House on Mango Street: Four Skinny Trees

The Trees of Hope and Courage In The House on Mango Street, the author Sandra Cisneros takes you into a completely different world through the eyes of a young, insecure Esperanza growing up in a poor section of Chicago. A vignette that especially stood out was â€Å"Four Skinny Trees†. In this vignette Esperanza is describing four skinny trees that are overlooked and underappreciated. Cisneros uses powerful personification techniques that not only create vivid images but trigger intense reactions. Her words trigger despair and hope, fear and courage, strength and weakness. Esperanza is connected to these trees on an emotional level because what she is imagining in these trees is what she sees in herself. The trees served as emotional guides teaching Esperanza to have confidence. Cisneros projects Esperanza’s emotions onto these four skinny trees though powerful personification techniques. Esperanza sees a distinct parallel between her life and the trees. Esperanza feels as if, â€Å"They are the only ones who understand me. I am the only one who understands them† (74). Esperanza sees herself in these trees, â€Å"†¦with skinny necks and pointy elbows like mine† (74). She sees these scrawny trees trapped in the concrete of Mango Street and can relate because she too is stuck in the concrete of Mango Street. Esperanza sees a parallel between her and the trees and imagines these trees with souls and emotions that reflect her own. She perceives the trees as full of anger, â€Å"They grow up and they grow down and grab the earth between their hairy toes and bite the sky with violent teeth and never quite their anger† (74). It is apparent that these trees aren’t really angry but that Esperanza is embedding her hidden rage into these trees. Cisneros vivid personification makes the trees strong symbols of Esperanza’s emotions, her anger, fear, inconsequence and also her hope, courage and importance. These trees are misplaced and misunderstood but yet they keep on growing, keep on fighting. They continue to exist, not giving up, â€Å"Four who grew despite concrete† (75). The four scrawny, angry trees symbolize both hope and courage. To Esperanza these trees symbolize an emotional guide, they teach her she can trade despair for hope and fear for courage. The trees are teachers. The trees could very well surrender, â€Å"†¦ they’d all droop like tulips in a glass, each with arms around the other† (75). But they don’t they keep on growing despite that they do not belong. Esperanza takes courage from the trees to never give up. Esperanza has learned from these trees how to achieve a peace with who she is. These four skinny trees that were probably planted by some city worker on a concrete slab are objects in which Esperanza has brought to life with her own emotions. Because they too are misplaced like Esperanza but yet they continue to be and keep growing, they do not give up. They have taught her not to surrender to who she is but to accept it and keep growing. One day Esperanza will leave Mango Street but instead of living with despair waiting to escape she is living with hope for the future and the courage to be strong throughout the process.

