The Differences Between Islamic Banking and Conventional Banking Essay

The Differences Between Islamic Banking and Conventional Banking System - Essay Example This essay discusses the Banks, that play a crucial role in the management of money from depositors and lending money to the needy, today banks are also indispensable for and international payments system. Individuals, organizations or governments do not only need banks as safe custody of their money, but they all also need to circulate their funds like money getting transferred from buyers to sellers or employers to employees. In this case banks play a prominent role too. They handle payments like issuing personal cheques to making electronic payments of large amounts between banks. In today’s era of international trade, most payments are administered instantly. An efficiently managed system of payments is indispensable for a stable and growing economy, and any inefficiency in the payments system can hinder smooth trade and therefore can significantly hamper economic growth. In this ongoing global economic recession, the Islamic banking structure that is described in the essa y is gaining increasing popularity among the non-Muslims across the world due to its broader product services and its ability to stand against the odds of economic recession where many conventional banks are collapsing. The major purpose of Islamic banking system is to manage and distribute finance in the manner that complies with the Islamic laws and principles. The growing popularity of Islamic banks among the non-Muslims is due to its â€Å"strict lending principles, reflecting industry efforts to transcend religious beliefs to gain greater market share†

Death of a Salesman Willy Lomans Mental Breakdwon Essay Example for Free

Death of a Salesman Willy Lomans Mental Breakdwon Essay In Death of a Salesman Willy Loman was a man made of false dreams. Willy Loman was a man who destroyed himself with his false hopes and dreams. Throughout his whole life he was trying to become a Salesman like his father and he thought he would die a rich and successful man. Willy Loman was a man who tried so hard to achieve the American dream but failed to do so due to the multiple circumstances throughout his life. Environment around Willy Loman has had a huge affect on him which is causing him to be instable. Willy is not only destroyed by his own ideals but destroyed by his own two children Biff and Happy and Howard firing him also broke him down even more. Willy Loman is destroying himself trying to achieve the American Dream and trying to become a salesman like his own father but is failing to do so. He wants to own his own business. Willy also wants to be â€Å"bigger† then Uncle Charlie and that is why he never takes a job under Uncle Charlie even after getting fired. He wishes to die the â€Å"Death of a Salesmman† where many people to mourn for him and remember him as a great salesman. Willy has spent his whole life trying to achieve all these dreams of his but he still hasn’t really achieved any of them which is causing him to have a mental breakdown. However Willy aims in life have been useless as he hasn’t really achieved anything. Willy Loman is constantly lying to himself and his family to escape from being a failure. He is constantly trying to achieve his dream of becoming a great salesman but is lost in reality and is running out of time. In the play Charlie said to Willy â€Å"When are you going to grow up. † Even though Charlie was made fun of by Willy he still is his only friend and cares for him and even offers him a job after Willy gets fired by Howard but Willy refuses to take the job because of his high standards and his dreams which he hasn’t be able to accomplish yet. Willy knows he hasn’t accomplished anything yet and that is why he is guilty and starts lying to himself and to his family and even goes on and has an affair with another woman. He has the affair with the other woman to give himself a â€Å"boost† or to go into another world because he feels he has been a failure at not achieving the â€Å"American Dream. † Having an affair also caused Willy to breakdown because Biff caught him cheating and Willy feels guilty about it. Willy put in his whole life for his sons, Biff and Happy and they turned their backs on him. Willy always loved Biff and thought he would be an amazing business man but after Biff saw Willy cheating it tore Biff apart. Biff failed math and went to Boston to get his dad to talk to his math teacher but at that time he caught his father cheating which made him not get along with his dad for the rest of his life. Willy knows deep down it his fault that Biff never became a successful business man. The fact that he feels guilty is also a huge factor in his mental breakdown. The psychoanalytic theory describes how the environment around a person has an effect on the person. In Willy’s case it his sons and his failiures in life which is causing him to be unstable. From the multiple causes of Willy’s mental breakdown the biggest thing that broke him down was when Biff at the end of Act II shows him the rubber tube he found and explains to him that he was never what Willy wanted him to be. After all that Willy realizes his sons actually do love him even though they aren’t successful businessman. When will realizes he is almost finished is when Biff says â€Å"Pop, I’m nothing! Im nothing Pop. Cant you understand that? There’s no spite in it anymore. Im just what I am, that’s all. † Biff also says â€Å"Will you let me go for Christ’s sake† Will you take that phony dream and burn it before something happens? After this situation Willy realizes he has not accomplished much in life and his life is almost finished but Biff does love him. Willy has been chasing the American dream for ever trying to follow his father but has never succeeded which has caused him to fail throughout his whole life because he never really did what he was good at which was using his hands. After Willy committed suicide biff tells us what Willy could have been which could have made him successful. Biff says â€Å"Charley, there’s more of him in that front stoop than in all the sales he ever made. † This shows that Willy was never a salesman but was good with his hands. The played concluded with Willy committing suicide so his sons could collect the insurance money and because he had realized he was a failure in life but still wanted his children to be happy and successful. The multiple complications lead to the destruction of an American Dream. Willy wanted a dream that seemed materialistic and unimportant which caused his own life and destruction of his kids. Willy trying to chase the American dream and trying to be better then Charley and trying to be like his dad caused him to be a failure and eventually take his own life. Him not being able to achieve his dreams throughout his life caused him to be a failure and destroying his kids as well.

