Mrs. Aesop by Carol Ann Duffy by Andrew Banks Essay

1. The poem â€Å"† is part of Carol Ann Duffy’s collection of poems, titled â€Å"The World’s Wife†. In this collection, Duffy wishes to highlight the fact that women have long been ignored and silenced throughout history. This is why all the poems in the collection are written from a female perspective. Duffy has created a literal version of an old saying, â€Å"behind every great man there is an even greater woman†. One of the poems in the collection, ‘Mrs. Aesop’, tells the story of a wife who is tired of her sermonizing, tedious husband, known as Aesop. Aesop was a storyteller who lived around the sixth century BC, in Greece. Many historical details surrounding him are missing, but it is thought that he was first a slave on the island of Samos and his fables came to be in a collection known as â€Å"Aesopica.† â€Å"Mrs. Aesop† draws on the fables to describe Aesop’s wife’s discontent and unhappiness, the p oem emasculating her husband. The major theme of this poem is to make apparent Mrs. Aesop’s transformation from the classic recessive wife with a dominant husband, to an empowered and confident woman that was able to have the last word. This is shown by lines such as, â€Å"That shut him up. I laughed last, longest.† This appears in the poem after Mrs. Aesop has mocked her husband’s impotence, with lines like â€Å"I gave him a fable one night/ about a little cock that wouldn’t crow†¦Ã¢â‚¬  mocking his masculinity whilst clearly referring to his genitalia. 2. Allusions are some of the many literary devices Duffy includes in her works to better deliver the messages of the female protagonists in â€Å"The World’s Wife.† An allusion is a brief and indirect reference to a person, place, thing or idea of historical, cultural, literary or political significance. For example, one would be making a literary allusion when stating, â€Å"I do not approve of such a quixotic idea.† Quixotic takes on the meaning of foolish and impractical, derived from Cervantes’s â€Å"Don Quixote†, a story about the misadventures of a doltish night and his cohort Sancho Panza. Many allusions are ones we use in our daily speech, such as Achilles’ heel – A weakness a person may have. Achilles was invulnerable excepting his heel or Achilles tendon. Pygmalion – Someone who tries to fashion someone else into the person he desires, originating from a myth adapted into a play by George Bernard Shaw. Casanova – a man who is amorous to women, based on the Italian adventurer.McCarthyism – modern witch hunt, the practice of publicizing accusations without evidence, made after Joseph McCarthy. Some allusions in the literature include when the character Horatio from Shakespeare’s â€Å"Hamlet† said â€Å"A mote it is to trouble the mind’s eye. In the highest and palmy state of Rome, A little ere the mightiest Julius fell, The graves stood tenantless and the sheeted dead Did squeak and gibber in the Roman streets†¦Ã¢â‚¬  (I.i.111-115) Here, Horatio is making a reference to the historical figure of Julius Caesar, in addition to one of Shakespeare’s earlier plays titled â€Å"Julius Caesar.† Another time when allusions are used are in songs, such as when Nirvana made their classic, â€Å"Scentless Apprentice†: Like most babies smell like butter His smell smelled like no other. He was born scentless and senseless He was born a scentless apprentice. this allusion is to Patrick Sà ¼skind’s literary work Perfume. The scent Nirvana is alluding to is actually the blood of the protagonist’s twenty killing victims. 3. When Duffy uses allusions in Mrs. Aesop, she mainly uses them in the text to show Mrs. Aesop’s unhappiness with her husband In the first line, Mrs. Aesop says â€Å"By Christ, he could bore for Purgatory†. This is an allusion to Christianity, with purgatory being the place after death where souls go to be cleansed of their sins. The implication here is that Aesop could make this experience even worse. Later in the first stanza, Duffy alludes to one of Aesop’s fables, when Mrs. Aesop puts her own twist on the lineâ€Å"A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush† changing it to â€Å"the bird in his hand that on his sleeve.† By adding to his work in such a way, Mrs. Aesop is disrespecting both her husband and his work, revealing the emotion she had kept bottled up for some time. Lines such as â€Å"a tortoise, somebody’s pet,/ creeping, slow as marriage, up the road,† are a clear allusion to the tale of the Tortoise and the Hare. Mrs. Aesop uses the tortoise and hare to describe the agony of her marriage. With her cynical view Mrs. Aesop shows to her, the fable is nothing more than the reflection of a terrible marriage. When Mrs. Aesop says â€Å"I’ll cut off your tail, all right, I said, to save my face.† this is another reference to her own suppression by her husband and many other wives. This is so because the line alludes to an incident in America in 1993 when a frustrated wife sliced off her husband’s genitals in a moment of crazed revenge. Mrs. Aesop takes on a similar path to gain the upper hand on her husband, by disrespecting and revealing her true feelings about her husband. Allusions are a key literary device used to show Mrs. Aesop’s transition from a â€Å"traditional† oppressed wife to a dominant, independent woman.

