Thursday, November 28, 2019

Equality and Diversity Essay Example Essay Example

Equality and Diversity Essay Example Paper Equality and Diversity Essay Introduction This essay examines the cardinal factors that influence inclusive acquisition and instruction in the womb-to-tomb acquisition sector. Teaching methods will change harmonizing to what you want to acquire out of the session. what the scholars are able to accomplish within the clip frame. what stuffs and resources are available. what you are learning. the demands of the scholars and your personal manner. This could be formal. informal or a mixture of both. Formal learning methods include lectors. presentations and presentations. Informal learning includes treatments. group work and practical activities. As I will be learning within the Beauty Therapy my lessons would be a mixture of both these bringing methods. Each activity within the schoolroom will dwell of instruction and acquisition activities which are balanced to run into the different demands of my scholars. Blended acquisition incorporates both traditional and computing machine based methods. This is normally referred to as Inf ormation larning engineering ( ICT ) this usage of computing machine based engineering to heighten learning methods and resources or develop learner liberty is widely promoted. The other chief instruction methods other than ICT I am choosing to utilize are lectors and presentations. Equality and Diversity Essay Body Paragraphs These presentations are really of import as it would demo the pupils the beauty modus operandi that we would anticipate them to follow within their practical Sessionss. This ensures that pupils will be working to the same criterion and will besides adhere to the demands of the awarding organic structure. Practical Sessionss besides help to explicate hard parts of the undertaking when verbal expounding in non adequate. I would besides utilize group work activities. these peculiarly suit kinesthetic scholars but besides when you have a group dwelling of assorted abilities it allows both weak and strong scholars to work jointly. Question and Answer Sessionss will be most normally used in my tutorials. If I was learning for illustration ‘the castanetss and musculuss of the organic structure ) I would inquire pupils to place where musculuss are on the organic structure to assist advance larning. At the start of the class the attack I will utilize to ease inclusive acquisition will b e to transport out an initial appraisal. This will assist me place what type of scholars they are. I would so be after my learning Sessionss to run into these single demands by utilizing a mix of ocular. auditory. kinesthetic instruction and acquisition schemes. For illustration I had merely completed a practical presentation to my group on ‘a facial routine’ . I wanted to do certain my scholars could confidently work in braces and pattern this modus operandi on each other. A undertaking like this would accommodate the kinesthetic because he/she is provided with an chance to make and larn. and for the ocular scholar I would bring forth a measure by measure illustrated hand-out to back up the modus operandi. The Equality Act 2010 lineations protective features which promote equality within schools and colleges and prevent favoritism. This includes gender. sex. disablement. matrimonial position and faith. In order to advance equality in my schoolroom I will necessitate to react positively to the diverse demands of all scholars. Effective communicating with scholars is indispensable and it is the teacher’s duty to guarantee that scholars understand appropriate vocabulary and nomenclature and that remarks are non prejudiced or violative. As a instructor I would maintain linguistic communication simple so that if I have a scholar from different backgrounds they may non hold the same degree of English as British scholars. Resources used such as hand-outs. assignments and work sheets will besides take to advance equality and diverseness. For illustration I would bring forth worksheets in a gender free linguistic communication and besides aim to advance multiculturalism by bring forthing scenario based worksheets that use names from assorted cultural backgrounds. I would besides gait my Sessionss so pupils have plentifulness of clip to take notes and inquire any inquiries. Although inclusion is about back uping learners’ demands. It is non e ver possible for instructors to make this without support themselves. All instructors should be cognizant of the bounds of their ain duty and cognize when and where to entree support for scholars. you will non be able to acquire pupils to work out all their ain troubles. Get to cognize and utilize your establishments pupil services or pastoral support system: it exists to back up your pupils. and you. so do mention where it is appropriate† Junior-grade 2004 There are many topographic points of referral within instruction ; these can be both internal within the instruction constitution or an external administration. The internal topographic points of referral may include pupil support services. scholar study support Centre. and reding and callings advice. If I had a pupil for illustration who needed aid with composing their essay I would set up for them to travel to the scholar survey support Centre who would be able to help Learners with larning troubles or disablements may ne cessitate extra support and may necessitate a designated support worker to back up them within the schoolroom. A scholar with dyslexia may happen it difficult to read text or Numberss or have difficulty with authorship and spelling. therefore I would bring forth written hand-outs and allow scholars with dyslexia to show their thoughts verbally or tape notes if necessary. Political rightness is a normally used term at the minute and is used to guarantee that looks do non do offense to any peculiar group of people. There are besides many external bureaus where scholars can be referred. and which bureau they are referred to would depend on the individual’s demands of the scholar. This may include wellness related issues. household troubles. hapless attending. or repeated disputing behavior. The intent of mentioning a scholar to an external support bureau is to back up an single pupil and to assist them get the better of their troubles which are impacting on their instruction. Fo r illustration if I had a pupil who was invariably riotous in category and had a record of aggressive behavior I would mention them to the Pupil Referral Unit. They would assist and promote the scholar to be involved in the acquisition procedure. but in a smaller environment where they be in a much smaller group ( 3-4 scholars ) and besides receive one-to-one support. Functional accomplishments such as literacy. numeracy and ICT can be easy integrated into my lessons. These activities will run into both literacy and numeracy criterions but are more easy understood by the scholar. An illustration of this would be an assignment covering salon responsibilities. I would inquire the pupils to bring forth a gross revenues leger for stock to be re-ordered from our provider. This would include maths as the pupil would hold to cipher the cost of goods and besides the entire value of the order. it would include English as the pupil needs to bring forth the papers and ICT as the pupil would ho ld to show it in a typed format. The best manner to set up land regulations with my scholars is to negociate them. The regulations should be appropriate and just and agreed as a whole category. As a instructor. I would set up land regulations during the first session. and be after a short activity around this. The category could discourse what is expected of them and compose the regulations in little groups. I would besides name a few land regulations and so negociate them as a category. This gives all scholars the chance to be included and involved and as they have decided on the regulations they are besides more likely to esteem them. When set uping land regulations it is of import to guarantee they are clear and brief and get down positively instead than with ‘do not’ . Once the regulations have been established I would inquire the scholars to compose them on some flipchart paper and hang them up in the category so that they are seeable to all. It is besides of impor t to reenforce the regulations systematically and to give voice scholars when regulations have been adhered to. I feel this method would actuate scholars and besides model good behavior. Some regulations may non be able to be negotiated. For illustration when the pupils come into category they must be have oning their salon uniforms and hair must be tied back. As a instructor even though I have designed my lessons to run into everyone’s demands I still need to guarantee that my scholars are motivated and want to larn. Maslow ( 1970 ) argues that basic demands such a nutrient. safety. love and belonging and self-esteem demand to be met in order for them to accomplish their ends and aspirations. Everyone is motivated through either Intrinsic ( because they want to larn ) or extrinsic incentives ( because they have to i. e. better occupation chances ) . â€Å"A good instructor will play to the strengths of the scholar when seeking to raise enthusiasm in learning† Wilson 2 004 – page 188 Other theories of motive that can be used to actuate scholars include the end orientated theory. based on desire to be rewarded for accomplishment. A scholar is given a clear way or undertaking and when it is reached there is a wages. For illustration I would put a group undertaking for my scholars to finish within the lesson. If they finish before the terminal of the lesson they are allowed an early interruption. If they don’t complete the undertaking at the by the terminal of the session they will hold to finish as prep. Albert Bandura ( 1994 ) suggested that an individual’s belief in themselves and their ability is related to what they can accomplish. An illustration of how this can be applied into the schoolroom is to promote my scholar to seek. and reinterpret the subject if they are diffident. Through coaching and reassurance I will enable that scholar to accomplish. Giving effectual feedback will assist to better the assurance of scholars a nd develop their possible. Feedback should be delivered quickly and be a two manner procedure. I would inquire the learner how they think they did and acquire an thought if their apprehension of the subject. Even if I had negative feedback to give to my scholar I would stop with a positive statement to motivate the scholar to take my remarks on board and go forth them experiencing more positive about their public presentation. To reason I suggest that inclusive instruction can merely take topographic point if both equality and diverseness are positively promoted. Inclusive learning relies on a scope of distinction schemes which may include altered resources or extra schoolroom support. Depending on single scholar demands. scholars may necessitate to be referred to internal or external topographic points of referral for excess support. . We will write a custom essay sample on Equality and Diversity Essay Example specifically for you for only $16.38 $13.9/page Order now We will write a custom essay sample on Equality and Diversity Essay Example specifically for you FOR ONLY $16.38 $13.9/page Hire Writer We will write a custom essay sample on Equality and Diversity Essay Example specifically for you FOR ONLY $16.38 $13.9/page Hire Writer

