A Purpose for Everyday Use essays

A Purpose for Everyday Use essays Alice Walkers Everyday Use is a story with great examples of the literary devices. Two of the most prominent literary devices include theme and vivid characters. The characters tie in very closely with the theme. The theme of the story starts to be revealed when Wangero asks for the butter churn top and is most fully developed when she again asks for her mothers quilts. Mama, Dee and Maggie are round characters, but only Mama is dynamic. Dee and Maggie remain static and relatively unchanged throughout the entire story. While Mama is the only dynamic character in the story, it is the unchanging of her daughters that produce her epiphany. Mama is very content with her meager rural life. She is very proper, however, in the fact that she wants to keep her small house in a presentable fashion. When she receives news that her daughter is coming to visit she starts preparing for her arrival. A yard like this...inside the house. (para. 1) Mama is very concerned by how her daughter will react whenever she comes back home. She sometimes dream a dream...tears in her eyes. (para. 4) She yearns to have Dee love her and wants the whole world to know it. When Dee arrives, Mama is startled to find that she is no longer Dee, but another incarnation of her daughter named Wangero. David White described the time period in which this story took place as a time when Many blacks wanted to rediscover their African roots, and were ready to reject and deny their American heritage, which was filled with stories o f pain and injustice. (White 24) Dee had changed her name in an effort to cut all ties with those who had oppressed her and her ancestors. Mama is a bit surprised to find out this information, but maintains her emotion of necessary love from her daughter by saying If thats what you want us to call you, well call ...

The role of stand up meetings in agile software development ( benefit) Essay

The role of stand up meetings in agile software development ( benefit) - Essay Example This study investigated one of the most important elements of the Agile approach, daily stand-up meetings. Over 40 percent of all the respondents were developers, the other bigger proportions were made up of project managers, analysts, software testers and solution architects. This can probably be attributed to the fact that in any process of software development, developers play the greatest role as they are directly involved in the technical processes. According to Martin (2003), an Agile development team needs sufficient software development personnel with deep experience and good working relationship to succeed. Project managers also formed a substantial proportion of all respondents; this too can be explained by the fact that every Agile team has got to be led by a project manager. Sometimes we have a larger project split into smaller project tasks each with a project manager (Larman, 2004). Other roles represented by respondents included Team Leads, Scrum Masters, CEOs, Testers , Delivery Managers, Agile coaches and Product owners. Many responses were not obtained from these groups, probably because they did not play huge roles in their team or they happened to be in leadership positions e.g. CEOs and Team Leads.The software development process function better at optimal conditions; this can only be made possible with the right number of members in a team, each playing a key role. Depending on the company and software development requirements of a project, Agile team sizes differ from project to another, Scrum and DSMD recommend that an ideal project team should have about 10 or twelve people. XP does not have a particular preferred number but recommends that teams be as small as possible. Over 83.8 percent of the respondents indicated that they worked in a team of between one and ten members - these are relatively small groups. Many software developers prefer to carry out projects in small flexible and manageable groups as recommended by the Agile methodo logy. Agile software development is particularly very iterative and participative and requires excellent communication, consultations and interaction between the members. For such teams to work effectively they require a moderate to minimum number of members for flexibility and greater team bonding, for example, stand-up meetings can be more effective and practical with fewer members in the team rather than a large number of members (Larman, 2004). A number of different Agile methods are used in software development. These include Scrum, DSDM, Extreme Programming, and Lean-Kanban. The choice of method is largely determined by software development needs as well as preference. According to Larman (2004), project needs sometimes dictate the choice of method between the various Agile methods. - Developer preferences also play a large part in determination of the methods to be adopted, in most cases once a method is adopted it is used by a company consistently for all other projects. Thi s study found that scrum is the most preferred Agile method with over 59 percent of the respondents using it. The popularity of scrum can be attributed to its ease of use and flexibility. According to Rising and Janoff (2000), Scrum remains the most

