Lille Tissages free essay sample

Lille Tissages is located in Lille, France and it is the largest textile company in the region. The department whose financial management is under scrutiny in this case study sells only Item 345. The price for Item 345 was raised from FF15 to FF20 in 2002, which resulted in decrease in market share of Lille Tissages for item 345. The company is facing stiff competition and the management of the department is forced to rethink its pricing strategy for Item345. The sales director proposed that if the department decides to reduce the price of Item345 to 15 French francs, the company would be able to increase the market share to 25% from the current 20%. The market volume is expected to grow from 625,000 units to 700,000 units; this would mean the sales for 2004 would be 175,000 units. If the company was to keep the price at 20 French francs, which is the current price, the sales would only be able to touch 75,000 units. We will write a custom essay sample on Lille Tissages or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page The effort in the paper will be to analyze the impact of the following factors on the pricing strategy for Item345: a)Lowering of costs for Item 345 )Impact on profit if price is lowered for Item 345 c)Effect of the pricing strategy on competition and market share d)Calculation of contribution margins for the pricing options QUESTIONS 1. Should Lille Tissages lower the price to FF15? (Assume no intermediate prices are being considered. ) Answer: In order to understand the pricing decision we need to understand the contribution margin of Item345 at FF20 and at a lower price FF15. Please refer to Exhibit-2, which shows the per unit contribution margin at the price FF20 as 13. 2 (volume is 75,000 units), whereas if the price is FF15 then the contribution margin is equal to 8. 1 (volume at 175,000 units). The above per unit information shows that keeping the price at FF20 will result in a higher contribution margin per unit. But if you see the total contribution figure at 75,000 units for FF20 and at 175,000 units for FF20, you will see that the total contribution at price FF20 is 990,000 compared to a contribution margin of 1,489,250 if lower the price to FF15. Clearly this indicates that decreasing the price would increase the selling volume which in turn would contribute higher towards the fixed cost. Decreasing the price would also increase demand, knock out competition and eventually translate into higher total contributions towards the company’s fixed costs. 2. If the department that produces Item 345 was a profit center and if you were the manager of that department, would it be to your financial advantage to lower the price? Answer: The definition of a profit center, the idea is to maximize revenue and minimize expenses resulting in a higher net profit. Referring to Exhibit 2 at selling price of FF20 and sales volume 75,000 the total revenue is estimated to be FF1. million and total expense to be FF0. 996 million resulting in a net profit of FF0. 503 million. Similarly, for the selling price of FF15 and sales volume of 175,000 the total revenue is estimated to be FF2. 625 million with total expense of FF1. 622 million resulting in a net profit of FF1 million. Since the goal of a profit center manager is to maximize profit, it would be to our financial advantage to lower the price to FF15, if it guarantees higher sales volumes eventually resulting in a higher net profit. Is there any possibility that competition might raise their prices if Lille Tissages maintains its price of FF20? If so, how do you take this factor in your analysis? Answer: If the competition raises their price they will risk losing the market share, because the general public believes that Lille Tissages produce better products. Loss in competition’s market share would mean increase in Lille Tissages market share. If the competition increases their prices, it would mean that Lille Tissages would be looking at sales volumes higher than 75,000 as originally predicted by the sales director. As you can see in Exhibit-2 if Lille Tissages is able to sell 125,000 units which is 18% of the market share the company will be able to make a net profit of FF1. 2 million which will be higher than the profit selling 175,000 units at FF15 even though the lower price has a higher market share of 25%. 4. At FF15, will Lille Tissages earn a profit on Item 345? How do you decide? Answer: Since it is stated that any action taken on Item345 would not have a substantial impact on the sales of other product lines, we can rule out selling Item 345 at a loss and recover the loss by increasing the sales profits of other product lines. Assuming an average fixed cost of FF0. 486 million Lille Tissages is earning a profit on Item 345 (refer to Exhibit -2). The average fixed cost is derived based on the past 5 years data, but the current allocation of 65% of the factory cost is very high for the department. The sales revenue generated for Item 345 currently covers a major fixed cost for the whole company; the company needs to revisit the fixed cost allocation for the rest of the departments.

