The Great Gatsby Essay Example for Free

The Great Gatsby Essay While reading the classic novel The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald, the reader can clearly see how this story can be viewed through the Marxist Lens. Through tales of trial and desperation, the story reveals what can happen when money and social class come into play. The author clearly portrays how the American dream can cause people to lose sight of the important things in life, and how people always want to make it to the top, no matter who they have to step on during the way up. Living in post-war America, the character’s visions are quickly clouded by greed and their egocentric desires, and tragedy strikes when lust and passion mix with sinful desires. Marxist literary criticism is the critical lens used to differentiate between social classes in literature. The Marxist lens pays close to attention to the literary works forms, styles and meanings, in a way that the reader can comprehend them and apply them to a particular history. In this specific situation, The Great Gatsby effectively displays the difference between social classes, and how these people act as individuals, and as a whole social group. On the very first page of the book, there is a quote from the narrator’s father that says: â€Å"Whenever you feel like criticizing anyone, just remember that all the people in this world haven’t had the advantages that you’ve had†. This quote pretty much sums up the whole Marxist theory. Though people may belong to various different social classes, every single person on this planet has had different experiences and opportunities, and everyone is different in their own way. One of the first characters the reader is introduced to is Tom Buchanan. Tom is a: â€Å"sturdy, straw-haired man of thirty with a rather hard mouth and a supercilious manner. Two shining, arrogant eyes had established dominance over his face, and gave him the appearance of always leaning aggressively forward †¦ you could see a great pack of muscle shifting when his shoulder moved under his thin coat. It was a body capable of enormous leverage—a cruel body. † (Pg. 7) By the sounds of things, it seems like Nick (the narrator) doesn’t particularly like Tom, but Nick is also fascinated with him. Tom is a fascinating kind of guy. Like Daisy, hes got something hat everyone else wants: hes got power. Toms family is rich. Not just well-off like Nicks family, and not inexplicably rich like Gatsby, but noticeably wealthy, with a long family history of money. And he does extravagant, crazy things with it, like bringing a string of polo ponies for Lake Forest. That may not seem like much, but in today’s society, that would be like buying a private jet: its a pretty flashy move, and it’s only ever done to prove that they can do it. In a sense, Tom is just as flashy as Gatsby. Tom, on the other hand, has something you cant buy. You might call it arrogance: â€Å"an attitude of superiority manifested in an overbearing manner or in presumptuous claims or assumptions†. So essentially, thanks to the money and family that he came from, Tom was born to live a certain lifestyle, one where he would live a certain way and marry a certain type of woman Tom’s wife, Daisy, is a beautiful young woman from Louisville, Kentucky. She is Nick’s cousin and Gatsby’s â€Å"long lost† love. As a young lady in Louisville, Daisy was extremely well known among the military officers and soldiers stationed near her home, including Jay Gatsby. Gatsby lied about his background to Daisy, claiming to be from a wealthy family in order to convince her that he was worthy of her. Eventually, Gatsby won Daisy’s heart, and they made love before Gatsby left to fight in the war. Daisy promised to wait for Gatsby, but in 1919 she chose to marry Tom Buchanan, a young man from a solid, aristocratic family who could promise her a wealthy lifestyle. After this happened, Gatsby was determined to win Daisy back. He made her the priority over everything in his life, and she was his main motivation behind the earning of his spectacular wealth through criminal activity. To Gatsby, Daisy is perfection; she has charm, wealth, she’s sophisticated and graceful. In reality, Daisy falls short of Gatsby’s standards. She is beautiful and charming, but also shallow and bored. Nick profiles her as a careless person who messes things up and then hides behind her money. Daisy proves her real ways when she chooses Tom over Gatsby in Chapter 7, then allows Gatsby to take the blame for killing Myrtle Wilson even though she herself was driving the car. Finally, rather than attend Gatsby’s funeral, Daisy and Tom move away, leaving no forwarding address. Daisy is in love with money, and lives a very materialistic lifestyle. She is capable of affection, but not of sustained loyalty or care. All-in-all, Daisy represents the differing values of the aristocratic East Egg. The infamous and â€Å"great† Jay Gatsby is the main character of The Great Gatsby. He is a young man, about thirty years old, who came from a poor childhood in rural North Dakota, and eventually overcame his setbacks to become incredibly wealthy. However, he achieved this impressive feat by participating in organized crime, including distributing illegal