park chan wook essays

park chan wook essays Revenge and Fate in Park Chan-wook's Movies The Korean film director Park Chan-wook's recent movies focus on tragic aspects of human fate and revenge. "My themes repeating without my real intention, are violence both as a criminal act and an evitable act committed by someone who wants to be rescued from the misfortune." (Park. Interview 61) Like his statement, director Park portraits the characters who can never escape from their fate. Then how are these distinctive features represented in his movies? In what points are the movies same or different? "Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance" (2002), "Old Boy" (2003), and "Three, Monster" (2004) clearly show how explicitly Park has depicted the tragedy of human desire by using ironical devices and direct "Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance" (2002) is a story about a victim of fate who has lost his loving daughter. After being fired from Dong-jin's (Song Gang-ho) factory, Ryu (Shin ha- gyun), who has hearing difficulty, sells his kidneys to save his sister's life. But he gets swindled by the secret dealers of the internal organs and he kidnaps his ex-boss Dong-jin's daughter to make money. After a while his sister finds out the fact and commits suicide and to make things worse, Dong-jin's daughter is drowned by an accident. Dong-jin thus carrys out a revenge for the people who killed his daughter. therefore, Ryu and his girl friend as well as his co-worker Young-mi (Bae Doo-na), are excuted by Dong-jin and at last, Dong-jin is also killed by young-mi's anarchic revolutionist fellows. During his act of revenge as a judgement on his daughter's death, Dong-jin gradually becomes a freak like other villains in this movie. This is, above all, an invisible power named 'fate' has worked so importantly to put the characters into the endless chain of misfortune and violence. If Ryu had not been a deaf ...

Ragnar Lodbrok

Ragnar Lodbrok Many people have heard of Ragnar Lodbrok, or Lothbrok, thanks to the History Channel drama series Vikings. However, the character of Ragnar isnt new- hes existed in Norse mythology for a long time. Lets take a look at who the real Ragnar Lodbrok was- or wasnt. Ragnar Lodbrok Fast Facts Historians arent sure if Ragnar Lodbrok really existed; it is most likely that he is a composite of multiple historical figures.The sons of Ragnar Lodbrok feature prominently in Norse mythology and history.According to legend, Lodbrok was a great warrior king who invaded England and West Frankia. Ragnar Loà °brà ³k, whose surname means Hairy Breeches, was a legendary Viking warrior who is described in the Norse sagas, as well as numerous medieval Latin sources written by Christian chroniclers, but scholars arent sure if he existed at all. Norse vs. Frankish Accounts In the Norse legends, Sigurà °r hringr, or Sigurd Ring, was the king of Sweden, and battled against the Danish leader Harald Wartooth; Sigurd defeated Harald and became king of both Denmark and Sweden. After his death, his son Ragnar Lodbrok succeeded him and took the throne. According to the sagas, Lodbrok and his sons killed Haralds son Eysteinn, and then led an invasion into England. According to the Icelandic saga Ragnarssona à ¾ttr, The Tale of Ragnars Sons, during this invasion, Lodbrok was captured and executed by the Nortumbrian king Ælla, and so his sons sought vengeance and attacked Ællas stronghold. The legend holds that the sons of Ragnar Lodbrok then executed the Northumbrian king in retaliation, although English sources claim he died in battle at York. Despite the accounts in the Norse sagas, its possible that Ragnar Lodbrok was someone else entirely. In 845 c.e., Paris was under siege by an invading force of Northmen- led by a man who is identified in Frankish sources as a Viking chieftain named Ragnar. Historians dispute whether or not this is the same Ragnar named in the sagas; the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle indicates that the Ragnar who invaded and conquered Paris is unlikely to be the one referred to in the Norse legends. What is more likely, according to academics, is that the character we know today as Ragnar Lodbrok is an amalgamation of the Norse chieftain who took over Paris and the legendary warrior king who was killed when King Ælla threw him into a pit of serpents. In other words, Lodbrok is a literary composite of at least two different figures, as well as several Norse chieftains. However, several of his sons are documented as historical figures; Ivar the Boneless, Bjà ¶rn Ironside, and Sigurd Snake-in-the-eye are all considered part of Viking history. The Sons of Ragnar Lodbrok According to the Norse legends, Lodbrok had several sons by different women. In the Gesta Danorum, a book of Danish history written in the twelfth century by a Christian chronicler, he was first married to the shield maiden Lagertha, with whom he had at least one son and a daughter; Lagertha is largely believed to be representative of Thorgerd, a warrior goddess, and may be a mythical figure. Lorado / Getty Images Lodbrok divorced Lagertha and then married Thora, the daughter of an earl of Gotaland, with whom he had Eirà ­kr and Agnar; they were eventually killed in battle. Once Thora died, Lodbrok then married Aslaug, whose father was the legendary Sigurd the Dragon Slayer; Sigurds tale is told in the poetic edda, the  Nibelungenlied, and the saga of the Và ¶lsunga. Aslaugs mother was the Valkyrie shield maiden Brynhildr. Together, Lodbrok and Aslaug had at least four sons. Ivar the Boneless, also called Ivar Ragnarsson, earned his nickname because according to Norse legend, his legs were deformed, although some sources say that boneless referred to impotence and an inability to have children. Ivar was instrumental in the conquest of Northumbria and the death of King Ælla. Bjà ¶rn Ironside formed a large naval fleet and sailed around West Frankia and into the Mediterranean. He later split up Scandinavia with his brothers, and took over rule of Sweden and Uppsala. Sigurd Snake-in-the-eye got his name from a mysterious serpent-shaped mark in one of his eyes. Sigurd married King Ællas daughter Blaeja, and when he and his brothers divided Scandinavia, became king of Zealand, Halland, and the Danish islands. Lodbroks son Hvitserk may have been conflated with Halfdan Ragnarsson in the sagas; there are no sources that mention them separately. Hvitserk means white shirt, and could have been a nickname used to distinguish Halfdan from other men of the same name, which was a fairly common one at the time. A fifth son, Ubba, appears in medieval manuscripts as one of the warriors of the Great Heathen Army that conquered England in the ninth century, but is not referenced in any of the earlier Norse source material. Sources Magnà ºsson Eirà ­kr, and William Morris. The Volsunga Saga. NorrÅ“na Society, 1907.Mark, Joshua J. â€Å"Twelve Great Viking Leaders.†Ã‚  Ancient History Encyclopedia, Ancient History Encyclopedia, 9 July 2019, www.ancient.eu/article/1296/twelve-great-viking-leaders/.â€Å"The Sons of Ragnar Lodbrok (Translation).†Ã‚  Fornaldarsà ¶gur Norà °urlanda, www.germanicmythology.com/FORNALDARSAGAS/ThattrRagnarsSonar.html.â€Å"Vikings: Women in Norse Society.†Ã‚  Daily Kos, www.dailykos.com/stories/2013/10/27/1250982/-Vikings-Women-in-Norse-Society.

