International Marketing Strategy of Starbuck in China and In the UK Essay

International Marketing Strategy of Starbuck in China and In the UK - Essay Example This paper will discuss the way Starbuck Corporation in China and UK was created and how it changed over time especially with increased competition in a marketing environment based on cultural differences. More significantly, this study wants to emphasize the strategic thinking about all the factors involved in applying and analyzing the increasingly enthusiastically satisfied customers served by Starbuck’s management unlike its competitors in the international market. More considerably, the main debate on this subject is on the impact faced by Starbuck Corporation in its expansion globally into China and UK based on regulations, international marketing strategy to increase profitability and increased competition. As a remarkable company, Starbucks Coffee Company has grown into a global brand since it was founded in Seattle, the United States, in 1970 and is focused on building increased customer satisfaction as it treats every customer with respect and dignity. As a company, focused on building its market share, profitability and productivity, Starbucks Coffee outlet began in the 1970’s as a single shop offering high-quality coffee and brewing products. More so, Starbucks Coffee outlet has grown to be the largest roaster internationally with over nineteen thousand stores as it offers the high standard of excellence in all aspects of purchasing, fresh delivery of coffee and roasting as it provides increased customer satisfaction. Over the years, Starbucks has enriched its service in offering roasted coffee sold out to customers its enriched Italian style espresso coffee beverages in all Starbuck stores and branches along with pastries and other coffee-related products. More remarkably, the chain of outlets seeks to give its consumers increased service reliability, high product quality, and management of operations as it seeks to increase its business growth and sustainability. As a result, Starbucks embrace cultural diversity in different regions through its employees who seek to blend with different cultures thus, developing increasingly enthusiastically satisfied customers.

Introduction to mass communication Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Introduction to mass communication - Essay Example The editor is another gatekeeper who decided which parts of the original report were to be retained and which parts were to be changed or removed from the report. B) This report is targeted towards the world in general. This is a news item about politics, and it cannot be denied that everybody who is even slightly conscious of the world around him must have at least some interest in politics, for, as Aristotle said, "Man is a political animal." This report is about one of the greatest incidents in world politics in the year 2009, and is targeted towards anybody who has an interest in politics, anybody who is literate and aware of the political situations in the world. CNN is one of the world's leading journalism media, and their reports are generally believed to be authentic and trustworthy; a lot of people depend on CNN for comprehensive reporting of different events. It is not possible for everybody to be present everywhere every time; and although television has made communication easier, the utility of print journalism remains. This report is targeted to all those people who were interested in Obama's swearing-in and wanted a first-hand account of the proceedings at the inauguration of USA's 44th President and the first Black President in the history of the country. C) This report describes the inauguration of Barack Obama as President of t... The United States is considered the most powerful country in the world. This greatness that America has achieved was not a given; according to Obama, "it must be earned". America has earned its greatness, and although it faces serious economic and international challenges, it has not ceased to be great. Obama showed his countrymen a ray of hope in saying that the challenges faced by USA will be met, although that may not be easy or quick. Joe Biden was sworn in as Vice-President before Barack Obama took his oath of office with his hand on the same Bible that was used in Abraham Lincoln's first inauguration. Obama took note of the fact that he was Black, and thanked those who sacrificed so much so that "a man whose father, less than 60 years ago, might not have been served at a local restaurant can now stand before you to take a most sacred oath." He promised to end petty squabbles on Capitol Hill, bring "old friends and former enemies" into the fold. He also vowed to leave Iraq to its people and to finish forging "a hard-earned peace" in Afghanistan. To Muslims, he promised "a new way forward, based on mutual interest," and to terrorists, he said, "You cannot outlast us, and we will defeat you." The report also shows what the reaction of people across America and the world were. While spectators at the National Mall were overwhelmed by Obama's speech, across the country, people gathered together to watch Obama deliver words of hope on television. Even the reactions of celebrities like Oprah Winfrey are documented in this report. It also mentions that world leaders like Nicholas Sarkozy, the French President, and Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd congratulated the new President on

History of Pueblo Revolt Essay Example for Free

History of Pueblo Revolt Essay â€Å"Every piece of written history starts when somebody becomes curious and asks questions.†[1] In Weber’s compilation he gathers several of these curious peoples works and binds their writings together to form a sort of continued discussion. Arguing from different sources and coming from different backgrounds, they indubitably arrive at different conclusions. From Garner to Gutià ©rrez and from Chà ¡vez to Knaut, they all are part of a continued dialogue on what that caused the Pueblo Revolt of 1680. By addressing the readings as a sum instead of individual accounts, one can gain a more detailed view. While some poke holes in others theories, most of the time, the writers simply offer different perspectives. The vast range of the arguments speak to the difficulty of the topic. Examining an event (or series of events, as the case may be) 300 years ago is an arduous task, but trying to determine causation of such events is even more cumbersome. Typically numerous factors exist and to give these factors any sort of rankings requires a fair bit of perspiration on the part of the researcher. This essay will attempt to evaluate this eclectic mix of commentaries to sift out the strong arguments from the weak. In 1598, when Juan de Oà ±ate arrived in northern New Mexico with a small group of colonists to Pueblo country, Spain demanded payment of tribute and the friars demanded allegiance of religion. For over 80 years Spanish lived with Pueblo before the revolt multiple generations.[2] As Knaut points out, that as â€Å"colonists were isolated from the south in a land where indigenous inhabitants numbered in the tens of thousands†, meaning there was plenty of contact between the two groups.[3] Within that time families intermarried, and a large mestizo population arose, creating an intersection in the Venn diagram of early New Mexico. What Knaut argues in Acculturation and Miscegenation is not necessarily as hard as the others to prove who or what caused the revolt, but rather works in earnest to present what he sees as the creation of a mixed culture, with syncretism occurring on both sides. Perhaps in this essay more questions that answers are created why after 82 years of livin g together would the Pueblos revolt? Garner has a more direct answer to this question. He, unlike Knaut, does not spend as much time underlining the syncretism that occurs, but spends more time examining the relationship between Pueblo and Franciscan, and reigning in the perhaps unfair harshness of previous works in relation to the government. Garner believed that drought, famine and Apache raids caused the revolt, shedding the competing notions that religious incompatibility or having a suitable leader as primary causes.