Evaluate The Impact Of A Selected Business’s Ethical Behaviour On Stakeholders And The Business

In this report I will be looking at how my businesses activities and ethical behaviour affect different stakeholders with in my business. My organisation (RBS). Royal Bank of Scotland is one of the world’s top ten financial groups. The group employs 140,000 people across 30 countries and operates out of more than 2000 sites worldwide. Its subsidiaries include NatWest, Lombard, First Active and insurance groups such as Direct Line and Churchill. RBS’s aims and objectives are focusing on customers since the credit crunch in 2008 and they lost a large amount of customers since then.So their aims and objectives are to work harder to make cooperate banking better, to Provide service and support to make other businesses grow and provide them succeed in the most competitive markets and finally Improving customer service and gaining customer loyalty. As a financial institution it is necessary that RBS think and plan carefully before they make any decision or take any action in the business. They are dealing with financial products and service so they really need to focus on being ethical and behaving in a way that crime is not involved.Regulatory bodies work very hard to prevent any unethical behaviour that will not be tolerating by the authorities in charge for banking behaviour. Regardless regulatory bodies monitoring banking activities and putting laws and procedures in place for banks to abide by; unethical behaviour still takes place in banks often by individuals or groups or the bank as a whole. Looking at RBS’s history I have discovered RBS has had ups and downs during the previous few years. Unethical behaviour has taken place in RBS and their behaviour has had a huge impact on various shareholders in different ways.RBS just like many other banks has had history of mis-selling Payment Protection Insurance to customers. RBS and other banks who mis-sold PPI have had to pay back customers. PPI was a Payment Protection Insurance that is insuran ce on loans and other borrowings; people used this insurance so if the debtors die or lose their jobs then the insurance will pay off the loan. Customers bought this insurance knowingly or unknowingly but were not told clear information about what the real circumstances will be if the person is unable to pay the loan.This insurance only paid out minimum repayments for only a minimum time for about twelve months. Customers were tricked and they paid the PPI which was no use to them when they were unable to pay off their loan. RBS has already lost a lot of money paying back compensation. Since people are allowed to clam back their money on PPI and interests they were charged RBS has made an estimated loss of between  £580million and  £1. 3billion. At the moment they have kept an amount of  £500 million aside for future PPI compensation they may still have to repay.After the PPI loss they have really focused on how to prevent misspelling products so they will not have to face pay ing out compensations again. As the result of RBS misspelling PPI stakeholders were affected in in many ways. RBS’s shareholders are missing out on the high amounts of dividends they should have received. As RBS has to pay out the PPI fines they owe to customer from their profits. This means that because RBS’s profits have decreased then this will affect the amount of dividends shareholders receive as the dividend will also decrease.This is not a good image of RBS in front of their shareholders as they have disadvantaged their shareholders by decreasing their dividends. Customers have been victims of PPI as they have been paying extra charges on their loans and on other amounts borrowed from RBS . some customers struggle to even repay their minimum repayments; so PPI had made it harder for them to pay off their loans. Mis-selling gave people the wrong impression that they were insured if they lost their jobs or their source of income.People  lose trust in banking pro ducts as they expect to be assured in difficult times but when they find out they are not insured and will still have to repay loans they get mentally stressed and they feel like they can’t rely on banking products provided by RBS. The Financial service authority and other regulatory bodies also have also suffered financially as they had to pay employees at FSA to investigate the PPI scam. This is time consuming for them as they need to make sure that everyone who paid PPI is compensated.They have to spend time to investigate and fine banks so next time they will not do anything unethical again. After this incident FSA are being stricter on the way that banks operate and have amended laws regarding selling products to customers and banking what the bank is allowed to do and what they are restricted to do. The FSA is looking into how banks interact with customers and are paying more attention to all products that banks are selling. Most customers have been compensated by RBS; however I believe RBS’s trust bond with their customers has already been damaged.This influences customer’s behaviour before they buy and insurance products or additional insurance products as they will think twice before thinking of buying these products as RBS additional products may be seen as just another scam or unnecessary products. RBS needs to build up their trust with stakeholders again by providing them with information based on facts and only sell them with products that are relevant to individual customers depending on their needs.On 3rd August 2010 the FSA announced fines of  £5.6 million for RBS group for the failure in its systems and control with respect to the UK financial sanctions regime. UK banks and businesses are not allowed to provide financial services to people on the HM Treasury Sanctions list. The money Laundry Regulation 2007 states that RBS should have policies in place to prevent funding and services to people on the sanctions list, RBS is said to have not considered it important to investigate where the money was coming from into customers’ accounts. They did not look into customers to see the source of money they received or cashes out of their accounts.FSA believe that RBS funding’s could have facilitated transactions involving sanctions target and terrorist financing. After RBS admitted that they had made the mistake by not paying attention to these issues they were fined  £5. 