Performance Management Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

Performance Management - Essay Example With the help of this system a company motivates its employees to delivery good performance. Retail sales associate are very important part of retail business. They directly interact with the customers and contribute a lot in satisfying them. Sale of a retail company highly depends on the behavior and approaches of its sales associate. Performance of retail sales associates is influenced by their skills. Job description of a retail sales associate helps the business in hiring desirable salespersons. The theory of organizational behavior modification (OBM) involves with changing behavior of the organizational members and their performances. This theory considers two important things which influence the performance of the employees. As per this theory a behavior which produces positive effects or consequence tends to become repeated. The organizational members become motivated to perform that specific type of behavior which helps them to get some positive results. Another thing which influences the performance of the employees is the behavior of the seniors towards them. The senior organizational members like managers, team leaders can change or influence the behavior of the employees by giving punishment or rewards to them. In the retail business for delivering successful job, sales associate needs to have some key behaviors which help them in achieving the goals and objectives of the business. These key behavioral factors are as follows: Confidence: The sales associate needs to very confident for performing their job. Sales associates need to interact with the customers directly. If they are confident about what they are saying and about their knowledge then they can convince the customers easily. It is easy for the sales associate to influence the customers with their high confidence level. Customers tend to trust the sales associate who are confident about themselves. The company can modify the confidence level of its sales associates by giving

