Destiny in Naturalism Essay Example

Destiny in Naturalism Paper This corner stone of the genre is used to great effect in Nathaniel Hawthorns Young Goodman Brown, where the author exploits the evil of man to display this key feature of literary Naturalism, that of destiny, by Juxtaposing the reality of the seemingly devout puritans of Salem with the veiled truth behind their double lives. We are first Introduced to Young Goodman Brown In a typical, realist way; with the minor details that culminate In an accurate depiction of the way day to day life Is for the middle class protagonist and his wife. With Hawthorne ever-present use of foreshadowing however, the reader Is at once thrust Into the world of naturalism with the mention of Browns wife Faiths pink ribbons. This vivid symbol serves throughout the work to remind the reader of Faiths goodness, and yet, in the end, serves to display that however good she might have been, Faith is destined for something darker. As Faith begs her husband not to leave her on his Journey, the good and pure wife senses, if not knows, that something foul awaits her dear husband at the end of his travels. We will write a custom essay sample on Destiny in Naturalism specifically for you for only $16.38 $13.9/page Order now We will write a custom essay sample on Destiny in Naturalism specifically for you FOR ONLY $16.38 $13.9/page Hire Writer We will write a custom essay sample on Destiny in Naturalism specifically for you FOR ONLY $16.38 $13.9/page Hire Writer This collocation, upon inspection, alludes to the vile that lurks beneath the rather benign fade of our Just-begun story. As Goodman Brown Journeys on his way we are introduced to a character that bears striking resemblance to Brown. In their conversation Brown learns of the intimate nature In which his new companion Is acquainted with his family. As his fellow traveler speaks of his experiences with Browns family, the old man talks of some less than favorable events that he has undertaken with Browns father and grandfather. Pone learning of these events, Goodman Brown replies, We are a people of prayer, and good works, to boot, and abide no such wickedness (1200). This recall of his families past hints of Browns eventual fate and speaks to the life he is destined to lead. Though he believes he is of right and good lineage, he in fact is not. As the two continue their conversation, we find that Brown has changed his mind, and that the evil purpose (1 199), which he was set out on his Journey to accomplish, is no longer something he intends to complete. From this short distance into the story we see the force of destiny so heavily pulling on our main characters life: though he has decided that he shall not continue, It Is as If something stronger Han he, something not of this world Is yet pulling him towards his eventual fate. As Brown Is bldg move further along toward his destination by his elder guide, strange occurrences begin to pass. These unexplainable events, which perhaps happen only In our Young Goodman Browns mina, are textbook supernatural, Ana serve to underscore the dubbing of this short work of fiction as Naturalist. The pull of destiny is no where seen more vivid than in Young Goodman Browns realization deep in the forest that his beloved wife is going, the same night, to the same place that he has thus decided not to go. Bewildered and faint-hearted, Brown looks up to the night sky above to see a cloud, though no wind was stirring, hurried across the zenith, hid(inning) the brightening stars (1203). As this troublesome sight sweeps north in the direction he is supposed to be headed, he watches and listens and inexplicably enough hears the voices of his fellow towns people of Salem, and finally, to his horror, his cherished Faiths lamenting voice. As the cloud and the voices sweep away, down from above flutters a lone pink ribbon. This otherworldly occurrence points directly to the foregone conclusion that is Young Goodman Browns fife. His destiny is so etched in stone that even his marriage to such a good and pure woman cannot keep him from the indomitable evil that so unabashedly seeks his soul. As Brown realizes that his Faith is now on her way to the same place he was going, and that his faith in the good of humanity is eroded, he gives in to the forces of destiny saying, My Faith is gone. There is no good on earth; and sin is but a name. Come, devil! For to the is this world given (1204). When Brown finally reaches his destination and wholly realizes what he has come o partake in, a dark figure stands up before all that are gathered and begins to speechify to him and his wife about their fellow towns people; those that they believed they knew so well. There are all whom ye have reverenced from youth. Ye deemed them holier than yourselves, and shrank from your own sin, contrasting it with their lives of righteousness, and prayerful aspirations heavenward. Yet, here are they all, in my worshipping assembly! This night it shall be granted you to know their secret deeds; how hoary-bearded elders of the church have whispered wanton words o the young maids of their households; how many a woman, eager for widows weeds, has given her husband a drink at bed-time, and let him sleep his last sleep in her bosom; how beardless youths have made haste to inherit their fathers wealth; and how fair damsels?blush not sweet ones! ?have dug little graves in the garden, and bidden me, the sole guest, to an infants funeral (1206). These horrifying revelations, displaying