William Faulkners Major Works and Themes - 938 Words

Major Works And Themes Faulkner’s works consisted of many dark touchy topics such as war, racism, mental illness and suicide in all of books, short stories, William Faulkner wrote about almost every part of life, from something that could be absurd at his time, to something real like racism in the American South. Throughout his life, Faulkner was kind of a rebel, notorious for his confidence, drinking, and he would often make up stories about himself. Faulkner wrote from experience and as a person who lived in the south during times of racism, he wrote about a lot of things in the south. To be exact his specific genre or style in which he wrote in is what some call â€Å"southern gothic†. Southern gothic is a unique style of writing and only expressed by very few authors. These stories usually take place only in the south and have darkness to them. His stories would use irony to examine the values of the American south. Instead of solely trying to add suspense with the style it is also used t o explore social issues and cultural character of the south. Which leads me to one of Faulkner’s first important novels â€Å"Sartoris†. In Sartoris Faulkner focuses on a family during the world war era in the south. In the book the Sartoris family is one of the more important families in Yoknapatawpha County where the book is set. The Old Colonel, John Sartoris, represents an old and dying out order dating back to the mid 1900’s. His world revolves around his plantation home, his slaves and hisShow MoreRelatedBarn Burning By William Faulkner1357 Words   |  6 Pages William Faulkner’s O. Henry Award winning short story, â€Å"Barn Burning† was written in 1938 and published by Harper’s in 1939 (â€Å"William,† par. 12). In many ways the story is a product of â€Å"both a turbulent time in America’s history and Faulkner’s personal history† (Parker 101). America was emerging from the Great Depression just in tim e to see World War II looming on the horizon while Faulkner was struggling with â€Å"finances, a drinking problem, and a new mistress† (Parker 102). In â€Å"Barn Burning†Read MoreDeeper Insight by Use of Point of View - Summary1074 Words   |  5 Pagestheir story. However, the author of the short story â€Å"Barn Burning† uses one particular element to build up his own story in a very unique format. William Faulkner uses various literary elements in the story, but the most critical one is point of view. Faulkner uses point of view to develop characters, the theme, and the plot of the story. Faulkner’s use of point of view helps the reader understand who the characters are, how the characters develop, and aids in understanding the characters actionsRead MoreBarn Burning by William Faulkner894 Words   |  4 Pagesauthor William Faulkner formally known for his short stories with a constant theme of Southern Renaissance, racism and modernism uses these themes as a constant reference throughout the story. Faulkner focuses in depth on the antagonist, Abner Snopes and his actions and how they impact other characters throughout the story. I believe Abner was continuously portrayed as a negative character throughout the short story by Abner’s aggressiveness towards everyone he comes in contact with, Faulkner’s depictionRead MoreThat Evening Sun by William Faulkner505 Words   |  2 Pages Themes can reflect life. With the use of multiple themes writers are able to reflect on certain issues that affect their society at the time. However, the author may not realize that the themes they choose could hold a certain timeless quality that becomes relatable to future generations. This can be seen in Faulkner’s short story â€Å"That Evening Sun†, a story centralized on a boy retelling his observation of Nancy, an African-American woman who his family hired. In Faulkner’s short story, violenceRead MoreThe Resistance to Change988 Words   |  4 PagesAs a person one might find that we follow a specific routine on the day to day basis. Sudden changes to these routines feels weird and out of place. In William Faulkner’s â€Å"A Rose For Emily† based in a fictional town called Jefferson taking place during the twentieth century. The time period is indeed an important factor because southern tradition was above all of the highest importance. Th is short story gives the audience details of life during that time in which they followed the values of southernRead MoreThe Search for Time in Yoknapatawpha County1908 Words   |  8 Pagesenhances many aspects of a story by adding time, location and mood into the works. Imagine how different Harry Potter would be if it took place in South Africa, instead of the magical kingdom of Hogwarts? Setting also enhances the tone of the narrator by adding effects, such as, weather changes, time of day, time of the year and the time period of the story. Furthermore, in the short story â€Å"A Rose for Emily† by William Faulkner, the setting is a source of conflict. The narrator’s of the storyRead MoreWilliam