6 million. This outcome influenced different stakeholders in different ways. When the word â€Å"terrorist† is used with an organisations name then people want to stay out of the story; this is why after RBS was fined for failing to screening procedures stakeholders did not want anything to do with RBS.I believe the main stakeholders that will influence RBS was their customers as they will stop opening accounts with RBS, NatWest and Ulster Bank and Coutts and Co. this was because they thought that the money they dep osited in their accounts was being financed for criminal activities and financing terrorism activities. Customers stop using RBS and NatWest banking and moved their money into other banks. The number of people opening accounts with them decreased as they were named as terrorist financers by some people. RBS’s reputation will go down as people will think they are involved in criminal activities.RBS needs to make people have trust in them again and they need to take an action to prevent this from happening again. People stopped buying RBS market shares in the stock exchange and this left them with shareholders wanting to sell their shares as soon as possible. Shareholders suffered as share prices decreased and RBS’s reputation was bad which meant they lost value in the stock exchange. RBS profits decreased as they had to pay the fine from the profits; this means they will pay out less dividends to their shareholders.RBS have not been ethical all the time however they hav e worked to improve and build strong relationships with their stakeholders. RBS have done this by showing the community that they care about them and they have invested some profit towards the community. Corporate Social responsibility has been RBS’s strong activity which will make people they are ethical and care about the society. RBS has proved this by taking part in a number of activities and supporting projects to help the future working generation and support  projects that are operating to make the earth a better place to live. RBS has been working with The Princes Trust for more the 11 years they have financially supported the enterprise programme.The Enterprise Programme supports and guides people aged from 16 to 30 to overcome their personal barriers to success and achieve their goals. RBS has been helping young people develop their ideas and become entrepreneurs. RBS are doing this to show people that they care about the younger generation that they spend their p rofits on projects that help provide young people a promising future.They want to show society that they are helping build businesses and are helping the society as a whole by helping young people. They will be successful in winning customers trust and in bringing their reputation back up if they continue supporting the society. RBS have used 61% of their gas from natural gases in 2011. They are now lending massive amounts of money to organisations that are working on renewable energy. They spent  £50 million helping small businesses to start up their projects on renewing energy.They then lent out  £366 million pounds in 2011 to help renewable projects in 2011. RBS has also made other small changes to the way they carry out activities that have helped the environment a lot. They have showed that they operate ethically and that they operate ethically by doing simple things on a daily basis such as they have reduced the usage of paper by using electronic systems instead. RBS do no t send customers statements by paper anymore because they have started providing electronic statements.I believe by showing that they support the environment and practice ethically they have showed campaigns like Greenpeace that they are willing to help the environment and prevent global warming. In every success story at green peace projects; RBS will be mention for making it possible to prevent global warming as they have invested in these projects. I believe that RBS performing ethically and making the right decisions has a major impact on the Government. I say this because RBS was bailed out by the government in October 2008 after going bankrupt.The government bailed them out because they couldn’t afford an established bank to go down as this would affect so many things and create so much loss to the nation as a whole. RBS was bailed out because they are one of the main companies that operate in the UK and they will lose so much money. The government invested to bail out the bank so that they will have their say on the way the banks run and control over bonuses paid to management. Bonuses and dividends were cancelled by the government and RBS had to forcefully sell their shares to the government as no other investors were willing to invest.The government buying 605 of their shares meant that they were owners of RBS. This gave the government a better insight of how the bank operates and they are now able to order RBS of how they want it to operate. I think the bank has only invested in the banks so that they can make more money from RBS’s profits in the future. This will also allow them to have a better grip of the banks finances so they make profit and the shareholders majorly the government can get high dividends in return on the profit in the upcoming years.If the government let RBS get bankrupt then the government would suffer severely. RBS going bankrupt means the nation losing one of their well established banks that means staff will be made redundant. When they are made redundant these unemployed people will turn to the government for financial support in the form of various state benefits. In my opinion the government invested money to save the bank so that they can get a return on what they invest rather than just paying out benefits.Since the government has bailed RBS out of financial crises, I think there has been an improvement in the way they operate as the government is kept a close eye on RBS’s activities to ensure make a profit and are able to pay off tax payers. RBS has paid off  £163bn in emergency loan they received from US and British taxpayers during the financial crises. Of their loan to the government with high return as the interest charged on the loan. I hope after clearing off their loan they still behave ethically so that they can avoid paying out more compensation to people they have affected with their unethical activities.

