Management measures Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Management measures - Research Paper Example However, the education system cannot be blamed entirely for this improper mismanagement of personal money, since improper money management is a personal decision. Besides, there are many institutions that should guide an individual on proper time management. This paper analyses how improper money management has affected youths adversely, and what has caused this. The educational system and the interplay of many factors have contributed to these rising cases. These factors include; lack of parental guidance, dysfunctional family units and the economy of the nation. The way society treats suicide varies widely depending on the culture and religion of the affected. All in all, many cultures view taking one’s own life as improper and unjustified. Suicide is a culmination of life frustrations and suffering, whereby, an individual opts to take his/ her life so as to avoid these frustrations. Can this be attributed to improper money management solely? The answer is no. It is true tha t improper mismanagement of money in the society has led to these individuals opting to commit suicide but still life is a struggle, and by missing money does not mean that one should opt for suicide. The educational system mould individuals to be noteworthy managers of time and resources. However, much of this emphasis on money management comes later in life. It is rare for schools to teach pupils in elementary and high school on money management since these students are far from earning. Much of the emphasis is during college and university life. Depending on the individual, this may be sufficient or insufficient in molding life decisions. The educational system has changed very much, in that students are completing school young and most of these students are thrown into the world as young and inexperienced people. They end up earning good salaries, but, due to their inexperience, they spend it unwisely and do not make wise life decisions. This can be blamed on the educational sys tem. Back then, students would complete school fairly older, and this ensured that they had a sense of maturity going into the outside world. These students would be able to handle the rigors and demands of the post-school life, and this ensured that they would be able to spend their money wisel

Dry Needling in Physical Therapy Research Paper

Dry Needling in Physical Therapy - Research Paper Example Moreover, Gerwin and Dommerholt (2006) state that DN is not considered as a precise approach and is not suitable for every patient. There has always been a debate whether or not DN should be considered a part of acupuncture which is based on traditional Chinese medicine. According to Amaro (2007), DN techniques are performed â€Å"with the same solid filament needles acupuncture practitioners are using, but dry needling does not require knowledge of the theoretical foundations of acupuncture†. Dommerholt et al. (2006) state that some countries accept in their policy that IMS falls within the scope of physical therapy while others do not. According to them, the DN techniques include different models such as the radiculopathy model, the trigger point (TrP) model, and the spinal segmental sensitization (SSS) model. Superficial DN works under TrP model; deep DN needs both TrP and radiculopathy models; while, injection therapy works under TrP and SSS models. Radiculopathy model. The radiculopathy model was first put forth by Dr. Chan Gunn and is based on Cannon and Rosenblueth’s Law of Denervation. According to this model, it is always the peripheral neuropathy or radiculopathy that causes the myofacial pain syndrome (MPS). If there is a free flow of nerve impulses, the innervated structures function correctly, otherwise these innervated structures become supersensitive. According to this model, the best treatment points are located near the motor muscles. This model always remained limited to the hypothetical stage. According to Dr. Chan Gun’s research (as cited in Dommerholt et al., 2006): Relative minor injuries would not result in chronic pain without prior sensitization of the nerve root is inconsistent with many current neurophysiological studies that confirm that persistent and even relatively brief nociceptive input can result in pain-producing plastic dorsal horn changes. Trigger point model. This model basically deals with MTrPS.

Internet Protocol version 4 (IPv4) Security Essay Example for Free

Internet Protocol version 4 (IPv4) Security Essay IPv4 is an end-to-end network model that supports the multicast operation. Multicast operations or communications involve information transfer from one node in as single transmission to multiple receivers within the network. Moreover, it facilitates the broadcasting of multimedia information like videos and audio teleconferences. IPv4 utilizes MAC addresses and IP addresses to send data packets within and outside the Local Area Network respectively. For security purposes, routers are used in the interconnection of multiple networks to map the IP addresses to related MAC addresses. IPv4 uses 32-bit addresses that are divided into octets, each octet separated by a period. This gives different address ranges that are used for different purposes. This protocol establishes the use of group access controls, router trusts and group center trusts. However, since information is being sent to group users sharing the same address, it becomes challenging to implement encryption standards and authentication infrastructures. Although sharing a public key may remedy the situation, it is only successful if the number of receivers is limited (Bachert, 2002). As a result, while some receivers get error-free transmissions other may not even see the data that has been transmitted. Internet Protocol Security (IPsec) provides a homogeneous security mechanism framework within the IP suite. IPsec offers a security protocols that operate independently from data origin authentication, cryptographic, replay protection and key exchange mechanisms used in protecting explicit applications. To be put into consideration, IPsec depends on the founding of Security Associations (SAs) between the individual hosts involved in sheltered communications. The SAs agree with clear-cut authentication algorithms, security and cryptographic features that the host uses to securely communicate with another host.

Assessing The Marketing Plan Of Accenture Commerce Essay

Assessing The Marketing Plan Of Accenture Commerce Essay Accenture is a global management consulting, technology services and outsourcing company. It boasts of a unparalleled experience, comprehensive capabilities across all industries and business functions, and extensive research on the worlds most successful companies,. The main aim of the company is to collaborate with clients to help them become high-performance businesses and governments. Thus this company is a good company for study. Here I am analyzing their market strategy and how they could increase their customer base round the world. Keller, K (1998) Competitor Analysis One of the major competitors of Accenture is IBM company. The financial and company statistic of both have been compared below. Both are into similar business and specially compete in the area of consultancy to key corporate clients. DIRECT COMPETITOR COMPARISON ACN Pvt1 Pvt2 IBM Industry Market Cap: 27.28B N/A N/A 167.26B 111.07M Employ ­ees: 176,000 N/A N/A 410,830 810 Rev. Growth (ttm): -11.20% N/A N/A 0.80% 16.10% Revenue (ttm): 22.45B N/A N/A 95.76B 192.40M Gross Margin (ttm): 30.01% N/A N/A 45.73% 36.21% EBITDA (ttm): 3.32B N/A N/A 23.66B 12.47M Oper. Margins (ttm): 12.59% N/A N/A 19.49% 6.97% Net Income (ttm): 1.55B N/A N/A 13.43B N/A EPS (ttm): 2.375 N/A N/A 10.009 0.12 PE (ttm): 18.03 N/A N/A 12.86 18.81 PEG (ttm): 1.16 N/A N/A 1.3 1.06 PS (ttm): 1.22 N/A N/A 1.75 0.83 Pvt1= Deloitte Consulting LLP(privately held) Pvt2= HP Enterprise Services(privately held) IBM= International Business Machines Corp. Industry= Management Services Direct customer contact has made Accenture one of the most successful companies of the1990s Accenture is following the strategy of what called Direct business Model. The meaning of their model is -It is actually get to have a relationship with the customer, and that creates valuable information, which, in turn, allows them to leverage their relationships with both supplier and customers. Along with that information with technology, and they have the infrastructure to revolutionize the fundamental business models of major global components. Keller, K (1998) Accenture competitive strategies are speed to market; superior customer services; a dynamic commitment to producing consistently high quality, custom-made systems that provide the highest performance and the relevant technology to their customers; and an early exploitation of the Internet. The companys extraordinary growth and profitability en route to becoming the second largest consultants in the world. Accenture used different