Ip2 team and leadership Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Ip2 team and leadership - Research Paper Example Based on such a perspective, this paper develops a training guide by analyzing how different aspects affect management and leadership. A number of factors affect leadership and its effectiveness. Such aspects include personalities, values, attitudes, cognitive differences, emotions, and charisma among others. Personalities work to build trust and respect among individuals that one gets involved with others. Other aspects including attitudes, cognitive differences, and emotions enable one to understand how to work with others towards the achievement of other goals (Hawkins, 2011). Courage is a characteristic of leaders enabling them to be different from the norm, establish appropriate changes, and provide for new opportunities (Fisher, 2000). Together with morals, courage enhances the ability of an effective leader to tackle new life challenges without hurting them in any way in driving a particular agenda for the development of an organization. There are five sources of power, which every leader should possess, in order to provide effective leadership. Such include expert power involving a significant domain of knowledge and skills, positional power, as is the case of an organizational CEO, reward power, which works as an influence on the followers of a particular leader. Others include coercive power, the power required to effect discipline among the followers, and personal power that enables a leader to effect personal feeling towards the performance of an individual (Wu,

Managing People And Organisation Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3000 words

Managing People And Organisation - Essay Example The formation of a group is an effective and slow process. In a group all people are associated with each other. According to Bruce Tuckman, there are five phases in formation of a group. They are as follows: Forming Forming is the preliminary phase where group comes as one and the members start to build up bonding with each other. In this phase the members find out what the organisation expects from the group. This phase is the first step towards developing the group. The members develop trust and set up limits on tolerable activities by experimentation. In case of any misconduct, the reaction of the group members decides if the conduct will be repeated in future or not. In this phase, the job of the members is allotted. Storming The second phase is called storming. In this phase the interpersonal disagreement takes place. In case the group is not capable to form the objectives and goals or the members differ on mutual objectives it can cause collision in the entire group. Thus, for a group to be successful the members must develop a common and precise objective and work towards it. A conversation is useful to reach a mutual agreement where everyone can freely share their views. Norming The third phase of group formation is norming where the members can successfully work out the disagreement. In this phase, it is important to judge about how to accomplish the objectives. Everyone becomes clear about their roles and assigned tasks expected from them. By formal and informal process the roles of members can be assigned. The course of action by which group will perform for fulfilling the objectives are decided. In this phase, the members can realise the operation of the group (Institute for Extended Learning, 2009). Performing In the phase of performing, the roles, expectations and customs are not significant. The group formation is complete in this phase after resolving the inside disagreements of recognition and allotment of tasks and initiating responsibilities. Members provide their full effort to accomplish the group objectives (Management Consulting Courses, n.d.). Adjourning Adjourning is the final stage of group development. In the year 1977, Bruce Tuckman had f urther improved the group formation phase and included the ‘Adjourning’ phase. In this stage, the group members begin to gradually disband the group as the objectives are completed. They identify their tasks in the group and move ahead (Funch, 2007). Forming Of Group in FOODCO FOODCO is known as one of the biggest food service distributor corporations of the USA. FOODCO had developed six project groups for dealing with business issues that was important for ELI (Executive Leadership Institute). There were 4–5 members to each project group ensuring at least one member has proficiency which is related to the topic under examination. The project was designed in such a way that it permitted group members to perform momentarily during each period of the project management. FOODCO had allocated a senior supporter to the group who helped in the project. The supporters are the company executives who have good curiosity in watching the success of the group and were ready to assist with the necessary resources, resolve organisational difficulties and offer supervision on how to advance and accomplish the group objective. The groups were given order to get in touch with the senior supporters when needed during the project phase. A survey had been conducted in each time phase to reach a conclusion (Furst, 2004). Fig 1: FOODCO Groups and Objectives Group Objectives of the Group 1 To develop an integration strategy for acquirement 2 To determine the method of efficient transfer of information technology from one ancillary firm to other firm 3 To determine the way to

