Research EssayThe impact of an author’s writing is often influenced by their childhood, which helped lead them to the successful position they are in. Flannery O’Connor, an author to many short stories, is very popular to numerous people in the American literature society. O’Connor is known to many  for her twisted sense of violence and irony she uses. She exerts her distinct memories and features from her childhood and applied them to her characters throughout her short stories. Many also know her as a “Southern Gothic” writer because of her southern heritage, but also for her obsession with the dark mysterious style she portrays when writing. As White stated “The rationale for evil’s appearance in these authors’ works has wider implications than I shall deal with here, but I would point to gothic horror’s honorable bloodlines in the history of American literature from Poe through Hawthorne and James” (White 1). In two of her short stories, A Good Man is Hard to Find and Good Country People, O’Connor uses faith, grace, hopelessness, and  evil as themes that appear throughout these stories. Flannery O’Connor was able to use the changes America was going through during the mid 1900s to channel her inner thoughts on society and share through her own philosophies. As Flannery O’Connor provided the readers with a grotesque style and perceptive questions throughout her short stories, she centered them on a mixture of religion, life experiences, and irony. One of the big concepts O’Connor portrayed throughout her stories is her belief in religion. As author Harold Bloom stated “The American Religion—an original but unstable blend of Orphism, gnosticism, and Enthusiasm—is as powerfully portrayed by O’Connor as by any other of our storytellers, from Hawthorne to Cormac McCarthy” (Bloom 9). Flannery O’Connor was born and raised in Georgia with a strong Catholic background, which helped her include her religious beliefs into her stories. O’Connor displayed a religious view through her story A Good Man is Hard to Find as she attempted to turn people to welcome the idea of Christian faith. However, although she used religious views in this short story, she also used a grotesque view that left the readers in a suspenseful state. In the majority of O’Connor’s stories, quite a bit of her characters never appear to discover redemption until they discover God towards the end of the story. In A Good Man is Hard to Find, the characters go through a change which allow them to view and have a new perspective about life and death. As Bloom stated:Dead is precisely the condition in which a number of O’Connor’s characters end up, mostof them having been shocked out of their complacent everyday existence by some act ofintense violence that propels them to a complete acceptance of Christ—an acceptance sooverwhelming and pure that their spiritual houses are indeed in order, freed from anytaint of doubt or unrest (Bloom 26).Throughout that story, there is a scene where the evil man, also known as The Misfit, appeared and turned the family’s lives upside down. He found no purpose in life except when he tortured others. He can be seen as a grotesque figure or interpreted as God’s biggest rival, Satan. However, the grandmother in the story is seen as this confident woman, that is until she meets The Misfit. The Misfit felt as if he was rejected by God; however, the grandmother chose to treat God as if he is something that she can accept or ignore, it just depended on her situation. O’Connor made her characters challenge God’s redemption and decide whether to embrace it or ignore it. Through O’Connor’s characters, she proves the idea that having a belief can be discovered through different ways in order to prove that God’s grace can be disclosed to the world.The life of Flannery O’Connor can be portrayed through her short story, Good Country People. Reuman states, “[…I]n its portrayal of world without love, ‘Good Country People’ touches the core of O’Connor’s own life” (Reuman 515). This story seems to reflect on her relationship with her mother, Regina Cline. In the story, there is a mother daughter relationship between Hulga and her mother, similar to the one Flannery and her mother have. As Reuman stated, “That O’Connor saw herself in her fiction is clear. As she wrote to one correspondent, ‘My heroine already is, and is Hulga… a projection to myself into this kind of tragic comic action (106)” (Reuman 515). One of the prime examples that relate these relationships to one another are the issues with the daughter’s names. Joy, the daughter in the story, changes her name to Hulga, despite her mother’s wishes. This issue is very similar to how O’Connor changed her name from Mary to Flannery. In Good Country People, Hulga is very similar to O’Connor in multiple ways. She has a PhD in philosophy, she has a wooden leg, and has a heart condition that has kept her at home. However, O’Connor had master’s degree in Fine Arts. She also had lupus,  so her mother wanted her to live with her on the farm in Milledgeville, Georgia. As one can see, Flannery O’Connor also related her life in her short stories as she placed the setting of them in Georgia. In the story, Hulga could be described as self-centered or arrogant. She stayed by herself and could be considered “different” from girls her age. O’Connor was very similar when she was a young