Influence Of Cultural Differences On HRM Practices Research Paper

Influence Of Cultural Differences On HRM Practices - Research Paper Example In order to understand the implications of culture on HRM practices, it is important to learn how culture is perceived by stakeholders mainly labor in an organization and also how it manifests into organizational policies and procedures. According to Hofstede (2001), a culture is a social phenomenon which is learned, shared, trans-generational, symbolic, patterned and adaptive. Also, it is a multilayered phenomenon which is easy to observe but difficult to change in terms of its foundation. These layers of culture include artifacts, espoused beliefs and underlying assumptions (Schein, 2004). In addition to that, culture defines commonality existing in preferences of the workforce and their responsiveness towards organizational practices. Since it defines shared notions driving workforce, labor tends to discard any practice that is inconsistent with it or creates ambiguity. Furthermore, culture is a stable phenomenon which is difficult to change at least in the short-term. Hofstede (2 001) further asserts that five fundamental dimensions of management define how the behavior of human resource alters itself in different cultures. These dimensions include power distance between management and labor, uncertainty avoidance, individualism vs. collectivism, masculinity versus femininity and long-term versus short-term orientation. A careful analysis of these dimensions would illustrate the rationale behind differences among organizational practices prevailing in US and UAE. In extension to Hofstede’s work, Aycan et al. (2000) explain that a culture governing workforce of an organization comprises of internal traditions, the external environment surrounding the organization and socio-cultural norms existing in that particular social segment whereas this combination is known as a model of cultural fit. Organizations tend to follow HRM practices that conform to their internal model showing compliance with organizational objectives and traditions followed by the wor kforce.  

Business Management -----motivation and leadership for one of the Essay

Business Management -----motivation and leadership for one of the campany - Essay Example But McDonald’s sustained itself because of its willingness to innovate and its efforts to attain consistency in the operations of its many outlets. McDonalds business model has been largely responsible for its success. But there is no doubt that its leadership style and its endeavor to identify and develop leadership competencies has equally helped it to achieve success around the world. At McDonald’s maximizing business performance, coaching and communication, improving the performance of teams are the key leadership competencies. The leadership style is a mix of leadership styles with a mix of components of hard skills such as maximizing business performance and soft skills such as coaching and communication that are soft skills. The company is aware that leadership skills must change with changing business circumstances. Hence the management is constantly surveying the external and internal business environment to ensure that the company’s leadership style reflects the current business needs and environment. The philosophy practiced at McDonald’s is to select the most successful features of established leadership and management styles and incorporate them into their business model. This approach seems to have worked when you consider McDonald’s success around the world. The management style has aspects of various management and leadership styles amalgamated into one approach for leading and motivating the organisation. Its approach has features taken from management styles outlined by Maslow, Taylor and Herzberg and the Democratic style of leadership. McDonald’s business model is represented by the â€Å"three-legged stool†. The success of the company is because of the strong alignment forged between the Company, its employees and its franchisees that own and operate the majority of the Company’s restaurants and suppliers who provide the food and packaging. This model focuses on open relationships between the three. The company

International Investing Project Term Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