Shakespeare s Influence On The Sound And The Fury2240 Words   |  9 Pageswriters do, Faulkner had many literary influences that can be seen in his writing. Faulkner once said, â€Å"I think everything a writer reads influences his work. He is completely immoral, he has no hesitancy whatever about taking what he wants from any source he wants† (Faulkner, â€Å"Blotner and Gwynn’s Classes, tape 2†). A major influence on Faulkner’s work is Shakespeare, especially on The Sound and the Fury. Faulkner used his love of Shakespeare to enable him to write a novel that took some of Shakespeare’sRead MoreA Rose for Emily by William Faulkner Essay552 Words   |  3 PagesA Rose for Emily by William Faulkner William Faulkner’s first published story was â€Å"A Rose for Emily. He wrote many stories after this but one particular that can be compared to this story is a Light in August. Throughout both of these works Faulkner uses his own events from his home in Mississippi and focuses on the themes relating to the ruins of the Deep South in the post- Civil War era. Also in both of these stories he shows how cruel and hard society can be towards individuals and towardsRead MoreThe Yellow Wall Paper And Barn Burning Essay1509 Words   |  7 Pagesthis is not necessarily seen in today’s society, it is not rare to find this theme present in a large number of works studied in American Literature. Two authors that illustrate this pervasive theme in their short stories are Charlotte Perkins Gilman and William Faulkner. Despite the fact that these short stories were written almost fifty years apart, the protagonists in both Gilman’s â€Å" The Yellow Wall-paper† an d Faulkner’s â€Å"Barn Burning† live in a society where they are severely conflicted becauseRead More William Faulkners Use of Shakespeare Essay5388 Words   |  22 PagesWilliam Faulkners Use of Shakespeare Throughout his career William Faulkner acknowledged the influence of many writers upon his work--Twain, Dreiser, Anderson, Keats, Dickens, Conrad, Balzac, Bergson, and Cervantes, to name only a few--but the one writer that he consistently mentioned as a constant and continuing influence was William Shakespeare. Though Faulkner’s claim as a fledgling writer in 1921 that â€Å"[he] could write a play like Hamlet if [he] wanted to† (FAB 330) may be dismissed as

The Particularities of Being a Teenager - 652 Words

The teenage years are a very stressful time. Teenagers go through many confusing stages and feel emotions that they have never felt before. They change in ways they never thought they would. In some cases best friends become distant memories, loving homes become hateful prisons and minor situations become violent ordeals. As someone who is still going through the teenage years I can relate to all these behaviors. Being a teenager is not easy. Teenagers feel pressure to look and act in ways that they are not. Being a teenager also means over-reacting about the littlest situations and thinking that no one understands them. The life of a teenager is more complicated than it seems but there are several causes that make teenagers act the way they do. Teenagers are very self-conscious about their body and the way they look. They have to look good all time, especially if they are a girl. Weather they are going to a party or on a midnight trip to Walmart they have to look presentable. I am guilty of this teenage trait, I even straighten my hair before I go to pool parties, even though it is just going to get wet and curl back to normal. But, it is not always easy for a teenager think they look good when they hate the way they look. They hate their hair because it’s too curly or straight. They think that they have nothing to wear when they have a closet full of clothes. And even teenagers who are a size two think that they are fatShow MoreRelatedEssay on Salvation (Langston Hughes)666 Words   |  3 Pagesstyle to that of an early aged teenager. But since the text is written in the past tense and the narrator mentions that he was going on thirteen (181), we know the speaker is now older. After reading a little further, we find that the style becomes more complex, with a more select choice of words and longer sentences. The contrast between simple and complex styles is present all through the rest of the essay, and creates a more personal atmosphere. 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Building a Company Without Borders Free Essays

