The Gender Classifications in Contemporary Social Ideology Assignment

The Gender Classifications in Contemporary Social Ideology - Assignment Example It centers on a biological disparity of surface objectification and splendor, taking people into the two-way terrain of identity individuals, and dictates power relations (Jhally 2009, 3). The film concentrates mainly on the fundamental importance of gender, power, and the people’s discernment of what it means to be a male or a female (Jhally 2009, 3). Question 2: Using the word ‘man’ to refer to male and female The term man is derived from the older version of English; its structure had a default meaning ‘the mature male’. The logical thinker uses it to refer to both male and female (Beauvoir 1977, 13). This supposedly portrays chauvinism despite its unique understanding. The logical thinking of why both male and female are referred to as Man follows that; the word men stands for thinking. This means that man is a thinker– male and female are thinkers. This terms them both like men. The general meaning of man has gone down but still endured in different ways like mankind, human and is now mostly seen as ancient, with the word used almost entirely to refer to mature male (Beauvoir 1977, 13). Question 3: Connection between sexes (physiological categories of male and female) Simone De Beauvoir’s recognition holds in her revolutionary magnum opus, The Second Sex. The book still counts as an opening text in philosophy, feminism, plus women’s studies. The book suggests that females have been put in an oppressive relation with the male species. It terms female as the man’s other (Beauvoir 1977, 13). Beauvoir’s discovery in her investigation into woman’s condition states that; they consistently will be referred to as the other by a man who assumes the position of the person. She explains women to be the absolute opposite of what they thought men to be. This means; she stands as secondary, inessential, unlike the man who they thought to be essential. The connection lays in the belief that being a male means being the subject, and when one is a female, she is referred to as ‘the other’ (Beauvoir 1977, 13). Question 4: Classes and race A recent observation proved women to be placed in island settings. It associates itself with harmonious nature; women have often been put in ads soaking up the rays and warmth of the sun. They do this in an obedient position: lying on the beach (Williamson 1978, 385). Williamson wished to prove that like islands, men ruled over women and oppressed them for toil and resources. She termed women as vacation sites. Men, on the other hand, have in the past been more often related to mountains. Unlike the beach, the mountains portray physical strength. Nature assumed on cliffs and rock arrangement appears tough and uncompromising. Climbing mountain proves females also to be physically and mentally tough, able to negotiate risk, and be successful. The female executive dynamically looks for risks since it tackles ideas of challenging the women to rise up (Williamson 1978, 385). Question 5: Becoming a female Beauvoir's ample work brought up interesting issues in many individuals; what concerns people most in the context rotates around her view of the speculation of subjectivity and identity. People remember her for her well-known declaration, that one is not born but rather becomes a woman.

The Melon grower by Alice Oswald Essay Example for Free

The Melon grower by Alice Oswald Essay The Melon grower by Alice Oswald explains the slow decline in a couples marriage. The melon grower is the man, Oswald uses his care for the melons to demonstrate the mans disinterest in his wife and his lack of emotion towards her. As the poem leads on through the twelve stanzas it becomes increasingly sad and disfunctional however in parts showing a comical side. The frequent use of the pronouns he and she in the poem proves the disfuntion and seperation of the couple as their marriage falls apart. The 12, 3 line stanzas are biographical. The story has been told to the author from the prospective of the wife who is clearly unhappy in her marriage. We dont know fully how her husband is feeling about the disintigration of his marriage, only of his obssessive interest in his melons.We are given a brief insight into his emotions when he was in church and he sang O Lord how long shall the wicked.? and then, He prayed, with his thumbs on his eys. Were we given a glimpse of his own dispair? In the first few opening stanzas there is a sense of seperation through the pronouns he and she there is no they showing that they no longer spend time together. The wife seeks the husbands attention as he spends the majority of his time out of the house with his plants She threw a slipper at him this domestic item contrasts with the plants and highlights the difference between their seperate lives, it is almost as if she is physically throwing the house at him in despiration. The poem doesnt just describe the end of the friendship and communication of the couple but also the end of their sexual realtionship If I can sex he said the flowers, very gently ill touch their parts with a pollen brush made with rabbit hairs. this qoutefrom stanza 5 highlights the abscence of sex within their relationship, he is more intimate with the melons. Stanza eight shows us the passing of time, the relationship still limping on, with him remaining ever neglectful of his wifes even his daughters, feelings, burying his head and hiding in his green house. He cares for his melons with the utmost care and gentleness which is at odds with the decay  of his home and his l I feel that Oswalds sympathy lies with the wife. I feel as a reader, sympathy for both charaters. The misunderstanding, the lack of communication, her anger, his apparent apathy toward the problem, all leading to the slow crumbling of their relationship. Within the last two stanzas Oswald creates a contrast between the two, first of all she paints an image of softness with the nets and fruits big at ease but then writes the last stanza about the wifes final despair with the melony aroma suffocating the whole place becoming sinister.

