Political Elite Revised Essay

Do you want to belong to the elite? Or do you sometimes feel that, in a way, you belong to the elite? Without its political meaning, the elite simply refer to a group that possesses superior qualities than the rest. It is the â€Å"cream of the crop†. In one way or another, some of us may have already experienced belonging to the elite, such as when we became part of an important club in school or belonged to the top of the class. In the book Concept and Issues in Comparative Politics, Frank Wilson explained that when applied to politics, the term elite acquires a negative connotation to mean a â€Å"small group who conspire to monopolize power and use it for their benefit†. However, without this political meaning, term elite refers to those who are active in political processes. Thus, Wilson stresses that not only the politicians belong to the elite, but also the opinion leaders and influence wielders and the senior civil servants. While politicians seek and hold elective or appointed government positions, influential figures participate in the process by shaping the ideas and preferences of others. This makes the media and business group as parts of the political elite. Bureaucrats or senior civil servants are also one of the components of the elite because they are involved in the policy- and decision-making processes in the government. Can a person enter the circle of the elite by moving his or her way up in the bureaucracy? Yes, if the person’s career achievements merit him or her to be recruited into the elite. Basically Wilson suggests two ways of recruitment to the elite: by achievement and by ascription. Recruitment by achievement does not only refer to technical skills, but also pertains to interpersonal, leadership or money-making skills. This is in stark contrast with the ascriptive mode of recruitment wherein a person automatically becomes a member of the elite because he or she was â€Å"born with silver spoon in the mouth,† so to speak. Also, Wilson points out that recruitment by achievement is characteristic of developed political systems, while recruitment by ascription is more common in traditional societies. However, it is not uncommon to find elites by birth who also developed the necessary skills to lead by achievement. For example, George W. Bush did not become the US President simply because he is the son of George H. W. Bush; but his first-hand observation of his father’s former job, the Bush’s network of influence, and the name recall surely helped in his campaign. Wilson also classifies elites into open and closed elites. The US is considered as one of the most open political recruitment processes because of the system of primary elections. One does not have to be a dedicated party worker to get nominated and eventually elected. According to Wilson, it also explains why movie stars could become elected officials, as well. Most democratic societies have open elites hence outsiders have multiple opportunities to enter the elite circle; but there are also democratic societies which require aspiring politicians to serve apprenticeships in local or party politics. This is to prevent just anybody, especially those who are only famous, to get elected without any political experience.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   On the other hand, closed elites are characteristic of authoritarian regimes wherein membership to the elite is controlled. In practice, however, there are also democratic regimes which also have closed elites, in a sense that ruling elites may hinder other members of the society from obtaining enough political leverage to become one of the political elite. For instance, I want to get in the elite circle because I have sufficient background, knowledge and skills to become a leader, but the circle is controlled and very elitist (snobbish). Do I have other options if I do not get recruited through achievement? Yes, by ascription such as by marrying a member of the elite, as Wilson stresses, or stage a revolt or a coup d’etat to overthrow the ruling elite.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Nevertheless, violent successions of the elites usually happen when there is no predictability or long-established rules in the change of leadership. In most advanced political systems, there are approved procedures in the transition and legitimation of leadership that would render the blood spill unnecessary. However, even if Wilson contends that unpredictable successions are common to authoritarian regimes and third world countries, he also cites examples to the contrary. He takes particular exception to the Party politics in China which has proven that orderly manner of succession is possible, even in an authoritarian system. To add to this example are a number of â€Å"illiberal democracies† in Asia wherein rulers could maintain their hold in power, yet such undemocratic rule were long accepted by the people.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Wilson also adds that there are other ways to make the elite’s hold on power legitimate such as tradition, charismatic appeal, accepted rational processes, and more importantly, capability of the political elite to deliver its promises to the people. The capability to perform to improve the welfare of the people could be a more powerful factor for legitimacy than election, and thus could make people’s obedience possible even if the rule is considered undemocratic. However, whether in democratic or authoritarian regimes, any elite that would exercise coercive force to command obedience from the people is bound to fail – and that is when we observe violent or tense transitions of political power.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Still, there is always a certain elite or a small group that would be most directly involved in the political processes. Even erstwhile socialist regimes which claimed to promote equality among the people have been ruled by elites, and have in fact used their position to perpetuate themselves in power. The widely-held notion of democracy is that of a representative democracy. As such, it has been a nagging controversy in the studies of elite that even the most democratic systems are not truly democratic because political leadership is in the hands of a representative elite that would never mirror the general citizenry. Wilson has provided enough empirical evidence that those who usually get recruited into the elite are from the middle and upper classes, educated, from dominant societal groups, and male. Even if the elite would recruit from the ranks of the masses, those who would enter the elite would soon acquire the certain values and perspectives that are characteristic of the elite. Thus they get absorbed into the system – and could not possibly reform the system. As such radicals view that only by changing the system itself, say, by supplanting a genuinely socialist one, that political elitism would end. The above proposition is grounded on the assumption that elitism is bad, as Wilson has scrutinized effectively. Breaking down this assumption brings us to the sub-assumptions that firstly, political elites always rules in its own best interests; and that   secondly, the best political representation of a particular group is made by people who are from that group. Wilson debunks these assumptions for lack of sufficient empirical evidence. In the first instance, political elites ruling only on their interests can always be checked in democratic societies. In democratic systems wherein the succession of political power is determined by elections, the ruling elites would have to bend to the wishes of important portions of the population because they would ultimately need their support come election time. Of course, it is also possible that the political elite sincerely care for the people; that is why we now have welfare states and taxation systems that really hurt the rich and benefit the poor. The argument that one can best represent the interests the group where he or she comes from, at all times, may not always hold true since as Wilson explained in the text, new entrants to the elite may change their values by virtue of their position thus may render them useless in advancing his original group or class. A very concrete example would be the socialist Russian revolution which catapulted the working class into power, which in the long run only became a self-seeking and self-defensive class of its own.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Thus Wilson argues that a pluralist democracy, wherein various interests are articulated and political competition prevents domination of political power of a single set of elites, holds the answer to the controversy that bedevils the political elite. As such, the rule of the elites, per se, is not bad – as long as it is in the context of a working pluralist democracy.

Fin USD

Morgan is one of the world's leading global investment banks, with the client from corporations, governments, states, municipalities, healthcare organizations, educational institutions, banks and iinvestors sector around the world. It is also well known for providing Securities Services, Asset Management, Commercial Banking, Private Banking and treasury services.These different financial services are offered to their customers maintaining an ethical standard as well as having employee commitment in the workplace. It is such kind of financial service provided that is committed to optimize efficiency, mitigate risk and enhance revenue with is valued assets. Despite of being such a reputed company for such a long time the in May 2012 they incurred loss of 2billion USD in the first quarter. Besides these, they are also assuming that this loss with increase by another $1 billion in the second quarter. After incurring the loss their share piece falls by 7% a day.They fall down from Credit Rating (AA-). They lose the market and customer's satisfaction. Few institutes are investigating on such loss in the financial market. The U. S. Security Exchange Commission is having a preliminary investigation into JPMorgan's accounting practices and public disclosures about the trading loss. Besides these the U. K. ‘s Financial Services Authority examined the role London employees played in the loss. In the end, one of the executive of the bank claimed that the loss was originated from he firm's Chief Investment Office (CIO).The Wall Street Journal reports a trader at J. P. Morgan known in the market as the ‘London Whale' made large bets on credit derivatives. Iksil used a little-known index of 125 firms – CDX IG 9, which iincluded the Campbell Soup Company and Walt Disney. They based their estimates on the trades and price movements of credit default swaps – complex instruments used as a type of insurance against companies defaulting they witnessed as w ell as their understanding of the size and structure of the markets. J. P. Morgan says his unit is meant to ‘hedge structural risks'.The failed hedge likely involved a bet on the flattening of a credit derivative curve, part of the CDX family of investment grade credit indices, said two sources with knowledge of the industry, but not directly involved in the matter. JPMorgan was then caught by sharp moves at the long end of the bet, [it] said. The CDX index gives traders exposure to credit risk across a range of assets, and gets its value from a basket of individual credit derivatives. In essence, JPMorgan made a series of bets which turned out very, very adly. proprietary trading†, using their own cash to take bets on financial markets. The 2007-09 financial crisis originated in the deterioration of traditional home mortgage lending, as opposed to banks' short-term trading of exotic financial instruments for profit. Proprietary trading has a bad image because it's so ea sily likened to gambling. The JPMorgan trading losses come at a difficult time for the international banking system as it faces up to risks linked to the Eurozone debt crisis and international economic uncertainty. J.P. Morgan lost the money by betting its own capital†albeit while â€Å"hedging† risks† much of the discussion since the news has been on the â€Å"Volcker rule,† which bans banks from trading for themselves rather than their clients. JP Morgan started buying share for their own rather than their clients. So when the rule is announced then they fall in big trouble. This is also led them to incur the huge loss. In a conference call disclosing the problem on Thursday, Dimon said the $2 billion in losses could rise by a further $1 billion.However a 2 billion dollar loss for JP Morgan is nothing compared to their total exposure of over 70 trillion dollars. Overall, the 9 largest U. S. banks have a total of more than 200 trillion dollars of exposure to derivatives. That is approximately 3 times the size of the entire global economy. So let's not make too much out of this 2 billion dollar loss by JP Morgan. This is Just a preview of coming attractions. Soon enough the real problems with derivatives will begin, and when that happens it will shake the entire global financial system to the core.