Innocent Drinks Case Study Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Innocent Drinks - Case Study Example They had a never give up attitude which helped them to not feel low as soon as they hit an unwanted hindrance during the course of the setting up of their company, right from getting manufacturers to thinking of innovation in the field of providing fresh juices to their customers. Thus, these aspects helped the company to grow, develop and reach success. Expansion and diversification is always the key aspects of helping any enterprise to grow and develop and reach new heights in terms of revenue and sales. Thus, expansion of Innocent Drinks into Europe and U.S seems to be an excellent idea for the company. However, according to the facts presented, except for France, Netherlands and Belgium, the rest of Europe was not helping the company meet a wider range of success. In other countries like Italy, Germany, Sweden and Denmark, the company was not really doing well because of a number of reasons with respect to the beverage. The main reason was that these juices had a longer shelf lif e in these countries; however, these countries already had an established smoothie base, which meant that Innocent Drinks had to beat out a lot of competition in order to set itself or stabilise itself in the region. This was proving to be very difficult for the company, and was leading to marginal or no profit at all, and thus, it is a step that could have been avoided. Instead of France, Netherlands and Belgium, the company should stop selling to the rest of Europe because of negligible returns. The U.S on the other hand, was a much safer and stronger option to expand into, for the company. This was because smoothies as a product were already quite well known and received in the market by the people; thus there was no problem in the demand. For the supply as well, the founders went ahead and established contacts with some leading manufacturers and suppliers in order to set up shop. However, the only problem was beating the tough competition that already persisted in the smoothie m arket. In keeping with the introduction of new combinations of products under the Innocent brand, into different countries and continents, a very bold move was made by the company. Despite the bottlenecks in the business, in my opinion, the company should go ahead with producing and selling ice creams and other such dairy related products in the US and Europe, because both these areas have a high acceptance of such products, and the company can begin by banking on its already established brand name for help. At the time of the case, the company could be valued for a sum of 3 million lira pounds according to a personal opinion, in keeping with the figures that have been presented in the facts. However, despite this, the company should not consider a purchase offer at such a crucial time because this is the main span of its phase of growth and development. This is the time when the company can acquire more and more of the market share and set up a better consumer base. This is also th e time of proper growth and expansion, not to forget penetration into the market. Thus, if the company lost that value of having to grow and develop on their own, and considered a purchase offer at such an early stage, then it would lose its momentum eventually and finally, its value as well. One of the main complications faced by the founders was of whether or not to alter the management structure within the business. According to a pers

Mythology: Important Part Of History :: essays research papers

Mythology: Important Part of History Bullfinch once said "Mythology is the handmaid of literature...". That means that mythology is necessarily subservient or subordinate to literature. I personally think that is not true. Let me introduce myself. My name is Aphrodite, goddess of beauty and sexual desire. Mythology is important and interesting . In fact, I think I may be the most interesting of all the gods. Well, at least the most beautiful. In this auto biographical paper I will reveal to you who I am, how I relate to mythology, and a famous story about myself. Let me start with my birth. Many think I was born out of murder. They say that when Cronos butchered his father he flung the dismembered body into the sea, where it floated spouting blood and foam. From the foam rose me, a tall beautiful maiden with long blond hair the color of daffodils. Other legends say that I am the daughter of Cronos and Rheia or Jupiter and Dionne. I am married to Hephaestus, god of fire and metal work. Shortly after birth my poor husband was cast out of Olympus because of his deformities. My son is the famous arrow shooting Cupid. We are almost always together and Cupid is always shooting darts of desire in to the bosoms of Gods and men. I hate to admit it but in a way I am responsible for the Trojan War. One day Discord threw an apple on to Olympus to be given to the most beautiful goddess. Hera, Athene, and I all tried to claim the title. Each of us tried to persaude the judge, Paris, in our favor. Hera told him he would be a powerful ruler, Athene promised him that he would receive great military fame, and I guaranteed him Helen of Troy's hand in marriage. He then declared me the fairest of all, and abducted Helen of Troy thus beginning the Trojan War. I have also inspired many paintings, sculptures, and poetry. The most famous painting featuring me is the Birth of Venus. It is a very famous painting from the Renaissance. As you can see I am one of the most important goddess and have influenced mythology immensely. I relate to mythology by being the goddess of love and beauty. My Roman name is Venus. My work is my pleasure, my profession, and my hobby. I think about nothing but love and nobody expects any more from me. My job is to make other gods and goddess fall in love with each other. I am ashamed to say that I