The Great Pyramid of Egypt

The Great Pyramid of Egypt Overview The Great Pyramid of Egypt is deemed as one of the Worlds Seven Wonders. For more than 43 centuries, the pyramid was ranked as the tallest structure in the earth. But aside from its magnificence what makes it as a true wonder is how these Pharaohs managed such an enormous feat when there were no engineers and construction equipment to use. As such this will always remain a mystery but for todays managers in order to create something as grandeur as the Egypts pyramid, it will only take proper project management skills to successfully carry out a project. Nowadays, projects are ubiquitous. From the simple objective of political campaign to the complicated tasks of launching a rocket, project management is used everywhere by everybody. With this, it is considered as the driving force in most industries for leaders recognize that they are increasingly managing project-driven organization. They recognize that to be successful, they need to be conversant with and use modern project management techniques. Likewise to partially illustrate the importance of such tools, this paper shall discuss different approaches to project planning and control particularly in managing resources. These techniques as well as its benefits and limitations will be presented through the use of two business cases. Case I: Bojan Ltd. Bojan Ltd. operates in a rent a car industry that caters to other commercial businesses. To further satisfy its customers, the company is in the midst of searching for a supply of its vehicles. As such, the Project Manager (PM) is tasked to outline all the activities addressed to this problem using Project Network Diagram (PND), Program Evaluation and Review Technique (PERT) and Critical Path Method (CPM). To start off the project, the PM listed 18 activities that must be performed to produce the project deliverables. (See Table 1.1) This list also shows the relationship between the project activities and the estimated number of work periods that are needed to complete the individual activities. PND was drawn out of these data and was used to determine the start and finish dates of each task and the entire project. Figure 1.1 shows the PND including the detailed schedule data for each activity shown in Early Start (ES), Early Finish (EF), Latest Start (LS) and Latest Finish (LF). The diagram also presented the critical path wherein the nodes in red represent the critical activities. These activities were identified by subtracting the activitys ES from its LS. If the float is zero then it falls as a critical activity; otherwise the activity has a slack wherein it is allowed to be delayed without affecting the projects total duration. In this project there are six non-critical activities (F, G, J, M, P, R) which totals to eighteen days of float. As shown above, the activities A-B-C-D-E-H-I-K-L-N-O-R make up the critical path and by adding the duration of each activity it shows the shortest time in which a project can be completed. For this project adding the entire critical paths duration (1+1+ 4+5+8 +10+10+6+8+10+12+1), it will take 76 days for its fulfillment. For example if the project will commence on May 3 and assuming that there will be no delays and will be completed using a 5 day working week, the project will be finished on its 16th week specifically on the 23rd of August. If in case non-critical activities are delayed, it will not bring about delay for it has a slack. If the delay is equals or less than its slack, it has a time leeway that can be used without adverse effect on the project time completion. For example a one day interruption occurred during Activity P will have no effect on the projects target end date for only its EF and LS will be affected. (See Table 1.4) This case is also the same if Activity Q is one day delayed and if two day holdup happened during Activity M. Throughout the project, PND was applied since time management is often the main source of conflict and using such tool will help PM to tinker with the relationships between tasks and create alternative solutions to increase productivity, profitability, and the diligence of a project. Moreover other than this function, PND also serves four other purposes (Super Business, n.d.). Case II: Carr Ltd. Carr Ltd. supplies an array of fitness equipment to various health and fitness clubs. However the company wants to expand this offering by diversifying its product and market. In this light, the organization will be undertaking a series of activities to launch hydraulic resistance machines to various school gyms. To manage all these tasks, project integration management will be conducted to coordinate all the project elements throughout its lifecycle. Figure 2.1 illustrates the integrations seven main processes to ensure the projects completion. Project Charter The project charter is an announcement that names the new project, the purpose of the project and the PM (Verzuh, 2005, p. 41). Form 2.1 shows the project charter for this specific project. Preliminary Project Scope Statement The scope statement is a document used to develop and confirm a common understanding of the project scope. As such Form 2.2 describes the work to be accomplished in this project as this will help in preventing project creep the tendency of a project scope to get bigger and bigger (Schwalbe, 2008, p. 149). Project Management Plan The project