As I Lay Dying Novel †Literature Essay

As I Lay Dying Novel – Literature Essay Free Online Research Papers As I Lay Dying Novel Literature Essay Although the novel As I Lay Dying is a work which contains numerous universal lessons as well as countless personal applications, there are a number of these which cannot be ignored. One message that appears to be very important to both the plot and the central theme is that of love. Specifically, Faulkner makes the point that love can be expressed in many ways. This aspect of the book is a major lesson that can be learned from the actions of the various Bundren family members and their relationship to Addie Bundren. Often times, people in our society suppose that, because a person, be it a family member, romantic interest, or other relation, does not express their love to someone in literal terms, i.e. saying, â€Å"I love you,† that the person feels little or no love for them. Other people can see love when it is expressed not only in literal but in related ways, such as kindness and service. Nevertheless, as Faulkner shows in this novel, love for another can be expressed in various and extraordinary fashions. To begin with, one must examine the actual love the members of the family possess for Addie. Addie Bundren extracts a promise from her family, â€Å"when Darl was born I asked Anse to promise to take me back to Jefferson when I died†¦Ã¢â‚¬  When she indeed does die, all of the members of the family go on the trek to Jefferson, but each for different reasons. This displays the inherent love they have for their mother. Dewey Dell has no love for her mother, in fact, she is only glad to go on the trip because she needs an abortion. Darl says to her, â€Å"‘You want her to die so you can get to town: is that it?’† Darl himself has no specific reason expressed in the novel to want to go to Jefferson, and although he probably really loves Addie, despite his statement, â€Å"I cannot love my mother because I have no mother,† he accompanies the family centrally for respect of the promise she has left them with. The statement he makes shows how he apparently can feel the favoritism his mother has toward her â€Å"Jewel.† Jewel is truly the only character in the novel who clearly shows outward signs of love towards Addie. Although these signs are generally symbolic and very deep, they are there. The only way Jewel knows how to express himself is through anger and violence. This he displays countless times throughout the novel, with his physical actions and his verbal assaults, such as the one against the negroes and the white man. â€Å"I can see his [Jewel’s] ears taking on a still deeper tone of furious red†¦ When we pass the negroes their heads turn suddenly with that expression of shock and instinctive outrage. ‘Great God,’ one says; ‘what they got in that wagon?’ Jewel whirls. ‘Sons of bitches,’ he says.† This passage, for example, shows how defensive Jewel gets when normal people react to the obvious reeking stench of his deceased but beloved mother. Jewel is very violent and vulgar in his love. When he, concerning his mother’s gra ve, speaks, â€Å"Who the hell cant dig a damn hole in the ground?† His father, Anse, who apparently believes in only literal love, replies, â€Å"‘It aint respectful, talking that way about her grave,’ pa says. ‘You all dont know what it is. You never pure loved her, none of you.’† This statement is ironic in that Jewel is the one who loves his mother and Anse is traveling to Jefferson not for love or even respect, but for a selfish reason: â€Å"now I can get them teeth. That will be a comfort, it will.† Additionally, Jewel shows his love for his mother through a zoological conduit- his horse. The horse is a symbol of Jewel’s love for Addie as declared, â€Å"Jewel’s mother is a horse,† countless times throughout the novel. When they depart on their trip, Anse makes the comment that â€Å"I told him not to bring that horse out of respect for his dead ma, because it wouldn’t look right, him prancing along on a durn circus animal and her wanting us all to be in the wagon with her that sprung from her flesh and blood†¦Ã¢â‚¬  Again, this is another ironic statement by Jewel’s hypocritical and disrespectful father. In truth, to Jewel, his horse represents his mother, and so, by riding it, he is much closer to her than he could ever be in the wagon next to her dead body. When the Gillespie’s barn is burning, Jewel rushes in to save his mother from burning, it is of importance to note that he rescues the horses first. â€Å"he [Jewel] leaps toward the stall where the horse screams†¦ he appears, his back arched, the muscles ridged through his garment as he drags the horse out by its head†¦He drags it on, slowly, terrifically†¦ and beats the maddened horse on out of the door.† It is only after he has done this feat that he goes back in and grabs the coffin containing Addie’s dead body. â€Å"Jewel runs crouching to the far end of the coffin and stoops to it†¦ We see his shoulders strain as he upends the coffin and slides it single-handed from the saw-horses.† Vardaman, the youngest son, although he loves his mother, is too young and inexperienced with life to understand the scope of what has happened. He wants to go to town to look at a toy train in the toy store. He says, â€Å"We are going to town. Dewey Dell says it [the toy train] wont be sold because it belongs to Santa Claus and he taken it back with him until next Christmas. Then it will be behind the glass again, shining with waiting.