A Tragedy Makes A Hero Essay -- essays papers

A Tragedy Makes A Hero Show me a hero and I will write you a tragedy. A tragedy can be described and executed in many ways, whether it is through cinema, television or a play for theatre, as long as it has a solemn kind of ending. It is characterized as a very sad event, action, or experience for a certain character in the piece. According to Aristotle’s â€Å"Poetics,† a tragedy needs six elements, a plot, character, language, thought, spectacle, and melody, as in many dramas do, but the organization of the plot is how tragedy is brought about. (747) The plot – is the end for which a tragedy exists, and the end or purpose is the most important thing of all. (748) Tragedy often reveals a very basic message; whether or not actions are thought before hand, actions hold consequences that must be recognized and tolerated. Drama always circulates around a hero or protagonist in a tragic epic, whose sufferings are brought about by his or her actions and creates a standpoint in relation to them. The story of â€Å"Medea† by Euripides is a tragic one indeed. Medea, a sorceress and a princess, used her powers and influence to help Jason, find the Golden Fleece. During the escape she kills her brother as a getaway. After several murders, Medea and Jason move to Corinth, which is where the play takes place. Here, Medea gives birth to two children by Jason establishing a family. Jason later moves out, divorcing Medea and moving in with Glauce, the daughter of Creon. The play looks at Medea’s anger and rage, as a she moves from suicidal to revengeful. Medea eventually kills her own children and Glauce, all to get back at Jason. The nurse in the play opens the play, expressing her desire to undo the past. â€Å"How I wi... ... Once Creon has found out about the family tree, Oedipus and his children are banished from Thebes, later to meet their fate in the following plays. A tragedy does indeed make a hero in ancient world literature. Every single being has a fate, no matter what level of society that being is on. One cannot change his or her fate; it is left up to the gods. Eventually all roads of life leads to death, it is how that being dies brings about the tragedy. As Aristotle mentioned in â€Å"Poetics†, What is more, without action there could not be a tragedy, but there could be without characterization. Bibliography: Works Cited Aristotle. â€Å"Poetics.† Lawall and Mack 746-750 Euripides. â€Å"Medea.† Lawall and Mack 640-672 Lawall, Sarah and Mack, Maynard, eds. The Norton Anthology World Masterpieces. 7th ed. Vol 1. New York: W ·W · Norton & Company, 1999.

Victimization of Women in Society with Regard to Anita Nair, S Ladiescoupe

The undeserved dilemma of modern woman is a recurrent theme of the novels of Bharati, a widely acclaimed author and winner of the National Book critics’ award. She considered her works, a celebration of her emotion that she brings out of her heart. She has depicted very minutely the condition of Asian immigrants in North America, with particular attention to the changes taking place in South Asian women in a new world. She presents all her characters a survivors against the brutalities and violence that surrounded them.A threat that runs through all the novels of Mukherjee is of religious, racial, sexual and economic class difference. Bharati expresses the â€Å"the inner expropriation of cultural identity†. Pre-natal reminiscence is the fountain head of the Indian tradition. Encounter between India, England and USA ends in an inter cultural accommodation. The two integral parts of reality are fixity and change. The blending of being and becoming attracts the attention of novelists. Nativity and nationality meet face to face challenging immigrant sensibility and expatriate predicament.Monolithic cultural identity is dissolved in the process of cultural mutation. Thus this is evident in the novel against the background of Tara Lata’s recollection of childhood memory of previous birth and cross cultural pollination. A British becoming an Indian is a matter of attention while at the same time an Indian turning a snobbish British is equally an important subject matter for our concern. The philosophical import of the title, â€Å"From Being to Becoming,† is actually gleaned from the ritual incidents and personages.Heraclitus, the Greek philosopher stated that nothing remains static and so everything is in a state of change or constant transition. This phenomenon is nothing but a movement across cultures. The troublesome question is about the possibility of the life of the mind which transcends space and time. What is native becomes alien and what is alien becomes native. The issue is not so much connected with external space-time framework. But it has lot to do with our inner life. For example, Mishtigunj and Mist Mahal are the creations of John Mist.These places had become the home of ecumenical accommodation. It has turned in to a place which supports Christian unity. The Shoonder Bon village worshipped John Mist as an avatar. Helping the