Easter in Ukraine

Easter (in Ukrainian: ‘Velykden’ or ‘Pasha’) is the most important holiday of the year in Ukraine. It’s celebrated on each first week after vernal equinox and full moon. Preparation for Easter starts seven weeks ahead of time with the advent of Lent. Believers don't eat meat and any animal products. Palm Sunday, the week before Easter, is known in Ukraine as Willow Sunday. People bring home willow branches which have been blessed in church and beat this willow of children that were not ill and were healthy. The week is dedicated to preparing for Easter. The Thursday before Easter is called Clean Thursday. During this time an effort is made to finish all field work before Thursday, since from Thursday on work is forbidden. Pure Thursday is connected with ritual of clarification by water. According to Ukrainian tradition one should bathe before sunrise on this day to be healthy all year. The house must be clean too. Good Friday is the day that the women of the family bake â€Å"pasha†, Ukrainian Easter bread. On Saturday children dye Easter eggs to add to the Easter basket which will be blessed in church. It also includes pysanka, salt, pasha, sausage, ham and most of the people also put in basket red sweet wine. In the evening people go to church for the Easter mass, which lasts all night. After that people go home to celebrate Easter with their families. If they meet other people on the way they say: â€Å"Christ is risen! † and these people should reply â€Å"Risen indeed†. All the people exchange Easter greetings and give each other painted eggs. On Easter day kids play their favorite Easter game: knocking the eggs. If you knock somebody’s egg and your egg is not broken than you are the winner. The Easter season in Ukraine comes to an end with the cult of the dead is observed. The dead are remembered during the whole week after Easter, especially on the first Monday following Easter Sunday. People gather in the cemeteries, bringing with them some food, candies and wine, which they consume, leaving the rest at the graves.