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Court Report Personal Statement Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

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MACROECONOMICS - Assignment Example In economics, the guiding principle is to never lose, every amount of money leaving ones coffers must always earn more to the business. This increased influx of money is likely to lower the interest rates in the current market. Interest refers to the additional value that money earns especially from debtors. Money lending is a big business opportunity for banks; they give out money and retain a security which could be in the form of a motor vehicle logbook or a land title deed. When the debtor pays the money back to the bank, he pays a little more, the additional amount is referred top as the interest and is the profit that the banks get from such risky undertakings. Incase the debtor fails to re-service the loan; the security is sold to meet the defaulted amount. The policy is aimed at making the bank having more capital base and liberalizing ther money market. By increasing the amount of money the economy becomes more stable, however, this must be done very cautiously to avoid instances of devaluation. Devaluation of currency is a case in which the value of an amount is lowered. This is different from recession in which more money equally purchases very little in that this is done by the government knowingly with an aim of later strengthening the economy from some of the benefit it tags along. Recession has no benefit whatsoever and is in fact a portrayal of an economic crisis (Miller 133). The figure represents some miss-measurements since just as stated; the resultant figure should be zero. The economies in the world are self fulfilling, some could be very poor like that in Zimbabwe while others could be very strong such as the American but when al these are totaled up, the resultant figure is a zero and a failure to get a zero reflects discrepancies. The pattern is very clear, the developed countries are lending while the developing countries are borrowing. Borrowing is a sign of weakness and plays an integral role in the

African American Injustice Essay Example for Free

African American Injustice Essay â€Å"In the eyes of white Americans, being black encapsulates your identity. † In reading and researching the African American cultural group, this quote seemed to identify exactly the way the race continues to still be treated today after many injustices in the past. It is astonishing to me that African Americans can still stand to be treated differently in today’s society. In reading â€Å"Blacks in America†, Andrew Hacker states that â€Å"being black in America has consequences in areas of: wealth, identity, raising children, occupational opportunities, place of residence, and treatment in the criminal justice system. † To be honest, and I feel bad saying that I already knew this was happening to African Americans. I have heard stories of blacks not getting jobs; regardless of how qualified they are for the position, because of the color of their skin. I have heard stories, and even witness black children getting picked on in school because of the simple fact that they are black. I watched a video in school where a black family moved into a white neighborhood, and before long all the white families had moved out because they didn’t want a black family in their neighborhood. This was confirmed by Hacker in my research in the quote, â€Å"Almost all residential areas are entirely black or white. † I have also seen videos of African American men getting beaten by white arresting officers, and have heard stories of many black men being stereotyped by policemen. This must be why Hacker states â€Å"When white people hear the cry, â€Å"the police are coming! † it almost always means, â€Å"Help is on the way. † However blacks cannot make the same assumption. † These are all reports and events that I think the average American has seen before, but yet most people, including myself, continue to just shrug of and ignore. I guess it’s something that I might have subconsciously accepted, or maybe refused to think more deeply about. In reading and researching, I reaffirmed knowledge that I refused to take a greater note of. I wouldn’t say I learned anything new, because I knew what I wanted to focus on. A quote from Andrew Hacker’s article summarizes the above best, â€Å"In the eyes of white Americans, being black encapsulates your identity. † It may be easy to tell how I am going to focus this anthology. I am going to focus it on the injustices that African Americans continue to face in the United States today. That being, I know exactly what I need to get out of my interviewees, but it is probably a sensitive subject for some of the people I need to interview. I am not black, and I don’t know what it feels like to face this discrimination in everyday life. I can understand the tenderness that African Americans must feel then, when revealing and talking about their experiences with discrimination. I would think then, that it must be especially sensitive to talk about with a person from the race that they receive this everyday discrimination. It will be interesting to hear all the different types of prejudice that my interviewees have received throughout their lives. I would imagine that it ranges from just a look, or the way white Americans act around them, to voiced and physical altercations between themselves and white Americans. Hacker at times seems to be speaking directly to African Americans as he describes these altercations, â€Å"So many of the contacts you have with them (white Americans) are stiff and uneasy, hardly worth the effort. † But to me, that is exactly what the problem is. Why would it not be worth the effort? The first step to take for the uneasiness between the two races to cease to exist is for us (all people) to stop seeing color because once we act differently around the other is where all the problems seem to start. The second step is to make these contacts worth the effort. If we choose to continue to stay in our own comfortable circle of race, when is the problem ever going to end? The answer is never. My opinion as a white 18 year old is that most of the blame lies on the white race. Imagine being eyed every time you go into a store, having your car searched for no reason, or greeted warily at restaurants all because the color of your skin is different. We ignore this daily discrimination because no cares enough anymore to take notice that it happens every hour, every day somewhere in the United States. Will it ever stop? Not until we each take the steps to make it. A recent census commercial I’ve seen said â€Å"We (United States) can’t move forward until you mail it back. † I believe that our country can’t move forward and truly be great until we make sure these daily iscriminations are eliminated from our society. In this project, I will interview African Americans on their personal experiences with discrimination, how they handle it, and if they think anything can be done about this problem. Sources: Andrew. 1999. Blacks in America. Pp. 160-168 in The Meaning of Sociology, 6th ed. , edited by Joel Charon. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall. A Time to Kill. Dir. Joel Schumacher. 1996. African American History. University of Washington Libraries. Web. 02 Apr. 2010. .

Shooting an Elephant Literary Analysis Essay Example for Free

Shooting an Elephant Literary Analysis Essay George Orwell’s 1930 short story â€Å"Shooting an Elephant,† demonstrates the total dangers of the unlimited authority a state has and the astounding presentment of â€Å"future dystopia†. In the story, Orwell finds himself to be in an intricate situation that involves an elephant. Not only does the fate of the elephant’s life lie in Orwell’s hands, he has an audience of people behind him cheering him on, making his decision much more difficult to make. Due to the vast crowd surrounding his thoughts, Orwell kills the elephant in the end, not wanting to disappoint the people of Burma. Orwell captures the hearts of readers by revealing the struggles he has while dealing with the burden of his own beliefs and morals. Orwell’s story connects with the readers because they understand the emotions and stress one can have before making a tough decision, as well as fretting about being judged at the same time. In the beginning of his story, Orwell illustrates his position as a hated police officer. He was consistently insulted and despised by the Burmese people. The locals were always treating him poorly, but he always did his job and kept in mind their best interest. He was already somewhat of a leader in this town because of his position, but now that there is the situation with a ravaging elephant in the town, he is forced to step up and take control of the elephant. â€Å"Being the white ‘leader’, he should have been able to make an independent decision, but was influenced by the ‘natives’† (Orwell 101). Orwell has this immense pressure building up over this decision, and his emotions as â€Å"Here I was the white man with his gun, standing in front of the unarmed crowd-seemingly the leading actor of the piece; but in reality I was only an absurd puppet pushed to and fro by the will of those yellow faces behind† (101). Majority of the people in the world have been faced with a situation similar to this, taking responsibility of something that can be life changing. As Orwell demonstrates the chaos that was going on in Burma, readers can sense the feelings of what the locals are dealing with. As Orwell walks through the town to find the disasters the elephant made, he encounters the horrific scene of a dead man’s body. The elephant, which can be symbolized as a dangerous threat, imposes on the little town and deteriorates some of the Burmese foods and goods. Not only was the animal an escapee, it was also in â€Å"must†, meaning an increase in the level of aggressive behavior due to testosterone levels being high, causing the elephant to be more dangerous than ever. Because of the actions that the elephant had made, the Burmese people wanted the elephant dead under any circumstances. Feeling bad for the owner of the savaged animal, Orwell had to weigh out his options of killing the elephant. Thomas Bertonneau states, â€Å"But the elephant, of course, is well-known for its high level of intelligence, a fact which raises it out of the merely animal category; and the social structure of Burmese society under the British tends to underscore such quasi-human status. The animal is a working animal and to do work is to engage in a recognizably social activity; the animal belongs, as Orwell later discloses, to an Indian, a person below the British in the local hierarchy but above the Burmese, a person of some wealth, for the elephant is the equivalent of â€Å"a huge and costly piece of machinery† in the local economy (par. 4). Orwell recognizes the facts from both sides of this situation: (1) the elephant should be killed because of its’ violent actions, making the townspeople happy, or (2) waiting for the man who owns the elephant to get there to capture it safely and let it live. As he takes in the opinions of others, he believes he should wait for the Indian man to get there; therefore the elephant is worth much more alive than if it were dead. As the ending of the story draws to a near, Orwell is looked upon as a â€Å"hero† in the story. As he grabs the gun, the crowd roars with excitement and the fate of the elephant lies in his hands. With much regret, he shoots the elephant several times, but never actually ends his misery. Orwell takes his interpretation of storytelling to a whole new level. During Orwell’s time in Burma, he was exposed to several unethical situations, causing him to make a decision that questions his beliefs and morals. He made sure that the reader was involved into the dilemma and mindset of his world he lived in. The story is told from the experiences that Orwell had, giving his story a little more of an edge and captures the attentiveness of wanting to know more. He told the story as if it was happening to him again, allowing the reader to relive the moments as he did back then. It brought it all back to his morals, and doing what he thought was right to do.

