Marketing exam Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Marketing exam - Essay Example These nine functions are; financing, selling, transportation, processing, buying, storage, risk-taking, grading and standardizing, and finally providing market information. Examples of marketing include advertising, packaging and giving samples among other things. However, marketing management is the area of business that focuses on a business organization’s marketing activities and resources. It is also the branch of management that is given the task of application of techniques in marketing. In its role of management marketing management involves planning of marketing of resources. It is also involved in coordinating of marketing plans and procedures. Marketing management also involves organizing of marketing personnel and marketing resources. It also performs its role of management by controlling the flow of marketing resources. The main difference between marketing and marketing management is that marketing is the process of attracting and maintaining customers while marketing management is involved in the planning, coordinating, monitoring and organizing the processes, personnel and the resources used in abstaining the aims of marketing (Daw, 2006). Cause marketing is the type of marketing that is carried out jointly by a profit generating business organization and a business organization whose main aim is not to generate profit with the aim of social benefit. Unlike cooperate giving, cause marketing does not necessarily involve a tax deductible donation. An example of cause marketing is the campaign undertaken by the Reckitt Benckiser company in 2011. This is where the company underwent a campaign in which they run an advertisement communicating to consumers that for every â€Å"Dettol† product bought; around $0.12 would be given to the drive of building toilets in schools across Africa. â€Å"Dettol† is a range of disinfecting products produced by the Reckitt Benckiser Company. This campaigned was with collaboration with the world

English Contemporary Historical Fictions Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2750 words

English Contemporary Historical Fictions - Essay Example terary genre, Romance depicts a style of narrative verse or heroic prose that was very much used in Europe during the Middle Ages right up to the time of Renaissance. This literary genre includes passionate love stories which can be fiction or reality or it could be highly adventurous tales about heroic deeds and secret love by knights and passionate ladies. Good examples of Romances are – Shakespeare’s â€Å"Romeo and Juliet† and â€Å"The Tempest†. There are yet others who are of the opinion that it is a name that is given to the various languages and people associated with the Latin language. It is also described as –â€Å"A type of narrative fiction characterized by the fanciful, often idealistic, treatment of subject matter; love and adventure are often its principal themes. [. . .]à ® (Guerin et al. 326). The romantic period spans over the time during which Wordsworth and Coledridge (1798) lived to create wonderful Lyrical Ballads of love and adventure and goes right up to the time Charles Dickens career to 1832. (Holman 405) According to Guerin, Realism is the opposite of Romance, he says –â€Å"A manner of presentation in literature that stresses an accurate, perhaps even factual, treatment of subject matter. à  The emphasis is on the rational and probable, as opposed, for example, to the romantic† (Guerin et al. 326). Therefore we find that Romance is more fictional than realistic and depends largely on imaginary, fictitious and mysterious characters and settings. Romances as opposed to Realistic stories use passionate love and adventure as a base in writing novels and poetry. Sarah Dunant was born in 1950 and completed her education at Godolphin and Latymer School in Hammersmith, London. Her novel of â€Å"The Birth of Venus† (2003) is an inspiring tale of art, politics, danger and passion. She worked as an actress for some time and then became a novelist, critic and a broadcaster on BBC radio in 1974. She had won many awards for her writing which

True Educations Begins at Home Essay Example for Free

True Educations Begins at Home Essay People learn everything they know from some sort of influence. Religious groups are influenced by preachers to believe what they want. Students are influenced by teachers on what to learn. North Koreans are influenced by Kim Jong Il to do exactly as he wants. In To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee’s only book, Scout, a main female character has to be taught the hard way. She sees a man prosecuted and killed because of his skin color for something he clearly could not have done. She learns that prejudice is abused every day, even past times of slavery. Scout’s main motivation for not being prejudice is her father, Atticus, who defends the black man, Tom Robinson, in a clearly biased trial. Although influenced to think that she should hate black people, her true education comes from home. When one first learns to speak, who are their words learned from? They, typically, learn from their parents. If someone acts poorly, they are usually punished at home. Outer influences can affect someone’s decision to do something wrong, and, if brought up well, this person will not make these poor decisions. Scout is enticed to hate black people, but Atticus teaches her why humans are all equal. Jem, Scout’s older brother, learns as he matures that one should accept people for who they are. After Tom gets accused of being guilty, Jem even cries. In essence, Jem and Scout are both taught from home how to act throughout life. When Scout begins talking to Miss Maudie and Dill, she hears wild stories of the man who is locked inside his house for fifteen years, and once he is in his thirties, he attacks his father with a pair of scissors. This man is Arthur â€Å"Boo† Radley. Atticus catches his children and Dill trying to lure him out of the house and teaches them that not everything they hear is true (although, this rumor is true. The children quit provoking Boo for a while, but near the end of the book, they meet him on person after he saves their lives from a drunken man. They learn that Atticus was right in saying that not everything that one hears is true. I have learned nearly all I know from my mother and father. They have taught me basic skills, as well as proper etiquette. I have had many mentors in my life, and I believe that my parents are the best ones I have and will have. They have taught me all I need to know in my life from home.