Monday, November 25, 2019

Free Essays on Marriage

â€Å"What does a Healthy Marital Relationship consist of?† Marriage and the Family Introduction Does anyone know what it means to have a healthy marital relationship? Does anyone know of anyone that has a good healthy marital relationship? This isn’t the question I should be asking, I know. The answer I would probably get would be â€Å"I know a person who knows a person who has a healthy marital relationship.† But more often than not we can think of more people that have bad relationships, because they are greater in numbers than the few good that have good relationships. I will be discussing: (1) what does a healthy martial relationship consist of, (2) what causes unhealthy relationships, (3) How to improve existing not so good relationships, so that they too can become healthy, (4) where people turn for help if they should need it, (5) how does the future look for couples and will they have healthy relationships? What does a Healthy Marital Relationship consist of? A healthy marital relationship consists of 15 basic traits. It’s important to remember that not all relationships have to have all of these traits to be healthy. If your relationship is missing a few traits, it doesn’t mean you have an unhealthy relationship. First, it’s important that partners are able to manage conflicts and differences without threats or losing hope in the matter. It’s also important for the partners to protect and nourish the relationship and to make it a priority. The couple should also be responsible for themselves as individuals, but at the same time they should not ignore the relationship. The couple should feel as individuals, arguments should never lead to abuse or threatened separation. Both individuals should be able to talk about each others wants, needs, feelings, and emotional issues with out feeling embarrassed about what the other person may think. There has to be unconditional love. If not unconditional l... Free Essays on Marriage Free Essays on Marriage Our society is very complex because there are different degrees of organization in it. One unit of organization is family. Families’ cornerstone is marriage. Marriage is one of the most beautiful and challenging relationships among humans. Over fifty percent of married couples get divorced. However mutual understanding, respect for each other, and a healthy social life can make marriage a lasting and happy experience. Mutual understanding is a key element for a successful marriage. Mutual understanding does not mean to agree on everything but to accept and recognize each other’s needs. For example, John needs more personal space then Wendoly does; however Wendoly agrees in spending time separately at least twice a week. In order for this agreement to work, John and Wendoly had to come to an agreement that satisfied both of them. When each partner gives a little in one direction or another, it helps to create harmony and mutual understanding that both parties are satisfied with. Though Wendolyn does not require as much personal space as John, it is apparent that she recognizes John’s need; this is important to the overall agreement. In a separate instance, John does not like to do house chores, but he recognizes how important it is to Wendoly to have a clean home. In an effort to come to a mutual understanding, he agrees to perform house chores at least once a week. Again, this is possible because John is able to recognize how important having a clean house is to Wendoly. Whether a couple is married or not every couple fights. Fighting or arguing is something that happens in all relationships, when people are living together it becomes extremely important that when they argue, they do it respectfully. Mutual respect for each other is what makes the deference. Respecting each other means that we should not use swear words or yell at one another. It might be difficult not to do these things if you are really u... Free Essays on Marriage Marriage Is It the Right Choice? In today’s society, marriage is a fundamental choice that people make in order to provide a secure and stable environment for their families. Marriage offers a more spiritual and healthier lifestyle, compared to the lifestyles of those who are unmarried. Marriage provides a more secure and stable environment for your children to grow up. There are many positive things in life to look forward to when a family is united, such as, birthdays, family reunions, sending the kids off to college, holidays, and the welcoming of a new baby. For instance, when comparing the lifestyles of men, women, and children of married families to that of the non-married, recent surveys and studies have shown that married men earn between 10 and 40 percent more than single men, with similar education and job history. Marriage also increases the likelihood that fathers will have better relationships with their children. Divorce and unmarried childbearing significantly increases poverty rates of both mothers and children. Between one-fifth and one-third of divorcing women, end up in poverty because of divorce. Married women also appear to have a lower risk of domestic violence than cohabiting or dating women. Even after controlling race, age, and education, people who cohabit are still three times more likely to report violent arguments. Since the beginning of our time, through religion, we have been taught that cohabiting was immoral, and that finding our soul mates and becoming married were our destiny. If we would like to be morally right for our faith and well-being, marriage is the beginning our lifelong journey. My argument is not to say that you are more likely to be immoral, if you are not married. However, you are definitely subjected to situations that are a lot more immoral and circumstantial. To conclude my argum... Free Essays on Marriage â€Å"What does a Healthy Marital Relationship consist of?† Marriage and the Family Introduction Does anyone know what it means to have a healthy marital relationship? Does anyone know of anyone that has a good healthy marital relationship? This isn’t the question I should be asking, I know. The answer I would probably get would be â€Å"I know a person who knows a person who has a healthy marital relationship.† But more often than not we can think of more people that have bad relationships, because they are greater in numbers than the few good that have good relationships. I will be discussing: (1) what does a healthy martial relationship consist of, (2) what causes unhealthy relationships, (3) How to improve existing not so good relationships, so that they too can become healthy, (4) where people turn for help if they should need it, (5) how does the future look for couples and will they have healthy relationships? What does a Healthy Marital Relationship consist of? A healthy marital relationship consists of 15 basic traits. It’s important to remember that not all relationships have to have all of these traits to be healthy. If your relationship is missing a few traits, it doesn’t mean you have an unhealthy relationship. First, it’s important that partners are able to manage conflicts and differences without threats or losing hope in the matter. It’s also important for the partners to protect and nourish the relationship and to make it a priority. The couple should also be responsible for themselves as individuals, but at the same time they should not ignore the relationship. The couple should feel as individuals, arguments should never lead to abuse or threatened separation. Both individuals should be able to talk about each others wants, needs, feelings, and emotional issues with out feeling embarrassed about what the other person may think. There has to be unconditional love. If not unconditional l... Free Essays on Marriage They say â€Å"Your life will never be the same once you walk down the isle and say your I Do’s†. I think that they are right. However, I find it interesting that when some people make this statement they are trying to tell you how wonderful life is about to become and on the other hand, there are people who mutter these exact same words and it seems like it is some kind of code for â€Å"run for your life†. I’ve only been married for a short time, but I’ve been in a marriage-like relationship for nearly seven years. In these years, I’ve notices a lot of really good things about being in such a committed relationship. You develop a sense of security somewhere along the way, unlike any you’ve ever had. Like there is someone there that you can count on for any and everything. It’s not only an emotional security, but a physical and financial one as well. You now have that financial back-up just incase you fall on hard times. Not to mention, if you need to work less so you can find yourself or go back to college, you can do that and still make the rent. I’ve come to realize that my husband really is my best friend. I can share all my thoughts and feelings with him, no matter what they are, even if they are about him. I feel like it is thee most honest relationship two people could have and I’ve never felt so comfortable with another person or even myself for that matter. It’s just nice to know that you don’t have to be alone. There are a lot of other perks to being married; Holidays seem to have a new special meaning, it’s like having a â€Å"perma-date† (you never have worry about finding a date), you get a larger income tax refund, more financial aid for school if you choose to go, a better health insurance plan, and best of all, some really nice rings. Of course, like all other things, there are disadvantages to the married life. When you get married, you money in no longer your money, it’s â€Å"our money† a.... Free Essays on Marriage I’m sure you agree that marriage is a commitment. It is a very important decision that a couple has to stick with for the rest of their lives, through good times and bad. It is a sacred promise that would not be fulfilled until death, hence the line â€Å"Till death do us part†. Marriage offers a life of love and happiness but it also will hand you a share of conflicts, hard work and worries. That is why there are three important points you need to remember and have when you decide to enter marriage. These are 1) Human Maturity, 2) Value Clarification, and 3) Authentic Love. You need human maturity before entering marriage. Human Maturity refers to a person’s self-esteem. You have achieved human maturity when you are able to stand alone on your own two feet and have a sense of self. Knowing who you are and being confident in your own skin enables you to devote and offer your entire self to your partner without having any doubts. It also lets you and your partner get to know each other completely and when you know each other that much, you are able to truly trust each other. Lack of human maturity often leads to insecurities, jealousy and lost of trust. Now, you wouldn’t want that in your marriage, would you? The second requirement is value clarification. This means that one has to have a set of priorities and principles. You must know what you want and where you stand and you must be able to share these with your partner so that you two would be able to work on how you would put these priorities and principles into practice. Value clarification gives your marriage a direction. Some think that having a partner with the same set of values as theirs is important. It is good to have a partner having similar values as you but it isn’t necessarily important because if you love each other enough, you two would be able to compromise and work things out on what is best for each other. The last of the three points is authentic ... Free Essays on Marriage Even though the marriages on TV are very different from marriages in real life, there are some similarities that are present, and these similarities are what tie the "non-realistic" to the "realistic," and make these kinds of shows popular and appealing. Marriage in this type of show specifically, is almost portrayed as a joke. It seems that most every character in the sitcom has been with one another more than just once, and having a marriage that lasts is rarely seen. Once a couple does decide to get married the drama begins, and does not stop until the wedding; you have bitter ex’s trying to get their old flings back, parents who do not agree with the marriage, brothers and sisters fighting over the soon to be spouse, the couple themselves fighting due to the old flings that appear, and most dramatic, the ones who come forward about the cheating or dishonesty on the day of the wedding. Beyond the obvious soap opera clichà ©, if a marriage does continue on, it is an extremely sweet one, the characters seem to be in love, and the show makes a connection to the people who watch it. Most every person longs for love, and if they have not found it yet, there is a sense of completion, in their eyes once they see the commitment made. It seems that the couple’s love for one another will go on forever, but the truth of the matter, is that it is a TV show and the audience wants to see drama. Since I would assume, most people have not slept with just about everyone in town, or have not married their ex’s father or mother, or their ex’s brother or sister, and the ways of deception just go on and on, especially in the TV world. When the audience sees this, they see the couple not lasting for more than a month, they see them trying to hurt each other, and in the end, they break off their â€Å"perfect match.† In doing so, this fulfills the audience’s need for deception, betrayal, and deceit but, still gives them a since of stabili...