poor, feeding the hungry ones, elevating the life of the depressed, creating schools, building houses, hospitals, supplying the money, the necessary wherewithal, and shaping the body and soul of Shoonder Bon Home are the admirable heroic activities. All his heroic activities had endowed John Mist with the status of divine incarnation.By temperament he was Vedantic and by outlook he was Vedic. Experiences are always universal and they tend to move on in a parallel line. A man born in England getting fully rooted and absorbed in the life of Shoonder Bon village in East can be descr ibed as a phenomenon continent. Though the inhabitation is in a specific culture modern like cross-cultural pollination and acculturation are not sufficient to psychoanalyze the life of a soul. The Tree Bride is a powerful depiction of pre-independence India bringing two continents into contact with each other.East and West are traditionally conceived as terms of contrast, but this novel differs from this time-honored way of treating East and West. Shattering and solidifying of cultural boundaries are the two sub-conscious streams pervading the novel. John Mist serves as an example for the first category while Virgil Treadwell is shown as an instance for second category as he happens to be an East India Company official and a commissioner with an Anglophile and Edwardian bent of mind looking to formal, external decorum and spectability as norms of good behavior.But the novelist is preoccupied with mysticism and transformation of consciousness. Therefore anectodes, precedents and suc ceedents are only matter of chronology, history and geography. Human beings are irrespective of time, place and age. Anti-British and pro-British elements are attitudes which are incidental and largely history. The novelist does not spare her satirical pen where the British rule in India is concerned. Brahmo Samaj, a revival Indian Renaissance Movement, comes under severe scrutiny in the novelist’s hands.It can be clearly seen that the artist shows her inward respect over Jaikrishna Gangooly, the great grandfather of Tara, and his daughter, the Tree Bride. They also respected the Gangooly family for it is more attached to Arya Samaj which came as a corrective to Brahmo Samaj. The first movement endorses the philosophy of liberal, scientific Westernization while the second accepts the same phenomenon with a great deal of reservation. The business of Bharati Mukherjee is to be true to the facts of life. She acknowledges the fact that the British lifted India from the deep slumb er of decadence.At the same time the novelist mounts a frontal attack on the British strategy of perpetrating the foreign rule through religious divisions. â€Å"It is easy for an English-educated, middle-class Indian (or Pakistani or Bangladesh) to fall in line with colonial prejudice. Thirty thousand British bureaucrats and â€Å"factors† were able to rule ten thousand times more Indians by dividing Muslims from Hindus, Persian Zoroastrians from Muslims, Sikhs from Hindus, and nearly everyone, including Hindus, from castes like lazy Brahmins and money-grubbing banias†. 44) It shows that the need of the British empire could be better fulfilled by the Indians than by the English men. Macaulay’s limited psychoanalysis of the situation was right as far as his administrative framework was involved. But he failed to see the spontaneous mystical influence of each culture over the other. The novel contains two layers of unfolding its theme. One layer is obviously conc erned with the consequences resulting from the setting up of the East India Company. To a historian, the other layer remains obscure and somewhat non-logical.But the novelist takes immense care to distribute the emphasis in an equable manner for the purpose of achieving cultural comprehensiveness in the historical-cum-artist portrayal of personages. Macaulay saw culture and civilization in the mass as a consolidated unified framework. That is after all a nineteenth-century Benthamite utilitarian rationale. It is the justification or rationalization of relating to the utilitarian philosophy of Jeremy Bentham. A mass tendency validates an individual wishing after some cultural fallback. Man in the mass is metaphorically dead.Only the individual who does not align himself with the mass tendency is alive. Every culture is in a state of being and becoming and what is far more important is that one emerges into the other. There is always an interplay between the two. The reason is that ev ery society is subject to mutation and change. No culture has come to stay like a consolidated stone. History events and the march of time leave no society and culture untouched. The richness of any antiquity is never lost in the exposure of any historical, social and cultural metamorphosis.The novel brings out this idea of absorption and assimilation: In my mind, the history of the British in India is a story of adventure gone bad, where the thrill of new encounters, the lure of transformation†¦started drying up†¦Maybe there is a limit to