ICICI Bank Limited Operations Management

ICICI Bank Limited Operations Management ICICI bank Ltd is largest private sector bank in India. ICICI bank offers large range of financial product and services. Retail banking section of ICICI bank is departmentalised into three units namely branch banking, sales and operations. Regional processing centre (RPC) under operations unit is responsible for processing and implementation of products and services offered by bank for allocated geographical region. With huge customer base and large number of services offered, operations unit has to frequently face fluctuation in processing volume. As banks are dealing with huge amount of transactions under regulated environment the capacity management need to be implemented carefully while maintaining required quality standards. The essay is focused on retail liability operations unit of ICICI bank. The purpose of this essay is to critically analyse the ICICI banks approach for managing its capacity and coping with fluctuating volume or rather fluctuating demand with same quality. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: ICICI Bank has been introduced and the sphere of analysis has been confined to retail liability section of operations unit. Overview of process at operations unit is defined by using Slacks (2009) model of Input-Transformation-Output. Capacity and demand for Regional processing centre is explained. Method use by ICICI bank to calculate the capacity of operations unit and individual resource at operation unit is explained and also shown in mathematical form. Idea of effective and potential capacity is briefly introduced. Demand -capacity mismatch is explained. Forecasting of demand is explained by divided it into long term and short term demand forecast, the demand can either be predictable as well as unpredictable. Few illustrative examples are given to show how forecast about surge in volume can be given from events that can be predicted. Capacity management methods suggested by scholars are explained and the existing situation at bank is analysed in light of literature. It is deduced that chase demand plan is used by bank to manage capacity in short term. Use of manage demand plan by bank at certain departments under RPC is suggested. Quality issues related to fluctuation in demand and capacity has been raised and implementation of coping strategies at bank has been explained. Finally recommendations are given to manage capacity of RPC for high demand and suggestions are given to maintain quality under fluctuating demand and capacity. It is concluded that capacity management can affect the quality of service provided to customer under high demand and how capacity planning supported by demand forecast can help to address the issue of demand capacity match while maintaining quality of service provided PROCESS DESCRIPTION: As per (Slack et al, 2009), under Input-Transformation-Output model branches and sales unit provide input to regional processing centre(operations unit) in the form of customer service request and processing request of financial product sold to customer. Now these inputs are processed at RPC and output is in the form of service provided to customers. For example account opening forms, term deposit request and negotiable instruments etc. processed at RPC provides the services and facility provided by bank to customer. Though operations unit at ICICI bank is not generating business directly but efficient working of this unit ensures customer satisfaction, compliance with central bank regulations and prevention of frauds CAPACITY AND DEMAND: Facet of Operations at ICICI Bank According to Hill (2005) capacity of operations unit at ICICI bank can be explained as resources to process customer request in limited time frame and desired quality. The resources at RPC are combination of staff, systems and facility required to produce desired output. For example number of negotiable instruments processed per day with given resources is the capacity of payment and settlement department of RPC. Demand is the requirements of the customers to avail the service and products offered by bank. Now, when it is clear that capacity has time dimension the variation in output is affected by all input elements to the RPC. So the variety of products and service packages offered by bank give rise to variations in the input and demand placed on the operations unit. Another aspect of the equation is to know about demand and its duration. This in turn is enclosed in a knowledge of the volume, variety, and variation in demand and in the nature of that demand (Armistead et al, 1991). As per Slack et. al (2009) ICICI bank need to know its capacity to meet demand. If capacity is low bank will not be able to meet the demand resulting into customer dissatisfaction and if capacity is more that demand bank is paying for extra capacity. ICICI bank has a well defined method to calculate the capacity of RPC (operations unit) as well as individual staff at RPC. Bank use the method of productivity calculation to identify the capacity to meet demand generated. Processing of services at RPC is further divided into department and formed the teams to perform specific task such as payments and settlement departments, account opening team, risk containment unit, transaction team. Overall task of the team is further divided into series of small tasks, which is formalised and same for all RPCs. After collating the inputs taken from line staff and team leads from all RPCs bank has prepared extensive list of all the task performed at RPC and the average time required to complete part icular task. Time requires to complete a particular task is termed as Hot time. Productivity of the individual staff is calculated as per formula: Productivity = Hot time Volume handled Summation of productivity of each employee in RPC is the productivity of RPC. It is used as means to calculate capacity of RPC to handle demand generated. Capacity of RPC will never be constant even if demand is constant. The