A Good Man is Hard to Find Essay Example for Free

A Good Man is Hard to Find Essay In Flannery O’Connor’s story A Good Man is Hard to Find the title illustrates the changing times and how progressively from the grandmother’s perspective, the future is quite different from the past; in which the grandmother believes that the past presented people with a much simpler way of life and the future is not as decadent and is too complex. The title also refers to the interchange between the grandmother and the Misfit at the end of the story. The Misfit is a man who was has recently escaped from prison. When the grandmother and the Misfit meet up on a country road after the grandmother’s family has been in a car wreck the Misfit and his gang take care of the family, with the Misfit killing the grandmother last. The title of the book bears relevance to this in a foreshadowing manner in that the ideals that the grandmother tries to uphold and apply to the Misfit bear no relevance in reality; for her, the title connotes that the past is unattainable; a good man is hard to find means that the world is changing rapidly and her reference towards life is outdated. For the Misfit the reader can foreshadow how the title connotes his childhood and how he simply was borne bad and that the object of a good man being hard to find entails the psycho-socio-balance that cannot exist rightly in any man seemingly. Furthermore, the title foreshadows in a way how the world has lapsed in faith; both the grandmother and the Misfit have a lack of faith in anything, and as O’Connor has written the story she adds in her touch of personality, If you would pray, the old lady said, Jesus would help you. Thats right, The Misfit said. Well then, why dont you pray? she asked trembling with delight suddenly. I dont want no hep, he said. Im doing all right by myself. (O’Connor A Good Man is Hard to Find 11). Thus, when the Misfit admits that he likes who is, or at least does not want to go around changing who he is, it is O’Connor’s omission that there is no such thing as a saint, as a good man and thus the impetus for the title is found, and all of the foreshadowing can be found in this title for the reader. The theme of the book is progression; progress from a former state of being to a later state of being which is shown succinctly with the car trip, the drive down the country road to a house which does not exist in that state and finally with the family facing their death at the pistol end of the Misfit and his gang. It is through this theme of progression that the reader may also connote foreshadowing because with this progress, the family cannot expect to stay the same, and since the grandmother is a character so set in her ways, the only way for her to change in the story is through death. This theme of progress goes into detail with the characterization of the Misfit. The Misfit, like the grandmother denies the theme of progression, which is also a foreshadowing in the story as the reader knows the Misfit’s character will not change and thus, will kill the family, because if he doesn’t kill the family it’s a sign of progression and change. While the grandmother clings wholeheartedly to the past, the Misfit does this as well. The grandmother changes by dying and the Misfit stays the same by killing the grandmother and the family. I call myself The Misfit, he said, because I cant make what all I done wrong fit what all I gone through in punishment. (O’Connor A Good Man is Hard to Find 11). Thus, the Misfit is stating that his future does not match his expectations, and his progression as a person has stalled and his stuck being the Misfit which incidentally is a name he designed and applied to himself to further exemplify that he is without development and surely, as represented in O’Connor’s story a man without hope of change. O’Connor’s story subsequently allows the reader to find out that what the grandmother and Misfit’s true crime is that they fear change and thus that is their sin. O’Connor’s story is a tale told about redemption; or rather the lack of redemption. Neither the grandmother nor the Misfit feel morally remiss about their actions or their attitude towards things, such as crime and killing for the Misfit and racism and prejudices for the grandmother. By allowing these characters to be recalcitrant toward the theme of progression she is making the characters human which is not often done in novels or short stories. O’Connor’s approach to characterization makes for the story to have a lot of gumption in its writing style and subject matter. By including the ‘dirtier’ side of life, such as biases and murdering O’Connor is allowing the story to shape within a paradigm of humanity which must by its nature be inclusive of both good and bad, and O’Connor is an expert in the writing of the yin and yang as it were. Work Cited O’Conner, Flannery. A Good Man is Hard to Find. Harvest Books, New York. 1977.