Four Types of Organisational Structure Essay

Organising is therefore the method by which an organisation is formally controlled into divisions or operational units and the structure of the firm is established. The end product of management process is organisational structure. Organisational structure binds the all level of management personals together and brings them into proper development and co-ordination of organisation. It is tasks arrangement which is break up into a few divisions or departments and grouping it together under the management hierarchy to achieve the organisation objectives. Under the organisation structure, one single path will create to attach the tasks, work flow and communication channels between the personals and the various divisional peoples of organisation. Organisation structures smooth the progress of efficient management, direction and control. Every administration has to set up its own organisation structure for well-organized perform of business actions. An organisation structure usually represent in graphical form which is called an organisation chart. Usually, the chart illustrated in the form of vertical, horizontal or concentric to define the authority and responsibilities of personals in various levels. The chart always created according to the existing departmentalisation of organisation. In departmentalisation, each personal from different job segments will work to achieve an aim of pre-determined organisational objectives. The departmentalisation is based on five structures, which is functions, products, consumers, geographical and matrix. In these papers, we will go through the justification of four structure which is function, product, geographical and matrix with sample organisational chart on each structure. Â  Sample Organisation Chart of Functional Structure. Source: SIA Cargo Pte Ltd Functional organisation structure is the most common and logical type of business unit that adhere by companies. In this structure, people are group together based on common skills and work activities. It focuses on single service and doesn’t need frequent changes in organisational hierarchy. Base on above organisational chart, we can notify that the total organisation system is coordinating by top management. For a proficient management function, the organisation breaks up into a few departments such as marketing, engineering, technology, operational and etc. Each departments lead by a senior manager or vice president who are reporting to a single authority, top management. As the simplest approach, a functional structure sort well-defined channels of communication and influence relationship. Each department’s staff needs to report to their only functional unit’s manager and by doing this, the various business unit’s prevent any kind of misunderstanding or conflicts among them. The chart hierarchy is simplified, well-organised and the separation of tasks also well defined with layer by layer. The fewer layer of management will ease the expectation of top management and also improve the task co-ordination. Decision making process is swift and authorities in functional structure. Because of the staffs in functional structure come from similar background and perspectives, so it wills faster the process of the decision-making without waste of time. Since the every business units in structure workout in similar background, it might cluster the processing of the papers together and highly improving the knowledge sharing between co-workers. Sharing knowledge make the organisation more productive and competitive where the experience personals such as managers often coaching and mentoring the less experience personals of each units through seminar or workshop. Functional structures produce clear career hierarchy organisation members to go after. Managers within a functional structure are generally skilled within their particular unit. They were hiring to lead the units due to their tremendous performance. These managers have a better-quality skill level that facilitate make their profession easier and makes them better capable of to monitor the individual act of their team members to allocate credit, rewards and penalty accordingly. A functional structure may draw some setbacks to organisation. It controls people and assets and build up core competences. As a company develop and becomes more difficult, each function tries to retain the company’s situation. Increased order may strain manufacturing to manufacture products quick enough or in sufficient capacity may lead to control problems. When control problems arise, it also strains the situation in evaluating the cost and contribution of each function. Other drawback is communication problem. Poor communication occurs within the organisation due to subunit orientation. The top management find it hard when balancing the process of decision making between centralise function and regional managers. The top managers might disrupted by solving a daily problems and may loss focus on long term strategic issues, resulting in long term strategic direction. Â  Sample Organisation Chart of Geographical Structure. Source: SIA Cargo Pte Ltd Geographical organisation structure is usually used by big firms whose operations are spread out over a large geographical area, for instance, multinational companies which market their service worldwide. Hotel, retail, food and transportation are among the industries which is widely using the geographical structure in their management. The whole organisation will lead by a president and one person will be responsible for an each particular region. According to above SIA Cargo chart, business units were set up at six different geographic locations and each regional branch head by Regional Vice President. The branch Vice Presidents will report to Senior Vice President. The expansion of business units can be local, national or international. In geographical structure, the organisation stick on company strategies and values although operates individually. It operates as its own unit based on where it located. In this structure, each personnel from various departments have prospect to work together. Working as a group will form a strong teamwork effort and keep them in the process of planning and decision making. Beside this, everyone in the departments will have an ability to recognize the personalities and values of each individual. Close working proximity lead to decentralise the process of decision-making and make organisation to settle in rapid changes in divisional goals. In each region, a local or personnel who familiar with local business environment and culture will be employ to head the business units. It ensures that the company well understand the customer expectation and needs. Base on local knowledge, the departments heads able to create a high coordination and effective process of decision making across the functional units. The regional heads ensures the company strategies adaptable to local culture and suit to fast change in unstable environment. In divisional structure, usually the departments act as a group. It allows the responsible personnel to put on better focus in their resources and results. It also makes the performance easier to monitor the customer service quality. A personal that understand and speak the local language, will satisfy the customer expectation because the contact points are clearly explain. Customer service personnel will also have better access to personnel from other units, which can allocate them to handle the customer matters much more efficiently. With geographical structure, following the routine of individual markets and task groups is cut down, as metrics such as revenues, profit margins, costs, and routine enhancement can be attached to particular regions. It is a most important strategic advantage of this structure. Many problems might incur for the companies whom use geographical based structure. Some companies may find it complicated to run a geographic organizational structure because it duplication of works and disagreement to centralized decision-making. The top management must rely on other regional heads to take counteractive actions and look up operations rather than giving a command from the company’s main office or headquarters. It may lead the company top management loss the authority in controlling the divisional units. Another limitation is expansion of knowledge. Usually, the structure does not maintain the knowledge sharing between people working in the same line of work because part of them is working in one division and the others are working in other divisions. Sample Organisation Chart of Product Structure. Source: Arla Foods Ingredients Above chart is an Arla Food Ingredients organisation chart. The chart is a product based organisation structure. Product-based structure means the regrouping of a functional structure and uses to organise employees and work on the basis of different type of products. This type structure brings together all those involved in the production skills, technical skills and marketing skills of a particular product or set of related products. Each division in structure has its own internal departments and function as self business unit. Companies that manufacture a wide variety of products such as cars and foods would find this type of structure appropriate to their organisation. Many companies tend to shift to product based structure as they expand, and as new products range are developed and new markets entered. Product based companies have no direct contact with their customers. Initially, they need to assess the market segments and develop the product from their assessment. Follow that, they must determine the price of products in line with the customer’s expectation and produce the products to sell in the market. Product based structure is also have a similar function as geographical structure. In Arla Food Ingredients, both product structure and geographical structure group together in the organisation. It will add much better clear focus on market segments and help to meets the customer’s expectation. Each division of products will be operates base on individual performance. It keeps up the positive competition between the divisions and allows the directors or managers to have better be in command of each division can act as separate profit centre. In this structure, division members are more likely to be persistent on products. It deals with the technological transform by grouping personnel with skill and their specialised equipment in one business unit. So, the division heads have a lot of control over operations and will not necessary to depend on another, separate area to get things done. The department managers will keep an eye on design and manufacturing activities, and employees become reliable to product not to function. It also allows the managers and employees to improve and expand their skills and knowledge in the organisation. The customisation of more products into division will lead to save time and cost. Decentralisation of process of decision making will facilitate rapid decision making results with effectively. It will reduce the risk of product failure and also bring on improvement in employee morale due to divisional decision making. Instead of better operational controls, the organisation can avoid the poor communication within the personnel’s which is bring to slow development of products. By the way, there is some limitation might happen when use the product base structure. An example, each product division has R;D department. When product expansion incur, number of personnel in R;D will increase. This increment will happen to each product divisions. So, it will lead to duplication of works and increase the costs of staffs. Since the divisions separately monitor, the difficulty might happen to top management to coordinating them together.

