The Character of Mrs. Mallard in The Story of an Hour by Kate Chopin Es

The Character of Mrs. Mallard in The Story of an Hour by Kate Chopin In "The story of an Hour," Kate Chopin reveals the complex character, Mrs. Mallard, In a most unusual manner. THe reader is led to believe that her husband has been killed in a railway accident. The other characters in the story are worried about how to break the news to her; they know whe suffers from a heart condition, and they fear for her health. On the surface, the story appears to be about how Mrs. Mallard deals with the news of the death of her husband. On a deeper level, however, the story is about the feeling of intense joy that Mrs. Mallard experiences when she realizes that she is free from the influences of her husband and the consequences of finding out that her new-found freedom is not to be. At First, Mrs. Mallard seems to be genuinely affected by her grief: "She wept ar once, with sudden, wild abandonment....When the storm of grief had spent itself she went away to her room alone. SHe would have no one follow her". At this point in the story, the reader is abl e to look into the mind of Mr...

How does Macbeth’s character change throughout the play? Essay

The play of Macbeth, written by Shakespeare is all about power, greed, betrayal and temptation. It is about ambition overriding inhibitions and the conscience of a good man. The paly Macbeth demonstrate how a popular, brave, honourable soldier could commit treason against a kind, devoted King, and slowly disintegrate into an evil tyrant who had lost all human emotions all because he was gullible and was too obsessed about his own goals. Although the three witches and his wife had contributed much into Macbeth’s downfall, if he had not been so susceptible, the play Macbeth would not have been a tragedy. At the beginning of the play (Act 1 Scene 2), Macbeth was portrayed as one who was loved and admired by many. He was said to be tough and courageous as he had â€Å"with his brandished steel which smoked with bloody execution like Valour’s minion, carved out a passage†¦Ã¢â‚¬  and was also described as a â€Å"worthy gentleman†. Before Macbeth fell into the witches’ trap, he was loyal to the throne and Duncan. He fought fearlessly for the country and was then rewarded with a thaneship of Cawdor. Banquo was Macbeth’s best friend; they fought side by side in their battles and were companions. They were concerned about each other as seen from (Act 1 Scene 3) where Banquo advised Macbeth not to believe in the witches’ prophases and that they were probably going to betray him at the end. Macbeth was a loving husband. Macbeth and lady Macbeth had an affectionate relationship where Lady Macbeth was Macbeth’s â€Å"dearest love†. Even far away from home in a battle, Macbeth still managed to write a letter to his wife, which further showed his care for Lady Macbeth. In the early stages of Act 1, Macbeth was a successful, admired soldier; he was a good friend and he was a loving husband, but all was about to change. Macbeth’s weaknesses were illustrated fairly early in the play. When Macbeth and Banquo saw the witches, he was afraid and was totally consumed into his own thoughts. He was unable to hide his feelings, was extremely superstitious and was morally weak. He did not completely believe the witches’ predictions at first, however, when he had received the news about his reward of the thaneship, he became totally obsessive in his ambitions to become the King. When Macbeth was uncertain if he should murder the King or not, his wife’s simple emotional blackmail placed him right back on his track of evil. His incapability of hiding his emotions were later shown again in Act 1 Scene 6 where he had failed to meet Duncan at the gate. Presumably, he was nervous and was deciding whether to kill Duncan or not. In contrast, Lady Macbeth was able to act in front of Duncan and pretended to be an innocent host. From the events of the first several scenes, it may seem that Lady Macbeth was the one who had driven him to this evil and that Macbeth was the innocent one who had been pushed into committing a crime he did not want to complete, however, as the circumstances of the play progresses, so did his character. When the â€Å"deed was done† and the blame was placed upon the grooms, Macbeth was tremendously remorseful for what he had done. He still had a conscience and was aware that what he had done was immoral. He was religious and claimed that he could not say â€Å"Amen†, could â€Å"sleep no more† and wished the knocking would wake Duncan. He was repentant for the murder and said the blood on his hand was â€Å"a sorry sight†. He was fearful of his action and was worried about if anybody had heard him. He was so nervous that he had brought the dagger with him out of the murder scene and was too