Friday, December 27, 2019

Even Though Hitler As In Control Of Killing Men And Women,

Even though Hitler as in control of killing men and women, his leadership helped Germany’s economy. Adolf Hitler, the soldier who was once a decorated war veteran World War I, the leader who was once worshipped by millions of Germans, was responsible for the massacre of million Jews, is now the most hated dictator of the 20th Century. Everyone should know what Hitler has done to Jewish people of that time. Hitler gained power because of society’s discontent of the government and the society after World War I. My purpose of this paper is to tell how Hitler changed lives during the 20th century. To understand Adolf Hitler’s rise to power, one must first understand the society historical background in Germany. In 1918, which was†¦show more content†¦In 1919, Herman Mueller, the Foreign Minister of the Weimar Republic representing Germany, signed the Treaty of Versailles. The Treaty made Germany lose important industrial cities, which not only slowed down the German economy, but also, and most importantly, deprived Germany integrity. Hitler considered the Treaty a scandal and a disgrace and an act of highway robbery against the German people. According to the Versailles Treaty, the war guilt was blamed on Germany. This was devastating news to the German because it’s not of a German social value that they are losers. The German educational system emphasized nationalism and strong connection between one and the country , and in this situation furthered people’s discontent ruined people’s pride of their country, and reasoned with peop le’s feelings. The German social value reinforced people s discontent and anger towards the losing of war because it s just like ancient Rome; the Germans couldn’t bear the idea of losing a battle, because it was a sign of weakness and a form of humiliation. The blame went straight to the Weimar Republic because it was the Republic that sealed the fate of Germany at the Paris Peace Conference. Germany didn’t have any experience with democracy prior to the Weimar Republic, People’s faith democracy was further more deeply shaken by the signing of the Treaty of Versailles and gave opportunities to dictators like Hitler to rise up. Economic turbulence afterShow MoreRelatedGerman Women Recall The Third Reich By Alison Owings Essay1574 Words   |  7 PagesGermany Women Lives In the book Frauen: German Women Recall the Third Reich by Alison Owings, we are provided with plenty of women who describe their lives before, during and after Hitler received power. This book provides us with different views of the time era and as well as how the impact of Hitler affected every woman differently through social class, age, marital status and etc. This paper will explore the lives of three German women who seem to be in the Grey area during the over control of HitlerRead MoreHolocaust Final Draft : Holocaust1495 Words   |  6 PagesAnthony Harmon Holocaust Final draft World History The holocaust started when Adolf Hitler became Germany’s dictator, and they started the organization called the Nazis. They started by terrorizing the Jewish community in Germany, then eventually put them all into concentration camps. In one of the bigger camps, they experimented and took newborn babies away from the nursing mothers and they were seeing how long they would survive without feeding. 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For people to fit into his race, they had to have blue eyes and blond hair. This excluded the Jews and from then on Hitler slowly dehumanized them. In the concentration camp the first thing they had to pass was the selectionRead MoreAnalysis Of Killing Patton By Bill O Reilly1592 Words   |  7 Pages specifically in America. Women played important roles in the workforce for the first time and finally had a sense of independence. America was able to unite as a country and manufacture goods on a scale that will probably never be seen again. Her full strength was fin ally unleashed and the world saw her full might. This strength was displayed on the battlefields behind one of World War â… ¡Ã¢â‚¬â„¢s most audacious generals: General George S. Patton. Bill O’Reilly’s book Killing Patton is a story of a famousRead MoreFascism vs. Communism1380 Words   |  6 PagesDuring the late 1920’s and 1930’s, Hitler and Stalin were leaders of Germany and the Soviet Union respectively. These states were under fascist and communist rule, which essentially were very similar. It was due to their full run of government that resulted in a dictatorial rule, also known as totalitarianism. Civilians’ lives were regulated in every aspect, some of which were their property and the military forces. Both parties used propaganda to bring awareness of their movement’s ideologies toRead MoreAdolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin1033 Words   |  5 PagesAdolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin are two of the most sadistic dictators of the past century. They both reigned terror in Europe during World War II. Fueled by rage and anger, Hitler and Stalin rose to power and exploited their beliefs throughout Germany and Russia. Stalin tur ned Russia into a Communist country while Hitler was turning Germany against Jews. The leadership of these dictators brought death and fear to many who opposed them. Hitler and Stalin both shared deprived childhoods, vicious fathersRead MoreHitler, Stepping Into The Light. . Hitler, Racist And Murderer?1102 Words   |  5 PagesHitler, stepping into the light. Hitler, racist and murderer? Leader and visionary? Or both? Cassi-Dee Muller reports. Adolf Hitler, known for his rise to power, his revolutionary dictatorship and his starting of a world war. But was he simply a bad man with a negative impact on the world? Or was he just being an excellent leader? Born in Austria 1889, Hitler was an average young German until his adult life, where he achieved the position as the leader of the Nazi party. As a Nazi, he believedRead MoreThe Holocaust: Non-Jewish Victims884 Words   |  4 Pageshumiliation. Their economy was in the drain, and they had their hands full paying for the reparations from the war. Then a man named Adolf Hitler rose to the position of Chancellor and realized his potential to inspire people to follow. Hitler promised the people of Germany a new age; an age of prosperity with the country back as a superpower in Europe. Hitler had a vision, and this vision was that not only the country be dominant in a political sense, but that his ‘perfect race’, the ‘Aryans,’ wouldRead MoreGenocides And Genocides Of The Holocaust1455 Words   |  6 PagesHolocaust† (Wiener-Bronner). The Holocaust was from 1933-1945 and was run by German leader named Adolf Hitler. Hitler was a man who wanted to create his own race of people. Therefore to create this race, he wiped out anyone who did not have the specific descriptions that he wanted. For people to fit into his race, they had to have blue eyes and blond hair. This excluded the Jews and from then on Hitler slowly dehumanized them. In the concentration camp the first thing they had to pass was the selection

Thursday, December 19, 2019

Psychodynamic Personality Profile of Johnny Depp Essay

Personality, like most core Psychology subjects, is difficult to define. Personality is essentially the science of describing and understanding people. No two people are the same; even identical twins will tell you that they are very different to their identical counterpart. There are some who are anxious and there are those who are risk-takers. There are some who are carefree while there are those who are highly-strung and there are those who are over-confident while some are just plain shy. It is this issue of differences that are fundamental to the study and examination of personality. Johnny Depp, born June 9th, 1963 in Owensboro, Kentucky – self-proclaimed â€Å"barbeque capital of the world† – has led an interesting life filled with†¦show more content†¦Research also shows indicates that the Big Five has distinct biological substrates thereby linking trait perspective with the biological perspective (DeYoung, Quilty Peterson, 2007). However this convergence of perspectives is actually productive in that all perspectives by themselves have their disadvantages as well as their advantages. If all perspectives can coincide with one another, explanations of personality will become so much easier. The psychoanalytic perspective is the most interesting theory of the analysis of an individual and their personality. Initially developed by Freud during the latter half of the 1900s, it deals with, among other things, the irrational and less predictable patterns of behaviour and human thinking, which is what most other theories of personality often leave out and are criticised for it. In understanding Johnny Depp, a psychodynamic perspective best accounts for his personality: as a complete theory, it can explain his behaviour from when he was a child to becoming a famous movie star, integrates other theories into its analysis, such as Evolutionary and Learning perspectives, thus providing a fairly reliable and accurate interpretation of his personality. As a kid, Johnny Depp had a troublesome childhood. His father was continually searching for secure work in order to support his family, resulting in them moving around a lot, living in motels, shifting from place to place. This no doubt took a