A Rose For Emily by William Faulkner Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

A Rose For Emily by William Faulkner - Essay Example After her father dies and at the age of thirty Emily meets Homer Barron, who is in town for work. Homer is Emily’s one chance at marriage, but Homer is not a marrying man (Faulkner 94). Homer plans on leaving Emily when the work on the sidewalk is finished, so she takes drastic measures to keep him as her own. The murder of Homer Barron is a consequence of Emily’s father control, Emily’s mental state, and Emily’s unrequited love for Homer. Emily is guilty of murdering Homer because it is clear from the text that she did it so that she can keep him by her side forever. Emily Grierson is completely suffocated by her father’s control. He takes drastic measures to keep Emily under his control, and prevent her from finding a husband. â€Å"We remembered all the young men her father had driven away†¦,† (Faulkner 93), is clear indication that her father drives most of Emily’s suitors away, and the reason she remains unmarried at the ripe age of thirty. Furthermore, the story paints an image of her father for us, â€Å"†¦his back to her and clutching a horsewhip†¦,† (Faulkner 93) a horsewhip that is used to drive all of the men in Emily’s life away. Upon her father’s death, Emily denies to the women that come to visit that he is even dead. Denying her father’s death, gives Emily the chance to control him by refusing to give up his dead body, even if it only lasts for three days. Her father’s death ultimately takes a toll on Emily’s sanity. Insanity runs in Emily’s family. Her great aunt, Old Lady Wyatt, had gone completely crazy (Faulkner 93). Throughout the story, Emily’s level of insanity is apparent. She refuses to come out of her house for years at a time after her father’s death, and is not seen by the town people until Homer Barron arrives in town. Miss Emily purchases poison, and the townspeople are sure she is insane enough that she is going to commit suicide. Instead, Miss Emily uses the

Leadership Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words - 7

Leadership - Essay Example The manner in which he comes into contact with his sub-ordinates and even his peers is something that demands a change within his character for the boost in the environment which can only be regarded as a positive one. I believe such tactics of authoritative leadership use a great deal of negative power and influence and hence the end result is one of failure and distress for just about everyone in the organization. The employees start leaving their jobs because they feel they have been hard done by, by the leader as well as given constant negative vibes which have more or less affected the workplace in a very appalling manner. Thus morally these tactics have meant problems for the people and hence there would be no doubt in stating that such authoritative leadership regimes are wrong in all ways and means. These must be avoided in order to secure better productivity levels within the ranks of the organization. Effective leadership requires that the leader becomes a role model for his sub-ordinates and peers and gives exemplary performance under trying circumstances. This is a hallmark of effective leadership since its basis comes about with the significance of proper attention towards detail and the adequate handling of people at the workplace. Also an effective leader does not go back on his words and shows to his fellow colleagues that he puts his mouth where his actions speak louder than words. His practical demonstration of work ethos is thus manifested in the real sense of the word. Effective leadership requires commanding dignity within the sub-ordinates and the top bosses in the organization. It also means that the employees are treated with respect and given the space that they richly deserve. Similarly effective leadership comes about in full circle when the other departments within the same organization take such leadership domains as the role model and try to implement the same within their ranks as well. This is indeed a criterion