Analysis Of The Civil Conflict In Sri Lanka Politics Essay

Analysis Of The Civil Conflict In Sri Lanka Politics Essay Good morning members of the United Nations. I erg you all to see the tragedy of Sri Lanka as it is vital that mediation from you is present during this post war contingency. I wish to inform you of the situation which is occurring in Sri Lanka in deep hope that you will lend assistance to achieve unity and peace. With the danger of being insensitive, it must be stressed that the discrimination experienced by the Tamil people at the hands for the Sinhalese, was not a sufficient justification for the devastation caused by the Tamils terrorist methods. Although the United Nations has developed mechanisms to bring peace within Sri Lanka they have evidently failed as they were poorly coordinated and ineffectively designed. These methods simply aim to bring a sense of normality to effected communities (http://www.undp.lk/). However, this campaign does not stress the imperativeness of peace and encouraging non-violent methods for the Tamils. The United Nations primary function is to render assistance to its members therefore actions to achieve peace by non- belligerent means in Sri Lanka needs to be taken. The departure of the British came with the creation of a discriminative nation governed wholly by the Sinhalese people. The rise of militant Tamil separatist nationalism in the 1980s consequently began the civil war. Here in Sri Lanka, nationalism is viewed as a political struggle of dominant or subordinate groups in core or peripheral regions for the continuation or end of domination and exploitation. The outcome of the Civil War did not give the Tamils their desired separate nation- sate, making loss of life and destruction ultimately pointless. Strong recommendations need to be made to the Tamil and Sinhalese population in order to build peace for present day and the future. The Tamil Tigers should have acknowledged defeat many years ago and for the well-being of the Tamil people, the LTTE should have without a doubt withdrawn their terrorism. Im not dismissing the discrimination and oppression which has been placed upon the Tamils. When the British departed Sri Lanka in the 1940s, the Sinhalese majority took control and governed the recent independent nation. It is to be recognised that this ethnic dispute arose from the British showing supposed favouritism by importing and employing Tamils for agricultural jobs. This preferential treatment was seen by the Sinhalese people as discrimination. Consequently when they gained control the Tamil people missed out on official jobs and university admission (www.cfr.org). This was a drastic reversal of discrimination and undoubtedly caused great oppression and this bigotry still continues in some areas. Although there was minor conflict in ancient times between the Buddhist Sinhalese and the Hindu Tamil people regarding who arrived on the island first, the emergence and radicalisation of Sinhalese and Tamil nationalist politics came as a result of the injustice caused by the Britis h (S.Hassan, 2009). The Sinhalese government failed to pay attention to the hopes and aspirations of the Tamil people. The measures that were made to equalise the nation fuelled large scale anti- Tamil feeling. The Liberation Tigers was formed in the 1980s which fought for the common Tamil desire for a separate nation state to call their own. They assumed the right to have their own, self governing nation on the island of Sri Lanka on the bases that the Sinhalese did not treat them with equality. A marginalised perspective from Mangala Samaraveera, the former foreign minister claims that the Government started registering all Tamils at Colombo on the grounds that they were security threats. He expressed that they were basically naming all Tamils as potential terrorists (www.greenleft.org.au). However many are critical of this sympathetic approach as the Sri Lankan Government is simply protecting Sri Lanka and the countries worldwide. Peter Chalk of Rand Corporation has sufficiently argued The LTTE threatens not only the domestic stability of Sri Lanka but also the security of the international system as a whole (www.lankaweb.com). Activities used by Tamil Terrorists such as movement of refugee, arms transfers and drug trafficking have repeatedly demonstrated potential to internationally cause great disruption during the post-war period and is therefore supporting this claim. This Needless to say, the actual discourse on the present conflict in Sri Lanka is more complex and dynamic that what can ever be truly understood though it is clear the people have faced intense inequity. As unjust as it may appear to some Tamil sympathisers, were these grounds of discrimination enough to start such a catastrophic Civil War? The Sri Lankan Civil War was the result of ethnic conflict between the Sinhalese and the Tamil people and such violent events caused by the Tamil Tigers were demoralizing. The Tamil Tigers initiated a full scale guerrilla war against the Sri Lankan Army by the Tamils secessionist campaign. By the end of the century over seventy thousand civilians were killed. There have been many efforts by the Sinhalese to resolve this conflict yet the Tamils ignored the several cease-fires. In April 2006 it was the Tamil Tigers who withdrew from the negotiations. They went on to invent the suicide belt, pioneered the use of women in suicide attacks and assassinated official figures. The Tamils have staged two thirds of all the worlds suicide bombing which were driven by ethno-nationalism. (S.Hasson, 2009).The assassinations caused by the terrorists were simply daunting, respected figures were murdered such as former India Prime Minister Ghandi, Sri Lankan President Premadassa, many foreign minister s and members of parliament. The most extreme terrorist groups around the world such as Al-Qaida have adapted these murderous methods and notorious suicide attacks. Over fifteen thousand armed combats have broken out and Buddhist shrines have been destroyed. These are just a few atrocities caused by the Tamils in the civil war. Dharmapala, a Buddhist thinker expressed a definitive opinion in his works that the Tamil people have vandalised Sri Lanka, destroyed ancient temples and have nearly annihilated the historic race (K. Stoke 1998). Globally this approach is taken and a press release in 2009 stated, Children returning from school were confronted by LTTE recruiters in a white van with tinted glasses parked nearby. Individual children were cornered by groups of recruiters. Expressions of reluctance by the children were met by the recruiters with severe abuse. (www.dailynews.com). Therefore not only are the Tamils terrorising the Sinhalese the extremism extends to their own youth. The Sri Lankan civil war was initiated by the Tamils and spread immense devastation nationally with their terrorism. The Tamil people did not win this war nor did the hatred that came out of their guns earn them the right to a separate nation-state. The outcome of the war left not only the Tamil people but the whole of Sri Lanka confounded as the Tamil Tigers tactics were unjustifiable and ineffective. The Sri Lanka Civil War came to a bitter end in 2009 and the terroristic tactics employed by LTTE were again not justified and unarguably caused more harm. The war did not eradicate discrimination as they had hoped, instead nationally and internationally the Tamil people were perceived as terrorists resulting in further discrimination. They employed child soldiers and forced their people to fight for something evidently, unachievable. It must be stressed that this war raged for twenty five years and the effects still persists. They have violated the human rights of Sri Lankans and their own people by causing conflict and safety zones. At the end of the war, Tamil official Pathmanathan admitted, It is our people who are dying now from bombs, shells, illness and hunger. We cannot permit any more harm to befall themWe have decided to silence our guns (www.guardian.co.uk). It is clear to see that the Tamil people are suffering even more so as a result of the civil war although the former Foreign minister contradicts this notion as he believed the threat of the LTTE returning has not yet disappeared as the strong Tamil ideologies are still present in Sri Lankan society. I am absolutely convinced that he outcome of the Civil War is a clear reminder that the methods of Tamil Terrorists were unjustifiable and unsuccessful in countless ways. The next step we are faced with is achieving peace within our country. I believe it is of the upmost importance to re-build our country so it is known for its ability to surface from horrendous circumstances. Norwegian Minister for International Development expressed in 2009 that Sri Lanka has won the battle but has not won peace (www.abc.net.au). We owe it to our country to now find this peace with the help of the United Nations. Sri Lankan president shows the UNs lack of assistance when he expressed, Although the UN system has set up mechanisms to deal with many of these problems, the capacity of the united nations to address these challenges effectively has been brought into question(www.abc.net.au). The newly elected government stresses this as it is his obligation to protect his people Tamil or Sinhalese though the support of the United Nations is necessary. It is imperative that the United Nations appoints a respected figure to mediate negotiations. To achieve peace and non-vi olent means for expressing Tamil wishes, the abandonment of the Tamils militaristic approach is vital furthermore the Sri Lankan Government should adopt a strategy that favours political accommodation. There needs to be acknowledgment of grievances on both sides in order to start negotiations. The political party, the Tamil National Alliance need to be supported my all Tamils to achieve greater autonomy for Tamils as a step to one day becoming politically viable enough to develop a separate nation-state. Finally LTTE and the Government need to address the human rights violations that occurred during this civil war and begin to re-establish communities. Peace in Sri Lanka undoubtedly needs to be achieved. The loss of life and bloodshed caused was again inexcusable and therefore peace and amends need to be made of Tamil terrorist acts. The Tamil people are without a doubt terrorists and have continued to cause conflict in Sri Lanka. It is clear the despite the discrimination placed upon the Tamils in the past the Tamil Tigers methods were not justified. It is apparent that the United Nations are desperately needed to persuade the Tamil people to negotiate politically their aims for greater autonomy. These attacks of hatred, suicide bombings assassinations and all the innocent lives the liberation Tigers have taken are unwarrantable. The departure of the British left the Tamils vulnerable and initiated an instable nation full of ethnic conflict. In spite of this, their methods were violent and the twenty five year Civil War can never be erased. Military spokesman expressed, They fought for an Eelam that they could never win. It was only a waste of lives. They have caused massive death and destruction over the years. (www.abc.net.au). So I plead, to the members of the United Nations we must join together and dedicate our effort to preventing terrorism for the greater benefit of Sri Lanka and the Globe.

