Overview of Theories of Liability and Defense

The Big Bang Essays - Physical Cosmology, Astronomy, Physics

The Big Bang Essays - Physical Cosmology, Astronomy, Physics The Big Bang It is always a mystery about how the universe began, whether if and when it will end. Astronomers construct hypotheses called cosmological models that try to find the answer. There are two types of models: Big Bang and Steady State. However, through many observational evidences, the Big Bang theory can best explain the creation of the universe. The Big Bang model postulates that about 15 to 20 billion years ago, the universe violently exploded into being, in an event called the Big Bang. Before the Big Bang, all of the matter and radiation of our present universe were packed together in the primeval fireballan extremely hot dense state from which the universe rapidly expanded.1 The Big Bang was the start of time and space. The matter and radiation of that early stage rapidly expanded and cooled. Several million years later, it condensed into galaxies. The universe has continued to expand, and the galaxies have continued moving away from each other ever since. Today the universe is st ill expanding, as astronomers have observed. The Steady State model says that the universe does not evolve or change in time. There was no beginning in the past, nor will there be change in the future. This model assumes the perfect cosmological principle. This principle says that the universe is the same everywhere on the large scale, at all times.2 It maintains the same average density of matter forever. There are observational evidences found that can prove the Big Bang model is more reasonable than the Steady State model. First, the redshifts of distant galaxies. Redshift is a Doppler effect which states that if a galaxy is moving away, the spectral line of that galaxy observed will have a shift to the red end. The faster the galaxy moves, the more shift it has. If the galaxy is moving closer, the spectral line will show a blue shift. If the galaxy is not moving, there is no shift at all. However, as astronomers observed, the more distance a galaxy is located from Earth, the mor e redshift it shows on the spectrum. This means the further a galaxy is, the faster it moves. Therefore, the universe is expanding, and the Big Bang model seems more reasonable than the Steady State model. The second observational evidence is the radiation produced by the Big Bang. The Big Bang model predicts that the universe should still be filled with a small remnant of radiation left over from the original violent explosion of the primeval fireball in the past. The primeval fireball would have sent strong shortwave radiation in all directions into space. In time, that radiation would spread out, cool, and fill the expanding universe uniformly. By now it would strike Earth as microwave radiation. In 1965 physicists Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson detected microwave radiation coming equally from all directions in the sky, day and night, all year.3 And so it appears that astronomers have detected the fireball radiation that was produced by the Big Bang. This casts serious doubt on t he Steady State model. The Steady State could not explain the existence of this radiation, so the model cannot best explain the beginning of the universe. Since the Big Bang model is the better model, the existence and the future of the universe can also be explained. Around 15 to 20 billion years ago, time began. The points that were to become the universe exploded in the primeval fireball called the Big Bang. The exact nature of this explosion may never be known. However, recent theoretical breakthroughs, based on the principles of quantum theory, have suggested that space, and the matter within it, masks an infinitesimal realm of utter chaos, where events happen randomly, in a state called quantum weirdness.4 Before the universe began, this chaos was all there was. At some time, a portion of this randomness happened to form a bubble, with a temperature in excess of 10 to the power of 34 degrees Kelvin. Being that hot, naturally it expanded. For an extremely brief and short period , billionths of billionths of a second, it inflated. At the end of the period of inflation, the universe may have a diameter of a few