Relationship between price earning ratio and stock returns

Relationship between price earning ratio and stock returns There have been a large number of literatures during the past years on price earnings and stock return. The existing literatures propose different theories to how the price earning ratio may affect the performance of a company and also the factors that may influence it. Price-Earning Ratio There are several measures to determine the valuation of a security. Most often, the measures are determined by comparing the securitys price to different fundamentals such as earnings and dividends. One of the most respected stock valuation measures is the Price Earning ratio, which compare the price of the security to the companys earnings. Graham (1933) was the first to introduce the concept of the price earning ratio as a measure of performance of the stock market and the application of the P/E ratio was based on the idea that earning are related to value. Basu (1977) identified P/E ratio as predictor of subsequent performance and in particular high P/E firms underperformed and low P/E firms outperformed. The study done by Basu (1977) also state that P/E ratio, due to exaggerated investor expectations, may be indicators of future investment performance and he also validated Nicholsons results which state that low companies having low P/E ratios on average subsequently yield higher returns than high P/E companies. Gonedes and Dopuch (1974) declared that price models are conceptually inferior to return models under the presence of under-developed theories of valuation. Additionally Christie (1987) argues that price models present more econometric problems than return models. On the contrary there is a majority of studies that declare the superiority of the price model on explaining the return-earnings relation such as Bowen (1981), Olsen (1985), Landsman (1986), Barth et.al (1990, 1992) Barth (1991). However, the P/E ratio as it is commonly used is the result of network of influences, similar to the way in which a companys share price is influenced not only by idiosyncratic factors particular to that company, but also by movement in prices on markets as a whole, and the sector in which the company operates. Four main influences on a companys P/E ratio have been identified: The year the average market P/E varies year by year, as the overall level of investor confidence changes The sector in which the company operates. The size of the company there is a close positive relationship between a companys market capitalisation and the P/E accorded. Idiosyncratic effects. Companies examined in the same year, operating in the same sector and of similar size nevertheless have different P/Es. Idiosyncratic effects, that do not affect any other company account for this. Stock returns The CAPM developed by Sharpe (1964), Lintner (1965) and Mossin (1966) has been the most widely accepted among the many models developed to explain the relationship between expected returns and risk. According to the CAPM, the market can only compensates the investors for bearing systematic risk or common risk, which is measured by the assets beta. The beta measures the contribution of the risky asset to the riskiness of the entire efficient portfolio. The relationship between the expected return and risk can be expressed in CAPM model: E(Ri) = Rf + ÃŽÂ ²i(E(Rm)- Rf) Where E(Ri) = the expected return on the ith risky asset Rf = the expected return on a risk-free asset E(Rm) = the expected return on the market portfolio ÃŽÂ ²i = beta coefficient of the ith risky asset The establishment of the CAPM are based on the following assumptions: Investors are risk averse. Therefore investors prefer the highest expected return for a given standard deviation and the lowest standard deviation for a given expected return. The returns from investment are normally distributed. Therefore two parameters, the expected return and the standard deviation, are sufficient to describe the distribution of returns. All investors have a common single-period time horizon for their investment decision making. All investors can borrow and lend unlimited amount of money at a given risk-free rate. All investors have the same estimates of the expected return on each asset, the variance of return for each asset, and also the covariance between returns for each pair of assets. All assets are traded in the perfect markets; that is, all assets are marketable, there are no transaction costs or taxes, and all investors are price takers. The CAPM is challenged by the evidences on anomalies in stock returns. The CAPM says that all diversifiable risks will not be compensated and the only relevant risk is the market risk. Therefore, besides the market factor, no other factors should systematically affect the stock returns. The firm specific factors are capture by the error term, which is random. But the findings of the anomalies such as size, book-to-market equity and earning-to-price ratio suggest that investors can earn abnormal returns based on these trading rules. This may imply that