team on the floor also loading and is responsible for smooth daily operations. The mid level manager is the Operations Manager who is responsible for the supervisor and implementing organisational plans such as reducing damages to freight. The top manager in this case is the Branch Manager who sets goals for the branch and oversees planning for the future. Q1) An economic reason for a truck loading crew operating at night is that it’s cheaper to travel at night due to faster travel times and less fuel consumption for the trucks on empty roads I think this reason applies most strongly to my organisation because it will increase the profit. A social reason for the organisation is that there is less risk of accidents late at night on empty roads. A personal reason to form this organisation could be a love for trucks. Q2) Figurehead: The most well known figurehead of Mainfreight Wellington is the branch manager, an activity could be a speech at the grand opening, skills he would need include public speaking competency and reliability. Entrepreneur: The entrepreneur of the branch initiates innovative solutions and change to the organisation such as the branch manager diversifying from road transport to including rail or sea transportation. Some skills needed for this role are creativity and brevity. Resource allocator: Within my organisation this role is filled by the operations manager, who distributes resources such as equipment like forklifts and workers if needed to fulfill the crews workload. Some skills needed for this role are time management and planning ability. Disseminator: An activity a manager in this role might perform is gathering information from customers and producing estimates of freight quantities for the truck loaders who could then plan how they layout their loads. Skills need ed are the ability to gather and analyze information. Q3) ‘Soldiering’ by Frederick Taylor is when workers purposely limit output by not working to full capacity in order to avoid causing redundancies and to avoid losing incentive pay by exceeding required performance levels. The impacts of workers ‘soldiering’ on my organisation could mean that if there is a large influx of freight and workers don’t load it all that night, the delay could anger the customer who will then take their business elsewhere. If workers are soldiering performance will not be maximized and low productivity could cause a fall in capital investment and the eventual decline of the business. Q4) ‘Time and motion studies’ streamline task processes by reducing inefficient motions and then once the task process has been adjusted through motion studies the time studies then seeks to reflect a standard length of time in which the refined task process should be completed. Time and Motion studies’ are a technique to increase task efficiency by workers to increase the output with no greater physical effort. An impact of TM studies on my organisation is that incoming freight is placed in bays so loaders do not have to go back and forth to the unloading area.

Sexuality In North By Northwest

Sexuality In North By Northwest While the Cold War conjured diverse anxieties, I will center my presentation on the idea of Domestic Containment, specifically the containment of homosexuality in America (Cohan). I came across this concept in Elaine Tyler Mays Homeward Bound. It deals with the political and ideological reasons 1950s America insisted on promoting rigid heterosexuality and capitalist drives, ridding itself of backward men and Communist traitors, something completely in line with Hitchcocks mission in the film Moreover, by invoking the homophobic categories of Cold War political discourse, in particular the construction of the homosexual as a national security risk, N by NW virtually guaranteed that gender and nationality functioned as mutually reinforcing categories of identity. In this presentation, I will discuss sexuality as related to ideas of nation-hood and argue that there is a mini cold war being waged in North by Northwest, one that deals specifically with advancing the American heterosexual couple over the Soviet homosexual one coded throughout the film. With the American, heterosexual couples triumph on screen comes an ideological victory for America in 1959. SLIDE Before I analyze clips and stills from North By Northwest that deal with currents of sexuality and nationality, I wanted to show this clip from the latter half of the film to show that Hitchcock makes it abundantly clear that we are supposed to read North by Northwest as a Cold War film concerned with sexuality. CLICK!!! I want you to take away from this clip the obvious language of the cold war as well as how sexuality or bedding down is wrapped up in this international struggle. In this way, North by Northwest presents in biting form America immersed in Cold War ambiguity in which people on both sides were served up as sacrificial lambs. N by NW was made and released during the latter phase of the second term of President Dwight D. Eisenhower, a time when the Cold War was in full force, with the US and rival Soviet Union utilizing the most sophisticated spy techniques. This new kind of war required constant vigilance and readiness to fight on a moments notice. The Cold War lasted longer than any other war in our countrys history, starting when the United States introduced nuclear terror to the world by dropping its first atomic bomb on Japan on August 6, 1945, and lasting into our lifetime with the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991. Although the Cold War shaped and distorted virtually every aspect of American life, perhaps more than anything else, nuclear weapons changed the world. With them, an element of vulnerability existed unlike anything in history. Nuclear threat escalated during the 1950s, the decade were concerned with today. In August 1949 the Soviets had their first successful nuclear bomb test. Both the US and the Soviet Union held hydrogen bomb tests in 1952 and 53 and in October 1957 the Soviets launched Sputnik. Americas nuclear buildup, global mobilization, and interventionism during the Cold War were justified in the name of stopping Soviet communism, a foe policymakers deemed so diabolical that its defeat warranted the risk of destroying civilization itself. The fact that the Soviet Union was not just a military, economic, and geopolitical but an ideological foe, posed a unique kind of challenge to a resolutely capitalistic nation. This ideological antagonism between socialism and capitalism polarized the world along new lines. And it is against this backdrop that Hitchcock gave birth to his suspense thriller North by Northwest. SLIDE Certain historical