[4] The two arguments in the proceeding articles before Garner that religion was the primary cause fall flat from Garner’s lens. In one instance, he cites the friction between Father Isidro Ordonez and Governor Pedro de Peralta as a result of the governments unfair treatment of the Indian. Peralta eventually decides to have Ordonez arrested, but the colonists (or ecomenderos) proceed to abandon the governor.[5] Garner goes on that governors of early New Mexico are interpreted in a negative light primarily because â€Å"documents are strongly biased against them.†[6] He explains that the reason that these documents are so biased is because of the natural tension between the writers of these records, the Franciscans, and those whom they wrote about, the governors.[7] Garner continues to impress that the Franciscans were the friend to the Indian and foe to the governor. He cites Scholes who states, â€Å"the religious and economic motives of empire were antagonistic if not essentially incompatible.† Having earlier established a different relationship structure than what was typically seen, (a shift from the Hispanic-Pueblo dichotomy to a more complex relationship of priest-Indian-mestizo-colonist-governor) Garner then moves on to the crux of the issue the cause of the revolt. â€Å"The kind of peace that had been pervading New Mexico was contingent upon relative prosperity,† writes Garner. The Spanish had used their organizational skills to create surpluses in the Pueblo economy but the famine of 1670 was so implacable it essentially collapsed the system. The drought of the 1660s the precursor to the famine was so severe it caused â€Å"Indians and Spanish alike to eat hides and straps,† as written by Fray Francisco de Ayeta in an account to the King. In the face of such an oppressive environment, Indians naturally began to question why Spanish controlled their food source. This, coupled with a new emphasis on nativism, turned up the heat and brought the already tense situation to a simmer. This movement towards nativism perhaps may have been a reaction to Indian culture sprouting up in both mestizo and Spanish life. Garner continues on this thread noting that Governor Lopez de Mendizabal was forced to â€Å"crack down on Pueblo religious and cultural activity.† While syncretism among the Pueblos was tolerable, among the Spanish it was viewed as inexcusable. These two factors were the foci of the Pueblo Revolt of 1680.[8] In contrast, the setting that Bowden and Gutià ©rrez attempt to construct in their essays is a religious clash, one that, while not noticeable immediately, was exacerbated by the droughts and famine. After introducing the essay, Bowden then discusses the similarities of the Pueblo religion, and then highlights some of the missteps the Franciscans took in their interactions and, most of all, the conversion process. First they insisted that the Pueblos should learn Spanish, and â€Å"almost without exception,† failed to make any attempt to learn native language. Also, they instituted mandatory mass attendance for all Indians but strangely not all Spaniards. On top of this, leaders who continued practicing the previous traditions were whipped or executed.[9] (27-28) Bowden raises a number of valid points the Franciscans do not appear to be the same persons that protested against the injustices to the Pueblos by the Governor Peralta. Rather, they seem to be creators of an oppressive environment that was quite insensitive to the Pueblo people. However, if you note Bowden’s sources, he cites textbooks for his long diatribe. Garner, in contrast, relies heavier on topic specific articles written by respected names such as France V. Scholes and Jack D. Forbes. While Bowden’s sources are legitimate, he seems to be using information that is more generalized, and not as focused on the relevant issues. Gutià ©rrez points to â€Å"loss of authority† among the Franciscans as the central reason for the revolt.[10] He notes that this gradual loss of power began in 1640s. Because of the uncertainty and unease that followed, the Friars pushed for more drastic measure to balance out this loss of power a crackdown on syncretism and an emphasis on martyrdom. But the connections that Gutià ©rrez makes are weak; he points to the loss of power in the 1640s, but does not cite any kind of example to support his point until 1655.[11] In addition, most of examples of this â€Å"loss of authority† do not come until the mid 1660s and the early 1670s in the midst of drought, quarreling among Spaniards and attacks by Athapascan raiders. And Gutià ©rrez’ examples of Franciscan brutality arise, interestingly enough, around the time that Garner points to heavy handed response by the Spanish to combat syncretism. Gutià ©rrez’ illustrations seem to support Garner’s idea of the Indians being â€Å"like children in a new world and entrapped in the struggle between the Franciscans and Hispanic community.†[12] Angà ©lico Chà ¡vez provides yet another take on the Pueblo Revolt. While Gutià ©rrez, Garner and Bowden all spend considerable time on relations, Chà ¡vez as his title Pohà ©-yemo’s Representative and the Pueblo Revolt of 1680 puts much more emphasis on establishing a new leader as a primary cause of the Pueblo revolt. Chà ¡vez seems to avoid tackling the revolt squarely (like Knaut) partly because he devotes most of his time supporting his argument for Domingo Naranjo as the leader (arguably 21 of the 24 pages). Despite Chà ¡vez lengthy narrative supporting Domingo Naranjo, the black leader with yellow eyes, many scholars reject this notion, because it seems to runs counter to what most sources suggest. Historian Stefanie Beninato agrees that Naranjo was a leader, but â€Å"one of several† as â€Å"the concept of a single leader is not viable in the theocratic social structure of the Pueblo world.†[13] Garner too, while recognizing Popà © as instrumental, rejects the idea that he was a â€Å"unique Indian leader,† but rather he arose out of necessity, as opposed to the creation of necessity.[14] While, many critique Chà ¡vez’ uncommon interpretation, it reminds one to reexamine the mestizo and mulatto population in New Mexico. Naranjo, real or not, represents the truth that the black/white Pueblo/Hispanic definition was increasingly blurred in the years leading up to the revolt, and an entirely different culture had emerged. Pohà ©-yemo had multiple windows in to this culture of multiplicity. Garner’s essay seems to be built around the most logic because his essay points to lack of basic necessities as the true cause of the revolt. When there is enough food and prosperity people get along. When there is a shortage, it pushes groups to exceptional measures. Rarely has a revolt occurred without certain factors mitigating access to peoples’ basic needs. Garner also spends ample time with the battle itself, and provides plenty of evidence of to why it was a success; particularly because of the cultural coexistence with the Spanish. Garner is not without flaw he fails to address certain issues, notably that of the presence of a larger mestizo culture. While he acknowledges it somewhat, he seems more preoccupied with the Franciscan-ecomedero versus government dynamic. This oversight, however excusable, provides good reason for holding onto multiple sources while dissecting historical events such as these. In the absence of primary documents, the importance of rigorous scholarship is especially crucial. To hold the works of these â€Å"curious† scholars together stresses the value for careful thought and due diligence.