Casey Henderson Essays (1092 words) - Algerian War, Africa

Casey Henderson History 20 th Century Dr. Biggs 2/24/15 Battle of Algiers and the Return of Algiers Women play important roles in The Battle of Algiers . Discuss how their roles in the film compare with women's participation in other struggles of national liberation. In the film The Battle of Algiers, women play an important role on the side of the National Liberation Front, also known as the FLN. Most women were of the Muslim culture while a few were French but ultimately these women helped in many different aspects of the war. These woman worked as nurses or spies or even helped with the combat going on in throughout the city. As shown in the movie these woman were fully covered from head to toe and all you can see is there eyes. Muslim woman have always dressed this way but I believe this helped these woman be sneaky in their efforts to help. In a scene in the movie the paratroopers began to set up blocks or checkpoints in an effort to make sure people were not caring any weapons or acting suspicious. A woman all covered in white was grabbed by one of the paratroopers and she screams "don't touch me!" The trooper lets her go as it somewhat looks suspicious on his part to others watching. The woman ends up having a gun under her, she pul ls it out and shoots two paratroopers and immediately drops the evidence in a nearby box that seemed to be all planned out. The tactics of these woman prove to be helpful because they are not your stereotypical murder, and people seem to trust them more. In the national liberation struggle of Ireland woman in the Cumann na mBan army played similar roles in their fight for equal rights. These woman planted bombs and carried weapons just like the Algerian sisters. These two groups of woman were used to help these struggles and both did a lot of tactics that men were required as well. Terrorist bombings occur in multiple scenes and places in the film. How and why did the FLN utilize these attacks, and how does the film present the ethics of killing civilians? Compare the use of terrorism here with other examples in modern world history. The battle of Algiers started with the increase attention to the struggle from the French which ultimately lead to the strike of the FLN. Three woman planted bombs randomly throughout the city which lead to many shootings and casualties which sparked a big response from authorities. Even though the paratroopers eventually eradicated the Algerians, the bombings and casualties showed the ability of the FLN to successfully strike at the attention of French Algeria and to achieve a mass reply to the demands of Muslims. They killed many innocent civilians and this shows the killing of civilians to be easy to commit and get away with during this period. The terrorist attack killing 241 United States soldiers in Lebanon was another act of terrorism throughout the 20 th century. These 2 terrorist attacks are alike because they were b oth a complete surprise killing many people. These acts were committed to get the attention of certain groups in an effort to get what they want. The Algerian war was meant to for them to gain independence against the French while the attack in Lebanon was the Iranian people sending a message to the US trying to declare war. Economic concerns were central to both the Algerian War (1954-62) and the tensions described in Return to Algiers (1991). Explain. During the Algerian war the econo mic struggle was high . Many people were unemployed and the struggle for Muslims to gain independence was the under lying problem. Many woman working for the Muslim people now had jobs like that of woman in the military. They had many jobs such as doctors and even helping out with the combat going on in the city. The battle of Algiers put an even bigger pause on the economic flow throughout France during this period and left many innocent people scared to leave there house. In the Return to Algiers the economic struggle was similar. The collapse of

Essay Sample on the History of Computers Key Changes Along a Timeline