Change management in a police organisation

Change management in a police organisation This essay will analyse a change management situation in a police organisation, namely Strathclyde Police and will compare two approaches to leadership which could be used in the situation and select a suitable approach, drawing a reasoned conclusion on why it is likely to be effective in the situation. The two approaches to leadership under examination will be The Traits Approach and the Contingency Approach. It will select two different inter-personal skills, namely influencing and negotiating, which a leader could use and draw conclusions on how each skill could contribute to the effectiveness of a leader. Finally this essay will use relevant concepts to analyse the role of a leader and suggest and justify actions which a leader could take to ensure all aspects of change are effectively implemented, in doing so this essay will look at such methods as change implementers, Force Field Analysis and PESTEL analysis. Firstly, we must answer the question, what is the difference between leaders and managers? The leader is followed. The manager rules The Difference between Management and Leaders (online) Available at http://www.see.ed.ac.uk/~gerard/MENG/ME96/Documents/Intro/leader.html (accessed April 2010) This is a very simplistic definition that portrays an image of a leader making a stand and being followed, through choice by his subordinates or fellow workers whereas with management, subordinates have no choice but to follow him. Kotter (1990) argued that managers and leaders each have three main tasks but they undertake and complete them in entirely different ways. These tasks are: deciding what needs to be done, creating networks of people and relationships that can accomplish the agenda and trying to ensure that people actually do the job. However, Kotter goes on to say that managers and leaders deal with these tasks differently. Zaleznik (1977) thereafter identified 4 areas which followed on from Kotters ideas whereby managers and leaders differed. They are as follows; attitudes towards goals, conceptions of work, relations with others and senses of self, leaders when compared to managers appear to adopt a more personal role. Prentice (1961) stated Leaders achieve goals through their understanding of their fellow workers and their relationships of their individual goals to the groups aim. It should also be noted that managers can be leaders and vice versa. APPROACHES TO LEADERSHIP There are a number of approaches to leadership and this essay will focus on the Contingency Approach and the Traits Approach. The Contingency approach was a continuation of Tannenbaum and Schmidts Continuum of Leadership. It believed that there was not one single style of leadership which was appropriate for every situation a leader could face. Instead the contingency Approach argued that good leadership was dependant upon the situation at hand. The Contingency Theory is to analyse the situation you currently face and select the most appropriate style to deal with the circumstances. This will require the leader to adjust their managerial style with every situation they face. In a policing sense, no two situations faced by a leader will ever be identical and as such no two solutions will be the same. Therefore, a leader within the police service must be able to be fluid in his approach and be able to take cognisance of the situation at hand and be willing to change to deal with it. Situations and circumstances faced by police officers are also ever changing; a solution which was possible one minute earlier may no longer be suitable. Fiedlers (1967) argued that the behaviour of leaders rested on three main factors, known as Fiedlers Contingency model. The factors were; Leader Member relations, this involves the amount of trust between the leader and subordinate and how far team members were willing to follow their leader. Task Structure this covers the extent to which the task is clearly defined and whether there are standard procedures for carrying out the task and the power of the leader for example the power of the leader within the organisation and how they could influence team members. Another mode of the Contingency Theory is Situational Leadership by Hersey and Blanchard (1988) in this form, leadership style takes cognisance of the extent team members are ready to perform a task. There are 4 levels of readiness named R1, R2, R3 and R4. In a policing environment, the follower in R1 could be described as a probationer whereby the follower is unable or unwilling or unable and insecure to follow the task, R2 could be a less competent police officer who is wiling to carryout the task and confident in doing so but is unable to carry it out to the required standard, R3 could be the police officer who is able but unwilling or able but insecure, who perhaps lacks confidence in his own ability, whereas R4 is able, willing and confident in carrying out the task and could be described in a policing term as a senior man