Mandibular Prognathism by BSSO Study

Mandibular Prognathism by BSSO Study METHODOLOGY METHODOLOGY Population Consisted of all the patients who reported to the Out Patient Department of Oral And Maxillofacial Surgery for correction of facial deformity involving maxilla and mandible. Sample Consisted of 33 patients who underwent BSSO setback for mandibular prognathism followed by Rigid Internal Fixation at the Department Of Oral And Maxillofacial Surgery, Mar Baselios Dental College. Inclusion Criteria Patients above age of 20 years for males 18 years for females. Patients who were treated by BSSO setback along with Rigid Internal Fixation for mandibular prognathism. Exclusion Criteria Patients undergoing Bimaxillary surgeries. Patients undergoing Genioplasty along with BSSO. Patients with Medically compromised conditions. Patients with Craniofacial anomalies, Syndromes. A retrospective study was conducted on 33 patients (15 females and 18 males), with mean age of 22 years (age range of 19 28 years), who were operated for mandibular prognathism by BSSO at the department of oral and maxillofacial surgery, Mar Baselios Dental College, Kothamangalam. The patients were selected according to above mentioned inclution and exclusion criterias. The surgical procedure was done by one chief operating surgeon. No maxillomandibular fixation was used postoperatively. Pre and postsurgical orthodontics was carried out at the department of orthodontics and dentofacial orthopaedics, Mar Baselios Dental College, kothamangalam. A standardised lateral skull radiograph with adequate quality and exposure was taken pre operatively and after 6 months of follow up in natural head position [Frankfurt’s horizontal plane parallel to the floor, the tongue in relaxed position and the mandible in centric occlusion] with exposure values of 80 KVp, 10 mA, and 1.30 seconds. Tracings of the lateral cephalograms were pencil traced on acetate paper. To improve the consistency the tracings and measurements were taken by the same investigator. Horizontal reference line was taken as 7 ° to SN at nasion. Vertical reference line was constructed perpendicular to horizontal reference line through Sella. Superimposition of traced preoperative and postoperative lateral cephalogram was done with respect to the horizontal and vertical reference lines. The following cephalometric points and measurements were used. S Sella: Center of sella turcica N Nasion: Most anterior point of frontonasal suture ANS Anterior Nasal Spine: Anterior tip of the nasal spine PNS Posterior Nasal Spine: The most posterior aspect of the palatal bone A Point A: Innermost point on contour of maxilla between anterior nasal spine and incisor tooth Is Incision Superior: Midpoint of incisal edge of most prominent maxillary central incisor Ii Incision Inferior: Midpoint of incisal edge of most prominent mandibular central incisor B Point B: Innermost point on contour of mandible between incisor tooth and bony chin PG Pogonion: Most anterior point on osseous contour of chin ME Menton: Most inferior midline point on mandibular symphysis Cm Columella point: Midpoint of columella of nose Sn Subnasale: Point at which columella merges with upper lip in midsagittal plane SLS Superior Labial Sulcus: Point of greatest concavity in middle of upper lip between subnasale and labrale superius Ls Labrale Superius: Most anterior point of upper lip Li Labrale Inferius: Most anterior point of lower lip SLI Inferior Labial Sulcus: Point of greatest concavity in midline of lower lip between labrale inferius and soft tissue pogonion pg’ Soft Tissue Pogonion: Most prominent or anterior point on chin in midsagittal plane me’ Soft Tissue Menton: Lowest point on contour of soft tissue chin Stoms Stomion Superius: Most inferior point of upper lip Stomi Stomion Inferius: Most superior point of lower lip Sn-Stoms Upper lip length Stomi-me Lower lip length G-Sn-PG’ Facial Convexity: Angle between soft tissue glabella, subnasale and soft tissue pogonion Cm-Sn-Ls Nasolabial Angle: Angle between columella and labrale superius Li-SLI-pg’ Labiomental Fold: Angle between lower lip and chin contour Research methodology In the horizontal plane linear changes at following hard tissue [ANS, A, Is, Ii, B, PG, ME] and soft tissue [Sn, SLS, Ls, Li, SLI, pg’, me’, Stoms, Stomi] cephalometric points were measured in millimeters with mean and standard deviations were calculated. In the vertical plane linear changes at following hard tissue [ANS, A, Is, Ii, B, PG, ME] and soft tissue [Sn, SLS, Ls, Li, SLI, pg’, me’, Stoms, Stomi] cephalometric points were measured in millimeters with mean and standard deviations were calculated. Scatter plot diagram with Correlation Regression Analysis was done for the following points Li vs Ii, SLI vs B, PG vs pg’, ME vs me’ were done in both horizontal and vertical plane. Change in length of lower third of face; upper lip [Sn-Stoms] length and lower lip [Stomi-me] length were calculated along with mean and standard deviation. The mean change in facial profile, Nasolabial angle and mentolabial fold were calculated. The ratio of change in the soft tissue reference points will be compared with movements of corresponding 4 hard tissue references: Li to Ii, SLI to B, PG to pg’ and ME to me’ in the horizontal plane. SURGICAL PROCEDURE All