terrified to return. On the next day, when Duncan’s deceased body was found, Macbeth knew his guilt and killed the grooms as an â€Å"act of fury†. The killing of the grooms was unnecessary in terms of hiding his responsibility for the killing of Duncan, but the killings and the emotional speech Macbeth defended himself with had instead created suspicion. To cover-up his act of treason, he blamed the murder on Malcolm and Donalbain whom had fled from Scotland and was therefore unable to defend for them. Act 2 showed the gradual change of Macbeth’s character. After the murder of the King, he was remorseful for what he did and the deed itself could be blamed on Lady Macbeth. However, he did not stop there; he framed and killed two innocent grooms that could not have known what had happened in the previous night. He also stated that Malcolm and Donalbain were behind the murder. At this point of the play, it was noticeable that Macbeth was going to kill anybody who would stand in his way or pose as a threat to his throne. Macbeth had achieved his goal and became the emperor, yet, he was not satisfied and was distrustful towards anybody, even his best friend and his wife. Duncan trusted Macbeth, and he betrayed him, naturally, Macbeth believed that he could depend on no one. He distanced himself from his friends and family and deceived them. The only thing that was remotely â€Å"friends† to him were the witches whom he totally depended on and trusted. Macbeth was no longer a brave, honourable soldier. He was a tyrant and a coward. He recognised that he felt guilty about killing people and therefore hired two â€Å"low life† murderers to kill his best friend and brainwashed them into thinking that Banquo made them poor. Macbeth was no longer killing to silence them, but killed for jealousy and anger. He was jealous that Banquo had a son and was angry that he had none. In the brainwashing of the murderers, he had also persuaded himself that what he was doing was in fact right. His distrust was further demonstrated by the sending of a third murderer to spy on the two murderers as well as the murder of the two murderers. Act 3 showed the erosion of the nobility of Macbeth. He gradually became more and more evil, he was suspicious, he had cut himself off from everybody and was on his official â€Å"killing spree†. Macbeth no longer considered about killing, but became more impulsive in comparison to the murder of Duncan and were irrational acts of tyrants. It did not take him long to make up his mind about an assassination. Despite the evil shown in early Act 3, a small speck of guilt and ethics had remained in Macbeth’s character, but not for long. In Scene 4, when there was the banquet, he was aware that Banquo was killed. He saw Banquo’s ghost and was terrorised with his own guilt. After that ordeal, he had given up his sense of righteousness. From that point, he stopped feeling guilt for anything he did and began his plan to kill Macduff and his family whom were totally innocent. Macbeth was not paranoid about people knowing that he killed Duncan anymore and thought that there was no way for him to cover up the murder anymore. In Act 4, Lady Macbeth became mad because she had suppressed so much of her feelings and it became obvious to the doctor that Duncan was murdered by Macbeth and Lady Macbeth and they did not seem to be too surprised. When Lady Macbeth committed suicide in Act 5, it was evident that the affectionate relationship between Lady Macbeth and Macbeth did not exist anymore. Macbeth felt sorry for the death but was not terribly saddened. He was numb to death and had a loss of natural human feelings. It was until the very end of the play and Macbeth’s life when he finally understood that the witches had betrayed him. Even when the Birnam Wood began to move, he still relied on the witches’ prophecies of that â€Å"none of women born† shall harm him until Macduff told him that he was born by a Caesarean section. Regardless of his evil acts, he had still fought an honourable fight and was brave to the end. He faced thousands of soldiers by himself which showed his courageousness similar to the beginning of the play. He knew it was too late to turn back and once again and for the final time felt remorseful because there was nobody to depend on anymore. The play of Macbeth is about dictatorship, greed, treachery, betrayal and temptation. The play showed how a good man can quickly change into the most evil person because he fell into temptation. He had committed one evil deed which had caused him to do worse and worse. He lost trust towards all his friends and his family and had broken contact with those who loved him and instead depended on evil and entirely trusted them. Macbeth’s character had changed throughout the play because he was affected by evil and his own conscience.