Dryness and Spiritual Decay in The Waste Land Essay -- T.S. Eliot Wast

Dryness and Spiritual Decay in The Waste Land      Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   T.S. Eliot peppers "The Waste Land," his apocalyptic poem, with images of modern aridity and inarticulacy that contrast with fertile allusions to previous times. Eliot's language details a brittle era, rife with wars physical and sexual, spiritually broken, culturally decaying, dry and dusty. His references to the Fisher King and mythical vegetation rituals imply that the 20th-century world is in need of a Quester to irrigate the land. "The Waste Land" refuses to provide a simple solution; the properties of the language serve to make for an ambiguous narrative and conclusion, one as confusing and fragmented as Eliot's era itself.    Eliot wastes no time drawing out the first irony of the poem. In the first lines of "The Burial of the Dead," the speaker comments on Jesus' crucifixion and Chaucer while using brutal sounds to relate his spiritual coldness in a warm environment. In "The General Prologue" to The Canterbury Tales, Chaucer poetically writes "Whan that April with his showres soote/ The droughte of March hath perced to the roote,/ And bathed every veine in swich licour,/ Of which vertu engrendred is the flowr" (Norton Anthology to English Literature, sixth edition, vol. 1, p.81). For "The Wasteland's" speaker, "April is the cruellest month, breeding/ Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing/ Memory and desire, stirring/ Dull roots with spring rain" (Norton Anthology of Poetry, fourth edition, p.1236, lines 1-4). The harsh "c's" and muted "d's" throughout point to the speaker's disenchantment with a world full of paradoxes and dichotomies. The "mixing" of "Memory and desire" only hurts him, as do all the verbs , which Eliot places at the ends of their lines to int... ...o present ideas and to withhold personal interaction, it is difficult to read "The Wasteland" without questioning authorial intent. Is the Fisher King in the last stanza, written in the first person, possibly the poet himself, come to rescue us in Nietzschean ÃÅ"ber-Mensch form? Though he would certainly argue against the validity of such a self-enlarging statement (or maybe not), Eliot must have written "The Wasteland" with some hopes that it would somehow end his land's drought. In this sense, then, the writer is a type of Fisher King, and the new ritual is not vegetable harvesting, but writing.    Works Cited: Abrams et al. The Norton Anthology of English Literature, sixth edition, vol. 1. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 1993. Ferguson et al. The Norton Anthology of Poetry, fourth edition. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 1996.   

Change Management †the One Right Way Essay

However the offer is often illusory, for particular change approaches usually apply to particular situations, and simple solutions sometimes ignore the complexities of real life. (Stace and Dunphy, 2001, p 5) To utilise a single change approach is to assume that all organisations, all situations and all internal and external variables and influences remain constant. It applies the same logic to all changes without consideration of the many and varied influencing factors. I generally agree with the statement presented by Stace and Dunphy but am interested in the reasons underlying the requirement for simple, easy and fast change interventions. Are managers and change agents lazy and only looking for simple solutions? Does management consider change unimportant? Do management really believe that a single solution is going to work in every case? What is behind this trend? Bold (2011) suggests that change itself is becoming the only constant or ‘business as usual’ in the modern business environment. With technological advancements over the past 10 years, organisation now have the ability to access, collect and process enormous amounts of business data very quickly. This has provided management with the ability to understand the current health of their organisational processes and track against set goals and targets quickly and accurately. Previously, managers may have waited for end of month or end of quarter reporting from all business units to be collated and presented to gain an accurate understanding of the current business position and gauge the results from previous decisions made. Now, when a manager wants to make a change, they want it implemented as soon as possible so they can assess the impact of the change. Due to the high amount of change occurring in modern organisations and management’s requirement for immediate solutions, I believe that pressure is placed onto the change agents to provide solutions, often without the resources or time to perform adequate analysis to plan and implement the best change approach. As Bold (2011) suggested, change is becoming ‘business as usual’ and management may expect change managers to be able to develop a change process (i. e. the one right way), in the way that other parts of the organisation develops other repeatable ‘business as usual’ processes. Corporate competencies for change management constitute the critical capacity that is needed to create a learning organisation which is flexible, dynamic and adaptable in a rapidly changing and volatile environment. (Turner and Crawford 1998) As recent as the 1990’s, research was being undertaken by Romanelli & Tushman (1994) that proposed an alternate viewpoint. Their punctuated equilibrium paradigm argues that relatively long periods of stability (equilibrium) are punctuated by short periods of more radical, revolutionary change. I believe that most organisational change researchers would now agree that this is no longer the case and further progression into the information age has meant that very few industries operate within a long term, stable business operating environment. Although many different change models and approaches have been developed by academics, consultants and practitioners, none has yet to be accepted as a standard that can be used for all change interventions. Bold (2011) argues that there is no right or wrong theory for change management. It is not an exact science. However, through the ongoing research and studies by the industry’s leading experts, a clearer picture of what it takes to lead a change effort effectively will continue to emerge. Andriopoulos & Dawson (2009) agree that in the case of organisational change, there remains considerable debate over the speed, direction and effects of change and on the most appropriate methods and concepts for understanding and explaining change. Kanter, Stein & Jick (1992) found that it would be very difficult for a single solution or approach to meet all the types of changes required and to take into account all of the required aspects as organisations are fluid entities. In an attempt to provide a more broad solution, Stace & Dunphy (2001) proposed a situational approach or framework for change. They argued that there is no single path to successful change implementation that holds true in all situations. This framework however has been criticised by Andriopoulos & Dawson (2009) for neglecting the role of organisational politics and the internal power relationships within organisations as shapers of the organisational change process. Pettigrew (1985) presented a holistic, contextual analysis approach providing a multi-level approach to encapsulate the complexities of change management. Pettigrew argued that strategic change is a continuous process with no clear beginning or end point. However, Buchanan and Boddy (1992) argued that the richness and complexity of the multi-level analysis presented by Pettigrew, while comprehensive, it did little to simplify or clarify the processes of change and thereby rendered the research as largely impenetrable for the organisational practitioner. Change within an organisation is ongoing and involves many variables which are covered by different change models, processes and frameworks. Variables include the type of industry, the geographical location, the organisations size, the style of management leadership, the capability of the people involved, the organisational culture, the local and global economic environment, timing in regard to other events, the organisational structure and many more. This list is not meant to be exhaustive, but demonstrates the length and breadth of variables to be taken into account when assessing and managing change. Senior (2002) argues that the trigger for internal change is often in response to external influences which then links the internal and external drivers for change. Often, the change strategy or mechanism used by an organisation is chosen by the change manager and may not necessarily meet the needs of the organisation. This can lead to the change manager selecting an approach that may have worked before, that they feel comfortable with, or that suits their personality. This may not be however, what the organisation really requires. For example, a change manager may have had previous success utilising a consultative and collaborative approach which would take time to fully consult with all impacted parties while the organisation may actually require a fast, dictatorial type approach due to it losing market share which is putting the very existence of the organisation at risk. Kanter (1983) notes that managers sometimes make strategic choices based on their own area of competence and career payoff. A model of change strategies that seeks to develop our understanding of change processes is unfortunately restricted if it excludes considerations of anything other than management as some sort of ‘black box’ wherein environmental fit is sought. Stace and Dunphy argue that change managers need to develop a varied behaviour repertoire rather than remain fixed on a particular approach to change. They argue the compelling need for in our modern economies to create and build more dynamic and innovative corporations which can compete successfully in global terms. – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – â€⠀œ – – – – – – – – – – – – – Remember that change involves people, is instigated by people and controlled by people. There are many internal and external influences and forces that affect change but the interests of the change agents themselves and their political interests must also be considered. You cannot expect a change manager to ignore their own self-interest when making rational decisions. (Dunford 1990) Stace and Dunphy argue that the critical requirement for longer term viability and success in the corporation of the future is the ongoing development of what is increasingly being referred to as organisational capabilities or corporate competencies. These are capabilities for the flexible initiation of new strategies and environmental responsiveness that reside in the corporation itself rather than only in the capabilities and skills of the individual members. This will allow organisations to respond quicker to changes and effectively make change management part of the organisational culture. Change would then be regarded as ‘business as usual’. Many of the change approach methods, tools and techniques proposed by researchers and practitioners have overlapping ideas and cover a lot of the same ground. Rather than working independently towards defining improvements to existing ideas or new ideas, it may be more beneficial to take a collaborative approach and create an international standard for change or a recognised body of shared knowledge that could be used as a guide for organisational change.