marketing strategies to sell there services around the world making them the most successful company in the world. Through its build-to-order manufacturing capability, Accenture has been able to cut many of the risks of the business. The company can persists on lower inventories and take advantage of price cuts more quickly than competitors. Selling service directly to customers also reduces costs by eliminating dealer markup. Brooks, I and Weatherston, J. (1997) Market Analysis Accentures pinnacle to market leadership is the result of a persistent focus on delivering the best customer experience by straight away selling products and services online and through catalogs.They put a great deal of emphasis on understanding what drives the customer satisfaction, whether it was response times on the telephone, quality of products, valuable features, or the ease of experience in using the product. Engaging the entire company from service providing to sales to support staff in the process of understanding customer requirements became is a constant focus of management, energy, training, and employee education.Accenture Computer Corp. has used the Internet to trim costs and boost sales, both of which were becoming increasingly difficult to do in the saturated consultancy market of the late 1990s. It made possible for customers who previously had placed custom orders via the telephone to place them on Accentures Web site. Customers selected configuration options, ge t price quotes, and order both single and multiple systems. The site also allowed purchasers to view their order status, and it offered support services to Accenture owners. Given below is how Accenture has been operating in the market in the year 2009 . Environmental Analysis Accenture helps organizations create and implement breakthrough operational and transformational solutions. This is critical for any company today. There are many environmental factors which become crucial in the environment in which Accenture is operating. The economical environment has a crucial impact on consumer behaviour. This factor becomes all the more relevant t in the recession period. Security of a good job and a regular income to spend on goods are factors that effect consumer behaviour. Marketing and advertising do influence consumers in helping them to purchase a particular product or service. Brassington, F and Pettitt, S, (2000), Peoples social class will also effect their behaviour. The role of society is critical. Be it the profession based influence like Actors, Doctors, engineers, low grade staff, and mothers and fathers also effect the purchase decision. Also being parents affects consumers buying habits based on the age of the children, the nature of job .Say if you are a highly paid official you could buy consultancy more easily than a lower class of corporate consumer. Also many other characters influence the consumer buying decision. The persons personality be it extrovert (out going and spends on luxury and fun) and introvert traits (keeps to themselves and purchases with online or mail order) again has an impact on the types of purchases made. Brassington, F and Pettitt, S, (2000), Customer Analysis One study which is vital when studying the consumers of Accenture are the reference groups in the corporate clientele. Reference groups are close groups of people consumers may look up towards to that have an impact on consumer behaviour. They could be celebrities like Brad Pitt or your immediate family members. Other influential people like Opinion leaders are those people that you look up to as you honor their views and judgments and these views may impact consumer decisions. Also the type of consumer need of Accenture consumers can be explained by the motivation theory of Maslow. Abraham Maslow hierarchy of needs theory was targeted to explain what motivated individuals in life to achieve. This was explained in the form of a hierarchy. He explains that consumers aim to meet basic psychological needs of hunger and thirst. When this has been fulfilled they then go up to the next stage of the hierarchy, safety needs, here their key needs are job security ,home security and the emphasis that an income will be available to them regularly. Booms, B.H. and Bitner, M.J. (1981) Social needs come in the third level of the hierarchy, the need to attachment to someone ,to be loved is a normal human desire and people do work for this belonging. Esteem need is the ext in the hierarchy and means the need for status and recognition among peers in the society, status of people, the recognition to have a good job title and be known are all needs that add to the symbol of status. Self-actualization or the realization that an individual has reached his potential in life is the top most in the need pyramid. The need of self-actualisation is critical to the individual, as he only know when he has reached the point of self-fulfillment. This concept helps an Accenture trying to sell a product or service to a consumer. it is known to all that marketing is about fulfilling needs and providing benefits, Maslows need concept suggests that needs differ as move along our path of striving for self-actualisation. Accenture customers are also looking for the status and self esteem need to be fulfilled among the higher class purchasing services . Maslows concept is useful for firms as it helps to understand and work for consumer needs and wants. Internal Analysis Accentures corporate philosophy is elite and quite different from many a companies. The same has helped it form a goodwill among prospective customers. Below are the core elements of the Soul of Accenture as they state their corporate culture summary heading: Customers: They believe in creating loyal customers by providing a superior experience at a great value. They are committed to direct relationships, providing the best products and services based on standards-based technology, and outperforming the competition with value and a superior customer experience. Blythe, J. (2001) The Accenture Team: They believe our continued success lies in teamwork and the opportunity each team member has to learn, develop and grow. They are committed to being a meritocracy, and to developing, retaining and attracting the best people, reflective of our worldwide marketplace. Direct Relationships: They believe in being direct in all they do. They are committed to behaving ethically; responding to customer needs in a timely and reasonable manner; fostering open communications and building effective relationships with customers, partners, suppliers and each other; and operating without inefficient hierarchy and bureaucracy. Global Citizenship: Booms, B.H. and Bitner, M.J. (1981) They believe in participating responsibly in the global marketplace. They are committed to understanding and respecting the laws, values and cultures wherever they do business; profitably growing in all markets; promoting a healthy business climate globally; and contributing positively in every community they call home, both personally and organizationally. Winning: They have a passion for winning in everything they do. They are committed to operational excellence, superior customer experience, leading in the global markets they serve, being known as a great company and great place to work, and providing superior shareholder value over time. Blythe, J. (2001) (Source Accenture.com) SWOT analysis: Strengths: One of the best consultancy providers.  Ã‚      It has been more than fifty years in the market.    A wide range of coverage in corporate clientele areas..     Promotions are very strong and effective Weakness: Pricing is a little high Has a premium range of services Customers service is to be worked upon Opportunities: Wide world wide coverage . USP is the hold of loyal consumers Provide new services for new corporate companies Growing consultancy services Prominence in the mind of the key consumers Recovery from recession of the customers. Baker, M. (2000) Threats:   Ã‚   Recession, has decrease disposable income in people Other competitors like IBM. Changing mindset of customers Lack of loyalty of brand among this segment consumers. Marketing Plan Phase 2 (Objectives and Strategy Development) : Executive Summary The strategic management literature is far from clear in explaining how firms choose to formulate strategy and implement it. Indeed, there are many different schools of strategic management that help to explain the manner in which firms engage in strategic decision-making and action. These include the design, planning, positioning, learning, entrepreneurial, cognitive, power, and cultural school, to name just a few. There is no right school of strategic management that should be followed, but different firms tend to subscribe to different schools depending on the industry in which they compete and the nature of the firm. The planning school is appropriate for such firms because of the nature of the industry in which they compete. At the same time, significant investments are required to back up any strategic or tactical decision made by