Thursday, November 21, 2019

The significance of credit rating on Chinese auto industry Literature review

The significance of credit rating on Chinese auto industry - Literature review Example This study will mainly concentrate on the importance of credit rating of Chinese auto companies and how credit rating affects auto industry in China. The reason of focusing on Chinese auto industry is that auto industry in China has less influences of Chinese government policies, which could combine more experiences and academic results from western countries into this study. This study will also explore the significance of credit rating to the sustainable development of Chinese auto industry. In order to solve the problems about asymmetry information between lenders and investors and existence of credit risks, credit rating agency appears in the market. Focusing on the Chinese auto industry, this project will demonstrate the specified risk factors in the auto industry and how the ratings are determined by studying the features of Chinese credit rating market and comparing with the western countries’ experiences. The mathematical modelling can be applied in this part to show the ratings clearly and also case study will be used here. Moreover, this project will also introduce the impact to the large auto enterprises in China. This can be illustrated from two points: on one side, the significance of credit rating on developed corporate bonds of the auto companies will be studied; on the other side, the role of credit ratings on new products of asset securitisation of Chinese auto firms will be analysed. Furthermore, based on the studies, this project will discuss the sustainable development strategies for Chinese auto industry. 4. The impact of credit ratings to Chinese auto corporate bonds which are already in the market need to be discussed; the important role of credit ratings on new financial products of Chinese auto asset securitisation will be analysed. Credit risk in the financial market can be defined as the uncertain ability of an obligor to repay the money owing. Adams et al. (1999) mentions thatCredit rating started back in 1837 by Mercantille

Wednesday, November 20, 2019

History and political science Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

History and political science - Essay Example Some of the ancient theorists are the Marxists and empiricists. Marxists focused on the issue of communism and capitalism1. Karl Marx is among the many known historians who led to the development of the Marxist theory. Therefore, it is necessary to address a number of theories developed by these historians. Numerous reasons are accountable for the difference in interpretations of history as depicted by varied historians. First, historians existed at dissimilar times and thus encountered different life occurrences. For instance, the ancient historians majorly tried to put into history the occurrences that people had not given attention2. This is a category of individuals, who ventured majorly in the explanation of the origin of humanity and the social classes. In an appropriate explanation of why historians have such different interpretations of history, it is crucial to examine the works of Karl Marx3. Marx is highly renowned due to his Marxist theory. Karl Marx is among the ancient historians born in Germany in 1818 and his works contributed mightily to history. Marx existed during a period coupled with many revolutions. As a result, together with his collaborator, he developed several ideas from their life experiences. Karl’s closest friend, Friedrich Engels worked together in writing the history. As opposed to ancient historians, modern and postmodern historians depict a different way of interpreting history4. The key reason behind their interpretation is the developments that have occurred recently. In addition to the developments, the availability of the secondary information sources in national archives and libraries facilitates the process of interpreting history5. Such resources normally compare the ancient history with the current, thus coming up with an accurate, as well as informed explanation of the key historical happenings. The question also demands an explanation on how different historians interpret history in a dissimilar manner. In answ ering the above question, it will be necessary to focus on some of the historians’ interpretations about history. An ancient historian whose name is Karl Marx contributed significantly in history. He interpreted history by giving a lot of attention to materialistic bit of it6. As a result, the phrase historical materialism came into existence. The literature has revealed that he concentrated on both physiological, as well as the material needs. He disputed the idea of a complete satisfaction of an individual’s both physiological, as well as materialistic needs. He thus concluded that the ease at which to access such materials determines the nature of a society hence the birth of the phrase history of humanity. He also established three ways in which human society changes and all of them were dependent on the level of production. In addition to the Karl’s interpretation of history, other historians such empiricists have different interpretations7. Empiricists emp loy scientific principles in understanding how history has been changing over time. They insist the implication of applying knowledge in order to understand the key historical events. In the information collection process, they stress on the authenticity of the resources used in maintaining the accuracy of information. They aim at visiting the main international archives thus collecting the most accurate information for interpretation purposes. Among all the theories described in the book, I feel comfortable with the empiricist theory. The above is a theory based on knowledge, as well as epistemology8. Scholars define epistemology as the study of knowledge. The empiricists majorly center their work on craft. The issue of craft highly concentrates on knowledge and skill. The empiricism is an

Monday, November 18, 2019

How Exterior Environments Effect The Home Depot Corporation Term Paper

How Exterior Environments Effect The Home Depot Corporation - Term Paper Example vironments, since the challenges brought in by these environments are sometimes considered instrumental in making organisations devise mechanisms of overcoming the challenges. The facet of any business operations is to make profit. However, for any organisation to maintain competitive advantage, several factors dictate the success of developing and maintaining competitive advantage. According to Aquinas (2008), one of these factors is the external environments such as social, cultural, religious, legal and political environments. This paper will articulate on these factors and outline their influences on businesses and particularly on The Home Depot Corporation. Apart from internal operations of an organisation, each of the above mentioned external factors have been identified as potential influences of the business. Each of these factors affects businesses in different ways. Nevertheless, the line of business and market determines the level of control that these environments have on the business. For instance, a fast food business would be influenced differently by culture as opposed to how a clothing business would be influenced by the same. In some sit uations, the external environment has been argued to have configured the internal operations of an organisation, something that leads to slow development or boosts organisations returns (Markham, 2011). For instance, cultural factors may force an organisation to design or come up with new products that suits the culture of the target market. Political factors may force organisations to operate under the current political environment, something that may end up affecting the business operations that can lead to losses or slow development. Hatch & Cunliffe (2013) argued that organisations that want to maintain competitive advantage must show their willingness to participating in corporate social responsibility (Parboteeah, & Cullen, 2013). Social responsibility entails handing back to the society by supporting