alcohol and trading in stolen securities. Even before his adult years, Gatsby despised poverty and dreamt of wealth and living the upper-class lifestyle. He dropped out of St. Olaf’s College after only two weeks because he couldn’t stand the janitorial job he was doing in order to pay for his tuition. Though Gatsby has always wanted to be rich, his main motivation in acquiring his fortune was his love for Daisy Buchanan. Gatsby dedicated himself to winning Daisy back after she married Tom, and his way of doing this was making millions of dollars, purchasing a huge mansion on West Egg, and throwing dazzling parties every week. Fitzgerald withholds most of this information until later on in the novel. The author does this to reinforce the theatrical quality of Gatsby’s life, which is an important part of his personality. Gatsby has literally created his own character, even changing his name from James Gatz to Jay Gatsby to represent his reinvention of himself. As the reader gets further in the novel, Fitzgerald reveals Gatsby’s self-image. Gatsby proves himself to be an innocent, hopeful young man who makes everything dependent on his dreams, not knowing that his dreams are far-fetched and unrealistic. Myrtle Wilson is the character who ties the whole story together in The Great Gatsby. Every character in the novel is connected to her in a significant way. She is secretly with Tom who is with Daisy who is Myrtle’s â€Å"partner in crime† and is also secretly with Gatsby. But out of all these characters, Myrtle is the most important. She is the insecure one, the emotional one and the fake one. Myrtle is always looking for affection. Her insecurity is clear through the decisions that she makes. Her husband, George Wilson, isnt very useful for anything so she turns to Tom for attention. Although Tom is married, he is wealthy and enjoys the company of other women. Myrtle takes advantage of this and keeps Tom under her control. When she leaves the New York train station, she sees an old man selling dogs and she immediately asks him for a police dog. The man tells her that he only has an Airedale and that the coat is water-proof, but she still wants to purchase it. She disregards her reasons for wanting the police dog and only something to cuddle with. Her quick decision-making and easily altered reasoning reflects her insecurity and how she lives her daily life. On another day, Myrtle mistakes Jordan Baker for Toms wife. The more she sees Mrs. Baker the more jealous she becomes. Jordan makes Myrtle realize that there are many women who are prettier than her. As a result, Myrtle believes there is someone else other than Daisy that she has to compete with in order to continue controlling Tom. Myrtle doesn’t use logic to make decisions, due to her opinion being so easily changed on every matter. When she marries Wilson, she knows that she is better than him, but she marries him anyway. Marrying Wilson is a mistake since he is unable to provide for her expensive needs/desires that only Tom can afford. She always regrets marrying Wilson so she runs off with Tom whenever she can. Although marrying Wilson is a serious mistake, she isnt able to learn from this. One night when she is on her way to her sisters, she meets a handsome stranger and falls in love with him at first sight. The stranger is Tom and she only loves him because of his wealth and how far up he is on society’s ladder. Myrtles behavior reflects her decision making abilities and how she is vulnerable to manipulation. Although Tom is brutal and violent, his wealth keeps her content. George really gets the short end of the stick in this novel. Considering hes one of the few characters with redeemable values, he doesnt even deserve it. From what the reader can tell, Wilson is hard-working and not cheating on his spouse. Hes in a marriage with a woman who doesnt love or respect him, who walks all over him like a staircase; and all the while he just does what she says: Oh, sure, agreed Wilson hurriedly (Pg. 26) After Myrtles death, Wilson is in serious emotional pain. He cries out Oh, my God over and over for one of three reasons: because his wife is dead, because he just found out that she was having an affair, or because he feels guilty for making her run out into the street. The other thing that the reader should note about Wilson is that hes the only character who talks about God. He tells Myrtle that she cant fool God, that God sees everything (Pg. 160). By him saying this, the reader is reminded that unlike the rich careless classes, the lower classes cant just run away and hide in their money: they need more to believe in. Wilson and the social class that he is a part of actually have to take responsibility for their actions, and can’t rely on money to get them out of every situation. In conclusion, it is evident to the reader that living in America after the war, times are rough, and the character’s visions are quickly clouded by greed and their egocentric desires, and tragedy strikes when lust and passion collide with sinful desires. Whether they’re killed or affected by the death of a loved one, everyone in this novel is affected by someone else’s selfish actions; by what happens when someone acts with disregard to everyone else’s feelings.