The role of the United States Fire Administration (USFA) in promoting Essay

The role of the United States Fire Administration (USFA) in promoting electrical safety in the home, or at the workplace - Essay Example The USFA has been playing a vital role in promoting the electrical safety in homes and workplaces by conducting researches, spreading awareness about the causes of electrical fire and the safety precautions. According to the research data collected by USFA, the electrical home problems alone account for 67800 fires each year claiming 485 deaths and $868 millions in property loss.2 Providing the basic software to enable the National Fire Incident Reporting System (NFIRS) to be executed at the state levels has been a major contribution of the USFA. 3The NFIRS is a three tiered information system working at three levels – local fire departments, state fire agencies and the federal government and aims at promoting the fire incident reporting and tracking fire fighter fatalities. The software provided by the USFA empowered the state level execution of the NFIRS which is faster, cost- effective and more accurate in detecting the cause of fire, which is primarily due to electrical malfunctioning. The organization funds the National Fire Information Council (NFIC) through a series of cooperative agreements to promote fire incident reporting. The United States Fire Administration along with National Fire Academy also sponsors NFIRS program management course. Using a hierarchical sorting based on Ignition factor, the USFA smartly investigates the cause of fire a nd states the electrical distribution and appliance misuse as the major causes of electrical fire. The curtailed number of electrical fire accidents in the recent times can be accredited to USFA for the widespread use and awareness of the NFPA 70, National Electric Code. The USFA has been a pioneer agency involved in encouraging people to safeguard against the electrical fire by maintaining and sharing data as well as setting standards for the appropriate electrical wiring and appliance specification systems. The organization has been proactively involved, in not just

Luxury and the Montblanc brand Essay Example for Free

Luxury and the Montblanc brand Essay It is generally acknowledged that western consumption of luxury in the 1980s and 1990s was motivated primarily by status-seeking and appearance. This means that social status associated with a brand is an important factor in conspicuous consumption. The baby boom generation luxury consumer has a passion for self-indulgence while maintaining an iconoclastic world view, which is transforming the luxury market from its ‘ old ’ conspicuous consumption model to a totally new, individualistic type of luxury consumer one driven by new needs and desires for experiences ’ . The expression of ‘today’s luxury’ is about a celebration of personal creativity, expressiveness, intelligence, fluidity, and above all, meaning. LUXURY AND POSTMODERNISM Recent arguments have been sounded that aspects of contemporary luxury consumption have reflected the phenomenon of postmodernism. Postmodernity means very different things to many different people’. Postmodernism is essentially a western philosophy that ‘refers to a break in thinking away from the modern, functional and rational’. In terms of experiential marketing, two aspects of the postmodern discourse are most relevant: hyper-reality and image. Hyper-reality refers to ‘the blurring of distinction between the real and the unreal, in which the prefix ‘hyper’ signifies more real than real. When the real that is the environment, is no longer a given, but is reproduced by a simulated environment, it does not become unreal, but realer than real’. The example of Bollywood to illustrate the so-called ‘Disneyfication’ of reality within the context of contemporary Indian society: ‘Bollywood captures not only the imagination in the form of song, music and dance but fairy tale settings, romantic melodrama and heroic storylines immerse the viewer in ‘simulated reality’. Traditional marketing was developed in response to the industrial age, not the information, branding and communications revolution we are facing today. In a new age, with new consumers, we need to shift away from a features- and-benefits approach, as advocated by traditional approaches to consumer experiences. One such approach is experiential marketing, an approach that in contrast to the rational features-and-benefits view of consumers takes a more postmodern orientation, and views them as emotional beings concerned with achieving pleasurable experiences. EXPERIENTIAL LUXURY MARKETING When a person buys a service, he purchases a set of intangible activities carried out on his behalf. But when he buys an experience, he pays to spend time enjoying a series of memorable events that a company stages to engage him in a personal way. Experiential marketing is thus about taking the essence of a product and amplifying it into a set of tangible, physical and interactive experiences that reinforce the offer. Experiential marketing essentially describes marketing initiatives that give consumers in-depth, tangible experiences in order to provide them with sufficient information to make a purchase decision. It is clear that the fact that many luxury goods are almost always experiential puts luxury marketers in a unique position to apply the principles of experiential marketing to their activities. Dimensions of the luxury experience The term ‘involvement’ refers to the level of inter-activity between the supplier and the customer. Increased levels of involvement fundamentally change the way in which services are experienced, that is, suppliers no longer create an experience and pass it to the customer; instead, the supplier and customer are interactively co-creating the experience. The term ‘intensity’ refers to the perception of the strength of feeling towards the interaction. The four experiential zones are not intended to be mutually exclusive; the richness of an experience is, however, a function of the degree to which all four zones are incorporated. Those experiences we think of as Entertainment, such as fashion shows at designer boutiques and upmarket department stores, usually involve a low degree of customer involvement and intensiveness. Activities in the Educational zone involve those where participants are more actively involved, but the level of intensiveness is still low. In this zone, participants acquire new skills or increase those they already have. Many luxury goods offerings include educational dimensions. For example, cruise ships often employ well-known authorities to provide semi-formal lectures about their itineraries – a concept commonly referred to as ‘edutainment’. Escapist activities are those that involve a high degree of both involvement and intensiveness, and are clearly a central feature of much of luxury consumption. This is clearly evident within the luxury tourism and hospitality sector, characterised by the growth of specialised holiday offerings. The launch of the Royal Tented Taj Spa (Taj Hotels Resorts and Palaces) at the Rambagh Palace in Jaipur (India) recreates the mobile palaces used by the Mughal emperors of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, with chandeliers, royal pennants and Indian love swings. When the element of activity is reduced to a more passive involvement in nature, the event becomes Aesthetic. A high degree of intensiveness is clearly evident within this activity, but has little effect on its environment such as admiring the architectural or interior design of designer boutiques. The six-storey glass crystal design of the Prada store in Tokyo conceptualised by the architects Herzog and de Meuron has become a showcase for unconventional contemporary architecture.