girl; she was the type of girl who also did not have many friends and would normally be alone and as she talked to herself. Throughout O’Connor’s short stories, she was able to convey her life experiences very discreetly as she portrayed them through the lives of one or more of her characters. In both of O’Connor’s short stories that are being discussed, she gives each story the same central theme, which is irony. As Bloom stated,“And in both stories O’Connor uses conventional language for comic and ironic purposes, emphasizing the meaninglessness of the platitudes in the mouths of her characters, and at the same time using their words to sound the main themes of the story” (Bloom 35). There are three different types of irony that can be used, but throughout this story, all three types are applied. In both of the stories, one distinct example of irony is the character’s names. There is June Star, who is a spoiled little girl who lives up to the stereotypical life like a famous star. Mrs. Hopewell, Mrs. Freeman, and Joy all have names that are examples of irony as they try to live up to the exact meaning of their name; well, except for Joy, who hopes for the complete opposite. An example of dramatic irony in Good Country People is at the end of the story when Mrs. Hopewell calls Manley Pointer a very simple man and talks about how the world would be a better place with more people who were simple like him. Mrs. Hopewell clearly has no idea what really happened, but the readers are able to see what actually happened. There is also a case of situational irony that was used in the story, which is when Manley Pointer stole Hulga’s leg. Hulga not only lost her leg in that scene, but also a part of her heart. This specific scene causes the readers to not only be confused, but also look for the sweet Christian boy who appeared to be very attracted to Hulga. Nevertheless, Harold Bloom states, “This characterization recurs throughout the story to describe various characters, whose ‘good country’ nature comes under the author’s scrutiny” (Bloom 28). Throughout both stories,  O’Connor not only uses irony to showcase her sense of humor, but also to captivate her readers in the process and make them question the main point of the whole situation.Whether one may agree or not, Flannery O’Connor was a pious Catholic that declared her work through a religious view; although, it can be interpreted in multiple ways. O’Connor provided her readers with several scenarios that make one not only question themselves with reasonable doubt, but also others around them. As White stated,“A dogmatic corollary of grace (O’Connor’s Roman Catholicism being self-evident here) is that it must be free–freely given and accepted” (White 3). Flannery O’Connor brought her religious viewpoints to life as she engaged her characters into grotesque and violent scenarios which allowed not only the characters, but also the readers to test their faith and find grace. As an author, O’Connor reveals the cruel experience one must go through in order to see the bigger picture. Regardless of a person’s religious point of view, O’Connor’s work is worth reading and making one’s own assumptions.Works CitedBloom, Harold. Flannery O’Connor. Facts on File, Inc, 1999. EBSCOhost, stacks.tridenttech.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=nlebk&AN=38614&site=ehost-live.Reuman, Ann. “Revolting Fictions: Flannery O’Connor’s Letters to Her Mother.” The Norton Introduction to Literature, edited by Kelly J. Mays, shorter 12th ed., W. W. Norton, 2017, pp. 513-515.White, Terry. “Allegorical evil, existentialist choice in O’Connor, Oates and Styron.” The Midwest Quarterly, vol. 34, no. 4, 1993, p. 383+.Biography in Context, link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A13999393/BIC1?u=trident_ttc&xid=9f80ba9c. Accessed 14 Aug. 2017.”
International Expansion into Culturally Close Countries International Business – Index –Introduction 3 Internationalization 3 Culture 3Manifestation of culture 4Impact of culture on an Individual’s Life 4Impact of culture on Internationalization and consumer behavior 5Benefits of cultural understanding 5Examples of cultural embracement by MNC’s 6Conclusion 6 Internationalizing firms tend to start their expansion into culturally close countries before expanding further. IntroductionIn today’s business environment, companies do business not only within the country but across the national boundaries also. Different nations have significant differences of attitude, belief, ritual, morality, truth, superstitions and the endless list of other cultural characteristics. Some of the beliefs may be important to one group of people and the same may mean nothing to another. The global markets, when their products are localized, and are planned for internationalization, support for the multiple languages without changes to the core application and the products is equipped for global use. These cultural differences deeply affect market behavior. Today’s market need to be familiar with the cultural traits of the countries they want to do business with. In the century of internationalization, the making bodies of the organization need to make decision regarding political, religion, cultural, economic factors to enter into the foreign market of the same. Now we will discuss the elements and the manifestation of culture as to how the markets