the patients had undergone BSSO for correction of horizontal mandibular excess [mandibular prognathism]. All surgeries were carried out by the same surgeon. During the positioning of the patient before surgery the head end of the table is tilted by about 15 °. Hypotensive anaesthesia technique was used. Both these are intended to reduce intra operative bleeding. At the beginning of the procedure 2% lignocaine hydrochloride with 1: 2,00,000 epinephrine is infiltrated into the buccal vestibule upto the midramus region of the mandible on both sides. Incision and dissection The incision is placed over the anterior aspect of the ramus extending from the midramus region running down over the external oblique ridge upto the first molar region where it curves down to the buccal vestibule. Retracting the soft tissues buccally, before placing the incision prevents the initial exposure of the buccal fat pad. A sharp dissection is done in the ramus upto the periosteum. Periosteal dissection is started on the lateral aspect of the mandibular body from anterior ramus upto the second molar region extending to the inferior border. On the lateral aspect of the ramus dissection may be minimal only to achieve proper access and visibility. Medial dissection is done subperiosteally with a Howarth’s periosteal elevator and should be above the level of lingula and mandibular foramen which usually coincides with the deepest concavity of the anterior border of ramus. Later a channel retractor is inserted for medial retraction so as to protect the mandibular neurovascular bundle. Osteotomy Osteotomy is done with surgical micromotor and burs. Its initiated on the cortical bone of the medial side of ramus above the lingula extending from behind the mandibular foramen [half to two-third of the anteroposterior dimension of the ramus] running down onto the superior aspect of the body of the mandible and then extended to the external oblique ridge over the lateral aspect of the mandibular body upto the 1st molar region. Extending the cut towards the 1st molar region gives better accessibility for intraoral plating. The depth of the cut should be minimal only to reach the cancellous bone. The vertical cut is extended to include the inferior border so that the direction of the split is controlled. During the vertical cut a channel retractor is placed on the lateral aspect so as to protect the buccal soft tissues and facial artery. Following the osteotomy, a small spatula osteotome is malleted into the site beginning from the medial cut, down the ramus, over the body upto the vertical cut. The spatula osteotome is directed laterally beneath the cortical plate so that the neurovascular bundle is protected. Later larger osteotomes are used and finally the fragments are prised apart using a Smith spreader. As the fragments are prised the neurovascular bundle is visualized and care is taken to maintain it to the medial tooth bearing fragment. If the neurovascular bundle is found to be attached to the proximal condylar segment a small periosteal elevator is used to free the bundle and bring it to the medial fragment. Once this is done osteotomes in a wedging fashion or the Smith spreader is used vigourously until the spilt of the fragments are completed. The osteotomy is repeated on the opposite side of the mandible. When the mandible is setback, release of the medial pterygoid and masseter muscle is stripped, if needed to prevent the displacement of the condylar segment posteriorly. Later the tooth bearing medial segment is pushed back as much as needed and the overlapping buccal plate of the proximal condylar segment is trimmed such that the proximal segment rest passively on the cancellous part of medial segment with condyle in proper position. Stabilization and fixation The position of jaw is adjusted and intermaxillary fixation is done with splint in position. Rigid internal fixation using 2mm four hole mini plate with gap and 2 Ãâ€" 6mm monocortical screws is the preferred way of fixation. The intermaxillary fixation is removed after the rigid fixation. Wound closure Wounds are irrigated and bleeding is controlled. Wounds are closed with 3-0 vicryl sutures in layers. 1

The Monk Essays -- Essays Papers

CHARACTER ANALYSIS The Monk When one thinks of a monk, he may imagine someone who studies, prays, and performs manual labor. The Monk, one of the thirty pilgrims travelling on a pilgrimage to Canterbury in The Canterbury Tales, is nothing like the usual monk many people imagine. He is rebellious, ignores rules, and lives and controls his own life. Chaucer, the narrator and author of The Canterbury Tales, shows these characteristics in the way the Monk looks, the things he says and does, and in the things the host, a character in "The Monk's Prologue," and Chaucer say about him. The Monk is nothing like the usual monk many people imagine. He hunts hares and rides horses instead of studying, praying, and working. He does not follow the rules of the monastery which say that monks should not hunt, be reckless, nor leave the monastery. Instead,they should study and perform manual labor. The Monk ignores these rules. Chaucer shows that the Monk does not care about the rules when he says, "He yaf nought of that text a pulled hen"(Norton, p.85) and when he says, "Of priking and of ...