Social Media Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Social Media - Essay Example Michael Haenle in and Andreas Kaplan describe social media to mean "a set of Internet-based appliances that exploit the technological and ideological basics of Web 2.0, as well as permit the formation and interchange of user-generated information (2010). Additionally, social media hinges on web-based and mobile technologies to form extremely interactive programs through which communities and individuals co-create, share, discuss, as well as transform user-generated information. It initiates pervasive and significant transformations to communication among organizations, individuals and communities. Social media is different from industrial or traditional media in numerous aspects, for instance, reach, permanence, quality, frequency, immediacy, and usability. Social media technology takes on numerous different varieties including Internet forums, magazines, social blogs, weblogs, wikis, micro blogging, social networks, pictures or photographs, podcasts video, rating as well as social b ookmarking. Through applying a collection of concepts in the arena of social processes and media research, Haenlein and Kaplan formed a classification system in their Corporate Horizons (2010) article. They used six varied kinds of social media: micro blogs and blogs (for instance, Twitter), collaborative projects (for instance, Wikipedia), content communities (for instance, Daily Motion and YouTube), and social networking websites, for instance, Facebook. Others include virtual social worlds (for instance, Second Life), simulated game worlds (for instance, World of War craft).The technologies comprise blogs, wall-postings, picture sharing, email, vlogs, instant messaging; voice over IP and crowd sourcing, and music sharing. Much of these packages can be assimilated through social network accretion programs. Social media net websites comprise sites like, Twitter, Facebook, Viadeo, Vkontakte, Tuenti, Hyves, Daniel's World , Dreams village, MySpace, and Bebo. Once social media is appl ied in sequence with mobile gadgets it is termed as mobile social-media. Therefore, social media is a set of mobile promoting applications, which permit the formation and interchange of user-generated information. Owing to the datum that mobile-social media operates on mobile gadgets, it distinguishes from outmoded social media since it integrates new aspects, for instance, the current user location (location-sensitivity) and the time interval amid sending as well as receiving texts (time-sensitivity) (Watts, 2010). Whereas traditional-social media provide a range of prospects for corporations in a comprehensive range of corporate sectors, mobile-social media utilizes the time - and location -sensitivity facets of it to take on marketing research, sales discounts or promotions, communication, and affiliation loyalty or development platforms. E-commerce businesses denote to social media as CGM (consumer-generated media). A shared thread running within all social media descriptions is a combination of social interaction and technology for the co-formation of value (Li & Bernoff, 2008). Individuals obtain information, news, education, and other facts from print and electronic media. Social media is distinctive from traditional or industrial media, for instance, newspapers, film television, since they

Distinctive Characteristics of American Culture and Character Acquired Essay - 1

Distinctive Characteristics of American Culture and Character Acquired Throughout History - Essay Example Trends in household appliances and fashion started to pick up. They also started to fill their leisure time by participating in sports and other various activities like going to amusement parks. These changes then had an impact in the literature of that time and it targeted the middle class that was gradually growing. After 1910, the American culture experienced very little change (Fischer 23). Between 1870 and 1900, public-school enrollment doubled. This had a ripple effect that increased the number of high school and college students in the same period. The effect of this was that the level of illiteracy was very much reduced. There was also a growth in elementary schools, which went hand in hand with the growth of immigrants, and most parents saw this as a venue for acculturation. Martial arts, sciences, and American history were classes that were added into the curriculum around this period. It supplemented the basic curriculum of arithmetic, reading, and writing. Higher education expanded as universities and colleges, by 1900, had around 250,000 students. This was four times the number the universities and colleges had thirty years before. Act of The way Americans dressed and ate was changed by mass production. Hand-made clothing became less and less popular after the civil war. People became rather accustomed to wearing clothes that were ready made and were on sale in retail outlets. These retail outlets were however found mostly in large cities. However, Aaron Montgomery in 1872 started a mail-order business and thus the Americans did not have to visit these retail stores to buy clothes. This turned out to be quite a successful business for Montgomery and he dealt with a variety of commodities from agricultural products to clothes. In 1896, the Rural Free Delivery service made mail-order more accessible. With due time, increased accessibility to a wide variety of foods by people all over the country was experienced.