Death Of The Author English Literature Essay

Death Of The Author English Literature Essay The word Author is broadly defined by the OED as, the person who originates or gives existence to anything, but does this mean that a text is produced solely by a single author? It is clear that the author of a text will have a defined idea of what they would like their text to achieve, but can we be sure that an author is capable of producing a text that is uninfluenced by external sources? In this essay I will examine the meaning of a text and distinguish whether it is produced solely by its author or if it is a complex collaboration of the author, text and the readers own subconscious understanding. New Criticism argued that authorial intent was irrelevant to understanding a piece of literature. In their essay The Intentional Fallacy, W.K. Wimsatt and Monroe Beardsley wrote that the design or intention of the author is neither available nor desirable as a standard for judging the success of a work of literary art  [1]  . They argued that an author could not be reconstructed from a piece of writing and that the only source of meaning came from the text itself, with any details of the authors desires or life being purely extraneous. Critics such as Roland Barthes and Michel Foucault have scrutinized the role of authorship to the meaning and interpretation of a text. In Barthes essay Death of the Author, he criticizes the method of reading and criticism that relies on aspects of the authors identity to distil meaning from the authors work. This death is directed at the author expressing an inner vision, not at the idea of writing. He is opposing a view of texts as expressing a distinct personality of the author and despises the idea that they consciously create masterpieces. Barthes states the idea that the explanation and meaning of a work does not have to be sought in the one who produced it, as if it were always in the end, through the more or less transparent allegory of the fiction, the voice of a single person, the author confiding in us  [2]  . The author can be disregarded when interpreting a text, because it is language which speaks, not the author; the words are rich enough themselves with all of th e traditions of language. The words and language of a text itself determine and expose meaning for Barthes, and not someone possessing legal responsibility for the process of its production. The author is merely a scriptor. The scriptor exists to produce but not to explain the work, the origin of meaning lies exclusively in language itself and its impressions on the reader. Barthes notes that the traditional critical approach to literature raises a problem of which we cannot detect precisely what the writer intended. Julia Kristeva invented the term intertextuality, suggesting that no text is free of other texts. Intertextuality leads to speculations about the idea of a text guaranteeing stability and identity. If a text is partly explained by a whole series of other texts, then its meaning clearly does not reside wholly inside it, but is also produced by its relation with other texts. Every reader may have a different understanding of the meaning of a text depending on the external texts they associate with it. Looking at William Shakespeares play intertextually, Romeo and Juliet prompts literary criticism as the play shares a relationship with other literary texts. Romeo and Juliets plot is based around more than one different source, making the audience question the originality of the play itself. Shakespeare based his play on an Italian tale, translated into verse as The Tragical History of Romeus and Juliet by Arthur Brooke in 1562. Romeo and Juliet is a dramatisation of Brookes translation, which Shakespeare has followed closely. We see this through Romeos dialogue as he says, Is she a Capulet? / O dear account! my life is my foes debt.  [3]  Shakespeare literally mirrors the plot of Brookes tale in his own So hath he learned her name, and knowth she is no geast, / Her father was a Capulet,  [4]  It is hard to claim that Shakespeare has ownership of this play along with the idea that this is not an original idea and the content of his play has come from influences around him. Shakespeare was also heavily influenced by Ovids Metamorphoses, taking inspiration from the tragic love story of Pyramus and Thisbe. In Ted Hughes translation, it is clear to see that Shakespeare has been influenced by Ovid, The parents of each forbade their child / To marry the other. That was that. / But prohibition feeds love, mirroring the exact same family feud and passion in Romeo and Juliet  [5]  , Deny thy father and refuse thy name; / Or, if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love, / And Ill no longer be a Capulet (Act 2, Scene II; ll 34-36). There are rumoured to be so many sources behind one of Shakespeares most well-known masterpieces, this certainly begs the question of whether Shakespeare was original and if he gave meaning to his own work. It is appropriate to approach an Elizabethan play as a collaborative work, given the amount of people used to successfully create a play. A piece of drama is inevitably constructed by many hands, adding to the meaning of the play. Romeo and Juliet would not just be defined by William Shakespeare, but how the play was performed would have enormous effect on its meaning along with those involved in the making of it. Romeo and Juliet was arguably not written by Shakespeare, he took influences from many different texts, collaborating with many other writers. The writing behind Romeo and Juliet does not define the play, but it is the staging and performance that make the play what it is. Performance adds to the text in the sense of connecting to it gestures, symbols and staging, these all produce a definition not in the text itself. In a well-known quotation, Barthes draws an analogy between text and textiles, the text is a tissue of quotations drawn from the innumerable centres of cultur e (pp. 142-48) meaning that one persons work is never original. It is the reader/viewer that makes a piece of literature what it is, whether that is personal or not. It is difficult to judge whether a piece of literature successfully carries out what it means to attempt because we can never be certain of the writers intent in the first place. For example Robert Frosts The Silken Tent opened up to much debate about whether the poem was really symbolising a woman and questioned the possibility of its supporting central cedar pole (l. 5) actually representing a boat with language rich in relatable words, for example, guy ropes and compass. It should not be wrong to have a different opinion of a text, finding meaning in literature is all about your personal tastes and experiences allowing you to relate to texts. Literature is all about what you as a reader make of a text in your own personal way. There seems to be no guarantee in this process that the origins of the text, the conventions of the message and the readers opinion are identical in any way. A piece of literature depends on the words and contexts which surround it, but these contexts are not always significant when looking for meaning in a text. The language of textuality itself will present an argument that is potentially counter to the authors conscious intent. The meaning of a text is not produced solely by an author; it is a complex collaboration between author, text and reader. Shakespeare did not give Romeo and Juliet meaning, meaning was created through the text and performance of the play and by the viewer creating their own personal opinions about it. Shakespeare may have been the origin behind Romeo and Juliet but there are many different sources that could have been seen to be used, questioning the originality of the play. The essential meaning of a piece of literature depends on the impression it has made on the reader, the writers passions and tastes do not come into it. Meaning is a collaboration of all these different factors, it cannot be gathered purely from just the author because there may have been no authorial intent behind that text and literature is all about your own personal opinion and where you take that text in your mind. Barthes makes an important point saying, a texts unity lies not in its origins [] but in its d estination, (pp. 142-48) meaning that it all comes down to the reader and society, a piece of texts origins are unimportant. Word Count: 1560