erereCreate Your Own Emergency Boot Disk :: essays research papers

Hardware Tips: Create Your Own Emergency Boot Disk Create an emergency boot disk, identify mysterious components. Pop quiz: Windows won't start. Do you: A. Panic; B. Take a siesta; C. Calmly smile as you pull out your customized emergency boot disk, use it to start your computer, and proceed to fix your system? If you answered C, I commend you. If you chose B, I envy you. But if you picked A, I can help. It's time for you to make an emergency boot disk that does the standard Windows version one better. Every version of Windows 9x lets you make an emergency boot floppy disk. When you boot from the floppy, Windows takes you to a DOS prompt where you can run DOS utility programs to evaluate and repair your hard disk, fix Windows, copy critical data to a safe location, or (in the worst case) reinstall Windows. Creating a boot floppy is the same in all versions of Windows 9x and in Me: Select Start, Settings, Control Panel, open the Add/Remove applet, select the Startup Disk tab, and click Create Disk. (You'll need a blank, formatted floppy disk.) If Windows is already misbehaving and you can't make a boot floppy, insert your Windows 98 or Windows Me CD-ROM and reboot. Check the boot options section of your system's CMOS setup program to find out whether your PC supports CD-ROM boot-up. To open your CMOS setup program, restart your computer and press Delete, F1, F8, or whatever key your PC tells you to press to enter setup. If your system can boot from its CD-ROM, you'll see the same DOS prompt brought up by the boot floppy; the CD-ROM lacks many of the floppy's DOS utilities, however. Windows boot floppies contain useful DOS troubleshooting utilities, but they lack some of the key files you'll need to get your system up and running. CD-ROM drive. You need special DOS drivers for your PC's CD-ROM drive to run under DOS. Windows 98 and Me boot disks automatically install generic DOS drivers that work with many, if not most, CD-ROM drives. To see if you're in the driver's seat, use your boot floppy to get a DOS prompt, place a CD in the CD-ROM drive, and type dir n: (where n is the letter assigned to your CD-ROM drive). If you see a list of the files on the CD, the DOS driver works. If you don't see a list of the CD's files, make sure you're looking under the right drive letter.

Post Colonial Perception on the Grass Is Singing Essay

The Grass Is Singing, first published in 1950, was an international success. The story focuses on Mary Turner, the wife of a farmer, who is found murdered on the porch of her home. After her body is found, we are taken back to her younger days and slowly discover what happened to her. The background, location of this story is set in Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) in South Africa which has been drawn from Doris Lessing’s own childhood spent there. Her first hand knowledge of living on a farm in South Africa shines through in this book. The land, the characters, the farming are all vividly described. Both of her parents were British: her father, who had been crippled in World War I, was a clerk in the Imperial Bank of Persia; her mother had been a nurse. In 1925, lured by the promise of getting rich through maize farming, the family moved to the British colony in Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). Doris’s mother adapted to the rough life in the settlement, energetically trying to reproduce what was, in her view, a civilized, Edwardian life among savages; but her father did not, and the thousand-odd acres of bush he had bought failed to yield the promised wealth. Similar sequences are presented in the book. Doris Lessing was born Doris May Tayler in Persia (now Iran) on October 22, 1919. She is a great female British writer and in October 2007, became the eleventh woman to be awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in its 106-year history, and its oldest recipient ever. Lessing has written many novels, short stories and tales, drama, poetry and comics of which novels like The Grass Is Singing, The Golden Notebook are the most popular and her works continue to be reprinted. Lessing realized that she had quite an amazing life but didn’t know how to attack it when she started writing a book. She read a newspaper cutting about a white mistress murdered by her black cook, none knows why and he is waiting to be hanged. However, Doris knew perfectly well why he had committed this crime because of her upbringing. For example, there was a lady gossiped about in her neighborhood that she allowed her cook-boy to button up the back of her dress and brush her hair. It is appalling and awful, she says. It was a violation of the white behavior. But she didn’t behave like a white mistress. She had treated him like a friend and then started treating him like a servant. They were treated abominably. It was said that the white mistresses didn’t know how to treat their servants and obviously it was a sex thing. In African culture, for women to tell a man what to do was impossible. Yet, all these houses had men-servants and the white mistresses spoke to them in high, harassed, angry voice. They couldn’t talk to them like people. The author chooses to start this novel by the end. It begins with a brief newspaper clipping, suggesting the murder of Mary Turner under the headline ‘Murder Mystery’. However, it certainly is not a murder mystery as we are told the suspect has confessed the crime and there is no serious effort to unravel the crime. It is not who but why behind the murder. Lessing’s purpose is quite different. She wants to establish an end point in order to examine the extremely fl awed society in which it occurs. The author has given the reader a place, an event and a social problem all before her narrative begins. Lessing wrote two books, one of them at long-hand after returning home to the farm. The other one, in which she made fun of the white culture, was mannered. This helped her to write about the white culture in Southern Rhodesia in ‘The Grass Is Singing’. According to Ruth Whittaker, one of the readers of Lessing’s works, this novel is â€Å"an extraordinary first novel in its assured treatment of its unusual subject matter†¦ Doris Lessing questions the entire values of the Rhodesian white colonial society.