Health Care Reform Essay Example for Free

Health Care Reform Essay Health Care Reforms The affordable care act came in to effect on March 2010. It is a four years plan that will affect the delivery of care to the 250 million Americans. (Swanton, 2012). The Affordable Care Act includes numerous provisions to support millions of Americans to keep the Health care costs low, promote preventive care such as colonoscopies and mammogram, and other services readily available to promote prevention of the disease and hold insurance companies accountable for the safe delivery. (Hill, 2012). The health care reform act intended to make the health care more affordable for all and make health care more safe. There were several aspects of the health care system that the reform would impact such as the employer to provide health insurances to their employees, health coverage for adult children by the protected by the parents insurance. And the reimbursement to the hospitals based on the quality of service provided rather than the quantity of the service. Goals of the reform The health reform also known as the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), of 2010 will have a profound influence on health care in the United States. A major goal of the Act is to improve access to affordable, quality health care. In the year 2007, the health care statistics showed that there was increase in the ineffective care provided to the patients which consumed vast majority of the health care funds (Hills, 2010). The insurance companies also dictate the care for the patients and denied care for those who had preexisting health conditions, or provided health care at a very high cost. There was a great need for the reform in the health care system. The three main goals of the PPACA are, (1) expand access to health insurance coverage, (2) improve affordability and sustainability for those who have health care insurance, and (3) control the rising costs of health care while improving quality (Cutler, 2010).Based on these goals, the health care providers, the insurance companies, the patients and the system itself will be affected. An important element in achieving this goal will be to learn from patients experiences and build the foundations for personalized care for the patients. (Hill, 2010). Cutler (2010) states, the initiative will require, â€Å"partnership among researchers, clinicians, policy makers and regulators, and patients to design an  integrated information network system that will be the basis for providing the right treatment for the right patient in the right place at the right time (p.45). Thus with health care reform goals is to provide high quality of personalized care to the patient. Reference Cutler, W. (2010). Thinking outside the pillbox—medication adherence as a priority for health care reform. New England Journal of Medicine, 362(17), 1553-1555. Orszag, P. (2010). Health care reform and cost control. New England Journal of Medicine, 363(7), 601-603. Hill, B. J. (2012). What is the meaning of health? Constitutional implications of defining medical necessity and essential health benefits under the affordable care act. American Journal of Law and Medicine, 38(2), 445-70. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/1038820105?accountid=13931

Corporate Governance and Financial Scandals in India

Corporate Governance and Financial Scandals in India INTRODUCTION: This research will identify Corporate Governance in India and the reasons of its failures that lead to the financial scandals in India. As the big companies, Enron and WorldCom, illegal operations were disclosed; the worlds business came into shock. Many other companies in the world came under this attack like Parmalat in Italy, all had problems in their corporate governance. This showed that the whole world had a problem in their corporate governance. Unlike the developed countries, the developing countries had corporate governance as the main issue far before these scandals took place as corporate governance and the economic development are linked as this helps in development of financial system which results in increase of growth and reduction in the poverty. Thus research tells us why there are corporate governance failures in big organizations and explains the factors that influence the corporate governance like ownership structure, structure of company board, financial structur e, etc. LITERATURE REVIEW: 1.1.1 Corporate Governance: An overview Corporate Governance is an extensive term that refers that the rules, processes, responsibilities and the privileges are shared by the corporate participants. It basically says that how the investors assure that they get a return on their investment. It is the decision making committee by which the managers work on their duties in order to maximize investors wealth. Acc to Keasey et. al.(2005) approaches Corporate Governance as, â€Å"Corporate Governance has two requirements, micro level and macro level. At the micro level it needs to ensure that the firm, as a productive organization, functions in pursuit of its objectives. Thus if we follow the traditional Anglo-American conception of the firm as a device to further the well being of its owner-shareholders, good governance is a matter of ensuring that the decisions are taken and implemented in the pursuit of shareholder value. At the macro level corporate governance, in the words of Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan, Ã¢â‚¬Ë œhas evolved to more effectively promote the allocation of the nations savings to its most productive use. â€Å" A good corporate governance should aim at long term benefits to the shareholders and other stakeholders. It can reduce the national financial crises. Corporate governance and currency depreciation have inverse relationship. Asian crisis of 1997 is one example of poor corporate governance norms. The manager should be working in the interest of the shareholders. Managers have the control over the business and may not act in the benefit of the shareholders. This is the common problem all over the world. On the whole a good corporate governance can help in preventing the financial scandals that happened in the world. 