Symbolism in The Glass Menagerie :: Glass Menagerie essays

Symbolism in The Glass Menagerie      Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   The Glass Menagerie uses an extensive pattern of symbolism that describes the characters of Tom,Amanda,Laura and Jim. Glass,light,color and music constitute the substance of the dominant symbols and motifs,serving to reveal deeper aspects of characters and underlying themes of the play.Tennessee Williams wrote the play so that each character had a special symbol which resembled their personality.But he didn't only give the characters of the play a a resembling symbol;he also mentions the apartment blocks to be hivelike conglomerations of cellular living-units resembling a beenstock.The way he describes their location also has a lot of symbolism in its roots because he describes them to be flowering   as warty growths in overcrowded urban centers.      Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Tennessee Williams used many symbolic aspects to describe Laura and the world she lives in.In the play,Laura represents the very fragile,shy and emotionally crippled girl.In her mind she lives in a world of glass animals and doesn't have a connection to the real world.The managerie of glass also represents the fragile relationships among all the characters.The glass unicorn is most obviously a symbol of Laura-- delicate,sadly different,an anomaly in the modern world.The glass motif recurs throughout the whole play in many other forms.When Laura dropped out of college she constantly visited the zoo,a glass house of tropical flowers that are as vulnerable as she is.During Laura's and Jim's brief romantic encounter,Laura is gaining more confidence about herself.It seems as if she is starting to escape her world of illusions.When they started dancing together,Jim accidently knocked the little glass horse over. Laura,who usually worships her glass collection more than anything else,replied to his excuse;"He's lost his horn.It doesn't matter.Maybe it's a blessing in disguise." and   "I'll just imagine he had an operation.The horn was removed to make him feel less--freakish!Now he will feel more at home with the other horses,the ones who don't have horns....".These two quotes give an impression that Laura is finally escaping her illusive world.She thinks that she might have a chance to survive the real world.What she doesn't know is that she is about to be wounded by the news of Jim's engagement.After Jim tells her the news,she gives him the unicorn as a souvenir and retreats into her land of the glass menagerie never to come out again.      Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚     Ã‚   In the play,Tom is the adventure seeking man trying to escape the prison Amanda is keeping him trapped in.To escape the real world,Tom constantly goes to the movies.The movies make him think about all the adventures he missing.It his little land of dreams.He is jealous of his father who left his family and achieved what Tom always wanted,