HBR. ORG Bart Becht is the CEO of Reckitt Benckiser, headquartered in Slough, England. Building a Company Without Borders An Italian Is Running The Uk Business A Dutchman Is Running The U. We will write a custom essay sample on Building a Company Without Borders or any similar topic only for you Order Now S. Business An American Is Running The German Business By Bart Becht A Frenchman Is Running The Russian Business An Indian Is Running The Chinese Business A Belgian Is Running The Brazilian Business T The Idea You may never have heard of Reckitt Benckiser, but in the past few years the company has outperformed its rivals PG, Unilever, and Colgate in growth—even during the downturn. Here’s how. ey say you can’t go home again. If you work for Reckitt Benckiser, you can go home—but you may not want to, and you certainly won’t have to. Many companies, when they describe themselves as global, mean they have operations around the world, they work virtually and in all time zones, and their key people are developed through stints in other markets. Our version is more comprehensive. Most of our top managers haven’t held jobs in their countries of origin for years and view themselves as global citizens rather than as citizens of any given nation. We have operations in more than 60 countries. Our top 400 managers represent 53 di erent nationalities. We’ve spent the past 10 years building this culture of global April 2010 Harvard Business Review 103 This article is provided compliments of Reckitt Benckiser Group. HOW I DID IT mobility because we think it’s one of the best ways to generate new ideas and create global entrepreneurs. And it has paid o . Products launched in the past three years—all the result of global cross-fertilization—account for 35% to 40% of our net revenue. For example, Finish, an all-in-one dishwasher tablet you drop into your machine, is now the leader in its market category. Recently we successfully introduced QuantuMatic—an automatic dispenser of dishwasher detergent that doesn’t need to be re lled for up to a month. With constant innovation like this we’ve enjoyed steady, pro table growth, even during the downturn. Since 2005 we’ve outpaced all our big competitors. During the recession we’ve invested more than ever in marketing, and we grew at a rate of 8% (at constant exchange rates) in 2009. A Company Without a Country The RB â€Å"Powerbrands† Though the company’s corporate brand recognition is very low, its products are well-known. RB focuses on 17 powerbrands: Air Wick Calgon (water softener) Cillit Bang Clearasil Dettol Finish French’s PREVIOUSLY ELECTRASOL Gaviscon AMERICA IN NORTH Harpic Lysol Mortein Mucinex Nurofen Strepsils Vanish Veet Woolite 104 Harvard Business Review April 2010 Reckitt Benckiser resulted from a merger in 1999 of Reckitt Colman—a British purveyor of household cleaning products with a great stable of brands—and the Dutchlisted Benckiser, a much smaller but betterperforming consumer goods company. But we don’t want to be known as an AngloDutch enterprise, or by any other label based on our operations or history. We’re not any country’s company—we’re a truly multicountry company. That is by design. Postmerger we mixed the national cultures quickly in every corner of our operations. Premerger many of the local businesses had been running themselves more or less independent of the rest of the world and without regard to overall corporate priorities. We transferred people who embodied RB’s values into key positions in new markets. Managers from one side of the merger were purposely moved to another territory, and then moved again. Now in every country we have people of many nationalities as well as local citizens. Today an Italian is running the UK business, and an American is running the German business. A Dutchman is running the U. S. business, an Indian the Chinese business, a Belgian the Brazilian business, and a Frenchman the Russian business. It’s not that you can’t advance at RB in your local company. You can. But we also offer unique global mobility and experience to people who want to grow their careers on a world stage. To facilitate this mobility, we established compensation rules that apply equally to our top 400 managers in all markets, making international transfers easy. We have just one employment contract, and our salary ranges were developed with global benchmarking. Our annual cash bonus structure and long-term incentive plans are the same for everyone, as are our pensions, medical plans, and other benefits. We have no expatriates in the traditional sense, no tax equalization or guarantee of a job back in one’s home country. When employees take jobs in other countries, they’re transferred as â€Å"local hires. † We’ve built in standard protocols to make it easier for people with families to move. For example, we fund whatever school the employee chooses for his or her children because we understand how important that is to a family’s adjustment. That way, we can instantly accomplish a transfer—we don’t have to negotiate a lot of convoluted contractual nonsense. We have moved people to new countries in as little as two days. We also do something pretty rare with graduates. In some markets we help foreign students to get work permits in the countries where they’ve been studying. The very fact that they have traveled to study means they are internationally minded and thus likely to be keen to work in other countries as well. At a lot of companies it’s assumed that employees, having â€Å"seen the world,† will sooner or later return to their home countries