Achieving Honor as a Woman of Deh Koh Essay -- Reflection Paper Essays

Achieving Honor as a Woman of Deh Koh To many Westerners, the overall plight of females in Iran appears tenuous. It is illegal for females above the age of 9 to appear in public with out their heads veiled and bodies entirely covered. Women cannot serve in certain occupations, such as the military. It is difficult for a married woman to divorce her spouse, yet for men the right to divorce is unquestioned and done with ease. Married women in Iran who wish to leave the country for any reason must first obtain the permission of their husbands.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Despite their many restrictions, females in Iran are anything but fragile. Iranian women are proud, strong, and work at changing the society they live in. In Erika Friedl's book, Women of Deh Koh, Lives In An Iranian Village, she shows the ...

Microfluidic Systems :: essays research papers

Microfluidic Systems The ready market availability of porous membranes with cylindrical pores of 15-200 nm and a thickness of 6-10 à ¬m facilitates the development of three dimensional analytical unit operation devices on an attaLiter scale. By employing these membranes as gates at the interface of two crossed microfluidic channels, the rate and direction of the fluid exchange can be controlled with electrical potential, polarity, solution ionic strength or diameter of the nanocapillary1. The microfluidic channels, fabricated by soft lithography, have been used for a decade. Dr. Paul W. Bohn, Centennial Professor of Chemical Sciences at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, sees the advance to multilayered liquid chromatography as a key step in the development of micro total analysis systems (à ¬TAS), which would involve such new applications as injection, collection, mixing, switching and detection. Recently he has been studying the analyte responses to various constraints applied to the sys tem and its deviations in behavior from that of a similar system on the macro scale.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Microfluidic channels are a convenient and durable means of fluid transport made of poly(dimethylsiloxane) (PDMS), a common polymer with non-polar side groups. PDMS is durable, highly flexible and elastic, oxygen permeable and very hydrophobic2. It also has negative surface charge density at pH 81. The method of soft lithography allows for rapid deposition of complex crossed two dimensional fluid pathways on a silicon wafer.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The membrane containing these nanopores is a 6 – 10 micron thick polycarbonate nuclear track-etched membrane (PCTE) that has been coated with poly(vinylpyrrolidone) (PVP) to make it hydrophilic. This coating results in a pH of 8 in the system3. The pores in the membrane are cylindrical and of diameters in the range of 15 – 200 nm. The size of these pores are of the same order of magnitude of the Debye length (à ª-1) of the ionic interactions in solution (1 nm < à ª-1 < 50 nm) when the ionic strength is in the millimmolar range1.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The small physical character of the nanopore allows for a change in ionic strength of the solution to be sufficient to alter the interaction between the solution and the nanopore. By merely changing the concentration, the nature of the flow induced by electrical potential can be switched between electrophoresis and electro osmosis1.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The direction of the flow can be controlled by the size of the nanopore. At large pore sizes, the negative surface charge density on the microfluidic channel caused by the slightly basic pH of the system

Ford Focus vs. Mazda Mazda 3

Ford Focus vs. Mazda Mazda 3 Two great new cars out there are the Ford Focus and the Mazda 3. If you’re looking for a fast car with the latest technology then you’ll have a tough decision between these two cars. In an opinion, the Ford Focus is the best for a family and the Mazda for enjoyment. They both set with GPS system, inline-4 engine, and chassis platform. They also have some differences as in the gas mileage, performance, and equipment. When it comes down to the end of it all, they are lot closer in ratings than usual cars are.The first and most important is the safety, especially if you have children. Both of the cars are an average of 4-4. 5 in top rating, but the Mazda 3 only has 3 stars in side crash rating, while the Ford Focus as a 4 in frontal crash rating. One big advantage of the Ford Focus is the technology which could also help in safety. The Ford has a navigation system, park assist, bi-xenon adaptive lightning, memory power sears, blond-spot monitor ing, and a ten-speaker Bose surround sound system.These cars have many similarities, but have more differences. The choice lies between your personality, budget, and your family. If you have a big family, of course you’re going to go for the bigger, safer car. Now if you’re single of don’t have a big family, then you would most likely lean towards the sporty car for looks. The biggest is your budget, we all need some help in the economy now of days, so you might go to the car with better millage and cheaper.

Management practices Essay

A. Comparison Let’s take a look at some organizations/companies that won some awards regarding the excellence in management. For the supply chain excellence, the Starbuck’s Coffee chain having the strategy model of high-speed build-to-order delivery services has been recognized. The Starbuck’s Coffee won one of the dealings on the supply chain excellence; speed. To measure the excellence in management of the Starbuck’s Coffee, a checklist was made with all the criteria of being excellent in management as the standard basis. Criteria Starbucks (does the company possess the following) YES No Strategic Planning v Effective Delivery v Accountability v Innovation v Sustainability v Learning Culture v Measurement of Achievement v Workforce Development v Enterprise v Leadership v Customers Intimacy v Another example of a company that we will evaluate is the Mississippi Power. The Mississippi Power products become out of the market and become obsolete. The company faces the deflation when their product (electricity) dramatically goes down from a hundred dollars worth per unit to the price amounting of three dollars per unit. Criteria Mississippi Power YES No. Strategic Planning v Effective Delivery v Accountability v Innovation v Sustainability v Learning Culture v Measurement of Achievement v Workforce Development v Enterprise v Leadership v Customers Intimacy v The comparison showed by each checklist each of companies have shortly tells us whether they possess the qualities an excellence in management must acquire. An excellence in management in an organization must work out to its integrated range, the organizations NEEDS, the activities/projects RESULTS, human capital/organization WORKS, and the organizations COMPETENCE. Identification of needs must be considered first. After identifying these needs, will be the formulation of objectives that will satisfy the needs of the organization. The works to be done, processes, methods, approaches, to get these results come to the third step. Through the pursuit for excellence of the organization, it will eventually improve its competitiveness in the constantly changing market. As shown in the diagram, the first is to know the needs. The needs will determine the results and then the results will determine if the needs satisfy the resulting output (Barclay, 1997). Also shown in the diagram is the competence can be achieved through empowerment of leaders and managers to do the work (motivation of workers by the leaders and manager). And the work done would define the results. Vice versa, the results will dictate regarding the work, whether the work done is appropriate for the expected result or if there is a need for an improvement. Reference: Barclay, R. O. (1997). What is knowledge management? Retrieved June 19, 2007, from http://www. media-access. com/whatis.html Pollock, N. (2001). Knowledge Management: Next Step to Competitive Advantage – Organizational Excellence. Retrieved June 19, 2007, from http://findarticles. com/p/articles/mi_m0KAA/is_5_30/ai_80747127 Resources, B. (2006). Developing an Accessible Technology Plan. Retrieved June 19, 2007, from http://www. microsoft. com/enable/business/plan. aspx Studies, F. (2004). Federation Study 2001: A Study of the Incentive Merchandise and Travel Marketplace Retrieved June 19, 2007, from http://www.incentivecentral. org/Federation_Study_2001__A_Study_of_the_Incentive_Merch. 457. 0. html William K. Redmon, A. M. E. D. (2005). Promoting Excellence through Performance Management. Retrieved June 19, 2007, from http://books. google. com. ph/books? id=cQaKwOyf0G4C&dq=Excellence+through+Performance+Management&pg=PP1&ots=KGWsYsAPQz&sig=XjSUTaKJeq1qndHXpyTrz5iq5vc&prev=http://www. google. com. ph/search%3Fhl%3Dtl%26q%3DExcellence%2Bthrough%2BPerformance%2BManagement%26meta%3D&sa=X&oi=print&ct=result&cd=1#PPP7,M1.