the human capacity for wonder or the ability to absorb the truly alien without trying to reduce its dimensions and tame its excess. (48) It is clear that the stand of outside time is true and enduring . Simultaneously some other mysterious element enters time to put life through a process of transmutation. Frequently at such moments cultural upheavals occur.One such movement is the encounter between England and India in the wake of the s etting up of the East India Company as the nucleus and the wing of the British Empire. The powerful depiction of the scenes and a comprehensive portrayal of significant characters enables us to come to terms with the psycho-social implications of what they stand for and where the repercussions lead to. A head-on collision between the sociology of the society and the psychology of the individuals is perceptible. Demonstrably Eliot’s theory of past influencing the present and the present equally modifying the past is at work in the novel.A discussion taking place in San Francisco among Tara and Bish,Yash Khanna and Victoria Khanna is related to a memorable historical event in Shoonder Bon village (in East Bengal). The information so secured about this past is more by coincidence. The restlessnes of Tara’s spirit and the probability involved in her rumbling upon some material link the present with the past. It is the matter of sheer chance. Nevertheless it has value. Vict oria Khanna’s grandfather was Virgil Treadwell. As he was in Indian Civil Service, he was posted as a district commissioner in Bengal in 1930.The Six containing old ledgers of grandfather is a historical record about him. Victoria Khanna informs Tara about these materials. An impetus from the research into the past history Tara Lat Gangooly is the outcome of Tara’s inner prompting of her reminiscent prevision of a remote historical record of Mishtigunj which presents a parallel equivalent to an idealist view of a world of unalloyed joy and bliss. The random availability of record by sheer coincidence or accident from the hand of Victoria Khanna leads to the fulfillment of such a goal of study and investigation.Mist Nama is a powerful poetic depiction of a rich rewriting of the ancient Indian Vedic history by a British-turned Hindoo, John Mist. The question, â€Å"Who contributes† is as much important as the question â€Å"What is contributed. † John Mist is the creator of an ideal social order. Mist-Nama is a practical rendering of a life-vision. A British Hindu stood for the Hindu-Moslem unity. His governing philosophy in the language of the novelist was the harmonious combination of the ‘two’ of everything and it meant occupation and employment for both Hindus and Moslems in an equitable proportion.He conducted hectic commerce and business enterprises and whatever he earned, he shared with all. A profit-making East India Company British ship dropped a legacy making sailor-turned savior, John Mist. There were many Indians who became pseudo-British by their outward forms of Westernization like Virgil Treadwell. At the same time there were many British like John Mist, David Llewellyn and Coughlin Nigel who became true Indian Hindoos by their inner transformation of being. Imitation must contain an element of creative transformation; otherwise it can turn into mere form and decorum ending in an emptiness of being.The cont ext for the discussion of the relationship between ‘being’ and ‘becoming’ is demonstrably evident here. The truth to be established is that’ being’ and’ becoming’ are not the usual dichotomies but they are two indivisible sides of the same coin. Tara and John Mist appear as immigrants. Immigrancy is equated with loss of something and a search for true â€Å"something. † Tradition and convention describe nativity as something which is independent upon space, time, history and geography. This is a monolithic vision of culture and nativity. Nativity is therefore defined as a belonging to a culture and sharing oneness with it.But Bharati Mukherjee establishes another view that nativity is independent of all factors and it is more connected with inner being and less with spontaneous factors. A search for realization of inner being is conserved by the novelist as nativity. The idea of birthplace being conserved as nativity is di fferent from the idea of describing nativity as sharing oneness with the inner being which is independent of spacing the framework. The drama is that being turns into becoming and being from becoming turns into being. The novelist holds two views which are not contradictory as each other.John Mist says: â€Å"having come nowhere, he had everywhere to go. Having had nothing, he has had everything and anything at his disposal. † (27) Elsewhere the novelist says that where one inherits nothing, he is entitled to everything. Freedom of immigrancy and liberty of any form of absorption put the being and the becoming in a process of creative interplay. Mukherjee acknowledges the fact that life is an unpredictable mystery:â€Å"We have been trained to think of Mishtigunj as home