The Virtual Team Leadership Management Essay

The Virtual Team Leadership Management Essay This review of research examines the process of leadership, Types of Leadership, Functions of leadership, Conflict models, Leadership performance, effectiveness of leader, Leadership outcomes, Self-management in Virtual teams, working skills, Building trust and cooperation through technology adoptions in Virtual teams. Based on the review of the literature and research many hypotheses were proposed regarding the functions of leaders in virtual teams to manage, reduce the conflict and to motivate team members for sustained outcome. Introduction In the discussion of large companies and organizations out sourcing and branching out their teams typical to reach the goals, productivity and consumer satisfaction. To manage organizations turn over throughout all the braches is impossible which have different people working on same task from different places with different timelines and schedules. So, leading these teams need special requirements and skills apart from general organizational behavior. This study concentrates from both leader and team perspective to resolve conflicts and increase teams performance. The use of virtual teams is common now-a-days and more than half of the professional employees are believed to work or already have worked on virtual teams during their career (Martins, 2004; as cited in Wakefield, Leidner, Garrison, 2008). These virtual teams were dispersed geographically and culturally in order help the organization with round the clock work and to allow efficient employees from all over the world. Thes e virtual teams may be used as RD, customer service, etc. Since the virtual teams have great diversity than collocated teams these virtual teams tend to have more conflict within the team. This literature review will briefly describes the challenges faced by virtual teams, types of conflicts involved in the teams, The types of leadership procedures followed by the team leaders in order to reduce team conflict and gain trust, confidence and manage motivation in the team members. This review also deals with effects and causes of the performance and outcomes of the leadership practices. Literature General Idea and Surface Findings The idea of Virtual team Leadership centers it attention over managing the teams, Reducing conflicts, Building trust, cooperation with in the team so that it can perform better and achieve more outcome. In acquired literature researchers concluded to different types of hypotheses which yields the required outcome from the team. The teams mutual awareness can be disrupted by removing the common factors like location , culture between the team members (Cramton, 2001). The electronic interactions among teams members that may be misunderstood and it is not surprise that team conflict is pressing problem in virtual teams (Armstrong Cole, 2002 Hinds Mortensen, 2005). The studies found many type of leadership skills and approach towards team conflict to increase the trust and motivation between team members. Virtual projects often include collaboration of multiple organizations or employee-client relations through which leaders lost ability to influence the workers and hence use of info rmation and communication tools to regain their lost influence for achieving better performance from the team. In some situations for virtual teams will see emergent leadership skill where the active team members will lead the teams according to the situation of the project or proposed work. There is different leadership behaviors proposed by various studies the main leadership skills exhibited by these team leaders will be transformational, transactional and participative behaviors. Some of the studies proposed the success of the team is not only due to a teams efforts but it is collective individual influence the performance of team. The challenges of the virtual team settings can be overcome enhancing the leader ability which can be achieved by the change in management principles (Levasseur, R. E, 2012). Leadership in Virtual Teams Virtual team is a group of individuals who are geographically dispersed, cross functional and they work on highly interdependent and collaborative tasks. For leading these virtual teams will need special leadership skills and practices, the authors like Rosen, Furst, Blackburn did intense research and found nearly six types of leadership practiced performed by virtual team leaders, those can elaborated mainly as establishing and maintaining trust through use of communication technology, ensuring distributed diversity, managing working life cycle, monitoring teams progress, enhanced visibility, enabling virtual team members to benefit from collaborated team work (Rosen, Furst, Blackburn, 2006 as cited in Malhotra, Majchrzak, Rosen, 2007). For me leading virtual teams requires all the leadership and project management skills. The communication through electronically and in person is not same, because the authors stated that the Synchronizing efforts of geographically, culturally and technically diverse team does not happen magically and they stated that its hard to motivate and influence people electronically (Rosen, Furst, Blackburn, 2006; as cited in Malhotra, Majchrzak, Rosen, 2007). Challenges faced by Virtual Teams The virtual teams have different and greater challenges than the traditional workplace environment, The working lines will cross over geographic locations, boundries, cultures, networks and alliances. Since the virtual teams are very diverse, they have very unique set of problem rather than collocated teams. The virtual teams face the issues of trust, communication, goal alignment, shared purpose, skills, resource availability and role clarity (ONeill, Lewis, Hambley, 