Jane Austens Emma Essay -- Jane Austen Emma Essays

Jane Austen's Emma Jane Austen does indeed present a picture of a community who look to each other for entertainment as well as support, and are content with their limited outlook. The story never leaves the close surroundings of Highbury and there is no desire to do so. When the party goes to Box Hill, away from Highbury, there is tension and the trip is not enjoyed. It is interesting to note that the three characters that come into Highbury, are those which have the potential to ruin the tight community; Mrs Elton and her ‘vulgar†¦self-important, presuming, familiar†¦ manner’, and the deception of Jane Fairfax and Frank Churchill’s secret engagement. The community in Highbury are very close and everyone knows each other’s business. This is represented through the amount of gossiping that occurs throughout Austen’s novel. Even small matters, for example the mystery of Perry’s carriage is discussed with great enthusiasm, ‘†¦and she mentioned it to her in confidence, she had no objection to her telling us, of course†¦Ã¢â‚¬â„¢ Gossiping demonstrates the topics that enthral the community in Highbury are certainly limited in outlook. They are interested in the happenings of their world, and this is the most important thing. With gossip being spread quickly, it is clear why neither Jane Fairfax nor Frank Churchill told anyone of their engagement, which they wanted to remain private. To a modern reader, this is trivial, but a reader in the eighteenth century would understand the harm that this deception could have caused, had it not been in a satirical novel. The society that Austen has created depends on trust and functions interdependently, which fits in with the view of an inward-looking community. This is w... ... very pretty young man to be sure, and a very good young man†¦great regard for him’. Here, Austen reflects one of the many good attributes that knightly has; that he can see past status. I think that in Emma Jane Austen does present an inward looking community, limited in outlook to a certain extent. If you look at Emma’s society as a microcosm of eighteenth Century society as a whole, which had a strict class etiquette, then this opinion is true. However it also represents hope for the ignorance of this etiquette because the reader sees Emma on her journey of self discovery and realisation of man’s worth. Nonetheless, the community are not all inward looking as they regard others of a lower class with respect. With this respect comes a close community, who believes Highbury to be the beginning and end of their lives which makes them limited in outlook.

