15th Century West Africa Trade Routes

Margaret Atwood s The Handmaid s Tale Essay - 1724 Words

Envision a society where a woman’s sole purpose for being alive is her functioning uterus. If that woman fails to bear a child she can be killed. If that woman disregards the law she can be tortured, or even terminated. In the dystopian future of Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale women’s bodies are used as political instruments. Because if the harmful pollution in the United States, a new Constitution has been made to address and correct the decline in birth rates. To do this the government has created Handmaids. Handmaids â€Å"are placed in the households of [army] Commanders whose Wives can no longer bear† babies anymore (Cameron 299). The future of the Republic of Gilead depends on the Handmaids ability to have a baby. The Handmaids are kept under strict surveillance and must follow a strict set of rules due to the fact that it is very hard to find women who can conceive. Without the Handmaids, the Republic of Gilead would come to an end, and yet the women (especially the Handmaids) have absolutely no power. Handmaids are not allowed to spend money, read, or write. The government has organized the women of Gilead by color. They have also had the Handmaids names changed to their Commander’s first name. This method robs them of their individuality. Due to this, the women are constantly looking for ways to have power. The government most importantly has control over women’s bodies by an event called the Ceremony. The Ceremony is a huge part of the RepublicShow MoreRelatedThe Handmaid s Tale By Margaret Atwood1357 Words   |  6 PagesOxford definition: â€Å"the advocacy of women s rights on the ground of the equality of the sexes† (Oxford dictionary). In the novel The Handmaid’s Tale, Margaret Atwood explores feminism through the themes of women’s bodies as political tools, the dynamics of rape culture and the society of complacency. Margaret Atwood was born in 1939, at the beginning of WWII, growing up in a time of fear. In the autumn of 1984, when she began writing The Handmaid’s Tale, she was living in West Berlin. The BerlinRead MoreThe Handmaid s Tale By Margaret Atwood1249 Words   |  5 PagesDystopian Research Essay: The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood In the words of Erika Gottlieb With control of the past comes domination of the future. A dystopia reflects and discusses major tendencies in contemporary society. The Handmaid s Tale is a dystopian novel written by Margaret Atwood in 1985. The novel follows its protagonist Offred as she lives in a society focused on physical and spiritual oppression of the female identity. Within The Handmaid s Tale it is evident that through the explorationRead MoreThe Handmaid s Tale By Margaret Atwood1060 Words   |  5 Pagesideologies that select groups of people are to be subjugated. The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood plays on this idea dramatically: the novel describes the oppression of women in a totalitarian theocracy. Stripped of rights, fertile women become sex objects for the politically elite. These women, called the Handmaids, are forced to cover themselves and exist for the sole purpose of providing children. The Handmaid’s Tale highlights the issue of sexism while also providing a cruel insight into theRead MoreThe Handmaid s Tale By Margaret Atwood1659 Words   |  7 Pagesbook The Handmaid s Tale by Margaret Atwood, the foremost theme is identity, due to the fact that the city where the entire novel takes place in, the city known as the Republic of Gilead, often shortened to Gilead, strips fertile women of their identities. Gilead is a society that demands the women who are able to have offspring be stripped of all the identity and rights. By demeaning these women, they no longer view themselves as an individual, but rather as a group- the group of Handmaids. It isRead MoreThe Handmaid s Tale By Margaret Atwood1237 Words   |  5 Pages The display of a dystopian society is distinctively shown in The Handmaid’s Tale, by Margaret Atwood. Featuring the Republic of Gilead, women are categorized by their differing statuses and readers get an insight into this twisted society through the lenses of the narrator; Offred. Categorized as a handmaid, Offred’s sole purpose in living is to simply and continuously play the role of a child-bearing vessel. That being the case, there is a persistent notion that is relatively brought up by thoseRead MoreThe Handmaid s Tale By Margaret Atwood1548 Words   |  7 PagesIn Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, The theme of gender, sexuality, and desire reigns throughout the novel as it follows the life of Offred and other characters. Attwood begins the novel with Offred, a first person narrator who feels as if she is misplaced when she is describing her sleeping scenery at the decaying school gymnasium. The narrator, Offred, explains how for her job she is assigned to a married Commander’s house where she is obligated to have sex with him on a daily basis, so thatRead MoreThe Handmaid s Tale, By Margaret Atwood1629 Words   |  7 Pages Atwood s novel, The Handmaid s Tale depicts a not too futuristic society of Gilead, a society that overthrows the U.S. Government and institutes a totalitarian regime that seems to persecute women specifically. Told from the main character s point of view, Offred, explains the Gilead regime and its patriarchal views on some women, known as the handmaids, to a purely procreational function. The story is set the present tense in Gilead but frequently shifts to flashbacks in her time at the RedRead MoreThe Handmaid s Tale By Margaret Atwood1540 Words   |  7 Pages Name: Nicole. Zeng Assignment: Summative written essay Date:11 May, 2015. Teacher: Dr. Strong. Handmaid’s Tale The literary masterpiece The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood, is a story not unlike a cold fire; hope peeking through the miserable and meaningless world in which the protagonist gets trapped. The society depicts the discrimination towards femininity, blaming women for their low birth rate and taking away the right from the females to be educated ,forbidding them from readingRead MoreThe Handmaid s Tale By Margaret Atwood1256 Words   |  6 Pageshappened to Jews in Germany, slaves during Christopher Columbus’s days, slaves in the early 1900s in America, etc. When people systematically oppress one another, it leads to internal oppression of the oppressed. This is evident in Margaret Atwood’s book, The Handmaid’s Tale. This dystopian fiction book is about a young girl, Offred, who lives in Gilead, a dystopian society. Radical feminists complained about their old lifestyles, so in Gilead laws and rules are much different. For example, men cannotRead More The Handmaid s Tale By Margaret Atwood1667 Words   |  7 Pagesrhetorical devices and figurative language, that he or she is using. The Handmaid’s Tale, which is written by Margaret Atwood, is the novel that the author uses several different devices and techniques to convey her attitude and her points of view by running the story with a narrator Offred, whose social status in the Republic of Gilead is Handmaid and who is belongings of the Commander. Atwood creates her novel The Handmaid’s Tale to be more powerful tones by using imagery to make a visibleness, hyperbole