figure. Willingness refers to the followers commitment and motivation whereas as insecurity refers to team members who lack confidence in their ability. Hersey and Blanchard state there are two dimensions of leader behaviour, one of which denotes the amount of direction given by the leader to the followers, the other is how much support they offer their followers. There are four leadership styles derived from this which are S1, S2, S3 and S4. S1 is telling or directing little support is offered by the leader but he does offer a great deal of advice and direction. S2 is selling or coaching whereby the leader displays a lot of directing and supporting behaviour as well as support by telling followers what to do and offering them support and encouragement. S3 participating or supporting, the leader gives little direction but offers a lot of encouragement and support by way of communication with team members. S4 delegating, the leader does little in the way of supporting or directing. Different people will react differently to different forms of leadership, and a leader should tailor his style to the individual person he is directing. The Traits Approach argues that there are specific qualities associated with Leadership, whereby leaders can be differentiated from others by the possession of specific characteristics or traits. It is based on the assumption that leaders are born and not made and therefore you can not learn to be a leader but are born with these traits. Many people have attempted to conjure up a definitive list of personal qualities or traits that these great leaders possess. Typical traits include self-confidence, initiative, enthusiasm, integrity, decisiveness, judgement and imagination. The problem with the Traits approach is that it proved impossible to come up with a definite set of traits that could be applied to leadership. It also became apparent in research that successful leaders often had different personalities and traits. As a result of these short comings the Traits Approach fell into disfavour, however, the idea of successful leaders possessing certain qualities is still in survival. INTER-PERSONAL SKILLS AND LEADERSHIP Successful and effective leaders and managers require a range of interpersonal skills. Two particular aspects of inter-personal skills are Influencing trying to get someone to do or think something that they might not have ordinarily done and negotiating making a bargain with others to arrive at a mutually acceptable outcome. This essay will look at these two skills in more detail and draw conclusions on how these skills could contribute to the effectiveness of a leader. It should be noted that these two skills overlap each other however this essay will deal with them as separate entities. Influencing can be said to be the critical skill hat a leader must possess. Influencing is the process in which one person gets another person to do something. There are methods which a leader can use to exert influence, these are known as influence strategies, and there are 6 different ways of classifying influencing strategies Reason, assertion, exchange, courting favour, partnership and coercion. Within a policing environment Reason is probably used most often, whereby using reasoned and logical arguments to convince someone to act or think in accordance with the influencer. Another less positive action used within the police service would be coercion which is using or threatening to use some kind of sanction, either a positive or negative sanction. An example of this would be when Strathclyde police wished to implement a new shift system known as VSA, there was a lot of unhappiness and a refusal to change. As such Strathclyde officers were informed if they did not agree to VSA they would be put back on a very old shift pattern of 7 earlies, 7 lates and 7 nights which was worse than the proposed VSA, as such the Strathclyde officers reluctantly accepted the VSA shifts. Of the 6 influencing strategies all of them except coercion would be classed as pull strategies which mean that they aim to persuade or pull the other party into accepting what the influencer wants. Coercion is a push strategy which means pushing the other party into accepting. The second inter-personal skill we will look at is negotiating. Negotiating is a process of bargaining, the end result is where all the parties involved come to an agreement. Negotiating is a way of resolving differences between people of which there are two factors which can have a considerable effect on negotiations these are, the stages in the negotiating process and negotiating behaviours. The ideal outcome in any negotiation is Win Win this is where both parties win from the negotiations. However there is also Win Lose whereby one party loses and lose lose where both parties are worse off than before they started. There may be situations when the result is a Lose Lose situation where to reach an agreement both parties must compromise and give something up Fisher and Ury (1981) came up with a method called BATNA