† He, like Jewel, also symbolically transfers his mother’s spirit into an animal; in this case, a fish. Again, because of his youth and limited experience, he does not accept the fact that his mother is gone. Instead, as he sees her dead body, he consistently talks about how the body in the box is not his mother. â€Å"My mother is not in the box. My mother does not smell like that. My mother is a fish.† Vardaman loves his mother very much, and so cannot bear the thought of his mother being gone forever. Although he never literall y talks about how he loves his mother, he always expresses it in his own way. It is often difficult to tell, from actions or words, if one person loves another. However, one very moving point that Faulkner made in this novel is that love can be expressed in more ways than simply saying, â€Å"I love you.† Although these three words can be in themselves very moving and meaningful, to many it is very important and comforting to know that the human psyche is capable of deeper and more intense feelings than what is literally apparent. Such a concept can be learned and more greatly comprehended from reading this novel. Research Papers on As I Lay Dying Novel - Literature EssayWhere Wild and West MeetHonest Iagos Truth through DeceptionComparison: Letter from Birmingham and Crito19 Century Society: A Deeply Divided EraPersonal Experience with Teen PregnancyMind TravelTrailblazing by Eric AndersonThe Spring and AutumnEffects of Television Violence on ChildrenBook Review on The Autobiography of Malcolm X

The Impact Of Ethical Sourcing Essays

The Impact Of Ethical Sourcing Essays The Impact Of Ethical Sourcing Essay The Impact Of Ethical Sourcing Essay The sourcing companies are preferred to source products at the lowest possible price, while at the same time ensure he suppliers produce the products With social and environmental considerations. The purpose of this policy is to ensure that products and raw materials purchase by or on behalf of a company consistent with the mission to develop and promote ethical responsibility at every stage in a fashion supply chain. In 1 9905, fashion retailers mainly focused on the economical aspect i. E. Sweet cost with reasonable quality, of achieving the products. While ethical issues are increasingly concerned recently in supply chain management. Globalization is likely one of the factors that contribute to the ransom, which many companies move the production lines offshore to those developing counties for the reason of lower production costs. Concerns on the human right of the workers and the environment protection have been raise in these countries. Change in consumer purchasing behavior may be another factor. This change may possibly increase pressure on fashion retailers or producers to sell or use products that are produced environmentally friendly and respecting human rights. Any failure would probably destroy the companies trustworthiness and even threaten corporate survival. International brands Gap and Nikkei are examples that suffered negative publicity as a result of failing to maintain the ethical issues in their production process. This appears to force fashion companies to adopt ethical sourcing and ensure their suppliers in all stages of supply chain act accordingly. 2. Finding and Discussion The impact of ethical souring on the selection of production sources can be divided into two aspects: the selection of suppliers and the selection of production materials. 2. 1 . Selection of suppliers Traditionally, under limited information about the suppliers, fashion buyers end to use price as a standard for selection Of suppliers in which the lower the price a supplier offered, the more likely the supplier will obtain the business in a pool of potential suppliers. In addition to price, quality, delivery time and services provided may also affect their choices. Today, however, fashion companies take into account two additional concerns, i. E. Social responsibility and environmental sustainability, when selecting new suppliers. Price used to be considered as a critical factor in evaluating and determining suppliers as the price of raw materials contribute most in the production sots. Therefore to cut the production costs, fashion companies may choose the suppliers with the lower price. This low price, however, may reflect lower standards in response to the workers treatment and environmental protection. As to keep costs low, suppliers may pay low wages, require the workers to work long hours, provide poor working environment for their workers and employ child labors in order to gain the business and undercut other potential suppliers. These unethical social problems are now widely criticized by public and therefore trigger a change in supply chain management. Cooperate with those unethical suppliers may have a risk of reputation damage , and consequently many companies start to consider ethical issues when they are choosing suppliers. The main barrier for ethical souring On selection Of suppliers may possibly be the Costs. It seems difficult for the suppliers to produce products as cheap as before and at the same time adherence to ethical production, because they may have to increase the wage rate, improve working environment, and use safe and environmental friendly raw materials. This apparently lowers the opportunities for suppliers o gain the business unless they undercut other potential suppliers on cost. Also, the costs of sourcing ethical clothing, inevitably, will increase accordingly. A fashion buyer may face a tradeoff when selecting suppliers between lower costs and concerning ethical issues. When adopting ethical souring, fashion