in ways that our adopted homes, Calcutta and California, must never be.Ancestors come and to, but one’s native village, one’s desh, is immutable. (29)† Tara realizes her native home as Mi shtigunj in a state of immigrancy. But the home of John Mist is the same Indian village. Tara and John Mist realized their nativity in different ways where ‘being’ and’ becoming’ move and merge into each other. John Mist is the creator of Indian Mishtigunj and he is a British who discovers his sweet home in this village. Tara, an Indian immigrant in San Francisco, discovers home in the British created legendary village, Who is an immigrant? Who is a native?These questions get simultaneously juxtaposed. Home if therefore or it needs to be defined where one’s being is. In comparison with Tara and John Mist, Virgil Treadwell is less a better human being in spite of his being absorbed in the new phenomenon called Eurasianism. He could plot along with the British and spy on Tara Lata Gangooly’s house. These facts have deprived him of his inner being. His Eurasianism corrupted his nobility, introducing falsity. He sold his soul and made his profit whereas John Mist gave away his profit to people and he discovered his soul in his sacrifice.Bharati Mukherjee says that when the British like Virgil Treadwell spoke of profit John Mist thought in terms of leaving legacy. Therefore the concept of total objectivity of culture dies-down in the birth of polyvalent cultural subjectivity. Tara, Virgil Treadwell and John Mist are varying examples of the new proposition. With John Mist loss of objectivity (British culture) ends in discovery of subjectivity. Here the words’ loss’ and ‘gain’ and ‘objectivity’ and ‘subjectivity’ and’ being’ and ‘becoming’ are more connected with subconscious realization of one’s inner being.In the case of Virgil Treadwell, British gain meant Indian loss whereas conversely in the case of John Mist’s British loss meant Indian gain. The novelist uses very sensational generalizations to illustrate this truth:â€Å"All t he could-have-beens and should-have-beens of history, the best of the East meeting the best of the West, etc. , etc. , shrink from grandeur to petty profit-taking. (48) The question ‘Who conquered whom’ melts into insignificance: â€Å"history is written by victors, but in the case of India, it’s not always clear who won, is it? 90) It is that both the victor (West) and the vanquished (East) mutually enriched the sensibility of the two cultures. It is a strange divine coincidence that John Mist’s creation of the â€Å"Mist-Nama† and â€Å"Mishtigunj† is along a line which the ancient tradition of India endorses. The discovery of such a wonderful treasure is made possible by the research work of an Indian immigrant in America, Tara. Both John Mist and Tara are in a way immigrants. The philosophical axiom is that cultures are not fixed entities like â€Å"quantity. Naturally ‘being’ and’ becoming’ are not static. Th e mutations have repercussions. Though the word ‘being’ created a misleading picture of fixity and permanence, it has the character of fabric. The British conquest of India forms the context of the new in which these issues are raised indirectly. The history of Mishtigunj created by British Hindu John Mist puts obstacles in the way of glibly accepting the two categories ‘being’ and ‘becoming’. What determines history is not its concern with outward form but the ‘inner implications’ is which it unconsciously creates.It is this history which has created a martyr, John Mist. Tara Lata Gangooly represents the best of the East and her predecessor John Mist represents both the best of the East and the best of the West. Characters like Virgil Treadwell are more concerned with the British form and decorum than with the essence of life. Both John Mist and Tara Lata Gangooly live at a deeper level while men like Virgil Treadwell move on a su perficial plane. There are many places where Virgil Treadwell is compared to Churchill and Nixon and he is satirized subtly.Both John Mist and Tara Lata died a martyr’s death. The former was hanged in 1880 on a charge of disobedience of the British Colonial venture and the latter died in a prison in 1943 on the same charges of treason, sedition and disobedience. These events and situations by themselves are utterly insignificant. But the effect and impact they leave have a lasting value. It is this fact which enable the readers arrives at a philosophical link between being and becoming both is that the reality of life permits a movement between being and becoming.Liking John Mist, Tara Lata, Virgil and their life styles lead the leader draw an intelligent interference events and circumstances keeps them in a state of transition and transformation. It is a great achievement on the part of the novelist to aim at an imaginative-historical reconstruction of Mishtigunj. Bharathi M ukherjee is not a thoughless immigrant. Her loyalty to the essence of life gives her a new responsibility to rephrase the issue of the contact and correlation between being and becoming.