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The constant expansion in the services industry, particularly in hotel and restaurant management, had brought managers and business owners whose specialty is providing service-oriented fields to acquire practical and depth understanding about the industry. Dominantly in the business industry, providing reliable and customer-friendly services, is of high concern to provide both customers and organizations expectations mutually. And still growing, further sophisticated technical supervision must be practiced to excel and gain in the competition. We will write a custom essay sample on Metrics or any similar topic only for you Order Now Innovation is the key focus to excel in the industry. Utilizing service management for proper handling and delivery of services is the aspect which the services industry must set a priority in their areas of concern for promotion and company’s growth – including industries in health care, caterers, manufacturers and suppliers, tourism and financial services. Organizations must set the difference between the idea of customer satisfaction and service of quality rendered to clients. Although sometimes considered ambiguous, a specific label is required that will detach these important entities with regards in providing services of which supposed as one. Both are correlated in terms of industrial needs but different. Customers may vary on every organization to which they provide their products, be of services or goods, by some mechanism acceptable in the industry’s marketplace. Of course, getting through the competition in the market is another endeavor which organization needs focus. Customer satisfaction is a business term which is used to capture the idea of measuring how satisfied an enterprise’s customers are with the organization’s efforts in a marketplace (Wikipedia, 2006). Once customer’s expectations are exceeded, the organization will attain high levels of customer satisfaction and will create â€Å"customer delight.†Ã‚   This implies that organization must possess the ability to fulfill the consumers’ needs through business, emotional and psychological aspects. The interaction between the service provider and the recipient, which are the customers, must not be in idle to properly measure the level of satisfaction. Proper attitude in dealing with varied customers should be considered; knowing their attitudes, feedbacks or commendations can contribute in determining the organization’s marketing strategies. Basically, organizations aim is to retain customers in patronizing their services offered and the target of increasing the number of loyal customers and eventually increasing the organization’s revenues. Although customer satisfaction may vary from customer-to-customer, it is important to consider that physical and psychological characteristics which play a very important factor in measuring the degree where customers satisfy with the organization’s services. Comparatively speaking, the customer’s expectation can be evaluated with the customer’s experience prior relevant to the services the organization delivers. Organization must take into account that satisfaction is not quantitatively measured since it is more of a psychological aspect; it is more of the qualitative. And, service of quality will be now measured. Commonly, customers define ‘quality’ as they are met by their perception and experience. This is the degree or level of customer’s satisfaction with the services or products an organization offers dependently to the environment and the kind of service given. It is difficult to conform to the expectations of the customers needs with the level they require with regards to efficiency, quality, flexibility, and dependability to the services delivered. To achieve this, Total Quality Management (TQM) is applied. TQM is management philosophy committed to a focus on continuous improvements of product and services with the involvement of the entire workforce. This principle is a long-term process to sustain business excellence and the comprehensively and continuously involvement of all organization functions. Through this method, organization can now have the adequate knowledge where the mistake has been made and will consider as factors. These factors are then submitted into variety of measurements, commonly the Critical Incident Technique (CIT) and Attribution Based Method (ABM). Critical Incident Technique (CIT) is used for collecting direct observation from customers’ experience in relation to the services or products the organization provides. This is a flexible method which relies on determining and reviewing the collected information from the participants. Data are then submitted for fact finding to determine the issues encountered. Evaluation is followed to find solutions and resolve the raised issues to cause no further problem. The foundation of this technique was laid by the studies of Sir Francis Galton (circa 1930). This method can also avoid the stereotype opinions about the organization. This technique is more of academic since it use the qualitative research method.   