English Literature Essays Shakespeares Much Ado About Nothing

English Literature Essays Shakespeares Much Ado About Nothing Explore the different types of love presented in Shakespeares Much Ado About Nothing, considering how our views of love differ from those of an Elizabethan audience. Refer to at least two extracts in your answer. Love is a common theme in Shakespeares comedies, with the action of the play often following a similar pattern: love is declared, is challenged in some way and is finally reasserted in the act of marriage. Much Ado About Nothing is no exception and presents this plot structure through the pairings of Claudio and Hero, and Benedick and Beatrice. These couples illustrate two different types of love, and their portrayed experiences are revealing of Elizabethan attitudes and beliefs regarding love. Claudio and Hero provide us with an example of a swiftly progressing love which culminates in marriage little more than a few weeks after they have first met. For an Elizabethan audience the concept of love at first sight would have been widely regarded as a valid possibility in life. The speed with which the two young characters move from strangers to husband and wife allows Shakespeare to present the courting process within the society of nobility. Such a rapid progression is commented on by Claudio as he explains his newfound love I would have salvd it with a longer treatise (I.i.289). However, it seems that once the first pangs of love occur, the action moves onto the next stage in the process. There are many rules and regulations when it comes to expressing love for another. This can be seen in Claudios consequent actions; rather than approach Hero himself, it is preferable for his friend to woo her on his behalf, in the words of Don Pedro, I will break with her and with her fa ther (I.i.283). In todays society the procedure of asking permission from the father of a prospective wife is often seen as old-fashioned and is nowhere near as common a practice as in Shakespeares day. Through speech an Elizabethan nobleman would be expected to demonstrate intelligence and wit with the impression of spontaneity. In the same way, when attracting a woman he would be expected to impress with lavish and clever language. Much importance is placed on the language of love expected from a suitor within the play. Shakespeares narration reflects the qualities of such language by switching from prose to iambic pentameter, a rhythmical form more fitting for descriptions of love. Don Pedro reminds Claudio of the power of a lovers words as they discuss his intentions towards Hero, Thou wilt be like a lover presently, / And tire the hearer with a book of words (I.i.280-1). As a young, inexperienced man, Claudio clearly needs the help of his friend and is naturally grateful to have gained an ally in his endeavours. Don Pedros role in the relationship of Claudio and Hero brings attention to the importance placed on the intervention of a third person. Again, this is a practice not p articularly common in modern society, at least not with any successful results. Benedick and Beatrices relationship differs from that of Claudio and Hero in the history the two have between them. There is a reference to a previous courtship in which Beatrice feels she was treated badly. This history between them results in the portrayal of a more mature relationship and a love that is formed through similarities in characters and mutual beliefs. Before the two characters fall in love they share the attitude of adversity towards the idea of marriage and falling in love, Beatrice claims that she would rather hear my dog bark at a crow than a man swear he loves me'(I.i.107-108). As a result they are constantly rebuked and made fun of for holding such a low opinion of marriage. The reaction of other characters towards the two cynics suggests that marriage is the ultimate symbol of love and should be the goal to which all aspire to, a belief that is reinforced when Benedick and Beatrice are eventually proved wrong and succumb to the powers of love themselves. In Shak espeares time marriage would have been the only way for women to better themselves financially and socially. Men would also have gained status by marrying and thus providing heirs to any property and wealth. With this in mind, there seems less emphasis on the love aspect of marriage than the idealistic impressions of marriage in the play would have us believe. To return to the relation of Shakespeares portrayal of love to a modern society, marriage as a representation of love no longer has such significance, with equal respect given to single and married individuals. The power of Cupid is frequently referred to in relation to both couples. This power is often transferred to a third party that intervenes to aid the progression of love. Don Pedro is at the forefront of this matchmaking when he decides to bring together Benedick and Beatrice, If we can do this, Cupid is no longer an archer; his glory shall be ours, for we are the only love-gods (II.i.355-357). By tricking each character with lies about the other, they are manipulated into falling in love. Far from the natural concept of falling in love uncontrollably, Don Pedro and Hero command the feelings of Benedick and Beatrice through created scenarios. It is the power of calculated words that actually take effect, as noted by Hero as she discusses the plot with Ursula, Of this matter / Is Cupids crafty arrow made, / That only wounds by hearsay (III.i.21-23). This level of secrecy seems characteristic of court society at the time, a level of intervention which ultimately helps or hinders. The reactions and descriptions of people in love within the play suggest a darker side of love, often characterised by physical symptoms. For example, Hero collapses at the very thought of being accused of infidelity. Also, Don Pedro and Hero both refer to the supposed noticeable difference in appearance of their lovesick friends. On proposing not to tell Beatrice of Benedicks love for her, she concludes that he will consume away in sighs, waste inwardly (III.i.78). Strangely, Benedick and Beatrice seem drawn to the idea of the other suffering from the pain of an unrequited love. The image of Benedick wasting away clearly has a powerful impression on Beatrice who almost immediately falls in love with him. Having overheard talk of Benedicks anguish (as well as his excellent qualities as a gentleman and soldier) she begins to think of marriage, To bind our loves up in a holy band (III.i.114). She also mentions the taming of her wild heart (III.i.112) as a result of Benedicks love, a ph rase that brings to mind the later play of The Taming of the Shrew. In both plays, it seems that the love of a man is able to tame an outspoken shrewish character, a belief that many in an Elizabethan audience would have shared. Much Ado About Nothing presents us with two pairings of lover that demonstrate two different experiences of love, both governed by societal codes of conduct that no longer have significance in modern society. In contrast, Claudio and Hero show a speedy, formal process of courting, while Benedick and Beatrice represent a more drawn out, resisting relationship. While both couplings suffer the consequences of intervention of others, the latter marry purely as a result of meddling friends. It seems that love in the play is concerned more with superficial appearances and falsely created scenarios than actual feelings. Views of love in the play clearly differ from modern day opinion, but this is not to say that we cannot relate to the play because we are not part of an Elizabethan audience; our codes of conduct in dating and matchmaking have merely evolved to suit todays society. Bibliography The Norton Shakespeare, Stephen Greenblatt (Oxford University Press, 1997) Extracts I.i.271-302 III.i.72-116