1.1.2 Corporate Governance in India: In India, corporate governance was not understood till early 1990s. Indian legal system is based on the English common law and gives the highest protection to the investors and to lenders as well. The corruption rate is very high in India. The most important development in corporate governance and investors protection in India is the establishment of the Securities and Exchange Board of India in 1992,(Chakrabarti et. at.,2007). It was established to monitor the stock trading which helped in making the basic rules for the conduct of corporate in India. Reforms were made to make the people rely more on market than on government. The public sector was targeted inorder to make it more efficient and to bring out the government holdings for sale to the public. Banking sector reforms were also made to bring them to the international levels. In 1998 a code- Desirable Corporate Governance in India and the companies followed it,(Mallin,2010). Many who didnt follow it experienced losses and end ed up in losing the confidence of people. SEBI also made a committee on corporate governance in 1999 headed by Shri Kumar Mangalam Birla and report was published in 2000,(Mallin,2010). This concentrated on the capital markets growth. The code is to be followed by the both public and private sector companies. The code tells about the structure of the company, the role played by them and what is everybody entitled for. i.e. Board of Directors, Nominee Directors, Chairman of the board, Audit committee, Remuneration committee, Shareholders, how corporate governance is implemented, management of the company and the board procedures. Though India has one of the best corporate governance laws but the implementation of them is very poor. In India, the main business type is the public limited companies. The legal system is the English Common Law, the structure of the Board is unitary and the ownership is basically family ownership or corporate but now the institutional investors ownership is increasing. 1.1.3 Financial Scandals: The corporate governance is influenced by the ownership structure, the structure of company boards, the financial structure and the institutional environment. If any of these doesnt work properly then the scandals are prone to happen. The people choose the board of directors, which further appoint managers for different work who actually work daily in order to maximize shareholders wealth. Its the board of directors that decided the corporate objectives and the managers are the one who carry them out. The main reasons that cause corporate governance to fail are as follows: the most important is that the work done is not watched properly and is very weak. There is not much respect for the shareholders, and moreover the management has the complete authority who works for their own benefits rather than the shareholders wealth maximization (KPGM, 2009). The few corporate scandals that have taken place all over the world are like Enron (USA), WorldCom (USA), Satyam (India) and many more ( Mehta et. al). RESEARCH QUESTIONS AND OBJECTIVES: The research aims to find the corporate structure and its role in fulfilling the objectives of an organization. The research about the present corporate governance structure and the changes it has come overtime and further any changes required according to international norms. The main objective of the research is as follows: How can corporate governance be more stringent to steer clear of scandals? How important is the Board structure and the Audit committee on the board for good Corporate Governance? Is there any alteration required in the current structure of corporate governance to make it work more efficiently? METHOD: The research is to be done, in particular, for the detailed information on the corporate governance and the reasons of its failure which result in the fall of huge companies based on the following two reasons i.e. the Board structure and the Audit committee. The qualitative approach will be used. The primary data collection for the Board structure will be done based on two companies i.e. Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), India and Infosys Technology Limited (India) which can be compared to the one of the major company of India, Mahindra Satyam, which failed due to poor corporate governance. All three are the software companies. Taking direct interviews with the high officials on the management committee will be of helpful in finding out the deep structure and changes that are required for the corporate governance to work more efficiently and how does it still help the companies to perform up to their shareholders expectations. The Board structure can be discussed by knowing the number of members on the board, their independence. Auditors play an important role because due to their reports people put faith in the company. The audit members will be found and the actual knowledge of the members will be collected from the CMIEs prowess database which will help in telling whether the committee has enough knowledge in order to fulfill the shareholders demand or not. Secondary data is the data in which researcher is not involved in the collection (Dale, Arber, and Proctor 1988). The secondary data collection also got some advantages as cost and time, high-quality data, opportunities for longitudinal analysis, more time for data analysis and reanalysis may offer new interpretations (Knight and Latreille, 2000). Secondary data will be collected from company website, annual reports, books, journals, newspapers and magazines. The data collected as secondary can provide important information about the company and can prove supportive in research. 3.1 ASSESS RESEARCH QUALITY: Reliability: The reliability of interview can be ascertained by ensuring that all questions are clearly understandable to all the interviewees and the replies received can be coded explicitly. The answers received from interview should make sense and must prove helpful to the research. The self-completion questionnaire must be filled by employees without any pressure from their managers. Therefore, a pilot test must be conducted before issuing of questionnaire (Saunders et al., 2003). Validity: The validity is concerned with the issue that whether the data collected is related to what it is expected to be. According to Saunders et. al(2003), validity is related to a question of casual relationship between two variables? The research will be conducted from February 2010 to May 2010. And there will be direct contact with senior managers in DAIPL to keep updated about any change in their motivational strategy or any change made internally. This will ensure the validity of the research done. Ethics: The code of ethical conduct stated that it is the responsibility of the researcher to assess carefully the responsibility of harm to research participants, and, to the extent that it is possible, the possibility of harm should be minimized (Bryman and Bell, 2007). Therefore, research conducted will be done only when managers and employees are willing to participate in research. The names of all participates would be kept confidential and not revealed at any reason. The questions in the interview will not be formulated in manner that they show any participants identity. Accessibility: The researcher here is been granted the right to access and publish all the findings that are relevant to all ethical requirements.