Moral Living Synoptic Question Essay

In this essay it is my intention to examine the theme of moral living within the Old Testament and the Celtic Church. Morality refers to ethical issues. It is the quality of being in accord with standards of right or good conduct. It is a system of ideas of right and wrong conduct. There are two interlinked themes of religious morality and social morality under moral living. The foundation of moral living within the Old Testament is the Sinai Covenant. Whereas, the basis of morality in Celtic Church is Saint Patrick; his moral base was always routed in his scriptural beliefs. Moses, for example, made a covenant with Yahweh on Mount Sinai, the principles from which are the foundation for the Judah Christian faith today, where he received the Ethical Decalogue (10 Commandments). As Drane states, â€Å"the commands were essentially moral requirements. Honesty, truth and justice were more important to Yahweh than the performance of religious rites.† Love of God and Love of Neighbour were the two commandments at the core of the Ethical Decalogue. The first three commandments central religious morality however, the last seven focus on Love of Neighbour and Social Morality. Winward states, â€Å"no man could be in a right relationship with God who was not in a right relationship with his fellow men.† The people of Israel had an obligation as the chosen people to obey the Ethical Decalogue. Abraham was called by God to give up his polytheistic ways. God promised Abraham that he would never give up on him. As Heinsch states, â€Å"he had to journey to a foreign land alone trusting in God’s guidance.† If Abraham fulfilled this request God promised him three things, Great Nation, Land (which was Canaan) and Protection. At this time, Abraham worshipped the popular moon god, â€Å"sin† and was to break with idolatry and become monotheistic. Epstein stated that, â€Å"Abraham turned to the service of the one and only God whom he recognised as the creator of heaven and earth.† Abraham’s love of the one true God and his change from idolatry reflects similarities with Saint Patrick. Patrick arrived in Ireland to a pagan country. The people of Ireland were idolaters in that they worshipped as many as 400 gods, with the main god being the Dagda (the father). The Celts held such things as the sun, trees, groves, water and birds to be sacred. Joyce states that they had the tendency to â€Å"find the divine in all of created nature.† Patrick brought Christianity to Ireland to transform the pagan people to monotheism. He wanted them to worship and love the one true God. Patrick adopted pagan practice to Christian tradition, for example, he changed the worship of the â€Å"sun† to the â€Å"son.† Patrick wanted the people to become monks and virgins for Christ. He advocated that true worship of God required to be newly baptised (converted from paganism to Christianity.) Patrick wanted the people to convert freely; they were never forced as the decision to become a Christian had to come from the heart. When Patrick left a place he made sure he left a building (church) to be used for communal worship. Like the Old Testament prophets, Patrick expected his ordained to be good role models to the people. Unfortunately in the Old Testament the religious leaders did not always do this. Ezekiel, for example, was to inform the people that God was going to hold the religious leaders responsible as they had led the people astray instead of encouraging them to worship only Yahweh. God told Ezekiel to prophesy to the leaders, â€Å"shepherds have been feeding themselves, should not, you the shepherds feed the sheep.† In tandem with this, the prophet Elijah also had to deal with the people of Israel’s idolatry. He was aware that there was a lack of steadfast love due to the people worshipping both Yahweh and Baal (god of fertility.) Elijah challenged the people about this saying, â€Å"how long will you go limping with two different opinions?† The people needed to stop worshipping both Yahweh and Baal and were to only worship the one true God, Yahweh. Elijah had little sympathy for the people worshipping both Gods. He challenged King Ahab to a contest on Mount Carmel between Yahweh and Baal to determine who the true God is. Elijah had a great victory as Yahweh won, usually this would be celebrated but instead, Elijah went to Mount Horeb as he knew the people’s change of heart of Yahweh as the one true God was temporary and this was not good enough. True love of God was required. In line with this, Patrick also challenged the pagan people’s ways through their worship of Dagda and Lugh. It took a long time for the pagan people to convert to truly worshipping one God. Paganism continued to exist alongside early Christianity 100 years after Patrick. Amos spoke out about social injustices, he stated, â€Å"let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.† Amos spoke about respect for marriage, something which King David lacked. He had an affair with Bathsheba and committed the sins of lust, adultery and murder. He was punished for this as Yahweh was to â€Å"raise up evil against you out of your own house.† David’s son died as a result of his sins. Similarly, Patrick also showed a respect for life. He spoke out about injustices such as slavery and condemnation of wealth in his letter to Coroticus. Patrick respected women and this was reflected in the Letter to Coroticus. In L19 Patrick expresses his concern for women. The women were taken as captives, to be distributed â€Å"as prizes.† Patrick makes it clear that the fate of Coroticus and his men is to be â€Å"lorded over† for all eternity by those whom they regarded to be â€Å"barbarian Irish.† In L4, Patrick also speaks up against murder and slavery – he grieves for those captured and killed and calls the perpetrators themselves â€Å"captives of Satan† the punishment met out to them will be â€Å"external life in hell.† To conclude, Christianity is now one of the leading world religions and therefore the mission of both the prophets and Patrick was successful. There will always be a call for people to repent and convert to Christianity with a return to a moral life.