International Investing Project - Term Paper Example The firm is also seen to be restructuring senior leadership and management positions across all their subsidiaries. There has been rising volumes of new businesses in Asia. For instance in Hong Kong, where Goldman Sachs is reinforcing its M&A team, has been particularly busy. The upsurge in business activity has also pushed up the Asian share of global Mergers & Acquisition to 20.3 percent from 18.4 percent a year ago. Citi group lending business has been performing quite well. It has the largest number of subsidiaries worldwide and a huge market capitalization. The company’s solvency is viewed as very strong from the 2014 stress test and the cost drivers of the business have been greatly reduced which make Citi have the best yield on its shares as compared to the other three companies. Advantest Corp operates in three segments: mechatronics system segment, focusing on peripheral devices including test handlers and device interfaces, and services, support and others segment. The last being semiconductor and component test system segment. There is little fluctuation in stock prices for this company, which can be attributed to few innovations over the past years. This has led to low yields in the ordinary share of the company The Company has been aggressive enough to acquire propulsion contracts in Finland worth $20 million and the level of diversification made by this business in high. They produce far more tech commodities and services than Advantest which gives them leverage and potential good returns. Citi group stock has also outperformed the market estimate of Standard and Poor’s 500. Suitable prevailing interest rates and increasing new business volumes for the banking sector has benefited the Company. Considering its global presence, one can say that its stock performance is dictated in general by other economies too. (a) This is a comparison is between the NYSE Japan Arca index and the

Central bank for GCC Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Central bank for GCC - Essay Example say that the central bank enhances oil price stability and economic efficiency in the region while those who argue against it argue that it may be influenced by political pressure and the independence of national central banks will be affected. The report also suggests that the main objective of the GCB is to achieve price stability, economic stability and economic efficiency while its function is to implement monetary policies. GCC is an economic integration of six countries that have come together for easy exchange and trade among each other. The six country members of the GCC include: Bahrain, United Arab Emirates, Oman, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Qatar. The members of the integration have benefited a lot from the integration through reduced barriers of trade and good diplomatic and economic relationships with other members of the union. GCC Monetary union has been one of the key objectives of the GCC members since 1980s (Lycett et al, 1984). Towards the goal of monetary union, the members have encouraged regional integration and intraregional movement of goods, services, technology and capital. As a way of encouraging the development of the monetary union, some member countries have suggested the introduction of a common currency that can be used as a common means of exchange among all countries just like the Euro used in the European Union. The need for one currency then called for a common monetary policy implementation in the gulf region. Because monetary policy is the work of a central bank, the Gulf Cooperation Council suggested the formation of a central bank of the union. The central bank would implement the monetary policy of the union and issue a common currency for all member countries to use for exchange amongst each other. This project report highlights the structure of this proposed central bank of the GCC and explains some of the similarities and differences between it and the Central Bank of the EU. The report will then highlight the arguments

OnDemand Group (ODG) Strategic report Assignment

OnDemand Group (ODG) Strategic report - Assignment Example OnDemand Group (ODG) is a medium size British firm, as derived from its employees – about 140, as the relevant criterion is set in the definition of medium enterprises established by the European Union authorities (Europa 2011); the firm has managed to develop a wide network of activities globally, by continuously expanding the range of its activities and by developing important agreements with competitors in foreign markets. Currently, ODG is a member of SeaChange International, a US Corporation, a fact that has enhanced the internationalisation efforts of the organization. In UK, the media and entertainment industry, in which ODG operates is highly developed; in the future, the ability of the firm to face the market pressures, both in the internal and the external market, will be related with the success of the internationalisation process, an initiative developed by the firm’s managers in order to secure the competitiveness of the organization.... This view is based on the foreign direct investment theories which emphasize on the high costs usually related to the internationalisation attempts of modern organizations; it is noted that these costs can be higher from the expected benefits; for this reason, it is suggested that monopolistic advantages are available to firms entering the global market, in order for the deficits caused from high costs – and entry barriers – to be controlled (Krist 2009, p.26). On the other hand, Prashantham (2008) explains the internationalization of firms by referring to their network relations; it is made clear that firms which have an expanded ‘network of customers, suppliers or support agencies worldwide’ (Prashantham 2008, p.34) are most likely to decide entering the global market, based on this network’s support. Certain firms are likely to choose internationalization in order to enter neighbouring countries; these countries, usually, have similar cultural cha racteristics with the country of origin, a fact that facilitates the internationalization process. This mode of internationalization is quite common in Scandinavian firms and it is known as ‘sequential development internationalization model’ (Svetlicic et al. 2003, p.11). At this point, reference should be made to the view of Jones (2009) who noted that the internationalization of a firm should be decided at an early phase of organizational life because in this way the expected benefits can be increased (Jones 2009, p.41). The review of the internationalization efforts of OnDemand Group leads to the assumption that the particular process, which has been in progress almost since the establishment of the organization, has