† The novel reflects its author’s disapproval of sexual and political prejudices and colonialism in the Southern African setting through the life of Mary Turner and a fatal relationship with their black servant. On the surface, it seems a psychological and personal portrayal of a female protagonist from childhood to death but seen as a whole, it is the political exposure of the futility and fragility of the patriarchal and colonial society upon which the masculinity of imperialism has sustained itself. The whole novel can be seen as Mary’s struggle towards individuation to preserve her authenticity and sense of self but it fails because of the psychological and the political forces which furnish her little insight and threaten to crush her. I attempt to show how Lessing portrays Mary’s subjectivity as shaped and entangles within the ideological triangle of class, gender and race; and how the same sexual and ideological factors, rooted in family and culture, causes failure in Mary’s achieving her own sense of self and dooms her to death. Mary is fragmented between two contradictory statuses: on one hand she longs to be a subject of her life, to live in a way she desires, and on the other hand she unconsciously performs a role as an object of the white oppressive structure of a colonial society which extracts meaning of her personal self and imposes its values forcing, the individual to yield to the good of the collective. Mary’s subjectivity and behavioral pattern are shaped by the cross-hatched intersection of class, gender and race through the operation of sexual and political colonialism in the context of imperialism. Gender and Class: The early sketch of Mary’s characterization entails a subjectivity negotiating between gender and class positions. Mary’s early childhood is shaped under the influence of an oppressive father who wastes his money on drinks while his family lives in misery and poverty. Her mother, â€Å"a tall scrawny woman† who â€Å"made a confidante of Mary early†¦and used to cry over her sewing and Mary comforted her miserably†, is her first model of gender role: a passive and helpless woman, dominated by the overwhelming masculine patterns, nonetheless the complying of victim of poverty. Besides sharing the pains of poverty and living in â€Å"a little house that was like a small wooden box on slits† and the twelve month quarrel of her parents over money, Mary has been the witness of their sexuality and her mother’s body in the hands of a man who was simply not present for her. All her life, Mary tries to forget these memories but in fact she has just suppressed them with the fear of sexuality which comes up later nightmarishingly in her dreams. By seeing her mother as a feminine victim of a miserable marriage, she internalizes a negative image of feminity in the form of sexual repression, inheriting her mother’s arid feminism. Race and Gender: The narrator exposes that the Turners’ failure at farming and their poverty and reclusiveness have made them disliked in the district. The Turners’ primitive condition of life is irritating for other white settlers because they do not like the natives to see themselves live in the same manner as the whites, which would destroy that spirit de corps â€Å"which is the first rule of South African society†. This anxiety is more political than economic based on the opposition of white/black. ln this way, another complex clash of value system, besides gender and class, is added to the narrative structure of the novel and that is the matter of race. Colonialism is based on the white men’s spirit of venture for missionary and farm life through their settlement in the third world countries and harvesting their resources by establishing the imperial authority over the native people. The white men, by enslaving the native men on the lands they have in fact stolen fro m them and feminizing some others in their house chores, preserve their own position as masters in the center and the natives as â€Å"Others† in the margin. They use race and gender, two inseparable qualifiers, to access their privilege of power in the imperial hierarchy and legitimize their actions. Gender and race are components of this hierarchy by which the white settlers attempt to establish their own rules and security in the alien land. The binary of white/black reminds us of race difference which itself is linked and dependent on other differences, more importantly gender. White women are objectified as unattainable property of white men through stereotyping the native men as violent, savage and sexually threatening. These double strategies both take the individuality from white women and colonize them as sexual objects always in danger and in need of the heroic protection of their white men and help the white men overcome their fear and jealousy for the superior sexual potency of the black men. The dominant White culture projects â€Å"all of those qualities and characteristics which it most fears and hates within itself† on the natives which creates for the subordinate group â€Å"a wholly negative cultural identity†. Similarly Jan Mohamed notes that: â€Å"the native is cast as no more than a recipient of the negative elements of the self that the European projects onto him†. The patriarchal myth of white woman as white man‘s property and symbol of his power and the â€Å"forbidden fruit† for black man expels women from subjective roles by imposing on them the view that they are unable to handle the black laborers. Therefore the white women are convinced that they cannot share power with the white men especially in the farm life which is the current context of masculinity, tough work, action: challenge beyond domesticity. So they are confined in the domestic sphere and considered shiftless. Charlie Slatter, the most successful and powerful farmer of the district in this novel, makes a joke of it: â€Å"Needs a man to deal with niggers. Niggers don‘t understand women giving them orders. They keep their own women in their right places†. In such colonial discourse, the black natives, employed whether as domestic servants in feminine sphere or as impoverished agricultural workers, are represented as wild, violent, potential rapists, and threatening the white women who need the white men‘s protection against the natives. In this way, white patriarchy makes a heroic scenario for itself. During the first scene in which Moses touches Mary, she is alarmed at the sensation and feels certain that it is a prelude to rape. Instead, he pushes her gently on the bed, and covers her feet with her nightgown. Even in the later scene in which Moses is caught by the Englishman in a moment of scandalousl y inappropriate contact with Mary, he is caught pulling a dress over her head with â€Å"indulgent uxoriousness†. The insinuations of tenderness, indeed romance between Moses and Mary appear in this moment to offer a radical alternative to the prototypical script of rape applied to all relationships between white women and black men during the apartheid era. Any doubt as to Moses’s fundamentally violent nature is also eradicated in the final scenes in which he returns to batter Mary to death. In the sexual politics of the colonial myth, white women are victims as the native subjects are in the racial politics. A woman who is privileged racially can simultaneously experience gender limitations and class difference within her own category, like in the case of Mary Turner. Mary fails to preserve her individuality