Joseph Stalin :: essays research papers

Joseph Stalin became leader of the USSR after Lenin’s death in 1924. Lenin had a government of abstemious communist government. When Stalin came into government he moved to a radical communist society. He moved away from the somewhat capitalist/communist economy of Lenin time to â€Å"modernize† the USSR. He wanted to industrialize and modernize USSR. He had overworked his workers, his people were dying, and most of them in slave labor camps. In fact by doing this Stalin had hindered the USSR and put them even farther back in time.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  As a dictator Stalin was very strict about his policies, especially working. For instance. Stalin had set quotas very high , as they were very unrealistic. The workers had very long days, and under the rule of Stalin most people worked many hours in overtime, and resulting in no pay. Stalin treated workers very, very harshly. Those who did not work were exiled to Siberia or killed. Some may say you got what you deserved in Stalin’s time. Those who worked very hard for Stalin sometimes got bonuses such as trips, or goods likes televisions and refrigerators. The workers had to conform to Stalin’s policies . Stalin’s harsh treatment of workers received a very unwelcoming response, but in fact the liberal amount of goods that the workers had made, had in fact boosted the USSR’s economy. Therefore Stalin had created a country which seemed corrupt at the time, but later on it improved by the hard work Stalin had forced upon them.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  When Stalin became leader of the USSR the quality of life and standard of living dropped considerably. For instance the people had no personal freedom. Meaning that they had to worship Stalin as all other religions had been abolished and most churches had been demolished. The people who went into those churches that were left standing were arrested or punished otherwise. Soon there were food shortages. Somewhere between 1932 and 1933 over 6 million people died of starvation. This was the greatest man made famine in history. The famine came as a result of Stalin’s unrealistic goals . Also, people had poor family lives. Abortions came a dime a dozen as did divorces. Wedding rings were banned. There was insufficient housing, as some people had to live in tents. This may be because of workers not working hard enough. Maybe if the workers worked harder they could have received better housing.