trends and demographics are crucial to understand before analyzing the films comments on sexuality. During the late 1940s and throughout the 1950s, an amazing rise in the birth rate, a declining age of marriage, a growth in the marriage rate, and low divorce rate all converged in the midst of the most intense years of nuclear fear and ideological and surrogate warfare. Since family formation and fertility respond to both positive and negative economic and cultural stimuli, it is not surprising that this era of comparatively good times brought increased marriage and fertility. At the same time, however, increased sexual activity at younger and younger ages, especially for women in the late 1950s and beyond, problematically, included increasing instances of pre-marital sex Thus the history of sexuality in postwar America is the story of increasing liberalization Men, too, participated. The rebellion of men against marriage and the increasingly permissive fantasy life associated with the playboy lifestyle of the late 1950s, appears to be the kind of life our protagonist and hero, Cary Grants character Roger Thornhill, ascribes to. And, in terms of female rebellion, perhaps even more dismantling is the sexual promiscuity of Eve Kendall, played by Eva Marie Saint. Thornhill is typed as a womanizer, with two failed marriages to boast of, and Eve, as if completely aware of the expectations of her 1950s culture, introduces herself to Thornhill curtly stating that shes 26 and unmarried, and thats all he needs to know. SLIDE Examining domestic containment in relation to national identity has multiple advantages. It allows us to see that what we have heretofore regarded as a unique Cold War phenomenon was in fact part of the larger, ongoing process of defining America. The very meaning of America had become greatly problematized in the 1950s. Perhaps this instability of American identity is why Hitchcock constantly reasserted distinctly American values and American locations throughout North by Northwest, on screen are just a few of the most memorable sites Hitchcock takes us. AD-LIB I will present many facets of North by Northwest that deal specifically with America and American life in order to further ground the containment of homosexuality as a Cold War strategy in the film. I first want to discuss the opening credits of the film. Understanding Hitchcocks brilliant beginning gives us-the viewers and our class today-a lens through which to understand Hitchcocks understanding of Cold War America, homophobia, heterosexuality and communism. SLIDE Designed by American graphic designer and Academy award winning filmmaker Saul Bass, the credits provide a kind of map meant to locate or orient the spectator. A series of intersecting lines, clearly intended to invoke a map or graph, traverse a blank screen placed at an angle to the camera. They eventually dissolve into a shot of an office building whose glass and steel faà §ade reflects the moving traffic on the busy street below. The mirror like surface of the faà §ade that emerges from the intersecting lines functions as a screen on which the images of the busy street below are not so much reflected as projected. Consequently, according to Robert Corber in his book In the Name of National Security: Hitchcock, Homophobia, and the Political Construction of Gender the opening titles seem to suggest that, as a semiotic practice, the film has the ability to organize and define reality, to construct a map of it that fixes its meaning for the spectator. In this way, they call attention to the artificiality or constructed-ness of the films representation of reality. It provides the spectator with coordinates that enable him/her to locate and define his/her position in the world and thereby make sense of it-a concept integral to audience reception that we have discussed at length this semester, and that I will touch on in greater depth shortly. By beginning in this way, according to Corber, the film demonstrates its ability to conjure reality, to construct a representation of the world that the spectator does not question but assumes accurately reflects contemporary society b/c of its perceptual intensity or so-called impression of reality à   thus, from the beginning, we are meant to assume that Hitchcock s representation of America in 1959 is how it really was. Another important element of the films beginning is that our protagonist Roger Thornhill appears as if plucked from the crowd at random, as he is initially shown emerging from an elevator jammed with office workers. He is completely typical of New Yorks crowded people, lacking direction. Indeed, purely by accident, he is kidnapped shortly after he arrives at the hotel by two of Vandamms men, who mistake him for the fictitious American agent George Kaplan. Thus, Hitchcock makes us think that anyone of us, too, could have been sucked into this crazy plot. One other interesting thing to glean from the title sequence is that it alludes to the traps in which the protagonists find themselves throughout the film as well as frames the films trajectory This grid recurs throughout the film, in railway cars, deserted prairie crossroads, and national monuments. From the very beginning, moreover, I want you to note that the film is an exploration of Cold War AMERICA, as seen in the vertical top shots of the Madison Avenue skyscraper, UN headquarters and Mount Rushmore and the horizontal shots of the railway car and of the empty Midwestern plane I will now show a hilarious trailer for North by Northwest from 1959, which gives a brief but comprehensive geographical tour of Hitchcocks locations, which I wont have time to flesh out on my own in this presentation, but are extremely important. SHOW TRAILER HERE! SLIDE Having recently discussed how the opening credits situate and control the spectators view of the film, and, by extension, portray the Cold War climate according to Hitchcocks construction, I want to specifically link this form of control with the viewers sexual identification. Hitchcocks films contributed indirectly to the pathologizing of same-sex eroticism by suggesting that in order for the individual to achieve a relatively stable heterosexual identity she/he had to successfully negotiate the Oedipus complex Because Hitchcocks films occupied the subject position, the spectator became complicit with her/his own Oedipalization, which, in the 1950s, was tantamount to accepting the terms of the postwar settlement. By examining N by NW in the context of the postwar settlement, I want show to that Hitchcocks films participated in a regime of pleasure that helped to consolidate the emergence of the national security state. His representational