fluctuation of demand on hourly to daily basis may be such that it can be difficult to meet demand. At ICICI bank clearing of high level negotiable instrument has to be done in small time window of four hours from opening hours of bank. For such small time frame, with fluctuation of volume it can be difficult to handle demand with existing capacity. The ability to change capacity to cope with changes in demand raises questions of the flexibility of the capacity (Slack et al, 2009). The interesting part is to find out that how an individual can increase its capacity. It can be by working hard, putting extra hours. But, as RPC is dealing with financial transaction worth Rs 150 million on daily basis standard of quality is necessary to be maintained to avoid wrong credits and compliance with regulation guideline. To cope with the fluctuation of capacity, the idea of effective and potential capacity is useful (Lockyer et al.,1988). Effective capacity is the capacity which is available to the manager, whereas potential capacity is the capacities which can be used if manage can provide additional arrangements to increase capacity. Both are short term decisions and pertain to the team and individual level rather than to the organisation as a whole. Long term increases or decreases in capacity such as opening of new RPC and it will have impact on whole branch network under that RPC. DEMAND FORECAST: According to Slack et al (2010) understanding of demand and capacity fluctuation is necessary to plan for future events, else it is only to react. For capacity planning forecast is a valuable input. Demand forecasting can be long term and short term. Demand can either be predictable or unpredictable. At ICICI bank short term forecasting for operations activity is done by respective team at RPC. Unpredictable variation in demand at RPC needs to be address with well planed capacity management scheme to fulfil the gap between demand and capacity. Short term forecast is used to plan the allocation of resources to meet the expected surge in demand. Short term variation in demand at banks is mostly predictable though not with exact figures but a fair assumption of demand can be made by evaluating historical data and trends as well as prevailing market situation. Example of negotiable instrument processing team is taken to illustrate the probable factors influencing fluctuation in demand, f actors can be Holiday for few days in row-It will increase demand Natural calamity- It will decrease demand Financial year opening-closing- It will increase demand Launch of popular IPO- It will increase demand Monthly payment cycle for payment of advances- It will increase demand Though this is not extensive list but it provides the rough idea of factors influencing fluctuation in demand. Similarly, at the time of campus recruitments bank can expect surge in salary account opening activity, increase in rate of interest on deposits will increase demand for term deposit requests and increase in workload at transaction department at last week of the month for salary credit process. Volume can be used as statement of the trend in demand over a period of time. Long term forecast of demand is based on different standard forecast models. These forecast models are based on different set of assumption (Hill, 2005). Apart from these assumptions there are few more factors such as macroeconomic factors, planning to use new technology etc. Forecast can never be accurate all the times .Over estimation of demand in forecast can lead to unnecessary expenditure on increasing capacity (Slack et al, 2009)). At ICICI bank long term estimation of demand is done at centralised unit keeping in mind the implementation of new technology, expected market share, change in regulation by central bank (Reserve bank of India) and quality of service offered by competitors etc. CAPACITY MANAGEMENT: Capacity management is concerned with the matching of the capacity of the operating system and the demand placed on that system. (Wild, pg304, 2002). Capacity management is the way to balance demand from customers and the capacity of the RPC to meet the demand. Capacity management gives high emphasis on understanding the nature of demand by forecasting and on managing capacity to meet demand (Lovelock, 1984). Demand capacity mismatch is the issue which operations unit at bank has to handle frequently. According to Slack et al (2009) there are three plans available to tackle the issue of demand capacity mismatch, most of the organisations will use mixture of all the plans according to requirement of business. The plans are: Level capacity plan Chase demand plan Manage demand plan Level capacity plan: In the level capacity plan capacity remains same throughout the planning period even if demand forecast is fluctuating (Slack et al, 2009). In case of ICICI bank if capacity level is maintained uniform and if demand is high quite high from base level capacity. Bank will not be able to fulfil the service level promised to customer. In case of low demand bank will end up paying extra for underutilised resources. ICICI bank cannot afford level capacity plan, as opportunity cost for bank for not fulfilling demand may lead to breach of central bank regulations. Chase demand plan: Chase demand plans try to match the capacity with change in demand. This plan can be reactive as well as proactive. If fluctuation in demand is unpredictable then change in capacity will be the reactive measure to match the demand. Chase will be proactive or well planned if fluctuation in demand can be predicted. Level of capacity can be controlled by changing the extent of resources by: Sharing of capacity between different departments at RPC. At ICICI bank, increase in volume at one department is handled by sharing the responsibility with members of other department handling comparatively low volume. This arrangement is suggested to be most efficient by Slack et al (2010). Using vendor support for less critical service: complying with banking regulation. At times of high