The Short Story The Necklace English Literature Essay

The Short Story The Necklace English Literature Essay Guy de Maupassants short story The Necklace was first published in the Paris newspaper Le Gaulois on February 17, 1884, and he was successfully incorporated into Tales of Night, his 1885 collection of short stories. Like most Maupassant short fiction, it was an instantaneous achievement, and it has become his most widely read and anthologized story (Smith Christopher). The Necklace describes Madame Loisel as beautiful and born into an average family. She is unsatisfied with her impoverished life and decides to borrow a diamond necklace from a former rich friend to fulfill her happiness. Maupassant presents the theme that one should be true to ones self trough his use of situational irony by which he tells the story of Madame Loisel. Maupassant describes Mathildes external conflicts in the story The Necklace. Though she is pretty and charming(1), she does not appreciate anything in life. She feels her life should have been blessed with wealth. Although her husband works at a ministry of education as a minor clerk, the money he is bringing to his wife is not enough for the kind of life Mathilde has always dreamed of. For instance, her vision is to live in a mansion, dinning in famous restaurants, and dance among the riches (1). She is embarrassed of her poor lifestyle, and decides not to invite any of her former friends who become rich to her home. Therefore, she suffers enormously because her whole life has been based on deficiency of luxury. The love of her husband Charles and the efforts he makes to keep his family healthy is not enough to please Mathilde. However, she happens to be a self-centered person who cares only about her appearance, instead of being thankful for the love of her husband. The author anal yzes Mathildes internal conflicts in the story. She is unhappy and miserable. She is disappointed in herself because she thinks she deserves more than she has. Mathilde appears to be a round person; although she is attractive and pretty, she also seems depressed because of the lack of money. She is a dynamic person; she is not content with herself because her husband is not well off financially. Otherwise, she would be a cheerful person if her husband was wealthy. Guy de Maupassant describes the characters verbal irony in the story; Monsieur Loisel makes an effort to invite his wife to a ball dance because he thinks she would be pleased to get out of the house. However, Mathilde chooses to reject her husbands invitation by saying, Give your invitation to some colleague whose wife has a more suitable gown than I(2). She concerned more about her look and what others might think of her. Still, she convinces her husband to take money out of their life savings to buy a lovely dress for the occasion. Mathildes irony in the story is discontentment because she does not have anything to wear with the dress; she realizes she needs a jewel to look her best, so she will not appear as poor as she is among the women at the ministry. Furthermore, Mathilde goes to her former friend to borrow one of her diamond necklaces, which she loses unexpectedly. In the story The Necklace, the situational irony occurs when Mathilda sacrifices her life for years to work tw ice as hard to repay the loan they take to return the necklace. She loses her beauty; she looks older, and there are traces of gray in her hair(4). She ruins her husband and her life by not making a smart choice, and her selfishness causes her familys pain. Nevertheless, the dramatic irony happens when she comes to learn the diamond necklace she loses is an imitation. The resolution of the story reveals that Mathilde realizes she made a fool of herself for not telling her friend exactly what had happened to the necklace. Therefore, she wastes her husbands and her time for nothing to replace something that was not even real. The writer points out the theme of the story as Malthilde cares only about her appearance, and her greed puts her through so much suffering in life. She should appreciate the sacrifice that her husband makes for her to buy the dress. Her attention is to dance joyfully with everyone, intoxicates with pleasure, and to be on a cloud of happiness(3). She does not worry too much about her husbands feeling toward his happiness. However, she comes to discover the diamond necklace she borrows from Madame Forestier is missing, her husband Monsieur Loisel sympathetically helps her look for the necklace. Moreover, he sacrifices everything he can in his life to help his wife replace the necklace. She confidently lies to Madame Loisel about the necklace. Possibly, if she has told the truth, all the pain and misery could have been avoided. Besides all the pain she puts Monsieur Loisel through, Mathilde wishes she married a wealthy man, but she is a poor girl with no dowry to offer (2). Money and m aterial things have stopped her to improve the living she desires. As a result, she loses her beauty and works harder to replace a necklace that is fake. In simpler terms, Mathilde and her husbands lives were touch in a bad way. She only cares about her happiness and does not even think how is her decision is going to affect others and her life later. In order for her to attend the occasion with her husband, she makes Monsieur Loisel go out of his way to purchase a new dress for her. After all, she is not gratified with the effort; she comes to a conclusion to borrow a diamond necklace to fulfill her happiness. At the end, she loses her charm. Not only does she have to pay for it, her husbands life also comes to devastation. In life, she should always be happy with the little she has. Hopefully, Mathilde learns her lesson and recognizes the value of what she has