Fear in Tony Kushners Angels In America Essay -- Kushner Angels in

Fear in Tony Kushner's Angels In America    Both parts of Tony Kushner's play Angels in America paint a painfully truthful picture of what gay men go through. In most cases, they suffer either inner anguish or public torment. Sometimes they must endure both. Being homosexual in America is a double-edged sword. If you publicly announce that you are gay, you suffer ridicule and are mocked by the ignorant of society; but if you keep your homosexuality a secret, you are condemned to personal turmoil. Kushner's work attempts to make America take a close look at itself and hopefully change its ways. The fear of public scrutiny forces many gay men into a life of denial and secrecy.       Kushner describes a society, not unlike our own society today, that looks down upon gay men and other minorities. By setting the play in the mid 80's, a time when gay-bashing was at its zenith, he is able to capture the prejudice towards homosexuals and all that surrounds it. The early 80's was also the time when AIDS was a new disease being made aware to the mass public for the first time. By setting the story in New York City, a melting pot of different cultures and people, Kushner proves that not just one group of people come in contact with homosexuals. All of these geographical and atmosphirical forces aid in setting the mood of the play. These surroundings drive the characters to act the way they do and make the choices they make.       Angels in America centers around the gay community which is one of the most scrutinized minorities in the world today. Kushner is able to convey his view more efficiently by having a broad range of power. His characters are of more than one social standing and are at different places in ... ...men are a minority, and like any minority there is prejudice against them. Kushner focuses on that prejudice and shows how foolish it is. He proves that gay men are not drastically different than any other man. The only difference is their sexuality, and that part of any person is no one else's business. Homosexuals and heterosexuals both feel love when in relationships, and that is where the emphasis should be placed. A person's sexual behavior should be left in the bedroom and not debated in a public forum. Neither heterosexuals nor homosexuals are better than the other. Until society as a whole makes a conscious effort to accept gay men and all minorities, prejudice will still exist and be a part of us all. No one has the right to judge another person.    Bibliography: Kushner, Tony. Angels in America, Part One: Millennium Approaches. New York: TCG, 1992.