Debate on Being Unpatriotic

Debate on Being Unpatriotic Cortney Matthaey Becoming Unpatriotic A country is not just a landmass or not just the amount of people that live on it or the amount of money they earn. A country is the pinnacle of governance in history of civilization. Only when the people are united can there be any government. Representing such a great union is the mighty flag. A symbol that has been chosen to represent an entire civilization, and the multiple generations of great people born in the nation. When you look at our nations flag what do you see? Do you see 13 stripes and 50 stars? Do you see a nation that has been over many trials and obstacles and is still unified? Or do you see war amongst us? Do you see hatred? The American Flag is the fabric of our nation; millions of Americans have fought for the flag, it is more than a symbol of hope to many groups and people respect the flag. So a question worth pondering: why would anyone even think it is justified to be allowed to burn our flag? Let us think about this for a minute. We must do everything in our power to protect the American Flag, for the flag holds so much more meaning than you think. What does the American flag mean to some people? While out asking people their opinion I came across some very unique answers, one of those people is currently an active military officer. When I approached him and asked him on his opinion he was baffled that I even asked if it should be legal for Americans to burn their nations flag. No American should be permitted to burn the flag. The United States Military along with myself, defend the country along with the flag every second of every day to ensure their safety. (Goldberg) Now with this being said how would you feel if your hard, dedicated work went to waste because some Americans cannot appreciate all that our military does for us on a daily basis.   With men and women who would sacrifice themselves for our nations flag why would any American try to deface it by burn ing it to ashes? However, in the First Amendment we as Americans, have the right to speak our minds freely (Freedom of Speech). In the year 1989, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of the defendant in Texas v. Johnson. Texas v. Johnson, was a decision by the Supreme Court of the United States that invalidated prohibitions on desecrating the American flag enforced in 48 of the 50 states. Gregory Johnson burned an American flag outside of the convention center. (Persily, Citrin, Egan 2008). Johnson burned the flag to protest the policies of President Ronald Reagan. He was arrested and charged with violating a Texas statute that prevented the desecration of a venerated object, including the American flag, if such action were likely to incite anger in others (Constable 2005). With this being said, they let Johnson go scotch free because the act itself is saved under the first amendment. How far is too far when it comes to freedom of speech? A question only each individual can answer. With men and women who would sacrifice themselves for our nations flag why would any American try to deface it by burning it to ashes? What kind of meaning does the American Flag have on themselves anyway? We must protect the American Flag at all costs. In times of crisis, the raising of the Stars and Stripes symbolizes perseverance and enduring strength. When September 11, 2001 occurred what did we do? Most looked up asking for help while others looked at the American Flag. Whenever America had a rough time getting everyone united together, all they would have to do is look up to hose colors on Americas flag and know that everything will be okay in time. Many Americans fight for our flag every day, they fight, defend and unfortunately some become fallen. However this was their choice; their choice as American citizens to defend and PROTECT the flag. While it is the fabric of our nation, it is so much more than that. It is a symbol of hope and tranquility. I believe that the flag should have its own protection against burning and disrespecting. It shows that the culprit behind doing the burnings and disrespect will get punished. The American Flag is the fabric of our nation; millions of Americans have fought for the flag, it is more than a symbol of hope to many groups and people respect the flag. The flag is there because we are a united nation, we may not be as great as what we once were however when most of your hope is gone (for example: after 9/11) many Americans united together if not all and we turned to that flag as a beacon of hope. Work Cited Constable, M. (2005). Just silences: The limits and possibilities of modern law. Retrieved  November 13, 2016, from http://site.ebrary.com.lopes.idm.oclc.org/lib/GrandCanyon/detail.action?docID=10364781p00=flag burning Goldberg, Bataya. Blog: People Who Burn the Flag. American Thinker. N.p., n.d. Web. 21  Nov. 2016. . Persily, N., Citrin, J., Egan, P. J. (2008). Public opinion and constitutional controversy.  Retrieved November 13, 2016, from http://site.ebrary.com.lopes.idm.oclc.org/lib/GrandCanyon/detail.action?docID=10215791p00=flag burning

Comparing the Two Versions of To Build a Fire Essay -- comparison comp