to continue their careers. Our idea is that you focus primarily on the best job possible for you, regardless of country. That kind of life isn’t for everyone, and not everyone has to follow that path. But those who love it really love it. It’s exciting, and it gives pace, challenge, learning, and a buzz to people’s careers—along with the satisfaction of being able to be entrepreneurial and innovative. We try to put our high potentials in stretching situations around the globe. For example, we had one excellent employee who wanted to be moved to an international marketing job. We had an opening in India, but that would have been a poor choice for him—he’s Indian. Our previous three marketing people in India were German, French, and British. If this employee wanted to grow, he needed to acquire different experiences and learning, so a better development opportunity would be for him to work in Brazil or Mexico. Our high potentials have to find their footing very quickly, and most of them grow tremendously when we take them out of their familiar zone. This article is provided compliments of Reckitt Benckiser Group. HBR. ORG Reckitt Benckiser at a Glance A DECADE OF GROWTH , MILLIONS , ?, ? Total , Net Revenue (? M) , , , , , , , OPERATING PROFIT , Operating Pro? t (? M) NET REVENUE , Employees ?, ? , Total , Net Revenue (? M) Operating Pro? t (? M) Employees SOURCE RECKITT BENCKISER Even their failures in new markets are important learning experiences for our high potentials. One of our top managers, who is Dutch, still talks about the hard lesson he learned when we transferred him to Turkey. In The Netherlands, where he had worked before, billing and receivables were predictable and orderly. In Turkey the currency suddenly collapsed by 70%—while he was focusing on market share rather than on delinquent receivables. As he puts it, there’s nothing like a currency failure to change your views on tight financial management. If you don’t express your opinion, you don’t have an opinion, and that’s a fatal weakness for people who want to do well at Reckitt Benckiser. That means our meetings are a bit chaotic. Everybody wants to be heard, so it’s more like an Italian family dinner than a nicely organized board meeting. What takes over in our meetings is an intensity and a feeling that we have to ght for better ideas. Con ict is good. We don’t care about consensus. Not having it doesn’t slow us down and doesn’t mean that people aren’t aligned. We make decisions fast and then all stand behind them. What isn’t tolerated is conflict that simply slows down decision making or is for political or personal gain. Almost every key decision is made in the meeting at which it’s rst discussed. We expect people to come armed with facts, be prepared to argue their point of view, and be willing to live with the decision we ultimately make. Get 80% alignment and 100% agreement to implement. And move quickly. But I also don’t believe in crushing minority views. If we have 10 people in a room, eight of them agreeing on one thing and two passionately believing something else, we don’t try to resolve it to everyone’s satisfaction. We allow those two to experiment with their ideas—even if everyone else thinks they’re wrong. At the end of the day, what counts is not what the 10 people in that room think, it’s what the consumer thinks. So we let them run maverick smallscale experiments to get consumer feedback. Sometimes our biggest ideas come that way. About six years ago we had a huge internal debate about a product called Air Wick Freshmatic, which automatically releases freshener into the air on a schedule. It originated when one of our brand managers in Korea observed a new kind of automatic scent dispenser in stores there. In his opinion it was not a well-designed product, but he thought the idea was intriguing, so he brought it to a group meeting at our headquarters. Vigorous debate ensued. April 2010 Harvard Business Review 105 With so many different native languages in our company, it was necessary to make English the official language for all meetings. I’m Dutch, but I don’t speak Dutch with any of my Dutch colleagues, because if others are around, it excludes them. We are one team with one language. English isn’t most people’s native language, and often our English isn’t pretty. But the way we see it, it doesn’t matter as long as you give a view. If you don’t express your opinion, you don’t have an opinion, and that’s a fatal weakness for people who want to do well at Reckitt Benckiser. You have to stand for something, no matter how bluntly you communicate it. Con? ict Is Good This article is provided compliments of Reckitt Benckiser Group. HOW I DID IT HBR. ORG RB’s Performance-Based Remuneration Reckitt Benckiser believes it has designed a compensation plan to foster its innovative and entrepreneurial culture. The company has touted performance-oriented pay in its annual report as key to RB’s strong growth. According to a 2006 Harvard Business School