English - Tennesse Williams Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

English - Tennesse Williams - Essay Example The spiritual needs of an individual, as well as his moral principles and inner believes are relevant to this talented playwright. The most impressive characters of his plays are Maggie from  Cat on a Hot Tin Roof  and the character of Stanley Kowalski from the play A Streetcar Named Desire (Gross, 2002). Williams made an emphasis on the necessity to explore the inner word of people. All misfortunes come from human misunderstanding. This was his main claim and in such a way, there is a possible way to prevent blindness in the hearts of people in case they live in mutual understanding. He became popular in 1927, but his career was often criticized by his father, who worked at the international shoe company (Rogal, 1987). The prototypes of his main characters were taken from his life experience and his work at the International Company as well (September. On Stage, 1994). Williams is a deep and a profound philosopher and a psychologist of human souls. The best play was published in 1944 and it The Glass Menagerie. This play is referred to as the playwright's personal experience (Wolter, 1995). Williams had a strong-willed mother, who even allowed making a lobotomy to his sister Rose. Thus, Williams converges his life with his plays and mergers his plays with his life. That is his power. The Pulitzer Prize was acknowledged to him in 1948 for  A Streetcar Named Desire (Dowling, 1981). ... During the period of his depression he struggled with his drug and alcohol addiction. Like every talented man, he was searching for inspiration and his muse. Therefore, the plays of the playwright are full of in-depth considerations about the inner world of an individual. They are focused on negative sides of a human nature. The author thinks that in negative emotions an individual is able to perceive an outer world and his inner world better. His main characters experience degradation, moral challenges, problems of an individual’s choice and many other dramatic issues. His plays may be described as nightmares, because the author is not shy to depict the negative and destructing side of a human nature. His own anxieties are projected on his plays. Therefore, Williams considers emotions to be an integrative part of a human life. Emotions are fragile for him and there is a need to concentrate on them in order to perceive the essence of emotions and penetrate into the depths of a n individual’s inner world. Moreover, Williams underlined the privacy of emotions and there is a cruel outside world, where all people live. He often associated main characters of his plays with animals in order to show their emotions in a more acute manner. Animals are unable to analyze their emotions, but feel deep, as well as people do. Therefore, is not it surprising that all human beings are self-concentrated, but their selfish emotions contribute much to their self-analysis. Another interesting note to be made about Williams is to determine the role emotions played in his life. His family created a favorable atmosphere for his growing up and he was able to focus on his inner world and not on external turmoil. That is why Williams feels a nature of men and women, depicted in his plays

Production Chain and Sector Matrix Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Production Chain and Sector Matrix - Essay Example 13) in firms. In reaction to the low profits and high cost of capital in the 1980s and 1990s, several firms embarked on a wave of financialisation - creating, buying, or expanding financial subsidiaries to acquire financial assets - for the purpose of giving management greater flexibility in managing earnings, creating shareholder value, and satisfying the capital markets (p. 34). Most publicly listed firms, therefore, were "pressured" to show good results on a regular basis using the basic language familiar to capital markets: stock price reflects shareholder value that is a function of operating efficiency, lower expenditures, growth in turnover and earnings, and a steady flow of dividends. The more consistent the numbers, the better, as Froud et al., (2005) pointed out in their study of the American company GE. The main challenge to managements in a financialised universe of firms was to make ambitious strategic plans and deliver consistently on their promises. Firms became slaves to a ruthless capital market that, with a single recommendation, can punish poor performers by depressing a firm's stock price and raising its cost of capital. In a world obsessed with financial performance, managements searched for suitable analysis and planning tools. The production chain and the sector matrix were two of the many that, in this age of globalisation and management fads, were developed to help firms map out value-creation strategies. We explain each briefly, then compare and differentiate them with examples. The Matrix The matrix is a strategic tool that presents in a grid or table the strategic factors affecting the firm. The coordinates of the grid can vary, as shown in examples of two well-known models. The first is H. Igor Ansoff's product/market expansion grid or matrix (Ansoff, 1957) that recommends four strategies (market penetration, market development, product development, and diversification) a firm can adopt to grow or increase its turnover depending on the life cycle of the firm's new or current products and markets. The other is the Boston Consulting Group's Market Growth-Share matrix (Henderson, 1970, 1976a, 1976b) designed to help the firm identify businesses/product types by market share (an indicator of the firm's ability to compete) and market growth (indicator of market attractiveness). Firms, in effect, can manage their businesses as a portfolio of investments, much like a bank or an investor would hold, buy, or sell financial instruments. Firms that want to grow should hold or buy stars (high growth and high share businesses) or cows (low growth, high share, cash generating businesses), sell dogs (low growth and share), and think of what to do with question marks (high growth, low share, needs cash injections, but risky). Example of Matrix Use A prime example of how the matrix was used for strategic management is recounted in the study (Froud, et al., 2005, pp. 8 and 38) of General Electric (GE) that, with the help of consulting firm McKinsey and Co., adapted the BCG matrix and developed its own Nine-Cell Industry Attractiveness-Competitive Strength Matrix (Thompson and Strickland, 2001, 327-330), a three-by-three grid that mapped out alternative business positions and attractiveness of markets, on which are superimposed several scaled circles representing different markets and their sizes and showing the firm's market share within each market (See Figure 1). [Insert Figure 1 here] GE claimed that the matrix provided at a glance