Tuesday, December 10, 2019

PGCE Lifelong Learning

Question: learning theories as supporting evidence and the curiculum should be based on different range of maths level and what inpacts it has on the learners for the functional and life skills. Answer: Curriculum Theory Curriculum theory is primarily an academic discipline that is mainly concentrated on the examination and shaping of the educational curricula. The study of curriculum theory is very wide and it includes the historical analysis of the curriculum methods and the methods to view the contemporary educational policies and curriculum. Many scholars have presented different views on the curriculum among which the views of the scholars Herbert Kliebard and Michael Stephen Schiro are considered to be very significant. On one hand when Kliebards view regarding curriculum theory has an inclination towards the historical approach Schiros theory has a more philosophical approach. The historical approach given by Kliebard examines the forces which are at work and that shaped the American curriculum. It was more prevalent during 1893 and 1958. Schiros theory examines the ideologies of curriculum that influenced the American curriculum. This practice was prevalent during the 1890-2007 (Pinar, 2004). In this theory Kliebard has discussed four curriculum groups which are called humanist, developmentalist, efficiency and social meliorists. On the other hand, the theories of Schiro are social efficiency ideology, learner-centered ideology, social reconstruction ideology and scholar academic ideology. John Dewey's curriculum theory Proceeding to the curriculum theory of another scholar John Dewey it can be noticed that his theory is such that the students are able to deal efficiently with the contemporary world. Hence, he stated that curriculum should have unfinished abstractions however, they should include the preconceptions of the children and should also include the childrens views of their personal world. According to Dewey, there are four instincts that can describe the characteristics of any childs behavior. These four instincts are social, constructive, expressive and artistic. The curriculum theory should be made in accordance to the logical sense of the child and the surroundings. Dewey further stated that the curriculum should be such as to present the capacity level of the child. The primary task is then to find the level, to motivate the material, to allow the routine to make appropriate learning experience for ordinary activities that is not connected to any prior knowledge of the students. Dewey gives an elaborate definition of curriculum theory as a summary or a map or a view of experiences that has been arranged previously to serve as a guide for future experience and give direction. It also enables control, save efforts, prevent aimless wanderings and also point out the ways to lead more quickly and certainly to get a desired result. Further according to Dewey the curriculum theory can be summarized as an organizational plan that can guide and also be adaptable. It takes into consideration the present knowledge level of the student and also figures out the appropriate path. These occupations were used by Dewey to connect with the small versions of the basic activities of classroom life. Among the theories of curriculum the educational theory is one where apparently all the levels of education would be concerned in providing a liberating experience since the education would emphasize in promoting freedom of thought, independence, political and social empowerment, acceptance of opinions with no discrimination based on caste, creed, race, sex or nationality (Paraskeva, 2011). The total curriculum theory is significant and it is the rationale of this curriculum that is of priority. The total curriculum is one that includes the total programme of the educational institution. It is not restricted to the syllabus of the school. The next curriculum is the hidden curriculum that includes those things that the students learn at the schools depending on the way in which the school is organized and planned and also by the materials provided (Pratte, 1981). Sometimes these things are not included explicitly in the planning and are generally communicated to the pupils in an accid ental manner. The planned and received curriculum can be divided to mean the ones that lay down the prospectus and syllabuses for planned curriculum and the one that is the reality of the students experience is the received curriculum (Schiro, 2008). And finally the formal and the informal curriculum which is primarily a distinction between a formal activity which the time table of the school states for specific studies and informal activity that includes sports, excursions, societies or clubs which are together generally termed as extra-curricular activities. Source: (infed.org, 2013) The above diagram depicts the Aristotles knowledge of three disciplines based on the study of curriculum. Here the body of knowledge is transmitted as canon, the process and praxis are the practical part and the technical part is the product model. Critical Analysis of a particular aspect of Curriculum In order to analyse a particular aspect of curriculum, the researcher has chosen the different levels of math to study this aspect of curriculum. In the present times, the education of mathematics may be considered as the practice of teaching and learning different aspects of mathematics and also the scholarly research. The levels of mathematics are different at different times, depending on the different cultures, and different countries with the aim to achieve a number of objectives (Davis, 1967). These objectives are as follows: Teaching and learning the basic skills of numerical for the students; Teaching practical mathematics including arithmetic, elementary algebra, plane and solid geometry and trigonometry to the students; Teaching mathematical concepts such as set and function at an early age; Teaching selected areas of mathematics such as axiomatic system or deductive reasoning; or calculus as an instance of intellectual achievements; Teaching advanced mathematics to those who wish to have a career in Science, Engineering, Mathematics and Technology fields; Teaching heuristics and problem solving strategies. These different levels of mathematics are taught at different ages and different sequences in various countries. Sometimes class is taught at an early age and typical in any honors class. Elementary mathematics is taught is most countries in the same manner with minor differences. For instance in the United States fractions are taught from 1st grade and in other countries it is taught much later. This is primarily because the metric system in their countries does not require the young to be familiar with such things (CHOPPIN, 2009). Generally the countries require very few topics to be dealt in depth unlike United States. These include topics such as addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division and also pre-algebra (Davis, 1967). In some countries the maths subjects such as geometry, analysis and algebra are taught in separate courses in separate classes in the high school. This subject is integrated in most countries as all branches of the subjects are taught in each year to the students (CHOPPIN, 2009). Sometimes the students are given an option to choose between courses of mathematics. Further students who take up science as their curricula they need to study calculus and trigonometry that includes integral calculus, complex numbers, exponential functions and logarithms and analytical geometry. Also generally probability and statistics was also taught in the secondary classes along with infinite series. Students of science and engineering in various universities and colleges need to take up multi-variable calculus, linear algebra and differential calculus. In the study of majors applied mathematics is studied and in computer science mathematics includes graph theory, probability, proofs and permutations (Schiro, 2008). Innovative programmes in mathematics will necessarily change the contemporary practices and thoughts on the present perception of knowledge and the professional strategies of teachers. This learning and teaching need to occur in a proper social context. Hence construction of knowledge of children must be in an appropriate integrated and holistic fashion (Mathematics learners and mathematics textbooks: a question of identity? Whose curriculum? Whose mathematics?, 2010). So the social context in which the child learns and the teacher teaches becomes extremely significant. The implementation of the mathematics curricula should be in a local context since this implementation is dependent on the high adoption rates by the schools and results of examinations. The economic and the political aspects of the mathematics curriculum must also be considered. It is interesting to know that mathematical relationships can be used responsibly to address certain human rights issues such as the economic al and political relationships. Learners when they develop mathematical sense to represent and misrepresent trends, manipulate data, critically analyse data, make predictions and interpret chance variations. Hence this allows the learners to not only learn mathematics but also utilize these learning in meaningful social, political and economic activities (Mathematics learners and mathematics textbooks: a question of identity? Whose curriculum? Whose mathematics?, 2010). These curriculums happen to be a critical part of mathematics curriculum. This acts as a challenge in the mainstream mathematical education and likewise new and innovative curricula are developed in order to give mathematics a new dimension based on social, political and economic aspect. Evaluation and quality access process for mathematics curriculum In the present times, curriculum evaluation has become increasingly popular generating a lot of interest. There are a number of evaluation models which exist in recent times such as the Bradleys Effectiveness Model, Scrivens Goal-free Model, Stakes Responsive Model and Eisners Connoisseurship Model. The Effectiveness Model is based on the vertical and horizontal curriculum, broad involvement, long-range planning, decision making clarity etc. The objective centered Model is an early curriculum evaluation model which focuses on strength and weaknesses of curriculum. However, the problem is that this model focuses on the assessment without the suggestions. The next model which is the Context, Input, Process, Product Model is more relevant for the educational leaders as this model gives assessment data and makes evaluation much easier for decision making. In this model there are a number of steps that needs to be followed. These include identification of the decisions, identification of the data, collection of the data and determination of the quality. The goal free model aims to divert the attention of the administrators and evaluators to the significance of the unintended effects of the evaluation program. The next model which is the responsive model stresses on the responsibilities of the stakeholders on whom the evaluation effects. The last model is the connoisseurship model which is based o criticism and appreciation. According to this model the evaluation process should be based on these two vital aspects of criticism and appreciation. Other than these models there are more models present for curriculum evaluation. However, there are very few that could be effectively applied to the development projects of mathematics curriculum. Mathematical projects can be evaluated based on the structuralist project. This approach is based on the analysis, creative and systematic application of social interactions and structures in classrooms. Mathematics curriculum can also be based on the new-math approach. This approach of evaluation is based on content evaluation. This particular method of teaching depended on the factual information and performing on the routine calculations. This approach of evaluation was not very effective for mathematics curriculum as there were deficiencies seen in the standardized test performances. Another evaluation procedure on which the mathematics curriculum can be based is the behaviorist approach. Eisenberg had argued that this approach of evaluation since it equates education with evaluation generally miss the spirit of the actual discipline of mathematics. Even this approach of evaluation has been widely criticized by the scholars. Yet the objective model of this behavioral approach gained significance and has also been used in mathematical assessment of curriculum. In this particular approach of evaluation study it was observed that the degree of individualism was high. Observation and interview studies made children more aware than evaluations based on paper and pencil. Another evaluation procedure was the formative approach. This particular approach based on mathematical curriculum focuses on the fact that school education should aim at incorporating personality traits in students. These personality traits include cognitive and motivational activities, affective attitudes or intelligence and performance motivation. Hence the curriculum developer needs to search and match properly the contents which develop these personality traits. The projects which are based on this formative approach would be more illustrative and suggestive instead of being more definitive and comprehensive. Finally the last approach for mathematics curriculum would be the integrated-teaching approach. This approach analyses the particular problem in hand and also tries to erase the boundaries existing between mathematics and other disciplines. This can become a challenge for teachers if they are trained properly in this discipline. This can be considered as the most successful evaluation procedure since it was observed that students who were taught under this procedure showed very good growth than those students who were not taught under this approach. Criticism of the Mathematical Curriculum The modern day mathematics education is based on the investigation on numbers, data and space, connected mathematics etc. In the present days children are explicitly being taught formulas and algorithms which more of an inquiry based approach. The advocates of the modern mathematics state that children should focus on the development of conceptual understanding of the problems rather than just drill on formulas and algorithms. If the understanding is clear then students would develop fluency in the understanding of the concept and calculations. However, this present day approach of mathematics curriculum is facing a lot of criticism from different corners. Scholars state that students must primarily develop skills on computation before they are made to understand the deep concepts of mathematics. Proper practice and memorization of these skills are necessary before they become automatic for the students. When time is spent in practicing skills it is more worthwhile rather than spendi ng time in investigating on mathematical concepts. In order to estimate answers it is essential to have very strong foundational skills. To understand the concepts of mathematics it is essential to have a solid base of mathematical knowledge of the various tools of subject. In the world of academia the traditional methods of mathematics is still used widely. Further, modern mathematics excessively depends on the new technologies such as calculators. Use of such technologies needs to be restricted to some extent till a particular age. Constructive methods when used for children make it unfamiliar with the adults hence making it difficult to work on or help with home work of the children. Students are required to learn the skills of flexible thinking in order to develop the practice to solve problems. Critics state these methods of flexible thinking can be developed only after they have mastered the foundational skills of mathematics. Recommendation and Conclusion As concluding remarks it can be stated that this research study based on the curriculum theory shows the different aspects of the theories and also gives an elaborate analysis of a particular curriculum based on the level of mathematics. Throughout the study it can be observed due to the contemporary changes in the mathematics curriculum the study has become vastly different from the traditional approach. However, even now the involvement of mathematics and education researchers is limited in most cases and also is the examination on curriculum. Teachers should engage more in lesson study and that should be utilized to have a feedback mechanism and that would focus on the school mathematics curriculum. References CHOPPIN, J. (2009). Curriculum-Context Knowledge: Teacher Learning From Successive Enactments of a Standards-Based Mathematics Curriculum.Curriculum Inquiry, 39(2), pp.287-320. Davis, R. (1967).The changing curriculum: mathematics. Washington: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, NEA. infed.org, (2013).Curriculum theory and practice. [online] Available at: https://infed.org/mobi/curriculum-theory-and-practice/ [Accessed 22 Jan. 2015]. Mathematics learners and mathematics textbooks: a question of identity? Whose curriculum? Whose mathematics?. (2010).Curriculum Journal, 21(2), pp.235-235. Paraskeva, J. (2011).Conflicts in curriculum theory. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Pinar, W. (2004).What is curriculum theory?. Mahwah, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum. Pratte, R. (1981). Metaphorical Models and Curriculum Theory.Curriculum Inquiry, 11(4), p.307. Schiro, M. (2008).Curriculum theory. Los Angeles, Calif.: Sage Publications.