practices were complicit with the dominant construction of social reality during the Cold War era. Hitchcocks tendency to subjectivize the individual spectators experience constitutes one of the principal links b/w his films and the anti-Stalinist project of American Cold War officials. Thus, in N by NW, Hitchcock demonstrated how the discourses of national security produced fantasies that brought the individual spectators desire into alignment with the nations security interests. SLIDE Now I will move into the meat of my presentation: the politicization of sexuality. The Cold War persuaded millions of Americans to interpret their world in terms of insidious enemies who threatened them with nuclear and other forms of annihilation. McCarthyism contributed heavily to viewing the world through this dark, distorting lens and setting global and domestic policies to counter these threats. According to the Federal Government, if homosexuals felt alienated from mainstream American society, that was b/c they were maladjusted, their problems were not political but personal and were best remedied in a doctors office. On the other hand, however, the dominant discourse of same sex eroticism tried to show that homosexuality promoted communism and therefore politicized gay identities. The gay community, which had emerged with new cohesion and visibility in the wake of World War II, found itself a prime target for anticommunist crusaders. It was believed that they were especially vulnerable to blackmail by Soviet agents eager to recruit intelligence sources As a result, the early 1950s witnessed widespread purging of homosexuals from the State Department, the military, and other federal agencies. However, more than just a greater risk of blackmail was involved. Homosexuals were seen as deficient in character, moral integrity, and real masculinity. Unfit as Cold Warriors, they were thus undesirable citizens. This stigmatization, as historian John DEmilio points out in his study of Cold War sexual politics, was carried still further by conservative politicians who linked homosexuality directly to communism, re-conceptualizing homosexuality as a contagious disease spread by communists to weaken the nation from within. A single homosexual, officials maintained, could easily contaminate an entire government office. The oppression of homosexuals at all levels became yet another act of containment in the fight against communism. Homosexuals, further, were seen as especially dangerous to the extent that a gay male character was virtually indistinguishable from straight male ones, thereby demonstrating that homosexuals, like communists, could dangerously escape detection. During its highly publicized hearings in the 1940s and early 1950s, the House UnAmerican Activities Committee did not limit its investigation to the Communists who had supposedly infiltrated the federal Government, but extended it to include homosexuals who passed as heterosexual. On the basis of testimony from psychiatrists and other medical experts who testified that they were susceptible to blackmail by Soviet agents b/c they were emotionally unstable, thus officially pinning homosexuals as national-security risks. The publication of the Kinsey reports on male and female sexual behavior, in 1948 and 53 respectively, only reinforced the politicization of homosexuality. The reports provided scientific evidence suggesting that sexual identities were fluid and unstable rather than exclusively and permanently heterosexual or homosexual. In recognizing the fluidity of sexuality, hindering the attempts of gays to define themselves as members of an oppressed minority The pervasive allusions to homosexuality in North by Northwest enables me to stress the centrality of the politicization of same-sex eroticism to post-war American culture and to show that containment of homosexuality was necessary to conditions of the Cold War. Thus, North by Northwest epitomizes this tight bond between sexuality and national security in the Cold War era. SLIDE Now I will begin my analysis of sexuality in the film with what I call a montage of references to homosexuality. When looking at these stills from the movie, keep in mind how Cary Grant, our dashing American protagonist, too, can be wrapped up with homosexuality, speaking to the pervasiveness and dangers of homosexuality infiltrating American lives. SLIDE The films drama basically begins with Roger Thornhill going to an all-mens bar in the Plaza Hotel. Although he has a date for that evening, it is with his mother no less, a problem I will discuss shortly! SLIDE The theme of the kidnapping of the hero, Thornhill, by two sinister men, with the hero often seated in a car, tightly between them, recurs throughout the film in myriad forms. Pictured above are just a few examples that represent this theme of Thornhills encounters with homosexuality. CLICK FOUR TIMES. SLIDE Now we arrive at the Villain Phillip Vandamms home who is played by George Mason. I want you to keep this seemingly benign image on screen in mind throughout the remainder of my presentation. While no scholar has mentioned the significance of the cars pulling into Vandamms gate, I think this action is importantly mirrored in the iconic ending of the film that I will show later. For now, however, just keep in mind that a car driven by a man and with our protagonist squished tightly b/w two other men in the backseat, penetrates the gate to a Soviet home. SLIDE Vandamm, the lead villain, unsurprisingly is connected with homosexuality. His masculinity should be suspect because of his relationship with his sadistic, overtly homosexual associate, Leonard, played by Martin Landau, who Hitchcock notes in the screenplay should be read as gay. The slide above features Leonard, with the help of two male henchmen, forcing the neck of a liquor bottle between Thornhills lips, making him drink its full contents-an obviously phallic reference of homosexual rape SLIDE As I noted a few minutes ago, a central facet of the politicization of sexuality in the 1950s, came with associating homosexuality with communism. While Hitchcock doesnt specifically mention the country of origin of the foreigners in the film, he locates Vandamms home importantly in Glen Cove, New York. This location directly implies that Vandamm and his associates are from the Soviet Union, who at the time had a mission in that town on northern Long Island. This fact sheds particular light on the stills of homosexuality I am showing, as they are directly linked with communism. Further, later in the film, the Professor describes Vandamm as an importer exporter of government secrets, thereby coding him as a Soviet agent involved