Identifying atypical events that may be missed by other methods can be eliminated using this technique. Also, this is expensive and provides rich information needed for fact-finding related to the issues. Disadvantage to this is that the information collected relies mostly on memory; events may be inaccurate or may even go unreported. Attribution Base Methods (ATM) focuses on risk and performance with a direct focus on standards of service. Using this methods, organization conceptualize the service or product must remain of standard or of higher level. Aiming to retain loyal customers and bringing a number in, suggest that regular raise of standards is made to meet different expectation level amongst customers. Organization intends to have the quality of excelling; possessing good merits in high degree. Some organization uses the customer satisfaction survey procedure. This is an efficient and easiest way to measure service quality which may be viewed as facile. Obtaining customers’ feedback helps ensure business is meeting the needs of customers and giving insights on which aspects needs improvement where changes should be made to increase customers’ overall satisfaction with regards to quality service. Lack of gathered details during the survey may cause some problems in measuring the relation of problems to the factors involved. SERVQUAL (Service Quality), derived from LODGSERV, is a method developed by Valarie A. Zeithaml, A. Parasuraman, and Leonard L. Berry. This technique is used in achieving gap analysis in an organization to gauge its service quality construct performance against customer service quality needs. Basically, this method is used to improve service quality when faults are detected to the service or product customer receives. Using this method demands to show the discrepancy between customer’s expectation and customer’s perception, both must be answered to measure the customer’s attitude towards a service offered. This methodology comprises 5 key dimensions; tangibles, reliability, responsiveness, assurance and empathy. In the hospitality industry, it is necessary to do a qualitative study. In healthcare, SERVQUAL is used in determining issues between management, staff and the services offered to solve practical problems. This may be considered as an academic method as it uses professional surveys. Additionally, this provides assessment with the desired and actual performance; maximize service quality whilst costs are controlled. Comment box or card and survey questions can be used, usually present in most establishments especially in hotel rooms, restaurants and other servicing field. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) program can also be used to measure quality assurance. Particularly, ISO 9000 family offers organizations with quality assurance seeking advantage through the implementation of a quality management system. The common notion of customer to an organization (like hotels, clinics, medical institution and the related) which acquired an ISO certification equally delivers their desired service quality – expectation and the confidence of customer are at high degree. With that, the service industry is determined to subscribe ISO service to obtain the certification. Similar to ISO, EFQM (European Foundation for Quality Management) was developed aiming service quality excellence driving organizations to be more competitive. There are many approaches in achieving sustainable excellence in all aspects of performance. Both deliver practical analysis to organizations seeking assessment with regards to their level of excellence to carry customer’s wants and expectations. Bearing the positive impact to potential customers, the organization must maintain their excellence or even increase service quality. Still at high priority, Total Quality Management (TQM), assist organizations to sustain customer’s quality satisfaction. The management and employees must be involved in the continuous development of products and services offered. Combining quality and management methods, TQM remains a necessary tool for organizations in achieving aims of increasing business and minimizing loss. Continuous improvement must deal not only with improving results, but more importantly with improving capabilities to produce better results in the future. Examining the various methodologies discussed may seem analogous. Their main purpose is to help organization attain the aim of delivering excellent services and products with proper management. In the hostility industry, it is advisable to know the expectations and needs of customer to retain loyal customers and attract prospect clients due to the industry’s high competition. Relevant information gathered is essential for quality analysis to achieve excellence in the services offered. Every department in the organization plays an important role for the continuous development and seizing in the boost of hostility market. Although some may say it is academic or facile, the important thing here is to deliver the needs and customer satisfaction. The mentioned methods or techniques can be applied differently on various industry; dependent on the level of issues and technical problems. Furthermore, to close gaps amongst customer-provider relation, service industry should focus to be more customer-oriented. Hence, service industry requires continues progress. This venture may be difficult, comprehensive, and a long-term process in maintaining the commitment of excellent service management. List of References Parasuraman, Zeithaml, and Berry (1994). Alternative scales for measuring service quality: A comparative assessment based on psychometric and diagnostic criteria. Journal of Marketing, 70 (3) Fall, 201-230. Wikipedia. (2006). Customer Satisfaction. Retrieved July 20, 2006, from the  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Wikipedia Website: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Customer_satisfaction. Berry, L. L. (1990). Delivering Quality Service: Balancing Customer Perception and Expectations. The Free Press. Parasuraman, A.; Berry, L. L.; Zeithaml, V. A. (1988), SERVQUAL: A Multiple-Item Scale for Measuring Consumer Perceptions of Service Quality. Journal of Retailing, , 64, 12-40. Stephen, H. (1991). Why Quality Circles failed but Total Quality management might succeed.   British Journal of Industrial Relations, 29(4), 541-568. Anderson, Kristin Kerr, Carol (2002). Customer Relationship Management. Berry, Leonard L; Parasuraman, A; Zeithaml, Valarie; Adsit, Dennis (1994). Improving service quality in America: Lessons learned; Executive commentary. The Academy of Management Executive. May.   Favell, Andy (2002). Opinion Sites Offer Guidance To E-Commerce Consumers. The Wall Street Journal. How to cite Metrics, Essay examples