Evaluating the Key Dimensions of National Culture in the UK

Evaluating the Key Dimensions of National Culture in the UK The following essay is aimed at evaluating the key dimensions of national culture in the UK using the Hofstedes model of national culture. The work is divided into seven sections. The last section presents come conclusion points. Introduction There is not a single unified definition of Culture. Some authors utilize only observable characteristics to construct its definition. Some others claim that culture is not tangible but subjective or implicit. Hofstede, on the other hand, describes culture as mental programming. Generally speaking, the manner in which the things are done. Culture enables an unconscious infrastructure of basic assumptions and beliefs that operate unconsciously (McSweeney, B., 2002). Culture definition, then, raises the question: Do nations have culture? There is a significant literature which supports the argument that each nation has a distinctive, influential, and describable culture. National culture is composed of cultural values, cultural forms, propositions, routines, customs, symbols, rituals, and artefacts (Singh, N., 2004). In this fashion, each nation will develop a particular relation to authority, conception of self (including ego identity) and primary dilemmas of conflict and dealing with them (De Mooij, M., Hofstede, G., 2010). Therefore, evaluating a national culture or defining a reference model for national cultures is a complex task. Researchers have developed sophisticated statistical models to achieve these two objectives. Among them, Hofstedes classification of cultures has broadly adopted due to the large number of countries he measured in his study and the simplicity of his dimensions which are straightforward and appealing to both academic researchers and businessmen (Venaik, S., Brewer, P., 2010). However, Hofstedes study has been criticised because it was applied to a small set of people which worked for the same company, IBM, and considered only cultural values (Verbeke, W., 2000). Even though, Hoefsteds national culture model is broadly studied and employed by marketers, scholars, and business in general (Javidan, M., et al, 2006). This document is aimed at discussing and evaluating the key dimensions of national culture in the UK using the Hofstedes model of national culture. The first section provides a general overview of Hofstedes approach to national culture. The second part provides an insight in the individualism/collectivism dimension of the UKs national culture. The third division discusses the masculinity/femininity dimension. The forth parcel comments the power of distance dimension. The fifth piece argues the uncertainty avoidance dimension. The sixth portion reviews the long-/short term orientation dimension. Finally, the seventh segment concludes. Hofstedes approach to national culture Gerard H. Hofstede developed a model to approach national culture in early 1980s. Hofstede defined culture as the collective programming of the mind that distinguishes the members of one group or category of people from another (Hofstede and Hofstede 2005 in Migliore, L.A., 2011). His definition was aligned to the classic theory of personality structure and culture. Under the umbrella of this theory, members of a specific culture will internalize communal characteristics and develop a corresponding personality structure. Nevertheless, classic theory also assumes that culture shapes personality. Thus, individuals vary according to cultures (Kirkman, B.L., et al, 2006). In this manner, Hofstede underpins his study in two concepts of national cultural: Common individual national culture and statistical average. Common individual national culture refers to the common characteristics that individuals share in a particular nation. Thus, a unique national culture is assumed to be individually carried by everyone in a nation. The statistical average, on the other hand, presupposes that the share of national culture is as not necessarily carried by individuals per se, but as a statistical average based on individuals, that is, a national norm or an average tendency (Blodgett, et al, 2008). Hofstede stated that societies are different along four major dimensions: individualism, masculinity, power distance, and uncertainty-avoidance (Vitell, S.J., et al, 1993). Some years latter (1991) Hofstede and Bond added a fifth dimension, labelled the Confucian dynamism or short-term versus long-term orientation (Chiang, F., 2005). The model provides scales from 0 to 100 for 76 countries for each dimension, and each country has a position on each scale or index, relative to other countries. In general terms, Hofstedes work is based on mental programs. Due to the process of socialization, these mental programs are developed in the family in early childhood and reinforced in schools and organizations, and other areas throughout the lifetime, experiences, and upbringings. Hofstedes work has been the benchmark for cultural analysis for the last three decades (Orr, L. M., Hauser, W. J., 2008). However, Hofstedes model has also been highly criticised. Its constraints can be summed in four points: 1. Lengthy data collection period. 2 The IBM sample (Since all respondents shared a common corporate culture which may distinguish them from the broader national population). 3 Inefficiency of the instrument (the use of attitude-survey questionnaires might not be a valid base from which to infer values). 4 Limited dimensions/Limitation of the instrument and Western bias (the values sampled were not comprehensive; thus the dimensions identified may not be exhaustive (Latifi, F., 2006). The results of Hofstedes study are presented in a table. Each dimension is displayed in a column. Results can be read in the following manner: Individualism/Collectivism: From collectivist (0) to individualist (100), Masculinity/Femininity: From feminine (0) to masculine (100), Power distance: From low (0) to high (100), Uncertainty avoidance: From weak (0) to strong (100), and Long-/Short Term Orientation: From short (0) to long (100). Hofstedes model may not be a perfect, but it is a good way to approach national culture analysis and understand nations in terms of these five dimensions. Its simplicity has underpinned its popularity. Modelling social processes is a hard task, but continual improvement will help researches to find out more accurate and simple models which transmit in an easy manner the reality (Redding, G., et al, 2008). Individualism/Collectivism Individualism/Collectivism measures the strength of the ties people have to others within the community. A high score indicates a loose connection with people. In countries with a high score there is a lack of interpersonal connection and little sharing of responsibility, beyond family and perhaps a few close friends. A society with a low Individualism/Collectivism score would have strong group cohesion, and there would be a large amount of loyalty and respect for members of the group. The group itself is also larger and people take more responsibility for each others well being (Hofstede, G., 2003). According to Hofstedes analysis, the UK has a mark of 89 in this dimension and is the number 3 in the global rank (Hofstede, G., 2003). Thus, UK society tends to have high valuation on peoples time and their need for freedom. It also has an enjoyment of challenges, and an expectation of rewards for hard work and a high respect for privacy. The UKs individualism can be observed in the number of single-occupancy property number. According to UKs government, the number has increased a 13% during the last 30 years (BBC, 2004). Individualism has also created a culture which is highly oriented to reward the hard work. As an example, the banking sector in the UK is well known for motivating its employees by granting bonuses according to objective accomplishment. Bonuses are, somehow, a way to pay tribute to peoples time. Government faced a strong resistance after the global financial crisis when conservative faction legislated to finish this practice. Financial institution claimed that reward mechanism was necessary to motivate people to invest their time to achieve firms objectives (BBC, 2009). Another expression of UKs individualism is the personal-information respect. UKs data protection laws protects information of any individual regardless his legal or social status. Leakages in private information are seen as major faults (BBC, 2010). The emphasis on the individual rather than the society has also roomed a debate culture which is spread across UKs society. The typical example is the parliament where each representative is allowed debating his ideas with any other member. Additionally, almost all major legislations are open to debate (BBC, 2010a). Thus, debate culture is easily identified in UKs people. From the authors point of view, individualism is a well known characteristic of Britons. This is perceptible, for instance, when comparing evaluation results. International student tend to share their grades since they want to assess how well they are doing it. But, British students consider this as a rude practice. Britons are very well known for their verbal skills which allow them to debate and argument in a solid manner. Generally speaking, the author agrees with Hofstedes results in this dimension, since individualism is almost a stereotyped characteristic of the British people. Masculinity/Femininity Masculinity/Femininity determines to how much a society sticks with, and values, traditional male and female roles. High scores are found in countries where men are expected to be tough, to be the provider, to be assertive and to be strong. If women work outside the home, they have separate professions from men. Low scores do not reverse the gender roles. In a society with a low Masculinity/Femininity score, the roles are simply blurred. You see women and men working together equally across many professions. Men are allowed to be sensitive and women can work hard for professional success (Hofstede, G., 2003). The mark in this dimension for the UK is 66 and the ninth position worldwide (Hofstede, G., 2003).This mark can be considered as even. In this manner, UK people have a well defined distinction between mens work and womens work, a