Herd Behavior in Financial Market Essay

Definition of herding On Friday 14 September 2007, when Northern Rock in the UK opened it branches, many customers wanted to withdraw their savings and à ¯Ã‚ ¿Ã‚ ½1 billion, about 5% of the total bank deposits were withdrawn that day. And on Monday 17 September, a similar situation happened in front of Northern Rock branches in the UK. Even though every customer does not have the same amount of information, they all decided to behave in the same way and some were following the others on the following days without any clear plan. People thought that they were going to lose their bank deposits and that type of bank customers’ behavior caused liquidity problem and made the situation even worse. However, none of the clients who kept their deposits lost due to the fact the British Government and the Bank of England would guarantee the safety of the deposits. How can we explain that kind of behavior? Originally Herding is a term meaning animal flocking behavior. And according to the definition of Wikipedia Herding is the act of bringing individual animals together into a group (herd), maintaining the group and moving the group from place to place-or any combination of those. Apart from this bank run case, Herd behavior describes how individuals in a group can act together without planned direction. POSSIBLE EXPLICATION AND MECHANISM OF HERD BEHAVIOR Animals’ Herd Behavior According to evolutionary biologist W. D. Hamilton’s theory animals are forming a group to reduce the danger of being hunted by predictors. As a unit, they are moving together to the same direction. Animals are behaving in the same way to minimize the risk on the behalf of self-protection. Maybe this kind of behavior sounds rational if the result is always optimistic but copying your neighbor can be the worst decision sometimes. When something goes wrong and someone leads the group to the wrong direction, the whole group is going to be in danger. Human Herd Behavior However, human herd behavior is much more complicated than animals’ one and several scholars tried to explain it. Friedrich Nietzsche referred it as â€Å"herd morality† and the â€Å"herd instinct† which explain the phenomena when a lot of people are behaving in the same way at the same time. And according to Thorstein Veblen’s theory, some people imitate the other people with higher status. Human beings are continuously competing with others in order to survive or surpass others, and they try to move faster in order to take advantage of the others. As the proverbs says the early bird catches the worm, they think the faster they make the decision or do whatever they can, the better it is. However, this does not always lead to success. Those decisions are based on the sources they have and the sources are Sanctions upon deviants – dictators put their rivals in the prison (opposition is not allowed) Preference interactions – some people are wearing Burberry coats just because the majority is wearing it while others prefer to wear coats with the colors they like Direct communication – someone from your reference group or someone with credibility says that s/he likes certain products Observational influence – you observe the consequences of others’ actions Based on such sources, people make decision whether to herd or disperse, but people are herding for different reasons and their behavior is classified into several models. Herding Models Payoff Externalities Models (also called Network Externalities) – If more people are using facebook, it will attract more people to use facebook. In this case, people feel like they have to participate in the same situation so that they can have the same benefits. Information Cascade Models – When you have a flood of information coming in, it is much more difficult to make a rational decision. Nowadays there are too many sources to consider and you can barely judge if information is true or false. In this kind of situation, people are getting irrational and they tend to make decision based on the decision of the majorities, and this situation is called information cascade which occurs when people observe the actions of others and then make the same choice that the others have made, independently of their own private information signals. They are seen in groups under immediate stress from external forces, such as herd behaviour. A cascade arises naturally when people usually see what others do but not what they know. Because it is usually sensible to do what other people are doing, even this can be against what the individual believes to be true. This behavior is independent from their own private information or opinion. Concept of information cascade is based on observational and social learning. People learn from their environment. Generally, people are oriented to avoid negative consequences of their decisions or behaviors. They wish to have positive results or effects. That’s why their behavior is related to social and observational learning. People subconsciously have the idea of ‘It is more likely that I am wrong than that all those other people are wrong. Therefore, I will do as they do’. Examples of Herding Behavior Bank runs: depositors running on banks when they observe other depositors doing so. More specifically, First; investors can observe in long run when others are running on banks. Second, forcing long-term projects to liquidate early possibly leads to shortfall of funds. From the payoff externalities model’s view, people are withdrawing their deposits because they feel like they are losing their money if they keep their money on the bank account. And from informational cascade model’s view, some people may think they are not going to lose their money on their bank account but they are following the others because they think they are not wise enough and others are withdrawing their money. In real case, Argentina experienced such a run in the last two days of November 2001, with total deposits in the banking system falling by more than 2 billion (US) dollars, or nearly 3 percent, on the second day of the run alone.1 Such runs were a common occurrence in the United States in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and have also occurred in recent times in several developing countries, including Brazil in 1990 and Ecuador in 1999. Asian crisis of 97-98, herding and speculation infection The Asian crisis of 1997-98 that led to a regional economic fall in East Asia can be traced to overexpansion and under-regulation. The center of the Asian crisis was Thailand’s careless macroeconomic management that featured a fraudulent financial sector. The Asian expansion of the crisis was a due to the existing global financial integration (and similar export dependencies), current account inequities and attached exchange rates all mixed with the damaging effect of speculation and herding spreading all over the region. Resulting structural reforms and adjustments in Thailand and other damaged Asian nations came from the International Monetary Fund. A major result was a balanced exchange rate regime now prevalent in much of East Asia. Facts: During 1995 a number of experts started to wonder if the countries of Southeast Asia might be vulnerable to a macroeconomic crisis do to the poor administration of its financial procedures and to the volatility of their related economies. The main indicator was the rise of very large current account deficits among several Asian countries. Closer examination also revealed that several of the countries had developed some financial weaknesses: heavy investment in highly speculative real estate ventures, financed by borrowing from badly informed foreign sources or by credit from non regulated domestic financial institutions. It’s now known that during 1996 officials from the IMF and World Bank actually began warning the governments of Thailand, Malaysia, and other countries of the existing risks by their financial situation, and asked them to apply corrective policies. However, those governments rejected the warnings. On July 2 1997, after months of declaring that it would not happen, the government of Thailand abandoned its efforts to maintain a fixed exchange rate for its currency, the baht. The currency was quickly depreciated by more than 20 percent so within a few days most neighboring countries fell like Thailand. What forced Thailand to devalue its currency was the massive speculation against the baht, assumptions that over a few months had consumed most of what initially seemed as a large war of foreign exchange. And why were speculators betting against Thailand? Because they expected the baht to be devalued, of course. This kind of circular logic – in which investors escape a currency because they expect it to be devalued, and much of the pressure on the currency comes precisely because of this investor shortage of confidence – is the defining actor of a currency crisis and is known as Bank Run theory. In the context of a currency crisis, such behavior could mean that a wave of selling, whatever its initial cause, could be magnified through complete imitation and turn, into a rush out of the currency. Bank run in Thai currency devaluation can be viewed in two main behaviors. First; investors run when other investors are running the bank; a magnified opinion of a certain group starts to be spread in some others by just herding or imitation. Second, when banks that were investing in long-term projects were forced to liquidate early (because of the invertors running away), there was a potential lost of funds. Consequently, the last depositors to withdraw were left empty-handed (first-come, first-served limitation). BUBBLES Bubbles are sort of mass errors caused by the nature of herd. Even though there is a convincing evidence of bubbles, people are still overly convinced by their belief that market is efficient and rational. Therefore people are optimistic of their investment and they take part in the bubble. Some people may doubt the situation and find some evidence of bubbles but they still invest their capital in the market because others are doing it which is a sort of informational cascade. However, the bubble collapses and that sort of herding behavior makes the impact of the collapse much significant. The Dot-com Bubble The dot-com bubble (also referred to as the Internet bubble) was a speculative which had its climax on March 10, 2000, with the NASDAQ hitting up to 5132.52 but closing at 5048.62 in the same day. During the dot-com bubble period mostly the developed countries experienced the growth in the Internet sector and related fields. Companies such as Cisco Systems, Dell, Intel, and Microsoft were the dominant player of NASDAQ. And related to the Internet business a group of new Internet-based companies commonly referred to as dot-coms were founded. Just because of the fact that Companies had a name with an â€Å"e-† prefix to their name and a â€Å".com† the stock price was going up. Investors were overly confident of their future profits due to the advancement of technology and individual speculation while they overlooked traditional stock market value until the bubble was collapsed. Conclusion As we can see massive herding behavior turned out to be a cause of crisis at the end, and herd behavior is seen as something very negative to the market. As we have seen bank runs, bubbles, and several forms of crises. However, we cannot prevent from herding because it is a sort of instinct and it is closely related to psychological factors. Partially, individuals can make profit of their herding behavior as they are following famous investors such as Warren Buffet but the fact is that no investor can really avoid bubbles and forecast the coming crises. What we have to remember is the financial market is a complex of rational and irrational behavior and we can barely categorize them before the disaster happens. We have to be prepared of the consequence the herd behavior and be rational when the irrationality happens. Works Cited BIKHCHANDANI, S., 1998, Learning from the behavior of others: conformity, fads, and informational cascades BIKHCHANDANI, S., D. HIRSHLEIFER and I. WELCH, 2001. Informational Cascades and Rational Herding: An Annotated Devenow, Andrea and Ivo Welch, 1996, Rational Herding in Financial Economics, European Economic Review 40, 603-615 Ennis, Huberto M. and Todd Keister, 2009, Bank Runs and Institutions: The Perils of Intervention. Hirshleifer, David and Teoh, Siew Hong, 2011, Herd Behavior and Cascading in Capital Markets: A Review and Synthesis, MPRA Paper No. 5186