Assignment 1 Demand Estimator Essay

Imagine that you work for the maker of a leading brand of low-calorie, frozen microwavable food that estimates the following demand equation for its product using data from 26 supermarkets around the country for the month of April. For a refresher on independent and dependent variables, please go to Sophia’s Website and review the Independent and Dependent Variables tutorial, located at http://www.sophia.org/tutorials/independent-and-dependent-variables–3. Option 1 Note: The following is a regression equation. Standard errors are in parentheses for the demand for widgets. QD = – 5200 – 42P + 20PX + 5.2I + .20A + .25M (2.002) (17.5) (6.2) (2.5) (0.09) (0.21) R2 = 0.55 n = 26 F = 4.88 Your supervisor has asked you to compute the elasticities for each independent variable. Assume the following values for the independent variables: Q = Quantity demanded of 3-pack units P (in cents) = Price of the product = 500 cents per 3-pack unit PX (in cents) = Price of leading competitor’s product = 600 cents per 3-pack unit I (in dollars) = Per capita income of the standard metropolitan statistical area (SMSA) in which the supermarkets are located = $5,500 A (in dollars) = Monthly advertising expenditures = $10,000 M = Number of microwave ovens sold in the SMSA in which the supermarkets are located = 5,000 Option 2 Note: The following is a regression equation. Standard errors are in parentheses for the demand for widgets. QD = -2,000 – 100P + 15A + 25PX + 10I (5,234) (2.29) (525) (1.75) (1.5) R2 = 0.85 n = 120 F = 35.25 Your supervisor has asked  you to compute the elasticities for each independent variable. Assume the following values for the independent variables: Q = Quantity demanded of 3-pack units P (in cents) = Price of the product = 200 cents per 3-pack unit PX (in cents) = Price of leading competitor’s product = 300 cents per 3-pack unit I (in dollars) = Per capita income of the standard metropolitan statistical area (SMSA) in which the supermarkets are located = $5,000 A (in dollars) = Monthly advertising expenditures = $640 Write a four to six (4-6) page paper in which you: 1. Compute the elasticities for each independent variable. Note: Write down all of your calculations. 2. Determine the implications for each of the computed elasticities for the business in terms of short-term and long-term pricing strategies. Provide a rationale in which you cite your results. 3. Recommend whether you believe that this firm should or should not cut its price to increase its market share. Provide support for your recommendation. 4. Assume that all the factors affecting demand in this model remain the same, but that the price has changed. Further assume that the price changes are 100, 200, 300, 400, 500, 600 dollars. 1. Plot the demand curve for the firm. 2. Plot the corresponding supply curve on the same graph using the following MC / supply function Q = -7909.89 + 79.0989P with the same prices. 3. Determine the equilibrium price and quantity. 4. Outline the significant factors that could cause changes in supply and demand for the product. Determine the primary manner in which both the short-term and the long-term changes in market conditions could impact the demand for, and the supply, of the product. 5. Indicate the crucial factors that could cause rightward shifts and leftward shifts of the demand and supply curves. 6. Use at least three (3) quality academic resources in this assignment. Note: Wikipedia does not qualify as an academic resource. Your assignment must follow these formatting requirements: 7. Be typed, double spaced, using Times New Roman font (size 12), with one-inch margins on all sides; citations and references must follow APA or  school-specific format. Check with your professor for any additional instructions. 8. Include a cover page containing the title of the assignment, the student’s name, the professor’s name, the course title, and the date. The cover page and the reference page are not included in the required assignment page length. The specific course learning outcomes associated with this assignment are: 9. Analyze how production and cost functions in the short run and long run affect the strategy of individual firms. 10. Apply the concepts of supply and demand to determine the impact of changes in market conditions in the short run and long run, and the economic impact on a company’s operations. 11. Use technology and information resources to research issues in managerial economics and globalization. 12. Write clearly and concisely about managerial economics and globalization using proper writing mechanics. Click here to view the grading rubric.

A Painted House essays

A Painted House essays John Grishams novel, A Painted House, is a fantastic story that illustrates life of the farmers in the early 1950s. A Painted House skillfully captures a lost way of life in the rural south, where extended families lived close to the earth and closer to the rules of a stern God. It cleverly seizes the audiences attention and points out the hardships farmers faced in the fifties. Although it is not solely about farming, it is set around a farmers family trying to scrape together enough money from their cotton field to pay off their debts and come even. Trouble soon begins brewing between the Mexicans and the hillbillies. As the weeks pass, Luke's overwhelming curiosity makes him a witness to scenes he'd have been safer not seeing. The youngster soon finds himself keeping dangerous secrets that leave him caught between family loyaltyand the truth. This novel takes place in early September of 1952 in Black Oak, a small town in southern Arkansas. A rambunctious seven-year-old boy, named Luke Chandler, narrates the story. Despite Lukes age, he involves himself in many things that no seven-year-old should see, let alone hear. Luke Chandler lives in the cotton fields with his parents and grandparents in a little house that's never been painted. The Chandlers farm eighty acres of land that they rent. When the cotton is ready to be picked, they hire a truckload of Mexicans and a hillbilly family from the Ozarks to help harvest. Mr. and Mrs. Spruill along with, their eldest son Hank, a big, strong mean looking creature of about twenty, their daughter Tally, a seventeen-year-old extremely pretty looking girl, according to Luke, and their youngest son Trot, a twelve-year-old crippled boy, whose one arms hangs lifeless from his fragile body are the hired hands. Mr. Spruills nephews, Bo and Dale, have also come to help. Ten Mexicans also have come to help the Chandlers pick cotton. Miguel, the leade...