Thursday, January 30, 2020

Feminism Vs Queer theory Essay Example for Free

Feminism Vs Queer theory Essay The book by Catherine Churchill titled ‘Cloud Nine’ provides insight into the two very different types of societies in the two acts of the book and depicts the change in the characters in terms of their femininity and sexual orientation. The diverse factors impacting the lives of the characteristics like power, wealth and politics as well as their ion satisfactions levels in different relationships have been discussed through the use of comedy and the art of storytelling. The book highlights the concepts of feminism and queer theory through its content and the way the lives of the characters play out in the two different acts of the book. Feminism is basically defined as the change or orientation towards women empowerment. It is made up of the social, cultural as well as the political reforms, movements and diverse theories which contribute towards equality between makes and females and highlights the equal rights movement for the women. The basis of feminism is the exhalation of the position of women in the society. Queer Theory on the other hand is a branch of gender studies which pertains to the gay and lesbian studies. This field is specific to diverse sexual orientation in women and takes its foundation form the feminism movement and theory itself. The inclination towards feminism in the book and the play of Cloud Nine is very explicit as depicts how the women are oppressed in the Victorian era so much so that they are forced to disguise themselves as men to hide their feminine identity when giving in to their strong nature and ambitions. The play clearly and explicitly describes the differences in the roles of the women and the men in the Victorian era, and in the modern era, therefore depicting how they have changed to an extent, but not as much as they should have. in the first act the play violently depicts the male oriented society by initiating with a welcome for the male gender, and present the allude of power, in context of economics as held by men in the society. Aside from this the play also depicts the position of the women in history as the subservient gender. This established the concept that the role and cultural construction of the females in the society is a product more of history and tradition than of their own capabilities, thus reinforcing the concept of feminism. The queer theory is expanded upon by the author in the play though the confused sexual orientation of the characters and the cross dressing and role reversal amongst the cast in the play. â€Å"Churchill clearly intended to raise questions of gender, sexual orientation, and race as ideological issues; she accomplished this largely by cross-dressing and role-doubling the actors, thereby alienating them from the characters they play. † (Worthen, 807). The characters in the play like those of Gerry the homosexual man and the lesbian mother provide the essence of the queer theory. In fact it can even be mentioned that Cloud Nine is an explicitly queer play. The structure of the play is very confusing for the audience as well as the readers due to the role reversals by the characters, and the language used in the play is highly oriented towards the depiction of feminism and queer theory. The play clearly points out the underlying issues in the societies pertaining to women oppression, women’s rights as well as gay pride and sexual orientation of the men and women. Moreover the play is highly political in nature as it tends to shock the audience and the readers through the presentation and the roles played by the characters. On the whole however the play contributes towards the literary identity development of women in the modern society. References Barry, P. , ‘Beginning Theory: An Introduction to Literary and Cultural Theory (Beginnings)’, Manchester University Press, (2002) , ISBN-10: 0719062683 Caslin, S. , ‘Feminism and post-colonialism’, accessed March 15, 2008 from http://www. qub. ac. uk/schools/SchoolofEnglish/imperial/key-concepts/feminism-and-postcolonialism. htm Churchill, C. , ‘Cloud Nine’, Nick Hern Books, (1989), ISBN-10: 1854590901 Marx, K. , ‘The Communist Manifesto: Complete with Seven Rarely’, Filiquarian Publishing, (2005), ISBN 1599869950 Worthen, W. B. , ‘The Wadsworth Anthology of Drama’, Heinle, (2003), ISBN-10: 0838407501