death penalty :: essays research papers

  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   DEATH PENALTY   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The death penalty is an ongoing controversy in the United States. There are people that are for it and those that oppose it. I am for it, but only for the horrendous crimes that are committed today in our society. In my personal opinion, I think priests that molest or â€Å"take advantage† of little boys deserve the death penalty. In today’s society, this is one of the most controversial debates whether capital punishment should be outlawed.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Capital punishment has two basic arguments within the debate to make: First is the question of whether capital punishment is moral, or simply put is it justified. The second is the question of whether capital punishment is constitutional. According to the constitution, everyone has a right to freedom, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  There are some disadvantages of capital punishment. Opponents have four basic arguments to make. The first is that there is a possibility of error, meaning that the person accused is not the real criminal. Although there is a slight chance of error, this is separate from the issue of the death penalty being justified. They would say that capital punishment should not be used when one is not one-hundred percent positive of the criminal’s guilt. Second argument they make is the execution process. One may be given â€Å"the chair,† lethal injection or gas. Third argument is a debate with the supporters that capital punishment may lower crime rates, but no studies show that it has any affect with capital punishment. Last argument an opponent would make is the time spent on death row.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  There is a problem with the death penalty. It is high-priced because a prisoner can be sent to death row, but he or she can have an appeal, awaiting a retrial due to new evidence, all which can be a slow, costly and lengthy process.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  A prisoner convicted of a horrendous crime can get parole, which is unjust to the victim and/or the victim’s family. What makes the parole board think the prisoner has been â€Å"rehabilitated?† I believe that if you have committed the crime, you should not get paroled. If the crime was murder, is fair for the victim’s family to see this person out on the streets again and see if he â€Å"strikes again?

Responsibility Accounting

RESPONSIBILITY ACCOUNTING Management Accounting – Responsibility Accounting Planning & control are essential for achieving good results in any business. Firstly, a budget is prepared and, secondly, actual results are compared with budgeted ones. Any difference is made responsibility of the key individuals who were involved in (i) setting standards, (ii) given necessary resources and (iii) powers to use them. In order to streamline the process, the entire organization is broken into various types of centers mainly cost centre, revenue centre, profit center and investment centre.The organizational budget is divided on these lines and passed on to the concerned managers. Actual results are collected and displayed in the same form for comparison. Difference, if any, are highlighted and brought to the notice of the management. This process is called Responsibility Accounting. RESPONSIBILITY CENTRE A FORMAL DEFINITION OF RESPONSIBILITY ACCOUNTING Responsibility accounting involves t he creation of responsibility centres. A responsibility centre may be defined as an organization unit for whose performance a manager is held accountable.Responsibility accounting enables accountability for financial results and outcomes to be allocated to individuals throughout the organization. The objective is to measure the result of each responsibility center. It involves accumulating costs and revenues for each responsibility centre so that deviation from performance target (typically the budget) can be attributed to the individual who is accountable for the responsibility centre. (Colin Drury, Management and Cost Accounting, sixth edition) Chapter 12 I. CHARACTERISTICS OF RESPONSIBILITY ACCOUNTINGA. Definition. – an accounting system that collects, summarizes, and reports accounting data relating to the responsibilities of individual managers. – an accounting system which tracks and reports costs, expenses, revenues, and operational statistics by area of respons ibility or organizational unit. – the system provides information to evaluate each manager on revenue and expense items over which that manager has primary control (authority to influence). – some reports contain only those items that are controllable by the responsibility manager. some reports contain both controllable and uncontrollable items; – in this case, controllable and uncontrollable]e items should be clearly separated. – the identification of controllable items is a fundamental task in responsibility accounting and reporting. B. Some Basic Requirements. – to implement a responsibility accounting system, the business must be organized so that responsibility is assignable to individual managers. – the various managers and their lines of responsibility should be fully defined. – the organization chart is usually used as a basis for esponsibility reporting. – if clear lines of responsibility cannot be determined, it is ve ry doubtful that responsibility accounting can be implemented effectively. – while decision-making power may be delegated for many items, some decisions (related to particular revenues, expenses, costs or actions) may remain exclusively under the control of top management. 2 – several items will be directly traceable to a particular manager's area of responsibility but not actually becontrollable by that manager. (Items such as property taxes. – Note: the controllability criterion is crucial to the content of performance reports for each manager. II. THE CONCEPT OF CONTROL. A. Absolute Control. – theoretically, a manager should have absolute control over an item to be held responsible for it. – absolute controllability is rare. – frequently, external or internal factors beyond a manager's control may affect revenues or expenses under that manager's responsibility. – the theoretical requirement regarding absolute control must often be compromised, since some degree of noncontrollability usually exists. the manager is therefore usually held responsible for items over which that manager has relative control. B. Relative Control. – relative control means that the manager has control over most of the factors that influence a given budget item. – the use of relative control as a basis for evaluation may lead to some motivational problems, since managers may be evaluated on results that may not reflect the manager's efforts or decisions. – most budget plans assign control on a relative basis in order to develop and use segmental budgets. III. RESPONSIBILITY REPORTS. A.Basic Features. – a feature of a responsibility accounting system is the varying amount of detail included in the reports issued to different levels of management. – although the amount of detail varies, reports issued under a responsibility accounting system are interrelated. – totals from the report on one level of management are carried forward in the report to the management level immediately above. 3 – data is appropriately summarized, filtered, and/or condensed as information flows upward to higher levels of management. – encourages or allows â€Å"management by exception. – two basic methods are applied to present revenue and expense data: (1) only those items over which a manager has direct control are included in the responsibility report for that management level. – any revenue or expense that the manager cannot directly control are not included. (2) include all revenue and expense items that can be traced directly or allocated indirectly to a particular manager, whether or not they are controllable. – in this approach, care must taken to separate controllable from noncontrollable items in order to differentiate those tems for which a manager can and should be held responsible. B. Desired Features. 1. Timely 2. Issued Regularly 3. Format should b e relatively simple and easy to read. – confusing terminology should be avoided. – results should be expressed in physical terms where appropriate, since such figures may be more familiar and understandable to managers. – to assist management in quickly spotting budget variances, both budgeted and actual amounts should be reported. – a budget variance is the difference between the budgeted and actual amounts of an item. – because variances highlight areas which require nvestigation, they are helpful in applying the management by exception principle. – reports often include both current and year-to-date analyses. IV. RESPONSIBILITY REPORTS — SEE TEXT FOR AN ILLUSTRATION. V. RESPONSIBILITY CENTERS. 4 A. Basic Concepts. 1. A Segment. – is a fairly autonomous unit or division of a company defined according to function or product line. – function: marketing, production, finance, etc. – product line: shoe department, el ectrical products, food division. 2. A Responsibility Center. – is a segment of an organization for which a particular xecutive is responsible. – there are three types of responsibility centers: (1) expense (or cost) center. (2) profit center. (3) investment center. B. Expense (Cost) Centers. – a responsibility center incurring only expense (cost) items and producing no direct revenue from the sale of goods or services. – managers are held responsible only for specified expense items. – the appropriate goal of an expense center is the long-run minimization of expenses. – short-run minimization of expenses may not be appropriate. C. Revenue Centers – managers are held responsible for revenues (sales) only. managers of such centers also responsible for controlling expenses of unit as well. D. Profit Centers. – a responsibility center having both revenues and expenses. – the manager must be able to control both of these cat egories. 5 – controllable profits of a segment are shown when expenses under a manager's control are deducted from revenues under that manager's control. – an expense center can be converted into a profit center by the utilization of transfer prices. – i. e. , via the use of transfer prices, â€Å"artificial revenues† can be generated for an expense center as it harges other organizational units of the company for its services or product. E. Investment Centers. 1. Basic Characteristics. – a responsibility center having revenues, expenses, and an appropriate investment base. – the manager in charge of an investment center is responsible for and has sizable control over revenues, expenses, and the investment base. – the two most common ways for evaluating the performance of such a center are : (1) ROI (return on investment. ) (2) Residual Income. 2. Determining the Investment Base to be used in ROI calculations. – it is a tricky matter. two key issues which must be resolved in determining the value of the investment base are (1) which assets should be included, and – key question: are the included assets actual controlled by the division managers? (2) how those assets should be valued. – Major alternative: – Original Cost. – Book Value (original cost less accumulated depreciation to date. ) – Replacement Cost. 6 – Note: which ever choices are applied, managers will be motivated in some direction. – companies prefer to evaluate segments as investment centers because the ROI criterion facilitates performance comparisons between segments.