12 Angry Men: Jury’s Conflict Involved on Verdict Essay

Any jury trial is bound to have some sort of conflict involved when coming to a verdict. The portrayal of a murder case in the movie, 12 Angry Men, involves many different examples of conflict, as well as the approaches to conflict used by different characters. Almost every conversation in the film involves conflict, since the characters are all debating whether or not the boy being tried for murder is guilty or not, but there are a few scenes in which different types of conflict and different approaches to conflict seem to stand out. The room in which the men are sitting and debating the case has a table with each of the men sitting around it. Jury member number one, who sits at the head of the table, takes on the role as the leader of the discussion by formatting how the voting goes and asking all members whether they agree to any decisions made. In one scene, the older man with the summer cold comes over to jury member number one and tells, â€Å"stop being a kid. K. I. D. Kid.† Jury member number one responds, â€Å"Just because I am trying to keep this thing organized? Here, you take the responsibility. I’ll just keep my mouth shut, that’s all.† This scene is an example of Ego/Identity conflict because of the beliefs that the man with the cold see’s jury member number one as being a kid because he is younger than him. Jury member number one seemed to take the responsibility of leading the group just because of his number, but the man with the cold seemed to get upset and cre ate a conflict with him because of his age. See more:  Social Satire in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn Essay The different types of characters in the jury decision create many different examples of approaches to conflict. Jury member number two, the quiet man with the glasses, becomes the target of many of the other characters. When the men are all going around and explaining their reasons for why they feel the boy is guilty, Jury member number three interrupts and says, â€Å"what about the switch-knife found in the man’s chest?† Jury member number two says, â€Å"Wait a second, there are some people who haven’t talked yet, shouldn’t we go in order?† Jury member number three says, â€Å"forget about the people who haven’t gone yet, be quiet will ya?† This causes jury member number two to quiet down and not respond. This approach to conflict is an example of competing because of the win-lose outcome of the conflict. Jury member number three makes sure that he uses his alpha male status and shuts down jury member number two without any complai nt. The last situation is an example of conflict as well as the approach to conflict. When the men choose to make an anonymous vote and one of them writes â€Å"not guilty† on the paper, jury member number three calls out the man who had grown up in the slums and says that he changed his vote because he fell for the preaching of the first member who felt the boy was not guilty. After yelling at the man, the old man finally admits to changing is vote. Later, jury member number three attempts to apologize for calling out the man who grew up in the slums and he just walks right past him without responding. This is an example of Ego/Identity conflict because jury member number three judged the man who grew up in the slums and expected him to change his vote because of his past. The approach to the conflict later is avoidance because the man who grew up in the slums chooses to not respond to the apology and walk right past the man without getting into any type of conflict.

Americas Savior The Legacy Of America - 1269 Words

America s Savior In a time when America was at an all-time low, a retired Hollywood actor and union leader from a small town in Illinois would gather Americans to stand together and overcome a collapsing economy, communism, growing foreign tensions with the middle east, and to conduct war on the home front against the use and spread of drugs. To many all around the world, this man would become the hero that America needs. Ronald Wilson Reagan was born on February 6, 1911, the son of Jack and Nelle Reagan in Tampico, Illinois. The Reagan family moved to Dixon in 1920, where Ronald excelled in high school. He earned an athletic scholarship to Eureka College. His major was economics and sociology,†¦show more content†¦Ronald was then transferred to the Army Air Force upon his desire and assigned to the First Motion Picture Unit and then to the Provisional Task Force Show Unit. On September 12, 1945, Captain Ronald Reagan was detached from active duty and found his way back to Hollywood. Ronald s return to Hollywood left the actor with a lot of down time. Ronald and Jane divorced in 1949, he said, Due to her nervous nature she[Jane] had allowed feelings of boredom to invade their life together. After living the bachelor life for 3 years, Ronald then married Nancy Davis on March 4, 1952, she gave him more happiness than any one person deserved. Although involved since 1941; Ronald became more powe rful in Hollywood by becoming the president of the Screen Actors Guild from 1947-1952 and again from 1959-1960. In the year 1967, he became the Republican Governor of California. He put a stop to government hiring and raising taxes to even the state budget. Ronald was reelected Governor for another term but at the end of his second term, he chose not to pursue a third term. He reached for a higher government platform but be was denied. The GOP chose Gerald Ford to run for the Republican Party in 1976. In 1980 on election day, Ronald became the 40th President of The United States of America. In every category of the exit polls, President Reagan crushed his opponent by astonishing amounts.