Definition of reading - Free Essay Example

Sample details Pages: 6 Words: 1898 Downloads: 2 Date added: 2017/06/26 Category Statistics Essay Did you like this example? 2.0 Definition of Reading Reading is a mental process. There are many definitions of reading. Reading is when someone looks into a written text and starts to absorb the information from the written linguistic message. In Longman Dictionary of Applied Linguistic, reading is said as: (1) Perceiving a written text in order to understand its contents. This can be done silently (silent reading). The understanding that result is called reading comprehension. (2) Saying a written text aloud (oral reading). This can be done with or without understanding of the content. Don’t waste time! Our writers will create an original "Definition of reading" essay for you Create order Other definition by Collins English Learners Dictionary is that reading is an act of looking at and understanding point. This is very true because reading entails the use of vision to understand several words in a sentence and make them meaningful. Same goes to each sentence in order to understand the entire text. Besides all the definitions from the dictionary there are also definitions made by several people. According to William (1984), he defines reading as a process whereby one looks at and understands what has been written. Rohani Ariffin (1992:1) in her book entitled Anthropology of Poetry for Young People defines reading as a highly personal activity that is mainly done silently, alone. There is a clear understanding that reading is something related to the activity of acquiring information and it is done either silently or aloud. Reading is an interactive process between the reader and the writer. Brunan W.K (1989) for instance defines reading as a two way interaction in w hich information is exchange between the reader and the author. Smith (1973) also shares the same attitude. This is proved by his line: Reading is an act of communication in which information is transferred from a transmitter to a receiver (Smith 1973:2) Despite all the definitions given, there is also definition of reading given by teachers as well as by students. According to Stallfter (1969), teachers define reading as: a complicated procedure. Readers read to get information from the printed pages. They should be able to pronounce and comprehend the printed words, signs, letters, and symbols by assigning meaning to them. As for students, they define reading which cited from Jensen and Petty (1918) as: where words go into your eyes and out of your mouth. They said that books are written with many adventures and time and time again there are spots where they say I know it! it is interesting to them as they open the book, words flow out and float across the mind In order for a pe rson to be able to read, there is in need of other skill to support the reader while reading. Reading is a mental process as mentioned earlier so it needs other skills to be integrated with such as listening, speaking and writing. According to Chitravelu et. al (1995), reading is not a single skill that we use all the time in the same way but it is multiple skill that used differently with kind of test and fulfilling different purpose. This was earlier being stated by Thomas and Loving (1979) where they alleged reading as a communicative skills along with listening, speaking writing and thinking. 2.1 Purpose of Reading Many or any people can read a text but hardly can understand what the writing was all about. This is because the reading was not providing any information to the reader. Why is this happen? This happened when the reader merely read the text without understanding the content. So it defeats the purpose of reading as a means to gain information. According to Mariam (1991) she proposed that a major avenue of learning is through reading. Yet, if we do not understand what we are reading, we cannot learn or remember it. Comprehending is a major concerned, then, of all teachers who use printed material in the classroom. Since reading is very important in learning second language, a great effort has been given to develop reading skill. Although many ways have been promoted in order to improve reading skill among students, reading is still something that is seems problematic. Students cant understand English text. These problems occurred because according to Noormah (2000) the students are lacking of vocabulary, hardly understand the words and less interest to English subject. Besides that, there are also several factors contributing to the diffident of this particular skill. Based on Sivaguru (2000) those factors are home, school and social environment. If the student is living in a family where English to them is a familiar language, frequently spoken by the members of the family then the student will have the advantage of being exposed to the language. Unlike student with no English familiarity in his family where English is seen as a bizarre language to be spoken, this kind of environment demodul ates his motivation to learn the language. Moreover, school is also one of the factors that contribute to the incompetence in reading. This is where the role of teacher in promoting the language to the students. Some teacher just might not fully use English during English class especially in the primary school. This is just because the teacher intended to suit her level with the students and as a result a lot of code switching is used. This early exposure to the lack of using English in class causes a serious impact when they further their study in a higher education level. To them English is not something important. Even if it does, they still can code switch as what their teacher did during their schooling period. Another factor is the environment factor. We are from what we come from. If the environment around us allows us to speak English for example to have colleagues who are willing to speak English, this would be a good drive. But what actually happen in the Malaysian society is that people are hesitate to speak English in public among friends, neighbors etceteras. Although the factors discussed are concerning around the speaking skill, but as mentioned earlier that all skills are related to each other. When the students are no longer interested to speak in English, their passions for the language will also deteriorating. These will also affecting their reading skills and their ability to understand English text. 2.2 Models of Reading This study will be focusing on the students of a tertiary level. Students of tertiary level are different from students of a secondary school in reading purpose. Secondary school students read because they are forced to read by their teacher. It is hard to find students who do extensive reading by themselves. Students of tertiary level on the other hand read because they have to. They have to read to keep up with lectures and assignments. If they do not read, they will be left behind. There are three theories related and being use in this study. The first theory is the traditional view of reading (Dole et al, 1991). According to this theory, novice readers needs to acquire a set of hierarchically ordered sub-skills that consecutively build toward comprehension ability. Contained in this theory, the students have the ability to comprehend the texts by making sense of the words within the context of the sentence. According to Nunan (1991), being able to read using this view is being able to interpret a series of written symbols to the auditory equivalents as a way for the readers to make sense of the text they are reading and to reproduce the meaning of the reading itself. In other words, this process is called the bottom-up. The bottom-up reading is done step by step as mentioned by Mariam Mohamed Nor and Rahmad Sukor Abd. Samad (2006). The technique begins with the eyes identifying visual information in the materials and this technique begins with the identification of the letter and the sounds follows subsequently. Next, the identification of the lexical items is done through grapheme-phoneme correspondence and being put in the short term memory (STM). This is where the phrases, clauses and sentences are being constructed. This model requires an accurate comprehension, sequential identification of letters, words, phrases, clauses, sentences and the pronunciation. The other meaning of this view is that it is also a process of outside-in as mentioned by McCarthy (1999). To make it simple, the bottom-up model recommends that reading should begins from the low-level processing. The printed texts that being read by the reader can only be interpreted and understood by the reader himself. Apart from the definition given below, this traditional view of reading always been under attack because of the insufficiency and lacking one or more of the usual forms of grammatical inflection mainly the words and structure. The second theory is the three major types of schemata. The types of schema mentioned by Carrell (1984) are the linguistic schemata, formal schemata and content schemata which are related to the reading comprehension. The linguistic schemata refer to the existing knowledge that the readers have in vocabulary and grammar. It is the foundation for other schemata as it is essential in helping the readers to grasp and decode the text they read. If the readers do not have this schema, it will be hard for them to understand and to decode texts they read. The more linguistic schema the readers have, the easier for them to understand and decode what they are reading. The second schema is the formal schema. This schema has been explained to be abstract, encoded, internalized, and having coherent patterns of meta-linguistic, discourse and textual organization that are being used to understand a text. The reader tries to use any information that they have in order to understand and to comprehend the English text they are reading at that particular of time. But the formal schema offers less power in the reading process as mentioned by Carrell (1984). In this study, the formal schema helps the students to make relations between the background knowledge that they have with the new one that they just bumped into under the same topic. This is to help them in comprehending the reading English texts in the possible way as they can. The third schema in the schemata theory is called content schema. In other terms, this schema explains about the reader having the information or background knowledge on the topic that is being brought up in the texts they read. A language is not only the combination of vocabulary or grammar but it also involves the culture of the language and this is where the information came. With the content schema, it can complete the lack of language schemata and thus helps the students in comprehending texts and to be able to put aside any ambiguities and irrelevant words or sentences in the texts. The third theory used in this study is the affective filter hypothesis by Stephen Krashen. This theory involves the attitudes towards the target language and its relationship with the input achieved by the students. It shows that how attitude is very important in learning language. If the students have a very high or strong affective filter, they tend to have less input. If the students do understand the input, the input will not reach part of the brain that takes charge of the language acquisition. It is different to students who have low affective filter who will have the tendency to obtain more information and because they have more positive attitudes to the language they are learning, they are more open to the input they obtain.