management plan provides a snapshot of the whole project as it contains all the necessary data for project execution and control. The plan aims to coordinate and integrate all other project management knowledge area. Moreover it is kept flexible in order to adapt to future project changes. The contents of the projects management plans are as follows: Project Overview The project overview contains the basic idea of the project. It gives the project management team a summary of what should and should not be accomplished at the end of the project. Management and Technical Approach This part of the plan consists of various documents on the ways the project will be run through. As such it is divided into four parts and these are management objectives, project controls, risk management and project staffing. Management Objectives identifies the top management views, project priorities and constraints. Through this, the team can concentrate on what must be done and can recognize the probable project limits. Form 2.4 shows the projects management objectives. Form 2.4: Management Objectives Project Controls describes the monitoring of the projects progress and its change management. For this project, the team has decided to conduct a weekly status review to ensure that the project is completed on time as well as to handle the change effectively. Moreover every after the progress meeting, a project status report is to be filled out and if there will be a need for change, a project change request must be first completed before any change implementation. Risk Management identifies the risks and the ways to manage and control perils that will restrain the projects success. Form 2.7 lists the projects risk management techniques that will allow the team to prepare for the risks and on how to react on them. Project Staffing describes the human resource needs of the project. This document identifies the skills required for this project. As such, Form 2.8 provides a list of the qualifications needed for the project to ensure that it will be completed with highly skilled team members. Scope Management The scope management defines the work required to complete the project. This supports the preliminary scope statement for it clarifies and provides more specific details. With this end, a Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) is created to define the total scope of the project. Although this does not show the tasks dependencies and duration, the WBS provides a basis for planning and managing project schedules, costs, resources and changes (Young, 2007). Project Organization The project organization is represented by the Organizational Breakdown Structure (OBS). An OBS shows the decomposition of the projects responsibilities based on its WBS. Through this, the PM can allocate responsibilities, and to distribute the work fairly and evenly among the team (Young, 2007, p. 132). Project Schedule The project schedule provides a summary of the overall project schedule for it gives a baseline date of the projects completion. As such Table 2.2 identifies the project schedule that will be used to measure the projects progress to ensure the timely finish of the project. The table lists the relationships of each activity, the critical four dates and its critical path that are essential on identifying the projects duration. Project Budget The project budget consists of project estimate and project budget wherein project estimate is the approximate cost of the resources needed to complete a project while project budget involves allocating the overall cost estimate to individual work items to establish a baseline for measuring performance. For this project in estimating its total cost, bottom-up estimate was done. Bottom-up estimate which is often called Activity Based Costing involves on estimating individual work items and summing them to get a project total (Schwalbe, 2008, p. 274). In this project, labor cost, production of promotional tools and the school presentation consume most of the budget. Form 2.9 provides a summary of the projects estimated cost. Project Execution Project execution is the stage of performing the actual work as approved in the plan. This phase probably takes 90 percent or more of the projects effort. As such, the activities identified on the WBS are now being implemented to produce the project deliverables (Verzuh, 2005, p. 38). (Refer Figure 2.2 for the projects WBS) Consequently this point of project lifecycle involves on managing and performing the work described in the project management plan and so as to ensure that the project will be undertaken accordingly, the PM must perform these three tasks: Coordinating planning and execution; Providing strong leadership and a supportive culture; and Capitalizing on product, business and application area knowledge. Project Monitoring and Controlling Project monitoring and controlling involves collecting, measuring and disseminating performance information. In this stage project status reports play a pivotal role wherein all the activities are being tracked to measure the overall health of the project. Seven criteria are used for effective tracking and these are: Work (is it to estimates (both time and cost)?; Measurement (is everyone clear how to measure progress?); Timescales (are work plans being completed on schedule?); Quality (are standards being met in accordance with specifications?); Teamwork (are responsibilities being adhered to?); Changes (are problem-solving tools being used effectively?); Stakeholders (are they being kept informed, consulted and involved?) (Young, 2007, p.211). In addition to this, since scope, schedule and cost comprise the success criteria for the project, these three are the primary focus on monitoring the projects progress. Table 2.4 lists various methods on monitoring these factors. The purpose of tracking the projects progress is to ensure that the team always have the information to make an accurate assessment of what has happened and compare it with what should have happen according to the plan. Through this comparison, the team can take corrective actions to such variance. For example, it was identified that the project is lagging behind, specifically in doing the marketing plan due to conflicting ideas. As such, various proposals were raised and one of these is to work overtime. With this corrective action, the impending effect on project schedule was countered. Figure 2.3 summarizes the monitoring and controlling system for this project. Integrated Change Control Integrated change control is a management process for requesting, reviewing, approving, carrying out and controlling changes to the projects deliverables (Wallace 2007). Using the Project Change Request Form (Form 2.6) the project can achieve an efficient change control through understanding the source requiring the change, identifying the pros and cons of adapting to the change and preparing plan in implementing the change. With this end, Figure 2.4 illustrates the projects change control process (Westland, 2003). After recognizing the need for change, Configuration Management is then implemented. Configuration management controls the different versions of the project. It focuses specifically on how to implement approved changes as it keeps everyone in the project reading from the same sheet of music. For example, if the product proposal was changed midway through the project. This should be communicated to all the team members through updating the project reports so that the sub-teams responsible for the other parts of the marketing plan can make adjustments. If this is failed to do so, this will lead to confusing marketing plan. As such if the product package is targeting the low-end schools but the pricing suggests a premium rate for the fitness equipment, this results to inconsistencies. To avoid this kind of scenario, they must perform this three configuration management step: Identify the items that will be controlled, set up the control structure, and assign responsibility for control ( Verzuh, 2005, p.302). Project Closure Project closure is the smallest phase of the project but no less than important than the others. This stage is signified by all tasks and specific deliverables, documentation manuals and process procedures are finished and to identify if the project is finally completed Table 2.5 lists a closure checklist. When the project is deemed as completed, a close-out meeting is conducted to culminate all the efforts of the team member. The purpose of this meeting is to reach an agreement with the sponsor, in this case with Carr Ltd, to formally close the project. As such, Form 2.10 shows a sample of close-out meeting agenda. However the close-out meeting is not yet the end of the project for final report are yet to be done. This report includes project evaluation and project appraisal. Project evaluation is used to review the project processes and the management of the project. There are two modes of evaluating the project; active evaluation is conducted when the project is still in the works while post-project evaluation is after the projects turnover to the sponsor. On the other hand, project appraisal assesses the project as a whole for it determines the gains and losses of the project. These assessments are done with the purpose to learn from experience and to improve future projects. In addition to this in every project undertaken, benefits are always expected on them. In some cases, benefits are achieved after sometime the project has been concluded. In this project however, the benefit has been realized even before the project closure. Carr Ltd gained a new income stream in this diversification project via the agreed upon contracts with the customers (schools) for it signifies the payment terms (tangible benefits). Conclusion Project in tegration management is often regarded as the key to overall project success for it ties together all areas of project management. Thus this holds the primary focus of a PM. Summary Project management has come a long way since the formation of the pyramids in Egypt. Nowadays organizations have a renewed interest on this specific field as the number of projects continues to grow and their complexity continues to increase. This can be majorly attributed to the rise of modern project management tools and techniques for projects differ from the ongoing operations of a firm, managing those presents a new set of challenges. With this it resulted to developing tools and techniques that will deal with these challenges (Verzuh, 2005, p. 1). Accordingly throughout the paper, it presented various project management techniques. In the first case of Bojan Ltd, the use of network diagram was illustrated to stress the importance of completing the project on time. On the other hand, Carr Ltds problem of managing its new initiative was resolved by the project management integration that aims to ensure that all project elements come together at the right time to complete the project successfully. As such, the use of these tools emphasized that project management is a valued skill set in organizations across the spectrum. References Books Schwalbe, K., 2008. Information Technology Project Management. 