2008). Virtual team has to overcome the following external and internal challenges. External factors are outside the control of a virtual team and the team has to find a way to manage them for example, like distance, time and technology. Internal factors are those will be within the control of a virtual team, the team can directly influenced or interact with these factors like culture, trust, communication, relationship and leadership (Friedrich, Bleimann, Stengel, Walsh, 2011). The Leadership is the key for any virtual organization setting, the right competencies, attributes, trust and rapport, and management of virtual workers and teams. Elective leadership is the key factor that influences success in a virtual organization. The Maintenance of cultural identity, brand of employment and employee-manager satisfaction requires consistent and regular communication (ONeill, Lewis, Hambley, 2008). Leadership skills are necessary for virtual work. According to ONeill, Lewis, Hambley,(2008) generally leadership included in virtual teams a strongly focuses on relationships, emotional intelligence, a track record and innovation, a focus on process and outcome, and the ability to give positive and constructive feedback. In the virtual organizations, the role of leaders tends to shift from one of controller to one of coordinator or coach and it is necessary for organizations to promote trust and working relationships (ONeill, Lewis, Hambley, 2008). Diversified Leadership Roles in Virtual Teams According to Chen, Yang, Tsou (2008) the diversified leadership roles influences both leadership effectiveness and team trust. There is some factors influence the teams effectiveness they are team trust, propensity, leadership effectiveness. The researchers also found that the trust mediates the relationship between both leader and team effectiveness. Synchronous ICT ( Information and Communication Technology) tools can be different in terms of social presence and information richness and text, audio- and video-conferencing systems are classified under these tools. From e-mails, discussion forms, and bulletin boards, to workflow, scheduling and other project management applications the ICT tools vary in wide ranges. The success of the virtual teams is clear purpose, goals always should be measurable, appropriate number of individual in the team, establishment of guidelines, communication, decision making and processes. The behavioral complexity theory clearly stressed on importance of leader in improving their team effectiveness by their diversified leadership roles (Kayworth Leidner, 2002; as cited in Chen, Yang, Tsou2008). The roles of leadership are categorized in to three types they are, interpersonal contact, information processing and decision making. The type of challenges that such as ICT-enabled communications, cross-cultural communications, global logistical design, technological complexity are more prevalent in the virtual teams. Diversified leadership roles, leadership effectiveness, and propensity to trust all positively influence team trust, in turn will contributes to two types of indicators of team effectiveness, performance and satisfaction (Chen, Yang, Tsou, 2008). Building Trust and Cooperation Project managers are the key people for making their teams successful. When the group was set virtually they go to face to face meeting using communication technology, but these meeting will affect both cost and time for travel during the project (PMI 2004). The researchers had a doubt in mind that weather effective management of information and communication technology offer VT leaders to regain the lost control over influence and performance over their virtual or not. Here the researchers proposed research model to find out how technology adaption will relate to the building trust and cooperation in virtual teams. The descriptive findings of study suggests that it is important to adopt to the new technology frequently, According to Thomas Bostrom (2008) The leaders failed to recognize technology adaptation although they recognized inherent tradeoff . Information and communication technologies usage failures will have a domino effect on productivity (Thomas Bostrom, 2008) this mea ns if the leaders fails to influence the team members and lost control over management power the whole team mechanism will lose its balance. Hence leaders can affect the teams outcomes by managing adaptions of their team information and communication technology. Project managers doing virtual projects must look at the big picture and not micromanage, (Fung, 2005: as cited in Jedd, 2006). Leader of virtual team should ensure standards are met and they should intervene with the teams activity when there is a problem, like noncompliance of standards. They get to know the each and every team member and learn how to motivate them and communication preferences. It is suggestive that the people are happier when they left alone to do their work and team empowerment was positively related to process improvement and customer satisfaction vice versa. The project leaders first they should understand clearly about the project and its objectives they are working on. After that they have to determine the essential skills required for the projects to select the subordinates. Trust is developed through guidance, not by micromanaging (Jedd, 2006) Leadership in Self-Managed Virtual Teams In most of the organizations virtual teams are typically project based with a limited time of life span and little deliverables. These teams are self-managed and do not have any designated leader to lead those teams (Yukl 1998; as cited Carte, Chidambaram, Becker, 2006). In this electronic context, might be better viewed as a collective effort distributed among team members characterized by the