the true nature of the people whom Brown and Faith live among in Salem, is yet another efficacious display of Hawthorns liberate use of destiny as it was described by his fellow Naturalist writers. Believing that they were surrounded by other devout puritan souls, the couple lived their lives as they were taught they should, never suspecting that their fate was so perilously chained to the unseen acts of evil that were daily transpiring around them. Their destiny was to fall into collusion with their deceivingly good neighbors, not to follow their counterfeit virtuous ways however, but alas to follow their vile, iniquitous ways. Yet all the while, as they followed like the good and pure that they strove to be, Young Goodman Brown and his dear sweet Faith were following that which was diametrically opposed to the life of a right and honorable puritan. Just as the pull of destiny was so pervasive in Young Goodman Browns life, so was the same force strongly seen in the life of the stories author. Nathaniel Hawthorne is today consolable one AT Americas greatest writers, Ana It seems Tanat en was always destined to be so. From childhood the pull of the written word began weaving its ways through Hawthorns life when at the age of nine, a ball playing accident left him lame for fourteen months. Released from regular schooling, he immersed himself in the familys books (Goggling). Just the same, destiny was showing its weight when Hawthorne graduated Bowdon College with classmates that would become lifelong friends: his most intimate companion Horopito Bridge (who would help arrange publication of his first book), Henry Headwords Longfellow (who would review it), and Franklin Pierce (who would become President of the United States and appoint Hawthorne consul to Liverpool) (Goggling) all of these acquaintances favored heavily in Hawthorns eventual success as a writer. Naturalism in literature has any varied characteristics, but I believe none of them to be as important as the force of destiny on the characters of the given story. Weaving a tale that pulls the reader in is a hard task to master, but with destiny in a writers pocket, captivating an audience is much easier to achieve. Letting the reader in on the secret, that which the character of the story is not aware, gives the reader a sense of ownership in the unfolding plot. It is as if the reader can see into the future, to the end of story, without actually having yet gone there. As is the case in Young Goodman Brown, we he reader knows something wicked this way comes; we know this almost from the outset. Hawthorne even goes so far as to compare and contrast in the most vivid way possible the lives of good the towns people of Salem seem to live with the shocking truth that underneath it all, these devout puritans are, in actuality, living lives more inline with the dark of the devil. Yet knowing what we know, we are unable to tear ourselves away from the text because we are now tied to the destiny of the character. As the French proverb says, One meets his destiny often in the road he takes to avoid it.

5 Simple Questions To Stay Focused On What Matters

5 Simple Questions To Stay Focused On What Matters If you asked me what the most important core principal at was, I would probably tell you that its our ability to stay focused. This means staying 100% focused on what matters most to our company, customers, and product- no matter what. Of course, this is a learned skill and definitely, easier said than done. When you work in a company with a lot of creative people, there are always a ton of ideas popping up. There is also the temptation to continually chase down those new ideas and make them a reality. After all, were a startup, right? But, chasing down our whims would take us out of focus, and that would be a bad thing for everyone. 5 Simple Questions That Will Help You #StayFocused On What MattersHow We Stay Focused At †¦ Around our office, you’ll hear the phrase â€Å"that’s a thing we could do† at least several times per day. It indicates when we’ve come across an idea that we could work on, but instinctively know we shouldn’t  because it would be out of focus. As a company, we have a roadmap for our product and distinct metrics that were working to improve. If we chased down every idea, theres a chance we could lose our focus and miss our clearly outlined goals. If we chased down every idea, wed risk losing our focus and missing our goals. But, this isn’t the only thing we do to stay focused. As a leader, I have worked to instill our team with the necessary tools for battling â€Å"scope creep† and staying focused. Author John Maxwell says that good leaders ask great questions, and that advice has become very powerful for me. I’ve come to adopt a few key questions that cut through the crud and help our team stay focused like a laser beam. Good leaders ask great questions. -John MaxwellHere are my top five questions for keeping our team (and myself) focused 100% of the time: Question #1: Whats In It For Them? This is the essential question that frames everything we do at . With every blog post, new feature, or web page, we continually ask ourselves what’s in it for the reader, visitor, or customer. Whats in it for your readers? Customers?We’re kind of obsessed with it. The beauty of this simple question is that it constantly drives us toward focusing on providing more value. It’s simple- the more value you provide your readers or customers with, the more likely they will be to reward you with their attention and business. I would say that its the single most important question for our modern economy. If you aren’t focused on providing value, you aren’t focused on anything at all. If you arent focused on providing value, you arent focused on anything at all. Learn to ask this question at the beginning of any new project to keep your work focused and on point. You might be surprised at how much clarity it brings. Question #2:  Does This Meet Our Standard Of Performance? Does everything you ship meet your teams one true standard of performance?  