Michelle Morano’s “Grammar Lessons: The Subjunctive Mood” Essay

The essay â€Å"Grammar Lessons: The Subjunctive Mood† by Michele Morano is a work that parallels the Spanish language and life. In the story, Michele reveals a little about herself as a character in the essay. She offers the reader a glimpse into an extravagant daydream into the locales of exotic Spain in which she hopes to one day visit to escape her husband whom had recently tried to kill himself. Throughout her fantastic tale, she encounters many unusual characters and proceeds to compare aspects of the Spanish language such as clauses like, ‘si’ and ‘como si’ (Morano 111), and ‘verbs of doubt and emotion’ (114) to the complexities of life. As I first began reading the essay, I was puzzled that Morano chose to ‘speak’ in the second tense as it is a rare form of writing, especially for a non-persuasive essay. While she was using her own experiences to provide the reader with an imaginary world, she wrote as though she hoped her audience would find themselves in her shoes. I also found it difficult to understand Morano’s style of writing because of her choice to use the future tense. I was able to grasp the concept that this extravagant adventure had not occurred yet, but I found it difficult to insert myself in her whimsical, romantic production. Once I began reading the essay and analyzing it, however, I took a liking to her ‘what-if’ style of writing. It suited the topic matter very well. Morano was able to equate the Spanish language with life beautifully with her writing style and extensive use of imagery. While I enjoyed the style of writing very much, the essay itself left me tentative on weather or not I enjoyed the piece as a whole. I am very familiar with the Spanish language, but I believe Morano could have clarified each educational segment a little further. As amusing as it was to brush up on high school Spanish, I found the presentation of the content in the text itself very confusing. I am uncertain that I would have enjoyed the piece as much had I not taken Spanish in earlier years of schooling. I also found it distracting how Morano would switch from her ‘grammar lessons’ to her fantasy life in Spain so abruptly. Beginning to read the piece, I was unsure of whether or not Morano had actually lived these experiences she was writing about, or if they were a thoughtful delusion of the future. For example, while reading about Morano’s encounter with the swimmer (110), I  found myself being pulled into the reverie of this romance in Spain; and suddenly I would be brought back to this lackluster high school Spanish class. And while Morano did provide the reader with a comparison from the language to the event itself, the change seemed so abrupt that it left me displeased. I also could have gone without the jumping back and forth between Morano’s life with her depressed husband and her musing of a life in Spain. While I do believe that her history with her husband was pivotal to the back story, I found the bouncing between her Spanish daydream and her real life experiences with her husband very distracting. I consider it would have suited the essay better had Morano simply used that as an introduction and left it at that. One feature of the essay that I enjoyed, although, was the fact that Morano took something as lifeless as the Spanish language and seemed to enliven it to the reader. I find it very rare that an author is able to put life into something as cold as grammatical concepts, especially in a different language. Morano, through her experiences in Spain, was able to provide the reader with a looking glass into a world where language isn’t just language and grammar isn’t just grammar but they’re part of being alive. She is able to convey to the reader that while details such as how to express emotion in Spanish would seem tedious any other point, experiences such as sleeping with a stranger in Spain unexpectedly brings out these ‘grammatical elements’ of human nature such as doubt and excitement (115). As a whole, I did enjoy the essay. I found Morano’s use of descriptions and interactions between characters very intriguing. I was able to sympathize with Morano as a character through her internal struggle of leaving the man that she had been with for a long while for a fresh start in Spain. Morano, Michele. â€Å"The Best American Essays.† Grammar Lessons: the Subjunctive Mood. Ed. Lauren Slater. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2006. 107-121. Grammar Lessons: The Subjunctive Mood