such companies. In addition, the futures of the consultancy companies are highly changeable and unknown, with factors such as prices fluctuating grea tly. As a result, these firms tend to adopt principals from the planning school of strategy because these help the firm to focus on the external environment in which it competes and devising strategies based on such an environment. As such, when examining what guides the strategy of a firm like Accenture, it is also important to examine the school of strategic management that best explains its choice of strategy. In Accentures case, this is the positioning school, as discussed next. Brassington Frances and Pettitt Stephen (2006) Marketing Objectives The positioning school of strategic management views the strategy process as an analytical one in nature . Whilst many scholars have written about this school, the dominant proponent has been Porter (1980, 1985). In this regard, the purpose of firm strategy is to establish a position within the industry that is profitable. According to Porter (1980, 1985) this requires a firm to examine the industry within which it competes in terms of the five forces: the intensity of the rivalry amongst competing firms, the threat of substitute products and services, the threat of new entrants, and the relative bargaining power of buyers and suppliers. On this basis, it is possible for firms to select on of three generic strategies overall low cost, differentiation or focus that help it to capitalise on a position within the industry that provides for above-average industry profitability. In order to know which of these strategies is the most appropriate for a firm, it is necessary to look at its various parts. In this respect, taking a broader and deeper picture of the firm is important in understanding the context within which it competes because as Porter (1980, 1985) notes: competitive advantage cannot be understood by looking at a firm as a whole. It stems from the many discrete activities a firm performs in designing, producing, marketing, delivering, and supporting its product . As such, the value chain is an important way of assessing the Accenture primary activities its inbound logistics, operations, outbound logistics, marketing and sales, and service as well as its support activities firm infrastructure, human resources management, technology development, and procurement and assess areas of independence and mutual dependence. Accenture is a low cost provider, but also manages to use its design of the supply chain to provide a differentiated offering. The estimated earning od Accenture as doen by analyst has been shown in the table below: Earnings Est Current Qtr Feb-10 Next Qtr May-10 Current Year Aug-10 Next Year Aug-11 Avg. Estimate 0.61 0.71 2.70 3.01 No. of Analysts 19 18 21 20 Low Estimate 0.59 0.67 2.61 2.78 High Estimate 0.68 0.75 2.79 3.26 Year Ago EPS 0.63 0.68 2.68 2.70 Targeting and Positioning Segmentation: Accenture concentrating on upper-end customers. They have different segments and different USPs. While there are many possible avenues to exploit in terms of sales opportunities for these companies, the market is highly segmented in such a way that it is important for Accenture to engage in target marketing. This is the point where the particular companies must decide whether they will individually follow a niche market or a full-line strategy. Accenture thus caters to a vast market that too individually. Brassington Frances and Pettitt Stephen (2006) Branding: Accenture is a well known brand. Although its sales have been falling but it has been one of the key players in the consultancy market. Its name and use of service is associated with many a known names in its market. It is the leading brand in the world, with a focus on performance and international presence. Positioning analysis: Accenture sees positioning as a key factor in growing the brand in developing markets of Asia like China, Korea, and Malaysia. Moreover, Accenture already had marketing tie-ups in Asian market segments. Competition: While Accenture build product lines and marketing campaigns the major competition is from IBM. Thus the promotion strategies of these two companies being similar, the joint advertising and promotion cost are sure to be reduced as of their independent cost. They can target a wide range of segments which includes consultancy and solutions for the corporate client. While both these brands make use of a differentiation strategy to attract its customers, IBM concentrates its efforts on a broad cost strategy approach. The differentiation strategy of the Accenture can be seen in action by examining the various productions of this company.  In looking towards the future, the company seems to place into a position to steadily increase its market share and brand value to better compete in the consultancy business and to help in transformations of clients. Hoyer, W.D. and MacInnis, D.J. (2001) Segmentation: Accenture can now really focus on premium service full of design and innovation-the kind of service people with too much money like to buy. Accenture have their own USPs. Growth Strategies (if the objectives set refer to growth/improvement of current position) BCG analysis Here I would say that Accenture is in the cash cow position. Thus it should now harvest its product that is the Accenture company should now stop investing money in mass promotions of Accenture and wait for the right time for the market to take up dynamism. Hoyer, W.D. and MacInnis, D.J. (2001) Thus it is suggested that Accenture should not just get back and wait for this cash cow to give returns. It has been listed as a cash cow because the amount of revenue which can come from this product is now saturates. Another strategy that it can follow is that it should make this brand and launch it in the Asian market where recession hasnt taken such a big toll. There it can be launched as a question mark and will need high amount of promotions and distribution to be established in a new country. This is a strategy that Accenture should take on to survive in a global market like that of today. This is by far the only way in which it can cover up the market saturation the company has reached at present. Ansoffs Matrix:   According to the Ansoffs Matrix there are four major strategies that Accenture can follow. However the strategy that is recommended is Product /service development. This strategy is recommended for Accenture as they have still got basic problems with their product that is differentiation form competitors.. This is to be improved. Aaker, D and Joachimsthaler, E (2000) Innovation in technology needs to be added to these products to bring in more business in the current markets. Global Customer wants value for money that is cheaper prices and good quality. Also in this field new technology and luring the customer with the same is very important a suggested to Accenture. PESTLE Analysis PESTLE Analysis or survey of the marketing environment include history of firm, macro/micro factors that are relevant including a stakeholder analysis . It is critical to understand the toothpaste too through these points of strategy. This classification distinguishes between: Political factors. These refer to government policy such as the degree of intervention in the economy. What goods and services does a government want to provide? The liberalization by the government has of course helped out the business in consultancy companies to survive in recession too. Economic factors. These include interest rates, taxation changes, economic growth, inflation and exchange rates. These include higher interest rates may deter investment because it costs more a strong currency may make exporting more difficult because it may raise the price in terms of foreign currency inflation may provoke higher wage demands from employees and raise costs higher national income growth may boost demand for a firms products It is seen in recession times that many delegate have been shown the pink slip.. But the same phenomenon has also lead those who could start purchasing this product to deter and not buy it due to the conservative nature that has seeped in the consumer after recession round the world specially to the consultancy business sector.. Social factors. Changes in social trends can impact on the demand for a firms products and the availability and willingness of individuals to work. For example the consumer of the Accenture service may vary form one country to another. Technological factors: new technologies create new products and new processes. Online shopping, bar coding and computer aided design are all improvements to the way we do business as a result of better technology. As far as Accenture is concerned, it will have to incorporate these in its portfolio of services too for the ease of the customers. Environmental factors: environmental factors include the weather and climate change. Changes in temperature can impact on many industries including farming, tourism and FMCG. With major climate changes occurring due to global warming and