volume at payments and settlement department activity like data entry of negotiable instrument and image capturing and encoding can be given to existing vendors in market. As banking is highly regulated sector, critical activities like credit and debit verification cannot be outsourced and it has to be done by bank official above certain specified grade. Shifts planned to cater peak volume of the day Working hours at ICICI bank is 12 hours, whereas working hour for each employee are nine hours. Each department at RPC has different peak time. For example payments and settlement department has peak volume at two different time first at around 10A.M. when high value cheques are verified and sent for clearing at around 11 A.M and another at around 3 P.M when all negotiable instrument collected during the day are verified. Two shifts are so arranged that each member of team is present at office to handle both peak hour volumes. Changing output rate. To increase output by expecting each staff at RPC to be more productive by working fast than his normal speed. This approach can be used as temporary measure. Prolong use of this method will deteriorate the quality of work and create dissatisfaction among staff (Slack et al, 2009) The solution suggested above for managing demand- capacity gap is used at ICICI bank, but sharing of work with resources in other department can be possible if resources in other team are well trained to work in any department. Guideline given by central bank need to be updated to all employees in all departments at RPC to make sure about that employee comply with regulation and adhere to quality standard. The purpose of chase demand plan is to maintain capacity closely in line with effective capacity thereby trying to attain maximum efficiency and service quality. Manage demand Plan According to Slack et al,(2009)demand management plan is used to change the pattern of demand to match it with available effective capacity. This method is used at ICICI bank for activity in which time frame is not a limiting factor for example request for term deposit can be processed on later date by providing value dated credit. QUALITY ASPECT: According to Slack et al,(2009), quality needs to be understood from customers perspective because it is defined by customers expectations. At bank quality of processing is understood from customers point of view as well as from regulatory authoritys point of view. Managers use capacity management as a tool to minimise the trade-off between capacity to meet demand and quality of service offered. Quality of service, quality of processing and resource capacity are important in the tactic perspective as they interrupt the ability of the bank to attain its competitive tactic described by a combination of added value and price (Bowman 1990).The importance of either quality or efficiency will to a large extent is driven by the competitive position of the Bank. If competitive advantage is gained by providing quality of service provided at comparatively high price then there will be more propensities to indulge in redundancy of capacity at times. If the bank is competing more on price then to increase capacity then is more likely that quality will take backseat. However with increasing expectations of customer for quality services ICICI bank is forced to maintain quality of service at lower prices in times of economic slowdown where bank need to maintain reputation. The crucial dimensions are those which win customers or those which if deteriorate may cause into loss of customers (Armistead 1991). ICICI bank was not able to take care of this factor at the time to highest growth at that point bank was handling very high volume hence with mentality to manage higher demand with existing capacity back actually neglected the quality aspect of services offered. Bank soon realised that it is losing customers more than creating new customers. In 2009 ICICI bank followed the policy to reconciliation by not going for aggressively to increase market share but rather focused on increase operations excellence and cost cutting, Bank actually used capacity management techniques for cost cutting. To increase the quality standards at bank RPCs has introduced memo system in which each error will be recorded in detail with proper root cause analysis and particular number of memo will lead to termination of employee. IMPLEMENTATION OF COPING STRATERGY: As the understanding of capacity management increased among service operations managers they started to balance capacity with demand. At ICICI bank operations manager started to work on capacity near breakeven point and this is the capacity where things start to go wrong. Drop in quality is observed when operating near breakeven point. We need a coping strategy which can be applicable on the short term inability to match effective with capacity and demand. As a sign to develop a coping strategy it is necessary that RPC should find its own combination of the chase and level plan by: Improving its capability to forecast Quality target should be well described and monitored Setting clear capacity target for team and fluctuating productivity target for individual employee To understand critical and hygiene dimensions of its quality (Armistead and Clark, 1991) To understand the possible failure points in operations unit (Armistead and Clark, 1991) To cope with demand capacity mismatch there are number of actions possible in the few coping cases: Chasing demand plan with High Demand In this scenario capacity is chasing demand and demand is high. With frequent extended working hours for staff at bank to meet demand it is highly probable that staff will commit error. Risk here is that quality of the service provided to customer will go down. Whereas staff frequently working under such condition will fell stressed and may quit job which is not good for employer as money and time has been invested to train the employee. To improve situation we can make extensive plan to tackle situation of fluctuating high demand by