Friday, November 15, 2019

Freudian and Jungian Literary Analysis: Under Milk Wood

Freudian and Jungian Literary Analysis: Under Milk Wood Exploration of dreams, symbols and archetypes in Dylan Thomas play for voices Under Milk Wood This paper seeks to assert that Dylan Thomas play Under Milk Wood can be successfully viewed using Freudian and Jungian psychoanalytic techniques. It will attempt to not only isolate and highlight many instances of typical psychical symbolism in the work but also what could be thought of as psychoanalytic mechanisms; especially as they relate to Freuds notions of the Dreamwork in his The Interpretation of Dreams (1997) or Jungs archetypes and collective unconscious. By doing this I hope to not only subject Thomas work to a rigorous psychoanalytical exegesis, uncovering hidden personal symbols, structures and images, but also highlight the psychosocial depth of Under Milk Wood; a depth that has hitherto been overlooked by some critics. Through this I hope to assess the notion that Thomas was every bit as influenced by Freud and Jung as James Joyce and Virginia Woolf were a generation before. I will begin, in my Introduction, to give an outline of the importance of Freud and psychoanalysis to post-World War One literature and what Dylan Thomas place within that was; paying particular attention to Thomas own assertions on the importance of psychoanalysis in his work and the ways that it was greeted by the literati of the 1930s and 40s. The first chapter will be dedicated to a discussion of Under Milk Wood and its creation, looking at such areas as plot construction, the structural nature of the piece and its creative aetiology. From here I will go on to discuss the notion of the Freudian dreamwork and its manifestations in Under Milk Wood. The dreamwork, exemplified by such concepts as condensation, displacement and secondary revision, is a central concept in the Freudian cannon and, as such, has become an important interpretive tool for both psychoanalysts and literary critics. It is with this in mind that I shall attempt to isolate instances of all four of the major mechanisms of the dreamwork in Thomas play whilst relating them to the wider issues of poetic creativity and narrative structure. I will also offer a brief discussion of how Jungs interpretation of dreams differed from Freuds before going on to examine how both can be used to inform us of Thomas play. The third chapter will be dedicated to Jungian archetypes. I will isolate and discuss the many instances of archetypal imagery in the play, paying special attention to the way in which they fit in with Thomas over all poetic sense as it is displayed in his use of language, narrative and plot. This chapter will also examine the role of the collective unconscious and relate it to the Modernist technique of the stream of consciousness novel and the works of James Joyce and Virginia Woolf. My conclusion will attempt to answer the main hypothesis of this paper, that indeed psychoanalytic techniques and knowledge can be used to understand Dylan Thomass play and also what that says about the playwrights role as a modern day bard. Introduction: â€Å"The Analytic Revelation† Thomas Manns paper â€Å"The Significance of Freud† published in 1936 gives us some indications as to the importance of early psychoanalysis on the literary life of Europe and America: â€Å"The analytic revelation is a revolutionary force. With it a blithe scepticism has come into the world, a mistrust that unmasks all the schemes and subterfuges of our own souls. Once roused and on alert, it cannot be put to sleep again. It infiltrates life, undermines its raw naà ¯vetà ©, takes from it the strain of its own ignorance†¦Ã¢â‚¬  (Mann, 1965: 591) As Malcolm Bradbury and James McFarlane assert in their study Modernism: A Guide to European Literature 1890-1930 (1991), this â€Å"revolutionary force† was a large constituent of early twentieth century notions of, not only Modernism in literature and the arts but also, what it meant to be a modern man or woman. The early Modernist writers of the inter-war period not only embraced Freud and psychoanalysis as heralding a new paradigm of self-sufficiency and ontological autonomy but also, as a journal entry by Andre Gide exposes, thought themselves part of an existing groundswell of thought that was, above all, quintessentially new: â€Å"Freud†¦Freudianism†¦For the last ten years, or fifteen, I have been indulging in it without knowing.† (Gide, 1967: 349) The connection between psychoanalysis and literature has always been problematic. Freud, himself asserts in the opening paragraphs to his essay â€Å"The Uncanny† (2005) that â€Å"only rarely (does) a psycho-analyst (feel) impelled to investigate the subject of aesthetics† (Freud, 2000: 1), however writers, critics and even Freud himself have made extensive use of the interpretive similarities between the two disciplines . Not only are there are a whole host of studies devoted to the use of psychoanalysis in literary criticism but in the Introduction to his novel The White Hotel (1999), D.M. Thomas draws attention to the extraordinarily literary quality of Fr euds case studies; each containing many of the tropes and leitmotifs one would normally associate with a creative work. For Freud, the psychical mechanisms of creative writing and dreaming are in, some senses at least, inextricably linked. Both are based in a tripartite system of ideational fantasy formation consisting of: a current situational issue or concern that provokes the memory of a childhood incident or trauma which, in turn, shapes some future action in the guise of a wish fulfilment. Freud sets out the relationship between this system and literature in his essay â€Å"Creative Writers and Day Dreaming† (Freud, 1986): â€Å"We are perfectly aware that very many imaginative writings are far removed from the model of the naà ¯ve daydream; and yet I cannot suppress the suspicions that even the most extreme deviations from that model could be linked with it through an uninterrupted series of transitional cases.† (Freud, 1986: 150) Freud continues to explain the disparity between the mind of the creative writer and the ordinary day-dreamer, asserting that whereas the latter results in a self-conscious repression of desire (the wishes of the day-dreamer being best left unspoken) the former revels in and promulgates such desire, translated as it is by artistic skill and temperament: â€Å"The writer softens the character of his egoistic day-dreams by altering and disguising it, and he bribes us by the purely formal – that is aesthetic – yield of pleasure which he offers us in the presentation of his phantasies.† (Freud, 1986: 153) This essay, perhaps more than any other work of Freuds, highlights for us the attraction of psychoanalysis to early twentieth century writers. Metaphysically and spiritually sceptical after the mass slaughter of the First World War and the alienation engendered by rise of the industrial paradigm, Freudian theory offered (as testified by Manns essay) a distinctly human, non-metaphysical and wholly scientific explanation for the place of the artist within society. For Freud, the artist was distinct from the rest of the populous but this had a purely psychical aetiology, leaving no imperative for notions of religious or supra-human inspiration. This is undoubtedly some of the attraction of Freudianism for Dylan Thomas who, throughout his letters and early work makes both use and reference to writers and critics that were, themselves, heavily influenced by Freud and psychoanalysis. Francis Scarfe, in the essay â€Å"Dylan Thomas: A Pioneer† (1960) cites Freud as a major influence on the formation of Thomas early poetic voice, derived in the main from his experiences with what Scarfe calls â€Å"Sitwellism† (Scarfe, 1960: 96): â€Å"The dominant points of contact seems to be James Joyce, the Bible and Freud. The personal habits of language and mythology of Dylan Thomas can readily be identified through these three sources.† (Scarfe, 1960: 96) If Joyce lent the young poet some of the lyricism and sense of narrative and the Bible some of the rich cadence and verbal poetics, Freud enabled Thomas to look within his own unconscious and find images and leitmotifs that would find resonance with the rest of humanity as, firstly, personal then increasingly Bardic and archetypal symbols formed the basis of his work. An early poem of Thomas clearly mirrors the hyperbole of Freuds first lectures on psychoanalysis; the poet and the analyst both evoking the image of the journey into an unknown by an antonymous but courageous individual: â€Å"The midnight road, though young man tread unknowking. Harbouring some thought of heaven, or haven hoping. Yields peace and plenty at the end. â€Å" (Thomas, 1990: 119) We can compare this to Freuds famous analogy that is evoked throughout his work: â€Å"The interpretation of dreams is in fact the royal road to a knowledge of the unconscious; it is the securest foundation of psycho-analysis and the field in which evey worker must acquire his convictions and seek his training. If I am asked how one can become a psycho-analyst, I reply: â€Å"By studying ones own dreams†Ã¢â‚¬  (Freud, 1957: 60) Interestingly, Thomas himself was reluctant to acknowledge his debt to Freud, choosing instead to suggest a notion that we have already posited here; that Freuds influence is paradigmatic. He says in the collection of interviews â€Å"Notes on the Art of Poetry† (1963) that his writing is influenced by Freud only through the work others , itself a testament to the extent that Freudian theory and, indeed, the whole of psychoanalytic thought has permeated the very fabric of modern literature. Thomas notebooks poems, his earliest poetic statements, are suffused with what we shall see are Freudian images, inspired perhaps not by psychoanalysis itself but by the poets interest in Surrealism and their early antecedents the 18th century Metaphysical poets. Works such as: â€Å"Where once the waters of your face Spun to my screws, your dry ghost blows, The dead turns up its eye†¦Ã¢â‚¬  (Thomas, 1990: 217) And â€Å"In wasting one drop from the hearts honey cells. One precious drop that, for the moment, quells Desires pain†¦Ã¢â‚¬  (Thomas, 1990: 133) Clearly reflect the artistic tenants set out in Bretons Manifestoes of Surrealism (1972) that sought to combine Freudian concepts of the dreamwork with aesthetic creation . As we shall see in the first chapter of this paper, this delight in the surreal as it relates to the Freudian image remained with Thomas throughout all of his working life and, most certainly, manifests itself in Under Milk Wood. The analytic revelations then, of Freud , have not only influenced those writers such as Breton, Auden and Woolf who are were intimately acquainted with his writing but also writers like Dylan Thomas who, by his own admission, came to psychoanalysis through other creative writers works. This paper, like many others, uses psychoanalytic theory as a methodology with which to uncover latent symbols, patterns and structures within Thomas work. It will not only relate such symbols to the poets own poetic vision but will, through Jungian theory, expand these so that they encompass universal archetypes and concepts such as the collective unconscious that structures the unconscious and, inevitably finds its way into works of a creative nature . Chapter One: â€Å"To Begin at the Beginning† Dylan Thomas play for voices Under Milk Wood began life as a small radio broadcast Quiet Early One Morning (Sinclair, 1975, Jones, 1963) and this short piece is easily recognisable as the genesis for the larger work. There are, for instance, many of the same basic characters – the milkman â€Å"still lost in the clangour and music of Welsh-spoken dreams† (Thomas, 1992), the sea captain, the lonely lady â€Å"Miss May Hughes† and even the tragic-comic Mrs Ogmore Pritchard. There is the same sense of poetic cadence that constantly adds to the somatic quality of the writing, lulling the reader into a musical trance as sibilance and assonance is combined with Thomas particular inner rhythms, such as in this extract: â€Å"The sun lit the sea-town, not as a whole, from topmost down reproving zinc-roofed chapel to empty-but-for-rats-and-whispers grey warehouse on the harbour, but in separate bright pieces.