which stands for Best Alternative to a Negotiated Agreement. BATNA is where a leader chooses not to negotiate if the outcome was to lead to a less favourable outcome than they had hoped for or accept an outcome they feel is unsatisfactory. There are four main processes of negotiation and they aim for a Win Win outcome, these are; preparation, opening phase, getting movement to reach agreement and closing the negotiation. Good negotiators must also adopt behaviours which aid and help negotiations and lose traits which may hinder them. Good negotiators are clear on what they want to achieve and of the final outcome, they are flexible and not tied to one particular outcome and will consider other outcomes and ideas and they work towards a Win Win situation. In a policing sense, negotiations take place between the Police Federation in an internal and external fashion, an external negotiation could be with the Government or an internal negotiations could take place between the Police Federation and Senior Officers. Managers or leaders on a shift may have to negotiate with leaders of other shifts in the same office in order to look after their own staff, an example of this is a local agreement between supervisors that officers attending at work to go to court on their day off get to go home if the shift on duty has adequate numbers and it is not overly busy on their return from court. This is a Win Win situation for all involved. Another example of successful negotiations is CID officers allowing uniformed officers to borrow their unmarked police vehicles when they have spares and all marked cars are being used on the proviso that uniformed officers wash the unmarked CID cars on a Sunday early shift! THE ROLE OF LEADERS IN ORGANISATIONAL CHANGE All organisations have to respond to changes in society, changes in government and changes within society, the police service is no different. Richard Daft (1993) defines organisational change as The adoption of a new idea or behaviour by an organisation it can also be describes as Closing the gap, moving an organisation from its original state to a desired future state because there is a gap between where the organisation is at the moment and where it wants to be and change is needed to fill this gap. Kanter et al (1992) said that different people play different roles in organisational change. There are three different type of people; change strategists or initiators, those who initiate change and set direction for it, these people are normally leaders, there are change implementers those who co-ordinate and carry out the change and are normally managers and change recipients those affected by the change. Organisational change can take place on both a large scale and small scale. Senior (2002) identifies four main types of change; Fine tuning where minor changes are made to ongoing processes, incremental change this involves small scale modifications such as introducing new technology, an example of an incremental change in the police could be the addition of AIRWAVE, modular transformation is a major change centred on one or more departments or divisions such as the recent transformation in Strathclyde police where Divisions and Sub divisions were reshuffled which done away with E and C division and created new sub-divisions throughout the force to bring the beats and sub divisions in line with local council wards, and finally Corporate Transformation which involves a change in the whole organisation, perhaps the appointment of a new Chief Constable to a force or in Strathclyde police the creation of the Major Crime and Terrorism Investigation Unit as a direct response to the Glasg ow airport terror incident. There are different levels of change within an organisation, it can occur at individual, group or the whole organisation. The higher the level of change the harder and longer it will take to implement. Force Field Analysis and was devised in the 1950s by Kurt Lewin and is a technique used far analysing internal and external pressures that can influence any organisational change. It takes cognisance of both forces which may promote change and those which may oppose change. It is more often used in large scale transformative change. The idea of Force Field Analysis is that there will be forces for and against change. Where these forces are equal there will be no change in the organisation. This is called equilibrium. However, change will take place when the driving forces exceed the resisting forces. The advantages of Force field analysis are; it helps to identify all the forces that impact change, it highlights the fact that some forces may be stronger than others, it helps access whether or not an organisation is ready for change, it can be a quick and simple way of assessing whether a suggested change would be a success and it can be used as a guide to action. The disadvantages are it is subjective and it relies on who carries out the force filed analysis, it can be imprecise as the strength of a force can not be accurately judged and it is