5th Edition. Philippines: Cengage Learning Asia Pte Ltd. Verzuh, E., 2005. The Fast Forward MBA in Project Management. 2nd Edition. New Jersey: John Wiley Sons, Inc. Young, T., 2007. The Handbook of Project Management. 2nd Edition. United Kingdom: Kogan Page E-books Westland, J., 2003. Project Management Guidebook. United States of America: Method 1-2-3. [E-book] Available at: http://www.thoughtware.com.au/documents/method123-ebook.pdf [Accessed on 11 March 2010] Websites Burns, M., 2005. Never Say No Managing Change in a Project. [Online] Available at: http://www.easyweb.co.uk/articles/change-control.html [Accessed on 11 March 2010] Super-Business, n.d. Creating a Project Network Diagram. [Online] Available at: http://www.super-business.net/IT-Project-Management/172.html [Accessed 23 February 2010] Wallace, S., 2007. Scope Change Control. [Online] Available at: http://www.epmbook.com/scope.htm [Accessed 11 March 2010]

Essay --

The Catcher in the Rye was written by J.D. Salinger. The main character is Holden Caulfield. Holden is a troubled student, who is most of the time depressed. The book starts out with him somewhere like a medical center for depression and his health. Holden lives in New York. He starts out telling you about his brother D.B. who is a writer and lives in Hollywood. He then goes on to tell you how it all started. He has gotten kicked out by many schools, and his latest school, Pencey, is no different. The only subject he does well in is English. Everything else he does not care for. He is supposed to leave wednesday, but it is saturday. He has just gotten back from a fencing game which his team had to forfeit, because Holden forget the foils. His neighbor in their dorms, Ackley, keeps bothering him. Ackley does not take care of his hygiene and hates almost everybody except Holden. But Holden's roommate, Stradlater, comes in, causing Ackley to leave. Stradlater has a date with Jane, a fri end of Holden's. Stradlater gets ready then leaves Holden. Holden, Ackley, and another boy go out to eat, but none of them want to go to the movies, because Ackley and the other boy have already seen it. Holden does not care, because he hates movies. They go back to their dorms. Ackley goes to bed, and Holden just stares out the window. Stradlater comes in soon, and Holden asks him about his date. Stradlater will not say much which freaks out Holden. Holden and Stradlater then get into a fight and Stradlater beats him up. Holden then decides to leave early. His grandma has given him a whole bunch of money, so he goes to a cheap hotel. He leaves the hotel to go to a club, because he cannot sleep. He drinks a bit then goes to another club where he meets ... ...oo crowded, he leaves. He decides to bum his away across the U.S., so he wants to say goodbye to Phoebe. Phoebe is at school so he leaves a note for her with a secretary. It comes time for Phoebe to meet him but she does not. It takes her another hour to come. She comes with a big suitcase, and it confuses him. She wants to come with him. He gets mad at her, and checks the suitcase into a nearby locker security place. He lets her skip school even though she is mad at him. They go to the zoo, and after a while, she becomes no longer mad at him. He then takes her to the carousel where she rides it. He promises her he will not leave. He has been feeling sick. He goes home and gets sick, so his parents book him into the medical place. Then he says that is all he will tell you. He said to never start talking about people because you will start to miss them. Then it ends.

Juvenile Offenders Essay

Steinberg states that there are some issues which are very challenging to the society concerning the nature of human development and justice when it comes to serious juvenile crimes (para, 1). This is due to the fact that people do not expect crimes to be committed by children let alone children being criminals. The unexpected connection between childhood and criminality brings about a dilemma that is hard to resolve (Steinberg para, 1). Some of the ways out of this dilemma are: trying to redefine the offense as something of less magnitude than a crime and redefining the offender as somebody who is not actually a child. For almost a century now, the American society has chosen to redefine an offense as something less than a crime (Siegel and Welsh p, 211). Hoge, Guerra and Boxer states that most juvenile offenses have for long time been treated as delinquent acts that need adjudication within a separate justice system for juveniles (p, 154). This system is designed in such a way as to recognize the exceptional needs as well as the immature condition of young persons and stresses more on rehabilitation over punishment. Steinberg asserts that the two guiding principles that have prevailed concerning young people are that: they have different competencies as compared to adults, which necessitates adjudication in a different type of system, and that they have different potential for change and therefore qualify for a second chance as well as an attempt at rehabilitation (para, 4). The operations of juvenile courts are carried out under the presumptions that offenders