Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller

Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller. Arthur Millers Death of a Salesman, written in the years following World War II (WWII), is widely considered to be among Americas most celebrated theatrical works. Willy Loman, the plays protagonist, is a salesman whose dwindling commission can no longer afford to maintain the lifestyle his family leads. As the plot unravels, what is revealed is a contrarian depiction of the American Dream, the notion that wealth, material comfort, and the happiness they supposedly provide can be attained with hard work. The play was massively popular because it shed light on what many Americans felt was an unrealistic pressure placed on their shoulders; rather than work to be happy, Americans were working to be financially wealthy. The discontent of Willy and his descent into darkness, both moral and mental, embodied the reality of the American middle class. Life in American pop culture was a saccharine, morally whitewashed stereotype, presenting expectations to which few could live up. Pressured to work and achieve the financial successes expected in a post-war society that covets monetary excess, Willy is slowly driven into a state of emotional and mental ruin. Essentially, Willy dies doing all the right things a typical American man in the Post-War Era ought to. Scholar Gerald Weales asserts that for Miller, Willys tragedy lies in the fat that he had an alternative he did not take, [and] having chosen the wrong star he reached fro it until he died of stretching. A significant part of the plays popularity is grounded in this clash of ideology the sparring concepts of American wealth and prosperity with individuality and reality. Terry Otten writes in Temptation of Innocence in the Dramas of Arthur Miller that Death of a Salesman, probably more than any other dramatic play, provokes critical [arguments] about the viability of tragedy in the modern age and particularly in American culture. Willys descent is found in all aspects of his life, from the stock character of the nuclear family to gainful employment and the desire to achieve and earn more in life. Members of his immediate family his wife, Linda, and his youngest son, Happy, in particular reinforce the notions that drive Willy into his state of despair. Ironically, Willy can never shake himself free of the shackles he fastens to his own life by holding onto the illusory notion that he can somehow become wealthy by simply living life the way he thinks it should be lived. He still looks up to Ben, an older relative who built his wealth off African diamond mines. The only Loman to leave material gain behind is Willys eldest son, Biff, who with his work in Texas represents the agrarian icon of American life glorified before financial gain dominated the cultural zeitgeist. Consequently, Willy looks down on him to a degree, concluding that Biff can never attain the dream in his current role. Ironically, Biff is perhaps the sole character in the play to accurately observe what happens to his father, and disillusioned by Willys state, decides to seek his own path to happiness and the American Dream. The concept of the dream is something that is debilitating to Willy; the more he pursues it, the further he descends, growing increasingly delusional in his encounters with his sons. His moral fiber, a concept valued possibly even more in Protestant America than money, wanes as he takes on a mistress despite his wifes devotion. In keeping with the concept of materialism eroding the human spirit and morality, Biff, the character least associated with Willys lifestyle, is the one to gain the most from Willys suicide, a path upon which the salesman ventured in order to provide his eldest son with a life insurance settlement. At the end of the play, it is revealed that Linda has made the final payments on the house she and Willy spent their lives paying off, stating that they are finally free. Arthur Millers story of the destruction of a middle class American worker follows the structure of a classic protest play, or a stage play with a social message. Dan Vogel writes on the complexity of Willys character and the plot at large, stating that despite Willys end, his story is not necessarily a tragedy since Death of a Salesman merely tells the story of a little man succumbing to his environment, rather than a great man destroyed through his greatness; there is no question of grandeur in such a tragedy. I. R. Choudhuri notes the irony of the American Dream is what draws its audience, stating that democracy proclaims the individual in society to be free, and American democracy, in addition, approves the myth of [Willys] infinite success and happiness; and yet, these same laws and social conventions constrain and frustrate him in what he has come to believe as the birth-right of a member of the greatest open society. For Choudhuri, Millers approach to the theme of the play is drawn through undistinguished citizens, everyman-type characters whose appeal to the typical American audience is in their mundane nature. Willys circumstances are not outlandish and fantastical. He is not a Danish prince avenging the death of his father, nor is he a Moor in Venice struggling against the machinations of a society that ostracizes him. Lomans downfall is perhaps the most appealing part of the play and the component of Millers work that made Death of a Salesman so popular. Willys demise is not something out of a fairy tale it is by his own hand metaphorically and in the end quite literally. Loman cuts himself off from any help he might get from his neighbor, his sons, and his wife; unsure even of his performance as a salesman should he act the rugged individualist or play at casual charm? Willy feels deeply guilty about his past performances as a breadwinner, father, and husband. The pressure placed on Willy warps the values of the family and leaves the protagonist unsure of his identity, which leads to his destruction and ultimately made the play palatable for an audience who may very well have been a collection of Lomans. BIBLIOGRAPHY Bigsby, C.W.E. (2000) Modern American Drama, 1945-2000. Cambridge: Cambridge U P. Bloom, Harold (ed). (1991) Willy Loman. New York: Chelsea House Publishers. Bloom, Harold (ed). (1996) Arthur Millers Death of a Salesman. New York: Chelsea House Publishers. Bloom, Harold (ed). (2000) Arthur Miller. Philadelphia: Chelsea House Publishers. McConachie, Bruce. (2003) American Theater in the Culture of the Cold War: Producing and Contesting Containment. Iowa City: U of Iowa P. Miller, Arthur. (2005) Death of a Salesman. New York: Penguin Books. Otten, Terry. (2002) Temptation of Innocence in the Dramas of Arthur Miller. Columbia: U of Missouri P.