woman can do anything a man can do, and powerful and successful women are admired and respected. Women rights evolution can be tracked since 1860 in the UK. They have acquired relevant positions in the government and private sector. For instance, the UKs head of the state, the queen Elizabeth II, has been on charge since 1952 (59 years). There are also another politicians and business women who are well known and admired (BBC, 2010b). However, there are still some activities which are considered as women duties. For example, housekeeping and children care (The economist, 2010). According to authors opinion, the UK offers equal opportunities to men and women. This is assured by the equality laws and the Government equalities office. Even though, within the families women still play a traditional role. They receive the same education than boys, but they are also trained to look after their children in the future. Thus, education in girls is seen as a complement of their main duties. In one hand, women are given the same opportunities than men, but in the other hand women have not been detached to the maternity role. Women, at work, are more independent and highly compromised with business objectives, thus, they are seen as trustworthy collaborators. Nevertheless, UKs public and private sector should work more to ensure women the same status as men (BBC, 2006). The combination of all these conditions explains why UKs mark is in the middle of the scale. Masculinity dimension rank may decrease, but it will require the involvement of all society actors, education al programs, and time. Power Distance Power Distance measures the degree of inequality that exists, and is accepted, among people with and without power. A high score indicates that society accepts an unequal distribution of power and people understand their function in the system. Low score means that power is shared and well dispersed. It also means that society members view themselves as equals (Hofstede, G., 2003). UK scores 35, thus its global position is the 44 (Hofstede, G., 2003). This mark implies that UKs organizations have almost flat structures, thus, bureaucracy has been reduced to optimum levels. Supervisors and employees are considered almost as equals, thus, accountability is evenly distributed. In this manner, public and private bodies can be flexible, dynamic, and resilient. Teamwork is also considered a valuable competency. Alongside, the decision making process is highly inclusive since it involves as many people as possible. An example of this distribution of power can be found in the government dependencies which are spread across the country (BBC, 2009a). Teamwork is taught since early education stages. The objective is to combine individuals capacities in order to create a comprehensive body which can deal with a broad range of scenarios and challenges. Team sports are a clear example of the emphasis on teamwork. Team sports are part of the educational system and are intensively promoted in the UKs schools (BBC, 2008).Talking about decision-making process, participation is encouraged in private and public institutions. In private sector, employees are managed to express their opinions about firms strategies via corporative communication tools (BBC, 2009b). In the public sector, people have several communication channels to get involved in the decision making process. Major changes in legislation, for instance, are open to involved parties in order to gather as much information as possible. Based upon feedback, representatives amend, reject, or approve laws (BBC, 2010a). In authors opinion, UKs people present a mixture of centralized and decentralized characteristics. Some parts of the government, for instance, are capable to take action without any central permission, but there are some others which have necessarily to ask to central branches authorization to proceed. In the same manner, not all legislations are open to consult, thus, not all decisions are collectively made. It is worth to say that these comments do not undermine Hofstedes results. The aim of this opinion is to point out that UKs characteristics cannot be clearly classified since the whole system is a combination of central and distributed power. In conclusion, the author endorses Hofstedes result in this dimension. Uncertainty Avoidance Uncertainty Avoidance evaluates the degree of anxiety society members feel when in uncertain or unknown situations. High scoring nations try to avoid ambiguous situations whenever possible. They are governed by rules and order and they seek a collective truth. Low scores indicate the society enjoys novel events and values differences. There are very few rules and people are encouraged to discover their own verity (Hofstede, G., 2003). In this dimension UK was rated 35 and its place in the study is the 48th (Hofstede, G., 2003). Thus, people in the UK have an informal business attitude, that is, they pay more attention to the essence rather than the form of the business. In this manner, a business objective can be achieved in relaxed business environment. UKs society is more concern with long term strategy than what is happening on a daily basis. Another of their characteristics is the change and risk acceptance. UKs people face the change and propose options to change their current scenarios with the implied risks. An interesting feature is that they need and expect a structure or framework in order to identify their field of action. Plans, then, should be clear and concise about expectations and parameters. A clear example of long term vision can be identified in governmental programs which propose actions to cope with national problems. For instance, legislations and development plans. Well fare and banking reform are examples of these strategies (BBC, 2011). UKs interest in frameworks is evident in the creation of standards to standardize products and service activities. British standards are well known worldwide; some of them have become de facto standards for some industries (BSI, 2011). Finally, UKs change acceptance and resilience can be found in the bail-out strategies that government put in place to cope the Global Financial Crisis of 2008. UK was one the most affected countries. However, regulatory bodies analyzed the situation and proposed a series of measures to minimize the crisis effects and avoid future ones (Carmassi, J., et al, 2009). The author agrees Hofstedes results. British planning culture is palpable in daily life from bus stops to school schedules. UKs orientation to strategy can be seen as a result of the Individualism dimension since the respect for others time manages all society actors to coordinate activities. On the other hand, work environments are relaxed because people are objective oriented. That does not mean that firms are anarchically managed, but authority is exercised in a way that allow everyone to accomplish their objectives. Finally, UKs procedural vocation has aligned and standardised several industries worldwide, thus, it is clear that Hofstedes evaluation clearly reflects the UKs Uncertainty Avoidance dimension. Long-/Short Term Orientation Long-/Short term orientation estimates how much society values long-term, as opposed to short term, traditions, and values. This dimension was added by Hofstede in the 1990s after finding that Asian countries with a strong link to Confucian philosophy acted differently from western cultures. In countries with a high score, delivering on social obligations and avoiding loss of face are considered very important (Hofstede, G., 2003). UKs index value is 25 and its place in the analyzed countries is the 29th (Hofstede, G., 2003). Societies with a low index of Long-/short term orientation promote equality, high creativity, and individualism. This implies that they are not very attached to customs and traditions. People treat others as equals and self-actualization is sought. Society members are respectful of others and do not hesitate to introduce necessary changes, in other words, they are very dynamic. UKs society is plenty of examples if this constant innovation and change. UKs music industry is well known for producing not only new popular bands, but also for introducing new musical styles. Entrepreneurship has allowed the country to improve and invent machinery, sports, devices and services which have impacted the world history. Promotion of equality has fuelled reforms which have been adopted by the rest of the countries. Customs and traditions change from generation to generation allowing the invention or introduction of new ones (BBC, 2011a). The author agrees with Hofstedes evaluation. UKs continual improvement is tangible in all aspects of daily life. For instance, entrepreneurship is seen as an important quality, since it is the perfect way to be creative and independent at the same time. As a result, innovation in technology, literature, finance, and regulation is a present in a constant basis. However, the change in traditions has roomed questions about national identity. British identity is difficult to track since each generation is altering the status quo. Thus, British national identity is always evolving and cannot be isolated as a static body of ritual, rules, and artefacts. Finally, the respect of others is an appreciated value in UKs society, which from the authors standpoint, has been the foundation stone of the whole society and has shaped its current state. Conclusions Hofstedes model provides a simple manner to compare two different societies. The five dimensions outline general characteristics of the analyzed countries. Even though, some authors claim that the study was based on biased information. Detractors have criticized the statistical methods, but they have not challenged the approach. It is possible to evaluate more dimensions, but information analysis would become complex and diffuse. Social researchers argue that cultures cannot be compared. However, these studies are required by globalization. Hofstedes results should be understood as generalizations of societies and have not to be used to encourage stereotype creation. Finally, the ultimate goal of Hofstedes analysis was to understand each other a little more and, in this manner, contribute to the construction of a better and durable nation relationships.