are immature meaning that their development is incomplete, their judgment is immature, and their character is still undergoing development. However, in the recent past as Steinberg states, there has been a tremendous shift concerning the way crimes committed by juveniles are treated by policymakers as well as the general public (para, 6). This shift has resulted in great changes concerning policies that deal with the way juvenile offenders are treated. Gale argues that instead of choosing to defend offences committed by young people as delinquent, the society has opted to redefine them as adults and transfer them to the criminal justice system that deals with adult crime (p, 76). Some proponents in society have come to agree that there are those young offenders who should be transferred to the adult criminal justice system due to the fact that they pose a serious threat to the safety of the society where other juveniles live (Siegel and Welsh, p. 214). Proponents, as Hoge, Guerra and Boxer illustrates, argue that the magnitude of the offense committed by these youth deserves a relatively more harsh punishment (p. 174). They also argue that the history of repeated offenses do not augur well for definitive rehabilitation of juvenile offenders. This however, does not describe the large number of young people who are currently being put on trial in the adult criminal justice system. Steinberg argues that majority of these have been charged with crimes that are not as violent to merit such a harsh punishment (para, 7). When this transfer of juvenile offenders to adult system begins to become a rule instead of an exception, it characterizes a primary challenge to the very ground that the juvenile system was anchored in- that young people are different from adults. Debates concerning transfer policies can be viewed from different angles. Developmental psychologists would ask whether the differences drawn between people of various ages under the law are rational in light of what is known concerning age variation in different aspects of social, emotional, and intellectual functioning (Hoge, Guerra and Boxer, p. 79). One major issue based on developmental psychology that emerges is about the creation of a boundary between young people and adults in matters of criminal justice. Developmental psychology seeks to identify the scientific reasons that justify the separate treatment of adults and young people within the criminal justice system, especially with reference to the age bracket, 12-17 years, highly under political analysis currently (Steinberg para, 9). First and foremost, this age bracket is an intrinsically intermediary phase. It involves swift as well as dramatic changes in individual’s social, intellectual, physical, and emotional capacities. It is a phase where a line concerning competence and incompetence of individuals can be drawn. Secondly, teenage years are a period of potential flexibility (Gale p, 98). Young people are heavily influenced by experiences in school, at home, as well as other social settings. To the level that flexibility is possible, transfer of young people into a criminal justice system that rules out a rehabilitative response may be an unrealistic public opinion (Siegel and Welsh, p. 11). Adolescence is a decisive phase through which numerous developmental trajectories are firmly set up and increasingly hard to change. Numerous experiences that adolescents go through have devastating cumulative impacts. Irrational decisions and poorly formulated policies relating to young offenders may have unpredictable harmful outcomes (Gale, p. 104). According to Steinberg, mitigating factors such as mental illness, emotional stress and self defense should be critically evaluated when trying a young person (para, 14). A punishment that is fair to an adult may be unfair to a young person who was not aware of the penalties of his/her actions. It would therefore be unethical to give life sentences to juvenile offenders. The way laws are interpreted and applied should vary when dealing with a case in which a defendant understanding of the law is limited by intellectual and emotional immaturity. The repercussions of administering long and severe punishment are very different when the offender is a young person as compared to when he/she is an adult (Steinberg, para. 17).

Death is my best theme Essay

â€Å"Death is my best theme, don’t you think? † (Williams). Explore the varied uses Tennesse Williams makes of death and dieing in â€Å"A Streetcar Names Desire† Referring to â€Å"A Streetcar Named Desire†, I completely agree that death is Williams’ best theme, closely followed by sex. There are many references to death as well as imagery and symbolism. He also uses many varied points on death. The first major speech about death is when Blanche is talking about her losing Belle Reve – â€Å"Blanche: All of those deaths! The long parade to the graveyard! Father, mother! Margaret, that dreadful way! So big with it, it couldn’t be put in a coffin! † This is the first thing that Blanche says that has any power and real feeling behind it and the topic is death. This is showing that death is going to play a large part in the feeling in and behind the story. â€Å"Blanche: You just came home in time for the funerals, Stella. And funerals are pretty compared to deaths. Funerals are quiet, but deaths-not always. † Stella is being associated with the funerals and Blanche with the deaths. This is showing Stella being