Comparing the Two Versions of To Build a Fire "I am absolutely confident that beyond the motif itself, there is no similarity of treatment whatever" (544). Jack London, writing in December 1908, was responding to an inquiry from the Richard W. Gilder, editor of Century Magazine. Gilder, having just published "To Build a Fire" in his magazine, was worried when he came across another version published 6 years earlier. London's explanation was that the first story was for boys and the new one was for men; the only similarity being the motif itself. Through careful analysis of the two stories, in light of this letter to Gilder, and another letter to Cloudesly Johns, it is apparent that although London claims no similarities (besides the motif), they definitely exist. Before the similarities are discussed, it is necessary to look at the obvious differences that London explains are in the "treatment" (544). The 1902 version was published for boys, while the 1908 version was published for men. London explains that the motif was "not only very strong, but was very true" (ibid). It seems that he first published it for boys as a sort of educational story; teaching the youngsters about the dangers of the cold weather. Hence, after Tom Vincent learns his lesson, he makes it to camp and doesn't receive any serious damage. Later, London was worried that he had given the motif "inadequate treatment" (ibid). Therefore, he handled the motif again, this time for men, adding a dog for good measure. Since this story was meant for an older audience, topics could be brought up that weren't appropriate to be discussed in the first one: the man considered killing the dog and using his body for warmth. In addition, the most obviou... ...story they are reading. Jack London has written a classic short story in the 1908 version of "To Build a Fire." This is the classic story of man fighting nature. In most genres (e.g. movies, novels, short stories) the main character comes out on top, however unlikely that is. Jack London takes literary naturalism and shows the reader how unmerciful nature is. Much like Stephen Crane in "The Open Boat," in which the one of the characters dies, London doesn't buy into that "has to have a good ending" contrivance. Through analysis of two London's letters (to R.W. Gilder and Cloudesly Johns) these two versions of "To Build a Fire" come alive with new meaning. Although there are many differences on the surface, both stories use his philosophy as expressed to Johns and both teach a moral lesson, one which will not soon be forgotten: "Never travel alone."

Getting Back into the Game :: Personal Narrative Essays

Getting Back into the Game I have always been involved in sports in some way or another. I was team captain in every sport imaginable in elementary school. Junior high I continued to be involved in sports, but it wasn't until high school started that I really got into it. I played soccer, softball and basketball at Rogers High School. I particularly loved soccer. Just playing it gave me a rush I had never felt before. Also knowing that this sport took a lot of hard work and dedication gave me a sense of satisfaction, because I knew that I put everything I had into it. Putting a lot of dedication and hard work into something may prove to be useful in the future. When I had my baby, being involved in sports at all seemed impossible. Then one day, my friend Cory from work was telling me that her daughter wanted to play soccer. She then said that she was going to coach because no one else had volunteered in her area. The only problem was that she didn't know the first thing about soccer. That gave me an idea. I played soccer in high school, so I thought I could help her, so I did. My friend Cory and I went down to Spokane Youth Sports Association and volunteered to become soccer coaches. I couldn't believe that I was actually getting to do this. I thought it was going to be great. I had not played soccer in a while, so I was nervous when I first started coaching. I never knew how hard it would be to dedicate yourself and your time to something without getting compensated for it. It was especially hard when the kids were more often than not pretty hard to deal with. I was coaching a team of nine-year-old girls. Some of those girls seemed to want to be there, and others not. That made it very difficult to get all of their attention at once. Sometimes it was so bad I felt that I was wasting my time. But I stuck it out in hopes that they would come around, after all they were only nine. As time went on the girls started to come around and started listening and enjoying the

Hubspot: Inbound Marketing Essay

HubSpot is an online marketing software company that utilizes inbound marketing, a system which pulls prospective customers to a business and its products. Although inbound marketing has been highly successful and the company has reached its milestone of 1,000 customers, HubSpot is now faced with the dilemma of which direction to steer towards, while considering the viability of inbound marketing at a larger scale. HubSpot must decide whether to target the Marketing Marys (MM) segment, the Owner Ollies (OO) segment or both. We recommend that HubSpot focus on the OO segment. Our strategy is to actively grow this market segment, lower the churn rate and increase the retention rate. By targeting this segment, it will help HubSpot further its goal of becoming an industry leader in the Leads, Analyze and Qualify Traffic sectors of the inbound marketing industry. Our recommendation is based on quantitative analysis which showed that the OO segment is more profitable than the MM segment. Considering the $1000 acquisition cost of OOs and their current pricing, the breakeven for this segment is 2 months. In addition, the lifetime revenue for the OOs is estimated to be $1. M (Exhibit B). In contrast, the breakeven time calculated for the MMs is 9 months with an estimated lifetime revenue of $1. 