A Leadership Detailed Overview Leadership Essay

A Leadership Detailed Overview Leadership Essay Leadership had been started from many century. There are so many person who are known because of there leadership. I have read many articles on leadership and also had read the life history of many popular leaders so I came to know that leadership is the capability and skill of an individual to make other to do to achieve the common goal. Good leadership always ends with the good result and satisfaction. There are so many leader who didnt have any quality to be the leader in their childhood but slowly and gradually they grew the leadership skill in them so, we also can say that leadership quality are not inborn it comes through experience, training, hard work and above all strong desire and will power. A good leader not only led the team but also influence other to be like him. He must have the vision and the drive to see it through. Leadership is mainly consist of four factors they are briefly discussed below: Leader: There should be good, trustworthy, honest, understanding leader for leadership. He should have knowledge what they are doing, How that should be done, and for whom that is being done. He must have confidence on himself and thrust on the team. Followers: Leader without followers cannot be imagining. Followers follow as per the leaders orders. Communication: If there is no communication is not there than its impossible to tell what leader wants. Communication also helps to build the good relation between him and his follower. Situation: Each situation is different than another. He should be able to decide in which situation require which leadership. Leadership style varies from situation, follower and assigned task. For example, a new follower requires more supervision than the old one. He should also know his follower nature, their needs, emotion etc. All the leadership are based on following principle Be technically proficient   Seek responsibility and take responsibility for your actions   Make sound and timely decisions   Set the example   Know your people and look out for their well-being   Keep your workers informed   Develop a sense of responsibility in your workers   Ensure that tasks are understood, supervised, and accomplished   Train as a team   Use the full capabilities of your organization   The leadership instinct you are born with is the backbone. You develop the funny bone and the wishbone that go with it. Elaine Agather To be the good leader is not easy. Strong determination, hardworking and some of the following keys can help to be the good leader: Humble and positive : A leader must be humble and polite. There is certain way to get job done through the team member. A harsh and strict manner of leader can demotivate his follower and can decrease their interest level of working though they finish their assigned task but they may not want to work with him again. He should also have positive attitude towards everyone. He should think positive be positive and do positive. Effective communication: Leader should be able to communicate his ideas and knowledge among the follower. There should be no misunderstanding and dilemma among the follower regarding the work assigned to them so, he should be able to communicate effectively. Confident and trustworthy: leader should be confident enough to say what he wants and how he want. He should be able to confidently present himself among the team member because the entire employee wants the guidance from the confident leader. He should also be trustworthy. He should be able to win the trust of his follower. Motivation: He should be able to motivate other to their assigned work. Every one are motivated in different way so he should know that which way is best for whom. Some are motivated from negative motivation and some are with positive so he should understand every one and take the right decision. Self-Esteem: Underlying everything, is a high sense of ones own self-worth. Without that, individuals will never undertake tough challenges. If one does not have it, its important to  develop self-esteem. A leader must have self esteem. Goal Orientation: A leader must e goal oriented. Every work what he does should be goal focus. For many, leadership characteristics of being focus on a goal can be difficult but a good leader always focuses on what he wants and how he wants. His every step is towards his goal. Courage: Many professors talk about entrepreneurs as risks takers. But this leadership characteristic is like saying snow is cold-its accurate but missing something. Another way is to say the same thing is that one must have guts. It requires a great deal of courage to build a company from the ground up. Tolerance of uncertain risk: A leader should have tolerant ability of uncertain risk or misshapen. There can occur uncertain risk in the future the leader should not run rather handle the situation and tolerate it. Being the leader is not small task you should have brilliant tolerant ability also. Dont tell people how to do things, tell them what to do and let them surprise you with their results. George S. Patton Everyone is not leader it is the fact everyone should accept it. You must have some leadership skill also to: Lead by leader: One of the best ways to lead is by example pitching in where needed, lending a helping hand and assuring that everything is done. Passion: A leader without passion is not the leader. be organized: A good leader should be well organized. Delegate: A leader cannot do anything alone so he should also delegate his power among the well deserved person. Great Listener.  A huge part of being a great communicator is being a great listener. Know your people: You should be able to now the nature of people because different people have different in nature. Be follower: all the great leaders are follower too so you leader can follow other good leader. The above mention skill and character I found and I am on them highly inspired by the Rob Fyfe and Alan Bollard. I feel that they have all the quality to be the leader and they are inspiring leader of this generation though they face unsuccessful some time. At first I want to talk about Rob Fyfe. Rob Fyfe: He was born on 6 May 1961and now he is a current Chief Executive Officer of New Zealand national airline Air New Zealand. He was born in New Zealand and graduated with Bachelor of Engineering (Mechanical) honors from the University of Canterbury in 1982. He currently lives in Auckland, New Zealand. He was previously General Manager of the Bank of New Zealand, Chief Operating Officer of ITV Digital (which went into bankruptcy while he was at the helm) and group general manager of Air New Zealand. Fyfe has been with the company since 2003. The best executive is the one who has sense enough to pick good men to do what he wants done, and self-restraint to keep from meddling with them while they do it. Theodore Roosevelt I consider him a good leader because airline is going through the many difficulties like high fuel price, increased competition, global economy crash down etc. Fyfe, now into his fourth year at the top, he took stand in each difficult situation and each situation. He is the quick mover in charge. He was up front and available immediately after the crash of his one airplane, responding with an openness that is characteristic of his dealings with staff and passengers. He has given the high priority to the innovation in the company as a result Air New Zealand recently made the worlds first flight using a sustainable bio fuel. It also attempted sending a rocket into space. He listen to the every ideas of the employee and they has an interesting programme called Test Flight where employees share ideas to the executive team if the idea is chosen the person can work in the project and he also can have share in the profit. While mass layoffs have been a feature of other airlines response to the crises facing aviation, Air New Zealand has avoided this around 200 of 11,000 staff will go early next year. His positive nature an can do attitude was always seen in his leadership. He says We operate this airline in a New Zealand way were not trying to emulate a Singapore Airlines or emulate a McDonalds. Were trying to go out there day in and day out and trying to be authentic Kiwis and give people a real genuine New Zealand experience. He never stop working in his product and improvising it. Due to his leadership and his dedication made Air New Zealand Airline of the Year by the Air Transport World Magazine. My other inspirational leader is Alan Bollard. This year has been really difficult and challenging due to economic crisis but the man tasked with maintaining that structure in these difficult times is the Reserve Bank Governor Alan Bollard. Alan Bollard  born on 1951 in  Auckland is the current governor of the  Reserve Bank of New Zealand, having been appointed on 23 September 2002. He succeeded  Donald Brash  in this role. His earlier public service included four years as Secretary to the  Treasury, and time as head of the  Commerce Commission. He headed the  New Zealand Institute of Economic Research  (1987-1994) and has edited or written at least three books about economic reform in  New Zealand. He gained a PhD in Economics from the  University of Auckland  in 1977 and was awarded an honorary Doctor of Laws by the same university in 2007. Bollard has had to face with the steepest commodity price rise and then with the global financial crisis since the great depression. But he has not been afraid of recession. He had confident on himself and on what he was doing. He always says that bank are silence army always prepare themselves foe the uncertain future so he was always ready to face what comes on future. He says that we should be worry about what comes in next year though we can learn from the previous year and should never do such mistake again. He was future oriented. He follows the Integrity (being professional and exercising), Innovation (actively improving what we do) and inclusion (working together for a more effective bank. The very essence of leadership is its purpose. And the purpose of leadership is to accomplish a task. That is what leadership does-and what it does is more important than what it is or how it works. Colonel Dandridge M. Malone He always tries toinnovate new for the more effective being professional. His leadership was so good that he got credit from the Westpac chief Brendan ODonovan for not being afraid of engineering a recession when curbing inflation and other excesses requires. he was able to lead the bank successfully so that he won the Heralds 2008 New Zealand Business Man of the Year. Its easy to be the leader but hard to be the good leader. Both business leader have so many similar qualities which made them a good business leader. Both leader believes on their work. They were future oriented and goal oriented thought they are from different field of business, one is of airlines and other is bank. They faced many challenges (recession, commodities price high etc.)but they never back out from the situation. They always thought about the employees and their benefit also. They didnt became leader from less effort they give their heart to it so that they are her tasting the fruit of success. They mainly follow: Be good Know your role Take responsibilities Take risk Decision on right time Innovation of ideas Participation of employees Know your strength and weakness Accept the change Find your unique selling point Dont give up So they can be taken as the good example of leader and can learn many thing from their life. There are less leader who became the leader overnight but you need long hard work and determination to be the good leader. There are many leader in the history who agve their life being leader. Every country have the story of leader who gave their life saving the country. Leader are in every field other than business also. Leadership quality is not in born it shoul be acquire with strong willpower, determination and hard work. You should know that everyone cannot be the leader and leader are Leadership is understanding people and involving them to help you do a job. That takes all of the good characteristics, like integrity, dedication of purpose, selflessness, knowledge, skill, implacability, as well as determination not to accept failure. Admiral Arleigh A. Burke also once the follower of some other leader. Leadership can be inside of you also you just need to find that and work on it. Who knows you can be also the successful leader of the future. There can be success waitng you far away just know your character and skill.

Henrik Isbens A Dolls House Essays -- A Dolls House Essays

To meet the needs of others, characters are often faced with making important decisions. In A Doll’s House, Nora, Mrs. Linden, and the nurse must all make decisions crucial to the importance of their lives. It is very evident throughout the story that these women must give up important aspects of their lives not only for themselves, but also for others.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The nurse is a key importance in Nora’s life. She has been the only mother Nora has known. In order to be Nora’s mother, however, the nurse ultimately had to give up her own child. When Nora is speaking with the nurse at one point, she asks, â€Å" How could you have the heart to put your own child out among strangers?† The nurse tells her that she had to do it in order to take care of â€Å"little Nora.† The nurse plays a major role in the lives of Nora's children also. She is responsible for being their mother when Nora is too busy to deal with them. Now that Nora is leaving, the nurse has no other choice but to be a mother to these children. Nora is certain that her children are in good hands and will be raised well by the nurse. By raising Nora, and now Nora’s children, the nurse seems to accept the fact that she gave up her own life to benefit others.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Mrs. Linden is one of the strongest female characters in the story. She knows that work is hard, but it is something she needs in her life in order for happiness. In the final scenes, the re...