Appointment with Love

Appointment with Love This is a short romantic story about a young lieutenant Blandford and a lady, Hollis Meynell, who had fallen in love with each other. The author shows us the possibility of existence of a real strong relationships even through a great distance and the fact that two people can be very close to each other even having never seen one another. The young lieutenant Blandford served during the war time in the air forces , while once he run across some witty notes made by a woman in the book which he had taken from the army library .He contacted her later and it so happened that she had had the power to reach inside of him through writing and renew his strength even from a far. They had been in touch, through writing, during thirteen month. This time the woman, who was 30, supported and inspired the lieutenant and they both trusted their true inner feelings to each other. At last the young people decided to meet ,personally, when the lieutenant was back from the Army, a t the train station in New York city.They both agreed that Hollis would identify him through the book â€Å"Of Human Bondage† and Hollis, would wear a red rose in her suit lapel, because actually, they did not know how which one of them looked like. Now the young lieutenant was waiting for this woman in Grand Central Station and worried a lot. They knew about each other only from their own words. The first woman he saw was a beautiful lady, wearing a green suit but unfortunately, she had no red rose on her jacket, as it was in their agreement.Then he turned around and saw a middle aged and unattractive woman who had, to his disappointment and chagrin, a red rose in her jacket’s lapel. For the young lieutenant that was the moment of truth. A lot of thoughts and feelings had flown throughout his mind and his heart like a hurricane during that dreadful moment but at last he somehow managed to control himself and moved towards her. He decided that no matter what would beco me with their relationship to stay friends with that woman , thinking that if so, their good friendship, for that matter, could be more valuable than love.He approached and greeted the lady and then asked for permission to take her to dinner. But was pleased to hear that she is not the one he was waiting for. She told him that Hollis had asked her to be her substitute for a little while and to wear the rose in her suit lapel so that she could test whether Blanford's feelings and intentions were really sincere. The main idea of the story is that if you love someone, you should love them for what they really are, and not for what they look like.