6M. In addition to quantitative analysis, we also considered qualitative factors in determining our recommendation. We determined that inbound marketing should remain the primary marketing system because it is a user-friendly and a cost efficient product and most importantly, it is HubSpot’s guiding philosophy. Inbound Marketing, a core value and strength, will continue to differentiate HubSpot from its competitors as it grows. In choosing to target the OO segment, we are assuming that OOs will continue to migrate to HubSpot’s hosted content management system at the same rate. The plan is to foster the OOs through retention programs and an improved quality customer service department. The company can lock the customer into a one-year contract at a discount or offer initial free consulting services. In addition within this timeframe, HubSpot’s salesforce will promote the advantages of migrating to the CMS system. We considered alternatives such as targeting both OO and MM segments or focusing solely on the MM segment. However, according to the company product timeline, it takes more than 3 months to develop new products and processes so the alternative of targeting both segments was rejected. As a new company, HubSpot has limited resources to service the diverse client base, which will cause product growth to lag behind servicing customers’ needs. In the long run, this will put the company at a less competitive position in the industry. Additionally, we also considered targeting only the MMs because this segment realized the most growth during the last four months of 2008, perhaps indicating long term growth potential. We rejected this strategy as a result of our expense breakeven analysis: it takes 4 ? times longer to breakeven with MM customers than it does with OO clients (Exhibit B). Finally, while we realize that the shift in focus could potentially lead to loss of market share within the MM segment, we believe that the gain in OO segment will offset the loss in the long run. In conclusion, we recommend that HubSpot target the OO segment. We identified HubSpot’s goals as growth within the OO segment, a lower churn rate and an increased retention rate. HubSpot can accomplish these objectives by promoting the CMS system and implementing a new customer contract initiative. As the company moves towards accomplishing these goals, it will no doubt become a market leader in the online software marketing industry.

Woman in White

Women's Rights Collins hammers home the point that women in England, regardless of their social standing, their education, their moral behavior or their finances, have few legal rights for protection. Laura Fairlie is robbed of her identity and her inheritance by a greedy, unscrupulous husband. Mrs. Catherick has her reputation ruined by a misunderstanding that leaves her divorced and alone at the mercy of the man who caused the misunderstanding. Anne Catherick is falsely imprisoned in a mental institution, as is her half-sister Laura Fairlie.Both escape without the help of any man and go into hiding. Countess Eleanor Fairlie Fosco is denied her rightful inheritance by her older brother Philip simply because he disapproves of her marriage. This drives her to crime to gain back her inheritance. Laura Fairlie is assaulted by her husband and finds no help from the law to protect her, and even her guardian, Frederick Fairlie,†¦ An Analysis of Female Identity in Wilkie Collins's The Woman in White  Ã‚   This article looks at the issue of female identity in Wilkie Collins's The Woman in White.It analyzes two key scenes from the novel to reveal how construction and style inevitably influence the representation of identity, as well as assessing the text in relation to genre, particularly the role of the Gothic in Collins's narrative. A prevalent theme in The Woman in White is confinement. Both Anne Catherick and Laura Fairlie are confined in a mental asylum by Sir Percival Glyde. The novel effectively reworks traditional Gothic conventions in its depictions of confinement and the female characters' jailer.The Woman in White belongs to the genre of ‘sensation' fiction, Collins's novel being regarded as innovative as it is the first, and arguably the greatest, of the English sensation novels. Sensation fiction is generally considered a hybrid genre in that it combines the elements of romance familiar to readers of Gothic fiction and the domestic context fami liar to readers of realist fiction. In The Woman in White the terrors of eighteenth-century Gothic fiction are transferred from their exotic medieval settings, such as those employed in the novels of Ann Radcliffe, and relocated in contemporary nineteenth-century English society.Melodrama is a genre closely related to sensationalism. Some of the features of melodrama, such as extreme states of being, situations, actions; dark plottings and suspense, are clearly apparent in the storyline of The Woman in White. The character of Laura Fairlie comes closest to a typical melodramatic heroine, especially in terms of physical appearance, being young, fair and beautiful. She also embodies both purity and powerlessness. However her role in the story is curiously passive as she is denied a formal narrative voice.Her passivity is the counterpart of her half-sister Marian Halcombe's activity. Marian is a complex individual whose characterization falls outside conventional literary or social mod els, partially evinced in the striking physical contrast between her face and body. Walter informs the reader that her figure is â€Å"tall, yet not too tall; comely and well-developed†¦ her waist, perfection in the eyes of a man† (p. 31). Yet her facial features are somewhat inconsistent with her body: â€Å"the dark down on her upper lip was almost a moustache. She had a large, firm, masculine mouth and jaw† (p. 32).The formal nature of