Essay Sample on the History of Computers Key Changes Along a Timeline The history of computers is short but very complicated. Computers have been through lot of changes throughout the past half-century. They also affect our society in many different ways today. The following paper describes how the computers have changed from 1970 to present. During 1970, Intel came out with a chip, which was the best selling semiconductor memory chip in the world. The chip was called Intel 1103 and it was first DRAM, dynamic Random Access Memory) chip. D.r. Robet H. Dennard developed it. His team and him had been working on it since 1966. The engineers needed to build a new type of chip for a calculator in 1971. So, they came out with a chip called Intel 4004. It was the first single chip general-purpose microprocessor built bye Intel. The chip was 4-bit and ran at a rate of 108 kHz and it also contained 2300 transistors. The chip dealt with up to 1 Kb of program memory and up to 4 Kb of data memory. In the early 70’s lot of new technology was being built. In 1973, IBM came out with the first hard disk drive. The hard disk used two 30 Mb platters. During the next decade, the hard disks were used in primary data storage, than in minicomputers and later in the early 80’s in personal computers. The first personal computer to use a hard disk was IBM PC/XT in 1983. In 1974, Gary Kildall developed CP/M (Control Program for Microcomputers). It was the first operating system to run on machines. CP/M became the permanent operation system for software development on small systems, but later the personal chose not to use CP/M. In 1975, MITS Altair was the first personal computer to get attention by a lot of people. It was made of Intel’s 8-bit 8080 processor. The MITS included 256 bytes of memory, toggle switches and an LED panel. Apple II was the beginning of the personal computers. Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak developed the Apple II in 1977. It had a built in keyboard, graphics display and BASIC built in ROM. It was based on the MOS 6502 processor. Apple used MOS Techonology’s 6502 processor in the personal computers. It contained three 8-bit registers and an 8-bit stack pointer. It was one of the first personal computers that were useful to people and a new age of technology. In 1981, IBM came out with a PC. â€Å"The landmark announcement of the IBM PC stunned the computing world,† (Patterson 1). It was the first PC that surprised the world with its features and speed. The IBM PC came with a 64 Kb of RAM, a floppy drive and monochrome graphics, DOS, operating system based on CP/M. The PC was based on Intel’s 8088 processor. It was a 16-bit processor, which contained 8 registers and unique segmented 20-bit memory architecture capable of addressing 1 Mb of memory. It ran at a speed of 4.77 MHz. So the first IBM PC became pretty popular during the early 80’s. In 1982, a new computer came into the market with new technology and became very popular. â€Å"An estimated 22 million units were sold. That’s almost as many as all the Macintosh models put together, and it dwarfs IBM’s top-selling systems,† (Patterson 3). The Commodore had a 64 Kb of RAM and it was also the first personal computer with an audio synthesizer chip. In 1983, it came out with a portable version knows as the SX-64. It was the first color portable computer. It was based on the MOS 6510 and it also had fast color graphics. The Commodore was a cheap computer for the features it had and people all around the world bought it. Later in 1984, Apple came out with a new computer called the Macintosh. The Macintosh was sold for $2495. It had 128 Kb of RAM, it also had a 3.5† floppy disk drive, which held more data than the 5.25† disks. Motorola’s 68000 processor powered it. It was a 32-bit processor and it also contained 60,000 transistors and had 16 registers. This computer became popular during the 80’s but Commodore was still dominating during the time. During the mid 1980’s IBM came out with a new and better computer known as the IBM PC/AT. It had Intel’s fast 80286 processor that ran at 6 MHz, merged with 16-bit busses. The 80286 made the new PC/AT faster than the original PC. It came with a lot more ram 512 or 640 Kb and new floppy disks drives which could hold up to 1.2 Mb. In the late 80’s Apple came out with a new computer known as the Macintosh II. It was first color computer by Macintosh. The color was 8 bit deep and it was also available in 24-bit. The graphics of the Macintosh II inspired Adobe to make a photo editing software called Photoshop. The Macintosh II had a 14† color monitor. The screen resolution went up to 640 x 480 and it had RAM of 64 Mb. It had a Motorola 68020 processor with 6881 FPU. It was one of the expensive computers of the time; it costs were $5498 for a standard configuration, which included 1 Mb of RAM and a 40 Mb hard disk. The Macintosh II was not a popular computer, customers complained about the price being too high. After Steve Jobs left Apple he came up with his own computers knows as the