sharing and rotating of leadership roles (Zigurs 2003; Avolio 1999; as cited in Carte, Chidambaram, Becker, 2006). Although teams typically do not have any leader assigned these teams will have external supervision. Within such teams we can find diverse qualities of leadership behaviors exhibited by team members. The study was conducted on 22 virtual teams which had under graduate students of three university, this experiments had diffusion threat and time threat to external validity. Because of the communication exchanges among high performance teams characterized by high level of directive leadership and the behaviors exhibited among the teams mate during leaders were not persistence in accordance of time. For me this research gives a better idea that, the Article focused more on identifying emergent leadership behavior. It found that leadership behavior was strongly associates with performance of these self managed teams. Author suggests that shared monitoring and concentrated producing behaviors were more likely to exhibit by high performing teams. Subordinates exhibit the leadership behaviors early in teams life which are more predictive of success than those exhibited later during the process of emergent. The two likely bi products of the shared commitment to high quality teams outcomes are better relational development and greater trust among team members (Carte, Chidambaram, Becker, 2006). In order to ensure the self managed teams are more successful both individual and collective leadership behaviors plays major role. Model of Conflict, Leadership, and Performance in Virtual Teams Virtual teams are common in large organizations now-a-days and more professional employees are believed to work or already worked on virtual teams during their career. These virtual teams were dispersed geographically and culturally in order to facilitate the organization with round the clock work and to allow qualified professionals from all over the world. These virtual teams may be used as RD, customer service, etc. Since the virtual teams have great diversity than collocated teams these virtual teams tend to have more conflict within the team. This study mainly concentrates on the model of conflict, Leadership and the performance of virtual teams with conflict. The leaders are subjected to Quinns (1984) model of leadership and evaluate their performance with respect to conflict solving skills. The data for this study was collected from the virtual team members employed by a major U.S telecommunication corporation and virtual team members representing five firms in Korea. The firms and their location were chosen based on researchers personal contacts. The test measurements was based on hypotheses of different models like The monitor role and task conflict, Use of technology mediated communication, leadership role and team conflicts, Coordinator role and process conflict, Mentor role and relational conflict, Facilitator role and form of conflict and leadership roles and leader effectiveness, Leader effectiveness and team performance. All the teams are subjected to participate in electronic communications likes emails, group discussions, messaging, and video conference. The teams leaders will virtually guide the teams to resolve the conflicts between the team members. This research is motivated by interest in understanding how teams leaders can be effectively manage the conflicts with in virtual teams. Factors such as cultural diversity, geographical dispersion, few face to face meeting, increased complexity gave the momentum to virtual teams and it is critical to identify the factors contribute to virtual teams success. The leaders involving with more transformational, directive and participative behaviors of leadership approach had the greater team success. The internal leadership roles will improve in managing the teams conflict and leadership with these traits will be a better leader and the team will perform well in virtual environment. Transformational and Transactional Leaders Ruggieri, 2009 stated that the effects of transactional and transformational leadership on groups in which people interact in a virtual manner were analyzed and specifically the level of satisfaction and perception of the style adopted were evaluated. Most of the leaders who conducts transactional leadership will perceive the relationship as an exchange process between leader and follower (Bass Avolio, 1993; as cited in Ruggieri, 2009). Namely there are four principle factors that are categorized under transformational leadership: charisma, inspirational motivation, intellectual stimulation, and individualized consideration (Bass Avolio, 1993; as cited in Ruggieri, 2009). The results suggest that the both transformational and transactional leadership perceived equally positive figures, Transformational leaders are intelligent and sensitive in many aspects of the leadership roles. Some of the leaders are oriented more towards the developing the relations of the subordinates rather than focusing on the goal of the team, these are known as charismatic leaders. They concentrate more on future and development of the workgroup. Since these leaders are involve in developing the personal relations and future minded they tend to induce more positive attitude in subordinates and motivates them to goal achievement. Apart from being intelligent these leaders are stuffed with more creativity and originality. On the other hand, some of the leaders are more tasks oriented rather than focusing on building relations; they are self esteemed and authentic about the job definition (Ruggieri, 2009). There are almost similar negative adjective coming to these two types of leaders. The Multilevel regression analyses indicated that leaders mode of care reasoning was more positively