Walter's description employs melodramatic techniques yet the incongruous content of this description appears to challenge melodramatic conventions. Sensation fiction's emphasis on plot means that it often depends on secrets, which seem never-ending: as when one secret is uncovered, another is revealed. The presence of secrets inevitably invites spying, an action Marian chooses to take in one of the novel's most suspenseful scenes, when, fearing that her half-sister's livelihood may be in danger, she spies on the villains Sir Perc ival and Count Fosco in the dead of night.A forbidding atmosphere is swiftly established with an air of menace clearly apparent in the imminent rain, described as being â€Å"threatening†, while the adjectives â€Å"black†, â€Å"pitch† and â€Å"blinding† are used to evoke the impenetrability of the night's inevitable â€Å"darkness†. Marian's decision to listen at the window seems to be partially determined by Count Fosco's opinions of her â€Å"sharpness† and â€Å"courage†. Later on in his and Percival's conversation, Fosco asserts that Marian has â€Å"the foresight and resolution of a man† (p. 30). The shedding of her womanly attire in order to facilitate her position on the roof goes someway to consolidate this identity as a ‘masculinized woman', a type fairly common in sensation fiction. However Marian is somewhat at odds with the heroines of most sensationalist novels in her fundamental moral probity, evinced in this scene with her eagerness to find one factor to justify her subsequent actions to herself: â€Å"I wanted but one motive to sanction the act to my own conscience† (p. 24), finding it in the form of her half-sister: â€Å"Laura's honour, Laura's happiness – Laura's life itself – might depend on my quick ears and my faithful memory tonight† (p. 324). The actual passages detailing her spying on Percival and Fosco are especially tense, partially through Marian's situation – her position on the roof is precariously close to the Countess's bedroom and it is apparent, from the light behind the window, that the woman is not yet in bed.The paragraph that discloses this fact to the reader is composed of sentences comprising numerous short clauses, some of only two words in length, as well as a copious use of dashes – stylistic effects that succeed in bringing the reader ever closer to the â€Å"strangeness and peril† (p. 328) of Marian's si tuation, and the â€Å"dread†, which she â€Å"could not shoulder† (p. 328). Also Collins's use of direct speech in depicting the villains' conversation consolidates this effect, and added with the moodily Gothic ambience, succeeds in bringing the reader into uncomfortably close proximity to Marian's current situation.The style of narrative an author adopts inevitably effects the nature of their characters. In The Woman in White we see the characters of female protagonists shaped by both formal and contextual decisions. This article has gone some way into revealing how identities are constructed through a combination of narrative methods and genre conventions, as well as the actual content of Collins's novel, such as other characters and settings. The Woman in White was an incredibly popular novel.Collins' masterful creation of suspense made for an immensely successful work amongst the Victorian populace. SENSATION FICTION: Contemporary Reviews and Responses The follow ing reviews of Victorian sensation fiction are arranged according to theme and author. The reviews included here are are only a small sampling of Victorian reaction to and enthusiasm for sensation fiction. In future, this collection will be more thorough and will feature full reviews rather than selected sections.Sensation Fiction in General At no age, so far as we are aware, has there yet existed anything resembling the extraordinary flood of novels which is now pouring over this land — certainly with fertilising results, so far as the manufacture itself is concerned. There were days, halcyon days — as one still may ascertain from the gossip of the seniors of society — when an author was a natural curiosity, recognized and stared at as became the rarity of the phenomenon.No such thing is possible nowadays, when most people have been in print one way or other — when stains of ink linger on the prettiest of fingers, and to write novels is the normal condit ion of a large section of society. Margaret Oliphant on Count Fosco from The Woman in White: The violent stimulant of serial publication — of weekly publication, with its necessity for frequent and rapid recurrence of piquant situation and startling incident — is the thing of all others most likely to develop the germ, and bring it to fuller and darker bearing. What Mr.Wilkie Collins has done with delicate care and laborious reticence, his followers will attempt without any such discretion. No divine influence can be imagined as presiding over the birth of [the sensation writer’s] work, beyond the market-law of demand and supply; no more immortality is dreamed of for it than for the fashions of the current season. A commercial atmosphere floats around works of this class, redolent of the manfactory and the shop. The public wants novels, and novels must be made — so many yards of printed stuff, sensation-pattern, to be ready by the beginning of the season. H. L. Mansel, Quarterly Review, 113 (April 1863): 495 – 6. Sensation Fiction and the Woman Reader [Today’s heroines in English novels include] Women driven wild with love for the man who leads them on to desperation before he accords that word of encouragement that carries them into the seventh heaven; women who marry their grooms in fits of sensual passion; women who pray their lovers to