Tuesday, December 3, 2019

Marigolds free essay sample

Were almost there Gabriel, were going to be okay. Honestly Jonas didnt even know where or what was going to happen. Jonas remembered he could lie but he didnt want to lie to Gabriel, but he realized that he would be lying to himself too. Jonas looked around, he realized it was a hill. Him and Gabriel struggled getting to the top of the hill. Jonas felt a chill crawl up his spine, remembering the nice chill feeling. He knew he was almost there. He didnt know exactly where, but knew he was almost there. They both struggled getting up to the top, but as soon as he got higher and higher he felt the temperature dropped ten degrees each time. Jonas couldnt take the cold anymore and he assumed Gabe did as well. Jonas sprinted as fast as he could up the hill, trying not to let Gabe fall out of his cradled hands. We will write a custom essay sample on Marigolds or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page Jonas felt Gabes body cool up as he got higher. His eyes were shut closed and as soon as the tip of his foot touched the top of the hill he went back; back from where everything started The community. The sitting down. The hands on his back. The memories. The color. The pain. The love. The Giver. Although Jonass eyes were closed he could see everything. He saw the sled beside him, the sun shining, the snow white covered hill, he could even see little Gabriel smiling. He took a step forward. CRACK Did you hear that? We made it. We did it. Jonas said, telling Gabe and The Giver. He felt accomplished but not a hundred percent. There was something missing. He wondered about the Giver, Did he hear the first step of our achievement? Jonas wondered, wondered about the community, all of them suffering, but yet them iscovering color, memories. Love. Jonas finally opened his eyes. He felt the cool swift breeze and saw the bright snow and the shining sun, Gabriel smiling, and icicles hanging from the trees that stood across the view. He felt happiness, he thought, Wow, Im actually here. He was so distracted with all the thoughts cluttered in his head he forgot about Gabriel. He looked down. Gabriel was pale, paler than the snow white hill and his hands, they were colder than the icicles hanging from the trees. Jonas had panicked so hoped for the best and went down the hill, trying to hink of warmness and giving more of it to Gabriel but he had no more of the memory. Jonas hugged Gabe as tight as he could and tried giving him body warmth. He got to the bottom and saw houses, they were different, different from the Sameness at the community. Jonas saw people coming out of the houses, they were all different. They had long, short, straight, curly, different colored hair, all different shapes and sizes. It was so different from what Jonas was used to, he had never seen so much differences. Even though he wanted to explore he knew he had to go get help from someone. Jonas felt the touch of ice. He looked down and Gabe was pale white, his smile had been wiped off. The world had stayed still for a moment, and Jonass heart had dropped. Gabe was dead? Was he? Jonas fell to the ground crying out for help. Someone help!! Please! Help. Tears were rolling down Jonass face and everybody had crowded around him helping him get up and pick up Gabe. Jonas was frightened, feeling the pain he thought he had got rid of. He picked up Gabe he was lighter, paler, weaker. Jonas kissed him on his forehead whispered in his ear, l love you Gabe a teardrop fell and landed onto Gabes cheek.

Wednesday, November 27, 2019

Tourism in Japan Today Essay Example

Tourism in Japan Today Essay Tourism is a major foreign exchange earner for many countries. Most of them are keen on creating an environment that is conducive and attractive for tourists. Governments and the private sector the world over market the tourist attractions within their jurisdictions to ensure they get a share of internationaltravelers. Local tourist destinations are also increasingly becoming popular with citizens of the country which the attractions are located being charged lower prices by the relevant entities to encourage them to visit and promote their tourism sites. People are usually interested in visiting new places, beautiful landscapes, sunny beaches, primitive societies and historical monuments among others. Asia as a continent prides itself in being the home to a significant proportion of international tourists. Japan is one of the biggest beneficiaries. The country is home to about nineteen world heritage sites. Japan has managed to keep intact key aspects of its culture, a factor that h as for years ensured it continuously attract tourists whoareinterested in learning more about the way of life of its people (McDowell 2015). Japans tourism industry is headed for great growth with current trends and future the government future targets set to see inbound visitors making sector become the countrys main source of employment. .The countrys tourism sector is recording steady growth. The number of tourists in Japan has been increasing in the recent years. The year 2016 has seen the number of foreign tourists visiting Japan rise to 2.3 million in the month of July alone (Japan National Tourism Organization 2016). The figure represents a 19.7 percent increase in terms of proportion compared to July of 2015. The figure surpassed that recorded in the month of April 2016 that initially had the highest figures for the year 2016 with the excess figure standing at 215000 visitors. The government had placed its estimates on inbound visitors at 20 million visitors by the year 2020 with last year missing the target by less than half a million with the figure standing at 19.7 million. The figure represents a 47.1% rise compared to that of the year 2014. The growth rate for the year 2016 is the highest since 1964 when the countrys national tourism organization started collecting data. Given the momentumwithwhich the tou rism sector is growing, the country is set to not only achieve the year 2020 target but also surpass it by ahugemargin. The success has got the government to start considering reviewing the target and setting a higher one. We will write a custom essay sample on Tourism in Japan Today specifically for you for only $16.38 $13.9/page Order now We will write a custom essay sample on Tourism in Japan Today specifically for you FOR ONLY $16.38 $13.9/page Hire Writer We will write a custom essay sample on Tourism in Japan Today specifically for you FOR ONLY $16.38 $13.9/page Hire Writer The composition of inbound visitors has also changed. Chinese visitors constituted the largest proportion of the visitors for the first time Japans tourism history. Such an event was unexpected. There are several factors that can explain the change. One of them is the growing middle-class in China. The economic growth in China has been accompanied by an increase in the number of people joining the countrys middle-class category who have greater amounts of disposable income that they can spend on luxury. Another reason for the large number of Chinese visiting is the weakening of Yen (Japans currency) against the Chinese currency (World Travel Tourism Council 2015). The depreciation of the Yen makes inbound visitors find the cost of visiting Japan as holiday destination cheaper than before. The third factor in growth is relaxing of Japans visa requirement. The Chinese tourists were also the largest spenders. Their total expenditure accounted for about 40.8% of the 3.5 trillion Yen spe nt bytouristsin 2015. The spending was so much and popular that it resulted in the coining of the term bakugai which means explosive buying, to refer to the shopping sprees associated with the Chinese tourists. Even though China ranks at the top in terms of inbound tourist to Japan, factoring in the population shows a lot of potential for growth (Research Co 2016). For instance, even though Taiwan and Hong Kong are much smaller in comparison to China their proportionate tourist numbers are far much than those of China. In view of the growth potential, Japan can look forward to a greater number of inbound Chinese tourists than before.Japan also still has more room for deregulation, a factor that is bound to lead to a surge in the number of tourists from its three biggest inbound tourists that include Chinese, Taiwanese and Koreans. However, a reversal in the weakening of the Yen may lead toa countereffect that may see the numbers become more unpredictable. Inbound tourism is one of the most promising businesses in Japan. Holiday and travelisthe new employment platform and economic driver for the population. Its contribution currently rivals that of the auto industry that is a major employer. The sector currently employs more than 3% of the countrys total population (Japan Macro Advisors 2016). After the winning the bid to host the 2020 Olympics, the government intensified its efforts aimed at promoting tourism. The private sector was not let behind. Various stakeholders began taking advantage of the measures set in place by the government in promoting tourism to offer complementary services that would help create enabling conditions. One of suchinitiativeswas by NTT Docomo Inc that launched a wireless internet service to cater for foreign tourist some of whom had initially complainedaboutthe lack of wifi in the country (Kodera 2014). Such kinds of initiatives by both the government and the private have created more employment opportuni ties especially in the service industry. Clearly, Japans tourism industry is headed for great growth given the current trends and future the government future targets that might see the inbound visitors become the main source of employment. The countrys tourism sector is recording steady growth. Inbound tourist numbers in Japan have been increasing at an unprecedented rate in the recent years, helping it set new records in its tourism sector (Business Monitor International Ltd. 2016). The composition of inbound visitors has also changed. This year, Chinese visitors constituted the largest proportion of the visitors for the first time in Japans tourism history. Factors such as deregulation, a weakening Yen and a surge in the middle-class are the main contributors to this new trend. Despite the fact that China ranks at the top in terms of inbound tourist to Japan, factoring in the population size shows a lot of potential for growth. Japan can take advantage of the opportunity to do more in terms of deregulation and creating a more conducive environment for tourists.Inbound tourism is one of the most promising businesses and the various stakeholders in Japans tourism industry should do their best to maximize their income. Bibliography Business Monitor International Ltd. (2016).Japan tourism report. London, Business Monitor International. Japan Macro Advisors, (2016).Number of Visitors to Japan|Foreign visitors|Tourism. [online] japanmacroadvisors.com. Available at: https://www.japanmacroadvisors.com/page/category/economic-indicators/gdp-and-business-activity/number-of-visitors-to-japan/ [Accessed 19 Sep. Japan National Tourism Organization (2016)Welcome to the Japan national tourism organization website. Available at: http://www.seejapan.co.uk/jnto_consumer/index (Accessed: 19 September 2016). Kodera, A. (2014)Tourism emerges asneweconomic driver for Japan | the Japan times. Available at: http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2014/08/25/reference/tourism-emerges-new-economic-driver-japan/#.V-AIjTVJR-8 (Accessed: 19 September 2016). McDowell, P. (2015).Japan, Sage, London Research, J.T. and Co, C. (2016)Japan tourism marketing Co. Available at: http://www.tourism.jp/en/statistics/ (Accessed: 19 September 2016). World Travel Tourism Council (2015)Economic Impact 2015 Japan. Available at: https://www.wttc.org/-/media/files/reports/economic%20impact%20research/countries%202015/japan2015.pdf (Accessed: 19 September 2016).