† (Thomas, 1978: 15) The story, recited by Thomas himself in 1944 on the BBC, describes the still sleeping town of New Quay in Cardiganshire (Maud, 1992) and weaves external description with internal monologue as the narrator flits in and out of the dreaming consciousnesses of the towns inhabitants. In the story, each paragraph brings a new image or a new perspective but what we are ultimately presented with is the stream of consciousness of the narrator; in the story, unlike in Under Milk Wood, an impersonal but altogether discernable â€Å"I†: â€Å"Quite early one morning in the winter in Wales, by the sea that was lying down still and green as grass after a night of tar-black howling and rolling, I went out of the house, where I had come to stay for a cold unseasonable holiday†¦Ã¢â‚¬  Thomas, 1978: 15) It is this point, this appearance of the personal pronoun that, as we shall see, makes Quite Early One Morning markedly different to Under Milk Wood. Thomas, however, retains the sense of dreamy absurdity, as images are juxtaposed for comic effect amid the repeated refrain of â€Å"The town was not yet awake†. Under Milk Wood grew out of this humble beginning and is both markedly similar and surprisingly different . Both works reflect, as Derek Stanford (1954) suggests, the cadences, characterisation and plot construction of Joyces Ulysses (1979), being as they are the collective narratives of a whole town in the same time period. Both works, however, are also embryonic, Quite Early One Morning obviously being a blueprint for Under Milk Wood but this also being merely a fragmentary snapshot of a larger planned work that was never finished (Jones, 1986: ix). Under Milk Wood also resembles the cyclical structure of Joyces other great work Finnegans Wake (1992). Thomas play abounds with references to beginnings and commencements; we have, for instance, the famous first lines: â€Å"To begin at the beginning: It is Spring, moonless night in the small town, starless And bible-black†¦Ã¢â‚¬  (Thomas, 2000: 1) That not only evokes the biblical â€Å"In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth† (Gen, 1:1) but also the creational sense of Joyces reference to the beginnings of mankind in the opening lines of his novel: â€Å"riverrun, past Eve and Adams, from swerve of shore to bend of bay, brings us by a commodius vicus of recirculation back to Howth castle and Environs.† (Joyce, 1992: 3) In Under Milk Wood, the cyclical nature of the day is metonymous with the seasonal nature of the year and this with the life of a human being as Thomas juxtaposes images of beginnings, babies and births with ageing, infirmity and death; as in this passage: â€Å"All over town, babies and old men are cleaned and put into their broken prams and wheeled on to the sunlit cockled cobbles or out into the backyards under the dancing underclothes, and left. A baby cries.† (Thomas, 2000: 27) As we shall see, this notion of the circle, of repeating is important to both Freud and Jung; Freud through his insistence on the importance of the return in notions such as repression and the death drive and Jung, through his concept of the mandala as a recurring symbol. Like Joyce, Thomas displays circles within circles, as the plot and structure of the work as a whole mirrors the framework of the characters lives and psyches. We see this reflected in many of the plays most successful characters, witness for instance the constant iteration of Mrs Ogmore Pritchard, as she repeats her life over and over again with different husbands, only to have them revisit her after their deaths: â€Å"Mr Ogmore, linoleum, retired, and Mr Pritchard, failed bookmaker, who maddened by besoming, swabbing and scrubbing, the voice of the vacuum cleaner and the fume of the polish, ironically swallowed disinfectant, fidgets in her rinsed sleep, wakes in a dream and nudges in the ribs dead Mr Ogmore, dead Mr Pritchard, ghostly on either side.† (Thomas, 2000: 10) The same can be said, of course, for Captain Cat, whose dreams and waking life are characterised not by the dead per se, but by their return as he witnesses the phantasmatic manifestations of either his repression or the collective unconscious (whether one is citing Freud or Jung). The sense, in Under Milk Wood, is that of a blithe acceptance of the passing of time and the knowledge that things return; the sunrise, the Spring and the dead. This is reflected in many of Thomas poems, for instance in the closing lines of â€Å"I See the Boys of Summer†: â€Å"I am the man your father was. We are the sons of flint and pitch. Oh see the poles are kissing as they cross!† (Thomas, 1990: 219) In this, also, as Karl Jay Shapiro asserts in his study In Defense of Ignorance (1960), Thomas work clearly reflects what was a seminal poem for the young poets generation W.B. Yeats â€Å"The Second Coming† (1987) which contains images of both beginnings and circles within circles. In the next chapter I will look at how these aspects of Under Milk Wood can be interpreted through the psychoanalytical work of Freud and Jung, paying attention specifically to their concepts of dreams and dreaming; again another leitmotif of Thomas play that can be seen to come from Joyces Finnegans Wake. Chapter Two: The Dreamwork, the Symbol and Captain Cat Freud On Dreams As Richard Wollheim suggests, Freuds theories on dreams are the â€Å"most remarkable single element† (Wollheim, 1971: 66) of his psychoanalytical project and Freud himself in his essay â€Å"On Dreams† (1991) stresses the primacy of dream interpretation in his system: â€Å"The transformation of the latent dream-thoughts into the manifest dream-content deserves all out attention, since it is the first instance known to us of psychical material being changed over from one mode of expression to another.† (Freud, 1991: 89) For Freud, dreams serve as symptoms of unconscious repression in the same way as parapraxes (slips of the tongue) and instances of forgetfulness. The content of dreams can, he said, be split into the latent and the manifest; the one providing a shield for the other as the Unconscious gives up its fissures and problems that have been repressed by the Ego during waking hours. Freuds work The Interpretation of Dreams attempts to provide a full scale, largely scientific study of not merely the symbolism of dreams but also their mechanism; a mechanism that he termed the ‘dreamwork. The dreamwork can be thought of as a process (Wollheim, 1971) that transcribes the latent content of dreams into the language of the manifest. Freud is clear in The Interpretation of Dreams that psychoanalysis does not deal with the simple ‘translation of images or primitive notions of symbol exchange that sees dreams as merely scripts that can be easily interpreted using a universal dictionary, although he does acquiesce to the point that some symbols recur on a universal level. Instead, Freud sees dreams as the return of repressed desires and their attendant wishes that find a voice in the psychical economy through a process of disguise. The desire, as Richard Stevens (1983) suggests, â€Å"will be fused with experiences and thoughts from the previous day or even events occurring during the course of the night† (Stevens, 1983: 30). The dreamwork, in the Freudian system, is both the mechanism of disguise and the tool of interpretation because it contains an internal logic that can be used by the analyst to trace the source of repression and, through the process of transference, brought into the conscious and rendered harmless (Freud, 1997). Perhaps the most important concept within The Interpretation of Dreams is the four-fold dreamwork mechanism that can be used, not only in dream interpretation but as we shall see, in the critical appreciation of literature. Freud termed these mechanisms condensation, displacement, representation and secondary revision and before I go to look at how each one fits into Under Milk Wood specifically I would like to, briefly, offer up an explanation as to how each effects the manifest dream-content and ergo the literary image or trope. Condensation This is, perhaps, the most common dream feature and is what gives dreams their sparse, confusing quality. For Freud, dream-thoughts are many and varied, each bombarding the dreamwork simultaneously: â€Å"The dream is meagre, paltry and laconic in comparison with the range and copiousness of the dream-thoughts. The dream, when written down fills half a page; the analysis, which contains the dream-thoughts requires six, eight, twelve times as much space.† (Freud, 1997: 170) Condensation manifests itself as images laden with meaning, as the unconscious overlays and condenses two or more dream-thoughts into one motif. Part of the skill of the analyst according to Freud is the extent that such condensation can be unravelled and successive layers of unconscious meaning and repression peeled back and revealed (Freud, 1965: 313). Whereas Freud was dubious as to the possibility of ever reaching a definitive dream interpretation because of the very nature of condensation, he also asserted that the ways in which dream-thoughts are condensed gives the analyst a clue as to their psychical meaning. Freud cites his own dream of the Botanical Monograph as an example of the way in which different dream-thoughts can be condensed into one dream-image; the latent meaning only becoming apparent when this relationship is exposed . Displacement Displacement refers to the substituting of elements within dreams. Due to the nature of the unconscious, elements and images that have a similar psychical economy invariably end up being displaced, one for the other. In The Interpretation of Dreams Freud characterises displacement as constituting a de-centring of the dream-thoughts: â€Å"We may have noticed that these elements which obtrude themselves in the dream-content as its essential components do not by any means play this same part in the dream-thoughts.† ( Freud, 1997: 190) Displacement, like condensation, arises from the synchronous nature of the unconscious and manifests itself in two ways; firstly, through the substituting of dream-thoughts, so that dreams can appear absurd and illogical and, secondly through shifting meanings – an image may possess one meaning in one nights dream and another on a different night. Melanie Klein, for instance, in her essay â€Å"Psychological Principles of Early Analysis† (1991) offers us some interesting insights into how displacement works in something other than the dream; the child at play. â€Å"My analyses again and again reveal how many different things, dolls for example, can mean in play. Sometimes they stand for the penis, sometimes for the child stolen from the mother, sometimes for the little patient itself etc.