Anaysis of the Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman

http://www. sparknotes. com/lit/yellowwallpaper/context. html The Yellow Wallpaper, Charlotte Perkins Gilman Table of Contents Context Plot Overview Character List Analysis of Major Characters Themes, Motifs, and Symbols Important Quotations Explained Key Facts How to Cite This SparkNote Context Charlotte Perkins Gilman was best known in her time as a crusading journalist and feminist intellectual, a follower of such pioneering women’s rights advocates as Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Harriet Beecher Stowe, Gilman’s great-aunt.Gilman was concerned with political inequality and social justice in general, but the primary focus of her writing was the unequal status of women within the institution of marriage. In such works as Concerning Children(1900), The Home (1904), and Human Work (1904), Gilman argued that women’s obligation to remain in the domestic sphere robbed them of the expression of their full powers of creativity and intelligence, while s imultaneously robbing society of women whose abilities suited them for professional and public life.An essential part of her analysis was that the traditional power structure of the family made no one happy—not the woman who was made into an unpaid servant, not the husband who was made into a master, and not the children who were subject to both. Her most ambitious work, Women and Economics (1898), analyzed the hidden value of women’s labor within the capitalist economy and argued, as Gilman did throughout her works, that financial independence for women could only benefit society as a whole.Today, Gilman is primarily known for one remarkable story, â€Å"The Yellow Wallpaper,† which was considered almost unprintably shocking in its time and which unnerves readers to this day. This short work of fiction, which deals with an unequal marriage and a woman destroyed by her unfulfilled desire for self-expression, deals with the same concerns and ideas as Gilmanâ€⠄¢s nonfiction but in a much more personal mode. Indeed, â€Å"The Yellow Wallpaper† draws heavily on a particularly painful episode in Gilman’s own life.In 1886, early in her first marriage and not long after the birth of her daughter, Charlotte Perkins Stetson (as she was then known) was stricken with a severe case of depression. In her 1935 autobiography, The Living of Charlotte Perkins Gilman, she describes her â€Å"utter prostration† byâ€Å"unbearable inner misery† and â€Å"ceaseless tears,† a condition only made worse by the presence of her husband and her baby. She was referred to Dr. S. Weir Mitchell, then the country’s leading specialist in nervous disorders, whose treatment in such cases was a â€Å"rest cure† of forced inactivity.Especially in the case of his female patients, Mitchell believed that depression was brought on by too much mental activity and not enough attention to domestic affairs. For Gilman, this course of treatment was a disaster. Prevented from working, she soon had a nervous breakdown. At her worst, she was reduced to crawling into closets and under beds, clutching a rag doll. Once she abandoned Mitchell’s rest cure, Gilman’s condition improved, though she claimed to feel the effects of the ordeal for the rest of her life.Leaving behind her husband and child, a scandalous decision, Charlotte Perkins Stetson (she took the name Gilman after a second marriage, to her cousin) embarked on a successful career as a journalist, lecturer, and publisher. She wrote â€Å"The Yellow Wallpaper† soon after her move to California, and in it she uses her personal experience to create a tale that is both a chilling description of one woman’s fall into madness and a potent symbolic narrative of the fate of creative women stifled by a paternalistic culture.In purely literary terms, â€Å"The Yellow Wallpaper† looks back to the tradition of the psychological horro r tale as practiced by Edgar Allan Poe. For example, Poe’sâ€Å"The Tell-Tale Heart† is also told from the point of view of an insane narrator. Going further back, Gilman also draws on the tradition of the Gothic romances of the late eighteenth century, which often featured spooky old mansions and young heroines determined to uncover their secrets.Gilman’s story is also forward-looking, however, and her moment-by-moment reporting of the narrator’s thoughts is clearly a move in the direction of the sort of stream-of-consciousness narration used by such twentieth-century writers as Virginia Woolf, James Joyce, and William Faulkner. Plot Overview The narrator begins her journal by marveling at the grandeur of the house and grounds her husband has taken for their summer vacation. She describes it in romantic terms as an aristocratic estate or even a haunted house and wonders how they were able to afford it, and why the house had been empty for so long.Her fee ling that there is â€Å"something queer† about the situation leads her into a discussion of her illness—she is suffering from â€Å"nervous depression†Ã¢â‚¬â€and of her marriage. She complains that her husband John, who is also her doctor, belittles both her illness and her thoughts and concerns in general. She contrasts his practical, rationalistic manner with her own imaginative, sensitive ways. Her treatment requires that she do almost nothing active, and she is especially forbidden from working and writing.She feels that activity, freedom, and interesting work would help her condition and reveals that she has begun her secret journal in order to â€Å"relieve her mind. † In an attempt to do so, the narrator begins describing the house. Her description is mostly positive, but disturbing elements such as the â€Å"rings and things† in the bedroom walls, and the bars on the windows, keep showing up. She is particularly disturbed by the yellow wa llpaper in the bedroom, with its strange, formless pattern, and describes it as â€Å"revolting. † Soon, however, her thoughts are interrupted by John’s approach, and she is forced to stop writing.As the first few weeks of the summer pass, the narrator becomes good at hiding her journal, and thus hiding her true thoughts from John. She continues to long for more stimulating company and activity, and she complains again about John’s patronizing, controlling ways—although she immediately returns to the wallpaper, which begins to seem not only ugly, but oddly menacing. She mentions that John is worried about her becoming fixated on it, and that he has even refused to repaper the room so as not to give in to her neurotic worries.The narrator’s imagination, however, has been aroused. She mentions that she enjoys picturing people on the walkways around the house and that John always discourages such fantasies. She also thinks back to her childhood, when she was able to work herself into a terror by imagining things in the dark. As she describes the bedroom, which she says must have been a nursery for young children, she points out that the paper is torn off the wall in spots, there are scratches and gouges in the floor, and the furniture is heavy and fixed in place.Just as she begins to see a strange sub-pattern behind the main design of the wallpaper, her writing is interrupted again, this time by John’s sister, Jennie, who is acting as housekeeper and nurse for the narrator. As the Fourth of July passes, the narrator reports that her family has just visited, leaving her more tired than ever. John threatens to send her to Weir Mitchell, the real-life physician under whose care Gilman had a nervous breakdown. The narrator is alone most of the time and says that she has become almost fond of the wallpaper and that attempting to figure out its pattern has become her primary entertainment.As her obsession grows, the sub-pattern of the wallpaper becomes clearer. It begins to resemble a woman â€Å"stooping down and creeping† behind the main pattern, which looks like the bars of a cage. Whenever the narrator tries to discuss leaving the house, John makes light of her concerns, effectively silencing her. Each time he does so, her disgusted fascination with the paper grows. Soon the wallpaper dominates the narrator’s imagination. She becomes possessive and secretive, hiding her interest in the paper and making sure no one else examines it so that she can â€Å"find it out† on her own.At one point, she startles Jennie, who had been touching the wallpaper and who mentions that she had found yellow stains on their clothes. Mistaking the narrator’s fixation for tranquility, John thinks she is improving. But she sleeps less and less and is convinced that she can smell the paper all over the house, even outside. She discovers a strange smudge mark on the paper, running all around the roo m, as if it had been rubbed by someone crawling against the wall. The sub-pattern now clearly resembles a woman who is trying to get out from behind the main pattern.The narrator sees her shaking the bars at night and creeping around during the day, when the woman is able to escape briefly. The narrator mentions that she, too, creeps around at times. She suspects that John and Jennie are aware of her obsession, and she resolves to destroy the paper once and for all, peeling much of it off during the night. The next day she manages to be alone and goes into something of a frenzy, biting and tearing at the paper in order to free the trapped woman, whom she sees struggling from inside the pattern.By the end, the narrator is hopelessly insane, convinced that there are many creeping women around and that she herself has come out of the wallpaper—that she herself is the trapped woman. She creeps endlessly around the room, smudging the wallpaper as she goes. When John breaks into th e locked room and sees the full horror of the situation, he faints in the doorway, so that the narrator has â€Å"to creep over him every time! † Character List The Narrator – A young, upper-middle-class woman, newly married and a mother, who is undergoing care for depression.The narrator—whose name may or may not be Jane—is highly imaginative and a natural storyteller, though her doctors believe she has a â€Å"slight hysterical tendency. † The story is told in the form of her secret diary, in which she records her thoughts as her obsession with the wallpaper grows. Read an in-depth analysis of The Narrator. John – The narrator’s husband and her physician. John restricts her behavior as part of her treatment. Unlike his imaginative wife, John is extremely practical, preferring facts and figures to â€Å"fancy,† at which he â€Å"scoffs openly. He seems to love his wife, but he does not understand the negative effect his treat ment has on her. Read an in-depth analysis of John. Jennie – John’s sister. Jennie acts as housekeeper for the couple. Her presence and her contentment with a domestic role intensify the narrator’s feelings of guilt over her own inability to act as a traditional wife and mother. Jennie seems, at times, to suspect that the narrator is more troubled than she lets on. Analysis of Major Characters The NarratorThe narrator of â€Å"The Yellow Wallpaper† is a paradox: as she loses touch with the outer world, she comes to a greater understanding of the inner reality of her life. This inner/outer split is crucial to understanding the nature of the narrator’s suffering. At every point, she is faced with relationships, objects, and situations that seem innocent and natural but that are actually quite bizarre and even oppressive. In a sense, the plot of â€Å"The Yellow Wallpaper† is the narrator’s attempt to avoid acknowledging the extent to wh ich her external situation stifles her inner impulses.From the beginning, we see that the narrator is an imaginative, highly expressive woman. She remembers terrifying herself with imaginary nighttime monsters as a child, and she enjoys the notion that the house they have taken is haunted. Yet as part of her â€Å"cure,† her husband forbids her to exercise her imagination in any way. Both her reason and her emotions rebel at this treatment, and she turns her imagination onto seemingly neutral objects—the house and the wallpaper—in an attempt to ignore her growing frustration.Her negative feelings color her description of her surroundings, making them seem uncanny and sinister, and she becomes fixated on the wallpaper. As the narrator sinks further into her inner fascination with the wallpaper, she becomes progressively more dissociated from her day-to-day life. This process of dissociation begins when the story does, at the very moment she decides to keep a secr et diary as â€Å"a relief to her mind. † From that point, her true thoughts are hidden from the outer world, and the narrator begins to slip into a fantasy world in which the nature of â€Å"her situation† is made clear in symbolic terms.Gilman shows us this division in the narrator’s consciousness by having the narrator puzzle over effects in the world that she herself has caused. For example, the narrator doesn’t immediately understand that the yellow stains on her clothing and the long â€Å"smootch† on the wallpaper are connected. Similarly, the narrator fights the realization that the predicament of the woman in the wallpaper is a symbolic version of her own situation. At first she even disapproves of the woman’s efforts to escape and intends