Aplikasi Endnote

Contoh Aplikasi Software EndNotes Researches on value relevance of accounting information in Indonesia an d other developing countries generally suggested that accounting numbers are relevant to measure firm value (1, one author of journal). However, value relevance of accounting information in Asian countries are also found to fluctuate over time as a result of financial crisis, negative earnings, accounting scandals and violation of regulations in the capital market. These events have negatively affected value relevance of accounting information.Researches on value relevance of accounting information have continued to develop following such changes (2, three authors of journal) investigate the value relevance of book value and earnings between two different financial reporting regimes i. e. during MASB and FRS period in Malaysia. The result of the study suggests that book values are value relevant under both regimes but earnings are value relevant only during the MASB time period. That means that the change in financial reporting regime also affects significantly the value relevance of book value and but not earnings.Another study which investigates the value relevance between aggregated and disaggregated book value and earnings among Malaysian high-tech firms is performed by (3, three authors = 2). The result of the study shows that the explanatory power of both book value and earnings are fluctuating, book value is in a decreasing trend, while earnings show an increasing trend. In addition, the result also suggests that disaggregated book value and earnings could explain the variation in market value better than aggregated book value and earnings.The relationship between earnings management and value relevance of accounting information can also be explained through earnings quality. (4, two authors of book) argue that earnings management is associated to earnings quality. (5, single author of journal) also states that highly managed earnings have low qualit y. It means that earnings management actions will reduce earnings quality i. e. reliability of earnings. The relevance of accounting information in valuation of a firm can be affected by market’s insight of the reliability of the information (6, four authors of book series).This means earnings management actions negatively affect value relevance of earnings. Most of the studies on the relationship between earnings management and value relevance of accounting information are conducted in the West or developed countries. These studies attempted to examine earnings management using discretionary accruals (7, three authors of journal; 8, two author of journals; 9, single author of journal). Governance system plays an important role in the financial reporting process.As suggested by prior researches, rules and regulations formulated to protect investors are key institutional factors affecting the corporate policy choices (10, three authors of conference proceding; 11, two authors of journal). The researchers find that the protection level performed by institutions are associated with the usefulness of accrual-based accounting information. The level of protection imposed by the capital market supervisory agency plays a role in reducing the level of manipulation that can be conducted by managers and controlling shareholders through accruals transactions. Several international studies provide evidence on the association between earnings quality and the degree of protection to investors from the expropriation by controlling shareholders and managers. These studies assert that the characteristics of earnings are affected by the degree of investors’ protection (12, same aurhor with no 11 and 2). As an emerging capital market, many of the listed companies in Indonesia have evolved from the traditional family owned enterprises with highly concentrated ownership structure (13, single author of thesis).In the context where firms have a controlling block of shar es held by the major shareholders, the key agency problem is between the controlling (majority) and minority shareholders. The condition gives great opportunities for managers to engage in real earnings management especially in Indonesia. Under the condition of a highly concentrated ownership structure, it is argued that the controlling shareholders effectively possess greater control rights than the control rights provided through their voting shares as they are also involved in the management decisions (13, three authors of electronic article).Concentrated share ownership thus creates opportunities for controlling shareholders to expropriate the resources of an entity. Expropriation is a process of using one's control rights to maximize their welfare through the distribution of wealth from others to him (14, four authors of book series). Expropriation is one of the earnings management tactics conducted by management for the benefit of the controlling shareholders. Furthermore, (15 , same authors with no 14) state that the monitoring function will be hard if managers are part of the majority shareholders when their ownership increases to a certain level.If one’s voting shares have reached a certain threshold, then he/she can have a full control and tend to steer the company to accomplish his/her personal objectives (16, two authors of journal). In addition, it is also argued that to engage in expropriation in countries that adheres to the civil law is easier as compared to countries which practise common law legal system (17, three authors of journal; 18, two authors of journal).Under the Common Law system, accounting standards and policies are more stringent and protection of the rights of shareholders and creditors is greater with the implementation of various contract system (19, three authors of book series). It is perceived that a country like Indonesia which has its legal tradition originated from the civil law has relatively weaker development in its capital market and various financial institutions as compared to those countries which have legal environment rooted from the Common Law system.The evidence is consistent with study conducted by (20, same authors with no 19). On the contrary, The German’s companies with principle-based accounting standards would prefer to perform accrual earnings management because lenient standards still allow the conduct of accrual earnings management whichis less costly. The findings are in line with (21, same authors with no 17) which found that accounting standards which are more stringent (tighter) is able to reduce the practice of accrual earnings management, but triger real earnings management.

A Database Problem Before Recommending Sql, Nosql Or Bigdata

1. What things would you want to know about a database problem before recommending a SQL or NoSQL or BigData solution, that would help you make that recommendation? Ans) The things that we consider before recommending SQL, NoSQL or BigData are: Scalability: NoSQL databases are designed to expand transparently and horizontally to take advantage of new nodes, and designed with low-cost hardware. SQL have problems in Scalability. Data Capability: RDBMS are intolerable for large data volumes. NoSQL distributed databases, allow data to be spread across thousands of servers and can store large volume of data. Maintaining is Cheaper: Maintaining RDBMS systems is expensive and need highly trained DBAs. On the other hand, NoSQL databases require†¦show more content†¦Ans) SQL is considered a better choice because of following reasons: †¢ SQL will be a best fit where we need 100% consistency of data, such as most of financial problems which cannot be achieved by NoSQL database. †¢ SQL offers more efficient access control and permission management tools and offers better performance in data collection. †¢ SQL offers data compression techniques so that data size can be reduced. †¢ SQL offers strong authentication and access protection and has better password management too. †¢ SQL automatically updates security patches to reduce maintenance costs. 3. Describe in a few sentences a business or computational problem you would want to solve with a NoSQL database, and what makes NoSQL a better choice in this case? Ans) NoSQL database are better choice when we have tables whose size is in TB, PB ets.., and most of their data is not inter-related so they can just treat them as key value pairs. With NoSQL data can be distributed across several nodes across countries i.e Sharding. NoSQL support auto-sharding, means that they automatically spread data across an arbitrary number of servers. NoSQL databases are more scalable and provide superior performance, and their data model addresses several issues that the relational model is not designed to address: †¢ Large volumes of structured, semi-structured, and unstructured data †¢ Agile sprints,