Kmart - What went wrong? :: essays research papers

  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Kmart's main weakness was that it had an aspiration to be all things to all people – its dabblings in drug stores, home improvement stores, bookstores, cafeterias and specialty stores in the 1980s and early 1990s seemed to spread the company very thin. This focus on diversification is just one example of how the retailer has often not made the wisest choices when faced with a tight spot.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  By the 1980s, just before the rise of Wal-Mart, Kmart had become complacent. It believed it would be the king of discount retailing, now and forever. It didn't perform an accurate SWOT analysis, but to be fair, who could have seen the rise of Wal-Mart to the position of the world's number-one retailer? Still, as Wal-Mart built new stores in town after town, supported by cutthroat pricing and solid logistics, Kmart's complacency would cost them. Part of the problem was that as Wal-Mart was pouring money into information technology (IT), Kmart's IT budget continued to shrink – not just once, but several years in a row. While Wal-Mart's logistics and supply chain management got sharper, Kmart's stagnated. And while Wal-Mart was able to squeeze more value out of its stores and its systems, Kmart lost ground. By the time Kmart had finally decided to start devoting more resources to IT, it was so far behind Wal-Mart that catching up would have been a near-impossi ble task without the recession in the early part of this decade. With the effects of the recession taken into account, Kmart instead was consigned to also-ran status among discount retailers.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Another problem was that Kmart did not correctly anticipate customer needs. For instance, let's say that Kmart buys a new style of shirt and stocks it in pink, yellow, green and blue. Further, let's say that the blue shirts sell out immediately; the store is left with inventory of the three other colors. Yet Kmart doesn't reorder the blue ones because 75 percent of its inventory is still unsold – it's still got plenty of that style of shirt to sell. Wal-Mart, meanwhile, would order a new shipment of blue shirts. Their model takes the customer into account, not the inventory – Wal-Mart understands that it's the color the customers want, not the style (in this case, anyway).   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  One of Kmart's biggest marketing miscues was the use of newspaper as its primary ad medium. Until about the 1980s, Kmart's primary form of advertising was flashy, expensive sales fliers that did not generate enough sales to offset their costs.