the CAPM is mis-specified. Many empirical studies have been conducted and it has been found that stock returns are affected by some factors such as: Book-to-Market Equity effect Rosenberg, Reid and Lanstein (1985) and Stattman (1980) found that there is a positive relationship between stock returns and book-to-market equity. By the means of the time-series regression, the t-statistics obtained clearly show a positive result for their hypothesis. In study of Lakonishok, Scheifer and Vishny (1994), all the stock in the US market was divided into ten deciles portfolios from 1968 to1989 based on the book-to-market equity (BM) ratio. The results show that the average annual returns for deciles with the highest BM was 10.5 percent higher than the lowest BM deciles. Size effect The size effect is among the most prominent phenomena identified. Banz (1981) documents that there is size effect in the US stock market, using a test period from 1963 to 1975. The result of this study shows that small firms (measured by market value) on the average earn higher risk-adjusted returns than big firms. Seasonal effect Another evidence of the existence of the anomalies is the seasonal effect. In certain period of the year, stock returns are found to be higher as compared to the rest on the calendar year. The most common example of the seasonal effect is the January effect where stocks repeatedly earn higher returns in the month of January than the rest of the months in the year. The seasonal effect is also found in countries including Japan, Australia and Canada documented by Officer (1975), Berges (1984) and Jaffe Westerfield (1985) respectively. Many researches illustrate the relationship between the price earning ratio and the stock return of a company. Lakonishok, Scheifer and Vishny (1994) implemented P/E ratio as an expected future earnings growth indicator, in an excessive cross- sectional analysis. They proved that investors tend to favour stocks with exceptional past and current performance glamour stocks as they believe that past success will continue in the future, that is, they attribute the extra returns from value shares to psychological factors affecting market participants. According to Burgstahler and Dichev (1997), when the earnings to book value ratio is high, earnings are a more important determinant of equity value and vice versa. Moreover, Kormedi and Lipe (1987) and Collins and Kothari (1989) among other, identified that the earnings persistence is one of the major determinant of the magnitude of the earnings-return relation. EMPIRICAL REVIEW Several papers examined the ability of price and return models (along with some alternative forms) to accommodate the return-earnings relationship. An important ratio for the more low-risk, defensive investor was introduced by Graham and Dodd in 1933. They introduced the Earnings/Price ratio which is simply the Price/Earnings Ratio but flipped around as a benchmark for equity valuation. After the 1929 stock market crash, they recommend the investors that rather by trying to guess what the future bring, they should concentrate on other factors such as the companys past earnings or the value of its assets. According to Graham and Dodd, a company with strong profits and a relatively low stock price was probably undervalued. Also the fact that each share is value a number of times its current earnings became commonly satisfactory as a specific P/E level enables financial investors to make their buy/sell decision. The authors specified that P/E ratio, which is calculated by current fundam entals, never provide an exact appraisal for stocks. As a conclusion, P/E ratio was first regarded as a rough benchmark for selective stock investment and a tool for applying specific financial strategies so that in the long term, above-market returns can be generated. One of the first works showing the effect of the Price Earnings ratio was done by Nicholson (1960). The first study was based on a sample of 100 stocks which were mainly from industrial issues of trust investment quality and the stock was taken from the period 1939-1959. The stocks were arranged into groups of five according to their P/E ration in ascending order and were rebalanced every five years. The author found out that the twenty lowest multiple stocks had larger price gains as compared to the twenty highest multiple stocks. Those with the lowest P/E would deliver 14.7 times its original investment after the 20-year period, whereas the portfolio with the highest P/E stocks only earned 4.7 times its initial investment. Eight years later, Nicholson (1968) conducted another study where he looked at the earnings of 189 companies between 1937 and 1962. By dividing companies into groups of five, he found out that the average return for companies with a P/E ratio below ten was 12.7% per annum as compare to companies with a P/E ratio above twenty which had an average return of 7.97% per annum. Another studies done by Basus papers (1977) confirmed the results of Nicholson. The author tried to find the relationship between the investment