with greater environmental awareness this external factor is becoming a significant issue for firms to consider. Legal factors: these are related to the legal environment in which firms operate. In recent years world has been many significant legal changes that have affected firms behaviour. Legal changes in a country can affect a firms costs (e.g. if new systems and procedures have to be developed) and demand (e.g. if the law affects the likelihood of customers buying the good or using the service).Thus the same are critical in the analysis of Accenture. Aaker, David and Joachimsthaler, E. (1999). Selection of Competitive Advantage As far as the competitive advantages is concerned Accenture has to work on the following areas in 2010 The company is loosing its growth in the market The company is apprehensive to spread to other countries The stress of the company has always been consultancy no other service The company has priced its product at a very high price as compared to the near competitors. Also the fact that competitors like IBM are present in the market ,it becomes all the more important to bring up a very strong competitive advantages. Accenture should do this by a good supply chain management across the world. Understanding the strategic choices of Accenture is important in supply chain management (SCM) because it helps to establish the focus on the companys activities. Indeed, SCM reflects the management of the interconnections of organizations that relate to each other through upstream and downstream linkages between the processes that produce value to the ultimate consumer in the form of products and services. SCM is a critical component of this. Through SCM Accenture can examine ways of being more efficient, especially for an overall low cost strategy, and well as adding more value to end customers, important for a differentiated strategy. In the case of Accenture that adopt an overall low cost strategy, the goal is to increase sales volume whilst also reducing unit costs because this helps to improve the margin achieved by the firm. Over time, a firm can capitalise on economic of scale through investment in infrastructure, as well as learning curve effects and perhaps more effective purchasing decisions, supply chain efficiencies and better logistics management. When adopting such a strategy, it may also be pertinent to not simply optimise individual links within the supply chain, but examine how efficiencies can be made across the supply network since it can easily be possible for a distant supplier in the supply network to disrupt the entire supply chain . Nonetheless, many efficiencies are likely to be found in the immed iate supply chain because the firm has greater control over this part of the supply network . Marketing Mix Programme As far as the pricing of Accenture is concerned ,it is little on the premium side. As compared to IBM it should reduce its prizing to competitive level. Whilst controlling costs is still important, focus is placed on the Accenture intangible assets and its ability to leverage these within the value chain. Product wise Accenture has a good range of services to offer backed up by a good customer care. More so it could forward integrate to technology making in various fields to expand business and profits. In the case of Accenture pursuing a differentiated strategy, these aim to focus on those aspects of their products or service provision that add most value in the eyes of the consumer. A critical component of this strategy is to understand which parts of the supply network should be kept in-house and which should be outsourced, or perhaps even acquired. In-house activities are those that add greatest value to the firm and where its has particular competence, whilst the outsourcing of supply chain activities should take place for more peripheral activities within a Accenture value chain. In reality, just as Accenture do not always follow one of the three generic strategies, but a hybrid corporate strategy, so should they look for a hybrid approach to business. The key point, however, is that there is alignment between Accenture corporate strategy and its marketing mix approach Theory building in MARKETING MIX based strategic research has focused on two areas: international marketing mix management (MARKETING MIX) and decision-making in stock management. MARKETING MIX research has focused on the potentially virtuous and vicious cycles that are evident in Accenture . The overall analysis of this is that Accenture were generally facing reinforcing loops that led to either successful or unsuccessful MARKETING MIX. One of the major issues in MARKETING MIX is service management, with the general problem that individuals do not understand the feedback mechanisms that lead to failure in the marketing system. Accenture tend to focus on inventory management, demand amplification, marketing mix re-engineering, and marketing mix design .This work is particularly appropriate to the bullwhip effect and the marketing mix redesign that has been taking place at Accenture . The notion of the bullwhip effect in marketing mix which is followed by Accenture came from work by Procter Gamble, a fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) company that had a large, complex international marketing mix. During the process of managing their marketing mix, the company noticed that as information went up the marketing mix, the distortion of that information increased. The market negative effect is the term used to describe this effect. It results from a lack of synchronization between members of a marketing mix, which is amplified the greater the number of members and the larger the number of defaults in the slae system linkages through which information passes. The problems that Accenture face is that since supply characteristics do not match demand characteristics, inventory starts to accumulate at the different stages of the marketing mix. Accenture is striving with the problem of delivery and supply and demand mismatch since 2004. Marketing mix management is the oversig ht of materials, information, and finances as they move in a process from supplier to manufacturer to wholesaler to retailer to consumer. A marketing mix is the group of organizations, people, technology, information and resources consisted in transferring the product or good from the producer to the end consumer.. Supply chain helps in the marketing mix in moving the raw material to the manufacturer , the final good or ready product to the wholesaler and from their to the consumer.. It is important to have glance at the component of the marketing mix management to understand the relevance of integration planning and management of the same. . There are six key elements of the company that are critical to any business: à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¢ Production à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¢ Supply à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¢ Inventory à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¢ Location à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¢ Transportation, and à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¢ Information. Accenture try to deal with the dangers of the marketing defaults through the forecasting of demand. This is important because demand is rarely stable. Such variability often means that Accenture need to keep a degree of safety stock; effectively an inventory buffer. The further up the supply chain towards raw material producer, the greater the observed demand, and therefore the greater the safety stock that is required. When demand rises in a given period, downstream suppliers increase their orders, whilst during falling demand, the converse occurs. Since fluctuations in demand are more pronounced up the supply chain, this increases the size of the oscillations faced through the supply chain. This is something that Accenture has to manage. No consumer should go unattended. There are a number of factors that contribute to the negative marketing mix effect. First, forecast errors can easily occur simply because Accenture are unaware how demand many change over time. Even for goods that have a common demand pattern there can be instances where demand suddenly changes because of unknown factors. Second, there can be an overreaction to backlogs in supply of service by the company. In the diagram below of the companys supply chain; the arrows are for supplier-relationship management, internal SCM and customer-relationship management . A supply chain starts with ecological and biological regulation of natural resources. This is then taken on to supply of raw material, many production links before one moves to several layers of storage facilities of various size and remote geographical locations. Then on it finally reaches the consumer. Here the service to be delivered although is the price which also has to be followed up for customer care after sale. Thus this as a whole can improve the sales of the company to bring in an effective marketing mix strategy for Accenture.

