Character of Touchstone in Shakespeares As You Like It :: Shakespeare As You Like It Essays

The Character of Touchstone in As You Like It As You Like It features, like so many of Shakespeare's plays, a professional clown, Touchstone, and it's worth paying some attention to his role for what it contributes towards establishing and maintaining the upbeat comic spirit of the play. For the jester is the constant commentator on what is going on. His humour, pointed or otherwise, thus inevitably contributes to the audience's awareness of what is happening, and the way in which other characters treat him is often a key indicator of their sensibilities. Touchstone is one of the gentlest and happiest clowns in all of Shakespeare. He comments on the action, makes jokes at other people's expense, and offers ironic insights about their situation. But throughout As You Like It, such traditional roles of the fool are offered and taken with a generosity of spirit so that his remarks never shake the firm comic energies of the play. When he ridicules Orlando's verses, Rosalind laughs along with him. When he points out to Corin (in 3.2) that the shepherd must be damned for never having lived at court, Corin takes it as good natured jesting (which it is). When Touchstone takes Audrey away from her rural swain, William, there are apparently no hard feelings (although much here depends on the staging). In this play, the professional jester participates in and contributes to a style of social interaction which is unqualified by any more sober and serious reflections. This makes Touchstone very different from the bitter fool of King Le ar or from the most complex fool of all, the sad Feste of Twelfth Night , both of whom offer comments that cast either a shrewd, melancholy, or bitter irony on the proceedings. Touchstone himself becomes the target of much humour by his immediate attraction to Audrey, the "foul" country lass. There is something richly comic here, seeing the staunch apologist for the sophisticated life of the court fall so quickly to his animal lust. But the satire here is very good humoured. Touchstone himself acknowledges the frailty of his vows and does not attempt to deceive anyone about his intentions.

Amazon in E-Commerce

Question 1: How has Amazon.com and their use of internet changed the retailing industry? Give examples. Answer: 1 Amazon.com has revolutionized the selling and purchasing of all products over the internet. It started with selling books over the internet and progressed in selling almost all consumer goods within a short span of time. Its engineering and quality principals make sure that all the various standard compliances are met and justified for improving the system behavior for its customers. Customers have now moved from the brick and mortars model, a traditional model for purchase of products, to the click and mortars model for ease of access, anytime anywhere access, take part in auctions and avail several promotion offers and gifts. The very perspective towards retail buying has been changed by Amazon.com. The virtual store concept is quite likely followed by many retailers after the success of Amazon.com and they have created a benchmark for its products and selling models define the very success over the long period since its inception. Question 2: Comparisons have been made by giant bookstore retailer Barnes & Nobles and Amazon.com. Barnes and Noble operate dozens of bookstores in many local communities. Yet Amazon.com’s reach goes anywhere and everywhere with the Web. What, in your opinion, should Barnes and Nobles do to compete with Amazon.com? Answer 2: Barnes and Nobles must identify the very future requirements for its physical bookstores and come up with â€Å"click and mortars† model for fetching the right customer focus and model. Identifying the competition around and the changing outlook of the customers towards decision making for purchasing products is the greatest differentiator for change. The decision making for taking the business of Barnes & Nobles over the internet would make sure that all the various present disadvantages would be capitalized upon. The brand mark of Barnes & Nobles makes sure that every activity towards the envelopment of skyrocketing technologies would develop into a mammoth in promoting its success and growth. Only setting up the website is not enough. The representation model, sound engineering techniques, quality standards and affiliation techniques makes sure that its representation over the internet is strong and makes a presence really promising. Question 3: In order to more quickly realize and sustain its profitability should Amazon.com have remained a solely clicks based e-business (without warehouses) selling only books? Why or why not? Answer 3: Amazon’s decision to cater to several products would definitely move its primary base of selling books to other products. This is a sort of erosion of its primary brand which it created for selling books. The very brand creation and sustenance for selling books online had created a larger market share for book selling. The various bookstores at that time were in greater risk concerning their sales as Amazon grew in its market share for selling books. It was a brand which no one could deny. Its decision towards clicks business for selling other products over books makes sure that monopoly was broken to some extent and other small to medium sellers in the market found opportunity to make some business. These created a balanced view for existence in the marketplace allowing every dimension of sellers and customers to interact for good. Another reason for making the right move is for long term business continuity and spreading its wing to several other products which did not make it to the internet in that era. Amazon’s decision to be clicks based business must be changed into â€Å"clicks and mortars† business model for improving its supply chain by making it efficient and effective. The effective supply chain would cut down extra costs of transportation and shipping and would in turn create trust for its safety and quality policies. Warehouses would make sure that timely delivery of products can be made at lesser costs, which otherwise would create a sense of misunderstanding and evolve privacy and security aspects to a larger scale. Question 4: How can Amazon.com complete Bezos’s vision? What do they need to do to individualize their services to 25 million customers? Answer: 4 Amazon.com must fetch the customers according to their tastes and product liking. The following can be the various options that can be exercised: Provide a survey with questionnaires of what is important, how it can be bettered, what else is desired and so on. The survey questions would serve quite helpful in fetching the right suggestion from its customers to in turn get them everything they desire. The adoption of B2B and C2C model where various sellers and buyers can meet for selling the products of their choice. This would help users to customize according to their preferences so that more number of customers is fetched for purpose. The customer logs must be duly analyzed for fetching the right decision and data mining approaches to the vast data can be devised for getting the facts out for better customization of products and services. Request boxes and techniques must be presented so that in case a customer fails to find exactly what he desires, he can make a request for the new product. This would help to fetch the needs in micro detail for better capturing of the customer base. The above approaches would enhance Bezos’s vision to cater to individual needs and demands. Amazon is a virtual reseller, one of the main new intermediaries (Sarkar, 1996.) They are an electronic-commerce only intermediary; business and customer relationship management (CRM) is conducted purely via their website; a virtual marketplace with no direct contact between buyers and sellers. Amazon have created a virtualized value system through their accelerated ordering, delivery and payment of goods and services, while reducing operating and inventory costs associated with traditional bricks and mortar stores. This model demands a change to bring every buyer and seller to meet for catering individualized services. References Sarkar, M., Butler, B. & Steinfield, C. (1996) Intermediaries & Cybermediaries.      