Female Employee Orientation At Fairview County Public Library

A male employee saw an opportunity to be promoted at his workplace Fairview County Public Library. There are currently 516 employees, including 163 librarians at Fairview Library. Recently the male employee applied to be a supervisor; however, most of the positions are currently held by female and minority employees. Fairview County Public Library conducted a study of the library staff. The study revealed men make up 25% of the branch librarians. The library needs to implement an affirmative action plan that would consider gender as one component of the decision when promoting librarians. Analysis The male employee decided to apply for the supervisor position at the library because he felt he was qualified and had worked there for numerous of years. Although the male employee considered himself qualified for the job, he and his other colleagues feel they do not have the same opportunities as do the women and minorities. Three out of thirty supervisors in the library branch are male. So to think the male employee had a chance of being promoted was slightly small. The library would need to implement an affirmative action plan to prevent future claims or lawsuits by their employees The plan would consider gender as one component; however, affirmative action is not primarily just one component. The plan should reflect gender, race, and ethnic profile. The male employees should know, â€Å"an applicant does not necessarily have to be a minority or a female to be placed in a job†Show MoreRelatedAdvancing Effective Communicationcommunication, Cultural Competence, and Patient- and Family-Centered Care Quality Safety Equity53293 Words   |  214 Pagesand Survey Methods, The Joint Commission Robert Wise, M.D., Vice President, Division of Standards and Survey Methods, The Joint Commission Joint Commission Mission The mission of The Joint Commission is to continuously improve health care for the public, in collaboration with other stakeholders, by evaluating health care organizations and inspiring them to excel in providing safe and effective care of the highest quality and value. The inclusion of an organization name, product, or service in a Joint