NeXT, which was released in 1989. It had a Motorola 68040 processor; 8 Mb of RAM a built in DSP, digital signal processor and the first commercial magneto optical drive, which has 256 Mb capacity. The NeXT had some faults to it. The computer was sold for $10, 000 which was too high. Another fault in the computer was it used Objective C, a mix of C and Smalltalk instead of using C++. So it was so expensive for the consumers to by it and the use of wrong type of language. In 1993, Intel Pentium Processor began developing and went through the industry faster than any of the previous processors by Intel. In 1994 and 1995, standard configuration of an Pentium processor ran between 60 and 120 MHz, 4-16 Mb of RAM, about 200 Mb of disk space, 8-bit 640 x 480 Super VGA graphics, a 14† color monitor, a CD-ROM drive, and ran under Windows 3.1. The cost of it was from $1800 to $2500 depending on design. In 1994, Apple introduced a new computer known as the Power Macintosh. The new Power Macintosh 6100 had 60 MHz PowerPC 601 processor. It also included 8 Mb of RAM, 16-bit 640 x 480 graphics, 16-bit stereo, 250 Mb hard disk, a CD-ROM drive and a built in Ethernet. It also came with a 14† color monitor with built in speakers in the monitor. Its total cost of the machine was $2289. On August 24 1995, Microsoft came out with Windows 95. Which became very popular and it was affordable for many of the families. It had full networking support; it included tolls for accessing the Internet. The operating system was 32-bit, which helped in improving the performance of the computer. Windows 95 were being advertised everywhere. They were being advertised on TV, radio, newspaper, magazines, billboards and many other places. The PC industry became very popular when Windows 95 was releases because it was affordable and easy to use. In the late 1990’s, the computers became very fast with higher RAM. It was 700 MHz and about 64 MB of RAM. The hard drive space also went up a lot to 15-20 GB. Which was a big improvement from the previous computers. Today the computers are extremely fast. It has reached the speed of 3.0 GHz and hard drive space up to 120 GB on personal computers. They also come with a built in DVD/CD ROM and a CD burner. The prices for all the computers today are really cheap and most of the people can afford it. Almost everyone has a personal computer in their house or their business. Computers run most of the machines being run today. For example, the computers are controlling the touch free car washes, like when to stop a certain thing and when to start it. So the computers are dominating a lot of things these days. Therefore, computers have changed a lot during the past century. They went from 108 KHz to 3.0 GHz. That is a huge change during the past half century. Computers are going to get really advanced and really fast in the future. It is going to keep growing in the future. So the computers play a huge role today in our society all over the world.

Online Learning Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Online Learning - Research Paper Example Today employers in all branches of business are especially interested in executors who are able not only work with modern technologies but also are willing to study simultaneously with the working process. Such combination is possible only in case of distant or online education. Therefore leaders of the leading business stress important role of online education of future specialists as such practice will ensure constant knowledge refreshment (Kazi-Ferrouillet, 1989). Extension of online education courses requires restructuring of public education. From the one point of view, this will help to prepare future specialists to the modern technological environment but there is another point of view – online education may influence the performance of students and such influence may be positive as well as negative (David, 1991). The conflict between requirements of the business world and general requirements for educational programs, which are very often can’t be met by online educational courses, is the one to be solved. There are a lot of teachers and students who support online education, teachers because they can deliver information to larger audience and students because they don’t have to attend classes (Mehlinger, 1996); for this instance, online education gain stronger positions in higher and secondary school (Grimm, 1995). Online education, online educational networks, and development of these trends in education have attracted special attention of the educational world.