in the Cold War. SLIDE Before I move on to show and discuss the famous crop-dusting scene-the scene I regard as the most compelling, and famous, visual representation of the threat of homosexuality to our protagonist-I must first discuss another aspect of Thornhills unsuitable sexuality: his unhealthy relationship with his mother. In order to Contain Thornhill and set him on the proper sexual path, his relationship with his mother needs to severely change. The basic mother-son story line goes as follows: the film opens with an ageless male, Thornhill, identifying himself first of all as a son. He speaks of his efforts to keep the smell of liquor on his breath from the watchful nose of his mother, and he comes to the attention of his enemies because of an unresolved anxiety about getting a message to his mother, whereupon he is taken captive. (Cavell) Hitchcock suggests that Thornhills involvement in the Communist underworld, an underworld marked by sexual as well as political deviance, is not purely coincidental but is indirectly related to his devotion to his mother. The film tries to show that b/c he has failed to internalize the Law of the Father and remains emotionally dependent on his mother, there is a sense in which his irresponsible behavior is complicit with the Communist infiltration of the American government. The discourses that linked communism and homosexuality actually warned against the potentially pernicious effects of motherhood specifically and point to a reaction against the emergence of the feminine mystique of the 1950s. On the one hand, as we have seen throughout seminar, post-war American culture experienced a proliferation of glorified representations of motherhood designed to lure women back into the home following the war. On the other hand, many Americans resented the glorification of motherhood b/c it gave women supposedly too much power in the domestic sphere. With the outbreak of the Cold War, Mom-ism too became linked to the spread of communism and led to the creation of a demonology of motherhood. Suddenly, mothers risked making their sons susceptible to Communist propaganda. The discourses of mom-ism limited womens empowerment in the domestic sphere and ensured that their child-rearing practices conformed to the nations security interests. For, if women disregarded the expert advice of psychiatrists and other trained professionals, they risked producing children who were Communists as well as homosexuals. In N by NW this aspect of the demonization of motherhood is obvious in Thornhills relationship with his mother. Thornhills sexual immaturity thus is incompatible with the nations security interest. In the postwar period, the nations political stability and economic prosperity were thought to depend upon the production of subjects who had internalized the rules and regulations governing Oedipal desire. Thus Thornhill was not so different from the films Communists and homosexuals. ADLIB-mom younger than Grant, problematic. SLIDE To close this section on homosexuality, I want to look at the famous scene where Thornhill is attacked by a crop-dusting plane. This iconic sequence of events is both the central image of Thornhills victimization and surprisingly, or unsurprisingly as my presentation is attempting to prove, a powerful instance of homosexual attack. The night before this scene takes place Thornhill and Eve violate a taboo. We know that Thornhill spent the night with Eve, boldly and obviously suggesting pre-marital intercourse. I understand the attack Im about to show, which once again occurs the very next day, to be a powerful visualization of punishment for intercourse CLICK SHOW CLIP!!! CLICK AFTER! The linkage of this scene with sexuality is evident in Hitchcocks filming. The association of the prairie with the sexual landscape of the train compartment where Thornhill and Eve had sex the night before is signaled by his camera shots. Right before the clip I just showed, a close-up of Eves face at the train station dissolved into an aerial shot of the road and fields of the plane attack, explicitly linking these scenes. This shot transition begs for an allegorical identification of the woman and this stretch of land, the very land where Thornhill undergoes his attack. To discuss this scene I will rely on the analysis of Theodore Price from his book Hitchcock and Homosexuality. He notes that firstly, we must note the phallic symbolism associated with birds and of flying objects in general. According to Price, aside from the birds shape, and its darting, pecking beak, a bird is, to everyones unconscious, a phallic symbol because it flies. Flying also is a symbol for getting an erection, for potency, and for sexual intercourse in general according to Ernest Jones. Thus, in a way, the crop-dusting plane scene can conjure undertones of homosexual rape from above. There are several meanings that arise when looking at this scene from this angle. 1) This scene could represent a fear on the part of Thornhill of homosexual rape-and/or fear in his strange attraction to homosexual rape. This connection is clear especially when considering the homosexual rape still I showed earlier of Leonard forcing liquor down Thornhills mouth. The phallic bird-plane then may be interpreted as Grants fear of his former attraction to homosexuality as he starts out on still another new love affair with a woman. 2) The plane could also stand for the avenging phallus of the father figure in the film, here Vandamm, who is understandably angry at the son figure, Thornhill, for making time with the mother figure, Eve. 3) Additionally, the sequence could mean that the plane represents the Castrator, Eve, who set him up in the cornfield to begin with. For, from the psychoanalytic view, birds can be woman or vagina symbols too. SLIDE Regardless of which way we read this scene, a powerful avenging phallus, sent by Communists, launches its bullets-take this fact as an allusion to ejaculation-at our male hero. Luckily for Thornhill, he finds safety in the cornfields of America-which, in my opinion, represents finding protection from this Communist phallus in the heartland of America. SLIDE Having catalogued countless instances of the presence and associated dangers of homosexuality in the film, I now need to show how these dangers were contained by the insistence on heterosexual couple. To do so, I will use Mays analysis of 1950s Domesticity in Homeward bound. In this work, May linked the exaggerated domesticity that characterized the long fifties-from 1945-1965-that weve discussed at length in seminar to homosexuality and anticommunist imperatives. May readily acknowledged the extraordinary stresses placed upon the