Basketball Sports Editorial

The Stanford Cardinals men's basketball team won, 82-69 over visitng Arizona State on Thursday night. With the win, the Cardinals ended a two-game losing streak and continued their ninth straight win at home. This was an important game for the Pac-10 Conference teams. After the game, Stanford (9-4,13-9) remained a game behind co-leaders UCLA and California. Stanford senior, Matt Haryasz, who scored 22 points, said: â€Å"Right now we just need to win. We're only a game out of first and we think we got robbed out of one at U of A.We're going to be pumped up to play. † Haryasz, who has dealt with vision problems stemming from a poke to the eye two weeks ago at Oregon State, became the 35th player in school history to reach 1,000 points, following Hernandez, who reached the milestone earlier this season. Haryasz also became the 13th player to record 1,000 points and 600 rebounds. â€Å"This injury has put things in perspective for me,† Haryasz said. â€Å"Sometimes you ta ke things for granted like always being able to see perfectly. To go down with the eye injury was tough.It's nice to see again. † Stanford's Chris Hernandez scored 12 points and extended his consecutive free throw streak to 34. Hernandez is now seven shy of Todd Lichti's 41 straight, and 15 short of the school record held by Ryan Mendez. Also a senior at Stanford, Dan Grunfeld, scored a career-high 31 points against Arizona on Thursday. He made 9 of 11 shots from the field and all 11 of his free throws. He now has a total of 914 career points for Stanford. Grunfeld, a first-team all-conference pick last year, injured his knee last Feb. 2 and had surgery on Feb. 23. He missed the final nine games of the season, but his shooting and scoring have both been off from last year. â€Å"The fact that we won is more important, but it is special for me as far as coming back from an injury. † Grinfeld said. â€Å"I'm wearing a lighter brace now, and it's nice to be able to do thi ngs I wasn't able to do before. † Grunfeld began wearing the new brace in Saturday's loss at Gonzaga. Cardinal coach Treant Johnson said of Grunfeld and his new brace, â€Å"He's had a lot of bounce the last week.I thought at Gonzaga he looked real good. It's nice to have Danny back. † Haryas said, â€Å"You can tell he's moving more fluid, and that's good for the team. It's good to know he's able to do so much more. A bunch of times I hit him (with passes), he was wide open. He got a couple of easy buckets, went to the foul line and started rolling. † Stanford's Antwi Atuahene, who scored 10 points, stole the ball and went all the way in for a layin to draw Arizona State within 49-43 with 13:37 to play.He was called for a foul 17 seconds later, and a technical foul assessed on Sun Devil assistant coach Tony Benford moments later. Stanford made all four free throws on the play, and Hernandez added two more foul shots on the ensuing possession to push its lead bac k to double digits. Also on Thursday, Cal sent the University of Arizona Wildcats to their sixth conference loss. The Wildcats are coming to Stanford Maples Pavilion on Sunday at 12:30 p. m. for a key game.

What Are the Strengths and Challenges of Teams at Work

What are the strengths and challenges of teams at work? Team work has been the biggest development In management of human resources for organizations In the past few decades (Norman, Cohen and Norman, 1995). It has been implemented in a wide variety of spheres and the growth of the popularity is still ongoing. It is obvious that these changes have not happened without a reason, there is something to team work that is attracting every manager like kids to an ice- cream car. Before I continue, I want to state some things so there would not be any misunderstanding further on the essay.First, I do not want any confusion when it comes to defining a team and a group, because I understand that there is not much of a difference (Ouzo, 1996) between these terms. The only thing that I want to state is that team always has an interdependent nature; they perceive themselves as a whole unit. Second, as the topic is about teams In general, the evaluation Is quite superficial and It will not be val id for every team. The way team performs depends on the size of the team, the management of It and of course the working environment It Is In.So every team has to be evaluated Independently to give an objective report. I will describe aspects that stand out amongst the others and are present for most of the teams. My goal in this essay is to evaluate teams at work environment drawing on theory and research. I am going to point out the strengths of a team-based work from member's point of view and challenges that team members have to face. Eventually, what I am trying to state is that people (managers, leaders etc. Who are leaning towards team work as the best way of getting things done have made this assumption based on feelings they have towards team-work rather than researching hurry and experiments made on the approach to get the bagger picture of what team-work consists from and what are the actual drawbacks. I am basing my work on the paper about ‘romance of teams' (Allen and Yecch, AAA) taking some Ideas from the paper, but putting them Into my own perspective. I am going to start with the most obvious strengths that teams has, because those are the ones that people are most aware of.Followed by additional strengths, that according to researches lies in our sub consciousness. After that I will describe the biggest challenges teams have to face. Strengths A team consists of several people and each one of them has their own skills, characteristics, gender, age and perception of things in general (Britton et al. , 2010). There are several definitions of a team, but this one serves the best for my purposes – ‘A group of people with a full set of complementary skills required to complete a task, Job, or project' (Chicken, 2009).Indeed each one of us Is unique and by coming together and supplementing each other we form a living organism called ‘team'. Knowledge, opinion, experience and personal views can be shared in this living mind', in this way implying additional strengths. Maybe these are not the strengths that people will mention the most when speaking about pros of teams, but they exist and they do form our feelings towards teams. I would like to continue by focusing