Rice Industry in Burma during Colonialism Essay - 1

Rice Industry in Burma during Colonialism - Essay Example Private merchant companies served as the instrument of expansion – these were the English East-Indian company (1600) and the Dutch East-Indian company (1602), having gained monopolistic rights from their governments to have trade relations with Asian countries. By the middle of the 16th century, Portuguese have been almost pushed away from their Asian possessions, while the English and the Dutch became masters of the biggest territory of Southern and Eastern Asia. (Wilson) 'Asian countries have always been known as the main producers and exporters of rice and during the colonial era Burma became the main world center of cultivation and exporting rice.' (Frank, 2002, p. 261) At the beginning of the 19th century Burma attracted the English not only by its strategic location, but by its raw materials, and the abundance of rice and teak. After the second English – Burma war of 1852-53, the English gained the control on the Lower Burma, which was hardly populated at the time, and only 5% of the land, suitable for cultivation, was used for agriculture. This very region was going to become the new granary of the whole Burma, and thus, a big economic center. (Frank, 2002, p. 259)

The Role Of Stereotyping In Fairytales English Literature Essay

The Role Of Stereotyping In Fairytales English Literature Essay Fairy tales have a great history in Europe and they were transmitted from the one generation to the other by oral speech, until the Grimm brothers decided to commit many of them, around 1815. The fairy tales stories are very important for childrens psychology, as psychoanalyst Bruno Bettelheim says, because they communicate with the unconscious of the child, through their secret messages, like the battle between the good and the evil, where the good always wins. So, the children feel more hopeful and ready to pass through the difficulties that emerge in their lives (Salkind, 2004). Fairytales contain material that influences a lot the feelings and the cognition of children. Contemporary research has shown they are not coming into the world as black slates, but they bring reflexes, predispositions and capacities, with their birth. Although schemas, the cognitive structures, that represent organized knowledge about a given concept or stimulus, that influence perception, memory and inference, (Hewstone, Stroebe Stephenson, 1997, p.617), are transmitted to them through the contact with their guardians and the society (Hewstone et al., 1997). Another effect of fairytales is the elongation of some schemas, specially those that concern gender. There are three types of schemas, according to Baron and Burne (2009); those that have to do with persons, with roles and with events. The role schemas, that are correlated with specific social roles, concern the way that people act and are like. Gender identity is one of the major role schemas that people cope with (Baron, Branscombe Burne, 2009). Gender roles affect the behavior of men and women throughout their life, social and personal. Some characteristics of the male stereotype is that the man is able to be a leader, aggressive, forceful, competitive, independent, individualistic and defending his own beliefs. On the other hand, woman is affectionate, compassionate, shy, soft-spoken, tender, she loves children and she is sensitive to the needs of others. Men are also considered as the owners of their family and like the head of the wife. Stereotypes like that have still their place in many religions, but are also tought to the children through the fairy tales. Women are still presented as followers of the active male figures or helpless with the need to be rescued. Children attain the meaning of gender identity, the fact that they are boys or girls, by the age of two and between the ages of four and seven, they realize that the gender is a basic attribute of the person. As they grow up they come in contact with the stereotypes that concern what it means to be male or female, and they are enforced by their environment to show these traits Children also, learn gender stereotypes very early in their life. By the age of two they know to accord stereotyped behaviors and traits with each gender and at the ages between three and six, they seem more strongly sex stereotyped than adults. Furthermore they are convinced that these stereotypes are true. In particular, in the research of Urberg (1982, cited in Golombok Fivush, 1994), it was found that children espouse unconditionally the gender stereotypes at the age of five, but at the age of seven they become more conciliatory. Another finding of the same research was that children tend to stereotype oth er children more than stereotype adults. In another study of Haugh, Hoffman Cowan (1980, cited in Golombok Fivush, 1994), it was shown on a screen to two groups of children of three and five year old, a shortcut with two twelve month infants playing. The children of the first group were told that the infant on the left was male, and on the right female, and to the other group the opposite. Both groups described the babies labeled as males, with characteristics like big, mad, fast, strong, loud, smart, and hard, while the female labeled as small, scared, slow, weak, quiet, dumb, and soft. As for the predictions that children can make about the preferences of the two sexes, in the study of Martin (1989, cited in Golombok