because she is not able to resist the strong master narratives of the false colonial and patriarchal myth of superiority of her culture through the discourse of gender and race which place her firmly in a predetermined position. Marginalization: Lessing has described the feelings of the characters, especially of Mary profoundly. The description of Mary, her wishes and her behavior, is done in a rather psychological way proving Mary Turner’s life tragic. She is effectively forced into marriage by the weight of social expectations and traditions. She never loves her husband, but she is, at least initially, glad to have one, as it makes her â€Å"normal†. From the moment she marries, she is engaged in a losing battle to hold on to her own identity and survive this marriage. We can distinguish Mary as a victim of marginalization. This is mainly because her needs for development are not considered by her husband and she plays no role in influencing decisions for their house. Since she is bewildered by Dick’s house which consists of a corrugated iron roof, zinc bath, skins of animals on red brick floor – all old and badly maintained, with her own saved money Mary brings flowered materials and cushions t o make curtains, a little linen, crockery and some dress lengths (61). Further she asks Dick for ceilings over corrugated iron roof but he refuses saying that it would cost too much and they may have it done next year if they do well (63). Dick is now instead investing in other things like setting up a grocery store, growing maize, harvesting beehives, pigs, turkeys, etc. that he thinks would help them grow rich less realizing his wife felt sick with the heat when she stayed in the house under the iron roof. Unfortunately, Dick keeps failing at every attempt of his to improve their condition. Mary is, all the time, counting money wasted on Dick’s various attempts at different jobs which could have improved the condition of their house. Here, Dick has never taken into account Mary’s guidance and excluded her from making or influencing his decisions before going on with these jobs. We can, hence, distinguish Mary as a victim of marginalization, the marginalized. Perhaps Mary’s tragedy is all the deeper on account of the fact that she never realizes that the native Africans who must work the farms of the white settlers are just as much tragic victims as she is. The natives are deprived of their own land and looked down with contempt. The black native men are made to serve the white colonies. Much of the discourse around the British colonies in postmodernism is centered on the exploitation of the resources and the people from the colonies, leading to a feeling of racial superiority on the part of the colonizer. This deep-seated racism is clearly evident in Doris Lessing’s The Grass is Singing as none of the white colonials are sympathetic or even see the Zimbabweans as fully human. Mary too treats all her house boys dreadfully; she despises their carelessness, their laziness, and their failure to pander adequately to her. At one moment, when she replaces her sick husband in the fields, she is thoroughly brutal with the black farm hands. However, I feel that Lessing’s novel is less concerned about showing the misery felt by the Zimbabweans for the hand they were dealt by the colonial Empire and more about showing the toll colonialism has on those who do not belong there. What Lessing is really showing is how damaging the colonial psyche can be when one is not equipped for it. One is left with a sense that when prejudice and false ideas generated by self-interest become institutionalized, they cloud the perception of people so thoroughly that even the victims are capable of victimizing others. In spite of its formulaic narrative, The Grass Is Singing has nonetheless been read as a progressive critique of â€Å"injustice, racism, and sexual hypocrisy,† in part because of its open investigation of gender and sexuality. It is through Mary’s predicaments as a woman and in particular as a member of the working class that The Grass Is Singing opens up potentially radical grounds for sympathy. At first glance, Mary’s stereotypical obsession with domesticity combined with scorn for all her black servants recalls Ronald Hyam’s caricature of white women in the colonies as â€Å"[m]oping and sickly, narrowly intolerant, vindictive to the locals, despotic and abusive to their servants†. For some, however, Mary’s plight is a more realistic and â€Å"tragic example of how hardship and isolation can destroy even the most independent of women† (Fishburn 2). Indeed, her intolerance for her black servants becomes more complex when read as a displaced resistance against the patriarchal norms of her society. Mary’s belligerence is a clear projection of her anger against an unsatisfactory marriage and the oppressive, gendered social norms that led to its existence. Dick’s attitude towards her is never hostile or abusive, but she persistently resents him for things that she knows he is not able to help, such as his string of financial failures, the unbearable poverty, and the virtual absence of any company or entertainment at the farm. Even among other white people, such as the nearby Slatter family, Mary feels too much pride and humiliation to express the full depths of her loneliness and despair. It is only in the presence of her black servants that she feels able to release the full-blown rage and intolerance that have clearly erupted from elsewhere. What really killed Mary Turner? Various critics have expressed confusion over why the dialectic must necessarily be resolved by Moses’s murder of Mary. A reviewer in The Doris Lessing Newsletter asked, â€Å"Why does Moses murder Mary?† The TLS queried, â€Å"Why does he feel he has to kill her?† and The Listener demanded, â€Å"Is this the only possible outcome?† (11) Lessing leaves Moses’s inner states shrouded in mystery: after his act of murder, â€Å"what thoughts of regret, or pity, or perhaps even wounded human affection were compounded with the satisfaction of his completed revenge, it is impossible to say† (206). Equally cryptic is the fact that Mary herself becomes complicit in her own murder, to the extent that she runs toward Moses, sure of the fact that he should kill her. This desire to die is prefaced by an unbearable, tragicomic sense of her South African history. Shortly before her death, Mary peruses volumes of books celebrating the legacy of Cecil Rhodes, and she laughs long and bitterly, thinking absent-mindedly to herself, â€Å"But the young man [Moses] would save her† (199). As she lies down to sleep on the night of the murder, she â€Å"turned her face into the darkness of the pillows, but her eyes were alive with light, and against the light she saw a dark, waiting shape. †¦ Propelled by fear, but also by knowledge, she rose out of bed, not making a sound† (203). As Mary makes her way onto the