are sensitive to the various cultures.InternationalizationAccording to the Jane Knight, the Internationalization is the essential and important activity of international and intercultural dimensions to be seeded at the institutional level. The definition of Knight covers the methods adaptation and cultural sensitivity of market. Also the rapid growth of globalization of markets has changed economical pattern to internationalization. Thus the globalization is transforming into internationalization (Susman & Gerald, 2007). When a company takes steps to increase its clientage across the country and into international markets. They also make strategy taking place between the different countries. Thus internationalization is the process of designing and building the applications which are used to facilitate the localization as culture of the particular place or country.CultureDifferent people have varied views on culture, many consider it as something a country, region, firm or something you can see , hear or touch, some have belief in ceremonies, clothing etc.According to Hall (1976) culture is an learned behavior which is not biologically transmitted. It depends on environment not heredity.Hofstede (1980) states that the genetic programming of the person passes the culture from generation to generations which evolves gradually in stages.There are multiple concepts given on culture by many as –Pattern of behavior by which the things happen to occur in an organization is culture (Deal & Kennedy)Culture is a learned behavior which is accepted and declared compatible and passed on to the generations through shared experiences (Schein, 1992)(Geertz, 1973) the tenets of a culture extend to the other members of group. (Mulholland 1991) defined culture as total pattern of behavior by way of belief, ethnic, national, law, customs etc. be shared and long lasting effects be transmitted to generations.Thus we may conclude that culture as a concept encompasses every part of a person’s life. It meets all human physical and psychological needs and is continuously evolving. Impact of Culture on a person’s LifeBasically, culture is the individual’s way of life. For a group of people it includes, beliefs, values, customs, traditions, heritage, language, artistic expression, etc. which affect therin behavior.For some, one culture and ethnicity affects their behavior which might not be same for other. (Ratner 2006)culture as an influence of behavior takes the “nurture” side of the argument about influence of culture.By concluding we may say that culture is individual’s secret weapon which allow us to express ourselves as individuals and at the same time as a part of the group. It allows us to learn from others and to build on the efforts of others. It is the way of which all that is wonderful in the past is carried to the future.Manifestation of CultureHofstede (1980) categorized culture into different categories such as Signs, heroes, rituals and values.Signs: – Signs refer to a mark or a word used as conventional representation of an object, function or process for those who shares same culture. It allows people to go beyond what is known or seen by creating linkages between otherwise very different concepts and experiences by different cultural groups. For example hairstyles, linguistic worlds etc.Ideals: – Person with highly recognizable character who is admired for their courage, achievements or noble qualities whether real or not becomes ideal personalities for others.Traditions: – Traditions are the essential set of activities consists of religious or solemnly activities which contains series of actions performed according to prescribed order. Say, greeting someone, religious ceremonies and way of paying respect.Virtue: – It creates a origin of culture. The regard that something is held to deserve. Say, what is right or wrong, natural or unnatural, good or bad etc .Impact of Culture on an Individual’s LifeVarious cultural aspects influence the formation of an individual’s cultural value system and identity. Such elements consist social culture, regional culture and family values. Each social culture is coordinated by some specific social norms which are shared with its members which enormously influence an individual’s culture as he examines various elements of personality including beliefs, behaviors and ideas. Peer pressure, conformity, obedience, leadership, marketing and socialization be examples of societal cultural influences. According to Ratner (2006), it is the elemental nature of a human being that he achieves throughout his life by observing his surroundings and other persons and reciprocate the environment accordingly. An individual possesses the natural skills to choose and pick any form of the regional culture while rejecting some other associated ideas. For example, a person can adopt a language or religion and rituals from the region where he dwells his ideology and thinking.Implication of Cultural Marketing Culture totally depicts the way we live and attributes of specific group of people for example the way we speak, dress-up, attitude and our learning capacity etc. So, An organization do attain knowledge about every aspects of their culture before getting into trade with them so that the product can be adequately promoted and succeed between the local customers and bring up to their expectation. The