Fivush, 1994), it was found that children of all ages tented to predict the characters interest about some toys, based on his or her gender. But only the younger children relied absolutely on this trait. It seems that younger children are more categorical with gend er stereotypes, and the gender of an individual is determinant for his or her characteristics and habits (Baron, Branscombe Burne, 2009, Golombok Fivush, 1994). The research about the gender roles in fairytales, has shown that even though women represent more than the half percent of the population, they are represented much less in childrens literature. Research during 60s decade found that women were underrepresented in a big amount in the book titles, central roles and the illustrations of popular childrens stories. After the political changes of the decades of 70s and 80s, it was found that women are better represented in childrens literature, but the male characters were represented double times. When a woman had a leading role was described as the males that had the same character. But when she had a secondary role, she was described with the traditional characteristics, as passive and depended (Golombok Fivush, 1994, Godden Godden, 2001). Furthermore, it was found by a research of DeLoache et al., cited in Golombok Fivush, 1994, that children get in contact with the gender stereotypes not only through the characters of their stories, but also by the way that their parents present the gender roles, while they are reading them a book. In particular, mothers that were reading a book to their children were presenting the 90% of the characters with unknown roles as males. Also, when they were asked to read a picture book with bears of indetermined gender, the 62% of them represented the bears to their children as male and a small percentage, about the 16% as female. It was also observed that the bears that were labeled as females, where those that were not been presented to interact with other bears (Golombok Fivush, 1994). According to the Banduras Social learning theory, cited in Cole Cole, 2002, gender is formed by social factors. He supported that the childs behavior is formed by that one of the others and specific by parents behavior, through the learning processes of reinforcement and observation or imitation of a model. Other factors responsible for socialization can be the teachers, the peers and generally the people that get in contact with the child, without underestimating the role of media, like tvs and children readings (Cole Cole, 2002). It has been observed that parents provide to their children except of patterns of imitation, rewards, when the behaviors of the last are compatible with their gender and they punish them for the behaviors that are not accord with it. In the studies of Beverly Fagot, cited in Cole Cole, 2002, in families, it was found that the parents were praising their daughters when they were trying clothes, dancing, playing with their dolls, or when were following them and they were punishing them when they were exploring things, running and climbing around. Contrary they were praising their sons when they were playing with cubes and they were punishing them, when they were playing with dolls, giving or asking for help. These findings are also supported by other studies, like those of Langois Downs, cited in Cole Cole, 2002. Except of the rewards, it has been observed by studies that the fathers in contrast with the mothers, treat their sons much more different than their daughters. More specifically they were considering boys as more strong and taugh and they were enforcing them to do similar activities, while they were rating them more strict than their mothers when they were playing with dolls. Also, when the boys were between the age of two and twelve, they were becoming stricter, more equable, less affectionate and more directional than with their daughters. Furthermore, it seems that the pressure to the boys to conform to their gender role, is bigger than this one that touch girls. As a result the gender role of boys is more cohesive than for the girls, something that continues to exist in mens and womens roles, when the male characteristics and roles are acceptable for women, while the opposite is not acceptable. Another stereotypic role for women in fairytales is that they have to stay in silence. Its inappropriate for them to express their thoughts and claim for their rights. This could be like an insult to their husband and only evil women, like witches, are taught with these behaviors. The only way for the women in fairytales to speak is only after asking a mans permission. Its also common for the man in fairytales to hit his wife when she dares to interrupt him. Women can only express themselves by crying and show helpless (Afanasev, 1973, Bottigheimer, 1986). In Snow White, Brothers Grimm classic fairy tale, the female gender is represented in a negative way. Snow White is displayed as being frightened, naive and helpless, and the evil Queen, her stepmother, the only other prominent female character is a narcissist. Thus, after reading or hearing this fairy tale, society begins to mold into these stereotypes. This quote demonstrates what society considers to be womens role. These traits are presented when the huntsman spares Snow Whites life and when the Dwarfs expect Snow White to do house work in order to live safely with them. Although the queen ironically is very powerful in this fairy