a snap shot at a point of time and by the time it is implemented it can be out of date. External forces which could lead to an organisational change can be identified using a PESTEL analysis which takes into account the following factors, Political, Economic, Socio-Cultural, technological, Environmental and Legal, however, no such analysis tool exists for internal forces. There can be a lot of resistance to change, the 4 main reasons are; parochial self interest, misunderstanding or lack of trust, different assessments and low tolerance to change. In a policing organisation the biggest resistance could be parochial self interest which means that people resist change as they believe that their position could be at threat and that they will lose out, another example would be misunderstanding or lack of trust, subordinates in the police can be very wary of senior management and may distrust or misunderstand the reasons for change. This can be as a result of a lack of communication between the parties involved. However such resistance can be overcome by education and communication and participation and involvement to name but a few. CONCLUSION To conclude, I feel that the traits approach to leadership is not very valid and suggests that a leader is born and does not learn how to become a leader, the qualities associated with the traits approach are very much needed by a manger in order to lead so there is some benefit to this approach. The contingency approach shows us that not one single style of leadership will suit every situation and that you must be able and willing to change. Situational leadership goes on to show that a leader must also be aware of the skills his officers possess and tailor the advice he offers them to their level, some officers may require more help and guidance than others and a leader must be aware of this. Both influencing and negotiating are vital interpersonal skills for any leader to have but both can be used for negative reasons such as influencing and negotiating another to accept a deal which is unfair to them and a leader must try and not fall into this trap. In order for any organisation to succeed in the future it must move to close any gaps a good tool for any leader to utilise when closing the gap is force field analysis there can be resistance to change but there are many ways in which a leader can move to remove this resistance with the use of education, involvement negotiation and agreement.

Philosophy of Education Essay example -- Philosophy on Teaching Statem

Philosophy of Education As I begin my education for becoming a teacher, I am beginning to make decisions on things such as how I would like my teaching style to be, ways to deal with discipline problems, and how I would like my classroom to be set up. However, I cannot put my ideas into one philosophy. I feel that using many styles of teaching is better than just using one. Some students may learn better with one style of teaching while others may learn better with another. The teaching philosophies I can best relate to are realism, pragmatism, and idealism. The main reason I would like to become a teacher is the love for little kids. I really enjoy being around children. After teaching Sunday School to children up to 8 years of age for over five years, I feel that I can relate to them and connect with them very well. I also feel that students look up to teachers, so they are a very big influence on the children's’ lives. I would love to know that I could make such a big influence on a child’s life. In my opinion teachers have an impact on the life of every student they ever have in class. The appearance of the classroom has a big effect on how smoothly the class will go. The seating arrangement in my classroom will be in a U shape. It will be better with classroom discussion to have the students facing each other. This type of seating arrangement should relax the children and make them feel more comfortable. On the bulletin boards there will be pictures of the students while involved in class activities and students work as a reward for doing well on an assignment. Also on the walls there will be posters to inspire the students. My class ... ...er the teacher will have more time for each student, therefore, the students will get more out of the class than if the class was bigger. I think that smaller schools and smaller class sizes are much better than consolidating the schools into one large school. Teachers should try to make the class as interesting as possible. If the students are interested in learning they will try harder and learn better. Teachers should be a positive influence on their student’s lives. They should not only teach them the basic subjects, but also try to make them become better people by being involved with them. Some parents don’t care how their children act and don’t try to help them overcome problems such as shyness; therefore it is left up to the teacher to help these students. This is where the teacher should become a friend and role model for the students.