Organization Structure: What is functional departmentalization? Essay

Introduction What is organizing? Organizing means arranging the activities in such a way that they systematically contribute to enterprise goals. An organization consists of people whose specialized tasks are coordinated to contribute to the organization’s goals. The usual way of depicting an organization is with an organization chart. It shows the structure of the organization; specifically, the title of each manager’s position and, by means of connecting lines, who is accountable to whom and who is in charge of what area. The organization chart also shows the chain of command (sometimes called the scalar chain or the line of authority) between the top of the organization and the lowest positions in the chart. The chain of command represents the path a directive should take in traveling from the president to employees at the bottom of the organization chart or from employees at the bottom to the top of the organization chart (Dessler, p. 120). At Phoenix Logistics, our organization chart is a creation of functional departmentalization. Functional departmentalization means grouping activities around basic functions like manufacturing, sales, and finance (Dessler, p. 122). At our company, each department is organized around a different business functions: sales/marketing, product development, and technical support. In addition, we have a group of supervisors within each department. These supervisors’ functions include planning, control, and administration. At each of the Department Heads, we also have a staff that works in each department, with an Office Supervisor. The basic idea of Phoenix Logistics’ functional departmentalization is to group activities around the core functions our company must carry out. Hence, our core functions are to create, integrate and deliver business-critical transaction management systems and services that enable the energy industry to enhance reliability and profitability in the competitive market place. Advantages & Disadvantages Advantages Organizing departments around functions has several advantages: 1. It is simple, straightforward, and logical; it makes sense to build departments around the basic functions in which the enterprise must engage. 2. Functional organizations usually have single departments for areas like sales, production, and finance that serve all the company’s products, rather than duplicate facilities for each product. Because the volume in these departments is relatively high, the firm typically gets increased returns to scale–in other words, employees become more proficient from doing the same job over and over again, and the company can afford larger plants and more efficient equipment. Functional organizations are therefore often associated with efficiency. 3. The managers’ duties in each of the functional departments tend to be more specialized (a manager may specialize in finance or production, for instance); the enterprise therefore needs fewer general managers–those with the breadth of experience to administer several functions at once. This can simplify both recruiting and training. 4. Functional department managers also tend to receive information on only part of the big picture of the company–on that which concerns their own specialized functions. This can make it easier for top management to exercise control over the department managers’ activities. Disadvantages Functional organizations also have disadvantages: 1. Responsibility for the enterprise’s overall performance rests on the shoulders of one person, usually the president. He or she may be the only one in a position to coordinate the work of the functional departments, each of which is only one element in producing and supplying the company’s  product or service. This may not be a serious problem when the firm is small or does not work with a lot of products. But as size and diversity of products increase, the job of coordinating, say, production, sales, and finance for many different products may prove too great for one person; the enterprise could lose its responsiveness. 2. Also, the tendency for functional departments to result in specialized managers (finance experts, production experts, and so forth) makes it more difficult to develop managers with the breadth of experience required for general management jobs like president. Implications Qualities of Leadership – Leading your company in a tough economy are a difficult, but not impossible task. Your can help your company weather changing times and come out a winner. As far as a tough economy is concerned the United States has experienced one as recently as September 11, 2001, and although conditions has improved since then, you can bet that tough times will periodically occur in the future. Yet, during all such periods of stagnant growth and lackluster corporate performances, many companies have not only survived, but also prospered. How have they  done it? Change, of course has always been present, but certain economic trends used to be predictable within reasonable limits. Employments would grow at such a pace, interest rates would do this or that, and Gross Domestic Products would reach such and such a level. But today all bets are off. We can scarcely predict with confidence what will happen next week, let alone next year. As H.G Wells said it in a different context, â€Å"the pattern pf things to come fade away.† Becoming an Optimist, optimist managers are better at problem solving during difficult times than pessimistic managers. Optimistic managers are more likely to handle reversals by drawing on past experience, finding good  things about the turn of events and fighting for what they want. Pessimists often accept their fate or bad luck or seek sympathy in understanding. Optimistic managers are therefore more that likely to overcome difficulties and turn problems into opportunities for advancement. To improve the company’s performance, employees need commitment, competence, and communications, the three C’s of success. Commitment is determined spirit of an Olympic swimmer who practices alone for hundreds of pre-dawn hours. Competence is the inner confidence of a well trained pilot who uses all his knowledge, training, equipment, and intuition to make quick decisions. Communications is the critical personal contact and consensus between the CEO and employee that make performance at work flow smoothly. Resources Allocation We generate revenue from three sources: software licenses, software maintenance and implementation revenues. The proportion of what each makes up of our total revenue varies based on the market and our customer base. When a customer decides to purchase our solution they are charged a licensing fee. This fee could vary depending on how many users they estimate using our system, if they need more users we would then charge the customer for more licenses. In order to receive upgrades and enable the customer to use our support desk when there is an issue, we charge a support fee. This fee could be a yearly, quarterly or monthly allocation depending on how the customer would like to be charged. Any software whether it is out of the box or custom produced, there is an implementation process that would need to be done in order to ensure that the software is working properly. This could consist of on-site training, training materials and the use of our support desk. The revenues for our company are generated by these services. These services need to be the best in class in order for our company to make a profit. When  we say best in class that means that they are better than any of our competitors and will give our customers a competitive advantage. Conclusion Phoenix Logistics’ has the expertise and the means for producing the best software in the energy industry. We work with our customers in order to plan, build and implement our software into their business with the least amount of interruption to their employees and their productivity. The return on their investment is in the ease of processing their transactions, turnaround time of those transactions and a time savings in the administrative processing. Our customers will be able to focus their attention on the selling, trading and the delivery of energy to their customers, this is their business and where their profits are generated. Phoenix Logistics is in the business of helping our customers make a profit and to make their customers happy. Works Cited Dessler, Gary. Management, Leading People and Organizations in the 21st Century (2nd ed.), 2001. New Jersey: Prentice Hall, Inc.