performance of common stocks and their P/E ratio. He studied the price performance of NYSE industrial firms from 1957 to 1971. Two or more portfolios will be computed whereby risk-return relationship is weighted against each other and their performance is measured in pre-determined terms. Price to earnings ratio for every sample was calculated and they were ranked. Five portfolios were formed according to their P/E ratio. Considering the inter-quartile range, dispersion of the P/E ratio over the 14 years period can be noted where the low portfolio earned a return of 16.3% per annum compared to 9.3% for the high portfolio. Later researches (Jaffe, Keim and westerfield (1989) and Fama and French (1992)) supported the effectiveness that stocks with low P/E ratios produce higher returns. However a possible rejection of Nicholson and Basus studies on the Price Earnings ratio was made by Ball (1978). He conceded the apparent of such effects and argued that abnormal returns could not be produced on the basis of information available in the public area as they are of little or zero costs. Other reasons that could account for this irregularity are the systematic experimental error, transaction and processing costs and failure of Sharpes two parameter CAPM model. Beaver and Morse (1978) found out that when combining stocks into portfolios based on their price to earnings ratio, the differences among the portfolio continued up to the 14 years and that growth is not able to explain the existence of these little differences. I the years in which the portfolios are created, the price earnings are negatively correlated with earnings growth but positively correlated with earning growth in the next year implying that investors are considering only short-live distortions. In the study, the correlation of earnings growth in 1957 is negative 0.28 and the median correlation over the 19 years is negative 0.28. This is due to investors belief that earnings have been affected by temporary, random events or accounting management policies (rate of inflation, change in accounting treatment), firms which have low earning growth tend to have a high P/E ratio in the same year. As the portfolio are formed on the basis of ratio of price to realised earnings, stock s with transitory earnings will be grouped together meaning portfolio with the highest P/E ratio will be likely to include firms with negative transitory elements, that is, realized earnings are lower than the expected earnings. In the next year, while investors expectations are confirmed and earning growth increases, there is a positive correlation between P/E ration and earning growth. The author concluded that differences in accounting methods are the most evident explanation in differences in the P/E ratio rather than risk and growth. Studies that relate to accounting and price data normally derived the accounting measures from the COMPUSTAT database and for the quality returns they use CRSP data. However some difficulties may arise when using the COMPUSTAT database and Branz and Breen (1986) explained on the two possible problems that may crop up, that is, the ex-post-selection bias and the look-ahead bias. The ex-post-selection meant that companies which have merged, gone bankrupt or otherwise disappeared are no more included in the COMPUSTAT database and also new companies appeared with a full accounting history which does not exist before. The look-ahead bias resulted because of a dating problem where investors would not have access to portfolios that were formed at the end of the year and they had to wait several months before having access to it. Branz and Breen eliminated these factors by collecting certain COMPUSTAT items on a monthly basis that contain information on companies that was available to the in vestors and which also include all companies that had gone bankrupt, merged or disappeared on the COMPUSTAT. They concluded that even though the size effect was present, the Price Earning ratio was no more important as it is the data biases that had generated the evident P/E effect. Alford (1992) studied the accuracy of the valuation of the price to earning ratio when comparable firms are selected on the basis of industry, risk and earning growth. Alford (1992) used a sample of NYSE, ASE and OTC firms for the years 1978, 1982 and 1986 to analyse the accuracy of the price earning valuation. Each of the selected comparable firms predicted stock price is compared to its actual price and the author found that the price to earning ratio is an accurate measure of equity valuation. The findings of his research concluded that much of the diversity of P/E is attributed to the variety in the level of risk and earning growth of the individual firm. In addition, the industry factor appears to be a good proxy for risk and earning growth realed to the P/E ratios. Alford (1992) showed that the use of the industry P/E multiplied by the firms earnings per share (EPS) was proved to be an accurate estimator of its equity. The assessment of the accuracy of the P/E estimator was mad e under