carry them off from the husbands and homes they hate; women †¦ who give and receive burning kisses and frantic embraces, and live in a voluptuous dream. †¦ the dreaming maiden †¦ aits now for flesh and muscles, for strong arms that seize her, and warm breath that thrills her through, and a host of other physical attractions which she indicates to the world with a charming frankness. On the other side of the picture, it is, of course, the amber hair and undulating form, the warm flesh and glowing colour, for which the youth sighs. †¦ this eagerness for physical sens ation is represented as the natural sentiment of English girls. * * * * * * * [Lady Audley’s Secret] brought in the rein of bigamy as an interesting and fashionable crime, which no doubt shows a certain deference to the British relish for law and order.It goes against the seventh commandment, no doubt, but it does it in a legitimate sort of way, and is an invention which could only have been possible to an Englishwoman knowing the attraction of impropriety, and yet loving the shelter of law. There is nothing more violently opposed to our moral sense, in all the contradictions to custom they present to us, than the utter unrestraint in which the heroines of this order are allowed to expatiate and develop their impulsive, stormy, passionate characters.We believe it is one chief among their many dangers to youthful readers that they open out a picture of life free from all the perhaps irksome checks that confine their own existence. †¦ The heroine of this class of novel is charming because she is undisciplined, and the victim of impulse; because she has never known restraint or has cast it aside, because in all these respects she is below the thoroughly trained and tried woman. Wilkie Collins The Woman in White Mr. Collins is an admirable story-teller, though he is not a great novelist.His plots are framed with artistic ingenuity — he unfolds them bit by bit, clearly, and with great care — and each chapter is a most skilful sequel to the chapter before. He does not attempt to paint character or passion. He is not in the least imaginative. He is not by any means a master of pathos. The fascination which he exercises over the mind of his reader consists in this — that he is a good constructor. Each of his stories is a puzzle, the key to which is not handed to us till the third volume.With him, accordingly, character, passion, and pathos are mere accessory colouring which he employs to set off the central situation in his narrative. †¦ Men and women he draws, not for the sake of illustrating human nature and life’s varied phases, or exercising his own powers of creation, but simply and solely with reference to the part it is necessary they should play in tangling or disentangling his argument. He is, as we have said, a very ingenious constructor; but ingenious construction is not high art, just as cabinet-making and joining is not high art.Mechanical talent is what every great artist ought to possess. Mechanical talent, however, is not enough to entitle a man to rank as a great artist †¦ Nobody leaves one of his tales unfinished. This is a great compliment to his skill. But then very few feel at all inclined to read them a second time. Our curiosity once satisfied, the charm is gone. All that is left is to admire the art with which the curiosity was excited. In response to Saturday Review commentary above: The Woman in White is the latest, and by many degrees the best work of an author who had already written so many singularly good ones.That mastery in the art of construction for which Mr. Wilkie Collins has long been pre-eminent among living writers of fiction is here exhibited upon the largest, and proportionately, the most difficult scale he has yet attempted. To keep the reader’s attention fairly and equably on the alert throughout a continuous story that fills three volumes of the ordinary novel form, is no common feat; but the author of the Woman in White has done much more than this. Every two of his thousand and odd pages contain as much printed matter as three or four of those to which the majority of Mr.Mudie’s subscribers are most accustomed, and from his first page to his last the interest is progressive, cumulative, and absorbing. If this be true — and it appears to be universally admitted — what becomes of the assertion made by some critics, that it is an interest of mere curiosity which holds the reader so fast and holds him so long? The thing is palpably absurd. Curiosity can do much, but it cannot singly accomplish all that is imputed to it by this theory, for it is impossible that its intensity should be sustained without intermission through so long a flight.If The Woman in White were indeed a protracted puzzle and nothing more, the reader’s attention would often grow languid over its pages; he would be free from the importunate desire that now possesses him to go through every line of it continuously; he would be content to take it up and lay it down at uncertain intervals, or be strongly tempted to skip to the end and find out the secret at once, without more tedious hunting through labyrinths devised only to retard his search, and not worth exploring for their own sake.But he yields to no such temptation, for the secret which is so wonderfully well kept to the end of the third volume is not the be-all and end-all of his interest in the story. Even Mr. Wilkie Collins himself, with all his cons tructive skill, would be at fault if he attempted to build as elaborate story on so narrow a basis†¦ Unsigned Review, Spectator, 33 (8 September 1860): 864. [pic] Henry James on Wilkie Collins: To Mr Collins belongs the credit of having