What do CE1and Collège refer to in French

From kindergarten to higher studies, the names for grades and school levels (elementary, junior high, high school) vary substantially from French to English. The words used to describe the elements of the educational experience can also vary widely for those of us who have studied in US or UK schools. For instance, the word for school in general is à ©cole, but it also means  elementary school, and the term for an elementary school pupil is à ©colier.  In later grades and college, a student is un à ©tudiant.   Here are French school names, according to level and year, with the corresponding term in the US and UK. For clarity, weve provided the age as a reference. LEcole Maternelle (Preschool/Nursery School) Age Grade Abbreviation US UK 3 - 4 Petite section PS Nursery Nursery 4 - 5 Moyenne section MS Pre-K Reception 5 - 6 Grande section GS Kindergarten Year 1 Note that in France, this part of school is not compulsory, although many schools  offer these options and most children do attend preschool, or at least part of it. These three years are government supported and, thus,  free (or very cheap). There is also before- and after-school care. LEcole Primaire (Elementary School/Primary School) Age Grade Abbreviation US UK 6 - 7 Cours prparatoire CP 11 me 1st Grade Year 2 7 - 8 Cours lmentaire premire anne CE1 / 10me 2nd Grade Year 3 8 - 9 Cours lmentaire deuxime anne CE2 / 9me 3rd Grade Year 4 9 - 10 Cours moyen premire anne CM1 / 8me 4th Grade Year 5 10 - 11 Cours moyen deuxime anne CM2 / 7me 5th Grade Year 6 In France, school is compulsory starting with the first grade of elementary school, or le cours prà ©paratoire, onzià ¨me (11th). Note that this is the first major difference between French and English-language school names: The French count school years in  descending order (11,10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, and a final year called terminale). The US and UK count years in ascending order (2, 3, 4, and so on). After là ©cole primaire, French students start what are called, secondary studies, or les à ©tudes secondaires. Le Collà ¨ge (Junior High School) Age Grade Abbreviation US UK 11 - 12 Sixime 6e or 6me 6th Grade Year 7 12 - 13 Cinquime 5e or 5me 7th Grade Year 8 13 - 14 Quatrime 4e or 4me 8th Grade Year 9 14 - 15 Troisime 3e or 3me 9th Grade Year 10 Watch out for the false cognate college. In French,  le collà ¨ge is junior high school, not college. What we call college or university in English is luniversità ©Ã‚  or la facultà ©Ã‚  in French. Some formal education is compulsory until the end of junior high, although several solutions are possible if a student wants to enter an apprenticeship. The rules concerning this process change frequently, so it is best to seek out an expert at school for more information.   Le collà ¨ge  ends with an exam called le brevet des collà ¨ges (BEPC). Le Lycà ©e (High School) Age Grade Abbreviation US UK 15 - 16 Seconde 2de 10th Grade Year 11 16 - 17 Premire 1re 11th Grade Year 12 17 - 18 Terminale Term or Tle 12th Grade Year 13 At the  end of  le lycà ©e,  theres  a test called le baccalaurà ©at  (or  le bac, with the final c pronounced as a k). The three main strands of the bac are:  le bac L  (littà ©raire), le bac ES  (à ©conomique et social)  and le bac S (scientifique).  There is also  le bac professionnel,  which comprises nearly 40  specialist or vocational areas. Passing the bac allows French students to continue their education with higher studies (des à ©tudes supà ©rieures)  at a university (luniversità ©) or faculty (la facultà ©). The prestigious Grandes Ecoles are the equivalent of the Ivy League.  When you specialize, you will say you are, for example, a law student (à ©tudiant en droit)  or a student in medicine (à ©tudiant en  mà ©decine). An undergraduate student is un à ©tudiant  avant la licence.  A postgraduate student is  un  Ãƒ ©tudiant  aprà ¨s la licence.