tale, she also falls into the stereotype for females. She only uses her power for negatives, rather than positives, scheming vindictive plots on Snow White throughout the whole story. In which, naive Snow White falls victim, not once but three times. The evil queen sends the huntsmen to kill Snow White. This setting introduces the readers to Snow White as a scared helpless girl, a typical expected role of a female (Zipes, 2000). Although there are exceptions, the rule is that a woman has to lose her voice and her identity in order to provide a place in the society for herself. There are specific gender roles in the classic fairy tales that state that the men have the voice and the women are to be collateral. In the classic fairy tale, The Little Mermaid, the character of the seventh daughter is being taught what it is to be a woman. When she complains about grooming for her first trip above water, her grandmother remind her that someone cant have beauty without paying a cost. A woman must be beautiful and must suffer for the cost in silence. Silence is repeated throughout the tale as being a virtue. The mermaid suffers the pain and blood of her feet and the cutting out of her tongue as to be with her love, even though the man does not want her in return. The Disney version of this tale also shows Ariel learning about the importance of outward beauty and suppression. Ursula convinces Ariel that she doesnt need her voice in the human world. She has her beauty, her lovely face and she can use her body language. A woman can live in the mans world, only if she will lose her opinion. At first, Disneys Ariel seems not to follow the typical stereotype role for a woman. She is active, curious and rebellious sometimes. However, when she falls in love, her independent character, transforms into a dependent woman that only wants to become the wife of her beloved man. Moreover she decides to sacrifice her voice, as to become a human, and leave her underwater kingdom to live next to her man (Bell, Haas, Sells, 1995). Another example of the importance of women silence, is in the story of The Merchants Daughter and the Slanderer where the king decides to marry her only when it is mentioned to him that she is quiet and vestal. The value of silence is correlated with those of speech and power. Generally in fairy tales the speech comes from people that have authority, which most of the times are not the women. The women that appear to speak are evil, like witches, and only when they give a curse to their enemies, as it was mentioned before (Afanasev, 1973, Bottigheimer, 1986). Another stereotype in fairy tales, is that the mans role is to work and provide food to his family by this work. Besides that, in many fairy tales, the opposite fact happens. In Constantino Fortunato of Straparola, it is a woman, the mother Soriana, who provides the food to her three adult sons, who end helpless when she is dead. Their only way to survive is to use the items she left them and because they do not have any qualifications for work they become dependent on other people. Because of the fact that they have never worked, they do not appreciate the people who help them and they forget each one when a new person who can help them appears. And thats what Constantino does when is been ensured to him the marriage with the princess. In this fairytale the sons are completely dependent on their mother who has the main character in that. She is described as a very poor woman who had three sons, a description that appears in many points of the story. The important to notice is that never this family is been demonstrated as a poor family, but there is only a really poor mother and her sons. The sons are not considered as independed members of this family and they are not responsible for their poverty, even though they are old enough to have a job. They stay sideliners even when their mother is dead. Their only way to survive is to wait for their neighbors to ask them to borrow some of the items their mother left and give them something in return. When Constantinos brothers get a sweet like a gift from their neighbors they eat it by themselves and they dont keep anything for him but only advice him to ask the cat for help. That is what happens and the cat begins to provide everything to the young man, even his marriag e with the princess. When he becomes a prince he has to face many responsibilities but even in that time he denies to do it and continues to count on womens of the palace help (Zipes, 2000). Another common characteristic for the women in fairy tales is their passivity. Most of them when they find themselves in trouble, are waiting for a male to rescue them and dont take the situation in their own hands. In the story of The Footless Champion and the Handless Champion the sister of the family has to endure every day the minatory visits of a dragon, without doing anything to protect herself like to escape, but only waiting for her brothers to come back from a hunter travel, to save her (Afanasev, 1973). Another message that fairy tales give to women is that disobedience to men and possible will for power will be strict punished. The womans role is to serve the husband and do the housekeeping. In the Mayoress fairy tale, the woman explains to her husband her intention to become mayoress and he decides to punish her with some elder men. Because of her inability as a mayoress she spends the public money and then its impossible to collect