An Analysis of the Television Sitcom, Different Strokes :: Media

An Analysis of the Television Sitcom, Different Strokes Different Strokes a comedy sitcom, first aired in 1978, and lasted until 1986. This sitcom consisted of a widowed Manhattan millionaire, Phillip Drummond , who adopted two orphaned brothers. Arnold who was 8 years old and Willis who was 12. The boys' mother was Drummonds housekeeper who became very ill, so Drummond made a promise to her that he would take care of her two sons after she passed away. Drummond treated the two boys like his own. He also lived with his daughter, Kimberly, who was 13 years old, and his current housekeeper. This sitcom showed typical life lessons in growing up, and social problems that were occurring during that time. Some of the aspects of this show were both positive and negative. Positive Aspects In this sitcom there are several different ways in which minorities are positively portrayed. For instance, even though Arnold and Willis were two brothers of another ethnic background and race, Drummond who was a Caucasian millionaire still took these boys in. Another example of positive portrayal is that Drummond also called Arnold and Willis his â€Å"sons† not just his adopted children. He raised them as if they were his own children. The third example of a positive portrayal is that in this sitcom they showed evidence of social problems, such as racial discrimination. They realized that it did exist and that it was a problem. Finally, this sitcom also showed how blacks and whites could live equally and be happy together. These four portrayals are definitely positive and show how two minorities were portrayed in â€Å"Diff’rent Strokes†. Negative Aspects Different Strokes, which was first televised November 3, 1978, was one of the better, most influential shows of that time. This show was a perfect example of how minorities were portrayed to be unable to support themselves. The African American family characterized in this show was a single mother family, leading to the belief that most African American children were without a father in their lives. In agreement with the stereotypes of the time, their income was also low because the mother was a housekeeper. The audience may presume that she had no other skills than housekeeping which leads to the negative belief that African Americans have no job skills. In addition to these family problems and income issues, the children spoke slang and were even referred to as ghetto.

Essay Comparing the Concept of God in Beowulf and Other Anglo-Saxon Poems :: comparison compare contrast essays

The Concept of God in Beowulf and Other Anglo-Saxon Poems      Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Is the concept of God mentioned only in Beowulf or is it a common element in all Anglo-Saxon poetry? Is the concept of God described the same way as in Beowulf?    Beowulf presents a mixture of Christian and pagan elements Hrothgar is demonstrably a monotheist, bu this people were offering sacrifice to pagan gods when Grendel caused them to despair. Let’s try to clarify the concept of God in this poem. In the early lines of this classic we see what is meant by GOD and by GOODNESS, as embodied or exemplified by the king, in this case by King Scyld Scefing:    he grew under heaven,  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   prospered in honors until every last one  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   of the bordering nations beyond the whale-road  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   had to heed him, pay him tribute.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   He was a good king! A son was born him,  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   a glorious heir, young in the courtyards,  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   whom God had sent to comfort his people,  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   -well had He seen the sinful distress  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   they suffered earlier, leaderless for long.  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Therefore the Life-lord, the Ruler of glory,  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   granted earthly honor: Beow was famed (8ff)    So goodness in a king is the possession of such strength that other nations fear you. And God is the all-powerful One who grants this earthly honor that Scyld, Beow, Healfdene and Hrothgar shared in. So God the Author of strength is their concept of God as the poem opens. This idea continues:    Then Hrothgar was given  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   victory in battle (64).    Who was the giver? God, of course. From Heorot Hrothgar would:      Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   he would share out among young and old  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   all God had given him, except common land  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   and the lives of men (71ff)    Heorot gave joy to the people with its scop narrating â€Å"how the Almighty had made the earth,† the â€Å"life He created, in each of the species,† â€Å"until a certain one began to do evil, an enemy from Hell,† a descendant of Cain. So God’s antithesis is in Grendel and his mother and their â€Å"home in the darkness.† Ater killing more than 60 Dane warriors, Grendel â€Å"grieved not at all for his wicked deeds – was too deep in sin;† many awful sins against mankind, the solitary fiend often committed;† â€Å"he knew not His love.

Ideology represents the imaginary relationship of individuals to their real conditions of existence

Each of the central characters in â€Å"Open Secrets† by Alice Munro and â€Å"Paradise Lost† by John Milton are driven and sustained by the relationship between the realities of their existence and their personal ideologies. The conflict between ideology and reality is an important theme in the work of Munro and Milton and both the obvious discrepancies and the more subtle references to this define many aspects of the plot and characterisation. An examination of the reactions of characters to the restrictions placed on them by the reality in which they exist, and their perception of this reality is fundamental to understanding the ideologies which they possess. Their ideologies are the crucial influence on the experiences and eventual fates of each character. Ultimately the question of whether or not these relationships and conflicts are resolved or overcome is the key to gaining a deeper insight into the texts, and simultaneously provides the reader with evidence of the authors' own beliefs and ideologies. In Paradise Lost, Milton makes use of the ideas of contrast and opposition in order to create a text which is highly significant of his own personal ideology and, at the same time, a beautiful and intricate piece of epic poetry. The first character which the reader is able to engage with on a relatively profound level is Satan. This is not as ironic as it may seem as the title should ensure that the reader is forewarned of the fact that the main concern of the poem is going to be the story of the brief but significant triumph of evil over good (Satan's success in the temptation of Eve). From the outset Milton establishes to his readers that Satan is a colossal antagonist, with the realisation that his potential for evil and his success as a tempter are unquestionable. Milton's approach in the characterisation of Satan was definitely unorthodox at the time of writing, however, his methods are essential if the plot and characterisation is to be meaningful and believable. By rendering Satan as an attractive and awesome character, he immediately invites his readers to engage with the, as yet, only briefly mentioned characters of Adam and Eve. If the readers can find themselves taken in by Satan's attractive and inspiring rhetoric, then the successful temptation of Eve becomes not only more believable to the reader, but an inevitable outcome of the plot. Milton's characterisation, not only of Satan, but of the characters of Adam and Eve is extremely important and worthy of study. The story of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, which is the main source for the poem's subject matter, is so well known as to be almost indelibly stamped upon the consciousness of Christian and, more importantly, Western Civilisation as a whole. This added depth of characterisation which permits the readers to engage with the main protagonists is essential to the greatness of this text and without it the poem would not be regarded as such an important milestone in English literature. Desmond M. Hamlet writes that in Paradise Lost â€Å"Satan's sin is terrible because it is a rebellion against