identifying particular dates on which high demand is certain and allocating resources to concerned team accordingly. Chasing demand plan with Low Demand It is scenario when demand is low and as capacity is chasing demand capacity will also be reduced. Since banking regulation in India does not allow part time workers in bank hence each resource is full time staff. As capacity for particular task has been reduced with decrease in demand targets are at risk. The possible actions are: Accept it as time to rest and recover, this will help staff to be stress free. Complete other tasks like cleaning and arrange maintenance of computer or cheque encoding machine. Finish the tasks which do not have time limit but necessary to be completed. Arrange interdepartmental training so that resources can be developed to support other department. Level demand plan with High Demand In this scenario it is not been possible to limit demand to match effective capacity. As capacity is fixed high demand will not be fully satisfied. In this case customer should be notified at time of receiving customer request that bank will not be able to process this request on time Level demand plan with Low Demand It is the scenario when it has not been possible to stimulate sufficient demand to match effective capacity. In this case bank should utilize the spare resources. Transfer of resources to other maintenance tasks. Complete the backlog generated from period when demand Is high. RECOMMENDATIONS: For Short term fluctuation in demand resources cannot be increased at RPC. As per Indian banking regulation banks are not permitted to recruit part time staff though they can outsource the activity of data entry and image capturing and encoding of negotiable instruments. The theoretical solution given for the situation of high demand under chasing capacity plan is to transferring resources typically between back office and front office. This solution is yet not applied by ICICI bank. Sales and branch banking unit are also part of bank, using these resources in times of high demand will be the optimum use of resources available within the bank. At time of low demand interdepartmental training can be organised within the RPC, one member of each team can be nurtured to be buffer resource that can fill the place in any team in times of high demand. The recommendations given will be helpful to fully utilise the resource capacity available within the bank. For quality maintenance issue it is suggested to conduct an audit on daily basis by taking few samples from all processed lots. As bank has started to issue memos to recorded errors, employees will try to avoid any negligence from their part as certain number of memos can result into termination of employee from job. CONCLUSION: ICICI bank has separate operations unit. So the volume handled by RPC (operations unit ) is quite high and the fluctuation in demand is also very high. The positive part is that RPC has many departments. The capacity of these departments can be utilized in case of surge in demand. Proper forecast for fluctuation in demand can be addressed by planning the capacity the pitching up the resources trained to tackle the volume surge of any department. Quality of the service will not be affected as bank is keeping an extra check by mean of concurrent audit and issuance of memo on error committed by employee will keep him vigilant while performing the task. Hence demand supply match can be obtained with maintained service quality is possible with proper capacity management.

How Is the Holocaust Represented in Films Essay

‘The Holocaust’ was the massacre of nearly six million Jews in parts of Europe controlled by Adolf Hitler and his Nazi party leading up to and during World War II. When the Nazi party first came to power in 1933 they began building on the anti-Semitist feelings in Germany; introducing new legislations that gradually removed the Jews from society such as the Nuremberg Laws which prohibited marriage or extramarital sexual intercourse between Jews and German citizens and required Jews to wear an armband with the Star of David on it so they could be identified as a Jew. Encouraged by the Nazi’s, people began to boycott Jewish ran businesses and in the November of 1938 they were openly attacked, these pogroms became known as ‘Kristallnacht’ which in German translates as: â€Å"the Night of Broken Glass† because of the vandalised shops and broken glass windows. During Kristallnacht over 7,000 Jewish shops and 1,668 synagogues (almost all of the synagogues in Germany) were destroyed and the official death toll is ninety-one although it is assumed to be much higher. In 1939, after the invasion of Poland, small areas of towns were sectioned off from the rest of the population where Jews and Romani were forced to live in confined and overcrowded spaces. These were known as ‘ghettos’. The largest was Warsaw Ghetto, in Poland (where ‘The Pianist’ was set), with over 400,000 people living within its walls. Although it contained at least 30% of the population of Warsaw it occupied only 2.4% of the city’s area; this meant that the residents of the ghetto were forced to cram in an average of nine people per room. From 1940 through to 1942 starvation and disease, especially typhoid, killed hundreds of thousands. Over 43,000 residents of the Warsaw ghetto died there in 1941. On January 20th, 1942 a â€Å"final solution to the Jewish question in Europe† was devised by the Nazi leaders. Death camps were built in Eastern Europe with new railway systems that were made to transport Jews from other countries to these remote areas. Jews, as well as other ‘undesirables’ such as Romani, Soviet prisoners of war, Polish and Soviet civilians, homosexuals, people with physical or mental disabilities, Jehovah’s Witnesses and other political and religious opponents, were rounded up from all over Europe and forced into tightly packed rail freight cars like cattle. If they survived the journey, a small fraction of the Jews were deemed fit to work as slave labour. Everyone else was sent straight to the gas chambers which were disguised as shower rooms to prevent the victims panicking or trying to fight back. People were packed into these ‘shower rooms’ where the doors were bolted shut and a small but deadly pellet of Zyklon-B was dropped in and was activated by the heat of hundreds of human bodies crammed in together, those inside were dead within twenty minutes. By the end of the war six million Jewish men, women and children had been killed; this was more than two-thirds of the Jewish population. We have watched three films based around the Holocaust. The first of the three ‘The Pianist’ is a film based on the true story of a Jewish man, Wladysaw Szpilman: a famous pianist who worked for a polish radio station, living through the Holocaust. The beginning of the film shows the German invasion of Poland, in which Szpilman’s radio station is bombed, and the anti-Jewish laws that the Germans enforce in Poland, for example, when Szpilman is refused entry to the park or the cafà © with his polish friend and made to walk in the gutter to let polish people get primary use of the pavement. Szpilman and his family soon have to move to the Warsaw Ghetto where death became commonplace due to starvation, disease and attempt to rebel against the Nazi’s. The Nazis treat the Jews appallingly; they forced some Jews to dance to humiliate themselves for their own entertainment, a little boy is beaten to death for trying to scavenge some food for his starving family and, in one scene, Szpilman watches from an opposite flat as Nazi soldiers tip someone in a wheel chair out the window because he couldn’t stand up when they ordered him to. After several months in the ghetto, Szpilman and his family are chosen to be taken to the Treblinka death camp, however, Szpilman is saved from boarding the train by Itzak Heller, a Jewish police officer, while his family board the train never to be seen again. Szpilman is then put to work under gruelling, abusive conditions with the ten per cent or so of the Jews that the Nazi’s kept alive to use for slave labour; tearing down the walls that use to separate the ghetto from the rest of Warsaw and rebuilding the houses for new, non-Jewish residents. The Jews who are still alive are planning on rebelling Szpilman helps; smuggling guns into the ghetto. But after almost being caught by a Nazi soldier who suspects he is concealing something in a bag of beans, Szpilman decides to attempt an escape and take his chances hiding in the city. His friend, Dorota, and her husband hide him in an empty apartment near the ghetto wall where he can get by on smuggled food; however he must not make a noise or go outside as there are other, non-Jews living in the building to all believe the room to be empty. From his apartment window he helplessly watches the Jewish ghetto uprising from the 19th of April 1943 to its unsuccessful end on the 16th May. He lives silently in the abandoned apartment for another few months until he accidently smashes a shelf of china plates. Although Szpilman is unhurt the noise alerts other residents to his presence in the abandoned apartment; he is forced to leave his hideout. Szpilman is hidden once more, with the help of people from the Polish resistance, in another abandoned flat but the man supposed to be providing him with food disappears with the money from generous and unwitting donors, pocketing it all for his self. Dorota and her husband find him gravely ill from lack of nutrition but luckily he recovers in time to witness the Warsaw Uprising. His flat gets bombed during the uprising and Szpilman escapes to the abandoned ghetto where he is found by a merciful Nazi officer, Captain Wilm Hosenfeld. Szpilman plays the piano for him to prove that he is a pianist and the soldier, moved by his playing, finds him food and allows him to remain hidden there. Szpilman hides out here until the end of the war when the German Nazis are rounded up and polish prisoners released. The freed prisoners yell insults at the Germans and Hosenfeld, upon hearing that one of the freed prisoners was a violinist, asks him to contact Szpilman; to ask him if he will return the favour of saving him. However, Szpilman is unable to help Hosenfeld as the camp of Nazi prisoners had been moved and Szpilman returns to playing the piano for the Warsaw radio station. As the movie finishes the closing captions on screen tell us that Hosenfeld died in 1952 in a prisoner of war camp but Szpilman continued to live in Warsaw until his death in 2000, aged 88. The second film we watched was ‘The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas’ this film took a different, perspective of the Holocaust than ‘The Pianist’. This film is shown through the point of view of Bruno, the eight-year-old child of a German Nazi officer; he doesn’t really see the Jews as any different to himself yet despite his innocence Bruno still becomes a victim of the Holocaust†¦ At the start of the movie Bruno and his family are moving because his father got a job promotion as Commandant of a Jewish extermination camp. Bruno is upset and lonely because he was forced to leave his friends in Berlin so when he meets Shmuel, a Jewish boy the same age as Bruno, sitting on the other side of the fence, in the death camp, Bruno immediately befriends him. Shmuel tells Bruno that he is a Jew and that the Jewish people have been imprisoned here by soldiers, who also took their clothes and gave them the striped camp clothing, and that he is hungry. Bruno is confused and starts having doubts about his father being a good person. However, Bruno regularly returns to the fence bringing Shmuel food and playing checkers with him through the fence. When Bruno’s Mother realises what’s actually happening at the camp through a comment by one of the younger soldiers â€Å"They smell even worse when they burn,† she is shocked and appalled as she believed it to be a labour camp. She argues with her Husband, insisting that she and the children should move elsewhere, eventually the Mother wins out but Bruno doesn’t want to leave anymore because of his friendship with Shmuel. Shmuel tells Bruno that his father is missing. Bruno gives him the bad news that he will be moving away for good the next day after lunch. Wanting to make up for letting Shmuel down and naive that his father has likely been murdered, Bruno agrees to help Shmuel to find his father, and returns the next day with a shovel to dig a hole under the fence to get into the camp, and Shmuel will bring an extra set of camp clothing; Shmuel’s suggestion that he could leave the camp through the hole is rejected by Bruno, who doesn’t know what it’s really like inside the camp and is determined to find Shmuel’s father. Whilst still searching Bruno and Shmuel get caught up in a crowd of people being marched to the gas chambers where both Bruno and Shmuel are murdered with the other Jews. In the meantime, Bruno’s Mother tells his Father, who was in a meeting about increasing the capacity of the gas chambers, that Bruno is missing. They find Bruno’s clothes next to the hole under the fence and realise that he got into the death camp. His Father runs throughout the camp when he reaches the gas chamber, he realises that Bruno has been brought to the gas chamber with the other Jews, but when He arrives it is too late, the boys are already dead and he is devastated. Upon hearing the Father’s cry of â€Å"Bruno!† his Mother and his sister, Gretel, realise what has happened and are equally devastated. The ending of this film has an element of retribution as Bruno’s father, who has killed thousands of Jewish children, finally gets a taste of what it’s like to lose his child. Finally, the last movie that we watched was ‘Life is Beautiful’. This film was set in Italy about the main character, Guido, a young, Jewish, man who at the opening of the film moves to the city with his friend to work at his uncle’s restaurant where he meets his future wife, Dora, although neither knows it yet. During the beginning of the film you can see how the anti-Semitist feelings built up it Italy for instance when the school children are meant to be lectured on ‘the superior race’, when someone paints â€Å"Beware, Jewish horse† on Guido’s Uncle’s horse, the sign on the shop reading â€Å"No dogs, no Jews!† and, later in the film, when Guido and Dora are married, despite the fact that Guido’s a Jew and Dora’s Italian, people trash their house. On Joshua (Guido and Dora’s son) birthday the Germans arrest Guido, Joshua and Guido’s uncle are taken onto the train to be taken to the death camp Dora insists on going with them even though she isn’t a Jew eventually the Nazi gives in and puts her on the train where she is included with the other Jewish women. Guido is devastated to see his non-Jewish wife board the train. Protecting his son from the horrific truth, Guido tells Joshua that they are simply on a big holiday camp, and he turns the camp into a big game for Joshua, saying that they must win 1000 points to win a real tank and leave. Luckily Guido’s quick thinking saves Joshua from the truth when a German officer requires a translator. Despite not speaking a word of German, Guido steps forward and makes up the â€Å"Regole del Campo† from the German’s body language, claiming that tanks, scoreboards and games of Hide and Seek litter the camp, while cleverly stating that Joshua cannot cry, ask for his mother or declared he’s hungry, resulting in the loss of the â€Å"game†, in other words, death. Joshua later refuses to take a shower (repeated from an earlier part in the film), and unknowingly escapes being gassed, so Guido hides him with the help of other Italian prisoners, since there are no other children. Playing messages over the speakers for Dora, kept prisoner on the other side of the camp, let’s Dora know her son and husband are alive, while the Nazi’s don’t speak Italian. With the help of Guido’s former German friend, Herr Lessing, Guido hides Joshua amongst the German children, while waiting the German Officer’s meals. Hiding Joshua in a junction box for the last time, telling him that everyone is looking for him, Guido jeopardises his own survival to prevent the Germans discovering Joshua, while he attempts to free Dora, giving his own life away at the same time. Once the German’s realise they’ve lost the what they desert the camp, closely followed by the surviving Jews escaping, then, when the Americans break into the seemingly deserted camp the following morning Joshua comes out of hiding just as a tank pulls around the corner so Joshua believes that he has won ‘the Game’. Hitching a lift out, Joshua spots his mother reuniting as the film ends. Although all three of these movies are based on the Holocaust each one uses different themes and different view points. Firstly, ‘The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas’ is filmed from a very innocent, child view point. Bruno is very young and the difference between Jew and German doesn’t matter to him; he doesn’t understand what might be considered wrong in befriending Shmuel. A similar viewpoint is used in ‘Life Is Beautiful’ where Joshua doesn’t know what’s going on because his father told him it was a game. I think that this perspective very effective in displaying the horrors and injustice of the Holocaust and, personally, it makes for a more entertaining film as it uses the audiences’ sympathies to make them more emotionally involved with the plot. However, in displaying historical fact within the film this take has disadvantages because what makes the main characters so innocent is their lack of understanding of their situation which naturally makes it harder for the film to be both educating and entertaining. ‘The Pianist’, however, has a much more grown up approach as, being based on a true story, it sticks to the facts and I felt that I learnt more from that film then I did from the other two. A similar theme that emerges in all three of these films is family. In ‘The Pianist’ Szpilman loses his family early on in the film, although he seems quite close to them before, and he struggles to survive without them probably feeling lonely all those month in hiding with no one with him for company. In ‘The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas’ you see how Bruno’s family are driven apart by their conflicting opinions of the Holocaust; Bruno’s father is a strong believer in Nazi policy and the commandant of the death camp, however, his Mother is quite shocked and appalled when she learns the truth of what’s happening at the death camp and insists on moving away with the kids, whereas Bruno is young and confused as he’s been brought up being told that Jews are basically evil and German soldiers, like his father, are good but when he befriends Shmuel he realises that some Jews are nice, like Shmuel, and begins to doubt his father. Contrast to this, in ‘Life is Beautiful’ you see how Joshua’s family grow closer together because of the Holocaust; they stick together for each other and Guido even sacrifices himself in hope of saving Joshua. Although we often assume that all of the Nazi soldiers were evil, the issue of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ Germans is brought up in all three of these films. Firstly, in ‘The Pianist’ although most Germans are portrayed as evil, the Nazi officer, Captain Hosenfeld, saves Szpilman from starvation or being found and, towards the end of the movie, when he’s a prisoner and begging for help you begin to sympathise with him a bit more, especially when it’s revealed that he died on the caption. Then, in ‘Boy in the Striped Pyjamas’ Bruno befriends Shmuel, and Bruno’s Mother and Grandmother openly disagree with Nazi views, which makes you think not to stereotype all Germans as ‘evil’. And lastly, in ‘Life I Beautiful’ although no German steps out and helps Guido and his family, you do see a doctor (who Guido knew before he was forced to work at the death camp) beginning to lose his stability because the work he is forced to do goes against all his moral values. This adds another layer to the ‘evil Germans’ assumption because maybe not all of them were doing it willingly so therefore does that make them bad?

How Far Do You Agree with the View That the Limited Appeal?

Mazzini was an important figurehead for the unification of Italy, historians such as Pearce and Stiles state that that ‘no one else campaigned for so long or so tirelessly in the cause of a united Italy'. He had extremely radical and liberal ideas about how Italy should be unified, and some historians Mazzini’s ideal was that Italy should be unified ‘from below’.He wanted the people of Italy to rise up from their high-powered oppressors, while still maintaining the opinion that if monarchs were prepared and wanted to fight against the Austrian domination, then they should be supported and not hindered. He wanted a ‘brotherhood of the people’ to all move toward greater social equality (Denis Mack Smith described him as having ‘contempt for xenophobia and imperialism) so that all of the people of Italy would unite in order to unify their country.Mazzini also stressed that Italy should be unified ‘by its own efforts’, wanting to avoid any outside help- especially from France- in fear that they may just replace one outside domination by another. However, the limited appeal of his ideas were shown when Italy was eventually united and done more-so from above than it was below- he was described as being ‘disgusted’ by this and criticized the new Italian unified state, describing it as a ‘dead corpse’.It could be argued that Italy could have been unified earlier under Mazzini’s watch if it had not been for how his ‘one overriding aim’ distracted from the main goal of a united Italy. It could also be argued, as Robert Pearce details, that Mazzini was ‘absent from Italy’ for such a long and extended period of him (totalling in ‘all over 40 years’) that he became ‘out of touch’ with this situation. This then caused him to over-exaggerate the ‘national identity’ of Italians.This meant that he dis-appreciated the revolut ionary potential of the peasants/ the common people, as he had little to none contact with them and knew little about them. As a result of this blindness, his further attempts to cause unification failed, an example of this is an organised mutiny within the Piedmont that then failed- but the most obvious was the failure of the planned uprising in Naples, in which Mazzini went on the assumption that the peasants were ‘a volcano about to erupt’-whereas this was not the reality of the situation.We can also see examples of his disassociation to the ‘real’ people of Italy in his political society ‘Young Italy’; despite being hailed as ‘Italy’s first real political party’, their membership was extremely limited to well educated, young, middle-class men. It was here that one of Mazzini’s major weaknesses became apparent- that as a result of his ‘complex thinking’ as well as his studies of law and medicine, his i deas became too intellectually advanced for most people to grasp and most certainly too radical for the ‘cautious, middle-class reformers’.This prevented many from joining the cause- leading to failed coups in Piedmont as well as uprisings in Naples and Savoy. His supporters described him as the ‘greatest, bravest, most heroic of Italians'. His deeply radical approach led his political enemies to accuse him of being an ‘enemy of Italy' and a ‘terrorist'. His ideas were of democracy, rights, and equality for all (he even campained for the rights of women, wanting to give them the vote).These ideas were exteremely liberal and were far from limited in the sense that they were not censored or right-wing and they inspired many to the cause. However, his ideas were unrealistic for the times (women would not get the full vote until after World War II), but it was the fact that his ideas were extremely modern and remarkably radical that converted people to Maz zini's idea of a ‘democratic, self-governing state'. This would suggest that his ideas were not limited, but appealing to the people of Italy.

