The Glass Menagerie is one of the classic pieces of performing art to have been made in the twentieth century. First published by Tennessee Williams in 1944, it is a memory play with four main characters – Amanda Wingfield, Tom Wingfield, Laura Wingfield and Mr. Wingfield. The Gentleman Caller is the other character in the…
Philosopher Alan Watts’ views on ‘love’
“Love is always something more and something different than can be captured by any single definition” (Watts, 2002). Love is a universal phenomenon of life. Where ever life exists, love manifests there. Love can take various configurations too. While romantic love is the most publicised and celebrated type, parental love, sibling love and compassionate love…
Comparing two films: The Secret Life of Bees (2001) and The Help (2011)
The Secret Life of Bees is a 2008 Hollywood production that embraces the drama genre. Based on the novel of the same title by Sue Monk Kidd, the film deals with the life and struggles of a young girl Lily Owens (played by Dakota Fanning) who runs away from home after the demise of her…
Film Review: The Station Agent
There are clear markers that set aside The Station Agent from mainstream American movies. The limited budget, the austere production style and the modest profiles of the cast actors all identify the film as belonging to the ‘independent’ genre. The off-beat story line and its central theme is also distant to conventional plots and themes. …
Human Resources Management Case Study: Employee retention in GS Plumbing
What should GS Plumbing be doing when employees leave the organization? How could such activities improve retention, recruitment and selection? GS Plumbing, and especially Alan as the HR Manager, can take certain constructive steps in improving retention, recruitment and selection of employees. As the case clearly illustrates, GS Plumbing is ailing from high turnover rate,…
A Socio-psychological study of Seamus Heaney’s poems The Grauballe Man and Strange Fruit & Samuel Beckett’s Waiting For Godot
Both Samuel Beckett and Seamus Heaney display an acute understanding of human pathos, which is manifest in their works. This essay peruses Waiting for Godot by Beckett and the poems The Grauballe Man & Strange Fruit by Heaney to illustrate the social awareness contained in them. Social awareness (sometimes also referred to as social consciousness)…
Holden Caufield’s take on Much Ado About Nothing
I find Much Ado About Nothing quite amusing. Some of the characters in the play sound phony. The high-intensity romance between Claudio and Hero comes across as especially phony to me. After all, most whirlwind romances come crashing to ground one day. The way Claudio and Hero express their love for each other betrays their…
Is unemployment within the labour market primarily voluntary?
The worldwide recession precipitated by the financial crisis in the United States has had disastrous consequences for the UK economy as well. This most recent episode of recession in the UK happens to be the worst it had faced in the period following the Second World War. Based on the GDP numbers for the years…
Oil as a determinant of social, political and economic history of the United States from 1981 to the present
American military intervention in world affairs has risen drastically since the end of the Second World War. The period following the Second World War saw America assume the role of a superpower that headed the western coalition in what was then a bipolar world. Since the collapse of Soviet Union in the late 80’s, America…
Review of ‘The End of America: Letter of Warning to a Young Patriot’ by Noami Wolf
For this essay Chapter Five ‘Surveil Ordinary Citizens’ of Noami Wolf’s The End of America: Letter of Warning to a Young Patriot is chosen for analysis. Wolf talks about the dangers of succumbing to internal security measures, which are just a facade for government control over civilian thought and act. Wolf makes salient comparisons between…