Apple vs. Microsoft Essay - 4129 Words

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the leadership, structure, and culture of two of the most influential and newsworthy companies in the technology sector: Microsoft and Apple. We will examine how the differences in the three aspects make companies different, and how leadership, culture, and structure influence each other in determining how the company operates and performs. Microsoft is the world’s leading supplier of computer software, specifically focusing on development, manufacturing, licensing, and support. The company operates in three primary divisions: Platforms and Services, Microsoft Business, and Entertainment and Devices (Yahoo! Finance). Microsoft has been extremely successful by staying continuously innovative in its†¦show more content†¦These policies are memorialized in the Corporate Governance Guidelines, to assure that the Board has the necessary authority and practices in place to review and evaluate the companys business operations, and to make decisions that are independent of the companys management (Microsoft.com). Since the divisions are provided with the Corporate Governance Guidelines, Microsoft would be classified as having a formal organizational structure. This degree of formality stems from Gates’ desire from control. It has been said that Gates would even require approval for Steve Ballmer’s l isted expenses. Microsoft’s exhibits a functional departmentalization by placing their employees in the appropriate divisions based on their specialized skills. The purpose of the new structure is an attempt to place more value on the evolving needs of the customer. By using a functional departmentalization, Microsoft feels they are offering their customers their greatest potential. Microsoft states â€Å"We see a new era of opportunity to provide greater value to our customers by weaving both software and services into forms that suit their needs† (Washington Post.com). Microsoft expresses a transformational structure approach by leading their employees with emphasis on previous experiences and examples in an attempt to learn from the past. With Microsoft’s strong value of theShow MoreRelatedApple vs Microsoft1309 Words   |  6 PagesBryant Ri’chard 11-22-2010 Sheri Easton-Long 6 P.M. Apple vs. Microsoft Apple (formerly known as Macintosh) and Microsoft, without a doubt, produce the largest operating systems in the world OS X Lion and Windows 7. With Apple bringing in $20 billion and $4billion in profit, and Microsoft bringing in $62.48 billion and $18.76 billion in profit, there’s no doubt that these two super giants are going down anytime soon. 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