quiet and Blanche being louder and more highly strung as that is how she has described the difference in her speech. Although on the outside this speech made by Blanche may sound like she is just talking about the deaths of all her family members but it is also relating to the death of Belle Reve and how the two are connected – â€Å"Blanche: How in hell do you think all that sickness and dying was paid for? Death is expensive, Miss Stella! † She describes death in quite a lot of detail in this speech; it is showing that death is going to become an important topic in this play. A lot of the deaths seem to be because of the men and their gambling and this could be a view of Williams’. – â€Å"Blanche: Honey-that’s how it slipped through my fingers! Which of them left us a fortune? † In â€Å"A Streetcar Named Desire† a lot of the times when death is being discussed, sex seems to come into the conversation to. There is a strange relation between sex and death here. – â€Å"I let the place go? Where were you. In bed with your-Polak! † This is not the strongest reference to death and sex combined although it is a slight one. A much stronger one is Blanche’s speech about her late husband- â€Å"Blanche: Then I found out in the worst of all possible ways. By coming suddenly into a room that I though was empty-which wasn’t empty, but had two people in it†¦. † â€Å"Blanche: He’d stuck the revolver into his mouth, and fired-so that the back of his head had been-blown away! † Seeing her husband have sex with another man and then blow his head off within the time span of two hours causes a strange equation and connection between sex and death. The way he killed himself could also be perceived as a homosexual reference – sticking the gun in his mouth. â€Å"A vendor comes around the corner. She is a blind MEXICAN WOMAN in a dark shawl, carrying bunches of those gaudy tin flowers that lower class Mexicans display at funerals and other festive occasions. † Here, the woman carrying the funeral flowers is symbolising two things – Death and Blanche. It is ambiguous whether or not any of the other characters can see or are aware of the presence of the Mexican woman except from Blanche. Blanche’s thoughts seem to be provoked by the Mexican woman and it almost seems as if the Mexican woman is a representation of Blanche herself, and the Mexican woman is walking around celebrating death which shows the death within Blanche’s past and presence. â€Å"Mexican Woman: Corones para los muertos. Corones†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦ Blanche: Legacies! Huh†¦. And other things such as blood-stained pillow-slips† You can really see Blanche going mad in this scene as she is almost talking to herself rather than to Mitch and this symbolises the dying of Blanche’s mind. She also has fragmented speech patterns here and if talking about incoherent memories that only she can really understand. – â€Å"Blanche: -and on the way back they would all stagger on to my lawn and call-â€Å"Blanche! Blanche! † – The deaf old lady remaining suspected nothing. But sometimes I slipped outside to answer their calls†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦. Later the paddy-wagon would gather them up like daisies†¦. the long way home†¦. † Another view on death Tennesse Williams uses is the death of Belle Reve. Shown using Blanche and Stanley, there is a clash between two worlds and the Belle Reve world is dying communicated by Stanley taking power of Blanche and bringing her into their world and getting rid of her airs and graces. He breaks her and makes her realise that her old way of living is dead and that she has to enter the real world. â€Å"In A Streetcar Named Desire the conflict between two ways of life is concentrated within the battle between Blanche and Stanley. The old civilisation vested in Blanche is demonstrably decadent; her only means of survival in the modern world is to batten onto someone else and live off their emotional, physical and material resources, like a decorative fungus. † (Commentary). â€Å"Blanche: I will die – with my hand in the hand of some nice-looking ship’s doctor, a very young one with a small blond moustache and a big silver watch. † â€Å"Blanche: And I’ll be buried at sea sewn up in a clean white sack and dropped overboard-at noon-in the blaze of summer-and into an ocean as blue as (chimes again) my first lover’s eyes. † Blanche brings the equation of sex and death together again here as she is planning of dieing with a man by her side. This speech made by Blanche nearing the end of the play also has a slight reference to Othelia in Shakespeare’s â€Å"Hamlet†. Othelia died in water and that is what Blanche is dreaming about doing. – â€Å"Queen: One woe doth tread upon another’s heel, So fast they follow. Your sister’s drown’d, Laertes. Laer: Drown’d? O, where? † (Hamlet). In conclusion Tennesse Williams uses a lot of different views on death, the connection between sex, the death of other things except people like the death of Belle Reve and Blanche’s mind, and the death of people who happen to all be someone in Blanche’s Past. Williams uses different angles to express the theme of death, symbolism of the death of Belle Reve, the Mexican woman symbolising the death of Blanche’s mind, and the outward talking of real death of people. This makes it an important topic as it depicted in so many ways. Death is defiantly in the running for Tennesse Williams’ best theme in â€Å"A Streetcar Named Desire†.