The Olympics :: essays research papers

Olympic Games were held throughout Ancient Greece, but the most famous games were the games held in Olympia. They were held between August and September in honor of Zeus. Some claim that Zeus and Kronos the mightiest of the gods, wrestled for possession of the earth on the high peaks in Greece, and the games were in commemoration of the victory of Zeus. People all throughout Greece would come to Olympia to watch and take place in the festival. The entrance to the stadium in which the Olympic games were held had a row of statues. The statues, called Zanes were made in the likeness of the â€Å" Zeus of Oaths† statue. On the first day of the games the athletes stood before this heroic- sized statue of Zeus poised to throw a thunderbolt, and promised to obey â€Å"the laws of Zeus†. The money to create such human like statues was collected from the fines from athletes who violated the Olympic code of honor in competition. The â€Å"Zanes† were erected so that they were almost the last things the athletes saw as they marched into the stadium to take part in the games. The temple of Zeus was constructed as a meeting point for the athletes of the Olympic games. They all gathered to worship Zeus before the games. On the middle day of the Olympics, 100 oxen were sacrificed and burned outside the temple. Now a day we offer no sacrifices to Zeus. The stadium was built to accommodate 45,000 spectators. All women were excluded from the early Olympic Games, even as on lookers. The punishment for any woman caught in Olympia during the festival was death by being thrown from a cliff. However, Pausanius wrote about a story of one incident that transpired when a mother ran out of the stadium to congratulate her son on winning. Kallipateira, an exile from Rhodes, broke the law and went unpunished. After the death of her husband, she trained her son to compete in the Olympics of 404 B.C. On the day of his contest, she entered the stadium disguised as a trainer. As the story goes, she ran out to congratulate him on winning the boxing event, it was discovered she was a woman. Because her father, bother, and now son acquired a total of six Olympic victories, she was not punished. Thereafter, however, the trainers, as well as the athletes, were required to participate in the nude.

The California Wetlands Essay -- Wetlands Environmental Nature Essays

The California Wetlands Smelly, insect infested, and disease ridden are many words that people have used to describe the attributes of wetlands in our country. Until recently it was thought that wetlands served very little use as a part of our ecosystem. However, as the developers began to drain and destroy these wetlands in order to build housing developments and commercial buildings environmental scientists emerged from the woodwork. These environmental scientists found the value and absolute necessity for wetlands and brought it to the attention of politicians. The politicians are the only ones who could slow the destruction of wetlands with their policies. Before the politicians could begin to construct policies to protect the wetlands they needed the scientists to give them a good working definition that they could use to classify wetlands. This is a very difficult process since many wetlands are transitional meaning that they may appear wet or dry according to the season. However in 1987 the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers published guidelines to classifying wetlands. The criterion included that wetlands must contain hydrophytic vegetation, hydric soils, and wetland hydrology. M. Dennison et. al. 1993 With this new information politicians were able to legally define wetlands with the Clean Water Act, which states: "The term ‘wetlands’ means those areas that are inundated or saturated by surface or ground water at a frequency and duration sufficient to support, and that under normal circumstances do support, a prevalence of vegetation typically adapted for life in saturated soil conditions. Wetlands generally include swamps, marshes, bogs and similar areas." Through the study, classification and legal defining of we... ...o be able produce a synthetic ecosystem the scientists must be able to observe what an ideal naturally occurring wetland looks like. With the mass desecration of California wetland it is near impossible to find an intact wetland. Most wetland scientists construct these synthetic wetlands be a theory of how things "should be" if they were not previously contaminated by influences (i.e. abusive farming, golf courses, housing developments, and recreational vehicles (i.e. Gas guzzling boat, waverunners, etc.) In conclusion it is simple to see why the destroyed wetlands should be repaired. Not only would the function of the wetland resume, but all of the surrounding humans would benefit from cleaner water and a flood overflow container. However, it is slow process informing the public of why they should leave a swamp intact instead of building more bay front property.

Cadetship

Is a grim struggle of winning supremacy over oneself. What is a parrot? Of all the queer birds i ever did see, the parrot is the one that has no secrecy. He talks to much about his life In the hut, that is why one day he was finally shot, so that a cadet without secrecy and discipline will someday meet the parrots end. What is an upperclassman? An upperclassman is a simple handshake of recognition that gives him a title of an immaculate.He Is a fully developed animal that has gone through the dim world of plebe hood. After asking the question, what is the reason of ll the sufferings under his superiors? He has endured pain, gave sweat, and came near the end of his temperament. Now, he Is the king of all kings, the master of all things, the roaring thunder of the corps. He has the strength of a bull and the growling voice of the Ilon, the fury of a tiger, the cruelty of the beast and the penetrating stare of an eagle that scrutinizes even the slightest error of a dumb guard.But these are the mere roles they have to play in the analysis of their real character, an upperclassman is a good brother, a best friend and a refined Individual who will soon become an officer and an a entleman What Is a combat Shoes? A combat shoe is but a rear extension wrapped around my foot that adds discomfort while doing the duck walk sirl Hows your wife? My wife is the simplest and the most beautiful to live with but the most complex to understand. My wife, Sir, needs constant love and care. Every day, I have to wipe her face, her breast, her body and everything below her.Often sir, I have to undress and dissect her into parts in order to ensure everything is spic and span. That is my wife sir, my wife is Cal. 5. 56, Cal 7. 62, Cal 45 and Cal. 38 Sir! What Is a Kiss? A kiss when all Is said what Is a kiss? It Is an oath of allegiance taken at a close proximity, a promise more precise a seal upon confession, a rose read upon a letter † I † In loving of an instant eternity, murmuring like a bee, a balmy communion with a flavor of a flower, a secret which elects the mouth from the ear of position or Inhaling each others heart and tasting the brink of each others lips.That Is a kiss sirl What is a coffe? A coffee is from a little branch of a humble tree that comes from a reddish bristle, shape Ilke a heart, dried under the radiating heat of the sun on the month of May Sirl I OF3 What is a Rose? Legend has it that a rose grow thorn at the same time with Venus, the goddess of sea and Jealous earth we broth forth our fairest creation. Looking at the beticali and birth of Venus, see the rose around. Rose is romance rearrange its letters and it reads Eros, the goddess of love. Hows the animal? The animal at this stage is still lost and needs more guidance from his upperclassman.But if given a few more days of a week of rapid growth and development, the animal will turn into a pony Sir! How long is eternity? If it takes a bird from outer space traveling at th e speed of a urtle and taking its time, picks a grain of sand from the earth and brings it back to the place where it came from then deposits it there and repeats the process once in a million years taking all the minute grain of sand from the earth and depositing it to the banks of galaxies of heaven and bringing them back to their proper places, eternity has Just began.I hope the lazy dumb guard will travel forth and by chinning in double timing will come shorter than the beginning of eternity sir! What is a buckle? A buckle is a piece of metal that is placed on my forehead which dds discomfort while eating at the mess hall sir! How the weather? The cold weather breeze from the majestic Laguna de Bay rolling continuously unto the enchanted slopes of Mt. Makiling as it breathes the last dew unto the portals of the academy and its exciting sight for the day long fght sir! Why rattle?The nervous system of the cadet is not yet fixed due to the confused responses from the feeble brain that was brought about by the sudden impact of the many forces uncontrolled by the vulnerable defenses of the still weak and sluggard cadet. In a addition sir, there is a sudden metamorphosis Just upon seeing the hadow of an upperclassman wherein the cadets reaction is determined whether it be right or wrong sir. Profession of Arms? Men who adopt the profession of arms submit on their own freewill to a law of perpetual constraint of their own accord.They reject their right to live where they choose, to say what they think and dress as they like. From the moment they became soldiers it needs but an order to settle them from this place to move them to that, to separate them from their families, and to dislocate their normal lives. I the word of command they must rise, they must march, they must run, endure bad eather, go without food, go without sleep, be isolated on some distant post, work until they drop, they have ceases to become the master of their own fate. If they drop on their own tracks.If their ashes are scattered to the four winds, that is all part and parcel of their Job Sir! Go placidly amidst the noise and haste and remember what peace there may be in silence. As far as possible without surrender, be on good terms with all persons. Speak your thought quietly and clearly; and listen to others, even the dull and ignorant; they too have their own story. Avoid loud and aggressive person; they are exations to the spirit. If you compare yourself to others, you may become vain and bitter; for always there will be greater and lesser person than yourself.Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans. Keep interested in your career, however humble; it is a real possession of the changing fortune of time. Exercise caution in your business affairs, for the world is full of treachery and deceit. But let this not blind you to what virtue there is. Many person strive for high ideals and everywhere, life is full of heroism. Be yourself, especially do not feign aff ection; neither be cynical about love, for in the ace of all aridity and disenchantment, it is as perennial as the grass. Take kindly the counsel of the years, gracefully surrendering the things of youth.Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in the sudden misfortunes. But do not distress yourself with imaginings. Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness. Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself. You are the child of the universe, no less than the trees and stars. You have the right to be there. And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt that the universe is unfolding as it should. Therefore, be at peace with God, whatever you conceive Him to be, and whatever your abor and aspirations, in the noisy and confusion of life, keep peace with your soul.With all its shame, drudgery and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world. Be careful. Strive to be happy. Do you have a sister? That urging question has been languishing in myself totally and mentally pollutin g my mind. ‘ became your untaxable property and evil might besiege my family. Its sparkle will be lost to demon whom I would like to run from head unto feet after asking the question with a ten peso balance on your checking account. We might be on the same boat. Sir! , so I pose the same question, do you have a sister or aughter Sir?Hows the Cade? Sir, Cadet is a symbol of all that is bold and daring with the grand posture of a dashing gentleman with a warm and tender lips, a kiss of a great lover with the majestic smile of a victorious soldier. The masculine built of an Olympian god with the courage of a thousand warriors. He talks with the strength of a lion and gentleness of the morning winds. His personality mocks and kicks the rushing waves of the shore. His eyes are clear and tantalizing as the rays of the setting sun, in short and simple language Cdt handsome sir! is very

Day After Tomorrow

FTER Hollywood cinema and climate change: The Day After Tomorrow. Ingram, David. In Words on Water: Literary and Cultural Representations, Devine, Maureen and Christa Grewe-Volpp (eds. ) (Trier: Wissenschaftlicher Verlag Trier, 2008). Climate change, like many other environmental problems, is slow to develop, not amenable to simple or fast solutions, and caused by factors that are both invisible and complex (Adam 17).Making a narrative film about climate change therefore does not fit easily into the commercial formulae of mainstream Hollywood, which favour human-interest stories in which individual protagonists undergo a moral transformation before they resolve their problems through heroic action in the final act. Can such classical narratives mediate an issue as complex as climate change without being not only inadequate, but even dangerous, lulling their audience into a false sense of security about our ability to deal with such problems?Ecocritic Richard Kerridge observes that a British journalist responded to the nuclear accident at Chernobyl in 1986 by framing it within the familiar narrative of the Second World War, with its emphasis on ‘a successful outcome and a narrative closure'. For Kerridge, such narrative strategies may be an overly reassuring way of representing environmental threats, and reveal therefore that the ‘real, material ecological crisis' is ‘also a cultural crisis, a crisis of representation' (Kerridge 4).Yet, as Jim Collins argues, ‘mass-mediated cultures', including those of popular Hollywood cinema, are characterised by ‘semiotic complexities of meaning production', which leave even popular, generic texts open to multiple interpretations (Collins 17). Film theorist Stephen Prince describes a Hollywood movie as a ‘polysemous, multivalent set of images, characters, and narrative situations', which therefore constitute what he calls an ‘ideological agglomeration', rather than a single, coherent ideological position (Prince 40).This polysemy may arise from the Hollywood industry's commercial intention to maximize profits by appealing to as wide and diverse an audience as possible by making movies which, ideologically speaking, seek to have it all ways at once. One consequence is that, when we theorize about the effects popular movies may or may not have on public awareness of environmental issues, those effects are more complex, and less deterministic, than is often assumed is some academic film theories.This essay will explore the range of meanings generated by The Day After Tomorrow (2004), which frames the issue of anthropogenic climate change within the familiar genres of the disaster and science fiction movie. Ideological analysis of the film, combined with a study of its audience reception, suggests that even a classical Hollywood narrative can generate a degree of ideological ambiguity which makes it open to various interpretations, both liberal and conservative. Th e ideological ambiguity of The Day After Tomorrow derives in part from the way its narrative mixes the modes of realism, fantasy and melodrama.A realist film will attempt to correspond to what we understand as reality, mainly through the optical realism of its mise-en-scene and the sense of psychological plausibility produced by both its script and the performance of its actors. Melodrama, on the other hand, will simplify character and heighten action and emotion beyond the everyday. Hollywood movies tend to work by moving between these two modes of representation. Some genres, such as science fiction and horror, also move between realism and fantasy, a mode which exceeds realist plausibility by creating a totally fictive and impossible diegetic world.As a science fiction movie, then, The Day After Tomorrow deliberately blurs the distinction between realism and fantasy. The narrative begins from a scientifically plausible premise: the melting of the Artic ice-cap, caused by anthropo genic global warming, cools the North Atlantic Current, colloquially known as the ‘Gulf Stream', and thereby affects the weather in the Northern hemisphere. The movie then extrapolates from this premise beyond even the worst-case scenarios proposed by climate scientists.The switching off of the thermohaline current generates a global superstorm, as a result of which an ice sheet covers Scotland and a tsunami floods Manhattan. The movie's literary source, it is worth noting, was The Coming Global Superstorm (1999), by Art Bell and Whitely Streiber, whose television talk show on the paranormal suggests an interest in the ‘parascientific'; that is, in speculation beyond what is provable or falsifiable by scientific method. When interpreted literally, that is, as realism, The Day After Tomorrow clearly violates notions of scientific plausibility.The basic climatology in the movie is inaccurate: hurricanes can only form over large bodies of warm water, not the cold seas found in high latitudes, where polar lows are the main storm systems. The movie also distorts the science of climate change, mainly by accelerating the time frame within which its effects take place, and by making them much worse than predicted. Any slowdown in the thermohaline current would take a period of years, at least, and probably centuries, rather than the days featured in the film.Moreover, even if the North Atlantic Current did switch off, average temperatures would still be likely to rise, rather than fall, because of the greenhouse gasses already in the atmosphere (Henson 112-5). The film's central narrative, in which government paleoclimatologist Jack Hall (Dennis Quaid) walks in sub-zero temperatures all the way from north of Philadelphia to the New York Public Library, to rescue his son Sam (Jake Gyllenhall) who is sheltering there, is thus impossible: neither would survive such low temperatures.For helicopters to freeze in mid-air, temperatures would not only be too cold for snow, but also too cold for human survival. Burning books in a library would be insufficient to keep people alive. Such implausibilities are worth pointing out, not because cinema audiences necessarily take what they see as scientific truth, but because science fiction often provides an opportunity to learn some real science. Indeed, as we will see later in this essay, environmental groups used the release of the movie as a ‘teachable moment' on the science of climate change (Leiserowitz 6).The two-disc DVD edition of the movie includes a documentary on the science of climate change; screenwriter Jeffrey Nachmanoff commented on its release that, although ‘our primary concern' in making the film ‘was entertainment rather than education. On the DVD, there's room for both'. Acknowledging that the time frame he created for the movie was accelerated for fictional purposes, and that the ‘superfreeze' was ‘purely a cinematic device', he added that ‘t he political, agricultural and societal consequences of a sudden change in the ocean currents would still be catastrophic' (Nachmanoff 1).To dismiss The Day After Tomorrow purely for its scientific inaccuracies, then, clearly misses the point of the movie, which is to use realist elements of climate science as a starting point for melodrama and fantasy, so that it