Book Report/Character Analysis on the Acts of King Arthur...

------------------------------------------------- The Acts of King Arthur and His ------------------------------------------------- Noble Knights ------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------------- By John Steinbeck ------------------------------------------------- Part One: Plot The first section of the book is entitled Merlin. The story begins by telling how Arthur came to be born and then flows into the life of Arthur. When Arthur is in his earlier years, God brings about a sword driven into an anvil set in stone. The gold writing on the stone claims that only the person meant to be King of England by right of birth shall be able to pull it†¦show more content†¦Arthur refuses the request, thinking it atrocious. At this point Balin remembers that the Lady of the Lake killed his mother three years prior. Balin then makes his way over to the Lady of the Lake and cuts her head off with his sword. Arthur is disgusted with Balin’s rash act and banishes him from the court. Determined to prove himself, Balin sets off to kill Arthur’s enemy at the time, Lord Royns. Along the journey, Balin meets up with his brother, Balan. Together they are able to capture Lord Royns and send him back to Camelot as a prisoner. Along their journey Balin unintentionally causes the death of many, just as the damsel had foretold. The brothers eventually end up going separate ways and later reunite in a most unfortunate fashion. The two are forced to fight one another, although until they have both fatally wounded one another, neither one knew that they were brothers. They are considered two of the best knights in history. The third section of the book is entitled The Wedding of King Arthur. At this point in the story, Arthur gets married to a fine lady by the name of Guinevere. Merlin predicts Guinevere will be unfaithful to him with his dearest and most trusted friend. Arthur brushes off Merlin’s predictions, thinking them to surely be a mistake. Around the time of the wedding, Arthur comes to possess the Round Table, around which 150 of the world’s greatest knights shall someday sit. One hundred superb knights are given as a gift along