related to follower reports of transformational leadership but not transactional leadership (Simola, Barling, Turner, N. 2012). The transformational approach had many dimensions of the leadership process. Generally, the process involves initiating, developing and carrying out changes in organization. Transformational leadership includes nourishing and empowering followers. Since the transformational leaders tend to show charismatic behaviors, these leaders can become role models to their followers. Transformational leaders encourage others and celebrate their accomplishments ( Simola, Barling, Turner, N. 2012). By the end transformational leadership induces positive attitude in minds of followers making them feeling better overall and increase their contributions for achieving common goals. The transformational leadership is more efficient than the other type of leaderships due to its authentic factors like motivation and trust, where other types of leadership will have some sort of inconsistency and trouble maintaining the relations with the subordinates. The Effects of Leadership Style and Communication Medium The authors explained the process briefly with their outcomes and effects on the subordinates in the teams. Actually leaders leading the teams virtually by using communication technology as a medium where the subordinates are geographically isolated. The purpose of the study is to evaluate the leadership and sort out the best possible approaches of the leaders to achieve success for the teams; this may include vast variety of approaches. Since all the teams are handled virtually the communication between the team members will be in different kinds like text messaging, emails, video conference, tele conference , discussion and many more (Laura, Thomas, Theresa. 2007). This study gives a better idea how the leaders are approaching the team members and type of interactions using by them to get the job done. Study was the conducted with 30 graduate and under graduate students from the department of psychology acting as participants in six experimental conditions. Purpose of this study to evaluate the leaders by conducting experiments in all possible conditions and ensure that all the leaders are successful with the teams and typically time taken to complete the task on individual basis and as a team According to my opinion the success of the team depends up on the type of style leader is using on the team mates and their interaction, since all the communication is virtual there are lot of constrains taken in to consideration like time, schedules, cultural and thought barriers, technical issues and every aspect will affect the teams performance (Laura, Thomas, Theresa. 2007). Conclusion Finally, leading virtual teams requires all of the leadership and project management skills. The communication through electronically and in person is not same, Behavior of the emerging leader is associated to the performance of the self managed virtual team. Leaders can affect the teams outcomes by managing adaptions of their team information and communication technology. The two likely bi products of the shared commitment to high quality teams outcomes are better relational development and greater trust among team members (Carte, Chidambaram, Becker, 2006). In order to ensure the self Transformational leaders are intelligent and sensitive in many aspects of the leadership roles (Ruggieri, 2009). Leading virtual teams requires all the leadership and project management skills. The communication through electronically and in person is not same, because the authors like Malhotra, Majchrzak, Rosen, 2007 stated that the Synchronizing efforts of geographically, culturally and technicall y diverse team does not happen magically and they stated that its hard to motivate and influence people electronically. According to my opinion the success of the team depends up on the type of style leader is using on the team mates and their interaction. The change in management principles can enhance the leaders ability to overcome challenges that virtual teams present (Levasseur, 2012). Hopefully, as a result, leaders everywhere will better understand what to do to enhance the performance of their virtual teams. The internal leadership roles will improve in managing the teams conflict and leadership with these traits will be a better leader and the team will perform well in virtual environment.

Harshness and Cruelty in Streetcar Named Desire :: Tennessee Williams, A Streetcar Named Desire

One of the main themes expressed by Tennessee Williams in his play, A Streetcar Named Desire, is to condemn those who display cruelty and harshness in their treatment of others, especially those who are weak and vulnerable.   Three characters who demonstrate these insensitive qualities are Blanche, Mitch, and Stanley.   Whether the cruelty is deliberate or not, it results in the destruction of others, both physically and mentally. Blanche Dubois, the central victim of mistreatment in the play, was herself, dealing out her share of insensitivities during her younger days.   When Blanche was 16, she had a very handsome lover named Allan Gray.   She was very much in love with him and decided to marry him.   But by total surprise one night, Blanche found her lover in bed with another man.   She tried to pretend that nothing had happened.   However, she was unable to hold what she saw inside, and told Allan "I saw,   I know, you disgust me†¦"( p.96). To Allan, Blanche seemed to be a person who accepted him for who he was in a society where homosexuals are discriminated against. What Blanche said completely devastated Allan and he found no reason to continue living.   