components need to be looked into are as follows:Spoken or Written Language:A spoken language is produced by articulate sounds, as opposed to written language which states that there are different meaning of same words in various cultures. For example, English language spoken in England is different from the English language being spoken in Rest of the world. The intermediators need to learn the language of the country they are dealing with otherwise there may be miscommunication of dialogue resultant to failure of the product or service being rendered, even for the same purpose the intermediators can hire the translators which tend to increase the expenses of the organization and also the dependency on them. (Griffin and Pustay, n.d.)Non-verbal Language:Non verbal communication includes Kinesics, Facial expressions, Pitch of voice, Proxemics but a body gesture can be explained differently by the individuals of various cultures. For example according to Eckman, Eye contact is the major source of non verbal communication in which the duration of the same is the most meaningful aspect. The length of the gaze, the frequency of glances, patterns of flixation and blink rates are all importance cues because as the liking increases, the mutual gazing is increased. (Ekman, 1969).Faith community:Third most debatable concept of culture do have a major impact on international marketing. The faith community to which a consumer belongs controls their choices and influence their buying decision. For example, During yulin dog meat festival, an ancient tradition started in 1700 BC, dog being china’s one of 12 zodiac sign given esteemed importance whereas treated as a pet in other countries. (Koetse, M. 2016). CULTURAL UNDERSTANDING – being a boon. In the 21ST century of internationalization, cultural aspect being focused aspect of marketing strategies of different organization influence its opportunities and decisions and provide a background for various stakeholders so various cultures need to be understood for the business growth (Adler, 2002).As said by Drnevich & paul’s (2004) synergic avenue, A favorable agreement is the one which can be designed without complexities and with cultural insight so that it can be clearly communicated with cross cultural differences. A clear view about the prevailing culture eradicates the problems of misinterpretation and protects us from negative impact on business. (Danciu, 2009). Examples of embracement of cultural Diversities among different countries by MNCs:In countries like China, many brands faced many problems from which “COKA-COLA” brand name faced pronunciation issues as it is pronounced like ‘KOOKE-KOULE’ which refers ‘A mouthful of wax candle’ so they have to give it new pronunciation ‘KEE KOU KEELE’ which means ‘joyful happiness and taste’ (Sro.sussex.ac.uk, 2019). A Automobile company named “General Motors” faced the same issue in spain with their brand name ‘NOVA’ which states ‘Do not go’ then it was converted into ‘Caribe’ which means ‘Took off’ (Ricks, D.A., 1999).ConclusionAccording to the above concept, a conclusion can be made that culture do have an influencing impact on internationalization of the firm. Cultural potentialities have made market expansion a critical phenomenon in today’s boundaries less global economy. Countries with similar culture and consumer’s perspective towards new products are more business oriented as it is easier to build relationship with international market. So, A globalized firm need to focus on the culture of the respective country in which they are trying to generate profitability from their established unit. ReferencesAdler, N. J. 2002. International dimensions of organizational behavior. Cincinnati: South Western/Thomson. 4th edition.Danciu and Victor. 2009. Marketing international. Provocari si tendinte la inceputul secolului XXI, editia a II-a, Editura economica, BucurestiHerbig, P.A., 1999. Handbook of cross-cultural marketing, Mumbai: Jaico Pub.Drnevich and Paul. 2004, The Role of the Cultural Distance in International Negotiations, Purdue CIOER Working Papers, Krammert Graduate School of Management, West Littlefield.Griffin, R. and Pustay, M. (n.d.). International business. 7th ed. pearson, pp.140 to 147.HALL. 1976. Beyond Culture. New York: Anchor Books/Doubleday.HOFSTEDE. 1980. Culture’s Consequences: International Differences in Work-related Values.London: Sage Publications.Knight, J. 2003. Updating the Definition of Internationalization. InternationalHigher Education.MULHOLLAND. 1991. The Language of Negotiation. London: Routledge.Ohmae. 2005. The next global stage: The challenges and opportunities in our borderless world. Wharton School Publishing.Ratner, C. 2006.Cultural psychology: a perspective on psychological functioning and social reform. Mahwah: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.Ricks, D.A., 1999. Blunders in international business, Malden, MA: Blackwell.Sro.sussex.ac.uk. (2019). [online] Available at: http://sro.sussex.ac.uk/124/1/Coca_Cola.pdf [Accessed 15 Feb. 2019].Susman, Gerald I. 2007. Small and Medium-sized Enterprises and the Global Economy. Edward Elgar Publishing. pg. 281.Koetse, M. (2016, June 26). Tradition or Abuse? Chinese Views on the Yulin Dog Meat Festival. Retrieved February 18, 2019, from https://www.whatsonweibo.com/tradition-abuse-chinese-views-yulin-dog-meat-festival/”