Saturday, November 23, 2019

Acid Rain essays

Acid Rain essays The concept of acid rain is often misunderstood by the vast majority of the world, however, most realize that it is a problem. The burning of fossil fuels has released pollutants into our earths atmosphere. Once airborne, the pollutants form acidic compounds by combining with water in the atmosphere, hence the name acid rain. The precipitation then reaches the earths surface by means of fog, mist, rain or snow, as well as in dry form. While the substances that produce acid rain also occur naturally, it is the man-made contributions that have transformed acid rain into an environmental problem. Acid rain causes the acidification of streams and lakes, contributes to damage of highly elevated trees, and also contributes to the cause of lung cancer and other major health problems to humans. Another concern about acid rain that has not been previously mentioned is the accelerating decay of building materials and paints, which includes many irreplaceable buildings, statues, sculptures, and monuments that are a part of our nations cultural heritage. If these monuments are destroyed, they can never be replaced, which will be the focus of this report. Before speaking of the direct effects of acid rain on materials, the process of the formation of acid rain must be understood. We now know that the primary causes of acid rain are emissions of sulfur dioxide (SO ) and nitrogen oxides (NO ). When Sulfur is emitted into the air, it is in the form of the SO gas. Naturally, there is not a significant amount of SO gas in the air, so the gas transfers through a series of oxidation reactions, resulting in the formation of H SO , or sulfuric acid. This acid can then dissolve in rainwater and lower the pH of precipitation dramatically. On the other hand, NO gases are formed through a completely different process. Naturally, the atmosphere contains a large percentage of N gas. High temperatures associated with the burn...

Thursday, November 21, 2019

Angolas Tourism Infrastructure Development Research Paper

Angolas Tourism Infrastructure Development - Research Paper Example There exist a relationship between infrastructure and the tourism development. Measures to gauge the level of economic growth are based on the infrastructure development and standards of living. The tourist inflow would depend on the efforts of any central government to invest in infrastructure. Angola being an emerging economy in Africa needs to invest majorly in the infrastructure in order to realize its full capacity. Stiff competition from the south and East of Africa poses major challenges towards the overall performance of the country as a tourist hub (Hottola, 2009).   In order to suggest models be used by Angola in improving infrastructure and promoting tourism, the current economic status will be examined. The research will be based on the African Development Bank statistic to gauge the amount allocated by the government in both infrastructure and tourism. The sources of funding towards this project will be important in projecting the future capacities. Mazivila (2014) data will be used as Macroeconomic Indicators where status, estimates and future projections. The stability of Angola compared to other SADC members will determine the future strengths and weaknesses while investing in infrastructure and expanding current capacity. Foreign investments will establish Angola’s Income and government’s alternative sources of revenue. Trading Economics (2014) will give an insight of Angola’s foreign direct investments since 2004.  Infrastructure being the major concern in the tourist industry, the research will focus on the time factor. This will include the period used to procure documents that will enhance infrastructure development (The World Bank, 2005). The time taken in this country will compare Angola to other countries with developed tourism infrastructure (World Travel & Tourism Council. 2012).

Wednesday, November 20, 2019

CME Hosting Company Case Study Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

CME Hosting Company - Case Study Example Additionally, the data and information stored in databases is extremely confidential and should not be offered for public view. On the other hand, a lot of businesses are completely dependent upon information stored in computers systems. For instance, they use databases to store staff details, personal data, salaries, clients’ information, marketing, sales information, bank account details and so on. Moreover, in absence of such database system, it would be very hard for a company to work properly. Thus, there is a dire need for implementing an effective information security procedure to secure this data and information (Crystal, 2012; Nash, 2000). Furthermore, effective data and information security systems integrate a variety of strategies for better security products, skills and events. In addition, software applications such as firewalls and virus scanners are not sufficient on their own to secure this precious data and information. ... This report is aimed at analyzing present status of information security at the corporate. This report will offer an insight into the security arrangements presently available at ACME Co. as well as some new technologies needed to be deployed for the effective management of information security at in different corporate areas. Part I Threat Assessment In this section I will conduct a detailed analysis of some of the important threats at ACME Co. regarding provision of new web services for Citizens Wellness (CW) application by large health care company named Well-Health Inc. The basic aim of this analysis is to discover those major threats which currently exist in web services of ACME Co. as well as how these threats can damage or create issues for the information and data privacy for Citizens Wellness (CW) application. In this scenario, one of the primary risks is regarding staff related security risk. For instance, any bad staff person can hack or damage the business database or sys tems working. In addition, there is no proper way for staff recruitment. As well, there is no process for assessing background of staff members. The next main issue that I have assessed is regarding dissimilarity of operating systems’ versions and patches. In case of such misbalance among these versions and patches, there is no single and identical way to deal with security management of the business. Moreover, one of the biggest threats that can create an alarming situation for the business is the absence of anti-virus software on ACME servers. I have assessed that work stations of organization’s employees/contractors still do not have any protection procedure against malwares. There is another issue regarding network services of ACME which is the absence of internal

Sunday, November 17, 2019

Marshall McLuhans Theory Essay Example for Free

Marshall McLuhans Theory Essay How might Marshall McLuhans theory of hot and cold media be used to explain the surge of interest in mobile technology, especially text and picture messaging? Any invention or technology is an extension or self-amputation of our physical bodies, and such extension also demands new ratios or new equilibriums among the other organs and extensions of the body, Marshall McLuhan in Understanding Media (1964, p43). A comment which has possibly never been truer than when understood with regard to a mobile phone. McLuhans theories have recently been given new life with the onset of the Internet; however, they can also be usefully applied to the massive explosion of mobile technology. Given it is a medium which some may consider to be cool; its impact on society has been immeasurable. In todays society it is difficult to meet a person between the ages of fifteen and fifty who do not own a mobile phone. Like televisions, it is the electronic accessory of the moment and it is advancing fast. Only five years ago text messaging was in its infancy and not all phones offered it; picture messaging was unheard of. Nowadays picture messaging is very much here and already the technology has moved towards video messaging. Some mobile phones would be more accurately described as hand held computers as the telephony is only a fraction of its capabilities and often not even its main function. As with most mobile phones the main function consumers use is text messaging. According to McLuhan in Understanding Media (1964) the advent of a hot explosive medium can cause drastic changes to politics and society. This can be seen in the effects that such technology has had on not only the telephone but the way people communicate in day to day life. However, when contrasted with a hot medium such as television or cinema, text and picture messaging are comparatively cool. They provide far less information and demand more participation from the receiver to fill in the gaps. Pictures received in messages are only small and very symbolic rather than detailed. There is also only limited space for text and language is often limited to abbreviations and annotation. Of course when compared to the standard telephone, mobile technology is considerably hotter, however, in order to stay within McLuhans theory, and for the medium to cause such a change in society, one would assume that the medium itself would need to be hotter. Such a change could be better explained and explored by the theories of Roland Barthes, particularly his writings on myths and semiotics. In a collection of articles entitled Mythologies (1973) Barthes explores practical objects and their cultural meanings. Examining such objects as cars and haircuts he scrutinizes the signifiers and signs that they contain. Barthes begins by making explicit the meanings of apparently neutral objects and then moves on to consider the social and historical conditions they obscure (McNeill 1996). He examined cars, comparing them to Gothic cathedrals, due to their uses over and above their basic functions. Cars carry status and tell a lot about the person who owns them (Barthes 1973). Such meanings can also easily be drawn from mobile phones. Far more useful than assessing whether or not they are hot or cold, deeper more analytical conclusions can be derived from Barthes methods. By examining the semiotics of the medium its position in society and cultu re and its effects could be estimated. In Mythologies (1973) he argued that myth was a mode of signification. He argued that in myth, the link between the signifier and the signified was motivatedso that a culturally constructed sign becomes a signifier, thus allowing what is signified to become naturalised (Hartley 2002). Hartley goes on to apply this theory to brand named sports wear and their attached meanings. Such an application could be used with mobile technology as not only are there many different mobile phones with different functions but many different brands. Nokia, in particular, as the apparently leading brand, has different model phones which contain different signifiers. Some appear fun and contain lots of features and gadgets; others appear sophisticated and look sleek and small. Others exist for practical purposes for uses who are less taken by mobile phone culture. Given the huge range of choice on offer, not just by Nokia but all brands, the decision of which phone to purchase is an active one which takes serious contemplation. More can be said for a person who uses pictu re messaging. Society has not quite reached a stage where its considered a necessity like text messaging so those who do use it are those who are particularly interested in the culture. More so as these phones and messages cost more it signifies how much money a person has or at least how they prioritise their spending. More meanings could be drawn from how often a person uses their phone and how many different people they know who can accept picture messages. Barthes also wrote about Text itself and its semiotics, arguing that words are strong and can be used as political weapons, as they have been in post World War II politics. He charts the beginning of the moment of the text as 1968 (Hartley 2002). This seems to have affected the whole of society as people now talk to each other less, preferring to e-mail or send text or picture messages. McLuhan has commented on discourse and text. According to a website called Marshall McLuhan: spinning the web of the future, accessed 13/12/03 specifically, McLuhan feels that the best way to convey information between two people is to maximize the use of the senses[therefore] ancient oral civilizations appeared to have the greatest and most clear form of communication. That is not the written word, but the spoken. This has, however, been criticised by Miller (1971) who disagrees with this assumption because he feels that humanity has evolved with technology and that this is not necessarily a bad thin g. The reality is that further technological advances have given humanity the ability to communicate using mediums that are essentially extensions of the spoken word. McLuhan expressed concern over the effects of technology and its result in the loss of human identity, although he did not see it as a bad thing, it was something to be maintained and supervised. His concerns could be justified, however, in that nowadays people talk to each other less, preferring to communicate by the written, or typed, word. Concern should probably not to be so extreme as to fear the breakdown of society but it has seriously affected how we communicate and what we now spend our money on. According to McLuhan in Understanding Media (1964) intense, hot media needs to be cooled off by our senses before it can be assimilated. Possibly then the appeal of the text and picture message is that they are easier to take in on a sensory level. They are quick, take only seconds to read and write and enough time is given to process the information between each message and response. Radio and cinema act as an assault on the senses demanding that attention be paid in order to take it all in, although fewer gaps need to be filled. In two-way communication, however, it allows the user time to consider their response and therefore reduces the risk of saying something which one may regret later. If we put together the two theories of McLuhan and Barthes it is possible to achieve composite critique of the phenomenon of mobile technology. Although much of what was written by, particularly McLuhan, has been excessively criticised, some disregard it all together, he makes some points which are useful when examining this area of contemporary media and technology. Using McLuhan to explore the more technical aspects of text and picture messaging, suggesting why it may be so popular. Due to its being hotter than a normal telephone it is likely to be the next step in technology and its convenience makes it so popular. Also fact that it is cooler than other direct forms of media and allows more time and less information for the brain to process ensures it is easier on our senses. Its very presence has caused an upheaval in our society and we have taken the next cultural and technological step in our ever progressing development. Barthes, on the other hand, we can look to for inspiration in analysing the cultural aspects of such communication technology and what it means. Using his methodology of examining mobile phones for signs and signifiers many conclusions can be drawn. As phones differ widely in style and in what features they contain each person can be judged on the phone they own, or the phone they wished they owned. Someone who has a phone that looks good, rather than containing many features is clearly saying something about the way in which they want to present themselves. Furthermore, a person who cares less about how the phone looks and more about what it does suggests something else. Most phones which contain more features, particularly a camera are usually larger and look less neat than those with fewer features. Phones that can be used to record short pieces of film or watch videos on are bigger still yet there are already people who own them. Such people may be looking for a phone with more f unctional value, as well as their having an interest in gadgets. That said, however, we can assume they gain intrinsic pleasure from showing a person what their, apparently less attractive, phone can do. We could also assume that such people wish to be ahead of technology and enjoy being one of the first to own such items. Near enough all young people own mobile phones and few would deny that they gain pleasure and enjoyment from them. Texting has become a common, everyday form of communication; one that did not exist during the lifetimes of Marshall McLuhan or Roland Barthes and it can be assumed that neither would have anticipated this surge in technology. Both would express concern at its immense popularity as it risks people becoming less sociable and having less actual conversation. Another side to that argument, however, could be that it increases human interaction, it just takes place in a different way. People can now contact their family, friends and acquaintances much easier and faster. To send a text message to say hello is far quicker and easier than making a phone call which could result in lengthy conversation. Whereas once a person may have decided against the phone call for that reason they will now send a text message. It is probably safe to say that, given that human beings are an inn ately social species, and indulge in conversation for pleasurable as well as functional purposes that if what they desire is a conversation then that will be sought above a text message. It is hard to predict where society and culture will go with this ever increasing technological development. In the next year or so we can assume that videophone will become much more popular and that mobile phones will continue to develop into small computers than phones. Living in a century where convenience is emphasised and encouraged and our lives are busier it is likely that less face to face interaction will take place however with the help of the mobile phone we can avoid losing contact altogether.