Although Blanche had no intentions of hurting Allan, enough damage was done to prompt Allan to shoot himself, his mind and body destroyed. The harsh treatment dealt by Mitch to Blanche near the end of the play is strikingly similar to Blanche's treatment of Allan Gray.   Mitch is a friend of Stanley's whom Blanche falls for during her visit to New Orleans.   The relationship between Blanche and Mitch had been developing steadily.   Both characters felt the need to settle down in life and both saw the image of marriage at the outcome of their relationship.   It did seem as though the image would become reality, until Stan interfered.   Stan filled Mitch's mind with unfavourable stories of Blanche's checkered past and the relationship quickly turned sour.   Mitch had not believed Stan at first, but when he received confirmation of the truth to Stan's accusations, he became heart-broken and enraged.   Mitch goes to confront Blanche personally and accuses her of being a prostitute and lying to him.   Mitch also says that Blanche is hiding something, as he has never seen her in broad daylight.   He then tears the paper lantern off the light bulb, representing a tearing away of Blanche's shield from realism. Blanche admits to the accusations but reasons that she has changed her ways and never did lie in her heart.   Mitch appears to forgive her as he goes to kiss Blanche.   But in the midst of the embrace, Mitch blurts out, "You're not clean

Mary Wollstonecraft and The Importance of Being Earnest Essay

Mary Wollstonecraft would have found in the witty comedy The Importance of Being Earnest a small vindication of her ideologies. Wilde touched on many issues that Mary Wollstonecraft herself had strong opinions on, such as, primarily, equality in society, including related concepts such as marriage, social responsibility, sexuality and gender roles, and independence. Wollstonecraft had argued for the rights of man, and then extended her arguments to cover women in particular, whom she felt were wrongly debased and exploited in Victorian society. She wanted a change in British law that would grant women equal rights of property upon marriage. Most known for her radical feminist stance, Wollstonecraft was deeply concerned about the status of females in society. She argued that the womanly â€Å"innocence† is actually just a better name for miserable ignorance, saying that most women were unjustifiably kept in ignorance, and were valued for, and expected to give value to, appearances only, and she argued that women were educated to be attractive to men. She argued for the education of women, and espoused the basic feminist assumptions of equality of men and women. She was particularly opposed to the idea of women being educated to become submissive. Wollstonecraft also contended that everyone, including women, had a right to be independent, and she envisioned a society where all were equal, where women had equal opportunities; she wanted women to hold power over themselves Wollstonecraft’s societal concerns are echoed in Wilde’s play. In the play, marriage is a dominant theme, and is shown as a strong moving force, a motivation for many of the characters actions. Marriage, according to the Lady Bracknell at least, is a woman’s obligation. Algernon and Jack discuss whether marriage is a matter of business or pleasure, which is in some way a questioning of the institution of marriage as it was practiced then. Wilde’s play reflected the conventional views of Victorian society, and the Victorian class system is also parodied effectively. In Victorian England society social position was everything, and the upper class viewed themselves as having virtues unquestionable by the lower classes. In Victorian society appearances were also of paramount importance; this is seen particularly in Gwendolen, when she insists on the correct performance of her marriage proposal above all else. The focus on appearances by the upper class furthered the superior attitude of the upper classes. The gulf between the upper and lower classes is widened because of this, to the detriment of other values such as equality and to the perpetuation of the exploitation of the lower classes. Wollstonecraft had wanted a revolution in female manners; in the play the women portrayed roles that contradicted reality and thus presented a possibility of a change in gender roles. Lady Bracknell had a dominant personality; Gwendolyn and Cecily are shown as relatively headstrong and in charge of themselves, as opposed to the conventional expectations of society; Algernon and Jack are somewhat passive—thereby highlighting the cookie-cutter roles persons were supposed to assume in society. There is also a suggestion of sexuality in the women characters, as evidenced by their flirtatiousness. We are also reminded of Wollstonecraft’s views on education in the play. Lady Bracknell approves of ignorance, explaining that â€Å"The whole theory of modern education is radically unsound. Fortunately in England, at any rate, education produces no effect whatsoever. If it did, it would prove a serious danger to the upper classes, and probably lead to acts of violence†¦ † The upper class, of course, was interested in preserving the existing social structure, which allowed for unequal treatment and subjugation of the lower classes. . This focus on appearances translates to the oppression of those who cannot keep up appearances—that is, the lower classes. Such a focus is seen in Lady Bracknell’s attitude towards Jack, to whom she is kind until she discovers his origins, or when she becomes very king to Cecily when she discovers the Cecily is rich. All in all, the play touches on Wollstonecraft’s primary ideological concerns, and is easily considered a blatant satire of Victorian England society. The play is a vehicle of ideas for social change, much like Wollstonecraft’s works. She would have approved.