the efficient market hypothesis. In an efficient market, the market price changes randomly to reflect all new information. Thus, it can be used to test the accuracy of the theoretical price that Alford (1992) calculated, using P/E ratio. However this condition might not hold for different market. Value strategies have been defined by lakonishok, Schleifer and Vishny (1994) as the buying of stocks whose price are low as compared to other indicators of fundamental values such as earnings, dividends, historical prices, book asset or other measures of value in a comprehensive treatment of the issue of value strategies versus glamour stocks. They collected and studied stock prices between the periods 1963 to 1990. Firms are then classified into value or glamour stocks based on their past growth in sales and expected future growth as implied by the then-current P/E ratio. Differences in the expected future growth rated between the value and glamour stocks were found and as shown by the P/E ratio, investors were always overestimating them. For the first couple of years, the glamour stocks grew more quickly but afterwards the growth rates for the two types of stocks were almost identical. Glamour strategies were outperformed by 10-11% per year by the value strategies which used both past low growth and low multiples. Thus, glamour stock became overestimated, failed to meet investors expectation and were gradually abandoned. Stocks with temporarily depressed earnings are lumped together with well-performing glamour stocks in the high expected growth/low E/P category. These stocks with depressed earnings do not experience the same degree of poor future stock performance as the glamour stocks, perhaps because they are less overpriced by the market is the possible reason why the P/E did not produce a large effect as he other measures of fundamental value such as price-to book value or price-to-cash flow. Lakonishok, Schleifer and Vishny (1994) argued that such strategies offer higher return because they take advantage of investors sub-optimal behaviour. They came across little, if any, support that the value strategies were riskier and also found that the value stocks performed better than the glamour stocks. As a conclusion we can say that there has been much research that has been done on the price earnings ratio. Also many studies have been done throughout the world on different stock exchange market such as the Athens Stock Exchange (ASE). These studies concentrate on the impact of the price earning ration on the stock returns and it has been seen that price earning ratio do affect the stock returns, for example, Basu (1977) confirmed that stocks with low P/E ratio produce higher returns. However these researches had focus mainly on the empirical review rather than the theoretical review and this is the reason why we concentrate more on the empirical review.

Herald :: Essays Papers

Herald The early Middle Ages were when Heraldry began. Knights needed a way to identify each other. The noble families developed different patterns and symbols that they would paint on their shields. These symbols served the purpose of representing their families and also, establishing who the enemy was and who the allies was in a battle. They termed these shields, coats of arms. Any family could have a coat of arms but for them to be considered official, they had to be recognized by The College of Arms. The College was where heralds trained to read and write and memorize the existing coats of arms. Therefore they were able to identify the enemies and the allies if needed to do so. A coat of arms, or blazon of arms, as they were sometimes called consisted of several parts. These components were the shield, the crest, the helm, the wreath and the mantle. The shield contained the symbols and their colors. The crest is what goes on top of the helmet. The helm or helmet varied in accordance with the rank of the knight, the time period, or the herald's preference. The wreath consisted of the metal and the primary color. And the design of the mantle also varied with the herald's preference. The herald's used a variety of colors like gold, silver, red, blue, green and black on the shields. But the colors were not there for decoration. They symbolized specific meanings. For example, silver stood for peace and sincerity, whereas black stood for consistency and grief. Red was considered to be the martyr's color and blue meant truth and loyalty. But along with the colors were objects or actual symbols that represented certain meanings. There were many more symbols than there were colors. There was a symbol starting with most of the letters of the alphabet. The meanings of the different symbols were even more specific than those of the colors. For example, a hawk stood for one who does not rest until he achieves his objective. Another symbol was a battle-axe, which stood for the execution of military duty. There were probably almost a hundred, if not more, of these symbols used.

Do you agree that Yeats creates a scene of tragic intensity in Purgatory?