can dwell on the spectacle of extreme weather, appropriate for a blockbuster disaster movie, and also invite the audience's emotional engagement with the human-interest story that becomes the main focus of narrative. It is to these elements in the film that we will now turn.As a ‘natural disaster' melodrama, the film works on an opposition between nature and civilization, and invites an ambiguous identification on the part of the viewer: in Hollywood terms, we are invited to ‘root for' both nature and civilization at various points in the narrative, although the values of civilization eventually become the domi nant ones. Before that happens, however, the scenes of extreme weather make the experience of environmental apocalypse strangely attractive. As Maurice Yacowar observes, the natural disaster movie ‘dramatizes people's helplessness against the forces of nature' (Yacowar 218).The set pieces of extreme weather in The Day After Tomorrow reveal the sublime power of wild nature: violent, chaotic, powerful beyond human control, and therefore exciting and seductive. Environmentalist Paul Hawken writes that the concept of doomsday ‘has always had a perverse appeal, waking us from our humdrum existence to the allure of a future harrowing drama' (Hawken 204). As Stephen Keane points out, although disaster movies regularly feature television news reports commenting on the events that are taking place, they do not go on ‘to make the critical point that we are all electronic voyeurs' (Keane 84).The Day After Tomorrow follows this pattern. The audience's complicity in seeking cin ematic thrills in the scenarios of mass death and destruction caused by the weather is encouraged, rather than questioned, by the movie itself. Indeed, such thrills are the raison d'etre of its genre. Yet the aesthetics of the sublime have always been based on vicariousness; if we take pleasure in the destructive forces of nature, it is from the safe distance of our movie seats, where we are in the position of voyeurs, rather than of victims.This construction of victimhood in the disaster movie depends on narrative alignment: when people die, we do not dwell on them, nor on the bereaved people they leave behind. Typical of the disaster genre, the focus of nature's destructiveness in The Day After Tomorrow is the city. Hollywood disaster movies, writes Geoff King, share with millennial groups ‘a certain delirious investment in the destruction of the metropolis' (King 158). When a series of tornadoes attack Los Angeles, the mise-en-scene focuses on familiar landmarks: the Hollyw ood sign, the Capitol Records building, and a billboard advertising the model Angelyne.Screenwriter Jeffrey Nachmanoff observes on the DVD commentary that preview audiences greeted the moment where the Angelyne sign flattens the television reporter with cheers and applause (Emmerich). The sense of retribution is difficult to avoid: perhaps there is poetic justice in the media figure, parasitical on other people's suffering, finding his nemesis in Angelyne, the model and aspiring actress who paid to advertise herself on her own billboards, and thus became for some emblematic of the meretricious values of the city.As Mike Davis observes, Los Angeles is often given special treatment in apocalyptic narratives. ‘No other city,' he writes, ‘seems to excite such dark rapture'. Unlike other cities, the destruction of Los Angeles ‘is often depicted as, or at least secretly experienced as, a victory for civilization' (Davis 277). Geoff King draws upon Mikhail Bakhtin's notio n of the ‘carnivalesque' to account for such moments of ‘licensed enjoyment of destruction', based on an ‘overturning of cultural norms' (King 162). But the destruction is too cruel, as well as unfocussed and generalised, to be simply an anti-authoritarian gesture.As Susan Sontag noted, science fiction films provide a ‘morally acceptable fantasy where one can give outlet to cruel or at least amoral feelings' (Sontag 215). Freud's notion of the ‘death wish' thus better captures the dark side of such fantasies. For Freud, such aggressions were natural drives that need to be controlled; art provides catharsis for such anti-social instincts. Patricia Mellencamp draws on Freud to argue that American television is both ‘shock and therapy; it both produces and discharges anxiety' (Mellencamp 246).The disaster movie works in a similar way, mobilising and exploiting our negative drives and emotions. But are there unconscious meanings specific to the natura l disaster movie? One reading of such movies is as ‘revenge of nature' narratives, which enact a fantasy of nature getting its own back for its mistreatment at the hands of human beings. Psychoanalyst Karl Figlio draws on the theories of Melanie Klein to argue that scientific thinking itself is an act of repressive violence towards Nature. ‘Nature killed,' he writes, ‘is nature in a vengeful mood, a primitive retaliatory phantasy that fuels apocalyptic forebodings.The more scientific the culture, the more it is at the mercy of irrational fears, and the more it is dependent on scientific protection from them' (Figlio 72). He cites Mary Shelley's Frankenstein as an ‘extreme example of scientific mapping that calls forth revenge from nature' (75). According to this reading, then, when we watch nature getting its revenge, we as viewers are able to purge our guilt about its degradation. However, as Yacowar notes, the moral attitude of the typical disaster movie is ambiguous. Poetic justice in disaster films,' he writes, ‘derives from the assumption that there is some relationship between a person's due and his or her doom'. However, this notion breaks down when the ‘good die with the evil' (Yacowar 232). The Day After Tomorrow works according to these generic expectations, with Nature at times appearing amoral in its destructiveness, and at other times, a force of moral retribution and punishment. The arrogant businessmen who bribe the bus driver, and the corruptible bus driver himself, get their comeuppance when they drown in the tidal wave that engulfs Manhattan.Jeffrey Nachmanoff reveals in the DVD commentary that, in an early draft of the script, the businessman had been negotiating an insider deal with the Japanese businessman killed by the hailstorm in Tokyo (Emmerich). In the final version, the latter lies to his wife on his cell phone moments before his death. The ethical critique in these scenes fits into the ideological agenda of many disaster films. As King writes, such films ‘include an element of criticism of capitalism, but this is a gesture that for the most part leaves its core values largely intact.A few ‘excesses' are singled out, such as the greedy cost-cutting that undermines the integrity of the eponymous star of The Towering Inferno, leaving the remainder mostly untouched' (King 153). In The Day After Tomorrow, then, greedy, self-interested individuals are punished. Yet innocent people also die in the movie, including the climate scientists who freeze to death in Scotland, led by the avuncular Terry Rapson (Ian Holm), and Jack's friend Frank (Jay O. Sanders), who falls to his death through the roof of a building, after cutting his own rope to prevent his friends from endangering their lives in trying to rescue him.These are figures of heroic sacrifice, also central to the disaster genre, because they bring out the redemptive aspects of the apocalypse. The film does not stat e clearly where the British royal family stand in this hierarchy of innocence and guilt: what is clear, is that death by climate change is no respecter of class privilege and wealth. The disaster movie, then, is about which values are the key to survival. The rescue of the innocent, French-speaking African family is thus crucial in einforcing the movie's ethical hierarchy based on racial, national and gender differences: they are saved by the white American woman (Laura), who in turn is saved by the white American male (Sam), thereby enacting in miniature two important themes in the movie. The most important of these is the narrative of male heroism and redemption. Melodrama, writes Linda Williams, is about a ‘retrieval and staging of innocence' (Williams 7). In this film, the melodramatic plot of father rescuing son makes the moral point that hard-working fathers need to take a more active role in bringing up their sons.The movie implies that, although millions of people may be dead, if one American family can be saved, then at least some good has come out of the eco-apocalypse. This message is more liberal, or at least not as unambiguously patriarchal, as in earlier disaster movies. In keeping with Stephen Prince's notion of ideological agglomeration, mentioned earlier, although Jack's wife is a doctor, she ends up playing the role of surrogate mother to a seven-year old boy with cancer, separated from his parents by the storm.The movie can thus be interpreted as either liberal (she is a doctor) or conservative (she is placed in the stereotypical female role of nurturer). The second important theme in the movie is the United States' self-appointed role as global protector-policeman. The rescue narrative trumpets the frontier values of male physical heroism, strong leadership and individualism, encapsulated by the iconic image of the torch of the Statue of Liberty emerging from the waves of the tsunami that engulfs Manhattan.However, America's role in w orld politics is also questioned by a more liberal discourse in the movie, when American refugees are forced to flee illegally into Mexico, in an ironic reversal of the real politics on the national border. This ironic reversal is itself made ambiguous, though, when later the United States government writes off all Third World debt, but in return, wins the right for its citizens to live as ‘guests' in those countries. It should be noted that not all Hollywood movies with environmental themes are as individualistic in their proposed solutions as The Day After Tomorrow.Some have endorsed more collective forms of action, even in narratives led by strong individuals: an image of placard-waving protestors recurs in Free Willy 2: The Adventure Home (1995) and Fly Away Home (1996) as a sign of collective resistance. Ultimately, The Day After Tomorrow prefers American notions of liberal individualism, which it turns into universal values by identifying them with human civilization as a whole. Indeed, civilization, rather than wild nature, becomes the real object of audience identification by the end.The choice of the New York Public Library as the place of sanctuary and rescue is significant in this respect. One of the survivors makes sure he preserves the Gutenberg Bible from burning, not because he believes in God, he says, but because, as the first book ever printed, it represents ‘the dawn of the age of reason'. ‘If Western civilization is finished', he adds, ‘I'm going to save at least one little piece of it'. Ultimately, then, the movie celebrates reason and science as the values most central to Western civilization. Unusually for a Hollywood disaster movie, scientists are neither evil nor incompetent.As Yacowar notes, specialists in disaster movies, including scientists, ‘are almost never able to control the forces loose against them'. The genre thus serves ‘the mystery that dwarfs science' (Yacowar 228). This is also true of The Day After Tomorrow, in that the scientists are unable to contain the devastating effects of climate change once they have begun. ‘Ultimately,' writes ecocritic Sylvia Mayer, ‘the movie makes the point that the most advanced and dedicated scientific work is still powerless against the forces of nature once they are unleashed' (Mayer 111).Nevertheless, the scientists are the heroes of the movie. Their advice on the risks of climate change was ignored by the politicians until it was too late. As the director of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration angrily tells the Vice-President: ‘You didn't want to heat about the science when it would have made a difference'. The scientists' computer models prove correct: in the movie, unlike in real life, climate science provides the clear, certain and unambiguous knowledge necessary for survival.Moreover, advanced technology is ultimately a force for good. Jack is able to locate his son in the Public Library un der the frozen wastes of Manhattan because of his friend's portable satellite navigation system (which, of course, would not work in such a massive storm). He is also seen driving a hybrid Toyota Prius earlier in the film. Reason, science and technology thus win the day. However, as Sylvia Mayer also notes, the movie stops short of simplistically advocating a technological fix for environmental problems as complex as climate change (Mayer 117).The values of civilization finally triumph over the destructive forces of wild nature when the pack of wolves, which escaped from Central Park Zoo earlier in the movie, return to attack Sam and his friends when they are searching for medicine and food. That the wolves are computer-generated special effects only adds an extra layer of irony to the triumph of civilization and benign technology in the movie. Indeed, the movie itself can be seen as a paean to the imaginative power of Computer Generated Imaging.In Eco Media (2005), Sean Cubitt argu es that The Lord of the Rings trilogy (2002-3) can be read as a celebration of the computer technologies from which it was made, which are an artisanal mode of production that demonstrates a creative place for technology within ‘green' thinking. There is an ‘increasing belief', he suggests, ‘that through the development of highly technologised creative industries, it is possible to devise a mode of economic development that does not compromise the land' (Cubitt 10). The thematic resolution of The Day After Tomorrow is ambiguous, however.The ending of the movie follows the recurrent pattern of the genre identified by Geoff King, in which ‘the possibility of apocalyptic destruction is confronted and depicted with a potentially horrifying special effects/spectacular ‘reality', only to be withdrawn or limited in its extent' (King 145). Typically, then, destruction is extensive, but total apocalypse is prevented at the last moment. The superstorm passes, the reby confirming Jack's earlier opinion that the storms will last ‘until the imbalance that created them is corrected' by ‘a global realignment'.Gazing at a beautiful, calm Earth, an astronaut in the International Space Station comments that he has ‘never seen the air so clear'. In Winston Wheeler Dixon's phrase, this could be the ‘exit point for the viewer' that disaster movies invariably provide (Dixon 133); the moment where the audience is let off the hook with a simplistic, evasive solution to the seemingly intractable problem explored in the rest of the movie. To return to the question posed at the start of this essay, does such an ending merely encourage evasion, denial and complacency in regard to issues such as anthropogenic climate change?Dixon argues that contemporary American cinema serves those who ‘wish to toy with the themes of destruction', from movies about atomic apocalypse to those that flirt with Nazism. This cinematic ‘cult of d eath', he concludes, is ‘the ultimate recreation' for an exhausted, media-saturated culture, a cult which ‘remains remote, carefully contained within a box of homicidal and genocidal dreams' (Dixon 139). But the ideological ambiguity of The Day After Tomorrow, as well as its audience reception, suggests that the process of interpretation is more open and varied than this.From an environmentalist perspective, the melodramatic ending of the film is ambiguous. No matter what human beings do, it appears, the Earth will heal itself. According to this reading, the message of the movie is that, because the storm eventually passes, we don't need to worry. This message resembles the right-wing appropriation of the Gaia hypothesis; that is, the idea, proposed by the British chemist James Lovelock, that the Earth as a whole is a self-regulating system in a natural state of homeostatic balance.In his 1999 book Hard Green: Saving the Environment from the Environmentalists, Peter Hube r used the concept of Gaia to justify a conservative manifesto that called for the dismantling of existing environmental regulations. The ‘most efficient way to control' pollutants such as greenhouses gases, he argued, ‘is not to worry about them at all. Let them be. Leave them to Gaia' (Huber 128). The notion of Gaia, we should note, is not the sole property of New Age environmentalists or deep ecologists.According to this interpretation, the movie appears to endorse the idea that humanity, through a combination of ingenuity, courage and chance, can survive whatever Nature may throw at us, an argument used by conservatives like Huber to justify a non-interventionist approach to environmental issues. It is a mistake, however, to assume that the final moments of a movie, when narrative closure is achieved, dictate its overall meaning. An analogy may be drawn here with the critical analysis of the role of women in film noir.As Janey Place argues of the female characters in films such as Double Indemnity (1946), ‘it is not their inevitable demise we remember but rather their strong, dangerous, and above all, exciting sexuality' (Place 48). In a similar way, the most memorable images in The Day After Tomorrow are probably the scenes of extreme weather. The main advertising image for the movie showed the shot of the hand of the Statue of Liberty held above the storm surge: an image of survival which at least includes a sense of struggle, rather than the calm, reposeful Earth revealed at the close of the film.Indeed, the above interpretation of the film as conservative is contradicted by its more explicit message, which advocated liberal political reform in the election year of 2004. Early in the film, Vice-President Becker, played by an actor who bears an obvious resemblance to Dick Cheney, refuses to listen to the advice of scientists on global warming, arguing that to take action would harm the American economy. In another reference to George W. Bush's presidency, we are told that the administration in the movie has also refused to sign up to the Kyoto Protocol on the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions.At the end of the movie, Becker, now President, appears on television to apologise to the nation out of a newfound sense of humility: ‘For years we operated under the belief that we could continue consuming our planet's natural resources without consequence. We were wrong. I was wrong'. Perhaps the most unbelievable part of the whole movie, the President's public apology confirms the words of the African-American homeless man earlier in the film, who refers to people with their ‘cars and their exhausts, and they're just polluting the atmosphere'.The disaster has been a wake-up call for America, and the new start will allow for the changes in lifestyle necessary for a more sustainable future. The government will also change its attitude to the Third World from one of arrogance to gratitude. In these moments, th e movie works as a secular form of jeremiad; ‘secular' because the environmental catastrophe is not seen as punishment from God, but as human-created. Opie and Elliott argue that both ‘implementational and evocative strategies' are necessary in successful jeremiads, and cite Rachel Carson's Silent Spring (1962) as a powerful exemplar (Opie and Elliott 35).The Day After Tomorrow also uses both pathos and rational argument to convince its audience of the need to take steps to avoid environmental catastrophe. Critical speculation on the effectiveness or otherwise of making a disaster movie about global warming can draw on the conclusions of an empirical study by the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research of the reception of the movie in Germany. This found that the movie did not appear to reinforce feelings of fatalism in its audience. Less than 10% of the sample agreed with the statement, ‘There's nothing we can do anyway', whereas 