to â€Å"tie her up. †When the narrator finally identifies herself with the woman trapped in the wallpaper, she is able to see that other women are forced to creep and hide behind the domes tic â€Å"patterns† of their lives, and that she herself is the one in need of rescue. The horror of this story is that the narrator must lose herself to understand herself. She has untangled the pattern of her life, but she has torn herself apart in getting free of it. An odd detail at the end of the story reveals how much the narrator has sacrificed. During her final split from reality, the narrator says, â€Å"I’ve got out at last, in spite of you and Jane. Who is this Jane? Some critics claim â€Å"Jane† is a misprint for â€Å"Jennie,†the sister-in-law. It is more likely, however, that â€Å"Jane† is the name of the unnamed narrator, who has been a stranger to herself and her jailers. Now she is horribly â€Å"free† of the constraints of her marriage, her society, and her own efforts to repress her mind. John Though John seems like the obvious villain of â€Å"The Yellow Wallpaper,† the story does not allow us to see him as whol ly evil. John’s treatment of the narrator’s depression goes terribly wrong, but in all likelihood he was trying to help her, not make her worse.The real problem with John is the all-encompassing authority he has in his combined role as the narrator’s husband and doctor. John is so sure that he knows what’s best for his wife that he disregards her own opinion of the matter, forcing her to hide her true feelings. He consistently patronizes her. He calls her â€Å"a blessed little goose† and vetoes her smallest wishes, such as when he refuses to switch bedrooms so as not to overindulge her â€Å"fancies. † Further, his dry, clinical rationality renders him uniquely unsuited to understand his imaginative wife.He does not intend to harm her, but his ignorance about what she really needs ultimately proves dangerous. John knows his wife only superficially. He sees the â€Å"outer pattern† but misses the trapped, struggling woman inside. This ignorance is why John is no mere cardboard villain. He cares for his wife, but the unequal relationship in which they find themselves prevents him from truly understanding her and her problems. By treating her as a â€Å"case† or a â€Å"wife† and not as a person with a will of her own, he helps destroy her, which is the last thing he wants.That John has been destroyed by this imprisoning relationship is made clear by the story’s chilling finale. After breaking in on his insane wife, John faints in shock and goes unrecognized by his wife, who calls him â€Å"that man† and complains about having to â€Å"creep over him† as she makes her way along the wall. Themes, Motifs, and Symbols Themes The Subordination of Women in Marriage In â€Å"The Yellow Wallpaper,† Gilman uses the conventions of the psychological horror tale to critique the position of women within the institution of marriage, especially as practiced by the â€Å"respectableâ₠¬ classes of her time.When the story was first published, most readers took it as a scary tale about a woman in an extreme state of consciousness—a gripping, disturbing entertainment, but little more. After its rediscovery in the twentieth century, however, readings of the story have become more complex. For Gilman, the conventional nineteenth-century middle-class marriage, with its rigid distinction between the â€Å"domestic† functions of the female and the â€Å"active† work of the male, ensured that women remained second-class citizens.The story reveals that this gender division had the effect of keeping women in a childish state of ignorance and preventing their full development. John’s assumption of his own superior wisdom and maturity leads him to misjudge, patronize, and dominate his wife, all in the name of â€Å"helping† her. The narrator is reduced to acting like a cross, petulant child, unable to stand up for herself without seeming un reasonable or disloyal. The narrator has no say in even the smallest details of her life, and she retreats into her obsessive fantasy, the only place she can retain some control and exercise the power of her mind.The Importance of Self-Expression [pic] The mental constraints placed upon the narrator, even more so than the physical ones, are what ultimately drive her insane. She is forced to hide her anxieties and fears in order to preserve the facade of a happy marriage and to make it seem as though she is winning the fight against her depression. From the beginning, the most intolerable aspect of her treatment is the compulsory silence and idleness of the â€Å"resting cure. † She is forced to become completely passive, forbidden from exercising her mind in any way.Writing is especially off limits, and John warns her several times that she must use her self-control to rein in her imagination, which he fears will run away with her. Of course, the narrator’s eventual in sanity is a product of the repression of her imaginative power, not the expression of it. She is constantly longing for an emotional and intellectual outlet, even going so far as to keep a secret journal, which she describes more than once as a â€Å"relief† to her mind. For Gilman, a mind that is kept in a state of forced inactivity is doomed to self-destruction.The Evils of the â€Å"Resting Cure† As someone who almost was destroyed by S. Weir Mitchell’s â€Å"resting cure† for depression, it is not surprising that Gilman structured her story as an attack on this ineffective and cruel course of treatment. â€Å"The Yellow Wallpaper† is an illustration of the way a mind that is already plagued with anxiety can deteriorate and begin to prey on itself when it is forced into inactivity and kept from healthy work. To his credit, Mitchell, who is mentioned by name in the story, took Gilman’s criticism to heart and abandoned the â€Å"resting cu re. Beyond the specific technique described in the story, Gilman means to criticize any form of medical care that ignores the concerns of the patient, considering her only as a passive object of treatment. The connection between a woman’s subordination in the home and her subordination in a doctor/patient relationship is clear—John is, after all, the narrator’s husband and doctor. Gilman implies that both forms of authority can be easily abused, even when the husband or doctor means to help.All too often, the women who are the silent subjects of this authority are infantilized, or worse. Motifs Irony Almost every aspect of â€Å"The Yellow Wallpaper† is ironic in some way. Irony is a way of using words to convey multiple levels of meaning that contrast with or complicate one another. In verbal irony, words are frequently used to convey the exact opposite of their literal meaning, such as when one person responds to another’s mistake by saying †Å"nice work. † (Sarcasm—which this example embodies—is a form of verbal irony. In her journal, the narrator uses verbal irony often, especially in reference to her husband: â€Å"John laughs at me, of course, but one expects that in marriage. † Obviously, one expects no such thing, at least not in a healthy marriage. Later, she says, â€Å"I am glad my case is not serious,† at a point when it is clear that she is concerned that her case is very serious indeed. Dramatic irony occurs when there is a contrast between the reader’s knowledge and the knowledge of the characters in the work.Dramatic irony is used extensively in â€Å"The Yellow Wallpaper. † For example, when the narrator first describes the bedroom John has chosen for them, she attributes the room’s bizarre features—the â€Å"rings and things† in the walls, the nailed-down furniture, the bars on the windows, and the torn wallpaper—to the fact that it must have once been used as a nursery. Even this early in the story, the reader sees that there is an equally plausible explanation for these details: the room had been used to house an insane person.Another example is when the narrator assumes that Jennie shares her interest in the wallpaper, while it is clear that Jennie is only now noticing the source of the yellow stains on their clothing. The effect intensifies toward the end of the story, as the narrator sinks further into her fantasy and the reader remains able to see her actions from theâ€Å"outside. † By the time the narrator fully identifies with the trapped woman she sees in the wallpaper, the reader can appreciate the narrator’s experience from her point of view as well as John’s shock at what he sees when he breaks down the door to the bedroom.Situational irony refers to moments when a character’s actions have the opposite of their intended effect. For example, John’s course of tre atment backfires, worsening the depression he was trying to cure and actually driving his wife insane. Similarly, there is a deep irony in the way the narrator’s fate develops. She gains a kind of power and insight only by losing what we would call her self-control and reason. The Journal An â€Å"epistolary† work of fiction takes the form of letters between characters. â€Å"The Yellow Wallpaper† is a kind of epistolary story, in which the narrator writes to herself.Gilman uses this technique to show the narrator’s descent into madness both subjectively and objectively—that is, from both the inside and the outside. Had Gilman told her story in traditional first-person narration, reporting events from inside the narrator’s head, the reader would never know exactly what to think: a woman inside the wallpaper might seem to actually exist. Had Gilman told the story from an objective, third-person point of view, without revealing the narratorâ⠂¬â„¢s thoughts, the social and political symbolism of the story would have been obscured.As it is, the reader must decipher the ambiguity of the story, just as the narrator must attempt to decipher the bewildering story of her life and the bizarre patterns of the wallpaper. Gilman also uses the journal to give the story an intense intimacy and immediacy, especially in those moments when the narrative is interrupted by the approach of John or Jennie. These interruptions perfectly illustrate the constraints placed on the narrator by authority figures who urge her not to think about herâ€Å"condition. † Symbols The Wallpaper The Yellow Wallpaper† is driven by the narrator’s sense that the wallpaper is a text she must interpret, that it symbolizes something that affects her directly. Accordingly, the wallpaper develops its symbolism throughout the story. At first it seems merely unpleasant: it is ripped, soiled, and an â€Å"unclean yellow. † The worst part is the ostensibly formless pattern, which fascinates the narrator as she attempts to figure out how it is organized. After staring at the paper for hours, she sees a ghostly sub-pattern behind the main pattern, visible only in certain light.Eventually, the sub-pattern comes into focus as a desperate woman, constantly crawling and stooping, looking for an escape from behind the main pattern, which has come to resemble the bars of a cage. The narrator sees this cage as festooned with the heads of many women, all of whom were strangled as they tried to escape. Clearly, the wallpaper represents the structure of family, medicine, and tradition in which the narrator finds herself trapped. Wallpaper is domestic and humble, and Gilman skillfully uses this nightmarish, hideous paper as a symbol of the domestic life that traps so many women.Important Quotations Explained 1. If a physician of high standing, and one’s own husband, assures friends and relatives that there is really nothin g the matter with one but temporary nervous depression—a slight hysterical tendency—what is one to do? . . . So I take phosphates or phosphites—whichever it is, and tonics, and journeys, and air, and exercise, and am absolutely forbidden to â€Å"work† until I am well again. Personally, I disagree with their ideas . . . Explanation for Quotation 1 >> In this passage, which appears near the beginning of the story, the main elements of the narrator’s dilemma are present.The powerful, authoritative voices of her husband, her family, and the medical establishment urge her to be passive. Her own conviction, however, is that what she needs is precisely the opposite—activity and stimulation. From the outset, her opinions carry little weight. â€Å"Personally,† she disagrees with her treatment, but she has no power to change the situation. Gilman also begins to characterize the narrator here. The confusion over â€Å"phosphates or phosphites † is in character for someone who is not particularly interested in factual accuracy.And the choppy rhythm of the sentences, often broken into one-line paragraphs, helps evoke the hurried writing of the narrator in her secret journal, as well as the agitated state of her mind. Close 2. I sometimes fancy that in my condition if I had less opposition and more society and stimulus—but John says the very worst thing I can do is think about my condition, and I confess it always makes me feel bad. So I will let it alone and talk about the house. Explanation for Quotation 2 >>This section appears near the beginning of the story, and it helps characterize both the narrator’s dilemma and the narrator herself. Notably, the narrator interrupts her own train of thought by recalling John’s