† (Klein, 1991: 134) Both condensation and displacement have been used as the basis for theories of Surrealist aesthetics, as Carrouges and Prendergast assert in their study Andre Breton and the Basic Concepts of Surrealism (1974: 192) which uses seemingly disparate images juxtaposed in order to create an illogical, dream-like tableaux. Representation Representation refers to the dreamworks tendency to present feelings, repressions and notions as images and symbols. Unlike many pre-Freudian systems of dream interpretation such symbolisation is centred, to a very large extent, around the dreamers own personal history and psychology. However as I have already stated there are, due to the inter-subjective nature of the psyche, recurring symbols and motifs that can be found in a great many peoples dreams. Richard Stevens in his Freud and Psychoanalysis (1983) mentions just a few of them: â€Å"small boxes, chests, cupboards and ovens correspond to the female organ; also cavities, ships and all kinds of vessels. The actions of climbing ladders, stairs, inclines or flying may be used to symbolise sexual intercourse; having a haircut, tooth pulled or being beheaded, castration.† (Stevens, 1983: 33) Secondary Revision Secondary revision refers to the mental processes that occur after the dreamer awakes and that organises and places the otherwise absurd and disparate images and themes into a, relatively, cohesive narrative. Wollheim points to there being doubt in Freuds later work as to the place of secondary revision within the dreamwork (Wollhein, 1971: 69) but, as a concept, it has been important in many neo-Freudian systems of aesthetics especially, as Charles Altman points out in his essay â€Å"Psychoanalysis and Cinema† (1986: 526), by the French school of film critics who saw it as, not so much an integral part of the dreamwork, but as the main constituent in narrative formation and the audience/film dialectic. Jung On Dreams Dreams play as important a role in the work of Carl Jung as Sigmund Freud (Fordham, 1964) however the former not only sees their place in the psychical economy differently but has, as he explains in Man and his Symbols (1964), created an entirely separate process of interpretation and translation. Jung disagreed with Freuds notion of the dreamwork and his method of free association whereby the analysand recalls a dream and lets their mind wander through the myriad of different unconscious connections only to be unravelled and assessed by the analyst. For Jung, this process is likely to uncover neuroses and repression but is unlikely to uncover them connected with the dream. For Jung, the further away from the central motifs of the dream-image one gets the further away one travels from the locus of their meaning. Therefore, under a Jungian system, dreams consist not of personal motifs of repression returning through the dreamwork but as expressions of either the personal or collective unconscious. The method of extracting the meaning from dreams is centred around the correct reading of such symbols and an evaluation of how they relate to either the dreamers personal or their phyllogenetic background, as Jung himself asserts: â€Å"Dreams are impartial, spontaneous products of the unconscious psyche, outside the control of the will. They are pure nature, they show us unvarnished, natural truth, and are therefore fitted, as nothing else is, to give us back an attitude that accords with our basic human nature.† (Jung, 1989: 55) Jung viewed the waking, conscious perceptions as having a penumbra of associated psychical meanings (Jung, 1964: 28), even the very simplest of actions, for instance seeing or hearing, can involve a gamut of other ideational and experiential relations and it is this that we witness in dreams; the whole of our unconscious unfettered by the ordering, the siphoning and the categorisation of the conscious mind. For Jung, then, the absurd quality of dreams, their surreal nature comes not from intervention of the dreamwork but from the cultural and personal associations attached to perceptions and experiences. Thomas On Dreams Both Freuds and Jungs systems of dream interpretation offer us important critical tools with which to view Dylan Thomas Under Milk Wood both in terms of the images and symbols the playwright uses in order to convey the sense of the somatic and the dream-like and his use of surrealism as a semi-comic trope throughout the piece. The play begins in the collective dream of the town. Just like the short story Quite Early One Morning, the audience is taken on a journey through the consciousnesses of the sleeping townsfolk as they dream their separate dreams, shaped (as both Freud and Jung assert) by their individual consciousnesses and personalities. Captain Cat, for example, experiences the return of the repressed guilt he feels towards his long dead shipmates: â€Å"Captain Cat, the retired blind sea-captain, asleep in his bunk in the seashelled, ship-in-bottled, shipshape best cabin of Schooner House dreams of Second Voice: never such seas as any that swamped the decks of the S.S. Kidwelly bellying over bedclothes and jellyfish-slippery sucking him down salt deep into the Davy dark† (Thomas, 2000: 2) Thomas, here, reflects both Freudian and Jungian dream analysis as Captain Cats dreams abound with symbols of his past and are unmistakably suffuse with the characters own visual lexicon, what Jung calls the â€Å"dream language† (Jung, 1986: 33). The same can be said of Dai Bread who dreams of â€Å"harems†, Polly Garter who dreams of â€Å"babies† and even Nogood Boyo who dreams of â€Å"nothing†. However, within the very text of Under Milk Wood we notice each one of the four elements of the Freudian dreamwork. The dense language is a clear instance of condensation: the vital elements of the imagistic leitmotifs are extracted and pile one on top of another, as adjective combines with adjective to form the quintessentially Thomasian poetics, such as here where the playwright draws a finely tuned portrait of Mrs Dai Bread One, the wife of the baker: â€Å"Me, Mrs Dai Bread One, capped and shawled and no old corset, nice to be comfy, nice to be nice, clogging on the cobbles to stir up a neighbour. Oh, Mrs Sarah, can you spare a loaf, love? Dai Bread forgot the bread. Theres a lovely morning! Hows your boils this morning?† (Thomas, 2000: 22) Thomas both describes the sense of a dream here and, through condensation, utilizes its mechanism. Words and phrases are juxtaposed and their meaning condensed in a way that mirrors almost exactly the workings of Freuds dreamwork. We see this reflected many times throughout the narrative of Under Milk Wood, as the author evokes in a linguistic sense what Freud saw in a psychoanalytic sense. We see, for example a clear literary rendering of displacement in the absurd portrait of Cherry Owen as described by the Second Voice: â€Å"Cherry Owen, next door, lifts a tankard to his lips but nothing flows out of it. He shakes the tankard. It turns into a fish. He drinks the fish.† (Thomas, 2000: 13) Here the incongruous image of a fish replaces or displaces the tankard that Cherry Owen drinks from adding to the dreamy quality of the early passages of the play. As a cultural symbol, the fish also mirrors the third of the Freudian mechanisms, representation, whereby a linguistic notion â€Å"He drinks like a fish† is rendered in a quasi-comic symbolic form. Of course, the ultimate use of dreams and dreaming in Under Milk Wood is the plot itself. Both Freud and Jung rely heavily on the concept of the return within their respective dream philosophies (Stevens, 1983; Fordham, 1964) and this is reflected in the very structure of the play that could, after all, be thought of as merely the manifest dream-content of the First Voice, or perhaps even Thomas himself. Like a dream, the text iterates, as we shall see in the next chapter, the same basic images and archetypes; the symbols are at once full of meaning in themselves and signifiers for other things. The First Voice can be seen as the voice of God but also of secondary revision, knitting disparate elements together to form a narrative that can be followed and engaged with. As the characters awake, their lives, as they are described by the First and Second voice, are shown to be no less absurd than the irrationality of their dreams. This is perhaps because the entire play can itself be seen as a dream of the authors in which he creates, as he states in a letter to A.G. Prys Jones, â€Å"a never-never Wales† (Thomas, 1985: 848) that, like its Peter Pan counterpart, is as much a manifest wish of its author as anything else. Chapter Three: The Shadow, T Kelloggs Business Strategy: Success Factors and Barriers Kelloggs Business Strategy: Success Factors and Barriers Introduction: The importance of customers and their value plays a major role and cannot be neglected by the companies in todays business world. The implementation of different new strategies and marketing plans will not help if the companies do not pay attention to the customers. Any companys marketing plan agenda should and will always include customers. Customer focus and retention is a powerful strategic advantage that helps to increase the profitability of the company and to survive in the high competitive environment. The different consumers across the world might lead to varying consumer behaviours which result in identifying varying concepts by decision making units to sell the products. In a company like Kelloggs the purchasing process is dependant on consumer behaviour. The buying pattern of the consumers has an influence on directly related phenomena as well as post marketing phenomena. Kelloggs has seen a downfall in sales in the past decade and still continues to see. There is a huge discussion in the EU market about the food nutrition and labelling and the negative media image produced about the products of the company. The Kelloggs products are criticised by food standard agency (FSA) as red products and junk food. They said that the company is trying to show their products healthier than they actually are. These statements and actions of FSA has not only affected the overall business and its image but also the consumer attitude towards the products. This report talks about how Kelloggs can resolve the issue by using marketing research and customer focused strategy. Company Profile: Kelloggs is the worlds largest cereal maker since 1906 and is located in the United States. Kelloggs products has become a part of the delicious mornings for the people around the world since a century. Its business is operated in two segments: Kelloggs North America and Kelloggs International. 