Corporate Governance And Financial Scandals In India - Free Essay Example

Sample details Pages: 5 Words: 1610 Downloads: 3 Date added: 2017/06/26 Category Statistics Essay Did you like this example? INTRODUCTION: This research will identify Corporate Governance in India and the reasons of its failures that lead to the financial scandals in India. As the big companies, Enron and WorldCom, illegal operations were disclosed; the worlds business came into shock. Many other companies in the world came under this attack like Parmalat in Italy, all had problems in their corporate governance. Don’t waste time! Our writers will create an original "Corporate Governance And Financial Scandals In India" essay for you Create order This showed that the whole world had a problem in their corporate governance. Unlike the developed countries, the developing countries had corporate governance as the main issue far before these scandals took place as corporate governance and the economic development are linked as this helps in development of financial system which results in increase of growth and reduction in the poverty. Thus research tells us why there are corporate governance failures in big organizations and explains the factors that influence the corporate governance like ownership structure, structure of company board, financial structure, etc. LITERATURE REVIEW: 1.1.1 Corporate Governance: An overview Corporate Governance is an extensive term that refers that the rules, processes, responsibilities and the privileges are shared by the corporate participants. It basically says that how the investors assure that they get a return on their investment. It is the decision making committee by which the managers work on their duties in order to maximize investors wealth. Acc to Keasey et. al.(2005) approaches Corporate Governance as, à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“Corporate Governance has two requirements, micro level and macro level. At the micro level it needs to ensure that the firm, as a productive organization, functions in pursuit of its objectives. Thus if we follow the traditional Anglo-American conception of the firm as a device to further the well being of its owner-shareholders, good governance is a matter of ensuring that the decisions are taken and implemented in the pursuit of shareholder value. At the macro level corporate governance, in the words of Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspa n, à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‹Å"has evolved to more effectively promote the allocation of the nations savings to its most productive use. à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“ A good corporate governance should aim at long term benefits to the shareholders and other stakeholders. It can reduce the national financial crises. Corporate governance and currency depreciation have inverse relationship. Asian crisis of 1997 is one example of poor corporate governance norms. The manager should be working in the interest of the shareholders. Managers have the control over the business and may not act in the benefit of the shareholders. This is the common problem all over the world. On the whole a good corporate governance can help in preventing the financial scandals that happened in the world. 1.1.2 Corporate Governance in India: In India, corporate governance was not understood till early 1990s. Indian legal system is based on the English common law and gives the highest protection to the investors and to lenders as well. The corruption rate is very high in India. The most important development in corporate governance and investors protection in India is the establishment of the Securities and Exchange Board of India in 1992,(Chakrabarti et. at.,2007). It was established to monitor the stock trading which helped in making the basic rules for the conduct of corporate in India. Reforms were made to make the people rely more on market than on government. The public sector was targeted inorder to make it more efficient and to bring out the government holdings for sale to the public. Banking sector reforms were also made to bring them to the international levels. In 1998 a code- Desirable Corporate Governance in India and the companies followed it,(Mallin,2010). Many who didnt follow it experienced losses and end ed up in losing the confidence of people. SEBI also made a committee on corporate governance in 1999 headed by Shri Kumar Mangalam Birla and report was published in 2000,(Mallin,2010). This concentrated on the capital markets growth. The code is to be followed by the both public and private sector companies. The code tells about the structure of the company, the role played by them and what is everybody entitled for. i.e. Board of Directors, Nominee Directors, Chairman of the board, Audit committee, Remuneration committee, Shareholders, how corporate governance is implemented, management of the company and the board procedures. Though India has one of the best corporate governance laws but the implementation of them is very poor. In India, the main business type is the public limited companies. The legal system is the English Common Law, the structure of the Board is unitary and the ownership is basically family ownership or corporate but now the institutional investors ownership is increasing. 