Wednesday, January 22, 2020

Polonius in Shakespeares Hamlet and John Updikes Gertrude and Claudiu

Polonius in Shakespeare's Hamlet and John Updike's Gertrude and Claudius In every royal court throughout history, there has been the man who knows everything about everyone, and generally has the ear of the king; Shakespeare’s court of Denmark is no exception. Polonius, adviser and Lord Chamberlain to King Hamlet and Claudius, seems to know every intrigue, every alliance made in the interwoven royal court. In Shakespeare’s play Hamlet, Polonius is firmly seated at the King’s right hand and he will go to any lengths to facilitate the union of young Hamlet and Ophelia. Similarly, in John Updike’s prequel Gertrude and Claudius, Polonius acts as the liaison between Claudius and Gertrude, even going so far as to permit adultery to take place and knowingly to allow the royal bed of Denmark to be besmirched by incest. Throughout both the novel by Updike and the play by Shakespeare, Polonius’ interests are obviously his own, but at certain times in Gertrude and Claudius, he does indeed serve others. Polonius represents a parado x of ideals: on the surface, the loyal, if somewhat senile, counselor to the King; below this servile exterior, however, lurks the mind of a schemer unable to achieve the throne itself and, therefore, determined to undermine and to manipulate it in order to retain his own power. Although sometimes his machinations do not go as undetected as he may have planned Polonius achieves these goals of power through his interactions with several of the characters in Hamlet and Gertrude and Claudius. Shakespeare does not expound greatly on the personalities of his characters; rather he lets them do it for themselves. Through Polonius’s actions and words towards Gertrude in the play, it seems that he is much mor... ...th King Claudius do eventually bring about his downfall, and he has only himself to blame for this. In his insistence that he be involved with everyone’s affairs and due to his faith that â€Å"human affairs could all be managed, manipulated with cogs and ratchets like millwheels and clocks, by a clever enough puppeteer,† Polonius is caught in his own trap (189). For a while he is able enough to run the puppet show; but as the intrigues in Claudius’ court increase, he continues to get farther out of his depth, out of his realm of experience. He never considers having to deal with Hamlet’s madness, his obsession to either sanctify or to condemn his mother. He never concerns himself with the possibility of an accident or changing loyalties. When the puppeteer becomes the puppet unbeknownst to himself a swift reckoning is exacted, caused only by Polonius’ own manipulations.

Tuesday, January 14, 2020

Psychological Barriers in Communication Essay

1. These barriers are categorized in the way which effects the communication psychologically. In other words the psychological barriers effect the communication in three ways. a. Emotional. b. Perceptual. c. Selectivity. 2.Emotional Barriers. As we know that emotions directly effects the communication. In other words the success and failure of the communication also depends upon the emotions of a communicator. The more the emotions of a communicator are devoted to the communication, the more the more the communication would be effective and helps in achieving the goal for the specific purpose. 3.This rule does not only apply on the communicator, but the audience as well. It depends on the audience’s response to the communication. If the emotions of the audience are attached with the communicator the communication would be successful but it fails in the opposite case. Its psychology of a person that for effective communication two individuals must be emotionally attached but if it is not the case, the communication will be ineffective. 4.Lets take an example of a political gathering, a politician standing and delivering his speech to the audience who support his party, now among those people there must be some people of the other political party, the people of his own party would be at high morale during his speech and become charged by his each word, this is because they are emotionally attached to that leader, but the other hand the people of his opposing party give a deaf ear to his words and take them as a political drama, so the communication to those people becomes ineffective between them while it will be effective between him and his party followers. 5. Now let’s take an example of two brothers Khalid and Tariq. Khalid is the elder brother. Khalid wants to forbid Tariq to meet his friends whom he thinks are a bad company. Now there are two ways of saying so to his brother the one is the polite way and the other is the harsh way. It depends on the emotional attachment of two brothers that which way would be accepted by  Khalid. There would be no emotional barrier among them and the communication will be successful but in the other case if Tariq does not bears the strictness of Khalid he will refuse his orders and will continue with his doings, so in this way there is a barrier in communication between them. 6. Perceptual Barriers. Perception is the process of gathering information through our senses, organizing and making sense of it. Previous experience and learning, attitudes and interests, needs and feelings, and the current situation all affect perception. All people do not â€Å"see† the same thing when looking at a visual image. Perception differs from individual to individual due to a variety of personal, socio-economical, and cultural differences. Age, gender, race, and past experiences are examples of personal perception filters. Young children, teenagers, and adults â€Å"see† things differently. As they grow and develop, children learn to see and comprehend relationships and themes from visuals instead of simply seeing individual objects and shapes. Socio-economic filters include occupation, level of education, environmental factors, and family upbringing. Cultural filters include language, For example, Eskimos have many unique words describing different kinds of snow. Not just adjectives that go in front of a standard word for snow, but totally different words. Customs, belief systems, and historical perspective every characteristic of an individual influences what that individual chooses to see, hear, taste, touch, and smell. How information is interpreted to create meaning for an individual is also influenced by his/her unique make-up and background. The communication becomes ineffective due to these misperceptions. There are further three cases of failure of communication due to wrong perception. It also depends upon the frame of reference of one’s mind which basically controls the perception of an individual. 7.In first case, people perceive thinks differently sometimes they think totally opposite to the thing which is being under discussion or being delivered to them. In another case example people sometimes fill in the information without checking accuracy. Even though there is no square in the image shown on right but our brain just fill in and perceives that there is a square in above image. Hence perceptual barriers are due to the different ideas and concept of people which they acquired from their lives and experiences, so there should not be any wrong perception for achieving the goal of communication. 8.Selectivity.A final  set of psychological barriers exists because of competition for peoples’ time and attention- â€Å"The selectivity block†. We all are bombarded with information sources such as newspapers, magazines, technical journals, reports, memo, letters, meetings, radio, television, videotapes, computer printouts, terminal displays and electronic mail. 9.We simply cannot absorb all this information flowing our way, so, we must screen it selectively. One factor in the way people select is timing. Some messages that may be effective at one time might be blocked or even detrimental at another time. For example a letter of congratulation or condolence sent out immediately after the event is more effective than one sent later. A meeting about accident prevention gets more attention if it follows an accident than if it precedes one. A report turned in late may have a highly negative effect if your supervisor has been anxiously awaiting it or may have little effect if he is busy with other matters. 10. Another selection factor is context. In one research experiment, subjects were shown two identical pictures of a rail road train in a station. One captioned ‘parting’ and the other ‘arriving’ on a scale ranging from ‘sad’ to ‘happy’ the subjects tended towards ‘sad’ for the first and ‘happy’ for the second. The subjects received the same data but – the suggestiveness of the context- the captions influenced the way they perceived the picture. 11.In the business world, you might be more apt to read an article if it appears in a magazine you respect or a report if it is accompanied by a cover memo from your boss. Similarly, you might tend to pay more attention to a presentation if it is held in a boardroom or a well appointed conference room, or listen more attentively to a sales talk in an elegant restaurant or hotel. 12.One more aspect of selectively, we tend to remember the extremes and forget the middle ground. Think about comments you may have gotten from a teacher, a coach or a boss. Most people remember that most positive and the most negative and forget the neutral or middle ground comments. Therefore, your communication may be blocked or ‘selected out’ simply because it does not contain startling positive or negative news. Ref: 1.http://www.educ.kent.edu/community/vlo/perception/index.html Accessed on Saturday, 20 September 2014 at 4:30 PM 2. Google images : https://www.google.com.pk/imghp?hl=en&tab=wi&ei=zm8dVILnO4mCzAPgk4CgAQ&ved=0CAQQqi4oAg Accessed on Saturday, 20 September 2014 at 4:40 PM 3. http://www.scribd.com/doc/45753743/Note-on-Psychological-Barriers-to-Communication Accessed on Saturday, 20 September 2014 at 4:20 PM 4. Mary Munter, Business Communications: Strategy and Skills 7th Edition by Prentice Hall, 1987.