82% preferred, ‘We hav e to stop climate change'. Reusswig). Indeed, the Potsdam study makes hopeful reading for environmentalists. It found that the publicity surrounding the film triggered a new interest in climate change, and raised some issues previously unfamiliar to audiences, such as the role of oceans in global warming. A similar study of reception in the United States concluded that the film ‘led moviegoers to have higher levels of concern and worry about global warming, to estimate various impacts on the United States as more likely, and to shift their conceptual understanding of the climate system toward a threshold model.Further, the movie encouraged watchers to engage in personal, political, and social action to address climate change and to elevate global warming as a national priority'. However, whether such changes constituted merely a ‘momentary blip' in public perceptions remained to be seen (Leiserowitz 7). These empirical studies are important because they show that audienc e reception is a more complex and variable process than it is sometimes taken for in film theory. According to some versions of psychoanalytic ‘subject positioning' theory, Hollywood movies like The Day After Tomorrow tend to render spectators passive.Under the influence of Bertolt Brecht's theories of narrative, film academics such Colin McCabe and Steven Heath argued that only modernist or avant-garde narrative techniques can produce a more active (even revolutionary) film spectator. As the 1992 textbook New Vocabularies in Film Semiotics puts it, psychoanalytic film theory ‘sees the viewer not as a person, a flesh-and-blood individual, but as an artificial construct, produced and activated by the cinematic apparatus' (Stam 147). In his book The Crisis of Political Modernism (1999), D.N. Rodowick exposes the flaws in such thinking. The politics of political modernism, he writes, assume ‘an intrinsic and intractable relation between texts and their spectators, reg ardless of the historical or social context of that relation' (Rodowick 34). But film viewers are flesh-and-blood individuals, and when they are treated as such by film theorists and researchers, the phenomenon of film reception becomes more complex and nuanced, and less deterministic and stereotyped, than that imagined by subject positioning theory.Empirical audience research shows that we do not all watch the same movie in the same way, and that audience responses are complexly determined by a long list of variables, such as nation, region, locality, class, gender, sexuality, ethnicity, race and, last but certainly not least, individual temperament. When we look at the public reception of The Day After Tomorrow, then, it is clear that different interest groups appropriated the movie in different ways.Both sides of the public debate about climate change interpreted the movie within a realist framework, either positively or negatively, and produced selective readings in order to fur ther their own agendas. Patrick Michaels, one of the minority of scientists who stills rejects the idea of human-created climate change, pointed out the scientific flaws in the movie, and damned Hollywood for irresponsibly playing into the hands of liberal environmentalists by exaggerating the threat of global warming (Michaels 1).Liberal-left environmental campaigners also understood that the movie's foundation in science was flawed. However, they found its scientific exaggerations and inaccuracies less important than what they saw as its realistic portrayal of the American government's denial of the scientific evidence for global warming. As former Vice-President Al Gore put it, ‘there are two sets of fiction to deal with. One is the movie, the other is the Bush administration's presentation of global warming' (Mooney 1). Gore joined with the liberal Internet advocacy organization MoveOn. rg, which used the movie's release as an opportunity to organize a national advocacy ca mpaign on climate change. Senators McCain and Lieberman also used the movie to promote the reintroduction of their Climate Stewardship Act in Congress (Nisbet 1). Greenpeace endorsed the ‘underlying premise' of the film, that ‘extreme weather events are already on the rise, and global warming can be expected to make them more frequent and more severe'. It summed up its response to the movie with the line: ‘Fear is justified' (Greenpeace 1-2).The use of this movie to encourage environmental debate suggests that it is perhaps only if Hollywood movies like The Day After Tomorrow are people's sole, or even main, source of information on the environment that we should worry. As Sylvia Mayer argues, Hollywood environmentalist movies ‘have the potential to contribute to the development of an ‘environmentally informed sense of self' that is characterised by an awareness of environmental threats, by the wish to gain more effective knowledge about them and by a d isposition to participate actively in efforts to remedy the problem' (Mayer 107).In this respect, a classical, Hollywood-style narrative does not necessarily inculcate or reinforce a feeling a complacency or denial it its audience. In any case, no narrative can be as complex as the reality to which it refers; all art is a process of simplifying, selecting and giving shape to reality. Classical narrative forms and genre movies such as The Day After Tomorrow can focus thought and provide an imaginative and provocative response to environmental crisis. WORKS CITED Adam, Barbara (1998), Timescapes of Modernity: The Environment and Invisible Hazards, Routledge, London and New York.Bell, Art and Streiber, Whitely (1999), The Coming Global Superstorm, Pocket Star Books, New York. Collins, Jim (1989), Uncommon Cultures: Popular Culture and Post-Modernism, Routledge, New York and London. Cubitt, Sean (2005), Eco Media, Rodopi, Amsterdam and New York. Davis, Mike (1998), Ecology of Fear: Los Angeles and the Imagination of Disaster, Henry Holt and Co. , New York. Dixon, Wheeler Winston (2003), Visions of the Apocalypse: Spectacles of Destruction in American Cinema, Wallflower Press, London and New York.Emmerich, Roland, director (2004), The Day After Tomorrow, 20th Century Fox, Two-disc DVD. Figlio, Karl (1996). ‘Knowing, loving and hating nature: a psychoanalytic view' in George Robertson, Melinda Mash, Lisa Tickner, Jon Bird, Barry Curtis and Tim Putnam (eds), FutureNatural: Nature, science, culture, Routledge, London and New York. Greenpeace International (2004). ‘Big screen vs big oil'. http://www. greenpeace. org/international/news/the-day-after-tomorrow, 1-4. Hawken, Paul (1993), The Ecology of Commerce: A Declaration of Sustainability, HarperCollins, New York.Henson, Robert (2006), The Rough Guide to Climate Change, Rough Guides, London. Huber, Peter (1999), Hard Green: Saving the Environment from the Environmentalists: A Conservative Manifesto, Basic Books, New York. Keane, Stephen (2001), Disaster Movies, Wallflower Press, London. Kerridge, Richard (1998), ‘Introduction', in Richard Kerridge and Neil Sammels (eds), Writing the Environment: Ecocriticism and Literature. Zed Books, London and New York. King, Geoff (2000), Spectacular Narratives: Hollywood in the Age of the Blockbuster, London and New York, I. B. Tauris.Lieserowitz, Anthony A (2004), ‘Before and After The Day After Tomorrow: A U. S. study of climate change risk perception. ‘ Environment. 46 (9), 22-37. www. findarticles. com/p/articles/mi_m1076/is_9_46/ai_n856541/print, 1-12. Mayer, Sylvia (2006), ‘Teaching Hollywood Environmentalist Movies: The Example of The Day After Tomorrow', in Sylvia Mayer and Graham Wilson (eds), Ecodidactic Perspectives on English Languages, Literatures and Cultures, Trier, WVT. Mellencamp, Patricia (1990), ‘TV Time and Catastrophe, or Beyond the Pleasure Principle of Television', in Logics of Television, ed.P atricia Mellencamp, Indiana University Press, Bloomington. Michaels, Patrick J. (2004), ‘Apocalypse Soon? No, but This Movie (And Democrats) Hope You'll Think So. ‘ The Washington Post, May 16th 2004, B01. www. washingtonpost. com/ac2/wp-dyn/A28338-2004May14? language=printer Mooney, Chris (2004), ‘Learning From Nonsense? ‘, Committee for Skeptical Inquiry, http://www. csicop. org/doubtandabout/global-warming Nachmanoff, Jeffrey (2004), ‘Jeffrey Nachmanoff on The Day After Tomorrow'. http:// www. amazon. co. uk/gp/feature. html.Nisbet, Matthew (2004), ‘Evaluating the Impact of The Day After Tomorrow: Can a Blockbuster Film Shape the Public's Understanding of a Science Controversy? ‘, Committee for Skeptical Inquiry, http://www. csicop. org/ Opie, John and Elliott, Norbert (1996), ‘Tracking the Elusive Jeremiad: The Rhetorical Character of American Environmental Discourse', in James G. Cantrill and Christine L. Oravec (eds), The Symboli c Earth: Discourse and Our Creation of the Environment, University Press of Kentucky, Lexington. Place, Janey (1978), ‘Women in Film Noir', in E. Ann Kaplan (ed), Women in Film Noir.BFI, London. Prince, Stephen (1992), Visions of Empire: Political Imagery in Contemporary American Film. Praeger, New York. Reusswig, Fritz, Scwarzkopf, Julia and Pohlenz, Philipp (2004), ‘Double Impact: The Climate Blockbuster ‘The Day After Tomorrow' and its impact on the German Cinema Public. ‘ PIK Report 92, Potsdam, 1-61. http://www. pik-potsdam. de/research/publications/pikereports/summary-report-n-92 Rodowick, D. N. (1999), The Crisis of Political Modernism: Criticism and Ideology in Contemporary Film Theory, University of Illinois Press, Urbana and Chicago.Sontag, Susan (2001), Against Interpretation, Vintage, London. Stam, Robert, Burgoyne, Robert and Flitterman-Lewis, Sandy (1992), New Vocabularies in Film Semiotics: Structuralism, post-structuralism and beyond, Routledg e, London and New York. Williams, Linda (1998), ‘Melodrama Revisited', in Nick Browne (ed), Refiguring American Film Genres, University of California Press, London. Yacowar, Maurice (1986), ‘The Bug in the Rug: Notes on the Disaster Genre', in Barry Keith Grant (ed), Film Genre Reader, University of Texas Press, Austin.