This question allows your team to constantly review their own work and evaluate how it compares to the quality level your entire team has committed to. Even as a tiny startup, our goal has been to provide a best-in-class experience for everyone that comes in contact with our team. We expect ourselves to  perform as well, or better, than the top five companies in our class. No matter how limited our resources are. For our content marketing team, this means that they literally focus on writing the absolute best blog post on a given topic every time. This doesn’t mean the best blog post they are capable of; it means the best blog post on the entire internet. It means that they have to push themselves further every time. Create the best work anyone has ever seen in your niche.They do a ton of research, they read â€Å"competing† posts, and then assemble a post that goes at least one step further than others on the web. They even go back and rework posts that are later determined to have fallen short. This is, of course, only possible because the team has clearly defined their standard of performance. To use this question effectively, this is also something that you will need to do. Keep things simple, and ask the question often and you should be fine. As a team, you should define a clear â€Å"standard of performance† and constantly ask yourself if youre meeting it. Recommended Reading: The Horrifying Truth About Multitasking And Productivity Question #3:  What Can You Ship Right Now? While it may feel a bit contradictory to my recent statements about quality, we also frequently ask ourselves how we can get things out the door faster and sooner. This question is related to the concept of the minimum viable product made popular in the book Lean Startup by Eric Ries. Many people associate this concept with sloppy or unfinished work, but it doesn’t have to be that way. Rather, our team uses it as a way of splitting large projects into smaller and more manageable chunks. It’s all about shaping a project to ensure that we approach it  with clear goals in mind. Focus on something that you can ship in a week.An example of this comes in a recent redesign we started for this very blog. Rather than building it all at once, we opted to make some of the backend and functional changes first using our current design. That gave us an opportunity to test them out and work through the kinks before the big launch. This prevented us from taking on more than we could handle  and allowed us to focus on creating something that we could ship in a week- thus taking advantage of some of those changes right away, rather than waiting until we completed an entire redesign. Oftentimes, this question is also phrased in terms of â€Å"what can we ship this week,† meaning what small part of the project can be accomplished without waiting on everything else to be done?  This attitude allows us to continually focus on moving things forward, rather than getting ourselves bogged down in ultra-huge projects. The idea here is focusing on small frequent wins, rather than the  more traditional pattern of infrequent but huge wins. Large projects frequently bog us down, and usually lead to low satisfaction among team members. Always focus on moving forward.  What can you ship right now? #Startups #StayFocusedBy asking yourself What can I ship right now? you will keep yourself laser-focused on continuous improvements that constantly add up over time. This means that everything you do is constantly improving, and that is a very good thing. Question #4:  Are You Building A  Monopoly? Some of my favorite startup advice comes from PayPal co-founder and venture capitalist Peter Thiel. He simplifies it all by instructing startups to always seek to build a monopoly. In a monopoly, the business owns its market. It can set its own prices, avoid the struggle of competition, and maximize its place in the industry. What Peter is talking about here is building something that is unique enough to avoid competition, or has grown so aggressively that it simply leapfrogs the competition entirely. One way that we apply this idea at is to constantly evaluate the impact of the projects we take on. We look at it as 10% versus 10x improvement. The idea is simple:  There are always things that can improve what you do by 10%, but why bother with them if there is something else that could actually improve what you do by 10 times? It’s a lot like asking if the things youre doing right now will actually pay off enough to make them worth it. If you consider every hour of your day an opportunity, what is the opportunity cost of working on the 10% when you could be doing the 10x instead? It’s a really great question for staying focused. Rather than focusing on small goals and ideas at , we constantly shuffle our priority list by its potential impact on our company, and our ability to ultimately create a monopoly in our market. You can’t build a monopoly by grinding out 10% improvements all day. You