on strengths of teams that people are unaware of or they are aware of them subconsciously.Every team is a social formation; accordingly it includes interaction with others, whether it is Just a chat that started with â€Å"how are you doing? † or a discussion about the subjective they are trying to achieve or a social evening to bring he team closer together, it does not matter. The thing that matters is that team gives you a wide range of opportunities to satisfy your social needs; it gives you a feeling of belonging (Godard, 2001 a).Alongside, comes the feeling that overtakes you, that gives you the idea that you want to be a part of a team, which is natural, because people are creatures that has been living in groups since the beginn ing of time and social desires has developed naturally and is a part of our lives. The thing is that, not everyone is aware of this phenomenon, so this is where unconscious strengths appear. To continue, I would like to introduce a research made by Diddle and Strobe, 1991.This research states that individuals perceive working in group activities to be more fun and enjoyable than working alone and that time is perceived as passing more quickly when working in a group (Allen and Yecch, Bibb). Moreover, some researches shows that working in a team can increase your mental well-being and state of mind in general (Carter, 2000). Teams provide a benefit like reduction of stress (Godard, 2001 b) which mostly comes from the fact that teams reduces uncertainty about particular situations and verifies member's beliefs and ideas (Hog and Mulling, 1999).As all the facts that are mentioned before comes together, it is only obvious that teams do paint a really nice picture about themselves in our minds. Additionally, the way how people actually perceive themselves in a group is different from the way they do outside of one. Researches have shown that people tend to take less responsibility for failures of the team and in the same time more responsibility for success of the team (Schlesinger, 1975), which is kind of illogical, but in the nature f any human being.It is much easier to assign blame to others in that way preserving your own feeling of competence, rather than admitting that you are the one to blame, and when being in a team you have the opportunity to do that, because who will possibly forbid you, except yourself. The perception of team as a unit working together plays a big role here, because in your mind you do understand that you are not the only one who is in the team, so if the team fails or succeeds then the whole team does that.To add to this idea, people tend to evaluate their own reference higher when working in a team rather than working alone, both, th eir actual expectations and conclusions, of their performance in the team has been recorded to be of a higher value (Phallus et al. , 1993). This all can be very misleading, but as long as we – human beings – will not change our nature and start seeing things as they actually are, these will be some of the most mind impacting benefits towards teamwork.Challenges The point about the diversity of a team and different people coming together that When people with different ideas and different views on life come together and has o work as one and unbreakable unit, arguments between them are inevitable. That is why certain roles have to be assigned and a specific structure formed, so the team would manage to work productively. Size and composition of a team has an influence on individual behavior, on decision making (Kooks-De Bode et al. 2008), if these aspects are not sorted out in a timely manner then one of the biggest strengths of a team can turn into a drawback and then it is Just matter of time when the team will collapse. Another challenge for a team is goal setting, which is a really important aspect when it comes to whether the work is going to be smooth and whether it is going to be without misunderstandings. Goals has to be set at the very beginning and they have to be defined very clearly to everyone in the team, so everyone would really understand what the team is trying to achieve.If this is not done, then there is a possibility that team members start to head in different directions. An equally significant set of challenges comes from too much of dependence on your teams decisions. Researches made by Stanley Amalgam, 1973 shows that when decision has o be made, team members tend to follow the point of view that is presented by others or by most members of the team, that way actually not expressing their own thoughts. Besides that, these researches shows that people tend to follow the leader of a team even if the things that are being don e are against their principles and are morally wrong.Justification to these kinds of decisions comes from the fact that any decision made in a group actually is a group decision and therefore made by several people, accordingly the responsibility is being shared amongst all of the group embers. This results in poor decision-making process, which can further result in serious damage made to the work-group itself or to the possibility of achieving the goal that has been set out. Hence, the challenge for a team is to set certain norms.Norms about how the work has to be led, to what extent members should follow their leader and what are the social, moral, ethical and physical norms that should not be crossed. To sum up the challenges, team work has to be well balanced and well organized; it has to be like a machine that does not work if one of the parts is broken. To do that you have to take in consideration a lot of aspects, starting with leaders role and importance, ending with team m embers moral and physical needs. Everything has to be balanced and managed smartly and efficiently (Allen, 1996).That is the hardest challenge to deal with in team-work and it becomes even harder if the person who is in charge of the team does not know about these elements. Before I draw the conclusion I would like to remind the fact that the Judgments being made in this essay is superficial and regards the general population of people included in teams. Therefore, I am not stating that it is true for every person. To summarize, I have stated the strengths that in my mind form the feeling towards team-work inside a person's mind. I hope that others reading these points will be able to relate to them as well.