God's love, actualised in the Son who functions in the entire poem as the indispensable creative and restorative agency for the dissemination of that love in practical and exemplary ways. † In â€Å"Sudden Apprehension†, Lee A. Jacobus asserts that one of the driving forces behind Milton's personal ideology was the importance he placed on having true self knowledge. Satan is known in Christian Mythology as the great deceiver, and as the embodiment of evil in Paradise Lost. Milton ironically undercuts Satan's seemingly powerful and beautiful speeches but showing undoubtedly that Satan has succeeded unconsciously in deceiving himself. This contrasts with Adam who was born â€Å"self knowing† and whose natural impulse is to give thanks to god: Tell me, how may I know him, how adore, / From whom I have that thus I move and live, / And feel that I am happier than I know† (Book 8, 250-282) The reality of Adam's existence in Paradise demands obedience to God's will, however, his behaviour is influenced by his fixation on Eve's beauty. This flaw in his ideology leads him to permit Eve to work in the garden alone, and also to co-operate with her in what leads to their fall from Paradise. Her ear leads her to the pool which deceives her on two counts, it is not â€Å"a liquid plain† nor â€Å"another skie† Aristotle wrote that the ear was the principal source of wisdom so in book 4 the reader is already being warned that eves thirst for knowledge will lead her astray. footnote *sudden apprehension by jacobus chapter 2 pg 33-34* â€Å"In Paradise Lost, the reader is repeatedly forced to acknowledge the unworthiness of values and ideals he had previously admired† (Stanley E. Fish in surprised by sin; the reader in paradise lost Berkeley university of California press 1973) In â€Å"Poet of Exile†, Louis L. Martz writes that, in the beginning, â€Å"Adam and Eve†¦ have all our basic psychological qualities†, in short, they are made frail by their God given right to choose and their possession of free will. â€Å"We – the readers – were made to feel ashamed of our naive affection for the father of lies† (Sharon Achinstein) Satan as representative of the false heroic image that does not stand up against the weapons and strength of true Christianity. od as an allegory for the tyrants which Milton raged against and Satan as an allegorical representation of those who kept the tyrants in power by fighting unsuccessfully against them due to the fact that they wanted only to replace the tyrant not work for a better world. â€Å"Open Secrets† the title tale of Alice Munro's collection recounts the reactions of the local population to the mysterious disappearance of one of a group of local girls, Heather Bell, which took place on a hiking trip a few years prior to the story's beginning. One of the first and most poignant facts the reader learns is the lyric to the song sung by the girl hikers: â€Å"For the Beauty of the Earth, /For the Beauty of the Skies,? For the Love that from our Birth/ Over and around us lies†¦ † The ambiguous meaning of the word â€Å"lies† is highly significant as in this story the relationships between reality and ideology are extremely difficult to define. In this short story, Munro never enlightens her readers as to what the actual reality of the situation is. By withholding the crucial details of the events surrounding Heather Bell's disappearance, Munro manipulates the reader into assuming the position and viewpoint of a character within the text, much like Milton's seductive characterisation of Satan. The reader is forced to join with the characters in the story by coming up with theories and opinion as to what actually happened. This fact, when juxtaposed with the lack of concrete evidence or proof, leads the reader to view all the theories as â€Å"lies† and the hikers' optimistic song becomes a symbol of the fact that no matter how innocent or horrible the reality is, its dimensions will never be known. CONCLUSION†¦. Jackson I. Cope, in his book, â€Å"The Metaphoric Structure of Paradise Lost† writes, â€Å"The immediate and intuitive language, which frustrates the religious polemicist in discursive argument is precisely the â€Å"corporeal† world out of which the poet shapes reality†. I feel this is an important point when reading the texts of Munro and Milton. In my opinion, as a reader, the ideology of the author is not of supreme importance. Readers are often drawn to attempt to work out the author's personal ideology through the characterisation, use of metaphor and allegory and other literary devices present in the text, however, this can arguably obscure evidence of the author's true aim – to create beautiful and engaging works of fiction. Paradise Lost and Open Secrets are representative of the work of Milton and Munro and are texts peopled with strong engaging characters which demand that the readers examine their own consciences, personal ideologies and perceptions of reality. In this sense, the greatest achievement of Munro is to engage and entertain her readers, without satisfying them with stereotypical and unremarkable romances and mysteries. Lucy Hughes-Hallett writes about Open Secrets – â€Å"In story after story there is an intricate layered richness as one narrative is braided into another, not by dint of coincidences or revelations, but simply by Munro's insistence that every life is important†. While Munro's ideology is somewhat revealed through her choice of plots and protagonists, the point which seems to pervade her writing is that the ideologies of the characters are the most important and it is with their personal realities and perceptions with which we should be engaging, and not hers. Critics have argued for centuries over the significance of Paradise Lost in relation to Milton's own political and religious ideologies, and while I accept that the poem does reflect Milton's views of organised religion in general, I think the allegorical function and perceived polemic is less important than his efforts to engage his readers with the characters and moral implications of the text. Milton is similar to Munro in this sense, she deals with ordinary lives and in Paradise Lost Milton deals with a familiar age old tale. Through use of characterisation and by contrasting reality with ideology, Milton gives the questions and arguments raised by this age old story a personal slant and turns the poem into a voyage of discovery for his readers. Neither Milton nor Munro set out to make their fiction easy or superficially satisfactory to their readers, however, they both deal extensively with the conflict between the realities of existence and false ideologies which is a universal theme and one which each reader can achieve some level of personal identification with. (1677) Open Secrets – â€Å"Carried Away† â€Å"†¦ had been in love once, with a doctor she had known in the sanatorium. † Her love was returned, eventually, costing the doctor his job. There was some harsh doubt in her mind about whether he had been told to leave the sanatorium or had left of his own accord, being weary of the entanglement. He was married, he had children. Letters had played a part that time, too. After he left, they were still writing to one another. And once or twice after she was released. â€Å"Then she asked him not to write anymore and he didn't. But the failure of his letters to arrive drove her out of Toronto†¦ † and made her take the travelling job. Then there would be only the one disappointment of the week, when she got back on Friday or Saturday night. Her last letter had been firm and stoical, and some consciousness of herself as a heroine of love's tragedy went with her around the country as she hauled her display cases up and down the stairs of small hotels and talked about Paris styles and said that her sample hats were bewitching, and drank her solitary glass of wine. If she'd had anybody to tell, though, she would have laughed at just that notion. She would have said love was all hocus-pocus, a deception, and she believed that. But at the prospect she felt a hush, a flutter along the nerves, a bowing down of sense, a flagrant prostration† â€Å"I am glad to hear you do not have a sweetheart though I know that is selfish of me. I do not think you and I will ever meet again. I don't say that because I've had a dream what will happen or am a gloomy person always looking for the worst. It just seems to me it is the most probable thing to happen, though I don't dwell on it and go along every day doing the best I can to stay alive. I am not trying to worry you or get your sympathy either but just explain how the idea I won't ever see Carstairs again makes me think I can say anything I want. I guess it's like being sick with a fever. So I will say I love you. I think of you up on a stool