Attachment Theory and Child Essay

An attachment is a two-way emotional bond in which people depend on each other for their sense of security. Although we forma attachments through out our lives, psychologists are particualry interested in the attachments formed between a child and his/her primary caregiver.1 This essay will examine the role of attachment in childhood and it’s subsequent formation of relationships. Most babies of mammals exhibit the same patterns as human infants; they seek proximity to the mother and react with anxeity on seperation from her, which is the essense pf attachment behaviour. John bowlby believed that attachment was an innate pattern and it helped infants to survive. Bowlby had observed how baby monkeys reacted with distress on sepearation from their mother for a brief period. The mother and baby both called for each other. This shows that attachment is essential for survival however, it can be argued that research relating to animals cannot be generalised to humans. Bowlby’s theory of attachment is that children have a biological need to attach to their main caregiver as attachment helps serve the purpose of survival. The emotional relationship provides the infant with a set of expectations about relationships which stays with the child throughout life; this is known as the internal working model, and is a pattern for relationships the child may have in the future. If the child experiences love and affection, he/she will come to see him/herself as worthy of love and attention. This is the child’s working model as Bowlby sees it. The working model will determine the child’s relationship with other people and the way the child sees him/herself in the future. On the other hand, if the child experiences neglect or rejectionthey may develop a working model that is based on denial rather than on reality. Such a working model may contribute negatively to the the mental health of the child and the quality of their relationships with others in the future. Mary Ainsworth was a US psychologist who operationalised Bowlby’s concept so that it could be tested empirically. She devised an experimental procedure called the stange situation, which resulted in the classificatin of attachment patterns. In the strange situation an observer shows the caregiver and child into a room and then leaves. The caregiver watches the child play and a stranger soon enters the room. The stranger sits silently at first then talks with the caregiver and then tries to interact with the child. The caregiver leaves the room. This is he first seperation between the caregiver and the child. While the caregiver is absent the stranger continues trying to interact with the child. The caregiver returns and is reunited withnthe child. The stranger then leaves the room and the caregiver follows leaving the child alone. This is the second seperation. The stranger enters the room and once again tries to interact with the child. The caregiver returns for a second reunion and the stranger leaves. The findings resulted in the classification of three attachment types discussed below. Attachment type A, avoidant, is when the child shows apparent indifference when the caregiver leaves the room, and avoids contact when the caregiver returns. The child is apparently not afraid of strangers. Mothers of type A children tend to be insensitive and do not seem interested in their child’s play. Attachment type B, securely attached, is when the child is upset when the caregiver leaves and is happy to see the caregiver return. The child is easily comforted by the caregiver. The mothers of type B children are very intersted in their child’s play and actively support and communicate with the child during play. Attachment type C, ambivalent is when the child is very upset when the caregiver leaves the room, however, the caregiver finds it difficult to sooth the child when they return. The child seeks comfort but at the same time rejects it. mothers of type C children are inconsistent in their reactions to their children. Ainsworth concluded that the primary caregiver’s behaviour determines the attachment type of the child. A sensitive primary caregiver leads to a securely attached child. Insecure attachment will lead to problems in later life. Jerome Kagan (1982) suggested that innate differences in children’s temperaments influence how the environment interacts with them. Another impact on attachment is the family circumstances that a child is part of. A childs socio-economic environment has a major impact on the attachment type the child has. If a family is hit by povery the child may not recieve the necessary support and this could lead to a change in the attachment type. A risk factor in the development of mental health seems to be a lack of formation of attachment to important people during childhood. According to Goldberg (2000), the method is a unique combination of experimental and clinical methods. He he finds it a well standardised procedure which allows for natural interactions. Lamb (1985) claims that this widely used methodology is highly artificial and extrememly limited in terms of the amount of information gathered, and that it fails to take into account the mother’s behaviour. Marrone (1998) finds that although the strange situation has been criticized for being stressful-and therefore unethical- it is modelled on normal everyday circumstances when the caregiver must leave the infant for brief periods of timein different circumstances. However, it can be argued that exposing children to stress in experimental situations can be very different to everyday life. Van ijzendoorn and Kroonenberg (1988) carried out a major review of 32 world wide studies, involving eight countries and over 2000 infants. They found that there are