instructions. Gilman shows how the narrator has internalized her husband’s authority to the point that she practically hears his voice in her head, telling her what to think. Even so, she cannot help but feel the way she does, and so the move she makes at the end—focusing on the house instead of her situation—marks the beginning of her slide into obsession and madness.This mental struggle, this desperate attempt not to think about her unhappiness, makes her project her feelings onto her surroundings, especially the wallpaper, which becomes a symbolic image of â€Å"her condition. †The play on words here is typical of Gilman’s consistent use of irony throughout the story. She feels bad whenever she thinks about herâ€Å"condition,† that is, about both her depression and her condition in general within her oppressive marriage. Close 3. There are things in that paper which nobody knows but me, or ever will. Behind that outside pattern the dim shapes get clearer every day.It is always the same shape, only very numerous. And it is like a woman stooping down and creeping about behind that pattern. I don’t like it a bit . I wonder—I begin to think—I wish John would take me away from here! Explanation for Quotation 3 >> About halfway through the story, the sub-pattern of the wallpaper finally comes into focus. The narrator is being drawn further and further into her fantasy, which contains a disturbing truth about her life. Gilman’s irony is actively at work here: the â€Å"things† in the paper are both the ghostly women the narrator sees and the disturbing ideas she is coming to understand.She is simultaneously jealous of the secret (â€Å"nobody knows but me†) and frightened of what it seems to imply. Again the narrator tries to deny her growing insight (â€Å"the dim shapes get clearer every day†), but she is powerless to extricate herself. Small wonder that the woman she sees is always â€Å"stooping down and creeping about. † Like the narrator herself, she is trapped within a suffocating domestic â€Å"pattern† from which no escape is poss ible. Close 4. Life is very much more exciting now than it used to be. Explanation for Quotation 4 >>This comment comes just after the scene in which the narrator catches Jennie touching the paper and resolves that no one else is allowed to figure out the pattern. It captures one of the most distinctive qualities of â€Å"The Yellow Wallpaper†: Gilman’s bitter, sarcastic sense of humor. Now that the narrator has become hopelessly obsessed with the pattern, spending all day and all night thinking about it, life has become more interesting and she is no longer bored. Gilman manages to combine humor and dread in such moments. The comment is funny, but the reader knows that someone who would make such a joke is not well.Indeed, in the section that follows, the narrator casually mentions that she considered burning the house down in order to eliminate the smell of the wallpaper. Close 5. I don’t like to look out of the windows even—there are so many of those c reeping women, and they creep so fast. I wonder if they all come out of that wall-paper as I did? Explanation for Quotation 5 >> Important Quotations Explained 1. If a physician of high standing, and one’s own husband, assures friends and relatives that there is really nothing the matter with one but temporary nervous depression—a slight hysterical tendency—what is one to do? . . So I take phosphates or phosphites—whichever it is, and tonics, and journeys, and air, and exercise, and am absolutely forbidden to â€Å"work† until I am well again. Personally, I disagree with their ideas . . . Explanation for Quotation 1 >> In this passage, which appears near the beginning of the story, the main elements of the narrator’s dilemma are present. The powerful, authoritative voices of her husband, her family, and the medical establishment urge her to be passive. Her own conviction, however, is that what she needs is precisely the opposite—activ ity and stimulation.From the outset, her opinions carry little weight. â€Å"Personally,† she disagrees with her treatment, but she has no power to change the situation. Gilman also begins to characterize the narrator here. The confusion over â€Å"phosphates or phosphites† is in character for someone who is not particularly interested in factual accuracy. And the choppy rhythm of the sentences, often broken into one-line paragraphs, helps evoke the hurried writing of the narrator in her secret journal, as well as the agitated state of her mind. Close . I sometimes fancy that in my condition if I had less opposition and more society and stimulus—but John says the very worst thing I can do is think about my condition, and I confess it always makes me feel bad. So I will let it alone and talk about the house. Explanation for Quotation 2 >> This section appears near the beginning of the story, and it helps characterize both the narrator’s dilemma and the nar rator herself. Notably, the narrator interrupts her own train of thought by recalling John’s instructions.Gilman shows how the narrator has internalized her husband’s authority to the point that she practically hears his voice in her head, telling her what to think. Even so, she cannot help but feel the way she does, and so the move she makes at the end—focusing on the house instead of her situation—marks the beginning of her slide into obsession and madness. This mental struggle, this desperate attempt not to think about her unhappiness, makes her project her feelings onto her surroundings, especially the wallpaper, which becomes a symbolic image of â€Å"her condition. The play on words here is typical of Gilman’s consistent use of irony throughout the story. She feels bad whenever she thinks about herâ€Å"condition,† that is, about both her depression and her condition in general within her oppressive marriage. Close 3. There are things in that paper which nobody knows but me, or ever will. Behind that outside pattern the dim shapes get clearer every day. It is always the same shape, only very numerous. And it is like a woman stooping down and creeping about behind that pattern. I don’t like it a bit. I wonder—I begin to think—I wish John would take me away from here! Explanation for Quotation 3 >>About halfway through the story, the sub-pattern of the wallpaper finally comes into focus. The narrator is being drawn further and further into her fantasy, which contains a disturbing truth about her life. Gilman’s irony is actively at work here: the â€Å"things† in the paper are both the ghostly women the narrator sees and the disturbing ideas she is coming to understand. She is simultaneously jealous of the secret (â€Å"nobody knows but me†) and frightened of what it seems to imply. Again the narrator tries to deny her growing insight (â€Å"the dim shapes get clearer ever y day†), but she is powerless to extricate herself.Small wonder that the woman she sees is always â€Å"stooping down and creeping about. † Like the narrator herself, she is trapped within a suffocating domestic â€Å"pattern† from which no escape is possible. Close 4. Life is very much more exciting now than it used to be. Explanation for Quotation 4 >> This comment comes just after the scene in which the narrator catches Jennie touching the paper and resolves that no one else is allowed to figure out the pattern. It captures one of the most distinctive qualities of â€Å"The Yellow Wallpaper†: Gilman’s bitter, sarcastic sense of humor.Now that the narrator has become hopelessly obsessed with the pattern, spending all day and all night thinking about it, life has become more interesting and she is no longer bored. Gilman manages to combine humor and dread in such moments. The comment is funny, but the reader knows that someone who would make such a joke is not well. Indeed, in the section that follows, the narrator casually mentions that she considered burning the house down in order to eliminate the smell of the wallpaper. Close 5. I don’t like to look out of the windows even—there are so many of those creeping women, and they creep so fast.I wonder if they all come out of that wall-paper as I did? Explanation for Quotation 5 >> In the story’s final scene, just before John finally breaks into her room, the narrator has finished tearing off enough of the wallpaper that the woman she saw inside is now free—and the two women have become one. This passage is the exact moment of full identification, when the narrator finally makes the connection she has been avoiding, a connection that the reader has made already. The woman behind the pattern was an image of herself—she has been the one â€Å"stooping and creeping. Further, she knows that there are many women just like her, so many that she is afraid to look at them. The question she asks is poignant and complex: did they all have to struggle the way I did? Were they trapped within homes that were really prisons? Did they all have to tear their lives up at the roots in order to be free? The narrator, unable to answer these questions, leaves them for another woman—or the reader—to ponder. Key Facts title  · â€Å"The Yellow Wallpaper† author  · Charlotte Perkins Gilman type of work  · Short story genre  · Gothic horror tale; character study; socio-political allegory language  · English ime and place written  · 1892, California date of first publication  · May, 1892 publisher  · The New England Magazine narrator  · A mentally troubled young woman, possibly named Jane point of view  · As the main character’s fictional journal, the story is told in strict first-person narration, focusing exclusively on her own thoughts, feelings, and perceptions. Everything that we learn or see in the story is filtered through the narrator’s shifting consciousness, and since the narrator goes insane over the course of the story, her perception of reality is often completely at odds with that of the other characters. one  · The narrator is in a state of anxiety for much of the story, with flashes of sarcasm, anger, and desperation—a tone Gilman wants the reader to share. tense  · The story stays close to the narrator’s thoughts at the moment and is thus mostly in the present tense. setting (time)  · Late nineteenth century setting (place)  · America, in a large summer home (or possibly an old asylum), primarily in one bedroom within the house. rotagonist  · The narrator, a young upper-middle-class woman who is suffering from what is most likely postpartum depression and whose illness gives her insight into her (and other women’s) situation in society and in marriage, even as the treatment she undergoes robs her of her sanity. major conf lict  · The struggle between the narrator and her husband, who is also her doctor, over the nature and treatment of her illness leads to a conflict within the narrator’s mind between her growing understanding of her own powerlessness and her desire to repress this awareness. ising action  · The narrator decides to keep a secret journal, in which she describes her forced passivity and expresses her dislike for her bedroom wallpaper, a dislike that gradually intensifies into obsession. climax  · The narrator completely identifies herself with the woman imprisoned in the wallpaper. falling action  · The narrator, now completely identified with the woman in the wallpaper,spends her time crawling on all fours around the room. Her husband discovers her and collapses in shock, and she keeps crawling, right over his fallen body. hemes  · The subordination of women in marriage; the importance of self-expression; the evils of the â€Å"Resting Cure† motifs  · Irony; the journal symbols  · The wallpaper foreshadowing  · The discovery of the teeth marks on the bedstead foreshadows the narrator’s own insanity and suggests the narrator is not revealing everything about her behavior; the first use of the word â€Å"creepy† foreshadows the increasing desperation of the narrator’s situation and her own eventualâ€Å"creeping. † How to Cite This SparkNote Full Bibliographic Citation MLA: SparkNotes Editors. â€Å"SparkNote on The Yellow Wallpaper. † SparkNotes. com. SparkNotes LLC. 2006. Web. 2 Apr. 2013. The Chicago Manual of Style: SparkNotes Editors. â€Å"SparkNote on The Yellow Wallpaper. † SparkNotes LLC. 2006. http://www. sparknotes. com/lit/yellowwallpaper/ (accessed April 12, 2013). APA: SparkNotes Editors. (2006). SparkNote on The Yellow Wallpaper. Retrieved April 12, 2013, from http://www. sparknotes. com/lit/yellowwallpaper/ In Text Citation MLA: â€Å"Their conversation is awkward, especially when she mentions Wickham, a subject Darcy clearly wishes to avoid† (SparkNotes Editors). APA: â€Å"Their conversation is awkward, especially when she mentions Wickham, a subject Darcy clearly wishes to avoid† (SparkNotes Editors, 2006).Footnote The Chicago Manual of Style: Chicago requires the use of footnotes, rather than parenthetical citations, in conjunction with a list of works cited when dealing with literature. 1 SparkNotes Editors. â€Å"SparkNote on The Yellow Wallpaper. † SparkNotes LLC. 2006. http://www. sparknotes. com/lit/yellowwallpaper/ (accessed April 12, 2013). [pic] Please be sure to cite your sources. For more information about what plagiarism is and how to avoid it, please read our article on The Plagiarism Plague. 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