Do you agree that Yeats creates a scene of tragic intensity in Purgatory, or is the play too short and the characters too thinly evinced for this to be the case? The play Purgatory was written in 1938 by Yeats as a single-scene play revolving around the idea of tragic intensity. Yeats was a philosophical writer, choosing meaningful subject matters to discuss in his work. In this case, he chose to symbolise the destruction of Ireland created by the controversy of religion after being inspired by other plays such as Shakespeare's Hamlet and using the definitions set out by Aristotle after he studied the elements that made up a great tragedy. In order to create a successful tragedy, Yeats used the Aristotelian unities: time, action and place. The timing of the play ensures a strong plausibility as the action is all dealt with in real-time, therefore reducing the imagination needed on behalf of the audience increasing the plausibility. The setting throughout the play is in a confined place upon the stage with very few changes made, allowing little release of tension. This intimate setting forces closeness between the characters and audience: though it finishes with the Old Man abandoning the scene leaving it desolate. The complexity of Shakespeare's Hamlet, there are more precise actions and plot in Purgatory, making it easier to understand, and allowing the seemingly simple plot to have all attention on it, resulting in a claustrophobic and tense atmosphere. In Purgatory there are only two characters for the audience to focus on, which provides enough space and time in his play to create characters that are evinced clearly enough to serve their purpose as model examples of an old and a young boy, which provides the plot with a deeper impact. Due to the relationship between the father and son, there is intensity between the characters as they should share a close bond and yet they both ignore and insult each other with snide remarks such as â€Å"silly old man. † Yet, the characters do share an attempted intimacy as the Old Man retells his painful and distressing story in the form of a monologue that is interrupted by the Boy. The Boy is ignored and this increases the drama and emphasizes the communication difficulties between the characters. Although Yeats characterises the Old Man and Boy to an extent, the lack of details reinforces the cold and detached elements of the play, and without names they are left unidentified to the audience and therefore could appear as symbolisations of anyone. Fear of the supernatural emerges from the fear of the unknown, and Yeats uses this idea to extend his tragic scene by presenting the ghosts as a misunderstood and mysterious element due to the Old Man not knowing how to prevent the ghosts from returning. He also doesn't know how to deal with them, which can be seen in the way he attempts communicate with his mother by shouting â€Å"Don't let him touch you! † despite knowing that she cannot hear him and he cannot interfere. Death is a foreboding unknown in everyone's life that most are afraid of, and in Purgatory Yeats uses this to foreshadow the Boy's death as the he mentions â€Å"Now I am young and you are old. † This creates confusion and tension as it is unclear who will die. Although the ghosts' role in the play is limited, their presence is a constant reminder of past events, present actions and the future to come that all relates to death. This tension and the compactness of the play help to increase the intensity as well as invoke fear in the audience, which contributes to the final catharsis Yeats uses cyclical chronology within the play to illustrate the idea of time being a continual concept that cannot be stopped. It highlights the eternal nature of purgatory and expands the idea of the inevitability of the drama. Yeats' use of the hoof beats signals the reoccurring cycle, allowing the events to begin and for the audience, who cannot hear the noise, to question the sanity of the Old Man. The simple lighting in the window, the props, stage effects and setting all help form the audience's perception of a void place, therefore a tragic location filled with intensity, as anything more flamboyant would detract from the tragedy and therefore reduce its strength by distracting the attention onto details that do not contribute. Purgatory effectively demonstrates tragic intensity due to the brevity of the drama. This ensures that the audience's focus is concentrated to such an extent on the plot that the drama becomes claustrophobic. There is no scenic juxtaposition, underlying subplot or change in scenery, which exaggerates this overpowering atmosphere and prevents a release from the tragedy – instead, a build-up of tension is created. Visually, the play is very precise and concentrated, and the anxiety of the dialogue is maintained until the final moments of the play, due to Yeats using his characters to produce emotions of fear and terror in the audience. The amount of emotional fluctuations in the short play only heightens the intensity by creating an overwhelming scene which leaves the audience emotionally exhausted before culminating in catharsis. Props and setting are essential to the play as the relevance of the knife and money goes straight to the core of the plot. Because there are no distractions on the stage, tension is created due to the attention and detail and each prop's significance is more obvious and important. The â€Å"jack-knife† relates to a jackdaw – a species of birds that commit mercy killings amongst their flock, echoing the way the Old Man ends up stabbing his son, as it can be interpreted into the act of salvation of his mother. The setting too contains poignant features that are considerably tragic themselves. The tree is a constant reminder of the destruction of the Old Man's family members as Yeats' use of symbolism makes it a representation of his family tree. The house shows the ruins of the family's livelihood and the fall of nobility, increasing the visual intensity seen upon the stage. It is also seen to represent a wider scale issue, the destruction of Ireland, and this symbolism shows the vast ruin of a country concentrated to a mere house. This is intensified as the tragedy is not reduced but shown on a small scale. Harold Bloom1 criticized Purgatory by attacking Yeats, believing there is â€Å"confusion†¦ n the play. † Bloom found the ending of the play a mass of confusion rather than causing the surge of emotions that are evoked at the end of a tragedy. This brings up the debate as to whether Yeats created an intense piece of drama or just a bewildering fifteen minute sketch. However, even if Purgatory is confusing due to the brevity, the mysterious plot can add to the overall tragedy, leaving the audience unsure of what they have witnessed, and fearful due to the rash actions of the Old Man and the presence of the paranormal. In conclusion, Yeats creates a scene with brimming with tragic intensity by using the minimal props, time, characters and plot. The brevity of Purgatory ensures a ‘scene of tragic intensity' due to the resulting starkness, claustrophobia and desolate tone. The horrifying drama concludes with an dark, empty set, which is how it had started, therefore presenting the cyclicality of purgatory on the stage for the audience to see. Yeats successfully moulded every aspect of tragedy at his disposal and created an intensely dramatic production.