at the Library reaching to put a book away and I come up and put my hands on your waist and lift you down, and you turning around inside my arms as if we agreed on everything. † Alice Munro – â€Å"What is remembered† It was the women, then, who could slip back–during the daytime hours, and always allowing for the stunning responsibility that had been landed on them, in the matter of the children–into a kind of second adolescence. A lightening of spirits when the husbands departed. Dreamy rebellion, subversive get-togethers, laughing fits that were a throwback to high school, mushrooming between the walls that the husband was paying for, in the hours when he wasn't there. In a more recent short fiction – â€Å"What is remembered†, Munro writes another abortive love story, quite similarly in structure to â€Å"Carried Away†. The protagonist in this story is a young wife named Meriel who has a brief fling with a doctor she meets at a funeral. Meriel's ideology and perception of events are revealed in part with a short so called â€Å"discussion† with her husband, as he nears the end of his life. Her husband Pierre insists that the male in a love story is pleased when he is rejected by the heroine as he â€Å"hates loving her†, Meriel disagrees, consciously or unconsciously referring to her own perception of what she has experienced: â€Å"They'd have something. Their experience. † He would pretty well forget it, and she'd die of shame and rejection. She's intelligent. She knows that. † â€Å"Well,† said Meriel, pausing for a bit, because she felt cornered. â€Å"Well, Turgenev doesn't say that. He says she's totally taken aback. He says she's cold. † â€Å"Intelligence makes her cold. Intelligent means cold, for a woman. † â€Å"No. † â€Å"I mean in the nineteenth century. In the nineteenth century it does. † This exchange is symbolic as it shows that, through her experience, Meriel is able to engage with the heroine in the novel and reject the author's control of events. I think this is a pertinent point to take into consideration when searching for the ideological basis of Munro's work. She writes about normal people, who have strange experiences but react in ways that the reader can empathise with. Louisa in â€Å"Carried Away† is described as having a rather nondescript personality and leading a life which is for the most part without high drama. The characterisation is subtle and understated. â€Å"The fact that he was dead did not seem to have much effect on Meriel's daydreams†¦ They had to wear themselves out in a way she did not control and never understood. † If she'd had anybody to tell, though, she would have laughed at just that notion. She would have said love was all hocus-pocus, a deception, and she believed that. But at the prospect she felt a hush, a flutter along the nerves, a bowing down of sense, a flagrant prostration† â€Å"He wrote that he did not expect to come home†¦ When the war ended, it was a while since she had heard from him. She went on expecting a letter every day and nothing came. Nothing came. She was afraid that he might have been one of those unluckiest of soldiers in the whole war – one of those killed in the last week, or on the last day, or even in the last hour†¦ When she entered the town hall she always felt he might be there before her, leaning up against the wall awaiting her arrival. Sometimes she felt it so strongly she saw a shadow that she mistook for a man. She understood now how people believed they had seen ghosts. Whenever the door opened she expected to look up into his face. Sometimes she made a pact with herself not to look up until she had counted to ten†¦ She had to be forgiven, didn't she, she had to be forgiven for thinking, after such letters, that the one thing that could never happen was that he wouldn't approach her, wouldn't get in touch with her at all? Never cross her threshold after such avowals?†¦ She read a short notice of his marriage to a Miss Grace Horne. Not a girl she knew. Not a library user. There was no picture. Brown and cream piping. Such was the end, and had to be, to her romance? † Throughout â€Å"Carried Away† Louisa is unlucky in her pursuit of love. She is not doomed to be a spinster throughout her life, and in fact, marries well, giving her a comfortable lifestyle and a degree of happiness. This occurs despite her previous two encounters with love which left her not overtly broken-hearted but on a subtle level, wounded. The poignant and bittersweet way in which Munro recounts the tale of Louisa's doomed romance with the Doctor from the sanatorium draws the reader still further in as it mirrors Louisa's stoical tone in breaking off the romance. And yet her belief that the mysterious soldier will one day declare his love in person is not inconsistent as despite her previous disappointment, Louisa is still eager to succumb to love: â€Å"If she'd had anybody to tell, though, she would have laughed at just that notion. She would have said love was all hocus-pocus, a deception, and she believed that. But at the prospect she felt a hush, a flutter along the nerves, a bowing down of sense, a flagrant prostration† In a sense this is Louisa's â€Å"open secret†, as she informs the soldier, Jack Agnew, early on in their correspondence that she was once in love but that it had to be broken off. By opening herself up to him (because as the reader knows, Louisa is not generally outgoing with information) she sets herself up for an even deeper wound when she receives both the short note and the returned photograph. This is a truly upsetting moment in this unconventional love story as Louisa's thoughts, indecisions and insecurities are clearly stated. To have it returned in such a cowardly manner seems to add insult to injury. Louisa, however, remains firm in the face of adversity, even joking with an acquaintance and gently reprimanding herself for daring to believe that the soldier could have loved her : Ah, that's so, that's so! † Louisa said. â€Å"And what was it in my case but vanity, which deserves to get slapped down! † Her eyes were glassy and her expression roguish. â€Å"You don't think he'd had a good look at me any one time and thought the original was even worse than the poor picture, so he backed off? † Her gentle self mocking is not meant to induce sympathy from the reader, in the same way that Jack's belief that he would never see Carstairs again was not an attempt by him â€Å"to gain (her) sympathy† instead, just a simple statement of what he perceived to be a fact. His perception however, is utterly wrong, and his false ideology leads him to tell Louisa that he is in love with her. Jack clearly believes in his pessimistic ideology, as the consequences of toying with Louisa's emotions are brutally cruel otherwise, and Jack is not perceived by the reader as a cruel man. However Munro does avenge her protagonist slightly by serving Jack with one of the most ridiculous deaths and a funeral which was one of the best attended in years, not because he was so popular or well liked but because the people â€Å"wished to pay tribute to the sensational and tragic manner of his death† Open Secrets† the title tale of Alice Munro's collection recounts the reactions of the local population to the mysterious disappearance of one of a group of local girls, Heather Bell, which took place on a hiking trip a few years prior to the story's beginning. One of the first and most poignant facts the reader learns is the lyric to the song sung by the girl hi kers: â€Å"For the Beauty of the Earth, /For the Beauty of the Skies,? For the Love that from our Birth/ Over and around us lies†¦ † The ambiguous meaning of the word â€Å"lies† is highly significant as in this story the relationships between reality and ideology are extremely difficult to define. In this short story, Munro never enlightens her readers as to what the actual reality of the situation is. By withholding the crucial details of the events surrounding Heather Bell's disappearance, Munro manipulates the reader into assuming the position and viewpoint of a character within the text, much like Milton's seductive characterisation of Satan. The reader is forced to join with the characters in the story by coming up with theories and opinion as to what actually happened. This fact, when juxtaposed with the lack of concrete evidence or proof, leads the reader to view all the theories as â€Å"lies† and the hikers' optimistic song becomes a symbol of the fact that no matter how innocent or horrible the reality is, its dimensions will never be known. â€Å"They will try to make out she was some poor innocent, but the facts are dead different† says one of the schoolgirl acquaintances of Heather Bell. â€Å"†¦ the undefined nature of evil should be seen as the ideological context of Satan's notorious