need to stay focused on the 10x growth opportunities, and constantly ask yourself if what youre doing right now has the potential to result in 10x growth. If it doesn’t, it’s time to find something else to work on. You cant build a monopoly by grinding out 10 percent improvements all day.Question #5:  Do You Have Everything You Need To Be Successful? As a leader, its my job to make sure that everyone who works at has everything they need to be successful. This may sound simplistic, but its actually very powerful. One of the things that drive  me crazy is to see team members who have not been empowered to do their job. This is not their fault; it’s mine! It may be due to a lack of time or clarity but can often arise from a lack of permission to act as well. Either way, it’s  an inefficiency that needs to be dealt with. The problem with someone not having what they need  is that they can never achieve clear focus without it. If there are too many things on their plate, how will they ever do anything well? If there is too much on their plate, how will they ever do anything well? #team #teamworkIf they don’t have the knowledge required to complete a task, how will it ever get done? Sometimes, this can also be about â€Å"permission.† If someone doesn’t have the freedom or permission to do what they need to do, how will they ever be able to focus on it correctly? My job as a leader is to eliminate roadblocks, and this question helps me find out if there are any. It also helps my team reflect on their own needs and expectations. Recommended Reading: This Is What Happens When You Ask 12 Blog Editors About Increasing Productivity Another way we do this is to simply ask three distinct questions: Whats going well? Whats not going well? What is required for a happy future? If you want to stay focused, constantly ask yourself these questions to re-evaluate your own needs or the needs of those around you. If you know where you stand, you will always be focused. What Questions Are You Asking? These are the five questions I ask our team the most often, but it is far from a complete list. Questions are powerful tools for self-reflection and leadership What questions are you asking of your team to bring laser beam-like focus? Share them in the comments or via social media. We’d love to hear! P.S. This post is part of a new series about ’s workplace, culture, and productivity. Join our official email list and never miss a post!

Managing services 2 Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Managing services 2 - Essay Example al, 2011). Moreover, it can also be observed that an effective strategy of service design tends to involve major dimensions in accordance with the needs and expectations of the ultimate buyers, enabling the organisations to enhance profitability (Best Management Practice, n.d.). Therefore, it is highly essential for any organisations irrespective of business industry to critically emphasise determining the role along with the importance of service design. For instance, the service management functions in fast-food service industry have been facing dramatic changes due to rapid growth of competitiveness in the respective industry. Organisations in the fast-food service industry are often recognised to critically understand the changing trends of the customers along with the markets in terms of structuring effective business strategies (Lin & et. al, 2011). Thus, taking into concern the changing trends of the global fast-food service industry along with the fiercely growing service man agement processes, the report tends to establish a critical along with a strategic understanding of s the specific requirements for service design and improvement to fast-food service industry. ... erm product/service design generally refers to the concept of demonstrating the needs, expectations and the perceptions of the customers towards any commodity or service. With respect to the conventional marketing perspective, the notion of service design is generally described as the concept of accumulating needs in accordance with the needs and the expectations of the customers (Morelli, 2002). In this similar context, according to the study of Slack and et. al. (2010), the concept of service design can be typically defined as an effective process of planning and organising people with the aim of improving the quality of a particular service. The definition also incorporates an in-depth understanding concerning the value, nature and the use of a particular product or service. Therefore, it can be stated that the design of a product or a service is a process which not only focuses on adding supplementary values, but also incorporates an effective way of delivering or presenting prod ucts or services to the ultimate customers (Slack & et. al, 2010). In relation to the conceptual perspective of product or service design, it has been critically observed that the organisations generally choose number of ways to design their range of products or services. In this context, standardisation, mass customisation, delayed differentiation, modular and robust designs are few of the major procedures that are implemented by the organisations while designing their respective products or services (Slack & et. al., 2010). According to El-Haik and Roy (2005), it has been identified that an effective and quality based service lifecycle process tends to involve five major stages including idea generation, screening, preliminary design, evaluation development along with prototyping and