66% of the revenue to the company comes from North America region which consists of the Canada and the United States. The remaining 34% comes from the Kelloggs international market which consists of Europe (20%), Latin America (8%) and Asia Pacific (6%). The products vary from ready-to-eat cereals to convenience foods such as cereal bars, cookies, toaster pastries, crackers, frozen waffles, snacks and veggie foods. Obesity and Health Wellness is the primary concern for people in the world today. Kelloggs has invested on this trend by introducing many health focused products like Kelloggs ®, Pop-Tarts ®, Cheez-It ®, Mini-Wheats ®, Nutri-Grain ®, Rice Krispies ®, Keebler ®, Specia l K ®, Chips Deluxe ®, Famous Amos ®, Morningstar Farm ®, Sandies ®, Eggo ®, Austin ®, Club ®, Murray ®, Kashi ®, Bear Naked ®, Gardenburger ®,All-Bran ®,and Stretch Island ®. The demand for its products came from the continuous advertising since 1906. The main competitors are General foods, Quaker Oats, General Mills and Ralston-Purina. It started out in Battle Creek, Michigan with 44 employees which eventually has grown into a multinational company with 30,000 employees. The manufacturing of its products is taking place in 18 countries and selling them over 180 countries successfully with the implementation of intelligent strategies and leadership. Key Success Factors: The main key factors for Kelloggs Success are it perceived to have a healthy image when compared to other daily breakfasts and snacks like chocolates and crisps. They made the products convenient enough so that they can be carried anywhere easily. They offer a range of cereal bars which are quite useful for people on the morning rush. Few Kelloggs products are really versatile as moms can give them as a snack between breakfast and lunch to their kids. Sodium content in the food is a major issue that the company has to deal with. Kelloggs are trying to develop products with less salt content and including more amount of fruits in the bars and cereals for people with health concerns. They have created a high level of brand awareness in the people which allowed them to win the customer loyalty. They have designed various products since a century for all age groups from childrens to adults. Innovation has influenced Kelloggs market to a greater extent. Introducing new products according to the changing markets and tastes of people from time to time has made Kelloggs to win the customers. They offered the products at a lower price which made an average household to afford, hence retaining the customers at large. Kelloggs market its products itself. It do not manufacture cereals for any other company who sells them under their own brand. All these factors added for the company to run successfully and become the world market leaders in the highly competitive market. Strategy: Kelloggs aim was to be the food company of choice and also make customers understand the importance of a balanced lifestyle which can be achieved by their products. The mission is to drive sustainable growth through the power of the people and brands by better serving the needs of customers, consumers and communities. Based on their vision and mission they crafted their strategy to achieve aims and objectives with the power of position and brand image. Kelloggs targeted various groups of people and deigned the products accordingly to attract their mind sets. Balanced Lifestyle is the broad strategic objective of the company. It implemented these strategies by some tactical plans like supporting the physical activity among all age groups and to sponsor these activities with the use of companies resources, the communication of the balance diet to consumers using the cereal packs, and also introduction of food labelling which would allow consumers to understand the balanced diet content of their products. Kelloggs has introduced the recommended Guideline Daily Amounts (GDA) to their packaging labels. This allowed the customer to have a knowledge of the amount of nutrients in take in a serving of Kelloggs food. Their strategy is to attract customers by encouraging them to take part in the swimming programs organised by the company in relationship with the Amateur Swimming association (ASA). Kelloggs has sponsored almost 1.8 million awards every year to the swimmers. This idea of teaming up with ASA has helped the company to reinforce its brand image. It also has started many community programs and breakfast clubs to create awareness of their products in people. By all these activities it shows that the company is trying to create a good CSR image in the industry. Kelloggs believed that if consumers are given proper information about their products, they can retain them. So, they chose various methods to communicate their objectives to the world such as using cartoo n characters, and also through effective advertising. It also distributed nutrition magazines for the employees to make them better understand about the objectives. Solution: In a major business study about Kelloggs, it is seen that their consumers buying behaviour is mostly dependant on the companys focus towards customers and how well they treat them rather than manufacturing, pricing or merchandising of the products. Consumers tend to purchase the products which are more healthy. Hence they want to know all the available information about the products they want to buy or consume. The products information, beliefs, intentions and attitudes of the customers influence the decision process. So Kelloggs has to perform a market research on whether the consumers buy their products based on the label information or not. The visual inspection of the product or the experience of purchasing the product play a major role in the decision making of the consumer. Advertising and promotion of the product might as well have a greater impact on the buying pattern. It is difficult enough to understand the consumer behaviour within the borders of a single country. Underst anding and serving the needs of consumers from different countries can be daunting. The values, behaviours and attitudes of the consumers vary greatly across the world. Kelloggs must design the marketing programs and products according to the peoples needs. For example, in the United Kingdom where most people eat cereal regularly for their breakfast, Kelloggs should try persuading consumers to buy their brand rather than a competitors brand. In France, however where most people prefer croissants and coffee or no breakfast at all, it should advertise to convince people to eat cereal for breakfast and in India, where many consumers eat heavy fried breakfasts and skip meal all together, the company should make attempts to convince the buyers to shift to a lighter, more nutritious breakfast diet. To cover up the damage caused due to the labelling issue by FSA, Kelloggs Should determine the customers needs and convert them into requirements. In order to fulfil them, it should fully understand the current and future needs of the customers, identify the customers, determine their key product characteristics, identify and assess market competition, identify opportunities and weakness, define financial and future competitive advantages, ensure that it has sufficient knowledge about the regulatory requirements, identify the benefits to be achieved from exceeding compliance and also identify their role in the protection of community interests. Kelloggs can start launching some new products aimed at the health conscious consumers. They can start selling them for a lowest price in the market and satisfy them with a good value products for every penny they spend. They can concentrate more on three groups of people like individuals, families and supermarkets who wanted to have a healthy diet. They can focus more on health conscious people from age group from 25-50 by promising them healthy diet with their products. By the introduction of these products in the market they can show the customers that Kelloggs is being paid attention to what they want and how important their health is to the company. They can start collecting information from consumers and people by conducting surveys about what kind of products they are actually looking for and based on that they can prepare them and position them to win the competitive advantage. So the only mantra to attract the customers again and to cover up the loss created by FSA is obsessive customer attention. Even though making health conscious customers happy might affect the short term profits, yet it helps to acquire a loyal customer base which pays off in the future. Making these products available at all consumer stores and super markets at a lower retail price might assist in building up the brand image yet again. Adv ertisements play a crucial role in winning the brand image and loyalty of the customers. If the company tries to create an awareness about the product and the low price buying strategy, it would encourage the consumers to buy them that results in the greater sales of the product. Potential advantages by focusing on customers: Awareness of changing dynamics of the consumer market will definitely help Kelloggs to gain a competitive edge in the cereal industry. The increasing trend of health consciousness and the changing tastes can be known time to time by extensive market research. The feed back from consumers and the surveys conducted will allow the company to learn about their drawbacks and work up on them. It enables the business to minimize price sensitivity, improve profitability, differentiate itself from the competition, improve its image in the eyes of customer, achieve a maximum number of advocates for the company, increases customer satisfaction and retention, enhance its reputation, improve staff morale, ensure products and services are delivered right first time, increase employee satisfaction and retention, encourage employee participation, increase productivity and reduce costs, create a reputation for being caring customer-oriented company, foster internal customer / supply relationships and also bring about continuous improvements to the operation of the company. Barriers to overcome: For Kelloggs to win back its brand and image customer loyalty and becoming customer focused organisation there are some barriers to overcome Internal Focus: Rather than focusing on improving the output measures like revenue, cost and returns, the firm should pay attention to input measures like staff satisfaction and customer experience. Command and Control Culture: A command and control culture in the organisation creates internal conflicts, poor communication and mistrust. This constrains the freedom of building customer relationships and also the exchange of knowledge for better growth of the company. Short Term Approach: The company should not tend to fall back to the product-thinking strategy, instead it should hold on to the customer focus strategy and treat it as a long term initiative which might help acquire customer loyalty and retention to the firm. Inadequate Customer Data: With small volumes of customer data it is difficult to analyse customers behaviour and manage relationships. So, they should always make sure that adequate amount of data is available on the customers to understand the buying behaviour patterns. Understanding the customers: Though the company has gathered enough information, it is sometimes difficult to harness it. So it should try understanding the attitudes and beliefs of the customer. Conclusion: Labelling on food products plays a major role in the decision making process of a consumer. The buying behaviour of consumers is richly embroidered by the labels available on the product. In the Kelloggs case labelling issues created a damage to the company. The best way for Kelloggs to recover from this situation is to use the launch of the new products as a strategic technique to win back the customers it has lost. The glue that hold the organisation together is strong customer focus. It acts as a fuel for an improving the brand image of the company. Every employee should be committed and dedicated towards their work in order to build a customer focused organisation. If Business neglects to create a true customer focus, they need to face huge unnecessary costs for poor service raised due to the active promotion of the customers who are dissatisfied. This might result in investing extensively in marketing and advertising by the company to gain back the customers attention. The life blood of the organisation are the customers who allows the firm to realise their main goals and objectives to survive in the market and also to make a profit. Their behaviour helps the products to attain a recognition and allow them to last for longer periods. Consumer behaviours keep changing from time to time and the best thing the company could do is to develop strategic ways that make the consumers buy the products may it be old or new. So, customer focused strategy is the only thing which keeps the companies alive and growing in this highly changing competitive market.