veranda, â€Å"the trees stood still and waited† until finally Moses appears, and â€Å"at the sight of him, her emotions unexpectedly shifted, to create in her an extraordinary feeling of guilt, but towards him, to whom she had been disloyal, and at the bidding of the Englishman† (204). As she opens her mouth to apologize, Moses clasps one hand over her mouth to silence her and with the other hacks her head with a blunt instrument. â€Å"And then the bush avenged itself: that was her last thought†. Mary’s cognizance of the murder as one compounded by her own guilt and by vengeance, rather than unwarranted aggression, shows a strange ability to forgive her own murderer even as he performs the act that she knows he is compelled to do. Charles Sarvan argues that Mary’s death has religious and apocalyptic overtones in that she decides â€Å"to offer herself as a sacrifice which will both atone for past crimes and hasten the coming of the new order†. Well if it came down to forensics it would be clear that the killer was Moses. But Mary Turner was long gone before Moses took a machete to her. This begs the question then of what really killed Mary Turner? In my opinion, I would argue that the real killer was the African outback. Lessing’s protagonist Mary spent her whole life in the African colony, and yet she never seems to fully belong. She spends the first half of her life in the town where she is blissfully and naively happy. Yet, even in the town Mary remains an outsider. Mary belongs to an English community and therefore must conform to English standards for women. She loves England (despite never having been there) so she performs her civic duty and jumps into a marriage with a poor farmer living deep in the African outback. A marriage in town is nothing like a marriage in the country and Mary quickly realizes it. She is uprooted from the life she immensely enjoyed in town and is planted into a decrepit farm house that is falling apart around her. The misery she feels about her living conditions is no match for the true conditions of Africa she sees for the first time. In the outback, Mary is confronted with the reality of colonialism- the natives- and she can not mentally or physically stand it. When the natives are far away working for Dick, Mary can at least barely tolerate living on the farm. However, when confronted with the natives in her home she unravels. In the African outback this idea of British civilization falls to pieces because as Sarah De Mal says in her article â€Å"Doris Lessing, Feminism, and the Representation of Zimbabwe, â€Å"the omniscient narrator describes how the main protagonist feels displaced within colonial culture since her desires and dreams are at odds with the prevailing values and rules of this culture† (De Mal 36). What Mary dreams of is a life in town, away from the natives working as a typist in an ordinary office living with other white colonists. Her reality is far removed from this as she is living with the true colonials whom she resents and despises as being the â€Å"other†. And when this â€Å"other† characterized by Moses confronts her and invades her space, her mind and her body deteriorates rapidly until she resembles merely a shell of a human being. Moses is a direct confrontation of the fantasy Mary has. She envisions herself as an English rose whose purity must not be tainted by the black man. Yet when Moses physically touches her and confronts her about her attitude towards him, Mary falls apart. By these two acts, Moses has killed her fantasy by forcing her to see him as a human being. Mary can no longer pretend she has superiority over him as a white woman. It is this realization that kills her for after she submits the Moses’ humanity she loses all sanity. Moses only finished the process by ending her physical life. I believe all in all Moses was the end of Mary. However, it was not his machete that killed her. What killed her was his which is the reality of the colony and the people who lived there. Her fantasy of being a true and righteous English woman could not hold up against the vastness of Africa and this reality broke her spirit and left her as empty as she had envisioned the African outback to be. Conclusion Mary Turner is not able to grasp her own identity because her identity is compounded by the overpowering colonial and gender narratives in which she is knit. The colonial ruling power dictates that she as an individual has to behave according to the terms imposed by her imperial identity. Even her disintegration must be silenced because it threatens the whole authority of the dominant category. Mary fails in her journey of self-quest but she is the heroine of this novel because she reverses the social, racial and cultural orders of her society though unconsciously. As in Katherine Fishburn‘s words, she is as an â€Å"accidental rebel† who at least dissolves the dichotomous orders and consequently reveals for the reader the fear and falsity of the white civilization whose indictment is the division between privileged white and the dispossessed black. (Fishburn 4) Sima Aghazadeh quotes, â€Å"by her death, Mary paves the way for the native (Africa/Moses) to take a subject ive action†. She cannot guarantee her own identity since she does not have any antidote to loneliness, poverty and gender limitations, but she foreshadows a change in Imperial attitudes. The Grass is Singing, through its circular narration from a collective perspective of Mary’s murder to an individual account of her personal life, completes an indictment of its central character’s life in the center of a closed white colonial society in southern Africa in which the linked discourses of class, race, and gender bring her into exclusion, isolation, break down, and finally to death. Mary’s failure of individuation is the failure of patriarchy and colonial culture to satisfy its female member to find fulfillment within this status quo. References: * Fishburn, Katherine. â€Å"The Manichcan Allegories of Doris Lessing’s The Grass is Singing†, Research in Literature, Vol.25, No.4 Winter I994. * Wang, Joy. â€Å"White postcolonial guilt in Doris Lessing’s The Grass is Singing.† Research in African Literatures 40.3 (2009): 37+. Academic OneFile.Web. 15 Sep. 2012. * Fishburn, Katherine. â€Å"The Manichean Allegories of Doris Lessing’s The Grass Is Singing.† Research in African Literatures 25.4 (1994): 1-15. * Postcolonial African Writers- A Bio-Bibliographical Critical Sourcebook – Pushpa Naidu Parekh, Siga Fatima Jagne – Google Books * http://www.dorislessing.org/biography.html * Doris Lessing – Writer – -The Grass Is Singing- – Web of Stories – http://www.webofstories.com/play/53470?o=MS * The Grass is Singing by Doris Lessing – http://www.dorislessing.org/the.html * The Grass is Singing – Doris Lessing – Review – Life and death in South Africa – http://www.dooyoo.co.uk/printed-books/the-grass-is-singing-doris-