buyers may not be able to access to the interior of the suppliers and evaluate whether the products are produced according to code Of ethics and environmental standards. Evidence from third parties, therefore, may be required to provide advice for the companies. For example, United Nation Global Compact (UNC), requires companies to follow universal teeth kcal principles, is a standard to encourage companies worldwide to adopt sustainable social and environmental policies. Also, several non- government organizations (NAG) were established to encourage fashion companies to sourcing materials or clothing produced by manufacturers with ethical concerns. The Clean Clothes Campaign, the Ethical Trading Initiative (IT) and Fair Labor Association are the examples of NAG to promote ethical standards in clothing production. However, these organizations that help in ethical sourcing may be criticized as not reliable. For example, one of the members in the IT, Gap, had been found inconsistent with the ethical standards by employing child labors. Consumers, therefore, may need self- adjustment on the companies performance and the information on the companies official website may provide a way. Some of the fashion companies, such as Patagonia and People Tree, provide transparency of information about where the raw materials come from and where the production is carried out on their websites. This is because these companies recognize that any inappropriate and unethical corporate actions in supply chains may affect the companies image and reputations in the market. 2. 2. Selection of production materials Selecting appropriate raw materials would be very important as the features of raw materials could have a great influence on the finished products. There is trend for fashion buyers to source clothing made from sustainable cottons and produced by Fair Trade manufacturers. For instance, Marks Spencer had sold clothing made from Fair Trade cotton since 2006; Monsoon sold Fair Trade clothing; New Look sold t-shirts made from organic cotton; Houses sold clothing made from recycled cotton fabric. Sustainable cottons refer to the cottons that are produced in response to social ethics and environmental protection. Examples are organic cotton, better cotton and recycled cotton. Organic cotton takes an important role in ethical souring and there are a growing number Of fast ion companies that start to take step towards using organic cotton. Timberland could be a typical example that does a lot to reduce damage to the environment in which 80% of the shoes are manufactured from organic cotton or recycled materials. HM, another example, is one of the leading users of organic cotton in the world. Cotton is regarded as the most popular fiber used in garment. Standard cotton farming is criticized for produce significant environmental problems as it is accounted for 1 1 % of the worlds pesticide consumption. Organic cotton, which is grown without pesticides and fertilizers, is therefore used to improve farmers health and reduce considerable environmental pollution. This kind of farming may possibly minimize the adverse effect on rivers or water source nearby. Better cotton, which is introduced by Better Cotton Initiative to promote good farming behavior, also growth with less irrigate water, chemical, and with more concern to the soil, natural environment and working condition for farmers. Recycled cotton, which is made from the scraps produced by textile mills or post-consumer cotton waste, is important to minimize unnecessary wastage and environmental impacts. Recycle cotton reduce waste to landfill and the use of virgin cotton, chemicals, water and land. Although it is environmental friendly to use sustainable cottons, there are several imitations regarding the usage of these cottons. There seems to be physical limitation for organic cotton and better cotton of having less output because of the absence of chemical pesticide and fertilizers. Apart from physical limitation, there is also economical limitation in which using sustainable cottons is very expensive. Cost of farmers will be increase as the certified organic seed is expensive. Farmers may possibly transfer these extra cost to manufacturers for producing sustainable cotton fabrics. The cost of fashion companies will increase accordingly as extra expense is resulted from using expensive cotton fabric, getting organic cotton certification and paying a Fair Trade premium to farmers. A huge investment of money, time and effort may be required to develop and train farmers skills for producing sustainable cottons in order to meet the international standard. 3. Conclusion Ethical sourcing may conceivably be the critical souring strategy for every fashion companies worldwide in the nearest future as it brings a great deal of benefit to the society while at the same time minimizes the environmental impact. It mainly affects the supply chain in the selection of suppliers and production materials. Although the change in criteria of selection production source may discourage the economic aspect as higher purchase price, it does promote the companys reputation and good image to be an ethical corporate as consumers concern. This may actually reduce operation costs of a company as more recycled materials are used and less effort may be put on promoting brand image. Reputation is a key to maximum corporate benefit and there is no other choice than employing ethical sourcing to maintain or improve reputation in the long term. With increase in reputation, new marketing opportunities could be found.