Wednesday, November 13, 2019

Electricity doesn’t grow on trees. It falls from the sky. :: Essays Papers

Electricity doesn’t grow on trees. It falls from the sky. Beginning in the 1930’s and up until the present day British Petroleum has been a major stakeholder in the oil industry. Needless to say it has played a considerable role in bringing Earth to the environmental crisis it now faces, specifically regarding the alarming and harmful rise of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Today’s societies tend to be characterized by their greedy corporations and their disconnection from the natural world. These factors can leave one with a disheartening sentiment as well as a pessimistic stance on the future state of the earth. Somewhere in the midst of all the gloom a tiny ray of hope beams down from the sky. A new wave of business is taking its first steps across our nations, one built on the stones of social and environmental responsibility. British Petroleum is proud to be one of these corporations, dedicating a significant amount of effort toward the global endeavor to clean up our environment. BP, one of the world’s largest energy users, is leading the way in the movement to reduce carbon emissions. â€Å"In 1998, BP set a target to reduce greenhouse gas emissions 10% by the year 2010. On the 11th of March 2002, BP Chief Executive Lord Browne stated BP met its targets eight years early despite growing production, and at no net cost to the company.† (bpenergy.com) BP intends to hold its current net greenhouse emissions despite its plans for significant growth. BP ensures this growth will be sustainable and even 10% below the level of emissions in 1990. (bpenergy.com) BP’s success is due to efforts to consume energy more efficiently, for example the promotion and implementation of cogeneration power. These are very efficient power installations that generate electricity and utilize heat by pumping it back into the operator’s plant- a very cost effective method. BP is not only becoming more energy efficient in regards to oil but it has also extended itself into the renewable energy field by developing a wider range of cleaner energies for its customers. They are devoted to â€Å"researching, investing, and building a material and alternative energy business with a focus on wind, hydrogen, and solar† power (bp.com). With regard to wind, BP is making investments to produce low impact, clean energy solutions. They have been working on a partnership to build and run a wind farm at the Nerefco oil refinery in the Netherlands.