introduced into fiction those mysterious of mysteries, the mysteries which are at our own doors. Mary Elizabeth Braddon M. E. Braddon] might not be aware how young women of good blood and good training feel. . [pic] Lady Audley is at once the heroine and the monstrosity of the novel. In drawing her, the authoress may have intended to portray a female Mephistopheles; but, if so, she would have known that a woman cannot fill such a part. The nerves with which Lady Audley could meet unmoved the friend of the man she had murdered, are the nerves of a Lady Macbeth who is half unsexed, and not those of the timid, gentle, innocent creature Lady Audley is represented as being. †¦All this is very exciting; but is also very unnatural. The artistic fa ults of this novel are as grave as the ethical ones. Combined, they render it one of the most noxious books of the modern times. Marian Halcombe from The Woman in White â€Å"I said to myself, the lady is dark. She moved forward a few steps –and said to myself, the lady is young. She approached nearer – and I said to myself with a sense of surprise which words fail me to express – the lady is ugly! †Ã‚  Ã¢â‚¬â€œ The Woman in White Victorian novels with poor, plain heroines are nothing unusual, but it’s rare to find one who is downright ugly.Then again, Marian Halcombe, the heroine of Wilkie Collins’ sensation novel The Woman in White, cares very little for social convention. In 1860, when even the first wave of feminism was yet to hit, Marian refuses to be content with a life that limits her to â€Å"patience, petticoats and propriety†. She knows that in a world where a woman is her husband’s legal property, marriage was not th e happy ending for women of her era that convention claimed: â€Å"No man under heaven deserves these sacrifices from us women†¦they take us body and soul to themselves, and fasten our helpless lives to theirs as they chain up a dog to his kennel.And what does the best of them give us in return? † She has a point – the novel revolves around a rather melodramatic plot by the sinister Sir Percival Glyde and the fiendish Count Fosco to gain control over the considerable fortune of Laura Fairlie, Marian’s angelic half-sister, and the attempts of both Marian and Walter Hartright, Laura’s equally poor would-be suitor, to rescue her from an abusive marriage.Our first glimpse of her is through Walter’s eyes, and the description is hardly intended to be flattering – she’s sporting a bit of a ‘tache, and he finds her pallor unattractively â€Å"swarthy† (Laura’s later reference to â€Å"Gypsy skin† suggests that Marian is of mixed heritage). But before feminist readers have time to draw an outraged breath, Marian proceeds to launch into a five-page monologue that establishes her as one of the most sparkling creations in the whole of literature. Ever.Although Walter is the overall narrator and inexplicably believes himself to be the hero of the hour, all the risks and major discoveries are made by Marian. It is her diaries that provide a large portion of the narrative, and her quick thinking that saves her sister from a grisly fate. In addition, she can beat any man at billiards, she’s a bit of an intellectual goddess, and she singlehandedly runs the entire household. On the downside, she’s a bit of a snob and prone to making rather rash decisions like taking off most of her clothes, climbing onto the roof and then doing a bit of eavesdropping.She is driven by her near-obsessive love for Laura and whilst their relationship is emotionally complex, it is never cloying or mawkish – instead it is intense, co-dependent and rather more passionate than their sibling bond should allow. Their closeness is such that Laura’s one act of assertiveness in the entire novel is to insist that Marian’s constant presence in her life be written into her marriage contract, and Laura extracts a promise from her that she â€Å"will not be fond of anybody but [her]†.When the wedding night approaches, it is Marian who explains what Laura is to expect: â€Å"The simple illusions of her girlhood are gone; and my hand has stripped them off. Better mine than his – that’s all my consolation – better mine than his. † Steamy stuff for 1860. But neither her implied queerness or her supposed ugliness stopped countless readers writing to Collins asking if Marian was based on a real woman, and if said woman happened to be single. Even the evil (and married) Count Fosco is taken with her, although he seems to be more attracted to her as a potential partner in crime as a candidate for a mistress.Whilst Marian may lack the ethereal beauty of her sister, critic Nina Auerbach describes her as â€Å"a truly sexy woman†, noting that she is in fact the embodiment of androgynous pre-Raphaelite sensuality. The end of the novel has drawn criticism from feminist readers – the plucky, independent heroine is now content to stay at home and help her sister and brother-in-law raise a family in true domestic bliss. However, true to the spirit of their multilayered relationship, Marian is less Laura’s unpaid babysitter than a co-parent, still threatening the bonds of hetero happiness long after the supposedly happy ending has occurred.In a world that presented marriage and motherhood as the only options, Marian rejects what Adrienne Rich would later describe as â€Å"compulsory heterosexuality† in favour of life as the devoted partner of another woman. She is an amateur detective, early feminist and, de spite her vulnerable position, refuses to be a damsel in distress. She was a groundbreaking character when she first appeared, and even 150 years later she remains one of the most memorable characters in Victorian literature.