case study, the plan, which applies to the company’s top managers (including the CEO), consists of three parts: base salary, short-term incentives, and long-term incentives. Base salaries are set near the median for competitors’ pay. The real bene? comes in the form of bonuses. A manager who meets all targets will typically receive 40% of his or her base salary as a bonus that year. A manager who blows the targets out of the water A manager who blows the targets out of the water can earn a bonus of up to 144%. (usually that means doubling the target numbers) can earn a bonus of up to 144%. Long-term compensation, in the form of options and perf ormance-related restricted stock, depends on meeting three-year corporate growth targets for earnings per share. New long-term goals are put into place each year. Karen Dillon A couple of our managers believed it should be a consumer product in Europe, but a lot more thought that made no sense— it might work in Korea on a very small scale, but it would never work in Western markets. For one thing, it would have to be priced well above the standard air freshener, and it wasn’t clear that the market would support that. Also, this would be our rst foray into something electronic, with wires, batteries, interval switches—a complex technology combination. The product would require new manufacturing facilities if it went to any scale. But two people meant we had to source materials we had no prior experience with. Today Air Wick Freshmatic is sold in 85 countries, with a wide range of options for consumers. It generates well in excess of ? 200 million annually. That product had the most successful launch in our history. Of course, things don’t always work out that well. We’ve launched some beautifully thought-out products that we were passionate about—but consumers weren’t. A few years ago we introduced a wonderful product to clean your microwave: You put a little sachet into the oven and start it. While If someone wants to stand up under stress and say, â€Å"No, I passionately believe in this,† then I’m willing to take a chance. saw the potential and were willing to ght for the chance to prove it. If somebody wants to stand up under stress and say, â€Å"No, I passionately believe in this. You guys are all wrong! We’ve got to do this,† then I’m willing to take a chance. So in this case I said ne, here’s the money— go gure it out, but do it on a small scale. And that’s what they did. In January 2004, initial testing of the idea with consumers in the UK produced extraordinary results. By the end of the year the product was in more than 30 other countries, and we’d overseen the building of a new factory in China to make it—which 106 Harvard Business Review April 2010 the oven is heating, the sachet pops and spreads cleaner around. When it’s nished, the sachet has become a cloth to wipe your cleaner away. It was a beautifully designed product. But it turns out that people don’t actually want to clean their microwaves all that often, so we pulled it from the market. If we are going to fail, we want to fail small and quickly. Failure is actually a huge incentive for the kind of people who fit well with our company, because they’re so personally competitive that they’ll work even faster for the next success. Everyone wants to do something to get on the map. I just moved one manager from Chile to Turkey. He earned that move because he had done something very challenging in his market—he’d launched one of our â€Å"powerbrands,† the sanitizer Dettol, in Latin America. It wasn’t the biggest success we’ve ever had, but the point is that he did it. He was the guy who brought Dettol to Chile and created a platform for its growth. That’s his mark on the business. That kind of thing earns you a promotion in this company, and the promotion will probably take you to another part of the world. Some people look at us and think they’d have to be nuts to work here. We’re looking for people with a certain level of maturity, intensity, and competitiveness. If you bring all of that to Reckitt Benckiser, it will be rewarded. (See the sidebar â€Å"RB’s Performance-Based Remuneration. †) As the CEO who has guided the company for more than a decade, I’d like to take credit for having a brilliant strategy or unique insights into the global marketplace. But in reality the â€Å"vision† slide we use today is the exact same one we’ve used since the merger. We have a very simple approach to the business: Focus on 17 powerbrands in fast-growing categories, innovate and invest behind them—and do so in every market. At the end of the day, what is most distinct about Reckitt Benckiser is its people and culture. I can tell in three minutes if someone would be a good t for our company. We’d rather have a position open for a long time, if necessary, than put the wrong person in place. It’s that important. HBR Reprint R K This article is provided compliments of Reckitt Benckiser Group. How to cite Building a Company Without Borders, Essay examples