How Pulp Fiction can be read as postmodern Essay

How Pulp Fiction can be read as postmodern - Essay Example The term post-modernist, often used to refer to art and architecture, was applied to this film, and there was even a new word made specially to reflect this, namely â€Å"pulpmodernist.†1 The phrase pulp fiction refers to popular novels which are bought in large numbers by less well educated people and enjoyed for their entertainment value. The implication is that the film concerns topics of interest to this low culture, but as this essay will show, in fact the title is ironic and the film is a very intellectual presentation of issues at the heart of contemporary western culture and philosophy. Writing ten years before Tarantino made Pulp Fiction, the academic and critic Frederic Jameson identified some of the key features of postmodernism, and debated whether these were a true departure from modernism, or just a continuation of the same rebellious themes. His paper on postmodernism2 tends towards the latter view, but at the same time prophetically pinpointed the essential dep artures that postmodernism has made from what has gone before. Tarantino’s film does not continue the debate in an academic way, but instead presents a virtuoso visual performance of the ideas that Jameson could only dimly perceive. These ideas include pastiche, a crisis in historicity and a blurring of the distinction between high culture and low culture. One way that Tarantino uses pastiche is when he introduces very evocative settings, like for example the restaurant setting of Jackrabbit Slim’s Diner. The decor is flamboyantly 1950s style, which is not in keeping with the more modern setting of the main action in the film. The film set is exaggerated, with customers actually sitting in cars, and the waiters and waitresses dressed up as famous 1950s characters like Elvis Presley and Marylin Monroe. On another level the film plays with the cultural connections that the actor John Travolta has with the 1950s. The musical film Grease which is perhaps Travolta’s most famous film, takes place in this kind of setting. When Travolta’s character in Pulp Fiction encounters this scene, playing a much older character, and in a much more adult and violent film, it causes an ironic ripple. The audience makes an instinctive connection with what they know outside the film, and this explodes the usual time and action frame of film. In Pulp Fiction Vegas begins to dance and this again brings in a whole host of meanings related to the famous dance between Travolta and Olivia Newton John in Grease. In the later film, however, this is no innocent flirting between teenagers. The new context is a dangerous flirtation with the wife of a deadly killer, and both of the participants are adults who know the consequences of their actions. Critics have noted that this, also is ironic, quoting elements of older film styles: â€Å"The story of the flirtatious boss’s wife draws on established elements from the gangster genre, while her overdose provides an unexpected Gothic reference.†3 The trickle of dark blood from the pale body of Mia (Uma Thurma) is what recalls the Gothic horror genre. These evocative touches characterise Tarantino’s exuberant style. The scene where Vincent takes Mia to Jackrabbit Slim’s Diner and then home is therefore like a pastiche of Grease, and also of old gangster movies, and then also horror films, using exaggerated and deliberate quotation of key visual features to add new and unexpected layers of meaning to the story. This layering of images from earlier artistic works creates a pastiche with a particularly nostalgic affect. Jameson remarks that this is an

Parallels In U.S. History Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Parallels In U.S. History - Essay Example The Confederates were defeated and surrendered on April 9, 1865. The Civil War succeeded in providing equal civil rights to all Americans. On January 1, 1863, Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation that declared freedom for slaves in all Confederate States. Congress passed the 13th (1865), 14th (1868) and 15th (1870) Amendments to the Constitution outlawing slavery, confirming citizenship of blacks and making it illegal to deny the right to vote on the basis of race. Business and the Economy developed and expanded after the Civil War. American industry changed dramatically. Machines were used to replace hand labor. Major inventions took place such as the typewriter (Christopher Latham Sholes), farm equipment (Deere & Co.) and celluloid (John Wesley Hyatt). Telegraph lines and railroads began to reshape the economy. The American Railway system became a nationwide transportation network that spurred economic growth. Investors invested huge sums of money in the stocks and bonds of corporations; banks lent corporations money to expand their business activities. Industrial growth caused cities to expand as people began to migrate in record numbers. In contrast, the South, badly hit by major wartime losses, failed Confederate currencies and disintegrated labor supply, suffered a doomed economy, with large farms broken into parcels and given out to tenant farming: the tenant farmers lacked the incentive to improve land that was not their own, and the l and owners did not have full control over production. In Art and Architecture, artists like Jasper Cropsey and Albert Bioerstadt popularized landscape painting. American realism entered art during the Civil War with artists like Winslow Homer and Lily Martin Spencer painting civil war scenes. The Civil War resulted in a large demand for statues of leading figures such

The factors restraining investment in the oil and gas industry Dissertation

The factors restraining investment in the oil and gas industry - Dissertation Example Investment is an important source of capital for growth in the developing countries. It provides a package of new technologies, management techniques, finance and market access for the production of goods and services; and thus contributes significantly to raise the productivity in the host countries in attaining their overall economic growth. An investment is been determined by balance, opportunity, and risk, which are relative concepts, especially with respect to Exploration activities. Opportunity involved in finding commercial quantities of oil and gas, the intensive capital required for undertaking exploration and production result in significant business risks. In many developing countries, the transformation from an agricultural and resource based economy to the export-led economy has contributed to higher energy consumption. Although they are oil & gas reserves located in those countries; very few had sufficient financial resources for the upstream investments, especially for the development of oil & gas exploration and production. Government can promote investment opportunity by adopting a proactive approach to selecting foreign partner towards improving entry procedure moreover, reducing red tape in oil and gas sector operation. However, many countries had granted development rights to foreign Companies, which have adequate capital, technology, and expertise; still some foreign Companies are not investing in those countries for many reasons.