American family by the Great Depression and World War II. Postwar Americans, finding additional threats to traditional family life in rising rates of out-of-wedlock pregnancy and sexual promiscuity, as I discussed before, juvenile delinquency, as Willi discussed two weeks ago, and the ultimate threat of nuclear war, Americans understandably sought normalcy in marital sex, pro-natalism, and suburban domesticity during this time. Further, just as anticommunism required the containment of Sino-Soviet expansion abroad, so, too, May argued, gender revolution and deviant expression of sexual desire had to be effectively contained at home, hence domestic containment. Promotion of family values, policymakers believed, would ensure not only a place for men to return to the workforce, but also the stable family life necessary for personal and national security, a kind of Cold War victory on the domestic front. Hitchcock too received the memo, as he promoted the heterosexual couple throughout the film. Hitchcock, by associating homosexuality with the soviets coded as communists, both comments on its pervasiveness of both groups in America at that time and establishes it as the inferior sexual bond that must be checked and contained by the heterosexual couple. Thus, no mere exercise in nostalgia, domestic containment was part of a new Cold War consensus about the meaning of America and deeply embedded in the plot of North by Northwest. Now Im going to show you a series of slides that blatantly show the heterosexual couple of Thornhill and Eve. CLICK AND ADLIB SLIDE When contextualized within the domestic politics of marriage during the cold war, heterosexuality and Re-Marriage take on great importance. We come to see that Thornhill and Eves adventures throughout the film serve as trials for their suitability to get married. Eve is sexually immature before she becomes an agent for the American government, according to the terms of the postwar settlement. Although she is partially redeemed by acting as an American agent-showing her willingness to perform her patriotic duty-she nevertheless continues to occupy a position outside the law. This is so because to perform her patriotic duty she must violate the rules that govern female sexuality in the 1950s, making her only partly rehabilitated. She is a treacherous little tramp and uses sex like a fly swatter according to the movie so she remains a marked woman throughout. However, when Thornhill rescues her from Vandamm, he enables her to do something genuinely worthwhile for the nation: become a proper wife and mother The relationship b/w gender and nationality suggests that Thornhills activities as an American agent also need to be reconstructed according to the post-war settlement. His activities as an American agent create a scenario that puts an end to his womanizing. Thornhills mix-up within the CIAs efforts to combat communism actually increases his desire for marriage and domesticity. To Thornhill, the domestic sphere not only provides a refuge from the government which has recklessly endangered his and eves lives, but also constantly restages his pre-Oedipal attachment to his mother. In this way, his espionage activities ensure that the organization of sexuality and his identity as a citizen are mutually reinforcing. Thus, Hitchcock stresses the ability of the American government to regulate and control the construction of the individuals subjectivity-as it is only once he is involved in its activities that he is redeemed. According to the discourses of national security then, Thornhills resistance to his role as a husband is un-American, and his activities as an American reorganize him as a proper citizen. This scene shows how the series of events that have unfolded have transformed both protagonists views of marriage, and suggest that re-marriage in the name of national security is on the horizon. CLICK SHOW CLIP As you just saw Thornhill uses the loaded word proposal that explicitly suggests marriage. Also, they discuss his former failed marriages, alerting the viewer that we are dealing with re-marriage here. Also, Cary Grants sly wit about leading too dull a life suggests that as a result of his involvement in matters of state, he has achieved a level of excitement suitable for marriage and can now enter into a proper relationship. SLIDE I want to show you a series of images and a clip from the end of the film that pit homosexuality explicitly against heterosexuality. With their placement at the end of the film they attain great significance, suggesting that the winner of this sexual battle is the victor in a mini cold war. In addition, I show images with men and women, homosexuals and heterosexuals, in these clips, to show both strains of sexuality at odds within a single frame. SLIDE Before I show these stills and clips, I need to discuss the importance of the Vandamm house itself, where the majority of these clips take place. Situated in a fictitious forested plateau atop the Mount Rushmore, Vandamms house dominates a devotional shrine of American democracy-its positioning alone reveals how even Americas most iconic monuments are endangered by Soviet penetration. Further, the houses Midwestern location-in the Black Hills region, near Keystone, South Dakota, is also important. The move toward the west, evoked by the films title, brings the protagonists to the American heartland, the spine of the continent. Additionally, the houses placement atop a mountain has wider implications. It expresses visual domination and panoptic control. The fact that blatant homosexuality pervades a site that serves simultaneously as a great threat to an iconic American monument and exerts intense control, suggests how dangerous the threats of homosexuality and communism have at once become at the end of the film. CLICK THROUGH CLIPS and ad-lib CLICK, SHOW CLIP! In this clip, we see Leonard using phrases like his womans intuition aligning himself with homosexuality, or femininity at the least and Vandamm noting that hes touched by jealousy. SLIDE Now I would like to move into the final phase of my discussion: a comprehensive discussion of Mount Rushmore, and the battle between the US and Soviet Union that occurs atop its democratic faces. First and foremost, we must understand Mount Rushmore to be a place so definitely and undeniably American. Using a carved rock containing the gigantic granite portraits of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln as a backdrop, Hitchcock suggests that what happens there is of NATIONAL IMPORTANCE. After a few savvy moves, Thornhill and Eve leave Vandamms house and find themselves atop monument being chased by Vandamm, Leonard and their henchmen.