Developing Process Of A Business Plan And Entrepreneurial...

Introduction Entrepreneurs establish Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs), which are playing an increasingly significant role in the global economy. According to the recent statistics of UK, of all private sector businesses, SMEs accounted for 99.3% at the start of 2015; 60% employment at 15.6 million; and 47% annual turnover at  £1.8 trillion (FSB.org, 2015). Thus, it is of vital importance to understand how to formulate and operate an SME. This reflective essay, therefore, mainly focuses on two topics of SMEs: the developing process of a business plan and entrepreneurial finance, which is a key aspect for SMEs to operate successfully. Personal experiences and group behavior are blended into theoretical approaches to critically evaluate various financial aspects. Christopher Johns’ Model of Reflection is adopted in financial part of this essay where individual reflection is portrayed. Figure 1 provides an overview of this model as five cue elements: description; reflection; influencing factors; evaluation; and learning. Figure 1: Johns’ Model of Reflection Source: Johns C, 1994 1. The Developing Process of Business Plan This part demonstrates a theoretical overview of a typical business plan and background information of my business plan, providing a solid foundation for financial arguments discussed in the second part of this essay. 1.1 Theoretical Overview A business plan is defined as a document that describes the proposed venture in terms of the product orShow MoreRelatedThe Entrepreneurial Process1267 Words   |  6 Pages The Entrepreneurial Process Many successful entrepreneurs tend to follow a process to develop their businesses. This process contains four stages toward achieving their dreams. 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