1.1.3 Financial Scandals: The corporate governance is influenced by the ownership structure, the structure of company boards, the financial structure and the institutional environment. If any of these doesnt work properly then the scandals are prone to happen. The people choose the board of directors, which further appoint managers for different work who actually work daily in order to maximize shareholders wealth. Its the board of directors that decided the corporate objectives and the managers are the one who carry them out. The main reasons that cause corporate governance to fail are as follows: the most important is that the work done is not watched properly and is very weak. There is not much respect for the shareholders, and moreover the management has the complete authority who works for their own benefits rather than the shareholders wealth maximization (KPGM, 2009). The few corporate scandals that have taken place all over the world are like Enron (USA), WorldCom (USA), Satyam (India) and many more ( Mehta et. al). RESEARCH QUESTIONS AND OBJECTIVES: The research aims to find the corporate structure and its role in fulfilling the objectives of an organization. The research about the present corporate governance structure and the changes it has come overtime and further any changes required according to international norms. The main objective of the research is as follows: How can corporate governance be more stringent to steer clear of scandals? How important is the Board structure and the Audit committee on the board for good Corporate Governance? Is there any alteration required in the current structure of corporate governance to make it work more efficiently? METHOD: The research is to be done, in particular, for the detailed information on the corporate governance and the reasons of its failure which result in the fall of huge companies based on the following two reasons i.e. the Board structure and the Audit committee. The qualitative approach will be used. The primary data collection for the Board structure will be done based on two companies i.e. Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), India and Infosys Technology Limited (India) which can be compared to the one of the major company of India, Mahindra Satyam, which failed due to poor corporate governance. All three are the software companies. Taking direct interviews with the high officials on the management committee will be of helpful in finding out the deep structure and changes that are required for the corporate governance to work more efficiently and how does it still help the companies to perform up to their shareholders expectations. The Board structure can be discussed by knowing the number of members on the board, their independence. Auditors play an important role because due to their reports people put faith in the company. The audit members will be found and the actual knowledge of the members will be collected from the CMIEs prowess database which will help in telling whether the committee has enough knowledge in order to fulfill the shareholders demand or not. Secondary data is the data in which researcher is not involved in the collection (Dale, Arber, and Proctor 1988). The secondary data collection also got some advantages as cost and time, high-quality data, opportunities for longitudinal analysis, more time for data analysis and reanalysis may offer new interpretations (Knight and Latreille, 2000). Secondary data will be collected from company website, annual reports, books, journals, newspapers and magazines. The data collected as secondary can provide important information about the company and can prove supportive in research. 3.1 ASSESS RESEARCH QUALITY: Reliability: The reliability of interview can be ascertained by ensuring that all questions are clearly understandable to all the interviewees and the replies received can be coded explicitly. The answers received from interview should make sense and must prove helpful to the research. The self-completion questionnaire must be filled by employees without any pressure from their managers. Therefore, a pilot test must be conducted before issuing of questionnaire (Saunders et al., 2003). Validity: The validity is concerned with the issue that whether the data collected is related to what it is expected to be. According to Saunders et. al(2003), validity is related to a question of casual relationship between two variables? The research will be conducted from February 2010 to May 2010. And there will be direct contact with senior managers in DAIPL to keep updated about any change in their motivational strategy or any change made internally. This will ensure the validity of the research done. Ethics: The code of ethical conduct stated that it is the responsibility of the researcher to assess carefully the responsibility of harm to research participants, and, to the extent that it is possible, the possibility of harm should be minimized (Bryman and Bell, 2007). Therefore, research conducted will be done only when managers and employees are willing to participate in research. The names of all participates would be kept confidential and not revealed at any reason. The questions in the interview will not be formulated in manner that they show any participants identity. Accessibility: The researcher here is been granted the right to access and publish all the findings that are relevant to all ethical requirements. TIME SCALE: