A study of knowledge management leadership

A study of knowledge management leadership For the purpose of the assignment, the telecommunication industry was chosen from the services industry from Great Britain. Vodafone Group plc. (LSE: VOD, NASDAQ:  VOD), being a British multinational mobile network operator headquartered in Newbury, England has established prominent state within the business world. Vodafone is the worlds largest mobile telecommunication network company, and has a market value of about  £71.2 billion (November 2009). A multinational corporation (MNC) or transnational corporation (TNC), also called multinational enterprise (MNE), is a corporation or an enterprise that manages production or delivers services in more than one country. It can also be referred to as an international corporation. The first modern multinational corporation is generally thought to be the East India Company. It currently has operations in 31 countries and partner networks in a further 40 countries. It is the worlds second largest mobile phone operator behind China Mobile a nd over Telephonic based on subscribers, with over 427 million subscribers in 31 markets across 5 continents as of 2009. In the UK, its home ground, Vodafone has badly underperformed in the last few years due to brisk change in administration. It has slipped from first to third largest telecom operator generating revenue of  £4.9 billion from its 18.7 million customers in 2008-09. As of March 31, 2009, the company employs more than 79,000 people worldwide. The name Vodafone comes from voice data fone, chosen by the company to reflect the provision of voice and data services over mobile phones. (BBC, 2009) Vodafone has been working and operating within many countries and have created several opportunities of working with local companies. February 2010, Vodafone announced that it is bringing M-PESA, one of the worlds most successful mobile money transfer services, to South Africa, to be deployed by its subsidiary, Vodacom South Africa and its South African banking partner. With approximately 26 million people in South Africa without official bank accounts, M-PESA will enable millions of mobile phone subscribers who have access to a mobile phone, but do not have or have only limited access to a bank account, to send and receive money via their mobile phones. The M-PESA service was developed by Vodafone and has already been deployed by Safari com in Kenya, Vodacom in Tanzania and Roshan in Afghanistan (branded M-Paisa). More than 11 million registered customers now rely on their mobile phones for money transfer, airtime top-up and bill payments. Vodafone takes an unusual tack with success ful candidates. Vodafone feeds back information on how people performed into their development plans as no one is ever a 100 per cent fit. The assessment process is constantly re-evaluated, with employees being assessed regularly on their background and personality. It also tracks new hires on attrition, sickness absence, performance in training and performance in the job. The process clearly works. They recruit fewer people than before because there assessment process has had such a positive effect on both attrition and performance. Theres a key attrition measure in call centres at 13 weeks into the job. Its the first pinch-point. Theyve improved there dramatically by selecting the right people at the outset. There are several factors that influence the working of multinational companies such as market imperfections and international powers. For the company under consideration, the market imperfections are the possibility of not knowing the local laws, local customers or businesses. The international power factors could be tax exemption, market withdrawal, lobbying, patents and government powers. The SECI model (the acronym stands for Socialization, Externalization, Combination, Internalization) was first proposed in 1991 (Nonaka 1991), though was refined and expanded for a broader audience in the popular book The Knowledge Creating Company (Nonaka Takeuchi 1995). The SECI model met with broad acceptance, especially among management practitioners, due to its intuitive logic and clear delineation of knowledge types between tacit and explicit knowledge-utilising this knowledge delineation first espoused in management theory by Polanyi (1958). The core behavioural assumption in the model is that knowledge creating companies continually encourage the flow of knowledge between individuals and staff groups to improve both tacit and explicit knowledge stocks. Thus, knowledge value is created through synergies between knowledge holders (both individual and group) within a supportive and developmental organisational context. Figure (The Key Elements of the SECI Model, In the above diagram, the I, G, and O symbols represent individuals) group and organization In 1998 a third, more challenging, cultural assumption was added to the SECI discussion. Nonaka and Konno (1998) introduced the Japanese concept of Ba, a philosophical construct rooted in Japanese society that relates to the physical, relational and spiritual elements of place, or perhaps more expansively context. In the strategic management and organisational theory literatures, organisations are increasingly conceptualised in terms of their knowledge and capabilities (Poppo Zenger 1998), and less in terms of their physical and financial assets. Further, organisational alliances that draw together firms are being viewed as conduits for information and knowledge flows between organisations (Grant Baden-Fuller 2004). Trans-National Corporations (TNCs) sometimes referred to as multinational companies, are enterprises that control economic assets in other countries generally this means controlling at least a 10% share of such an asset. These companies command enormous financial resources, possess vast technical resources and have extensive global reach. In 2002, the most recent year for which full data are available, FDI made throughout the world totalled some $651bn. While most FDI goes to developed countries; for developing countries it is by far the largest source of external finance. The figures are striking: In 2002 $162bn in FDI went to developing countries. By comparison, official development assistance (ODA) amounts to some $58bn annually and remittances, another significant source of funds for poor countries, totalled $93bn in 2003. Above mentioned picture shows that Developed market multinationals gives more emphasis to Process Technology and Organizational Architecture. Their operating model is process technology driven and results were judged on the basis of performance metrics. They give very less importance to Leadership skills Inter-personal relationship between people however opposite is true for Emerging Market multinationals where more emphasis is given to Leadership Inter-personal relationship between people and less importance is given to process technology, organizational Architecture metrics. For Example: In the oil and gas industry, for instance, emerging-market NOCs do not seem to rely as systematically on the strict net-present-value metric that IOCs use in their decision-making process-which is consistent with a more-risk conscious leadership style. Rather than adopting this metric, NOCs change the game by creating deals that involve aid and infrastructure packages. This signals a market development mind-set as opposed to a market-exploitation mind-set. Knowledge Management plan: Overview Knowledge Management (or KM) refers to the processes and/or tools an organization uses to collect, analyse, store, and disseminate its intellectual capital. Besides deployment of appropriate technology and processes by a business enterprise in order to maintain and retain its intellectual capital, effective KM also refers to making optimum use of experience and understanding of organizational knowledge, in general. This includes a wide range of information artefacts, such as inherent knowledge-based documents (reports) available internally within the organization, as well as related information from the external resources. Definition A logical extension of this concept is into the entire organization, in the form of Enterprise Knowledge Management (EKM). Among the areas of greatest concern for the modern knowledge worker (from CIO down to the Content Manager), is identifying, collecting, securing and maintaining the information (aka knowledge base) of the organization. Without a process to ensure this systems usefulness, there are invariably holes which are only found when a user tries to obtain that (missing) information. As Intellectual Capital This intellectual capital can include training materials, processes, procedures, documents, ideas, skills, experiences, and much more. An effective Knowledge management plan allows a company to quickly and easily share this intellectual capital among the organization so it is available on-demand at any time it is needed. (EEC) KM Types KM can take many forms, depending on the purpose and requirements. The following is a partial list of related types of KM from which an organization may select one or many: Content Management Data Management Records Management Document Management Portal Online Education Information Architecture Knowledge Discovery Knowledge Retrieval KM Storage Methods of storing and sharing this intellectual capital include searchable knowledge bases, Learning Management Systems, other types of databases, enterprise portals, groupware tools, and email. KM Leadership Knowledge management leadership, in terms of position types and their associated titles, covers a broad category of positions and responsibilities. Chief Knowledge Officer (CKO), like any executive-level corporate leader, handles for enterprise-wide coordination of all KM-related issues and projects. Few corporations maintain a CKO or equivalent officer within their organization. More likely, this responsibility would fall either within the scope of the CIO or a director-level Knowledge Manager. Various categories within the lower-level Knowledge Management career field may be: Knowledge Analyst (Content Manager), Knowledge Engineer (Software Specialist), or, Knowledge Steward (Librarian). These are general career titles, since a specific taxonomy does not currently exist which applies to all organizations or positions within the emerging field of KM. Most of the challenges in knowledge management primarily stem from the types of knowledge reuse situations and purposes. Knowledge workers may produce knowledge that they themselves reuse while working. However, each knowledge re-use situation is unique in terms of requirements and context. Whenever these differences between the knowledge re-use situations are ignored, the organization faces various challenges in implementing its knowledge management practices. The Knowledge Management system enables employees to have ready access to the institutional documented base of facts, information sources and solutions. A typical claim justifying the creation of a KM system might run something like this: an engineer could know the mobile applications can help in transferring money to other countries without any security concerns. Sharing these informations widely could lead to more valuable money transfer plan leading to ideas for new or improved equipment. Following factors incorporate manag ement system such as Purpose: the Knowledge Management System depends upon explicit knowledge management objectives towards collaboration, effective practice and team work. Context: Knowledge is information that is significantly well thought-out, accumulated and embedded in a framework of creation and application. Processes: Knowledge Management System are always developed to sustain and extend knowledge-intensive processes, tasks or projects of e.g., designing, construction, identification, capturing, acquirement, variety, valuation, organization, linking, structuring, formalization, evolution, accessing, visualization, transfer, distribution, retention, maintenance, refinement, revision, retrieval and last but not least the application of knowledge, also called the knowledge life cycle (KLC). Participants: KMS designs are held to reflect that knowledge is developed collectively and that the distribution of knowledge leads to its continuous change, reconstruction and application in different contexts, by different participants with differing backgrounds and experiences. Although this is not necessarily the case. Employees can engage in recreation the roles of active, involved participants in knowledge networks and communities fostered by Knowledge Management System. Instruments: KMS support KM instruments, e.g., the capture, creation and sharing of the modifiable aspects of practice, skill management systems, collaborative filtering and handling of interests used to hook up people, the creation and fostering of communities or knowledge networks, the creation of corporate knowledge directories, taxonomies or ontologies, expertise locators. KM systems are being used within many transnational organizations with many success stories. The advantages claimed by the KM systems are: Sharing valuable institutional information throughout organizational hierarchy: Knowledge and information sharing are regarded as means to use resources more effectively in order to reduce costs and gain a competitive advantage (cf. Chuang, 2004; Johannessen and Olsen, 2003; Ringel-Bickelmaier, 2000; North, 2005). As a common feature, all international organizations work within the restraint of a tight regular budget that needs to be managed as effectively and ef ¬Ã‚ ciently as possible. Almost all international organizations have accordingly installed controlling systems or rede ¬Ã‚ ned their tasks as business cases. It includes creating plans such as helping in identifying, create, capture and share knowledge systematically in order to assist working smarter rather than harder. Modern strategies for improved reputation advertising capabilities and getting resource returns for further enhance development agenda; Widened pool of targeted knowledge makes organizational learning more strategic as Efficiency gains though improved results. Through the systematic system, the companies can avoid re-discovering the wheel, reducing outmoded work as well as committing same mistake again and again. It helps the businesses to improve the cost; time spent as well the better risk management. May lessen new employees training time. After the employee leaves, retention of Intellectual Property if knowledge can be codified. Knowledge sharing behaviours and facilitate knowledge transfer This study aims to examine the factors affecting knowledge sharing behavior in knowledge-based communities because quantity and quality of knowledge shared among the members play a critical role in the communitys sustainability. Past research has suggested three perspectives that may affect the quantity and quality of knowledge shared: economics, social psychology, and social ecology. In this study, we strongly believe that an economic perspective may be suitable to validate factors influencing newly registered members, knowledge contribution at the beginning of relationship development. Accordingly, this study proposes a model to validate the factors influencing members knowledge sharing based on Transaction Cost Theory. By doing so, we may empirically test our hypotheses in various types of communities to determine the generalizability of our research models. Benefits to sharing knowledge include: Enhancement of effectiveness and efficiency by spreading good ideas and practices. Cost effectiveness knowledge is developed and then re-used by many people. Time savings Professionals learn from their mistakes and those of others. Emotional relief and decreased tension are experienced when problems are shared. Bonds and connections between professionals are strengthened; solving problems brings people together. More sophisticated ideas, insights and information sources are applied to problems resulting in better solutions. Innovation and discovery increase as does: excitement, engagement and motivation. A feeling of satisfaction from sharing knowledge, much like giving charity, results from making a contribution to society. Respectful ways of using knowledge with attribution and permission benefit the person who generates the knowledge and the person who shares it. Management Development plan Management Development is the process by which managers learn and improve their expertise not only to benefit themselves but also their employing organisations. There are various approaches to management development programmes such as follow. Mentoring Mentoring is to support and encourage people to manage their own learning in order that they may maximise their potential, develop their skills, improve their performance and become the person they want to be.  Eric Parsloe, the Oxford School of Coaching. Mentoring is a technique for allowing the transmission of knowledge, skills and experience in a supportive and challenging environment much like coaching. The same skills of inquiring, listening, clarifying, reframing and many of the same models are used. Mentoring can also work as a way of inducting employees, as a form of employees development across departments and as a means of simple skills transfer. However, mentoring relationships can be much more long term, for example in a sequence planning scenario a regional finance director might be mentored by a group level counterpart where they might learn the basics of dealing with the boardroom, presenting to analysts, challenging departmental budgets, etc. all in a supportive environment. This is particularly productive when there is a gender or ethnic dimension to the relationship. An effective mentoring liaison is a learning opportunity for both parties.  Mentoring relationships work best when they move beyond the directive appr oach of a senior colleague telling it how it is, to one where both learn from each other. Management Coaching and Development The challenge of maintaining competitive advantage, delivering growth plans, restructuring and downsizing has never been greater. Developing people to deliver to their maximum potential can mean the difference between success and failure. And successful organisations know that developing their people not only leads to increased business performance, but that it is also a key factor in staff engagement and retention. In tough times, organisations that axe development activity do so at their peril. Coaching Although there is a lack of agreement among coaching professionals about precise definitions, in this service company, Coaching as developing a persons skills and knowledge so that their job performance improves, hopefully leading to the achievement of organisational objectives. It targets high performance and improvement at work, although it may also have an impact on an individuals private life. It usually lasts for a short period and focuses on specific skills and goals. There are some generally agreed characteristics of coaching in organisations: It is essentially a non-directive form of development. Coaching assumes that the individual is psychologically well and does not require a clinical intervention. It provides people with feedback on both their strong point and their weaknesses. It is a skilled activity which should be delivered by trained people. It focuses on improving presentation and developing individuals skills. Personal issues may be discussed but the emphasis is on performance at work. Coaching activities have both organisational and individual goals. Job rotation Job design  technique  in which  employees  are moved between two or more  jobs  in a planned manner. In Vodafone the objective  is to expose the employees to different experiences  and wider variety of  skills  to enhance  job satisfaction  and to cross-train them. Job rotation is a great way to discover your strength and interest in different areas of the Vodafone. On the job training This will be for the assistants who join fresh to help managers. A mapping procedure will be followed by the HR, to place the new assistant with a manager that has expertise in the field that the assistant aspires to enhance his/her skills. This will help reduce the training cost of the company and help the fresher become confident and be integral to the company Business Workflow Analysis In Vodafone Company the workflows is to diagram the way that a company works in an easy-to-read format. This chart allows managers to assess the way the company is performing and determine how productive its methods are. Flaws in the process where time or resources are wasted can often be identified quickly in format of a  workflow. These issues can then be addressed by preparing a new, more efficient business  workflow  to demonstrate the changes that need to be made. Upward feedback In leadership development and management development, upward feedback (also known as manager feedback and subordinate appraisal) is a structured process of delivering feedback from subordinates to managers, intended to identify ways to increase management effectiveness and enhance organizational performance.   Supervisory training This training provides an opportunity to learn about the transition to leadership so that new managers and supervisors can be more successful in their new role. For more experienced managers and supervisors, the training offers an opportunity to reflect on the style they have adopted in performing their duties, and it shows where they can make improvements. This is particularly true for those who have come up through the ranks over the years and now face a very different workforce, workload, and set of community expectations. This training is intended to help you better understand your role and provide strategies to enhance your effectiveness as a leader. Management Development Theories: The human relations and human factors approaches were absorbed into a broad behavioural science movement in the 1950s and 1960s. This period produced some influential theories on the motivation of human performance. For example, Maslows hierarchy of needs provided an individual focus on the reasons why people work. He argued that people satisfied an ascending series of needs from survival, through security to eventual self-actualization. In the same period, concepts of job design such as job enrichment and job enlargement were investigated. It was felt that people would give more to an organization if they gained satisfaction from their jobs. Jobs should be designed to be interesting and challenging to gain the commitment of workers a central theme of HRM. Scientific Management Theory (1890-1940) At the turn of the century, the most notable organizations were large and industrialized. Often they included on going, routine tasks that manufactured a variety of products. The United States highly prized scientific and technical matters, including careful measurement and specification of activities and results. Management tended to be the same. Frederick Taylor developed the :scientific management theory which espoused this careful specification and measurement of all organizational tasks. Tasks were standardized as much as possible. Workers were rewarded and punished. This approach appeared to work well for organizations with assembly lines and other mechanistic, routinized activities. Bureaucratic Management Theory (1930-1950) Max Weber embellished the scientific management theory with his bureaucratic theory. Weber focused on dividing organizations into hierarchies, establishing strong lines of authority and control. He suggested organizations develop comprehensive and detailed standard operating procedures for all routinized tasks. Human Relations Movement (1930-today) Eventually, unions and government regulations reacted to the rather dehumanizing effects of these theories. More attention was given to individuals and their unique capabilities in the organization. A major belief included that the organization would prosper if its workers prospered as well. Human Resource departments were added to organizations. The behavioural sciences played a strong role in helping to understand the needs of workers and how the needs of the organization and its workers could be better aligned. Various new theories were spawned, many based on the behavioural sciences (some had name like theory X, Y and Z). Points to consider *. What is the value of theory? Specifically, what is the value of a theory that has gone out of fashion? Most theories are not entirely new they adapt or develop older concepts as a result of perceived inadequacies in the originals. Management thinking is like an incoming tide: each wave comes further up the beach, then retreats, leaving a little behind to be overtaken by the next wave. You can also consider the limitations of common sense and the fact that most problems have been experienced already, in some form, by someone else. We can learn from that wider experience, whereas common sense is essentially individual. Conclusion: The SECI models help the business to improve the business turnout through traditional strategies such as emotional and regional factors. The Vodafone are employing all these strategies in order to strengthen their roots within those communities through the theses money transfer campaigns and employing people from those countries to introduce the desired factors within Knowledge system. Also thorough the management development schemes, Vodafone are getting the best out of them by educating and empowering them with the modern techniques. Nonaka, I Takeuchi, H 1995, The knowledge creating company. How Japanese companies create the dynamics of innovation, Oxford University Press, New York. Nonaka, I 1991, The Knowledge Creating Company, Harvard Business Review, (November-December), pp. 96-104. Nonaka, I, Toyama, R Konno, N 2001, SECI, Ba and Leadership: a Unified Model of Dynamic Knowledge Creation, in I Nonaka DJ Teece (eds.), Managing Industrial Knowledge: Creation, Transfer and Utilization, Sage, London, pp. 1-43. Poppo, L Zenger, T 1998, Testing alternative theories of the firm: transaction cost, knowledge-based, and measurement explanations for make-or-buy decisions in information services, Strategic Management Journal, 19 (9), pp. 853-877.

Psychology Resilience Paper Essay

â€Å"Our history does not determine our destiny,† stated Boris Cyrulnik, author of Resilience: How Your Inner Strength Can Set You Free From the Past. Resilience can come from many places in a person, but when looking at the nature versus nurture perspective, it is nature that most strongly determines how resilient a person will be, and not based quite as much upon how they were nurtured. As Cyrulnik said, it is not our history, in other words, not how we’ve been previously nurtured, that determines what we will become, or how resilient we will be in times of trial. Before discussing the idea of how nature applies to the idea of resilience, it is important to first understand what resilience is. Cyrulnik defined this word as such: â€Å"The ability to succeed, to live in a positive and socially acceptable way, despite the stress or adversity that would normally involve the real possibility of a negative outcome. † (Cyrulnik, 1999. ) this means that when a person goes through a hardship in their life, they continue to live normally instead of allowing it to affect their lives in a bad way. One important point that the textbook Invitation to Lifespan Psychology brought up was that â€Å"adversity must be significant† in order for a person to be considered resilient. (Berger, 2010. ) therefore, when discussing resilience, the problem that a person has to overcome must be major/life-changing for it to be considered resilience when it is overcome. While nurture may have an impact on how resilient a person can be, it is their nature that truly determines this. Cyrulnik gave an example of how two hundred children were at â€Å"serious parental and social risk. † (Cyrulnik, 1999. Out of those 200 children, 130 of them had serious mental and emotion issues in their lives decades later. However, that left 70 children that went on to lead completely normal lives. If this were to be looked at from the perspective of nurture being the key role in how resilient a child will be, it hardly makes sense. All 200 of these kids were in the same abusive type lifestyles; they were all nurtured the same. If it were nurture that determined how resilient a child will be, then it should have been closer to 200 kids that ended up being greatly negatively impacted later in life. 5% of the kids went on to lead normal lives. They were not nurtured to do so. It was in their very nature to continue to lead a positively normal life, so how they were nurtured could not affect that. Studies have shown that the ability for a child to make friends and learn new things can impact how resilient a child is. Berger stated in Invitation to Lifespan Psychology: â€Å"Another key aspect of resilience is whether or not a stressed child can develop friends, activities, and skills. (Berger, 2010. ) The social skills of a person is strongly dependent on their genes. In a study covered by CNN, they stated: â€Å"People who have two â€Å"G† variants of this oxytocin receptor gene tend to have better social skills and higher self-esteem. † (CNN, 2011 â€Å"Is empathy in our genes? † Retrieved from http://www. cnn. com/2011/11/15/health/empathy-genes/index. html). This is important because, as Berger stated, the ability to make friends is a huge part of a child’s ability to become resilient. As CNN suggested, social skills are genetic, which leads to the idea that the ability to be resilient is linked to a person’s nature, and the better their genes are regarding social skills, the better the chance they have to become resilient. Not only are social skills hugely a part of the nature of a person, the need to interact with other people is deeply rooted in human nature. Cyrulnik gave the example of Michel, who spent three weeks in a camp during WWII after spending six months in hiding. (Cyrulnik, 1999. One might assume that a child would become very unhappy and depressed in a war camp, but Michel became thrilled, and felt as if he were at a party. This is because he had very little human interaction while he was in hiding, and he was finally able to interact with people when he was sent to the camp. He was resilient after his time in camp, able to move on with his life and not allow what happened to him to have a negative influence over his life. It was his human nature of needed contact with people and interaction that changed his whole perspective on his ordeal. He was nurtured well enough when in hiding, but he was miserable. It was his inborn nature that saved him because of the much-needed human interaction, which illustrated how it was his nature that was able to cause him to be resilient, and not the way that he was nurtured. Nurture will always impact people, but it is nature that impacts the lives and resilience of people the most. Cyrulnik describes multiple examples which help to illustrate this idea, such as the case of Michel. Resilience is what keeps people together when they have an intense struggle. Nature impacts the strength of that resilience.

Hamlet’s Delay

Hamlet is one the most discussed dramas in English Literature. It has provoked the critics for four centuries to unravel the mystery behind Hamlet’s delay in taking revenge of his father’s death. His delay has attracted many literary critics to analyze and interpret the reasons for his inaction. The depth of characterization and the complexity of the plot have made the task of the critics more complex and complicated. A systematic analysis of the criticism helps the reader for a better understanding of the character of Hamlet, his inaction and apathy for life. Hamlet, one of the four great tragedies by William Shakespeare, is the longest and most popular. Hamlet’s delay in avenging his father’s murder, has led many to interpret Hamlet in different ways taking different approaches to demystify the dilemma in Hamlet’s mind. If ‘to be or not to be’ is the question that haunted Hamlet, it is ‘Hamlet’s undue delay’ that has troubled many readers for hundreds of years. Hamlet is an educated gentleman with refined views in an era of turbulent times when his family, state are threatened by forces that are totally beyond his control. His education has made him into a refined man making him distinctly philosophical. He addresses the questions of universal importance that have troubled many a philosopher. His preoccupation with these questions has only made him more wavering in his attitude and delayed his action. His quest for answers not only deferred his actions but also brought his doom closer to him. At first he is not convinced with the Ghost’s words and wants to have evidence. When he has got evidence, he doesn’t find moral justification for taking revenge. When an opportunity presents itself, he leaves it planning for a more serious punishment. Thus, the story gets prolonged until it comes to his tragic end. In fact, Hamlet could not reconcile with the idea of cold blooded murder as a justification for revenge. The very introduction of Hamlet is indicative of the nature of his character. He is introduced in the play still ‘wearing black mourning clothes’ (I. ii. 66). He was asked to ‘cast off his nightly color’ by his mother. Obviously he is gloomy and there is something in his mind that escapes a clear statement. It reflects his agonized and troubled mind unable to bear the grief of his father’s death and reconcile with the hasty marriage of her mother with King Claudius. He was totally devastated by his father’s death and completely betrayed by his mother’s marriage. Finding himself that ‘something is rotten in the ‘rotten state of Denmark, he contemplates suicide. His soliloquy on suicide raising questions of its moral validity sets the tone of the things that come later. (I. ii. 129–130) What we see in Hamlet is a perpetual conflict in his mind that made him literally insane though he pretends that purposefully. ‘To thine ownself be true’ is the guiding principle of his conscience in deciding ‘to be or not to be’ in the beginning, contemplating the merits and demerits of committing suicide. He feels himself helpless in finding himself in such a ruthless world and thus he laments: O! that this too too solid flesh would melt, Thaw, and resolve itself into a dew; Or that the Everlasting had not fixed His canon ‘gainst self-slaughter! O God! O God! How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable Seem to me all the uses of this world. (Act. I. Scene. I) Throughout the play we see how his world gets crumbled gradually making him more and more cynical and withdrawn. The most shocking thing for Hamlet is he could not bear the news of his mother marrying his uncle King Claudius in undue haste. It has totally unsettled his equilibrium. She married: — O, most wicked speed, to post With such dexterity to incestuous sheets! (Act. I. Scene. I) When he is down with depression and shock he is advised by King Hamlet’s Ghost to take revenge. In the darkness, the ghost speaks to Hamlet claiming to be his father’s spirit. It arouses the feelings of vengeance in Hamlet and to revenge his death, a â€Å"foul and most unnatural murder† (Act. I. v. 25). Hamlet was horrified at the sight of the Ghost and by knowing how his father was murdered by his uncle Claudius. At first he could not believe whether the Ghost was real. The message of the Ghost puts him in a dilemma, as it advises him to take revenge on Claudius and not to offend Gertrude and leave her to destiny and her conscience. Hamlet gets shocked and bewildered. He does not like to jump to the conclusion of taking immediate action. He wants to confirm it by his own method of getting enough evidence against King Claudius. To confirm what the King Hamlet’s Ghost has told Hamlet plans to show King Claudius a play which has close resemblance to the murder of King Hamlet. The play called â€Å"The Murder of Gonzago† was played causing King Claudius to react which logically concludes Hamlet’s suspicion. Once his suspicion is confirmed, he wants to proceed with his plans of putting an end to Claudius. Hamlet realizes his weak mind when he feels the intensity in the expression of the dialogues of the players when they were practicing. He resolves to take decisive action and plans a trap for Claudius. Hamlet is quite successful in trapping Claudius and getting evidence from the way Claudius reacts when he watches the drama and cries out at the crucial moment. It is rather Hamlet’s personal requirement to answer his conscience that he needs clear evidence to prove what King Hamlet’s Ghost has told him. It is the hallmark of Hamlet’s character that he does not jump to conclusion without enough proof. Hamlet’s education and sensitivity and general philosophical disposition must have made him seek for valid proof against the King Claudius. But what surprises everyone is he doesn’t take the chance to kill Claudius when an opportunity presents itself. Hamlet finds his own reasons in not taking the chance. He doesn’t like to allow his murderous uncle to go to Heaven by killing him when he is in prayer. So he leaves the opportunity which is considered by many the best chance. He reasons out that the murderer of his father does not deserve Heaven. This only delays his action further. According to Dover Wilson there is no delay in avenging the death of Hamlet’s father. He feels Hamlet has acted in time. According to E E Stoll, there is no delay; it is just a convention of the play. He is of the opinion that if there is no delay, there is no play at all. All these indicate that there is delay in taking revenge. Hamlet himself feels it and it is noteworthy that he has to be reminded by the Ghost again when he was furious with his mother Gertrude. These are proof enough to prove that revenge has been delayed. When the play itself is addressing the issue of delay, it is unreasonable to say that there is no delay. T. S. Eliot, the noted poet and critic considers Hamlet an artistic failure. He says: So far from being Shakespeare's masterpiece, the play is most certainly an artistic failure. In several ways the play is puzzling, and disquieting as is none of the others. Of all the plays it is the longest and is possibly the one on which Shakespeare spent most pains; and yet he has left in it superfluous and inconsistent scenes which even hasty revision should have noticed. (Eliot) He also feels that Hamlet is dominated by an emotion which is inexpressible and is in excess. Hamlet is unable to manage his own emotions as he could not find ‘objective correlative’ (Eliot). In other words, it is a set of objects, a situation, a chain of events which shall be the formula of that particular emotion. Explaining his theory, Eliot says: Hamlet is up against the difficulty that his disgust is occasioned by his mother, but that his mother is not an adequate equivalent for it; his disgust envelops and exceeds her. It is thus a feeling which he cannot understand; he cannot objectify it, and it therefore remains to poison life and obstruct action. (Eliot) In the article Hamlet's Thoughts and Antics, Margreta de Grazia observes that Shakespeare wanted to create a character that ‘thinks’ and showed it through Hamlet. Shakespeare produced a tragedy of inaction- a tragedy of thought. It is performance of thought-as inaction- as DELAY’. Margreta de Grazia) A. C. Bradley considered an authority on Shakespearean Tragedy, analyses the reasons for Hamlet’s delay in his famous lectures on Hamlet. His discussion on Hamlet attracted many with his convincing reasons. He does not find any external things as obstacles for his delay in taking revenge. Hamlet has access to the King and Hamlet never mentions abo ut any external barriers. Hence citing the external factors as the primary reason for the delay in action is totally nullified. Bradley does not accept Hamlet’s reason to justify his conscience as the main reason for the delay. Hamlet is unconsciously ambivalent about this duty; Bradley says â€Å"in the depths of his nature, and unknown to himself, there was a moral repulsion to the deed. â€Å"(Bradley) Goethe’s popular view of Hamlet as a graceful youth, sweet and sensitive, full of delicate sympathies is nothing but ‘sentimental’ according to Bradley. In the same way, Bradley disagrees to Coleridge’s view that Hamlet has ‘lost himself in the labyrinths of thought’. Bradley proposes that Hamlet delays because of his melancholy. Melancholy is not the usual state of Hamlet’s mind. It is a temporary depression at the sudden loss of his father. And the subsequent incidents will only ‘paralyze him in contempt for everything- the world, the flesh and himself. ’ He justifies it and proceeds further to show how this disgust at life and everything results in longing for death and inexpressible apathy. Hamlet does not understand his own inaction and apathy and curses himself in utter disappointment over his disinclination to take revenge. There is another strong argument claiming that there is no delay in taking revenge. During the presentation of the drama on the stage the spectators never realize Hamlet has delayed his action. The depiction of the inner struggle of the protagonist rather enhances the effect of the drama on the stage. It provides variety and takes the audience along with the hero to different emotional states and keeps them curious until the end. â€Å"This is Shakespeare’s most amusing play† says, Dr. Johnson. The play shows two more characters who want to take revenge of the death of their fathers. They offer a good contrast to Hamlet’s delay. Fortinbras and Laertes are unlike Hamlet. They are effective in their decision to take revenge and are very quick in their action. Shakespeare presents these two characters offering the spectators an opportunity to understand Hamlet in a different way. When the very purpose of the drama is to present the hero in that mode there is no argument regarding his delay in taking revenge. The argument that Hamlet is basically a coward can not be taken valid at all as there are many instances to show against it. He does not run away from the Ghost as cowards do. He does not escape from the challenges especially the duel between him and Laertes. The claim that Hamlet has a physical problem will only undermine his character. If there is a serious physical problem, then he becomes a good example for medical case study, and certainly does not deserve a place in literary criticism. The interpretation that he has a serious mental health problem will not stand given the depth and meaning of Hamlet’s soliloquies. In fact, the crucial point in the play is Hamlet himself feels guilty about his inability in taking timely action. He laments at the delay and attributes that to his lack of tenacity for action. He is on the search to know why he is not able to take revenge immediately. He is at a loss to express what represses him from taking revenge. Freudian school of psychology has interpreted Hamlet’s story from Oedipus complex point of view. Though the argument is persuasive, one can not subscribe to that point. Hamlet continues to be a puzzle and his delay can be interpreted in every possible way. The endless criticism on Hamlet reminds the lines of great Indian poet Rabindranath Tagore, who says â€Å"from the words of the poet, men take what meanings please them†. (Tagore) Every interpretation focuses a new aspect of Hamlet. It is worth exploring as it helps readers to have a better understanding of Hamlet’s dilemma.

Joining The Chorus - 1811 Words

One of the greatest spectacles of Ancient Greek history was the art of the Tragedy. Audiences from all over the world would gather in search of theatricality and intellectual expression. This form of theatre held an element that allowed the audience experiencing it, to do so on an entirely new level. The incorporation and creation of the chorus had a tremendous effect on the overall experience of audiences everywhere. The Chorus remains onstage throughout the action of the play to show common emotion that the audience can relate to when the spectacle is being experienced. Their voices overlap, their stories heighten, and the physicality proceeds to compile to the overall escapade that is the chorus. â€Å"The first point is that what the†¦show more content†¦Especially considering how fast the plot can develop at times. Thus, it is crucial to have an external element that oversees the play, yet is no more external than the audience itself. Schiller discusses how art can often excite, move, and provide insight, but poetics does not always deliver this as clearly as an audience member may feel necessary. (The Bride of, pg. 80) â€Å"On these grounds I might safely leave the chorus to be its own advocate, if we had ever seen it presented in an appropriate manner. But it must be remembered that a dramatic composition ï ¬ rst assumes the character of a whole by means of representation on the stage. The poet supplies only the words, to which, in a lyrical tragedy, music and rhythmical motion are essential accessories. It follows, then, that if the chorus is deprived of accompaniments appealing so powerfully to the senses, it will appear a superï ¬â€šuity in the economy of the drama–a mere hinderance to the development of the plot–destructive to the illusion of the scene, and wearisome to the spectators.† (The Bride of, 79) The chorus is a translucent tool of the Greek Tragedy, allowing the audience to peer through them to see a heightened version of the playwright’s poetry. Schiller felt that using these metaphysical principles would bring the audience closest to the realization that the play itself called for. (Martinson, 59) These elementsShow MoreRelatedThe Role of the Chorus in Henry V by William Shakespeare Essay1172 Words   |  5 PagesThe Role of the Chorus in Henry V by William Shakespeare The role of the Chorus in the Shakespeares play, Henry V, is significant. Due to the subject matter that the play deals with, it is hard to present in the way that it deserves. 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