Equilibrium Equality Demand Supply

Equilibrium Equality Demand Supply Equilibrium means a state of equality between demand and supply. Without a shift in demand and/or supply there will be no change in market price. In the diagram below, the quantity demanded and supplied at price P1 are equal. (Baryla, 1995, 13) At any price above P1, supply exceeds demand and at a price below P1, demand exceeds supply. In other words, prices where demand and supply are out of balance are termed points of disequilibrium. Changes in the conditions of demand or supply will shift the demand or supply curves. This will cause changes in the equilibrium price and quantity in the market. Consider the following example. The weekly demand and supply schedules for T-shirts (in thousands) in a city are shown in the table below: Price ( £) 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Demand 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20 Supply 18 16 14 12 10 8 6 4 Demand 2 10 12 14 16 18 20 22 24 Supply 2 26 24 22 20 18 16 14 12 The equilibrium price in the market is  £5 where demand and supply are equal at 12,000 units. If the current market price was  £3 there would be excess demand for 8,000 units. If the current market price was  £8 there would be excess supply of 12,000 units. A change in fashion causes the demand for T-shirts to rise by 4,000 at each price. The next row of the table shows the higher level of demand. Assuming that the supply schedule remains unchanged, the new equilibrium price is  £6 per tee shirt with an equilibrium quantity of 14,000 units. The entry of new producers of T-shirts into the market causes a rise in supply of 8,000 T-shirts at each price. The new equilibrium price becomes  £4 with 18,000 units bought and sold. Assuming there is pure competition in the market place, and no government intervention, we are able to focus on how the price mechanism determines the equilibrium price in the market. Markets can be effective at resolving the basic issues of what and how much to produce at a certain price level although left to operate on its own, the market can still create unsatisfactory outcomes. When markets do not produce the desired outcome, it is known as market failure and when this occurs, governments may intervene in the market. (Baryla, 1995, 13) How the price mechanism brings about the equilibrium price in the market can be determined assuming we have pure competition in the market place and no government intervention. Simply put, the concept of pure competition mean that no participant in the market has the power to influence market outcomes directly, such as by setting prices. The price mechanism is the interplay of the forces of supply and demand in determining the market prices at which goods and services are sold and the quantity of which is produced. The quantities of goods and services demanded and supplied is regulated by the prices of those goods and services. If the price of a commodity for sale is too high according to consumer demand, the quantity supplied will exceed the quantity demanded. If the price of a commodity is too low according to consumer demand, the quantity that is demanded will exceed the quantity supplied. There is one price, and only one price, at which the quantity demanded, is equal to the quantity supplied. This is known as the equilibrium price. (Belkin, 1976, 57) The market forces of supply and demand interacting to determine the equilibrium price which at this price the market clears and eliminates any excess supply or demand is the price mechanism in action. (Brown, 2000, 66) There is no tendency for change at the equilibrium point. In this way it is said that the market mechanism, besides being the natural consequences of the forces of supply and demand, provides the most efficient economic outcomes possible without any explicit coordination. Although markets can be effective at resolving the basic issues of what and how much to produce, left to operate by it, the market can still create unsatisfactory outcomes. For goods and services in product markets, the market price may be considered to be too high or too low. From the free interplay of demand and supply, the equilibrium quantity that results may also be considered too high or too low. Some goods and services may not even be produced at all. Market failure occurs because the price mechanism takes account of the private costs and benefits of production, to producers and consumers, but does not take into account the impact of an economic activity on outsiders. For example, the market may ignore the costs imposed on outsiders by a firm polluting the environment. Governments may intervene in the market when market failure occurs. The market determined price for some commodities may be thought by the government to be too high or too low. The government may therefore intervene in the marketplace in order to apply either price ceilings, where the government imposes a limit on how high a price can be charged for a product, or price floors, the minimum price that can be charged for a particular commodity. (Geltner, 1995, 119) Affecting the distribution of income, the manner in which income is divided among the members of the economy, is the main reason for influencing prices in this way. Price ceilings will redistribute money from sellers to buyers, whereas price floors will redistribute money from buyers to sellers. In conclusion, the market forces of supply and demand interact with each other to bring about market equilibrium, clearing the market of excess demand or supply. In this way, it is said that the market mechanism achieves consistency between plans and outcomes for consumers and producers without explicit coordination. Government intervention is very important in providing the desired outcomes of the society. Overall, market equilibrium is determined by the price mechanism, supply and demand curves, surplus and shortage, increases and decreases in supply and demand curves, market behaviours and government intervention. (Hendershott, 1997, 13) References Baryla, E.A., Zumpano, L.V. (1995), Buyer search duration in the residential real estate market: the role of the real estate agent, The Journal of Real Estate Research, Vol. 10 No.1, pp.1-13. Belkin, J., Hempel, D., McLeavey, D. (1976), An empirical study of time on the market using multidimensional segmentation of housing markets, Journal of American Real Estate and Urban Economics Association, Vol. 4 No.2, pp.57-75. Brown, G., Matysiak, G.A. (2000a), Real Estate Investment: A Capital Market Approach, Financial Times Prentice-Hall, Harlow, . Brown, G.R., Matysiak, G.A. (2000b), Sticky valuations, aggregation effects and property indices, Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics, Vol. 20 No.1, pp.49-66. Geltner, D., Mei, J.P. (1995), The present value model with time-varying discount rates: implications for commercial property valuation and investment decisions, Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics, Vol. 11 No.2, pp.119-35. Hendershott, P.H. (1997), Uses of equilibrium models in real estate research, Journal of Property Research, Vol. 14 No.1, pp.1-13. Janssen, C.T.L., Jobson, J.D. (1980), On the choice of realtor, Decision Sciences, Vol. 11 No.April, pp.299-311.