Usefullness of Mathematics in Everyday Life Essay -- Math Mathematics

Usefullness of Mathematics in Everyday Life G H Hardy once said that "Very little of mathematics is useful practically, and that little is comparatively dull". This statement is blatantly incorrect. Mathematics appears in virtually all fields in some form or another, and it is the only truly universal language. Even fields considered the opposite of mathematics, such as literature, are filled with different forms of math. Music is based very heavily on numbers, and even religions hold different numbers as sacred. Of course one could say that all these examples are merely basic arithmetic. What about higher mathematics? Can we really use algebra, probability, calculus or any other higher form of math in today's society? The answer to that question is a resounding "Yes!" Even higher mathematics has been and is still used in all sorts of fields, and it is the purpose of this paper to show just a few ways in which higher math has been applied to life. First of all, no discussion about the uses of higher mathematics in the real world would be complete without mentioning something that happened over sixty years ago. On September 3, 1939, Britain and France declared war on Germany in response to their invasion of Poland. To combat their new enemies, Germany quickly sent a land army to overrun France, and then prepared to take on England. Hitler's plan to defeat this small island was to stop all resources from getting through to them, effectively starving them into surrender. The Nazi army had a very effective weapon with which they could challenge the British supremacy of the waves, the U-boat. The German submarines wreaked havoc on the British supply routes, and Churchill knew that if a way couldn't be found to stop the German s... ...they owe the government and how to pay the least. Nearly all people on earth are affected by math everyday. Without mathematics, it is very possible that the Allies would have lost WW2 and we'd all be speaking German right now. Countless buisnesses would be alterred or totally gone if mathematics was not around. A world without math would certainly be a very different world to live in. Works Cited: [1] Davis, Donald M. The nature and power of mathematics. Princeton, N.J. : Princeton University Press, c.1993. [2] Prabhu, N. U. Stochastic storage processes : queues, insurance risk, dams, and data communication. New York : Springer, c.1998. [3] Stewart, James. Calculus: Early Trancendentals. Thomson Learning. Stanford, CT. 2001. [4] PBS Online c.1996-2001 WGBH Educational Foundation. Update Nov. 2000. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/ <October 11, 2001>

Metafiction and Happy Endings (Margaret Atwood) Essay

A. Definition: The narrator of a metafictional work will call attention to the writing process itself. The reader is never to forget that what she is reading is constructed–not natural, not â€Å"real.† She is never to get â€Å"lost† in the story. B. Possible Contents: intruding to comment on writing involving his or herself with fictional characters directly addressing the reader openly questioning how narrative assumptions and conventions transform and filter reality, trying to ultimately prove that no singular truths or meanings exist C. General Characteristics Metafiction often employs intertextual references and allusions by: examining fictional systems; incorporating aspects of both theory and criticism; creating biographies of imaginary writers; presenting and discussing fictional works of an imaginary character. Authors of metafiction often violate narrative levels by: intruding to comment on writing; involving his or herself with fictional characters; directly addressing the reader; openly questioning how narrative assumptions and conventions transform and filter reality, trying to ultimately prove that no singular truths or meanings exist Metafiction also uses unconventional and experimental techniques by: rejecting conventional plot; refusing to attempt to become â€Å"real life†; subverting conventions to transform reality into a highly suspect concept; flaunting and exaggerating foundations of their instability; displaying reflexivity (the dimension present in all literary texts and also central to all literary analysis, a function which enables the reader to understand the processes by which he or she reads the world as a text). It also poses questions about the relationship between fiction and reality by drawing attention to its characteristic as an artifact by itself. No sense of reality in its entire spectrum as a genre even though the extremes of each end are minute acceptance and merely exploration of fictionality to the other end being utter denial of reality itself. D. Examples: Adams, Douglas. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. 1979. Mitchell, David. Cloud Atlas. 