the taxes in time. Even though she makes efforts to control the situation, the Cossack decides to punish her by beating her. The meaning of this story is that this woman should never desire a position of power and disobey her husband. Generally this story teaches women to stay allegiant to the authority of their husband and also men that women are incapable for positions that have to do with the public affairs and power. Beauty is another value that is overestimated in fairy tales. Usually we meet in their pages, young and beautiful girls to be chosen by men with power, but ugly and much older, like what happened in Beauty and the Beast and the ugly girls to be rejected not only from men but also from society. It is also common that the beauty is correlated with traits, like honesty, purity, virginity, delicacy and modesty. Beauty is also a virtue that has to be well protected from the world outside and be well guarded like a treasure. In the story of Dawn, Evening and Midnight the king watches his daughters during all day not allowing to anyone else to see their beauty. He doesnt even leave the sun or the wind to touch them. It is obvious that he adores his daughters only because they are extremely beautiful. It is not only the beauty that determine a wedding but also the ability of woman for reproduction. More specifically, it is the ability of the woman to make male children. It is considered as an ability of the woman to control the sex of her child, something that does not correspond to the contemporary knowledge and when she fails to make a boy, she is usually considered as cursed or worthless and she is driven away from her husband. This is obvious in the Singing Tree and the Talking Bird, when the king chooses his future wife only after she promises him to make three children, two males and one female. No other traits are more decisive than this, like the worth of a woman is considered first of all, with her ability of reproduction (Afanasev, 1973). It seems that even nowadays fairytales attribute to women the stereotyping traits of their gender, like passivity and silence, and to men those of power and courage, as it was shown through the fairytales of Snow White, The Little Mermaid, Ariel and The Footless Champion and the Handless Champion. Although there are traditional fairytales like Constantino Fortunato, that shows the woman in a position of power, this one of the head of the family and modern, that describe their heroine with some male characteristics, like Ariel of the Little Mermaid, who is independed and curious, before falls in love with a man, it seems that social sciences have to make a lot of efforts to modify the gender stereotypes in children literature (Zipes, 2000, Afanas ev, 1973).

Native Son Essay: The Quest for Identity -- Native Son Essays

Native Son: The Quest for Identity  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   The violence depicted in Native Son, although quite grotesque, is absolutely necessary to deliver the full meaning that Richard Wright wishes to convey.   Bigger's many acts of violence are, in effect, a quest for a soul. He desires an identity that is his alone. Both the white and the black communities have robbed him of dignity, identity, and individuality. The human side of the city is closed to him, and for the most part Bigger relates more to the faceless mass of the buildings and the mute body of the city than to another human being. He constantly sums up his feelings of frustration as wanting to "blot out" those around him, as they have effectively blocked him out of their lives by assuming that he will fail in any endeavor before he tries. He has feelings, too, of fear, as Wright remarks "He was following a strange path in a strange land" (p.127). His mother's philosophy of suffering to wait for a later reward is equally stagnating -- to Bigger it appears that she is weak a nd will not fight to live. Her religion is a blindness; but she needs to be blind in order to survive, to fit into a society that would drive a "seeing" person mad. All of the characters that Bigger says are blind are living in darkness because the light is too painful. Bigger wants to break through that blindness, to discover something of worth in himself, thinking that "all one had to do was be bold, do something nobody ever thought of. The whole things came to him in the form of a powerful and simple feeling; there was in everyone a great hunger to believe that made them blind, and if he could see while others were blind, then he could get what he wanted and never be caught at it" (p.120). Just as ... ...ne who will remember. His thought "Max did not even know!" (p.494) shows some of the passion behind his quest for self. If extreme emotions are polar opposites of each other, and one is born simply with the capacity for emotion itself, then Bigger could have been great. But the image of the death of the product, the child, of the city appeals to those who caused his birth, and there is no redemption for Bigger. Society hates most what it itself creates, and Bigger as the very reflection of that society must die. He is not a good person, he is not noble or true or brilliantly creative. But he has the capacity for all of those things, and has not been given the chance to fulfill them. His crime of violence is as much the crime of the people around him, who stifled his soul and nourished the other, baser side of him that was the only way he had of self-expression.