The Speckled Band - Arthur Conan Doyle :: English Literature

The Speckled Band - Arthur Conan Doyle â€Å"What appeal would the story ‘the speckled band have had for a Victorian audience† The story â€Å"The Speckled Band† was written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and published in â€Å"The Strand Magazine† in 1892. The story contains the very famous and popular character Sherlock Holmes. In this essay I will discuss the popularity of the Holmes stories for a Victorian audience. To do this I will look at the use of realistic locations, the originality of the Holmes character and the use of a first person narrator (Dr. Watson). â€Å"The Speckled Band† is a story that portrays life in the Victorian audience. In this story a woman pleas for help from Holmes about the death of her sister Julia. The story goes on to look for the audience to convict the woman’s stepfather. Holmes finds out the stepfather is planning to kill her and finds out that the stepfather was the cause of her sister’s death. The only motive Holmes had foe the stepfather for killing his stepdaughter was for the inheritance. He also commits the murders by cleverly training a snake to climb down a rope bell and on to the bed and poisoning the victim. The Victorian readers thought that Holmes was a real person in those days. This realism is created because Holmes lived at a real address in the stories, at Baker St. 221B and the stories are written as real cases. Holmes is a very charismatic and mysterious. In one of the stories he is called â€Å"the most perfect reasoning and observing machine† in ‘A scandal in Bohemia.’ He is shown as the Victorian ‘new man’, who uses his brains and scientific deductions to solve things. We are told how he makes â€Å"deductions as swift as intuitions.† He is also chivalrous and often helps women in distress, and he never accepts payment for his heroics, whilst he helps people within the Victorian community. He seems to be a loner and is seen as an individual and he doesn’t seem to like other people. Helen Stoner is the daughter of a tyrant of a stepfather where she is woman in anguish and agony. She is worried about becoming a victim as her sister was before her. Being a woman in distress is a key element in Victorian stories as well as the Holmes stories. She is seen as vulnerable and scared like a ‘hunted animal.’ Helen appears to be melodramatic, for example she wears a â€Å"black veil† when she visits Holmes, years after her sister’s death, and shows the audience that she is deeply distressed.

Dennys Ethics Essay

Denny’s is one of the franchises owned by the Flagstar Corporation. The troubling finances of Flagstar caused their leadership to be so concerned on the numbers of their corporation that they forgot about the management of their employees and their actions. Even though corporate management can’t control all the actions of their employees they can help shape their actions through training and education in the workplace. Therefore the leadership of Flagstar failed and was unethical, as they did not properly address the problems with racism that some of their employees had working for Denny’s. They also didn’t complete these tasks in a timely matter or even do enough to prevent them. These problems of racism, specifically with the employees’ relations with the customers continued to keep piling up for Denny’s management. This created even more than just financial problems for Denny’s, but also a new public image that they were not fair to all races and were in the restaurant industry where customer service plays a huge part in making money. Denny’s had a problem with the way in which its employees dealt with serving its customers. They dealt with a federal lawsuit in California where they agreed to stop the alleged discriminatory treatment of black customers. (pg. 309) On the same day on the settlement another similar situation happened across the country in Maryland. However, these customers were secret service agents where fifteen white agents were served their food in a timely manner and five black agents waited almost an hour before asking where their food was. The agents filed a lawsuit against Denny’s, where it made national headlines and caused uproar throughout the country. (pg. 309) Denny’s now faced a huge problem as their public image was greatly declining and had a senior management that was completely unprepared to deal with the huge issue that the company faced. There is great competition in the fast food industry. Denny’s tried to separate themselves from others by putting emphasis on sit-down service and creating a welcoming atmosphere for its customers. (pg. 310) For a company to be accused of having employees that discriminate on customers based off of race does not help a company establish this type of atmosphere. Out of the whole Flagstar staff, thirty-six percent are minorities where twenty percent are black, which is twice the proportion of the U.S. population. (pg. 310) However, there are no senior black managers or minority officers at Flagstar and there is only one minority-owned franchise. Flagstar doesn’t have a problem employing minorities, but they do have a problem promoting them. This shows the failed leadership of Flagstar. There were some diversity experts that defended Flagstar such as Marilyn Loven, who said, â€Å"Discrimination results from employees acting individually without the approval of management.† (pg. 310) This might be true as leaders that have the right intention can be â€Å"undercut† by low-level front line employees however it is the leaders that must spend a lot of time educating employees about discrimination. She also said that, â€Å"No Company can eliminate racism.† In the case of Denny’s they had not one or two cases of discrimination but more than five in pretty short time period. Denny’s would settle a case one-day and then the next day a new case of discrimination would come up. Denny’s and the Department of Justice worked out settlements where Denny’s would reinforce polices of equal treatment to customers however it showed that those policies weren’t fully pushed by leadership. (Exhibit 1) This lack of leadership showed that the leadership was â€Å"unethical† in their handling of their employees and discrimination. The head of Flagstar, Jerome Richardson took some of the responsibility for the problems that Denny’s faced. He said that dealing with finances â€Å"blinded† him to other aspects of running the corporation that he was in charge of. (pg. 311) However, a corporation needs to cover all aspects of the company besides its finances. Its â€Å"unethical† for a company to allow continued discrimination and not push programs to educate employees on discrimination. The company was so focused on making money that they public image went in the drain as the company did nothing to make sure their employees were educated and making a good name for the company. In the case of Denny’s the lack of minority leadership showed corporate discrimination, which reflected on employees discriminating against the customers. This discrimination could happen anywhere but continued to happen at different locations all over the country for Denny’s and reflects on the company itself. It also raises the question of the ethical practices of by the company and how the company responds to cases of discrimination in this case. The continued cases of discrimination by employees showed that the Denny’s leadership was â€Å"unethical† as they did not cover all aspects of their corporation.