Monday, January 6, 2020

Conflicting Ideologies, Politics, And Opportunistic...

Conflicting ideologies, politics, and opportunistic economic practices led to the nation’s costliest war. The United States Civil War spanned from 1861-1865 and was primarily due to the ancient practice of slavery. The nation was divided on many aspects into bifurcate belief systems, which led to two distinctively different cultural regions the North and South (Ojserkis, Raymond). Historically, slave labor has been tied to the economic and cultural practices of countries throughout the world. This â€Å"peculiar institution† was a widespread institution that existed in Greece, Rome, and in Middle Europe (Engerman, Sutch, and Wright 369). From late 18th century and mid 19th century many countries had emancipated slavery; Puerto Rico, Cuba,†¦show more content†¦The slave markets were highly profitable for the southern population Engerman notes slaves were priced on the basis of their expected profitability. By the 1790’s the â€Å"country was clearly divi ded into two sections, one slave and one primarily free† (Engerman 370). These cultural differences between the Northern and Southern states set the stage for the inevitable American Civil War. This paper examines the events, which predicted the certainty of the U.S. Civil War and the uncertainty of the Union’ s victory. As previously noted, the expanding practice of slavery in the Southern states was a major topic of contention in the country. However, in addition to the immoral practice of slavery Paul Calore denotes the â€Å"inherent inequities led to a fierce sectionalism which manifested itself through cultural, economic, political and territorial disputes†. After the War of 1812 the country was moving toward financial independence and sought to sever their dependence on foreign goods; the war also exposed the â€Å"need for building an infrastructure of roads and canals to transport goods and materials throughout the country† (Calore, Paul 33). President Madison set forth, the construction of the â€Å"internal transportation system† chartered the Second Bank of the United States and the issuance of the Tariff of 1816 (Calore, Paul 35). Paul Calore explains although these compromises were beneficial for the country