Depiction Of Marriage Norms In Dolls House - Free Essay Example

Sample details Pages: 3 Words: 900 Downloads: 1 Date added: 2019/06/10 Category Literature Essay Level High school Tags: A Doll's House Essay Did you like this example? The play ?A Dolls house is a three-act play written by Henrik Ibsen in 1879 in Norway, Europe. The play is important for its critical perspectives toward nineteenth century marriage norms. In A Dolls House, Ibsen paints a bleak picture of the sacrificial roles held by women of all classes in his society. Don’t waste time! Our writers will create an original "Depiction Of Marriage Norms In Dolls House" essay for you Create order He is known as the father of the new genre in drama realism. Ibsen really portrayed what life is it like especially for women living in a patriarchal society. Its standard classification of gender roles and expectations it holds for a woman as a wife and a mother and as well as that of a man as a husband. The play lights up many flaws in the society in its structure and the expectation it has for individuals in relationships. There are many central themes in the play for discussion some of which are relevant to discuss in this paper are marriage, identity, infantilism, gender, rebellion etc. Torvald and Nora are a couple with three children and their family fits the structure of a perfect middle-class family in their time. But this family picture of theirs became shattered when Krogstad in a letter revealed Norars secret to her husband who reacts to it in a way that awakened the other side of Nora that has never been nurtured. She realizes the life of illusion and decides to leave her husband and children to go and construct her identity. Nora forged a signature to borrow money from Krogstad to save her husbandrs life. When Krogstad found out he was going to lose his job to Mrs. Linde, a friend of Norars, he used the bond to blackmail Nora to persuade Torvald to let him keep his job in the bank. In a bitter sweet ending, Helmerrs relationship was broken but Krogstad and Mrs. Linde on the other hand rekindled a romantic relationship they had had in the past. Marriage is one of the earliest structured institutions that spells out the various roles of the individuals involved. In a happy marriage in the nineteenth century, I would say, marriage in the Victorian era, women played roles than being themselves. They were to be obedient, subservient, the spiritual leader of the family, a guide to her children and most importantly a good support to her husband. Her goal was to maintain peace and comfort in the home and satisfy her husbandrs ego which typically includes sacrificing her agency and keeping her dependency on her husband. In the play, Nora exemplifies the conventional feminine standards of the time. She seems to be powerless, has no agency and confines herself through patriarchal expectations, that signifies a womanrs social role at that time, that is, just be a good wife and a mother. The man on the other hand is the breadwinner, provider and the decision maker. And here, Torvald exemplifies the conventional masculine standards of t he time. The society locks women and men into two separate worlds. The former in domesticity and the latter in a domineering state. In A Dolls House, the Helmers each had a unique role in their marriage. Nora, like every other woman in the Victorian Era played a role in which they supported their husbands, took care of their children, and made sure everything was perfect in and around the house- though with the help of a maid. Torvald provided the security of his family. Torvald treats Nora as his little irresponsible child who needs guidance all the time while Nora treats him as the man of the house who has the authority to do anything he wants and have things done his way. The play revealed some of the restrictions on women during the 19th century and the many problems it posed on them. The play, through Torvald makes us see through the filter of societyrs perception of women. One of the fundamental differences between men and women is that men are rational beings and women more hysterical. Gender roles are based on norms, or standards, created by the society. In a patriarchic society, masculine roles have commonly been related with strength, aggression, and dominance, while feminine roles have traditionally been related with passivity, nurturing, and subordination. This means that society has made women to look fragile and view them as a people who need masculine help and direction. They teach women to also accept their inferiority to men. In the play, in her husbandrs eyes, Nora is nothing but one silly woman. She is called several diminutive, childlike names by Torvald throughout the play. He invariably from the beginning of Act One, made a habit of addressing his wife, Nora, using terms that highlight her diminutive size and helpless condition. Some of which include my little songbird, squirrel, lark, my little featherhead, my little skylark, little person, little woman or a cute scatterbrain whose thoughts are nonsensical and typical of any other woman. Torvald constantly used the modifier little before the names he calls Nora. These all usually followed the possessive my, signaling his belief that Nora is his possession. This is typical in most marriages of the time and even now. Throughout the play, Torvald looked down upon Nora and treats her as one of his possessions. She is something used for his satisfaction. She also accepts and plays along with him sometimes quoting and referring to herself by the pet names to make requests.