The State Should Stay Out of the Employment Relationship

| 1001EHR Employment Relations | Assignment Two: The state should stay out of the employment relationship. Critically discuss | | Peiyao NIU (s2838788) | Tutor’s Name: Gabby DanielsTutorial Time: 20:00-20:50 Monday | | The employment relationship may be defined as the relationship between employer and employee over the terms and conditions of employment (Loudoun, Mcphail amp; Wilkinson 2009). In Australia, the industrial relations had become a big issue, so â€Å"following the 24 November 2007 Federal election, the Rudd Labor Government began work on its promises to re-shape Australia’s industrial relations system.† (Riley amp; Sheldon 2008) However, some people think that the state should stay out the employment relationship. This†¦show more content†¦By now, it has been operated for eight years and prohibits the discrimination on the basis of age. Recent research vindicates this prediction, demonstrating that women at all levels of management still report gender discrimination as a barrier to their advancement in Australia (Metz amp; Moss 2008). The gender pay gap is also reflected in the low numbers of women in leadership positions (Goward 2004). Therefore, the state enacted Sex Discrimination Act 1984 to assist the government for this issue. Under the Sex Discrimination Act it is unlawful to discriminate on the basis of gender, marital status, pregnancy and family responsibility (Loudoun, Mcphail amp; Wilkinson 2009). Racial discrimination includes race, colour, belief and national or ethnic origin. Australia is a multicultural country; a large number of people are from different countries. They have different cultural background like language, race, colour, belief and so on. Therefore, the racial discrimination has become one of the most serious discriminations in Australia. For prohibiting it, Australia government legislate the Racial Discrimination Act 1975. Disability has many forms. According to Brazenor (2002), ‘a disability is defined as any limitation, restriction, impairment †¦ has lasted or is likely to last six months.’ Loudoun, McPhail amp; Wilkinson (2009) also indicated that the unemployment rateShow MoreRelatedUnemployment Of The United States1545 Words   |  7 Pages Brian Winter Ms. Cintorino English 11-R 5 April 2017 Unemployment in the United States Many people believe that their job defines their place in society and that productive, con-tinuous work is one of the elements needed for a happy life. Therefore, when a person becomes unemployed, he/she may lose hope, disrupt relationships, become depressed or sick, and even su-icidal. â€Å"Long term unemployment can often be financially, emotionally, and psychologically de-structive† (Krulick). 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