Case study on Managing Resistance Essay

What lessons about power, politics and resistance, in relation to organizational change, do you draw from this study? Resistance: Resistance to change is the act of opposing or struggling with modifications or transformations that alter the status quo in the workplace. Politics in resistance to change management – As based on the case study, it shows the confliction of interests and politics were the main reason deterring the necessary changes that should be implemented when the problem was identify. As the reward power of leaders will find all ways of means to suppress any emergent resistance which therefore forming an obstacle towards the possible change of the culture or risk management practices. -Despite the consequence, Paul Moore voiced out the problem ignoring the resistance from the upper management (Senior Executives) and managed to identify the issues that was happening 1) The company secretary failed to minute crucial comments he made at a formal board meeting reporting his investigation that the sales culture at HBOS had got out of control. 2) During the report for the group auditing meeting, problems such as systems and controls, risk management and the sales culture that he identify was intentionally being left out of the reports that should be represented to the auditing committee. 3) An ex-sales manager who had no experience of risk management was appointed as the group risk director after Moore was dismissed. 4) A close friend of the HBOS chairman was appointed as the chairman of the risk control committee who had no knowledge in banking or credit risk management to oversea such a vital position which were meant to challenge the chairman if problems arise. Five tips for: Managing resistance 1. Do change management right the first time 2. Expect it 3. Address it formally 4. Identify the root causes 5. Engage the â€Å"right† resistance managers

Raymond Carver Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Raymond Carver - Essay Example When the family moved to California, Carver became interested in writing and took a course from John Gardner, which had a profound effect on him. He continued his studies at Chico State University, Humboldt State College, and the University of Iowa. He earned a BA in 1963. He became a textbook editor at Science Research Associates, Palo Alto, but was fired in 1970. He went on to teach at universities throughout the United States and from 1980-1983 was a professor of English at Syracuse University. While Carver was at Humboldt, he wrote his first story, "Pastoral," as well as his first poem, "The Brass Ring." Although his biography states he started his writing career as a poet, he confessed he was never a "born" poet (Liukkonen) and although he eventually had his poetry published, it never received the acclaim of his short stories. His story "Will You Please Be Quiet, Please" was written in 1967 and with the editing expertise of Gordon Lish, he published a collection of stories of the same name set in Eureka, California in 1976 (Boddy). During the ensuing years, alcohol was a problem for him and drinking became a full-time pursuit. In fact, alcohol became a subject in several of his stories. On June 2, 1977, Carver stopped drinking and became active in Alcoholics Anonymous. He begin seeing poet Tess Gallagher and divorced his wife MaryAnn in 1982. He lived with Gallagher and married her two months before he died from lung cancer in 1988 (Liukkonen). Carver has said that everything we write is, in some way, autobiographical. In a New York Times article he said he considered the short story a vehicle for transforming the commonplace and said, "it is possible to write a line of seemingly innocuous dialogue and have it send a chill along the reader's spine" (Carver par. 9). His writing style is muted and anticlimactic but creates a tense atmosphere. His life is basically divided into two sections, one before he gave up drinking and met Tess and one after. "Cathedral," a short story contained in a collection by the same name, gives him the chance to write in retrospect, utilizing his life experiences in the first section of his life as part of his writing within the second part of his life. His father's alcoholism possibly led to Carver's addiction to alcohol since an addictive personality can be and often is passed down. "Cathedral" was published in 1983, after Carver had joined AA, but the characters in the story spend a great dea l of time in intervals of drinking and smoking marijuana. There are three characters in the story-the narrator, his wife, and a blind man. The narrator, who would appear to be based on Carver himself, distances himself from the story by being an observer rather than a participant-at least at first. As the story progresses, he unobtrusively fixes himself drinks, and although it is never evident or brought out, the excess drinking throughout the story labels him as an alcoholic, albeit a recovering alcoholic.. He refers to his wife's friend as "this blind man," and it is clear he is dismissing any personal interest in the man's forthcoming visit. "I wasn't enthusiastic about his visit. He was no one I knew" (Carver "Cathedral" 1). Even so, he offers the reader background on the