A Psychological Reading of The Fountainhead :: Fountainhead

A Psychological Reading of The Fountainhead  Ã‚     Ã‚   Real independence is a trait of mind. It is a commitment to one's own perception of reality as an absolute standard of thought and action. Why was this so hard for Peter Keating to distinguish between "Self" (what I am) and "Ideal Self" (what I wish I were)? It is evident that Peter Keating's incongruent self-concept is the result of Keatings' beliefs that conditional love from others could only be obtained by distorting his experiences in order to portray the "Ideal Self". This form of personality development starts from childhood experiences and can be directly connected to the amount of congruence or incongruence of one's experience in life. Keating is a prime example of incongruency or someone that registers every little move within the environment. Keating has a constant fear of what is perceived within the consciousness of others, which he spends his entire life trying to appease and control. (Rogers, 1961) Keating is basically a hypocrite, by saying one thing and acti ng in an opposite manner. Keating is not the only hypocrite. Keating is relieved when he notices that Guy Francon is putting on a front for his benefit. It means that Francon too is a man like Keating, with the same attitude toward the consciousness of others. This way of thinking was accurately described as Ayn Rand uses Roark's words in his last courtroom speech, "The man who attempts to live for others is a dependent. He is a parasite in motive and makes parasites of those he serves. The relationship produces nothing but mutual corruption. It is impossible in concept. The nearest approach to reality - the man who lives to serve others - is the slave." ( Fountainhead, p. 680) When Keating first proposes to Dominique, he speaks rapidly, easily, and so sure of himself it was not difficult. A lie is described as an effort to manipulate the consciousness of others, a way that comes too natural to Keating. Though he is an intelligent man, not without some heart, he is fundamentally inc apable of being honest. The concept of truth, the grasp of reality in Keating's mind is different and frightening. Rand uses the terminology "second-hander" to describe the Peter Keatings' of the world. "The choice is not self-sacrifice or domination. The choice is independence or dependence. The code of the creator or the second-hander.

Feminist Perspectives in a Story of an Hour Essay -- essays papers

Feminist Perspectives in a Story of an Hour A Woman Far Ahead of Her Time, by Ann Bail Howard, discusses the nature of the female characters in Kate Chopin’s novel’s and short stories. Howard suggests that the women in Chopin’s stories are longing for independence and feel torn between the feminine duties of a married woman and the freedom associated with self-reliance. Howard’s view is correct to a point, but Chopin’s female characters can be viewed as more radically feminist than Howard realizes. Rather than simply being torn between independent and dependant versions of her personality, â€Å"The Story of an Hour’s† Mrs. Mallard actually rejoices in her newfound freedom, and, in the culmination of the story, the position of the woman has actually been elevated above that of the man, suggesting a much more radically feminist reading than Howard cares to persue. Much of what Howard has to say about Chopin’s protagonists is appropriate. Her criticism operates from the standpoint that â€Å"marriage, said Chopin’s world, was the goal of every woman’s life; service to her husband and her children her duties, passionlessness and submission her assumed virtues, selflessness her daily practice, and self sacrifice her pleasure† (1). Mrs. Mallard definitely lives in a world where these gender values abound. Chopin, for example, describes Mrs. Mallard’s face as one â€Å" whose lines bespoke repression† (439). This is obviously a direct reference to the submission Mrs. Mallard has had to yield up to the patriarchy thus far. She has always had a â€Å"powerful will bending hers in that blind persistence with which men and women believe they have a right to impose a private will upon a fellow-creature† (440). Her husband’s will is describ... ... as the martyr who dies for feminism, ultimately choosing death over marriage. This ending inevitably elevates the woman’s position to the highest status, while the men are made to look silly and unaware. When Howard asserts that â€Å"it is the woman who demands her own direction and chooses her own freedom that interests Chopin most† (1) she is right on target. Howard only fails when she chooses not to expand that vision to include the truly feminist perspectives that differentiate Chopin as a woman far ahead of her time. Works Cited Howard, Ann Bail. â€Å"A Woman Far Ahead of Her Time†. 1997. Online. Virginia Commonwealth University English Department. http://www.vcu.edu/engweb/eng384/chopinhoward.htm. Chopin, Kate. â€Å"The Story of an Hour†.The Norton Introduction to Literature 7th Ed. Ed. Jerome Beaty, and J. Paul Hunter. New York: Norton, 1998. 438-440.