inconsistency as a character† â€Å"Satan defines his evil goal†¦ strictly in oppositional terms† Milton was writing at the time of the emergence of a relatively new ideological situation in which ethical codes of good and evil are being reshuffled and centred, in which evil reappears with revitalised force as a†¦ placeless agent that can find its definition not positively or inherently but only in reacting against some similarly abstract and unified concept or agent of virtue or reason. â€Å"On the one hand, Satan is a meta-epic character† â€Å"Satan is cast†¦ as a stock figure of evil† â€Å"The dominant form of drama in the Satan figures as the fragmentary subject of constitutively unsatisfied desire† Some versions of Pastoral† William Empson – â€Å"Empson argues that there is a coherent Satan, but that this coherence is only an impressive faiade upon which two different and quite inconsistent viewpoint are constantly superimposed† Milton characterises Satan as a creature at once attractive and evil, appealing and destructive. Satan has the accoutrements of the great leader, the attractiveness of an epic adventurer. Books 1 and 2 reveal an heroic self assertion, self reliance and self deification that we find not only exciting but with which we identify to varying degrees. Temptation does not come in an unattractive form. Milton ironically undercuts Satan's magnificence by linking him repeatedly to tyranny, deceit and destruction. Lucifer's fall comes because he refuses to accept his subordinate position. Satan's goal is â€Å"to equal God in power† (5. 343) so that in effect he becomes a parody of god and especially of the son to whom he is consistently placed as a foil throughout Paradise Lost. He lies with superb skill and persuasiveness. Impressive and attractive leader. Bold military leader, resolute, resourceful, capable of inspiring a large and devoted following. Satan represents the style of life which is most attractive to mankind but that was also the root cause of human evil and misery. The magnificent pretence of Satan is both defeated and exposed when he loses the battle on the third day. God and Satan – both references to church and organised religion Satan hates God and sunlight (4. 37) and living things (4. 197) and the organisation of the cosmos (2. 938-84) in the garden of Eden he sees â€Å"saw undelighted all delight† (4. 286) he is determined to bring man pain instead of joy, woes instead of pleasure (4. 68-9,535) at first he expresses pity for Adam and Eve but soon recovers with a rationalisation, putting the blame on god. â€Å"Hell shall unfold/To entertain you two, her widest Gates† (4. 381-3) â€Å"†¦ stronger hate,/Hate stronger, under shew of love, well feign'd /The way which to her run now I tend† (9. 491-93) Satan's approach to Eve is specious and deceptive, but is also moving and persua sive. He leads Eve to accept a flattering view of himself as a serpent and herself as a goddess. Satan urges them to â€Å"be as Gods† (9. 708-14) which was the same sin by which he himself had fallen. Bridge from hell to earth â€Å"a passage broad, / Smooth, easie, inoffensive down to hell† (10. 304-5) this fulfils Satan's plan for â€Å"Earth with Hell / To mingle and involve† (2. 383-84) Satan re-enters hell triumphantly with a call to the demonic hosts to rise and enter â€Å"into full bliss† (10. 502-3) instead of ascending however they fall and are converted into serpents. This is our last direct vision of Satan in the epic, as the greatest triumph of the great perverter is itself ironically perverted. Satan's perversion of created god is itself reversed and creation renewed. Satan declares in book 1 that he intended â€Å"out of good still to find means of evil† (1. 165) but in the concluding book the restored and instructed Adam celebrates the providential deliverance to come by the son â€Å"That all this good of evil shall produce ? And evil turn to good† (12. 470-471) The degeneration of Satan's character in paradise lost is brilliantly conceived and executed. Instead of becoming the king of heaven he becomes the king of hell, and on earth he passes through the even lower forms of vulture, cormorant, lion, tiger, toad and serpent. When he finally enters into the serpent â€Å"with bestial slime / This essence to incarnate and imbrute† (9. 165-66) – he stands at the farthest remove from his pretensions and in his harshest parody of god the son whose incarnation was to redeem and not to destroy man. Satan's revolt against God was freely committed however once in revolt he is no longer free but as the faithful Angel Abdiel taunts him â€Å"to thyself enthralled† (6. 181), enslaved to his own identification of himself with an impossible and irrational self image. As a result of this chosen enslavement he finds himself at odds not only with god but with himself and other creatures. He curse God and himself (4. 69-71) By attempting to exalt himself he repudiates his only viable mode of being, cannot fulfil himself and so â€Å"still unfulfilled with pain of longing pines† (4. 511). As he admits, even while he is adored on the throne of infernal divinity â€Å"the lower still I fall, only supreme / In misery† (4. 91-92). Seeking power apart from love, he declares that â€Å"only in destroying I find ease† and that even from the destruction that he pursues â€Å"worse to me redounds† and â€Å"torment within me, as from the hateful siege / Of contraries† (9. 128-9, 120-22) After asserting his hatred of god and himself he recognises that â€Å"which way I fly is hell; myself am hell† (4. 75) All good becomes bane to him but he refuse to repudiate his pride and so repentance is out of the question for him (4. 98 – 101). He is entirely consistent in his dedication â€Å"to waste (god's) whole creation or possess† it, and since he cannot possess it, he commits himself to its destruction (2. 365). The one promise he keeps is his bond to sin and death that â€Å"all things shall be your prey† (2. 844) â€Å"†¦ torment within me, as from the hateful siege / Of contraries† By his self deification and by his persistent strategy of domination and destruction, Satan creates the essential conditions of hell ; what god provides in hell itself is an abode suitable to Satan's free choice. It is not a question of real fire but the anguish and torment of a self chosen alienation from god (Calvinist theory) â€Å"†¦ from hell / One step no more than from himself† could Satan fly, and that hell â€Å"†¦ always in him burnes / Though in mid Heav'n† (4. 21-2, 9. 467-8) â€Å"We – the readers – were made to feel ashamed of our naive affection for the father of lies† (Sharon Achinstein) Satan as complete contradiction in terms. 200 Satan as representative of Milton's ideology – contrast with the son. 200 Satan as a character is doomed to fail in his quest to become ruler of heaven. On the third day of his battle with The Son, he is defeated. If the reader assumes that Milton was illuminating his own ideology through the character of Satan then there are a few interesting points to note. The Son is willing to sacrifice his life in order to improve the conditions humanity must endure after their fall from grace. This ideology contrasts directly with that of Satan, who states in Book 9 â€Å"only in destroying I find ease†. The Son is the embodiment of goodness and self-sacrificing virtue in Paradise Lost (Divine compassion, visibly appear'd/ Love without end, and without measure grace†) and his ideology triumphs over the false ideology of Satan. Satan and God are both aspects of the tyrannical power that Milton raged against throughout his lifetime. The false heroism of Satan is seen by some critics as an allegorical representation of the hypocrisy of those who fought against tyranny with no alternative world order in mind, those who wished to depose tyrants in order to assume this position for themselves. While the Son is unequivocally moral and good, God is depicted in a less human way, as tyrannical though not in an overtly bad way, I think this is symbolic of Milton's ideology, he did not believe that ideological theory by itself was worthy of praise, but that physical action should accompany any ideology which wished to be taken seriously – â€Å"I cannot praise a fugitive and uncloistered virtue, unexercised and unbreathed† (Milton, The Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce). Therefore the Son functions not only as a symbol of divine good, but also as an example that possession of a compassionate and virtuous ideology are only worthy if teamed with real sacrifice and meaningful action. Louisa – the reality of her situation, the reality of Maureen's situation, the reality or Meriel's situation. Their perceptions of these realities the significance of these perceptions on their fates and their experiences.