differences within cultures in the distribution of types A,B and C. For example, Japanese studies showed complete absence of type A, but a high proportion of type C. There sems to be a pattern of cross-cultural differences, so that type B is the most common cross-culturally. Type A is reletively more common in Western European countries, and type C is reletively more common in Japan. He differences has been associated with differences in child-rearing. The results of these studies indicated that if we want valid interpretations of the strange situaton in a cross-cultural setting, we need to have good knowlege about child rearing. The cross-cultural validity of the strange situation methods of assesing attachment and the meaning of the classification classifications themselves has been questioned. The meaning of the strange situation has been challenged, in that it focuses on o the measurement of the attachment in terms of the infants reaction to the seperation and the subsequent reunion with the caregiver. It does not take into account that the meaning of seperation may differ across cultures. Japanese children are rarely seperated from their primary caregivers and so the seperation may be a very unusual situation for the child. this may mean something completely different to Japanese mothers and children than to American infants and mothers. Bowlby’s internal working model assumes that although the model can be modified, it remains relative;y stable throughout the lifespan. Hazen and Shaver (1987) were one of the first researchers to explore Bowlby’s attachment theory in relation to adult romantic relationships. They found the attachment theory a valuable perspective on adult love because it could explain both positive and negative emotions. Hazen and Shaver translated Ainsworth’s three attachment styles to make them suitable for adult relationships. Then they devised a â€Å"love quiz† in a local newspaper and ask respondents to indicate which of the three patterns best described their feelings toward romantic relationships. A self selected sample of 620 people, aged 14-82 years, responded to the love quiz. The mean age was 36 years. There were 205 males and 415vfemales. A second study used a sample of 108 college students. The researchers found that 60% of the respondants showed a secure attachment style and 20% showed the anxious ambivalent pattern, and 20% showed the anxious avoident pattern. The research also asked the respondents to describe their parent’s parenting style. People who were seecurely attached had said their parents were responsive and attentive, people who were anxious-ambivalant had rejecting and inattentive parent. Hazen and Shaver theorised that romantic love shares important similarities with early attachment relationships. They also found that differences in adult attachment wre related to how people felt about themselves. Although the researchers found some correlation between parenting style and attachment paterns, they went against drawing too many conclusions as this would be deterministic. In fact, it seems that as people get older, they are more likely to to be able to develop their own outlook and approach to life. The study was ased on a self selected sample and can therefore not be representative. Self report data is not always reliable, and since the study was carried out in the western world it cannot be generalised to everybody across different cultures. It can be seen through the strange situation that majority of infants are likely to develop an attachment type B, although, it is largely dependant on factors such as temperment, socio-economic factors, and parent styles. In addition, it can also be seen that the attachment style developed as a child can have a large impact on the attachment style involved in the formation of subsequent parent relationships.

Corporate Social Responsibility in Ranbaxy Laboratories

| Corporate Social Responsibility Report: RANBAXY LABORATORIES LTD | | ABSTRACT This report explores the Millennium Development Goals related to Healthcare at global and national level. It also focuses on the diseases that are prevalent in India and the steps taken by Ranbaxy towards the eradication of these diseases. It reviews the activities of Ranbaxy Laboratories towards the welfare of community and the protection of environment. It also throws light on the efforts done by the company in playing its part in fulfilling the Millennium Development Goals that directly affect or are affected by its business. It also looks towards the company’s approach towards sustainable development. CONTENTS i.†¦show more content†¦Identifying the main causes of the spread of the disease leads to following prime factors – cultural factors, political factors, medical suspicion, economic factors and lack of health care professionals. India and the HIV\AIDS Infected Population (Table 2) Year | People Infected with HIV/AIDS | 2006 | 5.6 Million | 2007 | 2-3.1 Million | 2008 | 2.31 Million | Chart 1 Source: Avert.org The major chunk of the HIV\AIDS infected population of around 22.9 million individuals comes from the Sub Saharan African Region (Chart 1). This is followed by South East Asian region inhabiting around 4 million individuals infected with HIV\AIDS. Indian trajectory with respect to curbing HIV\AIDS is on a positive track (table2). MATERNAL MORTALITY World Development Report estimated that 18 percent of the burden of disease for the women is due to maternal causes. Of all the MDGs, the least progress has been made on the maternal health goal worldwide. Surprisingly, the rate of decline in maternal mortality in the South-East Asia Region was among the highest observed and in India MMR being 230 per 100000 Births. 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