Book Report on How Soon Can I Leave

At first, Miss Bartlett shrank from the hints and persuasions for the reason of not wanting to abandon hope by retreating into a life only with another woman at the age of forty. However, she eventually decided to live with Miss Restrooms with the thought of doing the latter some good instead of needing someplace warmer and someone to take care of. As time went by, Miss Bartlett ran a larger business with the help of MISS Restrooms. Nevertheless, the more well-kept the home Is, the more unsatisfied she felt. But they still lived a happy life until one day Angela, MissRaccoon's niece came for a visit. This visit dramatically provoked the awareness of Miss Bartlett ‘s dependence upon Miss Restrooms and made her regret missing so many opportunities possible. Then she moved back. Only to face the damp and cold cottage. And with no one's help any longer, she had to do all the chores Just like a At the end of the story, Miss Bartlett returned the bungalow. She grown woman. Came to kn ow her folly but It was too late. From my point of view. The story turned out to be a tragedy. I feel strongly sympathetic towards Miss Bartlett.As we know, he lost her mother early, so the family background can be blamed for her incapacity. In comparison, Miss Restrooms is the only girl in a nine-child family. No wonder she can look after the home very well. Moreover, it is quite pathetic for Miss Bartlett to think that she had been treated as a pet plaything. Actually, the seven years living with MISS Bartlett made MISS Restrooms truly appreciate her talents. In other words, MISS Restrooms Is not only helping her, but also finding some meaning In life, a real active life. Last but not the least, the story reminds me of the relationship between parents and children.Take Miss Restrooms as an example, we can simply regard her as an epitome of many parents, or many mothers, more specifically. Mothers are often considerate, concerning a lot over their children, providing food and cloth es, trying their best to take care of all stuff beforehand. Only they can still care about the children even If the children misunderstand them and go away. Back to the story, isn't it great for Miss Restrooms to play a role only as a friend of Miss Bartlett but act like her mother? The death of Miss Restrooms must be caused by the heartbreak of loneliness and lack of sense of purpose.To put it in a nutshell, my understanding of this story can be summarized as a tragedy of improper love. All realization Is too late for both the motherly one and the childlike one. Objectively, parents should love their children In a reasonable way, not by totaling on teen Walt all things prepared. I nee count to teach CNN learn now to level an independent life instead of offering all they want. In the other way round, as a child, he should not take everything for granted. And when he comes to a career, Just learn to deal with it without parents' help. Besides, never let parents down.

Women As ‘Real Men’

Throughout the selected stories in Giovanni Boccaccio’s The Decameron many themes are brought to a readers attention. These themes help relate and compare the tales to one another in more ways than one. In the tale, Day two Story nine it raises a certain question on how a man may look as his wife, and the standards his wife may have to uphold. In comparison Day Five Story Ten, the question raised is a question of loyalty of a wife to her husband, which in turn, compare with the standards a wife may have to uphold for the husband. In both of these stories women are seen in the end as tough characters that take these actions from their husbands without any question; they are the real men in the tales. The tale Day Two Story Nine is about a man Bernabo whom is married to Zinevra, a very trustworthy wife. Bernabo and his friend Ambrugiolo while away get into a conversation about how easy it is to cheat on their wives while they are away, because in the end Ambrugiolo’s thought is that they do the same thing. Bernabo disagrees he looks at his wife as very trustworthily and Zinevra would never do such a thing. Because of a bet the two men end up making, Amrugiolo undeservingly wins the bet, or so Bernabo is led to believe. Bernabo orders a servant to murder Zinevra because of this misleading sin she been framed of committing. She pleads to the servant for her life and runs away to begin a new life as a man. Zinevra made a new life for herself after she was framed and moved on. But one day in the market she ran into her husband, Bernabo after much talking they realized who each other were. In the end, Zinevra gets revenge on Ambrugiolo and he is killed. Zinevra was in control of her decision to either go back to her husband Bernabo after he did not trust her word and ordered her to be killed, or not. She ends up goes back to her husband and in a way is a hero. Bernabo did not trust the loyalty of their marriage and was quick to judge Zinevra, but in the end the two lived happily ever after. Day Five Story 10 is another story with the loyalty of a husband and a wife. The story is about a man Guaitieri marrying a beautiful peasant, Griselda. Quick to marry, Guaitieri does not know if Griselda is truly a loyal companion and tests her through dramatic and horrific tricks. Including lying to Griselda about killing both their daughter and son, and Griselda does not question it and agrees with his actions. Guaitieri does not know what will break his wife because he believes this woman could not be so loyal. Therefore he pretends to divorce the peasant, and tells Griselda that he is getting remarried. He wants her to not only attend the wedding, but also clean and decorate the house for the event. Griselda agrees yet again, and in the end Guaitieri is convinced that she is just as loyal as she acts and tells her the whole truth of the matter. Their children were never killed, and the woman he was about to marry was their daughter. The loyal Griselda takes back Guaitieri and they live happily ever after. While reading these stories, which were written in a time not like today, a reader may be taken back. With the Bernabo and Zinevra story, a reader may question why Bernabo was so quick to judge what he thought was a trustworthy and loyal wife. But as we see in the selected tales women are viewed almost as a prize or object not as a companion or a real person. We see that in Guaitieri and Griselda’s story as well Guaitieri tests Griselda over and over and would not believe that she really was a loyal as she was coming off to be. Readers would take this story and see Griselda as almost an abused women, husbands do not treat their wives this way this time in age. In contradiction back in the day Griselda was seen as such a loyal women and wife because of her reactions to Guaitieri’s terrible lies. In both tales, the women over come their challenges and are viewed as harder and tougher people then the men.