Friday, November 15, 2019

Performance of Goldman Sachs and Financial Ratio Analysis

Performance of Goldman Sachs and Financial Ratio Analysis Conventionally the Bank performance is evaluated by analysis of the financial ratios. However, despite of quite a few number of ratios being calculated, a sculpt that completely convinces the analysis of requirements and bank operations efficiency evaluation is yet to be developed. Hence for these reason, the financial ratio analysis is balance with unlike eminence evaluations, with characteristics such as organization quality, equity structure, spirited position and others which are incorporated in the concluding assessment. In this piece of work we are going to evaluate overall performance of Goldman Sachs and critically analyse how financial ratios are used to evaluate banks performance. The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. is a American investment banking and securities organisation which slot in global investment banking, securities, investment management, and erstwhile financial services principally with institutional clients. Goldman Sachs was founded in the year 1869 and its headquarter is at 200 West Street in the Lower Manhattan area of New York City. It has additional offices in major international financial hubs. The Goldman Sachs offers mergers and acquisitions advice, underwriting services, asset management, and prime brokerage to its clientele, which include corporations, governments and individuals. The Goldman Sachs also engages in proprietary trading and private equity deals, and is a primary dealer in the United States Treasury security market (Goldman Sachs Website). Bank Internal Performance Evaluation Strategic planning Goldman Sachs ability to address and tap into important economic and financial trends through roles such as advisor, financier, market maker and asset manager are critical for fulfilling their mission to help spur growth and perform strongly as a firm. Technology Technology is a core part of GS product offering and client experience. GS ability to respond quickly and effectively to address its clients needs with customized systems, products and services helps differentiate the firm. A technological advantage for GS is that they have only one central risk system, which is partially a byproduct of not having done multiple, major acquisitions that often require merging and retrofitting platforms. Personnel development The success of the GSs efforts are measured by how effectively their people act. Over time, effective training and development have enrich their corporate culture and strengthen the values of client service and focus on reputational risk management. Recognition includes compensation, promotion, assignments and mobility opportunities. They have made it clear the link between the behaviour expected of its people and the recognition used to encourage it. This is critically important because it signals broadly the way GS expects its people to behave and conduct business (Goldman Sachs Annual report 2010). Bank External Performance Evaluation Market share GS has frequently performed above the market despite worsening economic conditions. Since the 2008, the company has outpaced the market enough to draw public admiration. With strong profits and expected strong returns, the company has set aside $500M to invest in small businesses. These efforts are a combination to both improve the economy and their public image. Regulatory compliance The Dodd-Frank legislation and new capital and liquidity requirements under Basel 3 are two of the more significant outcomes from the recent focus on enhancing financial stability. Given regulatory implementation is only just beginning, and unclear on how the new rules will ultimately impact the industry. The broad contours of new regulation, however, are clear: improve the safety and soundness of the global financial system, increase the transparency of derivatives markets, limit certain investing activities and reduce the consequences of a failure of a large financial institution. Public confidence Goldman Sachs announced in May 2010 that it formed a Business Standards Committee to reshape its business practices and mend its reputation. Chief Executive Lloyd Blankfein said at the time that there is a disconnect between how we view the firm and how the broader public perceives our roles and activities. GSs shareholders, BoDs, clients and customers have supported Mr. Blankfein through all the crisis and this shows their faith in bank (Goldman Sachs Annual report 2010). 4.0 Analyzing Bank Performance with Profit Ratios Goldman Sachs financial performance was better in 2009  than 2010 and Q4 2009 was the best quarter since the recession. 4.1 ROE Return on equity (ROE= net income after taxes/total equity) reveal GS capability to produce profits from shareholders equity (further referred as net assets or assets minus liabilities). In other words, ROE shows how effectively a company uses the shareholders money. As seen in graphical representation above, it is clear that Goldman Sachs is tendering a lower return on shareholders equity as compared to year ended in2009. The ROE of GS for the last year was 18.93% as compared to 10.08% this year. There has a been a significant decrease in the ROE which suggests GS is not utilising shareholders money properly. GS return on equity has declined substantially due to deleverage and is only marginally higher than its current cost of capital. 4.2 ROA Return on assets (ROA = net income after taxes/total assets) is how resourcefully a firm uses its assets. From the formula it is quite obvious that higher the ratio, the company is performing more efficiently and thus is generating more profits. A low ROA with enormous assets designate that the firm is handling its asset at a poor rate. As seen in graphical representation above, it is seen that Goldman Sachs has provided a lower ROA of 0.91% this year over 1.58% last year. There is one key differentiation between ROE and ROA and it is debt. In absence of debt, the shareholders equity is same as total assets of the firm which means that in this case, ROE and ROA are identical. Now if the firm come to a decision to take a loan, ROE exceeds ROA. A elevated ROE does not always guarantee a extraordinary performance of a firm. Incidentally, ROA is then a healthier pointer of the financial performance of a firm. With a high ROA and manageable debt, if ROE is also high it means that the company is generating decent profits using shareholders money. But if ROA is low and there is huge debt carried by the company, even a high ROE can only be a misleading figure. 4.3 Net Interest Margin 4.4 Leverage ratio Debt to Equity Ratio 4.5 Decomposition of ROE DuPont Analysis As revealed in Appendix B, The ROE of a bank is dependent on a various factors and thus change in any one of these factor can affect the rate of return on shareholders equity of the bank. As Net Income is the main source to calculate ROE in conjunction with the shareholders equity in the bank, every alteration in the Income and Expense of the bank openly affects the net income and thus influence the ROE of a bank. The detailed DuPont analysis of Goldman Sachs for year 2010 is presented in Appendix B. The ROE is decomposed as follows wrt dupont identity. Now assuming that changes are made in Income or Expense levels of the Goldman Sachs, its effect will be seen on ROA and ROE. Let us consider a case where the Interest Expense for Goldman Sachs goes down by 10% and there are no changes in its Interest Income, following are the effects on ROA and ROE of the bank. Scenario 1 : -5% change in interest expense Change Values after change Interest Expense -10% 6125.4 Interest Income 0% 12309 Effect on NI 6680.6 39841.6 Effect on ROA +0.07% 0.99% Effect on ROE +0.88% 11.68% A few other situations with amendment in Total Non-interest Income and expenses and their outcome on the ROA ROE of bank are given away in the chart below. Scenario 2 : -5% change in non-interest expense Change Values after change Total Non-interest Income -5% 31975.1 Effect on NI -1682.9 37478.1 Effect on ROA -0.19% 0.73% Effect on ROE -1.46% 8.62% Scenario 3 : +10% change in non-interest expense Change Values after change Total Non-interest Expenses 10% 27962 Effect on NI -2542 3160 Effect on ROA -0.31% 0.27% Effect on ROE -4.44% 3.78% Bank Performance Evaluation Based on Economic Profit 5.1 Risk-Adjusted Return on Capital (RAROC) In risk- adjusted return on capital the capital is allocated for two vital motives: (1) risk management and (2) performance evaluation. In support of risk-management rationale, the banks most favourable capital structure can be establish by allocation of capital to individual business units. This course of action entails assessing the amount of the risk (volatility) each business unit chip in to the total risk of the bank and hence to its overall capital requirements. Now, for performance-evaluation function, RAROC structure allocate capital to business units as part of a procedure for shaping the risk-adjusted rate of return and, eventually, the economic value added of each business unit. The EVA of every and each business unit is its adjusted net income minus the amount of equity capital allocated to the unit times the required return on equity. The purpose is to compute a business units input to shareholder value and so to provide a source for effective capital budgeting and incentive compensation at the business-unit level. RAROC is calculated by dividing risk-adjusted net income by the total amount of economic capital assigned which is dependent on the risk calculation. Risk-adjusted net income is calculated by taking the financial data allotment to the bank and fine-tuning the income statement for expected loss. A further modification is also required to take into account the effects on the net interest margin because the attention is moved from book profitability to economic profitability. Thus RAROC = Risk adjusted income / Allocated Capital RAROC for 2010 of Goldman Sachs therefore comes to 2.24 %. Let us consider some scenarios where the risk adjusted income for Goldman Sachs are changed by {-2%, +2%, -5% +5%}, The effect on its RAROC is represented as below. Change in Risk Adjusted Income 2 % + 2 % 5 % Effect on RAROC 2.20 % 2.29 % 2.13 % Economic Value Added (EVA) EVA (Economic Valued Added) is a present day financial dimension instrument which concludes whether a business is earning greater than its true cost of capital. EVA stands out apart from ROA ROE which are most accepted measures of bank performance. This is because it includes cost of equity capital employed. On the other hand, net banking income and the efficiency ratio, also, do not consider the cost of equity capital employed. Therefore, these ratios possibly will propose a banks performance as healthy but in fact it could be deteriorating its value to its shareholders. EVA is essentially a tool that focuses on maximizing shareholder wealth. EVA = Adjusted earnings Opportunity cost of capital {Net operating Profit after Taxes} {Cost of Equity X Equity Capital } With an aim of creating values, the return on invested capital (ROIC) for a bank must be greater than cost of capital. So, the EVA can be possibly increased in quite a few ways, by: 1) Increasing Net operating Profit after Taxes; 2) Lowering the Cost of Equity and 3) Reducing Equity Capital Conclusion Year on year Goldman Sachs revenues have descended by 11.04% from $51.67bn to $45.97bn. This along with an increase in the cost of goods sold expense has contributed to a reduction in net income from $13.39bn to $8.35bn, a 37.59% decrease. In 2010, Goldman Sachs did not generate a significant amount of cash. Cash Flow from Financing totalled $7.84bn or 17.05% of revenues. In addition the company used 6.16bn for operations while cash used for investing totalled $185m. Goldman results were also dragged down by a $465 million one-time expense to cover a U.K. payroll tax and a $550 million outlay to settle  SEC  charges that it favoured certain clients over others.