2004. HAPPY ENDINGS A. Characters: The author uses common names for the characters which allows him the versatility of putting them into different situations. Doing so supports the way the author puts much importance on what happens during the story instead of how it ends. John one of the most common boy names, has ranged from musicians (John Lennon), to leaders (John F Kennedy), to philosophers (John Locke) etc. This can emphasize the author’s use of putting the character into different contexts, changing the plot and how he plays different roles, yet emphasizes that it all ends the same (death). -Idea that the ending of a story is always the same, but only the middle matters In the story he is a loving husband, adulterous partner, womanizer Mary meaning of the name Mary is: Wished-for child; rebellion; bitter. Famous Bearers: the Virgin Mary; Mary Magdalene; Mary, Queen of Scots. Also shows how the author putes his characters in different situations. James -minor character Fred – minor character Madge – minor character B. Setting: The author employs the use of place as setting in the story. Various examples of setting seen in the story are an apartment, as seen in story B, and a â€Å"charming house,† as seen in story A, C and As seen in the line, â€Å"Remember, this is Canada. You’ll still end up with A, though in between you may get a lustful brawling saga of passionate involvement, a chronicle of our times, sort of,† the setting of the story and each of its segments is a medium for what each character does before he reaches the end. The setting of the story could have an influence on what one could do before he dies, the end which everyone eventually reaches. This is seen in the story wherein each segment (letters) had different bodies of story, yet everything â€Å"continues as in A† in which the characters live on with their lives then die. D. Concepts: Ex: How do elements in the story help to create meaning? Like: setting, tone, imagery, symbol, irony, etc Metafiction in Happy Endings The author tackles the â€Å"What?† question in the writing process through his story Happy Endings. He goes through many scenarios but shows us that the conclusion to each scenario is the same. The question â€Å"What?† only leads to the ending of the story which we already know will be the same. The important things to ask rather are â€Å"How?† and â€Å"Why?†. These questions make up the middle of the story, the events that happen, the part that counts. Textual Irony Title is Happy Endings but the real endings are al the same and result in death Conflict Is always changing depending on the situation given. Always has something to with the subject of love. SYMBOLS E. Title â€Å"Happy Endings† Most people usually focus on the ending of a story Everyone wants a happy ending, but in reality we all meet an equal end which is that we eventually die There is no such thing as a happy ending. All are the same in which we all eventually pass away. What matters is what is done as we reach the end. F. Theme What matters the most in the story is not the ending, but what what we do on the way there, because we can change our situations by choosing to act in the present, but not matter what you do you can’t change your inevitable end. RANDOM NOTES Margaret Atwood’s Happy Endings is an illustration of the idea that the ending of a story is always the same, but only the middle matters. And Love plays an important factor in all scenarios. SYNOPSIS: It includes six stories in one, each ending with death. The author believes that this is the only sure ending to anything. The stories are all inter-related, containing the same characters and similar actions. Behind the obvious meaning of these seemingly pointless stories lies a deeper and more profound meaning†¦. What is the common denominator between all these scenarios? In case you missed it, Atwood sums it up in her concluding remarks. ‘John and Mary die. John and Mary die. John and Mary die.’ ‘ Happy Endings’ forces us to question the point of life. Every story, carried to its ultimate logical conclusion, has the same ending, because all lives have the same ending. We may die in the heat of battle; we may die in our sleep. We may die in infancy, in a gang war, in a nursing home. But we’re going to die. The story isn’t in the ending — it’s in what we do on the way there. RESOURCES USED http://ronosaurusrex.com/metablog/list-of-metafictional-works/ http://www.geneseo.edu/~johannes/Metafiction.html http://postcolonialstudies.emory.edu/metafiction/#ixzz2e1Z087Wr http://www.storybites.com/book-reviews/happy-endings-by-margaret-atwood.php characters http://www.bookrags.com/studyguide-happyendings/char.html themes http://www.bookrags.com/studyguide-happyendings/themes.html (online copy: http://web.ics.purdue.edu/~rebeccal/lit/238f11/pdfs/HappyEndings_Atwood.pdf ) View as multi-pages