Is It Appropriate for Learning to Read? Essay

Dr. Carla Hannaford, an educator and neuroscientist, presented a revolutionary research that helped people have a better understanding of the things they know and those that they do. Dr. Hannaford’s book entitled Smart Moves: Why Learning Is Not All In Your Head, has been praised for the insightful link made between the body and learning. Joseph Clinton Pierce even considered it as a research work that is greatly significant in understanding education and child development. Aside from that book, she also authored the book, The Dominance Factor: How Knowing Your Dominant Eye, Ear, Brain, Hand, & Foot Can Improve Your Learning. In this book, she looked at the link between the part of a human’s body favored for â€Å"seeing, hearing, touching, and moving† and a person’s way of thinking, working, reading, playing, and interacting with others (Hannaford, 1997). Basically, the research study conducted by Dr. Hannaford scientifically elaborated and explained the connection of one’s mind and body movement and its implication in his/her learning and thinking abilities. In the Dominance Factor book, Hannaford emphasized on the idea that combining one’s dominant eye, ear, hand, and foot has tremendous effects in the way an individual learn. She also discussed the idea of an individual’s dominance profile. This dominance profile, which can be discovered in a simple and non-invasive muscle-testing, is a key element in molding a person’s way of thinking, acting and communicating with others. According to Hannaford, there are actually 32 different combinations of a person’s â€Å"dominant hemisphere, eye, ear, hand, and foot† (Hannaford, 1997). Each profile also helps a person identify what weaknesses they may encounter under stress. She even asserts that understanding one’s profile will help parents and even their children learn together in the best method suitable for them and that which will help the children perform at their highest capability (Hannaford, 1997). The concept presented by Dr. Hannaford could be tested and used in the different learning skills of people. Applying the dominance theory to an individual’s reading abilities is interesting but poses both a positive and a negative manifestation. Hannaford gave two major profile combinations that are easy to assess. She assumes that a person with a dominant â€Å"logic hemisphere, right eye, right ear, right hand, and right foot† understands better in a structured learning method and an orderly and chronological information presentation (Hughes & Vass, 2001). On the other hand, a person with a dominant â€Å"gestalt hemisphere, left eye, left ear, left hand, and left foot† learns faster through a perception of the bigger picture and understands the main idea yet has difficulty in looking at the details or the step-by-step procedures (Hughes & Vass, 2001). Being aware of this assessment, parents who will be able to easily identify the dominant profiles of their children will find it easier to teach their children how to read and read well considering that they will be able to apply the method that will be best applicable for their children. For the children, since their parents already know how they could read better, they will be able to find the learning process more enjoyable and to their advantage especially given that their parents applied the technique where their child may respond well. However, utilizing the dominance theory also poses negative consequences. Parents who are able to identify the dominant profiles of their children, whether it is as easy as the left and right combinations or more complex like an overlapping combination of the two, will only give focus on that dominant profile. In doing so, they are disregarding the development and enhancement of the other profiles of their children which is not that dominant but may well be applicable to their children. It somewhat constrains the parents to single-out the dominant profiles and set aside those which are not dominant at the moment. In all these, it is observable that any theory poses both positive and negative consequences. Although the ideas presented regarding the dominant profiles and reading skills is interesting, the parents should still consider the holistic growth of their children wherein the young ones develop all their skills as much as possible to their full potential and capabilities. References Hannaford, C. (1997). The Dominance Factor: How Knowing Your Dominant Eye, Ear, Brain, Hand and Foot can improve your Learning. UT: Great River Books. Hughes, M. , & Vass, A. (2001). Strategies for Closing the Lea