Tuesday, November 12, 2019

Macomber

A crowd of natives has just carried Francis Macomber triumphantly into camp. Macomber, a good-looking athletic type, has just blown it on a lion hunting adventure and now everyone knows he's a coward. Macomber's wife can't contain her resentment and humiliation about her husband's breakdown on the hunt. This is not a proud moment for the Macombers. Shmoop Editorial Team. â€Å"The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber† Shmoop. com. Shmoop University, Inc. , 11 Nov. 2008. Web. 12 Apr. 2013. Hemingway's Short Stories By Ernest Hemingway Summary and Analysis â€Å"The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber†Ã¢â‚¬  Hemingway's Short Stories: Summary and Analysis: â€Å"The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber† Wiley Publishing, n. d. Web. 12 Apr. 2013. Hemingway, Ernest. â€Å"FAST-US-1 Intro to American English Reference File. † FAST-US-1 Intro to American English Reference File. Charles Scribner's Sons, 7 May 2010. Web. 12 Apr. 2013. â€Å"The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber. † Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 04 Nov. 013. Web. 12 Apr. 2013. Gaillard, Theodore L. â€Å"JSTOR. † The English Journal. Vol. 60. N. p. : National Council of Teachers of English, 1971. 31-35. The English Journal. Web. 12 Apr. 2013. I. Francis Macomber and his wife Margaret (usually referred to as â€Å"Margot†), are on a big-game safari in Africa, guided by professional hunter Robert Wilson. Earlier, Francis had panicked when a wounded lion charged him. Margot mocks Macomber for this act of cowardice, and it is implied that she sleeps with Wilson.The next day they hunt buffalo. When they find the buffalo, it charges Macomber. Francis, faced with a buffalo, suddenly becomes a man of courage, but his shots are too high. Wilson fires at the beast as well, but it keeps charging. Macomber kills the buffalo at the last second. At the same time, Margot had also fired a shot from the car, which instead hits Macomber in the skull and kills him. F or once, they are both on the same side, shooting at the same bull, but tragically she kills the man she was trying to save.In â€Å"The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber,† Hemingway uses his famously sparse prose style and villains with the moral make-up of animals to demonstrate the ironic truth that happiness is fleeting and had better not depend upon others. II. The narrator furnishes details, nothing more, but packs in those details is all the psychological nuance of a session with a psychoanalyst. In â€Å"The Short Happy Life,† a numerous basic actions can go a great distance. The sentences are certainly not fancy, but they reveal a ton about the characters.For example: â€Å"The mess boy had started them already, lifting the bottles out of the canvas cooling bags that sweated wet in the wind that blew through the trees that shaded the tents† (p. 1). Here, Hemingway speaks volumes in one sentence: the feeling in the air is apparent, he sets the visual scene, and he conveys ideas of class and environment. Readers know where they are, and what kind of people they are dealing with. Hemingway also lets the dialogue do a lot of the work. That way readers get to know the characters through what they say instead of having Hemingway tell them what to think.At the story's opening, for example, Margot says, â€Å"I'll have a gimlet too. I need something† (p. 1). This unadorned expression gives the reader their initial impression of Margot: She will drink because she needs something – but something for what? Something, readers soon find out, to dull the rage and disappointment over Macomber's failure and something as in â€Å"my husband gave me nothing, so give me something. † Lastly, this short sentence says â€Å"Macomber's wife,† not Margot, so readers know that this man's wife needs something, and she needs it because of him.That's a whole lot of meaning for eight short words. He omits things because he trust s the readers to be active, and to understand what he is saying indirectly. Hemingway packs a lot of unsaid things into the actual words on the page. III Animals: A technique that emerges as one of the most impressively effective is Hemingway’s use of animals, for behind the scenes of the five-act tragedy that constitutes â€Å"The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber† stalks a troupe of inhuman supporting actors whose effect on the understanding of Hemingway’s story is crucial.Wether in the from of a charging lion or, more subtly, in Margot Macomber’s back-handed reference to those â€Å"big cowy things that jump like hares† (p. 9), Hemingway uses his animal menagerie as a standard against which to measure and evaluate his human actors. Francis Macomber’s safari turns out to be quite different from a romantic adventure out of Martin Johnson’s storybook; Macomber’s adversaries are a far cry from â€Å"Old Simba the lion, the b uffalo, Tembo the elephant† (p. 22) and the Natural History Museum that the columnist describes.Hemingway suggests here that Macomber has emerged from the fairytale world of high society into the real world of tooth and claw. It is in conjunction with the animals they themselves hunt that readers can best evaluate Robert Wilson, Francis Macomber, and his wife. Wilson emerges as â€Å"the professional. † He is self-confident and almost detached from the jungle world of his employers. From Margaret’s point of view he seems a killer, but his â€Å"flat, blue, machine gunner’s eyes† (p. 8) ironically seem to raise Wilson into a position of dominance over the brutal struggle for supremacy that he witnesses.Margot Macomber, on the other hand, is deeply enmeshed in this struggle. Her husband labels her â€Å"a bitch† (p. 22) after her return from Wilson’s tent and refers to her â€Å"bitchery† (p. 10) elsewhere in the story, but more s pecific than this implicitly negative criticism of Macomber is Hemingway’s explicit use of animals as a verbal weapon in the mouth of Margot. To Francis’ self-punishment Margot adds criticism of her own. When Francis passes her some cooked eland he shot, she scoffs at his offering with the comment: â€Å"They’re the big cowy things that jump like hares, aren’t they? (p. 9). Rubbing salt into his wounded ego, she facetiously asks, â€Å"They’re not dangerous, are they? † (p. 9). All Francis has been able to shoot by this point in the safari are relatively harmless animals, and he has proved himself a coward in the face of the only dangerous game he has encountered. Although Hemingway links Margot with no specific animal, she does materialize as the condensation of all the most dangerous qualities of female carnivores. To Robert Wilson she is a typical American woman, one of the â€Å"hardest in the world: the hardest, the cruelest, the most predatory, nd the most attractive† (p. 8). Externally she is so â€Å"enameled in that American female cruelty† (p. 9) that she seems even more insensitive than Robert Wilson. While she is seen as cruel and predatory, her husband is compared with a rabbit and is at the end linked with the lion whose head is blown off by Wilson. Hemingway’s subtle identification of Macomber with the lion he is hunting serves a far more important purpose than symbolically to foreshadow his death at the hands of his wife.Indeed, it is through Macomber’s links with both the lion and the buffalo that readers become aware of his transition from emotional adolescence to manhood. Initially, the lion’s bravery and determination are used strictly as a contrast to Macomber’s rabbit-like trembling. In his struggle for survival the lion with half his head shot away kept â€Å"crawling on toward the crashing, blasting thing that had destroyed him† (p. 21). He stare d defiantly with â€Å"yellow eyes, narrowed with hate† (p. 19); similarly, â€Å"Francis Macomber found that, of all the many men that he had hated, he hated Robert Wilson the most† (p. 3). Momentarily facing the challenge posed by the lion, Macomber feels â€Å"sick at his stomach† (p. 16) and cannot control his shaking. â€Å"The fear was still there like a cold, slimy hollowin all the emptiness where once his confidence had been and it made him feel sick† (p. 11). The difference between Macomber and the lionis suggested by the nature of their respective wounds. Macomber’s psyvchological â€Å"wound† can be traced ultimately to his overall weakness and, more recently, to the effects of his â€Å"huntress† wife. But the lion’s wound is more a â€Å"red badge of courage† incurred in combat.Instead of fear, a . 30-06 220 grain solid bullet causes the â€Å"sudden hot scalding nausea† (p. 15) in the lion’s s tomach. In contrast, the nausea of fear experienced by Macomber is one of nothingness. The lion is broken down and fights his fate to the end, whereas Macomber has collasped internally, â€Å"gone to pieces nervously† (p. 8). Macomber bolts like a rabbit, where in the lion â€Å"all of him, pain, sickness, hatred and all of his remaining strength, was tightening into an absolute concentration for a rush† (p. 19) directly at his attackers.In death he becomes almost human. Macomber becomes, by his own admission, a rabbit. But Macomber changes. His metamorphosis from â€Å"rabbit† and â€Å"laddy-buck† occurs after the second crossing of the stream that separates the camp from the hunting ground. Just as we view the initial conflict through the lion’s stream-of-consciousness as he watched Macomber dismount from the car, so we now see Macomber observe â€Å"three huge, black animals looking almost cylindrical in their long heaviness, like big black ta nk cars† (p,27). The situation has been inverted.Where the lion saw the car and its passengers in animal terms, â€Å"bulking like some super-rhino† (p. 15), Macomber sees the animal in car terms. Hemingway’s inversion of style implies the conversion of Macomber to a lion-like figure and foreshadows his courageous birth into his all-too-short â€Å"happy life. † The hunter becomes the hunted; the man with newly achieved lion-like qualities falls prey to the predatory wife who has seen the change in her husband (p. 33) and herself has become white and ill with fear at what it portends.In Macomber’s death he is subtly linked with his own last victim, the buffalo: â€Å"Francis Macomber lay now, face down, not two yards from where the buffalo lay on his side.. † (p. 36). Linked with the buffalo both in the manner of death and by physical proximity, Macomber has, at last, achieved the transition from â€Å"rabbit† to lion, to bull, and to manhood. Hemingway’s subtle use of animals as an evaluative device has helped to turn what would have been a story of pitiableness into one that approaches tragedy.Hemingway is very careful with these details so that the reader can fully explore the extent to which Macomber has sunk. (margot dominant)In addition to Macomber’s embarrassed cowardice, he watches as Margot kisses Wilson on the mouth, calling him â€Å"the beautiful red-faced Mr. Wilson. † After Margot returns from sleeping with Wilson, readers learn about the reasoning for her marriage to Frances. She is too beautiful for Francis to divorce her, and Francis has too much money for her to ever leave him. When Macomber reminds Margot the there â€Å"wasn’t going to be any of that.You promised there wouldn’t be,† readers realize that this deceit has been going on for a long time. In years past Macomber has never been enough for his wife, but being here, on the safari, was supposed t o change all that. Yet Margo’s betrayal is so open and executed in such defiance that Macomber gets to know how very much his cowardice has changed everything. Margot will continue to press her advantage until the end, when she notices that Macomber is gaining courage and a strong sense of his own manhood.The shooting of the first buffalo marks the beginning of the tremendous change in Macomber. In all of his life, he has never felt so remarkable. On the other hand, Margot sits â€Å"very white faced. † She realizes that Macomber is changing, and she fears this change. She fears this change because she is losing psychological control over Macomber. She knows that if Macomber finally gains a sense of manhood, he will have the strength to leave her. She tries to taunt him, but he is oblivious to her existence. She now knows that his future does not include her.

Sunday, November 10, 2019

Looking at the Contemporary Generation Essay

The literary historian Malcolm Cowley described the years between the two world wars as a second flowering of American writing. Certainly American literature attained a new maturity and a rich diversity in the 1920s and ’30s, and significant works by several major figures from those decades were published after 1945. Faulkner, Hemingway, Kerouac, Steinbeck, and Katherine Anne Porter wrote memorable fictions. In the post-war period, many Americans felt fractured from reality and found themselves struggling to piece together their identities. The proposed national identity was that of prosperity, hope and success but in the years following the war and in the wake of losing so many citizens, many Americans did not see themselves in the same line. Instead they were experiencing hardship, hopelessness and constant struggle to rebuild their lives in a war torn nation. This attitude is what prevailed in much of the post-war literature along with the various ways in which people sought to recompose themselves. The disillusioned mass found their voice in the page of Hemingway and Kerouac. As it is said that literature speaks for the contemporary society, and as long before P. B. Shelley had once said that Poets are the unacknowledged legislatures of the world, hence it was the serious effort of Hemingway and Kerouac that made the contemporary society to rebuild their world in a new way. Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises and Kerouac’s On the Road; are the two catalogue of contemporary society which makes the world understand the prevailing circumstances of that time. The post World War-II era of the American society witnessed many changes. There was certain change in the socio-cultural outlook of the society. The ideology of Beat Generation emerged during this point of time. Central elements of Beat culture include a rejection of mainstream values, experimentation with drugs and alternate forms of sexuality, and an interest in Eastern religion. The literary movement of the Beat Generation exploded into American consciousness with two books in the late 1950s. The first one was Howl and Other Poems by Allen Ginsberg, published in 1956. The book achieved notoriety when poet and bookstore owner Lawrence Ferlinghetti went to trial for selling it in San Francisco. The second book had an even more profound cultural effect when it was published. Jack Kerouac’s On the Road, published in 1957, was viewed as nothing less than a manifesto for the Beat Generation. However the Beat literary movement was short-lived. Most of the work Kerouac published in the 1960s had been written during his creative peak in the 1950s. Beat literature retains its popularity decades later because the writers of the Beat Generation must ultimately be judged by their work, not by any real or imagined influence on popular culture. Allen Ginsberg’s poetry is still revered. The nightmarish visions of William Burroughs continue to influence post-Modern writers. Finally Kerouac’s On the Road is still a campus favorite, and continues to draw scholarly criticism. Jack Kerouac had a major influence on an entire generation of Americans following the publication of On the Road, his semi-autobiographical novel that became the bible of the Beat Generation in the 1950s. Kerouac’s impact continued into the next decade as the hippie movement developed during the 1960s and writers such as Ken Kesey, Tom Robbins, and songwriter Bob Dylan produced works influenced by Kerouac’s spontaneous, confessional, free-thinking style. On the Road is, the story of two young men, Sal Paradise and Dean Moriarty, who travel frantically back and forth across the American continent seeking thrills. The novel is actually a thinly veiled account of Kerouac’s own life in the late 1940s, when he fell under the spell of a charismatic drifter named Neal Cassady (represented by Moriarty in the novel). Every episode in the novel was inspired by real-life events. The book shocked readers in 1957 with its depiction of drug use and promiscuous sex. Many critics attacked the work as evidence of the increasing immorality of American youth. Other critics saw it as a groundbreaking work of originality. American readers, fascinated with the bohemian lifestyle of the characters, turned the novel into a bestseller. This novel is about Sal Paradise, a writer and college student, lives in Paterson, New Jersey with his aunt. He spends much of his time with his eccentric and artistic friends in New York City. One of his friends, Chad King, introduces him to Dean Moriarty, a young man recently released from a reformatory in New Mexico. Dean spends the winter in New York and then he moves back west to Denver in the spring. A few months later, Sal follows him to Colorado. Sal move toward west, learning more about him and the many intriguing people he meets along the way. He arrives in Denver and connects with a group of his New York friends. He moves into an apartment with his friend Roland Major, but Sal is anxious to see Dean who is on a tight schedule, hustling back and forth between his wife, Marylou, and his girlfriend, Camille. Sal roars around Denver with Dean and other friends and goes to a party in Central City. After a few weeks, he leaves on a bus for San Francisco. In San Francisco, Sal moves in with his friend, Remi Boncoeur, and Remi’s girlfriend, Lee Ann. Remi gets Sal a job as a special policeman at a barracks for overseas workers. Sal hates working with the other cops there who are miserable and narrow-minded. After a few months, Sal leaves San Francisco and travels to Los Angeles. On the bus he meets Terry, a young Mexican-American woman, and they fall in love. Sal goes with Terry to Sabinal, her hometown near Bakersfield. He meets her family, moves into a tent with her and her young son, Johnny, and gets a job picking cotton. But he soon realizes that he can’t make enough money to support Terry and her son. He persuades Terry to move back with her family and he returns to his life in New York. Sal’s and Dean’s friendship throughout the novel reflects the buddy themes found in much classic and pop culture. They are two men sharing travel experiences. Their relationship is a part of the male bonding stereotype. Yet, what they have transcends a typical friendship. Through their adventures and travels, they become comrades and brothers. Dean’s madness envelops Sal; Dean can make the mundane extraordinary for Sal. Their deeds and misdeeds bond them together in a way that ordinary friendship rarely does. Friendship also plays a role in the Beat culture that Kerouac describes. It is only when Sal’s group of friends was together that he can truly experience the kind of life they want to live. In On the Road, however, friendship is also a power that can destroy. Sal eventually sees his relationship with Dean as destructive. During their final journey he laments Dean’s coming to take him to Mexico. Dean, and the subculture represented by Sal’s Beat friends, come to represent the destruction of the traditional values of American society like family and relationship. This kind of individualist subversion is one of the themes of the novel, and Sal can sense that something is being lost by this destruction. During the final journey, Sal realizes that the destructive nature of this kind of friendship can have severe consequences for the people surrounding him and Dean. On the Road deals also with the sense of adventure and exploration in two main ways. First, there is the story of exploration. For Sal, the country and towns that lie before him represent new adventures. Through his first journey, Sal understands himself to be one in the long line of explorers and settlers who went west to find a new life. Sal mythologizes much of the American West during his trip. He sees the possibilities of time and existence in the Mississippi River, echoing other great American writers such as Mark Twain. In the Denver mining town he finds a sense of the Old West, a time of cowboys and dangerous frontiers. As he picks cotton with other migrant farm workers, he imagines himself to be a part of that culture and those who farmed and worked civilization into being in the American West. Yet, the second sense in which On the Road deals with the American West takes a much sadder tone. In this way, the novel comments on and criticizes its times. Just a year before the book was published, in 1956, President Eisenhower had signed the Federal Aid Highway Act of 1956, which formally began the construction of the Interstate Highway System. A plan for the system had been in the works since 1921, and this was just one of many signs that America was taming its West. Sal realizes through the novel that though modernity and technology are bringing greater access to transportation and to places in the West, there are fewer and fewer places to be discovered. Sal confronts this reality as he visits the Wild West Festival in Cheyenne, a tourist attraction that can only simulate the real Wild West. The mining town outside of Denver has also ceased to be a true part of the West, being now a part of tourist culture. Sal and Dean also feel sadness for the Indian cultures of the mountains of Mexico; for they realize that the coming of a highway means the destruction of their culture. By the end of the novel, the reader begins to understand that any road that leads to the American West brings with it the potential destruction of culture even as it gives freedom to the traveler or tourist. The aspect of On the Road that has been most criticized in the decades following the novel’s release has been Kerouac’s portrayal of the relationships between men and women. While Kerouac himself was roundly criticizing the social structures of family and work that kept men from finding a truer way of life, his novel failed to record the plight of the women being subjected to the same pressures and conventions of society. More to the point, the characters seem unsympathetic to the toll that the women have to pay in meeting the appetites and helping with the travels of the men. In the story the life that Sal and Dean want to live is one that rejects all notions of authority and rule. Dean has little regard for the law and conventions of society. Authority is seen in the novel through the pleadings of the maternal characters for Dean and Sal to settle down and fulfill their responsibilities, and it is most clearly understood in the various run-ins that the group of Beats has with law enforcement. Anarchy in the individual eventually confronts the authority of society. Kerouac used mobility, alongside other themes, to express resistance to established norms in the culture of the United States during the nineteen fifties. The use of mobility in both the content and the structure of the novel and relate it to expectations of family, progress and attached sexuality. This resistance is ambiguous in that it rebels against ideals of family and home at the same time as it reproduces the established American mythology of mobile, male outlaws. This interpretation is placed in the context of the counter-culture of the nineteen fifties and nineteen sixties in the United States which was a period when many young people were striking out against the presuppositions of rootedness, family values and the ‘-American Dream. Using the insights of new cultural geography and cultural studies and the use of mobility in this story; is a key text in the counter-culture, which represents a contestation of a central theme in American culture. Mobility is clearly an important part of North American mythology and as such it is open to change and challenge from resistant sub-cultures. Apart from Kerouac, it was Hemingway who contributed a lot in the making of emotions of the people in the post World War era. Ernest Hemingway’s first novel, The Sun Also Rises, remains as a romance and a guidebook. It also became a modern-day courtesy book on how to behave in the waste land Europe had become after the Great War. The Sun Also Rises successfully portrays its characters as survivors of a lost generation. In addition, the novel was the most modern an American author had yet produced, and the ease with which it could be read endeared it to many. But for all its apparent simplicity, the novel’s innovation lay in its ironic style that interjected complex themes without being didactic. Generally this novel is considered to be Hemingway’s most satisfying work. The material for the novel resulted from a journey Hemingway made with his first wife, Hadley Richardson, and several friends to Pamplona, Spain, in 1925. Among them was Lady Duff Twysden, a beautiful socialite with whom Hemingway was in love (the inspiration for the novel’s Lady Brett Ashley). There was also a Jewish novelist and boxer named Harold Loeb (source of Robert Cohn) whom Hemingway threatened after learning that he and Lady Duff had had an affair. Lady Duff’s companion was a bankrupt Briton (like Mike Campbell). The trip ended poorly when Lady Duff and her companion left their bills unpaid. The ending of the novel is only slightly more tragic, yet it recovers those precious values which make life livable in a war-wearied world: friendship, stoicism, and natural grace. The Sun Also Rises is as much an extended character study as it is a novel where the story being told is no more important than the characters being examined. The five central characters are expatriates living in Paris and are members of the lost generation, â€Å"You are all a lost generation† [Hemingway, Epigraph] caught up in the sense of despair and disenchantment which followed the First World War. There is no real hero amongst those five; each possesses a flaw which prevents this status being reached. The Sun Also Rises concerns a group of Americans living in Europe during the 1920s. The narrator and principal character is Jake Barnes, a newspaper correspondent. The leading female character is Lady Brett Ashley. In the course of the novel, we learn that her husband, a British officer, was killed in World War I and that she was a nurse in the hospital where Jake Barnes was sent after he suffered a disabling injury in combat. Serving as the narrative voice throughout, Jake begins the story by talking about his past and current relationship to another character, Robert Cohn, who will subsequently figure in the plot but who is not the novel’s protagonist. Jake tells us that Cohn comes from a wealthy Jewish family and that he attended college at Princeton where he distinguished himself on the boxing team. When Cohn’s first wife left him, he took up with a young woman named Frances Clyne, and she went with him to Paris where he wrote his first novel. Although Jake speaks of Cohn as a friend, there is a certain antagonism beneath the surface. Jake characterizes Cohn’s book as poor and admits that he lied to his friend to get out of a proposed trip to South America. It is in the book’s second chapter that Jake fills us in on himself. It is there that we learn the narrator is currently a foreign correspondent working in Paris for an American newspaper. Jake also tells us that he was wounded in World War I and that his injury has left him in the supremely frustrating condition of being impotent without diminishing his sexual desire. Jake brings the tale into the present night at the Cafe Napolitan, a popular haunt of the lost generation and the avant garde in the Left Bank district of Paris. He meets and buys a drink for a local prostitute, Georgette, and when they go to another trendy spot, the Cafe Select, they encounter Robert Cohn and his fiancee, Frances. The high point of the scene comes with the arrival of Lady Brett Ashley accompanied by a group of extraordinarily handsome (and possibly gay) young men. Brett exudes sexuality and sophistication. Cohn is enthralled by her, but she refuses his request to dance and leaves the night club with Jake. The first-person narration of Jake Barnes is sometimes referred to as a roman a clef. A roman a clef is a story understandable only to those who have a key for deciphering the real persons and places behind the story. The story of Jake Barnes resembles the real events of the summer of 1925 in the life of Hemingway and his friends. Still there is enough difference that no key is needed for understanding. The novel stands on its own whether or not the reader knows on whom the character Lady Brett Ashley is based. The Sun Also Rises is an impressive document of the people who came to be known, in as the â€Å"Lost Generation†. The young generation had their dreams and innocence smashed by World War I, â€Å"Nobody ever lives their life all the way up except bull-fighters† [Hemingway, 10] emerged from the war bitter and aimless, and spent much of the prosperous 1920s drinking and partying away their frustrations. Jake epitomizes the Lost Generation; physically and emotionally wounded from the war, he is disillusioned, cares little about conventional sources of hope such as family, friends, religion, and work and apathetically drinks his way through his expatriate life. One of the key changes Hemingway observes in the Lost Generation is that of the new male psyche, battered by the war and newly domesticated. Jake embodies this new emasculation; most likely physically impotent, he cannot have sex and, therefore, can never have the insatiable Brett. Instead, he is dominated by her, as also Cohn who is also abused by the other women in his life. Jake is even threatened by the homosexual men who dance with Brett in Paris; while not sexually interested in her, they have more manhood than Jake, physically speaking. Hemingway’s spare, laconic prose was influenced by his early work as a journalist, and he has probably had the greatest stylistic influence over 20th-century American writers of anyone. The key to Hemingway’s style is omission; we usually learn less about Jake through his direct interior narration, but more through what he leaves out and how he reacts to others. For instance, we understand him much better through his thoughts on Cohn, who shares many of Jake’s traits. As an example of how much Hemingway omits, Jake never even fully describes his war injury, leaving it somewhat open to interpretation. There are two primary questions which Hemmingway asks readers to contemplate in The Sun Also Rises. The first is whether or not unconditional love is a sign of weakness or strength. The second is whether or not the sexual triumphs of a man are indicative of his level of manhood. Both of these questions define the theme of this masterful literary achievement, which centers on the balance of power between the strengths and weaknesses which are battled within us and within our relationships. Both the World Wars resulted in a vigorous change in the society, in term of socio-economic and socio-cultural attitude. It was natural for the generation of that contemporary time to be under immense confusion and disillusionment. However it was the literary genius of both Hemingway and Kerouac to evaluate the current impulse of the generations and they were triumphant in their attempts, which is proved in the success of their concept in both the novel The Sun Also Rises and On The Road, as both these story depicts the real sentiments of the contemporary generations. References: 1. Hemingway Earnest. , 1995, The Sun Also Rises, Scribner, New York: USA 2. Cresswell Tim. , 1993, Mobility as Resistance: A Geographical Reading of Kerouac’s ‘On the Road’, Blackwell Publishing, Oxford: UK 3. Kerouac Jack. , 2007, On The Road, Viking Penguin, USA 4. Elliott Ira. , 1995, Performance Art: Jake Barnes and â€Å"Masculine† Signification in The Sun Also Rises, Duke University Press, USA